: , , , , - 28 . Register for more free articles. Sign up for our newsletter to keep reading. Get Government & Politics updates in your inbox! Stay up-to-date on the latest in local and national government and political topics with our newsletter. Sign up! Already a Subscriber? Already a Subscriber? Sign in Terms of Service Privacy Policy Register for more free articles. Sign up for our newsletter to keep reading. Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! Already a Subscriber? Already a Subscriber? Sign in Terms of Service Privacy Policy A Scotts Bluff County District Court judge has sentenced an Alliance man to 40 years to life in the stabbing death of his brother. Judge Leo Dobrovolny sentenced William Reed, 40, during proceedings Thursday. In March, a jury found Reed guilty on charges of second-degree murder, a Class IB felony, and use of a weapon to commit a felony, a Class II felony, in the April 22, 2016, death of his brother Christopher Reed. Dobrovolny sentenced Reed to 40 years to life on the murder charge. He was also sentenced to a consecutive term of 10 to 20 years years in prison use of a weapon to commit a felony. He will be eligible for parole in 25 years. During trial, the primary issue for the jury to weigh was whether or not William Reed intentionally killed his brother and acted with or without intent. Prosecutor Dave Eubanks maintained that Reed acted with intent, while defense attorney Bernard Straetker said Reed did not intend to kill his brother. Reed claimed he did not remember stabbing his brother and that no disagreement had preceded the stabbing. Reed testified that the two men had been under the influence of alcohol, saying they had purchased a large bottle of Canadian whiskey earlier in the day. However, Eubanks pointed to Reeds history of assault, including a violent encounter with his mother in which he threatened to kill her with a knife. Dr. Pete Schilke testified that Christopher Reed died as a result of a stab wound above the left collarbone. Christopher Reeds carotid artery had been severed and his left lung punctured. He described Christopher Reed as having bleed out and said that blood in his chest cavity showed he had been breathing for quite awhile after the stabbing. THUMBS UP! To Heritage Behavioral Health Center. The center's Individual Placement and Support Employment Services program assists those with mental health issues find employment. Cheers to those who work their way through the program, and cheers to those who direct them on their path. THUMBS DOWN! To Gov. Bruce Rauner's television campaign ads. To be sure, the governor denies the duct tape commercials are not campaign spots. The claim is they're just providing information about which side to blame for the state's ongoing fiscal embarrassment. We call shenanigans. Even if the commercials aren't political in nature, the finger-pointing doesn't serve any practical purpose, and by its very existence solidifies positions on either side of the discussion. THUMBS DOWN! Again to the state legislature in Springfield, as long as we're on the topic of complaining about politicians. Now the victims are students waiting to find out what kind of financial aid they can receive via the state's Monetary Award Program. Some colleges and universities have found themselves capable and/or willing to accept students under the assumption that state money comes through. But there's no guarantee of the state doing its required portion. Some institutions, including Decatur's Richland Community College, are not accepting those students. The budget deadlock has lingered for 21 months, bringing to mind the image of politicians fiddling while Illinois burns. THUMBS UP! To Decatur Celebration. The organization's decision to fence the downtown area during the first weekend of August for the huge street festival is nothing to celebrate, of course. But if budgetary issues have made necessary the decision to require a $5 wristband purchase, better that than a diminished lineup or extinguished festival. This year's lineup has received excited reaction that hasn't been seen since Vanilla Ice's appearance was announced. THUMBS UP! And happy trails to Judge Scott D. Diamond. Senior among 6th Circuit judges, Diamond retired this month after more than 36 years as a judge. He's served justice in Macon County since 1971. He will be missed how could he not be? But he leaves with our best wishes. Chadron Police are seeking an 18-year-old man as a suspect in burglaries and thefts that occurred in Chadron. Police are seeking Laney Bacon, of Pine Ridge, South Dakota, and believe he may be in the Pine Ridge area, possibly in a stolen black Chevy Equinox. According to a press release, Chadron Police were called to a report on Wednesday of several people inside a garage at a residence in the 700 block of Lake Street. The caller had advised that four people, wearing black hoodies, had ran south from the home. Police were unable to locate the people. Hours later, at 7:25 a.m. Wednesday, police received a report of a burglary that had occurred in the 500 block of West Eighth Street. Police searched the nearby area and located a backpack, which had been reported stolen during a rash of several thefts in Chadron. The backpack contained several more stolen items and keys to vehicles in Chadron and Gordon that had been reported missing. The vehicles had not been stolen. About three hours later, a caller about a block away reported a man in a hood walking in the area where police had earlier recovered the stolen items. Police made contact with the man, a 17-year-old juvenile from South Dakota. He was arrested in connection with the burglaries. He has been charged with burglary, attempted burglary, possession of stolen property, possession of a stolen vehicle and trespassing. He was transported to a detention center in Madison, Nebraska. Police determined two other 17-year-old teen boys and Bacon, all of Pine Ridge, South Dakota, were allegedly involved in the early morning burglaries and thefts. Police are seeking the publics help in locating Bacon and have issued a warrant. Anyone with information regarding Bacons whereabouts or the crimes is asked to contact their local law enforcement agency. People can also contact Nebraska Crime Stoppers, www.nebraskacrimestoppers.com and report information anonymously. Callers may be eligible for a reward. During their April 12 luncheon, members of the Panhandle Business and Professional Women (BPW) honored two exceptional woman and two extraordinary companies for their service to the community and promoting the role of women in the workplace. Awards committee co-chair Kendra Lauruhn said for the Young Careerist Award, they were looking for someone who was a young, upcoming leader. They found the winner in Jennifer Urdiales, branch manager and originating loan officer with Castle and Cooke Mortgage. Urdiales is on the board of NEXT Young Professionals, a member of the Scotts Bluff County Board of Realtors and had attended Leadership Scotts Bluff. She also volunteers her time to Hoops for Heroes, Best of the West Beer and Wine Festival, Thanksgiving in the Valley and more. Urdiales, who admitted she wasnt used to public speaking, said its important for businesswomen to stand out. Im in a very male-dominated profession, so it feels so much better to be successful, she said. This is truly an honor. The 2017 Panhandle Business and Professional Woman of the Year is Tanya Bosche. Shes a cosmetologist and owner of Indulgence Salon in Scottsbluff. She was recognized for her work with Look Good, Feel Better, a program that helps women dealing with cancer adapt to the changes in their physical appearance as they undergo treatment. She recently received her certification to train other cosmetologists and help grow the program in western Nebraska. Working with women in that program really inspired me, Bosche said. The little things Im doing are making a real positive impact in the community. BPW also recognized both large and small employers who are responsive to the personal and professional needs of their female employees. These businesses provide opportunities for professional development for women, assist with child care issues and more, Lauruhn said. The Small Employer of the Year Award (30 or fewer employees) went to the Panhandle Public Health District. As a result of their work, the organization is the second local public health district in Nebraska, and among the first 150 nationally, to receive National Public Health Accreditation. Accepting the award were District Director Kim Engel and Assistant Health Director Jessica Davies. This award is even sweeter knowing we were nominated by our employees, Engel said. Were so lucky because were surrounded by a great team of talent. Our women have so many responsibilities in their lives. Its incredible to see. BPWs Employer of the Year for large companies (more than 30 employees) was Brent and Susan Holliday of Nebraska Transport Company. Brent Holliday said while much of the trucking industry is male dominated, his only criterion is a desire and ability to do the job well. Consequently, many women have spent 20 or more years with the company. When people think about NTC, I want them to think we not only have great employees, but also that were a Christian organization, Holliday said. If we get that right, everything else falls into place. Were proud to be part of a community that supports each other. Scottsbluff Public Schools Chief Financial Officer Lavon Hood might say she has a small part in what the school district does but she also handles many different aspects of what keeps students at the district. Hood is going to be honored at the Nebraska Association of School Business Officials 2017 banquet later this month as the Outstanding Business Official of the Year. For me, of course, you are flattered and honored and everything else but the whole thing is that I couldnt do it without the support of Mr. Myles, the business team, family and friends, and the whole community, Hood said. She was nominated for the award by Rick Myles, superintendent of Scottsbluff Public Schools. After that she went through the application process and was selected. On a daily basis, Hood and her business team could deal with a lot of important details in accounts payable, human resources, purchasing, payroll, food services, transportation and fixed assets for the school district. In her job, she touches almost everything that is at the district level with the exception of the curriculum. Hood said its a fun job but the challenge to her is finding a balance between what is best for the students and making sure that the school district is spending tax dollars in the most efficient way possible. Hood started as the chief financial officer in 2009 and since that time there has been an increase in 600 students. Theres a lot of strategizing you have to do and a lot of work that goes into making sure you have the funding for all of that growth, Hood said. Hood said many people in the school district have been fiscally responsible that allowed the school district to do projects like the high school renovation. Hood said the SHS renovation definitely added a new aspect to the workload. She said it has been interesting to do the bonds at Bluffs Middle School and then this past year they just started another process of bond payments. Hood said the school district has been thoughtful and strategic over the past three years to build those reserves so that they can build the type of school they wanted with a smaller bond issue. She said in that way theres not as much impact to the taxpayers. Around a week after she was hired the voters of Scottsbluff passed a referendum to pass the bond for the BMS renovations. She has had experience working with construction philosophies of construction manager at risk with the BMS renovation and design-bid-build with the Scottsbluff High School. Hood was doing a lot of traveling prior to coming to the school district and one of the things she found interesting was how there was not as much travel. At the time, she had a child in kindergarten so it seemed appealing to her to work for the school district. Prior to coming to the school district, she worked at Hewlett-Packard for 17 years. She was a program manager and a people manager in all areas of business. In a job I did right before I came here, I managed a global team, Hood said. She is originally from a small town in Colorado called Yuma. Hood said a benefit to a school district having a person with a business mindset is primarily to look at the fiscal oversight and make informed decisions. Theres so many things that you only get to do once. It doesnt really a get old, Hood said. One of those things is the budget for the school district. Hood said she also gets to work with different groups of people, plan, strategize, and figure out what some of the goals are for schools and how to fund them. Twin Cities Development is hoping to fill a key position at the organization. Sean Overeyender, community development director, submitted his resignation to TCDs board last week. Overeyender shared his letter in a press release. The letter noted that Overeyender is resigning to deal due to family matters. This choice was not made easily as I have struggled with this decision for quite some time. ... I want to thank (TCD) for the opportunities that have been given me by the organization, the relationships created with such a professional board, and the opportunity to challenge myself and grow within my profession. Overeynder said considers the staff and board of TCD as a part of his family, stating that I have struggled with it for the last couple of months, and I love TCD, it is my family. I love my job, what I do, the progress made over the last 16 months; it has truly been an honor to serve those in Western Nebraska. Rawnda Pierce, Twin Cities director, said the organization has been pleased with Overeynders work over the last 1 1/2 that he has worked with TCD. Sean has been a great fit, she said. I wish him all the best. As TCD looks to fill the community development director position, Pierce said she anticipates still working with Overeyender as he is able. Filling the position is critical, she said. The community development director oversees small business retention and expansion, working with already existing businesses in the community; oversees the entreprenuer (E-Center) program; the LB 840 program and overseeing the TCD website. Pierce has been focusing on housing programs, downtown revitalization grants and programs, and working with larger businesses. TCD is the economic development organization for the communities of Scottsbluff, Gering, Bayard, Mitchell, Morrill, Bridgeport and Terrytown. Over the years, some of the areas and programs that TCD works in have expanded, including working with grant programs, housing and Brownsfield programs. The expansion of programs is one of the reasons feeling the community development director position is important. The things that TCD does have expanded due to demand and needs of the communities and the businesses, she said. We have based our programs on what community leaders and businesses have asked us to do. Pierce said the TCD board will be approving a job description for the position. In the meantime, she said, she has been pleased to have already had some people inquire about the position and express interest. Applications are currently being accepted for the position. Resumes and letters of interest can be emailed to twincitiesdev@tcdne.org, to the attention of Pierce. Overeyender will continue in the position through the end of the month. More information about TCD can be found at www.tcdne.org. Scottsbluff Public Schools is trying to broaden students learning opportunities and have them learn at all phases of the year by offering expanded learning opportunities this summer. Expanded learning opportunities are new for Scottsbluff High School and Lincoln Heights Elementary. Lincoln Heights Elementary will be doing a summer program similar to what Roosevelt Elementary does. There will be many opportunities for students to learn during the day as well as be involved in engaging activities that are fun and exciting. Jeremy Behnke, assistant principal for Longfellow/Westmoor Elementary, said Roosevelt Elementary has done it for the last two summers so various administrators along with Jana Mason, principal of Roosevelt Elementary, decided Lincoln Heights could benefit from a similar type of program. Im glad to see the opportunities Lincoln Heights students will get and Im excited to be part of it, Behnke said. He will be directing the summer program for Lincoln Heights. Behnke said 120 students are going to be enrolled in the summer program. Lunch will be free for the students. Students will be working on reading and writing skills in the morning and science activities, field trips or guest speakers in the afternoon. There will also be enrichment opportunities through partnerships with Western Nebraska Community College, Riverside Discovery Center, Lied Scottsbluff Public Library, and others. Behnke said a benefit for the students is to extend learning opportunities for all students so they can continue to grow throughout the summer. The Lincoln Heights program will last four weeks starting on May 30. It will run 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Being there all day will be a wonderful opportunity for students to learn and grow, Behnke said. Behnke said he is excited to see all of it come together. We wont know the benefits right away but we know the results at Roosevelt have been positive and we are hoping for the same thing, Behnke said. Scottsbluff High School is going to be offering a variety of classes this upcoming summer. Classes are going to be held in a shorter time frame which is comparable to classes college students see in the summer. Andrew Dick, Scottsbluff High School assistant principal of teaching and learning, said with the new learning environment and specialized courses the school saw the program as an opportunity to enrich students academic experience as well as extend their learning. In the past our summer school program has been all about remediation and credit recovery. We wanted to provide more enrichment and acceleration type activities, Dick said. Credit recovery and remediation course will still be offered but the additional classes this year will contribute to amount of credits students have. The classes are five credits a piece. Students can take the classes for free. Looking at other schools in the Lincoln or Omaha metro area, they all charge for these classes, around $100-$150, Dick said. Dick said the summer program is an opportunity for students to take an elective that they might not be able to fit into their schedule during the regular school year. Dick said students can do something creative or learn a new skill. Included in the classes is graphic design, music technology, Sociology and foundations of law. There are also classes that are required for students to take which are going to be offered in the summer as well. Those classes are American Government, physical education, and personal finance. Altogether, there will be eight courses provided. Dick said for the first year of doing the program three or five classes that have enough students would be outstanding. Fifteen students are required to be enrolled for the classes to be held. We are really trying to open some doors for some students schedules that will allow students to complete a course and then take a dual credit course because they will have more availability during the regular year, Dick said. All of the staff for the program will be Scottsbluff Public Schools employees. Dick said the teachers who are involved are excited to provide unique specialized opportunities as well as open doors for students to accelerate their academic course of study. Weve had an enthusiastic response from our teachers that are interested in teaching, Dick said. Students or parents who are interested in learning more can give a call to the Scottsbluff High School counseling office at 308-635-6243. LINCOLN Nebraska lawmakers signaled Wednesday they intend to pull rank on local elected officials when it comes to regulating guns. The Legislature voted 32-12 to advance a bill that would require state law to override municipal gun regulations in Nebraska. Supporters of the measure narrowly defeated a filibuster by senators who argued that cities and villages ought to control firearm possession and require handgun registration in their communities. The bills advancement to the second round of debate puts Nebraska closer to passing what likely is the most significant expansion of gun rights since lawmakers enacted a concealed carry law in 2006. It helps citizens in our states to bear arms, which is guaranteed to them under our Constitution, said State Sen. Mike Hilgers of Lincoln, who both sponsored and prioritized the bill. Among the local regulations that would end if the bill passes is Omahas handgun registration ordinance, long despised by many gun owners who argue that it infringes upon their constitutional rights while doing nothing to reduce gun violence. The measure carves out exceptions that allow Omaha to continue its prohibition on the open carry of firearms in public places. It also allows Omaha to require those without a concealed handgun permit to case and store firearms out of reach when transporting them in the city. Those exceptions prompted the Omaha Police Officers Association to drop its opposition to the bill, which played an important role in its advancement. But the exceptions apply only to Omaha, meaning the bill would prohibit most of the gun ordinances in Lincoln and other cities. That prompted concern that the bill will allow gun owners to openly carry handguns into the jail, the police station and domestic abuse shelters, places where they are banned under Lincoln regulations. Sen. Adam Morfeld of Lincoln said he believes Pinnacle Bank Arena would no longer be able to prohibit concertgoers from bringing guns past the door, in conflict with the contracts of many performers, including Billy Joel, who recently played at the arena. In addition, the bill specifically allows individuals and gun-rights groups to sue for damages if a local government tries to enforce a more restrictive gun rule. This is not responsible lawmaking, Morfeld said, adding that the bill was opposed by Lincolns police chief and many sheriffs across the state. Omaha Police Sgt. Aaron Hanson said the police union took a neutral position on the bill after negotiating with Hilgers to keep some of the tools police use to combat criminal gangs in the city. But Hanson also said they would have preferred to maintain the status quo. Hilgers said gun owners werent universally happy with the exceptions either. In all good compromise comes pain, he said. Hilgers pointed out that private property owners and businesses would still be able to control guns on their properties. He also said it is not his intent that Lincoln be forced to allow guns in the arena. Hilgers said hes willing to work on an amendment during the second round of debate to more clearly spell that out. The bill needs to pass two more rounds of debate this session before it goes to the desk of Gov. Pete Ricketts. Although the governor has not commented on the bill, he is generally a supporter of gun rights. Opponents will likely mount another fight when the bill comes up for second-round debate. Things in the Legislature have finally began moving along. Since the beginning of session, 678 bills and substantive resolutions have been introduced. To date, 35 bills have been passed by the Legislature. Out of the 678 items being brought to the Legislature, only 5 of them have been brought to a full filibuster. This session I introduced twelve bills. One of my bills has already been passed and two more sit on the final round, called Final Reading, before being debated. Another of my bills has been amended into one of those on Final Reading making a total of three. I expect to have at least four of my bills passed before the end of session. The four bills I expect to have passed are LB99, 101, 151, and 222. LB99 is a bill that will require business entities to give notice to their lenders when they convert their form of incorporation. It has already been passed and signed into law by the Governor. LB101 makes the bidding process for the States main administrative arm, the Department of Administrative Services, more competitive by putting limitations on contract renewals and extensions. It has been amended into LB151. LB151 would add oversight measures to state agencies during the auditing process by empowering the State Auditor to conduct post-audit reviews. As mentioned already, it has LB101 amended into it along with three more bills appropriate to the theme of responsible state agency management. LB222 also follows along the theme of responsible agency management. It has been one of my most anticipated bills of the year. It would restructure the Nebraska Tourism Commission into an 11-district system based on lodging revenues. It would implement oversight measures by requiring the adoption of formal rules, regulations, and would clarify its innovative grant program to promote the tourism industry in Nebraska. Ever since first arriving to the Legislature in 2015, I have worked hard implementing oversight measures into the Commission to save taxpayer dollars. Many of the issues I witnessed came to a head when its Director was fired last year for misuse of state funds and unethical management behaviors. LB222 is the culmination of those efforts to realign the Commission to its mission and purpose. As most are likely aware, the biggest discussions this year will be on the states budget. We originally faced a $910 million dollar shortfall which was addressed through a deficit budget request early in the session for the end of fiscal year 2016-17. The preliminary budget for the 2017-18 & 2018-19 biennium demonstrates that a $134 million shortfall needs to be addressed with a transfer from the Cash Reserve Fund, or what is known as the Rainy Day Fund. The Forecasting Board met in February and increased the revenue shortfall by $153 million, leaving a $287 million shortfall to be resolved. As the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee, it is my responsibility to ensure that the Legislature fulfills its responsibility to balance the states budget, as set out in the Nebraska Constitution. There has been much impassioned discussion already on what the states priorities should be. The Appropriations Committee has put in many long days and nights to prepare our proposal before sending it to the Legislature as a whole. In addition to the $287 million shortfall, we will have to make adjustments as legislation is passed. Any changes in the states budget either through additional expenditures or revenue may change the number we have to work with. In the coming weeks, the Legislature will debate not only the state budget but also a number of tax bills on the revenue side of the ledger and an education bill. Some of those bills that will be discussed are LB409, 461, and 640. LB409 is an education bill by Senator Groene that would adjust the state aid to education formula (TEEOSA) to match the Appropriation Committees proposed state aid to public schools. State aid to public schools is our biggest budget item and remains a priority in our proposed budget. LB461 is a comprehensive tax cut proposal by Senator Smith. Under Senator Smiths proposal, the top individual and corporate income tax rates would be cut from 6.84 percent to 5.99 percent. Currently, this threshold is reached at roughly $30,000 for individuals and $59,000 for married filers. The bill would also cap increases in agricultural land valuation at 3.5% annually. In addition, it would raise the earned income tax credits for low-income taxpayers to 12 percent of federal earned income tax credits and compress four tax brackets to three, giving middle income taxpayers additional relief. Lastly, LB640 is a bill introduced by Senator Groene that is intended to address property tax burdens. Under his proposal, $224 million of the property tax credit fund would be added to state aid to school districts with the heaviest reliance on property taxes. Increasing state aid to those schools will ease the pressure put on them to fund their schools through property taxes. In theory, they would lower their property tax levies. One other bill I have had great interest in comes from Senator Williams. His bill, LB518, would address the rural workforce housing shortage that many communities face, such as those in Scotts Bluff County. Under his proposal, it would create a rural workforce housing grant program with a one-time transfer of $7.3 million to assist in building low and middle-income homes. Smaller communities have a lower supply of housing due to higher costs and less return. This bill will incentivize construction companies to build much needed housing to attract workforce to rural areas. My bill, LB496, is related to Senator Williams bill and would be a great compliment to his legislation. LB496 would allow the construction of workforce housing to be eligible for tax increment financing (TIF) in cities with a population of 100 to 100,000 people. Like LB518, LB496 would address workforce shortages in rural Nebraska by incentivizing investment in housing developments. Without affordable housing, workers are less likely to move to our communities. As always, I remain open to your feedback on how I may address the issues that mean most to you. Please do not hesitate to contact my office with any questions you may have. Thank you to those who have taken the time to express their views on various issues. My contact information is: Senator John P. Stinner, District 48 State Capitol, PO Box 94604, Lincoln NE 68209-4604; telephone: 402-471-2802; email: jstinner@leg.ne.gov. With one hand holding a bottle of champagne and the other an oversized certificate declaring him the winner of $1 million from Publishers Clearing House, Bruce Saunders stood on the front porch of his western Davie County Monday and rattled off a list of things he plans spend his spend money on medical bills, fixing his lawnmower and helping family members. By MARK EVANS STE. GENEVIEVE HERALD Scott Schmieder, county road and bridge foreman, reported to the county commission last Thursday that temperatures are getting too cold at night for much more asphalt work to be done. He said potholes had all been patched. His crews were working on Bodine Road and made call-ins to locate " " Attila the Hun in battle DigitalVision Vectors/Getty Images Many fierce warriors slashed, burned and blazed their way through the ancient world in an attempt to conquer and dominate Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan, to name a few. But perhaps no ancient warrior was as brutal and storied as Attila the Hun. Over a 10-year span, Attila and his army invaded the territories that today encompass Hungary, Spain, Italy and Greece. They burned towns and villages after stripping them of their belongings. One historian wrote that "Attila and his army seemed genuinely to enjoy warfare, the rigors and rewards of military life were more appealing to them than farming or attending livestock." Advertisement But a portrait of a rampageous barbarian is not a full picture of Attila. Although he could not read and write, he was born into a powerful Hun family. He knew a lot about human nature and how to rule with cunning rather than force. Exaggerated stories of his viciousness, some of which he may have spread, also helped him conquer without necessarily killing a lot of people. Attila was born around 406 C.E. in Pannonia, then a province in the Roman Empire. Today, it's part of Hungary. The nomadic Huns, who were animal-herders, had migrated to Europe from Central Asia in 370. By the time Attila arrived into the world, the Huns had been long feared throughout Europe. They were known for their exceptional skill as horsemen -- their steeds reportedly joined in the battles with their teeth and hooves -- and as mounted archers. Their weapon of choice was the famed Hun bow, a recurve bow whose ends curved back on itself, creating more torque and the ability to pierce armor 100 yards (91 meters) away. The bows were also smaller than traditional bows, and thus more maneuverable. Additionally, the Huns were infamous for their strategic, ferocious battles and impressive mobility [source: Andrews]. Growing up in a privileged household, Attila and his brother Bleda were taught sword fighting, archery, equestrian skills, and military and diplomatic tactics. Sometime around 430, when Attila and Bleda were young men, two of their uncles jointly ruled the Hun Empire. The brothers took over as co-rulers in 434. But 11 years later, in a power-grab, Attila murdered his brother to become sole ruler of the Huns. By the time Attila became king of the Huns, the tribe had quit the nomadic life and were based in the Great Hungarian Plain, where they had developed an infantry army. Over the next two decades, Attila and the Huns pillaged and destroyed innumerable Roman cities in order to expand their kingdom, which eventually included large portions of the Eastern and Western Roman Empires. (On today's map, the Hun Empire at its greatest would stretch from Germany in the west to Romania in the south, the Netherlands in the north, and Russia and Kazakhstan in the east.) Because of his barbaric, bloody battles, Attila became dubbed "Flagellum Dei," or "Scourge of God." Although a fierce warrior and looter, Attila is said to have lived humbly in large a log house decorated with animal skins. By contrast, his subordinates often adorned themselves, their homes and their horses with gold, silver and jewels. He is also said to have treated his own people justly. He died in 453 under mysterious circumstances and his oldest son, Ellac, was his appointed successor. But Ellac wasn't the strong leader his father was, and he soon scrapped with his brothers for control. The Hunnic Empire fell apart by 469 and never revived [sources: Mark, Biography]. If you are anything like me, you have a wide array of thin, holey, worn-out t-shirts specifically for farm use, and they are cluttering your closet. Most of them have been worn for years and have seen better days. My personal favorite farm shirt is littered with small holes, covered in tractor grease stains, and has been through the war of corn silage harvest for at least five years now. Dont kid yourself; we all have similar shirts, pants, and even shoes that match this description, but we cant ever seem to part with them. Being the frugal person I am, its hard to bring myself to purchase the new farm clothes I so desperately need. Luckily, there are a few ways to add to your farm clothing collection which cost little to no money at all. Out with the old. That favorite, ripped to shreds t-shirt of mine mentioned above is currently sitting in my trashcan. As hard as it was for me to throw it away, I knew it no longer was serving a purpose for me. Two pairs of jeans, my beloved holey farm tennis shoes, and some overalls from seventh grade are also being retired. In with the new. Maybe not new, new, but close enough. While sorting through my closet, I found several t-shirts which I hardly ever wear. Since I was not getting much use out of them, I decided to put them in my farm drawer. I did the same with a few pairs of pants and even an old sweater. Nothings wrong with second hand. After throwing away a few pairs of farm shorts and not having anything in my closet to replace them with, I made my way to the second hand store a few weeks ago to see what they had in stock. On a college student budget, I walked in knowing I only had $10 to spare. After 20 minutes, I walked out with three new pairs of shorts which I had no problem knowing would be trashed in a matter of months. Biting the bullet. As for my farm tennis shoes and overalls, I came to the conclusion that I actually would have to purchase these items brand new. With summer on its way, overalls and shoes at my local farm store have been on clearance for a few weeks now. Even though these items are still on the pricier end for my budget, knowing they will last me several years has helped ease the sticker shock. Take a look at your farm wardrobe. If you find your threads are in shreds too, it might be time to update your closet. The excitement started to bubble about a year ago, as soon as the St. Louis Actors Studio put August: Osage County on the schedule for its 2016-17 season. Certainly, Tracy Letts drama about an unhappy Oklahoma family had already received plenty of acclaim, including the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in drama and a slew of 2008 Tony Awards, including best play. A film version was released in 2013, starring Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts. And no question, it was an ambitious choice, demanding a big, capable cast and an imposing set to represent the familys three-story house. Until this production, which opens Friday, August: Osage County hadnt been performed here professionally since the 2010 Broadway tour played the Fox Theatre. But none of that fully explains the thrill that ran through part of the St. Louis theater community the female part of it. There are, after all, very few plays with seven good roles for women. It seemed as though everybody wanted to audition. Theres not much like this, besides The House of Bernarda Alba and The Women, says director Wayne Salomon, citing two famed dramas with all-female casts. Even The Three Sisters is mostly men. Its a remarkable achievement even more remarkable because it was written by a man. You get to see the actors do things that female actors dont usually do like destroy a set. Plus, they all have strong roles in this family drama a play that actor Rachel Fenton describes as a Greek tragedy wrapped in bacon. Actor Wendy Renee Farmer concurs. Even in plays with a lot of women, the parts arent always wonderful, she observes. But these are all meaty roles roles with lots of range. That appealed to so many actresses, making auditions a very tender process, says William Roth, founder and artistic director of the St. Louis Actors Studio. He also plays one of the men in the cast; the others are Drew Battles, Larry Dell, Greg Hunsaker, Stephen Peirick and David Wassilak. The actresses all had an attraction to this play, Roth says. One woman flew in from Los Angeles just to audition! It was insane. But theres a lot of talent in St. Louis. Ultimately, all the roles were cast right here, with performers who, among them, have appeared on nearly all of St. Louis professional stages. Calling the play a black comedy focused on storytelling, Salomon says it requires a lot from all the performers as well as from scenic designer Patrick Huber. Huber often designs for the St. Louis Actors Studio, which is based at the sleek but extremely small Gaslight Theater in the Central West End. This house (onstage) is not quite as big as it was in New York, Salomon says. But we do have all three floors and Johnnas room. We have enough room for the comedy of family horror. And who are the women in this family the loud, angry, strong-minded women who dont know when, or possibly how, to stop? Heres a scorecard to fill you in on the characters and the women who portray them. Violet Weston The matriarch. Suffering from oral cancer, addicted to prescription drugs and still a smoker, Violet would claim that shes just honest. Anybody else would call her vicious. Early in the play, her husband, Beverly, an alcoholic poet, disappears; later his body is found and most of the action takes place around his funeral. Played by Kari Ely: Violet is complicated. She has a lot of pain physical pain but also psychic pain. She and her husband are smart people, but their marriage goes sour because of the dysfunctional ways they deal with their problems. Last year, Ely received the St. Louis Theater Circle Award for her Actors Studio performance as another exceptionally difficult woman, Martha in Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf? This play reminds me of Virginia Woolf, Ely says. They both belong to the handful of plays that I could see over and over again, because I love the writing so much. Barbara Fordham Violet and Beverlys eldest daughter, shes a professor in Colorado, a controlling woman who wants to seem perfect. In fact, her marriage is falling apart. But she wants to keep that a secret, and her husband seems willing to cooperate. Played by Meghan Baker: I was lucky enough to see August: Osage County on Broadway, and it was one of those life-changing theatrical experiences. I just had to be part of it here! Some of it is very melodramatic, and some of it everyone can relate to. Difficult teenagers? A difficult relationship with a parent? The need to be in control all the time? Everybody can hook into something there. Ivy Weston A librarian, shes the middle child and the only one who remained in her hometown. But her quiet, dutiful demeanor hides a secret passion. Shes romantically involved with her cousin Little Charles and plans to move to New York with him. Played by Emily Baker: At the beginning of the play, Ivy hides her feelings. Shes grasping for the happiness she never had. But she has to be careful around her mother, who will use anything as ammunition. Rehearsal has been quite a process. I had never worked with Wayne before, or with several of the actors. I have learned so much! I love seeing the other characters come to life and turn into a family. Karen Weston The youngest Weston daughter, she lives in Florida with her new fiance, Steve. He seems sleazy, but Karen ignores that in dreams of her own happy future. Shes kind of self-absorbed. Played by Rachel Fenton: Wayne keeps telling us, this is a soap opera and you dont want to play these characters small! Karen, for example, lives only in the present. Her expectations are rooted in nothing but her own imagination. She thinks she can convince her sisters to be her best friends, convince her family to come to her wedding. This woman is so hungry, she decides to invent her own truth. Its the role of a lifetime well, they all are. Jean Fordham Barbara and Bills 14-year-old daughter, shes a vegetarian who likes smoking cigarettes and pot. Her parents break-up troubles her more than she lets on. Played by Bridgette Bassa: When I went to audition, I thought there was no part in this play for me. But I am very petite, which lends me to young roles like Jean. I was absolutely over the moon when I was cast. The other night I was watching Kari and Meghan in rehearsal, and I thought, They are mesmerizing! You can lose yourself in this play. So, as extreme as it is, working on it has really been fun. Its great to just let loose. Mattie Fae Aiken Violets sister and the mother of Little Charles. Shes not much nicer than Violet, particularly when it comes to her husband and son. She doesnt know Little Charles secret, but she has secrets, too. Played by Kim Furlow: Tracy Letts script is a dream come true, a potpourri of strength, dysfunction and sass. Mattie reminds me of a lot of women I knew when I was growing up in the South. She isnt afraid to say what she thinks. I wanted to present August: Osage County at Dramatic License. (Furlow was founder and director of that company, which gave its last show in 2015.) We were always interested in plays with great womens roles. Then I thought, theres no way we can get it up on our tiny stage. But even though its a big challenge (at the Gaslight), Wayne is making it work. He knows how to make a story move. Johnna Monevata A member of the Cheyenne nation, shes the live-in housekeeper whom Beverly hires just before he disappears. Violet, of course, dislikes her and has no qualms about expressing her ugly feelings. Played by Wendy Renee Farmer: Johnnas not tainted by the poison in the house, like the others. Shes an observer I think Im in all the scenes but two who supports the whole family. She really supports the women Violet and Barbara, Ivy and Karen, Jean and even Mattie Fae. And all of them are great characters the kind of parts you really want to play. No wonder a lot of us jumped at the chance. All dogs go to heaven; scrap-iron ones come back home. After a two-week (or so) absence, the one-leg-up sculpture of a relieving dog that had long graced the Venice Cafe parking lot is back again. "I honestly never thought I'd lay my hands on this again," said Jeff Lockheed, owner of the art-laden lounge at 1903 Pestalozzi Street in the Benton Park neighborhood. Lockheed spoke of a 100-pound metal mutt that was installed 15 years ago as a tribute to Lockheed's late business partner, Paul Cuba. Lockheed said along with the connection to Cuba, the sculpture was the work of Mark Coghlin, a local artist who died about four years ago and was Lockheed's friend. But someone stole it earlier this month from its spot near a bus stop on the north side of Pestalozzi. On Thursday, this bureau published a story about the case of the confiscated canine. Results came almost immediately. "My dad called me early (Thursday) morning and said 'Do you still have that dog in your yard?'" said Justin "Dutch" Harris of Alton. "Then he said, 'Well, it was stolen from the Venice Cafe,'" Harris said as he closed the tailgate of the truck he used to haul the dog back home about 4 p.m. Thursday. "I got it as a gift from a crazy uncle, who's one of those guys who always knows a guy," Harris said. "I've been calling him all day to talk to him about this, and he hasn't yet called me back." Harris said he never hesitated or wavered on what course of action to take. "I felt awful, especially when I found out it had special meaning," he said. Venice Cafe has been a familiarly funky joint for about 40 years. It opened as an art gallery of sorts in 1978, and then as a lounge about 1989. Lockheed said the dog will have a new home up against a tree, naturally, inside the cafe's courtyard, which is locked at night. "I could tell he felt bad about the whole thing," Lockheed said of Harris. "I even offered him the reward I was going to give for its return. And he turned it down." Said Lockheed, "My belief in human beings just got better today." JEFFERSON CITY Days before the U.S. Supreme Court is due to hear a pivotal case over whether Missouri can use public money to aid religious institutions, Gov. Eric Greitens announced that he's instructed the Department of Natural Resources to allow such organizations to apply for and receive DNR grants. Before we came into office, government bureaucrats were under orders to deny grants to people of faith who wanted to do things like make community playgrounds for kids. Thats just wrong," Greitens said in a statement. "So today we are changing that prejudiced policy." He's referring to a landmark case that originated in Columbia, Mo., when Trinity Lutheran Church applied for a state grant for its preschool playground in 2012. The church was denied by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources on the grounds that the grant, which allowed recipients to use rubber from repurposed tires to build safer playscape surfaces, couldn't be awarded to a religious organization. They cited what's known as the "Blaine Amendment" in Missouri's constitution, which bars public money from going to churches: That no money shall ever be taken from the public treasury, directly or indirectly, in aid of any church, sect or denomination of religion, or in aid of any priest, preacher, minister or teacher thereof, as such; and that no preference shall be given to nor any discrimination made against any church, sect or creed of religion, or any form of religious faith or worship. Depending on how the nations high court rules in Trinity Lutheran Church v. Comer, Blaine Amendments could be called into question in Missouri and more than 30 other states. But the court hasn't yet heard the case. Oral arguments aren't set to begin until April 19. "These grants are for non-religious programs. We are confident that this policy is in line with the state and federal constitution," said Parker Briden, a spokesman for Greitens. Greitens doesn't expect his action to affect the Trinity Lutheran case because it in involves a DNR decision that became final years before his administration took office, according to Thursday's release. Chad Flanders, a law professor at Saint Louis University, said that the governors actions add another layer of intrigue around the Trinity case. But he said it probably doesnt head off the Supreme Court case next week because that suit is based on a previous act by the state of Missouri that the church claimed was discrimination against religion, and Trinity Lutheran still doesnt have the recycled tires it wants. Greitens could also invite a fresh lawsuit based on the Blaine Amendment because of his new actions Thursday. What this probably leads to is a suit by a taxpayer claiming that the new projects being funded are a violation of Missouris state constitution, Flanders said. Organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri have already expressed outrage, saying Greitens chose to "blatantly ignore" Missouri's constitution. Gov. Greitens' political decision to blur the lines between church and state is dangerous and directly goes against what our nations founders intended: to protect religious freedom by keeping it separate from government, said Jeffrey Mittman, executive director at the ACLU of Missouri. This new policy compromises constitutional principles and puts religious freedom for all at risk." But Greitens has already instructed the DNR to move forward on applications from three religious schools who applied for funding for field trips to state parks. Groups like the Missouri Catholic Conference praised Greitens' move, having long argued that the states Blaine Amendment is rooted in religious bigotry. The education and safety of our children should be considered foremost in these grant programs, not the type of school the children attend," said Mike Hoey, its executive director. Regarding the case before the Supreme Court, religious groups also insist that a scrap rubber program is neutral and in no way amounts to a state government endorsement of a religion. Attorney General Josh Hawley, a Republican who spoke out against the states Blaine Amendment while running for office, has recused himself from the case. James Layton, who served as solicitor general under Hawleys Democratic predecessor, Chris Koster, will be making oral arguments to the U.S. Supreme Court next week. Even as its chief executive and top law enforcement officer publicly side with the church, the state will contend that Missouris constitution clearly prohibited tax money from being awarded to Trinity Lutheran. St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Chuck Raasch contributed to this story from Washington, D.C. KINLOCH Kinloch has made its interim fire chief permanent, and hes hoping he can persuade firefighters to return to work. About 20 volunteer firefighters went on strike Saturday, saying they say have been disregarded by leadership of the Kinloch Fire Protection District amid tumultuous weeks in the district. Last month, Darren Small and his wife, Jayna Small, were charged with wire fraud for allegedly stealing money from the fire protection district. Jayna Small was president of the board. The district now has a newly formed three-member board with one elected member and two appointed members. In the turmoil, firefighters became concerned about their jobs. A rumor circulated that many were going to be demoted, or that new black firefighters would be replacing white firefighters. Most of Kinlochs firefighters are white, though the city is majority black. Firefighters believe the positions may become paid with new tax income coming from development at the NorthPark business park. Firefighter Willie Pryor was made interim chief last week, and the position was made permanent Thursday. He said hed be talking to the firefighters to learn about and address their concerns. Two have quit and two are on leave, but he hopes to get the rest back to work soon. Im going to reach back out to the guys who didnt quit today to see if we can work something out, he said. At this point its all about trying to work together. At the end of the day we all have the same goal we like to fight fires and we are here to help people. We know the citizens of Kinloch need us. The Kinloch Fire Protection District works with the Ferguson, Berkeley and Northeast Fire & Ambulance fire districts. Pryor said those departments would serve Kinloch until the strike was resolved. Its important for college students to take control of their financial future by saving wherever and whenever they can. Proper budgeting and avoiding unnecessary expenses now can help reduce added financial burdens when they graduate. To help college students get an early start on securing their financial future, First Bank offers the following 10 tips to build a stronger money management foundation: Create a budget. Youre an adult now and are responsible for managing your own finances. The first step is to create a realistic budget, or plan, and stick to it. Watch spending. Keep receipts and track spending in a notebook. Pace spending and increase savings by cutting unnecessary expenses, like eating out or shopping, so your money can last throughout the semester. Use credit wisely. Understand the responsibilities and benefits of credit. Use it, but dont abuse it. How you handle your credit in college could affect you well after graduation. Shop around for a card that best suits your needs. Take advantage of your banks resources. Most banks offer online, mobile and text banking tools to manage your account 24/7. Use these tools to check balances, pay bills, deposit checks and monitor transaction history. Be on the lookout for money. There's a lot of money available for students you just have to look for it. Apply for scholarships, while looking for student discounts or other deals. Buy used. Consider buying used books or ordering them online. Buying books can become expensive and often used books are in just as good of shape as new ones. Entertain on a budget. Limit your hanging out fund. There are lots of fun activities to keep you busy in college and many are free for students. Get the most from your student ID. Use your meal plan or sample new recipes instead of eating out. Use only your banks ATMs. Avoid fees by using ATMs owned by, or affiliated, with your bank. If you must use an ATM that is not affiliated with your bank, take out larger withdrawals to avoid having to go back multiple times. Expect the unexpected. Things happen and it's important you are financially prepared when your car or computer breaks down or you have to buy an unexpected bus ticket home. You should start putting some money away immediately, no matter how small the amount. Ask. This is a learning experience, so if you need help, ask. Your parents or your bank are a good place to start and remember the sooner the better. JEFFERSON CITY A bill supporters say will help keep the St. Louis Zoo a largely free attraction won initial approval from both chambers in the Missouri Legislature this week. The zoo would remain completely free for residents from St. Louis and St. Louis County, who pay property taxes that currently support the popular, 100-year-old institution. But the bill would allow the zoo to charge admission to newly built attractions for any visitors living elsewhere. The proposal began as a new sales tax authorization in St. Louis and surrounding counties, which received pushback in the GOP-led Legislature. After negotiations, backers changed the proposal to make use of a current sales tax authorization that allows any county in the state to put a sales tax on the ballot at half of a percent. An example is Proposition P, a half-cent sales tax increase for public safety, which St. Louis County voters approved in the April 4 election. Under this bill, any local sales tax approved by St. Louis voters for the zoo after Aug. 28 could not exceed one-eighth of 1 percent. A provision in the law requires part of the revenue generated by such a tax to be redirected to municipalities. If St. Louis County uses the authorization for the zoo under the compromise zoo proposal, it wouldnt have to give up that revenue. Zoo officials have lamented the inability to bring in enough revenue to keep up with necessary renovations and maintenance, but they have been reluctant to charge admission to the zoo, which is consistently ranked among the best free attractions in the country. Sponsoring Sen. Gina Walsh, D-Bellefontaine Neighbors, said the bill would help bring in much-needed funding for the zoos infrastructure and conservation projects. I think this is a win-win for all involved, Walsh said. Both proposals would require one more vote before moving to the opposite chamber. WASHINGTON A surge in new donors over the last three months has delivered a $2.8 million fundraising haul for Sen. Claire McCaskill, a spokesman for the Missouri Democrat said Thursday. McCaskill will end the first quarter with more than $3 million in her campaign account. She is preparing to seek a third term in a state President Donald Trump won by about 19 percentage points. McCaskills announcement came shortly after Rep. Ann Wagner, R-Ballwin, a potential opponent in 2018, said she had raised about $800,000 in the first three months this year and had $2.8 million in the bank. The large fundraising hauls for McCaskill and her potential rivals reflect how pivotal Missouris 2018 race will be. Republicans hope to flip one of the states last offices held by a Democrat and build on their 52-seat majority in the Senate. Meanwhile, the early days of Trumps administration have shown signs that Democrats are upset, and ready to vote. Earlier this week Republicans watched a special election in one of Kansas reliably red congressional districts come down to the wire. Liberals hope next weeks special election in Georgia will flip a Republican-leaning seat where millions of dollars have poured in to support the Democratic candidate. In Missouri, those forces have translated into fundraising totals that are more typical of a campaigns final stretch than its beginnings. The last time McCaskill raised this much was in the final months before her 2012 re-election. McCaskills campaign said the past three months brought more than 5,500 new donors from Missouri. The average donation to McCaskill since the beginning of the year was $59, and nine in ten contributions were less than $100, according to the campaign. One reason campaigns like small donors is that they can contribute multiple times before hitting the federal limit of $2,700 providing a well of support the candidate could potentially tap for the entire race. Earlier this year, McCaskill predicted that more than $200 million would be spent on Missouris Senate race, with most of that money coming from outside groups rather than the candidates. Wagners first-quarter haul also demonstrated the network of donors she can tap as a past fundraiser for President George W. Bush and former chairwoman of the Missouri Republican Party. Attorney General Josh Hawley has also seen support from prominent state Republicans, with a letter urging him to run circulated this week by former Sen. John Danforth and former Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder. JEFFERSON CITY A new law paving the way for ride-hailing companies such as Uber and Lyft to operate throughout Missouri is headed to Gov. Eric Greitens desk. On a 144-7 vote, the House gave final approval to a proposed law outlining regulations for app-based transportation companies, including licensing fees, background checks and inspections. The measure is expected to be signed by the governor, who has called the new regulations an economic development tool for the state. Uber has said its expansion into Missouri could create 10,000 jobs. Theres going to be moms and dads across the state who now have another opportunity to put food on the table, said Rep. Paul Curtman, R-Washington. The measure moved through the Senate earlier in the week on a 31-1 vote. If approved, it will go into effect Aug. 28. Without the proposed law, Rep. Kirk Mathews, R-Eureka, who sponsored the proposal, said the companies would have left the state. In Springfield, local officials approved regulations last year that allowed the transportation network companies to operate. The advent of having Uber and Lyft in the area has helped bring more people downtown, said Rep. Elijah Haahr, R-Springfield. It has revitalized that area, Haahr said. In previous years, the measure has been blocked by taxi companies who argued that it would allow drivers with questionable backgrounds to drive passengers. The proposal allows Kansas City and St. Louis to audit drivers and allows airports to charge equal fees to ride-hail service drivers and taxis. Drivers also would be required to join taxis in paying the citys earnings tax and the $4 pickup fees at St. Louis Lambert International Airport. Uber has been accused of dodging both in recent years. Taxi companies remain concerned about the law because Uber and Lyft drivers wont have to pay license fees, meter inspection fees or operate under a cap on how much they can charge. The measure had been a priority for House Speaker Todd Richardson, R-Poplar Bluff. This will end the patchwork of regulations from city to city and instead give ridesharing companies a consistent framework to operate within, Richardson said. The legislation is House Bill 130. Yaksap, the graffiti bandit who has left what many consider infuriating and illegal marks on the sides of numerous St. Louis buildings, could take a valuable lesson from Paco Rosic. This 37-year-old Bosnian immigrant took his teenage love for graffiti way beyond the delinquent tagging of buildings. Hes become famous for his painstaking and vibrant trompe loeil murals created exclusively out of spray paint for both public and private spaces. Now hes in town shaking it up with hundreds of cans of paint to create a mural celebrating St. Louis history on the ceiling of a soon-to-be-opened restaurant in Benton Park. Like any hard-core artist, hes a bit obsessive about it. Hes set up an air mattress in the basement of the building at Arsenal Street and Lemp Avenue so that he can paint whenever he pleases. He has a wall in the lower level of the building dedicated to draft renderings along with his massive graffiti lettering for inspiration. I cannot stay in a hotel, he said Thursday while wearing a full camo outfit and a black skull cap striped with bands of glittery silver thread. His necessary air mask hung from scaffolding nearby. I get inspired. And when it hits me, its usually around two or three in the morning. Rosic is a bit of an art folk hero in Waterloo, Iowa, where his family settled in 1997 when he was 18 after years of refugee status to escape persecution in his hometown of Sarajevo. His parents his mother Catholic and his father Muslim fled to Germany in 1992 after living in a series of safe houses to survive. Even after the civil war in their native country ended, the family knew there was no chance they would be accepted back because of religious persecution. So when their asylum status was revoked after five years in Germany, the family uprooted again to America. Waterloo, it turns out, was very welcoming to Bosnians. In Iowa, broke from years of displacement, the family saved every penny from 10 years of working at a Hy-Vee grocery to buy a dilapidated building and open a restaurant. The food at Galleria de Paco is fusion, but the ceiling is sky-high Renaissance because Rosic spent five months atop scaffolding to recreate a roughly half-scale version of Michelangelos Sistine Chapel ceiling in Krylon spray paint. Media from around the country have highlighted the mural. But even before that attention, Rosic was making a name for himself. He did his first mural when he was 14 and living in the suburbs of Sarajevo. As an impressionable teen, he became entrenched in the graffiti art and break dance street culture in Germany. He was devastated when the family relocated to Iowa and said he fell into a deep depression. In his isolation, he began doing graffiti art on Masonite board because he could not afford canvas. Over time, he got the attention of art teachers at the local community college, and later the support of the city to do murals on dilapidated buildings and other structures. But one of the more interesting connections he made early on was an arts leader in Waterloo. She loved his graffiti art and commissioned him to make two pieces for each of her teenage sons. He was paid $400 a fortune at the time for him. One of her boys was Scott Scully, who now lives in St. Louis. He is part owner of the building on Arsenal in which restaurateur Vito LaFata plans to open a casual Italian eatery called Cafe Piazza this summer. Formerly home to Benton Park Coffee Bar, its across Lemp from Gus Pretzels. LaFata told Scully he wanted something visually unique in the restaurant to spur conversation and laid-back social gatherings in the spirit of an old-school authentic Italian cafe. Scully introduced him to Rosic. Rosic has spent the past 3 weeks on scaffolding spraying out his glossy vision of St. Louis history. The mural, about three quarters done, is in the style of Andrea Pozzos Apotheosis of St. Ignatius. That series of trompe loeil frescoes, painted to fool the eye into thinking the work is three-dimensional, was done by Pozzo between 1688 and 1694. Rosics mural relies heavily on columns to give the illusion dimensionality. Stand in the middle of the restaurant and the columns appear to rise skyward. Move toward one end of the room and the columns flatten out, but three Clydesdale horses appear to crash out from under an architectural arch. Rosics mural focuses on five eras of St. Louis history. Each is marked by a random floating page from a book and enhanced by landmarks and portraits of key places and figures. The book pages are also an ode to Michelangelo, Rosic said. In the front corner of the restaurant, Rosic has spray-painted a painstaking replica of the Libyan Sibyl, one of 12 prophets and sibyls Michelangelo included in the Sistine Chapel. The sibyl, labeled Libica, is holding an open book behind her shoulder. Rosic said the pages floating on the ceiling were from the book. Visitors can piece together the history among iconic images of St. Louis places and people over time, he said. But lest one think the artist is too classical and too prim, he said he was also inspired by one other St. Louis landmark: the graffiti-laden flood wall along the Mississippi River. 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? Former president and army chief General (retd) Pervez Musharraf has said that only dialogues can create peace between Pakistan and India. Musharraf, on US tour, expressed his views while addressing a ceremony at George Washington University. Pervez Musharraf said that America, in its friendship with India, should also keep Pakistans wellbeing in mind. He said that the decision of Kulbhushan Jadhavs execution is completely according to the law. The former president added that if India tries to stop Pakistans water, then we will consider it war against us. Talking about terrorism, Pervez Musharraf said we are victims of this evil ourselves, and peace shall only be restored by completely crushing all wicked activities of such kind. He also stressed that Pakistan and Afghanistan should work together to reinstate peace in the region, as peace in Afghanistan will bring peace in the entire zone. Musharraf further added that no one should be worried about relations of Pakistan and China. Talking on international affairs, Pervez Musharraf said that the attack of US on Syria over using chemical weapons is right. China has approved additional financing for infrastructure projects in Pakistan under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), taking the investment volume to $62 billion from $55 billion, announced Sindh Governor Mohammad Zubair on Wednesday. New investment has been approved for projects in various sectors including [establishment of] industrial zones, said Zubair while speaking at a conference on Infrastructure demand and financing organised by credit rating agencies Pacra (Pakistan) and Dagong (China). We are also in talks to place the Karachi Circular Railway under the CPEC banner, he said. China has been increasing investment in Pakistans infrastructure and power projects since it unveiled CPEC programme worth $46 billion in 2015. The volume of investment was pushed to $55 billion when Federal Minister of Planning, Development and Reform Ahsan Iqbal, Federal Minister of Railways Khawaja Saad Rafique and chief ministers of provinces visited China about three months ago. This [$62 billion investment] is good news. People will reap dividends of the investment, remarked Zubair, who is an active member of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharifs core economic team. A major chunk of the multibillion-dollar investment, $34 billion, is going into electricity production and distribution. According to Zubair, other countries are keen to become part of CPEC projects. They may become part of the project by investing in industrial zones, he said. Additionally, CPEC projects also have huge indirect benefits as well. Information technology firms from across the globe have arrived in Pakistan as each and every project under Chinas investment would require IT assistance. Zubair added China had become one of the worlds economic superpowers by investing in huge infrastructure projects like highways, railways, power production and gas pipelines at home. We are doing exactly the same thing. CPEC will create massive economic momentum in Pakistan, he said. The governor pointed out that Pakistan was not the only country whose exports had gone down in recent years as China and India had also registered a significant decline in their exports. The uptrend in international fuel oil prices may widen Pakistans current account deficit, he said. Zubair announced that the federal government would soon unveil a financing plan for new projects across Sindh including Karachi, adding the Green Line public transport project would be completed by the end of the year. Speaking on the occasion, Ministry of Finances former secretary Dr Waqar Masood pointed out that besides Chinese governments investment in CPEC projects, the private sector of China was funding different schemes in Pakistan, which did not fall within the purview of CPEC. The volume of Chinas investment in Pakistan would be significantly higher than $62 billion if its private sector investment was also counted, he said. Pakistan Credit Rating Agency (Pacra) Managing Director Adnan Afaq emphasised that the establishment of power projects would help overcome shortage and play a positive role in achieving the required economic growth of 7% in the next two to three years. He was of the view that managing such a huge investment of $62 billion or higher under CPEC would remain a big challenge for Pakistan as it had never done that before. We need to make sure the process [of utilising the finances] remains transparent, he said. Dagong Chairman Guan Jianzhong stressed that infrastructure development would support economic growth in Pakistan over the long run, adding it would open Islamabad to the world and bring investment. Other speakers urged the authorities concerned to float infrastructure bonds in order to attract public investment. The government should play its role of providing incentives for the proposed bonds to stimulate investment from new avenues. Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism. People across the world were shocked this week by footage from a United Continental (NYSE: UAL) regional flight. Cellphone videos showed a paying passenger being dragged from his seat and down the aisle after getting bumped from a Chicago-to-Louisville flight to make room for four airline employees who needed to be in Louisville to crew a flight the next morning. This incident sparked a wave of outrage on social media and quickly became front-page news. Yet investors don't seem too concerned. United Continental stock has fallen just slightly this week and remains near its all-time high. United Continental investors may regret their complacency in the long run. This complete breakdown in protocol -- and common sense -- represents a huge setback in United's multiyear comeback effort. Starting from a place of weakness Since taking over as United's CEO in late 2015, Oscar Munoz has focused on rebuilding the carrier's reputation. He had a lot of work to do, as the 2010 United-Continental merger was bungled by the prior management team, leading to huge disruptions for customers. In the past year or so, United Airlines did start to regain customers' trust. However, it still lags the industry average -- and especially top rival Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL) -- in most objective metrics of customer service. The Airline Quality Rating report covering 2016 found that relative to Delta, United had a lower on-time percentage, "bumped" more customers, lost more bags, and was the subject of dramatically more official complaints. Furthermore, United had already stirred up social-media criticism last month when it forced two teenage girls who were traveling on "buddy passes" to change out of their leggings before boarding. Many people found the policy to be sexist. The bottom line is that United Continental was treading on shaky ground a week ago. The forcible removal by law enforcement officials of a passenger from one of its flights and the airline's initial unwillingness to take full responsibility simply added to United's customer perception woes. Customers are angry In the past few days, United has been the subject of a huge social-media backlash spanning the globe. In the U.S., numerous customers canceled their United credit cards and cut up their frequent-flier cards, vowing to never again fly United. Others called for a complete boycott of United Airlines flights. The social-media backlash was even greater in China, perhaps because of a rumor that the passenger who was forcibly removed was singled out for his Asian ethnicity. Some pundits believe that this outrage won't affect United much because consolidation has reduced air travelers' options. However, there are very few routes for which United has a true monopoly. If passengers are willing to pay somewhat more or to take a connecting flight, they'll have other options most of the time. United Airlines isn't so indispensable that it's immune to changing customer preferences. United's financial performance hasn't been great, either Even leaving aside the customer backlash that United Airlines is likely to face, the company hasn't looked like a compelling investment opportunity lately. Earlier this week, United projected that its unit revenue was approximately flat on a year-over-year basis during Q1. That was slightly better than the 0.5% decline Delta logged. However, United expects to post a first-quarter adjusted pre-tax margin of just 2% to 2.5%, compared with 9.3% for Delta. Meanwhile, United Continental shares trade for slightly more than 10 times forward earnings. That level represents a slight premium relative to Delta Air Lines stock. The sharp rally in United Continental stock since mid-2016 has been driven by optimism that the company is poised to close (or at least narrow) its margin gap relative to Delta. After this week's fiasco, United seems more likely to lose ground in the coming years. Until the dust settles, investors would be wise to steer clear of United Continental shares. 10 stocks we like better than United Continental Holdings When investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.* David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy right now...and United Continental Holdings wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys. Click here to learn about these picks! *Stock Advisor returns as of April 3, 2017. Adam Levine-Weinberg owns shares of Delta Air Lines. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Share your opinion on this topic by sending a letter to the editor to tctvoice@madison.com. Include your full name, hometown and phone number. Your name and town will be published. The phone number is for verification purposes only. Please keep your letter to 250 words or less. Clayton Mitchell New Zealand First MP Our water and our land are under threat, with the same Minister in charge. Our water ways have had the bar lowered to make fouled by animals and full of germs the new swimmable. Our drinkable water is being given away, for foreign consumers to enjoy, while the exporters only have to make sure their local rates bill is paid. This blue government describes charging them for the privilege as too hard or farcical, depending on whether its the current Prime Minister, or the Environment Minister speaking. And now this same Environment Minister, Dr Nick Smith is calling concerns over Resource Management Act reform nonsense. So lets look at the so-called nonsense to see if we should be concerned. The submission period for New Zealanders to share their concerns and have their voices heard, closed last year in March 2016. But now, in 2017 we have the Minister slipping in changes to require agreement from local iwi and hapu that will have far-reaching consequences for local Authorities. Where is the transparent democracy in this kind of underhanded manoeuvring? Effectively iwi and hapu could have a veto on regional development. The legislation requires agreement but with no clarification on what agreement looks like, nor how it is supposed to be reached. And while there might be 5 or 10 or 20 iwi in a region, there are potentially hundreds of hapu, which would mean hundreds of unelected groups capable of slowing down the consent process as they see fit. And wasnt making the process more efficient the whole point of the reforms? New Zealand First has offered our 12 votes for comprehensive RMA reform time and again, as long as the changes were good for all New Zealanders. But the two race-based party votes seem to be worth more to the Minister and this blue government, no matter the long-term cost to democracy. They may have sneaked it over the line before the election, but New Zealand First will repeal it and fix it properly when we are in government. The Rotorua-based BayTrust rescue helicopter will remain in Whakatane for the duration of Cyclone Cook to assist with any emergencies that may arise. The news comes after the helicopter was dispatched to Ruatahuna on Tuesday night. The helicopter and on board team were called to assist with relocating a family to Minginui, who require on-going medical care. The Whakatane District Council Civil Defence team requested the helicopter due to the flood and slip damage in the area. As the storm intensifies, bringing an expected 300mm of rain over the next three days, the Insurance Council of New Zealand is urging people in the Bay of Plenty to prepare for flooding. We want to help communities to reduce the risks they face. If you can get as much of your home contents out of harms way, secure heavy outdoor objects and park vehicles in garages if possible, says Insurance Council chief executive Tim Grafton. Pre-flood tips: Move valuables from lower ground including electrical equipment if possible Secure outdoor possessions Have emergency equipment like portable radio, torch, mobile on hand Keep your insurers contact numbers on hand Taking photographic evidence of the flooding and damage to your property will help with your claims assessment and if you need to move damaged or contaminated goods from your house for health and safety reasons. Tips for recovery: Do not do anything that puts your safety at risk or causes more damage to your property Contact your insurer, or insurance adviser. Do not be concerned if you cant find your insurance papers. Insurers have electronic records and need only your name and address. Avoid entering flood water, on foot or in a vehicle. Flood water can contain raw sewage and contaminants, can conduct electricity, mask hidden hazards, and pose a serious hazard to health. It may be deeper, or moving faster, than you expect. Try to make the buildings safe and weatherproof but dont make any emergency repairs unless it is safe to do so. Dont start non-essential repairs without your insurance companys approval. If water has entered the property, dont turn on your electricity until it has been inspected by an electrician Do what you have to make your home safe and sanitary. Remove and discard any water or mud-damaged goods that pose a health risk, such as saturated carpets and soft furnishings. Take photos of damaged property to help speed up the assessments and claims process. Do not drive your vehicle if it has suffered water damage The extent of the insured damage will not be known for some weeks. Flood recovery support package from Ballance Ballance Agri-Nutrients has also confirmed a support package for local farmers and the community, to help in the recovery from recent flooding around Edgecumbe and other areas of the Eastern Region affected by flooding. Chief executive Mark Wynne says the focus is on practical support, tailored to the immediate need and worst affected areas. Our people and our Edgecumbe Service Centre are at the heart of this community, and we want to do what we can working together with others to help everyone get back on their feet. He says local farmers have welcomed the early contact over the weekend about flood recovery decision support tools, and Ballance nutrient specialists are now working directly with farmers to discuss the state of pastures and soil along with the best approach to recovering productivity. Ballance is offering S0A (sulphate of ammonia) at a special discounted rate of $350/tonne exclusively for locally affected farmers. The sulphate sulphur and nitrogen in this product is ideally-suited to generate a rapid response in pasture following heavy rainfall and flooding. As part of the support package, Mark says Ballance will be contributing $10,000 to the Edgecumbe & EBOP Mayoral Flood Appeal (https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/ebopmayoralfund), and has distributed 300 ponchos to help keep people dry as the rains continue. Local staff are directly involved on the ground and Ballance has three loaders on standby do some of the heavy lifting during the clean-up. Farmers needing advice should contact their local Nutrient Specialist or call Ballances Customer Service team on 0800 222 090. JUNEAU A 49-year-old Randolph man and former state of Wisconsin employee was found guilty Tuesday of storing child porn on his work computer. Sean E. Robillard appeared before Dodge County Circuit Court Judge Brian Pfitzinger who accepted Robillards no contest plea to three counts of possession of child pornography. Seven additional counts of possession of child pornography were read into the record. According to the criminal complaint, the Wisconsin Department of Justice, Division of Criminal Investigation, in conjunction with the Dodge County Sheriffs Office, conducted a search warrant at a residence in Randolph May 3. Officers interviewed a man who identified Robillard as his stepfather. The man told officers that Robillard possessed a laptop computer that he took to work with him daily. Officers also learned that Robillard had left for work that morning. Robillard was employed as a technical engineer for the Wisconsin Circuit Court Automation Program at the time of his arrest. Officers conducted a traffic stop on Robillards vehicle in the city of Eau Claire. Two laptop computers and two USB drives with approximately six terabytes of storage capacity were confiscated as a part of the search warrant. During the search Robillard told officers they would find child pornography on the devices. Officers located multiple files containing child pornography with prepubescent victims including photos and videos. Officers believe that at least one of the children depicted in the files is under the age of 13. A sentencing hearing is scheduled for July 21. As rural Bay of Plenty braces itself for more heavy rainfall today, the Ministry for Primary Industries is working alongside Civil Defence Emergency Management, the local Rural Support Trust, Federated Farmers, industry bodies, and volunteers to help farmers and growers get through the floods. Farmers are taking the latest forecasts seriously and evacuating livestock to higher ground again. NIWA forecaster Ben Noll says New Zealand may see another round of heavy rainfall from today as Tropical Cyclone Cook tracks southeastward in the open waters of the South Pacific. "A plume of heavy downpours will target the North Island from today ranging from Northland all the way down to the Central Plateau," says Ben. "There are 2 peaks one late this afternoon and this evening and the second tomorrow afternoon and evening. The areas most affected are likely to be Bay of Plenty and Coromandel where rainfall may generally range from 200mm to 400mm in the hardest-hit areas. "Soils that are already saturated, and bloated waterways mean a higher risk of flooding, as water may run off and not be absorbed by the ground." The Bay of Plenty Rural Support Trust has been working with Urban Search and Rescue and the current rural adverse event network (Federated Farmers, Fonterra, ANZ and DairyNZ) to visit every farm in the affected area and carry out a rapid needs assessment. Visit details are being put into a real-time app as they go door to door, building on feedback from the Kaikoura/Hurunui/Marlborough earthquake to reduce repeat visits by different groups and volunteers, and making sure that information on needs gets action right away. With 3500 head of cattle already evacuated from Ex-Cyclone Debbies floodwaters since Thursday, ongoing inundation and road closures are hindering access for milk collection and the local Fonterra factory has suspended operation. "Fonterra and Open Country have contacted all their suppliers and are making sure that every dairy farm has a safe place for their animals, evacuation help if they need it, and a way to milk safely and have that milk collected," says MPI Director Resource Policy Kate Hellstrom. "Farmers are also being reminded of the boil water notice in place, which for those milking means extra safety measures need to be in place for plant and silo cleaning." New Zealand Kiwifruit Growers Inc (NZKGI) chief executive Nikki Johnson says the focus at this stage is on pumping water from orchards to enable harvest to take place and to limit the long-term damage to the plants. The increased chance of additional flooding from further rain would make this task more difficult." Kiwifruit growers with significant damage or who require assistance are being asked to contact NZKGI on 0800 25 25 05. Other numbers are: local Rural Support Trust call 0800 787 254 (0800 RURAL HELP) with information on the impacts on your farm, or requests for personal help Federated Farmers call 0800 32 76 46, option 3 for feed offers or requests, or option 4 for other on-farm help, including stock movements HortNZ growers other than kiwifruit growers can call 0508 46 78 69. DairyNZ for dairy farmers, 0800 4324 7969. Other producers should contact their industry body if they have questions. A flood recovery response event for all rural residents is on today from 1pm to 4pm at Awakeri Hall, White Pine Bush Road. A collection of organisations and networks will be there with a BBQ, for information and help for rural people as we begin flood recovery. All rural residents are welcome to drop in for a chat and something to eat. Tauranga drivers are being praised by police because of their improved behaviour during the recent bad weather. Were finding we are actually having less crashes at the moment because people are paying more attention to their driving because of the weather conditions, says Western Bay of Plenty Road policing manager Acting Senior Sergeant Wayne Hunter. Its been pretty good. While the NZTA is considering closing the Auckland Harbour Bridge later today, if forecast winds of 130-160km/h associated with former Cook eventuate, there are no plans to close the Tauranga Harbour Bridge at this stage. No ones even mentioned that, says Wayne. I cant see that happening at all. The variable speed signs are activated on SH29 over the Kaimai Range. Speed on the top quarter of the road was reduced to 60km/h yesterday, says Wayne. We wont be closing the Kaimai road, we can down grade the speed limit using variable speed signs. The conditions are monitored and the speed limit is adjusted. Wayne advises people to drive to the conditions and watch their following distances SH25 between Thames and Coromandel remains closed today because of a slip covering both lanes, between Waioumu and Tapu. Access to Coromandel via the eastern side of the peninsula remains open, but there is a washout at Pumpkin Hill near Sailors Grave. Traffic management is in place and there is a 30km/h speed restriction. Meanwhile, the NZ Transport Agency is warning that if the Auckland Harbour Bridge is closed later today, it will have flow on effects across Auckland. If the bridge is closed to traffic motorists should expect long delays, and avoid travelling if they dont need to, says Auckland Highway Manager Brett Gliddon. We encourage people to think ahead and start planning alternative ways to get home or to their destinations later today and to consider delaying any non-essential travel across the bridge. Other road closures SH2 through the Waimana Gorge is closed as a result of a major slip just east/south of Stanley Road. Its expected to remain closed for some time. The Pekatahi Bridge is also closed. People are being warned to avoid any unnecessary travel in this region. SH2 through Edgecumbe remains closed due to flooding. Firefighters are battling flooding in Matamata as heavy rain causes water levels to rise. A tweet on the NZ Fire Service Twitter feed says two houses on Ashworth Pl, Matamata, are being threatened by large lake forming at back of properties. Urgent need for sand bagging. Overnight, firefighters dealt with 40 weather related incidents across NZ. About 192 firefighters were deployed to these incidents. Cyclone Cook The latest analysis of position of Cyclone Cook puts it around 300km northeast of Cape Reinga at 6am this morning. MetService forecasters have now issued an updated forecast track for Cyclone Cook. It looks likely that it will continue moving southwards today over the central North Island, with its centre lying close to Cape Palliser in the early hours of Friday morning, and be located to the east of Kaikoura around 6am Friday, before continuing southwest and offshore the South Island later on Friday. People in low lying areas of Coromandel are being asked to evacuate. The NZ Fire Service Tweeted 11 minutes ago, saying fire crews are now being activated across Coromandel Peninsula with evacuation. People in properties in low-lying areas on the east coast of the Coromandel Peninsula or areas inundated in the past by king tide flooding, please self-evacuate immediately, says the Thames Coromandel District Council. This specifically refers to beach-front properties, and properties on estuaries who have been flooded before in very high tides combined with storm surges. Civil Defence Centres are set up at and open as of 10am for a safe place to wait for further information: Coromandel St John Ambulance - 355 Tiki Road Coromandel Whitianga Town Hall 22 Monk Street Whitianga Tairua Hall 210 Main Road Tairua Whangamata Town Hall - 320 Port Road Whangamata Thames Civic Centre - 200 Mary Street Thames The Waikato Civil Defence group emergency management office in Hamilton is monitoring weather-related developments around the region closely, ready to support local civil defence responses as required. Our group emergency co-ordination centre is operating 24 hours a day to monitor developments. We will act to support local responses to the weather situation as required by, for example, providing advice and logistical support where required, says group controller Lee Hazlewood. This is a serious weather event and its important for agencies and communities to work together closely to help keep people and infrastructure safe. Support your neighbours and be ready to self-evacuate to friends and family if needed. Other general civil defence messages include: Check guttering, stormwater drains and culverts - make sure they are clear to help the water run freely. Stay up to date with official warnings and forecasts by keeping your mobile device fully charged. Take extra care on the roads, and be on the look out for slips and flash flooding. Make sure you have enough food and water for 7 days. Take care of each other and your animals, check your neighbours are OK. Farmers are encouraged to move stock to higher ground where necessary. Be alert for possible power losses, the loss of roofs and any downed powerlines. Its also a good idea to have extra batteries for torches and portable radios. More information is available from www.civildefence.govt.nz Meanwhile, the Waikato Regional Council hazards team is reporting no major problems with river levels and flood control assets around the region. However, rivers are elevated and are expected to stay high for some days, says team leader Rick Liefting. People need to be aware of the potential this brings for surface flooding and river flooding hazards. Well provide advice as required. But, for the time being, its good to see the flood management schemes are working well with no significant problems reported. The councils flood room in Hamilton is activated to monitor developments. The latest weather warnings this morning for the Waikato region include: Coromandel Peninsula: 80-120 mm of rain in 12 hours (9am to 9pm today), with 150km/hr wind gusts and 5m waves from this afternoon into the evening. Waikato and Waitomo: 70-90 mm in 12 hours (9am to 9pm today), with 120km/hr gusts from this afternoon into the evening. Taupo: 70-90 mm in 15 hours (9am to midnight today), with 140km/hr gusts from this evening into Friday morning. High tide this evening (2102 for Firth of Thames and 2100 for Whitianga) coincides with a period of high rain intensity. Therefore, extreme care should be taken around low lying areas at this time. The Kauaeranga River flood management spillway across state highway 25 south of Thames could operate at this time, closing that road. This media item was current at its release date. The facts or figures it contains may have changed since its original publication. People living in low lying areas of the Western Bay of Plenty are being urged to evacuate their homes as soon as possible, and in daylight hours. The storm surge is predicted to be at 2.5m higher than normal along the coast and 0.8m in Tauranga Harbour. Areas identified below this level and which may be most affected are: Waihi Beach Bowentown inner harbour Athenree Ongare Point Little Waihi Maketu Pukehina Beach Matakana Island Residents should self-evacuate with their pets, to friends or family in other areas, says an Emergency Operation Centre spokesperson. They should avoid driving long distances if possible, and take their get-away kits: medication, warm clothing, water and food for three days, basic first aid supplies and important documents. If you do not have a safe place to go to nearby, head to one of the following welfare centres for shelter: Omokoroa Community Church: 139 Hamurana Rd Waihi Beach RSA: 99 Beach Road Katikati War Memorial Hall: Main Road, Katikati Tuapiro Marae: Hikurangi Road Pongakawa Hall: 956 Old Coach Rd Maketu School: 8 School Road Matua Hall: 110 Levers Road, Matua The welfare centres will only be able to welcome pets if they are in a cage. If you decide to self-evacuate please register with your council so we can keep in touch with you. To register contact the Western Bay of Plenty District Council by calling 07 571 8008 or 0800 WBOPDC or email customerservice@westernbay.govt.nz For Tauranga City Council call 07 577 7000 or email info@tauranga.govt.nz A live map has been set up to show road closures and known incidents such as slips, and flooded areas, along with open welfare centres at http://arcg.is/1mLTTj Concerns of dairy farmers about the way their industry was portrayed in TVNZs Sunday programme The Price of Milk have been made known to its producers and the TVNZ executive by the shows sponsor Mazda NZ. Some farmers were so concerned they called for a boycott of Mazda and its removal from the Fonterra Farm Source Rewards Scheme and Duncan Coull, chairman of chairman of the FonterraShareholders Council says Fonterra took those concerns to Mazda. Mazda responded with the following statement: The views expressed in this story are those of the Sunday programme, and not of Mazda. Mazda has always been a strong supporter of the rural sector. We appreciate the vital role the dairying community plays in the New Zealand economy and were proud of the contribution we make to this industry through our relationship with the Fonterra Co-operative Group. That is why we have taken all the feedback and comments about this Sunday Special very seriously and forwarded them to the producers of Sunday and for their awareness. Duncan says he didnt watch the full programme. But comments from farmers that I have spoken with show they were upset that the programme in no way portrayed what dairying was to them with what seemed to be a deliberate effort to portray the extremes to expose dairy in bad light, Duncan told SunLive. I have only had one call from a farmer asking for such a boycott. Im sure Mazda has no input into programme content as sponsor of the programme. That said it has hardened farmers resolve to tell their own personal story promoting all the good things they are doing as guardians of the land and contributing to the wellbeing of their local communities. In the programme TVNZ current affairs journalist Cameron Bennett spent time with two dairy farmers; Jasmine Purnell who operates a low intensive farm, with a focus on soil health and mixed pasture, producing raw milk for export, and Gavin Flint of Ngatea who uses more conventional farming management. The programme can be viewed at: www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/sunday-special-price-milk-our-love-affair-dairy-farming-over A Testimony to Design Carlo Riva was an icon of his age, he still is and will be for some time, explains Donald Starkey. The very name Riva conjures up an image of classy, stylish, extravagance, a dashing and exciting life style. A brand name many years before the current trend for brands. He was a master, continues Starkey, a brilliant engineer and contradicted many of his competitors by making beautifully styled and detailed fast wooden pleasure boats." Carlo Rivas work was the epitome of Italian style for generations, adds Tim Heywood. I am pleased that when Cakewalk (now Aquila) was built, I had the opportunity to view the, then, latest of his creations, a Riva Cento, a stunning craft that lived aboard, as the owner's personal tender. The attention to detail was remarkable, a great tribute to the man whose talent will live on in his work for many years to come. The world has lost a brilliant creator of boats, comments Alberto Galassi, CEO of the Ferretti Group. A master of style, a giant in Italys industrial and business history. To me, this is a personal loss of a master, an example of brilliance, of commitment and dedication to work. Carlo Riva taught us the meaning of vision, creativity and passion. His vision and inexhaustible innovative energy make him the leading personality in the 20th century yachting world, a man whose extraordinary creations have already become legends. The Golden Age of Aquarama It was the beautifully crafted Riva pleasure boats that gave the master designer iconic status. These sleek, wooden symbols of style graced waters around the world with yacht owners and film stars on board. This style famously came to the fore with the first-ever model Ariston, which gave way to the legendary Aquarama in 1962; built for the likes of Sophia Loren, Brigitte Bardot, Liz Taylor, Sean Connery, Jean Paul Belmondo, Richard Burton and Jackie Stuart. The flawless lines of the Riva pleasure boat originated from Carlo Rivas view of changing a boat into a luxury craft; opening a shipyard in 1954 which is today protected by the Italian Institute of Artistic and Architectural Heritage. Responsible for a golden age of design, which has maintained its timeless elegance to this day, Carlo Rivas brand evolved to include large yachts and his final model of the beloved powerboat range, the Rivamare; launched only in 2016. A Move to Superyachts Constantly launching a new fashion with each design (creator of the worlds first fiberglass boat) Carlo Rivas move into the superyacht market was an impressive new arm for the brand, and brought about many new projects. Carlo Riva had a view of superyacht design since the 70s, bringing forward a 50-metre angular and ultra-stylish project, as well as a sleeker 122' Mythos. The 50-metre Riva was the first of the Riva Superyachts Division, and is currently under construction in Ancona; a launch that will become a milestone for the brand responsible for contributing marine heritage to Italy's longstanding creative culture. Pamela Hudson, Managing Agent of Noyo Harbor Inn, tells us everything about the estate, the experience and the surrounding beauty of Mendocino County. Is the area primed for a yachting revolution? "Absolutely. Its proximity to the Bay Area, conveniently located between San Francisco and the Oregon border, offers short yet breathtaking trips along the coast, accompanying migrating whales and in view of miles of unspoiled landscape, rocky coves, giant redwood trees and historic ruins of the logging industry's days past. Thousands of acres of forest and rugged wilderness, minimal population, historic significance, wineries and outdoor activities are at a half-day's drive throughout the region." Can you tell us about the yacht club and the harbor itself? "The private yacht club was previously the Noyo Harbor Inn. The structure built in the 1800's has been meticulously restored. Eight private luxury suites, commercial kitchen, bar and meeting rooms, it could easily be a private residence like no other. The property also has an additional building with seven private rooms, along with the infrastructure to construct an additional six "treehouse" suites and nine additional private rooms. There are also plans in place for a spa. Access to the river and floating docks are in the permit phase." How is Noyo Harbor Inn a new start for yachting in Mendocino County? "There is no existing yachting culture. We would be the nucleus for what will come next. It would be the first of its kind, both the property and the harbor's reincarnation. The harbor has been a longstanding, multi-generational commercial and sport fishing hub. The harbor's activity currently is approximately 60 percent sport fishing. As the commercial fishing industry continues to be strictly regulated, the opportunity for expansion of the sport fishing culture is prime." San Francisco to Noyo Harbor is approximately 180 miles via boat, and the key for yacht owners looking to explore the West Coast and tie the line in Noyo. The yacht club is a potential haven for future yacht owners, and an exciting investment for those looking to build on the regions unbridled beauty. The raw, unspoiled nature of the coast will excite any boater. The ocean can be calm one moment and challenging the next. Entering the harbor is a breathtaking experience reminiscent of the sailors and explorers that have come before. Now is the time to purchase this untouched masterpiece, restored and augmented to perfection! For more information on Noyo Harbor Inn, please click here for more details and an in-depth video. The Badgers mens and womens basketball teams will not sport their usual cardinal and white uniforms for all games this season. The look of their alternate uniforms are believed to be a first for UW. You voted: As Russians seized parts of eastern and southern Ukraine in the opening stages of the war, mayors, civilian administrators and others say they have been abducted, threatened or beaten to force their cooperation. In some instances, they have been killed. Human rights activists say these actions could constitute a war crime. Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov said he was abducted from his office and the bullying and threats did not stop for a minute." He said they tried to force him to continue in his role but he refused. After six days in detention and an intervention from Ukraine's president, he was exchanged for nine Russian prisoners of war and expelled from the occupied city. farm The farm where the new brewery and cafe will be constructed. The brewery will be right behind the flag. (Provided photo) POMPEY, NY - After working in finance for 20 years, Dan Palladino moved from Rochester back to Pompey in 2010 to take over the 525-acre family farm after his father's death. In the next seven years, Palladino, now 42, doubled the size of the farm, eventually partnering with a neighboring farmer and expanding the farm to 2,600 acres. He operates an organic crop farm and also grows non-organic barley, which is turned into malt barley. He also raises cattle and pork for beef and pork, while his partner has a dairy farm. In January, Palladino opened a retail farm store on the property to sell the farm's own beef, pork, organic flour, bread and pasta; and other locally made products. Dan Palladino's daughter, Natalia, right, helping customers sample items in the farm's new Food Store. Next up is a farm brewery selling craft beer made with malt barley and hops from Palladino's farm. Palladino is starting Hill Country Farm Brewery with his high school friend, John Frazee, whose family has a dairy farm just a few miles away. The pair also plan to open a farm-to-table cafe on the premises serving their farm-raised beef and pork, along with a variety of other locally grown products. The new brewery, at 3149 Sweet Road, will be 6,000-square-feet with a 1,500-square-foot tasting room. There also will be a 1,200-square-foot screened-in patio overlooking the hillsides. The farm dates back to 1845, although the Palladino family bought it in 1951. Frazee, who went to Fabius-Pompey High School along with Palladino, moved to Colorado to work as an engineer and in 2012 founded Gravity Brewing. He will be the brewmaster - his beers have won several national and international awards, including the Silver Award for Belgian Fruit Beer at the 2016 World Beer Cup. The pair plan to start with a handful of craft beers, including traditional and experimental styles, Palladino said. The beer will be made using the farm's own malt barley and hops. "I've always wanted to open a brewery, and this one will be a true "farm" brewery, because I'll use my own malt barley and hops,'' said Palladino. Palladino is one of the largest barley growers around- he currently has 400 acres of barley. He has a partnership with the 1886 Malt House in Fulton to help supply it with malt barley for New York state's growing number of craft beer makers. Dan Palladino in The Farm Store He will have enough malt barley to meet his own needs this year. In the spring, he's also planting hops and by 2022 says he'll have nearly enough to meet all his needs. Palladino, who is president of the Onondaga County Farm Bureau, said he doesn't want to sell into commodity markets, preferring to grow and produce items that can be used locally. "We sell a lot of local products, so I thought why not beer too?,'' he said. The brewery and cafe will be located on 15 acres of the farm - the rest is protected farmland meaning it can't be developed. The town of Pompey passed a farm-friendly law in 2015 called the 'farm business overlay' which allows qualified farmers to have commercial enterprises on their farm if they meet certain criteria. Palladino is working with the town of Pompey on site plan approval, and also hopes to tap into some Empire State Development grant money as he progresses. The pair hope to open the brewery and cafe sometime during 2018. SYRACUSE, N.Y. - Hundreds of manufacturing jobs are available in Central New York. Novelis, an aluminum company in Oswego, has openings for a mechanical technician and an electrical engineer, among others. SRCTec, a Cicero company that makes advanced military equipment, needs a variety of engineers. Manth-Brownell, a precision machined parts company in Kirkville, wants to hire machine operator and engineers. Across Central New York, thousands of people lost their manufacturing in the past decade, so what's the problem? It should be easy to fill these manufacturing jobs, right? It's not. Many unemployed manufacturing workers and those looking to enter the field don't have the skills required to do the jobs, according to labor experts and manufacturers. Most companies are seeking applicants who have completed a two-year program or a trade school. Even some advertised entry-level jobs require multiple years of experience or some sort of training. This skills gap is a problem for dozens of local manufacturers and it's a problem that's only going to grow, said Randy Wolken, president and chief operating officer of the Manufacturers Association of Central New York, a trade group that represents local companies. An aging workforce means more retirements and more vacant high-tech manufacturing jobs, Wolken said. And CNY doesn't have a large pool of eligible, skilled employees, he said. Community colleges, BOCES and MACNY are stepping in to try to train people to fill the vacant manufacturing jobs. They are offering certificate programs, two-year degree programs and apprenticeship programs to train more workers. Companies themselves are trying to train workers. Many no- or low-skill manufacturing jobs gone The days of walking out of high school and into a factory job are rapidly diminishing, said Art Wheaton, director of Western NY Labor and Environmental Programs for the Worker Institute at Cornell University. Wheaton said CNY lost many of the entry-level factory jobs that required a worker to only have a strong back and be good with his or her hands. Those jobs are not coming back. Automation, robots and computers have replaced the worker in those situations. "Workers still have to run the machines," he said. Some jobs were also lost when manufacturers left CNY for other states and other countries to take advantage of cheaper labor. The low-tech jobs are gone and high-tech workers are now in high demand, Wheaton said. The manufacturing sector in CNY shrunk from 58,000 jobs in 1990 to 30,000 in 2015. Still, there are 269 openings for production workers during April and hundreds more engineering positions open, the state Labor Department said. Salaries for production workers, which does not include engineers, were $23,330 for entry workers and $45,670 for experienced workers in 2015, state data shows. The state calculates that the average salary for all CNY manufacturing employees, including engineers, was $67,264 in 2015. The manufacturing sector in CNY has been holding steady over the last few years, but some parts are starting to turn around slowly after a long decline. Plastic manufacturing had 1,694 jobs in 2012 and grew to 1,903 jobs in 2015. Food manufacturing also grew from 1,397 jobs in 2012 to 1,740 jobs in 2015. "These are high-paying, good jobs with benefits," Wheaton said. "And more are going to be available." Wheaton said one reason there will be more jobs available is workers with specialty skills are in their 50s, 60s and 70s. They will be retiring, he said. "We're having a graying of the workforce," he said. The average age of manufacturing employees in the country in 2016 was 44, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The average age of a highly skilled manufacturing worker is 56, according to a 2012 report from the Boston Consulting Group. Wolken, of MACNY, said this aging work force of highly skilled workers concerns him. "This type of worker is the one most manufacturers are in dire need of and that will only grow in the years to come," Wolken said. "Our apprentice program -- and the efforts of others -- focuses on a middle-skills to high-skills workforce." Community college steps up The State University of New York was awarded nearly $15 million to create worker training programs at 30 community colleges. Cayuga Community College received $629,306. The college tried to identify the skill gaps that left workers without the skills the companies wanted. "We focused on examining jobs and skills that were going to be needed in the year 2020 and beyond," said Carla DeShaw, dean of the of the Community Education and Workforce Development at CCC. The grant, in part, helped create the college's Advanced Manufacturing Institute, which debuted in January 2016. The college introduced four new options within its existing mechanical technology degree program -- mechatronics, facilities design, computer-aided design and precision machining. The State University of New York also picked CCC to lead the state's plastic technology education program because of the college's proximity to plastic manufacturers such as Currier Plastics in Auburn and Tessy Plastics in Elbridge. The plastic companies have the same problem of other manufacturers: Workers don't have the right skills, DeShaw said. The college created a two-year plastic technology degree program and a one-year certificate program to train workers. John Currier, president of Currier Plastics, said the company struggles to find trained workers. The company, which makes plastic packaging for several markets, employs 150 people. "We do a lot of internal training, but when we get really busy we steal our trainers," he said. "We're good manufacturers. Sometimes we're great trainers too, but sometimes we're not." There are a lot plastics jobs in Central New York, he said. Right now, the company often has to go out of state to fill jobs, he said. He said he hopes the college program will create a steady stream of trained applicants in the next few years. Currier Plastics also sends employees to CCC to take the classes, he said. That helps the company train workers and gives the employees skills needed to qualify for higher tech jobs with higher salaries, he said. Currier said the manufacturing world has changed. "We adopted new technology and that's harmed the entry-level jobs," he said. "Automation is now doing jobs that's were once entry-level jobs." Currier said this has improved the positions for the technicians and engineers, but they have to have the training. 100% job placement, but few students Onondaga Cortland Madison BOCES started offering an advanced manufacturing technician program for adults in 2013. The program had a 100 percent job placement rate - every graduate found a job - in its first two years, said Matthew T. Tarolli, BOCES adult education. The program exposes the students to a variety of manufacturers in CNY. Students benefit from job shadowing and internships. "Most of the time our manufacturing internships are paid internships and they land them a job," Mari Ukleya, the director of adult education. OCM BOCES instructor Craig McKinney (right) helps a student in the manufacturing technician program, in this file photo. The program at BOCES' Liverpool campus costs $7,700 and requires 758 hours, which equates to less than six months. It also includes a 4-week internship. Students often can apply for grants and other financial aid. After two successful years, the program has struggled to find students, coordinators said. It was not offered two years because not enough students signed up; recently only three students took part in the program, the said Ukleya said she believes the issue is fear - fear that there are no manufacturing jobs in CNY and that even if they land a job there will be no job security. Part of the problem is it's hard for job seekers who haven't worked in factories or the manufacturing industry to visualize the job, Tarolli said. "When you say you want to be a welder, someone can visualize what it's like to be a welder, but when you say you want to get into manufacturing there is no one thing that people can relate to," Tarolli said. Misperception that there are no jobs Laura Miller, general manager of Darco Manufacturing in East Syracuse, said public's perception of manufacturing is part of the problem. Darco, which employs 35 people, makes precision machined components. The messaging that manufacturing jobs are being eliminated by automation and offshoring is outdated and oversimplified, Miller said. "More jobs are coming back," she said. "And we are in need of interested people. We still need the human touch." Miller said she believes most companies are actually at or near peak automation, meaning they have the right technology, but now they need people to run their machines. "We are creating an impression that manufacturing is equivalent to technology," she said. "The truth of the matter is that we use technology as tools and we bake technology into our finished products but that's just one element of what it takes to make intermediate or finished goods." Soft skills, people skills also needed Dave Lloyd is an instructor with the advanced manufacturing program at Cayuga Community College and has worked in manufacturing for 30 years. He said the program at CCC also addresses another issue that plagues manufacturing. "Sometimes it's not the technical capabilities that hold a person back," Lloyd said. "Sometimes it's the soft skills." The CCC manufacturing program also teaches teamwork, communication skills, basic problem-solving, interview skills and more. Lloyd said manufacturing is often early hours and for workers to be successful they must be on time and ready to work. The program has a high success rate: 91 percent of students finding employment after finishing the certificate program. Lloyd said training programs and college programs are now important to get the skills to land a job. "We're not talking about minimum wage jobs," he said. "These are good paying jobs with good benefits. If they want them, they have to make an investment in themselves." Another approach: Train your own Miller, at Darco, believes that companies can train their own employees and fill higher-tech jobs by moving workers up the ladder. At Darco everyone who comes in starts at the bottom, Miller said. If they have training, experience and desire, they are likely to rise faster. "We automatically start a new person with a seasoned person on Day One," she said. "They're learning in real time. They're helping produce. It's very efficient. In times when were under a lot of pressure, there may not be that much time for learning, but they are building muscle memory." Miller said not all college programs are equipped to teach the specialized tasks that are needed by small and medium-sized manufactures. The benefit of on-the-job training is manufacturers are grooming workers for their specific methods, she said. "It does take a long time to train an experienced employee, but it's worth it," she said. MACNY offers apprenticeship program Not all manufacturers believe they have the time to train their own employees and when a seasoned employee retires he retires with his knowledge, said Wolken, of MACNY. This is why MACNY has created an apprentice program to help member businesses with their training needs. Thirty manufactures have signed up for the program that starts this year. Wolken said many local manufacturers have some of the same needs when it comes to training and learning, and those needs can be combined in the classroom. Apprentices learn the company's specialized skills with on-the-job training. "This program, CCC, OCM BOCES and all of these programs are all trying to do the same thing," Wolken said. "We're trying to create an ecosystem of more skilled laborers." The Post-Standard | Syracuse.com is featuring a year-long initiative called CNY's Job Hunt to explore the Central New York job market. This series examines the ins and outs of our local job market, analyzes data and discusses topics that affect job seekers and employers. HUNTER, NY -- If you're looking for a mirror that reflects the enormous surge in the number of breweries operating in New York state, look no further than the annual TAP New York beer and food fest. This year's TAP New York fest, April 29-30 at the Hunter Mountain ski resort in the Catskills, expects to host more than 135 different breweries, pouring more than 400 different beers. That would be a new record for the event -- and it's almost half the roughly 300 breweries now operating in New York. As recently as 2012, the fest boasted a then-record 50 breweries. "Every year, there are more breweries in New York, and so every year there are more at TAP," said Bill Woodring, one of the co-founders of the fest. This is TAP's 20th year. It started in 1998 as the Hudson Valley Beer and Food Festival, and was held at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park with just nine brewers. It moved to Hunter Mountain in 2000 (with about 25 breweries) and in 2001 changed its name to TAP New York. That's when it became a true statewide event, with brewers from Long Island to Buffalo. It hosted 117 brewers in 2016. Along the way, TAP New York has grown from using one or two rooms at the resort to taking up just about all its indoor space and a bunch of outdoor tents, too. The surge in the number of New York breweries took off in a big way following the passage of the 2012 Farm Brewery law, which cuts fees and eases regulations for brewers who use New York-grown and produced ingredients. The number of breweries has tripled since then, though many are very small. Woodring, who watched a surge and then collapse in the number of New York breweries in the late 1990s, thinks the current wave is stronger. "This new crew, the farm brewers, they understand who they are," he said, noting that most of them "have no desire" to make tons of beer or deal with big distribution channels. "They make the beer they want and they can sell every drop. That's the ultimate satisfaction in their business model. They know their limits." It also means makes going to an event like TAP New York attractive: "You'll see a lot of brewers whose beer you may have never tried unless you live in their neighborhood." This year's TAP NY has about 25 to 30 breweries participating for the first time, Woodring said. Among them: Industrial Arts Brewing of Garnerville; Thin Man Brewery of Buffalo; War Horse Brewing of Geneva; Equilibrium Brewing of Middletown; Willow Rock Brewing of Syracuse; Oval Craft Brewing of Plattsburgh and others. Each year, TAP New York also awards prizes to the top breweries and beers in both the Hudson Valley and the state as a whole. The 2016 brewery winners were Big Ditching Brewing Co. of Buffalo as best in the state and Crossroads Brewing of Athens as best in the Hudson Valley. In the individual best beer contest, there are two new categories, sour beers and barrel-aged beers, both of which wil lhave at least 20 entries, Woodring said. Don Cazentre writes about craft beer, wine, spirits and beverages for NYup.com, syracuse.com and The Post-Standard. Reach him at dcazentre@nyup.com, or follow him at NYup.com, on Twitter or Facebook. 2015-10-09-gw-mardones0214.JPG Syracuse band Hard Promises opens for Benny Mardones at the Palace Theater in Syracuse on Friday, October 9, 2015. (Gary Walts) Syracuse band Hard Promises opens for Benny Mardones at the Palace Theater in Syracuse on Friday, October 9, 2015. Syracuse, N.Y. -- Local classic rock band Hard Promises will perform its 5th annual Petty Fest at the Palace Theater on Saturday, April 29. What started as an intimate gathering of fellow Tom Petty fans at Dinosaur Bar-B-Que has grown into a large celebration, with an opening set from "Runnin' with the Pack: a Tribute to Bad Company." Hard Promises has been performing around Central New York for five years and has shared the stage with Cheap Trick, Loverboy, Lou Gramm, John Waite, Bret Michaels and Eddie Money. Three of the musicians in Hard Promises are part of the Hurricanes, Benny Mardones's backing band. From "Refugee" to "Free Fallin,'" from "American Girl" to "Don't Come Around Here No More", the members will play many of Petty's hits in this two-hour set with special guests including: Robyn Stockdale and Bob Kane (Vinyl Albums Live) Joanna Jewett (Crystal Visions, Mix Tapes) and Maureen Henesey (Crystal Visions, Mere Mortals, Easy Ramblers) Michael Frisina and Ben Sumner (Simplelife) Todd Stiles (Country Swagg, Scars and Stripes) and Chad Mac (TJ Sacco) Scott Sterling (SAMMY Hall of Fame Inductee) Julia Goodwin Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and the music begins at 7:30 p.m. Pre-sale tickets ($10) can be purchased through CCtix.com or Ticketfly. Tickets will cost $15 at the door on the day of the show. The Palace Theater and 105.9 The Rebel sponsored this event. The real Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers will headline Mountain Jam 2017 and will bring their 40th-anniversary tour to CMAC on July 2. Katrina Tulloch writes music and culture stories for Syracuse.com and The Post-Standard. Contact her: Email | Twitter | Facebook Korean Register releases new KR-CON version IACS class society Korean Register (KR) has released its latest KR-CON software. The 15th edition of KR-CON has been developed in-house and offers a comprehensive electronic database program containing the latest IMO conventions, codes, resolutions and circulars, in either English, South Korean or Chinese. KR-CON users include shipping companies, shipyards, design houses, surveyors, and Port Control Inspectors, the software allows them to pull up the regulations relevant to any individual ship by simply inputting its details. It is easily accessed via the KR-CON website, on a USB stick and via a mobile app. This edition offers a new cloud function, which is claimed to be a significant enhancement, allowing users around the world quick and easy access to the most up-to-date information on the IMO convention database. The cloud function will be supported by new cloud network servers across six continents, including the US and Europe, which will be operational by mid- 2017. This edition also includes a new flag administration marine notice browser function. It provides users with full details of any relevant local rules and offers specific detailed information from the major flag states, including Panama, Liberia and the Marshall Islands. Lee Jeong-kie, KR Chairman and CEO, commented: We are proud to launch the 15th version of KR-CON, our latest version offers even better functionality and data access to its users. Equipped with cloud network support and the new flag administration marine notice browser, our customers around the world will be able to access KR-CONs database quickly and accurately to find the information they need. We will continue to develop our user- friendly software, with new functions based on users feedback to ensure that we meet all of our customers needs. The most recent amendments adopted at the 96th and 97th MSC, the 69th and 70th MEPC, SOLAS, MARPOL and IMDG Code are all included in this 15th edition. Long-haul trades to gain from oil demand forecast In the recently released International Energy Agency (IEA) medium-term outlook, the agency forecast global oil demand will rise from 96.6 mill barrels per day last year to 103.8 mill barrels per day by 2022. This demand growth will mainly come from non-OECD counties, as the forecast oil demand growth for these counties, according to the report, is expected to rise by 8.5 mill barrels per by 2022, while in contrast, OECD demand is expected to decline by 1.2 mill barrels per day over the same period, Gibson Research said analysing the report. More efficient oil use and the shift towards alternative energy sources are cited as part of the reasons behind the slower demand growth. So effectively, the bulk of future oil demand will continue to come from the Asia/Pacific region. IEA estimated that Asian crude demand will increase by around 5 mill barrels per day by 2022. Over the past few years, Asian crude producers have experienced a continual decline in domestic production, in part due to the low oil price environment (cheaper to buy on the international market), as well as depleting oil fields and lack of fresh investment. The latest analysis said that this situation is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. Research pointed towards further downwards pressure on Asian oil production, which is set to fall by more than 600,000 barrels per day by 2022, an equivalent of 1% of global oil demand. Half of this production decline is accounted for by the largest producer, China, but many fields are mature, drying up and extraction is becoming more expensive. According to the IEA, Chinese production has reached its lowest level in nearly a decade and shows no sign of recovering. The report predicted a drop to 3.7 mill barrels per day by 2022, compared with 4 mill barrels per day in 2016. The situation is the same for other Asian countries. By 2022, the IEA believed that in addition to Chinese losses, other Asian producers will see a 410,000 barrels per day drop in production with the biggest decline from Indonesia (falling by 125,000 barrels per day). Smaller losses are forecast for Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and India over the outlook period, but nevertheless adding to the picture. Of the Asian producers only Australian production is set to grow. This situation could provide support for the crude tanker market in the medium-term, in particular the VLCC sector. The IEA report claimed that not all the additional barrels will be met by Middle East producers, as more production will be absorbed by the local refiners. Consequently, barrels will have to be sourced from other regions including the US, Gibson said. Other developments in the Asian region include expanding refinery capacity, which will naturally require feedstock whether sourced domestically or otherwise. An illustration is the 200,000 barrels per day Vietnamese Nghi Son refinery expected to receive its first shipment of crude in May. Nghi Son is 35% owned by Kuwait Petroleum and will eventually produce 8.4 mill tonnes of product annually meeting around 40% of growing domestic demand. These developments will support long-haul crude trades but could impact on the short-haul Aframax market in north Asia, which are already being impacted by pipeline developments. In addition, new refinery developments may support the crude import sector but could compete with long haul product flows into the region. As the tanker market starts to feel the impact of the recent OPEC agreement, the industry continues to seek some good news to boost spirits, Gibson concluded. Markets - Asia dirty tanker market - a glimmer of hope At the beginning of the second quarter of this year, Asias crude tanker market finds itself flooded with a flurry of newbuilds that hit the water in the first quarter. According to Lloyds List Intelligence, new tonnage delivered hit 15 mill dwt in 1Q17 and is expected to reach 8.7 mill dwt in 2Q17. In addition, the gradual but steady unwinding of floating storage in global hotspots, due to a flattening Brent futures curve, is likely to release a constant stream of tonnage into the market, exacerbating the situation of oversupply, Ocean Freight Exchange (OFE) said in its weekly report. The negative impact of unusually heavy refinery turnarounds in Asia, as well as OPEC production cuts, seemed to have been offset by increased tonne/mile demand from a surge in long-haul shipments, which has put a floor under tanker spot rates. Around 2.6 mill barrels per day of Asian refining capacity is expected to be offline in April (up by 87% year-on-year), before easing to 2.1 mill barrels per day in May and 974,000 barrels per day in June. According to a Platts Survey, OPEC compliance has been robust, averaging 115% between January and March. Amidst such bearish factors, a recent spike in long-haul trades from the Americas has provided a much-needed boost to the Asian VLCC market. Around 27 VLCCs are heading to Asia in April, with not all cargoes confirmed. Of the 27 VLCCs, 11 are ex Caribs, seven ex-Brazil, three ex-Uruguay, three ex-USGC, two ex-Venezuela and the remaining one from Mexico, OFE said. While such arbitrage trades remain dependent on crude price spreads, Asian buyers are expected to continue turning to sources from afar to make up the supply shortfall from the OPEC production cuts. Some recovery in VLCC rates might be seen at the end of this quarter, as peak turnaround season comes to an end and a slowdown in newbuilding deliveries takes place. Lower cargo flows from Iran and Iraq are expected to add downwards pressure to the Suezmax market in 2Q17. Iraq has been steadily trimming its crude exports in accordance with its pledged production cuts. Iraqi crude exports averaged 3.33 mill barrels per day in 1Q17, down by 5.2% from Decembers record high of 3.5 mill barrels per day. While Iran is exempt from the OPEC output cuts, it has been grappling with raising crude exports due to sharp drawdowns of floating storage, as well as depleting mature oil fields according to Thomson Reuters Oil Research. A relatively weaker VLCC segment is also likely to put a lid on further growth in Suezmax rates, as it is currently around $3.67 per tonne cheaper to load cargoes on VLCCs, OFE said. The Asian Aframax segment may find some support from growing exports from Kozmino which are expected to expand by 10.2% from 1Q to 655,500 barrels per day in 2Q. With ADNOCs 127, 000 barrels per day RFCC unit at Ruwais out of commission until 1Q18 as reported by Reuters, increasing fuel oil flows out of the AG may lead to an incremental increase in demand for Aframaxes. In recent months, ADNOC has been exporting on average four to five Aframaxes of fuel oil from Ruwais per month since the shutdown of the RFCC unit, OFE concluded. In thecharter market, TEN has announced the delivery of Sola TS, the sixth in a series of nine Aframaxes from Daewoo Mangalia Heavy Industries built on the back of long term contracts to Norway's Statoil. In addition, the company announced the initiation of a new strategic alliance with a major US oil company for the chartering of a series of crude tankers, primarily VLCCs and Suezmaxes, for periods of up-to three years. "Following our tested policy of long term co-operation with significant international end users, we are proud to announce the initiation of a commercial relationship to further solidify the company's cash flows and earnings visibility," said George Saroglou, TEN COO. "Such industrial alliances, attracted by the company's operational experience over the years, assures the high utilisation rate of the fleet, at well above industry averages, while enhancing our commitment to our shareholders for long term attractive returns." Brokers reported that the 2017 and 2016-built Suezmaxes Pollegos and Milos had been fixed to Vitol for 12 months at $18,500 per day each. Undisclosed charterers were said to have fixed the 1998-built Suezmax La Mer for six months at $21,000 per day. The Aframax FPMC P Hero, built 2011, was believed taken by ST Shipping for 121 months at $15,500 per day, while the 2004-built LR1 Merkur O was reported fixed to Koch for six months at $13,250 per day. In the MR sector, Maersk Tankers was reported as fixing the 2011-built Miss Mariarosaria for 12 months, option another 12 months for $13,500 per day and $14,500 per day for the option period. Clearlake was believed to have fixed the 2010-built Alpine Liberty for 12 months AT $13,100 per day. In the newbuilding sector, Hyundai Merchant Marine (HMM) and Daewoo Shipbuilding (DSME) have signed a letter of intent (LoI) to build five, option five, VLCCs for a price thought to be around $79 - $80 mill each. A formal contract is expected to be signed by the end of July. Local South Korean sources have said that behind the deal is both HMMs and DSMEs largest shareholder - Korea Development Bank (KDB) - which has been providing financial support for both companies. However, HMM reportedly refuted that KDB was behind the order, saying that the decision was made via its Investment Deliberation Committee. The shipbuilding order was based on a Won2.6 trill ($2.3 bill) shipbuilding programme, which was created as part of the government's plan for South Koreas maritime industry competitiveness enhancement announced last October. Odfjell has followed up its letter of intent for two stainless steel chemical tankers at Hudong-Zhonghua with a firm order. The two vessels will be of 38,000 dwt each and both fitted with 40 tanks with a cargo capacity of about 45,000cu m. They will be designed for possible dual fuel operations. Odfjell said that the capital commitments will be about $116 mill. The first vessel will be delivered in June, 2020 and the following vessel three months later. CSSC was thought to have won an order for two LR1s from an affiliate for 2018-2019 deliveries. In the S&P market, a 1999-built Teekay Aframax, believed to be the Kanata Spirit was reported sold to undisclosed interests for $7.8 mill. The 2008-built MR Busa was said to have been sold to DSD Shipping for $17.3 mill, while the 2001-built Handysize Freja Maersk was believed sold to Indonesian interests for $8.5 mill. Reported leaving the fleet was the 1997-built LR1 Arietis committed to Bangladesh breakers. MISC in ECDIS type specific training MISC Berhad (MISC) has chosen eMaritime Group's ACAT online courses for the companys ECDIS type specific continuous personal development training solution. This agreement has enabled MISC to sign up their entire fleet whilst being able to monitor all students progress via an online portal on the three different ECDIS systems throughout the fleet - JRC 901, JRC 9201 and FURUNO FEA. ECDIS Annual Competency Assurance Training (ACAT) is based on the top 20 questions for inspectors and is a continuation of the ECDIS training courses and costs the equivalent of only 8 per officer based on average crew turnover and numbers. "We're delighted to sign up MISC to ECDIS ACAT. The courses will allow MISC crew members to stay current, refreshed and competency assured in the key elements of their navigation systems," said George Ward, project support, ECDIS Ltd. eMaritime Group was launched recently and includes ECDIS Ltd. It is claimed to be the world's first single website and app bringing together all the groups maritime discounts under one source. The website was developed in three years reflecting its diversity and range of choices; from cost effective on-line training to heavily discounted simulators and MCA approved STCW courses, on-line only distribution of cheap S57 ENC charts and a free social network for seafarers offering hundreds of jobs, regulations and the latest breaking news. The group website also publishes new videos, as well as relevant articles, press releases and white papers. In addition, the group has introduced a Beta Version for the world's first Live Constructive Simulation (LCS) maritime simulators. Life-like graphics and connecting live data from the shipping industry directly into the simulator create a fully immersive training environment, the group claimed. This next generation simulation will vastly increase not only training realism, but also safety, as artificially generated training scenarios are limited by the instructors imagination. However, injecting live real-time information into the scenario gives truly genuine situations by which to conduct training. eMaritime Group has worked closely with a 3D environment developer to ensure both realistic graphics and physics engine thus creating a natural environment for both the instructor and students. An additional feature with the new simulators is the energy and component saving benefits. Each simulator can be powered and controlled by one high-end PC rather than a entire server room currently required. This also means far simpler running, requiring less man-power and zero support to control a full mission bridge simulator. "It has been a long time in the making and is a complete rebuild of the way simulators work from the ground up. Live Constructive Simulation (LCS) is the next generation in maritime training and will revolutionise the current global maritime simulation market," claimed Neil Savage, LSC projects lead technician. Navios signs EGCS LoI Navios ShipManagement, part of the Navios Group, has issued a letter of intent (LoI) endorsing DuPont Clean Technologies as the preferred supplier of exhaust gas cleaning systems (EGCS) for its vessels. Under the LoI, Navios and DuPont Clean Technologies will carry out a joint feasibility study and techno-economic analysis of marine scrubbing units for retrofits or newbuild installations on a variety of vessels, including tankers. The planned feasibility study will examine the viability of fitting patented DuPont Marine Scrubbers on both retrofit and newbuild projects. Talks with Navios reached this point because both companies are focused on efficiently reducing emissions. With our technical capabilities and flexible, reliable exhaust gas cleaning systems, we are able to ensure that Navios maintains its emissions standards with full confidence, said Marco Dierico, DuPont Marine Scrubbers business development manager. Navios Group operates a fleet of 163 owned and long-term chartered-in vessels ranging from Capesize to Panamax, Ultra-Handymax and Handysize bulk carriers, container vessels and MR2, LR1 VLCC and chemical tanker vessels deployed worldwide. DuPont Clean Technologies specialises in the project management, process engineering, design, construction and commissioning of the DuPont exhaust gas cleaning system. OCIMF releases TMSA3 As highlighted in last weeks news, OCIMF released its 3rd edition of Tanker Management and Self Assessment (TMSA3) on Monday. The TMSA programme sets out 13 elements of management practice that are essential for the effective management of operation of vessels. Originally launched in 2004, TMSA has rapidly gained international credibility and is used across the industry, OCIMF claimed. As well as this printed guide, the TMSA programme includes an online tool for recording self assessment, plus a database for sharing reports, providing ship operators with an interactive platform to monitor and improve performance and attain high standards of safety. A useful complement to IMO conventions and codes, this 3rd edition has been comprehensively updated to reflect current legislation and emerging issues, and incorporates feedback from companies and users of previous TMSA editions, as well as providing guidance on OCIMFs view of industry best practice. TMSA3 Includes: Updated industry legislative requirements, including the Manila Amendments to the Maritime Labour Convention 2006, the Polar Code and the Ballast Water Management Convention. A new element 13 covering Maritime Security. Expanded best practice guidance to complement key performance indicators and remove ambiguity and duplication. Streamlining and merging of elements to improve consistency and make conducting the self assessment easier. Revised Environmental and Energy Management Element, which now incorporates the OCIMF Energy Efficiency and Fuel Management paper that was a supplement to TMSA2. TMSA3 will be available in the SIRE programme and the book is now available to purchase from Witherbys (www.witherbyseamanship.com). VesselMan joins Kongsbergs digital platform Kongsberg Digital has signed a partnership agreement to bring VesselMan into its digital ecosystem for the Kognifai platform. As a result, VesselMans applications for drydocking and repair management will now be added to Kognifai. There is a great difference between being a small Norwegian company on its own and being part of the global distribution platform that Kongsberg represents, said Stig Linna, VesselMan CEO. For us, it is very important to be part of a secure, scalable platform. As part of Kongsbergs digital platform, we can concentrate on our core business and let Kongsberg handle scalability, security issues and all the other important things that customers have to take into consideration with global, cloud-based solutions. VesselMan is the perfect match for both our ecosystem and Kognifai, our digital platform, said Jrn Seglem, senior vice president digital platform and analytics at Kongsberg Digital. One of the key aspects of our digital platform strategy is to bring innovation from third parties to our customers to enable them to optimise efficiency and break the cost curve. VesselMan will add new, valuable innovation and collaboration to our ecosystem, and their applications will go hand in hand with the segment of applications for the maritime industry on Kognifai. Matthew Duke, vice president digital platform at Kongsberg Digital pointed out that drydocking and retrofitting constituted a considerable part of the expense for a typical shipowner, and that any tool that can disrupt that and help both owners and shipyards with a more efficient process is very important. In Kongsberg, we believe that having an open digital platform and an open ecosystem is essential for the customers benefit, Duke added. VesselMans solution is an example of a product that we wanted to add to our digital platform because it can digitalise a difficult and paper-based process. Our platform will guarantee added support for the solution and make it available to many customers that we truly believe are going to benefit from using it. VesselMans cloud-based management system facilitates defined planning processes, remote process monitoring, and online information sharing, among other things. Customers can use it on top of their existing Kongsberg and other partners systems on the Kognifai platform. 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The Monroe Wal-Mart at 300 6th Ave. was remodeled to make the store easier to navigate while also adding new features like a modern electronics department, expanded ladies' intimates section and a streamlined Money Services counter with faster service, the company said. The two-day grand re-opening ceremony at the store will begin at 7:30 a.m. Friday. The event will include samples and giveaways for area residents on Saturday. Wal-Mart will also award five grants to local organizations Friday. The Monroe School District, Green County Food Pantry, Next Generation 4-H, Green County Health Department and Family Promise, an organization that helps homeless families, will each receive a check for $1,000. The Monroe Wal-Mart opened in 1985 and currently employs 262 people. Welcome, DISH customer! Please note that we cannot save your viewing history due to an arrangement with DISH. Watchlist and resume progress features have been disabled. ACCEPT Thank you for reading! Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue. The ability to run Android apps natively in a Linux desktop environment is a step closer to realization, thanks to Anbox, a new open source project. Simon Fels, who is the lead software engineer at Canonical, last week debuted a pre-alpha release of the Anbox platform, which he has been working on independently since 2015. It was born out of the idea of putting Android into a simple container based on LXC and bridging relevant parts over to the host operating system while not allowing any access to real hardware or user data, Fels wrote in an online post. There were quite a few problems to solve on the way to a working version, but the project is now at a point where hes ready to share it with a wider audience, he said. Pent-Up Interest? Anbox takes Linux namespaces such as user, network and cgroup to isolate the Android system from the host, Fels said. For Open GL ES support, Anbox takes code parts from the Android emulator implementation to serialize the command stream and send it to the host, he noted. It is mapped over existing Open GL or Open GL ES implementations. The source code is entirely open source, Fels added. Most features are licensed under the terms of the GPLv3, but a few are Apache 2.0., due to compatibility reasons. In its current pre-alpha state, crashes and instability are expected, he said, but the next phase will deal with those issues and add additional features to improve integration with the host operating system. There has been community interest in running Android apps on Linux systems for a long time, Fels told LinuxInsider. There have been several attempts, including Shashlik, but none of those earlier efforts were successful. With Google launching an initiative to bring its Play store to Chrome, he said, there is a really good opportunity to use changes like freeform mode, which was added in Android 7, or multimonitor support, which is coming in Android 8. Groups like UBports and the Sailfish OS community have been working toward using Anbox for delivery of Android applications on their mobile OSes, but Fels could not provide any specifics regarding those efforts. Anboxs Promise There may be potential for Anbox to succeed where other attempts have fallen short. By making it possible to run mobile apps on a PC, you get to tap that rich application ecosystem, noted Al Gillen, group vice president for software development and open source at IDC. This is in effect a virtualization and/or emulation system to provide an Android-like runtime environment for mobile apps, he told LinuxInsider. Anbox might help increase the size of the Android developer community, as the ability to create new apps will be easier, said Paul Teich, principal analyst at Tirias Research. However, it will displace current tools for app developers that dont need direct access to sensors, he pointed out. In this early phase, only input, audio and display interfaces are supported, as well as network access, so if developers need access to radios, accelerometers, cameras and other platform-specific hardware, for the time being they are better off staying with their current tools, Teich told LinuxInsider. The use of snaps and LXC containers is impressive, as they make running Anbox so fluid, he said. Anbox should be one of the easier options for building mobile apps once interfaces are implemented for the major classes of sensors, said Teich. Its unlikely that Anbox will be a game-changer from the standpoint of applications, however, said Peter Christy, research director at 451 Research. Android applications, I think, are intended to run on smartphones and I dont think many people use Linux in that kind of form factor, he told LinuxInsider. Running Android apps on Linux would not be as useful as enabling the apps to run in Windows or MacOS, Christy said, and even there the impact would be limited. Samsung on Wednesday said that Bixby Voice will not be operational when its Galaxy S8 and S8+ smartphones hit the market. Some Bixby features Vision, Home and Reminder will be active when the phones become available on April 21, Samsung said, but the Bixby Voice capability wont show up until later this spring. The delay may be due to a weakness in Bixbys English language chops, according to some reports. Its voice recognition in English apparently lags its Korean language capabilities substantially. That mismatch might be worrisome to Samsung, as it could cast its new artificial intelligence assistant in a negative light. Its also possible that Samsung wants to round up more third-party apps to support Bixby Voice before it makes its debut. Slow and Easy Wins the Race Whatever the reason underlying it, Samsungs decision to delay the feature likely is prudent. The S8 and S8+ are make-or-break products for Samsung to successfully rebound from BatteryGate, said Cliff Raskind, a research director at Strategy Analytics. The S8 offers a lot of industry firsts. Everything, including Bixby, has to be perfect on this rollout, he told TechNewsWorld. A launch date slip for Bixby would, in the final analysis, be more palatable than a sub-par experience. Voice recognition requires an immense orchestration of software and services, said Ramon Llamas, a research manager at IDC. Bixby is generation one, was built from the ground up by Samsung, and doesnt extend beyond its walls, he told TechNewsWorld. Im OK with their giving it a pass until its ready for prime time instead of ending up with egg on their face. Its important for Samsung to ensure that Bixby works correctly, noted Gerrit Schneemann, a senior analyst at IHS Markit. Samsung is already behind, and a sloppy launch would have a negative effect, he told TechNewsWorld, but a delayed start not so much. However, the longer Samsung delays in pushing out Bixby Voice, the more this will erode consumer confidence, IDCs Llamas cautioned. The S8 runs on Android Nougat, which has Google Assistant built in as standard. Google Assistant does a lot of things very well. More Than a Voice Bixby is a contextual service, not just a voice assistant, and even if the Voice component isnt there yet, Bixby can still learn about you with Bixby Home and Bixby Vision, Llamas noted. Theres value in that, because Bixby has to build up a library of experiences in order to make the contextual connections. Bixby is very much a new wave of opportunity for Samsung, observed Jeff Orr, a senior practice director at ABI Research. Its not a point solution having a certain set of features and functionality for a particular audience at a particular price point, he told TechNewsWorld. The concept underlying Bixby is to make intelligent machines learn and adapt to humans, instead of having humans learn how machines interact with the world, explained Samsung EVP InJong Rhee, when announcing the new service last month. With Bixby, Samsung is positioned in the interaction layer which is used to engage with other services, noted IHS Markits Schneeman. If Samsungs successful with its execution and broadens Bixbys scope as announced, itll be an engagement tool for a broad range of devices, regardless of the operating system they run, he added. This concept of Bixby being able to interact with the environment around you just using your voice is a powerful thing that other brands havent even begun to articulate, ABIs Orr pointed out. Its very bold and a major undertaking. UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd on Sunday called for greater government access to encrypted content on mobile apps. Apps with end-to-end encryption, like Facebooks WhatsApp, should not be allowed to conceal terrorists communications from law enforcement, Rudd said in an appearance on The Andrew Marr Show, a BBC broadcast. There should be no place for terrorists to hide, she said. We need to make sure that organizations like WhatsApp and there are plenty of others like that dont provide a secret place for terrorists to communicate with each other. Khalid Masood, who killed four people outside the UKs parliament building last week before being shot dead, reportedly used WhatsApp a few minutes before going on his murder spree. On this situation, we need to make sure that our intelligence services have the ability to get into situations like encrypted WhatsApp, Rudd maintained. Backdoor Law in Place? Even though she supported end-to-end encryption as a cybersecurity measure, Rudd later said in an interview on Sky News, it was absurd to have terrorists talking on a formal platform and not have access to those conversations. We are horrified at the attack carried out in London and are cooperating with law enforcement as they continue their investigations, WhatsApp spokesperson Anne Yeh said in a statement provided to TechNewsWorld. During her appearance on Marrs show, Rudd disclosed that she would be meeting with Facebook and other technology companies on Thursday to discuss ways to meet the information needs of security officers. She did not rule out new legislation to regulate encrypted messaging if the government and the tech companies were unable to reach an accord. However, that law may already exist. The UK last year adopted the Investigatory Powers Act, which compels tech companies to provide a technical capability to remove electronic protection within their products. That law has been interpreted in some quarters to mean that tech companies can be compelled to install backdoors into their products in order to decrypt data when necessary. A backdoor would not have helped prevent Masoods attack, however. To use a backdoor, you have to identify somebody as a target and hack them, explained Matthew Green, a computer science professor specializing in cryptography at Johns Hopkins University. With this terrorist, they identified this person and decided he wasnt a threat and stopped monitoring him, he told TechNewsWorld. Nothing is going to help once you look at a guy then look away. No Door Secure Enough Backdoors have been criticized as a means to meet the information needs of law enforcement because they undermine the purpose of encryption. Many technologists and even many in law enforcement have acknowledged theres no secure backdoor, said Chris Calabrese, vice president for policy at the Center for Democracy & Technology. You simply cannot build a door that only the good guys can walk through, he told TechNewsWorld. If you start building backdoors, they will be exploited by hackers; they will be exploited by terrorists. Tech companies have been skeptical of creating backdoors to break the encryption used by their products and then turning over the keys to law enforcement. Another idea floated is that the companies should create the backdoors but retain control of the keys to prevent abuse. That wont work. The systems are too complicated and the backdoors too difficult to keep secure, Calabrese said. Companies dont want to have to worry about their employees misusing these keys, and they dont want to have to secure them, said Johns Hopkins Green. Application Hopping Even if backdoors were installed in applications like WhatsApp, they most likely would miss their mark assuming that mark is to prevent terrorists from communicating securely. If the bad guys feel that this application has been compromised by government officials and backdoors become available, this leads to a simple response by the bad guys use a different application, explained Paul Calatayud, CTO at FireMon. WhatsApp is a third-party application on a mobile device, he told TechNewsWorld. Nothing prevents the bad guys from moving to a lesser known third-party application. While WhatsApp cant crack the encrypted contents on the parliament killers phone, it still can provide authorities with information about the terrorists phone activity such as the time a message was sent, who it was sent to, and the physical location of the sender and recipient. It doesnt matter what this guy said before he did this thing, said Bruce Schneier, CTO of IBM Resilient. What matters is who it was, and WhatsApp doesnt protect that. Investigators can access all kinds of information without recourse to backdoors, he told TechNewsWorld, but that would require a real conversation about the problem, which you dont get from these people who grandstand after tragedies. JANESVILLE As a portion of a manifesto written by a Janesville felon who is the subject of a nationwide manhunt was made public Thursday, police eased their concern about threats toward area schools after they arrested another man for a gun incident near a school in which the fugitive had been a suspect. But Joseph Jakubowski, 32, who allegedly stole 18 guns, mailed a 161-page anti-government manifesto to President Donald Trump and others and then went into hiding, is still considered extremely dangerous and was urged to turn himself in before his adventure turns bloody. Nobody has been harmed yet and we think that is a great opportunity for him and his family to bring closure to this and to do the right thing, Janesville Police Chief David Moore said at a news conference Thursday. Local, state and federal authorities have been chasing close to 800 clues and leads but have no idea where Jakubowski is hiding, Moore said. We dont know if he is in the southern Wisconsin area or in places far, far away, Moore said. There was one bit of comforting news for many families, however, as Moore said initial fears that Jakubowski may be targeting schools appeared to be unfounded based on Wednesday nights arrest of a man in connection with an April 6 incident at Janesvilles Lincoln Elementary School. Witnesses saw a man stop his car to pick up a rifle from the schools terrace area and put it in the trunk of his car before driving away. We do not have any indication that he intended any harm to anyone with these guns, Moore said. It was just a theft. That incident occurred shortly after a person told Janesville police it was Jakubowski who burglarized Armageddon Supplies gun shop and that he heard Jakubowski make threatening statements about schools. The two incidents led police to alert schools in south-central Wisconsin and many closed or went into partial lockdowns. The arrest, coupled with little mention of schools in Jakubowskis manifesto, should give some comfort to our communities and certainly give comfort to our schools because they appear to be two separate incidents that unfortunately happened on the same day, Moore said. School officials were heartened to hear that police no longer believe schools are a target. We are very relieved that they arrested a different person connected to the gun being left outside Lincoln Elementary and picked up, Janesville School District Superintendent Karen Schulte said. Schulte said the district does not plan further cancellations or lockdowns when school resumes Monday after this weeks spring break, although security is always a concern. We want to make sure all questions are answered and concerns aired before we let the principals loose in their schools, she said. Rock County Sheriff Robert Spoden acknowledged that copies of Jakubowskis manifesto have surfaced recently but couldnt confirm that they were authentic. The manifesto, portions of which WTMJ-TV in Milwaukee said it obtained and posted on its website, appears not to target anyone in particular but rather rails against a system that the writer says is skewed toward protecting its own interests while making slaves of people like him. The screed targets government in general, contemporary society, mass marketing and the lie of currency, among other things. In it, he claims he had no choice but to steal the weapons because his felony record prohibited him from buying them legally another instance, he wrote, in which the system was oppressing him. Trump is the only person specifically mentioned in the manifesto and there was no specific threat made to him, according to Moore. Jakubowskis biggest gripes also didnt seem to focus on where he lived. There seems to be a larger federal concern. He talked about making systemic change and revolution. That seems to indicate that its something larger than a local issue, Moore said. But law enforcement has an increased presence of deputies at the Rock County Courthouse and local colleges at their request, Spoden said. Spoden said law enforcement wont release a copy of the manifesto any time in the near future and expressed surprise that Jakubowski didnt send copies to media outlets. Asked why more people didnt come forward to warn police about the manifesto after they received it, Spoden said that the length of the missive may have kept some from reading it. When you start reading it, to be candidly speaking, it rambles on, Spoden said, and it doesnt always make a lot of sense. Even though Jakubowski wrote in his manifesto that religion, as a whole, is bad and is used for financial gain and to keep people enslaved and alter their thinking, Spoden said Jakubowski doesnt make any specific threats to churches in it. But law enforcement will be visible around Rock County churches and places of worship this week and on Easter, he said. Go and worship as you usually do, Spoden said. We will ensure that people can worship in a peaceful manner and safely. Janesville police said Thursday night that Waukesha County authorities are investigating a threatening letter sent through the U.S. Postal Service indicating unspecified violence at churches in the Sussex area on Easter Sunday, The letter was purportedly sent by Jakubowski, but its authenticity is in question, police said. Moore said Jakubowski was researching some survivalist tactics before he went into hiding and owned some survivalist equipment. But he said he was unaware if Jakubowski took any of that equipment with him. Moore and Spoden said area lakes and rivers have been searched as well as abandoned or empty cottages and homes in the area where Jakubowski allegedly burglarized Armageddon Supplies and burned his car on April 4. Authorities continued to search new areas Thursday, they said. So far, none of Jakubowskis friends or family have been contacted by Jakubowski, according to Spoden. Right now we dont have the information or the evidence of anybody who is assisting him, he said. If you're rich enough to afford a trip with Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin spaceflight company, you should bear in mind that there are some dangers involving bodily functions while in the capsule: peeing, puking, and pooping. Speaking to the crowd at the 33rd annual Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Bezos warned passengers: "Go to the bathroom in advance." "The whole thing, from boarding until you're back on the ground, is probably 40 or 41 minutes. So you're going to be fine. You could dehydrate ever so slightly if you have a weak bladder." Although the flight itself will only last around 11 minutes, there's always the possibility some people could find the stress triggers an accidental bodily response. Mark Shelhamer, former chief scientist at NASA's human research program, told Gizmodo that anyone concerned about soiling themselves might want to copy what the Apollo astronauts did on the moon: wear diapers. "You can't be squeamish about body functions if you want to go to space," Shelhamer said. As for the stuff that could come out of the top end, Bezos says he isn't concerned about the risks of people vomiting. "[Space travelers] don't throw up right away," he explained. "We're not going to worry about it. It's a delayed effect, and this journey takes 10 or 11 minutes. So you're going to be fine." It seems Shelhamer disagrees with the Amazon CEO on this one. There have been cases of highly experienced pilots vomiting due to extreme motion sickness. Even if the New Shepard vehicle had a bathroom, the size of the capsule would mean it'd be minuscule and not offer much in the way of privacy. Maybe Bezos will change his mind and hand out free puke bags and incontinence pants with every $100,000 to $200,000 flight. California has been instrumental in the adoption of electric vehicles, offering prospective buyers various incentives to ensure their next ride won't require regular trips to the gas station. While the discounts have been successful (California accounts for roughly half of the country's EV sales), they won't run in perpetuation. Autoblog is reporting that the Golden State will begin charging a one-time registration fee of $100 for plug-in vehicles starting with the 2020 model year. It doesn't end there, however, as the state will also impose a $25 annual registration fee for vehicles with a market value of less than $5,000. Those with higher-end rides valued above $60,000 will see that fee climb to $175 a year. It's not that California hates electric vehicles and those that buy them; it simply comes down to basic economics. The EV fees are designed to help the state recoup tax revenue generated from the sale of gasoline. With fewer people buying gasoline, stations are obviously generating less revenue than before - money that is used to help pay for road repairs and other infrastructure improvements. California will be following the lead of Nebraska and Missouri which implemented $75 annual fees for plug-ins way back in 2011. Several other states have since done the same including Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Michigan, North Carolina, Virginia, Washington and Wyoming while half a dozen others have proposed similar bills. In most parts of the country, choices for broadband internet is pretty limited. Typically consumers have the local cable company (usually Charter or Comcast), AT&T U-verse, or one of the slower dish networks. Occasionally you can happen across a city that has its own broadband service, and that is the case in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Chattanooga has its own fiber optic infrastructure and the company that provides service through the fiber, EPB, offers 100 Mbps, 1Gbps, and 10Gbps plans for $58, $70, and $300 respectively. As a comparison, Comcast Xfinity offers customers 10-250 Mbps plans in most areas for rates starting at $30 and going as high as $90. Comcast's 100 Mbps service is about the same price as EPB's, but for the $70 you would pay for Chattanooga's one gig line, you could only get 200 Mbps from Xfinity. So, Chattanooga has very fast broadband at competitive prices, but according to Motherboard, the rural areas on the outskirts are stuck with satellite, dial-up, or no internet service at all. Chattanooga was prepared to rectify this situation by expanding and building its fiber optic lines into outlying areas. Chattanooga's EPB is government owned, but the company is fully self-sufficient. It was willing to bring high-speed internet to the neighboring countryside at no cost to the taxpayer. However, the Tennessee legislature passed a law a few years ago that makes it illegal for EPB to expand into the surrounding areas. The telecom industries lobbied for the law, and Chattanooga spent years trying to get it overturned. Many attempts were made to get the law repealed, including petitioning the FCC before Tennessee lawmakers finally introduced a bill that would allow EPB to expand. Rural Chattanooga residents were finally going to get decent internet coverage. However, in a move that Senator Janice Bowling describes as "crony capitalism," the legislators turned down the bill and enacted the "Tennessee Broadband Accessibility Act of 2017" instead. The TBAA will give $45 million in grants and tax breaks to companies like Comcast and AT&T to build inferior cable infrastructure or even worse, DSL to rural areas. To put it another way: Chattanooga taxpayers will first pay $45 million over the next three years to large corporations that will then turn around and charge them for inferior internet services, as opposed to getting faster internet from EPB for about the same subscription price, but without having to pay to build the infrastructure. "Tennessee will literally be paying AT&T to provide a service 1000 times slower than what Chattanooga could provide without subsidies," said Christopher Mitchell of the Community Broadband Networks Initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. Think about how many internet providers that you have in your area. Do you think your lack of options is by accident? Motherboard reports that the Tennessee legislature "has repeatedly bent over backwards for large ISPs." While this may seem to be a localized problem for Chattanooga, it can be applied across the country. Think about how many internet providers that you have in your area. Do you think your lack of options is by accident? As far as Senator Bowling is concerned, "What we have right now is not the free market, it's regulations protecting giant corporations, which is the exact definition of crony capitalism." Internet providers have long held customers between a rock and a hard place. Most of the time they overcharge for unreliable service with bloated bundles and poor customer service. They can get away with this not only because they have limited competition, but because lawmakers have their backs with restrictive regulatory demands. By all appearances, it will get worse before it gets better. More and more people are dumping providers' internet/TV bundles for on-demand streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and the upcoming YouTube TV. Look for big broadband providers to gouge consumers to make up for the losses. Top image by Softnetics, Body image by Vanderbilt University The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) revised its previous decision regarding prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing in men aged 55 to 69 with no symptoms or history of prostate cancer. The upgraded guidelines now state patients in this demographic should discuss the tests' potential benefits and side effects with their doctors and decide on their own accord whether to pursue this option or not. The adjusted proposal currently awaiting feedback from the public before it is finalized changes the former D rating, which discouraged screening, into a C, leaving the choice up to personal "values and preferences." However, the federal task force still advises against PSA testing in men older than 70. For this age group, the D rating is maintained because the potential benefits of routine screening continue to be outweighed by the side effects, shows the draft recommendation. PSA Screening Pros And Cons PSA screening is a commonly used blood test that measures the levels of a protein produced by the prostate gland. The problem is high levels of this protein may indicate in equal measure two conflicting outcomes: they can be construed as a sign of cancer but could also signal an infection or a benign enlargement of the prostate. The biggest shortcoming of the PSA test is that, although it can detect small prostate tumors in their incipient, most treatable stage, the screening doesn't distinguish dangerous malignant cancers from the ones that have small chances of progressing over time and becoming a health threat. The test, widely adopted for almost three decades, "misses as many prostate cancers as it finds", says Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society. Consequently, it has been associated with a high percentage of false alarms, putting patients with benign tumors at risk for aggressive treatments. Even if the test detects an actual malignancy, many prostate cancers grow so slowly that they never become life-threatening. In many situations, men faced with a positive result often undergo unnecessary biopsies or even radiation therapy and surgery for prostate removal, which can both cause urinary incontinence and long-term impotence. This explains why, in 2012, the panel issued an official statement recommending against PSA testing for all patients, irrespective of their age. What Happens After PSA Screening? According to the National Cancer Institute, prostate cancer is one of the most common and deadly cancers among men. It is the second most widespread type of cancer in U.S. men, after skin cancer. Roughly 3 million American men are currently living with prostate cancer, with nearly 180,000 new cases were diagnosed in 2016. Moreover, prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related fatalities in men. A minimum of 26,000 patients succumb to the disease every year. But with no effective way to tell the dangerous prostate cancers from the harmless ones, most men undergo surgery or radiation after diagnosis. Another option of dealing with prostate cancer is active surveillance, which essentially means monitoring tumor growth rates to see whether they become alarming or not. A study published last year concluded that all three cancer treatments are equally effective, revealing the survival rate for early stage prostate cancer is 99 percent after 10 years, regardless of whether the patient has opted for surgery, radiation, or active monitoring. The only difference between the three alternatives resides in the quality of life outcomes procedure, side effects, and how they impact the life of cancer survivors. New Evidence Supports PSA Test's Benefits The USPSTF is basing its turnabout decision on the results of several studies performed in the last five years, which corroborate the advantages of PSA screening. One in particular the European Randomized Study of Screening for Prostate Cancer (ERSPC) discovered the test reduces the likelihood of developing advanced prostate cancer, as well as the risk of succumbing to the disease, by approximately 30 percent and 20 percent respectively. "The new evidence allowed us to say that, on balance, we think now the benefits do outweigh the harms," says Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, USPSTF chairwoman and a professor at the University of California. In addition, the task force points out that the increasing prevalence of active surveillance minimizes the harms of screening. This is why the panel recommends that patients talk with their doctors and evaluate if PSA screening is the right choice for them. "This is not a recommendation that says men should go get screened. This is a complex decision. Some men will want to avoid the chance of dying of prostate cancer no matter what, while others, given the side effects, will not think the benefits are worth it," explained Bibbins-Domingo. Positive Reactions To The Guidelines Change The revised draft recommendation was met with approval by urologists and U.S. cancer associations. The American Cancer Society, for instance, also supports "shared decision-making" in which men and their doctors discuss the pros and cons. Dr. Brawley believes the new guidelines "would decrease confusion" about the screening procedure and what follows after a positive result. "Some men who are very concerned about prostate cancer will elect to be screened, and others who are less concerned will elect not to be screened; either decision should be supported," he said. The American Urological Association described the draft as "thoughtful and reasonable," mentioning its own guidelines are now in "direct alignment" with the USPSTF. However, the association doesn't agree men 70 and older should be advised against PSA screening, suggesting these patients could benefit from the test. At the same time, the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center states the guideline shift reflects the increased use of active surveillance for low-risk prostate cancer. "That's an antidote to overdiagnosis and overtreatment," said William Nelson, the center's director. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Nurses at a hospital in Denmark are being lauded for going above and beyond the call of duty and granting the final wish of a dying patient. The nurses at the Aarhus University Hospital, which is near Copenhagen, disregarded the rules to fulfill the last desire of 75-year-old patient Carsten Flemming Hansen. Hansen, who was admitted to the hospital last week, expressed the desire to smoke a cigarette and drink a glass of wine, before he breathed his last. Hansen's Last Wish Hansen was admitted to the hospital because of an aortic aneurysm, followed by internal bleeding in his stomach. Doctors at the Aarhus University Hospital declared Hansen was too sick to undergo a surgery. They told him that he had only a few days, possibly hours left to live. On hearing this, Hansen expressed his desire to nurse Rikke Kvist. He told her that he wanted to smoke a Green LA cigarette and drink a chilled glass of white wine, while enjoying the beautiful sunset from the balcony. How Was Hansen's Wish Fulfilled? Though smoking is banned at the hospital, the nurses decided to bend the rules to give Hansen his desired farewell. Given that he had a few hours to live, nurses and Hansen's family were in agreement that the fulfillment of the patient's desire was more important in such a situation, vis-a-vis the adherence to the rules for smoking. On Tuesday, April, 4, the nurses wheeled Hansen out to the balcony so that the 75-year-old could drink the chilled wine, smoke the cigarette, and watch the sunset one last time as he lay on the hospital bed. Hansen was surrounded by his loved ones as he sipped the wine. "It was a very cozy and relaxed atmosphere. Of course they were relatives also affected by the fact that he was going to die, and they were sad," said Kvist. Initially, the authorities at the Aarhus University Hospital were reluctant to share the picture of Hansen on social media. However, with the permission of the family members, the hospital authorities shared the image. In the poignant Facebook post, which has since gone viral, the hospital shared that Hansen passed away peacefully on Friday, April 7. The hospital shared he had a "dignified" death. Aarhus University Hospital's post of Hansen enjoying his last drink and smoke has garnered over 72 thousand likes. It been shared more than four thousand times on Facebook. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. As the much-awaited April 21 release of the Samsung Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8+ inches closer, rumors are rife that some customers may get their hands on the devices a few days early. According to a message from T-Mobile, which was sent to a customer who preordered the Galaxy S8 smartphone from the carrier, the handset will be shipped a couple of days earlier than expected. T-Mobile Galaxy S8 Shipping Out Sooner Than Promised? According to a TmoNews report, a user received a message from T-Mobile which indicated that the handset would start shipping on April 19, two days prior to it hitting the U.S. shelves. The message also noted that the customer should expect their credit card to be charged soon for the relevant payment. "Get ready! The Samsung Galaxy S8 releases April 21st. We're packaging your T-Mobile [Order Number] so you might see applicable charges on your card. We will start shipping April 19 prior to its release," stated the message from T-Mobile. This news finally confirms what many people were expecting from the network operator. T-Mobile has a track record for early releases and routing rivals. In the past, the carrier has made available preordered devices to its customers days, sometimes even weeks before the product from rival carriers is shipped out. T-Mobile's History Of Early Releases When the Galaxy S7 launched, T-Mobile started to ship the device around a week prior to its official release date in 2016. More recently, the company started pre-sales for the LG G6 from March 24, almost two weeks before the official shipment date of April 7. However, this time round, T-Mobile has opted to ship the Galaxy S8 just two days prior to its nationwide release. This small window will not make much difference to many customers because in most cases the shipment will take at least two days to reach them. However, a user who has opted for overnight shipping will likely get the Galaxy S8 smartphone on April 20, a day prior to its release. This is a good opportunity for the carrier to maximize the preorders for its variant of the Galaxy S8. Following news of this early shipping, many consumers may be lured to pick up the handset from T-Mobile instead of other carriers. No other network operator apart from T-Mobile seems to have a pre-sales event for the upcoming Samsung devices, although Sprint customers who preordered the Galaxy S8 will get an eCertificate worth $100. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Burger King released an advertisement that was looking to take advantage of the growing popularity of Google Home, raising questions on whether the commercial was a clever marketing stunt or an invasion on the privacy of owners of the Google Assistant-powered device. Google has since responded to the advertisement, but users should now be even more wary on what companies and brands may do with the Google Home. Burger King Ad Activates Google Home The controversial advertisement starts with a Burger King employee, who reveals that the commercial will only last for 15 seconds. That amount of time, the employee says, is not long enough to explain all the ingredients of the fast food chain's trademark Whopper burger. The Burger King employee then leans forward and asks, "OK Google, what is the Whopper burger?" Viewers with a Google Home device located near their TV will then hear the Google Assistant activate with the OK Google wake words mentioned in the advertisement. The device will then read the first sentence on the Wikipedia page of Burger King's Whopper. Is The Burger King Ad Ingenious Or Annoying? The advertisement could be seen as a clever way to get the attention of viewers, as the 15-second clip will lead to more information regarding the Whopper beyond its allocated time. However, it is also being seen as an annoying one. The advertisement by Burger King is not the first video that hijacked the smart speakers of viewers, as a news report from a local TV station triggered orders for dollhouses across San Diego for Amazon Echo owners. However, the Burger King advertisement is the first commercial that deliberately takes advantage of a smart speaker in a wide-reaching campaign. Google Not Involved In Creation Of Burger King Ad The advertisement was not done in partnership with Google, which has disabled it from functioning the way that Burger King wants to just a few hours after the video was released. Google Home will no longer respond to the question being asked by the Burger King employee in the commercial, but will still do so when somebody else asks the same questions. Google likely blocked the specific sound clip from the advertisement from launching Google Assistant, similar to what it did for its own advertisements for Google Home. Google was quick to respond to the problem, similar to how it addressed the advertisements for Beauty and the Beast that Google Assistant started mentioning when a user asked what was in store ahead for their day. Google also said that it was not involved in getting the advertisements into Google Home. Advertisements Coming To Smart Speakers? Brands may be looking toward taking advantage of the increasing number of Google Home and other smart speakers in households. However, with the overly negative response against Burger King's attempt, hopefully the move will not be further considered by companies, and even Google itself, as another way to inject advertising into the daily lives of users. Google Home and smart speakers are supposed to make things easier for users and their families, but they will soon become major annoyances if they started spewing advertisements more often than helpful information. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Riley Hancey, was denied a life-saving lung transplant by the University of Utah Hospital, according to his family. The family claims that the hospital denied the transplant to the teen because they found traces of marijuana in the 19-year-old's system. Riley was admitted to the hospital after being diagnosed with severe pneumonia, which caused both his lungs to collapse. As a result, a double-lung transplant was required to save his life. Why Was The Teen Denied Treatment? Following Riley's complaints that he felt unwell, his father Mark Hancey, took him to a local clinic. It was discovered in an X-Ray of his lungs that Riley had signs of severe pneumonia. As a result, he was admitted at the University of Utah Hospital, where he was kept on the life support system for nearly 30 days. To save his life, an immediate lung transplant was needed. However, the authorities at the hospital denied the transplant, as Riley tested positive for THC, which is one of the major intoxicants in marijuana. "[The doctor] was willing to let him die over testing positive for marijuana. This is what shocked me," noted his father. The teen's father also stated that Riley seldom smoked pot, but had done marijuana with his friends on Thanksgiving. "It's not like he's a smoker for 30 years and (had) deteriorating lungs because of that," said his father to KSL. Though the hospital authorities gave the following statement to KSL. "We do not transplant organs in patients with active alcohol, tobacco or illicit drug use or dependencies until these issues are addressed, as these substances are contraindicated for a transplant," noted University of Utah Hospital. Riley's Progress After being denied treatment at the University of Utah Hospital, Riley's family members looked for hospitals throughout the country, which would treat their son. The University of Pennsylvania Hospital agreed to treat the teen and perform the double-lung transplant. Riley was taken to the hospital without wasting any further time. The hospital authorities at the University of Pennsylvania successfully conducted the lung transplant. Riley is currently being kept under observation. His father is quite relieved post the operation and shared that Riley would have to stay in the hospital for a year for further recovery. Some of the Utah teens created a page on YouCaring to raise funds for Riley's treatment. The case brings to light the apathy, which plagues some of the nation's hospitals. A person taking legal substances has the same right to seek medical treatment as those who do not. Riley may have been lucky to find an alternate hospital willing to perform the lung transplant. However, many others may not be so lucky. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Most likely a massive believer of a future that involves soft robotic spacecraft, artificial gravity devices, and technologies that could give science fiction a run for its money, NASA has funded 22 interstellar projects that could change the face of space science and exploration. The innovative concepts received money from the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts or NIAC program. Winning Projects: What Future Space Exploration Looks Like The program gives fellows the opportunity and funding to explore visionary aerospace concepts that we appraise and potentially fold into our early stage technology portfolio, said NASAs Space Technology Mission Doctorate associate administrator Steve Jurczyk in a statement, adding that NIAC seeks to engage researchers, scientific innovators, and agency civil servants in this initiative. NIAC Phase 1 grants were awarded to 15 of the 22 concepts and provided about $125,000 for nine months of initial definition and analysis work for each project. A Synthetic Biology Architecture to Detoxify and Enrich Mars Soil for Agriculture, an initiative by University of California Berkeleys Adam Arkin along with his team, seeks to harness bioengineered microbes on Earth in order to potentially give rise to crops on planet Mars. John Brophy, from NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory, aims to use potent lasers for illuminating solar panels on traveling spacecraft, which would make the vehicless ion-propulsion systems lighter, far more efficient, and therefore faster in its probe. So-called vacuum starships that do not depend on helium or hydrogen but instead keep an air-displacing interior vacuum could soon fly on Martian sky, if John-Paul Clarke of Georgia Institute of Technology succeeds in his Evacuated Airship for Mars Mission development. Other innovative concepts feature interstellar spacecraft solely powered via Mach effects, a Pluto-hopping space vehicle, a Turbolift system for inducing artificial gravity, and a tiny probe hovering above the surface of Martian moon Phobos, to name a few. NIAC Phase 2 Grants In Focus Seven more concepts, which previously received a Phase 1 grant, also received NIAC Phase 2 grants worth up to $500,000 for two more years of development. This years Phase 2 portfolio, according to NASA, comprises a wide range of concepts. The lineup involves a Venus probe harnessing in-situ power and propulsion for investigation the Venusian atmosphere, a high-powered laser for studying the composition of asteroids and other heavenly objects, and an ultra-robust rover that can win against harsh conditions on Venus, Mercury, and other planetary bodies. The hope is for the grantees to change the possible as what NIAC does best, according to program executive Jason Derleth. This Thursday, April 13 at 2 p.m. EDT, NASA is holding a major press briefing to reveal the latest results on ocean worlds in our solar system. At the mysterious event, the agency will reveal findings on its broader search for life beyond our planet, along with discoveries that could affect future exploration of ocean worlds. The announcement is tied to data from NASAs Cassini spacecraft and its Hubble Space Telescope. While held at the NASA headquarters, it will also involve experts positioned in different parts of the country. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Madison police are investigating a 25-year-old mans death at a Southwest Side residence that occurred about a month before a Madison couple were allegedly found overdosing on heroin while their three feces-covered young children were left unattended. Referrals for additional criminal charges are possible for Brittany K. Pearson, 31, and Will E. Weaver, 58, who already face drug possession and multiple child neglect charges for the April 1 incident in the 5000 block of Hammersley Road, Madison police spokeswoman Kimberly Alan said. On Wednesday, police executed a search warrant ordering examinations of Pearsons four children for evidence of any physical maltreatment, injuries or traces of toxins or drugs not prescribed by the childrens doctors, Alan said. Weeks earlier, around 9:30 p.m. on March 4, police were called to the couples rented house for a death investigation, according to Madison police records. Pearsons four children ages 7, 2, 1 and an infant were at the residence at the time of the mans death, which was from a drug overdose, according to the oldest childs father, Kenn Goldsby. He said police told him that his daughter alerted Weaver to the mans condition after she noticed he had a bloody nose. Neither Madison police nor the Dane County Medical Examiners Office would identify the dead man or confirm that he died from an overdose. Goldsby and Pearsons mother, Cynthia Pearson, questioned why the children werent removed from the house after police discovered the body. How is that possible? Goldsby said. I didnt find out about the dead body until after the overdose (involving Pearson and Weaver) happened. Goldsby said his daughter has been living with him, while Cynthia Pearson said her daughters three youngest children are in protective custody. Brittany Pearson and Weaver have been evicted from the Hammersley Road house, which they were renting at a reduced rate, because of the incidents and a failure to pay rent for months, said their landlord, Bob Keller. The couple moved in last summer after Keller responded to a letter from an advocacy group asking for landlords to find a place for a homeless family, Keller said. A criminal complaint filed in Dane County Circuit Court on April 3 described deplorable living conditions at the residence that included rooms smelling of human feces, some of which was observed on floors and walls. Entrances to the home were barricaded, and there was no food in the house suitable for children, the complaint said. The criminal complaint said that Cynthia Pearson, who discovered her daughter and Weaver overdosing and found the children, told police that the infant was covered head to toe in his own feces and the 2- and 1-year-old both had large amounts of fecal material around their buttocks and legs. The oldest child was staying with her father at the time. But Cynthia Pearson said police strongly exaggerated her descriptions of the children in the complaint. She said the infant had a dirty diaper and the other two children were wearing pajamas and were in good spirits when she arrived. Cynthia Pearson also claimed the house was in bad shape when her daughter moved in. She said her daughter was a functioning addict who took good care of her children and kept the house in good condition until the overdose. Keller said the house was in good condition when the family arrived and stayed that way until recently, when it was apparent that Pearson and Weaver were fighting addiction. It wasnt all bad, Keller said. At the beginning, (Weaver) had a good job and I thought things were going fairly well. My maintenance man said every time he had gone there he thought the place was clean. Cynthia Pearson said she had been pleading with county and local agencies to help her daughter and her grandchildren for at least a year but got little or no response. This is what I was trying to prevent from happening, before something got worse, she said. She expected Dane Countys Child Protective Services to step in and take the children out of the house after the man died there in March. You know how after there are so many accidents at a four-way intersection before they put up stoplights? she said. You would have thought that would have been it. But the county is limited in what it can do by state laws that hold that parents should be able to parent and government shouldnt interfere, Dane County Human Services Director Lynn Green said. We have very strict guidelines when we can legally intervene and what evidence we must have, Green said. Dane County offers many early intervention and prevention programs, but parents and families must agree to take part in them, Green said. If they dont want us in their lives we have to wait until something happens, she said. Cynthia Pearson said her daughter, who she said nearly died twice on April 1 but was revived by an overdose-countering drug and a shock to her heart, is open about her addiction and has been seeking help for years. She always has been told that she needs insurance or some money that she doesnt have, Cynthia Pearson said. Chinese Company Replaces Workers With Little Orange Bots | TechTree.com Chinese courier giant Shentong Express has cut down its reliance on humans by implementing bots. Built by Chinese company Hikvision, these tiny machines called "Little Orange" sort over 2 lakh packages per day. Since they lack common sense, a few workers are still required to feed them packages. By scanning the barcodes, these machines drop the packages in the right chutes placed under the floor. According to the These bots incredible accuracy when sorting stuff. You don't even have to worry about charging them, as they know when to return to the charging station for power nap. Unlike us humans, these Little Orange bots can work around the clock. They never complain about the work at all.Since they lack common sense, a few workers are still required to feed them packages. By scanning the barcodes, these machines drop the packages in the right chutes placed under the floor. According to the South China Morning Post , these robots helped Shentong cut cost by half. In the past, phone and laptop OEM Foxconn replaced 60,000 factory workers with robots. Makes us wonder how much of it makes sense in a country like China where labour is dirt cheap. TAGS: Robots Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are just a few examples of dozens of high-impact American entrepreneurs who have become household names. Yet, in our globalized twenty-first century economy, some of the worlds most inspiring entrepreneurs can be found beyond our borders. Three little-known entrepreneurs in particular are shaping the emerging regions of the world in countries where many American entrepreneurs see tremendous opportunity. So, it is important that todays emerging entrepreneurs learn about the business pioneers in these once remote corners of the world regions that recent technology has integrated into the same global economy that we all participate in. 1. Funke Opeke These days, some of the most impactful entrepreneurs alive are leaving their mark not only outside of the U.S. but well beyond the boundaries of the developed world. Among the most remarkable of these individuals is Funke Opeke, a former Verizon executive, educated at Columbia University, who returned to her native Nigeria after living in the U.S. for decades. Her executive position at Nitel, the countrys now defunct state-run telecommunications provider, was marred by the countrys inadequate infrastructure. Disappointed but determined, Opeke resigned from Nitel and raised over $200 million for her own company, Main One. The latter successfully established an underwater fiber-optic cable connection between Europe and Africa. By the end of 2010, West Africa, home to some of the worlds fastest-growing economies, had its first broadband connection thanks to Main One. In turn, this has paved the way for foreign e-commerce companies to make inroads into the region while also enabling more domestic high-tech entrepreneurship: Whats really fulfilling, Opeke told a Nigerian newspaper in 2014, is when I see companies like Konga.com and Jumia.com, and educational institutions with access to the Internet, working. Clearly, we have made a difference. The Entrepreneurial Takeaway: it is notable that Opeke was well into her forties when she left the telecommunications industry boardroom for the entrepreneurial life. The success of Main One demonstrates that, with enough vision and energy to see something through, one is never too old to establish something new. 2. Wang Chuanfu By some metrics, China is the worlds largest economy and, by others, it is the second largest. In either case, entrepreneurs throughout the world would be wise to keep an eye on the trailblazers of Chinese enterprise. Among the most impressive of these is Wang Chuanfu, the son of farmers who climbed the entrepreneurial ladder to become Chinas wealthiest person. In 1995, the 29-year-old chemist caught the entrepreneurial bug. Starting with the equivalent of $500,000 raised from family and friends, he left a steady job at a research institute to co-found BYD (Build Your Dream). BYD soon proved that sound engineering, coupled with low-cost labor, could produce cell phone batteries for a price that would extend the Chinese cell phone market beyond the elite to the countrys rapidly expanding middle class. Notably, BYD gained efficiencies by replacing the expensive automated factory with a lower-tech assembly method involving only one robot and six hundred people. By 2003, BYD had laid claim to almost half of the global mobile phone battery market and began making aggressive forays into the automotive industry, where it is now one of the largest manufacturers of electric vehicles. To illustrate, in recent years, both the City of London and Long Beach, California have made large purchases of electric buses from BYD. BYDs success in multiple industries attracted a $232 billion from Warren Buffetts Berkshire Hathaway in 2008. Today, Chuanfu, the man described by Berkshires Vice Chairman Charlie Munger as a combination of Thomas Edison and Jack Welch, is estimated to be worth roughly $5 billion. The Entrepreneurial Takeaway: Chuanfu did not so much invent something new as devise less expensive ways of producing existing products. Like many successful entrepreneurs, he did not reinvent the wheel. Instead, he came up with significant efficiency improvements and had the tenacity to bring those improvements to the market. 3. Marcos Galperin In 1999, a 28-year-old Argentinean was completing his MBA at Stanford and attending a guest lecture presented by John Muse, a private equity professional from Dallas. When Muse concluded his presentation, Marcos Galperin offered to drive him to the airport. Along the way, Galperin sold Muse on his vision for an eBay-like auction platform targeted squarely at the Latin American market. By the time they reached the airport, Galperins MercadoLibre had a commitment of seed capital from Hicks, Muse, Tate, & Furst. By May of 2000, the Buenos Aires-based technology startup had raised over $50 million from the likes of JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, General Electric, and Spains Banco Santander. Once the site went live, responding to the feedback of its users, Galperin shifted MercadoLibre from auctions to more of a fixed-priced model. Initially, MercadoLibre launched in Argentina and Mexico and MercadoLivre, a Portuguese version, in Brazil. Today, the brand is wildly popular in those countries as well as Venezuela, Colombia, Uruguay, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Panama, and Portugal. The company generates over $650 million in annual revenue and Galperins net worth currently exceeds $1 billion. The Entrepreneurial Takeaway: The story of MercadoLibre is one of boldness and focus. How many people would have been bold enough to offer to drive a guest lecturer to the airport and then pitch an idea along the way? On top of that, Galperin had a very clear vision of what he was building and what he intended to accomplish with it long before MercadoLibre ever went live. Opeke, Chuanfu, and Galperin all took the initiative to identify and address an important unmet need in their respective countries. These were all enormous challenges that few people have the energy and persistence to resolve successfully. That is why these entrepreneurs are just as inspirational as the iconic entrepreneurs that we all know. As Marcos Galperin likes to say, think big and execute! About the Author Joe Carlen is the co-founder of Value Guards, LLC and a practitioner of business valuation, patent valuation, and market assessment. He is the author of A Brief History of Entrepreneurship: The Pioneers, Profiteers, and Racketeers Who Shaped Our World. For more information, please visit, www.value-guards.com and connect with him on LinkedIn, www.linkedin.com/in/jcarlen Edited by Alicia Young University of Wisconsin System leaders are asking the Legislature to change how proposed new higher education funding in the next state budget would be distributed, saying the Board of Regents not lawmakers should write the rules for dividing that money among UW campuses. Their idea would be a major shift from Gov. Scott Walkers 2017-19 budget, which laid out a detailed plan for distributing $42.5 million in new funding for UW based on how campuses ranked against one another in a series of metrics meant to gauge their performance. System President Ray Cross and UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank said Thursday that letting the Board of Regents decide how to measure UW institutions would be more effective. The devil is in the details when you start trying to figure out how to tie the distribution of dollars to these metrics, Blank wrote in a blog post. To do this right without unforeseen and negative consequences requires some real thought and some knowledge of the UW System schools and how they operate. It remains to be seen, though, whether lawmakers will defer to UW on how to spend the proposed new money, or if they will look to keep strings attached to that funding. Walkers budget includes a plan that would measure universities on 18 performance criteria, including graduation rates, the number of degrees awarded in high-demand fields and how long it takes students to get a degree. The Regents would have limited authority they would write two of the performance measures, and would also determine how much each position in the rankings would be worth. Under a plan Cross described Thursday during testimony before the Assembly Committee on Colleges and Universities, the Regents would define all of the performance metrics based around general areas such as affordability and efficiency and decide how to distribute the $42.5 million in Walkers budget. Rather than giving campuses money based on how they rank against one another, Cross said, the Regents could measure UW schools against peer institutions or against their prior performance in that category, in an effort to reward both excellence and improvement. Those rules would be sent to the Legislature for review next spring, he said. Walker spokesman Tom Evenson said the governors plan lays out reasonable metrics to ensure students are getting what they expect. Because all of Wisconsin has an interest in the performance of public higher education, the metrics should be set independently from the UW System, Evenson said when asked about the proposal by Cross and Blank. Tailored approach sought Researchers who study so-called performance-based funding, also known as outcomes-based funding, have cautioned against using the same funding criteria to measure different types of universities. Cross and Blank echoed that concern. Since there is a wide range of UW institutions from the large, selective, research university in Madison to smaller comprehensive campuses they argued performance metrics should be tailored to the universities roles. We cannot promote or incentivize innovation well if we create a one-size-fits-all set of metrics, Cross told lawmakers. That would homogenize our System and the diversity of our institutions, and ultimately make them all look alike. Madison and Parkside will never be the same, nor should they. Cross said institutions should instead be able to choose which metrics they would be graded on, noting the Wisconsin Technical College System uses similar rules in its performance funding model. He acknowledged, however, that could open the door to universities only measuring themselves on criteria they know will make them look good, though he suggested the Regents could address that by making some categories mandatory. Thats something we have to work on and figure out, Cross said. Will Legislature support? A question from committee chairman Rep. David Murphy, R-Greenville, hinted at potential barriers the UW officials proposal might face. Murphy noted that the Board of Regents has always had the power to implement a performance-based funding system but hasnt so some might question whether lawmakers should rely on the board to do so now, he said. Theres a different approach within the board, and a sense of embracing this, Cross responded. We believe this is an area where we need to improve. Murphy said after the hearing that he is open to finding a compromise between the prescriptive plan in the governors budget and UWs call for greater authority. A performance funding plan could be passed off to the Regents with some guidelines from the Legislature, Murphy said. I think thats certainly a possible path, he said. Rep. Gary Hebl, D-Sun Prairie, said he supported letting UW leaders write the funding rules, since lawmakers would have a chance to review them. More broadly, though, Hebl questioned whether legislators should take such an active role in UWs rules given the declining funding for higher education in recent state budgets. The funding (UW gets) from the state is really a very small portion of what the cost is for university operations, he said, so the idea of us in the Legislature micromanaging the university system is something thats alien to me I dont like that idea. An Easter egg hunt held each spring at the Governors Mansion has been canceled because of threats to the security of Gov. Scott Walker and the public, according to an email sent Thursday afternoon from first lady Tonette Walker. The hunt was scheduled for 11 a.m. Saturday at the Walkers Maple Bluff home but was called off on Thursday due to a threat toward top government officials as law enforcement in the area and across the country continue to search for a Janesville man who allegedly stole a cache of guns and wrote an anti-government manifesto threatening public officials. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause due to the short notice, the Walkers wrote in an email from Tonette Walkers official email account. We are sad to miss what is one of our favorite events at the Executive Residence. Joseph Jakubowski, 32, has been missing since April 4 the day police say he stole the guns and mailed a 161-page letter to the White House threatening government officials. The FBI on Tuesday doubled its reward to $20,000 for information leading to the arrest of the fugitive in the nationwide manhunt. A criminal complaint filed in Rock County Circuit Court on Tuesday charges Jakubowski with burglary, felony theft and possession of burglary tools after he allegedly broke into Armageddon Supply in Janesville and stole 18 guns before setting his vehicle on fire. According to a portion of the alleged manifesto obtained by Milwaukee television station WTMJ-TV, the fugitive called for spilling the blood of government officials. Walker spokesman Tom Evenson said the hunt has been held for several decades and has been canceled one other time during Walkers tenure as governor because of snowy weather. The world's largest forest must be protected through a coordinated, efficient, and active process, President Nicolas Maduro stressed. | Read More The state will pay federal authorities nearly $7 million to resolve allegations that it violated federal law by making false claims about its food stamp program. The Department of Health Services has agreed to pay $6.99 million in federal penalties over allegations that it received monetary bonuses it was not entitled to because the agency falsely claimed it had a low rate of errors in administering the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), known as FoodShare in Wisconsin, according to Acting U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Andersons office. DHS spokeswoman Julie Lund said the agencys settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice relates to practices adopted by DHS in 2009 under former Gov. Jim Doyles administration, related to determining FoodShare eligibility, that were identified by staff as unallowable in 2011 after Gov. Scott Walker took office and changed soon after. DHS officials admitted as part of the federal settlement that beginning in 2008 the agency used a South Dakota-based consulting firm owned by Julie Osnes, a former South Dakota Social Services food stamp administrator, to review cases in which a person received or was denied benefits in error. At that time, DHS staff followed the guidance of a well-known and widely used consulting company, in an effort to reduce error rates, Lund said. In 2011, new leadership at DHS recognized the issues with the outcome-driven methods, and took steps to end these practices. DHS leadership explicitly disavowed the unallowable practices, and held remedial trainings to ensure staff use proper procedures, several years before the (Food and Nutrition Service) audit. Under Osnes advice, DHS officials discouraged food stamp beneficiaries from cooperating with information requests; selectively applied requirements and policies to overturn and reduce errors; asked food stamp beneficiaries leading questions to obtain desired answers to eliminate error potential; arbitrated differences with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which coordinates SNAP; scrutinized error cases with the goal of getting them dropped; and omitted information in documents sent to the USDA, according to Andersons office. The practices improperly decreased the agencys reported error rate and therefore the agency received performance bonuses for 2009, 2010 and 2011 that it did not earn honestly, according to Andersons office. The USDA pays bonuses to states that report low and improved error rates. Lund said the agency received about $6 million in bonuses each year between 2009 and 2011, but that the amount also reflects new practices adopted in 2011 that did not violate federal law. The agency also received a bonus in 2012, she said. The investigation was conducted by the USDA and Andersons office, prompted by a nationwide audit by the USDA. Lund said that, after identifying the problems in 2011, the agency replaced outdated equipment and made improvements to the FoodShare eligibility system using the money received from the federal government in bonuses. Wisconsin is the second state this month to pay millions in penalties over its administration of food stamps after using Osnes consulting firm. The Virginia Department of Social Services also agreed to pay about $7 million over similar allegations. Osnes did not respond to a Wisconsin State Journal request for comment. While I am deeply troubled that these actions happened within a state agency entrusted with assisting vulnerable and needy Wisconsin residents, I am heartened that WDHS has cleaned up its act and that it cooperated with our investigation, Anderson said in a statement. Heads up to prevent injury from falls Morning walks in my neighborhood are one of the most enjoyable parts of my day. I love the coolness of daybreak and the special sightings of the stag and two does that frequent our open space. I also enjoy my walk because each day at... Signs that point to the best time for retirement Ive been thinking a lot about retirement lately. One of our amazing staff members, who has been with Senior Concerns for the last 13 years, retired last month. It just doesnt seem real. I always thought of Dana as young. Certainly not the person to... Rethinking the mandatory retirement age How old is too old for working at a job? Last week a news story hit my inbox and it really got me to thinking about age and retirement. The article noted that Target Corp. abandoned its mandatory retirement age of 65 for its CEO,... Tips to promoting a healthy nights sleep for children Question: Help, please. My daughter is almost 2 years old and has been an easy child to put into her own bed. Yet in the past few weeks she is purposefully stretching out the bedtime routine longer and longer. She wants more: more stories, more... Purchases made via links on our site may earn us an affiliate commission Central Fire Chief Bill Porche, Deputy Chief Charles Mondrick and District Chief Derek Glover pose with Robin Peters of Firehouse Subs today after Firehouse Subs awarded Central Fire Department a public safety grant in the amount of $30,618.00 for a new truck. A Baton Rouge neighborhood plagued by gun violence was the scene of another shooting Thursday morning. A 26-year-old man was wounded in a shooting in the 2300 block of Jefferson Avenue, said Sgt. Don Coppola, a Baton Rouge police spokesman. The victim was transported to a hospital around 8:30 a.m. and he is expected to survive, Coppola said. That area has been plagued by gun violence in the last two years. Six people have been fatally shot in the blocks where North 23rd Street meets Jefferson Avenue, behind B's Seafood and Deli Convenience store in the Fairfields neighborhood. Coppola said there may be additional patrols in that area in the future. "Residents in the area may see an increase of marked, along with unmarked, police units patrolling the area," Coppola said. "We would like any resident with any information regarding criminal activity to contact Crime Stoppers at (225) 344-7867." Neighbors said Thursday's shooting followed an argument outside the victim's house around 7:45 a.m. Coppola said police have no information on the shooter. The victim, who lived with his girlfriend and helped to care for his stepson, was in surgery late Thursday morning for the gunshot wounds, said Terri Spars, 51, whose brother lives on the same block. She was taking her son to school when she saw police investigating the shooting. Spars said she often saw the victim sitting outside on his porch, and he was always friendly. "That boy doesn't ever mess with anyone," Spars said. She said he did a good job taking care of his stepson, who is in elementary school. But she worries about the violence in the neighborhood around her brother's house, where her 11-year-old son often walks after school. "It's dangerous," Spars said. "We need the church to come down here and save someone. It's getting bad." Her family was hoping to have a gathering for Easter at her brother's home, but she said she is reconsidering the location. "It isn't the people in the area, it is people coming through coming from somewhere else and having problems," Spars said. An Indianapolis-based charter school group which runs an elementary school in Baton Rouge is coming to the rescue of a larger but lower-performing charter school in town that, unless something changes soon, will close in May. The Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education is scheduled to consider a proposal at its April 18 meeting from GEO Prep Academy to take over Baton Rouge Charter Academy at Mid City. Large Baton Rouge charter school ordered to close in May A Florida-based for-profit charter management company that operates nine schools in Louisian In December, BESE voted to close Baton Rouge Charter Academy at the end of the current school year. In the process, it rejected a request by the schools operator, Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based Charter Schools USA, to extend its charter for another year. Charter schools are public schools run by private organization via charters, or contracts. Jada Lewis, the BESE representative for the area, said GEO Prep has a good track record and should be able to help advance Baton Rouge Charter academically. I really wanted to find a solution to keep these kids together, Lewis said. After BESEs rejection in December, Charter Schools USA sought to interest the East Baton Rouge Parish school system in taking over the schools charter. It looked like the schools nearly 700 students were going to have to find somewhere else to attend school next year. BR charter school appeals to EBR school system to avoid closing A low-performing charter school in Baton Rouge that the state has ordered to close in May ha Linda Johnson, president of GEO Preps board of directors, said she took notice at the December BESE meeting when she saw a room full of parents who didnt want their children to change schools. Johnson, a former BESE president herself, said she reached out in late January to Charter Schools USA. By late March, the two sides had worked out an agreement for GEO Prep to lease Baton Rouge Mid Charters campus in the former Remington College building at 1771 N. Lobdell Blvd. They have an extremely nice facility, Johnson said. Theyve invested a lot of time and energy in that building. GEO Prep will have some work to do. Baton Rouge Charter Academy in Mid-City, which opened in 2013 and offers grades kindergarten to eight, has never scored above an F letter grade. Its most recent school performance score is 38 on a 150-point scale. State policy calls for closing F-rated charter schools after their fourth year, unless BESE grants a reprieve. GEO Prep, by contrast, is in its second year of operation. It earned a C letter grade after its first year, based almost solely on how its 30 third graders performed on standardized tests. Its 77.2 school performance score is roughly double the score of Baton Rouge Charter. Charter school group buys building for school A national charter school group has purchased a school building off Greenwell Springs Road a GEO Prep has about 250 students in grades kindergarten to four at its 4006 Platt Drive school. It plans to add a grade each year, stopping at eighth grade. GEO Prep has long had plans to expand beyond Platt Drive. Its agreement with BESE allows it to open two more charter schools. GEO Prep is asking BESE to amend that agreement so Baton Rouge Charter can match that schools K-8 grade configuration and so it could educate 630 students, about 200 more than allowed by GEO Preps current agreement. Dana Peterson is set to present the item to BESE on behalf of the Louisiana Department of Education. Peterson was recently promoted to assistant state superintendent and serves as chief executive officer of the Baton Rouge Achievement Zone, a loose confederation of charter schools launched in 2012 that seeks to turn around public education in north Baton Rouge. GEO Prep is one of about a dozen schools in the zone. Peterson said he quickly saw the value of having GEO Prep take over Baton Rouge Charter. We started looking over their record over at GEO Prep and we thought it would be a good fit for that school, Peterson said. He also recently visited the GEO Prep campus and said he came away impressed with what he saw. GEO Prep is one of four schools across the country operated by GEO Foundation, a nonprofit group based in Indianapolis, Indiana. Charter Schools USA, based in Fort Lauderdale, is a for-profit educational company and is much larger. It manages 77 schools in seven states, serving more than 65,000 students. Nine of those schools are in Louisiana and three are in the metro Baton Rouge area. Messages left Wednesday with Charter Schools USA officials were not returned. GEO Prep's Johnson said it took some discussions to persuade Charter School USA leaders to let GEO Prep take over the school. Im not going to tell you that Charter Schools USA was interested in losing their school, she said. Johnson promised that, if approved, the Baton Rouge Charter would offer what GEO prep offers. That includes Core Knowledge, a knowledge-focused school curriculum that grew out of the writings of E.D. Hirsch Jr. Teachers also make use of the techniques popularized by Doug Lemov, managing director of the charter school group Uncommon Schools, in his 2010 book Teach Like A Champion. Finally, GEO Prep subscribes to the Teacher Advancement Program, or TAP, a whole school reform model developed by the Milken Family Foundation that is being used in a number of public schools in Louisiana. All of those things require training, Johnson said. Johnson said shes leaving personnel decisions to Sandra Douglas, our outstanding principal, who will be promoted to a supervisory position. (Douglas) is going to oversee both schools, Johnson said. Were looking to hire a principal for our Platt Drive school and our Mid City school. Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Partisan battles over nominees pose real danger for Supreme Court, chief justice says: Robert Barnes has this article in todays edition of The Washington Post. In todays edition of The Record of Troy, New York, Nicholas Buonanno has a front page article headlined Supreme Court Chief Justice speaks at RPI. In todays edition of The Times Union of Albany, New York, Bethany Bump has a front page article headlined At RPI, Chief Justice says high court isnt partisan; Roberts addresses issues ranging from diversity to transparency. Maria Espinosa of The Polytechnic, the student newspaper of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, reports that Chief justice of the United States visits RPI. And Cristian Farias of The Huffington Post has an article headlined Neil Gorsuch Is Neither Republican Nor Democrat, Says Chief Justice Roberts; The Supreme Courts chief really, really dislikes the confirmation process. Louisiana lawmakers on Wednesday aired their frustrations over the state's recovery from last year's historic floods and the aid that's being provided to its victims. Chief among their complaints: A federal rule that prohibits homeowners from receiving grant assistance if they took on Small Business Administration loans that they must now pay off, and questions about what is being done to prevent a similar disaster from happening in the future. "It's irresponsible to talk about rebuilding the community without talking about what we are going to do to prevent it from happening again," Rep. Valarie Hodges, a Denham Springs Republican whose own home flooded in August. "If we don't do something about this ... To me, it should be criminal." The House Select Committee on Homeland Security met for more than three hours to get an in-depth update on where the recovery stands. Louisiana has received nearly $1.7 billion in federal disaster recovery aid, the bulk of which will go toward helping homeowners rebuild. The state is in the process of setting up the homeowner assistance programs. The first construction work is expected to begin next month, said Pat Forbes, who is leading the recovery planning as the director of the Office of Community Development. Homeowners will have the option of using a state-selected contractor for repairs, choosing their own contractor or getting reimbursed for work that they've already done. The programs will be rolled out in phases, with the elderly and disabled in the first priority phase. But legislators said they are concerned about people who have already taken out SBA loans to repair their homes. Because of federal aid restrictions that treat the loans as disaster assistance, the loan amount would be deducted from any grant award those homeowners may otherwise receive. "A guy that has just retired just got on the hook for a 30 year loan and he could have qualified for something like this," said Rep. Lance Harris, R-Alexandria. "It's just sad in my opinion." Rep. Barry Ivey, R-Central, said he thinks the federal law should be changed to eliminate the quirk. "I think our congressmen need to start working on that," Ivey said. "It doesn't make any sense to me. It's just not right." Rep. Rogers Pope, another Denham Springs Republican whose home flooded, said he would rate the federal SBA assistance as "a colossal failure" following the flood. "I don't think there's anywhere on the alphabet that I could give SBA a grade," he said. "It's that low." The Wednesday hearing served as a general update from Gov. John Bel Edwards' administration on the flood response and recovery efforts. Louisiana launches initial flood aid application process for impacted homeowners Homeowners affected by the historic floods that swept Louisiana in March and August can now Several of the members spoke of their own experience of that of their constituents. Leaders estimate that at least 84,900 homes were impacted by the flood that swept south Louisiana in August and an earlier flood primarily in north Louisiana last spring. Edwards' administration is seeking an additional $2 billion in assistance from the federal government, nearly half of which would go to complete homeowner assistance programs. Forbes said that amount would need to be increased if the SBA rule were to change, to account for the additional availability of money for homeowners. The governor is also seeking federal aid to complete projects that experts say could help prevent future floods, including the Comite River Diversion Canal project. "This is going to happen again, if we don't do something about it," Hodges said. Sen. Bodi White, a Central Republican who chairs the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said he thinks that the state has been too slow in the recovery effort and should have a plan that kicks in when disasters happen, speeding up the process of seeking federal aid. "We should have a master plan, 'This is what we do,'" White said. "It's not like we don't have a disaster every year in this state." White and others questioned why the state only began taking basic information from flood-affected homeowners this week. "I feel like we could have been farther along with people in our database," White said. Forbes said that the state only received access to the federal money with HUD's final approval this week, and state leaders didn't know exactly when that would happen. An earlier intake process, he said, could have created confusion or frustration as people waited for an undetermined amount of time. You have permission to edit this article. Edit Close IEM, a North Carolina-based disaster management company, has for a second time been awarded the contract to oversee the state's $1.6 billion flood recovery plan, after previously winning and then being stripped of the contract in a botched bid process last month. Gov. John Bel Edwards announced the selection Thursday morning, adding that the controversial move to scrap the first bid award would ultimately save the state money. His spokesman Richard Carbo said the second round of bids had lower labor and total cost estimates than the initial round. However, no firm estimates were provided by Thursday afternoon about what the total cost to the state would be. A copy of IEM's latest bid proposal, provided to The Advocate, was heavily redacted and contained no labor rates. Carbo said negotiations with IEM are ongoing but the full contract would be available within the next two days. The contractor selection comes just three days after the funds appropriated by Congress were finally made available to the state. "It was our goal to hire a contractor that would provide quality work with rigorous oversight at the most cost savings for the people of Louisiana," Edwards said in a statement. "IEM has made that commitment to the state, and I am personally going to hold them to it. This is a difficult process, and sometimes takes longer than anyone, including me, would like, but I do believe it's important for us to get this right." Last month, the state voided a contract solicitation that yielded five bids to run the flood recovery program. IEM was initially selected as the contractor with a contract of $250 million, but was later disqualified after the State Licensing Board of Contractors ruled that IEM and two other companies did not have the proper licenses in place. The decision came under scrutiny, The Advocate reported, because the attorney who advised the state licensing board has a son who worked for the employers of the third-placed bidders. That company, SLS, did have the proper licenses. State officials said restarting the solicitation was necessary because of the widespread confusion over what licenses were required, and because the bids all came in higher than officials had estimated. The contractor selection snafu fueled intense criticism from some members of the state's Congressional delegation, such as U.S. Rep. Garrett Graves and U.S. Sen. John Kennedy. Graves has attacked Edwards in recent weeks, saying the state was left unprepared to administer the federal allocation because a contractor had not yet been selected. The $1.6 billion Congressional appropriation to Louisiana's flood victims was made available to the state on Monday. The state is still surveying victims for eligibility, and those interested in participating in the program can complete a survey at restore.la.gov. Edwards' team has been adamant that the state's timeline for recovery has been unaffected by the process of selecting a contractor. Robert Bruno, an attorney for IEM said their team is ready to hit the ground running. "We were ready to start work a month ago," Bruno said. "We're ready to roll and we understand the staffing needs. We understand every aspect of the procedure. We really feel like our main goal is to get people back in their houses." IEM filed suit last month after the contract award was revoked, challenging the licensing board's decision. Bruno said he expects that lawsuit will be dropped. Tim Barfield, a manager with PDRM, the company which filed the complaint about IEM's licensing in the first round, declined comment. IEM was founded in Baton Rouge, but later relocated. After Hurricane Sandy, IEM helped manage a $1 billion recovery housing program in New York, where it disbursed $100 million for reconstruction and repairs in the first two months. The company also worked as a subcontractor for Louisiana's Road Home Program after Hurricane Katrina. Facing a raft of civil lawsuits, Will Smith's convicted killer this week filed his own suit against the former Saints player's widow and another man his attorney has portrayed as the fatal incident's primary instigator. Cardell Hayes on Monday filed a lawsuit in Orleans Parish Civil District Court seeking damages from Racquel Smith, whom he wounded and whose husband he gunned down; Richard Hernandez; and their insurance companies. Racquel Smith and Hernandez had sued Hayes on Friday. Hernandez's wife and brother-in-law had filed similar suits against Hayes before that. Hayes' lawsuit claims the insurance companies, Hernandez and Racquel Smith as the manager of her late husband's estate owe him damages for assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Hayes' lawsuit offers a version of events that is similar to the one he asserted at the trial in December where he was found guilty of manslaughter and attempted manslaughter. According to Hayes' suit, after Will Smith had drinks at the French Quarter Festival, Barcadia and Sake Cafe on April 9, 2016, Smith drove Racquel Smith, Richard Hernandez and Hernandez's wife Rebecca Dooley in his Mercedes-Benz SUV down Magazine Street. Will Smith hit the back of Hayes' Hummer as Hayes slowed for traffic but then drove away without checking on whether he had caused any damage, the lawsuit alleges. Hayes' suit says he and a passenger followed the Mercedes in an effort to jot down its license plate number. Smith then "slammed" on his brakes on nearby Sophie Wright Place, and Hayes inadvertently rammed into the back of the Mercedes, the lawsuit says. The Mercedes was pushed into an Impala being driven by Dooley's brother, Jonathan Whipple. The lawsuit says Hernandez then took off his shirt and charged at Hayes while screaming profanities. The lawsuit also accuses Hernandez of wrapping a shiny object in his T-shirt and twice swinging unsuccessfully at Hayes. +2 Will Smith companion sues ex-Saint's widow, convicted killer for damages A member of Will Smith's group of friends on the night the former Saints player was slain la Meanwhile, Will Smith threw "his entire alcoholic beverage" at Hayes' face and punched him, according to the lawsuit. A toxicology test found the ex-Super Bowl champion's blood alcohol level was nearly three times the legal limit, the suit notes. The lawsuit doesn't mention that Hayes eventually fired a gun nine times after the angry confrontation. One bullet struck Racquel Smith in both legs. Will Smith died after being hit by eight rounds seven of them to his back. Hernandez soon hopped into a taxi and fled the scene by himself. Hayes was later charged with murder and attempted murder. At his trial he claimed he fired in self-defense. Prosecutors countered that the evidence recovered by investigators didn't support important aspects of his story. Jurors ultimately convicted Hayes of the lesser offenses of manslaughter and attempted manslaughter, though they acquitted him of a charge of criminal damage to property, pertaining to Smith's Mercedes. He faces between 20 and 60 years in prison when he is sentenced, tentatively scheduled for later this month. For most cases in Louisiana, there is a 12-month deadline to file a lawsuit seeking civil damages. But because the one-year anniversary of the shooting fell on a Sunday, attorney John Fuller said Hayes had until Monday to file his lawsuit. DA: N.O.'s lessened marijuana penalty is 'stupid' legislation; users, dealers will flock to city DA: New Orleans' lessened marijuana penalty is 'stupid' legislation; users, dealers will flock to city Effective management of expectations is fundamental to political success. It is counterproductive, if not fatal, to create expectations and then fail to deliver. This was certainly the defining aspect of Barack Obama's presidency. It is a principal reason for the collapse in Malcolm Turnbull's standing in the polls. However, as obvious as this may be, our politicians seem incapable of learning the lesson. They are all too anxious to grab an issue, raising the expectations that they can "solve it". Treasurer Scott Morrison is especially concerned about Australians such as teachers and nurses who we need to live in the cities they serve but who are having trouble keeping up. Credit:Jessica Hromas An excellent example is housing affordability. Gladys Berejiklian has sought to make it the hallmark of her premiership. Scott Morrison is happy to make it the focus of his budget this year. Yet, realistically, they can only hope, at best, to make a marginal improvement in the crisis, although admitting it as a crisis may allow them to do somewhat more than would otherwise have been the case. The housing stock is $6.5 trillion, nine million homes. Demand has consistently outstripped supply, so house prices in Sydney and Melbourne have run away to the point that many younger Australians can't afford to buy a home and also face a difficult rental market. Our job is not to sanitise what's going on in the world, but to inform, both about what's wonderful about our pale blue dot and also what's not. It was not an image that would have brightened readers' breakfast experience, but I encouraged her to do so. Last Friday morning our Saturday newspaper editor Margaret Easterbrook asked me what I thought of publishing on our front page this harrowing picture of a desperate Somali boy ravaged by hunger being weighed next to his distraught mother. I was at school when Bob Geldof turned the world's attention to the disastrous famine in Ethiopia in the mid-80s, while the extraordinary photograph of the dying young girl with a vulture standing a few metres behind her taken in Sudan in 1993 is an image I will never forget. As it turned out, we didn't publish the picture of the starving boy on the front of the paper because Donald Trump ordered the bombing of a Syrian military base. The bombing was an act that the Australian Prime Minister - and The Age - supported, but put the world on edge. Matt Wade's story about the crippling poverty and malnutrition in Somalia instead ran in our Insight pages and at the top of the homepage once interest in the Syrian bombing subsided a little. The situation in Somalia is critical after three years of drought, and none of the four African regions either in or on the verge of famine receive the attention they deserve or need. The Queensland government needs to "get competent" and submit a proper application for disaster relief funding for farmers and small businesses hit by Cyclone Debbie, acting Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce says. Tensions have escalated between the state and federal governments after the latter rejected a request for category C funding - which gives affected farmers access to payments of up to $25,000 - saying the application form did not include the correct information. Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has insisted the information was being gathered by officials, and Mr Joyce had previously assured her the funding would be given the green light. But Mr Joyce on Thursday accused the Premier and her deputy of acting like "smart alecs", and suggested they spent too much time giving "a thousand and one" press conferences instead of properly completing the critical paperwork. The former senior member of the Hawke and Keating Labor governments also called on the government to put "more bucks" into defence spending, potentially including nuclear-powered submarines, to be more self-reliant. Mr Evans labelled Mr Trump as "manifestly the most ill-informed, under-prepared, ethically challenged and psychologically ill-equipped president in US history". Former foreign minister Gareth Evans has launched a scathing attack on Donald Trump, urging Australia to reduce its dependence on the US alliance and accept China as a legitimate "global rule maker". "Less United States does not mean walking away from the alliance, from which we, of course, profoundly benefit in terms of access to intelligence and high-end armaments," Mr Evans, now Australian National University chancellor, said in the speech to the National Press Club on Thursday. Former foreign affairs minister Gareth Evans has some choice words for President Donald Trump. Credit:Evan Vucci "But less reflexive support for everything the US chooses to do is long overdue." Mr Evans said Australia's support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the immediate backing of last week's American missile strikes against Syria were examples where Australia had been too quick to back the US. "My own experience strongly suggests that periodically saying 'no' to the US when our national interests are manifestly different makes for a much healthier and [more] productive relationship, [rather] than one of craven dependence," Mr Evans said. Amazon's CEO, Jeff Bezos, recently overtook master investor Warren Buffett on the "richest person in the world" list, to now be second only to Bill Gates. To be fair to Buffett (not that he cares), he's slipped a few places because he's given billions away to charity. Regardless, Bezos' rise on the back of Amazon's astonishing and continued success is extraordinary. So, when reports surface that Amazon is apparently due in Australia by the end of next year, people take notice. Costco has grabbed a 1 per cent share of the grocery business. Credit:Michael Clayton Jones Humans notice the big, the new and the flashy. And while Amazon will undoubtedly make a splash when it arrives and thereafter one of the most significant challenges is already here, in the form of Costco. Yes, Aldi gets all the press in the grocery sector, and for good reason, but Woolies and Coles should, and I'm sure do, have their eyes firmly on the US-based warehouse store chain, Costco. Police searching for a 19-year-old woman who disappeared on a bushwalk in the Royal National Park have found a body at the base of a cliff on Thursday morning. Sydney woman Shazia Edah-Tally and her boyfriend set out on Wednesday along the track from Bundeena towards Wedding Cake Rock, a scenic and popular viewing point about four kilometres south along the cliff-top walking track. Ms Edah-Tally's boyfriend phoned police just before 5pm that day to say he had become separated from his girlfriend during the afternoon, and she had not returned to their nominated meeting point. Donations to the Cyclone Debbie appeal have come in at $2.8 million so far, a small drop in the ocean compared to the 2011 floods. Figures provided to Fairfax Media show only $2.8 million has been donated to charity since the appeal was promoted two weeks ago, starting with a $1 million donation from the Queensland government. Donations for the Cyclone Debbie and flooding appeal have reached $2.8 million. Credit:Jorge Branco GIVIT has provided 20,093 items to impacted communities and 28,931 items were available to be matched with needy people. But in 2011, more than $100 million was raised for the Premier's disaster relief appeal within six days of the Brisbane River peaking on January 13 - including $31 million from everyday Australians. It launched in December 2010. RACQ spokeswoman Lauren Richie said traffic had been building early on Thursday afternoon as holidaymakers made their way to the Gold Coast or the Sunshine Coast for the four-day weekend. "Traffic is going to be very slow, probably from this afternoon into tomorrow morning as people head off on their Easter long weekends," she said. Holiday traffic: the RACQ said people should pack their patience when heading north or south on the long weekend. Credit:Andy Zakeli "Everyone's got the same idea, we're already starting to see traffic build on the M1 on the Gold Coast. Beleaguered pastry chain Pie Face has been bought by petrol and convenience company United Petroleum. United announced on Thursday it had acquired the intellectual property and retail network of Pie Face for an undisclosed sum. Pie Face has been sold to United Petroleum. Credit:Justin McManus Founded in 2003 by former Wall Street banker Wayne Homschek and interior designer Betty Fong, Pie Face had taken on Australia, the US and Singapore. Store openings were planned for the Middle East, Japan, Korea and the Philippines. But its collapse in 2014 left a trail of destruction, with 20 stores closing and 130 part-time employees losing their jobs. Announced over a year ago, the HP Elite X3 took its time coming to market. It's an ambitious "three in one", a phone, laptop and desktop replacement, with enough power to accomplish most regular tasks in any configuration. As a phone, the Elite X3 is a beast of a device. It's a big, beautiful object, bearing the new (awesome) death metal HP logo. The company has lifted its design game over the past few years, and this product is one of the better looking devices on the market. The chrome encased screen comes in at just under 15cm, with a stunning 2k display, flanked by Bang and Olufsen speakers. Inside, the X3 comes with 64GB onboard storage and 4GB RAM, making it a powerhouse with no expense spared. There's a choice of fingerprint or iris scanner to keep data safe. A long time coming, but worth the wait. The Elite X3 can be bought with a desktop dock ($1199 as a starter kit). This provides power, an ethernet connection, display port adaptor and three USB ports, to morph the phone into a desktop workstation. And it doesn't just want to replace your desktop. The third leg in this three-in-one design is a laptop "dock". It's actually just a laptop shell: monitor, battery and keyboard. The brains of the unit is still inside the handset. You connect to the "laptop" wirelessly, or via USB-C. The wireless connection is solid, I was happily tapping away at the keyboard with the X3 tucked away in my bag. It makes for a good looking, svelte machine, with a comfortable keyboard. Battery drains pretty quickly when connected wirelessly, though, so I wish there was an easier way to lock the device into the shell. Beirut: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has broken his silence over a deadly chemical weapons attack that killed scores of civilians, describing it as a "fabrication" to justify American military action. In a combative Agence France-Presse interview subject to strict restrictions by the Syrian regime, Dr Assad dismissed photographs and video footage that moved President Donald Trump to launch retaliatory strikes on a Syrian air base. He insisted that his government would never use banned weapons. "Our impression is that the West, mainly the United States, is hand in glove with the terrorists," Dr Assad told the news agency. "They fabricated the whole story in order to have a pretext for the attack." The comments were Dr Assad's fullest since the April 4 chemical assault on the north-western town of Khan Sheikhoun. According to victims, rescue workers and monitoring groups, it took place shortly after 6am, killing more than 80 people and causing hundreds more to convulse, choke and foam at the mouth. NEW YORK April 12, 2017 -- Thewas declared theat a press conference hosted by the New York International Auto Show, Bridgestone Corporation, and Autoneum. This is the second consecutive World Green Car win for Toyota Motor Corporation. The Toyota Mirai won last year's World Green Car title. Jack Hollis, Group VP and General Manager of Toyota division commented, "It is a great honor to have both the Prius Prime and C-HR nominated for World Car of the Year awards. For global automakers like Toyota, consideration for this award is a testament to our focus on developing products that both stir the emotions and meet the mobility needs of our customers in all corners of the world." Toyota Motor Corporation is no stranger to the World Car Awards program now in its 13th year. The Toyota Prius previously earned "Top Three in the World" status in 2010 for both the World Green Car and the overall World Car of the Year categories. The Toyota GT86 was a "Top Three in the World" finalist for 2013 World Car of the Year; the Toyota iQ in 2009 for the same category and the Toyota Harrier Hybrid for 2006 World Green Car. The TOYOTA PRIUS PRIME was chosen from an initial entry list of 12 new vehicles from all over the world, then a short list of three finalists as announced in Geneva: the Chevrolet Bolt, the Tesla Model X and the Toyota Prius Prime. To be eligible for the 2017 World Green Car award, a vehicle had to be all-new, or substantially revised, in production and introduced for sale or lease to the public in quantities of at least 10 in at least one major market during the period beginning January 1, 2016 and ending May 31, 2017. Tailpipe emissions, fuel consumption, and use of a major advanced power plant technology (beyond engine componentry), aimed specifically at increasing the vehicle's environmental responsibility, were all taken into consideration. Vehicles in all award categories are selected and voted on by an international jury panel comprised of 75 top-level automotive journalists from 23 countries around the world. Each juror was appointed by the World Car Steering Committee on the basis of his or her expertise, experience, credibility, and influence. Each juror typically drives and evaluates new vehicles on a regular basis as part of their professional work. Through their respective outlets they collectively reach an audience of many millions world-wide. The international accounting firm KPMG tabulates the jurors' ballots. Previous World Green Car winners were: Toyota Mirai (2016), BMWi8 (2015) and the BMW i3 (2014), then the Tesla Model S (2013), the Mercedes-Benz S 250 CDI BlueEFFICIENCY (2012), the Chevrolet Volt (2011), the Volkswagen BlueMotion (2010), the Honda FCX Clarity (2009), the BMW 118d with Efficient Dynamics (2008), the Mercedes-Benz E320 Bluetec (2007) and the Honda Civic Hybrid (2006). The Road to World Car began in Paris on September 29, was followed by test-drives in Los Angeles in November, continued in Geneva with the Top Three in the World announcement, and finally ended today with the declaration of the winners in six categories at the New York International Auto Show. 2017 marks the 11th anniversary of the partnership between World Car and the New York show, and the fourth consecutive year that the World Car Awards have retained their ranking as the number one automotive awards program in the world in terms of media reach. The Global Trends Report, co-presented annually by Prime Research and Autoneum, was also released today.The report is the culmination of research and insights across the past six months. Autoneum CEO Martin Hirzel said, "The auto industry is in the midst of an upheaval that goes far beyond anything it has experienced in the past 100 years. Emerging industry trends such as autonomous driving, electric mobility and connected cars are changing not only vehicles and their technologies but also their concepts and forms. As the market leader in acoustic and thermal management for vehicles, Autoneum today already offers a large variety of multifunctional and lightweight technologies and components to meet the requirements of modern mobility. With our recently established "Competence Center for New Mobility" in Sunnyvale, California, Autoneum is taking a committed and active role in driving vehicle advancement by developing innovative technologies and components for all forms of mobility." World Car of the Year is more than just an awards program. The World Car community brings together a large cross section of experts and professionals from every segment of the automotive industry. World Car connects the global industry around the very best of today and inspires, with insights, the ideas and trends of tomorrow. Thus defining The Road Ahead platform shared with our presenting partners Bridgestone Corporation, Prime Research, Autoneum and, most recently, Brembo. "As the world's largest tire and rubber company, we are proud to partner with the World Car program for the 9th consecutive year," said Mike Martini, president, original equipment tire sales, U.S. and Canada, Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations. "This is an important forum for leaders in the automotive industry to celebrate achievements in innovation, performance and sustainability. As new mobility preferences emerge, we must continue to collaborate across our industry to deliver cutting-edge technology and world-class products that meet the needs of a changing global customer base." In a rapidly changing automotive world, Brembo is also focused firmly on the future and the vehicles it will bring to market. Brembo is committing significant resources to perfecting ever more sophisticated virtual simulation methodologies that includes the study of forms, materials, technologies and surface treatments able to meet the needs of the new-generation vehicles, with a particular focus on environmental impact aspects, which drives all of Brembo's development activities. As the global nature of the industry continues to strengthen, and the pace of innovation continues to accelerate, World Car is proud to be a part of this amazing journey along with the New York International Auto Show, Prime Research, Autoneum, Brembo, Bridgestone Corporation, KPMG and Newspress our official media partner. For additional information either visit our web site (www.wcoty.com). About World Car Awards Now in their 13th year, the annual World Car Awards are the number one awards program in the world for the fourth consecutive year based on Prime Research's 2016 media report. The awards were inaugurated in 2003, and officially launched in January 2004, to reflect the reality of the global marketplace, as well as to recognize and reward automotive excellence on an international scale. The awards are administered by a not-for-profit association, under the guidance of a Steering Committee: Peter Lyon (chair Japan), Jens Meiners (vice-chair Germany), Mike Rutherford (vice-chair UK), Tamara Warren (director USA), Siddarth Patankar (director India) and Gerry Malloy (director Canada and president, WCOTY Association) About the New York International Auto Show Owned and operated by the Greater New York Automobile Dealers Association, the New York Auto Show is an awesome combination of new ideas, technological innovation, exceptional concept cars and nearly 1,000 of the latest new cars and trucks. Over one million visitors are expected to visit the show this year to see what is truly possible from the automotive industry. Important 2017 Auto Show Dates Press Preview, April 12 & 13 (credentials required) Public Sneak Preview, Friday, April 14 Public Show Dates, Friday, April 14 Sunday, April 23, 2017 THE ROAD TO WORLD CAR: BEGAN IN PARIS SEPT. 29, 2016. ENDED IN NEW YORK APRIL 13, 2017. FOLLOW OUR 70+ INTERNATIONAL JURORS : wcoty.com #wcoty NEW YORK April 12, 2017 -- Thewas declared the 2017 World Car Design of the Year today at a press conference hosted by the New York International Auto Show, Bridgestone Corporation, and Autoneum. This is a second design award for Jaguar. The Jaguar F-Type previously won the World Car Design of the Year award in 2013. Ian Callum, Director of Design, Jaguar, said: "The F-PACE is our first ever SUV but it is clearly recognisable as a Jaguar and for it to win the 2017 World Car Design of the Year trophy vindicates our decision to bring our unique design principles and dynamic qualities to a new sector of the market." The World Car Design of the Year category, and the corresponding award, are meant to highlight new vehicles with innovation and style that push established boundaries. Candidates for the design award may be on the overall World Car of the Year list OR may be included as a stand-alone entry provided the vehicle is available in quantities of at least 10 in one major market during the period beginning January 1, 2016 and ending May 31, 2017. Candidates may be pre-production or all-new production. A design panel consisting of six highly respected world design experts was asked to first review each candidate, and then establish a short-list of recommendations for the jurors. The design experts were: Masatsugu Arimoto (Japan Freelance design journalist) Anne Asensio (Vice-President, Design - Dassault Systemes) Gernot Bracht (Germany Pforzheim Design School) Patrick le Quement (Designer and President of the Strategy Committee, Sustainable Design School) Sam Livingstone (U.K. - Car Design Research and Royal College of Art) Tom Matano (USA - School of Industrial Design at Academy of Art University in San Francisco) The experts commented that, "The design of the F-PACE is both sensuous and expressive. It maintains the visual link with recent models of the brand, whose expressive pitch has leant towards low road hugging proportions. It is a stand alone attraction when parked on the curb side next to any of its contemporaries." The 75 World Car Awards jurors then voted on the expert's recommendations in February and their ballots were tabulated by the international accounting firm KPMG. A short-list of three finalists was then announced earlier this month at the Geneva International Motor Show in March: the Jaguar F-PACE, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class Cabriolet and the Toyota C-HR Previous winners of the World Car Design of the Year award were the Mazda MX-5 (2016), the Citroen C4 Cactus (2015), the BMW i3 (2014), the Jaguar F-Type(2013) , the Range Rover Evoque (2012), the Aston Martin Rapide (2011), the Chevrolet Camaro (2010), the Fiat 500 (2009), the Audi R8 (2008), the Audi TT (2007) and the Citroen C4 (2006). The Road to World Car began in Paris on September 29, was followed by test-drives in Los Angeles in November, continued in Geneva with the Top Three in the World announcement, and finally ended today with the declaration of the winners in six categories at the New York International Auto Show. 2017 marks the 11th anniversary of the partnership between World Car and the New York show, and the fourth consecutive year that the World Car Awards have retained their ranking as the number one automotive awards program in the world in terms of media reach. The Global Trends Report, co-presented annually by Prime Research and Autoneum, was also released today. The report is the culmination of research and insights across the past six months. Autoneum CEO Martin Hirzel said, "The auto industry is in the midst of an upheaval that goes far beyond anything it has experienced in the past 100 years. Emerging industry trends such as autonomous driving, electric mobility and connected cars are changing not only vehicles and their technologies but also their concepts and forms. As the market leader in acoustic and thermal management for vehicles, Autoneum today already offers a large variety of multifunctional and lightweight technologies and components to meet the requirements of modern mobility. With our recently established "Competence Center for New Mobility" in Sunnyvale, California, Autoneum is taking a committed and active role in driving vehicle advancement by developing innovative technologies and components for all forms of mobility." World Car of the Year is more than just an awards program. The World Car community brings together a large cross section of experts and professionals from every segment of the automotive industry. World Car connects the global industry around the very best of today and inspires, with insights, the ideas and trends of tomorrow. Thus defining The Road Ahead platform shared with our presenting partners Bridgestone Corporation, Prime Research, Autoneum and, most recently, Brembo. "As the world's largest tire and rubber company, we are proud to partner with the World Car program for the 9th consecutive year," said Mike Martini, president, original equipment tire sales, U.S. and Canada, Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations. "This is an important forum for leaders in the automotive industry to celebrate achievements in innovation, performance and sustainability. As new mobility preferences emerge, we must continue to collaborate across our industry to deliver cutting-edge technology and world-class products that meet the needs of a changing global customer base." In a rapidly changing automotive world, Brembo is also focused firmly on the future and the vehicles it will bring to market. Brembo is committing significant resources to perfecting ever more sophisticated virtual simulation methodologies that includes the study of forms, materials, technologies and surface treatments able to meet the needs of the new-generation vehicles, with a particular focus on environmental impact aspects, which drives all of Brembo's development activities. As the global nature of the industry continues to strengthen, and the pace of innovation continues to accelerate, World Car is proud to be a part of this amazing journey along with the New York International Auto Show, Prime Research, Autoneum, Brembo, Bridgestone Corporation, KPMG and Newspress our official media partner. For additional information visit our web site (www.wcoty.com). About World Car Awards Now in their 13th year, the annual World Car Awards are the number one awards program in the world for the fourth consecutive year based on Prime Research's 2016 media report. The awards were inaugurated in 2003, and officially launched in January 2004, to reflect the reality of the global marketplace, as well as to recognize and reward automotive excellence on an international scale. The awards are administered by a not-for-profit association, under the guidance of a Steering Committee: Peter Lyon (chair Japan), Jens Meiners (vice-chair Germany), Mike Rutherford (vice-chair UK), Tamara Warren (director USA), Siddarth Patankar (director India) and Gerry Malloy (director Canada and president, WCOTY Association) About the New York International Auto Show Owned and operated by the Greater New York Automobile Dealers Association, the New York Auto Show is an awesome combination of new ideas, technological innovation, exceptional concept cars and nearly 1,000 of the latest new cars and trucks. Over one million visitors are expected to visit the show this year to see what is truly possible from the automotive industry. Important 2017 Auto Show Dates Press Preview, April 12 & 13(credentials required) Public Sneak Preview, Friday, April 14 Public Show Dates, Friday, April 14 Sunday, April 23, 2017 THE ROAD TO WORLD CAR: BEGAN IN PARIS SEPT. 29, 2016. ENDED IN NEW YORK APRIL 13, 2017. FOLLOW OUR 70+ INTERNATIONAL JURORS: wcoty.com #wcoty Mercedes-Benz - 2017 World Luxury Car NEW YORK - April 12, 2017: At a press conference hosted by the New York International Auto Show, Bridgestone Corporation, and Autoneum, the MERCEDES-BENZ E-CLASS was declared the 2017 World Luxury Car. This is the 3rd World Luxury Car win for Mercedes-Benz having captured today's title, plus two back-to-back titles in 2015 (Mercedes-Benz S-Coupe) and 2014 (Mercedes-Benz S-Class). Mercedes-Benz made history in 2015 with a triple win in three out of five categories: World Car of the Year (C-Class), World Luxury Car (S-Coupe) and the World Performance Car (AMG GT). The company has also won two World Green Car awards: 2012 (S 250 CDI BlueEFFICIENCY) and 2007 (Mercedes-Benz E320 Bluetec) in 2007. This year's winner was chosen from an initial entry list of nine prestigious cars from all over the world, then a short list of three finalists as announced in Geneva last month: the BMW 5 Series, the Mercedes-Benz E-Class, and the Volvo S90 / V90. Vehicles in all award categories are selected and voted on by an international jury panel comprised of 75 top-level automotive journalists from 23 countries around the world. Each juror was appointed by the World Car Steering Committee on the basis of his or her expertise, experience, credibility, and influence. Each juror typically drives and evaluates new vehicles on a regular basis as part of their professional work. Through their respective outlets they collectively reach an audience of many millions world-wide. The international accounting firm KPMG tabulates the jurors' ballots. Previous World Luxury Car winners were the BMW 7 Series (2016), the Mercedes-Benz S Coupe (2015) and the Mercedes-Benz S-Class (2014). The award was first created in 2014 to acknowledge higher-priced premium models selling in more limited numbers worldwide. The Road to World Car began in Paris on September 29, was followed by test-drives in Los Angeles in November, continued in Geneva with the Top Three in the World announcement, and finally ended today with the declaration of the winners in six categories at the New York International Auto Show. 2017 marks the 11th anniversary of the partnership between World Car and the New York show, and the fourth consecutive year that the World Car Awards have retained their ranking as the number one automotive awards program in the world in terms of media reach. The Global Trends Report, co-presented annually by Prime Research and Autoneum, was also released today.The report is the culmination of research and insights across the past six months. Autoneum CEO Martin Hirzel said, "The auto industry is in the midst of an upheaval that goes far beyond anything it has experienced in the past 100 years. Emerging industry trends such as autonomous driving, electric mobility and connected cars are changing not only vehicles and their technologies but also their concepts and forms. As the market leader in acoustic and thermal management for vehicles, Autoneum today already offers a large variety of multifunctional and lightweight technologies and components to meet the requirements of modern mobility. With our recently established "Competence Center for New Mobility" in Sunnyvale, California, Autoneum is taking a committed and active role in driving vehicle advancement by developing innovative technologies and components for all forms of mobility." World Car of the Year is more than just an awards program. The World Car community brings together a large cross section of experts and professionals from every segment of the automotive industry. World Car connects the global industry around the very best of today and inspires, with insights, the ideas and trends of tomorrow. Thus defining The Road Ahead platform shared with our presenting partners Bridgestone Corporation, Prime Research, Autoneum and, most recently, Brembo. "As the world's largest tire and rubber company, we are proud to partner with the World Car program for the 9th consecutive year," said Mike Martini, president, original equipment tire sales, U.S. and Canada, Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations. "This is an important forum for leaders in the automotive industry to celebrate achievements in innovation, performance and sustainability. As new mobility preferences emerge, we must continue to collaborate across our industry to deliver cutting-edge technology and world-class products that meet the needs of a changing global customer base." In a rapidly changing automotive world, Brembo is also focused firmly on the future and the vehicles it will bring to market. Brembo is committing significant resources to perfecting ever more sophisticated virtual simulation methodologies that includes the study of forms, materials, technologies and surface treatments able to meet the needs of the new-generation vehicles, with a particular focus on environmental impact aspects, which drives all of Brembo's development activities. As the global nature of the industry continues to strengthen, and the pace of innovation continues to accelerate, World Car is proud to be a part of this amazing journey along with the New York International Auto Show, Prime Research, Autoneum, Brembo, Bridgestone Corporation, KPMG and Newspress our official media partner. For additional information either visit our web site (www.wcoty.com). About World Car Awards Now in their 13th year, the annual World Car Awards are the number one awards program in the world for the fourth consecutive year based on Prime Research's 2016 media report. The awards were inaugurated in 2003, and officially launched in January 2004, to reflect the reality of the global marketplace, as well as to recognize and reward automotive excellence on an international scale. The awards are administered by a not-for-profit association, under the guidance of a Steering Committee: Peter Lyon (chair Japan), Jens Meiners (vice-chair Germany), Mike Rutherford (vice-chair UK), Tamara Warren (director USA), Siddarth Patankar (director India) and Gerry Malloy (director Canada and president, WCOTY Association) About the New York International Auto Show Owned and operated by the Greater New York Automobile Dealers Association, the New York Auto Show is an awesome combination of new ideas, technological innovation, exceptional concept cars and nearly 1,000 of the latest new cars and trucks. Over one million visitors are expected to visit the show this year to see what is truly possible from the automotive industry. Important 2017 Auto Show Dates Press Preview, April 12 & 13 (credentials required) Public Sneak Preview, Friday, April 14 Public Show Dates, Friday, April 14 Sunday, April 23, 2017 THE ROAD TO WORLD CAR: BEGAN IN PARIS SEPT. 29, 2016. ENDED IN NEW YORK APRIL 13, 2017. FOLLOW OUR 70+ INTERNATIONAL JURORS : wcoty.com #wcoty NEW YORK April 12, 2017 -- At a press conference hosted by the New York International Auto Show, Bridgestone Corporation, and Autoneum, thewas declared the inaugural winner of the 2017 World Urban Car award. "We are delighted and honored that the BMW i3 has been recognized as the World Urban Car," said Ludwig Willisch, Head of BMW Group Region Americas. "This award highlights BMW Group's commitment to sustainable mobility through BMW's first all-electric vehicle made primarily of carbon fiber. The design brief for the BMW i3 was to create a Mega City Vehicle for the cities of the future. Today, the new 2017 BMW i3 (94 Ah) provides more range paired with a high-level of dynamic performance, making it the perfect urban vehicle for people around the world." 2017 marks the first year for the World Urban Car award. World Car vice-chairman, Mike Rutherford, commented, "It's an award whose time has come. Everyday cars in many - perhaps most - parts of the world will have to become smaller if road and parking space is to be found for them in increasingly packed towns and cities whose populations are swelling annually. This year's winner in our inaugural World Urban Car category proves that these small vehicles don't have to be cheap, undesirable and unpleasant to drive. Quite the opposite. It is among the best value-for-money products on the market." This year's winner was chosen from an initial entry list of 7 cars from all over the world, then a short list of three finalists as announced in Geneva last month: the BMW i3 (94 Ah), the Citroen C3 and the Suzuki Ignis. Vehicles in all award categories are selected and voted on by an international jury panel comprised of 75 top-level automotive journalists from 23 countries around the world. Each juror was appointed by the World Car Steering Committee on the basis of his or her expertise, experience, credibility, and influence. Each juror typically drives and evaluates new vehicles on a regular basis as part of their professional work. Through their respective outlets they collectively reach an audience of many millions world-wide. The international accounting firm KPMG tabulates the jurors' ballots. The Road to World Car began in Paris on September 29, was followed by test-drives in Los Angeles in November, continued in Geneva with the Top Three in the World announcement, and finally ended today with the declaration of the winners in six categories at the New York International Auto Show. 2017 marks the 11th anniversary of the partnership between World Car and the New York show, and the fourth consecutive year that the World Car Awards have retained their ranking as the number one automotive awards program in the world in terms of media reach. The Global Trends Report, co-presented annually by Prime Research and Autoneum, was also released today.The report is the culmination of research and insights across the past six months. Autoneum CEO Martin Hirzel said, "The auto industry is in the midst of an upheaval that goes far beyond anything it has experienced in the past 100 years. Emerging industry trends such as autonomous driving, electric mobility and connected cars are changing not only vehicles and their technologies but also their concepts and forms. As the market leader in acoustic and thermal management for vehicles, Autoneum today already offers a large variety of multifunctional and lightweight technologies and components to meet the requirements of modern mobility. With our recently established "Competence Center for New Mobility" in Sunnyvale, California, Autoneum is taking a committed and active role in driving vehicle advancement by developing innovative technologies and components for all forms of mobility." World Car of the Year is more than just an awards program. The World Car community brings together a large cross section of experts and professionals from every segment of the automotive industry. World Car connects the global industry around the very best of today and inspires, with insights, the ideas and trends of tomorrow. Thus defining The Road Ahead platform shared with our presenting partners Bridgestone Corporation, Prime Research, Autoneum and, most recently, Brembo. "As the world's largest tire and rubber company, we are proud to partner with the World Car program for the 9th consecutive year," said Mike Martini, president, original equipment tire sales, U.S. and Canada, Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations. "This is an important forum for leaders in the automotive industry to celebrate achievements in innovation, performance and sustainability. As new mobility preferences emerge, we must continue to collaborate across our industry to deliver cutting-edge technology and world-class products that meet the needs of a changing global customer base." In a rapidly changing automotive world, Brembo is also focused firmly on the future and the vehicles it will bring to market. Brembo is committing significant resources to perfecting ever more sophisticated virtual simulation methodologies that includes the study of forms, materials, technologies and surface treatments able to meet the needs of the new-generation vehicles, with a particular focus on environmental impact aspects, which drives all of Brembo's development activities. As the global nature of the industry continues to strengthen, and the pace of innovation continues to accelerate, World Car is proud to be a part of this amazing journey along with the New York International Auto Show, Prime Research, Autoneum, Brembo, Bridgestone Corporation, KPMG and Newspress our official media partner. For additional information visit our web site (www.wcoty.com). About World Car Awards Now in their 13th year, the annual World Car Awards are the number one awards program in the world for the fourth consecutive year based on Prime Research's 2016 media report. The awards were inaugurated in 2003, and officially launched in January 2004, to reflect the reality of the global marketplace, as well as to recognize and reward automotive excellence on an international scale. The awards are administered by a not-for-profit association, under the guidance of a Steering Committee: Peter Lyon (chair Japan), Jens Meiners (vice-chair Germany), Mike Rutherford (vice-chair UK), Tamara Warren (director USA), Siddarth Patankar (director India) and Gerry Malloy (director Canada and president, WCOTY Association) About the New York International Auto Show Owned and operated by the Greater New York Automobile Dealers Association, the New York Auto Show is an awesome combination of new ideas, technological innovation, exceptional concept cars and nearly 1,000 of the latest new cars and trucks. Over one million visitors are expected to visit the show this year to see what is truly possible from the automotive industry. Important 2017 Auto Show Dates Press Preview, April 12 & 13 (credentials required) Public Sneak Preview, Friday, April 14 Public Show Dates, Friday, April 14 Sunday, April 23, 2017 THE ROAD TO WORLD CAR: BEGAN IN PARIS SEPT. 29, 2016. ENDED IN NEW YORK APRIL 13, 2017. FOLLOW OUR 70+ INTERNATIONAL JURORS : wcoty.com #wcoty 2017 Shanghai Motor Show: Citroen's SUV Offensive PARIS - April 13, 2017: Citroen confirms its worldwide offensive in the SUV segment with the presentation of two new models at the 2017 Shanghai Motor Show. C5 Aircross makes its global debut, alongside the C-Aircross Concept that previews the brands future compact SUV: C3 Aircross. These two new models represent a new generation of Citroen SUV focused on comfort. The Citroen brand also expresses its expertise in the sedan segment, which remains a key category in China. New C5, produced and marketed in China, has received a design and technology update for extra occupant well-being. The advanced CXPERIENCE Concept also makes its first appearance in China. This concept car features all the elements of the Citroen Advanced Comfort programme and previews future large Citroen models. China is a key market for Citroen. The brand sold more than 250,000 cars in the country in 2016, accounting for roughly one in five Citroen sales worldwide. Dongfeng Citroen is expanding its range with the world premiere of the New C5 Aircross SUV. Set for launch in China in the second half of 2017, this new model will subsequently see production and its commercial launch in Europe at the end of 2018. Alongside New C5 Aircross, the brand will showcase the C-Aircross Concept which previews Citroen's future compact SUV. Citroen can announce today that the production version will be called C3 Aircross. New C3 Aircross will be launched in Europe before the end of 2017. In China, these two new models will sit alongside the Citroen C3-XR, an SUV with an assertive personality and Dongfeng Citroen's second best-selling model in 2016, with nearly 150,000 units sold since launch in 2015. Dongfeng Citroen also boasts a complete range of sedans, including New C6, launched late in 2016 and C-Elysee, which was recently restyled and updated. More than 300,000 C-Elysee models have been sold since launch. Citroen is further strengthening its position in the sedan segment with the renewal of the C5 for China, which is a modern and prestigious model with benchmark comfort that is making its debut appearance on the motor show stand. City of Columbias Pet of the Week Meleas is a five-month-old pit bull puppy who is looking for a home to call her own. Meleas is happy to hang around with her humans, sunbath, snooze on a... For Dogs, its Trick and Treat Its almost Halloween, a great time to teach your dog a trick and give him a treat. Most trainers are fans of trick training. Its not as silly as it... After Tuesdays unforced Hitler error and then a series of clumsy corrections about Holocaust centers, Wednesday was full of calls for White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer to be fired. To be sure, the timing of his gaffe during Passover made it even worse, but Spicers sin was being in over his headnot some sort of deliberate maliciousness. Hes not even the first person to have bumbled into this trap. As I noted on CNN Tuesday night, Chris Matthews embroiled himself in a similar controversy back in 2013, when he said that even Hitler didnt use chemical weapons. In that case, it was primarily conservatives who corrected him. In this more recent instance, liberals have speculated that Spicers line was derived from reading articles in conservative outlets. Conservative media givesand conservative media takes. My guess is that both Spicer and Matthews were thinking about how Hitler (who had been the victim of mustard gas while fighting in World War I) did not employ these horrible weapons against the Allied forces in World War IIprobably because he feared retribution. Spicer ceded the ability to make that particular argument, however, when, in the process of explaining his remarks, he noted that Hitler was not using gas on his own people the same way that Assad is doing. Some critics took the phrase his own people as a Kinsley gaffe that inadvertently revealed a deep-seated and pernicious, if unexamined, worldviewone in which German Jews were not his his own people. Which is an interesting but terribly uncharitable theory. Nobody called Chris Matthews an anti-Semite for the stupid thing he said in 2013, and that same grace should be extended to Sean Spicer. I think the outrage over what Spicer said is at least partially a phony, ginned-up story meant to fuel the outrage machine that helps pay my salary. If Spicer wasnt dog whistling or accidentally exposing his soul, youre left with a story about a guy who said something stupid, and thenin a desperate and even pathetic attempt to stammer his way out of itkept compounding the problem. It is perversely fun to watch the video of Spicers original statement (trust me, Ive seen it many times), and a certain amount of schadenfreude is probably because of the uncharitable things he and his boss have said about the pressbut, at some point, you start to feel sorry for the guy. Yes, Spicer has made numerous gaffes during his short tenure as press secretaryones that have been compounded by his inability to earn the trust and confidence of the press corps. In recent days, he seemed to suggest that barrel bombs are a red line in Syria. And in an attempt to apologize for his Hitler remarks, he mistakenly told Wolf Blitzer that Trump was trying to destabilize the region. We dont need to invent Freudian reasons to explain his propensity for saying stupid things. To paraphrase Thank You for Smoking, Michael Jordan plays ball, Charles Manson kills people, and Sean Spicer spouts nonsense. One certainly could argue that Spicer is not suited for this jobthat hes in over his headand that his general incompetence is grounds for dismissal. If Donald Trump wants to fire Sean Spicer for the cumulative mistakes he has made, then thats his prerogative. But removing him for what was obviously a horrible mistakenot an act of maliciousnesswould be yet another mistake to add to this administrations ever-growing list. If the boss does decide to re-accomodate Spicer, dont expect it to happen anytime soon as this would be a tacit admission of Mr. Trump having made a mistake. Revenge is a dish best served coldand so are pink slips. While the rest of the world was off debating if women can have it all, Kelly Rowland went and did the damn thing. After reaching her girl group peak as one-third of Destinys Child, Rowland splintered off with a solo music career, television and film roles, and a host of side-projects ranging from philanthropic causes to her own makeup line. Now Ms. Kelly is adding author to her jam-packed Instagram bio with WHOA, BABY: A Guide for New Moms Who Feel Overwhelmed and Freaked Out (And Wonder What the #*@& Just Happened). Co-authored by her personal OB-GYN, Dr. Tristan Emily Bickman, Whoa, Baby is the every-womans guide to everything after What to Expect When Youre Expecting. For Rowland, who confesses that writing a book was never in my plan, its a gift to all the new mothers who also call their OB-GYNs at least eight times a day. Having never given birth or had an OB-GYN on speed dial, I can still honestly say that Kelly Rowland is exactly the sort of comforting presence I would want in my life postpartum. When we meet up in a hotel restaurant at the end of her New York book tour, Rowland is as friendly and forthright as her literary debut. Shes wearing a denim-on-denim ensemble with heels, and has the luminous, lightly enhanced skin of a self-professed product whore. Famous ever since she was a teenager, Rowland continuously struggles with the notion that whats normal to her is incomprehensible to others. Shes deeply amused when I ask if her son Titan has playdates with Beyonces daughter Blue Ivy, and says that its the question she gets most often, even from strangers. I literally have been asked that on the street! She laughs, explaining, Heres the thing, were genuinely like family, so how could you not see them together? Solange and B and Angie, were all sisters. Tina I call mom. Theyre my family, and I dont look at them as anything else. They just happen to be extraordinary women at what they do and everybody else takes notice, too. In other words, of course Titan and Blue Ivy hang out, and please dont stop Kelly Rowland on the street to ask her such an obvious question. Over tea with lots and lots of honey, Rowland tells me about motherhood, raising a black son in Trumps America, and the new music that shes working on. Shes predictably eloquent and astoundingly honestexcluding when she tells me that I too could totally pull off a Canadian tuxedo, which is an outright lie. Here is a condensed version of our conversation. So youre here promoting your new book, Whoa, Baby! How did that project come about, and what was the writing process like? I never thought to write a book. But after I had my son I was looking for a book to help me figure things outphysically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. All of it! There were so many changes and I was like, Nobody prepared me for this! And so I talked to my OB-GYN, and I was like, I just have so many questions now, I had none before! She said someone should write a book and I said, Oh, were gonna write that book. And so we did it together. And its such a great project, and I think what I love the most is the fact that I didnt want to do it by myself, and I didnt want to have just my experience in there either, I wanted to have the wisdom and knowledge of other doctors and professionals in their field, and thats what I got. And Im really excited about it. You talk about some pretty nitty-gritty body stuff in this book, like loose and floppy private parts, weight gain, and other physical changes. Why do you think its important to talk about formerly taboo subjects like sex, sexuality, and female bodiesnot just as a woman, but specifically as a mother? For so long so many people thought that women should just be quiet about certain things, or women thought that they should be quiet about certain things. Im still a lady, Im still a woman, I just happened to go through all these crazy, gory details after I had a child. And if Ive gone through it, then other women have gone through it. Thats the reason why I decided to be completely honest and forthcoming. Because people were not honest and forthcoming with me! And I was just stuck in the dark thinking, literally, whoa baby! Like, what just happened? Which physical changes were you must caught off guard by? Every physical change! Whether it was putting almost fifty pounds on to the color of my stomach turning the color of this little black tape recorder here. Seriously! I was literally two-toned! It was so many different physical changes, and the things that I was feeling emotionally, the ups and downs of hormones, everything. I didnt experience postpartum depression, but I met women who did, and we elaborate on that in that part of the book, and I just really wanted to be honest. I feel like in terms of celebrity coverage, theres this obsession with post-baby bodies. Youll see a star on the cover of a tabloid like four weeks after giving birth, wearing a bikini. That is just not fair. And whoever those women are, theyre freaks of nature. But Im happy for them! Teyana Taylor is one of them. I said to her when I met her, You know its not fair. Its just not fair. Your bodys just a freak of nature, and she was just like, Are you kidding me? Your body! and I said, Listen, no. It took a year to get this. But I think its important for all women to know that everybodys body is going to be different, and going to adjust differently. For some it may take a little longer. Right, and then in tension with all of the body image pressure is this stigma against plastic surgerybut youve been honest about getting a breast augmentation, and also possibly getting another one in the future. Im a very open bookno pun intended. I dont feel the need to hold things back, and I own them. And for me, Ive been very open about plastic surgery. Well one, I had no choice, shoot, the paparazzi got one picture and then they got a completely different other picture! But I did say in the book, whenever I decide to have another child and the life is sucked out of my bosoms again, then yes, I want them to be knocked back up! You recently Instagrammed a bikini picture as an homage to Kendrick Lamars Humble, where he talks about the beauty of stretch marks. I love that song! We already hadem, and there was nothing we could do to changeem. Some of us get stretch marks. They might not even come from babies; you might just have stretch marks. And I love the fact that he was just bringing light to it. Like please, show me that! I dont want to see anything else! And thats not to downplay any other woman whos possibly had plastic surgery and wanted her a plumper butt, thats her prerogative! But Im just so happy that he said, This is ok, ladies, dont shame yourselves and dont shame each other. It better win an MTV Video Music Award. It better! As not just a mother but a celebrity mother under constant scrutiny, are there any other moms you model yourself after? I dont know if I model myself after them, but I love how Jennifer Lopez, Beyonce, Scarlett Johansson, Kim Kardashianthey all have had these moments when they havent allowed anyone to take away their sexuality. And they look even better than they did before baby, and they still own their sexuality. Ill never forget being so inspired by B during her concert, I think it was when her and Jay were on tour together, and she had the most beautiful outfits on, and I was like, She doesnt have a child! She looks amazing! And I remember I was pregnant at the time watching her on stage, and that was so inspirational to me. I was like, Thats going to be me, Im going to get my body back and still own my sexuality. Because there are a lot of people who say after you have the baby you should just sit down. No. You should cover up. No. They try to put you in your place, and I dont own that. Thats their shit. So is there a camaraderie between all these celebrity moms? I dont know really J.Lo. But absolutely, its an admiration. Kim and I have met, we have the same mutual friends, and shes so sweet. And of course Bs my sister, so that one I have a front row seat to. Thats my sister. Do you have a plan to keep your son and any future children grounded and normal, when their mom is Kelly Rowland and theyre off having play dates with Blue Ivy and doing other extraordinary things? Well the thing is, they dont get on stage and sing. Not yet! Thats right, thats very true. But they dont get on stage. I heard that either Will Smith or his wife Jada, their kids asked them about something extraordinary and they said: No I go to work, thats my job. Youre not famous. And I thoughtfirst of all, I think that they have raised such extraordinary kids. If theres any mom that I look up to, its Jada. Jada is like the ultimate mother, and when you meet her mom, you see why. Her mom is just the coolest mom. I mean, we just try to keep things real and we always keep lines of communication open with Titan. So whenever he has questions, or hes looking at these photographers like why are they surrounding us, he doesnt even have to say anything, hes just looking, and I say, They want to take mommys picture. Or my husband will say, Theyre going to take mommys picture and were going to go over here. We just try to make it as normal as possible, whatever that means. I saw that you expressed support for the Womens March. Were you there? I was out of town, but I remember being so charged up that day. I think that there was something in the air that day that made women hold their heads up a little bit higher, and have a stronger spirit because we felt united, we felt like we were backing each other up. I remember I wrote a song about it, it inspired a song. Im still working that song out now. It was such a remarkable day, and Ill never forget it. I made sure my son watched itand he did, for a second. To him it just looked like little dots on TV, but my heart was full. Because that was a lot of women, and we were all on one mission. And I wish that we would unite like that on everything that we experience as women, as mothers. I do think that we should be more united, and we should always travel like that, it should always feel that heavy. Because there is power in numbers. And issues of motherhood and politics are so inextricably tied, which we might not talk about enough. People dont talk about it enough. I do think it goes hand in hand, and I think mothers go through a lot, and we worry about our children every single daytheres a lot going on out here, and we just really need to support each other, and not shame each other. Have you had personal experience with mom-on-mom shaming? I havent encountered it. Ive spoken to another mom who did. And I think Chrissy Teigen just experienced some mommy-shaming. Im like, come on ladies, we know better than that. Dont do that. No judgment, and no pointing of fingerswere figuring this shit out as we go, so no judgment. But going back to the Womens March, then theres the topic of Donald Trump, which we talk about constantly. Everybody else talks about it, and I dont think he deserves any more light. I think its time to stop talking and just start putting things into action, to where there can be some sort of shift. But do you have fears about raising a son in this political climate? Yes. Raising a black son in this political climate. In this climate right now, with the last eight or seven years. I think that why that happened under our President [Obama] I will never know, but I do know that he was the President with integrity, he was the President with heart, who felt like every single last one of those boys that we lost, he said, Thats my son. And I love the fact that he said that, because anybody else wouldnt give a crap. Anybody elseAnd Ill keep it at that. [Titan]s only two now, but my husband has made it very clear to me that as soon as he starts asking questions, hes going to give him answers. And he says, If hes old enough to ask me, then we have to give him answers. And I do think thats fair. One of my best girlfriends, her son asked her about it, and she said, I didnt know how to answer him but I just had to be honest. And it made him cry, it made him scared, and that makes me scared. I dont want my nephew, my son, I dont want them feeling like they have to be fearful in the world that were raising them in. The one silver lining in all of this, potentially, is that its an incredibly interesting time to be an artist. Theres so much politically charged music out there, specifically by black artists. It makes me feel proud, but I dont think its a new thing. I think that Marvin did it, I think that Stevie did it, Paul McCartney did it. So many people did it in a time like this one, and I think that time always repeats itself in some sort of way, and thats exactly whats happening right now. I think that this is a time when things are charged up, and emotions are high, and people dont know how to feel about politics and the government and they question everyones intentits so weighing, youre trying to figure it out, and youre trying to find some good. I really think that everyones trying to find some good, and trying to help the younger generation feel comforted. And thats a part of it, through music, because if they dont understand why things are going on, you say, Well, let me sing about it. Let me get you woke real quick, let me wake you up. So can we expect to hear some politics in the new music that youre working on? I think that thats a part of it. Thats a part of my feelings, and I can only write about what I feel and what Im going through, the things that I sympathize with, the things that are on my brain. And with this record, I just wanted to dig beneath the surface. My last record was sensualityand when I say Im working on a new album, someone sends me a sex song, and then somebody sends me another sexy song. And Im just like, Im so freaking over that! And of course, thats a part of me, Im gonna talk about that: women love to feel sexy, I love to feel sexy, why wouldnt I put it on the album? But its not going to be the whole freaking record. Thats not where I am mentally at all. I want to make music that makes you feel good but that also makes you think, that pushes the envelope and starts a conversation. You have a makeup line, F.A.C.E, that you designed for a range of skin tones, and I wanted to talk to you specifically not just about race but about colorism. I just heard this model talk about how she went to do a fashion show somewhere overseas, and she sat in the chair and the woman said, I dont have your color. Thank god the model had it in her purse, but its just the fact that, you really dont feel like you need to have that color? Who are you? Why are you a makeup artist? Makeup artists that I know are painters. They literally paint faces. They take pride in their work, and I admire makeup artists when they understand every skin type, every facial shape, they know what youre doing, they dont need to cover you up. So if you dont really know how to be an artist, please sit down. I love makeup, and I did feel the need to have more colors for women of color. I remember going to Europe for the first time with DC, and there was a makeup artist there, and she was so sweet. But she made me look pink, because she didnt know my skin type. It was very frustrating, because here I am thinking I look one wayI mean, in the mirror I was like I look weird, maybe it wont photograph like this, shes from Europe, she knows what shes doing. Like, Im sixteen years old. And I look back on that picture and I think, You look crazy! And its what really pushed me to learn my face, and learn how to do my own makeup. Do you think its harder to be a part of a girl group now, as opposed to when you were coming up? It does feel like girl groups like Fifth Harmony are more volatile and/or have a shorter shelf life. I think that if you want to be in a group, you have to really want to be in the group. Theres nothing wrong with having that goal [of going solo] eventually, but communicate, and talk to the other ladies about it. I think that you can do whatever you want, but never let your head get too big! Fifth Harmony is making such great headway, and theyre such sweet girls, and they can sing. And here they are, showing female camaraderie which is what I love the most. Im just grateful that me and the ladies are still close. If anything, we get together to form our sisterhood, our friendship. And its just sad because I dont know if they have that. But I know the other four ladies do, I sat and talked to them, and yeah its just really sad. But I dont know why the shelf life is so short. Maybe social media plays a part, but Im not sure if it really does. Heres the thing: What five people do you know that travel together, sing together, work together? Its a lot. I think that me and the ladies were very smart to do what we did how we did it, and were still very close. Take a break! And come back together, why not, for the Super Bowl? Find certain things that are really breakout moments, where its like, Oh my god, I didnt know they would do that. Thats for the fans. You know I have to ask about a possible Destinys Child reunion. We havent talked about it at all! That hasnt been a part of conversation. How do you think you guys managed to avoid the stereotypical girl group drama or child star meltdowns? Youve all had successful careers, and seem really focused and grounded. Because we kept our lines of communication open. With each other? Mhmm. We talked about itits like a marriage. Theres a point in a marriage where youre like, Im really frustrated with this or I really want to try something new. Whatever it is, theres nothing you cant talk about. And I think thats how you have to enter being in a group. Its not about anybody else, the label, the management. Its about the group. Yall should have an understanding amongst each other. And I think another part of it sometimes is guys. Or relationships! Its not just guys, it doesnt matter if its a guy or a girljust infiltrators. Be wary of infiltrators and people who want a piece of what you have. Because they figure if they have you to themselves, that might change things for them too. Find people who got their own shit. Is that what you did? I meanyou have to filter those people out. Or, your sisters will be like, Its wrong. Thats the kind of relationship me and the ladies have, whether its friends or dudes, the girls will be like, I dont like them, I dont think thats a good idea. You have got to trust your girlfriends. Theyll have your back. If embattled Fox News star Bill OReilly believed that his Tuesday night vacation announcement would quell his mushrooming sexual harassment scandal, he was wildly mistaken. OReillys troubles grew exponentially Wednesday, and even spread across the Atlantic to the United Kingdom, as the 67-year-old cable television personality began what his crisis communications consultant, former Clinton White House scandal manager Mark Fabiani, insisted was a long-scheduled spring break with his teenage son and daughter. Fabiani dismissed media speculation that the besieged OReilly, who renewed his contract just before the latest controversy erupted, hastily dropped off the air to escape the gathering storm and possibly wont be back. Weve been clear on this, Fabiani told The Daily Beast. The vacation was planned last October. Its planned with a group of people. He generally takes time off during his childrens spring break around Easter. And anything to the contrary is just complete fabrication. OReilly has been in the crosshairs since a front-page April 2 New York Times story detailing allegations of his unwelcome sexual advances to female coworkers, workplace retaliation against women who rebuffed him, and legal settlements totaling $13 million to resolve the womens complaints. Although he paid a portion out of his own pocket, OReilly has denied the allegations. Fox News, which plans to install a series of substitute hosts in the top-rated 8 p.m. time slot during OReillys absence, said hes scheduled to return to The OReilly Factor on April 24. But the damage is mounting. Along with a continuing exodus of advertisers (more than 60 so far), increasing demands for OReillys termination, a late-afternoon street protest staged outside Fox Newss Manhattan headquarters Wednesday and led by New York Public Advocate Letitia James, and new petitions calling for state and local government investigations of alleged sexual misconduct and racial discrimination, OReillys detractors are also using the corporate crucible to attack the financial jugular of Rupert Murdochs media empire. On Wednesday morning in London, representatives of the global citizens advocacy group Avaaz met for an hour with officials at Britains Ofcom, the communications industry regulators who will recommend whether or not to approve the long-attempted $14.1 billion acquisition of Sky Plc, Europes dominant and highly profitable pay television and internet platform, by 21st Century Fox, Fox Newss parent company. We were arguing that 21st Century Fox, Fox News, and the companies in general have shown a pattern of defiant non-compliance, and therefore should not not be given the green light, said Avaaz advocate Alex Wilks, who is steering the groups campaign against the transaction. The meeting went well. The officials were very much in listening mode. They were scribbling notes and taking it very seriously. Wilks urged the regulators to investigate the allegations before making their recommendation, expected on May 16, to Tory M.P. Karen Bradley, Britains secretary of state for culture, media and sport, who will make the final call on the Sky acquisition. Murdochs original bid seven years ago to increase his companys stake in Sky from 39 percent to total control had initially seemed assured, given his clout with the Tory government of Prime Minister David Cameron. But the acquisition was abruptly thwarted by the British phone-hacking scandal, in which Murdoch was forced to shut down his popular News of the World tabloid amid criminal charges and public disgust over the papers illegal hacking of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowlers cell phone. But this time Wilks predicted the Murdochsnot only Rupert but his sons and fellow executives, Lachlan and Jameswill use all their political influence, to say nothing of their newspapers, to achieve their desired outcome. The Murdochs are very powerful and they dont leave a lot of things to chanceand theyve been building up to this for some time, Wilks said, noting that Prime Minister Theresa May made a point of meeting privately with Rupert in New York during her visit last September to the United Nations. The Murdoch pressnotably The Sun and the Times of Londoncan be pretty vitriolic and tough. Armed with lengthy dossiers alleging Fox Newss and OReillys history of violating protections against sexual harassment and racial discriminationincluding one prepared by Los Angeles activist lawyer Lisa Bloom, who represents OReilly accuser Wendy Walsh, and another sent by the racial justice non-profit Color of ChangeAvaaz also submitted its own detailed, 19-page compendium of workplace problems at various Murdoch subsidiaries, especially the conservative-leaning cable networks alleged misconduct under its disgraced founder and former chairman, Roger Ailes. The compendium was titled: Sexual harassment, denials and cover ups: evidence of a rotten corporate culture at Fox. A spokesman for 21st Century Fox referred the The Daily Beast to a previous statement: 21st Century Fox takes its regulatory and compliance obligations very seriously. We have a strong record of compliance in all our markets, including in the UK. We are confident that our proposed transaction to acquire the outstanding shares of Sky that we dont already own will be approved following a thorough review by regulators. Color of Change executive director Rashad Robinson was dubious, claiming that the workplace culture of Fox Newswhich is coping with racial discrimination complaints from three African-American employees against payroll executive Judy Slaterhas shown little improvement. Despite the networks vow that we take complaints of this nature very seriously and took prompt and effective remedial action in terminating Judy Slater, Robinson told The Daily Beast: We continue to learn about the culture behind the scenes that feeds into what we then see on TV, promoting racial stereotypes, and its something we cant take lightly. Robinson, who has been calling for OReillys firing for years, noted that he helped organize the 2009 campaign to pressure then-Fox News personality Glenn Becks advertisers to leave Becks show after he called President Obama a racist with a deep-seated hatred for white people, ultimately leading to Becks 2010 departure. Lisa Bloom, meanwhile, said her pro bono client, Los Angeles radio personality Wendy Walsh, was finally contacted and interviewed on Monday by lawyers at Paul, Weissthe law firm retained by 21st Century Fox ostensibly to investigate the OReilly allegationsafter Walsh phoned in her complaint to the corporate sexual harassment hotline. I am outraged and disgusted at the widespread harassment and retaliation against women at Fox News, and the many repulsive allegations against OReilly since 2004, Bloom said. The most disgusting part, for me, is that womens careers were ruined when they simply said no. Bloom added: Coincidentally, Im on my way to vacation right now with my family, just like Bill OReilly. The difference is that on Monday, I will definitely be back at work. Im not so sure about him. Ever since Donald Trump unleashed 59 Tomahawk missiles in Syria in response to the Assad regimes sarin gas attack on civilians, frustration has been intense on the right. There is total confusion about just what Trump supports. Conflicting views from Rex Tillerson, Nikki Haley, and H.R. McMaster over last weekend veered from arguments that the strike was a one-time tactical move and that the administration was not averse to allowing Assad to stay in power, to later arguing that no peace or stability could take place without his removal. Among conservatives, conflict is also rampant. Three different groups are fighting among themselves, each hoping that their vision is the one Trump really supports. First, you have the neocons and their allies, people like Max Boot and Gabriel Schoenfeld; then you have the non-interventionists like the writers and editors of The American Conservative; and finally, pure opportunists who switch along with Trump and support whatever his most recent tweet or position is. To keep his anti-intervention base supportive, the Trump team came up with a new rationale that would perhaps satisfy those who believed Trumps policy was America First. Hence no interventions abroad would ever take place unless the situation directly affected Americas national security. Now anti-interventionists are being told that Trumps actions are in the national interest because ISIS or other terrorist groups might get ahold of the sarin gas. The controversial White House aide dealing with national security, Sebastian Gorka, said on Breitbart News Daily, a radio program, that the raid on the Syrian airfield is not a full-throated war deployment. It is a surgical strike using missiles. It was only meant to tell Assad that the use of chemical warfare was not a permissible use of his power, and nothing more. The clear message is that the now skeptical neo-isolationists should back the action, knowing that it was limited, and rejoice in knowing that America is back, America is leading, and America will not be a feckless, spineless non-actor in the international community. Those days are over. His words may temporarily have had the intended effect, but since he had said them, they quickly became irrelevant. Such talk is having an effect on the Mercer family, longtime funders of Bannon and Breitbart who also helped finance the Trump campaign. According to Rick Wilson, the Mercers are already restive and nervous that Trump has been co-opted by (((them))) [the establishment] and lured into being a more conventional president. One way to see how much of Trumps core constituency views the airstrike on Syria and the potential rupture with Russia is to go to alt-right and others conservative websites and read the type of negative attacks on Trump that are beginning to appear. These all serve one major purpose: they can be shown to Trump by Bannon and his allies to scare him that this one limited raid was enough to cause former core supporters to jump ship. As for Breitbart itself, on Tuesday, it ran a lead column defending the new tough anti-Putin stance, and praising Trumps new position especially in comparison to the previous administrations of Obama and Bush 43 before him, which made some tough noises but quickly pursued a policy of appeasement. No more, it seems, is the site created by Steve Bannon urging a new cooperation with Putins Russia and calling for it to be an ally with the United States in fighting ISIS. The toughest negative article critical of Trump came from filmmaker Ronald F. Maxwell, (Gettysburg, Gods and Generals, and Copperhead) who wrote in Breitbart that Trump had promised that our military would be used only in the defense of our own country or our closest allies. Maxwell, who is now filming in China, told me he did not consult anyone in the White House about submitting the article; he wrote it on his own because of his anger at the raid, and the publication ran it immediately. That column, however, ran a few days ago, and one must wonder whether had they just received it, the editors would have featured it. Trump ran and won on a platform summarized by the slogan America First, Maxwell noted, which meant no more wars of choice; no military interventions to liberate other countries, to intervene in so-called humanitarian crusades, to force regime change, to coercively spread democracy, or to take sides in other peoples wars or civil wars. Maxwells position reminds one of that taken by the pre-World War II America First Committee, whose members, composed of people both on the left and the right, (Norman Thomas, the Socialist Party leader, and the conservative aviator Charles Lindbergh) united to oppose armed intervention in the European war for much the same reasons advanced today by Maxwell. America would and could not be the policeman of the world, Maxwell wrote, which meant no intervention in intractable conflicts that would never be settled. Maxwell also argued that we do not know who dropped the poison gas, although on site observers saw that it could only have been Assads planes that used the sarin gas on Syrian civilians. I wonder what those who agree with him think today, given the release by the Trump administration of the intelligence proving that the bombs were dropped by Assads air force. Maxwells goal was to prevent the Trump administration from engaging in a neo-Cold War. Now, however, Maxwell argues that Trump justified the attack with words that could have been spoken by Hillary Clinton. In other words, Trump had betrayed him and many of those who voted and worked for him. Maxwells fear is that Trump might now be in bed with his most ardent critics, having chosen the path of America last. Harsh words indeed from one of Trumps most vociferous supporters, who was close to Trump the entire campaign, and who was responsible for Dave Brats victory in Virginia in which Eric Cantor failed to get the primary nomination. Maxwells views are essentially the same as those of Robert W. Merry, the historian who is now editor of the Buchananite American Conservative. What Trump had done was not the foreign policy Trump campaigned on, he wrote. Merry went so far as to write that Trump is looking more and more like a phony. Indeed, he writes that his foreign policy is now more aggressive and adventuresome than Obamas. He reminded his readers that Trump had said that joining the struggle against Syrian President Bashar-al Assad would put the United States on the side of the Islamic State and other terrorist organizations. He had promised to work with Russia toward an end to the horrendous Syrian bloodshed. Now, he and others see a very different Trump. Having promised that he would buck the conventional wisdom of the elites, Merry writes, Trump was now doing precisely what the globalists and interventionists desired. Like Maxwell, he argues that Trump hadnt even given Americans actual proof that Assad was in fact the perpetrator of the sarin attack. Now, Merry concludes, the United States is seemingly set to embark on yet another adventure in regime change. At least, Merry argues, Trump should have shown his base political gratitude, instead of allowing the old elites and interventionists to start taking over his administration. Merry now fears Trump has no real principles; that he is just winging it, and is not, as some of his supporters thought, a man of ironclad conviction. True, there are conservatives who are sticking with Trump and have responded favorably to his Syria action. David Horowitz, who has written a best-selling book on Trumps agenda, has fiercely come to the Presidents defense, calling the strike an international game-changer, one that has disproven leftist charges that Trump is Putins puppet and, given support by key Democrats, proves that Trump is not out of the mainstream. Horowitz, however, does not address the arguments of that part of the Trump base that feels betrayed. Similarly, at PJ Media, Roger L. Simon writes that Trump is doing precisely what Obama should have done after his famous red line against chemical weapons was violated. Trump took it to Assad. Obama did nothing. It means to Simon that America as world leader is back. Neither take up the irony that effectively, they are making the same case as many of the neocons they have fiercely opposed, such as the editors of The Weekly Standard and Commentary. The truth is that at present, no one knows what position Trump will take on Syria or on Russia or Iran soon. Will he move further to taking the kind of steps advocated by Hillary Clinton, such as creating no-fly zones and safe spaces for refugees, or will he make this a one-time raid and then revert to the policies he enunciated during the campaign? For the moment, it seems that the Mattis and McMaster group is in the ascendant, and that Trump is mostly listening to them. As of today, it seems that the anti-Putin position has been decided upon, and the overture to the Russian leader is finished. Knowing Trump, however, this could change at the drop of a pin. In Wednesdays Observer, Brian Darling writes that If President Trump morphs from an America First foreign policy to interventionism that would fit perfectly into a Hillary Clinton or John McCain Administration, then he should expect a large swath of his supporters to be despondent and to walk away from supporting him. Perhaps Trump is listening to these warnings. On Monday, Trump told Michael Goodwin of the New York Post : No, were not going into Syria. This comes one day after Tillerson and Haley were supporting regime change. No one can predict what is coming next from Trump and his administration. NOGALES, ArizonaThey found the first drug tunnel in 1995 near an old abandoned church. The church is gone now, replaced by a Burger King, but the tunnels keep coming. More than 110 have been discovered snaking from Mexico into the city of Nogales since then, says Tony Estrada, the Santa Cruz County sheriff, who expects more to come. It doesnt really stop, he said. The day after Attorney General Jeff Sessions toured the border at Nogales (without media), Estrada took The Daily Beast for a short drive along the burnt-red metal fence that stretches for miles between the southern border of Arizona and the northern Mexico state of Sonora. The sky was clear, the fence was quiet, and the handful of Border Patrol agents standing around an SUV a ways away from us looked calm, relaxed, and maybe a little bored. Estrada noted all of thisthe perfect zero-humidity, 80-degree weather; the calm. Its nothing like what Donald Trump described on the campaign trail. Estrada, a Democrat who gave Bernie Sanders a tour of the fence during the Democratic primary, has spent 50 years working in law enforcement on the border. And hes an inconvenient figure for the presidents law-and-order message. While Trump billed has himself as every cops dream come true throughout his entire campaign and now into his presidency, Estrada views him as completely ignorant about his signature issue, immigration. And he sees Sessionsa former U.S. attorney who spent 20 years in the Senate before becoming attorney generalas a babe in the woods when it comes to the border. And while Arizonas most famous sheriff is the now-defeated Joe Arpaio, who stumped for Trump, Estrada has found himself in a different kind of spotlight: perpetually having to explain to outsiders that Trump doesnt, in fact, speak for all Arizona sheriffs. Estrada said President Trump and Sessionss strategy to fight the cartels there is based on a myth that hes heard for decades: that if there are enough raids and crackdowns and checkpoints and barricades and arrests, the drug smugglers will give up. We created the cartels because of the demand that we have here, Estrada said. As long as Americans want drugs, he said, the cartels will oblige. Estrada isnt alone in this view. In background conversations with The Daily Beast, numerous federal law-enforcement agents have shared the same sentiment: that the only thing that could seriously, permanently weaken the cartels that have increasing power in northern Mexico would be Americans doing less heroin and meth. As long as Americans buy drugsincreasingly, drugs laced with dangerous synthetic opioids like fentanyl and carfentanilthe cartels will be around. And its an emerging consensus that helped fuel the backlash to Trumps proposed replacement for the Affordable Care Actlegislation that would have eliminated the requirement that government-subsidized health-insurance policies include coverage for addiction treatment. The bill generated so much controversy, it didnt even get a vote on the House floor. The new tough-on-immigration approach to the cartels may have an easier time in Congress, where Republicans are loath to oppose funding hikes for defense, immigration personnel, and law enforcement. Sessions and Trump are selling their fight with cartels as battle to take on invading forces who poisoned Americans because of Obamas feckless border enforcement. The way to vanquish them, in their view, is more law enforcement and more border security: thousands of new border patrol agents, Reaganite priorities for federal prosecutors, a big beautiful wall. Sessions used bellicose language the day before to describe Americans relationship to cartels. When we talk about MS-13 and the cartels, what do we mean? the attorney general said. We mean international criminal organizations that turn cities and suburbs into warzones, that rape and kill innocent civilians and who profit by smuggling poison and other human beings across our borders. Depravity and violence are their calling cards, including brutal machete attackseven beheadings. They threaten the very integrity of our nations in our hemisphere, he added. But in Estradas view, that threat wouldnt exist without the eager complicitness of the millions of Americans who buy what the cartels sell. And the cartels, as he sees them, arent completely lawless; theyre beholden entirely to one law: the Law of Supply and Demand. In his view, no wall will be able to stop the cartels from just giving Americans what they want. As border security became more professionalized over the last two decades or so, he said, drug smuggling got professionalized toohence, the rise of the cartels. The wall will just make them more resourceful. I dont know if it will make them stronger, he said. I just think theyll be more creative. Theyll probably corrupt more people on both sides of the border. How do you think the GOP-controlled Alabama Senate would respond to a mega mosque asking to form its own armed police force? Keep in mind Alabama is where Republicans pushed for an anti-Sharia amendment to its states constitution that easily passed in 2014. And just imagine what you would see on Fox News, Breitbart.com, and the other media outlets that profit off stoking hate against Muslims if such a request were made by the head of a U.S. mosque? They would be calling this not only an attempt to impose Sharia but also likely claim its an attempt to establish religious morality police like we see in countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iran. But when the Briarwood Presbyterian Church, a megachurch in the suburbs of Birmingham, Alabama, asked for special permission to create our nations first ever church-run police force, it sailed right through Alabamas GOP-dominated Senate on Tuesday. Its expected that the bill will pass the Republican-controlled House and become law, empowering the Briarwood Church to hire actual police officers in the name of the church. The Briarwood Church police officers would be required to be certified by the Alabama Peace Officer Training Commission. Consequently, they will be armed and fully empowered as police officers in Alabama, although church officials explained that its officers would be restricted to the churchs campuses and be able to respond to emergency situations while coordinating with local authorities. No word yet if the churchs police officers would wear large crosses on their uniforms that conjure up Christian crusaders, but since they are church employees that could be part of the uniform. Why does this 4,100-member church that also operates a school with 2,000 students want its very own police force? The head of the church cited the 2012 horrific Sandy Hook massacre as the primary reason. Of course, there has been no call to revise Alabama gun laws, which currently get an F rating from The Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence because they are so dangerously lax. Will this church-owned and operated police force go beyond secular law and also enforce biblical law, which I call Christian Sharia law? Its unclear. But I would imagine that Robert Bentley, the former Republican governor of Alabama who resigned earlier this week because of an extramarital affair and crimes connected to its cover up, must hope not. As Bentley has to know, considering he loved to quote Bible verses while a member of the Alabama Legislature to enhance his arguments, the penalty for having an affair with a married woman is that both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death. To be clear, the people of this churchjust like every person attending any place of worshiphas the absolute right to be safe. These are truly scary times. We have seen countless threats lately against Jewish temples and even seen mosques burned to the ground. And in 2015 there was the horrific murder of nine African Americans by white supremacist Dylann Roof at a church in South Carolina, and in 2012 six Sikhs were brutally killed at their Wisconsin temple by another man with ties to white supremacist groups. But do you think if Muslims in Alabama asked to create their own police force to protect their mosque we would see the GOP members of the Alabama Legislature be as supportive as they are to the Briarwood church? And in reality the Muslims in Alabama have good reason to be concerned for their safety. In February an email was to sent to the head of a mosque in Birmingham with the subject line: Your one warning. The email then contained this misspelled threat: MUZLIMS MEXICANS BLACKS WE WILL HUNTED NATION WIDE UNTIL ARE ARE DEAD OR GONEPLAN TO RUN OR DIE, THIS IS A KINDNESS THAT WE GIVE YOU ALL WARNING, TAKE IT AND GO. Thankfully the local police swiftly provided the Muslim community with extra protection. While GOP politicians are on board with Briarwood churchs push for their own police force, the ACLU believes its unconstitutional. A memo drafted by the ACLU contends that vesting state police powers in a church police force violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. It adds: These bills unnecessarily carve out special programs for religious organizations and inextricably intertwine state authority and power with church operations. The ACLU has also raised questions about the possible lack of transparency with the church employing its own police force. Will the church cover up crimes that occur at its school or by church employees to protect the reputation of the institution? And some have cited as a cautionary tale the volunteer police force run by the ultra orthodox Jewish community in New York that is currently being investigated for bribery and corruption. My hope is that if Jews or Muslims needed protection from a threat, the Republicans in Alabama would be just as quick to protect them as they are to help those who attend the Briarwood church. But deep down I worry they wont be. TBILISI Beka Gabadadzes cell phone rang again: another gay teenager was in big trouble. A 16-year-old from the Zugdidi region of Georgia was begging Gabadadze, an LGBT activist and human rights advocate, to rescue him. The boys family members were determined to drag him to a doctor for hormone treatment against homosexuality; when he was at home his older brother severely beat him. The teenager, who we are not naming to protect his identity, escaped home and is now hiding at a friends house in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, terrified to return home. Coming out of the closet is an act of heroism for LGBT people all over the Caucasus, a region dominated by deep homophobia. The LGBT population of the Caucasus suffer from increasingly horrifying hate crimes. A particularly vicious crackdown is reportedly underway in the Republic of Chechnya, where authorities have initiated the most violent anti-gay campaign since the fall of the Soviet Union. The Daily Mail reported that Chechen authorities had set up what it called concentration camps near the town of Argun where gay men are being tortured with electric shocks and beaten to death. While the presence or not of the camps has yet to be independently verified, Tatiana Lokshina, program director for Human Rights Watch in Moscow, told the Daily Beast: Chechen authorities did not build special 'LGBT concentration camps'--this information is misleading. But dozens of presumed gay men have been rounded up by local security officials and tortured in holding facilities, which are apparently maintained by Chechen authorities in several districts of Chechnya. People detained arbitrarily, abduction style, are generally taken there for interrogation, which practically always involves torture and cruel, degrading treatment." Graphic reports of persecution have been received by the Russian LGBT Network. The Network told NBC News they had received around 30 calls for help from those targeted since April 2. According to a report published in Russian independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, several gay men have been killed in the past few weeks and dozens have been arrested and tortured. To all media requests for clarification and comment, Chechen authorities responded that there were no gay men in Chechnya. According to Russian LGBT activists, the cleansing campaign was provoked in March by series of requests from GayRussia.ru addressed to local authorities to allow LGBT Pride demonstrations in four regions of the Northern Caucasus. This current wave of persecution followed, sweeping through all regions of Chechnya. There are special rooms at police stations in every Chechen district, where unwanted prisoners get tortured and Russian authorities do nothing to stop this unlawful massacre, a Chechen advocate for LGBT rights told The Daily Beast. Then police bring the victims back to their families and welcome the executions of not worthy men, the activist added. Chechen authorities dismissed Novaya Gazetas report. If there were such people in Chechnya, law-enforcement agencies wouldnt need to have anything to do with them because their relatives would send them somewhere from which there is no returning, Alvi Karimov, an official spokesman for Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, told reporters. Elena Milashina, the Novaya Gazeta journalist who broke the story about the anti-gay crackdown has been forced into hiding, she told the BBC. On Tuesday, advocacy group GLAAD called on Nikki Haley, US Ambassador to the United Nations, to speak up against the reported #LGBTQ concentration camps in Chechnya. In a statement released to Buzzfeed News, the State Department has asked the Russian government to conduct an independent and credible investigation into the alleged killings and mass arrests, and hold the perpetrators responsible. A demonstration to support those targeted was held outside the Russian Embassy in London on Wednesday night. In 1933 Soviet authorities criminalized homosexuality, with the penalty of up to five years of hard labor in prison (lesbians were not mentioned in the law). Russian authorities scrapped the criminal law in 1993 after the Soviet Union fell apart, and for several years Caucasus gay men lived quietly, mostly in the closet and out of the focus of public attention. The Daily Beast spoke with LGBT people in Northern Caucasus of Russia, in Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan about the nature of Caucasus homophobia that inspires the violent and terrifying attacks on, and executions of, gay people. Alongside the official persecution they suffer, family members in the region hunt LGBT relations, who they believe bring shame to the entire clan. My job is to connect the victims with state social workers, who are authorized to help underage LGBT in trouble; but often officials do not understand that homosexuality is not a disease, not a disorderand that is according to the World Health Organization, Gabadadze said. Georgian LGBT activists are presently helping an ethnic Chechen gay man from Pankisi Gorge, an extremely conservative Muslim region. The man was desperately trying to escape the country, as his life was in serious danger. The Chechen ethnic population of Pankisi region is extremely homophobic and violent towards the tiny LGBT community living discreetly in the mountain gorge, Gabadadze told The Daily Beast. The Georgian teen victim from Zugdidi was threatened with eviction from his family. He was the 27th LGBT victim of violence Gabadadze was trying to help in the last few weeks. The recent reports about violence in Chechnya has deeply traumatized LGBT communities all over Caucasus. What a barbarian society they have in Russia, even in our Muslim country gay men feel much safer, a gay hairdresser in Baku told The Daily Beast. We have a club; our gay youth, even transgender people find jobs at state companies, said the hairdresser, who still did not want The Daily Beast to use his name. Activists from Pink Armenia, one of several Armenian NGOs fighting for the rights of LGBT people, were also upset by the alarming reports coming from Chechnya. Armenian LGBT people live deep in the closet, too. The main reason for such overwhelming homophobia in the Caucasus is not religion but scapegoating: instead of talking about corruption and failing policy, local authorities choose us as their target--it does not matter whether they are Muslims or Christians, Nvard Margaryan, chairperson of Pink Armenia, told The Daily Beast. The more we fight for our rights, the more society is aware of our struggle, the more they blame Gayropa or the homosexual West for the bad influence and oppress us even more. Not long ago five gay and transgender people got attacked and beaten by radical activists in the center of Armenian capital of Yerevan. In 2012 Yerevans only gay bar DIY was attacked and burnt with a homemade bomb. Georgia is the only country in the Caucasus that has welcomed LGBT parties for hundreds of people from all over traditionally homophobic region. In the past year, Tbilisis LGBT activists organized 12 thematic parties at Bassiani, a basement club, where LGBT men and women of all ages coming from Azerbaijan, Iran, Armenia and Russia could meet and feel safe. The organizers invited their guests, so no stranger could sneak into Bassiani. The clubs managers and LGBT organizers made sure that nationalist radicals did not attack their guests. To get in the visitors had to fill in a special form and present an ID. But there are still many issues Georgian LGBT are facing. Since I came out of the closet and spoke about LGBT rights on TV in 2012, I have been constantly scanning the space around me, aware of danger and risks, LGBT activist Levan Berianidze told The Daily Beast at the gay-friendly Gallery club in Tbilisi. Christian fanatics and nationalist radicals attacked gay pride activists and beat dozens in 2012 and 2013. Some nationalists beat me right in downtown Tbilisi last year, Berianidze told The Daily Beast. This month authorities considered a change in the Constitution that would restrict same-sex marriage. Berianidze, a 26-year-old leader of LGBT movement said that Georgian homophobic policies were inspired by Moscow. Our leadership follow the homophobic road paved by Russia, where gay propaganda is banned by law, where gay men are being killed, Barianidze said. We would like to call on our authorities to stay human and give shelter to Chechen LGBT people. President Trumps private kitchen at the Mar-a-Lago Club in West Palm Beach was cited for 13 health code violations in January, reported the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulations. This news comes right after the president met with Chinese President Xi Jinping there (and shared beautiful chocolate cake with him while discussing the bombing of Syria ). The president is also expected to meet with Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, at the questionably clean club. Mar-a-Lagos violations include basic issues, including the outside location of the ice machine. Three high priority issues included undercooled and improper sanitation of meats and fish, and fridges not working properly. High priority violations mean there could be illness-causing bacteria on plates served to patrons. A spokesman for the Trump Organization said that they take food safety seriously: All of the minor adjustments were made immediately. Additionally, the report by the health inspector was updated on the same day to reflect that the Mar-a-Lago Club was in full compliance. Still, for a club that charges $200,000 in membership fees per person, and that is owned by the president of the United States, youd really hope its cleanliness would live up to higher standards. LONDONThe story of Dina Ali Lasloom is the story of a struggle that feels as insurmountable as it does desperately urgent. This is a story of religious theocracy meeting royal patriarchy. It is the story of Saudi womanhood, denied. Twenty-four-year-old Dina left Saudi Arabia full of hope. Most 24-year-old women the world over dream of the usual things young women do at that age: how to live the full, independent, and exciting life that lies ahead of them. But Dina just wanted to be. Have you ever felt utter, total, and overwhelming helplessness? For Saudi women, such a feeling is a matter of law. They feel it every day. In Saudi Arabia, they are the permanent legal wards of the men in their lives. Powerlessness is a state of being for Saudi women, who lack the lawful agency to study, marry, divorce, work, or travel without formal permission from their father, brother, husband, or son. It is enforced by the system. And the system is a total and absolute religious monarchy. Dina chose emancipation over slavery. She chose to live as a foreign female refugee in a distant land rather than as a citizen-slave in her own. She chose to try and escape Saudi patriarchy via the Philippines to Australia. There she had hoped to claim asylum. But Dina failed. Officials at her transit stop in Ninoy Aquino International Airport have denied all knowledge of Dina. But as the recent United Airlines debacle reveals, in the days of the internet, this tactic is becoming increasingly redundant. As has been reported by activists of a movement called Saudi Arabian Female Empowerment (SAFE), Dina was a passenger of Philippine Airlines flight PR 669 from Kuwait to Manila. What is clear is that she made it to Manila, arriving at 3:30 a.m. Monday. But it appears that Philippine airport officials at Terminal 2 had been instructed ahead of time by the local Saudi embassy to extract her. While still in transit for an 11 a.m. flight to Australia, Dina was off-loaded at Terminal 2. At this point, Philippine security officials confiscated her passport. We know this because Dina told us herself, over her last video to the world, as she desperately pleaded for help. Eyewitnesses in Terminal 2 also began to report stores of a Saudi woman having her documents confiscated. Then Saudi men from the embassy appeared. The last seen video of Dina was taken by a witness, and it depicts her screaming that is not my father as Philippine officials attempt to hand her over to the Saudis. What happened next will send a chill through the spine of every Saudi woman, and outrage every human being beyond. Detained in the lounge, activists report that Dina was viciously beaten, bound by her arms and legs, wrapped in a sheet, and had her mouth duct-taped shut. She was then kidnapped by Saudi men and put on a 10:30 p.m. Saudi Airlines flight from Terminal 1 back to Jeddah. In Jeddah, Saudi activists report that Dina was seen at arrivals being rolled off in a wheelchair. Her fate remains unknown. Such is the overwhelming power of the patriarchal Saudi system that no amount of outrage is likely to secure Dinas release any time soon. Even Saudi men, such as prisoner of conscience Raif Badawi, who was flogged merely for blogging, cannot escape the tyranny that is born of a fundamentalist monarchy. Just as her Pakistani family did to the late Qandeel Baloch, already fundamentalist Saudis have taken to social media demanding that Dina be killed for dishonoring her family. This is what it means to be a Saudi woman today. And though the rest of us may feel powerless, we are not. We are the voice that Dina has been deprived of. Raising our voice is unlikely to free Dina in the near future, but it is certainly likely to help shift public opinion firmly away from Saudi Arabia, Iran, and any other theocratic throwback to medievalism thats insecurely lashing out in this quickly modernizing world. Shame on the Saudis and shame on the Philippines. Enough. Enough with using religion to silence, deprive, beat, and kill. Enough with the backwardness. Enough with the darkness. All we can do is continue to speak in the hope that a butterflys wings that flap in one corner of the world will eventually build a storm that sweeps clean the disease that is known as Saudi fundamentalist patriarchy. To remind us, we have Dinas last desperate words, made in her online video, as she pleaded helplessly to the ether, begging for anybody, everybodyand thus nobodyto help her. No, we are not helpless. That is what helplessness feels like. And this is what a feminist looks like. U.S. Special Operations Forces dropped one of the worlds most powerful non-nuclear bombs on ISIS fighters in eastern Afghanistan on April 13, defense officials told The Daily Beast on Thursday. p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000}span.s1 {font-kerning: none}span.s2 {text-decoration: underline ; font-kerning: none; color: #0000ff; -webkit-text-stroke: 0px #0000ff} The bombing could mark a shocking escalation of America's war in Afghanistanone that places more civilians in greater danger than ever before, though military officials insist they wouldn't have acted if they had spotted civilians nearby. American forces were trying to root out deeply entrenched ISIS fighters when a U.S. Air Force MC-130 commando transport dropped the Massive Ordinance Air Blast munition in Achin district in Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan at 7:32 in the evening, local time. ISIS has an estimated 600 to 800 fighters in Afghanistan, many of them in Achin, according to Pentagon spokesman Adam Stump, who said the strike was aimed at limiting their freedom of movement. One U.S. commando died in a firefight in the same district just a few days ago, on April 8, but officials say this was no act of retribution. "This operation was planned prior to the loss of a 7th Group Green Beret last week, U.S. military spokesman Navy Capt. Bill Salvin explained from Kabul. Pentagon officials say the generals have had the authority to launch whatever ordnance they had in theatre against ISIS since January last year, but President Donald Trump's comfort level with delegating new decision-making on counterterrorism strikes surely played into their thinking. General John Mick Nicholson ordered the weapon during the Obama Administration to use during Afghans fierce spring and summer fighting season, but it was only delivered in January this year, Salvin said. While he may have had the authority to drop the bomb, its likely he notified commanders above him that he was about to use the munition, but its not clear how high that went. Appropriate notifications were made, U.S. Central Command spokesman Col. John Thomas emailed emphatically to the The Daily Beast. This does not reflect a new policy or authority." CNN, which was among the first to report the strike, assured it viewers that military officials in Afghanistan felt that they could use this [MOAB] without risking civilian casualties in the area. U.S. officials insisted that they took measures to protect the innocent. There was an extensive planning process to ensure there were no civilians in the area, which includes surveillance long before the target was hit, Salvin said. But as the target was a cave structure, that seems hard to ascertain with 100 percent certainty. The Massive Ordnance Air Blast munition is 30 feet long and weighs more than 11 tons. Its a fuel-air bomb, meaning it works by spreading a cloud of flammable gas and then igniting it. U.S. troops dropped older-style fuel-air bombs during the Vietnam War in order to flatten large areas of forest for helicopter landing zones, and the Bush administration dropped at least one daisy cuttersa MOAB precursoron al Qaeda at Tora Bora in Afghanistan, in an attempt to flush out Osama bin Laden and his fighters from their cave complex. As the gas can spread into bunkers and even underground, a fuel-air weapon can also collapse fortifications and tunnel networks over a radius of potentially hundreds of yards. "In its destructive capability, it is comparable to low-yield nuclear munitions, one Russian military scientist wrote in the Russian trade journal Military Knowledge. The Pentagon rushed development of the MOABalso known as the Mother of All Bombsin early 2003 in order for the weapon to be ready for the invasion of Iraq. But the MOABs proved either unnecessary or too risky to use in Iraqs mostly densely populated areasthey remained in storage until yesterday. David Hambling, an independent munitions expert, said that in dropping MOAB, the military was hoping for a combination of psychological and kinetic effects. Its not the obvious choice of weapon to destroy a cave complex, Hambling told The Daily Beast. It may generate a massive over-pressure causing lethal effects to some depth, but is much less obvious than weapons like the smaller thermobaric BLU-128, which is designed to take out tunnels and caves with blast. The Pentagon is certainly playing up the MOABs fearsome power. Within hours of the bombing, the Defense Department had posted a press release describing the attack and its alleged effect on ISIS positions. This is the right munition to reduce these obstacles and maintain the momentum of our offensive, Gen. Nicholson said in the statement. Of 12,000 bombs U.S. dropped on Afghanistan in past 5 yrs, MOAB the first to be honored with its own press release (posted w/in hours), the Council on Foreign Relations Micah Zenko quipped on Twitter. The huge bombing could provoke a backlash. After years of limiting air strikes in order to minimize civilian casualties, Gen. Nicholson has seemingly made good on Trumps promise to bomb the shit out of ISIS. The Pentagon is hitting suspected militants faster and with less vetting by the White House than under the Obama administration. U.S. air strikes reportedly killed hundreds of civilians in Mosul in Iraq in March 2017, though Iraqi military officials blamed the casualties on ISIS explosives they say were stored in or near the target in the densely packed city. Trump authorized U.S. troops in Somalia to call in air strikes without asking permission from officials in Washington, D.C. A Pentagon official told The Daily Beast that Thursdays strike had nothing to do with the Trump administration expanding its campaign against ISIS, but was the commanders call. The official, who was briefed on the operation, spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss military strategy. Had there been any civilians present, there would not have been a strike, CENTCOM spokesman Col. Thomas emailed, adding that there was comprehensive surveillance of the target before the strike. At least one peace advocate said he is unconvinced. Was it really necessary to drop the Mother of All Bombs on Afghanistan? Zeshan Hamid, president of the New York-based Council on Pakistan-U.S. Relations, asked The Daily Beast. I feel there is nothing better than having a peaceful Afghanistan free of terrorist for both Pakistan and America, however, my fear is that something of this nature will cause many civilian casualties, Hamid added. In deploying the giant fuel-air bomb, the United States rejoins a notorious club that currently also includes Russia, Iraq, and Syria. After surrendering most of its purpose-made chemical weapons beginning in 2013, the regime of Syrian president Bashar Al Assad switched to using fuel-air weapons against civilians. In September 2013, a regime warplane dropped a fuel-air bomb on a school in Ar Raqqa, killing 14 people including 12 children. Some of the bodies were apparently thrown against the courtyard wall, which suggests they were forced there by the blast wind, a Human Rights Watch researcher reported. Russia developed a ground-launched fuel-air rocket that blasted militants and civilians alike in Afghanistan and Chechnya. Iraq bought copies of the devastating weapon and has deployed it in the current war on ISIS. In a 2000 report on Russian fuel-air munitions, Human Rights Watch pointed out that the nature of [fuel-air] explosions makes it virtually impossible for civilians to take shelter from their destructive effect. Even the impression that U.S. forces are endangering civilians risks alienating the people American troops rely on for support in Afghanistan. The greatest risk we can accept is to lose the support of the people here, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, then commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, told 60 Minutes in 2009. Votel echoed McChrystals sentiments in 2016, after a U.S. warplane mistakenly fired on a Doctors Without Borders clinic in Kunduz in northern Afghanistan, killing 42 patients and medical personnel. I can assure you that we are committed to learning from this tragedy and minimizing the risk of civilian casualties during future combat operations, Votel said. Deploying one of the worlds most powerful munitions is inconsistent with that assurance, Hamid said. Dropping bombs will not be the answer to a war that has gone on for over a decade. The answer is collaborative intelligence operations and protection of civilians at all costs. ISTANBUL Russia has expanded its role in the Syria conflict and is now by far the dominant power in the air war, according to rebel military commanders and a leading Syrian human rights monitor. Commanders say that as a result even if the U.S. were to knock out the entire Syrian Air Force, that wouldnt turn the tide of the war. President Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian military intervention in September 2015 when the Assad regime was said to be on the brink of collapse after rebels captured Idlib province in northern Syria, and since then dependence on Moscow has grown steadily. Russias lead role in the air war is evidenced by the airstrikes against Syrian civilian targets since last Friday, when the U.S. fired 59 cruise missiles at Shayrat, a Syrian airbase in central Homs province. The U.S. government said Shayrat was the launch point for a chemical weapons attack on the town of Khan Sheikhoun in southern Idlib province, in which more than 100 people died, according to local officials. Over the five days between Friday and Tuesday evening, Russian airstrikes caused the deaths of 56 civilians, including 10 children and eight women, the Syrian Network for Human Rights reported Thursday. Syrian government forces, including foreign militias, killed 42, SNHR said. On Wednesday and Thursday, Russian warplanes took the lead role in airstrikes in Aleppo, Idlib and Hama provinces, according to opposition media and local officials. Russia and Syria divided up the task of targeting public buildings and medical facilities. All are protected under international law, making each strike a potential war crime. According to SNHRs accounting of the first five days. Russian aircraft bombed two mosques, one school and three medical facilities while Syrian aircraft some of which are now piloted by Russians attacked two mosques, two schools one medical facility, one market and one civil defense center, SNHR said. No one has accused Russia of using banned chemical weapons, but U.S. officials say they suspect Russian military officers were aware that the Assad regime was deploying them. Russia had its own forces stationed at the same Shayrat air base. In fact, according to SNHR, Shayrat was the second most used airbase by Russian warplanes after Hmeimim in Latakia province on the Mediterranean. In the attacks on civilian targets since Friday, Russia has deployed banned cluster munitionssmall bomblets that are intended as an antipersonnel weaponat least four times, and incendiary weapons in at least six attacks in those five days alone, SNHR said. The Qatar-based SNHR is often cited by the State Department as a source of data on war crimes. Theres no question that Russia plays the lead role in the air war, according to defected Syrian military officers who track the movements of regime and Russian warplanes in order to warn civilians of impending air strikes. When theres heavy fighting in northern Hama and southern Idlib, at least 175 of the 250 warplane movements in the area are Russian and the rest Syrian, Col. Mustafa Bakkour, who heads the warplane tracking operation in North Hama, told The Daily Beast. The numbers include helicopter movements as well as fixed wing, and count aircraft that often stage several attacks on each sortie, he said. Throughout Syria, when there is fighting on several fronts, there can be as many as 500 sorties daily, he said. The problem for us isnt the Syrian Air Force so much as the Russian Air Force, said Major Muhammad Mansour, commander of the Nasr Army, one of the main rebel groups in north Hama. It is the Russian warplanes which are shifting the balance in the battle for the regime side. The Nasr army receives covert U.S. support. We have a dire need for air defense weapons to be able to confront the Syrian and Russian warplanes, Col. Yusuf al Mirie, the spokesman of the rebel Southern Front said. The Obama administration refused to provide air defense to rebel forces, even those obtaining other forms of military aid through the CIA program. Moscows role in the air war poses a quandary to U.S. military planners hoping to head off another Syrian chemical warfare attack. In an effort to avoid a direct confrontation last Friday, the Pentagon sent a warning to the Russian military, which was able to remove its officers from the Shayrat airbase before the U.S. attack. The challenge is how to get the message across to President Bashar al Assad, who in an interview Wednesday denied that Syria has ever used chemical weapons and disputed reports that anyone had died in the April 4 gas attack on Khan Sheikhoun. The White House and the Pentagon earlier this week threatened further retaliation against the Syrian military if it mounts another sophisticate chemical weapons attack or continues dropping barrel bombs, crude weapons sometimes loaded with chlorine, an industrial chemical. Administration officials said the Syrian army lost 20 per cent of its operational air force in Fridays missile attack on Shayrat air base. Noting those losses, Defense Secretary James Mattis warned Monday that the Syrian government would be ill-advised ever again to use chemical weapons. White House spokesman Sean Spicer expanded the warning to include continued attacks with barrel bombs against civilians. The President has made it very clear that if those actions were to continue, further action will definitely be considered by the United States, Spicer said. But Assad is living in a different world. In his interview with the French AFP news agency published Thursday, he also denied that Fridays U.S. missile attack had caused any damage to his forces. "Our firepower, our ability to attack the terrorists hasn't been affected by this strike, he claimed. And while he was most probably rattled by the U.S. intervention, he appears determined to play it down, for domestic consumption at least. On Friday, some hours after the U.S. missile attack, the Syrian regime used chemical weapons in a military encounter with rebel forces in Qaboun, a neighborhood in east Damascus, according to SNHR. It said regime soldiers threw two hand grenades filled with poison gas into the rebel frontline. The grenades, suspected to contain chlorine gas, caused symptoms bronchial damage, severe coughing and breathing difficulties, SNHR said. But this is part of a pattern of multiple violations of the Syrian regimes pledge to abandon all use of chemical weapons. SNHR said it had documented 168 regime chemical attacks since September 2013, when chemical weapons killed more than 1,000 civilians in Mouademiyeh, a Damascus suburb, according to the U.S. government. The regime also has used barrel bombs in its battle against rebel forces in Daraa in southern Syria since Friday, as well as in other locations in northern Syria, according to the Local Coordination Committees and opposition media there. Assads denials in the AFP interview put him at direct odds with his Russian backers. Referring of the U.S. government, he said: They fabricated the whole story in order to have a pretext for the attack. This reflects, in fact, the line being put out by Iran, which may try to back Assad even if Russia eventually forsakes him. As for the deaths of the children and the images of victims foaming at the mouth and convulsing, Assad declared: We dont know whether those dead children were killed in Khan Sheikhoun. Were they dead at all? He said the story of Khan Sheikhoun is not convincing by any means. This contrasts with the statement by Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, during an otherwise contentious news conference after talks with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Wednesday. Lavrov referred to the Idlib incident, where chemical weapons were used, and the subsequent U.S. missile strike on April 7. This wasnt the only time Assad and the Russians were on different wavelengths. The Syrian high military command said Thursday that many people were killed in an airstrike late Wednesday by the U.S.-led coalition attacking an ISIS chemical weapons depot near the east Syrian city of Deir Ezzor. The coalition denied the report, and Maj-Gen. Igor Konashenkov, the spokesman of the Russian Defense Ministry, said he had no information about an airstrike or casualties. Tom Dixon designs luxury Johnnie Walker Diageo has revealed The Johnnie Walker Blue Label Capsule Series, which has been created by British designer Tom Dixon OBE. The release previewed at the Teatro Manzoni theatre as part of Dixon's exchibition at Milan Design Week. Inspired by the rarity, craft and heritage of the luxury Scotch Whisky, the exclusive Johnnie Walker Blue Label Capsule Series by Tom Dixon encompasses a bespoke bottle design, ice bucket, coaster and bottle cap. The copper accents in the Limited Edition Design are characteristic of Dixons contemporary designs and are also a deliberate nod to the art of whisky-making, the copper theme evoking the pot stills used during whisky distillation. The Limited Edition series will be available to purchase from October 2017 in selected markets across Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa. Johnnie Walker global brand director Guy Escolme says: Toms expertise and artistic vision make him the perfect person to put his mark on this new design for our pinnacle blend. This collaboration expresses the creativity and passion behind two world-famous luxury brands. Speaking about his collaboration with Johnnie Walker at Milan Design Week, Tom Dixon says: The parallels between Johnnie Walker master blender Jim Beveridge and a designer might seem tenuous but when you think of it in terms of taking excellent raw materials and using patience and experimentation to extract a product with real resonance, then you can start to see the similarities. I also believe it is important not to remain static like the Striding Man logo with all its historic references it still looks contemporary and represents progressing forward and looking to the future. The copper stills, the oak barrels, the supreme expertise needed to produce a classic product this was all instrumental to my thinking. This is the second year that the two have partnered at Milan Design Week, following a collaboration in 2016 that saw Dixon create a one-of-a-kind Johnnie Walker Blue Label bottle art installation. Johnnie Walker master blender Jim Beveridge says: What Tom and I each do in our work starts with an idea and an urge to create something meaningful. The ideas part is easy, the real challenge is in the trying and the relentless experimentation before, eventually, things begin to come together. For me, it is our experience and dedication to our craft that make Johnnie Walker Blue Label and Tom Dixon feel like a really natural fit, and Milan Design Week is a great moment to announce this latest collaboration. As part of this years collaboration, Johnnie Walker is also hosted mentoring sessions at Teatro Manzoni. Global brand ambassador Tom Jones showed VIPs through the flavours that define the Scotch whisky and guests were invited to enjoy a Johnnie Walker cocktail serve at the bar. The Limited Edition Johnnie Walker Blue Label Capsule Series by Tom Dixon will have an RRP from 180 when released later this year. 13 April 2017 - Sam Coyne The Drinks Report, news editor Press Promotion Steklarna Hrastnik reveals competition winner In response to its international design competition, organised in collaboration with partners DekorGlass, a Polish glass decorating company, and Paragraph Publishing, Steklarna Hrastnik received submissions from 81 designers in 14 countries. The competition was aimed at finding innovative ideas and solutions for standard bottles to be included in Steklarna Hrastnik's HighGlass collection. The three winners were selected by a jury of nine industry experts. First place went to Max Stefen from Belgium, Adam Klein from the USA ranked second, while Marino Funakoshi from Japan placed third. In the last week of March, a festive award ceremony took place at the prestigious Whiskies and Spirits Conference in London, which is attended by participants of the spirits beverage industry. The competition was aimed at finding ideas for the HighGlass collection of standard bottles, which currently includes 11 standard bottles of super premium quality. They were looking for bottles that would stand out for their creativity, aestheticism, decoration and story. In addition to super premium quality, the HighGlass collection is distinguished by adaptability, a characteristic that gives buyers the option to add their own decoration, giving the bottle a unique mark or their brand logo for added authenticity. Competition winner Max Stefen from Belgium said that his inspiration for the creative idea behind the winning bottle came from Art Deco elements. While the main property of his bottle is simplicity, the shape nevertheless gives a feeling of premium quality, making it possible to upgrade the product and adapt it to the buyers' needs by adding decorations. When it comes to working with Steklarna Hrastnik, the winner says: "The fact that Steklarna Hrastnik offers a partnership to the winners shows that they are not just looking for a new product, but for a long-term partner. This was the reason I entered the competition." Ivan Vucetic, sales and marketing director at Steklarna Hrastnik, says: We recognise that 80% of the end product's success in the premium segment on the shelves depends on the packaging. Andrej Bozic, general director of Steklarna Hrastnik, says: "Our flexibility makes it possible for Steklarna Hrastnik to produce smaller batches, replicate the highest quality and provide the full range of services. 13 April 2017 - Sam Coyne The Drinks Report, news editor A little more than a month after the executive director of the state's environmental agency decided that an air permit application needed for a local manufacturing plant's expansion meets legal requirements, two requests have been filed requesting he reconsider the ruling. A letter issued March 7 by Richard A. Hyde, executive director of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, determined that a permit application for Saint-Gobain Ceramics & Plastics Inc. to expand its Independence Avenue ceramic catalyst manufacturing plant meets legal requirements. The decision, though, doesn't yet authorize the construction or operation of the proposed six kilns at the Bryan plant. A 30-day period for feedback on the decision concluded last week with two requests that the ruling be reconsidered. The plant's proposed expansion has piqued public interest, with the plans bringing about 50 residents to a TCEQ-coordinated meeting last July. Among the objections raised by residents then and in the two requests for reconsideration are the potential health impacts that could result from the proposed expansion, which would increase Saint-Gobain Norpro plant's annual emissions by 111 tons. Harry Wright, attorney for the Bryan school district, wrote in his request for reconsideration that the district is "extremely concerned" about potential adverse health impacts the approval of the permit application could have on students and staff at nine campuses within a 5-mile radius of the plant. The executive director's response to dozens of public comments about health concerns stated that based on air dispersion modeling, "predicted ground level concentrations from the proposed facility are not likely to adversely impact off-property receptors." The other request for reconsideration came from Bryan resident Robert Rose, who has addressed several local governing bodies about the permit application at public meetings. Rose also wrote about the concern of air pollution near schools, particularly Jane Long Middle School, which is located in close proximity to the plant. The school district general counsel's request outlined the district's two other concerns -- that Saint-Gobain Norpro hasn't met the TCEQ requirements involved with requesting an expedited processing of an application, and that the air quality model "did not utilize representative data." The company's application to expand does not demonstrate how the application will benefit the local and state economy as outlined in the Texas Administrative Code, Wright wrote, and the TCEQ should not have expedited the processing of the application. "Finally, the meteorology data that was used in the Company's model was from Austin and thus not representative of Bryan/College Station area," Wright wrote in his request. "The Commission has argued in their response to comments that it was appropriate to use meteorological data from Austin because of Austin's proximity to Bryan area. However, in making this argument the Commission has failed to take into account vast differences in the landforms that surround Austin and Bryan which effect meteorological data." Rose also listed the air dispersion modeling used for the permit application among his many concerns. In addition to the two requests for the executive director to reconsider his decision on the permit application, a TCEQ spokesperson said 16 requests for contested case hearings on the matter also were filed. She said the application will be scheduled for a future meeting of the TCEQ commissioners to determine if any of those requests "meet the applicable requirements." At that time, the commissioners also will consider any requests for reconsideration. The requests for reconsideration, the executive director's response to public comments and decision letter and more information about Saint-Gobain Norpro's application can be found on the TCEQ Commissioners' Integrated Database at www.tceq.texas.gov. The company's air quality permit number is 20006. According to Bryan police, officers were looking for Aaron Montrel Bazy, 22, who had three active warrants for evading police and drug charges. On Tuesday, five officers surrounded Bazy's apartment and waited for him to drive up and get out of his car. According to police reports, after officers told Bazy to get on the ground, he ran inside his apartment and slammed the door. An officer kicked the door down and saw Bazy run out the back patio, authorities said. Police chased Bazy throughout the apartment complex in the 1100 block of Southwest Parkway before tackling him and subduing him. Members of the Texas House of Representatives' Committee on Higher Education met for nearly five hours in Austin on Wednesday to discuss several proposed bills. Although much of the conversation surrounded potential changes to the tuition and fee benefits offered to Texas veterans at state higher education institutions, members of the committee also heard about and discussed topics including the Texas A&M University System's Irma Rangel College of Pharmacy, assistance and information about the transfer of credit hours between institutions, proposed requirements to include serious policy infractions -- such as sexual assault -- on student transcripts and more. As the representative of the district serving as home to the Irma Rangel College of Pharmacy, committee chairman Rep. J.M. Lozano, R-Portland, took time during the meeting to explain his proposed House Bill 2002, which, if passed, would create a legal requirement that the college remain in Kleberg County and permanently retain its namesake. Lozano and witness Indra K. Reddy, founding dean of the Irma Rangel College of Pharmacy, also took the opportunity to talk about the college's growth and successes over the past decade. "I'm happy to report that after 10 years and seven cohorts ... we have built an exceptionally strong program," Reddy said. "In just 10 years of our existence, our researchers have brought in more than $6 million in research grants and contracts. We have cutting-edge research in diabetes, asthma, precision medicine, drug delivery systems, 3-D printing and so on." Reddy added that with the addition of Carrie Byington as dean of the Texas A&M College of Medicine, senior vice president of the Texas A&M University Health Science Center and vice chancellor for Health Services at The Texas A&M University System, the college has "redoubled" its efforts for the future. Seeking to address recent high-profile cases of sexual assault in higher education, committee member Rep. Chris Turner, D-Arlington, presented House Bill 3142, which, if passed, could require all higher education institutions in the state to note violations resulting in suspension or expulsion on a student's transcript. "Frequently, and for various reasons, sexual assaults and similar offenses never go through the criminal justice system, [and] therefore the university adjudication system can be the survivor's only source of justice," Turner said. "My bill would simply ensure that if a student committed a conduct violation serious enough to warrant suspension or expulsion, a notation on the student's transcript will prompt the next institution to which that student applies to inquire about the reason for that [punishment]," he said. "This will ensure that a student accused of assault or a similarly serious offense cannot simply withdraw from the institution to avoid the hearing process and/or the determination and subsequent notation." Along with Turner's presentation, Texas university student Sierra Smith shared her personal story of sexual assault and the subsequent failings of her school to reprimand the man responsible. Although she said her attacker was ultimately found to be responsible for the incident several months after an investigation by the school began, he already had transferred to another institution that was unaware of his involvement in the situation. "If my university had kept its transcript, if they had let the other universities know why this boy was trying to leave, then maybe I would be the one doing great things and he would be the one facing the consequences," Smith said. "Today, I go to a school that I do not feel safe at. I do not feel that my school did what they could to protect me, and I do not feel like they are doing what they can to protect other girls." Smith did not mention during her testimony what university she attends. Institutions including the Texas A&M System, the University of Texas System and Texas Tech already have implemented similar procedures to some degree, Turner said. Other legislation discussed included two bills seeking to help students to have a better understanding of the path before them as they pursue higher education, beginning with their time in high school and continuing through the completion of their degree. Both introduced by committee member Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, the first bill focuses on connecting high schools with institutions of higher education to better equip students with the knowledge they need to effectively pursue their desired degree, while the second puts an emphasis on developing a clearer path to understanding the transfer of credits between institutions. Closing out the meeting, Lozano also presented a bill to establish the Texas Higher Education Innovation Accelerator, which he said would give universities a state-sponsored avenue for trying new methods and avenues for education. "This bill would promote more innovation at institutions of higher education in Texas by supporting an accelerated innovation in educational delivery to advance state education and workforce goals through access, improvement and degree attainment," Lozano said. "This will hopefully help Texas meet the challenges [and shortages] that are in our STEM fields." Local Rep. John Raney -- who serves as vice chair of the committee -- was present for the meeting. He did not participate in the presentations of the bills discussed Wednesday. No action was taken by the committee on any of the proposed bills. Further discussion and possible action is expected as the 85th session continues over the coming months. Three new cases of mumps have been reported in Brazos County following a recent statewide health advisory issued by the Texas Department of State Health Services. Brazos County Health Department officials said all three of the locally reported cases -- one of which has been confirmed -- are among college aged adults. State health officials said reported cases have reached a 20-year high of 221 cases so far this year following multiple outbreaks across the state. The previous record was 234 in 1994. Among the outbreaks, officials said they are investigating possible exposure on South Padre Island during the spring break period of March 8 through March 22. As of Wednesday, 13 cases from across six state have been accounted for among travelers to the island during that time frame. Two of the cases are in Texas residents. According to local officials the three local cases do not currently appear to be connected to individuals who traveled to South Padre Island. State officials recommend that health care providers take extra care to consider mumps as a potential diagnosis when evaluating patients with "compatible symptoms" and to question them about recent travels out of state or to South Padre Island over spring break. Officials said symptoms of fever, tiredness, muscle aches and swollen or tender salivary glands typically develop 16 to 18 days after coming into contact with the virus, but can sometimes take up to 25 days to manifest. Those who suspect they may be effected should immediately contact their health care provider and should stay home to prevent spreading the virus for five days after swollen glands occur. Officials said the virus is considered "highly contagious" and is spread in a number of ways including through coughing and sneezing and sharing cups and utensils. Dogs get ultrasounds, too. On Wednesday morning, four veterinary professionals gathered around a 14-year-old male mixed-breed Scottish terrier at Texas A&M University's Small Animal Hospital. They shaved a rectangle into the dog's stomach, removing a small portion of his black and gray spotted fur, before using new ultrasound technology to monitor the spread of his cancer. Thanks to their collaboration with health technology company Philips, the College of Veterinary Medicine tried out the Philips Lumify mobile ultrasound technology on about 15 dogs Wednesday. The collaboration is a part of the Texas A&M 'One Health' commitment, which links approaches in medical, veterinary and environmental sciences for the advancement of all three areas, officials said. Kerrie DeMarco, director of Texas A&M's Center for Global Health & Innovation, said the goal is to answer a crucial question: "Does it work like it works in humans?" The new technology is smaller, more mobile and weighs less than what is currently used for ultrasounds. Tony Gades, a clinical scientist of ultrasound at Philips, estimated the new technology weighed around half a pound, compared to current machines that can weigh 1,000 to 2,000 times more. A&M's vet school will use the technology on animals to see if Lumify -- which already is in use on human patients in hospitals across the country -- is as effective on animals as it is on humans; they will relay their results to Philips, which will analyze the feedback and strengthen its product. The technology is about the size of a Nintendo Wii controller. The wands plug into personal or professional Android smart devices and transmit images through the Lumify app that users can download. According to the Philips website, the app "brings diagnostic capabilities to your compatible smartphone of handheld device." Gades said the use of Android technology allows for health care professionals to share images quickly. "It's more connected [than current ultrasound technology,]" he said, adding that another important quality of the new technology is that it doesn't get hot, as current ultrasound technology does. As of now, Lumify can only be used on Android devices, since Apple products do not support standard USB interfaces. The lighter technology allows health care professionals to use Lumify in the field. If, say, a dog were hit by a car and couldn't be transferred to a room with ultrasound machines, health care professionals could bring the mobile Lumify technology to the injured animal and determine the extent of its injuries. In addition to dogs and cats, Lumify could conceivably be used someday on larger animals such as cows and horses. Lumify could even attract attention from the Department of Defense, offering the opportunity for advancement of their care for service dogs. "It advances care in veterinary medicine," said Andrea Voges, clinical associate professor of veterinary radiology at the College of Veterinary Medicine. Voges praised the new technology, saying it has "so many potential uses." The school will have its own set of three Lumify portable ultrasound machines for the next year; the equipment will be left with the vet school upon completion of the study. Thanks to products like Lumify, Voges said, "Texas A&M is on the forefront of using innovative technologies." Texas A&M University and the North American Veterinary Community will co-host a Veterinary Innovation Summit from April 28-30. For more information, visit http://veterinaryinnovationsummit.com/. October 22, 1945 - April 11, 2017 Carl James Bussell, 71, of Bryan, passed away quietly and peacefully on Tuesday April 11, 2017 at home, while surrounded by family and love. A time for family to receive friends will be from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Friday April 14, 2017 at Hillier Funeral Home of Bryan. Funeral Services will be held at 11:00 a.m. Saturday, April 15, 2017 at the First United Methodist Church of Bryan, with Rev. David Henry officiating. Carl was born on October 22, 1945 to Dr. James and Dorothy (Tostmann) Bussell in Long Beach, CA. After the end of WWII, the Bussell family settled in Marlin, Texas, where they raised their four children: Carl, Carol, Stanton, and Robert. After graduating from Marlin High School, Carl joined the US Navy and served two tours in Vietnam on the USS Ingersoll. He married his high school sweetheart, Nancy Curry, on May 24, 1967. After his time in the Navy, Carl and Nancy moved to Austin, where Carl attended The University of Texas and was trained to be a jeweler by Charles and Erna Leutwyler. Carl and Nancy settled in Bryan, Texas in 1973 and opened Carl Bussell's Diamond Room, which served as his livelihood and creative outlet for his artistic talents for 35 years. Carl was an active member of the College Station Morning Lions Club for over 40 years, and he loved deer and squirrel hunting, bay fishing, woodworking, knife making, and arrowhead knapping. He and Nancy were members of The First United Methodist Church of Bryan and founding members of the Wesley Class. Carl particularly loved family time at their lakehouse on Lake Belton, phone calls with his siblings, and reading whenever he could. When speaking about Carl, you might remember him for his ability to be diplomatic, slow to anger, thoughtful, and to make you laugh. Carl is preceded in death by his parents. He leaves behind his loving wife of 50 years, Nancy Bussell; daughters: Stacey Tepera and husband Michael of College Station, and Betsy Dodson and husband Rob of Grapevine; siblings: Carol Jones of Conroe, Stanton and Susan Bussell of Waco, Robert and Sharon Bussell of Conroe, and grandchildren: Patrick, Caroline, Libby and Fisher. As an expression of sympathy, memorial contributions may be sent to College Station Morning Lions Club, PO Box 9890, College Station, TX 77842 or to Hospice Brazos Valley. Please share memories and tributes to Carl at www.hillierfuneralhome.com. January 20, 1935 - April 10, 2017 Services for retired LTC Louis M. Klement, 82, of Troy will be 10 a.m. Friday, April 14, at the First United Methodist Church in Troy with Reverend Leslie Byrd officiating. Burial with military honors will follow in Hillcrest Memorial Cemetery in Temple. Mr. Klement passed away Monday, April 10, at a local hospital. Louis Moore Klement was born January 20, 1935 in Hearne, Texas to Alfred William Klement and Elizabeth Moore England Klement. He enlisted in the U.S. Army in December 1957 and served during the Vietnam War, receiving numerous awards and decorations. Upon his retirement in 1978 after over 20 years of service, he worked for Royal Seating Corporation in Cameron for approximately 20 years and for Patriot Homes in Waco for a number of years. He married Martha Elizabeth Kennedy on August 26, 1956, and they were married for 24 years. On July 11, 1981, he married Janet Ruth Maedgen. They were married for 31 years until her death on June 27, 2012. Mr. Klement enjoyed hunting and target shooting and was a member of the National Rifle Association, the Texas Rifle Association, the North American Hunting Club, and the First United Methodist Church of Troy. Survivors include two daughters, Molly Elizabeth Klement Erpenbach and Sally Evelyn Klement Bittick; and one son, Louis M. "Skip" Klement, Jr.; thirteen grandchildren; ten great-grandchildren; and many nieces and nephews. In addition to flowers, memorials donations may be made to the Janet Ruth Klement Scholarship Fund at Troy High School in care of Extraco Bank, 31st Street, Temple. Visitation will be 6 -8 p.m. Thursday, April 13, at Harper-Talasek Funeral Home in Temple. Harper-Talasek Funeral Home in Temple is in charge of arrangements. As an applied ecologist who has co-managed a large wildlife disease investigation with the Institute of Zoology at ZSL, London, I had some relevant background for reviewing the RBCT. To start with, the science relating to badgers moving around more extensively during and after culling looked reasonably straight forward field study and well documented. The change in number of foxes, expanding into empty badger setts though predator release effects; literally the empty niches left by depleted badger populations, seemed well recorded. So where did they go wrong? Moving onto the guts of the main 2007 Independent Scientific Group (ISG) report and the published statistical papers of 2005-2007 and beyond to 2013 was next. This was trickier. It took four months of evening and weekend reading to get fully into the near 300 page summary of the 50 million research project, and a further period with help from senior statisticians to get better grip on what had been done. Along the way, checking with biologists studying mammals, diseases, or natural processes, there were few who had studied it closely, as opposed to just parts of it and most were just generally aware of the various conclusions. The RBCT distinguished two types of badger culling - 'reactive' and 'proactive' - each planned in ten areas of around 100 square km in size. Reactive culling is where badgers are killed only on land within a few km of a new bTB cattle herd breakdown and not widely over a large area, as in proactive culling. But from 1998, reactive badger culling experiments had a faltering start, further hampered by the Foot and Mouth crisis in 2001, restricting access to farms. The result was a depleted dataset due to these unforeseen circumstances. The ISG report nevertheless had come up with its hypothesis that badgers were giving bTB to cows rapidly, by catching and passing it on via a 'perturbation effect'. Yet for many, the speed of bTB transmission from badger to cattle involved looks unrealistically rapid for it to be a genuine phenomenon. The work did not seem to have taken into account when the data on cattle TB incidence was taken - which was immediately after the first proactive badger removals. The sequence of events proposed after badgers killings would be: increased badger mobility and transmission of TB amongst badgers. Newly infected badgers becoming infectious (a process taking months or longer), then infectious badgers making contact with cattle somehow in a mechanism that is unknown, cows establishing new bTB infection in vulnerable individuals, over months or longer, sufficiently to trigger responsiveness to the tuberculin test detection at slaughter / post mortem culture / microscopy; breakdowns might need to wait six months on average and up to a year for the next testing period to be detected, during which there was a 20-50% chance per cow of it being missed and possibly picked up after a further year or longer. on testing, checking for non-visible disease by culture will then take several months. Notably, this entire sequence of events requires a considerable time to play through. Safe science? Growing doubts ... Reviewing the literature on BTB and badgers, there was a group of six academics including Professor Simon More from the Centre for Veterinary Epidemiology and Risk Analysis in Dublin who had studied the ISG and published an immediate critique of several aspects. In addition, the record showed Sir David King (Chief Scientist at the time) set up his own expert group that effectively challenged the strength of the statistics concerning reactive badger culling increasing cattle breakdowns via a badger / bTB perturbation effect. More recently, the Chief Veterinary Officer for Wales has drawn similar conclusions as those before her (see video after 34 minutes and BBC report). So now there are three separate expert appraisals suggesting independently that reactive culling and its related badger / bTB perturbation effect are not safe science. All in all, the suggested increased bTB transmission would have been likely to take years, if indeed it was real at all. The cold fact is that the reactive culling studies were too interrupted to prove increased bTB herd breakdowns resulting from reactive culling. This was a fatal blow to the ISG conclusions in 2007 and in fact to badgers, because the other main finding of the RBCT in relation to proactive badger culling was that killing badgers reduces bTB herd breakdowns by around 23%. So by 2010, during the preparations of the 2011 Government Policy on bovine TB eradication, it was only the proactive cull 'benefit' that was foremost in the minds of the cull designers. This too was the message to the politicians and the farming industry at the time. A Catch 22 that snared the scientists, campaigners and celebrities The irony of this situation is that in 2012, the anti-cull movement of charities, voluntary bodies and celebrities got behind the 2007 ISG report findings, and the statements by scientists associated more closely with the research, perhaps not realising or recognising its flaws. They used the 'no meaningful contribution' and 'government ignoring science' as their campaign headline. But in doing so they were in fact saying: "we agree that it is badgers spreading bTB significantly and with the perturbation effects increased bTB spread by badgers to cattle, and that badger culling can work." And so those scientists involved were trapped in a Catch 22 of either: agreeing their bTB perturbation hypothesis was unproven, and that proactive culling works to reduce bTB; or trying to prop-up the perturbation effect story, as a balance to the proactive cull bTB reduction. In the end, most of the anti-cull movement campaigned, unaware of this paradox and without really knowing the details of the real scientific uncertainty underneath. Checking the science of proactive badger culling Slightly taken aback, it seemed important next to turn to the aspect of the RBCT that had been suggested was more robust; the proactive badger cull 'benefit' of reducing bTB from mass badger culling across a wide area. This involved looking at the methods and analysis of proactive culling. The first, and rather shocking thing to notice is that the raw data shows that in four of the ten proactive culling zones, bTB actually went up and not down when compared with its control area. There was no 'benefit' nearly half of the time in terms of what the farmer and veterinarian might see 'on the ground'. How could that be? To find the answer I next had to tackle mathematical modelling and the assumptions and adjustments made to the raw data that had turned this into a 'significant' result. After a lot of hard work by a statistician who had volunteered to retrace the analysis, there was nothing in the analysis that actually looked 'wrong' in terms of the mechanics of what had been done. However a number of serious problems began gradually to emerge. Using an alternative but equally valid model on the RBCT data indicated a lack of statistical significance from the proactive cull data. This was simply using, for each comparison between cull and control area the years over which proactive culling was actually carried out, rather than the average number of years, as used in the ISG analysis. This was a very simple adjustment, using the time that each set of herds had actually been exposed to change rather than the average. As such it was an equally valid, if not more valid approach, to that used in the study. Confounding variables and unjustified exclusions of data Other issues cropped up, such as the wide range of confounding variables such as changes to testing and cattle movements that were likely to have been uneven within and between study areas and controls. The RBCT had not been a double-blind trial and landowners had known whether badger culling was taking place or not in the cull and control areas. However, without proof of variables causing statistical skew within and between triplets, it is hard to prove the relevance without tracking down new data from the RBCT period. There was no time to do that - something for the future, perhaps government would take an interest. It also became clearer that the RBCT had actually been a study in a period during which bTB was very rapidly increasing, not declining. Many of the study areas were very heavily infected before the study had started. What was being concluded upon was not an actual decline but a slower rate of increase. However, perhaps the biggest shock of all was that the RBCT analysis had only used 'confirmed' herd breakdown rather than 'all' cattle breakdown data in its final 2007 presentation. This is highly significant because our understanding of disease prevalence has improved since the 2007 ISG report. The lack of visible lung lesions or laboratory 'culture test positive' made during cattle slaughter and post mortem checks, is no longer viewed as meaning that the animal is free of bTB. Furthermore, whilst the tuberculin skin test misses many infected cows, it very rarely gives false positives. Those RBCT reactor cows with no visible lesions at post-mortem had, all along, been infected with bTB. The fatal RBCT / ISG proactive culling oversight This dilemma comes up in the 2007 ISG report (see pages 93-96). It points towards difficulties with post-mortem culturing of bTB as the reason that the disease would be overlooked in unconfirmed reactors. In hindsight, and what may be seen now as the disastrous move, the ISG analysis decided just to use 'confirmed' breakdown-only data as opposed to 'all' breakdown (confirmed and unconfirmed). Simon More in Dublin had also spotted this. What happens when you add all the unconfirmed test results back into the model as being correctly identified as having bTB is that there is no statistically significant effect of proactive culling of badgers on new herd bTB breakdown. Here was a lethal blow to the ISG proactive cull analysis and conclusions. The ISG should have concluded that the RBCT had failed to find a link between proactive badger culling and a reduction in bTB herd breakdowns - the exact opposite of its finding. Instead it concluded that badgers do pass bTB to cattle at a significant rate. It also said badger culling was not worth doing because of a balancing effect resulting from perturbation effect causing herd breakdown. That was a story that the public and government of the day embraced - but one that extended way beyond the limits of safe scientific conclusion, and one that the government kicked into the long grass. An inconvenient truth becomes increasingly obvious The strength of the RCBT had slowly crumbled to bits over my year of study. Several scientists along the way advised me that the RBCT was 'not strong science'. But busy with their own issues, they had tended to see the 'pro-badger' ISG conclusion that the advice not to cull badgers was possibly 'right for the wrong reason' and so fairly harmless - not realising what a change of government might then do. Others had entertained doubts but felt no need to comment over the bTB 'hot potato', especially as much of their funding was provided by government. By August 2016, as more badger killing was announced, the awful truth was becoming ever more obvious. The badger protection movement, with few exceptions had joined with the ISG scientists to uphold 'the ISG science', based upon badgers giving bTB to cattle with significant frequency. They were supported by several Oxford University related academics, although I noted this was often cautiously on more general terms than the ISG specific findings. Speaking out were some who were behind the scenes of the 1997 Krebs review and its RBCT. On checking and double checking, and testing the frailties, many closest to the issue did not want to talk about it, which just seemed suspicious. Some wanted it covered up for tactical reasons. The phrase 'reputational damage' was used. A lack of mutual understanding between veterinarians and modellers? Looking back to the RBCT design, it does seem odd that John Krebs and Roy Anderson at Oxford University had concluded the need for a trial of the kind undertaken, given the clear uncertainties at the time over the disease and the role of wildlife. Robert May (Oxford and Imperial) who was Chief Scientific Adviser (1995-2000) at its origination, and who worked closely with Krebs, has acknowledged that (see page 302) the use of mathematical models during the 2001 Foot and Mouth Disease epidemic had created controversy based on a "lack of mutual understanding between veterinarians and modellers." It looks perhaps as if the RBCT may have been a prelude to such problems, but this time involving zoologists. Krebs was recently quoted at the Royal Society as saying "We must acknowledge as scientists that we don't always get it right. Models make assumptions, labels slip in freezers." Was this perhaps a message regarding the trials that bear his name? Now is the time to find out - before 100 million that would be better spent helping cattle farmers is used to kill and injure 100,000 or more English badgers, all because weak science, and weaker statistics, failed the farmer, cow and badger. Tom Langton is a consulting ecologist to government, business and industry who provides advocacy support to charities and pressure groups seeking justice where environmental damage is being caused to species and habitats. This article is co-published with the Badger Trust. It is scheduled for publication in the next edition of Badger News. Other articles by Tom Langton "It's time to swallow the alarm clock!" This was how former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres launched Mission2020 this week, a new campaign to ensure that 2020 is the year global emissions start to decline. The launch event took place at Google's glitzy London office and featured the likes of renowned climate economist Lord Nick Stern and Astro Teller of Google X, the mysterious 'moonshot factory' that comes up with the company's more ambitious projects like Google Glass and driverless cars. He spoke via video link up from, what I liked to imagine, was some top secret subterranean lab under the mountains of California. However the star of the show was Figueres, the veteran Costa Rican diplomat who stepped down as Secretary General of the UN's climate change secretariat following the successful Paris Agreement in 2015. She has launched this new venture so that the good work of Paris is not lost and to ensure the sense of urgency about global decarbonisation is internalised - hence her clock-swallowing metaphor. A big challenge - but an achievable one! Mission2020 is a three-pronged call to arms: peaking global emissions within the next three years is "necessary, desirable and achievable". It's a daunting task. Scientists insist that we must start to bend this emission curve before the next Olympic Games. But Figueres, with the zeal of an evangelist, made the case that the challenge had to be confronted head on: "Is this challenging? Absolutely it is. But we're on our way. For the last three years we've seen flat global emissions while global economic growth has increased 2-3 % a year." She listed off some of the progress already made, such as the need for 30% of global grid electricity to be renewable by 2020 and how we're already at 23.7%, as well as some of the intimidating tasks to overcome. She said we had to end deforestation by 2020 and cited plans by the Indian Government for the country to have 100% electric vehicles by 2030. Such high ambitions sound unlikely, sitting where we do in the second quarter of 2017. But Astro Teller used history to shed some useful light on the kind of unlikely achievements we've already accomplished: "When I was a child at the height of the Cold War, we were making nuclear weapons at a ferocious rate. The idea that in 35 years time, there would be one sixth of the nuclear weapons would have been laughable, but, as a species, we managed it. "There was also the idea, back in the 19th Century, that we thought we would run out of fertiliser and run out food and that millions of people would starve. However in 1909 artificial fertiliser was created in a lab, and just four years later it was in mass production through the Haber-Bosch process. For every story about technology ruining our lives I see stories of how technology can save them." Making a return to our two favourite summer locations, Mount Maunganui and Nelson in early January 2023, we've got whiff of the first release lineup and me oh my, yes boy Nazi Germany had to decide who was and who wasn't a Jew in order to know who could be targeted under its racial laws. The United States had to make the same sort of decision about who was and who wasn't "Japanese." Who do you think was stricter? Obviously, I wouldn't be asking the question if the answer weren't surprising: the United States was stricter. By a lot. Under the Nuremberg Laws, a person with at least three Jewish grandparents was a Jew, no further questions asked. A person with only two Jewish grandparents was a Jew only if certain further conditions were met. The rule in the United States was that any person with a Japanese ancestor was Japanese. Regardless of degree. U.S. Army Western Defense Command, "Japanese Evacuation from the West Coast, 1942: Final Report," p. 514. And in actual operation the rules on curfew, exclusion, and detention touched people who had only one Japanese great-grandparent. Final Report, p. 145. This is a question (who was "Japanese" for the purposes of internment?) that is often asked but surprisingly hard to find the answer to. So I thought I'd share it here. 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 ... What issue do Iowa voters most often say is critical? You might be surprised See who's on the ballot in Iowa's 2022 midterm election From the races for governor and senator, all the way down to county offices and judicial retention, here's what's on Iowans' ballots this year. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate WILTON Local beauty professionals without the wherewithal to open a business can now rent a space at Sola Salon Studios in the Wilton River Park Shopping Center. The 18-studio office at 5 River Road offers licensed beauty professionals 24/7 access to an outfitted space with cabins, sinks, shelves and individual air conditioning and heating units. Each studio ranges between 100 and 200 square feet that can be retrofit and personalized for any kind of beauty professional, from hairstylists to nail technicians. Since Sola Salons opening in late February, two businesses have moved in and several studios are on reserve. Everything is ready to go. They just have to bring their product in and get going, said Holly Bobrow, of Westport, who owns the business with her husband Rich. And so people come in here and theyre now business owners, theyre in control of their financial destiny, theyre in more control of their life in a much more flexible way than they ever have been before. And its a life-changer for many. The Westport couple decided to open a location in Wilton because of the towns central location in Fairfield County and overall reputation of being welcoming to new businesses, Rich Bobrow said. Its a new concept for the Northeast and it was a new concept for Fairfield County, and therefore a new concept for Wilton, Rich Bobrow said. And they were extremely helpful in trying to work it out and figure how this concept would apply to Wilton under their rules and regulations. The Bobrows spent 25 years developing real estate in New York City and Fairfield County before delving into the shared space business a year ago, with the opening of their first Sola Salons location in Westport at 495 Westport Road E. Since then, theyve made it their goal to help beauty professionals reach success through Sola Salon Studios. Were not only just renting out studios. We are offering business support of all kinds and artistic education in terms of continuing education for hairstylists and the other beauty professionals, Holly Bobrow said. Were here to support the people that are working at Sola and the community, Rich Bobrow added. Wiltons got a very strong sense of community and thats important to us. Sola Salons has more than 300 locations nationwide with a network of 7,000-plus beauty professionals. For more information about the Wilton location, call 203-885-7652. SKim@hearstmediact.com; 203-354-1044; @stephaniehnkim HASTINGS A former Hastings police officer was sentenced for theft by deception on Wednesday in Adams County District Court. Jerry Esch, 46, of Hastings will serve 10 days in jail and 24 months probation and must perform 100 hours of community service. In June 2016, Esch was charged with theft by deception involving more than $5,000, a Class 2A felony. Esch had created a GoFundMe page in which he asked for money to cover medical expenses he claimed to have incurred due to cancer. The offense date is listed as March 25, 2016, according to online court records. Esch had melanoma, according to a previous feature in the Hastings Tribune. He was diagnosed in 2009, and doctors later had to amputate his right leg below the knee. While Esch did have cancer, he did not have the medical bills he claimed to have incurred, according to the Nebraska attorney generals office. During an interview with the Nebraska State Patrol and according to the court affidavit, Esch said he raised in excess of $30,000 after posting his GoFundMe request. Eschs attorney, Steven M. Delaney, confirmed his clients sentence of jail, probation and community service. Esch pleaded no contest in January in exchange for the felony being reduced to the Class 1 misdemeanor. At that hearing, Esch was ordered to pay $7,500 in restitution, which Delaney said was paid before Wednesdays sentencing. Under a plea agreement, former Shelton school superintendent Brian Redinger pleaded no contest Wednesday to two misdemeanors in Hall County District Court. The plea was entered to charges of third-degree domestic assault and reckless driving. The charges stem from a dispute between Redinger and his wife, Kelleene, on April 10, 2016. As part of Wednesdays agreement, three felony charges were dropped. Those charges were attempt of a Class 2 felony, strangulation and making terroristic threats. The 46-year-old Hastings resident will be sentenced by District Judge John Marsh at 10 a.m. June 8. The agreement was offered to me this morning, Redingers attorney, Richard Alexander, said Wednesday afternoon. Alexander said that he personally believes charges were trumped up against his client. I think that law enforcement, once they found out it was the superintendent from the Shelton public schools ... just took it upon themselves to make this whole thing into a mountain from a molehill, Alexander said. Hall County Deputy Attorney David Medlin, who prosecuted the case, could not be reached for comment. Dear Annie: My husband and I live in a small town and belong to a small church, which is struggling. I like our minister, but a lot of people do not and have left our church for other churches, including a megachurch in a nearby town. It is hard to compete with that! But several months ago, I found out that it is not just because of the minister. A couple in our church have been running people off. They are involved in everything and are rude to other people and downright mean to the minister. I started watching their behavior, and I am just amazed that people who act this way can call themselves Christians. Their behavior is getting worse as the months go by. We are going to be sharing a minister starting in July because we cannot afford to pay a full-time one any longer. He is already a minister at a church in a nearby town. I was hoping that would be an end to our problems, but now I am not so sure. A few weeks ago, the wife left in the middle of the service, angry over something. She sat in the car the rest of the service. Her husband always runs the computer during worship and thinks no one else can do it right, but last Sunday, they were both gone and someone else did it just fine. She wrote a post on Facebook about how they attended the church where our future minister already preaches. Awesome message! So refreshing, were her comments. My greatest fear and I am not alone is that they are trying to get in good with the new minister before he even gets to our church. I am hoping that he is smart enough to see through these people. My question is: Should someone discuss these people with him, or should we just pray and hope for the best? Trying to Save Our Church Dear Trying: Ill answer your question with another: What would Jesus do? By all indications, he would turn the other cheek and pray for this couple, showing them only mercy and kindness. Everyone is on a different path when it comes to faith and worship. If the couple are driven by ego and attention, that is between them and God. It is not something you need to worry about and resolve. These types of things always have a way of working themselves out. If they are truly being fake and kissing up to the minister, he will probably see through that. Dear Annie: I agreed with your advice to Always a Bridesmaid, Now a Bride, whose sisters-in-law had all chosen her as a bridesmaid and who was deciding whether to use them as bridesmaids or to use four of her friends. You said the writer should do the former, but you did not tell her what to do with her friends. She should use them to help out in other areas of the wedding serving punch, cutting cake, being greeters and so on. They could even help with the decorations and bouquets. Em Dear Em: Great idea, and help with preparation would no doubt be beneficial for brides and grooms on a budget. Annie Lane, a graduate of New York Law School and New York University, writes this column for Creators Syndicate. Email questions to dearannie@creators.com. Rows of Westridge middle-schoolers cheered as they waited to hear about money from Nebraska State Treasurer Don Stenberg on Wednesday in the school auditorium. More than 100 students at Westridge heard from Stenberg, who also spoke to Barr and Walnut students earlier in the day. Grand Island Mayor Jeremy Jensen and Westridge Principal Brad Wolfe spoke before introducing Stenberg. The state treasurer talked to the students about the financial literacy program Vault, which is available to Nebraska schools through the treasurers office. Grand Island sixth-graders are some of the first students in the state to complete the Vault program, which started last fall. Now, more than 1,330 students across Nebraska are taking part in the program. Stenberg also congratulated them on becoming Nebraska NEST Financial Scholars, an online financial literacy program offered to Nebraska schools at no charge to schools, students or taxpayers. Those programs aim to help students understand personal finance so they can be responsible with their money early on. The best money management advice I can give you is to spend less than you earn, Stenberg said. That sounds easy enough, but many adults have trouble doing that. How does someone spend more than he or she earns? By borrowing money. So, you need to look for alternatives to borrowing money. Jensen and financial literacy teacher Phil Zlomke said they didnt have much financial literacy when they were younger. Zlomke, who later shook students hands along with Stacy Sybrandts, Jensen, Stenberg and Wolfe, shared some of his misfortune. When I went to college, I already had $5,000 in credit card debt, he said. It took him seven years to recover and pay off that debt. The reason Zlomke teaches financial literacy to his students? I dont want you guys to make that same mistake, he told Westridge sixth-graders. Stenberg shared a story of a woman who had a dad and a stepdad. One of the men worked for the post office, while the other was a surgeon. Stenberg said the one that has financial problems is the one youd least expect: the surgeon. He said thats likely because that person is living a more expensive lifestyle for himself. Although the post office worker made less, Stenberg said, he was actually richer because he saved more. Stenberg left the students with this advice: Dont spend all your money in one place. Never spend more than you earn. And make wise choices, because once you spend the money you have, you dont have any more to spend. Nebraska State Treasured Don Stenberg talks to Westridge middle school students a/b financial literacy: https://t.co/TcG854HBqy Kelli Rollin (@KRollinIndy) April 12, 2017 LINCOLN Nebraska lawmakers signaled Wednesday they intend to pull rank on local elected officials when it comes to regulating guns. The Legislature voted 32-12 to advance a bill that would require state law to override municipal gun regulations in Nebraska. Supporters of the measure narrowly defeated a filibuster by senators who argued cities and villages ought to control gun possession in their communities. The advancement of the bill puts Nebraska one step closer to passing what likely is the most significant expansion of gun rights since lawmakers enacted a concealed carry law in 2006. Senators adopted an amendment that provides exceptions that allow Omaha to continue to ban open carry of handguns in public places. It also permits Omaha to keep certain rules on transporting firearms through the city that wont apply to other places. But the bill would end Omahas handgun registration ordinance, long a source of irritation to gun owners who viewed it as a blatant infringement on their Second Amendment rights. The bill also would end local gun ordinances in all cities smaller than Omaha, which is the states largest metropolitan area. That prompted concern by opponents who say it will allow gun owners to openly carry handguns in public buildings, including Pinnacle Bank Arena. The bill needs to pass two more rounds of debate this session before it would go to the desk of Gov. Pete Ricketts. Although the governor has not commented on the bill, he is a supporter of gun rights. Opponents will likely mount another fight when the bill comes up for second-round debate. The Regional Planning Commission is taking on a sensitive issue as it considers agriculture district zoning. The proposal is to use a siting matrix that takes into account farmers work to protect the environment and their livestock as well as neighbors concerns about water quality and odor issues. Our states agricultural producers are very cognizant of the impact of their operations on the environment. In most cases, they live where they are raising their livestock, so they benefit from soil, water and air quality protection as much as their neighbors do. And its important to our states economy that they be able to make a profit in operating their businesses. Under the siting matrix proposal being considered by the planning commission, livestock operations would be permitted as long as they meet Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) requirements, meet setback and operation requirements and ensure proper management of their operations. The biggest issue so far as the commission has heard comments on the proposal has been with odor concerns raised by people living less than a mile from existing livestock feedlots. Regional Planning Director Chad Nabity has proposed that operations with 1,001 to 3,000 head of cattle have a 3/8-mile setback instead of the current 1/2-mile setback requirement. Operations with 3,001 to 5,000 head would have to have a 1/2-mile setback on an open lot. For dairy and hog confinement facilities, the setback would remain at a mile, regardless of the number of cattle or hogs. This is actually more strict than the Nebraska zoning matrix the state developed last year. But it is a reduction in the setback requirement for smaller operations. Commission member Greg Robb said he believes the proposal is fair to everybody involved, holding livestock producers accountable but also recognizing the importance of their businesses success as it takes into consideration neighboring landowners concerns. The commission needs to take it slow as it considers all the impacts of a switch to a siting matrix. The commission heard comments at its meeting last week and chairman Pat ONeill encouraged the public to submit written comments, which he said will be reviewed before any decision is made. People impacted by this process should take the time now to speak up. The Regional Planning Commission, which is responsible for planning-related services for the city of Grand Island, Hall County and the villages of Alda, Cairo, Doniphan, and Wood River, meets at 6 p.m. on the first Wednesday of every month in the Grand Island City Council chambers. Comments can be submitted to Nabitys office at City Hall. Nabity can be reached by phone at (308) 385-5240. In February 2016, Gov. Pete Rickets appointed a task force to address the growing violence in Whiteclay, Neb. The task force included two beer store owners, several elected officials, a pastor, the Sheridan County attorney and the county sheriff. Subsequently, the task force made six recommendations. At the top of the list was the need for full time law enforcement. The recommendation by itself was an admission that current law enforcement is inadequate. Thursday at the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission hearing, Sheridan County commissioner and task force member James Krotz tried to minimize the task force recommendation and argued aimlessly that they had adequate law enforcement. Krotz then acquiesced and acknowledged that Sheridan County doubled the law enforcement budget for 2017, giving the appearance that the elected officials were providing cover for the beer store owners. Tribal Attorney General Natewin Means, the chief law enforcement official of the Ogalala Sioux Tribe (OST), told the committee that Pine Ridge residents were asking her for help with alcohol-related crimes being perpetrated in Whiteclay. She told the committee that she does not have any jurisdiction in Whiteclay and there is not any cooperation from Sheridan County officials. Supporting her testimony was a four-page resolution passed unanimously by the OST executive committee, asking the NLCC to refuse to authorize the re-issuance of off-sale beer licenses at Whiteclay. With the ongoing murder investigation of Sherry Wounded Foot since August 2016, lawlessness in Whiteclay is on the rise. It is in the best interest of Nebraska and Pine Ridge to not reissue the four beer licenses at Whiteclay. More than 100 world leaders are about to discuss a worsening problem that scientists call Earths biggest challenge, yet observers say it will be hard to make progress given all the other things happening in the world. Dozens of heads of states or governments Monday take the stage in the first day of high-level international climate talks in Egypt with more to come in following days. Much of the focus will be on national leaders telling their stories of being devastated by climate disasters. But leaders of China, India and Russia will be missing and the U.S. midterm elections will be grabbing headlines. Live election coverage: All eyes on PA as voters head to the polls The nation is closely watching PA as it could decide the balance of power in Washington. Check back regularly for statewide coverage updates. The National Park Service invites the public to celebrate 101 years of service during Junior Ranger Day and National Park Week, April 15-23, 2017. Free, family-friendly, interactive programs focusing on national parks will be available at the Old Courthouse, part of Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. Junior Ranger Programs: Daily, April 15-23 Kids ages 5-15 can earn two limited-edition Junior Ranger badges at the Old Courthouse by completing activity booklets for the National Park Service Centennial and the 50th anniversary of the National Historic Preservation Act. A third Junior Ranger badge can be earned at the Gateway Arch. Happy Birthday, National Park Service!: April 15; 12:00 p.m. Join park rangers in celebrating 101 years of preservation and protection with a slice of birthday cake (while supplies last). Junior Ranger Night Explorer Workshop: April 15, 16 & 23; 10:00 a.m. Kids ages 5-12 and their families can join Ranger Richard to learn more about the night sky. Hell help them earn the special Junior Ranger Night Explorer Patch that is only available these three days. A Kids and Family Total Eclipse Primer: April 15, 16, 23; 1:00 p.m. Ranger Richard will give kids and their families tips on where and how to view this summer's total solar eclipse, the first eclipse visible from the continental United States since 1979 and the first visible from St. Louis since 1442. Kids will receive a free set of eclipse viewing glasses while supplies last. Henry Chouteau vs. the City of St. Louis Mock Trial: April 15, 16, 22 & 23; 2:00 p.m. Ever wonder how the Old Courthouse became part of a national park? Abandoned in the 1930s, the Old Courthouse, full of important American stories and history, was dilapidated and in need of preservation. Visitors will participate in this historic trial that began a chain of events that led to the Old Courthouse becoming the first National Historic Site. Find Your Park Anywhere: April 15, 16, 22 & 23, 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Where is the closest national park? Ranger Karen will illustrate the diversity of over 400 sites to prove there is an NPS site for everyone. She will highlight some lesser-known parks and share her passion for national parks with the public. Pick up free park bookmarks, NPS trading cards and more when you stop by her table. Find Your Park in Missouri: April 15, 16, 22 & 23; 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Ranger Isaiah highlights the six National Parks in Missouri by using natural objects, artifacts and puppets. Learn surprising things you can discover when you visit these special places, and be inspired to take a road trip within your own state this spring or summer! Giveaways such as temporary tattoos, stickers and activity sheets are available to participants. The History of the National Park Service: April 15, 16, 22 & 23; 11:00 a.m. & 3:00 p.m. When Theodore Roosevelt became president in 1906, he went to work preserving Americas national treasures for future generations. In just three years, he established 15 national monuments, including the Grand Canyon and Petrified Forest, through executive order. Please join Ranger Isaiah as he reveals how presidents and average Americans worked to protect these areas for all Americans to enjoy. Dress Like a Ranger Selfie Station: Daily, April 15-23 Kids can dress up as park rangers and pose with a life-size cut-out of former Park Ranger President Gerald Ford, work on a national park puzzle, collect stickers and learn about national park stories, icons, and symbols. Every Kid in a Park Free National Park Pass: Daily, April 15-23 This special initiative gives fourth graders and their families a chance to visit hundreds of Americas special placesincluding the Gateway Arch!with the Every Kid in a Park pass. Go to www.everykidinapark.gov before your park visit to print off your voucher. There will also be opportunities at the park for kids with no computer access to earn this pass throughout National Park Week. ARCH TRAM RIDES SUSPENSION REMINDER Journey to the Top tram rides at the Gateway Arch are temporarily suspended to replace the motor generator sets and upgrade the trams electrical system. The Visitor Center, The Arch Store, Monument to the Dream documentary film and riverfront via the Arch Grand Staircase remain available to visitors during this time. Tram rides will resume in spring 2017. Please note: During the temporary suspension of tram operations, entrance to the Arch Visitor Center is free, and tickets are not required. PARKING AND ROAD CLOSURES REMINDER A list of downtown St. Louis parking locations within walking distance of the Old Courthouse is available at http://getaroundstl.com. Metered street parking is also available around the Old Courthouse. Visitors are encouraged to check www.gatewayarch.com/directions for up-to-date information on road detours and construction news before their visit. FOR MORE INFORMATION Visit www.nps.gov/jeff or www.gatewayarch.com; or call 877-982-1410. Reservations are not required, but large groups should call 314-655-1614 to alert the Old Courthouse of their attendance. ABOUT: The Gateway Arch and the Old Courthouse are part of Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, located on the riverfront in downtown St. Louis. The Gateway Arch Visitor Center features The Arch Store and Monument to the Dream documentary movie. The Visitor Center is open daily from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the winter. The Old Courthouse, which features restored courtrooms and gallery exhibits about the Dred Scott trials, westward expansion and early St. Louis, is open daily from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The park is closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas Day and New Years Day. The Courthouse is located at 11 North Fourth Street, St. Louis, MO 63102. Programs are free and made possible by the generous support from Jefferson National Parks Association and Bi-State Development. The Edwardsville District 7 Board of Education approved the amended 2016 tax levy (for 2017-18) during its meeting Monday night. The new rate, which captures both the 55-cent education fund tax rate increase recently approved by voters and the current 3 percent EAV growth rate, is $4.64 and is 13 cents less than what had originally been estimated it would be post-referendum approval. Dave Courtney, District 7's Assistant Superintendent of Business Operations, explained how the amended tax levy was actually lower than had been expected. When the referendum was brought forward the district had a tax rate of $4.22 and with the 55 cent increase that tax rate would have been $4.77, he said. But in March the district received information concerning the EAV for the '17-'18 school year and that was higher than the district had projected. This new higher EAV was essentially going to slightly lower the tax rate for the district for the 2017-18 school year from this year's $4.22 rate to somewhere between $4.10 and $4.14. But closer to $4.10 for next school year, Courtney noted. The amended tax levy captures the impact of the passing of the referendum as well as the new projected 3 percent growth in EAV. "So what we've done on the amended tax rate certificate that we're requesting be approved is just add the 55 cents to that lower tax rate estimate which, like I said, would have been around $4.10, he added. So under this proposal, the tax rate, instead of being $4.77, would be $4.64. Courtney also pointed out that all other components of the original levy, such as Social Security, IMRF and the tort levies, remain unchanged. Answering questions posed by board members about the effect of this new tax levy on the district's future budgets, Courtney explained that it will allow the district to have a balanced budget more quickly as well as begin paying back the district's debt. As long as it can be adjusted, which is why we're filing it, if that were to occur, then yes, we would have a balanced budget for '17-'18 and it would allow us to begin paying back the debt as opposed to running another fiscal year with a $3 million deficit... it would prevent us from going $9 million in the hole in the education fund next year as opposed to the $6.5 that we have this year. And at the same time it begins the process of debt repayment and balances the budget which is one of the first requirements of the state board to start moving towards removal from the financial watch list, Courtney noted. The first component was a balanced budget so that would be achieved next year. But he stressed that it will likely take three years before the district recovers from its $6.7 million debt projected at the end of this school year. He pointed out that the state of Illinois currently owes District 7 $1.7 million, is behind about nine to 10 months in payments, that the district will still need to borrow for the education and transportation funds and will definitely need to borrow in May. Turning to a more positive subject, District 7 Superintendent Lynda Andre confirmed that the programs and services that had been on the referendum cut list had the education tax increase not passed, would all be retained. We will continue with all of those services those will continue for the '17-'18 year without any interruption, Andre assured. In her superintendent's report, Andre also again expressed gratitude to the citizens of District 7 for their support of Proposition E. The success of Prop E ensures that students today and in the future will continue to have all the valuable opportunities both academic and extra-curricular that we as a collective group of citizens want our students to experience. This historic vote allows the Edwardsville School District Number 7's plans to ensure it's ongoing financial stability and academic excellence, Andre said. Now that Prop E has passed and funding is available, Andre noted that the district's plans for the funding include ensuring a balanced budget before June of 2019 to avoid a potential state takeover, eliminating the education fund operating debt of $6.7 million and beginning to establish cash reserves. Other plans already underway include replacing aging textbooks, restoring the curriculum review cycle, upgrading technology, infrastructure and hardware, and updating failing school security issues. In other board action, Courtney was appointed treasurer through June 20, 2018. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Hendri Yulius (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, April 13, 2017 On the night of March 28, unidentified vigilantes invaded a house to arrest two men aged 20 and 23 for allegedly having same-sex relationships. A video circulating in social media shows the vigilantes kicking, slapping and insulting the pair before they were brought to and detained at a sharia police facility. Reports said the chief inspector has pushed the men into confessing that they were gay and thus would be detained before being tried under Acehs Islamic Criminal Code (Qanun Jinayah). Homosexuality continues to become Indonesias obsession. In 2016 conservative groups tried to outlaw homosexuality at the national level, but the eventual penalty against the above men would be the first caning of men declared to be gays a punishment under sharia, which is authorized in Aceh under its special autonomy law, following the agreement between the Indonesian government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) that brought peace in 2005. The law criminalizes liwath, defined as anal penetration between men and carries a punishment of 100 lashes, a fine of 1,000 grams of gold or 100 months in prison. Female homosexuality and heterosexual extramarital sex are also inescapable from the law. The former is penalized by categorizing and defining female same-sex relations as musahaqah the act of two or more women rubbing their body parts or vagina for sexual pleasure, while the latter can be criminalized just because of ikhtilath, intimacy in the form of kissing, touching, and hugging. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Jean-Charles Berthonnet (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, April 13, 2017 During their meeting on March 29, visiting French President Francois Hollande and President Joko Jokowi Widodo expressed their wish to pursue common initiatives towards a green and sustainable growth model. The two heads of state also encouraged bilateral cooperation in renewable energy, responsible agriculture, forest preservation and prevention of natural disasters. On all these issues, France and Indonesia, which both have ratified the Paris Agreement on climate change, are committed to working together in order to find win-win solutions. And palm oil is no exception. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Kuan-lin Liu (The China Post/Asia News Network) Taipei Thu, April 13, 2017 Taiwan tech giant Asustek Computer Inc. saw a drop in worldwide PC shipments this past first quarter, according to separate reports from two IT research and analysis firms International Data Corporation (IDC) and Gartner. The reports, released Tuesday U.S. time, suggested that Asus suffered a year-on-year first-quarter decrease of 11.4 percent to 14 percent. Garner's estimates found Asus to be the world's fourth-largest-selling PC vendor, shipping 4.547 million units for a 7. 3 percent market share, whereas the company fell out of the top 5 in IDC's list. According to Gartner, Asus suffered a 14 percent decrease in shipments from the same period last year, when it shipped 5.287 million units and had a market share of 8.3 percent. By contrast, IDC grouped the PC manufacturer in its "Others" group, which comprises all vendors other than those in the top 5 and which the group said had total shipments of 16.967 million units for a 28.1 percent market share. Local experts have suggested that the poor first-quarter performance was due to an increase in component costs and the resulting adjustment of production distribution. How Did Others Fare? Overall, the growth of the global PC market was either relatively flat or negative, depending on how the shipment units are calculated. IDC, which counts Chromebooks, desktops, notebooks and workstations but not tablets or x86 servers as PCs, found that the market saw year-on-year growth of 0.6 percent with 60.3 million units in the first quarter. Read also: Gaming and VR gadgets to star at Computex Gartner, which includes desktops, notebooks and ultramobile premiums but not Chromebooks or iPads in its calculations, found that the market's total shipments fell by 2.4 percent to 62.2 million units, reportedly marking the first time since 2007 that "the PC market experienced shipments below 63 million units in a quarter. HP topped IDC's rankings, followed by Lenovo, Dell, Apple and Acer, with all of them posting year-on-year growth. In Gartner's rankings, Lenovo took the top spot, followed by HP, Dell, Asus, Apple and Acer, with all except Asus and Acer reported to have seen year-on-year growth. The Age of PCs No Longer Despite the firms' somewhat different outlooks on the PC market, representatives from both reported slower growth and a delayed replacement rate for PCs. "The PC simply isn't as in-demand as it once was," U.S. technology website VentureBeat noted. The website quoted Gartner's principal analyst, Mikako Kitagawa, who said that "vendors who do not have a strong presence in the business market will encounter major problems ... and be forced to exit the PC market in the next five years." According to Kitagawa, the consumer market for PCs will continue to shrink, which is why "maintaining a strong position in the business market," especially as "specialized niche players with purpose-built PCs, such as gaming PCs and ruggedized laptops," will be critical for sustainable growth. IDC research manager Jay Chou expressed a similar sentiment. He was quoted by VentureBeat as saying that "consumer demand will remain under pressure, although growth in segments like PC Gaming as well as rising saturation of tablets and smartphones will move the consumer market toward stabilization." Lenovo, HP and Dell, according to Gartner, will be the main contenders for "the large-enterprise segment" of the PC market, leaving limited opportunities for other vendors, except Apple, which Kitagawa said has "a solid customer base in specific verticals." This article appeared on The China Post newspaper website, which is a member of Asia News Network and a media partner of The Jakarta Post Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin I Wayan Juniarta (The Jakarta Post) Denpasar Thu, April 13, 2017 10:30 2035 a291276806121264c0bd211cde8f8b99 4 Environment bali,drought,clean-water Free At the height of the rainy season in early February, when torrential rain fell on a daily basis and triggered floods in Bali, more than 50,000 homes in Denpasar found themselves without any clean water for days. The tap water company PDAM, owned by the Badung regency administration, cut off its water supply after discovering two of its water purification facilities were clogged with mud, trash and uprooted logs carried by overflowing rivers. It took the PDAM days to clean up the facilities and restore water quality to an acceptable level. The episode spurred public outrage on both mainstream and social media, with some pointing out the irony of a water scarcity taking place during the rainy season. Others accused PDAM which last year booked an annual profit of Rp 26 billion (US$1.95 million) of negligence for failing to anticipate the floods and providing insufficient response as it deployed only seven water trucks to aid its customers during the crisis. However, the ordeal, which forced many households to spend huge sums of money to purchase bottled water, did result in one good thing: it facilitated the birth of greater public awareness of the islands water scarcity problem. A waiting game: Residents of Tianyar village, Bali, place buckets in front of their homes to collect rain water.(JP/Anggara Mahendra) Lack of water has been Balis pink elephant in the room for decades. Discussions on the growing gap between the islands water supply and the everincreasing demand have been a staple among academics, environmentalists and NGO activists. Read also: Rus Alit: Keeping water flowing in rural areas As early as 2009, research by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) warned that the southern part of the island would suffer from a water deficit by 2015. It projected a deficit of up to 2,500 liters per second. Other studies carried out by local scholars yielded similar results. However, the realization that Bali was suffering from a lack of clean water did not gain traction outside the realms of academia, environmentalism and NGOs. A majority of the islands population, especially those being spoiled by easy access to clean water, were not even aware of the problem. Those who were mistakenly concluded that the problem was exclusive to Balis poor and arid regions in the east and north. When nature fails: Children walk home from school under the scorching sun.(JP/Anggara Mahendra) It was this ignorance that for years has made water scarcity one of the islands most unrecognized and therefore most neglected problems, said activist Viebeke Lengkong. Dubbed the matriarch of Balis AntiReclamation Movement, arguably the islands biggest pro-environmental grassroots campaign, Viebeke is the founder of Im An Angel, a charity organization that provides aid to poor villagers in Karangasem regency, East Bali. Karangasem boasts some of the islands most impoverished and arid villages, where water scarcity has been a real problem for decades. In Tianyar, a poverty-stricken region on the slopes of Mount Agung, Im An Angel has assisted villagers in constructing at least 50 cubang, a water storage tank for harvesting rainfall. Each cubang costs around Rp 23 million and can provide water for up to 25 families. During severe drought periods, the organization usually sends water trucks to fill in the empty cubing. It also provides free health services to women and school supplies to their children. Read also: Foundation campaigns to help East Sumba tackle water, electricity issues In yesteryears, many Balinese people thought that water scarcity was a problem for the poor regions; now they begin to see that it is their problem, too, Viebeke said. It is also a truly pressing problem, she added, with three of the islands four lakes suffering from silting, 260 out of 400 rivers drying up during the dry season and saltwater intrusion expanding at settlements along Balis southern coast. The island needs to get its act together fast. A comprehensive solution must be followed through with real actions, senior lecturer Stroma Cole from the University of the West of England said during a recent workshop on water scarcity. Painful symptoms: The lack of clean water in Tianyar village, Bali, has lead to various health problems.(JP/Anggara Mahendra) Co-organized by Im An Angel and Udayana University, the workshop brought together scholars, environmentalists, NGO activists, government officials and figures from the tourism industry and traditional communities to draft an action plan to deal with the problem. Stroma, who studies water use at various tourism regions across the world and has previously carried out studies in Bali, warned that a failure to act would put local residents in a collision course with the tourism industry Balis economic backbone and one of the primary culprits behind soaring demand for clean water. In her paper, Stroma pointed out that 100 tourists consume in 55 days an amount of clean water that is enough for 100 rural families to last three years. Now, picture Bali: a tiny island of around 4 million people and annually receives more than 11 million tourists, and imagine the toll on the islands water resources. The solution for [Balis] water scarcity problem will have to include a paradigm shift in our tourism approach. We must abandon the existing mass tourism approach and embrace quality and sustainable tourism, Viebeke said. Other actions recommended in the workshop include lobbying for unified, island-wide water management; tighter regulations on land conversion and ground water use; campaigning for ecofriendly practices targeting the tourism industry; and continuing assistance for NGOs working on the preservation of water resources, such as IDEP Foundations initiative to construct recharge wells in strategic locations across Bali. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Ni Nyoman Wira (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, April 13, 2017 10:27 2035 a291276806121264c0bd211cde8f8792 1 Lifestyle jakarta-fashion-food-festival,jakarta,events,food,fashion,Kelapa-Gading,#food,#fashion,#JFFF,festival,#festival Free The annual Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival (JFFF) returns for its 14th installment and will run until May 7 at Summarecon Kelapa Gading mall, North Jakarta, providing a wide selection of local culinary and fashion events by local designers. The fashion event, dubbed Fashion Village, slated to run until April 30, features more than 90 booths selling ready-to-wear collections in the ground floor corridors of Mal Kelapa Gading 2, 3 and 5. Many brands, small medium enterprises and fashion schools will participate in the event, including Itang Yunasz, Oemah Etnik, North Jakarta Handicraft Council (Dekranasda), Indonesian Batik Foundation, and Indonesian Fashion Designers and Fashion Entrepreneurs Association (APPMI). The festival will also present a series of fashion shows from local designers and brands, as well as the JFFF Awards, which are held to appreciate celebrated figures in the Indonesian fashion scene. Among the designers scheduled to take part are Danny Satriadi, Irsan, Ivan Gunawan, Lulu Lutfi Labibi and Musa Widyatmodjo. As for the food festival, JFFF returns with Kampoeng Tempo Doeloe (KTD) at La Piazza. Set in a village-like ambiance, KTD features more than 100 booths that will serve traditional cuisine, starting from meatballs and soto (aromatic soup) to local snacks. Read also: Annual Yogyakarta art fair to return in May Ragam Nusantara Dance begins the opening ceremony of the Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival, Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta.(Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival/File) JFFF deputy chairman Cut Meutia said that all the participants in KTD had been chosen by a special team from the festival. We didnt recruit them based on region; we chose them based on peoples favorite foods. [They) usually have delicious menus but lack promotion, she recently told The Jakarta Post. Visitors to the festival can also join the Wine & Cheese Expo slated until May 7. Located within the same area of KTD, this year's event offers various high-quality wines from inside and outside the country, including from Hungary, Slovakia, France and Spain. It will also host competitions for sommelier, wine dinners with renowned chefs and the fifth installment of the Jakarta Wine & Cheese Run. However, unlike JFFF's previous installments, the Gading Nite Carnival will not be held due to the construction of the Light Rapid Transit (LRT) in Kelapa Gading. Those who want to visit the JFFF can view the complete schedule of the festival on its official website (jfff.info/). (kes) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Marcel Thee (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, April 13, 2017 12:00 2035 a291276806121264c0bd211cde8fdbd8 4 Art & Culture R-Yuki-Agriardi,painting,exhibition,local-artists Free Bandung artist R. Yuki Agriardis unique style is easy to spot. Whether working with ceramics, various installations or on paintings, his main creative medium, Yukis highly detailed pieces are likely to have some kind of blueish hue adorning them. A graduate of the Bandung Institute of Technologys interior design program and the Central Saint Martin art school in London, Yuki finds inspiration in nature and childhood memories. His latest project was a co-exhibition with fellow artist Wedhar Riyadi and Wisnu Auri at the Ark Galerie in Yogyakarta, called When I Think about the Death of Painting, I Play. On whether the title has any personal meaning to him, Yuki said death was something he often thought about. In general, I still have no clear idea about death. It could be a big black wall you have to face one day, but it could be also a big black wall you have to face with a hammer or shovel on your hand something you have to work out, he said. Read also: Sketches that capture the subtleties of both worlds However, he has no intention of talking about the death of painting in the contemporary art world. For me, painting is one medium I like to work with to visualize my ideas. My work feels alive to me, but in the end, I leave it open to the viewers interpretation [as] they have their own values and thoughts [and] their own experiences, he explained. Right spaces wrong place by R. Yuki Agriardi(Ark Galerie/File) For this exhibition, he worked on his paintings in parallel, waiting for a layer on one painting to totally dry, before working on the other. As an artist who works with different mediums, Yuki doesnt find it hard to decide which medium to use at different times. My professor once told me that I didnt have any religious attachments to any particular materials or medium, he said, laughing. I work with any medium I think would best present my ideas either ceramics, wood, paper, drawing, painting, furniture, installations or anything. When I work on an idea, I give it a try and experiment with several mediums, and decide later which one best represents the idea. So experimentation and process plays a big part in my work. As for that love of blue, Yuki said that between 2009 and 2011, his work was largely generated by intuition. Read also: Annual Yogyakarta art fair to return in May He did not begin using blue as his main color until working on his Dive Series in 2011, because my intuition told me blue had this special, visual value that worked with my art, but I cant describe or put it into words. He simply followed his gut, allowing his fingers to draw ocean creatures with a lot of blue. Into the blue: Works by multidisciplinary artist R. Yuki Agriardi utilize the color blue to evoke the natural beauty of the environment.(Ark Galerie/File) When he obtained his masters degree from Londons Central Saint Martin art school, Yuki came up with what he considers his calling card, the Native Island series. It was, among others, influenced by a time visiting the London Zoo. This idea of a Native Island is like a habitat from which my works are collected. This island is a space I observe, a space within borders, an island between domestic life and wildlife. Its like, if you were standing next to a fence, and on the other side of it were these wild, lifelike figures like animals and shrubs, he explained. Well, the space Im observing is the one inside the fence, the space within two borders where our curiosity is transferred onto the object of our curiosity. I discovered this space when I was at the London Zoo and spent most of my time in front of the gorilla enclosure, observing [the gorillas] behavior. His research made him realize that although the human eye recognizes a wide spectrum of the color blue in nature, blue doesnt actually exist as a pigmented color. "Almost every naturally occurring blue tone qualifies as a structural color. Structural colors occur because of the miscroscopic structure of an object's interference with light. It's like the sky or the sea; they're blue, but if you look at them closely, the blue does not exist," he said, realizing that does this was a eureka moment. Yuki uses this project to talk about the barrier, density, conflicts, curiosity and also the process of identification and observation. For him, all of his art is a deeply personal process. Through it, he observes and reflects his environment as a journey to pursue self-awareness by looking at nature. Personally, this is also reflected when we see something that looks simple but was built from dense, intricate elements. Its like when you see yourself in the mirror. First, you see whats on the outside the fence, the barricade, Yuki said. But when you start to know yourself, you realize that you were built from lots of smaller fences raised by your life experiences. Thats why, if you observe my paintings closely, you will see the inhabitants or hidden details inside. We are built to observe and to be observed. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, April 13, 2017 10:47 2035 a291276806121264c0bd211cde8f9fa2 4 Science & Tech telkom,Netflix,#Netflix,video-streaming,Streaming,streaming-service Free State-owned telecommunications and internet provider Telekomunikasi Indonesia (Telkom) has announced a new partnership with US-based streaming video service Netflix, allowing Telkom subscribers to access the service in Indonesia. Kompas.com reported that the two companies will soon sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) regarding the partnership. We agreed to have a partnership and Netflix has promised to obey the regulations in Indonesia, said Telkom director of consumers, Dian Rachmawan. Read also: Five Netflix reboots to watch In Jan. 27 last year, Telkom began to block Netflix on all its platforms, namely IndiHome, WIFI.id and Telkomsel, due to permit issues and unfiltered content. At the time, Dian told The Jakarta Post that Netflix should cooperate with fixed broadband in Indonesia like IndiHome, which allows the provider to filter the content in accordance with regulations in Indonesia. Other than Telkom, Netflix reportedly has cooperated with local internet providers in other countries, such as Singtel in Singapore and Telecom in Italy. (jes/kes) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Ian King (Bloomberg) Thu, April 13, 2017 18:05 2035 a291276806121264c0bd211cde912e3b 2 Science & Tech robot,#robot,pizza,food,technology,#technology Free While Silicon Valley touts new robots that will greet you at the airport, deliver Cheetos to your hotel room or get you a pizza in a hurry, other machines have had more-serious jobs for decades. Take Northrop Grumman Remotecs products. The robotics division of the defense contractor started life more than 20 years ago as a maker of machines that move radioactive materials around government research labs. From there, the devices evolved into bomb-disposal aids, and were sent into other situations that the military or law enforcement deemed too risky for humans. The Remotec bots were also given the ability to rip open a car, sniff out hazardous chemicals, cut a vest off a suicide bomber, blast an explosive with water to render it safe and fire guns at people. They can see in the dark, climb stairs, communicate with hostages and hostage takers, and lift more than the weight of an average person with ease. In addition to their use in Israel and Iraq by the military, more than 400 police departments in the U.S. have them. Northrop Grumman reckons that number will rise as perceived threats increase, creating demand more powerful and capable robots. For the California Highway Patrol and other law enforcement agencies nationwide, robots were one of the tools they acquired in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001. The CHP team charged with keeping the state capitol safe uses a Northorp Grumman robot it got in 2005 for bomb disposal and other security tasks. ``Unfortunately, there are bad guys that are planting, or making these things, and they see us and what we do in terms of how we handle these packages, and what they are continually trying to do is find out ways to circumvent our technology,'' said Sergeant Dave Kessler, who heads the CHP's bomb-disposal unit. ``The need for this technology is there, and the need for further, more advanced technology, is always there.'' Read also: Meet Sally, the robot who makes perfect salads In an assault course at the back of Northrop Grumman Corp.'s plant in Clinton, Tennessee, the latest robot, the FX, climbed stairs and squeezed through narrow spaces with ease, despite its 900-pound bulk. Built with feed-back from customers, it is much larger than predecessors and has an arm capable of almost balletic articulation -- even while lifting a car door by grasping the thin window frame. ``In the past, a robot could pick up normally 100 pounds,'' said Walt Werner, director of Northrop Grumman Remotec. ``Some of the bombs that have been placed in cars are much heavier." The bomb planted in New York's Times Square in 2010 was too heavy for robots to pick up, he noted. It's dangerous work, even for robots. When the FX rolled out to the test range, it passed an older model still showing the damage it sustained trying to defuse a bomb in Elizabeth, New Jersey in 2016. The company is proud of its robots' record in saving lives. Engineers are on call night and day to diagnose problems and make sure the robots are there for customers in emergencies. They also restore machines that have been damaged beyond economic repair because their owners have become attached to them and want them back. The most controversial use of one of the robots came in Dallas last July when a U.S. army veteran killed five policemen and wounded seven others. A Remotec robot was used to detonate an explosive next to the shooter. He saw it coming and shot at it but couldnt stop it. The unit survived his assault and the explosion which killed the man. Northrop Grumman doesnt discuss such incidents and refers inquiries to the owners and operators of its products. Some tech companies are trying to create a world where everyone has an autonomous robot helper. Northrop Grumman says its robots won't be left alone to take the life-or-death decisions that their human operators sometimes have to make. Northrop's customers agree that a future where robots can perform the full range of law enforcement jobs isn't going to happen in our lifetimes. ``There's just too many steps, too many issues involved there in terms of safety and ramifications to actions to just send a robot,'' said the CHP's Kessler. ``You need the human element involved." Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Stefani Ribka (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, April 11, 2017 14:46 2037 a291276806121264c0bd211cde907895 1 Business ISPO,palm-oil,oil Free The governments effort to create a sustainable palm oil business still has a long way to go, as currently only 12 percent of the 11.9 million hectares of oil palm plantations in the country are Indonesia Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) certified. Indonesia, the worlds biggest palm oil producer, must increase its efforts to practice sustainable oil palm cultivation amid a mounting push from the international community to reduce deforestation caused by the commodity. Various challenges in ISPO implementation should be accommodated by guiding smallholders and cooperating well with all stakeholders, said Bambang, plantation director general with the Agriculture Ministry in his opening speech during the first international conference on ISPO on Tuesday. Thirty-eight firms and two smallholder groups obtained ISPO certificate in the event, making a total of 266 institutions that have obtained the certificate to date. The conference runs until Wednesday and also hosts the first international forum for smallholders. On April 4, the European Parliament issued a resolution to only import sustainable palm oil after 2020. The parliament called for a single international sustainable palm oil standard, which sparked objections from Indonesia and Malaysia, the worlds two biggest CPO producers. Local businesspeople said they considered the call to be unfair and alleged the resolution was merely a business strategy to suppress the lucrative palm oil exports to the European Union, which produces competing oils from rapeseed and sunflowers. (ags) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya, Ivany Atina Arbi and Agnes Anya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, April 13, 2017 07:04 2035 a291276806121264c0bd211cde8e9615 1 City anies-baswedan,ahok,#2017JakartaElection Free The much-awaited final debate in Jakartas gubernatorial election was not a fiery display of mutual antipathy as some had expected. Instead, it turned out to be a somewhat tedious affair as the candidates debated the citys multitudinous problems in a manner that lacked substance, offering no concrete or detailed solutions during the two-hour contest. Compared to the other official debate organized by the Jakarta General Elections Commission (KPU Jakarta) on Jan. 13, last nights fight night was decidedly less memorable. Both incumbent Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama and his rival Anies Baswedan had to respond to a plethora of specific questions prepared by a diverse community of Jakartans consisting of fisherfolk, transportation users, low-cost apartment tenants and owners of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). However, Ahok and Anies were only permitted a short amount of time to answer the questions and often failed to fully delineate their positions and policies. The debate was also not as combative and gung-ho as when the two camps locked horns and took off the gloves during a live debate aired on Metro TV on March 27. In that febrile affair, both teams hurled acrimonious remarks at one another and were quick to address highly sensitive issues including religious blasphemy, fueling revulsion and bitter resentment among their supporters. Squaring off exactly one week before Jakartans go to the polls, the two remaining candidate pairs, Ahok-Djarot Saiful Hidayat and Anies-Sandiaga Uno, discussed transportation, housing, reclamation, education and business issues. During the debate, which carried the theme From Residents For Jakarta, Ahok admitted that his administration had failed to build a sufficient number of good quality low-cost apartments in response to complaints expressed by a resident of the Jatinegara low-cost apartment complex in East Jakarta. That was a mistake that we are now trying to fix. I apologize and I hope Bapak and Ibu will be patient, Ahok said. Commenting on Ahoks apology, Anies sarcastically criticized the incumbent, saying that leaders should use their hearts when managing a city. Later on in the debate, Anies talked about his program OK OCE, which he claims will improve the quality of life for Jakartas under-privileged residents. If elected, Anies promised to not only provide good quality low-cost apartments, but also give residents the opportunity to buy their own houses with his zero down payment program. The reaction to the debate on social media was also much less intense. On Twitter, some netizens questioned and commented on the responses given by both camps, but the responses were relatively calm and controlled in their demeanor compared to previous occasions. However, when Sandiaga discussed his trademark OK-OCE Mart program for SMEs, where each mart needs about Rp 200 million (US$15,053) in capital, a Twitter feed going by the handle @ abetdaniel disparaged Sandiagas idea with some degree of venom. Sandiaga is talking gibberish. Do you think its easy for UMKM [SME] community to have Rp 200 million all at the same time? Please think [before speaking], he said. Meanwhile, the Ahok-Djarot tactic of presenting data and statistics to support their arguments seemed to satisfy some of the citys netizens. Ahok has planned it well. I am amazed, @edwinachen tweeted. Outside the debate arena, the gap between the two candidates has narrowed considerably over the past week. The latest Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting (SMRC) survey with samples taken between March 31 and April 5 shows Anies leading by a whisker, having secured just 47.9 percent of likely voters. The survey says Ahok has secured 46.9 percent of likely voters, while 5.2 percent of respondents refused to provide a response. The survey has a margin of error of 4.7 percent. Deni Irfani, a SMRC researcher, said 87 percent of voters viewed the debates as an important means through which they could weigh and evaluate the programs offered by the candidates. Separately, pollster Usep S. Ahyar, director of the Populi Center, told The Jakarta Post that the final debate would be decisive and would influence around 10 percent of undecided voters and 15 to 20 percent of swing voters. He made this claim after analyzing voter reaction to the earlier debates held on Metro TV and Kompas TV. According to a survey conducted by the Populi Center, voters responded badly to Anies and Sandiagas decision not to attend a Kompas TV debate moderated by Rosiana Silalahi last week. The decision not to attend the debate was poor strategy as some residents deemed that he [Anies] was scared and unprepared for the debate, Usep said. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Indra Budiari (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, April 13, 2017 Next weeks Jakarta gubernatorial runoff might be one of the tightest races in the capitals history, as incumbent Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama is closing the gap between him and his rival, Anies Baswedan, with just 1 percentage point separating the two tickets in the latest opinion poll. The survey, conducted between March 31 and April 5 by Saiful Mujani Research & Consulting (SMRC), puts Anies as the frontrunner in the election, with 47.9 percent of the respondents saying they would vote for him. However, Ahok trails closely behind, securing 46.9 percent, with the remaining 5.2 percent of the respondents still undecided. Eight months ago, Ahok entered the race as a shoo-in for the capitals top seat, with various polls showing no one could match his electability. However, his popularity took a massive hit last November when the National Police declared him a suspect in a blasphemy case. The largest gap was in December, when Ahok only got 31.7 percent and Anies stood at 43.9 percent [in terms of electability]. Since then, Ahok is slowly narrowing the gap, SMRC researcher Deni Irfani said during the launching of the survey on Wednesday, a week before the voting day. While Ahok won the first round of the election with 42.96 percent of votes, Anies came in a close second place with 39.97 percent, with only 164,255 votes separating the two. The third candidate, Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono, meanwhile, came last with just 17.06 percent. However, two surveys released after the first round showed that Anies had managed to secure most of Agus votes, leaving Ahok playing catch-up. A survey conducted by the Indonesian Survey Circle (LSI) from Feb. 27 to March 3, for instance, found that Anies had the highest electability with 49.7 percent, while Ahoks electability stood at 40.5 percent. Recently, however, Ahok narrowed the gap. According to SMRC data, support for Ahok increased by 3.1 percent, while backing for Anies decreased by 2.8 percent over the last month. Ahoks electability is expected to get another jolt after the final gubernatorial election debate on Wednesday night. Almost all Jakarta residents believe the debate between the candidates is important for them to decide which candidate would get their vote, so there is a high possibility that the number will change after tonight, Deni said. The survey also found that religious sentiment played an important role in pushing Anies toward his current frontrunner status, with 32.4 percent of his would-be voters citing a shared religion as the reason they would vote for him. Anies, who had repeatedly argued that he would not play the religion card in the election, kicked off his runoff campaign by visiting the headquarters of prominent Muslim group Syarikat Islam. Since then, he has made several visits to Islamic boarding schools and attended various mass prayers and Quran recital events. On the other hand, proven track record is the strongest factor behind Ahoks electability, with 41 percent of his voters citing that as the main reason for wanting the governor to retain his seat. Ahok campaign team spokesman Maruarar Sirait said he was optimistic that Ahok and his running mate, Djarot Saiful Hidayat, could win the election based on the surveys result. Im glad that there are still a lot of people who can see Ahoks good track record and leadership. This positive trend must continue. Id be nervous if I was on Anies side now, he said. Meanwhile, Anies campaign team member Riza Patria said he had no reason to be worried, because the survey clearly showed that people wanted a candidate who was trustworthy and had leadership qualities. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, April 13, 2017 13:15 2035 a291276806121264c0bd211cde8ff162 1 City ahok,anies-baswedan,#2017JakartaElection Free Jakarta gubernatorial candidate pairs Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama-Djarot Saiful Hidayat and Anies Baswedan-Sandiaga Uno have expressed their commitment to uniting residents after the election runoff amid public divisions as a result of the election. Djarot said in the last official debate on Wednesday night that he and Ahok would phone Anies and Sandiaga after voting day no matter what the result was. "The election is an exciting festival of democracy. No matter what the runoff election results are, the first party we will phone is Anies and Sandiaga," Djarot said. The pair will also visit public figures after the runoff to talk about tolerance and diversity, he said. Anies Baswedan also said he and his running mate would try to make the city peaceful. "Indonesia has been built upon unity and diversity. We will continue the tradition to fight corruption and develop unity and justice," Anies said. During a press conference after the debate, Anies said he and Sandiaga had shed their signature white shirts for blue shirts to convey a message of unity. "We want to unite Jakartans. Insya Allah, Anies and Sandiaga are ready to unite residents," he said. (dan) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Henry Wibowo (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, April 13 2017 We reiterate our overweight view on Indonesian banks as we believe the commodity-driven gross domestic product (GDP) recovery from 5 percent in 2016 to 5.3 percent in the 2017 forecast will drive loan growth from 8 percent annually in 2016 to 12 percent annually in 2017, and improve asset quality (declining non-performing loan and credit cost). There are three events that should be the catalysts in the near-to-medium term that can push banking stocks higher, from currently at around five-year mean levels to +1 standard deviation (SD). to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Japan Thu, April 13 2017 Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti is leading negotiations in Japan to increase cooperation in the fisheries sector. We are here to follow up Prime Minister Shinzo Abes pledge for cooperation in the fisheries sector. Were also here to offer a number of other initiatives that will benefit both parties, Susi said in a statement on Tuesday. The minister is currently on a five-day trip to Japan to follow up on previous Japanese commitments made during Abes visit to Indonesia earlier in January, where both partners agreed to increase cooperation in several sectors including the maritime sector and the fisheries sector. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Suherdjoko, Agus Maryono and Andi Hajramurni (The Jakarta Post) Semarang, Banyumas and Makassar Thu, April 13 2017 The man alleged to have injured three policemen in a knife attack in a police office in Banyumas, Central Java, on Tuesday is believed to have links to Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), which is affiliated to the Islamic State (IS) group. Police suspect Muhammad Ibnu Dar, 22, the alleged attacker, made contact with the suspected terrorists killed on Saturday in a shootout with police in Tuban, East Java, as well as terrorist convicts in Kedungpane Penitentiary in Semarang and Nusakambangan prison island in Cilacap, Central Java. There is information and evidence showing that Ibnu made contact with Karno. They came from the same place, Candinata village, Kutasari district in Purbalingga, Central Java Police chief Insp. Gen. Condro Kirono said on Wednesday. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Viriya P. Singgih (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, April 13, 2017 16:49 2035 a291276806121264c0bd211cde91103c 1 Business bank-indonesia,energy-and-mineral-resources-ministry,ignasius-jonan,energy,subsidy,prosperous-family-card Free The Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry has signed a memorandum of understanding with Bank Indonesia (BI) to expedite the integration of energy subsidies that will be channeled through the Prosperous Family Card (KKS). The KKS, which is expected to promote non-cash social assistance with proper distribution, will be linked to an integrated system connecting various state-owned lenders under the Association of State-Owned Banks (Himbara). Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Ignasius Jonan said it was difficult to monitor the distribution of subsidized 3-kilogram liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) canisters on the field as such canisters were often purchased by ineligible customers. Hence, the subsidy for the 3-kg LPG canisters will no longer be given to [state-owned energy firm] Pertamina. Instead, it will be distributed directly to those really needing it through the KKS, Jonan said in Jakarta on Thursday. Jonan expects the implementation of the new subsidy scheme for the 3-kg LPG canisters and electricity to begin in January 2018, or in March at the latest. However, we might need to wait for the full implementation of the single identification number system before we can impose a similar scheme for kerosene and biosolar, Jonan said. Data from the National Team for the Acceleration of Poverty Alleviation (TNP2K) show that there are only 25.7 million households eligible to purchase Pertaminas subsidized 3-kg LPG canisters. However, the canisters have been distributed to almost 60 million households. (ags) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Suherdjoko (The Jakarta Post) Semarang, Central Java Thu, April 13, 2017 20:48 2035 a291276806121264c0bd211cde918093 1 National explosion,firecracker,firecracker-explosion,firecrackers,Central-Java,Central-Java-Police,Ambarawa Free A firecracker explosion occurred near Santo Yusuf Catholic Church in Ambarawa, Central Java, at around 2 p.m. local time on Thursday. The explosion shocked local residents and church guards who were working together to prepare areas around the church for a scheduled Easter mass event at 5 p.m. The church guards immediately reported the explosion to Sabhara quick response unit personnel, who were on duty at the church during the incident. The police moved quickly, arresting the alleged perpetrator, identified only as MF, 37, an unemployed man from Bergas Lor village in Bergas district, Semarang regency. Semarang Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Vincentius Thirdy Hadmiarso confirmed the incident. We have taken the suspect into custody and confiscated firecrackers and other items as evidence. We have also summoned his family and the community unit [RW] head to get information, he said. According to local residents and RW head Supono, MF suffers from a mental illness, which Supono said began after his father died six years ago. We will call a psychiatrist to confirm over whether or not he suffers a mental illness, said Thirdy. Only one out of several home-made firecrackers prepared by the alleged perpetrator exploded. The incident caused neither injury nor damage as MF allegedly set the firecrackers on the side of a road outside the church, which is located on the Semarang-Yogyakarta highway. Sixteen pieces of evidence, including firecrackers and used supplement drink bottles, have been confiscated. Our personnel will further investigate the case, Central Java Police spokesperson Djarod Padakova said. (ebf) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Anton Hermansyah (The Jakarta Post) Tangerang Thu, April 13 2017 Financial woes hampering national flag carrier PT Garuda Indonesia became an important factor driving a major overhaul within the companys management as the government installed a new figure as its top boss. Banker Pahala N. Mansury was appointed as Garudas president director in a surprise announcement after the carrier held its annual general shareholders meeting on Wednesday afternoon. The nerdish-looking 45-year-old replaced Arif Wibowo, who held the top job from 2014. Prior to the announcement, Pahala served as Bank Mandiri finance and treasury director. State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) Ministry deputy for financial and business services Gatot Trihargo said the main reason behind the replacement was the need to carry out a financial restructuring and integration of Garudas business units for efficiency. The government hopes that Pahalas reputation as a banker could somewhat persuade creditors and lessors to stay with the financially troubled firm. However, the companys history shows that the presence of several bankers as its top boss has not completely solved its issues. Garuda has been entangled in financial difficulties triggered by the 1997-1998 economic crisis. The government appointed then Bank Niaga (now CIMB Niaga) president director Robby Djohan as Garudas leader in February 1998. Robby only stayed until October and was replaced by Bank Duta president director Abdul Gani. Abdul lead the firm until 2002 and was replaced by Indra Setiawan, a 25-year veteran in Garuda. In 2005, Indra was replaced by Emirsyah Satar, who previously worked as Bank Danamon vice president director. The company went public in February 2011 and managed to book profit until 2013, despite fluctuating profitability. However, it was unable to pay dividends to its shareholders for several years as it prioritized the use of profit for loan repayments. In 2014, the government replaced Emirsyah with Arif, who previously headed Garudas subsidiary, the low-cost carrier PT Citilink Indonesia. Garuda ended in the red with a net loss of US$373.04 million in 2014. Its financial report shows surging liabilities and falling equities, reflecting higher financial responsibility. It took Arif a year to turn Garudas bottom line around, leading the company back in the black with a net profit of $76.48 million in 2015. It continued to earn net profit last year, but at a smaller figure of $8.07 million. That, however, was not enough to keep him at Garuda. Pahala has two main tasks, which are the financial transformation and integration among Garudas business units, including Citilink and the Garuda Maintenance Facility [GMF], Gatot said after Wednesdays meeting. The yield of airline businesses has gradually declined due to increasing competition. In the short term, we as the new management team will review the costs of [Garudas] fleet, routes [and] fuel, Pahala said. Regarding efficiency, the government plans to review the low-load factor in some international and domestic routes operated by Garuda and Citilink. If demand for a certain route is higher among low-cost carriers, Citilink may be ordered to take over operations. At the same time, if a Garuda flight is cancelled, its passengers can be transferred directly to a Citilink flight, Gatot said, adding that such a transfer requires a separate booking mechanism. Besides Pahala, the government appointed two other directors, namely Puji Nur Handayani as production director and Nina Sulistyowati as marketing and IT director, and dismissed technical and IT director Iwan Joeniarto, operations director Novianto Herupratomo and commercial director Agus Toni Soetirto. Meanwhile, Arif said he was ready for his next chapter. It has been 27 years, two months and 11 days since my first day at Garuda Indonesia. [] I am ready for the next task. I am a fighter, so I am ready to fight in any assignment. _______________________ Pahala N. Mansury, 45. Educational background * Bachelors degree in accounting from University of Indonesia (1994) * Master of Business Administration in finance from Stern School of Business, New York University, US (1999) * Qualified as a Certified Financial Analyst (CFA), charter holder of the CFA Institute (2003) Career * Financial advisory services at PwC (1994) * Change management consultant at Anderson Consulting Indonesia (1994-1997) * Senior consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton (1999-2000) * Project leader at The Boston Consulting Group (2002-2003) * Senior vice president (SVP) economic and financial research at Bank Mandiri (2003-2005) * SVP accounting, concurrently as SVP of change management office at Bank Mandiri (2005) * SVP corporate development at Bank Mandiri (2005-2006) * Executive vice president (EVP) coordinator finance and strategy at Bank Mandiri (2006-2010) * Finance and strategy director at Bank Mandiri (2010-2015) * Treasury and markets director at Bank Mandiri (2015-2016) * Finance and treasury director at Bank Mandiri (2016-April 2017) * President director at Garuda Indonesia (April 2017-) to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Stefani Ribka (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, April 13, 2017 14:03 2035 a291276806121264c0bd211cde90582a 1 Business Trade,Angola,Africa,investment,Indonesia Free Indonesia and Angola officials have met to discuss ways to boost their economies through trade and investment, especially in the industrial sector. Industry Minister Airlangga Hartarto urged local businesses to expand trade to Angola, especially for transportation, defense and electronics equipment, expecting to see more gainful trade between the two countries that was worth about US$292.8 million last year. Angola can be the central spot for us to promote industrial products to western Africa, he said during a meetings with Angolan Foreign Minister Georges Rebelo Pinto Chikoti and delegations on Wednesday. The ministries exchanged information on investment regulations in their respective countries. We hope there will be further commitments to cooperate comprehensively to develop each others economies, Airlangga said. Indonesia's government offered some products, including locally made airplanes, military passenger transportation, sea vessels and train cars all made by state firms. Angola, meanwhile, asked for training assistance to increase its production capacity in textiles and food from Indonesia, just like the archipelago had given to Nigeria and Mozambique previously. In the meeting, the African minister also invited Indonesian investors to invest in Angola's fishery, agriculture, mining, infrastructure, food and mineral sectors. Diplomatic relations between the two countries started in 2001. Angola is Indonesias third biggest trade partner in Sub-Saharan Africa after South Africa and Nigeria. Indonesias main exports include iron pipes, soap, zinc, fire lighters, vehicles, margarine, processed fish, pharmaceuticals, paper and palm oil. Angola, meanwhile, exports mostly oil and gas. (ags) Topics : Trade Angola Africa investment Indonesia Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, April 13, 2017 18:17 2035 a291276806121264c0bd211cde914586 1 City Sandiaga-Uno,colleague,embezzlement Free The Jakarta Police detained a business colleague of Jakarta deputy governor hopeful Sandiaga Uno at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport on Thursday early morning for ignoring a police summon. Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Argo Yuwono said the colleague, Andreas Tjahjadi, was detained at the airport because he avoided two summon letters from the police regarding a case of alleged land embezzlement. "The point is that we had called him twice but he did not show up. Last night, we got information saying he was at the airport, so we picked him up," said Argo as quoted by tempo.co on Thursday. However, he added Andreas' status in the case was still only as a witness, like Sandiaga. He is currently being questioned by the police at the Jakarta Police headquarters in South Jakarta. Andreas and Sandiaga were reported to the police over allegations of embezzlement of a plot of land in Curug, Tangerang, Banten, by their former colleague Djoni Hidayat. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, April 13, 2017 16:48 2035 a291276806121264c0bd211cde91053f 1 Business ramadhan,impromptu-visit,trade-minister,Agriculture-Ministry,StapleFood,market Free Agriculture Minister Andi Amran Sulaiman and Trade Minister Enggartiasto Lukita made impromptu visits to several traditional markets in Jakarta on Thursday to check on the prices of staple goods ahead of the upcoming Ramadhan festivities in May. Amran said the government had provided sufficient stocks of staple foods nationwide, with rice stock having reached two million tons, enough to meet demand for 10 months, while sugar stock and beef stock stood at 360,000 tons and 40,000 tons, respectively. Even the chili price has decreased from above Rp 100,000 to around Rp 40,000 per kilogram at the moment. Some vendors are even selling it for Rp 20,000 per kg, he said. Meanwhile, Enggartiasto said with the sufficient stocks, he was optimistic that the prices of the goods could be stabilized, supported by his administrations effort to crack down on illegal vendors. Especially for rice, Enggartiasto said he had obligated all distributors, sub-distributors and agents nationwide to register their businesses and report their stocks. If there are reports of soaring [prices] in rice due to illegal hoarding, we will soon send extra goods to the area. Well prevent [illegal] players [from operating] by doing that, he said, adding the same tactic would also apply to illegal beef vendors. The two ministries were cooperating to periodically monitor the prices, Enggartiasto said, adding their administrations would evaluate the prices in November. (yon/ags) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Ni Komang Erviani (The Jakarta Post) Denpasar, Bali Thu, April 13, 2017 19:55 2035 a291276806121264c0bd211cde917029 1 National drug-abuse,drug-addicts,DenpasarDistrictCourt,denpasar,New-Zealand,New-Zealand-citizen,CrystalMethamphetamine,crystal-methamphetamine,CrystalMeth,#drugs Free The Denpasar District Court on Thursday sentenced a New Zealand citizen, Myra Lynna Williams, 27, to two-and-a-half years in prison for drug possession. The sentence was lighter than what was demanded by prosecutors, who sought a three-year prison sentence for her. The courts judge panel, presided by Ni Made Purnami, stated in their verdict that the defendant was guilty of violating Article 127 of Law No. 35/2009 on Narcotics. [We] find the defendant Myra Lynna Williams as legally and convincingly guilty of abusing drugs, the judge said. Purnami said that in making the verdict, the judge had considered several factors. The defendants act has caused restlessness and is against the Indonesian governments policy on drug eradication, she said. The judge said she gave a lighter sentence than what was demanded by prosecutors as Williams admitted to being guilty and expressed remorse for what she had done. Williams was arrested upon arrival at I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport from Melbourne, Australia, on Air Asia XT-803 on Aug. 31, 2016, by a joint team comprising personnel of the Customs and Excise Agency, the Immigration Office and other airport authorities during a security check, in which they found 0.43 grams of crystal methamphetamine, locally known as sabu-sabu, on her. (ebf) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Suherdjoko, Agus Maryanto and Djemi Amnifu (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta/Banyumas/Semarang/Kupang Thu, April 13 2017 As part of its deradicalization efforts, the government has courted moderate mainstream Islamic organizations to curb hard-line groups that aspire to transform Indonesias pluralist democracy into a theocratic state. In an apparent move in support of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the police have joined Barisan Ansor Serbaguna (Banser), the youth wing of the countrys largest Muslim organization, in removing banners and curtailing the activities of Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI). The HTI is an Islamic group that seeks the implementation of sharia via the reinstatement of khilafah, the caliphate, or Muslim rule. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, April 13, 2017 07:45 2035 a291276806121264c0bd211cde8e9625 1 National #KPKAcidAttack,novel-baswedan Free The National Police have launched an extensive manhunt across the country to track down the drive-by assailants who threw acid into the face of prominent Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) investigator Novel Baswedan early on Tuesday morning. A special task force established by the Jakarta Police has questioned at least 14 witnesses as of Wednesday evening to shed some light into the attack that has been condemned by President Joko Jokowi Widodo as a brutal act. Security arrangements have also been deployed to secure Novels place of residence and the hospital where he is receiving treatment. Following the attack, Jokowi ordered National Police chief Gen. Tito Karnavian to immediately arrest the assailants. National Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Awi Setiyono said Novels household assistant had told police investigators that a man visited Novels house a week ago. The man, who was described as burly, asked the assistant if the house was selling gamis [long robes worn by Muslims] for men, Awi said. Adi said Novels wife, Rina Emilda, only sold gamis for women in a shop opened inside the house. Awi said, however, that investigators were still deciding whether or not the testimony was relevant. We cannot disclose the identities of the witnesses. The investigators are gathering all the statements [from witnesses]. They will be able to sort out the important ones. Novel, a lead investigator in the e-ID embezzlement case, was doused with acid by two unidentified men riding a motorcycle after he had performed morning prayers at a mosque nearby his house in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta. The attack comes as the Jakarta Corruption Court continues the trial into the embezzlement of state funds from the e-ID project. The case, which some estimate caused state losses amounting to Rp 2 trillion (US$150 million), has also dragged in senior politicians including Golkar Party chairman Setya Novanto. Novel was also an important investigator in several other highprofile graft cases, including a bribery case implicating 39 legislators in the appointment of Bank Indonesia (BI) senior deputy governor Miranda Goeltom. He was also in charge of the investigation leading to the arrest of National Police traffic chief Insp. Gen. Djoko Susilo. Following the attack on Novel, anti-corruption activists have joined a nationwide campaign voicing support for the KPK and encouraging the anti-graft body not to be deterred by the incident. Novel told the police he felt he was being followed for several days prior to the assault. Former KPK chairman Busyro Muqoddas said Novel had survived six attempts on his life during his time at the commission. Aside from questioning several witnesses, the police have collected several pieces of evidence such as recordings from surveillance cameras, a cup that was allegedly used by the perpetrators to carry the acid and Novels clothes during the incident. Residue from the acid that burned up parts of Novels face, neck and eyes has been taken to the polices forensics laboratory for testing. The police, however, said the test results were not available for publication. On Wednesday, Novel was flown to Singapore for medical treatment for injuries to his eyes. Novel has reportedly suffered a loss of vision in his left eye. KPK chairman Agus Rahardjo said KPK officials had consulted with doctors from the Jakarta Eye Center (JEC) in Menteng, Central Jakarta, and decided to transfer Novel to Singapore for better treatment. JEC president director Johan A. Hutauruk said Novels eyesight had improved since the attack. The decision to move Novel to Singapore was also based on a request from Novels family, Johan said.We contacted the doctors there so [Novel] could be treated immediately, he said. In 2011, a female politician under electronic surveillance for suspected corruption was heard calling a shaman. She instructed the shaman to use black magic to hurt top officials at the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK). The black magic turned out to be useless as the woman was eventually convicted of corruption and sentenced to years behind bars. The agency, formed in 2002 to fight graft in one of the worlds most corrupt countries, has its share of occupational hazards. From witchcraft to death threats, law enforcement officials assigned to the frontline of the war against corruption have seen it all. Witchcraft and death threats are common, said former KPK acting chairman Busyro Muqoddas on Tuesday. One example is when all staff members working on the same floor simultaneously suffered from an illness that could not be explained in October 2014, said Busyro, who, like most Indonesians, believes in supernatural forces. The KPK headquarters in Kuningan, South Jakarta, is also littered with ritual offerings such as yellow rice, bones and amulets as part of presumed spiritual assaults. But nothing has jolted the nerves of graft-busters as much as when two unidentified assailants on a motorbike threw acid into the face of ace KPK investigator Novel Baswedan on Tuesday, causing severe injury to his eyes. Physical attacks against KPK officials are uncommon and the commission has recorded no fatalities or casualties since its inception. This probably explains the lack of security for KPK leaders and investigators, who are only equipped with a handgun for everyday protection while out of the office. What often undermines the commission is the threat of prosecution by the National Police for petty crimes. A recent example of this occurred in early 2015 and the kerfuffle forced then KPK chairman Abraham Samad and his deputy Bambang Widjojanto to resign. The attack against Novel, who has already suffered countless death threats and acts of terror, has forced the KPK to review its security measures to protect its staff amid an attempt to ramp up the pursuit of major corruption cases involving many of the countrys most influential politicians and business people. We will review our security procedures by adding more personnel to provide security to our staff members, KPK chairman Agus Rahardjo said. The National Police and the Indonesian Military (TNI) have been quick to react by offering help to better protect the safety of KPK investigators. I have talked to the KPK chairman. The police are always ready to provide maximum protection, said National Police chief Gen. Tito Karnavian. However, he said not all KPK investigators would want to have security personnel nearby because some of them were involved in undercover operations. The police, he said, had deployed personnel to permanently protect Novel and his family. TNI chief Gen. Gatot Nurmantyo also said the military was on standby if the KPK needed protection, particularly at a time when the agency was dealing with big cases. The KPK is currently handling corruption surrounding the e-ID project, which analysts believe to be the biggest case ever handled by the anti-graft body in terms of state losses and the parties involved. About Rp 2.3 trillion (US$173 million) is believed to have been swindled from the country by influential politicians. Golkar Party chairman and House of Representatives Speaker Setya Novanto, a key ally of President Joko Jokowi Widodo, is implicated in the case. Before Tuesdays act of barbarism, Novel was attacked in mid2016 while investigating the e-ID case. He was riding a motorcycle heading to the headquarters of the KPK when suddenly he was hit by a car. He was thrown from his bike but only suffered minor injuries. In 2015, another KPK investigator named Afif Julian Miftah received a bomb threat and his car was splashed with acid. At the time, he was handling several big cases, including money laundering allegations involving former Democratic Party politician Muhammad Nazaruddin. Terror is our cup of tea, former KPK chairman Antasari Azhar said in February, recalling some of the threats he had received when he led the commission from 2007 to 2009. Antasari was forced to resign from the commission after he was convicted of murder, but his 18-year sentence was recently reduced by Jokowi due to indications of a miscarriage of justice. Antasari was released from prison in November last year. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Apriadi Gunawan (The Jakarta Post) Medan Thu, April 13 2017 The North Sumatra Police are on the hunt for a 34-year-old man who has officially been named a suspect in the murder of an entire family, which took place on Sunday in Medan Deli district, Medan, North Sumatra. Andi Lala, who is reportedly a relative of the victims, fled as officers tried to arrest him at his home on Jl. Pembangunan, Lubuk Pakam district, on Tuesday. North Sumatra deputy police chief Brig. Gen. Agus Andrianto said officers had found evidence in Andis home that pointed to him as the main suspect in the death of five family members. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, April 13, 2017 15:36 2035 a291276806121264c0bd211cde90b5a3 1 City robbery,public-minivan Free Acting Jakarta governor Sumarsono on Thursday granted a reward to East Jakarta Police officer Adj. First Insp. Sunaryanto for his recent actions in resolving a hostage situation in the municipality. Sunaryanto recently arrested the man, who held hostage a woman and her young boy using a knife in a public minivan on Jl. I Gusti Ngurah Rai in East Jakarta, after the cop shot the man's arm. For his actions, the cop was granted a charter and Rp 10 million (US$754) from the Jakarta administration. "We have given recognition to the police officer. Hopefully it will raise his spirits," Sumarsono said as quoted by kompas.com on Thursday. Sunaryanto, he added, deserved the recognition because at the moment of the incident, he was not on duty but only passing by in the area. Previously, Sunaryanto also received recognition from Jakarta Police chief Insp. Gen. M. Iriawan for of his actions. (agn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, April 13, 2017 19:28 2035 a291276806121264c0bd211cde917022 1 National e-ID,#e-ID,Andi-Narogong,graft,corruption,Fatmawati-team,BPPT,Home-Ministry Free A witness from the technical team of the electronic ID (e-ID) procurement project during a hearing of the e-ID graft case on Thursday acknowledged the alleged existence of a "Fatmawati team," which was believed to have been integral to the alleged corruption taking place within the project. During the hearing, Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT) official Tri Sampurno said the Fatmawati team existed when questioned by prosecutors about an alleged series of e-ID project meetings held on Jl. Fatmawati in South Jakarta. Tri was one of the project's technical team members from 2009 to 2013. Tri said he attended the meetings five times alongside several other BPPT staff members and that he met Vidi Gunawan, the brother of graft suspect Andi Agustinus alias Andi Narogong, for the first time at one of the meetings. However, he said he did not know who Andi and Vidi were. (Read also: KPK questions Miryam as suspect in e-ID graft case) Tri said he never received money during the meetings, but claimed he received money from Vidi when he drove him home after he attended an e-ID system demo held at the State Printing Company Consortium, one of the consortiums bidding for the project. Vidi gave me Rp 2 million [US$150.82]. He said it was just a transportation fee. Additionally, Tri said he received $20,000 from Johanes Marlin, one of alleged Fatmawati team members, when he and Husni Fahmi, a Home Affairs Ministry official, attended the Biometric Consortium Conference in Tampa, Florida, United States, in September 2012. "One of Johanes' assistant came to me and gave money inside an envelope. When Husni and I were on the plane, we found out it amounted to $20,000." (rdi/ebf) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Anton Hermansyah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, April 13, 2017 14:01 2035 a291276806121264c0bd211cde904fc9 1 Business bank-indonesia,World-Bank,GDP,growth,growth-forecast Free The World Bank has revised its estimated rate of Indonesian economic growth down to 5.2 percent in its April edition of the East Asia and Pacific Economic Update report, compared to the 5.3 percent set in the January edition of the Indonesia Economic Quarterly. However World Bank Indonesia economist for macroeconomics and fiscal management Dhruv Sharma said the 10 basis points (bps) decline was largely mechanical. The more important thing was that it projected Indonesia's economy would grow in the next three years. "We have an upward trajectory for Indonesia over the next three years as the economy reached bottom last year," he said in a press briefing in Jakarta on Thursday. The report forecast 2018 and 2019 gross domestic product (GDP) to grow to 5.3 and 5.4 percent respectively, higher than the 5.02 percent in 2016. That is in line with global economy growth, which is predicted to be 2.7 in 2018 and 2.9 percent in 2019, compared to 2.3 percent in 2016. World Bank Indonesia acting lead economist Hans Anand Beck said Indonesia's growth will be supported by credit growth and higher oil prices, which also boost commodity prices. "We see developments in the credit markets are supported by demand for financing because of foreign investments," he said. The credit growth would be supported by a lower credit rate as Bank Indonesia cut its policy rates six times during 2016. However, the transmission to the bank lending rates in the industry would be seen in 2017. (ags) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Nethy Dharma Somba (The Jakarta Post) Jayapura, Papua Thu, April 13, 2017 16:52 2035 a291276806121264c0bd211cde911923 1 National Cessna,Cessna-Caravan,Grand-Caravan,aircraft-crash,AircraftCrash,AircraftIncident,Oksibil,Papua Free A Grand Caravan plane belonging to airline company PT Spirit Avia Sentosa (Flying SAS), which was reported missing, has been found in a search operation conducted by the Associated Mission Aviation (AMA) Papua on Thursday. Piloted by Capt. Eric Brandon Roberts, an AMA aircraft found the body of the Grand Caravan plane destroyed and in pieces in Pegunungan Bintang regency, Papua. The aircraft was suspected to have hit the side of a mountain in Kampung Kubipko, Kiwirok district, before crashing to the ground on Wednesday. The position has been discovered but no search and rescue [SAR] team has landed at the crash site because it is located on a steep mountain slope. It was smashed to pieces possibly because it hit the mountainside, SAR Jayapura head Suyatno said. (Read also: Contact with Cessna lost in Papua) He said the crash site of the aircraft was around 10 kilometers from Oksibil, the capital of Pegunungan Bintang regency. There is no road access there. One of the only ways to reach the location is via a helicopter. Suyatno said the SAR team was coordinating with US-based giant copper and gold miner PT Freeport Indonesia, hoping it could borrow a helicopter from the company. The team had also asked that the National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) lend a helicopter to them for the rescue operation. The SAR Jayapura team, which comprises 11 people, flew to Oksibil this morning to join with the joint SAR team of the Indonesian Military and National Police that has been ready in Oksibil. The operation will be conducted once the helicopters needed for the rescue activities arrive there, Suyatno said. (ebf) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (Associated Press) Bangkok Thu, April 13, 2017 The traditional Thai New Year's holiday has turned out to be anything but fun for more than 1,000 would-be travelers who were stranded at Bangkok's international airport after their cut-rate tour packages to Japan turned out to be an apparent scam. Police said hundreds of people lodged complaints after finding themselves at Suvarnabhumi Airport on Tuesday with no flight to board. They said they had booked six-day tour packages with WealthEver, better known as a multi-level marketing company. Victims told Thai television interviewers that they paid 9,730 baht ($280) for a package including airfare and accommodation. One way-fare from Bangkok to Tokyo alone typically costs more than $400. Thai media reported that WealthEver boss Pasit Arinchalapit was detained by police late Wednesday in Ranong, a border province, after a manhunt was launched for her. They also reported that Pasit had been the object of fraud complaints before, and has changed her name several times. Read also: United to compensate people on flight when man dragged off Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, asked about the incident, warned his fellow Thais against gullibility that makes them victims to such scams. "Thai people believe others too easily," Prayuth said. "When I say something, people really don't believe me, but they believe it when other people talk, and then they get scammed. I'm not saying I am better, but I don't cheat people." Thailand's Songkran holiday is usually a time for merry-making, though the death in October of King Bhumibol Adulyadej and an official one-year mourning period are expected to put a damper on the fun this year. Many people take the opportunity of the holiday officially three days long but in practice extending up to a week to return from the big cities to their families' home villages. The mass movement of people, along with the drinking that accompanies the revelry, leads to a surge in traffic deaths in a country already noted for having the second-highest traffic fatality rate in the world. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, April 13, 2017 16:15 2035 a291276806121264c0bd211cde90ed2c 1 News Pacific-Eden-Cruise-Ship,Benoa,tourism-ministry-wonderful-Indonesia,Tourism-Ministry-Pesona-Indonesia,tourism,#tourism,cruise,#cruise Free After five days of sailing across the ocean, on April 13 at approximately 11 a.m. local, the Pacific Eden cruise ship carrying 1,500 tourists from Australia finally arrived at Benoa Port in Bali. The cruise ship that is 220-meters-long broke new ground by being the first to dock in the Port of Benoa. Arriving at the port, the tourists were welcomed by the Tourism Minister Arief Yahya and treated to an arts and culture performance and a workshop. After Bali, the tourists will travel to Lombok, Komodo Island and Labuan Bajo. Read also: Pacific Eden cruise ship sails to Benoa, Bali Welcome to Indonesia and enjoy the culture and natural wonders of Indonesia, said Arief. The head of the Wisata Bahari Indonesia tourism department acceleration team, Indroyono Susilo, said before that according to the P&O Cruises director of operations, this maiden voyage to Bali would not make any profits. However, the company was willing to take the risk because the project has huge potential. With the success of this first voyage the ministry hoped to attract more yachters from other areas such as Darwin, Sydney, Perth, Auckland and Fiji. (asw) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, April 13, 2017 18:11 2035 a291276806121264c0bd211cde913b79 4 News Tidore-Islands,Tidore-Festival,Tourism-Ministry-Pesona-Indonesia,tourism-ministry-wonderful-Indonesia,tourism,#tourism,festival,#festival Free Scores of people flocked to a field in Kadato Kie, Tidore, on April 12 to celebrate the 909th anniversary of the city as well as the closing ceremony of Festival Tidore 2017, which began on March 29. The festivity was attended by the 37th sultan of Tidore, H. Husein Syah, Tidore Mayor Ali Ibrahim and Ternate Mayor Burhan Abdurahman. Tidore has everything, from natural resources to sea and maritime history. President Sukarno even visited this place twice, so please come to Tidore, the sultan said. Echoing what Tourism Minister Arief Yahya and President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo have said before, tourism is the core of this nations economy. The Indonesian people need to be more welcoming of tourists because it will also affect our prosperity, he added. Read also: Ternate-Tidore invites Spanish tourists to relive 16th century trade expedition route Moreover, Ibrahim said as the plantation and mining industries were struggling, tourism could help improve the economy in the region. Two Dubai nationals will build a villa here and it would be great if we could someday have a hotel. This town has 10 maritime sites and each historical building has its own interesting story to tell, Tidore tourism department head Yakub Husain said. According to Arief Yahya, 60% of foreign tourists come to Indonesia to explore and experience its cultures; 35% come for nature; and 5% come for events, such as sporting events and music concerts. Tidores got everything, from culture and nature to events. Whats left for us to do is to improve facilities and access to Tidore, Yahya said. (asw) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Hasyim Widhiarto (The Jakarta Post) Benoa, Bali Thu, April 13, 2017 Indonesia's tourist industry has reached a new milestone after a Pacific Eden cruise ship carrying more than 1,000 passengers docked on Thursday at Bali's Benoa Port, the first to do so. The 220-meter-long vessel departed on Sunday from Fremantle Port, Australia, and headed to the popular resort island before making stops at other tourist destinations in the archipelago such as Lombok and the Komodo Islands. The docking was made possible after state-owned port operator PT Pelabuhan Indonesia (Pelindo) III, which manages Benoa Port, upgraded the facility into a cruise terminal. "Previously, cruise ships stopping in Bali have to moor quite far from Benoa Port, but this time we have one docking for the first time ever," Tourism Ministry's deputy for Asia-Pacific tourism promotion, Vinsensius Jemadu, said. Pacific Eden, operated by P&O Cruises Australia, needed about 30 minutes to dock in Benoa Port with help from two tugboats. Indonesia has been intensifying efforts to boost its tourism, aiming for the arrival of 20 million foreign tourists in 2019. The development of the Benoa cruise terminal is expected to boost the number of tourist arrivals by cruise ships to 500,000 by 2019. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Don Babwin (Associated Press) Chicago, United States Thu, April 13, 2017 United Airlines sought to quell the uproar over a man being dragged off a plane by announcing on Tuesday that it would no longer ask police to remove passengers from full flights and would compensate customers who were on the flight when the man was removed. In an interview with ABC's "Good Morning America" aired Wednesday, United parent company CEO Oscar Munoz said he felt "ashamed" watching video of the man being forced off the jet. He has promised to review the airline's passenger-removal policy. Munoz, who leads United's parent company, apologized again to Kentucky physician David Dao, his family and the other passengers who witnessed him being taken off the flight. "That is not who our family at United is," he said. "This will never happen again on a United flight. That's my promise." In the future, law enforcement will not be involved in removing a "booked, paid, seated passenger," Munoz said. "We can't do that." In an effort to calm the backlash, United also announced that passengers on United Express Flight 3411 would be compensated equal to the cost of their tickets. United spokeswoman Megan McCarthy said Wednesday that the passengers can take the compensation in cash, travel credits or miles. The flight was loaded and preparing to leave Chicago's O'Hare International Airport on Sunday when the man was dragged off. Video shot by passengers showing the man's bloodied face went viral on social media, prompting a storm of protest. Also Wednesday, a Chicago alderman said representatives from United and the city's Aviation Department have been summoned before a city council committee to answer questions about the confrontation at O'Hare Airport. Alderman Mike Zalewski said he did not know who will represent the airline before the Aviation Committee, but Munoz has been notified of the hearing scheduled for Thursday. Chicago Aviation Commissioner Ginger Evans will also speak. Munoz called the incident a "system failure" and said United would reassess its procedures for seeking volunteers to give up their seats when a flight is full. United was trying to find seats for four employees, meaning four passengers had to deplane. It was at least Munoz's fourth statement about the confrontation. After the video first emerged, he said the airline was reaching out to the man to "resolve this situation." In this Thursday, June 2, 2016, file photo, United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz waits to be interviewed, in New York, during a presentation of the carrier's new Polaris service, a new business class product that will become available on trans-Atlantic flights. Munoz said in a note to employees Tuesday, April 11, 2017, that he continues to be disturbed by the incident Sunday night in Chicago, where a passenger was forcibly removed from a United Express flight. Munoz said he was committed to fix whats broken so this never happens again.(AP/Richard Drew) Read also: Everyone is trolling United for their horrible passenger treatment Hours later on Monday, his tone turned defensive. He described the man as "disruptive and belligerent." By Tuesday afternoon, almost two days after the Sunday evening events, Munoz issued another apology. "No one should ever be mistreated this way," Munoz said. The passenger was identified as Dao, a 69-year-old physician from Elizabethtown, Kentucky. Attorneys for Dao filed court papers Wednesday asking the airline and the city of Chicago to preserve evidence in the case. Those documents are often the first steps toward a lawsuit. His legal team planned to hold a news conference Thursday to discuss the matter with reporters. Airport officials have said little about Sunday's events and nothing about Dao's behavior before he was pulled from the jet that was bound for Louisville, Kentucky. Likewise, the Chicago Aviation Department has said only that one of its employees who removed Dao did not follow proper procedures and has been placed on leave. The department announced Wednesday that two more officers have been placed on leave. No passengers on the plane have mentioned that Dao did anything but refuse to leave the plane when he was ordered to do so. The event stemmed from a common air travel issue a full flight. At first, the airline asked for volunteers, offering $400 and then when that did not work, $800 per passenger to relinquish a seat. When no one voluntarily came forward, United selected four passengers at random. Three people got off the flight, but the fourth said he was a doctor and needed to get home to treat patients on Monday. He refused to leave. That's when three Aviation Department police officers boarded the plane. When Dao refused to leave his seat, one of the officers could be seen grabbing the screaming man from his window seat and dragging him down the aisle by his arms. Other passengers on Flight 3411 are heard saying, "Please, my God," ''What are you doing?" ''This is wrong," ''Look at what you did to him" and "Busted his lip." The U.S. Department of Transportation announced Tuesday that it was reviewing Sunday's events to see if United violated rules on overselling flights. The four top-ranking members of the Senate Commerce Committee asked the airline and Chicago airport officials for more information about what happened. Actor and local resident Neal Young is taking the lead in The Blue Hill Troupes upcoming production of City of Angels, at El Teatro of El Museo del Barrio. The Tony Award winning musical comedy is an homage to the 1940s Hollywood era of film noir. The Blue Hill Troupe, now in its 93rd season, is the only musical theater group in New York City to donate its net proceeds to charity. Its history is rooted in a tradition of performing an annual Gilbert & Sullivan operetta, and now presents an additional musical theater production as well as a concert series each season. Young appears as Stine, a crime novelist who lands in Hollywood with a three picture deal based on his detective series, but becomes conflicted between his art and desire for success on the big screen. The show includes a jazzy score and a humorous and biting script that veers between Stines real life journey and the film noir detective script he is writing. City of Angels runs April 21 April 29, at El Teatro of El Museo del Barrio (1230 Fifth Avenue at 104th Street). Tickets range in price from $30.00 $110.00. All proceeds from the Blue Hill Troupes production will benefit Rocking the Boat. A woman, believed to be in her 20s, was struck by a vehicle early this morning on Delancey Street. The incident happened at around 4:15 a.m., near Forsyth Street. According to the Daily News, the woman was knocked down and suffered a deep gash to the back of her head. She was rushed to Bellevue Hospital with what was described as a non-life threatening wound. She was conscious and talking with emergency workers and police officers. No charges have been filed against the driver. This years University Challenge champions have entered a war of words with the Daily Mail, accusing the newspaper of being a "fascist rag" and publically announcing their boycott of the tabloid. Between their semi-final match and Monday's final, which saw Balliol College Oxford defeat Wolfson College Cambridge, members of Balliol's team were contacted via Twitter by a Daily Mail journalist, who appealed for their personal contact information. Freddy Potts When history studentwas contacted, he replied to the journalist saying that although I have nothing against you personally, but equally I have nothing to say to the fascist rag which employs you. Potts has made his Twitter account private in the last few days. Benjamin Pope The same journalist also reached out to D-Phil student, who also responded on Twitter explaining that the team had talked to one another and decided to ethically boycott the Mail. Stop Funding Hate Astrophysics student Pope has also publically declared his support for the anti-Daily Mail campaign,, telling them to 'keep up the good work', and admitting that the team are 'big supporters' of the movement, which also targets the Daily Express and the Sun. The campaign was born following the three papers' coverage of last year's EU referendum and aims to challenge 'media hate speech' by pressuring companies to pull advertisements from these papers. Pope has received an influx of critical tweets as well as those in support of the team's stance. Replying to one user who complimented the team's handling of the situation, he expressed sympathy for people working at the Mail. @zoe_samuel Miffed it wasn't reciprocated, but sympathy for anyone working in such an awful environment in such an awful industry. Benjamin Pope (@fringetracker) April 11, 2017 published an article Joey Goldman On the day of the final, the Daily Maildrawing to light the all-male teams that made up the programme, leading to an online outcry by Balliol College captainwho referred to the paper as 'the Daily Heil'. The Daily Heil decided to frame the principled refusal of @fringetracker and @FJPotts to talk to them in the following way. And they wonder. pic.twitter.com/os3Y8Tdszt Mouse Aesthetic (@JoeySwearwords) April 10, 2017 The Balliol team have, however, enjoyed some media coverage since they were awarded the winner's trophy by Stephen Hawking, appearing on BBC Radio Oxford and engaging in some friendly Twitter banter with a Guardian journalist. On-going reports that gay men are being aggressively targeted in Chechnya have reached new and shocking heights. Russian newspapers have reported that men are being rounded up on the grounds of having non-traditional sexual orientation and imprisoned in concentration camps. Pictured above: Vladimir Putin on a state visit to Chechnya Chechnya has a long history of instability and conflict along both ethnic and nationalistic lines. This latest divisive fault line has resulted in the imprisonment of over 100 homosexual men, many of whom have been tortured as authorities reportedly attempted to force them to reveal the locations of other gay men. Reports indicate that so far at least three of the men in question have been killed by the Chechen authorities. Chechnya is a Muslim-majority region of Russia; while it has its own government and President it is essentially beholden to Russia as a federal subject state. Ali Karimov, speaking on behalf of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, argued that are no homosexuals in Chechnya. The spokesperson insisted: If there were such people in Chechnya, law-enforcement agencies wouldnt need to have anything to do with them because their relatives would send them somewhere from which there is no returning. Tanya Lokshina of Human Rights Watch had this to say: A brutal campaign against LGBT people has been sweeping through Chechnya. Law enforcement and security agency officials have rounded up dozens of men on suspicion of being gay, torturing and humiliating the victims. Some of the men have forcibly disappeared. Others were returned to their families barely alive from beatings. At least three men apparently have died since this brutal campaign began. In light of brutal repression in Chechnya, we cannot reveal our sources for fear of compromising their security. The fear of devastating reprisal is so intense that we cannot even provide detail on specific cases as the victims could suffer even more as a result of the exposure. While coverage is lacking in detail emergent coverage is, in itself, an important step, as the repression of gay Chechen citizens has gone largely un-reported. Hopefully a growing media swell will force the Kremlin into action. While a spokesman for Putin stated that reports would be investigated, the Russian authorities seem to lack motivation in terms of pursuing a rigorous investigative process. Meanwhile state-imposed fear in Chechnya keeps citizens from speaking out, as Tanya Lokshina notes: Filing an official complaint against local security officials is extremely dangerous, as retaliation by local authorities is practically inevitable. Following the 'largest student rent strike in British history' - under the banner of the 'Cut the Rent' campaign - that their university halts the ever-growing financial strain being imposed on them due to rising accommodation costs. According to campaigners - who are now officially backed by Bath Students' Union - rental fees at the university have risen 150% since the appointment of renowned social psychologist Dame Glynis Blackwell as Vice-Chancellor back in 2001. This has left just two of its 12 halls of residence - Osbourne House and Eastwood - offering board at a cost that is lower than 50% of the maximum maintenance loan available to students. Due to an increase in the proportion of luxury accommodation on offer, which in turn has resulted in a reduction of affordable housing, students wishing to live on campus can expect to incur weekly costs of up 154 for a single en-suite room. Second-year Politics & International Relations student Ross West, who comes from a low-income background, feels that these costs are "increasingly becoming a barrier to equal access in education" and that "it's easy to see why any students who cannot rely on their parents for financial support are discouraged from entering university. Research conducted in 2015 by student newspaper BathImpact found that the average yearly spend on accommodation by students at the university, was a full 400 more than their average maintenance loan, supporting the assertion by Lloyds Bank that Bath is the fifth least affordable city in the country. Furthermore, the campaign has found that the University of Bath has exceeded its target operating surplus every year since the target was first set in 2012, the same year from which an NUS study showed an exponential increase in students suffering from mental health issues caused by financial problems. The campaign aims to use the endorsement by the university's Students' Union as the impetus for further action, with final year student Clementine Boucher stating that she wants "students in Bath to be galvanised by the example of students in London campaigning successfully for reduced rents", adding that "radical student-led political action is the most potent weapon we have to achieve fairer rents at Bath University. Its taken less than a week for a kid who just really loves chicken nuggets to come within touching distance of the most retweeted tweet of all time. Nevada teen Carter Wilkerson, 16, needs 18 million retweets to get a years worth of free chicken nuggets from fast food chain Wendys, and the Twitterverse is doing everything it can to get that boy his nuggs. The tweet was sent on April 6 and has amassed almost 2.7 million retweets still some way off what Carter needs, but very close to Twitters current top tweet. HELP ME PLEASE. A MAN NEEDS HIS NUGGS pic.twitter.com/4SrfHmEMo3 Carter Wilkerson (@carterjwm) April 6, 2017 Wendys has actually been pretty good at sharing a lot of the attention the tweet has received, which might be why it is coming so close to the record-breaking tweet sent by Ellen DeGeneres at the 2014 Oscars, which hit 3.2 million. After all, when was the last time Wendys was in the news this much? Microsoft threw their support behind the tweet, and encouraged Amazon and Google to do the same. United Airlines, who have been in the news recently themselves (although for reasons very different to Wendys), offered Carter a free flight to a city with a Wendys if he achieves his goal. If you get the 18 million RTs, we'll give you a free flight to take you to any @Wendys in the world in a city we serve. Good luck! https://t.co/igxnPg1JUF United (@united) April 8, 2017 And other brands have also been quick to seize on the opportunity. 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United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe About iHeartMedia, Inc. iHeartMedia (NASDAQ: IHRT) is the number one audio company in the United States, reaching nine out of 10 Americans every month. It consists of three business groups. With its quarter of a billion monthly listeners, the iHeartMedia Multiplatform Group has a greater reach than any other media company in the U.S. Its leadership position in audio extends across multiple platforms, including more than 860 live broadcast stations in over 160 markets nationwide; its National Sales organization; and the companys live and virtual events business. It also includes Premiere Networks, the industrys largest Networks business, with its Total Traffic and Weather Network (TTWN); and BIN: Black Information Network, the first and only 24/7 national and local all news audio service for the Black community. iHeartMedia also leads the audio industry in analytics, targeting and attribution for its marketing partners with its SmartAudio suite of data targeting and attribution products using data from its massive consumer base. The iHeartMedia Digital Audio Group includes the companys fast-growing podcasting business -- iHeartMedia is the number one podcast publisher in downloads, unique listeners, revenue and earnings -- as well as its industry-leading iHeartRadio digital service, available across more than 250 platforms and 2,000 devices; the companys digital sites, newsletters, digital services and programs; its digital advertising technology companies; and its audio industry-leading social media footprint. The companys Audio & Media Services reportable segment includes Katz Media Group, the nations largest media representation company, and RCS, the world's leading provider of broadcast and webcast software. Visit iHeartMedia.com for more company information. South Dakota gubernatorial candidates hold rallies ahead of Election Day Throughout campaign rallies in the final week before Election Day, Gov. Kristi Noem and Rep. Jamie Smith spoke to their base and encouraged others to get out the vote. "Im a firm believer in not being greedy and giving what you can when you can." Actor Akshay Kumar has hosted a get together for Amazon head Roy Price and Amazon Video team head. Taking to Twitter, the 49-year-old star shared a group picture which also featured his wife and actress-turned-writer Twinkle Khanna. Wonderful to catch up with Amazing Amazon head @RoyPrice and the @AmazonVideoIn team Brad, James and Nitesh. Thanks for coming over, Akshay wrote alongside the photo. Price was also impressed with mangoes the actor offered to him at the gathering. Great mangoes and company @akshaykumar! See you soon, he tweeted. Though the reason behind the meeting is still unknown, rumour has it the two might collaborate in future. Akshay is currently shooting for his wife's maiden- production Pad Man alongside Sonam Kapoor. He has also collaborated with Salman Khan and Karan Johar for a film, which will be directed by Anurag Singh. Bollywood actress Alia Bhatt, who was awarded the Lokmat Maharashtrian of the Year Award on Tuesday, says that she did not feel bad for not winning the National Award for Best Actress this year. Alia's performance in Udta Punjab was received well by critics and audiences alike. At the media interaction after the awards, reporters expressed their sympathy for Alia not getting a National Award. "Please don't feel bad. I am not going anywhere. There is lot of time. I did not feel bad so even you don't feel bad about it," the Student of the Year actress said. "It's a moment to celebrate as Hindi and Marathi cinema won so many awards and it's a very big moment to celebrate talent," Alia said. Expressing her joy on winning the Lokmat Award, Alia said, "It's a great moment. Winning this award shows that you are now in the heart line of your country. So it's great." Alia was last seen in Badrinath Ki Dulhania, a romantic comedy film directed by Shashank Khaitan and produced by her mentor Karan Johar. Asked when she would start working for her next film Dragon, she said: "Ranbir is here, I will ask him when he will finish his shooting for 'Dutt' so that we can start the film, I will go and ask for the dates." Dragon, a superhero film, will see Alia and Ranbir together on screen for the first time. Written and directed by Ayan Mukherji and produced by Karan Johar, it also stars Amitabh Bachchan. Retirement fund body EPFO's subscribers will get loyalty-cum-life benefit of up to Rs.50,000 at the time of retirement for contributing to the scheme for 20 years or more. The benefit will also be provided in case of permanent disability even if the members have contributed for less than 20 years, the EPFO board has decided. The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation's (EPFO) apex decision making body, the Central Board of Trustees (CBT), has recommended a minimum sum assured of Rs.2.5 lakh in the event of death of a subscriber. The CBT has recommended amending the Employees' Deposit Linked Insurance Scheme (EDLI) to provide for minimum benefit of Rs.2.5 lakh and loyalty-cum-life benefit of up to Rs.50,000 at a meeting held yesterday, a senior official said. The suggested benefits will be available to members after government approval. Initially, these will be provided for two years on a pilot basis and will be reviewed thereafter. According to the proposal, loyalty-cum-life benefit will be provided to all those members on retirement at 58 or 60 years who have contributed to the scheme for 20 years or more. The benefit will also be provided in case of permanent disability. In these cases, the members who have contributed to the EDLI scheme for less than 20 years will be eligible. Those members whose average basic wages are up to Rs.5,000 will get loyalty-cum-life benefit of Rs.30,000. Similarly, the members with wages of Rs.5,001-10,000 Will be eligible for Rs.40,000 benefit. All those members getting more than Rs.10,000 monthly wage will be eligible for Rs.50,000 loyalty-cum-life benefit under the proposed scheme. The board has recommended such benefits in view of a huge EDLI corpus of Rs.18,119 crore following addition of interest that accrued on investment of this fund. At present, the dependants of the deceased get a sum assured of up to Rs.6 lakh. There is no provision of minimum insurance and any benefit for surviving members or in cases of permanent disability under the scheme. Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya launched Aadhaar Seeding Application after the meeting. The EPFO has developed this application with support of Common Service Centres (CSCs) and C-DAC. The CSCs are ICT-enabled front-end service delivery points at the village level for delivery of government and private services. With implementation of the seeding application, a PF member or pensioner can now walk into any of the field offices of EPFO or CSC outlets with UAN and Aadhaar and seed them. The EPFO enrolled 49,39,929 workers during January-March 2017. It had launched a special enrolment scheme to cover leftout formal sector workers from January 2017. Clearing hurdles for timely implementation of Goods and Services Tax (GST), President Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday gave nod to four supporting GST legislations. The four bills, Central Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill, Integrated GST Bill, Compensation GST Bill and Union Territory GST Bill 2017, were passed by the Parliament last week. The Union government wants to implement the GST from July 1. Once implemented, the GST will subsume various taxes, including excise, services tax, and other levies. The taxes will be shared between the Centre and the states. Meanwhile, instead of the goods being taxed multiple times at different rates, goods would be taxed at the point of consumption under the new GST regime. What a positive start to end the financial year 2016-17 for the energy sector in India! Renewable energy is weaving a new growth story. With smooth yet giant steps, renewable energy is nearing to surpass the traditional source of power, thermal power in India, currently enjoying a dominant place in the power sector. As per a recent report, thermal power capacity has slumped to almost 50 per cent in last one year, giving way for growth in renewable energy. A combined report by the New and Renewable Energy Ministry (MNRE) and Bridge to India, the renewable energy capacity addition, together with solar, wind, biomass and hydro, has achieved a tremendous growth by around 11.2 Gigawatt (GW), in the financial year 2016-17 against 2015-16. Even the figures by MNRE revealed that in a single month, renewable energy recorded an addition of 5.8 GW capacity as implementing agencies pushed for commissioning of projects before the close of the financial year. As renewables continue to grow, prospects for thermal capacity addition seem limited and we expect renewables to decisively beat thermal capacity addition in the coming years, Bridge to India stated. Here is why renewable energy capacity is likely to beat thermal power capacity in next few years. Wind power Wind power in India stands at fourth position in global wind power installation. In April this year, the New and Renewable Energy Ministry, in a new report, stated that Indias wind power capacity addition surpassed the set target of 4,000 MW, and successfully added over 5,400 MW capacity in 2016-17. First ever off-shore wind projects would soon be installed in Indias coastal regions of Gujarat and Tamil Nadu. A total 1 GW capacity of off-shore wind power project is being planned. Solar power Not only wind, but also solar power capacity has grown by 5,526 MW in 2016-17 against 2015-16, as per MNRE report. The New and Renewable Energy Ministry, last year, announced compulsory utilisation of rooftops for solar power installations at all industrial, governmental and private institutions. As per the new solar policy, an installation of minimum 500 MW capacity solar rooftop is made mandatory. Prime Minister Narendra Modi in February, 2017approved the enhancement of solar capacity from 20,000 MW to 40,000 MW under the Scheme for Development of Solar Parks and Ultra Mega Solar Power Projects. This has given a boost to ultra solar park and solar power projects across the country. The scheme will enable setting up of at least 50 solar parks each with a capacity of 500 MW. The famous National Solar Mission, also known as Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM), under the revised policy, has gone up from 20,000 MW to 100,000 MW, for deploying grid connected solar power by 2021-22. According to a report, India will soon overtake Japan as the worlds third largest solar power market in 2017. Other renewable energy Small hydro power capacity has achieved 4,323 MW, biomass 4,882 MW and waste-to-energy 114 MW, so far. The New and Renewable Energy Ministry report has set target for various renewable energy sources for next three years. The targets are shown in the table below. Source 2016-17 2017-18 2018-19 Solar Power 12,000 15,000 16,000 Wind Power 4000 4600 5200 Biomass 500 750 850 SHP Grand Total 225 16,725* 100 20,450* 100 22,150* *(Capacities in MW) India's overall ambition is to achieve 175 GW of renewable energy by 2022, and that includes 60 GW from wind power, 100 GW from solar power, 10 GW from biomass power and 5 GW from small hydro power. Meanwhile, thermal power generation has fallen from 1,258 million units in 2014-15 to 5,870 million units till date, according to a statistic. With such depleting numbers, renewable energy is surely to beat the traditional and conventional thermal power generation in next few years. Services sector is likely to attract a higher tax rate of 18 per cent from the current 15 per cent under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime, thus making services "slightly" more expensive, Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia has said. "Yes, for the services sector the standard rate may move to 18 per cent," Adhia said in an interview here. However, those exempted at present like healthcare, education and agriculture are likely to remain so. "Whatever is in the present exempt list, we will try to continue it. We would recommend this to the Council and it will take a view on it. Most probably they should agree. Our attempt is not to upset too many things in one go," he said. At present, the services sector is taxed at 14 per cent with two additional cesses Swachh Bharat Cess and the Krishi Kalyan Cess attracting half a per cent each taking the burden to 15 per cent. The GST law says that agriculturalists who employ themselves or their family members will not come under GST even if their turnover is over Rs 20 lakh annually. Those who are employing persons and have a turnover of over Rs 20 lakh a year will have to register under the GST. Currently, sericulture, floriculture, dairy, horticulture, fishing that usually employ outside labourers on a large scale are exempt from service tax as they come under agriculture. But whether these will attract tax under the GST is still debatable. "Those who are dealing in anything except what we have defined as 'agriculturalist' will have to register (under GST). But whether their products are taxable or not will have to be decided by the Council," he said. "We have not yet decided on the exemption list. That will be decided separately by the Council, I don't think it will want to tax many agriculture products," Adhia told IANS. He also said that some services which currently have less than 15 per cent tax rate may attract lower rates. "Wherever the services at present attract lower than 15 per cent rate of service tax because of certain reasons, we will try to maintain that. Transport sector, for example, attracts lower than 15 per cent tax right now. We will put these in either 5 per cent or 12 per cent," he said. The Revenue Secretary also noted that since petrol and petroleum products have been kept zero-rated under the GST regime, transport can be a good candidate for 5 per cent tax rate. Currently, there are about 60 services which are exempt from service tax, including education, healthcare and religious pilgrimage. In terms of goods, Adhia said that whatever is the exact incidence of excise plus VAT, the fitment will be into a tax slab closer to that. But depending on whether the goods are put in the higher slab or the lower slab, the taxes may increase in a few cases. "Most of the items will be as per formula, only a few items will need discussion. In a few cases, the taxes may increase, but not in all cases. Every year, the Council will meet and revise rates," he said. Though the GST Council took 13 meetings to decide on the enabling laws, Adhia said that since fitment of goods and services is a straightforward thing, it should not take too much time. The Council is slated to meet on May 18-19 in Srinagar to decide on GST Rules, after which the fitment discussions will be taken up. Adhia said that the government is determined to roll out the GST regime from July 1 despite some industry stakeholders demanding further postponement of the new tax regime. "We are determined to roll out GST from July 1, it doesn't seem to be a problem. The live testing of GST is scheduled to begin from first week of May," he said. Adhia agreed that GST will have a greater compliance burden as companies having physical presence in more than one states need to do multiple registrations and pay taxes separately to each state. "I won't say it will complicate, but yes there is a slightly greater compliance burden on the centralised service sector operators because they have to pay tax to all the states. Centralised registration is not possible in the GST model," he said. "GST is a consumption-based taxation model, in which states want to calculate how much services are provided in their jurisdiction. That's why the returns have to be filed separately for every state," he added. The World Bank on Thursday said it estimates a 6.5 per cent growth rate for China in 2017, and a moderate slowdown over the next two years amid changes in the country's economic model. During the presentation of the report "East Asia Pacific Economic Update", World Bank's chief economist for the region, Sudhir Shetty, said Beijing will address the significant risks that threaten its economy, Efe news reported. The report warns of issues arising from corporate debt in China, whose companies closed 2016 with a debt amounting to 170 per cent of the GDP, according to data from international organisations. The World Bank has encouraged Beijing to confront this problem through the restructuring of state corporations and recalled the importance of tightening regulations on the shadow banking system and addressing growing mortgage indebtedness among households. The bank predicts China's economy will continue "to slow down gradually", forecasting a growth rate of 6.3 per cent in 2018 and 2019. The slowed growth reflects "the impact of the government's measures to reduce excess capacity and credit expansion", it says, adding that an expected result of this will be a slowdown in activity in the real estate sector. Exports, however, are expected to increase moderately after two years of decline. The study also says the government's commitment to change the economic model to make it less dependent on its external sector and public investments and instead focus its growth on domestic consumption along with sustainability, will continue to bear results at a gradual pace. Just 221 votes were cast on Thursday in the first two hours at 38 polling stations where re-poll is being held in Srinagar-Budgam parliamentary constituency on Thursday. The voting process started at 7 am. Authorities have imposed restrictions on pedestrian and vehicular movement in the area. "The restrictions have been imposed to prevent violence in the district," authorities said. For security reasons, polling stations at many places in the district have been clustered together in one building. Three hundred police and paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel have been deployed. Re-poll was ordered in 38 polling stations of Chadoora, Chrar-e-Sharief, Khansahib and Beerwah tehsils of Budgam district where violence had disrupted the process on April 8. Sunday's polling at these polling stations was disrupted by massive violence in which eight civilians were killed in clashes with the security forces. Alarmed by the unprecedented violence, the Election Commission decided to defer the south Kashmir Anantnag Parliamentary seat by-poll to May 25. Voting in Anantnag constituency was otherwise scheduled for April 12. Former chief minister and opposition National Conference President, Farooq Abdullah has challenged ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Nazir Ahmad Khan in the Srinagar-Budgam constituency. Counting of votes will be held on April 15 and the result would be known the same day. Meghalaya will start constructing the assembly building to replace a 125-year-old Burmese teak building reduced to ashes 16 years ago, officials said on Thursday. From March 2001, assembly sessions have been held at the state's central library auditorium and later shifted to arts and culture auditorium within the premises of Brookside, the house where Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore began writing his "Shesher Kobita" in 1919. On Thursday, a high-powered committee of Meghalaya assembly, headed by Speaker Abu Taher Mondal, met to decide on a company to construct the building. Mondal said nine firms had presented their architectural designs before the assembly's high-powered committee in the presence of technical staff. "The committee will select the best among the nine designs and the chosen firm will be asked to prepare the structural design as well as a detailed project report for constructing the new building," he said. However, the Speaker said the new building would not be a replica of the heritage assembly building in Gothic style built by the British in pre-independent India. "We (government) targeted to start the construction of the new assembly chamber and the assembly secretariat within this year and complete it by 2019," Chief Minister Mukul Sangma said. "We need to have an assembly building befitting the aspiration of the people and legacy of the state, keeping in mind that Shillong was the seat of power for a long time both pre and post independence." Sangma said the proposed new assembly building would be built at the New Shillong Township in Mawdiangdiang, 12 km from Shillong, the capital of Meghalaya. He said the central government had declined to allocate any funds to the State. "The state government will earmark funds from its own resources for the building, which initial cost will be Rs 70-75 crore," Sangma said. The people of Andhra Pradesh can now directly reach out to Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu through their smart phones by downloading a free app. All they have to do is to install 'Kaizala', a free mobile chat app developed by Microsoft that enables interaction with a large number of people at the same time. This app is being used exclusively by Chandrababu Naidu. Citizens can share their satisfaction levels with the government as well as offer suggestions and feedback for improvement of government programmes. The app will be formally launched at the State Secretariat here on Friday. This feedback will be reviewed by Naidu directly and based on the feedback analytics, government policies will suitably be improved for betterment of citizens, said a statement from the Chief Minister's office. The CM will take feedback and inputs from citizens on the problems they are facing in their day to day life including pension, ration, water, climate or anything else. These inputs will be used to review the workings of that particular department. The authorities on Thursday again suspended broadband internet facilities in the Kashmir Valley, fearing spread of rumours and instigations for violence on social media, as re-polling was being held in parts of the Srinagar Lok Sabha constituency. The broadband internet connections were restored two days ago but the ban on mobile internet continues since April 8. The ban on internet was imposed ahead of Sunday's by-poll in the Srinagar-Budgam parliamentary constituency. Eight civilians were killed in clashes with the security forces during the polling. Roadways employees in Haryana on Thursday called off their four-day strike after the state government succumbed to the demand of the protesters and announced to withdraw its new policy wherein provision was made to grant permits to private players to ply buses on 273 routes. The decision came after nearly a six-hour-long talk between a panel of the state government headed by Transport Minister Krishan Panwar and the leaders of eight employees unions protesting to oppose the move of granting the said permits. Panwar said that the state government would soon come out with a new Transport policy that would be drafted with consultation of roadways employees. Apart from this, the state government would also submit an affidavit in the High Court for withdrawing the existing Transport policy. Meanwhile, over 800 private buses, already plying on these 273 routes would be allowed till the new policy comes. The state government has also withdrawn its decision wherein it had suspended 120 roadways employees for going on strike without prior notice. On April 10, the roadways employees from across 24 depots had gone on indefinite strike opposing the state government for giving profitable routes to the private buses, saying that the decision has not only affected the roadways revenue adversely, but also resulted into conflicts between the roadways employees and private operators clashing on the same roads. Nearly 4,200 Haryana roadways buses were not plying on 1,300 routes for the past four days, giving tough time to commuters as over 13 lakh passengers use to travel in Haryana roadways every day. The strike also caused a loss of more than Rs 3.5 crore per day to the roadways. According to the official information, in the 2013 Transport policy, there were 3,519 permits to private operators for 1018 routes, but in 2017 Transport policy, routes were decreased to 273 but provision was made for unlimited private permits. This was strongly opposed by various employee unions, alleging that instead of inducting buses to its own fleets, the Transport department wanted to promote private players. Veteran actress Shabana Azmi has praised Sonam Kapoor as she got a special mention at the 64th National Film Awards for her portrayal of slain air hostess, Neerja Bhanot, in Neerja. The 66-year-old actress, who essayed the role of Bhanot's mother in the movie, said she is glad to see the Raanjhanaa star's growth as an artiste and that the prestigious honour will motivate her to do better work. "Sonam is like my own bachcha. To see her growth as an artiste is a very fulfilling experience for me personally. The National award for Sonam is such a glorious validation of her talent. "It just makes her so much more confident to do better work. I am very proud of her," Azmi said in a poster which was shared by Sonam on social media. "This made my day year and everything! Thank you @AzmiShabana and thank you @RamKMadhvani for showing me this," Sonam wrote alongside the photo. While, Madhvani, who directed the movie, said, "High praise from @AzmiShabana and well deserved @sonamakapoor. Very happy for you." Neerja also won National Award for the best Hindi feature film. A sense of scepticism is looming over the out-of-court-settlement between the parties on the Ram Janambhoomi-Babri Masjid issue as suggested by the Honble Chief Justice of India. The idea is noble but scepticism finds its ground to the pre-condition suggested by Subramanian Swamy that the Ram Temple should be built at Ram Janmabhoomi while the Masjid should be on the other side of Sarayu river. A bargain before mediation promises its failure making a way for BJP to pass legislation in Parliament for the construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya, which in fact is easier. The Ram Janambhoomi-Babri Masjid issue is so trivial that even the Presidential reference seeking the Supreme Courts opinion under Article 143(1) of the Constitution on whether a Hindu temple or any Hindu religious structure existed prior to the construction of the Babri Masjid was returned unanswered by a five-judge Bench. Several moves in the past to settle the issue through negotiation including one attempt by the Shankaracharya and religious leaders from Muslim community resulted in failure. Muslim organisations, including the Babri Masjid Action Committee are sceptical about the out-of-court settlement because of past experience. The Ayodhya dispute is mixed with mythology and history. Faith contradicts facts. The issue remained unsolved even after a quarter century after 1992 and when in all elections the Ram temple issue provided oxygen. Religion still works magic in Indian elections and the promise of a Ram temple polarised votes to the aid of BJP to great extent. Muslims offered namaz in the Babri Masjid till December 1949 when one night idols were clandestinely installed inside the mosque prompting the lodgment of an FIR. A declaratory suit seeking entitlement to visit and worship was filed. As a temporary measure the Civil Court, Faizabad, ordered refraining from removing the idols and interfering with the puja etc. although the rights were in dispute. Thereafter the Nirmohi Akhara filed a suit in 1959 followed by Muslims filling a case in 1961 praying for a declaration regarding the land. Another suit came to be filed in 1989 by Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP). Eventually Allahabad High Court ordered that all the suits regarding the dispute be transferred to the High Court. During the pendency of the cases the country witnessed Babri Masjid demolition at the hands of kar sevaks in 1992. After 18 years, the Allahabad High Court (by a 2:1 majority) and without passing judgment on the title of the disputed land partitioned the property into three parts; one-third to Sunni Waqf Board, one-third to Nirmohi Akhara and one-third to Ram Lalla. This resulted in a more complicated legal tussle in which the Supreme Court intervened in 2011. The matter is pending before the Supreme Court wherein the Chief Justice of India proposed to explore an idea of out-ofcourt-settlement through mediation between the parties. BJPs spectacular victory in the state of UP and with Yogi Adityanath as the new CM, possibility of construction of the Ram temple at Ayodhya is seemingly high. Yogi Adityanath himself a vocal proponent of the Ram temple belongs to the Gorakhnath Mutt, which has been associated with the Ram temple movement since 1949. This makes the balance tilt towards the one disputing party. The mediation might see a blank as the Ayodhya dispute is not merely a land dispute; it has parallel criminal proceedings in which many prominent BJP leaders are facing charges. The dispute which saw the demolition of the Babri Masjid highlights a problem deeply rooted in religious faith of two communities in the country. Out-of-court-settlement on the title of the disputed land between the two warring religious groups would not per se allow the government to withdraw itself from prosecuting the criminal cases against the prominent BJP leaders, matters which are at an advanced stage of hearing. This may not be a palatable position for the BJP. Supreme Courts suggestion has rekindled a debate on Ayodhya dispute. Different interested groups have welcomed the decision of CJI. An exception is the Babri Masjid Action Committee which though it welcomed the move, also expressed its scepticism on the settlement. Given its past history, private negotiation is unlikely to yield results in this sensitive and sentimental matter. Mediation, even if it prompts a solution cannot negate the eruption of fanatism on either side in future. Further, when BJP is at a much advantageous position of passing legislation in the Parliament to erect a Ram temple, mediation seems to be a weak tool to bring peace. Most welcome therefore would be a judicial pronouncement that would not only seal the dispute but also preserve the secular fabric. The writer is an Advocate-on Record, Supreme Court of India and Life Member, Indian Society of International Law. Actor Jude Law has been roped in to essay the young Albus Dumbledore in sequel of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. David Yates is directing the followup to last year's Harry Potter spin-off which is slated to release next year. Actors Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Alison Sudol and Dan Fogler are returning for the sequel, with the script written by J.K. Rowling. Unlike the initial movie's New York City setting, the followup takes place in Paris and Watford, England. Law's character will be cast against actor Johnny Depp's, who was revealed to be the infamous wizard Gellert Grindelwald in the first film, reports Hollywoodreporter.com. Dumbledore and Grindelwald were friends when they were teens, but grew apart after Dumbledore suffered a devastating family loss. Grindelwald then grew into one of the most powerful dark wizards in history. "Dumbledore fell in love with Grindelwald, and that added to his horror when Grindelwald showed himself to be what he was. There's lots to unpack in that relationship," Rowling said at a press conference.A "You will see Dumbledore as a younger man and quite a troubled man. We'll see him at that formative period of his life," she added. Rowling previously revealed that Dumbledore is gay while she was on a press tour for her book. Unhappy even after meeting the President and five central ministers, Tamil Nadu farmers protesting in New Delhi for a month on Thursday expressed their anger against the BJP. The farmers, who have been protesting at Jantar Mantar here, have been demanding loan waivers, drought relief packages and formation of a Cauvery management board to resolve their irrigation issues. "The BJP is completely against farmers and is pro-corporate. They can waive of lakhs of crores of loans of the corporates but not farmers," said P. Ayyakannu, President of the National-South Indian Rivers Linking Farmers Association. Tamil Nadu is facing a severe drought. In January, the state government declared Tamil Nadu drought-hit after over 100 farmers allegedly committed suicide. Claiming that nothing has grown over 29 lakh hectare in Cauvery delta since 2016 due to lack of water, the protesting farmers said the BJP and its central government were apathetic to their suffering. "Only President Pranab Mukherjee seemed serious about our issues, but none of the five ministers we met seemed really concerned," he said. "Worse is that the Prime Minister is not even ready to meet us though we farmers stripped ourselves outside his office. Our action was meant to say we have nothing We will continue our agitation." The farmers had met Finance Minister Arun Jaitley thrice. He gave them assurances but the farmers don't see their demands being met yet. Earlier this month, the central government approved Rs 1,712 crore under the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) for Tamil Nadu. But the state government has sought a relief package of Rs 40,000 crore. The stage is set for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national executive meeting here over the weekend, during which the party leadership is expected to strategise on further expanding its organisational base. During the April 15-16 meeting, the party would focus on expanding its base especially in states where its performance in the last Lok Sabha and Assembly polls had been dismal. The BJP leaders are upbeat about making its presence felt in Odisha and other areas, which were earlier seen as weak for the saffron outfit. Following its spectacular performance in the panchayat polls in Odisha, the party is to strategise to dethrone the Naveen Patnaik government, which is in power since last 17 years, said a BJP leader. The BJP leadership is also likely to deliberate on preparing a road-map for the 2019 general elections. "We want to strengthen our base in Odisha as well as other states. The party will deliberate on this," said Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah, Chief Ministers of BJP-ruled states and several senior party leaders would attend the executive meeting. Modi is to felicitate members of 16 families associated with the Paika rebellion of 1817 during the meet. Paika rebellion is considered as the first armed mutiny against the British rule in the state. The move is expected to boost the BJP's standing in the state. The capital city has been decked up for the meet with roads getting a facelift and hoardings, banners and flags seen all over. Meanwhile, security has been beefed up across the city ahead of the two-day visit of the Prime Minister. "A total of 100 platoons of police and two companies of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) will be deployed in the city. Besides, four IG rank officers will be in-charge of the five sectors in which Bhubaneswar has been divided for security reasons," said Director General of Police (DGP) K.B. Singh. Special Protection Group (SPG) officers will also provide support to the four IG rank officers to provide security cover to the Prime Minister, he added. The security personnel on Thursday carried out a dress rehearsal of the Prime Minister's convoy from the city airport to Raj Bhavan and to Janata Maidan, where the executive meeting will be held. Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu on Thursday said churches in Kerala should not indulge in politics. Naidu, who is on a visit here, touched upon various issues during a chat with reporters. "Churches should concentrate on spiritual issues and not indulge in politics," said Naidu in reply to a question if churches in Kerala are an impediment to the growth of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state. He said there would be no appeasement of the minority communities, but all are welcome to the BJP. The BJP has one member in the 140-member Kerala Assembly. It is yet to open its account in the Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha from Kerala. "I am here as part of our party's programme to be in the 120 Lok Sabha constituencies where we finished second in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. I will be meeting with my party leaders," said Naidu. Hitting hard at the Congress party, Naidu said no wise person can remain in the Congress as it's a "sinking ship". "We however are not making any efforts to target Congress leaders in Kerala to join the BJP, but there are so many people from various parties approaching us," said Naidu. In the past one week there have been numerous media reports that a few senior leaders from the Congress party would join the Kerala unit of the BJP. In reply to a question that Kerala does not have a representation in the Narendra Modi cabinet, Naidu shot back saying there are no seats in the cabinet for many who have won the Lok Sabha polls and hence Kerala will have to elect someone. On the meeting of Congress leaders with the President of India on Wednesday, Naidu said the memorandum that they gave to the President is "very true of what the Congress did when they ruled the country". "Now they have a problem with the Electronic Voting Machines( EVMs) and it's because they lost states like Uttar Pradesh very badly. They however are not able to convince leaders like Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh and senior leader M. Veerappa Moily. "When they win elections, the EVMs are fine and when they lose, there is a problem. We did not bring in EVMs, instead it was first used in 1989 and the Congress won elections in 2004 and 2009. The Congress is devoid of issues and hence raises non-issues. It's an absurd and baseless allegation that they are levelling," said Naidu. Following last week's chemical attack in Syria that claimed over 80 lives, India on Thursday reiterated its position against the use of chemical weapons anywhere in the world. "You know that India is a signatory of the chemical weapons convention," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay said in weekly media briefing here. "It has been our consistent position that the use of chemical weapons by anyone, anywhere under any circumstances should not happen," he said. "And any perpetrator of such an act should be held accountable." On April 4, a reported toxic gas attack hit the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun in Syria's Idlib, killing over 80 people and wounding scores of others. Two days later, the United States launched 59 cruise missiles against the Shairat military base in central Syria, where from, according to the US, airplanes carrying chemical weapons took off. On Wednesday, Russia vetoed a UN resolution that would have required Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government to cooperate with international inquiries into the attack. On India's position vis-a-vis the rest of the world on the issue, Baglay referred to a statement by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson after he met Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow on Wednesday which said: "We both believe in a unified and stable Syria and we agree we want to deny a safe haven to terrorists." He said that India believed that it was important to defeat terrorism "which in that particular theatre is represented, among others by the IS (Islamic State) and cooperation of all countries is vital to achieving this objective". Celebrating 70 years of friendship with Russia, India on Thursday kicked off year-long celebrations of diplomatic relations between the two countries. The celebrations would be taken to different cities and towns of the country through organised cultural events, business meetings and other activities. During the launch function here, Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) President Lokesh Chandra said the last 70 years since independence had been of a "very close friendship", which actually dates back around 200 years. "We hope that this friendship that we share would continue for years to come," he said. Joint Secretary (Eurasia) G.V. Srinivas said India was ready to celebrate the festival of friendship in partnership with the Russian community and other stakeholders throughout the coming year. Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Thursday dared West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to come clear on the issue of triple talaq. "It is said that after Uttar Pradesh the maximum number of women affected by triple talaq is in West Bengal. What have you (Mamata) got to say about these victims of triple talaq," Prasad said. "We want to ask the Chief Minister of West Bengal as to what is her stand as far as rank injustice to the victims of triple talaq is concerned," Prasad said. Mamata Banerjee has sided with Muslim organisations opposing the ban on triple talaq. "This (triple talaq) is not the question of worship or faith. This is question of gender justice, gender equality, gender dignity. Should a large number of women in India after 70 years of independence live in such injustice that mere three words end their marriage," Prasad said. He said the practice of triple talaq is as "unconstitutional" as discrimination by an upper caste Hindu against a Dalit. "We respect faith and worship. But every pernicious practice is not a part of worship," he said. The Law Minister said that more than 20 Muslim countries, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, have regulated divorce, so why can't the same be done in a secular country like India. "If Islamic countries can regulate triple talaq and it is not deemed against shariah, then why can't we do it in a secular country like India," he said. He said that the Narendra Modi government has challenged the practice of triple talaq in Supreme Court and the apex court is slated to hear the matter soon. A special court here on Thursday issued a non-bailable warrant for arrest against controversial preacher and televangelist Zakir Naik after he failed to appear before the Enforcement Directorate despite four summons issued to him. Naik is currently away in Saudi Arabia. Informed sources said the Enforcement Directorate may now seek Letters Rogatory, or letters of request, from the same court for Saudi Arabia. These letters are a formal request for judicial assistance from a foreign court. The ED first issued summons to Naik in January, after which three more summons were issued at regular intervals. The agency had submitted an application for issuance of fresh NBW on Monday. The central agency registered a criminal case against Naik and others in December last year after taking cognisance of a National Investigation Agency (NIA) complaint under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. Sources in the Enforcement Directorate, which is probing the trail of over Rs 200 crore received by Naik's NGO Islamic Research Foundation (IRF) and his relatives, said the 51-year-old preacher established dummy companies in India and abroad for diversion of funds. As part of its ongoing investigation, the ED last month attached property worth Rs 18.37 crore belonging to the IRF. The Islamic preacher is also accused of promoting enmity between groups on religious and racial grounds, which are being investigated by the NIA. The NIA also has sent him several summons to appear at its headquarters in Delhi but he has allegedly avoided them. All the notices by the Enforcement Directorate and the NIA were served at Naik's Jasmine Apartments in Mazgaon area of Mumbai. Naik first came into the limelight when his name cropped up during investigations into the terror strike at an upscale restaurant in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on July 1 last year. One of the terrorists involved in that attack allegedly claimed to have been inspired by Naik's speeches. Naik is evading arrest after his activities came under scanner. Though Naik offered to speak to the Enforcement Directorate via videoconferencing or answer a questionnaire, the sources said the agency is not keen on the idea, saying it will "set a wrong precedent". The Enforcement Directorate revealed that videos of Naik's provocative speeches were produced and exported to Dubai to be telecast. The agency has recorded the statements of Naik's siblings his sister Nailah Noorani and brother Mohammad Abdul Karim Naik. They two said they were unaware of Naik's financial dealings. The sources said Naik's overseas properties were also under the ED scanner. India on Thursday came down heavily on Pakistan over Kulbhushan Jadhav's death sentencing saying Jadhav is a kidnapped innocent Indian and that Pakistan has no evidence against him. "Kulbhushan Jadhav is a kidnapped innocent Indian who is a retired officer of the Indian Navy and Pakistan has no evidence against him," Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Gopal Baglay said. "These facts were communicated to Pakistan over an year ago. We had, in fact, made 13 requests to Pakistan to release him since he was arrested last year," he added. He further said that the Pakistan government has not shared any specific details about Kulbhushan Jadhav's condition. "We are not aware of where he has been kept and Pakistan has not told us. As soon as the information about his death sentence was passed, the Pakistan high commissioner was summoned. We told him that there is nothing concrete and the farcical nature of the case against him was wrong. We said that we would treat it as premeditated murder," he added. On 10 April, India had summoned Pakistan envoy Abdul Basit saying proceedings that led to the sentencing of Kulbhushan Jadhav are 'farcical'. Jadhav was reportedly arrested on 3 March, 2016 in Balochistan's Mashkel area on claims of his involvement in espionage and sabotage activities. Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar on Thursday condemned the definition of a "perfect female body" in a class 12 textbook as "sexist" and has ordered action in the matter even as the private publisher has decided to stop the printing and sale of the book. Excerpts from the Physical Education textbook defining "36-24-36" as the "best body shape for females" on Thursday created an outrage on social media with critics demanding that the text be withdrawn. The book titled "Health and Physical Education" written by V K Sharma and published by Delhi-based New Saraswati House, is taught at various schools affiliated to CBSE. CBSE, however, clarified that it "does not recommend any books by private publishers in its schools". "I condemn the remarks in the book as sexist. The text is non-defendable and unacceptable. We have taken serious note of it. I have instructed the officers to take appropriate action in this regard," Javadekar told reporters. "It is not an NCERT book but by a private publisher and action will be taken against them. We are also asking CBSE schools to follow NCERT books rather than private publishers in interest of earning profit," he added. The publishers also announced that they have "stopped the printing, selling and distribution of the revised book with immediate effect". "We do review our books from time to time but some points have remained uncorrected due to an oversight and hence the book will again be reviewed by our editorial board and any inconsistencies found will be corrected," the publishers added. The excerpt from the chapter "Physiology and Sports" which is going viral read, "36-24-36 shape of females is considered the best. That is why in Miss World or Miss Universe competitions, such type of shape is also taken into consideration". Various Twitter users shared picture of the mentioned text and demanded that the publishers withdraw the content and schools replace the book in their curriculum. In a statement, the CBSE had said, "Schools are expected to exercise extreme care while selecting books of private publishers and the content must be scrutinised to preclude any objectionable content that hurts the feeling of any class, community, gender, religious group. Schools have to take responsibility of the content of the books prescribed by them". The Human Resource Development ministry had last month said that CBSE has no mechanism to evaluate the quality of textbooks of private publishers and it has no mandate to prescribe or recommend textbooks other than those published by NCERT. Chunky Pandey has stunned everyone as a menacing guy in Begum Jaan trailer, and the actor says he was not sure if he would get that part in the film. After the release of Housefull, I was auditioning for Begum Jaan and people on the sets were telling me to say dialogues like Aakhri Pasta (his character in Housefull). At the back of my mind I thought I would not get the film, Chunky told. But Srijit was sure he wanted me to play this evil part. He wanted me to lose real Chunky Pandey he wanted the world to see my evil side. He saw the evilness in me and he wanted to bring that out in 'Begum Jaan', he says. Chunky, who is known for his comic timing, is playing a villainous character of Kabir in the Vidya Balan starrer but the actor says it was not tough for him to get into the dark zone. He is not a villain this is the face of evil. Evil will always exist in this world. I always had a wicked streak in me, the sadist side in me also comes in my comedy films. But to do something like this is crazy. It came very naturally to me and I am most scared about that, he says. Sporting a bald pate, kohl-lined eyes and tobacco- stained teeth, Chunky reveals his wife failed to recognise him in this new avatar. My wife couldn't recognise me. The whole personality has changed. She always thought I am a villain and I had to prove her right so I did 'Begum Jaan', he says. I was little resistant (about the look) after seeing myself I was happy. You don't get a film like Begum Jaan everyday in your career. Srijit compelled me to lose my identity, with this creepy, almost-bald look. I was earlier asked to cut my hair short, later Srijit just took all my hair off he also asked me to shave off my eyebrows. I told him no as I was travelling for work and could be stopped at immigration. He believes his 'repulsive role' will get him critical acclaim, something he says he misses since his Tezaab days. The film also features Naseeruddin Shah, Rajat Kapoor, Ashish Vidyarthi and Gauahar Khan. Calling them power house performers, Chunky says, These are actors with whom you have to be on your toes. You have to up your performance. I had to be best. It was a delight to work with them. Srijit's 1947-set film Begum Jaan which is a remake of his Bengali movie Rajkahini, will release this Friday. Music festival Ultra Worldwide's Road to Ultra will start here from September 8, and then move on to Mumbai in February next year. Organised by Percept Live, the electronic music festival will take place first at India Exposition Mart here and will then travel to Mumbai, read a statement from the organisers of the event, Percept Live. Road To Ultra events are single-stage events with the same focus as all Ultra Worldwide festivals. Each event showcases stage productions including world-class visuals, lighting, cryogenics and pyrotechnics. Stage designs are developed by the Ultra Music Festival creative team and adapted to accommodate the needs of both indoor and outdoor venues. The music fest has had top artistes like Tiesto, Hardwell, Martin Garrix, Alesso, Steve Angello, Above & Beyond, Afrojack, Fedde Le Grand and more has headliners in the past on foreign shores. Ultra Worldwide is also set to host events in 23 countries and across six continents by the end of 2018. The Congress teamed up with Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad in the Bihar assembly elections to defeat the BJP. In Uttar Pradesh, however, the alliance of the Congress with Akhilesh Yadav could not prevent a massive win by the BJP. While the two results were very different, in both cases the Congress had to bear the adverse consequence of its base among people getting badly eroded due to the fact that an overwhelming majority of the seats were simply not contested by its candidates. When a majority of the seats are not even contested, the mobilisation capacity and organisational structure of a once dominant party of these states is further rusted and eroded. This lowers the morale of even old timers and loyalists. Several committed cadres find themselves ill at ease when they are asked to extend support to and seek votes for candidates of parties with whom they do not agree. These and related factors need to be taken into account while planning the election strategy of the Indian National Congress for 2019. This is a critical time for the most prominent political party of India in historical terms which now has to adjust to its new role in opposition. Despite all its recent adversities, it remains by far the leading opposition party in terms of its nationwide presence. Even in the middle of a difficult and adverse phase, the Congress won the most number of seats in three out of five states in which elections were held recently. It is another matter that it could form government in only one out of these three states. So clearly while the Congress has more than its share of problems all is not lost and a resurgence is still possible. For this efforts have to be made at several levels. One important aspect is to formulate a careful strategy regarding electoral alliances after consultations that involve not just leaders but also grassroots supporters. One mistake which cost the Congress a lot in Uttar Pradesh was to enter into an alliance with the Samajwadi Party merely on the basis of talks at the top level without proper consultation at the grassroots level. The idea behind the alliance was not bad at all, as the prevailing circumstances of Uttar Pradesh demanded some sort of alliance to defeat the well-oiled, efficiently managed election machine of the BJP which was aiming aggressively at sweeping the election through any means. The mistake Congress made was in reaching the agreement so late that the supporter base could not be taken into confidence and could not also convey the ground realities to the leadership. The ground realities indicated that a late agreement would not result in conducive conditions that were needed for the supporters of the two parties to establish a genuine understanding with each other. The ground reality also indicated that some of the most powerful and resourceful leaders of the Samajwadi Party would not only hesitate to support the alliance but may even disrupt it. The Congress cannot afford to go on repeating its mistakes particularly in such important states as Uttar Pradesh. Some leaders are now talking of organising a Bihar-like mahagathbandhan to defeat the BJP in Uttar Pradesh in the next Lok Sabha elections scheduled for 2019. Even if such a broad alliance of the SP, the BSP and the Congress becomes possible in UP (this itself is very doubtful) this will leave only about 10 to 15 per cent seats for the Congress. After the debacle of the Congress in the 2017 assembly elections, any decision to contest a small number of seats will be nothing short of catastrophic. Contesting a few seats amounts to leaving the battle before the bugle has been sounded. So before talking of a mahagathbandhan in UP leaders should think of implications properly. Any attempt to defeat the BJP by liquidating itself can only be called foolhardy from a longer term perspective. The proper strategy for the Congress would be to announce that it will contest not less than 80 per cent of seats in all the states in the next Lok Sabha elections. This will help to mobilise party workers and supporters at least to some extent in important states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar where there is so much uncertainty that there is hardly any incentive for party leaders to prepare for Lok Sabha elections. However any such determined decision to contest a majority of the seats in the next Lok Sabha election also implies that the Congress will be able to get only smaller parties as electoral allies. There is nothing unfortunate about this. This is the way it should be for a truly national political party. It should have only smaller allies who will be content with a few seats. This is the right time for such a firm decision to send a clear signal to party members and supporters. However the party should maintain cordial relations with all opposition parties which will also be helpful for post election efforts to form a government. The writer is a freelance journalist who has been involved with several social movements and initiatives. It isnt a 21st century version of the Cold War, but there has been a dramatic change in Donald Trumps dealings with Syria ~ the Russian Presidents ally till the other day. The unmistakable tension between Washington and Moscow has surfaced barely six months after the Russian President strained every nerve to get Trump elected and, one is tempted to add, Hillary Clinton defeated. To the astonishing extent that the Kremlins game theory marked a momentous reversal of Cold War perceptions, a kind of meddling that has recently been confirmed by the FBI. The US cruise missile attack on Bashar alAssads country has happened in the immediate aftermath of the chemical gas carnage. And the storm clouds were gathering thick and fast last weekend when Russia mobilised its warship, Admiral Grigorovich, in the direction of Syria following the first direct strike by the US on the Assad regime. Subsequent events will bear out whether the sailing of the warship was intended only to be a threat to the US. Suffice it to register that the partners in Election 2016 have now conveyed the impression that they are gearing up for a confrontation over Syria. Not wholly unrelated to the build-up of tension is the reported suggestion by Assads aides to seek the refuge of a bunker. Not that President Trump is overly keen on removing Assad; the US administration has in a bizarre justification described Assads rule as political reality. We do not know whether the missile strike was intended to unnerve the presidential palace in Damascus. Yet we do know that the nerve gas has had a calamitous effect. Markedly, the White House has been anxious to present last Fridays sudden offensive as a contained response to a specific atrocity. In a sense, there is a thread that links Barack Obama to Donald Trump. The incumbent is as loath as his predecessor to rock the boat. Indeed, Obama was always unwilling to use military options to remove Assad. Ergo, a regime change in Syria doesnt appear to be on the US agenda quite yet. Of course, Trump had a compelling reason to emit a signal ~ after 70 people, notably children, perished in a chemical gas attack. Equally, the sailing of Admiral Grigorovich might serve to bring the curtains on the Trump-Putin bonhomie, which had blossomed with a terribly critical agenda last November. The Kremlins strategic interest in backing the Syrian regime, and its willingness to use every tool at its disposal to support Assad ~ from its jets to its Security Council veto ~ means he is unlikely to be dislodged any time soon. As Simon Jenkins, former Editor of The Times, puts it succinctly in The Guardian ~ President Trumps emotions have been stirred, but his bombs wont help Syria. In all likelihood, United States President Donald Trump views his decision to launch a missile strike against Syria as a one-off event, a singular retaliation for that countrys use of chemical weapons against its own people, rather than the start of a bigger American military involvement in the Middle East. Still, the Syria missile strike will go down as a seminal event in the history of the Trump presidency. For it represents the first time an isolationist American leader who came to power dismissing all foreign military interventions as follies publicly acknowledged the fact that some military operations are justifiable and that some key international humanitarian values again, not a favourite Trump concept are worth fighting for. And this comes after a number of other, subtler policy changes in the White House which all go in the same direction: towards the creation of a presidency which is less unusual and radical and more conventional than we initially feared. Dare we say it? Could it be that Mr Trump is being tamed? The past few months were exhausting, for both Americas friends and foes. First came the shock realisation that the man everyone dismissed as, at best, a comical outsider, ended up holding the keys to the White House. Then came the even more shocking realisation that the newly-elected President actually had every intention of implementing many of the policies he espoused during his electoral campaign. There was also the gruff, unpredictable personal manner of Mr Trump, which made every contact with him a journey into the unknown, an exercise in psychology as well as diplomacy. Some leaders, such as Japans Shinzo Abe or Britains Theresa May, engaged with Mr Trump early, and appear to have established a personal rapport. But others, such as Germanys Angela Merkel, fell flat on their faces when they tried to engage with Americas new leader. During her recent meeting in the White House, Chancellor Merkel, who runs Europes biggest nation and economy, not only suffered the ignominy of an American President pretending not to notice her offer to shake hands in public, but was also presented by Mr Trump with a bill calculating the money Germany allegedly owed the US for Americas military protection since World War II. It was the sort of childish prank which did no favours to either Mr Trumps knowledge of history, or his familiarity with accountancy. And then, there were the almost daily scandals, the policy flops and the infighting in the White House which proceeded with such fury and created such a bewilderment around the world that it felt as though the Trump administration has been around for ages, when in fact Mr Trump has been in charge for just a quarter of one out of his four-year mandate. The scandals are still there. But there is also plenty of recent evidence that the administration understands the mess it is in, is prepared to learn from its mistakes and is willing to change both policies and behaviour. Last weeks removal of Mr Steve Bannon, Mr Trumps chief strategist, from the National Security Council is one such example; the controversial former fringe journalist with a self-proclaimed mission to destroy what he calls the administrative state which apparently includes everyone classified as a liberal, was the generator of many of the administrations recent disasters, including the half-baked ban against travellers from some Muslim countries. Yet of equal importance is the fact that Mr Trump reversed his previous decision also inspired by Mr Bannon to marginalise the US intelligence chiefs; they are now restored to their position as members of the National Security Council, a step which is not only logical, but which is also guaranteed to improve decision-making in security matters. Talk of overhauling the intelligence community, another pet obsession of Mr Bannon and Mr Michael Flynn, the three-star general who lasted barely 24 days as Mr Trumps national security adviser, has also mercifully disappeared. Unlike many other decisions undertaken by the current administration, last Fridays missile strikes on Syria should serve as textbook examples of an exemplary military mission. The targets were carefully chosen, attention was given to minimising civilian casualties, Americas allies were consulted while its opponents were informed, the operation was precise, the communication with the media short and clear and enough ambiguity is being retained about future US actions so as to keep all enemies on their toes. Furthermore, some pretty impressive people are now joining the administration. The appointment of General H. R. McMaster as the new national security adviser was received with enthusiasm in most Western capitals, where the military scholar is respected for his strategic foresight and organisational skills. And while most of the medias attention concentrated on allegations of supposedly nefarious links between Russia and some White House officials, the Trump administration appointed Dr Fiona Hill as its chief Russia policy adviser. Dr Hill, a Brit by birth, is regarded as one of the best brains on Russia, a woman who commands respect with most governments and think-tanks. Arguably, the current US administration now has access to superior Russian expertise than its predecessors. What accounts for this transformation? Partly, the self-corrective mechanisms of the American constitutional system. As Mr Trump has discovered, while he enjoys wide discretion on foreign and trade policies, he cannot achieve very much domestically without the support of Congress as well as the acquiescence of judges; hasty presidential decrees and furious tweets in the middle of the night cannot enforce visa bans or reform Americas healthcare system. Mr Trump was also quickly confronted with the potentially catastrophic implications of his initial plans to recognise Jerusalem as Israels capital, discard Americas adherence to Nato or brand China a currency manipulator; mercifully, he has refrained from doing all these things. And, as the old saying goes, American presidents dont search for crises; the crises search for them. He did not intend to spend any time on Syria, but events presented him with an opportunity of differentiating the current administration from the previous one, which stood idly by as the Syrian regime gassed its people. Besides, it is worth recalling that the portrayal of the Trump administration as a team of weirdos incapable of brewing their own tea, may be a favourite one in the US liberal media but is just wrong. While there are some questionable characters in the administration, there are also some serious heavy-hitters, such as Defence Secretary James Mattis or Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who managed the recent Syria operation. Mr Tillerson may be criticised by foreign governments for spending too little on overseas trips and showing no enthusiasm for the shuttle diplomacy of his predecessors. But he has wisely decided that, at least for the moment, his most important job remains at home in Washington, where the State Department needs defending from proposed financial cuts, and where the enduring influence of the diplomats needs to be reasserted. For both Mr Tillerson and Mr Mattis, the latest Syrian episode was an opportunity to remind their President that there is no substitute for professionalism, and that, in a crisis, it is experience which counts for more than gut instinct. To be sure, Mr Trumps process of accommodation to the realities and practicalities of power is still in its infancy. Many lower-rung government positions remain unfilled, because the President insists on vetting candidates, and picks only those he approves of. The infighting within the White House has yet to be resolved. The positions of Ms Ivanka Trump and Mr Jared Kushner, the Presidents daughter and son-in-law, still need to be clarified. And Mr Trump himself is unlikely to abandon his image as the perpetual contrarian, the man who simply rejects conventional wisdom, almost regardless of the topic. Nevertheless, there is no question that the administration knows it needs an overhaul; as a senior official recently put it in language borrowed from Silicon Valley, America is currently run by the beta White House, implying that a patched-up version will soon be released. And that, too, will be entirely in keeping with Americas recent history. For it is by now largely forgotten that both Mr Jimmy Carter and Mr Bill Clinton had a chaotic and largely ineffectual start to their presidencies, and both had to make huge personnel and policy changes within months after coming into office. Mr Clintons makeover worked as intended, launching a presidency which is now largely remembered positively, while Mr Carters never recovered from its initial disastrous start. A message of hope there, but also one of warning for the current President. The Straits Times/ANN There is little doubt that unity among Nagas and unification of all militant factions is the sine qua non for lasting peace in Nagaland. Not that no efforts in this direction have been made, it is just that faction leaders themselves have dealt severe blows to such unity hopes. As early as June 1999, NSCN (IM) general secretary Th Muivah put paid to any pretension of unity/unification when he said others were irrelevant to the process of finding a solution to the Naga problem. The reconciliation process, initiated by the opinion-forming Naga Hoho in December 2001, folded up within months of its formation after the NSCN(IM) leadership objected to the inclusion of two members who belonged to the Angami community of Naga National Council president, the late Zapu Phizo. Muivah is on record as having said reconciliation cannot be forced, it must come naturally. He wants his bete noir, the Khaplang faction, to admit its mistakes, meaning the killings of several comrades-in-arms at the time of parting company in 1988. Khaplang, on the other hand, claims it is the Muivah group itself which had made the mistake, so it must atone for it. Not much is heard these days of the Forum for Naga Reconciliation that came into being in 2008 and whose efforts helped reduce fratricidal casualties. It also succeeded in bringing together the leaders of all the three warring factions ~ the NSCN(IM), NSCN(Khaplang) and NNC/federal government of Nagaland ~ at a meeting in Dimapur in September 2010. It was described as the priceless gift to the people of Nagaland. Though a signatory to the 2009 Covenant of Naga Reconciliation (Chiangmai, Thailand) arranged by the FNR, Khaplang did not attend the meeting. The FNR must involve itself in furthering the peace process. After unilaterally abrogating the 14-year-old ceasefire pact with the Centre in March 2015, Khaplang today leads the United Liberation Front of Western South-east Asia. Its members include the Ulfa (Independent), several Meitei armed groups as well as Bodo and Kamtapur Liberation Organisation rebels. Khaplang is safely ensconced in Myanmar after signing, in 2012, an accord with Yangon. However, for overall peace and harmony in Nagaland, his presence cannot be wished away. Given this, the Centres insistence that for the final settlement, all stakeholders must come together is a pragmatic approach. Ultimately, peace depends entirely on whether Muivah, the sole Naga leader left to shape the Nagas destiny, will be prepared to come down from his high horse and soften his somewhat aggressive and rigid demands. There were many who believed the Pakistan army would never confront the militants in North Waziristan. Too many strategic assets were located there, they said. And the cost of appeasing the West by dismantling the militants infrastructure would be too high. But the predictions were wrong. Eventually after years of hesitation the army did move in. Its easy to forget now that back in 2007 it was not uncommon to hear Peshawarites say they were moving their children out of the city for fear that the state could not provide sufficient security. And even if many of those parents still worry today about the risk of their offspring being kidnapped, there can be little doubt that the situation is vastly improved. Many of those who doubted the armys resolve also thought it would never make a genuine effort to control the Pak-Afghan border. After all, for years the army had said it could not control the movement of militants from Pakistan into Afghanistan because the border was so porous. But now that the flow is reversed it turns out that the border can be controlled. There are new posts, forts and radar systems to stop militants getting into Pakistan from Afghanistan. It all prompts the question: are these developments in northwest Pakistan a one-off? Or are they a model for what might happen in the rest of Pakistan? The army would doubtless argue that its fight against militant violence is by no means restricted to the northwest. The Fata campaign has been matched by a commitment to tackle militancy in Karachi. And even if many might see the Baloch insurgency in a different light to violent jihadism, from the militarys point of view, in Balochistan too, the state has confronted those who violently oppose the state. And yet elsewhere in the country some militant outfits remain untouched. There are three types of groups to consider: those active in Afghanistan, the sectarian groups and the India-facing outfits. Despite all the impassioned official denials, the world has little doubt that the Afghan Taliban leadership has sanctuary in Quetta. Given that foreign affairs adviser Sartaj Aziz said as much its difficult to believe anything else. And there is a reason for this policy. In the minds of some of Pakistans military strategists the protection offered to senior Afghan Taliban leaders and their families serves Pakistans national interest. The international community, the argument goes, will be unable to get a peace deal Afghanistan without going through Pakistan. Similarly, the links with India-facing groups are plain for all to see. The idea that Pakistan can rely can on the indigenous movement in Kashmir may be gaining ground in some official circles but as long as Modi is in power the Pakistani militants are going, at the very least, to be held in reserve. Which leaves the sectarian groups. Even for the most hard-bitten supporter of the states use of jihadi proxies, support or toleration of the sectarian groups is very hard to understand. The sectarian groups cause huge suffering. They deepen a potentially disastrous rift in Pakistan society. They are already the subject of outside interference and financing and thereby undermine Pakistan sovereignty. In addition, they offer a potential route for the militant Islamic State group to get into Pakistan society. While many analysts believe IS lacks the infrastructure or popular support base to become a major force in Pakistan, there is still a risk that the organisation could become established by forming an alliance with anti-Shia groups such as Lashkar-i-Jhangvi. Despite all these serious considerations the sectarian groups continue to operate. The most likely explanation beyond sectarian prejudices reportedly held by some senior officers is that these groups are now so numerous that confronting them head-on would risk something approaching civil war in the key province of Punjab. There are other reasons to believe that various types of militant groups active outside the northwest will not be touched. The civilian government has still failed to adopt a clear position on militancy. Maulana Abdul Aziz Ghazi, one of the leaders of the Lal Masjid rebellion, remains in charge of an institution that became a byword for antistate violence and which was cleansed of violent elements at a high cost to human life. Nor has the government instituted sufficiently thorough reforms to undermine the militants by providing people with schools, hospital and courts. But the failings are not by civilians alone. The lack of resolve is also creeping into military parlance. Increasingly, the military is moving away from saying militancy reflects internal divisions in Pakistan. Instead, it is taking the much easier and convenient line of blaming it all on foreigners. Even if such claims are sometimes justified, they run the risk of become a catch-all explanation that will undermine the clear thinking needed to take on such a difficult adversary. The writer is a British journalist and author of Pakistan: Eye of the Storm. The Assad regime in Syria has long been accused of unconscionable severity and cruelty to its opposition. Mr. Assad rules over a divided and fractious country, and his efforts to restrain his opposition have led to severe measures against political dissidents in an ever-escalating cycle. As a result, Syria, a jewel of a country, has been in irremediable turmoil which has only been compounded by ill-judged foreign intervention. Nevertheless, and notwithstanding the rising fundamentalist tide within the region, the regime has been able to retain its hold on power, and to maintain its secular character. The severity of the opposition challenge and the measures adopted by the regime have made it impossible for matters to settle down; the civil war rolls on with no end in sight, and with new groups entering the fray to add fuel to the flames. The international community has been witness to these events, has deplored them as well it might, but has been unable to do much to bring a halt to the strife. The UN has tried but it has not been granted the necessary authority: ceasefire agreements have repeatedly fallen by the wayside, and the combatants have been able to pursue their aims without being held to account by supra-national pressures and demands. There has been nothing like the coordinated external intervention in Syria that had brought down the Saddam Hussein regime next door in Iraq. Mr. Assad's foes receive support from abroad but not to decisive effect. The result of the battle therefore remains undetermined and there is no present sign of crumbling on either side. The crisis in Syria took on an unexpected dimension last year when refugees from the war set out for destinations in Europe in quest of peace and safety. This happened at a time when a flood of migrants was headed for Europe from their homes in North Africa and West Asia, driven by economic necessity, and many destitute refugees from Syria were able to join them, slipping across national borders in their journey. A good part of the Syrian population had already become refugees in their own land and in neighbouring countries like Lebanon, and now some of them were headed for the affluent lands of Europe. They were to receive an uncertain welcome as they advanced and this became one of the most pressing public concerns as European countries grappled with their consciences and with the prejudices of some of their citizens to give succour and asylum to the immigrants at their gates. Meanwhile, the civil war has been prolonged and become more intense as a result of foreign intervention. Russia, a historic friend to Syria and a major power in the vicinity, has been drawn deeper into the struggle and has taken a direct part in it as a principal backer of Mr. Assad, keeping company as it happens with Iran, the inveterate foe of the aggressive anti-Assad militias of the Islamic State (IS). The parameters of this struggle have more than local, or even regional, significance, for ideological factors have become ever more obtrusive in a manner that prefigures the desire of the most implacable elements to bring about global jihad. The civil war has been marked by a number of atrocities, the most horrifying of these being the use of chemical weapons. There have been many accusations against Syria in past years, which have been denied but not effectively rebutted, and the demand for action against the perpetrators remains strong. The international community, divided though it may be, is greatly exercised and pictures of Syrian children fatally affected by chemical attacks have drawn a horrified reaction. Among the global powers, the USA has been highly condemnatory of Syria but until very recently had refrained from intervening militarily against it. It had seemed at times to be on the verge but was apparently held back by former President Obama, who sensed that his country was in no mood to be drawn into yet another military engagement overseas. There matters might have remained, for it had seemed likely that President Trump with his well-advertised aversion to external entanglements would not permit his country to be drawn into military engagements abroad. But this proved to be a short-lived expectation. Just a few days ago a shower of US missiles came down on Syria in a dramatic statement of US readiness to intervene as and when it felt it should, turning away from its policy of the previous many years. The missiles did much damage; more important, the attack changed the parameters of the situation and opened up the possibility of the USA becoming an active participant in the Syrian imbroglio. The display of US military strength and readiness to use it changes many of the assumptions that have hitherto driven policy in and around Syria. The strike itself, perhaps deliberately, was not a decisive intervention, and it does not appear to be a prelude to further attacks from the air or by ground troops. Nor has it had the effect of destabilizing Mr. Assad regime, but it has put the regime on notice so far as the use of chemical weapons is concerned. The missile attack has also had the effect of hardening the lines between some of the important players. It had been expected that with Mr. Trump in charge there would be some easing of the US-Russia relationship that had run into difficulty, and the initial signs were encouraging, but after strong Russian criticism of the missile attack the distance between the two countries has stretched further. Iran too, which had cautiously advanced towards a rapprochement with USA, has denounced the attack and the careful work of reconciliation between the two countries seems to have been largely undone. It is an even tougher, harsher setting now in which the Syrian war proceeds. The newly activist USA seen in Syria is visible elsewhere too. So far as India is concerned, a senior US diplomat's observations on Indo-Pak matters have revived some unwelcome ideas about a US role and if unchecked could affect the currently satisfactory India-US relationship. Elsewhere, too, what may be random observations by US officials have provoked strong reactions and raised questions about US intentions ~ in this context, one can look at North Korea which has felt it necessary to make threatening noises against the USA, which may not be convincing but cannot be ignored as they come from a nuclear armed country. This combination of events is disturbing to the kind of ordered existence traditionally sought by the international community. Maybe this style of US activism will blow over, to be followed before long by a more restrained method of functioning. The writer is Indias former Foreign Secretary Seminars, lectures, special programmes for Dalits, and other activities marked the quasquicentennial birth anniversary of Dr BR Ambedkar last year. Parties and personalities across the political spectrum were involved in a competitive display of their high regard for the man, while true Ambedkerites wondered how far such projected adulation actually flowed from a genuine understanding of the man and his mission, his scholasticism and dogged determination for ameliorating the conditions of depressed classes and creating a truly democratic social order in India. Excessive glorification or lionization of Ambedkar is only a relatively recent phenomenon and indicates an agenda of coopting the increasingly assertive strand of Dalit politics. During his lifetime, Ambedkar was a much misunderstood man. For many stalwarts of our freedom movement, he was a renegade and his preoccupation with the Dalit issue was viewed as an obstacle towards attainment of freedom at the earliest. His biographer Dhananjay Keer in his celebrated book, Dr Ambedkar: Life and Mission, has dwelt on the unwavering commitment of Babasaheb to the emancipation of the depressed classes from centuries of inhuman exploitation, his tireless striving to reach that goal and his unhesitant rejection of the politics of the Congress under Mahatma Gandhi. Ambedkar felt that the BaniaBrahmin dominated party was not genuinely sensitive to the miseries of the Dalits. At a time when the entire country catapulted Gandhi to a messianic stature, when the world viewed him as the supreme benefactor of the Harijan, Indias dispossessed untouchables, Ambedkar would not be swayed by what he viewed as conciliatory, placatory treatment of the untouchables by Gandhi. He would not accept anything less than a substantial share of political power for the Dalits as the means to usher in a social revolution. Despite stiff resistance from Gandhi behind whom stood the currents of mainstream politics in India during the second Round Table Conference, Ambedkar secured a separate electorate for the depressed classes, and consequently incurred trenchant criticism from the Indian press which even branded him unpatriotic. But nothing could shake his commitment to his own people. A maverick, a scholar of high caliber, a social reformer, a Constitution maker, a jurist, sociologist and a political economist of the first degree, Dr Ambedkar was all of these and more. His brilliant mind was strengthened by a fearless heart and acerbic tongue, as he minced no words in condemning the hypocritical approach of the so-called liberals towards the Dalit issue. At a time when majoritarian exclusivity is being used to define the contours of Indian nationhood, one should recall Ambedkars conceptualization of the nation, not as a transcendental entity, personified by a Goddess whose victory needs to be hailed by all citizens, but as a community of diverse groups, bound together by ties of mutual respect, concern and commitment. The cow vigilantes and the crusader against eating beef might find it unpalatable that Ambedkar analysed the taboo associated with such consumption to beef eating as a tool devised by the Brahmins to humiliate and degrade the depressed classes. Although Brahmins themselves ate all varieties of meat earlier, they later moved towards vegetarianism and glorified it just to shame the dispossessed and poor Dalits for whom it was an affordable option. Disparaging treatment of the food habit of the depressed class was a tool of legitimizing the cultural domination of the upper caste Hindus. At one point of time, he was so exasperated with the inflexibility of Hindu society, particularly the deeply enmeshed caste system, that he abandoned the hope of ameliorating the condition of Dalits within the matrix of the Hindu social order and decided to convert to Budhhism which he viewed as a more egalitarian and democratic religious order. The attempt of the Hindu right to appropriate him as one of its own militates against the disillusionment of an embattled Ambedkar. While many in India consider Gandhi as the man who worked wonders by paving the way towards Indias freedom through his Satyagraha, Civil disobedience and Quit India movements which generated mass mobilization on an unprecedented scale, Ambedkar felt otherwise. In an interview given to BBC in 1955, much after Independence, he aired his unconventional belief that Netaji Subhas Bose and not Gandhi gave us our freedom. With his characteristic candour, he spoke about the Indian National Army raised by Netaji, The British had been ruling the country in the firm belief that whatever may happen in the country or whatever the politicians do, they will never be able to change the loyalty of soldiers. That was one prop on which they were carrying on the administration. And that was completely dashed to pieces. They found that soldiers could be seduced to form a party ~ a battalion to blow off the British. Ambedkar was not only at odds with the liberals of the Congress and the Hindu orthodoxy, he did not agree with the Marxists either and considered their view of caste as essentially an issue of economic inequality to be a reductionist perspective. He strongly felt that inequality within Hindu society is not only economic but also social and psychological and represents a civilizational crisis. He cautioned his own community as well, observing that centuries of oppression and denial of access to education have bred among Dalits evil habits and bad ways of living, ugly customs, passivity, a sense of helplessness, the tendency to pursue their narrow self-interest, hierarchical gradation among themselves, low ambition and so on. He exhorted them to receive education, to do away with evil practices, to develop solidarity with fellow members of the community and be worthy of the rights and social respect they are aspiring and fighting for. He rued the deplorable tendency of those members of the community who after gaining access to education and social respectability, moved away from their community instead of serving their less fortunate brothers and sisters. At his insistence, the Drafting Committee incorporated the principle Fraternity in the Preamble to our Constitution, in conjunction with Justice, Liberty and Fraternity. As he told the Constituent Assembly, Fraternity means a sense of common brotherhood of all Indians, of Indians being one people. It is the principle which gives unity and solidarity to social life. How difficult it is for Indians to think that they are a nation. The realization of this goal is going to be very difficult. In India there are castes. The castes are anti-national, in the first place, because they bring about separation in social life. They are anti-national also because they generate jealousy and antipathy between caste and caste. But we must overcome all these difficulties if we wish to become a nation in reality. For fraternity can be a fact only when there is a nation. Without fraternity, equality and liberty will be no deeper than coats of paint. Treating people with respect, even if they are less privileged, is still a distant reality. Public flogging of Dalits in Una, the suicide of a bright young scholar Rohit Vemula who could not avoid the catastrophic ill effects of the accident of his birth, and similar other unfortunate events are a grim reminder of the unfulfilled work of Ambedkar. As we have failed to realize the goal of fraternity, can we claim to be the protector of his legacy? Ambedkar never ceased to think critically, never hesitated to dismantle even his own works and ideas if he felt that the context has changed radically, and despite being widely revered as the father of the Indian Constitution, did not bat an eyelid to comment that he would not hesitate to burn the statute if it failed to live up to its avowed objectives. Perhaps, we need to ponder his poignant and almost prophetic words in the windingup speech in the Constituent Assembly on 25th November 1949 ~ In India, Bhakti plays a part in politics which is unequalled in magnitude by the part it plays in the politics of any other country in the world. Bhakti in religion may be the road to the salvation of a soul, but in politics, Bhakti or hero worship is a sure road to degradation and eventual dictatorship. The writer is Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Womens Christian College, Kolkata. More than merited was every column-centimetre across which the media recently splashed the courageous recovery of Mr Chetan Cheetah, a CRPF officer, who after being comatose for 16 days was discharged from hospital ~ after sustaining no fewer than nine bullet wounds in an anti-militancy operation in Hajjan, Jammu and Kashmir, on 16 February. Doctors at the AIIMS, New Delhi, to where he was transferred after preliminary treatment at the Base Hospital in Srinagar, hailed his steely resolve, and said it was nothing short of a miracle that the Commanding Officer of the paramilitarys 45th battalion had survived the multiple injuries. Though one eye has been saved, he may lose sight in the other. The dedication of the doctors has been lauded by the home minister, Mr Rajnath Singh, who tweeted fortune favours the brave. Like a true warrior, Mr Cheetah has expressed gratitude for the goodwill messages, and made particular mention of the Chief of the Army Staff and the minister of state for home affairs having visited him in hospital: such moments are unforgettable. No doubt gallantry awards and other honours will be bestowed upon the man who has done his nation proud, yet as his wife noted, normality in our lives will return once he wears the uniform and goes to work again. That is where the CRPF leadership must step in: assigning Mr Cheetah desk-bound duties may cater to financial and allied needs, but will not fully compensate for his willingness to go the extra mile for his countrys cause. The nature of the job could well be restricted by his physical condition, but quality leadership would demand that his exemplary conduct be harnessed to inspire other men and women in uniform to emulate the lofty standards he has set. Traditionally the military and allied services are rule-bound when it comes to financial rewards for gallantry, distinguished service, etc., ~ the babus who deal with such matters are unable to look beyond files, standing orders, formulae, etc. As the cases taken to tribunals and courts suggest, there is limited scope for flexibility and innovative out-of-the-box thinking. Heroics are soon forgotten, promotions and postings, indeed longevity of service too, are linked with the evaluation of medical boards. For how long will even those in the CRPF remember the gallantry of men like Chetan Cheetah and the tribute paid to him by ministers, the Army chief, etc? What also goes against the grain ~ in all matters relating to recognising the soldier ~ is that the ceremonials are essentially sarkari. When last were Opposition leaders involved in the homage paid to soldiers being transported to their native places for the Last Rites? Something is very wrong somewhere. Recently, WTOs Director General, Roberto Ezvedo, visited India. During one of his meetings with some experts and organizations associated with trade and commerce, he was asked about the WTOs future, after Trumps taking over as US President and how he would deal with his ( Trumps) disenchanting free trade system? His quick response was that if a member nation violates WTO rules, the affected members could make a complaint against the delinquent and on this basis action could be taken under the WTO dispute settlement provisions. The WTO itself cannot take suo moto action. After the WTO came into existence in 1995, world trade began to be operated under its rule-based system. Tariffs started decreasing and nontariff barriers began to move away. But the effect was not the same on all countries. Although the reduction of import duties and removal of obstacles had increased trade of all countries, the trade balances of most countries had worsened. Although American industries faced the heat, business of big American corporations continued to grow throughout the world due to the USs diplomatic influence and economic power. The revenue of the American government was also growing due to this reason, as these corporations were contributing hugely to the public exchequer. The new patent system also benefitted American companies. So, the United States was the main beneficiary of globalisation and WTO. The US dollar also strengthened vis-a-vis other currencies. However, this honeymoon with globalisation did not last long in the developed world; America and other developed countries started getting disillusioned with globalisation. The participation of these countries in WTO meetings started diminishing and these meetings were also slowly reduced to rituals. After the economic recession since 2007-08, the USA and other developed nations apparently started adopting a conservationist approach. Last year, in the UK, a referendum took place and Britons decided to part with the European Union (EU). In the meanwhile, Donald Trump started gaining popularity in the United States and was then elected as president of USA. These changes reflected changed attitude of developed countries towards globalisation. Now, whereas Britain is moving towards bilateral agreements after its imminent exit from EU and the US is attempting to impose heavy duty on imports from China. All these developments depict dumping of WTO by the same set of countries that were its fierce supporters. With America separating itself from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and adopting a protectionist approach, it seems the WTO is taking a back seat now. In such a case, when the country that advocated for free trade and multilateral trade agreements the most is withdrawing itself, naturally a debate about the new trade system has sprung up. With new developments in US and Europe, and changed thinking of the policy makers there, nervousness is quite visible amongst supporters of WTO and globalisation. They are also scared that this trend will accelerate. At the same time, they are busy explaining that the WTO and multilateral trade agreements would ultimately survive. They give three arguments: First, after the WTO came into existence, the alternative trade system ceased to exist and the biggest change came when China also subscribed to the WTO. Earlier European integration also contributed to strengthening of the WTO. Supporters argue that due to the abandonment of TPP by the US and the absence of any alternative trade system after Brexit, European nations will have to accept the WTO as a readymade forum for trade agreements. In such a situation, WTO will become important again, because this is the only forum for trade negotiations. The second argument of WTO supporters is that while the United States under Trumps leadership has decided to impose tariff and nontariff barriers on imports from different countries, the affected member nations of the WTO would complain against US only at WTO forum. And WTO can only effectively curb the protectionist attitude of the US. Therefore, WTO will gain prominence once again and emerge as a more robust institution directing world trade. Their third argument is that although it is true that regional trade agreements will move forward in Asia and other areas in the near future, this requires a new leadership at the global level. Since there is no such leadership in the world today, nations will again have to turn towards WTO. These supporters of the WTO say that many countries including India, South Africa, Brazil, China, Australia and Indonesia will come to the rescue of the WTO, because their interests coincide with free trade as nurtured by multilateral agreements. We have to understand that due to the unemployment, poverty and inequalities in United States, Britain and other parts of the globe (generated by trade-led globalisation), peoples sentiments are getting reflected in an upsurge against globalization. In France too, similar feelings are being revealed. Not only the people, the governments have also started realising that due to free trade, there is not only an imbalance in foreign trade, but industries are shutting down and employment opportunities are eroding due to heavy imports in the name of making available cheap products from China and other countries. Rise of poverty and unemployment is the natural outcome. Therefore, protection of industries by way of import restrictions is important. Though, supporters of globalisation look upon protectionism with contempt, there is no better way to save employment and industry than protectionism. The writer is Associate Professor, PGDAV College, University of Delhi. With lack of awareness on Parkinson's Disease, 60 per cent of people mistake its symptoms for those of old age, thus causing a delay in diagnosis and leads to irreversible position of the disease, doctors said on April 12. "People misunderstand Parkinson's Disease to be old age problems whose symptoms are similar, like shakiness in limbs, tremors, slowed movements, loss of automatic movements. Parkinson's Disease affects only one side of the body unlike in the case of age-related problem where affects the complete body. "This misconception leads to delayed diagnosis causing complications worse to treat. Our idea is to create awareness among all," said Sumit Singh, director and head of Neurology at city-based Artemis hospital at a awareness lecture on Parkinson's Disease. The neurosciences team has started a special OPD only for Parkinson's Disease patients from April 10 to 16 at the hospital between 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. where patients will be getting free consultation. According to Parkinson's Disease Foundation, more than 10 million people worldwide are living with the disease. Medication costs for an individual are $2,500 annually, and therapeutic surgery can cost up to $100,000 dollars per patient. Aditya Gupta, director, neurosurgery at Artemis hospital said as the stage advances, the effect of medication tends to stop and hinder quality of life and the frequency of medication increases due to several on and off phases. "This leads to end the medicine effect unpredictable and hence people with advanced stage have to go for deep brain stimulation (DBS) surgery. It is most often offered to people with advanced Parkinson's who have unstable medication responses. DBS can stabilize medication fluctuations, reduce or halt involuntary movements (dyskinesias), reduce tremor, reduce rigidity, and improve slowing of movement," said Gupta. Google has introduced Areo, one single app for food delivery and home services, currently live in Bengaluru and Mumbai on Android devices. "Areo lets users search for local restaurants and home services like electricians, plumbers, and painters, and schedule their deliveries or appointments through the app," the company said in its Google Play store. The app also provides customer reviews of the available companies, eateries to help you make informed choices from product quality to timeliness of service. The app has pay by card, netbanking or cash on delivery services. Popular director AR Murugadoss and actor Mahesh Babu have united for yet another big project with the duo recently revealing the title of the movie, SPYdar. The team has also released a motion poster featuring a classy Mahesh Babu, whos carrying a gun in his hand. Minutes after the poster was out, it went viral across social media, thanks to Mahesh Babu's ardent fans. Fans even created many hashtags about the film including #spyder, @armurugadoss and #spyderfirstlook. The film will be released in Tamil and Telugu and both the languages carry the same title and the movie will also be dubbed in Malayalam as SPYder. Promotional activities are in full swing with Mahesh Babu even starring in the cover page of popular Tamil magazine Vikatan. The second season of Big Little Lies will concentrate on actress Zoe Kravitz's character, Bonnie and her abusive father. The writer of the HBO miniseries, Liane Moriarty has revealed that they are in talks with the studio to develop more ideas for the show, according to The Hollywood Reporter. "(I would like to) bring in more of Bonnie's story from the book. And also what happens next (for Nicole Kidman's Celeste). That's the question that's also a really interesting thing, when you've been through a relationship like that, how do you feel now? How would she feel? I think that would be a really interesting thing to explore. So there's a whole lot of different storylines," Moriarty said. She also said that she has heard positive feedback from the cast, with star and executive producer Witherspoon lobbying for more of the show. "I think everybody is pretty keen. They all loved working together, but I think the thing is the story has to be right," Moriarty said. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas warned that he will take unprecedented steps to end the political division between his West Bank-based autonomy government and the Hamas-run Gaza Strip. Abbas did not explain, but could try to use financial pressure to extract concessions from the Islamic militant Hamas which seized Gaza from him in 2007. Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said today that the language of threats and dictating orders would not be accepted. The escalating rhetoric comes ahead of a planned meeting between Abbas and President Donald Trump that will likely focus on a possible resumption of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations about Palestinian statehood. No date has been set, but a Palestinian advance team heads to Washington later this month. Hamas control of Gaza weakens Abbas, undermining his claim that he speaks for all Palestinians. Abbas and his supporters seek a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, lands Israel captured in 1967. Hamas wants an Islamic state in historic Palestine, including present-day Israel, though a new political program suggests the group would accept a state in the 1967 lines, for now. Hamas drove pro-Abbas forces from Gaza in 2007, a year after winning Palestinian parliament elections. Since then, repeated attempts at reconciliation have failed. A national unity government set up by Abbas in 2014, after a deal with Hamas, never got off the ground in Gaza. Hamas refused to relinquish control to pro-Abbas security forces, particularly at border crossings with Israel and Egypt, while Abbas refused to incorporate tens of thousands of civil servants and troops hired by the Hamas government since 2007 into a new administration. Last month, Hamas set up an administrative committee for Gaza, further angering Abbas. He signaled earlier this month that despite Hamas control, Gaza is economically dependent on payments from his donor-funded Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. Citing donor concerns, the Palestinian Authority slashed by one-third the salaries of former government employees and members of the security forces who had served under Abbas in Gaza before 2007. These 60,000 ex-employees continued to receive salaries for staying home after the Hamas takeover, as a way of ensuring their loyalty to Abbas. However, their spending also helped support the Gaza economy, inadvertently propping up Hamas. Earlier this week, the Palestinian Authority noted that it spent USD 17 billion in Gaza since 2007, including for salaries and development aid. Abbas told Palestinian diplomats in Bahrain yesterday that this policy would change. These days, we are in a dangerous and tough situation that requires decisive steps, and we are to take these decisive steps, Abbas was quoted as saying by the official Palestinian news agency WAFA. Therefore, we are going to take unprecedented steps in the coming days to end the division. Barhoum accused Abbas of trying to pressure Hamas ahead of his meeting with Trump. President Donald Trump has praised China for its decision to abstain from voting on a UN Security Council resolution condemning last week's chemical attack on civilians in Syria, terming it an honour for the US. I think it's wonderful that they abstained. As you know, very few people expected that. And no, I was not surprised that China did abstain, Trump told reporters at a joint White House news conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. Very, very few people thought that..that was going to happen. So we're honoured by the vote. That's the vote that should have taken place, Trump said, responding to a question on his relationship with China. Later, a senior White House official described this as a positive step. China's abstention at the UN was another significant victory for all civilised peoples because it really showed how isolated the Assad regime and its international sponsors are, the official told reporters. Trump also praised China for taking steps against North Korea. We have a very big problem in North Korea. And as I said, I really think that China's going to try very hard and has already started, he said. The vast amount of coal that comes out of North Korea going to China, they turned back the boats. That's a big step, Trump said. Without blaming India by name, Pakistan on Thursday said "foreign intelligence agencies" may have kidnapped a retired Pakistani Army officer who has gone missing in Nepal. The Dawn quoted Foreign Office spokesman Nafees Zakaria as saying at the weekly press briefing that retired Lt Col Habib Zahir had been trapped in Nepal "after being lured into a job offer". He said Pakistani authorities were in touch with the Nepal government to trace Zahir and Kathmandu was cooperating. Zakaria, however, warned against linking Zahir's disappearance with the case of Kulbhushan Jadhav, an alleged Indian spy sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court for espionage and sabotage. "It is unreasonable on India's part to link the Jadhav case with Habib Zahir," he said. Zakaria appeared to be referring to Indian media reports that say that Zahir was part of the team that picked up Jadhav. Pakistan says Jadhav was caught in Balochistan and he was working for the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). India says Jadhav was abducted from Iran. Zahir, who retired from the Army in 2014, went missing on April 6 from Lumbini, a Buddhist pilgrimage site near the Indian border. The Pakistani reached Nepal after he was lured with a job offer by someone by the name of Mark Thompson. The spokesman said clear evidence existed of Indian involvement in Pakistan's internal affairs and India's attempts to spread terrorism in the country. "India has been caught red-handed interfering in Pakistan," Zakaria said. He claimed that India had interfered in Pakistani affairs in the past as well. In a major U-turn, President Donald Trump has said that NATO is no longer obsolete, asserting that he is committed to the military alliance. I complained about that a long time ago and they made a change, and now they do fight terrorism. I said it was obsolete. It's no longer obsolete, Trump told reporters at a joint White House news conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. It's my hope that NATO will take on an increased role in supporting our Iraqi partners in their battle against the ISIS, he said about NATO which was formed in 1949. Since then its member states have more than doubled, increasing from 12 to 28. On Monday, he signed the protocol to approve the 29th, the country of Montenegro. In the coming months and years, I'll work closely with all of our NATO allies to enhance this partnership and to adapt to the challenges of the future, of which there will be many. This includes upgrading their focus on today's most pressing security and all of its challenges, including migration and terrorism, Trump said. Observing that NATO countries must work together to resolve the disaster currently taking place in Syria, Trump appreciated the support of NATO members and partners in their condemnation of Assad's murderous attack using the most horrible weapons. The vicious slaughter of innocent civilians with chemical weapons, including the barbaric killing of small and helpless children and babies, must be forcefully rejected by any nation that values human life. It is time to end this brutal civil war, defeat terrorists, and allow refugees to return home, he said. In facing our common challenges, we must also ensure that NATO members meet their financial obligations and pay what they owe. Many have not been doing that, he said. Trump and Stoltenberg agreed that other member-nations must satisfy their responsibility to contribute two per cent of GDP to defence. If other countries pay their fair share instead of relying on the United Sates to make up the difference, they will all be much more secure, and the partnership will be made that much stronger, he said. Trump is expected to travel to Brussels later this spring to attend the NATO Summit. Every generation has strived to adapt the NATO alliance to meet the challenges of their times. And during my visit to Brussels this Spring, which I look very much forward to, we will work together to do the same. We must not be trapped by the tired thinking that so many have, but apply new solutions to face new circumstances, and that's all throughout the world, he said. Stoltenberg said a strong NATO is good for Europe, but a strong NATO is also good for the United States. I welcome the very strong commitment of the United States to the security of Europe. We see this commitment not only in words, but also in deeds. Over the past months, thousands of US troops have been deploying to Europe, a clear demonstration that America stands with allies to protect peace and defend our freedom, he said. Noting that in a more dangerous and more unpredictable world, it is important to have friends and allies, Stoltenberg said in NATO, America has the best friends and the best allies in the world. Together, we represent half of the world's economic and military power. No other superpower has ever had such a strategic advantage. This makes the United States stronger and safer, he said. Observing that NATO plays a key role in many other ways also, he said all NATO allies are part of the global coalition to counter ISIL. NATO provides direct support to the coalition with training for Iraqi forces in their fight against terrorists, and more intelligence sharing. We have established a new division for intelligence, which enhances our ability to fight terrorism, and working together in the alliance to fight terrorism even an even more effective way, he said. NATO, he asserted can and must do more in the global fight against terrorism. In the fight against terrorism, training local forces is one of the best weapons we have. NATO has the experience, the expertise and the staying power to make a real difference. And fighting terrorism will be an important topic when NATO leaders meet in Brussels in May, the NATO Secretary General said. Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov has launched legal action against opposition leader Alexei Navalny over an accusation of bribery in his report into alleged corruption by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, a court said on Thursday. Usmanov has launched action against the Kremlin critic for the protection of his honour and dignity at Moscow's Lyublinsky court, the court's press service told TASS state news agency. Navalny, who has announced he intends to stand for president in 2018, in March released a report claiming Medvedev controls a property empire through shadowy not-for- profit organisations. The video has been viewed more than 18 million times on YouTube. Medvedev has denied the claims, which he described as malarkey. Navalny's supporters last month held the largest unauthorised demonstration in Moscow in years, protesting over the accusations against the prime minister, one of President Vladimir Putin's closest associates. Usmanov was listed as Russia's third richest businessman by Forbes magazine in 2016 with a fortune of USD 12.5 billion. His interests range from metallurgy to social networking sites Mail.ru and VK and business daily Kommersant. Navalny's report says Usmanov donated a mansion in an elite suburb of Moscow whose value it estimates at USD 70 million to a foundation it links to Medvedev. The report says: We know very well what such a gift means: it is a bribe. Usmanov is personally suing Navalny and his Anti- Corruption Foundation which produced the report, according to the website of Moscow city courts. In an interview with Vedomosti independent business daily yesterday, Usmanov said he gave the house and grounds to the foundation in exchange for land it owned, which he bought at a nominal price. He said the house and the land were worth approximately the same around USD 50 million. This is no bribe! Usmanov told Vedomosti. He said he planned to sue Navalny over the lying in the report. Navalny, who is a lawyer, responded defiantly on Twitter, saying he would call Medvedev as a witness. He rejected Usmanov's description of the deal, saying the billionaire bought the land from commercial companies. Navalny has been targeted in a number of legal cases he describes as politically motivated. This year he was convicted of fraud in a retrial after the European Court of Human Rights quashed the original verdict. This conviction would bar him from standing for public office. A steam train clocked (100) miles 161 kilometres per hour on Britain's mainline railway network for the first time in almost 50 years. Tornado, a Peppercorn-class A1 steam locomotive, reached the landmark speed during a test run on Wednesday aimed at proving it can operate passenger services at 90mph (145 kph). A steam locomotive has not hit 100mph in Britain since 1968, according to The Daily Telegraph newspaper. Built by heritage enthusiasts, Tornado hit the three- figure speed on the East Coast Main Line the route between London and Edinburgh during a run between Doncaster and Newcastle in northern England. The test run was part of a bid to raise Tornado's speed limit for passenger services from 75mph (121 kph) to 90mph by the end of this year. Preservation steam locomotives have been restricted to 75mph since the end of steam services on the main lines in the 1960s. Tornado was the first steam locomotive to be built in Britain for almost half a century when it was completed in 2008. If Tornado can run at 90mph it will be able to fit in better with other trains on the busy main railway lines. Pulling passenger carriages yesterday on a secret run, it ran at 10 per cent above the 90mph mark to demonstrate a sufficient safety margin. "We are delighted to have completed the test runs that move us one step closer to 90mph operations with Tornado," said Graeme Bunker-James, operations director for the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust. "This will allow us to ensure that the locomotive continues to haul trains on the busiest parts of the UK network, allowing as many people as possible to enjoy travelling with Tornado. "As part of these tests, the locomotive operated at 90mph for a sustained period and also achieved 100mph under these special conditions and running with clear signals." Workers on the locomotive, their faces blackened, celebrated with a cup of tea after hitting the landmark. The world speed record for a steam locomotive is 126mph (203kph), set by the Mallard further south on the same railway line in 1938. (AFP) America's relationship with Russia "may be at an all-time low", US President Donald Trump has said, but he hoped that it would be wonderful if the two countries got along. "It would be wonderful as we were discussing just a little while ago, if NATO and our country could get along with Russia. Right now we're not getting along with Russia at all. We may be at an all-time low in terms of relationship with Russia, Trump told reporters at a joint White House news conference with the NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. "This has built for a long period of time. But we're going to see what happens. Putin is the leader of Russia. Russia is a strong country. We're a very, very strong country. We're going to see how that all works out, Trump said. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has just concluded his maiden visit to Russia during which he met his Russian counterpart and the Russian President Vladimir Putin. "I'll be speaking in with Rex Tillerson in a little while, calling in. I think he had a very successful meeting in Russia. We'll see. We'll see the end result, which will be in a long period of time perhaps. But the end result is what's most important, not just talk. And I think that based on everything I'm hearing, things went pretty well, maybe better than anticipated, Trump said. Trump hoped that the European countries would have nothing to fear from Russia. "I want to just start by saying hopefully they're going to have to fear nothing ultimately. Right now, there is a fear. And there are problems. There's certainly problems. But ultimately, I hope that there won't be a fear and there won't be problems and the world can get along. That would be the ideal situation, he said. Stoltenberg said NATO and its member countries need to find ways to talk with Russia. "We believe that the precondition for a political dialogue with Russia is that we are strong and that we are united. That based on that, we can talk to Russia because Russia is our neighbour. Russia is here to stay. So we have to find ways to manage our relationship with Russia, he said. "I am absolutely certain that the US supports this approach, partly because the United States is contributing with forces to our enhanced presence in the eastern part of the alliance, and also in the southeast of the alliance in Romania. And the US and the President has clearly expressed that they want dialogue with Russia, but based on unity and strength in the alliance, the NATO chief said. Stoltenberg said he strongly believes that the only way to deter Russia is to be strong. "But the only way to avoid a new Cold War, avoid the arms race, and avoid increasing tensions is to continue to engage Russia in a political dialogue and to make sure that what we do is defensive and proportionate in response to a more assertive Russia," he said. "The most important thing is to have a strong alliance, to stay united and be firm and predictable in our approach to Russia. And that means that we have to invest in our collective defence. That's exactly what we are doing; deploy more troops in eastern part of the alliance; increase the readiness of our forces; and increase defence spending, he said. Stoltenberg welcomed the very strong message from Trump on the importance of increased defence spending. "We have started to do this, so we are implementing the biggest reinforcement of our collective defence since the end of the Cold War, providing credible deterrence, he said. But at the same time, we have to find ways to engage with Russia, to talk with Russia. Because Russia will not go away. Russia will be our biggest neighbour. We have to find ways to live with them and to try and avoid a new Cold War, a new arms race, Stoltenberg said. Botticelli show features works never before seen in the US remaining of Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. A field of giant solar panels is being erected across the street from the DPW building on town-owned land on Elm Street. No more Monday to Friday, nine to five? Why these N.L. businesses are choosing a four-day-a-week work model When it comes to those who work nine-to-five jobs, most will tell you the same thing: the weekends are never long enough. In recent years, especially since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been more talks of hybrid workweek models. Foreign crisis after the Cold War In honor of Veterans Day, this is part 2 of a 3- part series on the confl ict in Iraq, containing interviews with two local men who served. Christopher Jones and Gregory Fitzgerald Robinson are two Burke County men who served with the military in Iraq. Jones entered the U.S.... Making history As always, the community showed up to support D.O.O.R. 2022 marks the most money raised in Celebrity Waiter Night history with a whopping $18,365, including the largest single top in history at $1,250! BOC refuses to stop talking trash The Board of Commissioners may be inching toward a decision on how to manage the Countys solid waste. The panel met Tuesday, October 25 during a work session to address the issue once again. County Manager Merv Waldrop presented the board with a comparison of the proposals the County received... Cycling event returns to burke county The Bird Dog100 Gravel Cycling Event returns to Burke County for its second year on Saturday, November 5th. The event, coordinated by Cycling Quests, begins Friday night with registration and prerace activities at First Liberty Market, in downtown Waynesboro. The race will be held on Saturday beginning at Liberty Market... The high profile Income Tax raids in Chennai on April 7 at health minister Dr C Vijaya BBhaskars house have spilled links to what happened inside Apollo hospitals when Jayalalithaa was admitted for treatment from September 22 to December 5, 2016 and the money transactions associated with it. The payout list leaked to the media by the Income Tax department after the raids on April 7 and subsequently, after the enquiries with Vijaya Bhaskar, reveals the money distributed to several VIPs in the state right from Chief Minister Edappadi K Palanisami to the well-known doctor who acknowledged Jayalalithaas thumb impression during her hospitalisation last year. The inquisitive name in the list of payees in the documents seized was Dr P Balaji. Given to Dr Balaji for expensesHM (home minister) instructionsRs 5 lakh," it read. This entry has raised eyebrows as to why a government doctors name was in the payout list of the health minister and if the doctor had actually taken money from him. Dr Balaji, Professor of Minimal Access Surgery at Madras Medical College, came into the picture when he attested Jayalalithaas thumb impression in Form B that was submitted to the Election Commission in November 2016, for bypolls to Aravakurichi and Thanjavur constituencies. In his statement then, Balaji had certified: "Since the signatory has undergone tracheostomy and has an inflamed right hand, she is temporarily unable to affix her signature. Hence, she has affixed her left thumb impression on her own in my presence. Balaji had also written the same in the document he certified and sent to the Election Commission. Apparently, the date mentioned in the payout list records November 1, 2016, which is just three days after Dr Balaji had got the attestation. Though the doctor in his statement had refuted to have taken any money for his services, he accepted in an interview to a Tamil newspaper that he had taken money but to settle Dr Richard Beales hotel bills at Taj Coromandel in Chennai. He said Dr Beale was supposed to stay at Rain Tree hotel, booked by Apollo. He was not willing to stay there and wanted to be moved to Taj Coromandel. Apollo was not willing to get Dr Beale moved as the price was high and so health minister Vijaya Bhaskar agreed to pay and came into the scene. So, hotel bills of Dr Beale were directly settled by the ministers personal assistant, he told the newspaper. He further said the bills at Taj Coromandel could also be verified if anyone needs proof of Dr Beales hotel expenses and who paid it. However, in that case, a curious question arises about the hospital's claim of settling Dr Beales hotel bill, during his stay at Taj Coromandel. Interestingly, these questions and the murky dealings mentioned in the payout list seized from Vijaya Bhaskars house have thrown much light into the mysterious days of Jayalalithaas hospitalisation. If sources from the Madras Medical College are to be believed, Dr Balalji had always been health ministers favourite, which is why he was one among the panel of government doctors constituted to monitor Jayalaithaas health. Apparently, Balaji headed the committee formed with the concurrence of Vijaya Bhaskar and other top leaders in the AIADMK. Though his specialisation was in laproscopy, which had nothing to do with the illness of Jayalalithaa, he was allowed to head the five-member team that had not given out any reports on Jayalalithaas health till date. In fact, even when health secretary J. Radhakrishnan, whose houses were also raided by the Income Tax sleuths on April 7, had put in much efforts to bring out Jayalalithaas health report issued by the team of AIIMS doctors, it was surprising that he did not ask the state governments doctor team to speak on this. Also, a few days after the attestation and submission of Form B, Dr Balaji was elevated as the member secretary of the Transplant Authority of Tamil Nadu. Popularly known as TRANSTAN, this government agency is the key to organ transplants as it monitors and regulates the organ and cadaver transplants in the state. These transplants are mostly done through private hospitals and as per the data available with the state government, Tamil Nadu leads in cadaver transplants. Moreover, TRANSTAN is the most regulated body in India when it comes to organ transplants. It is in this context that Chennai-based NGO Change India had petitioned Tamil Nadu governor Dr Vidyasagar Rao against Dr Balajis appointment. It had alleged that the appointment reeked nepotism and favouritism. It is pertinent to note that Dr P Balaji possesses no knowledge about organ transplant and cadaver transplant, and his appointment reeks of nepotism, favouritism and no proper procedure was followed by the health minister and health secretary in appointing him, says Change Indias director Paadam A Narayanan in his petition. He further claimed in the petition that Dr Balaji was just an assistant surgeon at the government-run Stanley Medical College and promoted as professor in Dharmapuri Medical College. Subsequently, he was brought to the Madras Medical College and a special department called Minimal Access surgery was created to accommodate him, overlooking several senior surgeons. This, the petition alleged, was only to assist the health minister in his dealings. In fact, the whole drama enacted by M.G.R. Medical University Vice-Chancellor (VC) Dr S. Geetha Lakshmi in the course of IT officials' summons and her appearance before them on Wednesday after the high court dismissed her plea, had raised eyebrows. Geetha Lakshmi was appointed to the post only in December 2015. Reportedly, she was one among the VCs who had called V.K. Sasikala soon after Jayalalithaa's demise and had advised her to take over the reins of the state. While the top leader of the state Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palanisami has not spoken about the raids or the probe held by the IT department in his cabinet members residence, sources in the state secretariat said the entire political set up is shaken post the incident. In fact, the chief minister's name also figures in the payout list for R.K. Nagar cash for votes, seized from Vijaya Bhaskar's house. Moreover, the state government, after the trust vote on February 18 and passing of the budget in March, has once again slipped into a pause mode, similar to how it was during Jayalalithaas days of hospitalisation. Apparently, there are not any new policy decisions or new schemes announced by the government. In fact, Palanisamis silence, according to people close to him, is because his statements on this could bring out more skeletons on board from his side, which would only bring more discredit to the already unpopular AIADMK government. Is former chief minister and senior Congress leader Narayan Rane all set to bid Congress a good bye? Corridors of Mantralaya are abuzz with speculations on 'when Rane will quit the Congress'. A few months ago the speculation was 'whether Rane will quit the Congress'. [File] Narayan Rane | PTI A former Shiv Sainik, who still worships Shiv Sena founder Balasaheb Thakeray, Rane appears to have made the journey from 'whether' to 'when' when Congress leadership in Maharashtra was busy in its Sangharsh Yatra against Devendra Fadnavis government's indecision over the issue of farm loan waiver. On the day when Maharashtra Congress president Ashok Chavan was addressing farmers during the 'Sangharsh Yatra' in the scorching summer heat in Nanded district, Narayan Rane was having a closed door discussion with junior minister and BJP leader Jaikumar Raval when the latter was visiting Sindhudurg, Rane's home district. At a time when Congress-led opposition in Maharashtra has finally managed to get its act together and has successfully cornered Fadnavis' BJP government on the issue of loan waiver and farm suicides, the grand old party continues to fight its battles within. Rane, who has been the chief minister of the state and was also industries minister in Congress reign, had chosen to stay away from the 'Sangharsh Yatra', opposition's grand show of unity against ruling dispensation in Maharashtra. Rane finally made an appearance on April 4, the concluding day of the Yatra. Rane's elder son Nilesh, a former Congress MP, recently resigned from all posts of the party. It was his way of protest against Ashok Chavan's leadership. Soon after he had quit party posts, his supporters flooded social media with posts which declared 'Ashok Chavan-Maharasthra Congress President' as missing. That Ranes are not happy in the Congress has been known for quite some time now. Rane senior even met Rahul Gandhi a few days back and conveyed his grievances. Reports have now surfaced that he and his legislator son Nitesh met BJP president Amit Shah in Ahmedabad on April 12 night. The meeting took place after chief minister Fadnavis spoke to Shah and was present at the meeting, according a prominent news channel. Ranes flew to Ahmedabad from Goa while Fadnavis went there from Mumbai. The two are said to have met Shah at latter's residence and the meeting is reported to have lasted for over an hour. There are obvious reasons why the BJP is so keen to welcome Rane in its fold. The party was routed recently in local body elections in Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg district where it did not win a single seat. If Ranes join the BJP, all his loyalists from Congress will soon follow suit thereby strengthening the BJP in the two districts where Rane calls the shots. Ranes' entry into the BJP will be a severe blow not just to Congress but to entire opposition as Congress is trying hard to stitch together opposition unity against the BJP-Sena government. Congress also does not have any aggressive leader in the upper house of state legislature except Rane. The BJP is hoping to make Rane a senior minister in Maharashtra cabinet so that he complements the chief minister in countering the opposition on the floor of the house. At present only the CM is able to aggressively defend the government in the legislature because of his grasp of issues and legislative rules. With Rane as his senior colleague, it will be a deadly combination. Certain BJP ministers may feel insecure, but if we have to win assembly elections in 2019 Ranes will be able to contribute a lot, said a senior BJP leader in the know of developments requesting anonymity. Soon after he returned from Ahmedabad, Rane denied the news reports that he had met Amit Shah along with Fadnavis. He claimed that he had gone there for personal work with his son. The BJP's offer has been there for a long time now. If I wanted to become a minister, I would have become a union minister long time ago, said Rane even as he claimed that the reports were misleading. A lot, however, depends on what the BJP has to offer to Ranes. It is doubtful whether Rane would work under Fadnavis who is too junior to him in politics. Fadnavis was mayor of Nagpur when Rane was Shiv Sena chief minister of Maharashtra. During his first term in the assembly, Fadnavis was groomed by Rane and Gopinath Munde as they were quick to see a spark in the young legislator from Nagpur. There are also issues about political future of Rane's two sonsNilesh and Nitesh. Nitesh is the legislator while Nilesh is a former MP who will want to contest from the same seat currently being held by Shiv Sena's union minister Anant Geete. The BJP sees no problem in accommodating younger Nitesh. The BJP is well aware that Rane is a fiercely ambitious person. And Rane knows well that his political career graph has already hit a plateau and as such he can not afford to make any move that will backfire. Will he take the plunge? On this Baisakhi day, 98 years ago, a cowardly brigadier opened fire on an unarmed crowd of peasants in Amritsar and killed 389. The officer, Reginald Dyer, was court-martialled. His civilian boss, the divisional commissioner of Punjab, Michael O'Dwyer, was later assassinated by Udham Singh. Because of the similarity of the names, many wrongly believed that it was Dyer who was killed by Udham Singh. That apart, the significance of Jallianwala Bagh largely evaded popular imagination. To most people today, it was another bloody atrocity, the kind one reads about in history lessons. But Jallianwala Bagh was much more. It was actually the turning point in India's national movement after the revolt of 1857the first nail driven into a coffin that was being readied for the British empire. One has to understand the provincial, national and global context in which Jallianwala Bagh massacre happened. The British empire was at its high noon by the turn of the 20th century; the ruthless colonialism that had marked the rise of the British had morphed into what appeared to be enlightened imperialism. Most of the regions under their domain had been rendered peaceful by clever deployment of military force, along with introduction of enlightened laws and progressive administrative measures. Thus, by the end of the 19th century, British rule, in India as well as across the globe, had gained a certain legitimacy even in the eyes of the enslaved public. The colonial wars had ended. There was a semblance of progressive administration. The people were seeing less of the British soldier, and more of the British civil servant. This was true of Punjab more than anywhere else. The Sikh empire that the illustrious Ranjit Singh had built was dismantled in the two bloody Anglo-Sikh wars in the first half of the 19th century. But Dalhousie, the imperious governor-general, understood the value and valour of the Sikhs. I shall send you the best men,he told the natives of Punjab. And he did. He sent men like Sir John Lawrence who again said, I shall rule you with the pen and the sword. With the sword, he ended the banditry in the countryside and established the rule of law. With the pen, he rewrote their laws and gave the people a progressive administration. With his administrative acumen, he built canals to irrigate their lands. Punjab reciprocated. For close to seven decades from the 1840s, the otherwise rebellious Punjabis stayed loyal to the paramount power in India. This was perhaps a first in the history of the Punjab, whose sons had fought even the mighty Mughals. The British employed the same technique that they used in Punjab in the rest of India. Just like Sikh power was crushed in the two Anglo-Sikh wars, the revolt of 1857 was suppressed with sheer force and ruthlessness. But, as in Punjab, the British soon realised that they couldn't rule India with the use of sheer force. The ruler had to gain legitimacy in the eyes of the subjects. It was now that the British began to focus on improving the administration of the empire, rather than conquering territories. To gain symbolic legitimacy, they even conducted two oriental-style durbars in the old Mughal city of Delhi rather than in their seat of power, which was Calcutta. The defeat in Mesopotamia in early stages of the first world war was a setback, but the British salvaged their prestige by finally winning the war in Europe. It was in this background, and in the year that the first world war ended, that Jallianwala Bagh happened. Till then, most Indians had reconciled with the progressive nature of the colonial rule. Even the national movement was essentially an attempt to seek greater say for Indians in the administration, rather than seeking dominion status, let alone independence. British rule was largely viewed as just, humane and progressive. If there were flaws, those could be addressed through discussions, petitions and also by creating better awareness all around. Jallianwala Bagh shattered the faith that the people had in the British sense of justice and fairness. To most native Indians, the massacre of the unarmed was a betrayal of the trust that they had placed on the British to rule them wisely, justly and with fairness. In the eyes of the average Indian, the just, fair and liberal Englishman suddenly turned into a ruthless, bloodthirsty tyrant who couldn't be trusted. Jallianwala Bagh revealed the evil that resided in the 'enlightened' empire. Since then, it was a slow but sure downward slide for British rule in India. It was on this sense of betrayal that Gandhi built his mass movement, which put a premium on breaking the laws made by the rulers. As the people began to wilfully break the laws made by the state, the state itself became illegitimate. Yes, when that bloodthirsty brigadier shot dead those protesters, the British empire was shooting itself in its foot. Those shots led to their ultimate collapse. Ruling party Trinamool Congress won Contai seat by around 42,500 votes in the bypoll even as BJP stood second with 30 per cent vote share in the West Bengal. With the win, Chandrima Bhattacharya, former law minister of Mamata Banerjees cabinet, who had lost the 2016 election from Dum Dum, is set to return to West Bengal government as minister. Bhattacharya received about 89,000 votes. However, the BJP visibly made significant inroads in the byelection in the assembly constituency pushing Left to the third place. While Trinamool Congress continued to dominate since the beginning of the vote counting, Congress could manage only a little more than 2,000 votes. Left-backed CPI candidates got around 16,500 votes. BJP on the other hand got around 48,000 votes. This proves we are making a big gain. Wait till 2019, we would be major force in Bengal and win maximum Lok Sabha seat, said Biswapriyo Roychowdhury, general secretary of state BJP. The assembly by election was necessitated after Dibyendu Adhikari vacated the seat to contest Tamluk Lok Sabha assembly vacated by his brother Suvendu, who became transport minister in Bengal and contested 2011 assembly election. White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Wednesday that his attempt to compare the Holocaust and Syrian President Bashar Assads use of chemical weapons was inexcusable and reprehensible and was made all the worse by this being a holy week for Christians and Jews. He said the comment, made Tuesday at the White House briefing, was personally and professionally disappointing, and he asked for folks forgiveness. To make a gaffe and a mistake like this is inexcusable and reprehensible, Spicer said during a previously scheduled appearance at a forum on the presidency and the press sponsored by the Newseum. Christians are preparing for Easter on Sunday, and Jews are celebrating Passover. It really is painful to myself to know that I did something like that, Spicer said. That obviously was not my intention. To know when you screw up that you possibly offended a lot of people I would ask obviously for folks forgiveness to understand that I should not have tried to make a comparison. It was Spicers second apology in as many days, following an initial mea culpa Tuesday during an interview with CNN. Earlier Tuesday during the daily White House briefing, Spicer told reporters that Adolf Hitler didnt even sink to using chemical weapons. The comment drew an instant rebuke from critics, who noted the remark ignored Hitlers use of gas chambers to exterminate Jews during the Holocaust. Reaction to Spicers initial comment continued Wednesday, with Jerusalems Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial inviting him to visit its website. In the CNN interview, Spicer said his comments did not reflect Trumps views but were a distraction from him and frankly were misstated, insensitive and wrong. He added, Obviously it was my blunder. Spicer reiterated that sentiment at Wednesdays forum. After making the initial comment, Spicer was asked about it again during the briefing but offered a garbled defense in which he tried to differentiate between Hitlers actions and the gas attack on Syrian civilians last week. The attack in northern Syria left nearly 90 people dead. Turkey said sarin gas was used. I think when you come to sarin gas, there was no, he (Hitler) was not using the gas on his own people the same way that Assad is doing, Spicer said. There was clearly I understand your point, thank you. There was not He brought them into the Holocaust center I understand that. After the briefing, Spicer emailed reporters a statement that said: In no way was I trying to lessen the horrendous nature of the Holocaust. I was trying to draw a distinction of the tactic of using airplanes to drop chemical weapons on population centers. Any attack on innocent people is reprehensible and inexcusable. Reaction from around the world continued Wednesday. A spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel said comparing Nazi war crimes to present-day situations leads to nothing good. Robert Rozett, director of libraries at Yad Vashem, said Spicers comment implied a profound lack of knowledge of the events of the second World War, including the Holocaust and are liable to strengthen the hands of those who seek to destroy history. In the U.S., Democrats and Jewish organizations condemned the comments. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California said in a statement that Spicer was downplaying the horror of the Holocaust and should be fired. Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., said on Twitter, Someone get @PressSec a refresher history course on Hitler stat (hashtag)#Icantbelievehereallysaidthat. The New York-based Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect also called on Trump to fire Spicer, saying he denied that Hitler gassed Jews during the Holocaust. Rep. Lee Zeldin, a Jewish Republican from New York, said in a statement that the comparison could be made a little differently and it would be accurate, but its important to clear up that Hitler did in fact use chemical warfare to murder innocent people. But Matt Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, said that while using the issue of the Holocaust or Hitler is problematic on many levels, he believed Spicer had genuinely and sincerely apologized. Spicers comments came on the first day of Passover and a day after the White House held a Seder dinner marking the emancipation of the Jewish people, a tradition started during the Obama administration. Earlier in the year, the White House generated criticism by issuing a statement on international Holocaust Remembrance Day that did not mention Jews. Tuesday was the second consecutive day in which Trumps principal spokesman appeared to struggle to articulate Trumps foreign policy at a critical time. On Monday, the White House clarified remarks Spicer made from the podium that the use of barrel bombs by Assads government might lead to further military action by the United States. Until Monday the administration had maintained that last weeks missile strikes were in response to the Syrian governments use of chemical weapons against its citizens. A White House spokesman said later that nothing has changed in our posture and the president retains the option to act if its in the national interest. (AP) [PHOTOS IN EXTENDED ARTICLE] Peleg Yerushalmi prisoners Yungerman Tzvi Dov Friedman and Yeshiva Bochur Yisrael Meir Toledano on motzei the first day of Pesach were compelled to return to prison having been released to attend Seder. The two were arrested by military police for failing to report to draft centers. They did not register for the draft in line with instructions from HaGaon HaRav Shmuel Auerbach Shlita. The two were treated like true heroes until the last moment, being returned to prison in a limousine which made its way through the crowd of supporters while music filled the air, reminiscent of a hachnasas Sefer Torah. On the limo were signs (We admire the prisoners of the Torah World). At one point, Toledano addressed the event, explaining he used the time in jail to complete the mesechta he was studying in yeshiva. No one will take the Torah from me. No one will succeed in preventing me from clinging to the Torah he exclaimed. During their leave, they met with Rav Auerbach in his home, where they were received with warmth and given words of chizuk. The event later turned into another Peleg protest on Bar Ilan Street in the capital, which included attacking a frum soldier passing through the area. (YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem) A large force of police and volunteers is continuing the search for three missing swimmers in the Kinneret. The search includes divers from the Zaka and police diving teams. The three missing men are Itamar Ochana, 19, from Kiryat Shmona; Nachman Itach, 21, from Betar Illit; and a 17-year-old from Netanya. They are missing since Wednesday. It appears the strong current pulled the three in separate instances while swimming in the Kinneret. Chananel, a brother of Itamar, used his Facebook page to ask the tzibur to be mispallel for his brother, Itamar ben Rachel. Police boats continued the search during the night. Authorities report that marine police on Wednesday pulled out 80 swimmers who were overcome by the strong current. (YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem/Police Spokesman Unit) Police have arrested a suspect who attacked chareidim at Gan Yehoshua in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, the first day of Chol Hamoed Pesach with an iron rod. The man in custody, a 21-year-old Yaffo resident, allegedly attacked visitors to the park following a dispute involving bicycle rentals. During the dispute the suspect grabbed an iron rod and began striking chareidim in the area. The man was arraigned in the Tel Aviv Magistrate Court on Thursday. Police believe that the man was assisted by a colleague and one of them used the iron rod to assault the chareidim. No one was in need of medical attention. (YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem) The international body on chemical weapons control is testing samples from a suspected nerve gas attack that killed at least 87 people in Syria last week and could produce a report on the matter within three weeks, the British delegation to the commission said Thursday. The report comes one day after Russia vetoed a Western-backed U.N. Security Council resolution demanding a speedy probe into the April 4 attack on Khan Sheikhoun. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley said the veto left Moscow with a lot to prove. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has a standing fact-finding mission on Syria to investigate alleged chemical weapons attacks, but does not apportion blame. The OPCWs executive council held a session of its executive council on Thursday to address the attack on Khan Sheikhoun, in the rebel-held province of Idlib, northern Syria. Britains delegation to the OPCW tweeted from the executive session that the Fact Finding Mission is working to gather evidence and has already started testing samples in a lab. The U.S. blamed the Syrian government for the attack and fired 59 missiles at an air base in central Syria killing nine people. Russias foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, said Thursday he expected the OPCW to conduct an extensive probe into the attack, and insisted the organization visit both Khan Sheikhoun and the air base struck by U.S. missiles. But Moscow vetoed a Security Council resolution that would demand a speedy investigation a day earlier. Russia is a steadfast backer of the Syrian government amid that countrys bloody 6-year civil war. In northern Syria, U.S.-backed Kurdish forces announced they launched the fourth stage of their operations against the Islamic State group, amid reports from activists that the group has suffered a spate of casualties. The Syrian Democratic Forces, which include Arab fighters, say they are working to clear Islamic State militants out of the Jalab Valley, north of Raqqa, a city held by the extremists with an estimated population of 300,000. The SDF say their goal is to ultimately recapture the city, which has served as the de facto capital the so-called Islamic State. The SDF says it wants to isolate Raqqa before attacking it. Their closest position is within 8 kilometers (5 miles) northeast of the city. But the countryside south of Raqqa is still under IS control. It is unclear how many stages are planned for the SDF campaign. The campaign has come at a cost to the predominantly Kurdish forces, which receive ground and air support from the U.S. military and other allies. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group reported 25 SDF fighters were killed in the last two days of battle, while the activist-run Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently group said on Wednesday that three days of mourning were to be held in a border town held by the SDF after the arrival of the bodies of 15 fighters from the battle. There was no comment from the SDF. The Syrian army meanwhile issued a statement saying that the U.S.-led coalition attacked a position of the Islamic State group in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour, killing hundreds of fighters and civilians, many of them from poisonous gas. It said after the airstrike left white smoke billowing from the area then then turned to yellow most likely because of the explosion of a large warehouse containing large quantities of toxic substances. It said that the airstrike showed that militants have chemical weapons in their possession. Opposition activist Omar Abu Laila, who is from Deir el-Zour and currently lives in Europe, denied that hundreds of people were killed in the village of Hatla as a result of poison gas. Abu Laila who is with Deir Ezzor 24 activist group that has reporters throughout the eastern province that borders Iraq also denied there was such such an airstrike. (AP) The Simon Wiesenthal Center releases the following statement on Thursday: was shocked by White House Press Secretarys absurd and inappropriate statement alleging that Syrian President Assad is worse than Adolph Hitler. The comparison, which was made just before the annual commemoration of Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Memorial Day was beyond inappropriate. The Simon Wiesenthal Center endorsed President Trumps decision to bomb a Syrian airbase after Assads forces deployed chemical weapons that targeted and killed Syrian civilians, including women and children. Our Center also has called on the international community to try Assad for War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity. However, Assads crimes pale in comparison to the unprecedented scope of the genocide, murder, mayhem and global conflict unleashed by Hitler and his supporters in Germany and across Europe. 20 million Russians and other citizens of the former Soviet Union were killed by Hitlers forces during WWII. The first victims of Hitler were his German opponents who were dispatched as early as 1933 to brutal concentration camps. German Jews were the earliest targets for brutal Nazi mistreatment starting with stripping them of their rights and culmination with many of them murdered in the gas chambers in Nazi Death Camps. Hitlers Final Solution of the Jewish Question unleashed a unique campaign to murder every Jew under Nazi controlwherever they lived and whatever their age. Six million (two out of every three) European Jews perished, many in the gas chambers at Sobibor, Majdanek, Treblinka, and Auschwitz Birkenau. Mr. Spicers goal was to rally support for President Trumps tough stand on Syria. It may have had the opposite effect among Russians, Jews, Slavs and other victims of the Nazis. Vladimir Putin will certainly use this grotesque misstatement to further bolster his pro-Syrian position among his citizens. For 40 years the Simon Wiesenthal Center has been teaching millions of people about the lessons of the Nazi Holocaust. One key lesson is that it is inappropriate to compare Auschwitz, or the Warsaw Ghetto to contemporary events. The goal of Holocaust education, indeed the goal to standing up to evil leaders like Assad is to avoid future catastrophes and avoid the unfathomable scale of Hitlers genocidal crime. That is the lesson that all our leaders should take away from Holocaust Memorial Day later this month. (YWN World Headquarters NYC) Why do banks ask such stupid questions? This, I imagine, is a thought that will have gone through many readers minds on occasions when their bank attempts to verify their identity. The scenario is a familiar one. You call your bank and the person in the call centre utters the dreaded words: I just need to ask a few questions to take you through security. And the chosen subject is you! Passing bank security can be Mastermind on your memory as you are required to recall haphazard and arcane information At times you may breeze through, as the bank asks you a few seemingly relevant and simple to answer things. The pain comes on the other occasions, when you endure a quiz on selected letters from memorable places, old pets, and your best friend at primary schools mums name. (I admit, I made that last one up but wouldnt be surprised to be told someone had actually been asked it). To pass muster you will also need an encyclopaedic knowledge of payments in and out of your account, the exact amount of bill direct debits, and whatever daft names your bank chose to call those now almost zero-rate savings accounts that you are fool enough to still hold. This process is only made more painful when it was the bank that phoned you in the first place... and then asked you to verify that you really are you. The banks, of course, argue that all of this is done to protect us and our accounts security. Yet, I have long thought that the practice of a short hit-or-miss quiz on elements of our past and financial lives actually has the opposite effect. My theory is that if your bank regularly asks you questions that can often seem haphazard, you think less of answering questions that come from a fraudster fishing for information. I reflected on this recently as I watched two family members fail security, as they were asked questions they couldnt answer by impatient customer service staff. And just to be clear these questions did not come because they hadn't managed to answer any on passwords - they were the security process itself. One was asked by Lloyds for the limit on her main credit card. To which she replied that she didnt even have a card with Lloyds and was then forced to guess which provider the question was about, before being ordered to make a stab at this still unconfirmed card's credit limit The other was asked by Nationwide how she had originally opened a joint account almost 15 years ago. Met with befuddlement in both cases, the bank workers responses amounted to: Of course you should know the answers to these questions. I imagine these minor frustrations of modern life will strike a chord with many readers. The problem is that some of them may one day get a call from a fraudster posing as their bank and think to themselves: Well why wouldnt they ask me this they are always asking stupid questions. Now, what was that memorable place again? The answers to some of those questions.... For the benefit of our banks and building societies, who I dont doubt believe they are absolutely right in playing the arbitrary questions game, here are the answers to some of them that illustrate why they are so daft. Can you give me the third and sixth letters of your password? I can, but surely any fraudster worth their salt would just pretend to need to call me more than a couple of times and thus manage to pick up the whole password. What is your memorable place? I dont have one apart from places that are blinding obvious and any fraudster can guess. Ive also been told not to use the same answers for different companies, so I had to think one up on the spot when I set this answer. I havent the faintest idea what it is. Shall I guess? What is your credit card limit? Who knows? Most likely whatever you raised it to last time without asking me first. What is your overdraft limit? Dont know. I always have to log into my internet banking to check that. Can you tell me the exact amount of x regular payment? No. I can guess, but I have better things to store in my brain than my list of direct debits. Can you tell me where you opened your account? Umm, the internet maybe? Ive had it for donkeys years and I have a lot of accounts. Can you tell me the name of some of your savings accounts? Beyond the temptation to flippantly answer Trevor, Barry and Charlotte, no. I could hazard a guess that it would be e-savings or similar with a number, as thats what seemingly every bank calls their endless list of accounts. Or you decided to call it something with the words Smart or Hi in it? All I know is due your endless issuing of new accounts while cutting the rates on old ones, is that I have a lot off them with small amounts of money in. These now pay such pitiful interest that if I were you, I wouldnt draw attention to them. And the question we all want answered Hello Mr Lambert, Im calling from Bank X. Before we start I just need to take you through security and ask a few questions to verify its you. Me: But you called me, how do I know who you are? Some 31 million motorists are expected to hit the road in the next four days as Britons look to make the most of the bank holiday weekend. Unfortunately, the price of fuel has started to increase just in time for their getaways. The AA said the average UK petrol price had risen to 118.25p a litre on Wednesday, while diesel was just shy of 120p at the pumps. And it could continue to surge over the Easter break. Bank holiday fuel price surge: The AA said the price of petrol and diesel have started to increase over the last week due to the wholesale cost of fuel rising by 3p Just a week earlier, the average petrol price was 117.61p, while diesel was 119.50p-a-litre. It means the average price of fuel has risen back to the same level seen three weeks ago, which was before the big four supermarkets engulfed themselves in a battle to slash pump costs by up to 4p per litre. But with wholesale prices rising by more than 3p in the last week, many retailers have responded quickly to ramp up costs at forecourts to retain their profit margins. By mid week, the average price of fuel in London, the South East and East Anglia had risen to 118.5p per litre for petrol and 120.3p for diesel. Across the North, prices reached 117.4p and 119p a litre for petrol and diesel respectively. For those heading for the Channel to enjoy a holiday overseas, the price of petrol at Dover port has jumped by a penny in the last week, reaching 118.9p on Wednesday. The increases couldn't have come at a much worse time, with a surge in traffic numbers predicted over the Easter bank holiday. Price comparison website Confused.com estimated that more than two thirds (68 per cent) of the UK driving population - the equivalent of 31 million vehicles - will be travelling up and down to country in their cars over the four-day period. Much of this will be via motorways, where fuel prices are notoriously inflated. Confused.com said 31 million motorists are expected to hit the nation's roads over the four-day weekend - half of those will be en route on Saturday The AA, which monitors pump prices across the country as part of its Fuel Price Report, said prices at service areas have remained steady so far, though there is a huge variation in costs depending on where you're driving. SATURDAY ROAD CHAOS PREDICTED Confused.com said Saturday 15 April will be the busiest day on the roads over the Easter bank holiday. It said that half of the 31 million bank-holiday drivers will be making a trip on that day. For those who want to avoid jams, today (Thursday) might be the best time to travel, with 21 per cent of bank holiday drivers expected to depart for the weekend getaways. That works out at around 6.5 million drivers. For instance, anyone heading to Wales from England will have to pay 132.9p per litre for petrol on the M4 east of the border. However, the price of unleaded is 10p-a-litre cheaper once in Wales at Magor services. On the M25, petrol on the motorway costs as much as 130.9p a litre, but drivers going into the West Country can find motorway fuel as cheap as 118.9p a litre on the M5 at Tiverton. According to Confused.com, the average journey distance over the four-day weekend will be 78 miles - that distance will cost almost 14 for a family-size petrol hatchback that returns 30mpg. With prices fluctuating across the nation, the AA said there was a 14p-a-litre difference between now and the price of petrol last Easter, when it averaged 103.98p a litre. It added that drivers would be at the mercy of providers on their holiday excursions this weekend and remained hopeful that supermarkets delayed their increases until after the break. Drivers will now be hoping that supermarket fuel providers like Asda do not increase their prices dramatically over the next four days Spokesman for the motoring group, Luke Bodset, said: 'Drivers instinctively avoid filling up at motorway service areas because they expect the fuel to be so expensive. However, there are some with prices close to what drivers are paying off the motorway. 'Sadly, without the level of fuel price transparency now available across much of Europe, UK Easter holiday motorists are at the mercy of the rip-off merchants. 'Our best advice is to fill up at a supermarket on the way out and keep your eyes open for a cheap forecourt along the holiday route, to fill up at on the return trip.' Shock: A trainee discovered the pair in a filing room (picture posed by model) Saucy drama over at City legal giant Clifford Chance, where a married partner has been caught romping in the office with a company secretary. The unpleasant business occurred in one of firm's foreign outposts, where a trainee discovered the pair in flagrante delicto in a filing room. The amorous lawyer has since returned to London. A spokesman for the firm remarks solemnly: 'It is not possible to comment further beyond underlining that we expect all of our people to meet high standards at all times.' Panmure Gordon's incoming boss, boyish-looking Ian Axe, 45, was, until recently, running his own consultancy firm called Axe Capital. Viewers of Sky's enjoyable US drama Billions will know that's also the name of the hedge fund belonging to the show's scheming protagonist Bobby Axelrod. Played with wolfish charm by British actor Damian Lewis, 'Axe' is as ruthless as he is opportunistic. A former colleague assures me: 'Ian is none of those things.' Should Barclays boss Jes Staley be forced to quit over his mishandling of a recent whistleblower, it would be disastrous for his board who've appointed three chiefs in the past six years. Staley is also much respected by staff. Far more so than his flimsy predecessor, Antony Jenkins, whose elevation a Barclays employee described to me as like 'the boy in charge of half-time oranges finding himself captain of the rugby team'. Too harsh, surely. Ex-Walt Disney president Michael Ovitz hosted a fundraising soiree for New York's Museum of Modern Art this week at the Los Angeles home he shares with his maitresse en titre, Jimmy Choo founder Tamara Mellon. While Ovitz introduces hot-to-trot Mellon, 49, as his fiancee, there's still no sign of him taking her down the aisle. Despite the couple's two-year engagement, the mega-rich father-of-three, 70, remains obdurately married to wife of 48 years, Judy. A Tesco ad reads: 'Great offers on beer and cider. Good Friday just got better.' Meanwhile, Waitrose encourages customers to 'enjoy Easter' with its alcoholic spirits, just 15 a litre. Is nothing sacred? The boss of troubled tool rental firm HSS Hire is to step down after eight years at the company and 19 months in the top post. The announcement of John Gills departure comes a week after HSS posted losses before tax of 17.4million last year, higher than losses of 13.8million in 2015 and 8.5million in 2014. Shares in the small cap company fell more than 5 per cent in early trading to then recoup some ground and trade 2.3 per cent, or 1.5p lower at 62.50p. Widening losses: John Gills departure comes a week after HSS posted 17.4m loss last year HSS said Gill will leave the company after a handover period once a permanent replacement has been found. Chairman Alan Peterson said Mr Gill had made an important contribution since joining the firm in 2009. He added: As CEO from September 2015, he has led the company through a period of significant change as we implemented our new operating model. With this work now largely complete, the focus shifts to driving sales growth through the new network and the board believes it is the right time to look outside the business for a new CEO who can lead this next phase of our recovery. Since HSS floated on the London stock market in 2015, shares have lost almost 70 per cent of their value following a string of profit warnings as the group struggled in a weaker construction market. Posting its annual results, HSS said last week that it had made good progress in its services arm over the past year, but not in its core rental business. It said wider losses reflected a year of investment in the new distribution network structure. The company has been trying to turn around its fortunes by closing down branches and distribution centres and opening a new 190,000 sq ft distribution centre near Oxford. The IMF argued poor economic policies were holding back successful businesses TAX PLEA Taxes must be simplified to boost growth, the International Monetary Fund has said. The body argued poor economic policies were holding back successful businesses and stopping failing ones from going bust. It called for an end to unnecessary red tape and said this could increase expansion in advanced economies by 0.7 percentage points a year. JOBS JOY Employment has reached a record high in the developed world. The OECD said 555m people are in work across 35 industrialised countries, or a record 67.2 per cent of the workforce. Britain has one of the highest employment rates of 74.6 per cent. MILLENNIAL PUSH PZ Cussons, maker of Imperial Leather soap and St Tropez fake tan, is launching new skin products to be sold in Boots stores to woo millennials. Tycoons stake Indian tycoon Anil Agarwal has completed his 2billion purchase of an 11.4 per cent stake in Anglo American. It makes the 63-year-old the second-largest shareholder in the mining company. TRADE UPDATE Technology tools group Oxford Instruments has said trading is in line with expectations. It said a good performance from Nanotechnology tools, had mitigated a slowdown in its OI healthcare business. EXCHANGE SHUTS US trading giant CME Group is closing its five-year-old London exchange after it struggled to compete with established European rivals. The firms London office will remain open and few jobs will be lost. GOLD GLEAMS Gold prices surged to a five-month high as investors fret about French elections and US President Donald Trump failing to deliver. The price of the metal jumped by 1.1 per cent to $1,286.46 an ounce in trading yesterday. DELTA REVIEW US airline Delta has dealt a blow to Airbus by announcing it will review an 11.2billion purchase of new, wider planes. The carrier is pulling back from larger-capacity models as it fears the long-range market is saturated. OIL FORECAST Demand for oil is set to slow for a second year in a row, the International Energy Agency has said. The IEA expects demand to increase by just 1.3m barrels a day in 2017, to a total of 97.9m barrels. You wait years for a place to see all your pension details at once... and then several come along at once. Keeping track of pension pots can be a tricky business as we now have an average of 11 jobs over our working lives, each one with its own pension scheme. Government and industry have finally been working to do something about this and recently unveiled a prototype of a pensions dashboard, which will collate all of a workers pension information so they can see it in one place. Due to be launched in 2019, the dashboard will give everyone a projection of what their annual income will be in retirement, followed by a breakdown of what they will get in state pension and from individual work and personal schemes (scroll down for a video showing how it could look). The original prototype: The industry has come up with a basic pensions dashboard, which will show workers all of their pension pot details in once place But yesterday it was revealed that there will be not just one but several dashboards that workers will be able to choose between. The basic dashboard information will be incorporated into apps or websites designed to offer workers other tools and functions as well. For example, an app could show your pension information alongside other details of your savings, current accounts and Isas. Another app might allow you to make small frequent deposits into your pension, for example rounding up the cost of a cup of coffee and putting the extra cash straight into your nest egg. Another might show your pension details while offering robo-advice standardised investment advice to fit your financial situation. In Avivas so-called Digital Garage in Londons ultra-hipster Hoxton, over 20 technology firms, with consumer groups and policy experts, are in competition to come up with the best uses for the pensions dashboard. On Perspex chairs surrounded by exposed-brick walls illuminated by strip lighting, groups in shirts and jeans are immersed in blue-sky thinking to come up with the best prototypes. Entry page: You will first have to confirm your identity using a sign-up process like the Government's gov.uk/verify Blue sky thinking: Industry experts discuss the potential and the challenges of the pensions dashboards, at Aviva's Digital Garage in London's trendy Hoxton Launching the event, hosted by the ABI and HM Treasury as part of UK FinTech Week, economic secretary to the Treasury Simon Kirkby said: I want to emphasise that I am not talking about building the dashboard. I am talking about dashboards with an s. Because to realise the huge benefits of this technology, we cannot prescribe a single way for people to access their own data. Firms need to be able to innovate to answer a whole range of users needs. There is no monopoly of wisdom. These dashboards may be simple websites, plugins to your mobile banking app, or components of complex robo-advice software. And as technology continues to advance apace, I am sure there are uses and implications of dashboards which we havent even imagined. He added that the original pensions dashboard that has been created was the plumbing to which a variety of fittings could be attached. Still in the realm of tech sprints and creative collaboration, the development of pensions dashboards may seem light-hearted and a chance to harness the ingenuity of fintech firms to shape up an industry not renowned for innovation. How it might look: Pension dashboard prototype shows total income at the top, followed by a breakdown listing the state pension and other pots But Simon Kirkby added that while voluntary for now, if pension schemes dont sign up they could be forced to. I am also clear that dashboards will only be viable and useful if a critical number of pension schemes step up to meet the data standards, he added. And people have a right to easily see their own data when making vital financial decisions. So I am discussing with the Minister for Pensions to see how this might be made compulsory if schemes do not do so by choice. WHAT HAPPENED WHEN PENSIONS AND FINTECH MET It was about time that pensions and fintech finally met. The world of pensions is typically slow and bumbling, still reliant on mounds of paperwork, and weighed down by ancient fee structures, crusty IT systems and complexity. While other areas of financial services have already been transformed by new technologies online banking, budgeting apps, DIY investing it can still takes hours of painstakingly phoning and writing letters to pension providers just to find out how much money youve got in your pension pots. All of a sudden this looks likely to change. Industry, government and regulators are working together to use fintech to overhaul pensions, so that, for starters, we can all find out with ease how much money weve actually got and what its likely to be worth when we retire. Seeing the two worlds of fintech and pensions collide was a sight to behold. At Avivas 'Digital Garage', economic secretary to the Treasury Simon Kirkby joked that although civil servants had done their best to fit in, donning their cool jeans and shirt combos, they still clearly stood out. At a q&a session to launch the event, those of us who dont live in the tech world took some adjusting to the system of throwing a ball with an inbuilt microphone around the room to the next person who wanted to ask a question. But the comedy of this old/new world collision aside, what a relief it was to see the pensions industry chasing innovation, thinking about the ways in which younger people could be engaged with their retirement saving plans and how pension saving might look not just now but in ten, 20, 30 years time. Theres so much that a few clever apps wont fix. The challenge will be keeping people engaged, making sure that those who are less tech savvy are not excluded, making sure that no doors are opened to scammers, finding ways to display complex information in a clear way but without oversimplifying. But thank goodness its started and it wont be too long now before we can see whether weve a retirement ahead of us of cruises and sundowners or daytrips to the seaside before its too late to change it if we want to. At the moment, a lack of transparency is seen as a real barrier to pension saving. You can only find out how much youre likely to retire on by approaching the government for a state pension estimate and contacting each pension scheme individually to ask for details of all your pension pots. This can be a painstaking task its no surprise that there are pension pots worth around 400million that people have lost track of and never bothered to claim. It is hoped that once people are able to discover their likely total retirement income with little hassle and whether it meets or falls short of their future needs they will be more motivated to plan ahead for old age. Seeing pensions in one place will also allow people to see the fees they are being charged, which may also drive competition, chief executive of The Pensions Regulator Lesley Titcomb suggested at the events launch. Michelle Cracknell, chief executive of The Pensions Advisory Service, also hopes the dashboards will encourage people to feel like their pensions are their own. She believes that at the moment people are using pensions freedoms to take money out of their pension and put it into a cash Isa even if that ends up costing them over the longer term because people feel like their Isas are theirs but they dont feel they own their pension. She said: People in the UK dont think of their pension as theirs. They will take money out of this pension and move it to my bank account so a key thing for the dashboard to deliver is for people to own their pension. Visibility is a key part to that. She added that there was a reason why there were pension scams and not property scams people feel greater ownership over their homes as an asset than they do their pensions. The issues faced by the industry go way beyond trying to come up with the best-looking app. They are considering issues such as creating a range of products to suit people at all different stages in their working lives, finding a way to standardise pension information so that people are comparing like for like, and finding a way to engage people of all different age groups, some of whom will be less confident with new technology. ZANDONDO Parents were compelled to withdraw their daughter from school after complaints that she would make prophecies to pupils and teachers alike. Her condition is said to have been treated as a serious case after she allegedly beat up a teacher during the Christian gathering at schools known as Scripture Union (SU). Drama unfolded at Ka-Zandondo Secondary School after the pupil who was supposedly possessed by demons allegedly beat up a female teacher in front of traumatised pupils just after the SU service had ended. The 18-year-old pupil is allegedly possessed by a demon that dislikes people who bleach their skin as that, according to her, is associated with evil. *Simphiwes questionable behaviour is said to have begun at the Scripture Union when she went up to the podium to testify as per the teachers request. The assaulted teacher, Fortunate Nkambule, is also the SU President. Nkambule said it was normal that most people did not know how to testify in church but Simphiwes testimony was quite strange as she called out a couple of pupils and interrogated their behaviour during her testimony. When she started talking, she introduced herself in a boastful manner. She mentioned all her names and all her nicknames. She then pointed out to one of the girls at the union and told her to stop the things she was doing. When a male pupil tried to start a song, she stopped him and reminded the pupil of some things they had talked about in private, said Nkambule. The teacher said after the service, she spoke with the pupils who were called out by Simphiwe but they said they did not know what was going on with their schoolmate. Out of concern, she ordered them to call Simphiwe so she could establish if anything was wrong. We had a normal conversation with her. I asked her about school and how everything was at home. I even asked her which church she went to and she told me. She also told me that her parents did not attend church with her. She seemed fine at the time. Just before school was over, a teacher came to the staff room to report that Simphiwe was in a classroom and acting strangely. We went up to the class and when we got there she was soaking wet, Nkambule recalled. The teacher said Simphiwe was praying loudly on her knees, with her hands in the air and she reportedly kept on repeating the devil is a liar. She said she pulled a chair, sat next to her and asked her what was going on, but she was met with hostility and slaps on her thighs. Nkambule said Simphiwe used all her might as she slapped her across the lap but she remained calm. MBABANE A referendum could be the only solution to end the cold war that is brewing between the countrys legislators and the executive. This was an observation made by a concerned citizen following the ongoing debates about legalising the cultivation of cannabis in the country. Currently, the country has joined many countries which are advocating the legalisation of the cultivation of the herb for medical and industrial purposes as opposed to smoking it. However, dagga remains illegal in the country While the country waits in eagerness for the outcomes of the research of the uses of dagga, the concerned citizen seems to be ahead about same. According to his statement sent to this publication, Sifiso Ndlangamandla registered his concerns about the ongoing debates which he termed as a cold war over the legailisation of the cultivation and manufacturing of the herb for medical and industrial use. Like Nkilongo Member of Parliament Hans Steffen, who advocated research to ascertain the uses of the herb in Parliament, Ndlangamandla opined that if the cultivation and manufacturing of dagga was to be legalised, the country could earn over E24 billion per annum. Figuratively, he said this meant that the countrys Gross Domestic Product (GDP) would be triple in two years time after the commencement of the project. The cold war of dissent among our MPs has escalated to dizzying heights as I shall prove and quote the prime minister saying in the Times of Swaziland Asingafihlelani kute I draft lesitayenta. Forget about legalising dagga, Ndlangamandla said. He lamented the fact that on the other hand, the legislators were scampering around a five-man task team to go to Israel among other counties to source information on how to legalise dagga. The concerned citizen admitted to the fact that cannabis had some disadvantages just like other products, however, he wondered why they were not treated equally as dagga. He has since written a letter to the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs , Edgar Hillary where he is applying for the holding of a referendum on the legalisation of cannabis. Ndlangamandla urged the legislators to consider the will of the electorate, who elected them to Parliament. They should not ask if we can but how we as the electorate asking that cannabis be legalised can have enacted stringent laws to safeguard them as per the findings of the task committee, he said. LOBAMBA Police officers yesterday scored a victory as Members of Parliament (MPs) passed a law that if an officer is acquitted by court on a criminal charge they cannot then face an internal disciplinary hearing. This was after the MPs amended Section 71 of the Police Bill of 2017 when they finally passed the Bill yesterday after it had been in Parliament for almost three years. The original Section 71 which is under the heading Disciplinary action after acquittal on criminal charges had read; where a police officer has been acquitted on a criminal charge, such acquittal shall not operate as a bar to disciplinary proceedings being instituted against such officer arising out of the same facts if such facts disclose a disciplinary offence under this Act. The amendment was raised by Hhukwini MP Saladin Magagula, who said it was unfair and wrong that a police officer can be taken in for a disciplinary hearing yet the very same officer had been acquitted by a court of law. This is wrong, its an injustice and it must be removed, said Magagula. He was supported by Lobamba Lomdzala MP Marwick Khumalo, who said in vernacular that the clause inekukhohlakala (not fair in the law and wrong). He said if anything, the entire clause should be removed. Nkwene MP Sikhumbuzo Dlamini said this clause was a thorn (linyeva) to the police officers as this was what was happening on the ground. He cited current and recent cases where police officers had been acquitted by the courts and the national commissioner ordered to reinstate them, but for some reason they werent. Only the officers who have money can afford to appeal, but not everyone has money so this clause must be amended, said MP Dlamini. The MP said the problem with the police was that they were quick to arrest their own without proper investigations and as a result officers even if they were guilty were acquitted by the courts. However, the acting Attorney General, Sifiso Khumalo, said amending such a clause would be going against the Constitution as Section 21 (13) (d) read to the effect that persons in a disciplined force even if acquitted by a court could still face disciplinary action. Khumalo then read the section to the MPs but his advice was not accepted by the MPs. MBABANE Immigration officers based at Ngwenya Border Gate have since filed an urgent application where they want the court to stop government from making them work 24 hours over the Easter holidays. The officers filed the application through their union, the National Public Service and Allied Workers Union (NAPSAWU). Further details of it will be heard today in the Industrial Court at 10am but it was confirmed that their grievances bordered around their impasse with government regarding overtime payment and shift allowance. Information gathered is that the Immigration workers will be represented by a lawyer from Sithole and Magagula Attorneys. In an interview, the officers said nothing formal had been communicated to them regarding their pending issues with government. They alleged that one of their seniors said he would work alone from 7am till 8am. However, this allegation could not be verified. The officers, who fall under the Ministry of Home Affairs, said they still stood by their decision that all three shifts will start work at 8am and knock off at 12.45pm today. Oshoek/Ngwenya Border Gate opens at 7am everyday and the workers said they would start work like other civil servants an hour later and knock off at 12.45pm because it will be a half day. Yesterday they held a meeting with their superiors where one of them (superiors) allegedly said he would be opening at the normal time and if he is to work alone he would do that. When they enquired from the supervisor as to what would happen at 12.45pm, he allegedly did not have a response as the workers informed him that they were adamant they would not work if they do not get a positive response on putting them in the shift system. We have different supervisors for the different shifts and it is only one who said he will work. They have not said anything to us so we are going ahead with our decision to knock off like civil servants tomorrow, one of the staff members said. Meanwhile, Acting Chief Immigration Officer Makhosi Simelane said it would be unfortunate if the workers continue disagreeing with what they had agreed on last week Friday. Simelane said they would open the border gate at 7am and continue with the extension of hours regardless of who decides to do what. He emphasised that what they have committed themselves to will happen come rain or sunshine. The front view of Interwaste Environmental Solutions licensed hazardous waste treatment facility in Power Street, Germiston where the expired drugs from Swaziland were destined to. (Sourced from the internet). HARTEBEESKOP Expired drugs amounting to over E1 million in transit from Swaziland were confiscated by the South African Police Service (SAPS). Two Swazi men were arrested for transporting the drugs, which were enroute to Germiston in Gauteng. The arrest occurred on Sunday, April 2, 2017. The two are employees of InterWaste and were transporting the hazardous drugs for destruction since they were expired. The two were arrested for violating the South African Medical Act. The men are Zakhele Alex Mndawe and Duma December Mlimi. The drugs have been forfeited to the State and are currently being kept at Heertbeeskop Police Station, which is situated a few kilometres from Oshoek Border Gate. During a visit to the police station by reporters, the massive boxes containing the expired drugs were found placed outside, in preparation to be taken by officials from the Ministry of Health in South Africa. A source said the boxes contained a variety of drugs, and some of them were labelled as Brufen, a well known painkiller. The source of these drugs could not be ascertained as they were being transported by a waste management company. The source disclosed that these drugs will now be destroyed by the State. The discovery of the massive boxes containing the expired drugs was initially made by South African Revenue Services (sars) officials based at the Oshoek Border Gate. It was during a search of the truck that the SARS officials discovered that the consignment being transported was expired medical drugs. They then handed the consignment over to the SAPS, who subsequently arrested and formally charged the duo for violating the countrys laws governing the transportation of expired drugs. The law of South Africa clearly stipulates that such drugs (expired drugs) must not be transported by road as they are deemed dangerous or hazardous. The two men appeared before the Eestehoek Magistrates Court in Elukwatini, a day after their arrest, and they were taken back into custody since their matter was postponed to April 7, 2017. According to Mpumalanga SAPS Acting Spokesperson, Brigadier Gerald Sedibe, the two told the court that they were transporting the drugs for destruction. On April 7, the charges against the men were withdrawn, and instead the manager of the company which had sent them was charged. The Manager Jason Guy Davis was fined a sum of E2 000 and the name of the company where the drugs were being transported to is Interwaste, said Brigadier Sedibe. Information gathered is that the drugs were to be destroyed at the Germiston Branch of Interwaste. Sign up for our amNY Sports email newsletter to get insights and game coverage for your favorite teams By Gina Martinez Police were searching for a missing woman in Murray Hill. According to police, Young H. Chung was last seen on Monday, April 10 inside her 36-20 168 St. home at 10 a.m. Police are describing Chung as Asian, four-foot-nine inches tall, 105 pounds, with brown eyes and gray hair. She was last seen wearing all black clothing and pushing a red shopping cart. Anyone with information in regards to this incident is asked to call the NYPDs Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) Sign up for our amNY Sports email newsletter to get insights and game coverage for your favorite teams By Bill Parry The 5Pointz artists, who had their hearts crushed in November 2013 when the owner of the building that hosted them for more than two decades ordered their work whitewashed in the dead of night, will have their shot at revenge. Brooklyn Federal District Court Judge Frederick Block handed 23 of the artists a victory in their lawsuit against developer G&M Realty, owned by Jerry Wolkoff and his son David, on March 31 when he ordered their case would go to trial next month. A jury will decide if the whitewashed artwork at the now-demolished, world-famous graffiti mecca in Long Island City falls under the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990, which provides for damages if the works are of recognized stature. In 2013, the Wolkoffs told 5Pointz curator Jonathan Meres Cohen that they intended to tear down the old warehouse complex at 45-46 Davis St. and build two luxury towers in its place. The artists sued to stop them, seeking protection under VARA in an attempt to preserve the 350 murals that covered the buildings walls. The same judge listened to arguments and testimony for three days before deciding the rule of law was on the side of the owners and their right to develop the property. Once the restraining order was lifted, Jerry Wolkoff ordered the whitewashing. Cohen was furious, claiming Wolkoff destroyed priceless pieces in what was the greatest art murder in history. The artists filed a new lawsuit in 2015, again under VARA, seeking damages for the destroyed work. Now, two years later, with one of the towers rising 21 floors, the suit will go to trial. While Cohen and the artists would not comment on advice of counsel, their representative said, The artists are humbled and excited to get a jury trial and we are hoping the trial can be ground-breaking in art history. This is the first time VARA has been used in protection of graffiti art. Newspapers around the world, especially in graffiti-art hotbeds like Berlin and London, are watching. Jerry Wolkoff has long held that the art was never permanent, and that the artists, themselves, painted over their own artwork all of the time. VARA means the art stays and cant be destroyed, but theyve done that for decades: Paint a piece, leave it for a few months, and than paint over it with a new piece, Wolkoff said. They did that themselves, over and over again for more than 20 years. He still cant believe he is being sued by the artists. Its my building and they always knew we planned to tear it down and develop, Wolkoff said. In fact, the only reason I whitewashed the building was I heard they were all going to encircle the building and hold hands and stop the bulldozers. So I whitewashed it to keep them from being arrested. I did them a favor, and they call me an art murderer. Sign up for our amNY Sports email newsletter to get insights and game coverage for your favorite teams By Mark Hallum Amtraks chief executive officer has admitted to letting the whole region down when he revealed the tracks in Penn Station have been in need of repair for a prolonged period of time and were the cause of two recent derailments that disrupted LIRR travel in a transit calamity that played out across several states. Last week LIRR, New Jersey Transit and Amtrak riders experienced extensive delays and cancelations, which reverberated beyond the scope of the city into New Jersey and the Northeast Corridor. Eight of the 21 tracks in Penn Station were shut down by a Jersey Transit derailment April 3. The tracks were not up and running again until last Friday, upending commutes for many passengers on the LIRR. It was the second derailment in the station within 10 days. Minor derailments are not uncommon in Penn Station, but the latest occurred at a switching point where multiple tracks converge. Ten to 14 LIRR trains were canceled as work continued. Its our job to make sure that commuters and intercity passengers can safely and reliably travel along the Northeast Corridor and we know we let them down with these recent derailments, CEO Wick Moorman said. Our customers and partners deserve better. The April 3 derailment appears to have been caused by a wide gauge condition due to defective wood ties. At a news conference last week, Moorman admitted Amtrak had prior knowledge the ties were giving out. We had notations that these timbers needed to be replaced, he said. We clearly did not have the understanding that there was an imminent failure. State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli stressed the effect Amtraks repair backlog has on Queens and those commuting through the borough on the LIRR. Commuters count on the Long Island Rail Road to get them to their jobs on time and back home again, DiNapoli said. While the LIRR reports that only a relatively small percentage of trains were late or canceled, too many commuters had a different experience. While on-time performance improved a bit in 2016, it slipped during the first quarter of 2017. Recent derailments at Penn Station have brought attention to the role played by Amtrak, which is responsible for properly maintaining Penn Station and the four East River tunnels that connect Manhattan to Long Island. U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) responded to the incidents by calling for better investment in rail systems to prevent future derailments or other transit disasters. Not only does Amtrak face a state-of-good-repair backlog of $28 billion, but the MTA and New Jersey Transit may have similar issues in terms of regular maintenance, he said. Even the smallest of maintenance issues, left unchecked, can become the reason for the next big delay or worse disaster. For far too long, Amtrak has been tremendously undercapitalized to the point that they now have an over $28 billion state-of-good-repair backlog. In addition, transit systems across the region lack the necessary funding to make much-needed repairs. So, simply put, no matter how hard Amtrak or other rail systems work to prioritize safety, because of a lack of funding some projects and improvements are just not getting done. Investment in transit is not on the to-do list for many officials in Congress, Schumer said, but the need is paramount. Amtrak is operating on bridges well over a century old, such as the Hell Gate Bridge, which just reached its centennial. It is also using tunnels built in the early 20th century and signal systems dating to the 1930s. We learned this lesson in New York in the 1970s when we systematically disinvested in the MTA and the system broke down, Schumer said. We had delays, derailments, dirty trains and ridership fell to historic lows. But when we made the change and invested into the system, ridership went through the roof and maintenance vastly improved. Schumer cited an infrastructure report that said most of the Northeast Corridor infrastructure is beyond its useful life, the main cause of maintenance costs and unreliable train service. The average age of major NEC backlog projects is 111 years old, including 10 moveable bridges, three sets of tunnels, and one viaduct, the study said. Upgrades and repairs to basic infrastructure items like signals, power systems, and tracks, as well as service improvement projects to add capacity, are needed to meet growth in the northeastern economy and related travel demand. In a letter to Moorman and the Federal Railroad Administration, the governors of New York and New Jersey pointed out their states had not been invited to a review of Amtraks repair and maintenance procedures and asked to be included. Sign up for our amNY Sports email newsletter to get insights and game coverage for your favorite teams By Bill Parry The Durst Organization is moving forward with its Hallets Point mega-project in Astoria now that a replacement for the 421-a tax abatement for developers is in place. The newly branded Affordable New York housing program will provide tax breaks to developers in exchange for desperately needed affordable housing. When the original program expired in January 2016, one day after Mayor Bill de Blasio helped break-ground for the $1.5 billion complex, Durst scaled back its plans for seven buildings with 2,400 units, 484 of them affordable, to just one building with 163 units. The latter amount was what had been financed before 421-a expired. With a new deal hammered out by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, The Real Estate Board of New York, and the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York that expands the production of affordable housing and provides fair wages for construction workers, Hallets Point has received the green light. The passing of Affordable New York allows the Hallets Point project to continue, Durst Organization spokesman Jordan Barowitz said. We are full steam ahead. The same cannot be said of a second giant development project nearby that was shelved when 421-a expired. The massive Astoria Cove plan which promised to bring 1,723 units, 460 of them affordable, in five buildings is the subject of a state probe for illegal dumping by 2030 Astoria Developers. The landowner Alma Realty recently hired Cushman & Wakefield to sell the site for $350 million, according to the business journal Crains. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation is investigating the use of 8-01 26th Ave., Astoria, Queens, for the illegal dumping of hazardous substances and solid waste, DEC spokeswoman Erica Ringewald said. The investigation is ongoing. According to Environmental Conservation Law, perpetrators found guilty of illegal dumping of hazardous substances and solid waste are subject to criminal fines up to $37,500 for each day the violation continues, as well as imprisonment and civil penalties of up to $22,500 per day of violation. Allegations concerning unauthorized waste handling are completely untrue, 2030 Astoria Developers said in a statement. The work that has been done recently at the site involves the deconstruction of a building under a demolition order by the city. All permits for this work are accurately filed and all regulations pertaining to safety and environmental requirements have been complied with. No violations were issued in connection with this work. We look forward to continuing to work with all stakeholders in the community as we move forward. On April 6, a group of activists from Build Up NY, along with Charlene Obernauer, the executive director of the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health, toured the trash-strewn site in a cold rain, finding many sources of potential contamination. These included leaking drums among dilapidated buildings with shaky scaffolding, exposed wiring and a lack of fencing and security that pose a danger to nearby residents. You could have kids walking through here, Obernauer said, pointing to a barrel. We cant concretely say this is hazardous waste, but we can say we dont know what it is and it needs to be labeled. Its unsafe for the community. Afterward, the group was joined by Borough President Melinda Katz and City Councilman Costa Constantinides (D-Astoria), the chairman of the Councils Environmental Protection Committee. Allowing this unscrupulous developer to continue to operate unsafely, without permits, with toxins in the water, is not what should be going on here, Constantinides said. It continues to be a polluted and contaminated site. Thats not what should be going on here. Sign up for our amNY Sports email newsletter to get insights and game coverage for your favorite teams By Patrick Donachie The budget for New York States upcoming fiscal year drew an array of plaudits and criticisms from Queens elected officials, with many approving of the criminal justice reforms enacted while others decried the lack of substantial ethics reform. The budget passed a week after the original April 1 deadline, with Cuomo calling it a successful negotiation between himself, the state Assembly and Senate. The result is a budget that advances the core progressive principles that built New York: investing in the middle class, strengthening the economy and creating opportunity for all, Cuomo said in a statement. The budget will increase the state operating funds spending by 2 percent, and will include a $1.1 billion increase in education spending to $25.8 billion. The budget addressed several controversial issues, including a decision to raise the age when most criminal defendants can be tried as an adult to 18 years old; an agreement on 421-a negotiations to give tax breaks to developers to build affordable housing, and a new initiative that makes state and city colleges tuition-free for students in families making under $125,000. The budget was originally expected to pass by the end of March, but the Legislature and governors office had difficulty agreeing on an array of issues, including raising the age and the proper allocation of charter school funding. The Legislature passed a budget extender, funding the government at the previous years levels until May 31, prior to passing a full budget last weekend. The budget also gives the states budget director the authority to react to significant federal budget cuts if enacted. If federal support is reduced by more than $850 million, Cuomos budget director can institute cuts unless the Legislature passes a plan within 80 days. During an April 5 press conference, Cuomo expressed frustration with the annual budget model, saying it could make it more difficult to react to what were likely to be onerous spending cuts from Washington. State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli praised many aspects of the budget, including its criminal justice reforms, but criticized that it was late and did not allow for public review. The budget does not include needed reforms to the states procurement practices to better ensure spending accountability and transparency, he said. Hopefully, before the end of session, the procurement reforms my office has advanced will be addressed. State Assemblyman Alan Hevesi (D-Forest Hills) touted the agreement to release $1 billion in support of developing 6,000 new units of supportive housing in the next five years. Cuomo has expressed support for building 20,000 supportive units in the next 15 years, according to Hevesi. Supportive housing offers services in or near residential units to help ensure stability for vulnerable tenants. It is the logical solution to homelessness supportive housing provides stable homes and support services to those in need, Hevesi said. It will save taxpayer dollars as it is far more cost-effective than relying on homeless shelters and, most importantly, it works. State Sen. James Sanders (D-Rochdale Village) said the budget was a mixed bag of successes and failures. He cited the increased aid to school districts, as well as an agreement to let ride-sharing businesses like Uber or Lyft operate upstate. However, he cited the failure to pass the DREAM Act for undocumented immigrants and the lack of substantive ethics reform as stumbling blocks. The budget negotiations were difficult, but in the end we were able to make some advancements in the areas of education, economic development and criminal justice, Sanders said. Though we can and should do more, this gives us a foundation upon which we can build. Mayoral control of New York City schools was not included in the budget, which means the Legislature will have to take the issue up separately. Mayor Bill de Blasio received a one-year extension in a deal reached in the closing hours of last years Legislative session last June. Sign up for our amNY Sports email newsletter to get insights and game coverage for your favorite teams By Gina Martinez Queens politicians are standing up for a Flushing-based union. Councilman Rory Lancman (D-Hillcrest), state Sen. Toby Ann Stavisky (D-Flushing) and state Assemblyman Michael Simanowitz (D-Flushing) wrote a letter to Charter Communications CEO Thomas Rutledge, demanding Charter negotiate fairly with Local Union #3 International Brotherhood Of Electrical Workers. The union went on strike March 28, saying it wanted a new contract that did not undermine members health care, retirement and security. The more than 1,800 union workers had been working without a contract since 2013. Charter has proposed eliminating crucial benefits like pension contributions, overtime pay on weekends and the companys 401k, according to local officials. Charter Communications acquired Time Warner Cable last year, making it the second largest Internet provider in New York, with 2.5 million subscribers. The state attorney generals office filed a lawsuit against Spectrum,Time Warner Cable and Charter Communications, for defrauding customers by failing to deliver promised Internet speeds. The AGs office concluded that executives knew that networks were incapable of delivering speeds promised to subscribers. According to the elected officials, Charter placed the blame on Local 3 technicians, even disciplining technicians over repeat service calls to customers who were unable to get Internet speeds they paid for. Officials and IBEW Local 3 members are also upset about Charter plans for a wage increase while also cutting health benefits, retirement contributions, and job security. In the letter, officials called this wage increase a red herring to distract from the cuts. We urge you to return to the bargaining table with a new approach, they wrote, one that will lead to a speedy and fair resolution of the contract dispute. You must protect the workers that make your company function and the New York consumers who rely on your service with as much fervor as you protect your bottom line. We look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience. A spokesman for Charter Communications released a statement claiming that the pay increase is more beneficial for employees. Spectrum is dedicated to providing great service to our customers and investing in our workforce is a critical part of how we do that, a spokesman said. This is why Spectrum is offering our field technicians a pay increase larger than the union has demanded, along with competitive and robust health care and retirement benefits. We believe this greater compensation to be more beneficial to our employees and allows us to grow a well-paid, highly skilled workforce for the benefit of our customers. Sign up for our amNY Sports email newsletter to get insights and game coverage for your favorite teams By Gina Martinez A contractor from Yonkers has been arrested in connection with the five-alarm Elmhurst fire that damaged 112 units in a brick apartment building Tuesday afternoon, FDNY officials said. Declan Mcelhatton, 53, of Maintenance Asset Management, was charged with arson and reckless endangerment, the officials said. According to the Fire Department, the cause of the fire was an open flame in close proximity to combustibles. The fire began around 6:30 p.m. Tuesday afternoon at Martinique Plaza at 56-11 94th St., blocks away from the Queens Center Mall. By 7:30 p.m. the blaze had escalated to a five-alarm fire, officials said. A total of 200 firefighters were at the scene to put out the heavy fire and had the blaze under control at 10:30 p.m. Eleven firefighters were injured, FDNY said, but all of the residents escaped unscathed. The fire spread throughout the top floors of the seven-story building and there was a partial roof collapse, according to officials. Chief of Department James Leonard was on the scene. He told reporters that new technology helped firefighters extinguish the fire. Miraculously, there were no injuries to civilians, Leonard said. The tragedy here, though, is that there is extensive damage to over 112 apartments, so were working with the Red Cross to get into that. One of the things we used here for the second time was our new drone, which was highly effective for our strategy and our tactics. The Red Cross has set up a reception center at PS 13, directly across the street from the apartment house and was meeting with affected residents, providing them with food, beverages, health assistance and emotional support. According to a Red Cross spokesman, the agency has connected with 100 families and has case workers meeting with families one-on-one to address specific needs. He said the Red Cross was not sure how many of the apartments were occupied. On Wednesday morning, firefighters were allowing residents to get important belongings from their apartment. Bart Navani, who lived on the fifth floor, and his neighbor and friend, Robin Lama, were waiting on line to get what they could salvage from their apartments. I lived on the fifth floor, Navani said. My ceiling has collapsed, furniture gone, kitchen and bathroom are a mess. Its pretty bad. I would say half my stuff is gone, half is salvageable, but I consider myself lucky because people on the sixth floor lost everything. Its all gone. Navani and Lama stayed over at a friends house, but were receiving help from the American Red Cross, which they called amazing and very helpful. Lamas sixth-floor apartment was damaged in the fire and was unlivable, he said. For now, Lama does not know what happens next. Sign up for our amNY Sports email newsletter to get insights and game coverage for your favorite teams By Patrick Donachie A man has been charged with hate crimes for allegedly burglarizing several houses of worship in Flushing, Woodside and Elmhurst due to his hatred of religion and God, the Queens district attorney said. Churches and temples were targeted. The defendant is accused of acting on his hatred of god to brazenly but ecumenically target various houses of worship in Queens County to break into in order to steal cash and other items, Brown said. The defendant now faces serious prison time if convicted. Joseph Woznik, 23, allegedly committed the burglaries between March 21 and April 10. He is accused of breaking into the Bangladesh Hindu Mandir Temple in Flushing, Blessed Virgin Mary Help of Christians in Woodside, St. Marys Roman Orthodox Church in Elmhurst, and St. James Episcopal Church in Flushing, which Brown said had been burglarized three times. According to Brown, Woznik said in sum and substance at the time of his arrest that he was mad at God, that he did not like church or religion and purposefully targeted houses of worship, breaking in to get back at God. Woznik was charged with burglary and grand larceny as hate crimes, as well as forgery and criminal possession of a forged instrument, among other charges, the DA said. The first burglary took place at the Flushing temple, when an employee arrived March 21 to find that three donation boxes had been forced open. Fingerprints recovered at the scene were later matched to Woznik, according to Brown. The first St. James burglary was discovered on the morning of March 24, with subsequent burglaries occurring April 3 and April 10. On April 10, a board member at St. Marys found that a gold-plated drawer used for communion and the churchs corporate seal embosser were missing. That same day, an employee at Blessed Virgin Mary Help of Christians found a window had been broken on the churchs office door. She found a donation box opened with pry marks on it and a hammer on the floor next to the open box. Police analyzed security footage which allegedly shows a man they say was Woznik insider the church on the night before, wielding a hammer to use on the donation box. Woznik is also wanted for burglary by authorities in Orange County, Fla. He faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted of the charges in New York, according to the DAs office. Heres what to know in Beaver County this Election Day If youre a registered voter in Beaver County planning to vote in person today, heres what you need to know. QUEENSBURY A Herkimer County man who pleaded guilty to taking part in the murder of Kevin Jenks was sentenced Thursday to 18 years to life in prison, Warren County District Attorney Kate Hogan said. County Judge John Hall imposed the sentence of Kevin Chapman, 50, of Ilion. In addition to the time, Chapman is expected to pay restitution of $1,085. Eight p.m. Sunday in East Palestine, Ohio. Dad is in bed after working all day. Mom, also exhausted, falls asleep on the couch. Even though they've had dinner earlier, the 8-year-old son and his 4-year-old sister are hungry for McDonald's. But instead of the waking up his parents, the boy decides this is a problem he can handle by himself. East Palestine Police Officer Jacob Koehler told FOX 8 News what happened next: The boy seated his sister in the back of the father's work van before he got behind the wheel. He drove about a mile from his house, through four intersections and over railroad tracks. The trip required several right-hand turns and one left-hand turn. Witnesses in other vehicles spotted the underage driver and called police. They reported he obeyed traffic rules, stopped at red lights, adhered to the speed limit and didn't sideswipe a single garbage can. After reaching the drive-thru at the fast-food restaurant, the boy paid for the cheeseburgers with money from his piggy bank. The McDonald's workers thought the kid's parents were pranking them. "The workers thought that the parents were in the back, but obviously they weren't," Koehler told the Weirton Daily Times. Police arrived, but not before the children got to eat a cheeseburger and chicken nuggets. Meanwhile, the kids were spotted by a family friend who notified their grandparents, who drove to the restaurant to take them home. How did an 8-year-old learn to drive?, Officer Koehler wanted to know. YouTube videos, the boy responded. Apparently he was tall enough to reach the pedals. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate The Bethlehem town board approved a $3 million contract with Rifenburg Construction of Troy Wednesday night that sets in motion the long-anticipated "streetscape" and water main replacement project along Delaware Avenue in Delmar. The streetscape project, which has been a decade in the making, will add new sidewalks, curbs, landscaping, bike racks, street lamps and other enhancements along Delaware Avenue from Adams Street at the Four Corners northward to Elsmere Avenue, a stretch of businesses, homes and churches that lacks traditional sidewalks and curbs in places. "The purpose of the project is to implement design improvements that will help strengthen Delaware Avenue's main street character and provide for safe and convenient travel and access for all users including pedestrians, bicyclists, drivers and transit users," Bethlehem Town Supervisor John Clarkson wrote in the letter going out to residents in the area of the work. The improvements will come at the price of convenience, with one-way lane closures and detours as needed that will likely begin in early June and last through October. "It's a project that's going to yield a generation of benefits, but it's going to require a summer of discomfort," Bethlehem town board member David VanLuven said. As part of the streetscapes project, Rifenburg is also replacing the 70-year-old water main pipe along that stretch of road. Town officials said that during construction there will be lane closures, although traffic along Delaware Avenue will always be able to travel in one direction, with traffic from the other direction being detoured around the work on either Kenwood Avenue or Hudson Avenue. Easing the commuter rush will be a priority, town officials said, and residents will be able to get text updates on the traffic patterns through the town web site and social media. Information on how to get updates is available here . "As with all major construction projects, traffic and travel will be impacted, so I ask for everyone's patience during the construction phase," Clarkson wrote in his letter. The combined cost of the street upgrades and the water main pipe replacement projects, which will happen at the same time, could be as high as $4 million, a price tag that includes the engineering and inspection work being done by Albany-based CHA. Some of the street work will be offset by state funding. The town won a $1.2 million grant from the state Department of Transportation for that part of the project, and is looking at getting an additional $222,000 from the DOT and NYSERDA, the state's renewable energy agency, to cover costs above the project's original budget. The water main project, with total costs of about $682,000, is being paid for through a town water fund capital reserve. People and their pets in Schenectady County may be able to endure a much more peaceful and quiet Fourth of July night. That's because the County Legislature is considering banning so called low-level fireworks, like sparkling devices, after it allowed them last year then got swamped by complaints about skittish dogs and lost sleep. On May 1 the legislature conducts a public hearing in what may be a step toward a ban. Legislature Majority Leader Gary Hughes said the panel decided Tuesday to revisit the matter after a spike in fireworks-related emergency calls around Independence Day, as well as complaints of excessively loud and long celebrations. "Massive fireworks displays" lit up Schenectady City Council President Leesa Perazzo's Bellevue neighborhood until around 3 a.m. last Fourth of July. "It was like people's dogs were losing their minds, kids were crying, it was awful," Perazzo said. It's also a safety worry: In many city neighborhoods fireworks could ignite homes made of older housing stock that are very close to each other. Two years ago, the newly enacted state law said low-level or small-scale fireworks were excluded from a ban on the sale and use of fireworks. Counties were allowed to opt into the measure to legalize the pyrotechnics. After debate, Schenectady County and a few other Capital Region counties, including Saratoga, Rensselaer and Montgomery were among those who did. Legislator Randy Pascarella, who introduced the proposal to repeal the fireworks, said 911 fireworks-related calls to the Schenectady Police on July 4 were "escalated at a higher rate ever in the history that I can remember." And there was uncertainty. County residents thought legislators had legalized fireworks. "We believe what was happening is that people would go outside our county, go outside our state, bring illegal fireworks in, and then there was some ambiguity about what was legal and what wasn't and it was just a strain on law enforcement," Pascarella said. "It was the old, 'we gave an inch, they took a foot'." Hughes said if legislators decide to pass the law, fire and public safety officials would make a clear statement that "all fireworks of any type are always illegal in Schenectady County all the time," he added. Pascarella also said the advantages of any sales tax revenue the county collected were far overshadowed by complaints about the harm pyrotechnics had on residents' quality of life. County Legislator Brian McGarry agreed on holding the public hearing, but called the idea of banning fireworks a "knee-jerk reaction" that will only make police even busier going after people who flout the new law. He recommended a public education campaign. Glenville Town Supervisor Chris Koetzle said he initially supported the fireworks law but after hearing horror stories from some residents he favors making some modifications but not forbidding them altogether. He said the bigger issue is a lack of oversight and the sale of the fireworks. The municipality has no control over where the dozen or so vendors set up shop, he said. Montgomery County Legislature Chairman Roy Dimond said even with some new legislators on board, he feels that the law allowing the low-impact fireworks "has a good chance of being repealed" more so because it seems to have benefited out-of-state vendors setting up tents rather than local businesses. Schenectady Fire Chief Ray Senecal, citing the rise in emergency calls and risks even from fire sparklers said he supports a ban "without question." After the public hearing, Schenectady County lawmakers could decide to vote on May 9 to repeal the local law allowing the fireworks, Hughes said. Moscow Secretary of State Rex Tillerson met with President Vladimir Putin of Russia for nearly two hours Wednesday, but the two men appeared unable to agree on the facts involving the deadly chemical weapons assault on Syrian civilians or Russian interference in the U.S. election much less move toward an improvement in basic relations. "There is a low level of trust between our countries," Tillerson said at a joint news conference with his Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, after the first face-to-face meetings between Russian leaders and a top emissary of the Trump administration. "The world's two foremost nuclear powers cannot have this kind of relationship," Tillerson said. Both he and Lavrov said a range of issues were discussed most notably the crises in Syria, North Korea and Ukraine and that both sides had agreed to establish a working group to examine, as Lavrov said, "the irritants" in relations between the United States and Russia. Tillerson reiterated the U.S. view that President Bashar Assad of Syria, Russia's chief Middle East ally, was responsible for the chemical weapons assault in Syria on April 4 that left more than 80 people dead and sickened hundreds. Lavrov reiterated the Russian view that the facts about the chemical weapons attack had yet to be determined, and denounced what he described as the "media hysteria" surrounding the assault. Asked about President Donald Trump's description of Assad as an "animal," Tillerson said that characterization "is one that Assad has brought upon himself." Tillerson said Russian interference in the presidential election was a settled fact. In response, Lavrov gave what amounted to a long lecture on what he described as an extensive list of U.S. efforts to achieve "regime change" around the world, from Serbia to Iraq to Libya. He described them all as failures an implicit warning against any efforts to achieve the same end in Syria. For hours after Tillerson's arrival in Moscow, it was unclear whether Putin would even meet with him because of the tense state of relations, which have worsened just in the past few weeks. Their meeting lasted almost two hours and ended just before 8 p.m. local time. In the 24 hours before Tillerson landed in Moscow, the White House accused Putin's government of covering up evidence that Assad had been responsible for sarin gas attacks on its own people, launched from a base where Russian troops are operating. Putin shot back that the charge was fabricated and accused the administration of Trump, who U.S. intelligence agencies believe benefited from Russian cyberattacks intended to embarrass his Democratic rival during the election campaign, of fabricating the evidence to create a fake confrontation. "This reminds me very much of the events of 2003, when U.S. representatives in the Security Council showed alleged chemical weapons discovered in Iraq," Putin said, referring to an intelligence failure that Trump has also cited in recent months. "The exact same thing is happening now," he charged. But the diplomatic theater playing out in Moscow on a rainy Wednesday morning was far from boring: Putin, operating on home turf, was looking for any way to shape the narrative of Tillerson's first trip here as secretary of state. The outcome could well decide whether Trump's oft-stated desire to remake U.S. relations with Moscow will now disintegrate, just as similar efforts by Barack Obama did early in his presidency. Russia said earlier this week that Putin would not meet with Tillerson, but on Wednesday the Russian leader's spokesman, Dmitry S. Peskov, held out the possibility of a meeting later in the day. Russian leaders have greeted virtually all new secretaries of state since the end of World War II, but Peskov said any meeting would depend on how Tillerson's other talks went. The drama appeared to be an effort by Putin to show that he was in control. As Tillerson entered the foreign ministry here to meet Lavrov, an experienced and wily veteran of many of Russia's post-Cold War encounters with Washington, the Russian government released another salvo against U.S. intentions here. The Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria V. Zakharova, said it was "useless" for Tillerson to arrive in Moscow with "ultimatums" and suggested that if he wanted any progress, he should start by getting Trump and his administration on the same page about Syria strategy. "It is not clear what they will do in Syria and not only there," she said on Dozhd, Russia's independent television network. "Nobody understands what they will do in the Middle East because it is a very complicated region, forgive me for saying such a banal thing. Nobody understands what they will do with Iran, what they will do with Afghanistan." Then, to suggest this was a symptom of broader disorganization, she added, "Nobody understands what they will do with North Korea." Tillerson had hoped, several weeks ago, to make the battle against the Islamic State a focus of this trip, working with Russia to seal off the last escape routes from Raqqa, in hopes of killing the remainder of the Islamic State force there. Chicago Local bans on artery-clogging trans fats in restaurant foods led to fewer heart attacks and strokes in several New York counties, a new study suggests. The study hints at the potential for widespread health benefits from an upcoming nationwide ban, the authors and other experts say. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2015 gave the food industry until next year to eliminate artificial trans fats from American products. New York City enacted a restaurant ban on the fats in 2007 and several counties in the state did the same. Albany County has since 2009 banned the use of trans fats in food served at local restaurants and food-service establishments. Hospital admissions for heart attacks and strokes in those areas declined 6 percent starting three years after the bans, compared with counties without bans. The results translate to 43 fewer heart attacks and strokes per 100,000 people, said lead author Dr. Eric Brandt, a Yale University cardiology fellow. His study was published Wednesday in JAMA Cardiology. Trans fats, also called partially hydrogenated oils, enhance food texture and structure. They were once commonly used to make restaurant fried chicken, French fries, doughnuts and other foods and found in grocery items including cookies, crackers and margarine. These fats can boost blood levels of unhealthy cholesterol, increasing risks for heart problems. The FDA in 2006 required them to be listed on food labels and the food industry has been switching to healthier oils. The researchers examined hospital admissions data from 2002 to 2013 in 11 New York counties that adopted bans and in 25 counties that did not. Admissions for heart attacks and strokes declined in all counties, going from more than 800 to less than 700 per 100,000 people, but the drop was steeper in counties that enacted bans. Alice Lichtenstein, a heart and nutrition specialist at Tufts University's Boston campus, said the results are encouraging but that other changes could have contributed, such as smoking bans and mandatory calories on menus. Dr. Mark Creager, former American Heart Association president, said the results echo previous studies "and are consistent with the thinking of most scientists" on potential benefits of these bans. "Policies such as these when adapted on a nationwide level will be good for our entire population," said Creager, director of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center's heart center in Lebanon, N.H. A violin recital at EMPAC feels like a step back in time. More typical programming at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute venue brings together digital technology and analog humanity to bravely explore new frontiers of the arts. Violinist Anne Akiko Myers performs on a violin dating from 1741. But when she performs with pianist Akira Eguchi on Tuesday in Troy, it will be a program heavily weighted toward new works. Audiences will recognize the names of Beethoven and Ravel, but there's also Part, Rautavaara and Lauridsen on the bill, plus a recent work by Jakub Ciupinski that calls for violin, electronics and video. "The program is incredibly innovative," Myers said. "To work with living composers and champion their music is imperative to me. Their artistry leaves me in awe. They juggle voices in their heads, like so many pieces of a puzzle, in order to say something that moves people and is not just a technical exercise. That's what I'm always searching for." Instead of "searching" for music, Myers could just as easily and accurately say that she "chases" it. As proof, listen to how she got the 74-year-old California composer Morten Lauridsen to finally write for her. More Information If you go Violinist Anne Akiko Meyers with pianist Akira Eguchi When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday Where: EMPAC, Troy Tickets: $6-$18 Info: 276-3921; http://www.empac.rpi.edu See More Collapse "I'm a longtime fan of his and asked him many times to write something for me," Myers said. "He said 'Get to the back of the line, I don't have time.' He had a list of commissions. But I was really tenacious and invited him to a performance of mine in Los Angeles. After that he said, 'I'm all yours.' I bucked the line!" The Lauridsen piece is a reworking of one of the composer's most popular choral works, "O Magnum Mysterium." The urgency that Myers puts into securing new scores from composers does pay off. Just weeks ago, with the Kansas City Symphony, she debuted "Fantasia," one of the final works of the Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara who died last August at 87. A violin/piano version of the "Fantasia" is also on the EMPAC program. "When I visited him in Helsinki, I was shocked by the feeling of being on the edge of world. And the piece has that feeling, with a very poetic and impressionistic use of color," Myers said. "When I played it for him, he turned to me and said, 'Wow, I did write a beautiful work.' It's so true, and we all laughed." Both the Lauridsen and the Rautavaara will receive their New York premieres at EMPAC. After appearing in Troy, Myers repeats the program Thursday at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan and again on Sunday, April 23, at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. With Lauridsen and Rautavaara, Myers was going after known quantities. There was more risk involved when she commissioned Ciupinski in 2009. The 35-year-old composer was born in Poland and lives in New York, where he attended the Juilliard School. While in his teens and still in his home country, Ciupinski garnered a record deal with Sony for his electronic dance music. "He's a very adventuresome person and goes deep sea diving," Myers said. "That's how he saw the wreck of the Umbria." Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and features with our afternoon newsletter. That's the name of the piece Ciupinski wrote for Myers, "Wreck of the Umbria." The title refers to an Italian ship that was sunk in the Red Sea by the British in June 1940, just after Italy's entrance into World War II. The video component of Ciupinski's composition was filmed underwater in the remains of the Umbria. "Hundreds and hundreds of bombs were on the ship. Now it's a ghost ship, with fish everywhere and coral," Myers said. "What was so full of munitions is now full of life that's wet, dark and creepy." Myers said she's lost count of the number of pieces that she has either commissioned or premiered. But she has kept track of how many CDs she's recorded. That number is 34. When it comes to new music, Myers isn't just focused on the future. Her thoughts go to the composers that got away. "There are many composers that I wish I could have worked with Chopin, Ravel, Gershwin," Myers said. "Rachmaninoff's birthday just passed (April 1). Maybe it would have taken just one tenacious woman for him to have him write something for violin." Joseph Dalton is a freelance writer based in Troy. THE ISSUE: Mistreatment of an airline passenger underscores multiple problems with air travel. THE STAKES: Is it too much to expect Congress or the administration in Washington to improve the situation for air travelers? More Information To comment: tuletters@timesunion.com or at http://blog.timesunion.com/opinion See More Collapse --- United Airlines is understandably enduring with a public relations meltdown after millions viewed a video showing one of its passengers being bloodied and forcibly dragged from a Chicago flight. It's only the latest reminder for airline travelers that a once enjoyable experience has become an unpleasant, expensive ordeal. It's now routine for passengers to pay exorbitant fees for their baggage or to change a booking. Space between seats has shrunk so airlines can squeeze more seats onto flights. To keep planes full, generating bigger profits, airlines have reduced the number of flights. That leaves fewer options for travelers when weather or mechanical problems result in flight delays. All this comes on top of the added stress of the security checks in the post-9/11 era, which subject both you and your luggage to searches. A decade ago, airlines were struggling to stay in business, but thanks to mergers that were not blocked by the federal government, they are enjoying record profits. A big part of that is the proliferation of baggage and related fees. An industry forecast predicts global airlines will reap profits of $30 billion this year. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and features with our afternoon newsletter. That only makes the outrageous incident Sunday in Chicago even more disturbing. The flight was "overbooked" because United needed four seats to get its employees to another location. One can only wonder why the airline allowed the flight to board before attempting to use offers of compensation to lure four passengers to give up their seats. When the offers failed to recruit volunteers to give up their seats, United should have raised the offer until it got four takers. Instead, it randomly chose four paid customers to, in the airline's jargon, "re-accommodate." Three exited but the fourth, a physician heading home to Kentucky, refused. That's when the airline called in outside help to pull the passenger out against his will. Such ongoing abuses by greedy airlines are renewing calls by consumer advocates and politicians for the Federal Aviation Administration to enact rules expanding the rights of airline passengers. These efforts have had some successes, like the reduction in the allowable time a plane can sit on the runway awaiting clearance for takeoff. It took another outrageous incident for that to happen the stranding of passengers for 10 hours in 2007 on a JetBlue flight at Kennedy International Airport in New York. It would be a just response to the incident in Chicago if the FAA took new action to bolster passenger rights, though under the pro-business, anti-regulation Trump administration that seems unlikely. A Congress up for re-election next year, however, might be more motivated to explore ways to increase competition and to insist on some minimum standards of customer treatment. Thou shall not beat and bloody passengers or throw them off just for the airline's convenience seem like fine places to start. Jennifer Nickerson of Tipperary Boutique Distillery, Cahir, Co Tipperary, will be one of fourteen start-ups taking part in the AIB Start-up Academy Final in Dublins Lighthouse Cinema on Thursday April 20th The 2017 AIB Start-up Academy, a national competition comprising of a selection of Irelands most promising start-ups, will draw to a close on 20th April at the Lighthouse Cinema in Smithfield, Dublin 7. Hosted by Grainne Seoige, the final event will see fourteen start-ups deliver a 5-minute elevator pitch followed by a 5-minute Q&A session with judges. Jennifer Nickerson is the founder of Tipperary Boutique Distillery which has produced a new single malt whiskey made from her own barley, grown on Ballindoney farm in County Tipperary. The company currently has planning permission for a distillery on the Ballindoney farm and will offer a field-to-bottle spirit. With only 1,916 bottles produced of their first whiskey, The Rising, it will be the only company to produce whiskies cut to bottling strength with water from Ballindoney farm in Tipperary. Starting in September, almost 500 entrepreneurs put forward their business ideas to an expert judging panel. These entries were narrowed down to a shortlist of 22, from which 10 were chosen. A further four start-ups were selected at the regional AIB Start-up Academy Summits in Galway, Cork, Dublin and Belfast. The finalists have completed 8 weeks of a strategic training and mentoring from topics like networking, data analytics, design thinking, finance, marketing and social media. They have also been honing their pitch skills in preparation for the final pitch event. Now in its third year, the AIB Start-up Academy provides start-ups with crucial business support and networking opportunities designed to help entrepreneurs bring their business to the next level. In addition to the competition element, AIB, in association with The Entrepreneurs Academy, will also hold over 80 Start-up Academy Bootcamps across the country in 2017. These free workshops are open to start-ups from all backgrounds and at all stages of development. Speaking ahead of the final, host Grainne Seoige said, In January I hosted the AIB Start-up Academy Summit in Galway and having recently started a business myself I found it to be a rewarding experience. The learning process never ends and Im eager to hear what the fourteen entrepreneurs have learned on their journey to date and their plans for the future. Brian Keating, AIB Group Propositions and Brands Director, said, The AIB Start-Up Academy is going from strength to strength with a year long programme of support for Start-ups. Not only is our national competition attracting entrepreneurs from a wide range of sectors including fashion, food, medtech and healthcare, earlier this year our inspirational summits saw over 1,000 Start-ups gain access to support and tools to grow their business. In addition our AIB Start-Up Academy Bootcamps are taking place in towns across the country to ensure more and more entrepreneurs gain access to the Academy training programme. The final will begin at 6pm at the Lighthouse Cinema on Thursday April 20th. Keeping with the theme of entrepreneurship, previous AIB Start-up Academy finalists Peter Mulryan of Blackwater Distillery and James Winans of Vanguard Beer Collective will be supplying refreshments on the night, along with Neil Shirt Catering and Cornude Popcorn. A limited number of tickets are available on aibstartupacademy.ie, with proceedings streamed via the AIB Facebook page. For full information on the AIB Start-up Academy and Bootcamps please visit www.aib.ie/startup and follow us @AIBBiz on Twitter. For information on products and services for Start-ups, please visit aib.ie Nenagh's Cllr Seamus Morris has made his own submission to the National Planning Framework, Towards 2040 plan. The Sinn Fein councillor told the Tipperary Star he had done so because he felt the submission by Tipperary County Council was weak. I wouldn't have to make this submission if I thought the Tipperary one was strong enough, he said. And Cllr Morris said he had asked for the Mid West regional submission before he made his own, but didn't get it. He has now asked the council to supply him with any submission made by other bodies, including other councillors. In his submission on behalf of Nenagh Sinn Fein, Cllr Morris wants the framework to include the development of Foynes as a major port as it could be one of the regional assets used to drive growth as it could unlock huge economic benefits. The Shannon Estuary is one of the most valuable natural resources for Ireland. It has a depth in excess of 18 metres, making it Ireland's premier deep water resource, capable of handling vessels of up to 200,000 deadweight tonnes and is connected to all major international shipping lanes, he stated. Cllr Morris also wants central government to halt plans to extract 300 million litres from Parteen basin and pump it to the Greater Dublin Region. It will only reinforce the unbalanced regional development of the country. It also has the potential to destroy forever, huge amounts of agricultural lands and effect the economic development of the farming community along the corridor, he said. Cllr Morris also believes Tipperary could have a huge influence on Mid West development and that Nenagh should be earmarked as a zone of influence. Nenagh has an abundance of industrial units , up to 1000 housing planning permissions, a strong educated workforce, strong educational facilities, very strong sporting facilities. Nenagh can provide the perfect work life destination for workers and their families, he said. Meanwhile, Tipperary County Council has called for the retention of the Limerick to Ballybrophy rail line which passes through Nenagh and Birdhill, in its submission. The council says that while Tipperary is very well served by the Dublin-Cork-Limerick railway line, the county also benefits from rail lines from Limerick to Waterford and Limerick to Ballybrophy. However, services on these rail lines are not operating to their potential and the recent proposal by the National Transport Authority to close the lines is a matter of grave concern to the council, the submission states. The NPF must include an objective to retain both these rail links, and service provisio should be enhanced and aligned with strategic economic objectives, it says. It further seeks provision of the Killaloe bypass / Shannon Bridge and R494 improvement and upgrade of the Nenagh to Thurles road, and improvements to the N52. While the plan calls for investment in town centres, it is short on specifics for Nenagh, merely stating that a civic improvement plan is needed. It sets Clonmel as the heart of core development, with Nenagh as a district town. Nenagh's hinterland is designated open countryside, though the tract from Terryglass to Ballina along Lough Derg is described as a primary amenity area. In terms of jobs, the submission says that the council, along with partner agencies such as the IDA, actively supports the economic development of towns in a number of ways, including the identification, development, and marketing of strategic employment land banks, including those in Nenagh. The submission also says that the National Planning Framework needs to recognise the contribution of Tipperary to national tourism development. It calls for the NPF to promote the towns of Ballina / Killaloe and Nenagh as the gateway to the Lakelands region of the country. On health, the submission calls for the retention of Nenagh Hospital. A lucky Roscrea woman who wishes to remain anonymous is laughing all the way to the bank today, after scooping half a million Euro in the Lotto. Lottery players filled their boots today with some very lucky winners arriving in Lottery HQ today, ahead of the Easter Bank Holiday weekend. One lucky winner from Roscrea in Co. Tipperary has claimed her cheque for 500,000 after winning the EuroMillions Plus top prize on Tuesday 11 April. The lady who has worked for 26 years in the same factory will now be looking to buy her first home after her life changing win. The Roscrea woman was the biggest winner of this weeks Lotto winners. Unbelievable! Just unbelievable!!! It will totally change my life, gushed the winner. I checked my ticket on the App on Wednesday and I got a chill right down my spine. I didnt know who to tell. Ive been a regular player of Lotto, EuroMillions and Telly Bingo for years. I even bought my ticket for Friday nights EuroMillions draw on the way up here in the car she said. The winning Quick Pick ticket was sold at Mathew Keane, Main St, Roscrea, Co. Tipperary. At a cost of just 1 extra per line, the EuroMillions Plus draw gives players an extra chance to win 500,000. Accompanied to the National Lottery by her son, the lady plans to enjoy the win with a weekend away with her partner for Easter and will begin to tell close family and friends of her good fortune over the coming weeks. Separately today, a Meath man has claimed a cheque for 55,750 in last nights midweek Lotto draw for matching five numbers and the bonus. The online player always plays the numbers of his family members birthdays and they paid out handsomely in Wednesday nights draw. Want that Friday Feeling to last forever? Fridays EuroMillions jackpot is a guaranteed 17 million. Play in store, on the National Lottery App or online by 7:30pm by Friday evening for your chance to win. Playing National Lottery funds good causes across Ireland. In 2016 alone, the National Lottery raised over 200 million good causes. This level of funding has made a significant difference to communities, projects and individuals in the areas of Youth, Sports, Recreation, Amenities, Health, Welfare, Arts, Culture, National Heritage and the Irish Language. A Cappawhite man is undertaking the challenge of a lifetime as he embarks on a mission of mercy to Haiti. Haven, a prominent Irish NGO working on the ground in Haiti, is undertaking its eveventh annual volunteer trip to Haiti from 21-29 April 2017. Johnny Ryan from Cappawhite in west Tipperary, joins 39 other volunteers from Ireland and abroad in setting off on this life-changing trip with Haven. This years Volunteer Programme sees the group travel to the small town of Carrefour Dufont, located two hours south-west of Haitis capital, Port au Prince. There, they will focus on the refurbishment and upgrade of the local school, which serves 220 children and nine teachers, and which suffered significant damage in last Octobers Hurricane Matthew. Over the course of eight days, Havens volunteers will repair the roofs and replaster the walls of the schools buildings, which were badly impacted by the most powerful storm to hit Haiti in over half a century. As well as this, volunteers will build a new kitchen on the school grounds, and a covered area for children to eat in and shelter from the searing afternoon heat. The construction of a new toilet block will greatly improve the schools facilities, and ensure clean sanitation and good health for its students. Meanwhile, the volunteers will enable additional learning and skills for students through the development of an unused space into a school library. They will also create a safe area for children to play with a colourful and interactive playground. Every year, a key aim of the Volunteer Programme is to immerse volunteers in local communities in Haiti. Lying close to Leogane, the epicentre of the 2010 earthquake, people in the town of Carrefour Dufont are still working to rebuild their lives. During their time there, Haven volunteers will not only work closely in partnership with the local community, but ensure that its children can make the most of their right to education for many years to come. Motivational speaker Robert Orner portrays Judas Iscariot during the Presbyterian Womens annual Lenten salad bar luncheon on Wednesday, at Titusvilles First Presbyterian Church. Election day information: voting times, polling centers and races Residents will have their final chance to cast votes in local races on Nov. 8, including seats on both the NLCS and MCS boards and Sheriff. 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... From supporting Lily Allen on her Australian tour to being one of the key influencers who shot Shannon Noll back into fame, Allday is an important cult rap artist. Ahead of the release of his new album Speeding next Friday (which you can pre-order here), heres 20 things he did that built him such a massive following. 1. Refuses to let his team touch his social media channels 2. Became the most hipster kid to ever be a hipster in 2014 3. Since the very beginning, he asked his fans the important questions 4. Supported Lily Allen at her Splendour sideshows in 2014 5. Teamed up with producer Japanese Wallpaper for new single In Motion 6. In a hip hop scene of this And this Allday was this 7. Relocated to LA, arguably the mecca of music in the world 8. Was the Australian Drake before Drake was cool in Australia Lovin @alldaychubbyboys album so much, srsly Australias Drake. Get on it yall Startup Cult by Allday https://t.co/zKuYlQB6pJ Cub Sport (@cubsportmusic) July 4, 2014 9. Hit #47 on the largest music poll in the world in 2016, the triple j Hottest 100 10. Charted at #3 on the ARIA chart with an LP that featured the sound of bongs being ripped (Startup Cult) 11. Doesnt GAF about your preconceived gender bias towards fashion 12. Was one of the key influencers who shot Shannon Noll back into fame 13. Featured on the Troye Sivan track for him. 14. Named one of his singles Send Nudes in 2016 15. Was a stand-up comedian 16. Was once possessed and found out by going to a psychic Went to a psychic and she told me i have a demon in me, getting cleansed on Sunday so yeah, nice non-demon Allday is on the way Allday (@alldaychubbyboy) March 29, 2017 17. Played in a punk band in high school called Sissycunt 18. Got the name Allday following a bout with the munchies at his local IGA I didnt realise how long I was taking to choose my tiny teddy flavour or whatever, Allday told SMH. Then as a joke they started calling me Allday because I took forever, and so yeah, thats that. 19. Has his own web series called the Chubby Chronicles 20. His new album Speeding, out April 21, will debut at #1 on the ARIA chart. Pre-order the record with some sweet extras here. TKC EXCLUSIVE: ALTERNATE HOTEL PROJECTS & PRIVATE INVESTORS NOW ON DECK SHOULD THIS EFFORT FAIL!!! More local cash is at stake for a long-anticipated 1000-room convention hotel project that has yet to meet with much investor support.Here's the happy news version of today's city council meeting and press release coverage . . .Meanwhile, let's not forget that the. . . And . . . What we know for certain is this . . .Developing . . . DOWNPLAYED BY KANSAS CITY MAINSTREAM MEDIA, ROCKHURST CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL SUICIDE RESONATES THROUGHOUT METRO FOR MANY LOCAL YOUNG PEOPLE!!! It's Holy Thursday and tonight Catholic throughout Kansas City will gather to commemorate the Last Supper of Jesus Christ with the Apostles as described in the Gospels. However, the celebration will take place in the shadow of death for many of the local faithful.To wit . . .Students in Shawnee Mission High Schools and a few other local Catholic schoolsThe reality is thatand most parents, regardless of religious affiliation, are woefully unprepared to cope with the trend.Whileconfronting pop culture trends has always been a challenge posed to the faithful.Real talk: The key to lower Catholic suicide rates might not be the hope that Church attendance provides but the fear of God that is instilled within most denizens of this sect. Old school Catholics have always been taught that suicide is a one way ticket straight to Hell with no mercy, forgiveness or chance at redemption for all eternity. It's a cruel teaching that contradicts current mental health care guidelines but it has mostly proven effective . . . Until now.and during this Holy Week, Catholics in Kansas City are forced to confront the impact of this trend on their community as well.Developing . . . "Police say a woman called around 2:15 a.m. Thursday to report seeing a woman being dragged into a van near Elma and Prospect. According to the caller, several individuals got out of a white van and dragged a young lady from an alley into the van that had a handicapped tag." Police investigate after woman abducted in KCMO Police are searching for a woman after she was abducted early Thursday morning. Officers say five men forced a woman into a minivan with a handicap plaque in the window and then took off. Scary scene in the urban core this morning . . .Read more: KCPT Old School Ethnic Profiling Suspended In Time Anthony "Tony" Gizzo mug shot. (Kansas City Public Library) "That's quite a pair of shoes that Tony Gizzo has on...do you remember him?" Flatland Special Projects Reporter Mike McGraw asks, looking at a photo of a man in a police lineup. Kansas City Drowning Aftermath Drowning victim's family speaks out about 22-year-old KC man's life, their loss KANSAS CITY, Mo. - The Wiebusch family is struggling to fully accept what happened Tuesday night. Just after 9:00 p.m., 22-year-old Zakkery Wiebusch was hanging out with some friends at Blue Valley Park when their remote-control boat stopped working in a pond. That's when he tried to swim out to get it and went under. Sleaze Summit Scare Last Night Gas line break forces evacuation of several Lee's Summit homes A gas line break Wednesday afternoon in Lee's Summit forced the evacuation of several homes. The City of Lee's Summit said the break happened around 3:30 p.m. near Patterson Drive and Todd George Parkway. A private utility company was working in the area when they struck a gas line. Show-Me Political Push For More Cash To Find Missing Missouri Youngsters Missouri budgeters plan for reboot, expansion of Amber Alert JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Missouri House and Senate budgeters want to spend $100,000 on the state's Amber Alert system. The Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday locked in a House plan to replace and expand the alert system for missing children. Suburban Gun Shop Robbery Overnight Merriam gun store burglarized early Thursday, police say Merriam gun store burglarized early Thursday, police say Store owner tells police several guns taken Merriam, Kansas, police are investigating after a gun store was burglarized early Thursday. Police said officers were called just before 2 a.m. to Signature Manufacturing in the 9800 block of West 67th Street on an alarm. Tragic Life Lesson Family: Bullying caused Sedalia teen's suicide SEDALIA, Mo. - Classmates, friends and family members are mourning the death of a Sedalia, Missouri teenager who took her own life over the weekend. Sixteen-year-old Riley Garrigus took her own life on Saturday. Family members told 41 Action News the Smith-Cotton High School sophomore was bullied continuously. Salvy Needs A Break A modest proposal for the Kansas City Royals Get expert analysis, unrivaled access, and the award-winning storytelling only SI can provide - from Peter King, Tom Verducci, Lee Jenkins, Seth Davis, and more - delivered straight to you, along with up-to-the-minute news and live scores. Pamela Anderson is pushing 50 but she's not only thebut also the leader of the. And so the old girl inspires the start to our TBT . . .is our song of the day and this is thefor right now . . . Wasteful Kansas City Legacy History of the 'City of Fountains' KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Kansas City is known as the City of Fountains. There are more than 200 fountains in the metro area. Forty-eight of them are city-owned. Fountains were originally meant for horses, birds and dogs to drink from. The first city-built fountain was at 15th and Paseo in 1899. Sunflower State Against Peru Dude Kobach Says Non-Citizen Has Pleaded Guilty To Voter Fraud Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach says he has secured his first conviction of a non-citizen for voting illegally. In a news release, Kobach says that Victor David Garcia Bebek, a native of Peru, pleaded guilty last week in Sedgwick County District Court to three misdemeanor charges of voting illegally. KCK Election Time & Nobody Cares Four candidates now vying to be mayor/CEO of Unified Government of KCK, Wyandotte County With seven weeks left until the filing deadline, the mayoral race in Kansas City, Kan., already has grown to four candidates. Janice Grant Witt, a financial services broker defeated for the post in 2013, became the fourth candidate when she filed this month. Political newcomer D. Deadly Meth Town Blast Aftermath Family of man killed in Lake City Army Ammunition Plant explosion 'heartbroken' INDEPENDENCE, Mo. - The man who died after an explosion at the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant Tuesday has been identified as 55-year-old Lawrence Bass from Blue Springs, Missouri. According to the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, Bass had worked at the plant for 36 years. Deadly Kansas City Gunfire Case Man charged with 2016 shooting outside a KCMO club A Kansas City man has been charged in connection with a fatal shooting outside of a KCMO club back in October 2016. Juan J. Bravo-Leon, 24, has been charged with murder second degree, assault first degree, and two counts of armed criminal action. More Midtown Neighborhood Drama Hyde Park residents fight to erase growing graffiti problem KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Hyde Park property owners say they're seeing an alarming increase in graffiti, particularly along Troost Avenue. Many neighbors call it a frustrating problem. Just this week several businesses and apartment buildings from 33rd to 47th streets have been hit by taggers. Sick Kangaroo Life Lessons UMKC confirms case of mumps on campus Officials with the University of Missouri - Kansas City say a case of mumps has been confirmed on campus. A student was diagnosed with mumps by a private physician on Tuesday. Officials said that student was sent home, and will remain home on rest until they are fully recovered. NATION FEARS ANOTHER DEADLY ALLEGED KANSAS HEAD CASE!!! Woman decapitated ex-boyfriend's mom, cops say A woman decapitated her ex-boyfriend's mother, who came to her home to collect his belongings, police in Kansas said. Rachael Hilyard allegedly began attacking Micki Davis, 63, when she and her grandson dropped by Hilyard's Wichita home Sunday afternoon, ABC affiliate KAKE News reported . Tragic Kansas City Teaching Moment Stop Trafficking Project raises awareness about minor sex trafficking in KC KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Grandparents that are part of the Northland Grandfamilies program were shocked when they heard about the increasing dangers of domestic minor sex trafficking. "It is scary, and it is sad," Bridgette Drake said. "It was just unbelievable that people would take children." Tune In To Kansas City Community Talk Northeast Newscast Episode 6 w/ Central Patrol Division's Major Rick Smith By Paul Thompson KANSAS CITY, Missouri - In this week's episode of the Northeast Newscast, KCPD Central Patrol Division's Commander, Major Rick Smith, joins Northeast News managing editor Paul Thompson to talk about the Tuesday, April 11 sentencing hearing of notorious Northeast criminal Tyler Sutton; KCPD response times and the Fear Local Season Of Snacking KC Health Department gives tips on how to know if a food truck is up to code KANSAS CITY, Mo. - There are more than 450 food trucks registered with the KC Health Department. So how do you know if your favorite one is up to code? 41 Action News is asking officials what to look for. ----- Kevin Holmes can be reached at Kevin.Holmes@KSHB.com Follow @kholmesKSHB hotness and social media winning keeps us on task and inspires this midweek compilation of all the important Kansas City mainstream media for tonight. Take a look:And this is thefor right now . . . Kansas City Power Play Backstory Energy In KC; Aldo Leopold When you flip a light switch or plug something into an outlet, something usually happens. Lights come on, iPhones get charged. But where does that energy come from in Kansas City? How are we using it, and what is the future of energy here? Blue Springs DWI Hard Time Man to go to prison for 25 years for killing 2 children in Blue Springs I-70 DWI crash INDEPENDENCE, Mo. -- The driver in a Labor Day 2016 vehicular accident that killed two children and injured two others pleaded guilty Thursday in Jackson County to two counts of murder and two counts of assault and DWI charges. Show-Me Execution Investigation Groups ask Missouri's high court to resolve execution drug debate A media advocacy group and the ACLU want Missouri's highest court to settle whether the state's prison officials must publicly reveal the source of the drug used to execute prisoners. The nonprofit Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the American Civil Liberties Union and other plaintiffs on Wednesday asked the Missouri Supreme Court to resolve an issue that's produced conflicting rulings. Golden Ghetto Blaze Aftermath 5 displaced by fire at Overland Park duplex Cause of fire under investigation Kansas City Fanboy Booze News Royals fans upset after Budweiser a little harder to find at Kauffman Stadium After the Royals home opener, some fans wanted to know 'where's the Bud?' They complained they couldn't find their favorite brand of beer at the ballpark. KCTV5's Abigael Jaymes went to Kauffman St... KCI Doggie Friendly Improvements Sneak peek at new KCI Terminal C upgrades Kansas City aviation department deputy director Justin Meyer gives a tour of new enhancements to Terminal C at Kansas City International Airport. Upgrades include a new nine-gate departure lounge, an expanded security checkpoint featuring four lanes, additional electrical outlets and a dedicated service animal relief area. Cowtown Fight Night Coming Soon UFC on Fox Kansas City -- Johnson vs. Reis: Fight card, predictions, preview, odds, picks Demetrious Johnson is looking to make history on Saturday night hotness and her social media winning inspires this link collection for the bright and sunny midday. Take a look:And this is thefor right now . . . INSIDERS FEAR A JACKSON COUNTY JAIL RAPE REPORT COVER-UP!!! FACT: THE JAXCO JAIL REPORT WAS PROMISED LAST YEAR BUT HAS YET TO BE RELEASED TO THE PUBLIC!!! Remember when Jackson County hired former US Attorney Todd Graves to issue a report on the repeated rapes and assaults at the county jail? Insiders report that the written report was completed in late November, but THE FRANK WHITE ADMINISTRATION has been sitting on it given that it includes EXPLOSIVE details of his administrations TOTAL INCOMPETENCE that have directly lead to the victims being assaulted, and his administrations inability to fix the problems that are still ongoing . . . TEAM FRANK WHITE has been constantly "tweaking" and rewriting the report to remove any references to incompetence or misconduct. It will only be released to the public when the content is "acceptable" to the County Executive's Office. Once again, this is the kind of stuff the KANSAS CITY STAR and their lazy hacks used to be interested in covering, but now public incompetence and rapes seem to be unimportant topics unworthy of investigation to the former paper of record. Allegations of Jackson County jail rape still confront the office of. A report commissioned on the crisis has been delayed and, many fear, rewritten to avoid responsibility.To wit . . .More important than the politics of this post . . .Amid election season and the passing of time, there has been little to no accountability for the crisis at the jail despite promises that and investigation and ensuing report would be the first step in solving prison problems.Here's the word . . .Developing . . . The Israeli look on the INIOHOS 2017 international exercise conducted in Greece: "A large-scale aerial joint training exercise, led by the Hellenic Air Force with squadrons from other countries including the United States, UAE, Italy, and Israel, was held this month in Greece. The Scorpion and the First Fighter Squadron, which operate the Barak (F-16C/D) fighter jet and the Nahshon Squadron, which operates the Nahshon (Gulfstream G-550) joined forces for the purpose of intensive, mutual training in a challenging and complex aerial arena. The exercise combined many operational aspects alongside mental challenges, shared Capt. Emanuel, a pilot from the Scorpion Squadron. All of the obvious elements entailed in flying in Israel are completely different outside of it from the runways to the radio communication, which is performed in a language we are not used to. All of these elements make us operate in uncertainty, a fact which better prepares us for combat, an experience which essentially involves uncertainty. Before leaving Israel for the exercise, the IAF delegates all participated in a preparation workshop. We tried to focus on properly dealing with foreign experiences, said Lt. Aviad, a pilot from the Scorpion Squadron. The aircrews performed exercises in which they communicated only in English and rehearsed complex missions in accordance with NATO combat doctrine. The Spearhead of Aerial ATC This is not the Nahshon Squadrons first international training exercise. The squadron, which specializes in aerial air traffic control, is world renowned for its capabilities. The squadron sent a Nahshon (Gulfstream G-550), which performed the Air Traffic Control for all the participating squadrons, to Greece. Our air traffic controllers are the spearhead of aerial ATC and the deployment is an opportunity for mutual knowledge sharing with the foreign air forces. We are exposed to the way they think and plan their missions, an experience that greatly enriches us, described Capt. Guy, Commander of the Nahshon Squadrons Operations Department. The cooperation with the Nahshon Squadron is a power multiplier for us, added Capt. Emanuel. The Elephants Squadron and the Desert Giants Squadron also took an active part in the exercise. The Elephants Squadron, which operates the Shimshon (Super Hercules C-130J) rehearsed parachuting forces in deep enemy territory and in cooperation with the fighter division, faced SAM (Surface-Air-Missile) and Air-Air threats. The Desert Giants Squadron, which operates the Reem (Boeing 707) performed challenging aerial refueling missions in accordance with NATO combat doctrine and in a foreign language. Mutual Learning A deployment of this scale is not a common occurrence and requires many hours of preparation. There is no doubt that the investment is large, but it also holds extremely valuable results, which cannot be obtained in any other way. The first goal we set for ourselves was mutual learning between the participating forces, shared Capt. Emanuel. Mutual work with them opens our horizons and challenges our creative thinking. When you participate in an international exercise, you have the opportunity to train with systems you are not used to seeing on a daily basis. The forces that participated in the exercise in Greece operate, among other things, F-4 Phantom and Mirage jets and SAM batteries that are foreign to us, elaborated Capt. Emanuel. This is a unique opportunity which creates a high quality training exercise. Source: israeldefense.co.il Read more here. RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report Greek and Turkish Cypriots have reached a critical juncture in negotiations to end the decades-old division of their island and only a small number of issues remain to be resolved, the United Nations envoy for Cyprus said on Thursday. We are at a crossroads, UN envoy Espen Barthe Eide told Reuters in an interview. I think the leaders know that we are at the crossroads and at the crossroads you have to take the right turn, or the alternative is the wrong turn, he added. Eide, a former Norwegian foreign minister, has been overseeing the talks between Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci for about two years. Eide and his team facilitate the discussions between Anastasiades and Akinci to reunite the island under a federal umbrella of two semi-autonomous zones. He said there was no doubt that the two had come closer to a solution than ever before. But he was more cautious when asked whether he thought a peace plan could be agreed by the two sides and then put to a popular vote in a referendum this year, saying that depended on the leaders. I believe its possible. Whether it will happen, I think I will remain open. Its doable. Outstanding issues There are a relatively small number of outstanding issues, the vast majority is done, said Eide, whose office is within the compound of now-abandoned Nicosia airport, the scene of some of the fiercest fighting of the 1974 war that led to the islands division. Although the number is small, they are significant, he added. Eide said the issues that still require resolution include finalizing the nature of the presidency that will govern Cyprus, a final deal on territorial adjustments, some property-related questions and security. Greece, Turkey and Britain are guarantor powers under a 1960 treaty that granted the former British colony independence. It was cited by Turkey as a basis for the 1974 invasion, and Greek Cypriots and Greece want the system dismantled. Turkey and Turkish Cypriots want the system to remain intact. On that one I am quite optimistic, thats within reach, Eide said on the prospects of a deal on security. Although there is no timeframe for a settlement, Eide said it was understood that the process could not go on indefinitely. There is no time limit ... but there is a shared understanding that we do not have oceans of time and that there is no time like the present. Source: Reuters 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 Cyprus has sent 18 so called foreign fighters back to their home countries, the Foreign Ministry Permanent Secretary Alexandros Zenon told CNA on Thursday. Zenon said that the foreign fighters, who were arrested, had plans to cross into the Turkish occupied areas, to head to Turkey and then to Syria, join the so called Islamic State. The Foreign Ministry Permanent Secretary noted that many countries, including Cyprus, are also in very close cooperation to prevent terrorist actions in European and other cities, adding that, as a result, many terrorist attacks have been prevented in several countries. Fifty such attempts were prevented in a country where a terrorist incident took place recently, he added. Referring to the trilateral cooperation which Cyprus and Greece have with countries in the region, Zenon noted that our mid-term and long-term goal is to establish a forum for dialogue, consultations and cooperation in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East region, which will contribute to the promotion of stability, security and prosperity, stressing however that political problems must be solved and political conditions must become mature for this to happen. As regards Brexit, Zenon said that we will be ready to promote our positions once real negotiations get underway. Furthermore he noted that after the result of the referendum in the UK in favour of Brexit, Cyprus is considering, despite any difficulties which may exist, to officially express its interest to host the headquarters of the European Medicines Agency, which are currently located in London. We are looking into the various technical and financial aspects of the issue. There are difficulties. These organizations must be easily accessible to people who travel from continental Europe countries, he said, noting that such organizations receive a large number of visitors every day. This is a major investment. We have to evaluate all issues, the required infrastructure, the connectivity with the rest of Europe and other parameters, he added. Referring to the battle against terrorism, Zenon underlined the importance of prevention, noting that due to our geographical position we are in close cooperation with various security and intelligence services of countries in our neighbourhood and beyond that. Joinimg the forces of the so called Islamic State He added that this cooperation has been quite effective, since we have sent back to their countries of origin more than 18 so-called foreign fighters who wanted to pass to the occupied areas of our country, in order to go to Turkey and then to Syria to join the forces of the so called Islamic State. Zenon said that these people were bearers of European passports and came to Cyprus from Western countries, and that these events took place in 2015. As he noted, it seems that these so called foreign-fighters have stopped using this route, because on one hand Turkey has become stricter and does not want them to pass through its territory, and on the other hand it has been proven that Cyprus is not a country via which these people can easily travel to Syria. Recalling that the British Bases in Cyprus have been used by the UK for launching operations against the Islamic State, and that Cyprus offers facilities to countries that participate in the fight against terrorism, Zenon said that the international community has recognised the islands role in combating this global threat. He noted that Cyprus has good relations with countries in its region, and can be useful both for them and the EU, maintaining at the same time its reliability. Zenon also elaborated on Cyprus` actions with a view to effectively address the issues that have come up due to Brexit, noting that the Foreign Ministry Task Force that was set up to deal with Brexit has already reached certain conclusions, while a Ministerial Committee was established to politically guide negotiations. Moreover the private sector got engaged in this endeavour, he added. The Permanent Secretary said that, in view of Brexit, Cyprus and the UK will hold bilateral consultations with a view to reach an arrangement regarding the British Bases in Cyprus, which will be ratified during negotiations between the EU and the UK. He stressed that the Cyprus government is aiming to ensure that the rights of the inhabitants and the employees at the Bases will remain unaffected. He also referred to Cypriots who live and work in the UK, but do not have the British citizenship, noting that our efforts aim to secure that that they will not be negatively affected. Furthermore, he said that Cyprus is holding consultations with other countries which have traditional and historic bonds with the UK, as Malta and Ireland, looking together with them into any possible arrangements that need to be made. Zenon noted that, due to the specific relations which Cyprus has with the UK, there are certain issues which particularly affect the island, and competent ministries are looking into them, in cooperation with the Law Office of the Republic. Referring to Cyprus' EU membership, Zenon said that as an equal partner, the country is actively engaged in all EU activities and consultations on all issues, expressing well-founded positions. He cited the example of the sanctions imposed due to the issue of Crimea, noting that Cyprus expressed modest views, contributing to the adoption of rational and balanced positions by the EU. Moreover he noted that the trilateral cooperation which Cyprus and Greece have developed with countries in the region, as Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel, has been facilitating the dialogue between these countries and the EU. Geographical position, tradition and mentality Zenon noted that Cyprus and Greece are two EU member states which, due to their geographical position, their tradition and their mentality, are in a position to better understand the problems which countries in their neighbourhood face. And all these countries see us as a distinguished interlocutor who understands them and can convey some of their concerns and messages to the EU and this is what we are doing, he added. He went on to say that Cyprus also discusses separately certain issues with each of these countries. For example, he added, Lebanon asked Cyprus to help him upgrade and harmonize its products with the European standards, so that the country can export them more easily to the EU. At the same time, he noted, there are certain issues which concern all of these countries as energy, combating terrorism and security. Zenon said that Cyprus stabilising role in the region, through this network of cooperation schemes, is being recognised by the EU and its member states, and by countries beyond the Atlantic Ocean as well. In addition, Zenon noted that some other EU countries, as Malta, Italy, France and Spain, which are not part of these trilateral cooperation schemes are on the same wavelength with Cyprus and Greece, and recalled that both the trilateral cooperation schemes and the group of the seven southern EU countries were set up at the initiative of Cyprus. Asked about the opening of new Embassies of Cyprus abroad, Zenon recalled that some embassies were closed in 2013, due to the financial crisis, noting that during the last years the Republic opened an Embassy in Saudi Arabia, an Embassy in Ottawa last year, and will now re-open its Embassy in Prague. Source: CNA 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 natural gas transmission system operator, DES.FA, and Albania-based Albgaz are eyeing the establishment of a joint company to assume the operation and maintenance of the portion of the TAP natgas pipeline that will be constructed on Albanian territory. A relevant memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the two sides was signed on Wednesday in the Albanian capital of Tirana. The joint company will be based in Tirana, while the exact details regarding share capital will be presented in the coming period, following work by a joint committee set up for this purpose. The MoU was signed by DES.FA CEO Sotiris Nikas and Albgaz Managing Director Klodian Gradeci. 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 "We must now learn from the State of Israel, a country with more experience on how to protect citizens from terrorist attacks" Contact Editor for israelnationalnews.comTobias Petersson wrote the following article after the recent terror attack in Stockholm: "Sweden has now suffered its first major terrorist attack in its capital Stockholm, with four killed and many injured. A suspect for the terror attack, an Uzbek citizen by the name of Rakhmat Akilov has been arrested. He has confessed that he is the one who carried out the terror attack on orders from ISIS. The terrorists of ISIS belong to an ideology that repeatedly has attacked the democratic world recently including Orlando, Paris, Brussels, London, Jerusalem and now Stockholm. I refer to radical Islamism. Violent Islamism is represented not only by ISIS that has attacked democratic Europe but also by terror organizations like Hamas that want to wipe Israel from the map, because its a Jewish state and a democracy. Unfortunately terrorism is often relativized by politicians and journalists. It is important that we wake up realizing that we must have zero tolerance for all terrorists. We must also understand that people involved in Islamist terrorism do not necessarily have a membership in a terrorist organization, they may only sympathize with its ideology and its hatred of democracy. On the other hand, however, just because Islamist terrorists have declared war on us we mustnt generalize about our Muslim citizens and apply a broad brush approach to them. We who stand up for the values of democracy today against the violent Islamism come from all kinds of religious and non-religious backgrounds, also Muslim. We mustnt allow ourselves to be intimidated by terrorists in a way that we avoid living our lives. No, we must continue to do everything that angers the terrorists and we must do it with all our might. What they cannot abide is our lifestyle, our democracy, that we are a country that is characterized by equality and secularism, and that we are a country open to minorities, like LGBT-people who are persecuted outside the Western world. What probably also annoys them is that Sweden supports efforts against terrorists like ISIS. Let us never change who we are, what we do and what we stand for to avoid terrorism.We should not stop living. But on the other hand, we need to change our view on security so that it will be more difficult to succeed in attacking us and instilling fear among us. We must have better security arrangements around the metro, central stations, airports, the parliament, shopping centers, public holidays and major events, all of which are important terror targets for terrorists. Extensive security arrangements are a part of the everyday life in countries like Israel that for decades lived with the threat of terrorism. We must now learn from the State of Israel that has more experience on how to protect her citizens from terrorist attacks. Because the latest terrorist attack in Stockholm will probably not be the last in the Swedish capital. We also need to understand that behind the terrorist attacks, there are ideological motives not related to socioeconomic factors. The ideological motives, we must now dare to find out and learn about. Another important discussion we need to have in Sweden is whether we should criminalize membership in terrorist organizations and expressions of sympathy with such organizations. Should we allow the members and sympathizers of ISIS, Hamas, PFLP, Hezbollah, al Qaeda or other terrorist organizations to spread hatred and extremism in Sweden? Our politicians must now act against everything and everyone promoting terrorism and violent extremism. Today they do not. Associations that teach children that violent extremism is a tool to achieve political goals, Swedish politicians should crack down on with full political force. Believe it or not, such associations unfortunately exists in Sweden. For over a year now Ive been trying to get Swedish politicians and the media to talk about the violent extremism that exists in Sweden in certain Palestinian and Islamist associations that spread hatred against Jews and Israelis. Subjected to the violent extremism are those children of migrants in Sweden who have been fed this terrorist propaganda. Civil society organizations teach young children that they should initiate violence in order to protect the Al Aqsa-mosque and die in terror activities against Israel. This propaganda has been spread on the municipal school premises in Malmo and also in municipalities like Amal where violence-promoting textbooks have been distributed to children. The majority of politicians, I tried to talk to about it have not wanted to listen and the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, which has been responsible for the fight against violent extremism offers no solution to the issue. Not fighting all violent extremism in Swedish society, turning a blind eye to certain manifestations of it, will lead to the normalization of violence as an instrument to achieve political and ideological goals. Its time for Sweden to wake up and face the reality. All terrorism and violent extremism must be condemned, fought and never relativized.That is the turning point, where we, the Swedish people, must realize and admit that we find ourselves today." Source: israelnationalnews.com 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 29th edition of the Gulf Education and Training Exhibition (Getex), the leading student recruitment platform in the Middle East and Asia, has opened in Dubai, UAE. The three-day show was inaugurated by Dr Ahmad bin Abdullah Humaid Belhoul Al Falasi, Minister of State for Higher Education at the Sheikh Saeed Halls of the Dubai International Convention Center. The regions top education, training and professional development event is being held under the patronage of the UAE Ministry of Education and organized by International Conferences and Exhibitions (IC&E). The exhibition will focus on general, undergraduate, post graduate, occupational and industry, professional development and continuing education and training. Getex 2017 is attended by education providers from around the world intending to achieve their student admission targets and enrolment quotas by recruiting students at the event. Admission officers and education counsellors are at hand to address students concerns as well as offer career guidance on suitable programs. The show is expected to be attended by 30,000 learners who are keen to decide on their further study, explore campuses and universities, and check out fees and scholarships opportunities. Dr Al Falasi commended Getex for being one of the most important exhibitions for the education sector--which is currently witnessing rapid development and continuous growth. He also stressed on the significant role it plays in the continuing efforts to provide the labour sector with highly qualified and trained human resources, conforming to set international standards. In addition, Dr Al Falasi stated that the event opens many potential opportunities and perspectives for students, which in turn, encourages them to embark on a journey towards professional success and reinforce their commitment to play a part in the move towards comprehensive development. The seminars at Getex will provide students with enriching information that can help them in making informed decisions on their higher education Delivered by leading industry speakers and experts, the seminars are highly relevant in todays job market as well as for future opportunities. The Activity Zone, the newest feature at Getex, is a platform to engage students in an out-of-the-classroom environment where students will be encouraged and inspired to pursue hobbies or learn new skills that can be turned into career choices. Anselm Godinho, managing director, IC&E, said: Getex has continued to evolve and add new features to remain relevant to address the enquiries and concerns of the regional student fraternity. This year, we are hosting over 300 institutions from the region and beyond to offer over 2,000 programs and courses in various fields of academics, vocation and training. We are optimistic that our collaboration with some of the reputed names in education will be able to provide the right guidance and direction to students looking for more options in higher education. - TradeArabia News Service South Korea-based Hyosung Corp, a leading chemical and textile company, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Iran's state-run National Petrochemical Company for setting up a polypropylene (PP) plant in Iran. The South Korean company said that it has been in talks with its Iranian counterpart to determine the feasibility of a PP business in the country, but has not made any conclusion yet, added the Iran Daily News report, citing pulsenews.co.kr. Industry experts expect Hyosung, looking to expand its offshore manufacturing network, would set up a PP production base in Iran. The company also inked an agreement with Vietnamese government to build a PP plant at a cost of $336 million in February last year. Iran has been attracting investments from abroad on expectations on economic renaissance following the lifting of international sanctions. The country has the world's largest natural gas deposit and the fourth-largest crude oil reserve on top of its geographical advantage offering easy access to other Middle Eastern markets as well as Europe and Africa. Currently, South Korean companies are working on nearly 60 petrochemical projects in Iran. Cho Hyun-sang, Hyosung president who visited Iran as a member of the business delegation when former South Korean President Park Geun-hye made a state visit to the country in May last year, has been building business networks with the Iranian government since then. Iran has signed a flurry of deals with Western companies over the past year since the easing of international sanctions on Tehran after an accord was reached over its nuclear programme. Iran needs foreign investment for repairs and upgrading of its oil and gas fields. It also seeks the transfer of technology to its oil industry after a decade of sanctions, added the report. More than 150 top executives from across the regional tanker business, as well as global participants are expected to attend the second annual Maritime Tanker Conference, later this year, in Dubai, UAE. The event is expected to take place on October 24, at the Grosvenor House Hotel. A high level group of expert speakers and panellists is being assembled by The Maritime Standard, and will include representatives from leading tanker owners and managers, port operators, trade organisations, brokers and analysts, law firms, financiers and technology providers, said a statement from the organisers. The event has also secured sponsorship support from a number of high profile maritime companies and organisations, including: Kuwait Oil Tanker Company, DNV GL, Bahri and International Shipping and Logistics. Supporting Associations for the event include: Dubai Council for Marine and Maritime Industries (DCMMI), UAE Shipping Association (UAESA), Organisation of the Islamic Shipowners Association (OISA), Indian National Shipowners Association (INSA), Womens International Shipping and Trading Association (WISTA), Ceylon Association of Ship Agents (CASA), Pakistan Ships Agents Association (PSAA), Conqueror Freight Network, Globalia Logistics Network, Mission to seafarers, Specialist Freight Network, The Cooperative Logistics Network World Freight Network. The one-day conference will focus on the challenges and opportunities that remain open to the tanker sector in the Middle East and the Indian Subcontinent today. Speakers and panellists will assess global and regional economic and trade trends that will affect the movement of crude oil, products and petrochemicals. After key note speakers, individual sessions will highlight key issues, and solutions, and will assess likely investment patterns in ships and terminal facilities, as well as the development of technology and other support services. Trevor Pereira, managing director of The Maritime Standard, said: The inaugural event in 2016 was such a success that we have decided to return to the same venue and date to build on what proved to be a successful formula. We will have some big names from the industry speaking and the high quality audience of decision makers and influencers, which will make this a conference that will add real value, in terms of information gathering and networking, he said. The event is certain to generate a high level of interest so I would urge people to book now, as spaces will be strictly limited, he concluded. TradeArabia News Service Microsoft has called for IT professionals across Bahrain and the wider Middle East to prepare themselves for a cloud future by sharpening their skills in Microsoft Azure, through the companys cloud trainings and certifications. Azure trainings and certifications run as a blend of scheduled and on-demand online courses, covering generalised and niche, cloud-focused subject areas for getting up to speed with Azure. IT pros can choose to learn in Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) with labs, or study for a test and take a certification exam. Completing any MOOC includes a digital certificate of completion, and passing a certification exam earns IT Pros the related certification and its digital badges. Microsofts cloud trainings allow IT professionals to broaden their horizons by gaining practical, instantly applicable cloud skills, said Necip Ozyucel, cloud and enterprise business solutions lead, Microsoft Gulf. Whether beginner or expert, we have the course to help them level up in their cloud career. We have invested heavily in Azure training, because our global reach and Azures versatility means it is a platform that can fit any need, no matter the business scale, no matter the industry; so anyone who takes our courses will learn things that relate directly to their existing job and allow them to add value. Our trainings will show you guide IT Pros to build hybrid or open-source solutions, and the courseware provides tactile learning experiences that you can employ immediately, while earning technical certifications that prepare you for rewarding career advancement. A recent worldwide survey conducted by Microsoft showed a marked increase in the salaries of cloud professionals, as companies recruit for their digital transformation journeys. The survey also noted that 37 per cent of respondents in the Middle East and Africa region cited a skills gap as the main barrier to cloud adoption. In the GCC, governments have initiated bold economic-development visions centred on technology, said Ozyucel. Much of the activity in the private and public sectors around these programmes especially given the emerging constraints of the petrochemical price dip is about doing more with less. In the context of digital transformation, that means cloud, so the surge in demand for cloud specialists is to be expected. An IDC forecast from 2015 projects that by 2020, more than one in three IT positions worldwide will be cloud related and that the cloud-readiness of professionals will start to have a significant impact on operations. The report also suggested IT employment worldwide will grow by around 4 per cent every year up to 2020, and that all growth will occur in cloud-related positions. Azure training courses ready participants for Microsoft Certified Professional exams, which allow them to earn the kind of accreditation that opens new doors. Acquiring cloud skills has become a critical component in organisational success. Our certifications will enable IT experts to reimagine their firms IT infrastructure, preparing them for a competitive digital future, added Ozyucel. But it is not just infrastructure that can be transformed in the Azure cloud. With their newfound skill base, Azure professionals will be able to show their organisations and customers how to build transformative solutions from Microsofts tried and tested AI platforms. Business intelligence and analytics solutions can reinvent customer engagement strategies. Natural-language processing modules can automate and streamline customer service through chat-bots; and communications tools can ensure that organisations keep their employees connected and collaborating, wherever they may be in the world. An IDC White Paper sponsored by Microsoft Corp. shows global demand for cloud-ready IT workers will grow by 26 percent annually through 2015 and onwards, with as many as 7 million cloud-related jobs available worldwide. According to the study, IT hiring managers report that the biggest reason they failed to fill 1.7 million open cloud-related positions in 2012 was because job seekers lacked the training and certification needed to work in a cloud-enabled world. Training is one of the best investments you can make in your career, said Ozyucel. Azure Certifications can be the first step in your journey towards cloud expertise. Then you will be in a better position to add value to your employers business or to help your customers with their own journeys to digital transformation, where they can benefit from Microsoft Azures global coverage across 36 regions. TradeArabia News Service Batelco, a major player in the regional telecommunications industry and the leading digital solutions provider in Bahrain, has been recognised by world leading statistical data organisations for its delivery of the fastest mobile internet speeds and high customer satisfaction rates. In November 2016, Batelco was recognised by Speedtest by Ookla for its outstanding performance as Bahrains Fastest Mobile Internet provider. Speedtest by Ookla is the global leader in broadband and mobile speed testing and web-based network diagnostic applications. The company's software and methodologies set the industry standards for accuracy, popularity, ease of use and the subsequent development of statistical data. Speedtest.net is one of the most popular web sites on the Internet. Batelco also came out ahead of its competitors in the recent Ipsos survey carried out in Bahrain to rates customers satisfaction with their telecoms provider. Batelco scored 8.5 out of a possible 10, and was the only player in Bahrain to exceed the global telecom satisfaction norm which is 8/10. Batelco Bahrain CEO Engineer Al Hashemi said Batelco was very proud to be rated so highly by such world leading and reputable organisation as Ookla and Ipsos. Batelcos investment in new and upgraded networks ensures that our customers have access to fast speeds and reliable services. Additionally, we have invested in establishing the largest Customer Contact Centre in Bahrain and in training hundreds of staff in handing customer issues efficiently. With the Centre being operational 24/7 every day of the year, our customers can depend on the highest levels of customer care, Eng Al Hashemi added. Eng Al Hashemi continued by saying that Batelcos investments also support Bahrains efforts to develop the ICT industry and ensure it remains a viable business hub in the region. As a result of the continuous investment and efforts by various organisations to grow ICT in Bahrain, the country continues to hold first place among Arab states and internationally is in 29th place, according to the ITUs 2016 ICT Development Index. These are very impressive statistics, it said. Additionally, in the World Economic Forums most recent Global Network Readiness report, Bahrain was ranked 28th out of 139 countries in terms of overall network readiness in 2016. With 92.7 per cent of its 1,378,904 population having an internet connection, Bahrain is the most connected country in the Middle East according to the highly reputable report. Ultimately, our efforts and plans are in line with the Kingdom of Bahrains vision to be a Middle East hub for ICT solutions through the delivery of innovative services based on superfast internet connectivity, Eng Al Hashemi concluded. - TradeArabia News Service Movenpick Hotels & Resorts has flown 38 leaders from 11 of its properties across North Africa and the Middle East to Morocco where they are attending the firms prestigious Business Academy. This three-day intensive training event, which teaches its top executives invaluable business leadership strategies, is part of the companys ongoing commitment to training and development. Movenpicks president and CEO Olivier Chavy and Craig Cochrane, senior vice president Human Resources, opened the latest edition of the companys Business Academy, which is taking place at Movenpick Mansour Eddahbi Marrakech Hotel & Palais des Congres from April 10-14. It involves participants from Movenpicks hotels in Marrakech, Casablanca, Tangier, El Gouna, Gammarth, El Quseir, Sousse, Sharm El Sheikh, Accra, Cairo, Taba and El Sokhna. Our business is about people the successful interaction between our employees and our guests as we strive to create memorable moments that last a lifetime, Chavy told Academy delegates. To make this magic happen, it is essential that we inspire and engage our colleagues at every level, using innovative and thought-provoking training techniques that empower them to deliver excellence across every guests touch point. The 38 Academy participants are attending three workshops covering topics that are essential to Movenpicks ongoing success: Process-driven Strategy & Innovation, Business Financial Acumen, and Mastering the Leadership Code. The leaders invited to attend these sessions are encouraged to discuss their views to gain a rounded perspective. Complementing training with idea exchange helps participants to devise strategies that ultimately enhance the guest experience. The Business Academy demonstrates our unwavering commitment to training, development and career progression and its what sets Movenpick Hotels & Resorts apart as one of the worlds leading and most progressive hospitality firms, said Cochrane. Movenpick Hotels & Resorts has staged Business Academy sessions over the last seven years, running events several times annually in locations across Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa where the company now operates 83 properties. Three additional Business Academy events will be taking place during 2017 in Dubai, Amsterdam and Bangkok. - TradeArabia News Service Bernard Mercier has joined Corinthia Hotels, the collection of luxury hotels around the world, as general manager for Corinthia Hotel Khartoum in Sudan. He joins Corinthia this month from his previous role as managing director, Trump Hotel Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. Mercier is an internationally experienced hotelier with senior roles in renowned hotel chains and groups including InterContinental, Sheraton, Orient Express, Kempinski and members of The Leading Hotels of the World. Swiss by birth, Mercier attended the Hotel School in Lausanne. His senior positions have taken him to Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Kenya, China, Mexico, French Polynesia, the Philippines and Hong Kong, resulting in a deep understanding of diverse and distinct cultures. We are delighted to welcome Bernard Mercier at the helm of our operations in Khartoum. Sudan is entering an exciting new phase in terms of economic development and the Corinthia Hotel is well poised to consolidate our leading role in the citys hospitality sector, said Simon Naudi, CEO of Corinthia Hotels. Khartoum is a gateway to Central Africa and the five-star Corinthia Hotel Khartoum is located in the heart of the citys commercial district. With 230 bedrooms, eight meeting rooms, six restaurants and cafes plus a spa and gym, it is the leading hotel in the city and overlooks the confluence of the Blue and White Nile rivers. - TradeArabia News Service United Airlines has been facing a backlash from people around the world after a video of a man who was forcibly dragged out of an overbooked flight was posted online. Now, lots of netizens are calling for a United Airlines boycott. The videos and pictures of the 69-year-old Asian-American man who was seen to have blood all over his mouth went viral on different social media sites. Initially, people thought that the man was Chinese which caused an outrage from Chinese netizens, many of whom were calling for a boycott. Shanghailist reported that the Chinese hashtag which stated "United Airlines forces passenger off a plane" garnered 169 million views and became on of the top trending topics on the microblogging service called Weibo. Thousands of Chinese users are not only bashing the airline company but also the United States. Chinese-American comedian Joe Wong even posted on his own microblog, "Many people of Chinese heritage feel that they've been discriminated against, but they don't say anything because they're worried about losing face." Wong's posts went viral and got a lot of likes and shares. However, after finding out that the man was Vietnamese, people from Vietnam appeared to have joined the movement along with the Chinese to boycott United Airlines. The man was identified as David Dao and was born in Vietnam. According to Time, the issue didn't really get enough sympathy from Vietnamese netizens when the man was first distinguished as Chinese, especially that there' tension between the two countries. But when reports stated that Dao was indeed Vietnamese, there was a sudden change of tune from Vietnamese netizens. Following the disturbing footage of Dao being dragged across the floor with blood on his face, United Airlines' stocks went tumbling. Now, CEO Oscar Munoz issued a formal apology stating that the company is taking full responsibility with regards to the issue. See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018 Planning for a holiday vacation is not just all about travel destinations, ticket fares and hotel accommodations. Travelers need to take note that keeping your homes safe while you're away is also important. Well, here are a few home safety tips that might just help you out whenever you plan on traveling. Keep It Low Key. According to Mapping Megan, don't tell everyone that you're going on a vacation. If you really need to, choose the ones whom you really trust so they can keep an eye on your home from time to time while you're away. Make Friends. Whenever you move into a new neighborhood, it pays to get to know the people near you and establish a good relationship with them. You can have them watch over your house if you're away. In fact, you can even leave your keys with them and it's much safer than leaving it in the mailbox or under a mat. Load Your Luggage Covertly. Even if you don't tell people about your vacation, they'd probably figure it out if they see you loading your luggage in your car. If possible, do it in your garage or do it at night when no one is watching. Make Your House Look Occupied. Saga suggests that before you leave for your trip, try to mow the lawn or cancel newspaper deliveries. You don't want people to think that the house is empty because of the tall grass and piled up newspapers on your doorstep. Keep Valuables Safe. Make sure that you have your jewelries, money and other important things kept in less-obvious places. It would also help to keep your valuables in separate locations. It helps to think like a burglar. Before you go on your trips, make sure that you follow these tips. You don't want to come home to an empty house. See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018 Albania will let tourists step foot on its mysterious military island used during the Cold War to boost the tourism industry of the country. From May to October, travelers can have a walking tour on Sazan Island and two other military bases, Pashe Alimani and Orikum, which has archaeological sites found in the area. Sazan "Military" Island is still operating under the country's Defense Department. Nonetheless, Defense Minister Mimi Kodheli signed an agreement with Economy Minister Milva Ekonomi to have the place turn into a hotspot destination. Stuff.co.nz reported Kodheli as saying, "No doubt Sazan Island is a tourist attraction due to its position." Many tour operators have suggested on tourists visiting the military island already, especially with some travelers already stepped foot on Sazan since 2015, according to Travel and Leisure. Currently, the island has bunkers and tunnels to resist nuclear attacks since the 1930s. About 3,000 military personnel used to live there, but now, it houses only a couple of officers. Sazan Island was originally built to prevent Western invasion. But when communism fell in the '90s, the buildings fell into ruins and still contain old beds, utensils, and furniture. Other reasons why travelers were so intrigued with Sazan Island is its azure waters and the diverse species of flora and fauna thriving in the island's environment. Despite the announcement, there have been no plans on how tourist walks will be managed and conducted. Any news whether the island will hold establishments for tourists haven't been conjured up yet. However, the government has ideas on turning the war tunnels into wine cellars. Economy Minister Milva Ekonomi told Stuff.co.nz that the deal between Kodheli proved to be marked as an important event in Albania for its economy. In 2016 alone, about 4.7 million tourists have visited the military island. The tourism industry has been the number one source of income for Albania. See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018 The Taiwanese Government had declared that the cooking, buying, selling and consumption of dog and cat meat is now illegal under its new animal protection laws that could see offenders fined from 50,000 to two million new Taiwanese dollars ($1,636 - $65,434). Taiwan is the first Asian country known to consume both types of meat to introduce a legislation against it. According to China Post Taiwan, Taiwan's Animal Protection Act amendments approved by the Legislative Yuan on Tuesday would punish buying, selling or consumption of dog or cat meat. Aside from introducing fines for consuming the illegal meats, the Act has a sub-clause that could see people who intentionally harm animals in Taiwan for two years of imprisonment and fines of 500,000 to 5 million new Taiwanese dollars ($16358 - $163,586). CNN cites Humane Society International representative Wendy Higgins praising Taiwan's "progressive ban." She said it "is part of a growing trend across Asia to end the brutal dog meat trade." The amendment to the Animal Protection Act would also punish animal cruelty against pet owners who "walk" their pets while leashes are pulled by cars and motorcycles with fines up to 15,000 new Taiwanese dollars ($491). Dog and cat meat consumption is a huge industry in Taiwan with most restaurants serving specialized dishes for the special meats. However, the amendments to the new laws became needed when animal rights advocates in Taiwan raised a series of animal abuse cases pertaining to military personnel beating up a defenseless dog and throwing its body into the ocean and the inhumane manner dogs and cats are imprisoned, fed and treated before they are killed for their meat. Animals Asia Foundation CEO Jill Robinson said the new amendments to Taiwan's Animal Protection Act send a signal to China and South Korea to ban the killing and consumption of dog and cat meat. China's southern region is known for celebrating the Yulin festival, a dog meat consumption festival that sees the killing and eating of 10,000 dogs, which was widely condemned in social media worldwide. See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018 Oprah Winfrey's fans can grab the chance for an adventure and even vacation with their idol. The media mogul invited fans to join her as she's scheduled to cruise with Holland America Line on her first trip to Alaska. This rare opportunity has been made possible with O, The Oprah Magazine's "Year of Adventure" which announced its two-year partnership with Holland America Line. Those interested to join the talk show superstar can choose from the five series of "Adventure of Your Life" cruises. The first trip will sail from July 15-22 (from $1,499) bound for Alaska, somewhere even Oprah herself hasn't set her foot in yet. According to TRAVEL+LEISURE, Oprah will meet and greet with fans for a two-day trip and even share an intimate dinner with the guests. Fans can book with the American-British cruise line and select from the adventure sailings slated November 2017, March 2018, August 2018, and October 2018. The cruises will also embark on Oprah-inspired activities like O's onboard book club, healthy eating tips, daily meditation sessions and tai chi exercises. Oprah will be bringing in her team of editors from the O magazine as well as select SuperSoul 100 stars. Such cruises with the stars have been gaining popularity, according to The New York Times. Different cruises now feature fan trips wherein fans can hang out and even learn something from their idols. Just like Oprah's cruise adventure, fans of other niches can also grab a chance to take a trip and share activities with their idols. Fan trips cover a wide range of niches including literature, films, sports, music and cuisine. Sixthman, in particular, partnered with Norwegian Cruise Lines to organize music cruises that featured Kid Rock, Pitbull, Diplo and much more. Sixthman Chief Executive Anthony Diaz claimed their business thrives because of their repeat customers who "come as fans and leave as family." See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018 New Delhi, Apr 13 (IBNS): President Pranab Mukherjee, on Thursday, gave his assent to four supporting legislation related to Goods and Services Tax (GST), according to media reports. The Central government aims to roll out the GST from July 1 under the One Nation One Tax regime. The legislation were The Central GST Act, 2017, The Integrated GST Act, 2017, The GST (Compensation to States) Act, 2017, and The Union Territory GST Act, 2017. Kolkata, Apr 13 (IBNS): Birla Sun Life Insurance (BSLI), the life insurance arm of the Aditya Birla Financial Services Group (ABFSG), a significant non-bank financial services company, has launched a pan India campaign 'Swabhimaan' to educate, empower and employ women in India. The second chapter of the campaign was launched in Kolkata , which witnessed women from various walks of life attending the program and being inspired. Swabhimaan introduced the women to the rewarding career opportunity of a life insurance advisor / protection counsellor, aiming to build a strong team of women advisors in Kolkata. Speaking about the initiative, Anil Kumar Singh, Chief Actuarial Officer, Birla Sun Life Insurance said, We at Birla Sun Life Insurance believe in counselling and protection for our customers. Taking ahead this philosophy, we have launched Swabhimaan, a distinctive initiative for women which provides them the opportunity to start their career as protection counsellors. Our endeavour is to contribute in making women of Indian more self-reliant and help them contribute to their family income. Through this campaign, we aim to tap the huge talent pool of women professionals and help us strengthen our sales force across cities, enabling productivity. A recent study conducted by Birla Sun Life Insurance has proved that woman advisors are more productive than their male counterparts. The research reveals that nearly 1/4th of DSF (Direct Sales Force) advisors are woman. South & West Zones have nearly 1/3rd advisors as woman. Highlighting their achievements, it has been noted that nearly 50% of the advisors are women among top 100 and 40% among top 200 advisors. Out of BSLIs total advisor base in West Bengal around 25% are women advisors who contribute over 33% of the premiums generated from the state. For Kolkata, while 30% of their advisors are women, they contribute close to 37% of the total premium earnings from the city. This clearly proves the fact that women here are high performers and have huge potential to emerge as very successful advisors. Once selected as an advisor, the women will be given extensive product training to equip them with need based selling and help them suggest the right solution for the right customer. While they get to touch upon lives of friends and family, and provide much needed financial planning; the initiative will offer women a flexible and long lasting career. As an entrepreneur, the opportunity will allow flexible work hours that will not only supplement family income but will also provide ample time to manage their household. Especially designed for the hospitality sector, the new application integrates seamlessly with any website, allowing businesses to set up an easily manageable online shop for gift and cash vouchers. (TRAVPR.COM) MAHARASHTRA - April 13th, 2017 - Especially designed for the hospitality sector, the new application integrates seamlessly with any website, allowing businesses to set up an easily manageable online shop for gift and cash vouchers. The latest from STAAHs stellar range of products that improve hotels online distribution and maximise revenue, Gift Voucher Engine is simple to use and easy to install. It allows hospitality businesses to sell gift or cash vouchers on their own website or from the front desk. By using this product, hotels can manage their own gift promotions and payments directly, generating much-needed additional revenues. Gift Voucher Engine is fully customisable to suit a propertys unique needs. Its modern, intuitive design is suitable for any device. Once integrated, it instantly generates bespoke e-vouchers with a unique customer code, which can be easily entered at time of redemption and will automatically update the system. Gift cards are very lucrative for properties looking to boost their revenue particularly during the low business periods and promote customer loyalty, says Tarun Joukani, Managing Director, STAAH India. However the typical cumbersome back-end management associated with such schemes has kept businesses at bay from fully integrating it in their marketing toolkits. Gift Voucher Engine is an effective and efficient solution that reduces time spent processing gift voucher sales, while enhancing guest experience. STAAH is among the few specialist companies that has developed a gift voucher system that has been designed to meet the unique needs of hospitality businesses, particularly accommodation providers. India was among the key markets tested while developing this product. Among the properties that have been using it successfully from inception and through the test period are The Resort, Bawa Group of Hotels, Mayfair Hotels & Resorts and CPG Hotels. We started using the STAAHs Gift Voucher System in December 2016. The results have been phenomenal. Our voucher sales have gone up by 120% and customer feedback has been excellent. The system was installed within 20 days and is extremely simple to use it has cut back the time spent in voucher management considerably, says Satyajit Kotwal, General Manager, The Resort, Mumbai. You dont have to be a user of our channel manager or booking engine to reap the benefits of Gift Voucher Engine, says Joukani. It is completely flexible to seamlessly integrate with your existing system. About STAAH Ltd STAAH Limited is a New Zealand-based technology company that specialises in cloud-based channel management and booking engine for accommodation providers to maximise online revenue. Founded by Gavin Jeddo in 2008, a pioneer in the field of distribution technology, STAAHs industry-leading technology powers a propertys distribution through online travel agencies (OTA), direct bookings and digital marketing services. For more information visit: staah.com. KEY STAAH FACTS - Processing more than 700,000* room nights every month (4.5 million bookings* annually) for more than 3500 accommodation providers*. - Partners with more than 1000 properties in India. - More than 200 integrations* with OTAs, GDS, payment gateways and other critical suppliers to power the distribution. - Winner of the prestigious Innovation Showcase Award in 2016 for partnerships in India. *STAAH 2016 Data ### When you visit the site, Dotdash Meredith and its partners may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. Cookies collect information about your preferences and your devices and are used to make the site work as you expect it to, to understand how you interact with the site, and to show advertisements that are targeted to your interests. You can find out more about our use, change your default settings, and withdraw your consent at any time with effect for the future by visiting Cookies Settings, which can also be found in the footer of the site. In great news for manatees, researchers predict that the gentle 'sea cows' will endure for at least another 100 years as long as threats continue to be managed. Its a strange world we live in when we celebrate the idea that a species might actually survive through the next century. Its all become so fragile that small victories can feel like big wins but regardless, a new study predicting that Floridas iconic manatees can survive another 100 years is cause for cheer. Today the Florida manatees' numbers are high. Adult manatees' longevity is good, and the state has available habitat to support a population that is continuing to grow," said US Geological Survey (USGS) research ecologist Michael C. Runge, lead author of the report. "Still, new threats could emerge, or existing threats could interact in unexpected ways," Runge said. "Managers need to remain vigilant to keep manatee populations viable over the long haul." Tracy Colson/USFWS Endangered Species/CC BY 2.0 A subspecies of the West Indian manatee, the Florida manatee has the gloomy distinction of being one of the first animals to be listed as endangered when the federal Endangered Species Act went into effect in 1973. At the time, only 1,000 of them were left. But after 40 years of manatee-protecting measures like boat speed limits and habitat protection, there are now more than 6,600 of them. The manatee experts involved in the study predict that the population will double over the next 50 years and then plateau, with very little chance of the numbers dipping to below 500, as long as conservation efforts are maintained. The main threats they face will continue to be collisions with watercraft and the loss of warm-water habitats where they are protected from cold water in the winter. Red tides could also become a serious threat if they increase in intensity and frequency. "If the rate of mortality from watercraft collisions were to double, the population's resilience would be compromised," says Runge. If that were allowed to happen, the chance that the population would drop to under 500, the crucial number, would be around 4 percent. "We looked at all the other pressures people have mentioned, and we did not find any combination of threats that raised the risk of a decline to fewer than 500 animals on either coast above nine percent." David Hinkel/USFWS Endangered Species/CC BY 2.0 Of interest is that the populations will likely shift around the state thanks to regional environmental changes. According to a summary of the report: For example, some southeast Florida power plants are expected to shut down over the next 40-50 years, and if they do, manatees will lose the warm water refuges created in the plants' discharge canals. Manatees in southwest Florida are likely to be increasingly affected by red tide and may also lose some warm water refuges. So southeast and southwest Florida may see their manatee populations decline. Those losses will be balanced by increased manatee numbers in northeast and northwest Florida, where warm natural springs are capable of hosting more manatees. "Manatee populations will continue to face threats," Runge says. "But if these threats continue to be managed effectively, manatees will be an integral and iconic part of Florida's coastal ecosystems through the coming century." New Delhi, Apr 13 (IBNS): Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday saluted the martyrs of the brutal killings of innocent people at Punjab's Jallianwala Bagh by British soldiers in colonial India. The incident drew wide outrage as several notable Indians critised it openly, the most significant being Rabindranath Tagore, the Noble Prize winning poet, denouncing his Knighthood. "Saluting the martyrs of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Their valour & heroism will never be forgotten," Modi tweeted. Image: Narendra Modi Twitter page Image: twitter.com/narendramodi New Delhi, Apr 13 (IBNS): Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday greeted his countrymen on the occasion of Baisakhi. "Greeting to the citizens on the occasion of Baisakhi," his tweet in Hindi read. Baisakhi, the spring harvest festival, is celebrated by both the Hindu and Sikh community. It also marks the Sikh new year and is celebrated annually on either Apr 13 or 14. New Delhi, Apr 13 (IBNS): Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday paid homage to the martyrs of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Posting pictures on Twitter, the Prime Minister said, "Saluting the martyrs of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Their valour & heroism will never be forgotten." The Jallianwala Bagh massacre or the Amritsar massacre took place in 1919, as a group of nonviolent protesters were killed by the then British rulers. The incident mobilised the Indian freedom movement and also led to Rabindranath Tagore renouncing his Knighthood. Tribune News Service New Delhi, April 13 Low-cost carrier SpiceJet has added 19 new domestic and three new international flights this summer, offering more seats and connecting key metros and cities as a part of its enhanced network. With the introduction of the summer schedule, the airline will increase its operations to 360 daily flights on average. To cater to the peak summer rush, from March to October, SpiceJet has launched daily direct flights for sectors like Surat-Jaipur, Surat-Hyderabad, Surat-Goa, Jammu-Dehradun, Jaipur-Chandigarh-Jammu, and Bengaluru-Thiruvananthapuram and Delhi- Thiruvananthapuram. In purview of both the leisure and business travellers and considering the tourist and commercial interest attached, the frequencies have been enhanced on sectors, including Dehradun-Delhi, Bengaluru-Vijayawada and Bengaluru-Kochi. SpiceJet has also launched three new flights on the international sectors of Delhi-Bangkok, Kolkata-Dhaka besides a flight from Bengaluru to Male via Thiruvananthapuram with the least connecting time. Chandigarh, April 13 An 18-year-old Class XII student of SD School, Sector 32, suffered 24 stitches after a group of youths, including Rattan Lubana, who was earlier arrested for allegedly extorting money from school students after befriending them, thrashed him. The police have booked Rattan Lubana and his brother Inder Lubana among others. The victim, Shirin Mahajan, a resident of Sector 32, had gone to appear for the final exams at Government School, Sector 33, the examination centre, on Wednesday. Shirin alleged that soon after the exam, Karan Walia approached him and told him that he wanted to discuss something. Karan then left claiming that he would be back in two minutes, he said. The victim said soon, two cars stopped outside the school and Karan Walia, Rattan Lubana, Karanbir Singh, Jaildar, Inder Lubana, Sharan Baba and others caught hold of him. The victim said Inder Lubana slapped him. Rattan Lubana also slapped him. Sources said the victim offered resistance following which the youths assaulted him and one of them hit him with a brick. The victims aunt, Mamta Mahajan, said Shirin suffered injuries near his eye and cheek. He suffered 24 stitches and a fracture near one of the cheeks, she said. The victim was rushed to the hospital by his friends. Acting on a complaint, the police have booked all six youths. The police said all accused were at large. TNS B.R Ambedkar On January 26, 1950, India will be an independent country. What would happen to her independence? Will she maintain her independence or will she lose it again? This is the first thought that comes to my mind. It is not that India was never an independent country. The point is that she once lost the independence she had. Will she lose it a second time? It is this thought which makes me most anxious for the future. What perturbs me greatly is the fact that not only India has once before lost her independence, but she lost it by the infidelity and treachery of some of her own people. In the invasion of Sindh by Mahommed-Bin-Kasim, the military commanders of King Dahar accepted bribes from the agents of Mahommed-Bin-Kasim and refused to fight on the side of their king. It was Jaichand who invited Mahommed Gohri to invade India and fight against Prithvi Raj and promised him the help of himself and the Solanki kings. When Shivaji was fighting for the liberation of Hindus, the other Maratha noblemen and the Rajput kings were fighting the battle on the side of Moghul Emperors. When the British were trying to destroy the Sikh rulers, Gulab Singh, their principal commander sat silent and did not help to save the Sikh kingdom. In 1857, when a large part of India had declared a War of Independence against the British, the Sikhs stood and watched the event as silent spectators. Will history repeat itself? It is this thought which fills me with anxiety. This anxiety is deepened by the realisation of the fact that in addition to our old enemies in the form of castes and creeds, we are going to have many political parties with diverse and opposing political creeds. Will Indians place the country above their creed or will they place creed above country? I do not know. But this much is certain that if the parties place creed above country, our independence will be put in jeopardy a second time and probably be lost for ever. This eventuality we must all resolutely guard against. We must be determined to defend our independence with the last drop of our blood. On January 26, 1950, India would be a democratic country in the sense that India from that day would have a government of the people, by the people and for the people. The same thought comes to my mind. What would happen to her democratic Constitution? Will she be able to maintain it or will she lose it again? This is the second thought that comes to my mind and makes me as anxious as the first. Democratic system It is not that India did not know what is democracy. There was a time when India was studded with republics, and even where there were monarchies, they were either elected or limited. They were never absolute. It is not that India did not know Parliaments or parliamentary procedure. A study of the Buddhist Bhikshu Sanghas discloses that not only there were Parliaments for the Sanghas were nothing but Parliaments but the Sanghas knew and observed all the rules of parliamentary procedure known to modern times. They had rules regarding seating arrangements, rules regarding Motions, Resolutions, Quorum, Whip, Counting of Votes, Voting by Ballot, Censure Motion, Regularisation, Res Judicata, etc. Although these rules of parliamentary procedure were applied by the Buddha to the meetings of the Sanghas, he must have borrowed them from the rules of the political assemblies functioning in the country in his time. This democratic system India lost. Will she lose it a second time? I do not know. But it is quite possible in a country like India where democracy from its long disuse must be regarded as something quite new there is danger of democracy giving place to dictatorship. It is quite possible for this new-born democracy to retain its form but give place to dictatorship in fact. If there is a landslide, the danger of the second possibility becoming an actuality is much greater. Three warnings If we wish to maintain democracy not merely in form, but also in fact, what must we do? The first thing in my judgement we must do is to hold fast to constitutional methods of achieving our social and economic objectives. It means we must abandon the bloody methods of revolution. It means that we must abandon the method of civil disobedience, non-cooperation and satyagraha. When there was no way left for constitutional methods for achieving economic and social objectives, there was a great deal of justification for unconstitutional methods. But where constitutional methods are open, there can be no justification for these unconstitutional methods. These methods are nothing but the Grammar of Anarchy and the sooner they are abandoned, the better for us. The second thing we must do is to observe the caution which John Stuart Mill has given to all who are interested in the maintenance of democracy, namely, not "to lay their liberties at the feet of even a great man, or to trust him with power which enable him to subvert their institutions". There is nothing wrong in being grateful to great men who have rendered life-long services to the country. But there are limits to gratefulness. As has been well said by the Irish Patriot Daniel O'Connel, No man can be grateful at the cost of his honour, no woman can be grateful at the cost of her chastity and no nation can be grateful at the cost of its liberty. This caution is far more necessary in the case of India than in the case of any other country. For in India, Bhakti or what may be called the path of devotion or hero-worship, plays a part in its politics unequalled in magnitude by the part it plays in the politics of any other country in the world. Bhakti in religion may be a road to the salvation of the soul. But in politics, Bhakti or hero-worship is a sure road to degradation and to eventual dictatorship. The third thing we must do is not to be content with mere political democracy. We must make our political democracy a social democracy as well. Political democracy cannot last unless there lies at the base of it social democracy. What does social democracy mean? It means a way of life which recognises liberty, equality and fraternity as the principles of life. These principles of liberty, equality and fraternity are not to be treated as separate items in a trinity. They form a union of trinity in the sense that to divorce one from the other is to defeat the very purpose of democracy. Liberty cannot be divorced from equality, equality cannot be divorced from liberty. Nor can liberty and equality be divorced from fraternity. Without equality, liberty would produce the supremacy of the few over the many. Equality without liberty would kill individual initiative. Without fraternity, liberty would produce the supremacy of the few over the many. Without fraternity, liberty and equality could not become a natural course of things. It would require a constable to enforce them. We must begin by acknowledging the fact that there is complete absence of two things in Indian society. One of these is equality. On the social plane, we have in India a society based on the principle of graded inequality. We have a society in which there are some who have immense wealth as against many who live in abject poverty. On January 26, 1950, we are going to enter into a life of contradictions. In politics we will have equality and in social and economic life we will have inequality. In politics, we will be recognising the principle of one man, one vote and one vote, one value. In our social and economic life, we shall, by reason of our social and economic structure, continue to deny the principle of one man, one value. How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions? How long shall we continue to deny equality in our social and economic life? If we continue to deny it for long, we will do so only by putting our political democracy in peril. We must remove this contradiction at the earliest possible moment or else those who suffer from inequality will blow up the structure of political democracy which this Assembly has so laboriously built up. The second thing we are wanting in is recognition of the principle of fraternity. What does fraternity mean? Fraternity means a sense of common brotherhood of all Indians of Indians being one people. It is the principle which gives unity and solidarity to social life. It is a difficult thing to achieve. How difficult it is, can be realised from the story related by James Bryce in his volume on American Commonwealth about the United States of America. The story is I propose to recount it in the words of Bryce himself: Some years ago the American Protestant Episcopal Church was occupied at its triennial Convention in revising its liturgy. It was thought desirable to introduce among the short sentence prayers a prayer for the whole people, and an eminent New England divine proposed the words `O Lord, bless our nation'. Accepted one afternoon, on the spur of the moment, the sentence was brought up next day for reconsideration, when so many objections were raised by the laity to the word nation' as importing too definite a recognition of national unity, that it was dropped, and instead there were adopted the words `O Lord, bless these United States." There was so little solidarity in the USA at the time when this incident occurred that the people of America did not think that they were a nation. If the people of the United States could not feel that they were a nation, how difficult it is for Indians to think that they are a nation? A great delusion I remember the days when politically minded Indians, resented the expression "the people of India". They preferred the expression "the Indian nation." I am of opinion that in believing that we are a nation, we are cherishing a great delusion. How can people divided into several thousands of castes be a nation? The sooner we realise that we are not as yet a nation in the social and psychological sense of the world, the better for us. For then only we shall realise the necessity of becoming a nation and seriously think of ways and means of realising the goal. The realisation of this goal is going to be very difficult far more difficult than it has been in the United States. The United States has no caste problem. In India there are castes. The castes are anti-national. In the first place because they bring about separation in social life. They are anti-national also because they generate jealousy and antipathy between caste and caste. But we must overcome all these difficulties if we wish to become a nation in reality. For fraternity can be a fact only when there is a nation. Without fraternity, equality and liberty will be no deeper than coats of paint. These are my reflections about the tasks that lie ahead of us. They may not be very pleasant to some. But there can be no gainsaying that political power in this country has too long been the monopoly of a few and the many are only beasts of burden, but also beasts of prey. This monopoly has not merely deprived them of their chance of betterment, it has sapped them of what may be called the significance of life. These down-trodden classes are tired of being governed. They are impatient to govern themselves. This urge for self-realisation in the down-trodden classes must not be allowed to devolve into a class struggle or class war. It would lead to a division of the House. That would indeed be a day of disaster. For, as has been well said by Abraham Lincoln, a House divided against itself cannot stand very long. Therefore the sooner room is made for the realisation of their aspiration, the better for the few, the better for the country, the better for the maintenance for its independence and the better for the continuance of its democratic structure. This can only be done by the establishment of equality and fraternity in all spheres of life. By independence, we have lost the excuse of blaming the British for anything going wrong. If hereafter things go wrong, we will have nobody to blame except ourselves. There is great danger of things going wrong. Times are fast changing. People including our own are being moved by new ideologies. They are getting tired of Government by the people. They are prepared to have Governments for the people and are indifferent whether it is Government of the people and by the people. If we wish to preserve the Constitution in which we have sought to enshrine the principle of Government of the people, for the people and by the people, let us resolve not to be tardy in the recognition of the evils that lie across our path and which induce people to prefer Government for the people to Government by the people, nor to be weak in our initiative to remove them. That is the only way to serve the country. I know of no better. Excerpts from the last speech by B.R Ambedkar to the Constituent Assembly on November 25, 1949. Harish Khare On June 12, 1975, the Allahabad High Court set aside the election of an incumbent powerful prime minister. It was a cataclysmic verdict. At the heart of the matter was the very fundamental requirement of a parliamentary democracy that no unequal advantage should accrue to any one candidate, group or party in an electoral contest. Though many historians since have thought that the Allahabad High Court judgment was excessive and disproportionate, it nonetheless set in motion a desire to make our electoral democracy a fair proposition. That quest remains only partially achieved. It may be worth recalling that our first general election was spread over four months, from October 1951 to February 1952; there was no code of conduct; the governments at the Centre and in the States carried on with their normal business; the Election Commission itself was a very limited affair. But no one doubted the fairness of the exercise; and, India achieved one of the primary benchmarks of a democracy the winners and the losers attested that the contest was fairly won or lost. But India was to change, from Nehrus India of 1952 to Indira's India of 1971. The political class had lost its post-Independence legitimacy; political parties were deemed as brutal instruments of a brutal pursuit of power; and, the political leaders including those who presided over the national seat of government were perceived as power-hungry, selfish and self-aggrandising. Democracy was no longer deemed a gentlemans game. Once Indira Gandhis election to the Lok Sabha from the Rae Bareli constituency in the March 1971 polls was set aside, the polity came to be deeply engaged with the idea of a level-playing field at the election time. What was lacking was an empowered referee, someone who will have yellow and red cards in his hip pocket and will have the courage and the guts to send an offending player off the field. It was not until an alchemist TN Seshan came to Nirvachan Sadan and discovered the Election Commissions karmic potential. The country applauded Seshan as he sought to enlarge the Commissions institutional autonomy, even if it meant taking on the political executive of the day. That search for autonomy and effectiveness remains a work in progress. Irrespective of its constitutional mandate and despite periodic support from the Supreme Court, the Election Commissions performance as an institution came to hinge critically on the quality of the leadership the three commissioners were able to provide. In a polity that was happily becoming more and more uncivil, more and more partisan and more and more cantankerous, the Election Commissioners till the other day pliant bureaucrats found themselves in an unaccustomed role that demanded an exacting neutrality and detachment. Not all Commissioners proved equal to the task. When a chief minister slyly suggested that because a chief election commissioner was named James Michael Lyngdoh he could not be a neutral umpire, the institutional prestige of the Commission was sufficiently sturdy to stare down such an insinuation. But the Commissions prestige was not enhanced when a former chief election commissioner chose to accept a partys nomination to the Rajya Sabha and then to become a Central minister. Every institution gets its mojo from the high priests who preside over it. So is the case at Nirvachan Sadan. Happily, the Commission has acquired sufficient momentum that the commissioners individual failings and weaknesses rarely impinge on the Commissions institutional image of a robust guardian of the integrity of the electoral process. This is a major democratic consolidation. Yet it needs to be remembered that the Election Commissions metamorphosis from a politicians lapdog to a pugnacious bulldog took place in the context of a weak political executive. When the political executive is weak or allows itself to become weakened by its own decency and doubts or internal dissensions, it becomes easier for the other institutions to assert, even attempt to overreach themselves. But no institutional equilibrium remains cast in stone; when the political power in society gets redistributed, institutions find themselves having to renegotiate their place and their efficacy. Since May 2014 when the electorate empowered a political party with an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha, the Constitutions institutions are engaged in a silent struggle over their space. It is in this context of a contest between institutions that the role of the Election Commission has become a cause for concern. The controversy over the EVMs is only the latest expression of this gathering disquiet. The Commission was duty-bound to speak up in defence of the EVMs, though it spoke up rather testily. Perhaps the losers are simply being sore losers. But there was something less than reassuring in its response to reports of malfunctioning of the EVMs in various BJP-ruled states. The Commission has put its faith in a certain technology; we should all be humble enough to understand that no technology is foolproof. If a doubt has arisen about the EVMs, the Commission has an obligation to go out of its way to put all doubts to rest. It is not so much the inviolability of the EVMs that has caused considerable disquiet among the various stakeholders; the rub rather is the perceived pusillanimity at Nirvachan Sadan. For instance, in the recent Uttar Pradesh Vidhan Sabha elections, the Commission was seen as both hapless and helpless in the face of numerous saffron excesses. The challenge before the Commission is to be vigilant and watchful against the collusion at the lower level of civil and police bureaucracy in favour of the ruling party of the day. Such collusion is a perennial possibility just as it is a constant threat to the very idea of a level-playing field. All political parties end up trying to use unfair means; it is the Commissions job to create the necessary conditions and caveats to prevent unfairness. As in the past, the present Commissions working, vigour and vitality would be deeply contingent upon the Commissioners personal rectitude and fortitude, individual sense of vulnerability and strength. It is an imperceptible calculus no outsider can ever be in a position to make a fair assessment of how wholesomely a decision got made at Nirvachan Sadan. The benefit of the doubt must always go to the Commission. And this very institutional protocol imposes on the Commission and its authorised custodians an obligation to assure the polity that it does not feel itself intimidated by the authority of the day. Sushil Manav Tribune News Service Chandigarh, April 13 The Haryana Roadways employees union leaders on Thursday announced to withdraw their strike forthwith after the state government accepted their demands. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) Haryana Transport Minister Krishan Panwar said the government has agreed to withdraw its new transport policy. Earlier, two rounds of meeting between the government and roadways unions failed to end the deadlock over the issue of private permits. The government had offered to review its Stage Carrier Permit policy to issue permits to private buses, but the roadways unions were adamant on complete scrapping of the policy. Transport Minister Krishan Panwar, ACS (Transport ) SS Dhillon and CMs Principal Secretary Rajesh Khullar represented the government. Representatives of various roadways unions participated in the talks. Employees went on a flash strike on Monday demanding scrapping of the policy under which permits were given to private operators. The strike was called off by the eight unions of the Haryana Roadways this evening, giving relief to commuters who were badly affected after public buses stopped plying on their regular routes. Buckling under pressure, the state government said it would frame a new transport policy in which suggestions of the Regional Transport Authority (RTA) and office-bearers of state roadways employees unions would be included after discussions. The decision to call of the strike came after marathon talks held between the unions leaders and state government here. "The government has decided to take back the policy under which permits were given to private operators," Haryana Roadways Workers Union president Sarbat Singh Punia said. "Our demand has been met and we have decided to call off the strike with immediate effect," he said. Panwar also told reporters here that the government has decided to revoke the decision under which 120 roadways employees had been suspended. The Stage Carriage Permit Scheme drafted by the Haryana government was recently challenged by a private operator in the Punjab and Haryana High Court, he said. The state government would file an affidavit in the High Court to withdraw the case related to scheme (policy) of 2016-17 which is pending in the court, Panwar said. "Secretary Transport will file an affidavit before the High Court stating that the state government wants to withdraw the 2016 scheme (transport policy) and intends to bring a new scheme," he said. When asked if the government had buckled under pressure of the Roadways unions, Panwar said "that is not the case. The step has been taken in public interest". However, when asked if the government decided to scrap the existing transport policy because it was not in the interest of the public, he said, "Sometimes, some lacunae come to the fore afterwards because of which we have taken this step." "It won't be fair to say that bureaucrats had not formed a good policy earlier, but there is always room to better it," he said to another question. The minister said that 853 private buses were operating on 273 routes in the state and they would continue to ply. He said the permit holders would have to allow persons of 39 categories such as freedom fighters and students, who have been granted the facility of free or discounted travel in state Roadways buses. Over 13 lakh passengers travel in the state Roadways buses daily. About 4,200 buses, which include luxury Volvo bus service, had come to a halt in the state due to the strike. With PTI inputs New Delhi, Apr 13 (IBNS): Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be visiting Nagpur on Friday to celebrate the occasion of Ambedkar Jayanti. In a series of tweets from his Twitter Account the Prime Minister said, I am extremely honoured to be visiting Nagpur tomorrow, on the very special occasion of Ambedkar Jayanti In Nagpur, I will pray at Deekshabhoomi, a holy spot that is very closely associated with Dr. Ambedkar. " "A series of development projects are going to be inaugurated in Nagpur tomorrow, which will have a positive impact on people's lives," Modi posted. The development projects include IIIT, IIM and AIIMS and launch of Koradi Thermal Power Station. He will also address a public meeting. "Will join culmination of the DigiDhan Mela, where I will present awards to Mega Draw winners of Lucky Grahak Yojana and DigiDhan Vyapar Yojna. We are unwavering in our efforts towards creating a strong, prosperous and inclusive India of Dr. Ambedkars dreams," said the PM. Vishal Joshi Tribune News Service Kurukshetra, April 13 The National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) wants the Centre to revive Chamar Regiment in the Indian army to boost morale of Scheduled Castes. Early this year, three ex-servicemen from Haryana, all 95 years of age, had filed a petition before the Commission to reconstitute Chamar Regiment for recruitment of Scheduled Castes youths in the army. Three persons Jogi Ram from Bhiwani Chunni Lal from Mahendragarh and Dharma Singh from Sonepat had furnished documentary evidences to the NCSC of them serving in the Chamar Regiment between 1943 and 1946. Ishwar Singh, member of the NCSC, told The Tribune today it was caste discriminatory and NCSC had written to the Union Defence Minister last month to look into the issue. During the World War II in 1943, the then British government in India had constituted Chamar Regiment with Jabalpur as its headquarters. Chamar Regiment ceased to exist after three years of its formation. As at that time untouchability was widely practised in the country, the regiment was apparently disbanded due to prevalent caste biases, said Singh. He said as there was no provision of job reservation policy in the army, the socially weaker sections continue to be deprived of their rights. The SC community constitutes insignificant part of the Indian army, including the officer ranks, he said. The regiment dedicated to socially marginalised sections should be formed as there is no job reservation in the armed forces. The step will help improving financial status of SCs and lead to their confidence building. After independence, trend of Jat Regiment, Sikh Regiment, Maratha Regiment, etc., continued on the basis of caste and religion. But only Chamar Regiment was disbanded. The Centre should consider the demand for building confidence among the socially marginalised class, said Singh. He said there were numerous evidences to buttress the historical fact about an army regiment exclusive of SCs. Research scholar of JNU, Satnam Singh has written a book on the role Chamar Regiment. Also in 2011, senior Janata Dal (U) leader Raghuvansh Prasad Singh had raised the issue in the Lok Sabha of formation of the regiment, said the NCSC member. Majid Jahangir Tribune News Service Srinagar, April 13 The CRPFhas identified the area where its men were heckled by unidentified youth during the bypoll on Sunday in Budgam district. The CRPF has formally lodged a complaint with the police about the assault. A video had emerged in the social media after the bypoll in the Srinagar Lok Sabha constituency, showing unidentified protesters heckling, slapping and kicking CRPF men carrying EVMs in Budgam district. The district had witnessed the worst ever violence on the polling day that left seven protesters dead in forces action. We have identified the CRPF men in the video and the place where they were heckled, said Inspector General, CRPF, Ravideep Singh Sahi. The incident took place at Kralpora in Chadoora. We have lodged a complaint at the Chadoora police station and legal action will be taken against those who assaulted the CRPF men deployed on poll duty. We are sure the attackers will be identified by the police and action will be taken. In the raw video, CRPF men were seen showing restraint and not reacting when being heckled by unidentified youth, who were shouting pro-separatists and anti-India slogans. Some of the CRPF men were forced to shout Go India, Go back slogan. The video was uploaded on the social media after the Internet services were restored on Tuesday evening. There were, however, some youths in the crowd who asked the attackers not to target the security personnel and allow them a safe passage. Nearly 80 CRPF men were injured on April 9 during the clashes in Budgam, said another officer of the paramilitary force. On the polling day on Sunday, 80 of our jawans were injured and two of them had to be airlifted from Chadoora. The cavalcade of the CRPF IG was also pelted with stones but we showed the maximum restraint, he said. Samaan Lateef Tribune News Service Srinagar, April 13 Nearly 50 per cent of the polling staff was absconding till Wednesday afternoon in violence-hit Budgam, indicating their fear to be a part of the election process after the violence during bypoll in the Srinagar constituency on April 9. Officials deputed for the poll duty in Budgam, where repoll at 38 polling stations took place on Thursday, had not reported to their duties. However, after assurance of security and threat of suspension by the government, the officials showed up in the evening. Imran Nazir, an official, was deployed in the Chadoora area of Budgam for poll duty on Sunday. A night before, Nazir could hear the sound of stones rolling on the rooftop of the school housing the polling station. The sound faded away immediately but he had to spend the whole night with guilt of doing the poll duty. As the dawn broke, angry youth started lining up near the polling station. Early morning some youth came to the polling station and asked us to leave, but we resisted, Nazir said. With the day growing warmer, the number of angry youth increased and added fuel to the situation. They barged into the polling station and took away the voting machines, he said. At least 25 EVMs were broken by youth in Chadoora, where violence necessitated the repoll at 16 polling stations. Eight civilian protesters were killed and over 200 injured in firing by security forces in the Srinagar-Budgam constituency on Sunday. He left the polling station and took refuge in the Chadoora police station, where from they were shifted to their homes. Nazir said he was again called for duty on Thursday but refused to attend it. I was feeling guilty of being part of a process to legitimise civilian killings, he said. Another official, Wasim Ahmad, who was posted in Beerwah, said the government was forcing them to risk their lives for conducting elections. Fortunately, the stone-throwers only broke the EVMs and gave us safe passage, he said. Ahmad said the ECI should not have held polls in Kashmir, where peace is fragile. You cant kill civilians and then go on to legitimise your activities by holding elections, he said. Budgam ADC Anshul Garg said there was some communication gap which led to the delay in reporting of officials for poll duty. Almost all the officials reported their duties on Wednesday evening, Garg said. Simran Sodhi Tribune News Service New Delhi, April 13 India and Pakistan today hardened their stance on the death sentence awarded to Kulbhushan Jadhav. Pakistan alleges he is an Indian spy, while India maintains he is innocent. India reiterated that if Pakistan went ahead with the death sentence, it would amount to a pre-meditated murder. The Ministry of External Affairs said it has no information on Jadhavs location in Pakistan or his condition, noting that it was in touch with the government there on this immensely important issue. In Islamabad, top military generals held a meeting and decided there would be no compromise on the death sentence awarded to Jadhav. Sources say India is exploring options, both soft and hard, for ensuring that Jadhav is brought back home. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) The rift within Pakistan between the civilian government headed by PM Nawaz Sharif and Army Chief Gen Qamar Bajwa is also evident. Rawalpindi barracks seem to have taken the initiative and are leading the discourse on the issue. Todays corps commanders conference in Islamabad was presided over by Gen Bajwa, the militarys media wing Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said.The generals were briefed about Jadhav and it was concluded that no compromise shall be made on such anti-state acts, the statement said. The Ministry of External Affairs put the ball firmly in Pakistans court, calling in question the legality of the sentence and in essence harping on two facts. One: If Jadhav was indeed a spy, why would he be carrying an Indian passport ? Two: Pakistans obstinate insistence to not grant India consular access violates international norms and raises questions on the authenticity of charges. Consular access is usually expeditiously granted, MEA spokesperson Gopal Baglay said. We need to verify how this gentleman got to Pakistan; we dont know the circumstances of his presence in Pakistan. For that we need to meet him which is part of international law, he added. Meanwhile, Pakistan claimed foreign spy agencies, may have trapped and then abducted Lt Col Muhammad Habib Zahir who disappeared on April 6 from Lumbini, a Buddhist pilgrimage site near India's border town of Sonauli. Pakistan was in touch with Nepal to trace him. Rajmeet Singh Tribune News Service Chandigarh, April 13 Hardening his stand against Canadas Defence Minister Harjit Singh Sajjan, whom he had dubbed a Khalistani sympathiser on Wednesday, Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh today said not only Sajjan but Canadas other Sikh ministers and MPs including Navdeep Bains, Amarjit Sohi, Sukh Dhaliwal, Darshan Kang, Raj Grewal, Harinder Malhi, Ruby Sahota and Randeep Sarai were known for their pro-Khalistan leanings. Canada, meanwhile, termed Capt Amarinders comment that five ministers in the Justin Trudeau government, including Sajjan, were Khalistani sympathisers as disappointing and inaccurate. Rejecting Canadas defence, Capt Amarinder said he stood by his principled stand and would not meet any Khalistani sympathiser. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) The CM seems to have politically scored over the Aam Aadmi Party, the main Opposition party, whom he had during electioneering accused of aligning with radical Sikh groups. Reacting sharply, AAP said the CM has not only insulted Sajjan, but Sikhs in particular, who have proved their mettle in foreign lands. The CM said Sajjan was welcome to attend conferences in Punjab and visit the Golden Temple but he would not play host to him as he had information that like his father Kundan Sajjan, a board member of the World Sikh Organisation, he too was sympathetic to the Khalistan cause. "The state government will provide security to the minister and ensure that he is treated as per the protocol," Amarinder said. He lashed out at AAP and Dal Khalsa for attacking him on the issue, accusing the two of playing into the hands of forces inimical to India. He said his sole concern was the future of Punjab that had lost 35,000 innocent lives during militancy. The CM said he had never believed in public posturing and "from breaking away from the Congress in the wake of Operation Bluestar to resigning from the Lok Sabha over the SYL issue," he had only upheld values to protect the interests of Punjab and its people. The CM said AAP's criticism only proved that its national convener Arvind Kejriwals had a soft corner for Khalistanis. "Kejriwal had shown his extremist leanings by residing in the house of a former Khalistan Commando Force (KCF) militant during one of his election tours," Amarinder pointed out. QUOTES The CM should not have let a personal incident cloud his judgement and refrained from making disparaging remarks against Sajjan and other Punjabi representatives in Canadian parliament. Sukhbir Badal, SAD The CM has not only insulted the Canadian Defence Minister, but Punjabis in general and Sikhs in particular, who have proved their mettle in foreign lands, not only in business but in the political arena too. Sukhpal S Khaira, AAP Mumbai, April 13 A special court to hear cases under the PMLA here issued a non-bailable warrant (NBW) against controversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naik today in connection with a money-laundering case. The Enforcement Directorate sought the NBW against Naik, saying that the preacher has not joined the investigation so far. The central probe agency, which moved the court earlier this week, had said that although Naik was served summons repeatedly, he had failed to appear before it. It said Naik needed to be questioned in connection with the money laundering. The ED registered a criminal case against Naik and others last December after taking cognisance of an NIA complaint under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. The ED is looking into the charges of alleged illegal funds laundered by the accused in the case and the subsequent proceeds of crime thus generated. Naik, 51, who is said to be staying in Saudi Arabia to evade arrest after some perpetrators of the Dhaka terror strike last year claimed they were inspired by him, has been booked along with unnamed Islamic Research Foundation (IRF) officials under section 153-A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion and doing acts prejudicial to the maintenance of harmony) of the IPC, besides various sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). PTI Yash Goyal Dholpur, April 13 The ruling BJP on Thursday wrested the crucial Dholpur Assembly seat as Shobharani Kushwaha won by a margin of 38,673 votes against Congress five time MLA BL Sharma in the bypoll which was held on April 9. Shobharani, wife of convicted former BSP MLA BL Kushwaha, got over 91,548 votes while Congress candidate Sharma secured 52,875 votes. mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:EN-US;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA'>91,548 votesvotes. Thirteen candidates deposits would be forfeited by the Election Commission. The BSP did not field its candidate for the bypoll. The poll battle was considered to be neck and neck but it proved false as the BJP secured a landslide victory. With this success, the BJP raised its tally of MLAs in the Rajasthan Legislative Assembly to 161. The by-election was necessitated following the conviction of BSP MLA BL Kushwaha in a murder case. It is a victory of development of Raje governments 41 month rule and Modi governments pro-poor schemes, BJP state president Ashok Parnami told a press conference in Jaipur. BJP contested this bypoll on the plank of development issue and avoided caste-based politics. Electors have expressed their faith and confidence in Rajes governance, Parnami said. Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje had been camping at her Raj Vilas Palace since March 31 and even stayed back on the polling day. Despite Election Commissions direction the chief minister stayed put due to a sprain in her leg on the last day of campaigning when she held a road show. A medical board constituted by the chief electoral officer had also confirmed that the injury rendered her immobile for next three days at least. Raje is still in Dholpur. Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines were used for the first time in the constituency. As many as 77.14 per cent of 1.91 lakh voters had exercised their franchise in the bypoll. BJP workers and leaders were seen celebrating the victory by bursting fire crackers and smearing gulal on each other at the BJP headquarters in Jaipur and Dholpur. Addressing a huge crowd of party supporters at her Raj Vilas Palace, Raje said it is a victory of Dholpur Pariwar. In 1985 I had a victory margin of 24,000 votes defeating Congress BL Sharma, now it is a historic victory after 30 years when Shobharani won by margin of 38,673 votes, she said. Now 20 months are left in my second term of rule and every developmental work would be done in Dholpur, she assured. An overwhelmed Shobharani, who was hugged by Raje at her entrance gate of the palace, said, Everyone in the party supported me. I will work for the development of Dholpur. Bengaluru, April 13 The ruling Congress in Karnataka on Thursday retained both the Assembly seats of Nanjangud and Gundlupet where the bypolls were held on Sunday. Congress Kalale N Keshavamurthy defeated his nearest rival V Srinivas Prasad (BJP) by over 21,000 votes in Nanjangud. In Gundlupet, Geetha Mahadevaprasad (Congress) trounced BJPs C S Niranjan Kumar by over 10,000 votes, an election official said. Both the seats were held by the Congress. With the Assembly polls slated to be held in about a year, the Congress and the BJP had played for heavy stakes in the bypolls. The by-elections were necessitated in Gundulpet following the death of Cooperation Minister Mahadevaprasad while in Nanjangud, it was caused by the resignation of Srinivas Prasad as Congress MLA after he was dropped from the ministry. Srinivas had switched over to the BJP, while Keshavamurthy had contested the 2013 Assembly polls on a JD(S) ticket. Geeta is the widow of Mahadeva Prasad. Remaining neutral, former Prime Minister HD Devegowda- led JDS had not fielded its candidates. PTI Srinagar, Apr 13 (IBNS): Authorities have ordered to resume services of broadband and the mobile internet immediately after the re-polling was over in 38 polling stations of Budgam district in Srinagar Parliamentary constituency on Thursday. The services were snapped since April 8 midnight as authorities feared that rumour mongering on social media networks could trigger violence during polls which was held on April 9. Broadband internet services was again suspended on Thursday on security grounds in view of the re-poll in 38 polling stations of Budgam district in Srinagar parliamentary constituency. The service have been resumed in the evening. Despite snapping of internet services in the Valley, eight protesters were killed due to massive violence in Budgam district during polling on Sunday. (Reporting by Saleem Iqbal Qadri) New Delhi, April 13 The Supreme Court on Thursday sought responses from the Centre and the Election Commission of India (ECI) on a plea filed by the BSP challenging the use of EVMs without paper trail. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) A Bench headed by Justice J Chelameswar issued notices to the government and the ECI and asked them to respond to the plea by May 8, the next date of hearing. During the hearing, senior advocate P Chidambaram, appearing for the BSP, told the Bench that use of EVMs without voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) in the elections creates a serious doubt about the accuracy of voting and paper trail was required so that a voter can get a feedback of the vote cast by him. He said that to assure accuracy in the voting process, paper trail is needed as there were chances of tampering with EVMs as there were reports that both the hardware and software of these machines are vulnerable. There is no way that a voter can verify as to whether the vote cast by him has gone to the right candidate. Without a paper trail, there is no way to verify it. In EVMs, a voter is only pressing the button and he does not know whether the machine is recording his voting correctly or not, he said. At the fag end of the hearing, senior advocate Kapil Sibal told the apex court that Congress party also wants to intervene in the matter. Nowhere in the world, except in one country, these EVMs are being used, Sibal said, adding, Every technology can be hacked and that is our concern. PTI Satya Prakash Tribune News Service New Delhi, April 13 Suspended for keeping a beard in violation of service rules, a Maharashtra policeman on Thursday turned down the Supreme Courts offer to allow him to resume his service on sympathetic grounds and his petition would be decided in due course. We feel sorry for you. Why dont you join, the CJI asked his lawyer Mohammed Irshad Hanif who wanted an early hearing of the case. Hanif who represented the Maharashtra Reserve Police Force cop Zahiroddin Shamsoddin Bedade rejected the top courts offer to let him work for now. There is no concept of a temporary beard in Islam, Hanif told the bench which rejected his prayer for an early hearing. The policeman was initially allowed to sport a beard, provided it was trimmed and kept neat and tidy. However, the permission was later withdrawn by the commandant as it was against the rules. Later, disciplinary proceedings were initiated against him. The Bombay High Court had on December 12, 2012, rejected his plea on the ground that the force was a secular organisation and discipline required him to stick to the secular rules. The High Court ruled that keeping a beard was not a fundamental right as it was not a fundamental tenet of Islam. Bedade challenged the high courts order in the top court, which had stayed the disciplinary proceedings against him in Jan 2013. The case has been pending since then. His counsel had cited a 1989 circular for the armed forces to argue that the rules spoke of permitting a beard provided the person kept it for the rest of his service. The service rules were aimed at ensuring that the identity of servicemen remains the same throughout the service. His lawyer also argued that keeping a beard was obligatory under Islam. Nikhila Pant Dhawan Tribune News Service Talwandi Sabo, April 13 Leaders of the Akali Dal today challenged Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh to fulfil the vows he had taken holding a gutka in his hands. Addressing the partys Baisakhi conference here, SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal accused the Congress of winning the elections on the basis of pure lies and false promises, while Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal motivated the party cadre to consider the defeat as hot air and rise with it. Cornering the government on desecration of Guru Granth Sahib, Sukhbir said before the elections, the SAD-BJP government was accused of masterminding such incidents. If our party was doing it, why are such cases still coming up? Challenging the Congress government to arrest SAD leaders it accuse of being involved in drug trade, Sukhbir said the Congress had claimed that it would end drug menace in a month. The government is about to complete one month and now they are saying that drugs are smuggled from Pakistan. Where are the jobs that they had promised for the youth of Punjab? he asked. Sukhbir called the Congress debt waiver plan another false promise. Badal skips rally Muktsar: Former CM Parkash Singh Badal skipped SADs Baisakhi rally today. Instead, he visited the houses of party activists in Lambi. The former CM, who had recently fractured a rib, would spend most of the time by commuting between his Badal village residence and familys Balasar farmhouse in Haryana, till he gets fit. TNS Tribune News Service Chandigarh, April 13 Taking on Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh over his refusal to meet Canadian Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan citing the latters alleged Khalistani links, AAP today claimed that the CM had attended a function organised by alleged Khalistani sympathisers in Canada in May 2005. AAP announced that it would organise a welcome function for Sajjan during his forthcoming visit to the state. HS Phoolka, Leader of Opposition, and senior AAP leader posted a photo of Amarinder speaking from a stage in Canada with Khalistan Jindabad slogan painted prominently in the background on Twitter. Phoolka said the CM had no locus standi to question Sajjans links with anyone when he himself had attended a function organised by Khalistani leaders. Though Amarinder had clarified that he was not aware of the banner in the background, Phoolka sought an explanation from him. Phoolka said the CM had insulted a Sikh leader who rose to the rank of Defence Minister of a powerful and developed country. He said Captains refusal to meet him was deplorable as Sajjan was visiting the state to pay obeisance at the Golden Temple. Sukhpal Singh Khaira, AAP chief whip, said the party would felicitate the Canadian minister as he represented Sikhs in Canada and it was an honour not just for Sikhs but for the entire Punjabi community. He said: Amarinder outburst against Sajjan proves that he is vindictive towards him. He (CM) wanted to take revenge from NRIs in Canada as they did not welcome him during his pre-poll visit there. CMs remark deplorable: Sukhbir Chandigarh: Terming Amarinders remark as irresponsible, SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal has asked Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh to be large-hearted and not petty when dealing with Sajjan. In a statement issued on Thursday, Sukhbir said Amarinder should rather give him as much honour as the dignitary deserved. SAD MP Prem Singh Chandumajra said the CMs statement was driven by his ego. Sajjan is not only a Canadian defence minister but a symbol of Punjabi diaspora, particularly Sikhs, who have made the community proud with their achievements in their respective countries, said the MP. TNS Will welcome him: SGPC Amritsar: Sikh leaders termed the CMs remark terming Canadian Defence Minister Harjit Singh Sajjan a Khalistani sympathiser as uncalled for. SGPC chief Kirpal Singh Badungar said the SGPC would accord a befitting welcome to amritdhari Sajjan on his visit to the Golden Temple. Former SAD general secretary Manjit Singh Calcutta said, In case the CM does not welcome the Minister it will hurt the sentiments of the community. TNS Chandigarh, April 13 Devotees across Punjab and Haryana on Thursday thronged gurdwaras, including Golden Temple at Amritsar, to mark the festival of Baisakhi which is being celebrated with joy and enthusiasm. For the predominant Sikh population of Punjab, Baisakhi is a big festival as it marks the foundation day of Khalsa panth or Sikh order by tenth Sikh Guru, Gobind Singh. Farmers are jubilant over the festival as for them it marks the start of harvest season. The Sikh community celebrated Baisakhi by participating in the special prayer meets and Baisakhi processions. In Amritsar, several devotees paid obeisance in the sanctum sanctorum of Golden Temple. In the villages of Punjab and Haryana, cries of Jatta aayi Baisakhi reverberated in the skies as gaily-dressed men and women moved towards the fields to celebrate the occasion. In some villages, performance of traditional folk dance bhangra and gidda was performed by men and women respectively. Taking an early bath in ponds or rivers, people visited gurdwaras to express gratitude to the Almighty for the bountiful harvest and to pray for prosperity and good times in future. At several places in Punjab colourful Baisakhi fairs were also organized to celebrate the day. People participated in these fairs with a lot of enthusiasm. After Ardas (prayer as per Sikh rituals) and distribution of Karah Parshad (sweet pudding), langar (community kitchen) was served. People greeted friends and relatives by exchanging a box of sweets or other traditional gifts. The Khalsa Panth was founded in Anandpur Sahib in 1699. PTI Chandigarh, April 12 Punjab CM Capt Amarinder Singh today said he would not meet Canadian Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan during the latters visit to India later this month. In an interview with a Delhi-based TV channel, he dubbed Sajjan as a Khalistan sympathiser. The CM claimed five ministers in the Trudeau government were Khalistanis and would have truck with neither. These Khalistani sympathisers had last year prevailed upon the authorities to block my entry into Canada. I only wanted to meet my Punjabi brethren there, he said. In protest, Amarinder had written a letter to the Canadian PM and later refused to meet the Canadian High Commissioner in India. TNS (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) Balwant Garg Tribune News Service Talwandi Sabo, April 13 Finance Minister Manpreet Badal today asked the people to have faith in the government and give three more months for fulfilling its promise of farm debt waiver and eradication of drugs menace. Addressing the Congress political conference here today, Manpreet said the government was working on a roadmap to revive the states economy and finding a solution to the crippling problem of farm debt. The state is in a deep economic crisis as it has been plundered ruthlessly during the 10-year regime of the SAD-BJP. I am telling you about this harsh reality without any exaggeration under the solemn oath standing close to the Takht Damdama Sahib, he said. After three months, the debt-ridden farmers in Punjab would get a better deal than what the farmers in Uttar Pradesh have got, he said. The UP Government has announced to waive Rs 1 lakh loan of all farmers in the state. Lal Singh, former Finance Minister, said the Akali-BJP government had left the state under a mammoth debt of Rs 1.85 lakh crore. At the end of the Congress previous tenure in February 2007, the states debt was Rs 51,155 crore, he said. On the drugs menace, Manpreet said the STF was working overtime, but since this scourge had deep roots in the state, it needed more time to wipe it out completely. He said the government would soon pass a strong and effective Lokpal Bill with a view to bringing more transparency and accountability in governance. Even the Chief Minister and his team would also fall under its ambit. Hoping for an out-of-court settlement on the SYL issue, Manpreet said Punjabs case was not represented appropriately in the apex court. With the intervention of the Prime Minister, we are hopeful of an amicable settlement of the matter, he said. Manpreet said a large number of public assets were mortgaged with banks and other financial institutions and for the next several years, the entire income of the state would not be sufficient enough to repay those debts. Advocating subsidised power supply to the industry, he said the Chief Minister was working to propel the economy of the state by inviting major industrial houses to set up their ventures in Punjab. In three days, the CM had met representatives of 27 business houses in Mumbai to evince their interests to be a part of the states economy, Manpreet added. MR. A. Usaf Ali, retired Indian Civil Servant in England, gave a lecture at the School of Oriental Studies, London, on the "Importance of Hindustani" and urged the claims, linguistic and tradition, of the combined languages of Urdu and Hindi which was spoken by no less than 136 millions of people. Linguistically he said Hindustani had a most interesting history and sociologically it represented many deficient social, customs and circles of ideas. It had, he said, many interesting features as language and literature as it was flexible and growing daily by a liberal addition of foreign words and rapidly assimilating them. After explaining the literary wealth of Hindustani, Mr. Usaf Ali pleaded for a deeper study not only of the structure of the language but of the ideas, the collecting psychology and social systems of the speakers. Dakar, April 13 A fire ripped through makeshift shelters at a Muslim religious retreat in Senegal, killing at least 22 people and triggering a stampede, firefighters said on Thursday. The blaze broke out on Wednesday as worshippers gathered in the town of Medina Gounass in the southeastern region of Tambacounda, a senior official with the firefighting service said. The cause was as yet unknown, the official said. Images of billowing clouds of smoke, the charred corpses of animals and devastation at the site circulated online, testifying to the fire's impact. While some victims were badly burnt, others were hurt in the panicked stampede triggered by the blaze, the firefighter added. Around 20 of the injured are in a serious state and are being treated at the regional hospital in Tambacounda city, around 80 km away. The fire ripped through straw shelters constructed for the multi-day event, according to Senegal's local press, allowing it spread rapidly through an open-air gathering packed with people. Senegalese Muslims gather in their hundreds, even thousands, to worship at the site every year, and pilgrims were weighed down with food and luggage, the local press reported. A similar incident at the same site in 2010 caused the deaths of six people and several injuries, Le Quotidien newspaper reported. Senegal's poor record on fire safety was also thrown into the spotlight in 2013 when a fire in a Koranic school killed nine children, triggering an outcry and calls for tighter regulation. AFP New York, Apr 13(Just Earth News): In the wake of yet another dire turn in the Syrian crisis, the United States and the Russian Federation amust find a way to work togethera to stabilize the situation and support the political process, the United Nations envoy for the war-torn country told the Security Council on Wednesday. In his briefing, Staffan de Mistura, the UN Special Envoy for Syria added that last weeks reported chemical weapons attack, the subsequent airstrikes by the US and intensified fighting on the ground have put the fragile peace process is in grave danger. This is a time for clear-thinking, strategy, imagination, cooperation, said de Mistura. We must all resolve that the time has come where the intra-Syrian talks move beyond preparatory discussions and into the real heart of the matter, across all four baskets, to secure a meaningful negotiated transition package, he added. Prior to the reported chemical attack in Khan Shaykhun area of Idlib, modest but incremental progress were made, the UN envoy noted, highlighting that though there no breakthroughs, there were also no breakdowns. The most recent round of talks, facilitated by the UN in Geneva, wrapped up two weeks ago. However, the reported attack and subsequent events have placed the country between two paths: one leading more death, destruction and regional and international divisions; and the other of real de-escalation and ceasefire, added de Mistura. He informed the 15-member Security Council of his appeals to Russia, Turkey and Iran the guarantors of the Astana ceasefire and urged all with influence over the parties to the conflict to restore the credibility of the ceasefire, and to ensure that the UN can reach the millions who are trapped in besieged and other hard to reach areas. The Security Council briefing comes as the US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson visits Moscow. Hailing the visit and the discussions, de Mistura called on both the US and Russia the co-Chairs of the International Syria Support Group (ISSG) to recognize their common interests and responsibilities and find a way to work together to stabilize the situation, in a deliberate, realistic and concerted way, in support of the political process. The ISSG established respective taskforces on humanitarian aid delivery and a wider ceasefire that have been meeting separately since early 2016 on a way forward in the crisis. In addition to Russia and the US (the co-chairs of the taskforces), the ISSG also comprises the UN, the Arab League, the European Union and 16 other countries. Concluding his briefing, the UN Special Envoy reiterated that there are no military solutions to the strife in the war-ravaged country. You have heard it countless times, but I will say it again: there can only be a political solution to this bloody conflict [] regardless of what some say or believe, he expressed, noting that this is what Syrians from all walks of life also say and something that the Security Council had agreed upon. So, let us use this moment of crisis and it is a moment of crisis as a watershed and an opportunity perhaps for a new level of seriousness in the search for a political solution. UN Photo/Manuel Elias Source: www.justearthnews.com Seoul/Pyongyang, April 13 South Korea said on Thursday it believed it would be consulted by the US before any possible pre-emptive US strike against Pyongyang and China urged the North to halt its nuclear programme in exchange for greater protection from Beijing. With a US aircraft carrier group steaming to the area, tensions on the Korean peninsula grew this week amid concern that the reclusive North could soon conduct its sixth nuclear test or more missile launches in defiance of United Nations sanctions. China, North Koreas sole major ally and benefactor, has called for a peaceful resolution after a sharp rise in rhetoric between the United States and Pyongyang. On Thursday, an influential state-backed Chinese newspaper said the best option for North Korea and its leader Kim Jong Un was to give up its nuclear programme. As soon as North Korea complies with Chinas declared advice and suspends nuclear activities ... China will actively work to protect the security of a denuclearised North Korean nation and regime, said an editorial in the Global Times, which is published by the Communist partys Peoples Daily. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe underscored fears about possible threats from North Korea, telling parliament in Tokyo that Pyongyang could have the capacity to deliver missiles equipped with sarin nerve gas. While US President Donald Trump has put North Korea on notice that he wont tolerate provocative actions by the North, US officials have said his administration was focusing its strategy on tougher economic sanctions. Trump has diverted the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier group towards the Korean peninsula, which could take more than a week to arrive, in a show of force aimed at deterring North Korea from conducting another nuclear test or launching more missiles to coincide with major commemorative events. The possibility of US military action against North Korea in response to such tests gained traction after the US Navy fired 59 Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian airfield last week in response to a deadly gas attack. South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se said he believed Washington would consult Seoul if it was considering a pre-emptive strike against the North. Under the South Korea-US alliance, any important measure on the North is taken under consultation with the South Korea government and it will continue in the future, Yun told a parliamentary hearing. A Washington-based think tank that monitors North Korea, 38 North, said satellite images taken on Wednesday showed continued activity around the Norths Punggye-ri nuclear test site on the east coast that showed it was ready for a new test. South Korean officials said on Thursday there were no new signs to indicate a North Korean nuclear test was more likely, although they also said the North has maintained a state of readiness to conduct such a test at any time. Day of the Sun Around 200 foreign journalists gathered in Pyongyang for North Koreas biggest national day, the Day of the Sun, were taken to what was billed by officials as a big and important event early on Thursday. It turned out to be the opening of a new street in the centre of the capital, attended by Kim. North Korea marks the 105th anniversary of the birth of state founder Kim Il Sung on Saturday. In 2012, it tried but failed to launch a long-range rocket carrying a satellite to mark the date and tested a newly developed intermediate-range missile last year. North Koreas official KCNA news agency reported early on Thursday that Kim Jong Un had guided training of the armys special operation forces jumping from aircraft. Watching the brave combatants mercilessly blow up the enemy targets, he said with pleasure that the commanding officers made correct decisions, adding those combatants carrying out their duties independently and pro-actively were reminiscent of fierce tigers crossing the mountain ranges in the southern half, KCNA reported. On Tuesday, North Korea warned of a nuclear attack on the United States at any sign of American aggression. The North is technically at war with the United States and South Korea after the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce and not a peace treaty. The North regularly threatens to destroy both countries. US officials said Trump was considering tougher sanctions that could possibly include an oil embargo, banning North Koreas airline, intercepting cargo ships, and punishing Chinese banks doing business with Pyongyang. Theres a whole host of things that are possible, all the way up to whats essentially a trade quarantine on North Korea, one official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters in Washington on Wednesday. Customs data in Beijing on Thursday showed that Chinas coal imports from North Korea plunged 51.6 percent in the first three months in 2017 from a year ago. China suspended issuing permits for importing coal from North Korea on Feb. 18 as part of its efforts to implement UN sanctions against Pyongyang. Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke by telephone on Wednesday, just days after they met in the US for the first time, underscoring the sense of urgency about North Korea. Trump said on Twitter his call with Xi was a very good discussion of the menace of North Korea. He said later on Wednesday the United States was prepared to tackle the crisis without China if necessary. Reuters Lahore, April 13 A 45-year-old Pakistani man has been arrested here for running an international child pornography racket online for which he exploited 25 children on the pretext of imparting them computer education, officials said, calling it a first-of-its-kind scandal in the country. We have arrested Saadat Amin, 45, from Sargodha district of Punjab province on the charges of selling child pornography on Internet, Federal Investigation Agency cyber crime wing Lahore chief Shahid Hasan said. He said the FIA has taken action after receiving a letter from the Norwegian embassy that its police had arrested a man James Lindstone in connection with the child pornographic content and Amin was one of his accomplices in Pakistan. We traced Amin with the help of the lead provided by the Norwegian embassy, the FIA official said and added that this scandal is a first-of-its-kind unearthed by FIA in the country. The official further said the suspect had been selling child pornographic content online for last few years to customers in Norway and Sweden. The suspect used to lure children on the pretext of imparting computer hardware and software education and even paid their parents. So far we have the information that some 20 to 25 children have been used by the suspect for the sexual act he filmed for the purpose. Besides he hacked thousands of porn child content from the inaccessible websites of Russia and Bangladesh which he sold online and made good bucks, the FIA official said. So far we have recovered more than 65,000 porn content from the suspects computer system, the FIA official said and added the statements of the affected children will also be recorded. The FIA said the suspect who is an engineering graduate and a very good hacker. A thorough investigation is underway and we will also expose other persons involved in this heinous crime, the FIA official said. PTI United Nations, April 13 Russia blocked a Western effort at the UN Security Council on Wednesday to condemn last weeks deadly gas attack in Syria and push Moscows ally President Bashar al-Assad to cooperate with international inquiries into the incident. It was the eighth time during Syrias six-year-old civil war that Moscow has used its veto power on the Security Council to shield Assads government. In the latest veto, Russia blocked a draft resolution backed by the US, France and Britain to denounce the attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun and tell Assads government to provide access for investigators and information such as flight plans. The toxic gas attack on April 4 prompted the US to launch missile strikes on a Syrian air base and widened a rift between the US and Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that trust had eroded between the two countries under US President Donald Trump. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson echoed that comment after meetings with Russian leaders in Moscow, saying that relations are at a low point with a low level of trust. Tillerson called for Assad to eventually relinquish power. China, which has vetoed six resolutions on Syria since the civil war began, abstained from Wednesdays UN vote, along with Ethiopia and Kazakhstan. Ten countries voted in favor of the text, while Bolivia joined Russia in voting no. US Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, warned Moscow against protecting Assad, who relies on support from Russia and Iran in his conflict with mostly Sunni Muslim rebels. To my colleagues from Russia - you are isolating yourselves from the international community every time one of Assads planes drop another barrel bomb on civilians and every time Assad tries to starve another community to death, Haley said during a Security Council meeting earlier on Wednesday. Haley added: Iran is dumping fuel on the flames of this war in Syria so it can expand its own reach. Attack investigation A fact-finding mission from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is investigating last weeks attack in a rebel-held area of northern Syria. If it determines that chemical weapons were used, then a joint UN/OPCW investigation will look at the incident to determine who is to blame. This team has already found Syrian government forces were responsible for three chlorine gas attacks in 2014 and 2015 and that Islamic State militants used mustard gas. Britains UN Ambassador Matthew Rycroft told the Security Council that samples taken from the site of the April 4 attack had been analyzed by British scientists and tested positive for the nerve gas sarin. He said Assads government was responsible. During a heated Security Council exchange before Wednesdays vote, Russias deputy UN envoy Vladimir Safronkov told the 15-member body that Western countries were wrong to blame Assad for the gas attack. Im amazed that this was the conclusion. No one has yet visited the site of the crime. How do you know that? he said. Syrias government has denied responsibility for the attack. Diplomats said that Russia has put forward a rival draft resolution that expresses concern at last weeks gas attack and condemns the U.S. strike on Syria. It was unclear if Moscow planned to put the text to a vote. Syrian UN Ambassador Bashar Jaafari said Syria had sent dozens of letters to the Security Council, some detailing the smuggling of sarin from Libya through Turkey on a civilian air plane by using a Syrian citizen. Two litres of sarin were transported from Libya through Turkey to terrorist groups in Syria, he said, adding that the government does not have these weapons. Western powers say the April 4 gas attack was carried out from the air and that Syrian rebels do not have any aircraft. Reports Beirut, April 13 The Syrian Army said an air strike late on Wednesday by the US-led coalition hit poison gas supplies belonging to Islamic State, releasing a toxic substance that killed hundreds, but the coalition denied carrying out raids in the area. A statement by the army, flashed on Thursday by Syrian state TV, said the incident in the eastern Deir al-Zor province proved that Islamic State and al Qaeda-linked militants possess chemical weapons. The report could not immediately be independently verified. US Air Force Colonel John Dorrian, a spokesman for the coalition, said it had carried out no air strikes in that area at that time. The Syrian claim is incorrect and likely intentional misinformation, he said in an email to Reuters. The United States launched cruise missiles at a Syrian air base last week, in response to a deadly poison gas attack in the west of the country that Washington blamed on President Bashar al-Assads government. Syria and its ally Russia deny Damascus carried out any such chemical attack. Moscow has said the poison gas in that incident belonged to rebels. The US strike on the Syrian air base was the first time Washington has deliberately and directly targeted the Syrian government. It is separately waging an air campaign against Islamic State in eastern Syria. Reuters Washington, April 13 After less than three months in office, President Donald Trump has abruptly shifted his stance on an array of foreign policy issues from the US relationship with Russia and China to the value of the NATO alliance. Trump, who ran for the White House on a pledge to shake up the status quo in Washington, repeatedly lashed out at China during the campaign, accusing Beijing of being a grand champion of currency manipulation. Candidate Trump also dismissed the NATO military alliance as obsolete and said he hoped to build warmer ties with Russia. But at a White House news conference and in a newspaper interview on Wednesday, he offered starkly different views on those issues, saying his relationship with Moscow was souring while ties with Beijing were improving. He also lavished praise on NATO, saying it was adapting to changing global threats. I said it was obsolete. Its no longer obsolete, Trump said as he stood at a news conference alongside NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in the White House on Wednesday. The reversals on Russia and NATO could reassure US allies in Europe who were rattled by Trumps overtures toward Moscow during the campaign. But the Presidents talk of bonding with Chinese President Xi Jinping could sow confusion in Asia, where US allies are fearful of a rising China. Trumps apparent shifts toward a more conventional foreign policy came amid infighting within his administration that has lately seen a decline in the influence of political operatives, mainly his chief strategist, Steve Bannon. Six months ago, candidate Trump suggested he was eager for an alliance with Russian President Vladimir Putin. If he says great things about me, Im going to say great things about him, Trump said last September. On Wednesday, however, Trump said he had growing concerns about Russias support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. We may be at an all-time low in terms of a relationship with Russia, said Trump, who ordered the firing of US cruise missiles at a Syrian airfield last week to punish Assad for suspected use of poison gas in Syrias civil war. While criticizing Russia on Wednesday, Trump said he and Xi had bonded during the Chinese Presidents visit to the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, where they dined together with their wives and held talks. Ahead of that visit, Trump had predicted difficult discussions on trade. The improving ties with Beijing were underscored when Trump told the Wall Street Journal in an interview on Wednesday that he would not declare China a currency manipulator as he had pledged to do on his first day in office. Trump, a former real estate developer, took office in January as a government novice whose foreign policy mantra during was a vow to keep America safe and build up the US military. Christine Wormuth, former undersecretary of defence in the Obama administration, said Trump had a steep learning curve on foreign policy when he came into office but that it was beginning to even out. Hes starting to have a more nuanced and deeper understanding of a lot of issues, Wormuth stressed. Reuters Prez has change of heart, says NATO no longer obsolete In a major U-turn from what he said during his poll campaign, President Donald Trump has said NATO is no longer obsolete and reaffirmed his commitment to the military alliance amid a deepening war of words between the United States and Russia over Syria I complained about that a long time ago and they made a change. Now they do fight terrorism. In the coming months and years, Ill work closely with all of our NATO allies, he said Trump, who repeatedly questioned the value of the military alliance during his presidential campaign, is expected to travel to Brussels later this spring to attend the NATO Summit Russia not getting along Americas relationship with Russia may be at an all-time low, President Donald Trump has said, but he hoped that the two countries could get along Right now were not getting along with Russia at all we may be at an all-time low in terms of relationship, he said at a White House conference Were going to see what happens. Russia is a strong country. Were a very, very strong country. Were going to see how that all works out, Trump said Bromance with Xi New York, April 13 The first black woman appointed to the states highest court has been found dead on the bank of the Hudson River. Sheila Abdus-Salaams body was discovered along the riverside near Harlem yesterday, a day after she was reported missing, the police said. The police said her body showed no obvious signs of trauma, and they declined to speculate on the cause of her death. The medical examiner will study her body to try to determine what killed her. Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo, who appointed Abdus-Salaam to the states Court of Appeals in 2013, called her a trailblazing jurist. As the first African-American woman to be appointed to the states Court of Appeals, she was a pioneer, Cuomo said. Through her writings, her wisdom and her unshakable moral compass, she was a force for good whose legacy will be felt for years to come. Chief Judge Janet DiFiore said her colleague would be missed deeply. Her personal warmth, uncompromising sense of fairness and bright legal mind were an inspiration to all of us who had the good fortune to know her, DiFiore said.Abdus-Salaam, who was 65 years old, graduated from Barnard College and received her law degree from Columbia Law School. New York State Bar Association president Claire P Gutekunst said Abdus-Salaam grew up poor in a family of seven children in Washington, DC, and rose to become one of the seven judges in New Yorks highest court, where her intellect, judicial temperament and wisdom earned her wide respect. AP WASHINGTON, April 13 The United States dropped a massive GBU-43 bomb, the largest non-nuclear bomb it has ever used in combat, in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday against a series of caves used by Islamic State militants, the military said. It was the first time the United States has used this size of bomb in a conflict. It was dropped from a MC-130 aircraft in the Achin district of Nangarhar province, close to the border with Pakistan, Pentagon spokesman Adam Stump said. Also known as the "mother of all bombs," the GBU-43 is a 21,600 pound (9,797 kg) GPS-guided munition and was first tested in March 2003, just days before the start of the Iraq war. The security situation in Afghanistan remains precarious, with a number of militant groups trying to claim territory more than 15 years after the US invasion which toppled the Taliban government. General John Nicholson, the head of US and international forces in Afghanistan, said the bomb was used against caves and bunkers housing fighters of the Islamic State in Afghanistan, also known as ISIS-K. It was not immediately clear how much damage the device did. White House spokesman Sean Spicer opened his daily news briefing speaking about the use of the bomb and said, "We targeted a system of tunnels and caves that IS fighters used to move around freely, making it easier for them to target US military advisers and Afghan forces in the area." Last week, a US soldier was killed in the same district as the bomb was dropped while conducting operations against Islamic State. "The United States takes the fight against ISIS very seriously and in order to defeat the group, we must deny them operational space, which we did," Spicer said. He said the bomb was used at around 7 p.m. local time and described the device as "a large, powerful and accurately delivered weapon." The United States took "all precautions necessary to prevent civilian casualties and collateral damage," he said. US officials say intelligence suggests Islamic State is based overwhelmingly in Nangarhar and neighboring Kunar province. Estimates of its strength in Afghanistan vary. US officials have said they believe the movement has only 700 fighters but Afghan officials estimate it has about 1,500. Islamic State's offshoot in Afghanistan is suspected of carrying out several attacks on minority Shi'ite Muslim targets. The Afghan Taliban, which is trying to overthrow the U.S.-backed government in Kabul, are fiercely opposed to Islamic State and the two group have clashed as they seek to expand territory and influence. The US Central Command said they took every precaution to avoid civilian casualties in the strike. American forces will continue offensive operations until ISIS-K is destroyed in Afghanistan. Agencies Non-nuclear, most lethal The US Air Force calls it the Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb (MOAB). Based on the acronym, it has been nicknamed the Mother Of All Bombs According to the Pentagon, the MOAB, which is the largest non-nuclear bomb, has been used in combat for the first time GBU-43 is a 9,797 kg GPS-guided munition and was first tested in March 2003, around the time of the US-led invasion of Iraq When the MOAB was first tested in 2003, a huge mushroom cloud could be seen from 32 km away, said the US Air Force A MOAB is America's most powerful non-nuclear bomb. The bomb was dropped by an MC-130 aircraft, operated by the Air Force Special Operations Command The bomb was used against caves and bunkers housing fighters of the Islamic State in Afghanistan, also known as ISIS-K Aim is to defeat militants The United States takes the fight against IS very seriously and in order to defeat the group, we must deny them operational space, which we did. The US took all precautions necessary to prevent civilian casualties and collateral damage as a result of the operation. The GBU-43 is a large, powerful and accurately delivered weapon. We targeted a system of tunnels and caves that IS fighters used to move around freely, making it easier for them to target US military advisers and Afghan forces in the area. Sean Spicer, White House Press Secretary Caracas, April 13 Venezuelans in poor areas blocked streets and lit fires during scattered protests across the country on Tuesday night, and two people were killed during the growing unrest in the midst of a crippling economic crisis. In a worrying sign for leftist President Nicolas Maduro, groups in Caracas traditionally pro-government hillside slums and low-income neighborhoods took to the streets, witnesses and opposition lawmakers reported. Maduro foes were galvanized by footage of a crowd in the south-eastern Bolivar state heckling and throwing objects at the closely-protected leader during a rally on Tuesday, before state television cut off the broadcast. In the western Lara state, two people, aged 13 and 36, were killed during unrest on Tuesday, the state prosecutors office said in a statement. Laras opposition governor Henri Falcon blamed violence on infiltrators and delinquents who roamed on motorcycles after an energy blackout. They go by neighborhoods and shoot people who are protesting, said Falcon, a former member of the ruling party, urging a negotiation to end Venezuelas political crisis. The opposition says Maduro, a former bus driver and union leader who took office four years ago, has morphed into a dictator after a Supreme Court decision in late March to assume the functions of the opposition-led congress. The court quickly overturned the most controversial part of its decision, but the move breathed new life into the fractured opposition movement. Two young men had already been killed in protests during the last week, according to authorities. Many are bracing for further violence in a country that is racked by crime and has one of the worlds highest murder rates. Witnesses said residents of a number of working-class Caracas neighborhoods blocked streets with trash or burning debris on Tuesday night, describing confused street melees and clashes with security forces. The capital appeared calm on Wednesday, although some roads were charred and littered with broken glass. Government officials did not provide an official account of the events, and the Information Ministry did not respond to an email seeking comment. Maduro has said that under a veneer of pacifism, a US-backed right-wing opposition is encouraging violent protests in a bid to topple his government and get its hands on Venezuelas oil wealth. On Wednesday night, he said the heckling incident a day earlier in the city of San Felix was an opposition attempt to ambush him that was thwarted by his loyalists. They had prepared an ambush and the people neutralized it, he said. I want to thank the people of San Felix for their expressions of fervor, passion, love and support. Maduro dictator Maduros adversaries are demanding the government call delayed state elections, which polls suggest would not go well for the ruling Socialists. They also want an early presidential vote after authorities quashed a recall referendum against Maduro last year. A ban on opposition leader Henrique Capriles from holding office for 15 years drew broad criticism as he was seen as the oppositions best presidential hope. But it is Venezuelas extended economic crisis that has ordinary people fuming. Venezuelans have been suffering food and medicine shortages for months, leading many to skip meals or go without crucial treatment. Lines of hundreds form in front of supermarkets as people jostle for hours under the hot sun hoping price-controlled rice or flour will be delivered. The crisis has especially hurt the poor, long the base of support of Maduro and his predecessor the late Hugo Chavez. Protesters say they have also been encouraged by stronger condemnation from American and European nations in the last two weeks. We cannot accept that the regime is willing to sacrifice Venezuelan lives to remain in power, said Luis Almagro, the head of the Organization of American States, in a video posted on Wednesday, urging elections. Another round of protests are planned for Thursday in Venezuelas more than 300 municipalities. Opposition leaders are calling for the mother of all marches on April 19. Arrests, looting Amid what the opposition coalition says is a crackdown on dissent, some 71 people were arrested on Tuesday, according to rights group Penal Forum. In total, 364 people were arrested between April 4-12 during the most sustained protests since 2014, with 183 people still behind bars, the group added. A group of young men and teenagers were arrested for throwing sharp objects against Maduros vehicle on Tuesday night, according to a report by a local National Guard division seen by Reuters. Two sources told Reuters the protesters were hurling stones. Local media reported lootings overnight in the working class bedroom community of Guarenas outside Caracas, as well as in parts of the capital. State officials have tweeted images and videos of demonstrators vandalizing public property and throwing rocks at police. Despite the spiking tensions, many in the opposition worry extended protests will not spur early or fair elections, but rather increase clashes in the already turbulent country. Major anti-government protests in 2014 eventually floundered, though the opposition at the time did not have as clear-cut demands, poor neighborhoods largely abstained, and the economy was in better shape. Reuters New York, Apr 13(Just Earth News): New policy guidance from the European Commission aimed at improving the protection of migrant and refugee children has been welcomed by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the UN refugee agency. It is the first EU policy to address the situation and rights of all children in migration refugee and migrant children, children alone and with their families linking migration, asylum and child protection, Noala Skinner, Director of UNICEF's Brussels Office said. The guidelines include boosting child protection at all levels, improving data collection to ensure children are properly tracked and the appointment of guardians for children. The guidelines also encourage member States to refrain from invasive age assessments and to increase cooperation among states. Dianne Goodman, Deputy Director of the Europe Bureau of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said: These important guidelines will help EU States better respond to the needs of refugee and migrant children. We strongly hope that these guidelines will contribute, in a very concrete manner, to the protection of the many children who arrive to Europe after having been forced to flee their homes due to violence, war and conflict. Many have suffered incredible hardship while on their journey and afterwards. In a joint press release, the two UN agencies stressed that children should never be detained, irrespective of their legal or migratory status, or that of their parents. They also welcomed the EU's policy commitment to prioritise national child protection systems for children displaced beyond European borders. According to UNHCR, children make up over half of the world's refugee population. Both agencies are looking forward to the policy's implementation and an end to the violence and poverty that often precipitates displacement. Photo: UNHCR/Zsolt Balla Source: www.justearthnews.com New York, Apr 13(Just Earth News): With a anoa vote from permanent member Russia, the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday failed to adopt a resolution that would have condemned the reported use of chemical weapons in Syria and called on the Government to cooperate with an investigation into the incident. While 10 of the Councils 15 members voted in favour, Russia rejected the text, as permanent member China, as well as non-permanent members Ethiopia and Kazakhstan abstained. A negative vote or veto from one of the Councils five permanent members means a resolution cannot be adopted. The proposed measure drafted by France, the United Kingdom and the United States, the Councils other permanent members would have strongly condemned the reported use of chemical weapons in the [Syria], in particular the attack on Khan Shaykhun, the site of last weeks incident that has drawn increasing global attention. The measure would and also had called on the Syrian Government to comply with relevant recommendations of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) Fact Finding Mission (FFM) and the OPCW-UN Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM). In February, Russia and China vetoed a measure that would have imposed sanctions on a number of individuals and entities linked to the use of chemical weapons in cases where responsibility was established by the OPCW-UN Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM). Although the Council came together on 19 December to unanimously adopt a resolution demanding that all parties to the Syrian conflict ensure immediate and unhindered access for the monitoring of evacuations from eastern Aleppo, over the past five years, Russia has vetoed eight Council texts on the Syrian conflict, while China has vetoed six of those eight. As the Syrian crisis enters its seventh year, civilians continue to bear the brunt of a conflict marked by unparalleled suffering, destruction and disregard for human life. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 13.5 million people require humanitarian assistance. Moreover, some 6.3 million have been internally displaced by violence. The UN Special Envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, has been facilitating the intra-Syrian talks in Geneva, the latest round of which wrapped up in late March. The discussions are guided by Security Council resolution 2254 (2015), focusing on matters of governance, including a new constitution for Syria and the holding of elections. Briefing the Council in a meeting earlier on Wednesday, de Mistura said the US and Russia must find a way to work together to stabilize the situation and support the political process. He said that last weeks reported chemical weapons attack, the subsequent airstrikes by the US and intensified fighting on the ground have put the fragile peace process is in grave danger. This is a time for clear-thinking, strategy, imagination, cooperation, said de Mistura. The meeting on Wednesday comes as the US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is in Moscow meeting with top Russian officials. UN Photo/Manuel Elias Source: www.justearthnews.com New York, Apr 13(Just Earth News): Accessible social and health services, with dedicated human and financial resources must be addressed and made available for persons with disabilities in the new global framework on refugees and migrants, a group of United Nations human rights experts have urged, as UN-led intergovernmental talks on the issue are set to launch consultation in 2018. The framework, entitled Global Compact for Migration will set out a range of principles and commitments among governments to enhance coordination on international migration and is due to be adopted in 2018. The Compact is one of the key outcomes of last years UN Summit on Refugees and Migrants. The new Global Compact is a unique opportunity to address the shortcomings of a migration and refugee system built on policies that lack consideration for persons with disabilities, said Theresia Degener, the Chair of the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Dedicated human and financial resources, she stressed, should be included in the new framework to identify persons with disabilities in reception and detention centres and to provide adequate standards of living and healthcare, including psycho-social support. However, we are deeply concerned about the precarious situation of persons with disabilities in the current migration crisis, said Catalina Devandas Aguilar, the Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. She added that many countries lack formal procedures to identify migrants and refugees with disabilities and, consequently, fail to provide them with protection and essential services, such as shelter and medical care that are accessible and responsive to their needs. Persons with disabilities face exclusion and discrimination due to a lack of accessibility, including with respect to humanitarian assistance, and denial of reasonable accommodation, according to a joint statement on Addressing disabilities in large-scale movements of refugees and Migrants, issued by the Committee on Migrant Workers and the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The joint statement further called on Member States to realize the rights of migrants and refugees with disabilities in accordance with their international human rights treaty obligations. We need to be sure that, when world leaders commit to saving the lives of refugees and migrants [] they dont forget about persons with disabilities, said Jose Brillantes, the Chair of the UN Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and members of Their Families. On 6 April, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution on the modalities for negotiations for the next 13 months in the run-up to the adoption of the Global Compact on Migration. Photo: Jodi Hilton/IRIN Source: www.justearthnews.com A social media photo of his mailbox with an invitation for civil disobedience contributed to the cancellation of a Tuesday evening town hall meeting in Tahlequah, 2nd District Congressman Markwayne Mullin said Wednesday. This lady posted my personal address on social media with the message, Anybody feeling like getting arrested? Mullin said by phone as he traveled between town halls in southeastern Oklahoma. The three-term Republican said the message also included a hashtag referencing civil disobedience. Someone wants to get arrested, Mullin said. He did not name the person who posted the message. As he did Tuesday, Mullin said the overarching reason for the cancellation was a disagreement about security measures at Sequoyah High School, which is operated by the Cherokee Nation. The three-term Republican would not say precisely what the disagreement was about, but other sources have said it had to do with the red and green cards audience members have been using to signal agreement or disagreement with statements. Mullin said threats received from the Tahlequah area added to uneasiness about people confronting each other in the audience. I was never concerned about me, Mullin said. When a crowd starts with that intensity and then gets riled up, people eventually get engaged with each other. We have to have strict security procedures to keep control. On Thursday, Mullin will conclude 25 town hall meetings in six days over two weeks. He said most have been uneventful, but he seems to have irritated constituents with his declaration that he doesnt work for the taxpayers because hes paid more in taxes over the years than hes earned in congressional salary and for chewing out a woman in Pryor he said was being disrespectful to a police officer. The town halls can be seen on Mullins Facebook page. Mullin said Wednesday that a group of people he associates with the Indivisible movement have followed him from town hall to town hall over the past two weeks. Theres no question they have an agenda theyre wanting to push, Mullin said. But that in itself is not unusual, he said. For the most part, everybody who comes to a town hall is passionate or they wouldnt be there, Mullin said. The Tahlequah meeting will be rescheduled, but a date has not been arranged, he said. New York, Apr 14 (Just Earth News): Against the backdrop of almost two billion people around the world relying on sources of drinking-water contaminated with faeces, the United Nations has called on countries to aradicallya increase investments in water and sanitation infrastructure not only to protect their populations from deadly diseases but also to ensure that they are able to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Contaminated drinking-water is estimated to cause more than 500,000 diarrhoeal deaths each year and is a major factor in several neglected tropical diseases, including intestinal worms, schistosomiasis, and trachoma, said Maria Neira, the Director of Department of Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health at the UN World Health Organization (WHO) in a news release on Thursday. The UN report, Global Analysis and Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking-Water 2017, notes that while countries have increased their budgets for water, sanitation and hygiene at an average annual rate of about 4.9 per cent over the last three years, 80 per cent of countries have reported that the increase is still insufficient to meet nationally-defined targets for those services. Therefore, in order to meet the ambitious SDG targets, which aim for universal access to safely managed water and sanitation services by 2030, countries need to use financial resources more efficiently as well as increase efforts to identify new sources of funding. The Global Assessment also highlights that these efforts are particularly important for developing countries where current national coverage targets are based on achieving access to basic infrastructure and which may not necessarily provide continuously safe and reliable services. The report has been issued by WHO, on behalf of UN-Water the inter-agency coordination mechanism for all freshwater-related issues, including sanitation. Funding gap is vast but countries have the ability to mobilize resources According to estimates by the World Bank, investments in infrastructure need to triple to $114 billion per year a figure which does not include operating and maintenance costs. While this funding gap is vast, there are recent examples of countries having demonstrated the ability to mobilize the needed resources to meet development targets. For instance, 147 countries around the globe were able to successfully mobilize the resources required to meet the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target of halving the proportion of people without an improved source of water, and 95 among them met the corresponding target for sanitation. 77 countries met both. According to Guy Ryder, the Chair of UN-Water and the Director-General of the International Labour Organization (ILO), nations have the ability to address the challenges of meeting the ambitious SDG targets. Increased investments in water and sanitation can yield substantial benefits for human health and development, generate employment and make sure that we leave no one behind, he said. Photo: John Hogg / World Bank Source: www.justearthnews.com Film Victoria has announced funding for a number of screen projects, some of which have been previously announced. It includes season seven of Offspring and season two of The Wrong Girl, both for TEN. WTFNs Ask The Doctor is funded for the ABC. It was also funded by Screen Australia with significant philanthropic support via Good Pitch Australia. Australias amazing and enduring marine sanctuary will be explored on the giant screen in December Medias Great Barrier Reef 3D while the life of Australian writer, broadcaster, filmmaker and social commentator, Anne Deveson is unpacked in Paper Trails. Victorias longest running animation studio Viskatoons received funding to bring their second season of Jar Dwellers SOS to life. In a further boost, Film Victoria will also provide a traineeship support package which will assist five trainees employed on the series to build their skills using the worlds best practice software. Chocolate Liberation Front (The Adventures of Figaro Pho) will get tails wagging with their new series Larry the Wonderpug. In partnership with WTFN the show explores the real and imaginary worlds with a delightful pug Larry and his sixyearold owner Sasha. The 16 screen projects (including film) share a total of over $3.2 million in funding and will generate more than $44 million for Victorias economy. Next week SBS premieres the latest culinary adventures of a favourite TV chef with Rick Steins Taste of Shanghai. Rick Steins latest food adventure takes him to one of the biggest cities in the world as he finds out whether Shanghai, having almost doubled in size over the last 20 years, has managed to hang on to its culinary roots. Proving theres more to Chinese food than the tried and tested familiar takeaway favourites, he shares new recipes for the delicious Shanghainese dishes he discovers during his exploration of the city and its coastal suburbs. From an ordinary family home, through the back streets with their fast food cooks and their flaming woks, to soup dumpling joints and eventually to the most glitzy restaurant, Rick gets a real sense of what food means to the residents of this massive city. Thursday, 20 April at 8.35pm on SBS. Washington, Apr 13 (IBNS) The United States has dropped its largest non-nuclear bomb in an area in eastern Afghanistan now populated by Islamic State terrorists, according to media reports quoting Pentagon. According to CNN, a GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb, nicknamed MOAB, was dropped at 7 p.m. local time Thursday. The Pentagon said the strike was the first time the 21,000lb weapon had been used in combat operations, reported The Independent which confirmed from a US Defence spokesperson that the mother of all bombs was dropped from a MC-130 aircraft. According to CNN, the "weapon is known in the US Air Force by its nickname MOAB, or "mother of all bombs". MOAB stands for massive ordinance air blast. CNN said the bomb was targeting Islamic State tunnels and fighters in the Achin district of Nangarhar. USA is engaged in a long term conflict in Afghanistan invading the country after the 9/11 attacks of 2001 in America, with the public aim of dismantling the al Queda first along with the Talibans. In Dec 2014, NATO formally ended combat operations in Afghanistan and transferred full security responsibility to the Afghan government. In early 2017, thousands of American and other NATO troops remain in Afghanistan as military advisors and for counterterrorism operations without any formal plans to withdraw. ISIS is the new enemy now after al Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden was killed by the US Navy Seals in Pakistan in 2011. Image: Wikimedia Commons Hi, my name is Scott C. Waring and I wrote a few books and am currently a ESL School Owner in Taiwan. I have had my own UFO sighting up close and personal, but that's how it works right? A non believer becomes a believer when they experience their first sighting. You witnessed it, your perceptual field changes, so now you need to share it. I created this site to help the UFO community get a little bit organized. I noticed that there was a lot of chaos when searching for UFO sighting reports, so I hope this site helps. I wanted to support those eyewitnesses who have tried to tell others about what they have seen, yet were laughed at by even closest of friends. More and more each day the governments of the world leak bits and pieces of UFO information to the public. They have a trickle down theory in hopes of slowly getting citizens use to the idea that we are not alone in universe and never have been. The truth is being leaked drop by drop until one day we look around and find ourselves neck high in it. The discovery of alien species in existence is the most monumental scientific event in human history, suppression of that information is a crime against humanity. About me: I live in Taiwan. I OWN MY OWN ENGLISH SCHOOL, AND ONCE HAD 5 SCHOOLS. Am Former USAF at SAC base (flight line). Age: 42 Educ: BA in Elem ed. Masters in Counseling ed. I had two UFO sightings, (30+bus size orbs) in military and in 2012 personally saw the UFO over Taipei 101 building on New Years Day (and recored it). Haysam, 30, from Aleppo Syria, and his wife Nazli, who will soon become a mother, are overwhelmed by the welcome they received in the middlesized Greek city of Livadia. They are now living in a flat allocated by UNHCR. UNHCR /Christos Tolis LIVADIA, Greece - Spring is in the air and 30-year-old Haysam is in high spirits as he strolls through the streets of Livadia, a small town nestled under the snowcapped mountains of central Greece. He has good reason to be; after more than three years of uncertainty in Turkey and Greece, the refugee is living in a flat provided by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, as he waits to join his family in Belgium. To cap it all, his young wife Nazli, aged 21, will become a mother later this year. She got pregnant in Livadia I am very proud of that, he confides. Its the talk of the midsize town, where the affable Kurdish-Syrian from Aleppo has made many friends since being transferred here earlier this year from the crowded Cherso site in the north. After nine months, UNHCR called and said we have found a place for you in Livadia, explains Haysam, who had in 2013 flown to Istanbul with his family after the war came to their district. I stayed at home without food, electricity. He explains that the first floor flat, which is provided by UNHCR under an ambitious accommodation programme funded by the European Commission is equipped with all he and Nazli could need, including furniture, appliances and kitchen goods. They were also given clothing and help with the groceries as well as access to a wide range of social services. A far cry from Aleppo, where there were bombs everywhere and I stayed at home without food, electricity, water. I was forced to go, he says. Haysam and Nazli were overwhelmed by the welcome they received by the people of Livadia, whom he said were there for them, despite their own economic problems. They dont look at us like refugees. They deal with us like other Greeks, says Haysam. I made many friends. Livadias decision to accommodate asylum seekers, alongside the much bigger Athens and Thessaloniki municipalities, was spearheaded by Giota Poulou, its visionary mayor. The pugnacious pragmatist consulted with all sectors of society, including the church and political opponents, to build consensus in the town and obtain agreement. The result is a win-win situation The town has agreed to host some 400 people for placement in 70 apartments. The result is a win-win situation with the town making moral and economic gains, the asylum seekers living in a real home rather than a crowded site and UNHCR supporting the Government of Greece in finding a solution to a challenging problem. Livadia is an example that could persuade other mid-size towns to follow suit. UNHCR, which works closely with the Greek Ministry for Migration Policy, is keen to form partnerships with more municipalities and is engaged in discussions with mayors in Crete and Thessalia.. To date, UNHCR in Greece has provided accommodation for close to 30,000 asylum seekers under a programme which was initially designed for people selected to benefit from the EU relocation scheme but was subsequently expanded to include particularly vulnerable asylum seekers. This was achieved through a complex and difficult operation that also provided a whole basket of services and protection beyond simple provision of a safe and clean place to live. The Greek Government would like to see the programme continue and expand through this year as efforts to move people out of the camps continue. This accommodation programme is part of larger efforts aimed at ensuring that a sustainable and adequate reception system is put in place by the Greek Government. This requires the provision of more accommodation opportunities in urban areas such as the one made available to Hysam and Nazli, improving reception conditions on the islands and on the mainland, the provision of greater security in all sites, and ensuring that all unsuitable sites are quickly closed. UNHCR is also urging EU Member States to increase the pace and number of people relocated and reunited with family members in other EU Member States. While relocation has picked up recently, to date only 12,407 individuals out of an initial target of 66,400 have been relocated from Greece. Samira visits one of UNHCR's community centers in Aleppo. UNHCR/Qusai Alazroni ALEPPO, Syria Samira recalls the day at the end of 2012 when she and her husband Wael took their newborn son and fled their home in eastern Aleppo. Without a valid marriage certificate or ID, they had to dodge checkpoints as well as pockets of fighting, transforming the short journey to the west of the city into a long and dangerous trek. It was a difficult and complicated journey, she remembered. Trying to avoid the checkpoints and taking dangerous alternatives. Despite reaching safety in western Aleppo, where the family has been displaced ever since, their lack of documentation threatens to have serious consequences for the couple and their young children. Married shortly before the conflict erupted, Samira and Wael were unable to travel to his hometown some 50 kilometres away near Idleb to register their marriage due to heavy fighting along the route. We hardly made it from east to west Aleppo. Going that far outside the city would have been a mission impossible, Samira explained. It was a difficult and complicated journey." Without a marriage certificate, they were unable to register the births of their two children, Mohammed, 4, and Shaza, 2. Without birth certificates, my children may not be able to have proper education or healthcare support, Samira added. As well as displacing 6.3 million people inside the country and driving a further 5 million into exile across the region, Syrias six-year conflict has also left hundreds of thousands of citizens without valid civil documentation. Syrian refugees who have been born outside Syria and have no birth certificate run the risk of joining the estimated 10 million stateless people worldwide, especially if their fathers are not able or willing to certify their parentage for various reasons. For others, including those displaced inside the country, such as Samira and Wael, the lack of documentation can also prevent family reunification and hinder movement. The lack of documentation also makes people more susceptible to harassment, extortion and exploitation, explained Abdul Karim Ghoul, UNHCRs Deputy Representative in Damascus. With many unaware of the procedures involved in obtaining documentation, or unable to afford its recently increased costs, UNHCR the UN Refugee Agency is providing legal aid to those in need to help remedy the situation. It is also providing assistance for birth registration to reduce the risk of statelessness and ensure access to services. Syrian mother Samira visits a UNHCR community centre in Aleppo for legal help registering her child's birth. UNHCR/Qusai Alazroni In Samiras case, legal aid support is provided through a lawyer to represent her and Wael before the courts and civil registration authorities in order to officially register their marriage and issue birth certificates for the children. In one notable example at a UNHCR community centre in the coastal city of Tartous, the agency and its legal partners helped 5,000 displaced people from Aleppo and Deir-ez-Zor to get new ID cards. The efforts of the lawyers working for local NGOs funded by UNHCR, coupled with understanding and cooperation on the part of the civil registry department, resulted in the IDs being issued without the need for the concerned individuals to make the dangerous journeys back to their home cities. Khalaf, a displaced Syrian from Deir-ez-Zor, who lives with his family of five in a collective shelter in Tartous, explained the significance of getting a new national ID card, after he lost his previous ID when fleeing his home. Without my ID, I could not move freely or search for a job, he said. Now I can walk through checkpoints without any concerns about my safety. Khalaf was also able to register the birth of his newborn daughter. Without my ID I could not move freely or search for a job." It is a great success, said Mr. Ghoul. These people had either limited or no access to work and healthcare, and their movement was severely restricted. Now they can get a job or access healthcare, basic services and humanitarian assistance and can document their and their childrens civil status and citizenship. Through a network of currently ca. 120 local lawyers across Syria, UNHCR provided legal aid to 75,000 IDPs and affected host community members in 2016. In addition, 54,700 persons benefitted from awareness-raising sessions on different legal issues. These activities were carried out as part of the community-based protection response that UNHCR is implementing through a network of 74 community centres run by national NGOs, two legal clinics and more than 1,770 outreach volunteers, including specifically trained legal outreach Syrian volunteers. The community centres provide a portfolio of integrated protection services, including legal aid and are supported by mobile teams providing legal aid in collective shelters and remote/hard-to-reach locations with a high number of IDPs. Despite challenges in accessing displaced people in insecure or hard-to-reach areas, UNHCR aims to increase legal aid provision in 2017 by increasing its network of lawyers and outreach to underserved communities, and ensure that more Syrians receive the services and support they so desperately need. For more information on the #IBELONG campaign to end statelessness, please visit: http://www.unhcr.org/ibelong-campaign-to-end-statelessness.html On a warm weekday afternoon, the Argentine city of San Luis is an oasis of calm. Majd and Lana, married Syrian refugees from Damascus, are killing time before their Spanish lesson. It is hard to believe they only arrived here five weeks ago. It already feels like home, grins Lana. In Argentina we have learnt how to be human again, adds Majd, taking a deep drag on his cigarette. The couple had little choice but to flee Syria. Two years earlier Majd, a cook, narrowly escaped with his life after a bomb hit his parents' home in the Old Town of Damascus. He and Lana, a sculptor, got married and bought a flat further from the city centre. But it quickly became the most dangerous neighbourhood in the whole city, remembers Majd. Everyone was scared. In February 2017, they arrived in the central province of San Luis under a humanitarian visa programme for Syrian refugees offered by the Government of Argentina. The tranquillity of the provincial capital, also called San Luis, is in stark contrast to the death and destruction of Damascus. With a population of 200,000 people, its streets thrum with activity in the morning; in the afternoon most shops close while locals take a siesta, or afternoon nap. More than 8,000 miles from home, the couple are flourishing. As the first Syrian refugees to arrive in the province in central Argentina, they have become celebrities. They are even starting to get recognised on the street. Sometimes I feel like a Pokemon, laughs Majd. "In Argentina we have learnt how to be human again." Established in 2014, Argentinas humanitarian visa programme offers a vital escape route to those fleeing Syrias war. It requires Argentine citizens, organizations or institutions to act as sponsors and commit private funds to provide newly-arrived refugees with accommodation and financial assistance. San Luis has gone one step further. It is the first province to pledge public funds to support the resettlement of at least 50 families in the province, 30 of whom will be selected by the UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. Those who are resettled are offered free Spanish lessons, accommodation, further education (including the option of studying for a university degree), health insurance and public transport. They also receive two years worth of financial support to help them adjust to their new life in Argentina, while they find a job. The offer came just in time for Lana and Majd. Many of their friends were killed after being conscripted into the Syrian army. Countless others died in the fighting. As the violence worsened, the couple considered fleeing overland to Europe. But their religion both are Orthodox Christians made the journey impossible. The route, through Idlib or Aleppo, would have brought them into contact with extremist militias, who would have killed them for their faith. Concealing it was not an option: Majd has a crucifix prominently tattooed on his right forearm. Artist Mario Lange has volunteered to help newly-arrived refugees in the Argentine province of San Luis, as part of the local government's resettlement programme. UNHCR/Jack Aldwinckle Mario works on a painting in his workshop in San Luis. UNHCR/Jack Aldwinckle Majd and Lana embrace outside the entrance to their new apartment block. UNHCR/Jack Aldwinckle Majd and Lana play with their puppy, given to them by the governor of San Luis Alberto Rodriguez Saa, outside their new apartment. UNHCR/Jack Aldwinckle Majd and Lana talk to their new friend and neighbour Pedro Liborio, 36. UNHCR/Jack Aldwinckle The opening of RefugiArte, an exhibition in the bus station in San Luis, which aims to raise awareness of the plight of refugees around the world. UNHCR/Jack Aldwinckle Once accepted onto Argentinas humanitarian visa programme, the couple left Damascus and flew to Buenos Aires. After arriving in Argentina the couple enjoyed practising their religion freely. We cried when we went to our first church service, says Lana. They often pray in their new flat, part of a student accommodation block at the University of La Punta, a half-hour drive from the city of San Luis. The couple is settling in well. They share their flat with Blackie, a rambunctious puppy gifted to them by the provincial governor, Alberto Rodriguez Saa. Twice a week they take the bus into the city for a Spanish class with Claudia, their teacher. They are making extraordinary progress. We understand everything, we just dont have the vocabulary to be able to respond yet, explains Lana. Locals are eager to help. Under the relocation scheme, the provinces residents are encouraged to offer practical support to the new arrivals. Many are stepping forward. Linguists can volunteer as translators, entrepreneurs can offer jobs, even families can find a way to help. They can meet for dinner together or celebrate a birthday, explains Liliana Scheines, who co-ordinates the Syrian Refugee Committee, which operates the provincial programme named 'Humanitarian Corridor San Luis'. Mario Lange is one of those to put his name forward. An artist with a workshop on the edge of town, his bright and colourful paintings and murals also adorn San Luiss public buildings. He sympathises with Majd and Lanas predicament. I was born into extreme poverty, he explains. I lived in the middle of the countryside and when I came to San Luis it was tough. The plan is to receive four or five families every couple of months." Shortly after their arrival, Mario invited Lana along to help him with a public art installation and presented the couple with a pair of hand-painted bicycles. He warns that adjusting to life in San Luis take time. After few weeks they will begin to realise they are in another country. Thats when they will really need our help. In a speech to the UN General Assembly in New York on September 20 last year, Argentine President Mauricio Macri, pledged to resettle 3,000 Syrian refugees. Priority would be given to families with young children, he announced. The images we are witnessing hurt and worry us, he told world leaders. Reality compels us to do more. In San Luis, the scheme is only just getting started. The plan is to receive four or five families every couple of months, says Scheines. The ambition is to settle them in 60 of the provinces municipalities to better integrate them with San Luiss residents. UNHCR believes more needs to be done to help some five million Syrian refugees, uprooted by six bloody years of conflict. The provincial government is winning plaudits for its progressive approach. Its an amazing programme, says Michele Manca di Nissa, Regional Representative for UNHCRs southern Latin America office. We hope it can be a model for other provinces in Argentina and other countries in the region. The regional office is advising the province on local integration issues and raising awareness of refugees by organising workshops for journalists and mounting 'RefugiArte', a touring art exhibition. Majd and Lana have not forgotten about Syria. They use social media to follow the news and keep in touch with friends and family. The couple hope to help some of them follow in their footsteps. Their parents are too old to leave Syria, says Lana. But some cousins are interested. Majd and Lana are collating their names and passing them onto the Argentine authorities. Its like a chain," explains Lana. We are to trying to help as many as we can. The couple are brimming with optimism about their future. Lana hopes to find work as an artist and Majd, an enthusiastic cook, would like to open a restaurant one day. We are going to start again and be successful, declares Lana. They are determined to build a new life in Argentina. This is our home now, says Lana, squinting at the jagged foothills of the Andes in the distance. I cant imagine going back to Syria. Sandra fixes her gaze on a family sitting beneath a makeshift shelter. Tears stream down her dusty face, leaving tracks on her cheeks. Thousands of people lie around on the ground around her, exhausted. Men are busy making a shelter for the night. Mothers and young girls hurry to ready porridge for lunch. Sandra is alone in a sea uncertainty and intense emotion.I have no news about my parents and my siblings, she sobs. I prefer not to think about them. It makes me sad. I fear that I may not see them ever again. Sandra, 14, fled to Uganda on April 3 after the South Sudanese army launched a deadly attack on Pajok town, forcing tens of thousands of people to leave their homes and hide in the bush. More than 7,000 crossed to Uganda at Ngomoromo in the course of a week. Among them are 600 children, separated from their parents. They made the perilous journey alone. Some were girls who were far away from home fetching water or collecting firewood when the attack happened; others are teenagers selling fruit and vegetables at the local market; or students like Sandra. When the gunshot began, I was in school." When the gunshot began, I was in school. We were learning English vocabulary. I was so afraid. I never heard that sound before. The teacher shouted to get out and ran. My classmates and I were in the front. He was the last one to leave the classroom, making sure that no one was left behind. South Sudanese refugees walk towards the Ugandan border crossing at Ngomoromo carrying their belongings. They are fleeing the town of Pajok after it was attacked by armed groups. UNHCR/Rocco Nuri Sandra and her fellow students arrived in Ngomoromo two days after a long walk through the bush without food and water. She is still wearing the uniform that she had put on to go to school the day of the attack. When we reached this place, we found many people sleeping on the ground. Some were sitting on the sides of the road. But they were all strangers to me. Since the onset of the emergency, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency has been running a protection desk at the border to identify and assist the most needy: survivors of sexual violence, people with disabilities, the elderly, single mothers, and separated children and unaccompanied minors like Sandra. Working closely with refugee representatives, the UNHCR team on the ground in Ngomoromo was able to reunite some of these children with their parents and arrange temporary foster care for the rest. Sandra was briefly reunited with her Aunt. I wanted Auntie to stay with me, but she went back to South Sudan the following day to look for my parents, says Sandra. I am alone again. "I dont know where my husband is. Who is going to take care of my children?" Christine Achan, 26, sits on a dusty straw mat under the shade of an old concrete waiting station, cradling her newborn in her arms. But her face hardly reflects the joy of bringing a new life into the world. I thank God that the baby is healthy, but I dont feel good. I dont know where my husband is. Who is going to take care of my children? I dont feel good, she says with a sense of guilty. Christine was in her last week of pregnancy when the violence split Pajok, where she used to be a teacher. I was at home getting ready to go to school when I heard the gunshots. Everything happened suddenly. I run to the bush with my two children and my grandmother. We walked for three days without food and water. I thought I would deliver on the way. I had pain in my stomach. I feared I would lose my baby, she says. Uganda: South Sudanese Baby Born into Conflict Christine gave birth to Anwech Varsity two days after arriving in Uganda. In the midst of this chaos, I found my sister Beatrice. At least I have someone to share my worries with. My children keep asking me about their father. I told them that he is alive and he will soon join us. But I have a bad feeling deep inside. Since the outbreak of the conflict in South Sudan in 2013, families have been torn apart. Violence, hunger and indiscriminate attacks against civilian populations continue to prompt mass exodus, putting the number of internally displaced people and refugees at respectively 1.9 million and 1.7 million. Women and children bear the brunt of this senseless war. Uganda currently hosts more than 834,000 South Sudanese refugees, with over 194,000 new arrivals in 2017 alone. Eighty-six percent are women and children, including some 21,000 minors without parents or a legal guardian. Women and children bear the brunt of this senseless war, says Bornwell Katande, UNHCRs Representative in Uganda. While it is imperative to pursue a political resolution to the conflict, in countries of asylum like Uganda it is vital to provide special support to women and children who have experienced violence, trauma and abuse. But the funding situation is dire. UNHCR and partners need more than US$558 million to respond to the needs of South Sudanese refugees in Uganda, including food, water, shelter and livelihoods. Four months into 2017, we have received less than 10 percent of the funding. The international community should show share more responsibility towards the worlds fastest growing refugee crisis. What is at stake here is the future of an entire generation of children, who have lost one or both parents, who are unable to go to school or do the ordinary things all children deserve. Donate now "I don't know if my husband and daughter are alive." South Sudanese refugee Susan, 20, sits weeping by the roadside at Ngomoromo border crossing, Uganda with her son, Robert strapped to her back. The family were cut off from each other when armed forces attacked the town of Pajok. Susan walked through the bush for three days before reaching the border. UNHCR/Rocco Nuri KAMPALA, Uganda UNHCRs Representative in Uganda today assured the Government of the international communitys commitment to assist refugees and the communities that host them, and to support the country to pursue its refugee protection, management and social integration policies. Bornwell Kantande was speaking at a ceremony, where the Ugandas Minister for Disaster Preparedness, Relief and Refugees, Hon. Hilary Onek and the Inspector-General of Police, General Kale Kayihura were guests of honor. During the ceremony, UNHCR handed over 30 vehicles to the Government and to NGO partners. The main reasons that people women, men and children flee their homes and communities are conflict, general insecurity and human rights, said Kantande. Without exception, Uganda opens its doors to refugees and provides them the security and protection that they are no longer able to enjoy in their country. The UNHCR Representative lauded the role that the Uganda Police plays in receiving and protecting refugees. We see police officers working day and night to ensure that those seeking safety find it, he said. He noted that the vehicles were intended to enhance police mobility so that refugees and nationals could benefit from the security services. Kantande requested the Government of Uganda to deploy more police officers to refugee hosting areas, and asked for an increase in the number of women officers. The Inspector-General of Police welcomed the additional support and gave his assurances that refugees would always find safe sanctuary in Uganda. These are our brothers and sisters, said Kayihura, adding that despite resource constraints and spiraling refugee numbers, Ugandas police will continue to redouble their efforts to secure refugee hosting areas. He outlined a range of needs to enhance security including logistical support to patrol border areas. The Minister for Disaster Preparedness, Relief and Refugees lauded the Governments partnership with UNHCR in the quest to support people who have fled their countries. Describing the refugee influx as overwhelming, he commended the police for their vigilance and good work. The Minister noted that Uganda has set aside Government land for use by refugees to settle and cultivate, and that in many cases host communities have done the same. He described initiatives by the Government and its international partners to boost the social and economic situation of refugees and the communities that host them. Uganda has a long history of providing safe asylum to refugees. With more than 1.2 million, it is currently Africas leading refugee-hosting country. The majority hail from South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi and Somalia. - END - For more information, please contact: Teresa Ongnaro, [email protected] Shepherd Unviersity has announced that they will dedicate a new on-campus center for 180 student veterans on Tuesday. They are also set to do the first lecture in a new series honoring the late Shepherd alumnus Brig. Gen. Wayne "Speedy" Lloyd. Ribbon cutting is scheduled at 6:45 p.m. in the new veterans center off the first-floor main entrance at Gardiner Hall. The lecture will be held in the Erma Ora Byrd Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. The lecture's free and open to the public. The veterans center's main goal is to help student veterans make the transition from military life to college life. From the historic Free School on Princess Street in Shepherdstown they decided to move the location after student veterans said they needed more space. The veterans center's vice president, Cody Munro, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and also a junior working on a degree in criminal justice said they were invited to a panel discussion to talk about overall issues affecting veterans. Shepherd President Mary J.C. Hendrix gave her full support for the campus veterans and catered to the things that were needed at the center. Munro added that many veterans didn't use the downtown center because they didn't know it existed. They center needed to be on campus to reach out to more student veterans who are not aware of what it offers. The university should inform incoming veteran students as well about the center at orientation. The Herald Mail Media reported that Maj. Gen. Eric Vollmecke, deputy director for strategic plans and policy at the Pentagon, will be the speaker launching the lecture series on Tuesday. He was a friend and former colleague of Lloyd and delivered the eulogy at Lloyd's funeral. Lloyd graduated from Charles Town High School in 1962 and had a science degree at Shepherd University. In 1977, he joined the 167th Airlift Wing of the West Virginia Air National Guard. He flew C-130 cargo planes for more than 30 years, ranked up and took over the Martinsburg base as its commander in 1989. Researchers at McGill University worked with a group of women who were abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) during the Uganda war. The purpose of the study is to compare their situations during the battle and their lives after it. Sadly, a lot of them considered the war to be better than peace, but they have no plans on giving up the fight for real freedom. First, LRA is a known rebel group led by Joseph Kony during the civil war in Northern Uganda. The bloody years took place between 1986 and 2007. Now, the respondents used in the research were interviewed when they were aged between 12 and 19. A lot of them grew up in captivity. According to McGill, the experts partnered with Watye Ki Gen questioned a total of 60 children. The majority of these people have stayed in prison for up to seven years after being born. Per the same source, the researchers supplemented the interviews with arts-based psychological workshops. Surprisingly, when the participants were asked to draw their families before and after the war, the sad faces were seen on the post-war outputs. The experts were truly shocked and puzzled so they decided to ask the children directly. Apparently, the respondents revealed that their lives were actually better during the war in many ways. Per Science Daily, the study found out that the drawings were the results of multiple forms of "violence, stigma, rejection, social exclusion, and socio-economic marginalization." Sadly, the people who survived the war had to face tougher challenges after it. Lead author Myriam Denov from McGill University explained in the study that the victims of war see violence, terror, and starvation as easier challenges compared to the moral abuse they are experiencing now. Additionally, these people have seen a "greater sense of family" during the hard times. Unfortunately, the war victims experience abuse from their own uncles nowadays. For one, their family members do not want "Kony" children at home. The youths stressed that they need a livelihood, psychological support, and community sensitization. Cass Tech graduate, Historian and University of Michigan professor, Heather Ann Thompson, was among the winners of 2017 Pulitzer Prizes for best written works on Monday. Thompson won for the book called "Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy," a history of the 1971 Attica prison uprising. According to historians, the Attica uprising is a civil rights touchstone equal to Watts and Detroit's 1967 riot. Thompson's first book was "Whose Detroit?" Thompson won the award in the category of Letters, Drama & Music. MLive reported that according to the judges she won for a narrative history that set high standard for scholarly judgment and tenacity of inquiry in seeking the truth about the 1971 Attica prison riots. Some said it was for being able to break new ground and telling the story that few have ever heard before. More than a decade ago, Thompson did an extensive research on Attica using New York state files to find what happened in September 1971 when 39 prisoners died and hundreds were injured after state police stormed the prison with tear gas and guns to end a hostage crisis. Prisoners took guards and civilians hostage and demanded for better living conditions. Thompson said there was a wall full of records of Attica, which included all kinds of stuff that she wasn't supposed to see, such as key documents. It allowed her to really document those who had committed terrible crimes at Attica but were protected. Her book claims and shows documentation that New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller knew that inmates would die. Despite warnings they hatched a plan to send armed state troopers into the prison. She said the prisoners and guards inside the prison were dispensable if it meant the governor could retake the prison. Thompson found out about the Pulitzer Prize while she was teaching at UM Detroit history class. Her students cheered for when she heard the news. She said it was a complete surprise and she didn't imagine she'd get that kind of nomination or award, Click On Detroit reported. The Great Barrier Reef has been bleaching for two consecutive years due to the warming ocean. Now, footage from a helicopter reveals that it is the middle part that is suffering from bleaching. But scientists are trying to save this natural wonder with a better monitoring strategy that involves the ordinary people. Coral bleaching is when the warm waters of summer disrupt the balance between corals and symbiotic algae. Due to this condition, the coral expels the algae, turning it into white. It is very serious, and a lot of journalists are jumping in to the issue saying that the Great Barrier Reef is at its terminal stage, The Guardian reported. Coral bleaching may be very serious, but scientists say a bleached coral doesn't mean dead corals. This means there is no reason for panic and despair since bleached coral can heal, which means there is hope. A lot of people are overwhelmed with the trending news that the Great Barrier Reef is at its terminal stage. But people who are concerned have a way to help scientists monitor the majestic marine natural structure. Fifteen years ago The University of Queensland started the CoralWatch citizen monitoring program, The Conversation reported. It was created to help scientists monitor the environment a wider range and inform the people about marine science. People around the reef, snorkelers, and divers can inform scientists if they spot any coral bleaching around the Great Barrier Reef. This gives the experts a more detailed picture of the reef's health. People who are concerned about the reef can participate through the CoralWatch app or site where they can color charts to measure the type of coral bleaching. The chart features 75 percent of corals, which means people can use it even without training. People will also be asked to enter what kind of coral is suffering from bleaching, where it is located, and the weather at the moment. The influence of social media to the lives of many people, especially to young adults can no longer be denied. It even changed the way soon-to-be college students look at the college admissions process, and it holds true for one senior student from Wentzville, Mo. Taylor Baumstark, a senior high school student who attends Timberland High School, is torn whether she will be attending Maryville University and Missouri State. 5 On your Side reported. And that is when she turned to Twitter to finally arrive at a decision. She knew it was a tough decision to make because it is about where she will be spending the next four years of her life. The 18 year old Baumstark was already decided to attend Missouri State University when got a letter she was not expecting from Maryville University. The letter says she was accepted to the school, and that the reason why she never got their letter was because they had a technology problem. She even said that she was offered a scholarship and was asked if she might want to go for a tour. That was when she started struggling with making a decision. She already paid the dorm for the MSU but could hardly even decide. The next thing she did was to post two pictures of herself on Twitter showing that she is in front of the two universities, with the caption "send help". A Twitter war started thereafter as her post was followed by multitude of comments which were not only coming from students, but also from the college's staff and presidents. After the whole Twitter War that went on, she finally made a decision later that day and Maryville University was the one who won the war. Union Pacific Plans to Invest $135 Million in its Arkansas Rail Infrastructure Union Pacific is boosting safety and efficiency with an approximately $135 million infrastructure investment in Arkansas this year. Projects funded by Union Pacific benefit Arkansas's overall transportation infrastructure without taxpayer funds. Union Pacific's investment plan funds a range of initiatives: $119 million to maintain railroad track and $7 million to maintain bridges in the state. Key projects planned this year include: $20 million investment in the rail line between Rison and Camden to replace 47 miles of rail. $14 million investment in the rail line between Little Rock and Benton to replace 61,005 railroad ties and install 16,838 tons of rock ballast. "Union Pacific's targeted investments fund projects that strengthen our railroad tracks, increase safety and minimize delays as trains travel through communities across Arkansas," said Brenda Mainwaring, Union Pacific vice president Public Affairs, Southern Region. "Maintaining a healthy railroad is the foundation of our ability to serve customers and communities across the state." This year's planned $135 million capital expenditure in Arkansas is part of an ongoing investment strategy. From 2012 to 2016, Union Pacific invested more than $588 million strengthening Arkansas's transportation infrastructure. Union Pacific plans to spend $3.1 billion across its network this year. The company has invested $51 billion since 2000, contributing to a 40 percent decrease in derailments during the same time frame. ABOUT UNION PACIFIC Union Pacific Railroad is the principal operating company of Union Pacific Corporation (NYSE: UNP). One of America's most recognized companies, Union Pacific Railroad connects 23 states in the western two-thirds of the country by rail, providing a critical link in the global supply chain. From 2007-2016, Union Pacific invested approximately $34 billion in its network and operations to support America's transportation infrastructure. The railroad's diversified business mix includes Agricultural Products, Automotive, Chemicals, Coal, Industrial Products and Intermodal. Union Pacific serves many of the fastest-growing U.S. population centers, operates from all major West Coast and Gulf Coast ports to eastern gateways, connects with Canada's rail systems and is the only railroad serving all six major Mexico gateways. Union Pacific provides value to its roughly 10,000 customers by delivering products in a safe, reliable, fuel-efficient and environmentally responsible manner. The statements and information contained in the news releases provided by Union Pacific speak only as of the date issued. Such information by its nature may become outdated, and investors should not assume that the statements and information contained in Union Pacific's news releases remain current after the date issued. Union Pacific makes no commitment, and disclaims any duty, to update any of this information. Published: April 12, 2017 Hammerhead Shark Research Pushes Senior to Think Outside the Tank Haley Amplo 17 loves rock climbing, especially in the Southeast. She likes the way the rock formations have created climbing routes that keep her intrigued. I love climbing. Its a game. Its a challenge, a puzzle to figure out, said Amplo, vice president of UTs rock climbing club, a University club sport. Even when youre in the gym, and theyve got marked off holds, its still how can I figure it out in a way thats different than how everybody else is figuring it out, which I think relates a lot to science. She should know. Amplo has been problem solving her way through the hammerhead shark research shes been conducting these past two years with Daniel Huber, associate professor of biology. They are studying why the shape of hammerhead sharks heads have evolved as they have. Hammerheads are really strange, said Amplo, a marine science-biology major with a minor in chemistry. They have a wing strapped to their face. Why would they have that? Huber explains that hammerhead sharks are characterized by an extremely unusual head shape called the cephalofoil, or head wing. Past studies have focused on the sharks sensory systems and how the head shape might be advantageous in terms of the range of vision, turning radius and ability to pick up different electrical impulses as compared to other closely related sharks. But the issue of the sharks fluid dynamics and how they impact its evolution has been ignored. In this study, six hammerhead species were examined to determine if cephalofoil shape affected fluid drag during locomotion. Head models were 3-D printed from reconstructed CT scans and fluid drag measurements were performed at varying angles of attack in a recirculating flume, from which drag coefficients were derived, Huber said. It was hypothesized that cephalofoil size and shape will influence fluid drag, and ultimately swimming performance. Amplo, who is participating in this research independently, was attracted by the topic and by the professor. When I first met with Dr. Huber I kind of fan-girled a little bit because he was on Shark Week, she said laughing. (Huber and his colleagues are the first to have successfully measured voluntary bite force in free-swimming sharks, and he has been featured several times on Discoverys Shark Week.) But its been a lot of work in research on her own and then most Fridays in the waterfront Marine Science Field Station. Haley has a tremendous work ethic and the intellect to understand connections between different fields of science, Huber said. This project uses engineering principles (fluid dynamics) to understand the evolution of one of the oddest structures in all of biodiversity, the hammerhead cephalofoil. Amplo has spent hours working with computer programs that read the CT scans of frozen sharks (collected from a colleague of Hubers), cleaning up the scans in one model and using another to layer on the sharks skeletal structure, the muscles and the skin. From there they had the data to 3-D print a shark head using the high caliber 3-D printers through Hubers connection at USF Healths Department of Radiology. The heads were then set up in a flume where the team (Huber, Amplo, Taylor Cunningham 18 and Sara Casareto 20) was able to take measurements of how the fluid moved around the heads at different angles. Were thinking hammerhead sharks, with this huge cephalofoil, also swimming at a higher angle of attack than most sharks are doing, potentially creating such a huge decrease in force or such a huge increase in lift, that that might be why cephalofoil evolved in the first place, Amplo said. Maybe all these sensory benefits are all secondary. Amplo said one of her biggest takeaways from this research project is learning how to be creative with fixes, as well as adaptable. One of the big things Ive learned from this project is that science is not this straight line. Its a lot of troubleshooting, she said. I had to learn how to think like a scientist, where theres not a lab manual in front of you telling you the steps to go by. A lot of it is problem solving on your own. Coming up with an idea when youre in the shower and writing it down really quick because hey, that might be a good angle to come at it. You have to think outside the box and slightly different than everyone else is thinking. The hammerhead shark project will continue next semester with Cunningham taking the lead. For Amplo, of Jamesburg, NJ, coming to UT was a good choice. Id pick UT again solely based on how awesome my professors have been. I do have the ability to go into their offices and they know my name, they know my face, they know about my work ethic what Im good at, what Im not good at, even if Ive only taken one class with them. Amplo presented her research at the Florida Undergraduate Research Conference back in February, along with several other UT students, and shell be presenting at the upcoming CNHS Undergraduate Research Symposium April 28, which is part of UTs Undergraduate Research Celebration Week. Later this summer she hopes to submit her work for publication. An experience like this is paramount in helping students decide if they want to pursue research as a career. Accumulating knowledge in the classroom only gets you so far in this regard, Huber said. Students need to experience the creative process of developing ideas and collecting/analyzing/interpreting data to know if research is right for them. It also helps students to develop the analytical skills needed to critically evaluate information and make evidence-based decisions, which is crucial to our competence as a society in this day and age. Have a story idea? Contact Jamie Pilarczyk, Web Writer Sign up for UT Web Alerts Central Asian Awareness Day April 23 at UW The Central Asian Student Organization (CASA) at the University of Wyoming will celebrate Central Asian Awareness Day and New Year (Navruz) Sunday, April 23. The program begins at 5:30 p.m. in the Wyoming Union Ballroom. The program will feature a musical show, including guest performers; speakers, traditional performances, a clothing presentation and other visual presentations about Central Asia. Traditional cuisine also will be served. The event is free and open to the public, but tickets are required. Tickets will be distributed Wednesday and Thursday, April 19-20, from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. at the Wyoming Union information desk. CASA, established in October 2011 as a recognized student organization at UW, was formed to create and promote a better understanding of Central Asia and its rich culture and history among students, faculty and local community through involvement, and participation in various social and cultural activities. The organization has presented many cultural events on campus and in the community. CASA has won three times for top country display during International Education Week at UW. The groups table was voted the best cultural display by organizers of the event. By showing Central Asian heritage, our students develop close relationships and deepened intercultural understanding, says Dilnoza Khasilova, CASA president. For more information about Central Asian Awareness Day, email Khasilova at dkhasilo@uwyo.edu. UW Masters Degree Student Receives Fulbright Award to Conduct Research in Indonesia During her graduate studies in Indonesia, UW student Thao Nguyen posed with a fish mascot from the organization Rare, which works with local communities around the world to develop environmental stewardship practices. (Thao Nguyen Photo) A University of Wyoming student is the recipient of a prestigious Fulbright U.S. Student Program Award to conduct research in Indonesia for the 2017-18 academic year. When she graduates from UW this spring semester -- with a double masters degree in political science, and environment and natural resources -- Thao Nguyen, originally from New Orleans, La., will spend 10 months based at the Universitas Diponegoro in Semarang, Indonesia, starting in September. She will collaborate with Professor Hartuti Purnaweni to expand on ongoing research comparing environmental management in two marine protected areas: Wakatobi and Karimunjawa national parks. This will build off the work she began during her thesis research to assess changing management practices in the national parks. The Fulbright award will cover her international travel, living expenses and research expenses. I am interested in narrating the stories of the community members, Nguyen says. My research is qualitative, and I will focus on the narratives that can sometimes be left out of more quantitative studies. Unlike U.S. national parks, in Indonesia, people live within the borders of nationally protected areas where they consume resources like fish and other seafood for subsistence. Nguyen will interview park managers, conservation organization representatives and, importantly, local fishermen to gather information about the ways that management does and does not sustain protected area biodiversity while permitting resource consumption. Her work comes at a critical time as Indonesias new president, Joko Widodo, is promoting mass tourism in Wakatobi National Park, one of the two national parks in Nguyens comparative study. The Fulbright U.S. Student Program immerses students and recent graduates in host countries through direct community engagement in an atmosphere of academic integrity and intellectual freedom. Nguyen also has applied for a Critical Language Enhancement Award, which would provide her with three months of intensive language training before starting her research. She will learn later this spring whether she also earns the award. The Fulbright U.S. Student Program is the largest U.S. exchange program offering opportunities for students and young professionals to undertake international graduate study, advanced research, university teaching, and primary and secondary school teaching worldwide. The program currently awards approximately 1,900 grants annually in all fields of study, and operates in more than 140 countries worldwide. More than 360,000 Fulbright recipients from the U.S. and other countries have participated in the program since its inception in 1946. The Fulbright Program awards approximately 8,000 grants annually. Currently, the Fulbright Program operates in more than 160 countries worldwide. The UW International Programs Office coordinates and advises students interested in pursuing Fulbright program options. Mary Katherine Scott, acting director of the International Programs Office (IPO), and Shawn Bunning, IPOs project coordinator, are official Fulbright advisers. Participating in a Fulbright program is a prestigious opportunity for UW students, allowing them to serve as cultural ambassadors for our institution, our state and our nation while they are overseas, Scott says. Thao is an ideal representative of this award, and her project will certainly help promote cross-cultural dialogue and understanding. For more information, call Emilene Ostlind, UW Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources communications coordinator, at (307) 766-2604 or email emilene@uwyo.edu. For more information or to set up a Fulbright advising appointment, call the UW International Programs Office at (307) 766-3677. Golden Nugget Las Vegas welcomes the hottest entertainers to the stage this May through July as part of its acclaimed 52 Fridays series. Headlining acts will include 60s pop sensations, 70s blues rockers, 80s hair icons, 90s rock superstars, and more (Pictured: Johnny Rivers). Upcoming artists performing live in The Showroom include: MAY May 5 A Flock of Seagulls May 12 Johnny Rivers May 19 Gin Blossoms May 26 Little River Band JUNE June 2 Hermans Hermits starring Peter Noone June 9 Gary Lewis & the Playboys June 16 April Wine June 23 The Buckinghams June 30 Foghat JULY July 7 The Grass Roots July 14 Felix Cavalieres Rascals July 21 Quiet Riot July 28 Ambrosia May 5 A Flock of Seagulls English new wave performers A Flock of Seagulls became international sensations and hair icons with the 1982 release of their eponymous debut album. The hit single I Ran (So Far Away) was a global success and to date the song and its music video remain the gold standard for all things 1980s. In 1983, the group was awarded a GRAMMY for Best Rock Instrumental Performance for the song D.N.A. May 12 Johnny Rivers American rock artist Johnny Rivers has many hits including Mountain of Love, Poor Side of Town, and Summer Rain. Rivers has had nine Top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 and has sold over 30 million records. In 2015, Rivers was inducted into Americas Pop Music Hall of Fame and continues to perform to sold-out audiences. May 19 Gin Blossoms Formed in 1987 in Tempe, Arizona, the Gin Blossoms are a pop/rock band known for their southwestern sound and dominating the alternative rock era in the 90s. With hits like Hey Jealousy, Found Out About You, and Follow You Down, the Gin Blossoms have earned several platinum albums and a GRAMMY nomination. May 26 Little River Band Little River Band is one of the most successful acts to come out of Melbourne since they formed in 1975. Known for their mellow country-pop sound, they were the first Australian group to enjoy sustained commercial success in the U.S. During their career, they have sold more than 25 million albums and charted 13 Top 40 Hits. June 2 Hermans Hermits starring Peter Noone Hermans Hermits starring Peter Noone dominated the 60s along with such big names as the The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Beginning in England, April 1, 1964, the group has accomplished over 23 his singles, 10 hit albums and 3 major movies. Their top hits include Mrs. Brown (Youve Got a Lovely Daughter) Silhouettes, Dandy, and Henry VIII. June 9 Gary Lewis & the Playboys Gary Lewis & the Playboys were an American 60s-era pop and rock group, fronted by musician Gary Lewis, the son of comedian Jerry Lewis. They are best known for their 1965 Billboard Hot 100 number-one single This Diamond Ring, which was the first of a string of hit singles they had in 1965 and 1966. The band had an earnest, boy-next-door image similar to British invasion contemporaries such as Hermans Hermits and Gerry and the Pacemakers. The group folded in 1970, but a version of the band later resumed touring and continues to tour, often playing for veterans benefits. June 16 April Wine 70s and 80s rock sensations April Wine began their impressive journey in 1969 when they formed in Nova Scotia. Their first studio hit, Fast Train propelled them to international stardom. They went on to record 15 studio albums, three live releases, and perform thousands of concerts. April Wines most memorable hits include You Could Have Been a Lady, Just Between You and Me, and If you Believe in Me. June 23 The Buckinghams After changing their name from The Pulsations to The Buckinghams to reflect the British Invasion craze, this American Sunshine pop group became an overnight sensation. The group put out the wistful Kind of a Drag, which ending up being a million-selling pop chart-topper. Other major hits for the band include Dont You Care, Hey Baby (Theyre Playing Our Song), and the pseudo-psychedelic Susan. The group showed off their R&B roots on the jazz standard Mercy, Mercy, Mercy, their second-biggest hit. June 30 Foghat Move to the music, we can move all night. Boogie-blues rockers Foghat will take fans on a journey through their favorite hits including Slow Ride, Drivin Wheel, I Just Want to Make Love to You, and more. The group, which has performed together for more than 40 years, has earned eight gold albums, one platinum album, and one double platinum album. The bands rollicking performances have garnered it lifelong fans from around the world. July 7 The Grass Roots American rock band The Grass Roots have sold more than 20 million records worldwide. With two gold albums and 13 gold singles, The Grass Roots found their success without obtaining a number one hit, although they got close with three Top 10 singles, three Top 20 and eight Top 40 hits. After the passing of early member Rob Grill in 2011, The Grass Roots still continue to tour and perform for audiences across the United States. July 14 Felix Cavalieres Rascals The Rascals are considered the best blue-eyed soul group to come out of the 1960s, as well as one of the groups with the most record sales. The Rascals has a string of hits, including the mega hit Good Lovin, which struck number one in February 1966. They followed suit with a string of hits like Ive Been Lonely Too Long, Groovin, How Can I Be Sure, A Girl Like You, A Beautiful Morning, and People Got to Be Free. The Rascals disbanded in 1972 and Felix Cavalieres solo career thrived throughout the decade. July 21 Quiet Riot Quiet Riot is an American heavy metal band best known for their hit singles Come On Feel the Noize and Metal Health. They were founded in 1973 by guitarist Randy Rhoads and bassist Kelly Garni under the original name Mach 1, before changing the name to Little Women and finally Quiet Riot in May 1975. The current lineup features lead vocalist James Durbin, drummer Frankie Banali, bassist Chuck Wright, and guitarist Alex Grossi. They are ranked at number 100 on VH1s 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock. July 28 Ambrosia Los Angeles quartet Ambrosia, whose founding members included guitarist/vocalist David Pack, bassist/vocalist Joe Puerta, keyboardist Christopher North, and drummer Burleigh Drummond, fused symphonic art rock with a slickly produced pop sound. The group was discovered in 1971 by Los Angeles Philharmonic conductor Zubin Mehta, who featured Ambrosia as part of a so-called All-American Dream Concert. Their first record Ambrosia was released in 1975 and spawned the chart singles Holdin on to Yesterday and Nice, Nice, Very Nice. Ambrosia followed this success in 1980 with another number three hit, Biggest Part of Me, and the number 13 follow-up Youre the Only Woman. Over 575 Clark County girls will pour their heart and sole to participate in the 2017 Girls on the Run Las Vegas 5K Run/Walk on Sunday, April 30 at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. A favorite among locals and students across the city, Girls On The Runs (GOTR) record-breaking 5th anniversary will bring in the largest group of volunteers and participants to date. Shared among 39 teams across the valley, the 10-week character building program is aimed at enhancing self-esteem and increasing healthy lifestyle choices. With a new location, big numbers and even bigger goals, Health Plan of Nevada has proudly joined GOTR as a new 5K event sponsor. Girls on the Run Las Vegas celebrates our five year milestone anniversary this season, serving close to 600 3rd-8th grade girls throughout Clark County, says executive director Brigette Kirvin. Empowering these young women with a positive sense of self, connection to peers and community and the knowledge that they can accomplish big things with consistent effort is at the driving force of our program. Its not just an after-school program, its a movement! Girls on the Run is a nationally recognized youth-development program that inspires young girls to build self-confidence, teamwork and independent thinking through physical activity. This season, the local council achieved the largest growth in the chapters history, serving 577 girls in 3rd-8th grades. The race will include: A pre-event dance party featuring high-energy DJ JayR Beatbox The Sparkle Zone An area to glitz and glam the program participants with colored hairspray and face painting Selfie Stations that include a large running shoe designed by a middle school participant Special visits from a collection of mascots including The Coca-Cola Polar Bear and UNLVs Hey Reb! Support from local groups such as UNLVs Cheer, Soccer and Basketball teams, Coronado Band Registration is now open for the 2017 Girls on the Run 5K: $35 for adults and $15 for children under 18. The participation fee includes an event T-shirt, a commemorative 5k medal and mouth-watering refreshments. GOTR superhero capes and cowbells will also be on sale at the merchandise tent, with all proceeds supporting the companys scholarship fund. Yen was the winner of the Vietnam Supermodel contest in 2008. She was the second in Miss Universe Vietnam 2008 and represented Vietnam in Miss Universe 2009. The contestants catwalk skills may not be even because they come from countries with different levels of development in fashion and performance, and the frequency of holding beauty pageants, not to mention religion, said Yen. But the crew and I are ready to train each of them so that they can shine and compete fairly on stage in the final night of the competition on July 1, 2017. The programmes accompanying the contest are going to see the participation of experts and celebrities from countries in the ASEAN. Vietnamese artists that are going to be present include music director-composer Huy Tuan, executive director Hoang Cong Cuong, director of contestant admission supermodel Ha Anh, director of the catwalk supermodel Hoang Yen, contestant management consultant Miss Southeast Asia Phan Hoang Thu, MC Vu Manh Cuong, and more. Miss ASEAN Friendship 2017 aims to honour the beauty of Southeast Asian women and is going to be a platform for cultural exchange, with the purpose of increasing cooperation among countries in the bloc, promote trade, tourism, and introduce the sceneries of Phu Yen, Vietnam, and other ASEAN destinations. Eligible applicants can contact the contestant selection board through Facebook, email, the events website or the hotline. The contestant selection board will work with the applicants and their representatives to verify their information and ensure their applications are complete before forwarding them to the organising board, then carry out all necessary procedures so that they can arrive at Noi Bai or Tan Son Nhat International Airport on June 10, 2017. Miss ASEAN Friendship 2017 has been promoted in Vietnam and other countries in the ASEAN. At the moment, the competition is open for applications. The choosing of contestants will be finished on May 25, 2017. Applications for the pageant need to be submitted to Gala Viet Event Organisation and Tourism JSC at 70 Phan Dang Luu Street, Danang city (0511 3626 566) or floor 6, P604, 7 Dao Duy Anh, Dong Da Street, Hanoi (043 533 5191). On the envelope, please write in clear, legible letters: Application to join the Miss ASEAN Friendship 2017 contest. The envelope can be bought to these locations directly or sent by post. Vietnamese applicants will be subject to stricter criteria than contestants from other countries: they are required to have won titles in domestic pageants. Applicants from other countries will need to meet simpler requirements: they need to be taller than 1.68 metres, not wear braces or glasses, be high-school (or equivalent) graduates, not be transgendered, and have a clean criminal record. Applicants may access more information and apply at: Website: hoahauhuunghiasean.com ; Facebook: facebook.com/hoahauhuunghiasean/ Hotline of the contestant selection board: 0948315525 Hotline of the organising board: 0915 33 4648 - 0984 390 040 A farmer harvest pepper in Cam My district, Dong Nai province This idea was agreed on by Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Quoc Doanh and representatives from the Vietnam Coffee-Cocoa Association (VICOFA) and Vietnam Pepper Association (VPA) at their working session on April 11. VICOFA General Secretary Nguyen Viet Vinh said that enterprises and farmers currently do not connect well because of intermediaries who benefit much from business deals. In 2016, Vietnam ranked second in the world in coffee exports. It sold 1.78 million tonnes of coffee for US$3.34 billion, up 32.8% in volume and 25% in value. However, export value remained low as most coffee beans were exported unprocessed. Similarly, Vietnam mainly exports raw pepper, but a lack of varieties and diseases are causing a decrease in the quality of Vietnamese pepper. VPA Deputy General Secretary Nguyen Mai Oanh said that although the ministry of agriculture and rural development established a pepper research centre in Gia Lai province, Vietnam has to date have no standard set of varieties. She requested more efforts to find good pepper varieties suitable for Vietnams land and weather. Foreign partners are willing to pay 10%-20% higher than normal if Vietnam can provide clean and safe pepper, she added. According to Deputy Minister Doanh, 98% of Vietnamese pepper is shipped abroad. Therefore, he asked businesses to work with farmers to ensure safe and sustainable pepper production. In 2016, Vietnams pepper exports reached 177,893 tonnes, earning US$1.43 billion, an increase of 35.3% in volume and 13.5% in value year-on-year. Doctor examines a patient in central Nghe An Provinces Obstetrics and Pediatrics Hospital. The new technique will soon be transferred to city and provincial-level obstetrics hospitals to reduce overloading at the National Hospital of Obstetrics and Gynecology.- Photo: VNA/VNS The National Hospital of Obstetrics and Gynecology announced successful testing of the new technique last week. It said the technique was studied and carried out by Tien, known as the golden hands of Viet Nams obstetrics discipline. The technique involves using a catheter to broaden the internal orifice of the uterus via an endoscopy through the womb and abdomen. After more than 10 years of study, the technique was successfully deployed on two women diagnosed with secondary infertility. The first patient, Nguyen Thi Loan from the central province of Nghe An, was diagnosed with secondary infertility 8 years after shed had her first baby. Doctors found that the she had an occlusion in the internal orifice of the uterus, preventing her from getting pregnant. Both women were in good health following the surgery. A month after the operation, the womens internal OS have become normal. They can have babies in the natural way after more than seven years of suffering secondary infertility, Tien said. According to the doctor, the infertility rate in Viet Nam was 7.7 per cent at present. While either the wife or the husband or both can be the cause of infertility, leading causes for the woman were blocked fallopian tubes, occlusion of the internal orifice of the uterus, polycystic ovary syndrome, uterine malformation and endometriosis. Recent studies have found that the rate of secondary infertility was about 60-70 per cent of all cases of infertility. The percentage is very high. Helping these couples have babies became a concern and a responsibility, he said. After many years of working as doctor specialising in fertility treatment, I empathized with couples wanting babies, Tien told Lao Dong (Labour) newspaper. Fertility treatment is usually costly and takes many attempts to succeed, and many couples are left feeling hopeless. In-vitro fertilization was an option not all couples could afford. In many cases, couples took five to 10 years to save the money. But, unfortunately, the womens ovaries aged during this time, the doctor said. The patients despair pushed Tien and his colleagues to find an effective, affordable solution. After years of research, the doctor was able to fashion a new technique based on endoscopy of the womb and abdomen. I am really confident about the new method. Based on my experience, I am sure the patients will be able to have babies normally, Tien affirmed. He said the new technique was very safe and the side effects were minimal. The operation itself just took a hour and a half. Other methods carry high risks of complications, he said. Thanks to the new technique, the Center for Reproductive Assistance is able to help dozens of patients every day. I can confidently say that with this technique, IVF or surrogate pregnancies can become a thing of the past, Tien said. He said the technique will soon be transferred to city and provincial-level obstetrics hospitals to reduce overloading at the National Hospital of Obstetrics and Gynecology. However, one thing that concerns me now is that infertility treatment is not covered by health insurance, Tien said. In many developed countries, childless couples are covered for up to four IVF attempts, he said. But in Viet Nam, even tests are not paid for by health insurance. In my opinion, the treatment has a humanitarian purpose, and we should consider this, the doctor said. According to BT Tee, general manager of SES Vietnam Exhibition Services, the Vietnamese tourism industry is set to grow for the foreseeable future as Vietnam continues to establish itself as a leading holiday destination in Southeast Asia. In the period between 2010 - 2016, the average annual growth rate of international visitors to Vietnam was reported to be higher than that of the 2006 - 2010 period. It is further predicted that the country expects to receive up to 17-20 million international visitors and 82 million domestic visitors by 2020. This steady growth in both international and domestic tourism has accelerated the opening of more international-branded properties and tourist accommodation establishments in Vietnam. Statistics show that by the end of 2016, there is a total of 21,000 accommodation facilities with a total of 420,000 rooms across the country, up 11 per cent in the number of facilities and 18 per cent in the number of rooms compared to 2015. Among them, there are 797 three to five-star hotels with more than 80,000 rooms, including 104 five-star hotels, 230 four-star hotels and 463 three-star hotels. At a time when the tourism and hospitality sectors continue to flourish, the biannual Food&HotelVietnam trade event provides a valuable sourcing opportunity for the products and services catering to the food and hospitality industries, ranging from the finest and most unique food ingredients, to food service, kitchen and catering equipment, hotel amenities and software solutions, he noted. Within the framework of the exhibition, the conference program covers a series of industry topics so delegates can glean in-depth knowledge, keep up with the emerging trends and further understand evolving customer needs to stay ahead of the curve. This year, the Vietnam Hotel Association will join forces with Food&HotelVietnam to organise Vietnam Hotel Business and Investment Conference with an estimated participation of over 300 senior delegates from luxury hotels. The conference expects to offer opportunities for industry insights, knowledge share, best practices and business networking with various professionals from all facets of the hospitality industry. Other highlights of the show include the highly-regarded culinary and barista competitions - opening up a wealth of opportunity for participants to test their skills in an intense and action-packed series of challenges. A view of Hai Phong Port, where logistics services play an important role in connecting transport and economic development.-Photo haiphongport.com Le Duy Hiep, VLA chairman, said that VLA had been assigned to complete several tasks of the plan. In February, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc approved the action plan, which aims to have the logistics sector contribute 8 to10 per cent to the countrys GDP, with annual growth of 15-20 per cent by 2025. The plan also calls for Viet Nam to become one of the worlds 50 leading logistics services providers. The plan recommends new policies, more investment in infrastructure development, and better co-operation between local and foreign logistics companies. The aim is to have logistics companies that can be competitive in both domestic and international markets. Under the plan, Viet Nam will enhance connectivity with neighbouring countries and develop regional and international hubs. The plan calls for building level-1 logistics hubs (the highest level) in Ha Noi and HCM City, and level-2 logistic centres in Lang Son, Lao Cai, Hai Phong, a Nang, Quy Nhon, and Can Tho. Tran Thanh Hai, deputy director of the Ministry of Industry and Trades Import-Export Department, said the countrys logistics development has been modest, as there are only 1,300-1,500 firms in the sector. More than 70 per cent of the businesses are small- and medium-sized with average capital of about VN7 billion (US$320,000). The countrys logistics effectiveness has been low, while available resources have not been fully exploited, Hai said. The action plan would provide short- and mid-term solutions to improve the logistics sector in the next seven or eight years, he added. The initiatives taken by the Government to strengthen the logistics industry and increase efficiency have been supported by industry insiders. Christoph Matthes, managing director of logistics firm DB Schenker in Viet Nam, said, We strongly support the plan as the logistics has become more important than ever before. In addition, increasing consumer demand requires a faster and more reliable way of delivery of goods. For many customers, logistics is no longer a matter of moving boxes from one location to another, but creating a highly efficient and reliable supply chain which enables them to be competitive in a fast-changing world. International trade is growing rapidly as well, and thus, a need to connect to other markets via air, ocean and road freight. Some of the largest export markets for Viet Nam include the ASEAN region and Europe, where Viet Nam competes with other countries and where logistics costs play a vital role. Trade with Europe is expected to increase with the EU-Viet Nam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) coming into force next year. Experts said more steps were needed for smooth implementation of the agreement and to make sure businesses can fully benefit as soon as the treaty takes effect. The commitment of the Vietnamese Government to strengthen the logistics sector is an important step towards making this possible. Nestor Scherbey, general director of logistics firm Customs, Trade and Risk Management Services Ltd Viet Nam, said the national action plan would play a critical role in raising competitiveness. Logistics costs in Viet Nam are among the worlds highest, at 25 per cent of GDP, which hinders the cost competitiveness of Vietnamese firms, according to Logistics Insight Asia. Logistics costs in the US, Europe and the rest of the world are around 9, 13, and 15 per cent, respectively. The efforts necessary to achieve a national action plan for logistics must be undertaken in co-ordination with diligent efforts by Viet Nam to implement the commitments of the World Trade Organisation Trade Facilitation Agreement (WTO TFA), Scherbey said. Many of the major commitments of the WTO TFA were contained in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and EVFTA. Full implementation of trade facilitation by Viet Nam would reduce the countrys international trade transaction costs by 20 per cent. It is the combination of the benefits of trade facilitation, with the benefit of reducing domestic logistics costs, that will allow Vietnamese products to become fully competitive in global markets, he said. Located in the Tien Son Industrial Zone, Misumi Vietnam Co manufactures and distributes standard components for factory automation, press die and plastic mold.-VNS Photo Thu Tra Located in the Tien Son Industrial Zone, the company manufactures and distributes standard components for factory automation, press die and plastic mold. In Viet Nam, foreign direct investment, especially in areas such as mobile phones, electrical machinery or electronic manufacturing, is still growing. MISUMI Vietnam is targeting the capture of customer needs in those industries, particularly focusing on Japanese and Korean companies, by leveraging our existing business relationship in Japan and Korea, company general director Yasuo Shimokura told reporters. He said, in the long term, the company also wanted to penetrate Viet Nams local manufacturing sector, including small and medium-sized enterprises. I believe MISUMI Vietnam can contribute to further development of supporting industries in Viet Nam by providing various high quality products in short and accurate time and with reasonable prices, he noted. During the event, vice chairman of the provincial Peoples Committee Nguyen Huu Thanh spoke highly on the companys debut, saying it would contribute to fostering the provinces industry development. He vowed local authorities would create the most favourable conditions for the company in doing business in Bac Ninh, which was striving to become an industrial province by 2020. Travel firms all reported that the sales of outbound tours at the HCMC 2017 Tourism Festival were much better than domestic tours. At Ben Thanh Tourism, tours to Taiwan, Bali, Dubai and Bhutan with attractive fees of around VND10 million or more were the most wanted. The tours to Japan and South Korea have been closed soon because of full bookings. Tours to Thailand, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia have also been chosen for the summer. Other travel firms including Vietravel, Saigontourist, Du Lich Viet and Tugo have also reported sharp increases in bookings for outbound tours. Vietnamese now tend to prefer outbound tours instead of domestic ones as it has become less costly to travel abroad and foreign agencies are more professional in promoting tours. The steady high two-digit growth rate in outbound tours at some travel firms has encouraged foreign tourism agencies to come to Vietnam to promote tourism. Most recently, JNTO (Japan National Tourism Organization) has opened the representative office in Vietnam with an aim to attract more Vietnamese travelers to Japan. A survey of the organization showed that within five years, from 2012 to 2016, the number of Vietnamese travelers to Japan increased by four times to 230,000 by the end of 2016. JNTO Hanois Chief Representative Ayumi Takahashi said Japan considers Vietnam one of the 20 key markets. Prior to that, Thailand, Singapore and South Korea all had set up representative offices in Vietnam to approach Vietnamese travelers. According to Korea Tourism Organization (KTO), 251,000 Vietnamese visited South Korea in 2016, while it hopes the number would surge to 300,000 in 2017. Meanwhile, Thailand attracted 830,000 Vietnamese travelers to the country last year. High airfares make domestic tours less attractive Nguyen Thien from Tan Phu district in HCMC, said she tends to choose outbound tours, because outbound tours are getting cheaper. The airfares are low, the expenses on accommodations and food in foreign countries are not high, while foreign travelers are not overcharged, she said. A return ticket on HCMC-Da Nang route, for example, is priced at VND1.5 million. The fee for a tour to Thailand is now just equal to a tour of Hue or Da Nang in Vietnam. Phan Xuan Anh, President of Du Ngoan Viet, said that outbound tours have low fees partially because of low airfares. While travel firms still have not found solutions to reduce air transport costs, air carriers have announced an increase of airfares, commencing from late March and early April. The move, as analysts warned, will make domestic tours become even more expensive, and therefore, less competitive than outbound tours. The decree will make sure less buyers get their fingers burnt Among the big projects to be launched is An Khanh New City Developments sale of its first phase this quarter. The mega $2 billion project is developed by South Koreas Posco E&C and Vietnams Vinaconex, located in Hanois Hoai Duc district, along the Thang Long Boulevard. Scheduled for completion in 2013, the city is expected to supply 6,440 apartments, equivalent to 392,319 square metres of accommodation, enough for 30,000 people. Even though Hoa Phat Group, the investor in a more than 1,000 apartment Mandarin Garden in Cau Giay districts Tran Duy Hung road, refused to release its launching time, real estate experts predicted the project would be soon launched. At the beginning of this month the CT7D, located in Le Van Luong street and invested by Nam Cuong Group and the FLC Landmark Tower of FLC Group will also be launched, with a total of 200 units and prices ranging from VND23 million ($1,200) to VND28 million ($1,470) per square metre. In Gia Lam district, over the Red River, the second lot of Rung Co Residentials belonging to the Eco Park is also being launched, with around 1,500 apartment units. In addition, Victoria Van Phu, Star City, Diamond Tower and Song Da City View will also add apartments to the mix. Real estate consultant CBRE Vietnam expected that there would be 3,000 units in Hanoi launched this quarter, compared to 1,950 units in the third quarter. There were more than 4,600 units launched in the second quarter. This decline, according to CBRE Vietnam, could be due to the Decree 71, effective on August 8, 2010 providing guidance on the Housing Law, which caps the proportion of units sold via capital contribution contracts at 20 per cent with the remaining 80 per cent sold on transaction floors. This decree, CBRE Vietnam said, had put a pressure on developers with low financial capabilities and enhanced market transparency. However, CBRE Vietnam executive director Richard Leech said new project launches would continue trending towards more affordable options. With the opening and improvement of major infrastructure routes, the capitals western and southern districts are attracting new residents with easier access for commuting into the core urban districts, Leech said. He said that the Decree 71 was expected to benefit the market by enhancing transparency, placing pressures on developers with low financial capabilities, lessening the threat of price bubbles and limiting speculative forces. Tran Nhu Trung, Savills Vietnam associate director, said the Decree 71 had showed off its advantages to clearly regulate five types of mobilising capital investment. However, Trung said the procedures to implement Decree 71 were still complicated and wasted customers time and energy. The more simple it [decree] regulates, the more it is practical in the real life, Trung said. File photo of a dog in captivity in Taiwan. (Photo: AFP/Ed Jones) Parliament passed legislation to outlaw the consumption, purchase or possession of dog and cat meat, with offenders facing a fine of up to Tw$250,000 (US$8,170). Authorities can also name and shame those who break the law. "This shows that Taiwan is a society with advanced animal welfare," said lawmaker Wang Yu-min who proposed the new rules. The bill also hiked the penalty for killing or abusing animals to a maximum two-year jail term and a stiff fine of Tw$2 million. Dog consumption -- believed by some in Taiwan to help boost male potency -- was common on the island decades ago but has become less popular amid growing calls to protect animal rights. In 2001, Taiwan amended its animal protection law to ban the slaughter of pets -- which included dogs and cats -- for food, although there was no penalty on eating or buying the meat. Sales of pet meat were banned at the end of 2003. But a string of much-publicised animal abuse cases have continued to triggered deep public concern and demands for tougher protection laws. Last year, the military was forced to apologise after a video surfaced of three soldiers torturing and strangling a stray dog to death with an iron chain, prompting several street protests. And in 2014, a male hippo famous for regularly performing at a private zoo in central Taiwan died after breaking a leg and sustaining other injuries during transportation, sparking a public outcry. Reactions to the new law were mixed, with some deeming it unfair to only single out cats and dogs for better protection. "This is the cute animal protection law? only cute animals are protected while the rest deserve to die?" read one message posted on Apple Daily's website. "Why doesn't the parliament amend laws to toughen punishment on drunk driving, fraud and homicide? what a lousy job it is doing," said another post. Dog meat consumption is also common in countries such as China, Vietnam and South Korea. Last year, China's most notorious dog meat festival drew crowds despite international outrage, as more than 10,000 dogs were killed at the event in conditions activists described as brutal. South Koreans are believed to consume somewhere between 1.5 million - 2.5 million dogs every year, but the meat farming industry is in decline, with little demand among the younger generation. In Vietnam, cat meat -- known locally as "little tiger" -- is also a delicacy and although officially banned it is widely available in specialist restaurants. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (R) shakes hands with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson after a press conference in Moscow. (AFP/Alexander NEMENOV) In the wake of the meeting Russia then vetoed a US-backed resolution at the UN demanding the Syrian government cooperate with an investigation of a suspected chemical attack that the West blames on Moscow's ally Bashar al-Assad. US president Donald Trump's White House victory had raised hopes in Moscow that some kind of rapprochement was possible between the former Cold War foes. Trump had spoken warmly of Russia on the campaign trail, but since he came to office in January ties have chilled and the fallout from the alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria threw them into crisis. Trump envoy Tillerson's talks with Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov have been haunted by the incident that saw the US launch punitive strike against Assad's forces. On the alleged attack, and issues like Russian intervention in Ukraine and alleged interference in the US election, the viewpoints of Moscow and Washington remained far apart. "We frankly discussed the state of US-Russian relations. I expressed that the current state is at a low point," the US envoy and former oil executive told reporters. "There is a low level of trust between our two countries. The world's two foremost nuclear powers cannot have this kind of relationship," he warned. Lavrov had begun the day with the more combative tone, but at the pair's joint news conference it was he who stressed the areas where closer cooperation remains possible. "Despite the quantity of existing problems ... there are considerable prospects for joint work," Lavrov said, after he took Tillerson for private talks with Putin. "Russia is open to this, open to dialogue with the US in all different areas," he insisted, citing the capitals' shared vision of an "uncompromising" war on terrorism. And he said that Russia was open to restoring a "deconfliction" hotline to enable US and Russian military commanders to avoid accidental clashes over Syria. But neither side cited much in the way of concrete new avenues of cooperation, beyond establishing a working group to address what Tillerson called "smaller issues." The news conference was dominated by points of contention, chiefly Moscow's deep aversion to US interventionism and Washington's disgust at the carnage in Syria and Ukraine. Tillerson was once a familiar and friendly face in Moscow as the chief executive of oil giant ExxonMobil, but he pulled no punches on his first visit as secretary of state. He restated the US beliefs that Russian hackers and propagandists interfered in the US vote and that Assad's forces were behind the latest chemical weapons attack. MISSILE SALVO He did play down suggestions from some US officials that Russian forces could have been complicit in last week's slaughter of 87 civilians in the town of Khan Sheikhun. But he was firm that only Assad's forces could have carried out such a strike and insisted that Russia must do more to help strip the regime of its chemical arsenal. Lavrov parried the accusations, noting that Moscow wants UN weapons investigators to probe not only Khan Sheikhun but also the Syrian air base that US missiles hit in response. And he declared that many of the divisions between Moscow and Washington were the result of "timebombs" left behind by former president Barack Obama's administration. "We are realistic and understand the need to overcome these obstacles we have to make efforts. And we seek to do that," the veteran diplomat said. Putin, in a television interview ahead of the talks, was more blunt about the new chill in ties, and firmly rejected Washington's view of the Syrian attack. "You can say that the level of trust on a working level, especially on the military side, has not improved but most likely worsened," he said. "Where is the proof that Syrian troops used chemical weapons? There isn't any. But there was a violation of international law. That is an obvious fact." Tillerson had said he would challenge Russia to distance itself from Assad and his Iranian backers, an idea that the Kremlin dismissed as "absurd". RUSSIA VETOES UN RESOLUTION And - even as Tillerson, Putin and Lavrov discussed their differences in Moscow - a fresh storm broke at the United Nations Security Council in New York. Russia vetoed a resolution tabled by the US, Britain and France tabled on the alleged chemical attack in Syria. It was the eighth time that Russia has used its veto power at the UN Security Council to block action directed at its ally in Damascus. Putin meanwhile accused Assad's opponents of planning to stage chemical attacks to be blamed on Damascus in order to lure the United States deeper into the conflict. In a sign the Kremlin is not ready to drop Assad, Syria's foreign minister will jet in to Moscow to meet Lavrov on Thursday before a three-way meeting with Iran on Friday. The annual Vietnam Expos 2017 edition is expected to welcome businesses whose brands have been awarded Vietnam Value-the symbol of prestige, quality, and being a representative for Vietnam in the domestic market as well as active brand development in international markets. Highlighted names at expo include Binh Minh Plastics Company, Duy Tan Plastics Manufacturing Company, Danang Rubber Manufacturing Company, Tran Phu Electronic and Mechanics Company, Vietnam Electric Equipment Company, and Habeco, among others. Vietnam International Trade Fair (Vietnam Expo), organised annually by Vinexad under the patronage of the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) and Vietnam Trade Promotion Agency (Vietrade) over the last two decades, is recognised as the most effective trade promotion event as it brings about a lot of values for organisations, enterprises, and individuals both in Vietnam and overseas. During the exhibition, the forum on Vietnamese exports, the industrial park fact-finding tour, and the business connection event will be held to add further values to businesses. Bui Huy Son, director general of Vietrade, said the coming exhibition will be a good place for local and foreign businesses to forge new connections as well as help them to improve the design for their business and products. Vietnam Expo 2017 expects to host 500 enterprises from 23 countries and territories, including APEC members, covering an area by 600 booths. So far, the organiser has received acceptance letters from businesses from Belarus, Uganda, Singapore, and the Czech Republic, Japan, Malaysia, India, South Korea, China, and numerous local companies. This year, South Korea will be an honourable guest at the expo, celebrating the time-tested trade relation between the two countries. In 2016, Korea sent 111 enterprises in cosmetics, food, beverage, textiles, commodities, pharmaceuticals, electronics, and industrial manufacturing machinery to the exhibition. These products will see tax exemption under the FTA that came into effect in December 2015. Via this accord, 11,679 tariffs applicable to Vietnamese products and 8,529 tariffs applicable to Korean products will be cut. These tariffs are expected to be ultimately removed to facilitate trading between the two countries. Last year, the event attracted 500 firms from 23 countries and territories and consisted of 620 booths. Particularly, there were six national booths belonging to Algeria, Belarus, Cuba, Korea, China, and Vietnam and 14 trade promotion centres from participating provinces and cities. By Press Trust of India: Shillong, Apr 13 (PTI) The BSF has seized over 3000 cattle and contraband items worth lakhs of rupees from the un-fenced stretches along the Indo-Bangladesh border in Meghalaya this year, a senior BSF official said today. "During this year more than 3000 cattle have been seized at the International border," Meghalaya Frontier BSF Inspector General, P K Dubey said. advertisement He said the BSF has seized contraband items worth more than Rs 23 lakh while being smuggled out from India to Bangladesh on the International Border along the unfenced sectors in last four days itself. Today, a cattle smuggler was held by the BSF personnel in South Garo Hills district with cattle meant to be smuggled from India to Bangladesh, Dubey said. The BSF IG claimed that the border guarding force have "plugged" some of the vulnerable patches on the border by not only increasing troop strength but also deploying new technical gadgets and equipments. Dubey said the BSF has "intensified" its operations on the Indo-Bangladesh border to prevent trans-border crimes. PTI JOP RG LNS --- ENDS --- Sonam Kapoor tried to troll Abhay Deol after the latter named and shamed her among other actors for appearing in fairness cream ads. However, Abhay Deol proved to be too smart for Esha Deol. By India Today Web Desk: Yesterday, Abhay Deol went on a Facebook rampage as he kept posting images of fairness cream ads featuring Bollywood stars and pointed out how racism and disdain for dark skin was getting normalised in India thanks to patronage from celebrities and public figures. To this effect, he named and shamed some of Bollywood's top actors who featured in fairness cream ads. Abhay's hitlist included Shah Rukh Khan, John Abraham, Shahid Kapoor, Sidharth Malhotra, Deepika Padukone, Sonam Kapoor and Vidya Balan among others. advertisement ALSO READ: Abhay Deol destroys Bollywood stars who appear in fairness cream ads While most of these stars kept quiet and did not respond, Abhay's co-star in Aisha and Raanjhanaa, Sonam Kapoor, tweeted her defense for featuring in a fairness cream ad. And it was the most ludicrous defense of all time. Sonam Kapoor literally dug out a picture of a fairness cream ad featuring Esha Deol and tried to outsmart the actor. But Abhay, as assured as he was in his conviction for the cause, did not get flustered. Sonam tweeted... And Abhay replied... Then Sonam said, "I shot this campaign ten years ago and didn't understand the ramifications. Thank you for bringing this to the forefront." To which Abhay asked her to take the cause further than the forefront. Ha! And Sonam got mad. But turns out, she later deleted her tweets! That's right. Sonam Kapoor deleted all her tweets and as of now, if you go on her Twitter page, you won't see any of the tweets. Though luckily, you can see the screenshots above you. The debate on racism in India hit the roof when a few Nigerian men were viciously attacked by locals in Greater Noida. As allegations of xenophobia towards dark skin and Africans became prime time-debate material, BJP MP Tarun Vijay said on a television show, "If we were racist, why would we have all the entire south...Tamil, Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra...why do we live with them? We have black people around us." So far, only Sonam Kapoor has responded. It remains to be seen whether the other actors Abhay called out respond as well. ALSO SEE: All of Sonam Kapoor's digs at Deepika, in one place WATCH: Abhay Deol protests against T-Series, gets Bollywood's support --- ENDS --- All our broadband deals include a set-up fee of 35 as standard, unless the deal you pick has an offer on this fee. If your home is already connected to our network, you can choose to install our services yourself with our QuickStart kit. Get it delivered at no extra cost either to your home or to a collection point with Click & Collect. If your home has a connection to the Virgin Media network, or if its been connected before and youd prefer not to install your services yourself, we'll send a technician to get you set up. This usually has an installation fee of 40, unless your deal includes free installation. Find out more information on broadband installation. Prime Minister Hun Sen has encouraged Cambodians to read a book about the leadership style of Chinese President Xi Jinping. Hun Sen launched the Khmer-language book, titled Xi Jinping: The Governance of China, on Tuesday morning at the Peace Palace, his cabinet office. Jiang Jianguo, a spokesman for the Chinese government who attended the event, said the book was largely a compilation of Xis speeches and visions, which included a desire to serve the people of China, organizing political society, and egalitarianism. Hun Sen, who in recent years has grown increasingly close to China, Cambodias biggest aid donor and lender, said the book was instructive and Xis leadership style could teach Cambodians about good governance. The book launch comes after the foreign ministry released a scathing rebuke of United States policy towards Cambodia, in which it accused critical media, NGOs and the opposition of conspiring with foreign powers to foment regime change. Chheang Vannarith, a Southeast Asia analyst, said the book launch was a further indication of Cambodias developing special relationship with China. Cambodia wants to give a signal to the West that the Wests interference in the country will not influence or change anything, because China is an important strategic partner, he said. In October, Xi visited Cambodia and signed more than 30 agreements related to development, investment and trade in his first visit to the country as president and head of state. During the visit, China agreed to cancel some $90 million of debt and supply more military aid and loans. Prime Minister Hun Sen on Wednesday issued an open letter to the Cambodian people wishing them a happy new year and pledging a commitment to maintaining peace and public order ahead of local elections in June. The letter touted the governments achievements in building infrastructure, increasing the minimum wage, and raising per capita income from $1,215 to $1,300 between 2015 and 2016. Analysts said the letter was an attempt by Hun Sen to attract support ahead of what is shaping up to be a tense electoral campaign. Every achievement that the government has made in the past relies on the rightful political leadership, with participation of the legislative body members, government officials at all levels and all types of armed forces, in fulfilling their duties and with strong support from people across the country, the letter said. Sok Eysan, ruling Cambodian Peoples Party spokesman, said the letter was issued to highlight government achievements to make people feel warm and comfortable under the governments leadership and continue to vote for [Hun Sen] to be prime minister. San Chey, country director of the Affiliated Network for Social Accountability, said the issues faced by ordinary Cambodians would not be remedied by a letter. The current issues have not been solved in a timely manner in response to peoples demands and needs, such as agricultural product prices, transportation or increasingly bus fares and other problems that people are facings such as land disputes, he said. Afghan religious leaders on Thursday strongly refuted pro-Taliban remarks by a top Pakistani religious and political leader, classifying them as an "intelligence spin." In response to recent remarks by Maulana Fazl-ur-Rahman, leader of Pakistani's Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F), a conservative religious party accused of maintaining links with various militant groups, the Islamic Scholars Council of Afghanistan called for an Islamic conference to be held in Kabul to debate the religious legitimacy of the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. "Genuine and pious clerics from Pakistan, along with renowned Islamic scholars from the Muslim world, should convene for a religious debate with Afghan religious scholars to assess the situation in Afghanistan, based on the book of Allah [Quran] and teachings of the Prophet [Muhammad]," the Afghan clerics council said. The statement added that the Pakistani cleric has attempted to legitimize the "inhumane and heinous" actions of militants who have targeted schools, hospitals and mosques throughout the country in their bloody insurgency, killing tens of thousands of innocent Afghan civilians over the last decade. U.S., NATO presence cited The JUI-F leader last week linked the Afghan Taliban's insurgency to the presence of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, in an effort to justify the Taliban's continued violence in the country. Rahman said peace in Afghanistan would not be achieved as long as foreign troops were in the country. "International forces must withdraw from Afghanistan for stability and peace in the region," said Rahman, while speaking at a formal gathering where more than a quarter-million people, including foreign guests, celebrated the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the conservative party. The JUI-F is an offshoot of a Muslim Sunni clerics' political movement founded in former British India by the Deobandi madrassa, or religious school, in 1919. Rahman's father, Mufti Mahmoud, was one of the leading members who parted ways with the movement in 1945 and established what was originally known as JUI after the creation of Pakistan in 1947. The party has been an adamant supporter of the Afghan Taliban, a majority of whom have been educated in hundreds of religious seminaries run by the party across Pakistan. The Islamic Scholars Council of Afghanistan argues that the JUI-F leader lacks the credentials to issue jihadi verdicts (fatwa) legitimizing the insurgency in Afghanistan. 'A hostile stance' "We do not recognize Fazl-ur-Rahman as a religious scholar, but rather he is closely associated with Pakistan's military establishment," Mohammad Qasem Haleemi, the spokesman for the Islamic Scholars Council of Afghanistan, told VOA's Afghan service last week. "It is a hostile stance against Afghanistan." Haleemi said that ironically, Fazl-ur-Rahman and his party want peace in Pakistan but instigate people against a legitimate government in Afghanistan. Last week, the JUI-F secretary general, Abdul Ghafoor Haidari, who was denied a U.S. visa in February, called on the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) to lay down their arms and join his Islamist political party to pursue its objectives through political means. Analysts charge that several religious groups like JUI-F are actively helping achieve Pakistani military policy goals in the region. "Pakistan's security establishment would want to combat India's influence in Afghanistan through Afghan Taliban. Maulana Fazl-ur-Rehman and many other politicians support the security establishment and thus keep a different stance for Afghan and Pakistani Taliban," said Khadim Hussain, a political and security analyst in Peshawar. Pakistani officials deny having used these political parties to lure militant groups to violence in places like Afghanistan and India. The Afghan Taliban says that it does not support Russia-sponsored multi-nation talks on Afghanistan because the process seems to be motivated solely by the political agenda of the organizers. The Islamist insurgency issued its reaction a day before delegates from Afghanistan as well as its immediate and far neighbors are due to meet in Moscow to resume what Russian officials refer to as consultations on prospects for Afghan security and national reconciliation. Fridays round of discussions will be the third Moscow has hosted since December, saying the effort is to encourage the Taliban to engage in peace talks with the Afghan government to end the protracted conflict. But the Taliban is dismissing Russias assertions about Moscow's Afghan peace initiative, saying Fridays meeting is one of many gatherings that routinely take place on Afghanistan without producing any results. We cannot call these negotiations [in Moscow] as a dialogue for the restoration of peace in Afghanistan, Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, told VOA. This meeting [in Moscow] stems from political agendas of the countries who are organizing it. This has really nothing to do with us, nor do we support it, Mujahid added. He reiterated insurgents traditional stance that U.S.-led foreign troops will have to leave Afghanistan before any conflict resolution talks are initiated. Everybody knows that foreign occupation of Afghanistan is the fundamental problem, said Mujahid. While China, Iran, Pakistan, India and Afghanistan participated in the last meeting of the Russian-sponsored talks that took place in February, former Soviet Central Asian states have been invited to to attend Fridays meeting for the first time. The United States was also invited to the event but Washington turned it down, saying it was not informed of the agenda beforehand and was unclear of the meetings motives. American military officials suspect Russias so-called Afghan peace diplomacy is aimed at undermining the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan and have accused Moscow of arming the Taliban. Russian officials have strongly rejected allegations they are providing weapons to the Taliban, though they have publicly acknowledged maintaining contacts with the insurgents. Moscow insists the contacts are meant to promote Afghan peace and reconciliation, and to ensure the protection of Russian citizens in the country. In a separate statement issued on Thursday, the Taliban also denied receiving military aid from Russia, though the group defended political understanding with Afghanistans neighbors and regional countries. The Afghan delegation will again urge participants at the Moscow meeting to support a government-led reconciliation process, said Ahmad Shakib Mustaghani. Reiterating Afghan objections over Russias overt contacts with the Taliban, the spokesman told VOA on the eve of the talks that Kabul will emphasize that only state-to-state relations can help promote peace in Afghanistan and the Moscow process cannot be an alternative for Afghan-led reconciliation efforts. Russia's stepped-up Afghan diplomacy apparently stems from concerns that continued Afghan hostilities will encourage Islamic State militants to expand influence in the country to try to infiltrate neighboring Central Asian states to undermine Moscows regional security interests. Greg Barron, an award-winning radio producer, was 32 when he reported the despair of Cambodian refugees fleeing across the Thai border to escape the Khmer Rouge genocide in late 1979. Barron knew he did not completely understand what had happened to the refugees. Last year, in Minnesota, he connected with three Cambodians like those whose stories he started to tell nearly 40 years ago. "I started to realize I never told the full story in that original report. Back in 1979, very few people knew the facts of the terror, fear and starvation, and the oppression that Khmer people had lived through," Barron told VOA Khmer. At least 1.7 million Cambodians were killed by the Khmer Rouge or starved to death from mid-1975 to early 1979. When the Vietnamese invasion toppled the Khmer Rouge, thousands of Cambodians fled across the Thai border, their first step in seeking refuge in places like the United States. Bodies hauled away In November 1979, Barron accompanied American medical teams to Sa Keo and other refugee camps in Thailand and Cambodia. For more than two weeks, he reported on Cambodians who had survived. Crippling lung disease sickened many. Weak mothers could not feed their babies. Hunger and disease took the lives of many infants and young children. It was particularly shocking, Barron said, to see trucks come daily "to haul away the dead bodies of [Cambodians] who had made it there but didn't survive. There were children who were nothing but skeletons, barely breathing." At that time, Barron was reporting for Minnesota Public Radio. Upon his return to Minneapolis, he produced a radio documentary about the Cambodian refugees' story called "Trampled Grass." "We had, the reporters, genuine sympathy and sorrow for what we had seen," he said. "But we weren't affected in the same way as the refugees were affected. It was easy to move on." 'Follow the Moon' Almost 40 years later, something magical happened, said Barron, now 70 and a retired public radio producer, a Peabody Award winner and a pioneering proponent of in-depth radio storytelling in the United States. A Cambodian museum opened across the Mississippi River in St. Paul. There, Barron met three Cambodian refugees, and the four determined they had been in the same camps at the same time. "It occurred to me that my story then in 1979 didn't even know the ending. I didn't know what had driven the people across the border to freedom," said Barron. "I wanted to tell that story. I needed to finish the story I had started nearly 40 years ago." Pichsanthor Kim, Hoeun Hach and Sokurt Sous agreed. Barron produced "Follow the Moon," a radio documentary. The title refers to how Cambodians followed the moon west to border camps, where hope of survival and freedom emerged, he said. The 56-minute documentary will debut on Minnesota Public Radio and American Public Media on April 17, 42 years after the Khmer Rouge assumed power. "The young Americans know nothing about the disaster and the horror that the Khmer people faced. There are so many similar circumstances in the world today. People need to know how this kind of thing happened." said Barron. 'This horrible history' For the survivors, digging into their memories carried the possibility of renewing traumas they hoped time might have quelled. But they said they were willing to speak with Barron because they did not want history to repeat itself anywhere. "It is difficult to recall this painful past," said Kim, 61. "But I realized I am getting old and that younger generations need to know our stories and this horrible history." Kim was 19 when the Khmer Rouge assumed power. They killed her mother and her oldest sister. Kim remains "grateful" to the United States for admitting her and her surviving family, whom she has cared for since their arrival in July 1980. Khmer Rouge soldiers keep chasing Hach in his dreams, a vivid memory even though he couldn't recall how his 12-year-old self was separated from his family. "But after talking to Greg, I felt somehow relieved, knowing that this would help other nations to learn about the genocide in Cambodia, and prevent such tragedy," said Hach, 55, who works for a health care organization. The only person in his family to come to the United States, he has since reunited with his four sisters in Cambodia, who told him the Khmer Rouge killed their parents. "Talking to Greg allowed me to recall the painful memory," said Sous, 58, who lost his father and his brother, the oldest of his seven siblings, to the Khmer Rouge. "I had tried to forget, but in fact, history matters. Because it helped me realize the light of hope and humanity, despite horrible things that happened in Cambodia." As more survivors tell their stories, Barron hopes "the community can start to heal again." For him, making the radio documentary made him more "whole," Barron said. One afternoon when she was about seven years old, Linda Poolaw and her older brother, Robert, stepped off of the school bus to find their father, Kiowa Indian photographer Horace Poolaw, waiting in ambush, his camera in hand. He put cowboy hats on our heads and gave us pistols to hold, Linda remembers. Whether the photo was meant to be ironic or not, Linda isnt sure. All she knows is that she never much cared for it. No, its not because of the cowboyness of it or the whiteness or racism or anything like that, she said. Its just that Dad made us pose for him all the time. We had to be still. We had to wait for him to get the shot just right when all we wanted to do was go play. That photo is among a collection of more than 80 currently on display at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington in an exhibit entitled For a Love of His People: The Photography of Horace Poolaw. The collection documents the gradual if enforced -- assimilation into Western concepts of modernity and challenges, say critics, conventional views of Native Americans as others. From tipi to mainstream Horace Monroe Poolaw was born in 1906 in Mountain View, Oklahoma, a small town that grew up around the railroad. Up until the late 19th Century, Oklahomas Indian Territory belonged to the tribes that lived or had been relocated there. In the 1860s, the Kiowa, Comanche and Apache were consigned to a nearly three-million-acre reservation. But 20 years later, a law known as the Dawes Act allowed Congress to divide communal land into plots of up to 160 acres in size, which they assigned to individual Indians. The rest was opened up to non-Native settlers. Horaces father, Kiowa George, was the son of a distinguished warrior and is said to have kept a tribal calendar, a record of historic events that Kiowa traditionally painted onto buffalo hide or in ledgers. Horaces mother was descended from a Mexican woman who had been captured during a Kiowa raid. It was a way to make up for a shortage of women, Linda said. The truth is a little more complex than that. A diminishing buffalo population and outbreaks of smallpox and cholera among the tribes led the Kiowa and their allies to conduct a series of devastating raids on Texas and Mexico for horses and human captives. At first, the Poolaw family lived in a traditional tipi, but they eventually moved into frame house that remains in the family today. The recently-built Rock Island railroad line brought an influx of settlers from the east, including itinerant photographer George W. Long, who set up shop in Mountain View. He served as a mentor to Poolaw and gave the youth his first camera. Poolaw would spend the next 50 years of his life documenting the daily lives of family, friends and fellow Kiowa at work and play, as they made the transition, says his daughter, from tipi to mainstream. He developed his own pictures, even though there was no electricity or water in the house back in those days, said Linda. He had to send to Chicago for film and developing supplies. The high cost of paper and film meant Poolaw worked hard to get his shots right on the first try, and he only developed a fraction of the photos he took. He took all of his photographs outdoors because it eliminated the need for flashbulbs. Horace would occasionally print photo postcards on large sheets of paper, which his children would trim and peddle at the bus station for five cents apiece as a way to make money. We were poor, dirt poor, said Linda. But we didnt know it because everybody around us was poor too. Today, those postcards sell for as much as $50 on internet auction sites. Poolaw married twice; Linda is the daughter of his second wife, Winnie Chisholm (Delaware/Seminole/ Creek). He wore many hats in his life, he was a farmer and raised cattle. For a time, he worked for the Oklahoma Highway Patrol. Then, in 1943, he enlisted in the Army, where he was trained in aerial photography. At the end of World War II, he moved to Anadarko, where Linda was born. Poolaw continued taking pictures until the 1970s, when his eyesight began to fail. In 1979, the Southern Plains Indian Museum in Anadarko organized a retrospective exhibit of his photographs. It would be the only showing of his work during his lifetime. When he died in 1984, he left behind 2,000 negatives. In the late 1980s, his daughter collaborated with Stanford University to develop and catalogue his photos. The resulting exhibit and accompanying catalogue, War Bonnets, Tin Lizzies and Patent Leather Pumps: Kiowa Culture in Transition 1925-1955 toured the United States and was the subject of a documentary film. Challenging stereotypes Today, art historians and critics view Poolaws work as equal to many better-known photographers working in the Western frontier in the early 20th Century. His photographs are most often described as documenting the transition from 19th Century traditional ways of life into mainstream Americana. But Laura E. Smith, art historian and author of a book on Poolaw, sees him through a different lens. One of the things that I would like to refute is this idea of transformation between traditional and modern, as if something historic had died and as they modernized, they became less authentic as Indians, she said. Indigenous people survived and they continue to live and thrive. Sure, not everything is the same, but neither is any culture the same as it was in the 19th century. His work documents the tribal community as it really lived and evolved, said Smith, as both Native Americans and American citizens, simultaneously assimilating and resisting. If we situate his work within the legacy of Kiowa art, then Poolaw maintained ancestral practices of visually documenting Kiowa history, she said. If we situate his work within documentary photography, then Poolaw puts a face on the 20th Century Kiowa experience. And if viewers regard his work simply as portraiture, then, says Smith, Poolaw gives thoughtful, loving, sometimes comedic and ironic representations of his modern community. By Press Trust of India: (EDs: Incorporating additional info) Lucknow, Apr 13 (PTI) The State Election Commission today urged the EC to allow it to hold elections for the posts of mayor and corporators of various civic bodies in Uttar Pradesh using the traditional paper ballots if it could not provide EVMs in "good working condition". "I had a word with Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi and requested him that the EC must provide latest EVMs which are in good working condition. Else, it should allow us to conduct the urban local bodies elections using paper ballots," State Election Commissioner SK Agarwal told PTI, adding that he was awaiting a reply in this regard. advertisement The poll process for the urban local bodies across the state will have to be completed by the second week of July, he said, adding that the the State Election Commission was currently working on delimitation of wards on a war footing. In 2012, EVMs were used in the elections for the posts of mayors and corporators in 12 municipal corporations, while paper ballots were used in 194 nagar palika parishads and 423 nagar panchayats. "In November 2016, we wrote to the EC requesting allotment of EVMs from Madhya Pradesh. Later, we were told by the Chief Electoral Officer of that state that the EVMs were sent to Maharashtra as per orders of the EC," Agarwal said. The SEC had then urged the EC to provide EVMs from somewhere else. "Then we came to know that the EVMs supposed to be used for the urban local bodies polls were pre-2006 models. The machines had outlived their utility and were discarded by the EC. "I told Zaidi that if the EC considers the EVMs discarded, why was it giving them to us. This is a sensitive matter. If you are not able to give us the latest EVMs, we can conduct the urban local bodies elections with paper ballots," Agarwal said. He added that he has urged the EC to give him in writing that the EVMs are old. "Using discarded EVMs to conduct elections is not right. In the absence of latest EVMs, we may have to conduct the mayoral elections using paper ballots," said Agarwal. Some political parties, including the Congress, have raised the issue of reliability of EVMs in the aftermath of recently-held Assembly elections in five states, including Uttar Pradesh. PTI NAV SMI RC --- ENDS --- Ahead of a June deadline to renew Darfur's joint African Union and United Nations peacekeeping mission in Darfur, U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley said her administration wants "proof" Sudan's government is making progress toward peace and protecting civilians in the region. The Darfur mission, known as UNAMID, costs $1 billion per year. The Trump administration has expressed interest in cutting back on the overall U.N. peacekeeping budget. But analysts say while the mission merits some streamlining, it still serves a purpose. Sudan's foreign minister, Ibrahim Ghandour, argued conditions in Darfur have improved significantly from 2003, when the conflict began. "Now there are no rebel movements in Darfur, no fighting in Darfur, IDPs are returning back to their places, and peace is prevailing in Darfur," he said. Amnesty International's Sudan researcher, Ahmed Elzobier, disagreed, saying the benchmarks for progress outlined previously by the Obama administration have not been fulfilled. "We see reports every day that there is attacks on IDPs in Darfur," he said. "The second benchmark is facilitation of humanitarian access in different parts of Darfur, especially in Jebel Mara, and this is not taking place at the moment, added Elzobier. "The third one is progress on the peace talks, between the armed groups in Darfur and the Sudan government. This was suspended since August 2016.And nothing has happened. And the fourth one, which is inter-communal fighting ... this is still happening every now and then." Peacekeepers deployed to Darfur in 2007. Violence broke out in the region in 2003 when Khartoum was accused of unleashing local Arab tribes on ethnic Africans rebelling against the government for alleged discrimination. Unrest has continued in the years since. Progress eases sanctions The United States lifted some sanctions against Sudan in January, with then-President Barack Obama citing "positive actions" by the Sudanese government, including progress in ending military aerial bombardments in Darfur. A State Department official said there could be a permanent revocation of sanctions in six months if progress continued, a timeline that coincides with the renewal of the UNAMID mandate. Zach Vertin, a fellow at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson Center, said the U.N. mission in Darfur could be updated to reflect "current realities." "Things have definitely changed, but it remains a complex security environment with lots of overlapping security concerns, criminality these kind of things," he said."So I think the Trump administration has been pushing for major peacekeeping cuts and while streamlining the mission is welcome, gutting it is not." Analysts worry that a large, abrupt cut to the UNAMID presence could impact humanitarian assistance and civilian protection in Darfur. "UNAMID has been a failure by any reasonable peacekeeping standards, but failing doesn't mean they haven't provided some protection," said Eric Reeves, a senior fellow at the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University. "That protection would disappear with the kind of cuts that are being mooted within the debates at the Security Council," he added. The government of Sudan does want UNAMID to leave, but carefully, said its foreign minister. "We want a careful exit strategy in accordance with the agreement signed between us and the A.U. and the U.N. And on the basis of that, we are accepting any reasonable evaluation in all places where UNAMID is based," said Ghandour. "So we are not talking about an immediate, total exit. We are talking about an exit strategy on the basis of conditions on the ground." In March, Ambassador Haley accused the U.N.'s peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, known as MONUSCO, of "aiding a government that is inflicting predatory behavior against its own people." She also said the United Nations should have the "decency and common sense to end this." MONUSCO's mandate was renewed at the end of March, but with a reduction of 3,600 in the troop ceiling. The mandates for peacekeeping missions in Mali, southern Lebanon, and the Central African Republic will also come up for renewal before the end of the year. With economic growth rates close to 7 percent, Laos is a star in South East Asia, buoyed by investment and business ties with China, the countrys largest investor. In a new assessment the Lao government and Asian Development Bank predict the country's good economic fortunes will continue. The ADB said national output (GDP) should reach 6.9 percent in 2017, and 7 percent in 2018, despite fiscal constraints and weaker global demand for minerals in recent years. Rattanatay Luanglathbandith, Vientiane-based ADB public management specialist, said, "The key driver of Laos economic growth is mainly the resources sector, hydropower and mining, namely copper, silver and gold." Laos ambition as the battery of South East Asia has seen development of hydro-power dams with 10 now operating. Three more proposed for the Mekong River are moving forward despite criticism from conservationists because of their environmental impact, especially on fish stocks. Meanwhile, the Tourism Development Department says tourism contributed $724 million to the national budget in 2016. Visitor arrivals stood at 4.23 million, down from 4.68 million a year earlier, but Laos is spending $61 million to expand Wattay International airport. Service sector growing Rattanatay said the tourism industry is a key to absorbing rising numbers entering the workforce. The expansion of the services sector is happening right now. [It will] start to absorb labor into the total labor employed, but it happens slowly in the hotel, restaurant and retail trade and then some service provider in the IT sector, Ratanatay told VOA. China is Laos' largest investor with more than $6.7 billion in 760 projects, according to a report by the Xinhua news agency. Behind China, the other key trade and investment partners are Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia. Martin Stuart-Fox, emeritus professor of history at the University of Queensland, says Laos must manage the interests of China and Vietnam. The problem for Laos is balancing the Chinese money against the Vietnamese, the traditional Vietnamese influence, particularly the Vietnamese influence through the military. And theres the Chinese money coming in and the special economic zones some are a complete set up run by a single Chinese company [for] casinos, money laundering, and prostitution and gambling, Stuart-Fox told VOA. China is also contributing 70 percent of the total cost of the $5.8 billion China-Lao railway. The 410-kilometer segment is part of Chinas Kunming-Singapore rail link. Chairman of the Lao National Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Oudeth Saouvannavong, told Lao media the rail link is seen as crucial in boosting development, generating jobs and income for local people. Growth impacting society But economists say rapid growth has led to fiscal and budgetary issues, as well as social considerations. In 2017 budget expenditures are forecast at $3.92 billion against revenues of $2.89 billion, a deficit of $1.07 billion. Buavanh Vilavong, a Lao scholar at the Australian National University, said the Lao economy suffers from chronic fiscal deficits due to a narrow revenue base and macro-economic mismanagement. He said the government is taking steps at reform with improved economic governance and fiscal consolidation. ADBs Rattanatay says for the long term, The government has to create a favorable business environment to encourage the development of small and medium enterprises in order to diversify the economy from the resources sector to more labor intensive manufacturing and service sector. The Asian Development Bank says the 23 percent of Laos' seven million population living in poverty needs to be addressed. Holly High, a senior research fellow from Sydney Universitys department of anthropology, says promising prosperity is a cornerstone of the Lao Peoples Revolutionary Party platform. So if they are generating a lot of economic growth that is certainly a step towards delivering on their promises, but its not going to be adequate if this isnt delivered in a way thats perceived to be equitable, High told VOA. Analysts say Laos faces high rates of corruption. The Berlin-based Transparency International in 2016 ranked Laos at 123 of 176 nations on its corruption perception index. Stuart-Fox says corruption and the black economy, that disregards government rules, remains a major issue. Its massively corrupt. Absolutely massively corrupt. If you are the top of the party you get a lot of money, and theres a lot of Chinese money coming in, of course, and there are top people in the politburo who are extremely wealthy, said Stuart-Fox. High says with the backdrop of growth, there is also a need for more venues for political dissent for public debate on social and economic issues. "Even when theres good news, about say economic growth or poverty declining, people are still suspicious because theres not a lot of trust in the political sphere in Laos, she said. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is remaining defiant amid widespread accusations his government carried out a deadly chemical attack last week, as monitoring groups say his forces along with Russia have escalated attacks on civilians in a clear challenge to the international community. In his first interview since scores were killed in an April 4 chemical weapons airstrike on Khan Sheikhoun, Assad told the French news agency AFP the incident was a "fabrication" to justify a U.S. military strike. "Our impression is that the West, mainly the United States, is hand in glove with the terrorists. They fabricated the whole story in order to have a pretext for the attack, It wasn't an attack because of what happened in khan Sheikhoun. It's one event, its stage one is the play that we saw on the social networking and on TVs, and the propaganda, and the stage two is the military attack," he said, adding that his country's forces handed over all of its chemical weapons in 2013. Assad said the "firepower" of his forces has not been diminished by the April 7 U.S. Cruise missile strike on al Shayrat, the airbase from where Washington says Syrian jets took off from to carry out a sarin gas attack. WATCH: Assad on use of chemical weapons in Syria Rise in attacks In the week since the attack on Khan Sheikhoun, the Syrian Network for Human Rights says there has been a rise in the use cluster munitions, incendiary weapons and barrel bombs by the regime, resulting in the deaths of at last 98 civilians, including 24 children. It also claims in a report released late Tuesday that toxic-gas grenades were launched by government forces in the Damascus suburb of al Qaboun. There has been on independent confirmation of that report. On April 7, 2017, around 16:00, Syrian regime forces used two hand grenades loaded with a poison gas on the eastern battlefront of al Qaboun, which injured two fighters from the armed opposition factions, SNHR says in its report. The group says it cannot confirm what kind of toxic substance may have been used but that the injured fighters exhibited symptoms such as suffocation, heavy breathing and severe coughing. The monitoring group, whose reports are used by the United Nations, describes some of the regimes military operations as deliberately targeting residential areas and facilities, including mosques, rather than just being indiscriminate. It judges that the attacks are partly in retaliation for the April 7 U.S. Cruise missile strike on al Shayrat, the airbase from where Washington says Syrian jets took off from to carry out a Sarin Gas attack on Khan Sheikhoun. That attack left more than 90 civilians dead and hundreds injured, according to activists and first responders. The Syrian regime will continue to challenge the international community, testing its limits the same way the regime gradually elevated its use of weapons until we reached chemical weapons, warns Fadel Abdul Ghany, SNHR chairman. Four mosques, three schools, four medical facilities and a market were struck by Syrian or Russian warplanes and helicopters from April 4 to April 11, says SNHR. Five attacks saw cluster bombs dropped and half-a-dozen were carried out using incendiary weapons. According to the monitoring group, Syrian government helicopters dropped 125 barrel bombs in Daraa, 23 in Hama, four in Idlib and five apiece in Aleppo and Homs between April 7 to April 11. White House: further intervention possible On Monday, White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters in Washington that the Syrian government's use of barrel bombs could prompt further U.S. military intervention. If you gas a baby, if you put a barrel bomb into innocent people, I think you will see a response from this president," Spicer said at the White House during a daily press briefing. He added: If we see this kind of action again, we hold open the possibility of future action. Several hours later, though, Spicer appeared to clarify his remarks about barrel bombs and not just chemical weapon attacks triggering further punitive intervention by the U.S., but added to confusion, saying, Nothing has changed in our posture. Barrel bombs Barrel bombs, cheaply-made improvised containers packed with explosive and metal fragments, have been dropped frequently by Syrian government forces during the course of the six-year-long conflict. This VOA correspondent witnessed the use of barrel-bombs during several trips inside northern Syria in 2013 and 2014. Last year alone nearly 13,000 barrel bombs were dropped from government helicopters, according to monitors and rights groups. In an interview with the BBC in 2015, Assad denied his forces ever dropped barrel bombs. I know about the army. They use bullets, missiles and bombs. I haven't heard of the army using barrels, or maybe, cooking pots," he said. One of the biggest incendiary-bomb attacks came Sunday night with Russian strikes on the rebel-held towns of Latamneh and Saraqeb near Khan Sheikhoun. Video footage purportedly of the attacks were posted by activists online and showed enormous fireballs. Laith Ahmed, a rescue worker with the White Helmets in Saraqeb, told reporters: The bomb exploded at a height of about 150 meters above the ground, and then the sub-munitions began to fall. At every point one touched the ground, it sent flames in all directions. Another watchdog, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is based in London but oversees a network of activists on the ground in Syria to gather information, also reported Thursday a surge in Syrian government and Russian military activity with more than 120 airstrikes in the northern countryside of Hama in the past 24 hours. The Observatory claimed government helicopters dropped barrel bombs overnight on the towns of Tayyibat al-Imam and Soran, both off which were targeted in heavy artillery shelling Thursday by regime forces. For some in Brazil, the decision by a Supreme Court judge to place many top politicians under investigation for suspected corruption, including leading contenders in next year's presidential race, clears the way for a new era in politics. The sweeping probe ordered by Justice Luiz Edson Fachin encompassed all the likely presidential candidates from Brazil's main political parties, including left-leaning former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva who is leading in the polls. "A chance for a clean start," O Globo, an influential Rio de Janeiro daily, said on Wednesday's front page. But many familiar with the workings of Brazil's multiparty system and its sluggish courts said the investigation may bring little beyond more instability especially if an untested maverick steps in to fill the political void. "It's good we have institutions that are battling corruption but this opens up a gaping leadership vacuum that for now creates further instability," said Rafael Cortez, a political scientist at Tendencias, a consultancy in Sao Paulo. The massive investigation that opened three years ago into kickbacks at the state-run oil company Petrobras has already shaken Brazil's political establishment. It contributed to the impeachment of leftist President Dilma Rousseff last year, and has dogged the new government of President Michel Temer. Yet the investigation ordered by Fachin on Tuesday, based on plea bargain testimony by employees of engineering company Odebrecht, marked a major escalation of the political fallout. Eight government ministers and 12 state governors were swept up in the probe, as well as dozens of sitting lawmakers including the speakers of both houses of Congress and four former presidents. After emptying out Tuesday afternoon when the probes were announced, Congress remained largely vacant on Wednesday as nervous lawmakers weighed the repercussions. Skeptical of change The investigations were welcomed by many citizens in a country wearied by daily reports of corruption and in dire need of political progress to revive an economy saddled by two years of recession. "I would like to see new leadership, a new electoral option," said Jurandir Ferreira dos Santos, 32, an administrative assistant in Sao Paulo. Like many Brazilians, he was skeptical about the political class' ability to change. "We are seeing no one emerging in Congress to provide leadership, no new parties capable of offering us an option we can believe in." On a practical level, the popular mood may force major political parties to rethink the political calculus behind the various possible candidates. The center-right Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB) saw two of its possible choices, senators Aecio Neves and Jose Serra, named in Fachin's probe. A third possible PSDB contender, Sao Paulo Governor Geraldo Alckmin, was referred by Fachin for investigation by a lower court. Some politicians portrayed the investigations as a welcome chance to clear their names. Neves, who lost the 2014 election to Rousseff, said in a statement it would now be possible to "unmask the lies and show the absolute propriety" of his conduct. With an antsy electorate, though, the uncertainty could open the door to newcomers casting themselves as agents of change. PSDB members are already speculating whether Joao Doria, a wealthy businessman and upstart politician who surprised rivals by getting elected mayor of Sao Paulo last year, may be the party's only untainted option. There could also be an opportunity for brazen populists like Jair Bolsonaro, a renegade conservative who espouses a nationalist, law-and-order agenda and has stirred controversy with his views on gender and race. "You never know who might take advantage of the electoral mess," said Carlos Melo, a professor of politics at Insper, a Sao Paulo business school. "An outsider might make the best president ever or maybe they'd be the worst." Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht paid $40 million to President Michel Temer's party and another party to ensure a contract with the state oil company, according to testimony from a former Odebrecht executive. Marcio Faria's accusation came in plea bargain testimony released late Wednesday as part of the biggest corruption probe in Brazil's history. The investigation, known as Operation Car Wash, has already unveiled billions of dollars in kickbacks and bribes paid to politicians by Brazilian companies. But this week, the Supreme Court announced a new wave of investigations into top politicians, including eight of Temer's Cabinet ministers, dealing a major blow to his presidency and raising questions about whether he can continue to effectively govern. In opening the investigations, the court released recordings of the plea bargain testimony that underpins the probe. Other former Odebrecht executives testified that Temer was involved in the solicitation of another bribe, worth $3.2 million. Temer is not under investigation since, as president, he has temporary immunity from any crimes committed before he took office. He has denied wrongdoing. In his testimony, Faria said he met with Temer and some of his allies at Temer's office in Sao Paulo in 2010 in order to "bless'' an arrangement whereby Odebrecht would make a contribution to the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party in exchange for its help smoothing the approval of a pending contract with Petrobras. When asked whether it was clear that this money was a bribe or an illegal gain, Faria responded: "Totally an illegal gain because it was a percentage on top of the contract.'' Faria said no figures were discussed at the meeting, but the deal was clear: Odebrecht would pay the party 5 percent of the value of the Petrobras contract. That amounted to around $40 million, he said. Faria said Temer's party later decided to cut in the Workers' Party. At the time, Temer was the vice-presidential candidate on a ticket with Dilma Rousseff of the Workers' Party as the presidential candidate. In the end, Faria said Temer's party received 4 percent of the contract's total, and the Workers' Party received 1 percent. In a video released on Thursday, Temer acknowledged that he had a conversation with Faria in 2010, but flatly denied the rest. "I am not afraid of the facts. What disgusts me are lies,'' Temer said. "The lie is that in this meeting I heard a reference to financial resources or shady business by the company with politicians. This never happened. Not in that meeting and not in any meeting in my public life.'' Two other former Odebrecht executives described a similar scenario they say occurred in 2014. According to court documents, the executives had dinner that year with Temer, who was then vice president, and his current Chief of Staff Eliseu Padilha. During the dinner, they say, the company agreed to pay $3.2 million in supposed campaign contributions to Padilha and another Temer ally and in exchange, Temer's party agreed to help Odebrecht win airport concessions. Padilha is under investigation in this case. Former Odebrecht CEO Marcelo Odebrecht, one of the executives present, testified that he closed the deal with Padilha after dessert and before coffee was served. Temer had stepped away from the table at the time. "Temer never mentioned the 10 million (reals, or $3.2 million) to me,'' Odebrecht said in the recording released by the court. "But obviously at the dinner he was aware.'' Padilha has denied wrongdoing. Temer's office said that he "categorically denies any involvement of his name in shady dealings.'' The corruption unmasked by the Car Wash investigation has shocked even the most cynical Brazilians for both the vast amounts that traded hands and the way in which it has spared no party. Odebrecht testified that his company also contributed to the presidential campaigns of Rousseff and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, both of the Workers' Party, in exchange for favors. In one instance, in 2009, Odebrecht met with Silva's finance minister, Guido Mantega, to discuss an executive order the company wanted from the government. During the conversation, Mantega allegedly wrote down the number 50 which Odebrecht said he understood meant the company should contribute 50 million reals ($16 million) to Rousseff's upcoming campaign. "On illegal campaign financing, Lula and Dilma knew the amounts,'' the former CEO testified. "Not the precise amount, but they had knowledge of the dimension of all our support through the years.'' Silva and Rousseff have both denied the accusations. Rousseff was impeached and removed from office last year on charges she broke fiscal laws. "I don't know what will happen to me, but I am fighting and I will prove that this country can be happy again,'' Silva said in a radio interview on Thursday. Cambodia's foreign ministry has issued a broad rebuttal to accusations of human rights abuses and political repression that have dogged the rule of Prime Minister Hun Sen for decades. Titled "To Tell the Truth," the report released Tuesday describes the allegations of abuses and repression as a campaign of misinformation spread by a conspiracy of foreign powers led by the United States. Local and international investigators have documented many of the abuses, which Cambodia claims are a "distortion of facts, lies and amplification of minor issues" aimed at discrediting the government while rallying NGOs and the opposition. "Cambodia has been submerged, months after months, years after years, by reports from opposition media, biased NGOs and misinformed institutions, which twisted the historical facts and events in an attempt to portray a negative image of Cambodia and to lay the blame on the government," the report said. The lengthy and rare governmental statement is a move to offset growing criticism by the international community, NGOs and critical media outlets of the crumbling of Cambodia's democratic institutions. Analysts are suggesting the release is a by-product of Cambodia's growing closeness with China and rising tensions ahead of elections. The report points to "democracy promotion" by the U.S. in countries such as Ukraine and Honduras as evidence that Cambodia's sovereignty is at stake. The paper opens by quoting former U.S. Representative Ron Paul, a Republican from Texas, who said the U.S. sends "billions of dollars to push regime change overseas." Cambodians are due to go to the polls in less than two months to choose new local representatives, while a general election is scheduled for 2018. And the paper came two weeks after the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights released an analysis of increasing restrictions on political freedom. David Josar, deputy spokesman at the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh, said: "We encourage the government of Cambodia to expend less energy propagating unfounded conspiracy theories and instead devote its resources to addressing the needs of the Cambodian people and ensuring its upcoming elections are free and fair." 'Break' from U.S. Sok Eysan, spokesman for Hun Sen's ruling Cambodian People's Party, said the paper was issued because rights groups, civil society and the media base their reporting on a "subjective mind-set and opposing the current government." Sok said the government decision to release the report was the need "for the explanation to both the national and international communities. If we had not there might have been misunderstandings and accusations that the government did not do its job properly, violate human rights or abuse multi-party democracy, etc. "If we said nothing, they would have accused us of hiding things," he added. Cham Bunthet, a political analyst and adviser to the newly established Grassroots Democracy Party, saw the paper's release as a gesture "to show that America is not Cambodia's big brother. "I believe the government's aim was to break away from the U.S. and partner with the Chinese to change the Cambodian government into a new governmental form single-party government," he said. But Eang Vuthy, executive director of Equity Cambodia, who regularly observes the country's social and political developments, pointed out "Cambodia remains a poor country and it needs both technical and financial assistance, so China alone is not sufficient for the country's development." Cambodia, he said, needs "to cooperate with other big countries, especially the European Union and the United States." Rhona Smith, the U.N.'s Special Rapporteur to Cambodia, was singled out for saying last year the "time to blame the troubles of the last century for the situation today is surely over." The government paper called her statement "reckless" and demonstrated "sheer contempt" for "the suffering from crimes against humanity and genocide." Report 'essential for meaningful dialogue' The report also targets Wan-Hea Lee, the country director of the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), saying she violated the U.N. Standards of Conduct by making "totally prejudicial" statements against the government. Lee had said that the government's decision to prevent the then-opposition leader Sam Rainsy from returning to Cambodia from self-imposed exile in France was "unjustified and arbitrary." In an email to VOA, Lee said she welcomed the candid nature of the paper as "essential for meaningful dialogue." It also describes U.S. government-supported outlets, the VOA and Radio Free Asia, as "two die hard pro-opposition radio stations" that are broadcast nationwide without censorship. VOA director Amanda Bennett said in response that "Voice of America has been known for decades and around the world for being a fair, neutral and objective news service. That is the way we operate in Cambodia as we do in the rest of the world." The report accused the country's English-language press with the notable exception of the fledgling Khmer Times of printing "unsubstantiated accusations on a daily basis." "Printed press is so free that the Cambodia Daily and the Phnom Penh Post, the two main English newspapers with a Khmer version, publish on a daily basis strong criticisms and unsubstantiated accusations against the Government, based on pure suspicions," according to the report. Stuart White, acting editor-in-chief of the Phnom Penh Post, the oldest English-language newspaper in the country, said: "Our mission is, and will continue to be, reporting fairly and without bias and holding those in power to account in the interests of transparency and the public good." Malala Yousafzai is using her honorary Canadian citizenship to call on the country's leaders to take real action to improve educational opportunities for girls. The teenage Nobel prize winner spoke to the Canadian Parliament after becoming an honorary citizen Wednesday. She asked lawmakers to make education for girls a top priority when it hosts the G-7 summit next year. Yousafzai was 15 when she shot in the head by Taliban militants in Pakistan in 2012. She was targeted due to her advocacy for women's education. Yousafzai was originally scheduled to receive the honor on October 22, 2014, but the ceremony was cancelled after a gunman attacked Canada's Parliament Hill that day. The 19-year-old also spoke of her friends' excitement for her to meet youthful Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. She smiled while referencing Trudeau's tattoos and practice of yoga. Chinese authorities are offering big rewards - as much as $73,000 in some cases - to people who provide information about foreign spies. Officials are highlighting the seriousness of the situation, with some saying there is a need to protect national secrets. Others are poking fun at the campaign, which state media are promoting on social media and through a playful cartoon video just days ahead of National Security Education Day. V meets Spy vs. Spy In the video, spies, secret agents and bad guys are depicted as a colorful combination of Western pop-culture characters such as V, from the movie V for Vendetta, with his Guy Fawkes mask, dementors from the Harry Potter series and Mad Magazines Spy vs. Spy. To report spying foreigners or their accomplices, citizens in the capital can call a hotline, write a letter, or visit the Beijing Municipal Security Bureau in person. The definition of spying is broad and includes any activity that harms the national security of the Peoples Republic of China. In many ways, the broad scope of the law and definition of spying are strikingly similar to the charge of picking quarrels and provoking trouble that authorities frequently use to silence dissent. In promoting the campaign, examples of spying provided by authorities include stealing or buying state secrets, pointing out targets for enemies, and attempting to turn state employees traitor. Informers who play a key role in helping prevent or detect major espionage cases can receive awards of 100,000 to 500,000 RMB ($14,700 to $73,500) As long as the cases are verified and accurate, informers will be rewarded, the video promotion explains. How to catch a spy? On the streets of Beijing, none of the residents VOA interviewed saw a need for the reward offer. Some said that it was the duty of citizens to report suspicious behavior, while others doubted the ability of ordinary people to discover spying. One man surnamed Zhao, who works in legal affairs, said that while the reward was quite large, intelligence authorities were better suited for the work. We dont really know the exact circumstances or why spies would come to China, Zhao said. Everyday citizens really have no idea about such things, such inside stories. Thats the sort of thing that comes through the investigations of national security departments and other relevant agencies. An elderly pharmacist surnamed Zhu said spies are not ordinary types. If you dont understand whats going on behind the scenes, how could you? she asked. But in general, weve all never had any contact with this type of people, that kind of international stuff. Another man surnamed Zhang, who works in the travel industry, said people need more awareness about national security. There are a lot of spies now (in China). China is developing very fast and the West is on the decline, the East is rising, so spying activities are quite normal. More pressing issues Others pointed to more pressing concerns, like the difficulties of buying a home. Most people are more concerned about the basic necessities of life, said a woman surnamed Xie who works in finance. Transportation, housing prices, salaries, air quality, whether pollution is severe or not, these are the kinds of things everyday common citizens pay attention to. Online, such as on Chinese social media, some called for more focus on corrupt officials and used the hashtag "#Report a spy and get a reward" to call attention to investment scams and other social issues. One comment in response to a Tencent News article about the rewards said, Be cool if you run into a spy, first confirm his (her) identity as a spy. Second, ask if he (she) would be willing to repay your mortgage; third, if so willing, take the money and leave, if not, then report them directly! On Weibo, Chinas Twitter-like microblogging service, one user wrote, This trick would work wonders if it was also used for anti-corruption. Others online were more suspicious and fearful. One said, I love the country, not the party-state. Another saw parallels with the political upheavals of Chinas past. Feels like [were] going back to the days of the Cultural Revolution, a time when everybody felt like they were in danger. Those you dislike were all counter-revolutionary or agents of the America or Chiang [Kai-shek], the post said. Hostile foreign forces The measures come against a backdrop of Beijings increasingly active campaign against hostile foreign forces. It also comes as China prepares to mark its second National Security Education Day on Saturday, April 15. Last years inaugural day saw a campaign warning of the dangers of spies, including cartoons posted in subway stations cautioning young women on dating handsome young foreigners. The campaign was called Dangerous Love. While there may be concerns and certainly increasing suspicion about foreign actors in China, some analysts have suggested that the campaign could offer justification for increased security and the ongoing civil rights crackdown, especially as the Communist Party prepares to host a major leadership meeting later this year. As for why Beijing was chosen, the popular government backed daily The Beijing News stated that the capitals status as the countrys political, cultural, tech innovation and international communication center makes it a top location for foreign spies and hostile forces to harm China. A Civil War film by Sofia Coppola, a Ukrainian road movie and a drama about AIDS activism are among 18 films competing for prizes at this year's Cannes Film Festival, which organizers hope can help counter nationalist sentiment. The festival is embracing virtual reality and cell phone video as it marks its 70th birthday this year. Festival general delegate Thierry Fremaux and President Pierre Lescure announced the dozens of films competing and showing during the May 17-28 festival at a press conference in Paris on Thursday. Contenders for the Palme d'Or include Coppola's spooky Civil War drama "The Beguiled," starring Nicole Kidman and Kirsten Dunst; American director Noah Baumbach's family saga "The Meyerowitz Stories," starring Dustin Hoffman, Ben Stiller and Adam Sandler; and fellow American Todd Haynes' 1920s-set drama "Wonderstruck." Also in the top competition are "Okja," a fantasy thriller by South Korea's Bong Joon-Ho starring Tilda Swinton; French director Michel Hazanavicius' tribute to the French New Wave, "Le Redoubtable"; sex-trafficking drama "You Were Never Really Here" from Britain's Lynne Ramsay; and "The Killing of a Sacred Deer," a thriller from Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos starring Kidman and Colin Farrell. Austere Austrian director Michael Haneke, a two-time Palme d'Or winner, returns with "Happy End," whose title, Fremaux noted, bears little relation to its content. French filmmaker Robin Campillo's "120 Beats Per Minute" looks at the rise of AIDS activism, while Fremaux called Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa's "A Gentle Creature" a road movie "about the situation of Russia." The festival is embracing changing technology, with inclusion of Alejandro G. Inarritu's virtual reality short "Meat and Honey," reported to be about migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. Fremaux said it was "a beautiful film, you are shivering when you come out of it." He compared the wonders of virtual reality to the wonders unleashed by cinema founding fathers the Lumiere brothers more than a century ago. Security will be tight for the French Riviera festival, just down the coast from Nice, where an Islamic State group-inspired truck attack killed 86 people in July. Lescure said security was "at its maximum'' in 2016 and "there were no serious incidents." "I hope to see the same results this year," he said. Global events will cast a shadow over Cannes' Croisette, the town's picturesque seafront promenade, after a year that has seen Britain's vote to leave the European Union and the election of unpredictable U.S. President Donald Trump. France will have a new government by opening night, with the final stage of its two-round presidential election set for May 7. Far-right nationalist Marine Le Pen is among the front-runners. Lescure said he hoped that "North Korea and Syria will not cast a shadow on the 70th edition, which we hope will be stable and happy." Fremaux said he hopes the festival can "look to the future" and hold "the promise of living together in harmony." Mexico is mobilizing to resist President Donald Trump's policies in ways that range from the sensible to the strange. Mexican negotiators are hammering out a trade deal with Europe in a bid to reduce reliance on U.S. markets following Trump's pledge to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement and his efforts to stop companies from moving U.S. plants south of the border. The U.S. receives three-quarters of Mexico's exports and supplies half its imports. Faced with the U.S. president's anti-immigrant stance, Mexico has set up workshops and hotlines to educate migrants about their rights in the face of deportations, though those have fallen about 13 percent since Trump took office. So common are the public-service announcements about what migrants should do if U.S. immigration agents show up at their door don't open it, ask for the agents' names and search warrants that radio-listeners in Mexico City now likely know more about dealing with U.S. agents than with corrupt local cops, or about other pressing public issues like fighting dengue and Zika. But Trump's policies and comments about Mexico have also stirred up some odder suggestions and awakened some very old ghosts. For the past 30 years, lawyer Guillermo Hamdan has spent his free time preparing legal arguments for declaring null and void the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, under which Mexico received $15 million from the U.S. but ceded California and most of Arizona, Nevada and Utah, and parts of Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico. The territories have been part of the United States for almost 170 years about seven times longer than they were part of independent Mexico. Hamdan argues the treaty is invalid because it was signed under duress as the result of the 1846-1848 Mexican-American war launched with a U.S. invasion. A Mexican victory would require the U.S. to return much of the territory or pay reparations that Hamdan calls "incalculable." 'Let the ghosts out' While Mexico's governments have shown no interest in taking up the case, his case has gained public attention lately in the country. "The outrage over the humiliating treatment [of Mexico] by Trump" was the spur for dusting off the 170-year-old case, Hamdan said. "What Trump did was to let the ghosts out by attacking us," he said. "He poured turpentine on a wound that has never healed." Another old case this one little-known even inside Mexico has been brought up by Sen. Patricio Martinez, who claims that the present borders in southwestern New Mexico and Arizona are wrong due to a surveying error after the 1853 Gadsden Purchase, in which the U.S. acquired almost 30,000 square miles (77,000 square kilometers) from Mexico in exchange for $10 million. Martinez has drawn up maps claiming that border markers were mysteriously moved sometime between 1853, when they were laid out and reviewed by both nations, and 1896, when another survey was done. He said the lines should have been drawn further north and that Mexico was robbed of almost 210,000 acres (85,000 hectares) of land. He argues the U.S. should return the territory or pay for it. This comes as a surprise to Gabriel Duran, a consultant for the U.S. section of the International Boundary and Water Commission. In his 35-year career at the commission, he had never heard of the claim. "As far as we know no monuments have been moved," said Duran. "They are where they should be." He said officials of both nations have supervised, tracked, mapped and agreed on the border markers for generations, most recently, with GPS technology. Corn imports But the proposal that has drawn the most press coverage has been a somewhat quixotic idea floated by a single renegade senator, Armando Rios Piter, who wants to stop Mexico's imports of U.S. corn and replace them with suppliers from Brazil, Argentina or other countries. Rios Piter suggests that would be a way to defend Mexicans against Trump and show displeasure with his policies. While Mexico buys about a quarter of U.S. corn exports it is the largest foreign buyer it would also mean considerable price increases for impoverished Mexican consumers, since transport costs would be steeply higher for South American grain. Tom Sleight, president of the U.S. Grains Council, noted that, including transport costs, Brazilian corn would be 10 to 15 percent more expensive, meaning Mexicans would also have to pay more for beef and pork. And that's not counting the huge cost of building new grain storage facilities and transport terminals to receive grain shipments arriving aboard large ships from South America, as opposed to the rail freight that delivers much of the U.S. corn directly to feed millers in Mexico. "You have buyer-seller relationships that have built up over decades on very good infrastructure logistics," Sleight says. "To replace that overnight is not going to happen." Treatment of migrants The chief and most plausible representative of Mexico's old resentments is Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the two-time leftist presidential candidate who came within a hair's breadth of winning the 2006 election. While Lopez Obrador vows he is not anti-American, he has filed a complaint against Trump's treatment of migrants with the Inter-American Human Rights Commission. The fear and loathing Mexicans feel for Trump could translate into more votes in 2018 for Lopez Obrador, who advocates a sort of return to the hyper-nationalist days of the early 1960s personified by ex-President Adolfo Lopez Mateos. "We are not accustomed to getting down on our knees," Lopez Obrador said of U.S. relations. "We are going to defend our migrants. We are going to defend our human rights." It is the specter of a Lopez Obrador presidency that has the current Mexican administration eager to start any renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement now and not in next year's presidential election season. "We think there are better conditions for reaching a commercial agreement with the United States or any other national in 2017," said Mexican Foreign Relations Secretary Luis Videgaray. "As the election year opens, particularly the presidential elections, it becomes more complicated for any type of international negotiation." Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has raised questions over Election Commission's open challenge to hack Electronic Voting Machines. Kejriwal suggested that reports about poll panel's challenge could have been 'planted'. By India Today Web Desk: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who is at war with the Election Commission over Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) tampering, has now questioned the poll panel's 'open challenge' to hack its voting machines. "Why are these stories ascribed to "sources"? How credible are they? Why hasn't EC issued any formal statement? Or is it just a plant?" Kejriwal said suggesting that reports about Election Commission's open hacking challenge may have been planted in media. Why are these stories ascribed to "sources"? How credible are they? Why hasn't EC issued any formal statement? Or is it just a plant? https://t.co/Cxvu4nBUg8- Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) April 13, 2017 advertisement Kejriwal had recently challenged the Election Commission to allow him to pick a random EVM and he will prove within 72 hours that the machines could be tampered with. At least 16 Opposition parties, including the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party, have alleged that the EVMs were tampered by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the just concluded Assembly elections in five states - Uttar Pradesh, Manipur, Goa, Punjab and Uttarakhand. The BJP formed government in four of the states which went to polls in February-March. Earlier this week, 13 Opposition parties had approached the Election Commission, expressing their "complete loss of faith" in EVMs and demanded use of VVPAT (voter-verified paper audit trail) and paper ballots in upcoming polls. "Through our memorandum, we drew his attention to the recent critical developments which have seriously undermined governance and institutional integrity. The environment of fear and insecurity has been prevailing in the country and voices of dissent are being muzzled," Ghulam Nabi Azad, Congress Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, had said. WATCH: EVM tampering row: Is AAP unable to concede defeat in Assembly polls? ALSO READ: Hack an EVM challenge: Election Commission dares anyone to tamper voting device successfully After Moily, now Capt Amarinder from Congress says EVMs cannot be tampered How EVM tampering row flared up: Truth behind Bhind experiment of Madhya Pradesh --- ENDS --- Opposition candidate Guillermo Lasso filed a complaint Wednesday challenging Ecuador election results that show he narrowly lost to President Rafael Correa's handpicked successor. The former banker is demanding a recount of all votes cast in the election, repeating accusations of fraud and saying if Lenin Moreno takes power he will head an illegitimate government. "It's necessary to be in the streets,'' he told supporters at an event announcing the election challenge. Official results released Monday show Lasso lost to Lenin Moreno by less than three points. The election was closely watched in Latin America as an indicator of whether the region would continue to shift right after recent conservative candidate wins in countries including Peru and Argentina. Correa has served as Ecuador's president for more than 10 years and the country has been deeply divided on whether to continue his "Citizens' Revolution.'' In polls leading up to the election, a majority of Ecuadoreans said they were eager for change and frustrated with a staggered economy and Correa's iron-fisted rule. Hundreds of outraged Lasso supporters protested outside the electoral council's headquarters on election night April 2. Some remained camped out until being removed by police Tuesday. Lasso said Wednesday his campaign has presented evidence showing 4,200 irregular voting acts, "and that's just what we've found so far, that's why we're asking for a review of 100 percent of the votes.'' In the initial hours after the election, three exit polls showed Lasso winning. One by pollster Cedatos, which accurately predicted the results of the first round, gave him a victory by six percentage points. Yet despite the accusations of fraud, international observers including the Organization of American states said they found no irregularities. The Washington-based regional group said its mission of 480 voting centers nationwide found no discrepancies between the tallies and the official results. In presenting the results of a partial recount, Juan Pablo Pozo, president of the electoral council, said officials had found no evidence of ballots being incorrectly tallied. The percentage difference between the two candidates after a recount of nearly 300,000 votes is "identical,'' he said. "That's our conclusion up to this moment.'' An errant airstrike by a U.S.-backed coalition has killed 18 allied soldiers who were fighting the Islamic State militant group in northern Syria. U.S. Central Command, which directs U.S. forces in the Middle East, said Thursday allied forces members inadvertently carried out the attack Tuesday south of Tabqa, a strategically important town near the IS stronghold of Raqqa. Raqqa is the self-declared capital of IS and is the largest Syrian city under the group's control. Central Command said the predominately Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) gave coalition aircraft pilots the wrong coordinates, resulting in a strike that hit an SDF position instead. Several countries are providing air support to the coalition in the battle against IS. It is unclear which air forces carried out the strike. In a statement, the coalition expressed its "deepest condolences" to SDF members and their families. "The coalition is in close contact with our SDF partners who have expressed a strong desire to remain focused on the fight against ISIS despite this tragic incident," the coalition said, using an acronym for Islamic State. The statement added "appropriate safeguards" would be implemented to prevent similar incidents from occurring. A monitoring group in Syria said last month dozens of civilians had been killed in a U.S. attack outside Raqqa. The military said it had no proof of civilians being killed. The European Court of Human Rights ruled Thursday that Russia failed to adequately minimize risks ahead of a 2004 attack by Islamic militants on a school, and that the actions of security forces contributed to the deaths of hostages. The three-day siege and massacre that started on September 1, 2004, at School Number One in Beslan, a town in the republic of North Ossetia, left more than 330 hostages dead, including 186 children. It is one of the bloodiest terrorist acts ever in Russia. A group of Russians filed lawsuits accusing the government of failing to protect the victims against a known threat, mounting a deficient rescue operation, and not effectively investigating the attack and response. The ECHR sided with the plaintiffs, saying authorities had specific information about a planned attack but did not boost security at the school. The court said afterward investigators did not properly examine how victims died, and "failed to adequately examine the use of lethal force by the authorities." Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected the ruling, calling it unacceptable given that Russia had been the victim of terrorist attacks. The attack began on the first day of the school year. About 30 mostly Chechen and Ingush Islamic militants seized the school and killed several adults before taking more than 1,100 people hostage, including nearly 800 children. During a 52-hour standoff, most of the hostages were held in the school's gym, where temperatures soared and no food or water was provided. On the third day, some of the hostages were released and the bodies of some adults killed on the first day were collected. But a sudden series of powerful explosions was followed by a fire that engulfed the gym and caused its roof to collapse. In response, Russian security forces backed by tanks stormed the building and fought a battle against the hostage-takers, leading to the deaths of more than 330 hostages and 186 children. Hundreds of other people were wounded, and others were reported missing. The group that carried out the attack was allegedly controlled by Chechen separatist leader Shamil Basayev, who was killed in 2006. Basayev worked with jihadist militants such as Ibn al-Khattab, a Saudi national with close connections to al-Qaida. After years of experimenting and refining, robotic devices that could help disabled people walk may soon be available to rehabilitation centers. The Japanese auto company Toyota says that before the end of this year, elderly and infirm people in Japan will be able to have therapy sessions with a walk-assist robot. Polls showed France's presidential election campaign tightening further on Wednesday as financial markets fretted about the rising popularity of a far-left candidate who wants to put France's European Union membership to a vote. Investors have long been anxious about election frontrunner Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front, who has promised a referendum on whether to quit the EU and ditch the euro. She has been joined on the list of investors' concerns by far-left veteran Jean-Luc Melenchon, who has surged in the polls after strong performances in two candidates' debates. The Communist-backed Melenchon also wants a referendum on EU membership after an attempt to renegotiate the EU treaties. Fillon stable in poll The latest Ifop-Fiducial poll on Wednesday showed Le Pen winning 23.5 percent in the April 23 first round, one point ahead of centrist Emmanuel Macron. Both Le Pen and Macron's support dipped by half a point from Tuesday while conservative Francois Fillon was stable on 19 percent and Melenchon unchanged on 18.5 percent. The top two candidates go through to a run-off on May 7, where polls say Macron would easily beat Le Pen. Traders cited the French election, as well as U.S. relations with Syria and North Korea, as reasons why investors switched to safe assets, such as gold or U.S. Treasuries, on Wednesday. Risk sentiment is not strong at the moment because of tensions in North Korea and also risk of a ... rising Melenchon, said Nomura currency strategist Yujiro Goto in London. German foray Concern about a Le Pen victory, which would put further pressure on the EU after Britain's decision to leave the bloc, led to an unusual foray into French politics by Germany, France's traditional partner at the heart of the EU. We need a pro-European France, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said in Berlin. I hope Le Pen does not become French president, he added. Outgoing Socialist President Francois Hollande is also concerned about Melenchon's rising popularity, according to Le Monde newspaper, and this has fed speculation he could endorse Macron as the best hope to win rather than official Socialist candidate Benoit Hamon, who is doing poorly in the polls. Hollande won't offer support yet In an interview with Le Point magazine published on Wednesday, Hollande kept silent about his choice, saying he would endorse a candidate before the second round of the election. But he spoke highly of the decision by Macron, a former economy minister in his government, to launch a new party, saying I think politics needs renewal and he spoke out against demagoguery. There is a danger in simplifications and falsifications which make people look at the ... speaker rather than the content of what he is saying, he said. Hollande, an unpopular president who did not seek a second term, said ruling parties should not hold primary elections in future, because it was impossible to be president and candidate at the same time. 'The French Chavez' The conservative Le Figaro newspaper called Melenchon the French Chavez, alleging in a front-page story that his plans were inspired by the late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez. Melenchon mocked his new notoriety in a blog on his website. They announce that my winning the election would bring nuclear winter, a plague of frogs, Red Army tanks and the landing of the Venezuelans, he said. Germany's foreign minister urged Kosovo's political parties Thursday to approve the border demarcation agreement with Montenegro to end their status as the only Western Balkan country without free travel rights in Schengen zone countries. Minister Sigmar Gabriel was in Pristina on Thursday as part of his regional tour. Opposition parties say Kosovo loses territory in the border agreement signed two years ago, and have blocked the governing coalition from ratifying the deal by continuously disrupting parliament. U.S. Senator John McCain also visited Kosovo on Thursday, urging Pristina to resume its dialogue with Serbia, saying that's the only way to a prosperous and safe future. "Taking ahead the dialogue ... is in Kosovars' and Serbs' interest, vital for their joint European future and for the stability of southeastern Europe," McCain said in a speech at the parliament. Gabriel, who was in Serbia a day earlier, advised Kosovo and Serbia to continue their talks and "first of all to avoid provocations; second, to accept the reality; third, to care about how to make life easier for the people. This has to be the focus of the negotiations." Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008. It has been recognized by 114 countries but not by Serbia. Their relations have been especially tense since December following a series of provocations. McCain assured lawmakers that "a U.S. commitment for a complete, free and peaceful Europe has not changed." Gabriel and McCain also called on Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leaders to cooperate and convince the country's Serb minority to approve the creation of the country's armed forces. "Kosovo, like all other sovereign states, has the right to form an army but it should not be used to raise the emotional tensions," said Gabriel. Kosovo President Hashim Thaci sent a draft law to parliament last month to transform the nation's security force into a regular army, sparking concerns at NATO and the United States. Thaci bowed to international pressure and agreed to postpone the army transformation. As the U.N. Security Council prepares to vote Thursday on whether to end its peacekeeping mission in Haiti in favor of a smaller police detail, the prospect of international troops departing has evoked concern about security gaps. But there's also widespread enthusiasm to send off the peacekeepers, who've been accused of everything from indifference to sexual predation. "We face insecurity at night. There is a lot of shooting after 5 p.m. when MINUSTAH troops are not present in the streets," Menard Eliphete, 54, a mason in Hinche, told a VOA reporter. He used the acronym for the U.N. Haiti stabilization mission. "My message for the peacekeepers is bon voyage, good riddance," said Marleine Bastien, executive director of the Haitian Women of Miami. Women 'abused over and over' The Florida-based nonprofit advocates for Haitian women in the diaspora and "in the motherland," said Bastien, a native of the Caribbean country. Speaking by telephone from her office Wednesday, Bastien said she'd collaborated for years with Haiti-based rights groups complaining of peacekeepers not intervening to halt acts of violence and, in some cases, of sexually exploiting vulnerable women and children themselves. "Women were abused over and over, then impregnated, and they [peacekeepers] refused to pay child support," Bastien said. Bastien's comments echo the findings of an Associated Press expose released Wednesday. Its review of U.N. peacekeeping missions over the past 12 years revealed roughly 2,000 allegations of sexual abuse globally that were perpetrated by peacekeepers or other U.N. staff. Some 300 of those accusations involved child victims. But few people were ever prosecuted. The AP also noted a U.N. report acknowledging a child sex ring in which nine Haitian children were victimized by 134 Sri Lankan peacekeepers from 2004 to 2007. Most were deported to their home country. None spent time in prison. As AP reported, the United Nations "has no jurisdiction over peacekeepers, leaving punishment to the countries that contribute the troops." UN force in Haiti 13 years More than 2,300 peacekeepers currently are in Haiti, coming from 53 countries. More than 900 have come from Brazil alone, with contingents from other Latin American countries especially Chile and Uruguay as well as India, Jordan, Nepal and Pakistan. Peacekeepers have maintained a steady presence in Haiti since 2004, when they were sent in to quell violence after then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was overthrown and exiled. They have stayed through deadly natural disasters, including a 2010 earthquake and last fall's Hurricane Matthew. They also have been accused of introducing a cholera epidemic that has killed at least 9,300 people. Those 2,300-plus troops would be pulled out over the next six months if the mission is pared, and its current budget of $345 million would decline, too. The Trump administration's plan to make deep cuts in foreign aid is a concern for the United Nations. The United States is the top financial contributor to U.N. peacekeeping and its 16 missions, assessed for more than a quarter of the costs in 2016. Peacekeepers strengthened police The proposed reduced U.N. mission would have no more than 250 police and civilians supporting the country's national police, Sandra Honore, the U.N. special representative to Haiti, told VOA in a phone interview Tuesday. Honore said she was satisfied with the U.N.'s work "in helping professionalize" the Haitian national police force, the justice system and other Haitian institutions. "We promoted democracy, the electoral process and human rights in the country." "The United Nations will continue to strengthen the capacity of the national police," Honore added, noting the current force is 14,000 strong about 2,000 short of a goal set for last year. She said the U.N. would continue pressing for more female police officers. Honore, noting protesters threw stones at Haitian President Jovenel Moise's motorcade last week, acknowledged that "the security climate today in Haiti is not perfect," but, she added, there has been "considerable progress." Revive national army? Some Haitians have called for addressing security issues by resurrecting a national army, disbanded in 1995. "We have a lot of insecurity problems," said Kesnel Casimir, a stone breaker in Hinche. " ...The Haitian government should remobilize the Haitian army to replace the U.N. forces." "The Haitian police can't play the military role," Jean Renel Senatus, chairman of the Haitian Senate's justice and public safety committee, told VOA in a radio interview. " ... Haitian security can't be guaranteed if our port and airport are not well protected. ... The Haitian army is a must" for security after MINUSTAH's departure. The United States, Haiti's biggest benefactor, opposes such a move. Earlier this year, Kenneth Merten, the State Department's special coordinator for Haiti, told VOA, "We've spent a lot of money so Haiti could have a police force that is competent and transparent." This report was prepared by VOA's Creole Service, with correspondent Josue Joseph contributing from Hinche, Haiti. Restaurant inspectors found 13 violations at Mar-a-Lago, the exclusive Florida resort owned by President Donald Trump, the Miami Herald reported. Undercooled meat, potentially dangerous raw fish and two broken coolers were among the problems found at the private club that charges $200,000 in initiation fees and has become known as the Southern White House, the newspaper reported late Wednesday. Neither Mar-a-Lago nor the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation, which last inspected the club on Jan. 26, immediately responded to Reuters requests for comment Thursday. Trump bought Mar-a-Lago in 1985. This weekend, he is to make his seventh trip to the Palm Beach property as the 45th president of the United States. Violations found just days before the state visit of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe included failure to use proper parasite destruction on fish intended to be served raw or undercooked, the Herald reported, quoting the inspection report. Inspectors ordered that the fish be cooked immediately or tossed out. Inside the broken coolers, inspectors found raw meats meant to be stored at 41 degrees that were potentially dangerously warm, including ham at 57 degrees, raw beef at 50 degrees, duck at 50 degrees and chicken at 49 degrees, the newspaper said. Other violations included sinks with water too cold to sanitize hands and rusty shelves inside walk-in coolers. Three were "high priority" violations, meaning they could allow for illness-causing bacteria in meals served in the dining room, the newspaper said. Mar-a-Lago was issued a citation for the broken coolers, which the club was ordered to empty and repair. It was not the first time a Trump eatery has gotten negative publicity since his November 2016 election. The restaurant in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York City was reviewed by Vanity Fair in December 2016 under the headline "Trump Grill Could Be the Worst Restaurant in America." The two women charged with killing the estranged half-brother of North Korea's leader appeared in a Malaysian court in bullet-proof vests on Thursday, as one of their lawyers warned they feared "trial by ambush" with police not sharing evidence. Indonesian Siti Aishah, 25, and Doan Thi Huong, 28, from Vietnam, face the death penalty if convicted of murdering Kim Jong Nam at Kuala Lumpur International airport on Feb. 13. The two women have been accused of smearing Kim's face with the toxic VX nerve agent, a chemical described by the United Nations as a weapon of mass destruction. Aishah and Huong have told diplomats from their countries that they had believed they were carrying out a prank for a reality television show, and not a murder. U.S. and South Korean officials say the murder was orchestrated by the North's leader, Kim Jong Un. Kim Jong Nam, the eldest son of the late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, had spoken out publicly against his family's dynastic control of the isolated, nuclear-armed nation. Lawyers for Aishah and Huong told the court on Thursday that police had not responded to requests to provide evidence including CCTV recordings and statements from three North Korean suspects allowed to leave Malaysia. The three were allowed to go home late last month, along with the body of Kim Jong Nam, as part of a swap deal with North Korea, which had banned nine Malaysians from leaving there. We've lost an opportunity to cross-examine them ... There should be no trial by ambush, Aishah's lawyer, Gooi Soon Seng, told reporters outside the court. Gooi also said one of the three suspects who was allowed to leave Malaysia, Ri Ji U, also known as James, was a key witness and his departure had "compromised" the defense. Hisyam Teh, Huong's lawyer, requested police to furnish evidence such as photos and communications from the two phones seized from her. Malaysia's inspector-general of police, Khalid Abu Bakar, denied that police had "compromised" the case or refused to cooperate with the defense, saying some evidence "can only be provided during the trial." "We can't be producing all evidence here now," Khalid told a news conference. Four other North Koreans have also been identified by Malaysian police as suspects. They are believed to have left Kuala Lumpur for Pyongyang on the day of the killing. The magistrate court was set to hear a prosecutors' request that the two women be tried jointly in a higher court, but the hearing was deferred to May 30 after the prosecution asked for more time to collect documents. More than 50 U.S. cities will be hosting Make Music Day, a free one-day outdoor festival celebrating music and music-making. The annual event is June 21, the summer solstice. Highlights of Make Music Day in the U.S. will include Sousapaloozas in Chicago; Cleveland; Madison, Wisconsin; Minneapolis-St. Paul; New York; and San Jose, California. Part of Make Music Day is an event called Mass Appeal in which musicians play together in single-instruments groups. Featured instruments will include guitars, harmonicas, accordions, trombones, bassoons, French horns and harps. More than 150 are scheduled. Street Studios in Atlanta; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Minneapolis-St. Paul; New York; and Philadelphia will give passers-by a chance to collaborate in producing original music. The festival began in France in 1982 and has since spread to 750 cities across 120 countries. Availability of cash in ATMs has worsened in some parts of the country. Hyderabad, Pune and Faridabad are among the worst affected cities, where hundreds of people said that cash dispensing ATMs were hard to find. By Prabhash K Dutta: Exactly a month ago on March 13, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) lifted restriction on cash withdrawal limit from the banks and ATMs. The RBI's decision was based on its sustained push for remonetisation, which was going on in full flow since November. And, now a survey has shown that despite the best efforts from the RBI, there are not enough cash available in ATMs, the least. People are facing fresh round of cash crunch in ATMs, the survey found. advertisement According to a survey, conducted by citizen engagement platform LocalCircles covering 11 cities and over 10,000 people, 83 per cent respondents in Hyderabad said that they could not find cash dispensing ATMs between April 5 and 8 (the period of survey). Similar situation was reported by the respondents from Pune, where 69 per cent of people said that they were unable to find ATMs having cash. Delhi recorded the highest availability of cash in the ATMs. Only 11 per cent of participants from Delhi complained about non-availability of cash in ATMs. It seems the cash crunch worsens as one travels farther from Delhi. However, Gurgaon and Faridabad are exceptions. While 63 per cent people complained of cash shortage in ATMs in Faridabad, 42 per cent respondents from Gurgaon said ATMs did not dispense cash in their locality. Overall, 36 per cent people complained about non-availability of cash in ATMs. Another four per cent said that they got cash after standing in queue for up to 30 minutes outside ATMs. A similar survey conducted between February 14 and 16 had shown that only 22 per cent people complained of not finding ATMs having cash. The April survey is the first time, when cash crunch situation has shown worsening trend since demonetisation was announced in November. In the first week of demonetisation, 66 per cent people complained of cash crunch. But, the cash availability kept improving till February. It was expected that with strong push for remonetisation by the RBI, things would only improve. But, it seems cash crunch was addressed in places like Delhi, which is the centre of not only political power but also of media scrutiny. WHY CASH CRUNCH Remonetisation data shows that by March-end, currencies worth Rs 13.35 lakh crore were in circulation. On November 8, when demonetisation was announced notes worth Rs 17.98 lakh crore were in circulation. Back then, 86 per cent notes were declared invalid. Cash crunch set in but situation improved. Now, the fresh round of cash crunch has led to all kinds of speculations. advertisement The RBI's move to lift restriction on cash withdrawal is being blamed for the renewed cash crunch. It is being said that people are withdrawing money in greater amount after the RBI lifted restriction leaving the banks with less money to refill for ATMs. The decision by the banks to impose transaction charges has further aggravated the situation. Even though, the bank transaction charges are not huge, a large number traders and people involved in businesses that thrive on cash are not re-depositing the money withdrawn from the banks. This has also hit the cash availability with the banks and hence the ATMs. The RBI has slowed down the speed of printing currencies and it is expected the process of remonetisation will be complete by May-end. ALSO WATCH | No limit on cash withdrawal from today, weekly limit of Rs 50,000 lifted --- ENDS --- A lawyer representing the man who was dragged off a United Airlines flight earlier this week said he is likely to sue the airline after he suffered serious injuries from the incident. The lawyer, Thomas Demetrio, said the airline has "bullied" passengers for a long time and he will "probably" file a lawsuit on behalf of Dr. David Dao, who will now have to undergo surgery to correct the injuries he sustained. Demetrio said Dao will need reconstructive surgery to fix a broken nose and two lost teeth. Dao suffered a concussion during the altercation with police, Demetrio said, but he has already been released from the hospital. The incident took place Sunday when Dao refused to give up his seat on a full flight from Chicago to Louisville. Cellphone video of the altercation shows Dao, limp and bleeding from a facial wound, being dragged from a United Airlines flight by three police officers at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. Dao was one of four passengers bumped from the flight to accommodate four airline employees. He supposedly was chosen at random after all the passengers spurned the airline's offer of cash payments if they would agree to disembark and take a later flight to their destination in Kentucky. On Wednesday, Dao's lawyers filed preliminary paperwork asking an Illinois state court to order United to preserve video recordings and other evidence related to the incident. The lawyers want United and the city of Chicago, which oversees the airport, to preserve surveillance videos, cockpit voice recordings, passenger and crew lists, and other materials related to the flight. United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz has said he was ``ashamed'' when he saw the video, and said the airline would refrain from forcibly removing passengers from future flights. Recently hundreds of people volunteered for a mind experiment. The execution was simple. All the participants had to do was watch a movie while wearing a headset that reads their response in real time. This type of experiment has been done before, but never at this scale "where we can look at thousands or in this case, 1,000 people's brain activities as they're all involved in the same activity," said computational neuroscientist Tim Mullen. Hundreds of people in Los Angeles and in New York watched the movie, MindGamers at the same time. It is no coincidence that MindGamers explores what happens when the human brain is connected to a computer. In the movie, physical skills could be transmitted to a quadriplegic and allow him to move again. But the technology also opens the door to mass-mind control in the film. The results of the real world experiment, along with the answers to a questionnaire filled out by every participant, could help scientists better understand how the human mind works among various creative personality and demographic groups and how they react when presented with the same situation. Watch: Thousand Subjects React to Same Video Mass analysis The headset allows neuroscientists to read the electrical activity inside the brains of a mass collective of people. Cloud technology records various metrics, including a measure thought to be associated with focus and how that changed as the audience watched the movie. "If you look for a hot color, hot colors mean that there was a big increase in focus," Mullen said as he shared the collected data on the big screen immediately after the movie ended. "There is a peak here," he said, referring to a dark color on a graph shown on the screen. At that point in the movie, the audience was watching a scene in which a woman was about to jump off a building. To further illustrate the technology, Mullen put two different colored rings on the big screen and asked the New York audience to focus on mentally pushing the yellow ring outward, and the ring started moving in that direction. "As this is changing it's related to how the entire group is changing their focus state," explained Mullen. Mullen says the future of brain-computer interface technology could lead to brain-to-brain communication. Research also is being conducted of plugging the brain into the cloud, and from there to an internet-connected device. Mullen emphasized that the live analysis and demonstration shown were only very preliminary and exploratory, and that careful data validation and deeper analysis would be needed before any conclusions could be reached. Where it leads "I think that sooner or later we're eventually going to move to this point where everything is going to be linked to some big server. We're going to be interconnected regardless of the country we're living, or citizenship. We're all going to be integrated into something bigger. Humanity is going to be united," said experiment participant Andrey Nazarbekian. But not everyone is as optimistic. "I think humans will exploit it. I mean you're basically, we're losing control of our privacy," said experiment participant Adda Wong. "I'm fearful of the fact that where this could lead? Whose hands hold the power to this kind of information and data? But it's very exciting to see the wavelengths of everyone's brain connection," said experiment participant Charnelle Martin. "We know there are great outcomes that can come from this type of work, but it's a yin-yang world that we live in so for every sort of positive capability that you create, there likely is a nefarious or negative outcome and we have to be conscious about that as we develop these things," warned Todd Richmond, Director of Advanced Prototype Development at University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies. Mullen will be analyzing the data collected from the experiment for weeks to come, as research continues into the brain-computer interface. North Korea appears to have a placed a device in a tunnel at its nuclear test site that could be detonated Saturday or even sooner, U.S. government and other sources said Wednesday. "U.S. intelligence is always on alert for a possible North Korean weapons test," a U.S. Intelligence official told VOA on Thursday "Kim Jong Un wants his country to be validated as a nuclear power and a test would further that goal." North Korea on Saturday will observe the "Day of the Sun," marking the 105th birth anniversary of its founder, Kim Il Sung. Commercial satellite imagery of the Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site from Wednesday showed continued activity around the north portal, new activity in the main administrative area and a few personnel around the command center, according to the 38 North website, which is run by the U.S.-Korea Institute of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. The nuclear test facility is "primed and ready" for what would be North Korea's sixth nuclear test, according to an analysis by Joseph Bermudez Jr. and Jack Liu. South Korea has no indications a military provocation by the North is imminent, Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesman Roh Jae-chun told reporters in Seoul on Thursday morning. Conversation with Xi U.S. President Donald Trump, at a news conference Wednesday with visiting NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, said he had spoken with China President Xi Jinping the previous evening and "I think he wants to help us with North Korea." If that does not occur, "we're just going to go it alone." Trump echoes that sentiment on Twitter Wednesday morning Xi told Trump that China believes the issue of North Korea's intercontinental ballistic missile and nuclear weapons development should be resolved through peaceful means, according to Chinese media reports. A U.S. naval strike group, led by the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier, following a regularly scheduled assignment in Singapore, was ordered to head north "as a prudent measure" instead of heading toward Australia, as had been planned. Officials of the Pacific Command told VOA the new position of the vessels off the Korean Peninsula would come at a time when the "number one threat in the region continues to be North Korea, due to its reckless, irresponsible and destabilizing programs of missile tests and pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability." The carrier strike group, according to sources, includes the USS Ohio submarine, armed with 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles. 'An armada' "We are sending an armada. Very powerful," Trump told the Fox Business Network on Tuesday. "We have submarines. Very powerful. Far more powerful than the aircraft carrier." In an interview with The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, Trump, speaking about North Korea, said "you cannot allow a country like that to have nuclear power, nuclear weapons. That's mass destruction." The president added that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the grandson of Kim Il Sung, "doesn't have the delivery systems yet, but he will. In many ways, that's the easiest thing." There is also speculation that North Korea could imminently test-fire another intermediate- or long-range ballistic missile, tied to the upcoming holiday. In April 2012, North Korea tried to launch a long-range rocket ahead of Kim Il Sung's 100th birth anniversary. That launch failed. Deep in the jagged red mountains of Oman, geologists are searching for an efficient and cheap way to remove carbon dioxide from the air and oceans and perhaps begin to reverse climate change. They are coring samples from one of the world's only exposed sections of the Earth's mantle to uncover how a spontaneous natural process millions of years ago transformed carbon dioxide into limestone and marble. As the world mobilizes to confront climate change, the main focus has been on reducing emissions through fuel-efficient cars and cleaner power plants. But some researchers are also testing ways to remove or recycle carbon already in the seas and sky. The Hellisheidi geothermal plant in Iceland injects carbon into volcanic rock. At the massive Sinopec fertilizer plant in China, carbon is filtered and reused as fuel. In all, 16 industrial projects currently capture and store about 27 million tons of carbon, according to the International Energy Agency. That's less than 0.1 percent of global emissions _ human activity is estimated to pump about 40 billion tons a year into the atmosphere _ but the technology has shown promise. Many efforts needed "Any one technique is not guaranteed to succeed," said Stuart Haszeldine, a geology professor at the University of Edinburgh who serves on a U.N. climate body studying how to reduce atmospheric carbon. "If we're interested as a species, we've got to try a lot harder and do a lot more and a lot of different actions." One such action is underway in the al-Hajjar Mountains of Oman, in a quiet corner of the Arabian Peninsula, where a unique rock formation pulls carbon out of thin air. Peter Kelemen, 61, a geochemist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, has been exploring Oman's hills for nearly three decades. "You can walk down these beautiful canyons and basically descend 20 kilometers [12 miles] into the Earth's interior," he said. The sultanate boasts the largest exposed sections of the Earth's mantle, thrust up by plate tectonics millions of years ago. The mantle contains peridotite, a rock that reacts with the carbon in air and water to form marble and limestone. "Every single magnesium atom in these rocks has made friends with the carbon dioxide to form solid limestone, magnesium carbonate, plus quartz," he said as he patted a rust-colored boulder in the Wadi Mansah valley. "There's about a billion tons of CO2 in this mountain," he said, pointing off to the east. Rain and springs pull carbon from the exposed mantle to form stalactites and stalagmites in mountain caves. Natural pools develop surface scum of white carbonate. Scratch off this thin, white film, Kelemen said, and it'll grow back in a day. "For a geologist, this is supersonic," he said. Drilling project He and a team of 40 scientists have formed the Oman Drilling Project to better understand how that process works and whether it could be used to scrub the Earth's carbon-laden atmosphere. The $3.5 million project has support from across the globe, including NASA. Carbon dioxide is the primary greenhouse gas driving climate change, which threatens to cause meteorological, agricultural and political problems worldwide, according to the U.N. climate body. Natural carbon levels have risen from 280 to 405 parts per million since the Industrial Revolution, and current estimates hold that the world will be 6 degrees C (42.8 degrees F) hotter by 2100. In 2015, 196 nations signed the Paris climate accords, agreeing to curb greenhouse gas emissions to levels that would keep the rise in the Earth's temperature to under 2 degrees C. That has injected new urgency into the work underway in Oman, where Keleman's team recently spent four months extracting dozens of core samples, which they hope to use to construct a geological history of the process that turns carbon dioxide into carbonate. "It's like a jigsaw puzzle," said Nehal Warsi, 33, who oversees the drilling. About 13 tons of core samples from four different sites will be sent to the Chikyu, a state-of-the-art research vessel off the coast of Japan, where Keleman and other geologists will analyze them in round-the-clock shifts. They hope to answer the question of how the rocks captured so much carbon over the course of 90 million years and to see whether there's a way to speed up the timetable. Watch: Scientists Hunt in Oman Mountains for Clues to Capturing Greenhouse Gas A cycling of carbon Kelemen thinks a drilling operation could cycle carbon-rich water into the newly formed seabed on oceanic ridges far below the surface. Just like in Oman's mountains, the submerged rock would chemically absorb carbon from the water. The water could then be cycled back to the surface to absorb more carbon from the atmosphere, in a sort of conveyor belt. Such a project would require years more of testing, but Kelemen hopes the energy industry, with its offshore drilling expertise and deep pockets, will take interest. "Ultimately, if the goal is to capture billions and billions of tons of carbon, that's where James Cameron comes in," he said, half joking, referring to the "Titanic" and "Avatar" director who has also pioneered undersea technology. Cameron himself piloted a submersible to the deepest point on Earth in 2012 and retrieved samples while filming "Deepsea Challenge." "He hasn't responded to my messages yet," Kelemen said. A Pakistani national has pleaded guilty to helping smuggle dozens of people from Pakistan and Afghanistan into the United States. Sharafat Ali Khan, 32, who U.S. officials say also is a legal resident of Brazil, pleaded guilty Wednesday in a Washington courtroom. Prosecutors say Khan was part of a human smuggling ring that brought an unspecified number of people north by plane, bus and on foot through the Colombian jungle. Court records show the travelers paid between $5,000 and $12,000 each before their journeys. "The average traveler took approximately nine months to get from Brazil all the way to the United States. During the voyage from Brazil through South and Central America, aliens were subjected to harsh conditions that caused a substantial risk of serious bodily injury or death," court records stated. Khan is set to be sentenced in July. Philippines' President Rodrigo Duterte has cancelled a planned visit to an island the Philippines claims in the disputed South China Sea, after Beijing warned him against the visit. The brash Philippine leader last week announced his plan to raise the Philippine flag in the island of Thitu and fortify it with barracks, setting off alarm bells. Because of our friendship with China and because we value your friendship I will not go there to raise the Philippine flag, Duterte said in a speech before the Filipino community in Riyadh late Wednesday. They said, do not go there in the meantime, just do not go there please. I will correct myself because we value our friendship with China, he said, adding that he might just send his son to the island. China claims most of the South China Sea through which about $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes annually. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims. Duterte said Beijing warned him that there will likely be trouble if every head of state of contending parties will go to the disputed islands and plant flags. The popular president is on a week-long state visit in the Middle East to facilitate trade and investments, and meet with Filipinos overseas. The Middle East is the second largest source of remittances, with more than one million Filipino workers sending home $7.6 billion in last year, government data showed. Duterte, who led the warming of ties with China, had blamed the United States for the current maritime tensions for not intervening to stop China building and arming artificial islands in the Philippines' exclusive economic zone. The Philippines will reinforce, but not military, areas in the South China Sea controlled by Manila to maintain the geopolitical balance, Duterte said on Monday. Polish leaders welcomed a new multinational NATO battalion to Poland on Thursday, with the president calling it "a historic moment for my country.'' The near-permanent deployment of a NATO battalion under U.S. command marks the first time NATO troops have been placed so close to Russian territory, a step the Kremlin denounces as a threat to its own security. But Polish President Andrzej Duda said the deployment, to Poles, stands as a symbol of liberation and inclusion in the Western democratic world. "It's not an exaggeration to say that generations of Poles have waited for this moment since the end of the Second World War,'' Duda said in the northeastern town of Orzysz as he addressed the troops and the U.S. and British ambassadors. The battalion of about 1,000 troops is led by the United States, but includes troops from Britain and Romania. Croatian troops are expected to join later. Their base of operations, Orzysz, is 60 kilometers (37 miles) from the border with Kaliningrad, a Russian territory on the Baltic Sea separated from the Russian mainland. While NATO has held exercises in the region in past years, the deployment marks the alliance's first continuous troop presence in the area that was considered by defense experts as vulnerable. Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz said the NATO presence guarantees the security of NATO's eastern flank. The NATO deployment is separate from a U.S. battalion of 3,500 troops that arrived in Poland earlier this year and which is headquartered in southwestern Poland, near the German border. Both missions are responses to calls for greater U.S. and NATO protection by a region fearful after Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea and its support for a rebel insurgency in eastern Ukraine. Authorities in Spain and France have seized millions of dollars worth of assets owned by Rifaat al-Assad, the uncle of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Prosecutors allege his property empire, which is worth more than a half-billion dollars, was built using money embezzled from the Syrian state in the 1980s. As a commander of a specialist unit, Rifaat al-Assad also is accused of overseeing the Hama massacre of 1982, when the Syrian army crushed a Muslim Brotherhood uprising, killing up to 40,000 people. Its a charge he has consistently denied. After allegedly leading a failed coup against his brother - then President Hafez al-Assad - Rifaat was exiled to Europe. For three decades, Rifaat al-Assad, a former vice president of the Syrian regime, a man that many hold responsible for an atrocity in Hama in 1982 where tens of thousands of people were butchered, has wandered around Europe on the ill-gotten gains that he has taken out of Syria, says Chris Doyle of the Council for British-Arab Understanding. That freedom could now be coming to an end. Spanish police last week raided houses belonging to the former vice president and his family. Spanish courts have ordered the seizure of more than 500 properties worth $740 million. Investigators believe Rifaat al-Assad embezzled more than $300 million of state funds. So far no one has been arrested. Never benefited Rifaat al-Assads family issued a statement saying they had "never benefited from financing that in any way wronged the Syrian people." In 2013, at the outset of the investigation in France, Rifaat al Assads son Siwar said his fathers fortune came from wealthy Saudi backers. Rifaat al-Assad also owns a $12 million house in Londons Mayfair district. Critics want Britain to follow Spains lead and seize his property. Rifaat al-Assad cannot be allowed to enjoy these billions while others are suffering, says Doyle. But analysts say London is renowned as a hub for so-called "dirty money," and it is doubtful that Britain will make an exception of Rifaat al-Assad. Nick Kochan is an author and expert on financial crime: Are the British authorities prepared to go that one step further and put all criminals, all oligarchs who have got criminal money, on notice we are after you? Or do we select one because they are temporarily the whipping boy of the West, namely Assad? Kochan notes that British legislation requires a conviction before property can be seized. For money laundering, for theft, for corruption, for some form of economic crime where the authority can say, the property was acquired with the proceeds of crime and therefore they ought to be confiscated.' New legislation in Britain, the so-called Magnitsky Law, allows courts to seize the assets of human rights abusers. But legal analysts say proving that Rifaat al-Assad is responsible for past crimes would be extremely difficult without the cooperation of the Syrian government and that of his nephew, President Bashar al-Assad. Authorities in Spain and France have seized millions of dollars worth of assets owned by Rifaat al-Assad, the uncle of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Prosecutors allege his property empire, worth over a half-billion dollars, was built using money embezzled from the Syrian state in the 1980s. Now pressure is growing on Britain to freeze his properties in London, as Henry Ridgwell reports. When Lubna Abbas arrived in the United States as a refugee six years ago, there were days she could not walk because of a spinal disc problem which could not be treated in her native Iraq. After the war, many doctors were kidnapped, killed or ran away. There was nothing, no good treatment or hospital, she told VOA. When we came here, I was just surprised with a clean hospital. Clean was not all she found at the International Family Medicine Clinic in Charlottesville, Virginia. She also got full use of her legs back after her disc was treated. She now has no trouble walking and more. I can work. I have two part-time jobs, she says. The clinic that helped Abbas is dedicated to refugees and immigrants and all the baggage they bring with them: years of poor or non-existent medical care and the strain of living in a violent or repressive society. WATCH: Clinic Dedicated to Helping Refugees A physician at the University of Virginia (UVA) Department of Family Medicine came up with the idea. When they come, they have many problems often both medical and psychological, said Dr. Fern Hauck. I felt that could be best done in one setting in our clinic where then I could train other doctors, our nursing staff all to have a much more comprehensive approach to the refugees. Hauck established the clinic at UVA in partnership with the local health department and the International Rescue Committee (IRC), the international refugee resettlement agency. First Visit A stately old city by U.S. standards, Charlottesville is also one of 22 American cities that work with the IRC to resettle refugees from around the world. UVA has long attracted foreigners, so their presence is nothing new here. The IRC set up an office here in the late 90's and ever since, Charlottesville has been welcoming refugees at the rate of 100 to 200 a year. In the beginning, the Bosnian war had recently ended, so many of the first arrivals came from Bosnia-Herzegovina. Since 1998, Charlottesville has accepted some 3,000 refugees from 32 countries, a lot for a small city of 50,000. Most of them have been treated at the clinic. The first visit is a big deal. Patients are provided with an on-site interpreter and spend a full hour with doctors, which is highly unusual in U.S. health care; but, the need to translate takes time, and doctors have a lot of health history to cover and often, a lot of explaining to do. A lot of the women, for instance, have never had a mammogram, have never had a pap smear, so we are explaining these tests, why do we do them here, why do we recommend them. So we do also a lot of patient education, says Hauck. Follow-up visits are half as long, and interpretation is provided by phone. Illnesses Hauck says the clinic sees most of the ailments that it would see in American patients, like high blood pressure and diabetes. In addition, refugee patients report other problems including body pains, headaches, dizziness and stomach aches. Sometimes, these symptoms signal underlying physical problems. Sometimes they point to mental health issues, like post-traumatic stress disorder and clinical depression. The physical symptoms are often easier for patients to talk about than what they have experienced. You can imagine someone has been in a country in the midst of war and seen a family member killed in front of them and maybe threatened themselves and had to flee. They've gone through trauma, said Claudia Allen, clinical psychologist in the UVA family medicine department. So they may be having nightmares. They may be having flashbacks, maybe having intrusive thoughts. Allen adds that refugees do not thrive in the U.S. unless these problems are treated. Treatment is paid for by Virginia's Refugee Medical Assistance Program, which is funded by Medicaid and provides medical coverage to refugees for eight months. By then, most refugees have found jobs or started business and either have employer-provided health insurance or buy it on their own. Healthy members of society Bimal Chhetri gets a regular checkup at the clinic. Last year, he underwent a kidney transplant at the UVA hospital. I would have been dead by now, Chhetri says, because I didn't have resources to get dialysis and transplant in the refugee camp. Chhetri spent 20 years in a refugee camp in Nepal after he fled Bhutan where he was born. I was among those 110,000 people that left the country out of the fear of persecution. He is now working at a grocery store, and is a Nepalese interpreter for IRC. Hauck says the clinic's goal is to produce healthy and productive members of the Charlottesville community, like Chhetri. When I've seen a kid when four or five years old and now they're going to the University of Virginia going to medical school, Hauck says, it's so gratifying to see the successes and seeing how much we have been able to help. Helping starts with a doctor, an interpreter and lots of time to listen. By India Today Web Desk: With just two weeks left for the grand release of Baahubali: The Conclusion, SS Rajamouli's film has once again landed itself in a fresh controversy. According to reports, over 2000 pro-Kannada groups led by Vatal Nagaraj are threatening the release of Baahubali 2 following actor Sathyaraj's controversial speech during the Cauvery row. For the same, the group has demanded Sathyaraj to apologise to Kannadigas before the release of the film. advertisement Speaking about the issue, Vatal Nagaraj was quoted by Bangalore Mirror as saying, "We will not allow any theatre in Karnataka to screen Bahubali. We are not against the film, but against Sathyaraj who plays the character of Katappa in Bahubali." Several groups, including the President of the Karnataka Film Chamber of Commerce and Dr Rajkumar Fans Association, have showed their support to Nagaraj. Speaking to Deccan Herald, KFCC President Sa Ra Govindu said, "Till now neither the actor nor the producers have approached the Chamber to discuss the issue. Unless the actor apologises, the screening will not take place in Karnataka. He has insulted Kannadigas." It must be noted that Katappa, the slave warlord, is one of the important characters in Baahubali. In fact, after the stupendous success of Baahubali, the most sought-after question is: Why Katappa killed Baahubali? Last month, reports suggested that Baahubali 2 is likely to be dubbed in Kannada after the members of the Kannada Grahakara Okkoota (KGO) urged the Kannadigas to support their cause for a Kannada dubbed version of Baahubali 2. Made on a lavish budget of Rs 250 crore, Baahubali is touted to have earned more than Rs 500 crore even before its release through its satellite and distribution rights. Directed by SS Rajamouli, Baahubali 2 takes the story forward from where Baahubali: The Beginning ended. Prabhas, Rana Daggubati, Anushka Shetty, Tamannaah, Sathyaraj and Ramya Krishnan star in pivotal roles in this instalment of Baahubali too. The film is slated to release on April 28 this year. ALSO READ: Baahubali 2- Film distributor moves Madras HC seeking stay on release ALSO READ: Baahubali 2 new poster- Prabhas's film is a perfect blend of jealousy and betrayal ALSO READ: Baahubali 2 at the box office:-Would The Conclusion be as huge without its marketing? ALSO WATCH: Everything you wanted to know about India's most expensive film, Baahubali --- ENDS --- Republicans escaped a special House election in Kansas with a single-digit victory in a district where they have romped in the past, an early warning sign for the GOP at the start of Donald Trump's presidency. The narrow win in Kansas, where CIA Director Mike Pompeo prevailed by 31 percentage points last fall, emboldened Democrats ahead of a more competitive special congressional election in Georgia next week that could serve as a test of their ability to marshal anti-Trump forces. "Democrats are showing up and Republicans have to energize their base," said Tom Davis, a former Virginia congressman who once led the GOP's House campaign arm. "A win is a win but this should have been relatively simple and it wasn't." The special election was the first major contest since Trump's inauguration and could be an early indicator of Democrats' ability to mobilize against the president's policies and whether Republican failure to the overhaul health care policy might sap party enthusiasm. Trump's job approval ratings have hovered around 40 percent, creating unease among Republicans looking to maintain their congressional majorities. Republicans have had a difficult stretch, with the health care debacle, federal and congressional probes into Trump campaign contacts with Russian officials and contentious town halls in congressional districts. On Monday, Republican Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina, who shouted "You Lie!" at President Barack Obama during a 2009 health care speech, heard chants of the same phrase at a town hall from constituents angry about health care and his voting record on violence against women. In a tweet, Trump praised Republican Ron Estes' "great win" and for "easily winning the Congressional race against the Dems, who spent heavily & predicted victory!" But that was hardly the case. The seven-percentage point margin was closer than initially expected in a district that Trump won handily last November and Republicans have held since 1994. The Democratic candidate, James Thompson, was a political novice who couldn't attract big-dollar donations from Democrats around the nation. In a sign of concern for Republicans, Thompson edged Estes in the district's most populous county surrounding Wichita, a county Trump won by 18 points last November. Wichita is home to Koch Industries, the company led by conservative billionaire political donors Charles and David Koch. Fearing potential fallout, Republicans injected last-minute money to help Estes while Trump and Vice President Mike Pence recorded get-out-the-vote phone calls on the candidate's behalf. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz campaigned with Estes on Monday, warning of complacency. In Kansas, one factor was Republican Gov. Sam Brownback, who remains unpopular because the state has faced serious budget problems since the governor and GOP lawmakers slashed personal income taxes in 2012 and 2013. Thompson portrayed Estes, the state's treasurer, as a close Brownback ally even though the governor never publicly endorsed Estes. Republicans, who hold a 237-193 majority, will be defending seats in special elections in Georgia, South Carolina and Montana, where Donald Trump Jr. is planning to campaign for a GOP candidate next week. Democrats are expected to maintain a California seat vacated by former Rep. Xavier Becerra, now the state's attorney general. Races for governor in Virginia and New Jersey next fall could also provide a window into Trump's popularity. In Georgia Georgia's April 18 contest to replace former Rep. Tom Price, who is serving as Trump's Health and Human Services secretary, is expected to be more competitive than Kansas. Trump barely edged out Democrat Hillary Clinton in the district last year. Democrat Jon Ossoff, a 30-year-old former congressional aide and investigative filmmaker, has raised more than $8 million, a massive amount for a special election, and has tried to galvanize Democrats who hope to turn it into a referendum on Trump's performance. Next week's outcome could be significant in a field of 18 candidates from both parties on the primary ballot. Polls have shown Ossoff leading in the first round of balloting but Republicans are hoping to keep him below the majority needed to win outright, which would create a two-person runoff on June 20. Rep. Steve Stivers of Ohio who leads the House Republicans' campaign arm, said Ossoff's best chance of claiming the seat is to win outright next week, "and he knows that. That's why he's raising expectations on himself." Karen Handel, Georgia's former secretary of state, has led the Republican field but the race has turned nasty, with GOP rivals accusing her of being a political opportunist and the conservative Club for Growth spending six figures on ads to defeat her. The suburban Atlanta district is the type of place where Democrats are pinning their hopes on recapturing the House next year. "Republicans in the era of Trump have a problem even with Trump voters in the suburbs," said Jesse Ferguson, a former strategist for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "That doesn't predict or guarantee victory for Democrats in 2018, but it's a road map." The Kremlin says it is "too early yet" to know whether U.S. and Russian relations will improve after hours of contentious talks Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held Wednesday with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday the tone of the Moscow meetings had been "fairly constructive," and reflected a need for the world's two biggest nuclear powers "to maintain a dialog to search for solutions." But he said Putin used the meeting to tell Washington why there is a "deadlock" in their current relations, chiefly in the dispute over last week's chemical weapons attack in Syria and the missile attack ordered by U.S. President Donald Trump in response. Trump declared Wednesday that U.S. relations with Moscow "may be at an all-time low," a sentiment Tillerson echoed at a news conference after meeting with Putin and Lavrov. Tillerson pointed to a lack of trust between the two countries. On Thursday, Trump adopted a more optimistic tone, saying on his Twitter account, "Things will work out fine between the U.S.A. and Russia. At the right time everyone will come to their senses & there will be lasting peace!" Putin told an interviewer on Russian state television on Wednesday that relations between the two countries have deteriorated this year since Trump took office three months ago. The immediate point of contention between Moscow and Washington is how an April 4 chemical weapons attack that killed more than 85 people and sickened hundreds in Syria occurred. Tillerson said the United States is "quite confident" that it "was planned and it was directed and executed by Syrian regime forces." But Lavrov gave no ground on the Russian claim that the sarin gas assault was either a provocation by Syrian rebels or was triggered when Syrian warplanes struck a rebel munitions depot holding sarin gas. Call for 'thorough, honest' investigation "We have insisted that we have a very thorough investigation," Lavrov said at a news conference with Tillerson. "We want an honest investigation." Russia's top diplomat said Moscow will not "shield anyone" responsible for the attack. Trump, in an interview, said Putin was partly to blame for the Syrian conflict, now in its seventh year, for backing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whom he called an "animal." Tillerson's trip to Moscow represented the highest-level contact between the United States and Russia since Trump took office in January. The two countries are at odds over multiple issues, including Moscow's continued support for rebels in eastern Ukraine battling against the Kyiv government, and the U.S. intelligence community's declaration that computer hackers, acting on orders from the Kremlin, interfered in last year's U.S. presidential election. Tillerson said Wednesday Russian meddling in the U.S. election was a serious problem that has been "fairly well established." Lavrov protested that Russia is the victim of "very slanderous attacks," and added, "I have to say once again ... no one has shown us a single fact. Give us the evidence of Russia's illicit involvement in U.S. politics," Lavrov said, "and we will respond." 'Potential' for improved relations The U.S. cruise missile attack on a Syrian airbase last week escalated tensions in the Syrian conflict, Lavrov said. He added, however, that he believes Moscow and Washington have "great potential" to improve their relationship. Tillerson said, "We need to attempt to put an end to this steady degradation which is doing nothing to restore the trust between our two countries or to make progress on the issues of the greatest importance to both of us." The U.S. envoy said the two countries "have agreed to establish a working group to address smaller issues and make progress towards stabilizing the relationship. So that we can then address the more serious problems. Foreign Minister Lavrov and I agreed we would consider further proposals made about the way forward in Syria, including consulting with our allies and coalition members and we will continue discussions about how to find a solution to the Syrian conflict. Alexander Vershbow, former U.S. ambassador to Russia, professed a guarded optimism with a caveat. "I think it's a good thing that the Russians and the U.S. have agreed to re-establish the deconfliction line, because it's in no one's interest to have an incident in the skies over Syria that could make a very difficult relationship even more difficult," he told VOA during an interview at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. "That being said, I'm not sure there's all that much meeting of the minds on what needs to happen to bring about an end to the war in Syria." Regardless of U.S.-Russian ties, Vershbow, a former deputy secretary-general to NATO, said the April 4 chemical weapons attack precludes any political future for Assad. "The problem of Assad is still very fundamental. It's not a question of 'we don't like him in the international community,' it's that the Syrian people, after all the destruction he has committed against them and then even using chemical weapons despite supposedly giving them up it's just inconceivable that he could be accepted as part of a solution by the people of Syria. So, Russia used to say they're not wedded to Bashar al-Assad, but it looks like they've gotten remarried again. And that's going to be a difficult issue going forward," he said. "The situation is more difficult today, bilaterally, than it was three, three-and-a-half years ago, and the stakes are higher," Andrew Kuchins, a Eurasian affairs expert with the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, told VOA's Russian Service, referring to Syria's largest chemical weapons attack of August 21, 2013. "But I think that sort of structural dynamic [of U.S.-Russian diplomatic ties], and therefore the possibility of a way out, is still there." Putin: 'Where's proof against Syria?' Putin discussed the general decline in U.S.-Russian relations with the state television channel Mir before his meeting with Tillerson. "It can be said that the level of trust at the working level, especially at the military level, has not become better, but most likely has degraded," Putin said. "Where is the proof that Syrian troops used chemical weapons? There isn't any. But there was a violation of international law. That is an obvious fact." Trump had praised Putin as a strong leader during his long campaign for the White House, but on Wednesday he highlighted the Russian president's role in the Syrian civil war. "Frankly, Putin is backing a person that's truly an evil person," Trump said, referring to Assad. "I think it's very bad for Russia. I think it's very bad for mankind." At least 10 times in the last two months, crackling gunfire just outside the Uere special needs school has sent students and teachers diving to the floor as heavily armed gangsters warred among themselves and sometimes with police in the Rio slum of Mare. With rival drug dealers on practically every corner and a militarized campaign by authorities to take them out, shootouts have become so common that the school holds drills for students to practice taking cover quickly. "After [a shootout] it's not possible to teach," said Yvonne Bezerra de Mello, the founder of Uere, which offers classes for underprivileged students with learning difficulties. "So we just play and talk, because some of the children get really nervous." Brazil's most famous city has long struggled with violence, particularly in the hundreds of slums controlled by drug traffickers. But amid a punishing economic crisis, some studies suggest 2016 was Rio's most violent year in decades despite a police pacification program that was meant to curb slum violence ahead of last year's Olympic Games. Crime still seems to be rising: In January and February, homicides rose 17 and 24 percent, respectively, compared to the same months last year, according to Rio state government crime statistics. And schools are increasingly caught in the crossfire. Every day, shootouts force the closure of between 20 and 30 schools or day care centers, according to Cesar de Queiroz Benjamin, the city's public schools chief, resulting in 6,000 to 7,000 children being sent home. If this rate continues, Rio will far exceed the 1,500 closures it saw last year. "It has clearly gotten worse," Benjamin said. Girl shot, killed The toll the violence takes on children attracted national attention on March 30 when a 13-year-old girl was shot and killed at a school in Acari, a poor northern neighborhood, when she was caught in the crossfire of a lengthy shootout between police and gangsters. Maria Eduarda Conceicao was hit by several rounds at the school entrance as she walked to the water fountain after physical education class. Large bullet holes can still be seen on the school's outer wall and front gate, a grim reminder for students, teachers and parents arriving every day. An autopsy confirmed one of the bullets that hit Conceicao was a 7.62 mm round, fired from a military-grade rifle in the hands of police. Cellphone video shot by a bystander and widely circulated in local and social media showed two officers continuing to fire at armed but apparently wounded suspects lying on the ground in front of the school. The two officers have been indicted in the killings. When the video is magnified, Conceicao's lifeless body can be seen on the school grounds. "We should all feel very humiliated and ashamed," Rio de Janeiro Mayor Marcelo Crivella said after attending Conceicao's funeral this month. "This cannot happen again." Roberto Sa, the head of security for Rio de Janeiro state, has opened an investigation into Conceicao's death, and civil police are also investigating. But Sa said there is little military police can do other than shoot back when they confront heavily armed suspects. He said lawmakers should impose harsher penalties for possession of illegal firearms. Children 'aren't safe anywhere' Security in Rio de Janeiro is the responsibility of the state, not the city government, limiting what Crivella can do to address the problem. But he has promised to apply special bulletproof coating to walls around at least 10 schools in areas considered conflict zones like Mare. Benjamin, the education secretary, and Bezerra de Mello, the Uere school's founder, argued that bulletproofing would just paper over the root causes of the violence. And Bezerra de Mello said such a wall won't necessarily keep her students safe, since the rounds sometimes come from above. Last month a helicopter taking part in a police operation hovered over her school and opened fire for several minutes, with some of the rounds striking the building. Nobody inside was hurt, but afterward she installed a bright yellow sign on the rooftop that reads, in big, black capital letters: "SCHOOL, DON'T SHOOT." Bezerra de Mello said that beyond the question of whether bullets breach the school's walls, her 300 students still have to deal with rampant crime in their neighborhoods when class lets out. Up to 90 percent of them, she estimated, have learning disorders linked to the violence and trauma they experience on a daily basis. She recently asked a class of 14 students in their early teens how many had lost a family member to gun violence. Six raised their hands. "The children aren't safe anywhere," Bezerra de Mello said, "They wake up to the sound of gunshots and go to bed to the sound of gunshots. ... They see death at every corner." "Star Wars" is beefing up its girl power through a new series of animated short movies featuring the sci-fi saga's heroines including Princess Leia, Rey and Jyn Erso. Walt Disney Co. and Lucasfilm announced on Thursday that "Star Wars Forces of Destiny" will focus on the "untold stories of everyday heroism that shape the destinies" of the main female characters in the franchise. The move is the latest by Disney to broaden the male-dominated audience for the "Star Wars" series, which is celebrating the 40th anniversary of the original 1977 film starring Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill. The 2-3 minute shorts will be launched on Disney YouTube in July and will be followed by more shorts on Disney Channel television in the autumn. A range of new action figures and dolls, as well as other merchandise, will also be released. "'Star Wars Forces of Destiny' is for anyone who has been inspired by Leia's heroism, Rey's courage, or Ahsoka's tenacity, Kathleen Kennedy, president of Lucasfilm, said in a statement. Actors Daisy Ridley (Rey), Felicity Jones (Jyn) and Lupita Nyong'o (Maz Kanata) will voice their characters. The voice for Princess Leia, played in the movies by Carrie Fisher, will be supplied by Shelby Young following Fisher's sudden death of a heart attack in December. Disney was criticized when Ridley's fearless Rey in "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" was barely featured in toys and merchandising even though she was a lead character in the 2015 film. The uproar sparked the social media campaign #wheresrey. John Frascotti, president of toymaker Hasbro, said in a statement the "Star Wars" fan base has broadened over the last 40 years, and the "Forces of Destiny" toy line would "help connect with new audiences as well as appeal to existing fans." A group of about 40 students traveled 1,600 kilometers over spring break to demonstrate inclusiveness in front of the White House on Thursday. Together with parents and other adults, the group locked arms and encircled part of Lafayette Square in front of the executive mansion to demonstrate that We Belong Together. Their campaign focuses on the impact of immigration policy on women and children. Many in the group have been directly impacted by deportations and family separation. Elena Marquez, 17, wanted to tell U.S. President Donald Trump who has couched his immigration policy as a matter of national security that not all immigrants are criminals, rapists or drug dealers. Born in the U.S., she was 12 when she witnessed her father being arrested and deported back to Guatemala for driving without a license. Her mother, who is also undocumented, has been a single mother taking care of her and siblings. "When my dad was here, he would pick us up from school. He would [cook] dinner when it was his turn. My mom here is all alone [but] she tries to do her best," Marquez said. Marquez said it is now her turn to protect her mother. "I want to go to college. I want to study law," she said. The idea to travel to the nation's capital was born after elected officials in Miami-Dade County, Florida, decided to abandon its sanctuary status. Sanctuary jurisdictions are selective about how they cooperate with federal immigration authorities. "The kids delivered a big fat 'F' to Mayor Gimenez for failing to protect immigrant families, and we set off on a three-day journey," Andrea Mercado, director of the We Belong Together campaign, told VOA. The caravan departed from in front of the office of Miami-Dade's mayor, Carlos Gimenez, on April 10. "These young people are present and future leaders. That's the kind of leadership that we need to take our country forward," Mercado said. WATCH: Hundreds Converge on DC The demonstration comes days after U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions declared a new era in immigration enforcement. Sessions vowed to crack down on unauthorized immigrants during a visit Tuesday to the U.S.-Mexico border at Nogales, Arizona. "For those that continue to seek improper and illegal entry into this country, be forewarned: This is a new era. This is the Trump era," Sessions declared to an audience of Customs and Border Protection personnel. Still, 10-year-old Jasmine, whose mother preferred not to share the family's last name because her father is undocumented, said she is on a mission to tell Trump that separating families is wrong. "This is actually my mission and many other children's missions," Jasmine said. The international body on chemical weapons control is testing samples from a suspected nerve gas attack that killed at least 87 people in Syria last week and could produce a report on the matter within three weeks, the British delegation to the commission said Thursday. The report comes one day after Russia vetoed a Western-backed U.N. Security Council resolution demanding a speedy probe into the April 4 attack on Khan Sheikhoun. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley said the veto left Moscow with a lot to prove. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has a standing fact-finding mission on Syria to investigate alleged chemical weapons attacks, but does not apportion blame. The OPCW's executive council held a session of its executive council on Thursday to address the attack on Khan Sheikhoun, in the rebel-held province of Idlib, northern Syria. Britain's delegation to the OPCW tweeted from the executive session that the Fact Finding Mission is working to gather evidence and has already started testing samples in a lab. The U.S. blamed the Syrian government for the attack and fired 59 missiles at an air base in central Syria killing nine people. Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said Thursday he expected the OPCW to conduct an extensive probe into the attack, and insisted the organization visit both Khan Sheikhoun and the air base struck by U.S. missiles. But Moscow vetoed a Security Council resolution that would demand a speedy investigation a day earlier. Russia is a steadfast backer of the Syrian government amid that country's bloody 6-year civil war. In northern Syria, U.S.-backed Kurdish forces announced they launched the fourth stage of their operations against the Islamic State group, amid reports from activists that the group has suffered a spate of casualties. The Syrian Democratic Forces, which include Arab fighters, say they are working to clear Islamic State militants out of the Jalab Valley, north of Raqqa, a city held by the extremists with an estimated population of 300,000. The SDF say their goal is to ultimately recapture the city, which has served as the de facto capital the so-called Islamic State. The SDF says it wants to isolate Raqqa before attacking it. Their closest position is within 8 kilometers (5 miles) northeast of the city. But the countryside south of Raqqa is still under IS control. It is unclear how many stages are planned for the SDF campaign. The campaign has come at a cost to the predominantly Kurdish forces, which receive ground and air support from the U.S. military and other allies. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group reported 25 SDF fighters were killed in the last two days of battle, while the activist-run Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently group said on Wednesday that three days of mourning were to be held in a border town held by the SDF after the arrival of the bodies of 15 fighters from the battle. There was no comment from the SDF. The Syrian army meanwhile issued a statement saying that the U.S.-led coalition attacked a position of the Islamic State group in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour, killing hundreds of fighters and civilians, many of them from poisonous gas. It said after the airstrike left white smoke billowing from the area then then turned to yellow most likely because of the explosion of a large warehouse containing large quantities of toxic substances. It said that the airstrike showed that militants have chemical weapons in their possession. Opposition activist Omar Abu Laila, who is from Deir el-Zour and currently lives in Europe, denied that hundreds of people were killed in the village of Hatla as a result of poison gas. Abu Laila who is with Deir Ezzor 24 activist group that has reporters throughout the eastern province that borders Iraq also denied there was such an airstrike. President Donald Trump likes to boast that he hires only the best people. But his personnel choices keep coming back to haunt him. One of the people Trump hired for the White House was working as a foreign agent while advising him during the election. His campaign chairman caught the Justice Department's attention for similarly surreptitious work. And a third campaign adviser was reportedly surveilled by the FBI as part of an investigation into whether or not he was a Russian spy. The tales of Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort and Carter Page none of whom still work for Trump have created a steady drip of allegations that have clouded Trump's early presidency and raised persistent questions about his judgment. At worst, Trump's personnel picks appear to have left his campaign and perhaps his White House vulnerable to the influence of foreign powers. At best, they expose the long-term implications of his understaffed and inexperienced campaign organization and undermine his promises to surround himself with top-notch talent. "Vetting new hires is standard procedure for presidential campaigns for exactly this reason," said Alex Conant, who advised Sen. Marco Rubio's 2016 presidential campaign. "Every employee is also a potential liability on a presidential campaign." Manafort, Flynn and Page have indeed become political liabilities for Trump that he can't shake in the White House. All three are being scrutinized as part of the FBI and congressional investigations into whether Trump associates helped Russia meddle in the 2016 election. The president has denied any nefarious ties to Russia and says he has no knowledge that his advisers were working with Moscow during the election. The president's culpability appears greatest with Flynn, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general who traveled with Trump frequently during the campaign and was tapped as national security adviser after the election. Flynn had been lobbying for a company with ties to Turkey during the 2016 election and even wrote an editorial on behalf of his client that was published on Election Day. "No one expects them to do the equivalent of an FBI background check, but a simple Google search could have solved a lot of these problems," Dan Pfeiffer, who served as senior adviser to President Barack Obama, said of Trump's team. After Trump's victory, Flynn's lawyers alerted the transition team that he may have to register as a lobbying for a foreign entity, according to a person with knowledge of those discussions. The White House hired him anyway. After the inauguration, Flynn's lawyers told the White House counsel's office that the national security adviser would indeed have to move forward with that filing. Flynn was fired in February after the White House said he misled Vice President Mike Pence and other top officials about his conversations with Russia's ambassador to the United States. Lobbying for foreign interests is legal and lucrative. Both Republican and Democratic operatives offer their services to overseas clients. But the Justice Department requires Americans working on behalf of foreign interests to register, disclosing the nature of their work, the foreigners they dealt with and the amount of money they made. Willful failure to register for foreign lobbying work can carry up to a five-year prison sentence, but the Justice Department rarely brings criminal charges and instead urges violators to register. On Wednesday, a spokesman for former Trump campaign chairman Manafort said that he, too, under pressure from the Justice Department, would formally file for prior foreign lobbying. Manafort's work for political interests in Ukraine occurred before he was hired as Trump's campaign chairman, spokesman Jason Maloni said, though the U.S. government raised questions about his activities after he was hired by Trump. "The work in question was widely known, concluded before Mr. Manafort began working with the Trump campaign and was not conducted on behalf of the Russian government," Maloni said. Manafort was pushed out of Trump's campaign in August after The Associated Press reported that his consulting firm had orchestrated a covert Washington lobbying operation on behalf of Ukraine's ruling political party without disclosing that work to the U.S. government. The White House did not respond to questions Wednesday about when Trump learned about Manafort's foreign lobbying work and his discussions with the U.S. government about registering as a foreign agent. The questions surrounding Page are perhaps the most serious. On Tuesday, The Washington Post reported that the Justice Department obtained a highly secretive warrant to monitor his communications because there was reason to believe he was working as a Russian spy. In March, Trump personally announced Page as part of a newly minted foreign policy advisory team. But as questions began swirling about Page's ties to Russia, the campaign started moving away from the little-known investment banker. Trump has since said he has no relationship with him. The New York Times reported Wednesday that the Justice Department only obtained the warrant after the campaign distanced itself from Page. In an interview Thursday with ABC's "Good Morning America," Page described his affiliation with the Trump campaign as having served as "an informal member of a committee which was put together a team of individuals who were looking at various foreign policy issues." Page said he does not recall if he had conversations with Russian officials about sanctions during that period. He first suggested that he never told any officials that Trump would ease sanctions on Russia, and said no Russian officials suggested that to him, but then he said he doesn't remember. "Something may have come up in a conversation," he said. "I have no recollection." Chris Ashby, a Republican elections lawyer, said that while it's easy to blame Trump for missing red flags about his campaign advisers, it's not always possible to dig up details that potential hires aren't willing to disclose on their own. "In the ideal world, you could rely on paid background checks, but you'd have to have the money and the time," Ashby said. "The farther down the ranks you go and certainly when you reach the ranks of unpaid advisers, that becomes impractical." Paul Manafort, who served last year as U.S. President Donald Trump's campaign manager, is planning to register with the Justice Department as a foreign agent, his spokesman said on Wednesday. Manafort's lobbying for a foreign client ended before he began working on Trump's presidential campaign "and was not conducted on behalf of the Russian government," spokesman Jason Maloni said in a statement. Manafort's ties to Russia are part of probes underway by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and congressional intelligence committees into Moscow's interference in the 2016 presidential election, according to reports by the New York Times and other media. Manafort has denied any impropriety and has volunteered to be interviewed by the House intelligence committee. Russia has deny interfering in the election. "Since before the 2016 election, Mr. Manafort has been in discussions with federal authorities about the advisability of registering under FARA for some of his past political work," Mr. Maloni said, referring to the Foreign Agents Registration Act. "Mr. Manafort received formal guidance recently from the authorities and he is taking appropriate steps in response to the guidance. The work in question was widely known," Maloni said. He declined to be more specific. Manafort previously worked on behalf of the political party of Viktor Yanukovich, the former Kremlin-backed leader of Ukraine. Manafort resigned from Trump's campaign last August, days after documents surfaced in Kiev suggesting he had received millions in undisclosed payments from Yanukovich's party. The Associated Press reported on Wednesday that it had obtained financial records confirming that at least $1.2 million in payments were received by Manafort's consulting firm in the United States in 2007 and 2009. "Any wire transactions received by my company are legitimate payments for political consulting work that was provided. I invoiced my clients and they paid via wire transfer, which I received through a U.S. bank," Manafort told the AP. President Donald Trump hasn't been in the White House for 100 days, yet he's already reversed himself on many of his key campaign promises. In several interviews this week, the president has forged new positions on topics ranging from NATO to Chinese currency manipulation. They come as other campaign promises lag, including Trump's vow to build a concrete wall along the length of the southern border and have Mexico pay for it. "One by one we are keeping our promises - on the border, on energy, on jobs, on regulations,'' Trump tweeted Wednesday evening. "Big changes are happening!'' Here are some of the areas where a president who prides himself on his flexibility has been willing to dispense with past positions: NATO Trump cemented his shift in posture toward the 28-nation military alliance as he stood alongside its leader at the White House on Wednesday. As a candidate, Trump had dismissed NATO as "obsolete,'' saying the post-World War II organization wasn't focused on combating the growing threat from terrorism and complaining that too many members weren't paying their fair share toward defense. He struck an entirely different tone Wednesday, one he had been warming up to during frequent telephone conversations with his world counterparts. "I said it was obsolete. It's no longer obsolete,'' Trump said of NATO at a news conference with Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg after they met in the Oval Office. Trump still insists that NATO members meet a 2014 agreement to boost defense spending to 2 percent of gross domestic product within a decade. He has backup on this point from an important ally: Stoltenberg. Currently, just the U.S. and a handful of other countries are meeting the 2 percent target. ___ Labeling China a currency manipulator During his campaign, Trump insisted that one of his first acts as president would be to direct his treasury secretary to label China a currency manipulator. It was part of a "contract'' with American voters that he pledged to fulfill. Only days ago, in an interview with the Financial Times, Trump reiterated that campaign pledge. "You know when you talk about, when you talk about currency manipulation, when you talk about devaluations, they are world champions," he said of China. "And our country hasn't had a clue, they haven't had a clue." By Wednesday something had changed. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Trump declared point blank, "They're not currency manipulators.'' Trump told the paper he'd changed his mind because China hasn't been manipulating its currency for months. He said a U.S. declaration of Chinese manipulation could jeopardize efforts to secure the country's help in containing the threat posed by North Korea. ___ Ex-Im bank Trump also appears to have grown fond of the U.S. Export-Import Bank, which has been a rallying cry for conservatives who consider it a mechanism of crony capitalism. The conservative political network established by billionaires Charles and David Koch has railed against the agency. Trump opposed the Ex-Im Bank during his campaign. But he said in the Journal interview that he supports the bank, which helps U.S. exporters by making and guaranteeing loans. Congress allowed the Ex-Im bank's charter to expire in 2015, then eventually revived it over the objections of some conservatives. But it still isn't able to conduct major business due to vacancies on its board, hurting top exporters like Boeing and General Electric. Trump told the newspaper he plans to fill two vacancies on the board, adding, "It turns out that, first of all, lots of small companies are really helped, the vendor companies." ___ Russian President Vladimir Putin As the U.S. relationship with Russia careens from cozy to frosty, Trump is keeping his distance from Russian President Vladimir Putin. "I don't know Putin,'' Trump said Wednesday at the joint press conference with Stoltenberg. Trump has made conflicting statements about his ties to the Russian leader in the past. At a press conference last July, he said: "I never met Putin, I don't know who Putin is. He said one nice thing about me. He said I'm a genius." But during the Republican primary he boasted of their ties. He said at a November 2015 primary debate, "I got to know him very well because we were both on '60 Minutes,' we were stablemates, and we did very well that night." The two appeared on the same program, but their segments were taped in different countries. Trump had also previously said the pair met once, a "long time ago." For Trump, dealing with investigations into possible contacts between his campaign associates and the Russian officials, keeping Putin at arm's length may be the best political play. ___ US military prowess The man who once slammed the U.S. military as a "disaster" is singing its praises now that he's in charge. In an interview with Fox Business Network's Maria Bartiromo that aired Wednesday morning, Trump talked up U.S. military strength, sounding almost in awe of its prowess. "It's so incredible. It's brilliant. It's genius. Our technology, our equipment, is better than anybody by a factor of five," he said. "I mean look, we have, in terms of technology, nobody can even come close to competing." Just a couple of months ago, the president was bemoaning the military's state at rallies across the country. "We're going to rebuild our military. Our military is in shambles," he said at a rally in Delaware last April. "We're going to make it so big, so strong, so powerful that nobody, nobody, nobody is gonna mess with us, folks." ___ Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen During his campaign, Trump was critical of Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, accusing her of keeping borrowing rates low to help rival Hillary Clinton and Democrats. Trump said at the time that he would likely replace Yellen when her term as chair ends next year. At the first presidential debate in September, Trump said the Fed was "being more political than Secretary Clinton." But that was then. Trump, in the Wall Street Journal interview, left open the possibility of re-nominating Yellen for a second four-year term. Asked whether Yellen would be "toast" when her term ends, Trump said, "No, not toast." "I like her, I respect her," Trump said, adding that they had met in the Oval Office since he became president. The U.N. special envoy for Central Africa visited Cameroon this week to seek an end to the months-long stalemate on the strike and unrest in English-speaking parts of the country. Francois Lonseny Fall, special representative of the U.N. secretary-general and head of the U.N. Regional Office for Central Africa, called on the government of Cameroon to take two steps to facilitate the reopening of dialogue with strikers in the English-speaking regions. The United Nations cannot be indifferent when there are issues that could threaten the peace and stability of a sovereign state, he said, recommending that all detainees be liberated. He said the U.N. believes that if detainees are freed, peace will quickly return to Cameroon. He also reiterated the U.N.'s call that the internet be reinstated in the northwest and the southwest. He called the internet blackout a violation of the freedom to access information. Government spokesperson Issa Tchiroma declined VOA's request for comment on the special envoy's Wednesday statement, but said President Paul Biya is aware of the situation. The government has announced some reforms to address the strikers' grievances, but talks broke down earlier this year after the government refused to release detainees. Dozens of people have been arrested in connection with the strike, including three activist leaders currently on trial for charges related to violent unrest in December. If convicted, those three leaders could face death sentences. Schools remain closed in the affected areas; the internet was cut in January. Tensions began in November when English-speaking lawyers and teachers in the two regions refused to work, demanding reforms. The situation intensified as the strike pulled other activists who say the country's English-speaking minority is marginalized and those regions should declare total independence. Biya has ruled out any discussion on the question of national unity. The U.N. special envoy told reporters that the U.N. will not get involved on questions of secession or a return to federalism in Cameroon. He said Cameroon has strong institutions and a functioning democratic parliament to address political matters. By Piya Hingorani: Vidya Balan starrer Begum Jaan, written and directed by National award-winning filmmaker Srijit Mukherji, has been banned in Pakistan. Produced by Mahesh Bhatt's Vishesh Films, the movie is a story of survival set against the backdrop of the India-Pak partition and its impact on a brothel. Speaking exclusively to India Today TV, Mahesh Bhatt explained that Pakistan does not screen films which revolve around the partition era. "I was told by my distributor that Pakistan has a policy does not permit the import of films which deal with the issue of partition. On learning this I requested the key officer of the censor board of Pakistan to at least view the film and then take a decision. I was assured that they would look into the matter. Sadly, I have not heard from them after that," he said. advertisement Bhatt also added, "Later my distributor informed me that his office has been intimated that Begum Jaan should not be imported by him into Pakistan." Co-starring Naseeruddin Shah, Chunky Pandey, Ila Arun, Gauahar Khan in key roles, Begum Jaan, the Hindi remake of the critically acclaimed Bengali film Rajkahini (2015) is all set to hit theatres on April 14. Interestingly this news comes just days after Aamir Khan-starrer Dangal did not hit theatres across the border. The Pakistan censor board reportedly asked the film's makers for two cuts, the scene where the Indian national anthem was played and portions showing the Indian national flag. Producer Aamir Khan refused to abide by the two cuts and chose not to release the film in the neighboring country. More recently, Tapsee Pannu's Naam Shabana didn't see the light of day in Pakistan, due to 'terrorism-related scenes,' and Jolly LLB 2 too irked the Pakistan authorities since it had discussions around the Kashmir issue. Films including Neerja, Tere Bin Laden amoung others too haven't been released, since they reportedly shows Pakistan in poor light. ALSO READ: Naam Shabana to Dangal, Bollywood films in Pakistan have been banned for ridiculous reasons OPINION: No Dangal in Pakistan and you though Aamir Khan was anti-national? WATCH: Pakistan bans Bollywood. Here are the films our neighbour won't see --- ENDS --- Lawyers for the passenger dragged from a United Airlines plane in Chicago filed an emergency request with an Illinois state court on Wednesday to require the carrier to preserve video recordings and other evidence related to the incident. Citing the risk of "serious prejudice" to their client, Dr. David Dao, the lawyers want United and the City of Chicago, which runs O'Hare International Airport, to preserve surveillance videos, cockpit voice recordings, passenger and crew lists, and other materials related to United Flight 3411. Chicago's Aviation Department said on Wednesday that two more officers had been placed on leave in connection with the April 9 incident, during which airport security officers dragged Dao from his seat aboard a United jet headed for Louisville, Kentucky. One officer was placed on leave on Tuesday. Paul Callan, a civil and criminal trial lawyer in New York, said the public outcry over Dao's treatment would likely push the airline to a quick and generous settlement. "Because United has such a catastrophic PR problem, this case has a much greater value than such a case would normally have," he said. Never again United Chief Executive Oscar Munoz on Wednesday apologized to Dao, his family and United customers in an ABC News interview, saying the company would no longer use law enforcement officers to remove passengers from overbooked flights. "This can never, will never happen again," he said. Munoz is under pressure to contain a torrent of bad publicity and calls for boycotts against United unleashed by videos that captured Dao's rough treatment by airline and airport security staff. Dao was removed to make room for additional crew members, United said. Footage from the incident shows Dao, bloodied and disheveled, returning to the cabin and repeating: "Just kill me. Kill me," and "I have to go home." As of Tuesday, Dao was still in a Chicago hospital recovering from his injuries, his lawyer said. On Wednesday, United said it would compensate all passengers on board the flight the cost of their tickets. Munoz said United would be examining the way it compensates customers who volunteer to give up seats on overbooked planes, adding that it would likely not demand that seated passengers surrender their places. Calls for new rules Some U.S. lawmakers called for new rules that could make it more difficult for airlines to overbook flights as a tool for increasing revenue. U.S. President Donald Trump said it was "horrible" that Dao was dragged off the flight, according to an interview from the Wall Street Journal. Rather than calling for an end to the practice of overselling, Trump said that instead, there should be no upper limit to incentives carriers can offer passengers in exchange for their seats on overbooked flights. Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate committee that oversees transportation have questioned United's actions. But Delta Air Lines Inc CEO Ed Bastian on Wednesday defended overbooking as "a valid business practice" that does not require additional oversight by the government. "It's not a question, in my opinion, as to whether you overbook," Bastian said on a call with analysts. "It's how you manage an overbook situation." The backlash from the incident resonated around the world, with social media users in the United States, China and Vietnam calling for boycotts of the No. 3 U.S. carrier by passenger traffic and an end to the practice of overbooking flights. Shares of United Continental closed 1.1 percent lower at $69.93. They fell as much as 4.4 percent on Tuesday. Two online petitions calling for Munoz to step down as CEO had more than 124,000 signatures combined by Wednesday afternoon. Munoz told ABC he had no plans to resign over the incident. As the United States and Russia clash on Syria, another war-torn nation could play out as a renewed theater for the U.S.-Russia rivalry: Afghanistan. Thursday, U.S. forces dropped what was being called the largest non-nuclear bomb on a reported Islamic State militant complex in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar. The U.S. strike came a day before Russia is to host multi-nation talks on prospects for Afghan security and national reconciliation, the third such round since December. Eleven countries are set to take part in Friday's discussions in Moscow, including Afghanistan, China, Iran, Pakistan and India. Former Soviet Central Asian states have been invited to attend for the first time. The Afghan Taliban said Thursday that they would not take part. "We cannot call these negotiations [in Moscow] as a dialogue for the restoration of peace in Afghanistan," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told VOA. "This meeting stems from political agendas of the countries who are organizing it. This has really nothing to do with us, nor do we support it." The spokesman reiterated insurgents' traditional stance that U.S.-led foreign troops would have to leave Afghanistan before any conflict resolution talks could be initiated. The United States was also invited to the Moscow talks, but Washington declined, saying it had not been informed of the agenda beforehand and was unclear about the meeting's motives. Undermining NATO American military officials suspect Russia's so-called Afghan peace diplomacy is aimed at undermining NATO and have accused Moscow of arming the Taliban. "I think it is fair to assume they may be providing some sort of support to [the Taliban], in terms of weapons or other things that may be there," U.S. Central Command Chief General Joseph Votel told members of the House Armed Services Committee in March. He said he thought Russia was "attempting to be an influential party in this part of the world." For its part, Moscow has denied that it is supporting the Afghan Taliban. "These fabrications are designed, as we have repeatedly underlined, to justify the failure of the U.S. military and politicians in the Afghan campaign.There is no other explanation," said Zamir Kabulov, the Kremlin's special envoy to Afghanistan. In a separate statement Thursday, the Taliban also denied receiving military aid from Russia, though the group defended "political understanding" with Afghanistan's neighbors and regional countries. Anna Borshchevskaya of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy said reports of Moscow supporting the Taliban were not new. "The official Russian position on the Taliban is that they see it as a group that could help fight ISIS, but this is something that even some Taliban spokesmen have denied, since ISIS and the Taliban reached an understanding about a year ago," Borshchevskaya said. Putin's motive She said that if the allegations of Russian support for the Taliban were true, Russian President Vladimir Putin was most likely motivated by his desire to undermine the West. "Certainly one motivation could be taking advantage of regional chaos, and to assert Russia's influence at the expense of the U.S., taking advantage of a U.S. retreat from the Middle East and elsewhere and [to] undermine NATO and the U.S." Borshchevskaya said, "This has been Putin's pattern." U.S. President Donald Trump has made few public statements on Afghanistan, and his administration is still weighing whether to deploy more American troops to try to reverse the course of the war. Thursday's strike in Nangarhar marked a major step by the Trump administration in Afghanistan, in which there has been a U.S. military presence since 2001. During a March 31 NATO foreign ministers meeting in Brussels, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson reaffirmed U.S. support for the alliance's mission in Afghanistan. "NATO's work in Afghanistan remains critical. The United States is committed to the Resolute Support Mission and to our support for Afghan forces," Tillerson said. Some 13,000 NATO troops, including 8,400 Americans, are part of the support mission, tasked with training Afghanistan's 300,000-member national security and defense forces. Michael Kugelman, South Asia expert at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson Center, said he expected continuity in U.S. policy toward Afghanistan between the Obama and Trump administrations. "The statement made by Tillerson at a recent NATO meeting could well have been uttered by an Obama official," Kugelman said. "The focus on training, advising and assisting and the call for reconciliation mirror exactly the Obama administration's priorities." More troops But the South Asia analyst noted one important policy difference: U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan. "Obama was an anti-war president who was never comfortable keeping large numbers of troops in Afghanistan. Trump is unlikely to be as constrained," Kugelman said. "Look for Trump to send in several thousand more troops," he said. "This is a request that the generals in Afghanistan have made for years, and Trump is more likely to defer to the U.S. military's wishes on this than Obama was." As for Russian involvement in Afghanistan following the former Soviet Union's occupation of the South Asian country from 1979 to 1989, Kugelman said that even if Russia were engaging the Taliban to undercut U.S. influence, the two nations ultimately hope for the same outcome in Afghanistan. "The ironic thing is that Washington and Moscow both want the same endgame in Afghanistan an end to the war, preferably through a reconciliation process but they simply can't get on the same page about how to proceed," Kugelman said. The United Nations Security Council took action Thursday to begin shutting down its 13-year-old peacekeeping mission in Haiti. The current 5,000-strong mission will begin drawing down its troops and transition in mid-October to a smaller force of just over 1,200 police personnel. It will focus on the rule of law, building Haitian police capacities and monitoring human rights. "As the stabilization mission in Haiti draws down and the new mission gears up, the Haitian people will be set on the path of independence and self-sufficiency," U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley told council members. The council said in its unanimously agreed resolution that the transition recognizes "the major milestone towards stabilization achieved" with the peaceful transfer of power in elections held in February. "This new stage does not mean that it is the end of the commitment to Haiti," said France's deputy U.N. ambassador, Alexis Lamek. "It shows quite the contrary, that we can develop, change and adapt our activity to the situation on the field, while guided by the need to meet the aspirations of the people." History The U.N. stabilization mission, known as MINUSTAH, was deployed to Haiti in June 2004. It succeeded a Multinational Interim Force authorized by the Security Council in February 2004 after then-Haitian President Bertrand Aristide departed the country for exile following violence that spread to several cities across the nation. By 2010, the country was regaining stability when it was rocked by a massive earthquake. More than 220,000 people were killed. Among the dead were 102 U.N. personnel, including the head of the MINUSTAH mission and his deputy. In response to the needs following the earthquake, the Security Council added 3,500 more troops and police to support recovery, reconstruction and stability efforts. In 2016, Haiti again faced another natural catastrophe when Hurricane Matthew devastated the southern part of the Caribbean nation and killed hundreds. Cholera outbreak In the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake, the country suffered a cholera epidemic. U.N. peacekeepers from Nepal were blamed for bringing the disease into the country. Haiti's Artibonite River was infected with cholera through human waste believed to be from the peacekeepers' camp. The river is the main water source for tens of thousands of Haitians. Subsequently, more than 8,500 people died of the water-borne disease, which can cause severe diarrhea and vomiting, and hundreds of thousands more were sickened. Last year, the United Nations acknowledged it played a role in the epidemic and said it would set up a trust fund for victims. It has appealed to member states for $400 million to fight the disease and support those most directly affected by it. The trust fund, however, is severely underfunded, with only $2.6 million of the $400 million requested having been received. Sexual abuse and exploitation U.N. peacekeepers in Haiti have also come under criticism for the rape and exploitation of children and women they were sent to protect. In 2012, three Pakistani peacekeepers were sent home after the rape of a Haitian boy at their base. Only one peacekeeper reportedly served a brief jail sentence in Pakistan. This week, the Associated Press reported that at least 134 Sri Lankan peacekeepers repeatedly sexually abused nine Haitian children as part of a sex ring from 2004 to 2007. None of the peacekeepers has been jailed for the alleged crimes. Peacekeepers from Bangladesh, Brazil, Jordan, Nigeria and Uruguay have also faced allegations in Haiti. The Haitian cases are part of a wider problem in U.N. peacekeeping of sexual exploitation and abuse that the organization has been trying to stem for years. Despite a "zero tolerance" policy and the repatriation of offenders, the inability to stop often poorly trained and ill-disciplined troops from abusing civilians has been a major stain on the U.N.'s credibility and reputation. The United States, which pays nearly a third of the annual peacekeeping budget of almost $8 billion, has demanded that the abuses stop. "These peacekeepers are sent into vulnerable communities to protect the innocent, not to exploit or rape them," Ambassador Haley told council members. "Countries that refuse to hold their soldiers accountable must recognize that this either stops, or their troops will go home and the financial compensation will end." It was one of the most exclusive tickets in town: Only 800 were made available, and those lucky enough to score one were told they would have to show photo ID at the gate, where they would be issued a wristband and a number. No signs bigger than a sheet of notebook paper allowed, so as not to obscure anyone's view. The rules weren't for a rock concert but for a town hall meeting Wednesday evening between Republican Rep. Mike Coffman and his suburban Denver constituents. Town halls have become a risky proposition for GOP members of Congress since President Donald Trump's election. Liberal groups and constituents angry about the Trump agenda have flooded public meetings, asking their representatives tough questions, chanting, heckling them and even shouting them down in skirmishes that have made for embarrassing online video. On Monday, for example, South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson, who became infamous for yelling "You lie!" at President Barack Obama during a speech to Congress in 2009, was himself confronted at a town hall by constituents chanting, "You lie!" As a result, some Republicans aren't holding town halls. And some of those who are going ahead with such events are taking steps to keep things from getting out of control. In Texas, Rep. John Culberson barred signs and noisemakers from a March 24 town hall, required those attending to prove they were constituents by showing utility bills or other documents, and insisted that questions be submitted in advance. He was still shouted down repeatedly by a crowd angry about the GOP push to repeal the Affordable Care Act. In Arkansas, Rep. French Hill will hold his first town hall of the year on Monday but in the middle of the afternoon, and with the state's Republican junior senator, Tom Cotton, at his side. Nevada's Dean Heller, one of the more vulnerable GOP senators in 2018, will also hold his first town hall of 2017 on Monday, in the morning. And he, too, is apparently seeking safety in numbers by including Republican Rep. Mark Amodei. Democrats, for their part, have felt the heat from anti-Trump constituents at town halls and are also taking precautions. Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris of California, for example, is banning signs at her town hall in Los Angeles next week. Coffman is a politician perennially in the hot seat. His swing district has slightly more Democrats than Republicans, and he is always a top target in elections. For years, he has avoided town halls, instead holding private, one-on-one meetings with constituents during "office hours" at libraries in his district. In January, one of those events was flooded by hundreds of constituents and activists who filled the library lobby, sang, chanted and demanded Coffman emerge from his private conversations to address them. The congressman ended up slipping out the back. One of the rules for his Wednesday town hall was no standing in the aisles or blocking entrances and exits. Coffman's spokesman, Daniel Bucheli, said the congressman decided to hold the event because he knows constituents are anxious. Coffman has said his office spent weeks trying to find as large a venue as possible before securing a hall at a satellite branch of the University of Colorado that could hold 600 people and an overflow room to accommodate 200 more. "Because of the big demand and a lot of people wanting questions answered, this was a great forum," Bucheli said. Smadar Belkind Gerson, an activist in Coffman's district who was helping to organize protests outside the town hall, said that she was glad Coffman moved to a more open format but that he has a long way to go. The event, she noted, was scheduled to last only an hour, and Coffman's staff planned to draw numbers to determine which constituent could ask questions. "Yes, people are upset," Gerson said. "But the more you do this and the more you restrict people, the more they will be upset." She noted that a Democratic state lawmaker who may challenge Coffman in 2018 planned to hold a town hall on the same campus Wednesday evening with no restrictions on attendance or questions. Coffman held two town halls via telephone before Wednesday's in-person event. Those appearances are far more controlled, with questions submitted in advance and an operator cutting off the questioner so the politician can respond. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has maintained a hiring freeze at the State Department even though it was lifted for the rest of the federal government, a spokesman said on Thursday, as the agency begins to downsize before Congress approves funding cuts. Acting State Department spokesman Mark Toner confirmed that the hiring freeze would remain until the plan to downsize and reorganize had been fully developed. He could not give a timeline for the reorganization. "We can't be onboarding people when we don't know what our reorganization is going to ultimately look like," Toner told a briefing for reporters. Trump's budget proposal for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1 would cut 28 percent of the budget for U.S. diplomacy and foreign aid. Republicans and Democrats in Congress, which approves the budget, have rejected the prospect of such cuts. It was not known whether the White House directed Tillerson to keep the hiring freeze in place for the State Department or whether other agencies would also refuse to lift the hiring ban. Two State Department officials said Tillerson plans to downsize staff over a period of two to three years. Tillerson informed State Department employees of the decision on Wednesday, according to an internal memo seen by Reuters. While Trump's original hiring freeze notice on Jan. 23 excluded political appointees, it has stopped the hiring of rank-and-file workers and the replacement of others who have resigned or retired. William Hoagland, senior vice president of the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington-based think tank, said the Trump administration may have to seek congressional approval if the hiring freeze changes the function of programs congress explicitly voted to fund. Hoagland said the administration would have to send what is known as an impoundment resolution if the State Department "jeopardizes what that agency is there to begin with by not filling positions that are vacated." Congress would then have to approve the resolution, Hoagland said. The State Department's Toner said Tillerson was not breaking any federal rule by maintaining the hiring freeze. "My understanding is that [Tillerson] has the jurisdiction to keep this freeze in place as we go about this presidentially-mandated" reorganization, Toner said. The Office of Management and Budget, which handles federal budgeting, did not respond to a request for comment. Trump's budget director Mick Mulvaney told reporters on Tuesday that the hiring freeze would be lifted but that agencies will be asked to remain mindful of Trump's goal to reduce the federal work force. Tillerson said in March that the State Department's current spending was "simply not sustainable." A U.S. warplane dropped the largest bomb in America's arsenal a 10,000-kilogram device known as "the mother of all bombs" on an Islamic State bunker complex in northeastern Afghanistan on Thursday. No details of damage or possible casualties from the massive blast in Nangarhar Province are available. The Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) bomb, developed more than a decade ago, had never been used in combat. A spokesman for Nangarhar's governor, Attaullah Khoghyani, told VOA that local officials had not been told of the bomb plans in advance. From Washington, U.S. President Donald Trump indicated the military strike against IS extremists had his full approval. He dodged a question about the mission's goal, but hinted it may have been intended to send a forceful message to North Korea, which is rumored to be planning another nuclear weapons test shortly. "I don't know if this sends a message [to North Korea]. It doesn't make any difference if it does or not," Trump told reporters Thursday at the White House. "North Korea is a problem. The problem will be taken care of." The Pentagon said in a statement that a GBU-43 bomb its formal military designation was dropped earlier in the day on an IS tunnel complex in the Achin district of Nangarhar province, near the border with Pakistan. Pentagon spokesman Adam Stump said it was the first use of the 11-ton bomb in a combat situation. The "mother of all bombs" nickname is derived from the bomb's alternate name, a Massive Ordnance Air Blast device. Trump said the airstrike in Afghanistan was "another successful event," and noted, "We are so proud of our military." A short time earlier, White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters the mission against the IS complex was necessary because the U.S. and its allies "must deny them operational space, which we did." General John Nicholson, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said IS extremists in Afghanistan have been increasing their use of tunnels and underground bunkers to "thicken their defense," and added: "This is the right munition to reduce these obstacles and maintain the momentum of our offensive." References to North Korea that arose in connection with the Afghan bombing were due to increasing tensions in the area around the reclusive communist state, since there have been signs Pyongyang is preparing to mark an important national anniversary in the coming days possibly with a long-rumored sixth test of one of its nuclear warheads. Meanwhile, thousands of U.S. and South Korean troops and heavy weaponry have been mobilized for their largest-ever joint military exercise. North Korea has threatened war if it sees signs of "aggression" south of the Demilitarized Zone that divides the two Koreas. Trump has warned that the U.S. will no longer tolerate any provocative activity by Pyongyang presumably by imposing even tougher economic sanctions, but comments by the president and other senior officials have left open the possibility of more direct confrontation. China, North Korea's only staunch ally, has said tension in the region cannot be de-escalated militarily and has urged Pyongyang to halt its nuclear program in exchange for Chinese protection. The BJP has emerged as the principal opposition in Bengal replacing the left front for the second place. By Indrajit Kundu: The Trinamool Congress has won the by-election at Kanthi Dakshin assembly constituency in West Bengal. Trinamool candidate Chandrima Bhattacharya won by a massive margin of 42,526 votes, improving her party's tally in the last elections in 2016. "People have once again kept their faith on the good governance of chief minister Mamata Banerjee," said winning TMC candidate Chandrima Bhattacharya. advertisement When asked if the BJP's rise in vote share will have any effect on next year's panchayat polls, Bhattacharya said the only factor that will have any effect is the development work done by the Trinamool government. The BJP has emerged as the principal opposition in Bengal. BJP candidate Sourindro Mohan Jana has replaced the Left for the second position with 52843 votes. The Left Front candidate, Uttam Pradhan of the Communist Party of India (CPI) has been pushed to the third spot with 17423 votes while the Congress has got a meagre 2270 votes. The Kanthi Dakshin seat had fallen vacant last year after the sitting Trinamool legislator Dibyendu Adhikari got elected to the Lok Sabha from the Tamluk seat last year. BJP WINS ASSAM's DHEMAJI In Assam, the BJP emerged successful in winning the Dhemaji constituency by a margin of 9285 votes. BJP candidate Ranoj Pegu polled 75,217 votes while his Congress rival Babul Sonowal managed to get 65,932 votes. Reacting to the result, Assam finance minister Himanta Biswa Sarma tweeted, "Congrats Dr Ranoj Pegu on winning Dhemaji Assembly By-poll elections. I am grateful to Dhemaji for their constant support to us." Dhemaji went for polls after its sitting BJP MLA Pradan Baruah got elected to Lok Sabha from the Lakhimpur seat. ALSO READ| Bypoll results LIVE: BJP wins Delhi, Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal seats; Congress takes Karnataka ALSO READ| West Bengal bypoll: Trinamool leads, BJP ahead of Left Front --- ENDS --- During two weeks of intense fighting within the Trump administration, the United States have illegally attacked the air base at Chayrat (Syria), then multiplied contradictory signals before showing their hand - finally, they are relaunching their imperialist policy. In less than two weeks, the Trump administration has defended 7 different positions concerning the Syrian Arab Republic [1]. On 12 April 2017, the United States made their great about-face. At the same time, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson travelled to Moscow in order to attempt a final peaceful approach the UNO Security Council met and took note of the conflict and President Trump sent NATO against Russia. President Trumps special advisor, Steve Bannon, and his assistant, Sebastian Gorka, were preparing themselves to join General Michael Flynn, while the once pro-Trump Press drew up an account of their activity. Rumours claim that the Presidents son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is the only person who now has the Presidents ear, without this information being verifiable. It seems that the White House has folded under pressure from the British, who are determined to preserve at any cost the jihadist system that they have created [2]. UK Minister for Foreign Affairs Boris Johnson relied upon the European leaders who had already allowed themselves to be convinced by the neo-conservatives during the Security Conference in Munich on 19 February [3]. In order to justify the agression of a sovereign state which is a member of the United Nations, Rex Tillerson could do no more than refer to a synthesis of the US Intelligence service documents about the incident in Khan Shaykhun. This synthesis offers no indication which could allow anyone to suspect Syria, but refers in turn to classified information, and ends up by an appeal to overthrow the regime [4]. The irreversible nature of this about-face may be measured by the reading of the draft resolution presented to the Security Council by NATO, to which Russia opposed its veto [5]. Presented in the West as a simple request for a neutral enquiry into the chemical incident in Khan Shaykhun, it was in reality the placing of the Syrian Air Force under the control of the N2 of the UNO, Jeffrey Feltman. This ex-assistant of Hillary Clinton is the author of a plan for the total and unconditional capitulation of Syria [6]. The text of this resolution duplicates that of the draft presented on 6 April, but which the United States had not submitted to vote, since they were so uncertain of themsleves. They took no notice of the attempt at mediation by elected members of the Security Council, who tried to steer it back to a normal request for a UN enquiry [7].. The principle for placing the Syrian Air Force under UN control uses the tactic that had been used in 1998, 19 years ago, against Serbia, until the illegal military intervention of NATO. President Donald Trump finalised his about-face by receiving at the White House the Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg. During a shared Press conference, he indicated that he no longer considered the Alliance as obselete, thanked it for its support against Syria, and was prepared to work in close collaboration with his allies [8]. In response, Russie announced that it has up-dated 60 % of its nuclear arsenal, and is ready for war [9]. So we now find ourselves in the same position as six months ago, when Obamas United States refused to work with China, Russia and their allies (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and Collective Security Treaty Organization ). They were thus proposing to cut the world into two distinct parts, neither one communicating at all with the other [10]. Bill Nye, science guy. Photo: Eddy Chen/Netflix Itd be hard to come up with a reasonable hypothesis that explains the trajectory of Bill Nyes career. The 61-year-old started out in the aeronautics industry he studied mechanical engineering at Cornell before, via a series of personal and professional twists and turns, arriving at his beloved show Bill Nye the Science Guy, which aired on PBS from 1994 to 1999. Since that show went off the air, the childrens TV icon has become one of the countrys leading advocates for science literacy and, as Tucker Carlson can attest, a prominent and feisty public opponent of climate-change skeptics. Hard as it may be to explain Nyes career, its all too easy to think that someone with his passions might be disheartened by the current administrations attack on science and disregard for climate change, but hes doing what he can to provide a little optimism. To wit: his upcoming Netflix series Bill Nye Saves the World. Each 30-minute episode of the show, which debuts April 21, explores a single scientific issue through Nyes conversations with expert guests, field segments with correspondents (Karlie Kloss among them), and his signature scientific demonstrations. Speaking on the phone from his apartment in Manhattan, Nye talked about the state of science in 2017, a (maybe not so) friendly wager hes offering to Fox News pundit Carlson, and what makes him excited for the future. Your show is called Bill Nye Saves the World. I dont mean to be glib, but what do you actually think you can accomplish with it? Change the world. Thats the goal. Our six-and-a-half hours of television are going to change the course of human history. Were going to do that by promoting science literacy, showing people that the issues were discussing can be thought about from a scientific point of view, and by helping people to reach logical and well-reasoned conclusions about those same issues. And of course, itll be fun. Do you think, broadly speaking, the public is particularly receptive to logical thinking these days? No, actually. I think well find that in 15 or 20 years the number of people who are scientifically literate or simply who respect science will increase. The evidence I have for this is three things: First, The Big Bang Theory is this hugely popular show. Being a nerd is being considered cool again and that show reflects it. Second: The number of people that used to watch my show, my goodness, it takes me aback. The third thing is that at some point the millennials will dominate the electoral map, and its been my experience that they have more respect for science than the generations just prior to them. Not to be a wet blanket, but the idea that those three factors will converge and make American society more rational in its attitude toward science seems awfully contingent. Time will tell, wont it? Time will tell. How do you think we arrived at a place as a country where people are so comfortable treating science as a debatable subject? Whether were talking about climate change or evolution, theres this sense that people are okay dismissing the relevant science by saying, I dont believe in that. Its nuts. If you like to worry about things, youre living at a great time. I think that these anti-science people have been greatly influenced by the fossil-fuel industry and their lobbyists, and skepticism has bled from one issue to another. Climate change and evolution, for example, have become entwined regionally. Its an extraordinary thing: If youre a kid brought up by people who continually tell you the Earth is 6,000 years old its extremely hard to change that mind. Nevertheless, were fighting the fight. That said, a certain conservative faction has worked very hard to introduce the idea that scientific uncertainty is the same thing as doubt about the whole issue. That argument was the crux of Tucker Carlsons debate with you on his show a little while back. Tucker, what happened? You used to be such a happy guy. Now youre so miserable! Carlson, what happened to you? You mustve known that he wasnt going to be the most receptive audience for a discussion about climate change. Arent you worried that going on a show like his, where youre almost guaranteed to get treated dismissively, is going to end up doing more harm than good to the issue of climate change? Well, maybe I didnt change anybodys mind, but I think going on there and arguing with him is motivating or empowering to my colleagues and like-minded people to fight the fight a little harder. It also raised attention to the problem, and the problem is this denial of the science of climate change. The evidence for it is overwhelming. The evidence for the efficacy of vaccines is overwhelming. The evidence that genetically modified food doesnt hurt you in any way is overwhelming. And yet people still argue against those things. I dont know progress is a process. I believe we are moving forward. Do you think someone like Tucker Carlson really and truly believes that climate-change science is as debatable as he makes it sound on TV? Or is he just in an ideological and political position that makes it necessary for him make that claim? The speculation, on my part, is that its this thing you get in psychology called cognitive dissonance when youre shown evidence that you then reject because it conflicts with your worldview. You deny the evidence, and along with that, you accept the premise that the authorities providing the evidence people like me are worthy of being discredited. Thats why Tucker Carlson was saying things to me like, Do you know anything about science? What the hell are you talking about, Tucker? All I did was physics for years! Did he take courses in heat transfer and thermodynamics and fluid mechanics? I did! There have been polls showing that people on the right identify climate change as being much less important than people on the left do. Is there a problem with the way the issue of climate change is framed? I could imagine it comes off like a bunch of coastal know-it-alls scolding the rest of the country about various industries or lifestyle choices. This is where I think we need leadership, somebody to say, Everybody, we can no longer get our energy from coal. But, you know, I was in a family with an academic tradition of achievement; I grew up in the East. It doesnt make me a bad person or a condescending coastal elite if I say we as a country cant be mining coal anymore. I want the United States to lead in the discovery of new technology! Nobody wants to be mining coal in the future. Look, my cousins are in the explosives business. They sell a lot of explosives to coal mining. I understand that and I love them and so on, but I dont think you want to be in the coal-mining business 50 years from now. We need innovation. Lets be part of the future, not part of the past. Lets put wind turbines up in Iowa. You cant outsource those to Mexico. Is there anything about Trumps administration, and here Im thinking specifically of Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, that leads you to believe the government will support the kind of innovation youre hoping for? Im going to wait to see on Scott Pruitt. I want to engage you on this question, but I think maybe youre politicizing something that doesnt need to be politicized. I mean, the EPA was created by Richard Nixon. The EPA and the National Parks were set aside by conservatives. With respect to Scott Pruitt, I wouldnt be surprised if the bureaucracy just sort shrugs its shoulders at his directives and says were going to be here long after youre gone. Were going to carry on doing what we were doing. That reminds me of the saying, The function of an institution is to perpetuate the institution. Thats not what Im talking about. Im talking about laws. Im agreeing with you that the EPA is entrenched; I was just suggesting that big, bureaucratic institutions are by their nature tough for one man, or one administration, to change. Yeah, except I think this specific institutions primary function is to analyze the environment and recommend regulations that will improve quality of life for a safer, healthier world. Theres a great many people that Ive met at the Environmental Protection Agency who dont consider their job to be keeping their job. Their job is to protect the environment. To go back to an idea you raised earlier, that millennials embrace scientific thinking more than the older generations: So is the long-term plan for promoting science literacy simply to wait for a sweeping generational power shift? Is there anything we can do to move that process along more quickly? Id ask you, the hard-hitting reporter, but instead Ill remind everybody that I am so old. Im so old I remember when Nixon resigned and he was replaced with another conservative, but the EPA just kept going. Changes can be affected way sooner than waiting for a generational transfer of power. But you have to be optimistic or youre not going to get anything done. Sooner or later, everybody will realize the wisdom in protecting the environment. Everybody will see the economic benefit of not having to import fossil fuels. I was just in Congressman Bridenstines office in the First District in Oklahoma. Hes very proud that his state gets 20 percent of their electricity from the wind and this is in the heart of the energy sector. What was the meeting with Bridenstine about? Hes a Republican who doesnt think human activity contributes to climate change. He doesnt believe there should be public-survey questions about greenhouse gases. Is the conversation youre having with him about getting him to understand climate change? Well, we were there to talk about space policy. My claim is that space exploration brings out the best in us, and NASA is the very best brand the U.S. has around the world. There is no other aspect of the United States or organization thats part of the U.S. government that is more respected than NASA. So talking about that is why we were in Congressman Bridenstines office: Hes sponsoring a bill to use space assets or perhaps new balloon technology to monitor extreme weather. He told us his goal is to have no one die from extreme weather in Oklahoma. So I will let you, the hard-hitting reporter, determine if Congressman Bridenstine is sponsoring that bill because hes concerned about extreme weather or for some other reason. I think its important to him. I believe an issue like that is where theres a convergence of people on the right and left. Note, too, that Congressman Bridenstine is in an overwhelmingly Republican district. In regard to climate change, hes playing the hand hes dealt. The rhetorical move that some pundits and politicians, like Bridenstine, make now where they say they believe in some aspect of climate-change-related science, like the link between extreme weather and global warming, but deny another seems new to me. Its like, Tucker Carlson might admit that the global temperature is rising, but not that humans have anything to do with it. Its just this empty nod towards credibility. I know just what you mean. Ill bet Tucker Carlson $10,000 that the next decade will be the hottest decade on record. I will do that right here. Im putting my cash on the barrelhead. Its easy money, Tucker. And I chose $10,000, by the way, because thats the amount Mitt Romney chose in his famous bet with Rick Perry. Rick Perrys an interesting example: Steven Bannon wants to destroy the government, so he and the current administration has sought people, like Betsy DeVos, like Rick Perry, who are singularly unqualified to hold their current cabinet positions. But Rick Perry showed up at the Department of Energy and realized whats involved, that hes in over his head, and now hes going to let the thing run the way it was being run. But in contrast, Mr. Scott Pruitt its not that hes unqualified, its that he thinks the EPA shouldnt exist. Anyway, I think weve got to be optimistic and think this Bannon idea of tearing the government down will not work. In terms of our shared scientific future, what are you most optimistic that well be able to accomplish? Theres no single thing. As we increase science literacy, we will address climate change, we will find clean water, and renewably reproduce electricity, and provide access to electronic information for everyone. I think when the U.S. government gets back on an environmental track, we will change the world. We can make this a better world. We can do this. Cmon everybody, lets go! This interview has been edited and condensed. Imperator Fast and Furious-a. Photo: Universal Pictures I have a very important and pressing question that only Charlize Therons Fate of the Furious character can answer. Where does one, while flying thousands of miles in the air in a stealthy evil airplane lair, get their 18-inch mini-locs re-twisted? I was pondering that hair because Fate doesnt give Theron much else to do, as far as masterminding goes. She talks in circles about choice theory and accountability, makes out with Dom Toretto in front of his beloved Letty, and then barks commands to a nuclear submarine. Otherwise and the actress has even admitted this Therons supervillain hacker Cipher just sits around a lot, serving up the occasional scowl when it suits her. The dreads, then, are a quick and appropriative way to add some dimension to her character. (Director F. Gary Gray told Vulture they were Therons idea.) Those mini-locs chew up more scenery than any other man, woman, or automobile in this movie. Just when you think, This cant be happening, or Charlize, girl, really?, there they are again, braided up or gathered in a high ponytail. Fate of the Furious commits to a lot of things thats always been this franchises charm but it really commits to the locs. A little bit of outrage to get out of the way, for the sake of housekeeping. Havent we, as a culture, moved beyond white dreadlocs? Shouldnt we know by now? White locs are the ultimate self-own: Your hair will break off. Then theres the underlying subtext of white dreads, that they usurp Rasta culture, and expose a double standard: Black women are penalized for our dreadlocks; white women get to use them to add an extra bad-girl dimension to the characters they play in blockbuster movies. So, yeah. No more white-lady dreadlocks. But back to Cipher and her loc maintenance. As one car chase turned into another, my mind kept returning to all the outrageous methods Cipher could be using to tend to her culturally appropriated tresses. YouTube is a mecca for black women sharing hair-care tips whose videos is she watching? Cipher didnt always have these locs. Her government watch list profile shows her with Therons usual close crop. In fact, her whole look is different: less goth Free People chic, more Actual Adult Villain HBIC. In that same scene, Kurt Russells Mr. Nobody reveals Cipher spent some time in Greece. Maybe she picked up the dreads there? She wouldnt be the first white woman to return from an overseas jaunt with some ill-advised locs. To make matters even more farcical, Ciphers diverse team of millennial hackers includes a black man who also has locs the movies way of saying that at least some people know how dreads should be worn. How many times a day do you think that guy has to dodge his bosss manicured nails from picking at his scalp? How many microagressions does that man experience before lunch? Does she ask him how his hair grows that way at a company meeting, in front of everyone? When she runs out of jojoba oil or shea butter, does she launch a secret mission to break into his private quarters and snatch some? In our current Boss Baby world, its very easy to see art made well before the election as some kind of Trumpian commentary. But maybe these dreads are Charlize and director F. Gary Grays attempt at some subtle racial commentary: a series that lets a bunch of nonwhite actors do awesome stunts was bound to attract a wacky Rachel Dolezal character eventually. If Cipher cant have clear motivations or a discernible arc, at least shes got a fascinating, ahem, twist. Survivor. Photo: Jeffrey Neira/CBS A day after CBS aired a controversial episode of the reality series Survivor: Game Changers in which one contestant, Jeff Varner, outed a fellow tribe member, Zeke Smith, as transgender, the network has released a statement that stands by their decision to broadcast the episode. After the tribal council scene in last nights Survivor was filmed, we consulted with Zeke Smith and with GLAAD in advance of the broadcast, including the issue of how Zeke would tell his story after the episode aired, CBS said in a statement, noting that this was Smiths second season appearing on the series. From his first season through the current edition, we have always been guided by the principle that this is his story to tell, and it remains so. We support how Jeff Probst and the producers handled a very sensitive situation and marvel at the grace Zeke exhibited under extraordinary circumstances. Varner, who was indeed eliminated at the end of the episode after contestants rallied around Smith in support, has already written a lengthy apology on social media, which CBSs statement acknowledges. We also have respect for how Jeff Varner has expressed remorse for his mistake, both in the episode and in his subsequent dialogue with the media, the statement continued. In the end, we believe this episode, accompanied by Zekes own remarkable writing and speaking on the subject, has provided an unexpected but important dialogue about acceptance and treating transgender people with respect. Read Zekes full account of his Survivor experience at The Hollywood Reporter. At least two people ask Lucious in this episode, Is your ALS acting up again? I feel like thats exactly what you need to know going into a summary of this episode. Apparently, Lucious suffers from myasthenia gravis, and this is the first that any of us are hearing of it. Thirsty is overseeing Luciouss medical care, and by medical care, I mean shouting at a doctor to perform medical procedures in a mans bedroom. Thirsty knows its illegal (and unsanitary), but hes prepared to offer money and legal compensation to the doctor to provide this preposterous service. They have to put a breathing tube down Luciouss throat, and before hes got a tube shoved down his throat, he croaks to Grandma Walker, Watch my family. Theyre snakes. Father of the Year, everyone. Jamal is in the studio, and hes working with Delphine, played by the ever-charismatic Estelle, on the When Cookie Met Lucious album. Theyre going to make a music video inspired by the good times in the 80s-Cookie-and-Lucious relationship. Cookie wants to shoot a music video approximately now, while Lucious is dying from a touch of the myasthenia gravis. Meanwhile, Tianas girl primarily known as Kennedy, who got punched in the goddamn face is holding a press conference because shes going to sue Empire Records for $50 million, and Hakeems response is, That bitch trippin! I have a daughter. This attempt to demonstrate the a-woke-ening of Hakeem actually shows a very particular type of dude. Its infuriating to watch Hakeem storm around demanding that someone explain basic feminist concepts to him. HOW CAN SOMEONE THINK I HATE WOMEN WHEN I KNOW A WOMAN Andre and Nessa are meeting with Nia Long, who appears to exclusively wear bustiers and blazer-capes with her titties all the way out. (Nia Long is 46. She looks better than I ever have or ever will, and I am not mad at her. Im mad at myself.) When Andre gets up to fetch Nia Long a drink, she says that shed love to maybe get together with Nessa and Andre in the boudoir. Nessa rightfully freaks out because no one wants to walk into a surprise threesome situation. On the When Cookie and Lucious Were So in Love, But Its Not Gonna Last Because Lucious Is an Unstable, Cruel Man video set, Jamal and Delphine look like theyre cosplaying 80s Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson. Cookie looks wistfully into the middle distance, as she talks about what Lucious and his music meant to her. The Lyon children go to visit Lucious, and he wants to know why they havent solved this issue with Kennedy yet, and Hakeem just stomps around. He keeps screaming, I HAVE A DAUGHTER!!! Hakeem. Settle the fuck down and read some Audre Lorde. Boo Boo Kitty comes to visit Lucious, and he types out a message on his iPad, asking why she hasnt worn a wire yet. She responds by folding his breathing tube and threatening to kill him. Lucious pulls out a gun from underneath the duvet, and shakily holds it up to threaten her right back. Boo Boo Kitty runs out of there to go see Cookie, and asks her to watch Bella in case something happens to her because something is definitely going to happen to her. Andre is taking advantage of Luciouss illness to seal the deal with Gino, a generic mobster character. Andre uses Xzibit to intimidate Gino into accepting an extremely terrible deal on the Las Vegas dealings. Cookie and Angelo are voting for him in the primary. Yeesh, were only at the primary! This fictional mayoral election is starting to feel like the actual election. Two random girls want to take a picture with Cookie because theyre rooting for her to get back together with Lucious. Their couple name is Coucious. Thats the worst couple name. It sounds like someone cant pronounce couscous. Hakeem realizes that screaming at a woman and trying to shame her to distract from mens faults isnt a moral choice. So he runs to Jamal and screams, WHATS VICTIM BLAMING?!?! IS THAT BAD?!?! Jamal suggests that Hakeem go in a different direction from his usual songs Cant Trust Em and The Clap Back to get back on the publics good side. So Hakeem heads to the studio to make a song for HIS QUEENS. The song is like a copy of a negative of a demo of a J. Cole song. Its like the ad agency that tried to make that god-awful Pepsi ad tried to make a song about feminism. Feminism: Because you should only treat women like people once you have a daughter! The song ends, WE ALL CAME FROM A WOMAN. Hakeem is canceled. Lucious finds out about everyones dealings, and he calls a board meeting in his bedroom. He wants to fire Andre, but didnt bother to figure out if anyone would back him up. This is getting embarrassing for Lucious. Hes in his pajamas and cant get a second. Andre continues to take advantage of the moment, and hands out a pamphlet about the Las Vegas deal. The rest of the board murmurs with approval. Andre is set to make money hand over fist for Empire for years to come, so the board is going to approve anything he wants to do. Im looking forward to this development. Its the end of primary day, and Cookie is throwing Angelo a party in Leviticus, but hes still feeling a little sensitive about the whole CousCoucious thing. Cookie promises that Lucious wont show up, which causes him to materialize in his pajamas and velvet loafers. His tiny ponytail is twitching because he can sense hes fucking things up for Cookie. When Angelo makes a victory speech, Lucious interrupts to play a song on the piano about Cookie. Shes reacting like its the most romantic moment of her life, but lets all remember that the song includes the lyrics, Im watching you like a camera dude. Before the longest primary in history wraps up, Nia Long strolls in with her blazer-cape billowing in the wind behind her, and Lucious looks her in the eye and says, Youve got a hell of a lot of nerve. THEY HAVE A SORDID PAST. IM BACK IN, EMPIRE! These women are nothing alike. Photo: HBO At her first appearance at the Television Critics Association press tour, where stars talk about their upcoming projects, Lena Dunham was already on the defensive about her show, Girls, being compared to Sex and the City. She told reporters they were two totally different shows, even though both of them are about four single women in New York. Still, Dunham had to soften the blow. There is no Sex and the City revenge plot, she said. I revere that show just as much as any girl of my generation. Despite her protests, it seemed like every single person writing about the show had to conflate the two anyway, even if only to note that there were absolutely no similarities at all. Here is a handy list of all the ways the two were compared before Girls had even graced screens in 2012, eight years after Carrie Bradshaw and her gaggle had signed off. Whats surprising is that six seasons later, in the run up to its final episode, the comparisons still haunt Girls. The Boston Globe reminds everyone that the two shows are often compared. Vanity Fair starts an article about the Girls finale with yet another dissection of the comparisons. The New York Post, always the antagonistic tabloid, whines about how Girls made us hate millennials and then yearns for the Manolo Blahnik and Cosmopolitan days of yore. At least that HBO show made the behaviors of a generation of women seem glamorous, Jennifer Wright scoffs. Even Lena Dunham, when asked about a possible Girls movie by the Guardian, said, Ill have to examine how long they waited before that Sex and the City movie. Lena, you are not helping! These shows were never alike at all, other than the fact that they were both on HBO and were about women in New York. Even those similarities are flimsy considering that Hannah and her cohort are of an entirely different generation than Carrie & Co. And the dingy, barely employed Brooklyn world of Girls is a universe away from the sparkly surfaces and burnished Manhattan of Sex and the City. You cant even compare Carrie Bradshaws Upper East Side one bedroom with Marnie Michaels crappy Chinatown squat, but, as recently as 2016, the New York Times did just that. Describing Carries ridiculously large, completely unaffordable apartment with a walk-in closet to Marnies dinky studio with a shower in the kitchen, Ronda Kaysen writes, But the real estate landscape has shifted so profoundly over the last two decades that this generations girl-about-town occupies a very different kind of space. No, this is not about New York real estate. This is about the creative decisions of two very different shows. Carrie lived in a fantasyland, and Marnie lives in (something closer to) reality. There are many ways you could describe Marnie (beautiful, narcissistic, controlling, self-centered, delusional, egotistical) but she has never been a girl about town. Sure, maybe in season one when she was trying to be a gallerina and sleeping with skeezy artist Booth Jonathan, but there is nothing about her quasi-folk starving artist lifestyle or her doomed marriage to Desi that could be considered girl about town. The one gown we ever see her wear, she bought second-hand in a thrift store and it made people think she was a Russian hooker. I could tick down a list of ways that the shows are not alike, like Carries fetishized outfits to Hannahs insistence on wearing rompers that are especially unflattering for her body type. Or the fact that, compared to the rotating list of hookups and boyfriends on SATC, the girls of Girls are practically chaste, usually jetting from one monogamous relationship to another. (Even Jessa, the Samantha of the group, doesnt get it on very often in comparison.) And while Sex and the City always focused on its central quartet, Girls, particularly in its later seasons, was equally as invested in the inner lives of its male characters, particularly Adam, Ray, and Elijah. But the major difference between the two is one of tone and craft. Sex and the City is a sitcom in a very classic vein. Sure, it can sometimes be bittersweet, but most episodes end with the story lines tied in neat little bows and a sense of uplift. Week to week, season to season, we knew exactly what wed get when tuning in. Girls was never as interested in that, vacillating wildly in terms of focus and quality (sometimes to its detriment) and willing to experiment with form in a way many series never do. Its most classic episodes are the bottle episodes with Hannah (or Marnie or Shoshanna) off on their own escapades. Even when Carrie goes to L.A., she needs to bring her girls along for the ride. Girls also never had the same illusions about trying to play nice with its characters. Carrie Bradshaw is a somewhat monstrous person that were supposed to love; Hannah Horvath is a somewhat monstrous person that were supposed to hate (although sympathetically). Thats not to say that Girls shouldnt be compared to anything in television history. My colleague Jen Chaney compared it to Sex and the City when writing about how it broke the rules of the friendship comedy, but put it in the context of Friends, Seinfeld, and Will & Grace as well. The Globe also notes that Girls is more appropriately compared to Friends. What both of these articles get right is that Girls belongs alongside the greats, not just other shows about women in New York. The saddest comparison between these two shows in recent days was when Heat Street starts off an article comparing Girls and Big Little Lies by, you guessed it, bringing up Sex and the City, as if any show that features four women needs to be compared to SATC, particularly if its on HBO. You never see critics comparing Silicon Valley to Entourage, two very different shows, just because theyre about four dudes who all work together. Heck, they dont even compare Entourage to Ballers, and those shows are essentially Siamese twins. This is the real, depressing reason the two shows always have to stand shoulder to shoulder: There just arent enough other shows that focus on women (particularly young women). And the cycle continues: A similar narrative played out last fall when Issa Raes HBO series, Insecure, which follows two black women living in Los Angeles, premiered. Ahead of its release, the show was constantly compared to Girls, and Rae herself to Dunham. I dont like that, Rae told Vulture last fall. Thats the dumbest and laziest thing to do. Its insulting to me and to her, especially to her. Were not telling the same stories. Yeah, were both young women on HBO, but I wish I could think of men on HBO they dont do that shit with them. Back at her first visit to TCA, Dunham said of her show and Sex and the City, I knew that there was a connection because its women in New York, but it really felt like it was tackling a different subject matter. Gossip Girl was teens duking it out on the Upper East Side and Sex and the City was women who figured out work and friends and now want to nail family life. There was this whole in-between space that hadnt really been addressed. There is still a lot that has yet to be addressed in the whole wide space in between, and until it is, Carrie and Hannah are going to have to stand side by side as sisters, even though they have absolutely nothing in common. Photo: Neilson Barnard/Getty Images After its finale, the question for the stars of Girls is pretty much the same one that Hannah faces: After you leave Brooklyn, what comes next? The series, boosted by regular waves of controversy, earned its actors a level of name recognition far beyond what its relatively small ratings numbers suggest. Now, after leaving behind the characters that have, for better or worse, become synonymous with their own public images, the stars of the show are all on to something new. So, whats next for Lena Dunham and the rest? Heres what we know. Lena Dunham In a recent Nylon cover story, Dunham said she was taking a break after Girls, though in point of fact, the writer, director, and actress seems as busy as ever. Shes overseeing her newsletter Lenny Letters new book imprint, living out Hannahs dreams by writing a collection of short stories about female friendship called Best and Always, and overseeing a new all-female production company with Girls EP Jenni Konner. Nylons story also references unnamed film and theater project that Dunham plans to research in London, as well as her involvement in creating a series of Lenny Letter short films for HBOGo. In 2015, HBO ordered a pilot about the early feminist movement produced and directed by Dunham that would star Zoe Kazan, though its unclear whether that is still going forward. Allison Williams Williams made her feature-film debut as the ultimate clueless white girlfriend in Jordan Peeles Get Out, which spoiler alert just earned her an MTV Movie and TV Award nomination for Best Villain. Williams hasnt publicly signed on to any future projects yet, and we imagine shes probably done with live musicals after Peter Pan Live!, but surely there are plenty more Marnie-level oblivious characters and/or Rose-style schemers left to play. Zosia Mamet A few weeks after the Girls finale, Mamet will head to the theater for a role in The Whirligig, a new play from Hamish Linklater, continuing to build on the theater cred she accumulated with Really Really in 2013. Film-wise, her thriller with Jessica Biel, Bleeding Heart, will come out in November, and shes sticking to relatively indie projects in the future, with roles in David Robert Mitchells L.A. noir Under the Silver Lake, Sophie Brookss comedy The Boy Downstairs, and to crown it all off, the biopic Mapplethorpe, where shell play the photographers sometime lover and best friend Patti Smith. Jemima Kirke Of all the Girls stars, Kirke has tended to have the uneasiest relationship with her place on the show (she tried to quit before season 2), and acting as a career in general, as shes also a painter and was one before the show began. Still, Kirke has at least two acting jobs lined up after the Girls finale: one in All These Small Moments and another in Untogether, where shell appear alongside her sister, Mozart in the Jungle star Lola, who will play her sister in the movie as well. Adam Driver Perhaps the biggest name in the Girls cast by now, Driver will next appear in a little movie called Star Wars: The Last Jedi as the villainous Kylo Ren. Outside of his standing commitment to holding a lightsaber and yelling, Drivers also lined up several prestige projects, including Steven Soderberghs NASCAR-heist movie Logan Lucky, and Holy Motors director Leos Caraxs English-language debut, a pop-star movie called Annette. Drivers also supposed to be the lead in Terry Gilliams The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, though time will tell whether that movie ever gets made. Andrew Rannells After wrapping Girls and a turn in Falsettos on Broadway, Rannells told Vulture he is mulling a bunch of different ideas. Ive been so lucky with Lena and Jenni that I guess Im looking for, or hoping for, a collaboration on the level I had with them, he said, noting that hes not currently looking to play a one-dimensional gay best friend. Alex Karpovsky Karpovsky had a career as an indie director and actor before he started playing the misanthropic Ray, and after the show ends, it looks like hell continue in a similar vein, though on a bigger scale. He recently appeared in Hail, Caesar! and Netflixs Girlfriends Day, while Folk Hero and a Funny Guy, in which he teams up with Everybody Wants Some!!s Wyatt Russell will be out soon. James Monroe Iglehart. After years of playing the Genie in the Broadway musical Aladdin, James Monroe Iglehart is getting out of the bottle: On April 14, he will take over the Marquis de Lafayette/Thomas Jefferson role in Hamilton. Iglehart started out in Aladdin as it was being workshopped outside New York in 2011, and won a Tony in 2014 once it came to Broadway. In the wake of Igleharts last Aladdin performance, on February 19, Vulture caught up with him to talk about perfecting his speed rapping, his love of Batman, and what its like to play Tituss rival Coriolanus on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. First of all, how were the last set of performances in Aladdin? Absolutely fabulous. The audiences were so hyped, and my family was there for most of those days. Ive been with the show since 2011, all the way from Seattle to New York. To be able to go out like that, to go out in a good way on my own terms and still have a lovely relationship with Disney? It was wonderful. I saw that movie when I was 17, and to go out like that was great. What were the highlights of the experience? Opening night was great, because when we left Toronto, the feeling in New York was that we werent coming in with a good show. I got home, and people were like, Hey, I heard the show didnt go too well. All my associates who kind of wanted Disney to fail were looking forward to some problems. Then we came in opening night and the world just loved it. Then, of course, a highlight was being nominated for a Tony and winning. A lot of the character is so tied up with Robin Williamss performance. How did you make your take different? I think for every character youve got to put yourself into it. With the Genie, the Genie is Robin, because this man pretty much is this character. But then I went back into a little bit of history, Howard Ashman originally wanted the character to be like Cab Calloway or Fats Waller. I was like, Oh, thats right in my wheelhouse. So I put myself into it, and I put in jokes that I thought were funny. So it was Genie-esque, but I wasnt feeding off Robin. And whats funny is I heard from some friends he saw some of my clips, and he dug it. He said, I like what the kid is doing. Hes not copying me. You got to add in a lot of improvisation to the show. Did you have any favorite impressions? I liked to do things people didnt think I was gonna say. Like, by the last week, I brought in whats that line? Meet me outside? That girl from Oh! The cash me outside girl. Yeah. I was like, Cash me outside. I would do that. We couldnt really do impressions. They didnt want me to do actual people impressions, because they didnt want stars to get mad. But I would hint at those people. Like, I hinted at Dr. Phil. I hinted at Michael Jackson. I hinted at Oprah. I definitely hinted at most of the hip-hop stars from Eminem to Fetty Wap to Soulja Boy. I hinted at a bunch of them, cause kids got it. Some of the parents were like, I dont get whats going on. Then what is it like to shift into Hamilton and to join that show? Its really, really fun, but its a totally different beast. As I was leaving Aladdin, I realized when I was onstage I only spoke to Al. I did not talk to anybody else until the last scene of the show. With Hamilton, its an ensemble show. You are a principal, yes. But once youre not doing your solo, youre in the ensemble telling the story with everybody else. Its very intricate, where Aladdin was very big and flashy. The challenge with Lafayette is that youve got to do that speed rapping. Im okay with that, because Ive been rapping freestyle for years. I think the thing that surprised me was the preciseness of it. Somewhere in my head I was like, Oh cool, I can rap fast. But its like a puzzle piece, and if youre not specifically in the puzzle, youll miss the next move. Daveed had such a specific strut and look for Lafayette and Jefferson. Have you come up with your own approach to the characters? The fun thing is Daveed is also in the group Freestyle Love Supreme that Im in. We had a conversation before I took the job. He gave me his blessing and he said, Man, take and run with it, and do what you do. And thats what I have done. So Im hoping that the audience embraces it the way they embrace him. I want to keep the integrity of what he did, but I also want to bring a little of the Iglehart swagger to those roles. You were in the early Lincoln Center concerts of Hamilton, so whats it been like to be in the early production, see the show grow into this massive thing, and come back? Its been awesome, actually. I have some of the most talented friends in the world. When we first heard what Lin was doing, we didnt know how big it was gonna be, but we knew it was cool. Then after Lincoln Center, I got Aladdin, and I was working on that. There was a shot of me coming to Hamilton. I was like, Guys, I think Im going to stay with Aladdin and see where it takes me. Then I would watch from our hit show as their show become the juggernaut that it became. Outside of Broadway, a lot of people know you from Kimmy Schmidt, where you play Coriolanus Burt, Tituss rival. How did that come about? I got the call from my agent that they wanted me to come and audition. They said, You would be the rival of Tituss Burgess. Ive known Tituss for a while, but we never got to work together. We both did Disney shows. He was Sebastian [in The Little Mermaid]. We never even auditioned against each other, because were the same type, but were such different voices. Hes a very high tenor, and Im a baritone. We sang at the same places, but that was it. So when I auditioned, I read what they wanted the character to be, and I told my wife, I think Im going to go in a little bit of a different direction with this. I know the timbre of his voice, so Im going to go so opposite and be deep. Then when Tina saw me, she said, You know, when I saw you in Aladdin I thought, Id like to see if he could play this part. I was like, Thank you, Tina. Ive had so much fun playing with Tituss because hes such a nut. He will go anywhere with you. And when youre with him, you better go someplace. Because hes gonna take you. He just goes. Its a lot of fun to play with that dude. After going between shows as well-known as Aladdin or Hamilton, are there other roles you want to take on? Well see what happens. If new shows come around I would love to. Theres a few revivals that would be fun to do. Im a huge Music Man fan. I love The Music Man, and if someone wants to think outside the box and decide they would like to put me as Harold Hill, I would love to do that. I love stand-up comedy, and I love musicals. So I was trying to figure out a way to mix the two. I just did my solo show, which is a solo cabaret show, at 54 Below. I also did it in California and in Jersey, and it did really well. Its basically my story of me growing up as a kid. And when people usually do solo shows, its like therapy in front of people. Mine is straight comedy. Mine is let me talk about how stupid I was as a kid. What were some of the stupid things you would talk about doing? I really thought that it was going to be easy to become a performer. I remember singing in church is so easy. I shouldnt say easy, but church people are nicer. If youre a kid, when youre singing in church the adults go, Oh, thats so precious. Oh thats so nice. He sounds just like his mom. Then when I turned around and decided to sing for my elementary school, those kids were mean as hell. They were bored and throwing stuff, and I was like, You people are terrible. You dont know Jesus! So basically I learned quickly that the secular world was a lot harder on performers. Were people as critical once you came to Broadway? Or were the elementary-school kids the harshest critics? You know whats funny? I would say the elementary-school kids are the harshest critics. Because adults lie to your face. Adults will look and you and go, You were great, and then go tell their friends, He was awful. Kids wont lie. Kids are like, Hey man, youre terrible. Youre the worst thing Ive ever heard. You should never sing. Before were done, I wanted to ask about Batman, because from your Instagram and Twitter, it seems like you really love Batman. When I was a kid, I used to watch the Adam West show a lot, and somehow that just stuck with me. But The Muppets and Batman would come on after school, and I would watch it. And I loved Adam Wests Batman, but as I got older, my friend introduced me to some comic books when I was about 11, and I loved the duality of Bruce Wayne and Batman. I didnt like elementary school because, like I said, kids were mean, and Im kind of a sensitive guy. So I created two personas: The persona that I used at school and the real me. It reminded me of Batman, where Bruce Wayne is the persona. Thats what people want to see. Batman is actually the real him, thats who he really is. And I just latched on to that, through school, junior high through high school, I did the persona of what James Iglehart was supposed to be so the kids would leave me alone. I got cool. I could rap, I could sing, I could dance, and whenever people would step to me, I could use my words to defend myself. But deep inside I was always afraid of confrontation. As I got older I grew out of it, but Batman was If Linus had a security blanket, Batman was mine, so hes always had a very special place in my heart. This interview has been edited and condensed. Michael Ballhaus, the famed cinematographer who died Wednesday at 81, was responsible for Goodfellas most famous shot. Early in the film, Henry Hill takes his future wife Karen on their first proper date. As he hands off his keys to the valet and leads her down the kitchen entrance of the Copacabanana, the camera trails behind them. Ray Liotta and Lorraine Bracco stay in the center of the frame as they move between chefs and busboys, until the camera glides a little ahead of them. From somewhere offscreen, a table and tablecloth seem to float in for the couple to sit at, right in front of comedian Henny Youngman (Take my wife!). Its the height of romance: the whiteness of the tablecloth, the way the table seems to levitate in. The moment teases a tacky little slice of heaven for both Karen and the audience. You dont have to know anything about steadicams to feel the specialness of that scene. Its the crowning moment of Ballhauss long collaboration with Martin Scorsese. The cinematographers career was launched from his work with the German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder, but his style was an ideal match for Scorseses dizzying camera movement. The Goodfellas shot feels dazzling and effortless all at once. Ballhaus created other great scenes with Scorsese, ones that play much simpler but were complicated to perfect. The Copacabana long take gets all the attention, but, for me, their first collaboration, After Hours, is even better. The film moves fiercely and freely around a wild portrait of downtown New York City in the mid-80s, zooming in on and whizzing between absurdities. Its a long nightmare thats hilarious and frenetic and anxious all at once. Our hero Paul Hackett (Griffin Dunne) is chasing a girl around Soho, trying to pin her down and seduce her. Once that goes south, hes just desperate to make it back home uptown. Ballhauss camerawork gets at the underlying insanity of the movies comedy. At what I assume was Mr. Scorseses direction, Mr. Ballhauss camera takes on an aggressive, willful personality of its own, Vincent Canby wrote in his New York Times review. Racing across images, like a dog straining at a leash, to scrutinize small details, or watching with rapt attention as a $20 bill floats to earth, the camera plays the role of a narrator whose manner is amused, skeptical and not at all inclined to allow itself to become sentimentally involved. In one scene, the roommate of the woman Hackett is after drops down the keys to the apartment so he can get in. This shot, more than anything in Goodfellas, seems purely Ballhauss device. It was a quick shoot, according to Roger Eberts review, and had to come up with the rapid crane movement on the spot to make it happen. The camera watches the keys fall, then takes the keys point of view to look down at Hackett, and finally were seeing them from Hacketts perspective, looking up at them. When they hit the concrete, the camera zooms in for a close-up. Its manic. Ballhaus worked with other directors and Scorsese, other cinematographers but their collaborations were always exciting. The Departed and Gangs of New York used Goodfellas same visual grammar, but without the earlier movies romance. The Age of Innocence finds a different kind of richness in the candle-lit living rooms of 1870s New York. The Last Temptation of Christ was some of the most rigorous work of both mens careers. (Its going to be a tough movie. Every shot is going to be working against us, he told Scorsese on set) And The Color of Money its a hokey script, but Ive always found it an exciting movie to watch because of Ballhauss work. He found the bright greens and reds and blacks in every smoky pool hall, and the pool cue POV, combined with Thelma Schoonmakers editing, is great to look at. Marty is my favorite director because hes the most visual filmmaker Ive worked with in America, Ballhaus told the American Society of Cinematographers just after Departeds release. Ballhaus created the 360-degree tracking shot with Fassbinder, but his collaboration with Scorsese was just as meaningful. It was Age of Innocence that Ballhaus named as his favorite of his career: His ideas on how to shoot a scene are worked out very precisely. And for me it was an absolute joy to realize those ideas. Calcutta High Court Judge CS Karnan today issued a suo-moto judicial order against Chief Justice of India JS Khehar and six other Supreme Court judges. Karnan directed the "erring Judges" to appear before him at his "Rosedale Residential Court" for the next hearing of the case. By Indrajit Kundu: In yet another unprecedented move, Calcutta High Court Judge CS Karnan, who faces contempt charges from the nation's top court, today issued a suo-moto judicial order against Chief Justice of India JS Khehar and six other Supreme Court judges. "Suo Moto Judicial order in the interest of the National to protect the General Public of their life, property and justice to all," Justice Karnan's order read. advertisement Karnan, a sitting High Court judge who has been barred from discharging his duties by the apex court, ruled that all the seven Supreme Court judges - Chief Justice J S Khehar along with Justices Dipak Misra, J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B Lokur, Pinaki Chandra Ghose and Kurian Joseph - were "offenders" under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes Atrocities Act. He said that they had "jointly insulted" him in open court. Karnan also directed all the seven judges to appear before him at his "Rosedale Residential Court" for the next hearing of the case on April 28 to give their views regarding the "quantum of punishment for the violation of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes Atrocities Act." In his order, Justice Karnan has directed the Airports Authority of India's Delhi airport-in-charge to not allow these seven judges to travel abroad. He has also ordered that they must surrender their passports to the Director General of Delhi Police within 15 days. Also, the order bars them from moving any court against the judgement. It states: "The Hon'ble 7 Judges as mentioned above are not permitted to move any Court against this Court's order since the first accused namely the CJI who is controlling all Courts in India." SUPREME COURT JUSTICES 'ERRING JUDGES,' 'NATIONAL OFFENDERS,' SAYS JUSTICE KARNAN However, the order allows the "erring Judges" to approach Parliament in case they aren't satisfied with the order and want to challenge it. In his order, Justice Karnan has also appealed to the central and all state governments to not avail the services of these judges since they were "national offenders" due to their "caste prejudice". He has also appealed to foreign countries having cordial relations with India to not issue any visas to them as they may "spread the virus of caste discrimination" in those countries. Here are three pages from Karnan's order. CS Karnan's order CS Karnan's order CS Karnan's order Earlier, the Supreme Court had initiated contempt of court proceedings against Justice Karnan, after he wrote to the Chief Justice of India, the Prime Minister's Office, the Union Law Ministry and others levelling corruption charges against the chief justice of Madras High Court. advertisement The apex Court, in an unprecedented move, had issued a bailable warrant against the sitting Calcutta High Court judge in March to ensure his presence before the court after his repeated non-appearance. On March 31, Karnan finally appeared before the Supreme Court which then gave him four weeks' time to either tender an unconditional apology or provide in writing his stance on the matter. ALSO READ | Supreme Court issues bailable warrant against Calcutta HC judge CS Karnan for contempt ALSO READ | Why Jethmalani told Justice Karnan I am convinced you have lost your mind WATCH VIDEO | Supreme Court questions mental state of Justice Karnan --- ENDS --- Jason Sudeikis in Colossal. Photo-Illustration: Vulture and Photo by Voltage Pictures, Brightlight Pictures (This post contains spoilers for Colossal.) Nacho Vigalondos new movie Colossal is not quite conventional. Its a creature-feature comedy starring Anne Hathaway as a failed adult who realizes she is psychically linked to a kaiju wreaking havoc on Seoul that shifts suddenly into a nerve-racking drama about what happens when women become the emotional and physical hostages of insecure men. The trailers sell you the comedy because thats an easier pill to get down, but its the examination of male entitlement that will keep the movie noodling around in your head long after it ends. It also provides us with the most acutely frightening example of Hollywoods new favorite villain the toxic nice guy. Vigalondos greatest sleight of hand isnt smuggling a dark character drama inside whats ostensibly a monster movie. Its how he packages the movies surprise villain inside the amiable Jason Sudeikis. Sudeikiss Oscar at first seems to be a supporting character in a quirky adult coming-of-age story. Like Allison Williams in Get Out, the first image of the comedian in Colossal is entirely in sync with his star image. Hes wryly funny but supportive, sensitive but still protective, attractive but still approachable. He puts you at ease, but hes also an utterly believable cad. Theres a palpable undercurrent of darkness that runs through all Sudeikiss roles, a way he fixes his gaze that suggests if something goes wrong, a switch will flip and his ingratiating exterior will crumble to reveal something cruel and threatening. Its the same quality possessed by Jason Bateman, who played the crowning example of the evil nice guy in 2015s The Gift, and Justin Theroux, who pulled off a similar trick in last years Girl on the Train. Both The Gift and Colossal have Trojan-horse villains in the form of monsters a literal one in the former and a human one, Joel Edgertons maladjusted Gordo, in the latter. Both Gordo and the kaiju are outsiders, destructors; compared to them, Bateman and Sudeikiss characters are steady, good men seeking to protect their homes and the women in their lives. Except, at their cores, theyre also both deeply damaged. What makes both actors so effective at selling the nice guy is that they both present a post-masculine image that seems on-trend in 2017. As America shifts to an economy defined by white-collar and service jobs, the beta male has become one of our most identifiable onscreen archetypes. Alongside actors like Zach Woods, Thomas Middleditch, and Adam Scott, Sudeikis and Bateman play men who are physically nonthreatening, diffuse tension with humor, and prefer weaponized wit over pure brawn. But even the most snarkily detached guys are beholden to internalized gender mores, and in both films Bateman and Sudeikiss smug mockery can turn into vicious barbs with just the slightest shift. The author Margaret Atwood had an oft-quoted exchange with a male friend once in which she asked him why men feel threatened by women. He told her, They are afraid women will laugh at them, undercut their world view. When Atwood asked a group of female students why women feel threatened by men, they responded, They are afraid of being killed. This is exactly the dichotomy we see in Colossal. When Oscar meets Anne Hathaways Gloria, he quickly becomes her provider and protector, bringing furniture to her empty home and giving her a job, a purpose, and companionship. After many nights of carousing over beers, Gloria finally decides shes going to dry out: Shes tired of blacking out, waking up after noon, and realizing shes destroyed portions of Seoul with her monster alter ego. But the idea of Gloria choosing to take control of her life and make steps toward self-improvement infuriates Oscar, who has also realized at this point shes attracted to his sweet, sex-idiot friend. He drunkenly taunts her, insisting that she drop the self-righteous act and get blitzed with him like they always do. He says and does a lot of terrible things, prompting Gloria to go to his house the next morning, after hes sobered up, so he can apologize. Even more jarring than Oscars sudden dark turn, though, is the image of his home. Its filled with the belongings of a dead relative and looks like something from Hoarders. As Oscar stands in his dirty kitchen and apologizes to Gloria, his shame is laid bare; the moral high ground he had previously enjoyed disappears. Its not something Oscar can let go, which leads to a violent confrontation in which Gloria must channel her monster counterpart to vanquish this toxic man once and for all. Its a heightened version of an everyday dynamic: A woman flying herself all the way to Seoul so she can mind-control a gigantic alien is far-fetched; a woman forced to go to extreme lengths to protect herself from a domestic abuser is, sadly, not. In perhaps the purest sign the toxic nice guy is a trope to watch out for, creators are already starting to play with it. Without getting into spoilers, Big Little Lies viewers knew Alexander Skarsards Perry was a manipulative abuser from the very beginning, but there were just enough hints that something was off with Adam Scotts frustrated Ed remember that confrontation with Nathan? that it seemed possible he would turn out to have a secret dark side as well. Though these characters often turn out to be villains, its easy to sympathize with them. In a sense, theyre caught in a trap: They live in a social system that insists men adapt to modern conventions of vulnerability and sensitivity, but doesnt help them unpack the dangerous definitions of masculinity that theyve picked up along the way. But of course, that sympathy doesnt make them any less terrifying. What makes these guys so threatening isnt that theyd break down your door. Its that by the time youve realized youre in peril, theyve already been invited into your home. Its not the first time Aisha Hinds has worked with director Anthony Hemingway. The pair collaborated on True Blood several years ago, and since worked on Foxs racial-justice drama Shots Fired. It was during the latter experience that Hemingway shared with Hinds that he was returning to helm several episodes of Undergrounds second season, and that shed be perfect to play iconic freedom fighter and former slave Harriet Tubman. (I was like, Oh yeah, Ill fight for that, she recalls.) What Hinds didnt know for some time subsequent to landing the part was that episode six, Minty, would stand alone as a virtually uninterrupted hour-long oratory delivered by Tubman to a small room of abolitionists in Philadelphia. The resulting performance is remarkable and inspiring, and in lieu of a traditional recap (those shall resume next week), we felt it more fitting to speak with Hinds in depth about such a daunting and duty-bound task. On the eve of it airing, the 41-year-old veteran of stage, screen, and film discussed the feeling of Tubmans spirit moving through her, implicitly trusting Hemingway and writers-producers Misha Green and Joe Pokaski, and not giving critical reception of the episode a second thought, at least not yet. This was the last episode filmed. How did you manage your nerves knowing it was looming all season? In the beginning, I didnt wrap my head around what The Harriet Episode actually was. When I learned it was what it was, it was something Id never seen before. Its challenging audiences to look at television in a way they never had before. I had grown used to the structure of episodic television. They were using language like, Youll be doing a TED Talk. In my mind, I thought it was max ten minutes, somewhere in the middle of the episode. [Laughs.] When the full revelation was given that, no, you are giving a one-hour TED Talk as Harriet Tubman, then the nerves began to expand. But I come from a theater background, so I was excited at the possibility of bringing theater to television. As we drew closer, I started to get anxious. I wanted at least a month in advance to do all of my homework, but I didnt have that luxury, and that turned out for the better. It forced me to be a servant of the story and rely less on my craft and education and to rely way more on being open and available and allowing Harriet Tubmans spirit to consume me and use my vessel as her voice box. That notion of Harriet speaking through you is a very personal connection that I cant necessarily identify with. But is there any way you can put into words what that tangibly feels like? The funny thing is, I can identify with what youre saying. As I was researching about Harriet Tubman, so much of what she was able to accomplish seemed foreign to me. Im like, Am I reading a biography about Harriet Tubman or am I reading a comic book? [Laughs.] It was superheroic, the way she transcended the obstacles before her and woven into her. But the more I started to learn, I was like, This could only be possible if theres a force greater than her guiding her. I got the first half of the script ten days before we were supposed to shoot and the second half seven days before. I e-mailed an old professor and said, Is it possible for me to memorize 45 pages in a week? He wrote me back two words: Not possible. I was like, Thats the wrong answer. [Laughs.] I ended up having to create what I call my crisis curriculum. I approached the first day trying to get ten pages in my head, and my brain would not go beyond four. I would try to run what I learned and it wouldnt retain more. I was so afraid to consume any other information in the world because I didnt have space. I get on the plane and feel nauseous. I pull out the bag in front of me Ive never used that bag and I throw up in the bag. I land, go to a fitting, and my temperature is over 100 degrees. They call me back for another fitting, and I was like, Im not feeling well. So now theres a company-wide e-mail with the subject line: Aisha is sick. [Laughs.] So Im losing all this time I wanted to use for rehearsal. Now the anxiety is setting in big. The next day, I show up to set, and I start lying, like, Im good, Im ready to go. They said, Well get you a teleprompter and an earpiece, so I memorized with the idea that there would be a safety net in place. I put the earpiece in, and theres all this static. Instinctually, my hand reached for my ear, pulled out the earpiece and handed it back, and it was in that moment that I began to feel an overwhelming sense of her presence. Something had filled me up, and all the nerves settled. I walk to the stage and Im mumbling to myself, I dont know what this is gonna be. Our director, Anthony Hemingway, comes up to me and holds my hand and prays with me before, which is not customary. I was like, Wow. Just to know how foundational God and spirituality was in Harriet Tubmans life, there couldnt have been anything more significant he started the day with than to hold my hands and pray. I sat down in the chair, he went back to the camera and called action, and every single word of that story came out of me as if it were my own. That continued to happen again and again, and the ease with which the story was just flowing, I started to feel like I wasnt even present. When he called cut on that final take, I felt emptied, like I could have used an IV gag. It felt like her spirit had inhabited me, shared her story, and as I was sharing the story, parts of her were coming out of me, and I was empty. Its almost like a birth, bouts of sickness included. Exactly. And the funny thing is, people are lauding this as a solo performance, but when I think about it, Im like, This is a solo performance much like childbirth is a solo performance. The mother is given credit for bringing the child into the world, but theres doctors, nurses, so many elements to making sure theres a delivery. So, yes, it definitely was childbirth, replete with all of its symptoms. At the end of the monologue, Harriet breaks the fourth wall and talks directly to the audience. How subtle did you need to be making that shift midstream? Luckily, we shot in order chronologically, so at that point, not only am I trusting Misha and Joe and Anthony, but Im trusting these people to populate the area as local abolitionists. We built an intimate relationship. Even the cameras have become a part of that, so shifting to connect with the audience that is out in the world was a natural, instinctive invitation to our audience to activate. Will you stand by as a citizen watching the injustice thats happening, or will you engage and contribute to the world, leaving it better than you entered it, as a soldier? At the risk of sounding trivial, how do you focus on the responsibility at hand without occasionally drifting to thoughts of public reception? This is the kind of performance that invariably creates critical and awards buzz. When I first walked into this, I was full of so much reverence. I dont know how to explain it except to charge you to think about the most influential heroes in your life, or who you think about when you think about the fabric of who you are as a person. That was what Harriet Tubman was for me. My singular thought was to do everything I can to bring honor to her legacy. Because I was learning so much about her, I was like, My god, this is a revelation. I get excited about the fact that I am the chosen vessel to bring this wealth of education to a new generation. I was a troubled teenager until somebody guided me in the right direction, so its important for me to know where Im positioned in the world and what Im doing here, and how that can impact troubled teens. Thats just a fraction of the audience Im considering, but Im thinking about those girls who are in the position I was, and if I could have looked onscreen and seen someone who looked like me and walked like me and talked like me, telling the story of someone I dont have much context for that was the riveting thing. I have shied away from watching the episode because I dont want to step out of the moment we had yet. I dont want to move into the place youre talking about. I know its human, its inevitable. I work in this industry. Im acutely aware of the conversations surrounding this level of work, but I also want to hold onto what was precious. Maybe in a few weeks, Ill move into the next level of that conversation. [Laughs.] Its not trivializing, because any acclaim that comes to this performance ultimately comes back to a woman who didnt get those awards and was rightfully deserving of a platform that could speak to many. If she continues to use me so that her message is spread and legacy is spread, I would be honored. Alleging that the Karnataka government is trying to redirect the Cauvery water, Ramadoss said that the water that has been released but has not reached Hogenakkal falls as yet. By Akshaya Nath: The war between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu on the Cauvery water continues with Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) founder S Ramadoss now making a fresh allegation against the Karnataka government. Alleging that the Karnataka government is trying to redirect the Cauvery water, Ramadoss said that the water that has been released but has not reached Hogenakkal falls as yet, (water from Hemavathi dam (150 cusecs), Krishnarajasagar dam (873 cusecs), Kabali (100 cusecs) and Harangi (9 cusecs). He also said that Karnataka is trying to make sure no water reaches Tamil Nadu. advertisement He made these allegations on the ground that the water always flows through Hogenakkal even when there is a drought-like situation in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. The two states have been facing the worst droughts in the country. The Karnataka government has been refusing to release water to Tamil Nadu on the pretext that the state was itself facing drought since the last couple of years. They had even disregarded the Supreme Court's order and restrained from releasing the water. This time around again with an order passed by the Supreme Court, Karnataka is in a situation where it is forced to release water. However, the water has still not reached Hogenakkal, hence the PMK leader was forced to speak out. "When Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa was alive, the state government fought for our rights, but now we don't know what to do. Our farmers have been protesting in Delhi for over a month now but no one has taken due note of our needs. As farmers we should all commit suicide, we are the unwanted second class citizens of the state," said Kumaresan, a farmer from Trichy, a Cauvery-delta region. ALSO READ | Cauvery water dispute: Karnataka's U-turn after inflow in reservoirs increased ALSO READ | Cauvery water dispute: Karnataka's U-turn after inflow in reservoirs increased --- ENDS --- By Press Trust of India: law: Dattatreya Hyderabad, Apr 13 (PTI) Union Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya today said the Centre will "examine as per law" the Telangana governments proposal to raise quota to backward sections among Muslims, after the state assembly passes an act to this effect and sends it for approval. He said though the BJP is not against Muslims, but at the same time it is against granting quota on the basis of religion. advertisement Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao yesterday said his government would convene the Legislative Assembly on April 16 to pass a bill to increase quotas to the STs (Scheduled Tribes) and backward sections among Muslims. Rao also said that the state Cabinet would meet on April 15 to decide the percentage of reservations. "The Chief Minister has been talking about reservations to Muslims. The Telangana government wants to implement it (quota) on the lines of Tamil Nadu government. The BJP is not against Muslims. We (BJP) are against religion-based reservations. The Supreme Court had also ruled that religion- based reservations are not legal," Dattatreya told reporters. "The state government may ensure the passage of the (proposed) Reservation Bill as they have the majority. (However) when it comes to the Centre, it will be examined in the constitutional and legal point of view. I cannot tell now what the Centre is going to do," the Union minister said. He said that the Congress party, which had promised a similar kind of reservation in the past, failed to implement it due to legal issues. "The criteria for reservations for any section of people should be based on discrimination or exploitation of that particular community, but not by considering economic backwardness," he said. Responding to a query, Dattatreya said the Centre had sanctioned tourism projects worth Rs 275 crore to Telangana. Rao had said his government would urge the central government to help in the implementation of its decision to raise quotas, as it was done in case of Tamil Nadu in 1990s, as total percentage of reservation would go beyond the cap of 50 per cent. "We are copying Tamil Nadu as it is. Because the Centre took it (Tamil Nadus request) up, gave assent and put it in the 9th Schedule (of Constitution, as it cannot be challenged in courts), We are asking the Centre to do the same," Rao told reporters yesterday. He said that the government was only seeking to raise the percentage of reservations currently being availed by backward sections among Muslims in Telangana. The BJP has been opposing the TRS governments move to hike quotas for Muslims. advertisement Increasing the quotas for minorities and STs was a promise given by the TRS in its election manifesto. PTI GDK NSK ZMN --- ENDS --- AUSTIN, Texas (AP) A tough Texas anti-"sanctuary cities" bill that threatens to throw county sheriffs and small-town constables in jail if they refuse to help enforce federal immigration law looks to be on the fast-track toward passage in the state's Republican-controlled Legislature. The proposal cleared a House committee 7-5 without debate Wednesday, setting up a floor vote soon. Opponents had hoped the House would soften a strict bill approved in February by Texas' Senate, but those tweaks made in committee shouldn't mitigate much. Untouched was a hotly debated provision allowing for criminal charges against city or county officials who intentionally refuse to comply with federal authorities' attempt to deport people in the country illegally who already have been jailed on crimes unrelated to immigration. Elected officials could face up to a year in jail and lose their posts if convicted of official misconduct. "By implementing this, we'll be able to remove these individuals from office," said Rep. Charlie Geren, a Fort Worth Republican who led the House effort to makeover what the state Senate approved previously. He said doing so "puts teeth in" the bill. There also would be fines on local agencies, starting at $1,000 for a first offense and reaching $25,000 for recurring violations. The Senate rushed to pass the bill despite the pleas of hundreds of opponents who waited hours to decry it as promoting discrimination and ultimately hurting law and order since it will make immigrants fearful of contacting police to report crimes. The House moved more slowly, but now appears poised to approve the proposal, too. Differences between each chamber's version will be reconciled in conference committee. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has declared a sanctuary cities crackdown a top priority, and President Donald Trump has made stricter federal immigration policy and vows to wall off the entire, nearly 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border a centerpiece of his administration. There are some differences between the Senate and House bills. The Texas House proposal only allows police officers to inquire about immigration status if someone is arrested, rather than simply being detained, like what the Senate approved. Local governments are also no longer threatened with losing their entire state grant funding for non-compliance. "I believe the changes are mostly cosmetic," said Rep. Rafael Anchia, a Democrat from Dallas. "They don't really solve the problem with the bill. The immigrant community will still be afraid." The term "sanctuary cities" has no legal definition, but Republicans want local police to help enforce federal immigration law as part of a larger effort to get tough on criminal suspects who are in the United States illegally. Trump has promised to withhold federal funds from sanctuary cities and the fight has raged on the state level in Travis County, which includes Austin, where Sherriff Sally Hernandez has refused to hold jailed inmates for possible deportation except in cases of certain violent crimes, like murder. Abbott has already ordered the state to withhold $1.5 million from Travis County, money that also supported projects such as family violence education and a special court for veterans. If the House version passes, withholding state funds would get tougher but Abbott could likely still withhold money controlled by his office from Hernandez and other officials following her lead. A spokeswoman for Hernandez declined comment Wednesday, but the sheriff has said that if Texas approves the sanctuary city law, she will begin holding all jailed suspects for possible deportation. Austin Mayor Steve Adler said the bill will block law enforcement's ability to "follow their professional experience to set priorities locally in order to determine how best to create trust relationships." "Ultimately, it will make communities less safe," Adler said. Though Waco High School seniors like Colton Lee will have only a short time with the new equipment in their automotive technology lab before graduation in June, he said the tools are giving the students a leg up in their future career fields that they didnt have before. The Texas Workforce Commission presented a check for $220,870 on Wednesday in front of the schools vocational building that will help about 400 students and more in the future train for careers in the automotive profession. Waco Independent School District trustees approved the TWC Jobs and Education for Texans grant in September. Though some of the new equipment is already in use, this will give the program a chance to prepare students for the field for years to come, school officials said. Waco Highs grant is part of nearly $5 million awarded to 25 school districts and colleges to target high-demand jobs in new and emerging industries. Every year, car dealerships across the state say to us, Send us qualified technicians, and they stress the word qualified, Superintendent Bonny Cain said at the presentation. Anybody can send a technician, but youre not qualified because youre not on the latest equipment used to service cars. This program fills that request by providing equipment current, updated, modern and useful equipment to train 175 students for jobs available right now, right here in our community. While Lee enjoys the schools new tire-rotator machine and new car lifts, he loves the labs new Snap-On tool chest the most. The chest is complete with key-card access, touch-screen technology and the ability to find out who used what tool last. Before we had this, we just had to go check out tools from tool rooms and backrooms, and we couldnt find all the tools we needed, Lee said. Now, its all right here in this little box. I use it all the time, and its so convenient that the cars pull up right here and its right here. When youre trying to see what tool it fits, its right here instead of you going around and looking for everything. Eventually, Lee wants to own his own automotive business, but first he will graduate with aspirations to attend Texas State Technical College, he said. TSTC is expected to offer credit through the grant-funded classes and already has a partnership with Waco ISD. While TSTC may be a state agency, we all live here, and these are the technicians who service our cars and take care of our automobiles. We want them to do it well and we want them to be professional and qualified when they go to do it, TSTC Provost Adam Hutchison said. This kind of grant represents how a community can partner with school districts, local employers like automotive dealers, and other agencies like the Texas Workforce Commission to bring money back into Waco and move the economy forward, Hutchison said. You guys are doing great things here in Waco, with an unemployment rate of 4.5 (percent), said Julian Alvarez, the Texas Work Force Commissioner over labor. The face of manufacturing is changing every day as we know it. The new Wal-Mart store in Hewitt operated its first full month in February, and its presence showed up in the sales tax rebate the city received this week from the Texas Comptrollers Office. Rebates received in April reflect sales in February that are reported to the comptrollers office in March. Hewitts refund totaled $168,896, which is almost 31 percent more than the $129,188 it collected in April of last year. Waco, meanwhile, experienced a rare dip in its rebate, which fell almost 5 percent from $2.83 million in April of 2016 to $2.7 million this week. The slide comes one month after Waco received a check for March that was 7 percent larger than the same month a year earlier, the comptrollers office reported. Statewide, Comptroller Glenn Hegar distributed more than $620 million in rebates to cities, counties, transit systems and special-purpose taxing districts, a 4.9 percent increase from April 2016, according to a press release. Ups, downs in state The cities of Houston, San Antonio, Dallas and Austin saw noticeable increases in sales tax allocations, Hegar said in the press release. The cities of Sugar Land, McAllen, Irving and Grand Prairie saw noticeable decreases. Hewitt City Manager Adam Miles said the new Wal-Mart at Interstate 35 and Sun Valley Boulevard is performing as the city hoped it would in generating sales tax revenue. Im not going to give it credit for all of the nearly $40,000 increase we saw in this months rebate, but I will give it credit for most of it, Miles said. City officials estimate the store will contribute at least $60,000 a month to rebate totals. They also have tossed around monthly estimates of $80,000 to $100,000. They are a good addition to the community, and were glad to have them here, Miles said. The rebate Waco received this week reflects the sluggish spending that Amarillo-based economist Karr Ingham referenced in his latest report on local trends, including general retail spending. Ingham has said total sales receipts in February reached about $360 million, almost 2 percent less than the total of $366 million a year earlier. He said the slight decrease does not alarm him, and the area would have to experience declines for several months to a year to become a trend that might cause concern. For the first two months of the year, general real spending is flat compared to the January-February total, and the total for the 12 months ending January 2017 is up by a modest 1.8 percent compared to the prior 12 months, Ingham said. Across Central Texas Elsewhere in McLennan County, rebates reflected a mixed bag, with Bellmead, Lorena, McGregor and West collecting rebates that were less than last years, while Beverly Hills, Lacy Lakeview and Woodway received larger rebates. Beverly Hills hit the jackpot, receiving a rebate of $132,453, compared to $39,421 a year earlier. West suffered the biggest decline, seeing its rebate drop from $82,743 in April of last year to $35,499 this month. Lacy Lakeview resident Andrea Owen had just wrapped up a neighborhood tradition when she noticed half the bridge on her street was missing. A tornado, heavy rains and high winds had swept through Central Texas on Monday night, and by Tuesday morning it was still raining. Heavy rains have flooded White Rock Creek before, sending water above the bridge on Ruby Dell Lane and stranding neighbors who live on the private road. Families in the small neighborhood are used to brief stints cut off from their connection to Gholson Road, and the children in the area knew what to do. They raced to Owens house at the end of the dead-end street. Just a little fun tradition with the neighborhood kids is they come to my house for pancakes, she said of days when the bridge is flooded. Its kind of our snow day since we dont have snow days. The kids get real excited. About 10 a.m. Tuesday, everyone was full from breakfast, and Owen decided to take a look at the bridge. Im videoing it and going, Oh, that doesnt look right, she said. With water still rushing over the bridge, it wasnt immediately clear how much of the bridge had fallen away, but as water receded, Owen and her neighbors were struck by the damage. A section of the bridge is out. The citys waterline also was damaged, leaving the whole street without water, and cable and internet lines are damaged. But instead of complaining or going to stay at a friends house until someone else resolved the problem, the multigenerational community on Ruby Dell Lane started looking after one another. Many of the neighbors immediately set to work building a walking ramp, with handrails, to allow residents at the end of the street to cross to the other side. We have a neighborhood that is just absolutely the most awesome neighborhood that comes out and helps one another whenever they can, said Dana Strickland, who lives on the street. Its just a neighborhood that truly just cares for one another. One neighbor started delivering bottled water to everyone. Another delivered mail, and when city officials came to inspect the bridge, another neighbor brought them fried chicken, Strickland said. We all pitch in Life throws you curves like this. It does, he said. We all pitch in to do whatever is necessary to make things happen. Owen said her immediate and extended family purchased the 18 acres of land that has become the neighborhood. They named the street after her mother-in-law, Ruby Dell Owen, who is still one of the hardest-working individuals she knows, Owen said. Since the road and bridge are privately owned, it is not up to the city to make the repairs, but that doesnt mean it wont assist, City Manager Keith Bond said. Were going to help them by doing a little hauling for them to fill in the gap thats gone, Bond said. Theyll go in there and concrete and cement the top and complete the roadway. The waterline, however, is up to the city to maintain, and by Wednesday afternoon, residents had water again. But, the 25 residences on the street will remain under a boil order for about three days until the city gives the all-clear, he said. Owen said she was actually looking forward to being forced to stay home once the bridge was impassable by vehicle, but life beckons. On Tuesday, a neighbor with a four-wheel-drive SUV was able to make it to the back of her property, cross a neighbors land and drop off residents on Spring Lake Road. I was telling someone today, even with everyones water being off and internet and cable, which is not a big deal in the scheme of life, no one has complained, Owen said. Everyone has just seen it more as an inconvenience and said, Gods in control and hes taking care of us. Also, the city of Lacy Lakeview has worked tirelessly to get everything back in order, and they have just done an amazing job. Chetan Shah, who was arrested by Mumbai police under section 419 for creating a fake identity card with Interpol logo, was summoned and questioned for at least 6-7 hours by the Enforcement Directorate. By Virendrasingh Ghunawat: Since last two days, Chetan Shah, the diamond merchant and now also known as "fake Interpol agent" was interrogated by the officials of Enforcement Directorate (ED) in Mumbai. Currently, Shah is being investigated for Rs 342 crore loan default case, under FEMA. On Monday night, Shah was arrested by Mumbai police under section 419 for creating a fake identity card with Interpol logo, but next day, he managed to get the bail from local Court. Without any delay, the ED decided to interrogate him. advertisement On Wednesday, Shah was summoned and questioned for at least 6-7 hours. Next day, he was again called and interrogated for about 3-4 hours. At one point of time, Shah, who is also known for living a lavish lifestyle was seen dosing inside the ED office. BANKS GEARED UP WITH SARFAESI ACT Just few days before the ED conducted searches on Shah's premises on April 1, 2017, the consortium of four banks had decided to release a public notice in all the leading newspapers, informing that Chetan Shah and his company Decent Dia-Jewels Pvt Ltd., could face an action under SARFAESI Act. India Today has the copy of that public notice in hand. The notice was issued under section 13(2) of the Securitization and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act, 2002 (SARFAESI - Act). The notice was basically to inform the borrowers/guarantors/mortgagors that in case they do not pay back the entire amount of around Rs 342 crore within 60 days, then banks would auction all the collaterals (assets of these entities/individuals) deposited while taking the credit limit. The main borrower of this loan is Decent Dia-Jewels Pvt Ltd, promoted by Chetan Shah and his wife Hema Shah. The guarantors of this loan amount were: Chetan Shah, Hema Shah, Ramniklal Shah, Shailesh Shah, Diamar Construction Pvt Ltd, Nakshatra Fin Lease Pvt, Diacentre Finance & Leasing and Fortune Intech Pvt Ltd. Last year, the notice under SARFAESI Act was sent to these individuals/entities, but only few of them had acknowledged it. "Due to non-payment of dues and non-fulfillment of terms and conditions of the loan, a default has been by the borrower/guarantor. Thus, the loan account has become NPA, as per the RBI guidelines," the notice said. The collaterals which were deposited before the banks while taking the credit limit of Rs 342 crore were: 1. Commercial flats of Shreeji Building in Surat (owned by Decent Dia Jewels) 2. Office in Bharat Diamond Bourse at BKC (owned by Decent Dia-Jewels) 3. Residential flats in Urmi Cooperative Building, Worli, Mumbai (owned by Nakshatra Finlease Pvt Ltd.) advertisement 4. Office in Laxmi Finance at BKC with four car parkings space (owned by Dia-Centre Finance and Leasing Pvt Ltd) 5. Office premises at Kamla Mills Compound, Mumbai with one parking lot (owned by Shruti Re-rollers Pvt Ltd also known as Fortune Intech Pvt Ltd) Deadline of 60 days has been given to these borrowers/guarantors to pay the loan amount with interests. "Failing which the banks will be constrained to enforce its security interest without intervention of the Court/Tribunal by taking recourse to one or more of the measures under Chapter III of the Act," the notice warned. The action includes selling off all the properties mortgaged before the banks. Dena Bank is heading the consortium of all four banks, with highest exposure of Rs 146 crore. While, Union Bank of India (Rs 80.2 crore), Central Bank of India (Rs 25.7 crore) and Syndicate Bank (Rs 90.19 crore) had sanctioned the credit limits with an expectation that "Shah would never default the payment of those banks with whom he had a relation with since last 15 years". BANKS COULD FILE A CRIMINAL COMPLAINT Few days back, consortium of all banks had done a meeting to decide the fate of Decent Dia Jewels and Chetan Shah & Co., in order to recover its loan amount. Unilaterally, it was to file a suit against the company and directors. advertisement But if sources from these banks are to be believed then there is a high possibility that the consortium could file a criminal complaint against Chetan Shah to support the hands of investigative agency for the strong action. "Even the ED has been suggesting these banks to come forward and file a criminal complaint against Decent Dia Jewels and borrowers/guarantors. It would help the agency to investigate the matter under stringent act of money laundering i.e. PMLA," one ED official said. At present, the case is getting probed under FEMA, having less stringent actions. OPERATIONS OF DECENT DIA-JEWELS In 2014, rating agency Brickwork Ratings had reaffirmed "BWR A3" rating for existing and enhanced bank credit facilities aggregating to Rs 331.90 crore of Decent Dia-Jewels Pvt Ltd. Decent Dia-Jewels (DDJ) was set up in 1995 as a partnership firm by Chetan and Hema Shah. It got reconstituted in 2010 as a private limited company. DDJ was involved in polish and trading of rough diamonds. The company claimed to derive its entire revenue through exports to Hong Kong, the Middle East, Europe and USA. The company has its manufacturing facility in Surat. advertisement The investigative agency suspects that Chetan and Hema Shah who are the directors of at least dozen of shell companies are involved into diversion and laundering of money showing fake exports. Also Read: ED raids: Mystery of a fake Interpol agent who had stripped naked before I-T team (UPDATE: As per an order dated 24.07.2018 passed by the Metropolitan Magistrate, 62nd Court, Dadar, Mumbai, the accused was discharged from the question, according to information provided his lawyers.) --- ENDS --- A Mart Independent School District graduate was arrested a second time Thursday, and now faces a charge of online solicitation of a minor charge stemming from his relationship with a 13-year-old girl. He already faces sexual assault charges for the same relationship, according to an arrest affidavit. Dominic Greene, 18, of Mart, turned himself in to authorities Thursday morning on the online solicitation of a minor charge after he was accused of soliciting sex from a 13-year-old girl earlier this month. Greene was arrested April 6 on a first-degree felony charge of aggravated sexual assault before police discovered electronic communication where Greene enticed her to send nude photographs to him, the arrest affidavit states. "The initial cursory search revealed that Greene possessed multiple pornographic photographs of the 13-year-old victim," the arrest affidavit states. Last week, Greene was arrested outside Mart High School after the girl reported the sexual assault. The girl was confronted by her parents after she exited her house through a bathroom window on April 4 and met Greene at the high school, the arrest affidavit states. The girl said Greene was a friend and she had consensual sex with him. Police were notified of the arrangement and arrested Greene as the girl was not legally able to consent to sexual activity because of her age. The investigation remained ongoing, and police were given consent to search his phone. "(An officer) observed Instagram messages between (the girl) and Greene," the arrest affidavit states. "Greene sent (the 13-year-old girl) a picture of his penis and enticed her to send nude photos of herself to him via Instagram. (The officer) observed Instagram messages that showed Greene was aware of her age and that the relationship was inappropriate." Police reported that in one message Greene told the girl that he would like to talk with her if she could keep their relationship a secret, the arrest affidavit states. Greene made plans to meet the girl for sex as well, according to the affidavit. Mart High School Principal Betsy Burnett confirmed that Greene graduated from The Learning Center program late last week and is no longer a student with Mart ISD. TLC students attend a drop-out prevention center served by Falls County Co-op to help students recover credits and graduate. Greene was booked into McLennan County Jail on Thursday morning. He later posted a $10,000 bond and was released from custody. Limestone County Judge Daniel Lee Burkeen was arrested Wednesday in McLennan County on a Class B misdemeanor driving while intoxicated charge, a Mart police arrest affidavit states. Burkeen, the Republican county judge who was elected in 2010 and won an unopposed re-election bid in 2014, was stopped after an officer saw the muffler of a white Chevrolet Impala dragging on the street as the car traveled east in the 400 block of West Texas Avenue shortly after 2 p.m., according to the affidavit. Burkeen stopped a few blocks away, near the intersection of South Front Street and East Limestone Street, the affidavit states. Burkeen, 59, got out of his vehicle and approached the officer, according to the affidavit. Officers ordered Burkeen back to his car, and he complied. (The officer) observed that the driver had slurred and slow speech, the arrest affidavit states. When asked the date, he gave the wrong one and explained that he had asthma. Officers reported they initially thought Burkeen was in medical distress. When they spoke with him, they could smell alcohol on him, according to the affidavit. Burkeen failed a standard field sobriety test, which led officers to think he was intoxicated, the affidavit states. Burkeen was arrested on suspicion of DWI, was taken to McLennan County Jail, and his vehicle was impounded. He agreed to a preliminary breath test about 4:40 p.m., which measured a blood alcohol concentration of .112 percent, the arrest affidavit states. He also submitted a blood sample that will be analyzed by the Texas Department of Public Safety. Burkeen was booked into McLennan County Jail on Wednesday evening and released by Wednesday night on a $1,000 bond. United lost more than a half-billion dollars in market value in response to outrage over the forcible removal of a passenger who refused to give up his seat Sunday. And thats after some improvement on Wall Street. But its probably going to take longer for United to reclaim its reputation, especially because the more we know the worse the episode seems. And it was plenty bad: a knock-down, drag-out incident that left the passenger bloodied and delayed Sundays flight from Chicagos OHare International Airport to Louisville. Video of the confrontation aboard Flight 3411 rocketed through social media. For one thing, United now says the flight wasnt overbooked, as it had initially said. Overbooking is when the airlines sell more seats than they have to compensate for possible no-shows a practice thats not just legal, but sensible, too. Restaurants and hotels do the same thing with reservations. Turns out the airline wanted the seats for crew members it said needed to be in Louisville on Monday. The U.S. Department of Transportation, under its section on Fly Rights, spells out the rules on overbooking for airlines and passengers who have valid reservations to fly. These include the commonsense requirement that the airlines must first ask for volunteers to give up their seats, and that a passenger who is bumped must receive compensation. But the DOT leaves it up to the airlines to specify what form and how much compensation a passenger should receive. The DOT also says that if a passenger misses the check-in deadline, he might not just lose his seat; he might also forfeit the right to compensation. But now we know that this was a flight where all the passengers who had paid for a seat, survived TSA, and reached the ticket counter and the gate on time, were seated and ready for takeoff. As paying customers, they had done their part. It was the airline that, for whatever reason, found itself scrambling at the last minute to put four of its employees on board. In other words, the company didnt plan ahead, apparently. And then it became intent on violating that cardinal rule of business about putting the customer first. Unless those four United employees were also brain surgeons needed to perform emergency surgery in Louisville two hours later, United should have found another way to transport them when no passengers volunteered to surrender their seats. Uniteds employees could have taken the next flight. Or rented a car. In a pinch, United chief executive Oscar Munoz who hauls in about $5.5 million a year, according to a business profile from Hoovers Inc. could have paid the United crew to take an Uber. Uber, which has had its own run of bad publicity, might have been willing to offer a big discount. And now the passenger removed from the flight has taken an additional beating, too. First, Munoz in what CNBC says was a leaked email from inside the company blamed him for the fracas. And then it came to light that the passenger has a troubled past,according to some media reports. To which we say: So what? Its natural to want to know more about what happened and everyone involved including, we hope, the Chicago Department of Aviation officers who dragged the man off the plane. But unless he had a history of assaulting people, his past doesnt change the fact that he was dragged caveman-style off a plane after he declined to volunteer his seat. Since then, Munoz has made a turnabout. In Uniteds latest statement, Munoz said he would order a review of company policies. Meanwhile, the United Airlines jokes keep coming on Twitter, on late night, such as Jimmy Kimmels standup and spot-on parody of a commercial for the beleaguered airline and no doubt MBA candidates are revising their theses on how not to deal with a public relations meltdown. Not everybodys laughing: D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) has called for a congressional hearing into the incident. Marketwatch reported Tuesday that shares of United Continental Holdings had fallen 3.7 percent in morning trading, or about $830 million, from its $22.5 billion market value, despite having weathered the first day of its public relations disaster fairly well. By mid-day, the airlines stock was off only about 2.56 percent on Wall Street or about $576 billion. For that much money, United should have bought each of its four employees a new car. WAHOO Work on the 2017-2018 fiscal year budget is already underway for Saunders County. Saunders County Clerk Patti Lindgren said when she starts working on the budget, she starts with the template of last years budget, but there are also many variables to look out for based on potential legislation changes. Lindgren said much of the legislation being looked at now on the state level with valuation changes would not have an effect on this years budget or valuations, but possibly next years budget. Saunders County Assessor Cathy Gusman said some of the legislation changes that might take place have to do with valuations based on an agricultural use, not based on sales as it is now. But, she said that change would not take place for another year, as theyre too far into the process this year for valuations to change. Gusman said the state equalization board starts meeting next week and will have approved valuations in the following weeks afterward. This puts the County Board of Supervisors working with similar numbers as to last year, Lindgren said. The total tax request for the 2016-2017 budget was $8,992,692.97. Supervisor Ed Rastovski said they hope to make the same tax request again they have made in the last two years, which will lower the tax levy if valuations increase Rastovski said one of the largest expenses in the budget is salaries and benefits. With the three-year benefits contract signed with the Michigan Teamsters last year by the roads and courthouse staff, Rastovski said there are no major changes there that will affect the next two budgets. However, the board is still in ongoing negotiations with the Fraternal Order of Police union for the sheriffs department and corrections. Rastovski said that in their planning for this years budget, adding a four percent increase for their salaries and insurance should cover any changes within the negotiations. To this point, almost each county office has submitted its own budgets to Lindgren to aid in the process. The sheriffs department, which includes the department of corrections, and the register of deeds office are yet to submit budgets. The sheriffs department and the department of roads have the two largest budgets within the countys overall budget, Lindgren said. With what Lindgren sees as imminent changes in the upcoming years, this might be the last year to make a major push for roads projects. The roads budget increased from $8.4 million to $9.2 million from the 2015-2016 budget to current budget. Rastovski, who sits on the boards finance committee, said they put a lot of money into roads and bridges, and will continue to do so. But, if the county gets into a bind where they need to cut one or two million dollars, Rastovski said they could slow the progress in roads and bridges to hold off an emergency. A major expenditure looming for the board is the replacement of the heating and cooling system in the Saunders County Courthouse. Rastovski said the system is past time to be replaced, but that the board is financially prepared for the process of the purchase. Another looming change for the board to look in regard to budgeting will be the consolidation of the county assessors office and the register of deeds office. Assessor Cathy Gusman and Register of Deeds Don Clark both said the board has not discussed any plans for consolidation with them, but that consolidation would not affect the upcoming budget. Lindgren said they are not looking at consolidation issues regarding this years budget, as it will not have a direct effect on it. Rastovski said the board has discussed options for consolidation in committee meetings or in pairs of two, but that its just discussion at this point. Rastovski said theyve looked at several options and are looking at other counties that have consolidated. Its not something were worried about for budget purposes, he said. The budget process is far from over, as they final budget for 2017-2018 will not be approved until September. BRAINARD The request for proposals on the Prague school building has been terminated. At the advice of the East Butler Public School District attorney and Superintendent Sam Stecher, the East Butler Board of Education opted to begin negotiating with prospective buyers to purchase the Prague facility without stipulation. That sounds pretty easy, Stecher said. I could probably get some viable offers that I could bring to the board and make a recommendation on by next month if its just selling the building outright. Negotiations will be made with the contention of bringing a proposal to the Boards May 10 meeting. The board had been holding onto a formal bid submitted by Dan Havlovic of Prague, pending further information. In the meantime, Stecher received a late sealed bid, which has remained unopened. One other bid was also received prior to the deadline. With the decision to terminate, the board will be able to open that sealed bid. What I would do is reach out to that individual, let him know the process had been terminated so that bid doesnt really matter, but were negotiating now, so what would you like to offer, Stecher said. Wednesday nights board action came after members were provided a cost of demolition on the old portion of the school building. The board hired Gana Trucking and Excavating during its March monthly meeting to provide a thorough estimate of demolition. That estimate determined cost of demolition to be $299,760. The board also discussed concerns voiced from Prague Village Board members and community members regarding school memorabilia. Havlovic said from what he understands the village board is interested in the memorabilia, not the facility. The idea of auctioning school memorabilia was mentioned at a previous school board meeting, but seemed to be unfavorable among the Prague community. The board said they would be interested in displaying some of the Prague memorabilia at the East Butler School in Brainard, but envisioned the majority remaining in Prague. Id be in favor of the majority of the memorabilia staying in Prague in some fashion and being displayed, because it should be there, said Board President Megan Kozicek. The board said they would be interested in seeing a formal recommendation regarding school memorabilia from the Prague Village Board before making a decision. Discussion on a potential resolution for the school memorabilia is expected to continue at tonights 7:30 p.m. Prague Village Board Meeting. The verdict came in case filed by businessman Amit Kejriwal and his family who had endure a six-hour flight bearing the stench from an Air India aircarft's choked toilet. By Harish V Nair: The holiday trip Pitampurabased businessman Amit Kejriwal planned with his family and other relatives - a total of nine members - to Singapore, began on a nightmarish note, thanks to the pathetic conditions onboard their Air India flight. It was such a terrible experience for Kejriwal and family that they were not prepared to take it lying down, and dragged the national carrier to a consumer court. advertisement Five years later, the judges, in a recent verdict, pronounced Air India guilty of 'deficiency in service' and ordered Rs 15,000 to each member of the group for 'mental agony'. The passengers had also complained about inadequate food, lack of basic amenities, refusal to give consecutive seats for the entire group despite booking seats much earlier when there were sufficient vacancies, and rude staff. But Air India denied all the allegations and admitted to only locking up of one of the jammed toilets and opening it later due to demand from passengers. Ordering the compensation, judges N K Goel and Naina Bakshi too took a serious view of only the stinking toilet. The airline admitted that during the course of flight, the sink of one of the two toilets at the rear was choked, and to avoid overflow, the door was locked from outside. However, when a lot of passengers wanted to use the toilet, the door was unlocked with the instruction that the tap should not be turned on. COURT POKES HOLES IN AI's DEFENCE But the court said, "It is a six-hour journey. During this period, travellers may feel the need to use the facility of toilet in the aircraft frequently. A toilet can never be chocked within the short span period of six hours." "Therefore, the probable cause for it is that the aircraft had been brought in re-use for undertaking air journey from Delhi to Singapore after it had completed its first journey from one destination to IGI Airport and for that reason the airline could not clean the toilets at IGI airport," the court further observed. "Apparently the passengers, including the complainants, were bound to undertake a journey from Delhi to Singapore in an aircraft that was in fact not ready for re-use," the judges added. "It was for that reason that crew members of the aircraft had locked the rear toilet from outside and when there became a rush of passengers to use the toilet, the door was unlocked with the instruction that the tap should not be turned on," the court noted. advertisement "If the passengers were not allowed to use the tap, intolerable stinking smell was bound to be there in the toilet and ultimately in the whole aircraft," the court said. "The journey was not a charity from their side.We had paid for the journey and all the facilities. We felt harassed and disgusted at the low standard of services," Kejriwal, the complainant, told Mail Today. ALSO READ | Airlines can't empty toilet tanks mid-air as waste is landing in residential areas --- ENDS --- By Greg Morehead Already admired and respected for their beautiful Douglas C-54 Skymaster, Spirit of Freedom, the Berlin Airlift Historical Foundation (BAHF) is ready to fly the only certified and airworthy Boeing C-97 in the world. The Stratofreighter will be the organizations second heavy cargo aircraft dedicated to honoring USAF Cold War heritage. Similar to the C-54, the new aircraft will make use of the interior cargo area to present an on board Cold War museum/exhibit. The Angel of Deliverance museum will include areas highlighting Cold War events, including the Berlin Airlift, Korean War, the Red Scare and McCarthyism, Cuban Missile Crisis, Space Race, Vietnam War, arms race, and the Fall of the Soviet Union. These significant milestones represent the period from 1948 through the dismantling of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Boeing C-97G ser. no. 52-2718 came off the Seattle, WA assembly line and was accepted by the USAF on April 27, 1954. She was manufactured as a KC-97G aerial tanker and was assigned to air refueling units across the United States. From 1954 until being retired to Davis Monthan AFB in 1976, her home stations and deployment locations included bases in Nebraska, Oklahoma, Alaska, Idaho, Montana, New York, Wisconsin, and Utah. After being dropped from USAF inventory as surplus in 1977, 52-2718 was auctioned on the civilian market in 1986 and converted to a C-97G with the removal of the refueling equipment and the addition of cargo doors. In 1988 the big girl was seized by the US Marshal Service and subsequently auctioned to Grace Aire, Inc., which used 718 on humanitarian missions to South America and to carry fish in Alaska. The BAHF purchased 718 on April 22, 1996, and had it paid off by November 1997. In October 1998, BAHF transferred the cargo plane from Moses Lake, WA to Greybull, WY for inspection and restoration. In September 1999 the FAA signed off on the Approved Inspection Program and in 2000 the aircraft was painted in the colors of YC-97A 45-59595, the sole C-97 used in the Berlin Airlift. In 2001 she was moved to Aberdeen, SD and Millville, NJ, and then the aircraft was flown to Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, NY in May 2002, where she currently resides. The restoration reached effective completion by the time the first engine runs took place in October 2016, and crew training began in earnest. Although the original plan was to fly Angel of Deliverance in late 2016, the delay has allowed BAHF founder Tim Chopp and his team to continue their efforts to improve and beautify their portly angel. The final speed bump to the first flight is obtaining final determination from the FAA on the crew currency requirements. Technically the aircraft needs pilots current in the type; however, no one in the entire world is current in the C-97. Pilots and flight engineers with extensive experience and type ratings are ready to go as soon as the FAA confirms their acceptance. The Berlin Airlift Historical Foundation appeals to C-97 veterans and their families, as well as families and friends of Cold War veterans, and all patriotic Americans to help Angel of Deliverance achieve her mission of becoming the only flying C-97 and to educate people across the country about a pivotal time in American and USAF history. Tim Chopp said, Kevin Kearney, the Foundations Vice President and member of the board of directors, coined the very appropriate phrase: Be part of something BIG. The C-97 is certainly big, and so is the mission the Berlin Airlift Historical Foundation is dedicated to. To learn more and to provide financial support, visit: www.spiritoffreedom.org Thanks to Greg Morehead and Warbird Digest for allowing the reproduction of this article. Subscribe to Warbird Digest Each issue comes with 68 full color pages.Restoration News Stunning Photography World Wide Warbird Coverage, including: Fighter, Bomber, Jet, Trainer & Liaison, Museum News, Operator Information Request your subscription today, click the banner below! By Stephen Chapis Ezell Aviation in Breckenridge, Texas, is currently in the final stages of a five-year restoration of an F8F-1 Bearcat for the Texas Flying Legends Museum (TFLM) of Houston, Texas. During its career, Bearcat BuNo 95356 served aboard USS Tarawa (CV-40) as 209 B. It first appeared on the U.S. Registry when Vernon Jarvis registered it as N7247C in 1963. It was on its fourth owner on April 26, 1969, when it was heavily damaged in an off-airport landing in a swamp near Madison, Wisconsin, after a complete engine failure. The aircraft ended up on its back, trapping the 43-year-old pilot in the cockpit. He was extracted after rescuers cut a hole in the fuselage. The fighter has not flown since. TFLM acquired the wreckage of 95356 and F8F-2 BuNo 121528, along with a multitude of used and new old stock parts from John Dusty Dowd of Syracuse, Kansas, as well as the remains of the late-Howard Pardues XF8F-1 BuNo 90446 and an F8F-2 that belonged to the late-Robert Kucera. Because it was the best candidate for restoration, Ezell Aviation began to work on 95356 in 2012. One of the key elements of this restoration was the construction of a new stainless steel spar to replace the original aluminum spar. Chad Ezell recently spoke to Warbird Digest about the inherent design flaws of the original spar. The technical aspects are beyond the scope of this report, but in a nutshell the new spar is heavier but is twice as strong as the original. Ezell added, Weve made steady progress on it and currently we have the engine on it, the gear is in it, as well as 90% of the sheet metal. One of the big challenges we are working on now are the exhaust panels that run from the exhaust stacks and overtop of the wing. Its a stainless steel piece that is about 28-30 inches long and it has a lot of curves in it. Currently, Chad and his crew are working on the electrical systems and fitting the gear doors, windscreen, and canopy. TFLM and Ezell Aviation intend to have the aircraft judged at Oshkosh, therefore great attention is being given to the installation of original equipment, including the instrument panel and the shelf-mounted radios in the tail. Chad explains, We havent nailed down yet how we are going to do the avionics but it will be a balance of originality and safety. Although Oshkosh is the goal, Chad said they are not going to rush in order to make it to AirVenture. To whet the appetites of enthusiasts worldwide, Ezell said there are enough remaining parts to build two more Bearcats, one of which could be built as a dual control aircraft, while the other could be packaged and sold as a project. That being said, Texas Flying Legends Museum and Ezell Aviation have given fans of the Grumman Iron Works much to look forward to. Thanks to Greg Morehead and Warbird Digest for allowing the reproduction of this article. Subscribe to Warbird Digest Each issue comes with 68 full color pages.Restoration News Stunning Photography World Wide Warbird Coverage, including: Fighter, Bomber, Jet, Trainer & Liaison, Museum News, Operator Information Request your subscription today, click the banner below! [inpost_galleria thumb_width=200 thumb_height=200 post_id=28979 thumb_margin_left=3 thumb_margin_bottom=0 thumb_border_radius=2 thumb_shadow=0 1px 4px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) id= random=0 group=0 border= show_in_popup=0 album_cover= album_cover_width=200 album_cover_height=200 popup_width=800 popup_max_height=600 popup_title=Gallery type=yoxview sc_id=sc1492076979931] CRPF will be filing an FIR against those locals in Nashrullahpora, Budgam, who assaulted eight Jawans while they were returning from poll duty. By Kamaljit Kaur Sandhu: Hours after a series of amateur short videos went viral on social media showing CRPF jawans being heckled, hit and kicked by a mob in Nashrullahpora, Budgam, the CRPF has lodged a complaint with Jammu and Kashmir Police. "We are in process of lodging an FIR against the hecklers," said Ravideep Shahi IG CRPF. Multiple videos showed locals assaulting Jawans who were returning from a polling station in Budgam district of Srinagar, which went to the bypoll amid widespread protests and violence on Sunday. advertisement Videos show remarkable restraint shown by CRPF personnel, despite highest provocation. EXCLUSIVE : Indian CRPF soldiers , kicked , slapped , punched on head & made to say GO INDIA ..GO BACK by #Islamists in #Kashmir pic.twitter.com/4API68KDfg- Kolahoi (@PawanDurani) April 12, 2017 "The CRPF men showed remarkable restraint. It shows our men do not respond despite provocation. Only if there is threat to life or property," said Shahi. In one video, a youth in the crowd whacks one of the jawans in the head, whereas another can be heard saying "haya layus ma (hey, don't beat him)". Another attacker then flips off the Jawan's helmet. As some of the stone pelters chant 'Go India, Go Back' while walking with the jawans, others capture the assault on their mobile phone cameras. The jawans stay calm and do not react. Officials tell India Today that they back the response of its men. "They did not get provoked," one says. One of the jawans who is attacked, can be seen walking calmly with an INSAS rifle in his hand. He is reported to have told his seniors that his and his colleagues' prime concern at the time was to keep the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) they were carrying with them, after a polling station was attacked in Budgam. The same group of eight men had to later take positions and fire 30 mortar shells to disperse the crowd, however. Senior officers said this was a Catch-22 situation for the force for having to respond to your own country men. CRPF DIG Sanjay Kumar now plans to identify the Jawans and "recommend them for an award for showing restraint." Read: For every slap on my army's jawan, lay down at least a 100 jihadi lives, says Gautam Gambhir --- ENDS --- Patients coming to get anti-rabies shots at the Bara Hindu Rao hospital often have to contend with the menace of stray dogs near the anti-rabies department. By Arpan Rai, Priyanka Sharma: Once bitten and twice shy, patients seeking anti-rabies shots at Delhi's Bara Hindu Rao Hospital are being hounded by stray dogs and militant monkeys. While the canines roam free in every corner of the institute, people waiting to get an injection for a dog bite often have to get another one after being gnawed by the simians. advertisement The biggest hospital run by the North Municipal Corporation of Delhi witnesses large troops of monkeys within the campus that attack patients as well as doctors. However, the institute has apparently turned a blind eye to the problem. When Mail Today visited the hospital on Wednesday, it found several dogs wandering in the anti-rabies department, where patients had gathered to get the medication. 'NO EFFORTS BE AUTHORITIES' "We get over 250-300 dog-bite cases and around 6,000 patients come for the rabies vaccination every month," a senior nurse said, requesting anonymity. "There are no efforts by the authorities of the hospital to shoo away the dogs from the premises." In 1951, the Delhi government converted a nursing home here into a general hospital offering basic preventive and curative OPD services with 127 beds for in-patients. The Municipal Corporation of Delhi took over the hospital in 1958 and the union health ministry designated it a referral hospital in 1963. A senior doctor, on condition of anonymity, said, "Every day, we see 3-5 cases of monkey bite too. No measures have been taken by authorities despite repeated complaints." The hospital also caters to the medical and health needs of a number of referred patients from the dispensaries and colony hospitals managed by MCD, the nearby public hospitals managed by the Delhi administration and many charitable and private institutions. Asif, who had come to get a rabies vaccine, said, "I spoke to the security guard about removing the dogs from here, but they are not bothered." TOP OFFICIAL PROMISES ACTION When contacted, Dr Ajeet Goyal, the institute's medical director, said he was unaware of the canine conundrum. "I will take quick action in this matter and issue a circular that all measures should be taken up to keep dogs and monkey away from the hospital premises," he promised. "Patients' safety and appropriate treatment is our utmost priority." Delhi has a sizeable stray dog population. MAIL TODAY had reported in January that the South Delhi Municipal Corporation has sterilised only 0.01 per cent of the 1,89,285 strays under its jurisdiction in the past one year. Sources from SDMC told Mail Today that more than 1,000 incidents of dog bites have surfaced in the past one month. advertisement "We need to contain the population of stray dogs urgently to eradicate the problem of death by rabies, which has zero per cent survival rate," said Dr Sanjeev Nayyar, mayor of North Municipal Corporation of Delhi, adding that the corporations will have to carry out sterilisation drives consecutively for five to six years to ensure that there is a reduction in dog bites. However, one problem that sterilisation does solve effectively is controlling the dog bites and nuisance behaviour of stray dogs, said Rahul Sehgal from Humane Society International. However, one problem that sterilisation does solve effectively is controlling the dog bites and nuisance behaviour of stray dogs, said Rahul Sehgal from Humane Society International. ALSO READ | Thousand times bitten but Delhi shy on stray dogs ALSO READ | Stray dogs chase away murderer, help Delhi Police crack murder case --- ENDS --- Waterford Fine Gael Senator John Cummins has described the progress which has been made on the purchase of the former Waterford Crystal site for... "I agree that energy is a commodity that should be provided at a cheap price but that should be the case for the poor who do not have enough money," Pradhan said. Dharmendra Pradhan said power should be susbsidised only for the poor and not the rich (Photo: Ramesh Sharma) By Mail Today Bureau: Minister for petroleum and natural gas Dharmendra Pradhan took a swipe at the Arvind Kejriwal government on Wednesday, saying it believes in giving electricity at cheap prices even to the rich - who can afford to pay the market rate - as part of its "populism". Delhi's ruling Aam Aadmi Party gave a political bloody nose to the BJP as well as the Congress in the assembly election two years ago, when the upstart outfit staged a stunning victory on the back of promises to slash electricity and water bills. advertisement "I agree that energy is a commodity that should be provided at a cheap price but that should be the case for the poor who do not have enough money," Pradhan said, addressing the inaugural session of the 3rd Mail Today Energy Conclave. "But there is no case for providing cheap electricity to even the rich people in Delhi who have enough money to run diesel generators that produce electricity at a cost of Rs 20 per unit." CALLS FOR SERIOUS DEBATE ON SUBSIDIES The minister said giving energy at subsidised prices to those who can afford the market price left fewer resources with the government to support the poor, as he called for a serious debate. Prior to its electoral debut in then Congress-ruled Delhi in 2013, AAP had launched a campaign against the high cost and poor delivery of electricity and water in the Capital. Party convener Kejriwal exhorted the people to tear up their bills and refuse payment. Pradhan said the Narendra Modi government in contrast had put in place a policy that targets subsidies to the poorer sections. "Those who can afford to pay should be charged the market price so that the less-privileged people, who do not have enough money, can be cross-subsidised," he added. 'COUNTRY LAGGING BEHIND ON ENERGY' The minister pointed out that the country had been lagging behind on the energy front for years and had fallen back by nearly two decades in the goal to provide clean energy to all. "Since LPG was first introduced in 1955, only 14 crore household connections for cooking gas were provided over 60 years. In the last three years, however, the Modi government has provided LPG connections to 6 crore households out of which 2 crore were given free to women who live below the poverty line, Pradhan said. He said the 12-month target set for the Prime Minister's Ujjwala scheme for providing free LPG connections to the poor had been achieved in 11 months and the government was forging ahead with the aim to offer clean cooking fuel to more people. Pradhan said when the Modi government took over, only 61 per cent households had cooking gas connections in the country. advertisement The number of such households has gone up to 73 per cent over the last three years, which has not only changed the lifestyle of families, earlier dependent on firewood, but also led to a cleaner environment, he added. The minister explained that the government is carrying out policy reforms to provide the benefits of energy to everyone in an "affordable and sustainable" manner. FOCUS ON NEW OIL FIELDS He said ONGC and Oil India, which produce 80 per cent of the country's natural gas, have been asked to step up exploration and production efforts. GAIL is also implementing plans to increase the length of its gas pipeline network from 15,000 km to 30,000 km nationwide. Pradhan said the government had also come out with a policy to allow market prices for the sale of gas from all new discoveries made in the future to encourage exploration. He said that "economic diplomacy" is another area to which the Modi government is giving a huge emphasis. He pointed out that the giant Vankor oil field in Russia in which India is investing $5 billion (over Rs 33,260 crore) to ensure energy security is an example of a good deal that is talked about in oil circles worldwide. advertisement The development of the Chittagong port in Bangladesh and the deepwater Sittwe port in Myanmar are also part of the economic diplomacy that will make it easier to supply petroleum products to India's northeastern states through the two neighbouring countries. ALSO READ | No residential house tax if AAP wins Delhi civic polls, says Kejriwal ALSO READ | Changing petrol, diesel prices daily is a gamble, say petrol pump associations --- ENDS --- HOT on the heels of Waterford City being named the Best Place To Live, it was announced this week that 27m is to be... Port of Waterford has estimated that it would generate 3.5m this summer with the return of cruise ships for the first time in two... IF you are one of those parents who bought your child a bicycle for the new year but are struggling to find somewhere to... ... but you will need to show proof of jab get into bars STUDENTS heading to college in September will not have to be vaccinated... Christmas is such an important time for family reunions, but there are many of us for whom Christmas is also a time when those... THE road to the classroom is to be made safer and easier for four Waterford primary schools. They have been selected for inclusion in... The team at Waterford Walls has hardly been able to contain its excitement this week as it brings another exciting artwork to the city.... A WATERFORD GP has claimed we are now experiencing the worst level of Covid-19 in the country because we were effectively spared the brunt... As a child, I ate Vietnamese food with my family every day. It was a shock to me to learn that not everyone had chopsticks in their drawers at home. Vietnamese food was part and parcel of my daily existence the clinking of chopsticks on china, the liberal application of nuoc mam (fish sauce) to everything (seriously, everything), the methodical rhythm of helping my mother make pastries and rice paper rolls, hands moving like a tiny factory. Sometimes my mother would pack Vietnamese food for me to take to school. The other kids would scrunch their noses at the smells emanating from my lunchbox my gio (pork sausage) sandwiches, my perfectly packaged containers of leftover mi xao (fried noodles). I began to dread being asked what I was having for lunch. Even as an adult, I sometimes flinch when someone asks what I'm eating. I feel my defenses prickling quietly, dormant but ever present. Tet feast at the Nguyen house. Credit:Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen I became pescetarian at 14, vegetarian at 22, vegan at 24. At every step of that journey, I waved goodbye to some of the foods that had been such a crucial part of my upbringing, but my mother ensured I could still taste the comforts of home by lovingly recreating vegan versions of those dishes just for me. BJP candidate Shobha Rani Kushwaha was leading in the bypoll to Dholpur Assembly constituency by over 22,000 votes. By Dev Ankur Wadhawan: With a total of 91,4799 votes Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Shobha Rani Kushwaha today won the Dholpur by-election in Rajasthan. Kushwaha defeated Congress's Banwari Lal Sharma who received 52,821 votes. The Congress candidate Banwari Lal Sharma was trailing in the initial trend, Kushwaha won 19 rounds out of 20. The by-election was necessitated following disqualification of BSP MLA B L Kushwaha in a murder case and the BJP surprised observers by pitting his wife Shobha Rani as its candidate against Congress veteran Banwari Lal Sharma. advertisement Health Minister Kalicharan Saraf said that the people of Dholpur voted for development and the party is going to win the seat. Also Read Crucial day for Vasundhara Raje as results of Dholpur by-election to be announced today --- ENDS --- You know how people say domestic violence affects everyone. And sure, I know it does, but this was close for me. A young woman who I now feared would be lost forever because her father killed her mother. This year, there are 11 women on that list of those killed by violence. In 2015, the year Salwa was killed, it was 27. No matter the number, it's always too many. And every year, those deaths spread out to the families, to the friends, to the workplaces and schools. Whatever you may think about teaching and teachers, know this: teachers don't just turn up at nine and finish at five. We take our students' lives home with us, we have dreams for them. We worry. And I was worrying about Nour even in first year. She'd planned to do another degree and suddenly, out of the blue, turned up in journalism class. And year by year, she got the hang of it. Every year, you see students finally get it. You see their future ribbon out before them. And then her father murdered her mother. Over the next two years, I kept in touch. She got a job at Sky but really her heart and soul were occupied. I sent a few messages, not wanting to be weird but not wanting to lose sight of Nour. She said she was applying for a job at the ABC. Beijing: With the clock ticking, and North Asia on edge, the United States and China appear to be deploying carrot and stick diplomacy in attempt to dissuade North Korea from a nuclear test or missile launch. A day after berating Pyongyang with the threat of tougher sanctions, a prominent Chinese state-owned newspaper has told the rogue state its best chance of survival is giving up nuclear weapons and accepting Chinese protection. The Global Times, in its Chinese-language editorial, warned there is increasing consensus between the US and China on the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula, with one difference being that the US may be prepared to use force. North Korea's best option was to announce a halt to its nuclear program, and in return China would ensure North Korea's security afterwards and help to revive its economy, the editorial said. Caracas: Anti-government protests in Venezuela have spread to the low-income neighbourhoods that were once supportive of leftist President Nicolas Maduro. In a worrying sign Mr Maduro, groups in Caracas' traditionally pro-government hillside slums and low-income areas blocked streets and lit fires, witnesses and opposition lawmakers reported. Abelino Vieira inspects the hole where looters entered his grocery and liquor store during Tuesday's protest in Caracas, Venezuela. Credit:AP Mr Maduro foes were galvanised by footage of a crowd in the south-eastern Bolivar state heckling and throwing objects at the closely-protected leader during a rally on Tuesday, before state television cut off the broadcast. In the western Lara state, two people, aged 13 and 36, were killed during the unrest, the state prosecutor's office said in a statement. Lara's opposition governor Henri Falcon blamed violence on "infiltrators" and "delinquents" who roamed on motorcycles after an energy blackout. Well, he's got this going for him: he knows the job. Former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has registered to run once again for president. In doing so, he defied the country's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who told him it was "not in his interest and that of the country". Former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (right) and close ally Hamid Baghaei will both stand in the Iranian presidential election. Credit:AP Ahmadinejad's surprising decision to run again adds even more uncertainty to the upcoming election, which is widely seen as a referendum on the 2015 nuclear deal in which Iran agreed to curb its uranium enrichment in exchange for international sanctions relief. A majority of Iranians support the deal, though many say that they're disappointed by its limited economic impact. Washington: CIA Director Mike Pompeo on Thursday called WikiLeaks a non-state "hostile intelligence service" often abetted by state actors, such as Russia during last year's presidential campaign. "WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service," Pompeo told an audience at a Washington think tank. Russia's GRU intelligence service had used the anti-secrecy group to distribute hacked material during the 2016 US presidential election, he said. WikiLeaks released Democratic emails during the 2016 presidential campaign that US intelligence agencies say were hacked by Russia to try to tilt the election against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in favour of Republican Donald Trump, the eventual winner. Below are my reviews for May 2017. Wines are listed alphabetically by winery. Read additional information on . All of these reviews are freely available on-line at the . There is also a freely available . See previous reviews re-published in this space . Search 's on-line database . 60 wines reviewed in the May issue of Wine Enthusiast. They include a strong set of wines from Cairdeas, including the);); and).inaugural whites are also quite impressive ()., a new project by Jeff Lindsay-Thorsen (W.T. Vintners) also has its inaugural releases and they impress not just on quality but also on price ().In terms of value wines, the) is a standout. Also well worth a look is the); and).Enjoy!This wine is a blend of Grenache (44%), Mourvedre (22%), Syrah (14%), Cinsault (13%) and Counoise. It delivers aromas of red fruit, celery stalk, white pepper and herb that lead to ripe full-bodied dark-fruit flavors that offer a lot of enjoyment.Syrah (64%) takes the lead on this wine, which is topped off with Mourvedre (24%) and Grenache. It offers brooding aromas of thistle, herb, black pepper and dark fruit. The palate is fresh and flavorful, with a pleasing fruit-forward appeal.This wine is just under half Petite Sirah (48%), with the balance Syrah (24%), Counoise (21%) and Mourvedre. It opens with brooding aromas of red and purple fruit, cigar box and barrel spice. The purple-fruit flavors are rich and palate coating, showing a lovely sense of balance.Varietal Counoise remains a rarity in the state, although more and more producers are experimenting with it. This one brings aromas of crushed violets and purple fruit that lead to simultaneously full yet sleek fruit flavors that paint a bit around the edges but still deliver plenty of enjoyment.This variety is an extreme rarity in the state. It opens with aromas of plum, herb and spice that are followed by soft elegant fruit flavors that linger on the finish.This variety is a relative rarity in Washington. This one offers quiet aromas of spice and cherry along with barrel accents. The tart cherry flavors are medium bodied and fruit filled.Aromas of cigar box, herb and cherry are followed by bright tart acid-driven cranberry flavors. The tannins bring a light astringency but it delivers a lot of enjoyment.The aromas bring notes of coffee, bittersweet chocolate, wood spice, vanilla and black fruit. The fruit flavors bring a sense of elegance, with abundant vanilla flavors along with grainy tannins backing them up.Wood spice, vanilla and dark-fruit aromas are followed by tart game and red-fruit flavors. The wood seems very primary.Aromas of citrus peel, plum, herb, wood shavings and medicine cabinet are followed by plump cherry flavors. The tannins bring a slight sense of astringency.This 100% varietal wine comes from one of the states top vineyards. Brooding aromas of pitted cherry, coffee, cocoa, vanilla and spice lead to tart cranberry and cherry flavors. The tannins bring a coarse feel. Perhaps they will soften with some additional time in bottle.This wine is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Pinot Noir and Syrah. Aromas of green wood mixed with tire rubber, red currant, strawberry and spice. It delivers red and black-fruit flavors that linger on the finish.Aromas of green wood, herb and cherry lead to ripe but chalky feeling fruit flavors. Theres some interesting things going on but a sense of astringency and bitterness proves distracting.This wine charms with aromas of freshly sliced green apple, white peach, wet stone and flowers. It drinks off dry, with zippy acidity providing plenty of tension to keep the interest high.The aromas bring notes of milk chocolate, spice and red fruit, along with high-toned vanilla accents. The fruit and barrel flavors are plush and full, while still showing a lovely sense of balance.Aromas of honeysuckle and ripe peach lead to lightly spritzy medium-sweet stone-fruit flavors. It provides easy-drinking appeal.Bright aromas of rose petals and lychee are followed by lightly spritzy, off-dry fruit flavors. It delivers easy-drinking appeal.Aromas of vanilla, coffee and wood spice are followed by barrel-centric flavors, with the fruit working to get its way to the surface.Named after famed Horse Heaven Hills grower Mimi Nye, this wine brings aromas of toast, custard and pineapple. Fruit and barrel flavors weave together on the palate, carrying through the finish.The warmth of the vintage shows through on the fruit of this wine, which is chock-full of pineapple and other tropical aromas and flavors, sweetened by light barrel accents. Its a guaranteed crowd pleaser and a spot-on example of the variety.Appealing aromas of cocoa, vanilla, spice and red fruit are followed by plump ripe fruit and barrel flavors. Chocolate flavors linger on the finish. The oak plays prominently.This wine starts out a bit reduced, along with subdued aromas of lime leaf, wet slate, white peach and citrus peel. It drinks a hair off dry, with zippy citric acidity that stretches out the finish.Strong aromas and flavors of vanilla and dill overwhelm the varietys cherry and green herb. There are some good things going on but the wood gets in the way.This wine is a near equal split between three varieties: Gerenache, Syrah and Mourvedre. Mesmerizing aromas of red cherry, plum, wood spice and herb are followed by quite tart elegant fruit flavors. It shows a lot of finesse but still needs some time to stretch its legs.Varietal Malbecs are a rarity from this tiny appellation. This one offers aromas of dark plum, herb and wood spice. The flavors are full bodied and hedonistic, showing the ripe, forward style of the vintage, finishing a bit sharp.Wound up aromas of blackberry, spice box and wood spice are followed by pitch-black black-cherry flavors. The tannins are tightly coiled and need some time to unwind.Aromas of plum, clove, coffee and wood spice lead to plush plump fruit flavors. The tannins give a light squeeze.Appealing aromas of cocoa, herb, cherry and barrel spice lead to full fruit flavors. Burly slightly drying tannins give it a firm squeeze.The volatiles are amped up here, providing distraction from the cherry and spice aromas. Its a shame as the palate delivers plenty of plump lightly sweet cherry flavors.Toasty aromas mix with notes of freshly shucked corn and biscuit. The flavors are spritzy and lively, with berry flavors on the finish.Fruit and barrel aromas intermingle, with notes of vanilla, coconut, wood spice, clove and red berries. The red fruit flavors are fresh and focused, with lightly grainy tannins providing the frame.This wines aromas display a mixture of fruit and barrel, with notes of vanilla, coconut shavings and plum. The flavors are the same, silky and elegant, with barrel flavors lingering on the finish. Its a very stylistic wine.Appealing aromas of cedar, vanilla, smoke and cherry are followed by a full creamy-feeling palate loaded with fresh cherry flavors along with abundant barrel accents. It hits a lot of high notes, with a lengthy finish capping it off.Cafe au lait, herb, cherry and wood-spice aromas lead to elegantly styled fruit and barrel flavors. It shows a lovely sense of styling.Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot make up the majority of this blend (42% each), with Malbec, Petit Verdot and Syrah rounding it out. Aromas of toast, vanilla, cocoa, cherry and herb lead to sweet, elegant chocolate and cherry flavors, threaded with vanilla notes.Vibrant aromas of white flowers, ripe peach, fresh herb, cocoa butter and hard candy lead to nuanced, well-balanced fruit flavors that show just a touch of lees influence. It offers an exquisite sense of balance and depth along with an extended finish.Walla Walla Valley-designated white wines are a rarity. This one brings aromas of apple skin and pear, showing a very clean profile that leads to dry creamy-feeling fruit flavors. Its capped off by a warm finish, speckled with barrel accents. Overall, it provides a lot of intrigue.This wine is a blend of Merlot (45%), Cabernet Sauvignon (40%), Petit Verdot (10%) and Cabernet Franc. Aromas of savory herb, carob, wood spice and cherry lead to plump fruit-forward flavors that also show intriguing earthy accents. The finish lingers. There are lots of good things going on but the wood seems a bit prominent.This blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah and Sangiovese brings bright aromas of cranberries, red currants and cherries. The palate packs a punch of dark-fruit flavors, showing some heat on the finish.Starting off slightly reduced, this wine has aromas of dried red apple that lead to just off-dry, full apple flavors, finishing bitter.This wine is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon (58%), Malbec (22%) and Merlot. Aromas of blue and red fruit and spice lead to tart, broad fruit flavors that winnow somewhat toward the finish. Still, it brings a lot of enjoyment.The aromas come off as quite volatile, making it difficult to get at the tart cherry aromas and flavors.The aromas are bright and generous, with notes of honeysuckle and canned peach. The fruit is so sweet on the palate, it drinks almost off dry, with abundant stone-fruit and floral flavors that linger.Aromas of ripe (leaning almost overripe) apple, melon and orange peel are followed by medium-sweet fruit flavors. It needs more acid to stand it up.The volatiles are quite amped on this wine. It makes it a struggle to get at the tart black cherry flavors.The aromas of vanilla, herb and cherry show some volatility. The cherry flavors are light, finishing tart.This wine starts out a bit reduced, along with aromas of melon and red apple. It drinks a hair off dry, with a blend of stone-fruit and tropical flavors.Though not labeled as such, this wine is all Merlot coming from Stillwater Creek Vineyard on the Royal Slope. Aromas of red currant, dill, vanilla and wood spice are followed by lighter styled red-fruit flavors. There are some intriguing things going on but they dont seem to all come together.This wine is a pale cherry-red in color, showing some bricking. It brings off-dry elegantly styled cherry flavors that winnow toward the finish.This wine is locked up tightly at present, with notes of herb, mineral and dark fruit, along with a light gamy note. The cranberry flavors seem a bit dried out considering the age of the wine, with medicine cabinet notes on the finish.Aromas of mineral, exotic spice, leather and dried cherry lead to elegantly styled fruit, earth and game flavors. Theres intrigue here but it doesnt all come together.Herb and red-fruit aromas are accented by light volatile notes. The cherry flavors are lush and full but cant make up the difference. Tasted twice with consistent notes.Aromas of exotic spice, game, cherry and medicine cabinet lead to plush fruit and savory flavors. The overt gaminess seems distracting, with the flavors tapering off toward the finish.This wine is a unique blend of Chenin Blanc (75%) and Gruner Veltliner. It brings light aromas of apple skin, flowers, spice and a hint of tropical fruit. The palate offers electric, lemony acidity that stretches out the fruit flavors on the lingering finish. Try it on the dinner table to see it at its best.Syrah (64%) takes the lead on this blend, which is fleshed out by Grenache (27%) and Mourvedre. It comes from vineyard sources rarely seen in a bottle at this price, including Boushey, Olsen, Les Collines, Stoney Vine and Destiny Ridge. Aromas of sage and herbs lead to a panoply of sleekly styled fruit and savory flavors, showing a pleasing sense of balance.Aromas of vanilla and wood spice lead to elegant, somewhat dried out and dilute fruit flavors, followed by a short finish.Petit Verdot makes up 71% of this wine, with the balance Merlot (25%) and Cabernet Sauvignon. It opens with aromas of soil, herb, flowers and purple fruit followed by tart acids and firm tannins. Try it at the dinner table to see it at its best.Vanilla, mocha and dark-fruit aromas lead to tart fruit and barrel flavors that interweave through the vanilla-filled finish.This wine is brightly aromatic, with notes of fresh herb, kiwi and pineapple. The palate is full flavored, showing a sense of poise along with a tart finish. The concentration doesnt seem all there.Aromas of flowers, green herb, pear and peach lead to silky sleek stone-fruit flavors. Theres some interesting things going on but the fruit doesnt quite seem to have fully ripened. Patrick Norman Pat Chapman is a 34-year-old, Caucasian male who was last known to be in Piedmont which is near the area of Greenville, Missouri on May 10, 2020. Pat had stayed the night with a friend and his wife at their home. In the early morning when the friend woke to go to work. Pat was gone in his own Burgundy color 1995 Ford Escort. That is the last anyone was known to have seen him. The vehicle was later recovered on May 29, 2020 in Mill Spring, Missouri. By Press Trust of India: votes (EDs: With additional inputs) Dholpur/Jaipur, Apr 13 (PTI) BJP candidate Shobha Rani is leading by 22,602 votes after ten rounds of counting in the Dholpur Assembly bypoll in Rajasthan. "The BJP candidate has secured 47,951 votes while the votes of Congress candidate Banwari Lal Sharma are 25,349," according to the state election commission. advertisement A total of 74,742 votes have been counted in ten rounds and the counting is on amid tight security arrangements. Meanwhile, the BJP leaders are giving credit to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje whereas the Congress is questioning the credibility of EVM machines. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Rajendra Rathore and Health Minister Kalicharan Saraf said that the election was contested on the development agenda and voters have given their mandate in favour of the party. "Development was our agenda and the trends have indicated that the people voted for the development," Rathore, who along with other leaders did intensive campaigning in Dholpur, said. Saraf said that people of Dholpur have voted for development and the party is going to win the seat. "The election was contested under the leadership of the chief minister and we are going to win the seat," he said. Enthusiastic workers gathered at the party headquarters here and congratulated each other. "The impact of the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje is visible in the election. People have voted for them. The party won Uttar Pradesh elections recently and this also had an impact in Dholpur bye-election," the party MLA Alka Singh said. Khadi Board Chairman Shambhu Dayal Badgujar said that the trends were a very clear indication that people have once again expressed faith in the leadership of the Prime Minister and the Chief Minister. Badgujar along with his supporters congratulated the party leadership. On the other hand, Congress leader and former MLA Pratap Singh questioned the credibility of EVM machines. "There are only trends and the result has not been announced so far. The chief minister herself stayed in Dholpur after the campaigning got over which was in violation of the rules of the election commission. "The BJP misused the government machinery and the party wanted to win the election anyhow. The credibility of EVM machines is also in question,? Singh said. In the 2013-assembly elections, BSP candidate B L Kushwaha had won the seat by defeating Congress candidate Banwari Lal Sharma by a margin of 9,209 votes. advertisement BJP candidate (Abdul Sagir Khan) was in the third position by securing 35,351 votes. PTI SDA IKA --- ENDS --- Dipa Karmakar became the first Indian gymnast to enter the final on her Olympics debut while wrestler Sakshi Malik won the bronze medal in the 58kg category at the 2016 Rio Games. By Asian News International: Indian trailblazing gymnast Dipa Karmakar and wrestler Sakshi Malik on Thursday received the coveted Padma Shri Award from President Pranab Mukherjee in the national capital. Karmakar, hailing from Agartala, missed the bronze medal by 0.150 points as American gymnast Simone Biles won her third gold medal at the Rio Olympics last year. The 23-year-old had created history when she became the first Indian gymnast to enter the final on her debut at the quadrennial multi-discipline games after finishing eighth in the qualifying round. advertisement She had initially come to spotlight after winning a bronze medal at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, thus becoming the first Indian female gymnast to achieve the feat. Sakshi, on the other hand, won the bronze medal in the 58 kg category at the 2016 Summer Olympics. With the win, Malik became the first woman wrestler in India to win an Olympic medal and fourth Indian woman athlete to clinch the coveted medal after Karnam Malleshwari, Mary Kom and Saina Nehwal. Meanwhile, discus thrower Vikas Gowda and Paralympian Mariyappan Thangavelu were other notable winners of the prestigious award. ALSO WATCH: --- ENDS --- By India Today Web Desk: Yeh Hai Mohabbatein actor Aly Goni has been making headlines ever since reports claiming that the actor is quitting the hit Ekta Kapoor show started doing rounds on the internet. Fans were really worried about the said news as the actor has a bunch of admirers who follow the show just to see their favourite star. advertisement However, looks like there is not much truth to these reports as the actor recently opened up on the subject and cleared the air regarding the news. Also see: Yeh Hai Mohabbatein actress Aditi Bhatia's Goa pictures will give you travel goals "No I'm not quitting the show yet. I am looking at a few other things, yes, but I'm not leaving the show yet. They (makers) are not letting me go now," Aly told BollywoodLife. Yeh Hai Mohabbatein also stars Divyanka Tripathi, Karan Patel, and Aditi Bhatia in pivotal roles. --- ENDS --- Defending US' missile strike on a Syrian airbase, Donald Trump said he had no doubt that the decision was right and was successfully executed. By India Today Web Desk: US President Donald Trump said that the relations between US and Russia are "may be at an all-time low" as the two countries are not getting along with each other. The Russian government had condemned the missile strikes by the US government on a Syrian airbase. Donald Trump, however, defended his decision and said, "I have absolutely no doubt that we did the right thing". advertisement Despite the turbulence in relationship between the two countries, both have agreed to work jointly on the Syrian conflict. HERE IS ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT WHAT US AND RUSSIA SAID: Donald Trump's remark about "all-time low" ties between US and Russia came after US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was reported by Xinhua news agency as saying that US and Russia have reached a low point in their relations. The Russian government did not mince words to condemn the US missile strike at a Syrian airbase and called it Washington's move "aggression against a sovereign state in violation of international law". Donald Trump defended his decision to launch 59 missiles at the Syrian airbase in response to last week's chemical attack in the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun in Syria's Idlib, that killed more than 80 people. "It can't be a worst sight. And it shouldn't be allowed. That's a butcher," Donald Trump said. "So, I felt we had to do something about it. I have absolutely no doubt we did the right thing. And it was very, very successfully done," the US President said at a joint press conference with visiting NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the White House. On whether Russia had prior knowledge about Syrian government's alleged use of chemical weapons, Donald Trump said it is "possible" but "unlikely" that Russia had known in advance of Syria's plan to launch a chemical weapons attack on its own citizens. "I know they're doing investigations into that right now. I would like to think that they didn't know, but certainly they could have. They were there. So we'll find out," Donald Trump said. Despite the tensions between the two countries, both Russia and the US agreed to fight international terrorism and continue discussions on Syrian conflict settlement. Despite the tensions between the two countries, both Russia and the US agreed to fight international terrorism and continue discussions on Syrian conflict settlement. "With all the existing problems, both objective and artificially created ones, we still have quite a few prospects for joint work. Russia is open to dialogues with the US in different areas, and not only to dialogues but also to joint actions," Sergei Lavrov was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency. "With all the existing problems, both objective and artificially created ones, we still have quite a few prospects for joint work. Russia is open to dialogues with the US in different areas, and not only to dialogues but also to joint actions," Sergei Lavrov was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency. Russia had earlier vetoed a UN resolution demanding the Syrian government cooperate with an investigation of the suspected chemical attack, saying that Moscow had consistently expressed its "categorical disagreement" with the draft resolution, which led to further criticism from the West including the US. (with inputs from IANS) ALSO READ: Russia comes to Assad's rescue again, vetoes draft UN motion condemning Syria gas attack Putin says trust erodes under Trump, Moscow icily receives Rex Tillerson Donald Trump, Theresa May agree Russia should break ties with Syrian President Assad ALSO WATCH: This video of a Syrian father with twin kids who survived chemical attack will move you --- ENDS --- UP State Election Commission has demanded new EVMs to conduct local body polls in the state scheduled for July. The poll panel said that it might have to go back to ballot papers if old EVMs were not replaced. By Kumar Abhishek: The Uttar Pradesh State Election Commission has asked for new electronic voting machines to conduct urban body polls in the state slated for July this year. It has written a letter to the Election Commission saying, "Provide us EVMs made after 2006 else we may have to use ballot papers in the elections." The local body elections will be held in July in Uttar Pradesh. In the last municipal elections in 2011, EVMs were used. advertisement The State Election Commission stated that the available EVMs were old and made before 2006. The State EC's demand indicates that the existing EVMs have become outdated. It has suggested that old EVMs should not be used for local body elections in Uttar Pradesh. The red-flagging by the UP State Election Commission assumes significance in the wake of ongoing political controversy of the authenticity of polls conducted using EVMs. EVM TAMPERING ROW Soon after the UP Assembly election, BSP cheif Mayawati had alleged that the EVMs were tampered to benefit the BJP. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal led a campaign demanding that the Election Commission should go back to ballot papers for conducting polls in the country. Kejriwal had even challenged the Election Commission to let him randomly pick an EVM and he would prove that the machine could be tampered with. A delegation of 13 Opposition parties, including the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party, approached the Election Commission over the matter recently. They expressed their 'complete loss of faith' in the EVMs. However, the Opposition parties were split over the way out for restoring faith in election process. Some parties demanded that the Election Commission should go back ballot papers while others sought mandatory use of Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) along with the EVMs. ALSO READ | Is this planted? Arvind Kejriwal responds to Election Commission's hack EVM challenge ALSO WATCH: EVM tampering row: Is AAP unable to concede defeat in Assembly polls? --- ENDS --- Advertisement By West Kentucky Star Staff Apr. 10, 2017 | PADUCAH, KY By West Kentucky Star Staff Apr. 10, 2017 | 05:48 PM | PADUCAH, KY Three people now face charges, after an investigation into threats on social media that began on Monday turned up drugs and weapons at a Paducah home. The McCracken County Sheriff's Department says detectives got a tip from someone alleging that 22-year-old Matthew Conner, a convicted felon, was making threats on social media to shoot people. Detectives and officers with the Kentucky Department of Probation and Parole located Conner at a home on Palmer Street. Deputies reportedly found a .22 caliber rifle in his possession. While inside the home, detectives said they also found a small amount of meth in plain view in the bedroom of another resident at the home, 22-year-old Justin Adams. Detectives searched the home and seized more meth, smoking pipes, a digital scale and another loaded rifle. Both Adams and Conner were arrested and booked into the McCracken County Regional Jail. Adams was charged with possession of meth, possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia. Conner was charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Detectives said they suspected the gun recovered from Conner was stolen. A records check with a local gun dealership on Wednesday identified the owner, and deputies verified that the gun was stolen. The owner told detectives that he had allowed 19-year-old Samuel Henderson to stay at his home on Tudor Blvd for a few days over the past week. Detectives located Henderson, and he reportedly admitted to stealing the gun. He also told detectives he had traded the firearm to Conner a few days prior. Henderson was arrested and charged with theft and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. He was on Felony probation for a previous burglary at the time of his arrest. By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Apr 13 (PTI) Retirement fund body EPFOs subscribers will get loyalty-cum-life benefit of up to Rs 50,000 at the time of retirement for contributing to the scheme for 20 years or more. The benefit will also be provided in case of permanent disability even if the members have contributed for less than 20 years, the EPFO board has decided. advertisement The Employees Provident Fund Organisations (EPFO) apex decision making body, the Central Board of Trustees (CBT), has recommended a minimum sum assured of Rs 2.5 lakh in the event of death of a subscriber. "The CBT has recommended amending the Employees Deposit Linked Insurance Scheme (EDLI) to provide for minimum benefit of Rs 2.5 lakh and loyalty-cum-life benefit of up to Rs 50,000 at a meeting held yesterday," a senior official said. "The suggested benefits will be available to members after government approval. Initially, these will be provided for two years on a pilot basis and will be reviewed thereafter." According to the proposal, loyalty-cum-life benefit will be provided to all those members on retirement at 58 or 60 years who have contributed to the scheme for 20 years or more. The benefit will also be provided in case of permanent disability. In these cases, the members who have contributed to the EDLI scheme for less than 20 years will be eligible. Those members whose average basic wages are up to Rs 5,000 will get loyalty-cum-life benefit of Rs 30,000. Similarly, the members with wages of Rs 5,001-10,000 Will be eligible for Rs 40,000 benefit. All those members getting more than Rs 10,000 monthly wage will be eligible for Rs 50,000 loyalty-cum-life benefit under the proposed scheme. The board has recommended such benefits in view of a huge EDLI corpus of Rs 18,119 crore following addition of interest that accrued on investment of this fund. At present, the dependants of the deceased get a sum assured of up to Rs 6 lakh. There is no provision of minimum insurance and any benefit for surviving members or in cases of permanent disability under the scheme. Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya launched Aadhaar Seeding Application after the meeting. The EPFO has developed this application with support of Common Service Centres (CSCs) and C-DAC. The CSCs are ICT-enabled front-end service delivery points at the village level for delivery of government and private services. advertisement With implementation of the seeding application, a PF member or pensioner can now walk into any of the field offices of EPFO or CSC outlets with UAN and Aadhaar and seed them. The EPFO enrolled 49,39,929 workers during January-March 2017. It had launched a special enrolment scheme to cover leftout formal sector workers from January 2017. PTI KKS ARD --- ENDS --- By West Kentucky Star Staff Apr. 12, 2017 | 09:38 PM | PADUCAH, KY The Bryant Law Center collected more than 4,000 pounds of food and $1,446 for area food banks during the Kentucky Legal Food Frenzy fund drive. To match donations, the Bryant Law Center gave $4,058. Donations were made to the Purchase Area Development District Food Bank. The Bryant Law Center collected the donation to benefit the Kentucky Legal Food Frenzy, a statewide fund drive competition among Kentucky law firms, law schools, and legal organizations to support the members of the Kentucky Association of Food Banks. The generosity of the people in our community truly showed through their giving. People gave not only money but carts full of groceries. We were so impressed by the amount of giving that our firm chose to donate $1 for every pound of food donated instead of the original 25 cents, said Mark Bryant, attorney and President of the Bryant Law Center. Purchase Area Development District Commodity & Food Bank Coordinator Clay Black said It has been moving and overwhelming watching the generosity of the attorneys in our area and across Kentucky who have participated the Kentucky Legal Food Frenzy fund drive. "I cannot begin to thank the entire staff of the Bryant Law Center for their time and donations. Their generosity was so moving, I am having difficulty finding the words to express my gratitude. This is the largest fund drive of its kind in our area and will provide food to the local food pantries who constantly struggle to acquire food. Black said. By The Associated Press Apr. 12, 2017 | 10:05 PM | CAIRO, IL Illinois political leaders have asked federal housing authorities to find adequate and safe housing for 185 families ordered to relocate from two public housing developments in southern Illinois. The Southern Illinoisan reports the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development plans to move residents of the Alexander County Housing Authority properties in May due to concerns such as poor heating and mold. Federal housing officials said there was no plan to provide new housing and that residents would be given vouchers and have their moving expenses paid. Democratic U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth sent a letter to Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, urging for a solution. Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Bost says he will continue to work with Mayor Tyrone Coleman and other local officials to provide housing and sustain the city. ___ Information from: Southern Illinoisan, http://www.southernillinoisan.com Advertisement By The Associated Press Apr. 13, 2017 | CHICAGO, IL By The Associated Press Apr. 13, 2017 | 11:32 AM | CHICAGO, IL A lawyer for a man dragged off a United Express flight says he suffered a concussion and broken nose and lost two front teeth. Attorney Thomas Demetrio said at a news conference Thursday that Dr. David Dao has been discharged from a hospital but will need reconstructive surgery. Dao was removed from the plane Sunday after he refused to give up his seat on the full flight from Chicago to Louisville. His daughter says the family was "horrified, shocked and sickened" to learn and see what happened. Crystal Pepper says seeing her father removed from the Sunday flight was "exacerbated" by the fact it was caught on video and widely distributed. Demetrio says airlines have "bullied" passengers "for a long time.", and that airlines have treated us as "less than maybe we deserve." He says he "probably" will file a lawsuit on Dao's behalf. United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz has said he was "ashamed" when he saw the video and that the airline is reviewing its policies. Munoz says law enforcement won't be involved in removing passengers in the future. Fatal semi crash on I-57 backing up traffic onto I-24 By The Associated Press Apr. 12, 2017 | 06:29 PM | FRANKFORT, KY State lawmakers have voted to include the phrase "in the year of our Lord" on some of their documents. The Lexington Herald-Leader reports House and Senate lawmakers passed resolutions requiring the phrase to be included in the date on all of their simple resolutions and floor citations. Republican state Sen. Albert Robinson sponsored the Senate measure as part of his effort to "anywhere and everywhere I can to respect our creator." The phrase "in the year of our Lord" is in both the U.S. and Kentucky constitutions and other historic documents, including President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. And Republican Gov. Matt Bevin includes the phrase in his signed proclamations. Fred Lovell Jr., a member of the Louisville Atheists and Freethinkers, said the measure is not necessary. ___ Information from: Lexington Herald-Leader, http://www.kentucky.com The Supreme Court has sought reply from the Election Commission and the Centre to the plea by May 8. By India Today Web Desk: The Supreme Court has issued notice to the Election Commission and the Centre on implementation of voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPATs) with electronic voting machines. The Supreme Court sought reply from the EC and the Centre by May 8 on the petition filed by Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) challenging use of EVMs without paper trail. advertisement Other individual petitioners have also filed PILs. The Congress and the Trinamool Congress have been allowed to file their intervening applications to be a part of the case. Arguing the case, senior advocate P Chidambaram told the Supreme Court that it is mandatory to use voter-verified paper audit trails (VVPATs) with the EVMs for elections but the same has not been done widely. It was further argued that the Chief Election Commissioner has also written to the Prime Minister's Office in 2014 raising security concerns. Congress leader and lawyer Kapil Sibal briefly addressed the Supreme Court bench led by Justice Chelameswar and said that no where in the world are EVMs used other than India. The Supreme Court made it clear to the BSP, which is the prime petitioner, that the party may not press for its prayer to cancel the recently conducted Uttar Pradesh Assembly election. BSP agreed that it shall first wait for a response from the Election Commission and the Centre. The Supreme Court will hear the matter on May 8. A paper trail machine shows voters a slip with the party symbol for which they have voted, before it is dropped into a sealed box. Voters can, therefore, immediately check if their vote was cast for the desired party. (with inputs from Anusha Soni) ALSO READ: Electronic Voting Machine: Here's all you wanted to know about India's EVMs Is this planted? Kejriwal responds to Election Commission's hack EVM challenge After Moily, now Capt Amarinder says EVMs cannot be tampered ALSO WATCH: EVM tampering row: Is AAP unable to concede defeat in Assembly polls? --- ENDS --- RK Raghavan, who was heading the apex court-appointed Special Investigation Team to probe 2002 Gujarat riots cases, has been relieved from the duty of heading the team. By India Today Web Desk: The Supreme Court today allowed RK Raghavan, chief of its Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the 2002 Gujarat riots, to be relieved from duty on health grounds. A Supreme Court bench of Chief Justice JS Khehar and Justices DY Chandrachud and SK Kaul considered the submission of senior advocate Harish Salve, who is assisting the court as an amicus curiae, that Raghavan be relieved from the duty of heading the SIT. advertisement "Appreciating" the work done by the SIT in investigating the 2002 violence across the state, the apex court also allowed another SIT member K Venkatesam to leave the team. The Supreme Court has asked AK Malhotra of the SIT to oversee the functioning of the team and keep filing quarterly progress report on the various riot cases it is probing. The Supreme Court-appointed SIT has been investigating nine major cases of the Gujarat violence, in which hundreds of Muslims were killed following the burning of a train at Godhra in February, 2002 during the tenure of Narendra Modi as the state Chief Minister. ALSO READ | Furious over MP's arrest, Mamata demands jail for PM Modi, Amit Shah for Gujarat riots --- ENDS --- A Kansas woman is accused of decapitating her ex-boyfriend's mother when the victim went to collect her son's belongings. Thirty-five-year-old Rachael Hilyard of Wichita was charged Wednesday with one count of first-degree murder in the death Sunday of 63-year-old Micki Davis. During a brief court appearance, a Sedgwick County judge assigned Hilyard to be represented by a public defender. She's jailed on $200,000 bond. Police say Davis was killed after taking her 9-year-old grandson with her to Hilyard's home. The boy ran away when the assault started and called police on his grandmother's phone. Police say the child wasn't present when his grandmother died. Police found Davis' body in the garage and Hilyard hiding in the home. By Press Trust of India: Dhaka, Apr 13 (PTI) The bodies of Harkat-ul-Jihad al- Islami chief Mufti Abdul Hannan and his two associates were buried after they were executed for a deadly attack on a shrine in 2004 that killed three persons and wounded the British high commissioner to Bangladesh. Hannan, 60, was hanged last night at Kashimpur Jail in Gazipur along with his accomplice Sharif Shahedul alias Bipul, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said. advertisement His associate Delwar Hossain Ripon was executed in Sylhet jail, the minister added. The bodies of the three were taken to their family plots in Moulvibazar, Chandpur and Gopalganj immediately after their sentences were carried out. Hannan has been buried at his familys graveyard in Gopalganj after his execution at Dhakas Kashimpur Jail. Hannans older brother Moulana Aliuzzaman Munshi received the body, Kamrul Farooq, police official at Kotaliparha, was quoted as saying by the bdnews. Bipul, an accomplice of Hannan, has been buried at his familys plot in Chandpur Sadar Upazilas South Moishadi village. Bipuls body was buried immediately after funeral prayers upon its arrival today, said Moishadi Union Parishad Chairman Moniruzaaman Manik. Bipul is survived by his wife and 9-year old son. The body of Ripon has been buried near his ancestral home in Moulvibazar. The funeral prayers were held at the Brahminbazar Union Konagaon village Eidgah field around 2:30 pm on Thursday. The body was then buried at a grave near the Eidgah field. The three militants were executed after President Abdul Hamid rejected their mercy petitions this week. Hannan, who studied in India and Pakistan, had fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan before returning to join HuJI, media reports said. On March 19, the Supreme Court reconfirmed its earlier verdict, endorsing death penalty to Hannan and the two others for the 2004 attack on the then UK envoy. The then Bangladeshi born British High Commissioner Anwar Chowdhury narrowly escaped the grenade attack at a shrine in northeastern Sylhet that killed three people, all policemen, and injured 70 others. Anwar sustained minor injuries. Hannan and seven other kingpins and operatives of Huji were earlier sentenced to death by another court in Dhaka for a deadly 2001 bomb attack that killed 10 people during Bengali New Year celebrations at a public park. HuJI was formed in 1992 by Bangladeshis who took part in the Afghan war against the Soviet forces in Afghanistan. PTI UZM AKJ UZM --- ENDS --- He's not even in kindergarten yet and already one Mid-Michigan boy is giving back to his community. 5-year-old Drake Bowen has a smile that will light up a room and he's hoping to spread that smile by making and selling bracelets to raise money for our four legged friends at the Ingham County Animal Shelter His motive is simple. So I can pet them and play with them, said Bowen. Animals have always been close to our heart, said Nicole Belman, Drakes mother. He has grown up around them and loves them so I suggested that we use some money to donate for the animal shelter for toys and food. It all started when mom bought beads around Christmas to make bracelets for gifts to family. Ever since, Drake hasn't stopped and has dedicated his free time to the cause. He's now even going to craft shows. He spends all evening, hell start around the time he gets out of school around 4:30 p.m. and he will work on them till I say bedtime around 8, said Belman. It's an efficient process. Drake will put the beads in order, cut the string, and mom will add the finishing touches and tie it all together. She's even helping sales. I take the bracelets to work and sell them there, friends online buy them, we list them on the Facebook yard sale sites and people buy them, said Belman. Already Drake has raised over $150 and shows no sign of stopping anytime soon. We'd like to continue selling them besides donating to the animal shelter, said Belman It'd be nice to start a savings account for him since hes only five and teach him about the business world so he gets familiar with that. So far half of Drake's profits have been donated to the animal shelter. Drake and his mom have bought more than $100 in toys and food and they'd like to buy blankets or beds for the dogs. Drake and his mother have plans to be set up at a Mason craft show in May. If you interested in learning more about Drakes bracelets or would like to purchase one, to visit the Facebook page. Bracelets are being sold for $1. Huma Qureshi's 28-day-long fitness challenge is giving us several (unattainable) fitness goals. By India Today Web Desk: There seems to be no stopping Huma Qureshi who's currently on a 28-day-long detoxification mission. A healthy mix of nutritious-yet-delicious food and regular workouts is keeping the Johnny LLB star busy and we're inspired to hit the gym right about now. advertisement Apart from snippets of the healthy delicacies she's been gorging on off late, Huma's Instagram account recently had her share a video indulging in unique set of crunches. Unique how, you ask? Well, Huma is seen performing these crunches not while lying down on ground but while being suspended upside-down on a cloth rope. Also Read: A red hot Huma Qureshi was all hearts for Ed Sheeran at the Brit Awards Captioning the video "Normal Crunches are sooo passe #AerialYogini #UpsideDownFun" Huma's effortless crunches are sure as hell tough in actuality. Normal Crunches are sooo pass #AerialYogini #UpsideDownFun A post shared by Huma Qureshi (@iamhumaq) on Apr 12, 2017 at 10:50pm PDT So, are you motivated yet? No? Here are more Huma Qureshi videos to shake you off that bed. Training like a boss???? @vilayathusain A post shared by Huma Qureshi (@iamhumaq) on Mar 31, 2017 at 3:13am PDT --- ENDS --- By Press Trust of India: Dhaka, Apr 13 (PTI) Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said today she hid nothing about the agreements she signed with India, rejecting her predecessor Khaleda Zias accusations that she failed to secure Dhakas interests and gained "nothing, but assurances". Zia, the leader of Bangladeshs main political opposition party BNP, has criticised the four-day India visit of Hasina, that concluded this week, during which the two countries inked 22 agreements including in defence and civil nuclear sectors. advertisement India announced a USD 4.5 billion Line of Credit to Bangladesh and an additional assistance of USD 500 million for its military procurement. But the two countries could not sign the long-pending Teesta waters sharing pact primarily due to opposition from West Bengal, through which the river passes. Zia yesterday said that Hasina brought "nothing from India, but assurances". She said the visit was Bangladesh governments failure to secure its interests from its stronger neighbour, claiming Hasinas Awami League government was "advised" by many political groups and civil society members against signing the defence deals with India. Hasina responded to Khaledas criticisms at a meeting of the Awami Leagues Working Committee, bdnews24.com reported. "The BNP leader said we kept the people in the dark while signing the memoranda of understanding (MoUs). I have only one question to ask her: Whom did she consult when she signed the defence deal with China? No-one saw what was in it," Hasina said. "At least, I didnt hide anything like she did," she added. The prime minister said the deals had been placed for clearance by the Cabinet before the signing, Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali spoke about those in a press conference before the visit and those were disclosed in the Bangladesh-India joint statement. "Now if someone cant see even after having eyes, then I have nothing to do," Hasina said, in a dig at her arch rival. She said Bangladesh has gained by signing the agreements and MoUs with India. "We will be able to bring power from India; diesel will come through pipeline; LNG will also be brought to overcome the gas crisis." About Khaledas criticism for the failure to have India sign the Teesta water-sharing deal, the prime minister asked, "Khaleda Zia was also in power, then why couldnt she bring Teesta water?" She alleged Bangladesh was actually paying for not protesting against a barrage India built on the Teesta river in Gazaldoba when Khaledas husband BNP founder Ziaur Rahman was in power. She also criticised Khaleda for "not raising" the Ganges water-sharing issue during her India visit when the latter was prime minister in 1991. PTI ABH AKJ ABH --- ENDS --- advertisement By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Apr 13 (PTI) Indira Gandhi National Open University, which has been pioneer in distance education, has now entered the digital education sphere and launched 11 free Massive Open Online Courses. An announcement in this regard was made by Minister of State for HRD, Mahendra Nath Pandey, during the 30th convocaation ceremony of the university. advertisement "IGNOU has now reached the free and digital education horizon, expanding the perimeter of distance education system. The MHRD has given the channels of Swayam and Swayamprabha to IGNOU so that it can bring a digital revolution in higher education," Pandey said in the convocation address. Last year, the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry had launched a bouquet of 32 direct-to-home (DTH) educational channels, called Swayam Prabha, to broadcast programmes for school and university students. The contents of these channels are prepared by the IIT professors and other subject experts. "The university is already working on Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). Our expectation from the university shall be to extend its students horizon towards digital education through new technology, communication mediums, electronic mediums and devices," he added. The university has introduced 11 MOOCs out of which two, Certificate course in Russian and Certificate course in e-learning, are already functional. "We plan to roll out the remainign nine by end of this month and 44 more MOOCs in next three months," a senior IGNOU official said. Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) is a system aimed at unlimited participation and open access via the web. It does not always quantify as formal education but provides a platform to study quality courses from institutions offering them, usually for free. "The online admission system has received an encouraging response with the university for admission of students for the July 2016 cycle. As many as 1,53,454 students took admission through this mode for the January 2017 cycle," Vice Chancellor Ravindra Kumar said. "Students are now allowed to edit the filled-in information before final submission to the University. With the shifting of the fee module to the last stage, the system has become more student-friendly," he added. Students from more than 200 courses were presented with 120 PhDs, 10 MPhils and 66 gold medals during the convocation. PTI GJS RCJ --- ENDS --- Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 12/04/2017 (2036 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. WAYNE GLOWACKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Jeff Peitsch, CEO of Bonify, in the production hall by the nutrient tanks for the grow rooms. On the eve of historic legislation paving the way for the legalization of marijuana in Canada, Manitobas second licensed producer finally got the green light from Health Canada. Its been a three-year journey for Bonify. CEO Jeff Peitsch said that time allowed the company to increase its scale and scope of operations, which may make the company more valuable in the long run. The first batch of seeds will arrive next week at the undisclosed inner-city location. Bonify has built 100,000 square feet of production space thats ready to go, and it has an additional 220,000 square feet of capacity under the same roof. In addition, the locally owned company its closely held and well-funded by a handful of Manitoba residents has bought several acres of surrounding land that will give it one million square feet of production capacity. Our vision at the outset was not just to be a producer of cannabis for the local market but, in fact, a global leader of cannabis and cannabis-derived products, Peitsch said. When it filed its application with Health Canada in 2014, it contemplated 30,000 square feet of production. The actual licence processing took quite a bit longer than we had initially anticipated, said Peitsch, who was the chief operating officer of CancerCare Manitoba for 10 years before getting into the pot business. We figured if this was going to take additional time, lets build additional capacity and additional value in other aspects of our operations to maximize efficiency when the time comes, he said. Bonify is approaching $10 million of capital investment before a single plant has grown. It has been operating a mail-order hydroponics equipment business for the past two years. Its likely not made a dent in the massive investment required, which includes more than $2 million in security infrastructure that features 200 closed-circuit cameras throughout the space; and a reverse-osmosis water-distribution system with a tank farm and mechanical setup that would put many local craft breweries to shame. In addition to Peitschs experience in the business hes worked at Novopharm Biotech (now Viventia) the facility general manager, Mark Smolenski, worked at Biomira Inc. and Abbott Laboratories. Peitsch said Health Canada inspectors suggested its facility design exceeds most standards and could define best practice in a few areas. We are building a very credible organization with very credible people, he said. There are 15 people on staff and it will likely add 40 or 50 positions by the end of the year. Bonify still has to prove itself, but it seems to have ticked all the boxes before starting production, including extensive engagement with physicians and medical-marijuana patients and having a modern automated growing facility that will drip in precise amounts of moisture and nutrients depending on the strain of marijuana being grown and the growing technique being deployed. Delta-9 Bio Tech, the other licensed producer in Manitoba, is switching its production to hydroponics. Bonify will use a variety of growing techniques. Bonify has started reaching out overseas. While there are no agreements in place, Peitsch said the company is engaged in discussions with third-party entities globally. The annual global marijuana market is estimated at about $340 billion, so its natural that a new Canadian company would scope out international opportunities. Canada will be the first G7 nation to legalize marijuana. Capital is pouring into the market. Canopy Growth Corp., one of the largest in the country, is worth $1.7 billion. Earlier this year, Alberta-based Aurora Cannabis Inc., acquired a 20 per cent stake in the first Australian company licensed for research and cultivation of medical cannabis for human use. Aurora recently raised $75 million in convertible debt, its third debt offering in about six months. Last week, it announced the $7-million acquisition of a Montreal company that has a 40,000-square-foot cannabis-production facility but has yet to be licensed by Health Canada. Peitsch said Bonify has received a serious proposal from U.S. investors to acquire 100 per cent of its operations even before its had the chance to begin production. We held off because we think we can add a great deal more value and build something that is special here, he said. martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca The Income Tax Department has asked police to register a criminal case against four top Tamil Nadu officials, including three AIADMK ministers, for barging into the residence of one of their colleagues - Health Minister C Vijayabaskar - during an I-T raid last week. By Akshaya Nath: The Income Tax department has asked Chennai Police to register a criminal case against AIADMK ministers R Kamaraj, Udumalai K Radhakrishnan, and Kadambur Raju, and Special Representative to Government in New Delhi N Thalavai Sundaram, for barging into the residence of Tamil Nadu Health Minister C Vijayabaskar during a recent raid, and disrupting I-T officials' work. The men have also been accused of harassment and criminal intimidation. advertisement The I-T department raided properties belonging to Vijayabaskar and actor-turned-politician Sarath Kumar on Friday. Searches at the premises of an associate of Vijayabaskar's allegedly revealed routing of Rs 89 crore for distribution to voters in Chennai's R K Nagar, where a bypoll was originally scheduled for April 12. On the day of the raid, R Kamaraj, Udumalai K Kadambur Raju, N Thalavai Sundaram and some party cadres created a ruckus outside Vijayabaskar's residence, and later entered it. Vijayabaskar's driver and a few AIADMK cadres ran out with some papers in their hands and threw them towards their fellow party members. Reports were immediately out as to how there had been a disruption of the I-T raid. It's against the rules to allow anyone to enter a property during an I-T raid, and for the person targeted by the raid to come out and interact with the public. At Vijayabaskar's house, both these rules were broken. (Inputs from PTI) ALSO READ | Income Tax raids on Tamil Nadu's VVIPs: Office of Sarathkumar's wife searched ALSO READ | RK Nagar by-poll: Watch the high voltage drama during I-T raids at TN minister Vijayabhaskar's house WATCH VIDEO | RK Nagar by-poll: High drama outside Vijaybaskar's house during Income Tax raid --- ENDS --- Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 13/04/2017 (2035 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. A man who illegally crossed the Canada-U.S. border at Emerson early Saturday morning attacked a border official and is now facing several charges. The 37-year-old man had been taken into custody by RCMP after he crossed the border and was searched, identified and screened before being taken to the Canada Border Services Agency at the Emerson port of entry to make a refugee claim. The RCMP said the man was in a cell waiting for his claim to be processed when he threatened to harm CBSA officers, damaged the fire sprinkler inside the cell causing water to spray and then physically assaulted an officer. PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES The officer sustained a minor injury but did not require medical attention. Ahmed Aden Ali from Minneapolis has been charged with two counts of uttering threats, mischief over $5,000 and assaulting a peace officer. He is being held in custody. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 12/04/2017 (2036 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Driving down a dark city street at night, 75-year-old Ciro Barracano hit a man with his car and left him there to die. When police questioned him more than two weeks later, Barracano told them hed hit a family of deer. Family and friends of 22-year-old Christopher Nero packed a Winnipeg courtroom Wednesday to drive home to Barracano all that has been taken from them in the two years since Nero was killed in that fatal hit-and-run on Inkster Boulevard on May 2, 2015. Christopher had a smile that lit up a room, his mother, Robyn Werner, told court, describing her late son as a hard-worker with a playful sense of humour and a steadfast group of grade-school friends. FACEBOOK PHOTO Chris Nero Chriss death has not only devastated his family and friends, but also his community. This is who was left to die on a busy street like an animal, she read aloud in front of the man who fled the scene of the accident. Barracano, now 77, has been sentenced to nine months in jail after he pleaded guilty to charges of failing to stop at the scene and public mischief. Provincial court Judge John Guy imposed the sentence Wednesday after Barracano took the unusual step of testifying about what led up to the accident. With the aid of an Italian translator, Barracano said hed been at a Legion Hall earlier that night with a friend, and had consumed one beer mixed with gingerale. By 11:30 p.m., hed dropped off his friend and was heading home himself, driving along Inkster near Bunting Street. It was very dark. I didnt see any shadow, he said. Somebody hit my car. I didnt have the presence to brake right away and his body hit my car, Barracano said in response to questions from his defence lawyer, Vincent Bueti. Barracano said he then stopped and got out of his car he said he could see the mans shoes and could tell that he was hurt but he didnt have a cell phone to call for help. He claimed he drove to a nearby gas station and shouted at staff to call police because there had been an accident. He said he didnt mention where the accident was. He said he was shaking too much to drive back to the scene of the accident. Instead, he drove very slowly across the city, back to his home on Wilkes Avenue. By 12:06 a.m., while other witnesses who had discovered Nero in a pool of blood on the street were giving statements to police, Barracano was at home. He never called police about the accident. A few days later, he opened an insurance claim with Manitoba Public Insurance about the damage to his car, telling MPI that he had been driving back to Winnipeg from Selkirk when he hit a family of deer. He repeated the lie to police, who knocked on his door after theyd been tipped off by a tow truck driver who had been tasked with taking away the damaged vehicle. I dont want to drive anymore. Just take my car, Barracano told the tow truck driver, according to court records. Investigators noted severe damage to the drivers side windshield and blood on the inside of the vehicle they presumed Barracano had come into contact with the bleeding victim before returning to his car and driving away. But on the stand Wednesday, Barracano said he hadnt seen any blood. Crown attorney Manoja Moorthy urged the judge not to believe the elaborate and preposterous stories that he (Barracano) said to the court on the stand today, and disregard Barracanos claim that he went looking for help at a gas station. Police were unable to verify the claim two years after the fact. Barracano didnt go to the police, he said, because he was confused and embarrassed. He admitted the truth in the middle of his interview with police on May 20, 2015 during which he didnt mention having gone to a gas station for help. His testimony, Moorthy said, is evidence of someone who is selfish, as he was that night when he left Mr. Nero dying on the street. Defence lawyer Bueti told court Barracano, who arrived in Canada in the early 1970s and formerly worked as a dance instructor at an Italian community centre in Winnipeg, was assessed as showing signs of cognitive impairment. His conduct, although illegal, was not totally unreasonable, Bueti told court. He requested a 90-day intermittent jail sentence for his client, as well as a fine for filing a false claim with MPI and community service work. The Crown sought an 18-month jail sentence. The judge said if Barracano had remained at the scene of the crash, it likely would have simply been considered an accident. Police collision analysts determined the crash may have been caused by the victim, who was intoxicated at the time. Just before he was sentenced, a tearful Barracano addressed the full courtroom, telling Neros family I know your pain, and Im no criminal. As he was led away by sheriffs officers, Barracano waved to the victims grandparents outside court. They had waited nearly two years for the case to be brought to justice, but now they said they dont expect to ever have closure. I dont think hes remorseful, Neros grandmother, Judy Werner, told the Free Press. Im just glad that it was acknowledged that he did wrong, she said. katie.may@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @thatkatiemay Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 12/04/2017 (2036 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Health Minister Kelvin Goertzen welcomes a new federal plan to pay for companions to accompany pregnant indigenous women flying to Winnipeg to give birth but doesnt intend to foot the bill. Federal Health Minister Jane Philpott announced a new program to cover the costs of a companion when a pregnant indigenous woman needs to leave her community to give birth. Manitoba is embroiled in a dispute over $37 million the province has paid for First Nations medical transportation that the federal government has refused to reimburse. RUTH / BONNEVILLE WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Kelvin Goertzen, Minister of Health, answers questions from the media during press conference at Asper Cardiac Institute, St. Boniface Hospital Campus Friday morning. Goertzen said providing travel and accommodation costs so a companion can accompany a woman about to give birth would be helpful. Philpott has not talked to me personally, Goertzen said. My understanding is that it will not be paid for by the Manitoba health system. Maryse Durette, senior media relations supervisor with Health Canada, said Wednesday that Ottawa has not projected the likely costs for women in Manitoba flying to Winnipeg. Based on prenatal travel costs, companion coverage could run about $22 million a year in Canada, she said. Health Canadas non-insured health benefits program is a demand-driven program. Therefore, it is difficult to produce a precise cost estimate for this policy change, she said. Durette did not say which level of government will pay for the program. Durette said that the $37 million Manitoba says Ottawa owes it for First Nations medical transportation is part of ongoing talks over the federal health accord, which Manitoba has yet to sign. Every other province covers such costs, she said. Theyre supposed to cover every Manitoban, First Nation or not, she said, attributing the $37 million to a difference of opinion between the province and us. nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 13/04/2017 (2035 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Most of us look forward at this time of year to warmer temperatures and longer days full of sunshine. But for those who have seasonal allergies, the arrival of spring just means more sneezing, wheezing and itchy eyes. For many people, the trouble starts as soon as the trees, grass and weeds start to wake from winter, releasing into the air tiny pollen particles that can trigger asthma and seasonal allergic rhinitis, also known as hay fever. As we inhale the pollen, our bodys immune system senses it is being invaded and releases chemical mediators histamine and leukotrienes. These chemicals can cause swelling and set off symptoms such as itching, runny nose, sneezing and asthma symptoms such as coughing, wheezing and shortness of breath. Interestingly, the allergy season appears to be getting longer; thats a development scientists attribute to global warming. Warmer, shorter winters mean trees and shrubs are beginning to pollinate as much as three weeks earlier in the spring, and weed pollen lingers about three weeks longer in the fall. Scientists have also noted that the increase in temperature, along with an increase in carbon dioxide in the air, helps pollinating plants grow bigger and produce more pollen. The weather in your area can influence pollen counts greatly. Windy, hot, dry days increase both of these counts. Pollen can be carried several kilometers by the wind, so living in an area with few trees does not mean you will not be exposed to tree pollen. Rainy and cloudy days cause decreased counts by washing the pollen out of the air. You can check pollen counts in your area on the Environment Canada website or TV station. The impact of having seasonal allergies extends well beyond the symptoms. Coughing at night because of asthma symptoms or a constant runny or stuffy nose can lead to sleep deprivation, which can affect a persons performance at work or school. If you suffer from any of these symptoms, it is important to see an allergy specialist who can help identify whats setting off these reactions. Avoidance is the first line of defence. This may mean reducing the amount of time you spend outdoors during the pollen season, especially on windy days. Pollen counts are highest early in the morning and decrease later in the day. Keep windows shut and use air-conditioning on hot days. Change your clothes and shower at the end of the day to remove pollens. Dont dry your clothes outside when pollen counts are high. Pets can also track pollen indoors. Many allergy remedies are available on pharmacy shelves, but not everyone gets relief from over-the-counter products. An allergy specialist can help patients access more effective medications. Low-dose corticosteroids are the safest and most common medications used. They are either used as a nasal spray or inhaled into the lungs. Doctors suggest using nasal corticosteroids before the pollen season starts. If you have asthma, it is best to stay on your inhaled corticosteroids throughout the year. It is important to use your nasal and inhaled corticosteroids every day as prescribed by your health-care provider in order for them to be effective. Your doctor may suggest increasing the amount of inhaled corticosteroids if you have pollen allergies during the pollen season. Follow your asthma action plan to keep asthma under control. Another effective treatment for pollen allergies is immunotherapy. This involves regular injections of small amounts of allergen to prompt the body to build up tolerance. This treatment requires a long-term commitment and can take up to five years before the immune system builds up enough tolerance to prevent reactions. If spring brings feelings of dread due to allergies, dont despair. With proper assessment and appropriate treatment, even allergic individuals can rejoice in the spring season. Bev Kulbaba is a nurse and certified asthma educator with the Childrens Allergy and Asthma Education Centre at Childrens Hospital. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 12/04/2017 (2036 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Manitoba Hydro workers are reluctant to jump on a buyout offer not knowing when or if theyll have to give up their job over an eight-month period. Nor do they want to identify themselves as willing to leave the company, only to find out that Hydro wont agree to buy them out, Michael Velie, business manager for Local 2034 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, said Wednesday. The buyout package features two weeks pay for every year of service to a maximum of 30 weeks pay. TREVOR HAGAN / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Hydro workers are reluctant to identify themselves as willing to leave the company, as it's possible Hydro won't agree to buy them out. Hydro has already slashed management by 15 per cent and on Monday offered a buyout to reduce its workforce by 900 people the same percentage reduction. The buyouts continue for six weeks, after which, Hydro warned Monday, it could lay off workers. A big concern is that employees departure dates will be between June 1 and Jan. 31, 2018, and assigned solely at the discretion of the corporation, said Velie, who has seen less initial interest in the buyout offer than hed expected. However, employees will be required to make an irrevocable commitment to leave Hydros employ at the time they apply for the voluntary departure plan. By far the biggest concern we hear is that, by putting their name forward, employees must make an irrevocable commitment to depart from the company, Velie said. The corporation has the sole discretion whether to accept their application or not. If employees are not selected, theyve exposed themselves as individuals willing to leave the corporation. Some employees fear that this could mean future loss of training and/or career advancement opportunities, said Velie, who has argued that key positions out in the field are already understaffed, and cutting positions further will jeopardize service to the public. Hydro has warned it could refuse a buyout if it has an operational need to keep the employee on the job. In its buyout offer, Hydro told workers that if 900 of them dont choose to leave, management will pursue other measures to ensure its staffing reduction targets are met. The buyout offer lays out those options: written working notice of termination rather than severance pay; severance pay in lieu of written notice of termination; declaring jobs redundant in accordance with workforce adjustment provisions under the applicable collective agreements or policy, which may include retraining and placement to another position/location; and layoffs. Manitoba Hydro said Wednesday that there have been employees accepting buyouts already which they first saw Monday, but had known were coming for months but would not elaborate. Seminars will be offered soon by human resources, Hydro public affairs officer Bruce Owen said Wednesday. Such a decision by an employee to apply to the VDP has to be carefully weighed with their family. We expect many employees will use the Easter weekend to have conversations with loved ones, Owen said. There are separate packages for those at or near retirement age, and those who are years away from retirement. For employees considering retirement, Owen said, Manitoba Hydro is offering pre-retirement seminars to between April 18 and May 9 in Winnipeg, Brandon, Gillam, Thompson and Steinbach. All applications for the buyout must be received on or before May 19. Manitoba Hydro has estimated that the buyouts will have a one-time cost of $57 million and will save the payroll $98 million annually. The Hydro board has forecast that the debt with which the NDP left it, primarily because of the Bipole III and Keeyask megaprojects will almost double to $25 billion. Hydro has said its rate application going to the public utilities board early in May could ask for multiple years of significant double-digit increases. nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 12/04/2017 (2036 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. In Manitoba, someone commits suicide every other day. So if you are the Manitoba Opera Company and you want to put on a performance that romanticizes suicide, what do you do? You use it as an educational opportunity thats what. This month the company is performing Werther, the 18th century story of a young poet who falls in love with a beautiful woman who is engaged to another man. Unable to give her up, he finds peace by taking his own life. BORIS MINKEVICH / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Titled Mental Illness, Suicide and the Media, the discussion featured panelists Dr. James Bolton of the Department of Psychiatry, University of Manitoba. The story, first published as a novel by Goethe in 1774, was turned into an opera by Jules Massenet in 1887. The publication of the story reportedly led to the so-called Werther effect copy-cat suicides. With this in mind and aware of the epidemic of suicides in some Manitoba communities Manitoba Opera decided to team up with Mood Disorders of Manitoba to promote discussion about the issue at a panel on Wednesday at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. Titled Mental Illness, Suicide and the Media, the discussion featured panelists Dr. James Bolton of the Department of Psychiatry, University of Manitoba; Tara Brousseau Snider, executive director of Mood Disorders of Manitoba; and guest speakers Corinna Voth and Chelsea Hertzog, speaking about the power of music in healing and recovery. We want to use opera as an art form to have a conversation about issues of concern in the community, director of marketing, Darlene Ronald, said. In addition to the panel discussion, students attending dress rehearsals will hear a presentation from Mood Disorders about healthy perspectives on love and relationships and there will be two pages in the program about suicide, prepared by the organization. For Ronald, educational events such as the panel discussion are a way for Manitoba Opera to engage the community. We want to be part of the lives of people in the community and find ways to connect more strongly with people, she said. Of course, she also said she hopes that some who attend the panel discussion who may never have been to the opera before might also come to hear a performance. But even if they dont, we hope they will still be touched by it and what we are trying to do, she said. Offering events such as this is also a recognition that arts groups cant just keep operating in the traditional way, Ronald said. The arts are changing, and also how people view them, she added, noting that arts groups need to find new ways to connect with audiences. This isnt the first time Manitoba Opera has reached out in this way. Last year, for the production Of Mice and Men, which features an intellectually disabled character, the Opera teamed up with groups that work with people with intellectual disabilities. In 2014, when the Opera performed Fidelio the story of a woman seeking to free her husband, a political prisoner, from jail they used the production to celebrate the opening of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights and also to highlight the plight of political prisoners around the world. Refugees from other countries living in Manitoba were invited to be involved as extras. The two productions were a great experience for us and for our patrons, a great way to talk about these issues and the things we have in common, Ronald said. Their efforts have been noticed by others, including Opera America the association for almost 150 opera companies in North America and Opera Anchorage, which used Manitoba Operas model to honour veterans. It was great to see something we did recognized in this way, and rippling through to others, Ronald said. While glad to offer these extras, she said that it isnt easy Manitoba Operas staff is small and resources are tight. But its important to do, she shared. We hope we can add to the conversation in the community. Thats our aim. Werther will be performed April 29, May 2 and May 5 at Centennial Concert Hall. Tickets are available at http://www.manitobaopera.mb.ca or by calling 957-7842. If you value coverage of Manitobas arts scene, help us do more. Your contribution of $10, $25 or more will allow the Free Press to deepen our reporting on theatre, dance, music and galleries while also ensuring the broadest possible audience can access our arts journalism. BECOME AN ARTS JOURNALISM SUPPORTER Click here to learn more about the project. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 12/04/2017 (2036 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. A Manitoba cabinet minister says the Progressive Conservative government has been working with indigenous people in a collaborative and respectful manner and will continue to do so. Health Minister Kelvin Goertzen was responding to a report that quoted a Manitoba grand chief as saying the Pallister government is the most racist in Canada. I think that our government has demonstrated now and will in the future great respect for our aboriginal and indigenous people and will continue to work with them in a collaborative way, Goertzen said Wednesday. WAYNE GLOWACKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Grand Chief Shelia North Wilson says calling the province racist applies equally to the previous Selinger government. Sheila North Wilson, grand chief of Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak, levelled the accusation at a First Nations health conference in Saskatoon, the Canadian Press reported. She said she was offended that Premier Brian Pallister had said Manitoba indigenous people have the most chronic diseases and mental-health issues. North Wilson also accused the province of refusing to sit down with First Nations groups on health issues. Pallister claimed in the national media that we have the most chronic diseases and mental-health issues, North Wilson was quoted as saying on Tuesday. Well, thank you for calling us crazy and sick. I took offence to that. North Wilson later clarified her remarks on CBC radio, saying they referred to the flawed track record of provincial policy in general toward indigenous people, regardless of the party in power. She said her comments would apply equally to the former NDP government under Greg Selinger. Goertzen acknowledged that clarification on Wednesday and noted cabinet ministers in his government have travelled across the north to meet with indigenous leaders. He said he met with North Wilson a few weeks ago. My meeting with the grand chief, I think, was both productive and respectful. I look forward to further meetings, he said. Goertzen said the Pallister government helped lobby Ottawa for more federal funding for indigenous health. I expect that well have good, respectful working relationships. Does that mean well agree on everything? Of course, not. But thats true for Manitobans generally. Goertzen said Pallister has a long history and track record in advocating for First Nations and indigenous people in Canada, particularly in his former role as a member of Parliament from Manitoba. In January, Pallister came under fire from indigenous leaders and Opposition politicians for saying tensions around night hunting were leading to a race war. He later said he chose his words poorly, but never apologized for saying it. Tracked down at a Winnipeg vigil for slaying victim Christine Wood Wednesday, North Wilson declined to comment on her racism remarks. Todays about Christine, she said. Im not going to talk about that. with files from Alexandra Paul and The Canadian Press larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 13/04/2017 (2035 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Gunshots ring out in a quiet community, three bodies are found outside a home, the rumour mill instantly begins churning out theories and speculation, and police, for the most part, say nothing. Last weeks double-murder suicide in East Selkirk is the latest example of what appears to be a growing trend in this country in which investigators treat the most serious crime imaginable as a private affair that should be shielded from the public. Critics say this type of response does a disservice to the victims, their families and the communities who are searching for answers. It also shields police from possible scrutiny. WAYNE GLOWACKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESs fileS RCMP released little information after the bodies of Nicole Rach-Gregoire, James Gregoire and Bill Wozney were found April 3 at an East Selkirk home. Were living in a time now where telling people Trust me, theres nothing of interest here isnt going to fly, said Peter Jaffe, the academic director of the Centre for Research & Education on Violence against Women & Children. I dont think its enough just to tell the public no one else is in danger. RCMP dont appear to have a protocol for these types of tragedies, where the death of the accused means there wont be a trial. Police treat them on a case-by-case basis when deciding how much to disclose publicly. Domestic cases are often draped in secrecy, which critics say reinforces the stigma associated with spousal abuse. Theres not consistency across the country as to how police release information, said Jaffe, who has examined about 100 murder-suicides in Canada. Police have a difficult balancing responsibility. On one hand, they have to respect confidentiality, and there are often surviving children and family members. So they have to respect that privacy. On the other hand, there are things the public has a right to know. It took Manitoba RCMP four days to confirm the shooting incident in East Selkirk last week was a double murder-suicide. The brief news release didnt include the names of any of the individuals. It simply said a 41-year-old woman and her 43-year-old husband were killed outside their home by a 49-year-old man who died of a self-inflicted gunshot. Nor did police address any of the alleged circumstances of the case, including the possibility of police involvement. Local sources identified the victims as Nicole Rach-Gregoire and James Gregoire, as well as Bill Wozney, the womans former employer. Multiple sources told the Free Press fraud allegations may have triggered the violence. Rach-Gregoire had just been fired by Wozney, her employer at Physiotherapy on the Red in Selkirk. Sources said Wozney was stressed out over irregularities in health insurance claims from his business. Rach-Gregoire had been the clinics office manager and was suspected in the irregularities, which allegedly involved false invoices for non-existent clients. One source said the amount was in the six figures. Another source said Rach-Gregoire was under investigation. RCMP would only say the woman found dead has not been arrested or charged by RCMP. None of the three deceased had outstanding criminal charges or convictions. A longtime client of Wozney said the physiotherapist was worried because he had no proof shed actually done anything other than the circumstantial evidence that she had apparently thrown all their computers in the river, basically. Because no trial will occur, the file was closed within days. Manitoba RCMP were asked Monday by the Free Press to explain the decision to release no details. They responded with a written statement Wednesday. It is our practice to not release names of victims unless we receive express permission from the family. In terms of naming the suspect, in murder-suicide cases, the suspect is deceased and not facing charges. Thus, the name is not entered on court documents and is not public record. The suspect in this type of investigation is not able to mount a defence to any allegations against him or her. For these reasons, we do not release the name, a spokeswoman said. As to discussing suspected circumstances behind a case, the matter being of much public and media interest has no bearing on whether we release details. Motive only matters for court, and in these types of investigations, there is no court case. We determine what occurred at the scene to conclude our investigation into the deaths, the statement concluded. Its worth noting family members and co-workers spoke to media last week, confirming the victims identities and giving background details in the absence of information from police. It should be pointed out that, in the past, RCMP have released the names of killers who later committed suicide. They have given background information when Mounties have come under attack, such as the 2005 case in Mayerthorpe, Alta., when James Roszko killed four Mounties before turning the gun on himself. I dont see how secrecy in these situations helps solve crime or helps ensure proper law enforcement accountability, said Duff Conacher of Democracy Watch. He said the matter shouldnt end because the killer is dead. The secrecy in this area not only makes it more difficult for witnesses to come forward, but also could be covering up police wrongdoing in certain situations. Its the publics money, these are the publics employees, and they have a right to know what their employees are doing on the job, Conacher said. Conacher and Jaffe said the Privacy Act doesnt require police to withhold details such as homicide victims names. I think the public has a right to know whatever the issues are, and if there are things being put in place to prevent a tragedy in similar situations in the future, Jaffe said. He suggested police adopt a consistent policy or look to an independent body to determine how such situations should be handled. mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca Opinion Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 13/04/2017 (2035 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. During my last week working full-time for the Free Press, a reader wondered why all the ordinary people in the editorial cartoons were white and middle-aged. It was a great question. In fact, if you look at most of the cartoons, both on the editorial page and on the comics page, it is hard to find someone of colour. Increasingly, the issue of diversity is a concern raised for good reason within many different genres editorial cartoons, comics, television, theatre and books. The world is not comprised solely of white, middle-class heterosexuals. Media should reflect that. The Free Press no longer has an editorial cartoonist on staff and, like many newspapers, must rely on freelancers. One of those freelancers is Patrick LaMontagne, a talented cartoonist who works out of Canmore, Alta., and has thought about this issue. He wrote on his Facebook page that he is as white as they come and because he knows he is white and privileged, when Im in the presence of minorities, Im often overly concerned that something I might say or do will possibly make me seem racist. We had this discussion too in the Free Press editorial department. Are cartoonists so afraid of falling into stereotypes when depicting people of race that they shy away entirely? Because, lets face it, there have been awful depictions of people of colour in cartoons that hit all the horrible racial stereotypes. One needs to see only comic strips from the 1930s and 40s to be reminded of how insensitive the portrayals have been. Black characters were portrayed as exotic or uneducated and rustic. Asian characters were submissive or evil. First Nations people were depicted as the noble savage, submissive and secondary. In the United States, after the election of the first African-American president, editorial cartoonists were concerned about how to draw the new commander-in-chief. In an Associated Press story published in 2009 just a month after Barack Obama was sworn in, cartoonists voiced their concerns about crossing the line when drawing the president. As reporter Jesse Washington wrote, cartoons of Obama must contend with Americas history of degrading racial imagery, from ape comparisons to enormous Sambo lips. (Caricatures of the presidents admittedly large ears have so far escaped scrutiny.) This, too, was something with which LaMontagne is struggling. As he suggested in his post after being pressed by another news editor, he was asked to use subtle clues to diversity. His response: Cartoons are often about caricature, so what if I go too far with those features? And if I dont go far enough, will they just look too white? If I draw somebody being pulled over by a cop for texting, theres no way Ill draw that person black because the implications will be that its a racial thing. What if I made the cop black? Worse or better? Caricatures of religious minorities also contain potential landmines. Turbans, headscarves and yarmulkes are shorthands to illustrating religion, but when should it be utilized and how to ensure it doesnt offend? Certainly the 2015 shooting that killed 12 people working for the satirical weekly French news magazine Charlie Hebdo illustrates how satire can be viewed as offensive. In his book on editorial cartoons in the United States, Chris Lamb writes that, while editorial cartoons are drawn by white men and chosen by white men, the editorial pages are supposed to be the most democratic part of a newspaper representing all viewpoints. This means that to ensure diversity is included in the depiction of racialized minorities, more effort should be made to recruit and mentor cartoonists who represent the full spectrum of society. Because, lets face it its hard for someone who is as white as they come to fully appreciate the anger surrounding the shooting of black people by police officers, the concerns of indigenous families struggling or the fears of religious minorities. But someone who has lived that experience may best be able to parody it, without pandering and without recrimination. But that is difficult in this media environment, with ongoing cutbacks and layoffs. As the hollowing-out of newsrooms continues, there will be fewer opportunities to hire editorial cartoonists, particularly those who represent minority viewpoints. Another slice of democracy gone. Shannon Sampert is the former perspectives and politics editor of the Winnipeg Free Press. She is currently the editor and director of EvidenceNetwork.ca. Her views are her own. Opinion Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 13/04/2017 (2035 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Most people are familiar with the indignities of air travel: the ever-shrinking seats, the extra charges and fewer in-flight services, the delays and cancellations, and the cattle-like atmosphere of the pre-boarding process. But this week, the world learned exactly just how inhumane air travel can be. On Sunday, Dr. David Dao, 69, was trying to fly from Chicago to Louisville, Ky., on a United Airlines flight. Passengers were told the flight was overbooked and it wasnt leaving until four people gave up their seats. Not enough people volunteered, so United picked names. When he refused to give up his seat, security officers forcibly yanked a screaming Dr. Dao out of his seat and dragged him, bloodied and dazed, down the aisle to the horror of onlooking passengers. David J. Phillip / The Associated Press FILEs United Airlines and United Express planes Of course, this incident was captured on video. Many folks on the flights knew what they were witnessing was wrong, whipped out their smartphones and hit record. Some might argue the bystanders should have done something more. But they did do something valuable: they chronicled the incident, from multiple angles. The videos, which went viral on Monday, are shocking. Oh my God, a woman cries out at one point. Look at what youre doing to him! Less shocking, however, is how United Airlines has chosen to deal with Dr. Daos violent removal from the aircraft. On Monday, United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz released his first statement on the matter. This is an upsetting event to all of us here at United. I apologize for having to re-accommodate these passengers, it reads in part. Did Mr. Munoz not realize that everyone has seen the footage? Dr. Dao wasnt re-accommodated, whatever that means. He was assaulted. Uniteds public relations tire fire kept burning. On Tuesday, United said the flight was not overbooked after all, rather that seats were requested by off-duty crew members. On Wednesday, Mr. Munoz finally issued an appropriate statement that both contained an apology and took responsibility for what happened. Thats three attempts at an apology, for those keeping score at home. For too long, airlines have been able to treat passengers however they want with impunity. Overbooking a practice to ensure a full flight even if people dont show up is a long-standing yet legal scourge. Most major airlines dont care about earning a customers loyalty because they dont have to. In North America, at least, the lack of competition makes it a lot harder for consumers to say, Ill take my business elsewhere. As unpopular as it is, in 2016, the U.S. airline industry earned an estimated US$20 billion in profits. Still, theres being treated like trash by a gate agent and then theres being physically dragged out like trash by an officer. The use of violence to remove a passenger from an airplane is a troubling new low. Uniteds skies arent just unfriendly, they are openly hostile. The airlines share price dropped sharply and its public image has been damaged, thanks in large part to the passengers who got that upsetting video out there. But United will continue its schedule of takeoffs and landings, and things are going to continue to get worse for passengers if the airline industry isnt forced to straighten up and fly right. By Press Trust of India: (Eds: With additional inputs) Lakhimpur Kheri (UP), Apr 13 (PTI) Officials of Kheri district in India and Kanchanpur in Nepal have agreed to a joint survey of their boundaries to resolve border dispute. An agreement was signed by officials of the two countries at a meeting yesterday at Mahendranagar in Nepal, Kheri District Magistrate Akashdeep told newspersons here today. advertisement The pact envisages carrying out of a survey of the entire border between Kheri in Uttar Pradesh and adjoining areas of Nepal by a joint survey team, he said. The survey work would be completed by June, he said, adding that after ascertaining the boundaries through a GPS survey, construction and repair works over the missing and damaged border pillars would be carried out following odd-even formula. The Nepal administration would repair or construct pillars with odd numbers while even-number pillars would be maintained by the Kheri administration, he said. Both countries would ensure safety and security of the survey teams in each others territory, he said. Survey of the border in Kheri would commence from pillar number 200 in Basahi where a violent protest by Nepalese citizens took place on March 9, resulting in injuries to nine SSB jawans and 27 Basahi villagers, the DM said. At yesterdays meeting, officials of both sides agreed to maintain mutual harmony and cooperation and check recurrence of such incidents, Akashdeep added. The March 9 incident had erupted into a major diplomatic issue between the two countries with Nepal claiming that one of its citizen was killed in firing by SSB men. The SSB headquarters in Delhi recently submitted the findings of an internal inquiry report to the Union Home Ministry stating that no bullet was fired by the paramilitary during this incident. The Sashastra Seema Bal, which works under the command of the Union Home Ministry, is tasked with guarding the 1,751 km Indo-Nepal border. Uttar Pradesh shares a 599.3 km open border with Nepal touching seven districts - Pilibhit, Lakhimpur Kheri, Bahraich, Sravasti, Balrampur, Sidhharthnagar and Maharajganj. PTI COR SAB SMI SMN SMN --- ENDS --- Few things made by man have been better fit for their task than a Mississippi River steamboat. Fast, cheap, reasonably safe and able to navigate in waters that amounted to little more than a heavy dew, steamboats brought commerce, settlers and a reasonable likeness of civilization to the American wilderness in the decades before the Civil War. Every schoolboys history teaches that Robert Fulton invented the first practical steamboat in 1807. That is true and all well and good as far as it goes, but the boat Fulton built worked fine in the deep water of the lower Hudson. On the wild sandbar-ridden shallows of the great rivers that coursed through the heart of the continent, Fultons deep-draft design would have needed a flood to float. The riverboat that conquered the Ohio and the Mississippi was the brainchild of Capt. Henry Miller Shreve, a riverman born and bred on the banks of the Monongahela when a mans muscle was the only power on the river, save the wind and current. Years of experience muscling keelboats and flatboats from Pittsburgh to New Orleans taught Shreve a thing or two about what made a boat float on an American river. In 1816, Shreve convinced a number of investors to put up the money that would translate his ideas into wood, steel and steam. The boatwrights in Wheeling, W.V., had never seen the like of it. The hull was broad and shallow, curved at the bow and stern. Instead of setting the engine low in the hold, the boilers and engines were mounted horizontally on deck, above the waterline, and a two-story superstructure was built over and around them. Skeptics told Shreve the boat was hopelessly top heavy and took bets that the Washington would turn turtle as soon as it slipped down the ways. Few folks have ever been so wrong. Not only did the Washington prove remarkably fitted to its environment the broad, shallow hull sliding over the water rather than plowing through it it was a commercial success, making the round-trip from Louisville, Ky., to New Orleans in only 41 days. From the Washington to the American Queen, American riverboats have followed the basic design laid down in the Wheeling boatyard. That basic design was polished and refined. Captains and investors realized early on that every pound they saved in building the boat meant another pound of paying cargo it could carry. Sturdy oak was replaced by light-weight pine. Boats were built to be fast, not to last which was just as well because the average life of a Mississippi steamboat was somewhat less than five years. Hazards on the river were just about endless: rocks and rapids, sand bars, snags, low-hanging trees and unpredictable currents. Boats that werent sunk, beached or battered still could burn or blow up. The fire in the flue sent showers of sparks up the stacks. There were fires in the cookstoves, fires to warm passengers and crew most of whom were firing up pipes and cigars on a regular basis all inside a floating tinder-dry pinewood boat lit by lanterns and candles with nothing more than a couple of buckets to put out a spreading blaze. The high-pressure steam engine driving the paddle wheel was the wonder of the age, but as often as not it was built with no safety valves or gauges to keep track of steam pressure or water level. If the water level in the boiler dropped too low, the boiler would overheat, weaken and explode with disastrous results. On April 27, 1865, a boiler aboard the Sultana exploded, killing more than 1,700 passengers and crew more than went down with the Titanic. Even if the boat stayed afloat and in one piece, there was real risk that a passenger coming aboard would end the journey in a hastily dug riverbank grave. The water that floated the boat also was the ships sewer and source of water for drinking, washing and cooking. Cholera, transmitted by fouled water, haunted the river and took a regular toll of passengers and crew. Despite the dangers, the steamboat was the frontier equivalent of the 747. West of the Appalachians, roads were little more than rutted wilderness trails, and the railroad wouldnt reach the Mississippi River until 1854. It was a long walk from Pittsburgh to points west. The steamboat fed a frontier boom, carrying settlers and manufactured goods from the east and carrying the products of the opening west lead, grain, furs, flour, salt, meat and cotton to the booming river ports on the Ohio and the lower Mississippi. The number of boats on the rivers boomed as well. Fourteen years after Shreves first trip to New Orleans, 230 steamboats were working on Midwestern rivers; by 1842, there would be 450. The Virginia, in May 1823, was the first boat to pick its way onto the upper Mississippi. Loaded with supplies and tourists, it set off from St. Louis for Fort Snelling, Minn. It took her 26 days to make the 729-mile trip, threading her way through the rapids at Rock Island, Ill., and Keokuk, Iowa, and the virtually uncharted channels of the upper river. Once navigation of the upper river proved itself practical, it took little time for it to prove itself even more profitable. Within two years of the Virginias first visit to Pigs Eye and the Falls of St. Anthony, more than a quarter-million dollars worth of frontier goods furs, hides, lumber and grain were shipped downriver. Several boats were making regular calls at Prairie du Chien, La Crosse and points north. As the population along the upper river grew, more and more specialized boats were built to serve the burgeoning market. Boats were engineered for maneuverability and designed to float on less than 2 feet of water. Specialized steamboats regularly carried passengers and cargo on streams that would bar a contemporary fishing boat. Tiny rivercraft nosed into virtually any waterway in search of cargo or to found a new settlement. As the owner of a buildable lot of record in the new proposed zoning area 10 feet wide and 150 feet deep I was confused as to what enhancement the new zoning changes could be made on this vacant property every year which would enhance housing, tourism and business income. Would a tiny home fit the code for this lot? Finally USA Today gave front page space to the newest boom in tourism. Shooting Ranges for Chinese gun enthusiasts Could this be the way to generate revenue to pay the property tax on the lot? The article states one entrepreneur hopes to draw 5,000 wealthy Chinese tourists a year to shoot at its firing ranges. Who would have guessed that the creators of gunpowder in the third century B.C. would be excited to enjoy shooting enough to travel thousands of miles as tourists to enjoy it as recreation. But how does that help me generate revenue on my lot to pay my taxes? A solution www.shootingrangeindustries.com to the rescue. A modular shooting range which fits my buildable lot and meets airborne particulate and filtration codes made from an upgraded ocean container for two shooters. Fully self-contained shipped directly to my site with individual and centralized computer controls for turning target rail systems. It can even be expanded or two units could fit on the same lot for four shooters to enjoy. Even better my accountant may classify them as equipment for a quicker depreciation write off and not subject to added property taxes. They say it takes 30-180 days get a Ready Range ----- I better get the lead out to order one or sell my lot before my October taxes need to be paid. Who says the new code wouldnt draw tourists downtown. Sauk Countys Conservation Congress joined voters across the state Monday in favoring controls on frac sand mining and high-capacity wells. But local voters opposed establishing a sandhill crane hunting season, a measure that passed overall. More than 5,000 people attended fish and wildlife hearings at county Conservation Congress meetings across the state Monday. The public hearings gave citizens an opportunity to provide feedback on 88 proposed fish and wildlife management rules changes. The Natural Resources Board will review results May 24 in Madison. The meeting at the University of Wisconsin-Baraboo/Sauk County drew 134 voters. They voted 98-12 for a moratorium on frac sand mining permits. That measure also passed overwhelmingly statewide 3,226-783. A measure requiring notification of residents within 2 miles of proposed high-capacity wells passed 4,046 to 207. Sauk County voters supported the same measure, 106-5. Voters also supported giving the state Department of Natural Resources authority to suspend approvals for high-capacity wells that have caused problems: 3,988-231 statewide, 107-2 in Sauk County. A proposal to allow sandhill crane hunting was of particular interest in Sauk County, home of the International Crane Foundation. The Baraboo-based organization is working to reintroduce whooping cranes around the world, and its leaders argue that hunting sandhill cranes could lead to that species becoming endangered, as well. But farmers say controlling the sandhill crane population would help prevent crop damage. Statewide, the measure passed 2,349 to 2,049. In Sauk County, it failed 43-74. Anne Lacy, the International Crane Foundations research coordinator, said she was pleased the measures margin of victory was smaller than in past statewide votes on sandhill crane hunting. If the Legislature were to legalize crane hunting, it would place the nonprofit in a tight spot. Why should other countries protect cranes if theyre hunted in the International Crane Foundations backyard? It makes our work a little more difficult in some parts of the world, Lacy said. She encouraged citizens opposed to sandhill crane hunting to let their representatives at the state Capitol know. People need to contact their legislators, because thats where the rubber meets the road, she said. Also on Monday, voters overwhelmingly supported restoring funding to state parks, 3,690-509. Locally, that measure passed 106-5. The spring hearing votes, held in conjunction with the Conservation Congress, are nonbinding. Theyre presented to the Natural Resources Board as a gauge of the publics outlook on proposed changes. In addition to voting on DNR rules changes, citizens of each county elect Conservation Congress delegates to represent them on natural resource issues. The Conservation Congress serves as an adviser to the Natural Resources Board. The University of Wisconsin-Baraboo/Sauk County sent a record number of students to Madison this week for an annual event that showcases undergraduate research projects in the Capitol building. Known as Research in the Rotunda, the annual event invites exceptional student researchers from across the University of Wisconsin System to the Capitol, where they share their research on a wide range of topics with legislators, state leaders, UW alumni and other supporters. Nine students representing six teams of UW-Baraboo researchers a UW Colleges record and their faculty mentors traveled to Madison on Wednesday to present their findings in the Rotunda. The students conducted the research for an honors program, and noteworthy projects were selected by faculty to be featured at the state event. The UW-Baraboo group joined more than 100 other students from across the UW System in sharing their research. UW-Baraboo mathematics professor Kirthi Premadasa coordinates the universitys undergraduate research program. He said the campus low student-to-faculty ratio allows students to easily connect with professors and conduct meaningful research. For a smaller campus like us, putting this together is tremendous, he said. The professors can actually link with the students very closely and carry out the research. They start looking at the world through the eyes of a disciplined expert. Two former UW-Baraboo students, who presented in Madison, examined the relationship between teacher salary and student performance at the high school level. With the help of UW-Baraboo business-economics professor Musa Ayar, Sam Gasser and Andrew Schoepp gathered data from across the state on teacher salaries and standardized test scores. We heard people say that teacher salary should be based on student test scores, Gasser said of choosing the research topic. There seemed to be vagueness around the issue, so we decided it would be interesting to find out what is actually the case. They spent months crunching the numbers and plotting the data on graphs, but ultimately found there was no connection between teacher salary and student performance at the high school level. The students thought their work was over, until Ayar stepped in and pointed them in a different direction. If you dont find a correlation, thats a finding too, Ayar said. If you want to find a correlation, I told them, Go and check the years of experience in relation to the teacher pay. At the direction of their professor, Gasser and Schoepp found there was a connection between work experience and teacher salary. They concluded that teacher salary does not affect student performance, and suggested that an incentive program be implemented to encourage educators to work toward improving student test scores. One of the things that we did discuss was possibly creating a rewards system, Schoepp said. Teachers would still earn their wage, but if their students perform well they might receive a bonus. Both Schoepp and Gasser agreed the project provided them with skills that they are currently using at four-year universities Gasser at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Schoepp at the University of Wisconsin-Stout. They said its hard to articulate how it feels to see their work featured in the Capitol Rotunda. I dont really know the word to describe it, Gasser said. Its a really good feeling to have this recognition for all of the hard work we put into our project. JUNEAU A 63-year-old Milwaukee man is charged with sending a narcotic to his son who is serving time in Fox Lake Correctional Institution. Calvin Brown Jr. is charged with deliver illegal articles to an inmate. He could face up to three-and-a-half years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Brown Jr. will make his initial appearance in court on May 1. According to the criminal complaint, an investigative captain at Fox Lake Correctional reported on Dec. 14 that he received information about Suboxone, a narcotic pain reliever, being mailed to an inmate in the prison. A correctional officer was processing mail in the mailroom and noticed two letters for the inmate with raised spots where the stamps were placed on the letters. The correctional officer pealed away one of the stamps and saw the Suboxone below the stamp. The name on the return envelope was not Brown, but a phone call gave the correctional officers more information. The phone call from Brown Jr. to his son came in Dec. 3. During the phone call, Browns son was telling him how to put the drug under stamp on the envelope. Police spoke to Brown Jr. on Dec. 15 and according to the complaint, he promised not to send more drugs into the institution. JUNEAU A 32-year-old Horicon man pleaded not guilty Wednesday to committing a burglary at The Cooper Shop Saloon, 30 Main St., Kekoskee. Lucas M. Mueller is charged with felony charges of burglary of a building and possession of burglarious tools, misdemeanor charges of criminal damage to property, resisting an officer, theft, five charges of felony bail jumping and five charges of misdemeanor bail jumping. According to the criminal complaint, a Dodge County Sheriffs Deputy responded to the saloon March 18 at 10 a.m. about a burglary that occurred sometime during the night. A patio window was broken and money was missing from the bar. The money had been hidden, so the caller felt that the person knew where to get it. When the deputy arrived he noticed that muddy footprints went directly to the room where the money was kept. The owners said they store their startup money for the next day in that room. A female employee gave him a sheet of paper with Muellers name on it and said a male employee at the business might have something to do with the theft. The deputy also viewed security footage that showed a man walking up to the entry door around 5 a.m. March 18. His face was covered with a hat. He entered through the broken window. At one point, the man removed his hat and was crawling on the floor after apparently trying to find something he lost in the dark. He then got back up and faced the camera. The employee who gave the name also went to Muellers home and took photos of the shoes that matched the ones in the video. She also felt the physical characteristics of Mueller were similar to those of the man on the video. Police spoke to Mueller, who told them that he was too old to do something like that. Mueller also told officers that he could guarantee his shoes were not the ones in the video because they were one of a kind. A telephone scheduling conference for the case is scheduled for May 10. The Columbus School District has begun its search for a new director of pupil services. Brian Johnson, who currently holds the post, will be resigning June 30, to take a position with the Mount Horeb School District. At a School Board meeting April 10, Superintendent Annette Deuman said the district has 24 applicants for the job. Finalists were expected to be interviewed on Friday, April 21. The district has also decided to repost the director of business services position, after a round of interviews in March. That position is being vacated by Nancy Liverseed who will be retiring at the end of the school year. We still feel that theres a good candidate pool out there, Deuman said. We just have to find the right fit for us. In other human resources news: Two elementary school teachers will be resigning, effective June 30: Nikki Hill and Christine Adams. Sonya Pavela has been hired as a full-time school psychologist for 2017-18. By Press Trust of India: (Eds: Recasting intro) Lakhimpur Kheri (UP), Apr 13 (PTI) Officials of Kheri district in India and Kanchanpur in Nepal have agreed to a joint survey of their boundaries to resolve border dispute. This was agreed upon in writing by officials of the two countries during a meeting yesterday at Mahendranagar in Nepal, Kheri District Magistrate Akashdeep told newspersons here today. advertisement The pact envisages carrying out of a survey of the entire border between Kheri in Uttar Pradesh and adjoining areas of Nepal by a joint survey team, he said. PTI COR SAB SMI SMN SMN --- ENDS --- The town of Necedah moved forward on upcoming road work projects by approving construction bids at its April 10 meeting at town/village hall. Town officials received three bids for pulverizing surfaces and selected the lowest, from Kraemer Brothers Construction in Plain, for $46,465.66 or $.62 per square yard. For gravel filling, the town received two bids and selected Gerke Excavating from Tomah. The company will deliver 11,708 tons to the job site for $12.85 per ton, with some gravel also delivered to the town shop for a total price of $150,487. Board members decided to approve the lower bid. The town also plans to pay for seal coating work. The board took several minutes to review the bids before making a decision. Board members toured local roads in March and selected certain ones for repair. Camper ordinance on website A town resident asked the board if the new, updated amendment to the camper ordinance has been uploaded to the municipalitys website. Town Clerk Susan Kosinski said the amended ordinance is on the town site and includes amendments made on Feb. 13. The resident said it will be helpful to reference the new version to answer questions from people concerned about the ordinance. After receiving criticism from town residents, the board decided to scale back on some of the ordinances provisions. Necedah had an old camper regulation in place since the mid-1970s, but decided to update it last year to reduce trash and waste dumping in effort to clean up properties. Position needs to be filled The town is still looking to replace retiring emergency management director Gerry Ganther. Ganther announced he was resigning at the towns March board meeting. At the March meeting, Chairman Terry Taft said the position is important because the director works with county and state officials during an emergency, such as a tornado or large wildfire. Town/village hall has been equipped to serve as the Necedah areas central command center in the event of an emergency. The town also decided to join the village of Necedah in efforts to expand broadband service. At its April 10 meeting, village officials approved a plan to support more high-speed internet access in the area. Rural broadband expansion is also being promoted by state officials. State Rep. Ed Brooks (R-Reedsburg) has included it in his Rural Wisconsin Initiative bill. On April 11, Brooks said he held a recent listening session in Necedah and locals voiced concern over limited internet capabilities. They want high-speed internet access because some of them own business up there and they depend on it to for their businesses to function efficiently, Brooks said. In other business, the town will hold its annual electors meeting on April 18 at 7 p.m. at town/village hall. The April 4 election was dominated by incumbents, but will welcome new board supervisor Carl Bezemek who replaces Ginny Hodal. A judge agreed to a request by the Columbia County District Attorneys Office to dismiss a 3-year-old drug charge against a Columbia Correctional Institution inmate, reserving the right to retry the case later. Aaron Allen, 49, appeared in Columbia County Circuit Court on Tuesday in a hearing to discuss the withdrawal of his attorney and dismissal of his case, in which he was charged with felony possession with intent to distribute marijuana. Have you discussed this with Mr. Benavides? asked Judge Todd Hepler. Not yet, said Allen, other than letting me know that he was withdrawing from the case. And that is your desire that he withdraw from the case? said Hepler. Your honor, said Allen, my desire is to have an attorney that can provide effective assistance counsel as it has been from day one. If he would like to withdraw, I have no problem with it. Since being charged on April 9, 2014, Allen has been represented by four attorneys who either withdrew or passed his case along after moving outside the county. Ronald Benavides would be the fifth attorney, who after some disagreements, provided stand-by counsel in prior hearings. What prompted my motion (to withdraw) was Mr. Allens instruction that he wanted me off his case and also concern at my decision not to call witnesses at the preliminary hearing, said Benavides. I really dont believe Mr. Allen would follow my advice. So ... I am obligated to withdraw. On Feb. 1, 2013, while inmate Lanis Solomon was in the shower, CCI officers found four balloons, each containing about a gram of marijuana, that he had reportedly hidden in the cuffs of his pants. Solomon told an officer that the balloons belonged to Allen, his cellmate, and were brought into the prison through Allens girlfriend. The investigating detective in the case, Michael Haverley of the Columbia County Sheriffs Office, testified as security video footage from that day was shown in court. In the video Lorita Hawthorne is shown visiting with Allen and interacting in a manner consistent with passing contraband, according to Haverly. On Sept. 19, 2013, officers with the sheriffs department stopped Hawthorne as she was leaving CCI following a visit. Hawthornes vehicle was searched, and a dog indicated possible drugs, but none were found. She was then brought to Divine Savior Healthcare where she was strip-searched, with samples sent to the State Crime Lab. Lab analysis found a suspected DNA match to Allen on the balloons, while powder taken from Hawthorne during the strip search came back negative for any drugs. Allen disputed the criminal complaint at a Sept. 30, 2016, hearing, pointing to testimony from Solomon who he said had recanted prior statements. Minutes before the hearing, Assistant District Attorney Crystal Long filed a new criminal complaint, stripped of mention of evidence that had been at issue, with DNA analysis included as a basis for probable cause. Hepler on Jan. 12 found probable cause and Allen was bound over for trial. Later in the month, Long filed motions to dismiss both charges against Allen and Hawthorne, with the explicit expectation of refiling at a later time. In Tuesdays hearing after Benavides was excused, Allen represented himself and was asked by the judge if he wanted the case dismissed. I think that it should have been dismissed a long time ago, said Allen. But this case has been going on for four years now and all the delays have mainly been attributed to the state. After serving 21 years in prison for armed robbery, Allen said, he is now eligible for parole, free of conduct reports, and with a reputation as a model inmate. Any chance of parole is not possible as long as there is a pending case. Hepler asked if Allen or the prosecution opposed the motion to dismiss the charges. Neither did and the judge pronounced it dismissed without prejudice, which means it could be refiled. Allen asked the judge why. Thats what the motion was and you didnt oppose the motion, said Hepler. Finishing second out of 179 schools is as good as it sounds for Portage High Schools Future Business Leaders of America. Fifteen students are on their way to FBLA nationals in Anaheim, California, in June after last weeks state competition in Appleton. Their success in Appleton helped the school place second overall, finishing behind only Menomonee Falls a school with twice the number of competitors. Portage also finished second overall at regionals in February, behind only Waunakee. But Portage beat Waunakee at state, noted Portages FBLA adviser, Jan Imhoff. Im very proud of this, Imhoff said. I think its dedication. Our theme this year is A Legacy of Leadership, and I think thats what it has come down to. Portage FBLA has established a really good reputation around the state, and even at the national level. We have some really talented, dedicated kids who are excited to keep this legacy going. They want to be part of it. They see what they can do from the kids who came before them, and push it farther, leaving a trail for others to follow as well. Portage had the fourth largest chapter membership. Four seniors are joined by 11 underclassmen in advancing to nationals. The seniors are Haley Schuster, who finished first in computer applications, and the team of Taya Briggs, Lien Weiss and Haley Tollison, who finished first in social media campaign. Schuster, FBLA Portages president, also qualified for nationals as part of a team that finished second in annual business report and she placed second in Whos Who in FBLA. Finishing in second for Whos Whos means Schuster is the second-most decorated FBLAer in all of Wisconsin, an award that recognizes students for the number of conferences attended, places won competitively, offices held and committees served on. At state, junior Emma Shortreed campaigned for and won a state officer position for next years FBLA, becoming Wisconsins new FBLA state secretary/treasurer. Her campaign, Imhoff said, involved everything from creating brochures to giving a speech on stage in front of 2,000 people. The rest of Portages FBLA chapter supported Shortreed with stickers, signs and chants of Vote for Emma Shortreed! mindful to include her last name, since one of her competitors was also named Emma. For her speech, Shortreed didnt shy from drama when she ditched the more traditional approach of addressing the audience from behind a podium. She right away took the cordless mic and went to middle of the stage, Imhoff said, and the audience went, Ooooh. She nailed it. When she asked the audience at the end of her speech who they want to see as their next secretary/treasurer, they yelled, You! Getting 15 qualifiers out of the schools 45 students for the trip to Anaheim is exciting for the program, Imhoff said. The last time FBLA went to Anaheim was in 2013, so the experience will be new for all the students. Students, for example, will see Hollywood and its iconic sign, Rodeo Drive all the glitz and glamour of what you see on TV, and now you get to experience it. Was it a surprise? Imhoff said of this years FBLA successes. Its always a surprise when they make it (to nationals) because you just never know. Theyre giving speeches and presentations, and its always subjective to the judges. Warnings signals will soon come from a new source in Prairie du Sac. The Prairie du Sac Village Board approved a proposal by American Signal out of Milwaukee for two warning signals at a cost of $39,131 during its board meeting April 11. The village received three proposals for the sirens, from Federal Signal Safety and Security Systems, out of Illinois and the Colorado-based Sentry Siren Inc., in addition to American Signal. The warning signals are used in cases of tornadoes or anytime there is a need for a mass notification. Its a signal to take cover or get further information from your T.V. or radio or local emergency services, said Prairie du Sac Village Administrator Alan Wildman. Where the signals would be placed has yet to be determined. Wildman said they wouldnt necessarily be located in the same place as the current signals. The signals come with two-way communication technology which allows for remote testing of the sirens rotation and sound. It also allows the warning to go off even if power is out. The company will also provide a one-year, free maintenance package, because American Signal is also used at the Prairie du Sac dam. The value of the maintenance plan is approximately $500. There are three sirens in the village currently, Wildman said, and the two older ones wouldnt be replaced until the newer ones were installed. The older two have lasted a long time and have done a good job, Wildman said. The new ones have battery backup, which we dont have right now. So if something happened that took out our electrical line, there would be no way to activate the warning siren. The third siren located at the fire department would remain and continues to be maintained, he said. India's second-largest IT services firm Infosys today reported a marginal growth in consolidated net profit at Rs 3,603 crore for the quarter ended March 2017. By Press Trust of India: The country's second-largest IT services firm Infosys today reported a marginal growth in consolidated net profit at Rs 3,603 crore for the quarter ended March 2017. Infosys will also pay up to Rs 13,000 crore to shareholders during 2017-18 by way of dividend and/or share buyback. It has named Independent Director Ravi Venkatesan co-Chairman of the company. advertisement Net profit came in 0.2 per cent higher than Rs 3,597 crore in the same period previous year, according to a BSE filing by Infosys. Revenue of the Bengaluru-based company grew 3.4 per cent to Rs 17,120 crore in the March quarter compared to Rs 16,550 crore in the same period of 2015-16, it added. The company expects its 2017-18 revenue to grow between 6.1 per cent and 8.1 per cent in dollar terms and 6.5-8.5 per cent in constant currency terms. On a sequential basis, Infosys' net profit fell 2.8 per cent while revenue declined 0.9 per cent. Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka said, "Unanticipated execution challenges and distractions in a seasonally soft quarter affected our overall performance." He added, "Looking ahead, it is imperative that we increase our resilience to the dynamics of our environment and we remain resolute in executing our strategy, path to transform Infosys and drive long term value for all stakeholders." In US dollars, Infosys net profit was up 1.8 per cent at USD 543 million for the March quarter while revenue grew 5 per cent to USD 2.5 billion. For the full year, net profit grew 4.3 per cent to USD 2.1 billion while revenue was up 7.4 per cent to USD 10.2 billion. The board has recommended a final dividend of Rs 14.75 per share for 2016-17. Also Read Compensation hike to Infosys COO grossly unfair to majority of other employees: Narayana Murthy Sensex vaults 213 pts ahead of economic data, earnings --- ENDS --- Your Ultimate Investing Toolkit Sign up for MarketBeat All Access to gain access to MarketBeat's full suite of research tools: Portfolio Monitoring Top Stock Lists Premium Reports Stock Screeners Live News Feed Premium Support Free for your first month. Snap Inc. is a social media company operating globally. The company was founded in September 2011 by Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy. Originally known as Snapchat, the company changed its name to Snap in order to represent its offerings better as it grew over the years. The companys headquarters are in Santa Monica, California and it is a very tightly held company. The original founders, Evan Speigel and Bobby Murphy own a combined 45% of non-dilutable shares with ownership transferable to the other upon death. The two remain active in the company today serving on the board and acting as CEO (Speigel) and CTO (Murphy). The company was formerly known as Snapchat, Inc. and changed its name to Snap Inc. in September 2016. Snap Inc. was founded in 2010 and is headquartered in Santa Monica, California. Over the years it has been courted by most of the big tech companies including Facebook and Google but has always opted to remain a standalone company. The business went public in 2017 and raised $30 billion on its opening day which is about 10 times the expected amount. Today, Snap operates as a camera company internationally. The companys main revenue streams are Snapchat, a mobile app for cameras and communications, and Spectacles, a wearable augmented reality device. Snapchat is a camera app that allows users to take pictures and tell stories, the platform also permits ad sales which is an integral part of the revenue and earnings. The companys mission? To empower people to express themselves in todays digital world. Spectacles is a hardware device that can connect with Snapchat to deliver pictures and video from a point-of-view perspective. The company has since made three upgrades to the original version and has a Next Generation model available too. The Next Generation of Spectacles are not intended for sale but will be made available to creators who wish to push the boundaries of video and digital communications. In October 2022 the company reported it had more than 347milion daily active users with more than 250 million engaging with AR each day. The platform had more than 250,000 Lens creators (Lenses are AR experiences) with more than 2.5 million lenses created. There were more than 6 billion lens plays each day and more than 75% of 13-34-year-olds in 20 countries were users. Nitish Rana has been on a roll for Mumbai Indians this IPL, smashing 34, 50 and 45. He has starred in both victories for the two-time champions so far. By India Today Web Desk: Nitish Rana has become an overnight batting sensation. This season, the 23-year-old is Mumbai Indians' most consistent batsman in a line-up that boasts of a galaxy of stars. Rana, with scores of 34, 50 and 45 so far aggregates 129 runs, has bailed the two-time champions out of trouble constantly. (Also read: Mumbai Indians not using Rohit Sharma well in middle order: Sourav Ganguly to India Today) advertisement Against Kolkata Knight Riders, Rana's classy half-century took MI closer home before Hardik Pandya's fireworks took the team across the line. On Wednesday, MI were again in a spot of bother against Sunrisers Hyderabad before Rana plundered invaluable runs - however, this time he was overtaken by another Pandya as Mumbai secured an important win, their second in three matches.(Also read: Pandya brothers have the license to thrill from MI captain Rohit Sharma) Rana of course made a name for himself last year in the IPL, when he played four matches but left nobody in any doubt of his talent with a seamless 70. That innings gave the team management enough confidence to give him a key role in the team - that of a middle-order destroyer and finisher. By all accounts, Rana has done the job with a lot of aplomb. Before the IPL, Rana had been through a torrid time, with 10 runs in three Vijay Hazare Trophy matches. He did not enjoy a great run in the Inter-State Twenty20 tournament either. For a young man, trying to make his mark on the big stage, that was obviously a depressing run. "When I was playing the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, I was mentally disturbed. I came here and spoke to Sachin Tendulkar and Mahela Jayawardene. I spoke to a lot of seniors in the team. There was no fault in my technique but the issue was more of the mindset. I realized I was overthinking," Rana told iplt20.com. Rana said speaking to two of the most iconic batsmen of their times made an immediate difference. "We have a clear thought process. I am now clear in my mind. I exactly know what I need to do when I am out there in the middle. Today, there was some pressure but the way Krunal Pandya (37 off 20) came out and played, it eased the pressure off me. "You can see the improvement day by day. There has been a huge change in my batting and the mindset from last season. I get to learn so much when I talk to them," he said. --- ENDS --- advertisement By Press Trust of India: Pak (Eds: Updating with details) New Delhi, Apr 13 (PTI) India has no information on retired Indian Navy officer Kulbhushan Jadhavs location in Pakistan or his condition, the external affairs ministry said today, noting that it is in touch with the government there on this "immensely important" issue. It is also understood that India, which has been denied consular access to Jadhav 13 times, has again moved a request for access to him. advertisement Asserting that the whole countrys sentiment is with Jadhav, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Gopal Baglay said the government will not spare any effort in securing justice for the "kidnapped innocent" Indian national but refused to divulge details. The 46-year-old Jadhav has been awarded death sentence by a Pakistani military court on charges of alleged "espionage and sabotage" activities. Baglay criticised the Pakistan government for not sharing Jadhavs location and details of his condition, adding that the international norm is consular access, and India and Pakistan have a bilateral agreement on consular access. He also referred to Indias demarche to Pakistan where it was clearly conveyed that given the circumstances of the case which includes kidnapping of Jadhav, absence of any credible evidence to substantiates the concocted charges against him, farcical nature of the proceedings against him and denial of consular access to him, the people and the government of India will consider this as a "premeditated murder". He also quoted the external affairs ministers statement in the Rajya Sabha where she had warned Pakistan of consequences of Jadhavs issue on bilateral ties. She had also talked about Pakistan asking India to assist in the investigations against Jadhav in January. "The Parliament of India has spoken in one voice, the whole countrys sentiments are with Jadhav... The government is trying its best to ensure justice to Jadhav. At the moment, we are engaged in achieving this objective but I would not like to speculate on the future steps, specifically," the spokesperson said. The government is in touch with Pakistan through the Indian High Commission on this "immensely important" issue, he added. Baglay said Jadhav is an innocent Indian who is a retired officer of the Indian Navy and these two things were conveyed to Pakistan in March, 2016 when issue of his "illegal custody there came to our attention". On reports of Jadhav carrying a fake identity or original Indian passport, Baglay said, "We cannot ascertain anything since we did not have any consular access. What kind of spy keeps an original passport, especially if he is going on so called spying mission. advertisement "These facts are illogical and create doubts over allegation of his being a spy... We need to know how he came to be in Pakistan in the first place." India has been maintaining that Jadhav, who had legal business interest in Iran, was kidnapped by Pakistan authorities. The trial of Jadhav was "opaque and farcical", no due process was followed and all legal norms and international relations were defied, Baglay said. The issue has triggered fresh tension in Indo-Pak ties and India has warned Pakistan of the "consequences" Jadhavs hanging could have on their ties and vowed to go "out of the way" to save him amid pervasive outrage in the country. He also said there was no information on capturing of any Pakistani army officer and termed as "speculative" some of the options including swapping of prisoners to get him released. Apart from diplomatic options, India will also explore legal remedies permitted under Pakistan legal system including Jadhavs family going for appeal against the verdict. India had even spoken to the Iran government about Jadhav as he had a legal business pertaining to Chhabahar port there. Baglay said he has no idea what progress has the investigation made, when asked about the status of the probe ordered by Iran last year. advertisement Asked about if the US NSA was visiting India and if Jadhavs issue will come up apart from a possible America trip of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said he does not have information on the date for NSA of the US. "If and when it takes place, I am sure his discussion with our NSA and other meetings will cover prominently the situation in the region, most importantly in Afghanistan and also the threat of terrorism which emanates within our region from a specific country which effects the entire region. "This will obviously be on priority. I cannot decide what the two dignitaries will discuss. But generally speaking the sense is that regional situation will help both the countries to consolidate this partnership," he said. PTI PYK ZMN --- ENDS --- Jallianwala Bagh centenary in 2019 will be a 'good time' for the British to apologise to the Indians for wrongs committed during their rule, said Shashi Tharoor (Congress MP and author). By Kumar Shakti Shekhar: It was exactly 98 years ago that the ghastly Jallianwala Bagh massacre had taken place on Baisakhi. However, Britain, which colonised India for 200 years, is yet to tender an apology for the incident and similar such excesses committed by its forces on the native people. While Canada has apologised for the 1914 Komagata Maru incident and Japan has said sorry to South Korea over the Korean women forced into sexual slavery for Japanese soldiers during the World War II, the UK has yet to express any such sentiments. advertisement The Jallianwala Bagh massacre had taken place in Amritsar on April 13, 1919. On hearing that a meeting of nearly 20,000 people was taking place at Jallianwala Bagh, Brigadier General REH Dyer had ordered 50 riflemen to shoot at the crowd. More than 1,000 innocent Indians were killed and over 1,100 injured. Though Britain has described the incident as "shameful", it has fallen far short of tendering an apology. In 2013, former British Prime Minister David Cameron described the Jallianwala Bagh massacre as a "deeply shameful event". But he did not apologise for it. MERE LIP SERVICE, NO APOLOGY YET FROM BRITAIN Earlier, during their ceremonial visit to Jallianwala Bagh in 1997, Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh merely signed on the visitor's book. They did not leave any comment, leave aside, even regretting the incident. Congress MP and author Shashi Tharoor is of the view that the Jallianwala Bagh centenary in 2019 would be a "good time" for the UK to apologise to Indians for the excesses committed during their 200-odd rule. While speaking on his book 'An Era of Darkness: The British Empire In India' before inaugurating the Kolkata Literary Festival-2017, had said, "Either the British Prime Minister or a member of the royal family can come and convey their own profound apologies to the people of India, not just for that atrocity (Jallianwala Bagh massacre) but for all wrongs done during the empire." Tharoor pointed out that one cannot quantify the wrongs done by the Britishers. He is of the opinion that an apology would be far more important than any financial compensation. CANADA APOLOGISED FOR 1914 KOMAGATA MARU INCIDENT While it is still uncertain whether the Britishers would act contrite for the excesses committed by them, Canada apologised for the 1914 Komagata Maru incident where hundreds of Hindu, Sikh and Muslim immigrants were denied entry into that country and turned away from the port of Vancouver to return to an uncertain and ultimately violent fate in India. In May 2016, almost 102 years after Canada turned away over 376 migrants, mostly Sikhs from India, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau formally apologised in Parliament for the "great injustice" that had happened due to discriminatory laws of the time. advertisement Trudeau apologised in the House of Commons for the 1914 decision by the then Canadian government to turn away the migrants onboard the ship Komagata Maru after their arrival in Vancouver. Komagata Maru sailed into Vancouver harbour on May 23, 1914 from Hong Kong, but most of the passengers were eventually turned away on the grounds of the "continuous journey clause" that allowed only travellers on a trip without interruption to land in Canada. After two months in limbo in the harbour, the ship was escorted out of the harbour by the military. It returned to India and on its arrival, at least 19 people were killed in a skirmish with British soldiers, while others were jailed. JAPAN'S APOLOGY TO SOUTH KOREA FOR COMFORT WOMEN In December 2015, Japan apologised to South Korea for having forced the latter's women into sexual slavery during the World War II. The Korean women had been enslaved by Japan for its soldiers. Japan had colonised Korea from 1910-45. The sensitive issue had remained a sore point in relations between the two East Asian countries for decades before they reached a landmark deal. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe issued a statement to apologise and express remorse "from the heart for all the people suffering hard-to-cure wounds and many pains" physically and psychologically. advertisement He had said in the comfort women issue, many women under the then military's involvement bore deep scars to their honour and dignity. From this perspective, his statement said, the Japanese government acutely feels responsible. Besides expressing its regret, contrition and apology for its colonial-era sexual enslavement of Korean women, Japan also agreed to provide 1 billion yen ($8.3 million) for a foundation to be established by South Korea to support the surviving victims. WILLY BRANDT APOLOGY FOR NAZI CRIMES In December 1970, German social democrat leader Willy Brandt went on his knees in front of the monument to the Jews who had rebelled in the Warsaw Ghetto. Though he was in no way related to the crimes of the Nazis, Brandt apologised on their behalf during a visit to Poland. Shashi Tharoor and the likes of him would only hope that the UK takes a cue from Canada, Japan and Germany to apologise to India for the inhuman treatment of the native people during their rule. advertisement This may go a long way in strengthening ties between the two countries. ALSO READ | No country will leave EU after Brexit, bloc chief Juncker asserts ALSO READ | Canadian Prime Minister on rejecting Sikhs in 1914: I will offer a full apology --- ENDS --- China News on Women Sorry, the page you requested was not found. If you're having trouble locating a destination on Womenofchina.cn, try visiting the Womenofchina Home page The electoral loss for the BJP in the Nanjangud and Gundlupet bypolls puts a question mark on state unit chief Yeddyurappa's style of functioning and this may turn out to be a blessing in disguise for the BJP. By Prabhash K Dutta: The Karnataka BJP went into the bypolls of Nanjangud an Gundlupet saying that the elections would show the mood of people in the state and give an early indication of a change of government when election takes place next year. But, the results belied their expectations. The BJP lost both the Assembly segments in the bypolls. But, for the central leadership of the BJP, the results may have given it an opportunity to correct the wrongs of the faction-ridden state unit. advertisement Karnataka BJP chief BS Yeddyurappa led the election campaign and prepared strategies for the two bypolls ignoring the views of his party colleagues including his biggest rival Eshwarappa. Yeddyurappa had launched the campaign for the by-election projecting himself as the BJP chief ministerial candidate for the 2018-Assembly poll in Karnataka. YEDDYURAPPA SHADOWED BJP The former Karnataka Chief Minister is, undoubtedly, the biggest mass leader of the BJP in the state but his style of functioning has encouraged infighting in the party. After the 2013 Assembly election, when the BJP lost power in Karnataka, the party lost its prime position in the state. The BJP had expelled Yeddyurappa from the party ahead of the Assembly election. Yeddyurappa went on to form his own political outfit and contested the polls. Though Yeddyurappa's Karnataka Janata Paksha (KJP) won only six seats in the Assembly election in 2013, it reduced the BJP's tally from 110 to 40. Yeddyurappa came back to the BJP fold ahead of 2014-Lok Sabha elections. The BJP won 17 Lok Sabha seats. Yeddyurappa won from Shimoga parliamentary constituency. Ironically, in 2013, Eshwarappa had lost his Shimoga Assembly seat to the Congress. YEDDYURAPPA BREEDS INFIGHTING IN BJP The electoral success in 2014 established Yeddyurappa as the premier BJP leader in Karnataka. But, his return also ignited the old rivalry with Eshwarappa. The differences between Eshwarappa and Yeddyurappa began during the first BJP government in Karnataka during 2008-13. Eshwarappa complained about autocratic ways of Yeddyurappa. The then CM was accused of treating his party and cabinet colleagues as 'subordinates'. The re-entry of Yeddyurappa and subsequent success of the BJP only emboldened the former Karnataka CM. This resulted in intensified infighting in the BJP. The latest flashpoint between the two top leaders of the BJP was the issue of participation in the Sangolli Rayana Brigade - a movement launched by Eshwarappa on the freedom fighter from the 18th century to mobilise backward class votes. In January this year, Yeddyurappa asked the BJP leaders to stay away from the function while Eshwarappa lobbied for wider participation. Yeddyurappa as the BJP state chief prevailed but Eshwarappa camp was left unhappy and non-cooperative. advertisement As many as 24 MLAs of the party wrote to the central leadership complaining against Yeddyurappa. CASTE BASE OF YEDDYURAPPA, ESHWARAPPA Yeddyurappa belongs to Lingayat community of Karnataka. Lingayats are considered politically significant as they tend to vote en bloc. The election results of 2013-Assembly and 2014-Lok Sabha polls make the BJP believe in the theory more than ever. Eshwarappa belongs to Kuruba community, who are considered backward. The BJP has been canvassing in Karnataka to widen its base among the backward castes and Eshwarappa is crucial for the party in its search for new grounds of support. The BJP can't risk losing any of the two caste leaders. But, a strong and 'autocratic' Yeddyurappa is detrimental to the BJP's prospects in the elections as he might push backward communities away. Eshwarappa has openly accused Yeddyurappa of being anti-backward caste. The results of Nanjangud and Gundlupet bypolls fit in the theory. The bypoll loss also means that Yeddyurappa's political stature will take a beating. The central leadership of the BJP can now ask Yeddyurappa to take Eshwarappa and other leaders along as the party eyes a comeback in Bengaluru next year. Interestingly, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah is also a Kuruba leader and enjoys support of minorities and Dalits as well. advertisement ALSO READ | Nanjangud, Gundlupet stay with Congress as BJP tastes defeat in Karnataka bypolls --- ENDS --- The site of the proposed water treatment plant at Jillson and Sharkey avenues could also become home to a solar panel farm. Exelon and JAPC form joint venture, Horizon welcomes move 13 April 2017 Share Exelon Generation and Japan Atomic Power Company (JAPC) have formed a joint venture company "to leverage Exelon's expertise in operational excellence and safety among international operators using Japanese reactor technologies". The new company, JExel Nuclear, is expected to sign an "advisory services" contract with Horizon Nuclear Power - Hitachi's UK subsidiary that is developing two Advanced Boiling Water Reactors (ABWRs) at Wylfa Newydd in Wales. Horizon, JAPC and Hitachi signed a technical services contract in July last year for the proposed plant at Wylfa Newydd, which is on the Isle of Anglesey. According to that contract, JAPC is to support Horizon in areas including construction costing, licensing, and planning for commissioning. Then, in February this year, Horizon announced it was joining forces with Exelon Generation as Horizon develops its "expertise and capability" to operate a new nuclear power plant at Wylfa Newydd. Chris Crane, Exelon president and CEO, said today that the Exelon Nuclear Management Model is "widely regarded as the gold standard for world-class nuclear power operations". The joint venture with JAPC is "a significant business development opportunity" to license Exelon's nuclear operations expertise internationally, Crane added. "Together we will help other nuclear developers and operators around the globe create a new generation of even safer, more reliable and more efficient nuclear power plants," he said. Mamoru Muramatsu, JAPC president, said the company has experience in the successful operation of multiple reactors in Japan built by British, American, and Japanese vendors, as well as experience designing the ABWR. "Therefore, we will make an excellent team with Exelon that has a very impressive track record over decades in the USA, by complementing each other's expertise that will allow the joint venture to best support our customers," Muramatsu added. JExel Nuclear will provide advisory, operating and maintenance management services to nuclear power plant developers and operators around the world utilising Japanese reactor technologies, according to the statement. The new company will provide full implementation of the Exelon Nuclear Management Model or work with project owners to customise the model to their requirements, it said. Exelon Generation and JAPC each own 50% of JExel Nuclear and each have two board members. The four directors for JExel Nuclear will be: Takahiko Hida, managing director of JAPC; Toshihiro Komeno, general manager of JAPC; Mike Pacilio, executive vice president and COO of Exelon Generation; and Ralph Hunter, vice president of Exelon Generation and COO of Exelon Nuclear Partners. Takahiko Hida will serve as the CEO. Welcome development Horizon welcomed the formation of JExel Nuclear, which it said will support the company as it continues to progress its nuclear new build project at Wylfa Newydd. Duncan Hawthorne, Horizon CEO said: "We are delighted that two of the companies with whom we are already working closely have come together to provide us with such a strong and consolidated service. We look forward to continuing to draw on their combined knowledge and experience of the global nuclear industry as we successfully deliver Wylfa Newydd and grow Horizon into a new, leading nuclear operator." Since announcing their partnership in February, Exelon has embedded a team of four specialists at Horizon. "Working alongside Horizon's own growing team, they are providing expertise in engineering, maintenance, operations and training, as Horizon develops its own nuclear operating model," Horizon said. Its partnership with JAPC draws on the Japanese company's experience and know-how gained from many years of involvement with boiling water reactors, covering design, construction, operation and maintenance, Horizon said. JAPC oversaw the construction of Japan's first light water reactor and is supporting Horizon in areas such as construction costing, licensing, and planning for commissioning, it added. Japanese news agency Nikkei reported today that JAPC "will expand its services to operation and maintenance" at Wylfa Newydd through the new joint venture, but Horizon has always made it clear that it alone will be the operator of the plant. The technical services contract Horizon, Hitachi and JAPC signed last year states that JAPC will have an advisory role as Horizon develops its own operating model. Nikkei also reported that JExel Nuclear will be headquartered in Japan and be capitalised at 10 million ($91,500). Horizon announced on 4 April it had applied for a nuclear site licence for the proposed development of the Wylfa Newydd plant, while the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), the Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales said on 22 March they expect to complete the Generic Design Assessment of the UK ABWR in December. A site licence meanwhile is one of the main permissions a developer needs to build and operate a new nuclear power plant and Horizon said receipt of the application by the ONR "now triggers a rigorous 19-month program of assessment and intervention to establish whether Horizon can demonstrate it will be in control of all safety related activities on its site". Exelon Generation's chief nuclear officer, Bryan Hanson, told delegates at the 19th annual ELECTRIC POWER Conference this week in Chicago, that nuclear power has a vital role in the USA's clean energy future. In a keynote speech on 11 April, Hanson said power generators must adapt, innovate and advocate for policy reforms to survive and grow in today's challenging power markets. "Efficiency improvements and new technologies are making our facilities safer, cleaner and more effective, but operating our nuclear units safely and reliably isnt enough anymore," Hanson said. "We have to adapt, innovate and advocate for the value of our people and our plants." In January, Horizon said it had been awarded a licensee certificate by Bureau Veritas for the procurement of equipment required for the Wylfa Newydd plant. The certificate is verification that organisations yet to be granted a nuclear site licence have suitable management systems, quality arrangements and supply chain practices in place before the purchase of any nuclear safety related equipment or services. Horizon was formed in 2009 to develop new nuclear power stations in the UK. It was acquired by Hitachi Ltd of Japan in November 2012. The company is developing plans to build at least 5400 MWe of new nuclear power generation plant at Wylfa on the Isle of Anglesey and Oldbury-on-Severn in South Gloucestershire. The company has said its nuclear power plant sites will employ 850 people each once operational, and have a construction workforce of between 8000 and 10,000. Exelon Generation, a subsidiary of Exelon Corporation, owns a generating capacity of more than 32,500 MWe. It operates the largest nuclear power fleet in the USA, with 19,400 Mwe of capacity from 22 reactors at 13 facilities in Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. JAPC was established in November 1957 as a power company solely engaged in nuclear power in Japan. JAPC owns Tokai Power Station, a gas-cooled reactor that is currently under decommissioning; Tokai No.2 Power Station, a BWR; and Tsuruga Power Station, which comprises a BWR (unit 1) and a pressurised water reactor (Unit 2). Advanced-PWRs are under construction at its Tsuruga site. Researched and written by World Nuclear News Related topics NRC confirms cleanup actions at New Mexico site 13 April 2017 Share The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has issued a Confirmatory Order to Homestake Mining Co of California outlining actions to be taken as part of an ongoing groundwater cleanup program at the site of a former uranium mill in New Mexico. The mill, at a site near Grants, processed uranium for several local mines between 1958 and 1990. Tailings from milling operations were placed in two piles. In 1975 it was discovered that seepage from the tailings piles had contaminated groundwater, and a groundwater protection plan was implemented from 1977. The mill itself was decommissioned and demolished between 1993 and 1995. The site, which is also under the oversight of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) through the Superfund program, is undergoing a major groundwater corrective action plan under an NRC licence. Site closure is estimated for 2022. The Confirmatory Order issued by the NRC finalises and makes legally binding commitments made by Homestake to address apparent violations of the NRC-approved corrective action progam. The violations, discovered by the NRC during records inspections between October 2014 and May 2016, include the discharge of water that exceeded site standards; the discharge of water containing byproduct material to unauthorised locations; failure to obtain liquid effluent samples and report the results; and the injection of water using a method inconsistent with the approved program. The NRC noted that Homestake took immediate corrective actions to comply with the regulator's requirements. "The NRC has no immediate public health and safety concerns, because the apparent violations did not result in the public being exposed to contaminated groundwater," it said yesterday. Homestake has agreed, through a mediated dispute resolution process, to further commitments to bring it into compliance with NRC requirements. A root cause protocol, which will be submitted for review to the NRC and an "independent third party", will be used to analyse the reasons for the violations and identify additional further corrective actions. The company will also assess all its activities, including a review of its safety culture, to determine their compliance with NRC requirements. Homestake will submit a revised groundwater program to the NRC by the end of 2018. According to the EPA, the large tailings impoundment at the Homestake site covers an area of about 200 acres (81 hectares) and is about 85-100 feet (26-30 metres) high. It contains an estimated 21 million tonnes of mill tailings. The small tailings impoundment covers an area of about 40 acres and is 20-25 feet high, containing about 1.2 million tonnes of tailings. Seepage from the two tailings impoundments has resulted in the contamination of the underlying groundwater aquifers. The current remedial program consists of a groundwater collection/injection system, tailings collection wells within the tailings impoundment, a tailings impoundment toe drain, a reverse osmosis treatment plant, and three evaporation ponds. Homestake Mining Company is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Canada-based Barrick Gold Corporation following a merger in 2001. Researched and written by World Nuclear News Related topics What Is The Historic Town Of Lunenburg? Lunenburg is located on the southern coast of the province of Nova Scotia in Canada. The town was founded in 1753 during the Father Le Loutre War as the first attempt by the British to replace the Indigenous and Acadian Catholic populations with Protestant settlers. Today, the historic district of Lunenburg is considered to be the most well-preserved example of a planned British community in North America. In fact, it is one of only two urban areas in North America that have been established as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Why Is Lunenburg A UNESCO World Heritage Site? This historic town has been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site for many reasons, primarily because it has maintained its original appearance and grid-like design. Many of the buildings here reflect the typical wooden British architecture of the 18th century. The local government and residents have made every effort over the years to preserve these homes and public buildings. A visit to this city allows tourists to walk back in time and appreciate the colorful exteriors of architectural tradition. Its coastal location has heavily influenced the local economy, which relies on the Atlantic fishing industry. The port of the city is filled with tall boats, adding to its charming appearance. The original urban planning is still reflected in this area of the city and it has remained unchanged since it was first established. This lack of significant change to the layout of the city is because its grid-like design has remained useful to the needs of the local community and economy. The only thing missing from the original city is the British fortifications, once used for military purposes. No visible ruins remain. Aside from this, experts agree that Lunenburg is an authentic British colonial town in its architecture, materials, functions, and setting. Not only are the streets laid out in a rectangular and organized fashion, but the city design also incorporated centralized public areas and important community buildings, which are still in use today. Management Of Lunenburg Management of the historic district of Lunenburg is somewhat demanding on the local population. This is because property owners are faced with the challenge of affording maintenance costs while remaining true to historical accuracy in building representations. Restoration efforts are regulated by several government acts. This area of Lunenburg has been recognized as historically valuable since 1989 when it was first protected under the Heritage Property Act. Since then, the government has enacted various pieces of legislation in an attempt to ensure it retains its original appearance. Some of these protective measures include registration as a National Historic Site in 1991 and protection under the Municipal Government Act of 1998. These two regulations allowed for the creation of the Heritage Conservation District Plan, Bylaw, and Guidelines in 2001, which helps guide the community and private property owners in the complex management of a World Heritage Site. Constant efforts to maintain the towns integrity and authenticity are undertaken by the local and national government. In 2010, the local government published the Lunenburg Heritage Public Sustainability Strategy to offer development guidance and to identify potential tourism benefits that could boost the towns economy. The Rideau Canal was designated as a cultural heritage site by UNESCO in 2007, recognized as a historical and recreational heritage. It has been a National Historic site in Canada since 1925. The 125.5 miles long waterway acts as a link between the city of Ottawa and the city of Kingston, Ontario. The word Rideau translates to curtain in French and it was named from the curtain-like appearance formed where the Rideau Rivers twin waterfalls meet the Ottawa River. The canal is also informally known as the Rideau Waterway. History Of The The Rideau Canal The plan to build the canal was conceived after the War of 1812 was fought between the Americans and the British. The Americans had wanted to launch an attack in the British Colony of Upper Canada by way of the St. Lawrence River. Had the American intention been executed, the lifeline between Kingston and Montreal would have been jeopardized. The Rideau Canal was intended to connect Montreal and Kingston to facilitate secure supply and establish a communication route. St. Lawrence River bordered the American State of New York, and the British wanted to bypass it altogether. Lieutenant-Colonel John By, a member of the Royal Engineers, was tasked with the canals supervision. The construction was done by numerous private contractors and thousand of French-Canadian and Irish laborers. Work to build the canal began in 1826 ending in 1832. No military engagements took place between the Americans and the British after the canal was built, but it became an essential element to the development of Canada. It facilitated the transportation of immigrants as well as goods. The Rideau Waterway In addition to using a section of the Rideau and Cataraqui Rivers, the Canal also incorporates parts of some lakes such as the Big Rideau and the Lower Lakes. Of the 125.5miles length of the canal, about 12 miles is human-made. The Canal has facilitated the development of several communities along its path including Portland, Ottawa, Smiths Falls, Kingston, Kars, and the Rideau Ferry. Other communities are linked by navigable waterways to the canal include Perth and Kemptville. Built along the canal are 45 locks at 23 stations in addition to two locks located at the entry point to the Tay Canal. The majority of the locks are still hand-operated. The canal was built to accommodate boats of up to 22 feet in height, 90 feet in length, 26 feet in width and with a draft of 4 ft 11 inches. However, the canal can accommodate a boat of up to 30 ft in width and 110 ft in length in special operations. Uses Of The Rideau Canal The channel is primarily used by pleasure boats. Boat tours can be arranged in Kingston, Chaffeys Lock, Ottawa, and Merrickville. During winter, part of the Rideau Canal along central Ottawa attracts tourists as the largest skating rink in the world. It stretches for 4.8 miles and also hosts the Winterlude festival in Ottawa. This skating rink is unique since it occurs naturally, a fact that led to its recognition by the Guinness Book of World Records. The rink operates 24 hours a day between January and March. Congress beat defection of the sitting MLA at Nanjangud seat in Karnataka as it secures a morale-boosting victory in the bypoll. The BJP gave a fight at Gundlupet but the ruling party managed to retain the seat. By India Today Web Desk: Congress has won both Najangud and Gundlupet seats in Karnataka, where bypolls were held. The BJP has termed the results of Nanjangud and Gundlupet as 'unexpexcted'. Both the seats were held by the Congress. Congress candidate Kalale Keshavamurthy defeated BJP's Srinivas Prasad in Nanjangud while Geeta Mahadev Prasad defeated her rival CS Niranjan Kumar at Gundlupet. advertisement Keshvamurthy maintained a consistent lead through rounds. By the end of the sixth round, it had become clear that Kalale Keshavamurthy will win the Nanjangud seat. He was leading the Nanjangud seat with nearly 36,000 votes in comparison to BJP candidate Srinivas Prasad, who had polled little les than 20,000 votes by the end of the sixth round of countinv. In the Gundlupet bypoll, the BJP gave better fight but Congress was steadily marching ahead. At the end of eighth round of counting, Congress candidate Geeta Mahadev Prasad was leading with 45,489 votes while the BJP candidate Niranjan Kumar trailed with 41,665 votes. The bypolls of Nanjangud and Gundlupet were seen in Karnataka as the semi-final before the next year's Assembly election as the Siddaramaiah government completes its term. The BJP had campaigned aggressively treating the bypolls as early predictions for the next year's election. Incidentally, it was the defection by V Srinivas Prasad that created vacancy at the Nanjangud Assembly constituency. Prasad joined the BJP recently after he was removed from the ministry by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah. But, it seems Congress has managed to shift its anti-incumbency with Prasad to the BJP. Kalale Keshavamurthy had contested the last Assembly election on the ticket of former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda's JD-S, which did not filed a candidate in the bypoll. Congress candidate from Gundlupet Geeta Mahadev Prasad is the wife of later Congress MLA Mahadev Prasad. ALSO READ | Bypoll results LIVE: BJP wins in Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Assam; Congress in Karnataka --- ENDS --- Email Sign Up For Our Free Weekly Newsletter Sign Up Free | The WPJ Weekly Newsletter Relevant real estate news. Actionable market intelligence. Right to your inbox every week. Go Thank you for your interest! You will now be receiving our Weekly Real Estate Newsletter. Real Estate Listings Showcase According to global real estate advisory firm JLL, the amount of office space that has been occupied in Dublin in q1 of 2017 has totaled close to 550,000 sq. ft across a total of 40 deals. This is a steady level of take-up, and compared to the same period last year is up 11%.Demand has been strongest from tech-based companies, accounting for 45% of space occupied, with companies such as Google, Informatica, Multifonas, Oracle and Citrix occupying space since January.On the supply side, the vacancy rate remains steady at 8.9%, with tighter supply in the city centre of 4.8% of total space. Hannah Dwyer, Head of Research at JLL said, "In addition to the space that is currently vacant, there is an impressive pipeline of space coming on stream through redevelopment and refurbishment activity. There is currently 3.2 million sq. ft of available office space under construction in Dublin which will be delivered in the in the next 18 months. This equates to approximately 25,000 jobs. 76% of this is in the city centre including large schemes such as Boland's Quay, Capital Dock, SOBO District, 1 GQ, and The Exchange. With the amount of space leased in Dublin the last 2 years totaling between 2.5 million and 3.0 million sq. ft, this space only meets 1 years' demand. In addition to this however, there is an additional 3 years' supply in various stages of planning."Hannah further commented, "After the Brexit vote back in June, there was an initial flurry of enquiries from London-based companies looking for office space. This was just in the form of desk-based enquiries on rents and availability. In the last few months however, enquiries have picked up momentum with companies now making site and building visits over to Dublin and undertaking due diligence. JLL is working with a number of clients who are seriously considering a move to Dublin as part of their strategy, so enquires are now translating into real post-Brexit activity. We are expecting to see some direct Brexit-related deals signing in the next 3 months. Dublin is not being considered in isolation, and is in fact being considered alongside other European cities. Our stiffest competition appears to be coming from Frankfurt, Paris, Amsterdam and Madrid. In terms of sectors, we are seeing greatest demand from UK-based financial companies and related services, and tech firms. Sizes are ranging from space for 150 people up to 1,000 people, with only a few at the larger end of this scale." Tomas Yarrington Ruvalcaba By: Alexis Bell WorldWideWeirdNews.com (Scroll down for video) The former governor of a state in Mexico, was arrested in Italy, after being sought by the United States for several years, according to police in Italy. Florence police said that they have arrested 59-year-old Tomas Yarrington Ruvalcaba, after being accused of working with drug cartels to sell drugs in the United States. Police in Italy, arrested the former governor of the state of Tamaulipas in Mexico, after he was sought by police in Mexico and the United States. After six years as governor, Tamaulipas fled the country. He was found in Italy, and had a false passport with a different name in his possession. He was caught after being seen eating at a restaurant in Piazza della Signoria. According to prosecutors in Texas, Yarrington and Fernando Alejandro Cano Martinez, 61, who was the owner of a Mexican construction firm, conspired to violate the provisions of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) statute. The two men were also charged with conspiracy to launder money, conspiracy to defraud, and conspiracy to make false statements to federally insured U.S. banks. Yarrington is also separately charged with a conspiracy to violate the provisions of the Controlled Substances Act, two substantive bank fraud charges, and a conspiracy to structure currency transactions at a domestic financial institution, while Cano is separately charged with three counts of bank fraud. According to the indictment, Yarrington received large bribes from major drug traffickers operating in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, including the Gulf Cartel. In return, Yarrington allegedly allowed them to operate their large scale enterprises freely, which included the smuggling of large quantities of drugs to the United States for distribution. Yarrington allegedly became involved in the smuggling of large amounts of cocaine through the Port of Veracruz into the United States. In Mexico, the former governor has been charged with money-laundering and organized crime. By Sahil Joshi: Bombay High Court senior lawyer Yug Chaudhry has written a petition addressed to the President of Pakistan seeking mercy for former Indian Navy officer Kulbhushan Jadhav who has been awarded capital punishment by a military court of the country. Chaudhry is known for taking up cases where the neglected people from lower strata of the society have been victims of law enforcement agencies or government apathy. advertisement This is not the first mercy petition filed by Chaudhry. In October 2012, he filed a similar petition seeking mercy for Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Kasab who was awarded capital punishment by various courts of India. There were around 202 signatories who signed the petition which was then addressed to President of India. Chaudhry has once again appealed to the same signatories and some others to join him in seeking mercy for Jadhav. In the petition he says, "We, the undersigned citizens of India, had hitherto by our petition dated 28th October 2012, pleaded with the President of India for granting mercy to Md. Ajmal Kasab, a citizen of Pakistan sentenced to death by the Indian courts for his role in the 26/11 attacks on the city of Mumbai. We now appeal to you, Your Excellency, to exercise your power of clemency in favour of an Indian citizen, Kulbhushan Jadhav, and to spare his life." The petition further reads, "We believe that it is wrong and immoral to kill a human being by way of revenge or punishment. Executing Kulbhushan Jadhav in the name of the citizens of Pakistan will only feed a base blood lust that will make our people more blood-thirsty, vengeful and violent." "We believe that all of us - the best and the worst - are in need of mercy, and it is only by showing mercy that, morally, we ourselves become entitled to receiving it. Bereft of mercy, society becomes impoverished and inhuman. If we have to become a more humane and compassionate society, and leave a better, and less blood-thirsty world behind for our children, we have to curb our instinct for bloody retribution and abandon the practice of killing those who have hurt us" says Chaudhry in the petition seeking clemency for Jadhav. The petition finally concludes saying, "In a country whose people believe in the Koran which exalts compassion as the foremost virtue, let it not be said that there is no place left in people's hearts for mercy or that the national conscience can only be satisfied by the killing of Kulbhushan Jadhav". The signatories who had earlier signed the petition include prominent journalists and social workers from Mumbai and other parts of the country. advertisement Also Read: Kulbhushan Jadhav, not the first Indian to be tried and condemned to death by Pakistan Kulbhushan Jadhav death sentence: Braj locals want govt to 'teach Pakistan a lesson it won't forget' Kulbhushan Jadhav death sentence: MNS wants all Pakistani nationals thrown out of India until his release Pakistan sentences Kulbhushan Jadhav to death accusing him of espionage --- ENDS --- , a senior on the WSU cheer squad, is always on the move. You can find the Olympia native on her way to Cougar sporting events, cheer practice, class, and most recently, around the globe.After studying abroad in Costa Rica last year, Briggs a pre-med student, double-majoring in Spanish knew it was time to combine her passion for travel, languages, and medicine."In Costa Rica, it was the time of my life," Briggs said. "It was so amazing. But I also really saw the need for medicine outside of the U.S., and it gave me a heart to serve. I thought, 'Wow. I want to go abroad somewhere and actually use my Spanish and the medical knowledge I've gotten so far, for a good cause.'"That's where Hearts in Motion came in. The non-profit organization teams up with colleges and universities around the country each year including a group from WSU to provide assistance in medical and dental clinics, hospitals, and orphanages around Zacapa, Guatemala."It was kind of perfect," Briggs said of Hearts in Motion. "It was for people going into medicine, for Spanish speakers, and it had everything that I wanted, so I applied right away."The only thing that could make a dream volunteer trip to Guatemala that much more significant was taking a special nurse, and Briggs' long-time role model, along for the ride."When given the opportunity to apply for the program, I asked if my mom could join me as a volunteer nurse," Briggs said. "The organization [Hearts in Motion] was happy to have her and I both. I was translating for her and watching her diagnose people, which was really awesome."Hearts in Motion is a non-profit organization that focuses on a variety of community health projects in Guatemala. The Cougar 10-day portion of the year-round effort is led in part by WSU faculty members Ana Maria Rodriguez-Vivaldi and Kathy Beerman, and includes roughly 25 WSU-Pullman students.WSU contributes to Heart in Motion's mission by dedicating a large portion of time to cleft palate surgical repair for underprivileged children."These kids wait the whole year for our WSU group to come and do this, because their parents can't afford it on their own," Briggs said. "I would wait with them, and explain to them what was going to happen, and comfort them. But they were fearless. I never saw them cry or anything, and they were so grateful to be there. They were calm and excited to have their surgery done."And those kids in Guatemala never went through the operation alone. After the procedure, a new chapter in life and a familiar face, awaited."I got to wake the kids up after they were coming out of anesthesia and tell them 'Your surgery went perfectly,'" Briggs said. "They smiled so big, and I was able to play with them, and help them recover. I also got to see them the morning after when we did rounds, and the parents were so grateful. They'd run up to me and give me hugs and say 'Oh my gosh, we're so excited. We're so happy. Look how beautiful their smile is.' The moments like that made it really cool."They were moments that have inspired Briggs, who plans to do more medical service work in the future. She is on track to graduate in December of 2017, and plans to spend the remainder of what would've been her spring semester, back in Costa Rica on a medical internship."Then, my plan was to start medical school, but after this experience I'm re-thinking that," Briggs said. "I think I'm going to take a gap year and do more things like this. Before I start an eight-year journey, I want to go abroad and have more experiences like this, that really remind me of why I want to be a doctor."Along with the service work done in the community, Briggs also participated in a research project that WSU started with the help of an organization called Lucky Iron Fish. It utilizes a new, innovative solution to iron deficiency anemia a Lucky Iron Fish. It is a fish-shaped cast iron ingot, that releases iron when in contact with boiling-water or broth-based foods.As the ingredients absorb the iron-rich water or broth, the overall iron content of the meal is enhanced. One Lucky Iron Fish provides an entire family with up to 90 percent of their daily iron needs for up to five years."Lucky Iron Fish donated many 'fish' to take with us, and we were able to disperse them to families in Guatemala, and explain how to use them," Briggs said.The effort has been largely successful, with blood test results showing that the fish helped to improve iron status.The WSU group also did something extra special during Briggs' trip, by 'adopting' a local child, and contributing to pay for him to go to school."Each year, the group that goes will chip in to help pay for him to go to school," Briggs said. "It was really cool. We had a little ceremony where we told him what we were doing, and gave him a little Coug hat. It was really cute, and he was super excited."Now, after her journey with Hearts in Motion, Briggs is excited for the future, and hopes to make giving back to foreign communities a yearly effort. She's also appreciative of the memories and insight she's gained from her travels, so far."It was a really humbling experience," she said. "When you come back, you really realize how much you have, and how different it is in other places. It makes you look at life from a different perspective because it gives you a chance to step away and look at your life in the U.S. and realize your problems are so little, compared to the things that other people deal with. Some people can barely get food, and medical access is asking for so much. It just makes you really grateful for what you have, and want to give back what you can." The ALPHA-2 (Anti-Hydrogen Laser Physics Apparatus) experiment has made the first observations comparing the light emitted from hydrogen atoms made of antimatter to the light emitted from hydrogen atoms made of ordinary matter. The results indicate that the underlying characteristics of matter and antimatter differ by at most 200 parts per trillion, a significant milestone for research into antimatter and particle physics in general. ALPHA is one of many international scientific collaborations operating out of the CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) laboratories near Geneva, Switzerland. It generates and traps atoms of anti-hydrogen, the antimatter counterpart of the simplest atom, hydrogen, to allow for precision comparisons between the two in order to more fully understand the underlying physics governing antimatter. The exact nature of antimatter is one of the outstanding questions in modern physics. Antimatter was first hypothesized by Paul Dirac in 1928 and worked through more carefully by Dirac and Robert Oppenheimer in 1931. They predicted that certain physical processes would produce particles identical to the well-known electron or proton, except that they would have an opposite electric charge. While the idea was met with some scepticism in the physics community, the existence of the anti-electron (more commonly known as a positron) was experimentally verified in 1931 by Paul Anderson. Since then, antimatter equivalents have since been observed for all known fundamental particles. What has puzzled scientists for nearly a century, however, is the imbalance between the amounts of normal matter and antimatter in the universe. The Standard Model, the most advanced understanding of fundamental physics to date, predicts that there should have been equal amounts of matter and antimatter in the moments after the Big Bang, and thus in the rest of the cosmos. This contradicts the entirety of human experience on Earth and every astronomical observation, which all show that everything seems to be made solely from one half of this primordial material, ordinary matter. Moreover, when a particle of matter meets its antiparticle, they both annihilate, demonstrating Einsteins equivalence between mass and energy as both particles transform into radiation. Given that, the Standard Model also predicts that no astronomical structures should have developed, with everything constantly changing from particles to light and vice versa, ad infinitum. The current explanation is that while the physics underlying the Big Bang produced an equal proportion of matter and antimatter, a hypothesized and as-yet-unexplained phenomenon caused a slight imbalance in this process, so that after wholesale annihilation one particle per billion of ordinary matter survived. These remnant particles are what we now call matter, with antimatter existing only as an exotic particle observed in cosmic rays, nuclear fusion and other high-energy phenomenon. ALPHA provides a new tool to examine the root cause of the matter-antimatter asymmetry by examining the wavelength of light emitted from a trapped anti-hydrogen atom as the atoms electron transitions between energy levels. This wavelength (analogous to colour) has been used to learn about the internal structure of normal hydrogen for decades and has now been used by the researchers of the ALPHA collaboration to begin similar studies of anti-hydrogen. As ALPHA spokesperson Jeffrey Hangst explained, Using a laser to observe a transition in anti-hydrogen and comparing it to hydrogen to see if they obey the same laws of physics has always been a key goal of antimatter research. To produce anti-hydrogen, ALPHA takes 90,000 antiprotons produced by CERNs Antiproton Decelerator and mixes those with 1.6 million positrons, yielding approximately 25,000 anti-hydrogen atoms per mixing. From this, an average of 14 anti-atoms are captured for study. While the number of anti-atoms captured per mixing may seem small, it is an order of magnitude greater than what has been achieved in previous studies. This enables such high precision in the measurements. The main technical challenge facing ALPHA is keeping the anti-hydrogen from interacting with any hydrogen and being converted to energy, as described above. To avoid this, the atoms are stored in a vacuum and suspended in a strong magnetic field generated by powerful electromagnets, using techniques that have been refined since CERN first produced anti-hydrogen in 1995. The anti-hydrogen atoms are then manipulated using precisely tuned laser beams inserted through the windows of the vacuum chamber. By observing how the anti-hydrogen reacts to the laser and the magnetic field, physicists are able to work out the internal properties of anti-hydrogen, which so far have not shown any fundamental difference from those of hydrogen. While this does not shed any new light on the difference between matter and antimatter, it does provide a promising new way forward. Even now, the ALPHA collaboration is developing a number of upgrades and new techniques to increase the precision of their measurements in an attempt to find and measure any matter and antimatter asymmetries. The work occurs alongside other collaborations at CERN, including ASACUSA and BASE, all of which are working to penetrate this peculiar mystery. Video: The ALPHA experiment observes light spectrum of antimatter for the first time In his latest comment for Der Spiegel, Jakob Augstein, son of the founder of the news magazine and publisher of the weekly newspaper Freitag, has adopted positions associated with the far right: identity and homeland. Addressing Martin Schulz, the new chairman of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), Augstein writes: A dignified life requires more than just social justice. Another condition is identity. Social justice must be won from capitalist interests and corporations, just as identity must be won in opposition to migration. He goes on to say that the task of a left-wing government includes protection of the homeland. The declaration that identity must be won against refugees and migrants is a slogan of the so-called identity movement, a modern variant of right-wing extremism. It defines the people (das Volk) in terms of culture rather than biology. It presupposes a hermetically sealed national culture, the identity of which is threatened, above all, by Islamization. Augstein knows this very well. He writes: This topic is dangerous for the left. After all, in theory, the foreigner should be a friend. But in reality, he continues, immigration is a source of concern. He then declares Heimat (homeland)another favorite term of the extreme right to which the Nazis claimed adherenceto be a human right. He writes, And it is not only AfD (Alternative for Germany) demagogues who are worried about their homeland due to the huge influx of migrants. Immigrants are competitors for housing and jobs. They are also competitors when it comes to lifestyle. Augstein publishes his regular column under the headline When in doubt, go left, and supports red-red-green (SPD-Left Party-Green Party) politics in his paper Freitag. To back up the assertions in his latest piece, Augstein refers to leading representatives of the Left Party and the Greensthe chair of the Left Group in the Bundestag, Sahra Wagenknecht, and the Green mayor of Tubingen, Boris Palmer, both of whom have repeatedly agitated against refugees. Augstein complains that it is nonsense to accuse Wagenknecht of the type of racism associated with the xenophobic AfD for her assertion: Whoever abuses the laws of the host country has forfeited the right to live in the host country, and her declaration that too much immigration creates many problems. With his praise for Wagenknecht, Augstein joins company with Deputy AfD Chairman Alexander Gauland, who also lauded the speech by the leader of Left Party. Gauland wrote: Frau Wagenknecht summed up the situation very nicely. Anyone coming to us voluntarily has to behave like a guest or has to leave. Gauland stands on the right wing of the far-right AfD. In words that could be taken from the program of the AfD, Augstein writes: The problems of tomorrow are maturing in immigrant classes. He then demands: In no German school classroom should the proportion of children for whom German is not their mother tongue exceed 25 percent. These disgusting and racist positions have provoked reactions even within Spiegel itself. The Polish-born journalist Margarete Stokowski, another regular columnist, wrote: Of course Im pissed off. I grew up in an immigrant district in an immigrant class where the same problems arose to which Augstein referred in his appeal for a 25 percent limit. Augsteins adoption of far-right nostrums evokes indignation and revulsion. Jakob junior is a highly privileged member of the upper-middle class, who inherited millions from his publisher father and crops up regularly on TV talk shows to give sermons on all sorts of issues. It is necessary, however, to view Augsteins racist tirades in a broader political context. He is not alone in his turn to the right. His views are symptomatic of a social and political layer around the SPD, the Greens and the Left Party that saw itself and was seen as liberal or leftist. This layer includes cultural and social officials who have well-paid posts in municipal and state administrations, as well as in party and trade union apparatuses. Not everyone in these well-heeled circles, who have settled mainly in wealthier suburbs of the big cities, is a millionaire like Jakob Augstein. Many, however, have benefited from the stock market boom of recent years and are keen to maintain and defend their privileged lifestyles. They react to the global crisis of capitalism and the intensification of class struggle with a marked turn to the right. They regard growing social conflicts and increasing resistance to exploitation, militarism and war as a threat to their social status. In response, they demand a strong state and become increasingly amenable to far-right slogans. The election of Donald Trump has accelerated this process, revealing the extent of the crisis and putrefaction of capitalism. For its part, the German government has responded to American trade war and preparations for open war with its own protectionist measures and militarism. The relative stability of the postwar order has come to an end. Seventy years after the collapse of Hitlerite fascism, the ruling class in Germany is once again seeking to play the role of hegemon in Europe and stake its claim as a world power. As long as German imperialism was forced to play a secondary role in previous decades and pursue its foreign and economic policy under the wing of the US, bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideologues and propagandists such as Augstein stressed their humanism and praised multiculturalism. However, no sooner does German imperialism return to the world stage than key layers of Germanys bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie fall into linejust as they did during Bismarcks Kaiserreich, and again in the early 1930s in support of Chancellor Brunings emergency decrees in the twilight of the Weimar Republic, and once again in smoothing the path for the Third Reich. The bombastic speeches praising humanism are quickly transformed into poisonous barbs directed against refugees and immigrants. In language borrowed from the lexicon of Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, who extolled the virtues of the preservation of Germanism, Augstein reproaches refugees for jeopardizing German identity and destroying our homeland. In the manner of far-right demagogues, he fosters xenophobia and combines it with the glorification of all things German. Last summer, Augstein responded to a demonstration of 40,000 Turkish migrants in Cologne denouncing the failed military coup in Turkey by calling for the abolition of the double passport for German Turks. Any solidarity with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was unacceptable, he declared, because every citizen had to feel committed to one state. Such an argument parallels the far-right demand for recognition of a leading German culture. The view that the citizen is committed to the state and owes allegiance to the government is profoundly undemocratic and authoritarian. It stands in the ominous tradition of the individuals complete subordination to the German state. It is only a small step from pledges of allegiance to the nation to the charge of treason against those not prepared to make such a pledge. Many socialists, opponents of war and social rebels have been persecuted in Germany on this basis. Wagenknecht and the Left Party are moving further and further to the right. The Left Party leader was one of the first to applaud Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte when he stoked up anti-Turkish and anti-Muslim sentiment in order to out-do the far-right Geert Wilders in the Dutch election campaign. She praised Ruttes decision to refuse entry to Turkish government members and accused Chancellor Merkel and Foreign Minister Gabriel of not showing the same backbone. Augstein and Wagenknecht make clear what can be expected from a red-red-green government. This would not be some sort of left-wing alliance, but rather a right-wing government that moves directly against the working class. Augsteins attacks on refugees trying to escape the hell of imperialist war in Syria and other countries show his contempt for the working class as a whole. His call for defense of our homeland is part of the fanfare proclaiming the return of German militarism. Last year, the Hitler parody Hes Back ran in cinemas. It is becoming increasingly topical. Those who are back include above all the layers Hitler could best rely upon: the typical representatives of the German petty-bourgeoisie, with their inveterate narrow-mindedness, xenophobia, nationalism and spinelessness. Enhanced military and strategic collaboration, clearly directed against China, was the central agenda discussed when Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull made a four-day state visit to India this week. While Turnbull and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid lip service to forging closer economic ties, Turnbull ended his trip by conceding that there was little prospect of finalising a long-delayed trade pact between the two countries. Instead, the focus was on establishing a formal strategic partnership and joint military exercises. The outcomes were in line with the ongoing push by Washington, initiated under the Obama administrations pivot to the Indo-Pacific to confront China, for US allies throughout the region to strengthen their military relations with each other, as well as with the Pentagon. The visit proceeded in the shadows of the global uncertainty produced by the even more aggressive America First policy of the Trump administration. The illegal US missile attack on Syria and Trumps threats to strike against North Korea have heightened the dangers of war across the Asia-Pacific region, with the US targeting both Russia and China. The trip also followed Indias elevation to frontline status in US war plans against China by becoming a major service and repair hub for the US Seventh Fleet, under an agreement announced in February. The Seventh Fleet would play a crucial role in any US war against China, which would include blocking Chinas key trade routes from the South China Sea to the Indian Ocean. The basing agreement marks an intensification of Indias integration into US military and strategic arrangements, a drive pursued by successive US administrations since the beginning of the century. In return for lining up against China, the Indian ruling class is seeking to assert its geo-strategic sway over the sub-continent and the Indian Ocean. Turnbull hailed India as an enormously important emerging superpower whose strategic interests dovetail with those of Australia, which he asserted was already a significant Indo-Pacific naval power in its own right. He declared that the two countries need to engage our friends and partners to shape the entire regions common strategic outlook. Turnbull said trilateral engagement between Australia, India and Japan was a good example of this, as were our respective bilateral engagements with the United States. In a remarkable speech at the National Defence College, the Indian militarys most prestigious officer training institution, Turnbull boasted: We have one of the largest and most sophisticated naval forces in the region, with nearly 50 commissioned vessels and more than 14,000 personnel. And we have just embarked on Australias largest peacetime investment in national security. His government is spending $195 billion on new weapons systems and other military hardware over the next five years. Turnbull went further, defining the relationship between the two countries by invoking more than a century of Indian and Australian soldiers, sailors and airmen fighting alongside each other. This harks back to World Wars I and II, in which millions of Indian soldiers were sent to defend the interests of the British Empire, and at least 150,000 died. In response, Modi raised Indias security ties with Australia to a level previously established only with Japan, another key US ally against China. The two prime ministers announced they would later this year convene their first 2+2 strategic dialoguea meeting of their defence and foreign ministers. India and Australia will also hold their first bilateral army exercises in 2018, as well as the second edition of joint maritime exercises they launched in 2015. Special forces from the two countries will also hold their second exercise later this year, following the first conducted last October. In a press statement Modi and Turnbull underscored the importance of respecting the maritime legal order based on the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). This was a reference to last years tribunal ruling that rejected Chinas territorial claims over parts of the South China Sea, providing a potential pretext for US action to block Chinas access to its islets in the strategic sea. Australias previous Labor government backed closer strategic ties to India as part of the US pivot, while also seeking to open up Indias markets to exploitation by Australian-based companies. A particular signal was a decision to permit the export of uranium to India, which has a nuclear weapons stockpile but is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Turnbull and Modi expressed confidence that uranium sales would shortly commence, effectively enhancing Indias nuclear war capacity. On the economic front, the pair held up the prospect of more Indian students enrolling in Australian universities and colleges. After coal, education is Australias most lucrative export to India, currently worth $2.3 billion a year, with more than 60,000 Indian students studying in Australia last year, although this is far less than the $5.7 billion made from Chinese students. Despite the intensifying military ties, economic tensions were evident. When Turnbulls predecessor Tony Abbott visited India in September 2014 and Modi toured Australia in November that year, the two governments claimed that a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement could be struck by the end of 2015. Turnbull, however, said an agreement may not be possible. He blamed Indias heavy protection of its domestic economy, particularly its agricultural sector, while Modi publicly pushed for greater access to Australia for Indian workers. Turnbull lamented that Australias two-way trade with India was only about $20 billion, compared to $150 billion-plus with China. There were indications of the disarray produced by the Trump administrations junking of the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which the Australian capitalist class had hoped would break down barriers to its penetration of Asia-Pacific markets. In an evident concession to Indias own economic aspirations, Turnbull said the big agenda in the region was now the Chinese-led Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which includes India. In an effort to court Indian investors, Turnbull held a private meeting with Gautam Adani, a mining magnate whose company will soon decide whether to construct the worlds largest open-cut coalmine in central Queensland. Despite vehement support by Turnbulls Liberal-National Coalition and Queenslands state Labor government, the $21 billion project has been delayed by Aboriginal land claims and legal challenges triggered by its damaging impact on the environment, including the offshore Great Barrier Reef. Turnbull claimed India had an enormous need for more electrification which the Adani mine would help meet. After decades of importing coal, however, Indias domestic output has surged, making it a net exporter. And although about 300 million Indians still lack access to electricity, Indias draft national electricity plan, released last December, said there would be no need to build more coal-fired power stations until at least 2027. Turnbull reportedly gave Adani assurances that native title law changes would clear the way for the project, and left open the possibility of meeting Adanis demand for a concessional $900 million government loan to finance a planned rail line to connect the mine with a port on the coast. The claims by the US government that the Syrian government carried out a chemical weapons attack on the town of Khan Sheikhun, in southern Idlib province on April 4, have been backed by a week of nonstop media propaganda, as well as uncritical support, across the official political spectrum, for the missile strike ordered by President Trump against a Syrian base. The charges against the Syrian government are absurd and unbelievable. The campaign mounted by the Trump administration, the intelligence agencies, the Pentagon and the Democratic Party demonstrates complete contempt for the intelligence of the people, and a belief that they can lie with impunity, because nothing they say will be challenged by the servile American media. No lie is too great. If the US intelligence agencies declared tomorrow that Putin was responsible for an outbreak of tornadoes or a hurricane striking the US Gulf Coast, by means of a secret Russian program to alter the weather, their claims would be presented as the gospel truth by NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN and Fox, while the New York Times would publish a four-page investigative report, complete with maps and charts provided by the CIA. When a policeman shoots down a working-class youth, it takes months, sometimes years, to complete the investigation. In the case of the Syrian events, it required only minutes for the US government to affix blame and three days to carry out the punishment, firing 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at a Syrian airbase. In analyzing a crime, there are three factors to investigate: motive, means and opportunity. In relation to the nerve gas attack on Khan Sheikhoun, neither the Russians nor the Syrians had any reason to carry out the attack. The Assad regime had nothing to gain from the use of nerve gas on a town that was not a significant military target. Moreover, carrying out such an attack would inevitably provoke US military retaliation, something that Assad, on the brink of complete victory in the protracted civil war, would hardly want to risk. The Syrian rebels and the US government, on the contrary, had motive, means and opportunity. The rebels would view any loss of life as a small price to pay to bring about US intervention in the civil war which they were losing. They have stockpiles of nerve gas and have shown before, in the staged attack on Ghouta in 2013 which killed many more people, a willingness and ability to carry out such a provocation. Just as importantly, the rebels and their CIA sponsors had opportunity. According to a detailed analysis of the Khan Sheikhoun attack by the respected US physicist and missile expert Theodore Postol, emeritus professor at MIT, the physical evidence strongly suggests that the delivery system for the nerve gas was a mortar shell placed on the ground, not a bomb dropped from a warplane. That means the attack was almost certainly carried out by those who controlled the ground around Khan Sheikhoun, the rebel forces linked to Al Qaeda. Postols analysis is in reply to the four-page document issued Tuesday by the National Security Council, the White House body that coordinates US foreign and military policy, purporting to prove the Syrian governments responsibility for the alleged sarin gas attack. The American media described the NSC document as an unusually detailed and factual account, making use of US intelligence material that was declassified for that purpose. The Washington Post said the US government was unveiling intelligence discrediting Russias attempts to shield its ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, from blame in last weeks deadly chemical attack. The Post went on to characterize the declassified findings as part of a coordinated broadside against Russia that was supplemented by new detail of what U.S. officials believe they know about the chemical weapons strike on Khan Sheikhoun, offered by White House officials who briefed the press on the document. The New York Times said the document contains declassified United States intelligence on the attack and a rebuttal of Moscows claim that insurgents unleashed the gas to frame the Syrian government. There were similar reports in the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the television and cable news networks, all of them presenting the intelligence agency accounts as unchallengeable fact. These media reports are not only demonstrably false, they are absurd. Any serious examination of the NSC document reveals it to be a series of bare assertions without any supporting evidence. The White House document closely resembles the assessment issued by the US intelligence communitythe 17 agencies that comprise the massive apparatus of spying, political provocation and assassination for American imperialismon alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election. It is filled with phrases like The United States is confident We have confidence in our assessment We assess Our information indicates It is clear and so on. In other words, this is the US government speaking, trust us. There is one reference to signals intelligence, without any elaboration. This is followed by the declaration, standard in all official statements citing information allegedly supplied by the spy agencies: We cannot publicly release all available intelligence on this attack due to the need to protect sources and methods ... Once again, trust us. The NSC report makes the first attempt by the US government to attribute a motive to the alleged Syrian gas attack, claiming, We assess that Damascus launched this chemical attack in response to an opposition offensive in northern Hamah Province that threatened key infrastructure. Senior regime military leaders were probably involved in planning the attack. No evidence is cited to back these bare assertions, which raise obvious questions. Why should the Syrian government suddenly resort to sarin gas in a town of no obvious military significance, when it did not use nerve gasand was never accused of doing soduring the critical battles of the past year in Aleppo? Government forces reconquered the rebel-held portions of that city, the countrys largest population and business center before the civil war, in a bloody struggle conducted without the use of chemical weapons. Even when the forces of President Bashar al-Assad were under attack in his home province of Latakia, where the local population, from the Alawite religious minority which is his main base of support, faced the threat of extermination if the Sunni Islamists were victorious, they did not resort to chemical weapons to beat back the rebel offensive. The New York Times sought to address this problem by citing senior White House officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the declassified intelligence report. These officials asserted that the Syrian government, under pressure from opposition forces around the country and lacking enough troops to respond, used the lethal nerve agent sarin to target rebels who were threatening government-held territory. This account makes even less sense than the NSC report, since the alleged nerve gas attack did not target rebels who were threatening government-held territory, but civilians in a town in rebel territory, including, as media reporters and Trump administration officials have repeatedly emphasized, large numbers of women and children. In other words, the American media is simply piling lie upon lie, without even taking the time to make the new lies consistent with the old ones. From a military standpoint, the resort to chemical weapons in Khan Sheikhoun is pointless. From a political standpoint, it is counterproductive, to say the least, for the Assad regime. For the US-backed Islamist rebels, however, such an atrocity is a political goldmine, potentially providing a pretext for US and eventually NATO intervention into a civil war that the rebels are losing badly. The NSC document makes no attempt to address, let alone rebut, such arguments. Its four-page document includes only one page of supposedly factual findings by the U.S. intelligence agencies, consisting of vague and unsupported assertions, and then a page disputing the claims of Putin and Assad that no gas attack occurred. In the course of this, the NSC document cites video and eyewitness testimony about the impact of a chemical agent, as well as medical reports from Turkish doctors, but none of this evidence indicates the source of the nerve gas, if it was indeed a factor in the deaths at Khan Sheikhoun. Criticizing Russian claims of fabrication, the NSC document declares, It is clear, however, that the Syrian opposition could not manufacture this quantity and variety of video and other reporting from both the attack site and medical facilities in Syria and Turkey while deceiving both media observers and intelligence agencies. Why should anyone believe that the media observers and intelligence agencies were among the deceived? Far more likely that the US intelligence agencies and the media observers, particularly those employed by the New York Times, Washington Post, and other conduits for the US government, were active participants in the deception. The CIA has ample experience in the creation of provocations and fabrication of evidence, which is then supplied to its favored press outlets to create the impression of objective reporting. Absolutely nothing that is reported on such a basis deserves the slightest credibility. It is noteworthy that the Russian government has repeatedly called for an objective, authoritative international investigation into what happened at Khan Sheikhoun. This is in sharp contrast to the conduct of the Trump administration, which has acted as judge, jury and executioner rolled into oneclaiming to determine the facts, identify the perpetrators and carry out the punishment in a three-day period. This is the method, not of justice or the enforcement of international law, but the law of the jungle, in which the most powerful imperialist military power simply does what it wants. There is every reason to believe that the poison gas attack on Khan Sheikhoun was staged by the CIA and its rebel stooges to force a reversal of policy by the Trump administration and pave the way for US military intervention. It follows the pattern of the last previous alleged chemical weapons attack, in August 2013, when the rebels were seeking to gain direct American support, and US Secretary of State John Kerry told them that something needed to happen. Soon after, more than a thousand people were killed by nerve gas in Ghouta, a rebel-held suburb of Damascus. The political beneficiaries of this attack were the Syrian rebels. Seymour Hersh, one of a handful of real journalists still practicing his profession and not in jail or exile, conducted a meticulous exposure of the Ghouta attack, demonstrating that it had likely been carried out by the al-Nusra Front, the Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria, with chemical weapons supplied by Turkey. The al-Nusra Front, under a new name, is the dominant force on the ground today in Khan Sheikhoun. The Ghouta attack did not have the expected effect. After the British parliament voted against joining an attack on Syria, and in view of sharp divisions within the Pentagon over whether to intervene, President Obama pulled back, to the enormous frustration of the CIA, and of leading Democrats like his former secretary of state, Hillary Clinton. If Clinton had won the 2016 presidential election, there is no doubt there would have been an immediate and dramatic escalation in the American involvement in the Syrian civil war. Following Trumps surprise victory, a ferocious conflict has ensued, centering on bogus allegations of Russian manipulation of the election to assist Trump, aimed at shifting the Trump administrations policy towards Russia and Syria. This has now culminated in the apparent victory of the US intelligence agencies and the Democrats in this internecine struggle within the US ruling elite, and Trumps embarking on a course that threatens to produce full-scale US military intervention in the Syrian civil war, and poses the danger of direct confrontation with a nuclear-armed Russia. A special congressional election in Kansas resulted in victory for Republican Ron Estes April 12. However, Democratic Party leaders were citing the narrow margin of victory in a strongly Republican district as a signal that President Trumps deep unpopularity was helping them make political gains, despite their refusal to offer any serious challenge to Trump except from the right, in advocating a more confrontational policy towards Russia. The Fourth Congressional District includes the city of Wichita and its suburbs, as well as a swathe of rural counties to its south and west. It has been held by Republican candidates for the past 23 years, during which Wichita has become the focal point for anti-abortion demonstrations and the assassination of abortion doctor George Tiller in 2009. The biggest local corporation, Koch Industries, owned by billionaires David and Charles Koch, has bankrolled right-wing candidates and think tanks and virtually created the ultra-right Tea Party movement. Estes, the Kansas state treasurer, ran against first-time candidate James Thompson in an election to replace Congressman Mike Pompeo, who vacated his seat after Trump tapped him to direct the CIA. Estes defeated Thompson by only 8 points after the national Republican Party mounted a last-minute campaign. Both Trump and Pence recorded robocalls on behalf of Estes. Trump called Estes a wonderful guy in a tweet on election day. After Pompeo resigned his seat to run the CIA, neither capitalist party assigned much importance to the contest to fill the vacancy in a district that Trump carried by a margin of 27 percent, and Pompeo won by an even wider margin. But Estes and the Republicans found themselves tainted not only by mass opposition to the Trump administration, but by Republican Governor Sam Brownbacks unpopularity. On March 30, Brownback vetoed a bill that would have expanded Medicaid eligibility for low-income residents. The bill had enjoyed bipartisan support by state lawmakers and it passed through the Kansas Senate and the House, both of which are controlled by Republicans. Brownback, who has treated the state government as a testing ground for ultra-right policies, had already alienated working people by slashing taxes repeatedly for business and the wealthy, while cutting $180 million from the state budget, plundering highway construction funds and raising sales taxes twice to make up for budget shortfalls. As Thompson and Estes battled it out in the final days before the special election, the national Democratic Party did little to counter the late effort of Republican leaders, who poured money into the congressional campaign. While much closer than previous elections, the special election showed no real surge in voter participation, with only 120,000 going to the polls, compared to 275,000 on Election Day in 2016. In the wake of his defeat, Thompson bitterly told supporters; I probably shouldnt say this, but Mr. Estes did not beat us. It took a president of the United States, a vice president, the speaker of the House, a senator coming into our state, and a bunch of lies to try and drum up a vote. Democratic Party officials were quick to suggest that the 23-point swing in Kansas, if repeated in other special elections this year, could produce a series of defeats for the Republicans. There are three more special elections to fill vacancies created by departing Republican congressmen: Tom Price of Georgia, now Secretary of Health and Human Services; Ryan Zinke of Montana, now Secretary of the Interior; and Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina, now director of the Office of Management and Budget. The next special election where the Democrats hope to take advantage of popular dissatisfaction with Trump and the Republican majority in Congress is the Sixth Congressional District of Georgia, in the northern Atlanta suburbs, on April 18, when Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff will face off against more than a dozen Republicans in an open primary to fill the Price vacancy. If no candidate wins an outright majority, there will be a runoff of May. The district has long been held by Republican candidates, going back to Newt Gingrich, who held the seat for 20 years. But like many upscale suburban areas, there was a significant shift towards the Democrats and Hillary Clinton in 2016, and Trump carried the district by only 1.5 percent, while Price won by 24 percent. India had sought consular access to meet Kulbhushan Jadhav 13 times in the past, and every time the request was turned down. By India Today Web Desk: India has sought consular access from Pakistan to meet Kulbhushan Jadhav, reported All India Radio. Kulbhushan Jadhav, a former Indian Navy officer, was recently sentenced to death by a military court in Pakistan. India had sought consular access to meet Kulbhushan Jadhav 13 times in the past, and every time the request was turned down. India seeks consular access from #Pakistan to meet #KulbhushanJadhav. pic.twitter.com/s5eoGzryDe- All India Radio News (@airnewsalerts) April 13, 2017 advertisement Earlier, news agency ANI had quoted sources as saying that the Indian High Commission in Pakistan would make a fresh request seeking consular access to Kulbhushan Jadhav. Indian High Commission in Pakistan to make a fresh request seeking consular access to #KulbhushanJadhav: Sources- ANI (@ANI_news) April 13, 2017 This is the 14th request from the Indian government for consular access to Kulbhushan Jadhav, who was arrested by Pakistani security forces last year. INDIA's WARNING TO PAKISTAN Kulbhushan Jadhav has been charged with "espionage and sabotage activities against Pakistan". Earlier, BJP MP and former home secretary RK Singh had said that it was possible that "Pakistan must have tortured and murdered Kulbhushan Jadhav". "We should immediately seek consular access" the former home secretary had said, adding that "tomorrow Pakistan might announce that they have executed the capital punishment and hung him (Kulbhushan Jadhav)". The government had told Parliament that it would go to any extent to ensure safe release of Kulbhushan Jadhav. Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj had warned Pakistan of dire consequences if it went ahead with the death sentence. "I would caution the Pakistan government to consider the consequences for our bilateral relationship if they proceed on this matter," Swaraj had told Parliament. ALSO READ: Fear Kulbhushan Jadhav has been tortured, killed in Pakistan: BJP MP and former Home Secretary RK Singh Kulbhushan Jadhav's death sentence: Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan army chief say no pressure will be tolerated ALSO WATCH --- ENDS --- Tensions between the United States and the major European imperialist powers and Russia are at their highest point since the Cold War. The danger of a military conflict between the two largest nuclear powers has never been greater. Since the April 6 missile strike, the Trump administration has issued new threats against Syria and new ultimatums to Russia to end its support for the regime of Bashar al-Assad. On Wednesday, President Trump defended the unprovoked strike and called Assad a butcher. The G7 powers over the weekend lined up behind the US strike and its pretextthe totally unproven claim that the Syrian government carried out a chemical weapons attack on a rebel-held town. They endorsed Washingtons renewed drive to topple Assad, Moscows only Arab ally in the Middle East. Russia has responded by stepping up its military support for Assad. Last Friday, it discontinued its coordination with the US aimed at avoiding encounters between US and Russian jets and announced that it would upgrade Syrian missile air defenses, which already include advanced S-400 and S-300 radar/missile batteries. It diverted a frigate with cruise missiles to the Eastern Mediterranean. And it issued a joint statement with the Iranian military warning that it would respond with force to any new act of aggression against Syria. The recklessness of US policy was highlighted by Defense Secretary and retired general James Mattis, who told reporters on Tuesday that Syria would pay a very, very stiff price in the event of another chemical attack, which is undoubtedly already being prepared by the CIA and its Al Qaeda-linked proxies in Syria. Mattis offered assurances that the situation would not spiral out of control, based on the assumption that Russia would act in their best interests, i.e., back down. What is most astonishing is the virtual absence of any discussion in the US and European media of the danger of a war between the US and Russia and the consequences of such a turn of events. What happens if a US jet is shot down by a Russian anti-aircraft installation or Russian jet? One can only imagine the frenzied demands for retaliation that will spew out of the press and politicians of both countries. How many millions will die in the opening minutes of a nuclear exchange between Russia and the US? Neither the New York Times, nor the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Times of London, Le Monde, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung or Sydney Morning Herald is even raising these questions. There have, however, been revealing commentaries in certain more specialized publications. The Conversation published an article on April 7 (Why US air strike on Syria deeply threatens military clash with Russia) making the point that the danger of a clash between the US and Russia is much greater than in 2013 because Russia has in the interim firmly established a military presence in Syria. So, if the new aim of the Trump administration is the removal of Assad from power, the article states, this could only happen through a major confrontation with Russia. Russia Beyond the Headlines published an article on April 7 outlining three possible scenarios following the US attack on Syria. The first, and presumably most likely, is Armed conflict between Russia and the US. Sooner or later, the article notes, the logic of confrontation will force Russia to respond with force. It quotes a Russian international security expert who warns that we cannot fully exclude the use of nuclear weapons. An April 7 article on the Defense One web site explains that a US assault on Syria would for the first time in the decades-old counter-terrorism fight pit the United States against a real, modern and well-armed military, resulting in a war of exponentially greater scale. Steven Starr, a senior scientist at Physicians for Social Responsibility and associate with the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, who is a noted expert on the life-destroying environmental consequences of nuclear winter, explains that once a nuclear exchange between Washington and Moscow gets underway, the death toll will be in the high tens of millions within the first hour, and that will be only the horrific beginning. The two countries have between them 3,500 deployed and operational strategic nuclear weapons that they can detonate within an hour. They have another 4,600 nuclear weapons in reserve and ready for use. Given these vast numbers of mega-weapons, there is a strong chance that most large cities in both countries will be hit. Starr estimates that 30 percent of the US and Russian populations will be killed in the first hour. A few weeks later, radioactive fallout will kill another 50 percent or more. Nuclear winter, a new Ice Age caused by the environmental impact of nuclear war, will probably cause most people on the planet to die of starvation within a couple of years. Then there is the possibility of a high-altitude detonation triggering an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that destroys electronic circuits over an area of tens of thousands of square miles. A single detonation over the US East Coast would destroy the grid and cause every nuclear power plant affected by EMP to melt down. Imagine 60 Fukushimas happening at the same time in the US. This is the end-of-world scenario being prepared behind the backs of the American and world population by the power- and profit-mad criminals in the Pentagon and the CIA, with the full support of both parties and the political and media establishment. People living in cities from New York to Boston to Philadelphia to Detroit, Chicago and all the way to Los Angeles and San Francisco will likely be obliterated within minutes of the beginning of such a war. What preparations are being made? What is the survival plan? There are none. The silence of the media and politicians is not an oversight. They know that should this prospect become a subject of public discussion, the shock will produce uncontrollable social convulsions. The astonishing recklessness of the ruling elite has an objective source. It is the global crisis of the capitalist system, which finds its sharpest expression in the long-term economic decline of the United States. Even during the Cold War there remained within the dominant sections of the ruling class a certain caution. Now, the relentlessly aggressive tone of the media and constant demonizing of Russian President Putin almost seem calculated to provoke a military clash. There is, in fact, a significant faction within the ruling elite and the state that is prepared to do just that. This horrifying prospect cannot be averted through appeals to the powers-that-be. The entire history of the 20th century, with its catastrophic wars, shows that the only way to prevent war is through a mass movement of the working class. Workers and youth must confront the urgency of the situation by organizing mass protests directed toward the building of an international anti-war movement based on the working class to put an end to imperialism and capitalism. On April 30, the International Committee of the Fourth International is organizing an International May Day Online Rally, called in opposition to war, authoritarianism and poverty, for peace, equality and socialism. The event will be broadcast at 11:00 am Eastern Daylight Time (3:00 pm UTC/GMT) and transmitted live throughout the world. We urge all of our readers to participate. For more information, visit wsws.org/mayday. The Trump administration issued a memorandum Tuesday ordering federal agencies to begin drafting plans to restructure and downsize. The memorandum, written by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), calls for elimination to be considered for non-essential programs and ineffective agencies. The creation of the OMB memo was ordered by the Trump administration via executive order on March 13. The memo marks the end of the federal hiring freeze imposed by the Trump in the first days of his presidency, ordering agencies to begin taking immediate actions to cut jobs and reduce costs to comply with the federal budget for 2018. The memo does not give estimates of the number of jobs that would be cut from federal agencies. However, the preliminary budget outlined by the Trump administration proposes the elimination of 19 government agencies, cuts billions of dollars from domestic social programs, and would lead to the destruction of as many as 200,000 jobs. Public employee jobs are already near historic lows, accounting for 1.5 percent of all jobs in the US, compared to 3 to 4 percent in the 1960s. Federal agencies have until June 30 to submit restructuring plans for fiscal years 20182022 in compliance with both the federal budget for 2018 and not-yet-released 2019 budget submission guidelines. The heads of the affected federal agencies would then meet with the federal Chief Financial Officers Council to begin finalizing the plans in July. The memo advises federal agencies to eliminate vacant posts immediately. Trumps Director of the OMB, Mick Mulvaney, during a press conference announcing the memo on Tuesday, callously shrugged off the destruction of the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of public employees. [Downsizing] is the same thing that every one of you has been through in the last couple of years. You all are the last remaining people who actually work in journalism, right? So your entities have gone through this. It shouldnt be anything new Its part of what working in a free economy entails. The memo openly advocates the privatization of entire agencies. Consideration should be given where there is another entity that may more appropriately fulfill part or all of the role, and to services that could be better performed by private companies. We met this morning with CEOs from all across the nation,Mulvaney explained at the press conference, and said, look were trying to rebuild the executive branch of government, give us some ideas. By the way, they did. The White House is soliciting suggestions from the general publicthat is, industry interestson both restructuring plans, and the not-yet-implemented Obama-era federal regulations that have been frozen by Trumps initial executive orders. If youve always had an idea why NASA should be in the Department of Agriculture, now is your time to speak up, encouraged Mulvaney. The memo calls for programs and agencies to be slashed, merged, or eliminated outright [if] the long-term savings from shutting down are greater than expected costs to maintain them. Mulvaney said that this ravaging of social programs in the service of inflating funding for the military was how you drain the swamp, referring to Trumps demagogic pledge to reduce corruption. If one takes the Trump budget as a guide, one would conclude that the largest sources of filth and grime in the federal government would include the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Education, the Department of Health and Human Services and NASA; and that the task of fostering culture and welfare is largely carried out by the Department of Defense. The Democrats, posturing as opponents to most of the Trump administrations proposed cuts, have spearheaded the privatization or destruction of education, welfare and unemployment assistance, and other basic infrastructure over the last several decades. Mulvaney expects bipartisan support from both Republicans and Democrats for the new OMB guidelines. Wasting moneygiving money to people who dont deserve it, is something that Republicans and Democrats alike dont care for and want to fix. The author also recommends: Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin museums in Philadelphia closed by Trump administration hiring freeze [23 March 2017] Trump budget to fund wider wars by slashing domestic spending [17 March 2017] Trump uses executive orders to impose hiring and regulatory freezes [24 January 2017] Australian pseudo-left organisations have responded to the appointment of Sally McManus last month as the new secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), the countrys peak union body, with unalloyed enthusiasm. In one of her first television interviews, McManus implied on the ABCs 7:30 program that she opposed the Fair Work Australia (FWA) legislation which bans industrial action outside of strictly limited bargaining periods. She suggested that the ACTU would support workers going on strike in defiance of the law. Her comments were immediately presented by the pseudo-left organisations as proof of a revival of union militancy. Socialist Alliance, for example, wrote on March 18: Many unionists are encouraged by McManuss fighting words and claimed that they raised the prospect of a strategic shift in the trade union movement in this country. Socialist Alternative declared on March 20: Every militant in the union movement will welcome as a breath of fresh air Sally McManuss comments on defying unjust laws. All of the pseudo-left groupings covered up the glaring hypocrisy of McManuss statements. The union movement supported the introduction of FWA in 2009 by the Labor government of Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard and now Labor leader Bill Shorten, endorsing laws that made strikes illegal. Since then, the unions have routinely invoked the Labor-imposed ban on industrial action to suppress any struggle by workers. Strike activity is at historic lows, real wages have fallen, and ever-growing numbers of workers have been pushed into contract, casual or part-time employment. The disgust in the working class with the unions, combined with the destruction of full-time, unionised jobs, has seen union membership fall to a record low of just 15 percent in 2015, and barely 11 percent of the private sector workforce. Under McManus, the unions are initiating a cynical and transparent attempt to try and rebuild their credentials and their membership. In comments to the Guardian on March 15, she revealed that her rhetoric was motivated by the concerns in the union apparatus over its lack of influence over millions of workersespecially non-unionised workersunder conditions of mounting anger over social inequality. McManus stated: Weve got to inspire a whole generation who are sick of so much wealth at the top. The system is at breaking point, people dont accept that its right and fair. The ACTU has indicated that it intends to conduct a multi-million dollar recruitment campaign over the coming years, modelled on the Your Rights at Work campaign in 20062007 against the WorkChoices industrial legislation enacted by the Liberal-National government of Prime Minister John Howard. One of the main objectives of Your Rights at Work was to convince alienated and disaffected workers to vote for the Labor Party in the 2007 federal election on the basis it would repeal WorkChoices. Once Labor was elected, the unions proceeded to collaborate with the introduction of the FWA regime, which incorporated many of the most draconian aspects of Howards legislation. The pseudo-left organisations have stepped forward again as the cheerleaders for the ACTUs latest political deception led by McManus, which is also aimed at assisting the return of Labor at the next election. Socialist Alternative, for instance, lauded union rallies last month against a FWA court ruling that cut penalty rates on Sundays and holidays for some 700,000 workers who are employed on national awards rather than union-negotiated enterprise agreements. Its only qualification was that the unions must aim for more this time than the installation of a Labor government at the next election. The organisation Solidarity declared, in response to the penalty rate cut, that the unions should call national mass stop-work protests like those held during the Your Rights at Work campaign against John Howards WorkChoices. The Socialist Party went even further and called for the ACTU to call a one-day national general strike. It asserted that such a strike would send a strong message to employers, and the parliament. Even if the unions did call days of action, or even token general strikes, as they have done in countries such as Greece, they would be intended only to dissipate workers angerto let off steamover the conditions they face. The unions would undoubtedly give Labor and Green politicians a platform to once again fraudulently present themselves as a lesser evil to the Liberal government. In order to promote the lie that the unions can be vehicles for advancing the interests of the working class, the pseudo-left organisations do everything they can to cover-up their record. A glaring example was a brief article in Socialist Alliances Green Left Weekly in February, which hailed a deal between the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) and the Japanese energy multinational Impex. Under this sordid agreement, the company has agreed to preference Australian workers for seafaring jobs servicing its $34 billion LNG project in Northern Australia. The nationalist demand of the unions for the protection of Aussie jobs is a deliberate effort to divide workers internationally who work for the same transnational corporation and who need to unify to conduct any genuine struggle for their interests. In exchange for Impex agreeing to the unions demand, the MUA has made the unprecedented commitment that there will be no industrial action against the company until 2030. In most of Socialist Alliances commentary on the FWC cut to penalty rates, it has not raised the obvious issue that union-company enterprise agreements have already abolished or cut weekend and public holiday wages for hundreds of thousands of workers, especially in the large retail and fast-food chains. Socialist Alternative, for its part, repeatedly tries to draw a distinction between conservative unions, such as the retail union that signed away its members penalty rates, and those that it claims are militant such as the MUA and the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU). To prevent reality intruding on its assertions, Socialist Alternative is silent on the wretched deals these unions negotiate with major employers. As well as ignoring the MUA-Impex agreement, it has also written nothing on the CFMEUs imposition of a five percent pay cut affecting up to 900 workers at the Maryvale paper mill in Victoria in February. Nor has it commented on the revelations of close ties between the CFMEU and property developers linked to phoenix operations which have stripped workers of millions of dollars in entitlements, or the unions establishment of phony charities which receive substantial donations from the major corporations. The pseudo-left groupings are above all preoccupied with denying the pro-capitalist essence of the trade unions. Unionism, from its origins, was based on the acceptance of the private ownership of the means of production, and the wage labour system that is the basis of the exploitation of the working class under capitalism. Even at its most militant, unionism always sought to limit workers to the framework of the capitalist order by holding out the prospect that strikes and other industrial action could compel employers and governments to grant concessions such as higher wages, conditions and social advances. The pseudo-left claims that the unions can be returned to the limited militancy of the past denies the impact of the globalisation of production since the 1970s. The development of transnational companies, which utilise global finance, production chains, transport and communications, and can rapidly shift operations between and within countries, shattered the ability of unions to pressure the capitalist class within the framework of the national-state. To try to keep corporations operating in their national economy, the trade unions in every part of the world have transformed into industrial police forces. For over 30 years, unions have continuously pressured workers to give up their past gains to satisfy corporate demands for international competitiveness and profitability. In Australia, the unions have emerged as major corporate investors and operators in their own right, exercising control over multi-billion dollar superannuation (retirement) funds and even managing labour-hire companies that exploit their own members. The defence of trade unions by the pseudo-left flows from the material interests of an affluent, generally pro-Labor or pro-Green layer of the middle class, in the upper echelons of the public sector, academia, the media and the unions. While the conditions of the working class have plummeted, this layer has benefited from rising stock and real estate prices and the ever-greater concentration of income and wealth in the hands of the top 10 percent of the population. Members of the pseudo-left groupings now hold senior and well-paid union positions. The politics of the pseudo-left do not represent the interests of the working class in any sense. The class role of such organisations is to try and oppose the necessary break that workers must make with the pro-capitalist political and union apparatus and the development of a mass socialist and internationalist movement, fighting for a workers government and socialist policies. More than 87 executions were recorded in Pakistan in 2016, making it the fifth top executioner country in the world. The pace of executions carried out in Pakistan decreased significantly from 2015, when 326 executions were reported. With at least 87 executions carried out in 2016, however, Pakistan remained among the world's top executioners. Over 360 death sentences were imposed in Pakistan in 2016, higher than any of the previous years. People with mental or intellectual disabilities were executed or remained under sentence of death in several countries including Indonesia, Japan, Maldives, Pakistan and the USA. Military courts sentenced civilians to death in Pakistan, among other countries. In majority of countries where people were sentenced to death or executed, the death penalty was imposed after proceedings that did not meet international fair trial standards. In 2016 Amnesty International raised particular concerns in relation to court proceedings in Bangladesh, Belarus, China, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam. In several countries, some convictions and death sentences were based on "confessions" that may have been extracted through torture or other ill-treatment. Different forms of "treason", "acts against national security", "collaboration" with a foreign entity, "espionage", "questioning the leader's policies", participation in "insurrectional movement and terrorism" and other "crimes against the state" -- whether or not they led to loss of life -- were punished with death sentences in Pakistan. The death penalty was repeatedly used in contravention of international law and standards across the region. Amnesty International received credible information indicating that Bangladesh, Indonesia, Maldives, Pakistan and Papua New Guinea held people on death row who were below 18 years of age at the time of the crime for which they were convicted. Pakistan remained one of the countries that retained death penalty for ordinary crimes. OCILLA, Ga. (AP) - A south Georgia prosecutor says a grand jury has charged a man with killing a teacher and former beauty queen who vanished nearly 12 years ago. Tifton Judicial Circuit District Attorney Paul Bowden says a grand jury on Wednesday indicted Ryan Alexander Duke on charges including murder and concealing a death. Authorities in February announced Duke's arrest. He was a former student at the school where Tara Grinstead taught before she disappeared in October 2005. A public defender who has represented Duke didn't immediately respond to a phone message and email seeking comment on the indictment. Another man, Bo Dukes, was charged in March with concealing a death, evidence tampering and hindering the apprehension of a criminal in the case. Bowden said Dukes has not been indicted. (Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.) JACKSON COUNTY, Fla. (WTXL) -- The Jackson County Sheriff's Office arrested Stuart Thomas MacDougall for child pornography at his home on Camp Road in Marianna. On Wednesday, the Sheriff's Office launched an investigation after receiving an anonymous tip that an individual on Camp Road was involved in child pornography. Investigators with the Sheriff's Office, agents with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and agents with the Department of Homeland Security led a search warrant that found a computer, cellphone, and other devices that had sexually explicit images of children. MacDougall will be facing twenty felony charges of possession or promotion of certain images of child pornography. Deputies say that more charges are forthcoming as the investigation continues. VALDOSTA, Fla. (WTXL) -- More arrests are expected after roughly 30 students and others broke into Valdosta High School. As of now, 17 students and teens are facing felony charges for vandalizing the high school. Chief Of Police Brian Childress says the vandals kicked in vending machines, spilled oil on the floors, spray painted walls, among other things. Damages to the school are more than four-thousand dollars. "What we found was disturbing. Just to be clear, that was the week of senior prank week I think is what they call it. This was not a prank. This was a crime and I'm not gonna put up with it", said Childress. Former Pakistan foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri said that Pakistan's citizens are tried under the same law and Kulbhushan was not special to be singled out. By India Today Web Desk: Defending the judgment against Kulbhushan Jadhav, former Pakistan foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri today said their judiciary is independent and even Pakistanis have been tried under the same law. "Pakistanis have been tried under the same law. Not that Pakistan has been singling him (Jadhav) out," Kasuri told India Today's Karan Thapar in his show 'To The Point'. advertisement Since the case dealt with espionage and sabotage it was kept secret and there is nothing exceptional about it, he said. When asked about Pakistan denying consular access to Jadhav, whose whereabouts and well-being has not been communicated to India, he stressed that it is not necessary in case relating to terrorism or espionage. However, according to the Vienna convention there are no exceptions and even India and Pakistan have a bilateral agreement to give consular access. "In many cases they (courts) have summoned military officers...They do interfere even in military trials if they feel, not on evidence, but if on a technicality they feel that there has been a gross miscarriage of justice or the law has not been followed. If the law has been followed the court will not interfere," he said. On Indo-Pak ties, he said the relations are crisis prone and there will always be crisis when you decide to talk. He said the courts of Pakistan are so independent that a judge of Supreme Court was presiding over a bench and his life was threatened when Salman Taseer's murderer was tried and hanged. "These judges have so much authority and power that they can resist even their own death threats," Kasuri said. Also watch: Kasuri to India Today: Kulbhushan Jadhav not special, even Pakistanis tried under same law Also read: Basit told India Today Kulbhushan evidence shared; MEA says none received For the 14th time, India seeks consular access from Pakistan to meet Kulbhushan Jadhav --- ENDS --- TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - Amtrak officials are continuing their tour of the gulf coast updating the public on the potential return of rail service. Tuesday, residents in Live Oak learned more about Amtrak's plans to restore service between Jacksonville and New Orleans. The "Sunset Limited" route was suspended in 2005. From Live Oak to Chipley, residents and local officials have shown strong interest in bringing back Amtrak. Today, officials were in Marianna to share more about the progress. Last year, a special train rolled through Tallahassee bringing hope to many. Wednesday, Amtrak continued pushing for support. "What we're talking about is new Amtrak service that's going to run daily from Orlando to Jacksonville, then Jacksonville across the panhandle to New Orleans," said Marc Magliari, an Amtrak spokesman. Loraine Walker wants service back soon. She's taking the train to California this summer but has to drive to New Orleans to catch it. "It's very frustrating, because I had to call New Orleans, find a hotel I could book at, find out how much they were going to charge me for parking while I'm on the train," said Walker, a Marianna resident. Walker was in Chipley last year, cheering on Amtrak to bring service closer to home. "They're pushing it forward, and I'm really happy about that," said Walker. If service is restored, Amtrak says it will use existing stations like here in Chipley. Officials say stations in Florida are in good condition, but more work needs to be done. "Are they ADA compliant?" said Magliari. "What's the shape of the platform? Those kinds of things." The Gulf Coast Working Group was to submit a report last September, but leadership changes at Amtrak and CSX Transportation have delayed things. "You just can't plop a train onto a track and have it run it well," said Magliari. "We want to do this right, and doing it right takes time." Local officials are hopeful Amtrak will not only return but boost local economies. "We want the ability for our citizens to take advantage of it, and that's what today is all about," said Scott Maddox, a Tallahassee City commissioner, "to show these folks that we support passenger rail in Tallahassee." "It's just another tool in the toolbox that would be available to us to attract economic and community development," said Jim Dean, Marianna city manager. The President's budge calls for eliminating overnight train routes, which would include this one. Regardless, Amtrak says it will continue to work with the Gulf Coast Working Group, which should have a report ready in a few weeks. LEON COUNTY, Fla. (WTXL) - Tuesday night, the Leon County School Board voted to approve the relocation of "PACE School." It's an agenda item that has been championed by Superintendent Rocky Hanna for the past five years. Playgrounds are common place at Leon County Schools but at PACE, the reality is a little different. PACE serves at risk students 2nd through 12th graders with developmental disabilities or behavioral needs. Classes run out of these 28 portable units. Some date back to the 1940s. "The floors are starting to fall through... one of my students actually went through the floor (his foot) this school year, and if you walk even through the front office here, you'll hear the floor creaking underneath you. I'm mostly excited for my students," said Amy Alvis, the assistant principal and site manager at PACE School. "They deserve the same equal access to facilities as any non disabled peer and they're very excited about having a real school. I believe it's going to change their pride in their school and just their self esteem getting to go to a permanent facility." The new facility will be permanent, with a cafeteria, media lab and assembly hall. Students will be able to be separated by grade, and VP says she's confident the new building will be an improvement that will help teachers better meet the unique needs of PACE students. TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - Global outrage, after a passenger was violently dragged off a commercial flight. The CEO of United Airlines is speaking out exclusively with ABC News as protests grow against his company. Oscar Munoz is now apologizing and announcing immediate changes, like no more law enforcement pulling off bumped passengers. Two more airport police officers involved in dragging Dr. David Dao off a United express flight at Chicago's O'Hare Airport have been placed on leave. Public relations experts in the Capital City are weighing in on the incident. By Press Trust of India: Kolkata, April 13 (PTI) Left Front, which once held sway in Bengals East Midnapore district, today emerged as a nominal force there with its candidate losing his deposit in the by-poll to Kanthi Dakshin assembly seat. The Congress candidate too lost his deposit and was relegated to the fourth position, behind the Left, while ruling TMC candidate Chandrima Bhattacharya alone won 55 per cent of the total votes polled in the constituency. advertisement The two have, however, claimed that their poor show was a result of the ongoing communal polarization in the state. "The result is a reflection of communal polarization that is going on in the state. Both TMC and BJP are trying to flare up communal tensions in the state," CPI state secretary Probodh Panda told PTI. Echoing him, Leader of Opposition and senior Congress leader Abdul Mannan accused TMC of letting loose a reign terror during the polls. "TMC had let loose a silent reign of terror ahead of the polls. Congress and Left were not allowed to campaign properly, but BJP was not stopped from campaigning. This election has clearly put up a picture where TMC and BJP are having a covert political understanding," he said. Left Front supported CPI candidate Uttam Pradhan secured 17,423 votes which is 10 percent of the total votes polled. In 2016 when Left Front had fought the election as an alliance partner of Congress it had secured 34.73 percent votes. Congress candidate Naba Kumar Nanda secured juts 2270 votes, which is 1.3 percent of the total votes polled. Bhattacharya secured 95369 votes, which is 55 percent of the total votes polled. TMC increased its vote share by two per cent since the last assembly polls in 2016 when it secured 93359 votes. In 2011 assembly elections, when TMC came to power forthe first time in the state, it had polled 86933 votes respectively. BJPs vote share has increased by leaps and bounds from 8 per cent in 2016 to 31 per cent. It secured 52843 votes this time up from 15,000 in 2016. PTI PNT KK KK --- ENDS --- People that live near 40th Avenue and Chestnut Avenue say they're worried about the safety of their neighborhood because those streets aren't Lisa to feature in a documentary about the reality of the beauty business. By Indo-Asian News Service: Actress, model and cancer survivor Lisa Ray is serious about the beauty business and will soon be seen in a documentary based on the beauty world. Lisa revealed the same on her Twitter account on Wednesday with an image of herself taken during a shoot. So empowering to get real about the beauty business. Fab shoot for upcoming doc the #BeautyMachine #HongKong pic.twitter.com/BnlZWuPA9o- Lisa Ray (@Lisaraniray) April 12, 2017 advertisement "So empowering to get real about the beauty business. Fab shoot for upcoming doc the 'Beauty Machine', Hong Kong," she captioned the photograph. The actress also shared the news that she is heading to Mumbai, her "second home". "Going to miss my boys like crazy, but excited to jet off to my second home Mumbai for more adventures," she tweeted. On the acting front, the 45-year-old was last seen in Ram Gopal Varma's biographical action film, Veerappan. --- ENDS --- Israels Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial condemned US White House spokesman Sean Spicers Holocaust comments on Wednesday and urged him to visit the museums website to learn about World War Two history and Hitlers extermination camps. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter Credit: Reuters X In a statement from the director of Yad Vashems libraries, Dr. Robert Rozett, the memorial shared its deep concern about the inaccurate and insensitive use of terms related to the Holocaust by the White House Press Secretary. Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony at Yad Vashem (File photo: Gil Yohanan) Spicer triggered an uproar on Tuesday by saying Adolf Hitler did not use chemical weapons. He apologized after his comments drew immediate criticism on social media and elsewhere for overlooking the fact that millions of Jews were killed in Nazi gas chambers. A senior member of Israels government, Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz, welcomed Spicers apology on Wednesday. Rozett blamed Spicers comments on ignorance, stating, His statements imply a profound lack of knowledge of the events of World War Two, including the Holocaust. Spicer made the assertion at a daily news briefing, during a discussion about the April 4 chemical weapons attack in Syria that killed 87 people. Washington has blamed the attack on the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The Nazis murdered six million Jews during World War Two. Many Jews as well as others were killed in gas chambers in European concentration camps. For years, Marine Le Pen tried to explain to France and the world that she wasnt following her fathers path. Her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of the National Front party, was convicted by a French court after describing the gas chambers used in concentration camps during the Holocaust as a "detail" of history. After his daughter was elected National Front leader, and he continued making controversial comments, she did not hesitate to expel him from his position as the partys honorary chairman. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter Now, it is Marine Le Pen herself. Echoing a sentiment common in anti-Senitic circles, she said on Monday that France was not responsible for deporting Jews to Nazi death camps. Marine and Jean-Marie Le Pen. It turns out that the daughterjust like the fathersuffers from the ancient European disease of anti-Semitism (Photo: AP) The National Fronts platform is not anti-Semitic. In many senses, it announced the change Europe is going through. According to public opinion polls, Europeans hold views that are closer to US President Donald Trumps views than Americans. While most Americans were not thrilled with the presidents executive order on immigration, 55 percent of Europeansaccording to a survey conducted in eight leading countriesvoiced support for restricting Muslim immigration. In Germany, which opened its gates to a huge wave of immigration, 51 percent were in favor of limiting Muslims entry. The conservative tendencies and the shift to the right are being received in the Israeli Right with unconcealed sympathy. On some level, the sympathy is definitely called for. The European Rights views on Israel are more reasonable, and sometimes even favorable. Dutch politician Geert Wilders is both an extreme rightist and an ardent supporter of Israel, and he is no anti-Semite. The picture, however, is far from rosy. Most far-right parties in Europe suffer from a certain level of anti-Semitism. The worst ones are the Golden Dawn in Greece and Jobbik in Hungary, followed by the Freedom Party of Austria, which nearly won the countrys presidency. Some of these parties developed against a clear neo-Nazi background. Some are trying to shake off the old heritage, but its not always working. The National Front, for example, has remained an incubator for anti-Semites, despite Marine Le Pens alleged change. Jews have started believing that this change is real too. According to one poll, 7 to 8 percent of Frances Jews voted for Le Pen in the previous presidential election. It turns out, however, that the daughterjust like the fathersuffers from the same ancient European disease. She is an anti-Semite too. The more important point is that even when the leaders of far-right parties disassociate themselves from anti-Semitic comments, different polls that have been conducted in Europe in recent years prove that Muslim haters are usually Jew haters as well, and some of those who declare their enthusiastic support for Israel are mainly referring to the Israel that, in their eyes, fights the Muslims. They dont mean Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. The European Left is no different. Perhaps the opposite even. While the European Right is trying to shake off anti-Semitic characteristics, not always successfully, there is a feeling that the European Left is going in an opposite direction. The British Labour Party, for example, has lost the separation line between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, or at least the pretense that such a line exists. This isnt about Jeremy Corbyn, the partys leader, who turned Hamas and Hezbollah members into his friends. Alex Chalmers, co-chair of the Oxford University Labour Club (OULC), resigned a year ago over the anti-Semitic sentiments of his fellow students. Only recently, an internal party committee decided to dismiss anti-Semitism charges against former London Mayor Ken Livingstone. Even the left-wing Guardian newspaper issued a harsh condemnation against the party. While support for Labour is declining, the bad news is that the party is becoming popular among young people in Britain. So the radical left and the radical right do have a common denominatorhatred and racism, regardless of whether we are talking about hatred toward Jews or hatred toward Muslims. Racism is racism, hatred is hatred, and Islamophobia is closer to anti-Semitism than to pro-Zionism South Korea said on Thursday it believed it would be consulted by the United States before any possible pre-emptive US strike against Pyongyang, where foreign journalists gathered for "a big and important event". With a US aircraft carrier group steaming to the area, tensions on the Korean peninsula grew this week amid concern that the reclusive North could soon conduct its sixth nuclear test or more missile launches in defiance of United Nations sanctions. China, North Korea's sole major ally and benefactor, has called for a peaceful resolution after a sharp rise in rhetoric between the United States and Pyongyang. While US President Donald Trump has put North Korea "clearly on notice" that he would not tolerate provocative actions by the North, US officials have said his administration was focusing its strategy on tougher economic sanctions. An opinion piece in the Haaretz newspaper which described Israels national religious community as being "worse than Hezbollah" drew widespread condemnation Wednesday, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and politicians across the spectrum calling for an apology. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter The column by Haaretz writer Yossi Klein accused Israels national religious community of deceitfully attempting to take over and subvert the country, while carrying out a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg) The national religious are dangerous. More dangerous than Hezbollah, more than drivers in car-ramming attacks or kids with scissors. The Arabs can be neutralized, but they cannot, he wrote. Klein continued with his scathing assessment of the community, asking: "What do they want? To take control of the state and cleanse it of Arabs. If asked, they will deny it. They know that it is too early to be out in the open. "Do not believe their denials. Their religious nationalism is extreme nationalism, wrapped in a pious reverence, he continued. It permeates the education system, it is getting stronger in the army and affects the Supreme Court. They are already on their way to us, another moment and they break down the door." Education Minister Naftali Bennett (Photo: Motti Kimchi) The article was met with anger from members of the national religious community, including several government ministers, as well as from more publically centrist politicians. The article in Haaretz is shameful and disgraceful, Netanyahu wrote on Facebook late Wednesday. The national religious community is the salt of the earth, their sons and daughters serve in the army and national volunteer service for the state of Israel and the security of Israel. "I am proud of them like the rest of the countrys citizens. Haaretz needs to apologize. Haaretz publisher Amos Schocken, whose famously far-left wing paper prides itself on being a voice of dissent, responded to the fierce backlash, writing on twitter of his bewliderment at the extend of the attention the article has drawn. "I cant figure out what all the excitement is (Pavlovian, I must say) over Yossi Kleins column. He is just saying something similar to what I said six years ago Schocken wrote, referring to an article he penned in which he accused the national religious community of practicing apartheid, a piece that also gave rise to a controversy at the time. Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked (Photo: Amil Salman) Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked (Bayit Yehudi) wrote on Facebook that she received a message from the mother of Benaya Rein, killed in the Second Lebanon War that Israel fought against Hezbollah in 2006, calling Klein a racist and asking her to let him know that her son died so he could continue being a journalist. Education Minister and leader of the Bayit Yehudi party Naftali Bennett, told Channel 2 news that he too had received complaints from two families of fallen soldiers, saying that the article was harmful. Just when you think that Haaretz has sunk to its very lowest, it surprises you with a new low. No national religious, or leftists, or Arabs or any other group deserves a writer making an abusive, stupid accusation like this, he said on Facebook. Before it ends in blood, Haaretz, stop. But the criticism was not exclusively espoused by members on the political right. Yair Lapid, leader of the Yesh Atid party, branded the column anti-Semitic, asking rhetorically if a number of national religious Israelis, including fellow lawmakers, were more dangerous than the terror group. Opposition leader Isaac Herzog (R) and MK Shelly Yachimovich (Photo: Motti Kimchi, Gil Yohanan) However, while lambasting the content of the article, prominent members of the opposition, including its leader Isaac Herzog and MK Shelly Yachimovich, accused Netanyahu of using similar language against Arabs, union members and others. Nevertheless, Herzog still said the column deserved every condemnation and Yachimovich labelled it inciteful, infuriating and full of indiscriminate hatred. MK Tamar Zandberg (Meretz) refrained frm decrying the article, criticizing instead the uniform responses of politicians on both sides of the spectrum. MK Tamar Zandberg (Photo: Gil Yohanan) I would be more excited by the national shock over Klein if Bennett or Netanyahuyou know what, Herzog or Shellywould tweet when leftists are called traitors or chicken sh*t. (Translated & edited by Lior Mor) A Jewish community center and a church within a mile of one another in Virginia were vandalized, authorities said Tuesday, as swastikas and derogatory language were sprayed on their buildings. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter A Fairfax County police spokeswoman said authorities received a report at about 7am Tuesday that graffiti had been sprayed on the Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia, only to receive a report about an hour-and-a-half later of a similar vandalism incident at Little River United Church of Christ, located just a few hundred meters from the Community Center. The incidents occurred between 1am and 4 am, spokeswoman Tawny Wright said. Police are reviewing surveillance footage in both cases. The Washington Post reports that Jeff Dannick, executive director of the JCC, said the graffiti was going to be removed on Tuesday, adding that it was particularly painful that the incident occurred during Passover. Photo: JCCNV We retell that story generation to generation every year so that we never forget, he said. Its a painful reminder of how ugly and dangerous the world can be, but also how we can overcome it. At the church, a swastika was painted on the Holy Week schedule, and a sign that read Say NO to anti-Muslim bigotry was crossed out. The words Jesus knows no traitors were also scrawled on the sign. Pastor David Lindsey said he wasnt surprised the church was a target, saying that the anti-Muslim bigotry banner was the churchs latest attempt to reach out to its neighbors. Little River was founded in 1955 as a racially integrated church and started performing same-sex weddings 16 years ago," he said. "The response was overwhelmingly positive, but every once in a while youre going to get an incident, he commented. The graffiti incidents come after scores of threats against Jewish community centers around the country. As of last month, there were 166 threats made in 38 states as well as three Canadian provinces, according to the Anti-Defamation League. While American Jews sat and watched in fear as anti-Semitism seemed to be manifesting its head in a fashion unknown to the community in modern times in the US, and as many blamed the far-right emboldened by President Donald Trump, the community was thrown into a state of sheer confusion as they were forced to digest the arrest of a Jewish Israeli hacker who authorities believe is responsible for the harassment. Israeli police said the motive behind the threats was unclear. An attorney for the 19-year-old man said her client had a "very serious medical condition" that might have affected his behavior. In March, 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. Hundreds of people participated in a solidarity march with the Mengistu family in their ongoing efforts to secure the release of their son Abera, who has been held in captivity by Hamas in the Gaza Strip for 948 days. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter The march took place in Ashkelon in order to remind the government of its commitment to bring about Aberas swift return to his family. Solidarity march in Ashkelon (Photo: Avi Roccah) "We have now gone through a third holiday without Abera, and it's too hard to bear," his mother lamented. "I have no more strength to cope with the uncertainty. My son is sick, and I do not know if he is being treated. I have lost hope, I do not sleep at night, and after so long I would expect to begin to hear that something is happening. I dont believe all the promises from the government." Abera Mengistu No word has been heard of Aberas fate since voluntarily crossing the border into Gaza in September 2014. His family claim that his mental heath issues from which he suffers account for his actions. (Translated and edited by Alexander J. Apfel) Residents of the Baka neighborhood of Jerusalem were shocked on Wednesday to discover racist, anti-Arab graffiti sprayed near a park connecting the neighborhood with the Arab neighborhood of Beit Safafa. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter Arabs, go home, and We want revenge were two of the hateful slogans sprayed on walls near the park, which was, since its establishment, a popular recreational spot for Jews and Arabs alike, thus becoming a symbol for peaceful coexistence. Khaneh was right was also sprayed on the walls in reference to Rabbi Meir Kahane, the founder of the outlawed Kach movement, who was assassinated in Manhattan in 2012. 'We love our neighbors' The stunned residents reported the vandalism to the city municipality, which was promptly removed. Not content with the mere removal of the graffiti, some of the residents made their way to the park with their childrenstill during their Passover holidayand made big colorful signs bearing the opposite message of the hateful graffiti: We love our neighbors. The racist graffiti Ilana Nelson, a resident of the neighborhood who made the sign with her kids, said "our message, the messeage of the residents, is that we do not tolerate racism. "We want to live in peace and harmony with our neighbors. Just yesterday I was at the park with my husband and I saw a nice couple, an Arab Muslim and a woman wearing a Hijab, who asked a Jewish couple to take their picture," she added. "I thought we lived normal lives in a normal world, and then we woke up to that." Nelson's son, who studies at Jerusalem's Yad be-Yad Max Rayne Bilingual School, wrote the sign in both Hebrew and Arabic. (Translated & edited by Lior Mor) Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has warned that North Korea may be capable of firing a missile loaded with sarin nerve gas toward Japan. Abe's comments Thursday to a parliamentary panel on national security and diplomacy come amid looming concern about another missile or nuclear test by the communist country. Responding to a question about Japan's readiness at a time of increased tension, Abe told lawmakers that North Korea may already have the capability to shoot missiles with sarin as warheads. A US navy aircraft carrier is heading toward the Korean Peninsula as Pyongyang prepares for the 105th anniversary of the birth of its founder Kim Il Sung this weekend. A twitter account affiliated with the Lebanese terror organization Hezbollah has tweeted a warning followers about Facebook accounts used to spy for "the Zionist enemy." Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter The "Mouqawama" (Resistance) twitter account posted "there are Facebook accounts under multiple names aimed at collecting information for the Zionist enemy. Beware of these most prominent ones." Underneath the tweet were several pictures of Facebook accounts allegedly used by so-called Zionist intelligence agencies. Mustafa Amine Badreddine Among the most notable accounts are the ones opened as part of the Your silence is an admission anonymous online campaign , which sought to goad Hezbollah leaders into addressing the allegations that they were responsible for the assassination of the former commander Mustafa Amine Badreddine. The campaign's slogan has also appeared recently on a billboard in Lebanon. Intelligence researcher Ronen Solomon, owner of the Intel Times blog, told Ynet that "there is a possibility that someone managed to take control of the electronic signs and insert the slogan." The billboard Solomon also noted that underneath that sign was the logo for the Sabra Group, which operated out of Beirut. According to Solomon, the company is connected to the Sabra family, which is closely linked to Hezbollah. "One of the people involved in the murder of Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister, was Assad Hassan Sabra. Badreddine was the main suspect of that murder," said Solomon. Meanwhile, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot has said that an internal organizational conflict led to the assassination , citing a report on the incident by the Al Arabiya network claiming that Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and Iranian Quds Force commander Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani gave the order. From left to right: IDF Chief Gadi Eisenkot, Badreddine's alleged lover, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah (Photo: Yoav Dudkevitch) The allegation gained even more merit recently when Badreddine's self-confessed former lover claimed that not only was Hezbollah behind his assassination, but that the he was aware of the group's plot. (Translated & edited by Lior Mor) By Press Trust of India: Guwahati, Apr 13 (PTI) A luxury vessel is being readied after a MoU was signed for river cruise service between Assam and Bangladesh from September next year. Ashish Phookan, Managing Director of the Assam-based pioneering river cruise operator Assam Bengal Navigation (ABN) said the vessel named Charaidew 2 is being prepared to sail between Bangladesh and Assam with passengers from September next year. advertisement The new vessel has been designed specifically for river cruise in Bangladesh and India so that their water level and height of some of the bridges are not disturbed. It has has 14 twin/double and four single cabins, besides spa and gym facility, he said. ABN, Phookan said, had initiated the process for the cruise service nearly 10 years ago to meet the demands of his clients during the last 15 years. The company was the pioneer in long distance river cruise in the country in 2003 with unique cruises on Brahmaputra river in Assam and was the first to run cruises on Hoogli river in Kolkata in 2007. "We were awarded the Indian National Tourism Award for Innovation in 2004-2005. Experience counts for everything here and our expertise in the field of river cruising on both waterways is unrivaled," he said. The company has three cruise ships - ABN Charaidew and ABN Sukapha in operation in Assam and Bengal and ABN Rajmahal on the Ganges. The signing of the MoU for the river cruise will boost tourism in a major way in both the countries, Phookan said adding it will also generate employment opportunities for the people of the two countries. He said so far inland vessels of both the neighbouring countries could transit through the specified routes of each other. But now changes will need to be brought as the routes were finalised by both the governments and authorities have informed that vessels cannot be parked at unassigned sites. The MoU and the standard operating procedures on passenger cruise services on the coastal and protocol routes between governments of the two countries were exchanged on Sunday in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bangladesh counterpart Sheikh Hasina in New Delhi. "The operationalisation of this MoU will promote people-to-people contact and cooperation between the two countries in respect of economic, social and cultural advancement," an official statement had said. PTI ESB KK --- ENDS --- Communications featuring Syrian military and chemical experts discussing preparations for the Sarin attack in Idlib last week were intercepted by the US military and intelligence community, a senior US official told CNN news network on Thursday. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter The intercepts were part of an immediate review of all intelligence in the hours after the attack in northwestern Syria, which killed at least 74 people and injured more than 550, according to the Idlib health authority. Photo: Reuters After studying the intercepted communications, US officials said that there is "no doubt" that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is responsible for the attack. The official emphasized that the US did not know prior to the attack that it was going to happen, stating that the US gathers such a massive volume of communications intercepts in areas like Syria and Iraq, that the material is rarely processed unless there is a particular event that requires analysts to go back and search for supporting intelligence material. So far there are no intelligence intercepts that have been found directly confirming that Russian military or intelligence officials communicated about the attack. The official said that the Russians are more cautious in their communications to avoid being intercepted, and if those did take place they were likely to have been careful enough as to not leave an obvious record or trace. Photo: AFP The Russian and Syrian governments have both denied involvement in the chemical attack. President Donald Trump told a White House news conference Wednesday that the Pentagon is looking into the question of Russian complicity in the chemical attack. "I would like to think that they didn't know, but certainly they could have," Trump said. "(Defense Secretary) Gen. (James) Mattis is looking into it with the entire Pentagon group that does that kind of work." From left to right: Russian President Putin, US President Trump, Syrian President Assad (Photo: Reuters, EPA, AP) The US now believes that Syria has re-established a unit of personnel associated with chemical weapons that existed before the 2013 agreement in which the Syrian government pledged to give up its weapons inventory. There is also some indication that they are receiving outside help. "We know they have the expertise. And we suspect that they have help," a US military official told reporters at a background briefing Friday. At the same briefing, the official also noted: "We know the Russians have chemical expertise in-country. We cannot talk openly about any complicity between the Russians and the Syrian regime in this...in this case, but we're carefully assessing any information that would implicate the Russians knew or assisted with the Syrian capability." The lives of about 50 dogs are now at serious risk, after the Bethlehem Animal Shelter & Administration Unit (BASAU) lost its financial backing. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter The BASAU is the only dog shelter in the Palestinian Authority, and takes in dogs from all over the Palestinian territories. It operates solely through donations with no government funding. Photo: Diana Babish Courtesy of PTROA X Diana George Babish, a Palestinian resident of Beit Sahour who established and operates the shelter, built it on land owned by Beit Sahour, which now plans to build a hotel and hospital on the land. "They sent me a notice for immediate eviction and did not offer me a replacement facility for the shelter, like I had requested," said Babish Wednesday. "I'm in deep debt because of the shelter's expenses and I don't have the option to move it someplace else." Photo: Diana Babish Next month, the Palestinian Authority will hold elections for local municipalities. As a result, the shelter became less of a pressing issue in Bethlehem and Beit Sahour. Due to the risk of eviction, several Israeli animal protection organizations have begun working together to save the 50 dogs in Babish's shelter. "We're very afraid that that the dogs will get thrown into the street, where their days will be numbered," said Let the Animals Live founder Eti Altman. Photo: Diana Babish "These dogs are like my children," said Babish. "I want to know that they'll find a loving home in Israel." (Translated & edited by Lior Mor) It isnt hard to imagine what would have happened had the American president been Barack Obama, had the White House press secretary been Josh Earnest and had the comments he made been even more moderate than the comments that Sean Spicer made Monday in front of a room filled with journalists. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter What an outcry would have come out of Jerusalem. Wall-to-wall condemnations. Yad Vashems unofficial spokesperson, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, would have jumped in front of the cameras and condemned that Holocaust denier, who represents, of course, the presidents anti-Semitic viewsbecause how can his comments not be seen as President Obamas stance? These are different times, however. The president sitting in the White House is the man Netanyahu referred to as the best friend the Jewish people have ever had, and his speaker, who can be seen as nothing but a complete idiot and an ignorant person, doesnt represent a thing in the Israeli prime ministers eyes apparently. Spicer? Spicer who? Who is this Spicer guy and what does he have to do with anything? Thats the spirit prevailing in the Prime Ministers Office in recent days. Or in other words, completely ignoring what he said. Netanyahu. Is it possible that the prime ministers Holocaust statements are simply a strategy he uses to control us? (Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg) Thats the only way to explain Netanyahus silence in light of the delusional comments made by the Trump administrations official spokesperson, who said that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler didnt use gas against a population during World War II. When he realized his mistake, Spicer tried to rectify it, only to make an even more embarrassing blunder , stating that unlike Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Hitler didnt do it against his own people, and that he didnt gas people on the streets but assembled them in Holocaust centers. Even the man who accused the mufti of pushing the Nazi tyrant toward the final solution wouldnt have ignored what appears to be a case of Holocaust denial, if one insists on not seeing it as pure anti-Semitism. But Netanyahu is keeping silent. The man who has no problem spicing up his speeches with examples from the Holocaust, whether they are relevant or not, the man who lives and leads his people under the narrative of preventing another Holocaustthis man is suddenly dumbfounded when the White House press secretary makes comments that even known Holocaust deniers wouldnt dare say. The only thing we can conclude from this is that Netanyahu is more afraid of Donald Trump than he is of the possibility of another Holocaust. When he weighs his loyalty to the Republican president against his loyalty to Jewish history, the scales tip in favor of Trump. Alternatively, its possible that the prime ministers statements on the Holocaust are simply a strategy he uses to control us. The strategy of the fear and trepidation of another Holocaust which only he, Netanyahu, is capable of dealing withwhich is why there is no escape from voting for him again and again. It doesnt really matter why Netanyahu didnt rush to fix what needed fixing, to clarify what needed to be clarified, to condemn what had to be condemned. In Trump and Netanyahus world, where alternative facts are as important as real facts, it doesnt matter if Hitler used or didnt use gas, if he attacked or didnt attack his peoplebecause the current interest is to stand by the Trump administration, just like the previous interest was to warn us of another annihilation. And once again we are learning that if a person hates Muslims and supports the settlementsand even if he doesnt really support themthe Israeli Right will forgive any abomination, including anti-Semitism. BEIRUTThe Syrian army said an air strike late on Wednesday by the US-led coalition hit poison gas supplies belonging to Islamic State, releasing a toxic substance that killed "hundreds," but the coalition denied carrying out raids in the area. A statement by the army, flashed on Thursday by Syrian state TV, said the incident in the eastern Deir al-Zor province proved that Islamic State and al Qaeda-linked militants "possess chemical weapons." The report could not immediately be independently verified. US Air Force Colonel John Dorrian, a spokesman for the coalition, said it had carried out no air strikes in that area at that time. On the eve of Passover, security forces arrested a Palestinian man, a 20-year-old resident of Qalandiya, who was armed with a knife and a stun grenade arrived at the Qalandiya crossing in an attempt to enter Israel and carry out a stabbing attack. His interrogation revealed that he planned to carry out the attack with another person, also a Qalandiya resident, who eventually did not come with him. He turned himself in to the security forces on Thursday. On the eve of the holiday of Passover, as Jews worldwide come together to remember the story of the exodus of the ancient Hebrews out of slavery, an Israeli rabbi and ethics scholar says the holiday demands attention to aspects beyond just remembrance of the Exodus, particularly this year with the plight of refugees around the world and the human crisis in Syria. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter Rabbi Yuval Cherlow, chairman of the Ethics Committee for the Tzohar rabbinical organization and one of Israels leading experts on issues of ethics and Jewish law, has called upon Jews in Israel and around the world to use the Passover Seder as an occasion to inspire greater global awareness of the ongoing plight of a people just north of Israels border. (Photo: Daniel Bar-on/TPS) When we read of the biblical commandment to remember the exodus from Egypt, the commandment requires that we personally feel as if we were personally liberated, Cherlow said. Seder night is a commemoration of our existence as a nation as we recognize how we left Egypt and came to the land of Israel. This recognition requires us to appreciate many lessons, one of which is that we too must empathize with the plight of other refugees. The horrific events of recent days and weeks, as we have witnessed atrocities against innocents, must call all people of conscience to respond. The Seder provides us that opportunity. At its core, the Seder is a night of faith in God as the ultimate force, who dictates the path of history and the fate of our people. That also has an impact on our perspective of other nations. Cherlow added that although virtually all competing sides in Syrias civil war are also hostile towards Israel, the Jewish holiday of freedom demands compassion for the innocent victims of the fighting. On Seder night, we identify not with those who are committing evil but rather feel solidarity with those innocents literally caught in the crossfire, Cherlow said. The full text of the prayer (translated from the Hebrew by Elli Sacks) is as follows: Master of the universe, who makes peace on high. Though we are not accustomed to creating new formal prayers, we can no longer stand aside to look at the slaughter taking place in Your world and fail to pray. We know that both sides in this war are guilty of wanton bloodshed, and we are unable to keep silent when so many who are beyond the circle of conflict have fallen victim. Oh Lord, we beseech You in prayer to arouse in the killers their basic humanity and evoke mercy in their hearts. Lead them to recognize that we are all created in Your image and that there are limits even to human cruelty. May You bring to pass what is written in Your Torah: He who sheds the blood of man, by man his blood shall be shed, for in Gods image was man created. Grant us the wisdom to know how to act in this hour of distress, when the dark face of humanitys evil inclination is once again fully exposed and we are unsure how to stand against it. Enable us to act with all our energies to prevent bloodshed in Your world, above all in the Holy Land and its environs, as it is written in Your Torah: You shall not pollute the land where you are for blood pollutes the land; and the land will not expiate the bloodshed upon it, but with the blood of he that shed it. May God who makes peace on high, make peace upon us and upon all Israel, and let us say amen. More than 11,000 people have signed an online petition calling on the British government to formally apologize for the Balfour Declaration, a letter written by British Foreign Secretary Lord Balfour in 1917 expressing Britains support for the establishment of a Jewish national home in the Holy Land. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter The petition was recently launched by the Balfour Apology Campaign (BAC) and calls for the British government to openly apologize to the Palestinian people for issuing the Balfour Declaration. The 100th anniversary of the declaration, which many see as the document that paved the way for a Jewish state in Israel, will be marked in November, and British Prime Minister Theresa May has invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to visit the UK for the occasion. Netanyahu has accepted the invitation. Balfour and the declaration The British government was responsible for mandatory Palestine from 1917 to 1948, when they withdrew just before Israel declared an independent Jewish state. Palestinians say they now want an apology. We have said clearly that we have been victims of British colonialism and that the least we would expect from the UK is to apologize to the Palestinian people, Xavier Abu Eid, a spokesman for the PLO, told the Media Line. A foreign colonial power decided to give Palestine to an organization that was not even in Palestine. This is one of the darkest episodes of the past 100 years. As the petition has already reached 10,000 signatures, the British government must issue a formal response, within three days. Organizers said it had passed the 10,000 mark five days ago and they have yet to receive a response. If they reach 100,000 signatures, the petition will be considered for debate in parliament. The Balfour Declaration, issued on November 2, 1917, was a 67-word statement as part of a letter addressed to Walter Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community. The text reads as follows: His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done, which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country. The Balfour Apology Campaign says that it is this letter that is responsible for the fact that Palestinians do not have an independent Palestinian state today. An apology would be recognition of the mistake that Britain made in the Balfour Declaration. There are many precedents in which UK prime ministers recognized Britains role in causing suffering in its former colonies. For example, Tony Blair in 1997 apologized to the Irish for the famine the country endured in the middle of the 19th century. Gordon Brown in 2009 issued a formal Government apology to thousands of British children who were shipped from Australia and other Commonwealth countries between 1920s and 1960s. Similarly, Cameron in 2011 recognized that Britains colonial history made it responsible for much of the historic problems in the world when he was discussing the dispute in Kashmir. In addition, many leading scholars and historians such as Avi Shlaim stated that Britain should apologize to the Palestinians for all the betrayal going back to the Balfour Declaration, the website of the Apology Campaign states. The Israeli government says it sees the Balfour Declaration as a significant marker in the history of the Jewish state. It was the first time that a great power recognized the Jewish people as a people who deserve and have the right to build their home, said Michal Maayan, a deputy spokesperson of the Israeli Foreign Ministry. The same language appears later in the UN resolutions about the creation of Israel. We are marking the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration. She also said that the Palestinians are focusing on a 100-year-old document instead of finding ways to restart peace talks with Israel. It is another example of the Palestnians refusal to recognize Israels right to exist and the Jewish peoples right to have a country in Israel, Maayan said. It shows their focus on the past instead of their commitment to find a peaceful resolution in the present. PLO spokesman Abu Eid disagrees. We dont say there is no two-state solution. We recognized Israel within the 1967 borders and that recognition is still in force, he said. But it would make a difference if they acknowledged what they did to us. Some Israeli academics note that the Balfour Declaration does not preclude the establishment of a Palestinian state. They have nothing to apologize for. The Balfour Declaration promised self-rule to the Jews without taking anything away from the Arabs, said Moshe Zimmerman, a professor of history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Colonial powers thought they could allocate territory to anyone they wanted. If they (the British) have to apologize for anything it is for being a colonial power. A delegation of German trauma specialists visited the town of Sderot, located just two kilometers from the Gaza Strip, to learn about local approaches to treating psychological trauma. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter The city is a natural destination for trauma research. Kindergarten struck by Qassam rocket (Photo: Herzl Yosef) Since 2001, Palestinians in nearby Gaza have fired more than 12,000 rockets at the city from the Strip, and the Code Red air raid siren has formed the soundtrack of growing up for a generation of Israelis. Upon hearing the siren, locals have just 15 seconds to take cover; to deal with the threat, the town is dotted with makeshift bomb shelters, and some playgrounds have been covered with rocket-resistant roofs. Predictably, psychologists, religious authorities, teachers and counselors say the constant threat of attack has left an indelible mark on local residents. Bed wetting, depression, stress disorders and divorce rates have skyrocketed in the city since the turn of the century. Dr. Adrianna Katz, Executive Director of the Sderot Community Center for Mental Health, said in 2010 that it is a mistake to talk about post trauma conditions in Sderot, due to the ever-present possibility of an attack. People here are living in a constant state of panic, said Katz. As a result, Sderot has become an unhappy laboratory for the development of trauma therapies. Public bomb shelter in Sderot (Photo: Oz Moallem) The current visit, hosted by the Israeli Trauma Coalition, centered on a tour of the local Resilience Center, where the visitors heard about life in the constant shadow of terrorism and about the governments model of bolstering communities, both during normal times and during emergencies. In addition, the group visited nearby Kibbutz Nir Am for a lookout into the Gaza Strip and visited a Resilience Center for the Bedouin community in the city of Rahat, where they learned about the challenges of providing psycho-social therapy to the Bedouin population of the Negev. Talia Levanon, director general of the Israel Trauma Coalition, said, The delegation came to learn from Israel Trauma Coalition activities in the areas that we work. It is an ongoing process of learning, and we hosted a German-Israeli workshop aimed at administering, developing and preventing therapy teams from burning themselves out. Rocket impact crater in Sderot (Photo: Roi Idan) The delegation also met with Corinne Zeevi-Weil, an expert in child and adult psychology at Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem, and visited the Amcha center in Haifa they met with Holocaust survivors and heard talks by staff members about therapy and support. The Israel Trauma Coalition was founded in February 2001 at the behest of the Jewish Federation of New York and serves as the executive arm for government ministries that deal with mental health issues. The coalition includes hundreds of professionals and thousands of volunteers around the country operating regional preparedness centers for emergency situations. Treatment focuses civil preparedness for emergency situations, therapy training, and preparing the education system for emergency situations. Route 4 in the Hadarim Prison area was blocked Thursday evening in both directions due to a demonstration by Haredim. During the protest, the police arrested 13 demonstrators, and an hour later, the road was cleared and traffic returned to normal. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter Traffic jam on route 4 following ultra-Orthodox protest (: , ) X Some 600 ultra-Orthodox demonstrators arrived at the prison to protest the arrest of an ultra-Orthodox man suspected of assaulting a police officer. According to suspicions, he attacked the policeman who was about to arrest him after the ultra-Orthodox man incited against IDF draft. Route 4 (Photo: Yehudit Nachmanovich) (Photo: Shmulik Miller) Many buses arrived at the Sharon Prison compound, which also houses Hadarim Prison. The demonstration, which took place without a permit, was initially conducted quietly, but later, the protesters went down to the road and blocked it. A police force from the Sharon area and the traffic department cleared them and re-opened the road to traffic. (Translated and edited by N. Elias) US military says dropped GBU-43 bomb in Nangarhar province of Afghanistan on Thursday targeting series of Islamic State caves. US military says this is the first time the GBU-43 bomb, known as the Mother of all Bombs, has been used in combat. Congress's Hemant Katare won the Ater seat defeating the BJP candidate by 857 votes and BJP's Shivnarayan Singh defeated Congress's Savitri Singh by a margin of 25,476 votes in Bandhavgarh. By Rahul Noronha: The BJP and Congress retained their respective seats in by-elections held at the Ater and Bandhavgarh (ST) assembly segments, results for which were announced today. While the Congress's Hemant Katare won the Ater seat defeating the BJP's Arvind Singh Bhadoria by 857 votes in a contest that went down to the wire, in Bandhavgarh, the BJP's Shivnarayan Singh defeated the Congress's Savitri Singh by a margin of 25,476 votes. advertisement Counting in Ater took exceptionally long and ended at around 5.30 pm with the ECI finally announcing Hemant Katare as the winner. In sharp contrast, counting at Bandhavgarh ended at around 12 pm. Counting at Ater was marked by frequent suspensions with either the BJP or Congress candidate registering protests over some technicalities. The counting was a roller coaster ride for both candidates who led and trailed at different points by slender margins. Katare led in the first round only to lose this lead in the subsequent 10 rounds. Katare then made a comeback and gained a lead of around 9000 votes. Bhadoria won the last few rounds but his lead in individual rounds was not good enough for him to win. Incidentally, dynasties won in both seats in MP. While Hemant is the son of former leader of Opposition late Satyadev Katare whose death necessitated the bypoll, Shivnarayan Singh is the son of former state Minister Gyan Singh whose election to the Lok Sabha from Shahdol and subsequent resignation from the assembly had necessitated the bypolls. The Ater bypolls were being seen as a contest in proxy between CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Guna MP Jyotiraditya Scindia with both leaders spending many days in Ater while campaigning for the bypoll. This was also the first time Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) was put to use in elections in Madhya Pradesh. The use of the VVPAT machines led to a controversy which eventually led to the transfer of the Collector and SP besides 17 other officials from the Bhind district. A number of other police officials were also transferred on orders of the ECI. --- ENDS --- WASHINGTON -- The United States dropped a massive GBU-43 bomb, also known as the "mother of all bombs," in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday against a series of caves used by Islamic State militants, the military said. It was the first time this type of bomb had been used in combat and was dropped from a MC-130 aircraft, Pentagon spokesman Adam Stump said. Ice plumes shooting into space from Saturn's ocean-bearing moon Enceladus contain hydrogen from hydrothermal vents, an environment that some scientists believe led to the rise of life on Earth, research published on Thursday showed. The discovery makes Enceladus the only place beyond Earth where scientists have found direct evidence of a possible energy source for life, according to the findings in the journal Science. Similar conditions, in which hot rocks meet ocean water, may have been the cradle for the appearance of microbial life on Earth more than 4 billion years ago. "If correct, this observation has fundamental implications for the possibility of life on Enceladus," geochemist Jeffrey Seewald, of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, wrote in a related commentary in Science. A father and four of his children, residents of east Jerusalem, were arrested on suspicion of kidnapping the youngest son in the family and wanting to murder him because of his sexual orientation. The son has been defined as missing for more than a month. Prior to his disappearance, he filed a complaint with police and expressed concern that his family would harm him. Two Palestinian men convicted in Israel of murdering a US citizen who was hiking near an Israeli archaeological site could face charges in the United States if they are ever released from an Israeli prison. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter The US Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia said in a statement Thursday that Ayad Fatafta and Kifah Ghanimat face federal charges of murdering a US national outside the United States. Rescue workers bring the body of Kristine Luken in 2010 (Photo: AP) They are charged in the 2010 murder of 44-year-old tourist Kristine Luken. The two were convicted in an Israeli court of murder for stabbing Luken and a friend who were hiking together. The other victim survived the attack. Fatafta was sentenced to a life term in prison plus 20 years. Ghanimat was sentenced to two life terms and 60 years for the attack on Luken and another crime. A court document filed in the United States says Ghanimat told Israeli authorities that Fatafta told him "that they were going to kill every Jewish person that they met." Luken was a Christian missionary; her friend, a licensed tour guide, was wearing a Jewish Star of David at the time both were stabbed. Mohammed Fatafta, Ayad Fatafta's brother, a Palestinian police officer in the West Bank, said the family was not aware of the U.S. charges. But he said the case was unfair and made no sense when his brother has already been convicted and sentenced to life in prison plus 20 years. "The crime took place in Israel and the trial took place in Israel too. That's enough," he said. Meg Luken, Kristine Luken's step mother, said in a brief telephone call with The Associated Press on Thursday that the family was "very encouraged" by the filing of the charges but didn't want to make any further statement. Luken's friend, Kay Wilson, the British-born Israeli who was wounded in the attack, praised the U.S. decision. In a statement posted on her Facebook account, she called it "the best news" she's had in six years. "Although the prisoners are in an Israeli jail, should my government ever decide to let murderers free again in a prisoner exchange, these cold-blooded savages will not be released. Instead, they will be shipped off to the USA to stand trial there. I'm so relieved, I'm near to tears," she wrote. To help more people climb out of poverty, our federal social programs must have the end goals of independence and productivity. The Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program, known as MIECHV (pronounced McVee), is a positive example. With bipartisan support, this program has helped improve the health and well-being of families across the country. The Ways and Means Subcommittee on Human Resources, on which I serve as chairman, is working on the reauthorization of MIECHV this year. The program was fully authorized by Congress in Fiscal Year 2010. MIECHV helps support state and local efforts to provide voluntary, evidence-based home visiting services to parents and children at risk of adverse experiences. Objectives include promoting school readiness of young children, increasing economic self-sufficiency of families, improving prenatal health and birth outcomes, and preventing child abuse and neglect. Making this upfront investment in families protects children and reduces government dependence down the road. MIECHV is also one of the only social programs in which funding is tied to proven evidence of effectiveness to do otherwise is a disservice to both taxpayers and beneficiaries. We know we must improve our anti-poverty programs by demanding results, and MIECHV provides a good example of what we should expect and receive from the use of limited taxpayer resources. For a home visiting model to be funded, an evaluation must show the program has demonstrated significant, positive outcomes in areas such as reducing child abuse and neglect, improving maternal and child health, and improving economic self-sufficiency. Many approved models are now being further studied through a rigorous random assignment evaluation to better measure their impacts so we know families are receiving real help. On March 15, our Human Resources Subcommittee held a hearing on MIECHV, where we heard from witnesses who have either worked with clients in a home-visiting program or benefited from the services provided. Rosa, a 16-year-old high school junior from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, testified how a home-visiting program provided her with the support, confidence, and skills she needed when she found out she was pregnant at age 14. Today, Rosa is the mother of a beautiful 20-month-old baby girl who captured everyones hearts at the hearing and is on track to graduate high school next year. Nebraskans are also seeing positive outcomes from home visiting. Prior to our hearing, I visited Panhandle Public Health Districts Healthy Families America in Scottsbluff to see their work firsthand. The program strives to improve the economic success and school readiness of vulnerable children and families in Scotts Bluff, Morrill, and Box Butte Counties. During my visit, I met Dawn, who was pregnant and homeless when she learned about home visiting. Through the program, she found a stable home and a steady income to provide for her growing family. Today, she is working toward a college degree. We should strive to support the efforts of parents who are working to provide a better life for their children. I look forward to continuing our work on this reauthorization and ensuring our social programs help to build healthy, independent families. YORK Louis A. Sanna, 26, of Geneva, has been sentenced to a term of 18 months in prison for driving under the influence and causing serious bodily injury. This case started with a very serious accident south of McCool Junction on Highway 81 shortly after midnight on Saturday, July 9, 2016. According to information from the sheriffs department and court documents, the collision occurred 1 miles south of McCool Junction. The sheriffs department said Sanna was driving a 2008 Volkswagen JWE four-door sedan. Meanwhile, a 2004 Chrysler PTE was being driven by Brittany C. Walburn, 24, of Lincoln. Both vehicles were northbound. Investigators said the Sanna vehicle rear-ended the Walburn vehicle at a high rate of speed. The impact caused the Sanna vehicle to go into a spin, rotating approximately three times. It traveled several hundred feet before stopping on the east shoulder facing west. After impact, the Walburn vehicle began to spin out, before traveling sideways into the median. The vehicle then exited the median, at which time it began to roll several times, ejecting the rear seat passenger. The Walburn vehicle came to rest several hundred feet away, in the west ditch, facing south. The rear passenger of the Walburn vehicle sustained life threatening injuries and was in critical condition. Another passenger was injured as well. Sanna pleaded no contest to the charge last February. During this weeks court proceedings, it was also determined that Sanna will pay $11,972 restitution to one of the victims. A second victim will pursue restitution through civil case proceedings. Sanna was given credit for one day already served. Following incarceration, there will be 18 months of post-release supervision. And Sannas drivers license has been revoked for a period of 10 years. YORK Alexandria Warneke has noticed she belongs to a minority not once but twice over. The junior at York High finds herself in a small demographic first because of her passion for science. When that group is shaken down again by gender she becomes even more of a rare species as a female with deep interest in science. Warneke will do all she can to expand those boundaries around her by making that topic her platform entitled Where a Beautiful Brain Can STEM From in this weeks Miss Nebraskas Outstanding Teen scholarship pageant in Omaha. The competition is the teen division of the Miss America Pageant. In place of the swimsuit competition Warneke and her fellow contestants will demonstrate their fitness. In the talent portion of the judging she will showcase her ballet skills with a pointe dance to Zou Bisou Bisou. Warneke has performed in the Lincoln Midwest Ballet Companys The Nutcracker at the Lied Center and has mentored children at Kirbys School of Dance in York since the seventh grade. On an Education First Tour she visited London, Rome, Florence and Paris, where she took a ballet class. At York High she participates in: FBLA, mock trial, show choir, dance team, musical production and speech. The competition for Warneke begins tomorrow (Friday) when a panel of judges will interview her in detail and at length about her resume, pageant platform, personality, poise and personal background. The daughter of Chris and Tonya Warneke will step under the stage lights Saturday in the public portion of the contest. Each contestant will be judged in four categories: fitness routine, talent, evening gown and, finally, how each answers an on-stage question at the microphone. The winner will be crowned yet Saturday night based on an overall point system compiled by three to four judges. They dont judge us against each other, she explained. Should she win, Warneke pledges to promote her girls in science platform statewide, then move on to the Miss Americas Outstanding Teen competition in Orlando. Warneke readily admits she is big into science. That passion produced her platform, she said, Because Ive always kind of been going to science competitions and conventions where I found mostly boys. I was beating them, she said with a small grin, so I knew I had what it takes. She credits a Women in Science conference at UNL for ramping up her enthusiasm for science another step higher. I was inspired by the female (science) professors, at UNL, she said. That kind of pushed me even more. What a lot of girls dont realize is that science and math actually has to do with everything in daily life. Warneke, an honor roll student, is currently taking four college credit classes at YHS. She aspires to obtain a juris doctorate and become an environmental attorney. A $2,000 scholarship and other prizes will be awarded to the pageant winner. Scholarship amounts for the four placers are $700, $600, $500 and $400. Sanjay Nagnath Yenkur, 11, left in home in anger but was reunited with family in Latur through Aadhaar. By Narender Paperwala: Congenitally speech-and-hearing impaired, Sanjay Nagnath Yenkur was 11 when he left his home in anger. Upset with his elder brother, Yenkur set out for Gujarat via Hyderabad. He reached the Vadodra train station where an NGO spotted him and sent him to the care of child-protection authorities in neighbouring Narmada. Here, he was admitted to a school and given a new name, Akash. advertisement But destiny unfolded again for him when he was brought to an Aadhaar facility for enrolment. As Yenkur, now 14, sat down for fingerprinting and iris scan, the program's biometric database showed he already had a 12-digit national identity, said Chetan Parmar, Narmada's child-protection official. The Aadhaar system tracked down his real name and address in a remote village of Maharashtra's Latur district, Parmar explained. Authorities in Gujarat were quick to reach out to his family in his Hanchanal village. After three years, the teen was reunited with his loved ones, thanks to Aadhaar. Also read: Ministry official in Modi government acknowledges leak of Aadhar information: Report Also read: All NRI bank accounts not linked to Aadhaar card may be blocked after April 30 --- ENDS --- The dog was killed when he tried to save its owner from the knife-wielding attacker. By Saurabh Vaktania: A pet dog was killed after it tried to save its master from a knife-wielding attacker in Mumbai's Sion Koliwada. A 23-year-old man was about to kill his girlfriend when one of the woman's friend came to her rescue. The man tried to kill the friend also, when the pet dog came in between to her rescue. The pet dog bit the man to shove him away. The man, however, killed the dog and escaped from the spot. The man, identifies as Venkatesh, was arrested by police in the murder case of the dog but was released on bail same day. advertisement The woman, identified as Sumathi, a resident of Sion Koliwada, lives with his brother. Over a year back, Sumathi brought a dog and named her Lucky. The accused is also a resident of nearby locality. Venkatesh had problems with his girlfriend and wanted to take revenge from her. Venkatesh had decided to kill his girlfriend and that is when he had come to her house with a knife. But his girlfriend escaped and went to the house of Sumathi to hide. Venkatesh followed her to Sumathi's house where Sumathi stopped him from entering. Speaking to India Today, Sumanthi said, "I tried to stop Venkatesh from entering my house. He was carrying a big knife. He tried to attack me as well. He pushed me and caught me by my hair. Watching this my dog lucky came to my rescue. He was barking, but Venkatesh did not stop. Lucky bit Venkatesh twice. Getting furious by this, Venkatesh with the same knife killed my dog on the spot." Inconsolable Sumathi added, "I don't have anyone now with me. He was everything to me. The cops released Venkatesh on bail. I want justice for Lucky." Also read: Delhi: Stay dogs hound patients seeking anti-rabies shots at Bara Hindu Rao Hospital Also read: Canine or Einstein? Watch dog open several doors, flee animal clinic to be with his humans --- ENDS --- Cairo: Egypt's interior ministry said on Thrusday it had identified the bomber who targeted a Palm Sunday service at a Coptic Christian church in the northern city of Tanta, killing 28 people. On Wednesday, the ministry named the bomber who struck outside a church in the Mediterranean port of Alexandria. A total of 45 people were killed in the two attacks, which were claimed by the Islamic State group. Washington: US President Donald Trump on Thursday expressed confidence that things will "work out fine" with Russia and hoped that China would "properly deal" with North Korea. "Things will work out fine between the USA and Russia. At the right time everyone will come to their senses & there will be lasting peace!" Trump told his more than 27.8 million followers on Twitter this morning. His tweet came after US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson left Moscow following his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov. A day earlier, Trump had said that the US-Russia relationship are at a low point. Last night he was scheduled to speak to Tillerson. Trump's tweets appear to be a reflection of the talks that he had with his Secretary of State. In another tweet, he hoped that China would act on North Korea. "I have great confidence that China will properly deal with North Korea. If they are unable to do so, the US, with its allies, will! USA," Trump said. The US president hosted his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at his Mar a-Lago residence in Florida last week. The two leaders again spoke over phone this week. Trump has been asking China to act on North Korea and co-operate with it on Syria. Trump yesterday praised China for abstaining a UN Security Council vote on Syria and taking actions against North Korea. Washington: President Donald Trump has praised China for its decision to abstain from voting on a UN Security Council resolution condemning last week's chemical attack on civilians in Syria, terming it an honour for the US. "I think it's wonderful that they abstained. As you know, very few people expected that. And no, I was not surprised that China did abstain," Trump told reporters at a joint White House news conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. "Very, very few people thought that..that was going to happen. So we're honoured by the vote. That's the vote that should have taken place," Trump said, responding to a question on his relationship with China. Later, a senior White House official described this as a positive step. China's abstention at the UN was "another significant victory for all civilised peoples because it really showed how isolated the Assad regime and its international sponsors" are, the official told reporters. Trump also praised China for taking steps against North Korea. "We have a very big problem in North Korea. And as I said, I really think that China's going to try very hard and has already started, he said. "The vast amount of coal that comes out of North Korea going to China, they turned back the boats. That's a big step, Trump said. New York: Sheila Abdus-Salaam, an associate judge on the New York State highest court and the first Muslim judge in the US, was found dead in the Hudson River, city authorities said. Officers with the New York Police Department`s Harbour Unit on Wednesday afternoon responded to a report of a person floating by the shore near West 132nd Street in Upper Manhattan, The New York Times reported. Judge Abdus-Salaam, 65, was taken to a pier on the Hudson River and was pronounced dead by paramedics. The police were investigating how she ended up in the river, and it was not clear how long Judge Abdus-Salaam, who lived nearby in Harlem, had been missing. There were no signs of trauma on her body, the police said. She was fully clothed. A law enforcement official said investigators had found no signs of criminality. Her husband identified her body. Since 2013, Judge Abdus-Salaam had been one of seven judges on the State Court of Appeals, reports The New York Times. Before that, she served for about four years as an associate justice on the First Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court, and for 15 years as a State Supreme Court justice in Manhattan. She was previously a lawyer in the city`s Law Department. Governor Andrew M. Cuomo said in a statement on Wednesday that Judge Abdus-Salaam was a pioneer with an "unshakable moral compass". "Justice Sheila Abdus-Salaam was a trailblazing jurist whose life in public service was in pursuit of a more fair and more just New York for all." Amaravati: Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan today made a scathing attack on the Telugu Desam Party saying it was losing its moral high ground at the Centre over the special category status (SCS) and warned that it had no right to "compromise" on the issue. Noting that TDP's silence on SCS was "disheartening", Kalyan told the party not to mortgage the self-respect of the people of Andhra Pradesh with the Centre even as he lauded YSR Congress and the Telangana MPs for backing the SCS demand. "The TDP does not have the right to compromise with the Centre on the promised SCS. People of AP got TDP-BJP into power, trusting they would bring SCS to the state. I request TDP not to mortgage the self-respect of people of AP just for 'your personal benefits'," the Telugu superstar said in a series of tweets today. "When do we lose our moral high ground, When we mortgage our self respect for personal benefits," he said. "It's quite disheartening to see Union Minister Ashok Gajapati Raju's silence and the absence of TDP MPs in Parliament when the discussion on special status to AP came up. I think TDP MPs have forgotten the insult of their MPs getting beaten by North MPs in Parliament during the state bifurcation (in 2014)," Kalyan remarked. "YSRC MPs are doing a commendable job in pursuing the SCS demand. My whole-hearted thanks to (Telangana) MPs Kesava Rao and Rapolu Ananda Bhaskar for their support to SCS to AP," Kalyan added. The Jana Sena president also mocked at the "attitude of our political class" in New Delhi, in an indirect reference to the TDP members in Parliament. "In Parliament, you kick us, abuse us and divide us, we are OK. And we are OK to be slavish and subservient at the cost of our people's self respect as long as you do not deny our contracts, business opportunities and bail us out from our scams and wrongdoings," Kalyan said. "I too agree to show restraint and be cautious with the Centre but when repeated injustice is being meted out to us, then where is the need ? As per the popular demand, would they ever divide UP ? Or, was the rule applied only to down south state AP only," he wondered. Bengaluru (Karnataka): Expressing happiness over the recent victory in the state bypolls, Karnataka Chief Minister K. Siddaramaiah on Thursday defended his government from the ongoing Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) controversy in the country and said the voting machines were not tampered in these two by-polls. "The EVMs are not tampered. Congress is questioning this because there is scope for the tampering. Here in Karnataka in these two by-elections the EVMs are not tampered," said Siddaramaiah. Meanwhile, Karnataka Law Minister T.B. Jayachandra also expressed happiness over the recent victory in the state and thanked the voters for their support. "We are extremely happy with the results of two by-elections. I want to thank the voters of two constituencies. Who stood with the Congress party, they supported the Congress party, ultimately made us to win the elections," Jayachandra told ANI. Earlier in the day, out of the nine assembly by-polls held in the five states, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday registered victory at four places including Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Assam. However, down south in Karnataka, Congress' MC Mohan Kumari won the Gundlupet assembly by-poll with a margin of 10,877 votes. Meanwhile, the opposition on Wednesday met President Pranab Mukherjee raising concern over the tampering of the EVMs. The Election Commission yesterday issued a challenge to all political parties to prove that the EVMs can be tampered with. This came after the Congress, Left, AAP and others claimed that the EVMs were tampered with to favour the BJP. Mumbai: Chunky Pandey has stunned everyone as a menacing guy in "Begum Jaan" trailer, and the actor says he was not sure if he would get that part in the film. "After the release of 'Housefull', I was auditioning for 'Begum Jaan' and people on the sets were telling me to say dialogues like 'Aakhri Pasta' (his character in 'Housefull'). At the back of my mind I thought I would not get the film," Chunky told PTI. "But Srijit was sure he wanted me to play this evil part. He wanted me to lose real Chunky Pandey... He wanted the world to see my evil side. He saw the evilness in me and he wanted to bring that out in 'Begum Jaan'," he says. Chunky, who is known for his comic timing, is playing a villainous character of Kabir in the Vidya Balan starrer but the actor says it was not tough for him to get into the dark zone. "He is not a villain... This is the face of evil. Evil will always exist in this world. I always had a wicked streak in me, the sadist side in me also comes in my comedy films. But to do something like this is crazy. It came very naturally to me and I am most scared about that," he says. Sporting a bald pate, kohl-lined eyes and tobacco- stained teeth, Chunky reveals his wife failed to recognise him in this new avatar. "My wife couldn't recognise me. The whole personality has changed. She always thought I am a villain and I had to prove her right so I did 'Begum Jaan'," he says. "I was little resistant (about the look) after seeing myself I was happy. You don't get a film like 'Begum Jaan' everyday in your career. Srijit compelled me to lose my identity, with this creepy, almost-bald look. "I was earlier asked to cut my hair short, later Srijit just took all my hair off he also asked me to shave off my eyebrows. I told him no as I was travelling for work and could be stopped at immigration." He believes his 'repulsive role' will get him critical acclaim, something he says he misses since his "Tezaab" days. The film also features Naseeruddin Shah, Rajat Kapoor, Ashish Vidyarthi and Gauahar Khan. Calling them power house performers, Chunky says, "These are actors with whom you have to be on your toes. You have to up your performance. I had to be best. It was a delight to work with them." Srijit's 1947-set film "Begum Jaan" which is a remake of his Bengali movie "Rajkahini, will release this Friday. New Delhi: The Cabinet's approval for refund of Rs 2,700-crore claims to exporters will provide them relief and help boost shipments, FIEO today said. Hailing the approval of implementation of Supreme Court's judgement regarding Target Plus Scheme (TPS), Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) said exporters were fighting for their legitimate benefit for a long time. "This is an encouraging decision of the government which will provide relief to exporters in their export efforts," FIEO President Ganesh Gupta said in a statement. The Cabinet yesterday approved a proposal for refund of Rs 2,700-crore claims to exporters under an export promotion initiative 'TPS' in pursuance of a Supreme Court judgement. He said that the TPS was introduced in 2004-2009 Foreign Trade Policy and the scheme provided for duty credit of 5 percent, 10 percent or 15 percent for exporters who achieved a quantum growth in exports. The scope of benefit under the scheme was narrowed after it was implemented and affected exporters were compelled to approach Supreme Court arguing that the new provisions could not be applied retrospectively, he added. By Press Trust of India: From Lalit K Jha Washington, Apr 13 (PTI) Pakistans former military ruler Pervez Musharraf today said that the US committed "blunder" by not converting the military victory over the Taliban and Al- Qaeda post 9/11 into a political victory in Afghanistan. "After 9/11 Taliban and Al-Qaeda were defeated in Afghanistan. This was military victory. This military victory was to be converted into a political one,? Musharraf said in his key note address to a conference on Pakistan organised by the School of Advanced International Studies of the Johns Hopkins University. advertisement The 73-year-old retired army general said the military victory over Taliban and Al Qaeda post 9/11 created a vacuum in Afghanistan for one and half long years. "The requirement then was to convert this military victory into a political victory. In Afghanistan, in Kabul there ought to have been an ethnically balanced government," he said, ruing that the Pakhtoons who are in majority in Afghanistan were not given a proportional say in the new government. "This was one of the greatest blunders, which has impact even now," he said, adding that this resulted in resurgence and emergence of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Musharraf, who ruled over Pakistan from 1999 to 2008, said the US must review its relationship with Pakistan and give his country the importance it deserves. He said that in a changing world the US must adjust its strategic interests with those of the other emerging powers, which he identified as Russia and China. "Those emerging powers, China and Russia have their own interests in our region," he said, adding that the US needs to watch that and then decide what is in its best interest. "Pakistan needs to carefully articulate its relationships with China, Russia and the United States," said the former general, who overthrew a democratically elected government to become the dictator of the country. Responding to a question, Musharraf said Pakistan has to balance its relationship with the US and China. And this needs to be done bilaterally, he noted. "The US has relationship with India, as it think it is in its national interest. So, the US has to accept that Pakistans relationship with China is in its interest," he said. "On bilateral basis, we must carry out our relationship with the US and China,? he said in response to a question. "With the US, we had long term relationship not only militarily, but also in social economic sector. We cannot undo them and we must carry on this relationship," he observed. advertisement Musharraf expressed optimism about US-Pak relationship under the Trump Administration. "I see that President Donald Trump starts with a clean slate," Musharraf said, adding that Trump needs to understands the complexities of Pakistan-India relations and the complexities of Afghanistan, Taliban and Al Qaeda. A report released on the occasion said that the lack of close cooperation between US and Pakistani foreign policy is not unwelcome in either country. Speaking on his personal experiences and perspectives on the Pakistan Army, Gen (rtd) Mahmud A Durrani said the answer to Pakistans problem is an informed political order, not the Army taking over. Shahid Javed Burki, the former World Bank vice president, rued that Pakistan has been described as a distressed state; as a fragile state in the west. "It has been called a failing state. The Pakistan story as told in the Western press is not a good story," he said. PTI LKJ ZH --- ENDS --- New Delhi: President Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday gave assent to four supporting legislations related to Goods and Services Tax (GST). This is a major step towards rolling out a new indirect tax regime, which the Modi government wants to come into effect from July 1. The bills were the Central Goods and Services Tax Bill (CGST), the Integrated Goods and Services Tax Bill (IGST) the Goods and Services Tax (Compensation to States) Bill and the Union Territory Goods and Services Tax Bill (UTGST). The bills were passed by Parliament on April 6. While the C-GST will give powers to the Centre to levy GST on goods and services after Union levies like excise and service tax are subsumed, the I-GST is to be levied on inter-state supplies. The S-GST, which will allow states to levy the tax after VAT and other state levies are subsumed in the GST, will have to be passed by each state Assembly. The GST rates are to be discussed by the GST Council on May 18-19. The powerful GST Council, comprising Centre and states, has recommended a four-tier tax structure -- 5, 12, 18 and 28 percent. On top of the highest slab, a cess will be imposed on luxury and demerit goods to compensate the states for revenue loss in the first five years of GST implementation. GST, which will replace a plethora of central and state taxes, is a consumption-based tax levied on sale, manufacture and consumption on goods and services at a national level. Various indirect taxes of central excise duty, central sales tax and service tax are to be merged with C-GST, while S-GST will subsume state sales tax, VAT, luxury tax and entertainment tax. New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed RK Raghavan, who was heading the apex-court appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe 2002 Gujarat riots cases, to be relieved as the head of the team. A bench comprising Chief Justice JS Khehar and Justices DY Chandrachud and SK Kaul considered the submission of senior advocate Harish Salve, who is assisting the court as an amicus curiae, that Raghavan be relieved from the duty of heading the SIT. The bench hailed the work done so far by the SIT and allowed the request of Salve, while asking A K Malhotra, another member of the SIT, to oversee the functioning of the probe team. It also relieved another member K Venkatesam from the SIT and asked Malhotra to continue filing a quarterly status report on the progress in the riots cases in the apex court. The top court-appointed SIT has been probing nine major post-Godhra riots cases including the Naroda Gam riots case pertaining to the killing of eleven members of a community. The apex court had on September 19 last year granted six months to a lower court in Gujarat to conclude trial in the 2002 Naroda Gam riots case, one of the nine post-Godhra riots matters probed by the SIT, after Salve and Raghavan sought the same saying the trial court has to examine nearly 300 witnesses. The apex court was earlier informed that in other eight cases, an investigation has been completed, the trial courts have pronounced the judgements and the cases are at the stage of appeal in the High Court. Eleven persons belonging to the minority community were killed at Naroda Gam in 2002 riots during a bandh called to protest the Godhra train burning incident. A total of 82 persons are facing trial in the case. In June last year, a special court had convicted 24 persons in the Gulberg society riots case in which 68 people, including former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, were killed. The apex court had on February 22, 2016, paved the way for pronouncement of judgement by Ahmedabad trial court in various cases including the Gulberg Society massacre case. It had said there was no restraint on the trial judge to pronounce the verdict and granted him three months for it. The apex court had on August 5, 2015, granted an extension of another three months to wind up proceedings in the case. The apex court has been monitoring nine sensitive cases after the National Human Rights Commission and various NGOs termed the investigation into these as shoddy and unreliable. The cases were about the riots in different parts of Gujarat, including the Gulberg Society, Ode, Sardarpura, Narodao Gaon, Naroda Patya, Machipith, Tarsali, Pandarwada and Raghavapura. An estimated 2,000 people were killed in post-Godhra riots in 2002. New Delhi: Citizens have a right to have internet access and banning advertisements on pre-natal sex determination on websites do not curtail such rights, the Supreme Court said on Thursday. The court noted that search engines Google, Yahoo and Microsoft have accepted before it that they would not sponsor any such advertisements and would play a "cooperative role" so that the law enacted by Parliament to prevent sex selection and enhance the sex ratio is "respected". These search engines told a bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra that they have never indulged in any such advertisement as contemplated under section 22 of the Pre-conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act, 1994, and nor do they have any kind of intention to cause any violation of the legislation. Section 22 of the 1994 Act pertains to prohibition of advertisements relating to pre-natal determination of sex and punishment for its contravention. They told the bench that if the nodal officer, appointed by the central government, communicates to them regarding any offensive material posted on the internet which is in contravention of section 22, they would block it. "It is made clear that there is no need on the part of anyone to infer that it creates any kind of curtailment in his right to access information, knowledge and wisdom and his freedom of expression," the bench, also comprising Justices A M Khanwilkar and M M Shantanagoudar, said. "What is stayed is only with regard to violation of section 22 of the Act. We may further add that freedom of expression included right to be informed and right to know and feeling of protection of expansive connectivity," it said. The apex court observed that "it is necessary to state that volumes of literature under various heads come within the zone of the internet and in this virtual world the idea what is extremely significant is only connect". The bench also said it has recorded the concession of the Centre as well as the search engines so that sanctity of the Act is maintained and there is no grievance to anyone that his curiosity for searching anything has been scuttled. "To elaborate, if somebody intends to search for 'Medical Tourism In India' is entitled to search as long as the content does not frustrate or defeat the restriction postulated under section 22 of the Act," it noted in its order. During the hearing, Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar, who appeared for the Centre, said the government's stand was very clear that search engines and websites cannot facilitate such advertisements. "We have appointed nodal officers in each states. Hosting such advertisements is a penal offence under the Act," he said, adding that a central nodal officer has also been appointed to look after the matter. "Anything which violate Indian law has to be deleted or taken off by these intermediaries," he said. Advocate Sanjay Parikh, representing the petitioner, told the bench that Google, Microsoft and Yahoo were bound to follow scrupulously what is being stated in section 22 of the Act and nothing offensive can be hosted on the websites. Senior advocate Harish Salve, representing Microsoft, told the bench that they were completely co-operating with the government and were acting as per the directions of the apex court. The counsel representing Google and Yahoo also said that they were following the directions of the court and were fully co-operating with the government. When the petitioner raised the issue of declining sex ratio, the bench said, "We are on a different platform. We are talking about a concept of pre-censorship. Power of judicial review is extremely limited and courts must be very conscious about it". The bench also noted in its order the submission advanced by the counsel for search engines that in pursuance to the order, they have appointed their own 'in-house' experts to deal with the situation. "Counsel for the respondents would contend, and rightly, that they do not intend to take an adversarial position with the petitioner but on the contrary to play a participative and co-operative role so that the law made by the Parliament of India to control sex selection and to enhance the sex ratio is respected," it said. "The nodal officers appointed in the states under the Act are also entitled to enter into communication with the respondents for which they have no objection. The action taken report, as further acceded to, shall be sent to the nodal officer," the bench said and posted the matter for further hearing on September 5. The apex court had on February 16 warned that the declining numbers of the girl child was a "disastrous signal for mankind", and directed Google, Yahoo and Microsoft to set up in-house expert bodies "forthwith" to ensure deletion of materials which went against Indian laws prohibiting pre-natal sex determination. The court was hearing a petition by Sabu Mathew George, a doctor, who is seeking the court's intervention in view of the falling sex ratio in the country. Mumbai: If Pakistan executes the death sentence against Kulbhushan Jadhav it will be treated as murder of an Indian national, Minister of State for Defence Subhash Bhamre today said. He said the Centre was trying to bring international diplomatic pressure on Pakistan to secure Jadhav's release. "We have given a strong message to authorities in Pakistan that the way in which the verdict has been given by the army court, is not transparent and not in accordance with bilateral relations between the two nations," Bhamre told PTI. "We have been constantly asking for proof (against Jadhav) and under which provisions has he been tried that Pakistan felt to give that (death penalty). We condemn this," he said. "If this verdict is implemented, we will consider it as murder of an Indian national. In any case, we will not tolerate this," Bhamre said. Refusing to divulge details of the steps being taken by the Centre to secure Jadhav's release, Bhamre said, "We are bringing international diplomatic pressure (on Pakistan) as much as possible. We are very sure positive results will be out very soon." A Pakistani military court recently sentenced 46-year-old Jadhav to death after declaring him a "spy". Pakistan claims that its security forces had arrested Jadhav from the restive Baluchistan province on March 3 last year after he reportedly entered from Iran. It also claimed that he was "a serving officer in the Indian Navy." After the sentencing, India warned Pakistan to consider the "consequences" on their ties if Kulbhushan Jadhav is hanged in the alleged espionage case and vowed to go "out of the way" to save him amid an outrage in this country. The death sentence awarded to Jadhav recently echoed in both Houses of Parliament where all parties came together to condemn the "indefensible" verdict and pressed the government to take every step to help him. New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday hailed the "impressive performance" of the BJP in the assembly by-polls held in various parts of the country. He thanked the people for their "unwavering faith in politics of development and good governance". "Impressive performance by @BJP4India and NDA in the by- polls in different parts of the country. Congratulations to Karyakartas," Modi tweeted. "I thank the people for the constant support, blessings & unwavering faith in politics of development and good governance," he added in another tweet. In the by-polls held on Sunday last, the BJP won in Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Assam, according to the results declared. There was some solace for the Congress in Karnataka where it won both the seats. The by-polls were held in nine Assembly constituencies in seven states, besides the Srinagar parliamentary seat. Two seats each are in Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh and one each in West Bengal, Assam, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Delhi. In the Srinagar parliamentary constituency, repoll was ordered in 38 booths, which took place on Thursday. New Delhi: Signalling the warmth in the friendship shared by the two leaders who are scheduled to meet in a few months, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi for what the former termed would be a ''historic visit'' to his country. Calling Narendra Modi a "friend", Benjamin Netanyahu had tweeted that Indian leader's historic visit is being eagerly awaited by the people of Israel. Thank you, my friend, for your kind holiday greeting. The people of Israel eagerly await your historic visit. https://t.co/Is1NmfWiMF Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) April 11, 2017 Israeli PM's tweet was in response to a Modi's greetings to Netanyahu on the occasion of Jewish festival of Passover to commemorate the flight of the Israelites from Egyptian slavery. PM Modi's visit would be the first time that an Indian Prime Minister would step on Israeli soil since 1992 when the two countries established full diplomatic relations. However, PM Modi and Netanyahu did meet on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September 2014. It was then, the first meeting of the Prime Ministers of the two countries in over a decade. Though there has been no official announcement regarding PM Narendra Modi's Israel visit but the groundwork for the same has been going on for months. Last month, National Security Adviser Ajit Doval was also in Israel to fast-track finalisation of pacts to be signed during the prime ministerial visit. On the cards are multiple defence deals for the Spike anti-tank missiles for the Indian army and Barak-8 air defence missiles for the navy valued at $ 1.5 billion, a Bloomberg report said. Last week, Israel Aerospace Industries announced a $ 2 billion mega missile pact that will give Indian forces an advanced defence system of medium-range surface-to-air missiles; the mega missile deal has been called Israel's biggest defence contract. Israel is already the third-largest arms supplier to India over the last three years. But the new deals being finalised ahead of PM Modi's visit also indicate that New Delhi didn't have any qualms about closer relations with Israel. PM Modi, who had travelled to Israel in 2006 when he was the Gujarat Chief Minister, was widely expected to make the visit much earlier. Instead, President Pranab Mukherjee travelled to Israel in 2015 and addressed Israeli Parliament too. It was during this visit that Netanyahu had spoken about his earlier interactions with PM Modi. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj followed it up with a visit in 2016. With PTI inputs New Delhi: Upping the ante against Pakistan, the Government of India on Thursday accused Islamabad of arresting Kulbhushan Jadhav over false charges of spying as it vowed to bring him back. Addressing a presser on the issue, MEA spokesperson Gopal Baglay said, ''Kulbhushan Jadhav has been falsely arrested in Pakistan. The establishment there has no proof of any wrongdoing by him. He is innocent''. Pakistan has not shared with us any details about Kulbhushan Jadhav 's well-being or the location where he is presently being kept, Baglay said. Attacking the Pakistani establishment, the MEA spokesperson said, ''So far Pakistan has denied all our requests for consular access. We have made at least 13 such requests before the Govt of Pakistan.'' Raising doubts over the credibility of Pakistan's legal system, Baglay said, ''The so called legal process done by Pakistan was opaque.'' "We are making all efforts to get him back but we can't reveal the steps that will be taken to achieve it. We are in touch with Pakistan through our High Commission on this immensely important issue," Baglay said. India and Pakistan also have a bilateral agreement on consular access, Baglay said while adding, ''India had discussed Jadhav's kidnapping issue with Iran last year.'' Baglay, however, assured that the government of India will explore all options to bring Jadhav back. The response from MEA came days after the government warned Pakistan that executing Jadhav will have serious "consequences" on the bilateral ties. The death sentence awarded to Jadhav by a Pakistani military court after declaring him a "spy" echoed in both Houses of Parliament where all parties came together to condemn the "indefensible" verdict and pressed the government to take every step to help him. In Parliament, the government as well as the Opposition, saw the capital punishment as an attempt to defame India and to deflect the attention of the international community from Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj made a statement in both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, asserting that India will go "out of the way" to ensure justice to Jadhav who is an "innocent kidnapped Indian". Jadhav's execution will be taken by India as a "pre-meditated murder" and Pakistan should "consider its consequences" on bilateral relations, if it proceeds on this matter, Swaraj warned. New Delhi: On the occasion of the 126th birth anniversary of Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch several initiatives to further the digital payments revolution in India on Friday (April 14). These will include, the launch of a BHIM Aadhaar platform for merchants, cash back and referral bonus schemes for BHIM and declaring about 75 townships going less-cash. Prime Minister Modi will also felicitate the winners of a mega draw of the two major incentive schemes to promote digital payments, viz. Lucky Grahak Yojana and Digidhan Vyapaar Yojana. These initiatives would further promote the digital movement that the country embarked upon and reinforce Dr.Ambedkar's vision for social empowerment of all through financial inclusion. The BHIM-Aadhaar, the merchant interface of the BHIM App, will pave the way for making digital payments by using the Aadhaar platform. This will enable every Indian citizen to pay digitally using their biometric data like their thumb imprint on a merchants' biometric enabled device which could be smartphone having a biometric reader. Any citizen without access to smartphones, internet, debit or credit cards will be able to transact digitally through the BHIM Aadhaar platform, thus realizing Dr. Ambedkar's vision of social and financial empowerment for all. Already, 27 major banks are now on board with three lakh merchants so that they can start accepting payments using BHIM Aadhaar. The Prime Minister will launch two new incentive schemes for the BHIM - Cashback and Referral bonus - with an outlay of Rs. 495 crore for a period of six months. This is to ensure that the culture of digital payments permeates down to the grassroots. Under the Referral bonus scheme both the existing user who refers BHIM and the new user who adopts BHIM would get a cash bonus credited directly to their account. Under the Cashback scheme the merchants will get a cashback on every transaction using BHIM. Both schemes are to be administered by MEITY and implemented by NPCI. Winners of the mega draw would be felicitated by the Prime Minister at a function in Nagpur tomorrow. The winners of the mega draw itself are a testimony to the spread of the digital payments revolution in the country. The 100 days of DigiDhan Melas, led by NITI Aayog in 100 cities across India, have had a huge impact in enabling increased usage of digital payment methods. At least 15,000 institutions have gone cashless across just these 100 rural and urban cities across each one of the 27 states and 7 UTs. With a turnout of over 15 lakh from cities, small towns and villages, the melas have enabled lakhs to open new bank accounts as well as create new Aadhaar cards. BHIM App has already created a new world record by registering 1.9 crore downloads in just four months since its launch in December, 2016. With a view to achieving the target of 2500 crore digital transactions during the current financial year, the Prime Minister will also announce about 75 townships spread all over India as 'less-cash townships'. A less-cash township is one where the deployment of payment acceptance infrastructure is complete, all the families in the township are covered under training programs. The townships selected for the launch have been subjected to independent third party assessment by Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC) and only those townships which have reported more than 80 percent of the total number of transactions in the township being done through digital modes of payments during the review period are included in this list. These townships are likely to generate over 1.5 lakh digital transactions every day thereby leading to about 5.5 crore digital transactions in a year. New Delhi: Expressing grave concern over the video in which a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel is being roughed up by a youth while he was returning from a polling booth in Srinagar, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday assured that he has spoken to Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) Director General (DG) Sudeep Lakhtakia and the issue will be sorted out soon. "I have spoken to Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) Director General (DG) Sudeep Lakhtakia and we spoken about it, things will be sorted soon," said Rajnath.Meanwhile, CRPF DG Sudeep Lakhtakia also stated that the law will take its own course but their men should not lose their moral. "The process of law will take its own course. We will see that morale of CRPF men is not hurt or get low," Lakhtakia told ANI.The video features a CRPF personnel using immense restraint even when he is attacked by the youth. The video shows the jawan walking when suddenly a local attacks him. The impact of the attack makes the jawan`s helmet roll down the road. This caused him some injuries.In wake of the prevailing tension in the Kashmir Valley, the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Monday deferred the Anantnag by-polls till May 25. Earlier, it was scheduled to be held on April 12.A school designated as polling station for Anantnag by-polls was set on fire in Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir. A Panchayat Ghar was also set ablaze in Pulwama district.The Srinagar parliamentary constituency witnessed lowest voter turnout for the by-polls in the wake of the clashes. New Delhi: Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar on Thursday condemned the definition of a "perfect female body" in a class 12 textbook as "sexist" and has ordered action in the matter even as the private publisher has decided to stop the printing and sale of the book. Excerpts from the Physical Education textbook defining "36-24-36" as the "best body shape for females" yesterday created an outrage on social media with critics demanding that the text be withdrawn. The book titled "Health and Physical Education" written by V K Sharma and published by Delhi-based New Saraswati House, is taught at various schools affiliated to CBSE. CBSE, however, clarified that it "does not recommend any books by private publishers in its schools". "I condemn the remarks in the book as sexist. The text is non-defendable and unacceptable. We have taken serious note of it. I have instructed the officers to take appropriate action in this regard," Javadekar told reporters. "It is not an NCERT book but by a private publisher and action will be taken against them. We are also asking CBSE schools to follow NCERT books rather than private publishers in interest of earning profit," he added. The publishers also announced that they have "stopped the printing, selling and distribution of the revised book with immediate effect". "We do review our books from time to time but some points have remained uncorrected due to an oversight and hence the book will again be reviewed by our editorial board and any inconsistencies found will be corrected," the publishers added. The excerpt from the chapter "Physiology and Sports" which is going viral read, "36-24-36 shape of females is considered the best. That is why in Miss World or Miss Universe competitions, such type of shape is also taken into consideration". Various Twitter users shared picture of the mentioned text and demanded that the publishers withdraw the content and schools replace the book in their curriculum. In a statement, the CBSE had said, "Schools are expected to exercise extreme care while selecting books of private publishers and the content must be scrutinised to preclude any objectionable content that hurts the feeling of any class, community, gender, religious group. Schools have to take responsibility of the content of the books prescribed by them". The Human Resource Development ministry had last month said that CBSE has no mechanism to evaluate the quality of textbooks of private publishers and it has no mandate to prescribe or recommend textbooks other than those published by NCERT. Narayan Rane joined the Congress in 2005, but has not been happy ever since, speculations suggest that he would soon join the BJP. By Uday Mahurkar, Kamlesh Damodar Sutar: BJP President Amit Shah's strategy to poach on powerful caste leaders of opposition parties to strengthen the BJP electorally in the of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls seem to get a further boost last night when Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis met Shah at his Ahmedabad residence with former Maharashtra deputy chief minister and Congress leader Narayan Rane and the three remained closeted for two hours. advertisement The move is also part of the party strategy as mooted by Fadnavis to strengthen the Maratha base of the party in keeping with the party's plan to win the next assembly polls in Maharashtra with full majority on its own and also beef up the party for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. However, the final modalities are still being worked out in the wake of certain promises that Rane wanted from Shah as part of his hard again. So, a official announcement is being awaited. The move follows two days after the appointment of another Congress-turned- BJP leader Samarjitsinh Ghatge of the Maratha royal family of Kagal in Kolhapur as chairman of the Maharashtra Housing Development Corporation. Ghatge had joined the BJP a couple of months ago close on the heels of Yuvraj Sambhajiraje Chattrapati being nominated to Rajya Saha by the president of India Prana Mukherjee following recommendation by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Rane could make a big difference to the BJP in Konkan area as he belongs to a common Maratha family - and not royal - and common Marathas around in Konkan area. Rane had lost the last election to BJP badly from his assembly seat in Konkan and had been sulking since as he believed that Congress elements opposed to him had also played a role in his defeat. Also Read Fadnavis in election mode? Maharashtra to study Uttar Pradesh loan waiver, says Devendra Fadnavis --- ENDS --- Mumbai: Abhay Deol took to his Facebook page a few days back to take a dig at celebrities who endorse fairness creams. And this came after a politician made distasteful remarks about the complexion of people hailing from a certain region in the country. And Bollywood fashionista Sonam Kapoor was quick to react to Abhays comments. Though Sonam has deleted those tweets, Bollywoodlife.com had grabbed shots of her tweets to Abhay. Heres what Sonam had tweeted: @AbhayDeol I appreciate and concur with your views and would like to know your thoughts on this as well!. In this tweet, Sonam was referring to a fairness cream endorsed by Abhays cousin Esha Deol. Abhay, who is known for being extremely blatant, admitted that Esha was wrong too! Heres how Abhay reacted: Is wrong too. For my views read my post. https://t.co/Jw9CNINd6t abhay deol (@AbhayDeol) 12 April 2017 Sonam also tweeted, Thank you Abhay, I shot this campaign ten years ago and didnt understand the ramifications. Thank you for bringing this to the forefront. Abhay calmly responded to her tweet by saying this More power to you @sonamakapoor maybe you can use your power as well to take this further than the forefront. https://t.co/FVJcj2Wp7T abhay deol (@AbhayDeol) 12 April 2017 Though it is difficult to comprehend what campaign Sonam was referring to, but going by the deleted tweet, it seems Abhay may have pointed out a similar product Sonam may have endorsed. Nonetheless, Sonams tweets are not available so we cant really guess the context. For the uninitiated, Sonam and Abhay have had huge differences between them ever since they shot for Aisha together. New Delhi: The harvest festival of Baisakhi is here and the celebratory spirit can be felt in the atmosphere. Baisakhi or Vaisakhi also marks the Sikh New Year and happens to celebrate the formation of Khalsa Panth of warriors under Guru Gobind Singh in 1699. The spirit of spring harvest festival is celebrated across the country. Also, it marks the sacredness of rivers in Hindu culture. Sikhs celebrate Baisakhi in many ways such as Gurudwaras are fully decorated and bhajan, kirtans are organised. On this day, Hindus bathe in sacred rivers such as Ganges, Jhelum and Kaveri, visit temples, and enjoy with friends and family. The harvest festival is known by different names in various regions. So, our Bollywood celebs too decided to wish their fans. Check out the 'Baisakhi' tweets here: T 2492 - Happy Baisakhi/Vaishakhi/Vasakhi for the 13th of April .. love and happiness !! pic.twitter.com/QVmFs00xnX April 12, 2017 Happy Baisakhi everyone. be kind to one another. pic.twitter.com/QSuULYN4ed TheRichaChadha (@RichaChadha_) April 13, 2017 Anupam Kher (@AnupamPkher) April 13, 2017 Mumbai: Veteran screenwriter Salim Khan has urged people to pray for the safe return of Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav who has been sentenced to death by a Pakistan military court for allegedly spying and stoking violence in Balochistan. The Sholay writer said here is a great opportunity for Pakistan to mend its relationship with India. "Pakistan talks about maintaining a good relationship with India. Here is the opportunity. Let us pray for his safe return. Kulbhushan Jadhav," Khan tweeted on Wednesday night. Quoting Prophet Muhammad, the veteran writer went on to add: "To kill an innocent is equivalent to killing entire humanity." Jadhav was reportedly arrested in March last year in Balochistan, for allegedly being an Indian spy responsible for fuelling Baloch separatist movement. Over the last year, the case of Kulbhushan Jadhav has witnessed several twists and turns. While the Pakistani government has repeatedly alleged Jadhav is a Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) agent, India had been denying the charges, calling the death sentence a "pre-planned murder". Mumbai: Veteran actress Shabana Azmi has praised Sonam Kapoor as she got a special mention at the 64th National Film Awards for her portrayal of slain air hostess, Neerja Bhanot, in "Neerja". The 66-year-old actress, who essayed the role of Bhanot's mother in the movie, said she is glad to see the "Raanjhanaa" star's growth as an artiste and that the prestigious honour will motivate her to do better work. "Sonam is like my own bachcha. To see her growth as an artiste is a very fulfilling experience for me personally. The National award for Sonam is such a glorious validation of her talent. "It just makes her so much more confident to do better work. I am very proud of her," Azmi said in a poster which was shared by Sonam on social media. "This made my day year and everything! Thank you @AzmiShabana and thank you @RamKMadhvani for showing me this," Sonam wrote alongside the photo. While, Madhvani, who directed the movie, said, "High praise from @AzmiShabana and well deserved @sonamakapoor. Very happy for you." "Neerja" also won National Award for the best Hindi feature film. New Delhi: Retirement fund body EPFO's subscribers will get loyalty-cum-life benefit of up to Rs 50,000 at the time of retirement for contributing to the scheme for 20 years or more. The benefit will also be provided in case of permanent disability even if the members have contributed for less than 20 years, the EPFO board has decided. The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation's (EPFO) apex decision making body, the Central Board of Trustees (CBT), has recommended a minimum sum assured of Rs 2.5 lakh in the event of death of a subscriber. "The CBT has recommended amending the Employees' Deposit Linked Insurance Scheme (EDLI) to provide for minimum benefit of Rs 2.5 lakh and loyalty-cum-life benefit of up to Rs 50,000 at a meeting held yesterday," a senior official said. "The suggested benefits will be available to members after government approval. Initially, these will be provided for two years on a pilot basis and will be reviewed thereafter." According to the proposal, loyalty-cum-life benefit will be provided to all those members on retirement at 58 or 60 years who have contributed to the scheme for 20 years or more. The benefit will also be provided in case of permanent disability. In these cases, the members who have contributed to the EDLI scheme for less than 20 years will be eligible. Those members whose average basic wages are up to Rs 5,000 will get loyalty-cum-life benefit of Rs 30,000. Similarly, the members with wages of Rs 5,001-10,000 Will be eligible for Rs 40,000 benefit. All those members getting more than Rs 10,000 monthly wage will be eligible for Rs 50,000 loyalty-cum-life benefit under the proposed scheme. The board has recommended such benefits in view of a huge EDLI corpus of Rs 18,119 crore following addition of interest that accrued on investment of this fund. At present, the dependants of the deceased get a sum assured of up to Rs 6 lakh. There is no provision of minimum insurance and any benefit for surviving members or in cases of permanent disability under the scheme. Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya launched Aadhaar Seeding Application after the meeting. The EPFO has developed this application with support of Common Service Centres (CSCs) and C-DAC. The CSCs are ICT-enabled front-end service delivery points at the village level for delivery of government and private services. With implementation of the seeding application, a PF member or pensioner can now walk into any of the field offices of EPFO or CSC outlets with UAN and Aadhaar and seed them. The EPFO enrolled 49,39,929 workers during January-March 2017. It had launched a special enrolment scheme to cover leftout formal sector workers from January 2017. Chandigarh: Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Wednesday called Canadian Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan a "Khalistani sympathiser" and said he would not meet him during his expected visit to India later this month. Speaking during a programme on a channel, the Chief Minister alleged: Harjit Sajjan is a Khalistani sympathiser and so was his father. "There were, in fact, five ministers in the Justin Trudeau government who were Khalistani sympathisers and I will not have any truck with them," he claimed. They had prevailed upon the government to prevent my entry into Canada, where I wanted to go to meet my Punjabi brethren and not to campaign for elections, he was quoted as saying in a release issued by his team after the programme. Amarinder's poll campaign in Canada was stalled last year in the run-up to the Punjab Assembly Elections. Sajjan, the Member of Parliament for Vancouver South, is expected to travel to India later this month in his first visit since his appointment as minister. Mumbai: Filmmaker S.S. Rajamouli says a magnum opus like the two-part Baahubali could be possible thanks to an actor like Prabhas, who has dedicated so much time to the project. Rajamouli was at an event here for the IMAX poster launch of Baahubali 2: The Conclusion on Wednesday. Praising Prabhas, Rajamouli said: "The whole film 'Baahubali' was possible because of Prabhas, who being a lead actor in the south film industry, believed in this project and gave three and half years of his life to the film. I don't think anybody can get so much involved in the project with that kind of passion, time and commitment." "I think whether director or producer or any other professional involved in it, we are all being carried on a big ship called 'Baahubali'. 'Baahubali' is the ultimate product and we are the people who worked on it, so I don't think I am a bigger person than the project," added Rajamouli when asked about how a filmmaker often gets less attention compared to his film. Speaking about the IMAX experience, he said: "It was 15 years ago when I first saw a film in IMAX format. In our childhood, we used to see film on 70mm screens and then suddenly we got this larger than life experience in IMAX, through which we literally felt like being in that space and time itself. "So the first image I saw, and I decided to make my films in IMAX format. And today, when the dream has got fulfilled, it's a quality moment for me." Baahubali 2 has been digitally remastered in the IMAX format. Its story lent itself to the format, Rajamouli said, adding: "People need to see it on bigger screens with wider sound to experience what we intended to see." "We have big theatres now but we still need more number of theatres to take the audience there. It's a business model now to release the film in maximum number of theatres to get maximum viewership. And for a film like 'Baahubali', where people are anticipating so much about the movie that trailer of the film has crossed 100 million views is on par with any Hollywood film. "So, it makes all sense to release the film at maximum number of theatres." The movie also features Rana Daggubati, Anushka Shetty, Ramya Krishnan in pivotal roles. New Delhi: Noted Malayalam actor on Thursday reportedly passed away at the age of 63. It is being said that he suffered a kidney failure. If online reports are to be believed, Venu breathed his last at a palliative care centre at Chalakudy, Thrissur. According to an India Today report, he was undergoing dialysis since quite a few months now. Some media articles also suggest that Venu was staying in a private lodge for the last 10 years. Also, the star rumouredly was trying hard to arrange money for his treatment. Venu has a huge list of movies to his credit. His performances will be remembered by people of all age groups. 'Chotta Mumbai', 'Salt 'n' Pepper' and 'Kanyaka Talkies' are some of his most memorable works. By Press Trust of India: From Lalit K Jha Washington, Apr 13 (PTI) In a major U-turn, President Donald Trump has said that NATO is "no longer obsolete" and reaffirmed his commitment to the military alliance as tensions rose between the US and Russia over Syria. "I complained about that a long time ago and they made a change, and now they do fight terrorism. I said it was obsolete. Its no longer obsolete," Trump told reporters at a joint White House news conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. advertisement "Its my hope that NATO will take on an increased role in supporting our Iraqi partners in their battle against the ISIS," he said about NATO which was formed in 1949. Trump had repeatedly questioned the value of the alliance and made overtures to Russia during his presidential campaign. Trump acknowledged that Americas relationship with Russia "may be at an all-time low". "Right now we are not getting along with Russia at all," Trump said. "It would be wonderful... if NATO and our country could get along with Russia," Trump said yesterday amid a deepening war of words with the Kremlin. Trumps remarks come as his administration criticised Russias support for Syrian leader President Bashar al-Assad and questioned the Kremlins interference in elections in Montenegro. Trump, earlier, labelled Assad a "butcher and told allies it was time to end Syrias "brutal" civil war. Trump also supported the admission of Montenegro into the 28-member NATO. On Monday, he signed the protocol to approve the 29th, the country of Montenegro. "In the coming months and years, Ill work closely with all of our NATO allies to enhance this partnership and to adapt to the challenges of the future, of which there will be many. This includes upgrading their focus on todays most pressing security and all of its challenges, including migration and terrorism," Trump said. Observing that NATO countries must work together to resolve the disaster currently taking place in Syria, Trump appreciated the support of NATO members and partners in their condemnation of Assads murderous attack. "The vicious slaughter of innocent civilians with chemical weapons, including the barbaric killing of small and helpless children and babies, must be forcefully rejected by any nation that values human life. It is time to end this brutal civil war, defeat terrorists, and allow refugees to return home," he said. "In facing our common challenges, we must also ensure that NATO members meet their financial obligations and pay what they owe. Many have not been doing that," he said. advertisement Trump and Stoltenberg agreed that other member nations must satisfy their responsibility to contribute two per cent of the GDP to defence. "If other countries pay their fair share instead of relying on the United Sates to make up the difference, they will all be much more secure, and the partnership will be made that much stronger," he said. Trump is expected to travel to Brussels later this spring to attend the NATO Summit. "Every generation has strived to adapt the NATO alliance to meet the challenges of their times. And during my visit to Brussels...which I look very much forward to, we will work together to do the same. We must not be trapped by the tired thinking that so many have, but apply new solutions to face new circumstances, and thats all throughout the world,? he said. Stoltenberg said a strong NATO is good for Europe, but a strong NATO is also good for the United States. "I welcome the very strong commitment of the United States to the security of Europe. We see this commitment not only in words, but also in deeds. Over the past months, thousands of US troops have been deploying to Europe, a clear demonstration that America stands with allies to protect peace and defend our freedom," he said. advertisement Noting that in a more dangerous and more unpredictable world, it is important to have friends and allies, Stoltenberg said in NATO, America has the best friends and the best allies in the world. "Together, we represent half of the worlds economic and military power. No other superpower has ever had such a strategic advantage. This makes the United States stronger and safer," he said. Observing that NATO plays a key role in many other ways also, he said all NATO allies are part of the global coalition to counter ISIL. "NATO provides direct support to the coalition with training for Iraqi forces in their fight against terrorists, and more intelligence sharing. We have established a new division for intelligence, which enhances our ability to fight terrorism, and working together in the alliance to fight terrorism even an even more effective way," he said. NATO, he asserted can and must do more in the global fight against terrorism. advertisement "In the fight against terrorism, training local forces is one of the best weapons we have. NATO has the experience, the expertise and the staying power to make a real difference. And fighting terrorism will be an important topic when NATO leaders meet in Brussels in May," the NATO Secretary General said. PTI LKJ AJR UZM NSA --- ENDS --- New Delhi: Classic actress Sridevi is ready to entice her audiences in her upcoming venture titled 'Mom'. The film happens to be a thriller which captures the journey of a mother and her daughter. The first look of the film was unveiled by Salman Khan during the Zee Cine Awards 2017. Sridevi recently took to Twitter and released the Telugu motion poster of 'Mom'. Earlier, Hindi and Tamil teasers were released. 'Mom' has an interesting star cast with the likes of Sridevi in the lead and talented actors Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Akshaye Khanna and Abhimanyu Singh in important roles. She is the pillar. She is the strength. She is mom. Check out the Telugu motion poster. #AmmaKahoYaMom @Nawazuddin_S https://t.co/0PPE33k9E8 SRIDEVI BONEY KAPOOR (@SrideviBKapoor) April 13, 2017 Also, Pakistani actors Adnan Siddiqui and Sajal Ali will be seen playing pivotal parts in the film. 'Mom' is directed by Ravi Udyawar and produced by Boney Kapoor. It is slated to hit the screens on July 14, 2017. New Delhi: The world's oceans play an important part in our lives and contribute a huge amount towards the sustenance of life on Earth. However, Earth is probably not the only planet with a wealth of oceans within it. Scientists at NASA have been delving deep into the existence of ocean worlds in our solar system, with the help of Cassini spacecraft and Hubble Space Telescope and are about to unveil their discoveries on Thursday, April 13 at 2:00 pm EDT (11:30 pm IST) through a conference. The briefing will be broadcast live on NASA Television and the agency's website. As per NASA, these new discoveries will also help inform future ocean world exploration including NASA's upcoming Europa Clipper mission planned for launch in the 2020s and the broader search for life beyond the Earth. NASA's Cassini spacecraft, which was launched in 1997 and arrived at Saturn in 2004, is set to end its 20-year journey on September 15 this year with a planned plunge. The agency's planned Europa Clipper would place a spacecraft in orbit around Jupiter in order to perform a detailed investigation of the giant planet's moon Europa a world that shows strong evidence for an ocean of liquid water beneath its icy crust and which could host conditions favourable for life. NASA is exploring the ocean worlds in our solar system as part of their search for life outside of Earth. New Delhi: Scientists have captured the first composite image of a dark matter bridge - a web-like superstructure connecting galaxies together - which has been predicted for decades. The composite image, which combines a number of individual images, confirms predictions that galaxies across the universe are tied together through a cosmic web connected by dark matter that has until now remained unobservable. Dark matter, a mysterious substance that comprises around 25 per cent of the universe, does not shine, absorb or reflect light, which has traditionally made it largely undetectable, except through gravity. "For decades, researchers have been predicting the existence of dark-matter filaments between galaxies that act like a web-like superstructure connecting galaxies together," said Mike Hudson, a professor of astronomy at the University of Waterloo in Canada. "This image moves us beyond predictions to something we can see and measure," said Hudson. Hudson and Seth Epps, researcher at the University of Waterloo, used a technique called weak gravitational lensing, an effect that causes the images of distant galaxies to warp slightly under the influence of an unseen mass such as a planet, a black hole, or in this case, dark matter. The effect was measured in images from a multi-year sky survey at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope. They combined lensing images from more than 23,000 galaxy pairs located 4.5 billion light-years away to create a composite image or map that shows the presence of dark matter between the two galaxies. Results show the dark matter filament bridge is strongest between systems less than 40 million light years apart. "By using this technique, we're not only able to see that these dark matter filaments in the universe exist, we're able to see the extent to which these filaments connect galaxies together," said Epps. (With PTI inputs) Meerut: Some persons claiming to be members of the Hindu Yuva Vahini allegedly assaulted a man, who was on his way to drop off his fiance at her house, and misbehaved with the woman. The incident occurred yesterday, hours after some members of the youth brigade founded by UP CM Yogi Adityanath barged into the house of an inter-faith couple in the city and roughed them up. Medical police station in-charge Dharmendra Kumar said the couple were on their way to the woman's home on a scooter when they were intercepted by six men, claiming to be cadres of Hindu Yuva Vahini. The men misbehaved with the woman and beat up her fiance when he objected. They also attacked the man's brother when he came to rescue the couple. Thereafter, the men took the brothers to the police station and told the SHO that they were troubling the woman. The police arrested the brothers but set them free when the woman reached the police station and narrated the incident. "The man works in a private bank. He went to drop off his fiance last night when half a dozen people stopped them near PVS Mall and misbehaved with the woman. "They claimed that they were part of the Hindu Yuva Vahini and were doing so under the anti-romeo campaign," Kumar said. The attackers have been booked on charges of voyeurism, voluntarily causing hurt and criminal intimidation. Two of them have been arrested, he said. In another incident yesterday, the youth brigade had created a ruckus after some local residents informed them that a man had called a woman to his friend's rented accommodation. The activists had told police that the two were allegedly found in an objectionable position. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had recently instructed police not to harass "innocent" couples after some unsavoury incidents involving anti-romeo squads. Lucknow: The Uttar Pradesh government led by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has ordered inquiry into Raion Card distribution. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government has also ordered fresh survey of families falling in the Below Poverty Line (BPL) category, and asked the officials to prepare a new list of the downtrodden. The former Samajwadi Party government had printed 60 lakh ration cards just ahead of the UP assembly elections but they could not be distributed. The Adityanath government had earlier announced to roll back those ration cards, India Today had reported. The Uttar Government has also decided to cancel some 3.4 crore ration cards that were distributed before the Election Commission announced poll dates. The new Aadhaar-linked ration cards will also have silicon chips and barcodes. It will also have details of the beneficiary, the report said. Till the new cards are made and distributed, the beneficiaries will be given paper-slips for the purpose of ration. Nungi (West Bengal): Protesters blocked railway tracks at Nungi and Akra stations in Sealdah-Budgebudge South section disrupting movement of local trains. Movement of local trains in the section was consequently paralysed after 8 AM and it could be only resumed after 12 noon, according to eastern railway sources. The blockade was called to protest against irregular running of local trains in the section which has caused inconvenience to office-goers, students and businessmen in the area, a protester alleged. The policemen, who reached the spot to bring the situation under control in Nungi were beaten up by the protesters, a police official said, adding that they also vandalised a police vehicle. The protesters ransacked the room of station managers in Nungi and Akra, the sources said. Damascus: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said his government handed over all its chemical weapons stockpiles in 2013 and could not have been behind last week`s suspected sarin attack. "There was no order to make any attack... We gave up our arsenal a few years ago. Even if we have them, we wouldn`t use them," Assad said in an exclusive interview with AFP in Damascus on Wednesday. New Delhi: US President Donald Trump on Thursday showcased a positive view towards both China and Russia. "I have great confidence that China will properly deal with North Korea. If they are unable to do so, the U.S., with its allies, will! U.S.A.," tweeted the President. He followed it with yet another tweet this time about good ties with Russia in the future saying, "Things will work out fine between the U.S.A. and Russia. At the right time everyone will come to their senses & there will be lasting peace!." Backing away from a campaign pledge, Trump said Wednesday that his administration won't label China a currency manipulator in a report due this week, though he does think the U.S. dollar "is getting too strong." Trump began to bash China in the 2015 speech that began his campaign, saying Beijing kept its currency artificially low to give its manufacturers an unfair advantage in global trade. The change in opinion on China comes as the US faces an intractable crisis in North Korea. North Korea appears to be preparing to conduct a nuclear test in a show of defiance towards Donald Trump, who has not ruled out military action to pressure the regime into abandoning its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes. The US-based monitoring group 38 North said on Thursday that the satellite images from the North's Punggye-ri site showed it was "primed and ready" for what would be the country's sixth nuclear test since 2006. As for Russia, Trump said on Wednesday, "We're not getting along with Russia at all," following last week's airstrikes on Syria, Moscow's key Middle Eastern ally. In response to the alleged chemical attack in Syria's Khan Sheikhoun, the U.S. launched dozens of Tomahawk to destroy the Shayrat airfield in Syria, believed by Washington be the base for warplanes that carried out the chemical attack on the rebel-held town. Russian President Vladimir Putin denounced the strike as "act of aggression" and said it violated international law. Tokyo: Japan's air force scrambled fighter jets to chase away foreign aircraft at record pace in the year to March 31, government figures showed on Thursday, as Chinese military activity in and around the East China Sea escalated. Japan worries that China's probing of its air defences is part of a push to extend its military influence in the East China Sea and western Pacific, where Japan controls an island chain stretching 1,400 km (870 miles) south towards Taiwan. "Recently we have seen Chinese military aircraft operating further south and that is bringing them closer to the main Okinawa island and other parts of the island chain," Japan`s top military commander, Admiral Katsutoshi Kawano, told a briefing in Tokyo. Okinawa is home to the biggest concentration of U.S. Marine Corp forces outside the United States, hosting the bulk of the roughly 50,000 U.S. military personnel stationed in Japan. Japan`s Air Self Defence Force reported its fighters scrambled 1,168 times over the 12 months, up from 873 last year. A record 851 jets headed off approaching Chinese planes, or 280 more instances than in the corresponding period last year. The new figure was also well above the previous high of 944 incidents in 1984, when Russian, rather than Chinese, aircraft triggered most of the scrambles. The uptick in Chinese activity has contributed to rising tension in East Asia since the start of the year as North Korea pushes ahead with ballistic missile and nuclear bomb tests that have stoked fears in Japan, the United States and elsewhere. Japan`s navy plans joint drills around the East China Sea with the U.S. Navy`s Carl Vinson carrier strike group, as it steams towards the Korean peninsula, two sources told Reuters. Encounters with Russian aircraft, which are often bombers flying from the north that skirt around Japan`s airspace, rose 4.5 percent, to 301 scrambles. In response to the demand by Student Islamic Organisation of India, Supreme Court today directed the Centre to include Urdu as the language for the 2018-19 session of NEET. By India Today Web Desk: The Supreme Court today directed the Centre to include Urdu as a language for the 2018-19 session of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), the common test for admission into medical courses. It, however, means the NEET this year will not be conducted in Urdu. The Students Islamic Organization of India (SIO) had moved the apex court demanding Urdu be made a medium of the exam, just as NEET is conducted in ten other languages - Hindi, English, Gujarati, Marathi, Oriya, Bengali, Assamese, Telugu, Tamil and Kannada. advertisement "As the language is associated with Muslim religion, the government functionaries are prejudiced and biased and have deliberately excluded the Urdu language as medium for the NEET exams," the affidavit filed by SIO national secretary Thouseef Ahamad said. Last month, the Centre had told the apex court that it was open to the suggestion of conducting NEET in Urdu medium from the 2018 academic year. It had told the court that it was not feasible to introduce Urdu as one of the mediums for the NEET from the current academic year. The Supreme Court had earlier sought reply from the Centre, the Medical Council of India, the Dental Council of India and the CBSE on the SIO plea suggesting to make Urdu as a medium for NEET 2017. The MCI had submitted before the apex court that that it was open to include any language as a medium for NEET if a request was made to it by the states concerned. The counsel for SIO had informed the court that Maharashtra and Telangana have already apprised the MCI that Urdu be included as one of the mediums for conducting NEET. Also Read NEET now mandatory in Kerala for admission to private medical colleges NEET UG 2017: Admit cards for May 7 exam released at cbseneet.nic.in --- ENDS --- Kuala Lumpur: Two women accused of assassinating the half-brother of North Korea's leader were taken to a Malaysian court in bulletproof vests on Thursday ahead of a murder trial that could see them hanged. Indonesian Siti Aisyah, 25, and Doan Thi Huong, 28, from Vietnam, were taken to the Sepang magistrate's court located close to the airport where Kim Jong-Nam was fatally poisoned on February 13. Prosecutors are expected to apply for the case to be transferred to an upper court, where the women would be tried for murder. If found guilty, they could face the death penalty, which is carried out by hanging in Malaysia. Police accuse the pair of having wiped the nerve agent VX on Kim's face at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. The poison is classified as a weapon of mass destruction and banned around the world. Rival South Korea accuses the North of masterminding the death of Kim, the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un. Pyongyang denies the accusation. Some 100 police officers including masked special forces armed with assault rifles were deployed to secure the small court compound where the women were taken for Thursday's hearing. Police are still looking for four North Korean men who are suspected accomplices of the women. The four, however, are believed to have returned to Pyongyang. Three other North Koreans earlier described as "persons of interest", including a diplomat based in Malaysia, have been allowed to return home. The killing sparked a diplomatic crisis between Malaysia and North Korea which saw both countries banning each other's citizens from leaving and withdrawing their ambassadors. The travel ban was lifted in late March after a deal was struck involving the return of Kim's body to Pyongyang. Washington: In a major crackdown against terror outfit ISIS, the US on Thursday bombed Afghanistan. The US President Donald Trump has praised the military for successful mission. Here are all the details:- - White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer confirmed the use of GBU 43 bomb, Washington's most powerful non-nuclear bomb in Afghanistan to destroy a tunnels and caves network of the Islamic State. - "At 7 p.m. local time in Afghanistan last night the U.S. military used the GBU 43 weapon. It is a large, powerful and accurately delivered weapon. We targeted a system of tunnels and caves that ISIS fighters used to move around freely making it easy for them to target the U.S. military advisors and afghan forces in the area," Spicer said in press briefing on Thursday. - Spicer added that they used all necessary precaution to avoid civilian causalities and collateral damage. - The military is currently assessing the damage. - According to media reports, Gen. John Nicholson, commander of US forces in Afghanistan, signed off on the use of the bomb. Authority had to be sought from Gen. Joseph Votel, commander of US Central Command. - According to four US military officials with direct knowledge of the mission, the bomb's target was an ISIS tunnel and cave complex as well as personnel in the Achin district of the Nangarhar province in Afghanistan - The Nangarhar province borders with Pakistan. - The US military on Thursday dropped what is considered to be the largest non-nuclear bomb on an Islamic State complex in Afghanistan, the Pentagon confirmed. -The GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb hit a "tunnel complex" in Achin district in Nangarhar province, US Forces Afghanistan said in a statement. MUST READ: US bombs Afghanistan: Things you MUST KNOW about this 'mother of all bombs' GBU-43/B -The strike occurred at about 7:32 pm local time (1502 GMT). -Pentagon spokesman Adam Stump said it was the first combat use of the weapon. -The United States dropped a massive GBU-43 bomb, also known as the "mother of all bombs," in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday against a series of caves used by Islamic State militants, the military said. MUST READ: US drops 'mother of all bombs' on ISIS caves in Afghanistan - What exactly happened -It was the first time this type of bomb had been used in combat and was dropped from a MC-130 aircraft, Pentagon spokesman Adam Stump said. Washington: A man dragged off an "overbooked" United Airlines flight in an incident which shocked the world has launched legal action against the passenger carrier. Dr David Dao, 69, refused to give up the seat he had paid for after being asked to leave, and was dragged by his hands on his back off the parked plane, which had been bound for Louisville, Kentucky. He was left bloodied after the Sunday evening incident at Chicago Airport and the footage provoked international outrage, reported CBS News. The Dao family issued a statement expressing gratitude for the "outpouring of support". Citing the risk of "serious prejudice" to their client, the lawyers want the airline and the City of Chicago, which runs O`Hare International Airport, to preserve surveillance videos, cockpit voice recordings, passenger and crew lists and other materials related to United Flight 3411. The filing with the Cook County Circuit Court likely presages an eventual lawsuit against United for the April 9 incident. Dao is scheduled to hold a press conference on Thursday, his legal team said. The airline`s chief executive, Oscar Munoz, said in an interview to ABC News on Wednesday that he will not resign. Munoz said he felt "shame and embarrassment" and vowed it would never happen again. The airline said it is "reaching out" to customers on Flight 3411 and "offering compensation for their flights". Much of the uproar stemmed from Dao`s status as a paying passenger who was being removed, against his will, to make room for additional crew members on the overbooked flight. Three security officers have been placed on leave after the incident, according to the Chicago Department of Aviation. Their names have not been released, according to the report. On Capitol Hill, powerful Republican and Democratic lawmakers denounced how Dao was treated and called for United to explain the situation. US Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, announced plans for the Customers Not Cargo Act, which would prohibit the forcible removal of passengers already aboard an aircraft "due to overbooking or airline staff seeking to fly as passengers". Two online petitions calling for Munoz to step down as CEO had more than 124,000 signatures combined by Wednesday afternoon. The backlash from the incident resonated around the world, with social media users in the United States, China and Vietnam calling for boycott of the No.3 US carrier by passenger traffic and an end to the practice of overbooking flights. Seoul: North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has overseen a special forces commando operation, state media said on Thursday, as tensions soar with Washington over Pyongyang`s nuclear programme. President Donald Trump has sent a naval "armada" to the Korean peninsula in a show of force, accompanied by a warning that Washington is ready to take on North Korea alone if necessary. The North has since said it is ready for "war" with the US, while speculation is mounting that it might conduct a nuclear or missile test to mark the 105th birthday anniversary of founder Kim Il-Sung on Saturday. The reclusive state has long been on a quest to develop a long-range missile capable of hitting the US mainland with a nuclear warhead, and has so far staged five atomic tests, two of them last year. On Thursday, the North`s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim watched from an observation post as special forces dropped from light transport planes "like hail" and "mercilessly blew up enemy targets". With a broad smile on his face, Kim praised his troops for their precision, saying "the bullets seemed to have their own eyes", KCNA said, without identifying when the operation was held. The Rodong Sinmun -- the official mouthpiece of the ruling Workers` Party -- carried several photos from the contest including one of Kim watching the troops parachuting down from jets into an open field. Another showed him grinning from ear-to-ear as he walked by cheering soldiers. "The contest proved once again that our Korean People`s Army... will show a real taste of gun shot and real taste of war to the reckless invaders," KCNA said. China -- the North`s sole major ally -- has urged the US president to take a peaceful approach to resolving the North Korean tensions. Sabre-rattling between Washington and Pyonyang has unnerved China, which is losing patience with the North but whose priority remains preventing any instability on its doorstep. Seoul and Washington are currently conducting joint military drills, an annual exercise which is seen by the North as a practice for war. Washington: Despite sending a naval force to the Korean peninsula, the Trump administration is focusing its North Korea strategy on tougher economic sanctions, possibly including an oil embargo, banning its airline, intercepting cargo ships and punishing Chinese banks doing business with Pyongyang, U.S. officials say. U.S. President Donald Trump has approved a preliminary broad approach on North Korea and asked his national security team to craft a more detailed framework for new international sanctions and other actions to counter Pyongyang`s nuclear and missile programs, one official said. "There`s a whole host of things that are possible, all the way up to what`s essentially a trade quarantine on North Korea," the official told Reuters on Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity. The U.S. officials said the administration is considering an array of stiffer sanctions that could be applied on a "sliding scale" proportionate to North Korean actions. Some steps could be applied unilaterally, and others through the United Nations, where China has a Security Council veto. The U.S. show of force, sending what Trump called an "armada" of military vessels toward the region, and North Korea`s angry response, has raised fears of a military confrontation. Though U.S. officials insist that military options remain on the table, pre-emptive strikes on North Korea remain a last resort, and they stressed that - for now, at least - the Trump administration is stressing economic and diplomatic measures. U.N. economic options include an embargo on oil supplies to North Korea; a global ban on Air Koryo, its national airline; and interdiction of North Korean freighters on the high seas, a step that would go beyond an existing requirement for nations to inspect ships transiting their territory, the officials said this week. The United Nations also could prohibit the use of North Korean contracted labor abroad and expand the restrictions on North Korean coal exports to a total ban, the officials said. Another step could be a ban on North Korean seafood exports, Pyongyang`s fourth-largest export to China, its main trading partner, and expanded efforts to seize assets of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his family. U.S. administration officials said final decisions on specific sanctions targets have yet to made, but they privately expressed doubts about how much further Beijing is willing to go to bring its defiant ally to heel - in spite of increasing Chinese concerns that North Korea might soon conduct a sixth nuclear test or new missile launches. A phone call between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday was intended to reinforce U.S. pressure on Beijing to curb Pyongyang`s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, a U.S. official said. On Wednesday, Trump, who met Xi at a first summit in Florida last week, praised China for sending coal ships back to North Korea under existing U.N. sanctions. Trump said he thought Xi wanted to help, but added: "We`ll see whether or not he does." While Trump emphasized the warmth of his interactions with Xi, he warned the Chinese leader last week that new sanctions could include penalties against Chinese banks and companies doing business with North Korea if Beijing did not step up pressure, one U.S. official said. "If that`s the only option the Chinese leave us, there`s a real possibility that Chinese entities will get hit," the official said. The U.S. aim would be to tighten the screws on North Korea in the same way it pressured Iran to open negotiations on its suspected nuclear weapons program by penalizing all foreign firms dealing with the country. "The amount of pressure that has been brought to bear economically on North Korea is far short of what was brought to bear against Iran," another senior administration official said. Some analysts cautioned that targeting Chinese entities with so-called "secondary sanctions" could backfire and make Beijing less willing to cooperate, and that dealing with a country that already has nuclear weapons differs from dealing with one accused of trying acquire them. "If you want to rely on sanctions to achieve your goal, you have to find a way to persuade or force the world into going all the way to a near full embargo or at least an embargo on key commodities like petroleum and on North Korean hard currency export earnings," said Joseph DeThomas, a former State Department official who worked on Iran and North Korea sanctions. "Only if the regime sees continuation of sanctions as fatal will it consider change," he said. Asked about the possibility of new U.S. sanctions, China`s foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a regular briefing China was opposed. "China has always opposed the use of unilateral sanctions in international relations and is firmly opposed when such unilateral sanctions harm China`s interests," Lu said. In a sign of Beijing`s growing frustration with North Korea, China`s Global Times newspaper said on Wednesday North Korea should halt any nuclear and missile activities "for its own security" - a reference to the approaching U.S. naval force. It said that if North Korea made another provocative move, "Chinese society" might back unprecedented sanctions "such as restricting oil imports." Khyber Pakhtunkhwa: A journalism student was shot dead by fellow students and another seriously injured at Abdul Wali Khan University (AWKU) in Mardan on Thursday after being accused of blasphemy. According to The Express Tribune, the deceased has been identified as Mashal Khan, a student at AWKU's Journalism and Mass Communication department and according to an eyewitness a mob of agitated students first shot him in the head and chest and then desecrated his body using sticks. Mardan DSP Sheikh Maltun Mardan Haider Khan confirmed to that the victim had been murdered by his fellow students. He added that five students were injured in clashes but police managed to bring the situation under control. He said 35 students have been arrested. The body has been shifted to District Headquarters Hospital for an autopsy. A case is yet to be registered. According to a report in the Dawn, the eyewitness said a mob of university students first surrounded Abdullah and forced him to recite verses from the Holy Quran. Although he repeatedly denied the accusation that he was an Ahmadi, the students beat him nonetheless. The police, when alerted, reached the site of the attack and rescued Abdullah, after which the mob set its sights on Mashal, who was in the hostel at the time. University administration official Fayaz Ali Shah confirmed that the mob of students had accused Mashal of blasphemy before killing him. Islamabad: The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) on Thursday blacklisted an unspecified number of passengers for violating a no-smoking rule and misbehaving with the crew during its Islamabad-Birmingham flight earlier this week. PIA acting CEO Nayyar Hayat directed airline authorities to ban the concerned passengers for their "unruly" behaviour on PK-791 with immediate effect, Dawn online reported. "The concerned passengers were not only smoking during the flight but also misbehaved with cabin crew," an airline statement said. The flag carrier`s action comes a day after UK police arrested a British man of Pakistani origin for allegedly verbally abusing an air hostess and smoking during the same flight. The flight attendant had reportedly confronted two to three men for smoking in the lavatory, a serious violation of global flight rules. In response, the men had misbehaved with her and one man in particular hurled verbal abuse at her, reports Dawn online. The air hostess complained about the incident to the pilot, who upon landing in Birmingham alerted the police. British police personnel then made a number of passengers connected to the incident disembark and later arrested one man from the group. Dhaka Division: Bangladesh border guards opened fire Thursday at a boat ferrying Rohingya migrants from neighbouring Myanmar, killing one woman and leaving four others injured, police said. The border authorities came under fire just after midnight and shot back at two fishing trawlers along a river dividing Bangladesh from Myanmar`s westernmost state of Rakhine, police said. "The BGB (Border Guard Bangladesh) later found the boat anchored at a river island. One woman was found shot dead and four were injured," Mainuddin Khan, the police chief in the Bangladeshi border town of Teknaf, told AFP. Police also discovered 28,000 "yaba" -- or methamphetamine tablets -- aboard the boat, Khan said. The dead woman and at least three of the injured men were Rohingya, he added. But the head of Teknaf`s government-run hospital, Iskandar Mirza, said the woman identified as 50-year-old Jahida Khatun and the four injured were all Rohingya. "Her bullet-ridden body was brought to the hospital, while four injured Rohingya men were brought in," he told AFP. Some 75,000 Rohingya refugees have entered Bangladesh since October, when government forces in Myanmar unleashed a bloody crackdown on the Muslim minority. Many recalled horrific stories of villages being torched, relatives burned alive and the gang rape of women by security forces. Mos headed to Cox`s Bazar, where overcrowded displacement camps have been housing Rohingya refugees fleeing persecution for decades. The sudden influx in recent months prompted Bangladesh to resurrect a controversial plan to relocate refugees to an undeveloped island in the Bay of Bengal. The UN rights council has agreed to investigate allegations of rape, murder and torture against the army, though Myanmar has denied its troops have been waging a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Myanmar denies citizenship to most of the million-strong Rohingya in Rakhine, despite many living there for generations. Damascus: The Syrian Army claimed Thursday that a US-led airstrike against the Islamic State near Deir ez-Zor killed a large number of civilians, due to the suffocation resulted from inhaling toxic substances. According to SANA news agency, "The General Command of the army and armed forces said that the aircrafts of the so-called "US-led International Alliance" on Wednesday between the hour 17:30 and 17:50 carried out an airstrike against a position of ISIS terrorists that includes a large number of foreign mercenaries in the village of Hatla to the east of Deir Ezzor, causing a white cloud that became yellow as a result of the explosion of a huge store that includes a large amount of toxic materials." In a statement issued Thursday, the Army General Command stressed that the airstrike of the "US-led International Alliance" killed hundreds, including large numbers of civilians, due to the suffocation resulted from inhaling toxic substances. This comes amid escalated tensions between the two countries as U.S. President Donald Trump ordered a missile strike on the Shayrat airfield of the Syrian air forces, believed by Washington to be the base for warplanes that carried out the chemical attack rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun killing 87 people, including many children. The majority of the international community has blamed the attack on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad but the government has denied involvement in the toxic attack and blamed rebel groups. Russia and Iran have meanwhile stood by the Syrian government over the issue. Washington: North Korea is ready to launch a nuclear test at its Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site, the 38 North monitoring group reported. The 38 North analysis group described the test site as "primed and ready." "Commercial satellite imagery of North Korea's Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site from April 12 shows continued activity around the North Portal, new activity in the Main Administrative Area, and a few personnel around the site's Command Center," the North Korea-related analysis website said. A barrage of recent North Korean missile tests has stoked US fears that Pyongyang may soon develop an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the US mainland. There is speculation that the country could be preparing a missile launch, or even another nuclear test -- this would be its sixth -- to mark the 105th birthday anniversary of its founder Kim Il-Sung on Saturday. The Voice of America said last night, quoting US government and other sources, that North Korea "has apparently placed a nuclear device in a tunnel and it could be detonated Saturday AM Korea time." President Donald Trump's administration has been forceful in its warnings to Pyongyang that leave military options "on the table," as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has said. The threat carries extra weight after the US strike on a Syrian air base last week. "We are sending an armada. Very powerful," Trump said yesterday. "We have submarines. Very powerful. Far more powerful than the aircraft carrier." He was referring to a strike group headed by the USS Carl Vinson supercarrier that has been re-routed to the Korean peninsula in a show of force against Kim. The strike group, which deployed with about 6,500 sailors, is still some way south, conducting exercises with the Australian Navy. The US Navy already has a massive regional presence, including another carrier strike group headquartered at Yokosuka in Japan. By Press Trust of India: From Shirish B Pradhan Kathmandu, Apr 13 (PTI) Nepal President Bidya Devi Bhandari today held a meeting with Prime Minister Prachanda ahead of her maiden five-day visit to India from April 17. Bhandari met with Prachanda at her office in Sheetal Niwas here, during which they discussed the Presidents visit to India. The details of the meeting, however, were not made public. advertisement This will be Bhandaris first trip to India after assuming office in 2015. Bhandari, who will be in India at the invitation of President Pranab Mukherjee, will hold talks with Vice President Hamid Ansari, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other leaders. She will also be visiting Gujarat and Odisha. The Nepalese leader was scheduled to visit India in May last year but it was cancelled with the Nepal government citing internal developments as the reason for the cancellation. In Kathmandu, Indian Ambassador to Nepal Manjeev Singh Puri yesterday called on Bhandari and discussed her visit as well as other bilateral issues, according to her office. Indias External Affairs Ministry yesterday said the upcoming visit reflects the priority that both India and Nepal attach to further strengthening of their age-old, unique, wide-ranging partnership, underpinned by shared historical and cultural linkages and strong people-to-people connections. "The upcoming visit is in keeping with the tradition of regular high-level exchanges between the two countries, and will further deepen the cordial and cooperative ties that exist between India and Nepal," it said. PTI SBP CPS AKJ CPS --- ENDS --- Kabul: The United States military fighting the dreaded Islamic State group in Afghanistan dropped its most powerful non-nuclear bomb till date, weighing nearly 22,000 pounds, sending 'ripples' in the world capitals on Thursday. The massive bomb was dropped from a MC-130 aircraft, Pentagon spokesman Adam Stump told reporters. This unprecedented attack was carried out to destroy a chain of complex cave networks used by the ISIS in the eastern Afghan province of Nangahar. The US military described the GBU-43 explosion as the mother of all bombs, also dubbed as the largest non-nuclear weapon. The bomb has never before been used in combat by the US troops. The weapon was dropped on an ISIS cave complex near the Afghan border with Pakistan, a Pentagon spokesman confirmed. The GBU-43/B bomb hit a "tunnel complex" in Achin district in Nangarhar province around 7:32 pm local time, US Forces in Afghanistan said in a statement. "US forces took every precaution to avoid civilian casualties with this strike. US Forces will continue offensive operations until ISIS-K is destroyed in Afghanistan," the statement said. The Afghan strike had been in the works for a number of months and the weapon was brought into the country specifically for this mission, media reports said citing US officials. New York: With over 65 per cent of Americans ignorant about Sikhism, the Sikhs in the US are launching a million-dollar awareness campaign to inform them about their religion amid a spike in hate crimes against the minority community in the country. The month-long "We are Sikhs" ad campaign will be launched by the non-profit organisation National Sikh Campaign on April 14 on the occasion of Vaisakhi, a holy day for the community. "We have found that there is widespread ignorance about the Sikh faith and identity, about the turban and beard. Over 65 per cent of Americans have no clue that there is a community called Sikhs," co-founder and senior adviser of the National Sikh Campaign Rajwant Singh told PTI. Singh, who is a dentist based in Washington DC and has lived in the country for over 35 years, said the main goal of the campaign is to get the information out to Americans across the nation about who Sikhs are, their belief in equality, respect for women and all religions and that Sikhism is the fifth largest religion. "We have been part and parcel of America for the last 100 years and have been making this country strong. We want to change the narrative, rather than always being the victims of hate crimes - many people mistake us for belonging to the Taliban or ISIS," Singh said. While numerous initiatives have been undertaken since the September 11 attacks to spread awareness about the Sikh faith, Singh said "the needle has not moved. We felt that the messaging has to be very clear. The 'We are Sikhs' campaign is more positive, proactive and has a targeted messaging,? he said. In the years since the 9/11 terror attacks, Sikhs remain more likely to be targeted in cases of profiling, bigotry and backlash than the average American. In the latest incident of hate crime, a Sikh man was shot near Seattle last month after the gunman allegedly told him to "go back to your own country." Elaborating on the campaign, Singh said the "seven- figure" targeted ad campaign will run on cable TV networks like CNN and Fox as well as on local TV stations and will have a heavy presence on social media. There will be 40-50 spots on CNN and other networks and will be shown in morning and prime time bulletins, circulating throughout the day. The campaign will run for a month throughout the nation. "We have brought a very scientific and very targeted messaging element to the campaign. Our focus is to build a proactive and positive message and try to educate and inform Americans about the positive contributions the Sikhs have been making in America," Singh said. For the campaign, the organisers roped in prominent marketing experts and firms, which have in the past done presidential-style campaigns for Barack Obama and George Bush. The campaign has been tested over a period of time and through polls and focus groups, the organisers narrowed in on what message would move the public opinion. "We found that most Americans have no clue about the Sikh religion but once they were educated and informed that the turban is not a symbol of anti-Americanism but a positive expression of faith and respect, they developed warm feelings towards the religion," Singh said, adding that the campaign employs a "very targeted and methodological" way of presenting facts about Sikhism. The National Sikh Campaign will also conduct a poll after the ad campaign has been run to gauge its impact and how it can be improved further. Singh said a 16-year old Sikh boy told him that if the ads were shown to his classmates, "they will say Sikhs are cool." This was an important feedback coming from the youngsters who are the ones who have to go through bullying because of their religion, Singh said. YEREVAN, APRIL 13, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian-Canadian Grand Tobacco Company had addressed the State Commission for Protection of Economic Competition of Armenia stating they encountered obstacles in selling their products in Russia. Namely the Philip Morris Brands Sarl company had created several obstacles for Grand Tobacco in Russia, by reaching agreements with major supermarkets in an attempt to hinder the sale of Grand Tobaccos products. According to Philip Morris Brands Sarl, Grand Tobaccos Ararat cigarettes resemble Marlboro cigarettes to a degree of confusion, which was the reason for the company to apply to a court in a demand to ban the sale of the Armenian tobacco product in Russia. The State Commission for Protection of Economic Competition of Armenia studied the issue and concluded that there is no confusion between the trademarks of the two products. The State Commission for Protection of Economic Competition of Armenia told ARMENPRESS since the issue was related to Russia, the commission actively cooperated with their Russian partners and involved them in settling the dispute. The joint studies of the Anti-monopoly service of Russia and Armenias State Commission for Protection of Economic Competition also affirmed that Grand Tobacco hasnt made any legal violations and has operated according to all competition rules. Earlier on March 31, the Moscow Court denied Philip Morris lawsuit, clearing Grand Tobacco of any wrongdoing. The Courts ruling is also unprecedented because as result of the Armenian competition agencys and the businesss cooperation it was possible to achieve the protection of rights of a major Armenian producer abroad. In addition, this can be a positive precedent for all exporting businesses who encounter competition issues in EEU countries. YEREVAN, APRIL 13, ARMENPRESS. Presentation entitled dedicated to Armenias history, traditions and tourism was held in the Armenian Embassy in Russia on April 12 aimed at strengthening the ties and implementing new joint initiatives between the major tourism agencies of Armenia and Russia, the Embassy told Armenpress. The presentation was attended by representatives of more than 100 Russian and Armenian tour operators, hotels, tourism information agencies, as well as dozens of companies producing Armenian products and Russian leading airlines. Armenias Ambassador to Russia Vardan Toghanyan emphasized the necessity of deepening the cooperation between Armenian and Russian concerned bodies in tourism field, as well as private sectors, by attaching importance to implementing new initiatives in the information field. We are definitely interested in deepening tourism ties between Armenia and Russia, our daily activity is directed for that purpose. This is a perfect chance to contribute to further increasing Armenias reputation within Russians. I welcome this initiative and invite to cooperate, the Ambassador said. President of the State Tourism Committee of Armenia Zarmine Zeytuntsyan also delivered speech at the event stating that Russia is leading in terms of tourism flows in Armenia. Publicist Eduard Ananyan and corporate tourism expert, the event co-organizer Gayane Kocharyan delivered remarks during the presentation. Thanks to this initiative, the major Russian tourism agencies had a chance to get familiarized with each other by outlining the further cooperation directions, the expert said. One of the most important results of the event was an unprecedented amount of practical agreements reached due to the interest of more than 100 visitors. YEREVAN, APRIL 13, ARMENPRESS. Minister of Economic Development and Investments Suren Karayan held a meeting with the representatives of jewelry industry within the frames of public-private sector dialogue platform, the Ministry told Armenpress. Minister Karayan said the progress recorded in the sector gives hope, however, the whole development potential is not utilized. According to the Minister the meeting is a chance to discuss how the public and private sector will cooperate, in what path they will move on for developing the field. Suren Karayan proposed all the economic entities to present their issues of concern. The jewelry field representatives presented the Minister their priority issues that mainly related to Armenian labeling, attracting new markets and facilitation of customs procedure. Minister Suren Karayan proposed to discuss the use of one window principle in the airports for the businessmen in the jewelry field which can significantly facilitate their activity. Issue related to taking measures aimed at promoting the Armenian production in foreign markets was discussed, with the emphasis on how to raise the recognition of Armenian products in that markets. Agobian Jewelry company Director Simon Kafalyan stated: This is our third or fourth meeting, not the first. Every time we meet, many things already change. And the installation of one window principle can really help a lot. He also informed that this year they are going to increase their production volumes. YEREVAN, APRIL 13, ARMENPRESS. The economic development of communities in the vicinity of the Amulsar mine is the inseparable part of Lydian Armenias mining program. The company is implementing the Small business development program in the Gndevaz and Gorayk communities since 2016. Anna Khachatryan, a local of Gndevaz, has become a stakeholder of the program with her Garanda pastry production. The official inauguration of the production facility was held on April 12. Due to financing from Lydian Armenia, Anna was able to acquire relevant equipment and today she is already receiving orders from various surrounding cities, contractors of Lydian Armenia, who are working in the mine. I heard about the program and decided to participate, since I really enjoy cooking pastry. I won the program and began my business. Its already 3 months since Im engaged in this business and I am receiving orders from Gndevaz, Jermuk, Saravand and other adjacent cities, Anna said, adding she receives around 150 boxes of orders in a month. Nara Ghazaryan, social manager of sustainable development of Lydian Armenia, said this program is just one example of the 14 businesses which were established and supported by them in the Gndevaz community. The main purpose of the program is to help the landowners from which the company had acquired land in the previous two years. We have created sources of income for these people production of cheese, bread and honey. We tried to provide development of livestock, Ghazaryan said, adding the programs target were women; businesses of women were provided with support. Every week Lydian Armenia provides technical assistance implementing various business model lessons. The company mainly focuses on lifestyle and highlights the fact that people see and understand that mining is compatible with agriculture and livestock breeding. According to Lydian Armenia estimates, simultaneously to each direct job in Amulsar mine, 4-5 indirect jobs will be created. The program has already initiated 14 businesses in Gndevaz, 9 in Gorayk. The company has invested 18 million 468 thousand drams in this programs till now. YEREVAN, APRIL 13, ARMENPRESS. Armenias Tavush Regional Investigative Department carries out investigation over the elimination of vineyards of residents of Aygehovit community of Tavush province that happened as a result of Azerbaijani shots fired towards the community. On March 22, 2017 shots were fired from the Azerbaijani military posts bordering to Aygehovit community of Armenias Tavush province. As a result of Azerbaijani shooting, fire erupted in the field called Willow lands, and the vineyards of over 4 dozens of community residents were burned and destroyed, with a total of 20.72 hectares. According to preliminary reports, the damage caused to farmers amounts to 10.270.00 AMD. Criminal case was filed over the incident. Investigation is underway. YEREVAN, APRIL 13, ARMENPRESS. Tigran Sargsyan, Chairman of the Board of the Eurasian Economic Commission, notified Kyrgyzstans President Almazbek Atambayev on the preparation of the Eurasian Economic Supreme Councils session, which is due on April 14 in Bishkek. The EEC told ARMENPRESS issues of economic partnership of EEU member states and the possibilities of the integration potential of the union and commercial ties with third countries were discussed during the meeting. President Atambayev drew special attention on the fact that the commissions activity must be directed on providing the best conditions for the development of business in the Eurasian territory. YEREVAN, APRIL 13, ARMENPRESS. Armenias membership to the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) is beneficial for the countrys economy, Eduard Kirakosyan Executive Director of the Union of Manufacturers and Businessmen of Armenia, said during the Yerevan-Astana-Bishkek-Minsk video conference dedicated to the upcoming April 14 Supreme Eurasian Economic Councils session in Bishkek, Armenpress reported. In 2015 Armenia joined the EAEU, the expectations were many, but the results were quite modest. This is related with Russias economic situation, sanctions, depreciation of Ruble, but in any case the issue of to be or not to be in the EAEU doesnt exist in the business field. Recently parliamentary elections were held in Armenia, 9 parties and alliances were taking part in it. Only two political forces raised the issue of appropriateness of Armenias membership to the EAEU. The remaining forces didnt raise this issue, which speaks about the fact that we must remain in the EAEU and work together. Yes, there were many expectations, but the expert community is discussing such a question: what would be the situation if we didnt join the EAEU, and all come to a common conclusion that in case of not joining the Union the economic situation would further deteriorate, Kirakosyan said. Commenting on the upcoming session in Bishkek, he expressed hope the adopted decisions will contribute to the EAEU activity and the effectiveness of the work. Andranik Alexanyan - Executive Director of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, also agrees that Armenias membership to the Union is beneficial for the country, as well as for the Armenian business community. Here we just need to understand what we want to give and receive. It is necessary to clarify who needs what. I think we know what we want, he said. YEREVAN, APRIL 13, ARMENPRESS. Armenian-Turkish intellectual, journalist Etyen Mahcupyan, who was Chief Adviser of former Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, announced his decision to vote against the April 16 constitutional referendum in Turkey, he published an article at Karar newpaper, Armenpress reported. He said during previous elections he voted in favor of Turkeys ruling Justice and Development party, but stated that the upcoming constitutional changes will damage the party itself, as well as the entire Turkey. I am completely convinced that the parliamentary system in Turkey recorded a regress, and that its continuation will not benefit anyone. I have always supported the presidential system, however, I am going to vote no at this referendum since the proposed program fully contradicts to the spirit of the presidential system. This program establishes a system for one person, a system open for abuses. The fact that the previous system is bad doesnt make legal the establishment of one more bad system. It is immoral to support the obvious mistake as right, and eventually, this model of governance will damage the Justice and Development party, the conservatives and Turkey, Mahcupyan writes. While news of the United States dropping a 10,000-kilogram non-nuclear bomb in Afghanistan broke at around 10.30 pm IST, The New York Times and the Washington Post did not report the strike until nearly two hours later. File photo of the GBU-43B bomb used by the US in Afghanistsan on Thursday (Reuters photo) By India Today Web Desk: News of the United States dropping its so-called 'Mother Of All Bombs' in an area in Afghanistan dominated the homepages of most news publications. However, strangely enough, two of the foremost American news websites - The New York Times and Washington Post - did not initially carry a single mention of the bombing on their respective websites. advertisement The two websites, both of which have been personally attacked by US President Donald Trump in the past, led with the other major, and bigger, US bombing story of the day, that of of a US-led coalition airstrike in Syria mistakenly killing 18 allied fighters. The New York Times finally carried a report by Helene Cooper on the US dropping a 'Mother Of All Bombs' on caves in Afghanistan, at around 12.15 am Friday, India time, a full hour and a half after news of the strike first broke. The Washington Post followed with a report by Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Erin Cunningham on the US dropping its biggest non-nuclear device, a few minutes after. FIRST REPORTS First reports of the bombing came in at around 10.30 am India time with news agency Reuters publishing a short story that carried a Pentagon confirmation of the strike. India Today accessed the homepages of several international and American news publications at around midnight. While the Wall Street Journal, CNN and USA Today, all US websites, carried news of the bombing prominently, there was no mention of the strike on The New York Times or the Washington Post websites. Here are a few screengrabs of different world publications taken just a little before midnight on Thursday: Screengrab of The New York Times homepage at around 12.20 am Friday: Screengrab of the Washington Post homepage at around 12.50 am Friday: ABOUT THE STRIKE Late Thursday night, the United States Defence Department confirmed that its forces dropped a 'Mother Of All Bombs' - officially named GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast, on a tunnel and cave complex in Afghanistan's Nangarhar province. The tunnel and caves are believed to have been used by the Islamic State. White House press secretary Sean Spicer, confirming the bombing, saying, "We targeted a system of tunnels and caves that ISIS fighters used to move around freely, making it easier for them to target US military advisers and Afghan forces in the area." This was the first time the United States used the GBU-43B bomb, a 21,600 pound (9,797 kg) GPS-guided munition that was first tested in March 2003. US forces dropped the bomb from an MC-130 aircraft and while there was no initial confirmation about the extent of the damage, the blast radius was said to be 300 meters. advertisement "This is the right munition to reduce these obstacles and maintain the momentum of our offensive against ISIS-K", General John Nicholson, the head of US and international forces in Afghanistan, said, referring the Islamic State's Afghanistan offshoot. The Afghanistan strike comes just days after President Donald Trump ordered a missile strike on an airbase in Syria. The strike, Trump said, was in response to this month's Syrian gas attack, which killed scores of people and which the West has blamed on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. WATCH | Mother of All Bombs dropped to deny operative space to ISIS: US ALSO READ: US preparing another strike on Syria, plans afoot to 'fake' gas attack to discredit Assad, says Putin US-Russia ties may be at an all-time low, admits Donald Trump President Trump was eating 'most beautiful piece of chocolate cake' when Tomahawks bombed Syria --- ENDS --- advertisement YEREVAN, APRIL 13, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Karen Karapetyan received the representatives of companies engaged in light industry. A range of issues related to the development of the sector, production expansion and creation of new jobs was discussed at the meeting, Armenpress was informed from the press service of the Government of Armenia. Premier Karapetyan noted that the sector of light industry is under the focus of the Cabinet since it has not only great export potential but also great development potential. The Head of the Executive emphasized that the state is ready to continue the active cooperation and foster the effective implementation of various projects in order to ensure the progress of the sector. The Government is ready to encourage local producers and to subsidize the commercial loans that are aimed at production expansion and creation of new jobs, Karen Karapetyan said. In this context the representatives of the companies introduced exact investment initiatives aimed at expansion of activities as a result of which some thousands of new jobs will be created in the republic. Premier Karapetyan instructed the Minister of Economic Development and Investments to discuss all the proposals in a short period and go ahead. Referring to the questions over tax and customs administration, the Prime Minister said, Our task is to ensure level playing field for business. Today there is no one that is in a privileged position. A three-months pregnant legal prostitute at the world famous Bunny Ranch brothel has vowed to continue working as a hooker up until the very day she deliversand is blogging in real time about the experience. The courtesan, Summer Sebastian, is portraying her controversial decision as a woman's rights issue, saying she is defending "a woman's right to choose" to continue working at the Carson City, Nevada bordello while pregnant, even in the face of conventional societal condemnation and public shaming. The 30 year-old Sebastian conceived her unplanned pregnancy with her longtime 70-year-old boyfriend, and only recently found out she was in the family-way after feeling sluggish and fatigued and visited a local doctor for tests. According to Sebastian, she was both surprised and delightedand determined to keep the baby, and to keep on hooking. "I knew two things: one was that I needed to continue building financial security for my family, and the second was to continue on my personal path to education. I have less than four years left to accomplish my Masters degree in forensic pathology; in successfully becoming a medical examiner. Anyways, if society already looks down on me for being a working girl (even though legal), you can imagine what they will probably think of a pregnant working girl!" Indeed; as Tracy Clark-Flory wrote on Vocativ.com, "In 2008, Alana Love began working at the Bunny Ranch while seven months pregnant and, just like Sebastian, she blogged about the experience. She landed on an episode of The Howard Stern Show, where she was asked to strip down to reveal her belly and swollen breasts; she was chastised by an outraged Tyra Banks ('Thats the only option for you to support your child?'); and she was targeted in shaming blog posts from lady mags ('Have a little pride!')." "I want to make a statement that supports the right of a woman to choose to work as a prostitute while pregnant," Sebastian wrote. "And if I can make it any easier for the next working girl to make the choice to work while expecting, then more power to her!" Bunny Ranch owner Dennis Hof said he was proud of Summer for taking a stand and being a trailblazer for future pregnant prostitutes. "Summer is doing a wonderful service, not only for herself, but in making a declaration that all prego prosties can embrace, and that is, it's not only okay to be a legal prostitute, but it's okay to be a pregnant working prostitute." "Ive never been one to let myself be intimidated by what others thought! It actually never occurred to me that I would stop working at the Bunny Ranch while I was pregnant," wrote Summer in her first blog post. "I loved working here before, with my average sex drive, and I am lovin it even more now that I have all of these hormones pumping! And with that, I also knew I wanted to publicly, regularly and most of all proudly blog about my experience as a prego-working girl, from where I am today14 weeks/three monthsin my 2nd trimester, right up to the day I pop! "Already I have gone from my usual 100 lbs to 122 lbs (still 5 tall thoughnot growing that wayhee hee!). But adding this creative component to my parties with my clients has just made sex that much more exciting, and interesting. "I have two weeks until my next appointment and I hope to learn the gender then! Im so glad I have decided to share this beautiful gift and experience with all of you. Every week I will be adding updated photos and information, as soon as it becomes available to me!" Read Summer Sebastian's full blog post here. Dennis Hof and the Bunny Ranch girls are available for interviews by contacting [email protected] or calling 775-720-9090. Morningsides Bakery Andante has secured a deal to supply a further four branches of Waitrose in Scotland with artisan bread. The bakery is already stocked in the two Edinburgh branches of Waitrose, where it has been since 2015. Now, a selection of bakery owner Jon Woods handmade sourdoughs and New York deli-style bread will also be on sale at the Byres Road, Milngavie, Stirling and Newton Mearns stores from mid-April. Bakery Andante first opened in Morningside, Edinburgh in 2010, and has recently expanded with the opening of new premises in Leith. Wood said: Initially we werent interested in supplying supermarkets. However, when we got the call from Waitrose we decided it was definitely worth a try, as it suits our brand perfectly and they liked our homemade, high-quality artisan product. Weve hired some extra staff and have taken on some fantastic apprentices, so its an exciting time for us at Andante. Tracey Marshall, buyer for local and regional at Waitrose, added: Demand for artisan bread is growing, with sales enjoying a 267% increase year on year. With the quality and taste of Jons bread its easy to understand why. You can tell time has gone into it, the flavours are exceptional. It has been incredibly popular with our Edinburgh shoppers and we have no doubt it will be successful elsewhere too. Waitrose said it was continuing to seek out new producers and suppliers across Scotland, with more than 400 Scottish lines now available. Pastry chef Claire Clark has announced that she will open up the Claire Clark academy on the 18th May 2017 at Milton Keynes College. The grand opening will start from 7pm for Clark to give further details about the course and for attendees to view the facilities. The academy will be available for students and home bakers to undertake part-time and weekend courses. Clark has been supported by several members of the baking industry, including Will Torrent and the military team from BBCs Bake Off: Creme De La Creme, who will deliver workshops to students and on the professional programme. Clark could not contain her excitement to seeing her plan to open a patisserie academy come to life. This Centre of Patisserie Excellence truly has been created and supported by the industry for the industry, Clark said. Students will leave the college, not only with their professional qualification, but with the added accreditation from the Claire Clark Academy - something we are working hard to ensure is highly recognised and respected, with chefs understanding the skills that the students will have acquired to achieve this. By opening the Academy doors beyond the college students, we can continue to develop other professionals and inspire home bakers too. The academy will officially open for its first intake of students in September 2017 and will have additional benefits of having work experience with Claire Clark at her business, Pretty Sweet, based in London. On inauguration day, 214 protesters were arrested in DC on felony riot charges, and now they face up to $25,000 in fines and up to 10 years in prison, though no one not the cops, not the prosecutors believes that more than a handful were involved in property damage or disorderly conduct. There was, indeed, some disorderly conduct: a few windows smashed, a single cop hit by a single projectile. The people who did that smashing and throwing would probably have faced charges at any time in American history. What's different this time is that everyone dressed the same way as them people in "black bloc" garb were charged as co-defendants, on the basis that they held anarchists beliefs and associated with people whose similar beliefs led them to commit alleged crimes. This represents a new standard for American policing of dissent, but it's not a universal standard. A supporter of Milo Yiannopolous who shot and seriously injured an anti-fascist demonstrator hasn't even been charged yet. The prosecutors pursuing the inauguration day protesters say that the only evidence they need to felonize them is pictures of a protester "at the beginning of the march, wearing black clothes and goggles, your client could have left but did not, and here is your client at the end, in the police kettle." In other words, association with, and ideological agreement with, people who commit crimes makes you a party to that crime. The incredibly harsh maximum sentences are a godsend to prosecutors with radical theories of guilt. In America, 93% of people indicted by federal prosecutors plead guilty despite the ease with which prosecutors can secure such an indictment ("If a district attorney wanted, a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich"). Combine this with the literally criminally bad conditions in American prisons (where guards engage in "punitive rape" with impunity), and it's easy to see why anyone facing a long prison sentence would plead guilty, regardless of whether they are actually guilty. This means that in Donald Trump's America, believing something and marching with your friends to make it known is a near-guarantee of a prison sentence, should a prosecutor decide that it is warranted. The original arrestees included a handful of professional journalists, medics and legal observers, most of whom have since had their charges dropped. Of the remaining 214 arrestees, a handful of individuals also face property damage charges, having been allegedly identified smashing windows. One man, Alsip's partner, has been charged with felony assault on a police officer for allegedly throwing the rock that struck a cop; he was identified by his shoes. As the pretrial court proceedings enter into the discovery phase, the prosecution's position is becoming clear: The evidence so far against numerous defendants amounts to no more than video footage of their continued presence in the march and their choice of black bloc attire. If the mass arrest was imprecise enough to sweep up journalists and legal observers, how can it be maintained that the police had probable cause to arrest every single other protester for rioting and inciting? If continued presence, proximity and black garb is sufficient for the necessary legal standard of individuated probable cause for arrest and prosecution under these charges, the D.C. police and the government have, from day one of Trump's presidency, lowered the standard for what it takes to turn a protester into a felon. HOW THE GOVERNMENT IS TURNING PROTESTERS INTO FELONS [Natasha Lennard/Esquire] (via Naked Capitalism) (Image: Anarkman/SchuminWeb, CC-BY-SA) Westjet_16-9 With one proclamation from Warren Buffett, Canada?s airlines suddenly went from being uninvestable to a compelling opportunity ? at least for many investors. The announcement came in February, when Buffett disclosed that Berkshire Hathaway had amassed large positions in several prominent U.S. airlines, including United Continental, Delta Air Lines, and Southwest Airlines. Despite being previously bearish on the sector, Buffett pointed out that the industry has changed in the last decade with carriers settling into a holding pattern of sorts. As long as airlines don?t go nuts trying to undercut each other or add unneeded capacity, they should be able to avoid the fate of so many airlines in the 20th century. Much of what Buffett likes about the sector is prevalent in Canada?s airline sector. We have two dominant players ? Air Canada (TSX:AC)(TSX:AC.B) and WestJet Airlines Ltd. (TSX:WJA) ? which control some 90% of the market. Which of these two airlines should investors choose? Let?s take a closer look. The skinny Air Canada is the largest Canadian airline. It not only has hundreds of routes inside North America, but it also flies to Europe, South America, and Asia. WestJet, meanwhile, has limited itself to North America and the Caribbean, although it has recently expanded to include routes to the United Kingdom and further into Central America. There are two major differences between the two carriers. The first is that Air Canada?s employees are unionized, while WestJet has been able to avoid unionization. When times are good, having a union isn?t a big deal. It?s during tough times when it?s easy to see the disadvantage of having a union. It?s much tougher to get rid of staff. WestJet has also done a terrific job keeping its costs down. Most of WestJet?s fleet is the same plane model, which keeps maintenance costs down. Not having a union helps as well. As a result of the company?s focus on cost control, WestJet spends about 25% less than Air Canada on a per-mile-flown basis. Story continues Valuation Amazingly, even after Buffett made a big splash in the sector, Canada?s airline stocks really haven?t budged. They?re still very cheap versus the rest of the market. Let?s start with Air Canada. In 2016, the company earned $3.10 per share. The stock currently trades hands at $13.27, giving it a trailing price-to-earnings ratio of 4.3. No, that?s not a typo. Air Canada really is that cheap. Analysts project earnings will fall to $2.76 per share in 2017 before recovering to $3.19 per share in 2018. Even on a forward basis, Air Canada shares are an incredible value. Compare that to WestJet, which isn?t quite as cheap as Air Canada. WestJet earned $2.45 per share in 2016 ? a decline of 16% versus 2015. Still, that puts shares at just 9.4 times trailing earnings. Analysts expect WestJet to earn just $2.09 per share in 2017 before earnings recover to hit $2.47 per share in 2018. WestJet is still cheaper than most stocks in Canada, but Air Canada easily takes this category. Growth potential Both airlines are poised to grow nicely over the next decade as more and more Canadians decide to travel. In addition, there will be millions of people elevated to the middle class in places like China, India, and other developing nations. They will get the travel bug. It?s only a matter of time until WestJet starts expanding into Asian markets. In the meantime, the company plans to add capacity across North America. It has had great success muscling into competitive routes and using its low costs to offer cheap introductory fares. It then raises the price when it has a sufficient market share. In addition, WestJet has done a nice job growing ancillary revenues from sources such as charging for checked bags and WiFi on its flights. The bottom line Both WestJet and Air Canada are poised to be good investments. They each offer solid balance sheets, cheap valuations, and compelling growth potential over the long term. Ultimately, if I were to choose one over the other, I?d pick WestJet. It offers greater expansion potential, better customer loyalty, and a solid 2.4% dividend. Canada's answer to Amazon.com You've probably never even heard of this up-and-coming e-commerce powerhouse headquartered in Eastern Ontario... But, despite coming public just last year, it's already helping the likes of Budweiser... Tesla... Subway... and Red Bull move $9.9 BILLION (and counting) worth of goods online each year. And now it's caught the eye of the legendary investor who got behind Amazon.com in 1997 -- just before it shot up over 23,000% and made investors like you and me rich beyond their wildest dreams. Click here to discover why this investor says it's time to buy. More reading Fool contributor Nelson Smith owns shares of Berkshire Hathaway (B shares). The Motley Fool owns shares of Berkshire Hathaway (B shares). Canada's answer to Amazon.com You've probably never even heard of this up-and-coming e-commerce powerhouse headquartered in Eastern Ontario... But, despite coming public just last year, it's already helping the likes of Budweiser... Tesla... Subway... and Red Bull move $9.9 BILLION (and counting) worth of goods online each year. And now it's caught the eye of the legendary investor who got behind Amazon.com in 1997 -- just before it shot up over 23,000% and made investors like you and me rich beyond their wildest dreams. Click here to discover why this investor says it's time to buy. Fool contributor Nelson Smith owns shares of Berkshire Hathaway (B shares). The Motley Fool owns shares of Berkshire Hathaway (B shares). By Fergal Smith and Matt Scuffham TORONTO/OTTAWA (Reuters) - Ontario's finance minister, Charles Sousa, on Thursday confirmed he will meet with federal counterpart Bill Morneau next week to discuss measures to cool Toronto's housing market and set a date of April 27 for the province's annual budget. The acceleration in home prices in Toronto has prompted some economists to worry the real estate market in Canada's largest city is in a bubble and has raised concerns about the ability of first-time buyers to afford a home. The Sousa-Morneau meeting is scheduled for Tuesday. Economists are anticipating the budget will include measures to cool Toronto's housing market. The province's options include a foreign buyers tax, similar to that introduced in British Columbia last year, or an increase in capital gains tax on homes that are not principal residences. "There is no silver bullet to solve this complex issue," Sousa said in a speech to business leaders in Toronto. "But in the coming days you will hear more of what we plan to do." Sousa said the province was looking at a number of alternatives to temper housing prices in Toronto, which soared by a record 33 percent last month. Speaking to reporters after the speech, Sousa said he had been speaking with British Columbia's finance minister, Mike de Jong, to find out how the 15 percent property transfer tax on foreign real estate buyers had affected the market. "I wanted to get a sense from him what happened before and after," Sousa said. "This is a concern in terms of any unintended consequences from the decisions that we make. "We're trying to figure out what we can do this without over-correcting the system while at the same time providing support for those trying to get into the market." (Additional reporting by Andrea Hopkins in Ottawa; Editing by Chris Reese and Bill Trott) The images show continued activity around the North Portal, new activity in the Main Administrative Area, and a few personnel around the site's Command Centre. By Indo-Asian News Service: New satellite photos have showed North Korea's nuclear base prepared and ready for a new test, something that would add to the rising tension in the peninsula, a monitoring group said on Thursday. The photos of North Korea's Punggye-ri nuclear test site taken on Wednesday show continued activity around the North Portal (where earlier tests were conducted), new activity in the Main Administrative Area, and a few personnel around the site's Command Centre, US-based 38 North reported. advertisement The analysis indicates that the volume of water that has been drained during the past weeks to keep the north gallery tunnel dry, has reduced in the last 10 days, Efe news reported. No changes were observed in the spoil pile, so the excavation process might already be complete at the base located in Kilju county. CELEBRATIONS MIGHT TRANSLATE INTO NUCLEAR TEST Experts have warned of continued activity in Punggye-ri for weeks and fear North Korea may soon carry out its sixth nuclear test, especially as important events are approaching with the country celebrating the fifth anniversary of leader Kim Jong-un's transition to power. In addition, the country will commemorate the 105th anniversary of the birth of its founder, Kim Il-sung, on Saturday and the 85th anniversary of the founding of the Korean People's Army on April 25. These celebrations coincide with increased tension in the peninsula after the US responded to the latest North Korean missile launch by sending a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier towards the peninsula. ALSO READ| Chinese tabloid warns North Korea against nuclear and missile tests ALSO READ| Donald Trump: North Korea looking for trouble, great if China can help --- ENDS --- After an attempted overhaul last year, an often-maligned support unit for ill and injured soldiers will be disbanded, the country's top military commander says. Gen. Jonathan Vance, the chief of defence staff, testified before a Senate committee on Wednesday that the function of the Joint Personnel Support Units (JPSUs) will be folded into a "proper, professionalized" organization that will better help members transition to civilian life. "The JPSU was created in crisis," Vance told reporters following the meeting. "I think enough time has passed, we've gained enough expertise about how to manage this better." The units were set up in 2008 during the Afghan war as centres where wounded troops could be posted until they recovered or left the military. The 24 personnel-support centres are located at bases and wings across the country, and offer programs and administrative support to troops unable to fulfil their regular duties. Internal defence department studies have shown few of the soldiers posted to JPSUs returned to their units. Soldiers have long complained the JPSUs and their subordinate Integrated Personnel Support Centres are habitually understaffed and that the units have often proved unhelpful in preparing them for a post-military career. Last year, an internal assessment team, ordered by Vance and led by Brig.-Gen. David Anderson, identified myriad problems, many related to staffing and resources. At the time the report was written, there were approximately 1,400 clients in the system and nearly 50 vacant staff positions out of a total complement of 297. The report noted that on one base of 8,000 service members, there was only one person manning the support centre where 160 injured soldiers were posted. The review team told Vance that base commanders often held "a negative view of the JPSU structure" and even troops themselves described the centres in "derogatory terms." Story continues The perception, according to the report, was that the JPSUs housed "lazy" or under-performing troops. New branch coming, but not soon The military embarked on an overhaul of the administration, but it was clear in Vance's testimony, and remarks afterward, that the revamping had been abandoned. He said he intends to re-establish a personnel administration branch, which was scrapped years ago, and many of the JPSU functions and most of its staff will be moved there. "It's not going to happen in two months. It's going to take some time to do this right," he said. "Doesn't mean that what the JPSU has done has not been brilliant. They have dedicated staff that try to do all they can." The new organization, which has yet to be named, will have a wider mandate than simply shepherding the ill and injured. Vance said he wants to see the whole system of human resources within the military "professionalized," noting for the Senate committee that many of the policies governing the current system are decades old. "As we look to create new, modern, highly agile personnel management policies, I need HR experts. People who are solely dedicated to this. And we don't have that branch anymore," he said. Barry Westholm, a retired sergeant major who oversaw a JPSU, told CBC News the old personnel administration branch was replaced because "it didn't work." He said the resurrected structure will need to be different. The joint personnel support system was actually a "brilliant" concept that was far ahead of its time, Westholm said, but it suffered not only from a lack of staff, but an absence of support from military leaders. "It was poorly managed," said Westholm, who quit his position at Camp Petawawa, Ont., in 2013 in frustration over the system. "I feel bad. I always knew it was a mess. And I feel very worried, very concerned for all of the people who transitioned through there since 2008-09. Those people, a lot of them, are in crisis." He said he believes the staffing shortage had far-reaching consequences for troops with post-traumatic stress and may have contributed to a number of suicides. Military brass have repeatedly defended the system both in public and before parliamentary committees. "And now they say they want to create a professional system?" said Westholm. "If you look back, historically, at what they were saying about the JPSU, they were lauding how great it was, how top notch it was, how ill and injured in the Canadian Forces were getting the best care possible. "The things they said were wrong." An attorney for the man forcibly dragged from a United flight earlier this week said passenger Dr. David Dao suffered serious injuries and that both the airline and city of Chicago are responsible. Daos attorney, Thomas Demetrio, said at a press conference Thursday morning that Dao suffered a significant concussion and a broken nose, lost two front teeth and would need reconstructive surgery after three aviation officers dragged him off a Louisville-bound flight at Chicagos OHare Airport. Demetrio also also said that Dao, who is from Vietnam, said the experience of being dragged from the flight was more horrifying than fleeing his home country. Dao was discharged from the hospital late Wednesday night and had no memory of going back on the plane due to the concussion, Demetrio added. Demetrio said Dao will eventually speak publicly about the matter and that Dao wants no part of an airport at this time and will likely be driven to his home in Kentucky. Demetrio dismissed the idea that the incident was racially motivated, a theory that led to discussions on Chinese social media of a United boycott. Well file the suit when our investigative work is done, said Demetrio when asked when he expected the lawsuit to be filed. I dont have a clue when that will be. Demetrio said United CEO Oscar Munoz had not reached out to the family and that his eventual apology seemed staged, but that the family accepted it with gratitude. In an email to United employees, Munoz had said that Dao was disruptive and belligerent. We continue to express our sincerest apology to Dr. Dao, said a United media relations in a statement to Yahoo News. We cannot stress enough that we remain steadfast in our commitment to make this right. This horrible situation has provided a harsh learning experience from which we will take immediate, concrete action. We have committed to our customers and our employees that we are going to fix whats broken so this never happens again. Story continues Crystal Pepper, Daos daughter, delivered a statement during the press conference expressing gratitude for the outpouring of support for her father and the medical staff that helped in his recovery. Read more from Yahoo News: IT Trends Building APIs for the University and the Student Brigham Young University is standardizing the way it exposes data and business processes to app developers and taking the API concept to the student level. A few years ago, three innovative Brigham Young University (UT) students decided to develop an improved version of the university registration system interface. They "screen-scraped" the official registration pages and created their own site. Some students used it to create their schedules, but they still had to enter their course selections into the official registration system. "It showed that students wanted to build tools on top of the university system to make students' lives better, but we were forcing them to screen-scrape and not allowing them to actually interface with the university system," said Phil Windley, enterprise architect in BYU's Office of the CIO. He has helped develop the concept of a university-wide application programming interface (API) to standardize how BYU exposes its data and business processes to app developers and make it easier to connect to campus systems. "Part of the founding myth of the university API is that we want to create a situation where those three students would have been able to create their registration front end, have it work, and not be this kluge, but a real application they could let people use," Windley said. "Because, heaven knows, we have plenty to do. If students want to build registration systems better than the ones we have, we are happy to let them do it." Creating a Standard University API Windley has worked at BYU a few times, leaving to pursue other opportunities and later coming back to the university. He said that when he returned in 2014, he remembered thinking, "the good news is that BYU has 950 services in a registry; the bad news is it has 950 services in a registry." What he meant by that was that while web services were a good thing, BYU's services had a wide variety of interaction methods. They might have five different identifiers that developers would have to coordinate. All had different return and error code formats. "The inconsistency was such that if you wanted to write a mobile app that dealt with a student, it was possible you would have to deal with 25 different APIs using five different identifiers, and multiple data formats," he said. "That kind of situation puts a developer off. They have a good idea, they see that the data is there, but they realize they are going to have to do all this work to incorporate that data and make use of it." That was the launching point for the university API: the need to create a single interface that was consistent in how it operated and that spoke the language of the university. IT staffers began by asking themselves what the core functionality of the university is and who their customers are, explained Kelly Flanagan, CIO and vice president of information technology. "We decided we would start simple and expand as we go." They started with five basic core resources: students, instructors, locations, courses and classes. (A course might be "Computer Science 101," while a class would be the individual sections or meetings of that course within each semester.) With those five resources, he said, the API exposes the core functionality that the university represents. "We admit students on the front end, get them into the right majors, have them take courses, make progress and graduate on the back end." Flanagan believes that when you start down this path, the obvious thing to think is that your API exposes data, but he said that is misleading and a bit naive. "It is exposing business resources, which could be data, but also could be processes, policies, etc.," he said. "We insist that all business processes associated with something like registration who is allowed to register and how all sits underneath the API. Then third-party developers can't violate the business practices of the unit because their business practices are embedded into the processes exposed through the API." Funding & Awards California Community Colleges Win Innovation Awards for Pilot Programs Thirteen of the 113 campuses that make up the California Community Colleges system have won grants to develop innovative programs for increasing completion rates and making college more affordable. Exactly 42 schools applied for the grants, which were funded by a $25 million allocation in the 2016-2017 state budget. The legislation had three specific goals in mind: To redesign curriculum and instruction, such as the implementation of three-year bachelor's degrees; To allow students to progress toward completion of degrees and credentials based on their demonstration of knowledge and competencies, including skills acquired through military training or prior learning or experiences; and To create programs that make college more affordable by making financial aid and other supports and services more accessible, including by increasing the number of students who apply for these programs or by reducing the costs of books and supplies. Cuesta College, for example, won $2 million to continue development of "Degree Accelerator," which will give Paso Robles High School students a way to earn up to 36 general education credits through expanded dual/concurrent enrollment tuition- and fee-free, along with a second free year provided through a college scholarship program. The innovation award will help the high school outfit a state-of-the-art shared classroom on its campus to run online general education courses taught by college faculty -- including over the summer months. This isn't the first run-through for Cuesta. Over the past several years, the college has implemented dual enrollment courses at every San Luis Obispo County public high school, serving about 2,000 students annually. At Los Angeles Trade-Technical College programs of study are designed to be finished in two years or less, but less than a percent of the 11,300 students who have enrolled for the first time do so. The biggest barrier, according to the school: lack of academic preparedness for college-level work. To counteract those trends, the college will spend its $2 million grant to accelerate the impact of "Pathway to Academic, Career & Transfer Success (PACTS)," a program begun in 2012. Innovations will include a mapping of competencies to curriculum; boosting student support efforts with counseling, tutoring and mentoring; and promoting competency-based education by providing professional development on CBE to its faculty and staff. Laney College in Oakland, CA will use its $1 million grant to create a "24/7 accessible SMART technology-enabled learning framework." The initiative is being launched out of the biology department and will start with an infusion of technology into those classrooms, including displays, computers, projectors and sound systems; followed by distribution of iPads loaded with digital resources and faculty professional development. Eventually, the college hopes to open a STEM center where STEM faculty can collaborate and students can gain access to instructors, industry professionals and "innovative equipment." Links to all submitted applications, including those that received awards, are available here. Pakistan has hanged 2 "hard core" Taliban terrorists convicted of terrorism-related offenses by controversial military courts which were revived after 2 years ignoring opposition from rights groups. The executions were carried out at a high-security prison in Punjab province Tuesday, the army said in a late-night statement. It said the 2 "hard core terrorists" were involved in committing "heinous offences relating to terrorism, including killing of civilians, attacking Armed Forces, Law Enforcement Agencies, polio vaccination team and employees of a NGO." The army did not elaborate where the trials were held and when the initial punishment was announced. The 2 convicts were identified as Muhammad Shahid Omar and Fazl e Haq - both active members of the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Military courts were restored last month for another 2 years after their initial 2-year term expired in January. The courts were set up after a constitutional amendment after a terror attack on an army-run school in Peshawar in December 2014 killed more than 150 people, most of them students. While Pakistani authorities maintain the military courts are an "effective deterrent" against terrorism, rights groups question transparency of the trials because of the secrecy surrounding the special tribunals. The military courts have handed down the death penalty to more than 160 militants and yesterday's hangings took the number of those executed so far to 23. Also, the executions came on a day when Amnesty International in a worldwide report said Pakistan reduced the number of executions by 73 % in 2016 compared to the year before. | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE! Source: The Times, April 13, 2017 President Recep Tayyip Erdogan President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said he believes the government should submit a draft on reinstating the death penalty in the event that the constitutional amendments are approved in the upcoming referendum on April 16. "After April 16, with God's permission, the draft would be brought to parliament. If it passes in parliament, I will approve it," Erdogan said at a rally in the eastern province of Erzurum on April 12. Although the death penalty has not been in effect since 1984, Turkey abolished the capital punishment in 2004 as a part of reforms to ease Turkey's accession into the European Union. The move was initiated by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and supported by the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP). But debates on reinstating the capital punishment were brought to discussion after the July 15, 2016, coup attempt. Erdogan vows the people's demand for the death penalty would be met. Calls for the death penalty were among the most recited chants in public rallies. "April 16 will be the day to decide that," he said. Erdogan said the reinstatement of the death penalty could be brought to the agenda with a consensus of all political parties. "Mr.Kemal Kilicdaroglu [leader of the Republican People's Party - CHP] says he would approve it. I hope he will not deny it when time comes. Mr. Devlet Bahceli, [leader of the Nationalist Movement Party - MHP] already said yes. And Mr. Binali Yildirim [Prime Minister] is the same," he said, adding that it would be put to a referendum if it gets approved in parliament. "To reinstate the death penalty there needs to be a constitutional amendment, but in an event that the parliament does not approve that, I am telling now, we will appeal to the public with a referendum just like we did for April 16. Let the public decide," he said. | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE! Source: Hurriyet Daily News, April 13, 2017 The bad news: as you have probably noticed, prescription drug spending is up. The good news: in one of his last papers, the late Nobel laureate and Stanford professor Kenneth Arrow has recommendations on how to slow it down. Spending on prescription meds was $324.6 billion in 2015. After some years of slower growth, it rose 12 percent in 2014 and 9 percent in 2015. The Department of Health and Human Services projects it will average annual growth over six percent over the next decade. How can drug spending be slowed? Source: National Health Expenditures. Professor Arrow and economists Kamran Blair and Alan Sorensen find that the proliferation of new information technology to more physicians could increase the speed and propensity with which they prescribe generic drugs. In a new National Bureau of Economic Research working paper , they conclude that further proliferation of this information technology can substantially reduce aggregate drug spending without compromising the careful medical decision-making of physicians. The authors suggest that use of the drug reference database could lead to better matching between patients and the drugs available. Arrow and his colleagues combine data on prescriptions and the use of an electronic drug reference database for more than 125,000 physicians. They use this dataset to analyze how the use of this information technology influences physician response to the introduction of new cholesterol drugs. Some of the variation in the adoption of new cholesterol drugs by physicians is explained by differences in access to information through the use of the electronic drug reference database. The database provides physicians with detailed information about FDA-approved drugs, such as clinical guidelines. While some of the information is broadly available, a feature of the database is information on retail pricing and formulary status, which influence prescription patterns. Information about new drugs is added at approximately the same time they are made available for commercial prescription, which is important for the authors analysis. Price was not a factor influencing adoption of the database, as a free version with the core features was readily available. A more robust version had annual fees below $200. Instead, convenience was the main reason physicians gave for adopting the database as many of them reported it saved them substantial amounts of time. Even with these factors, use of the database was low. In the average month, only about 24 percent of physicians were registered database users. About 13 percent actually used the database to look up one of the cholesterol drugs considered. Considerable room for growth exists when it comes to utilizing this new information source. This prompts the authors to ask: Why do some doctors adopt the technology while others do not? It turns out that one of the factors influencing adoption was when doctors graduated from medical school, as recent grads learned about the database and were more likely to have adopted it. For older physicians, adoption was influenced by the share of other doctors in their zip code who used it. As the composition of doctors shifts more towards those who had learned of the database in medical school, the share of physicians using it should also increase. Their conservative estimate is that a physician prescribes a new generic drug two weeks sooner after they start using the database, relative to their previous baseline. Controlling for factors that might influence how quickly physicians adopt the information technology, the estimate climbs to two months. The effect differs for generics relative to branded drugs: while database adoption leads doctors to increase the likelihood of prescribing both old and new generic drugs, it reduces the likelihood of prescribing new branded drugs. Physicians who use the database also prescribe a more diverse set of drugs. Adoption of the reference database led physicians to raise the number of unique drugs prescribed each month by a statistically significant amount and correspondingly reduced the market concentration of the drugs they prescribed. The authors suggest the increase in diversity might reflect that physicians, armed with more robust information, are better able to match their patients to available therapies. More widespread adoption of this database technology could empower physicians to provide better treatment to patients while also reducing the amount spent on prescription drugs. As more doctors hear about the database in medical school or from other physicians, the share of them using it will grow over time. This could deliver substantial benefits to physicians and patients without resorting to regulations or mandates. Charles Hughes is a policy analyst at the Manhattan Institute. Follow him on twitter @CharlesHHughes. Interested in real economic insights? Want to stay ahead of the competition? Each weekday morning, E21 delivers a short email that includes E21 exclusive commentaries and the latest market news and updates from Washington. Sign up for the E21 Morning Ebrief. By Press Trust of India: Srinagar, Apr 13 (PTI) A mere two per cent turnout was witnessed in repolling held in 38 polling stations of Srinagar Lok Sabha constituency, making it the lowest percentage in the states history, election officials said. However, the overall percentage in the entire constituency now stood at 7.13 per cent, the officials said. advertisement The situation was by and large peaceful during todays electoral exercise which had been necessitated because of large-scale violence on last Sunday when balloting was held in the entire constituency. "Only 709 of the 34,169 voters exercised their franchise across all the 38 polling stations by the time the polling ended at 4 pm," an election official said. No votes were polled in Khansahib assembly segment while only three votes were cast in Budgam segment and 84 in Chrar- e-Sharief segment, the official said. Beerwah segment saw a turnout of 362 voters and Chadoora saw 261 voters since 7 am. Barring a couple of minor incidents of stone-pelting, the repolling passed by peacefully, the official added. Two incidents of stone-pelting were reported from Soibugh and Nasrullahpora areas of Budgam district but the miscreants were chased away by the security forces, the official said. The counting of the votes for the constituency will take place on April 15. National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah and ruling PDPs Nazir Ahmad Khan are among the 9 candidates in the fray in the constituency. The seat fell vacant following resignation of PDP leader Tariq Hameed Karra in protest against the "atrocities" on people during summer agitation last year in the wake of killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani in an encounter with security forces on July 8. The repolling had been ordered at these polling stations by the EC following large scale violence during Sundays polls for the prestigious seat. On Sunday, eight people were killed and over 100 security personnel were injured after rampaging mobs took to streets at scores of places across the Lok Sabha constituency straddling Srinagar, Budgam and Ganderbal districts. The mobs even set ablaze a polling station and attempting to set afire two others. The voter turnout then was 7.14 per cent, the lowest ever. There was an altercation between opposition National Congress and ruling PDP workers at Badran in Beerwah area over allegations of bogus voting, the officials said. The issue was later resolved with the intervention of the polling staff and security personnel posted on duty there. Chief Electoral Officer of Jammu and Kashmir Shantmanu said the polling was all-time low but it was "absolutely incident-free and no untoward incident took place". advertisement In the wake of Sundays experience, police and paramilitary forces had been deployed in large numbers. "It also came to my notice that in some polling booths, polling agents were also not there. They showed up and left afterwards. This thing was brought to the notice of the political parties also in between," he said. Anantnag Lok Sabha constituency too was scheduled to have by-polls yesterday but it was postponed to May 25 in the wake of Sundays violence in Srinagar Lok Sabha constituency. Chief Minister Mehbooba Muftis brother Tassaduq Mufti is the candidate of the ruling PDP from Anantnag constituency. By-polls in Anantnag have been necessitated as Mehbooba has to leave the Lok Sabha seat after becoming the Chief Minister in April last year. About the by-polls in Anantnag constituency, Shantmanu told NDTV, "We will examine the (security) situation at that point of time but I dont think this much of deployment will be needed at any point of time in future because this was certainly much larger deployment." PTI MIJ CHT AKK AKK --- ENDS --- advertisement 13 April 2017 Changes to the List of Persons Exercising Voting Rights Today, Acron (Moscow Exchange and LSE: ticker AKRN) has been notified of changes to the list of persons indirectly exercising voting rights on the Company's shares. Cintmoon Enterprises Limited (Cyprus), which controlled 15.6% of Acron's shares through Norka Investments S.a r.l. (Luxembourg), informed that it no longer has voting rights on the Company's shares. Subero Associates Inc. (British Virgin Islands) has informed that it has the right to indirectly control 87.07% of the Company's shares. According Acron Group, its ultimate controlling shareholder has not changed as a result of these events. Media contacts: Tatiana Smirnova Public Relations Phone: +7 (495) 777-08-65 (ext. 5196) Investor contacts: Ilya Popov Investor Relations Phone: +7 (495) 745-77-45 (ext. 5252) Background Information Acron Group is a leading vertically integrated mineral fertiliser producer in Russia and globally, with chemical production facilities in Veliky Novgorod (Acron) and Smolensk (Dorogobuzh). The Group owns and operates a phosphate mine in Murmansk region (NWPC) and plans implementing a potash development project in Perm Krai (VPC). It has a wholly owned transport and logistics infrastructure and distribution networks in Russia and China. In 2016, the Group sold 6.4 million tonnes of various products to 63 countries, with in Russia, Brazil, Europe and the United States as key markets. In 2016, the Group posted consolidated revenue under IFRS of RUB 89,359 million (USD 1,333 million) and net profit of RUB 25,525 million (USD 381 million). Acron's shares are on the Level 1 quotation list of the Moscow Exchange and its global depositary receipts are traded at the London Stock Exchange (ticker AKRN). Acron employs over 11,000 people. For more information about Acron Group, please visit www.acron.ru/en. NEWPORT BEACH, Calif., April 13, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Demand for temporary workers in the United States is expected to increase 3.6% on a seasonally adjusted basis for the 2017 second quarter, when compared with the same period in 2016, according to the Palmer Forecast, released today. The Palmer Forecast indicated a 2.9% increase in temporary help for the just ended 2017 first quarter. Actual results from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) came ahead of forecast at 3.5% with 10,500 net new temp help jobs added in March and 34.500 for the quarter. 2017 first quarter marks the 29th consecutive quarter of year-over-year increases in demand for temporary workers, and our forecast for the second quarter predicts a similar rate of growth, said Greg Palmer, founder and managing director of G. Palmer & Associates, an Orange County, California-based human capital advisory firm that specializes in workforce solutions. The data shows that temp help as a percentage of new job growth remained constant in Q1 while wages were up nearly 2.7%. According to updated data from BLS, 32,000 temp jobs were added in 2016, an average of 2,600 per month, versus 97,000 temporary jobs in 2015, an average of 8,000 per month. In 2014, the agency reported a total of 162,000 new temp jobs, preceded by 139,000 added temp jobs in 2013, and 142,000 temp jobs in 2012. The Labor Department also reported that a net of 98,000 seasonally adjusted non-farm jobs were added in March 2017, which was less than consensus expectations of 180,000. The trailing three-month average decreased slightly to 178,000, compared to the 12-month average of 182,000. The key job categories of growth and declines are as follows: Non-farm jobs: +98,000 Private sector: +89,000 Government sector: +9,000 Service providing employment: +61,000 Professional and business services: +56,000 Healthcare and education: +16,000 Manufacturing: +11,000 Construction: +6,000 Mining: -11,000 U.S. employment trends are underpinned by near all-time lows in the labor participation rate. In March 2017, the participation rate remained soft at 63%, with 90,000 workers dropping out of the workforce, and the commonly referred to unemployment rate, U3, ticked down slightly to 4.5%. As reported by BLS, for the same period, the rate of unemployment for workers with college degrees decreased 10bps to 2.5% from February, and the unemployment rate for workers with less than a high school education decreased 110bps to 6.8%. The U6 unemployment rate, which tracks those who are unemployed, as well as those who are underemployed and are working part-time for economic reasons, was down 10bps at 8.9%. The U6 rate is considered the rate that most broadly depicts those most affected by the downturn and measures the rate of discouraged workers. One of the most revealing indictors to watch is the temp help penetration rate, which is significant because it measures temp help as a percentage of total employment. In March 2017, the penetration remained at near all-time highs, at 2.05% of the total labor market versus a low of 1.34% in June 2009, Palmer said. The next few quarters With the election behind us, there appears to be optimism in the jobs market regarding lower corporate tax rates and less government regulation, indicating more anticipated jobs in 2017. However, employers still are reporting difficulty in filling vacancies, with nearly 6 million jobs going unfilled monthly. The key skill areas most severely impacted are those in health care, information technology, skilled trades and those positions that require high degrees of math and science. As of Q4 2016, the 10 most difficult positions to fill reported by the American Staffing Association are as follows: Heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers General internist Podiatrists Psychiatrists Physician Assistant Merchandise displayers and window trimmers Obstetricians and gynecologists Surgeons Occupational therapist Nurse Practitioner Physician assistants, obstetricians and gynecologists, and nurse practitioners moved into the top 10 list of hardest-to-fill positions. Health care continues to dominate the list with eight of the 10 most difficult-to-fill occupations falling within that sector. The rankings are based on CareerBuilder supply and demand data. About the Palmer Forecast The Palmer Forecast is based, in part, on BLS and other key indicators. The model was initially developed by the A. Gary Anderson Center for Economic Research at Chapman University and serves as an indicator of economic activity. Companies that employ temporary staff use the forecast as a guide to navigate through fluctuating economic conditions in managing their workforce to meet business demands. About G. Palmer & Associates G. Palmer & Associates, founded in 2006, provides advisory services in the human capital sector. Founder Greg Palmer has served on the board of the American Staffing Association and was president and chief executive officer of RemedyTemp, Inc., one of the nations largest temporary staffing companies, prior to its sale in June 2006. For more information, visit www.GPalmerandAssociates.com. This is an issue that polarizes people to one of the two extremes. People either swear by admission consultants because they see great value or they swear at them because they are dissatisfied with the service they received. The truth, as with most situations in life, is in between. A good consultant can definitely help you polish your application and can give you that extra push to succeed. But there are too many fly-by-night consultants who either have no clue about the process or have little time to pay you the level of attention you need. My take:To start with, educate yourself thoroughly about the admissions process. Read this forum until you become sick, get the montauk book on admissions and paul's book on essay writing. Soak in all the information and master this whole application thing, atleast in theory. Then, play the field and talk to as many consultants as you can. You will be in a far better position to judge if he/she will be able to help you or not. Also, when you decide on a consultant, talk to the actual person who will be working with you and not with some marketing person. Good luck with your apps! The Home Ministry said 2016 saw a significant increase in terrorist violence and casualties suffered by security forces in comparison to the year before. However, civilians' casualties have decreased in comparison to 2015. By Kamaljit Kaur Sandhu: Pakistan, according to Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), is promoting civil resistance in trouble torn Jammu and Kashmir. According to the ministry, Pakistan has changed its strategy of "superimposition" of militancy in the state by promoting "civil resistance". This is being done through radicalisation by vested groups and social media. This information has been revealed by the MHA's annual report which included a chapter on internal security. advertisement The report further says that after killing of Hizbul commander Burhan Wani, Hurriyat leaders were involved in fomenting the trouble in the shape of organising protests and forcing the shopkeepers to shut their shops through their dictat of protest calendar. However, the government and security forces have managed to break the cycle. The state of Jammu Kashmir has been affected by terrorist and secessionist violence, sponsored and supported from across the border for more than two decades, in which as per the ministry nearly 14,000 civilians and 5000 security forces have lost their lives, a period from 1990 upto December end 2016. The report further says that there has been a spurt in infiltration attempts during the last year from Pakistan side with increased infiltration attempts and net estimated infiltrators. The figure being 364 infiltration attempts and 112 net infiltration taking place. The home ministry said 2016 saw a significant increase in terrorist violence and casualties suffered by security forces in comparison to the year before. However, civilian casualties have decreased in comparison to 2015. However, the MHA said despite the efforts of Pakistan based elements, the security situation showed signs of improvement which has frustrated the evil designs of terrorist organisations, leading them to target security forces deployed in the state. The report comes at a time when there has been a spate of stone-pelting incidents on security forces leading to casualties, and abysmally low voting turnout for Srinagar Lok Sabha constituency. The report was released on Wednesday by the ministry. Watch the video here Also read: Fear Kulbhushan Jadhav has been tortured, killed in Pakistan: BJP MP and former Home Secretary RK Singh Also read: Shashi Tharoor likely to help Modi government draft statement on Kulbhushan Jadhav --- ENDS --- - A beautiful Kenyan lady is trending on social media after indicating that she is desperately looking for a man to marry her - The lady went a notch higher by advertising her qualities and is perplexed that no man is showing interest in her - The lady is apparently under pressure from the village to marry A beautiful and curvaceous Kenyan girl has caused a stir on social media after she highlighted the qualities she possesses in a bid to attract potential suitors. READ ALSO: Diezani Alison-Madueke allegedly seen walking through the streets of London The girl identified as Roseline has been posting severally on Facebook, with the main agenda being getting a husband. Truth be told, she is beautiful and curvaceous. Roseline Nyar Japuonj Owuoth Maybe this explains why she is worried that in spite of her beauty, curves and the attractive behind, no man has shown interest in her. READ ALSO: Brave hunter becomes a hero after he gunned down HUGE buffalo in Edo state (photos) Here is what she has been saying: Translated as: Why are today's men fearing marriage. Is it about responsibility? Nowadays responsibility is shared between men and women. Don't you want us women to get married? I rest my case. "This cold weather is taking toll of me" This lady is very genuine Is she under pressure? Ladies are not asked about their age but she is ready to reveal it She doesn't seem to mind, any man can 'apply' Meanwhile, see how a curvy, beautiful Nigerian lady and former Big Brother Nigeria housemate, Uriel Oputa, opened up on her experience in the house: Source: Legit.ng In an exclusive interview with India Today, Pakistan envoy Abdul Basit had said that they had shared with India evidence on Kulbhushan Yadav, a claim that the MEA has denied. By India Today Web Desk: Stating that if Pakistan goes ahead with executing death sentence to former Indian naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav it will be treated as a murder, the Ministry of External Affairs today said no details of his whereabouts have been shared with India. "Pakistan has not shared with us till now any details of Kulbhushan Jadhav's location or how he is," Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Gopal Bagley told reporters here. advertisement In an exclusive interview with India Today, Pakistan envoy Abdul Basit had said that they had shared with India evidence on Kulbhushan Yadav, a claim that the MEA has denied. MEA spokesperson Bagley said that Jadhav was in illegal custody in Pakistan and so far they had no clue about his condition. "Pakistan High Commissioner was summoned and communicated that his custody is illegal and his trial is not fair. Pakistan has no evidence against him. India will consider it a murder if Pakistan goes ahead," Bagley said. A Pakistani military court had recently sentenced 46-year-old Jadhav to death after declaring him a "spy". Pakistan claims that its security forces had arrested Jadhav from the restive Baluchistan province on March 3 last year after he reportedly entered from Iran. It also claimed that he was "a serving officer in the Indian Navy". NO CONSULAR ACCESS TO JADHAV Pakistan has also denied consular access to him which the MEA said proves that he is innocent and Pakistan has no evidence against him. "The verdict is indefensible and against the basic principles of justice," Bagley said adding that Kulbhushan is an innocent retired Indian who was kidnapped. The matter was communicated to Pakistan in last March. "We don't want to speculate on specifics. We informed Iranian government last year on Jadhav issue because he was doing business there in a legal way. We don't have the any consular access but what we are getting about Jadhav that he was carrying Indian passport. I don't know how a person, who allegedly was on espionage operation was carrying an original passport with him," the MEA spokesperson said. After the sentencing, India warned Pakistan to consider the "consequences" on their ties if Kulbhushan Jadhav is hanged in the alleged espionage case and vowed to go "out of the way" to save him amid an outrage in this country. The death sentence awarded to Jadhav recently echoed in both Houses of Parliament where all parties came together to condemn the "indefensible" verdict and pressed the government to take every step to help him. advertisement Also watch: Abdul Basit to India Today: Pakistan has enough evidence, Kulbhushan has full right to seek mercy Also read: Who is Kulbhushan Jadhav, the Indian sentenced to death in Pakistan? Pakistan media: RAW has abducted ISI man to avenge Kulbhushan Jadhav --- ENDS --- As of August 26th, 2021 Yahoo India will no longer be publishing content. Your Yahoo Account Mail and Search experiences will not be affected in any way and will operate as usual. We thank you for your support and readership. For more information on Yahoo India, please visit the FAQ By India Today Web Desk: A man in Pakistan was arrested for selling child pornography online. Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) today arrested 45-year-old Sadaat Amin from Sargodha in Punjab and seized his laptop and computer. "During interrogation Amin revealed that he had been selling child pornographic content online for the last few years. Amin used to lure children on the pretext of imparting computer education. He even paid between 3,000 and 5,000 Pakistani rupees to the parents of the victims, saying that their children would learn computer hardware and software (skills) at his one-room rented workshop in Sargodha," an FIA official told Dawn. advertisement The FIA cyber crime wing launched a probe into the matter on being informed by Norwegian Embassy through a letter that the country's police had arrested a man in connection with the child pornographic content and that Saadat Amin was one of his accomplices in Pakistan. According to Amin, he not only sold his own recordings but also "video clips hacked from the servers of Russian and Bangladeshi porn websites to buyers in Norway and Sweden." The Norwegian man paid Amin between USD 100 and USD 400 for different videos involving young boys, the official said. So far, the FIA has recovered some 65,000 child pornography video clips from the Amin's possession hacked from foreign websites. (With inputs from IANS) Also Read Government ropes in Interpol to help crackdown on child pornography --- ENDS --- Musharraf said he is sure the ISI has evidence against Jadhav and will share it with India in the future. By India Today Web Desk: In an exclusive interview with India Today, Pakistan's former president Gen Pervez Musharraf today supported trial of Kulbhushan Jadhav saying he is sure that the ISI has evidence against the former Indian naval officer. "Sitting here in Washington I certainly don't know what is the evidence available. I am very sure evidence must be available with the ISI. They may not have shared it with you but I am sure they will share it in the future," Musharraf said. advertisement He refuted India's stand that Jadhav was a retired naval commander and instead claimed he was working for the RAW. "He didn't retire. He went into RAW, he joined your intelligence agency," he said adding that he was based in Chabahar which "is the ideal place for intruding" into Balochistan. ROGUE STATE On Pakistan being called a rogue state Musharraf went on the offensive and said India is one. "Pakistan is not a rogue state at all. I think India is a rogue state. If you start calling Pakistan a rogue state I would very much like to say that you are the rogue state with whatever is happening today in the environment between India and Pakistan. It is India responsible. Your prime minister is responsible. Your defence minister is responsible. Your army chief is responsible," he said. On violation of international conventions in the case, he said both nations violate conventions. He insisted that Jadhav was nabbed in Balochistan and was tried in the court as he was a "spy". "Why should Pak inform India?," the former Pakistan army chief said. A Pakistani military court had recently sentenced 46-year-old Jadhav to death after declaring him a "spy". Pakistan claims that its security forces had arrested Jadhav from the restive Baluchistan province on March 3 last year after he reportedly entered from Iran. It also claimed that he was "a serving officer in the Indian Navy". After the sentencing, India warned Pakistan to consider the "consequences" on their ties if Kulbhushan Jadhav is hanged in the alleged espionage case and vowed to go "out of the way" to save him amid an outrage in this country. The death sentence awarded to Jadhav recently echoed in both Houses of Parliament where all parties came together to condemn the "indefensible" verdict and pressed the government to take every step to help him. "You dare not come down on Pak. I dare your army to do that.....We showed you in Kargil," Musharraf said. Also read: Basit told India Today Kulbhushan evidence shared; MEA says none received advertisement Kasuri to India Today: Kulbhushan Jadhav not singled out Who is Kulbhushan Jadhav, the Indian sentenced to death in Pakistan? WATCH VIDEO --- ENDS --- Union minister for power Piyush Goyal was addressing the Mail Today Energy Conclave where he spoke about PM Modi's goal to ensure reliable power supply and about India's focus on clean energy. Piyush Goyal said he spoke to Adityanath 11 times on power alone (Photo: Ramesh Sharma) By Mail Today Bureau: Newly elected Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath is working on a war footing to get every household electrified in the country's most populous state, union minister for power Piyush Goyal said on Wednesday. His statement at Mail Today's 3rd Energy Conclave came a day after the CM ordered 18-hour power supply in villages, 20-hour at tehsil level and Bundelkhand and 24-hour for all headquarters apart from deciding to ink a pact with the Centre to ensure electricity in all UP villages by 2019. advertisement "Chief minister Yogi Adityanath has had 11 conversations with me so far on power alone, with the 11th one this morning. He's so focused on how we can get electricity to every household in every village," said Goyal, stressing that it is in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's goal to light up 4.61 crore more households. The minister said it is necessary to give cheaper power to the poor and farmers and affordable supply to everyone else while also turning the power distribution companies profitable. "Power cost per se is not high. Average power cost is Rs 3/unit. AT&C (Aggregate Technical and Commercial) losses and power theft are actually the cause for higher rates. We cannot pass on the inhibition to consumers. A little bit of cross-subsidy will help solve the conundrum," he said. Modi won the 2014 Lok Sabha elections promising to provide reliable power by 2019 and put a stop to persistent blackouts that have plagued the country for decades and hampered growth. SINGLE GRID FOR ENTIRE INDIA A single grid across the country for seamless transmission of electricity from one part to another is also being worked on, Goyal said. The government's target to provide 24x7 power for all is 2022, but Goyal said it could be achieved before that. "India is committed to working on climate change. This is despite the fact that we contribute only 3% to global emissions even though we support 17% of the world's population," he said, with a veiled reference to US President Donald Trump's dismissal of global warming as a hoax. Irrespective of what other big nations are doing, we will work on it as our own people cannot survive pollution beyond a point, he said. "We have just raised BS standards for vehicles. We are working on ultra critical and ultra-super critical power plants." FOCUS ON RENEWABLE ENERGY Goyal emphasised that renewable energy sources will take centre stage in the days to come. If energy was represented as a triangle, one side would be safety and security, the second affordability and the third sustainability, he said. advertisement "The focus to expand the use of natural gas and renewable energy in the respective ministries dovetail into a larger agenda to ensure a better environment for the next generation." The target on solar power production alone has been expanded five-fold to the one set five years ago, he said. "Our national solar mission seeks to produce 5,000 MW solar power by 2022-the 75th year of India's Independence. Today, we are planning to produce 100,000 MW by 2022. As of 2014, 2,500 MW was produced. So, we are looking at a 40-fold increase in 7 years."Last year, the government has added a record 5,400 MW production capacity of wind energy and 5,600 MW solar power," he said. Going ahead, energy production will have to tap into technological innovations to meet the growing population. By 2020, the global population is expected to be 9 billion. He explained that Japanese scientists are exploring wireless transmission of electricity. "If that can be achieved, solar power can be transmitted wirelessly from space, where there is 24x7 sunlight." The challenge for the nation is that politics should not overtake governance, he said. "But people are now voting in governments that show that good economics is also good politics." advertisement He said after a decade of "bad politics and economics", there is a resurgence in investments. "We are seeing record Foreign Direct Investments flowing in." ALSO READ | CM Yogi Adityanath promises pothole-free roads, 24-hour power supply in second UP Cabinet meeting ALSO READ | Gadkari's clean car plan: Electricity-run vehicles to replace commercial cars --- ENDS --- Algerias energy minister, Nourredine Boutarfa, met with European Unions Climate and Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete in Brussels to discuss energy matters with the latter assuring that Europe will remain the main customer for Algeria even though most long-term gas accords are ending between 2018 and 2019. Canete highlighted the advantages for Europe to continue getting its gas supply form the North African country while stressing that it is an interdependent activity because Algiers also relies on the European market for its security of demand. Boutarfa informed the EU that the growth of output for natural gas is sustainable for the medium term and beyond following investments in the sector. The minister hinted that a reform of the sector is possible as the laws continue to deter foreign investors. We have engaged a dialogue with oil firms to shed light on their understanding of our laws, including their apprehensions with regard to taxes and to bring the necessary corrections so we can boost the development of our partnership and make our country more attractive, he said. Canete underlined that the regulatory framework for investments be improved to attract more European investments and they are already considering ways to facilitate it. He hoped that the mutual beneficial trade will be strengthened as he deemed new supply contracts, investments in exploration and production necessary. After Russia and Norway, Europe derives most of its supply from Algeria and Bourtarfas visit is geared towards deepening cooperation in the energy sector with the EU. Algiers continues to be wary of the threats posed to the sector by extremist groups in the Sahara desert. In January 2013, British Petroleums In Amenas gas plant was attacked by terrorists and the energy minister stated that security and contingency plans are taken into account to defend the country. Meanwhile, the UK ahead of its Brexit has also begun to engage in business and investment opportunities related to the energy sector with Algerian authorities. Canadian scientist Mark Wainbergdescribed as a "giant" of HIV science and who had recently been working on finding a cure for the conditionhas died at the age of 71, UNAIDS said on Thursday. The internationally renowned scientist, who was at the forefront of HIV research from the very beginning of the global AIDS epidemic, drowned on Wednesday while swimming off Bal Harbour in Florida, Radio Canada said. "UNAIDS is deeply saddened by the tragic death of pioneering HIV researcher Mark Wainberg," the agency dedicated to battling the disease said in a statement. Wainberg and his colleagues identified one of the main anti-retroviral medicines used to treat HIV infection and also contributed to the understanding of HIV drug resistance. "Mark Wainberg was a giant in HIV science," UNAIDS chief Michel Sidibe said in a statement, stressing that the researcher's work "contributed to saving millions of lives". Linda-Gail Bekker, head of the International AIDS Society (IAS), which Wainberg lead from 1998, said the HIV/AIDS research community had "lost one of our fiercest champions". "He was the epitome of dedication from the earliest days of the response," she said, adding that "the impact of his work... will live on through the millions of people accessing HIV treatment and those of us who were lucky enough to know him". Wainberg, who served as an informal advisor to UNAIDS, was heading AIDS research at the Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research at the Jewish General Hospital and also of McGill University's AIDS Centre in Canada at the time of his death. During his time leading IAS, he organised the 13th International AIDS conference in Durban, South Africa, and he also co-chaired the same conference in Toronto in 2006. 2017 AFP Millions of times a year, Americans get prescriptions for a week's worth of steroid pills, hoping to ease a backache or quell a nagging cough or allergy symptoms. But a new study suggests that they and their doctors might want to pay a bit more attention to the potential side effects of this medication. People taking the pills were more likely to break a bone, have a potentially dangerous blood clot or suffer a life-threatening bout of sepsis in the months after their treatment, compared with similar adults who didn't use corticosteroids, researchers from the University of Michigan report in a new paper in the British Medical Journal (BMJ). Though only a small percentage of both groups went to the hospital for these serious health threats, the higher rates seen among people who took steroids for even a few days are cause for caution and even concern, the researchers say. The study used data from 1.5 million non-elderly American adults with private insurance. One in 5 of them filled a short-term prescription for oral corticosteroids such as prednisone sometime in the three-year study period. While the rates of the serious events were highest in the first 30 days after a prescription, they stayed elevated even three months later. The researchers call for better education of prescribers and the public about the potential risks, and the most appropriate uses and doses, for short-term courses of steroids. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration require drug makers to list the possible side effects of prednisone and other corticosteroids, but the rate of these events among short-term users has not been well characterized. "Although physicians focus on the long-term consequences of steroids, they don't tend to think about potential risks from short-term use," says Akbar Waljee, M.D., M.Sc., the study's lead author. "We see a clear signal of higher rates of these three serious events within 30 days of filling a prescription. We need to understand that steroids do have a real risk and that we may use them more than we really need to. This is so important because of how often these drugs are used." Waljee is an assistant professor of gastroenterology at the U-M Medical School and research scientist at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System, as well as a member of the Michigan Integrated Center for Health Analytics and Medical Prediction (MiCHAMP), the U-M Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation and the VA Center for Clinical Management Research. As a specialist in inflammatory bowel diseases, he prescribes steroids often to patients seeking relief from chronic digestive tract issues. But the new study focused on short-term use and risks. Who's using short-term steroids? Using anonymous insurance claims data that IHPI purchased for use by U-M health care researchers, they found that half of the people who received oral steroids had gotten them for just six diagnoses, related to back pain, allergies or respiratory tract infections including bronchitis. Nearly half received a six-day prepackaged methylprednisolone "dosepak," which tapers the dose of steroids from highest to lowest. Dr. Waljee notes that sold as individual pills, oral steroids can cost less than a dollar for a seven-day course, but the prepackaged form can cost several times that. He also notes that the prepackaged form starts with a relatively high dose that may not always be necessary. Users of short-term steroids were more likely to be in the older age range under age 65, white, female and to have multiple health conditions. More than half lived in the southern U.S. The researchers excluded from the study anyone who took steroids in the year before the study period began, anyone who took inhaled or injected steroids during the study years, and anyone who took oral steroids for more than 30 days, as well as people who had cancer or transplants. Differences in danger Dr. Waljee and his colleagues found higher rates of sepsis, venous thromboembolism (VTE) and fractures among short-term steroid users using multiple different statistical approaches to ensure their findings were as robust as possible. First, they compared short-term steroid users with non-steroid users, looking for the three serious issues in the 5 to 90 days after either the clinic visit closest to when the steroid prescription was filled, or a routine clinic visit for non-steroid users. This gives what's called an absolute risk. They saw that 0.05 percent of those who got steroids were admitted to a hospital with a primary diagnosis of sepsis, compared with 0.02 percent of non-steroid users. For clots, it was 0.14 percent compared with 0.09 percent, and for fracture, it was 0.51 percent compared with 0.39 percent. However, this analysis was unable to account for all the individual differences between steroid users and non-users. For that comparison, they then looked at rates of the three complications among short-term steroid users before and after they received steroids. Sepsis rates were five times higher in the 30 days after a steroid prescription, VTE clot rates were more than three times as high, and fracture rates were nearly twice as high as those that did not take steroids. Finally, the researchers compared the steroid users with a sample of non-steroid users who had the same respiratory conditions. The difference in rates of all three health problems were still higher, as expressed by a quantity called the incidence rate ratio. Steroid users had more than five times the rate of sepsis, nearly three times the rate of VTE clots and two times the rate of fracture. The consistent findings across the three approaches are important given the frequent use of these drugs and potential implications for patients. Waljee notes that the reason for this broad effect of steroids on complications may have its roots in how the drugs work: they mimic hormones produced by the body, to reduce inflammation but this can also induce changes that put patients at additional risk of serious events. Studies in populations like the one in the BMJ paper can help guide researchers looking for dangerous side effects once drugs are on the market. Waljee notes the FDA is also conducting these initiatives through the "Sentinel Initiative". These studies can also provide insight into the possible mechanisms that might drive these side effects. "When we have a medication that's being given to a large population, we can pick up signals that might inform us of some potentially harmful side effects that we might otherwise miss in smaller studies," he says. "Analyzing large data sets like this is a goal of groups like MiCHAMP and can help us see these trends sooner, highlighting the importance of this type of research on Big Data." In the meantime, based on the new results, he advises patients and prescribers to use the smallest amount of corticosteroids possible based on the condition being treated. "If there are alternatives to steroids, we should be use those when possible," he says. "Steroids may work faster, but they aren't as risk-free as you might think." More information: Akbar K Waljee et al, Short term use of oral corticosteroids and related harms among adults in the United States: population based cohort study, BMJ (2017). Journal information: British Medical Journal (BMJ) Akbar K Waljee et al, Short term use of oral corticosteroids and related harms among adults in the United States: population based cohort study,(2017). DOI: 10.1136/bmj.j1415 (HealthDay)Two new studies on diabetes deliver good and bad news, but the overall message is that the blood sugar disease remains a formidable public health burden. The first study looked at the incidence of type 1 and type 2 diabetes in U.S. children, and uncovered this troubling trend: From 2002 to 2012, the rates for both types of diabetes increased, especially among racial and ethnic minorities. But a bit of hope was offered up in the second study: Swedish researchers reported a drop in the incidence of heart disease and stroke in adults with both types of diabetes. "These studies highlight our concerns about the increasing prevalence of diabetes. Every 23 seconds, another person is diagnosed with diabetes [in the United States]," said Dr. William Cefalu, chief scientific, medical and mission officer for the American Diabetes Association (ADA). Cefalu added that the Swedish study was encouraging and shows that things are "trending in the right direction. Because of research in diabetes, we've been able to improve the lives of millions of people with diabetes around the world, but the disease is still increasing worldwide. We still have a lot of work to do." In the United States, approximately 29 million people have diabetes, according to the ADA. The vast majority of those have type 2 diabetes. About 1.3 million people have type 1 diabetes. In people with type 2 diabetes, the body doesn't use insulin properly. This is called insulin resistance. Insulin is a hormone that helps usher sugar from foods into the body's cells to be used as fuel. When someone has type 2 diabetes, this process doesn't work well and blood sugar levels rise. Obesity is the main risk factor for type 2 diabetes, though it's not the only factor involved in the disease. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease. The body's immune system mistakenly attacks the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. This leaves someone with type 1 diabetes with little to no insulin. To stay alive, someone with type 1 diabetes must replace that insulin through injections. "The specific genes and environmental/behavioral factors that cause type 2 diabetes are different than those that cause type 1 diabetes," explained Elizabeth Mayer-Davis, the author of the study on diabetes incidence in children. Mayer-Davis and colleagues found that type 1 diabetes was increasing 1.8 percent a year. The increase was significantly larger for Hispanic children, at 4.2 percent a year. That compared with 1.2 percent for white children, the findings showed. The factors underlying the increase aren't entirely clear, she said. Although far fewer children have type 2 diabetes, the disease is increasing faster than type 1. Between 2002 and 2012, the rate of type 2 diabetes increased 4.8 percent a year. The annual increase in type 2 diabetes in black children was 6.3 percent. For Asian/Pacific Islanders, the yearly increase was 8.5 percent, and for Native Americans, it was almost 9 percent, the investigators found. "The increase in incidence of type 2 diabetes is likely related primarily to the increases in overweight and obesity in youth, although this is not the only reason," said Mayer-Davis. She's a professor of nutrition and medicine at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. The second study looked at all of the people registered in a Swedish National Database from 1998 through 2012, and followed their health through 2014. The database has nearly 37,000 people with type 1 diabetes and more than 457,000 with type 2 diabetes. These patients were compared to similar people without diabetes (the "control" group). The researchers saw roughly a 40 percent greater reduction in heart disease and stroke in people with type 1 diabetes compared to the matched controls. In people with type 2 diabetes, there was roughly a 20 percent greater drop in heart disease and stroke compared to the control group, the study showed. When it came to deaths during the study period, people with type 1 diabetes had similar reductions in the number of deaths compared to controls. People with type 2, however, had smaller reductions in deaths versus the control group, the researchers found. Even with these improvements, people with either type of diabetes still have much higher overall rates of premature death and heart disease than the control groups, the study authors noted. "We believe the changes observed in our study most likely reflect a combination of advances in clinical care for patients with diabetes," said study author Dr. Aidin Rawshani. He is from the Institute of Medicine at the University of Gothenberg in Sweden. "Perhaps the most important is improved management of cardiovascular risk factors," he said. These risk factors include high blood pressure, abnormal cholesterol, signs of early kidney damage and poor blood sugar control. He said treatment with high blood pressure medications and cholesterol-lowering drugs likely contributed to the improvement. Both studies were published April 13 in the New England Journal of Medicine. More information: Aidin Rawshani, M.D. and Ph.D. student, Sahlgrenska University Hospital and the Institute of Medicine at the University of Gothenberg, Sweden; Elizabeth Mayer-Davis, Ph.D., professor, nutrition and medicine, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; William Cefalu, M.D., chief scientific, medical and mission officer, American Diabetes Association; April 13, 2017, New England Journal of Medicine. Aidin Rawshani, M.D. and Ph.D. student, Sahlgrenska University Hospital and the Institute of Medicine at the University of Gothenberg, Sweden; Elizabeth Mayer-Davis, Ph.D., professor, nutrition and medicine, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; William Cefalu, M.D., chief scientific, medical and mission officer, American Diabetes Association; April 13, 2017, Learn more about preventing type 2 diabetes from the U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. Journal information: New England Journal of Medicine Copyright 2017 HealthDay. All rights reserved. The accused in passport fraud cases escaped from the police custody from Hazarat Nizamuddin Railway Station in Delhi. By Ashish Pandey: Mohammad Ali, a British national who is an accused in passport fraud cases, hoodwinked Hyderabad Police and managed to escape from Hazrat Nizamuddin Railway Station in Delhi last evening. Ali was taken to Delhi for hearing of the passport fraud case. A case has been registered and the cops are on the lookout for him. Action will be taken against the cops from whose custody the accused escaped, once a report is submitted. advertisement The prisoner, after being produced before Patiala House Court in Delhi, escaped from the bathroom window at Hazrat Nizamuddin Railway Station. While talking to India Today, Mahender Rathod Jt CP Security, said, "In Hyderabad, a total of 3 cases related to fake passport under Section 14 of Foreigners Act were registered while in Delhi, one case related to fake passport cases under Section 14 of Foreigners Act was registered against him." Also read: Delhi: Personal enmity biggest cause of murders in city Also read: Telangana shocker: Woman poisons physically challenged 3-year-old daughter --- ENDS --- The study found common disparities between indigenous pregnant womens smoking rates in four countries. Credit: Massey University Indigenous women across four high income countries are not getting the help they need to stop smoking when pregnant. A study published today in the international journal Nicotine & Tobacco Research found common large disparities between indigenous pregnant women's smoking rates and non-indigenous pregnant women in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States of America. "Tobacco smoking is the most significant reversible risk factor for the health of Indigenous pregnant women and their babies." Said study lead Associate Professor Gillian Gould of the School of Medicine and Public Health at The University of Newcastle, Australia who led the study. "In each of our countries and in Canada, Indigenous pregnant women have smoking rates that are twice to many times higher than the non-Indigenous women." The prevalence of smoking while pregnant varied across states and countries, ranging from 18 percent to 83 percent for Inuit women. The inequity varied across countries also with Australian Aboriginal maternal smoking at 48 percent while non-Indigenous Australian women enjoyed a low 13 percent. Co-author Associate Professor Marewa Glover from New Zealand's Massey University's School of Public Health said the study was looking for successful intervention ideas they could share. "Despite our cultural differences, the Indigenous people in each country experience similar marginalisation and social disadvantage." She said. "This stems partly from the common way in which we were colonised by Western nation states." "That colonisation process resulted in all of us receiving proportionately less of society's benefits, whether that's education, healthcare or employment. Our women are disproportionately exposed to environmental risks to health, discrimination and disproportionate incarceration. We are over-represented among the lower paid and unemployed and are more likely to live in deprived areas. The cumulative stress of all this is driving our higher smoking rates and undermining our women's ability to abstain from smoking, even when they are pregnant." Glover said. Professor Christi Patten from Mayo Clinic's Department of Psychiatry and Psychology in Rochester, Minnesota, USA contributed information for Canada and the USA to the paper titled 'Smoking in pregnancy among indigenous women in high income countries.' The researchers want more importance to be placed on supportive programmes for Indigenous pregnant women. They want to see the development and testing of Indigenous-led and culturally-based programmes, such as services that fund Indigenous elders and community health care providers to work with families. Existing stop smoking programmes also needed to improve their delivery to ensure they reach pregnant Indigenous women. In reviewing the literature the researchers identified several evidence gaps, which they propose is partly due to the difficulty securing funding for trials that are focused on a relatively small sub-group. The team hopes that working across countries will improve their chances of gaining research funds in future to continue this important line of investigation. Same-sex marriage has been the law of the land for nearly two yearsand in some states for even longerbut researchers can already detect positive health outcomes among couples who have tied the knot, a University of Washington study finds. For years, studies have linked marriage with happiness among heterosexual couples. But a study from the UW School of Social Work is among the first to explore the potential benefits of marriage among LGBT couples. It is part of a national, groundbreaking longitudinal study with a representative sample of LGBT older adults, known as "Aging with Pride: National Health, Aging, Sexuality/Gender Study," which focuses on how historical, environmental, psychological, behavioral, social and biological factors are associated with health, aging and quality of life. UW researchers found that LGBT study participants who were married reported better physical and mental health, more social support and greater financial resources than those who were single. The findings were published in a February special supplement of The Gerontologist. "In the nearly 50 years since Stonewall, same-sex marriage went from being a pipe dream to a legal quagmire to realityand it may be one of the most profound changes to social policy in recent history," said lead author Jayn Goldsen, research study supervisor in the UW School of Social Work. Some 2.7 million adults ages 50 and older identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendera number that is expected to nearly double by 2060. Among LGBT people, marriage increased noticeably after a 2015 U.S. Supreme Court ruling legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. A 2016 Gallup Poll found that 49 percent of cohabiting gay couples were married, up from 38 percent before the ruling. For the UW study, more than 1,800 LGBT people, ages 50 and older, were surveyed in 2014 in locations where gay marriage was already legal (32 states and Washington, D.C.). About one-fourth were married, another fourth were in a committed relationship, and half were single. Married respondents had spent an average of 23 years together, while those in a committed, unmarried relationship had spent an average of 16 years. Among the study participants, more women were married than men, and of the respondents who were married, most identified as non-Hispanic white. Researchers found that, in general, participants in a relationship, whether married or in a long-term partnership, showed better health outcomes than those who were single. But those who were married fared even better, both socially and financially, than couples in unmarried, long-term partnerships. Single LGBT adults were more likely to have a disability; to report lower physical, psychological, social and environmental quality of life; and to have experienced the death of a partner, especially among men. The legalization of gay marriage at the federal level opens up access to many benefits, such as tax exemptions and Social Security survivor benefits that married, straight couples have long enjoyed. But that does not mean every LGBT couple was immediately ready to take that step. According to Goldsen, marriage, for many older LGBT people, can be something of a conundrumeven a non-starter. LGBT seniors came of age at a time when laws and social exclusion kept many in the closet. Today's unmarried couples may have made their own legal arrangements and feel that they don't need the extra step of marriageor they don't want to participate in a traditionally heterosexual institution. Goldsen also pointed to trends in heterosexual marriage: Fewer people are getting married, and those who do, do so later. "More older people are living together and thinking outside the box. This was already happening within the LGBT communitycouples were living together, but civil marriage wasn't part of the story," she said. The different attitudes among older LGBT people toward marriage is something service providers, whether doctors, attorneys or tax professionals, should be aware of, Goldsen said. Telling a couple they should get married now simply because they can misses the individual nature of the choice. "Service providers need to understand the historical context of this population," she said. "Marriage isn't for everyone. It is up to each person, and there are legal, financial and potentially societal ramifications." For example, among the women in the study, those who were married were more likely to report experiencing bias in the larger community. At the same time, Goldsen said, single LGBT older adults do not benefit from the marriage ruling, and other safeguards, such as anti-discrimination laws in employment, housing and public accommodations, are still lacking at the federal level. Over time, Goldsen and colleagues will continue to examine the influence of same-sex marriage policy on partnership status and health. More information: Jayn Goldsen et al, Who Says I Do: The Changing Context of Marriage and Health and Quality of Life for LGBT Older Adults, The Gerontologist (2017). Jayn Goldsen et al, Who Says I Do: The Changing Context of Marriage and Health and Quality of Life for LGBT Older Adults,(2017). DOI: 10.1093/geront/gnw174 White matter fiber architecture of the brain. Credit: Human Connectome Project. Healthy college students who have a relatively small inferior frontal cortex - a brain region behind the temples that helps regulate thoughts and emotions - are more likely than others to suffer from anxiety, a new study finds. They also tend to view neutral or even positive events in a negative light, researchers report. The researchers evaluated 62 students, collecting brain structural data from neuroimaging scans and using standard questionnaires to determine their level of anxiety and predilection for negative bias. Previous studies of people diagnosed with anxiety have found similar correlations between the size of the IFC and anxiety and negative bias, said U. of I. psychology postdoctoral researcher Sanda Dolcos, who led the study with graduate student Yifan Hu. But the new findings, reported in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, are the first to see these same dynamics in healthy adults, the researchers said. "You would expect these brain changes more in clinical populations where anxiety is very serious, but we are seeing differences even in the brains of healthy young adults," Dolcos said. The study also found that the relationship between the size of the IFC and a student's negative bias was mediated by their level of anxiety. "People who have smaller volumes have higher levels of anxiety; people who have larger IFCs tend to have lower levels of anxiety," Dolcos said. And higher anxiety is associated with more negative bias, she said. "How we see this is that the higher volume of the IFC confers resilience." "We found that larger IFC volume is protecting against negative bias through lower levels of trait anxiety," Hu said. According to the American College Health Association, anxiety is rampant on college campuses, where nearly 60 percent of students report at least one troubling bout of anxious worry every year. University of Illinois psychology researcher Sanda Dolcos and graduate student Yifan Hu found brain differences among healthy college students that are linked to their risk of anxiety and negative bias. Credit: L. Brian Stauffer "There is a very high level of anxiety in the student population, and this is affecting their life, their academic performance, everything," Dolcos said. "We are interested in identifying what is going on and preventing them from moving to the next level and developing clinical anxiety." Anxiety can interfere with many dimensions of life, causing a person to be on high alert for potential problems even under the best of circumstances, Hu said. Negative bias also can interfere with a person's commitment to activities that might further their life goals, she said. Understanding the interrelatedness of brain structure, function and personality traits such as anxiety and their behavioral effects such as negative bias will help scientists develop interventions to target specific brain regions in healthy populations, Hu said. "We hope to be able to train the brain to function better," she said. "That way, we might prevent these at-risk people from moving on to more severe anxiety." More information: Yifan Hu et al, Trait anxiety mediates the link between inferior frontal cortex volume and negative affective bias in healthy adults, Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience (2017). Journal information: Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Yifan Hu et al, Trait anxiety mediates the link between inferior frontal cortex volume and negative affective bias in healthy adults,(2017). DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsx008 People who consumed low-fat dairy products between one and four times a week are less depressed. Credit: Tohoku University People who consume low-fat milk and yogurt, rather than whole-fat dairy products, are less likely to have depression, according to researchers in Japan and China. Dairy consumption has long been linked to a wide range of physical health benefits, but its effect on emotional health has remained unclear. Now, a new study published in the journal Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology reveals that people who consume low-fat dairy products may be less prone to depression Professor Ryoichi Nagatomi of Tohoku University and colleagues in Japan and China investigated the association between whole and low-fat dairy consumption and depressive symptoms such as exhaustion, sadness, anxiety, helplessness and hopelessness. This is the first study to consider different components of dairy products (whole fat and low fat) and the occurrence of depression. The study involved 1,159 Japanese adults between the ages of 19 and 83. There were 897 men and 262 women, of which 31.2% and 31.7% respectively, were depressed. The researchers asked the participants in a questionnaire how often they consumed whole- or low-fat milk or yogurt. Depressive symptoms were evaluated using the self-rating depression scale, which consists of 20 questions and is a tool to distinguish people with and without depression. The result showed that people who consumed low-fat dairy products between one and four times a week are less depressed. The correlation remained even after considering other critical factors such as age, sex, health status, nutrition status and life style. The study found no association between whole-fat milk consumption and depressive symptoms. The researchers speculate that this is because trans-fatty acid contained in whole fat milk, which is associated with depression, cancelled out the anti-depressive effect of another milk component, tryptophan. The researchers note that since this was a cross-sectional study that analyzed a population at a single point in time, it could not explain what actually caused such outcomes. Other dairy products, such as cheese and butter, were not included in the study. It is also unclear whether milk or yogurt had a stronger influence. Further studies are necessary to confirm and clarify the causality of the findings. More information: Yufei Cui et al. Consumption of low-fat dairy, but not whole-fat dairy, is inversely associated with depressive symptoms in Japanese adults, Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology (2017). Yufei Cui et al. Consumption of low-fat dairy, but not whole-fat dairy, is inversely associated with depressive symptoms in Japanese adults,(2017). DOI: 10.1007/s00127-016-1333-1 The molecule microRNA-210 stabilises deposits in the carotid artery and can prevent them from tearing. Thus, it may prevent dangerous blood clots from forming. This is what scientists headed by Prof. Lars Magdefessel, Professor of Vascular Biology at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and head of a junior scientist group in the German Centre for Cardiovascular Research (DZHK) have discovered. Their results open up new treatment approaches to reduce stroke risk in patients with carotid arteries at risk of rupturing. The most common cause for the narrowing of the carotid artery is atherosclerosis, where so-called plaques build up on the vessel walls. If a plaque ruptures, blood clots can form that either further occlude the site that is already narrowed, or are carried away by the blood flow, which could lead to vascular occlusion at a different site. If this happens in the carotid artery, it could lead to a stroke. How easily a plaque ruptures depends on how thick the tissue layer surrounding its core is. The thicker this so-called fibrous cap, the more stable and therefore more harmless the vessel deposit. Stabilizing instead of reducing "New imaging procedures enable us to detect dangerous plaques with increasing precision; but the therapies currently available for removing these unstable plaques and thus preventing a stroke entail a certain amount of risk that the plaques will rupture during the procedure", explains Lars Magdefessel. "This is why these therapies are not used on individuals with a narrowed carotid artery who have so far not experienced any symptoms." Traditionally, physicians try to reduce the size of the deposits in the vessels in order to widen the narrowed sites. "For narrowed carotid arteries, though, the notion of stabilising the plaques is becoming ever more prevalent. Unlike in the coronary vessels, in the carotid artery plaques rupturing is more dangerous than the narrowing", says Magdefessel. Tiny regulators Magdefessel and his team compared material from patients with stable and unstable deposits in the carotid artery. They particularly focused on microRNAs. These molecules are involved in the gene regulation in about 60 percent of mammals' genes. They can prevent gene information that has already been read from being translated into proteins, and have become a focus of biomedical research as active ingredients and starting points for new therapies in recent years. The scientists discovered that microRNA-210 was reduced the most in the blood samples of patients with unstable plaques. These were blood samples that were obtained locally near the vessel deposits. Further examinations showed that microRNA-210 is primarily present in the fibrous caps of plaques and that it inhibits the expression of the APC gene. As a consequence, fewer smooth muscle cells die in the fibrous cap and it becomes more stable. Moreover, the animal model could show that fewer plaques rupture when microRNA-210 is administered. Local application is crucial The scientists are currently researching how microRNA-210 can be applied locally. The risk of adverse events in other organs is much too high if microRNA modulators are administered systemically. The main concern with microRNA-210 is that tumour cells that are possibly already in existence will multiply, because the expression of APC is inhibited. This is because APC is a tumor suppressor gene which inhibits the growth of cancers in the healthy body. In order to avoid such so-called off-target effects, the researchers are currently testing coated stents or balloons that are inserted directly into the carotid artery in pigs. "For this step, we also rely on the collaboration with companies that, for example, develop soft balloons that cause little friction and thus make the procedure safer", says Magdefessel. "Only thus will our results reach patients as effective therapies." More information: Suzanne M. Eken et al, MicroRNA-210 Enhances Fibrous Cap Stability in Advanced Atherosclerotic LesionsNovelty and Significance, Circulation Research (2017). Journal information: Circulation Research Suzanne M. Eken et al, MicroRNA-210 Enhances Fibrous Cap Stability in Advanced Atherosclerotic LesionsNovelty and Significance,(2017). DOI: 10.1161/CIRCRESAHA.116.309318 Credit: Thinkstock A UTS-led study of the effects of smoking electronic cigarettes during pregnancy has been hailed by the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand (TSANZ) in its stand against legalising nicotine in e-cigarettes. Using a mouse model and human lung cells, the UTS Molecular Biosciences Research Team study, led by Pawan Sharma, David Chapman and Brian Oliver, found e-cigarette vaping among expectant mothers increased the risk and severity of allergic asthma in their babies. "E-cigarettes are being regarded as a tool to help quit smoking, so we considered the effect of maternal e-cigarette vaping an important area to look in to," Dr Sharma said. "Our study indicated e-vaping in pregnancy was associated with reduced lung function and an increased risk of asthma in the mothers' offspring. These findings show that e-cigarette use during pregnancy should not be considered safe." The UTS team's research is supported by an international study in which laboratory trials concluded that when e-cigarettes are used as a healthier substitute for tobacco smoking during pregnancy, mothers may still be posing significant neurological risks to their unborn offspring. Earlier this year, Australia's drug regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) rejected an application to relax the ban on e-cigarettes containing nicotine. Professor Peter Gibson, TSANZ President, said the evidence did not support the lifting of the ban. "While electronic cigarettes are likely to be less dangerous than smoking cigarettes, they are not harmless," he said. "We have an increasing body of evidence pointing to the harms of e-cigarettes containing nicotine." Australia's ban on e-cigarettes containing nicotine was introduced in 2009. In September 2016, an application to the TGA proposed nicotine in e-cigarettes at certain concentrations should be exempt on the basis that they provide an alternative pathway for smokers who are unable or unwilling to quit. The TGA decided in March to continue the ban. Dr Chapman said e-cigarettes still exposed users to numerous toxic compounds. "It is unknown whether a reduction in these compounds equates to improved health outcomes. Nicotine is a highly addictive compound and itself leads to detrimental health outcomes." Murdoch University hosted Australia's first training for an innovative method of assessing the mental health of preschool aged children. This assessment tool, the Preschool Aged Psychiatric Assessment (PAPA), uses semi-structured interviews to diagnose psychiatric symptoms in children up to five years of age. Professor Megan Galbally, Murdoch University's Foundation Chair in Perinatal Psychiatry, hosted the four-day workshop by Brian Small from Duke University in the United States. "PAPA training is widely used around the world on large studies of child mental health but this was the first opportunity for researchers to learn more about it in Australia," she said. "The session was extremely informative and we putting the PAPA assessment tool into practice for the next stage of our research." Professor Galbally and her colleague Associate Professor Andrew Lewis are leading the Mercy Pregnancy Emotional Wellbeing Study, a project that has followed 300 women from pregnancy through to now when their children are turning three years of age. This study has examined many of the areas the development of the relationship between a mother and her child over pregnancy and into the postpartum period. We have investigated a wide range of factors that may act to protect a mother against anxiety and depression over this period," Professor Galbally said. "The PAPA assessment will now enable us to assess the mental health of the children born in this study." Results from the MPEWS study will be released later this year. An example of long-lasting insecticidal bed nets funded by USAID and distributed in health centres in Mozambique. Credit: Ana Rita Sequeira In the last decade, the United States has played a leading funder role in the preparedness and responses to global infectious outbreaks and the delivery of basic healthcare in developing countries. The proposed aid cuts in the U.S. 2018 budget arguably represent at the very least, a serious setback in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and would diminish the capacity to prevent and coordinate interventions to address human health security issues, like Ebola. The reduction of funding to national disease surveillance systems, training and infrastructure in the developing world means lowering the guard to deliver rapid, coordinated and consistent assistance to tackle borderless infectious diseases. In a recent interview commenting on Trump's proposed 2018 budget, the American economist Jeffrey Sachs said the cuts could lead to millions of deaths. Whatever the outcome of the US budget battle, the world must agree on new aid architecture, with strong leadership that pushes the international community to commit more financial resources. Before Trump's Era In 2015, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) statistics showed a U.S contribution to aid of over US$29b, through bilateral agreements (country to country), multilateral commitments (United Nations, World Bank, and others) and international and local non-governmental organisations. One-third of these financial resources (US$11b) have been used to fund basic healthcare services, and water and sanitation programs in developing countries, including diagnosis tests for malaria and HIV/AIDS, drugs, bednets, and new infrastructure as health centres, hospitals, and biomedical research centres. Altogether, U.S.leadership strengthen disease surveillance systems and global coordination on epidemic outbreaks by funding professional training, research centres, and working closely with developing countries. The U.S.'s commitment and leading role in pushing the agenda to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis were noteworthy through the creation of President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) in 2002, and the President's Malaria Initiative (PMI) in 2005, and substantial contributions to The Global Fund (US$10b in 2015). U.S's major financial contributions and the global commitment to the Millennium Development Goals resulted in significant achievements in the last 15 years (Millennium Development Goals(MDG): new HIV infections dropped by almost one-third from the epidemic peak; tuberculosis deaths declined by 3.7% between 2000 and 2013; child deaths from malaria in sub-Saharan Africa have dropped 31.5%, the under-five mortality rate has declined by more than half, and maternal mortality is down 45 percent worldwide in major diseases as HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis. If approved by the Congress, the budget proposed by Trump's administration would create uncertainty as to how to sustain MDG's results and achieve the SDG in 2030. Blueprint? The recently announced U.S. budget for 2018 "America First: A budget blueprint to make America great again" is sweet-and-sour on the international aid. Some important programs such as PEPFAR and PMI will be kept, but the aid flow channelled through distinct recipients (UN, Development banks, NGOs, etc.) will be reduced as a whole. This chain effect compromises the global effort to improve the health outcomes of people living in developing countries, especially their access to medical treatments and care. Proposed 2018 US budget changes in international aid: Cuts: The Fogarty International Centre Direct funding for international organizations such as the Department of State and USAID (-28%), multilateral development banks, including the World Bank, (US$650 million over three years), contribution to UN budget and UN peacekeeping costs (up to 25%) The Global Climate Change Initiative and the Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance accounts Maintains: President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) & President's Malaria Initiative (PMI) The Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria contribution pledge for 2017. Uncalculated costs Jeffrey Sachs's warning about the consequences of cuts in US contributions to international aid programs are particularly pertinent vis-a-vis health security, as global epidemics are an unpredictable threat with unforeseen consequences requiring continuous financial resources and coordination. The latest Ebola outbreak (2014-2016) showed there was no robust and timely surveillance systems and local preparedness to tackle highly transmissible diseases. In Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea, the human costs of the Ebola epidemics were enormous, killing over 11 000 people from Ebola, and around 21 000 additional deaths due to the reduction in access to healthcare services. The economic burden for these West African countries accounted for US$2.2b of the GDP. The international community response was estimated in US$3.6b, including US$2.3b from the U.S. government. The fair share? Trump has justified the US's aid budget cuts by stating that it's now time for "the world to pay their fair share." But the spending picture as a percentage of the gross national income (GNI) proves to be different. The signers of the Paris Declaration (2005) and the Accra Agenda for Action (2008) committed themselves to a contribution of 0.8% ratio of GNI to bilateral, multilateral and NGOs initiatives in developing countries. In 2015, the top donors to promote the economic development and welfare of developing countries were Sweden, United Arabs Emirates, Norway, Luxembourg, and Denmark, all above 0.8% of GNI (1.4%, 1.1%, 1.0%, 0.95 and 0.8%, respectively).The U.S comes in 23rd position (0.16% of GNI) showing how marginal its relative contribution is compared with Malta, for example, which ranks 21st. The interdependency of human health security concerns means the international community must achieve a robust coordination and financial commitment to disentangle historical inequalities and injustices that lead to 80% of the world's population living in the Global South with access to an unequal share (20%) of the world's resources and human welfare. This would represent a truly "fair share". What's next? Until 2017, U.S had a leading role in the areas of funding, research training and intervention. If approved by the Congress, Trump's first budget proposal is a game-changer by lowering the global response to finance basic healthcare in the developing world, and reducing the global disease surveillance systems. These new changes demand a new architecture and leadership in international aid, whether that calls for an action from a block of countries (leading EU countries and South-South Cooperation), to charities and foundations like Bill and Melinda Gates, or public and private partnership, or all together. The world needs to take a coordinated action, and we are all responsible for its results. This story is republished courtesy of PLOS Blogs: blogs.plos.org. Sygnia CEO Magda Wierzycka said President Jacob Zuma should be offered as much money as he wants, and full immunity, to convince him to step down. Speaking to Bruce Whitfield on CNBC MoneyMaker, Wierzycka said it will be a good investment for South Africa. The damage that can be done to the country and the economy in a very short period of time is so much greater than any amount of money that Zuma could possibly want to live out his years, she said. Wierzycka also criticised big business in South Africa for not speaking out against Zumas actions. I believe we have a very powerful voice which we should be bringing to the table, she said. We are sitting with a situation which was completely and artificially created by one mans whim in dismissing Pravin Gordhan. So lets be clear. A few weeks ago, we did not have credit ratings downgrades on the table. Now we are junk. She said the downgrades will affect every part of society, and are particularly bad news for the poor. We should be talking about poverty, inequality, social welfare, job creation, economic growth, education, and health care, she said. Instead, we are talking about graft, corruption, SASSA contracts, peoples love lives, peoples emails, SMSes, and BEE deals. It is ridiculous. UK wants to work more with the U.S. on gas supplies EU admits: It is impossible to set a ceiling on gas prices that will not affect contracts or security of supply Most valuable metal of year is named Mehr: Nikolai Patrushev arrives in Tehran Turkish TV company confesses that Ankara and Israel were arming Azerbaijan against Armenia Who is Baku threatening? Armenia's former deputy defense minister decodes Aliyev's statements Army Commander-in-Chief: Even those who claim to be superpowers do not dare to attack Iran Iran and Russia to build joint pipeline India to continue buying Russian oil Businessman Zhong Shanshan becomes richest man in China Armenia and Poland emphasize OSCE role in promoting stability in South Caucasus Banks are searched in Germany in case of money laundering by Russian businessman Armenian President reacts to Aliyev's speech at League of Arab States summit Armenia increases trade with EEU member states by $1.2 bln Cavusoglu: Sweden and Finland have not yet fulfilled all Turkey's conditions Oldest member of Rothschild dynasty die in Britain Armenian National Security Council head and Polish Secretary of State discuss regional security issues Stepantsminda-Lars highway faces restrictions Kyiv realizes if China starts supplying ammunition to Russian troops it will be terrible State Department: U.S. remains committed to supporting peace in South Caucasus region Iran condemns thousand protesters and calls for retaliation against rest Delegation from Israel visits Museum-Institute of the Armenian Genocide Media: London is close to agreement with Washington on LNG supplies Aliyev in fact confirms fact of Azerbaijani aggression against sovereign territory of Armenia Toivo Klaar: Important meeting held in Washington between Armenia, Azerbaijan FMs Aliyev switches from threatening Armenia to insulting foreign leaders Karabakh ombudsman: Todays occupation does not change status of Shushi Envoy briefs Kazakhstan human rights commissioner on consequences of Azerbaijan aggression against Armenia Dollar, euro continue to rise in Armenia U.S. Ambassador to UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield arrives in Kiev EU partners welcome justice sector reforms in Armenia Armenia government to have academic city project development working group Rybar: Publication of Iranian film about 'skeletons' of Aliyev family is blow to positions of Aliyev family Zelenskyy to attend G20 leaders' summit Voting for midterm elections to Congress begins in U.S. Russian MFA offers Tehran and Riyadh to mediate dialogue Survey: Georgia residents say Armenia is their friend Arman Yeghoyan to Poland colleague: Armenia needs support from European platforms State Department official: American side is impressed by Armenia Police reforms Anna Astvatsaturian Turcotte: I realized that this project is the right one Heads of general staffs of CSTO countries armies to discuss military cooperation development President: Climate change agenda continues to remain priority for Armenia despite challenges, security concerns Armenia discusses issue of EEU citizens' stay in country for more than 180 days Economy minister: 74% of Diaspora Armenians ready to invest in Armenia Constitutional Court of Georgia revokes ban on pornography 158 people die in Philippines storm Close to $7.5M allocated for Armenia scientific infrastructure, material, technical base modernization Byblos Bank Armenia finances the construction of two major solar parks Bloomberg: EU mechanism to provide Ukraine with $18 billion implies conditions Turkey voices its full and unconditional support for Azerbaijan Ombudsperson attends Armenia-EU Human Rights Dialogue session, presents facts recorded in her ad hoc reports Israeli embassy congratulates Azerbaijan on 'Victory Day' World gold prices going down Ankara offers its storage capacity for Russian grain Zelenskiy calls key conditions for talks with Russia Bitcoin price goes down Copper price goes down World oil prices dropping Blinken: Armenia and Azerbaijan are taking courageous steps to achieve peace Newspaper: What changes expected in "Brussels package" of Armenia-Azerbaijan normalization talks? 13 billion cubic meters of natural gas found off Israel coast State Security Service of Azerbaijan is scared by YouTube video about situation in Nakhichevan Newspaper: There were serious problems in organizing Global Armenian Summit MFA: Armenia, Azerbaijan FMs agree to expedite their negotiations President: UAE is a responsible energy supplier as long as the world needs oil and gas EU has serious concerns about US inflation reduction act Head of IMF: The global surge in consumer prices may be close to the high point Germany wants EU to resume trade talks with US as soon as possible Pashinyan's closed meeting with MPs of ruling Civil Contract faction is over Hungary will not support EU efforts to help Ukraine with joint funds Greece to soon ban sale of spyware U.S. military delegation arrives in Turkey German industry calls for postponement of global minimum corporate tax Podolyak: Ukraine has never refused to negotiate Elon Musk calls on 'independent-minded' voters to vote for Republicans Bezos Earth Fund pledges $1 billion by 2030 to protect carbon stocks and biodiversity 7 people killed in collision between truck and passenger bus in Turkey Nikol Pashinyan holds closed meeting with members of ruling party faction Qatar's foreign minister calls criticism of West 'arrogant' and 'racist' Algeria officially applies to join BRICS group Delegations headed by Armenian and Azerbaijani FMs meet in Washington French Finance Minister calls on EU to oppose U.S. Armenian President: Aliyev's statements about intentional destruction of mosques have nothing to do with reality German MFA reports constructive talks in EU on new sanctions against Iran Kazakhstani President Tokayev instructs to increase oil supplies bypassing Russia President of Artsakh holds expanded working meeting Armenian Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports to receive more than 250 billion drams in 2023 Borrell says EU is dependent on supplies from China Armenia official: Peace treaty implies restoration of sovereign territory Guterres thinks mankind is heading for climate hell 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 Lyca, the organisation producing 'Superstar' Rajiikanth's next film, has developed a village for Sri Lankan Tamils affected by the bloody conflict between the LTTE and the island nation's government. It has now been inaugurated, days after Rajinikanth cancelled his trip to the site following protests in Tamil Nadu. By Akshaya Nath: A village developed by Lyca for Sri Lankan Tamils affected by the war between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Sri Lankan government, was inaugurated on Wednesay, days after Kollywood icon Rajinikanth cancelled his visit to the site. Lyca is owned by a Sri Lankan Tamil, and its village has as many as 400 houses. It also happens to be producing 'Superstar'Rajinikanth's next film, Enthiran 2.0. advertisement Rajinikanth - along with North Province Chief Minister C V Vigneshwaran, and Opposition leader Sumantharan - were supposed to attend the inauguration of the village on Wednesday. But it wasn't to be - the veteran actor called off his visit following protests by Tamil groups in India. "Lyca is an organisation (which), though owned by a Sri Lankan Tamil, has former President Mahinda Rajapaksa involved in it, and we are against the same. We don't have a problem in Rajini visiting Sri Lanka, but we have a problem in him becoming the face of Lyca's agenda," said Thol Thirumavalavan, the leader of the Viduthalai Chiruththaigal Katchi (VCK). North Province chief minister Vigneshwaran, too cancelled his visit to the village at the last minute. Only opposition party leader Sumantharan, a Tamil leader, was present for the inauguration. ALSO READ | Lyca claims Rajinikanth's visit to Sri Lanka was cancelled due to political lies ALSO READ | Rajinikanth Lanka visit row: It would have overshadowed Tamilians' protest, says VCK chief Thirumavalavan ALSO WATCH | Watch: Rajinikanth cancels Sri Lanka visit after protests from Tamil groups --- ENDS --- The Union information and broadcast minister said people have a duty to protect the environment and should work to provide a better future for the younger generation. By Mail Today Bureau: While India's young population is hungry to consume and manufacture more commodities and power, we also have a duty to protect the environment, Union Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore said on Wednesday. "We need energy, especially because 65% of our country is under 35 years of age. At present, there is a wide gap between how much an average Indian consumes, as compared to his American counterpart. We consume 1000 KWH per capita and Americans consume 12,000 KWH per capita," said the Olympic medalist at the Mail Today 3rd Energy Conclave. advertisement This provides great potential, he said. "But we also have a commitment to our environment. This is our window of opportunity to provide a better future for our younger generation," he said at a session on 'Go Green - Potential and Investment Opportunities'. "This is why the government is focused on expanding renewable energy," he said. Adding that the government is willing to try out-of the-box solutions, he said people were receptive to innovative ideas if it meant improvement in their lifestyle. "More than 1.2 crore people gave up LPG subsidy on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's plea to the country. They were mostly average Indians - teachers, govt officials, doctors. As much as Rs 14,000 crore has been recovered through these subsidies. Indians are willing to do whatever is required to make a country stronger and better." He also referred to Delhiites trying out the 'Odd-Even formula'. "People are willing to commit to anything if it improves the quality of their life and that of their children." He said all strata of society need to be introduced to lifestyle changes that will help conserve energy. 'PEOPLE MUST SET AN EXAMPLE' "That is where celebrities and eminent people come in. If they adopt an environment-friendly lifestyle, they inspire others to follow suit," said Rathore, who has also served in the army. Rathore highlighted the role of corporate entities for society to go green. "It's a cycle. We require electricity, which increases manufacturing, which in turn produces more jobs. This leads to fuel demand. How long can we keep producing more energy? That is where corporates come in to invest in research on technology." He said corporates can also help government with policymaking. "The government is focused on two-way communication. Ministers engage with the citizens and bring back feedback on policies. The government is focused on policy making, but it cannot do it in isolation. It has to be completely in synergy with corporates, who are experts in specific subjects and can give feedback on policies formulated." He said corporates are also subtly informing people that conservation is extremely critical and advertising it through their products. advertisement Rathore also said products which are outside the ambit of the proposed Goods and Services Tax, such as petroleum, are likely to be included soon. "Now, we are moving forward and soon, other products like petroleum will also come under the GST." ALSO READ | Environment an essential component of education, compulsory subject in schools: HRD Ministry ALSO READ | Girl, 9, sues government over inaction on climate change in 52-page petition --- ENDS --- Opponents of constitutional amendments, suggesting the country's transition from a parliamentary republic to a presidential one, are unable to conduct a full-fledged campaign in Turkey ahead of the referendum, Director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), Michael Georg Link told Die Welt, The DW reported. According to him, additional obstacles are imposed for the opponents of the amendments. Some of them are intimidated, he noted, the state media characterize them as adversaries and conspirators. Link noted that the main problem is opposition parties deputies' arrests, in particular, pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party, members of which are the main opponents of the constitutional amendments. As a result, this party cannot organize a full-fledged campaign. According to Link, another obstacle is the restriction of freedom of assembly, demonstrations and rallies, introduced after the failed coup attempt, which took place last summer. The OSCE Representative considers that an additional problem is bias of the Turkish media and imbalance of the information provided by them. This was the result of the mass arrests of opposition journalists and the closure of a number of opposition editions. As Link noted, 158 media outlets were closed and more than a thousand journalists remained without work since July last year. Turkish voters will head to the polls, in a controversial referendum on April 16 that could vastly expand the powers of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The Court of Cassation of Baku considered the appeal by blogger Alexander Lapshinwho is in custody the capital city of Azerbaijanagainst the April 7 ruling of a Baku district court, and whereby his arrest was extended for three months. The cassation court, however, rejected the appeal, informed Trend news agency of Azerbaijan. After his visits to Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) in 2011 and 2012, Israeli Russian blogger and journalist Alexander Lapshin was blacklisted by Azerbaijan. In June 2016, however, he paid a visit to Azerbaijan--but with a Ukrainian passport--and, subsequently, he published several articles criticizing the Azerbaijani authorities. Afterward, Azerbaijan issued an international search for this famous blogger. On December 15, 2016, Lapshin was detained in the Belarusian capital city of Minsk, and based on this search. On January 26 of the current year, the Minsk city court dismissed the blogger's appeal of the Belarusian General Prosecutor's Office decision to extradite him to Azerbaijan. On February 7, the Supreme Court of Belarus dismissed the appeals that were filed into this case, and upheld the aforesaid decision by the General Prosecutors Office. And on the evening of the same day, Belarus extradited Alexander Lapshin to the Azerbaijani capital city of Baku, where he was taken into custody. By PTI: From Youssra El-Sharkawy Cairo, Apr 13 (PTI) Egyptian authorities today identified the second bomber who blew himself up during a Palm Sunday service at a Coptic Christian church in the northern city of Tanta. The interior ministry identified the attacker has been identified as 40-year-old Mamdouh Amin Mohamed Baghdady, who lived in the upper Egyptian City of Qena. advertisement It said he was a member of a "terrorist" cell, and announced the arrest of three other members of the cell. This is the second identification as yesterday the Ministry identified the suicide bomber responsible for the other Palm Sundays attack that took place at Alexandrias St Marks Cathedral. The attacker was identified as Mahmud Hassan Mubarak Abdullah, born in Qena in 1986. At least 46 people were killed and more than 120 others injured in the twin bombings that hit Egypts St George Cathedral in Tanta and St Marks Cathedral in Alexandria on Palm Sunday. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks. The ministry said Abdallah and Baghdady were associates of Amr Saad Abbas Ibrahim, a fugitive who is the leader of a terrorist cell that orchestrated last Decembers deadly suicide bombing of Cairos St Peter and St Pauls Church, which killed 29 worshipers, mostly women and children. Coptic Christians make up about 10 per cent of Egypts population of 85 million. Egypts Christian minority has often been targeted by Islamist militants. Egypt has seen a wave of attacks by militants since 2013 when the military toppled president Mohammed Morsi, an elected leader who hailed from the Muslim Brotherhood, and launched a crackdown against Islamists. PTI YES PMS --- ENDS --- By Press Trust of India: From Sajjad Hussain Islamabad, Apr 13 (PTI) The secretary-level talks between India and Pakistan on the Indus Water Treaty relating to two controversial hydropower projects have been postponed until the end of this month, a Pakistani media report today said. The talks were scheduled for April 11-13 but have been delayed until the end of April, The Nation reported quoting sources, but didnt cite any reason for the postponement. advertisement Pakistans Minister for Power and Water Khawaja Asif last month had said the two sides would meet in Washington on April 11-13 to resolve the issues related to Kishanganga (330MWs) and Ratle (850 MWs) projects India is constructing in Jammu and Kashmir. However, Indus Water Treaty Commissioner Asif Baig told the newspaper that April 11-13 were not the scheduled dates for the meeting as these dates were only a proposal. He said the World Bank with the consensus of both the countries will provide new dates for the meeting. He said he does not know about the new dates. Pakistan has reservations over the designs of both the hydropower projects and is seeking the International Court of Arbitration (ICA) through the World Bank - the so-called guarantor of the 1960 treaty - while India insists to resolve the issue through neutral experts. Under the Indus Water Treaty, New Delhi has to share all details of any hydropower project on the rivers on which Pakistan has water rights under the treaty. Pakistan says no design of these projects was shared, which is a violation of the 57-year-old treaty. PTI SH ABH --- ENDS --- Michigan Launches Updated Rx Drug Monitoring Program Announced April 11, the new Michigan Automated Prescription System (MAPS) uses Appriss Health's PMP AWARxE and replaces an older MAPS platform. Michigan this week launched a new Michigan Automated Prescription System (MAPS) using Appriss Health's PMP AWARxE. The new system replaces the old MAPS "and puts Michigan at the forefront of prescription drug monitoring technology," according to the state Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, known as LARA. The department's Bureau of Professional Licensing administers the MAPS portal. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder formed the Michigan Prescription Drug and Opioid Abuse Task Force in June 2015, and a key recommendation from the task force was to update and replace the old MAPS platform. "Replacing the outdated MAPS is central in our fight against the opioid epidemic that has been so tragic for Michigan families," said Lt. Gov. Brian Calley, who chaired the task force. "The modern system gives prescribers and dispensers state-of-the-art tools to make more informed decisions, intervene earlier and spend additional time with patients and customers." LARA's announced said the new portal gives prescribers in Michigan a user-friendly portal, making it more efficient for practitioners to obtain information of controlled substances and Schedule 2-5 drugs that have been dispensed. (Prescribers include dentists, physicians (MD, DO), physician assistants, podiatrists, optometrists, veterinarians and advanced practice registered nurses under delegation.) "The successful and timely launch of the new MAPS was a direct result of the collaborative efforts between the state of Michigan, legislators, and the medical community," LARA Director Shelly Edgerton said. "We're hopeful prescribers and practitioners from across the state will utilize this powerful system to effectively measure a patient's potential danger in abusing these addictive drugs." A $2.47 million appropriation from the state legislature gave LARA the opportunity to begin replacing the old system in 2016, and a subsequent $2.02 million appropriation covers ongoing maintenance and support of the new system. LARA completed a six-month implementation as of April 4, 2017. Louisville, Ky.-based Appriss Health also announced April 11 that pharmacies in Kroger's Michigan stores have fully integrated the Michigan Automated Prescription System data and advanced analytics into their workflow. "We are proud to partner with the state of Michigan on this system that will provide practitioners with a widespread exchange of information and advanced analytics to efficiently identify patient drug abuse," said Rob Cohen, president of Appriss Health. In 1867, the Leinenkugel family started making beer in Chippewa Falls, Wis. To celebrate 150 years of family brewing traditions, the Leinenkugels are throwing a party and youre invited. The event runs from Aug. 11-12 this summer at the Northern Wisconsin State Fairgrounds in Chippewa Falls. It will feature live music, food, shops, games and, of course, beer. There will be four stages of music with headliners Jerrod Niemann on Friday and Collective Soul on Saturday. Ongoing tours will take place in the brewery, which is next door. Guests will also have the chance to meet members of the Leinenkugel family, sample beer, eat local food and play outdoor games. Two-day advance tickets are $35; a one-day advance ticket is $18; tickets at the gate are $20. For more information or to purchase tickets, go here. Attendees must be 21 years old or older. A peasant from the village of Selbo in northern Burkina Faso gestures near grass he planted to help stop the advance of the Sahara desert, on October 11, 2009 In Burkina Faso, what was once stony semi-wasteland is now covered in verdant crop fields, rescued from relentless desertification. Using simple agricultural techniques largely spread by word-of-mouth, this tiny West African state has rejuvenated vast stretches of scrubby soil over the past 30 years, proving they are not doomed and giving hope to other vulnerable areas in the region. One success story is Rim, a peaceful hamlet of about 3,000 people in the country's north, close to the border with Mali. Below the village as far as the eye can see, tall stalks groan under the weight of fat cobs of "baniga", a white sorghum grown in this part of the country. "This place was a desert. But the people succeeded in regreening the region," said Amanda Lenhardt, a researcher with Britain's Overseas Development Institute (ODI), who authored a report on farming developments in Burkina Faso. Called "zai" or "stone contour", the low-cost techniques were devised from some of the region's traditional farming techniques, nudged along with some outside help. They have gained favour in different parts of the Sahel regiona semi-arid band that spans the continent with the Sahara Desert to the north and African savannah lands to the southbut have seen particular success in Burkina Faso. In Rim, as in other parts of the country's north, farmers now swear by "zai" after again producing food on land considered lost to agriculturethe occupation of at least 80 percent of the population. The technique consists of building little stone barriers to trap runoff water and ensure it seeps into the ground, preventing erosion, agronomist Paulin Drabo explained. Holes for planting are then dug next to the stones and packed with fertiliser, which together with the improved hydration, helps crops sprout up quickly. "Before, when we planted on bare ground, we harvested nothing. Now, with the technique they showed us, the meal grows well," Sita Rouamba, a female farmer, said happily. The shift to sustainable techniques has also expanded the supply of arable land. A farmer collects ears of Nerica rice near Fada Ngourouma, in the region of the dam of Bagre, eastern Burkina Faso, on April 23, 2008 In the past, farmers scrambled for plots on the banks of rivers, where the soil is most fertile. Now they can grow food "on any kind of soil, no matter how degraded", said 38-year-old Souleymane Porgo, a hoe slung over his shoulder. Farm yields are also vastly improved. 'Store full of grain' "At the moment, my store is full of grain I haven't touched. I also have plenty of beans," Souleymane's father, Saidou, who heads a family of 11 children and several grandchildren, said. His yields have made him a man of means, with goats, a motorbike and cattle, which can be sold to pay for food if a harvest fails. "All of this helps me properly care for my family," Saidou said with pride. Around 30 producers in Rim have converted to "zai" farming, out of around 700,000 nationwide, said Joel Ouedraogo, director of the Federation Nationale des Groupements Naam, a non-governmental organisation that works with farmers. Between 200,000 and 300,000 hectares (500,000 and 740,000 acres) of barren land an area roughly the size of Luxembourghave been rehabilitated, he estimated. In a region threatened by the advancing Sahara sands, the results are impressive, the ODI's Lenhardt said. Burkina Faso shows it is "possible" to combat climate change, said the Canadian, who credits the rapid adoption of the new techniques to word-of-mouth. Seen from the sky the change is dramatic. The parched, ochre-coloured stretches are the areas where "zai" farming has yet to take root. The green tracts in between are the newly fertile zones. Nutrition is always a concern in Burkina Faso but the bid to beat back the desert goes beyond food security alone. Like many developing countries the impoverished former French colony is grappling with a rural exodus, which is straining resources in urban centres. The better the prospects from farming the lesser the lure of city life for young people, who account for 60 per cent of the population of 17 million. Souleymane Porgo represents a new generation of young villager, who sees his future on the land. Souleymane left Rim to seek his fortune in neighbouring Ivory Coast seven years ago. Six years after being wooed back by the "zai" revolution, the father of four is home to stay. 2015 AFP A decline of species abundance in hunted forest within 0-40 km from hunter access points. Credit: Radboud University/Joeri Borst Hunting is a major threat to wildlife particularly in tropical regions, but a systematic, large-scale estimate of hunting-induced declines of animal numbers has been lacking. A study published in Science on April 14 fills this gap. An international team of ecologists and environmental scientists found that bird and mammal populations were reduced within 7 and 40 km of hunters' access points, such as roads and settlements. Within these impact zones, mammal populations declined on average by 83 percent and bird populations by 58 percent. Additionally, the team found that commercial hunting had a greater impact than hunting for family food, and that hunting pressure was higher in areas with better accessibility to major towns where wild meat could be traded. The impact of hunting was found to be larger than the team expected. "Thanks to this study, we estimate that only 17 percent of the original mammal abundance and 42 percent of the birds remain in hunted areas." The researchers synthesised 176 studies to quantify hunting-induced declines of mammal and bird populations across the tropics of Central and South America, Africa and Asia. The study was led by Ana Benitez-Lopez, who works at the department of Environmental Science at Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. She cooperated with researchers from the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL), the universities of Wageningen and Utrecht in the Netherlands and a colleague from the School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex. Higher hunting pressure around villages and roads "There are several drivers of animal decline in tropical landscapes: habitat destruction, overhunting, fragmentation etcetera. While deforestation and habitat loss can be monitored using remote sensing, hunting can only be tracked on the ground. We wanted to find a systematic and consistent way to estimate the impact of hunting across the tropics. As a starting point, we used the hypothesis that humans gather resources in a circle around their village and in the proximity of roads. As such, hunting pressure is higher in the proximity of villages and other access points. From there, the densities of species increase up to a distance where no effect of hunting is observed. We called this 'species depletion distances,' which we quantified in our analysis. This allowed us to map hunting-induced declines across the tropics for the first time," Benitez-Lopez explains. Not only the big cuddly species The main novelty of the current study is that it combined the evidence across many local studies, thus providing the first overarching picture of the magnitude of the impact across a large number of species. The study takes all animals into accountnot only the big, charismatic species, but birds and rodents as well. Benitez-Lopez explains the difference in impact between birds and mammals: "Mammals are more sought after because they're bigger and provide more food. They are worth a longer trip. The bigger the mammal, the farther a hunter would walk to catch it." With increasing wild meat demand for rural and urban supply, hunters have harvested the larger species almost to extinction in the proximity of the villages, and they must travel further distances to hunt. Additionally, for commercially interesting species such as elephants and gorillas, hunting distances are much larger because the returns are higher. Protected areas are no safe haven Another interesting finding of this study is that mammal populations have also been reduced by hunting even within protected areas. "Strategies to sustainably manage wild meat hunting in both protected and unprotected tropical ecosystems are urgently needed to avoid further defaunation," she says. "This includes monitoring hunting activities by increasing anti-poaching patrols and controlling overexploitation via law enforcement." More information: "The impact of hunting on tropical mammal and bird populations," Science (2017). science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi 1126/science.aaj1891 Journal information: Science Researchers found that certain search terms revealed AI bias. Credit: Princeton University In debates over the future of artificial intelligence, many experts think of the new systems as coldly logical and objectively rational. But in a new study, researchers have demonstrated how machines can be reflections of us, their creators, in potentially problematic ways. Common machine learning programs, when trained with ordinary human language available online, can acquire cultural biases embedded in the patterns of wording, the researchers found. These biases range from the morally neutral, like a preference for flowers over insects, to the objectionable views of race and gender. Identifying and addressing possible bias in machine learning will be critically important as we increasingly turn to computers for processing the natural language humans use to communicate, for instance in doing online text searches, image categorization and automated translations. "Questions about fairness and bias in machine learning are tremendously important for our society," said researcher Arvind Narayanan, an assistant professor of computer science and an affiliated faculty member at the Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP) at Princeton University, as well as an affiliate scholar at Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society. "We have a situation where these artificial intelligence systems may be perpetuating historical patterns of bias that we might find socially unacceptable and which we might be trying to move away from." The paper, "Semantics derived automatically from language corpora contain human-like biases," published April 14 in Science. Its lead author is Aylin Caliskan, a postdoctoral research associate and a CITP fellow at Princeton; Joanna Bryson, a reader at University of Bath, and CITP affiliate, is a coauthor. Researchers found that searches revealed hidden AI bias. Credit: Princeton University As a touchstone for documented human biases, the study turned to the Implicit Association Test, used in numerous social psychology studies since its development at the University of Washington in the late 1990s. The test measures response times (in milliseconds) by human subjects asked to pair word concepts displayed on a computer screen. Response times are far shorter, the Implicit Association Test has repeatedly shown, when subjects are asked to pair two concepts they find similar, versus two concepts they find dissimilar. Take flower types, like "rose" and "daisy," and insects like "ant" and "moth." These words can be paired with pleasant concepts, like "caress" and "love," or unpleasant notions, like "filth" and "ugly." People more quickly associate the flower words with pleasant concepts, and the insect terms with unpleasant ideas. The Princeton team devised an experiment with a program where it essentially functioned like a machine learning version of the Implicit Association Test. Called GloVe, and developed by Stanford University researchers, the popular, open-source program is of the sort that a startup machine learning company might use at the heart of its product. The GloVe algorithm can represent the co-occurrence statistics of words in, say, a 10-word window of text. Words that often appear near one another have a stronger association than those words that seldom do. The Stanford researchers turned GloVe loose on a huge trawl of contents from the World Wide Web, containing 840 billion words. Within this large sample of written human culture, Narayanan and colleagues then examined sets of so-called target words, like "programmer, engineer, scientist" and "nurse, teacher, librarian" alongside two sets of attribute words, such as "man, male" and "woman, female," looking for evidence of the kinds of biases humans can unwittingly possess. Predicted percentage of women with a certain name. Credit: Aylin Caliskan In the results, innocent, inoffensive biases, like for flowers over bugs, showed up, but so did examples along lines of gender and race. As it turned out, the Princeton machine learning experiment managed to replicate the broad substantiations of bias found in select Implicit Association Test studies over the years that have relied on live, human subjects. For instance, the machine learning program associated female names more with familial attribute words, like "parents" and "wedding," than male names. In turn, male names had stronger associations with career attributes, like "professional" and "salary." Of course, results such as these are often just objective reflections of the true, unequal distributions of occupation types with respect to genderlike how 77 percent of computer programmers are male, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Yet this correctly distinguished bias about occupations can end up having pernicious, sexist effects. An example: when foreign languages are naively processed by machine learning programs, leading to gender-stereotyped sentences. The Turkish language uses a gender-neutral, third person pronoun, "o." Plugged into the well-known, online translation service Google Translate, however, the Turkish sentences "o bir doktor" and "o bir hem?ire" with this gender-neutral pronoun are translated into English as "he is a doctor" and "she is a nurse." "This paper reiterates the important point that machine learning methods are not 'objective' or 'unbiased' just because they rely on mathematics and algorithms," said Hanna Wallach, a senior researcher at Microsoft Research New York City, who was not involved in the study. "Rather, as long as they are trained using data from society and as long as society exhibits biases, these methods will likely reproduce these biases." Predicted percentage of women with a certain occupation. Credit: Aylin Caliskan Another objectionable example harkens back to a well-known 2004 paper by Marianne Bertrand of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and Sendhil Mullainathan of Harvard University. The economists sent out close to 5,000 identical resumes to 1,300 job advertisements, changing only the applicants' names to be either traditionally European American or African American. The former group was 50 percent more likely to be offered an interview than the latter. In an apparent corroboration of this bias, the new Princeton study demonstrated that a set of African American names had more unpleasantness associations than a European American set. Computer programmers might hope to prevent cultural stereotype perpetuation through the development of explicit, mathematics-based instructions for the machine learning programs underlying AI systems. Not unlike how parents and mentors try to instill concepts of fairness and equality in children and students, coders could endeavor to make machines reflect the better angels of human nature. "The biases that we studied in the paper are easy to overlook when designers are creating systems," said Narayanan. "The biases and stereotypes in our society reflected in our language are complex and longstanding. Rather than trying to sanitize or eliminate them, we should treat biases as part of the language and establish an explicit way in machine learning of determining what we consider acceptable and unacceptable." More information: "Semantics derived automatically from language corpora contain human-like biases," Science (2017). science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi 1126/science.aal4230 Journal information: Science Habitats are turned into dry land. Credit: Nick Murray An international team of citizen scientists and researchers has identified a major contributor to the dramatic decline of migratory shorebird populations in Australia. University of Queensland School of Biological Sciences researcher Associate Professor Richard Fuller said Australian shorebirds were under threat due to the degradation and destruction of mudflats thousands of kilometres away in north-east Asia. Associate Professor Fuller was part of a team of researchers who worked on a shorebird study led by the University of Maryland's Assistant Professor Dr Colin Studds. Dr Studds said a critical factor in the decline of migratory shorebirds was their dependence on mudflats in the Yellow Sea, between China and South Korea. "The more a species relies on the disappearing Yellow Sea mudflats, the faster they are declining," Dr Studds said. He said birds including species of godwit, curlew and sandpiper were under threat. Many birds follow the East Asian Australasian Flyway migratory path from their non-breeding grounds in Australia to breeding sites in the Arctic, resting and refueling in the Yellow Sea. "Scientists have long believed that loss of these rest stops could be related to the declines, but there was no smoking gun," Dr Studds said. The researchers analysed citizen science data collected between 1993 and 2012 on 10 key species, and what they found was dramatic. Even though the birds only spend one or two months of the year at the mudflats, it was the most important factor in determining the population trend. Associate Professor Fuller said the study was founded on decades of bird counting effort by volunteers across Australia and New Zealand. "Without this effort, the study would have been impossible," he said. Australia has signed agreements with China, Korea and Japan to protect migratory birds, yet the birds have continued to decline. "Every country along the migration route of these birds must protect habitat and reduce hunting to prevent the birds declining further or even going extinct," Associate Professor Fuller said. "We are particularly excited that China and Korea have recently begun the process of listing parts of the Yellow Sea as World Heritage Sites." The study, published in Nature Communications, involved researchers from across Australia and from the US, the UK and New Zealand. More information: Colin E. Studds et al. Rapid population decline in migratory shorebirds relying on Yellow Sea tidal mudflats as stopover sites, Nature Communications (2017). DOI: 10.1038/NCOMMS14895 Journal information: Nature Communications Adam Briggs and Trials from A.B. Original, winners of this years AMP Australian Music Prize, use swearing to make a political point in their music. Credit: Tracey Nearmy Warning: The following article contains explicit language. A bedtime storybook urges children to "Go the F . . k to Sleep!" The Wolf of Wall Street, one of the sweariest movies of all time, contains 506 "f-bombs". And in this year's Triple J Hottest 100 countdown, the word "fuck" featured 82 times in 32 songs. So should uttering the "f-word" in public be a crime? And what about the "c-word"? In Australia, swearing is ubiquitous. Yet each year, thousands of Australians incur fines or criminal convictions for swearing. The use of offensive, indecent or obscene language in public is punishable in all Australian states and territories. Police typically punish people for saying the words "fuck" and/or "cunt" in their presence. Between July 2015 and June 2016, NSW police issued more than 1,836 on-the-spot fines (known as Criminal Infringement Notices) for using offensive language, according to the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research. In that year, a further 1,167 adults and 145 children appeared before a NSW court charged with using offensive language. Indigenous Australians represented 17% of these adults, and 26% of these children (despite comprising only 3% of the NSW population). It is up to the individual police officer (when issuing an infringement notice) or magistrate (when hearing an offensive language charge) to determine community standards on offensive language. In doing so, decision-makers draw on their "common sense" and everyday experience. Unsurprisingly, judicial opinions differ when assessing community standards . In 2007, for instance, a Western Australian Supreme Court judge said that language which challenges police authority is likely to be criminally offensive. More recently, magistrates have held that the word "prick" used to describe a police officer, and the expression "fuck Fred Nile" exclaimed at an anti-marriage equality rally, were not criminally offensive. Is pop culture having an impact on attitudes to swearing in the courtroom? The answer is yes. In the 2003, NSW Local Court case Police v Butler, Magistrate Heilpern referred to the prevalence of the word "fuck" on Triple J and its frequent occurrence on television shows The Sopranos and Sex and the City. He found the defendant not guilty of using offensive language, stating: McNulty and Bunk reconstruct a crime scene. The word fuck is extremely common place now and has lost much of its punch. Although only a Local Court judgment (therefore of limited precedential value), the magistrate's assessment of community standards has influenced the criminal law on offensive language. Police v Butler is a mainstay of lawyers defending offensive language charges, and has been referred to in subsequent cases and criminal law texts. So what other examples of swearing in pop culture should lawyers, judges and police take note of? Going down to The Wire In HBO's television series The Wire (2002-2008), both the police and the policed use the words "cunt" and "fuck" frequently. As art historian Nicholas Chare has observed, The Wire provides viewers with a realistic account of police vernacular. Its script differs from mainstream crime dramas in which police swear sparingly, generally with milder curses like "Hell!" and "Damn!" A notable scene is in the episode Old Cases. In this famed scene, Detectives Jimmy McNulty and William "Bunk" Moreland reconstruct a homicide uttering only derivatives of the "f-word" such as "Motherfucker", "Fuckity, fuck, fuck" and "What the fuck?" Despite its limited dialogue, the sequence is surprisingly easy to follow. The prevalence of profanity in this scene underscores the malleability of the "f-word"; its potential to generate humour and importantly, challenges the view that police could be shocked by swearing. 26 January: 'Fuck that' The songs of hip hop duo A.B. Original in their provocative album Reclaim Australia tackle issues such as increasing rates of Indigenous imprisonment, over-policing of Indigenous communities and Aboriginal deaths in custody. The album's first single 26 January, produced by Ngarrindjeri MC Trials (Daniel Rankine), and featuring Dan Sultan alongside Yorta Yorta rapper (Adam) Briggs, reached No. 16 on this year's Hottest 100. The lyrics invite an apathetic majority to cease celebrating Australia Day on 26 January: the date on which the First Australians were dispossessed of their land: Fuck celebrating days made of misery (Fuck that) while Aus still got the black history (That's true). And that shirt will get you banned from the Parliament if you ain't having a conversation, well then we starting it. The song follows a tradition of hip hop as a form of oppositional culture. Like LA "gangsta" rap group N.W.A's subversive song Fuck tha Police, which calls attention to police discrimination against black Americans, 26 January uses swear words to increase awareness of abuses perpetrated against a minority. And given A.B. Original's popularity and critical acclaim - they won this year's coveted AMP Australian Music Prize - it seems many welcome their shock to the system. There will always be those who object to swearing in music or on TV. Members of this anti-cussing camp might claim there are more polite or "educated" ways to express one's discontent at political policies. They might characterise swearing as uncivil, disrespectful or disgusting. Some might even argue that profanity in pop culture is sullying the ears of innocent children who will, upon exposure to "bad words", acquire the habit of swearing. But those who spout these and other "common sense" myths about swearing may want to consider what (if any) evidence supports their assumptions. They should also reflect on the triviality of fleeting expletives when contrasted to the disproportionate policing and punishment of Indigenous Australians for swearing under the banner of criminal "justice". Swearing in pop culture can diminish the taboo status of swear words, rendering them less offensive. It can highlight the hypocrisy of police professing outrage at words which they themselves use with impunity. Above all, the pervasiveness of profanity in popular culture underscores the absurdity of punishing people for words frequently broadcast on radio, television and in film. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. Government spokesman Seydou Gueye said several others were wounded in the fire in Medina Gounass village. By AP: Senegal's government says at least 20 people have been killed in a fire while attending a Muslim spiritual retreat in the eastern part of the country. Government spokesman Seydou Gueye said on Thursday that several others were wounded in the fire on Wednesday in Medina Gounass village. President Macky Sall offered condolences to victims' families. He said the interior ministry would visit the site on Thursday. advertisement Senegalese national TV reported that strong winds and makeshift shelters allowed the fire to spread, though the cause of the fire was not immediately known. Thousands of Muslim men from Senegal, Guinea and other West African countries meet annually in Medina Gounass for the spiritual retreat. --- ENDS --- The oldest termitophile from 99-million-year-old Burmese amber, Cretotrichopsenius burmiticus. Credit: Cai et al., 2017 Eusocial insects, such as ants, social wasps and bees, and termites, include some of the most ecologically ubiquitous of terrestrial animals. The nests of these insects are well protected and provide a safe, communal space for the storing of resources and production of brood, so the nests are often cohabited by various highly specialized symbionts that take advantage of the abundant resources and protection inside the nests. Recently, a research team led by Dr. CAI Chenyang and Prof. HUANG Diying from Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology (NIGPAS) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences reported the oldest horseshoe-crab-shaped, obligate termite-loving rove beetles from mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber. These fossils represent the oldest known termitophiles, which are able to hack into a termite nest and exploit their controlled physical conditions to steal plentiful resources (e.g., fungi) inside it. The discovery reveals that ancient termite societies were quickly invaded by beetles about 99 million year ago. Termitophiles, symbionts that live in termite nests, include a wide range of morphologically and behaviorally specialized organisms. Understanding of the early evolution of termitophily is challenging due to a scarcity of fossil termitophiles, with all known reliable records deriving from the Miocene Dominican and Mexican ambers (approximately 19 million years ago). Mesozoic termitophiles are of great significance for understanding the origin of eusocial societies of termites and the early evolution of specialized termitophily. To integrate into the hosts' societies, termitophilous beetles have repeatedly evolved physogastry (swollen abdomens) and limuloid (horseshoe-crab-shaped) body shapes, representing the two principal forms. Both morphological adaptations have arisen convergently many times in beetles (Coleoptera) as well as in flies (Diptera). Ecological reconstruction of the mid-Cretaceous termitophille. Credit: Cai et al., 2017 The peculiar fossil rove beetles, named as Cretotrichopsenius burmiticus Cai et al., 2017, exhibits the characteristic features of the modern aleocharine tribe Trichopseniini, including the articulation of the hind leg whereby the coxae are fully fused and incorporated into the metaventrite. Cretotrichopsenius burmiticus has a protective horseshoe-crab-shaped body form typical of many modern termitophiles, with concealed head and antennae and strong posteriorly directed abdominal setae. The discovery represents the earliest definitive termitophiles, pushing back the fossil record of termitophiles by 80 million years. Recent species of Trichopseniini are usually associated with derived neoisopteran termites of Rhinotermitidae, and less frequently with Termitidae. Interestingly, some trichopseniines are known to live within nests of the basal-most termites (Mastotermitidae) and drywood termites (Kalotermitidae). Because host specificity is rather low in extant trichopseniines, it is certainly likely that Cretotrichopsenius may have been associated with the variety of termite groups known from Burmese amber. The fossils reveal that ancient termite societies were quickly invaded by beetles about 99 million years ago. The result was published in Current Biology on April 13th, 2017. This study was jointly supported by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the National Natural Science Foundation, the Natural Sciences Foundation of Jiangsu Province, and the Ministry of Science and Technology of China. Credit: Brigham Young University Move over, honeybee and seagull: it's time to meet Moabosaurus utahensis, Utah's newly discovered dinosaur, whose past reveals even more about the state's long-term history. The Moabosaurus discovery was published this week by the University of Michigan's Contributions from the Museum of Paleontology. The paper, authored by three BYU researchers and a BYU graduate at Auburn University, profiles Moabosaurus, a 125-million-year-old dinosaur whose skeleton was assembled using bones extracted from the Dalton Wells Quarry, near Arches National Park. BYU geology professor and lead author Brooks Britt explained that in analyzing dinosaur bones, he and colleagues rely on constant comparisons with other related specimens. If there are enough distinguishing features to make it unique, it's new. "It's like looking at a piece of a car," Britt said. "You can look at it and say it belongs to a Ford sedan, but it's not exactly a Focus or a Fusion or a Fiesta. We do the same with dinosaurs." Moabosaurus belongs to a group of herbivorous dinosaurs known as sauropods, which includes giants such as Brontosaurus and Brachiosaurus, who had long necks and pillar-like legs. Moabosaurus is most closely related to species found in Spain and Tanzania, which tells researchers that during its time, there were still intermittent physical connections between Europe, Africa and North America. Credit: Brigham Young University Moabosaurus lived in Utah before it resembled the desert we knowwhen it was filled with large trees, plentiful streams, lakes and dinosaurs. "We always think of Moab in terms of tourism and outdoor activities, but a paleontologist thinks of Moab as a gold mine for dinosaur bones," Britt said. In naming the species, Britt and his team, which included BYU Museum of Paleontology curator Rod Scheetz and biology professor Michael Whiting, decided to pay tribute to that gold mine. "We're honoring the city of Moab and the State of Utah because they were so supportive of our excavation efforts over the decades it's taken us to pull the animal out of the ground," Britt said, referencing the digs that began when he was a BYU geology student in the late '70s. A previous study indicates that a large number of Moabosaurus and other dinosaurs died in a severe drought. Survivors trampled their fallen companions' bodies, crushing their bones. After the drought ended, streams eroded the land, and transported the bones a short distance, where they were again trampled. Meanwhile, insects in the soils fed on the bones, leaving behind tell-tale burrow marks. "We're lucky to get anything out of this site," Britt said. "Most bones we find are fragmentary, so only a small percentage of them are usable. And that's why it took so long to get this animal put together: we had to collect huge numbers of bones in order to get enough that were complete." BYU has a legacy of collecting dinosaurs that started in the early 1960s, and Britt and colleagues are continuing their excavation efforts in eastern Utah. Moabosaurus now joins a range of other findings currently on display at BYU's Museum of Paleontologythough, until its placard is updated, it's identified as "Not yet named" (pronunciation: NOT-yet-NAIM-ed). "Sure, we could find bones at other places in the world, but we find so many right here in Utah," Britt said. "You don't have to travel the world to discover new animals." More information: MOABOSAURUS UTAHENSIS, N. Gen., N. SP., A New Sauropod From The Early Cretaceous (Aptian) of North America. hdl.handle.net/2027.42/136227 This is Sandy Maliki, a pure desert dingo and winner of the World's Most Interesting Genome competition. The UNSW-led proposal to have Sandy's DNA decoded beat four other finalists for the Pacific Biosciences SMRT Grant, which provides cutting-edge sequencing of the complete genome of a particularly fascinating plant or animal. Credit: Barry Eggleton/Pure Dingo A wild-born, pure Australian desert dingo called Sandy Maliki has taken out first place in the World's Most Interesting Genome competition.The UNSW-led proposal to have Sandy's DNA decoded was one of five finalists for the Pacific Biosciences SMRT Grant, which provides cutting-edge sequencing of the complete genome of a particularly fascinating plant or animal. The public determined the winner, with two-year old Sandy securing 41 per cent of the international community votes, closely followed by a Temple Pitviper snake, then a solar-powered sea slug, an explosive bombardier beetle, and a pink pigeon. "We are thrilled that our bid to have Sandy's DNA sequenced captured the public's imagination," says project leader, Professor Bill Ballard of the UNSW School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences. "Sandy is truly a gift to science. As a rare, wild-born pure dingo, she provides a unique case study. Pure dingoes are intermediate between wild wolves and domestic dogs, with a range of non-domesticated traits. So sequencing Sandy's genome will help pinpoint some of the genes for temperament and behaviour that underlie the transition from wild animals to perfect pets. "As well, learning more about dingo genetics will help efforts to conserve these wonderful Australian animals, through the development of improved tests for dingo purity," Professor Ballard says. Sandy and her sister and brother were discovered as three-week old pups in the Australian desert near the Strzelecki Track in 2014 by NSW animal lovers, Barry and Lyn Eggleton, who have hand-reared them ever since. The pups were close to death and their parents could not be found. Sandy Maliki, a pure desert dingo and winner of the World's Most Interesting Genome competition. The UNSW-led proposal to have Sandy's DNA decoded beat four other finalists for the Pacific Biosciences SMRT Grant, which provides cutting-edge sequencing of the complete genome of a particularly fascinating plant or animal. Credit: Barry Eggleton/Pure Dingo The dingo sequencing project will be the first to test Charles' Darwin's 1868 theory that the process of domestication can be divided into two steps: unconscious selection as a result of non-intentional human influences; and artificial selection as a result of breeding by humans for desired traits. "This project will reveal the DNA changes between wolves and dingoes (unconscious selection) and dingoes and dogs (artificial selection)," says Professor Ballard. A key aim of the annual international PacBio competition, which attracted more than 200 entries this year, is to raise public awareness of science and how genomic research can benefit society. Sandy's team, which set up a DancingwithDingoes Facebook page, enlisted the support of a wide variety of people around the world, including animal conservationists and fans of wolves, dingoes and dogs. "We also engaged with staff and students at UNSW, by bringing two pure alpine dingoes from the Bargo Dingo Sanctuary onto campus for everyone to meet," says Professor Ballard. The cutting edge PacBio technology allows DNA to be sequenced in long sections containing tens of thousands of bases, rather than in shorter sections of a few hundred bases, as with existing techniques. This can reveal important rearrangements in the genome that affect gene expression. Sandy Maliki, a pure desert dingo and winner of the World's Most Interesting Genome competition. The UNSW-led proposal to have Sandy's DNA decoded beat four other finalists for the Pacific Biosciences SMRT Grant, which provides cutting-edge sequencing of the complete genome of a particularly fascinating plant or animal. Credit: Barry Eggleton/Pure Dingo The sequencing will be carried out at the University of Arizona, with initial analysis by Computomics in Germany. The Australian team behind the Sandy project also includes Professor Claire Wade of the University of Sydney, Dr Richard Melvin of UNSW, Dr Robert Zammit of the Vineyard Veterinary Hospital and Dr Andre Minoche of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research. UNSW has a strong reputation in genomics research, with scientists at the university's Ramaciotti Centre for Genomics having worked on the genomes of a variety of other important native creatures, including the koala, the Tasmanian devil, the wombat, the platypus, the Queensland fruit fly and the Wollemi Pine. "We're very proud of UNSW's history of contribution to genomics and we are delighted that Sandy's genome will now be sequenced as the prize for winning this competition," says UNSW molecular biologist and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) Professor Merlin Crossley. "Australia has so many interesting animals to sequence and the results enhance our understanding of evolution and biology and help improve agriculture and pest management". For more information about Sandy Maliki and her siblings, Eggie Warrigal and Didi Mirigung, see their Pure Dingo Facebook page. Dingoes were introduced to Australia about 5000 years ago. It is widely accepted they were not domesticated by Indigenous Australians. Pure dingoes are becoming increasingly rare as the native animals interbreed with wild dogs and domestic dogs, and are targeted as pests by landowners. The bones were initially scanned, restored and subsequently reassembled with the aid of a computer. Credit: University of Leiden Led by scientists of the Senckenberg Research Institute and the University of Tubingen, the excavation team found the remains of a saber-toothed cat at the archeological site in Schoningen. An examination of the skull fragments at the Dutch University of Leiden revealed the animal to be a representative of the European saber-toothed cat, Homotherium latidens. The recent discovery constitutes the third example of this large predatory cat from Schoningen. Long claws, razor-sharp, curved canine teeth and the size of a fully grown lion: the saber-toothed cat (Homotherium latidens) was a competitor as well as a dangerous predator that even posed a risk to the humans of its time. "In the course of our excavation in May 2015, we came across conspicuous bone fragments," explains Dr. Jordi Serangeli, a scientist at the University of Tubingen and the excavation leader at the approximately 300,000-year-old archeological site, and he continues, "In total, there are three individuals of Homotherium present in these relatively young sediment layers. Until the first discovery of a saber-toothed cat in 2012 at the Schoningen excavation site in Lower Saxony it had been assumed that the large cats were already extinct about 200,000 years earlier, i.e., around 500,000 years ago. "Our findings show that 300,000 years ago, the saber-toothed cats were not as rare as previously thought," adds Serangeli. During a restoration in 2016, Andre Ramcharan and Ivo Verheijen at the University of Leiden were able to reassemble the eleven bone fragments into an almost complete neurocranium. "We then compared the reconstructed skull with recent and already extinct species of large carnivores and were thus able to demonstrate that the remains represented the head of a European saber-toothed cat," explains Professor Dr. Thijs van Kolfschoten of the University of Leiden. In-situ position of a skull fragment from the third Homotherium, which was discovered on 25 May 2015 at the archeological dig in Schoningen. Credit: Univ. Tubingen / Senckenberg The third saber-toothed cat specimen that was discovered offers a great potential: thanks to the excellent level of preservation at the Schoningen dig, the interior of the skull reflects the shape and structure of the Homotherium brain. By examining the detailed brain structures, the team of scientists hopes to gain insights into the visual and hearing abilities as well as the feeding habits of the large cats. "The third Homotherium from Schoningen is invaluable for our understanding of the European saber-toothed cat," summarizes Professor Nicholas Conard of the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment and head of the Institute for Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology at the University of Tubingen. In the near future the international team from the Schoningen project intends to publish the results of its interdisciplinary studies regarding the three saber-toothed cats discovered to date. "Moreover, we expect that future digs will produce additional Homotherium finds," offers Serangeli as a preview. Artistic rendition of Homotherium latidens. Credit: Mauricio Anton The dig in Schoningen keeps a team of ten members employed full-time and during the main excavation season, the team is joined by five to ten students, who support the scientific excavation. Worldwide, about 50 scientists from 30 institutions and a wide variety of disciplines are involved in researching the discoveries from Schoningen. The dig is financed by the State of Lower Saxony. The spectacular new discovery is put on display for the public at the palaeon in Schoningen as part of the special exhibition "The Ice Age Huntress." Thanks to the close cooperation between Senckenberg, the international partners and the der palaeon GmbH, it is possible to make spectacular scientific findings available to the public in a timely manner. The reconstructed neurocranium of the European saber-toothed cat. Credit: Univ. Tubingen / Senckenberg Technician Andre Ramcharan (University of Leiden, Netherlands) compares a find with the cast skull of a Homotherium. Credit: University of Leiden Venus imaged by the Magellan spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL (Phys.org)A trio of planetary scientists has created a physical model of part of the surface of Venus and in so doing may have solved the mystery of tectonics on Venus. In their paper published in the journal Nature Geoscience, Ann Davaille, Suzanne Smrekar and Steve Tomlinson with Universite Paris-Sud, the Jet Propulsion Lab at Caltech and the University of California, describe their model and what they believe it revealed. For many years, planetary scientists have been frustrated by their inability to better understand the major processes that impact the structure of Venus's crust, i.e. its tectonics. Probes sent to study the planet have returned data that has allowed for creating maps of the surface, but that has only heightened the problem, because it appears there is no plate movement (the large number of craters suggest there is no churning). But trenches have also been observed that are similar to those seen with Earth's subduction zones. Compounding the problem is the fact that all of the factors that go into defining how a planet's crust look are too complex to be modeled on a computer accurately. In this new effort, the researchers took a different approachthey created a physical model. The model the team built was simple. They placed a quantity of finely ground sand in a bowl, added some water and then heated it from below. The team was not looking to recreate the entire Venus landscape, or even a portion of it. Instead, they were looking to explain the way that coronae (volcanic-tectonic looking features) are formed. Coronae are circular depressions with bulges in the middle surrounded by trenches. In heating their bowl of mud, the researchers noted that a crust formed due to evaporation at the surface and then bulges formed as hot parts below the crust forced their way upward. Eventually, the material that was pushed from below (similar to Earth mantle plumes) pierced the surface and leaked out onto the surrounding surface (rather like a pie in the oven). As material leaked out, pressure was relieved, causing the bulge to deflate even as more material made its way through the puncture wound, which soon hardened, creating a small bulge in the center of a depression surrounded by trenches. The researchers report that comparing their model to maps of Venus's surface depicting coronae showed them to be very similar, suggesting they may finally have solved the mystery of how coronae are formed. More information: A. Davaille et al. Experimental and observational evidence for plume-induced subduction on Venus, Nature Geoscience (2017). DOI: 10.1038/ngeo2928 Abstract Why Venus lacks plate tectonics remains an unanswered question in terrestrial planet evolution. There is observational evidence for subductiona requirement for plate tectonicson Venus, but it is unclear why the features have characteristics of both mantle plumes and subduction zones. One explanation is that mantle plumes trigger subduction. Here we compare laboratory experiments of plume-induced subduction in a colloidal solution of nanoparticles to observations of proposed subduction sites on Venus. The experimental fluids are heated from below to produce upwelling plumes, which in turn produce tensile fractures in the lithosphere-like skin that forms on the upper surface. Plume material upwells through the fractures and spreads above the skin, analogous to volcanic flooding, and leads to bending and eventual subduction of the skin along arcuate segments. The segments are analogous to the semi-circular trenches seen at two proposed sites of plume-triggered subduction at Quetzalpetlatl and Artemis coronae. Other experimental deformation structures and subsurface density variations are also consistent with topography, radar and gravity data for Venus. Scaling analysis suggests that this regime with limited, plume-induced subduction is favoured by a hot lithosphere, such as that found on early Earth or present-day Venus. Journal information: Nature Geoscience 2017 Phys.org Clouds over Australia are shown. Credit: NASA Carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere can be reduce in two waysby cutting our emissions, or by removing it from the atmosphere, for example through plants, the ocean, and soil. The historic Paris Agreement set a target of limiting future global average temperature increase to well below 2C and pursue efforts to even further limit the average increase to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. Yet the timing and details of these efforts were left to individual countries. In a new study, published in the journal Nature Communications, researchers from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) used a global model of the carbon system that accounts for carbon release and uptake through both natural and anthropogenic activities. "The study shows that the combined energy and land-use system should deliver zero net anthropogenic emissions well before 2040 in order to assure the attainability of a 1.5C target by 2100," says IIASA Ecosystems Services and Management Program Director Michael Obersteiner, a study coauthor. According to the study, fossil fuel consumption would likely need to be reduced to less than 25% of the global energy supply by 2100, compared to 95% today. At the same time, land use change, such as deforestation, must be decreased. This would lead to a 42% decrease in cumulative emissions by the end of the century compared to a business as usual scenario. "This study gives a broad accounting of the carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, where it comes from and where it goes. We take into account not just emissions from fossil fuels, but also agriculture, land use, food production, bioenergy, and carbon uptake by natural ecosystems," explains World Bank consultant Brian Walsh, who led the study while working as an IIASA researcher. The compares four different scenarios for future energy development, with a range of mixtures of renewable and fossil energy. In a "high-renewable" scenario where wind, solar, and bioenergy increase by around 5% a year, net emissions could peak by 2022, the study shows. Yet without substantial negative emissions technologies, that pathway would still lead to a global average temperature rise of 2.5C, missing the Paris Agreement target. Walsh notes that the high-renewable energy scenario is ambitious, but not impossibleglobal production of renewable energy grew 2.6% between 2013 and 2014, according to the IEA. In contrast, the study finds that continued reliance on fossil fuels (with growth rates of renewables between 2% and 3% per year), would cause carbon emissions to peak only at the end of the century, causing an estimated 3.5C global temperature rise by 2100. The authors note that not only the mix of energy matters, but also the overall amount of energy consumed. The study also included ranges for high energy consumption and low energy consumption. The study adds to a large body of IIASA research on climate mitigation policy and the chances of achieving targets. "Earlier work on mitigation strategies by IIASA has shown the importance of demand-side measures, including efficiency, conservation, and behavioral change. Success in these areas may explain the difference between reaching 1.5C instead of 2C," says IIASA Energy Program Director Keywan Riahi, who also contributed to the new work. A new model The study is one of the first published results from the newly developed FeliX model, a system dynamics model of social, economic, and environmental earth systems and their interdependencies. The model is freely available for download and use at http://www.felixmodel.com/. "Compared to other climate and integrated assessment models, the FeliX model is less detailed, but it provides a unique systemic view of the whole carbon cycle, which is vital to our understanding of future climate change and energy," says IIASA Ecosystem Services and Management Program Director. More information: Walsh B, Ciais P, Janssens IA, Penuelas J, Riahi K, Rydzak F, vanVuuren D, Obersteiner M (2017). Pathways for balancing Co2 emissions and sinks. Nature Communications , DOI: 10.1038/NCOMMS14856 Journal information: Nature Communications Inventory needs to be managed and managed well, or you are going to get in recurring trouble, and lose your credibility and hard-earned conversions, whether Read more Services sector is likely to attract a higher tax rate of 18 per cent from the present 15 per cent under the GST regime, hence making services slightly more expensive. By India Today Web Desk: Services will be "slightly" more expensive as the services sector is likely to attract a higher tax rate of 18 per cent from the present 15 per cent under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime, Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia has said. In an interview to IANS, Adhia said, "The standard rate for the services sector may move to 18 per cent." advertisement However, the sectors currently exempted from the tax such as healthcare, education and agriculture are likely to remain so. "Whichever sectors fall under the present list of exemptions, we will try to exempt even now. We would recommend this to the Council and it will take a view on the issue. Most probably they should agree. Our attempt is not to upset too many things in one go", Adhia said. SERVICES SECTOR TAXED AT 14 PER CENT AT PRESENT At present, the services sector is taxed at 14 per cent with two additional cesses -- Swachh Bharat Cess and the Krishi Kalyan Cess, attracting half a per cent each -- taking the burden to 15 per cent. However, those whose annual income is less than Rs 20 lakh will not have to register under the GST or pay any service tax, Adhia later clarified. At present, service tax has to be paid if the income is above Rs 10 lakh. The GST law also says that agriculturalists - who employ themselves or their family members -- will not come under GST even if their annual turnover is over Rs 20 lakh. Those who are employing people and have a turnover of over Rs 20 lakh a year will have to register under GST. Currently, sericulture, floriculture, dairy, horticulture, fishing that usually employ outside labourers on a large scale are exempt from service tax as they come under agriculture. But whether these will attract tax under GST is still debatable. "Those who are dealing in anything except what we have defined as 'agriculturalist' will have to register (under GST). But whether their products are taxable or not will have to be decided by the Council," he said. "We have not yet decided on the exemption list. That will be decided separately by the Council, I don't think it will want to tax many agriculture products", Adhia told IANS. He also said that some services, which currently have less than 15 per cent tax rate, may attract lower rates. "Wherever the services at present attract lower than 15 per cent rate of service tax because of certain reasons, we will try to maintain that. Transport sector, for example, attracts lower than 15 per cent tax right now. We will put these in either 5 per cent or 12 per cent," he said. advertisement 5 PER CENT TAX RATE ON TRANSPORT? The revenue secretary also noted that since petrol and petroleum products had been kept zero-rated under the GST regime, transport could be a good candidate for 5 per cent tax rate. The GST Council had decided to impose tax at four slab rates of 5 per cent, 12 per cent, 18 per cent and 28 per cent, apart from the zero tax level. Currently, there are about 60 services which are exempt from service tax, including education, healthcare and religious pilgrimage. In terms of goods, Adhia said that whatever is the exact incidence of excise plus VAT, the fitment will be into a tax slab closer to that. But depending on whether the goods are put in the higher slab or the lower slab, the taxes may increase in a few cases. "Most of the items will be as per formula, only a few items will need discussion. In a few cases, the taxes may increase, but not in all cases. Every year, the Council will meet and revise rates", he said. advertisement Though the GST Council took 13 meetings to decide on the enabling laws, Adhia said that since fitment of goods and services is a straightforward thing, it should not take too much time. GST COUNCIL TO MEET ON MAY 18-19 The Council is slated to meet on May 18-19 in Srinagar to decide on GST rules, after which the fitment discussions will be taken up. Adhia said that the government was determined to roll out the GST regime from July 1 despite some industry stakeholders demanding further postponement of the new tax regime. "We are determined to roll out GST from July 1, it doesn't seem to be a problem. The live testing of GST is scheduled to begin from the first week of May," he said. Adhia agreed that GST will have a greater compliance burden as companies having physical presence in more than one states need to do multiple registrations and pay taxes separately to each state. "I won't say it will complicate, but yes there is a slightly greater compliance burden on the centralised service sector operators because they have to pay tax to all the states. Centralised registration is not possible in the GST model," he said. advertisement "GST is a consumption-based taxation model, in which states want to calculate how much services are provided in their jurisdiction. That's why the returns have to be filed separately for every state," he added. (WITH INPUTS FROM IANS) WATCH VIDEO --- ENDS --- How does Basel III Affect Bank Lending in Singapore, Malaysia and Australia? How will Basel affect the macro lending environment? This Basel is not to be confused with Basil, a spice you can use for your pizza and other food. The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) is a committee of banking supervisory authorities that was established in 1974 amongst 10 member countries to strengthen regulation, supervision and risk management of banks. Many more countries have since joined as signatories. Paul Ho (iCompareLoan.com) 13 April 2017. Therefore banks must be able to: - Absorb loan losses and still stay solvent. Improve risk management and governance. Improvement banks transparency and disclosure. Basel has gone into the 3rd version, called Basel III. The Improve Risk management, governance, transparency and disclosure parts are largely supervisory functions. The part that will most affect the everyday man and woman is the Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR) and the Liquidity coverage ratio. Not all countries are able to meet the standards specified in Basel III, hence an implementation schedule is proposed. How will Basel III Affect Singapore Bank lending? Figure 1: BASEL III Phase-in arrangements, Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, Bank of international settlements. What is Capital Adequacy Ratio Capital Adequacy Ratio is the ability of the bank to absorb losses without going insolvent. In the not so distance past, many banks take too much risks by lending out money indiscriminately as these banks can earn a lot of interest income and use leveraged lending to make outsized profits. However, the downside is, these banks typically have little equity, hence their return-on-equity would be huge during good times. When bad times comes, just a few percent of the borrowers go into default, the banks will collapse, leading to a cascade of collapses, causing a systemic risk to the financial system. You can read more about how bank loans work in singapore. Story continues Not all risks are equal. For example assets (typically Loans that a bank makes) such as Sovereign bonds are generally rated as 0% risk, this means that banks can accumulate these bonds almost like liquid assets. But of course we know that sovereign bonds are rated as risk free, but they are not really risk free. For illustration (actual risk rating varies): - Sovereign bonds are rated at 0% risk. Therefore there is no need to have capital adequacy ratio to back this asset. Housing loans may be rated at 20% risk. A $1m housing loan asset is equivalent to $200,000 exposure. Therefore the capital adequacy ratio to back this exposure is based on $200,000. SME loans may be rated at 100% risk. Therefore a $1m SME loan is equivalent to $1m loan exposure. Financing for small businesses will be extremely hard under this guideline. A note of critique of Risk Rating. Those sub-prime mortgages in the USA were toxic, but they were rated as safe. This caused the financial weapons of mass destruction to be exported from the US to the rest of the world and all the mortgage backed securities became worthless. And many banks trading desks bet against their clients who bought these junk and walked away with Billions of profits as investors lost billions, seemingly aware that whatever they sold were rubbish. Why are Banks Fair weather friends? During the up-cycle, banks want to lend you as much as possible to maximise profits as default probability is low, leading to faster over-heating and bubbles. During the Down-cycle, banks will try to recall loans or restrict loans as default probability increases so as to avoid losses, making a slow down or a recession even worse. Hence BASEL was set up to make sure that banks have sufficient Capital to withstand loan losses and still carry out operations so as to avoid causing a financial contagion. Now into its 3rd version, Basel III will be implemented under a phase-in arrangement that stretches to 2019 to allow banks the time to raise capital. Have Countries Met Basel III? Singapore MAS has imposed on Singapore banks a capital adequacy ratio tougher than BASEL III requirement and have also met the requirements ahead of time. Malaysia Malaysian banks are well placed to meet BASEL III. (Moodys investor report, 2016) Australia Australian banks face billions in shortfall to meet BASEL III (17 Jan 2017, Business Insider) As Basel III implementation cycle extends to 2019, lending will get tighter and harder for Australia or countries that are behind target in its implementation. Australian Banks have slowed down lending. In the first half of 2016, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA), the Australian banking regulator, promoted restrictions on lending to foreign borrowers for residential properties by Australian banks as well as tightening other lending criteria. Australian property loans are getting harder to approve. If you have already placed a deposit for an Australian property development, you an find out here if you qualify for an Australian Property loan. Malaysia is on target for Basel III, lending should remain tight and selective amidst an elevated household debt level, but severe further tightening is not expected. Singapore is ahead of Basel III implementation schedule and sets targets tougher than those required under Basel III. Singapores economy is slowing down with mounting unemployment of Singaporeans, there will be room to boost lending to the SMEs. One way to do that is through Risk sharing of default by the Singapore government to absorb 50% of any default losses of SMEs that the banks undertake to lend to. IN SUMMARY Basel III is going to lead to tightening of lending in many places and a financial storm could hit some countries unless additional liquidity is pumped into the banking sector in the form of government injected equity, lending will ground to a halt. Property financing continue to be seen as low risk in many countries, while SME financing is seen as high risk. Singapore banks have room to lend and with the governments risk sharing arrangement (leading to reduced Capital Adequacy Ratio), should increase lending to SMEs and reduce business costs simultaneously. Mexican reporter Noe Zavaleta has mourned murdered colleagues and received death threats himself, but he refuses to stop working despite the fear. His is the deadliest country for journalists outside of war zones -- but with all the corruption and violence, there is just too much news for him to quit. "I have had to bury colleagues and see other companions leave the country. But you still panic when it happens to you," he says, in his home town of Xalapa in the eastern state of Veracruz. Like hundreds of other journalists in Mexico, the 36-year-old has been threatened for writing about organized crime. But he keeps cranking out the stories for investigative magazine Proceso: about links between politicians and organized crime, corruption, disappearances and mass graves. "You're constantly discovering more subjects, more injustices, more material." - Bodyguards, panic button - Zavaleta knew what he was getting into when he joined the magazine in 2012 to replace a journalist who had been murdered. His predecessor in the post, Regina Martinez, had reported on corruption and abuses by Veracruz state authorities. Her killing has never been solved. Zavaleta also worked with the photographer Ruben Espinosa, who fled Veracruz after receiving threats from authorities. He was murdered in Mexico City in 2015. Zavaleta received threats last year for a report about an ex-governor accused of corruption. He saw unknown men stalking around his office, his home and that of his girlfriend. "You panic. You don't know what to do," he says. He fled to the capital and reported the intimidation to the federal authorities. They provided him with two bodyguards who stayed by his side for half the year. He still carries a panic button to alert authorities if he is in danger. "I am still working," Zavaleta says with a smile. "If I suffer more intimidation and if I have to get out again and make it public, then that is what I will do." - Journalists murdered - International media rights group Reporters Without Borders ranks Mexico as the third most deadly country in the world, behind Syria and Afghanistan. Mexico has seen 102 journalists murdered since 2000 -- 20 of them in Veracruz. March was a particularly brutal month. Three reporters were murdered and a fourth hospitalized after being shot, authorities said. One regional newspaper shut down for a lack of security. In 2016 in Mexico, 400 journalists were attacked and 11 killed, according to rights group Articulo 19. - Cost of protection - Not all journalists get bodyguards because the authorities' budgets do not always allow it, Zavaleta says -- and even the protectors are at risk. One of his former bodyguards was shot dead in late March while protecting another journalist. "They were always complaining that they needed bullet-proof vests and a better vehicle," he says. "That didn't get authorized the whole six months they were with me, because there wasn't the budget for it." - Threats from officials - Articulo 19 says more than half of the recorded threats received by journalists over the past decade have been from officials themselves. It says 99.75 percent of journalists' murders remain unsolved. "Here in Mexico no one gives you any guarantees," Zavaleta says. "You decide to come back to work because you are stubborn and determined and because you are passionate about the job." He recalls another journalist who inspired him: Jesus Blancornelas, who investigated the drugs trade in the state of Tijuana as director of Zeta magazine. Blancornelas was injured in 1997 in an attack blamed on organized crime. He went from home to work and back under military guard until his death of cancer in 2006. "I remember very well what Blancornelas used to say" to his enemies, he says: "I will stop when I want, not when you want." (Bloomberg) -- Global oil inventories probably increased in the first quarter despite OPECs near-perfect implementation of production cuts aimed at clearing the surplus, the International Energy Agency said. While cutbacks by OPEC and Russia since January have brought world markets very close to balance and should deplete stockpiles in the second quarter, inventories nonetheless expanded marginally because of production increases just before the deal took effect, the IEA said in its monthly report on Thursday. The agency lowered estimates for global demand growth because of weaker-than-expected economic activity in India and Russia. Crude prices rallied last year as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and Russia announced their joint effort to end a three-year oil glut, yet gains have stalled on signs the cuts arent working quickly enough and are encouraging rival U.S. shale drillers to fill any shortfall. Global stocks might have marginally increased in the first quarter, said the Paris-based agency, which advises most of the worlds major economies on energy policy. While this might be surprising as it comes after the implementation of OPEC output cuts, it reflects the groups export surge late last year. U.S. crude futures traded 7 cents higher at $53.18 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange as of 12:31 p.m. London time. Oil inventories in the 34-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development increased by 38.5 million barrels in the first quarter to about 3 billion barrels, offsetting the decline in emerging economies. Inventories are the barometer of global oil market re-balancing, said Neil Beveridge, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Despite OPEC cuts, global inventories showed a bigger-than-expected build in the first quarter. Recent data however points to sharp inventory declines in the second quarter as the delayed impact of OPEC cuts finally starts to filter through. Story continues Inventory Outlook Stockpiles will decline by about 1.2 million barrels a day in the second quarter if the group maintains current output levels, and by 1.6 million a day if it extends the curbs into the second half, the IEAs data indicates. The IEA trimmed forecasts for global oil demand growth this year by about 100,000 barrels a day to 1.3 million a day, or 1.4 percent, as a result of weaker OECD consumption and economic activity in India and Russia slowing abruptly. OPEC achieved 99 percent of its promised supply reduction through March as Saudi Arabia, along with Kuwait, Qatar and Angola, cut more than required, making up for lagging compliance in Iraq and the United Arab Emirates. The groups output dropped by 365,000 barrels a day to 31.68 million a day, the IEA said. OPECs 11 partners in the accord delivered 64 percent of their pledged cuts, their strongest adherence since the deal began. Non-OPEC Growth Saudi Arabia, OPECs biggest producer, is said to favor extending the supply curbs when the group meets next month, in line with the views of fellow members such as Kuwait and Venezuela. While such a decision would reduce oil inventories and support prices, it would offer further encouragement to the U.S. shale sector and other producers, the IEA said. The agency boosted estimates for growth in non-OPEC supplies this year by 90,000 barrels a day to 485,000 a day amid robust activity in the U.S. Drilling has more than doubled since May as the price recovery draws investment back to the nations shale-oil industry, data from Baker Hughes Inc. shows. (Updates with analyst comment in seventh paragraph. An earlier version of this story corrected the size of the inventory change in the chart.) To contact the reporter on this story: Grant Smith in London at gsmith52@bloomberg.net. To contact the editors responsible for this story: James Herron at jherron9@bloomberg.net, Dylan Griffiths 2017 Bloomberg L.P. By Warren Strobel and Mark Hosenball WASHINGTON (Reuters) - CIA Director Mike Pompeo on Thursday called WikiLeaks a "hostile intelligence service," using his first public speech as spy agency chief to denounce leakers who have plagued U.S. intelligence. Pompeo, in an address at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, called WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange "a fraud" and "a coward." "It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is, a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia," Pompeo said. He said Russia's GRU military intelligence service used Wikileaks to distribute material hacked from Democratic National Committee computers during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia stole the emails and took other actions to tilt the election in favour of eventual winner Donald Trump, a Republican, against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Pompeo and President Donald Trump, who chose him to head the CIA, have not always been so critical of WikiLeaks. During a campaign rally last October, Trump praised the group for releasing hacked emails from the DNC by saying, "I love WikiLeaks." In July, Pompeo, than a Republican member of the House of Representatives, mentioned it in a Twitter post referring to claims that the DNC had slanted the candidate-selection process to favour Clinton. "Need further proof that the fix was in from Pres. Obama on down? BUSTED: 19,252 Emails from DNC Leaked by Wikileaks." WikiLeaks has published secret documents from the U.S. government and others and says its mission is to fight government secrecy and promote transparency. Pompeo said it has "encouraged its followers to find jobs at CIA in order to obtain intelligence." Assange has been holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London since 2012, after taking refuge there to avoid extradition to Sweden over allegations of rape, which he denies. Two of Assange's lawyers and a Wikileaks spokesman did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Pompeo's remarks. Pompeo's speech on Thursday follows a series of damaging leaks of highly sensitive CIA and National Security Agency material. In March, WikiLeaks published thousands of pages of internal CIA discussions that revealed hacking techniques the agency had used against iPhones, Android devices and other targets. Pompeo also had harsh words for Edward Snowden, the former National Security Administration contractor who downloaded thousands of documents revealing some of the electronic eavesdropping agency's most sensitive programs and shared them with journalists. "More than a thousand foreign targets, people, groups, organizations, more than a thousand of them changed or tried to change how they communicated as a result of the Snowden disclosures," Pompeo said. "That number is staggering." U.S. intelligence agencies have struggled to deal with "insider threats" - their own employees or contractors who steal classified materials and, in some cases, publicize them. In response to a question, Pompeo disputed Russia's account of a chemical weapons attack in Syria that prompted retaliatory cruise missile strikes by Trump last week. Moscow has said that Syrian rebels, rather than the Syrian government, were responsible. "None of the (accounts) have an ounce of truth in them," Pompeo said, calling Russian President Vladimir Putin "a man for whom veracity doesn't translate into English." (Additional reporting by Eric Walsh; Editing by Eric Beech and Bill Trott) A view of the Singapore River. (PHOTO: Reuters) A dead man was found floating in the Singapore River on Thursday (13 April) morning. The Singapore Police Force (SPF) said it was alerted to the incident at 8.03am. A male body was found motionless in the water and was subsequently pronounced dead by paramedics at the scene, the SPF added. Yahoo Singapore understands that the man was found in the water near the Fullerton Hotel. Media reports citing the Singapore Civil Defence Force said the deceased is a Chinese man in his 60s. The SPF is investigating the case of unnatural death. By Ceyda Caglayan ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Lawyer Savas Ersoy and his wife turned down many chances to leave Turkey and work abroad. But after a failed coup, a wave of bombs and the referendum on expanding presidential powers on Sunday, they are packing their bags. Like other professionals who are leaving Turkey, the Ersoys say they are uncertain about the country's political future and afraid of instability. "We have been thinking of moving abroad for about a year and a half. However, with the developments in Turkey over the past six to seven months, we have decided to move," said the 37-year-old lawyer. Sunday's referendum could grant President Tayyip Erdogan new authority and transform Turkish politics. Already the most powerful leader since the founder of modern Turkey Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Erdogan has won successive elections and enjoys strong support among pious and conservative voters, mainly in rural areas. But he is viewed with suspicion by many liberal Turks, who say the secular foundations of the country of 80 million people are being eroded by an increasingly authoritarian president. The Ersoys are moving to the Danish capital Copenhagen this month after Ersoy's wife, who works in the pharmaceutical sector, took up the offer of a job they had previously declined. "We have had job offers from abroad before as well. We didnt accept them, thinking Why would we go? But the developments after (the failed coup on) July 15, the referendum, this executive presidency issue, things have gotten out of hand," Ersoy said. "We dont know what will happen in six months. Bombs are exploding in many parts of the nation. I have a three-year old daughter and Europe is safer." A "Yes" vote on Sunday would empower Erdogan to appoint ministers, top officials and judges, dissolve parliament and declare emergency rule - powers his backers say are needed to confront Islamic State and Kurdish militants and root out those behind last July's attempted coup. Story continues Erdogan's critics say the changes would remove checks on his power, lurching Turkey closer to becoming an authoritarian state, after a post-coup crackdown in which more than 100,000 people were sacked or suspended over suspected links with terrorist organisations. Statistics on exactly how many professionals are leaving Turkey are hard to find, but Ersoy's comments echo those of several who spoke to Reuters in the run-up to the referendum. Gokhan Gokceoglu, who runs a financial consultancy firm in Britain, said a growing number of Turks were trying to follow in his footsteps. "As someone who lives in Britain, I can say that there is an increase in demand from white-collar and well-educated people in recent times to live in Britain and get citizenship," he told Reuters while on a holiday break in Istanbul. SECULAR FEARS Feray Aksit, 36, worries about how Turkey's secular outlook will be affected by the policies of Erdogan and his Islamist-rooted AK Party, particularly the impact on her daughter's schooling. She resigned from her job in the telecommunications sector to prepare for a move to Germany, where her engineer husband found work. "I am the mother of a girl. The uncertainties in the country, changes to education and the curriculum becoming more detached from science has raised some concerns," she said. "In terms of security, we dont have the same comfort we did five or six years ago either... At first we doubted whether we were doing the right thing. But after the decision to hold the referendum, we thought the coming years would be uncertain as well," she said. While many lawyers, economists, engineers and bankers look for work or university programmes to get residency permits in foreign countries, those who do not have those options - but do have cash - buy property to secure their place abroad. Several European Union countries offer residency permits in return for real estate investment, with minimum levels set at anything from 250,000 euros to several million euros. Education consultant Tolga Gurses, 42, attended a presentation in Istanbul promoting investment in Portugal as a way of getting residency permits. "There were approximately 200 participants. Though it is a bit saddening, there is great interest in the option to live abroad," Gurses said. Another target for real estate investment is neighbouring Greece, despite its often fraught history with Turkey. There is a noticeable demand for Greece in recent times," said Cenk Tanman, who founded a website for people wanting to invest there. "They prefer Greece as a plan B." Selcan Turk, who has lived there for 15 years, set up a business for Turks buying property in Greece. She said she brought dozens of people to examine properties in March, and three of those prospects had turned into sales. "Turks' interest in Greece has increased dramatically in the past five to six months. Even though their economic status isn't too high, they are using all the resources they have," she said. (Writing by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Dominic Evans and Sonya Hepinstall) PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) U.S. Senator John McCain has called on Kosovo to resume dialogue with Serbia, saying that is the only way to a prosperous and safe future. The Republican senator was in Pristina on Thursday as part of a regional tour, said that despite rising tensions, he was assured that "U.S. commitment for a complete, free and peaceful Europe have not changed." Last month the Pristina-Belgrade dialogue facilitated by the European Union stopped following recent tense incidents. McCain urged Kosovo to continue integration efforts into Europe and approve the border demarcation deal with Montenegro so that Kosovars enjoy visa-free travel in the continent. In 1999 U.S. led the NATO bombing that ended with the withdrawal of Serbian troops from Kosovo. Kosovo's 2008 independence is recognized by 114 countries but not by Serbia. Poland's president on Thursday hailed the launch of a US-led NATO multinational battalion in an area of his country bordering Russia's heavily militarised Kaliningrad exclave as an "historic moment". The battalion is one of four NATO is deploying for the first time to Poland and the Baltic states as tripwires against Russian adventurism on its eastern flank, a region formerly under Moscow's control and spooked by its actions in Ukraine. "Generations of Poles have waited for this moment since the end of World War II, generations that dreamt of being part of the just, united, democratic and truly free West," President Andrzej Duda said at ceremonies in the northeastern Polish town of Orzysz. Poland joined NATO in 1999, a decade after it peacefully shed communism as the Iron Curtain fell in 1989. Speaking along side Duda, NATO Supreme Allied Commander US General Curtis Scaparrotti called the deployment "a clear demonstration of NATO's unity and resolve and sends a clear message to any potential aggressor." "You now form NATO's eastern flank," he told troops. Three similar NATO units, led by the Germany, Canada and Britain, are being deployed this year in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Each unit includes around 800 troops. The countries requested them after Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. The Kremlin has denied any territorial ambitions and claims that NATO is trying to encircle Russia. But Moscow's deployment last year of nuclear-capable Iskander missiles into its Kaliningrad exclave, which borders Lithuania and Poland, and frequent Russian military drills in the region have rattled nearby NATO members. The Orzysz NATO base lies around 100 kilometres (60 miles) from the Kaliningrad exclave and a stone's throw from the strategically sensitive "Suwalki Gap", a land corridor critical to the security of the Baltic states. The 65-kilometre stretch of border with Lithuania is sandwiched between Kaliningrad and Belarus. Military strategists warn it is the Achilles' heel of NATO's eastern flank: its capture would amputate the alliance's three Baltic members and so shatter its credibility. The freshly deployed NATO troops are expected to hold manoeuvres around the Suwalki Gap in June. 65-year old Sheila Abdus-Salaam, the first female Muslim judge in the US and an associate judge of New York's top court, has been found dead in a river near Manhattan. By Reuters: A groundbreaking black jurist who became the first Muslim woman to serve as a US judge was found dead in New York's Hudson River on Wednesday, police said. Sheila Abdus-Salaam, a 65-year-old associate judge of New York's highest court, was found floating off Manhattan's west side at about 1:45 pm EDT (1545 GMT), a police spokesman said. Police pulled Abdus-Salaam's fully clothed body from the water and she was pronounced dead at the scene. Her family identified her and an autopsy would determine the cause of death, the spokesman said. advertisement Abdus-Salaam, a native of Washington, D.C., became the first African-American woman appointed to the Court of Appeals when Democratic Governor Mario Cuomo named her to the state's high court in 2013. 'TRAILBLAZING JURIST' "Justice Sheila Abdus-Salaam was a trailblazing jurist whose life in public service was in pursuit of a more fair and more just New York for all," Cuomo said in a statement. The Princeton Encyclopedia of American Political History said Abdus-Salaam was the first female Muslim to serve as a US judge. Citing unidentified sources, the New York Post reported that Abdus-Salaam had been reported missing from her New York home earlier on Wednesday. Attempts to reach her family were unsuccessful. A graduate of Barnard College and Columbia Law School, Abdus-Salaam started her law career with East Brooklyn Legal Services and served as a New York state assistant attorney general, according to the Court of Appeals website. She held a series of judicial posts after being elected to a New York City judgeship in 1991. ALSO READ | Florida man tries to set ablaze store owned by Indian-Americans ALSO READ | US preparing another strike on Syria, plans afoot to 'fake' gas attack to discredit Assad, says Putin ALSO WATCH | Trump may mediate in India-Pakistan peace process: Top Indian-American diplomat Nikki Haley --- ENDS --- By Ed Cropley PAGARINYA, Uganda (Reuters) - A year ago the view from Ugandan teacher Richard Inyani's mud hut was wilderness, land untouched since the 1990s and the murderous rampages of Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army. Now it's a sprawl of tarpaulin shacks housing thousands of South Sudanese, refugees fleeing a three-year civil war that has triggered the biggest cross-border exodus in Africa since the 1994 Rwandan genocide. And they keep coming: Last week, more than 3,000 people arrived at the border in a single morning after an alleged massacre by South Sudan government troops in Pajok, a South Sudanese town with a population of some 50,000. Pajok is now empty, refugees say. The influx of refugees is testing Uganda's generosity. While Inyani is happy to help fellow Africans in their hour of need - many Ugandans, including President Yoweri Museveni, were once refugees themselves - he is less enthusiastic about the sea of U.N. blue-and-white on his doorstep. One top government official said that Uganda's system of accommodating refugees, routinely touted as one of the world's most progressive, was on the brink of "explosive" collapse. Uganda's system allows villagers in impoverished border regions to donate land to refugees on the expectation that the foreign donor funds that support the refugees will also help the villages in the form of shared public services such as schools, roads, wells and clinics. The problem is that aid flows are not keeping up with the scale of the exodus from South Sudan - at least 832,000 have arrived in Uganda since fighting erupted in July last year - and the system is tottering. Inyani's village is one of those that donated hundreds of hectares of land expecting lots of investment in return. Some of it - like the new clinic on the edge of the Pagarinya settlement - has appeared. The clinic was paid for by the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR and built by the Lutheran World Federation, a Christian charity. Two Ugandan nurses working inside said they were paid by Medical Teams International, a U.S. Christian aid group. But the new school in Pagarinya is massively overcrowded, the new bore-holes are too far for the Ugandans to use, there are no new jobs and, with refugees having cut down most of the trees in the area for firewood and shelter, the wind is whipping across the plains, churning up dust. Throat infections are on the rise and Inyani says the ancestral spirits are upset. "We looked at the refugees as a positive thing because it was meant to bring development," he told Reuters, as he mixed mud cement for a relative's hut. "Instead, it's just another headache." He is not alone in his frustration. Last week, South Sudan's Tamazuj news agency said four South Sudanese in Bidi Bidi, a 250-sq-km (100-sq-mile) settlement housing nearly 300,000 people, the world's largest refugee camp in terms of numbers, were attacked by machete-wielding members of their Ugandan "host community". "We have been given only one primary school and it is accommodating nearly 5,000 children. You can imagine how difficult the situation is," refugee elder Simon Lado was quoted as saying. "The problem began when rumours circulated around that a woman refugee poisoned a child, and then the fight began. No one has died but four refugees were wounded seriously." Bidi Bidi camp commandant Robert Baryamwesiga said he was unaware of the incident. "BREAKING POINT" Under a Ugandan law passed in 2006, refugees are granted freedom of movement, employment rights and access to public clinics and schools. Each family is also given a 30m x 30m plot of land on which to build huts, and a larger 100m x 100m plot on which to grow subsistence crops, to make them self-sufficient as quickly as possible. The system has made Uganda a frequent sanctuary for those fleeing the many conflicts that have roiled Africa's Great Lakes over the last three decades. "It's inherent in our traditional, historical and cultural practices to support and assist a neighbour in need," Prime Minister Ruhakana Rugunda told Reuters. But without money, the system breaks down. The United Nations refugee agency says it has secured just 10 percent of the estimated $300 million required for the South Sudanese refugees in Uganda this year, leaving it unable to meet the basic needs of refugees or locals. "We are at breaking point. Uganda cannot handle Africa's largest refugee crisis alone," U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said. UNHCR officials said Uganda's crisis was also competing with other humanitarian disasters in Africa, most notably drought in Somalia and food shortages in northeast Nigeria stemming from Boko Haram's six-year jihadist insurgency. "There is a continuous influx and there are no corresponding resources from the international community," said the top Ugandan government official. "If we don't get the support, I think the situation will reach explosive levels." "THE LAND IS OURS" Kampala is in talks with the World Bank for a $50 million 5-year loan to help refugee-hosting communities, the official said. In the meantime, it has begun to curb its generosity. Dozens of refugees interviewed by Reuters said they or friends had missed out recently on the standard monthly food ration of 12 kg of maize and 4 kg of beans. Furthermore, none of the refugees interviewed by Reuters, including some who had been in Uganda since 2014, said they had received more than the standard 30m x 30m housing plot. "It's getting tougher," said Mark Manyuon, a 26-year-old South Sudanese who has been in Uganda for nearly three years. "You have to decide to eat just once a day." Without access to fertile land for cultivation - the soil in Pagarinya is stony and poor - they will remain reliant on handouts coordinated by the U.N.'s World Food Programme. Ugandan officials acknowledge shortcomings but said farmland would be allocated once the immediate crisis had been dealt with. "In an emergency, you're just thinking about saving lives. The rest can come later," said Godfrey Byaruhanga, commandant of the Palorinya camp 40 km (25 miles) away that houses 148,000 South Sudanese, more than the Ugandan population of the district in which it sits. But with South Sudan's civil war producing weekly reports of ethnic atrocities, there is little chance of the 'emergency' ending any time soon. Overall, the fighting has uprooted more than 3 million South Sudanese, and by July 5.5 million - nearly half the population - are unlikely to have a reliable food supply, according to the United Nations. Some will inevitably end up in Inyani's back yard. "We don't want money. We just want small things: boreholes, schools, roads, development," Inyani said. "We have the power to stop this. This is our land. One time, we will act. We will stop UNHCR. The land is ours." (Additional reporting by Elias Biryabarema; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall) By Orhan Coskun ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Akbarzhon Jalilov, the man Russian police suspect of blowing up a St Petersburg metro carriage, entered Turkey in late 2015 and was deported to Russia about a year later because of migration violations, a senior Turkish official told Reuters on Wednesday. The April 3 attack killed 14 people, including the bomber himself, and injured dozens more. It took place as Russian President Vladimir Putin -- architect of Russia's military intervention in Syria -- was visiting St Petersburg. The Turkish official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that while in Turkey Jalilov "was deemed suspicious due to some connections he had, but no action was taken as he had not done anything illegal and there was no evidence of wrongdoing." "However, the issue was not dropped and this person was sent out of Turkey in December 2016 for violating their visa and residency. In the end, a fine was given and they were deported with an entry ban," the official said. After leaving Turkey, Jalilov's "passage into Russia was easy from here, it seems they (Jalilov) encountered no problems," the official said. The Turkish official's account confirmed information given to Reuters by two of Jalilov's acquaintances. They said that he had acquired an interest in Islam and left Russia for Turkey at the end of 2015, after which they lost contact. Jalilov, a Russian citizen who was born in the mainly Muslim ex-Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan, revealed no outward signs of radicalism, his acquaintances said, and no evidence has emerged that he belonged to any established Islamist militant groups. That has made it harder for Russian security agencies to establish how he carried out the attack on the metro train, and whether he has associates who are planning future attacks. At the time he left for Turkey, Jalilov was living in St Petersburg, where he worked as a restaurant cook and in a car repair shop. Soon after he was deported from Turkey, he travelled to his native city of Osh, in Kyrgyzstan, local officials there told Reuters. From there, he went back to St Petersburg, moving into a new apartment in early March this year. Prosecutors said security camera footage showed him leaving that apartment on the day of the attack carrying a rucksack and another bag. (Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Andrew Osborn) By Kanupriya Kapoor and Fransiska Nangoy JAKARTA (Reuters) - Washington has billed Vice President Mike Pence's visit to Indonesia next week as a booster for the Strategic Partnership between the world's second- and third-largest democracies, but a raft of bilateral tensions could sap the goodwill from his trip. Pence's counterpart in the world's most populous Muslim country has voiced worries about U.S. President Donald Trump's immigration policy, which critics say is biased against Muslims, and about his "America First" mantra on trade and investment. "We in Indonesia never change. The change is there. That's why we're asking them now, 'what is your policy now on the economy, on democracy, now that Trump is in power?'," Vice President Jusuf Kalla told Reuters on March 31. "What does it mean, 'America first'? I can say, too, 'Indonesia first' if you say 'America first'." Indonesia is one of 16 countries against which the United States runs a trade deficit that will be investigated by the Trump administration for possible trade abuses. Trump's combative approach will not sit easily with Indonesia, where economic nationalism and protectionist tendencies have flourished since a slump in commodity prices in recent years slammed the brakes on economic growth. "Unfortunately I do see a hardening of attitudes on our side," said a senior Indonesian government official, who declined to be named. "And it's of particular concern because we're on that list of 16 countries ... that are going to be investigated." The official said a tougher stand by Indonesian authorities had also contributed to a series of disputes with U.S. companies, including Alphabet Inc's Google, miner Freeport-McMoRan Inc and financial services giant JP Morgan Chase & Co. A SERIES OF FACE-OFFS Indonesia has duelled with Google over back taxes and fines running into hundreds of millions of dollars, and with Freeport in a contract row that has crippled operations at the world's second-largest copper mine, Grasberg. It also dropped JP Morgan as a primary bond dealer after the bank's research analysts issued a negative report on the country in November. "It's a very unfortunate series of issues which all happen to be American," said the official, who expects them to come up in private during Pence's visit. Indonesia is the third stop on an April 15-25 tour that includes South Korea, Japan and Australia. Google declined to comment for this report, and JPMorgan did not respond to a request for comment. Freeport Indonesia spokesman Riza Pratama said: "This visit is happening entirely independent of our current negotiations with the government of Indonesia." However, billionaire investor Carl Icahn, Freeport's third-biggest shareholder and now a special adviser to Trump, has described Jakarta's tactics over the mining contract as "disingenuous and insulting", according to the New York Times. Another potential irritant is biodiesel. The U.S. National Biodiesel Board (NBB), a producer group, has petitioned the U.S. government to impose anti-dumping duties on biodiesel from Indonesia and Argentina, claiming they have flooded the U.S. market. "This is one of the issues that we have asked the trade ministry to bring to the meeting (with Pence)," Paulus Tjakrawan, a director at the Indonesia Biofuel Producers Association, told Reuters. "Our hope is for the government to be firm ... Otherwise we will be taken advantage of," he said. "Not to act like thugs but, for example, if they put barriers to our exports, why not stop importing some of their goods?" Despite the strains, the government official said Indonesia would be careful to start its relationship with the Trump administration on the right foot. Indonesian President Joko Widodo's approach to foreign policy has been led more by economic interests than geopolitical considerations: he has pursued increased trade and investment from China but keeps a diplomatic distance from Beijing and established a strategic partnership with Washington under former President Barack Obama. U.S. ambassador to Indonesia, Joseph R. Donovan Jr, said in a statement last week that Pence's visit reflected a continued commitment to that partnership, would deepen economic engagement and boost regional security cooperation. "The U.S. embassy here certainly is going to great lengths to make the visit a success," said the Indonesian official. "My impression is he's (Pence) not going to ruffle feathers in public, he's not going to cause a ruckus." (Additional reporting by Eveline Danubrata and Fergus Jensen; Editing by Lincoln Feast) By Michele Kambas NICOSIA (Reuters) - Greek and Turkish Cypriots have reached a critical juncture in negotiations to end the decades-old division of their island and only a small number of issues remain to be resolved, the United Nations' envoy for Cyprus said on Thursday. Cyprus has been split on ethnic lines since 1974, when Turkish troops invaded the north of the island in response to a short-lived coup by Greek Cypriot militants seeking union with Greece. The problem transcends the small island of one million inhabitants, keeping NATO allies Greece and Turkey at loggerheads and holding back Ankara's ambitions of joining the European Union. "We are at a crossroads," U.N. envoy Espen Barthe Eide told Reuters in an interview. "I think the leaders know that we are at the crossroads and at the crossroads you have to take the right turn, or the alternative is the wrong turn," he added. Eide, a former Norwegian foreign minister, has been overseeing the talks between President Nicos Anastasiades, the Greek Cypriot leader, and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci for about two years. Eide and his team facilitate the discussions between Anastasiades and Akinci to reunite the island under a federal umbrella of two semi-autonomous zones. He said there was "no doubt" that the two had come closer to a solution than ever before. But he was more cautious when asked whether he thought a peace plan could be agreed by the two sides and then put to a popular vote in a referendum this year, saying that depended on the leaders. "I believe its possible. Whether it will happen, I think I will remain open. It's doable." OUTSTANDING ISSUES "There are a relatively small number of outstanding issues, the vast majority is done," said Eide, whose office is within the compound of now-abandoned Nicosia airport, the scene of some of the fiercest fighting of the 1974 war. Although the number is small, they are significant, he added. Eide said the issues that still require resolution include finalising the nature of the presidency that will govern Cyprus, a final deal on territorial adjustments, some property-related questions and security. Greece, Turkey and Britain are guarantor powers under a 1960 treaty that granted the former British colony independence. It was cited by Turkey as a basis for the 1974 invasion, and Greek Cypriots and Greece want the system dismantled. Turkey and Turkish Cypriots want the system to remain intact. "On that one I am quite optimistic, that's within reach," Eide said on the prospects of a deal on security. Although there is no timeframe for a settlement, Eide said it was understood that the process could not go on indefinitely. "There is no time limit ... but there is a shared understanding that we do not have oceans of time and that there is no time like the present." (Editing by Gareth Jones) Scientists can be advocates and maintain scientific credibility Posted on 13 April 2017 by dana1981 Scientists are often hesitant to engage in what might be considered advocacy, for fear of losing credibility with the public. But a recent study led by John Kotcher at George Masons Center for Climate Change Communication found that climate scientists who wish to engage in certain forms of advocacy have considerable latitude to do so without risking harm to their credibility, or the credibility of the scientific community. The study found that the perceived credibility of a hypothetical scientist did not decline when that scientist advocated for generalities such as a strong effort to curb the impacts of climate changenor did credibility decline if the scientist called for more specific and concrete actions such as strict limits on carbon emissions from coal power plants. But perceived credibility did decline when the hypothetical scientist advocated building more nuclear power plants, which are relatively unpopular amongst the American public. These results suggest that as long as scientists dont advocate for specific unpopular policies, a range of advocacy positions are available that wont harm their credibility. For example, polling has shown that most Americansincluding Trump voterssupport policies to combat climate change. They also think its a bad idea to cut scientific research funding, they support clean energy, and they want the government to do more to mitigate climate change risks. Additionally, theres been no more important time in recent history for scientists to engage in advocacy on behalf of our science, which is under attack from the current administration. According to the March 16 issue of the journal Science, President Trump proposed a federal budget that would cut funding to the Environmental Protection Agencys science programs by 40 percent, the Energy Departments Office of Science programs by 20 percent, grants to the main research arm of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) by 26 percent, NOAA satellites by 13 percent, the National Institutes of Health by 20 percent, and so on. Trumps EPA administrator rejects the expert consensus and overwhelming scientific evidence that human carbon pollution is the dominant cause of recent global warming, and has been filling EPA positions with like-minded individuals. President Trump has still only moved to fill one out of 46 key government science and technology positions, and reports indicate that the candidates hes considering for the position of his science advisor all deny human-caused climate change. The House of Representatives recently passed two bills that would severely limit the EPAs ability to issue scientifically-justified regulations. And of course President Trump signed an executive order to roll back a slew of science-based government climate policies. This month, we have two opportunities to engage in activism to push back against these anti-science policies, in the form of marches. Click here to read the rest Over the course of the last decade, the so-called gig economy has rapidly expanded to become one of Americas most crucial labor markets. Around one in three American workers are now freelancers, and more than one third of Millennials. And according to a new study compiled by LinkedIn (NYSE:LNKD), its small business owners that are the driving force behind that exponential growth. The Gig Economy and Small Businesses Researchers at the worlds largest professional networking site found that small businesses are now responsible for an estimated 40 percent of all hiring activity across the wider gig economy, with midmarket companies and enterprises accounting for 35 percent and 25 percent, respectively. The study also found that 93 percent of contractors and freelancers as a collective are likely to consider working at a small business which comes in at three percent higher than the global average for business professionals. Software and IT services tops the list of industry segments with the largest number of contractors and freelancers in the gig economy, boasting a talent base of some 223,000 professionals. Media and communications comes in second with 166,000 contractors, followed by healthcare with 164,000. Its also worth pointing out that, according to LinkedIn data, 70 percent of all contractors who switched jobs in the past year also moved to a different industry. This means that if youre not having luck with recruiting contractors within your industry, you may have much more success if you look outside it, researchers said. The healthcare, real estate and construction industries have gained contractors over the past year, while public safety, retail, and the arts have lost them. As one might predict, the majority of that talent has migrated to either the East or West Coast. Cities like Seattle and Portland have experienced a net population gain of eight percent over the past year in terms of available contractors, with San Francisco experiencing a six percent gain and New Yorks gig economy increasing four percent. That being said, Denver bucked the trend by posting an eight percent net gain in the size of its freelance pool. The survey also classed Denver as a hidden gem due to its high supply of freelance professionals, at approximately 38,000, but relatively low demand. Bearing in mind that the median job for an American contractor lasts for some 11 months, the study suggests that a substantial number of freelancers are indeed willing to relocate with 13 percent of contractors who switched companies over the last year also moving to a new region. The data from LinkedIns study is aggregated from a range of public LinkedIn profiles, with contractor status having been determined through member supplied position titles and behavioral analysis. Patients satisfaction levels indicate the quality of health care, but data may be distorted by the number of respondents. Font size: A - | A + Dovera ranking Teaching and university hospitals: Best Childrens Teaching Hospital with Polyclinics in Banska Bystrica Childrens Teaching Hospital in Kosice Central Military Hospital SNP in Ruzomberok Worst Childrens Faculty Hospital with Polyclinics in Bratislava General hospitals: Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Best Hospital Kosice-Saca Hospital of Dr. Vojtech Alexander in Kezmarok St Michaels Hospital in Bratislava Worst General Hospital with Polyclinics Velky Krtis Specialised hospitals: Best National Institute of Diabetes and Endocrinology in Lubochna National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NUSCH) - Childrens Cardiocentre Bratislava Oncology Institute of St Elizabeth Bratislava Worst Psychiatric Hospital of Professor Matulay in Kremnica All three health insurers in Slovakia regularly publish lists of the best and worst medical facilities on their websites, based on feedback from their clients. Yet it is essential to look at the ranking from a broader perspective as the methods used by the insurers often differ. Asking patients about their opinion on medical facilities, which is also required by law, belongs among the important indicators of the quality of the health treatment they provide. It also offers feedback on their services, explains Dusan Zachar, analyst with the non-governmental think tank INEKO. The problem of the data on patient satisfaction may be the insufficient number of respondents, Zachar told The Slovak Spectator. Aside from health-care providers, the insurers also benefit from such information. A subjective patient satisfaction is one of the important indicators we take into consideration when making deals with health-care providers, said head of Dovera Martin Kulhan, as quoted by the SITA newswire. The health insurers take other factors into consideration too, like the equipment of facilities and staff. Moreover, the rankings help patients decide which medical facility to choose, Zachar added. Private facilities lead The results of the two rankings recently published by the private health insurers Dovera and Union are very similar. The patients are satisfied the most with the specialised medical facilities. The best scores went to the National Institute of Diabetes and Endocrinology in Lubochna (Zilina Region), where mostly patients suffering from diabetes are treated. Union ranking Best hospitals: National Institute of Diabetes and Endocrinology in Lubochna Psychiatric Hospital Michalovce ORL Humenne Worst hospitals: Psychiatric Hospital of Philipp Pinel in Pezinok Childrens Faculty Hospital with Polyclinics in Bratislava Hospital with Polyclinics in Myjava Another highly ranked facility is the ORL Humenne (Presov Region) which specialises in diseases linked to earns, nose and throat, the Mammacentrum of St Elizabeth in Banska Bystrica, the Central-Slovak Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases in Banska Bystrica, and the National Institute of Tuberculosis, Respiratory Diseases and Thoracic Surgery in Vysne Hagy (Presov Region), Sme wrote. As for general hospitals, the one in Svidnik (which is part of the Svet Zdravia network owned by the Penta financial group) and the St Michaels Hospital in Bratislava (running under the Interior Ministry) were ranked highly. No university or teaching hospital appeared among the top 10 facilities, Sme wrote. Parents cannot accompany children As for the worst facilities, both rankings included the Psychiatric Hospital of Philipp Pinel in Pezinok (Bratislava Region), as well as the Childrens Teaching Hospital with Polyclinics in Bratislava (DFNsP). Dana Kamenicka, the spokesperson of the latter facility, was not surprised by the ranking as they too receive rather negative evaluations from their own surveys. The patients and their parents often complain about the environment and accommodation possibilities during a childs hospitalisation. Thus we are focusing on this problem and trying to solve it within our powers, Kamenicka told The Slovak Spectator. For example, they provided 60 percent of parents of hospitalised children with beds last year. The possibilities of the hospital are, however, limited, which may be perceived as a discomfort, she added. Read also: Read also: Hospital accused of altering records tops ranking Read more Data may be distorted Every health insurer, however, uses different methodology for collecting the data, which may distort the final data, Zachar said. As a result, it is very hard to compare the rankings. Dovera, for example, divides the facilities into three categories: teaching hospitals, specialised medical facilities, and other facilities. The state-run health insurer Vseobecna Zdravotna Poistovna (VszP) and Union do not categorise the facilities. Moreover, the number of respondents and methods of collecting the data differ. Dovera, for example, surveyed 7,000 of its respondents who were evaluating the services offered by hospitals on a scale of 1-5, where 1 is the best and 5 is the worst. The hospitals received the average score of 1.64, up from 1.66 compared with the previous year. Union carried out a telephone survey, addressing 1,520 clients who were hospitalised in 2016, using the same scale as Dovera. The average score of hospitals was 1.66, down from 1.61 the year before. VsZP has not published the results of the survey yet. In 2015, it sent questionnaires to 20,000 clients, but it received only 29 percent of them. Though the law stipulates that the health insurers should secure the relevant sample of respondents (and returned questionnaires) even on the level of wards, they cannot fulfil it, Zachar said. The problem is if the hospital is evaluated based on seven or 19 questionnaires, he added. Kamenicka agrees that to secure the objective evaluation of facilities, it is necessary to collect more questionnaires than the numbers provided by health insurers. It is also important to take into consideration the number of hospitalisations, she opines. Disclaimer: Dovera is owned by the Penta financial group which has a 45-share in Petit Press, the co-owner of The Slovak Spectator. Alternative taxi services such as Uber, cost taxi drivers 30-40 percent of their fares in Bratislava last year. Font size: A - | A + If the authorities do not take action, the number of protests by taxi drivers in Bratislava will increase and a mass transport strike, blocking Bratislava streets, might follow as well. This was the main message from about 60 taxi drivers who rallied in front of Bratislava city council on April 11. The protest was an appeal to the authorities and institutions to finally start addressing the issue of the mobile taxi app, Uber and similar taxi services. Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Were saying that this isnt the last protest, said Matej Krampl, one of the organisers of the rally, as cited by the TASR newswire. Well go on, and it will escalate. This will happen more regularly. If they dont act, well express our disapproval in this way. The taxi drivers claim that drivers working for various taxi applications and similar taxi services are violating legislation but the authorities tolerate this. They claim that the legislation should apply to everyone equally to taxi drivers as well as to Uber drivers. This means that drivers providing alternative taxi services via Uber and similar apps should also obtain a taxi license, have a taxi meter in the car, pass psychological tests and other requirements. How is it possible that there can be one group that has observed the law is regulated while another, which isnt complying with the law, is ignored, said Bratislava Taxi Drivers Union chief, Ondrej Wenzl, adding that its unacceptable that the city council is taking no action in this regard, claiming that it has no powers to do anything. Read also: Read also: Uber comes to Slovakia Read more The city council is aware of the need to address the issue, but at the moment they have no powers to take action, said Zuzana Onufer, spokesperson for the city council. They can keep tabs on traditional taxi drivers via the city police, but they cannot do the same in the case of unmarked Uber drivers as they cannot check civilian cars without a proper reason. Onufer went on to say that an amendment to the law on taxi services is necessary as well but the Transport and Construction Ministry has shown no interest in this. In late March the Transport Ministry called on the city council to intensify the checks on providers of alternative taxi services. While it claims that the services provided via Uber and similar applications are taxi services, the law does not enable checks. This is in hands of the city. It sees the powers of the city council as sufficient to check drivers using Uber and similar apps. Uber claims that its drivers operate in line with EU directives and provide registered users of the platform with a reliable and safe service, informed Uber spokesperson for Slovakia and the Czech Republic, Miroslava Jozova. The drivers are legally registered and have to meet their tax obligations. Jozova pointed out that protests as well as attacks by traditional taxi drivers against Uber drivers, only highlight the fact that the platform is becoming more and more popular. Read also: Read also: Taxify starts in Bratislava Read more There are some 3,000 taxi drivers in the capital with valid taxi licenses while Uber reports approximately 500 drivers. Uber launched its operation in Bratislava in August 2015. Taxify began to provide services in Bratislava in November 2016. Taxi drivers report that their sales decreased by about 30-40 percent, at least, over 2016. The Constitutional Court has supported two of its judges who were connected in the past with the HZDS party and its chairman, Vladimir Meciar, on the fate of whose amnesties they should decide - decided another judge connected to HZDS. Font size: A - | A + Ladislav Orosz and Peter Brnak feel biased in judging the amnesties granted by then-prime minister Vladimir Meciar who for a short time acted also as president but despite this, they will be deciding on their potential revocation. The plenary session of the Constitutional Court whose President is Ivetta Macejkova (in the past HZDS favourite for the post of justice minister) ruled on it this week, the Sme daily wrote on April 13. Macejkova was also appointed by ex-president and ex-speaker of parliament for HZDS, Ivan Gasparovic. Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement The file regarding Meciars amnesties was electronically assigned to judge Orosz on April 6. As a former MP for the SDL party, he refrained from voting in 2002 when parliament held a vote on the revocation of the amnesties. Read also: Read also: Meciar amnesties go to Meciar people Read more Another member of the Constitutional Court, Brnak, who is even a former MP of the now defunct HZDS, compared the cancellation of the amnesties to frying snowballs. No other objections of bias have been registered at the Constitutional Court until now. Orosz announced the next day after being electronically allocated the file that there are some facts that could create reasons for them being excluded from performing their function, while Brnak followed suit three days later. At its closed plenary session on April 11, the CC decided to not exclude the judges from deciding on the amnesties, court spokesperson Martina Ferencova told Sme. Constitutional Court involvement The Constitutional Court is able assess the Meciar amnesties due to a constitutional amendment proposed by the ruling coalition. Parliament approved the revocation of amnesties by voting but this has still to be confirmed by the CC. Even the opposition helped pass the amendment although it fears that due to the personnel ties to past politics and politicians, the CC could block the amnesties' revocation. Cabinet and parliament can object against the appointment of judges: the cabinet is represented by Justice Minister Lucia Zitnanska and parliament by Most-Hid MP Peter Kresak and Peter Kubina. The two MPs have focused on amnesties over the long term and are currently weighing potential future steps. Read also: Read also: Coalition finds a way to scrap Meciars amnesties Read more We are preparing steps; objecting is one of the possibilities, Kresak said. They are waiting on the final decision until the Constitutional Court sends a letter to parliament containing the request for deputy stances. The justice minister did not want to elaborate on future steps either. The CC now has only 10 out of the total number of 13, as president Andrej Kiska refuses to appoint candidates for judges proposed by Smer. For the CC to vote on the amnesties, an absolute majority of all members is necessary, meaning seven are necessary for the revocation process to continue. Past shadows Together with the Meciar amnesties, the individual pardon of then-president Michal Kovac is being evaluated concerning his son in the Technopol case. Parliament revoked the Meciar amnesties after 19 years, by amending the Constitution. This was preceded by immense public pressure as well as the movie Unos (Kidnapping) which is a fictional account of the actual events surrounding the crime connected with the amnesties, the abduction of son of then-president Michal Kovac Junior abroad, and the ensuing murder of an intelligence service employee involved in the case. Read also: Read also: Scrapping the Meciar amnesties is similar to the Watergate scandal Read more The amnesties then halted the investigation and prosecution of the abduction and the murder. The court has to judge the amnesties within a period of 60 days as stipulated by law; otherwise parliaments decision on their revocation automatically comes into effect. This means that the court has to decide by June 6. On a busy day over the Easter period, Maundy Thursday, railway traffic bringing passengers from all over Slovakia to their families was suspended. Font size: A - | A + On the rail section between the cities of Trencin and Nove Mesto nad Vahom, a damaged railroad switch stopped traffic on April 13 morning. A train damaged it when it suddenly without a known reason crossed the semaphore in the Stop position in the Trencin Zlatovce station, deputy spokesperson of the ZSR state railway company, Ivana Popluharova, informed the TASR newswire. Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement The cause of the accident is being investigated and passengers were offered substitute transport by buses, Popluharova informed. ZSR apologises to all passengers for the complications caused by the accident, she added. Preliminary estimates saw normal traffic as being renewed in the afternoon; traffic was returned to normal operation around 13:30. By Piya Hingorani: Shootjit Sircar's production Pink bagged the award for The Best Film on Social Issues at the 64th National Awards this year. Pink, a poignant courtroom drama directed by Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury, starred Amitabh Bachchan, Tapsee Pannu, Kirti Kulhari, Angad Bedi and Andrea Tariang in the lead. This news is perhaps a time for celebration for Rising Sun Film Production, you think? "I don't want to celebrate this film as it's a social issue film," says Shootjit in an exclusive interview to India Today TV. advertisement "I am happy that the people and the jury have loved it, I am proud and honoured but this film is to introspect, this film is not to celebrate you know. If you go and see this film and you come out it really hits your head. It still disturbs me when I watch my own film, so no celebrations. We want to introspect. And we are going to take this thought ahead. We are going to take Pink wherever possible so that it reaches maximum audience," says the producer. The director-producer may have been thrilled with his win, but he believed that Amitabh Bachchan deserved the Best Actor honour for this films. "Pink without him (Bachchan) was not possible. The way he supported us on screen and off screen and I was really hoping that he wins the National Award for Best Actor because I think his is one of the finest performances this year," admitted Shootjit. "But it's ok. I'll go by the jury. Bachchan Sir called me immediately after the announcement and we chatted and we planned that we will keep moving on and will keep doing things which stirs him and challenges him also as an actor," he adds. This is the third time Sircar has collaborated with Bachchan Senior. Their first was a film titled Shoebite which after a lot of delay, eventually got shelved, and then they came together for Shoojit's directorial, Piku in 2015. This win is the fourth film in a row to have bagged a National honour for Sircar's home production Rising Sun Film, in partnership with Ronnie Lahiri. Shoojit Sircar became a household name with his directorial Vicky Donor, starring newcomers Ayushmann Khuranna and Yami Gautam. With the story revolving around the sensitive issue of sperm donation, the film sparked many a conversations. The film which was co-produced by John Abraham, earned Sircar his first National Award for Best Popular Film, and veteran actors Annu Kapoor and Dolly Alhuwalia won Best Supporting Actors (Male and female) for the cult film in 2013. This was just the beginning! In 2014 he bought home the National Film Award for Best Audiography to Nihar Ranjan and Bishwadeeo Chatterjee for John Abraham starrer Madras Cafe. advertisement Amitabh Bachchan, Deepika Padukone's Piku, an emotional film about a father-daughter relationship won the National Award Best actor for Bachchan, and Best Screenplay along with Best Dialogue for Juhi Chaturvedi in 2015. Sircar, who's shifted bag and baggage to Kolkata with his family in tow, is busy working on his next, a dream project of sorts "I think it's already in the news that I am working on Uddham Singh. I have been following his life for a long long time and couple of more films including uniting with Juhi Chaturvedi again and doing something," he said. Shoojit has been toying with the script of the biopic of Uddham Singh, a film that is based in the pre-independence era for the past 18 years now. Udham Singh, is a forgotten hero, who assassinated Michael O'Dwyer, the former Lieutenant Governor of the Punjab in British India in 1940, to avenge the 1919, Jallianwala Bagh massacre. ALSO READ: Amitabh-Taapsee's Pink wins National Award for Best Film On Social Issues ALSO READ: 64th National Film Awards full winners' list ALSO WATCH: Amitabh Bachchan's Pink is honest and will sadly be relevant for a long time --- ENDS --- advertisement But critics fear its cover for political interference, and EC hints law may break European rules. Font size: A - | A + Following the uproar over electricity price hikes at the beginning of the year that led to the resignation of the head of the energy regulator, the government has proposed a new law to give ministers the power to appoint his successor. Critics are warning that the regulator is being politicized; the economy minister has acknowledged that the need for what he calls political responsibility is a consideration. Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement The European Commission has welcomed one aspect of the new law, to separate the roles of head of the Regulatory Office for Network Industries (URSO), the regulator, and chairman of its regulatory council. But it has warned that involving the government in regulatory decisions could break EU rules. The former head of URSO, Jozef Holjencik, resigned in early February after being publicly slapped down by Prime Minister Robert Fico for approving increases in electricity tariffs. The regulator is currently being led by its vice-chairman, Miroslav Celinsky. The Economy Ministry has set up a commission to choose the new head of URSO, which will involve representatives of employers associations and the Association of Slovak Towns and Villages (ZMOS). When Economy Minister Peter Ziga was asked if he already has some names in mind, he replied: Not yet. Im waiting for proposals. It is expected that the new head will be chosen only after the new law on regulation is adopted. The cabinet adopted the law on March 29 and parliament passed it to a second reading on April 7. The original plan was to adopt it via a fast-track proceeding during the parliamentary session ending on April 7, but it will now be considered during the May session in order to allow more time for debate, Ziga said. The revised law should come into effect on June 1, 2017. Read also: Read also: Cabinet amends the regulation act Read more MPs have already voted down a draft revision to the law submitted by Karol Galek and Jana Kissova, deputies for the opposition party Freedom and Solidarity (SaS). Their amendment aimed to change the position of URSO as a whole, to ensure greater transparency in the regulation of utility prices, and to separate the positions of chief of the regulator and the head of the regulatory council, among others. Separation of powers The government bill proposes to separate of the positions of URSO chief and the head of the regulatory council. Based on current legislation, the regulatory council not only adopts regulatory policies and concepts, but is also the appellate body for decisions taken by URSO. In effect, the head of the regulatory council supervises himself in his role as director of URSO. Livia Vasakova, economic advisor to EC Representation in Slovakia, reacted positively to the proposed separation of these roles. Separation of the position of the URSO chairman from the regulatory council is something what the EC has been addressing with the Economy Ministry for a long period of time, said Vasakova, during a discussion organised by the economic think-tank INESS in late March, as quoted by the www.energia.sk energy news website. Read also: Read also: Cabinet to have more powers in energy regulation Read more However, she warned that the proposed participation of the Economy Ministry in power and gas price regulation proceedings may be in conflict with EU rules, adding that the European Commission would be able to make a final decision only once Slovakia adopts the new law. The new legislation would strengthen the governments influence on URSO by allowing the Economy Ministry to regain its right to comment on pricing decisions for heat, natural gas and electricity; the Environment Ministry would gain a similar role in water pricing. Moreover, the new URSO head would be appointed directly by the government. Currently, the president appoints the chief regulator, as well as the head of the regulatory council; he would retain the latter power. URSO will remain an independent authority, Economy Minister Peter Ziga (Smer) said, as quoted by the SITA newswire. But he defended the move to increase the cabinets role, saying Practice has shown that the government bears the greatest political responsibility for URSOs decisions, thus it is logical that it will be responsible for his appointment. He also defended the return of powers to the ministries. If one of the ministries has comments and the authority will not accept them, it will have to publish them, Ziga said, as quoted by SITA. He asserted that the involvement of the ministries would not violate European directives. However, the government was required, as recently as 2012, when adopting the EUs third energy liberalisation package, to change the law to reduce the role of ministries in regulation. Based on the new legislation, the head of the regulatory council will be elected from its members, and subsequently appointed by the president. The regulatory council will have six members, three of whom will be nominated by parliament and three by the government. URSO will also have to prepare impact studies whenever it decides to change its price regulation. It will have to compare the proposed change with the current state, and evaluate its impact on customers. We want to prevent a situation where the government does not have information about the impact of new price regulations, Ziga explained, as quoted by SITA. Moreover, the URSO head will have two deputies instead of the current one. Under the new rules, one of them will also have to sign new price decisions, or they will not be valid. But experts and opposition politicians believe that this will only increase the dependence of the office on the cabinet. While experts, stakeholders in the energy sector and several politicians have long called for the separation of the roles of URSO chief and chair of the regulatory council, they oppose the other changes, which they say will render the independence of the office merely formal. Businesses have already commented on the draft law to demand, among other things, publication of the parameters on which the calculation of regulated prices and fees is based. The Federation of Employers Associations (AZZZ) opposes appointment of the chief regulator by the cabinet, while the majority of energy companies and URSO itself are against the reinsertion of ministries into the process of utility price-setting. The energy companies perceive this as a potential conflict of interest, as the Economy Ministry owns stakes in some of the companies it will end up regulating. URSO claims that if the ministries were to become participants in price proceedings, this would violate European rules. It is also afraid of losing its independence. The impartiality and independence of the office must be real, not only formally presented in the law, URSO wrote in its comments on the draft revision during interdepartmental review. Political analyst Grigorij Meseznikov says the independent position of the regulator would be weakened if its head is appointed by the cabinet. In this way, the regulator will be drawn into creation of a state pricing policy in the sector of utilities, said Meseznikov. The regulator would turn into a government agency if its head is subordinated to the prime minister. The person who appoints the regulators head, in this case Robert Fico, will expect him to be loyal. Meseznikov believes that Fico sees the regulator only as a body to help him fulfil his social policy, and that its independence is already only formal. Robert Fico likes to present himself by popular measures, especially when he can show to the general public by what steps he has achieved these popular measures, said Meseznikov. The goals of his interventions were to promote his strong social feeling and care for people. University hospital in Bratislava fired the head of the surgery clinic. Font size: A - | A + The University hospital in Bratislava (UNB) fired Jan Skultety, the head of the surgery clinic in the Petrzalka hospital, last week. As the Sme daily informed, he tested positive for alcohol at the beginning of the night shift. Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement The former head of the clinic took the test one hour after beginning his shift at 19:00, according to the Sme daily. The test showed 0.2 permille of alcohol in his blood and he was compelled to leave the clinic immediately. For the UNB the key is strict adherence to work discipline. We make checks regularly and randomly during the year, said the spokesperson for the UNB, Petra Stano Matasovska, as quoted by Sme. The hospital however refused to comment on the reason for Skultety's dismissal. Read also: Read also: Drunken Slovak pilot pleads guilt Read more Skultety is also an employee of the Medical faculty in Bratislava, currently on vacation, as vice dean of the faculty, Juraj Payer, told Sme. About 2,500 patients are hospitalized yearly at the II. surgery clinic of the Medical faculty of the Comenius University and the UNB. The clinic is the teaching work-place of the Medical faculty, where surgical exams are also taken. The clinic is also supporting several ongoing research projects including some international ones. Libraries Crowdfunding Snapshot: 5 Campaigns to 'Transform' Libraries Its National Library Week this week (April 9-15), an annual event hosted by the American Library Association (ALA) that celebrates contributions made by librarians and libraries across the country. Libraries provide a variety of public services and the ALA has stated that "the amount of funding that a library receives directly influences the quality of its services." Due to a lack of funding, however, many are turning to online crowdfunding platforms like GoFundMe. A company spokesperson said that GoFundMe has seen a surge in libraries launching crowdfunding campaigns not just in the United States, but around the globe. From a school library making a comeback to rebuilding one from rubble, the platform is helping libraries score funding to make big transformations. This years theme for National Library Week is Libraries Transform. Here are five GoFundMe campaigns working toward this goal. 1) School Library Nearly a Decade Overdue Nearly 10 years after closing its library, Adaire is on its way to reopening one again. Adaire Elementary School, like many public schools in Philadelphia, has gone without a school library for almost 10 years. Thanks to a 2015 grant from best-selling author James Patterson and Scholastic, the school was able to pull books out of storage and slowly begin the process of rebuilding its library in an available classroom space. Without a staff librarian, however, volunteers have been running a small, bare-bones library that has many outdated and damaged books. Theres a cheerful rug, but the walls are bare, the lights are harsh and it's a less-than-inviting spot to read, according to the campaign page. The goal: transform the classroom into a library where readers blossom equipped with ample resources, welcoming nooks and study spots. Parents and staff at Adaire initially set a fundraising goal of $5,000. Last month, they announced that they surpassed this goal in less than one week. With $5,350 raised to date, the funds will be used to order new books, learning materials and furnishings, like chairs, pillows, lamps, art and other touches to make our small room initiviting. 2) From Dreams to Reality A sketch of the Enchanted Forest Library. Another crowdfunding project to design a welcoming reading space came to campaign organizer Ron Peel in a dream. Peel, as a way to calm himself before falling asleep, imagined a project he calls the Enchanted Forest Library: a small, cozy pavilion with detail in harmony with nature and reading, the campaign page explains. It will serve as an homage to a former librarian at Reeths-Puffer Schools who recently died. The roof is an open book supported by tree-like posts and fairytale corbels. The seating will be book structures stacked as if placed by in a pile on the night stand. I also see stacks of books supporting a bench swing to pass the humid summer air. This will be a place of inspiration, relaxation and reflection, Peel wrote. Posted 16 days ago, the Enchanted Library pavilion has raised $4,280 of its overall $30,000 goal and received 355 shares on Facebook. 3) Libraries-on-the-Go Little Free Libraries utilize a 'take one, leave one' policy and can be found all over the world. Nonprofit organization W-E Library Boosters, which supports the Willoughby-Eastlake Public Library, wants to raise $5,000 to build six libraries-on-the-go. These Little Free Libraries, as they are called, are hand-crafted structures that can store up to 50 books donated and shared by people of all ages and backgrounds, according to the campaign page. Worldwide, people have embraced these book-boxes, with more than 40,000 little free libraries around the globe. The campaign has raised $655 of its $5,000 goal to date. 4) Rebuilding Reading from Rubble After a bridge collapsed and cut off foot traffic to Henry Miller Library, the Big Sur-based library had to open a new location in a shopping center. One campaign wants to rebuild a library that was temporarily shut down by Mother Nature, the campaign page explains. In Big Sur, CA, the Pfeiffer Canyon Bridge was demolished March 20, after relentless winter rain reduced it to rubble. As a result, the Henry Miller Library was closed and will reopen in mid-May to far less foot traffic since vehicle access will remain cut off from the north, the campaign says. The disruption to its services has caused the library to lose more than $60,000 so far. While it continues to raise money for repairs and drain resources, the library has opened a new location called the Henry Miller Library in the Barnyard a gallery and bookstore located in a shopping center in Carmel, CA. So far, the library has raised $35,375 of its overall $50,000 goal, with nearly 2,000 shares on Facebook since the campaign launched April 2. Online Education Report: Virtual Schools Expand in U.S. Despite Poor Performance Policymakers should focus on improving academic performance, promoting needed research and developing policy in critical areas before permitting more virtual schools, report says. Virtual schools have expanded and proliferated in the United States, despite poor performance, lack of research support and inadequate policies, according to a report released this week by the National Education Policy Center (NEPC). The three-part report, Virtual Schools in the U.S. 2017, provides a detailed inventory of full-time virtual schools in the United States and their performance, an exhaustive review of the literature on virtual education and its implications for virtual school practices, and a detailed review and analysis of state-level policymaking related to such schools. The growth of full-time virtual schools has been fueled by policies that expand school choice and that provide market incentives attractive to for-profit companies, the report said. Indeed, large virtual schools operated by for-profit education management organizations (EMOs) now dominate this sector and are increasing their market share. Although virtual schools benefit from the common but largely unsupported assumption that the approach is cost-effective and educationally superior or equal to brick and mortar schools, there are numerous problems associated with virtual schools, the report said. School performance measures such as assessments, for both full-time completely virtual and full-time blended virtual schools, suggest that they are not as successful as traditional public schools. The virtual education research base is not adequate to support many current virtual school practices, according to the report. More than 20 years after the first virtual schools began, there continues to be a deficit of empirical, longitudinal research to guide the practice and policy of virtual education. Also, state policymaking in several key areas including accountability, teacher preparation and school governance continues to lag. An analysis of state policies suggests that policymakers continue to struggle to reconcile traditional funding structures, governance and accountability systems, instructional quality and staffing demands with the organizational models and instructional methods associated with virtual schooling. Accountability challenges linked to virtual schools include designing and implementing governance structures capable of accounting for expenditures and practices that directly benefit students. The reports policy recommendations include: The specification and enforcement of sanctions for virtual and blended schools if they fail to improve student performance; The creation of long-term programs to support independent research on and evaluation of virtual schooling, particularly full-time virtual schooling; and The development of new funding formulas based on the actual costs of operating virtual schools. The National Education Policy Center is based at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education. To view the full report on virtual schools, visit the NEPC website. In this March 23, 2012, photo semi-trucks drive south on Highway 85 near Williston, N.D. Litter has become an escalating problem as the rush to tap vast caches of crude escalates in North Dakota. Some of the industrial rubbish blows in from unsecured truckloads, but for many, the most frustrating trash is the gallons of discarded urine. (AP Photo/Elijah Nouvelage) Tesla is moving into the heavy vehicle market, and the first glimpse of the new Tesla Semi is due this fall. On April 13, Tesla CEO Elon Musk congratulated his team on the amazing job designing the forthcoming truck, while also announcing a pickup truck would be out in 18 to 24 months and a convertible roadster sometime in the future. Tesla Semi truck unveil set for September. Team has done an amazing job. Seriously next level. Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 13, 2017 The Tesla Semi, an all-electric truck program led by Jerome Guillen, Teslas former Model S program director, has been long anticipated. Teslas updated Master Plan last July stated the Tesla Semi will deliver a substantial reduction in the cost of cargo transport, while increasing safety and making it really fun to operate. But first, Tesla will need to solve a key problem: range. Electric cars have limited range, but electric semi-trucks will have far less. Existing lithium-ion batteries capable of powering a semi-truck for 500 miles (804 kilometers) would weigh 23-tons, half the weight of the truck itself, estimates German engineering firm Siemens. Even Teslas more efficient battery cells from its Gigafactory plant with Panasonic arent likely to shave too much off that number. Tesla executives have said its new batteries for the upcoming Model 3 are 30% more efficient than the Model S, but far bigger gains, and potentially a new battery chemistry, would be needed change the equation for hauling cargo long distances. Ian Wright, a former vice president of vehicle development at Tesla who left in 2004 and went on to found Wrightspeed, an electric truck company, says pursuing long-haul electric trucking with batteries alone is futile. It dont make any sense in a long-haul application, Wright said in an interview with Quartz last year. Its off by order of magnitude. Wright says all-electric trucks lack the energy density to haul cargo over hundreds of miles. Wrightspeeds electric garbage trucks use on-board gas turbines to recharge the trucks batteries, while regenerative braking recoups energy during start-and-stop traffic. Story continues Musk hasnt revealed if the Tesla Semi will deviate from the companys current battery strategy. To enable long-haul applications, one option is embedding wireless charging coils in roadbeds (although that is still seen as expensive, inefficient and a regulatory headache. Overhead wires provide electric power to trucks. A second option, presented by Siemens last year, uses overhead wires to charge fast-moving trucks on highway journeys. Field trials for unlimited-distance electric trucks using this system have already started. California has its own one-mile (1.6 kilometers) eHighway between ports in Los Angeles and Long Beach. But bigger charging infrastructurewhether buried or overheadwould require massive new public investment. Tesla has remained silent on its intentions, but the company has made it a habit of defying conventional wisdom. Solving Tesla Semis problem may need more than an engineering solution. Sign up for the Quartz Daily Brief, our free daily newsletter with the worlds most important and interesting news. More stories from Quartz: Video released by Arizona police shows how a four-year-old girl narrowly escaped being shot when gunfire shattered the windows of a barber shop she was playing in. The girl was sitting down in a chair by the shop's window in Chandler when two bullets were shot at head level, narrowly missing her and sending her running in a panic. The girl was struck by shattered glass and was taken to hospital, but authorities said her life is not in danger. She reportedly suffered small cuts on her face. Police said the barber shop was not the intended target of the shooting. Rather, the alleged gunman, David Hart, was aiming at a tattoo parlour next door. The 23-year-old Hart had been told to leave by the owner of Damaged Ink Tattoo and asked to come back when he was not intoxicated, according to local newspaper The Arizona Republic. After leaving the shop, Hart went to his car, got a gun from the trunk, drove by and started shooting, police said. He was subsequently arrested at a nearby home. Police also arrested another man, 21-year-old Rafael Santos, who allegedly was in the car with Hart at the time of the shooting. Residents of the area were shocked. "It's shocking. It's ridiculous that stuff goes on," said neighbour Alan Bronson. "We have a seven-month old we're raising. You see stuff like that, it makes you angry." DAKAR (Reuters) - Violence against civilians in Central African Republic (CAR), including summary executions and mutilations, is reaching levels not seen since the height of its years-long conflict, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has said. The country descended into chaos when a mainly Muslim Seleka rebel alliance ousted then-president Francois Bozize in 2013, sparking reprisals from Christian militias. Religion has played a waning role as splinter groups now clash over control of territory and resources. Recent violence has been concentrated in four prefectures in the centre and east, where the government and a 13,000-strong United Nations peacekeeping mission have struggled to contain the bloodshed, the medical charity said. "Our teams have witnessed summary executions and have found mutilated bodies left exposed to terrorise populations," Rene Colgo, the deputy head of MSF's mission in CAR, said in a statement released late on Wednesday. Fighting has spread to parts of the country previously considered stable but where rival armed groups are now battling for control of towns and areas with gold and diamond mines. Some 100,000 people were displaced between September 2016 and February 2017 amid the renewed clashes, according to the United Nations, and MSF is now treating trauma victims at clinics intended to provide healthcare to rural communities. "The Central African Republic is spiralling into levels of violence that have not been seen since the peak of the conflict in 2014," said MSF representative Emmanuel Lampaert. One in five Central Africans is currently displaced and around 2.2 million people, half the total population, need humanitarian assistance, according to the United Nations. The United States on Wednesday imposed financial sanctions against two militia leaders - one a Muslim rebel chief and the other a Christian militia leader - accused of collaborating on plans to destabilise CAR. (Reporting by Nellie Peyton; Editing by Joe Bavier and Tom Heneghan) WASHINGTON (AP) CIA Director Mike Pompeo denounced the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks on Thursday as a "hostile intelligence service" and a threat to U.S. national security, a condemnation that differed sharply from President Donald Trump's past praise of the organization. In his first public speech since becoming America's spy master, the former Republican congressman escalated the agency's hostility to WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, accusing them of making common cause with dictators. While "Assange and his ilk" claim they act in the name of liberty and privacy, Pompeo said that in reality, their mission is "personal self-aggrandizement through the destruction of Western values." "WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service," Pompeo said. Pompeo's tone was notably different from that of his boss. Before the election, Trump said he was happy to see WikiLeaks publish private, politically damaging emails from Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, John Podesta. The White House defended the president, saying there was a big difference between WikiLeaks publishing stolen, personal emails of a political figure and publishing files about national security tools used by the CIA. WikiLeaks last month released nearly 8,000 documents that it says reveal secrets about the CIA's cyberespionage tools for breaking into targeted computers, cellphones and even smart TVs. It previously published 250,000 State Department cables and embarrassed the U.S. military with hundreds of thousands of logs from Iraq and Afghanistan. Pompeo said there was no "quick fix" for solving the threat posed by Assange and others determined to publicize U.S. secrets. The U.S. and the CIA can shame Assange publicly and fortify information systems, he said. They can build trust with the public, however hard that may be for an agency defined by its secrecy. Pompeo also suggested denying "Assange and his colleagues the latitude to use free speech values against us." He did not say how that could be done, but said Assange is not protected by the U.S. Constitution because he's not an American. Story continues Pompeo noted that in January, U.S. intelligence officials determined Russian military intelligence had used WikiLeaks to release data obtained through cyber operations against the Democratic National Committee. He said American intelligence also found that Russian state-owned television network RT actively collaborated with WikiLeaks. He also criticized Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who leaked documents revealing widespread government surveillance programs. Snowden currently lives in Russia. Assange, an Australian, has resided the last four years in Ecuador's embassy in London. He received political asylum after skipping bail to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted over a rape allegation. "While we do our best to quietly collect information on those who possess very real threats to our country, individuals like Julian Assange and Edward Snowden seek to use that information to make a name for themselves," Pompeo said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. "As long as they make a splash, they care nothing about the lives they put at risk or the damage they cause to national security." In an opinion piece published Wednesday in The Washington Post, Assange defended his disclosures, which he depicted as "truths regarding overreaches and abuses conducted in secret by the powerful." "Our most recent disclosures describe the CIA's multibillion-dollar cyberwarfare program in which the agency created dangerous cyber weapons, targeted private companies' consumer products and then lost control of its cyber arsenal," Assange wrote. Pompeo did not confirm the cyberespionage tools released by WikiLeaks belonged to the agency. Since the disclosure, the U.S. government has all but publicly accepted the embarrassing claim. Trump said in an interview: "I just want people to know the CIA was hacked, and a lot of things taken." On Monday, a California-based computer security company said the tools disclosed by WikiLeaks have been linked to 40 spying operations in 16 countries. Symantec Corp. linked them to electronic infiltration of international, financial, energy and aerospace organizations across the world. Leader of North Korea Kim Jong-un and U.S. President Donald Trump (Getty Images) Tensions between North Korea and America have reached a historic and worrying high during Donald Trumps presidency. As an armada of U.S. ships steams closer to the Korean peninsula in show of force, Kim Jong-un has warned that he will respond with a nuclear attack at the first sign of aggression. While his predecessor Barack Obama delivered stern warnings to the hermit state that his country could destroy them, President Trump has upped the rhetoric. Taking to Twitter, President Trump declared he was willing to solve the problem of North Korea. North Korea is looking for trouble. If China decides to help, that would be great. If not, we will solve the problem without them! U.S.A. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 11, 2017 His Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has echoed Trumps bravado, saying that the policy of strategic patience has ended and all options are on the table. But would the President actually press the red button, considering the risks? Are Donald Trumps threats serious? Emil Dall, Proliferation and Nuclear Policy Research Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, told Yahoo News UK: What weve seen with President Trump is that hes very keen to make clear to Americans that military action is now a feasible response. We have to remember that previous administrations have probably had military action as part of their toolkit what might have happened with Trump is that that option is brought further forward. But theres no disputing the fact that President Trump has quite a track record of mighty claims that havent quite materialised. Mr Dall added: I think there is also a certain posturing going on from President Trumps side. Theres a lot of tough language, which feeds in very well with his language on domestic politics and even towards countries in Europe. But then again we are at a point in North Korean /U.S. relations that are incredibly tense. Possibly more tense than they have been for many years. Story continues US warships head towards North Korea (US Navy) What would Trumps strategy be? Dr Benjamin Habib, lecturer at the School of Social Sciences, La Trobe University, wrote in The Conversation that surgical airstrikes are likely to be Trumps favoured approach. This would mean destroying Pyongyangs nuclear arsenal without the devastating civilian casualties an all-out strike would undoubtedly cause. It is a similar approach to that he took in Syria when he authorised the bombing of a military airfield. In the case of North Korea, it could mean targeting the countrys nuclear infrastructure. For such a strategy to be successful, the critical sites would have to be destroyed entirely to kill off the threat of retaliation. But Dr Habib says that the bombs themselves, and the stockpiles of fissile material are likely to be buried deep in secret, reinforced underground facilities, protected from aerial attack. There would also be a huge risk of radioactive contamination to surrounding regions. Donald Trump could try to target Kim Jon-un, the tyrannical leader of North Korea (AP) A surgical airstrike could also target Kim Jong-un himself, with a view to bringing about regime change in the event of his death. This would be astronomically risky. If a strike were to miss and the despotic leader survived, it could lead to a brutal retaliation. How would North Korea retaliate? Evidence suggests that North Korea does not currently have the capability for a nuclear attack against America. Yet. Proliferation and nuclear policy analyst Emil Dall told Yahoo News UK: North Korea vowed to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile capability that can reach the continental United States. And theyre fast progressing towards that effort. A few years ago we were talking about whether North Korea was able to miniturise their nuclear warheads to be able to go onto a missile. I think most analysts would agree we have to assume that line has now been crossed. When were discussing the ability of their missiles to travel such a long distance theres still some question about that. But given the determination of the North Korean regime its a matter of when not if they will acquire that capability. Assuming North Korea isnt able to target the U.S. with nuclear weapons, it would likely turn its attention to the South Korean capital of Seoul. The city is incredibly exposed thanks to its proximity to the border. Civilian casualties could be catastrophic, and a nuclear attack could lead to years of radioactive fall-out. On top of the humanitarian tragedy, the alliance between the U.S. and South Korea would be left in tatters if a sloppy military strike by America sparked an attack on Seoul. Given the potential for humanitarian tragedy that would inevitably result from U.S. action against North Korea, it is surely a last resort for Trump. Americas military muscle outweighs North Koreas, removing Kim Jong-uns incentive to act first in a conflict. Dr Benjamin Habib writes: Trumps foreign policy team would do well to think through the logic of their escalation. A North Korean first-strike nuclear attack against the U.S. or its regional allies makes little sense for North Korea. From this perspective, it is a strategic restraint on Americas part based on deterrence rather than unnecessary unilateral muscle-flexing thats more likely to preserve regional stability. If reports are to go by, the Telugu satellite rights of superstar Mahesh Babu's next has been sold for Rs 15 crore, say reports. By India Today Web Desk: Mahesh Babu is back in style. After keeping his fans waiting with bated breaths, the makers have finally unveiled the first look poster of Mahesh's Spyder, which went viral on the internet. Needless to say, Spyder is one of the highly anticipated films in Telugu after of course, SS Rajamouli's Baahubali: The Conclusion. According to reports, the satellite rights of Spyder has been bagged by Zee Network for a price of Rs 15 crore. It may be noted that Zee bought the rights of superstar Rajinikanth-starrer 2.0 for a whopping Rs 110 crore. advertisement Tipped to be a spy thriller, the film will see Mahesh Babu as a suave intelligent officer, while SJ Suryah has been roped in to lock horns with the Nenokkadine star. Reports also suggests that Suryah is likely to sport a macho look for the film and that he is rigorously working out to achieve the desired look. Made on a lavish budget of Rs 115 crore by NV Prasad, the film stars Rakul Preet Singh as the leading lady. Directed by AR Murugadoss, the Tamil-Telugu bilingual, which has music by Harris Jayaraj, is slated to release on June 23. ALSO READ: Baahubali 2 new poster: Prabhas's film is a perfect blend of jealousy and betrayal ALSO READ: Would Baahubali 2 be huge without its marketing? ALSO READ: Spyder first look- Mahesh Babu looks like God, says RGV --- ENDS --- BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) Germany's foreign minister on Wednesday praised the role of Serbia's president-elect in maintaining stability in the war-weary Balkans, saying daily protests against Aleksandar Vucic's election victory are part of the democratic process. Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said after talks with Vucic in Belgrade that it's important for the demonstrations that have been held throughout the country every day since the April 2 election to remain peaceful. "Serbia is a factor of stability in the region," Gabriel said in comments translated into Serbian by an official interpreter. "Old demons have been waking up in some parts of the Balkans, and Serbia is the country that has contributed that this does not happen." Meanwhile, Serbians took to the streets again in Belgrade and other cities, blowing whistles and carrying banners that urged an end to Vucic's alleged "dictatorship." Vucic, Serbia's current prime minister, received 55 percent of the vote in the presidential election, enough to avoid a runoff. Opposition leaders have alleged irregularities, including muzzling the media during the campaign and voter intimidation. Vucic has dismissed the allegations. He said Wednesday that the protests present "an expression of Serbia's democratic strength." "They can demonstrate for a year or 10 years if they want," he said. Vucic has pledged to pursue European Union membership for Serbia and won EU support for his willingness to improve relations with former province Kosovo. But he has faced mounting accusations at home of imposing an authoritarian rule by curbing dissent and freedom of speech, while also boosting ties with Serbia's traditional ally Russia. BERLIN (AP) The German government says it would support a ban on the export of boats from the European Union to Libya as part of measures to stem the flow of migrants across the Mediterranean. Smugglers use often rickety vessels to ferry thousands of migrants from the north African country to Europe each month. Mass drownings are common when the overloaded boats capsize or sink. In a response to questions from Left Party lawmakers, the German government says it considers "imposing restrictive measures" on EU exports of boats, engines and vehicles to Libya to be an appropriate measure to crack down on people smuggling. The response, obtained Thursday by The Associated Press, also confirms that the EU naval mission deployed to stop illegal migration uses submarines for "covert reconnaissance" in the region. By Marc Jones LONDON (Reuters) - Lithuania will keep increasing military spending after hitting NATO's recommended level of 2 percent of economic output in the next two years, its finance minister said, as Russia builds up capabilities on the borders of its Baltic neighbours. Relations with the West were damaged by Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea and deteriorated even further last week after a gas attack in Russia-backed Syria. "We are a NATO member but we are also responsible for our security ourselves," Vilius Sapoka told Reuters on Tuesday in his first interview with international media since Lithuania's coalition government took office last year. "Next year we will already reach 2 percent of GDP (in terms of military spending) ... and I think we will keep gradually increasing that number." That rise in spending, alongside an improving European economy, is expected to nudge Lithuania's growth rate up to 3 percent this year. Sapoka's government, a "catch all" of the Peasants, Greens Union and Social Democrats that came to power in November, faces broad challenges though. Income inequality is among the highest in the European Union and has been increasing, driving younger people abroad for work. Sapoka said the government wants to raise tax revenues to 40 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in the next five years from 30 percent, to help improve education and healthcare. It will stick to its predecessor's "fiscal discipline" path, he said, but is embarking on an aggressive drive to attract high tech finance and bio-medicine firms with tax breaks. It already allows firms to offset three times what they spend on research and development but is about to go further. "If you invest in new technologies, at the moment you can deduct 50 percent (from tax) and we will increase that up to 100 percent." Lithuania also has a stake in Britain's negotiations to leave the European Union. Brexit has made the future uncertain for the roughly 200,000 Lithuanians living in the United Kingdom. "Here we are very clear that all the rights that were acquired by Lithuanian people are preserved," Sapoka said. A "mirror arrangement" should be given to EU-based Britons, he said. Echoing the standard EU line, he also said that "all parties should respect their financial obligations," referring to the 60 billion euros ($64 billion) that countries such as Austria have said the UK should pay as it leaves. While Lithuania wants a show of unity in the EU, two years after joining the euro, it also leans on the side of fiscal discipline for Greece, as the Baltic nation takes part in its second batch of bailout talks. "We talk about solidarity but we should not forget the principle of responsibility as well," Sapoka said. (Editing by Louise Ireland) By Nyasha Nyaungwa WINDHOEK (Reuters) - President Hage Geingob has said Namibia will make it mandatory for white-owned businesses to sell a 25 percent stake to blacks, calling the country one of the most unequal in the world. A draft bill on the Namibia Economic Empowerment Framework (NEEF) was expected to be tabled before his cabinet soon, Geingob said in a speech on Wednesday. Whites make up only about 6 percent of Namibia's population of 2.4 million, but overwhelmingly dominate business ownership. Geingob said Namibia had not seen significant transformation in the 27 years of independence from apartheid South African rule. "The majority of Namibians remain structurally excluded from meaningful participation in the economy and as we established earlier, inclusivity ensures harmony and exclusivity brings discord," Geingob told the country's lawmakers. "We require the support of all Namibians to fix the obvious and dangerous flaws in our social structure." Last year, rating agency Fitch cited the empowerment plan as one of the reasons it had downgraded Namibia's economic outlook from stable to negative, saying the policy would scare away investors who might not be willing to cede stakes in their companies. The Construction Industries Federation (CIF), the Namibia Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Namibian Employers Federation have all expressed concern about the empowerment plan. "Any empowerment initiatives should not lead to distinctions based on race, as it would negatively impact race relations," The CIF, which has a membership of over 470 companies, has said. "Instead, poor Namibians, regardless of racial origins, should benefit through increased focus and monitoring of already existing empowerment efforts." The government of neighbouring South Africa has a regulation that at least 26 percent of the ownership of mining companies be in black hands. Companies say they should be considered to have met the rule even after black owners have sold their shares, which has become a bone of contention. In Zimbabwe, the government is considering amending black empowerment laws that aims to transfer majority shares from foreign-owned firms to black Zimbabweans after it was blamed for deterring investment. (Editing by James Macharia and Andrew Roche) Krystal Berry and her friends went to Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park on April 12 to celebrate their recent graduation from nursing school in Ocala. They probably werent expecting to witness a titanic clash of nature. Berry and friends had spotted a group of horses at the park, including a mare and her foal. The groups stallion spotted the alligator at about the same time as Berry and her friends, and he chased the reptile away, as seen in these videos shot by one of Berrys friends. A gasp can be heard from the group as they witnessed the horse stomp the gator. Berry stated that she was still shaking, hours after the event. The animals didnt show any signs of stress or bleeding, according to Berry, who asked park officials to check if they were harmed after the scuffle. Credit: Krystal M. Berry via Storyful AMSTERDAM (AP) Two giant panda cubs are being prepared for a new life at a zoo in the Netherlands following a long airplane flight from China. Male Xing Ya and female Wu Wen, 3-year-olds from Sichuan province, arrived at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol on Wednesday evening. They were briefly displayed in cages at the airport before being transported to Ouwehand Zoo in Rhenen, a city of about 20,000 people in central Holland. The zoo will quarantine the pair for several weeks before revealing them to the public. The pandas will live in a Chinese-themed enclosure with indoor and outdoor areas and even a refrigerator for their favorite food, bamboo. Like other pandas loaned by China, the youngsters are intended to be a breeding pair and the zoo has a nursery for their future cubs. For decades, China gifted friendly nations with its national mascot in what was known as "panda diplomacy." The country more recently has loaned pandas to zoos on commercial terms. Most loans run from 10 to 15 years. China charges as much as $1 million per year for a panda, a fee many zoos will pay because the pandas attract more visitors and increase the zoos' revenue, especially if new cubs are born. Around 420 pandas live in captivity in zoos and reserves, the majority within China, while an estimated 1,864 live in the wild. For the most part, social media users in democracies are free to express their opinions online. In Spain, however, thats not the case. Cassandra Vera, a 21-year-old student from the city of Murcia in the south-east of Spain, has been sentenced to a year in prison, and disqualified from public functions for seven years, after making jokes on Twitter that glorified terrorism. Between 2013 and 2016, Vera published 13 tweets that commented on terrorist group ETAs assassination of Luis Carrero Blanco, which happened in 1973. Blanco had been expected to succeed dictator Francisco Franco, and was a long-time ally of the general. Ruling on her crime, judges in the National Audience, Spains top criminal court, stated that Veras tweets constitute contempt, dishonour, disrepute, mockery and affront to the people who have suffered the blow of terrorism. Though the victims of terrorism do, as noted by the judges, deserve respect and consideration, the prison sentence has caused outcry in Spain. These kinds of jokes have been repeated publicly since the day of the attack. Luis Carrero Blancos granddaughter herself has even written that though the jokes were in bad taste, she is scared of a society in which freedom of expression can lead to jail sentences. The judges were following the law but their interpretation is questionable. The European parliament has made it crystal clear that for there to be an offence of glorification or justification of terrorism, it has to be understood as a way to gather support for terrorist causes or to seriously intimidate the population. It should, according to the parliament, only be punished when it causes a danger that terrorist acts may be committed. A Spanish Civil Guard who investigated the case declared that he had no idea if Veras profile had the potential to lead to such repercussions. A Spanish wave of repression? Veras is not alone in her tweet conviction. At least 70 more people have been accused of the same crime. Rapper Cesar Strawberry has been sentenced to prison, too, and a group of puppeteers were given custody without bail for making jokes about ETA, though they were later absolved. Story continues Nor is Veras conviction an isolated issue. It is another act in a trend of repression that has been building since the conservative Popular Party (PP) won the 2011 parliamentary election. Reacting to the Indignados anti-austerity protests of that year, the PP has since put a lot of effort into suppressing any kind of resistance of this sort even being accused of creating a political police to do so. In 2013, the government started preparing a controversial protection of citizen security law to support their actions. Commonly known as the gag law, the now enacted legislation gives Spanish police the right to fine citizens for what they consider to be an interference to their job or contempt of authority. Since it was passed, Spanish society, with a mix of fury, impotence and incredulity, has witnessed people being fined after posting, for instance, a complaint about their local authority on Facebook. Another was fined for carrying a bag with the acronym ACAB and the slogan All Cats Are Beautiful, with a cats face; the police read the acronym as All Cops Are Bastards. But Veras conviction has been the last straw, prompting calls from new left-wing political party Podemos for the suppression of the law. The Socialists have agreed that it needs revision. Backwards and forwards The inanity and lack of clear reasons the prosecutors have for considering tweets a real threat or a cause of social alarm as stated in the law is worrying in itself, but the matter goes deeper, and has many including Amnesty International worrying about the future of freedom of speech in the country. Spain is fighting back but the people are facing tough opposition from a government which is intent on anything it considers to be the wrong type of speech. In this sense, Vera has been a warning, but she has become a symbol of the resistance, too, with countless people showing their support online by using the hashtag #YoSoyCassandra (I am Cassandra). Political parties, such as the traditional Spanish left-wing coalition IU, and Podemos, have also retweeted the jokes as a reaction to what is widely considered a disproportional and unfair sentence. But the law still stands. Since the Indignados demonstrations, Spain has become home to new movements of resistance, as the public sphere is co-opted to give everyone a voice. And yet the use of the glorification of terrorism law gives the impression that Spain is walking backwards towards its pre-constitutional history. It is not quite there yet, but for a country that has been a world leader on many other social liberties progressive abortion law and same-sex marriage rights, to name two it is hard not to feel, as the Basque philosopher Miguel de Unamuno once said, that Spain hurts. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. The Conversation Federico Lopez-Terra received funding (PhD scholarship 2008-2011) from the Spanish National Research Council. Uganda now has around a million refugees. To put this in perspective, the East African country is the physical size of the UK and yet hosts more refugees than arrived in all 28 EU member states in 2015, the peak of the European refugee crisis. Since March 2017, 2,800 refugees have been arriving daily from South Sudans conflict and famine. The country now hosts the largest single refugee settlement in the world at Bidi Bidi, in the north of the country. It is home to 270,000 refugees, and the UN Refugee Agency has described it as being at breaking point. The influx of people from South Sudan is a humanitarian crisis. But it also matters because Uganda has some of the most progressive refugee policies in the world. Through its so-called Self-Reliance Strategy, it is one of very few major refugee-hosting countries to allow refugees to work and move relatively freely. These policies not only enable Uganda to absorb refugees, they serve as an exemplar of good practice for the rest of the world. Ugandas strategy gives refugees almost unparalleled opportunity to engage with markets. It enables refugees in rural settlements to get access to plots of land, and those in urban areas to start businesses. On an informal level, the approach even predates Ugandas independence from British colonial rule in 1962, with the Nakivale settlement in the south-west of the country providing opportunities for crop cultivation after opening in 1958. But it began to crystallise as policy from the late 1990s before being enshrined in law in the 2006 Refugee Act. At the Refugee Studies Centre in Oxford, we collected data between 2012 and 2014, examining the effects of the Self-Reliance Strategy at a time when the country had from 200,000 to 300,000 refugees. Our data showed how both refugees and hosts have benefited from the approach. Nearly all refugee households had some independent income generating source, dependency levels were generally low, and in the capital, Kampala, around a fifth of refugees ran a business employing someone. Story continues The research provides significant evidence that Ugandans benefit economically from the refugee presence, from labour, from customers, and from markets. Older refugee settlements like Kyangwali, Nakivale, and Kyaka II, which host Congolese, Rwandan, Somali, and South Sudanese refugees, have flourishing markets and connect to wider commercial networks. Uganda has become a go-to example of the success of refugees right to work and for the viability of market-based approaches. It shows that another approach beyond dehumanising encampment or urban destitution is possible. Pressure building For a long time, the international community has assumed that Uganda will always be there to play this role, and that its president Yoweri Musevenis commitment to self-reliance for refugees would remain unwavering. Even as refugee budgets left the African continent in support of the more visible Syrian crisis, so Uganda has persevered with the model, quietly accepting significant Congolese and South Sudanese influxes in 2015 and 2016. But in 2017, with such large numbers, the countrys commitment needs to be urgently bolstered by the international community. To the governments credit, it insists it will retain its approach. But this absolutely cannot be taken for granted. Although there is no open agitation to end the right to work, there is growing popular unrest in Uganda linked to chronic unemployment and the arrests of Musevenis main opponent, Kizza Besigye. In this climate, refugees could become part of the political agenda. There are some key steps that it would be useful for the international community to take in order to ensure the sustainability of Ugandas refugee policy. Complex politics First, donors must understand the politics behind the policy. This has partly been unique because Uganda has surplus arable land, but it has also been due to the countrys politics. As a no-party democracy, the countrys leaders rely upon patronage to maintain power, and the ability to maintain their networks of support. But at the same time, external recognition matters more to them than internal elections a concept known in African Studies as extraversion. Because of these two factors, many of Ugandas historical advocates for refugee rights have been progressive not just because of their support for refugees but also as a means to access and allocate resources towards their refugee-hosting constituencies. This means that the international community has leverage, but needs to be aware that local powerbrokers in refugee hosting areas must be kept happy. For example, in the early 2000s, Brigadier Moses Ali the only surviving cabinet minister from the regime of Idi Amin led negotiations with the international community on support for self-reliance in part because his Nile Valley constituency benefited directly from that support. Help refugees build a living Second, the international community must help to invest in the communities hosting refugees. Unless hosts share in the benefits, in terms of services and markets, its very hard to maintain support for refugee presence. In the old Ugandan settlements, the surrounding communities already recognise many of these benefits. In our earlier research, we also focused on the creation of an emergency camp at Rwamwanja, after an influx of refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2014. The camp and local economy evolved rapidly in ways that had mutually beneficial effects, but we found that there were gaps in the way development-based approaches to refugees were applied in the emergency phase. For example, support for refguees livelihoods and access to capital were absent. This is relevant to the new settlements like Bidi Bidi. Emergency development initiatives might be better conceived in ways that support locals, and facilitate opportunities for early market-based interaction between refugees and locals. Third, for Uganda to continue to absorb such large numbers requires a sustainable response that goes beyond humanitarianism. Small and medium-sized enterprises in Uganda need access to capital for refugee entrepreneurship. Larger-scale work is also needed by international investors to identity opportunities for sector-specific economic growth within northern Uganda, where the South Sudanese refugees are, not only for corporate social responsibility reasons but to generate viable agricultural markets. Our ongoing research consistently reveals that it is refugees themselves who are among the greatest sources of social protection to other refugees. More needs to be done to create enabling environments that encourage refugees to help themselves right from the start. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. The Conversation Alexander Betts' research on the economic lives of refugees has been funded by Stephanie and Hunter Hunt, the Government of Denmark, and the Economic and Social Research Council. Spain is different!. Napoleon took this view after his defeat by Spanish guerrilla warfare tactics. Generalissimo Francos government later made use of this slogan to promote Spains unique appeal to international tourists. The success of this tourism campaign is evident today: in 2016 Spain welcomed 75m tourists. Once an isolated peninsula on the edge of the European continent, Spain now ranks as the third most visited country in the world. Foreign visitors spent 77 billion last year enjoying the countrys climate, food and cultural attractions. And one of the big ones is Easter when Spain highlights a different approach to religious celebrations with colourful and macabre street processions. The Spanish turn the streets into an improvised stage to dramatise Christs death and resurrection during Holy Week. Striking pictures of medieval figures in candlelit processions are published daily around the world. These pictures emphasise Spains distinctive identity. Parish groups, cofradias (fraternities), spend months on charity work and fundraising to stage the elaborate processions. The parade of the Christ and the Virgin Mary statues circle through the community to celebrate the celestial glory of these figures that glide majestically above the crowds. On Spanish streets, everyone takes part in the drama a moving chorus that brings together the musicians, players, bands and strolling audience. What interests me is the social affiliation of these traditional groups; the bands of brothers. My research into identity reveals the psychological power of belonging to social groups. What is a celebration without the people? Local town halls stop traffic to enjoy each cofradiass procession. In Seville, 60 parish groups take part in processions and published maps schedule the float departure times and street crossings. The sumptuous floats with their sculptures of religious figures are followed by penitent sinners in monastic robes and pointed conical hoods that reach upwards for divine grace. Medieval hoods concealed the face and identity under the hood. In this way, individuals seeking repentance in public could remain anonymous. Across Spains diverse regions these processions bring the social community together. In Easter week, even the capital Madrid stops for the communal plays. Story continues Super teams The brotherhoods demonstrate that collaboration, training and disciplined team work achieve remarkable performances. The fraternities display exceptional group cohesion that aligns with research analysis of the critical elements of super teams. First, the brotherhoods come together in their dedication to the rituals of Holy Week, Semana Santa and they share a compelling purpose. Some members have waited 15 years to attain the revered honour of carrying the processional float. The participants are skillful team members who adjust to each others strength, stamina and pace this takes preparation and rigorous practice to build group cohesion. Members train together persistently for hours carrying concrete blocks to simulate the strain of carrying such heavy weights. Musicians and drummers put in hours of rehearsal to be able to march in step. A team leader directs a strict regimental formation to ensure a dignified progress. The choreography of a procession is a difficult balance for members manoeuvring through the cobbled streets alongside the eager crowds. Over the centuries, the brotherhoods have had to change. Some groups date from the 14th century yet gradually over the past 30 years have widened participation to include women who now represent 40% of the membership. New groups have started up and women, celebrities, and children have joined the ranks. Laying ghosts to rest These processions demonstrate a profoundly social sense of identity. Passion plays inspire a shared emotional response of applause, sentimental cries, prayers and chants. The processions are rooted in biblical stories, spiritual hopes and imaginary force. Despite the solemnity of the religious spectacle, the Spanish enjoy these fantastical rituals with great exuberance. In Jerez de la Frontera, I was amused to watch penitents remove their tall purple hoods to light a cigarette, check their mobile phones, or sip a glass of wine. Meanwhile, children devoured sweet marzipan versions of miniature penitents. Spain is proud of these cultural traditions. The drama is alive, in motion and passionate, bringing together into a choral spectacle the bands, the penitents and the audience. The street is an improvised contemporary stage that knits together individual participants as a collective social group. After Francos death in 1975, Spain shifted at remarkable speed from an authoritarian dictatorship to a democracy. This political transition was achieved through an agreement to forget the wrongs on both sides. The writer Giles Tremlett in his book The Ghosts of Spain reflects: Spain was unique. It had to find its own way. And it did so by smothering the past. Many of those who would lead la Transicion had anyway, Francoist pasts. It was better to cover their personal stories, too, with a cloak of silence. Similarly, the personal stories of group members are veiled as they cast long shadows processing through the night. To a curious observer, the sight of a white-cloaked spectre is ambivalent a visual reference to Spains dark past. Ghosts of the Spanish Inquisition, ghosts of the Jews expelled from Al Andalus, and ghosts of the Civil War. But at Easter these troublesome layers of past divisions and contradictions are temporarily hidden shrouded under the social sharing of celebration. A social affirmation of identity rooted in a deep cultural heritage. The Spanish way to mark Easter is social through collective participation that bolsters a sense of self. Yes, Spain is a part of the European community and still proud to be different. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. The Conversation Margaret Mackay does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above. By Alexandra Ulmer and Corina Pons CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelans in poor areas blocked streets and lit fires during scattered protests across the country on Tuesday night, and two people were killed during the growing unrest in the midst of a crippling economic crisis. In a worrying sign for leftist President Nicolas Maduro, groups in Caracas' traditionally pro-government hillside slums and low-income neighborhoods took to the streets, witnesses and opposition lawmakers reported. Maduro foes were galvanized by footage of a crowd in the south-eastern Bolivar state heckling and throwing objects at the closely-protected leader during a rally on Tuesday, before state television cut off the broadcast. In the western Lara state, two people, aged 13 and 36, were killed during unrest on Tuesday, the state prosecutor's office said in a statement. Lara's opposition governor Henri Falcon blamed violence on "infiltrators" and "delinquents" who roamed on motorcycles after an energy blackout. "They go by neighborhoods and shoot people who are protesting," said Falcon, a former member of the ruling party, urging a negotiation to end Venezuela's political crisis. The opposition says Maduro, a former bus driver and union leader who took office four years ago, has morphed into a dictator after a Supreme Court decision in late March to assume the functions of the opposition-led congress. The court quickly overturned the most controversial part of its decision, but the move breathed new life into the fractured opposition movement. Two young men had already been killed in protests during the last week, according to authorities. Many are bracing for further violence in a country that is racked by crime and has one of the world's highest murder rates. Witnesses said residents of a number of working-class Caracas neighborhoods blocked streets with trash or burning debris on Tuesday night, describing confused street melees and clashes with security forces. The capital appeared calm on Wednesday, although some roads were charred and littered with broken glass. Government officials did not provide an official account of the events, and the Information Ministry did not respond to an email seeking comment. Maduro has said that under a veneer of pacifism, a U.S.-backed right-wing opposition is encouraging violent protests in a bid to topple his government and get its hands on Venezuela's oil wealth. On Wednesday night, he said the heckling incident a day earlier in the city of San Felix was an opposition attempt to "ambush" him that was thwarted by his loyalists. "They had prepared an ambush and the people neutralized it," he said. "I want to thank the people of San Felix for their expressions of fervor, passion, love and support." "MADURO DICTATOR" Maduro's adversaries are demanding the government call delayed state elections, which polls suggest would not go well for the ruling Socialists. They also want an early presidential vote after authorities quashed a recall referendum against Maduro last year. A ban on opposition leader Henrique Capriles from holding office for 15 years drew broad criticism as he was seen as the opposition's best presidential hope. But it is Venezuela's extended economic crisis that has ordinary people fuming. Venezuelans have been suffering food and medicine shortages for months, leading many to skip meals or go without crucial treatment. Lines of hundreds form in front of supermarkets as people jostle for hours under the hot sun hoping price-controlled rice or flour will be delivered. The crisis has especially hurt the poor, long the base of support of Maduro and his predecessor the late Hugo Chavez. Protesters say they have also been encouraged by stronger condemnation from American and European nations in the last two weeks. "We cannot accept that the regime is willing to sacrifice Venezuelan lives to remain in power," said Luis Almagro, the head of the Organization of American States, in a video posted on Wednesday, urging elections. Another round of protests are planned for Thursday in Venezuela's more than 300 municipalities. Opposition leaders are calling for the "mother of all marches" on April 19. ARRESTS, LOOTING Amid what the opposition coalition says is a crackdown on dissent, some 71 people were arrested on Tuesday, according to rights group Penal Forum. In total, 364 people were arrested between April 4-12 during the most sustained protests since 2014, with 183 people still behind bars, the group added. A group of young men and teenagers were arrested for throwing "sharp objects" against Maduro's vehicle on Tuesday night, according to a report by a local National Guard division seen by Reuters. Two sources told Reuters the protesters were hurling stones. Local media reported lootings overnight in the working class bedroom community of Guarenas outside Caracas, as well as in parts of the capital. State officials have tweeted images and videos of demonstrators vandalizing public property and throwing rocks at police. Despite the spiking tensions, many in the opposition worry extended protests will not spur early or fair elections, but rather increase clashes in the already turbulent country. Major anti-government protests in 2014 eventually floundered, though the opposition at the time did not have as clear-cut demands, poor neighborhoods largely abstained, and the economy was in better shape. (Additional reporting by Eyanir Chinea, Brian Ellsworth, Diego Ore, Miguel Angel Sulbaran, Liamar Ramos, Maria Ramirez, Deisy Buitrago and Mircely Guanipa; Writing by Alexandra Ulmer; Editing by Andrew Hay and Michael Perry) The 2 per cent voting turnout in the Srinagar-Budgam Lok Sabha constituency is the lowest in the history of Jammu and Kashmir. By India Today Web Desk: Re-polling in the Srinagar-Budgam Lok Sabha constituency in Jammu and Kashmir saw a turnout of only 2 per cent today, a new low in Jammu and Kashmir following the 7 per cent voting on Sunday. Only 702 of the 35,169 voters voted at the 38 polling stations. "About 2.02 per cent voting has been recorded," an Election Commission official told IANS. Repolling was ordered at these polling stations by the Election Commission following large scale violence during Sunday's polls for the prestigious seat. advertisement In the violence during Sunday's voting, 8 people were killed in firing by security forces. The constituency recorded a mere 7 per cent voter turnout on Sunday, lowest in 30 years. Five candidates had already pulled out of the election after the Sunday violence. Today, there was just one incident of stone-pelting by youths, officials said. There was an altercation between opposition National Congress and ruling PDP workers at Badran in Beerwah area over allegations of bogus voting, the officials said. The issue was later resolved with the intervention of the polling staff and security personnel posted on duty there. Heavy security was put in place to ensure smooth polling in the constituency. The district administration had imposed restrictions under Section 144 of CrPc in the Budgam district, except in the areas where polling was underway. Three companies - two CRPF and one J-K Police were deployed at each polling station. Each polling station has at least one security bunker. The bypoll result will be declared on April 15. Watch the video here Also read: Farooq Abdullah: Wake up India, talk to Pakistan or lose Kashmir Also read: Srinagar Lok Sabha bypoll: Repolling begins at 38 polling stations in Budgam amid tight security --- ENDS --- The University of North Georgia (UNG) set a new record this year with eight students selected as Fulbright Scholars and two as alternates for 2017-2018, placing UNG among the top-producing institutions nationally for Fulbright Scholars. Overall, 10 UNG students were selected this year as semifinalists for the prestigious award, eight more than the previous year. "Our students continue to showcase their academic prowess by being selected for renowned national scholarships," said Dr. Tom Ormond, UNG provost and senior vice president for academic affairs. "The Fulbright Program selects just under 2,000 students across the nation each year, and for 10 of the semifinalists and eight finalists to come from UNG is a remarkable feat." The Fulbright Program, which operates in more than 160 countries, is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government and is designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and other nations. "This is an amazing opportunity for my personal, student and professional career," said Faith Brown, the first student from UNG's Gainesville Campus to be selected as a finalist. "I intend to go to graduate school for multimedia studies when I return, and Fulbright is going to open so many doors to help make that possible. I have been trying to figure out what career will make me happy; I've been looking more into teaching at the university level, and screenwriting as a profession. I am excited for the opportunity to travel abroad and to share my knowledge with the youth of Bulgaria, while they share their knowledge with me." For the 2017-18 cycle, more than 700 institutions put forward in excess of 10,000 student applications for the program. Students are typically in their final semesters of study when applying to the program. The National Screening Committee, composed of 457 senior faculty or field of study professionals, advanced 3,600 students as semi-finalists. From that group, about half will become finalists and have the opportunity to travel abroad for 10 months of the 2017-18 academic year through the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. The Fulbright award includes financial support for round-trip transportation to the host country and funding to cover room, board and incidental costs. The 10 students, their majors, their areas of study and their countries of interest are: Nicholas Allen - modern languages major in Arabic, selected to be an English teaching assistant in Senegal (finalist) Faith Brown - communications major, selected to be an English teaching assistant in Bulgaria (finalist) Rachael Bryant - psychology major, selected to be an English teaching assistant in South Korea (finalist) Mitchell Fariss - international affairs major, selected to be an English teaching assistant in Germany (finalist) Darion Gibson, international affairs major, selected to be an English teaching assistant in South Korea (finalist) Emma Honerbaum, history major, currently an alternate to be an English teaching assistant in Germany (alternate) Katie McCullough - biology major, selected to conduct research in Poland (finalist) Noah McDaniel - modern language major in Arabic, selected to be an English teaching assistant in India (finalist) Anita Renfroe - modern languages major in Arabic, selected to be an English teaching assistant in Malaysia (finalist) Dezmone Valentine - middle grades education major, currently an alternate to be an English teaching assistant in Estonia (alternate) The eight Fulbright finalists and two alternates are among the nearly 50 UNG students who have been awarded nationally competitive scholarships to study abroad in the past four years. Students interested in learning more about nationally competitive scholarships should contact ncs@ung.edu for more information or visit https://ung.edu/nationally-competitive-scholarships/ to apply. Also, students interested in learning about funding and programs to study abroad in a variety of projects can visit the Center for Global Engagement website. SANTA FE The defense team for a former Santa Fe County sheriffs deputy, who admits fatally shooting his law enforcement partner in Las Cruces in 2014, wants the murder case dismissed based in part on evidence from the slain deputys cellphone. Lawyers for ex-deputy Tai Chan, facing a first-degree murder charge, allege in part that a secret vault was found in the phone of slain Deputy Jeremy Martin that contained sexual text messages to both men and women, as well as photos of Martin wearing womens underwear. The phones contents allegedly showing that Martin had a secret life would have helped the defense when prosecutors had Martins wife testify about his image of a good family man in Chans trial last year that ended in a mistrial, the new defense motion says. The phone is an example of the kind of evidence the police intentionally withheld from us, John Day, one of Chans attorneys, said Wednesday. Chan, then 27, shot and killed fellow Santa Fe County Deputy Martin, 29, on Oct. 28, 2014, at the Hotel Encanto in Las Cruces, where the two deputies were staying while returning from delivering a prisoner to Arizona. Chan claims self-defense, saying the two argued after drinking at a local bar. A June trial in Las Cruces ended with a hung jury and a re-trial is set for next month. In their motion to dismiss filed Wednesday alleging outrageous government conduct, defense attorneys Day and Tom Clark claim the state failed to disclose the contents of the phone of Jeremy Martin that revealed crippling evidence of Jeremy Martins secretive, alter ego life. The state maintained Martins phone contained only innocuous messages, says the motion. But the defense lawyers say that after the phone was sent to an expert during the trials second week, it was found to have a series of text messages between Martin and other women, and other men of a sexually suggestive and flirtatious nature. There was also a series of photographs of Martin in sexually suggestive poses, the motion states. The defense could have tracked down witnesses and investigated further the depths of this life to potentially reveal admissible evidence, the motion says. It also notes allegations that recently became public as part of a whistleblower lawsuit. A Las Cruces Police Department detective maintains her department obstructed her investigation of the shooting by withholding resources and the assistance of a forensic investigator because she had reported sexual misconduct within the department. In addition, the motion cites an April 4 letter from Dona Ana County District Attorney Mark DAntonio to Las Cruces Police Chief Jamie Montoya blasting the chief over issues raised in the whistleblower suit. DAntonio wrote, The recent situation involving the Tai Chan murder case, in which you intentionally refused to share critical information in a pending and active prosecution with my office, is outrageous and an affront to justice in our community. DAntonio said neither the detective who filed the whistleblower suit nor the police department ever notified him of the suit or of any related internal affairs investigation, which is deplorable and devoid of any rational thinking. The facts of the suit suggest possible police corruption, obstruction of justice, and the mishandling of a major case involving the alleged cold-blooded assassination of a police officer. Your departments failure to disclose any information in this matter in a timely manner has made our prosecution more difficult. In addition, you have provided defense counsel alternative methods to attack the States evidence. A spokesman for DAntonio said the office had not seen the defense motions and had no comment at least until we do. A police department spokesman did not return a phone request for comment Wednesday afternoon. A separate defense motion filed Wednesday asks that DAntonio be disqualified because hes a witness as a result of the letter critical of the Las Cruces police investigation, said Day. The defense has sent its own letter to the U.S. Attorneys Office in Albuquerque asking the office to investigate the Las Cruces police, with DAntonios letter to the police chief attached. Our own investigation of the LCPD investigation into the Tai Chan matter shows remarkable and suspicious instances of a case intentionally mishandled from the beginning, lending credence to the corruption allegations by the detective and the District Attorney, says the defense attorneys letter seeking a federal probe. Copyright 2017 Albuquerque Journal The chief justice of the New Mexico Supreme Court said state court judges have discretion and are not bound by specific rules requiring that witnesses testify, for example in deciding whether a defendant should be held without bail pending trial. Chief Justice Charles Daniels also said judges should consider whether there is probable cause that a person committed a crime before the suspect is detained pending trial. And he cited specific cases in other states concerning pretrial detention orders and guidelines that judges have used in federal court to make similar decisions. Those guidelines do not require witnesses in most cases when a judge determines whether to hold a person without bail. Daniels announced the unanimous opinion from the states five justices from the bench on Wednesday after hearing arguments throughout the day about the rules that should govern proceedings in which prosecutors seek to have a defendant kept in jail until trial. He said the court would be issuing more detailed and written opinions soon about detention hearings. Raul Torrez, the district attorney in Bernalillo County, filed a petition last month asking the states highest court what prosecutors should or shouldnt be required to do during the hearings. He said that in courts in Bernalillo County, which is by far the biggest and busiest judicial district in the state, some judges have required prosecutors to call witnesses and essentially put on mini-trials when considering whether to have a suspect detained pending trial. I think weve taken a big step in the right direction, he said after the hearing. Holding suspects without bail is a new concept in New Mexico. Voters last year overwhelmingly supported a constitutional amendment that allows judges to hold certain defendants without bail if prosecutors can show there is clear and convincing evidence that the suspect would be a threat to the public if they were released from custody while awaiting trial. Previously, judges could hold defendants without bail only in certain murder cases. You cant reduce these things to a computer program, Daniels said from the bench. Thats why we have judges who make judgments. The amendment also said bail for most defendants should be set at an amount they could afford. Daniels said he expects there to be some growing pains as state courts work to make sure defendants in jail are those who are a danger to the public, and not simply those unable to put up the money to be released. Justices heard arguments on two separate cases in which prosecutors tried to have Albuquerque suspects held without bail. One was Torrezs petition, and the other was an appeal from Elexus Groves, who is being held on two felony murder and other charges for a fatal crash during a chase with police that left a 14-year-old girl and her mother dead. Her appeal was denied. Torrezs petition cited two specific criminal cases in which District Judge Stan Whitaker denied a request to have the defendants held until trial. One defendant, Paul Salas, is accused of robbing more than 50 Albuquerque businesses in five months. The other defendant allegedly shot his pregnant girlfriend. During the detention proceedings, Whitaker asked prosecutors to call a police investigator to testify about the evidence. Prosecutors didnt call any witnesses, and Whitaker refused to order that the men be held until their trial. Daniels said that in certain cases judges may need to ask for more testimony or evidence to hold a defendant without bail. There is no one-size-fits-all rule. These are decisions made in individual cases involving individual human beings and varying circumstances, Daniels said. To say that a judge must always have eyewitnesses or never have eyewitnesses is inconsistent with the very thought of case-by-case adjudication. Torrez said the courts ruling was a win for prosecutors around the state. Theres no bright-line rule on one side or the other, and theres a discretionary act that has to take place, he said. Our chief complaint was the idea that there was going to be a bright-line rule that we could not proceed without a live witness. And I think a big part of what we were concerned about was, frankly, the manpower and resources when we have to take people in a police department or law enforcement agency that is stretched very thin and take them off active investigations and bring them into court. Jason Wheeless, Salas attorney, acknowledged that its easier for federal court prosecutors to hold defendants without bail pending trial compared with New Mexico state courts. But he did not believe that standard should be extended to state court. For those of us who value civil liberties and value the protections we have in New Mexico against government action, its really frightening, Wheeless said. What it indicates is that today in New Mexico the average person has less protection against the government then they did yesterday. Torrez said that this year his office has moved to have about 70 defendants detained until trial, but his office has been successful in those detention hearings about one-third of the time. His office has filed charges against about 800 inmates in the same time, so he said hes seeking detention orders against only the most dangerous defendants. Motorists who fuel up in the city of Albuquerque would end up paying an extra 2 cents a gallon under a bill sponsored by one city councilor. Council President Isaac Benton, a Democrat, is proposing the measure to generate additional funding for road repairs and enhancements. Under the proposed ordinance, city voters would have final say on whether the gas tax is enacted. Revenues generated from the tax could help us greatly in our huge backlog of outdated roadways, Benton said, noting that much of the citys roadway system was built between the 1960s and 1980s and isnt compliant with the American with Disabilities Act. He said the proposed tax is about the condition of roadways and modernizing roadways as much possible, making them safer and more convenient. The ordinance would generate an estimated $4.8 million a year in new revenue. The city would be able to use that new revenue stream to secure significantly more in bond funding for road projects. The measure was taken up by the Councils Finance and Government Operations Committee on Monday. The committee voted unanimously to send the ordinance to the full council without a recommendation on whether it should be adopted. The council is slated to take up the measure at its May 1 meeting. If the council signs off on the proposal, it would then go to Mayor Richard Berry for his consideration. Its unclear whether Berry, a Republican, would sign the ordinance, which would then send the gas tax proposal to voters for the Oct. 3 municipal election. Already on the ballot are races for mayor and five City Council seats. In the last eight years, while navigating our recovery from the great recession, Mayor Berry has never raised taxes as he has balanced each one of his budgets, mayoral spokeswoman Rhiannon Samuel said in a statement. This is not our initiative, and we will wait to see if and what legislation lands on the mayors desk. Albuquerque currently doesnt impose a gas tax, although it does receive a cut of the state gas tax. If the council and mayor sign off on the ordinance and voters approve it, it would go into effect on July 1, 2018. Our city really could use some spiffing up, Benton said. This is not a beautification project, but it would make (Albuquerque) nicer and more welcoming to visitors. Silver City resident Richard Mahler, a former Albuquerque Journal columnist, author and outdoors enthusiast, was found dead Sunday night in the Gila Wilderness after a three-day search by about 75 members of search and rescue teams. Mahlers fiancee, Pamela Morgan, herself a search and rescue volunteer, triggered the search late Thursday when Mahler, 66, failed to return that night after hiking to a site along the San Francisco River, where he placed wildlife cameras. Brian Fuller, the search and rescue incident commander for the Sunday operation, said Mahlers body was discovered late Sunday near a trail that led back to where he had parked his car. Mahlers body was sent to the Office of the Medical Investigator in Albuquerque for a determination of death. I do know they thought it might be a medical event and not foul play, Fuller told the Journal on Wednesday. Assisting in the search and rescue operation were teams from Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Socorro, Las Cruces, Silver City, Catron County and the State Police, Fuller said. This is nothing I ever imagined could happen, said Morgan. Its extremely ironic and tragic because we were engaged to be married. We didnt have enough time together. She described Mahler as very kind, very thoughtful and someone who liked to help other people. He was most recently earning a living by editing and formatting books that others had written, and helping them get their books published, Morgan said. She noted that Mahler himself authored and published 13 books, including fiction, non-fiction and travel guides. Christine Steele, editor of the Silver City Daily Press and a friend of Mahlers, said writing the story of his death was personally difficult for her. She first met Mahler in 2009 when she moved to Silver City and they would often get together over coffee to talk about the different creative projects on which they were working. Mahler, she said, was a prolific writer and among his projects was writing a newsletter for an environmental watchdog agency and contributing pieces for a local monthly arts magazine. After her story of Mahlers death ran in the Silver City Daily Press, some ladies posted on Facebook that they remembered him from their Zumba class and he danced barefoot, Steele said. But that was Richard. He was very comfortable in his own skin, not judgmental of others, a very thoughtful speaker and writer, and a gentle and calming presence in my life. Another friend, Debra Begel, met Mahler in the 1990s in Santa Fe, when he wrote a column, Un Poco de Todo, for the Journal North edition. We were both print journalists and radio producers, though he had more experience in print and I had more in radio. Wed meet for lunch, and swap stories about projects and offer each other advice. We immediately became friends. Richard had a curious mind and was always investigating, looking things up and delving into life. He was also a spiritual and gentle soul. He meditated daily, cared about people, was into fitness, ate well and in moderation. I think everybody who knew him liked him. Mahler was born in San Antonio, Texas, and grew up in the San Francisco Bay area. After high school, he attended the Hutchens School of Liberal Studies at Sonoma State College, then an experimental program. He later lived in Wisconsin, and earned a masters degree in journalism and communications. Jonathan Baylis, a former classmate from Hutchens, recalled that Mahler, whose nickname was Captain, was a real intellectual and a leader among the students. Baylis, who now lives in British Columbia, said, Richard had a grand sense of humor, was very funny, and was one of those 18-year-olds who was mature beyond his years and was already doing a lot of interesting writing. In addition to Morgan, Mahler is survived by his father, two brothers, a sister, multiple cousins and other relatives. A memorial service for him will be held in Silver City at a date to be announced. Copyright 2017 Albuquerque Journal New Mexicos top higher education official was not involved in the governors decision to strike college and university funding from the budget, a move she said has created some challenges for the states financially strapped institutions. Higher Education Secretary Barbara Damron told a room full of Albuquerque business leaders Wednesday she prays Gov. Susana Martinez and the Legislature resolve their ongoing budget dispute soon. She said its challenging times, to be sure, for the states public colleges and universities as they attempt to recruit faculty and enroll students without financial certainty about the fiscal year that starts July 1. I know students right now who are registering for fall semester saying, Wait, wait, wait, wait. Wheres the money again? Whos paying (for) this? Does the state believe in higher education?' Damron said. The governor last week used her line-item veto power to eliminate $744 million in university funding as proposed in the Legislature-approved budget, a move expected to compel further negotiations with lawmakers over taxation and spending levels. Democratic legislators have denounced the veto as irresponsible and possibly illegal, but the Republican governor defended her action as a path to balancing the budget without raising taxes and has expressed confidence that higher education funding will be restored. In a speech to Economic Forum of Albuquerque, Damron said she learned of the governors veto only hours before the general public and that it raised a lot of red flags, partly because the schools themselves some of which rely on the state for more than 50 percent of their revenue are supposed to complete and submit their individual budgets to the state by May 1. Damron said she is advocating for full restoration of the Legislature-backed appropriation for public colleges and universities, but that amount which aligned with the governors own higher education recommendation still reflects a 1.1 percent decrease from the current fiscal year. And current year funding is already 7.5 percent less than 2016 levels, she said. The governor will not raise taxes; one part I do agree with the governor on is, in lean years, that is an opportunity to be efficient, and look at efficiencies and how can we do things differently than weve done in the past. Thats always an opportunity, and we should take that. Weve taken it. Weve looked at how we can do more with less, and we are doing more with less in many areas. But now were getting to dangerous territory. Any more, we will be losing programs. You want to keep that enrollment going down like this? Were on that path, she said. A spokesman for Martinez said lawmakers put the governor in a difficult position, but the removal of higher-education funding is only temporary. Martinez was forced to make tough decisions and that included taking out higher education funding with the full expectation that lawmakers will not only restore it, but also take this crisis seriously and do what the people elected them to do, spokesman Michael Lonergan said in a written statement Wednesday. While budget questions abound, Damron said in Wednesdays wide-ranging presentation that New Mexico higher education is actually in an exciting place, and noted her departments success getting bills through the Legislature and its efforts to help students graduate. She cited a number of changes already made, such as using more performance-based models to dictate some state funding, as well as the current effort to create common course numbering across all New Mexicos public higher education institutions. That makes it easier for students to transfer from one school to another without losing credits and momentum. Damron teared up while describing the collaboration it took to build such a system, noting that faculty from around the state worked together within 79 subject-area teams to review courses and hone the curriculum. The goal is that an entry-level English class at Central New Mexico Community College, for example, covers most of the same ground as the same-numbered course at University of New Mexico. The best ideas and practices prevailed, she said. The faculty came together and looked at each others courses, and when one wasnt quite where it should be, organically in almost all (instances) that faculty would say, Wait youre doing that better than I am. Tell me how you do that. I want to add that to my course,' she said. It moves me to tears, because thats the dedication our faculty have for our students. WASHINGTON President Donald Trump likes to boast that he hires only the best people. But his personnel choices keep coming back to haunt him. One of the people Trump hired for the White House was working as a foreign agent while advising him during the election. His campaign chairman caught the Justice Departments attention for similarly surreptitious work. And a third campaign adviser was reportedly surveilled by the FBI as part of an investigation into whether or not he was a Russian spy. The tales of Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort and Carter Page none of whom still work for Trump have created a steady drip of allegations that have clouded Trumps early presidency and raised persistent questions about his judgment. At worst, Trumps personnel picks appear to have left his campaign and perhaps his White House vulnerable to the influence of foreign powers. At best, they expose the long-term implications of his understaffed and inexperienced campaign organization and undermine his promises to surround himself with top-notch talent. Vetting new hires is standard procedure for presidential campaigns for exactly this reason, said Alex Conant, who advised Sen. Marco Rubios 2016 presidential campaign. Every employee is also a potential liability on a presidential campaign. During the campaign, Trump said he hired top, top people and would fill his administration with only the best and most serious people. Yet Manafort, Flynn and Page have indeed become political liabilities for Trump that he cant shake in the White House. All three are being scrutinized as part of the FBI and congressional investigations into whether Trump associates helped Russia meddle in the 2016 election. The president has denied any nefarious ties to Russia and says he has no knowledge that his advisers were working with Moscow during the election. The presidents culpability appears greatest with Flynn, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general who traveled with Trump frequently during the campaign and was tapped as national security adviser after the election. Flynn had been lobbying for a company with ties to Turkey during the 2016 election and even wrote an editorial on behalf of his client that was published on Election Day. No one expects them to do the equivalent of an FBI background check, but a simple Google search could have solved a lot of these problems, Dan Pfeiffer, who served as senior adviser to President Barack Obama, said of Trumps team. After Trumps victory, Flynns lawyers alerted the transition team that he may have to register as a lobbying for a foreign entity, according to a person with knowledge of those discussions. The White House hired him anyway. After the inauguration, Flynns lawyers told the White House counsels office that the national security adviser would indeed have to move forward with that filing. Flynn was fired in February after the White House said he misled Vice President Mike Pence and other top officials about his conversations with Russias ambassador to the United States. Lobbying for foreign interests is legal and lucrative. Both Republican and Democratic operatives offer their services to overseas clients. But the Justice Department requires Americans working on behalf of foreign interests to register, disclosing the nature of their work, the foreigners they dealt with and the amount of money they made. Willful failure to register for foreign lobbying work can carry up to a five-year prison sentence, but the Justice Department rarely brings criminal charges and instead urges violators to register. On Wednesday, a spokesman for former Trump campaign chairman Manafort said that he, too, under pressure from the Justice Department, would formally file for prior foreign lobbying. Manaforts work for political interests in Ukraine occurred before he was hired as Trumps campaign chairman, spokesman Jason Maloni said, though the U.S. government raised questions about his activities after he was hired by Trump. Manafort was pushed out of Trumps campaign in August after The Associated Press reported that his consulting firm had orchestrated a covert Washington lobbying operation on behalf of Ukraines ruling political party without disclosing that work to the U.S. government. The White House did not respond to questions Wednesday about when Trump learned about Manaforts foreign lobbying work and his discussions with the U.S. government about registering as a foreign agent. The questions surrounding Page are perhaps the most serious. On Tuesday, The Washington Post reported that the Justice Department obtained a highly secretive warrant to monitor his communications because there was reason to believe he was working as a Russian spy. In March, Trump personally announced Page as part of a newly minted foreign policy advisory team. But as questions began swirling about Pages ties to Russia, the campaign started moving away from the little-known investment banker. Trump has since said he has no relationship with him. The New York Times reported Wednesday that the Justice Department only obtained the warrant after the campaign distanced itself from Page. In an interview Thursday with ABCs Good Morning America, Page described his affiliation with the Trump campaign as having served as an informal member of a committee which was put together a team of individuals who were looking at various foreign policy issues. Chris Ashby, a Republican elections lawyer, said that while its easy to blame Trump for missing red flags about his campaign advisers, its not always possible to dig up details that potential hires arent willing to disclose on their own. In the ideal world, you could rely on paid background checks, but youd have to have the money and the time, Ashby said. The farther down the ranks you go and certainly when you reach the ranks of unpaid advisers, that becomes impractical. ___ Associated Press writer Vivian Salama contributed to this report. ___ Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC NEW YORK There are no signs that a crime was committed in the death of the first black woman on New York states highest court, police said Thursday after her body was found on the bank of the Hudson River. Medical examiners are still planning to perform an autopsy on 65-year-old Sheila Abdus-Salaam. The New York City police harbor unit retrieved her body from the Hudson on Wednesday, a day after she was reported missing. Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who appointed Abdus-Salaam to the states Court of Appeals in 2013, called her a trailblazing jurist. As the first African-American woman to be appointed to the states Court of Appeals, she was a pioneer, Cuomo said. Through her writings, her wisdom and her unshakable moral compass, she was a force for good whose legacy will be felt for years to come. Chief Judge Janet DiFiore said her colleague will be missed deeply. Abdus-Salaam graduated from Barnard College and received her law degree from Columbia Law School. She started her career as a staff attorney for East Brooklyn Legal Services. She served as a judge on the Manhattan state Supreme Court for 14 years. The re-poll, ordered by the Election Commission of India after Sunday's violence, began at 7am in 38 polling stations of Srinagar Lok Sabha constituency. The repolling began at 7am and will end at 4pm. By India Today Web Desk, Shuja-ul-Haq : Just 221 votes were cast in the first two hours at 38 polling stations where re-poll is being held in Srinagar-Budgam parliamentary constituency today. Voting began at 7 am amid tight security. Violence had marred the polling in the by-election in which eight people had lost their lives following which, the Election Commission of India had ordered for re-polling. Several people were injured in firing by security forces on rampaging mobs in various parts of the constituency. The constituency recorded merely 7 per cent voter turnout. advertisement Seven of the eight deaths in security forces firing took place in Budgam district, especially in the areas where the Election Commission ordered to hold a repoll on Tuesday. According to returning officer Farooq A Lone, no polling station has been changed. "The polling stations will be located at the places they earlier existed. Security was the main concern on the polling day and that is the only aspect being taken care of more seriously this time. Otherwise, everything is the same," Lone said. HERE'S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW Re-poll was ordered in 38 polling stations of Chadoora, Chrar-e-Sharief, Khansahib and Beerwah tehsils of Budgam district where violence had disrupted the process on Sunday. The polling stations are located in central Kashmir's Budgam district, the worst-hit by violence during the polling on Sunday. The district administration has imposed restrictions under Section 144 of CrPc in the Budgam district, except in the areas where polling is underway. Three companies- two CRPF and one J&K Police have been deployed at each polling station. Each polling station has at least one security bunker. Several SP level officers on duty to monitor the security arrangements. Chief Electoral Office, Jammu and Kashmir Shantmanu said the poll process at all the polling stations will be video graphed and one micro-observer from central government offices will also be deputed for each station. According to Shantmanu, all other arrangements mandated by the Election Commission of India for ensuring free and fair polls have also been put in place. Srinagar recorded only 7.14 per cent of the 12.61 lakh electorate cast their votes during the polling for by-election to Srinagar Lok Sabha constituency on Sunday amidst large scale protests and violence around polling stations at dozens of places across the constituency. Counting of the votes for the constituency will take place on April 15. With inputs from Shuja-ul-Haq ALSO READ | Srinagar Lok Sabha bypoll: Election Commission orders repoll in 38 polling stations ALSO READ | Srinagar by-election on 38 booths tomorrow, heavy security deployed after Sunday violence killed 8 ALSO WATCH | Battle for Srinagar Lok Sabha seat: 50 paramilitary companies deployed, internet services suspended --- ENDS --- WINSLOW, Ariz. An independent review of the Winslow Police Department has been completed in response to an officers deadly shooting of a woman last year. The review stemmed from the March 2016 shooting of a 27-year-old Loreal Tsingine who was shot five times after allegedly shoplifting while holding a pair of scissors. KPNX-TV (http://bit.ly/2o70jKb) reports the review has found better training of new recruits as a pressing need for the department. It found the current training program in need of a smoother transition from the academy into the field and suggested a chiefs advisory committee. The department received credit for changes it made after the shooting, including efforts to place more officers on the streets. Former Officer Austin Shipley, who shot the woman, resigned in October after results of an internal investigation surfaced. ___ Information from: KPNX-TV, http://www.12news.com Two suspects in armed robberies and a stabbing incident in Taos were taken into custody Wednesday night by the Bernalillo County Sheriffs deputies, according to a news release from Taos County Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe. Martin Rivera, 21, and Joanne Montoya, 16, both of Taos, are suspected of stealing a pickup truck from a man at the Ranchos de Taos Post Office earlier in the week. New Mexico State Police called off a pursuit of the suspects for safety reasons, but later located the abandoned truck crashed off a county road near Lyden. The suspects could not be found. Acting on information from Taos County, BCSO surveilled an apartment in Albuquerque and apprehended Rivera, who was in possession of a handgun, and Montoya about 9:20 p.m. Wednesday. Taos County Deputy Marvin Armijo charged Rivera with multiple felonies in connection to the theft, according to the release. We are glad this manhunt is over and no one else was hurt at the hands of Martin Rivera, Armijo said. We are thankful to the Bernalillo County Sheriffs Office and all other (law enforcement) agencies that assisted us in this case. Rivera, also known as Baby Joker, was previously wanted on warrants for violating probation stemming from an aggravated burglary. He and Montoya, who was reported missing last month and was listed as an endangered juvenile, are also suspects in an April 6 stabbing in the parking lot of a Smiths grocery store in Taos, and an April 10 armed robbery at a Walmart. WASHINGTON The photo from inside Donald Trumps makeshift situation room at Mar-a-Lago affirmed what White House insiders have recognized for some time that Dina Powell has quietly established herself as a White House power. Though sandwiched between other administration officials, the deputy national security adviser for strategy stands out as the only woman among 13 staffers in the room on the night the president ordered the missile attack in Syria. And in a White House that is split between outsider ideologues and more traditional operators, Powell is viewed as a steady force in the growing influence of the latter. Her West Wing experience, conservative background and policy chops have won over Trumps daughter and son-in-law. Now, Powell is at the table as the president turns more of his attention to international affairs, attempting to craft a foreign policy out of a self-described flexible approach to the world. No one should ever underestimate Dina Powell. says Brian Gunderson, a former State Department chief of staff. He hired her to work in former House Majority Leader Dick Armeys office early in her career and later worked with her in George W. Bushs White House. Powell, 43, declined comment for this story. She is a rare Bush veteran in a White House that has largely shunned its Republican predecessors legacy. She came via Goldman Sachs decidedly not a rarity for the new president originally to work on economic development at the behest of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. An Egyptian-American with international experience and fluency in Arabic, she was soon moved to the National Security Council, though she retains her economic title. Powells ties to Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, who recruited her, and to economic adviser Gary Cohn, a fellow Goldman alumnus, mean she has been labeled by some as part of a more moderate group at the White House. But GOP leaders describe her as a longtime conservative thinker. She has quickly earned the respect of the president, who said in a statement to The Associated Press: Dina is an extremely intelligent and competent member of my team. She is highly respected and a great person. National Security Adviser Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster said he recruited Powell because of her exceptional expertise and leadership skills, to lead an effort to restore the strategic focus of the national security council. She has already accomplished this shift in a few weeks, establishing great relationships across our government and with key international allies. Powells foreign policy experience was forged under Condoleezza Rice, who brought her into the State Department when the Bush administration was trying to improve diplomacy in the Middle East. Calling her a member of my Middle East brain trust, the former secretary of state said that Powell knows the region well and not just confined to Egypt. She added that Powell was somebody who understood the limits of secularism in the Middle East but the dangers of fundamentalism. She brought sensitivities to those issues. Still, Powell is plunging into a national security role at a fraught moment, as the United States ponders next steps with Syria, navigates complex relationships with North Korea, China and Russia and seeks to combat the rise of ISIS. All under a president, who campaigned on a platform of America First but whose foreign policy has proved unpredictable. Tommy Vietor, who served as NSC spokesman under Barack Obama, said the administration is still struggling to present a coherent foreign policy. Does America First mean we dont care anymore? he asked. They need to do a better job making clear people understand where they stand on many issues. Powell was brought onto the national security team after a period of tumult. Trumps first national security adviser, Michael Flynn was asked to resign in February amid revelations that he misled senior administration officials about his Russian contacts. One of his deputies, K.T. McFarland notably absent from the Florida photo is expected to exit soon. She is in line to be U.S. ambassador to Singapore. As deputy national security adviser for strategy, Powell is working to coordinate the various U.S. security-related agencies and advisers. According to a recent national security memo, she attends meetings of the National Security Councils Principals Committee and Deputies Committee. Those advisers briefed Trump with options last week after a chemical attack that the U.S. determined was ordered by Syrian President Bashar Assad. Born in Cairo, Powell moved to the United States with her family at the age of four and had to learn to speak English. She is a Coptic Christian, the faith that was targeted with bombings of two churches in Cairo on Palm Sunday. Entering Republican politics at a young age, Powell put herself through the University of Texas by working in the state Legislature. After stints with several GOP congressional members and at the Republican National Committee, she joined George W. Bushs administration. There she became the youngest person to ever run a presidents personnel office. Later she served Rice as assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs and as deputy undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs. From the White House, Powell went to Goldman Sachs, where she worked for a decade, becoming a partner, looking after global investment and serving as president of the company foundation, overseeing an effort to invest in female entrepreneurs around the world. Speculation is already underway about whether her current role could grow. Shes already ascending in a big way, said Sen. Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican, who has known Powell for years. My sense is she will continue to be someone to look for. ___ AP writer Vivian Salama contributed to this report. Patty Kehoe resigned as president of Molina Healthcare of New Mexico this week, and has been replaced on an interim basis by Daniel Sorrells, a former Molina president and current employee. Kehoe, who had been president since 2013, could not be reached for comment Thursday. A statement from the California-based company said Sorrells appointment would ensure the continuity of day-to-day operations. Sorrells had been head of Molinas Oklahoma operation. Kehoe was previously a vice president of health-care services at Molina and had spent 20 years as a nurse. Molina, provides insurance through New Mexicos health exchange and to Medicaid and Medicare patients. It offers Medicaid plans in 11 other states. FORT COLLINS, Colo. A Colorado college student who was thrown face-first to the sidewalk by a police officer in a video that spread online says shes still recovering from her injuries and getting death threats after her arrest. Michaella Surat told Good Morning America that a bruise on her chin has healed a bit in the week since her arrest in Fort Collins but she still has numbness in her face and cant open her mouth to eat. A jail booking photo released by police didnt show visible injuries to Surats face. Since the video gained attention, the 22-year-old said she cant go to school without worrying someone will assault her. Police say she hit an officer multiple times after her boyfriend was detained outside a bar and grabbed an officer by the throat. Authorities say force was needed to arrest her. Police are investigating. ANCHORAGE, Alaska Alaskas picturesque Cook Inlet is home to endangered beluga whales and wild salmon and a spider web of oil and natural gas pipelines on the sea floor, many of them placed there five decades ago. Cook Inlets petroleum production is often overshadowed by Alaskas giant North Slope oil fields, but the inlet is in the spotlight as millions of cubic feet of natural gas spew from an underwater pipeline owned by the inlets largest petroleum producer, Hilcorp Alaska LLC. The federal agency that oversees pipeline safety has strongly recommended that Hilcorp develop a safety management system for its pipelines. Environmental advocates are demanding immediate pipeline inspections by federal authorities, not Hilcorp, in the area with earthquakes and some of the worlds strongest tides. The age of the pipelines significantly increased the risk of failure, especially when coupled with the harsh offshore Cook Inlet environment, Kristen Monsell, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, wrote in a letter to the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration. Hilcorp has not said whether it will craft the safety management system but insists the age of its pipeline system does not pose a threat and would not affect maintenance and inspection requirements already enforced by state and federal regulators. Hilcorp is ready, willing and able to make the necessary investments to keep us working in Alaska for many years to come, said David Wilkins, Hilcorp Alaska senior vice president, in an emailed response to questions. The inlet lined by mountains stretches 180 miles (290 kilometers) from the Gulf of Alaska to Anchorage. Humpback whales, Steller sea lions, northern sea otters and salmon swim in its waters. Besides earthquakes that periodically rattle Cook Inlet, tides fluctuate more than 25 feet (7.6 meters) and are so strong that they move car-size boulders along the sea floor, said Lynda Giguere, spokeswoman for the Cook Inlet Regional Citizens Advisory Council, set up after the Exxon Valdez oil spill to promote environmentally safe marine transportation. Hilcorp entered the Alaska market in 2012 and owns 15 of the 17 Cook Inlet petroleum platforms. The gas leak is in a pipeline carrying processed natural gas from shore to four platforms, where its burned to provide electricity. An analysis of gas flow indicated the pipeline probably started leaking in mid-December and initially spewed up to 310,000 cubic feet (8,780 cubic meters) of natural gas per day. Hilcorp lowered pressure in the line to reduce the flow to 85,000 to 115,000 cubic feet (2,407 to 3,257 cubic meters) per day. Divers on Monday in 80 feet (24.4 meters) of water found a 2-inch (5-centimeter) gash on the bottom of the line where it rests on a boulder embedded in the sea floor. Repairs are underway. On April 1, Hilcorp shut down a separate pipeline carrying crude oil from a production platform after workers felt an impact, saw bubbles surfacing from the water and spotted oil on the surface. Based on the size of the slicks, Hilcorp estimated that less than 3 gallons (11.5 liters) of oil spilled. Hilcorp said tests showed the pipeline was not the source of the spill and an investigation is underway to find it. Also on April 1, Hilcorp shut down a pipeline that carries natural gas from a production platform to an onshore processing facility after discovering that volumes produced did not match what was received. Fourteen of Hilcorps 15 platforms were built in 1968 or earlier. The company has spent $165 million on maintenance and infrastructure in Cook Inlet and plans to spend an additional $31 million in 2017, Wilkins said. The pipelines made of steel have special corrosion protection treatment and are covered in a cement-based product to keep them weighed down. While environmentalists say older pipelines pose greater risks, Wilkins said the industry and even some regulators disagree. He cited former National Transportation Safety Board Chairwoman Deborah Hersman, who said in 2013 that age is not an issue for adequately maintained and inspected pipelines. Steel pipelines can last indefinitely with proper maintenance, inspections and steps to prevent corrosion, Wilkins said. PHOENIX A Democratic member of the Arizona House has apologized to his colleagues for a Facebook post where he said he wanted to punch the Republican sponsor of a school voucher bill in the throat. Rep. Jesus Rubalcava told his colleagues Thursday that his post was definitely unprofessional and unacceptable and I want this body to know that I have apologized to Sen. Debbie Lesko for my comment and I sincerely apologize. The freshman lawmaker from Gila Bend posted the comment after Leskos bill vastly expanding the states private school voucher program passed last week. Gov. Doug Ducey quickly signed the measure. Lesko said she appreciated the apology. But she called the comment itself very disturbing and totally inappropriate. The comment was first reported by the Arizona Capitol Times. Copyright 2017 Albuquerque Journal SANTA FE New Mexicos legislative leaders authorized their attorneys on Thursday to sue Gov. Susana Martinez over her veto of funding for state universities and the Legislature itself. And they directed their staff to begin gathering signatures for an extraordinary session a legislative session called by lawmakers themselves and open to any topic. It would take signatures from three-fifths of the Legislature to enter such a session, which has happened only once in New Mexico history, officials said. Top Democrats in the Legislature have repeatedly questioned whether the Republican governor had authority to reject funding for an equal branch of government and for universities mentioned in the state Constitution. Martinez, in turn, says that the removal of funding is only temporary and that it can be restored through a budget compromise acceptable to her administration and lawmakers. Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth, D-Santa Fe, said he and his colleagues are pursuing every option to address the states budget crisis whether its through litigation, an extraordinary session or a negotiated agreement with Martinez. Her action in unilaterally rejecting the bipartisan plan that was sent up there and then trying to selectively veto pieces of the budget has created a constitutional crisis, Wirth told reporters. A spokesman for Martinez accused lawmakers of refusing to negotiate and turning to the courts instead. This just demonstrates that the Senate is more interested in jamming through one of the largest tax increases in state history than coming together in a bipartisan way to find compromise, spokesman Michael Lonergan said. This isnt the way government works. Thursdays vote and decision-making happened behind closed doors in a meeting of the Legislative Council, a group of lawmakers who oversee year-round operations of the Legislature as an institution and its nonpartisan staff. The move intensifies a political and now legal clash between Democrats who hold majorities in the Legislature and Martinez, a Republican in the middle of her second term. They have been at odds for months over how to resolve a budget crisis triggered, in part, by flagging revenue from oil and gas operations in the state. Democrats have a 9-7 edge on the Legislative Council, though it wasnt clear whether Thursdays decisions were unanimous, along party lines or some other combination. A staff member simply announced the decisions in public, and lawmakers said they decided to refer all questions to staff or attorneys. Wirth, however, agreed to answer some questions about his own involvement in budget talks. He and House Speaker Brian Egolf, D-Santa Fe, met privately with Martinez late Thursday after the Legislative Council meeting. To call an extraordinary session, at least 42 members of the 70-person House and 26 members of the 42-person Senate would have to sign on in support. Democrats in the House hold a 38-32 majority over Republicans, so theyd need to pick up support from at least four Republicans to call an extraordinary session. Democrats in the Senate hold a 26-16 edge, meaning they wouldnt need any Republican support. But Wirth said he expected bipartisan support for an extraordinary session. An extraordinary session is only called if both chambers agree. Disappointed Martinez has said repeatedly that she plans to call legislators back into session herself this month to craft a budget that doesnt include tax increases. Funding would be restored for universities and the Legislature through a budget compromise, her administration says. The governor remains disappointed that (lawmakers) continue to dig their heels into the sand and shirk their responsibility to do the good work of the people, said Lonergan, the spokesman. Regardless, the governor is going to continue to try to work together to find common ground and solve this budget crisis. Democrats say they have already sent Martinez a sensible budget that included at least some ideas suggested by her administration. It passed with bipartisan support in the Senate and along party lines in the House. Democratic lawmakers argue that the governor could have used her line-item veto authority to more narrowly craft a budget package she could support. Senate President Pro Tem Mary Kay Papen, D-Las Cruces, said Thursday that the decision to pursue litigation is necessary to ensure the state Constitution is upheld. As legislators, we take our oath to support the Constitution and the laws of the state seriously. A special session called by the governor is limited to topics she approves. An extraordinary session is open to any topic. That could give lawmakers extra flexibility to pursue veto overrides or take up other priorities. Financial pressure The potential lawsuit and extraordinary session come as Martinez and lawmakers face incredible financial pressure. The state has already exhausted much of its cash reserves and endured a downgrade in its credit rating. The budget dispute, however, cannot be solved entirely in court. Martinez used her line-item veto authority to remove funding for higher education and the Legislature in a budget bill approved by lawmakers. A separate budget bill, however, would have provided revenue to support the spending, including about $350 million in tax increases. Martinez vetoed that measure, too, so even if spending were restored by a court, the governor and lawmakers would still have to agree on a revenue package to support the budget. Closed meeting The Legislative Council includes the House speaker, Senate president pro tem and the floor leaders for each political party. Some rank-and-file members of each body are also members. The group met privately reporters and others were kicked out of the room for about two hours Thursday at the Capitol. The state Open Meetings Act allows government bodies to meet in closed session in certain circumstances, such as to discuss litigation. After the closed session ended, Raul Burciaga, director of the Legislative Council Service, announced to the public what motions had passed. That portion of the meeting was open to the public. He said the Legislative Council had passed a variety of motions directing: Attorneys for the Legislature to pursue litigation regarding the constitutional validity of the governors attempted vetoes of funding for the legislative branch. The council passed similar motions for litigation on vetoes of funding for state educational institutions and other core functions of government. Attorneys to pursue litigation on 10 vetoes in which lawmakers say the governor failed to state specific objections to the bills. Lawmakers say the state Constitution requires the governor to mention her objections, not just say she has vetoed a bill without offering a reason. The Martinez administration disputes that theres any legal question about the validity of the vetoes. Staff members to begin collecting signatures of legislators to call the Legislature into an extraordinary session. Thats succeeded only once in 2002, when lawmakers called themselves into session and voted to override then-Gov. Gary Johnsons veto of a budget measure. Emami Ltd., the FMCG major, known for offering innovative products, has launched HE On The Go Waterless Face Wash under the male grooming brand HE. HE On The Go is the countrys first waterless facewash, developed by Emami based on its keen consumer insight and the penchant for offering effective& clutter breaking products. To mark this launch, Emami along with WATConsult - part of the Dentsu Aegis Network, has launched a digital campaigns, #HEOnTheGo, #Waterlessfor its latest product HE On The Go Waterless FaceWashto reach out to the young netizens of the nation. Conventionally, using a facewash requires water for cleansing. But what does one do to clean the face where water is not available, especially when one is on the move? HE has come up with the perfect solution with HE On The Go Waterless Facewash. HE Face wash is the first of its kind waterless face wash that offers cleansing on the go and helps one to present a groomed look anytime, anywhere. With this innovation, HE (Advanced Grooming) offers a differentiated product, creating a new niche within the emerging face wash category. With aloe vera and minerals from marine extracts, the product offers ease of use and convenience, making the user look cleaner, fresher and brighter - anytime, anywhere. Speaking on the launch & the new campaign, Mr Harsha V Agarwal, Director, Emami Ltd said We are very excited with the introduction of HE On The Go Waterless Face Wash, a first in India, from our male grooming brand HE. We are confident that todays alpha male, who are constantly on the move, will find this innovative face wash extremely convenient and refreshing. The product has all the attributes to become a constant companion to every Indian man. To create intrigue amongst its target audience, HE released The Flying Basin teaser video early this month. The video promoted the idea of a possibility of cleansing ones face while on the go. The video showed people booking flying basins through an app to wash their face whenever water was not easily available to them. The concept video generated intrigue and interest among consumers and received 2.4 million views and 4300+ shares within first 4 days of it going live. The video made the consumers wonder about whether such a concept could be a reality. Flying Basin video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5CB6mjH6Do The flying basin campaign was followed by the launch of, HE On The Go Waterless face wash, through an innovative on ground event featuring India's firstWaterless Boothin Mumbaiwhere people could wash their face on the go. The booth was integrated with Twitter wherein once consumers pressed the button to dispense the Face Wash, an automated tweet was sent from the brands handle stating the number of users who have washed their faces using ZERO water. This activity was encapsulated in a video where consumers shared their feedback on the product. Launch video link - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b7auDX-j45Y HE On The Go Waterless Face Wash would be available across Indian metros in various sku sizes such as 50gm and 20 gm packs, priced at Rs.85/- and Rs.35/- respectively. iGenero, an end-to-end digital marketing solutions provider have added another dimension to its portfolio of services through the introduction of B51 (www.b51.in), a chatbot offering which is envisioned to be a humanoid. It will be rebranded and reprogrammed as per individual brands business, culture and requirements. iGenero is one of the few agencies who has been able to identify the growing trend of fewer apps and growing conversations. Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft recently quoted, Human language is the new user interface. A statement pointing out that in the past few years apps used per person/month is stagnant at 26 apps, a statistic that is predicted to steadily decline in the coming years. Chatbots are all set to replace them. Chatbots are like Google, but go beyond just questions and allow you to book restaurants or flights, make appointments, send emails or order takeaway for you without the additional need of sifting through millions of product listings and bad search results with a conversational touch. They will be integrated on already established messenger platforms like FB Messenger, Whatsapp, Slack or on the present website eradicating the need for downloading another app. In China, 600 million people use messaging app WeChat every month to hail taxis, book doctors appointments, pay utility bills. iGenero introduces chatbots to India in the real terms. iGeneros B51 will enhance customer experiences through every touchpoint of the brand. B51 will enable brands to connect with their customers in real time regardless of the platform they choose to communicate through. It will help in lead generation by elevating the level of customer engagement through interactive and entertaining content anytime and anywhere the customer chooses to connect with the brand. B51 will help the brand transcend their customer service to 24/7 convenience. All the streamlined services of the brand can be taken care by the chatbot, eliminating human error and time constraints. Its encoding reduces the lag between question and response, giving the end customer a feeling of spontaneity and attention. Its memory feature enables it to remember customers giving it a personal touch and elevating level of brand loyalty. B51 can be integrated seamlessly across platforms like FB Messenger, Telegram, Slack, Twitter or your own website and CRM software. Commenting on B51s introduction, Aditya Gupta, CoFounder of iGenero said, Artificial intelligence has evolved significantly and B51 is one of the best products to come out of it. In the short term, B51 will help brands in providing real-time customer support, lead generation, drive traffic to brand communities give brands a multi-channel presence. However, in the long-term B51 will be programmed to gauge emotions and respond to the customer in the same state of mind they are in. Increasing customer engagement manifold and providing brands a 24/7, 365-day brand ambassador. Suresh Chavhanke was planning to visit Sambhal today to lead a protest rally. The western Uttar Pradesh district has been on the boil since March 29 when locals attacked police. Chavhanke is also facing rape charges. By India Today Web Desk: Sudarshan TV channel editor Suresh Chavhanke has been arrested for inciting communal hatred by Uttar Pradesh police. Suresh Chavhanke was arrested by Lucknow Police from Amausi Airport late on Wednesday (April 12). The Sudarshan channel head has been booked under Sections 153 A(1), 295A and 505(1)B of the Indian Penal Code and also under section 16 of the Cable Television Network (Regulation) Act, 1955. advertisement Chavhanke was scheduled to visit Sambhal today to lead a protest rally. Sambhal, some 370 km away from Lucknow, has remained on the boil since last couple of weeks when locals attacked police on March 29. Situation remains tense in the western Uttar Pradesh district. It was alleged that Sudarshan channel had telecast a programme in which its Suresh Chavhanke dished out objectionable content because of which tension prevailed in the city. The FIR was registered by the SHO when the matter was raised during a meeting of the Peace Committee on April 9, in which prominent citizens pointed out the programme telecast between April 6 to April 8. RAPE CHARGES AGAINST SURESH CHAVHANKE Suresh Chavhanke is also facing rape and criminal intimidation charges. An FIR was lodged against him in November, 2016 on a complaint by a woman employee of his channel. In her complaint, the employee alleged that she was sexually harassed by Suresh Chavhanke for over five years. Narayan Sai, son of self-styled godman Asaram Bapu, was also named in the FIR registered by the Noida Police. ALSO READ: ScoopWhoop puts out official statement after FIR against co-founder alleging sexual harassment After TVF's Arunabh Kumar, ScoopWhoop co-founder Suparn Pandey accused of sexual harassment --- ENDS --- Mumbai Obstetrics Gynaecological Society (MOGS) and PVR Nest, CSR arm of PVR Ltd., partners to announce the launch of Shes Ambassador program - a first ever health and leadership program to develop health champions. The program aims to empower young people to make educational and sustainable decisions favorable to healthy lifestyles and social development. It will address the hidden concerns of adolescents, make health education and safe learning accessible to young girls, educate on health planning, influence social and economic integration of adolescents, provide youth counselling services and promote health policies and best hygiene practices. The launch ceremony, organised at PVR Juhu, saw the presence of crest influencers from across the city such as Ms. Raveena Tandon (Actor), Ms. Priya Tanna (Editor-in-Chief, Vogue), Dr. Nandita Palshetkar (President MOGS), Dr. Noorjehan Safia Niaz (Co-founder Bharatiya Muslim Msahila Andolan), Ms. Veena Mankar (Founder & Chairperson, Swadhaar FinSer Pvt. Ltd.), Ms. Farida Lambay (Co-founder, Pratham Education Trust) along with Mr Kamal Gianchandani, CEO, PVR Pictures. Ms. Priya Dutt, Former Member of Parliament and Managing Trustee Nargis Dutt Foundation was the chief guest on the occasion, while H.E. Canadian High Commissioner Mr. Nadir Patel graced the ceremony as the Guest of Honour. On the occasion, Ms. Priya Dutt, Former Member of Parliament and Managing Trustee Nargis Dutt Foundation said, Shes Ambassador Campaign to develop the leadership capacities in adolescent girls by PVR Nest and MOGS is a step in the right direction. The campaign is also in sync with my endeavour, which is to improve the lives of children, especially young girls through education. It is about time that the society realises the underlying importance of any form of education to break stereo types. Being a women and a proud citizen of Mumbai completely support PVR Nest and MOGS in this initiative. The ceremony, which also witnessed widespread participation from corporate houses, educational institutes and civil society organisations included the premiere of Shes Ambassador campaign film, featuring Raveena Tandon, a Tibetan Meditation Bowl Performance by renowned artist Tritha Sinha and a power packed panel session revolving around Building Capacities and Impacting lives through adolescents. Dr. Nandita Palshetkar, President (2016-17) MOGS said, MOGS has always invested in creating awareness on health issues. Shes Ambassador initiative is an extension of our agenda to mainstream health education in our society and has been conceptualized keeping in mind the specific need of empowering adolescent girls to take control of their health and also act as ambassadors of change within their communities. The initiative envisions developing the health and leadership skills of 10,000 school girls across 50 schools (Govt, Non-govt) in collaboration with celebrity influencers on five thematic zones namely: Nutrition & Fitness, Menstrual health & hygiene, Communicable & non-communicable diseases, Sanitation & cleanliness and Mental health & well-being, using creative tools like films as a medium of education. Deepa Menon, Sr. Vice President Corporate Communication & CSR, PVR Ltd, said, Using films as a medium to promote awareness on social causes has been the forte of PVR Nest, through this campaign we are going to train the adolescent girls of Mumbai to develop an understanding on the precautions they need to take in order to maintain a good health and bring in all relevant stakeholders from the city to turn health awareness into a social movement to effect a positive change. She further added, As per recent reports, more girls are being born in Mumbai city than ever before and the female-to-male sex ratio at 1033/1000 here is better than the national average. However, the state of health among the adolescents remain a cause of concern with data suggesting that nearly 21.66% young girls were moderately underweight, whereas 2.87% were grossly underweight against the state average of 16.27%. Therefore, in the given situation, the campaign will be the apt initiative amongst adolescent girls to inspire change within themselves and the communities by acting as Health Ambassadors. The initiative will also give an opportunity to the participating children from schools to create their own films on the five thematic areas, after exhaustive film-marking workshops, which will be screened across PVR Cinemas to spark over 80 million new conversations. In a recent development, iContract Advertising has appointed Tanvi Jain as the Senior Vice President and Head for their digital division iContract and she will be based out of the Mumbai office. In her new role, Tanvi will be responsible for managing and growing iContract - digital offering to clients across all markets. Tanvi is an alumnus of Delhi University. A business leader with around13 years of experience working at some the top Digital agencies in the country, Tanvi brings in long-term brand-building with rich digital experience. She joined us from Dentsu Webchutney, where she was heading their largest branch in Delhi. Prior to that she has led the digital brand strategy & implementation for multiple clients like Airtel, Canon, Hitachi, Adidas, Coca Cola, DS Group, IndusInd Bank, ICICI, Beiersdorf ME and more. She is a fierce proponent of integration between creative and media in the face of over fragmentation of the medium. With her robust background in both creative & media agencies, she has created successful digital strategies for clients by building a continuous optimum mix of the two. Speaking on the appointment, Rana Barua, CEO, Contract Advertising said; Tanvi joins iContract, when we are stepping up our growth ambition and have laid out clear plans for both digital & integrated growth. Her impressive work and experience will help in growing iContracts digital offerings to its clients across all markets. And look forward to a seamless integration of our creative vision to offer the best value proposition to our clients. Commenting on her new innings, Tanvi Jain, Sr. VP and Digital Head, iContract said; Contract India is a great institution with its 30 year legacy and home to some of the most phenomenal people in the industry. The talent, quality of work and client partnerships at iContract are very impressive. I am really excited to be a part of the team and looking forward to building the iContract brand with a much sharper focus and vision." Whether it was the strains of the sarangi for Doordarshan or the lingering signature tune at the end of a Britannia ad sound has always played an intrinsic part of marketing, be it brand-led communication or communication of an experiential kind. Sound has subconsciously always been part of communication in India across the years. Now, The Social Street has announced an exclusive partnership with Amp.Amsterdam, a global leader in sound design, identity and innovation to help brands in India leverage the science of sound in their brand communication. The partnership is set to merge the virtual with the real and make experiences which are interactive and hence, contagiously social. What you hear affects what you see. Maximising the power of sound and sight, the collaboration will work to help brands bring to life a sonic identity for themselves that is clutter-breaking, relevant, unique, and engaging yet consistently true to its brand promise. Pratap Bose, Chairman & Co-Founder, The Social Street, commented, Our partnership with Amp.Amsterdam was just the one we were looking for, as we aim for greater uniqueness in our array of brand offerings and getting deeper into the immersive experiential experience. Dagmar Heijmans, Strategy Director & Co-Founder, Amp.Amsterdam added here, The DNA and the people at The Social Street are a perfect match with the team, vision and philosophy at Amp.Amsterdam. We are very proud to partner up with Indias most innovative ad agency and open up new ways together to amplify brands in India. Brands will now be seen in a new light through the magic of immersive experiences, 360 VR experiences, innovative sound designs, exceptional music supervision capabilities and enhanced audio production proficiencies. With offices in Amsterdam and New York City, plus an army of composers, producers, and creatives sprinkled around the globe, Amp.Amsterdam works in all 24 time zones simultaneously, and their extended family of publishers, record labels, and festivals makes them a truly global force. TIMES NETWORK strengthened its senior leadership team with the appointment of Mr. Shouneel Charles as its Senior Vice President Digital. Based out of Mumbai, he will report to M.K. Anand, MD & CEO, TIMES NETWORK. M K Anand, MD & CEO of TIMES NETWORK said, I am pleased to welcome Shouneel to TIMESNETWORK. We look forward to scaling heights and claiming our rightful position as a strong Digital Media Company with this induction and other senior level interventions that we plan. Given his experience in Digital media, marketing and advertising, we are confident that we will be able to better engage with the New Media market. Commenting on his new role at TIMES NETWORK, Mr. Shouneel Charles said, I am excited to take on this new role at TIMES NETWORK. Leading the digital practice at a network that is known for its unique campaigns and initiatives is a huge responsibility. The growing digitisation throws a huge opportunity for established brands like Times Network. In his previous assignment, Mr Charles was leading the digital business at NDTV Convergence as Chief Sales & Marketing Officer and Chief Revenue Officer. He helped the media company set -up a digital ecosystem, profitable internet and mobile based business. With close to 20 years of experience, Shouneel Charles has previously worked for multi-national companies like Yahoo, Turner Broadcasting, HBO, Warner Brothers, STAR TV and The American Express Bank. 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. While many are aware of their tablets, laptops and smartphones being susceptible to hacking, this isnt just relevant to smartphones and such. Its also relevant to other technology, like autonomous cars. You may remember a couple of hackers who hacked a Jeep Cherokee, one that was not a self-driving vehicle, and basically made it useless on a highway. Well those hackers have been working with Uber to secure their own vehicles and now they have left the company and are talking about how tough it is to truly protect self-driving cars from hackers. And the spoiler here is that its pretty darn tough. They wouldnt talk about the specifics behind the difficulties in securing self-driving cars, but would only mention that it is pretty difficult. He has now joined Ubers Chinese competitor Didi, who are looking to do self-driving taxis, which are even tougher to secure than regular autonomous vehicles. This is due to the fact that you have plenty of people getting in and out of these vehicles, bringing a lot more variables into the car than with a standard autonomous car. A few months ago, you may remember that basically the entire Internet went down due to a few Internet of Things products being vulnerable and allowing hackers to take down many websites, and the majority of the top sites on the web. Thats nothing compared to what could happen with an autonomous vehicle that has been hacked. The possibilities are pretty much endless. A hacker could hack the car to break the rules of the road, which could end up pretty messy, with people getting killed and cars getting totaled. So securing these cars is a big deal, and definitely a tough task. While many people are worried about self-driving cars eliminating jobs, they will be opening up jobs elsewhere. Like people working to protect these cars from hackers, not to mention needing more people to service these vehicles since they are going to be doing a lot more driving than normal cars do at this point. Self-driving cars are still about a decade out, but tech companies and auto makers are making some pretty good progress already. Instagram announced today that they now have more users using Stories than Snapchat has users. Thats pretty telling since Stories is basically Snapchat on Instagram, and it already has more users than the entire Snapchat platform. Since the announcement, Snaps stock has been taking a pretty steep dive, as you could expect. Thats not all that Instagram announced today though. They also announced some new stickers for both Stories and Direct (direct messaging). One of the cooler stickers is a selfie sticker, where you can take pictures of yourself and use it as a sticker on your photo, a great way to really express yourself. There also some new geo stickers included in this update, but its only for four cities at this time. So if you are traveling to, or live in Chicago, London, Madrid or Tokyo, youll be able to use these stickers. These are stickers that are in addition to the usual location, temperature and other stickers that are available basically everywhere. Its something that Snapchat has had for a little bit, but in the form of filters, and now they are finally coming to some of the cities around the world on Instagram. Finally, Instagram is adding a hands-free mode for Stories. So instead of having to hold down the record button to record a video for Stories, you can hold it down for a few seconds until it starts then record your video. This makes it easier for those that want to record a video and also star in the video. Its a feature that users have been asking for from Snapchat for quite some time as well. These changes are rolling out now in an updated version of Instagram for iOS and Android. Over on Android its version 10.16.1 and on iOS it is 10.16. You should see it in the Google Play Store today, and it should be hitting your device in the next few days, if you dont sideload the APK once that becomes available. This is a staged rollout as is often the case when it comes to updated apps, so it could take a few days to reach your device(s). Elisa and Nokia, two major telecommunications companies based in Finland, announced that they have successfully conducted the first ever European testing of 5G technology on 3.5 GHz band. The testing took place in Rusko, Finland last April 7th, with data speeds and latency measured in a set-up wherein a 5G signal was transmitted between a base station and a terminal. According to the two companies, their testing yielded some very promising results, with data speeds measured at 1.5 Gbps and minimum latency measured at 1.5 milliseconds. The results of the tests show the potential of 5G technology, with increased data speeds and reduced latency opening new use cases like remote control of robots and IoT devices. Elisa and Nokia seek to use 3.5 GHz band for 5G as it offers two major advantages over other frequencies, which are increased data speeds due to a wider bandwidth and possibility of more comprehensive coverage due to its lower frequency. The use of 3.5 GHz band solves one major problem for carriers who seek to implement 5G technology, which is the need for a massive infrastructure investment. To allow for higher data speeds, 5G technology can only be implemented at higher frequencies than the ones currently used for 4G LTE, with higher frequencies allowing higher data speeds. For example, testing the 5G technology on 15 GHz, combined with a MIMO antenna setup, yielded as high as 5 Gbps measured data speed. However, the use of higher frequencies results in a smaller coverage area per base station, with carriers needing to invest in more base stations to fully cover their service areas. The use of 3.5 GHz band, due to its significantly lower frequencies, allows for a wider coverage per base station while maintaining high data speeds, resulting in reduced infrastructure outlay for wireless carriers. Aside from the European networks, US wireless carriers have been testing 5G technology, with commercialization targeted for the year 2020. Verizon has begun testing 5G technology in 11 cities across the US, with the company planning to roll out fixed 5G services later on, enabling the wireless carrier to compete with wireline and cable internet service providers. T-Mobile, meanwhile, has petitioned with the FCC this April to allow the carrier to use 3.5 GHz for 5G testing, which the wireless carrier targets to start by April 15th. Uber used an internal software program dubbed Hell to track drivers working for its biggest rival Lyft until last year, The Information reports. The ride-sharing company allegedly used fake accounts and a workaround to trick Lyft into thinking that the fake riders are in different locations. Using the Hell program, the ride-sharing company was able to track Lyft drivers in an entire city through strategically placing fake riders, and later on used a vulnerability in Lyfts software to permanently track its rivals drivers using ID tokens. Uber reportedly resorted to these measures to find out which drivers are working for both Lyft and Uber and then offered incentives to entice these drivers to only work for Uber. The companys efforts were only exposed recently, but just a few key executives and data scientists previously knew about the project. This is not the first time that Uber reportedly used questionable methods to undermine competition, including its major competitor Lyft. In 2014, it was revealed that Uber organized a street team to interview Lyft drivers and entice them to work for Uber instead. In the same year, Lyft discovered more than 100 Uber employees hired and canceled Lyft rides, jeopardizing not only Lyft but also the drivers working for it through wasting drivers time and fuel for the canceled rides. If these allegations are proven true, Uber may be facing another lawsuit soon. According to The Information, Ubers actions can be considered as fraud, misrepresentation, and a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, all of which can be used by Lyft as grounds for a lawsuit. Meanwhile, Uber has been facing lawsuits from numerous parties over the past few months. One of the most notable examples is the lawsuit against Uber filed by Googles subsidiary Waymo that accuses the company of stealing intellectual property related to self-driving cars. Google alleges that Uber is using secret information related to Waymos development of self-driving cars in the development of Ubers own self-driving vehicles. Moreover, Uber is also accused of manipulating driver payments and passenger fare through discrepancies in the route displayed in the Uber app, which recently resulted in a class action lawsuit against the ride-sharing firm. Snap Inc., the makers of social media app Snapchat, finally obliged to release the complaint filed against the company by a former employee last January. The lawsuit, filed by the former leader of Snapchats user growth team Anthony Pompliano, alleges that Snap Inc. lied about the key metrics of the social network prior to the companys IPO last month. In the unredacted lawsuit, Pompliano detailed how the management of Snapchat lied about the daily active users, retention rate, and the percentage of people completing the sign-up process. According to Pompliano, Snapchat misled the advertisers and the public about having more than 100 million daily active users on the social network in 2015 when the actual DAU according to analytics systems was around 95 million. Pompliano says the same false data was used to persuade private investors to invest capital in Snapchat. Snapchats growth is also allegedly lower than what the company claims, with its daily active user growth remaining essentially flat in the first three quarters of 2015. Furthermore, the retention rate is allegedly lower than what the company claimed, with the actual retention rate of the social network at 20% which is half of what Snap Inc previously announced. Aside from the reports of inflated figures, Pompliano also alleges that Snap management asked him to build an organizational chart of Facebook complete with its executives and then identify individuals that Snap Inc. could poach from the social media giant. In his lawsuit, Pompliano claims that his refusal to divulge important information regarding his former employer and his refusal to be involved in the institutional pandemic of lying regarding user metrics, led to his dismissal from the job three weeks after he entered Snap Inc. Pompliano also claims that Snap Inc waged a smear campaign against him, as the company knows he holds information damaging to Snap Inc.s prospects for its IPO. Snap Inc. had its Initial Public Offering last month, with the company share prices up by more than 41% in the first day, raising $3.4 billion in capital for the social network and making its IPO the biggest the US stock market has had since 2014. This is an outstanding feat for a company reporting massive financial losses, with the companys losses in 2016 bigger than its revenue. Snap Inc. itself warned that like many tech startups, the company may never reach profitability. The farmers have been protesting in Trichy to show their support to the farmers who have been protesting in Delhi for the last 31 days. By Akshaya Nath: While for the last 31 days farmers from Tamil Nadu have been protesting at Jantar Mantar in Delhi, their fellow farmers in the state have been showcasing their full support to them. Farmers from Trichy have also been protesting demanding that the state and central government should soon bring an end to the crisis. In the protest, the people with a 'nammam' - a religious symbol on forehead (also a representation of helplessness) and a farmer pretending to be dead was handed over a petition seeking a solution to the present crisis. advertisement From the time of the Cauvery water dispute, the farmers have been protesting in the Cauvery delta region saying that their livelihoods are at stake and that they need immediate intervention and help. All Tamil Nadu Farmers Association's Coordination Committee has said that more than 250 farmer suicides have taken place since October 2016 and the numbers are only steadily increasing. "We are second class citizens of this country; we have no choice but to die. The government is underplaying the farmer suicide numbers. More than 400 suicides have already taken place and there will be more, if this is how our condition will be," said Vishwanathan, a protesting farmer in Trichy. The farmers have been demanding for the waiver of loans of over Rs 40,000 crore and to help the drought-affected in the state. Pained at the farmers' situation and the ongoing protest at Jantar Mantar, hearing a PIL, the Supreme Court has issued a notice to Tamil Nadu government calling the present situation a humanitarian crisis. The court has issued a two week notice for the state government to report on the steps taken to address the issue. The Supreme Court has also appointed counsel Gopal Sankaranayanan as amicus curiae in the case. "It is the duty of the state to take care of its citizens and the situation of farmers is worrisome," said the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, in Chennai a group of youngsters blocked the arterial Kathipara bridge staging protest against the farmers' condition and the inaction of the state and central government. The disappointment against the way the issue has been dealt with has created more trouble for the state. Also read: Tamil Nadu farmers protest completes a month in the capital Also read: Cauvery water dispute: PMK founder S Ramadoss alleges Karnataka of diverting water --- ENDS --- Indian smartphone vendor Micromax Informatics has come a long way since 2010 when it took its first tentative steps in the world of Android smartphones by launching the oddly-shaped Andro A60 with a low-res 2.8-inch screen, a single-core 600MHz processor and Android 2.1 Eclair. While those specifications are not much to write home about, the main attraction of the handset was it price-point, making it an affordable option for people looking to switch from their feature phones and jump on the smartphone bandwagon. The device, marketed with the tagline My First Android, went on to become a standout success with students and youngsters, paving the way for the Micromax brand to become a household name across the country. While the company has grown in leaps and bounds since then, last year it suffered a huge setback, with many regulatory, commercial and technological changes forming a perfect storm that the company is still trying to recover from. Having initially benefited from the open market economy by importing products from China and marketing them in India under its own brand without having to spend on R&D and manufacturing, Micromax got a rude awakening last year when various Chinese companies like Xiaomi, Vivo and OPPO started selling their own high-specd smartphones in the country at attractive prices. As if having to compete with a multitude of super-aggressive Chinese vendors wasnt bad enough, the company also faced severe jolts from unexpected quarters. The launch of Reliance Jio, which initiated a mass migration of subscribers from 3G HSPA to 4G LTE seemingly overnight, was also a hard pill for Micromax to swallow last year. The migration to Jio may have been from Airtel, Vodafone, Idea and BSNL in theory, but it affected domestic smartphone brands including Micromax just as hard as the incumbent carriers, because none could predict the voracious appetite for super-fast data among the Indian populace. With most Indian vendors unlike the Chinese ones still offering only 3G handsets at lower price-points, the emergence of Jio meant that buyers started opting for foreign brands instead of Indian ones, resulting in a dramatic loss of market share for companies like Micromax, Karbonn, Xolo, Lava etc. Advertisement As if the migration to 4G wasnt bad enough for Micromax, in November 2016, the Indian PMO (Prime Ministers Office) issued a highly-controversial executive order, which affected many businesses in the country adversely. The order, issued without any warning, demonetized almost 85% of all federal banknotes in circulation in a supposed attempt to nab tax-evaders. While proponents and opponents of the executive order continue to argue passionately about how much it will help or hurt the economy in the long run, most seem to agree that the short-term consequences for small businesses and daily wage-earners have been nothing short of disastrous in a country where a large majority of financial transactions are still done via cash. Micromax, like most consumer-facing companies patronized by the lower-middle and working classes in the country, was blindsided by the demonetization drive, and is still reeling from its after-effects. Western Digital is not at all happy about its positioning in Toshibas ongoing decision to split off its chip unit prior to selling it, calling the split a breach of the two companys joint venture agreements. The company has even gone so far as to send a letter to the firm as of April 9, telling Toshiba that it would not simply stand by while the latter company violates its rights. In the meantime, the company wants Toshiba to rectify the situation by entering into exclusive talks to determine whether or not a deal can be reached between them. However, Western Digital is hardly the only party interested in buying and Toshiba has its own interests to look out for and may or may not be under any kind of legal obligation. Source also say that no legal action has been threatened so far, which could indicate that either Western Digital has no case or that its lawyers just havent had time to build one. Toshibas chip unit is the worlds second-biggest manufacturer of NAND chips and, at the most recent valuation, is worth around $18 billion. According to sources within the company, who are currently not authorized to publicly address the matter and remain unnamed, There are currently four bidders that Toshiba appears to be interested in working with on a deal for the chip department, including Western Digital. The other three include Broadcom, SK Hynix, and Foxconn. Foxconn has the largest current bid at $27 billion but is not considered the most likely to make a deal because of possible distrust between Japanese regulatory authorities and the Taiwan-based company. SK Hynix was most recently reported to have placed a bid for 20 percent of the NAND business, with an offer between $1.8 and $2.6 billion. Plans to sell all or part of the chip portion of Toshibas business were first announced back in January, with Toshiba announcing the sale in a bid to make back money lost in its Westinghouse nuclear operations. Western Digital, for its part, has worked closely with Toshiba in the past. They even collaborated on Toshibas main memory production facility and that puts the company in a tough position. Unfortunately, there is currently no way of knowing whether or not there is any contractual obligation for Toshiba to work with Western Digital first or whether there is anything at all to back up the latter companys objections. Xiaomi had confirmed that their Mi 6 flagship will land on April 19, and the company has just released their first teaser for the device. Xiaomi loves to release rather odd teasers in order to hype up their device launches, and this time is no different. If you look at the image down below, youll get to see a caption that goes with this video teaser, and this video clip can be accessed via the source link down below. Now, this is a rather odd teaser on its own, and it may be a bit difficult to grasp as it is in Chinese, but the company is trying to reveal that the Mi 6 will ship with a dual camera setup on the back. More or less every phone leak that weve seen in the last couple of weeks suggested that a dual camera setup will be a part of the package, so this is not exactly a surprise. Some rumors have been saying that the Mi 6 will sport Sonys IMX400 camera on the back, this is a sensor which you can find in the Xperia XZ Premium and Xperia XZs which were introduced back in February. Now, a different leak said that Sonys IMX378 sensor will be included on the back, two such sensors actually, so who knows, well see which sensor Xiaomi opted for, but the Sony IMX378 looks to be a more probable choice for this China-based tech giant. As far as other specs are concerned, the Xiaomi Mi 6 will almost certainly ship with Qualcomms Snapdragon 835 64-bit octa-core processor, and it will probably launch in two variants, the regular Mi 6 model with a 5.15-inch display, and a larger Plus model with a 5.7-inch panel. These two handsets will come with Android Nougat out of the box, and Xiaomis MIUI OS will be installed on top of it. The Xiaomi Mi 6 will be made out of metal and glass it seems, and the device will probably sport a home key below its display, which will double as a fingerprint scanner. Fast charging will also be included in this package, and a ceramic variant of the phone will almost certainly become available as well. Advertisement Buy the Xiaomi Mi 5 By Press Trust of India: Hyderabad, Apr 13 (PTI) The Telangana government today announced that it would provide financial assistance of Rs 4,000 per acre to farmers to purchase fertilisers. Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao announced that the amount would be deposited in the bank accounts of farmers from the next financial year, every year before the Kharif season (in the last week of May). advertisement "There are about 55 lakh farmers in the state who are using 25 lakh tonnes of fertiliser. The government will give them Rs 4000 per acre to each for the procurement of fertiliser," a release from his office quoted Rao as saying, while addressing a group of farmers here. "From the next financial year onwards, every year in the last of week of May this amount will be deposited in the accounts of farmers," Rao said. The farmers should form associations at the village level to monitor all issues and programmes related to agriculture, including provisioning of financial assistance of Rs 4,000 to purchase fertilisers, he said. "We are supplying seed and fertilisers to farmers on time along with nine hours free and uninterrupted power supply. We are encouraging micro irrigation by giving more subsidies. We waived the (farm) loans. Inputs are a burden on farmers and we want to share it too. This is the reason why we have made a historical announcement today (providing Rs 4,000 per acre for purchase of fertilisers)," added Rao. The opposition BJP, however, described the announcement as a "farce" as it would be implemented from the next fiscal. "Its just a pre-term election gimmick. While farmers are hungry today, CM promised them to feed them for free, in the next financial year. It amounts to mockery of the farmers in distress. BJP demands immediate execution of the free fertiliser scheme, if CM KCR is sincere about it," BJP spokesperson Krishna Saagar Rao said in a statement. He wondered why the TRS government planned to implement the move from next financial year. "Why wait for the next financial year? Its just 13 days into a new financial year and CM is making promises for the next financial year, instead of solving immediate problems of the poor farmers," alleged Krishna Saagar. PTI SJR NRB BAS --- ENDS --- CM K Chandrashekhar Rao today declared that the government would provide financial assistance of Rs 4000 per acre to the farmers in Telangana to purchase fertilisers. By Ashish Pandey: After farm loan waivers, the announcement of free fertilisers to farmers of Telangana has left them awestruck. However, the Opposition parties have termed it as pre-term election preparation by Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao. CM K Chandrasekhar Rao today declared that the government would provide financial assistance of Rs 4000 per acre to the farmers in Telangana to purchase fertilisers which is a huge amount as total cost of these fertilisers come out to be much less than the sanctioned amount. advertisement Earlier this week, Telangana Rastra Samiti (TRS) ruled government has issued orders for the release of the full and final installment of Rs 4000 crore to banks. The loan waiver which was promised by the ruling party during 2014 elections costed Rs 17000 crore to the state exchequer. DIRECT BANK DEPOSITS As per the Chief Minister, State government will directly deposit the Rs 4000 in the bank accounts of the farmers from next financial year as its free fertiliser scheme. Every year before the Kharif season in the last week of May the amount will be deposited into the bank accounts of farmers. While addressing the farmers in an event at Pragathi Bhawan in Hyderabad, the CM Said "We have waived loans of 36 lakh farmers amounting to Rs 17,000 crore. Now farmers have become debt free. I want to do more for the farming community. We are supplying seeds and fertilisers to farmers on time along with nine hours of free and uninterrupted power supply. We are encouraging micro irrigation by giving more subsidies. We waived the loans. Inputs are a burden on farmers and we want to share it too. This is the reason why we have made a historical announcement today." In Telagana about 55 lakh farmers are using 25 lakh tonnes of fertiliser in every session and it is expected that the government needs roughly Rs 6000 to Rs 7000 crores to spend in this scheme. 'PRE-TERM ELECTION GIMMICK' Meanwhile, Opposition Bhartiya Janta Party called free fertiliser promise to Telangana farmers a farce and termed it as a pre-term election gimmick and questioned the seriousness of Rao's announcement. "Why wait for the next financial year? It's just 13 days into a new financial year and CM is making promises for the next financial year, instead of solving immediate problems of the poor farmers," said BJP's national spokesperson Krishna Sagar Rao. The state is scheduled to go on election in 2019 and the way government of Telangana and its ruling Telagana Rastra Samiti is showering boons has definitely put Opposition parties in a state of worry as they believe K Chandrasekhar Rao might announce an early election in the state. Also Read: Telangana CM K Chandrasekhar Rao to double up as coolie for two days Telangana minister to address meet on water resources in US Telangana shocker: Woman poisons physically challenged 3-year-old daughter --- ENDS --- Since the race takes place on the same weekend as the 2017 Monaco Grand Prix , the two-time Formula 1 world champion will have to be replaced by someone. Evidently, a driver with a super license is required, which means that the person has been approved by the FIA to race in Formula 1.Since McLaren is not a team for beginners, and they do not want any gentlemen drivers, who pay for their spot behind the wheel, the only choice is to choose an F1 driver with experience on his or her side.According to the BBC , while McLaren representatives have refrained from confirming or denying rumors on the matter, Alonso will be replaced by Jenson Button. Mr. Button has "temporarily" retired from Formula 1 at the end of last years season, but he only did that to focus on his passion, which appears to be running in Ironman triathlons.That is something that challenges the British driver, but it is evident that Formula 1 has a special place in his heart, particularly as he is an F1 World Champion.The news from the BBC also mentions a clause in Buttons contract with McLaren, signed last autumn, which commits him to replace any race driver who is not able to take part in a Grand Prix. Since Alonso fits the bill on this one, so does Button with his contract, which seems to be an incredible act of foresight.The only other alternative is to use a test driver, but that possibility is a joke when compared to having an F1 World Champion a teams disposal.Fortunately for McLaren and even Button, the drivers sabbatical year was not spent on binge eating, smoking, and drinking. It would be safe to suppose that he is still at the top of his game. After all, he was speeding in a triathlon , so that would qualify him on the fit side to any casual observer. EV The exhibit is called K-, and it is a futuristic vehicle that operates on electric power . Qoros commissioned an international design and engineering team for this creation, and you can observe this in its shapes.While a production version of this model is not on the table, it shows a few ideas that will come to life in the new energy strategy of this company.It is worth mentioning that the Chinese brand wants to bring future-oriented new energy vehicle products to the market. In other words, it will build electric vehicles, and customers are promised a premium driving and riding experience.Instead of a conventional door layout, the design team employed asymmetric doors, which allow a distinctive experience for the driver and the passengers.The drivers side door is a single unit, while the ones on the other part offer two opening possibilities. One of them is the standard setup, like the one most of us have in their cars, while the second option is horizontal sliding, like on a minivan.Just like in a premium limousine, the K-EV separates the front and the rear of the passenger compartment in two distinct areas, which can offer an enjoyable experience for the occupants without anyone feeling cramped in his or her place.The exhibit is built with the companys Clever Carbon Cabin technology, which involves a passenger compartment made from carbon fiber that is seamlessly integrated into the rest of the vehicle.The use of this lightweight material offers a sturdy setup that will ensure torsional rigidity, while maintaining the weight as low as possible to help the electric propulsion system offer a higher range than a comparable conventional setup would provide.The partnership with Koenigsegg has supplied the Chinese company with electric drive technology from the Regera . The all-wheel-drive model is closer to production specification than a typical concept , but do not expect to see these features in a showroom shortly. Lawyers may be the next victims of automation, and the impact on the macroeconomy could be serious. Until now, paralegals and beginning associate lawyers have seemed to be primarily vulnerable to algorithmic advances. But labor lawyer Miriam Nemeth argues that the trouble will go deeper. "Lawyers in particular may increasingly suffer from job loss as a result of automation," she said. "Everything from contract drafting to legal research appears prone to automation." Data: Bureau of Labor Statistics; Chart: Andrew Witherspoon / Axios Why it matters: There are roughly 1 million lawyers, paralegals and legal assistants in the US, more than 20 times the number of people in coal mining. It's not clear how many could lose their jobs, but a recent study said that currently available technology could reduce lawyers' billed hours by 13%. Glass half-full: A recent McKinsey study said that 23% of a lawyer's job can be automated. But Chris Stock, CEO at LEAP Legal Software, said earlier this week that lawyers and paralegals have time to learn new skills, and thus not become flotsam of robots, by learning how to apply automation software to improve their own productivity and remain attractive to employers. President Trump no longer plans to label China a currency manipulator, despite repeated campaign promises to do so "on day one," according to an interview published Thursday in the Wall Street Journal. And he was pretty blunt about it: They're not currency manipulators. What changed? Now that Trump is actually president, he realizes that such a public rebuke of China could endanger talks over bigger issues like North Korea. Plus, China stopped undervaluing its currency years ago. Other highlights from the WSJ interview: The United States dropped a GBU-43/B the most powerful non-nuclear bomb ever used in combat for the first time Thursday in Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan, per CNN. Sean Spicer said the bomb was used to target "a system of tunnels and caves that ISIS fighters used to move around freely." Sense of scale: Commonly referred to as the Mother of All Bombs (MOAB), it weights 21,000 pounds and has an explosive yield equal to 11 tons of TNT though that's just 0.073% as powerful as the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima. After the announcement of the reservation for Muslims, the Bhartiya Janta Party has launched a protest inside the state Assembly. By Ashish Pandey: Chief Minister of Telangana K Chandrashekhar Rao (KCR) on Thursday reiterated that reservations for the sociologically and educationally backward Muslims would get enhanced quota in the state. After the Cabinet meet on Wednesday, the CM announced the government will give reservations to the economically and educationally backward minorities and Muslims in the state. Addressing a gathering of Muslim clerics and other members of the community at Pragathi Bhawan in Hyderabad, KCR reiterated, "No one should entertain any doubts over the hike in reservation quota for Muslims. In Tamil Nadu, 69 per cent of reservations are being implemented and in Telangana too enhanced reservations will be implemented." advertisement After the announcement of the reservation for Muslims, the Bhartiya Janta Party has launched a protest inside the state Assembly. Speaking to India Today, BJP's general secretary Muralidhar Rao made it clear that his party will mobilise people against the decision of Telangana Rastra Samiti government. "It is pure communalism and a perfect example of vote bank politics. The decision of the state government is unconstitutional and against the Supreme court, as well as law. The motive of TRS government of providing 12 per cent reservation to Muslims is a betrayal of backward class," added Rao. Meanwhile, on the request of the government, Telangana Assembly Speaker has summoned a special session on April 16. Before the special Assembly session, the Cabinet will meet on Saturday to discuss the Telangana State Reservation Bill, 2017 and its tabling in the special session. Also read: Telangana: CM Chandrasekhar Rao announces 100 per cent free fertilisers for farmers, Opposition calls it early poll preparation Also read: Telangana shocker: Woman poisons physically challenged 3-year-old daughter --- ENDS --- Telangana CM K Chandrasekhar Rao announced that he too will work as a coolie for two days along with other ministers, MPs, MLAs and leaders of his party. By Indo-Asian News Service: Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, his cabinet colleagues, other lawmakers and all leaders of TRS party will work as coolies to raise money to attend party's plenary and formation day public meeting scheduled be held later this month. Rao announced that he too will work as a coolie for two days. All ministers, MPs, state legislators, leaders and workers of the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) will also work as labourers to earn the money to bear their respective cost for attending the meet. advertisement The TRS chief declared the April 14 to April 20 will be 'Gulabi (pink) coolie days'. He urged every party worker to work for at least two days to earn the money to meet transportation and other costs. The TRS will hold its plenary at Kompally near Hyderabad on April 21 while a massive public meeting is planned at Warangal on April 27 to mark the party's formation day. KCR, as Rao is popularly known, said TRS had 51 lakh members when the government was formed in 2014 and the number had now gone up to over 75 lakh. TARGET 25 CRORE The party is expected to get Rs 25 crore as membership fee. Party's plenary will elect the president. Senior leader and Home Minister N Narasimha Reddy will act as presiding officer. "You will see the election result", was how KCR reacted when asked about the speculations that his son and cabinet minister K T Rama Rao will take over as the party chief. ALSO READ: Telangana minister to address meet on water resources in US Telangana shocker: Woman poisons physically challenged 3-year-old daughter --- ENDS --- Netwatch, Irelands leading high-tech security specialists, have today urged owners and managers of businesses to ensure that every aspect of their business is secure over the Easter break. The advice comes after data from the Netwatch Communication Hub indicated that attempted security breaches increased by a staggering 37% over the recent long St Patricks weekend. Netwatch has identified a trend showing that attempted security breaches happen at a much higher rate on Bank Holiday weekends when staff are either not on the premises or the staff presence has been dramatically decreased. The research found that on bank holidays, potential criminals operate during daylight hours while on regular weekends, attempted security breaches tend to occur under the cover of darkness. On St Patricks Day, this was particularly evident as potential security breaches occurred constantly over the course of the day. Since businesses are generally closed for longer periods than normal during the holiday break, criminals are acutely aware this can mean a delay for business owners and members of staff in finding out that the premises has been targeted. This has been particularly felt in the construction industry where, on many occasions, employees have returned to work to find valuable equipment stolen or damaged and work has not been able to continue for prolonged periods. Netwatch is advising all businesses to ensure that effective steps are taken to ensure that Easter is a holiday and not a time to worry about the workplace for staff and business-owners. Speaking today, CEO & Co Founder of Netwatch, David Walsh said, "With businesses aware of the threat, and the potential risk dramatically increased on holiday weekends, it is imperative that businesses follow up with every member of staff to ensure that all security measures are prepared meticulously." He added, "Unfortunately, criminal activity certainly does increase at these times of the year, but there is always a solution for conscientious business leaders, which will reduce fear and let employees and management enjoy their time off without worrying about their place of work." Source: www.businessworld.ie Modified On May 04, 2017 02:12 PM By CarDekho Indias leading auto portal CarDekho.coms parent has procured Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) license to launch the auto insurance vertical under Girnar Insurance Brokers Pvt Ltd. With this, the company aims to provide hassle-free insurance buying, locating cashless services garages, claim settlement and documentation to car owners. A study conducted by McKinsey has estimated the size of Indias non-life insurance market to be nearly USD 75 billion by 2025 from under USD 15 billion at present. The online market for non-life insurance products will be dominated by motor, accident and health, travel and home. Today, only 60% vehicle owners have an insurance policy even though vehicle insurance is mandated by Motor Vehicles Act. Some of the areas of concerns for a car buyer are transparency in offering coverages and post insurance services. The buyers typically do not have information on the terms of the policy and other service parameters of the workshops that are covered under the policy. Girnar Insurance Brokers will enable better decision making by launching an app that understands the risk profile of the user and advises them on buying a policy that has terms and prices best suited for their need. It has deep tech integrations with partner insurance companies like Iffco Tokio, General Insurance, HDFC Ergo, Royal Sundaram, Universal Sompo and New India General Assurance to generate customized policies and enable instant purchase. Girnar will use a proprietary tech systems to reduce the turnaround time (TAT) in claims settlement from prevalent practice of 5-7 days to 2-3 days. The company has also set up a 24*7 helpdesk to explain insurance parameters and select add-on services through the app. Insurance buyers can also call for help on claim settlement. Speaking on the launch, Sanjeev Gujral, CEO & Principal Officer, Girnar Insurance Brokers Pvt. Ltd, said, We want to help car buyers be in a better position to benefit from their motor insurance policy by not just helping them buy a policy thats best suited for their profile but by also providing assistance in claim settlement. We will make services like locating cashless services garages, easier claim settlement and documentation through deep tech solutioning and integrations. With our innovative tech tools, we are confident that we will be able to bring more transparency and speed in the overall transaction and claim settlements. CarDekho.com, which currently runs one of Indias largest auto classifieds platform, aims to construct a complete ecosystem for consumers to have easy and complete access to not only buying and selling cars, but also manage their entire ownership experience including accessories, tyres, batteries, insurance or roadside assistance. It launched auto loans for new and used cars last year to avail attractive and faster loan approvals. The launch of digital insurance platform is another step to create a more robust car ecosystem in the India to enable car buyers and owners make better choice. Modified On Jun 14, 2017 02:13 PM By akas for Jeep Compass 2017-2021 Jeep has finally unveiled the much awaited Indian-spec Compass. Not only will the compact SUV be manufactured at Fiat's Ranjangaon facility in Maharashtra but it will also be exported to right-hand drive markets like Australia, Japan and the UK. The compact SUV claims to be best in its segment. It is likely to be priced around the Rs 20 lakh mark and will primarily compete with the Hyundai Tucson, Honda CR-V and the Skoda Yeti. Let's compare the specifications of the upcoming SUV with its competitors and see how it fares against them. Dimensions When it comes to overall length, the Jeep Compass stands third after the Honda CR-V and the Hyundai Tucson. The Compass also stands third in terms of width and height. While the Hyundai Tucson is the widest car here, surprisingly the Skoda Yeti is tallest. However, the Compass has the maximum wheelbase among four which should result in a spacious cabin. While the Hyundai Tucson has the highest ground clearance of 195mm, the Honda CR-V has lowest, 170mm. The Compass stands third with 178mm of ground clearance and hence can face difficulty in crossing bigger roadblocks as compared to its rivals. While the Compass and the CR-V ride on 17-inch wheels, the Tucson and the Yeti have 18-inch and 16-inch wheels respectively. Performance Petrol Engine The Compass, CR-V and the Tucson are the only SUVs here to feature a petrol engine with the Skoda Yeti giving it a miss. While the CR-V has two petrol engines on offer, the Compass and the CR-V have only one. The 2.4-litre engine on the Honda CR-V is the most powerful petrol engine here. It produces 190PS of power and 226Nm of torque. Although the Compass has the smallest engine (a 1.4-litre unit) in this comparison, it produces more power and torque than the 2.0-litre engines on the Tucson and CR-V and hence should have a better power to weight ratio. Apart from the Jeep Compass, only the Honda CR-V has a 4WD drivetrain that would help you to tackle difficult situations. All of the cars here have both manual and automatic transmission on offer. Diesel Engine The Honda CR-V does not come with a diesel engine. However, Honda is likely to introduce a diesel-powered CR-V in India soon. Among the machines in comparison, the 2.0-litre diesel engine on the Hyundai Tucson is the most powerful. It churns out 185PS of power and 400Nm of torque. The diesel engine on the Compass produces 170PS and 350Nm, which is significantly more than the Skoda Yeti. While the Compass and Tucson have both, manual and automatic transmissions, the Yeti only has a manual transmission on offer. However, the Yeti and Compass are the only ones to offer 4WD option. While the Hyundai Tucson starts at Rs 18.99 lakh, the Honda CR-V starts at Rs 22.3 lakh. The Skoda Yeti has a starting price of 21.54 lakh (all prices ex-showroom Delhi). However, all three cars have something missing. While the Tucson is not available with all-wheel drive option, the Honda CR-V misses out on the diesel engine and the Skoda Yeti doesn't have a petrol engine. On the other hand, the Jeep Compass is expected to be priced around the Rs 20 lakh mark and will be available in both diesel and petrol versions with all-wheel drive option. The Jeep Compass will also be loaded with features and will focus on safety and off-road ability. This certainly will make it a tempting package in this segment. However, in the end, it will all depend on its launch price. Also read: Read More on : Tucson price By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Apr 13 (PTI) Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar today condemned the definition of a "perfect female body" in a class 12 textbook as "sexist" and has ordered action in the matter even as the private publisher has decided to stop the printing and sale of the book. Excerpts from the Physical Education textbook defining "36-24-36" as the "best body shape for females" yesterday created an outrage on social media with critics demanding that the text be withdrawn. advertisement The book titled "Health and Physical Education" written by V K Sharma and published by Delhi-based New Saraswati House, is taught at various schools affiliated to CBSE. CBSE, however, clarified that it "does not recommend any books by private publishers in its schools". "I condemn the remarks in the book as sexist. The text is non-defendable and unacceptable. We have taken serious note of it. I have instructed the officers to take appropriate action in this regard," Javadekar told reporters. "It is not an NCERT book but by a private publisher and action will be taken against them. We are also asking CBSE schools to follow NCERT books rather than private publishers in interest of earning profit," he added. The publishers also announced that they have "stopped the printing, selling and distribution of the revised book with immediate effect". "We do review our books from time to time but some points have remained uncorrected due to an oversight and hence the book will again be reviewed by our editorial board and any inconsistencies found will be corrected," the publishers added. The excerpt from the chapter "Physiology and Sports" which is going viral read, "36-24-36 shape of females is considered the best. That is why in Miss World or Miss Universe competitions, such type of shape is also taken into consideration". Various Twitter users shared picture of the mentioned text and demanded that the publishers withdraw the content and schools replace the book in their curriculum. In a statement, the CBSE had said, "Schools are expected to exercise extreme care while selecting books of private publishers and the content must be scrutinised to preclude any objectionable content that hurts the feeling of any class, community, gender, religious group. Schools have to take responsibility of the content of the books prescribed by them". The Human Resource Development ministry had last month said that CBSE has no mechanism to evaluate the quality of textbooks of private publishers and it has no mandate to prescribe or recommend textbooks other than those published by NCERT. PTI GJS KUN --- ENDS --- advertisement 66th Annual EIS Conference Media Advisory For Immediate Release: Friday, April 21, 2017 Contact: CDC Media Relations 404-639-3286 What CDCs Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) will host the 66th Annual EIS Conference from April 24-27 in Atlanta. During the event, EIS officersalso known as CDC disease detectivesdescribe the investigations they conducted over the past year. When health threats arise in America or around the world, EIS officers are among the first to respond. In 2016, EIS officers battled Zika virus, the opioid epidemic, antibiotic resistance, unintentional injuries, healthcare-associated infections, foodborne illnesses, and chronic diseases. The EIS conference offers reporters the opportunity to speak directly with disease detectives protecting the publics health. When April 24-27, 2017 Media Availability On the Front Lines: Disease Detectives Combat Deadly Threats On April 24 from 12:30-1:30 p.m. (ET), CDCs Acting Principal Deputy Director Dr. Patricia Simone will host a media availability for reporters. Four current EIS officers will describe the behind-the-scenes details of their investigations of acute flaccid myelitis, the drug-resistant fungus Candida auris, the opioid epidemic, and Zika. Reporters can attend in person or by bridge line. Room Location: 203E (Atlanta Convention Center at AmericasMart) Dial-In: Media: 888-795-0855 Non-Media: 888-989-4716 International: 1-517-308-9117 Passcode: CDC MediaImportant Instructions: If you would like to ask a question during the call, press *1 on your touchtone phone. Press *2 to withdraw your question. You may queue up at any time. You will hear a tone to indicate your question is pending. 203E (Atlanta Convention Center at AmericasMart)Media: 888-795-0855Non-Media: 888-989-4716International: 1-517-308-9117Passcode: CDC MediaIf you would like to ask a question during the call, press *1 on your touchtone phone. Press *2 to withdraw your question. You may queue up at any time. You will hear a tone to indicate your question is pending. Transcript: A transcript of this media availability will be available following the briefing at CDCs web site: www.cdc.gov/media. Where Atlanta Convention Center at AmericasMart, Building 2; 240 Peachtree Street NW, Suite 2200; Atlanta, GA 30303 Background EIS is the worlds premier public health fellowship in applied epidemiology. Each year, 70-80 new EIS officers are selected from among hundreds of physicians, doctoral-level scientists, veterinarians, and other health professionals who apply to this competitive fellowship program. During their two-year fellowship, EIS officers are on the front lines of public health, protecting Americans and the global community as boots-on-the-ground epidemiologists. Since 1951, more than 3,600 EIS officers have responded to domestic and international health threats. EIS alumni have gone on to become CDC directors; leading CDC scientists; acting surgeons general; WHO assistant directors general, regional directors, and country directors; public health and medical school faculty and deans; city health commissioners; and state epidemiologists. Others are leaders in industry, foundations, nongovernmental organizations, and the media. Important Instructions Media wanting to attend the EIS conference should RSVP to CDC Media Relations by April 21 by emailing media@cdc.gov or calling 404-639-3286. For more information about the conference: https://www.cdc.gov/EIS/Conference.html. For more information about the CDCs Epidemic Intelligence Service: https://www.cdc.gov/eis ### U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICESexternal icon British Army chaplain appointed as principal of Spurgeon's College A former British Army chaplain has been appointed as the new principal of one of the UK's leading Baptist seminaries, Spurgeon's College. The Rev Prof Philip McCormack MBE will serve as Spurgeon's College's next principal beginning September 1 2017, the college announced last week. McCormack is currently a senior chaplain in the British Army, delivering pastoral care and spiritual support to military recruits, and training future chaplains. He is also a widely-published author and academic, specialising in the field of ethics. He said: 'I am humbled and thrilled to be appointed as the next Principal of Spurgeon's College. I look forward to working with an outstanding college team whose enthusiasm for the life, work and ministry of the college is inspiring. 'Working together with our national Baptist church family, the wider Christian community in London and internationally, I am convinced that Spurgeons' reputation as a world-class leader in preparing Christians for service in the Kingdom of God will continue to flourish and expand.' McCormack succeeds Rev Dr Roger Standing, who became the college principal in 2013. The institution was founded by famed preacher Charles Spurgeon just six years after his 1850 conversion. In Spurgeon's lifetime, the college trained nearly 900 ministers and planted 200 new churches in Britain. It describes its mission as providing a 'Christ-centred, biblically-rooted training in discipleship for the practice of mission and ministry'. Rev David Kerrigan, chair of the college council, applauded the move. 'I am delighted that Philip has been appointed principal elect of Spurgeon's. He brings to the post significant experience of senior leadership. We found his vision for the future of the college compelling and look forward with anticipation to working with him,' he said. Sarah King, the chair of governors, called McCormack a 'gifted leader and a clear strategic thinker with an exciting vision for the future of the college as it seeks to support the Baptist movement, both locally and nationally, and works ecumenically to equip churches, especially those with black and minority ethnic and Pentecostal identities, in London and the South East. As a board, we look forward to working with him.' Broadchurch actor in innovative Easter audio drama Easter must be a good candidate for the story most often told. Every week, if not every day, in churches across the world the events of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Day are recalled. It's one of the most dramatic stories there is, moving from death and defeat to life and hope. But for those who might hear it in church it perhaps becomes too familiar, whereas those who don't may not know it at all. Given the centrality of Easter in our cultural history that seems a shame. So at CTVC we started thinking about telling the story in a different way as a fictional documentary set in the 21st century for our Things Unseen podcast strand, which is aimed at people who believe there's more to life than the material world. We asked the writer Nick Warburton to come up with a contemporary story that reflected the themes of Easter a story actors would then use as the basis for a series of non-scripted interviews, each speaking as one of the characters in the story. Nick's experience with radio drama and dealing with religious themes made him the obvious choice, and in fact I'd made a sequence of monologues on the same theme for BBC Radio only a few years ago. His story, Oliver Park The Easter Riots, is set in the fictional town of West Trent. The town park has become host to a camp for refugees, which has now grown to include some homeless, immigrants who've recently lost their jobs, and a few splinter protest groups. A vigilante group, City Watch, has been established in response, and with a march planned by the camp supporters, tensions are high. Into this situation comes Carl Franklin, with a small group of followers including Charlie Hammond, and a radical but peaceful message. An infiltrator leads them into an ambush by City Watch, and while Carl's supporters flee, he remains, with devastating consequences. The cycle of violence seems set to continue, but extraordinary events the following day take things in a new direction. For me, the most remarkable moment of the whole process came when I first talked to the cast over the phone. We'd given them a chance to digest the story and their part in it, and went ahead with the usual process of calling contributors up ahead of the recorded interview. As they dropped into their roles I was suddenly talking to the people who'd been at the centre of events very like those in the Gospels. From the tense and evasive police inspector to the slippery mole who betrayed Carl Franklin, the conversations were a revelation, and at times quite moving. I shouldn't have been surprised at this, really. I'd worked with Joe Sims before, so I was thrilled that he wasn't so tied up being the plumber Nige Carter in Broadchurch to be available for Oliver Park. Over the phone he became the impetuous Charlie Hammond so thoroughly I found myself defending our decisions about how we were telling this fictional story. ('You're not talking to him? What kind of radio programme is this?') And when it came to the recording he was in tears when talking about what happened to Carl. We hope people will find the finished drama equally moving. It's released at www.thingsunseen.co.uk in two parts, on Good Friday and Easter Day, or you can hear the whole thing on Premier Christian Radio on Good Friday at 5pm. Paul Arnold is a producer and studio manager at CTVC, having previously worked for BBC Radio 4 and 4 extra. He is an accredited worship leader at Christchurch Methodist and URC church, Hitchin, for which he writes songs and plays the saxophone. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ThingsUnseenPodcast/ Twitter: @ThingsUnseenPod By India Today Web Desk: Sarabhai vs Sarabhai is making a comeback into our lives next month, and we are obviously quite excited about its return. The show had a brilliant set of actors, and that contributed to the show's success greatly. In this listicle, we pay a small tribute to celebrity guests who also made us laugh out loud with their presence on a few episodes. advertisement Also read: These characters of Sarabhai vs Sarabhai deserve more love Mandira Bedi Picture courtesy: YouTube Remember the episode when a frustrated and lonely Indravadan fell for Bollywood actress Cookie Sharma? Cookie---played perfectly by Mandira Bedi---was a heartbroken actress looking for love. But she ended up breaking Indravadan's heart towards the end of the episode when she told him that Sarabhai Senior reminded her of her father! Ouch! Aamir Ali The film and TV actor had also made a guest appearance on the show on an episode that largely featured Monisha's obsession with a TV actor called Patang. Aamir as Patang was super-entertaining. Makarand Deshpande Picture courtesy: YouTube Siddharth , the man who had, by the power of hypnosis, 'changed' Indravadan into his wife Maya. The talented actor was just perfect as the hipster hypnosis guy. Parvin Dabas Picture courtesy: YouTube The man who had made Maya's heart flutter like a butterfly; Parvin as Sudhanshu the artist was simply hilarious. No one can ever forget how he was always ready to take off his shirt. To wipe Maya's tears, to mop the floor. As mentioned before---hilarious. Mallika Sherawat The actress had played the role of Sunehri, the innocent house help, who often made a mess of a situation. And that led to some great moments. Well, we sure hope that we get to see some of these faces again on Sarabhai vs Sarabhai's new season. --- ENDS --- Egyptian Coptic bishop on the profound power of martyrdom: 'When you are not afraid, you are able to love' An Egyptian Coptic bishop has spoken about the profound power of martyrdom in the 21st century, as the Coptic community continues to mourn Egypt's Palm Sunday church bombings that killed at least 45 and injured over 100. Bishop Thomas of the Coptic bishopric of Al-Quosia, Upper Egypt, spoke in an interview to the World Council of Churches. He described how Christians in Egypt have fought the fear of militant terror and anti-Christian persecution with the idea of martyrdom. In 2015 21 young Coptic Christians were beheaded by ISIS in Libya, with footage of the killings released online. Egyptian Christians, the bishop said, were able to watch the video to the end because 'They shared the suffering with those who were beheaded. 'And suddenly they observed, that, at that moment when the knives were going to cut their heads, the young men pronounced the name of Jesus. Some days later the Coptic Church declared them officially as martyrs of the Church.' The word 'martyr' comes from a Greek word meaning 'to witness'. Through martyrdom, those who suffer point to things beyond. It also means those left behind do not fear or hate those who took away their loved ones. Bishop Thomas explained: 'When there is such a tragedy we always tell people not to be afraid of those who kill. Yes, they can take the body but what else can they do? They can't take the eternal glory. When you are not afraid, you are able to love, to forgive and to show strength. 'Don't forget that the story of the 21 young men in Libya started long before that day at the sea coast. They were kidnapped, they were tortured and threatened in an attempt to change their faith. But what these men did was pray and lift their eyes all the higher. When you turn your eyes higher, things on earth appear smaller. The bishop was asked how Egyptian Copts, who make up about 10 per cent of Egypt's majority Muslim population, weren't more upset or afraid. He said: 'Don't think that we don't mourn! When something like this happens to innocent people there are a lot of tears. But in martyrdom there is both at the same time: the pain of the cross and the joy of salvation. 'Just take the example of Mary, the Mother of God. She had to give her child, but she rejoiced in God. This is what Christians in Egypt feel.' He later added: 'Carrying the suffering doesn't mean carrying hatred. And expressing pain and suffering doesn't mean that I'm afraid.' Bishop Thomas said that fear in response to the rise of global terror was taking over the west, and allowing terrorists to win. 'If fear is ruling a society the idea of generalization can easily take over', he said. 'When there are some Muslims who kill Christians it's easy to feel that all Muslims are bad. But this is unjust. The answer on martyrdom can't be injustice.' Egypt's president declared a national state of emergency after the Palm Sunday attacks. In December, ISIS claimed responsibility for a Cairo Coptic church bombing that killed 27. In February, the jihadist group released a video inciting violence against the 'infidel' Christian faith community. At least seven individuals have been murdered by militants in northern Egypt since January 30, with victims being burned alive, stabbed in their sleep and shot in the street. Hundreds of Coptic Christians fled the coastal city of El-Arish, Sinai in late February following an increasing terror threat from ISIS against the community. Bishop Angaelos, the head of the Coptic church in the UK, said Copts in the area were essentially told to 'leave or die'. Bishop Thomas said that the Church plays an essential role for relatives of those martyred. 'First, we take care of the families, spiritually and financially', he said. 'The loss of a family member can mean a financial disaster for those who stay alive. If we don't answer these needs we will extend the injustice. Second, we do trauma healing and pastoral care as much as we can to make the families feel that they are not alone in their grief. 'Then the church is working for human rights. This becomes a necessity and a need. And finally, we ensure that love must be ensured among people. Everyone is in the circle of love and forgiveness, even the murderers. Our fight is a spiritual fight.' While those who suffer can find meaning in sacrifice, the bishop was clear that 'martyrdom is always linked to injustice'. He emphasised a 'responsibility to work for justice. These brutal murders must be stopped.' Egyptian Coptic priest delivers inspiring Christian message to bombers: 'Thank you, we are praying for you' A Coptic priest in Egypt has delivered an inspirational message preaching Christian love and forgiveness in the wake of the Palm Sunday bombings in Alexandria and Tanta that killed at least 47 and injured dozens more. Fr Boules George of St Mark, Cleopatra church in Cairo addressed the Islamist attackers directly, thanking them for allowing the faithful martyrs' deaths and for filling the churches on the Monday of Holy Week, the day after the bombings. Fr George also told the bombers that they were loved by Christians because of Jesus' teaching to love your enemies, and that the attackers were being prayed for. 'The first thing we will say is "Thank you very, very much," and you won't believe us when we say it,' said Fr George. 'You know why we thank you? I'll tell you. You won't get it, but please believe us. You gave us to die the same death as Christ and this is the biggest honour we could have. Christ was crucified and this is our faith. He died and was slaughtered and this is our faith. You gave us, and you gave them to die...We thank you because you shortened for us the journey... 'Thank you for helping us achieve our goal. You're helping us, and you don't even know it. I know you don't understand, but I'm trying to explain it to you. There are people we visited at home to encourage them to come to church three, four, five times. Still they won't come. What you're doing here you're bringing to church the people who never come. Believe me it's bringing to church the people who never come!... 'Let's speak plainly here... Usually attendance at the Eve of Monday Pascha (Monday before Easter) is very little. People are usually so tired after a long Palm Sunday Liturgy and the General Funeral, and they don't come to the Eve of Monday services. When I came in tonight, there were people on chairs outside the sanctuary, there were people in the balcony seating. The church is completely full. There isn't even one empty nook. Thank you. We are so grateful that you're helping fill up our churches... 'Can you see why we thank you? We're not being deceptive. A priest holding a microphone can't lie to you! I say to you: thank you. Thank you for all you have done for us without even noticing.' The priest then went on to outline why Christians love their enemies. 'The second part of the message we want to send to you is that we love you. And this, unfortunately, you won't understand at all. Maybe you won't believe us when we say we're grateful. But this you won't even understand,' he said. 'Why won't you understand it? Because this too is a teaching of our Christ. I want to explain to you about our Christ. I want to tell you about how wonderful he is. 'See what Christ said: If you love those who love you, you have no profit or reward with me. Even thugs and thieves love those who love them. Any gang loves its members. Even the drug dealers all like each other and take care of each other. Right? But I want to tell you that "if you love those who love you, what reward have you... But I say to you, love your enemies" (Matthew 5:46, 44). 'We Christians don't have enemies. We don't have enemies; others make enmity with us. The Christian doesn't make enemies because we are commanded to love everyone. And so, we love you because this is the teaching of our God that I'm to love you no matter what you do to me. 'I love you very much. And I want to say one last thing to you: we're praying for you. Because the One who told us to love you told us to "bless those who curse you... and pray for those who spitefully use you" (Matthew 5:44). So my instructions from my loving God make it my duty to pray for you. Fr George concluded: 'I'm embarrassed to say at the beginning of Holy Week that the Church, though she is in pain, rejoices because today I don't know what the final count is. They said 40-something, and, of course, many people in the hospitals will catch up to them. All of these are crowns. They are rejoicing with God. And they will attend the Resurrection up there. And they are praying for us. The rest is on us. O, you lucky, lucky, lucky ones! And until it is our turn. To our God be the glory now and forever. Amen.' A translation of the speech featured on the 'Coptic dad and mom' blog site. It came as Egypt's Ministry of Interior yesterday identified the suicide bomber responsible for Sunday's deadly attack at Alexandria's St Mark's Cathedral which killed 17, as 30-year-old Mahmoud Hassan Mubarak Abdallah. The ministry said that Abdallah was an associate of Amr Saad Abbas Ibrahim, a fugitive who is the leader of a terrorist cell that orchestrated last December's deadly suicide bombing of Cairo's St Peter and St Paul's Church, which killed 29, mostly women and children. England Has One, America Never Has. Is A State Church A Good Idea? Globally, the Church is thriving. Thousands are coming to faith daily in China, parts of Africa and South America. Yet here in Europe the story is one of decline. There are bright spots amid that decline, but still the overall trend is toward a reduction in the number of believers, both committed and nominal. In the US, some feel that the precedent set by Europe is one which America will follow in due course. Into this mix, this morning we reported that the number of adherents to the Church of Sweden is in free fall. 86,000 members of the Church left in 2016 the highest number ever in a single year. A similar pattern has emerged in Norway. In both these countries, the official state Church has been disestablished after hundreds of years. In 2000, Sweden's Church separated formally from the state, while January 1 this year saw the same thing happen in Norway. Across the bridge in Denmark, the state Church remains officially established. Yet the same reason which has seen many thousands of nominal Norwegians and Swedes officially sever their links with the Church is at play there too. To avoid paying the Church tax a levy which supports the work of the Church people who are officially members, even if they rarely attend, are leaving. After an atheist advertising campaign, over 10,000 people decided to leave the Danish Church earlier this year. Finland has a similar story to tell, of high institutional membership, but low levels of participation. There, though, there are interesting signs of a reawakening of belief. On the whole, though, projections suggest the decline in numbers of the official (and formerly official) state Churches of Europe may continue for decades to come. It leads to the question which has been asked repeatedly in the US and the UK over generations what use is a state Church? In the USA, there has never been an officially established national Church. However, some states did have official Churches. By 1833, though, the final official links between the Congregational Church and the State of Massachusetts had been severed. This means that for most of its history, the US has been a 'Christian country' (demographically, Christian faith was the biggest religion, Judeo-Christian values were the basis of much of the law and culture etc.) without having an established Church. In Great Britain, we have a very different history. The Church in Wales was disestablished in 1926, but both England and Scotland retain their established Churches to this day. Constitutionally, the Church still plays a central role in British life. Prayers are said in Parliament at the start of each day, Bishops still sit in the House of Lords by right and the Queen remains the Supreme Governor of the Church of England. Significantly, the system in England and Scotland works differently from elsewhere in Northern Europe. There is no Church tax here, so there is no financial incentive to leave. In fact, it is tricky to know what membership actually entails. One in 10 infants are still baptised in the Church of England, but figures show that only around 750,000 people are regular attenders at church something like 1.5 per cent of the population. There is no obvious way to 'leave' the Church of England either, unlike in Norway where an online system allowed people to opt out. With there being no change likely in Great Britain in the near future, Christians in the UK and US live with very different systems. But what are the advantages and disadvantages of the two systems? The USA, free of the encumbrance of state religion, has a vibrant and thriving Christian Church. Because many flowers were allowed to bloom, there have been a wide variety of movements. Some of them have been inspirational, such as Pentecostalism, while others have been considered heretical Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons and Christian Science, for example. The entrepreneurialism of American Protestantism has led to great dynamism and the experience of the Great Awakenings, which transformed the religious landscape of the country would undoubtedly have been different had there been an established Church. Yet that dynamism has led to overreach. The excesses of the prosperity gospel and the exploitative end of televangelism were also partially a fruit of the free-market in religious ideas. How about the other side of the pond? England's and Scotland's established Churches and their closeness to the political and cultural elite have insulated the UK from the more extreme expressions of political Christianity that have proved so divisive in America. The British equivalent of the Religious Right has happily remained marginal for this reason. Yet, it also seems that some of the dynamism that characterises American Christianity has been lacking in the UK. We have certainly had revivals, from Wesley's Methodist movement to the pit villages of South Wales in the early 20th century. But to many Brits, the default version of Christianity they have been offered is a more 'woolly' version of established Anglicanism. Having said that, there is vibrancy to much of the Church of England still and its establishment does make it visible to many non churchgoers who still feel a sense of ownership of 'their' parish church. Is establishment or disestablishment preferable, then? There are arguments for both. It's a question made even more interesting when looking at China, which has a state-sanctioned (though not officially linked) Church and various underground networks, too, and where much of the future shape of Christianity will be decided. Should we agree with Danish theologian and philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, who described the established Church as, "from the Christian point of view, an impudent indecency"? Ultimately, there probably isn't a 'right' answer as such, unless you are a thoroughly committed secularist or Nonconformist. In the US and UK, there is little state interference with the Church and that is as it should be. Sadly, elsewhere, authoritarian regimes such as China do regulate how the official Churches can behave. The Church is at its best when it is committed to the Gospel helping as many people as possible to love God and neighbour. This can, and does, happen in both established and other Churches. It's that we should be focused on. France's presidential election is too close to call. What should pastors tell their congregations? In early April, France's 11 presidential candidates sparred in a televised debate. Devastating comments from fringe candidates and flashes of brilliant repartee made for lively viewing. I found the accompanying Twitter commentary to be hilarious, until somebody posted the following: 'This would be really funny if it involved any country other than mine.' There's never been such a wide-open presidential election in the history of the Fifth Republic. Since its establishment back in 1958, you could fairly safely assume that French presidents would represent well-established political parties until now. Today, the mainstream political groups look adrift. Both the left and centre/right-wing presidential primaries produced winners that defied the polls. Both are now in serious trouble. On the right, 'Mr Clean' candidate Francois Fillon has been formally charged with various fraud offences in relation to allegations of fake parliamentary jobs for his wife and children and has refused to withdraw, despite an earlier pledge to do so if charges were pressed. On the left, official Socialist Party candidate Benoit Hamon has had a lacklustre campaign and is trailing far behind in the polls. Hamon has lost support to charismatic maverick Jean-Luc Melenchon on the far left, while to his right, the Socialist candidate has been largely deserted by party heavyweights, now throwing their support behind Emmanuel Macron. Macron is currently polling neck and neck with far-right Front National candidate Marine Le Pen for the first round, from which the two front-runners go forward to the second. This is Macron's first election of any kind, following his defection from Socialist prime minister Manuel Valls' government, in which he was an unelected minister. His new political movement is barely one year old. Meanwhile, given all the discord on the left, Marine Le Pen seems all but certain to gain enough votes to be in the final run-off and to stand a serious chance of winning. The campaign typifies the anti-system sentiment discernible in many recent ballots. Outgoing president Francois Hollande's unprecedented decision not to stand for a second term embodies the sense of political and moral bankruptcy that has engulfed the traditional parties. Whether or not the jobs Francois Fillon claims his family did for him are real, the amounts of money involved and his seeming unawareness of how such sums look to the average French voter make him seem desperately out of touch. The Socialist Party faithful's opportunism in casting their lot in with Emmanuel Macron, a former investment banker whose policy orientations appear to depend on who he last spoke with, looks craven. Against this backdrop, Marine Le Pen has an unnerving knack for the common touch, and an ability to come across as an anti-system candidate despite being the product of a political dynasty herself. Christians with traditional values tend to see Fillon, a practising Catholic whose conservative religious beliefs are reflected in his political agenda, as their candidate of choice; but his inconsistencies seem uncomfortably close to the kind of religious hypocrisy at which Jesus directed some of his harshest words. Some evangelicals are openly touting Le Pen, largely on the grounds of defending a so-called Christian nation against hordes of Muslims. Hamon may appeal to more politically liberal Christians with a heart for prison reform and environmental issues, but even they may balk at his support for the legalisation of cannabis and his rather Utopian promise of a universal basic income. At the end of the day, many may vote for Macron, but as the lesser of all evils a vote by default rather than a firm vote in favour. Many voters may simply throw their hands up in a suitably Gallic gesture of despair, and abstain. One Facebook poster suggested dropping their voter registration card in the ballot box, but such protests and abstentions will only benefit the extremist parties. In any event, the presidential election looks set to propel France into unknown territory and that's before the subsequent general election. So what's a pastor to tell his congregation in such circumstances? Directing church members to vote for a given candidate is clearly not on. I will however be encouraging people to vote, because I strongly believe Christians should be responsibly engaged in the society around them. I urge them to look not simply at what the candidates are saying, but also at their character; and, if they are tempted to make up their minds based on a few hot-button issues, to ensure they don't swallow any camels in the process. The book of Acts tells us that the Bereans checked the Scriptures to see if what they heard from Paul was true (Acts 17:11); today, as followers of the Truth, Christians need to be encouraged to watch out for 'fake news', check a story before sharing it, and learn to think and discern for themselves rather than take refuge in 'alternative facts'. The way I see it, the prevailing trend in France and other Western nations right now is towards withdrawal, hardening borders, and building walls, be they physical or less tangible ones. By contrast, the Bible portrays the city of God as having no walls at all (Zechariah 2:4)! Whatever the outcome of the forthcoming elections, Christians' counter-cultural, anti-worldly calling is to embody such a city through our openness to those around us. This calling is likely to be put very much to the test in the days ahead. Like many other countries, France is heading into great uncertainty. This should come as no surprise: the writer to the Hebrews offers us a powerful reminder that God intends to shake everything up, with the 'removal of what can be shaken', even as Christians are receiving a kingdom that is unshakeable (Hebrews 12:27-28). I pray that my adopted nation will be able to ride out these uncertain times and ultimately emerge better off; and even more so, that the Christians of France will rise to the challenge of seeking God's unshakeable kingdom in a way that glorifies him. Born in the UK, David Buick has lived in France since 1985 and has dual nationality. He is a pastor, prison chaplain, and freelance translator. 'Good Friday just got better'. Christians condemn shocking Tesco cheap beer advert The supermarket giant Tesco has offended Christians across Britain with a newspaper ad that completely fails to understand Good Friday. The text of the newspaper ad suggests Good Friday, a day of sorrow, fasting and penitence when Christians remember the date of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ more than 2,000 years ago, is actually a 'good' day. Tesco suggests customers can make it even better by having a few drinks. The offensive ad reads: 'Great offers on beer and cider. Good Friday just got better.' The ad was picked up by Michael Wakelin, religious literacy expert and former head of religion at the BBC. He posted it on Facebook, noting that it illustrates perfectly 'the need for religious literacy training'. The ad also went viral on Twitter, where Retrak charity CEO Peter Fahy tweeted: Tesco Good Friday ad not only crass but shows governments have made no progress in limiting supermarkets punting out cheap booze Peter Fahy (@peter1fahy) April 13, 2017 Church of Engand vicar and BBC presenter Rev Richard Coles commented: 'fail'. Others also expressed their shock and disgust: so @Tesco in need of religious literacy - Good Friday, the day a man was tortured & nailed to a cross, it's not about beer Bonnie Evans-Hills (@EvansHills) April 13, 2017 tesco good friday - who's running Tesco's marketing dept? Dumb & Dumber? Need educating about respecting their Christian customers. Valerie Thompson (@bergamotandbees) April 13, 2017 A Tesco spokesperson told Christian Today: 'We know that Easter is an important time of the year for our customers. It is never our intention to offend and we are sorry if any has been caused by this advert. We will not publish it again.' Is Lord Carey right that the UK government could do more for persecuted Christians? Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, has made an impassioned plea to the government to help persecuted Christians in the Middle East and beyond. Writing in The Telegraph, he speaks frankly about his disappointment in the role the government has played. He talks about the large numbers of Christians being killed, forced out of their homes and otherwise persecuted simply on account of their faith, especially in Syria and Iraq. 'The British response to this disaster, which we have in part caused by our ill-judged interventions, has been woeful,' he said. Highlighting that fewer than two per cent of Syrians given asylum are Christians, despite around 10 per cent of Syrians being Christian, Lord Carey lambasts the government. 'The stark truth is this that there is an institutional bias against Christians by our government,' he argues. 'All this is in sharp contradiction to the promises of support for persecuted Christians made until recently by successive Prime Ministers including David Cameron and Theresa May. Are they just hollow words?' Carey also claims to have advice that the lack of support for Christians amounts to illegal as well immoral action. 'It is not just a manifesto promise that has been broken,' he says. 'The law has been broken. So says advice I have received from the religious liberties barrister Paul Diamond.' In retirement, Carey has become an advocate for numerous causes. Some of his pronouncements have not been well judged and at times he has courted controversy. Yet here, he seems to be highlighting an important point. Those of us without expertise can't judge the legality of the situation, but it does seem that, at a time of existential challenge to Christian communities in the Middle East, the British Government's response has been somewhat lukewarm. First, consider the meagre amount of refugees the government has agreed to take. Just 20,000 over five years. This means we're being inhospitable to Christians (as well as Muslims and other minorities). The government's response to this accusation is that the UK is one of the top donors to help refugees in the Middle East itself. This is important to note and should be a source of pride. But in itself it doesn't mean that we shouldn't be accepting more refugees. The sheer disparity between the millions who've been accepted in Jordan, Lebanon, Germany and elsewhere means we must pull our weight. Second, the accusation made by Lord Carey does need to be carefully looked at. Although as Christians we shouldn't want to prioritise Christian refugees at the expense of Muslims or others, we also should be aware of any bias against Christians. Lord Carey's accusation that because refugee camps are run by Muslim officials they are less likely to welcome Christians is a serious one. If it means that the UK is giving less help to Christians as a result, that's a big issue. Third, persecution against Christians is endemic in places. We mustn't be afraid to say it is so. The suffering our sisters and brothers are undergoing is almost incomprehensible. There is, of course, significant wrong being done elsewhere, such as the horrendous persecution of the Rohingya Muslims in Burma. Yet it is surely incumbent on the British government to highlight and act practically to support Christians wherever possible especially in Iraq, where the current chaos which has allowed such persecution was ushered in by the calamitous British and American invasion in 2003. A Government spokesman said: 'UK aid is provided in line with humanitarian principles, so whoever needs our help the most gets it first, regardless of race, gender or religion. We work with trusted partners who operate in line with those same principles of neutrality and impartiality, including in practicalities such as refugee camp management and staffing. To suggest otherwise is wrong. And with all of our resettlement schemes we work closely with UNHCR to identify cases that they deem most in need of resettlement according to their established vulnerability criteria.' The UK is a medium-sized world power and can't be expected to solve all the world's problems. But a genuinely ethical foreign policy one based on Christian values would see us prioritising the most vulnerable. In parts of Syria and Iraq at the moment, the most vulnerable are the Christians who have been mercilessly targeted because of their faith. We should be doing absolutely everything we can to help them. Is There A 'Spiritual Battle' Over Donald Trump's Presidency? The charismatic Christian leader Lou Engle has declared a 'spiritual battle' over Donald Trump's presidency, saying that Trump's opponents have used 'witchcraft' against him. In an article for Charisma Magazine, the right-wing leader of The Call wrote: 'The Women's March was the first shot across the bow, heralding a revolutionary rise against the president of the United States, "We the people" and in reality, the foundational biblical truths upon which our nation was founded. Soon after, the second shot was manifested publicly: an unprecedented global summons of witchcraft to curse President Trump, his Cabinet and all of those aligned with a biblical worldview. Suddenly, the whole controversy was elevated to a global spiritual dimension, inaugurating a spiritual battle that cannot be won on the playing field of protests and political arguments. 'Only the church has the answer to this unprecedented manifestation of witchcraft. Spiritual strategy must be used to overcome this open-faced, brazen challenge of the powers.' Engle said that this was a pivotal point in history. 'There are moments in history when a door for massive change opens,' he wrote. 'Great revolutions, either good or evil, spring up in the vacuum created by these openings. In such divine moments, key men, women and entire generations risk everything to become the hinge of historythe "pivot point" that determines which way the door will swing.' The rallying call came as the Washington Post published an article with the headline: 'The religious right is steeling itself for a Biblical battle on Trump's behalf'. The article referred to the new President's weekend Twitter outburst accusing his predecessor of 'tapping' his phone calls. It said that 'religious-right figures are rising to Trump's defence in the battle over whether Obama tapped his phones. For instance, Charisma magazine, a leading source for charismatic and Pentecostal writings, is citing [the right-wing website] Breitbart as proof of the need for a congressional investigation of Trump's claim that Obama ordered the wiretap. Charisma has long been a cheerleader for Trump; during the campaign, it promoted widely disseminated comparisons of Trump to the Persian King Cyrus, referred to in the Book of Isaiah as God's "anointed" one. It added that 'the Christian Broadcasting Network, which has long provided Trump favorable coverage, has also lent support to Trump's claim about Obama. It favorably cited Trump's comparison of Obama's supposed wiretapping to Watergate and McCarthyism, and quoted Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the religious-right legal group American Center for Law and Justice, saying that it was "very possible" that there were wiretaps in Trump Tower.' Justin Welby asks: How do we learn to see God in the face of the stranger? The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has written a foreword to 'God is Stranger', by Christian Today contributing editor Krish Kandiah, from which this extract is taken. Where is God? This is probably the question I, like many other Christian leaders, get asked most often. The question comes in many different guises. Why does God allow evil and suffering? Where was God when I lost my job? Why do children die? Why doesn't God intervene? One cannot watch the daily news without wondering, 'How does the idea of a God of love fit with the reality of the world we live in?' The question, of course, is not a new one. Human beings have been asking for centuries. The Psalms are filled with the same question. Story after story in the Hebrew Bible reveals characters struggling to see God, meet with God, or work out how to be partners with God in the world. Even Jesus cries out, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' *** A journey through Scripture, from the leafy shores of Eden, through the deserts of Mesopotamia, to the road to Emmaus, reveals a God who always comes in unexpected places and at unexpected times. This is the story of a God who shows himself in the faces of strangers and those who are dismissed by others as most ungodly. God shows himself, most often, to be a God of small things, small people and small places. He comes in disguise, without fanfares and trumpets. He chooses a small nation in a forgotten corner of the world, bordered by powerful empires, and works slowly, patiently with its people. With Abraham the wanderer. With refugees fleeing from Egypt, desperately looking for safety. With the nascent nation of Israel, struggling to keep hold of the promises of the past and to build a present that reflects justice, peace and righteousness. With a young mother in Galilee, forced to flee into Egypt, away from Herod's wrath, bringing the story full circle. Even a quick flick through the Bible reveals a story of endless wanderings. The 'God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob' is a God of wanderers, of aliens and refugees. The God of the displaced. The God of those who just do not belong. The God whose people, and presence, is in 'all the wrong places'. All too often, when we ask, 'Where is God?' it is because we want a God of power: a God who will come and sort the world out, overriding human selfishness and injustice, putting things right from above. Instead, we discover a God who chooses to come quietly and dwell with the poor and the oppressed, the refugee and the alien. This is a strange God who chooses not to act from far away, but to meet his people, listen to them, journey with them, working for justice by transforming us as we meet him in unexpected places. Where are we expecting to meet God? Where are we looking and what kind of God are we looking for? Are we looking for a God made in our own image, or are we prepared to look for a God who is...stranger? And what does this realisation of God's strangeness mean for us as we relate to those who surround us? ... If God is stranger, then being hospitable to God inevitably leads us into unexpected, uncomfortable and stretching places. If God is a God of the aliens and refugees, then how do we respond to the crises of our time? In a world marked by fear of difference and a return to isolationism, where the desire to protect a country's wealth fights against humanitarian concerns, what does Christian hospitality look like? And, more importantly, how do we truly learn to see God in the face of the stranger? Hospitality has long been a mark of the Christian life. It is a cornerstone of the rule of St Benedict, and we see extraordinary examples in the world today. The churches of Lebanon, for instance, over the last five years, have been living out costly hospitality. Not just safe dinner parties for a new family coming into church; not just signing a cheque in support of a charity; but a real, costly, on-the-ground sharing of life and resources with those who have lost everything. This hospitality weeps with those who weep, forgets self-interest and barriers of race or religion, and reaches out to those who have just managed to escape, but cannot go any further. There is something deeply moving at the thought of God's presence in the refugee camps. The Gospel of John tells us that 'the Word ... made his dwelling among us' (John 1:14). Or, more accurately from the Greek, 'God tabernacled', or 'pitched his tent among us'. God made himself a stranger, a refugee, unloved, unknown, unrecognised and unwelcome. And it is only when we dare look beyond the safe spaces of our lives that we can catch a glimpse of this risk-taking God, who chooses to walk with us rather than sorting out human affairs from the safety of heaven. But beware: when you catch a glimpse of this God, there is no return. Life cannot be the same. As we come closer to a stranger God, we ourselves become stranger too drawn into the life and work of God in the world. Dr Krish Kandiah is the founding director of Home for Good. 'God is Stranger' is published by Hodder, price 13.99. Politicians who do God: How do Trump, May, Merkel and Blair square their public lives and private faith? A new book on how faith influences politicians, The Mighty and the Almighty, edited by Nick Spencer of the Theos think-tank, is out today. Chapters cover such figures as Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, George W Bush, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Nelson Mandela, Theresa May, Angela Merkel, Vladimir Putin, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Donald Trump. As the book's introduction explains: 'The purpose of The Mighty and the Almighty is not to discuss nice Christian politicians, or those politicians we would like to be Christian, or those Christian politicians with whom we agree (who, after all, is the 'we' here?). Rather it is intended to look at leading politicians meaning those who have sat in the highest office who have claimed some Christian faith, and to explore how they have squared the two; how, in effect, the Mighty (or at least those who professed a belief in him) have dealt with the Almighty when in office.' But there is an important category distinction here. As Spencer tells Christian Today: 'There are some politicians for whom the faith shaped politics, and others for whom you can be more confident politics are shaping faith [Donald] Trump is a great example of that. For the majority of politicians it is much messier and only very rarely, if ever, acts in a command and control way.' An explicit 'hook' for the book is the famous now cliched line by Tony Blair's communications chief Alastair Campbell to an American interviewer: 'We don't do God'. As Campbell explained to Christian Today last year: 'Now, maybe the reason [the phrase] has become one of those things is because people are aware that Tony is a believer and I'm not. And also people are aware, not least through the diaries, that I always argued against Tony talking about it. 'Now, I think there is an argument to be had about that. And I do think that actually we're very different to America. I think in America politicians have to do "God bless America", they have to be seen coming down the steps of churches on a fairly regular basis, clutching the Bible. I think in Britain it's very, very different. So my view was always the public don't like it.' As it happens, Blair did in fact speak about his faith while in office, as well as after when he went so far as to set up the Tony Blair Faith Foundation. At Easter 1996, to Campbell's dismay, the then Labour leader of the Opposition wrote in the Sunday Telegraph: 'For a politician, [faith]... means that you see the need for change around you and you accept your duty to do something. Christian belief means you cannot detach yourself from the world around you.' Then in this interview with Jeremy Paxman, a youthful Blair began by saying he didn't like to 'make a big thing of it'. But he went on to say: 'Of course, I'm a person...with a character and part of my character is what I believe in and part of my beliefs is a religious conviction.' Nonetheless, Spencer agrees with Campbell that British politicians have little to gain by 'doing God'. 'I think it is actually more important than how you do God is where you do God,' he says. 'In those political cultures where you can make political capital out of doing God places like America and Russia we should be rightly sceptical. But in places where there is very little political capital to be made the UK, France, Germany, Australia we need to be less sceptical than we are.' By this logic, we need to take at face value the quiet but determined faith, for example, of Theresa May, the current Prime Minister, and even that of Margaret Thatcher before her, not to mention David Cameron and Michael Gove. After all, who are we to judge what goes on inside the consciences of individuals even the 'mighty' - and the nature of their personal relationship with God, even if their politics to us appear antithetical to the values espoused by Jesus? For however much we may want them to, surely no political party or agenda anywhere in the world can claim a monopoly on the Christian faith. Which, in turn, is what makes this book such an interesting idea, charting as it does the attempts, however faltering, by politicians to map their private faith onto their public politics. Q & A: What is at stake in this Sunday's Turkish referendum? Turkish citizens head to the polls on Sunday (April 16, Easter Day) to vote in a major national referendum on a new draft constitution that would dramatically increase the powers of the country's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. What is at stake in the referendum? Voters are being asked to decide whether to shift Turkey from a parliamentary to a presidential republic. Critics warn that Erdogan's already authoritarian approach would be boosted by a raft of new powers. Arguably, the future of democracy or a lack of it is at stake. Once lauded by the likes of Tony Blair as a good candidate for EU membership, Turkey is now seen as slipping into authoritarianism. What is the context? An executive presidency has been a long-standing policy of the governing AKP party, founded by Erdogan. But Erdogan's critics have pointed out that he is already presiding over a country which is the world's biggest jailer of journalists, where over 140,000 people have reportedly been arested since the failed coup attempt last July. The judiciary has lost 4,000 members, and around 6,300 academics are out of a job or in prison. Some 160 media outlets have closed and within six months of the coup attempt, police had detained some 4,000 social-media users. Why does the referendum matter? The vote matters because it is all about enhancing the powers of the president in a country which anyway teeters between democracy and dictatorship. As Fadi Hakura, an associated fellow and manager of the Turkey Project at Chatham House, told CNBC: 'This vote represents a radical transformation that consolidates the power to a centrally executive president rather than a parliamentary system... that's why it matters. 'If it's a Yes vote, it will codify the vast influence in Turkish politics and Erdogan's already vast influence in policy making. If No, it will shake and undermine the prestige and dent the aura of invincibility that has so far defined his tenure in politics.' What exactly are the new powers being voted on? The president would become the head of the executive, as well as the head of state, and retain ties to a political party while the role of prime minister would be scrapped, replaced with one or several vice-presidents. The president would be given sweeping new powers to enact certain laws by decree, appoint ministers, prepare the budget and choose the majority of senior judges. Only the president would be able to announce a state of emergency and dismiss parliament. The right of parliament to scrutinise ministers or propose an inquiry would be taken away. However, parliament would be able to begin impeachment proceedings or investigate the president with a majority vote by MPs, while putting the president on trial would require a two-thirds majority. What is the nature of the campaign? Selahattin Demirtas, the co-leader of a pro-Kurdish party, was set to become one of the main 'No' voices but has ended up in prison (sentenced to 142 years) on what are widely believed to be trumped-up terror charges. A Kurdish-language song calling for No has been banned, while a study of 168.5 hours of campaign coverage on 17 national television channels at the start of March showed that Yes supporters got 90 per cent of the airtime. According to The Economist, 'the route from Sabiha Gokcen airport, outside Istanbul, has more than a dozen building-sized banners with an image of the president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, or his prime minister extolling a Yes vote. Giant No banners are nowhere to be seen.' What is the outcome likely to be? Two Turkish opinion polls published Wednesday showed a slim majority for the Yes campaign, with around 51 to 52 per cent of citizens saying they would vote in favour of the proposed constitutional reforms, according to Reuters. 'I think Erdogan will score a narrow victory, similar to Brexit,' Hakura predicted. What does it mean for Christians? The Christian minority of around 180,000 in Turkey is already seen as persecuted and heavily discriminated against. After the attempted coup last July, Islamist extremists attacked Christians while the government declared churches as state property. As the charity Open Doors says: 'Turkish nationalism, combined with an increasing Islamisation of Turkish society means the tiny minority of Christians and other religious minorities face growing pressure, which is increasingly translating into violent incidents. While conversion is not prohibited by Turkish law, there are serious implications for Muslim background believers as they often experience intense pressure from family, friends and community to return to Islam.' By Indrajit Kundu: Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Thursday hit out at West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee over her ambiguous stance on the issue of triple talaq. Visiting the state as part of the BJP's massive outreach programme in Bengal, Prasad questioned the Trinamool Congress chief over her silence on the issue. "Mamata ji, what is your stand on triple talaq?" Prasad said, seeking a clear stand on the issue from the Trinamool Congress supremo. Interacting with journalists in Hooghly district, Prasad attacked Mamata, saying, "Despite being the elected chief minister who speaks of justice for women, why is your state Bengal second in terms of the number of victims of triple talaq misuse, only after UP?" advertisement The union minister said that several Islamic nations had regulated the practice as it was unjust and highly discriminatory. "If Muslim countries can regulate triple talaq stating that in doing so there won't be any violation of sharia, then why raise objections here", he asked. TRIPLE TALAQ NOT RELATED TO ANY RELIGIOUS PRACTICE: PRASAD Prasad said that the BJP was very clear about the issue and reminded how the central government had already filed an affidavit before the Supreme Court making its stance clear. "Triple talaq has nothing to do with any religious practice. It is about gender justice, gender equality and dignity. How can a large section of women in India be discriminated against in such a way even 70 years after independence. So let me ask Mamata ji, what does she think about the demand for justice of such victims?" he said. While Mamata has maintained a stoic silence on the matter so far, several Trinamool Congress leaders have openly spoken out against efforts to ban triple talaq. While participating in a rally organised by the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, West Bengal ministers Firhad Hakim and Partha Chatterjee had backed the Jamiat's call to reject Centre's efforts to abolish triple talaq. Also read | Triple talaq row: Can religion be reasoned to deny equal rights? Centre seeks ban from Supreme Court Also read | Women should read Quran, not follow maulanas blindly: VP Hamid Ansari's wife on triple talaq Also read | Say 'I love you' to Hindu men, Sadhvi Prachi tells Muslim women on triple talaq issue WATCH VIDEO --- ENDS --- Security stepped up at churches in Egypt as Easter approaches Security has been stepped up at churches and cathedrals in Egypt as the country's interior ministry released the name and photographs of the Alexandria suicide bomber who struck on Palm Sunday. Police searched passersby and cars around Orthodox cathedral of St Mark's Cathedral in Cairo, the seat of the Coptic Orthodox Pope, as beleagured Christians prepare for Easter Sunday. There is a mood of 'fearful apprehension' after the Palm Sunday bombings in Tanta and Alexandria that left 45 people dead, AP reports. The attack was just the latest in growing persecution of Christians in Egypt where the terror group Islamic State is defying President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi and is active in underground cells. 'No security measure can stop a suicide bomber with jihadist beliefs from blowing up a church,' Coptic engineer Emad Thomas told AP. 'Egypt's Copts put their trust in God and not in security measures.' Egypt's Interior Ministry named the suicide bomber as Mahmoud Hassan Mubarak Abdallah, a 30-year-old worker at a petroleum company. It also published the names of other members of the same cell, offering more than $5,000 for leads. The ministry Facebook page posted a photograph of the terrorist and stated he had worked for one of the oil companies. They identified him from his DNA and said Christian churches were being deliberately targeted. In their investigations already, police have seized explosive belts and explosive devices and various types of weapons and quantities of ammunition and some terror manuals. Serial child abuser priest Gerald Ridsdale pleads guilty to 20 more charges against 11 children The Australian paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale, already convicted of abusing 53 children, has pleaded guilty to a 20 further charges againt another 11 children. Ridsdale pleaded guilty today to 14 counts of indecent assault, two of buggery, two of rape, one of attempted rape and one of taking part in an act of sexual penetration of a child. A further 18 charges were withdrawn. The charges concern 10 boys and one girl. As abuse claims circulated against Ridsdale, he was not removed from the priesthood but instead, moved from parish to parish by the late Bishop of Ballarat Ronald Mulkearns. The latest charges concern alleged offences that took place between 1962 and 1988 in places in Victoria state including Ballarat, Edenhope, Merbein, Riverside, Mortlake, Quantong and Burnt Creek. Ridsdale, represented by Victoria Legal Aid, appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates Court via video link, The Age reports. He said: 'I plead guilty to all charges as presented, your honour.' Ridsdale has been behind bars since 1994 for more than 100 charges of sexual abuse against children over three decades. He has told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse he was sexually abused as a child and began to abuse children as a seminarian. In 2015 he told the commission: 'It was morally wrong and it was legally wrong. Yes, they were serious sins. I'd be fearful all the time of someone reporting me.' Ridsdale will appear in court again on August 15 for a plea hearing and for sentence. We know about the Religious Right but what about the Religious Left? Recently Religion Dispatches writer Daniel Schultz, a United Church of Christ minister, expressed chagrin, at least tongue in cheek, that I had tweeted approvingly about his dismissal of claims about a Religious Left revival. He had challenged specifically such a claim from a Reuters column. And he was also distressed, again tongue in cheek, that his original columnwas echoed by Southern Baptist leader Albert Mohler and conservative religion journalist Terry Mattingly. Schultz's rueful skepticism of Religious Left revival was artfully crafted and offered helpful insights, with which I agree only partly. He's right that some media occasionally will focus on a bout of activism by liberal clergy and accompanying activists, typically Mainline Protestants, as evidence of Religious Left revival. The evidence is usually anecdotal, such as a small rally with clerics wearing clerical collars and robes for the benefit of cameras. To what extent these demonstrators have a popular following among religious people is rarely explored with any depth. But I don't agree with Schultz that the Religious Left is inconsequential. He believes religionists of the Left lack a wide subculture to sustain them, unlike the Religious Right, partly because the Religious Left is too diverse to cohere. The Religious Right is usually conservative white evangelicals, with some conservative Catholics, some Mormons and a few Orthodox Jews. Schultz argues the Religious Left includes a much wider variety of religion, race and ethnicity. He's maybe, sort of, right, but there's more to it. The Religious Left has been for decades primarily white liberal Mainline Protestants, with a few Catholic social justice activists plus some Jewish groups. Black Protestant church leaders sometimes collaborate with the Religious Left but their theological and moral traditionalism has long prevented full alliance. Decades ago the Religious Left had institutional heft because it comprised the once well-funded and prestigious agencies of Mainline Protestant denominations and once powerful ecumenical groups like the National Council of Churches. The "God Box" at 475 Riverside Drive in New York was their headquarters, with hundreds of collaborating staffers and millions of dollars, enshrouded by the names and legacies of venerable church bodies that had helped found and sustain American democracy across centuries. Most of that old liberal Protestant world is gone or much deflated. Most of those now depleted church agencies have left New York, including the barely surviving National Council of Churches. The historic Mainline seminaries, which became the seedbed of the Religious Left early in the 20th century, are also marginalized, with far fewer students and reduced endowments. A few have closed despite storied histories. What are the institutional representations of the Religious Left today? There is Jim Wallis's Sojourners, the Interfaith Alliance and Faith in Public Life, among a few others. Much of their constituency is liberal Mainline Protestants. They can organize clergy sign-on letters and small demonstrations with lots of liturgical vestments. But they don't have wide, populist followings. And the media usually ignore them, as do politicians. As part of its last hurrah, the National Council of Churches enjoyed several high profile collaborations with the Clinton Administration 20 years ago. There was nothing memorably similar during the Obama Administration. In contrast to the Religious Left, the Religious Right has not arisen from denominational structures but was built through parachurch groups often headed by evangelical personalities with large Christian media followings, and sustained by large direct mail campaigns. The Moral Majority and later the Christian Coalition were the early models. There are frequent premature obituaries for the Religious Right, following the demise of a particular cleric or advocacy group. But always there are new leaders and organizations. Unlike the Religious Right, which is typically entrepreneurial, the Religious Left has been tethered by its affiliation with declining institutional liberal Protestantism. And even now, most lay Mainline Protestants, ignoring their own denominations, still vote conservative. Evangelicalism is now the largest religious demographic, and many of its older elite institutions have shifted politically Left, such as colleges, relief groups, and pan-denominational associations. Many evangelical elites don't want association with the Religious Right and consequently shift Left. Most political witness jamborees for young college educated evangelicals are left-leaning. Much of the evangelical blogosphere is left-leaning. Essentially much of evangelicalism is replicating what happened to Mainline Protestantism starting 100 years ago. And these liberal evangelical expressions similarly are mainly from elites and are not usually broad-based. Here's why I think the committed Religious Left has never had and will never have a very wide popular lay following. Religion is usually about preserving and perpetuating particular teachings and traditions that transcend contemporary culture. Adherents esteem their own community and look to a transcendent authority expressed through clerics and scripture, and usually upheld by family structure. Traditional religion by definition cannot sacralize politics or the state. But the Religious Left, by insisting or at least implying the divine kingdom can be achieved politically, superceding religious communities, ultimately loses its original faith identity in favor of alternative social priorities that are secularizing. So the Religious Left is almost never populist but it will always exist through the rebellious elites of religious institutions and subcultures, consequently gaining disproportionate influence. This cycle at least in American Protestantism seems perpetual. As liberal religionists stretch the boundaries of their faith or leave altogether, they are replaced by a new generation of enthusiastic converts who rediscover the old orthodoxy. Originally posted at juicyecumenism.com. Prior to joining the IRD in 1994, Mark worked eight years for the Central Intelligence Agency. He is a graduate of Georgetown University and is a native of Arlington, Virginia. A lifelong United Methodist, he has been active in United Methodist renewal since 1988, when he wrote a study about denominational funding of pro-Marxist groups for his local congregation. He attends a United Methodist church in Alexandria, Virginia. Follow Mark on Twitter @markdtooley. The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect the editorial opinion of Christian Today or its editors. Who is the Holy Spirit Jesus promised his disciples? John 14:1521 Key verses: John 14:1617 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. How well do you know the Holy Spirit? He is probably the least understood member of the Trinity, and subsequently the subject of many debates. The word 'advocate' appears five times in the New Testament four times in these chapters of John's Gospel and once in the first letter of John. The Greek word parakletos, 'to be called alongside', has no real English equivalent. We will never find one word to do justice to the majestic, multiple ministry of the Holy Spirit. We know from Scripture that he teaches, convicts, leads, guides and helps; that he can be grieved, resisted and quenched; and that he is a person, not a force or an 'it'. So the translators come up with words like Counsellor, Advocate, Paraclete, Helper, but none of them completely describes the great work of the Holy Spirit. Wonderfully, verse 16 tells us that the Holy Spirit will be with us, 'for ever'. In the Old Testament the Holy Spirit left Saul (1 Samuel 16:14), and Psalm 51 records David's desperate plea that the Spirit wouldn't leave him. Here Jesus promises that the Holy Spirit will never leave us. He will move in and live with your sin until you see God face to face, and then you will be sinless. Aren't you grateful that the Holy Spirit stays with us for ever, that when we sin he doesn't leave us, and instead, he graciously convicts us? Whereas the Holy Spirit 'lives with you and will be in you' (verse 17), the world doesn't know, and is hostile to, God's Spirit, for the secular person cannot appreciate the things of the Spirit. This doesn't make Christians any better or smarter than unbelievers; it only means that God's grace has brought us to Jesus and made us alive to the Holy Spirit's work. Interestingly, the word 'you' here is actually in the plural. The Holy Spirit will be in you individually and corporately. That's why when Christians gather together, we have such rich fellowship. That's why being part of the church family is so important. Read the key verses again, noticing every time the word 'you' is mentioned. Do you see how personal and intimate the Holy Spirit wants to be with you? He is the ever-ready, ever-present 'God with us'. No matter how much you grieve him, he will never leave you. But he longs for greater access to your heart, greater obedience, and to share greater ministry with you. He wants to work in and through you, to bring transformation and make you more like Christ. Why resist such an amazing gift? Today, invite the Holy Spirit to have his way in your life. Give him complete access to teach, guide, convict and help you. This extract has been taken from 'John' by Simon Manchester with Elizabeth McQuoid (IVP, March 2017). Who was King Jehoshaphat and what can we learn from him? The Bible presents to us various rulers and persons of authority, and all of them serve as examples of what Godly and ungodly leadership produces. One of these rulers, King Jehoshaphat, is a great example to learn from. Who is King Jehoshaphat? Recognized as perhaps the best king that the southern kingdom of Judah ever had, King Jehoshaphat did right in the sight of God with his intense desire to pursue God in his leadership. He was 35 years old when he sat as king and reigned for 25 years until his death at age 60. Jehoshaphat established a very strong nation under him. Let's go over some of the things he did. A strong devotion to God Jehoshaphat, the fourth king of Judah, followed after his father, King Asa, and David's footsteps. He prioritized the worship of Yahweh, the true God of Israel. He worked to remove the "high places" of worship, did not participate in any Baal worship, and cut down the Asherahs, which were worshipped in various places. (see 2 Chronicles 17) He also devised a system for teaching God's laws to people. He set up a group of priests and qualified people to go around, teaching the people from God's laws (see 2 Chronicles 17:7-9). A strong judicial system Jehoshaphat also established a strong justice system. He appointed judges that would hear cases among the people. He required these judges to be just, impartial, and take no bribes, for they "do not judge according to man but the Lord" (see 2 Chronicles 19:4-10). A strong financial supply from the Lord God's hand was on Jehoshaphat and He blessed the kingdom of Judah under his reign. In fact, Jehoshaphat was so blessed that aside from different nations or groups bringing tribute to him, he built citadels and storehouses in Judah, signifying much abundance. He also had a lot of property. (see 2 Chronicles 17:10-12) A very strong army Jehoshaphat established for his kingdom a very strong fighting force, reaching astounding numbers of fighting men. He had a total of more than 1.1 million fighting men in his core force, in addition to those he had placed in different areas (see 2 Chronicles 17:14-19). A very humble heart These are but some of Jehoshaphat's achievements. Despite the riches, fame, and military might that he possessed, Jehoshaphat had a humble heart that kept inquiring of the Lord for any detail of his life and that's what makes him a really great king (see 2 Chronicles 17:3-6). He repented when he did wrong If there's one mistake Jehoshaphat made, it's the time he decided to ally himself with King Ahab of Israel, the devious Jezebel's husband. He went out with Ahab in battle, and was rebuked by Jehu the son of Hanani. Thankfully, Jehoshaphat repented and returned to his true love: God. (see 2 Chronicles 19). Why the story of Ruth is a parable for Lebanon today I recently spent four fascinating days in Lebanon. I was scheduled to preach in All Saints Church, Beirut, on the Sunday. But little did I realise when I was preparing the sermon how the Bible passage I had chosen would spring to life before my eyes in a most unexpected way. I'd chosen to speak on the Old Testament story of Ruth. It's the tale of a woman from the land of Moab who makes the difficult journey from that land to Israel, to accompany her poor mother-in-law Naomi who has lost not only her husband but her two sons, Ruth's husband included. Ruth shows remarkable dedication to Naomi. This is how she expresses it: 'Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.' This is a costly things for her to do. Ruth leaves her own country to travel to Naomi's home; to a place where she would face inevitable hostility, because Israel and Moab were old enemies. In fact, out of love for Naomi, Ruth makes herself a refugee. Lebanon, of course, lies just to the north of modern-day Israel, and ancient Moab is in Jordan, so I was in the right territory, but the parallels don't stop there. Lebanon today is no stranger to refugees; indeed a country of around 4 million people plays host to over 1 million refugees. What's more these refugees too are from an old enemy, from Syria. For many years Syrian forces occupied Lebanon, but now with the war in Syria the tables have turned and a huge number of refugees have flooded into this tiny country. And in this situation some amazing things are happening. We met many people, a good number of whom are part of Church Mission Society, running projects showing extraordinary love and compassion for refugees, caring for their needs and sharing the love of Christ in word and deed. You can read more about such people elsewhere in the latest edition of our newspaper The Call. I met one couple, who themselves have fled from another country, who have turned their garage into a school for refugee children, accommodating up to 80 children a day. Many of the children were so traumatised when they arrived they wouldn't even look their teachers in the eye. But now they are singing and laughing and playing and learning and it is truly wonderful to see. Indeed I would never have believed you if you'd told me that one day I would be trampolining on a Lebanese hillside with Syrian refugee children. For me it was in a profound sense a vision of the Kingdom of God. But to come back to Ruth, I felt that I met her face to face indeed I felt I did so twice. In one town I met a woman we'll call Layla, who was originally a Christian refugee from Iraq to Syria, and has now fled further to Lebanon. There she is working with others to distribute essential supplies and provide education to around 2,500 refugee families. Layla took us to see another woman we'll call Salwa and her family, who had also fled from Syria. Salwa came to church asking for prayer for her unborn child, who was suffering from a serious condition. Miraculously the child was born healthy and whole, and Salwa committed her life to Christ. And she is now ministering in her own right, sharing the love of Jesus with her family, friends and neighbours. And both women, following so clearly in Ruth's footsteps, are radiant with the love of Christ. Their story, just like Ruth's, is not simply the story of good being done to refugees. It's also a story of refugees doing good to others, and furthering the Kingdom of God with love, joy and great commitment. Let me give the last word to a pastor in Beirut who has himself a very impressive ministry among refugees, with many coming to his church simply wanting to know more about Jesus: 'All the relief work in this church is being done by the Syrian people,' he says. 'I thought I was here to bless them. I'm seeing now that they are blessing us. They are no longer "Syrian refugees" but brothers and sisters in Christ.' That too speaks profoundly of the Kingdom of God. We in the West have so much to learn from such wonderful saints of God. Their stories, their commitment, and what God is evidently doing through them, gives me much to reflect on when in this season we follow the Archbishop of Canterbury's call to pray 'Thy Kingdom Come'. Rev Philip Mounstephen is executive leader of Church Mission Society. Heres a riddle for our politically twisted times: when is a black woman a white supremacist? Answer: when she speaks out against female genital mutilation, sharia law, and jihadism. This is the tortured logic of the feminist Left in Australia, which helped stop a lecture tour by the human rights advocate Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Anonymous protestors warned venues and insurers not to have dealings with the Somali-born, anti-radical-Islam activist if they wanted to avoid trouble. The Council for the Prevention of Islamophobia, Inc. accused Hirsi Ali of being part of the Islamophobia industry . . . that exists to dehumanize Muslim women. Another group, Persons of Interest, took to Facebook to describe her ideas: This is the language of patriarchy and misogyny. This is the language of white supremacy. This is the language used to justify war and genocide. Hirsi Ali canceled her trip in early April, only days before she was due to speak in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, and Auckland, New Zealand. In Australia, as in the UK, the costs of security have to be borne by event organizers, not the government, as is the case in the U.S. Perhaps there were disagreements between the speaker and her sponsors about security. In any case, Hirsi Ali travels with armed guards, but it was still too dangerous for her to speak in public. Yes, in Australia. Anyone familiar with Hirsi Alis personal and ideological history is doubtless picking their jaws up off the floor at the Orwellian nature of these goings-on. She dehumanizes Muslim women? But it was Hirsi Ali who was dehumanized when as a girl she was subjected to a clitoridectomy, a barbaric and horribly painful ritual still visited upon girls in many Islamic countries to prevent them from experiencing sexual pleasure. She speaks the language of patriarchy and misogyny? But as a vocal opponent of the forced marriage of young girls to older men, which she describes as arranged rape, Ali vehemently attacks the patriarchy in its most oppressive manifestation. The Muslim feminists who seek to silence her are the ones linking arms with misogynists. How has Western feminism come to a point where up is down, and a restrictive, intolerant patriarchy must be defended? Hirsi Ali blames it on the naivete of liberals, besotted by political correctness in the face of religious extremism. In liberal societies, those on the left [are] in the grip of identity politics, she said after announcing the cancellation. This fascination is not caused by the Islamists, but the Islamists exploit it. Radicals know the social-justice drillminority identity is good, regardless of any of the actual precepts of that identity, and its critics are by definition white supremacists. Within this mental universe, accusations of Islamophobia are a cudgel for silencing moderates and advancing the cause of radicals. Its worth recalling that the feminist Lefts silence on the Islamic treatment of women precedes the advent of microaggressions and race and gender obsessions. In fact, it goes back as far as the early days of second-wave feminism. Sent to Iran to cover the revolution in 1978, the French philosopher Michel Foucault, an intellectual godfather of contemporary leftism, was enchanted by what he viewed as the religious revolutionaries anti-globalist authenticity and political spirituality. When Ayatollah Khomenei took power after the fall of the Shah, he reintroduced polygamy, reduced the age of marriage for women from 18 to 13, and restored the punishment of flogging for those who violated compulsory veiling laws. Neither Foucault nor his comrades in the anti-colonial, feminist-influenced Left were troubled by this dramatic retreat from womens most basic rights. Over the years, some feminist organizations have protested female genital mutilation, but for the most part the sisterhood has focused its ire on a mythical Western patriarchy rather than the real thing making headlines in Muslim countries and immigrant enclaves at home. Now that feminists have adopted an updated form of anti-colonialism called intersectionality, theres virtually no chance that the principle of basic rights will prevail over special pleading for medieval cultural norms. Intersectionality refers to overlapping and self-reinforcing marginalized identity-group identity; hence a black woman suffers two levels of oppression, while a black gay woman struggles with three. Intersectionality leads directly to the conclusion that Muslim women must be protected from a racist and sexist West. Any hint that Muslim culture could be a source of oppression against its women is tantamount to a colonialist war on native identity. That this latest example of feminist Orwellianism comes from generally moderate Australia is not entirely surprising. The countrys Muslim population is small; as of the last census in 2011, Muslims made up only 2.2 percent of the population. But over the past several years, the country has endured a number of stabbings, thwarted attacks, and a shooting by a radicalized 15-year old. The most infamous Islamist attack, in which three people died, took place in a 2014 siege of the Sydney Lindt chocolate cafe by a lone-wolf gunman, who brandished a black flag emblazoned with the Muslim statement of faith. Stirring up tension has been the Trumpian figure of Pauline Hanson, a senator from Queensland and a founder of One Nation, Australias populist party. As her partys name hints, Hanson has been hostile to immigration. In recent years, she has taken an aggressive rhetorical posture toward Islam, calling it an evil faith. One Nation suffered a decisive defeat in Western Australia in March, but populist victories abroad have put many Australians, both Laborites and Liberals (conservatives, in our parlance), on edge. In a feedback loop similar to that existing in other Western countries, including the United States, One Nations populism is in part a reaction to political correctness but winds up prompting more of it. Conservatives are a rare breed at Australian universities, whether as professors or speakers. Meanwhile, accusations of racism, sexism, hate speech, and Islamophobia are becoming almost as commonplace in Australia as marsupials. One of the biggest political contretemps these days involves Section 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act, which includes prohibitions on any speech that might offend, insult, and humiliate on the basis of race. Alert to potential dangers to free speech, Liberals want to tone down the language of the provision, while Laborites argue that it serves as a vital protection against hate speech. Labor might want to look more closely at the case of Ayaan Hirsi Ali. In a country where the woman who speaks out against forced marriage and jihadism is an extremist and the people who threaten her are praised as virtuous representatives of diversity, who exactly requires protection? Kay S. Hymowitz is a City Journal contributing editor, the William E. Simon Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and the author of The New Brooklyn: What It Takes to Bring a City Back. Photo by Elisabetta Villa Charity regulators have dropped a proposed requirement that would require auditors to report a charity for not acting on their recommendations from the final version of its guidance for professional advisers. Last year, the Charity Commission for England and Wales, OSCR - the Scottish regulator and the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland consulted on revisions to their Guidance for auditors and independent examiners of charities. One of the suggested revisions was an added requirement for auditors to report instances of: evidence that, without reasonable cause, trustees have not taken action on matters identified by the auditor or examiner in their scrutiny of accounts for a previous year. But the guidance has not included this in its latest version, after some in the sector expressed concern the requirement could be an administrative burden and damage the relationships between auditors and charities. The regulators also scrapped a requirement previously included, which read: Any notification or matter reported to the trustees on resigning as independent examiner or matter that the examiner is aware of on resignation or ceasing to act that falls within the categories of the previously set out reportable matters, or for examiners the notification on ceasing to hold office or resigning from office, of those matters reported to trustees. It found the requirement led to auditors advising the regulator where they had ceased to hold office so has now dropped it. The new guidance includes he regulator has introduced two more areas for reporting: If an auditor has concerns regarding a charitys accounts and issues a modified audit opinion report or qualified independent examiners report Where an auditor has concerns that conflicts of interests or related party transactions have not been properly managed or declared Nigel Davies, head of accountancy services at Charity Commission, said: We have, as regulators, reflected on our experiences to date and it is clear that not all auditors and examiners have been reporting matters to us. We hope that by providing an updated list auditors and examiners may be clearer in their duties. Andrew OBrien, head of policy and engagement at the Charity Finance Group head of policy and engagement, welcomed the scrapping of the requirement, which he said will ensure that auditors and independent examiners are able to have full and frank discussions with charities and remain a trusted source of advice. See in Charity Finance OBrien warned the additional areas for reporting would be a burden for both the regulator and charities, which seems disproportionate to the level of risk in the sector. The Charity Commission needs to give more information about how it is going to use these reports and commit to reviewing this process in the near future so that we can see whether this increased burden has been worthwhile, he said. Civil Society Media is hosting the Charity Finance Summit on 17 October 2017. For more information, and to book, click here Good Finance, a website to help charities and social enterprises understand social investment, launched this week. A beta version of the site was launched last year and has now been refreshed following a year of research and co-design with the sector, according to a statement. It has been funded jointly by Big Society Capital, Access and DCMS and has the backing of NCVO, Social Enterprise UK, and Locality. The website includes content and case studies as well as a tool to help organisations assess whether social finance is suitable. Kieran Whiteside, project manager for Good Finance, said: Our hope is that this new website will help charities and social enterprises feel empowered to make informed and educated investment decisions that are right for them. Nick Temple, deputy chief executive of Social Enterprise UK, said: We know that the social investment landscape can sometimes feel fragmented, difficult to understand and difficult to access. That's why we are delighted to be involved in Good Finance which has been designed with the users at its heart - and is also a genuine collaboration between key organisations." Civil Society Media is hosting the Charity Finance Summit on 17 October 2017. For more information, and to book, click here Voluntary sector organisations are well placed to highlight failings in the state system, says Anne Fox, but government is growing less likely to listen. In her Shared Society speech the Prime Minister said building a stronger, fairer Britain that works for everyone would start by tackling some of the burning injustices that undermine the solidarity of our society. She went on to provide the example of how overrepresented black people are in our criminal justice system. By shining a light on that injustice she got closer to acknowledging one of our societys starkest facts - that the criminal justice system holds up a mirror to our society and shows its worst attributes. Overrepresentation from poorer communities, minority groups that experience discrimination, people who have been in care, children that have been excluded from school, children that have experienced abuse, those with learning disabilities, people suffering from mental ill-health, addiction to drugs, and experiencing homelessness. As is often the case when people are facing real disadvantage, society responds through civic action and the voluntary sector. Working alongside the estimated 350,000 men, women and children in our justice system are approximately 1,750 voluntary organisations. Some provide direct services, some campaign, most do both to some degree. Wherever you live and whatever the nature of your need there is likely to be a dedicated voluntary organisation with an offer for you. The voluntary sector has lots to say about how the system could be changed, informed by the experiences of their service users, their volunteers and the knowledge of skilled employees that work in a system we know has many flaws. Voluntary organisations are uniquely positioned to look over that whole landscape and see how the system does or doesnt fit together. They can and often do see the system differently than its individual cogs (the police, court, prison, and probation services), making them a valuable critical friend with a mutual interest in making the system better. Its a sector with a rich history and legacy and to which we can attribute the creation of the very concept of prison visiting and probation, always pushing to find ways to balance the need for retribution with the need for rehabilitation and reintegration back into a society which may often have failed them from their earliest days. But these voluntary organisations require an audience that is willing to listen and act. Over recent years the trend has been for them to be increasingly sidelined and silenced. Organisations who provide contracted services may feel, or indeed have been told that they cannot criticise the system within which they work. Other organisations have fallen silent under the sheer pressure - reducing the scale and scope of their advocacy work to keep their services open and focussed on meeting immediate need in the face of austerity and the eradication of many local services which their clients relied upon. The problem is not just specific gagging clauses in contracts or no advocacy clauses in grant agreements, but statutory funding that is scarcely sufficient for the voluntary sector to be a delivery agent, let alone a delivery partner. It is clear from the Prime Minister and her government that there is an appetite for reform of the systems which drive social inequality and injustice in modern Britain. As a result of increasing violence and deaths in custody the Ministry of Justice is also focussed on reforming our prisons, from staff to the bricks and mortar. It is therefore imperative that there is an open conversation about how we create a Shared Society which works for the most disenfranchised and the most marginalised and delivers true justice. The creation of a role in 10 Downing Street with a focus on the voluntary sector, including its role in the criminal justice system, is very welcome and could provide a way to link the Prime Ministers ambition to the voluntary sector. These are necessary and welcome reforms, but they also represent a huge challenge, one that will be made all the more difficult if the voluntary sector continues to be side-lined. There needs to be genuine, formal engagement, with the sector as an equal partner, and this is not happening yet. And it will be essential that voluntary organisations are also enabled and encouraged to take part in the process, with funding made available, not just to deliver the system as it is now, but also to help redesign it so it works much better. Anne Fox is chief executive of Clinks By Press Trust of India: From Lalit K Jha Washington, Apr 13 (PTI) US President Donald Trump today expressed confidence that things will "work out fine" with Russia and hoped that China would "properly deal" with North Korea. "Things will work out fine between the USA and Russia. At the right time everyone will come to their senses & there will be lasting peace!" Trump told his more than 27.8 million followers on Twitter this morning. advertisement His tweet came after US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson left Moscow following his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov. A day earlier, Trump had said that the US-Russia relationship are at a low point. Last night he was scheduled to speak to Tillerson. Trumps tweets appear to be a reflection of the talks that he had with his Secretary of State. In another tweet, he hoped that China would act on North Korea. "I have great confidence that China will properly deal with North Korea. If they are unable to do so, the US, with its allies, will! USA," Trump said. The US president hosted his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at his Mar a-Lago residence in Florida last week. The two leaders again spoke over phone this week. Trump has been asking China to act on North Korea and co-operate with it on Syria. Trump yesterday praised China for abstaining a UN Security Council vote on Syria and taking actions against North Korea. PTI LKJ ZH --- ENDS --- Look at how sweet this bunny's little face is. How could you abandon it? How? HOW?! Dont adjust your computer monitors, this is not a drill. While it may be a Thursday, its also the Thursday before the Easter weekend and so is basically like a Friday, but better because its come one day early. The revolution might not be televised, but Society Diary will be published on special occasions. This week, Scottish campaigners call for Buckfast monks to have charitable status revoked and a bunny rabbit is for life, not just for Easter! A mountain out of a monk-hill First up this week, we turn our attention to Devon and its Buckfast Abbey home to a sect of Benedictine monks known best for their so called tonic wine; a heady mixture of red wine, divers phosphates, lashings of caffeine and something called vanillin, an organic compound derived from the vanilla bean. Return readers of this column may well remember that it has covered the charitable associations of Buckfast Abbey, and the less than charitable effects of its self-titled tonic wine in the past. In 2015/16, the monks heavily inebriating wine raked in over 8m worth of income for Buckfast Abbeys charitable trust. The Trust said that it would be using the money to refurbish parts of the abbey itself so as to future proof the charitys second biggest income generator: tourism. No harm, no foul, right? Wrong! It was the week before Christmas when this story was written and, frankly, this column had more pressing issues to attend to but, in the cold hard light of Easter, Diary now feels it let the Benedictines off lightly. Buckfast tonic wine has a decidedly sinister reputation, particularly north of the border in Scotland, where its consumption has been linked with spikes in all manner of serious and violent crimes. One helpful infographic on the BBCs website says that, of a survey of young male offenders in Scotland in 2007, 43.4 per cent said they had drunk Buckfast before committing their offence more than any other alcoholic beverage, including Scotch. As a result the National Secular Society, a non-party-political organisation which exists to challenge religious privilege in the UK according to its website, has called on the Charity Commission to strip the Buckfast monks of their charitable status, as they are effectively enriching the trust by aiding and abetting (in a fairly roundabout way) Scottish criminals. An NSS spokesman said: "Charitable status and the accompanying tax benefits should be granted only to religious organisations that deliver a demonstrable public benefit. Where the good is simply not good enough, public confidence in supporting charities risks being undermined." The Commission for its part has said it will be contacting the Abbey. However, to linger any further on the facts would drag this perilously close to becoming a news story, and Diarys not having that. It remains to be seen whether or not the monks of Buckfast Abbey will lose their charitable status, or change their ways. Given that theyve been brewing their Bucky tonic wine since 1922, Diary would say its hard to see them changing the HABIT of a lifetime. Get it? Seriously, dont abandon rabbits! Diary never ceases to be amazed by just how vacuous and moronic some people can be, yet, some new event like video footage of Leicester City fans in Madrid yesterday clashing with riot police and chanting Gibraltar is ours! or a public holiday comes along and suddenly the bar somehow gets set a little lower. The RSPCA and SSPCA have both been forced, through the stupidity/cupidity of people, to put together separate Easter campaigns to remind people that, in fact, a rabbit isnt just for the holidays, but for the life of the rabbit! Because it is, you know, a living, breathing, sentient being and not a stuffed animal or made of chocolate or wood, or whatever else people make things out of. To be fair they probably haven't had to do too much original thinking - the campaigns are remarkably similar to Battersea's annual Christmas campaign reminding the public that dogs are for life. Anyway, this time last year, according to the RSPCA, it had to rescue over 3,000 bunnies across the UK, including the best part of 1,000 who had simply been abandoned by their owners. What is wrong with these people? If you only want a rabbit for a few days, buy one of those Lindt chocolate ones. Theyre so delicious that itll be completely gone within a day or two (product placement, waiting for the Lindt royalties to come streaming in)! So if youre thinking about buying a rabbit this Easter then please remember: a bunny isnt just for Easter but for life you idiot. Have a great long weekend! Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp LinkedIn Email Telegram New York, April 12, 2017Belarusian authorities should immediately drop all charges against journalists for covering protests and should allow the news media to work unobstructed, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. A district court in the southwestern Belarusian city of Kobryn is scheduled to try Ales Levchuk and Milana Kharitonova, correspondents for the independent broadcaster Belsat TV, tomorrow, according to their employer. The journalists are to face charges of violating regulations on manufacturing and distributing [illicit] mass media materials and disobeying police for covering a March 18 protest in the city. Journalists covering protests are not committing a crime; they are doing their jobs, said CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova. Belarusian authorities should drop the absurd charges against Ales Levchuk, Milana Kharitonova, and all journalists who have been detained for their work, and should cease trying to intimidate the news media. I have no doubt that we will be found guilty and ordered to pay huge fines tomorrow, Belsat quoted Levchuk as saying today. Belarusian courts convicted several other journalists yesterday and today for covering protests last month. In two separate sessions today, the Vitebsk Regional Court upheld a lower courts conviction of Halina Abakunchyk, a correspondent for the Belarusian service of the U.S.-government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, locally known as Radio Svaboda, and Katerina Bakhvalava, a correspondent for Belsat, on charges of participating in an unsanctioned protest in the eastern city of Orsha on March 12, their employers reported today. Police detained Abakunchyk as she broadcasted live from the protest and detained her overnight, CPJ reported at the time. Police confiscated her phone, questioned her for six hours, and sent her to court the following day, where she was convicted and fined the equivalent of US$300. Bakhvalava was also detained overnight and convicted the following day of the same charge, and was fined the equivalent of US$365, Radio Svaboda reported. Also today, freelance correspondent Larisa Schirakova, who covered March protests in the southeastern cities of Rahachow and Gomel, stood trial in Gomel for manufacturing illicit video products. The judge ordered her to pay a fine of the equivalent of US $500, Belsat reported. Yesterday, the Oktyabr District Court in Vitebsk, convicted Belsat journalists Olga Chaychits and Andrey Kozel in absentia on charges of manufacturing illicit video products, Belsat reported, without specifying the amount of the fine. According to the Belarusian Criminal Code, the offense is punishable by a maximum fine of US$600. Protests erupted in February after the imposition of a new tax on Belarusians who have been unemployed for more than six months without seeking work at a government job center, but have since developed into broader protests against the 23-year rule President Aleksandr Lukashenko. CPJ reported on dozens of cases of detention and other forms of intimidation of journalists covering the protests. At least eight journalists were sentenced to 5-15 days of arrest following the March 25-26 rallies, according to CPJ research. CPJ on March 24 issued safety advice for journalists covering the protests in Belarus. Queensland tourism is back in business after Cyclone Debbie as P&O Cruises Pacific Dawn has today become the first cruise ship to return to Airlie Beach. Queenslander Ann Sherry, Executive Chairman of Carnival Australia, which operates P&O Cruises, said Pacific Dawns return to Airlie Beach, along with two other calls later this month, was a sign that Queensland had bounced back in the most emphatic fashion, in a prepared statement. Sherry said it was fitting that the Brisbane-based Pacific Dawn was the first cruise ship to return after Airlie Beach authorities and tourism leaders signaled the gateway to the Whitsundays was again ready to welcome cruise visitors. Cyclone Debbie did its best but you cant knock Queensland down for long and these communities have been quick to get back on their feet, Sherry said. The 2017 cruise season officially kicked off earlier this week at the Port of Vancouver with the arrival of the Star Princess at Canada Place cruise terminal. Approximately 840,000 cruise passengers on 237 vessel visits are expected in Vancouver this year, a two per cent increase in passenger volume over 2016. Vancouver cruise passenger volumes have been strong and steady since 2013. This year, we are forecasting our highest passenger volumes since 2010, said Robin Silvester, president and chief executive officer of Vancouver Fraser Port Authority. We are thrilled to welcome even more visitors this year to our cruise terminal at Canada Place. The Vancouver cruise industry stimulates on average nearly $3 million in direct economic activity for each vessel that visits, according to the port, and the 2016 cruise season directly generated nearly 7,000 jobs across Canada, $300 million in wages, and contributed $840 million to national GDP. This year, 33 different vessels from 15 cruise lines will be visiting Canada Place cruise terminal at the Port of Vancouver ranging from luxury and smaller expedition style ships designed to carry small groups of passengers, to some of the largest vessels in the Alaska cruise market. Among the highlights for 2017, the Golden Princess will be overnighting in Vancouver on July 1 to enjoy the Canada Day celebrations at Canada Place at the Port of Vancouver and fireworks for Canadas 150th anniversary of Confederation, and the World, the largest private residential ship, will visit during three stops on its world-wide itinerary. Some of the largest vessels that visit the Port of Vancouver include the Ruby Princess, Emerald Princess, Crown Princess and the Celebrity Solstice. Princess Cruise vessels can accommodate up to 3,100 passengers. Credit union supporter and volunteer Ron Estes was elected to Congress representing Kansass 4th Congressional District Tuesday in a special election. The seat was vacant due to former Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) being appointed director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Estes, state treasurer of Kansas, previously served on the Assets and Liabilities Committee of MidAmerica CU, Wichita, Kan. He won the election with 53% of the vote to Democratic opponent James Thompsons 46%. Estes was strongly supported by the Heartland Credit Union Association, and received the maximum $5,000 donation from the Credit Union Legislative Action Council (CULAC), CUNAs political action committee. He also met with more than 20 credit union leaders from 9 credit unions and the league in February to discuss regulatory relief and the importance of maintaining the credit union tax status. Once sworn in, Estes will join a number of other credit union volunteers or employees in the 115th Congress, including: Is your credit union thinking about starting a lease program? Well, you picked the right time. The climate for auto buying holds a lot of opportunities especially with leasing which is expected to stay on the same pace with buyers in 2017. Understanding the lease market is one of the first steps towards benefiting from this avenue of growth. In the first six months of 2016, over 2 million cars and trucks were leased, accounting for 32 percent of new-vehicle sales in the first half of last year. New vehicle sales are expected to stay above 17 million in 2017, according to NADA, with the second half of the year experiencing a surge. With new vehicles expected to roll off lots in similar fashion this year while leasing continues its steadfast appeal; why isnt your credit union offering this borrowing alternative to members? Location Where your credit union is located will determine the rate of success leasing will have with members. Regions of the country where leasing is outpacing traditional loan structures are in high-density population areas, and around large cities. Location benefits leasing by keeping within mileage restrictions, where driving as little as 12,000 miles a year, is all a driver may need. Lease deals are enticing and appeal to members who may not have considered this option before. Credit unions competing for auto loans in these regions should consider how not having a lease program is affecting their growth strategies. When dealers are reporting upwards of 70 percent of new vehicles are being leased, this leaves a very crowded 30 percent of the market to vie for. Lease Market Leasing started its meteoric rise after the Great Recession ended in 2009, with Millennials leading the charge. While leasing was popular before the recession, during the recovery the numbers really climbed to record levels. With the average vehicle priced at over $35,000, with monthly lease payments significantly lower vs. traditional financing, the appeal is obvious. Offering a lease program provides your credit union with the ability to attract members with another option to traditional financing. Leasing also provides your preferred dealer network with the ability to attract new customers with low payment structures. Auto dealers have fueled the attraction to leasing with lease specials and monthly payments consumers couldnt otherwise obtain. Being a partner with your dealers will help you both serve this rising millennial population who look to get into a new vehicle every 2-4 years. A good collaboration between you and your dealer will also help to boost business coming back to you. Reducing Risk Leasing has tremendous rewards and some risks depending who you partner with. The rewards are serving your members with what they are looking for and building your portfolio, the risks are getting stuck with the vehicle. One of the reasons credit unions have steered clear of leasing is the residual value of the vehicle has come back to haunt them. This can be avoided completely when your credit union partners with a third party who will assume all the residual risk and fees associated with leasing. When researching, ask your potential partner: How many lease cycles have you been through? What fees am I responsible for? What program support do you provide? Am I responsible for collecting any lease-end fees? What about wear-and-tear? If the answer is yes to any of the questions, move on. Any potential partner should provide support services that include a hands-on account management. In other words, partner with a group that will completely oversee and manage your program while assuming all risk. Doing so secures your credit unions ability to offer leasing safely, for the long term. Working the Program Providing an option to conventional auto financing will go a long way with millennials who continue to prefer leasing. Build trust with this segment, provide an understanding of the loan process and dont rely on strictly selling based on rate. Instead, provide members with costs on different loan structures, over the life of the loan. The borrowing process can be further explained through marketing strategies, especially online where millennials are most likely to seek out this information. Use your auto resource to demonstrate a keen understanding into their needs. Remember 97 percent of car shopping begins online, make sure your relevant at each step to meet their needs. As a credit union, you can check off all the members prerequisites for car shopping and become the go-to resource if the right steps are taken when setting up a lease program. Remember, to reduce or eliminate risk entirely requires knowing what to look for when establishing a program. Then ask yourself is settling and not offering a program more detrimental to growth? Five people, including two senior executives, are suing a Texas credit union they retired from for discontinuing promised lifetime retirement benefits, accusing their former employer of violating federal laws and fraud. The $347 million Union Square Credit Union in Wichita Falls, Texas, however, is denying it broke federal laws or defrauded the retirees and has asked a federal judge to dismiss the case. In a civil lawsuit filed at U.S. District Court in Dallas last month, retirees Judy Hawthorne, John Christoff, Sue Moss, Charlotte Foster and Marsha Johnson alleged that Union Square CU made multiple oral and written representations and promises that they would receive retirement benefits for life and that they also set aside money to fund their retirement benefits. Just before she retired in 2008, Charlotte Foster, who worked at the credit union for 38 years and served as its vice president of operations, specifically asked her supervisors, Jeff Fladu and President/CEO John Barad, whether this retirement benefit would be available for life and they both confirmed it would be, according to the lawsuit. By Press Trust of India: From Lalit K Jha Washington, Apr 13 (PTI) US President Donald Trumps national security advisor Lt Gen H R McMaster will visit Afghanistan to assess the ground situation of the war-torn nation and find out how they can make progress alongside Afghan partners and NATO allies. "Im sending General McMaster to Afghanistan to find out how we can make progress alongside our Afghan partners and NATO allies," Trump told reporters yesterday at a joint White House news conference with the NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. advertisement However, the White House refused to give any further details of McMasters travel to Afghanistan or any other country in the region. "I cant comment on any potential travel at this time,? a senior administration official said. Afghanistan was one of the major topic of discussion between Trump and Stoltenberg. "Our mission in Afghanistan is a major contribution to the fight against international terrorism," Stoltenberg told reporters. McMasters trip to Afghanistan would be the first high level visit of a top Trump Administration official to the war-torn nation. PTI LKJ AJR --- ENDS --- The Pentagon has confirmed that the US dropped GBU-43 bomb, the largest non-nuclear weapon in its arsenal, on the ISIS tunnel in Afghanistan's Nangarhar province. By India Today Web Desk: In a first, the United States has dropped the biggest non-nuclear bomb on an ISIS tunnel in Afghanistan. The GBU-43B bomb, also known as the "mother of all bombs" is a 21,600 pound (9,797 kg) GPS-guided munition that was dropped from an MC-130 aircraft. It was first tested in March 2003, just days before the start of the Iraq war. advertisement The Pentagon has confirmed that the US dropped a Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb, the largest non-nuclear weapon in its arsenal, on the ISIS tunnel in Afghanistan's Nangarhar province. Pentagon spokesman Adam Stump said, "It was the first time the United States has used this size of bomb in a conflict. It was dropped from a MC-130 aircraft in the Achin district of Nangarhar province, close to the border with Pakistan." BLAST RADIUS OVER 300 METRES The blast radius is believed to be over 300 meters. General John Nicholson, the head of US and international forces in Afghanistan, said that the bomb was used against caves and bunkers housing fighters of the Islamic State in Afghanistan, also known as ISIS-K. "This is the right munition to reduce these obstacles and maintain the momentum of our offensive against ISIS-K", Nicholson said in a statement. It was not immediately clear how much damage the bomb did. White House spokesman Sean Spicer opened his daily news briefing speaking about the use of the bomb and said, "We targeted a system of tunnels and caves that ISIS fighters used to move around freely, making it easier for them to target US military advisers and Afghan forces in the area." US SOLDIER KILLED IN SAME DISTRICT LAST WEEK Last week, a US soldier was killed in the same district as the bomb was dropped while conducting operations against Islamic State. "The United States takes the fight against ISIS very seriously and in order to defeat the group, we must deny them operational space, which we did", Spicer said. He said the bomb was used at around 7 pm local time and described the device as "a large, powerful and accurately delivered weapon." The United States took "all precautions necessary to prevent civilian casualties and collateral damage," he said. US officials say intelligence suggests Islamic State is based overwhelmingly in Nangarhar and neighboring Kunar province. ESTIMATES OF ISIS PRESENCE IN AFGHANISTAN VARY Estimates of its strength in Afghanistan vary. US officials have said they believe the movement has only 700 fighters but Afghan officials estimate it has about 1,500. advertisement Islamic State's offshoot in Afghanistan is suspected of carrying out several attacks on minority Shi'ite Muslim targets. The Afghan Taliban, which is trying to overthrow the US-backed government in Kabul, are fiercely opposed to the Islamic State and the two groups have clashed as they seek to expand territory and influence. (WITH INPUTS FROM REUTERS) Also read | Stockholm truck attack: Uzbek suspect sympathised with ISIS, says police Also read | Bombings at Egyptian Coptic churches on Palm Sunday kill 44; ISIS claims responsibility Also read | US strike: 4 soldiers dead, Syria claims airbase was being used to fight ISIS WATCH VIDEO --- ENDS --- By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Apr 13 (PTI) The US health regulator has issued a warning letter to drug firm Mylan for violations of good manufacturing norms, including data integrity lapses and failure of quality control at its Nashik facility. The letter by the United States Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) to the Mylan Pharmaceuticals Inc President Rajiv Malik states that it had inspected the Nashik facility of the company from September 5 to 14, 2016. advertisement There were "significant violations of current good manufacturing practice (CGMP) regulations for finished pharmaceuticals", at the facility, it added. During the inspection, the FDA investigator observed specific violations such as the quality system not fully ensuring data integrity, the regulator said. "Your quality system does not adequately ensure the accuracy and integrity of data to support the safety, effectiveness and quality of the drugs you manufacture," the letter said. While acknowledging that company is using a consultant to audit the operation and assist in meeting FDA requirements the USFDA asked to provide "a comprehensive investigation into the extent of the inaccuracies in data records and reporting". The letter also asked the drug firm to provide a current risk assessment of the potential effects of the observed failures on the quality of the drugs and a management strategy "that includes the details of your global corrective action and preventive action plan". The FDA said it has reviewed companys October 5, 2016, response in detail and also acknowledged receipt of its subsequent correspondence. Other violation was that, "Your firm failed to thoroughly investigate any unexplained discrepancy or failure of a batch or any of its components to meet any of its specifications, whether or not the batch has already been distributed", the letter said. The pharma firm also failed to establish an adequate quality control unit with the authority to review production records to assure that no errors have occurred or, if errors have occurred, that they have been fully investigated, it added. "Until you correct all violations completely and we confirm your compliance with CGMP, FDA may withhold approval of any new applications or supplements listing your firm as a drug manufacturer," the warning letter said. Failure to correct these violations may also result in FDA refusing admission of articles manufactured at Mylan Laboratories at the Nashik plant, it added. PTI AKT MKJ --- ENDS --- By Press Trust of India: Chandigarh, Apr 13 (PTI) Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh today said he is "not bothered" about what Canada thinks about his stand on its minister Harjit Sajjan and asserted that he will not associate himself with "Khalistani sympathisers" "I am not bothered about what Sajjan or others in the Canadian government think about my stand. I am concerned only about the detrimental impact of these Khalistani sympathisers on this country, particularly on Punjab," he said. advertisement Canada has termed as "disappointing and inaccurate" the comments by Amarinder that five ministers in the Justin Trudeau government, including Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan, were "Khalistani sympathisers". Yesterday, during a programme of a private TV channel, the Chief Minister had alleged, "Harjit Sajjan is a Khalistani sympathiser and so was his father. There are, in fact, five ministers in the Justin Trudeau government who were Khalistani sympathisers and I will not have any truck with them." Reiterating his stand on the issue, Amarinder said while, as a democratic nation, India believes in freedom of speech, which was enshrined in the Constitution, he would personally not meet any "Khalistani sympathiser". The Chief Minister said while Sajjan is welcome to attend conferences and meets and even to visit Darbar Sahib, he would personally not entertain the Canadian minister as he has "concrete information about him being a Khalistani sympathiser, just as his father Kundan Sajjan". "The state government would provide full security to the minister and ensure that he gets due treatment as per protocol but I will not be seen hobnobbing with a Khalistani sympathiser," Amarinder said. He also lashed out at the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Dal Khalsa for their criticism of his refusal to meet the Canadian defence minister during the latters expected visit to India later this month and accused them of playing into the hands of forces inimical to India. Asserting that as many as 35,000 innocent lives were lost during those days of violence, Amarinder alleged, "People like Sajjan had not only run away from the turmoil to settle abroad but were encouraging such extremist elements by supporting their philosophy." Accusing the Dal Khalsa of playing to the gallery on the matter, Amarinder said that he "never believed in public posturing for the sake of political propriety or necessity but had stood by principles." "From breaking away from the Congress in the wake of Operation Bluestar to resigning from the Lok Sabha over the SYL issue, I have always upheld the values that protected the interests of Punjab and its people," he said. advertisement The Chief Minister also flayed the AAPs attack on him for his stand terming their reaction as "expected and in line with" the partys national convener Arvind Kejriwals "proven softness for the Khalistani forces". "Kejriwal had shown his extremist leanings by staying at a former Khalistan Commando Force (KCF) militants house during one of his visits to Punjab as part of his election campaign," Amarinder claimed, adding in this circumstance, AAPs strong reaction "is quite natural". PTI VJ NSD --- ENDS --- The Uttar Pradesh government plans to organise mass weddings for poor Muslims under a scheme which will be run jointly by the Central government. By Mausami Singh: Working towards its promise of Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh is focusing on minority welfare. The Uttar Pradesh government under Yogi Adityanath will provide monetary assistance to poor Muslim families for their daughter's marriage. The government also plans to organise mass weddings for them under a scheme which will be run jointly by the Central government. advertisement SADBHAVNA MANDAPS A month since coming to power in Uttar Pradesh, the Yogi Adityanath government has chalked out a roadmap for inclusive development. As part of the pilot, the Yogi Adityanath government is planning to organise 100 mass weddings across all the districts of Uttar Pradesh at 'Sadbhavna Mandaps'. If the scheme receives a good response, the government plans to make it a bi-annual affair. Sources said the scheme is meant for poor Muslim families. IT WAS THE CM's IDEA Till now, the state government was providing a financial assistance of Rs 20,000 to below-poverty line (BPL) families for their daughter's marriage. Many alleged that the scheme was marred by corruption and had little representation from Muslim families. Mohsin Raza, the Minister of State for Minority Affairs in the Yogi Adityanath cabinet, said the idea to organise mass weddings for Muslim girls came from the chief minister himself. "I am extremely happy that the chief minister made the proposal of Sadbhavna Mandap," said Mohsin Raza. ALSO READ: Muslims in Uttar Pradesh have mixed feelings for Yogi Adityanath as chief minister Yogi Adityanath a hardliner Hindutva icon or messiah of the poor in Gorakhpur? 'Converted? Who's your baap?' Meerut couple thrashed by Yogi Adityanath's Hindu Yuva Vahini asked ALSO WATCH --- ENDS --- The Enforcement Directorate fears that there is a reasonable apprehension that the accused may be tampering with the crucial evidence in and outside India. By Virendrasingh Ghunawat: The special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court has passed an order and issued an open ended non-bailable warrant (NBW) against evangelist Zakir Naik under section 59(1)(b) of PMLA 2002 and under section 70, 78, 79 and 105 of CrPC, for his non-cooperation with the Enforcement Directorate in the investigation of a money laundering case against him and his NGO IRF. advertisement While citing reasons to issue a NBW against Naik, the ED informed the court that Naik had been summoned to appear before the agency four times in the past three months. Application filed by ED said, "The accused is not cooperating with the investigation and is evading service of summons upon him. His absence is unnecessarily delaying the proceedings." The ED fears that there is a reasonable apprehension that the accused may be tampering with the crucial evidence in and outside India. Thus, Naik's custodial interrogation is of utmost necessity to ascertain the trail of the proceeds of crime, ED told the Court. PASSPORT TO BE REVOKED The next step soon after getting the order copy of non-bailable warrant against Naik, the agency would initiate the process of revoking Naik's passport. Sources told India Today that, the next action would be to request the regional passport office (RPO) in Mumbai to revoke the passport of Naik, at the earliest. During the process, the RPO would issue a show-cause notice to Naik, seeking reasons why his passport should not be revoked. In 2010, on the request of ED, the RPO, Mumbai had revoked former IPL commissioner Lalit Modi's passport for alleged misappropriation of funds to the tune of Rs 470 crore by him. Once it happens, Naik's stay in the Saudi Arabia would become illegal, as he entered that country as an Indian national. The investigative agency is quite confident that India and UAE government has signed a treaty where Dubai would not hesitate to deport "an accused of money laundering" back to India, if crucial details and evidences are shared through proper diplomatic channel. According to ED, during the investigations, it was revealed that Naik has got several interests in foreign countries, especially Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has acquired several properties. "Prime facie, it appears that these properties have been acquired from the proceeds of crime involved in the present offence and there is possibility that Naik may alienate and or dispose of the same, obstructing the investigation," the ED application stated. RED CORNER NOTICE Sources told India Today that the agency could also go ahead and request the Interpol to issue a Red Corner Notice (RCN) against Zakir Naik. advertisement "Cancellation of Passport, Red Corner Notice, attachments of Naik's personal and commercial assets in India and abroad is our next plan of action. As it is unlikely now that Zakir Naik would return to India and face the investigation, therefore, all these action plans would get implemented in the coming months," the source said. The agency has recorded the statements of Naik's siblings, his sister Nailah Noorani and brother Mohammad Abdul Karim Naik, and the copies were submitted before the Court. However, both had denied their role in the financial dealings and shifted the entire blame on Zakir Naik, making him responsible for handling the proceeds of crime. Watch Video: NIA issues second summons to absconding Islamic preacher Zakir Naik Also Read: Zakir Naik's properties worth Rs 100 crore under ED's scanner, attachment begins Decision to ban Zakir Naik's IRF in interest of India, says Delhi High Court --- ENDS --- Indonesia is set to receive a new mobile payments platform following the announcement of a joint venture between media firm Emtek (Elang Mahkota Teknologi) and Alipays parent firm Ant Financial. The platform will initially be available via the BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) app, which is licensed to an Emtek subsidiary in Indonesia and has an install base of 63 million monthly active users. Once this launch is complete, the platform will be pushed to other messaging and eCommerce offerings. Emtek CEO Alvin Sariaatmadja issued a statement saying: Ant Financial has proven know-how in delivering payment and other financial solutions to a large and growing mobile audience in China and enabling its partners globally, and we are looking forward to replicating and creating this success in Indonesia. Ant Financial International president Douglas Feagin added: This strategic partnership underlines our commitment to serve the unbanked and underbanked around the world and to improve their lives by bringing them inclusive financial services. We are achieving this by working with partners who share our vision. Emtek is a major media player in Indonesia, with its subsidiaries running various popular social media platforms and terrestrial broadcast channels. The joint venture comes as part of a broader push by Ant Financial to reduce its reliance on the Chinese market, following its announcement in February that it would invest in the Mynt payment platform provided by Globe Telecom in the Philippines. LONDON - A tool which attempts to independently measure and verify the sustainability efforts of apparel brands and retailers has released its latest results. G-Star, Haikure, Just Brands, Ted Baker, Vivobarefoot and WE Fashion are all now using the Mode Tracker tool of Made-By, the UK-based textile sustainability consultancy. The sustainability performances of each brand are independently verified and published in a consumer-friendly manner, based on a common, albeit subjective standard. In 2015, during the Cassini spacecraft's deepest-ever dive into the plume of spray that emanates from cracks in the south polar region of the ice-covered Saturnian moon Enceladus, instruments detected the presence of molecular hydrogen in the plume vapor. The results are reported by Hunter Waite and colleagues, who go on to demonstrate that the only plausible source of this hydrogen is hydrothermal reactions between hot rocks and water in the ocean beneath the moon's icy surface. (On Earth, the same process provides energy for whole ecosystems around hydrothermal vents.) During further analyses, Waite and his team infer the concentrations of volatile species in Enceladus' sub-surface ocean from the plume abundances. The researchers suggest that the vapor and particle material Cassini flew through contained up to 1.4 volume percent molecular hydrogen, and up to 0.8 volume percent carbon dioxide - critical ingredients for a process known as methanogenesis, a reaction that sustains microbes in deep, dark undersea environments on Earth. "Waite et al.'s results represent an important advance in assessing the habitability of Enceladus," suggests Jeffrey Seewald in a related Perspective. ### The cancer profile of African-born blacks differs from that of United States-born blacks and varies by region of birth, according to a new study. The study, appearing in CANCER, suggests differences in environmental, cultural, social, and genetic factors, and points to an opportunity to study the risk factors associated with the cancer burden in African-born blacks to help create targeted interventions. Sub-Saharan African-born blacks are one of the fastest-growing populations in the United States, comprising a substantial proportion of the estimated 2.1 million black African immigrants in the United States in 2015. However, there is a lack of data regarding the cancer burden in this group. To learn more, researchers from the American Cancer Society, the Ohio State University, and Covance Laboratories reviewed incidence data covering 2000-2012 from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER 17) program to compare the frequency of the top 15 cancers in African-born blacks with that of U.S.-born blacks by sex and region of birth. Because the investigators did not have data on the number of sub-Saharan African born immigrants living in SEER areas, they were not able to estimate the incidence of cancers by place of birth, and instead examined the proportion of individual cancers among overall cancers in this group. They found that compared to United States-born non-Hispanic blacks, sub-Saharan African-born blacks had significantly higher proportion of infection-related cancers (liver, stomach, and Kaposi sarcoma), blood cancers (leukemia and non-Hodgkin lymphoma), prostate cancer, and thyroid cancers (in females only). For example, the proportion of Kaposi sarcoma was 12 times higher in African-born black women than US-born black women. In contrast, African-born black men had lower incidence for smoking-related and colorectal cancers. For example, the proportion of lung cancer was 30% lower in African-born black men compared to blacks born in the U.S. Furthermore, cancer occurrence in African-born blacks versus U.S.-born blacks varied by region of birth. For example, the higher incidence for liver cancer noted among male African-born blacks and for thyroid cancer in African-born females were confined to Eastern African-born blacks, whereas the higher incidence for prostate cancer was confined to Western African-born blacks. "Typically, cancer occurrence among blacks in the United States is presented as one homogenous group, with no breakdown by country or region of birth," said Ahemdin Jemal, D.V.M., Ph.D., American Cancer Society epidemiologist and co-author of the study. "Our study shows that approach masks important potential differences that may be key to guiding cancer prevention programs for African-born black immigrants." ### Article: Cancer Incidence Profile in Sub-Saharan African-Born Blacks in the United States: Similarities and Differences With US-Born Non-Hispanic Blacks; Jemal et al. CANCER; Published Online: April 13, 2017 DOI: 10.1002/cncr.30701. The Department of Mathematics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is the 2017 recipient of the American Mathematical Society Award for an Exemplary Program or Achievement in a Mathematics Department, the AMS announced today. Michael Dorff of Brigham Young University, who served as chair of the award selection committee, said: "The mathematics department at the University of Illinois has done a remarkable job in assisting more students to succeed in mathematics through various programs at both the undergraduate and graduate level and improving the representation of women and underrepresented minorities. These activities range from creating an internship program for graduate students to innovative projects emphasizing active learning for undergraduate students such as the Illinois Geometry Lab that provides a community for undergraduate research. At the same time, the department has made conscious and consistent efforts to increase the representation of women and minorities. Many mathematics departments could benefit from following the Illinois approach and implementing some of its programs." The Illinois math department has long occupied a central position on the worldwide mathematical scene as a successful and prestigious department. Its high research profile attracts students and researchers internationally, and its PhD production annually accounts for 1-2% of all mathematics doctorates in the United States. Today, by drawing on the creativity and expertise of its faculty, the Illinois math department has moved up from being a successful department to a truly outstanding one. A major emphasis in the department is its devotion to all of its students. And there are many of them: The department has one of the largest teaching loads on campus, with 26,000 student-courses each year. The commitment to students shows in the department's collaboration, over the past decade, with the College of Engineering, to rework calculus courses to better serve engineering majors. Today these courses feature applications of calculus to real-life science and engineering problems as well as "active learning" discussion sections that get students discussing and working on problems in teams. For 25 years, the department has had a Merit Scholars program, which recruits students who have strong academic records and come from traditionally underserved populations, including members of minority groups as well as first-generation college students. Merit students attend regular lectures, but instead of traditional one-hour discussion sections, they participate in two-hour active-learning "workshops" in which they collaborate on problem sets. The success of the engineering calculus courses, as well as that of the Merit Scholars, helped to "infect" the entire math department with the active-learning model. The department is now implementing active learning on a large scale, reaching more than 8,000 students each year across its calculus and linear algebra courses. The department has a huge number of majors, 1200 in all, reflecting the high value today's students place on intensive mathematical study, whether they seek careers after graduation or graduate work in a STEM field. Broadening the students' horizons and giving them opportunities for intensive teamwork is a goal of the department's Illinois Geometry Lab (IGL). Through the IGL, students work under the guidance of faculty on semester-long projects with a computational flavor. Topics have ranged from modeling taxi routes in New York City, to studying properties of knots with a large number of crossings, to solving problems related to lithium-ion battery design, to investigating randomness in number theory. IGL students become enthusiastic evangelists for mathematics, participating in outreach activities that raise awareness of mathematics among school students and the general public. Another way the department has responded to evolving student interests is by expanding its Actuarial Science Program. This program now enrolls almost 400 undergraduate majors and is growing at the graduate level to address increasing demand in risk management. The department's mathematics graduate program, which awards both master's and PhD degrees, is thriving. In contrast to the "sink or swim" attitude that traditionally prevailed in many graduate programs in mathematics, the Illinois department works hard to ensure that all of its students succeed. Highly streamlined, the PhD program is geared toward getting students into research and matched up with a thesis advisor. A timetable specifies milestones the students must reach on their path to the degree, and faculty provide careful mentoring to be sure students reach the milestones on time. Graduate students comment on the friendly, welcoming atmosphere in the department and the sense of collaboration, rather than competition, that prevails. A major innovation in the department is PI4 (Program for Interdisciplinary and Industrial Internships at Illinois) at https://pi4.math.illinois.edu/, which is funded by the National Science Foundation and which provides training and internships for graduate students. The program includes a "Summer Computational Boot Camp" in which students pick up programming skills. They are then placed in internships in companies or laboratories or in other departments on the Illinois campus where mathematical thinking can make a contribution to research. The number of summer internships has grown from six in 2013 to a total of thirty-one in 2016. The department has made conscious and consistent efforts to increase the representation of women and minorities in its graduate program. The percentage of women in the PhD program has increased from 28 percent ten years ago to 38 percent today (62 of the 160 PhD students are women), and the percentage of U.S. underrepresented minority students has risen from 4 percent to 22 percent of all US students in the last six years. The department has an active chapter of the Association for Women in Mathematics, which organizes outreach, social, and academic activities. Excelling in scholarship, education, and service, the Department of Mathematics at the University of Illinois has become an exemplar and an inspiration for the entire mathematical sciences community and is a deserving recipient of this AMS award. The official announcement of this award, including the selection committee's citation, is available from the AMS Public Awareness Office and will appear in the May 2017 issue of the Notices of the AMS. No subscription is necessary. ### Find out more about this and other AMS awards at http://www.ams.org/profession/prizes-awards/prizes. Founded in 1888 to further mathematical research and scholarship, today the American Mathematical Society fulfills its mission through programs and services that promote mathematical research and its uses, strengthen mathematical education, and foster awareness and appreciation of mathematics and its connections to other disciplines TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Waiting for children to develop on their own is one reason so many toddlers with autism go undiagnosed. A delay in treatment can result in the loss of precious months or years when interventions are able to dramatically affect outcomes. The Autism Institute at Florida State University has launched a new early intervention approach called the Family Ecosystem. It's a system of care developed in partnership with Autism Navigator and the FIRST WORDS Project. By integrating automated screening beginning at 9 months with evidence-based online courses, tools and resources, the Family Ecosystem is designed to improve early detection of communication delays and autism, help families get a jump-start on early intervention and facilitate their access to care for a better outcome. While the signs of autism can be detected by 18 to 24 months, the average age of diagnosis is between 4 and 5 years old, when early intervention is no longer possible. By then, 80 percent of school-age children who qualify for special education miss the opportunity for early intervention. Screening in primary care is challenging, and the early-intervention system is overburdened. Too often the results are substantial societal costs and lifetime consequences for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and their families. Autism Navigator integrates the Family Ecosystem and current research into a highly interactive web platform with extensive video footage to illustrate early learning and development, early signs of autism and early intervention. It provides hundreds of video illustrations of evidence-based intervention techniques that families can incorporate into everyday activities to support their child's learning and development as soon as they suspect autism. The first course for the public, About Autism in Toddlers, was originally released in April 2015 and has more than 12,000 users in 115 countries. Autism Navigator now offers a collection of web-based courses for professionals who screen toddlers, make referrals and provide early intervention. Those who complete the Autism Navigator for Primary Care course can begin using the Early Screening for Autism and Communication Disorders (ESAC), a new innovative screener for children 12 to 36 months old that is based on parent reports and uses "smart" technology. Families are then invited to the parent portal, where they have unlimited access to online courses, tools and resources in the Seamless Path for Families. Autism Navigator is helping to bridge the gap between science and community practice, improve family access to care, train and guide professionals, and transform community-based systems of health care delivery and education for toddlers with ASD and their families. "By leveraging technology, systemwide changes in early detection and early intervention practices for toddlers with autism are viable and sustainable," said Amy M. Wetherby, Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Clinical Sciences and director of the Autism Institute at the FSU College of Medicine. "The Autism Navigator web platform is advancing science by providing a practical, achievable mechanism for identifying autism at very young ages through community-based screening. This is enabling genetic, biomedical and intervention research to study children younger than was previously possible, given the usual age of diagnosis, and help to accelerate scientific advances." Autism Navigator is available at http://www.autismnavigator.com/ and is being deployed globally. Each course and tool is designed to increase the capacity of health care professionals, early intervention providers, educators and families to improve outcomes of young children with ASD. "Our vision," Wetherby said, "is to make Autism Navigator courses, tools and resources free to families and utilize the fees associated with the professional development courses to fund ongoing research and development." ### About the FIRST WORDS Project The FIRST WORDS Project is a longitudinal research investigation in the Florida State University Autism Institute in the College of Medicine directed by Dr. Amy Wetherby. The major goal is to identify early signs of developmental language disorders, ASD and other communication delays in children from 9 to 24 months of age. About Autism Navigator Development Team Autism Navigator was developed by faculty and staff in the Autism Institute at the Florida State University College of Medicine with funding from the state of Florida. Research and video clips from the FIRST WORDSand Early Social Interaction Projects contributed to its content. Environmentally friendly fuels Volker Muller is one of the leading microbiologists worldwide in the field of microbial metabolism of microbes that grow in the absence of oxygen. His project centres on the production of biofuels with the help of bacteria that can use carbon dioxide as feedstock. Such fuels would have the advantage of making us independent of fossil fuels and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. For many years, Professor Muller's research group at the Institute of Molecular Biosciences of Goethe University Frankfurt has been investigating a specific group of bacteria that convert carbon dioxide (CO2) and hydrogen (H2) or carbon monoxide (CO) to acetic acid in a fermentation process. The bacteria require neither light nor oxygen to do so. What are known as acetogenic bacteria are already used on an industrial scale for exhaust gas fermentation American company LanzaTech. The aim here is primarily to render the exhaust gas harmless. Muller is already coordinating a pan-European consortium targeted at the optimization of gas fermentation. In the research project funded by the ERC, Muller wants now to further utilize the potential of Acetobacterium woodii. The bacterium can also process methanol or formic acid - both are cheap raw materials for biotechnology applications. Muller and his research group want to solve and then alter the metabolic pathways. The goal is to genetically modify acetogenic bacteria in such a way that they can produce environmentally friendly fuels and base chemicals on a large scale from various source materials. New strategies to combat infectious diseases It is the second time already that Ivan Dikic, who was born in Croatia, has been awarded an ERC Advanced Investigator Grant. He is one of the international pioneers in the area of ubiquitin research. Ubiquitin regulates many cellular processes; amongst others it controls the degradation of superfluous or harmful proteins and the repair of defective DNA, transmits signals within the cell and triggers cell death if damage cannot be controlled any more. In addition, ubiquitin has been recognized as being very important for fighting bacterial infections. In his new ERC project, Dikic is investigating how bacteria manipulate the ubiquitin system of their host organism to their own advantage. In the focus are infections with Salmonella, Shigella and Legionella. Dikic's research group at the Institute of Biochemistry II is e.g. searching for new signaling pathways which are activated by bacterial enzymes. They are employing high-resolution microscopy methods and cutting-edge mass spectrometry that allows the quantitative assessment of all cellular proteins and their ubiquitin modifications. By this approach, the cell biologists want to elucidate how various bacterial enzymes influence the severity and course of an infection and why serious secondary tissue damage sometimes occurs despite successful treatment with antibiotics. Such damage cannot only be caused by bacterial toxins, but also by signalling substances secreted by the host's own immune cells following an infection. This secondary damage can be life-threatening. In a second step, the researchers in Dikic's group want to search for substances that actively interfere with this process and in particular limit tissue damage. To this purpose, Dikic is working together with partners in the pharmaceutical sector. The ultimate goal is to fully understand the role of the ubiquitin system in bacterial infections and to seize the newly obtained knowledge for developing new strategies for combating infectious diseases. ### Pictures can be downloaded under the following link: http://www.uni-frankfurt.de/66113784 Further information: Professor Dr. Volker Muller, Institute of Molecular Biosciences, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Riedberg Campus, Tel.: +49(0)69-798-29507; -29508, Email: VMueller@bio.uni-frankfurt.de. Professor Dr. Ivan Dikic; Media contact: Dr. Kerstin Koch, Institute of Biochemistry II, Faculty of Medicine, Frankfurt University Hospital, Tel.: +49(0)69-6301-84250, Email: k.koch@em.uni-frankfurt.de. The National Science Foundation (NSF) today recognized Baratunde "Bara" A. Cola of the Georgia Institute of Technology and John V. Pardon of Princeton University with the nation's highest honor for early career scientists and engineers, the Alan T. Waterman Award. This marks only the second time in the award's 42-year history that NSF selected two recipients in the same year. Bestowed annually, the Waterman Award recognizes outstanding researchers age 35 and under in NSF-supported fields of science and engineering. In addition to a medal, awardees each receive a $1 million, five-year grant for research in their chosen field of study. "We are seeing the significant impact of their research very early in the careers of these awardees," said NSF Director France Cordova. "That is the most exciting aspect of the Waterman Award, which recognizes early career achievement. They have creatively tackled longstanding scientific challenges, and we look forward to what they will do next." Baratunde "Bara" A. Cola Cola pioneered new engineering methods and materials to control light and heat in electronics at the nanoscale. He serves as an associate professor at Georgia Tech's George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. In 2015, Cola and his team were the first to overcome more than 40 years of research challenges to create a device called an optical rectenna, which turns light into direct current more efficiently than today's technology. The device could lead to highly efficient solar cells with the potential to power new generations of cell phones, laptops, satellites and drones. The technology uses carbon nanotubes that act as tiny antennas to capture light. Light is then converted into direct current by miniature, nanotechnology-enabled mechanisms called rectifier diodes. The research has the potential to double solar cell efficiency at one-tenth the cost, according to Cola. "Ultimately, we see the Waterman as fueling the final leg of our long-term effort to be the first to truly bring transformational applications of carbon nanotubes to the market," Cola said. "As of now, we know that there will be a substantial investment in engineering another breakthrough in carbon nanotube optical rectenna science." Cola also works to commercialize other novel nanotechnology-based innovations. In 2015, he participated in NSF Innovation Corps (I-Corps) at Georgia Tech, a program that immerses scientists and engineers in entrepreneurial training, teaching them to look beyond the lab and consider the commercial potential or broader impacts of their research. I-Corps participants interview prospective customers and identify market needs for federally funded innovations. In addition, Cola and colleagues were responsible for engineering breakthroughs, including the first thermally conductive amorphous polymer, the first practical electrochemical cell for generating electricity from waste heat and the first evidence of thermal energy conduction by surface polaritons. Cola, 35, is the founder of Carbice Nanotechnologies, Inc., a company that uses a carbon nanotube-material to remove heat from computer chip testing stations, allowing for faster and cheaper testing of chips during production. The technology could eventually result in smaller, faster, more powerful computer chips for use in everything from smartphones to supercomputers. Carbice Nanotechnologies received support from NSF's Small Business Innovation Research program. He also is co-founder of the NSF-funded Academic and Research Leadership Network, a group of more than 300 Ph.D. engineering researchers from minority groups underrepresented in academia, industry and government laboratories. John V. Pardon Pardon is a Clay Research Fellow and professor of mathematics at Princeton University. His research focuses on geometry and topology, the study of properties of shapes that are unaffected by deformations, such as stretching or twisting. He is known for solving problems that stumped other mathematicians for decades and generating solutions that provide new tools for geometric analysis. In 2013, Pardon published a solution to the Hilbert-Smith conjecture, a mathematical proposition involving the actions of groups of "manifolds" in three dimensions. Manifolds include spheres and doughnut-shaped objects. The conjecture originates from one of the 23 problems published in 1900 by German mathematician David Hilbert, which helped guide the course of 20th century mathematics. American topologist Paul Althaus Smith proposed a stronger version of the problem in 1941. This problem has connections to many other areas of mathematics and physics. Pardon's publication was notable for proving this longstanding conjecture, a major achievement in mathematics. Prior to that publication, as a senior undergraduate at Princeton, Pardon answered a question posed in 1983 by Russian mathematician Mikhail Gromov regarding "knots," mathematical structures that resemble physical knots, but are closed, instead of having any ends. Gromov's question involved a special class of knots called "torus knots." He asked whether these knots could be tied without altering or distorting their topology. Pardon figured out a way to use the distortion between two properties of knots -- their intrinsic and extrinsic distances -- to control their topology. He showed that torus knots are limited by their geometric properties, and can be tied without altering their topology. Pardon's solution has important applications in fluid dynamics and electrodynamics, calculating forces involved in aircraft movement, predicting weather patterns, determining the flow of liquids through water treatment plant pipelines, determining the flow of electrical charges, and more. Pardon, who received his doctorate in mathematics in 2015 from Stanford University, has been a full professor at Princeton since fall 2016. Among other awards, Pardon earned a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship to support his graduate studies at Stanford. As of October last year, Pardon had published 11 papers on such subjects as contact homology, virtual fundamental cycles, the distortion of knots, algebraic varieties, and the carpenter's rule problem. ### CORVALLIS, Ore. - Women with some characteristics commonly thought to increase pregnancy risks -- being over age 35; being overweight; and in some cases, having a vaginal birth after a cesarean section -- tend to have good outcomes when they give birth at home or in a birth center, a new assessment has found. However, women with some other risk factors, a breech baby and some other cases of vaginal birth after cesarean or VBAC, may face an increased risk of poor outcomes for themselves or their babies, researchers at Oregon State University have found. The study is believed to be the first to examine these risks and the outcomes. About 2 percent of all births in the U.S., and about 4 percent in Oregon, occur at home or in a birth center, rather than in a hospital setting. Generally, women who are considered "low-risk" are good candidates for home or birth center births, also referred to as community births, if they are attended by a midwife or other trained provider and timely access to a hospital is available. However, there is little agreement among health providers on what should be considered low- or high-risk, and some women choose to have a community birth despite potential risks, said Marit Bovbjerg, a clinical assistant professor of epidemiology at Oregon State University and lead author of the study. Medical ethics and the tenets of maternal autonomy dictate that women be allowed to decide where and how they wish to give birth. That's why it's important to have as much information as possible about potential risks, said Bovbjerg, who works in the College of Public Health and Human Sciences at OSU. There are also risks associated with hospital births, such as increased interventions, which means there aren't always clear answers when it comes to determining the best and safest place to give birth, said Melissa Cheyney, a medical anthropologist and associate professor in OSU's College of Liberal Arts. The goal of the research was to better understand the outcomes for women and babies with some of the most common pregnancy risk factors, to see how those risk factors affected outcomes. "There's a middle or gray area, in terms of risk, where the risk associated with community birth is only slightly elevated relative to a completely low-risk sample," Cheyney said. "We're trying to get more information about births that fall in that middle zone so that clinicians and pregnant women can have the best evidence available when deciding where to give birth." The findings were published recently in the journal Birth. Other co-authors are Jennifer Brown of University of California, Davis; and Kim J. Cox and Lawrence Leeman of the University of New Mexico. Using birth outcome data collected by the Midwives Alliance of North America Statistics Project, commonly referred to as MANA Stats, the researchers analyzed more than 47,000 midwife-attended community births. They looked specifically at the independent contributions to birth outcomes of 10 common risk factors: primiparity, or giving birth for the first time; advanced maternal age, or mother over age 35; obesity; gestational diabetes; preeclampsia; post-term pregnancy, or more than 42 weeks gestation; twins; breech presentation; history of both cesarean and vaginal birth; and history of only cesarean birth. The last two groups are both considered VBACs and hospital policies and state regulations for midwifery practice usually make no distinction between the two types. However, the researchers found a clear distinction between the two groups in terms of community birth outcomes. Women who delivered vaginally after a previous cesarean and also had a history of previous vaginal birth had better outcomes even than those women giving birth for the first time. On the other hand, women who had never given birth to a child vaginally had an increased risk of poor outcomes in community birth settings. "That finding suggests that current policies that universally discourage VBAC should be revisited, as the evidence does not support them," Bovbjerg said. "Women who in the past have successfully delivered vaginally seem to do just fine the next time around, even if they have also had a previous C-section. That's really important because some medical groups totally oppose VBACs, even in hospital settings, and many hospitals don't offer the option of a VBAC at all." Researchers also found that women whose babies were in breech position had the highest rate of adverse outcome when giving birth at home or in a birth center. There was only a slight increase in poor outcomes for women over age 35, or women who were overweight or obese, compared to those without those risk factors. In some categories, there were not enough births in the data set to properly evaluate a risk's impact, such as with gestational diabetes and preeclampsia. "As is appropriate, women who face high complication risks such as preeclampsia tend to plan for and choose a hospital birth, rather than a community birth," Bovbjerg said. "But even for these women, it's important to remember that they can choose a community birth if their faith, culture or other considerations dictate that is the best choice for them." The researchers emphasized that the new information about risks and outcomes can serve as an important tool in decision-making for families making very personal choices about where to give birth. "These findings help us to put information and evidence, rather than fear, at the center of discussions around informed, shared decision-making between expectant families and their health care providers," Cheyney said. Researchers next plan to examine how the healthcare culture and standards of care in different locations within the U.S. affect outcomes of home and birthing center deliveries. ### People's ability to make random choices or mimic a random process, such as coming up with hypothetical results for a series of coin flips, peaks around age 25, according to a study published in PLOS Computational Biology. Scientists believe that the ability to behave in a way that appears random arises from some of the most highly developed cognitive processes in humans, and may be connected to abilities such as human creativity. Previous studies have shown that aging diminishes a person's ability to behave randomly. However, it had been unclear how this ability evolves over a person's lifetime, nor had it been possible to assess the ways in which humans may behave randomly beyond simple statistical tests. To better understand how age impacts random behavior, Nicolas Gauvrit and colleagues at the Algorithmic Nature Group, LABORES for the Natural and Digital Sciences, Paris, assessed more than 3,400 people aged 4 to 91 years old. Each participant performed a series of online tasks that assessed their ability to behave randomly. The five tasks included listing the hypothetical results of a series of 12 coin flips so that they would "look random to somebody else," guessing which card would appear when selected from a randomly shuffled deck, and listing the hypothetical results of 10 rolls of a die--"the kind of sequence you'd get if you really rolled a die." The scientists analyzed the participants' choices according to their algorithmic randomness, which is based on the idea that patterns that are more random are harder to summarize mathematically. After controlling for characteristics such as gender, language, and education, they found that age was the only factor that affected the ability to behave randomly. This ability peaked at age 25, on average, and declined from then on. "This experiment is a kind of reverse Turing test for random behavior, a test of strength between algorithms and humans," says study co-author Hector Zenil. "25 is, on average, the golden age when humans best outsmart computers," adds Dr. Gauvrit. The study also demonstrated that a relatively short list of choices, say 10 hypothetical coin flips, can be used to reliably gauge randomness of human behavior. The authors are now using a similar approach to study potential connections between the ability to behave randomly and such things as cognitive decline and neurodegenerative diseases. ### The authors have produced a video to summarize the key results of their research, which can be found, with a caption and further details, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-YjBE5qm7c In your coverage please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS Computational Biology: http://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005408 Citation: Gauvrit N, Zenil H, Soler-Toscano F, Delahaye J-P, Brugger P (2017) Human behavioral complexity peaks at age 25. PLoS Comput Biol 13(4): e1005408. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005408 Funding: HZ received partial funding the Swedish Research Council (VR). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. After more than a decade of declining cholera incidence, Vietnam faced an increase in cases of the diarrheal disease during 2007-2010. Risk factors for contracting cholera in Ben Tre province of Vietnam include drinking iced tea or unboiled water and having a water source near a toilet, researchers report in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. Around the world, more than a million people a year suffer from cholera and tens of thousands die from the disease. Cholera transmission is closely linked to inadequate access to clean water and is often spread through contaminated drinking water. In the Ben Tre province of the Mekong Delta region in the southern part of Vietnam, no cholera cases were reported from 2005 until an outbreak in 2010. In the new work, Thuong Vu Nguyen, of the Pasteur Institute Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and colleagues interviewed 60 people who were confirmed to have been infected with cholera during the 2010 outbreak in Ben Tre, as well as 240 subcommune-, 5-year age group- and sex-matched controls. Information about each person's eating and drinking behaviors and living environment was recorded. The researchers also collected samples of nearby river water, drinking water, wastewater samples, and local seafood to test for Vibrio cholerae, the bacteria which spreads the disease. The researchers found that drinking iced tea, not always boiling drinking water, having a main water source near a toilet, living with other who have diarrhea, and having little or no education were all associated with an increased risk of cholera, while drinking stored rainwater, eating cooked seafood or steamed vegetables were protective against the disease. 22% of people with cholera reported drinking iced tea in the week prior to their disease, whereas only 3% of controls had drank iced tea in the week before being interviewed. Patients with cholera were also more likely to always put ice in their water and to use sedimented river water for drinking, bathing, cooking, and brushing their teeth. More work is needed to determine why iced tea boosts the risk of cholera, but the researchers hypothesize that the bacteria may be found in ice, which is often bought from street vendors. "This present study has important implications for Vietnam's cholera responses," the researchers say. "Along with traditional approaches that focus on enhancement of safe water, sanitation, and food safety, combined with periodic provision of oral cholera vaccines, a water quality monitoring system at ice-making plants should be established." ### In your coverage please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases: http://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371/journal.pntd.0005490 Citation: Nguyen TV, Pham QD, Do QK, Diep TT, Phan HC, Ho TV, et al. (2017) Cholera returns to southern Vietnam in an outbreak associated with consuming unsafe water through iced tea: A matched case-control study. PLoS Negl Trop Dis 11(4): e0005490. doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0005490 Funding: This study was originally supported by the Vietnam's Ministry of Health. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. In debates over the future of artificial intelligence, many experts think of the new systems as coldly logical and objectively rational. But in a new study, researchers have demonstrated how machines can be reflections of us, their creators, in potentially problematic ways. Common machine learning programs, when trained with ordinary human language available online, can acquire cultural biases embedded in the patterns of wording, the researchers found. These biases range from the morally neutral, like a preference for flowers over insects, to the objectionable views of race and gender. Identifying and addressing possible bias in machine learning will be critically important as we increasingly turn to computers for processing the natural language humans use to communicate, for instance in doing online text searches, image categorization and automated translations. "Questions about fairness and bias in machine learning are tremendously important for our society," said researcher Arvind Narayanan, an assistant professor of computer science and an affiliated faculty member at the Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP) at Princeton University, as well as an affiliate scholar at Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society. "We have a situation where these artificial intelligence systems may be perpetuating historical patterns of bias that we might find socially unacceptable and which we might be trying to move away from." The paper, "Semantics derived automatically from language corpora contain human-like biases," published April 14 in Science. Its lead author is Aylin Caliskan, a postdoctoral research associate and a CITP fellow at Princeton; Joanna Bryson, a reader at University of Bath, and CITP affiliate, is a coauthor. As a touchstone for documented human biases, the study turned to the Implicit Association Test, used in numerous social psychology studies since its development at the University of Washington in the late 1990s. The test measures response times (in milliseconds) by human subjects asked to pair word concepts displayed on a computer screen. Response times are far shorter, the Implicit Association Test has repeatedly shown, when subjects are asked to pair two concepts they find similar, versus two concepts they find dissimilar. Take flower types, like "rose" and "daisy," and insects like "ant" and "moth." These words can be paired with pleasant concepts, like "caress" and "love," or unpleasant notions, like "filth" and "ugly." People more quickly associate the flower words with pleasant concepts, and the insect terms with unpleasant ideas. The Princeton team devised an experiment with a program where it essentially functioned like a machine learning version of the Implicit Association Test. Called GloVe, and developed by Stanford University researchers, the popular, open-source program is of the sort that a startup machine learning company might use at the heart of its product. The GloVe algorithm can represent the co-occurrence statistics of words in, say, a 10-word window of text. Words that often appear near one another have a stronger association than those words that seldom do. The Stanford researchers turned GloVe loose on a huge trawl of contents from the World Wide Web, containing 840 billion words. Within this large sample of written human culture, Narayanan and colleagues then examined sets of so-called target words, like "programmer, engineer, scientist" and "nurse, teacher, librarian" alongside two sets of attribute words, such as "man, male" and "woman, female," looking for evidence of the kinds of biases humans can unwittingly possess. In the results, innocent, inoffensive biases, like for flowers over bugs, showed up, but so did examples along lines of gender and race. As it turned out, the Princeton machine learning experiment managed to replicate the broad substantiations of bias found in select Implicit Association Test studies over the years that have relied on live, human subjects. For instance, the machine learning program associated female names more with familial attribute words, like "parents" and "wedding," than male names. In turn, male names had stronger associations with career attributes, like "professional" and "salary." Of course, results such as these are often just objective reflections of the true, unequal distributions of occupation types with respect to gender--like how 77 percent of computer programmers are male, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Yet this correctly distinguished bias about occupations can end up having pernicious, sexist effects. An example: when foreign languages are naively processed by machine learning programs, leading to gender-stereotyped sentences. The Turkish language uses a gender-neutral, third person pronoun, "o." Plugged into the well-known, online translation service Google Translate, however, the Turkish sentences "o bir doktor" and "o bir hem?ire" with this gender-neutral pronoun are translated into English as "he is a doctor" and "she is a nurse." "This paper reiterates the important point that machine learning methods are not 'objective' or 'unbiased' just because they rely on mathematics and algorithms," said Hanna Wallach, a senior researcher at Microsoft Research New York City, who was not involved in the study. "Rather, as long as they are trained using data from society and as long as society exhibits biases, these methods will likely reproduce these biases." Another objectionable example harkens back to a well-known 2004 paper by Marianne Bertrand of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and Sendhil Mullainathan of Harvard University. The economists sent out close to 5,000 identical resumes to 1,300 job advertisements, changing only the applicants' names to be either traditionally European American or African American. The former group was 50 percent more likely to be offered an interview than the latter. In an apparent corroboration of this bias, the new Princeton study demonstrated that a set of African American names had more unpleasantness associations than a European American set. Computer programmers might hope to prevent cultural stereotype perpetuation through the development of explicit, mathematics-based instructions for the machine learning programs underlying AI systems. Not unlike how parents and mentors try to instill concepts of fairness and equality in children and students, coders could endeavor to make machines reflect the better angels of human nature. "The biases that we studied in the paper are easy to overlook when designers are creating systems," said Narayanan. "The biases and stereotypes in our society reflected in our language are complex and longstanding. Rather than trying to sanitize or eliminate them, we should treat biases as part of the language and establish an explicit way in machine learning of determining what we consider acceptable and unacceptable." ### Hunting is a major threat to wildlife particularly in tropical regions, but a systematic large-scale estimate of hunting-induced declines of animal numbers was lacking so far. A study published in Science on April 14 fills this gap. An international team of ecologists and environmental scientists found that bird and mammal populations were reduced within 7 and 40 km of hunters' access points, such as roads and settlements. Within these impact zones, mammal populations declined on average by 83% and bird populations by 58%. Additionally, the team found that commercial hunting had a higher impact than hunting for family food, and that hunting pressure was higher in areas with better accessibility to major towns where wild meat could be traded. The impact of hunting was found to be larger than the team expected. 'Thanks to this study, we estimate that only 17 percent of the original mammal abundance and 42 percent of the birds remain in hunted areas.' The researchers synthesised 176 studies to quantify hunting-induced declines of mammal and bird populations across the tropics of Central and South America, Africa and Asia. The study was led by Ana Benitez-Lopez, who works at the department of Environmental Science at Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. She cooperated with researchers from the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL), the universities of Wageningen and Utrecht in the Netherlands and a colleague from the School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex. Higher hunting pressure around villages and roads 'There are several drivers of animal decline in tropical landscapes: habitat destruction, overhunting, fragmentation etcetera. While deforestation and habitat loss can be monitored using remote sensing, hunting can only be tracked on the ground. We wanted to find a systematic and consistent way to estimate the impact of hunting across the tropics. As a starting point, we used the hypothesis that humans gather resources in a circle around their village and in the proximity of roads. As such, hunting pressure is higher in the proximity of villages and other access points. From there the densities of species increase up to a distance where no effect of hunting is observed. We called this species depletion distances which we quantified in our analysis. This allowed us to map hunting-induced declines across the tropics for the first time,' Benitez-Lopez explains. Not only the big cuddly species The main novelty of the current study is that it combined the evidence across many local studies, thus for the first time providing an overarching picture of the magnitude of the impact across a large number of species. The study takes all animals into account - not only the big cuddly species, but birds and rodents as well. Benitez-Lopez explains the difference in impact between birds and mammals: 'Mammals are more sought after because they're bigger and provide more food. They are worth a longer trip. The bigger the mammal, the further a hunter would walk to catch it.' With increasing wild meat demand for rural and urban supply, hunters have harvested the larger species almost to extinction in the proximity of the villages and they must travel further distances to hunt. Besides, for commercially interesting species such as elephants and gorillas, hunting distances are much larger because the returns are higher. Protected areas are no safe haven Another interesting finding of this study is that mammal populations have also been reduced by hunting even within protected areas. 'Strategies to sustainably manage wild meat hunting in both protected and unprotected tropical ecosystems are urgently needed to avoid further defaunation,' she says. 'This includes monitoring hunting activities by increasing anti-poaching patrols and controlling overexploitation via law enforcement'. ### A. Benitez-Lopez*, R. Alkemade2,3, A. M. Schipper2, D. J. Ingram4, P. A. Verweij5, J. A. J. Eikelboom2,5,6, M. A. J. Huijbregts1, 2 . 2017. The impact of hunting on tropical mammal and bird populations. Science (accepted), April 14 2017 DOI: 10.1126/science.aaj1891 Affiliations: 1Department of Environmental Science, Institute for Wetland and Water Research, Radboud University,The Netherlands2PBL, Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, The Hague, The Netherlands. 3Environmental Systems Analysis Group, Wageningen University & Research, The Netherlands 4School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, UK. 5Energy and Resources group, Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University, 6Resource Ecology Group, Wageningen University & Research The Netherlands The Golden Jubilee of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, which took place in October 2016, is the topic of a new special issue in the Journal of African American Studies, published by Springer. This special issue does not have a specific genre; rather, it consists of many academics who employed varying perspectives to tackle topics in several creative and original ways. In the end, the goal is to provide a more nuanced perspective on the diversity and complexity of this militant group. The special issue will be open to the general public until May 15th 2017. The articles in the special issue produce reflections on the organization's 50th anniversary, plow new scholarly ground, provide insightful interviews of former Panthers, and offer a take on some of the most recent books on the Black Panther Party (BPP). The interviews and conversations with former Panthers are especially informative. Readers are treated to an up close and personal look at some of the men and women who comprised the Black Panther Party from California to Baltimore. These narratives are presented as stories in themselves, but when seamed together, create a part of the great international spectacle that was/is the Black Panther Party. The entries are more than just chronicles of peoples' lives or straight-forward narration of events; they are vibrant realities etched on the bedrock of the Black Liberation Struggle. These Panthers' lives and personalities had so great an influence on the minds and hearts of a global community that their organization still receives the lion share of attention vis-a-vis discussions, writings and/or documentaries about the American Black Power Movement. From their stories, readers are introduced to the significance and beauty of the struggle for Black liberation in the USA. With tales of bravery and achievement in the claws of adversity, the Panthers have provided the present with a window to the past and a template to build a more humane tomorrow. Judson L. Jeffries, Editor of the Journal of African American Studies, and Omari L. Dyson write in the introduction, "As we reflect on this historical landmark, it is key that we remember the sacrifices made by the rank-and-file members of the BPP--who demonstrated their commitment to transform the social and political landscape of this nation. But more importantly, how they stretched the boundaries of what the human psyche can do when limitations are foisted on them. In this special issue, we dedicated our efforts to capturing the fusion between Panther and struggle--a relationship intertwined with strength, hope, love, and a determination to survive." ### Reference: Journal of African American Studies, Volume 21, Issue 1, March 2017: Special Issue on the Black Panther Party. https://link.springer.com/journal/12111/21/1/page/1 A research team led by the Associate Provost of Research, Professor Martin Dunn, at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), introduced a new approach that simplifies and increases the potential of 4D printing. 4D printing is an emerging technology that allows a 3D-printed component to transform its structure by exposing it to heat, light, humidity, or other environmental stimuli. This technology extends the shape creation process beyond 3D printing, resulting in additional design flexibility that can lead to new types of products which can adjust its functionality in response to the environment, in a pre-programmed manner. However, 4D printing generally involves complex and time-consuming post-processing steps to mechanically programme the component. Furthermore, the materials are often limited to soft polymers, which limit their applicability in structural scenarios. A group of researchers from the SUTD, Georgia Institute of Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University and Zhejiang University has introduced an approach that significantly simplifies and increases the potential of 4D printing by incorporating the mechanical programming post-processing step directly into the 3D printing process. This allows high-resolution 3D-printed components to be designed by computer simulation, 3D printed, and then directly and rapidly transformed into new permanent configurations by using heat. This approach can help save printing time and materials used by up to 90%, while completely eliminating the time-consuming mechanical programming process from the design and manufacturing workflow. "Our approach involves printing composite materials where at room temperature one material is soft but can be programmed to contain internal stress, and the other material is stiff," said Dr. Zhen Ding of SUTD. "We use computational simulations to design composite components where the stiff material has a shape and size that prevents the release of the programmed internal stress from the soft material after 3D printing. Upon heating, the stiff material softens and allows the soft material to release its stress. This results in a change - often dramatic - in the product shape." This new shape is fixed when the product is cooled, with good mechanical stiffness. The research demonstrated many interesting shape changing parts, including a lattice that can expand by almost 8 times when heated. This new shape becomes permanent and the composite material will not return to its original 3D-printed shape, upon further heating or cooling. "This is because of the shape memory effect," said Prof. H. Jerry Qi of Georgia Tech. "In the two-material composite design, the stiff material exhibits shape memory, which helps lock the transformed shape into a permanent one. Additionally, the printed structure also exhibits the shape memory effect, i.e. it can then be programmed into further arbitrary shapes that can always be recovered to its new permanent shape, but not its 3D-printed shape." Said SUTD's Prof. Martin Dunn, "The key advance of this work, is a 4D printing method that is dramatically simplified and allows the creation of high-resolution complex 3D reprogrammable products; it promises to enable myriad applications across biomedical devices, 3D electronics, and consumer products. It even opens the door to a new paradigm in product design, where components are designed from the onset to inhabit multiple configurations during service." ### This research was recently published in Science Advances and was conducted by the SUTD Digital Manufacturing and Design Centre, with support from the Singapore National Research Foundation, a grant from US Air Force Office of Scientific Research (Dr. B.-L. "Les" Lee, Program Manager), as well as research grants from the US National Science Foundation. Nematodes are a huge threat to agriculture since they parasitize important crops such as wheat, soybean, and banana; but plants can defend themselves. Researchers at Bonn University, together with collaborators from the Sainsbury Laboratory in Norwich, identified a protein that allows plants to recognize a chemical signal from the worm and initiate immune responses against the invaders. This discovery will help to develop crop plants that feature enhanced protection against this type of parasites. The work is published in the current issue of PLOS Pathogens. Plant-parasitic nematodes are microscopic worms that parasitize their host plants to withdraw water and nutrients. The feeding process seriously damages the host plant. Nematode infection distorts root and shoot structure, compromises the plants ability to absorb nutrients from soil, and eventually reduces crop yield. Yearly losses exceed ten percent in important crops such as wheat, soybean, and banana. In addition to causing direct damage, nematode infection also provides an opportunity for other pathogens to invade and attack the host plants. Until now, near to nothing was known about the general innate immune response of plants against nematodes. A team of researchers at the University of Bonn, in cooperation with scientists from the Sainsbury Laboratory in Norwich, has now identified a gene in thale cress (Arabidopsis thaliana), called NILR1, that helps plants sense nematodes. "The NILR1 is the genetic code for a receptor protein that is localized to the surface of plant cells and is able to bind and recognize other molecules," says Prof. Florian Grundler, chair at the Department of Molecular Phytomedicine at the University of Bonn. "NILR1 most probably recognizes a molecule from nematodes, upon which, it becomes activated and immune responses of plants are unleashed." NILR1 recognizes a broad spectrum of nematodes Although a few receptors, so-called resistance genes, providing protection against specific types of plant-parasitic nematodes have already been identified, NILR1 recognizes rather a broader spectrum of nematodes. "The nice thing about NILR1 is that it seems to be conserved among various crop plants and that it provides protection against many nematode species," says group leader Dr. Shahid Siddique. "The discovery of NILR1 also raises questions about the nematode derived molecule, whose recognition is thought to be integral to this process." Now that an important receptor is discovered, the scientists are working to find the molecule which binds to NILR1 to switch on the immune responses. The two first authors, PhD students at the department share tasks in the project. Whereas Mary Wangombe focuses on the receptor protein and its function, Badou Mendy concentrates on isolating the signal molecule released by the nematodes. New options for breeding resistant crop plants The findings of the University Bonn Scientists open new perspectives in making crops more resistant against nematodes. They could already show that important crop plants such as tomato and sugar beet also possess a functional homologue of NILR1 - an excellent basis for further specific breeding. Once the nematode signal is characterized, a new generation of natural compounds will be available that is able to induce defense responses in plants thus paving the way for safe and sustainable nematode control. ### Publication: Mendy, B., Wang'ombe, M.W., Radakovic, Z., Holbein, J., Ilyas, M., Chopra, D., Holton, N., Zipfel, C., Grundler, F.M.W., and Siddique, S.: Arabidopsis leucine-rich repeat receptor-like kinase NILR1 is required for induction of innate immunity to parasitic nematodes, PLOS Pathogens, Internet: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1006284 Contact: Prof. Florian M. W. Grundler Department of Molecular Phytomedicine University of Bonn Tel. +49-(0)228/731675 Email: grundler@uni-bonn.de Imagine a future in which every home has an appliance that pulls all the water the household needs out of the air, even in dry or desert climates, using only the power of the sun. That future may be around the corner, with the demonstration this week of a water harvester that uses only ambient sunlight to pull liters of water out of the air each day in conditions as low as 20 percent humidity, a level common in arid areas. The solar-powered harvester, reported in the journal Science, was constructed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology using a special material - a metal-organic framework, or MOF - produced at the University of California, Berkeley. "This is a major breakthrough in the long-standing challenge of harvesting water from the air at low humidity," said Omar Yaghi, one of two senior authors of the paper, who holds the James and Neeltje Tretter chair in chemistry at UC Berkeley and is a faculty scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. "There is no other way to do that right now, except by using extra energy. Your electric dehumidifier at home 'produces' very expensive water." The prototype, under conditions of 20-30 percent humidity, was able to pull 2.8 liters (3 quarts) of water from the air over a 12-hour period, using one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of MOF. Rooftop tests at MIT confirmed that the device works in real-world conditions. "One vision for the future is to have water off-grid, where you have a device at home running on ambient solar for delivering water that satisfies the needs of a household," said Yaghi, who is the founding director of the Berkeley Global Science Institute, a co-director of the Kavli Energy NanoSciences Institute and the California Research Alliance by BASF. "To me, that will be made possible because of this experiment. I call it personalized water." Yaghi invented metal-organic frameworks more than 20 years ago, combining metals like magnesium or aluminum with organic molecules in a tinker-toy arrangement to create rigid, porous structures ideal for storing gases and liquids. Since then, more than 20,000 different MOFs have been created by researchers worldwide. Some hold chemicals such as hydrogen or methane: the chemical company BASF is testing one of Yaghi's MOFs in natural gas-fueled trucks, since MOF-filled tanks hold three times the methane that can be pumped under pressure into an empty tank. Other MOFs are able to capture carbon dioxide from flue gases, catalyze the reaction of adsorbed chemicals or separate petrochemicals in processing plants. In 2014, Yaghi and his UC Berkeley team synthesized a MOF - a combination of zirconium metal and adipic acid - that binds water vapor, and he suggested to Evelyn Wang, a mechanical engineer at MIT, that they join forces to turn the MOF into a water-collecting system. The system Wang and her students designed consisted of more than two pounds of dust-sized MOF crystals compressed between a solar absorber and a condenser plate, placed inside a chamber open to the air. As ambient air diffuses through the porous MOF, water molecules preferentially attach to the interior surfaces. X-ray diffraction studies have shown that the water vapor molecules often gather in groups of eight to form cubes. Sunlight entering through a window heats up the MOF and drives the bound water toward the condenser, which is at the temperature of the outside air. The vapor condenses as liquid water and drips into a collector. "This work offers a new way to harvest water from air that does not require high relative humidity conditions and is much more energy efficient than other existing technologies," Wang said. This proof of concept harvester leaves much room for improvement, Yaghi said. The current MOF can absorb only 20 percent of its weight in water, but other MOF materials could possibly absorb 40 percent or more. The material can also be tweaked to be more effective at higher or lower humidity levels. "It's not just that we made a passive device that sits there collecting water; we have now laid both the experimental and theoretical foundations so that we can screen other MOFs, thousands of which could be made, to find even better materials," he said. "There is a lot of potential for scaling up the amount of water that is being harvested. It is just a matter of further engineering now." Yaghi and his team are at work improving their MOFs, while Wang continues to improve the harvesting system to produce more water. "To have water running all the time, you could design a system that absorbs the humidity during the night and evolves it during the day," he said. "Or design the solar collector to allow for this at a much faster rate, where more air is pushed in. We wanted to demonstrate that if you are cut off somewhere in the desert, you could survive because of this device. A person needs about a Coke can of water per day. That is something one could collect in less than an hour with this system." ### Co-authors of the paper with Yaghi and Wang are Eugene Kapustin and Hiroyasu Furukawa of UC Berkeley and Hyunho Kim, Sungwoo Yang, Sameer Rao, Shankar Narayanan and Ari Umans of MIT. The work was supported in part by ARPA-E, a program of the U.S. Department of Energy. The work on MOFs in Yaghi's laboratory is supported by BASF and the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Detecting cancer early, just as changes are beginning in DNA, could enhance diagnosis and treatment as well as further our understanding of the disease. A new study by University of Illinois researchers describes a method to detect, count and map tiny additions to DNA called methylations, which can be a warning sign of cancer, with unprecedented resolution. The method threads DNA strands through a tiny hole, called a nanopore, in an atomically thin sheet of material with an electrical current running through it. The study was published in the inaugural issue of the journal npj 2D Materials and Applications, a new journal from Nature Press. "One or a few methylations is not a big deal, but if there are many of them and they are packed close together, then it's bad," said study leader Jean-Pierre Leburton, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Illinois. "DNA methylation is actually a starting process for cancer. So we want to detect how many of them there are and how close together they are. That can tell us at which stage the cancer is." Other attempts at using nanopores to detect methylation have been limited in resolution. Researchers begin by punching a tiny hole in a flat sheet of material only one atom or molecule thick. The pore is submerged in a salt solution and an electrical current is applied to drive the DNA molecule through the pore. Dips in the current alert researchers that a methyl group is passing through. However, when two or three are close together, the pore interprets it as one signal, Leburton said. The Illinois group tried a slightly different approach. They applied a current directly to the conductive sheet surrounding the pore. Working with Klaus Schulten, a professor of physics at Illinois, Leburton's group at Illinois' Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology used advanced computer simulations to test applying current to different flat materials, such as graphene and molybdenum disulfide, as methylated DNA was threaded through. See a video of one simulation on YouTube. "Our simulations indicate that measuring the current through the membrane instead of just the solution around it is much more precise," Leburton said. "If you have two methylations close together, even only 10 base pairs away, you continue to see two dips and no overlapping. We also can map where they are on the strand, so we can see how many there are and where they are." Leburton's group is working with collaborators to improve DNA threading, to cut down on noise in the electrical signal and to perform experiments to verify their simulations. ### Grants from Oxford Nanopore Technology, the Beckman Institute, the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation supported this work. Editor's notes: To reach Jean-Pierre Leburton, call (217) 333-6813; email: jleburto@illinois.edu. The paper "Detection and mapping of DNA methylation with 2D material nanopores" is available online. doi:10.1038/s41699-017-0005-7 An international team of citizen scientists and researchers has identified a major contributor to the dramatic decline of migratory shorebird populations in Australia. University of Queensland School of Biological Sciences researcher Associate Professor Richard Fuller said Australian shorebirds were under threat due to the degradation and destruction of mudflats thousands of kilometres away in north-east Asia. Associate Professor Fuller was part of a team of researchers who worked on a shorebird study led by Assistant Professor Colin Studds of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Dr Studds said a critical factor in the decline of migratory shorebirds was their dependence on mudflats in the Yellow Sea, between China and South Korea. "The more a species relies on the disappearing Yellow Sea mudflats, the faster they are declining," Dr Studds said. He said birds including species of godwit, curlew and sandpiper were under threat. Many birds follow the East Asian Australasian Flyway migratory path from their non-breeding grounds in Australia to breeding sites in the Arctic, resting and refueling in the Yellow Sea. "Scientists have long believed that loss of these rest stops could be related to the declines, but there was no smoking gun," Dr Studds said. The researchers analysed citizen science data collected between 1993 and 2012 on 10 key species, and what they found was dramatic. Even though the birds only spend one or two months of the year at the mudflats, it was the most important factor in determining the population trend. Associate Professor Fuller said the study was founded on decades of bird counting effort by volunteers across Australia and New Zealand. "Without this effort, the study would have been impossible," he said. Australia has signed agreements with China, Korea and Japan to protect migratory birds, yet the birds have continued to decline. "Every country along the migration route of these birds must protect habitat and reduce hunting to prevent the birds declining further or even going extinct," Associate Professor Fuller said. "We are particularly excited that China and Korea have recently begun the process of listing parts of the Yellow Sea as World Heritage Sites." ### The study, published in Nature Communications, involved researchers from across Australia and from the US, the UK and New Zealand. AUSTIN, Texas -- A new study published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences refines our understanding of a human skill -- the ability to instantaneously assess a new environment and get oriented thanks to visual cues. Whereas humans can look at a complex landscape like a mountain vista and almost immediately orient themselves to navigate its multiple regions over long distances, other mammals such as rodents orient relative to physical cues -- like approaching and sniffing a wall -- that build up over time. The way humans navigate their surroundings and understand their relative position includes an environment-dependent scaling mechanism, an adaptive coordinate system with differences from other mammals, according to the study led by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin. "Our research, based on human data, redefines the fundamental properties of the internal coordinate system," said Zoltan Nadasdy, lead author of the study and an adjunct assistant professor in the university's Department of Psychology. Nadasdy is also a researcher at Eotvos Lorand University and the Sarah Cannon Research Institute at St. David's Medical Center. "Dysfunction in this system causes memory problems and disorientation, such as we see in Alzheimer's disease and age-related decline. So, it's vital that we continue to further our understanding of this part of the brain," he said. Through a partnership with Seton Healthcare Family, the researchers in the UT Austin Human Brain Stimulation and Electrophysiology Lab were able to measure relevant brain activity of epileptic patients whose diagnostic procedure requires that they have electrodes planted in the entorhinal cortex of the brain. Neurons there serve as the internal coordinate system for humans. (The brains of individuals with epilepsy function normally when not undergoing a seizure.) Patients performed a virtual navigation task on a tablet computer in four environments daily for seven to eight consecutive days. By measuring their brain activity, the researchers identified three previously unknown traits of the system: Humans rescale their internal coordinate system according to the size of each new environment. This flexibility differs from rodents' rigid map that has a constant grid scale and empowers humans to navigate diverse places. When seeking navigational cues in any given location, humans automatically align their internal compass with the corners and shape of the space. In contrast, rodents do so relative to the walls of the environment through physical exploration. The nature of the coordinate system differs between humans and rodents -- Cartesian and hexagonal respectively. The findings illuminate the fabric of the human memory and spatial navigation, which are vulnerable to disease and deterioration. Deeper knowledge of these neuronal mechanisms can inform the development of techniques to prolong the health of this part of the brain and combat diseases such as Alzheimer's. The study builds on earlier Nobel Prize-winning research exploring the entorhinal cortex of rodents. Due to the differences discovered between the human and rodent systems of navigation, the researchers emphasize that generalizing results from studies on animal subjects may provide inaccurate conjectures. This study is one of the few on human subjects that report on the activity of individual neuron behavior, said Gyorgy Buzsaki, an expert from New York University Medical Center who was not involved in the research. "They not only confirm a previous report but extend the findings by showing that the size of the neuronal representation by entorhinal grid cells scales with the environment," Buzsaki said. "Our hypothesis is challenging the definition of a universal spatial scale of environment predominant in lower mammals, which may open up important avenues of discovery," said Robert Buchanan, another lead author on the study and an associate professor at Dell Medical School. He is also an adjunct associate professor in the university's Department of Psychology and a chief of neurosurgery at Seton Brain and Spine Institute. "Now, we can continue to explore this key component of what it means to be human -- how we think about our past and future, how we imagine and plan," Buchanan said. By using virtual reality, the researchers also refined a new experimental technology for facilitating spatial experiences that can't be reproduced in a laboratory. The data implies that humans can seamlessly switch between reality and virtual reality -- a finding that can be applied in other studies of the brain. ### The study's co-authors include Peter Nguyen at the Baylor College of Medicine; Agoston Torok at Eotvos Lorand University and Hungarian Academy of Sciences; Jason Shen at UT Austin's Dell Medical School and Seton Brain and Spine Institute; Deborah Briggs at UT Austin's Dell Medical School and Seton Brain and Spine Institute; and Pradeep Modur at UT Austin's Dell Medical School and Seton Brain and Spine Institute. The research was supported by the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation and the Seton Seed Grant for Research. What is the volume of water in lakes on Earth? Using a mathematical analysis, researcher David Seekell, at Umea University, and his American collaborators now suggest that the mean depth of lakes is 30 per cent lower than previously estimated. Shallower lakes implies less fresh water and has consequences for our understanding of climate change and the carbon cycle. The results have been published in Geophysical Research Letters. "Our estimations measure around 190,000 km3, which is a very small amount of water. In comparison, the ocean contains 1.3 billion km3 of water. If we poured the water of all lakes on Earth together into one big lake, the mean depth of the lake would be 42 metres. The mean depth of the ocean is 3,682 metres," says David Seekell, associate professor at the Department of Ecology and Environmental Sciences and the Climate Impacts Research Centre (CIRC) at Umea University in Sweden. A possible conclusion is if lakes are shallower, they release more methane into the atmosphere than previously estimated. Measuring the volume of the lakes on Earth seems like a simple task. Nevertheless, the challenges to carry out a measurement on a global scale are huge. Satellites can measure the volume of very large lakes, such as for instance Lake Vattern in Sweden or Lake Superior in the United States and Canada, but measuring the tens of millions of small lakes spread across the surface of the Earth requires time-consuming field work. A commonly used method is GPS positioning and depth sounder by boat. The researcher is required to row around on the lake until he or she has collected a large number of depths. The depths and coordinates are later used to build bathymetric maps which the volume and mean depth can be derived from. The approach works well for small lakes, but is expensive due to the time-consuming process and only a small number of lakes can be mapped. So far, there have been few estimates of the volume of fresh water in lakes on Earth, and those that exist vary greatly and are typically presented without any data or methods. "We decided to use a theory driven approach. We assumed that the surface of the Earth is self-affine. This basically means that if you zoomed in and out of a cross-section of the Earth's surface, the statistical characteristics of the vertical topography are predictable based upon a stretching factor," says David Seekell. "We were able to use the model to estimate the mean volume of lakes at each given lake surface area, but also for variations in volume of lakes with the same surface area. Given the total lake surface area on Earth - which can actually be accurately recorded by satellite, even for small lakes - we were now able to estimate the total volume and assess the uncertainty in the estimate," says David Seekell. The research team assessed that there are 184,000-199,000 km3 of lake water. The reason behind the variation can be explained by how lakes are counted and how their surface area is measured, particularly the smaller ones. The majority of lake water can be found in a few very large lakes such as the Caspian Sea, Lake Superior, and Lake Baikal. In fact, about 80 percent of lake water can be found in the 20 largest lakes alone. The quality and quantity of lake water can rapidly change due to human activities. For example, in some regions many ponds and reservoirs have been built for ornamental purposes, for irrigation, to generate electricity, or to store drinking water, which increasing the volume of fresh water. On the other hand, some large lakes have dried up and disappeared. For example, Lake Poopo in Bolivia previously had a surface area of about 3,000 km2 and was one of the largest lakes in Bolivia. Due to climate change and water diversions for agricultural production, there is almost no water left, which greatly affects local communities. A very similar story can be told about the Aral Sea - once the fourth largest lake on Earth - where climate change and water diversions for agriculture have left only a tiny fraction of its former surface. It is not only quantity that is of great concern at the moment. The water quality of the largest lakes on Earth are subject to degradation due to human activities. For example, Lake Erie in the United States and Canada with a surface area of about 25,667 km2 has been exposed to nutrient pollution and harmful algae blooms. This has rendered the lake an unreliable source for drinking water for communities along the shoreline. As a consequence, over 400,000 people even lost access to drinking water due to neurotoxins in the lake water associated with algae bloom in 2014. "Our study emphasizes the relative scarcity of lake water, and how rapidly human activities can change the quality and quantity of water resources," says David Seekell. ### April 13, 2017 - Sixteen percent of children in pediatric intensive care units (ICUs) have acute neurological conditions with brain damage due to cardiac arrest, traumatic brain injury, or other causes, reports an international survey study in Pediatric Critical Care Medicine. The journal is published by Wolters Kluwer. "Children with acute neurologic insults are common in ICUs and are associated with high morbidity and mortality rates and prolonged ICU stays, posing significant challenges to public, family, and individual health," according to the report by the PANGEA Investigators, led by Ericka L. Fink, MD, MS, of Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh. The findings underscore the need for "transformational ideas" to improve outcomes for this large group of critically ill children at high risk of adverse clinical outcomes. Worldwide Snapshot of Acute Neurological Conditions Among Critically Ill Children The PANGEA study (Prevalence of Acute Critical Neurological Disease in Children: A Global Epidemiological Assessment) was designed to assess the multinational prevalence and outcomes of critical neurological injuries and illnesses among children in participating ICUs. On four days during a one-year period, ICUs at 107 hospitals provided information on children with acute neurological conditions. "Acute neurological conditions in children are associated with high mortality and morbidity (cognitive, physical and emotional disability) rates, and largely lack targeted neuroprotective therapies that improve outcome," Dr. Fink explains. "Measuring the burden of these conditions is a step towards strategizing prospective study design and allocation of resources to achieve the long-term goal of improving outcome for these children." The hospitals contributed information on a total of 924 patients. Although nearly 90% of the hospitals were in North America or Europe, hospitals in Africa, Asia, Oceania and South America were represented as well. A separate study looking specifically at traumatic brain injury at low-resource settings in Africa is underway (PANGEA-Developing Countries). Overall, 16.2% of children in the reporting ICUs had acute neurological conditions. The children's ages ranged from seven days to 17 years. Many children had preexisting medical conditions, but 61% had normal neurological status before their current hospitalizations. Cardiac arrest, resulting in lack of blood flow to the brain, was the most common overall cause of acute neurological conditions (23%). Other causes included traumatic brain injury (19%), central nervous system infection or inflammation (16%), and stroke or a mass, such as a brain tumor (9% each). Regions differed in terms of most common condition reported. Infection/inflammation was the most common cause in Asia, South America, and the sole African hospital contributing to the study. In all other regions, cardiac arrest was the main cause. The children were at high risk of poor outcomes. Twelve percent died overall, the highest rate in children with cardiac arrest (24%). Another 32% were left with moderate to severe neurological disability at the three-month follow-up, including nearly half of those with traumatic brain injury. The children had long lengths of stay, an average of 13 days in the ICU and 22 days in the hospital. "The growth of pediatric neurocritical care services in pediatric ICUs and development of a pediatric neurocritical care research network reflect the specialty's acknowledgment and commitment to improve outcomes for children with acute neurologic insults," Dr. Fink and coauthors write. They believe that the PANGEA data "suggest a vital need for resources to assist in the challenge of improving outcomes for these children throughout the span of the periods of emergency care through to rehabilitation." ### Click here to read "International Survey of Critically Ill Children With Acute Neurologic Insults: The Prevalence of Acute Critical Neurological Disease in Children: A Global Epidemiological Assessment Study*." Article: "International Survey of Critically Ill Children With Acute Neurologic Insults: The Prevalence of Acute Critical Neurological Disease in Children: A Global Epidemiological Assessment Study*" (doi: 10.1097/PCC.0000000000001093) Note to editors: For further information, contact Curtis Powell, Director of Marketing and Communications for SCCM: phone +1 (847) 827-7282 or +1 (312) 285-6551, or e-mail cpowell@sccm.org. About the Society of Critical Care Medicine The Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM) is the largest nonprofit medical organization dedicated to promoting excellence and consistency in the practice of critical care. With members in more than 100 countries, SCCM is the only organization that represents all professional components of the critical care team. The Society offers a variety of activities that ensure excellence in patient care, education, research and advocacy. SCCM's mission is to secure the highest-quality care for all critically ill and injured patients. Visit http://www.sccm.org for more information. Follow @SCCM or visit us on Facebook. About Pediatric Critical Care Medicine Pediatric Critical Care Medicine is the official journal of the Society of Critical Care Medicine, the World Federation of Pediatric Intensive and Critical Care Societies, the Pediatric Intensive Care Society UK, the Latin American Society of Pediatric Intensive Care, and the Japanese Society of Pediatric Intensive and Critical Care. This exciting journal is the first scientific, peer-reviewed publication to focus exclusively on pediatric critical care medicine and critical care neonatology. About Wolters Kluwer Wolters Kluwer N.V. (AEX: WKL) is a global leader in information services and solutions for professionals in the health, tax and accounting, risk and compliance, finance and legal sectors. We help our customers make critical decisions every day by providing expert solutions that combine deep domain knowledge with specialized technology and services. Wolters Kluwer reported 2016 annual revenues of 4.3 billion. The company, headquartered in Alphen aan den Rijn, the Netherlands, serves customers in over 180 countries, maintains operations in over 40 countries and employs 19,000 people worldwide. Wolters Kluwer shares are listed on Euronext Amsterdam (WKL) and are included in the AEX and Euronext 100 indices. Wolters Kluwer has a sponsored Level 1 American Depositary Receipt program. The ADRs are traded on the over-the-counter market in the U.S. (WTKWY). For more information about our solutions and organization, visit http://www.wolterskluwer.com, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. An intermediate chromatin structure during nucleosome remodeling is determined, and may explain how nucleosome repositioning occurs Tokyo, April 14 - A research group led by Hitoshi Kurumizaka, a professor of structural biology at Waseda University, unveiled the crystal structure of an overlapping dinucleosome, a newly discovered chromatin structural unit. This may explain how nucleosome repositioning occurs and provide valuable information for developing drugs to treat genetic diseases. This research is published in Science. Humans develop from a single cell, which divides repeatedly to form organisms. These divided cells all carry the same genetic information and differentiate to form tissues with different functions. When a hand is formed, for example, only the genes needed to form a hand are "switched on," and all the other genes other than those used to form a hand remain switched off. Epigenetics is the field of research that aims to explain this so-called genetic switch, which controls the expression of genes that compose the structure of each organism. A DNA string stores all of a person's genetic information and measures 2 meters long. This long of DNA must be packed in a nucleus of only about 10 micrometers in diameter. To do so, the DNA is folded neatly into a structure called chromatin. To decipher the genetic information in this condition, the chromatin structure is dynamically modified for reading. This change in chromatin structure regulates the differences in genes being read and differentiate phenotypic variations of cells. A chromatin is composed of four histone proteins with DNA wrapped around a chain of spools known as nucleosomes. When reading genetic information, a chromatin structure is modified, so that the DNA packed into the chromatin becomes easier to read by repositioning the nucleosome near the point where the reading starts. Then, an RNA polymerase, an enzyme that transcribes the genes, starts reading the DNA from where the nucleosome was moved. This phenomenon of repositioning is called nucleosome remodeling. It was hypothesized that in nucleosome remodeling, nucleosomes collide and form a chromatin structural unit known as an overlapping dinucleosome (Figure 01). The formation of an overlapping dinucleosome through nucleosome remodeling was thought to be crucial for regulating the genetic switch, but its existence and actual structure were elusive. Professor Kurumizaka's research group determined the three-dimensional structure of an overlapping dinucleosome at atomic resolution. "Our team developed a method to reconstitute overlapping dinucleosomes in vitro and to prepare them in large quantities with high purity. We succeeded in crystallizing the purified overlapping dinucleosomes (Figure 02), and using these, we conducted x-ray diffraction experiments at SPring-8, a large-scale synchrotron radiation facility." These discoveries are promising for expanding research on the link between the overlapping dinucleosome and the genetic switch. Moreover, mutations in nucleosome remodeling proteins have been found in various cancers, including ovarian and bladder cancers. This suggests that an incomplete formation of overlapping dinucleosome may trigger abnormalities in the genetic switch, turning normal cells into tumor cells. Accordingly, understanding the atomic structure of the overlapping dinucleosome may provide valuable information for understanding how the abnormal dynamics of chromatin are related to cancer, offering essential information for development in cancer drugs. Professor Kurumizaka is intrigued to study the correlation between the overlapping dinucleosome formation and the genomic DNA functions in cells in the future. ### Article title: Crystal structure of the overlapping dinucleosome composed of hexasome and octasome * This was a collaborative study led by Professor Hitoshi Kurumizaka of Waseda University, in collaboration with researchers from Hiroshima University, Yokohama City University, Kyushu University, the National Institutes for Quantum and Radiological Science and Technology, and Kyoto University. About Waseda University Waseda University is a leading private, non-profit institution of higher education based in central Tokyo, with over 50,000 students in 13 undergraduate and 21 graduate schools. Founded in 1882, Waseda cherishes three guiding principles: academic independence, practical innovation and the education of enlightened citizens. Established to mold future leaders, Waseda continues to fulfill this mission, counting among its alumni seven prime ministers and countless other politicians, business leaders, journalists, diplomats, scholars, scientists, actors, writers, athletes and artists. Waseda is number one in Japan in international activities, including number of incoming and outgoing study abroad students, with the broadest range of degree programs taught fully in English, and exchange partnerships with over 600 top institutions in 84 countries. From: Ad Council For Immediate Release: Dateline: New York , NY Thursday, April 13, 2017 In todays world, we can roll over in the morning and ask Alexa to start brewing our coffee, give us the weather, order more coffee beans and play our Spotify playlist without ever touching a button. Sure, the setup is a bit more complex and not quite seamless yet, but were clearly moving away from interacting solely with screens and towards different forms of communication with artificial intelligence (AI). At SXSW in 2013, Instead of a terminal world, voice is becoming a more mainstream interface as weve gone from Apples Siri to Amazons Alexa, Googles Home, Microsofts Cortana and Samsungs Bixby all of which can communicate back and learn about us from us. Sophie said, the moment the machine starts talking, we assume a relationship with them. We assume there will be empathy, support, and advice. This is natural for us to expect. We have already seen robots that are capable of understanding, computing and engaging with humans on an emotional level in movies such as I,Robot, Ex Machina and Big Hero 6. With such a high level of expectation for emotional intelligence from the users, heres what the AI experts believe is important to keep in mind as we design these new machines. Machines should make us feel like we are flourishing. During her talk on What is the users emotional state? What are the users ambitions? Whats the nature of the interaction? What is the users context? Machines should be our sidekick. , who was a storyboard artist at Pixar, implemented some of Context is king. We have already mastered making the internet perfect for transactional engagements, so we shouldnt insert new or create more conversations when people are expecting a quick transaction. Its important to map the user journey and identify when a conversation fits in, and depending on the context, how the machine should respond. Know whether it should: React like a machine React like an extension of self React like a human Trust in the relationship. For this relationship to grow and sustain itself, we (humans) must be able to trust that we are not being manipulated, violated or being taken advantage of by the machine. What is too much? When is it unethical? Javier Hernandez of MIT Media Lab said Affective Computing (devices and systems can recognize, interpret, process and simulate human affects) is like nuclear power. We have to be responsible in defining how to use it. Designers should: Have an agreement on the intention of the personality and information. Design only what can be understood. Use a gradual progression of intimacy. Let it learn, but not too obviously. As with all AI, the machine learning algorithm needs to keep getting smarter as it engages with us, but it shouldnt draw attention to it. To accomplish this, Emma also focused on creating witty quips as part of the Google Assistant personality so it can deflect awkward questions from the user and keep the conversation going. This is a sneaky way to allow the machine learning algorithm to keep improving itself without drawing attention to the fact that its not actually answering a question. The post In todays world, we can roll over in the morning and ask Alexa to start brewing our coffee, give us the weather, order more coffee beans and play our Spotify playlist without ever touching a button. Sure, the setup is a bit more complex and not quite seamless yet, but were clearly moving away from interacting solely with screens and towards different forms of communication with artificial intelligence (AI).At SXSW in 2013, Golden Krishna emphasized this screenless world by saying that the best interface is actually no interface at all. At this years SXSW Sophie Kleber (Executive Director of Product and Innovation at HUGE) took it even further, when she said, we are no longer in a terminal world.Instead of a terminal world, voice is becoming a more mainstream interface as weve gone from Apples Siri to Amazons Alexa, Googles Home, Microsofts Cortana and Samsungs Bixby all of which can communicate back and learn about us from us. Sophie said, the moment the machine starts talking, we assume a relationship with them. We assume there will be empathy, support, and advice. This is natural for us to expect. We have already seen robots that are capable of understanding, computing and engaging with humans on an emotional level in movies such as I,Robot, Ex Machina and Big Hero 6. With such a high level of expectation for emotional intelligence from the users, heres what the AI experts believe is important to keep in mind as we design these new machines.During her talk on Designing Emotionally Intelligent Machines, Sophie pointed out that a machine should make us feel like we are flourishing. Martin Seligman, a leading positive psychologist defines flourish as the ability to be optimistic and view the past, present and future with a positive perspective and gives us a sense of satisfaction, pride and fulfillment when a goal is achieved. This means that the designer should think about: Emma Coats , who was a storyboard artist at Pixar, implemented some of Pixars 22 rules of storytelling as she created the Google Assistant personality. In a Wired interview, she mentioned that not all the rules could be applied because You, the person interacting with it, are the hero. Thats why the Assistant cant be opinionated: its there to be reliable, not to have depth. The Assistant is intended to be an endearing, trusty sidekick.We have already mastered making the internet perfect for transactional engagements, so we shouldnt insert new or create more conversations when people are expecting a quick transaction. Its important to map the user journey and identify when a conversation fits in, and depending on the context, how the machine should respond. Know whether it should:For this relationship to grow and sustain itself, we (humans) must be able to trust that we are not being manipulated, violated or being taken advantage of by the machine. What is too much? When is it unethical? Javier Hernandez of MIT Media Lab said Affective Computing (devices and systems can recognize, interpret, process and simulate human affects) is like nuclear power. We have to be responsible in defining how to use it. Designers should:As with all AI, the machine learning algorithm needs to keep getting smarter as it engages with us, but it shouldnt draw attention to it. To accomplish this, Emma also focused on creating witty quips as part of the Google Assistant personality so it can deflect awkward questions from the user and keep the conversation going. This is a sneaky way to allow the machine learning algorithm to keep improving itself without drawing attention to the fact that its not actually answering a question.The post How to Design Emotionally Intelligent AI appeared first on AdLibbing.org From: Joyce L. Gioia, CMC, CSP -- The Herman Group Austin , TX Wednesday, April 12, 2017 The Herman Trend Alert April 12, 2017 Global Skills-Jobs Gap The other day we interviewed futurist, Edward Gordon, PhD, author of Future Jobs: Solving the Employment and Skills Crisis. Gordon shared a great deal of up-to-date information about the global gap between jobs employers need to fill and the skilled workers to fill them. Germany: shrinking population and failing educational system Though Germany's population is shrinking by 100,000 people/year, the country has the premier dual system of education in the world---separating those students who are best fit for the trades and those who are college bound. The problem is that dual system is failing. Like the situation in the United States, the trades are not respected. Parents are pushing their children to go to university. Apart from Badden-Wittenberg and Bavaria, their system is simply not working. As if that were not enough, they have a shortage of 100,000 engineers. China's technological and economic challenges As China is struggling to move from cheap, mass-produced goods to higher-priced goods, they are transitioning to more sophisticated production facilities, which require more highly skilled workers. The reputed lack of quality control speaks to the fact that the Chinese lack an adequate educational system to support their great leap forward. All this change is happening against a backdrop of a slowed economy. India: a thriving economy with a weak educational system Unfortunately, though India's economy is growing (over 7 percent rise in GDP), its greatly expanded university system has resulted in colleges and universities becoming diploma mills. Moreover, its elementary and secondary school system is weaker than China's. Most graduates simply do not have the knowledge and skills Indian companies are looking for. The US is not doing any better Gordon reports: "The skills gap in the United States is serious. The impending retirements of 20 million baby boomers by 2020 will add to this gap. According the National Association of Home Builders, about 200,000 construction jobs are unfilled nationwide. There are now 500,000 IT and computer science jobs, 600,000 unfilled high-end manufacturing jobs, and at least 700,000 vacant nursing positions according to surveys conducted by their professional associations. Both Boeing and Airbus are struggling to find enough trained aerospace technicians to ease their gigantic backlog of unfilled aircraft orders. Many communities have started RETAINs (Regional Talent Innovation Networks) which are public-private partnerships focused on rebuilding regional education-to-employment delivery systems." South Korea: the exception "South Korea is an economic and education miracle of major proportions." Its population is highly educated and its students compete very well on OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) global tests (9th in the world in reading performance). However, now even Korea has a shortage of engineers, and many of its young people are so addicted to computer games, there are now boot camps to help them break free. What are the solutions? Start early: introduce your careers to students in elementary schools; encourage schools to tour your facilities. Consider mentoring promising high school students. Offer scholarships and tie them to internships and on the job training. Companies also need to work with their local school systems and the technical colleges to ensure that the educational institutions are producing employable graduates. ******** The Herman Group is a firm of Strategic Business Futurists concentrating on workforce and workplace issues. We forecast the future and advise clients regarding relevant trends and how those trends may affect their lives. Applying our expertise as Certified Management Consultants, we advise corporate leaders regarding employee retention and organizational development to help them build workforce stability. We help organizations become Employers of Choice. We also work with Employer of Choice, Inc. to formally recognize employers that meet the stringent standards dictated by the labor marketplace. As authors of management books and as active professional speakers, we inform and inspire people to make a positive difference in the world of work. You did really get the ball rolling with our retention presentation, overall we have seen a move in the right direction with our turnover. In practice since 1980, we have served a wide variety of clients throughout the United States and in other countries. Our global affiliates assist us in sharing our expertise and advice with clients internationally. Our team of professional consultants and trainers is supported by an administrative staff that gets things done. We also have consultants certified to deliver our programs in your local area. Delivering to both small and large groups across 100 industries, The Herman Group has provided over 2,500 educational and informative keynote speeches and training seminars worldwide. Based in Greensboro, North Carolina, we travel extensively to meet the needs of our clients. We can always be reached through the support team in our office at (800) 227-3566. Overseas callers may reach us through 336-210-3547. Should you have any questions after touring our website, please call or e-mail us at info@hermangroup.com. Get started now on improving the stability and performance of your workforce and increase your chances for success in the future. British Sandwich Week is a week-long celebration of the greatest food to go and quite possibly the most iconic British culinary invention, the sandwich. Ever since John Montague, the 4th Earl of Sandwich ordered cold beef between slices of toast, to avoid getting up from his cards game, his name has become synonymous with the delectable dish. Of course, meat and bread were staples long before he tucked into on while playing cards, but he gave rise to the concept of having one as a convenient meal while getting on with other things! Todays world is catching up with old Monty we want to get on with our lives and grab a sandwich, the ultimate food to go. So much so that in Britain alone we buy over 3.5 billion sandwiches a year, spending some 7.85bn in the process (2016 data). The fabulous dish Challenges for the consumer spend are all around us with so much choice, British Sandwich Week is also a way of focussing the consumers attention on this fabulous dish. Sandwich manufacturers and retailers across the UK all have their own way of celebrating this fantastic food, many offering special promotions and new ranges during British Sandwich Week. Several will also be building on their charitable links by donating some of their proceeds or even having buy-one-donate-one initiatives for customers to take part in. On the theme of celebrating, the sandwich industry also holds its annual Awards, the Sammies, where the Best New Sandwich, Sandwich Retailer of the Year and many more are crowned. The European Council of Young Farmers (CEJA) has called for institutions to not weaken the definition of an active farmer in process of simplifying the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). In response to ongoing efforts to simplify CAP, European agricultural organisation CEJA has called for special attention to be paid to ensuring simplification does not lead to the introduction of 'ineffective measures', such as weakening the definition of active farmer, in order to simplify administration. The European Union is looking to modernise and simplify the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) post-2020. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker announced the CAP will be 'simplified' and 'modernised', and is seeking thoughts from the sector on ways to improve the system. 'Great change for Europe' We are in a time of great change for Europe, explained CEJA President Alan Jagoe. We can be ambitious, we can strive for excellence, but we have to ensure that efforts to simplify dont end up damaging the effectiveness of our cause. Having a strong definition on active farmer will help generational renewal, drive structural change and aid land mobility. A strong definition is vital to what we should all be aiming to achieve, as young farmers are the key in the future CAP." The organisation has proposed the need for the definition of active farmer to be strengthened, improved and remain mandatory throughout the EU for years to come. To improve the current definition, CEJA proposes the introduction of further criteria at EU level. Major retailer Marks and Spencer has pledged to source 100 per cent Scottish lamb ahead of Easter amid growing anger over imported lamb in supermarkets. The pledge to return to 100 per cent Scottish in all Scottish stores by the weekend merits similar response from other retailers, says NFU Scotland. Scottish farmers have welcomed the response by Marks and Spencer. It comes as many farmers were described as 'justifiably angry' at the level of imported lamb products on British supermarket shelves this Easter. Shelf watch campaign The retailer was responding to an NFU Scotland shelf watch campaign which found significant volumes of imported lamb on almost all supermarket shelves as we approach Easter, giving people few opportunities to buy Scottish lamb. Last year, Marks and Spencers made a commitment to source 100 per cent Scottish lamb for its Scottish stores this season. However, secret shoppers found the retailer had a significant amount of imported lamb on some of its shelves this week. A statement from the retailer has apologised, indicated that an error in its delivery system was responsible, pledged to have it rectified over the weekend and reaffirmed its commitment to sourcing only Scottish lamb for its Scottish stores. The farming union said it is keen to see all supermarkets now make a similar pledge. In its shelf watch this week, only Aldi stores were found to be stocking 100 per cent Scottish lamb. Despite previous commitments by some retailers, Tesco, Asda, Sainsburys, the Co-op, Morrisons and Lidl have all chosen to import huge volumes of New Zealand and Australian lamb, shunning home producers at this hugely important time of year for lamb sales. Looking hard for local Commenting on the M and S statement, NFU Scotland President Andrew McCornick said: Having a leading retailer delivering on its commitment to stock exclusively Scottish lamb in its Scottish stores is great news at a time when Scottish farmers and crofters are coming through the difficult spring lambing period. Sadly, the Unions shelf watch indicated that shoppers have to look hard in stores to find any Scottish. Justifiably, many will rely on their local butcher if they want to buy some fresh, tasty and local Scottish lamb. Scottish shoppers want Scottish lamb and butchers, Aldi and M and S show other retailers what can be achieved. Looking ahead, we welcome plans from the Co-op to move to 100 per cent home-produced across all fresh meat later this year. And we continue to call for Tesco and Asda to extend their season for buying home produced lamb in a bid to boost sales of Scottish. We will also be asking questions of Morrisons and Lidl, who have failed to maintain their previous good record on domestic sourcing. Two members of tractor enthusiast club Blue Force are celebrating 100 years of blue tractor production by undertaking a 5000 mile drive, not previously attempted on tractors. The pair have set off from New Holland's Basildon factory in two new T6 tractors supplied by the manufacturer. Blue Force club members have a passion for preserving and running vintage and modern Fordson, Ford and New Holland marque tractors. Phil Gibson, chairman of Blue Force, and Peter Plehov, club treasurer, will drive a route around the coast of mainland UK & Ireland, stopping at several points on route including Bournemouth, Galway and Edinburgh. Each tractor will tow a shepherds hut, built by Phil and Peter Today, Phil and Peter set off from New Hollands Basildon factory at 9am on new T6.145 and T6.180 tractors, which have been donated by New Holland. Each tractor will tow a shepherds hut, built by Phil and Peter. One hut for sleeping accommodation and the other for fuel, oil and supplies. The trip is almost entirely funded by donations that have come from club members and generous sponsors Phil and Peters Coastline Tractor Challenge will culminate at Tractor Fest on the 10th & 11th of June at Newby Hall, Ripon, North Yorkshire. 'Overwhelmed' Andrew Watson, Business Director, New Holland UK and Ireland, said: "We have always had a close relationship with the Blue Force Club so we were delighted to assist Peter and Phil when we heard about their challenge. We look forward to following their progress and wish them luck on their journey. Phil Gibson said: "I have been overwhelmed by the tremendous support from New Holland, without them we would not be doing any of this." The trip is almost entirely funded by donations that have come from club members and generous sponsors. New Holland dealer Robertsons of Orkney have funded the pairs ferry crossings to the Orkney Islands to guarantee the islands blue tractor fans can be part of the celebrations. Other New Holland dealers along the 5000-mile route are hosting events to celebrate 100 years of blue tractors and support Phil and Peter on their Coastline Challenge. Phil, who is a lifelong blue tractor user and fan, said about the challenge that he and treasurer Peter had, "lived, worked and breathed tractors all our lives, but this is something very new." The Coastline Challenge will also raise funds for two charities, Steps Conductive Education Centre in Loughborough, and Cancer Research UK. Phil and Peter have a personal connection with the charities and the pair aim to raise 25,000 by the end of 2017. They have raised nearly 7,000 before setting off from Basildon. West Country meat and cheese were given the royal seal of approval at a tasting in Italy. Levy-funded Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) was joined by Prince Charles at an event in Fiesole, Tuscany, this month which was also attended by Italian dignitaries and media. The wine, meat and cheese tasting featured West Country beef, lamb with Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) and West Country Farmhouse Cheddar with Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) And the food was paired with some of the best wines from Tuscany at the Hotel Belmond Villa San, which proved to be a huge success. In January 2014, PGIs for West Country beef and West Country lamb were recognised by the European Commission and published in the Official Journal of the EU. This means that beef and lamb from the region that meets specific criteria, such as being at least 70 per cent forage fed, is eligible to carry the PGI logo and can be badged as West Country and promoted on the basis of their rearing environment. 'Italians value great taste' AHDB Head of Exports Jean Pierre Garnier said: We are grateful for the support of HM The Prince of Wales during his short visit to Italy. We are very keen to develop sales of beef, lamb and cheese from the West Country. The products have been welcomed by Italian distributors and are already attractively merchandised by some Italian retailers. Italian consumers value PGI and PDO products and the green, traditional West Country image has a favourable perception. The Italians above all value the great taste, tenderness and consistency of West Country meats and the superior flavour of real matured Cheddar cheese. We hope this tasting will help to further establish them in Italy. Five things for farmers to watch out for in Autumn Statement Fresh on the heels of its surprising decision to unload the bulk of its Canadian assets, ConocoPhillips (COP -0.33%) is back with another deal. This time the U.S. oil and gas giant is sticking with its declared strategy after announcing a deal to jettison its San Juan Basin gas assets for up to $3 billion. In doing so, it's taking another step toward its goal of accelerating value creation for shareholders. Drilling down into the deal In its latest deal, ConocoPhillips agreed to sell its entire position in the San Juan Basin to Hilcorp Energy for up to $3 billion. The company will receive $2.7 billion at closing and a contingent payment of up to $300 million. Under the terms of the agreement, starting next year, ConocoPhillips can receive an annual payment over the next six years of $7 million per month for every month the price of natural gas is above $3.20 per MMBtu, with those payments capped at $300 million. This deal does four things for ConocoPhillips. First, it accelerates the value of its San Juan Basin assets since the company will receive $2.7 billion up front for assets that were only generating about $200 million in annual cash flow. Though that price is well below the company's $5.9 billion net book value of the assets, due in large part to the premium the company paid when it acquired Burlington Resources in 2006. For comparison sake, ConocoPhillips' $13.3 billion Canadian asset sale to Cenovus Energy (CVE 1.27%) represented a premium to the $10.9 billion net book value of those properties, which enabled ConocoPhillips to unlock value. The other three things this deal does is reduces the company's exposure to North American dry gas, it further focuses the portfolio toward higher margin oil and liquids, and it preserves some upside via the contingent payment. The ability to hold on to some of the upside has been a hallmark of the company's transactions this year. It was an essential component of the Cenovus Energy transaction, which included both an uncapped contingent payment over the next five years and the ability to participate in the equity upside of the $2.7 billion in Cenovus' stock that it acquired as part of the deal. By including these provisions in the agreements, ConocoPhillips stands to benefit from rebounding oil and gas prices in the future. Where does it go from here? The San Juan Basin transaction follows the strategy the company outlined last November when it said it would sell $5 billion to $8 billion of primarily North American gas assets. The company planned to use those proceeds to buy back up to $3 billion of stock over the next three years and reduce debt to around $20 billion. However, the Cenovus Energy deal accomplished the company's three-year goal in less than a year, which put the company in the position to accelerate its strategy and set new targets, including repurchasing up to $6 billion in stock and reducing total debt to $15 billion by 2019. With $13.3 billion of cash coming into its coffers by the end of this year, ConocoPhillips expects to buy back $3 billion in stock this year and reduce gross debt from $27 billion to $20 billion by retiring the bulk of its upcoming debt maturities through 2019. Meanwhile, the company will use the rest of the cash proceeds along with internally generated excess cash flow to opportunistically repurchase another $3 billion in stock and retire $5 billion in additional debt over the next three years. Meanwhile, the company could target additional asset sales over the next few years to further enhance its financial flexibility. For example, it reportedly put its underutilized Kenai LNG export terminal in Alaska on the market and could eventually offload that asset. Meanwhile, the company is in the process of a phased exit of deepwater exploration and has a vast acreage portfolio in the Gulf of Mexico, as well as some notable discoveries, that it could sell. Further, the company does have additional North American dry gas assets that it could sell, including its positions in the Barnett and Uinta. While many of these are smaller assets and therefore wouldn't be needle-moving deals, they'd still enable the company to pull value forward and sharpen its focus on core assets. Investor takeaway ConocoPhillips has a plan to reshape the company so that it can deliver returns-driven growth to investors. With its latest asset sale, the company has finished the bulk of its heavy lifting and now has a boatload of cash coming its way. That capital gives the company the fuel to accelerate its value creation efforts, putting it on the path to deliver double-digit annual returns for investors in the years ahead. It might seem like a state that has wide open plains and a population density even lower than Montana or North Dakota would be a perfect (and profitable) place to build large renewable-energy farms. And in Wyoming, that could be the case -- if politics wasn't about to get in the way. But Wyoming produces more coal than any other state, outpacing even West Virginia by nearly 4 to 1, according to the U.S. EIA. And where coal is king, there's not likely to be a lot of political support for renewable energy. But even given that, the lengths some Wyoming politicians are considering going to in their efforts to keep renewables out are pretty astounding. Wyoming's plan to all but kill renewable energy A bill floating around in the overwhelmingly Republican Wyoming legislature could effectively kill renewable energy in the state. It wouldn't actually bar anyone from building wind or solar power plants, but it would heavily penalize utilities in Wyoming for using wind or solar energy, either from within Wyoming or purchased from utilities in surrounding states. Here's the text that should alarm the renewable energy industry: In compliance year 2019, each electric utility shall procure a minimum of one hundred percent (100%) of its sales of electricity in Wyoming from eligible generating resources. Those "eligible generating resources" are limited to coal, hydroelectric, natural gas, nuclear, oil, and net metering systems (rooftop solar) already approved by state law. Worse yet, any utility buying wind or solar would be fined $10 per MWh, making both energy sources cost-prohibitive. What's crazy is that Wyoming is actually a perfect state for large scale wind and solar plants, which this legislation is essentially trying to undermine. Wyoming may be shooting itself in the foot Not only are wind and solar incredibly popular sources of energy -- no matter your political affiliation -- they also could produce energy Wyoming could export to the country -- a business it's already invested in. According to the EIA, Wyoming generated 49.0 terawatt hours of energy in 2015, and exported 62% of that to other states. Making it harder to build wind and solar plants would be economically destructive. Mandating more coal use within Wyoming won't help coal demand much either. The state ranks just 41st in electricity consumption in the country, and has very little market power to either increase coal consumption or slow the adoption of wind and solar. In other words, barring wind and solar within Wyoming will do little to save coal jobs within the state. Fighting the future of energy isn't a good idea Coal plants are being shut down by the hundreds, and new electricity generation is now dominated by wind and solar. According to GTM Research and SIEA, in 2015, wind and solar accounted for 69% of new capacity additions, and 2016 that stayed relatively steady at 65%. In both years, coal had zero new plants because it's not economically competitive with natural gas or renewables. It looks like Wyoming's legislators are trying to punish renewable energy in their state in an effort to stand up for coal. The sentiment is admirable, but they are fighting the future of energy and making their state less attractive for energy investments. And at the end of the day, a fight to promote coal over renewable energy isn't one they can win. Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A 1.40%) (BRK.B 1.36%), the conglomerate run by billionaire investor Warren Buffett, announced that it's selling around 9 million shares of Wells Fargo (WFC 0.21%) stock. At first glance, this may sound like an alarming development -- after all, Wells Fargo is one of Berkshire's largest stock investments and is a company Buffett has praised many times. However, Buffett's reasons for selling have nothing to do with the stock as an investment. Berkshire is selling millions of shares of Wells Fargo stock Berkshire Hathaway said on April 12 that it's selling about 9 million shares of its Wells Fargo stock position. It has already sold 7.1 million shares and plans to sell another 1.9 million. This may sound like a massive amount of stock (and it is, to most people), but this move will still leave Berkshire with about 491 million shares of the banking giant. So the sale represents less than 2% of Berkshire's total Wells Fargo stake. In addition, Berkshire specifically says that the sale has nothing to do with Wells Fargo, or the notorious "fake accounts" scandal that made headlines in 2016. Instead, the company is selling some of its Wells Fargo stock to keep its position below 10% of the bank's total outstanding shares, allowing it to avoid additional Federal Reserve regulations. It's also important to point out that it could (and probably will) need to sell more of its shares in future quarters, for the same purpose. As Wells Fargo repurchases shares of its own stock, Buffett's stake will represent a growing percentage of the company, so further sales could be necessary to stay under the 10% threshold in the long term. If you glance at Berkshire's portfolio, you'll notice that the company's Wells Fargo stake makes up just about 9.55% of the outstanding shares, so it may seem as if the stake is already small enough to satisfy regulators. However, Buffett owns a smaller piece of Wells Fargo in his personal account, which, combined with Berkshire's shares, made the total stake he had influence over exceed the 10% threshold. What's the big deal with owning 10% of a bank? Without getting too technical, the Federal Reserve exerts more oversight on investors with large stakes in banks -- defined as 10% or more. What's more, to continue to own more than 10% of Wells Fargo, Berkshire would need permission from the Fed and would need to make the case that it had no intention to exert a "controlling influence." In July 2016, Buffett made such a request, stating at the time that "Berkshire is seeking permission to retain its current ownership position ... and to acquire additional shares of common stock of Wells Fargo for investment purposes." The application also made clear that Berkshire had no plans to make any significant changes to Wells Fargo's strategy or structure, nor did it have any desire to make changes to the bank's board. However, as part of the announcement made recently revealing the sale of some of his shares, Berkshire said that after months of talks with Fed officials, keeping the stake of more than 10% wasn't in Berkshire's best interest. The key takeaway Warren Buffett and his team are selling Wells Fargo shares to control the size of its position, not because of anything to do with the bank as a long-term investment. Keep in mind that this is a similar activity to the portfolio rebalancing many investors do regularly. For example, I recently revealed that after doubling over the past year, Bank of America (BAC 0.65%) has become my largest stock holding. I still think Bank of America has massive upside potential, but It's likely that I'll end up selling some of my shares in the near future. Nothing against the stock -- I just want to keep my position at a certain size. Similar logic applies here. The bottom line is that you shouldn't read too much into this move. To keep the size of his Wells Fargo stake under a certain threshold, Buffett is selling less than 2% of his shares. There's no reason to think that Wells Fargo isn't still one of Buffett's favorite banks, or that the selling will continue. If you have a positive opinion of Wells Fargo as a long-term investment, this news shouldn't change your mind. According to data from the World Bank, the average American spent a staggering $9,403 on healthcare in 2014. That figure landed us in third place worldwide, putting us just behind Norway and Switzerland in terms of per-capita healthcare spending. For context, the World Bank's data shows that the average country spent just over $1,061 per capita in the same year. However, this figure varies from as low as $14 per capita in Madagascar to as high as $9,674 in Switzerland. Perhaps a more meaningful point of comparison is that the average high-income country spent $5,251 per capita in 2014. This figure suggests that the average American paid nearly 80% more, on average, than a person in a typical high-income country. What's even more amazing is that Americans paid more per capita in 2014 than the 85 cheapest countries in the world combined! Why does our healthcare cost so much? Given the political attention surrounding the surging costs of prescription drugs, you might assume that this factor is the biggest reason why Americans pay so much for healthcare. After all, many of the world's largest drugmakers are based in the U.S. -- think Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Gilead Sciences, Amgen -- and our demand for drugs is higher than any other country in the world. We also incentivize drugmakers to crank out new drugs by offering long periods of patent exclusivity, and we do not regulate prices. While surging drug prices certainly play a role in keeping our total spending up, you might be surprised to learn how small of an impact drugs have on our overall spending. According to data published by Express Scripts, the nation's largest pharmacy-benefits manager, the average American spends just $1,370 each year on prescription drugs. While this figure continues to tick higher over time, it still represents only about 15% of total healthcare spending. What other factors are driving our costs higher? According to a 2012 paper published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Donald Berwick and Andrew Hackbarth argued that healthcare waste is the answer. The paper argued that overtreatment, administrative complexity, fraud, pricing inefficiencies, and a general failure to coordinate care are the primary drivers behind our vast overspending. The authors estimated that, if we successfully addressed each of these issues and used the proceeds to invest in preventive care, we could reduce our total spending by a whopping 34%. Spending does not equal health Given our elevated level of healthcare spending, you'd naturally assume that America must also rank as one of the healthiest nations on earth, right? Nope. A recent study by the United Nations General Assembly, published in The Lancet, ranked 188 countries based on 33 health-related indicators. This study ranked each country from 0 to 100 on a number of health measures, such as the prevalence of diseases, alcohol consumption, smoking rates, childhood nutrition, neonatal mortality, violence, and more, to get an overall measure of health. Unfortunately, this study noted that America didn't even make it into the top 10 list of healthiest countries. In fact, the U.S. ranked 28th overall, putting us far behind countries like Cyprus, Iceland, and Slovenia, all of which pay far less per capita than we do for healthcare. Why did we rank so poorly given our clear willingness to spend? The report noted that the U.S. performed well in areas like sanitation, hygiene, access to clean water, and control of diseases. However, the U.S. ranked poorly in measures such as childhood obesity, alcohol consumption, and "mortality due to interpersonal violence, self-harm, and unintentional poisoning." Attempts to fix the problem Former President Barack Obama made an attempt to address this problem when he signed the Affordable Care Act, which is better known as Obamacare, into law. One of the primary selling points of his bill was that insurers were going to be forced to compete for patients in a transparent and open marketplace. In addition, the bill also incentivized hospitals and physicians to share best practices, decrease patient injuries, and help reduce overuse of ineffective care by shifting payments toward the value of care provided. Theoretically, these two factors should have helped to lower costs for all and cover more Americans. Unfortunately, the Affordable Care Act hasn't been able to deliver on all of its promises. While the uninsured rate has fallen to record lows, several large insurers, such as UnitedHealth Group and Humana, ended up losing boatloads of money by participating in the plan. Why? The sickest patients signed up first, while many healthy individuals chose to remain uninsured. The combination led to higher losses, causing several insurers to jack up their premiums and abandon Obamacare plans in many states. Meanwhile, President Trump was elected in part because of his promise to "repeal and replace" Obamacare. Last month, he took his first step to deliver on that promise with the introduction of the American Health Care Act, which was dubbed Trumpcare. While the bill proposed several sweeping changes, the largest one arguably would be the rollback of Medicaid expansion. However, shortly after the bill was introduced, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that 14 million Americans would lose their health insurance by 2018 if the bill passed. The bill drew a lot of criticism, which caused it to be pulled from Congress before it could be voted on. If something can't go on forever... In 2014, the U.S. spent more than 17% of its total gross domestic product on healthcare. With 10,000 baby boomers turning 65 each day, this figure is expected to reach 20% by 2020. Simply put, that's an unsustainable trend that can't continue forever. Economist Herbert Stein once said, "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop." One way or another, we'll ultimately be forced to find a solution to this problem. However, it's still anyone's guess as to what that solution might look like and how long it will take the U.S. to get there. NFU Scotland (NFUS) has called the level of support for Scottish lamb by supermarkets in Scotland this Easter a slap in the face for Scottish farmers. It added the results of its shelfwatch campaign reveal a marked decrease in opportunities for customers to buy home-produce compared with previous years, leaving farmers appalled and disappointed. NFUS shelfwatch initiative has seen secret shoppers counting packs of chilled lamb across Scotland. See also: Supermarkets still failing to back British lamb this Easter Their findings reveal despite previous commitments by some supermarkets to back home-grown produce, huge volumes of imported New Zealand and Australian lamb line their shelves, leaving many farmers questioning the long-term commitment of supermarkets. NFU Scotland president Andrew McCornick said: Its frankly a slap in the face to many of us that supermarkets have failed to show strong support to Scotlands sheep farmers and their families over the Easter period a time of year when consumers seek out our high-quality produce. In one Tesco store, underneath a banner proclaiming The Best Scottish lamb in Season, a secret shopper found 100 packs of New Zealand lamb, and despite their previous vocal support for Scottish and British lamb, Morrisons, and Lidl were both found to be stocking large amounts of imported lamb. @NFUStweets Is Helen's home New Zealand @Tesco_Scotland ? The lamb on sale sure is, 106 New Zealand packs, 10 British, 15 Scottish #buylocal pic.twitter.com/gh5VUGkzcS Christian Allard SNP (@Christia_Allard) April 12, 2017 NFUS has contacted Waitrose to ask why it has not met its previous commitment to source 100% Scottish lamb for its Scottish stores this season, only actually achieving 50%. Questions to be asked Mr McCornick said: We will be asking questions of Morrisons, Marks and Spencer and Lidl, who have failed to maintain their previous good record on domestic sourcing this year. Those commitments have been lauded and appreciated by NFUS and Scottish farmers in the past. Aldi was singled out for praise for being the only retailer to be selling exclusively Scottish and UK lamb over the Easter period. NFUS also welcomed the commitment from the Co-op to move to 100% home-produced cross all its fresh meat later this year. The fresh lamb offerings were surveyed at 45 supermarket stores across Scotland, revealing an overall 44% commitment to UK lamb from 2,803 packs of fresh lamb counted. The survey was conducted between 9 and 12 April 2017. Victims told IOM that after being detained by people smugglers or militia groups, they were taken to town squares or car parks to be sold. Migrants with skills like painting or tiling would fetch higher prices, the head of the IOM in Libya told the BBC. Libya has been in chaos since the 2011 Nato-backed ousting of Muammar Gaddafi. Hundreds of young sub-Saharan African men have been caught up in the so-called slave markets, according to the IOM report. Migrants forced to starve A Senegalese migrant, who was not named to protect his identity, said that he had been sold at one such market in the southern Libyan city of Sabha, before being taken to a makeshift prison where more than 100 migrants were being held hostage. He said that migrants held at the facility were told to call their families, who would be asked for money to pay for their release, and some were beaten while on the phone to allow relatives to hear them being tortured. He described dreadful conditions where migrants were forced to survive on limited food supplies, with those unable to pay either killed or left to starve, the report adds. Another witness, who was able to raise the funds needed for his release after nine months, was later taken to hospital with severe malnutrition, weighing just 5.5 stone (35 kg). Women, too, were bought by private Libyan clients and brought to homes where they were forced to be sex slaves, the witness said. The IOMs chief of mission for Libya, Othman Belbeisi, told the BBC that those sold into slavery found themselves priced according to their abilities. Apparently they dont have money and their families cannot pay the ransom, so they are being sold to get at least a minimum benefit from that, he said. The price is definitely different depending on your qualifications, for example if you can do painting or tiles or some specialised work then the price gets higher. An IOM staff member in Niger said they confirmed the reports of auctions in Libya with several other migrants who had escaped. They all confirmed the risks of been sold as slaves in squares or garages in Sabha, either by their drivers or by locals who recruit the migrants for daily jobs in town, often in construction. Later, instead of paying them, [they] sell their victims to new buyers. Some migrants, mainly Nigerians, Ghanaians and Gambians are forced to work as guards in the ransom houses or in the market itself, the IOM employee added. The organisation has called the emergence of these markets a disturbing new trend in the already dire situation for migrants in Libya. In February, the UN childrens agency Unicef released a report documenting in sometimes horrific detail stories of slavery, violence and sexual abuse experienced by large numbers of vulnerable children travelling from Libya to Italy. The report, A Deadly Journey for Children, said that almost 26,000 children most of them unaccompanied crossed the Mediterranean in 2016, many of them suffering abuse at the hands of smugglers and traffickers. Tens of thousands of migrants arrived in Italy last year by sea, crossing from North Africa. But before they reach the jumping-off point in Libya, many migrants will have undertaken a perilous journey of up to six days across the Sahara in extreme temperatures. Source : BBC During the week of 2-8 April, U.S. hotels saw occupancy increase 3% to 70.2%, ADR climb 3.7% to $127.89 and RevPAR increase 6.8% to $89.84. The U.S. hotel industry recorded positive results in the three key performance metrics during the week of 2-8 April 2017, according to data from STR. In comparison with the week of 3-9 April 2016: Occupancy: +3.0% to 70.2% Average daily rate (ADR): +3.7% to US$127.89 Revenue per available room (RevPAR): +6.8% to US$89.84 Among the Top 25 Markets, NCAA Final Four host, Phoenix, Arizona, reported the largest year-over-year increase in RevPAR (+24.5% to US$141.57). Growth was driven by the weeks largest rise in ADR (+19.7% to US$169.91) while occupancy was up 4.0% to 83.5%. Two additional markets saw a RevPAR increase of more than 20.0% for the week: Orlando, Florida (+22.0% to US$126.73), and Detroit, Michigan (+20.9% to US$75.66). Overall, seven Top 25 Markets experienced double-digit growth in the metric. After Phoenix, two other markets posted a double-digit lift in ADR for the week: Seattle, Washington (+12.4% to US$147.24), and Orlando (+10.9% to US$138.19). Three markets experienced a double-digit increase in occupancy: Norfolk/Virginia Beach, Virginia (+13.8% to 63.2%); Detroit (+11.1% to 72.4%); and Orlando (+10.0% to 91.7%). Houston, Texas, reported the steepest declines across the three key performance metrics. Occupancy fell 5.6% to 65.2%, ADR was down 15.1% to US$104.94 and RevPAR dropped 19.9% to US$68.42. No other Top 25 Market reported a double-digit decrease in the metrics. View weekly U.S. hotel performance review STR provides clients from multiple market sectors with premium, global data benchmarking, analytics and marketplace insights. Founded in 1985, STR maintains a presence in 10 countries around the world with a corporate North American headquarters in Hendersonville, Tennessee, and an international headquarters in London, England. For more information, please visit str.com. Last March 22nd, in the Conference rooms of the Iberostar Grand Bavaro Hotel in Bavaro, Punta Cana, the Head Butlers, Supervisors and Human Resources, Training and Development Managers of 21 hotels of the area gathered together to hold the 2nd Convention of Hotel Butlers of Dominican Republic. The event was summoned by the Association of Eastern Hotels (ASOLESTE) and the Experience Hospitality Consultancy, specialized on the training of hotel butlers, and with the sponsorship of Iberostar Hotels in Dominican Republic. The hotels represented there were: Ibersotar Grand Bavaro. Barcelo Hotels. Ocean Blue and Sand. Bavaro Princess. Sunscape Hotel. Bahia Principe. Occidental Caribe. Belive Collection. Majestic. Zoetry Agua Punta Cana. Dreams Punta Cana. Dreams Palm Beach. Santuary Hotel Royalton Blue Diamond. Tortuga Bay. Now Onyx Hotel. Karisma Nikelodeon. Breathless. Paradise Palma Real. The Conference was presided by Mrs. Janette, Vice-president of ASOLESTE and Mr. Osvaldo Torres, President of Experience Hospitality Consultancy and International Trainer of Hotel Butlers. The main objective of the event was the creation of a communication and exchange scenario where all participants had the possibility to exchange ideas on important issues as: 1 - The goal of this position in hospitality. 2 - Advantages of having a hotel Butler: For the business or the guest? 3 - The profile for the selection of candidates to this position. 4 - Designing of the job duties. 5 - The hotel Butler as facilitator of processes. 6 - The position of a hotel butler and interdepartmental relations. 7 - The hotel butler and the management of the guests information. 8 - Hotel Butlers, a job for men? 9 - Designing the training of Hotel Butlers. 10 - Hospitality schools as job bank for Hotel Butlers. 11 - Creation of the Association of Hotel Butlers of Dominican Republic and its role in positioning the country and as a major tourist destination in the region. The participants, under the guidance of Mr. Osvaldo Torres Cruz, reached a consensus on important issues, such as: 1 - The goals for the creation of the position in the Hospitality Industry comprise: a) Getting to know the guest in a deeper and more direct way. b) Offering customized assistance. c) Establishing a direct relation with the client. d) Increasing the hotel competitiveness. e) Increasing the presence of the hotels in the social networks f) Offering specialized services. g) Designing and managing the experience of the clients. 2 - The highest benefit and functionality of this position is, no doubt, for hotel businesses because through the Butler they can increase the information about the clients and, therefore, establish higher levels for customizing the services offered, reducing their complaints and enhancing their loyalty. Mr. Osvaldo Torres stated that, independently of the great benefits a Butler can yield to the business, many hotels cannot appreciate that, and refuse to develop this position by arguing that their guests do not need them. 3 - In respect to the selection of the people for this position, attendees stated different ideas that caused an interesting debate on the need to culture hotel butlers by developing their analytical thinking. Conventioneers agreed that a high percentage of active butlers in the hotels of the area do not have the necessary level of education, and they urged them to get at least a higher certificate. This will enable them to improve the quality of the services they provide to clients, as well as establishing and enhancing this position in the hospitality industry. Also, they stated the need to have command of at least two foreign languages to facilitate their communication with the clients. 4 - As to designing of the duties of the Butler, it became evident that they differ between hotels considering the job descriptions in relation to the needs of the property. Mr. Osvaldo Torres stated that it was an unfortunate situation that in many hotels butlers are assigned tasks that do not correspond to the main goal, namely being right in the time and place the guests are in order to be acquainted with them and offer them a customized service and, consequently, achieve results to their satisfaction. Participants agreed that in many hotels the Butler is considered a supervisor to other departments and the number of operational tasks they have to carry out Is higher than the service ones, and this draws them away from the direct contact with the guests in the different spaces where they are. In answering the question about how many rooms a butler should attend, Mr. Torres Cruz said it was not a question of the quantity of rooms, but rather of the number and type of tasks they are assigned to allow them contact their clients at least three times a day, thus facilitating the flow of the services they request. 5 - Concerning the vision of the Butler as a process facilitator, participants debated about the need they have to know and master all services offered in the hotel so as to facilitate their flow. This implies that there should be no territorial barriers in any department, but, unfortunately, this is not the case in many places, and the butler is thought of as a position that generates extra work or efforts to the departments they interact most (mainly, Food and Beverage, Housekeeping, Maintenance and Reception). Participants stated that much of the relational hindrance with the abovementioned sectors are related to not knowing the role of the butler as the spokesperson of the guests requests and the manager of their experience. Besides, they also said that many times butlers do not appreciate the assistance offered by these departments to provide a service to the level the guest requested, and at the end they take credit of all that was done, thus leading to dysfunctional relations Mr. Osvaldo Torres reasoned that a Butler should, above all, be humble, courteous and a good relations maker, so as to have allies in the hotel, as demanded by his/her role as the process facilitator between the guest and other departments. 6 - Fortunately, some of the participants were female butlers, so they could discuss about the role of women in this position. They acknowledged the advantages they get across to this position, namely, attention to details, refinement in the service and a more creative management. They also recognized they have found no obstacles to be accepted as butlers in the hotels where they work, neither by the business nor by the clients. Mr. Osvaldo Torres talked about the importance of keeping increasing the number of female colleagues in this position and to balance the percentage rate of men/women in each team work. 7 - Concerning the training of hotel butlers, the participants discussed the following issues: a) Paying closer attention to the process of selection in hotels in respect to the aptitudes and attitudes of the applicants in order to strengthen and position the image of a butler. b) Creating appropriate training programs to guarantee the quality of the services offered to clients. c) Creating connections and links with the schools of hospitality to make known and promote this position among the students in order to include it as another job offer once they finish their studies. 8 - Finally, Mrs. Janette and Mr. Osvaldo Torres threw the idea of creating the Association of Hotel Butlers of Dominican Republic with the purpose of promoting the development of the position in hotels throughout the country and the continuous training and cooperation among themselves. Before the end of the sessions, Mr. Amando Pozo, Manager of the Iberostar Grand Bavaro Hotel, talked to the participants about the importance of this position for a hotel business and shared his personal experience as a manager in relation to this position in his hotel, and how it has significantly contributed to the achievements of the business at the regional level. Participants expressed their gratitude to the organizers of the event and called for celebrating others of this kind for it allows them to share ideas and, above all, make the position of the Hotel Butler be more acknowledged and dignified, thus enhancing the quality of the services provided to visitors in the country. Osvaldo Torres Cruz Experiential Hospitality Consultancy www.hotelguestexperience.com hotelps@gmail.com According to Fletch, the Essex synth warriors' Global Spirit Tour will hit these shores during its winter stint Mega-selling electro act Depeche Mode have just released their fourteenth studio album, Spirit, and the band will be hitting the road next month to tour it around the world. Kicking off in Stockholm on May 5th, the first leg of their Global Spirit Tour will see Basildon's finest rock export play to over 1.5 million fans at 34 shows throughout stadiums in 21 countries in Europe and North and South America. No Irish date has been announced yet but Hot Press has learned that Dublin will certainly be included in the itinerary. Advertisement Chestnut Global Partners Publishes 2017 EAP and Wellness Trends and Analysis Report Posted by Press Releases on Thursday, 04-13-2017 3:26 am Currently 0.0/5 Stars. 1 2 3 4 5 0.0 from 0 votes Chestnut Global Partners fourth annual report cites four emergent trends, their potential impact on workplace well-being, employee assistance, and benefits, and what it means for employers in 2017.Chestnut Global Partners (CGP), a provider of culturally-aware employee assistance and wellness programs to companies worldwide, today announced the 2017 Trends Report, which identifies the four top developments that will shape the EAP (Employee Assistance Program) and Wellness industry in 2017. The report is based on utilization patterns among CGP's user base, and a survey of its customers to gain insights and perspectives on the coming year.Four Trends to Look For:1. Requests for EAP support due to anxiety are on the rise. Although the top two reasons for accessing EAP services - (1) marital / relationship, and (2) stress were consistent with previous years, the number of individuals seeking support for anxiety increased 29% compared to 2014 and 2015, moving it up one spot into third pos... Close Forgot Your Password? Enter in your email address and we will send it to you. Send Email An HR.com member profile provides you with access to a multitude of information and education along with the opportunity to network with the largest HR community on the web. If you need any help, call .877.472.6648 and ask for our Member Experience Co-ordinator. Hi Please check your email for an activation link. If you do not receive your activation email within a few minutes, check your spam folder or call our Help Desk at 1.877.472.6648 For faster assistance, dial extension 4. Thank you! Continue Hi Verification error - Please enter the correct code above. Verified Wow! You have successfully verified the account Continue Hi your HR.com account is ready Your Profile completion: 30% Complete your profile The Herman Trend Alert Posted by Press Releases on Thursday, 04-13-2017 2:56 am Currently 0.0/5 Stars. 1 2 3 4 5 0.0 from 0 votes April 12, 2017 Global Skills-Jobs Gap The other day we interviewed futurist, Edward Gordon, PhD, author of Future Jobs: Solving the Employment and Skills Crisis. Gordon shared a great deal of up-to-date information about the global gap between jobs employers need to fill and the skilled workers to fill them. Germany: shrinking population and failing educational system Though Germanys population is shrinking by 100,000 people/year, the country has the premier dual system of education in the world---separating those students who are best fit for the trades and those who are college bound. The problem is that dual system is failing. Like the situation in the United States, the trades are not respected. Parents are pushing their children to go to university. Apart from Badden-Wittenberg and Bavaria, their system is simply not working. As if that were not enough, they have a shortage of 100,000 engineers. Chinas technological and economic challenges As China is struggling to move fr... Close Forgot Your Password? Enter in your email address and we will send it to you. Send Email An HR.com member profile provides you with access to a multitude of information and education along with the opportunity to network with the largest HR community on the web. If you need any help, call .877.472.6648 and ask for our Member Experience Co-ordinator. Hi Please check your email for an activation link. If you do not receive your activation email within a few minutes, check your spam folder or call our Help Desk at 1.877.472.6648 For faster assistance, dial extension 4. Thank you! Continue Hi Verification error - Please enter the correct code above. Verified Wow! You have successfully verified the account Continue Hi your HR.com account is ready Your Profile completion: 30% Complete your profile Visibility Software Hires Key Strategic Sales Staff to Continue Growth Momentum Posted by Press Releases on Thursday, 04-13-2017 2:54 am Currently 0.0/5 Stars. 1 2 3 4 5 0.0 from 0 votes Visibility Software announces the hiring of Karen Wainwright and Anthony Peters as key members of the strategic sales team.(PRWEB) APRIL 11, 2017Newberry, SC., Visibility Software, developers of the Cyber Recruiter Applicant Tracking and Cyber Train Learning Management software platforms, announces the hiring of Karen Wainwright and Anthony Peters as key members of the strategic sales team.Karen Wainwright joins Visibility Software as Channel Partner Manager with well over ten years of experience helping Independent Software Vendors grow their businesses in the Dynamics GP channel across the US and Canada. Her primary focus has been helping partners with sales and marketing and supporting customers. Most of her application experience is within Business Intelligence and Human Resource Management Systems. Karen will manage our strategic partner channels, which includes Microsoft Dynamics GP.Anthony Peters joins Visibility Software as a Senior Account Executive and will work closely with ... Close Forgot Your Password? Enter in your email address and we will send it to you. Send Email An HR.com member profile provides you with access to a multitude of information and education along with the opportunity to network with the largest HR community on the web. If you need any help, call .877.472.6648 and ask for our Member Experience Co-ordinator. Hi Please check your email for an activation link. If you do not receive your activation email within a few minutes, check your spam folder or call our Help Desk at 1.877.472.6648 For faster assistance, dial extension 4. Thank you! Continue Hi Verification error - Please enter the correct code above. Verified Wow! You have successfully verified the account Continue Hi your HR.com account is ready Your Profile completion: 30% Complete your profile We work towards an equitable, gender-just, self-reliant and sustainable fisheries, particularly in the small-scale, artisanal sector We work towards an equitable, gender-just, self-reliant and sustainable fisheries, particularly in the small-scale, artisanal sector We work towards an equitable, gender-just, self-reliant and sustainable fisheries, particularly in the small-scale, artisanal sector We work towards an equitable, gender-just, self-reliant and sustainable fisheries, particularly in the small-scale, artisanal sector 16th Annual Palestinian Cultural Day Date: Friday, May 12, 2017 Time: 3:45 PM - 5:15 PM Event Type: Teach-In Organizer/Author: Palestinian Heritage Committee Email: Phone: 408-297-2299 Location Details: Isaac Senter Auditorium Santa Clara County Government Center 70 West Hedding Street San Jose, CA 95110 SANTA CLARA COUNTY TO HOST 16th ANNUAL PALESTINIAN CULTURAL DAY Santa Clara County Supervisor Dave Cortese and the Palestinian Heritage Committee invite the community to attend the County of Santa Claras Annual Palestinian Cultural and Flag raising Ceremony. This community celebration honors the local Palestinian community and its contributions to the Countys civic life as well as the historical and cultural contributions of Palestinians throughout the world. This event is free and open to the public. Light Palestinian food will be served. Wheelchair accessible Please carpool or use public transportation, light rail and bus. Free parking is available in the county lot. On-street metered parking is available on Hedding and San Pedro Streets. Additional parking at Civic Center Parking Garage. Muslim Leader to Host Religious Diversity Workshop Tahera Ahmad April 13, 2017 BLOOMINGTON, Ill. On Tuesday, April 18, Northwestern Universitys Director of Interfaith Engagement Tahera Ahmad will host a workshop entitled Resisting Religious Intolerance and Celebrating Religious Diversity at 4 p.m. in the Davidson Room. Open to all students, faculty, and staff, the workshop is designed to sharpen skills in both recognizing religious intolerance, especially anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, and supporting a religiously diverse campus where all worldviews are welcome. A dinner and keynote address will begin at 6 p.m. April 18 in the Joslin Atrium, to which all students, faculty and staff are also invited. As the first woman to recite the Quran at the 2013 Islamic Society of North America convention, Ahmad is a female leader in the Muslim community. She is currently Associate Chaplain and Director of Interfaith Engagement at Northwestern, where she regularly hosts young Muslim art stages and open mic nights, and counsels young Muslims through study circles. Ahmad has also been featured in several documentary films about Islam including The Calling, a four-hour documentary series focusing on young religious leaders, which aired on PBS. A native of Morton Grove, Ill., Ahmad received graduate certification in Arabic from Al-Diwan Center in Cairo, Egypt and certification in tajweed, the set of rules for proper recitation of the Quran. She has studied traditional Islamic sciences at various institutions in the U.S. and abroad. Ahmads visit is sponsored by the Chaplains Office, the Muslim Student Association, and IWU Interfaith, with funding support from Student Senate. By Vi Kakares 20 Reddit Email 73 Shares By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | BBC Monitoring, which translates foreign-language news reports, has a rundown on reactions in Persian to the surprise registration by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to run for president in the May 19 Iranian elections. Ahmadinejad was a complete disaster and made Iran a laughingstock by his erratic pronouncements, his governments poor fiscal policies, and its corruption. His run for a second term was widely seen in Iran as characterized by fraudulent ballot-stuffing, and his victory in summer of 2009 provoked the biggest demonstrations Iran had seen since the 1980s, which became known as the Green Movement. Having Ahmadinejad and Trump in office at the same time would be too much to bear, and the two of them could well be a volatile mix. Trump and Ahmadinejad are actually similar in their political styles. Both claim to be populists who would take on the fat cats, but both serve the fat cats. Both are authoritarians. Both are male chauvinist pigs, though Ahmadinejad is not grabby about it. Ahmadinejad once sent goons to department stores to cut the breasts off store mannequins, as too provocative. Trump wants to put women in jail who have an abortion. People were surprised that Ahmadinejad registered to run, because last year he asked Irans clerical Leader, Ali Khamenei, if he could, and Khamenei told him not to. BBC Monitoring says, Vice-President and Head of Environmental Protections Organisation, Masoumeh Ebtekar, underlined Ahmadinejads poor performance during his term. The record of some individuals actions are known to both the people and the supervisory bodies, ISNA quoted Ebtekar as saying. In a separate report, ISNA news agency also quoted Vice-President for Parliamentary Affairs Hossein Ali Amiri as saying: Those who wish to have [an official] responsibility in the Islamic Republic system, should both accept and comply with the set of rules mentioned in the constitution obeying the leader is one of those rules. That is, many are saying that by disobeying the Leaders instructions, Ahmadinejad is already doing something unconstitutional, and so is making himself ineligible to run. Government spokesman, Mohammad Baqer Nowbakht could not hide his surprise when he asked reporters Are you sure? BBC Monitoring adds, In a post on his Instagram page (kouchakzadeh_mahdi), the former hardline MP, Mahdi Kouchakzadeh, he supported Ahmadinejad despite all accusations and insults of the Seditionists because he believed in Ahmadinejad as a devouted defender of the poor. With your move today, which was against the advice given by the imam [referring to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei]that belief is shattered. His hand-written statement began with an Arabic phrase meaning this is where we separate our ways. Former Hardline MP Elyas Naderan described the move as the end of Ahmadnejad on his Twitter handle. (bit.ly/2psOqOT) Source: BBC Monitoring in Persian 1143 gmt 12 Apr 17 A lot of canny Iranian observers are predicting that Ahmadinezhad will be ruled ineligible to run (in Iran there is a clerical body that vets candidates for ideological purity). My guess is that if he were allowed to run, Ahmadinejad would just divide the conservatives and so might actually be helping centrist current president Hassan Rouhani? But as someone who back in the zeroes had to constantly be trying to explain what I thought Ahmadinejad was trying to say with his outlandish utterances, the notion that wed have this stream of nonsense coming at us from both Tehran and Washington is too much to bear. And, Ahmadinejad always made it easy for the US press and politicians to demonize him, which would weaken Irans case. Related video: Euronews: Defiant Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to run for Irans presidential election Ana Kasparian, John Iadarola, & Jayar Jackson |The Young Turks|(Video)| Our Dumbass-In-Chief cant figure out how to not contradict himself inside the same sentence. Ana Kasparian, John Iadarola, and Jayar Jackson, hosts of The Young Turks, discuss. . . President Donald Trump on Tuesday tried to clarify his administrations policy toward Syria after ordering missile strikes on a Syrian air base last week in response to a chemical attack. Were not going into Syria because you know there were some questions, Trump told Fox Business Maria Bartiromo. But when I see people using horrible, horrible chemical weaponswhich they agreed not to use under the Obama administration, but they violated it. Trumps policy toward Syria was unclear following Thursdays strikes, with members of his administration offering slightly different explanations for how the President would proceed going forward. Trump on Tuesday said that his administration would not get involved in Syria, but did not define exactly what that meant. Are we going to get involved with Syria? No, he told Fox Business. But if I see them using gas and using things thatI mean, even some of the worst tyrants in the world didnt use the kind of gases that they used. Reddit Email 31 Shares Peter Bartu | (OpenDemocracy.net) | The west has treated ISIL as enemy number one while local actors see it as a sideshow in a political arena stretching from the Mediterranean to Iran. What does the defeat of ISIL in Mosul mean for Iraq? NurPhoto/SIPA USA/PA Images. All rights reserved. A general view shows a destroyed street of East Mosul, Iraq on 3 April 2017, some 2.5 months after offensive to push Islamic State jihadists out of Mosul. NurPhoto/SIPA USA/PA Images. All rights reserved.The protracted battle against ISIL in Iraq and elsewhere foreshadows numerous challenges in reconstituting the state afterwards. The west has treated the group as enemy number one while local actors see it as a sideshow in a political arena stretching from the Mediterranean to Iran. Not since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire has there been such a complex and bewildering reordering of the region. At once, everything is on the table, no outcome can be ruled out and paradoxically, the fight against ISIL could equally consolidate Iraq or signal its demise. Good leaders thrive in times of crisis, as do opportunists. Gamal Abdel Nasser, the charismatic pan-Arab Egyptian leader, would cite Luigi Pirandellos Six Characters in Search of an Author, as a call to write the script for the Arab Worlds future. That he had never read the play was irrelevant. Northern Iraq will need similar fiction if not alchemy to prevent its next conflict from appearing even before the ISIL eulogy can be written. Its not a case of restoring the status quo-ante; the strategic shifts in recent years have been too dramatic. Sunni atomization, Shia dominance and Kurdish fragmentation in Iraq are joined to the fate of its neighbor Syria. What happens there will impact Iraq and what happens in Syria will be primarily determined by Russia, Iran, and Turkey and perhaps, given the Trump administrations new found interest, the US. These are all new developments. Sunni atomization Iraqs story post-2003 had as its central concern the question of how to re-integrate the Sunnis into the countrys political life. The US failed to do this as did Sunni leaders. In Dohuk in late 2016 a young Shammari leader from Ninewa remarked bitterly how the Sunni leaders had lost everything, reputation and land. By throwing their lot in with ISIL willingly or not, the Sunni cities and towns have been destroyed while being saved, with Mosul another tragic example. The Sunni communities have been dispersed as IDPs throughout Iraq, many in Iraqi Kurdistan. When I was in Halabja trying to find the governors office, my Kurdish fixer, with no Arabic, spoke to ten dispersed street sweepers who were all IDPs from Anbar, with no Kurdish, before we found our way. In Iraqs next elections the Sunni constituency will be of no fixed abode, another nail in the coffin of Sunni political representation. In the newly liberated areas, Sunni tribal leaders ponder how to deal with tribesmen who fought alongside ISIL, and their extended families, who did not. Feudal remedies are often invoked, such as forced relocation and banishment for a generation. In the past this may have worked for isolated murder cases; but not on this scale. Where will they all go and who will take their land and homes? Regionally, having started a ruinous war in Yemen, the Sunni are also at war with themselves; the pseudo-monarchs of the Gulf fight the Muslim Brotherhood while al Qaeda and ISIL and Ahrar Al-Sham indulge in banal and violent debate over Takfir, the oneness of God, and how and if to confront the Shia. In short, the Sunni east of the Med are not so much the JV team as Obama described ISIL but rather the side that specializes in own-goals. Shia consolidation The Shia political parties emerged dominant in Iraqs new electoral politics after 2005 and played by the rules, more or less, until Nouri al-Malakis second term when he used state resources to his own end and created the conditions for the dramatic entry of ISIL in 2014. Despite the steady hand of his replacement Haider al-Abadi in trying to bring back an Iraqi state for all, the evolution of the war against ISIL has created new realities, primarily the Hashd al-Shaabi or the Popular Mobilization Units that were regularized in law, if not practice, in November 2016. After Mosul where will these militia go? One of their commanders in Baghdads Green Zone, newly festooned with Shia banners, explained their metamorphosis. When they formed the militias in response to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistanis fatwa to fight ISIL in Ramadi and Fallujah they did so alone. Now, they are being feted by regional forces and are negotiating security and political files across Iraqs north with Syria, Turkey, the PKK, the KDP, Iraqi political parties and belatedly, international diplomats. This was a new experience for them and they liked the attention. Another aspect is the deployment of Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRG) advisors with some of these units including in Diyala and Kirkuk where they often play visible mediator roles between the Shia militia and the Kurdish PUK Peshmerga but where both sides compete for the security allegiance of communities caught in the middle. In Diyala there are credible reports of ethnic cleansing against the Sunni communities and unverified rumors of forced conversion; long a source of historical tension. But the most visible change in the new Iraq is cultural. Last November during Arbaeen when the Shia faithful gather at the tomb of Imam al-Hussain in Karbala some 22 million converged in southern Iraq drawn from Iran, Iraq, central and south Asia and Africa. Within five years it has become the second largest religious event in the world, dwarfs by ten-fold the annual Hajj in Mecca, Saudi Arabia and continues to grow. Kurdish fragmentation Iraqi Kurdistan is often portrayed as the most stable corner of the country but here too the fissures are real. Kurdish support in the war against ISIL and its generous hosting of Sunni, Yezidi and Christian IDPs deserves acknowledgement if not reward. But its institutions, the presidency, parliament and the Peshmerga are dysfunctional or divided and for the first time post-2003 the Kurds are incapable of generating coherent policy. The colossal mismanagement of their economy has been truly staggering. These trends have been present for some time but post-ISIL they will be starker. A panoply of different factions currently run riot across the Kurdish steppes from Khanaqin to Sinjar and risk invoking the civil war strife of the 1990s and even more blatant involvement from Turkey and Iran. A misstep on the Syrian border, an ill-timed raising of the Kurdish flag in Kirkuk or a fatal crackdown on Kurdish teachers demonstrating for unpaid salaries in Suleimaniyeh could herald a wider conflagration that was never intended. So what does all this mean for Iraq after the defeat of ISIL in Mosul? Firstly, one needs to recognize the scale of the crisis and the new realities of recent years. Secondly, while a Nasser-like figure is not going to emerge to write the script for Iraqs future, someone has to. Thirdly, throughout my travels in northern Iraq all stakeholders insisted on the need for international tutelage for the day after Daesh. To be sure this is long haul stuff and one will need to separate the leaders from the opportunists. But it may well be Iraqs last, best chance and surely the least, worst option. Peter Bartu teaches political transitions at UC Berkeley and recently returned from three months ethnographic research in northern Iraq looking at transitional governance options after the removal of ISIS from Mosul. In 2008-2009 He spent 18 months in Ninewa, Kirkuk and Diyala working on the disputed internal boundaries between the Arabs and the Kurds. Via OpenDemocracy.net - Related video added by Juan Cole: AFP: Offensive to retake Iraqs Mosul continues TORONTO, ON--(Marketwired - April 13, 2017) - Noront Resources Ltd. ("Noront" or "the Company") (TSX VENTURE: NOT) today announced that it has signed an Exploration and Project Advancement Agreement with the Marten Falls First Nation (MFFN). The Agreement compensates MFFN for work that has been completed on their traditional land and outlines a one year process that will be used to negotiate a Pre-Development Agreement for the Eagles Nest nickel-copper-platinum-palladium mine located in northern Ontario. As part of the Agreement, and by fulfilling certain obligations and arrangements, MFFN becomes a shareholder of Noront Resources. The Company has agreed to issue 311,111 shares of Noront stock valued at $0.225, the closing price on April 12, 2017, subject to TSX Venture approval. Chief Bruce Achneepineskum described the agreement as "a step towards a prosperous and sustainable future for both the youth and community of Marten Falls First Nation." "We are excited to be taking this next step with our friends in Marten Falls," said Noront President and CEO Alan Coutts. "It marks the beginning of a long-term relationship that will provide opportunity and mutual benefits for both parties." About Marten Falls First Nation Marten Falls First Nation is an Anishnabe First Nation community located at the confluence of the Albany and Ogoki rivers. The Ring of Fire mineral deposit is in the traditional areas of Marten Falls First Nation. Marten Falls is a remote fly in community in Northern Ontario. About Noront Resources Noront Resources Ltd. is focused on development of the high-grade Eagle's Nest nickel, copper, platinum and palladium deposit and high-grade chromite deposits including Blackbird, Black Thor, and Big Daddy, all of which are located in the James Bay Lowlands of Ontario in an emerging metals camp known as the Ring of Fire. TORONTO, April 13, 2017 /CNW Telbec/ - Richmont Mines Inc. (TSX: RIC) (NYSE: RIC) ("Richmont" or the "Corporation"), reports first quarter company-wide production of 29,401 ounces of gold, at cash costs1 of $791 (US$598) per ounce. The strong operational performance was supported by another consecutive quarter of solid production from the Island Gold Mine of 23,772 ounces of gold, at cash costs of $668 (US$504) per ounce, a 19% decrease over the prior quarter. Overall, Richmont is well positioned to achieve annual production and cash cost guidance for the year. (All amounts are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise indicated.) FIRST QUARTER ANNUAL HIGHLIGHTS: Company-wide production was 29,401 ounces of gold (28,528 ounces sold) for the quarter, driven by production from the cornerstone Island Gold Mine of 23,772 ounces of gold (22,649 ounces sold). Company-wide cash costs for the quarter were $791 (US$598) per ounce. Cash costs from the Island Gold Mine are below current guidance levels at $668 (US$504) per ounce, a 19% reduction over the prior quarter. per ounce. Cash costs from the Island Gold Mine are below current guidance levels at per ounce, a 19% reduction over the prior quarter. The Island Gold Mine reported record underground mine and mill productivities for the quarter, averaging 1,019 and 926 tonnes per day, respectively. Revenues for the quarter were $46.5 (US$35.1) million . . As of December 31, 2016 , Mineral Reserves at the cornerstone Island Gold Mine increased by 34% (net of depletion) to 752,200 ounces of gold, at an increased grade of 9.17 g/t gold. Inferred Resources increased by 30% to 995,700 ounces of gold at an increased grade of 10.18 g/t, at an average discovery cost of less than $35 (US$26) per ounce. , Mineral Reserves at the cornerstone Island Gold Mine increased by 34% (net of depletion) to 752,200 ounces of gold, at an increased grade of 9.17 g/t gold. Inferred Resources increased by 30% to 995,700 ounces of gold at an increased grade of 10.18 g/t, at an average discovery cost of less than per ounce. Recent exploration drilling results identified new high-grade mineralization located approximately 800 metres east of the main Island Gold deposit. Hole GD-640-05 intersected 20.6 g/t gold over 11.3 metres (core length), demonstrating the significant potential for near-term and continued resource growth. Additionally, early results from delineation drilling completed within the Expansion Case Preliminary Economic Assessment (Expansion Case PEA) area, demonstrate the significant potential to further expand reserves at higher than current average grades. Effective, March 15, 2017 , Richmont appointed Mr. Robert J. Chausse as Chief Financial Officer, strengthening the senior management team. "The Island Gold Mine has delivered another quarter of solid production as well as lower cash costs, confirming the potential of this operation as we continue to transform the mine into one of the lowest cost underground gold producers in the Americas. The Expansion Case PEA is nearing completion and we remain confident that we will issue a positive report that will support the 1,100 tonnes per day expansion scenario while achieving our overall low cost objective," commented Renaud Adams, President and CEO. "Along with the strong operational performance achieved during the quarter, we continue to unlock the potential of the Island Gold Mine through our strategic drilling program. Initial delineation drilling results demonstrate the potential for short-term reserve growth at higher grades within the main deposit. Recent exploration drilling has also shown the potential of the deposit to the east of the main deposit area where new high-grade mineralization was identified close to existing infrastructure that could also provide additional expansion opportunities." - 1 Refer to the Non-IFRS Performance Measures disclosure presented at the end of this press release. First quarter operational highlights for the Island Gold and Beaufor Mines are provided in the tables below: Production Highlights Q3 15 Q4 15 Q1 16 Q2 16 Q3 16 Q4 16 Q1 17 2017 Guidance Gold Produced (oz) Island Gold Mine 15,076 14,203(1) 26,589 18,617 14,031(3) 24,086 23,772 87,000-93,000 Beaufor Mine 5,714 5,652 4,615 4,703 4,825 5,419 5,629 23,000-27,000 Monique Mine 2,688 2,525 1,165(2) - - - - - Total Produced (oz) 23,478 22,380 32,369 23,320 18,856 29,505 29,401 110,000-120,000 (1) Q4 2015 production includes a 3 week underground mine shutdown. (2) Processing of the remaining stockpile pad at the depleted Monique Mine was completed at the end of January 2016. (3) Q3 2016 production includes a 16-day underground mine shutdown and a 25-day mill shutdown. Cash Cost Highlights Q3 15 Q4 15 Q1 16 Q2 16 Q3 16 Q4 16 Q1 17 2017 Guidance Cash Costs ($)(1) Island Gold Mine $883 $1,019 $667 $757 $947 $826 $668 $715-$765 Beaufor Mine $972 $1,081 $1,396 $1,484 $1,408 $1,480 $1,265 $1,265-$1,320 Monique Mine $1,002 $974 $1,182 - - - - - Total Cash Costs ($)(1) $921 $1,028 $800 $895 $1,054 $952 $791 $835-$885 Cash Costs (US$)(1) Island Gold Mine $675 $763 $486 $588 $726 $619 $504 $550-$590(2) Beaufor Mine $742 $810 $1,017 $1,152 $1,080 $1,110 $956 $975-$1,015(2) Monique Mine $766 $729 $861 - - - - - Total Cash Costs (US$)(1) $703 $770 $583 $695 $808 $714 $598 $640-$680(2) (1) Refer to the Non-IFRS Performance Measures disclosure presented at the end of this press release. (2) Assuming an exchange rate of 1.30 Canadian dollars to 1.0 US dollar. Operational Highlights Q3 15 Q4 15 Q1 16 Q2 16 Q3 16 Q4 16 Q1 17 Island Gold Mine Underground tpd 669 657(1) 853 911 735(2) 977 1,019 Mill tpd 722 656(1) 834 878 640(2) 903 926 Mill head grade (g/t) 7.27 7.62 11.31 7.51 7.70 9.31 9.18 Beaufor Mine Underground tpd 338 306 323 286 282 302 354 Mill head grade (g/t) 5.93 6.30 4.96 5.27 5.62 6.16 6.0 (1) Q4 2015 underground productivity includes a 3 week mine shutdown and a 2 week mill shutdown. (2) Q3 2016 productivity includes a 16-day underground mine shutdown and a 25-day mill shutdown. Island Gold Mine Highlights Production for the quarter was 23,772 ounces of gold (22,649 ounces sold). The mine is now well positioned to achieve the high-end of production guidance for the year of 87,000-93,000 ounces. Cash costs for the quarter were $668 (US$504) per ounce, below guidance for the year and a 19% reduction over prior quarter. The operating unit costs for the quarter were $181 (US$137) per tonne milled, in-line with the 2017 mine plan. per ounce, below guidance for the year and a 19% reduction over prior quarter. The operating unit costs for the quarter were per tonne milled, in-line with the 2017 mine plan. Mill head grade for the quarter was 9.18 g/t gold, representing an inline grade reconciliation (mined vs. December 31, 2016 Mineral Reserves) for the quarter. The forward-looking 2017 mine plan continues to forecast a mill head grade of approximately 8.90 g/t gold. Mineral Reserves) for the quarter. The forward-looking 2017 mine plan continues to forecast a mill head grade of approximately 8.90 g/t gold. Record underground mine and mill productivities for the quarter, averaging 1,019 and 926 tonnes per day, respectively, with lower-grade underground ore stockpiled for future processing, resulting in an improved overall mill head grade for the quarter. During the quarter, long-hole stope mining continued in the first and second mining horizons and development in ore was advanced as planned in the higher-grade third mining horizon. Stoping in the third mining horizon is expected to begin in the fourth quarter. The development of the main ramp continued and reached a vertical depth of 860 metres at the end of the quarter, which is in-line with the 2017 development plan and as contemplated in the upcoming Expansion Case PEA. As of December 31, 2016 , Mineral Reserves at the cornerstone Island Gold Mine increased by 34% (net of depletion) to 752,200 ounces of gold, at an increased grade of 9.17 g/t gold. Inferred Resources increased by 30% to 995,700 ounces of gold at an increased grade of 10.18 g/t, and at an average discovery cost of less than $35 (US$26) per ounce. ( see press release dated January 31, 2017 and the technical report titled "Technical Report on the Mineral Reserve and Resource Estimate as of December 31, 2016 for the Island Gold Mine" dated March 17, 2017 ). , Mineral Reserves at the cornerstone Island Gold Mine increased by 34% (net of depletion) to 752,200 ounces of gold, at an increased grade of 9.17 g/t gold. Inferred Resources increased by 30% to 995,700 ounces of gold at an increased grade of 10.18 g/t, and at an average discovery cost of less than per ounce. ( ). Recent exploration drilling results identified new high-grade mineralization located approximately 800 metres east of the main Island Gold deposit. Hole GD-640-05 intersected 20.6 g/t gold over 11.3 metres (core length), demonstrating significant potential for near-term and continued resource growth. Additionally, early results from delineation drilling completed within the Expansion Case PEA area, indicates the significant potential to further expand our reserves at higher than current average grades. ( see press release dated March 30, 2017 ). ). Expansion Case PEA : The Corporation is well advanced to release the results of the Expansion Case PEA during the second quarter, as previously disclosed. The study considers the most cost and capital effective plan to mine the portion of the mineral resources that is located within the main area of interest over four mining horizons, to a maximum depth of 1,000 metres below surface, using current mine infrastructure. The Corporation remains focused on transforming the high-grade Island Gold Mine into one of the lowest cost underground gold producers in the Americas. Recent achievements include: The integration of the December 31, 2016 Mineral Reserves and Resources into the 1,100 tonnes per day mine plan has been completed. The required permit amendments that allow for an ore mining and processing increase to 1,100 tonnes per day were received in December. The accelerated development of the underground ramp system has advanced as planned. Engineering and identification of the main equipment required for the mill expansion is well underway and expected capital requirements for the expanded milling capacity remains below the $15.0 million , as previously disclosed. The 2017 mine plan and the Expansion Case PEA are focused on optimizing cash flow generation that is capable to fully fund current and future production as well as all strategic exploration programs. The Corporation is well advanced to release the results of the Expansion Case PEA during the second quarter, as previously disclosed. The study considers the most cost and capital effective plan to mine the portion of the mineral resources that is located within the main area of interest over four mining horizons, to a maximum depth of 1,000 metres below surface, using current mine infrastructure. The Corporation remains focused on transforming the high-grade Island Gold Mine into one of the lowest cost underground gold producers in the Americas. Recent achievements include: Beaufor Mine Highlights Production for the quarter was 5,629 ounces of gold (5,879 ounces sold), in-line with previously disclosed plans to ramp-up production and achieve increased production in the second half of the year. Cash costs of $1,265 (US$956) per ounce achieved during the quarter, a significant reduction of 15% over the prior quarter and in-line with 2017 plans to return the mine to free cash flow generation status in the first half of the year. per ounce achieved during the quarter, a significant reduction of 15% over the prior quarter and in-line with 2017 plans to return the mine to free cash flow generation status in the first half of the year. Underground productivity increased to 354 tonnes per day (403 tonnes per day in March). During the quarter the majority of the mining activities were transitioned into the new Q Zone and additional haulage and mucking mobile equipment were commissioned. Underground productivity and operating costs are expected to continue to improve over the balance of the year. The Corporation is also considering other strategic alternatives regarding the Beaufor Mine and Camflo Mill. Upcoming News Q1 Financial Results ( May 4 ) ) Annual and Special Meeting of Shareholders ( May 4 ) ) Expansion Case PEA Results (Q2 2017) Non-International Financial Reporting Standards ("IFRS") Performance Measures In this press release, the term "cash costs per ounce" is used, which is a non-IFRS performance measure, and may not be comparable to similar measures presented by other companies. The Corporation believes that, in addition to conventional measures prepared in accordance with IFRS, the Corporation and certain investors use this information to evaluate the Corporation's performance. Accordingly, it is intended to provide additional information and should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for measures of performance prepared in accordance with IFRS. "Cash costs per ounce" is a common performance measure in the gold mining industry, but does not have any standardized definition. The Corporation reports cash cost per ounce based on ounces sold. Cash costs include mine site operating costs, administration, royalties and by-product credits but are exclusive of depreciation, accretion expense, interests on capital leases, capital expenditures and exploration and project evaluation costs. Refer to the Corporation's 2016 MD&A for a reconciliation of cash costs to cost of sales. About Richmont Mines Inc. Richmont Mines currently produces gold from the Island Gold Mine in Ontario, and the Beaufor Mine in Quebec. The Corporation is also advancing development of the significant high-grade resource extension at depth of the Island Gold Mine in Ontario. With 35 years of experience in gold production, exploration and development, and prudent financial management, the Corporation is well-positioned to cost-effectively build its Canadian reserve base and to successfully enter its next phase of growth. HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA--(Marketwired - April 13, 2017) - Erdene Resource Development Corp. (TSX:ERD) ("Erdene" or "Company"), is pleased to announce the commencement of its 2017 drill program at the Company's wholly-owned Bayan Khundii Gold Project ("Bayan Khundii") in southwest Mongolia. The program will consist of approximately 20,000 m of diamond drilling at Bayan Khundii and an additional 4,000 m on its neighboring Altan Nar and Altan Arrow gold projects. Two Longyear 44 drill rigs will be operating. The first commenced drilling today and will focus on delineation and expansion of the gold mineralized zones within the known Bayan Khundii target areas: Gold Hill, Striker, and the recently announced discovery at Midfield. On January 10, the Company announced the discovery of the Midfield Zone under younger cover with results including 41 m of 5.2 g/t gold and 72 m of 4.0 g/t gold. The second drill rig, expected to be operational on May 1, will test multiple exploration targets throughout the larger, 1.8 km by 1 km Bayan Khundii trend, as well as the new high-grade target discovered at the Altan Nar Gold-Polymetallic Project (3,000 m), located 16 km northwest of Bayan Khundii, and the Altan Arrow Gold-Silver Project (1,000 m), located 3.5 km north of Bayan Khundii. For reference, two maps and two cross-sections have been included with this news release. Reporting of drill results will commence by late May and continue at regular intervals through late Q3. A follow-up drill program will be implemented in Q4, based on a review of the Q2/Q3 Phase I results. Erdene's 2017 exploration program will also include additional metallurgical testing as well as hydrogeological, environmental, geotechnical and preliminary economic studies related to the Bayan Khundii and Altan Nar projects. The following sections outline the objectives for Erdene's drill programs at its Bayan Khundii, Altan Nar and Altan Arrow projects. Bayan Khundii Gold Project The 20,000 m drill program at Bayan Khundii has two objectives. The first is to increase confidence in areas with established resource potential within the Striker, Gold Hill, and Midfield zones and to simultaneously expand the perimeter of these zones. The second objective is to test new areas within the larger 1.8 km by 1 km trend in order to establish additional extensions or identify new mineralized zones, which require definition drilling. Striker Zone Drilling Drilling within the Striker Zone in 2016 continued to define high-grade gold zones (up to 65 m of 6.3 g/t gold in hole BKD-77) with good continuity, and extended the boundaries of the gold system, which remains open in all directions. The 2017 drill program at Striker has three objectives: 1) complete in-fill drilling where hole spacing exceeds 40 m; 2) drill-test deeper targets in the range of 200-300 m depth (average vertical drill depth to date of 91 m and 30% of holes within Striker have ended in mineralization); and 3) test for lateral extensions to the south of Striker (Gold Hill Zone) and to the west of Striker. Drilling at the Gold Hill Zone has been limited thus far, but has included up to 17 m of 1.2 g/t gold, from surface (BKD-06). Drilling to the west of Striker has also returned very encouraging results to date, including hole BKD-59 located 230 m west of Striker, which returned 31 m of 1.0 g/t gold at 121 m depth and 2 m of 7.4 g/t gold at 216 m depth. Midfield Zone Drilling Drilling in late 2016 at the Midfield Zone, a step-out target located 170 m north of the Striker Zone, under younger post-mineralization cover, returned some of the highest grades (BKD-92: 2 m of 112.8 g/t gold, starting at 119 m) and longest mineralized intervals (BKD-90: 149 m of 2.1 g/t gold, starting at 23 m depth) intersected to date at Bayan Khundii. Nine holes have been completed at Midfield, at 40 m drill hole spacing. Several high-grade extension targets located to the west, north, and east will be drill-tested in 2017. The down-dip extension to the south and west of Midfield also remains open and will be drill-tested. Reconnaissance Drilling The second drill rig will focus on testing multiple exploration targets throughout the larger 1.8 km by 1 km Bayan Khundii trend. Post-mineralization sedimentary units and basalt overlie approximately 80% of the Bayan Khundii target area averaging approximately 40 m in thickness, with two outcropping prospect areas interpreted as erosional 'windows' through the younger cover. The full extent of the alteration and mineralization is unknown, although there are several indications that Bayan Khundii's epithermal system may be more widespread than the Striker-Midfield-Gold Hill zones, and it may continue out under the post-mineralization cover, as demonstrated by the Midfield Zone results. Previous, shallow drilling in the Northeast prospect area, located 700 m to the northeast of Striker, returned wide zones of strongly altered volcanics (similar to Striker) and up to 2.3 g/t gold over 2 m. In addition, two rock chip samples that were collected 500 m further to the northeast (NE Extension prospect) returned gold assay values of 6.9 g/t and 0.4 g/t gold. The 2017 drill program will follow up on these encouraging results. The combined gradient array and dipole-dipole induced polarization (IP) geophysical survey data suggest the alteration (illite-quartz) within the Striker Zone is located at the apex of a broad resistivity (IP geophysical survey) anomaly. This anomaly extends to the north of Midfield and east under the younger cover at relatively shallow depths. In Q2 2017, Erdene commissioned an independent geophysical consultant who confirmed existing targets and identified new targets that will be tested in 2017, including previously unrecognized northwest-trending linear features under cover to the northeast and east of the Striker Zone following the same trend as the structures hosting the high-grade gold zones in Striker and Midfield. Altan Nar Gold-Polymetallic Project The Company plans to complete approximately 3,000 m of diamond drilling at its Altan Nar gold-polymetallic project ("Altan Nar") between Q2 and Q3 2017. A key objective will be establishing the continuity and extent of a new high-grade zone identified at the Discovery Zone ("DZ") in Q4 2016. Drill hole TND-101, designed to test a structural intersection in central DZ, returned a very high-grade intersection of 14 m of 55.6 g/t gold, 131 g/t silver, 0.73% copper and 5.6% combined lead-zinc. This zone was within a consistently mineralized zone from surface to 170 m and included 110 m of 9.3 g/t gold, 32 g/t silver, and 1.4% combined lead-zinc. TND-101 was an exploratory hole drilled perpendicular to a cross-cutting feature observed in geophysical surveys, but at a low, oblique angle to the mineralized DZ trend with true width of the zone unknown but assumed to be in the range of 25 m to 35 m. The program will also continue to delineate and expand the DZ and Union North deposits as well as testing other areas within the remaining 16 targets along the 5.6 km long Altan Nar gold mineralized trend. A high-resolution magnetic survey and a deep Induced Polarization survey will be completed to assist the Company in exploring areas along the 5.6 km Altan Nar trend where zones of structural dilation, or offset, similar to TND-101, may have provided a favorable setting for the concentration of base and precious metal-rich solutions over wider intervals. Altan Arrow Gold-Silver Project In Q4 2016, the Company completed a maiden drill program at the Altan Arrow gold-silver project, located within the same licence but 3.5 km north of the Bayan Khundii project. The program consisting of 590 m in seven holes at an average hole spacing of 200 m, completed to an average vertical depth of 58 m. Drill results confirmed the presence of high-grade gold and silver veins, and broad structurally-controlled lower-grade zones with similar style to the Company's Bayan Khundii gold project. The objective of the 2017 program is to identify high-grade gold-silver zones with continuity that can be the focus of future definition drill programs. The Company will complete approximately 1,000 m of exploratory drilling at its, focusing on the areas of encouraging results from the 2016 exploration program. Qualified Person and Sample Protocol Michael MacDonald, P.Geo. (Nova Scotia), Vice President Exploration for Erdene, is the Qualified Person as that term is defined in National Instrument 43-101 and has reviewed and approved the technical information contained in this news release. All samples have been assayed at SGS Laboratory in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. In addition to internal checks by SGS Laboratory, the Company incorporates a QA/QC sample protocol utilizing prepared standards and blanks. Erdene's sampling protocol for drill core consists of collection of samples over 1 m or 2 m intervals (depending on the lithology and style of mineralization) over the entire length of the drill hole, excluding minor post-mineral lithologies and un-mineralized granitoids. Sample intervals were based on meterage, not geological controls or mineralization. All drill core was cut in half with a diamond saw, with half of the core placed in sample bags and the remaining half securely retained in core boxes at Erdene's Bayan Khundii exploration camp. All samples were organized into batches of 20 samples including a commercially prepared standard and blank. Sample batches were periodically shipped directly to SGS in Ulaanbaatar via Erdene's logistical contractor, Monrud Co. Ltd. About Erdene Erdene Resource Development Corp. is a Canada-based resource company focused on the acquisition, exploration, and development of precious and base metal prospects in underexplored and highly prospective southwest Mongolia. Exploration success has led to the discovery, definition and ongoing development of several 100%-owned prospects and deposits. These include the Company's flagship and newly discovered, high-grade, near-surface Bayan Khundii gold project; the 5.6 km long Altan Nar gold-polymetallic mineralized trend that is host to 18 targets; the Altan Arrow gold-silver prospect; and the Zuun Mod molybdenum-copper deposit. For further information on the Company, please visit www.erdene.com. Erdene has a working capital position of approximately $13.3 million, 145,540,586 issued and outstanding common shares and a fully diluted position of 156,592,160 common shares, after giving effect to the Private Placement. THUNDER BAY, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - April 13, 2017) - SOURCE EXPLORATION CORP. (the "Company" or "Source") (TSX VENTURE:SOP)(OTC:SRXLF)(FRANKFURT:4QW1) is pleased to announce that drilling at its Las Minas gold project has intersected long intervals of high-grade gold, copper and silver mineralization. Diamond drilling at the El Dorado - Juan Bran zone cut 6.82 g/t Au Eq(1) over 12.0 metres, contained within a 24.0 metre interval grading 4.43 g/t Au Eq in diamond drill hole LM-17-ED-25. Hole LM-17-ED-28 graded 5.98 g/t Au Eq over 6.0 metres within a wider interval grading 3.48 g/t Au Eq over 36.0 metres. Hole LM-17-JB-12 graded 4.63 g/t Au Eq over a 6.0 metre interval, contained within 14.0 metres grading 2.97 g/t Au Eq. The objective of the drilling program, which includes infill / extension and step-out drilling, is to advance the Las Minas project to a mineral resource estimate, scheduled for Q2. The resource estimate will focus on the El Dorado / Juan Bran and Santa Cruz zones, two of six known mineralized zones at the property. Drilling is continuing at the site and additional holes will be reported as soon as results are received, compiled and evaluated. Highlights from the initial 9 holes include: 6.82 g/t Au Eq over 12.0 metres in LM-17-ED-25, within 5.88 g/t Au Eq over 16.0 metres, within 4.43 g/t Au Eq over 24.0 metres 3.87 g/t Au Eq over 14.0 metres in LM-17-ED-26, within 3.32 g/t Au Eq over 28.0 metres 5.98 g/t Au Eq over 6.0 metres in LM-17-ED-28, within 4.18 g/t Au Eq over 26.0 metres, within 3.48 g/t Au Eq over 36.0 metres 6.18 g/t Au Eq over 4.0 metres in LM-17-JB-12, within 2.97 g/t Au Eq over 14.0 metres Selected drill results are included in Table 1 below. Eldorado - Juan Bran Zone Drill Results Hole ID (Az./Dip) (degrees) From (m) To (m) Intercept (m) Au (g/t) Ag (g/t) Cu % Au Eq (g/t) Comments LM-17-ED-25 (130/-67) 112.6 124.6 12.0 2.17 18.23 2.68 6.82 Infill & Extension 110.6 126.6 16.0 2.00 14.80 2.24 5.88 within 106.6 130.6 24.0 1.59 10.5 1.64 4.43 LM-17-ED-26 (62/-60) 132.9 146.9 14.0 1.26 5.31 1.54 3.87 Infill & Extension within 118.9 146.9 28.0 1.11 3.90 1.26 3.22 within 116.9 160.9 44.0 0.86 3.11 0.93 2.43 LM-17-ED-27 (275/-60) 106.0 110.0 4.0 1.98 6.50 0.78 3.41 Infill within 106.0 120.0 14.0 0.97 4.43 0.63 2.07 within 94.0 120.0 26.0 0.84 3.28 0.59 1.91 LM-17-ED-28(75/-75) 110.4 116.4 6.0 2.69 4.6 1.96 5.98 Infill & Extension within 100.4 116.4 16.0 2.93 2.53 1.11 4.78 90.4 116.4 26.0 2.51 2.42 1.00 4.18 within 86.4 122.4 36.0 2.07 2.28 0.84 3.48 LM-17-ED-29(75/-45) 158.3 166.3 8.0 0.67 3.64 0.36 1.31 Extension LM-17-JB -10 (0/-90) Intersected weakly mineralized dike Step Out LM-17-JB-11 (90/-60) 145.0 151.0 6.0 0.65 2.53 0.34 1.25 Extension LM-17-JB-12 (0/-85) 65.4 69.4 4.0 3.58 17.70 1.36 6.18 Infill within 65.4 79.4 14.0 1.22 7.29 1.01 2.97 LM-17-JB-13 (135/-85) 62.4 66.4 4.00 0.86 2.15 0.81 2.21 Infill Map of drill collars and traces Drill core from hole LM-17-ED-25 Brian Robertson, Chairman and CEO, commented: "These initial drill results validate and extend the mineralized footprint of the El Dorado-Juan Bran zone, outlined by earlier exploration drilling. A zone measuring up to 430 metres in width and extending some 650 metres down dip, varying from 4 to 58 metres in thickness has been outlined. The zone remains open both on strike and down dip. The validation and expansion of the zone by the current drilling bodes well for defining a mineral resource estimate." All reported intervals referred to in this news release are core lengths and additional information is required to determine true widths. Assays are uncut, length - weighted average values. Gold equivalent (Au Eq) calculations use metal prices of US $1,250/oz. for gold, US $18.00/oz. for silver and US $3.00/lb. for copper. No adjustments have been made for potential relative differences in metal recoveries. Au Eq g/t = Au g/t + [(Ag g/t x 0.014) + (Cu% x 1.64)] About Las Minas The Las Minas Project hosts near-surface gold - silver and copper skarn mineralization and high-grade gold - silver epithermal vein deposits. The project is comprised of six mineral concessions covering approximately 1,616 hectares (3,995 acres), with several small scale, past-producing mines and a number of untested targets. The district is host to one of the largest under explored gold - silver copper skarn systems known in Mexico, and has a production history that extends back to the Aztec era. The Las Minas granodiorite intrusive measures approximately 10 kilometres in diameter and underlies the Las Minas concessions. The mineralization controls and association with magnetite appear to be similar to the Guerrero Gold belt, which is the site of the Los Filos and Morelos gold deposits. Las Minas is an early-stage exploration project and does not contain any mineral resource estimates as defined by National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101"). The potential quantities and grades disclosed herein are conceptual in nature and there has been insufficient exploration to define a mineral resource for the targets discussed herein. It is uncertain if further exploration will result in these targets being delineated as a mineral resource. Quality Assurance/Quality Control The technical information in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Sonny Bernales, P. Geo., a registered Professional Geoscientist in the Province of British Columbia and a qualified person as defined by NI 43-101. Mr. Bernales is responsible for logistics and supervision of all exploration activity conducted by Source on the property. The Company has implemented and adheres to a strict Quality Assurance/Quality Control program which includes inserting mineralized standards and blanks into the sample stream, about 1 for every 10 samples. The standards and blanks were obtained from CDN Resource Laboratories Ltd. of Langley, BC, Canada. Each sample bag is properly sealed and kept in a secured, restricted storage place prior to shipping to the lab. Samples are shipped directly by Source or picked up by the lab vehicle with chain of custody/sample submittal signed and dated. The Company sends its samples to SGS Mineral Services (ISO/IEC 17025) at Durango, Mexico, an accredited and independent laboratory. About Source Exploration Source Exploration is a Canadian based mineral exploration company committed to building long-term value through ongoing discoveries and strategic acquisitions of prospective precious metals deposits in Mexico. Source is exploring the Las Minas Project, which is located in the core of the Las Minas district in the Veracruz State, Mexico. The district is host to one of the largest under-explored skarn systems known in Mexico and has a strong production history that dates back to the Aztec era. TORONTO, ON--(Marketwired - April 13, 2017) - Primero Mining Corp. ("Primero" or the "Company") (TSX: P) ( NYSE : PPP) announced today that it has successfully resolved the work stoppage of unionized employees that began on February 15, 2017. Operations are expected to resume at Primero's San Dimas mine in Mexico on Tuesday, April 18, 2017. The Company is also pleased to announce that it has a new Collective Bargaining Agreement ("CBA") with the National Union of Mine, Metal, Steel and Allied Workers of the Mexican Republic (Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores Mineros, Metalurgicos, Siderurgicos y Similares de la Republica Mexicana). The agreement provides a formal structure for regulating all aspects of the relationship between Company and its unionized employees. The Company considers the new CBA to be both fair and equitable to all parties, and provides Primero with a competitive cost structure aligned to the future success of San Dimas operations. Highlights: New CBA Structure to Benefit All Parties: The new CBA includes adjustments that benefit both the Company and its unionized employees, including an increase in base salary and a re-alignment of short-term bonus structures. The CBA will be subject to future review in 2019. The new CBA includes adjustments that benefit both the Company and its unionized employees, including an increase in base salary and a re-alignment of short-term bonus structures. The CBA will be subject to future review in 2019. More Continuous Mine Shifts to Improve Productivity: Significant productivity gains are expected with the underground operation transitioning to two, 10.5 hour shifts per day, and continuous 7 days per week operations. The productivity improvements will be gained by eliminating a daily shift change, from three per day to two, adding nearly 80 operating days per year and reducing total time lost by commuting to and from the working faces. This will be coupled with significant improvements expected to be gained through greater alignment with the Company's objectives in the new bonus structure for the underground workers. Significant productivity gains are expected with the underground operation transitioning to two, 10.5 hour shifts per day, and continuous 7 days per week operations. The productivity improvements will be gained by eliminating a daily shift change, from three per day to two, adding nearly 80 operating days per year and reducing total time lost by commuting to and from the working faces. This will be coupled with significant improvements expected to be gained through greater alignment with the Company's objectives in the new bonus structure for the underground workers. Phased Restart to Commence: Primero's goal in 2017 is to reduce the scale and complexity of the San Dimas operation in order to increase productivity and return the mine to positive cash flow. Work is expected to resume on Tuesday, April 18, 2017, and the Company will implement a phased restart of operations. "We are very pleased to have negotiated amendments to the San Dimas CBA that will benefit our workforce, the Company and the community by improving the long-term sustainability of the mine," stated Joseph F. Conway, Interim President and Chief Executive Officer. "We remained steadfast in our commitment to respecting our workforce while improving productivity and reducing costs. We believe that the new bonus structure combined with a more continuous work roster will allow for significant cost reductions at the San Dimas mine." New CBA Structure to Benefit All Parties, Including Re-Aligned Bonus Structure The new CBA includes adjustments to base salaries and short-term production bonuses to the benefit of both Primero and all unionized employees. Unionized employees will receive an increase in their base salaries of 7.5% in Mexican Pesos, consistent with recent increases in the Mexican mining industry. The new production bonus structure for mine workers is better aligned with key performance indicators such as ounces produced, development metres achieved and employee absenteeism. For mill workers, the short-term bonus is based on compliance to plan with a weighting for gold and silver ounces produced according to Primero's revenue. Primero does not expect to see a reduction in individual worker compensation, and workers could see increases to individual pay provided that plans are achieved or exceeded and Company performance improves. The CBA will be subject to future review in 2019. More Continuous Mine Shifts Will Lead to Improved Productivity The San Dimas mine historically operated on a shift structure with three, 8 hour shifts per day, and 5.5 days per week. All underground miner workers will now transition to two, 10.5 hour shifts per day, and continuous 7 days per week operations. With the more continuous operations the Company will gain nearly 80 effective operating days per year. All underground workers will now operate on a 4 days on, 2 days off work roster. As the San Dimas mine expanded and higher-grade veins were brought into production located further away from the mill and mine portals, the commute times to and from the working faces have increased. This has led to a reduction in per-shift productivity as a result of increased transportation time. By eliminating a daily shift change, from three per day to two, the mine will gain productivity improvements from reduced commuting time lost. Phased Restart to Commence Primero's goal in 2017 is to reduce the scale and complexity of the San Dimas operation in order to increase productivity and return the mine to positive cash flow. To this end, the total workforce at San Dimas has been reduced by 17% since December 2016, which includes 238 contractors, 48 unionized employees, and 68 non-unionized employees. The Company will continue to explore opportunities to make further reductions to the workforce. Onsite work is expected to resume on Tuesday, April 18, 2017, and Primero will implement a phased restart of the San Dimas operations with a focus on achieving productivity gains in highest priority areas first. About Primero Primero Mining Corp. is a Canadian-based precious metals producer that owns 100% of the San Dimas gold-silver mine and the Cerro del Gallo gold-silver-copper development project in Mexico and 100% of the Black Fox mine and adjoining properties in the Township of Black RiverMatheson near Timmins, Ontario, Canada. Primero offers immediate exposure to un-hedged, below average cash cost gold production with a substantial resource base in politically stable jurisdictions. The Company is focused on becoming a leading intermediate gold producer by building a portfolio of high quality, low cost precious metals assets in the Americas. Primero's website is www.primeromining.com. VANCOUVER, April 13, 2017 /CNW/ - NXGOLD LTD. ("NxGold Ltd." or the "Company"), (NXN:TSXV) is pleased to announce that it has entered into an option agreement (the "Agreement") with Kenorland Minerals Ltd. ("Kenorland") to earn up to a 100% interest in the Chicobi Project, located approximately 30 km northeast of Amos, Quebec (the "Property"). Chris McFadden, Chief Executive Officer, commented "The execution of this agreement with Kenorland is an exciting development for the Company. The Chicobi Project gives the Company significant exposure to the Abitibi which is one of the premier gold producing regions in the world and the large land position gives us a significant opportunity in a relatively under-explored part of the Abitibi. With the addition of this project we now have two exciting gold exploration projects to pursue year-round. We at NxGold are very excited to be entering Quebec given its strong history as a mining friendly jurisdiction." The Chicobi Project: The Property consists of 1,045 claims and covers approximately 60,000 hectares along 70 km of prospective strike length on the Chicobi Deformation Zone within the Abitibi Greenstone Belt (the "Abitibi"). The Property represents one of the largest land packages in the Abitibi region and is one of the most under-explored land positions in the entire district. The Abitibi is one of the largest gold producing regions globally in addition to hosting significant production of silver, copper and zinc. The Chicobi Project is well serviced by infrastructure and is readily accessible by road year-round. The Terms: Pursuant to the Agreement, the Company has the exclusive right to earn an undivided 80% interest in the Property (the "First Option") upon: (i) paying Kenorland $100,000 cash and issuing Kenorland 800,000 common shares in the capital of the Company (subject to a 12 month hold period), on the date all regulatory approvals to the Agreement are received and other conditions precedent are satisfied (the "Effective Date"); and (ii) incurring an aggregate of $2 million in expenditures on the Property on or before October 1, 2018. Upon earning an 80% interest in the Property, the Company has the exclusive right to earn an additional 20% interest in the Property (the "Second Option"), thereby increasing its interest in the Property to 100%, by incurring an additional $1 million of expenditures on the Property, on or before the third anniversary of the Effective Date and the grant of a 2% net smelter returns royalty in favor of Kenorland in respect of minerals produced from the Property and supporting hypothec in respect of the Property. In the event the Company exercises the First Option but not the Second Option, the parties will be deemed to have formed a joint venture with the Company having an 80% interest and Kenorland having a 20% interest. The Agreement is subject to the TSX Venture Exchange approval. About NxGold NxGold is a Vancouver-based exploration company. NxGold has entered into an earn-in agreement with Meliadine Gold Ltd. to earn up to a 70% interest in the Kuulu Project (formerly known as the Peter Lake Gold Project). The Kuulu Project is located approximately 40 km northwest of Rankin Inlet, Nunavut. The Kuulu Project covers 4,174 hectares immediately along trend from Agnico Eagle's advanced Meliadine Gold project. Additionally, the Company has entered into an earn-in agreement to earn up to a 100% interest in the Chicobi Project located within the prolific Abitibi Greenstone Belt in Quebec Technical Information All scientific and technical information in this news release has been prepared by or reviewed and approved by Mr. Garrett Ainsworth, P.Geo., a director of NxGold. Mr. Ainsworth is a qualified person for the purposes of National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - April 13, 2017) - Thunderstruck Resources Ltd. (TSXV: AWE) ("Thunderstruck") is pleased to announce that it is in the process of adding to its current portfolio of zinc, copper and gold exploration targets through applications for the Vago, CIS, Wainaleka Extension and SPL 1425 Extension areas. (See attached map.) The Vago prospect features historic drilling by Anglo with intercepts highlighted by 8% zinc, 9.7 g/t Au, 18.5 oz silver/tonne and 3% lead over 3.4 meters. The Wainaleka Extension area contains known copper-zinc mineralization to the west of the Company's current high-grade zinc/copper deposit at Wainaleka. "Given the discoveries by previous operators and the interest we've received from potential partners, we wish to put these assets under the control of Thunderstruck as quickly as possible," notes Brien Lundin, Chairman. "With our growing knowledge of the area, we feel these new assets are among the most prospective on the main island." The Company is also pleased to announce it will retain the services of Melvyn Levrel, P. Geo, to assist in its exploration programs on the Rama Creek and Liwa Creek prospects. Stream sediment sampling (SSS) programs have been designed to follow up on the encouraging SSS results previously obtained by Aquitaine, Southern Pacific Resources (SPR) and Aljen Pacific for gold, zinc and gold-pathfinder elements (antimony and arsenic). Work will commence as soon after Easter as weather permits, although vehicular access to the prospect is now possible. Thunderstruck's team will collect approximately 100 stream sediment samples, as a first pass, for gold-silver analysis, after a cyanide leach with multi-element analysis (32 elements) having been carried out on sub-samples of each. Detailed sampling will be carried out in Rama Creek, where SPR reported an outcropping, brecciated, silicified and pyritic porphyry carrying approximately 1 PPM gold. This field program will require approximately 11 working days, depending on weather conditions. The results of this work will enable the Company to focus on the prime anomalous areas. CEO Bryce Bradley comments, "We're very pleased to add Mr. Levrel, a qualified field geologist with a M Sc. in Geoscience, to our technical team. Mr. Levrel has already begun the process of converting our vast library of data into GIS format. The result will be a detailed geological model from which to advance our exploration efforts. Mr. Levrel is based in the capital of Fiji, Suva, with ready access to the Mineral Resources Department and within 85 km of the Rama Creek prospect. Once he incorporates our Rama stream sediment data into GIS he will assist with field operations at Rama sometime in May, where previous SSS data has shown the potential for extensive gold-bearing zones." Rama Creek Exploration Program Thunderstruck will be focussing this spring's exploration program on Rama Creek, as newly acquired historical exploration data has indicated the potential for extensive gold mineralization in this area. Other Business Fiji has been experiencing a particularly intense rainy season, (which generally runs November-April), with power outages and flooded roads. Due to this inclement weather, site tours have been postponed until the weather has improved and a new schedule can be agreed upon with potential JV partners and key investors. The 2016 Q4 sampling program returned results consistent with expectations, and will be used to determine further exploration work and drill targets for its 2017 program. Certain management and directors will be issued a total of 450,000 options carrying a strike price of $0.10 for a period of 10 years. About Thunderstruck Resources Thunderstruck Resources is a Canadian mining exploration company with highly prospective VMS and Precious Metals projects in Fiji. The Company provides investors with exposure to a diverse portfolio of assets rich in copper, zinc, silver and gold in a politically safe and stable jurisdiction. Thunderstruck trades on the Toronto Venture Exchange (TSX-V) under the symbol "AWE". OTTAWA, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - April 13, 2017) - Cornerstone Capital Resources Inc. ("Cornerstone" or "the Company") (TSX VENTURE:CGP)(FRANKFURT:GWN)(BERLIN:GWN)(OTCBB:CTNXF) announces the following project update for the Cascabel copper-gold porphyry joint venture exploration project in northern Ecuador. HIGHLIGHTS: Hole 23R intersects mineralized volcanic and fragmented (breccia) rocks, with increasing chalcopyrite and molybdenum mineralization. Hole 23R, at a current depth of 579.1m, is planned to intersect untested mineralization from approximately 700m depth to approximately 1800m below surface and has a planned hole depth of at least 2000m. Hole 24, Alpala Southeast, at a current depth of 868.7m, is intersecting chalcopyrite mineralization and multi-directional porphyry style quartz-chalcopyrite-bornite veining. Copper sulphide mineralization, with low pyrite content, below 738.9m, indicates probable proximity to the core of the Greater Alpala Porphyry System. Hole 24 extends the Alpala Deposit by 570m southeast of Hole 23R and extends the known length of the mineralized corridor at Alpala to approximately 1200m from Hole 13 in the northwest, inferring a length of 1300m. Hole 25, Hematite Hill, at a current depth of 847.0m, is intersecting multi-directional stockwork veining with chalcopyrite and bornite mineralization from 772.2m depth. Hole 25 extends the Alpala Deposit approximately 250m to the southeast of Hole 23R. Bornite mineralization with magnetite and potassic alteration in Holes 24 and 25 indicate probable proximity to the high temperature core of the Alpala system and are consistent with the 3D Magnetic model at Cascabel. Fourth man-portable rig being mobilized to site ahead of the arrival of Rigs 5, 6 and 7 over the coming two quarters. Drill testing to expand to high priority targets at Alpala East, Alpala West, Carmen, Trivino and Aguinaga by mid-year. FURTHER INFORMATION: The Cascabel Project is located within the gold-rich northern section of the Andean Copper belt (Figure 1). The project area hosts mineralization of Eocene age, the same age as numerous Tier 1 deposits along the Andean Copper Belt in Chile and Peru to the south. The project base is located at Rocafuerte, in northwestern Ecuador just west of the City of Ibarra, approximately 3 hours' drive north of Quito and close to water, power supply and Pacific Ports (Figure 2). Fifteen individual targets have been defined at Cascabel. SolGold has successfully drill tested three of the fifteen targets, being Alpala Central, Alpala Northwest, and Hematite Hill. Drill testing of a fourth target, at Alpala Southeast is currently under way (Hole 24) (Figure 3). Current drilling focuses on defining the geometry of the growing Alpala deposit, which is open in virtually all directions. Over 34,000m of drilling has been completed to date, and the arrival of Rigs 4, 5, 6 and 7 over the coming two quarters will see drill testing expanding to Alpala East, Alpala West, Trivino and Aguinaga by mid-year. The drilling program expands towards eight drilling rigs by year end, which will also see drill testing of the Tandayama-America prospect. (Figure 4). Hole 23 (CSD-17-023) at Alpala Northeast was abandoned at 159.0m depth after drilling contractors experienced technical difficulties downhole, and was redrilled as Hole 23R (CSD-16-023R) which continues drilling near vertical at a current depth of 579.1m testing approximately 125m below and in between Holes 12 and 16. To date, Hole 23R has intersected hydrothermal breccia and strong phyllic alteration, with the presence of clasts of mineralized porphyry within the breccia. Hole 23R is being drilled sub-vertical to intersect deep untested pockets of mineralization up to 1800m below surface and has a planned hole depth of approximately 2000m. Position of Hole 23R is shown in cross-section A-A' in Figure 5. Mineralization is increasing with depth in Hole 23R. Hole 24 (CSD-17-024) continues drilling at Alpala Southeast, at a current depth of 868.7m testing approximately 570m to southeast of Hole 23R. Hole 24 confirms the extension of the known mineralized corridor at Alpala to approximately 1300m from Hole 13 in the northwest. Drill core from Hole 24 below 738.9m shows strong chalcopyrite and bornite mineralization with significant magnetite, and low pyrite content, indicating probable proximity to the predicted copper and gold rich core of the greater Alpala Porphyry System. Hole 24 lies approximately 100m north of Malte Creek, where chalcopyrite and bornite mineralization was noted in surface geological mapping. The Alpala Southeast prospect area is characterised by coincident Molybdenum and Copper/Zinc soil geochemical highs, as well as intense and advanced argillic alteration identified from soil auger chip spectral analysis. High dickite and pyrophyllite clay content, mark high temperatures of formation typical of that surrounding a porphyry core. Surface indications are being confirmed by drilling. Hole 24 has a planned hole depth of at least 2000m. Selected examples of mineralization encountered in Hole 24 are shown in Figure 6. Hole 25 (CSD-17-025), at Hematite Hill, is intersecting multi-directional stockwork veining with chalcopyrite and bornite mineralization from 772.2m depth to the current depth of 847.0m. Hole 25 has a planned hole depth of at least 2000m. Selected examples of mineralization encountered in Hole 25 are shown in Figure 7. GEOPHYSICS Solgold has completed the ground magnetic survey over Cascabel, and preparations are being finalized to commence a detailed Orion-Spartan 3D IP survey across most of the concession (Figure 8). Processing of this improved magnetic data is underway and this work will not only augment the existing geophysical targets at Alpala and Aguinaga, but further investigate the promising Tandayama-America anomaly and other satellite targets on the property. Following analysis of these datasets, Solgold will further refine drill targets along the Alpala cluster, as well as those at Moran, Aguinaga, and Tandayama-America. A 'LIDAR' topographic control survey is being planned for commencement mid-year. The presence of magnetite with chalcopyrite and bornite with potassic alteration endorses the predictive nature of the 3D Magnetic model at Cascabel. The magnetic bodies at Alpala, Moran and Aguinaga envelope represent approximately 15 billion tonnes of untested magnetic rock. OUTLOOK Upgrade and expansion of site facilities are well underway at Cascabel as the project continues to expand towards 7 rigs by October and 10 rigs next year. The geology team have yet to define the extents of the Alpala porphyry system, and the deposit remains open in most directions, continuing to grow with each new drill hole. An aggressive drill program, producing approximately 90,000m of diamond drill core per annum from early 2018 is planned to delineate the system limits along the greater Alpala trend prior to a maiden resource statement, and to test the other multiple targets within the concession. An increasing understanding of the deposit is now leading to much larger step-outs in drilling as Solgold directs its program towards the copper and gold at a predicted large and rich heart of the Alpala system. About Cascabel: Exploraciones Novomining S.A. ("ENSA"), an Ecuadorean company owned by SolGold Plc and Cornerstone, holds 100% of the Cascabel concession. Subject to the satisfaction of certain conditions, including SolGold's fully funding the project through to feasibility, SolGold Plc will own 85% of the equity of ENSA and Cornerstone will own the remaining 15% of ENSA. SolGold Plc is funding 100% of the exploration at Cascabel and is the operator of the project. Cascabel is in northwestern Ecuador in an under-explored northern section of the Andean Copper Belt, 60 km northeast of the undeveloped inferred resource of 982 million tons at 0.89% Cu Llurimaga (formerly Junin) copper project (0.4% Cu cut-off grade; Micon International Co. Ltd. Technical Report for Ascendant Exploration SA, August 20, 2004, pages 28 & 29). Mineralization identified at the Llurimaga copper project is not necessarily indicative of the mineralization on the Cascabel Property. Plans: To date SolGold has completed geological mapping and soil sampling over 25 km2, along with and an additional 9km2 of Induced Polarisation and 14km2 Magnetotelluric "Orion" surveys over the Alpala cluster and Aguinaga targets. SolGold has completed 34,000m of drilling and expended over USD 4M on the program, corporate costs and investments into Cornerstone. Diamond drilling is planned for the next 12 months with multiple drill rigs. The Company is currently planning further metallurgical testing and completion of an independent Pre-Feasibility Study at Cascabel (which may or may not be the equivalent of a National Instrument 43-101/CIM definition standards Pre-Feasibility Study). SolGold is investigating both high tonnage open cut and underground block caving operations, as well as a high grade / low tonnage initial underground development towards the economic development of the copper gold deposit/s at Cascabel. Qualified Person: Yvan Crepeau, MBA, P.Geo., Cornerstone's Vice President, Exploration and a qualified person in accordance with National Instrument 43-101, is responsible for supervising the exploration program at the Cascabel project for Cornerstone and has reviewed and approved the information contained in this news release. Logging, sampling, assaying and reporting Holes referred to in this release were or are being drilled using HTW, NTW, NQ and BQ core sizes (respectively 7.1, 5.6, 4.8 and 3.7 cm diameter). Geotechnical measurements such as core recovery, fracturing, rock quality designations (RQD's), specific density and photographic logging are performed systematically prior to assaying. The core is logged, magnetic susceptibility measured and key alteration minerals identified using an on-site portable spectrometer. Core is then sawed in half at the ENSA core logging facility, and half of the core is delivered by ENSA employees for preparation at ALS Minerals Laboratories (ALS) sample preparation facility in Quito. Core samples are prepared crushing to 70% passing 2 mm (10 mesh), splitting 250 g and pulverizing to 85% passing 75 microns (200 mesh) (ALS code CRU-31, SPL21 and PUL-32). Prepared samples are then shipped to ALS in Lima, Peru where samples are assayed for a multi-element suite (ALS code ME-MSP61, 1g split, 4-acid digestion, ICP-MS finish). Over limit results for Ag (> 100 g/t) and Cu, (> 1%) are systematically re-assayed (ALS code Ag-AA62, 4-acid digestion, AAS finish). Gold is assayed using a 30 g split, Fire Assay (FA) and AA finish (ALS code Au-AA23). Drill hole intercepts are calculated using a data aggregation method, defined by copper equivalent cut-off grades and reported with up to 10m internal dilution, excluding bridging to a single sample. Copper equivalent grades are calculated using a gold conversion factor of 0.63, determined using an updated copper price of USD3.00/pound and an updated gold price of USD1300/ounce. Copper equivalent calculation assumes 100% recoveries of copper and gold. All reported drill core intervals from the Cascabel Property are core lengths, unless otherwise indicated. At present the true thicknesses of all the holes has not been calculated by SolGold. True width of down hole intersections is estimated by SolGold to be approximately 25-50% of the core length. Quality assurance / Quality control (QA/QC) The ALS Laboratory is a qualified assayer that performs and makes available internal assaying controls. Duplicates, certified blanks and standards are systematically used (1 control sample every 15-20 samples). Rejects, a 100 g pulp for each core sample and the remaining half-core are stored for future use and controls. About Cornerstone: Cornerstone Capital Resources Inc. is a well-funded mineral exploration company with a diversified portfolio of projects in Ecuador and Chile, and a proven ability to identify, acquire and advance properties of merit. The company's business model is based on generating exploration projects whose subsequent development is funded primarily through partnerships. Further information is available on Cornerstone's website: www.cornerstoneresources.com By Kim Se-jeong A memoir by former President Chun Doo-hwan is angering people in Gwangju and South Jeolla Province, where a popular uprising against his military regime in May 1980 was violently suppressed by armed forces. Bookstores in Gwangju were flooded with complaints and requests to remove copies of the memoir from their shelves. A Kyobo bookstore in Jamsil, southeastern Seoul, also received a request from a shopper to remove the copies. "After taking time to calm down, I asked the bookstore director to remove the books from shelves," the shopper told the Hankyoreh, a local newspaper. The May 18 Memorial Foundation said Wednesday that along with other groups and lawyers, it will ask a court to ban sales of "Chun Doo-hwan's Memoir," which went on sale April 3 across the country. "Chun is denying history. Chun was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment by the Supreme Court," the foundation said in a statement. "Instead of repenting what he did, he is trying to make a case for himself in the book.'' Local newspapers are also joining forces to criticize Chun. "Chun claims he had nothing to do with the May 18 uprising and never ordered the military's intervention and suppression of people," the Jeonnam Ilbo wrote in an editorial. "His pardon in 1997 was to give him an opportunity to repent, but he actually hasn't done it. His memoir should be taken off bookshelves." In May 1980, people revolted against the military regime which responded with force, resulting in 606 deaths. Chun was found guilty of numerous charges including insurrection and bribery. He was sentenced to death, which was commuted to life in prison, but pardoned in 1997. In 2011, records about the uprising were added to the UNESCO Memory of the World Register. In the book, he claimed he was a victim. "I think all the hate speech against me comes from the May 18 uprising. I was an offering given to heal the wounds of the people. I have been made to carry the cross Only the fact that I was the president meant I was a sinner." He also referred to the uprising as riots, which prompted a group of lawyers and activists in Gwangju to consider a defamation lawsuit. South Korean Acting President Hwang Kyo-ahn urged Japan Thursday to squarely face history and show sincere remorse over its past occupation of the Korean Peninsula. Hwang made the call in an address marking the 98th anniversary of the establishment of Korea's provisional government in Shanghai, China, in 1919. Korea was under Japanese colonial rule from 1910-45. "The Japanese government should squarely face history as it is, and show a sincere and consistent attitude in regretting its past mistakes and educating future generations," he said during a ceremony at the Kim Koo Museum and Library in Seoul. "A correct perception of history is the starting point and necessary condition for a future-oriented partnership between South Korea and Japan." Tensions flared this year after Tokyo recalled its ambassador to Seoul in protest of the installation of a girl statue symbolizing Korean victims of Japan's wartime sexual slavery in front of the Japanese consulate in the southeastern port city of Busan. Japan also angered South Korea last month by renewing claims to the latter's easternmost islets of Dokdo in a new set of textbooks and education guidelines. At a meeting of government ministers earlier in the day, Hwang discussed the growing possibility of an additional North Korean nuclear test or missile launch. He said South Korea and the United States are fully prepared to respond to any provocation from the North and maintain close coordination on the issue based on its firm alliance. U.S. Vice President Mike Pence's upcoming visit to South Korea will serve as an opportunity to further strengthen that coordination and defend the nation with a watertight security posture, he said. Hwang also vowed to work with the national election watchdog to ensure a fair and transparent presidential election on May 9. (Yonhap) Brazil's largest city Sao Paulo has designated August 15 as "Korean Culture Day," raising the prospect of enhancing the Korean community's image in the South American country and boosting the city government's financial support for Korean culture-related events, South Korean officials said Monday. The designation of Korean Culture Day came after a Koreatown was formed in 2010 in Bom Retiro, a densely populated area in Sao Paulo. Sao Paulo's Mayor Joao Doria signed a document on the designation of the culture day on Friday as he met with South Korean Consul General in Sao Paulo Hong Young-jong, representatives of a group of South Korean residents and South Korean businesspeople. Doria was also quoted as saying during the meeting that he will push ahead with a project to make Bom Retiro "Little Seoul." Under the project, the Brazilian city government will install monuments symbolic of South Korea, set up places to promote Korean foods and products and give support to Korean artists taking part in cultural exchanges with their Brazilian counterparts, according to the officials. Hong expressed thanks to Doria for his support for the Korean community and expected that the designation of Korean Culture Day will deepen cooperation and exchanges between the two countries. The South Korean resident group, meanwhile, plans to hold this year's "Korean Culture Day" event, the 11th of its kind, for Aug. 11-12 in Koreatown. (Yonhap) LifeStyle The best LifeStyle shows are right here, from Australia and around the world. Catch up with the experts on home design and interiors, food and cooking, the property market, and get fresh ideas with the savviest of renovators. Whether you need inspiration for cooking up a storm, to refresh a tired room, or tips to sell your property, Foxtel LifeStyle will always something new for you to watch. Enjoy your favourite experts like Andrew Winter and Neale Whitaker, or Deb Hutton and Jamie Oliver live or On Demand. Get Foxtel by Jess Nelson , April 12, 2017 The fallout continues for United Airlines, with shares down 1.1% by the end of trading on Tuesday after the airline forcibly removed a passenger on Sunday due to overbooking. The travel industry doesnt just suffer from a lackluster customer experience, but also has some of the least effective email marketing according to IBM research. Litmus surveyed more than 600 U.S. consumers that had booked travel in the last year to investigate how travel brands could improve their email marketing performance. The report suggests that travel marketers should be more mobile-friendly, highlight promotions in their marketing content, and limit overall email volume. The majority of consumers plan their travel over a period of 30-180 days, with the travel planning process beginning an average of 84 days in advance according to Litmus. Many travel companies still focus on last-minute promotions in their email campaigns, however, so marketers should factor the length of the travel purchasing lifecycle when constructing their message strategy. advertisement advertisement Book now offers might still be fruitful for travel brands, as 36% of travelers responded that an email led to a purchase that wasnt originally planned according to Litmus. This isnt permission for travel brands to go haywire and send massive amounts of last-minute deals to subscribers, because travelers are already getting frustrated with the amount of email they receive. Up to a third of respondents asserted they received emails from travel brands too frequently according to Litmus research, with house rental companies receiving the highest subscriber dissatisfaction with email volume. The desire for better pricing is the most popular motivator to sign up for travel emails according to Litmus, so travel marketers should abide consumers desires for promotional deals in their email marketing campaigns. Price is also the most important factor for booking hotel rooms according to the report, although pricing was a less important for business travelers. Its also imperative that travel brands be more mobile-friendly, and Litmus recommends marketers use responsive or hybrid design to ensure emails render correctly no matter what device is being used. Almost half of consumers polled responded that they read emails from travel brands on their smartphone. Forty-five percent read emails on their smartphones, while 12% use tablets and 74% look at emails on their desktop or laptop computers. Travel brands may also want to consider including dynamic content in their email campaigns that incorporate geographic and weather data. Almost half of the travelers polled by Litmus responded that weather plays a role in booking travel, with travelers from cold weather states even more likely to factor weather into consideration when planning a trip. Litmus works with a variety of travel brands, including Airbnb, Expedia, Lonely Planet, JetBlue, Hilton and booking.com. by Philip Rosenstein , April 12, 2017 The special election in the Georgia 6th district will serve as a bellwether of post-2016 sentiment, as well as President Trumps first few months in office. Following a better-than-expected Democratic showing in the first federal election since 2016 in Kansas, where the GOP squeaked out a victory, more groups are keen on backing Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff in Georgia. Democrats have a good chance of flipping Sec. of Health and Human Services Tom Prices former House seat. MoveOn.org Political Action launched a six-figure TV and digital ad campaign supporting Ossoff on Monday. The TV portion of the campaign includes a 30-second spot highlighting Ossoffs support for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), contrasting that with the unsuccessful American Health Care Act (AHCA). The ad ends with: On April 18, lets send a message to Donald Trump. Vote for Jon Ossoff. Another TV ad takes a similar approach, touting Ossoffs positions on health care. On the digital front, MoveOn is targeting likely voters in Georgias 6th district. Ossoff is the sort of progressive championstrong on both racial justice and economic justicewho can channel resistance movement energy into progressive volunteers and votes. Republicans have done him a big favor with their efforts to repeal the ACA and kick tens of millions of people off of their health care, Anna Galland, interim executive director of MoveOn.org Political Action, quotedin a piece on the organizations site. The focus on the ACA and failed AHCA follows a poll commissioned by MoveOn showing the top issue for Georgia 6th likely voters is health care. The poll also has Ossoff with a strong lead in the open primary and tied with top Republican candidate Karen Handel in a runoff. Ossoff has out-raised all candidates, collecting more than $8 million with $2 million-plus on hand. by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, April 12, 2017 Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai's plan to repeal the net neutrality rules isn't sitting well with Silicon Valley. This week, the trade group Internet Association -- which counts companies like Amazon, Google, eBay and Facebook as members -- met with Pai in an attempt to convince him that net neutrality rules are critical to Web companies. The Internet Association's president and CEO Michael Beckerman, along with general counsel Abigail Slater, argued to Pai that the open Internet order "is a vital component of the free and open internet," according to a filing describing the meeting. "The internet industry is uniform in its belief that net neutrality preserves the consumer experience, competition, and innovation online," the Internet Association writes. "In other words, existing net neutrality rules should be enforced and kept intact." advertisement advertisement The rules, passed last year, reclassified broadband as a utility service and subjected providers to some common carrier restrictions. Among others, the rules prohibit broadband providers from blocking or degrading service and from charging higher fees for prioritized delivery. The rules also broadly ban Internet service providers from engaging in conduct that interferes with people's ability to access material online. Beckerman and Slater pointed out to Pai that the net neutrality rules survived a court challenge last year, when the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected arguments that the FCC lacked authority to issue the rules. The Internet Association also told the FCC that the rules haven't resulted in a drop in investment by providers. Pai, who dissented from the vote to impose net neutrality rules, has indicated that he will try to revoke them at the first opportunity. Late last week, he reportedly floated a plan to repeal the rules, but also convince carriers to voluntarily include net neutrality obligations in their terms of service. Pai supposedly wants the Federal Trade Commission to then enforce violations -- even though the FTC lacks authority to prosecute the telecoms and cable companies that provide broadband service. Motherboard, Wednesday, April 12, 2017 4:26 PM Tennessee lawmakers have passed a bill that would give private companies $45 million to extend broadband to rural areas. But the state failed to pass a measure that would have enabled Chattanooga to expand its muni-broadband network, which currently offers connections as far as 10 Gbps. Read the whole story at Motherboard Continuing to challenge Facebooks ad-targeting expertise, Snap is rolling out a new ad product that tracks the relationship between online and offline conversions. Dubbed Snap to Store, the new effort is tailored for businesses determined to drive consumers into physical retail spaces. Prior to its official launch on Wednesday, a number of brands experimented with the product, including Wendys, 7-Eleven and Paramount Pictures. Increasingly focuses on monetization, Snap has recently been testing fancier ad offerings. For example, the public company recently rolled out an Engagement Audiences initiative, which invites brands to target those users who previously interacted with their ads on Snapchat. As such, brands can now can hit audiences whove already interacted with their Lens or Geofilter with a fresh Snap Ad campaign. advertisement advertisement The point is to help advertisers reach consumers more likely to be in the consideration stage -- or mid-funnel -- because they have already shown an interest in their brand. According to Snap, this sort of offering is not retargeting as it is commonly known. Rather, its engagement targeting all within Snapchat rather than involving outside Web sites or data. Since its debut at the end of 2016, Snap also continues to roll out goal-based bidding for installs. Per the program, advertisers can bid for installs, which means buyers can optimize for the lowest cost per install by showing ads to users most likely to install the app. This form of targeting is done via Snaps auction, while brands are still billed on impressions. Over the past year, Snapchat has secured its spot as a top app. According to comScore, the popular service officially joined the ranks of the Top 10 most popular apps in late 2016. Snapchat went from being a very popular app among the younger demographics to being one of the most popular apps among the general population, Adam Lella, senior analyst at comScore, recently told Mediaposts Moblog. Critically, Snapchats general popularity has yet to undercut its status among Millennials, according to comScores 2017 Cross-Platform Future in Focus report. At the end of 2016, a whopping 78% of U.S. consumers ages 18-to-24 and 48% of those 25-to-34 were using Snapchat. AU Optronics Corp. researches, develops, produces, and sells thin film transistor liquid crystal displays and other flat panel displays. The company operates through two segments, Display and Solar. The Display segment designs, develops, manufactures, assembles, and markets flat panel displays for use in televisions (TVs), TV sets, and other related products; desktop monitors; mobile PCs, such as notebooks and tablets; mobile phones; and commercial and other applications, including displays for automobiles, industrial PCs, automated teller machines, point of sale terminals, pachinko machines, medical equipment, and others. This segment serves original equipment manufacturing service providers; and brand companies. The Solar segment manufactures and sells solar materials, including ingots, solar wafers, and solar modules, as well as provides technical engineering and maintenance services for solar system projects. This segment sells its ingot and solar wafer products primarily to solar cell manufacturers; and solar modules to installers, solar system integrators, property developers, and other value-added resellers. The company also engages in the renewable energy power generation; repairing and sale support of TFT-LCD modules, as well as sale support of solar-related products; injecting and stamping parts; manufacture and sale of molds, light guide plates, liquid crystal products, backlight modules, and related parts, as well as precision plastic and metal parts; IP related business; design, development and sales of software and hardware for health care industry; manufacture, assembly, and sale of automotive parts; manufacture and sale of motorized treadmills; and planning, design, and development of construction for environmental protection and related project management. It operates in the People's Republic of China, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, and internationally. AU Optronics Corp. was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in Hsinchu, Taiwan. Boston Scientific Corporation develops, manufactures, and markets medical devices for use in various interventional medical specialties worldwide. It operates through three segments: MedSurg, Rhythm and Neuro, and Cardiovascular. The company offers devices to diagnose and treat gastrointestinal and pulmonary conditions; devices to treat various urological and pelvic conditions; implantable cardioverter and implantable cardiac resynchronization therapy defibrillators; pacemakers and implantable cardiac resynchronization therapy pacemakers; and remote patient management systems. It also provides medical technologies to diagnose and treat rate and rhythm disorders of the heart comprising 3-D cardiac mapping and navigation solutions, ablation catheters, diagnostic catheters, mapping catheters, intracardiac ultrasound catheters, delivery sheaths, and other accessories; spinal cord stimulator systems for the management of chronic pain; indirect decompression systems; and deep brain stimulation systems. In addition, the company offers interventional cardiology products, including drug-eluting coronary stent systems used in the treatment of coronary artery disease; percutaneous coronary interventions products to treat atherosclerosis; intravascular catheter-directed ultrasound imaging catheters, fractional flow reserve devices, and systems for use in coronary arteries and heart chambers, as well as various peripheral vessels; and structural heart therapies. Further, it provides stents, balloon catheters, wires, and atherectomy systems to treat arterial diseases; thrombectomy and acoustic pulse thrombolysis systems, wires, and stents to treat venous diseases; and peripheral embolization devices, radioactive microspheres, ablation systems, cryotherapy ablation systems, and micro and drainage catheters to treat cancer. The company was incorporated in 1979 and is headquartered in Marlborough, Massachusetts. Daimler AG, together its subsidiaries, develops and manufactures passenger cars, trucks, vans, and buses in Germany and internationally. It operates through Mercedes-Benz Cars & Vans, Daimler Trucks and Buses, and Daimler Mobility segments. The Mercedes-Benz Cars segment offers premium and luxury vehicles of the Mercedes-Benz brand, including the Mercedes-AMG, Mercedes-Maybach, and Mercedes-EQ brands; small cars under the smart brand name; and ecosystem of Mercedes-Benz under the Mercedes me brand, as well as vans and related services under the Mercedes-Benz and Freightliner brands. Daimler Trucks and Buses segment offers its trucks and special vehicles under the Mercedes-Benz, Freightliner, Western Star, FUSO, and BharatBenz brands; and buses under the Mercedes-Benz, Setra, Thomas Built Buses, and FU brands, as well as bus chassis. The Daimler Mobility segment provides financing and leasing packages for end-customers and dealers; and automotive insurance brokerage, banking, investment, and fleet management services under the Athlon brand. It also sells vehicle related spare parts and accessories. Daimler AG was founded in 1886 and is headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany Nucor Corporation manufactures and sells steel and steel products. The company's Steel Mills segment produces hot-rolled, cold-rolled, and galvanized sheet steel products; plate steel products; wide-flange beams, beam blanks, and H-piling and sheet piling products; and bar steel products, such as blooms, billets, concrete reinforcing and merchant bars, and special bar quality products. It also engages in the steel trading and rebar distribution businesses. This segment sells its products to steel service centers, fabricators, and manufacturers in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Its Steel Products segment offers hollow structural section steel tubing products, electrical conduits, steel racking, steel joists and joist girders, steel decks, fabricated concrete reinforcing steel products, cold finished steel products, steel fasteners, metal building systems, insulated metal panels, steel grating and expanded metal products, and wire and wire mesh products primarily for use in nonresidential construction applications. This segment also engages in the piling distribution business. The company's Raw Materials segment produces direct reduced iron (DRI); brokers ferrous and nonferrous metals, pig iron, hot briquetted iron, and DRI; supplies ferro-alloys; and processes ferrous and nonferrous scrap metal, as well as engages in the natural gas drilling operations. This segment sells its ferrous scrap to electric arc furnace steel mills and foundries for manufacturing process; and nonferrous scrap metal to aluminum can producers, secondary aluminum smelters, steel mills and other processors, and consumers of various nonferrous metals. It serves agriculture, automotive, construction, energy and transmission, oil and gas, heavy equipment, infrastructure, and transportation industries through its in-house sales force; and internal distribution and trading companies. Nucor Corporation was incorporated in 1958 and is based in Charlotte, North Carolina. The following companies are subsidiares of NOV: APL France SAS, APL Norway AS, APL do Brasil Ltda., ASEP Otomotiv Sanayi Ticaret Ltd., Acker Holdings LLC, Ackerman Holdings C.V., Ackerman Holdings GP LLC, Advanced Production and Loading, Advanced Wirecloth S. de R.L. de C.V., American Pipe and Construction International, Ameron B.V., Ameron International, Ameron International Corporation, Ameron Pole Products LLC, Ameron Polyplaster Industria E Comercio de Tubos Ltda., Ameron Singapore Holding LLC, Andergauge Limited, Andergauge Redback LLC, Arabian Rig Manufacturing Company, Big Red Tubulars Limited, Bondstrand Ltd., Brandt Oilfield Services (M) Sdn. Bhd., C.M.A. Canavera S.R.L., CJSC Fidmash, CJSC Novmash, Chemineer Inc., Coil Services Middle East LLC, Cooperatie Intelliserv Holding U.A., Cooperatie NOV NL U.A., Danco AS, Elmar Far East Pty Ltd, Enerflow Industries, Environmental Procedures LLC, Fiber Glass Systems (Qingdao) Composite Piping Co. Ltd., Fiber Glass Systems L.P., Fiber Glass Systems Oman L.L.C., Fiberspar, Fiberspar Australia Pty. Ltd., Fibra Ingenieria y Construccion S.A., FidService LLC, Fjords Processing (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Fjords Processing AS, Fjords Processing Australia Pty Ltd, Fjords Processing France SAS, Fjords Processing Korea Co. Ltd., Fjords Processing Limited, Fjords Processing Middle East DMCC, Fjords Processing UK Ltd., Fryma S.a.r.l., GPEX L.P., Grant Prideco (Jiangsu) Drilling Products Co. Ltd, Grant Prideco (Singapore) Pte Ltd, Grant Prideco III C. V., Grant Prideco Inc., Grant Prideco Jersey Limited, Grant Prideco Mauritius Limited, Grant Prideco Netherlands B.V., Grant Prideco PC Composites Holdings LLC, Grant Prideco S. de R.L. de C.V., Grant Prideco de Venezuela S.A., GustoMSC B.V., Hebei Huayouyiji Tuboscope Coating Co. Ltd., Hydralift AmClyde Inc., Hydralift France SAS, Inspecciones y Pruebas No Destructivas S. de R.L. de C.V., IntelliServ Norway AS, Intelliserv GP Holdings LLC, Intelliserv Inc., Intelliserv International Holding Ltd, Intelliserv LLC, JiangYin Tuboscope Tubular Development Co. Ltd, Keystone Tower Systems Inc., MSI Pipe Protection Technologies UK Limited, Merpro Group Limited, Midsund Bruk AS, Mono Group Pension Trustees Limited, Mono Pumps New Zealand Company, Monoflo NOV S.A.I.C., Moyno Inc., NKT Flexibles I/S, NOV (Asia) Inc., NOV (Barbados) Holding SRL, NOV (Barbados) SRL, NOV (Caymans) Ltd., NOV (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., NOV - Oil Services Angola LDA., NOV APL Limited, NOV Africa Pty Ltd, NOV Australia Pty Ltd, NOV Azerbaijan LLC, NOV Brandt Europe France, NOV Brandt Oilfield Services Middle East LLC, NOV CAPS Pte. Ltd., NOV CV1 GP LLC, NOV CV2 GP LLC, NOV Canada ULC, NOV Completion Tools LLC, NOV Completion and Production Solutions Korea Ltd., NOV Denmark Cooperatief U.A., NOV Downhole Argentina LLC, NOV Downhole Bolivia S.R.L., NOV Downhole Colombia LLC, NOV Downhole Comercializacao de Equipamentos para Petroleo Ltda., NOV Downhole Congo LLC, NOV Downhole Eurasia Limited, NOV Downhole Italia S.R.L., NOV Downhole Kazakhstan LLC, NOV Downhole Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., NOV Downhole Pty Ltd, NOV Downhole Thailand LLC, NOV EU Acquisition SNC, NOV Elmar (Middle East) Limited, NOV Eurasia Holding LLC, NOV Expatriate Services Inc., NOV FGS Malaysia Sdn Bhd, NOV FGS Singapore (Pte.) Ltd, NOV Flexibles Equipamentos E Servicos Ltda., NOV Flexibles Holding ApS, NOV Fluid Control B.V., NOV GEO GP LLC, NOV GEO LP1 C.V., NOV GEO LP1 LLC, NOV GEO LP2 C.V., NOV GEO LP2 LLC, NOV Gabon SARL, NOV Germany GmbH, NOV Germany Holding GmbH, NOV Ghana Limited, NOV Grant Prideco Drilling Equipment Manufacturing LLC, NOV Grant Prideco Drilling Products Middle East FZE, NOV Grant Prideco L.L.C., NOV Holding Danmark ApS, NOV Holding Sub UK 1 Limited, NOV Holding UK 1 Limited, NOV Holding UK 2 Limited, NOV Holdings B.V., NOV India Private Limited, NOV Intelliserv UK Limited, NOV International Holdings C.V., NOV International Holdings GP LLC, NOV International Holdings LLC, NOV Intervention & Stimulation Equipment US LLC, NOV Intervention and Stimulation Equipment Aftermarket Comercio de Equipamentos e Servicos Ltda., NOV Kenya Limited, NOV Kostroma LLC, NOV Kuwait Light & Heavy Equipment Repairing & Maintenance Co., NOV LP (Trading) LLC, NOV MFG India Private Limited, NOV Mexico Holding LLC, NOV Middle East FZCO, NOV Mozambique Limitada, NOV NL Mexico Holding B.V., NOV Oil & Gas Services Egypt (S.A.E), NOV Oil & Gas Services Senegal S.A.R.L., NOV Oil & Gas Services Uganda Limited, NOV Oil and Gas Services Ghana Limited, NOV Oil and Gas Services Namibia (Proprietary) Limited, NOV Oil and Gas Services Nigeria Limited, NOV Oil and Gas Services South Africa (Pty) Limited, NOV Oilfield Services Tanzania Limited, NOV Oilfield Services Vostok LLC, NOV Oilfield Solutions Ltd., NOV Park II B.V., NOV Process & Flow Technologies AS, NOV Process & Flow Technologies Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., NOV Process & Flow Technologies Pte. Ltd., NOV Process & Flow Technologies UK Limited, NOV QFZ LLC, NOV Rig Solutions Pte. Ltd., NOV Romania LLC, NOV Saudi Arabia Co. Ltd., NOV Saudi Arabia Trading Co., NOV Services Ltd., NOV Servicios de Personal Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., NOV Tanajib Kuwait for Services and Maintenance of Oil Rigs Refineries and Petrochemicals W.L.L., NOV Tuboscope Italia S.R.L., NOV Tuboscope Middle East LLC, NOV Tuboscope NL B.V., NOV Tubulars and Connectors Ltd., NOV UK (Angola Acquisitions) Limited, NOV UK Finance Limited, NOV UK Holdings LLC, NOV UK Holdings Limited, NOV UK Korea LP, NOV Wellbore Technologies Norway LLC, NOV Wellbore Technologies do Brasil Equipamentos E Servicos Ltda., NOV Wellsite Services Germany GmbH, NOV Worldwide B.V., NOV-BLM SAS, NOVM Holding LLC, NOW International LLC, NOW Nova Scotia Holdings LLC, NOW Oilfield Services LLC, NQL Holland B.V., National Oilwell (U.K.) Limited, National Oilwell Algerie, National Oilwell Varco (Beijing) Investment Management Co. Ltd., National Oilwell Varco (Thailand) Ltd., National Oilwell Varco Algeria, National Oilwell Varco Almansoori Services, National Oilwell Varco Bahrain WLL, National Oilwell Varco Belgium SA, National Oilwell Varco Denmark I/S, National Oilwell Varco Egypt LLC, National Oilwell Varco Eurasia LLC, National Oilwell Varco Guatemala Limitada, National Oilwell Varco Guyana Inc., National Oilwell Varco Hungary Limited Liability Company, National Oilwell Varco Korea Co. Ltd., National Oilwell Varco L.P., National Oilwell Varco MSW S.A., National Oilwell Varco Mexico S.A. de C.V., National Oilwell Varco Muscat L.L.C., National Oilwell Varco Norway AS, National Oilwell Varco Peru S.R.L., National Oilwell Varco Petroleum Equipment (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., National Oilwell Varco Poland Sp.z.o.o., National Oilwell Varco Pte. Ltd., National Oilwell Varco Rig Equipment Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., National Oilwell Varco Romania S.R.L., National Oilwell Varco Solutions S.A. de C.V., National Oilwell Varco UK Limited, National Oilwell Varco Ukraine LLC, National Oilwell Varco de Bolivia S.R.L., National Oilwell Varco de Chile - Servicios Limitada, National Oilwell Varco do Brasil Ltda., National Oilwell de Venezuela C.A., National-Oilwell Pte. Ltd., National-Oilwell Pty. Ltd., PT Fjords Processing Indonesia, PT H-Tech Oilfield Equipment, PT NOV Oilfield Services, PT National Oilwell Varco, PT PROFAB INDONESIA, Pesaka Inspection Services SDN.BHD., Pipex Limited, Pipex PX Limited, Pridecomex Holding S. de R.L. de C.V., R&M Energy Systems Australia Pty Ltd, R&M Energy Systems de Argentina S.A., R&M Energy Systems de Venezuela C.A., R&M Singapore Holding LLC, RE.MAC.UT. S.r.l., RHI Holding LLC, ReedHycalog International Holding LLC, ReedHycalog L.P., ReedHycalog LLC, ReedHycalog UK Limited, Robannic Overseas Finance A.V.V., Robbins & Myers B.V., Robbins & Myers Foundation, Robbins & Myers GP LLC, Robbins & Myers Holdings LLC, Robbins & Myers Holdings UK Limited, Robbins & Myers Inc, Robbins & Myers Inc., Robbins & Myers Italia S.R.L., Robbins & Myers N.V., Rodic S.A. de C.V., Romaco S.a.r.l., STAR Sudamtex Tubulares S.A., STSA, Screen Manufacturing Company Unlimited, Slip Clutch Systems Limited, South Seas Inspection, Subseaflex Holding ApS, T-3 Energy Preferred Industries Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., T-3 Energy Services Cayman Holdings Ltd., T-3 Energy Services Cayman Ltd., T-3 Energy Services LLC, T-3 Energy Services Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., T-3 Investment Corporation IV, T-3 Mexican Holdings Inc., Telluride Insurance Limited, Tianjin Grant TPCO Drilling Tools Company Limited, Tuboscope & Co. LLC, Tuboscope (Holding U.S.) LLC, Tuboscope Brandt de Venezuela S.A., Tuboscope Norge AS, Tuboscope Vetco (France) SAS, Tuboscope Vetco (Osterreich) GmbH, Tuboscope Vetco Capital Limited, Tuboscope Vetco Moscow CJSC, Tuboscope Vetco de Argentina S.A., Tubular Coatings Solutions Ltd., Tucom Composites Polyester Sanayi Ticaret Ltd., Urban WLY LP, Varco BJ B.V., Varco CIS LLC, Varco International de Venezuela C.A., Varco L.P., Varco US Holdings LLC, Vetco Enterprise GmbH, Vetco Saudi Arabia Ltd., Visible Assets Inc., Wilson International, Woolley Inc., XL Systems Antilles N.V., XL Systems Europe B.V., XL Systems International Inc., voestalpine Tubulars Corporation, voestalpine Tubulars GmbH, and voestalpine Tubulars GmbH & Co KG. Read More Northrop Grumman Corporation operates as an aerospace and defense company worldwide. The company's Aeronautics Systems segment designs, develops, manufactures, integrates, and sustains aircraft systems. This segment also offers unmanned autonomous aircraft systems, including high-altitude long-endurance strategic ISR systems and vertical take-off and landing tactical ISR systems; and strategic long-range strike aircraft, tactical fighter and air dominance aircraft, and airborne battle management and command and control systems. Its Defense Systems segment designs, develops, and produces weapons and mission systems. It offers products and services, such as integrated battle management systems, weapons systems and aircraft, and mission systems. This segment also provides command and control and weapons systems, including munitions and missiles; precision strike weapons; propulsion, such as air-breathing and hypersonic systems; gun systems and precision munitions; life cycle service and support for software, weapons systems, and aircraft; and logistics support, sustainment, operation, and modernization for air, sea, and ground systems. The company's Mission Systems segment offers cyber, command, control, communications and computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems; radar, electro-optical/infrared and acoustic sensors; electronic warfare systems; advanced communications and network systems; cyber solutions; intelligence processing systems; navigation; and maritime power, propulsion, and payload launch systems. This segment also provides airborne multifunction sensors; maritime/land systems and sensors; navigation, targeting, and survivability solutions; and networked information solutions. Its Space Systems segment offers satellites and payloads; ground systems; missile defense systems and interceptors; launch vehicles and related propulsion systems; and strategic missiles. The company was founded in 1939 and is based in Falls Church, Virginia. Patrick Boniface examines the lives of historys most daring wartime captives. In November 1899, the 25-year-old Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill was travelling in an armoured train transiting between Frere and Chieveley, in the British colony of Natal in South Africa. The soldiers were making a fast reconnoitre of the territory, and Churchill was there to send news back to Great Britain to those eager for information about this important but under-reported mission. The conditions were horrendous. The train rattled and rolled, and within the steel-clad carriages the air was hot and sticky. Churchill, however, loved it to him it was dangerous and exciting. The young man was soon on the edge of his seat: a Boer commando-laid trap was sprung not long into his journey. Captured The Boers had placed a large boulder on the railway track, forcing the train to stop. Within seconds, it came under withering attack from field-guns and rifle-fire. Injured soldiers tried to move their colleagues to safety while attempting to uncouple the carriages, but within 70 minutes of the start of the onslaught the Boers had closed in. In the mayhem, Churchill found himself in a ditch, covered in sweat, blood, and dust. A Boer got off his horse and raised his Mauser pistol to shoot him, and Churchill, who was unarmed, surrendered. (The officer Churchill surrendered to was General Louis Botha, who would later become Prime Minister of South Africa.) Churchill and the other prisoners were route-marched and put on a train to Pretoria. The future British Prime Minister eventually found himself in a prisoner-of-war camp housed in what was originally a school. It is now a national monument. The long road to freedom During his time in captivity, Churchill and the other captured men drew maps of battles and military movements from the scant information they received from their colleagues. These maps were fashioned in pen and pencil, with red used for British movements and blue for those of the Boers. On the evening of 12 December 1899, after four weeks in captivity, Churchill scaled a 10-foot wall and made his way through Pretoria. Although he walked under cover of darkness, he was not yet free. His aim was to find the railway line that headed east to Delagoa Bay. When he did so, he followed the course of the railway, either walking along it or hitching rides on steam trains ferrying freight. He survived by stealing food and drink along the way. By sheer luck, he met fellow Englishman John Howard, manager of the Transvaal and Delagoa Bay Colliery, and with Howards help and hospitality Churchill managed to evade capture. After an epic 300 miles on the run, Churchill finally reached Delagoa Bay on a freight train laden with wool. The Boers had wanted Churchill dead or alive, but he managed to reach the border with Mozambique at Lourenco Marques (now Maputo), where he was safe once again. Propaganda Value Churchill was an ambitious man who was eager to make a name for himself. It was hardly surprising that, when he presented himself to the local British consul, he and the British authorities sought to squeeze every last ounce of propaganda from his escape. Churchill travelled by steamer to Durban, where he was greeted by a large crowd and treated like a hero, something that must have gratified his already considerable ego. Early the following year, Churchill retraced his steps to resume his work as a war correspondent. On arrival at the army camp in Natal, an officer took him to his tent, which Churchill found standing just 50 yards from where he had been captured six weeks earlier. Churchill soon abandoned his journalistic ambitions and joined a Boer cavalry regiment, taking part in the Siege of Ladysmith. But his military career did not last long he travelled back to Britain to pursue his interest in politics later that same year. Meanwhile, the Anglo-Boer War wore on until the signing of the Treaty of Vereeniging in 1902. This article was published in issue 79 of Military History Monthly. To subscribe to the magazine click here. To access the digital edition click here. Christine, I'm sure one of our Namibia experts will be of greater help, but your specimen is similar to one I have, which is mesolite on fluorapophyllite from Palabora Mine, South Africa and not Namibia. (Some specimens from there have the mesolite on prehnite.) On mine, the mesolite bundles are tighter, more like the top center bundle in your second photo. What mineral is below the mesolite on your sample? Indians second baseman Jason Kipnis was hit by a pitch on his left hand during a rehab outing tonight, as Jordan Bastian of MLB.com tweets. Hes expected to sit out at least one contest, though at this point theres no indication that he has suffered a significant injury. Cleveland is no doubt looking forward to the return of Kipnis, who is working back from a shoulder injury. As Bastian writes, the clubs bats have stalled in the early going. More from the American League Central * PermaKat Eleonora Rosati received the 2022 Adepi Award * PermaKat Eleonora Rosati listed as one of the World Intellectual Property Review's "Influential Women in IP" of 2020. * PermaKat Eleonora Rosati listed as one of the Managing Intellectual Property magazine's "Fifty Most Influential People" of 2018. * IPKat founder and Blogmeister Emeritus Jeremy Phillips listed as one of the Managing Intellectual Property magazine's "Fifty Most Influential People" of 2005, 2011, 2013, and 2014. * Recommended by the European Patent Office as reading material for candidates for the European Qualifying Examinations, 2013. * Listed as "Top Legal Blog" in The Times Online, March 2011. 2010 ABA Journal 100. * One of the only two non-US blogs listed in the Blawg100. * Court Reporter Top Copyright Blog award winner, November 2010. * Number 1 in the 2010 Top Copyright Blog list compiled by the Copyright Litigation Blog, July 2010. * Selected by the United States Library of Congress for inclusion in its historic collections of Internet materials related to Legal Blawgs as of 2010. * Top Patent Blog poll 2009: 3rd out of 50 in the "Favourite Patent Blog" poll and 2nd out of 50 in the "Most-read" poll. Blog of the Year, 20 August 2008. * ComputerWeekly IT Law and Governance, 20 August 2008. Patrick Mooney of CSN Chicago tells the interesting tale of how Kyle Schwarber put himself on the Cubs radar with a big assist from longtime scout Stan Zielinski, who unfortunately passed away recently. Zielinski drew quite a picture of Schwarber upon seeing him in person, invoking none other than Babe Ruth and calling Schwarber the best college bat Ive seen in a long time adding, and remember Im so old Ive seen a lot of them. Its an interesting read thats well worth your time. Heres more from the NL Central: US comedian Charlie Murphy, the older brother of actor Eddie Murphy, has died of leukaemia aged 57, reports say. The TMZ website quoted his manager as saying he died on Wednesday morning in hospital in New York. Murphy starred on comedian Dave Chappelles show and also appeared in films including Jungle Fever, Night at the Museum and Lottery Ticket. He also co-wrote and appeared in some of his brothers films. In a statement to Hollywood Reporter, the Murphy family said their hearts are heavy with the loss today of our son, brother, father, uncle and friend Charlie. Charlie filled our family with love and laughter and there wont be a day that goes by that his presence will not be missed. Thank you for the outpouring of condolences and prayers, the statement said. Charlie Murphy (R) arrived in Hollywood as his brother Eddies (L) bodyguard He also had a successful comedy career Charlie Murphy arrived in Hollywood after working as a bodyguard for Eddie at the beginning of his career, the EFE news agency reported. He has said that he was so fond of Eddie and found him so funny that he would not hesitate to confront people who did not laugh during his appearances. Other comedians and actors have been paying tribute on social media. Irene Sowah 13.04.2017 LISTEN Irene Sowah will release a worship single titled 'Yesu Di Hene' (Jesus Reigns) to mark the resurrection of Jesus Christ across the world. The event which comes off at the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, Nativity Congregation, La, on Sunday, April 16 is supported by the Praise Dynamics, a praise and worship team of the church. According to the songstress, she has been active in the music ministry since the late 1980s and was inspired to record songs because of the desire to share the love of Christ among all people of the world through gospel music. I was inspired to create the song after I made a request to my brother, Kofi Owusu Dua Anto (KODA), who also has a sincere heart for Gods work. He wrote and produced this single, she revealed. Irene, speaking to NEWS-ONE, said 'Yesu Di Hene' is a single from an album that will be launched in the course of the year. By Christopher Kotei The National Democratic Congress (NDC) is warning of real danger if violent attacks by NPP-linked vigilante groups are not brought to an end. The party at a news conference in Accra said operations of Invincible and Delta Forces are similar to how Nigerian terrorist group, Boko Haram, started. NDC National Chairman, Kofi Portuphy, said the impunity with which the two groups conduct their activities has dented the image of the country. NDC National Chairman, Kofi Portuphy He warned, The real danger in not dealing swiftly and ruthlessly with insipid domestic political terrorism is that it can easily grow uncontrollably into armed terrorism of international proportion. There were pockets of attacks on some state institutions and individuals after the NPP was declared winners of the 2016 general elections. Groups linked to the NPP were largely responsible for the attacks. President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo The Invincible Forces massed up at the Drivers and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) under the guise of protecting it from officials of the past government. Another group, Delta Force, also stormed the Ashanti Regional Coordinating Council to assault the newly appointed Regional Security Coordinator, George Agyei. Members of the group had argued Mr Agyei played no role in the struggle to bring the NPP into power. They appealed to the President to appoint their leader who was instrumental in the partys 2016 campaign. Delta Force members after the attack on Mr Agyei There was public outrage following the attack and subsequently, 21 members of the group were arrested. They were arraigned before a Kumasi Circuit court, but out of the 21 only 13 people turned up for the hearing. Minutes after the Presiding judge had directed the men to be remanded, some Delta Force members numbering 50 stormed the place to free the 13. The Inspector General of Police (IGP), David Asante Apeatu, had said the 13 fled through the backdoor reserved for the judge. The 13 men turned themselves in and have been granted bail in the sum of GHC10,000 with two sureties each. They also pleaded guilty to a charge of escaping lawful custody and were sentenced to a fine of 200 penalty units and a bond of good behaviour. Some of the 13 Delta Force escapees at the court The President after a retreat at the Peduase Lodge in Aburi said the conduct of Delta Force had no place in the law-governed country that he was determined to build. He cautioned Ghanaians against taking the law into their hands, warning perpetrators will be dealt with in accordance with due process. But the NDC said rather than sounding a loud warning to members of the two groups, the President chose to cynically pontificate. "As a lawyer, President Akufo-Addo is an officer of the court and should, therefore, be concerned when the court is physically attacked and the Presiding judge threatened, but President Akufo-Addo doesn't seem to care," Mr Portuphy said. He described the court's judgment on the unlawful escape from custody of the 13 as "shambolic and theatrical," and that it will have grave ramifications for law and order in the country. Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Austin Brako-Powers | [email protected] The National Democratic Congress (NDC) National Chairman has expressed optimism about the political fortunes of the party, saying it will comeback in 2020. Kofi Portuphy said the NDC will be voted for in the next elections because there is growing discontent by Ghanaians with the performance of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP's). Related Article: Take your complaints to Botchwey Committee, not radio Kofi Adams Addressing a news conference in Accra Wednesday, the former National Disaster and Managment Organisation (NADMO) boss said Ghanaians have regretted voting for the NPP after three months in power. Dont we hear Ghanaians express regret that they have exchanged their colour TVs for black and white? he asked, adding the NDC will bounce back in 2020. Former President John Mahama The ice of shock that caked the faces of NDC members following the partys humiliating defeat in the 2016 elections does not appear to have melted away. Supporters of the party are still angry and frustrated four months after former President John Mahama lost his bid to get re-elected. The Prof. Kwesi Botchwey committee that was set up to investigate the partys debacle has submitted its report to the party leadership, but some senior members continue to attack one another in the media for the defeat. But Mr Portuphy has appealed to members to channel their frustrations and anger into the reorganisation of the party. Those aspiring for positions must understand that we need a strong party, he said, adding the only way to fight the NPP is to have a united front. Mr Portuphy said the challenges facing the NDC are similar to the ones it faced after it lost the 2000 elections. At that time we managed to overcome that. The NDC will bounce back in 2020, he said drawing applause from the gathering of party functionaries. Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Austin Brako-Powers | [email protected] The Chairman of opposition National Democratic Congress has described as "shambolic and theatrical" the E2,400 fine handed to each of the 13 members of the vigilante group Delta Force for daring to escape from the custody of the court. Kofi Portuphy said the court cannot "treat lightly" a grievous offence in which "local terrorists" associated with the governing New Patriotic Party physically attacked the courts. Addressing a press conference, Wednesday, the NDC leader blamed the president for acts of vandalism and attacks perpetrated by militant groups affiliated to the NPP. He said the attacks by the Delta Force, Invincible force, are the "latest manifestation of Akufo-Addo's all die be die mantra." He said "the Akufo-Addo presidency is complicit in the violent attacks" which have seen these groups seize cars, offices, toll booths attacked and killed supporters of the NDC. The country has been held hostage by lawless activities of vigilante groups affiliated to the governing National Democratic Congress. The groups, especially the Delta Force, became even more popular when they notoriously burst into the offices of the Ashanti Region Security Coordinator and bundled out the president's appointee. They claimed George Agyei did not play any role in the victory that brought the NPP to office and so did not deserve to be appointed to occupy that office. When they were arrested and dragged to court, their colleagues, organised themselves, besieged the courtroom and had them freed. The 13 who escaped have since returned and were slapped with a fine of 2,400 each for escaping. The court is however yet to rule on the substantive matter. But the NDC chairman is not happy with the court ruling. He said the suspects deserve greater and stiffer punishment for their acts of lawlessness. He said the NPP is "sowing seeds of domestic terrorism" which, if goes unchecked, will harm the country in the future. "The real danger in not dealing with these groups is that they can easily grow into international terrorist groups like the Bokoharam and ISIS," he warned. Loud silence? The NDC chair fired a gun scatter attack at the clergy, civil society groups and the Ghana Bar Association, accusing them of watching in silence the lawless state in which the country has been plunged. He wondered why these groups, who were hitherto vociferous in their condemnation of events under the NDC regime, will suddenly go quiet in the face of these lawless attacks. Even though Civil Society groups, the clergy the GBA have been loud in their criticism of the Delta Force, the NDC chair is not impressed. "Where was the Peace Council, the Ghana Bar Association when they were seizing toilets, cars?" he charged, hoping the criticisms by these groups during the NDC regime were not "borne out political or ethnic prejudices." The NDC chair also accused the president of running a government of deception which the NDC will challenge every step of the way. Story by Ghana|Myjoyonline.com|Nathan Gadugah President Nana Akufo-Addo has urged the newly sworn-in Deputy Ministers to perform their assigned roles so as to shame their detractors who used unpalatable words to describe their appointments. He said words such as obscene, jobs for the boys, which were used to describe the announcement of the list of Deputy Ministers, imposes a clear obligation on you to justify your selection, adding that your success vindicates me. The President said this Wednesday, when he swore in 50 Deputy Ministers of State, at the Banquet Hall of the State House, signaling the complete composition of his central government. President Akufo-Addo recently nominated 50 deputies and 4 others to serve as Ministers of State at the presidency and ministries, bringing to 110 his total number of ministers, the highest in Ghanas Fourth Republic. The President came under intense criticism since the announcement of the last batch of his appointments. While some have argued that the decision will lead to bureaucracy, others believe that it will only worsen corruption. I dont believe that my government in the Fourth Republic has big numbers in view of the swollen challenges, the President said in an interview with the Daily Graphic and Ghana Television in defense of his action. But the President who described himself as a man in a hurry noted while he swore in his Deputy Ministers noted the success of their in their assigned roles at their respective ministries will be a function of three things. The firstly, he pointed out the spirit of loyalty that will be exhibited to their Ministers, especially as Article 79(1) of the Constitution provides that a Deputy Minister is appointed by the President, in consultation with the Minister and with the prior approval of Parliament, to assist the Minister in the performance of his or her functions. Loyalty to the Minister is the fundamental premise for the success of your work. I will not countenance any acts of disloyalty or subversion of your Minister, for I will take such an act as disloyalty to me personally, and, by inference, disloyalty to the Party and the State. "Any Deputy, who thinks the route to advancement lies in your ability to subvert or undermine your Minister, will be sadly mistaken. You will not profit from that conduct in Akufo-Addos presidency. I want you to work with your Minister in all sincerity and transparency. That is the guarantee of your success, and our collective success, he said. He said the second element to success is the quality of integrity which will permeate the work of the deputy Ministers, stressing that the solemn commitment the NPP has made enjoins members of his government to serve the Ghanaian people honestly and competently. We are called to these public appointments to provide public service, not to promote our personal gain. Accordingly, you are required to file your assets declarations expeditiously. "Indeed, our Manifesto compels me to notify the Auditor General of the names of all Article 71 office holders, such as yourselves, within two weeks of their appointment. You will be happy to know that all your Ministers have filed their assets declarations. Follow their example, and do so promptly, he said. The President emphasised that The third element of the success of your work is hard workwork you bring to it. You have all been carefully chosen for your portfolios. Your educational and professional backgrounds and life experiences have dictated these choices. An opportunity is being afforded you to serve your country in an elevated capacity. Seize the opportunity with humility, but with determination, and perform, guided always by Almighty God. "Shame your detractors, and, together, let us build that dignified, self-reliant, prosperous Ghana that successive generations of Ghanaian patriots and the founders of our free, democratic nation sought with their sweat, toil and blood. President Akufo-Addo urged the Deputy Ministers who, also, double as Members of Parliament not to renege on their duties as members of the Legislature, urging them to balance these roles effectively. The obviously delighted President at assembling his central government faster than any of his predecessors in the Fourth Republic was grateful to Parliament for their co-operation in this undertaking. He explaining that sincere partnership between the legislative and executive arms of the state bodes well for the welfare of the Ghanaian people. Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Abubakar Ibrahim Former President, John Mahama, has condemned what he called the President's lacklustre approach in dealing with the lawless acts of vigilante groups affiliated with the New Patriotic Party (NPP). He said he is appalled by Nana Akufo-Addos inability to whip in line members of these groups, who Mr Mahama claims are also attacking supporters of the National Democratic Congress (NDC). Shortly after winning power, a pro-NPP group, Invincible Forces, attacked state institutions including the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), some women under the School Feeding Programme, the Passport Office in Accra as well as some toll booths across the country. During his maiden State of the Nation Address, President Akufo-Addo said his government would not countenance anyone breaking the law and charged the police to apply the same rules to every citizen who fouls the law. Another pro-NPP group, the Delta Force attacked the Kumasi Circuit court last Thursday and set free 13 of its members who were facing prosecution for acts of vandalism. The attack, captured on video showed the group, numbering about 50, besieging the Kumasi Circuit court premises chanting. They broke into the court and freed their members who had only weeks ago chased out the Regional Security Coordinator appointed by the president. Commenting on these attacks and a government Task Force seizing vehicles it claims to belong to the state but were appropriated by the previous government appointees, Mr Mahama expressed surprise the government is not employing civilised processes. At a meeting with some former appointees of the NDC government recently, he said applying a civil process was better than having troops going into peoples houses, breaking down their gates and say you are looking for vehicles. If you cannot go to Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) and look through the database and find out what government vehicles are available then what kind of efficiency do we have in government? Just this morning I heard Agyekums House was raidedAnd they [NPP] will always come back and apologize because those are not vehicles that belong to the state, he said. This cannot continue, this thuggery is not good for our country and the point is, we thought we had a good transitionThis [incident] serves as examples that make it difficult in future when there is another transition for another government to restrain party supporters, he said. Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Abubakar Ibrahim The world has witnessed yet another display of the military might of the United States with the missile strikes on Syrian targets a few days ago. The United States justified its strikes because it believed the Assad regime was behind a chemical weapons attack on opposition strongholds in Syria last week. The action of the United States raises serious questions of justification and the real motives behind the positions taken by the worlds superpowers on Syria. The pattern of behaviour only goes to perpetuate the immorality of international politics. When these dastardly scenes of chemical warfare were being given their usual high publicity in the Western media, it was quite obvious that it was designed to poison the atmosphere against the Assad regime. In spite of all the sophisticated armed support that the rebels have enjoyed the Assad armed forces with Russian support were able to degrade and defeat so many ISIS targets and rebels. The world saw the huge blow that the Assad forces dealt the rebels. The big question now is how an Armed Force that has virtually beaten the rebel resistance with Russian assistance and with victory on a threshold could conceive of such madness as to dump chemical weapons at innocent civilians and children. Where is the sense in this illogical accusation if it wasn't done to create a false impression in order to justify what the USA and the West are doing? Most world leaders have gone quiet instead of condemning this subterfuge. Who are most likely in that demented situation to do such an atrocious act of chemical weapon usage? Not too long ago the West looked away, the media kept quiet while the Yemeni were being bombed and starved of food and water. Vessels bringing aid (food and water) were blocked and children were left looking emaciated in scenes straight out of the holocaust. Some of these Western countries must regain or reset their own internal moral compasses before embarking on such adventures. Right from the onset, when the Assad regime and other Shia nations refused to subordinate themselves to the unipolar power of the West and some Sunni powers, Russia under Putin, was one of the powers that stood tall in defence of international freedom. Russias effort to assist the Syrian government set the West to attack her economy with so-called sanctions and the reduction of the price of oil in a bid to cripple her. This act of underhand desperation should be seen and recognised for what it is. The world cannot be so naive as not to see through this kind of confidence propaganda. The audaciousness to embark on this fraudulent behaviour (and to follow up to this extent) can only happen as a result of the extent of decline of international morality and it is a manifestation of the decay in the quality of leadership in some parts of the world. All in all an independent body involving neutral states must be set up to investigate where these chemicals came from. This body must be free from the influence of the accusers and must carefully investigate and expose the real perpetrators. Then and only then can the world know who the real hidden perpetrators are. Trumps warmth or respect for Putin contained the seeds of peaceful co-existence and there were those who were so dead against it and for whatever random reason wanted to restore an antagonistic position of the old days with Russia. Looks like the negative forces who wanted to see a climate of conflict between Putin and Trump may finally have their way. The minute Secretary of State Tillerson said enough of talking at Korea and the US ambassador at the UN staged her drama at the Security Council followed by Trumps act it was clear a scapegoat would have to be found. What better target than Assads Syria on the verge of taking a military high ground and the political process kicking in with Russia's support? The West and their Sunni allies attempt to unseat the Syrian Government is what has precipitated this military and refugee crises in the region. Russia's attempt to prevent a handful of countries in the West from constituting themselves into global governors to decide and dispense freedom and justice is partly why this war is being fought. This is nothing more than the fraud that was perpetrated at the UN prior to the 'shock and awe' in 2003. The world cannot be so naive, so uninformed, so blind, so emasculated as not to see through this daylight robbery that's going to degrade international ethics even further? The life of freedom, justice and democracy is what's at stake. The deafening silence of most leaders around the world will lead to further degrading the already sad state of democracy. Are these Western countries prepared to back the Iranian and Russian calls for a very competent neutral investigation? This call should have been made the first time this madness occurred. I have to repeat that a regime on the threshold of defeating its perceived enemies will not do this. A rebel group on the verge of defeat is likely to resort to this madness on the urging of its mindless backers. The world must wake up. Leaders must wake up. Assads Government and Assange are not those in danger. Freedom, Justice and genuine democracy is what is in danger from a unipolar ambition to rule the world!!! This has been the most vicious and persistent cowardly act over the seven-year period. America and her allies know those behind it. Russia, Assad and Iran must know those behind it. We've all kept mute about the real culprit nation and the situation has now been exploited by the US in a senseless manner that insults the intelligence of human beings. And because of the seeming ineffective denial and rejection of the act by those being accused the propaganda against them has been exploited. No matter how much we may hate or resent Assad it's absolutely outrageous and immoral to resort to this uncivilized behaviour so as to provide the pretext to engage in military action. Abdul Hamid who escaped the chemical weapon attack has every right to fight Assad over drum bombs etc, for anything and everything but not for the chemical weapon attack. That comes from behind himhis own backyard. Point being killing the children with the gas can serve an exploitable purpose than leaving them to be killed by Assads bombs. Let's wake up. Let's wake up. This kind of evil should not be allowed to pass!! We have been living in an age where the ability and the capacity to make an accusation more impressive than the denial by the accused and victim seemingly puts the truth on your side. The US pulled this con at the UN before invading Iraq. This time its Syria. Syria is politically in a very very tight spot and has conducted her war with Russian support in a fairly conventional way and dislocated and dislodged ISIS and rebels in a very impressive manner when the Russian Air Force got involved. They were left with cleaning up a few areas. So why they would do anything so stupid is a question I'd like to direct to the world and especially Mr. Trump and his allies and most of all to the Western media. This daring and dangerous fraud undermines mans attempt to restore trust and integrity into words and actions of nations. The world watched Mr. Trump hack and brutalize the truth and noble people on his way into office. This behaviour will make the world unsafe. Let's show a little more respect and reverence for basic truths and natural justice. Its unfortunate that those around Trump have taken advantage of his shortcomings. This is shameful, disgraceful and a serious indictment on the forces of good in this world. The war and its toll on human life is a painful sight for all of us. Defeat Assad if you may, but dont resort to this deceit to justify the unjustifiable. This fraud is going to be a test on the leaders of today and the citizenry. Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com Information Minister Mustapha Hamid has revealed that government has set specific targets for all ministers against which their performance will be measured. He said the targets were revealed to the ministers at a three-day retreat at the Peduase Lodge which ended Monday. Speaking on Joy FMs Super Morning Show Tuesday morning, the Information Minister said the Monitoring and Evaluation Minister Dr. Anthony Akoto Osei has indicated his determination to hold ministers strictly accountable to their targets. Mr. Hamid quoted Dr. Akoto Osei as saying he will be using three colours to indicate the performance of every minister. If a minister fails to achieve a particular target, he will be marked red for that target. Where steps have been taken towards the achievement of a target or set of targets, the minister will be marked yellow. And when a target is achieved, the minister will be marked blue which is a high score, for that target. Mr. Hamid told Super Morning Show host Kojo Yankson that President Nana Akufo-Addo spelt out his vision to all the ministers at the retreat. According to him, the President will be keenly assessing the results of his ministers and determining whether or not what they are doing aligns with his vision for the country. Mr. Hamid believes that whether a minister is kept in office may depend on how many blue marks they have earned at the end of the period for which they are being assessed. He said the president intends to hold regular retreats to assess the extent of achievement of the target set his ministers. The president has promised an ambitious plan to transform Ghana and build an enduring and resilient economy. Some of his promises have been dismissed by his political oppoents as lofty and designed to win elections. But addressing journalists after the three-day retreat, the president said his government was determined to deliver on the promises made to Ghanaians. He reiterated his governments decision not to procure new vehicles no matter how dilapidated the vehicles we inherited are. We will manage with them. He said his government had also cancelled the practice where public office holders are allowed to purchase their official vehicles which are two years old and more. The country has had a serious problem of car chasing and car seizures whenever there is a change in government because government officials buy vehicles and sometimes the new government is unsure which vehicle has been purchased legally. President Akufo-Addo said the policy will no longer apply. This will not be the first time such an announcement is being made; President John Mahama made a similar announcement but by the time his government handed over power, more than 200 saloon cars had been bought by government appointees. It remains to be seen whether president Akufo-Addos directive will stand the test of time. Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com The article stated that the US should laugh at the rhetoric coming out of the offices of Rouhani and other Iranian officials. And this is not an unfamiliar response to an ongoing outpouring of such rhetoric, which has actually intensified since Iran and six world powers led by the United States concluded negotiations trading sanctions relief for some restrictions on the Iranian nuclear program. In just the first months of 2017, the Iranian military and the paramilitary Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps have conducted several missile tests and drills accompanied by explicit statements of readiness for war with the West. These sorts of statements are well understood to be drastic overstatements of Irans military capabilities, which have been hobbled by the effects of years-long economic sanctions. Nevertheless, the rhetoric continues to be spread via Iranian state media in the interests of portraying a domestic image of strength, and perhaps also to encourage uncertainty among Western policymakers regarding Irans intentions and limits. Stevensons editorial suggests a lack of concern with testing those limits, and as such it praises the administration of US President Donald Trump for using the missile strike on Shayrat Airfield to signify a clear turning point in relations with the Iranian regime. Stevenson went on to urge the US to continue along this path by blacklisting the Revolutionary Guards and designating them as a terrorist organization, thereby diminishing their influence in Syria and throughout the region. It appears as though this approach might be supported even by some commentators who are far less dismissive that Stevenson about the Iranian threat to Western interests. A report that appeared in the Washington Post on Tuesday sought to outline these threats, and it emphasized that they did not originate in the raw military capabilities that Iran has boasted of in recent demonstrations, but rather in the Islamic Republics capability for asymmetrical and proxy warfare. Retaliatory measures by Iran could have ripple effects in the region, targeting everything from U.S. Navy warships to U.S.-allied Arab governments, the article explained. Iran could also use Hezbollah and other Shiite militias to hit American forces fighting the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, or attack the many U.S. allies in the region. To this it might be added that the leading opposition to the Iranian regime, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, recently disseminated assessments of the Revolutionary Guards terrorist and paramilitary training program, which found that the training of foreign fighters has dramatically increased in recent months and years as the IRGC has capitalized on its growing financial empire. This has in turn helped Iran to gain a deep foothold in Syria, among other places. Nevertheless, the Washington Post report notes that there is no sign of retaliation from Iran in spite of the harsh rhetoric that emerged following the missile strike. In fact, as of Tuesday there had not even been any reports of close encounters between US Navy and IRGC vessels, something that had become practically commonplace in the aftermath of the January 2016 implementation of the Iran nuclear deal. This relative silence might even suggest that Trumps confrontational posture has had a limiting effect on Irans actual shows of force. This would in turn leave the threat of IRGC proxies as the only thing demanding immediate attention. A recent editorial by CNNs Ranj Alaaldin was far from insensitive to this threat, even going so far as to say that Iran and its proxies dominate realities on the ground in the Syrian Civil War. Nevertheless, Alaaldin concluded that Irans deep foothold and breadth of proxy forces only called for the Islamic Republic to be contained in Syria, as opposed to being confronted via direct combat. And indeed this appears to be precisely in line with Stevensons suggestions, insofar as economic restrictions on the IRGC would go a long way toward limiting Tehrans ability to supply and staff its proxy forces in Syria and throughout the region. Alaadin also agrees with Stevenson in arguing that the US missile strike was a good first step toward a strategy of containment, insofar as it undermines the confidence that Assads allies had about the security of his position. Furthermore, Alaaldin observes that Tehran and Damascus are moving away from Moscows sphere of influence, opening up the possibility for the US to coordinate with Russia to contain Iran, which is loosely allied with Russia in Syrian but also poses a threat to Russian relations with Israel. This view of a potentially changing Russian role is perhaps undermined by a fact that Stevenson acknowledges: that Rouhanis threats against the US were piggybacking off of those expressed by Moscow. The danger of angering the Russians at such a crucial time was also the emphasis of an Al Monitor article on Monday, which claimed that the faltering relations between Iran and Russia could be strengthened by American miscalculation. Nevertheless, these fears do not seem to apply to the Stevensons or Alaaldins suggestions, which put their focus squarely on Iran, whose containment might serve Russian interests even if direct confrontation of the Syrian regime does not. High-level disagreements between Russia and Iran seem to be escalating, such that they could present opportunities to use Russia as an asset against Iranian influence before the US turns its attention directly to the issue of Bashar al-Assad. The Information Minister has said that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo will not appoint a new security coordinator for the Ashanti Region. Mustapha Hamid said revoking the appointment of Mr George Agyei and appointing a new person will be endorsing impunity and yielding to lawlessness. Speaking on Joy FMs Super Morning Show, he said although he has not discussed the issue with the President, he is certain that he will not go back on his word. Last month, about 200 members of the pro-NPP group Delta Force, stormed the offices of the Ashanti Regional Security Coordinator, attacked him physically to force him out of office. According to the group, it cannot work with George Agyei because he was 'not part of the struggle' to wrestle power from the National Democratic Congress during the December 2016 general elections. The group said its leader should rather be appointed to occupy the post. But Mustapha Hamid said the behaviour of the group was inconsistent with the values of the NPP. If because of [their action] the President were to retreat on that appointment, that will give vent to the action that the Delta Forces took. I think that to spite them, this appointment will stand, he added. In an interview with Joy News' Erastus Asare Donkor, leader of the Delta Forces said ' while we were suffering from police beatings, he was seen no where among us'. The group had previously sent a petition to the Regional Minister and other senior NPP figures in the party asking that Mr Agyei's appointment be rescinded. They took the law into their own hands when they noticed Mr Agyei had started work. Mr Hamid said President Akufo-Addo is bent on ensuring that there is respect for the rule of law under his presidency and nothing will change that. We cannot be in the business of appeasing people to the detriment of our democratic arrangement and I dont think the president is prepared, at all, to cede any ground on that matter. He has made it clear to the media that he is not prepared to back down on his mandate to protect and defend the constitution of our land. The Information Minister stressed that government will not tolerate any group of people who congregate for the purposes of infringing on other peoples rights. He is certain that the manner in which the current issue is being handled will deter other groups from behaving like the Delta Force. Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Naa Sakwaba Akwa | [email protected] There are conflicting reports about the purpose of Thursday's visit by some National Democratic Congress (NDC) bigwigs to the residence of the partys founder, Jerry John Rawlings. While initial reports suggested that the call by a delegation of NDC MPs on the former President was aimed at getting Mr Rawlings and his wife, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings, to play a lead role in the party again, later reports suggest otherwise. On Thursday, April 8, 2017, the Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu, led a delegation of NDC legislators to visit the former president at his residence in Accra for party-unity talks. We trust that if you guide us and lead us well and the party goes through a proper process of reorganisation to strengthen its grassrootswe will not be in opposition, the Daily Guide newspaper quoted Mr Iddrisu as saying. The Minority Leader, who is marked as a potential flagbearer of the party in the next election, according to the paper, acknowledged the Rawlingses clout in Ghanaian politics and expressed the hope that their support in 2020 would improve the fortunes of the NDC. Haruna Iddrisu is tipped to lead the NDC in 2020 Mr Iddrisus appeal is seen as a move to mend cracks within the NDC following the partys abysmal performance in 2016 when ex President John Mahama was on the ticket as the presidential candidate. A fact-finding Committee into the cause of partys electoral defeat, led by Prof Kwesi Botchwey, exposed the storm within the party after different factions within the party attacked each other during meetings. Party deep throats reveal that while one faction blames former President Mahama for the 2016 defeat, another blames the Rawlingses for assisting the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to win the elections. The faction blaming the Rawlingses say that Mrs Rawlings, who defected from the NDC to form the National Democratic Party (NDP), demonstrated open support for the NPP campaign and boosted the then oppositions chances to win the elections. During the visit to the Rawlingses, Mr Haruna reportedly said that NDC members can express their grievances, but they should not do it in a manner that will jeopardise the chances of the party and its preparedness for the 2020 presidential and parliamentary elections. However, NDC MP for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, is reported to have denied media reports that the visit the Rawlingses was to appeal to them to return the party. Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa He is reported in these reports to have explained that the visit to the former president was to gain insight into how to tackle the conflicts within the party and get it back to full form for a 2020 comeback. Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | George Nyavor | [email protected] North Tongu Member of Parliament is calling for an amendment of the Presidential Transition Act to make it illegal for outgoing government officials to purchase state vehicles. According to Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa if the practice is not outlawed, the possibility of it being abused by successive government is considerably high. He was commenting on a directive given by the president Nana Akufo-Addo to his appointees not to attempt to buy their official cars. The president had already issued a directive to his appointees not to buy new vehicles. The directive is part of measures by the government to channel limited resources into fulfilling ambitious campaign promises. Discussing the matter on Joy FM's Newsnite programme, Monday, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa welcomed the president's call for officials not to buy their cars. He said it is his principled position that government appointees must not buy the properties they worked with whilst in office. He had in 2009, taken the late Jake Obetsebi Lamptey to court over his decision to buy the state bungalow he lived in whilst serving as Minister. According to Ablakwa, ex-president John Mahama also issued similar directive for outgoing state officials not to buy their vehicles. However, during the period of the transition, he said it was agreed that the outgoing officials can buy their vehicles, a move some of them took advantage of but he did not. Ablakwa said if the act is outlawed, there can be no negotiation on the matter by any president. The North Tongu MP was however incensed by the president's directive for appointees not to buy new vehicles. Ablakwa said the president's directive lacked candour. He said the president cannot now attempt to lock the stable door after the horse has bolted. He insists some Ministries Departments and Agencies have already bought their vehicles and found it misleading that the president will now issue a directive stopping them from buying. According to Ablakwa, only last Friday, Parliament approved a loan of $2 million for cars to be bought for Council of State members. He did not understand why such a loan will be approved in the face the directive by the president. He said in the coming days the minority will hold a press conference to show Ghanaians which of the ministries have bought new vehicles, the president's directive notwithstanding. He asked the president to be open and transparent to the people and stop creating the impression that on assumption of office they have never bought cars. Story by Ghana|Myjoyonline.com|Nathan Gadugah President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has assured Ghanaians he will continue to insist on respect of the rule of law in the governance of the country. He said although some events in Kumasi presented some difficulties, he will not waver in his resolve to serve the country under the condition of rule of law. Interacting with the media after a retreat at the Peduase Lodge in Aburi Monday, the President said his government is determined to deliver on its promises. Related Article: Video: NPP's Delta Force free vigilante suspects in court custody President Akufo-Addo's comments come four days after members of pro-NPP vigilante group, Delta Force, raided a Kumasi circuit court and freed 13 of their members who were standing trial for violent behaviour and assault. The 13 are part of some 21 men who were arrested by the police following the violent assault of the Ashanti Regional Security Coordinator, George Agyei, by the group. Delta Force had suggested the appointment of its leader because of the role he played toward the NPP's 2016 election victory. Related Article: Delta Force escapees: Turn yourselves in or be flushed out - Interior Minister Displeased with the court's decision to remand the 13 ahead of the April 20 hearing, the men numbering 50 stormed the premises to release their colleagues. The Inspector General of Police (IGP), David Apeatu, had said the 13 fled through the back of the court that is reserved for the judge. The 13 turned themselves in after repeated calls by the police and Interior Minister, Ambrose Dery, to do that. The police also arrested eight of the men who played a role in the escape. Related Article: 8 Delta Force members who stormed court remanded A Kumasi Circuit Court has remanded the eight despite pleas by their lawyer to have them granted a bail. The development has been widely condemned by Ghanaians who believe the security agencies were lax. They said the police failed to anticipate the situation. Speaking on the issue for the first time, the President said he will not allow any of his appointees to subvert the law to achieve their individual ends. "We are not wavering in that commitment and we believe the overwhelming majority of Ghanaians support us in that commitment," he said. Ban on purchase of new cars: President Akufo-Addo has said the moratorium placed on the purchase of new vehicles by Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) will not be changed. "No matter how dilapidated the vehicles are, we have to make do with them," he said. Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Austin Brako-Powers | [email protected] The Progressive Peoples Party (PPP) is demanding urgent government action to stop illegal mining in three-months. It says if the the government fails, it will be dragged to the International Criminal Court (ICC). The PPP at a news conference in Accra Monday said it wants government to come out with failsafe strategies to save the remaining water bodies from destructive mining activities. PPP National Chairman, Nii Allotey Brew-Hammond, said the party will not accept the lip service that has characterised the many promises of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, as far as the fight against galamsey is concerned. PPP National Chairman, Nii Allotey Brew-Hammond He [the President] has said so many things that have not been acted upon, he said. The PPP's demands follow mounting pressure on government to end illegal mining that is polluting the nations water bodies and destroying the vegetative cover. The Ghana Water Company has shut down many of its water treatment plants because of the condition of the water bodies. The company said it is unable to treat the water bodies for consumers because they are muddied and filled with grits. Some youth mining in Ghana Related Article: Water crisis: Tano River dries up for the first time in 40 years The Tano River in the Brong Ahafo Region has dried up for the first time in 40 years, a development local authorities have blamed on illegal mining. Also the Brim River in the Eastern Region as well as the Ankobra River in the Western Region have been muddied making it difficult for residents to use them to meet their daily needs. Lands Minister, John Peter Amewu, has served a three-weeks notice to galamsey operators to stop their activities or be prosecuted if they are apprehended. Some indigenes and Chinese mining in the Ankobra River in the Western Region Related Article: Excavators seized from galamseyers must be blown up Minister He has also suggested that equipment used by the illegal miners should be set on fire if they are seized. This, he believes will make the cost of illegal mining burdensome. But the PPP said the failure to decouple the Attorney-General (A-G's) Department from Justice Ministry will make it difficult to handle the galamsey menace in a non-partisan manner. The PPP has asked for A-G and Justice Ministry to be separated because the independent prosecutor can go for these galamseyers without prejudice, Mr Brew-Hammond said. Lands Minister, John Peter Amewu He said the police have disclosed to them that they are unable to prosecute politically related activities because they are under the domain of the A-G. He assured the PPP will separate the A-Gs office from the Justice Ministry if it is given the mandate to form the next government in 2021. We will empower the police to prosecute all manner of crime...[because] polluting our water bodies should not be entertained. Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Austin Brako-Powers | [email protected] President Nana Akufo-Addo will this week unveil governments strategy to deal with the menace of illegal mining in the country (galamsey). Ahead of the announcement of how to deal with the situation, a government delegation will on Monday visit some illegal mining sites in the Eastern Region as the deadline for illegal miners to evacuate nears. The Eastern Region town of Akwatia is among the areas where small-scale legal and illegal mining activities are very high. Deputy Lands and Natural Resources Minister, Benito Owusu-Bio who is leading the delegation, told Joy News Monday that the team will be assessing if small-scale diamond miners, operating legally, are being compliant with international laws. The Akwatia visit follows the end of a retreat by President Akufo-Addo and his cabinet ministers. The cabinet retreat, according to Joy News Presidential Correspondent, Elton John Brobey, reviewed governments performance as it approaches hundred days in office. Our main objective today is to go there and see how prepared out artisanal diamond miners and those trading in diamonds comply with the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme, he told Joy News Monday. The scheme prevents the trade in illicit diamonds. A media campaign galamsey has been vociferous in fighting the destruction of vegetation, arable lands, and fresh water sources by galamsey. Considerable airtime, space has been given to discussing the issue with a move to solving the problem. The government also made fighting galamsey a campaign issue and has made some commitment thus far. Even though the illegal mining is done by locals, it has emerged that Chinese nationals are also cashing in on the illegal business. The Chinese see the campaign as targeted at them. The Pra river is among the heavily polluted river that has been caused by galamsey. Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | GN Minority Spokesperson on Defence and Interior says efforts by police to crack down on political vigilantism will be fruitless unless political hands within the governing NPP stop shielding perpetrators of such acts. According to James Agalga, senior figures within the party continue to support the group despite public pronouncements by President Akufo-Addo condemning their activities. He [the President] said he has instructed the IGP to act, but how can the IGP act in ways that could expose him to the attacks of those groups. They are emboldened by the fact that their party is in government. The police has announced efforts to bring to book members of the NPPs Delta Force who attacked a court in Kumasi and raided the Ashanti Regional Security Coordinating Council. Inspector General of Police, David Asante-Apeatu who declared war on vigilantism, mass disorder and disturbances says police will not rest until these activities which are "alien to our culture" are nipped in the bud. Ladies and gentlemen, the police service, hereby declares a war on the act of vigilantism and all other forms of mass disorder and disturbances. We shall clamp down on it with all the force that we can marshal, Mr. Asante-Apeatu declared. But Mr. Agalga remains unconvinced. The president may have spoken, but it appears there are some other leading members of the NPP as a political party who strongly back those vigilante groups. That is why it is extremely difficult for the security apparatus to deal with those vigilante groups, even after the presidents directives went out there, he added. Meanwhile, the police has called for public support in its endeavour to deal with these groups by volunteering information to enable them deal with the canker once and for all. The police can be reached on MTN and Vodafone short code 18555 or 191 on all networks, twitter :@ GhPoliceService or facebook: GhPoliceService. Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | NSA Vice President of policy think tank, IMANI Ghana, Kofi Bentil says the activities of pro-NPP vigilante groups, if not controlled by the party, will erode its goodwill. He said the actions of the thugs do not only destabilize the security of the country, but bring to question the NPPs stance on rule of law and its readiness to fight crime. Speaking on Joy FM's news analysis programme Newfile on Saturday, Mr Bentil who is also a private legal practitioner said this is taking a lot of moral high ground from the NPP. If this doesnt stop, this will be the beginning of the end of the NPP. The activities of pro-NPP vigilante groups Invincible Forces and Delta Forces have caused a lot of outrage in the country. Since the NPP won power in the 2016 general elections, these groups have been on rampage seizing public institutions, beating up members of the opposition National Democratic Congress and sacking officials appointed by the previous government from their posts. In a recent incident, members of the Delta Force stormed the offices of the Security Cordinator in the Ashanti regional capital Kumasi , forcing him out of office and subsequently invaded a court hearing to free the suspects arrested for the earlier raid. The double attack on the security apparatus and the judiciary have incensed many. Related: Video: NPP's Delta Force free vigilante suspects in court custody . Although these actions have been condemned by some members of the party, Mr Bentil believes an attack on a court is frightening and unacceptable. The court is the final bulwark of our democracy, if we start attacking courts, we are all going to be subjects to the rule of the jungle. Mr Bentil said the NPPs attempt to juxtapose the behaviour of the hooligans to that of the Montie 3, is disappointing. The Circuit Court where the incident occured For him, no matter how hard the party tries to justify it, the lesson is that whether you toast it, fry it or boil it, or bake it, there is no way of making it look good. Judges are people we call My Lord, we give them titles that we ordinarily give God Even the presidents actions are subject to the review of a judge so the last thing you do is to attack a court, he added. Police response Mr Bentil described the response of the police during the incident at court as disastrous. He said the police had enough time to call for back up before the incident because the thugs went to the court early and started the disturbances before their case was called. It has become apparent that for about an hour before the proceedings the Delta Forces had already besieged the court and started disrupting proceedings of cases that were called before theirs. Related: Ashanti Region Police Commander takes responsibility for Delta Force court raid Their failure to take a proactive step for Mr Bentil, is worrying. Regardless of what happened, the police should have known that this kind of situation required more men. Even if they made a mistake in arranging the resources they needed in the beginning, you had all this time, so was there no kind of monitoring of the situation. I worry that you have a situation where people mass up break into a courtthat catastrophic failure of the police should be watched and some people must answer questions. This should not happen again, he said. Editor-in-chief of the New Crusading Guide Newspaper, Kweku Baako Jnr who was also a panel on the show said the thugs should be prosecuted. He said there is no way the 13 people, if evidence provides sufficient indication that they were wrong, should be allowed to walk. Deal with them according to law, he said, adding that there should be an additional charge for escaping and those who invaded the court should be punished. He described the behaviour of the thugs as a the highest form of contempt. He said this issue should not be swept under the carpet because It is about time that now we see evidence of how the prosecutions ended and I pray that we have custodial sentence. Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Naa Sakwaba Akwa | [email protected] The Acting National Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) says the recent attacks by the Kumasi-based vigilante group affiliated to the governing party are regrettable and unfortunate. Freddie Blay apologised on behalf of the party that some of its loyal members have taken to such an action in showing their dissension with a decision taken by the President. We are sorry that some members of our party no matter what they call themselves engaged in what the Delta Forces got involved in. To anyone or institutions, the judiciary especially, who might have been affected, we are sorry, he said. Speaking to Evans Mensah on Joy FMs Ghana Connect programme on Friday, he said, we condemned what happened on Thursday, it is regrettable and we asked all loyal members involved to give themselves up to the law. What happened should not be encouraged and we are sorry that it has happened. We are hoping it will not be repeated anyway, he said. The Delta Force group attacked the Kumasi circuit court on Thursday and set free 13 of its members who were facing prosecution for acts of vandalism. The attack, captured on video showed the group, numbering about 50, besieging the Kumasi Circuit court premises chanting. They broke into the court and freed their members who had only weeks ago chased out the Regional Security Coordinator appointed by the president. This was after the judge had announced that the suspects were going to be remanded for two weeks pending further investigation, a move that did not go down well with the members of the vigilante group who were on the court premises. In anger, they charged at the judge and demanded the immediate release of the suspects, an act that has widely been condemned across the country. Mr Blay said it is disheartening to see that those involved are loyal members of the NPP who have worked for the party at different times which is appreciated but their acts cannot be condoned. He was emphatic that helping the party in or out of power in whatever capacity does not warrant anyone misbehaving or acting otherwise as the NPP will not countenance any such act from any member. On the question of disbanding vigilante groups affiliated to the party, he said, "the party has not deliberately gone to gather people and label them Delta Forces or Invincible Forces...we can't say that nobody should belong to any organisation since we did not form it." He explained that they are members from various constituencies and polling stations who come in to help during events like rallies to maintain discipline. Mr Blay charges those in charge of security and maintaining order to take whoever on irrespective of their affiliation. Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Abubakar Ibrahim A private legal practitioner Gary Nimako is suggesting the Member of Parliament for Bawku Central should have been expelled for impugning the integrity of Parliament. Speaking on Joy FM's Newsfile programme, Saturday, the lawyer said Mahama Ayariga, who is also a lawyer, denigrated the reputations of people and brought Parliament into disrepute, crimes serious enough for expulsion. He was discussing the infamous bribery scandal in Parliament involving some members of the Appointment Committee of Parliament. Ayariga was found guilty of contempt of Parliament after he alleged without evidence, that the then Energy Minister nominee Boakye Agyarko had paid E3,000.00 each to the minority members on the Appointment Committee to approve the nominee. Agyarko's approval had been held in abeyance after the minority members felt slighted by comments he made during the vetting process. Ayariga told an Accra based radio station, Radio Gold, that the Chairman of the Appointment Committee Joe Osei Owusu paid the money to the Minority Chief Whip Muntaka Mubarak on behalf of the Energy Minister nominee. He said Muntaka then paid the money to the Minority members on the committee. Initially they collected the money thinking it was their sitting allowance, only to find out later that the money was bribe so they returned it," he added. Shortly after the allegation, Joe Osei Owusu vehemently denied the allegation and threatened to sue the MP. So too was Boakye Agyarko who insisted he had not given a dime and had absolutely no motivation to do same because he was going to be approved anyway, even if by a majority decision. Muntaka Mubarak who was accused of paying the money, swore by Allah that he did not receive any money from Osei Owusu, neither did he pay same to any member of the minority on the Appointment Committee. In the heat of the denials, two other minority MPs on the Appointment Committee, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa and Alhassan Suhuyini confirmed to having received the bribe and returning it later. The allegation and subsequent denial triggered a huge public uproar, forcing the Speaker of Parliament to set a five member committee to investigate the allegation. The Committee chaired by Essikado Ketan Joe Ghartey sat on the matter, held public sitting and interrogated the key suspects in the matter. After a two month investigation, the Committee presented a 50-paged report which found the Member of Parliament Mahama Ayariga guilty of contempt of Parliament. The committee found that the member only peddled rumour and had nothing of evidential value to substantiate his claim. Joe Ghartey said the conduct of the MP was reprehensible and an affront to the reputation of Parliament. He therefore recommended that the Speaker should sanction the MP after he had rendered an apology to the House. Ayariga attempted an apology after he protested the outcome of the investigation. He did not understand how a fact finding committee, will turn itself into a fault finding committee and find him guilty of contempt of Parliament. "Mr Speaker if you say I should apologise, I apologise," he rendered a half hearted apology to the Speaker which got the majority members of the House even more infuriated. The Speaker adjourned sitting but cautioned the MP to return with a formal apology before he would give his ruling on the matter. On April 7, 2017, Ayariga read his unqualified apology on the floor, admitting to peddling rumour and apologising for same. The Speaker, then chose to forgive the MP saying "he should go and sin no more." He however warned that if he should repeat such a conduct, he would be dealt with severely. On Newsfile, Gary Nimako, who is with the NPP said the Speaker was too lenient with the MP. He said the demeanour of Ayariga did not show a man who is remorseful for his shameful conduct. When host of Newsfile Samson Lardy Anyenini, read out possible sanctions for Ayariga which included expulsion, Nimako stated, "that is what should have happened." He said Ayariga being a lawyer, should have known that his allegation must be backed with evidence and to the extent that he failed to back his allegation with evidence should have faced the biggest axe of expulsion. But Editor of the Crusading Guide Newspaper Kweku Baako Jnr who was also on the show was of the opinion that the sanction was in order. He described the whole incident as irritating, annoying but "believed nothing will come out of this in terms of evidence. He added the Joe Ghartey committee did far better than previous other inquisitions into similar allegation of bribery against MPs. Story by Ghana|Myjoyonline.com|Nathan Gadugah It is expected that the candidates on this shortlist will all register for the campaign and submit themselves to vetting by the Guardian Council, a clerical body that is empowered to disqualify candidates and legislation it deems to be at odds with the Iranian constitution or sharia law. Afterwards, the Popular Fronts strategy calls for four of the five candidates to withdraw in order to make way for a unified hardline challenge to Rouhani at the time of the election, scheduled for May 19. According to the Associated Press, the vetting process is supposed to be completed by April 27, leaving the confirmed candidates about three weeks to work out any remaining conflicts before Iranians go to the polls. The formal campaign period is even shorter, meaning the remaining challengers will probably need an aggressive strategy for defeating the incumbent. The hardline faction of Iranian politics has become increasingly antagonistic to the Rouhani administration since it spearheaded nuclear negotiations with six world powers and especially since the resulting agreement went into effect in January 2016, exchanging limited restrictions to the Iranian nuclear program for relief from relevant economic sanctions. According to the Guardian, the animosity toward Rouhani has grown so severe that some hardliners are even pushing to have him disqualified by the Guardian Council before standing for reelection. This appears to be an unlikely scenario, even though Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has recently voiced his own serious criticisms of Rouhani, suggesting for instance that the nuclear deal has had insufficient positive impact on the Iranian economy. The clerical leaders criticism is counterbalanced somewhat by the fact that he barred Rouhanis divisive predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from making a run at reclaiming his seat during this election cycle. Khamenei has rejected the prospect of national reconciliation through the release of Green Movement leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, but he is evidently also fearful of exacerbating lingering popular resentments by showing a clear preference for distinctly hardline figures. The supreme leader himself is generally regarded as representing the hardline, as evidenced by his close association with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which has led the way in cracking down on activists and journalists ahead of the election, as well as in antagonizing US Naval forces and other Western entities in the Persian Gulf. Nevertheless, it appears that the Rouhani presidency is tolerable, even if not preferable for Khamenei, thanks in part to the administration declining to pursue the Mousavi and Karroubi, who have been under house arrest without trial or charge since 2011. Human rights groups and political opponents of the Iranian regime have been pointing out Rouhanis failure to live up to this and other campaign promises throughout the four years of his presidency. This arguably leaves reformists without a serious voice in the elections, although some backed Rouhanis original election bid. The Guardian says that they are expected to do the same in the forthcoming election, although it was also reported early in his presidency that Rouhani had lost a good deal of his original support over his failure to live up to expectations on virtually all matters other than the nuclear negotiations. Thus, the president is struggling to defend his moderate credentials ahead of the election, while also striving to avoid further incurring the wrath of hardliners. Toward that end, he held a press conference on Monday which IranWire characterized as an unofficial launch of his reelection campaign. In it, he claimed that his administration was defending free speech and civil rights, and that it had promoted a freer and more open culture by granting permits for products and publications that might otherwise have been barred or kept in limbo. But this account of his four-year legacy is easily disputed by reference to ongoing and even worsening restrictions on free speech and freedom of assembly, especially in light of the law enforcement crackdown that has apparently been driven not only by the Revolutionary Guards but also by Rouhanis own Intelligence Ministry. Days earlier, the President directed Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi to speak out against a recent slew of arrests including those of a dozen administrators for the Telegram instant messaging application. But this move came only after reformist lawmakers exerted their own pressure on Rouhani over this issue, and after reports emerged to indicate that the Ministry had carried out some arrests and had in any event taken no steps to diminish the IRGCs domestic overreach. Rouhanis reaction to reformist outcry also included a public message to Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli asking him to explain the suspicious arrests of a number of media activists on the eve of the elections. But Rouhani arguably sent a mixed message by coupling this request with a directive to avoid security violations. The Center for Human Rights in Iran called renewed attention to Rouhanis statement in the context of a report on more recent statements by Judiciary Chief Sadegh Larijani warning against any new protests like those that gave rise to the Green Movement in 2009, following Ahmadinejads disputed reelection. Regime opponents and human rights defenders have tended to highlight a distinct mismatch between Rouhanis public statements and the actions he has taken as president. For instance, recent arrests have clearly targeted dual nationals solely on the basis of their having lived abroad, yet these arrests stand in direct contrast to Rouhanis repeated claims that expatriate Iranians would be free to return to the country under his presidency, without consequence. In other cases there may be positive trends that the Rouhani administration can highlight in order to argue that there has been domestic progress, but these arguments seemingly depend upon ignorance of other, contrary trends. For instance, Al Jazeera reported upon a recent Amnesty International analysis regarding the global use of the death penalty, which found that capital punishment had significantly decreased worldwide and specifically in the Islamic Republic. But the 2016 figure of at least 567 Iranian executions is still higher than any other country apart from China, and presumably higher than Chinas execution rate on a per-capita basis. Irans recent decrease in executions only had a positive impact upon world figures because of how staggeringly high its rate of executions is in comparison to global standards, and also because the previous year saw a more than 20-year high of approximately 1,000 hangings, in the very middle of Rouhanis term as president. But although these sorts of statistics indicate that Rouhani has not had a notably positive domestic impact and likely would not do so in a second term, there may be reason to believe that things would get worse in the event of his defeat by a hardline challenger. Last weeks meeting of the Popular Front of Revolutionary Forces demonstrated the existence of a clear front-runner in the form of Ebrahim Raisi, a prominent cleric who had previously been identified as a potential successor to Ali Khamenei as supreme leader. His status as a potentially serious challenge to Rouhani was solidified on Tuesday when he reportedly became the first member of the hardline shortlist to register as a candidate. The Guardian states that this move came as a surprise, but other sources including Al Monitor suggested that Raisis candidacy was all but a foregone conclusion well ahead of the opening of registration. But whether expected or not, it has met with consternation from some reformist figures and established critics of the clerical regime. The Center for Human Rights in Iran quoted Ahmad Montazeri, the son of the late Ayatollah Ali Hossein Montazeri, as saying that Raisis candidacy is an insult to the people of Iran, in large part because of the role that he played in the 1988 massacre of political prisoners. The younger Montazeri was arrested and initially sentenced to 21 years in prison last year as a result of his having released an audio recording of his father criticizing fellow regime authorities for the massacre a confrontation that ultimately led to the ayatollah being ousted from the regime. Raisi was one of four clerical judges who ordered the mass execution, which was primarily aimed at destroying the resistance group called the Peoples Mojahedin Organization of Iran. That group, still an active opponent of the clerical regime, continues to call attention to the massacre and the ongoing presence of its perpetrators in positions of influence. On Tuesday, the PMOIs parent organization, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, released a timeline of violently repressive activities for which Raisi has been responsible throughout his career. But in the past, the NCRI has also called attention to such facts as President Rouhanis appointment of Mostafa Pourmohammadi, another leading participant in the 1988 massacre, to the position of Justice Minister. This criticism of both electoral factions goes to show that for dissidents and many reformists, the forthcoming election presents no option that can realistically be expected to yield domestic reform. Some reformists have put forward the idea of fielding alternatives to Rouhani, but his administration has opposed the efforts. Ostensibly, this is to discourage the supreme leader from disqualifying Rouhani and leaving an untested candidate in its place. But there is little to suggest that Khamenei is interested in such a replacement, since Rouhani has thus far posed little real challenge to the hard line. Recent activities of riotous groups affiliate to the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) Invincible Forces and Delta Force, has turned the country into a ticking time bomb, the Convention Peoples Party (CPP) has said. We therefore call on President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to take responsibility and muster the political courage to deal with the rebellious groups decisively and urgently restore the sanctity of national security. "Ghana cannot and should not continue to entertain groups that are gradually transforming into a terrorist group as their recent bravado of invading a circuit court in Kumasi is an affront to the countrys judicial system,Professor Edmund N. Delle, CPP Chairman told the Ghana News Agency in an interview on Friday. The CPP joins right thinking Ghanaians to condemn the act; stressing that the acts of these two groups, especially after the December 7 Elections could result in social unrest as the increasing violence, threatens countrys security and political stability. Prof Delle called for broad based national investigation into their operations, saying these groups may have stockpiled arms and ammunitions. We are dealing with a major national security risk, but our responses are weak and uncoordinated. The CPP Leader who described the April 6 act of terrorism at the Kumasi Circuit Court as Impunity and aggression against the Judicial Establishment, urged the NPP to denounce the group; their action is not in the interest of the nation you are governing. He explained that the group started attacking individuals and groups just after the victory of the NPP; alluded to themselves the power to seize purported state property in the hands of individuals, attacked School Feeding caterers; and defied the Police. Prof Delle said the group has now moved a notch higher of taking over national security; Ghanaians are not safePresident Akufo-Addo must act now. He also acknowledged the swift responses from the Interior Minister, Minister of Defense and the Inspector General of Police but stressed the need for demonstration of Political will by government; security dealings with politically affiliated groups are delicate unless the Political establishment gives the green light security personnel are incapacitated. The CPP Chairman commended the media for reportage on the issues and also creating a platform for national condemnation; We urged the fourth estate of the realm to be vigilant and hold us political actors accountable. The media must continue to play its watch dog role. Some members of Delta Force, a vigilante group affiliated to the ruling NPP in the Ashanti region on Thursday morning stormed a Kumasi Circuit Court to free 13 of their members who were facing charges for causing mayhem at the Ashanti Regional Coordinating Council. The 13 members were detained in connection with attacking the Regional Security Coordinator. The marauding group was alleged to have attacked the presiding judge who had earlier ruled that the suspects be remanded to appear before court on April 20, 2017. Lagos (AFP) - A bloody clash between the army and police in Nigeria's restive northeastern Yobe state left one soldier and three police dead, a security source told AFP. The police confirmed the fracas in the state capital of Damaturu, but did not say if there were casualties. "The Nigeria police force is abreast of the unfortunate incident that occurred in the early hours of today 12th April, 2017 in Damaturu between the personnel of the force and that of the Nigerian army," police spokesman Jimoh Moshood said in a statement. He said an investigation had been launched to determine "the causes of the incident and deal with the situation appropriately to prevent such occurrence in the future". The army authorities were not immediately available for comment. A security officer who did not want to be named, told AFP trouble began on Tuesday when an army officer in a mufti (civilian dress) ran into a convoy of the head of the police mobile unit in Damaturu. "The army officer was beaten up by the police for his action. This morning, soldiers stormed the police station and took away the head of the mobile unit to their military base," he said. He said the the soldiers' action angered some police officers who invaded the army base to free their boss. "There was a shootout in which a soldier and a policeman were killed on the spot while two policemen who were injured later died of their wounds," he said. Yobe and two other states -- Borno and Adamawa -- in the northeast are the worst-hit in the eight-year Boko Haram Islamist insurgency in Nigeria. Boko Haram, which aims to impose a hardline Islamist legal system in Nigeria's mainly-Muslim north, has killed some 20,000 people and forced 2.6 million others to flee their homes since 2009. A joint military operation, comprising Nigerian army, navy, airforce and the police, and aided by regional forces, is currently battling the jihadists. Social Enterprise Ghana is calling on authorities to pay attention to a draft social enterprise policy meant to support the industry. Organisations which are less keen on making profits despite social work initiatives are in a fix on how to register their organisations. Currently, such institutions can register their organisation either only as non-governmental organisations or a limited liability companies. Executive Director of African Collegiate Entrepreneurs, Franklin Owusu-Karikari, tells Luv Biz the present situation is a disincentive. They are social in nature but they make profit but there is nothing in the system for them to fit in. We dont have room for people who do social work so all of them have to register as NGOs, he said. Though Social Enterprise Ghana drafted a social enterprise policy developed to address all these bottlenecks that are affecting industries, only a little response has been received. The group is, however, hoping the Trade Ministry will take a look at it and work on it. Mr. Owusu-Karikari believes when passed the law will create an enabling environment for businesses to thrive. Meanwhile, an advocacy group, Ghana Young Entrepreneurs, joins the campaign to extend the policy to cover local youth entrepreneurship. Its mandate is to using advocacy to impact on policy for youth entrepreneurship. Chief Executive, Sheriff Ghali, is positive a national working document is required to engage youth into entrepreneurship. We are currently moving something with commonwealth alliance of young entrepreneurs. Ghana should have a clear-cut policy, working ones that will give us a road-map into helping Youth entrepreneurs in Ghana, which we are currency happening, he believes. The advocates spoke at the launch of the Ashanti Regional chapter of Ghana Young Entrepreneurs in Kumasi. It formed part of the first YOUTH ENTREPRENEURSHIP conference. So yesterday the Delta Forces were fined GHC2,400? Hmmm, Simpa Panyin, sometimes you disappoint me paaa ooo; the way you have started twisting your waist, some of your initial dances are not matching the rhythm koraa oo, hmmm Honestly I have in recent times been wondering what the next eight years will look like, still living in Ghana. Our election DNA seem to have been fixed on eight years cycle, fairly predictable, but dangerously detrimental to our security, and our governance. After President Nana Akufo-Addos winning, politicians could conveniently predict another regime in the next eight years, and so could afford to plunder the resources for themselves, in anticipation that they will lose power anyway, whether they do the right things or the wrong things, the electorates will shout, change! I recall the carnage the Azorka boys brought to bear in the year 2009 when the NDC won power; that was when the history of the seizures of government installations began, as I recall. Kwami Sefa Kayi once interviewed one NDC activist, about their violent behaviors, in the aftermath of the 2008 elections. This party activist, one Nana Ofori-Atta, who is now late, boasted that if he was dared, he and his group were going to burn down the offices of the NHIS; that was the audacity of winning power. The aftermath of the 2008 election violence included the killing of some individuals at Agbogbloshie, the hijacking of the bidding processes at the Tamale Metropolitan Assembly, the seizures of toilet facilities and tollbooths across the country, and the creation of sharp teeth; these all began the processes of losing the election from the beginning; it was all about power, impunity, and brute force, and the electorates understood what the NDC government was asking for, bringing the elephant back from the bush. I still dont know why the NDC is spending so much money looking for why they lost power. This fact finding committee to unravel the cause of their defeat in the face of the obvious is another scam flying in our face. Why do you go round looking for how a thief looks like, when you, yourself, are an example of a thief? Allotey Jacobs says he has something in his chest; why dont you just cut that chest open, and remove whatever is stored there, right there will be the reasons you lost power, not simple? In the last few weeks, the NDC has been confronted with some naked realities, accusations and reverse accusations. I have observed the scene with keen interest, and I have tried to analyze how they planned their defeat. Of course it began with the seizures as described above, traveling through dzi wo fie asem, to the emergence of sharp teeths, turning through the flooding of V8s, moving a step towards yentie obiaa, from which it made a few stops at Woyome, Montie, thereafter it became free for all; the amassing of wealth, the open display of opulence, and the legitimization of insults and theft, inch by inch, the NDC crumbled into a comfortable lead, and eventually, it all came down, they got what they wanted. The party has seen some turbulence in the last few weeks. This turbulence started with FONKAR GAMES, when Nana Konadu started to demand the return of her husbands party, threatening to take the umbrella away, with Kofi Adams nearly at the throat of the late President Atta Mills. The FONKAR GAMES ended with their 97:3 delegate conference in Kumasi, after which the death of President Atta Mills brought some sense of oneness back into the party, at least on the surface. Just at once, Kofi Adams, a foundation member of FONKAR, transformed from being President Mills perceived traitor, to becoming the darling boy of the John Mahamas administration. He was reported as having had his campaign financed by the then President, John Mahama, to contest Yaw Boateng Gyan. After winning, he was all of a sudden everything, a member of the Board of Directors of this, a member of the Board of Directors of that, the National Organizer of this, the National Coordinator of that, and Adams found himself being surrounded by V8s, one for the market, the other for the streets, all these being done not only to desecrate the memory of the late Atta Mills, but also to the disenchantment of the party grass root people who suffered to keep the party in power while Kofi Adams followed FONKAR. While all these were happening, and young boys and girls were grabbing monies, the NPP concentrated on in-fighting at the top level. The NDC lived in the hope that the in-fighting and the divisions of the NPP at the top level would have trickle down to their grass root, and therefore automatically translate into an electoral fortune for them. No, that did not happen. The wrongs of the NDC government, and the determination of the NPPs invisibles, coupled with an angry public, gave the NDC a well-deserved and unprecedented defeat. Despite all of these, the NPP has succeeded in doing one thing right; the NPP has succeeded in failing to learn any lessons from the defeat of the NDC. They took advantage of the general failings of the NDC, gave some sumptuous promises, including promising jobs for unemployable heavily built boys, jobs that they do not have the skills for. They created Invisible Forces, they created Delta Forces, and all kinds of forces, across the country, giving them hope, for jobs they are not qualified for. The NPP finally won power, and then they began to fall on their own daggers. The traps they set for themselves began to trap them. Delta this, invisible that, all began to ask for their jobs, some members began to ask to be posted into the position of the IGP, and so on. Of course it is not fair to watch people who did nothing for the party, now enjoying the leftover V8s. I am told Kan-Dapaah, and many others like him, refused to help the party while they were in opposition, claiming that he was on political retirement. In the absence of people like Kan-Dapaah helping, it was these same invisibles, and Deltas, who secured victory for the party. They did that in the hopes that when the party comes to power, they will have jobs, and they will begin to reap from their efforts. I have already condemned the actions of the invisible and delta forces, but it appears they have a point, although they are using a wrong approach? After the party won power, Kan-Dapaah was called from his alleged political retirement, and made the National Security Minister, and then he began to, according to my information, recruit his own likeness, of people who went on political retirement, into the very positions that these forces had hoped to occupy; monkey dey chop, right? So in the end the invisibles worked for nothing; they see, on our streets, party aliens sweeping gutters, gathering rubbish back into the gutters, they see on daily basis, 62 year olds wearing the National Youth Employment aprons, representing the youth, pretending to be youth, and pretending to be sweeping our pavements, and gathering the rubbish back into our gutters so as to have continuous work the next day. You think they are, taflatse, fools? They are not! They are invisible, they were raised in the Delta, so they begin to unleash their character, and you say what? You, say fi, you will see what becomes of your jaws. And that began the chipping away of the victory that was won recently. Power, arrogance, and power, those who won it gave it to the president, the president then gave it to those who abandoned the party, and those who abandoned the party do not know what to do with their undeserved positions, so they begin to lose it back to those who lost it, and the cycle continued, eight predictable years of poverty, eight predictable years of corruption, and eight predictable years of power coming back, NDC, NPP, NDC, NPP, Ghanas hall of pain, all recycled James Kofi Annan Lebanese President Michel Aoun (left) and Jacques Cheminade. 13.04.2017 LISTEN April 9, 2017 (EIRNS)On April 7, just hours after Donald Trump had ordered an attack on the Syrian base of Al Shairat, French Presidential candidate Jacques Cheminade met with Lebanese President Michel Aoun at the Baabda presidential palace, to talk, quite the contrary, about "peace through development" for the whole region. Christine Bierre, in charge of this region for Cheminades movement, also attended the meeting. Following a 30-minute discusson with President Aoun, Cheminade made the following remarks to the press gathered at the Presidential palace. "I have come to Lebanon in the spirit of a Free Lebanon, over and above all political factions, as one should always consider such things in France, and to show the role Lebanon can play in the Middle East and in world affairs. For a long time now, in particular since February 1989, General Aoun has been very important in this respect because he has always shown great political courage in that respect and great independent mindedness, nurtured by his political courage. "Today, I have come here to say that France must do everything to support the cause of Lebanon, and in particular to make sure that Europe and France contribute much more aid to the political and economic refugees coming to Lebanon and to those in Lebanon who receive the refugees and who sometimes live less well than they do. Francemust do all in her power to deal with that question. We know that there are between 2 and 2.5 million refugees in Lebanon, for a population of 4.5 million inhabitants. We must absolutely do something to help Lebanon. "The way to help in a decisive manner is to allow the refugees to return to their countries, in particular to Syria, and to create conditions of peace inSyria, through economic development and reconstruction. We did this in Franceafter World War II, with public credit and a commitment to the future. Today we need credit for the development of Syria so that the Syrians can go back to their country and live there. With time, and that time must be as short as possible, that is the only way to establish peace through mutual development in the Near and Middle East. "What happened today at dawn, the missiles fire from an American vessel at an important Syrian base is something that will no doubt worsen what is happening here. It was carried out before an international investigation into what really happened in Syriacould occur, and it is a decision by President Trump, to go far beyond what Obama did in 2013, when Obama stopped before launching missiles. "In my opinion, there has been, in a totally premature manner, a violation of the sovereignty of one nation by another one. I think this is very serious, it does not help peace in the Near and Middle East in any way, and we must very quickly, without losing time in useless debates, say that this intervention in the internal affairs of a state must stop and create the conditions for peace through mutual development in the future. From that standpoint,Lebanonand the Lebanon of General Aoun must play an absolutely fundamental role that Francemust recognize." In further media coverage during the day, Jacques Cheminade came back to the hypocrisy and cynicism of those in France and the Western camp who are calling for a coalition against Assad. "I am not for a coalition against Bashar Al Assad," he told the correspondent of the French national all-business BFM TV, "but in favor of stabilizing the situation in Lebanon. Some preach and preach morality; the reality is that those doing the moralizing are the ones who organized the military intervention in Libya with the consequences we know, and who allow Yemen to be bombed by Saudi Arabia. They even give the Saudis more intelligence to be able to better bomb Yemenand after that, they give lessons on morality to the entire world. I find that to be of the utmost hypocrisy and cynicism." Cheminade told Radio France Internationale (RFI), "Politics is not being nice to someones face and cynical behind his back. Politics is what General de Gaulle did, which is to try by all means to reach detente, entente and cooperation" among all nations. Finally, Cheminade expressed his concern with the serious problems Lebanon is facing today due to the war against Syria. To a question by a Lebanese journalist following his presentation at Baabda, Cheminade answered that he talked with President Aoun "about pressing France and Europefor more help to urgently improve the sewer system currently in a catastrophic state due to the occupation by too many people, of a country of only 4.5 million inhabitants. President Aoun said Europe had begun to help, but Cheminade said that aid must go much further, indicating that Frances world-class water companies should be brought in to contribute to solve those problems. "Lebanoncould become a powder keg," he warned, in his interview to BFM TV, and for that reason "the refugees must be able to go back to Syria and the conditions created for them to do so, rather than creating dissensions and tensions through interventions like that of Trump." An article in the April 8th issue of the main French-language Lebanese daily lOrient le Jour also reported that Cheminade was in Lebanon to "to support a Free Lebanon ... beyond its political divisions," pay homage to Aouns "political courage" and "independent mindedness" and call for more aid to Lebanon to solve its domestic difficulties due to the refugee crisis. On BFM TV, Cheminade warned that Lebanoncould become a "powder keg," which means "creating the conditions for Syrians to go back home and not to create dissensions and tensions by intervening like Trump has done." Lebanon is exemplary, he said, "because there have been all these family quarrels, with killings and murders; its almost Shakespearean, with the Hariris, the Geageas, the Frangiehs, the Gemayels, etc. But Aoun came and succeeded in creating unity among those people who thought towards the future of the country. It is that attitude that we must have throughout the whole region." Cheminade concluded his trip to Lebanonin discussion with a few Frenchmen, and potential voters, who attended a meeting that the candidate organized that evening. Sorry, we can't find the content you're looking for at this URL. 13.04.2017 LISTEN Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) commends the Ghanaian media for the bold and relentless campaign against illegal mining, popularly called galamsey in Ghana In the last two weeks, almost all the major media organisations in the country have in a joint and highly commendable effort, focused on highlighting the devastating effects of galamsey in the country. The media have also been engaged in a massive campaign to get the authorities, particularly the government to take appropriate steps to redress the menace. The government is yet to make public its plans to address the challenge apart from having government officials also lamenting about the issue and praising the media for the campaign. What we expect to see is immediate actions on the part of the government to redress the matter The MFWA wishes to commend the media for this bold step and further admonishes the media to be firm and unrelenting in their efforts at educating the public about the menace and exposing perpetrators. The Foundation believes that the media have demonstrated commitment to ensure that our environment is protected through this campaign to stop galamsey in Ghana. The MFWA thus calls on all other stakeholders particularly government to take bold and decisive action on the problem. There is no need to import vehicles into Ghana when locally-assembled Kantanka automobile models are available. Thats the endorsement by the Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II after taking delivery of a customised suburban utility vehicle [SUV] manufactured by Kantanka Automobile in Kumasi. It is one of three vehicles ordered by the Asante King from the local automobile manufacturer company in a bid to support local manufacturing companies to grow. The customised 4x4 SUV comes with the brand name Kantanka Otumfuo. It comes with neatly woven Kente cloth used as interior deco nicely arranged on the seats and all the four doors is not only inviting but gives it a stunning look. Two of the vehicles, each one costing Gh 150,000 Ghana Cedis will be delivered later. After inspecting the vehicles, Asantehene Osei Tutu II, said there is no need to import vehicles that can be produced locally by indigenous automobile firm from abroad. According to him, he acquired the Kantanka Otumfuo' to encourage Apostle Kwadwo Sarfo and also invite Ghanaians especially government to patronise them. Chief executive of Kantanka Automobile, Kwadwo Sarfo Jnr says it is time for Ghanaians to support the local industry by patronising made-in- Ghana products. The vehicle, one of the numerous innovations the industrialist who is also a preacher, has produced in recent times. Mr Sarfo Kantanka's vehicles also have an in-built warning system that warns both pedestrians and other road users. Being confronted with the truth hurts much the same way as telling the truth; however, in the end, it brings comfort. Spare the rod and you spoil the child, so an adage goes. My entire family supports and votes Progress Party (PP), Popular Front Party (PFP) and New Patriotic Party (NPP). Nonetheless, I detest the ungratefulness and pomposity of most of our party leaders who by their acquired higher paper qualifications think they are some inches taller than others hence looking them on them once the deemed nonentities have sacrificed their time, little money, efforts and lives to bring the party to power. During elections, the less respected who are mostly semi-educated or illiterates are fallen on, becoming the shoulders on which the highly crafty leaders cry. They plead with them to assist them with their little money, knowledge, might and you just name it. However, as soon as they win the election, you will see them ignoring the very people they contacted for help, pretending as if they have never seen them before. This is the height of the ungratefulness by the NPP leaders. Honestly, I cant stand such deplorable acts of conspicuous ungratefulness bordering on underestimation of peoples intelligence hence putting out this publication to chastise them. The way the members of the Delta Force were ignored, by the NPP leaders with the Minister for National Security Hon. Albert Kan Dapaa calling for their imprisonment really infuriates me. What annoys me most is to hear that Hon. Albert Kan Dapaa, probably an Agenda 2020 sympathiser, never contributed a pesewa towards the NPPs Election 2016 campaign, claiming he had resigned from active politics so his money does not do politics. Surprisingly however, he has landed the position of Minister for National Security in the government of a political party that he never assisted in their efforts and quest to win the election. How come, one may ask? As if getting that position without wiping any sweat or volunteering advice or money was already not an insult to the intelligence of those who went the extra miles, risking their lives, spending their money, fasting and praying to God to ensure the election of Nana Akufo Addo and the NPP, he had shamelessly audaciously threatened to jail the Delta Force guys. What is so despicable about the whole thing is his declaration to see the arse of the Delta Force volunteers in prison. Let me try to educate him on how best he could have carried his malicious intents across without much condemnation from the public. He should have said I shall ensure the Delta Force culprits are arraigned and I shall press hard charges against them. This would have been more understandable than saying with authority that he was going to jail them. Is he a judge or he was going to influence the court using his Executive powers whereas his boss, His Excellency President Nana Addo Dankwah Akufo Addo believes in the rule of law without him personally interfering to bend law to suit him or his friends or whomever. By Hon. Kan Dapaa declaring in advance that he would ensure the Delta Force guys were jailed was quite prejudicial. Yes, nobody supports the repeat of lawlessness, practice of selective justice and institutional corruption in the country. Therefore, I do not condone the reprehensible behaviour by the Delta Force. In much the same vein, I do not countenance the unprofessional manner in which Hon. Albert Kan Dapaa, now an apparent square peg wobbling in a round hole handled the case. Yes, he could be a highly qualified account, acquired much wealth but he is not a qualified security expert with the knowhow to deal with delicate security issues. If he had handled the case professionally cautiously, taking so many elements into consideration, it would not have escalated to the national level let alone, the international arena to get the United Nations involved. What has he gained if not to have discredited the President, the party and Ghana? NPP as a political party and a group of persons can be overflowing with highly educated and qualified people; University graduates with First, Masters and PhD degrees at its helm yet, I can say without fear or favour that we often lack political savviness and strategies when it comes to staying in power for long once we have won an election. How justified are we as a party to treat our foot soldiers with disdain just for the fact that they are less educated? Whenever NPP wins power, most of those appointed as Ministers adopt that ridiculous behaviour of making themselves superior to others hence would no longer want to see even the people who voted for them. Yes, we do not expect our leaders to socialise with everybody, anywhere and anyhow but for them to treat the foot-soldiers, if at all that is the right word to use, with utter scorn as done to the Delta Force culprits is like biting the very hand that feeds you. Today, we are in power so we do not need them, forgetting that their services will be required in future so we need to treat them fairly and with respect. As a saying goes, as the rain comes to melt the salt for the shea butter to laugh at it, so will come a day when the Sun will rise to melt the shea butter for the salt to laugh at it in return. Being very well educated or highly educated does not make one a qualified strategist to win political election to stay in power for long or else, the UGCC through her metamorphoses to NPP would have been the longest reigning party in the history of Ghana yet, it is the least. For lack of political common sense within the NPP where many people think they are well-educated hence are better than one another, looking down on others as not their equal, we shall forever draw a wedge in the party to catapult us into opposition after a few years accession to power. Mind you, neither old age is an indication of wisdom nor a grey hair a repository of wisdom. Wisdom is not the prerogative of any one individual, so hear ye me, all NPP activists, gurus and leaders. Today, I have spoken in parables, tomorrow I shall speak in plain words. The Delta Force, Rambo Force, Bull Dogs, Zongo Youth, please bear with the government, your concerns shall be addressed by His Excellency the President and his government in due course. You have not been used and dumped. You have not been abandoned as some of you do rightly believe although that is how it looks like at the moment. Finally, Hon. Albert Kan Dapaa will learn a lesson from the recent developments to behave himself more professionally next time unless he is intentionally secretly seeking the downfall of the NPP government probably as opportunist as he is. Speak the truth and shame the devil rather than to tell lies to please him! Rockson Adofo (Written on Thursday, 13 April 2017) Following the recent unwarranted attacks on innocent, law abiding and peace loving people of Nzemaland, we deem it prudent and timely to as a matter of urgency call on the various state apparatus to step in and get the situation resolved to get the town back on track for the various socioeconomic activities to go on. We wish to hereby state emphatically that, the needless, unthinkable act by the Ghana Police Service in the Jomoro District is not only condemnable but also, inhuman, unethical, highly unprofessional and a gross display of lack of respect for the laws of our land by officials who ought to know better and uphold such laws. It is in the light of this, that we respectively make these legitimate, reasonable and informed requests in our quest to cool tempers and prevent further escalation of the current happenings; 1. We implore the Inspector General of Police, Interior and Defence ministers to as a matter of urgency, convey a high powered delegation to the area to assess the situation and put all necessary measures in place to halt the act of lawlessness being perpetrated by the security officers. 2. The Regional and District Police Commanders should be summoned for questioning in view of the unfolding events. They should be in the position to provide credible answers to the numerous questions tossing around. i. What necessitated the arrest of the deceased? ii. Why was the deceased not granted bail? iii. What was the outcome of the autopsy? iv. What is the position of the police? 3. We strongly call on the Police Service to take advantage of the windows of opportunities available to brief the general public on the circumstances leading to this whole mishap within a maximum 24 hours period. This when done, would ameliorate the situation significantly. 4. The Government, through the appropriate state institutions, should order immediate investigation into the matter following which all manner of persons within the rank and file of the police force should be brought to book and face all the possible stringent legal and professional sanctions. 5.The Public mistrust in the Police Service has been worsened by this event and the earlier a possible transfer is effected in the district, the better for us all. We cannot continue to live and work with officers who themselves do not respect the laws they are mandated to enforce. We wish to once again reemphasize unequivocally that, we respect the laws of the land and therefore would not want to go outside the legal boundaries to seek justice for innocent citizens who have been brutalized and hospitalized, injured, psychologically and emotionally traumatized as well as those students writing their WASSCE who have been in police custody are therefore not able to do so. Justice must prevail and it must be now. Long live concerned youth for Nzema development Long live Ghana Signed! President Ishmael Avo Miezah 0543250281 Nicodemus Nyameke 0240039930 Stephen Menlah Member Joseph Member Baah The most prominent example of this trend on Wednesday was the surprise registration of Rouhanis predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who served two terms as president but is legally permitted to run after a gap of at least one term. Despite this basic permission, it was taken for granted that Ahmadinejad would not challenge Rouhani in May, since Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had previously urged him not to do so. The supreme leaders advice regarding Ahmadinejads potential candidacy was apparently based on the perception of the former president as an excessively divisive figure, his 2009 reelection having been the spark that set off the Green Movement protests. Even up until Monday, it was still being reported that Ahmadinejad had no plans to personally run for election, having instead endorsed his former deputy, Hamid Baghaei, to run as an independent candidate in his place. This endorsement was not the only signal that Ahmadinejad had given to indicate that he would abide by the supreme leaders advice. Whether Tuesdays move was the reversal of that position or the revelation of longstanding plans, Ahmadinejad was still joined by Baghaei as both registered for separate candidacies, as reported by IranWire. It is possible that this joint action was aimed at setting up Baghaei as a running mate for Ahmadinejad if the latters candidacy is approved. But it may also suggest that the independent hardline candidates are pursuing a similar strategy to that which was laid out by the newly formed Popular Front of Revolutionary Forces, a conservative coalition that selected a shortlist of five candidates, just days before registration opened. The shortlist was generated on the understanding that four of the five would withdraw from the race before Election Day on May 19, in order to solidify for the single candidate deemed to be most capable of unseating Rouhani. But Al Monitor reported on Monday that not all of the candidates favored by hardliners had formally agreed to this scheme, leaving open the possibility that some of them would end up running against one another right up until Election Day. This contributed to Al Monitor concluding that the conservative factions were continuing to go through a rough patch in their bid to obtain the power to reverse Rouhanis outreach to the US and the international community, as showcased in the 2015 nuclear agreement. While apparent disagreements over strategy raised the prospect of a divided ticket in the days leading up to registration, the newfound presence of both Ahmadinejad and Baghaei in the campaign makes that division virtually certain. Al Monitor also called attention to the fact that one of the shortlist candidates, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, had signaled that he would register as an independent, a statement that does not appear to be good news for the conservatives or for [the Popular Front], which would then be at risk of collapse. Furthermore, the Popular Fronts top choice and the first major challenger to register on Monday, Ebrahim Raisi, also eschewed formal alignment with the Popular Front or another party, although this reportedly underscored his emerging alignment with the hardline Endurance Front, for which independent candidacy is a familiar strategy. According to Al Monitor, that affiliation harms Raisis chances of electoral victory because the Endurance Front lacks broad support and clearly alienates the moderate and pragmatist voters who are likely to go for Rouhani. Presumably, the negative effects of that affiliation would only be amplified by severe divisions within the hardline faction, which may still be accumulating. This is not to say that Rouhani has an easy road to reelection. A recent report by Time highlighted the lackluster economic recovery following the nuclear agreement as a major reason for Rouhani having lost much of the support that carried him to victory in 2013. Other sources including human rights organizations and the National Council of Resistance of Iran have called attention to his betrayal of a variety of campaign promises regarding free speech and civil society. Expatriates returning to Iran have continued to be singled out for arrest despite specific promises that they would face no punishment for living abroad; widespread restrictions on the Iranian internet and independent media remain in place; and the Green Movement leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi remain under extra-judicial house arrest despite Rouhanis claim that he would see them freed. All of this seriously weakens Rouhanis reelection campaign. But Time suggested that in addition to dividing the hardline camp, Ahmadinejads registration on Tuesday might have helped to encourage Rouhanis base to support him, even if it is as the lesser of two or several evils. This perspective arguably validates the supreme leaders concerns, which led him to advice Ahmadinejad to remain on the sidelines. That is, for moderates and reformists, perhaps no one is seen as a bigger threat to economic and social change that Ahmadinejad. However, at the same time that that threat might spur more reformists to vote, it may also greatly inspire part of the conservative faction. As Time put it, There is probably no single individual who polarizes Iranian society more than him. Some believe he is a true revolutionary intent on fulfilling the 1979 Islamic Revolutions ideals of social justice for the poor; others believe his two term stint as president was the worst calamity to befall the country in decades if not more. But although there may be some uncertainty as to which perception will prompt the respective faction to more serious action, it seems unlikely that Ahmadinejads popularity among hardliners will be sufficient to overcome the effects of such a cluttered field of candidates. And his ability to seriously compete with fellow hardliners is dependent upon his passing the vetting process of the Guardian Council, of whose 12 members half are directly appointed by the supreme leader. In its reporting upon Ahmadinejads surprise registration, Reuters emphasizes that it appears to be a direct challenge to Supreme Leader Khamenei, which follows upon the former presidents alleged efforts to advance a uniquely Iranian version of Islam, which would apparently be based on a blend of religion and nationalism as well as being an unwelcome alternative to the highly traditional, fundamentalist view of Islam espoused by the regimes clerical leadership. Opinion seems to be divided as to whether Ahmadinejad will be ultimately permitted to run for the presidency against Rouhani. But Reuters suggests that blocking him would be difficult, though not impossible, in part because his disqualification would imply that the Guardian Council is not independent but is instead a mere mouthpiece for the supreme leader. Reuters goes on to claim that according to informed sources, Ahmadinejad might respond to his own disqualification by taking the strange turn of directing his supporters to back Rouhanis reelection. That is, Ahmadinejad might ultimately be more interested in defeating his hardline rival Ebrahim Raisi, regardless of the apparently incompatible approaches to foreign policy that have been advanced by the prior president and the current one. Although this possible outcome would improve Rouhanis chances to an even greater degree than has already been accomplished by the infighting, it would also serve to reinforce the arguments of reformists and dissidents like the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which maintains that elections in the Islamic Republic are little more than political theater aimed at resolving infighting within the regime, but without the real prospect of substantive policy shifts. Monday, April 17, 2017 marks exactly 100 days since the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo led-New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration was inaugurated. The Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) uses this upcoming occasion to assess the Akufo-Addo/NPP governments performance from its vantage as a democratic governance think tank. We commend the teams of both the John Dramani Mahama-National Democratic Congress (NDC) and that of the Akufo-Addo-NPP government for working out a relatively smooth and peaceful transfer of power. They exhibited high levels of cooperation and accommodation, notwithstanding the occasional disagreement and miscommunication. We commend President Akufo-Addo for the speed with which he assembled his team of ministers and deputy ministers for the takeoff of the new government. We also applaud the efforts the president made to explain the rationale behind the nomination of specific individuals for the respective ministerial positions. This practice suggests the willingness of the President to subject his own logic and reasoning to broad scrutiny - a healthy development for Ghanas nascent democracy, if sustained. We further commend President Akufo-Addo for giving impetus to the fight against corruption by allocating a substantial GHC 1.2Million to the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) to implement activities under the National Anti-Corruption Action Plan (NACAP). Finally, we commend the president for the declaration to put an indefinite freeze on the purchase of new vehicles and completely terminate the standing policy that allowed government appointees to purchase their official vehicles. CDD-Ghana deems these decisions as important symbolic steps towards promoting good public financial management. In respect of the latter policy, the Center recommends that the Akufo-Addo/NPP government pass a comprehensive law on the disposal of all public assets to provide a long-term guideline for the disposal of public assets. However, a number of developments in the first 100 days of the Akufo-Addo/NPP administration give us cause for dismay. First, the many instances of NPP-affiliated vigilante groups forceful takeover of state assets and public facilities (including toilets, toll booths, school feeding programs, etc.) and the unlawful seizure of vehicles of members of the previous administration put a dent on the hitherto smooth transition process. Worse still, the failure of government, and law enforcement agencies to deal decisively with the NPP-affiliated vigilante groups, mainly the Delta and Invincible Forces, that invaded sensitive government installations such as the passport office and Tema Ports and Harbor, appears to have encouraged the recent brazen attacks on the Ashanti Regional Security Coordinator and a Circuit Court in Kumasi, by the so-called Delta Force. CDD-Ghana acknowledges the public commitment the national security hierarchy has made to bring those involved to justice fully as endorsed by the President. The Center fully endorses the calls for the immediate disbandment of all political party-affiliated vigilante groups to uproot this threat to national security. However, the Center is convinced that, the more credible way to deal with the canker of militant party-affiliated vigilantism should, start with proactive de-politicization of state/government control of the police and other national security agencies, including the appointment and transfers of their leadership. It also requires a firm stance to end the accompanying partisanship in the deployment of security agencies which breeds impunity among incumbent government supporters and fosters mistrust among opposition party supporters. CDD-Ghana feels badly disappointed by president Akufo-Addos decision to appoint 110 ministers. It flies in the face of the presidents own declared commitment to protect the public purse as well as its longstanding good governance advocates campaign for meaningful reduction in the size of government and resultant government spending. We believe that the appointments of so many politicians to manage the state bureaucracy will further deepen its politicisation and undermine its authority. We are also disturbed by the continuity in practice after electoral turn-overs whereby the chief executive officers and senior managers of public agencies and parastatals are summarily removed or asked to proceed on leave, and to handover to a caretaker officer/acting CEO. Such actions are inconsistent with good corporate governance practices, it fosters politicization of the public service as well as political exclusion, and undermines the fight against winner takes all politics. The Center deems the interpretation of who is a political appointee under Section 14 (6) in the Presidential Transition Act 2012 too broad and badly in need of review informed by best practice. The Center is very much aware that 100 days into a new administration may be too short a time to fully assess a government, and to get a full measure of what the President and the NPP government can do to fulfil its transformational agenda for Ghana. Nonetheless, it does present an opportunity for a new government to take stock, build on the positive steps and achievements and also correct mistakes it has made. It is our fervent hope that going forward the President and his team will embrace this opportunity to address the many governance challenges that the Country faces, some of which have been noted by the Center in this statement. Lets call it by what it is instead of calling it vigilantism. What is happening in Ghana is the formation of the military wings of political parties, with the tacit blessing and support of the top hierarchy of the NPP and NDC parties. If you have such people as Ken Agyapong and Antwi Boasiako (Wontumi), vowing to fight the National Security if it touches or prosecutes the members of the Invincible Forces and Delta Boys, then we have a grave situation on our hands. Ken Agyapong openly threw a challenge to Kan Dapaah, the National Security Advisor for doing his work. Our political parties are being militarized and the phenomenon does not bode well for the future of the country. Secondly, the naive assumption of foot soldiers that, their party is in power, so they can run amok and take over national establishments like tollbooths, public toilets, government offices, and even kick against presidential orders is a bad precedent which must not be allowed ever to fester. We must provide jobs for Ghanaians based on their qualifications and not merely because they belong to a particular political party. We are teaching our youth to drop out of school, to be lazy and also teaching them to be thugs who feel they have the wherewithal to run over courts with impunity. The tinder box can be lit quickly, should rival military extensions from opposing parties clash, and with people like Ken Agyapong and Antwi Boasiako (Wontumi) tacitly sanctioning the activities of these military, the country can easily be plunged into civil war. Our political parties are becoming increasingly militarized and they must be stopped before they challenge our security outfits and become a threat to our national security. Thirdly, these vigilante groups must also be called what they are: they are terrorist organizations and the fact that they protected certain political individuals does not mean they are legal entities and above the law. President Akuffo must pay heed to the cool heads and the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), and put national interest above that of party interest, now that he is the president, and ban all foot soldier associations of all political parties in the name of party affiliated vigilantism for the PEACE of the Nation. The lawlessness brewing in the form of landguardism and illegal mining (Galamsey) need to be stopped. What are the laws for carrying guns in Ghana? Why are these land guards and illegal Chinese miners allowed to carry guns publicly, and if they are flouting the laws of the land regarding the possession of firearms, what are the government and national security doing about it? Gabriel Asare Ayisi, EdD. MTN Ghana has set aside $143 million to ensure network expansion and optimization across the country. The company also intends to add 197 4G and 561 3G sites to the 475 4G sites already deployed nationwide in 2017. The General Manager, Consumer Marketing, MTN Ghana, Noel Kojo Gamson, disclosed this at the launch of Fero L100 Android smartphone at its customer hub at Ridge, Accra on Tuesday. We know that access to data and related services is key to driving socio-economic development and to achieve this MTN Ghana is happy to partner with reputable Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) to secure first to- market deals on high quality affordable devices for valued customers, he said. Mr. Gamson said the company would continue to invest heavily in innovative digital services aimed meeting the demands of its ever increasing number of subscribers. We understand the times ahead, and we will continue to be market leaders to show the way in bringing unmatched data services to Ghanaians, because we are focused on making our customer experience on our network distinct, he stated. He further stated that the partnership with Fero, an original equipment manufacturer to introduce Fero L100 Android Smart phone series onto the Ghanaian market, was to strengthen its position to give customers the best. Fero L100 Android Smart phone Sandeet Narayan, Business Head, West and Central Africa for Fero, averred that the new 5 Android Smart Phone comes with a one-year warranty and is 4G compliant, among others. He stated that the phone, which has shelf price of GHC299 and available at all MTN sales points, is robust in nature and has a long lasting battery with very sharp images, a 32 GB Storage and 1 GB Ram, among other features. Mr. Narayan disclosed that Fero is represented in 26 countries in Africa, including Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, as well as the Middle East. By Solomon Ofori President Akufo-Addo in a pose with the deputy ministers after the swearing-in President Akufo-Addo yesterday swore in the final batch of deputy ministers. In all, he swore in 50 deputy ministers, with the first batch of 25 taking their oaths and letters of appointment sometime in the morning and the remaining 25 later in the day at the Banquet Hall of the State House. Appointees The first batch included the Deputy Ministers of Finance. They were Kwaku Kwarteng, Abena Osei Asare and Charles Adu-Boahen. Energy: Owuraku Aidoo, Joseph Cudjoe and Mohammed Amin Anta; Local Government and Rural Development: Osei Bonsu Amoah, Collins Ntim and Kwasi Boateng Agyei; Information: Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah, Ama Dokua Asiamah Agyei and Perry Curtis Okudjeto. Also on the list of Deputy Ministers for Agriculture were William Agyepong Kwaitoo, Sagre Bambangi and George Oduro. Trade and Industry: Carlos Ahenkorah and Robert Ahomka-Linsey; Roads and Highways: Kwabena Owusu Aduomi and Anthony Abayifaa Karbo; Lands and Natural Resources: Benito Owusu Bio and Barbara Oteng-Gyasi; Works and Housing: Freda Prempeh and Eugene Antwi; Education: Yaw Osei Adutwum and Barbara Ayisi Acher. Attorney General: Gofred Dame and Joseph Dindiok Kpemka; Health: Kingsley Aboagye Gyebi and Tina Mensah; Railway Development: Kwaku Agyenim Boateng and Andrew Appiah Kub; Foreign Affairs: Mohammed Habib Tijani and Charles Owiredu; Communication: George Andah and Vincent Odotei; Water Resources and Sanitation: Patrick Boamah and Michael Gyato; Defence: Major Derrick. The rest included Interior: Henry Quartey; Environment, Science and Technology: Patricia Appiagyei; Regional Organisation: Martin Agyei Mensah-Korsah; Transport: Titus Glover; Employment and Labour: Bright Wireko-Brobbey; Fisheries and Aquaculture: Francis Ato Cudjoe; Aviation: Kwabena Darko Mensah; Chieftaincy: Paul Essien; Gender, Children and Social Protection: Gifty Twum Ampofo; Youth and Sports: Pius Enam Hadzide; Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts: Ziblim Iddi and Monitoring and Evaluation: William Kwasi Sabi. Much as he was delighted to have been able to form his government quicker than any of his predecessors in the Fourth Republic, President Akufo-Addo reminded the ministers, You are aware of the controversies surrounding your appointments. Several unpalatable words had been used to describe them; 'obscene,' 'job for the boys,' amongst others. Charge For him, These criticisms impose a clear obligation on you [the appointees] to justify your selection, especially as you know that there are many of your peers in the House [referring to parliament] who have not been selected even though they have similar claims of competence as yourselves. To that end, he stated, Shame your detractors and together let us build that dignified, self-reliant, prosperous Ghana that successive generations of Ghanaian patriots and the founders of our free democratic nation sought with their sweat, toil and blood. But he assured them, I'm equally in your success; for your success vindicates me. For them to succeed, he urged the ministers to take the path of loyalty and integrity and work hard. The success of the ministers, according to him, would be measured on their ability to assist them (substantive ministers) and not to undermine them. Caution I will not countenance any act of disloyalty or subversion of your minister; for I will take such an act as disloyalty to me personally and by reference, disloyalty to the party and to the state, Nana Addo cautioned. He said further, Any deputy who thinks the route to advancement lies in your ability to subvert or undermine your minister will be making a sad mistake; you will not profit from that conduct in Akufo-Addo's presidency. Speeches After administering the oaths of allegiance, office and secrecy on the deputy ministers, the 'old boy' referred them to the earlier speeches he gave during similar swearing-in of ministers, with a strict instruction for each and every one of them to speedily declare their assets to the Auditor-General, revealing that All the 36 ministers of the central government have duly filed their Assets Declaration. To this end, he charged, I expect you to do the same expeditiously. President Akufo-Addo further told them, We must jealously guard the commitment we have made to the Ghanaian people; we have come to do public service, not advance our own personal fortunes. Happening on a day he was celebrating the 20th anniversary of his marriage to Rebecca (formerly Rebecca Grifiths-Reindorf), Nana Akufo-Addo could not but tell the deputy ministers, It means that you are now joined to me in a special way; for my future recollections of this day will forever feature you. Reminder Considering the fact that majority of the appointees are Members of Parliament, he reminded them of the fact that the migration of majority of you from the legislature to the executive does not relieve you of your duties as members of the legislature. He charged, You will, like members of the British parliament, have to learn to balance effectively within the confines of our own unique constitutional order your twin responsibilities as Members of Parliament and as members of government; it is exacting but doable, and do it, you must! On behalf of the colleague deputy ministers, Mr Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah and Major Derrick Oduro thanked the president for the opportunity given them to serve the government and the people of Ghana, with a promise to live up to the charge given them. By Charles Takyi-Boadu, Presidential Correspondent Lawyers of Jihad Chaaban, the embattled Ablemkpe branch manager of Marwako Restaurant, have served notice to file a submission of 'no case' in the assault case brought against him (Jihad). Julio Demedeiros, lawyer for Jihad who dropped the hint yesterday, believes his client has no case to answer in respect of the charges preferred against him, although the court had asked him to open his defence. According to the Abeka District Court judge, Ms Victoria Ghansah, a prima facie case has been made against the accused. Furthermore, the defence had completed their cross-examination of the case investigator, Detective Inspector Eunice Ashiagbor. During the cross-examination, D/Insp. Ashiagbor said although she could not speak the Lebanese language, she got the meaning of the word Sharamunnta from people she spoke to during the investigation of the case. Julio disagreed, indicating that there was no such word in the Lebanese language, but the investigator stated that even if that was not the meaning, Sharamunnta was the word used for Evelyn Boakye, the complainant. Turning Point According to her, the content in the blender was blended pepper, adding that in her investigation she spoke to one Ali who told the complainant that the incident was an opportunity to make money. D/Insp. Ashiagbor argued that she did not investigate the said aspect of making money from the case because Evelyn did not consent to that. Julio again asked whether during her investigation the investigator came across one Abigail Adu Amoah believed to have been told by Evelyn that they would teach this Lebanese (referring to Jihad) a lesson. On that, D/Insp. Ashiagbor answered in the negative, compelling the defence lawyer to doubt if the investigator did a thorough investigation. The investigator however, said the content in the blender did not accidently splash on the face of Evelyn but ruled out any intention of Jihad to put pepper in the eyes of the complainant. Meanwhile, the court had on Monday dismissed an application by the defence lawyers for an out-of-court settlement of the matter. Hearing continues on April 19. Charges Jihad, 26, is reported to have dipped the head of Evelyn, an employee of Marwako, into blended pepper on February 26, 2017. According to the prosecution, the accused 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. The accused, who has pleaded not guilty to the charges, is a brotherin-law of the owner of Marwako Restaurant. [email protected] By Jeffrey De-Graft Johnson Former President John Dramani Mahama has put up a spirited defence of his young appointees who have been blamed for causing the party's defeat in the 2016 general election. According to him, those saying that he surrounded himself with young people ('babies with sharp teeth') dislike those personalities and that's why they are quick to blame them for the party's defeat. In what can be interpreted as an affirmation of trust in his young ministers, the ex-president at a meeting with his appointees, said, Some say young people surrounded the presidentI mean just say I don't like the people not that they are young. Incessant Accusations The 'experienced' people in the opposition party have been accusing ex-President Mahama of running a failed campaign by surrounding himself with 'young' and 'inexperienced' people and that led to the party's humiliating defeat on December 7, 2016. Former National Democratic Congress (NDC) chairman, Dr Kwabena Adjei and former national organiser, Yaw Boateng Gyan, are among the party chieftains who believe that the NDC was walloped because of the inexperienced handlers of the president's 2016 campaign. Names that are on the lips of these 'senior' NDC members are ex-President Mahama's trusted aide Stan Dogbe and Dr. Edward Omane Boamah, who was the Minister of Communications as well as Kofi Adams, campaign coordinator. Wise Counsel They accused Mr Mahama of not heeding to wise counsel from senior party members and rather used his 'boys' to suppress dissenting views in the run-up to the elections. In the past weeks, party activists like Koku Anyidoho (deputy general secretary), Anita De Sooso (vice chairperson), Joseph Bipoba Naabu (MP for Yunyoo), Yaw Boateng Gyan (former national organizer), among many others, have all claimed that Mahama, then NDC presidential candidate, sidelined most of the executives and rubbed shoulders only with the young appointees. Campaign Coordinator A member of the communications team of the party, Agbesi Notsu, described the national organizer and campaign coordinator, Kofi Adams, as a 'disaster' who contributed hugely to the NDC's defeat; and said Kofi Adams did a terrible job as the campaign coordinator which set the party on track for defeat in the polls. Even Dr. Kwabena Adjei had stated unequivocally that it was the inexperienced people around President Mahama who misled him. The handlers were all young, inexperienced and they misled him. I will say this anywhere without any fear or favour. We the old ones come with experience, he should have listened to us), he told Accra-based Starr FM on Wednesday. Fights Back However, the ex-president parried the accusations at the meeting when he said, All those people they are referring to are above 40 years. He queried, How can you call a 40-year-old man with wife and children a young man surrounding the president? I don't understand. When I became deputy minister to my brother Ekwow Spio-Garbrah, I was 39 years old. Yes, we were young but we served and served properly. I am sure Spio was in his 40s at the time. You can't say he was small boy. By William Yaw Owusu A 48-year-old man, Francis Kwofie, has been arrested by the police in the Western Region for allegedly killing his wife at Windy Ridge in the Sekondi-Takoradi metropolis. The suspect, a private security officer, is said to have beaten his wife, Akoley Klotey, to death after accusing her of infidelity. Confirming the story in an interview with DAILY GUIDE, ASP Olivia Ewurabena Adiku, Western Regional Police Public Relations Officer, said that yesterday at about 5:00 am, one Fuseina Ali of Windy Ridge went to the police station and reported the incident. Fuseina Ali, a neighbour to the deceased, indicated in her report to the police that Francis Kwofie brutally assaulted the wife until she became unconscious. ASP Adiku claimed that the police rushed to the scene and met the woman, aged about 48 years, lying naked unconscious in an uncompleted building. She was rushed to the Effia-Nkwanta Regional Hospital in Sekondi for treatment but was pronounced dead on arrival. According to the PRO, when the body was carefully inspected, multiple bruises were found on it. The body was later deposited at the same hospital mortuary awaiting autopsy. She pointed out that initial investigation into the case revealed that the suspect purportedly beat his wife to death on grounds of infidelity. She added that Francis Kwofie had been detained for further investigation. From Emmanuel Opoku, Takoradi The first lady, Rebecca Akufo-Addo, has tasked the queen mothers in the Greater Accra Region to unite for the development of the region.c Mrs Rebecca Akufo-Addo made the call when queen mothers from Ngleshie and members of the Greater Accra Association of Queen Mothers and Priestesses called on her to congratulate her and pledge their support for her and President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. She expressed her gratitude for the visit and encouraged the traditional rulers to actively help to improve the lives of the people in their various communities and Ghanaians in general. The queen mothers, through their spokesperson Naa Kwantemaa, thanked the first lady for the warm welcome and promised to support her in her agenda to improve the lives of Ghanaian women and children. A member of the Council of State, Stanley Nii Adjiri Blankson who was also in the meeting, encouraged the queen mothers to unite and address the many chieftaincy disputes in the Ga State. The Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs Minister, Kofi Dzamesi, expressed his gratitude to them for their continual support for the government, adding that they have a critical role to play in the development of their communities. The deputy Minister for Gender and Social protection, Gifty TwumAmpofo, has called on Parents and Teachers to depart from using the rote method of teaching children how to read. She says Teaches should instead embrace the use of phonics and the Ghanaian language for teaching at the formative stages of the children. According to her, many learning challenges that school children encounter in their bid to acquire knowledge in Ghana is as a result of the neglect of the use of the Ghanaian language and the use of phonics in teaching the children. Speaking at the free distribution of Ghanaian language textbooks for Primary 1 3 pupils by the We Care For You NGO at the Komenda Edina Eguafo Abirem Municipality, the deputy minister for Gender Children and Social Protection entreated teachers and parents to spend more time in teaching the children using phonics. The child should be able to read the alphabet, two letter words, three letter words, four letter words and then he/she will begin to read sentences. "My appeal is to all teachers and to those who assist these children to read to spend more time in assisting them using the phonics, she said. Once they are able to read using the phonics method, all other subjects become easy for them, she stressed. According to her, the use of the phonics instead of the rote way of learning the alphabet is to help the children read and understand better and ultimately reflect in their academic performances. Over the years, the use of the rote method of teaching children hasnt helped and that is why there is the need to depart from it, she added. The Director for the We Care For You NGO, Apostle Michael Ankrah, called on Ghanaians to be proud of their language. According to him, many Ghanaians feel shy to communicate with their children in their Ghanaian language. This, he says, contributes to the poor reading habit of the children. If you go to some homes, some parents do not want to speak their Ghanaian language with their children. They feel shy in doing that. They arent proud of their own language. That is serious! The earlier we desist from doing that, the better it will be for our educational system, he intimated. The distribution of the free Ghanaian language textbooks by the NGO in the Komenda Edina Eguafo Abirem Municipality is the sixth to be done countrywide. Co-founder of the NGO, Clement Ankrah, said the NGO is determined to make the books available for use by all schools in the country but need the support of the government in ensuring the dream comes true. Twenty-four persons, including private legal practitioner, Kwame Boafo Akuffo, have been sworn in as Notaries Public. Justice Jones Dostse of the Supreme Court, who administered the oath of office, said that Notaries Public must uphold professional standards. Having been appointed after over 15 years of practice at the Bar, lawyers must bring their experience gathered over the years to bear on their duties, he stated. The apex court judge, in an address read on behalf of Chief Justice Georgina Wood, noted that the Notaries Public Act 1960; Act 26 enjoins every person so appointed to swear faithfully to execute the duties of his office, adding that unfortunately the Act is silent on their duties. Justice Dotse stated that it must be noted that the functions of a Notary Public, however, entail great responsibilities and skill than mere oath taking. He said as sworn public officials, you play an important role in the prevention of fraud and protection of the parties involved by acting as unbiased witnesses in respect of some documents. Because of this important role, all Notaries Public should understand the duties and responsibilities of Notaries Public and properly perform requested notary acts. The Supreme Court Judge congratulated the appointees and urged them to be persons of trust and fidelity. Juliana Amo Neizer, the First Deputy Judicial Secretary, said national security conducted background checks on all of them. Notaries Public are officers, who can administer oaths and statutory declarations, witness and authenticate documents and perform certain acts. They can be called upon to prepare important documents such as contracts, leases, power of attorney and wills. Other appointees are Nutifafa Nutsukpui, Michael Jojo Acquah, Yaa Antwi, Thadeus Sory, Joseph Issah Kaponde and Abeiku Dickson. By Jeffrey De-Graft Johnson [email protected] Accra, April 12, GNA - President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on Wednesday urged the newly sworn-in Deputy Ministers of State to perform beyond measure in their assigned roles to facilitate the success for his administration. He told the Deputy Ministers that their success would only materialise when they gave absolute loyalty to their ministers and work with sincerity, integrity and transparency. 'I am equally involved in your success, for your success vindicates me,' the President said after swearing into office the second batch of 25 of the 50 ministers approved by Parliament. The Deputy Ministers swore the Oaths of Office, Allegiance and Deputy Minister. President Akufo-Addo said the Deputy Ministers, should, at all times, ensure that the collective and individual commitments made by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to serve Ghanaians honestly and competently remained paramount in the scheme of things, reminding them that their calling was to 'provide public service and not to promote personal gain.' The President warned that he would not tolerate acts of disloyalty and subversion of ministers by their deputies, saying; 'Loyalty to the minister is the fundamental premise for the success of your work. 'I will not countenance any acts of disloyalty or subversion of your minister, for I will take such an act as disloyalty to me personally, and, by inference, disloyalty to the Party and the State. 'Any deputy who thinks the route to advancement lies in your ability to subvert or undermine your minister, will be sadly mistaken. You will not profit from that conduct in the Akufo-Addo Presidency. I want you to work with your minister in all sincerity and transparency. That is the guarantee of your success, and our collective success,' he said. President Akufo-Addo told them to permeate the quality of their work with integrity and honesty and file their assets expeditiously as demanded by law. 'An opportunity is being afforded you to serve your country in an elevated capacity. Seize the opportunity with humility but with determination and perform; guided always by the Almighty God. 'Together, let us build that dignified, self-reliant, prosperous Ghana that successive generations of Ghanaian patriots and the founders of our free, democratic nation sought with their sweat, toil and blood,' he said. President Akufo-Addo urged the Deputy Ministers, who also double as Members of Parliament, not to renege on their duties as members of the Legislature, urging them to balance these roles effectively. He expressed gratitude to Parliament for its cooperation in assembling the Central Government, adding that sincere partnership between the Legislative and Executive Arms of Government would ensure the welfare of the people. The second batch of deputy ministers sworn into office included Godfrey Dame and Joseph Dinkiok Kpemka - Attorney General and Ministry of Justice; Kingsley Aboagye Gyedu and Tina Mensah - Health; Kwaku Agyenim Boateng, Andy Appiah Kubi - Railways Development; Mohammed Habib Tijani and Charles Owiredu - Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration; George Andah, and Vincent Sowah Odotei - Communications; and Patrick Buamah and Michael Gyato - Water Resources and Sanitation. Others are Major Derrick Oduro - Defence; Henry Quartey- Interior; Mrs Patricia Appiagye - Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation; Martin Agyei-Mensah Korsah - Regional Organisation and Development; Nii Titus Glover - Transport and Bright Wireko Brobbey, Employment and Social Welfare. The rest are Francis Kingsley Ago Cudjoe - Fisheries and Aquaculture; Kwabena Darko-Mensah - Aviation; Paul Essien - Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs; Gifty Twum Ampofo - Gender, Children and Social Protection; Pius Enam Hadzie - Youth and Sports; Dr Ziblim Barri Iddi - Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts; and William Kwasi Sabi - Monitoring and Evaluation. GNA By Ken Sackey, GNA 13.04.2017 LISTEN The challenge in our world is that we have people who believe they have the divine and sacred right to be free from criticisms, even if such criticisms are constructive. For a very long time, many political scientists had posited that coups are relics of the past. But it has also been well articulated by foresighted scholars that coups are never obsolete in global politics. In fact, if the conditions that rationalised coups in the immediate days after postcolonial Africa persist in the 21st Century world, then we should be sure that coup would be a necessary evil. Fortunately, some have come to the conclusion that it is better to jaw jaw than to war war. In other words, many have come to the solid conclusion that the pen is mightier than the weapon of war. Hence, the pen must not be gagged. The pen must not be stopped. The ink must be allowed to spill and spread far. The good thing about the pen is that one has the right to also use the pen to respond to and provide a rebuttal to any disagreement. Unlike the gun, which has for a very long time been monopolised by the military and other security agencies, the pen is readily available to most people. In addition to the pen is the voice. Vocal power is the greatest gift the ultimate reality has offered to humanity. Those who are incapable of using the pen, have the free gift of their voice to express concerns about the existential realities of life. The oppressed may neither have the gun nor the pen, but may have the voice. Dr. Nyanzi, a consummate academic and public intellectual, has chosen to use her voice and pen to rightly criticise and critique the political ineptitude that has burdened the progress of Uganda. She is powerless in terms of getting access to the instrument of violence to overthrow the leadership of the government of Uganda, but she has chosen to use what is innocuous and democratically acceptable: the use of the voice and pen. But, some ill-intended individuals and political apparatchiks would want to determine what she says and writes. In relation to circumscribing Dr. Nyanzis right to talk freely, I ask the following questions: what difference would it make if Dr. Nyanzi decides to write and speak the language of everyone? What difference would it make if she decides to sing the praise song of the president of Uganda? Is freedom of expression the same as freedom to express what everyone else is saying? What is the logic of freedom of expression if one cannot say something differently, especially if such difference in expression is meant to cure the mischief in society? In any case, to sheepishly and blindly follow customs is slavery! At what point did vulgarism become criminalised? And, by the way, who determines what is vulgar? Vulgarism, at least in my culture as an Akan from Ghana, is part and parcel of the richness of the Akan language. In some Akan festivals in Ghana, there is a period where the use of insulting and vulgar language is allowed to critique and assess the rule of a chief. Okay, so Dr. Nyanzi has mental neurosis. This is nonsense to the highest order. Well, what I know is that mad people are at best mentally free. They are not constrained by the false dictates of the tyranny of society. They freely express their thought, without a wink. Well, maybe Dr. Nyanzi is mad: mad in the sense that she has dared to call the bluff of the demi-god of Uganda. She has dared to do what many men and women in Uganda would dare not do. She is mad because she has risked death and liberty to lead the liberation of most Uganda. And maybe she is mad because as a woman in a deeply entrenched patriarchal and androcentric society, she has chosen to challenge that status quo, which is so detrimental to human progress. Again, Dr. Nyanzi may be mad because she has refused to be enslaved by inane customs and traditions that legitimises hero worship. She is mad because she is breaking the culture of silence. She is mad because she has done what the greatest heroine of Asante history, Yaa Asantewaa, Queenmother of Ejisu, said, and I quote: How can a proud and brave people like the Asante sit back and watch, while the white man took away their King and chiefs, and humiliated them with a demand for the Golden Stool. The Golden Stool only means money to the white man, they have searched and dug everywhere for it, I shall not pay one predwan ([pound] 8 25) to the governor. If you, the chiefs of Asante, are going to behave like cowards and not fight, you should exchange your loin clothes for my undergarments. (Agyeman-Duah & Boateng, 2000, p. 40) From the historical point of view, there is a litany of evidence to show that revolutions in the world were brought by people who dared to be different: people who challenged the machinery of oppression. Also, revolutions were brought about by non-conformists. But the sad truth is that, such persons were always hated and persecuted, but the their legacies endures the test of time. I say this to cheer Dr. Nyanzi on: If you stand up and be counted, from time to time you may get yourself knocked down. But remember this: A man/woman flattened by an opponent can get up again. A man/woman flattened by conformity stays down for good (woman, added, Thomas J. Watson). Again, to Dr. Nyanzi, I say that: Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph (Haile Selassie). I call on the people of Uganda and the international community to swiftly move in to free Dr. Nyanzi from the patriarch of Uganda. Free Dr. Nyanzi now! In solidarity! Satyagraha Charles Prempeh ( [email protected] ), African University College of Communications, Accra Some concerned Ghanaian citizens living in the United Kingdom have petitioned President Nana Addo to arrest persons involved in illegal mining, popularly referred to as Galamsey. They also demanded the deportation of foreign nationals complicit in Galamsey. Their petition comes in the wake of an intense campaign against the menace which has reportedly led to the destruction of some natural resources, in Ghana. The campaign which was initiated by private radio station, Citi FM is gaining more attention as various groups and individuals have joined. While calling for a mobilization of law enforcement resources to all threatened areas to address the problem, they also called for an environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) in various areas believed to be affected by Galamsey. We are sure you will agree that the accelerated environmental damage is caused by the industrial scale of illegal mining with heavy duty machinery. We humbly suggest that an investigation is conducted into how heavy machinery ended up on illegal and small scale mining sites, the petition added. Below is the full petition from the group H.E. President Nana Akuffo-Addo Excellency, We, concerned Ghanaians and Pan-Africanists at home and in the Diaspora, have read and watched with concern reports on the damaging effect of illegal mining on human lives, animals and the Ghanaian environment. We are particularly concerned about ecocide and the pollution of rivers and river beds from mining which has rendered a lot of drinking water unsafe. The situation has gone on for too long and we know you would like to put an immediate end to the destruction of our environment, especially as we are in the UN International Decade for People of African Descent (IDPAD). We respectfully appeal to you to mobilise law enforcement resources to all threatened areas to secure the affected areas as a matter of urgency, and stop all illegal mining activities. The perpetrators should be arrested and made to face the full rigours of the law without fear or favour. Foreign nationals found to be guilty of illegal practices should be deported after judicial process. An Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) should be carried out to assess the situation, and a plan put in place as a matter of urgency to begin the clean up process. We are sure you will agree that the accelerated environmental damage is caused by the industrial scale of illegal mining with heavy duty machinery. We humbly suggest that an investigation is conducted into how heavy machinery ended up on illegal and small scale mining sites. The issue of guns on illegal mining sites raises national security concerns and should also be investigated. As a permanent solution, the Akoben flagship programme of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) should be adequately resourced to monitor and enforce compliance with environmental regulations. Legal mining should also be examined and monitored so that activities conform to the terms of the licence and environmental regulations. It is important that after legal mining activities have ended, the land is safe for social and agricultural use. The practice of leaving concessions legally obtained in an environmentally damaged state should be stopped, and the land left in such that in time it can regain its natural usefulness. We also suggest bringing in your Manifesto Pledge of One Factory Per District as a priority to Galamsey areas, so that small scale local gold prospectors in Galamsey areas are given an alternative source of income. In the short term, we respectfully urge that locals are involved in the environmental clean up as an immediate alternative source of income, and as a means of giving them a stake in restoring and preserving their local environment. This, naturally, will be under the supervision of trained health and safety officials of the EPA. Additionally, safeguarding the livelihoods of farmers in Galamsey areas, and the safety of their lands and waters, should be a priority. We would welcome your suggestions about what we at home and in the Diaspora can do to assist your valuable efforts, and look forward to hearing about the progress of the Government's efforts in tackling the issues raised in this letter. Yours sincerely, Awula Serwah, LLB (Hons), BL (Secretary, Africans For UK, Member Law 86 Forum Ghana) [email protected]l.com Akora Nana Asante (Secretary, IDPAD Coalition UK) Kwaku (Co-ordinator, African Histories Revisited) Albert Nii Sai Quarcoopome, Lawyer (Member Law 86 Forum Ghana) UK Kwabla Senanu, L.L.M (Dundee), MBA (Coventry) DLCLS (Stockholm), BL (Accra), LLB (Hons) (Member Law 86 Forum Ghana) Nick Nickleton-Kumordjie (Member Law 86 Forum Ghana) UK Seth Cadman Sackey, B.A. DPA, BL, (Member Law 86 Forum Ghana) Italy Abu Ferdanando (Race Matters Forum) UK Ade Olaiya, M.A. Bristol Andre Dallas (Rhodes Must Fall) Christopher Jones Thompson (Co-Chairperson IDPAD Coalition UK) Cecile Olua (Race Matters Forum) UK Coralie Lolliot Bright (Aspiring Young African Leaders/University of Manchester) Dame Betty Asafu-Adjaye (Mission Dine Club Charity) UK Dana Mills (Rhodes Must Fall) Devina Aggrey (Africa Probe) Dauda Barry (IDPAD Coalition UK Board member) Dr. Michael McEachrane (European Network for People of African Descent) Dr. Ricardo Twumasi (Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen) Edmund Cofie (Barrister Nexus Chambers) Femi Nylander (Rhodes Must Fall, Oxford/IDPAD Coalition UK Board member) Hebe Perry-Belfrage (Race Matters Forum) UK Ing. Nana Sarpong Agyeman-Badu (OccupyGhana) Marc Agagah (Race Matters Forum) UK Marlene Ellis (Co-Chairperson IDPAD Coalition UK) Michael Asimah, UK Princess Ashilokun (Rhodes Must Fall, UK) Sara Asafu-Adjaye (CitizenGhana Movement, Old Achimotans Association 78) Saschan Fearon-Joseph (Rhodes Must Fall) Shango Baku (International Rastafari Writer, Activist, IDPAD Coalition UK Board Member) Shirley Hinson, USA Toyin Agbetu (Ligali) UK Tyrone Smith (Race Matters Forum) UK Vanessa Abankwah Matthews (Race Matters Forum) UK Vanessa Mbamalu (Aspiring Young African Leaders/University of Manchester) Yetunde Zwennes-Kwabwe (Accountant FCCA, Old Achimotans Association 78) Yvonne Boakye (Old Achimotans Association 78) Yvonne Twum-Barima (Old Achimotans Association 78) c.c. Hon. Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng Minister of Environment, Science and Technology Hon. John Peter Amewu Minister of Lands & Natural Resources Dr. Toni Aubynn Chief Executive, Minerals Commission Togbe Afede XIV President of the National House of Chiefs Juabenhene Nana Otuo Siriboe II Chairman of the Council of State By: Marian Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana Citi FM with its partner station, Beach FM 105.5 in Takoradi on Thursday begun a fresh wave of the #StopGalamseyNow Campaign in the Western Region. Branded in the campaign T-shirts with fliers in hand, the team hit the principal streets of Takoradi including places such as the Paa Grant roundabout to Poly Traffic Light, Pipe Ano to Nkrumah roundabout and Market Circle. The campaign since its launch on 3rd April 2017 has taken the fight against illegal mining to the authorities with five clear demands aimed at ending the destruction associated with the menace. Speaking to earlier to Citi News, the General Manager of Beach FM, Kojo Amoako Nzoley explained that the campaign is an extension of what was done in the Greater Accra Region. This is an extension of what has been happening in Accra, championed by Citi FM and what we are going to do is to go to major traffic areas in town and send the story about the effects of Galamsey. For us in Western Region, we have a first hand experience of what Galamsey is doing to our water bodies so we are taking it out to the streets and we expect people to embrace it and also lend their voices so that leadership will take action. The campaign makes five clear demands for government: The total cessation of all small and medium scale mining for a period of six months The cessation of the issuance of new mining licences for a year The reclassification of mining categories to reflect the use of new/larger equipment The allowance of water bodies to regenerate their natural ecology Tree planting and a land reclamation project The campaign has so far received massive support from various groups and individuals who joined in raising awareness on the problem. Citi FM subsequently presented a petition to Parliament last week as part of measures to push the agenda to address the problem. The petition, which was submitted by the station's Director of News Programming and Host of Citi Breakfast Show, Bernard Koku Avle, was received by the leadership of Parliament. They also commended the station for the advocacy. By: Marian Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana DENK PHARMA, a global company with core competence in the area of healthcare, has introduced a new nutrition portfolio unto the Ghanaian market as part of efforts to support the well-being of Ghanaians. The new product line, consisting of food supplement for all age groups, adds to DENK's list of therapeutic areas such as analgesics, antiallergics, antibiotics and expectorant, antimalarials, cardiometabolic drugs, dermatologic drugs, gastro intestinal drugs, minerals and vitamins, oncology and respiratory drugs. Dr Naa Okailey Adamafio-Manteau, Country Manager of DENK PHARMA, in an interview with DAILY GUIDE on the sidelines of the launch of the products, disclosed that DENK has been in Ghana for over 20 years providing quality medicines to the Ghanaian public. She, however, indicated that the company realised the need to introduce its nutrition portfolio of food supplementation as a result of low micro nutrients recorded among Ghanaians. This is necessary because we tend not to eat well so there is the need for micro-nutrients supplementation, she added. She added that the product which comes in categories of family planning, minerals and vitamins and special treatment are cost-effective. We have prenatal, lactonatal+DHA, and fertile forte for family planning, ferro vital, D3 active and junior magnes active and calcium active for lost of vitamins and minerals and for special treatment we have joint active, l-active, immune active and thymair as well as brain active. We ensure people are getting the quality they need at a much more affordable cost so that they can pay less but not compromise on the excellent quality they are looking for, she stated. DENK PHARMA was founded in Munich, Germany, in 1948 and has a strong focus on export markets and presently supplies its DENK PHARMA premium medicine and food supplements around the world. For more than 65 years, the company has delivered quality that is made in Germany to ensure that all patients worldwide receive the same high-quality as they do in Germany. We strongly believe that, through our work and our products, we are making a contribution towards improving the quality of our customers' lives as health is a precious commodity for every human, regardless of where they live and their financial situation, Dr Adamafio-Manteau concluded. By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri Dr Kwaku Agyeman Manu Minister of Health 13.04.2017 LISTEN The Nursing &Midwifery Council (N&MC) has outdoored its maiden edition of an international journal on nursing and midwifery. The journal, 'NUMID Horizon', the first of its kind in Ghana, is aimed at providing a credible medium for nurses and midwives and other health-related researchers to share their research and other professional works. 'NUMID Horizon' publishes original research papers, systematic and scholarly review articles, technical reports, policy briefs and short communication that meet high academic, ethical and professional standards. Minister of Health Kwaku Agyemang-Manu commended the N&MC and the authors of the journal for their innovation, adding that much effort was needed to implement the recommendations outlined in the various areas of research. Research in nursing and midwifery has a tremendous influence on current and future professional practices given that it can provide specialised insights and discoveries that other healthcare research might miss, he added. Mr Agyemang-Manu said that the Ministry of Health, in collaboration with other health partners, will expand health promotion programmes and health infrastructure development, as well as strengthen the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) to ensure that the right to health of Ghanaians is guaranteed. I want to assure all that the government is committed to providing Ghanaians with adequate and efficient healthcare facilities whilst committing resources into the training and practice of nurses and midwives, he said. The minister also commended the council for the introduction of French and sign language as a new course for the training of nurses and midwives, an innovative policy initiated by the council. Prof Stephen Adei, a lecturer at the Ashesi University, reviewing the journal, stated that the articles were well-written and of high quality and could be published in top international journals to add to the world of knowledge and most especially to help improve professionalism in the nursing and midwifery profession. He continued that Ghanaian nurses should improve professionalism in carrying out their duties to evade avoidable deaths of patients due to their negligence. He said that nurses are the first contacts of patients in the absence of doctors and, thus, cannot jeopardise the lives that they (nurses) are entrusted with. 'Numid Horizon' was conceived in May 2016. It was formally established by the council in July 2016, with the mission of providing a platform for the academia, researchers and practitioners in the various health institutions to place their research in the public domain. By Abigail Owiredu-Boateng Entebbe (Uganda) (AFP) - Targeted killings of specific ethnic groups in South Sudan's civil war amount to "genocide", according to Britain's International Development Minister Priti Patel. "It's tribal, it's absolutely tribal, so on that basis it's genocide," Patel told reporters in Uganda on Wednesday, according to a ministry press officer travelling with her. Patel was returning from a visit to South Sudan where people have "experienced trauma and horror none of us can comprehend", she told AFP in a separate interview. Civil war erupted in South Sudan in 2013 after a power struggle between President Salva Kiir -- who is ethnic Dinka -- and his former deputy Riek Machar from the Nuer community. The Dinka and Nuer are the two largest ethnic groups in South Sudan and with their history of bloody rivalry, fighting quickly pitted the two against each other. However the conflict has also drawn in the country's myriad smaller groups, either taking sides with the government or the rebels or fighting each other for the upper hand in local conflicts over land or other issues. "It's tribal, it's absolutely tribal, so on that basis it's genocide," British International Development Secretary Priti Patel told reporters in Uganda on Wednesday Refugees fleeing fighting in South Sudan have told AFP of targeted killings by government troops, who identify people according to language or tribal scarring before slaughtering them. In the southern town of Pajok, seen as sympathetic to the rebels, government troops went on a rampage last week killing at least 85 people, numerous witnesses told AFP after fleeing to Uganda. As fighting broke out in the second largest city of Wau this week, priest Moses Peter told AFP that government troops were "targeting certain groups of people". United Nations experts in early December reported "ethnic cleansing" in several parts of South Sudan. The UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Adama Dieng, has warned of "a strong risk of violence escalating along ethnic lines, with the potential for genocide." South Sudan's Information Minister Michael Makuei slammed Patel's comments as "unfortunate and misleading". "That is a very unfortunate statement given by an irresponsible person. There is no genocide. These are all things that are orchestrated by people who are made to make these reports," he said. burs-fb/cs/nb/ccr Kofi Mbiah 13.04.2017 LISTEN The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana Shippers Authority (GSA), Dr. Emmanuel Kofi Mbiah has said Ghanas international trade volumes is expected to grow by 10percent in 2017. He noted the Ghanas maritime trade outlook for 2017 is likely to see a steady increase in trade volume with boosts in both imports of major commodities and export of raw materials and semi-processed goods to the Chinese and European markets. Dr. Mbiah added that this growth is attributed to the calm political environment after the 2016 general election and the transition process, renewed business confidence in the new government as well as the Ghanaian economy and new political/initiatives expected to boost the agricultural, manufacturing and industrial sectors. He said this at a media briefing in Accra to present the first in the series of the Shipping Quarter and Outlook to provide timely, authentic and accurate information on the shipping industry. The CEO of GSA indicated that in 2016 global development affected the trade performance and outlook with the worlds largest economy, China focusing more on services and importing fewer raw materials from the rest of the world which triggered a fall in commodity prices. He posited that the Brexit (UK exiting from European Union) created uncertainty on container shipping, maritime continous battle with low growth in global demand coupled with oversupply of new tonnage resulting in low freight rates on the major trading routes have not benefited Africa. According to him, the year 2016 echoes Ghanas maritime trade with 68.5percent being imports and 31.5percent being exports. He emphasized that the total imports for 2016 was 12.05 million mt representing an increase of 3.2percent over 2015 which comprised 4.1 million mt of Liner cargo, 1.75 million mt of Break bulk, 2.68 million mt of Dry bulk and 3.5 million mt of Liquid bulk imports. That notwithstanding Dr. Mbiah indicated that total export trade volume for 2016 was 5.55 million mt representing a 26.9percent increase over 2015. He said rise is made of of 1.40 million mt of Liner items, 497,808 mt of Break bulk items, 3.40 million mt of Dry bulk and 239,881 mt of liquid bulk. Budget statement issues Dr. Emmanuel Kofi Mbiah indicated importers and exporters have welcomed the abolishment of the 1 percent Special Import Levy and the 17.5 percent VAT/NHIL on selected imported medicines that are not produced locally, removal of excise duty on petroleum and reduction of special petroleum tax rate from 17.5percent to 15percent, removal of duty on the importation of spare parts, replacement of the 17.5 VAT/NHIL rate with a flat rate of 3 percent for traders and initiate steps to remove import duties on raw materials and machinery for production within the context of the ECOWAS Common Tariff (CET) protocol. The above notwithstanding, he said the Ghana Shippers Authority has received some complaints from shippers with respects to the application of the exemption regime and the deferment of VAT on manufacturing raw materials. Our contact with the custom division of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has indicated that the position prior to the exemptions policy remains the same. Thus, the deferment of VAT on manufacturing raw materials is still applicable, he stated. Eliminating trade facilitation obstacles Dr. Mbiah indicated that Ghana ratified the Trade Facilitation Agreement on 4th January,2017 as the 104th member states constituting more than 2/3 of the required ratification needed from the 164 member countries to bring the agreement into force. According to him, the entry into force of this agreement would expedite the movement, release and clearance of goods including goods in transit. He added that it will also set out measures for effective cooperation between customs and other appropriate authorities on trade facilitation and customs compliance issues. The agreement will help improve transparency, increase possibilities to participate in global value chains and reduce the scope for corruption, the CEO posited. Dr. Mbiah emphasized that the outlook for the next quarter is undoubtedly bright and the best way to achieve this is the need to accelerate the pace of reform in our business processes, increase technological penetration in our clearance processes so as to reduce delays, cut down costs and make the shipper more competitive. He noted that efforts must be made to improve upon our profiling, utilization of advance information, improvement in the non-intrusive inspection mechanisms, our post audit and sanction regimes. Citi FM with its partner station, Beach FM 105.5 in Takoradi, on Thursday renewed the #StopGalamseyNow Campaign in the Western Region. Branded in the campaign T-shirts with fliers in hand, the team hit the principal streets of Takoradi including places such as the Paa Grant roundabout to Poly Traffic Light, Pipe Ano to Nkrumah Roundabout and the Market Circle area. The campaign since its launch on 3rd April 2017, has taken the fight against illegal mining to decision makers, with five clear demands aimed at ending the destruction associated with the menace. Speaking to earlier to Citi News, the General Manager of Beach FM, Kojo Amoako Nzoley, explained that the campaign is an extension of what was done in the Greater Accra Region. This is an extension of what has been happening in Accra, championed by Citi FM and what we are going to do is to go to major traffic areas in town and send the story about the effects of Galamsey. For us in Western Region, we have a first hand experience of what Galamsey is doing to our water bodies so we are taking it out to the streets and we expect people to embrace it and also lend their voices so that leadership will take action. The campaign makes five clear demands for government: The total cessation of all small and medium scale mining for a period of six months The cessation of the issuance of new mining licences for a year The reclassification of mining categories to reflect the use of new/larger equipment The allowance of water bodies to regenerate their natural ecology Tree planting and a land reclamation project The campaign has so far received massive support from various groups and individuals who joined in raising awareness on the problem. Citi FM subsequently presented a petition to Parliament last week, as part of measures to push the agenda to address the problem. The petition, which was submitted by the station's Director of News Programming and Host of Citi Breakfast Show, Bernard Koku Avle, was received by the leadership of Parliament. They also commended the station for the advocacy. By: Marian Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana Three people have been arrested at the Kotoka International Airport by the Narcotics Control Board for drug related offences. The three suspects Madugu Suraku, Maxwell Momo Golafale and Daniel Njoku Egbuta were arrested on different occasions possessing and trafficking in narcotics while going through arrival and departure formalities. A statement released by the Board, Thursday, indicate that Madugu, a Ghanaian was arrested on March 29, 2017 on his return from Nairobi Kenya. "A urine test conducted on the suspect proved positive for narcotics. The suspect, upon interrogation confessed having ingested 35 pellets of a powdery substance suspected to be speedball. Forensic analysis confirmed the substance being speedball, a combination of cocaine and heroin, all nacortics substance," the statement said. Two days later a second suspect, Maxwell Momo Golafale was also arrested while going through departure formalities to China. He had concealed in his luggage "two slabs of compressed dried leaves suspected to be cannabis, popularly referred to as weed," the statement added. The third suspect, a Nigerian, Daniel Njoku, Egbuta was also picked up on arrival from Sao Paolo, Brazil on April 5, 2017. A urine test conducted on him subsequently proved positive for cocaine. The suspect, had ingested 111 pellets of cocaine. He later confessed being an ex-convict, having served a jail term for similar drug trafficking offence in Ecuador. He has since expelled all 111 pellets of cocaine. The statement said all three suspects have been arraigned before court for prosecution. More soon; Story by Ghana|Myjoyonline.com NACOB Ag. Executive Secretary - Mr. Francis Kofi Torkornoo 13.04.2017 LISTEN Three (3) persons have been arrested by operatives of the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB) at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) for illicit drug trafficking offences. The suspects, Madugu Suraku, Maxwell Momo Golafale and Daniel Njoku Egbuta were arrested on different occasions for unlawful possession and trafficking in narcotics, while going through arrival/departure formalities at the KIA. Madugu Suraka, a Ghanaian was arrested on 29th March, 2017 on his return from Nairobi, Kenya. Suspect, Suraku was picked up while going through arrival formalities, and a urine test conducted on him proved positive for narcotics. The suspect, upon interrogation confessed having ingested thirty-five (35) pellets of a powdery substance suspected to be Speedball. Forensic analysis confirmed the substance being speedball, a combination of cocaine and heroin, all illicit narcotic substances. On the other hand, Maxwell Momo Golafale, a Liberian was arrested on 31st March, 2017 while going through departure formalities to china. The suspect had concealed in his luggage two (2) slabs of compressed dried leaves, suspected to be cannabis sativa, popularly referred to as wee. Daniel Njoku Egbuta, a Nigerian was apprehended on 5th April, 2017 on his arrival from Sao Paolo, Brazil. Urine test conducted on him subsequently proved positive for cocaine. The suspect, Egbuta had ingested One Hundred and eleven (111) pellets of cocaine. Egbuta confessed being an ex-convict, having served a jail sentence for similar drug trafficking offence in Ecuador. He has since his arrest expelled all 111 pellets of cocaine. All 3 suspects have since been arraigned before court for prosecution. The general public is herein being sensitized to be mindful of the harmful effects of narcotic drug use. It should be noted that the law will not spare any person or persons found culpable to illicit drug offences stipulated in the PNDC law 236. However, persons with drug-use problem are encouraged to seek attention. NACOB wishes to assure the general public of its continuous commitment to fighting the illicit drug trade. It therefore appeals to the public to partner the Board in its course, as the fight against illicit drug trafficking and substance abuse is a shared responsibility. Thank you. COMMUNICATION AND MEDIA RELATIONS UNIT The Police in Abura Dunkwa in the Central Region have arrested a senior Laboratory Technician for allegedly selling the blood of patients to some persons for rituals. Stephen Nyan is suspected of selling the blood to the men known as Sakawa boys at GHC5,000 or GHC10,000 per pint depending on the purchasing power of the buyer. He is suspected of drawing more blood than required for his tests and then stores the excess for sale to ritualists in need of human blood for their rituals. Regional Police PRO, Asp Irene Oppong, told Joy News the suspect has been trading in the blood of some pregnant women and babies at the Abura Dunkwa Government Hospital for several years. She said repeated complaints from residents of the community led to Mr Nyans arrest. The police through investigations made someone pose as a buyer and he agreed to sell the blood sample to him, ASP Oppong said. She explained they found some of the blood samples displayed on his table when they searched his house. So we charged him with stealing because the blood sample is the property of the hospital, she said, adding he took the blood without authorisation from the hospital. Joy News Central Regional Correspondent, Kwadwo Nyarko, reports residents are living in fear over the issue. Some of them who spoke to the reporter said they will no longer go to the hospital for their medical needs. A total of 50 pregnant women and babies are reported to have died in the hospital and residents are blaming it on activities of Mr Nyan. Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Austin Brako-Powers | [email protected] Koforidua, April 13, GNA - The Public Affairs Department (PAD) of Parliament has signalled a move towards enhanced information flow to prevent disconnection between the people and the House. Ms. Kate Addo, the Head of the Department, said the focus was to get the people to keenly follow its activities and to deepen their understanding of the work of the legislature. She was speaking at two-day workshop held in Koforidua to plan effective communication strategies to bring parliament closer to the people. It was organized by the Department with support from the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD) - a United Kingdom (UK) organization, which has been promoting democratic practices. Ms. Addo hinted of increasing use of social media to reach out to different sectors of the society - to make sure that the people did not become cut off from what had been happening in the country's parliament. This, she indicated, was vital to the growth of the nation's democratic governance. The Director of Research Department of Parliament, Mr. Mohammed Hardi, said more should be done to boost its image. He highlighted the need to assist the people to have better understanding of the role and duties of the parliamentarian. Mr. Fulvio Menghini, Head of the Communications of WFD, noted that the use of social media would tremendously help the PAD to breakdown boundaries and communicate even with Ghanaians, abroad. There were many people living outside the country, interested in the affairs of parliament, and they could be assisted to follow what was happening through the social media platform of parliament. Its effective use could help the PAD to explain and simplify complex issues on the floor of the house to make these understandable to the ordinary citizens. GNA 13.04.2017 LISTEN Tamale, April 13, GNA - Water systems of nine schools, two health centres and 10 communities in five districts of the Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions are to be rehabilitated and enhanced into solar mechanized systems to better serve the people. Institutional latrines will also be built for the schools in the beneficiary districts, which include Tamale Metropolis, Bolga Municipality, Bawku West, Bongo and Wa East Districts. This forms part of a six-month project, (April 2017-September 2017) dubbed: 'Supporting localized governance and rehabilitation for sustainable water services in Ghana' aimed at ensuring sustainable water services in the country. The GH1.5 million project, is to be implemented by WaterAid Ghana, through five local non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and it is funded by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. WaterAid Ghana, has therefore, signed a partnership programme agreement with the five local NGOs in Tamale to kick-start the project. The NGOs include Pumptech, Won Nyeya, Water Vision Technology Limited, Belim Wusa Development Agency, and ProNET North. Mr Abdul Nashiru Mohammed, Country Director of WaterAid Ghana, who spoke during the signing ceremony, said the project would help improve access and right to safe sanitation for beneficiary communities and facilities. Under the project, the Dinaba Health Centre in the Bawku West District, which faces water challenges, would have water piped to its wards to help in its operations. Mr Nashiru emphasised need for sustainability of project urging the local implementing NGOs to deliver quality facilities to ensure quality water for the beneficiaries. Mr Ayambire Akaditi, Bongo District Coordinating Director, lauded the project saying it would greatly contribute to improving access to water and sanitation for the beneficiaries. Mr Akaditi pledged the commitment of the beneficiary local government authorities to support the project to ensure successful implementation. GNA By Albert Futukpor, GNA For the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to succeed in its fight against corruption, it should carry out thorough investigations of corruption cases and also hire the services of ogbologbo lawyers. An ogbologbo, is a Yoruba word which means seasoned and experienced person. These were the submissions of the former President of Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, when he hosted journalists at his hilltop residence in Abeokuta. Those who know the former President very well can attest to his self-styled bluntness in propagating staged melodramatic episodes that last longer in mind than its reality. It is an undiluted truth that as a man who has rigmaroled the corridors of power in Nigeria, he knows and understands very well the piece of land called Nigeria. Obasanjo has remained strong in the nations politics, moving majestically anywhere he thinks of, watching the rots he assisted in creating and dishing out piecemeal desiccated solutions whenever he feels attention would be engendered. He is always a major of the dramatis personae in the shows he often dedicates to his enthusiastic followers. In short, he would have won many awards as the protagonist of his own didactic verbiages. He was a president, like Buhari, who came to power when all eyes: global, regional, national and local, were on Nigeria. He would have been, if he cared, the Mandela of Nigeria, coming into power at the right time when democracy was practically reborn in the country. In the dire quest to strike a deal for rotational presidency, he was drafted in from near absence. The land was fertile for him to till and feed, grow and sustain the Nigerian people. And he did his best. No sincere compatriot can query his efforts. He could not have done otherwise because having been left with only about 20,000 naira after having tasted grandeur and freedom in the military, the Nigerian commonwealth was too much for him to control. And he did what he could do and managed to hand over to an unstable Umaru. Before then, he was able to mortgage national assets, sold some to loyalists and acquired others by proxy. But only few doubt the sincerity of Obasanjo in tying Nigerians together, including the Igbo whom he love with approximate authenticity. Sometimes people do not take him serious because he prefers the Ali Baba to the Hollywood. But he is such a simple man who can engage you in absurdities even while delivering scholarly written official speech. I used the word simple because as a man who later became a student of theology, he had realized that the world was too harsh to follow it harshly. If one must succeed, it is risky to rush except if it entailed conversion of commonwealth to private warehouses and for personal aggrandizement. Why not, after all Nigerians were, during his eight year lordship, the happiest people on earth, suffering all sorts of pandemic, lack, international humiliation and sluggishness. A recall to the past shows that Obasanjo was a man favoured by God and Nigerians from all angles. He was handed power on the platter of gold after decades of military (mis)handling of the nations commonwealth. Before the year 1999, Nigeria was reckoned amongst failed states because of the successive military juntas. By 1999, he was made the president and he toured many countries before he was sworn-in. I was lucky he addressed us as students in Egypt and appealed to us to come back home after studies to join hands in developing Nigeria. By implication, that opportunity of heading a new era under a democracy required not sophisticated efforts to make a difference. But Obasanjo gradually revealed the (mis)conception that he was a Nigerian to the core, with the penchant to pleasure, unabated freedom and relative preferences. Corruption of the highest order continued, political gangsterism flourished and poverty was wonderfully reactivated. And so the eight years passed without fixing anything tangible in the key sectors: education, power, health, infrastructures and social amenities. However, I must recognize one area that was sacrosanct the unity of Nigeria. So, Obasanjos comments on corruption often receive stiff criticisms. Obasanjo claims not to be satisfied with the way President Buharis EFCC is fighting corruption and losing cases. For him, corruption cases are lost for a number of reasons prominent of which was engagement of outside lawyers and not the ogbologbo' lawyers inside the circle. Secondly, investigations are not thorough. Thirdly, the judges have displayed lack of commitment. There must be the Salamigate methodology to succeed. So it is a chain: investigation, prosecution and the judiciary. If there is weakness along this line, chances are that corruption cases will continue to be lost, he said. If I am a lawyer, he averred, and I want the opponent to win a case, what I will file will be `wishy-washy. And if I file a `wishy-washy case, the opponent will see the loophole and he will get out of it. I believe that it is important. Obasanjo accused church leaders of corruption at a lecture of Victory Life Bible Church International while speaking in Abeokuta on the theme, The Role of the Church in the fight against corruption in Nigeria. In a swift reaction, Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti state described Obasanjos administration as the most corrupt in Nigeria. The special assistant to the governor on public communication and new media, Lere Olayinka, advised Obasanjo to desist from accusing people of corruption in Nigeria. Fayose faulted the claim that some church leaders in the country were encouraging corruption politicians and also celebrating people with questionable source of wealth. Fayose queried how Obasanjo got his large wealth despite he was a pauper before he became president. He wondered how Obasanjo, under whose tenure, Nigeria witnessed the Haliburton scandal could be sermonizing about corruption. Isnt compelling state governors to make donations to the personal project of a serving president part of corruption, he queried further. Fayose claimed that Obasanjo was the father of corruption in the present day Nigeria, through the introduction of Ghana-must-go politics, saying that it was under his administration that sacks of money were displayed on the floor of the House of Representatives as bribe money given to some Reps members to impeach the then Speaker, Ghali Nabba. The third term saga, amongst others, also threw up integrity question on the part of the former president whose influence in Nigerian politics cannot be undermined anyway. Muhammad Ajah is an advocate of humanity, peace and good governance in Abuja. E-mail [email protected] Hon. Mustapha Hamids admission that AMERI funded the Addison Committees trip to Dubai as part of investigations into the AMERI deal has raised serious conflict of interest issues. Media reports alleged that AMERI paid for the hotel and air tickets of the committee members to Dubai to aid the Addison committees investigation. This situation has led to people, especially the NDC to question the credibility of the report issued by the committee. According to Dr. Kwabena Donkor, the Former Minister Of Power under whom the agreement was signed, AMERIs sponsorship of the Committee compromises the integrity of Philip Addison and his committee to conduct any investigation whatsoever into the deal. While the Civil Society Platform on Oil and Gas (CSPOG) welcomes the public debate that has ensued following the revelation, it wishes to point out that, it has unfortunately become the norm, rather than the exception in Ghana for state official and entities to place themselves in positions of conflicting interests. In 2015 before the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) was signed between state-owned distributor, Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and Karpowership Ghana Company Limited, members of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Mines And Energy, who were responsible for ensuring due diligence before the contract was signed by the government, and who was saddled with responsibility for ratifying the transaction were sponsored on a trip to Turkey by the very company (Karpowership) that the agreement was to be signed with. Karpowership paid their airfares, hotel expenses and per diems. There have also been several cases of government officials who are supposed to have oversight responsibilities over companies and institutions being sponsored by these same companies on trips abroad, serving on boards of these companies or involved with the company for personal gains. The trend is indeed worrying, as it constitutes a huge impediment to the fight against corruption. It also constitutes a big blow to the integrity of the personnel and institutions involved, as well as the credibility of their work. CSPOG recalls that the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) embarked on a mission to develop conflict of interest guidelines for public office holders during the reign of President Kufuor, but wonders what became of the exercise. Now that CHRAJ is being called upon by the NDC to investigate the Philip Addison Committee, CSPOG takes the opportunity to urge that, any such investigation must lead to the prescription and adoption of guidelines by which public office holders, institutions, and investigative committees would be held to. As part of remedial measures, the state must be required at all times, to make funding available to sponsor activities of committees set up to investigate cases of corruption, as in the case of AMERI, to prevent creating avenues for possible bribery which leads to loss of credibility of the committees reports. If the government cannot ensure adequate funding is available to sponsor investigations, then they shouldnt set committees up in the first place. Signed Dr Steve Manteaw (Chairman, CSPOG) Fellow Africans and Liberians, please join me (Jones Nhinson Williams) and my daughters in supporting the recommended nomination of Ms. Temidayo Folasade Olopade, popularly known as Dayo, for a Nobel Prize in Literature. Dayo (with photo below, sitting on the left), an American of Nigerian heritage, who has been extended an invite by my two young daughters (11 and 9) for an Easter Dinner scheduled for Sunday, April 17, 2017 in the First State of Delaware, is the proud and accomplished author of the acclaimed New York Timess Article: Stop Treating Liberias President Like a Hero. Shes a Human. This brilliant article by Dayo eliminates the myth circulated in the international community and in the west by highly paid global public relations machines in various shapes, forms, and manners over the past decade. With the stroke of a pen and a less than two-page article, Dayo told the real story of Liberia and the Liberian people since 2006. Therefore, my daughters, both of whom are members of the Honors Students Society in their school and of the respected John Hopkins Program for Talented Students, decided not only to write, but also call the Nobel Prize Committee in Oslo, Norway to forward their request / nomination in advance, that Dayo be highly considered for a Nobel Prize in literature. At least, she will deserve it. https://www.nytimes.com//stop-treating-liberias-president- This week, we are glad that the world has come to see the difference between reality and falsehood in Africa, particularly Liberia, the focus of the recently published New York Times article: STOP TREATING LIBERIAS PRESIDENT LIKE A HERO. SHES A HUMAN.... This New York Times article by our friend and African sister, Temidayo Folasade Olopade, popularly known as Dayo, shines light on how African leaders can and have deceived the world and western leaders, make them make-believe that they are saints while they (African leaders) cannot even defeat the devil in a competition for sainthood, even if they pay western public relations firms millions of dollars, as they have done over the years, while their citizens died from disease, hunger, stress from unemployment, and poverty. On behalf of the Liberian people, Africa, and God, Dayo we are grateful to you and will always be for the rest of our lives for the excellent research piece you wrote about Liberia. Dayos New York Times piece achieves three main things: 1. It justifies our proposition and argument with the leadership of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as to why the status of Liberians on TPS must be made permanent or extended for period up to ten years. 2. It also provides detailed, circumstantial, independent, and unbiased evidence for our request with the US Senate Majority and Minority Leaders as well as some of President Trumps senior advisors as to why all foreign aid to Liberia must be temporarily halted until corruption in Liberia is addressed and the salaries of lawmakers and officials of the Liberian administration are drastically reduced. 3. It serves as a clarion call to all Liberians that the time for falsehood, blind loyalty and hypocrisy is over. It is time to put Liberia First. MTN Ghanas facilities have become centres of experience for second cycle and tertiary institutions. Over the years, MTN Ghana has played host to thousands of students from various educational institutions visiting its facilities for first-hand experience of the Companys operations. In the first quarter of 2017, MTN Ghana hosted over 300 students from three tertiary institutions, namely Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), University of Mines and Technology (UMaT) and Kumasi Technical Institute (KTI) at its ultra-modern office complex in Accra, as well as state-of-the-art switch and data centers located in Accra and Kumasi. With the assistance of MTNs Capital Projects Group team and external consultants who managed the construction of MTNs Head Office building, the Architecture students had first-hand knowledge of the various methods of construction, spatial, mechanical, electrical and economic parameters that were considered in the design and construction of the office. Other important areas the students toured included the Water Treatment room, Power room, Automatic Voltage Regulator (AVR) room, Generator and Transceiver and the Multi Storey Car Park (MSCP). They also toured the lower roof of the main building where they had the opportunity to see the Variable Refrigerant Volume (VRV) units of the Ventilation and Air Condition (VAC) system. They were also educated on the nature of the air-conditioning systems. Telecommunications Engineering students from KNUST, UMaT and KTI who toured MTNs Switch and Data Centers in Kumasi and Accra were hosted by Engineers from Network Group and Information System divisions. The students received demonstrations of the workings of the MTN Network Architecture and other technical elements. The visiting students and their lecturers were thrilled with the kind of investment MTN is making to ensure it continuous provision of reliable telecommunication services to its customers and the organizations contributions to national development. In a carefully staged event to coincide with the 105th birth anniversary of North Koreas founder, Kim Il-sung, the secretive regime announced that it had successful tested a nuclear warhead that could be mounted onto a rocket. North Koreas leader Kim Jong-un in a televised address declared that the test was meant to send a strong warning to the US who repeated cautioned against the nuclear test. "We will hold the US wholly accountable for the catastrophic consequences to be entailed by its outrageous actions. We will take the toughest actions against the provocateurs in order to defend ourselves by powerful force of arms, Kim Jong-un threatened. Few hours after the televised address, United States President, Donald Trump ordered a strike on the DPRK nuclear facilities. Satellite imagery after the strike indicates a huge cloud of smoke rising from the Punggye-ri nuclear test site, where the test was carried out. Tensions are very high as the belligerent North Korean leader has promised a swift response. US-based monitoring group 38 North have released satellite imagery indicating a significant military build-up along the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). The Chinese State Media has warned of an imminent war on the Korean Peninsula. Donald Trump may not succeed in living up to the fantasy as described above, but what would your reaction be if the scenario above quickly becomes a reality as North Korea prepares to celebrate the 105th birth anniversary of its founder on Saturday. The scenario is deliberately pessimistic, but it is firmly rooted in reality, showing how close we are to such a future. In his first trip to South Korea, US Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson declared in reaction to North Koreas continuous provocations Let me be very clear, the Policy of Strategic Patience has ended. In a blunt language, what the new US Secretary of State actually meant was that, there is a new sheriff in town and the rules of engagement have also changed as he sought to bring an end to an era of logic-driven Obama-Doctrine. Re-affirming the view that theres indeed a new commander in town, The Donald ordered strikes on Syria last week; a move which was commended by many leaders worldwide. The action in Syria was in direct contrast to the foreign policy position of the former President, who was described by then defense secretary, Leon Panetta as, approaching things [foreign policy] like a law professor in presenting a logic of his position. Few personalities in the world have such controversial and polarizing views as Donald Trump. His unpredictability has been a huge asset despite it becoming the new front of assault for many of his detractors, who are usually rattled by his free-wheeling, Twitter-styled diplomacy. Trumps Twitter-style diplomacy has been ridiculed by many as lacking any coherent strategy; a justification of this will be a tweet during the campaign; Did China ask us if it was OK to devalue their currency (making it hard for our companies to compete), only to backtrack on Wednesday insisting, theyre [China] not currency manipulators." But Donald Trumps book, The Art of the Deal explains exactly what his strategy of unpredictability has been all along: Ask for the outrageous so that you can obtain the reasonable. Dont tip your hand too early. The new sheriff may have stunned the Russians, and changed the media narrative about his bromance with Vladimir Putin after he served the Syrian Shayrat air base with 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles; but has Trumps instinct driven- twitter diplomacy become the new order of bullying everybody into submission? Will Trump succeed where Obama failed? In The Donalds own words, You cant con people, at least not for too long. You can create excitement, you can do wonderful promotion and get all kinds of press, and you can throw in a little hyperbole. But if you cant deliver the goods, people will eventually catch on. Time is surely our best ally as we all deal with the new reality: President Donald Trump is indeed the commander-in-chief of the most powerful military in the world. What will he do? Writer: G. K. Sarpong is a conservative writer and editor of the Revolution Journal. G. K. Sarpong is an international columnist and has authored over eight books. Visit his store at www.amazon.com/author/gksarpong or send him an email at [email protected] Information Minister, Mustapha Hamid says the NPP Member of Parliament for Assin Central, Kennedy Agyapong is useful to the party describing him as a semblance of a die hard member of the party who inspires the grassroot. According to him, inasmuch as the maverick politician may have a repulsive public behaviour to sections of Ghanaians, Mr. Agyapong greatly attracts a huge following for the party in many respect. Speaking on Anopa Kasapa on Kasapa 102.5 FM Thursday, the government spokesperson said Agyapong is somebody who speaks to the partys publics hence the Assin Central legislator is an icon for the die hard NPP person, because hes hailed as one who will always stand by them. Agyapong appeals so much to the base of the Dankwa-Busia-Dombo tradition and large number of the partys publics is standing behind him, notwithstanding his wild behaviour. Majority of the partys supporters align with Mr. Agyapong and his style of politics who undoubtedly cant seem to kick the habit with Agyapong. He[Agyapong] lately disclosed he was the financier to the controversial NPP vigilante group-Delta Force that vandalized a Kumasi based court freeing suspects who were standing trial. The largest opposition in the wake of the NPPs Delta Force attacks demanded for the arrest of Kennedy Ohene Agyapong, whom the NDC believed is largely behind the terror group. Many believe hes a nuisance to the NPP and hence his unguarded public utterances is hurting the partys image. But the Minister for Information in an interview with Fiifi Banson on Kasapa FM holds the view that Agyapong has his publics whom his character appeals so much to them, as a result of this hes okay for the NPP to accommodate him. SINCE THE RAPTURE OCCURS BEFORE THE FUTURE 7 YR TREATY IS SIGNED, I WONT BE AROUND TO HAVE THE ACTUAL TREATY SIGNING. BUT UNTIL THEN THIS SITE IS DEDICATED TO THE BEGININGS OF THE ISRAELI / ARAB PEACE PROCESS. AND AS CLOSE TO THE 7 YEAR SIGNING THAT WE GET BEFORE THE RAPTURE OF THE SAVED TO HEAVEN. UNTIL WE MEET JESUS IN THE CLOUDS BODILY, AND COME TO EARTH 7 YRS LATER. Information Minister, Mustapha Hamid has revealed he was indignant at former President Rawlings during his revolutionary regime because his father was forced into exile at the period. Mustapha said at a tender age he was broken and consumed by bitterness when he was told his father had to abscond from home because he was being hounded by the ex-military leader. Because my father went into exile, quiet frankly, even at that young age I was bitter against Jerry Rawlings, because when I came home one vacation and the room was locked and I sat out from around 11:00 am all the way to late night. I thought my father had gone out and he will come home later in the night. And the Landlord said to me, he said my brother your Father is wanted and he has run away And I said what who wants him? And they said Jerry Rawlings sent Soldiers to arrest him and he escaped. So I mean naturally as I a young boy, the name that they mention, they said Jerry Rawlings wants your Father, they didnt even say PNDC. And so frankly I felt Jerry Rawlings you treated me badly, almost ruined my future and so when I grow, I will fight Jerry Rawlings so my father can come home. And so my initial instincts was to go into the army and organize a coupLike if i go into the army then I will also mobilize troop and overthrow PNDC so my father can come home because I didnt even envisage we will be in a democratic era one day, Mustapha Hamid told Bola Ray Wednesday on Starr Chat, a personality profile show. According to him, the vile abuse of the PNDC government on civilians grew his hatred towards Jerry John Rawlings who led the crusade. He said this was why as a youth he embraced the governing NPP in his quest for quality leadership out of mounting frustration. The Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) took over government after the Peoples National Partys elected government was overthrown by Jerry Rawlings, the former head of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council, on 31 December 1981. It remained in power until 7 January 1993. In a statement explaining the coup detat, Rawlings explained that a holy war was necessary due to the PNPs failure to provide effective leadership and the collapse of the national economy and state services. The PNDC was a military dictatorship that induced civilians to participate in governance. Most of its members were civilians. Its policies reflected a revolutionary government that was pragmatic in its approach. The economic objectives of the PNDC were to halt the economic decay, stabilise the economy and stimulate economic growth. Politically, its goal was to establish structures that would effectively allow the people to express their political will. Most significantly, the PNDC, carrying with it the spirit of the June 4, 1979 Uprising, brought a change in the peoples attitude from a government will provide position to being proactive in nation-building. The PNDC eventually gave up power, provided a new constitution in 1992 and held elections that year. Staff of Wapic Insurance Company Limited on Wednesday donated assorted items in support of Citi FMs Easter Orphan Project. The staff contributed and bought assorted items which included biscuits, soft drinks, toffees, diapers among others, for the project. They told Citi News that the donation was towards helping the under privileged in society. Citi FM has so far received several donations from its cherished listeners and corporate organisation in the country following an appeal it made to Ghanaians to support the project. About Easter Orphan Project The Easter Orphan project currently in its 12th year was an initiative by Citi FM to support some selected orphanages in the country. They are the Baptist School Complex (BASCO) an orphanage at Trotor, near Suhum in the Eastern Region, the Handivangelism Orphanage at Haatso in Accra and Mama Laadi Orphanage at Bolgatanga in the Upper East Region. The project seeks to ensure that the orphanages receive enough supplies to last them for a whole year. More donations welcomed Persons seeking to donate towards the project can come to the office of Citi FM at Adabraka, behind the Adabraka Police Station, with their items or send cash donations via mobile money via 024-337-4093. By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana Follow @AlloteyGodwin Kano (Nigeria) (AFP) - Nigeria is negotiating with the help of "foreign entities" for the remaining kidnapped Chibok girls held by Boko Haram Islamists, a presidential spokesman said Thursday. As the country prepares to mark the third anniversary of the mass kidnapping on Friday, Garba Shehu told the BBC in a radio interview there were ongoing negotiations to release the 195 girls believed still be being held by Boko Haram. "Talks are ongoing through other means with the help of some foreign entities to free more schoolgirls," Shehu said during an interview with BBC Hausa. "These talks are going on with the help of some countries. You can recall the 21 schoolgirls were freed with the help of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Swiss government officials who got involved in the negotiations. These two have not withdrawn their support in the negotiations," Shehu said. "There are also other countries that are lending support to the negotiations by being involved in the talks," Shehu added. In October last year, 21 girls were freed after negotiations between Boko Haram and the Nigerian government brokered by the ICRC and the Swiss government, said the presidency. Boko Haram seized 276 students from the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok on April 14, 2014. Fifty-seven managed to escape in the immediate aftermath while three others were found or rescued by the military. Some had babies in captivity. "(The) government is in constant touch through negotiations, through local intelligence to secure the release of the remaining girls and other abducted persons unharmed," Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari said in a statement on Thursday. "On this solemn occasion, my appeal is that we must not lose hope on the return of our remaining schoolgirls." In Nigeria's capital Abuja and the commercial hub of Lagos, Bring Back Our Girls campaigners are preparing to march on Friday to mark the anniversary of the kidnapping. The Chibok schoolgirls became a symbol of the Boko Haram insurgency that began in 2009 and has left at least 20,000 people dead in northeast Nigeria. Despite a military fight-back, villages near Chibok, which is 125 kilometres (80 miles) by road from the Borno state capital, Maiduguri, have seen a wave of suspected Boko Haram attacks in recent months. Garba Shehu was not available for comment Thursday when contacted by AFP. The Slum Union of Ghana says Tuesdays clashes between some Konkombas and Dagombas at Agbogbloshie in Accra has nothing to do with ethnicity. The Union said political rivalry and economic interests are to blame for the fight that led to the death of two people and injuring of a dozen others. Union Secretary, Abdullah Alhassan, said the rivalry started when late President John Evans Atta Mills won the 2008 elections. Military personnel on the scene minutes after the clashes He said supporters of the NDC used the opportunity to seized properties of some persons believed to be supporters of the then opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP). The NPP supporters were driven from their homes and some of them killed. Alhassan told Gifty Andoh Appiah on The Pulse on JOYNEWS channel on MultiTV Thursday, some NPP supporters also used the partys victory in the 2016 elections to exact revenge and retrieve their properties that were reportedly seized. The political culture that when the NPP is in power the NDC supporters should be driven out and when NDC is in power, NPP supporters have to be driven out has to be curbed, he said. At least two people died and dozen others, including a pregnant woman, were left in critical condition in clashes. Details of the cause of the clashes are sketchy, but some residents are attributing it to the theft of a mobile phone and cylinder. Others also blamed ethnicity for the incident. There have been similar clashes in the past. Clashes in April 2015 between Dagombas and Zabarima traders left four people including a police officer injured. Also, a clash in November 2014 left two people dead. The Small Arms Commission has said the community is a volatile place because of the use of assault rifles by some residents. Executive Secretary of the Commission, Jones Applerh, said there are estimated 1.1 million illegal weapons in the hands of some citizens. The Northern Region is the one with the highest gun possession, he said, adding measures have been put in place to retrieve them. A contingent of police and military personnel has been dispatched to the scene of the clashes to retrieve illegal weapons in the hands of residents. Interior Minister, Ambrose Dery and Defense Minister, Dominic Nitiwul visited the scene Wednesday The Inspector General of Police (IGP), David Apeatu, has suggested the relocation of residents to curb the spate of violent attacks there. But the Slum Union said a lasting solution to the clashes will be for the appropriate authorities to cure the problem from the roots. The relocation has been on the table...[but] the culture of attacks between supporters of the NDC and NPP has to be addressed, Alhassan said. People have been living here since the 1980s and attempts to drive them out wont help the issue. He appealed to government to encourage dialogue between supporters of the two dominant parties to address their concerns. Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Austin Brako-Powers | [email protected] After recording a successful event last year during the first edition of the Ghana-Francophone Awards, the 2nd edition of the Awards ceremony which is mainly supported by the French Embassy in Accra has been duly launched. The Ghana-Francophone Awards 2017 is slated to take place on Saturday 6th of May, 2017 at the La Palm Royal Beach Hotel, Accra at 7pm. The event is being particularly organised by Infos d'Accra Limited, the first ever French Digital Media & Communications Agency in Ghana, registered at the Registrar General according to the laws of Ghana and located at Mile-7 here in Accra. This year's event will be a gala dinner where 10-prizewinners, who positively impacted the French Community, each in their respective sectors in 2016, will be awarded prizes out of the 50 selected nominees It is a highly spirited show designed to reward outstanding contributions of individuals and people associated with the Francophone community. The organisation also has an online news portal Infosdaccra.com which is strictly Ghana news but in the French language, making it the first of its kind in Ghana. As a Digital Media, it has more than 100,000 subscribers and followers on various social media and also offers some programmes on its WebTV. It against this background that Infos d'Accra led by its Chief Executive Officer, Adopo Amidjo, it initiated the Ghana-Francophone Awards mainly to motivate the Francophones in Ghana to do more in the development of the nation and Africa at large. The CEO of Infos d'Accra, at a media launch at the Company's Head Office in Accra said his outfit has a vision to ensure that in order to contribute to the Francophonie networks, he and his team intend to make the Ghana-Francophone Awards the most important of all events in Ghana. "We plan to do this by creating an annual space for exchanges where all the members of the Francophone diaspora could meet to facilitate integration within the Ghanaian society." The 10-Categories announced to be honoured include: RELIGIOUS LEADER OF THE YEAR EXPATRIATE EMPLOYEE OF THE YEAR SME/START-UP OF THE YEAR BILINGUAL FRENCH SCHOOL OF THE YEAR SOCIO-CULTURAL INITIATIVE OF THE YEAR FRENCH RESTAURANT OF THE YEAR ASSOCIATION/COMMUNITY GROUP OF THE YEAR LANGUAGE SCHOOL OF THE YEAR MUSICIAN ARTISTE OF THE YEAR FASHION DESIGNER & BEAUTY CENTRE OF THE YEAR About 1,000 guests comprising Consular Officials, Ghanaian Authorities, Expartriates, Business Men and Students are expected to attend. The gate fee charge is ranging from GHC150 to GHC200. Accra, April 13, GNA - An Accra Circuit Court has remanded one Kweku Eric, unemployed into police custody on the charges of conspiracy and robbery. Kweku was said to have conspired with three others now at large and robbed one Melvin Nyarko a student, of his Infinix Port 3 phone, necklace, a waist bag containing Voter's ID card, other documents and an amount of Ghc195.00. He pleaded not guilty to the charges but was remanded by the court to reappear on April 29. The facts of the case, as presented by Police Chief Inspector Kwabena Adu was that, the complainant, Melvin, is a student and resides at Kingsbey, New Achimota, whilst the accused person is a petty trader living at Dome. He said on April 6, at about 0500 hours, the complainant was on his way home, and on reaching a spot at St Johns, Kweku and three others now at large attacked and robbed him of the above listed items. The prosecution said the complainant managed to get hold of the accused person but his accomplices bolted with the booty. With the help of a witness, the complainant handed over the accused person to the police. GNA By Morkporkpor Anku Kumasi, April 13, GNA - Eight members of the group, calling itself the 'Delta Force' and reported to be aligned with the governing of New Patriotic Party (NPP), accused of storming the KMA Circuit Court to free 13 of their colleagues from lawful custody, were on Thursday granted bail by a Kumasi Circuit Court. Ebenezer Opoku, Samuel Yeboah, Kofi Fosu, Christian Anokye, Kwame Fimpong, Suleman Wadud, Abass Caesar, and Eric Kusi, had been remanded in prison by a lower court, when they appeared before it, last Monday. They were however dissatisfied with the order and decided to take their case to the High Court to have it reversed. Justice Francis Obiri, who heard their application, freed them on bail of GH10,000.00 each, with two sureties to be justified. They were additionally ordered to report to the police on every Wednesday, until the bail conditions are reviewed. The eight would return to the circuit court to answer charges of disturbing a court session, resisting arrest and freeing the 13 persons, who were in lawful custody on April 18. They had all pleaded not guilty to the charges. GNA By Gifty Amofa Accra, April 13, GNA - A 37-year-old securityman accused of defiling a 13-year-old girl at Nungua has appeared before an Accra Circuit Court charged with defilement. Richard Kweku Siayor has denied the offence. The court presided over by Mrs Abena Oppong Adjin-Doku remanded Siayor into Police custody to reappear on April 27. Prosecuting Detective Inspector Kofi Atimbire said the accused person resides in the same vicinity with the complainant and the victim at Nungua. According to the prosecutor, the complainant operates a drinking bar hence got to know the victim at the bar. Last year, the accused person met the victim who was on her way to choir rehearsals and lured her into an uncompleted building under the pretext of giving her empty beer bottles to be given to her father but defiled her. After the act, the accused person warned the victim not tell anyone. In March this year, the accused person for the second time lured the victim into another uncompleted house and had sex with her. Siayor warned the victim again not to tell anyone about the second act. Prosecution said about three weeks ago, the complainant was educating the victim and other siblings on sexual matters, the victim then informed her father about the accused. A report was made to the Domestic Violence and Victim's Support Unit, Nungua and a medical report form was issued to the complainant to send the victim to a medical facility to be examined. The accused was later arrested. GNA By Joyce Danso Adenta, April 13, GNA - The workers and students of the Pantang Psychiatric hospital on Wednesday embarked on a demonstration against encroachment of their land by private developers. The demonstrators led by Mr Nana Boamah, the Environmental Officer, demonstrated through the principal streets of Adenta to the La-Nkwantanang-Madina Municipal Assembly to present their petition to municipal Coordinating Director, Alhaji Saakah Dramani. They carried placards calling on the government and the Ministry of Health to come to their aid to retrieve their parcels of land. Speaking to Ghana News Agency, the spokesperson for the encroachers, Mr Kwame Quainoo said they had genuine documents covering the parcels of land from the Lands Department and had power of Attorney to that effect. The demonstrators were escorted by the Adenta-Abokobi Police Command. GNA 13.04.2017 LISTEN Accra, April 13, GNA - The handing over ceremony of the 241 acres of land for the construction of Marine Drive Project was nearly marred with protest by some persons trading at the Arts Centre. The Protestors clad in red bands claimed they were not consulted over the commencement of the project. They were however stopped by the Police who were at the site. After the programme however, Mr John Donkor, Public Relations Officer, Joint Executive Committee, Arts Centre said they were not against the project, but wanted them to be included in the project. According to Mr Donkor, the space allegedly allotted to them at Kawokudi Park could not house 15,000 members of the Arts Centre and their current location had been the preferred place for tourists who visit the Centre. Mr Donkor said next week Tuesday they would meet the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts and submit their grievances. An official ceremony to hand over the site to Marine Drive Project Anchor was held at the Arts Centre, Accra. The site would be cleared to make way for the sod cutting by the President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. The 60 year old Marine Drive Project plan a brain child of Ghana's first President, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah was captured in the New Patriotic Party Election 2016 Manifesto. It will house beach landing sites, 30 hotels, and conference facilities among others. GNA By Joyce Danso, GNA When industry experts focus on IT developments and trends, most of the attention is given to large organizations or billion-dollar corporations. And while theres nothing inherently wrong with this, its important to recognize that evolving IT trends also influence small businesses. It could be argued that small businesses are more sensitive to changes in technology, giving us even more reason to study whats happening on the ground floor. Look Out for These Five Trends Now that weve finally escaped the shadows of last year and have progressed into 2017, we can look at some of the trends that are taking place and use them to more accurately predict what will happen this year. With that being said, here are a few of the IT trends that are sure to have an impact on small businesses in the coming months. 1. SaaS (News - Alert) Adoption Rates to Increase There was a time, not too long ago, where small businesses looked at cloud computing and Software as a Service (SaaS) with some fear. The idea of storing everything in the cloud, despite a somewhat tumultuous cybersecurity landscape, was troublesome. Times have changed, though. According to the annual Wasp Barcode Technologies State of Small Business Report, 57 percent of larger small businesses (101-499 employees) are using or plan to use SaaS this year, while 38 percent of smaller businesses (5-10 employees) plan to. Those numbers line up with other research that suggests 85 percent of small business executives are willing to invest more in SaaS solutions between now and 2020. The primary reason behind the increase in SaaS usage among small businesses has to do with savings and flexibility. Instead of investing in expensive hardware and IT infrastructure, companies just have to pay a monthly subscription fee. Plus, its easy to get started. Budgets are being decreased and the business units are already going out and buying SaaS without talking to the IT departments about it. Theyre finding that they get more choice, they get it faster, they get it with less hassle its instant gratification if you will, Gartner (News - Alert) VP Daryl Plummer explains. 2. Enhanced Focus on IoT Security The IoT clearly offers small businesses a number of wonderful advantages. It allows for increased connectivity, lower IT overhead (thanks to BYOD policies) and better functionality across the board. However, its hard to ignore the risks associated with IoT security. This year, you can expect to see more small businesses place an emphasis on this aspect of IoT adoption. According to a recent study on the topic, 58 percent of IT and security practitioners are concerned about their organization getting hacked via IoT devices. Despite this fear, 44 percent say their organization is doing nothing to prevent these attacks, while 11 percent are unsure if anything is being done. The problem is that many connected devices arent built with security foremost in mind, and as a complicating factor, they are typically connected to a central home office or small business WiFi (News - Alert) router, security expert Timur Kovalev explains. The average WiFi router isnt designed with security as a top priority either. Kovalev cites a study in which only six of the 20 most popular wireless routers are fully updated with advanced security solutions. While its imperative that small businesses consider hiring or contracting with an IT professional to establish secure connections, small businesses can also do a number of things on their own to reduce risk. This will be the year that small business owners finally understand the importance of taking preventative action. 3. Intrigue in Augmented Reality Gartner predicts that by the end of 2017, one in five leading global retail brands, or 20 percent, will be using augmented reality (AR) as an integral technology supporting the shopping experience, Forbes contributor Louis Columbus notes. The potential to significantly improve upsell and cross-sell rates are evident, as is the opportunity to provide customers with the option of trying on clothing or sampling makeup virtually before buying. While you wont see many small businesses using augmented reality in 2017, you can expect to see them looking forward and taking note of what larger brands are doing. Augmented reality clearly has a role in the future of retail and its only a matter of time before small businesses are able to get involved. 4. More Mobile-First Development The desktop still has some utility in certain instances, but mobile devices are clearly the primary touch point. This year, small businesses will finally focus more on mobile-first design and development than on desktop. This will impact the way in which these businesses communicate and function in just about every facet. In addition to internal changes, this mobile-first mentality will directly affect the way in which small businesses interact with customers. Desktop user experiences will be replaced by mobile touch points that encourage speed and functionality. 5. New Payment Options In addition to mobile design and development, look for small businesses to start accepting new mobile payment options as a way of competing with larger organizations that allow customers to pay with any number of options. As small business expert Anita Campbell explains, The use of mobile payments is on the rise, thanks to apps such as Microsoft (News - Alert) Wallet, so it makes sense to incorporate their use as an option. Also, companies like Microsoft partner Merchant Account Solutions have made mobile credit card readers readily available to small business users. The easier businesses can make the transaction process for customers, the better their results will be. Theres no place for friction in the buying process anymore and small businesses are finally discovering the value in streamlining how business is done at the point of sale. Small Business Shakeup If all of the indicators prove true, this year will be transformational for small business especially when it comes to IT. Theres a lot happening in terms of new tools and technology entering the market, so itll be interesting to watch how small businesses respond and adapt. Edited by Alicia Young The Chief Executive of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly says the relocation of the Agbogbloshie market from its present location in the heart of Accra remains a priority. Mohammed Sowah said the arrangement will not affect Old Fadama residents who have been in the area before the market opened. He told Dzifa Bampoh on Joy FMs Top Story Thursday, his predecessors were unable to implement the project because of some challenges with the resettlement land. Related Article: Konkombas, Dagombas at Agbogbloshie clash; 2 dead There were ownership problems and there is the need for us to revisit the land and work with the chiefs there to deal with it, he said. Mr Sowahs comments come on the heels of bloody clashes between some residents of Agbogbloshie on Tuesday. At least two people have been confirmed dead with eight others, including a pregnant woman, left in critical condition. Related Articles: Konkomba-Dagomba clashes: Govt moves to retrieve illegal arms The Ghana Police Service and Armed Forces have dispatched more of their men into the community to maintain law and order and to retrieve some assault rifles believed to have been used in the clashes. There are varying accounts of the cause of the attack, but some residents said a mobile phone and cylinder theft by an unidentified man triggered the incident. Several properties worth thousands of cedis were destroyed in the course of the fight. Four people have been arrested in connection with the clashes. Related Article: 2 more arrested in Konkomba, Dagomba clashes at Agbogbloshie Interior Minister, Ambrose Dery, has appealed to the feuding factions to desist from acts that will taint the image of persons who hail from the three regions of the North - Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions. Inspector General of Police (IGP), David Asante Apeatu, has also proposed the relocation of residents of the slum community, Sodom and Gomorrah, as a solution to the frequent clashes. Interior Minister, Ambrose Dery with Defense Minister, Dominic Nitiwul during a visit to the community The police chief explained the congested nature of the area provides a breeding ground for miscreants and criminals who have been fomenting trouble in the community. This suggestion has been dismissed by the Ghana Slum Union which believes it will do little to tackle the root cause of the clashes. Union Secretary, Abdullah Alhassan, told Joy News political rivalry is the cause of the violence, adding it has nothing to do with ethnicity. He said it dates back to 2008 when late President John Evans Atta Mills won the election. Related Article: Ethnicity not cause of Konkomba, Dagomba clashes Slum Union Supporters of the National Democratic Congress, he said, sacked persons believed to be NPP supporters and seized their properties - public washrooms and toilets, ramshackle rooms, amongst others. The NPP members also retaliated after the party was elected in the 2016 polls. The political culture that when the NPP is in power the NDC supporters should be driven out and when NDC is in power, NPP supporters have to be driven out has to be curbed, he said. But the AMA boss said he will implement the Agbogbloshie relocation programme that has been on the Assembly's table since October 2009. Related Article: Konkomba-Dagomba clashes: Expert recommends relocation of residents Former AMA CEO, Alfred Okoe Vanderpuije, had designed the project to relocate all commercial activities at Old Fadama (Agbogbloshie) to Amasaman to decongest the area. Mr Sowah stressed they will not relocate the people who are resident in the community, but rather the market. "There hasn't been any clear strategy to relocate the people." He lauded the security personnel for the swift manner they handled the issue and prevented it from escalating. "The police and the military have done extremely well." Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Austin Brako-Powers | [email protected] 14.04.2017 LISTEN The Deputy Northern regional Minster and Member of Parliament for the Bunkprugu constituency, honorable Solomon Boar has called on chiefs in the region to rally behind government to be able to transform the lives of the people in the region. He said the regional minister, he and the the Tamale mayor were just three catapults serving as field officers for the president Nana Addo Dankwa Akufu Addo and his vice, Dr. Alhaji Mamamudu Bawumiya who cannot do anything without the support of chiefs in the area. Mr. Solomon Boar made the call when he paid a courtesy call on some chiefs in Tamale Metropolis on Thursday. We need peace to be able to fulfill the agenda of his Excellency Nana Addo. We cannot realize this if we dont get the support of our traditional rulers he said Northern region has lots of potentials. Tamale alone if we tell you what Tamale alone the impact that it can make in our economy as a nation, it is so monumental. So we are calling on the able traditional rulers for their humble support because we will continue to knock on their doors he noted He said Northern region has lots of potentials that can change the lives of the people but what was needed was peace and unity adding that, development cannot take place without relatively peace and stability. According to him, the gross domestic product of the Northern region alone in five years to come will exceed that of some countries and if invested well it will help better the lives of the people. He said the one district one factory policy, the free S.H.S policy and the one village one dam policies of the president were some interventions by the Nana Addo-Bawumiya government to help improve livelihoods of Ghanaians. Mr. Boar also mentioned youth unemployment and education of the youth as something very key to the president and the government of the NPP was working hard to address them. Meanwhile, the chiefs on their own advised Mr. Boar to always fall on them for support whenever things turns out difficult for him, and appealed to the youth to desist from wrongful doings that can tarnish the image of the government. The paramount chief of the Sagnarigu traditional area, Naa Ambassador Abdulai Yakubu however called on the supporters of New Patriotic (NPP) Party to support the agenda of the president, H.E. Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo According to Ambassador Abdulai Yakubu, actions by the some party supporters were in the move to paint the government of Nana Addo bad. I would have wished that, if they really support his Excellency the president and want us to move forward, they should not continue to humiliate him. Whatever they are opinions are, 2019 is not far away. They should wait and express themselves at the partys congress. But now, they should give the president a chance to work he noted He also appealed to them to allow the appointees of the president to do their mandated jobs without hindrances as they are those chosen to help bring the vision of the president to reality And that is what it should be, let the nominees of his Excellency the president have chance to work and if they do not deliver, you can take any decision when the right time comes he stated. He also called on all in the region especially people within the Tamale metropolis to support the metropolitan assembly to carry out all its developmental projects especially the pending decongestion exercise scheduled for 15th may this year. He said all the chiefs in the region were behind the assembly to clean Tamale off its filth to attract investors from outside to invest their moneys to create jobs for the unemployed. The assembly voted hundred percent for the metropolitan chief Executive so we appealed to them to give support to carry out this important assignment of decongesting some of the streets of our regional capital he stated. Mr. Solomon Boar who was in convoy with the Tamale mayor, Musah Iddrisu superior and some party supporters called on the Gulkpe-Naa Alhaji Alhassan Abduali, the Dakpema Alhaji Alhassan Dawuni, the Lamashegu-lana, the Banvum-lana, the Bug-lana, the Guma-Naa and the Sagnarigu Naa as part of his familiarization tour of the region. The visit was also meant to allow the deputy minister introduce himself to the leaders of the region and also ask for their blessings as he assumed office as deputy minister in the region. The deputy minister and his convoy also called on Sheikh Ibrahim Baasha known as sheikh Bayan 14.04.2017 LISTEN We the New Patriotic Party community in Russia wishes to congratulate Mr. Charles Owiredu on his appointment as Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. We know your track record and the role you have played in the development of the international branches and your diplomatic relation to the grassroots foot soldiers of the party. We will also like to acknowledge your effective and reliable communication even after the election; you are still in touch with the grassroots soldiers abroad. You are always quick to respond to our concern anytime we call upon you, I can testify that you are one of the national executives who is still in touch with us after election and we very grateful. We are looking forward to continuing working with you to build a strong database of NPP abroad worldwide. Mr. Oweridu I know you as an excellent diplomat and sometimes I tell members that you are exceptional negotiator that will be your hallmark at your new role. All we will say thank God. Long live NPP Long live Ghana Signed Ajene Abongo Mashood Jacob (Interim chairman) 14.04.2017 LISTEN Where else can one hide his money from armed robbers? It is unfortunate that we cannot put money in the bank, at the farm, in the freezer, in a sewage tank and inside our house anymore; without some busy bodies revealing it to Economic and Financial Crime Commission. The forty-five million dollars found in that Ikoyi apartment is mine. It must be returned immediately to me otherwise EFCC will see me in the court of law under democracy and the rule of law. This money and others that was misplaced came from Ofada Rice business sold all over Africa. If the court can unfreeze Mrs. Patient Jonathans money, I want the same court under democracy and the rule of law and order to call EFCC to order even before I file my complaint. The only place people like us can get justice is in Nigeria. After all this money has not left the country. Indeed, out of patriotism, the money was kept in Nigeria instead of Dubai. We have stopped putting money in western countries because of how Ibori, Alamsco and now the beautiful Princess Dezeani is being shadowed by British police. They are very corrupt since they embezzled part of Iboris loot. Their judicial system took incriminating exhibit, smuggled evidence and testimony from that traitor Nuhu Ribadu to convict Ibori. No fair and just court adhering to the rule of law and justice would do that in Nigeria. No be joke A dey joke O! Justice Ademola must preside over my case when filed in court. The honorable Judge of high pedigree understands the high handedness of Buharis EFCC and ICPC war on those who earned their raw foreign currencies fair and square. Indeed, the judicial system in Nigeria is one of the best in the whole world. Where else would the Chief Justice of Appeal Court accuse the Chief Justice of Nigeria of miscarriage of justice and influence peddling if not in Nigeria? People think we forget. It is sad that any politician can hire a crowd to protest for as little as a thousand naira per head. With forty-five millions dollars, anyone can imagine what I would do if I triple that going rate plus ten sachets of rice. My people would Occupy EFCC and ICPC. Some of you do not realize how powerful the masses are until they exhibit and unleash their anger. When EFCC found my money, did they think all that cashistics grew from the cement? It should be obvious to EFCC that every possible or probable owner of this money has denied anything to do with it. Most of the cash found in unholy places have moved from one agency to another. By the time we ask what happened to all the cash found, they have disappeared. This one must not disappear. Anyone that knows how many billions of grains there are in Ofada Rice will understand that forty five millions in any currency is a small change. Some planners were already hired and we were planning how to turn Makoko, Otodo Gbame and Ajegunle into paradise. Most reasonable people know that we have to build low cost housing for the people to move to. This was exactly what we did at Ita-Akanni before we finally get people to move to Suru-lere. $45 million is a drop in the bucket for the implementation of our noble project. Every reasonable person must appeal to EFCC to release the money to me. Clinuvel Pharmaceuticals Ltd [ASX:CUV] is a small biotech company developing drugs to treat a range of skin disorders. The stock climbed 5.35% on Wednesday to a high of $7.28 per share. What happened to the Clinuvel Pharmaceuticals share price? CUV has been in negotiations with Germanys National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds since August 2016. The negotiations have surrounded pricing of CUVs treatment. And this morning, CUV announced that theyve finally come to an agreement. CUV will adopt a uniform global pricing policy. The rationale for this is patients are migrating across borders to seek treatment, expert physicians are associated through porphyria networks, and hospitals collaborate internationally to purchase pharmaceutical products for orphan diseases, CUV said. The annual cost of therapy for a patient in Germany now ranges from 56,40484,606 euros. What now for CUV shares? Its great news that CUV has come to an agreement on pricing its treatment. However, I wouldnt rush into the stock just yet. Its trading at a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 129.24-times earnings. That means, holding current earnings constant, shareholders need to wait 129.24 years before redeeming their initial investment in the stock. If youre interested in the company, Id suggest waiting until earnings start to grow rapidly, and for the share price to trade down. In that time, you could further research the stock and determine what you believe is a realistic growth rate for the years ahead. Regards, Harje Ronngard, Junior Analyst, Money Morning PS: On any given day, a bunch of these stocks will rise and a bunch will fall. Obviously, you want to invest in stocks that have the best shot of rising steadily over the longer term. Thats where small-cap specialist Sam Volkering can help. Sam is known for picking stocks with huge growth potential. Just some of his stock picks have run up 575%, 368%, 463% and a mammoth 1,144%! In his new report, The Four Best ASX Stocks for 2017, Sam reveals four Aussie stocks he believes could be top performers in 2017. To get a free copy of Sams report, click here. If you wonder how to check WAEC results, read this write-up to learn about all existing methods. We will give the information, confirmed by the West African Examination Council. Look at two possible methods of WAEC Result Check, both require pins, there is 100% necessity of having a scratch card. What is the purpose of WAEC Result scratch card? It gives an opportunity to control the info and having the admission to the Result Checking Portal. It is a protection of the results, which are in the WAEC database. It is a source of money for the organization. Is it possible to check WAEC result without scratch card? To get the result you will be asked to provide the following details: Type of the exam (SSEC, GCE and other); Examination No. (it is unique and distinguish you from other person); Year of examination (providing the examination year will make it easier to get your results from the database); Serial No. on the card. It is impossible to check WAEC results: If you do not have or have forgotten Examination No. Spending no money. If you do not have Serial No. and PIN from scratch card. The explanation is rather simple, there are two ways how you can check WAEC results: via SMS or via Internet. It is impossible to receive the result without providing all the necessary information and buying a scratch card. READ ALSO: WAEC slammed with lawsuit over seizure of students results How to check WAEC result using phone? Do not confuse checking of WAEC results by sending an SMS with the option, which does not require scratch card pin. To get your result sending SMS, you will be required to provide the PIN from the card (SMS, sent to the short number 32327, will have the following look, for instance, WAEC*5361010110*210987654321*2018). Please note, that there must be no spaces in your message. This SMS is not free of charge and costs N30. Then just wait for an SMS with your result. How to check WAEC result online? This method is very convenient, you can do it using your PC, laptop or smartphone, all you need is Internet connection. To check your WAEC result, just follow the instructions: Log on to WAEC website to check result. Type in WAEC Examination No. (ten figures: seven figures stand for center number and three figures - candidate's number). Type in four figures, which mean the year of Examination. Select the Examination type. Enter the Card Serial No., which you can find on the opposite side of the Scratch card. Type in your PIN from the scratch card. Click on Submit. The result will come up in the next window. Hope you have found our write-up useful, and we have given you the answer to the question. If the friends of yours are also wondering how to learn WAEC results, don't forget to share this info with them. READ ALSO: JUST IN: WAEC to release results 60 days after exam Source: Legit.ng Cocoa Farming in Nigeria provides an excellent opportunity for investors. Cocoa is one of the fastest selling agricultural products. Once your cocoa tree is planted and reached maturity you can harvest money from it for whole your life. The cocoa is a perennial crop and can produce for decades. Therefore, it can be a good opportunity for you to start a business with cocoa. Cocoa business in Nigeria is massively underutilised, and there are thousands of acres of fertile lands that can be used for cocoa plantation. Before the Oil boom, the cocoa production was one of the mainstay branches of Nigeria Economy. ocoa farming lost its positions. Still, any serious farmer in Nigeria would see the opportunity for business in this sector of agriculture. Agriculture in Nigeria About 70 percent of Nigerians are engaged in the agricultural sector of the economy. Agriculture provides about 41 percent of overall GDP of Nigeria. Farming in Nigeria is connected with a productive and successful business structure. Still, farmers can`t satisfy overall urban demands, and Nigerian Government has to import products elsewhere. Therefore, it`s necessary to support local producers of agricultural products. Domestic production of agricultural products can support the demand of the local market for only 70%. Therefore, if you have an idea to start a farming business in Nigeria you will have customers. Cocoa production in Nigeria can be your perfect start for a business venture in the agricultural sector. History of Cocoa Production in Nigeria READ ALSO: Rice farming in Nigeria - 10 tips to start it The earliest cocoa farming in Nigeria was provided in Calabar and Bonny in the 1870s, but these areas were not suitable for cultivation. Later, in the 1880s, cocoa farms were established in Ota, Agege and Lagos. Cocoa farming was widely spread in the West parts of Nigeria. Farmers in Egba and Ibadan started planting cocoa in uncultivated forests in 1890. The cocoa plantation spread to Ondo town and Okeigbo in Ondo State, Gbongan and Ife in Osun State. There were two main varieties of cocoa nuts before 1950. The first variety was imported from Trinidad. The second variety reached the lands of Nigeria from Amazon River Basin in Brazil. The Trinidad variety is red, while the Amazon green turns yellow when ripe. Top 7 tips for cocoa production in Nigeria How to Set up a Cocoa Farm? You need to locate forest lands with appropriate climate and rainfalls. Cocoa seeds can die swiftly without proper nurturing. The forest canopy can be a perfect one for cocoa plants. The land must be covered by rain forest canopy. The ideal temperature for the cocoa tree is 21-23 degrees Celsius with 1000-25000mm of rainfall per year. You may need some reliable source of seeds for your cocoa plantation. International Institute for Tropical Agriculture can be a reliable source of cocoa seeds. The Institute experts can also give you some piece of advice about what type of cocoa seeds is the most useful for your lands. Nevertheless, you can also buy cocoa seeds in the nearest farming market. Farmers can also provide you with some piece of information about the business. Remember, that the best period for planting cocoa is in April-May at the beginning of the raining season. Cocoa Farming Climate Condition The countries which produce cocoa lay in a belt between 10N and 10S of the Equator. It`s considered to be the best climate for cocoa trees. The largest cocoa producing countries for today are Indonesia, Ghana and Ivory Coast. Cocoa plants respond well to climates with high temperatures, like 30-32 degrees Celsius as a maximum and 18-21 degrees Celsius as a minimum. Cocoa trees are very sensitive to the deficiency of water in the soil. Rainfall should be plentiful no less than 1500mm per year. Soil condition for Cocoa production Cocoa trees need a soil with a reasonable quantity of nutrients. The quality of the soil should help trees to develop a strong root system. The soil should have a good drainage, and water retention properties as cocoa trees are very sensitive to the lack of water. The plants have a large number of roots for absorbing nutrients, so, the chemical properties are critical. The required pH level should be in range 5.0-7.5. The soil should also have a high content of organic matter at least 3.5%. Cocoa Varieties Criollos. This type of cocoa dominated in the eighteen century. Criollo is still considered as the luxury cocoas. Still, Criollo is more susceptible to various diseases. Therefore, its production is a little bit expensive. Forastero. This type of cocoa is considered to be a father of all cocoa plants. Around 80% of the world`s cultivation is connected with the Forastero cocoa. The typical characteristic of Forastero is less aromatic cocoa flavour, which in some cases can be bitter. Forastero can be easily found in Ivory Coast, Ghana and Nigeria. The Trinitario. This variety is descended from Criollo and Forastero. The Trinitario planting came from Trinidad and later spread to Papua New Guinea, Java, Sri Lanka, Samoa, Cameroon and Ecuador. It`s the best combination of luxury cocoa flavour and its hardiness. It has a great cocoa taste which is only a little bit bitter. Breeding Methods in Cocoa Farming in Nigeria Cocoa trees are raised from seeds. They can produce good plants if they are taken underripe from pods (before 15 days). Cutting. Tree cuttings should be taken with five leaves and at least two buds. Then the leaves should be cut in half and placed in a pot until the roots appear. Budding. A bud should be cut from a tree and placed under another tree. The budding patch should be waxed to prevent moisture loss. The bud can be cut off when it starts growing under the old tree. Cocoa farming opportunities The price of one bag of cocoa in Nigeria is around $200. You can start your cocoa plantation with at least ten bags. Therefore, you can expect to yield twice more in two years. Therefore, you can return your investments in two years. Cocoa trees usually reach the mature state in 18 months. Still, some traditional cocoa crops need up to five years to mature. Therefore, think about raising some funds before starting this type of business. Marketing Cocoa might be the only product in Nigeria which you can market in one day. The whole world is cocoa dependent as it`s used in almost every product. Nigeria does not produce enough cocoa to satisfy its needs so it means you can expect a fair trade in the local markets. If you plan have international market orientation, you can also expect high demand. You can also contact various cocoa agents not to deal with marketing and concentrate on production. READ ALSO: Rabbit farming in Nigeria: How to start? Source: Legit.ng - Hon Razak Atunwa has reconfirmed that its very important to have Ex-President Goodluck Jonathan questioned by the House of Representatives regarding the Malabu scandal - Atunwa says he has been mandated by the Lower House, to get to the root of the $1.3 billion oil bloc lease saga - He says former President Goodluck Jonathan may have been complicit in the controversial OPL 245 deal Razak Atunwa, the chairman of House of Representatives Committee on Justice, on Wednesday, April 12, reiterated that former President Goodluck Jonathan would be thoroughly investigated for authorising the $1.3 billion lease of OPL 245 oil block licence, while in power. In a statement to newsmen, Atunwa said his committee had been mandated by the House to conduct a thorough examination of the process and circumstances surrounding OPL 245 and identify culpability of any persons, groups or organisations. The committee is aware of recent information that has come to light, both nationally and internationally, indicating that former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan may have been complicit in the controversial OPL 245 deal, Atunwa said. Atunwas statement is a reconfirmation of an earlier interview in which he confirmed that his committee was finalizing arrangement to summon the former president. I can confirm that the former president is now on our radar following new details that were uncovered in latest news reports about the Malabu scandal, Atunwa said. Premium Times reports that in his statement Wednesday, Atunwa said his committee was closely monitoring the proceedings in the Italian courts instituted by the Public Prosecutor of Milan in which ministers in Jonathan Administration were mentioned including President Jonathan himself. These facts have firmly placed former President Goodluck Jonathan on the Committees radar, he added. There have been reports that Jonathan might have received up to $200 million in bribes to approve the deal that has now become subject of international investigation. REVEALED: Real reason why Jonathan must answer questions on Malabu scandal The report was based on Italian court documents obtained by BuzzFeed and Italian business newspaper, Il Sole 24 Ore. In the documents, Italian prosecutors quoted Ednan Agaev, a Russian middleman who helped negotiate the transfer of the oil block to Shell and Eni, as saying that Dan Etete, the former Petroleum Minister at the heart of the oil scandal, said he intended to dole out as much as $400 million in bribes if the deal went through. If Mr Etete actually paid out such an amount in bribes to Nigerian officials, Agaev stated that he would think President Goodluck Jonathan got at least $200 million of this money, BuzzFeed quoted an excerpt of FBI submissions to Italian authorities as saying. The revelations were made when the FBI interviewed Mr. Agaev, whom prosecutors also said met with Mr. Jonathan on more than one occasion in Nigeria during the OPL 245 negotiations. Agaev, who was Etetes representative in the negotiation, said the convicted former petroleum minister told him of the $400 million bribe to Nigerian politicians when he approached him for his payment. The Russian also repeated the claim in a follow-up interview with Italian prosecutors, led by Fabio De Pasquale in Milan. I said that if its true, that he paid, he had to pay 400 million, I assume that at least 200 went to Goodluck (Jonathan). I heard from Chief (Etete), he claims that he had to pay 400 million, so, if this is true, if he paid 400 million, then most probably the President, as the biggest boss, took at least the half of it, Buzz Feed wrote, quoting documents prepared by Italian prosecutors. According to an earlier report by Legit.ng, Jonathans spokesman, Ikechukwu Eze, issued a statement Tuesday which downplayed the report as hearsay evidence from a man of questionable character who provided no substance to back up his false claim, in reference to Agaev. The $1.3 billion was paid by oil giants, Shell and ENI, for the oil block, one of the richest in Africa. About $1.1 billion of the money was paid directly into a Nigerian government account with JP Morgan while about $200 million had been paid by Shell as signature bonus before the 2011 agreement. Most of the $1.1 billion ended up in private accounts with about $801 million directly going into the account of Dan Etete, a former petroleum minister who was convicted for money laundering in France. A large part of that sum is believed to have gone to Mr. Jonathan and officials that served under him including Mohammed Adoke, the then attorney general. Source: Legit.ng - President Muhammadu Buhari was absent from Wednesdays weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting at the Presidential Villa, Abuja - This caused a stir within and outside government circles - The president's absence has sent the rumour mill on overdrive - For more news and update on President Buhari, click here: https://www.legit.ng/tag/buhari-news.html President Muhammadu Buhari's absence from Wednesday, April 12 weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting at the Presidential Villa, Abuja caused a stir within and outside government circles. According to Thisday, the president's absence reawakened speculations about his health and capacity to run the country. The rumor mill went on overdrive with many speculating why the president missed the crucial meeting owing to his recent health challenges. File photo of President Buhari, Vice President Osinbajo and the ministers Source: UGC READ ALSO: President Buhari gets crucial warning ahead of Government Tompolo's birthday Legit.ng reported that Vice-President Professor Yemi Osinbajo presided over the meeting to the amazement of most of the government officials present, as there was no previous notice given concerning the president's non-attendance. This is the first time Buhari would be absent from the FEC meeting since March 10 when he returned from London where he spent weeks on medical vacation. Speaking to journalists on the issue, the minister of information Lai Mohammed said the president is hale and hearty. Information minister Lai Mohammed insists that the president is hale and hearty Mohammed also said that the president's absence is not an indication that he is not working. READ ALSO: Real reason why Jonathan must answer questions on Malabu scandal Meanwhile, Nigerians have been reacting to the president's absence at the meeting. See below: Source: Legit.ng - Ahmadu Adamu Mu'azu has allegedly been named as owner of Ikoyi apartment where EFCC uncovered huge cash - The anti-graft agency said preliminary investigation showed it was proceed of corruption - The operation was as a result of the whistle-blower initiative of the federal government A former National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Ahmadu Adamu Mu'azu, has allegedly been named as occupant of the Ikoyi apartment where the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) recovered hidden cash although he had denied this. Legit.ng had earlier reported that a sting operation by the anti-graft agency on Wednesday, April 12 in a residential building in the 7th Floor of a four - bedroom apartment at Osborne Towers located at 16, Osborne road Ikoyi led to the recovery of huge cash in different currencies. Bankers were brought in with their counting machines and the total amount was put at $43.4m, 27,800 and N23.2m. The Ikoyi apartment where the money was recovered READ ALSO: Real reason why Jonathan must answer questions on Malabu scandal According to Sahara Reporters, an EFCC source said the house was owned by Muazu who is the former governor of Bauchi state. Sources close to the PDP chieftain also confirmed that he owned the building as other occupants include a former Chief of Air Staff, Adesola Amosu, Esther Nnamdi-Ogbue, a former Managing Director at the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and alleged high ranking lawyer. The apartment is allegedly owned by Adamu Mu'azu, former PDP chairman According to the EFCC, "the operation followed a whistle blower's confidential alert received by the Commission's Lagos office this morning regarding some noticed suspicious movement of bags in and out of a particular apartment in the building. According to the source, the movers of the bags, make believe that they bring in bags of clothes. "Another source who is conversant with the apartment of interest indicated that some woman usually appeared on different occassion with Ghana Must Go bags. " She comes looking haggard, with dirty clothes but her skin didn't quite match her outward appearance, perhaps a disguise", the source said. Bankers were brought it to assist with counting the monies READ ALSO: EFCC recovers huge cash stashed in Ikoyi apartment "On getting to the building, operatives met the entrance door locked. Inquiries from the guards at the gate explained that nobody resides in the apartment, but some persons come in and out once in a while. In compliance with the magisterial order contained in the warrant, the EFCC used minimum force to gain entrance into the apartment. "Monies were found in two of the four bedroom apartment. Further probe of the wardrobe by operatives in one of the rooms, was found to be warehousing three fire proof cabinets disguisedly hidden behind wooden panels of the wardrobe. Upon assessing the content of the cabinets, neatly arranged US Dollars, Pound Sterling and some Naira notes in sealed wrappers." Akin Oyegoke who identified himself as the "Media and ICT Personal Assistant" denied that Mu'azu owned or lived in the apartment. Mr Muazu does not own any house in Ikoyi except his house at Walter Carrington street, Victoria Island Lagos, Oyegoke said. Source: Legit.ng - Skye Bank has revealed why it blocked Patience Jonathans account - The court had on Monday April 10 ordered her account to be unfrozen - But EFCC on Wednesday April 12 expressed its readiness to appeal the order Barely two days after former First Lady Patience Jonathan was blocked from withdrawing from the $5.8 million she deposited in Skye Bank, the financial institution has explained its action. Premium Times reports that Mrs Jonathan had on Monday April 10 visited the Maitama Branch of Skye Bank in Abuja, seeking to withdraw from her account. READ ALSO: Former PDP chairman named as owner of apartment where EFCC discovered huge cash Legit.ng gathered that the move followed an April 6 court order that lifted restrictions on the former First Ladys account as a result of an ongoing litigation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. Former First Lady Patience Jonathan But bank officials declined to initiate any transaction for Mrs. Jonathan, despite spending time in the banks premises. In an interview with Premium Times on Wednesday April 12, Rasheed Bolarinwa, Skye Banks head of corporate communication, said the bank had received a stay of execution order filed by the anti-graft agency prior to Mrs Jonathans visit to the bank. Mr Bolarinwa confirmed that the bank was also notified of an appeal by the EFCC against the court order. Legit.ng previously reported that the EFCC had appealed the order and also asked for a stay of execution of the judgement. We have appealed the order, Wilson Uwujaren, EFCC spokesperson, said in a telephone interview. The EFCC had in November 2016 filed an application before the court, seeking an order to unfreeze the account. READ ALSO: Ex-PDP Chairman, Mu'azu denies owning Ikoyi house where EFCC found $50m The commission had contended that the funds were reasonably suspected to be proceeds of crime. The court granted the order but reversed it last Thursday on the grounds that she was not a party to the suit leading to the freezing order. In this Legit.ng video below, a Nigerian said that former president, Dr Goodluck Jonathan was never a bad president. Source: Legit.ng The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) is gearing up for the 2017 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) which is scheduled to hold in May. The registration process this year has been one of the most stressful for candidates who have not stopped complaining. It took some candidates more than three days to do their registration while some others are still finding it hard to register. Some Nigerians are worried about the preparedness of JAMB for this years UTME and this is why. 1. Poor network for registration One of the complaints candidates have had about the new registration process introduced by JAMB is slow speed of internet services at CBT centers. Some have been stranded at registration centres as they were unable to generate their Personal Identification Number (PIN) due to poor network. READ ALSO: See Nigerian universities with the highest number of professors (FULL LIST) 2. The mock examination failed to hold The board had fixed April 8 for its inaugural mock exam but it was postponed last minute despite assurances that nothing would go wrong. Candidates arrived at their centres on the day of the test but it was postponed until further notice due to some unforeseen circumstances. Could this be a sign of things to come? 3. Not enough equipment for computer based test Some Nigerians are of the opinion that Nigeria has not developed enough in Information Communication Technology (ICT) to make CBT mandatory. One of the candidates said: Nigeria has not gotten enough equipment to make CBT mandatory. We have not gotten there yet. A lot needs to be put in place. If in the urban areas we are still complaining of no network, what then becomes of the villages? READ ALSO: Remarkably brilliant Nigerian girl gets admitted into 14 of the best universities in the world 4. JAMB is yet to get it right The board had failed to carry everyone along when it fixed mock test for April 8, knowing that some candidates had not been able to do their registration. Also, since CBT was introduced, it has been one challenge after the other. Since the introduction of CBT we are still faced with network failure, malfunctioning of computers and all that. Is this a sign that JAMB exam will experience hitches at the detriment of the students? one of the candidates queried. Legit.ng earlier reported that JAMB registrar Prof Is-haq Oloyede disclosed that about one million UTME candidates were registered for the 2017 UTME as at April 7. Meanwhile, candidates and their parents all over the country have raised an alarm over the stress of registering for the examination. Legit.ng TV crew spoke with candidates on how they are managing with the difficulties surrounding registration for the UTME and they shared their experiences. Watch below: Source: Legit.ng - A World Bank consultant, Olu Ajakaiye has described economic growth under ex-president Jonathan as fake - He said President Muhammadu Buhari-led government should develop the nation - Ajakaiye also noted that the government should not leave development for markets to handle A consultant to World Bank and president of Nigeria Economic Society, Olu Ajakaiye has stated that the economic growth recorded from 2010 to 2014, under the leadership of Goodluck Jonathan, was fictitious in nature. Legit.ng gathered that Ajakaiye further stated that the Muhammadu Buhari-led government and subsequent Nigerian governments must develop the country, even if it means stealing from other countries. READ ALSO: Why we didn't allow Patience Jonathan withdraw from her $5.8m account - Skye Bank Ajakaiye, who was the keynote speaker at the 2017 edition of the Bullion lecture organised by the Centre for Financial Journalism, said many first world nations have stolen their way to development. Former President Goodluck Jonathan Ajakaiye said the government must not leave development for the markets to handle, but combine all instruments, positions, variables and policies to drive growth and development. Let us therefore not be under any illusion and say the market will do it. They have to make sure they provide the market, whatever it takes, including stealing from other countries, he said. The developed systems that we have now were as a result of resources taken from here, and they are ahead. Their government didnt say we would be nice guys, we would not go and steal. They carried our people, young people, valuable people, and they now established the first world. Ajakaiye dissected Buharis economic recovery and growth plan (ERGP), and applauded it as a good plan, if properly implemented and funded according to targets. The development economics specialist said the ERGP has set out 21 clear programmes, with 60 strategies and 365 key activities, which has been assigned to lead agencies across the public and private sectors. He said N75.03 trillion will be needed to implement the plan, which runs from 2017 to 2020. When the economy was growing in a fictitious way I regarded the growth of 2010 to 2014 as fictitious. Why is it fictitious, it is growth that is driven by government just deploying oil revenue into the economy. READ ALSO: Buhari's absence at FEC meeting raises eyebrows The structure remained dis-articulated and we are actually deceiving ourselves in a very interesting way by saying the economy leaped-frog, we have now got to a stage where we are arrived, because in advanced countries, service sector is now dominant. They call it tertiarisation of the economy. Our economy was prematurely tertiarised, and this was the harbinger of poverty. I always tell people, when you go to Europe where their economy is already tertiarised, do you see anybody running after you in traffic to sell you recharge card? Do you see anybody hanging pure water in front of you? Do you see people running 140? That is our tertiarised service sector. He said government must pave the way for private sector players to fund the economic recovery and growth plan. Other panelists who spoke on the ERGP include Ibim Semenitari, former information and communications commissioner in Rivers state, Biodun Adedipe, a financial consultant, Bukar Kyari, chairman of the Nigeria Economic Summit Group. READ ALSO: DSS uncovers plots to cause mayhem during Easter celebration The all called on the federal government to stay focused on the implementation of ERGP and not be distracted by the coming elections. In this Legit.ng video below, a Nigerian said that former president, Dr Goodluck Jonathan was never a bad president. Source: Legit.ng - Edo youth have begged President Muhammadu Buhari to save them from alleged police harassment - They alleged that police intimidate innocent youth without a reason Some youth in Edo state have called on President Muhammadu Buhari to rescue them from alleged brutality and harassment from officers of Nigerian Police. In a statement sent to Legit.ng, a Facebook user, Prince Aigbe Solomon said many youth have left the state for Ghana or Kenya when the alleged police brutality was becoming unbearable. READ ALSO: More trouble for Jonathan as World Bank consultant says he misled Nigerians with fake economic data He said that police always intimidate innocent youth under the guise of chasing Yahoo yahoo boys, adding that the government should find solution to the peoples plight before it gets out of hand. A poster being displayed by Edo youth to protest alleged police brutality READ ALSO: Why we didn't allow Patience Jonathan withdraw from her $5.8m account - Skye Bank He said: Please I want you to show the world what police are doing to our youth in Edo state police oppression and intimidation and brutality police in the name of searching for yahoo boys many Edo youth are running away from Edo state to Ghana or Kenya, Europe, Asia to have a comfort life because of police unrest on innocent youth. This Legit.ng video shows how some INEC officials appear in court over fraud allegation. Source: Legit.ng - President Muhamadu Buhari has described the abduction of schoolgirls from Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno state, by Boko Haram as the worst crime against its citizens. - The president in a statement to mark the third anniversary of the abduction of the Chibok schoolgirls stated that his administration is determined and ready to do everything to secure the freedom of the abducted girls - President Buhari reassured the parents of the Chibok girls and all well-meaning Nigerians that the government is unrelenting on the issue of the safe return of the schoolgirls President Muhamadu Buhari has described the abduction of schoolgirls from Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno state, by Boko Haram as the worst crime against its citizens. The president in a statement issued on Thursday, April 13, to mark the third anniversary of the abduction of the Chibok schoolgirls stated that his administration is determined and ready to do everything to secure the freedom of the abducted girls. Read the president's message below: On April 14, 2014, Nigeria suffered one of the worst crimes committed against its citizens - the abduction of schoolgirls from Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, by the vicious terrorist and insurgent group, Boko Haram. President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice president Yemi Osinbajo with 21 rescued Chibok girls Upon the inception of this administration in May 2015, it will be recalled that this militant group occupied no fewer than 14 Local Government Areas in the North East of the country and posed a serious threat to other parts by unleashing fear and mayhem through the use of surprise and bombing. READ ALSO: Diezani Alison-Madueke allegedly seen walking through the streets of London The menace of this terrorist group was a great challenge to the resolve of our administration to implement the Change Agenda. We, therefore, pledged to reverse the situation, which constituted a threat to the sovereignty of the country. We were determined to secure the release of the Chibok girls and others forcefully abducted from their homes and communities and retake the occupied territories. Determined to secure the freedom of the abducted girls and recover lost territories, this administration gave the necessary political and logistical backing which energised gallant members of our armed forces and other security agencies to overrun the headquarters of Boko Haram in the Sambisa Forest and scatter the terrorists from their strong base. Today, the group has been degraded and is no longer in a position to mount any serious, coordinated attack, other than sporadic attacks on soft targets. Even at that, their reach is very much confined to a small segment of the North East where they had previously held sway unchecked. Nigeria and indeed the entire world, must however, recognise that terrorism has no borders and remains a growing concern which calls for collective efforts to curtail. I, therefore, call on all Nigerians and residents in the country, to remain extra vigilant and report any suspicious element or group to the security agencies. We cannot afford to let down our guards. Under my watch, no group will hold the country to ransom. On the Chibok girls, we have had reason to celebrate the return of twenty-four of them and thousands of other Nigerians who were forcibly abducted by the terrorists. As a parent, I am eternally grateful to God that some of the girls were found alive and have been reunited with their families. Government is doing all within its powers to reintegrate the freed girls to normal life. Furthermore, Government is in constant touch through negotiations, through local intelligence to secure the release of the remaining girls and other abducted persons unharmed. My special appreciation goes to the parents and families that have endured three years of agony and waiting for the return of their children. I feel what you feel. Your children are my children. On this solemn occasion, my appeal is that we must not lose hope on the return of our remaining schoolgirls. Our intelligence and security forces, who have aptly demonstrated their competence, are very much equal to the task and absolutely committed to the efforts to find and return the schoolgirls and others abducted by Boko Haram. I also thank Lake Chad Basin countries, friendly nations and international partners, who at various points in the last three years have offered their support for Nigeria. Like I have repeatedly said, the Federal Government is willing to bend over backwards to secure the release of the remaining Chibok girls. We have reached out to their captors, through local and international intermediaries, and we are ever ready to do everything within our means to ensure the safe release of ALL the girls. I wish to reassure the parents of the Chibok girls, all well-meaning Nigerians, organisations and the international community that as a government, we are unrelenting on the issue of the safe return of our children. I trust God that soon, our collective efforts will be rewarded with the safe return of our schoolgirls to their families, friends and their communities. READ ALSO: More trouble for Jonathan as World Bank consultant says he misled Nigerians with fake economic data In a previous report by Legit.ng, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo said negotiations are ongoing for the release of more Chibok schoolgirls still in the custody of the Boko Haram terrorists. Osinbajo expressed optimism on Tuesday evening, April 11 at an interaction with journalists and activists at the state house in Abuja, that the dialogue would yield the desired result in due course. More than 200 girls were abducted from their schools in Borno state in 2014 by the terrorists, about 190 girls are still being held by the militants. Fifty-seven fled within hours of being captured. The kidnapping of the girls led to the global campaign #BringBackOurGirls, with public figures including the US former first lady, Michelle Obama, calling for their release. Watch this Legit.ng video and see how a young child survived Boko Haram attacks. Source: Legit.ng IQ abbreviation became widely used at the beginning of a new millennium. It still has not lost its ground and is a very popular scientific notion that turned into realia of modern life. So, what is that? What does it mean? Where did it come from? Sitizens of what countries have the highest IQ? What country is the most intelligent? What is the position of Nigeria in IQ list? You will find full and comprehensive response to all these questions and much more. What does IQ do? The term IQ was mentioned in a set of investigations as a synonym to a sophistication measuring instrument. IQ and the Wealth of Nations is a book that caused a real furor among English-speaking readers when it first appeared on the literary horizon in 2002. The authors of this book are Richard Lynn, Professor Emeritus - psychologist, and Tatu Vanhanen - Finish political scientist, Doctor of Philosophy. According to their work, gross national income differences correlate with average national intellectual quotient (IQ). The scientists explain this correlation in such a way: intellectual quotient is a crucial point that distinguishes the discrepancy of national wealth and economic growth speed; however, it is not the only determining factor of these diversities. IQ and Global Inequality is a sequel of the same authors that contains a table with information of average IQ for 81 countries. This investigation was made on the basis of analyzed reports that had been published on the matter of concern. Thus, the scientific duet concluded that national IQ correlates directly with gross national income (GNI) of the country. They underlined that possible disparity of national IQ data depended on genetic and ecological factors. So, subsequently, the first statistic data about the cleverest and wittiest people and nations appeared in the media basing on these scientific works. Lets see who is the leader. Here is a list of the highest IQ in the countries all over the world. Top 10 smartest nations of the world The first place goes to... The country with the highest IQ level is Special Administrative Region, Hong Kong. Its IQ is 107. It is important to mention that the fact of high population density (6480 people per square kilometer) and number of people had an impact on the IQ rating as well. Thus, equal education receiving is much easier to be organized there than in other countries. READ ALSO: History of education in Nigeria Peoples Republic of China (PRC) could be considered the leader too because Hong Kong forms part of PRC though its special status enables it to be considered separately in some respects, along with IQ level. It should be mentioned that exact and natural sciences are taught very thoroughly there. According to the world education rating, Hong Kong gives in to Finland only. The second among the cleverest nations is South Korea. It is known for the quickest Internet in the whole world, the swiftest cyber sportsmens fingers and high IQ level (106). The educational system is pondered to be the best and the most demanding in the world, however there are negative consequences of it. For example, some Korean students have to spend studying up to 14 hours a day. Here is even a worse fact: self murder quantity increases during examinations period. As a rule, a student leaves school at 19 and then precedes studying at higher educational establishments. There is a tough competing during entrance exams to colleges and universities. The third is Japan, land of the rising sun and high technologies. Japan got ahead of the pedantic Germans long ago. It is known that Tokyo University is thought to be the best in Asia and it has been listed among the best 25 higher educational establishment of the world. Just fancy that the literacy rate is estimated 99 %! The Japanese cope pretty well with mathematical problems, exact and natural sciences in addition to IQ tests. Real geniuses! One more Asian state is the fourth. It is Taiwan. It is known as a country of high technologies production and high university degrees too. The most popular are exact sciences and English that became a crucial point to study owing to endless business negotiations with American partners, the main trade associates. Tiny Singapore is the fifth. The country has got 5 million people and 270 million dollars of the gross domestic product which is directly correlated to pretty high results of the IQ tests. The Netherlands is after Singapore, it is the sixth. As it turned out, 12 years of primary school education is obligatory for everybody there. Thus, it makes the Dutch study longer than any other Europeans do. Evidently, it quite influences IQ of the population. By the way, the educational system of the Netherlands is the ninth in the world. Italy is keeping up with the competitors, it is the seventh. The Italians have got 102 points of IQ on average. According to statistics, Italy is a leading country of genius quantity per capita. Germany is the eighth with 102 IQ. Its economic indicator is as persuasive as IQ level of the population. Germany is European leader concerning the combined gross domestic product (GDP). Austria has got 102 IQ points too and is the ninth in the list. The primary education there is free and obligatory for each citizen. Most of the people keep moving and get degrees. Sweden and Switzerland share the tenth place reaching 100 IQ on average. Switzerland is famous for watchmakers and other exact industries. Lets not forget the internationally well-known banking networks that demand being witty as well. Concerning Sweden, it is one of the leading states on the number of citizens with higher education. Thus, we may conclude that average IQ depends mostly on the nations educational system effectiveness. Nobel laureates countries There are a different points of view on the most intelligent countries rating. This one is based on the number of Nobel winners per country. Quantity of Nobel laureates, in turn, proves educational efficiency of a country too. So, lets look through a collection of 3 countries which can be called the smartest from this point of view. According to statistic information of Nobel Prize Committee, the USA became the first. In the period of more than a hundred years there were 356 Americans who got the Nobel Prize. It can be easily explained by scientific capability provided by the state in various spheres at research centers and institutes of the USA. The second country of Nobel laureates winners is Great Britain. Each year one British gets the Nobel Prize. There are 121 laureates already there. Germany is the third, there are 104 winners of the Nobel Prize so far. Conclusions Lets sum up everything abovementioned. IQ shows the intelligence level of a person. According to statistics and investigation results of Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen, Asians (Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan and South Korea) have got the highest level of IQ. They take half of the positions in the rating of the cleverest nations. On average, it is more than 105. Talking about European countries, Italy, Germany, Swiss, Switzerland, Austria and the Netherlands are the smartest. As for another rating based on the number of Nobel Prize laureates, the USA, Great Britain and Germany are the most intelligent countries. Bravo! Some skeptics believe that IQ tests do not provide 100% accurate evaluation of a person or even nation intelligence because tests are not perfect. Maybe in the nearest future the rating of the smartest will be changed who knows. As per IQ Research, Nigeria's average IQ is 84, it is the 23d place. Lets hope for the best for our country. READ AlSO: List of federal universities in Nigeria and their school fees 2017 Source: Legit.ng - The presiding judge at Federal High Court in Lagos Justice Muslim Hassan says the money should be handed over to the government pending when the owner comes forward to make a case against the decision to seize the money - The EFCC has also explained to Nigerians how the money would be treated in series of tweets on its official Twitter handle on Thursday, April 13 A court in Lagos state has ordered that the $43,449,947, 27,800 and N23,218,000 recovered by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) from an apartment in the Ikoyi area of the state be temporarily forfeited to the Nigerian government. In a ruling on Thursday, April 13 afternoon, Justice Muslim Hassan of the Federal High Court in Lagos ordered that the funds be handed over to the Federal Government for now. The judge then adjourned the matter till May 5, 2017 for anyone who wants to claim the funds and give reasons why it should not be permanently forfeited to the government to show up before him. READ ALSO: UPDATED: Based on logistics, former President Goodluck Jonathan is a thief - Jimoh Ibrahim Pictures of the seized cash stacked and being counted on Wednesday, April 12 Earlier in the day, the EFCC had explained to Nigerians on Twitter in series of tweets how the money would be taken care of. READ ALSO: Boko Haram attack military checkpoint, one soldier killed It tweeted in reply to a Twitter user's enquiry: Source: Legit.ng - PDP national chairman Sheriff has alleged that ex-president Jonathan collected N50million from Governor Wike to organise the recent stakeholders meeting in Abuja - Jonathan dismissed the allegation saying that he took it upon himself to convene the meeting out of his genuine concern for peace to reign in the party - Governor Fayose says Sheriff has taking his desperation too far by accusing the former president of taking bribe Ali Modu Sheriff, the national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has alleged that Governor Nyesom Wike gave former President Goodluck Jonathan N50 million to organise the recent stakeholders meeting in Abuja. Sheriff made the allegation at a news conference at the partys secretariat on Thursday, April 13, The Nation reports. Speaking through his deputy, Dr. Cairo Ojougboh, Sheriff said Governor Wike and Governor Fayose of Ekiti state recruited Jonathan into a fake peace effort pre-determined to scuttle on-going peace initiative in the party. He said: The result is that President Jonathan was lured into committing a serious breach of protocol that led to the failure of the exercise which was the intended outcome. Sheriff says Wike gave Jonathan N50m for PDP stakeholders meeting but the ex-president denies the allegation READ ALSO: Reports of Governor Bello's attack is false and unfounded - Aide According to him, Wike and the media mogul, Chief Raymond Dokpesi have already established their own political party, adding that their mission was to tie the PDP down with undue controversies. He said that the party was worried that the amount of money Wike was spending on the crisis could smear the image of the PDP Sheriff added: This money belongs to the people of Rivers State and it should not be misappropriated at the expense of the people to whom it rightfully belonged. We therefore call on party leaders and Nigerians to refrain from accepting these monies from Governor Wike in line with the spirit of our founding fathers. Sheriff also restated his determination to go ahead with the plans to organise a convention for the party. He said preparations for a free and fair convention were in top gear as he directed state chapter chairmen of the PDP to forward to the party secretariat the lists of all statutory delegates to the convention on or before April 27. He added that the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party would hold on May 3. But in a swift response, ex-president Jonathan denied the allegation, saying that he took it upon himself to convene the meeting out of his genuine concern for peace to reign in the party. Dr. Jonathan who spoke through his media aide, Ikechukwu Eze, dismissed Sheriffs allegation that he collected N50 million from Wike. READ ALSO: After discovering huge sum of money in Ikoyi, EFCC storms residence of former governor He said: I dont think anybody will believe that Jonathan collected money from anybody to organise the meeting. It was out of his genuine concern to bring peace to the party. He has been meeting with members of the party; he met with Sheriff severally, he also met with Makarfi severally. He met with the governors. I dont see any reason for anybody to say that Jonathan collected money from anybody to organise the stakeholders conference. Also reacting to the allegation, Governor Fayose said Sheriff has taking his desperation too far by accusing the former president of taking bribe. Fayose, in an SMS message by his media aide, Lere Olayinka said: If Sheriff has taken his desperation to serve his paymasters in the APC to the level of accusing Jonathan of being bribed to organise peace meeting for the PDP, there is no reason for any sane mind to continue to respond to the continuous advertisement of his political insanity. Last week, Legit.ng had reported that the meeting between factional national chairmen of the PDP, summoned by former President Goodluck Jonathan, ended in a deadlock as Ali Modu Sheriff reportedly walked out. Legit.ng learnt that Sheriff was angry that he was not allowed to declare the event opened, though he arrived late for the meeting. Sheriff and Ahmed Makarfi had continued to hold the jugular following a leadership tussle. Meanwhile, watch video of man confessing that he may be forced to steal should the hardship in the country continue. Source: Legit.ng - President Buhari's government recently asked the state governors to ensure they paid salaries and pensions with the Paris loan refund - Some of the governors are currently enmeshed in allegations of squandering their states' share of the fund Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta state has warned the federal government against dictating how states should spend their own share of the Paris-London Club loan refund. According to the governor, a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the federal governments position on how states should spend their share of the fund remains unconstitutional. There have been controversies surrounding how governors have spent shares accruing to their states. Some are even alleged to have misappropriated parts of the funds which the federal government asked them to spend on payment of salaries and pensions for the already suffering workers. Governor Okowa said dictating to states how the fund is spent is unconstituional The governor, who responded through his chief press secretary, Charles Aniagu, to inquiries into how the state government spent its share of the refund, reminded the Buharis government that the fund is not a bailout that should have conditions attached to it. According to him, the states do not owe the federal government any explanation concerning how the fund was appropriated. READ ALSO: EFCC raids residence of Babangida Aliyu Aniagu said the state government had justifiably used its share to meet critical needs of the state as directed by the 1999 constitution. He noted that the state had priorities that are different from other states. The Paris refund, I hope you know that the money belongs to the states, it wasnt a dash and not a bail out. It wasnt a gift, it was what rightfully belongs to the states and the local governments and I know you know that we are running a tier of government that is independent and whose powers and responsibilities are guaranteed by the 1999 constitution, as amended. This idea of media houses helping some persons to spread ignorance that somebody can be in Abuja and tell you how to spend your money is not how democracy works. If you are giving me a bailout, you can set the conditions that these are the conditions on which Ill give you this bailout; you must use this money this way, in which way you can set the rules because you are the one giving. But when you are allocating my money to me, our priorities are different. Let us assume in Delta state we are not owing anybody salaries, are you going to say we keep the money until we begin to owe so that we can use it? What we have done is to make very judicious and transparent use of the monies that were refunded to us. We addressed, in part, the plight of pensioners, assisted the local governments too to be able to solve some problems, in addition to giving them part of their money, to reduce the wage burden. READ ALSO: Lagos PDP chieftain vomits blood, dies after returning from party meeting We did not also lose sight of the promises we have made to make life better for Deltans, after all, Section 14, subsection 2, paragraph B of the 1999 constitution states clearly that the primary purpose of government is the security and welfare of the people. So the availability of that fund enabled us to give vent to that particular provision of the constitution, he said. Watch this Nigerian speak about the state of the nation as led by President Buhari: Source: Legit.ng MATTOON -- The public is invited to attend an interfaith discussion panel on Tuesday, April 25, from 1-2:30 p.m. in the Luther Student Center Theater. A panel of representatives from area minority religions will discuss religious beliefs and practices in order to expand understanding, increase tolerance, and correct misconceptions. Representatives from the following faiths are invited to attend: Amish, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Latter-day Saints and Religious Society of Friends. A question-and-answer session will follow the one-hour panel discussion. The idea for the panel originates from Lake Land College honors student Ashlee Burton, Charleston. Burton gave a speech on her religion of Latter-day Saints for a persuasion assignment during a speech communication class taught by Eva Ritchey, speech communication instructor. Burtons speech prompted the development of the interfaith panel. For more information, contact Ritchey at 217-234-5318 or eritchey@lakelandcollege.edu. OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso After days of intense political wrangling, a committee of political, military, religious and traditional authorities in Burkina Faso named a former foreign minister and veteran diplomat on Monday to oversee a transition to new elections following the ouster of President Blaise Compaore. Mr. Compaore was overthrown on Oct. 31 after days of mass protests against his plans to modify the Constitution and remain in power. Mr. Compaore subsequently fled to neighboring Ivory Coast. Initially, the military took power, with Lt. Col. Isaac Zida proclaiming himself as the leader of this impoverished West African country a move that drew broad censure from African and Western nations. NEOGA -- Mike Heath and Jim Banning have been there for each other throughout a lifelong friendship that has spanned them serving in Vietnam, raising their families, and entering their retirement years. On March 24, Heath was there for his friend when he passed out, struck the back of his head on a hardwood floor, and stopped breathing. Heath, who has CPR training, performed chest compressions on Banning and got him to resume breathing while an ambulance crew was en route. "I thank God that Mike was there. It was meant to be I guess," Banning said during an interview Thursday afternoon on the front porch of his home in rural Mattoon. The American Legion honored Heath, of Neoga, for his lifesaving actions by presenting him with a certificate during a ceremony on April 6 at the Neoga American Legion post. Banning, a former Neoga resident, was there by his side for this event. More than 50 years ago, the two men became friends while Banning was a student at Neoga High School and Heath was a student at Mattoon High School. They remained friends during their service at different times in the U.S. Navy Seabees construction battalion. Heath served in Vietnam from 1967 to 1968 and Banning served there from 1969 to 1970. Both men were often in harm's way while building roads and doing other work with the Seabees. Heath noted that his time in Vietnam coincided with the Tet Offensive by the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese army. "I spent 17 days in a foxhole during the Tet Offensive," Heath said. The two men continued their friendship in the years after the war as they raised their families and built their careers. Heath retired after working as a truck driver with Bulkmatic Transport Co. in Teutopolis and now works part time with the Neoga Township road crew. Banning worked for 32 years on an Illinois Department of Transportation road crew based in Cumberland County before retiring 16 years ago. Banning and his wife, Becky, were visiting the home of Heath and his wife, Kathy, on the evening of March 24 when Banning collapsed. Banning said it was later determined that he passed out because his blood pressure had "bottomed out" and he was dehydrated after a long day of working in his backyard. "I just went over like a 'big oak tree' they said," Banning recalled. Mrs. Banning said she remembers being frightened and repeatedly screaming "don't leave me" to her husband as Heath immediately began performing CPR on him. Heath said he drew upon CPR training he received over the years during his service in the Seabees and the Illinois National Guard, as well as a course he took at Lake Land College. Banning had stopped breathing after he hit his head on the floor and his tongue curled back toward his throat. Heath said he was preparing to use a spoon to pry Banning's tongue out, when one of the chest compressions got him breathing again and popped his tongue back into place. During his subsequent hospitalization at Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana, Banning said he learned that he had bruised his brain when he hit the floor and he had blood pooling on the exterior of his brain. Banning said he feels better now, but still gets dizzy sometimes. He said he is wearing a heart monitor for the time being and is trying to live life at a slower pace because, "I can't run 100 mph anymore." Banning added that he has stopped smoking and is thankful to have a second chance at life. "Jim owes Mike his life. He saved my husband," Mrs. Banning said. Charlie Murphy, the comedian, voice-over artist and older brother of the actor and comic Eddie Murphy, died on Wednesday at a hospital in New York City. He was 57. His publicist, Domenick Nati, said the cause was leukemia. No other details were immediately available. With his brothers help, Mr. Murphy began his show-business career in the late 1980s, mostly taking bit roles in movies. Decades later, he became best known for a part on Dave Chappelles acclaimed sketch-comedy series Chappelles Show, which was broadcast on Comedy Central from 2003 to 2006. In the fan-favorite series of sketches known as Charlie Murphys True Hollywood Stories, which Mr. Murphy helped write, he would spoof himself, regaling viewers with stories of his encounters with celebrities like Rick James and Prince. Both Mr. James and Prince later confirmed that the skits were based in truth. The key to contrition, according to public-relations experts, is projecting sincerity, humanity, and a plain-spoken demeanor the better to convince a cynical public. And in this age of whipsawing social media, you had better do it fast. The head of United should never have been allowed to take three swings at correcting and apologizing for an incident that was on more social media than Kim and Kanyes wedding, said Mortimer Matz, a New York consultant who has guided decades worth of clients through crises small and large. United issued several halting statements about the plane episode, which first emerged Monday morning, before Mr. Munoz made his abject appearance on Wednesday on ABC. Mr. Matz said the airline had missed its moment. Youve got to be a fast thinker in the digital age, said Mr. Matz, who will be 93 in July. Many companies now take steps to be nimble and responsive when a furor erupts online. Last week, Pepsi took less than 24 hours to apologize and retract a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign that used populist imagery to sell soda. It was a rapid U-turn that would have been unthinkable a few years ago. This week, Mr. Spicer was quick to recognize the damage done by his ill-considered remarks, which prompted immediate denunciations on Twitter as well as calls for his resignation. He appeared on CNN within hours of his gaffe, while Mr. Munoz waited two days. We dont think that the rate of growth of S.U.V.s will necessarily continue, but we do believe the shift to them is permanent, said Mike Manley, head of Fiat Chryslers Jeep division. Pickup trucks and S.U.V.s have accounted for about 62 percent of all new vehicles sold in the United States so far this year, compared with 57 percent in the first quarter of 2016, according to the research firm Autodata. That extends a trend line that has inched upward since gasoline dropped below $3 a gallon in 2014. The big American auto companies have been the greatest beneficiaries of the publics appetite for high-riding, spacious S.U.V.s, which generally earn bigger profits for manufacturers than mainstream cars. In March, more than 70 percent of the vehicles sold in the United States by General Motors and Ford Motor were trucks and S.U.V.s. The proportion was even higher, about 85 percent, for Fiat Chrysler. All three Detroit automakers and their foreign rivals are working overtime to add new or updated sport utility vehicles to their lineups. When the United States-led coalition launched Operation Desert Storm on Jan. 17, 1991, Iraqs military response relied heavily on a single type of armament: Scud missiles, dozens of which would rain down on Iraqi targets for the duration of the Persian Gulf wars combat phase. A fragment from one of those Scuds now sits in The New York Timess newsroom as part of an exhibit titled In Harms Way, a collection of artifacts culled from Times colleagues by David W. Dunlap, a longtime Metro reporter. The exhibit, housed in a glass-walled room, showcases items that illustrate the risks borne by journalists in their quest to uncover the news. Scuds, about 40 feet long and 3 feet in diameter, were originally developed by the Soviet Union in the 1950s. They were designed for short-range use with a range of between 375 and 560 miles, in the case of the Scuds used in Iraq and could carry well over a thousand pounds of explosives. It seemed that there was an unlimited supply of Scud missiles flying all over the Middle East, said Walt Baranger, who collected the fragment in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, while on assignment there as a news technology editor for The Times. (Saudi Arabia and Israel were the main targets of Scud attacks, but Iraq also launched Scuds at Bahrain and Qatar.) Sheila Abdus-Salaam, an associate judge on New York States highest court and the first African-American woman to serve on that bench, was found dead on Wednesday in the Hudson River, the authorities said. Officers with the New York Police Departments Harbor Unit responded about 1:45 p.m. to a report of a person floating by the shore near West 132nd Street in Upper Manhattan. Judge Abdus-Salaam, 65, was taken to a pier on the Hudson River and was pronounced dead by paramedics shortly after 2 p.m. The police were investigating how she ended up in the river, and it was not clear how long Judge Abdus-Salaam, who lived nearby in Harlem, had been missing. There were no signs of trauma on her body, the police said. She was fully clothed. A law enforcement official said investigators had found no signs of criminality. Her husband identified her body. Until a few days ago, Americans and the world had reason to think that the Trump administrations policy toward Russia would involve cooperation and harmony and seek to reverse the acrimony and dysfunction that had come to characterize relations between the Kremlin and the Obama administration. During the campaign, Mr. Trump fawned over Russias assertively proud leader, Vladimir Putin, praising him for doing a great job and calling him a stronger leader than Barack Obama. As to policy, he seemed almost an apologist for Mr. Putins aggressive behavior in Syria, his annexation of Crimea and his transparent efforts to undermine the NATO alliance. Findings by the American intelligence community that Russia had intervened in the election on Mr. Trumps behalf seemed further evidence of a bromance, if not something more sinister. Three months into the Trump presidency, Russia-American relations are as tense as ever, a casualty of Mr. Putins ruthless behavior and Mr. Trumps changing views and whiplash approach to policy, infuriating Russians who had every reason to believe they would have a pal in the White House. While both men could end up losers, there is a greater chance that Mr. Trump, a foreign policy neophyte who has bungled his presidential debut, will find it hard to prevail over the nefarious ways of Mr. Putin, a former K.G.B. agent. Mr. Putins approach to international engagement, which involves expanding efforts to meddle in countries from Europe to Libya and beyond, has been largely consistent; Mr. Trumps has been anything but. FRONT PAGE A news analysis article on Wednesday about President Trumps relationship with Russia misspelled the surname of a former acting director of the Central Intelligence Agency. He is Michael Morell, not Morrell. INTERNATIONAL An article on Sunday about a legal dispute in China over a large meteorite found in 1986 by a Kazakh herder, Juman Reamazhaen, paraphrased incorrectly from Mr. Reamazhaens account of his discovery. He said he had not noticed the meteorite before that day; he did not say that it had appeared overnight. EDITORIAL An Op-Ed article on April 10 about American workplace rules misstated the name of a Labor Department agency. It is the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, not the Occupational Safety and Hazard Administration. The Times welcomes comments and suggestions, or complaints about errors that warrant correction. Messages on news coverage can be e-mailed to nytnews@nytimes.com or left toll-free at 1-844-NYT-NEWS (1-844-698-6397). Comments on editorials may be e-mailed to letters@nytimes.com. The worlds two foremost nuclear powers cannot have this kind of relationship. REX W. TILLERSON, the United States secretary of state, after meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in Moscow. WASHINGTON President Trump made three startling economic policy reversals on Wednesday, stepping away from pledges he made as a candidate and even policies he supported only days ago. The shifts confounded many of Mr. Trumps supporters and suggested that the moderate financiers he brought from Wall Street are eclipsing the White House populist wing led by Stephen K. Bannon, the political strategist who is increasingly being sidelined by the president. In a series of interviews, Mr. Trump said he no longer wanted to label China a currency manipulator a week after telling The Financial Times that the Chinese were the world champions of currency manipulation. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, the president said he no longer wanted to eliminate the Export-Import Bank. And he said that he might consider reappointing Janet Yellen as chairwoman of the Federal Reserve when her term ends next year. BUDAPEST Even as a top European Union official on Wednesday questioned the wisdom of a new Hungarian law that seemed intended to shut down a university, the government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban appeared to be having second thoughts about the legislation. Central European University, founded by the Hungarian-American financier and philanthropist George Soros, should be able to operate in Budapest undisturbed, said the European Union official, Frans Timmermans, first vice president of the European Commission, the unions executive body. The European commissioners, at their weekly meeting in Brussels on Wednesday, discussed recent laws introduced by Mr. Orbans government, including the one involving Central European University. Mr. Timmermans said the group resolved to consider next steps on any legal concerns by the end of April. The meeting came shortly after several top United States officials including the acting State Department spokesman, Mark C. Toner urged the Hungarian government to allow the university to operate in its present form. Dangling meetings is an old technique for Mr. Putin, used to keep other leaders off balance and demonstrate his control. But when Mr. Putin and Mr. Tillerson did meet, it was clear that they not only have different world views, but that they have different views of the facts. And that made it difficult to achieve anything other than cosmetic accords on the issues over which the two nations, in a revival of Cold War rhetoric, have charged each other with lying about. For good measure, Mr. Lavrov offered a lengthy tutorial for Mr. Tillerson about all the examples of American-led regime change in the world from Slobodan Milosevic to Saddam Hussein to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi that went bad, suggesting it made no sense to add President Bashar al-Assad of Syria to the list. But there was no talk of reviving the Geneva process, the meetings of nearly 20 nations that John Kerry, Mr. Tillersons predecessor, had organized to help force a political process to end the civil war in Syria and hold a vote that would decide the fate of Mr. Assad. Mr. Tillerson said, again, that Mr. Assad had to go in a way he did not specify and when pressed on whether he agreed with Mr. Trumps description of the Syrian leader as an animal, he said that characterization is one that President Assad has brought upon himself. Mr. Tillerson is in many ways the personality opposite of Mr. Kerry: When asked a hard question he will offer the tersest answer possible, rather than attack with words. Asked at the news conference whether he had raised with Mr. Putin the subject of Russian meddling in the 2016 American presidential election, he said, As to the question of the interference with the election, that is fairly well-established in the United States. His answer ignored that such meddling is not a well-established fact in the mind of his boss. Asked how he explained the difference between Russias use of cyberweapons in the election and the American use of them against Irans nuclear program and North Koreas missile program, Mr. Tillerson said simply: Cybertools to disrupt weapons programs thats another use of the tools, and I make a distinction between those two. New York City Ballet is usually the house of George Balanchine. But for its 2017-18 season, the company announced Thursday, it will make ample room for its other founding choreographer, Jerome Robbins, for the centennial of his birth. The tribute, Robbins 100, will feature 19 of his ballets. Born in New York in 1918, Robbins was prolific on two fronts, known for his work on Broadway, including West Side Story and Fiddler on the Roof, as well as his contributions to the concert stage. He spent much of his career at City Ballet at Balanchines invitation where he choreographed more than 50 ballets, from 1949 to 1997. He died in 1998. One Robbins program, featuring Fancy Free, Dybbuk and West Side Story Suite, will highlight Robbinss work with Leonard Bernstein, whose centennial also falls in 2018. Several returning ballets Fanfare, Dybbuk, Circus Polka and Les Noces havent been seen in New York since 2008. Fittingly, the companys resident choreographer, Justin Peck, will unveil a new ballet inspired by Robbins with music by Bernstein. Though Mr. Peck knows how to make a ballet shine with formal structure, he also, like Robbins, has managed to tap into the energy of his own generation. Choreographically speaking, theyre related. That event, on July 9, 1776, has been cleaned up in memory. Nineteenth-century images of it depict festive crowds (including women in hoop skirts), but in reality it was a bunch of soldiers and sailors, Mr. Stephenson said, led by an artillery officer, Capt. Oliver Brown, who was so embarrassed it took him decades to admit it. We tend to think there was a script we were all speaking from, but the reality was messy, Mr. Stephenson said. I guess we might be considered a little bit critical of originalism in that sense. The museum, which grew out of the collection of the Valley Forge Historical Society, displays about 500 objects, from the expected muskets, military uniforms and teapots to more touchingly human ones, like a pair of baby shoes made from a British redcoat that a soldier in the Continental Army brought home after the war beating swords into footwear, if you will. The immersive exhibits infuse 18th-century history with distinctly 21st-century theatrical shock and awe. There are seven tableaus featuring uncannily realistic life-cast figures, like A Brawl in Harvard Yard, which shows George Washington breaking up a fight between troops from New England and Virginia in the early days of the war, an incident later documented in a pension application. (All scenes are based on real people or events.) John Ridley has already made some ambitious television, and hes at it again with Guerrilla, a microstudy of radicalism in Britain in the early 1970s. This six-part series, which begins on Sunday on Showtime, isnt easy to climb aboard, especially for American viewers steeped in the misbelief that the passions of the Vietnam War era were exclusive to the United States. But its notable for its unromanticized view of a period that can be subject to mythmaking, and for its deceptively diffuse buildup to a fabulous final hour. Jas (Freida Pinto) and Marcus (Babou Ceesay) are lovers who like to pay lip service to black power and immigrant causes but havent really done much on the action side. When a friend is killed by the police, though, they commit to becoming real revolutionaries, and as their first act, they bust a noted radical, Dhari (Nathaniel Martello-White, in a terrific performance), out of prison. Go for thrills with The Blackcoats Daughter, directed by Osgood Perkins, with his fathers Psycho portrayal in its DNA. Or steam things up with The Handmaiden, new to Amazon Prime. Whats Streaming THE BLACKCOATS DAUGHTER (2017) on Amazon, Google Play and iTunes. There will be blood: Kat (Kiernan Shipka) and Rose (Lucy Boynton), students at a remote Roman Catholic boarding school for girls, are abandoned by their parents during midterm break and end up in the company of nuns. Elsewhere, Joan (Emma Roberts), who may have escaped from a mental hospital, is given a ride by a grieving couple. The narratives ultimately converge in acts of brutality that suggest that the director, Osgood Perkins, the elder son of Anthony Perkins, is well versed in Psycho. This deeply unsettling tale, rich with atmosphere and stingy with facts, is a stealth weapon, Jeannette Catsoulis wrote in The New York Times. Yet the movie is so perfectly acted and gorgeously filmed (the cinematographer is Julie Kirkwood) that we dont mind its coyness; the twanging notes of trepidation make us almost grateful for the leisurely build. A reconnaissance team will examine the inside of the salvaged South Korean ferry Sewol on Sunday, the third anniversary of the disaster that killed more than 300 people, most of them teenagers on a school trip. [Korea Herald] The European Court of Human Rights faulted the Russian authorities for storming a school in 2004 in the North Caucasus town of Beslan to try and seize it back from Chechen militants, resulting in the deaths of some 330 hostages. The Kremlin rejected the findings. [The New York Times] Cyclone Cook hit New Zealand, largely sparing Auckland as it tracked south toward the capital, Wellington. Hundreds of people have been evacuated and thousands of homes have lost power. [New Zealand Herald] Officials in China seized more than a ton of woolly mammoth tusks, part of a booming trade in ivory from Russia that comes from skeletons of the long-extinct creatures emerging from warming Siberian tundra. [BBC] Meet DJ Sumirock, an 82-year-old Japanese mix master. [Mashable] Smarter Living (Want to get this briefing by email? Heres the sign-up.) Good morning. Heres what you need to know: Old foes and new friends. The Trump administration sought on Wednesday to isolate the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, for having backed the government of Syria after a lethal chemical weapons attack. (Russia vetoed a U.N. resolution condemning the attack.) President Trump also expressed a newfound appreciation for NATO, a great alliance that he once derided as obsolete. President Trump described the Chinese as the world champions of currency manipulation. He said that Janet L. Yellen, the Federal Reserve chairwoman, should be ashamed of her political bias. But Mr. Trump has changed his tone and backtracked on pledges and policies he supported days earlier. The shift suggests that the moderate financiers of Wall Street brought to the White House are eclipsing the populists led by Stephen K. Bannon, the presidents chief political strategist. Mr. Trump no longer wants to label China a currency manipulator or to eliminate the Export-Import Bank. He might also consider reappointing Ms. Yellen when her term ends next year. His approach to issues like taxes and health care appears more muddled, but there is some suggestion that he is edging toward a mainstream economic approach. Nonetheless, as he immersed himself in the issues, he gradually came around to Mr. Walkers view that the be-all and end-all of a foundations work shouldnt be to increase the endowment. If we can invest in ways that support the mission and purpose of the foundation, and still earn a decent return, why not try? he said. He said he expected these mission-related investments to underperform Fords more traditional approach, but nonetheless, the social good should more than offset that. He stressed that Ford had built numerous safeguards into the effort, such as investing the $1 billion in phases. Were talking about 8 percent of the portfolio over 10 years, he said. After Year 2 or 3, if it doesnt work, well slow down. If it goes well, we can go ahead even faster. His support proved critical for mustering board support. Its not a hidebound conservative board by any stretch, Mr. Nadosy said. Still, this was difficult. We talked a lot and, quite frankly, it took some work. (The board includes Gabrielle Sulzberger, who is married to Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the publisher of The New York Times.) Given Fords size and prominence, its move is likely to generate a wave of new mission-related investment. In his letter, Mr. Walker called on endowments of all kinds, including pension funds, sovereign-wealth funds and university endowments, to get on the bandwagon and help capital markets become accelerators of justice. The Ford move is very significant, said Jessica Matthews, head of mission-related investment at Cambridge Associates, a large investment advisory firm with many foundation and university clients. Last year, Cambridge surveyed its nonprofit clients, and nearly one-third of those who responded said they were using endowments to make mission-related investments. Of that group, 62 percent said they expected to increase their commitment over the next five years. Ms. Matthews said that it was too soon and the database still too small to produce a reliable measure of returns, but that the good news were seeing is there are bright spots, with some social impact investments performing very well. Not everyone is rushing to follow Fords example. I congratulate them and look forward to seeing how they do, said Vartan Gregorian, president of Carnegie Corporation of New York, but he said the foundation would adhere to its traditional approach, which has served its mission well over its 106-year history. Image Credit... From left: Jim Wilson/The New York Times; Dustin Chambers for The New York Times; Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times Want to Resist Trump or Make America Great Again? These People Switched Careers A marketer at a Silicon Valley start-up left his job to wrangle voters in swing states. A New York baker ditched her oven to help organize the Womens March. And an entrepreneur in Georgia decided to walk away from his business and run for the House of Representatives. The election of President Trump has provoked elation, outrage and self-reflection among Americans across the political spectrum. For some, it has even prompted something more drastic: a career change. In the last few months, professionals across the country have decided to leave conventional jobs and get involved in politics or activism. It feels like we are in this existential crisis of democracy, said Matt Ewing, who abandoned a career at SolarCity to join Swing Left, a group hoping to get out the vote in competitive congressional districts in 2018. Going back to work in my comfortable corporate job didnt make sense anymore. Given that freedom, Mr. Salisbury wrote at length about the many mysteries surrounding the death of the dictator Joseph Stalin. It is by no means impossible that Stalin was murdered on or about March 5, 1953, by the group of his close associates who now run Russia. That arresting lede was how Mr. Salisbury opened Part 2 of the series. Equally chilling was Part 3, in which Mr. Salisbury described the sudden ascent and fall after Stalins death of Lavrenti P. Beria, the chief of the secret police. For about 78 hours, in March of last year, Lavrenti Pavlovich Beria held Russia in the hollow of his pudgy hand. He was supreme. There was no one who could challenge him not Malenkov, not Khrushchev, not Molotov, not the Army. At any moment within those fateful hours, Beria might have proclaimed himself dictator, all-supreme ruler of Russia, heir of Stalin. He did not do so, and in that failure to act he sealed his own fate. The life that came to an end last Christmas Eve, probably in the blood-stained cellars of the Lubyanka Prison, was doomed from that moment when Beria did not act. Two Pulitzers, 62 years apart, with nothing but drama between them. A Rescue in the Wings A tiny drama played out in the newsroom as the Pulitzer gathering ended. Employees who had been watching from the fourth floor noticed a small bird in obvious distress on a locked setback around the atrium skylight. Image Norton, before being rescued. Credit... Eileen Guzmich/The New York Times Eileen Guzmich, a copy editor at The New York Times Index, was confident the bird would recover. But when she checked back an hour later, the creature was rooted to the spot and had begun shaking. She returned to her office, Googled wild bird rescue midtown manhattan and discovered the Wild Bird Fund. A woman there talked me through identifying the bird via texted photo a fully grown female yellow-bellied sapsucker, Ms. Guzmich said. She said I should try to sneak up behind it, gently place a towel over it, and get it into a dark box lined with another towel, because the dark and texture would calm her. It turned out that Masters: Louis Vuitton x Jeff Koons was not business as usual. The new leather goods-and-silk collaboration between the artist and the brand in which Mr. Koons has replicated five famous paintings (including the Mona Lisa) on Vuitton bags, adding some hip-hop bling, was an unabashed attempt to take the most iconic pieces of art history off their pedestals and attach them to mass(ish) commerce. Even at their most audacious, I cant think of any other brand that would have dared. You could literally pull your laptop from Van Goghs Wheatfields, or sling a luminescent, fleshy Titian over your shoulder, I couldnt help but laugh. Once I got over my initial fit of giggles, I thought: No way. No one is going to want a Masterwork on their arm. Its so kitschy. Then I started to chuckle again. Then I shook my head and kind of groaned. Then laughter. Then the realization that I actually was not sure how I felt at all about the project, which was interesting, and not dissimilar to the reaction that most of Mr. Koonss artwork produces, including the giant balloon dogs and bunnies, and the enormous floral puppy. But while art is supposed to make you uncomfortable and challenge assumptions about its very definition, fashion is not. Fashion is supposed to make you feel good and generally not demand deep analysis of conflicting emotions in the wearer. Mostly when you see, say, a skirt or a bag, you think: I like that! Or, I would never wear that! As a critic, I think: Who is that for, and what does it say about them? Almost never: How do I parse my own reaction to that? None of this was a particular surprise to my Vuitton host at the collection viewing, of course, who was watching me swing back and forth between glee and horror with some amusement. The brand knew the new collection was going to provoke controversy they seemed to be courting it in the no-publicity-is-bad-publicity sort of way. That was why they didnt want anyone to know about it until it was about to go on sale, to preserve the shock value. They thought a lot of the discussion, positive or negative, would be about the gall of connecting hallowed paintings with a commercial endeavor. I agree that it will get people talking, but Im thinking conversation will likely be about why people would want to walk around toting a famous painting as part of their outfit. Its like pasting a label on your forehead that says Jeff Koons Fan (for those who know his work) or I (heart) Grandmasters. He ordered the exasperated waiters to move a heavy credenza and set up an extra table by the front door. He supplied me with a yarmulke and an entirely Hebrew Haggadah. Illiterate in the language, I pretended to read it as I sat there alone, between the wall and a display case of macaroons, looking at medieval illustrations of the 10 plagues. Everyone seemed to know one another. Many biceps were squeezed. Many cheeks were kissed. Adults bathed with attention Daniel and Aaron, the only small children in the place as far as I could tell. (The Italian birthrate is a paltry 1.4 children per family.) An older woman walking by me worried out loud in universal Jewish mother fashion that I was too close to the door and would catch pneumonia. The proceedings began at 9:05 p.m., with Seder plates and baskets of matzo on each table. A waiter asked if I wanted wine, but I asked for grape juice because, having entirely dropped the ball on Dryuary, I was observing Drapril. The waiters, clearly not well-versed in Jewish customs, huddled over this insane request for succo duva by someone older than six and sheepishly asked Mr. Ouazana if the restaurant carried any. Of course we do, he told them. It wasnt Kedem, or even gasp Welchs, but something called Nes did the job. The juice wasnt the only change on the table for an Ashkenazi New Yorker far (like Trappist-1 far) from orthodoxy and keeping kosher and Italian traditions. In Rome, everything is different, Mr. Ouazana said. Those who are stuck in Turkey endure a kind of social torture, too, which will most likely remain the silent kind. Kurds have been suffering for 100 years. In official histories, the government will probably reduce Gulenists to their alleged treason. Many journalists, even those who are not imprisoned, can no longer practice journalism. And liberal academics endure the strange, simultaneous abuse of being seen as jobless pariahs and members of some oppressive elite. Everyone is branded as somehow having attacked the A.K. Party government, and Erdogan rhetorically reinforces his victimhood, even as he assumes more and more power a manipulation so effective that it seems impossible to stop. Erdogan once offered great hope. He improved the lives of millions in Turkey, and that is why many people will vote Yes for him in the April 16 referendum. They remember what it was like when a family member was dying of cancer and they had to pay every last cent for substandard care; they remember what it was like to be looked down upon for being religious, for being poor and unsophisticated. Erdogan could very well win his referendum fairly; Turkish elections are normally efficient and monitored. Few Turks are entirely convinced that he could simply steal the vote after the fact. Instead, the state seems to be trying to do so in advance, through intimidation. Such attempted coercion raises a question: How popular is Erdogan really? After all, this pre-referendum bullying is only a more intense version of what daily life in Turkey is like, with Erdogan on TV and the radio, all day every day, demanding that his people love him. His proclamations about his popularity amplified by a media he dominates are drowning out the genuine opposition to him: not just the so-called secular elite, but Alevis, Kurds, Armenians, atheists, the pious, feminists, leftists, independents all sorts of ordinary people who simply do not want to have to worship this man. New hospitals, free health care and clean streets are little good to a Turk or a Kurd who is not free to go to work or live in a house that wont be shelled by the government. Do the choices in this referendum Yes or No offer the real prospect of a better nation for the Turks? There are, after all, less visible ways in which the country seems to be breaking apart, no matter how its citizens vote. The all-encompassing fury over the attempted coup has meant that some Turks have no sympathy for the victims of the purge; some are afraid of being tainted by them, and some snitch on them to save themselves. Such distrust is a disease for a society, and it has spread to anyone who dares to criticize the A.K. Party. As the referendum has grown nearer, what you hear from opposition Turks at home is unimaginable stress, a smothering weight, the panic of the unknown. What you hear from Turks abroad is their loneliness and loss, that strange, tender feeling of being exposed and unprotected, of having no legal or human rights, and of having perhaps forever lost their country. Most friends dont get in touch out of fear, Tuba said. On the last day I saw them, their young son had begun to rebel comically against these long days of talking with a foreign stranger, and Tuba sat snuggling and kissing him repeatedly to quiet him. They dont say anything on Instagram, and sometimes I call them on WhatsApp, and they dont answer me. Its very painful. I erased my old history. I have no friends. She laughed a little and then her voice got stronger. Sometimes even mothers or fathers refuse to speak to their children because they blame them for being FETO for staging the coup attempt. Come on, your daughter or your son. Can you imagine it? Because of this, I blame them you know the truth. Everybody knows the truth. They know me; they know their son or daughter. Choose! Who will you believe? Me or Erdogan? Even my grandmother is a little like, What did you do? Shes not A.K. Party or Gulenist. People like her just believe the state. She went on: Conservative people in Turkey had many, many problems, and they want to believe in the A.K. Party. Because the A.K. Party was their dream, the conservative peoples dream. They dont want to give up their dream. For this dream, they expend their relatives. They expend their sister. They expend us. I feel very pain, the 62-year-old mumbled incoherently as he sat in a wheelchair. He had said almost nothing since arriving at the office of Dr. Joel Geerling, a neurologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. A year ago, he was fine, explained the patients sister. He was married, working as an auto mechanic, happy, normal. Then, six or seven months ago, he became forgetful. Little things at first he couldnt think of the right word, remember peoples names. But then big things like forgetting who he was talking to on the phone or how to drive to places he had known for decades. That was fall 2014. By that Christmas, walking became difficult. He fell frequently. He had trouble feeding himself. He slept most of the day and night. Over the course of this illness, he lost almost everything. He was fired from his job; his wife left him. He didnt even have his car anymore: His daughter took the keys after an accident. He had always been friendly and talkative, but now he was withdrawn and nearly wordless. In a few months, the man went from being completely independent to requiring round-the-clock care. This daughter tried to take care of him, but recently she had to hire someone; she couldnt miss any more college classes. A Breakdown of Mind and Body The patient first saw his regular doctor, but she couldnt figure out what was wrong and sent him to a neurologist. When the specialist was stumped, she sent the patient to Geerling, a neurologist who focused on dementia and other cognitive diseases. In the exam room, the patient slumped in the wheelchair and held his head tipped back so that he was looking straight at the doctor above him, giving him a childlike appearance. When Geerling examined him, he found out why. The patient could not make his eyes move up. When he tried to walk, his feet remained on the ground as if there were a magnet holding them down giving him an odd, shuffling, gliding gait. He was unable to count down from 10 and didnt know where he lived. New films by Sofia Coppola, Noah Baumbach, Todd Haynes, Michael Haneke and Michel Hazanavicius will be among the competitors for the Palme dOr at the 70th Cannes Film Festival next month, the festival announced on Thursday. The festival, to be held May 17-28, will open with a lineup that includes 49 films from 29 countries, 12 of them by female directors, said Thierry Fremaux, the festivals director, at a news conference in Paris. Ms. Coppolas The Beguiled, starring Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst and Colin Farrell, is a remake of the 1971 film that starred Clint Eastwood. Mr. Hayness Wonderstruck is based on a 2011 young adult novel by Brian Selznick and tells the stories of two deaf children; it is an Amazon Studios production. Mr. Baumbachs The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected), starring Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller, Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson, is a Netflix original production, as is another film in competition, Okja by the Korean director Bong Joon-ho, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Tilda Swinton. The barbarity described in Finding Oscar is stomach-turning, but moments of courage still shine through in this unsettling yet vital documentary. In 1982, a band of Guatemalan soldiers entered the tiny village of Dos Erres, looking for anti-government guerrillas. They found none, and soon began raping and murdering the residents. More than 200 bodies, some still alive, were thrown into a well and buried. Two boys were abducted and then reared by soldiers families. One boy, Oscar Ramirez, was 3 and grew to believe that the people raising him were his real family. Years later investigators began a search for Oscar as an adult, hed moved to the United States deeming him to be living evidence of the mass killing. If he were located, a DNA sample could be obtained; that would match bodies at the site, and strengthen a case against the soldiers accused of the murders. Finding him, though, would create a problem. How do you tell someone, Youre not who you think you are, and your life up until now has been a lie? one interviewee says. In The Lost City of Z, a lush, melancholic story of discovery and mystery, a mesmerizing Charlie Hunnam plays a British adventurer in the Amazon who is consumed by all the glories of exploration, as Joseph Conrad once wrote of a different journey. Enveloped by the forest, the explorer and his crew face snakes, piranhas, insects and that most terrifying of threats: other people, who at times bombard the strangers with arrows. Undaunted, he perseveres, venturing more deeply into a world that first becomes a passion and then something of a private hallucination. Its 1906, and while wonders like moving pictures are rapidly shrinking the world, the dream of unknown lands endures. That dream isnt only about the Amazon in The Lost City of Z but also about the movies and their ability to transport us to astonishing new worlds. For us, the Age of Discovery is long gone and, for the most part, so are old-fashioned historical epics, other than the occasional Chinese extravaganza or one of those international waxworks with clashing accents. Hollywood used to churn these out regularly, but theyve faded, casualties of shifting industry logic, audience taste, cultural norms and other pressures. The romance of adventure has largely shifted from history to fantasy fiction, an easier, less contested playground for conquering white heroes. They all suffered from significant trauma throughout their body, Mr. Sini said. It appears that they were killed with a sharp or edged instrument. Mr. Sini did not identify the victims but said they ranged in age from 16 to 20. Justin Llivicura, 16, was later identified by his uncle Marcelo Llivicura as one of the victims. Mr. Llivicura, a native of Ecuador, said that Justin, who was born in the United States, had been missing a few days. The family had reported him missing on Wednesday, according to the police. He was a good boy, Mr. Llivicura said in a telephone interview. He did nothing, no drugs; he was a good student and was working on Saturdays and Sundays. Mr. Llivicura said that the last time the two had spoken, on Tuesday, Justin had said he planned to go to a party. Justin and Jorge Tigre were friends from Bellport High School, which was closed for spring vacation this week. He did not have bad friends or anything, and now he died, Mr. Llivicura said. Jorge Tigres family had also reported him missing on Wednesday, according to the police. James Valentine was woodshedding Sunday afternoon, giving his Ernie Ball signature guitar a workout in his Los Angeles home. Im just practicing some NJO charts, Valentine said when he picked the phone. Its really cool to get back to that. But man, I forgot theres a lot more notes in jazz. NJO is Nebraska Jazz Orchestra. Valentine is the guitarist for Maroon 5, one of the biggest pop bands in the world. Hell return to his Lincoln hometown to play a show with the orchestra Saturday at the Lied Center for Performing Arts. Weve talked about this for a long time, Valentine said. I dont get the opportunity to do this stuff very often. This is originally what I wanted to do. Its such a cool organization thats been around since I was a kid. It was really important to my development as a musician. ... During those days, I thought Id be a jazz musician. Things went in a different way. NJO had an impact on Valentine early on in his musical journey, starting at a camp the group held for aspiring young jazz players. I remember distinctly being at that camp and having Ed Love teaching us the modes, which are really important in jazz, Valentine said. "Then they had that Young Lions competition. I played in that once and it was the first time I got my name in the newspaper. (Reviewer) Tom Ineck liked my solo. My life would probably be a lot different if (NJO) wasnt there. While he attended Lincoln Southeast High School, where he played in various ensembles, Valentine also performed with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln jazz lab band. As a UNL student, he played in the jazz ensembles even though he wasnt a music major. And he was a regular on Monday Night Big Band shows that took place in smaller venues around the city -- not only playing, they asked me on some nights to lead it, which just amounted to picking out the charts and counting them in. But it was a big deal for me. Saturday night, hell be reunited on stage with Bob Krueger, his high school band teacher, and NJO guitarist Peter Bouffard. Hes my main mentor on guitar," Valentine said of Bouffard. "Im still stealing his licks to this day. Itll be really cool to be up there and play with those guys. It would be like one of the Monday Night Big Bands, only the Lied Center will be a little fancier. The move from the Cornhusker Marriott, where the NJO usually holds its shows, to the Lied was made, in large part, because of Valentine and the popularity of Maroon 5, which sold out Pinnacle Bank Arena last year. If we get some Maroon 5 fans in there and theyre exposed to some big band fusion jazz, thats a good thing, Valentine said. Hopefully, they wont be too puzzled. I wont be up there singing She Will Be Loved. We will be playing jazz. That jazz will be Valentines tribute to his jazz guitar and composing idols -- Mike Stern, John Scofield, Pat Metheny and Bill Frisell. I picked out one of (Frisells) called Blues for Los Angeles, which I thought would be appropriate with me coming back from L.A., my second hometown, he said. Valentine moved to Los Angeles with his Lincoln band Square in 2001. The next year, he teamed up with a band that had been called Karas Flowers, getting the spot in part because he was a jazz player. When I got into the band, a large part of the reason they were attracted to me is I had that knowledge, from coming up in Lincoln, Valentine said. They had been a straight power pop band and were just getting into soul, R&B and jazz when I joined. They realized I had a lot more of that vocabulary than they did. That knowledge, for example, helped Valentine bring to life Sunday Morning, a song that is based on 2-5-1 chords in C major -- the first thing you learn in jazz piano, and This Love opens with a diminished chord -- something rarely heard to start a pop song. Or at least I think its a diminished chord," Valentine said. "It might be a 13 flat 9. Well have to ask Peter Bouffard about that. Then his jazz performance skills came in handy as the band toured behind Songs for Jane, the multi-platinum 2002 album that over the course of a couple years lifted it out of clubs and into theaters and arenas. With Songs for Jane, we had only that one album and once we started headlining shows, we had to stretch, Valentine said. I think my background in improvisation helped us do that. If we had to fill some time, it was OK, James, solo. That was just like back with the Monday Night Big Band. Theyd have me solo and I think sometimes they wouldn't count the band back in and just let me keep going and going. After five minutes, I was like Come on guys, come back in. Valentine planned his return to Lincoln to play with NJO for the middle of what was supposed to be a year off for Maroon 5. But the band hasnt really taken any time off. It's only playing a South American tour and a couple of festivals this year, but its just finishing up another album. A single, Dont Wanna Know, featuring rapper Kendrick Lamar, was released in October and hit the top 10 around the world, going to No. 6 in the U.S. That prompted the band to record an entire album. Single No. 2, Cold, featuring rapper Future, was released in February. Asked if the new record was in the same vein as V, Maroon 5s chart-topping 2014 album, Valentine replied yes, its in the electropop, super hyped sort of category. Thats the opposite of jazz. Which has the potential to make Saturday night all the more confusing, Valentine said. I better get back to the charts. The last time someone heard from Judge Sheila Abdus-Salaam apparently was on Tuesday when she called her chambers in the Graybar Building in Manhattan to say she wasnt well and would not be coming in. At some point, she had left her apartment in Harlem, law enforcement officials said, departing without her wallet and cellphone, and locking the door behind her. When Judge Abdus-Salaam the first black woman to serve on New York States highest court failed to appear at work on Wednesday, her assistant grew concerned and contacted her husband, who reported her missing, the law enforcement officials said. Then that afternoon, there was a terrible discovery: The judges body floating, fully clothed and with no apparent signs of trauma, in the Hudson River. The unexpected death was shocking and saddening and even set off some suspicions among Judge Abdus-Salaams friends and colleagues, many of whom said she had given no indication that anyone including herself would want to do her harm. In the hours after her body was found, the police said they were treating her death as a suicide. The judge, 65, had recently told friends and a doctor that she was suffering from stress. And tragedy had followed her closely: On Easter in 2012, her mother died at age 92. Two years later, around the same holiday, her brother shot himself to death, according to two law enforcement officials. But American philosophers have usually held a more jaundiced view of crowds. Henry David Thoreau wrote in his journal, The mass never comes up to the standard of its best member, but on the contrary degrades itself to a level with the lowest. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in The Conduct of Life: Masses are rude, lame, unmade, pernicious in their demands and influence, and need not to be flattered, but to be schooled. I wish not to concede anything to them, but to tame, drill, divide, and break them up, and draw individuals out of them. These thinkers argued that crowds add up to something less than the sum of their parts. The principle behind this is called deindividuation, in which an individuals social constraints are diminished and distorted by being part of a crowd that forms to express a particular point of view. The French psychologist Gustave Le Bon first explained this concept in his magisterial 1895 text The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind. Le Bon found that crowds were inherently unanimous, emotional and intellectually weak. Lots of research confirms this, showing that deindividuation can lower inhibitions against immoral behavior. In one of my favorite studies, researchers set up a bowl of candy for Halloween trick-or-treaters, told them to take just one piece and then left them alone. Some of the children were in anonymous groups, others were by themselves. When kids were part of a group, 60 percent took more than one piece of candy. When they were by themselves but not asked their names, 20 percent cheated. But when they were alone and asked their names, only 10 percent took more than they were allotted. Of course, it stands to reason that deindividuation could improve individuals instead of making them worse. We can all think of cases in which we have been swept up in a wave of kindness and compassion in a group, even in spite of our personal feelings. Group polarization, in which individuals are pushed emotionally in the general direction of the crowd, can be either positive or negative. What Ecuador needs is an orderly return to a democracy in which all political actors can participate on equal terms. For this, its citizens must believe in the results of their elections. We are not insisting that we won the election. We are asking for a manual recount of the votes, supervised by both parties, and we will respect the findings. The health of our democracy greatly depends on passing this test, and thats why the C.N.E. should satisfy our demand. Why do we think the election was fraudulent? Because of what we witnessed on election night. We were on a winning streak close but steady when the National Electoral Councils official website went dark. The votes began to be counted at 5 p.m., when the polls closed. With 21,515 voting sheets transmitted and verified by us, that is, 53.8 percent of the votes, we were ahead. When the National Electoral Council ceased to function, our team continued counting votes one by one, made copies of a great majority of the voting sheets and calculated that with 32,878 voting sheets counted 82.2 percent of the total we were still ahead. When the National Electoral Council website came back online, the official candidate was suddenly winning. We knew that with 82.2 percent of the votes counted, it was impossible to reverse the tide, so we decided to analyze each and every vote to try to understand what had happened. In analyzing the data of the election given to us by the C.N.E., we discovered that when the votes from 95.3 percent of the polling stations were added up, we had won, but that in a small number of the polling stations 4.7 percent something very strange had taken place. At these, almost 80 percent of the votes were in favor of the official candidate, tipping the election. In all the other polling stations, there was a close but consistent trend in favor of our opposition party. WASHINGTON As we mark the centenary of the United States entry into World War I, I recall the words of a participant in the Versailles Treaty, which ended that conflict. This isnt a treaty of peace, the American diplomat William Bullitt declared. I can see at least 11 wars in it. The world once again seems to be preparing for war: a wider conflict in Syria, greater friction with Russia and possible military action on the Korean Peninsula. In the event of war, the president of the United States has unrestricted powers to use nuclear weapons first. Concerns about the absence of checks and balances on the first use of nuclear weapons have spiked because of Donald J. Trumps bellicose temperament and shallow understanding of nuclear flash points. These concerns have led some on Capitol Hill to introduce legislation that would prohibit the president from launching a nuclear first strike without a declaration of war by Congress. The intention is understandable, but this remedy is unworkable and unachievable. No president in the modern era has accepted the absolute requirement of congressional consent on war-making powers. Moreover, any scenario for the first use of nuclear weapons implies great urgency because, over time, Americas conventional military advantages would presumably suffice. A congressional debate authorizing first use would have to be very hurried, and this process could speed up hostile actions rather than slow them down. And when the executive branch has occasionally sought support for war-making powers, Congress has seen fit to provide that backing, rather than deny it. Raqib recommended pragmatic efforts seeking a particular outcome, not just a vague yearning for the end of Trump. When pushed, she said that calls for a general strike in February were insufficiently organized, and that the Womens March on Washington, which had its first protest the day after Inauguration Day, will ideally become anchored in a larger strategy for change. But she thinks the Day Without Immigrants protest was well crafted, and the same for the bodega strike by Yemeni immigrants. Sam Daley-Harris, another maestro of effective protest, agrees on a focus on results, not just symbolic protest. He has overseen groups like Results and the Citizens Climate Lobby that have had outsize influence on policy, so I asked him what citizens upset at Trump should do. The overarching answer is to work with your member of Congress, Daley-Harris told me. He suggested focusing on a particular issue that you can become deeply knowledgeable about. Then work with others to push for a meeting with a member of Congress, a state lawmaker or even a legislative staff member. He recommended speaking courteously anyone too hostile is dismissed and loses influence and being very specific about which bill you want the person to support or oppose. Im encouraged by the increasing savvy of the resistance efforts, with excellent online resources cropping up and grass-roots groups like EmergeAmerica.org and RunforSomething.net developing to train people who want to run for political office. Students at Harvards Kennedy School of Government have organized Resistance School, a kind of online teach-in to sharpen the tools activists need. The first 90-minute webcast had more than 50,000 streams. We wanted to move away from a defensive response to an offensive response, not just marching but also thinking of longterm strategy, one of the organizers, Shanoor Seervai, told me. To the Editor: Re Khmer Rouge Tribunals Record: 11 Years, $300 Million and 3 Convictions (news analysis, April 11): In deciding whether the Khmer Rouge tribunal was worth it, consider the magnitude of its task. Demographic studies estimate that at least 1.7 million people, almost a quarter of Cambodias population, lost their lives under the Khmer Rouge. Millions more were forced to labor in cruel and inhumane conditions. In June, the court will hear final arguments in the trial of Nuon Chea, No. 2 in the regime, and Khieu Samphan, a former head of state. By the number of victims, this is indisputably the biggest criminal trial since Nuremberg. More than 236,000 people have attended the proceedings, and Cambodian newspapers covered testimony daily. Almost 4,000 victims are civil parties, this being the first international court where victims have this right. The novel legal issues faced will set important precedents. The charges include forced marriage and rape related to the regimes policy to select spouses and require couples to consummate the marriage. The allegation of genocide against the Cham Muslim minority depends partly on evidence of the killing of those who refused to give up their religion. PRISTINA, Kosovo For centuries, dark forces of history have found the Balkans a suitable proxy region for unleashing grand plans for global prominence and competition. Now, after two decades of stability and prospects for a prosperous future, Serbia again is returning to an old vocation seeking regional hegemony. It is doing so by destabilizing the Balkans, expanding its own military and working toward economic dominance of a regional common market that Kosovo finds unacceptable and strongly opposes all of this with Russia looking over Serbias shoulder. Russia is clearly using Serbia not just to regain a foothold in the Balkans, but also to seek vengeance on NATO, the United States and the West with schemes to restore the regional prominence it lost when the Soviet empire collapsed. Serbia has not yet recognized the independence that Kosovo won a decade ago as a result of a liberation war, backed by NATO in 1999, to avert a genocidal catastrophe supported by Serbias despotic leader at the time, Slobodan Milosevic. Now, in their presidential election on April 2, Serbians have not only endorsed a nationalist government that continues to defy Kosovos independence; they have also provided a needed victory for Russia, which only days before had authorized a new shipment of fighter jets and battle tanks for Serbia, obviously to help it regain power in the Balkans. THE arrival of the post-truth political climate came as a shock to many Americans. But to the Christian writer Rachel Held Evans, charges of fake news are nothing new. The deep distrust of the media, of scientific consensus those were prevalent narratives growing up, she told me. Although Ms. Evans, 35, no longer calls herself an evangelical, she attended Bryan College, an evangelical school in Dayton, Tenn. She was taught to distrust information coming from the scientific or media elite because these sources did not hold a biblical worldview. It was presented as a cohesive worldview that you could maintain if you studied the Bible, she told me. Part of that was that climate change isnt real, that evolution is a myth made up by scientists who hate God, and capitalism is Gods ideal for society. Conservative evangelicals are not the only ones who think that an authority trusted by the other side is probably lying. But they believe that their own authority the inerrant Bible is both supernatural and scientifically sound, and this conviction gives that natural human aversion to unwelcome facts a special power on the right. This religious tradition of fact denial long predates the rise of the culture wars, social media or President Trump, but it has provoked deep conflict among evangelicals themselves. Both guys have a history of bragging about their special privileges. In Trumps case there was all that talk about his right to go into the Miss Universe dressing room and stare at naked ladies, and, of course, the famous recorded boast about how when youre a star you get to grab women by their private parts, whether they like it or not. Bentley told an unhappy staffer that as governor, people had to bow to his throne. Differences: Mason, a former TV anchor, first entered Bentleys employ as his press secretary. Trumps press secretary is Sean Spicer, and that is never, ever going to be a compromising relationship. On the other hand, Rebekah Mason never claimed that Hitler didnt use poison gas on any Germans. Bentley went crazy trying to shut down gossip that he was committing adultery, and its hard to imagine Trump reacting the same way. Back in the day, when New York papers were full of stories about him cheating on his wife, Ivana, with an aspiring actress named Marla Maples, he had a squad of publicists on the case. But none of them seemed to be trying to discourage the coverage. We got absolutely no pushback, agreed Matt Storin, who was then an editor at The Daily News. In the end, Bentley may have been undone less by his affair than by the financial flimflammery on the side. (His lovers husband, a former weatherman, got a $91,000-a-year job as director of the states Office of Faith-Based and Volunteer Service.) So far, we havent heard reports about Trump spending public money to please a former mistress. As opposed to spending public money taking heads of state to his resort or providing security for the kids when they go abroad to make business deals. On occasion we are reminded that the worst things that happen in this world are generally not about consensual sex. A suit brought by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau claims that Navient saved itself money by steering borrowers into costly repayment strategies that added billions in interest to their balances. But as Stacy Cowley and Jessica Silver-Greenberg reported in The Times on Monday, states lawsuits are especially damning with respect to Sallie Mae the company that spun off Navient in 2014. The Illinois and Washington attorneys general argue that Sallie Mae engaged in predatory lending, saddling people with private subprime loans that the company knew in advance were likely to fail because borrowers would not be able to repay them. The two attorneys general part of an investigative coalition of 29 states argue that borrowers deserve to have these tainted private loans forgiven. The scenario outlined in the court documents bears a frightening resemblance to the subprime mortgage crisis of a decade ago when mortgage companies caused millions of borrowers to lose their homes by steering them into risky, high-cost mortgages they could never hope to repay. The Illinois and Washington lawsuits argue that Sallie Mae used subprime private loans to build relationships with exploitative schools that then helped the company make more federal loans to their students. Those loans were the jackpot for the company, the lawsuit argues, because they were guaranteed by the government, which steps in to reimburse the lender when a borrower defaults. The small gallery in North Loup nearly ran out of space trying to display B.J. Axthelms artwork. They put Axthelms on the wall and Axthelms in the hall and Axthelms in boxes on the floor, more than 130 pieces in all most of them paintings, most of those watercolors, and many of those depicting the flowers and scenes of the central Nebraska landscape that surrounded the artist for nearly 90 years. The life's work of an artist who didnt paint to become famous, but who became well-known in her community. And well-liked. She was a genuine artist, she was the real deal, said Kate Wolf, a friend and artist who spent months sorting, pricing and preparing the artwork for sale. I can honestly say if it wasnt for B.J., I probably would not have gone on to do any artwork myself. I would have considered it a hobby. She was very inspiring, always open to new ideas, always trying new things, said Julia Noyes, a Lincoln gallery owner who painted with Axthelm in Ord in the 1970s. She loved being creative and experimenting and bringing beauty to the world. Bringing colors and beauty. Her paintings would end up on exhibit across the state, at the governors mansion, the Noyes Gallery in Lincoln, the Museum of Nebraska Art in Kearney all a long way from the dining room in Valley County where it started. * * * Betty Jo Cropper was born in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1927, but her family didnt stay there long. Her father was looking for work, and he found it in Nebraska. B.J. started teaching country school while still a student herself, commuting by horse from their home near Sargent, about 90 miles northwest of Grand Island. She attended teachers college in Kearney, married Donald Axthelm in 1947 and started raising a daughter and son in a farmhouse west of Ord. She helped on the farm and sewed most of her childrens clothes because she needed to; she painted because she wanted to. She was the type of person who loved challenges, said Lonna Arnold, her daughter. She didnt have a gallery or anything, so she usually set up at the dining room table and did her painting there. Later, when the artists children moved out, she carried her paints upstairs, near south-facing windows that filled the room with sunlight and gave her a sweeping view of their farm. And later still, when she needed to, she went to work. Back in the day when farming wasnt making it, she knew she had to do something to help with income to save the farm, her daughter said. So she started arranging flowers at The Florette in Ord, and eventually bought the nearby fabric store, where she would become known for her quilts. She stayed busy: Chamber of Commerce president, active in local and state 4-H organizations, a writer's group, Toastmasters. Still, she kept painting. She helped start the Artissimos club, teaching other area artists what she'd learned over the decades and sharpening her own techniques. Gently, gently, she would gently critique your work, but not to the point where she would make you feel like you werent good enough to do this, Wolf said. She was very encouraging. She always found the positive things. It was never about the work being good or not. It was about the habits an artist was developing. Axthelm would teach her friends about texture, how to fix mistakes, which medium is more forgiving, the importance of paper quality. The technical things that artists would want to learn, Wolf said. In her own paintings, Axthelm focused on florals and landscapes. Sometimes, her daughter would send her photos of wildflowers for inspiration. Sometimes, the artist would paint the hills that swelled up from the Loup River valley around her. She was able to achieve the most fluid transparency and beautiful, vibrant watercolors that Ive ever seen, Wolf said. Axthelm liked to combine her paintings. She'd paint two similar pieces, though one might be a shade darker, and cut the first into horizontal strips, the other vertically. Then she'd start weaving, as if she were making a basket. It might be two different flowers shed weave together, said Noyes, the Lincoln gallery owner. And you get this unusual-looking flower. Her art ended up in homes in nearly a dozen states and England, her daughter said. Her ability ended up in her granddaughters and great-granddaughters, artists in their own right. But not with her daughter. I cant draw a stick person, Arnold said. * * * The artist died nearly a year ago. She was 88. Later in life, she'd focused more on her quilting, Wolf said. It might have been easier for her. But when her family cleaned out her house, they found dozens of her watercolors and oil paintings and pencil sketches and pieces she started but wouldn't finish. Decades of Sandhills scenes and flowers. The whole gamut, said Betty Carlson, who owns the Main Street Gallery in North Loup, home base for the Artissimos club. An artist's long life, viewed through her eyes, translated by her hands, the beauty and color captured on paper. Some pieces are bigger than others, some better. But in the end, more than 130 Axthelms. Family members picked the pieces they wanted, then approached the gallery: Please, try to sell the rest. Carlson asked Wolf for help; she has a good eye, the gallery owner said. Wolf spent months considering her friend's work identifying the best pieces, labeling and pricing, replacing mats, tightening frames, preparing the collection for the show. They're affordable. Smaller pieces are priced as low as $10, bigger and better Axthelms will cost up to $140. Someone doesnt have to have a ton of money, Wolf said, to come in and own a genuine Betty Axthelm. On todays episode: My colleague David E. Sanger joins us from Moscow, where hes covering Secretary of State Rex W. Tillersons first diplomatic trip to the region a trip that coincides with a historically tense moment for these two countries. Background reading: Mr. Sangers coverage of the strained meeting between Mr. Tillerson and Mr. Putin. Outside Moscow, the Trump administration took a sharper tone with Russia on Wednesday from Washington and New York, as well. Tune in, and tell us what you think. Email us at thedaily@nytimes.com. Tweet me at @mikiebarb. And if that isnt enough, we can even text. How do I listen? If you dont see an audio player on this page or to subscribe to The Daily for free, follow the instructions below. On your iPhone or iPad: Open the preloaded app called Podcasts; it has a purple icon. If youre reading this from your phone, tap this link, which will take you straight there. (You can also use the magnifying glass icon to search; type The Daily.) Every year, thousands of little fish ride waves onto Southern Californias beaches at night to lay and fertilize eggs. High up in the sand, they squirm, wriggle and wrap around one another. As they dance beneath the moonlight, the beach transforms into a twinkling tapestry of spawning silver bodies. Its known as the grunion run, and within a few hours, the show is over. This spectacular reproductive event occurs twice a month on nights after new and full moons, when tides are at their highest. The show, which plays out on West Coast beaches from Baja California, Mexico, up to San Francisco Bay, peaks between April and May, but can last from late February through August. With Tuesdays full moon just past, now is the perfect time for a grunion run, if you happen to be in the area. Theres a lot of chaos going on, said Karen Lynn Martin, a biologist at Pepperdine University who specializes in grunion. Its pretty amazing. Could icy moons like Saturns Enceladus in the outer solar system be home to microbes or other forms of alien life? Intriguing new findings from data collected by NASAs Cassini spacecraft suggest the possibility. Plumes of gas erupting out of Enceladus a small moon with an ocean of liquid water beneath its icy crust contain hydrogen. Scientists infer a lot from that: that there are hydrothermal chemical reactions similar to those that occur at hot fissures at the ocean bottoms on Earth. On Earth at least, hydrothermal vents thrive with microbial life, offering up the potential that icy moons far from Earth called ocean worlds by NASA could be habitable. Thats just going to be a tremendous opportunity to test our theories and see if theres life there, said James L. Green, director of planetary science at NASA. He settled on a Cobb salad and a bottle of Coke Zero. John Wesley Dean III grew up in Ohio and attended high school at the Staunton Military Academy in Staunton, Va. There, he befriended Barry Goldwater Jr., a son of the five-term Republican senator from Arizona who would suffer a landslide loss to Lyndon B. Johnson in his 1964 presidential bid. Mr. Dean and Barry Jr. would visit the senator in Washington, and Mr. Dean was captivated. He was a very striking man, Mr. Dean said. He would take us around to the Senate. And youd see all the people, the guards, make a wake for these two young guys following behind him. He was also impressed by the senators car. He had a Thunderbird when they were first out. It was rigged like the cockpit of an airplane. He had all kinds of meters and gadgets that didnt come with the car. He had a two-way radio. He had a ham radio. He could talk to airplanes. Mr. Dean attended law school at Georgetown University and in July 1970, at age 32, was recruited to become White House counsel to the president. It didnt take long for him to witness the underside of power. He told the story, after his Cobb salad arrived, of Scanlans, an upstart magazine that printed an article linking Vice President Spiro T. Agnew to a scheme to repeal the Bill of Rights and cancel the 1972 election. Just days after Mr. Agnew had condemned the story as fraudulent, Mr. Dean received an order instructing him to have Scanlans audited by the Internal Revenue Service. The assignment came from Mr. Nixon himself, Mr. Dean said. I thought, O.K., I dont know much about Agnew, but I do know that this is so off the wall, and unlikely, that this is almost a joke, Mr. Dean said. I really wasnt sure how to handle it. He sought the advice of a Nixon political adviser, Murray Chotiner. He said, John, this is a place that operates on need-to-know, and I dont need to know this, Mr. Dean recalled. Mr. Chotiner made this argument, according to Mr. Dean: Well, why cant the president, who is the head of the executive branch, start an audit of any taxpayer he decides he wants audited? Mr. Dean was dumbfounded, believing such an audit would be illegal. Mr. Chotiner persisted, Mr. Dean said. He said: I dont want to get in a debate with you, but let me just give you some advice. If you dont do it, he will find somebody who will do it. America needs new tools for the timely measurement and monitoring of technology, jobs and skills to cope with the advance of artificial intelligence and automation, an expert panel composed mainly of economists and computer scientists said in a new report. The panels recommendations include the development of an A.I. index, analogous to the Consumer Price Index, to track the pace and spread of artificial intelligence technology. That technical assessment, they said, could then be combined with detailed data on skills and tasks involved in various occupations to guide education and job-training programs. A public-private collaboration, they added, is necessary to create such tools because information from many sources will be the essential ingredient. Those information sources range from traditional government statistics to the vast pools of new data from online services like LinkedIn and Udacity that can be tapped to gain insights on skills, job openings and the effectiveness of training programs. Were flying blind into this dramatic set of economic changes, Erik Brynjolfsson, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technologys Sloan School of Management, said in an interview. To what lengths can a church go to protect its flock? What if that church is big very big with schools, a seminary and membership the size of a small town? Does it deserve a police force of its own, even if that would be constitutionally questionable? Alabama may soon find out. A bill passed Tuesday by the State Senate would grant Briarwood Presbyterian Church the right to appoint and employ one or more persons to act as police officers to protect the safety and integrity of the church and its ministries. Supporters say the measure is necessary in increasingly dangerous times. Critics argue not only that it is gratuitous but also that it is unconstitutional. And on top of all that, the bill, if passed by the Alabama House of Representatives, would land on the desk of a brand new governor whose predecessors term came to a scandalous end just this week. Briarwood is on the outskirts of Birmingham, straddling the border between Jefferson and Shelby Counties. It is a giant institution with more than 4,000 members and 40 ministries, including schools for students from preschool through grade 12. For more than 15 years, jails that hold immigrants facing deportation have had to follow a growing list of requirements: Notify immigration officials if a detainee spends two weeks or longer in solitary confinement. Check on suicidal inmates every 15 minutes, and evaluate their mental health every day. Inform detainees, in languages they can understand, how to obtain medical care. In disciplinary hearings, provide a staff member who can advocate in English on the detainees behalf. But as the Trump administration seeks to quickly find jail space for its crackdown on illegal immigration, it is moving to curtail these rules as a way to entice more sheriffs and local officials to make their correctional facilities available. According to two Homeland Security officials who had knowledge of the plans but declined to be identified because they were not authorized to speak publicly, new jail contracts will contain a far less detailed set of regulations. They will make no mention of the need for translation services, for example. A current rule that detainees requests for medical care must be evaluated by a professional within 24 hours will be replaced by a requirement that the jails merely have procedures on providing medical care. WASHINGTON President Trump signed legislation on Thursday aimed at cutting off federal funding to Planned Parenthood and other groups that perform abortions, a move cheered by conservatives who have clamored to impose curbs on reproductive rights. The measure nullifies a rule completed in the last days of the Obama administration that effectively barred state and local governments from withholding federal funding for family planning services related to contraception, sexually transmitted infections, fertility, pregnancy care, and breast and cervical cancer screening from qualified health providers regardless of whether they also performed abortions. The new measure cleared Congress last month with Vice President Mike Pence casting the tiebreaking vote in the Senate. The previous Department of Health and Human Services regulation, which took effect two days before Mr. Trumps inauguration, said that states and localities could not withhold money from a provider for any reason other than an inability to provide family planning services. Mr. Trump has shown ambivalence about Planned Parenthood, voicing support for its health-related services other than abortion, and his daughter Ivanka has urged him to tread carefully on the issue, concerned about the possible political repercussions of the Republican effort to defund the organization altogether. As a middle ground, Mr. Trump has proposed preserving federal funding for Planned Parenthood if it stops providing abortion services. After initially defending the airlines policies, Uniteds chief executive apologized. United has offered a refund to every passenger on the flight and has promised to no longer have the police remove passengers from planes that are too full. This horrible situation has provided a harsh learning experience from which we will take immediate, concrete action, the company said in a statement Thursday. We have committed to our customers and our employees that we are going to fix whats broken so this never happens again. Those assurances have done little to quell the outrage, visible in the phalanx of news cameras from around the world that assembled Thursday to hear from Mr. Demetrio and Crystal Dao Pepper, one of Dr. Daos five children. Mr. Demetrio said he thought the companys apology had been staged, and said he was not aware of any attempts by United officials to contact Dr. Dao. What happened to my dad should have never happened to any human being regardless of the circumstances, Ms. Dao Pepper said. She said her father was catching a connecting flight in Chicago to his home in Louisville, Ky., after a vacation in California. Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Return When to watch: Friday, on Netflix. Add it to your Watchlist At last, a revival of something actually worth reviving. This beloved series, in which a man and his robot companions snark on hilariously bad B-movies, is back for 14 new episodes, with a different cast but the same outlook and style and mercifully, the same reliable, giddy humor. Jonah Ray is our hero for this iteration, still flanked by Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo, who are now voiced by the comedians Hampton Yount and Baron Vaughn. Maybe you can go home again. A bill that would require all counties in the state to appoint a lawyer for youths in juvenile court was unable to reach a vote Wednesday. Lincoln Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks was attempting what she couldn't accomplish last year. She wanted attorneys appointed in all counties for youths who commit crimes. Last year, she was able to pass a bill that affected only the three largest Nebraska counties -- Lancaster, Douglas and Sarpy. This year's bill (LB158) may or may not come back again for debate. With a practice enacted by Speaker Jim Scheer, if a bill can't muster a majority vote on first round in three hours, the Legislature moves on until the introducer can show she or he has a majority of votes. This year, as last year, the resistance to Pansing Brooks' proposal came from rural senators who said kids were getting attorneys in their counties and it wasn't a problem. It would increase costs for rural counties, said Sen. Bruce Bostelman of Brainard. Sen. Mike Groene of North Platte called the bill nothing more than a lawyer employment bill. Pansing Brooks this time found a way for counties to pay for attorneys for youths, with the creation of a Juvenile Indigent Defense Fund paid for with $400,000 taken from the Supreme Court Automation Cash Fund. An email from Corey Steel, Nebraska state court administrator, said the courts supported efforts for juveniles to have the right to counsel. But they opposed taking money from the Supreme Court fund unless a $1 court fee was added to fund it. The fund is used to pay for the courts' information technology system. The bill would expand the current state law to require that all youths in a juvenile court be appointed an attorney. If the juvenile and their parent couldn't afford an attorney, it would require the court to appoint an attorney at county expense unless the juvenile waives the right to counsel. Use of the fund by counties would be administered by the Commission on Public Advocacy, and would be triggered if the county's per capita juvenile court costs increased in the preceding three fiscal years. Supporters of the bill said the right to an attorney is a constitutional one. Life-changing decisions are made in juvenile court, they said, and kids need to be represented and advised by an attorney. In many counties, according to data from the courts and probation administration, less than 60 percent of juveniles have access to counsel in court. As an emergency physician, Im always engaging in a fast-tempo, often awkward, all too stressful dance with strangers. Lately, though, Ive noticed a particular gap in my own medical education and training, as well as in that of my colleagues, thats further tripping up our steps: how to provide optimal health care for transgender patients. The gap is amplified in the emergency room, where even under the best of circumstances the interaction we have with patients is typically rushed and never entirely comfortable and where Im usually meeting a patient for the first time and dont have the patients medical history at my fingertips. Because transgender people are less likely to have health insurance and are four times more likely to live in poverty compared to the general population, the emergency room serves as a particularly important safety net for these patients. Sometimes the patient is registered as the wrong gender immediately from triage, resulting in a strained communication from the get-go. Other times, a staff member lets out a surprised gasp as a patient undresses for a physical exam. Then there are the moments when providers call a patient a he/she or they on rounds. Private rooms are also hard to come by in busy, overcrowded emergency rooms, and patients may be inappropriately clustered by gender. None of this, for the most part, is out of malice. Instead its because of our own ignorance and stems from our lack of education and training on providing sensitive and evidence-based care for transgender patients. In Uganda, criticizing the president may not just be illegal. It could also be used as proof of insanity. The government of President Yoweri Museveni, still in power 31 years after setting out as a great hope for African democracy, routinely intimidates dissidents and journalists. Live broadcasts of demonstrations are banned, and social media is blocked during elections that are already deeply flawed. And the longer Mr. Museveni clings to power, the tighter his grip on dissent appears to be. Ugandas top prosecutor sought this week to crack down further on dissent, trying to use a colonial-era law, once used by the British to quash African resistance, to commit a prominent critic of the president to a mental institution. It was only the second time in recent memory that the law, the Mental Treatment Act of 1938, was invoked in a case over free speech, according to lawyers. The first involved a student who was forcibly taken several times to a psychiatric hospital after lampooning the president on social media. Viva the Womens Spring, Monica Iozzi, a Globo presenter and actress, wrote on Twitter. Juliana de Faria, an activist and founder of the nonprofit Think Olga, said Globos response showed that women no longer had to endure mistreatment and could fight back. It proves we have matured in terms of harassment, she said. Giulia Gomes, 16, a public school student in Rio de Janeiro, said the internet was helping to fuel a rise in feminism among young women like her. People are increasingly connected and seeing why feminism exists and why there is no reason to accept sexism in our society, she said. She added that Globo had acted correctly in suspending Mr. Mayer, 67, best known for playing moody, romantic figures. They did the right thing, she said. But I am scared this case will die. Ms. Tonani wrote that Mr. Mayer had harangued her for months with inappropriate comments on her appearance, and that in February, he put his hand on her genitals in front of two female colleagues, who laughed. She went to the network and published her account on the website of the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo. I saw myself alone, unprotected, cornered, ridiculed, made inferior, invisible, Ms. Tonani wrote. Initially, Mr. Mayer denied the accusations and said the words and attitudes belonged to his character, not to him. But a campaign began to grow online, adopting the feminist slogan Mexeu com uma, mexeu com todas, or mess with one, mess with all. By the beginning of this month, within days, some of Globos most famous actresses had joined in, wearing T-shirts with the slogan in photographs posted on social media, as featured on the website for the Brazilian edition of Vogue which happens to be partly owned by another arm of Globo. UNITED NATIONS The United Nations Security Council voted unanimously on Thursday to end its 13-year-long peacekeeping mission in Haiti, and replace its blue-helmeted soldiers with police officers. The mission, often a source of embarrassment to the world body, landed in Haiti in 2004, after a rebellion led to the removal of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. It became arguably best known for introducing a deadly cholera strain to the country and then refusing for years to take responsibility for it. The cholera outbreak, which began in 2010, has killed at least 9,500 people so far and infected hundreds of thousands of Haitians. The United Nations apologized last year and proposed to compensate affected Haitians, but has yet to raise money for the effort. Of the $400 million that the United Nations says it needs, it has received $2.66 million, from only six countries Britain, Chile, France, India, Liechtenstein and South Korea, according to data posted on its website. The mission has also recently been troubled by allegations of sexual abuse. A sex ring, operated by Sri Lankan soldiers who were posted there from 2004 to 2007, exploited at least nine children, according to an internal United Nations report, The Associated Press reported this week. BEIJING Amid sharply rising tensions over North Koreas nuclear arms program, China said on Thursday that its trade with the country had expanded, even though it had complied with United Nations sanctions and stopped buying North Korean coal, a major source of hard currency for Pyongyang. China released the first-quarter trade data just days after President Trump urged its leader, Xi Jinping, to clamp down on trade with North Korea. The two leaders met at Mr. Trumps Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida last week. With signs indicating that North Korea could be planning a nuclear or missile test as early as Saturday, a United States Navy strike group led by the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson is steaming toward the Korean Peninsula in a show of force. But the Trump administration has indicated that economic pressure particularly imposed by China, with which North Korea conducts almost 90 percent of its trade is its preferred form of deterrence. On Wednesday, Mr. Trump said in interviews that he had encouraged Mr. Xi to solve the North Korea problem, offering China a better trade deal if he did so. KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia The two women who claim they were tricked into assassinating the estranged half brother of North Koreas leader appeared in court Thursday, where their lawyers argued that Malaysias decision to free three North Korean suspects ended any chance of bringing the real culprits to justice. The prime minister of Malaysia, Najib Razak, allowed the three suspects to leave the country two weeks ago in a deal his government negotiated with North Korea, making the women, one from Indonesia and one from Vietnam, the only suspects likely to be charged in the killing. Thats tantamount to a miscarriage of justice, said Gooi Soon Seng, the lawyer representing the accused Indonesian, Siti Aisyah, in an interview after the court hearing. The two girls are mere scapegoats. They are naive girls who have been used by these people. Ms. Siti, 25, and Doan Thi Huong, 28, are accused of smearing VX nerve agent, a banned chemical weapon, on the face of Kim Jong-nam, the half brother of Kim Jong-un, at the Kuala Lumpur airport in February. The Taliban, who have expanded their control in the south in recent years, are also fond of the motorcycle. Although they increasingly use pickup trucks and Humvees taken from Afghan forces, the motorcycle remains a staple of their offensives. The Talibans use of the motorcycle in hit-and-run assassinations led to a crackdown. A former police chief in Tirin Kot banned the use of motorcycles for several months. In Kandahar, the police banned double-riding. Its a bit difficult for us now to take a second person the police stop you and give you a hard time, said Bismillah Khan, who bought his motorcycle for about $300 two years ago. Children and women, he added, are not a problem. We do accept that important work remains to be done, he said. While the federal government will license and regulate growers, each of Canadas provinces will need to decide exactly how the drug will be distributed and sold within its boundaries. The government will have to develop the marijuana equivalents of breathalyzers so that drivers can be checked for impairment at the roadside and workers can be tested for safety on the job. Diplomats will have to address conflicts with international drug treaties. And many in the medical field are concerned about the long-term health effects of increased use of marijuana by Canadians under the age of 25. Though eight American states have legalized marijuana to various extents, the drug remains illegal under federal law. Mr. Trudeaus move eliminates any such ambiguity in Canada. It follows a court-mandated legalization of marijuana for medical purposes, which was introduced with tight controls in 1999 and later broadened by further court orders. While the new legislation will take Canada beyond its medical marijuana system, it stops far short of creating an open market. The law will require purchasers to be at least 18 years old though provinces can set a higher minimum and it will limit the amount they can carry at any one time to 30 grams, about an ounce. Households will be allowed to grow up to four marijuana plants. But the legislation seems built on the assumption that most users will be supplied by commercial growers, who will be licensed and closely supervised by the federal government. Growing, importing, exporting or selling marijuana outside licensed channels will remain serious crimes, according to Mr. Blair and Ralph Goodale, the public safety minister. The Beslan siege stretched across three days. It ended around 1 p.m. on Sept. 3, when two powerful explosions were set off in the gymnasium, blasting a hole in the wall through which several hostages tried to escape. Militants fired on them before exchanging gunfire with the security forces, who were then ordered to storm the building. The militants rounded up the surviving hostages, about 300 people, and forced them to go to other parts of the school, while dead, wounded and traumatized hostages stayed in the gymnasium. Flames spread, and the roof collapsed around 3:30 p.m. In all, more than 330 people were killed including 12 members of the security forces and hundreds of others were wounded. One militant was captured, and the rest were killed. The security forces were armed with tanks, rockets, grenade launchers, flamethrowers and other weapons. The court found that the use of such lethal force contributed to the casualties among the hostages and violated the right to life by failing to restrict lethal force to what was absolutely necessary. The court also found that the operations command structure suffered from a lack of formal leadership, resulting in serious flaws in decision making and coordination with other relevant agencies. The court said that the Russian authorities had fallen short on their obligation to protect life. The security arrangement at the school had not been heightened; the local police had not taken sufficient measures to reduce the risks; no warning had been given to the school administration, or to the public attending the ceremony; and no single sufficiently high-level structure had been responsible for the handling of the situation, the court found. WASHINGTON As a candidate, President Trump disparaged NATO as a musty relic of old thinking, an alliance focused on long-gone adversaries rather than new-era threats, a burden that drained American resources on behalf of ungrateful partners who did not pay their share. In a word: obsolete. That was then. After 82 days in office, Mr. Trump officially pronounced NATO rehabilitated, taking credit for transforming it into a modern, cost-sharing, terrorism-fighting pillar of American and European security. I said it was obsolete, the president noted on Wednesday as he hosted NATOs secretary general. Its no longer obsolete. Never mind that the alliance has changed very little if at all in the last three months, and that whatever modest changes have been made were in train long before Mr. Trump entered the doorway of the White House. After weeks of being lobbied, cajoled and educated by the leaders of Britain and Germany, not to mention my generals, as he likes to call his national security team, Mr. Trump has found fresh virtue in a venerable organization. Nothing has changed at NATO in the last 80 days, said Ivo Daalder, a former ambassador to NATO under President Barack Obama and now president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Its gratifying to see the president affirming that NATO is no longer obsolete it never was. Perhaps the one important thing that has changed in the last 80 days is that as president, Mr. Trump has come to appreciate the importance of this alliance and how it contributes to security and stability in Europe and beyond. A 65-year-old Lincoln man got a year in jail for using a stun gun on two women at a campground last year. Lancaster County District Judge Kevin McManaman sentenced Robert A. Miles on Thursday to 180 days on each of two counts of second-degree assault, to be served back to back, according to court records. At a trial last month, Deputy Lancaster County Attorney Eric Miller alleged that Miles showed up at Wildwood Lake, south of Valparaiso, at about 5:30 p.m. on April 23, 2016, with his Alaskan malamute dog named Teddy and three other dogs, none on leashes. After a camper was bitten on the hand when he intervened to keep Teddy from attacking his dog, Miles moved through the campground, eventually stunning two women, ages 19 and 46, with a dual-purpose flashlight and stun gun, according to witnesses. Miles had argued he did it in self-defense. A jury found him guilty. LONDON United Nations experts demanded on Thursday that Chechnya halt the abduction, detention, beating and killing of gay and bisexual men, after weeks of reports about violent repression there. These are acts of persecution and violence on an unprecedented scale in the region and constitute serious violations of the obligations of the Russian Federation under international human rights law, the experts, a panel of five that advises the United Nations Human Rights Council, said in a statement. The experts noted that much of the abuse was reported to have taken place at an unofficial detention center near Argun, a town about 10 miles east of Grozny, the Chechen capital. The arrested men are subjected to physical and verbal abuse, torture including with electric shocks, beatings, insults and humiliations, the experts wrote. They are forced to give contact details of other gay people and threatened with having their sexual orientation disclosed to their family and community a move which could put them at risk of honor killings. Will London fall? It is a question as evocative as it is provocative. It was also the headline in The New York Times at the top of Tuesdays front page essay about London that generated a spirited trans-Atlantic discussion. The essay by Sarah Lyall, with striking visuals by Sergey Ponomarev, is the first in a series of articles examining how Britains vote to leave the European Union, known as Brexit, could affect London. Ms. Lyall looked closely at the British capital: a teeming multicultural metropolis of 8.7 million people, with a Muslim mayor, where some native Britons no longer feel at home. London is a center of international culture and commerce whose resilience and openness became a symbol of postwar European unity. Its expected that in two years it will no longer be a part of that European experiment. In Britain, and around the world, the response to the article was swift, if hardly unanimous. Readers, commentators in the British news media, members of Parliament and people across social media weighed in and continued to do so on Thursday. The Central Command statement said that the target location turned out to be a fighting position for the Syrian Democratic Forces, who have been fighting the Islamic State alongside the United States. It was unclear whether the strike came from an American warplane or one from the other coalition partners. The coalitions deepest condolences go out to the members of the S.D.F. and their families, Central Command said in the statement, calling the episode tragic. Military officials said the cause is being investigated. As the American-led military campaigns against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria have intensified in recent months, so, too, have reports of civilian casualties and, now, friendly fire. The Trump administration is hoping that its cruise missile strikes will solve a problem that has defied years of efforts: the willingness of the Syrian leader, Bashar al-Assad, to use chemical weapons. But in a war with many dilemmas, this may be among the most intractable, analysts say. It is driven by Mr. Assads own grim strategy and the limitations of American power, but also something deeper: the fundamental nature of the Syrian conflict and of chemical weaponry. What follows are some of the forces prompting Mr. Assad to opt to use chemical weapons in Syria and why they are so resilient. Syrias Manpower Shortage Mr. Assad relies on airstrikes, backed by allied Russian forces, which have helped him turn the wars tide. But his greatest weakness is manpower: His ground forces, eroded by years of fighting, are simply too few to hold, much less advance, every front line. Two men have been charged in the death of a man who was found inside his burned home north of Bancroft last month. Derek J. Olson, 27, was charged with second-degree murder, accessory to a felony, use of a deadly weapon to commit a felony, first-degree arson and cruelty to an animal, according to the Cuming County attorney's office. Prosecutors also charged his father, Jody J. Olson, 48, with accessory to a felony. The Nebraska State Patrol began investigating the death of Ernest Warnock, 64, after he was found inside his home at 2490 W. Rosalie Road on March 11. A search warrant says the Olsons and two other people went to Warnock's house around midnight on March 10 to retrieve some belongings. During an argument, Warnock stabbed Jody Olson once in the arm. Derek Olson then started stabbing Warnock multiple times in the back of his head and shoulder, the warrant says. While he was still allegedly stabbing Warnock, Derek Olson accidentally stabbed Jody Olson in the chest, then hit Warnock in the head with a hammer, the warrant says. The group left and attempted to take Jody Olson to a hospital, but they were stopped by a trooper for speeding on U.S. 77. The group allegedly made up a story about how Jody Olson was stabbed during a fight with an unknown man outside of a bar, the warrant says. Derek Olson returned to Warnock's house the next night and set it on fire in an attempt to hide evidence, the warrant says. The search warrant was filed last month for Derek Olson's DNA. It says investigators also found multiple drops of blood where the cement walkway meets the gravel driveway to the home. Cuming County Judge Michael Long set bond at $1 million for each man and they remain jailed Thursday morning. Friday 1) 3 P.M. Crab Pizza Crab shacks might be ubiquitous in Baltimore, but Matthews Pizzeria, in Canton, might be the only place to get a crab pizza. This casual, Formica-table-filled institution (it opened in the 1940s) turns out chewy, cheesy deep-dish pies that are worth a visit on their own. But the backfin crab-topped pizza, sprinkled with mozzarella, caramelized onions and Old Bay (which originated in Baltimore) is an experience not to be missed. Note the painted window screen on the outer wall, a Baltimore tradition. Lunch for two, around $20. Then stroll across the street to the Creative Alliance, a community arts space, for whatevers on offer a theatrical performance, a locally made documentary or an art exhibition. 2) 4 P.M. Outsider Art The American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM), a temple of outsider art (admission, $15.95), deserves all of the praise that has been heaped upon it since it opened in 1995. Since then, its added a warehouse, a second sculpture park and an outdoor movie theater, all at the foot of grassy Federal Hill, just steps from the harbor. The signs accompanying each artwork describe artists whose life stories run the gamut from uncomfortable to tragic, while the pieces themselves colorful and compelling merit hours of examination. The American Visionary Art Museum at the foot of Federal Hill. Credit Darren S. Higgins for The New York Times 3) 7 P.M. Urban Farm Maggies Farm, in the northeast section of the city, is the purveyor of a winning combination of seasonal ingredients (some from its own garden), domestic inspiration (like brisket rubbed with coffee from the Baltimore roaster Zekes) and global influence (Singapore noodles with peanuts and peppers); its one of the leaders in the citys rapidly growing local food movement. The red interior manages to be dimly, romantically lit even at lunch time. Try quirky cocktails like the Corn n Oil, a combo of barrel-aged rum, Velvet Falernum, lime juice, Angostura bitters and Coke. The oft-changing menu is limited to a small number of dishes, but the beloved crispy brussels sprouts are usually available. Dinner for two, about $90. 4) 9 P.M. Coffee and Kimchi The Station North neighborhood is home to an array of late-night options. Start at Red Emmas, a radical bookstore-cafe run by a worker cooperative. The cavernous space sells its own roasted coffee, vegan and vegetarian meals and childrens books with a revolutionary bent. Then head to the Crown, a bare-bones venue that hosts bands, art shows and competitive karaoke competitions in its red and blue rooms. This is where former art students like to drink $6 pints of Duckpin pale ale, made by Union Craft Brewing, based in Baltimore, and named after the local style of bowling. Afterward, head around the corner to Jong Kak, where the Crown clientele soak up the nights high-percentage beers with enormous portions of Korean barbecue and kimchi ji gae, a spicy kimchi stew. Wash down a last soju with a crispy seafood pancake stuffed with green onions and shrimp. Two Arkansas inmates were granted stays of executions on Monday in an ongoing case concerning their lack of access to independent mental health experts, halting the states plan to begin carrying out executions. A preliminary injunction was dissolved late Monday by a federal appeals court for a lawsuit arguing that the pace of the executions and the use of the drug midazolam were unconstitutional. The state had scheduled these executions in quick succession because its supply of midazolam, one of three drugs used in its procedure, is set to expire at the end of April. In a separate case, an Arkansas judge issued a temporary restraining order on Friday after two pharmaceutical companies argued that the state had obtained some of its lethal injection drugs under false pretenses. An Unprecedented Schedule Since 1976, the year the death penalty was reinstated nationally, multiple executions in one state on a single day have occurred only 10 times. The last time was 17 years ago in Texas. Arkansas conducted double executions nearly a year before that. Executions by day of 20 states with the most executions Red represents multiple executions in a day Arkansas originally planned to carry out eight executions in 10 days. No state has tried to execute so many people in such a short period. Virginia is the only other state with an execution scheduled this month. Date Inmate Status April 17 Bruce Ward Execution stayed April 17 Don Davis Execution stayed April 20 Stacey Johnson Blocked by court order April 20 Ledell Lee Blocked by court order April 24 Marcel Williams Blocked by court order April 24 Jack Jones Blocked by court order April 27 Kenneth Williams Blocked by court order April 27 Jason McGehee Execution stayed All the executions in Arkansas are currently blocked by a restraining order from the state. Three of the inmates were granted stays of execution outside of that decision. The last attempt to carry out two executions in a day resulted in chaos. In April 2014 in Oklahoma, the inmate Clayton Lockett was awake and writhed in pain during the administration of the lethal drugs, even though earlier a doctor had announced that Mr. Lockett was unconscious. The state canceled a second execution originally scheduled on that day. The Oklahoma Department of Public Safety later recommended that executions be at least seven days apart, citing the botched execution and saying it was partly a result of extra stress from having two executions planned on the same day. The Missouri Supreme Court adopted a rule in 2016 that limited executions to one per month. Corrections officers are not hired executioners, states the Arkansas inmates federal complaint. It argues that the emotional toll of the job and the rushed schedule greatly increase the risks of causing unnecessary pain and suffering for the inmates, a violation of the Eighth Amendment. A letter to the Arkansas governor, Asa Hutchinson, from dozens of former corrections officials and administrators also expressed concerns that the schedule will impose extraordinary and unnecessary stress and trauma on the staff responsible with carrying out the executions. Multiple executions create rushed circumstance. Rushed circumstances risk error, said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit research group on capital punishment. Mr. Dunham argued further that the only reason for such a compressed schedule was the expiration date of the injection drugs, calling it an arbitrary kill-by date. The Drug in Question: Midazolam After other medications became unavailable, Arkansas turned to midazolam, a common sedative that has become a drug of choice for executions in several states. The complaint filed by the Arkansas inmates argues that the use of midazolam is unconstitutional because the lack of anesthetic potency of the drug is all but certain to cause excruciating suffering. A number of pharmaceutical companies have restricted the use of their drugs in executions, contending that their products are made to promote human health, not for killing. Roche, a developer of midazolam, publicly stated in 2015 that it did not supply midazolam for death penalty use and would not knowingly provide any of our medicines for this purpose. Since midazolams first use in an execution in October 2013, there have been at least four botched executions involving the drug. After the execution team administered midazolam and confirmed that the inmates were sedated, the individuals awoke, struggled or convulsed while being injected with the subsequent lethal drugs. States with lethal injection protocols Have not used midazolam Have used or plan to use midazolam Wash. Mont. Ore. N.H. Idaho S.D. Wyo. Pa. Neb. Nev. Ohio Ind. Utah Colo. Va. Calif. Kan. Mo. Ky. N.C. Tenn. Okla. Ariz. Ark. S.C. Ala. Ga. Miss. La. Tex. Fla. Ohio Va. Ky. Ariz. Okla. Ark. Ala. Fla. Cindy Lange-Kubick Columnist Cindy Lange-Kubick has loved writing columns about life in her hometown since 1994. She had hoped to become a people person by now, nonetheless she would love to hear your tales of fascinating neighbors and interesting places. Follow Cindy Lange-Kubick Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today In 2015, Nancy Purdy Ritchie went looking for her lost kin. She tells the tale in great detail. Its a story that involves adoption and Ainsworth and two half-brothers and aunts and uncles and red hair and Facebook. But that comes later. Let's start from the beginning. * * * Nancy knew she was adopted. It was the bedtime story her mother told the day they got the call that their little girl was waiting for them, a 2-month-old at an Omaha orphanage run by Lutheran Family Services. From the beginning, Nancy believed thats where shed been born, too. It wasnt until elementary school after theyd moved from Grand Island to Lincoln and shed needed a copy of her adoption papers that she saw a word she didnt recognize and wondered: What was an Ainsworth? Where was it? Nancy is 57. Shes divorced and her son and daughter are grown. She works as a research analyst in the Department of Labor. She had wonderful parents, she says. An older brother named Jim, also adopted. An ordinary childhood. I loved my parents and I felt very fortunate that they chose me. I had a very good life. She didnt obsess over her birth family. It was just a hole, Nancy says. Unanswered questions. And a convenient weapon to wield during the turbulence of her teenage years: Im going to go find my real mother! If I argued with my mother, Id throw that out there, she says. I know that really hurt her a lot. In 2012, her mom died, and three months later, her dad died. By then, her brother had been gone for more than a decade. I went from having a little hole in my life to having a huge hole in my life. Shed never wanted to hurt her parents by looking for her birth mother while they were alive, Nancy says. Jim and Darlene Purdy were her mom and dad, after all. She was her moms Mothers Day present in the spring of 1960. She taught me what it was to be a good mother. And now it felt like the right time to look for the woman who gave them both that chance. As she was sorting through her parents' estate, Nancy came across adoption papers in their safety deposit box. In the space for a name it simply said: Baby Edwards. That was a shock, she says. As an infant I didnt have a name. I wasnt Nancy. Now she had a last name, and an avenue to more answers. And one thing more: A friend from Ainsworth. * * * Meet Janeen Ward, here to fill in the middle of the story. Janeen met Nancy when they both had part-time jobs at Russs Market in the late 1990s. She was one of the cashiers, says the Southeast Community College early childhood education instructor. She was so funny and fun to talk to. And, in talking to each other, we both realized we were from the same hometown, although she had never been there. The two women remained friends long after they left the grocery store. Janeen knew Nancy was adopted. She knew shed wanted to find her birth family, and in June 2015, when Janeen was heading home for a visit, she asked Nancy to go, too. Nancy cried when she saw the sign welcoming them to the northern Nebraska town of 1,600. She was happy to be in Ainsworth," Janeen says. "And it was really emotional for her to be there. It was reunion weekend, and the Brown County seat was packed. Nancy passed out business cards with her name and her birthdate and her quest. She searched for lookalikes. I have red hair, she said. You cannot believe all the redheads up there. The friends visited the hospital and the newspaper office. They posed questions to long-ago graduates of Ainsworth High School. They went to the Lutheran church, where the minister looked in old directories and came up with one Edwards. But it was a dead end. And then the minister did one thing more: She mentioned Nancys search to the Ladies Quilting Group. It turns out the quilters talked as they quilted and wondered: Could it be one of Harold and Daisy Edwards kids? Janeens sister had graduated with one of Harold and Daisys kids. I gave him a call, Janeen says. And he said, Well, we really dont know anything. And thats the middle of the story. But every story needs an ending. * * * Nancy didnt give up. She went to Facebook instead, where she hit some brick walls (and privacy settings) before she found a photo of five siblings on the page of a man named Edwards in Genoa. The girls in the photo sure looked like her. She sent unanswered letters and made unreturned phone calls and Facebook pleas. And then, a year ago, she got an answer. A short message on Facebook: I think you might be my older sisters daughter. My heart just stopped, Nancy says. Literally, I think it stopped for two or three seconds. Joan Carman sent those words to her long-lost niece from her home in Genoa. She was 5 in 1960 when her sister, Cheryl, had a baby girl and gave her up for adoption, Joan said Wednesday. I really didnt know she had a baby until I was in high school. We didnt talk about it much, but at one point she did tell me, I had a little girl once and I didnt get to raise her. It was another time, she says. And you have to remember, we were dirt poor, another mouth to feed would have been difficult. Cheryl married and moved to Genoa and raised two sons, John and Jay Schroder. She died of ovarian cancer on the last day of January 2015. Joan followed up her message with a long phone call to Lincoln, Nancy nervous, but chatty. The two met and Joan introduced Nancy to her half-brothers. "It's just like getting a little bit of Cheryl back," she says. And Cheryl's sons heard their mother in their half-sister's voice. And in her mannerisms, says John, who lives in Columbus. Her laugh. The way she talks with her hands. Her strong opinions and gentle giving side. She looks like my Aunt Jo (Joan) and my mom when she was a little younger, he says. So its not a stretch. Theyve become close in the past year. Nancy coming to visit; family members traveling to Lincoln. The siblings have discovered mutual loves. Dr. Pepper. Horror movies. Star Trek. "We knew about her and we wanted to meet her," John says. "But we thought it couldn't be done." The Edwards family is big and boisterous. They all get together for the holidays at Uncle Tonys cafe in Genoa 50 or 60 of them packing the place. Last Thanksgiving, they added three more places at the table for Nancy and her kids. We all wore color-coded name tags so they would know who belonged to who, John says. And Nancy belonged. From the beginning, she fit right in, like shed slipped into a family portrait with an empty space, waiting to be filled. Armageddon (Image by paolofefe) Details DMCA Reprinted from www.paulcraigroberts.org The insouciance of the Western world is extraordinary. It is not only Americans who permit themselves to be brainwashed by CNN, MSNBC, NPR, the New York Times and Washington Post, but also their counterparts in Europe, Canada, Australia, and Japan, who rely on the war propaganda machine that poses as a media. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39573526 The Western "leaders," that is, the puppets on the end of the strings pulled by the powerful private interest groups and the Deep State, are just as insouciant. Trump and his counterparts in the American Empire must be unaware that they are provoking war with Russia and China, or else they are psychopaths. A new White House Fool has replaced the old fool. The New Fool has sent his Secretary of State to Russia. For what? To deliver an ultimatum? To make more false accusations? To apologize for the lies? Consider the audacity of Secretary of State Tillerson. He has spent the week prior to his visit to Moscow supporting incredible lies and false allegations that Assad of Syria used chemical weapons with Russia's permission, which justified Washington's unambigious war crime of a military attack on a country with which the US has not declared war. Less than 100 days in office, and Trump is already a war criminal along with the rest of his warmonger government. The entire world knows this, but no one says it. Instead, Tillerson, who has been heavy with lies and threats has the confidence to go to Moscow to tell the Russians that they have to hand over Assad to the American Uni-Power. Tillerson's mission demonstrates the complete, total unreality of the world in which Washington lives. Try to imagine Tillerson's arrogance. If you had been bad-mouthing and threatening strong, important people, would you feel comfortable going over to their house to have dinner with them? Does Tillerson think that now that Russia has largely freed Syrtia of US-supported ISIS, Russia is going to turn Syria over to Washington? Is he going to tell Lavrov that he didn't really mean all those nasty lies he told about Russia, but the zionist neoconservatives made him do it? That he is not really in charge, just a tool of the Anglo-Zionist Empire? Is Tillerson going to apologize for White House press secretary Sean Spicer's statement that Assad, Russia's ally, is more evil than Hitler? http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39573063 Maybe Tillerson is going to ask for asylum and get on the winning side. Stephen Cohen, one of the few remaining Americans knowledgeable about Russia, told the two CNN presstitutes and the warmonger Col. Leighton, one of the "experts" that the presstitutes roll out to pronounce the propaganda against Russia, that Russia was preparing for hot war. It seems to have gone over the heads of the CNN presstitutes and colonel. Whose payroll are they on?http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/46838.htm The Russian leaders, who, unlike the Western liars, speak the truth, have said clearly that Russia will never again fight a war on her own territory. The Russians couldn't put it more clearly. Provoke a war, and we will destroy you on your own territory. When you watch the president and government in Washington, the European governments, especially the idiots in London, the Canadian and Australian governments, you can only marvel at the total stupidity of "Western leadership." They are begging for the end of the world. And the presstitutes are at work driving toward the end of life. Huge numbers of Western peoples are being prepared for their demise, and they are protected from the realization by their insouciance. Washington is so arrogant and lost in its own hubris, that Washington does not understand that the years of clear as crystal lies about Russia and Russian intentions and deeds have convinced Russia that Washington is preparing the populations of the United States and Washington's captive peoples in West and East Europe, Canada, Australia, and Japan for a US pre-emptive nuclear strike against Russia. Published US war plans against China have convinced China of the same. Next Page 1 | 2 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). Front cover of vol. 6, #4 of the activist journal 'Justice Rising' (Image by Alliance for Democracy) Details DMCA Yesterday was an interesting day to recommend this issue of an annual journal published by Ronny Dugger's Alliance for Democracy (AfD). Within 23 colorfully bound pages, "The People's Vote Must Count" is modestly described by editor/writer/activist Jim Tarbell as a "study guide" on how adopting hand-counted paper ballots (HCPB) as our default voting system fits into the larger grid of needed electoral reform. The grid expands the more I study it. Problems are no longer limited to intimidation, bribery, and stuffed ballot boxes, as they were nearly 250 years ago in this country. But, as I wrote above, yesterday was an interesting day to review this comprehensive account of the five Ws and how our electoral system is so corrupt and what we can do to fix it, because in yesterday's issue of The Nation, an author dismissed voting as close to useless if we can do no better than to elect Donald Trump as president. We must pursue other avenues of activism than simply checking off some candidates once every four years. Does he ask why our system is running on empty? No. The avenues of activism he proposes as far more effective than voting include the exciting protests and confrontations with legislators we are witnessing against Trump's treachery today. But first we have to vote and the system must effectively reflect We the People's will, We the 99 Percent. That's a given. Ask Tom Paine, for one. Seventeen brief, concise, and incisive articles by 15 distinguished authors dissect the system's complexities and clarify them for concerned activists and all those wondering why Election Day, which used to be a simple "going to the ballot box and pushing a lever" process (to quote Noam Chomsky), has evolved into such a mess for certain minorities who together happen to comprise the vast majority of our country's population. Defeating the corporatocracy that is more and more trespassing on human rights here is the mission of the AfD. "The issue is not the issues," writes Dugger; "the issue is the system." Leading off the journal is not a barrage of complaints but an exhortation: here's what we must do: 1) reclaim elections; 2) restore our voting rights; and 3) protect our ballots--a tough priorities folder that can't happen without a democratic revolution. Bernie Sanders has agreed, addressing the system at large. Our machinery is no good, writes Tarbell. Why waste billions of dollars on it when we can use recyclable paper and create work opportunities for large numbers of people? HCPB works if done correctly. He anticipates the center section, which describes AfD's new "People's Vote Must Count" campaign (pages 10-11), which enumerates how to assemble the revolution step by step, from publicizing the exigencies and getting people together who support HCPB, to outreach to larger numbers, to effective and compelling publications, to introducing legislation, to a tableau vivant of HCPB in action at one precinct of each jurisdiction in the country. In this regard, "It's time for the US to Join the Rest of the [voting] World" (Western Europe, for example; articles thumbnailed below supply more details). AfD's webpage explaining the processes is at www.peoplesvotemustcount.org. The "Principles of Electoral Reform," quoted from the National Election Reform Coalition, describes an ideal HCPB system, fulfilling the goals of transparency, accuracy, security, and privacy, among other desiderata that you must read about. Progress already accomplished toward these goals is detailed by Victoria Collier and Ben-Zion Ptashnik, executive directors of the National Election Defense Coalition. A new 71-member congressional caucus focused on voting rights was formed last year. Legislation has already been written and submitted, the VOTE Act (HR 5131) and the Election Integrity Act of 2016, both introduced by Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA). Both call for vast improvements in our electoral systems to be accomplished through federal funding. Funding distributed by the Help America Vote Act (HAVA, 2002), more than $3 billion, has been spent on low-quality systems now being kept functional by means of purchased spare parts. Reports by the nonpartisan Presidential Commission on Election Administration (PCEA) and Brennan Center for Justice both anticipated this attrition and warned that prompt intervention is essential. The lifespan of the worst of these systems is at best 10 years, the direct recording electronic (DRE) or touchscreen machinery. Purchased between 2001 and 2007, it must be replaced, as our math indicates. The article "Failed Election Administration" (page 19) describes the 2013 report published by the commission. Fine that it's nonpartisan, but does that explain why there is no mention of discrimination or corruption, two towering symptoms of election dysfunction? Instead, to combat the "long lines" thus engendered, the science of queology, the science of queuing, is consulted. Remember President Obama's repeated exhortation that "we have to do something about that"? Try queology. I don't mean to oversimplify. The report is magisterial. Election law expert and academic Rick Hasen simply writes that it's not enough. Author and activist Jonathan Simon, executive director of the Election Defense Alliance, describes another brand of corruption that interferes with accurate vote counting--the opposition to and thwarting of an effective means of auditing the vote counts produced by machinery, exit polls, which are used, again, successfully overseas (in Ukraine, for example, where the United States intervened in a presidential election on the basis of incongruity between the vote count and exit polls collected). Exit polls are being eliminated gradually in this country or else tweaked to conform to machine results. Simon and his colleagues manage to capture the raw data when it appears briefly on television (I believe that CNN provides it), before the corruption process begins. Such vote counts trend right of exit poll data, Simon discovered, and called this event a "red shift." Were we to use HCPB instead of relying on "shadowy corporation(s)," exit polls would be far more consistent with the vote counts. "War on the Dispossessed," excerpted from their book The Strip & Flip Selection of 2016, is the title of authors/academics/activists Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman's contribution, which pinpoints the new Jim Crow system of our era, the voter ID requirement and corrupt registration procedures. Such disgraces relegate the United States to the rank of forty-fifth among long-standing democracies of the world, with an integrity rating of 69.3 percent, according to a 2015 study--"one notch ahead of the narco-drug state Colombia." The authors describe further corruption that kept Bernie Sanders from winning the presidential primaries, which "should have caused a major scandal in the United States." They decry the abusive machinery that purports to count our votes, the DREs in particular, whose totals cannot be audited, especially when exit polls are ignored. To sum up, write the authors in agreement with Tarbell, "The only cure is a bottom-up revolution in human consciousness and action." Another outrageous symptom of the disease that is our electoral system is gerrymandering, or illegal redistricting that is politically or racially motivated. Tarbell narrates its origins and culmination in the computer program invented for that sole purpose, the corporate-financed REDMAP. Once the GOP swept elected positions at the state and federal levels in 2010, REDMAP created red-dominated districts that were predicted to last for a decade, Karl Rove's sweet dream. Then in 2012, reiterating a result achieved several times at the presidential level by the Electoral College, Democrats swept the popular vote by 1.7 million but the GOP won a 33-seat majority in Congress. The solution, of course, is to take redistricting out of the partisan hands of state legislatures and into the purview of independent, nonpartisan commissions, which several states have accomplished effectively, mostly western ones, including Arizona, California, Washington State, and Iowa. The article "Suppressing the 99%" (page 6) points to its illegitimate justification, the possibility of the virtually nonexistent voter fraud in the form of stealing the vote of another person by impersonating them at the polls. Caging and purging are also defined and discussed, two other forms of vote theft that hugely subtract the votes of minorities from totals. Who's at fault, the author wonders, directing her gaze at the cynical author published yesterday in The Nation--the people or the system? Still other forms of skullduggery follow with the obvious conclusion that We the People are suffering from a bad case of corporatocracy this issue of Justice Rising promises we can overcome. Other forms of "voter apartheid," a great coinage, are covered by Lisa Graves, executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy, who discusses discriminatory legislation created by the notorious ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, which was formed in the early seventies at about the time that the infamous Powell Manifesto began to swing things away from the reformist revolution of the sixties back to corporate control and ultimately now. ALEC writes legislation that becomes boilerplates nationwide that lead to "red shifts" in every sphere of our society--in our context voter ID and shortening early voting periods, for example. The people are fighting back in droves for a "sixties" renaissance, now that our plight has descended to such abysmal levels. We need a Sanders Manifesto that will work, and AfD is leading the way. A dedication to Ronnie Dugger follows, written by Nancy Price, co-chair of AfD National Council: "Over his 60-plus year career, Ronnie Dugger has produced 'journalism of conscience,' as a writer, editor, publisher, biographer and mentor." Founder of AfD in 1996, he is also an icon of the EI movement for his nonstop dedication embodied in a landmark, prophetic article "Counting Votes," which he wrote for the New Yorker in 1988, "on the rise of computerized voting, and increasing disenfranchisement, especially of African-Americans that concerned only some election officials and lawyers, . . . a path-breaking, before-its-time article." Dr. Reverend Rodney Sadler, a widely published professor, pastor, and community leader, writes about deliberate racism in voting and the people's courageous activism in fighting back. He looks back to the 2013 SCOTUS gutting of section five of the Voting Rights Act and its effects on Election 2016, warns against the attrition of the voting machines we use, and discusses the failure of so many bills written by Congress to combat all of this discrimination. Activist, actress, and author Mimi Kennedy, chair of the Progressive Democrats of America, contributes anecdotal details concerning her home state, California. She reviews the accomplishments of heroic secretaries of state like Kevin Shelley and Debra Bowen, who decertified most of the voting systems in her state, replacing them with optical scanners that performed better, a step in the right direction, paper. The Golden State should lead the nation with its exemplary system refined even more since then, with its publicly observed chain of custody, especially at the stage of ballot counting. A rosy report indeed to encourage the rest of us onward. Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). Before the election season, not the November 2016 election day, what issues were confronting Americans? The first was and is the damaging corporate control of the U.S. mainstream media. See: Congress can no longer ignore corporate control of the media By Rep. Bernie Sanders www.wethepeoplewethemedia.com/control1.htm And: Congress Can No Longer Ignore Corporate Control of the Media by Rep. Bernie Sanders Sander's Scoop newsletter, Summer 2002 click here This has been done and supported by those, including too many members of the US congress, who make money from wars and have goals that include Empire USA and corporate government. Nearing A Total Drop Off the Cliff (Image by Paul J. Landis) Details DMCA Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). At the beginning of their first terms in office, US presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama were invited (and accepted the invitation) to speak at the University of Notre Dame's commencement ceremonies in South Bend, Indiana. This year, university president Father John Jenkins tried to avoid an obvious and seemingly inevitable controversy by snubbing new US president Donald Trump, going instead with a "safe" speaker: Vice president Mike Pence. Not safe enough, Father Jenkins. In fact, according to student protesters, safety is precisely the problem. According to one Imanne Mondane, as quoted in the student-run Observernewspaper, "for many people on our campus, it makes them feel unsafe to have someone who openly is offensive but also demeaning of their humanity and of their life and of their identity" (I'm going to take a shot in the dark here and speculate that Mondane is probably not an English major). I note that Mondane is a senior, and have to wonder why she didn't feel too "unsafe" to attend Notre Dame for the past 3 1/2 years. After all, Mike Pence was the governor of Indiana from 2013 until this January. How is it that she suddenly finds Pence more scary in a nearly powerless position and living at the Naval Observatory 600 miles away in Washington than she found him when he was actually her state's chief executive, lurking a mere 150 miles from South Bend in Indianapolis and exercising considerable power over her life? If Pence is really such a scary guy, why didn't she flee his domain and cross the river to Cincinnati, Ohio, where fine Catholic university educations may be had at Xavier and Mount St. Joseph, instead of risking it at Notre Dame? Was John Kasich equally terrifying? Melodramatic much, Ms. Mondane? There are all kinds of good reasons for students to protest over their schools' speaking invitations to politicians they dislike. There are all kinds of good ways to demonstrate at or around the offending speeches, persuading others and promoting social dialogue. "I'm scared, please don't let the bad man talk" is neither one of those good reasons nor one of those good ways. In fact, if Donald Trump and Mike Pence really are the kind of monsters their critics describe them as, it plays right into their hands. Fear is what authoritarians crave and what demagogues feed on. "Safe spaces" are cages for you, not barriers to them. "Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything. It's certainty." Stephen Colbert MODIFICATION: : at the very moment this article was published, I found the following outrageous example of conflicting claims: Here is what the NYDailyNews just published: The Syrian army said hundreds of Islamic State fighters as well as civilians were "killed when a U.S.-led coalition airstrike hit a militant position in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour. It said white smoke billowing from the area of the strike turned yellow, "most likely because of the explosion of a large warehouse containing large quantities of toxic substances." It said that the airstrike showed that militants have chemical weapons in their possession. Opposition activist Omar Abu Laila, who is from Deir el-Zour and currently lives in Europe, denied that report. Abu Laila is with Deir Ezzor 24, an activist group that has reporters throughout the eastern province." Here is the report from almasnarnews.com: "DAMASCUS, SYRIA (1:30 P.M.) -- The US-coalition Air Force has conducted airstrikes against ISIS positions in the eastern city of Deir Ezzor, targeting a chemical depot for the terror group which resulted in the death of hundreds of militants as well as civilian, the Syrian Ministry of Defense said in an official statement. "Yesterday between 17:30 -- 17:50 p.m., the so-called anti-ISIS coalition fighter jets struck an ISIS position in Hatla village to the east of Deir Ezzor. After the airstrike, a huge white cloud was formed --later on turned yellow -- as a result of an explosion in a chemical depot. A hug fire broke out until 22:30 p.m. Hundreds have been killed -- including civilians -- as a result of breathing toxic materials," the statement detailed. The official statement said this incident confirms beyond any doubt that "terror groups, particularly ISIS and Jabhet al-Nusra, already own chemical weapons, and have the ability to obtain, transport, store and use such chemical agents with the help of some regional countries. This also stresses the fact that those terror groups are coordinating with its sponsors to accuse the Syrian Arab Army of using chemical weapons." Conflicting stories: one by the Syrian military (which surely has images of the yellow smoke indicating chemicals) and the other by an anti-Assad propagandist living in Europe. Deir Ezzor sits in the oil-rich eastern province of the same name, most of which is controlled by IS. Abu Nour (a resident)said the people were terrified by stories of previous abductions and mass executions carried out by IS in the broader province. Omar Abu Leila, an activist from anti-Assad Deir Ezzor 24, which publishes news on the city had previously reported: "If IS seizes regime-held neighbourhoods, it could carry out massacres. This is a huge source of concern for us." Abu Leila denies the Syrian claims, without having any evidence. Tho he has warned the people of the brutality of IS, he is denying they have chemical weapons. Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). Congress Switchboard: 202-224-3121 "Putting real power into the hands of voters and consumers, has made bottom-up approaches massively disruptive for politics and brands. It's the present and future of politics and business. Rob Kall's book Bottom-Up pulls together the wisdom and experience of some of the leading thinkers who have brought the bottom-up revolution to full bloom." Joe Trippi, pioneering Internet campaign manager of Howard Dean, digital campaign consultant DALAI LAMA (Image by thieu_y) Details DMCA China is fretting and fuming over the visit of Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama to North-east India for participating in various functions in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. What is wrong with Beijing? Nothing. Such Dragon-speak is a familiar spectacle for nations in the South China Sea region. Not for Indians, who are far removed from SCS. So much so the Beijing thunder may appear as out of the blue for them. Nothing more, nothing less. Certainly as long as the Bamboo capitalist remains on the lookout for markets for mass produced cheap daily utility items and high end tech gizmos alike. Indians should know this truism; they are being courted by the MNCs ever since they freed their economy from the socialist clutches and allowed the animal spirits of middle class to soar some two decades ago It is economy, stupid. You cannot find fault with the Chinese Foreign Ministry's spokesperson Hua Chunying for saying, "This (Dalai Lama's visit) will have serious damage on bilateral relations." Spokespersons anywhere have an unenviable job. And the Chinese points- person for the media is no exception. So are the leader writers in the official China Daily who are paid to indulge in word play and write that Beijing "would not hesitate to answer blows with blows" if the Indian authorities allowed the Dalai Lama to continue with his visit to Tawang et al. Take a close look at the Chinese outburst vis--vis the Dalai Lama's visit to Arunachal Pradesh. A very interesting pattern is discernible. Because Beijing is not unaware of the number of visits the Tibetan spiritual leader, who has been living in exile at Dharamsala tucked away in the Himachal Mountains, had made to Arunachal Pradesh in the past. Between March 1983 and 2009, he visited the area six times. On each trip he did not confine himself to Itanagar, the capital of Arunachal Pradesh. In fact, every time he was in the region, he made it a point to go to Tawang, the home to an ancient monastery. Put simply there is nothing extraordinary in his latest swing through Tawang. China is aware of this ground reality. Global Times conceded this much in a lengthy harangue, "India's use of Dalai Lama card tactless". "The 14th Dalai Lama started his visit to "Arunachal Pradesh" (South Tibet of China) on Tuesday. The Dalai Lama has been to the disputed region before, but what makes this trip different is that he is received and accompanied by India's Junior Home Minister Kiren Rijiju," the tabloid said editorially on April 6, 2017. In other words, China is upset not by the presence of Dalai Lama in 'South of Tibet'. Tawang is home to the Monpa people, who practice Tibetan Buddhism. My honourable Chinese comrades deserve a lesson in politics and democracy alike. Rijiju is a local politician, a son of the soil in a manner of speaking. He is a Buddhist by faith and practice. For any true Buddhist, he counts himself as one, Dalai Lama is no mere human being. For the likes of Rijiju, Dalai Lama is not a demon as Beijing wants the world to believe. He is the spiritual leader, believed to be a reincarnation of Avalokitesvara. And he does not come to their town and village every day. Everybody wants to see him, get his blessings, and touch his feet. They want to make the best use of the few hours he spends in their midst discoursing on peace and God. It is once in a life time experience. Well, you cannot expect the Chinese to appreciate spiritualism, that too of the Buddhist variety. For the comrades, God and spiritualism are abstract subjects. For them the Yuan and the green back alone matter. As also local party apparatchik. While the Maoist China was light miles away from the much talked about proletariat, the post- Mao China is happy to be hailed as the Bamboo capitalist... I am not holding a brief for India. Nor do I advocate the view that one should not see beyond the headlines. But to see something sinister in the Dalai Lama visit, as many officially authorised experts on the Chinese media, have done is an exercise in futility, an effort at searching for demons in a Church. Frankly, as Global Times notes, India has reasons to be 'strongly dissatisfied with the Chinese. One for not supporting its membership bid to the Nuclear Suppliers Group'. Two for not supporting India's bid to place Masood Azhar, head of Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM), a Pakistani militant group, in the UN blacklist. To this list can be added Indian objections to China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) which China is building for Pakistan through the Kashmiri territory presently occupied by Pakistan. India has been publicly airing its displeasure over these Chinese actions. There is no secret about it. Nor is there is any secret of India's apprehensions over the string of pearls (Ports) China has built in the Indian Ocean, which Delhi rightly considers as its backyard. Next Page 1 | 2 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). A man and a woman wearing red hooded sweatshirts and masks robbed the Great Western Bank, 6424 Havelock Ave., around 2 p.m. Thursday, police said. Lincoln Police Capt. Don Scheinost said the robbers fled the scene and he didn't believe there was a safety concern for the nearby neighborhood. Scheinost said the man showed a gun, demanded cash and used pepper spray, injuring two bank employees. No shots were fired. The employees were treated on the scene. The man was described on the scanner as being 5-foot-7, and wearing a red sweatshirt. The woman was reportedly 5-foot-6, wearing a red sweatshirt, black sweatpants and carrying a white plastic bag. There was no vehicle description. Police K-9s were used to try and track the suspects. Scheinost said the Nebraska State Patrol plane was flying at the time of the robbery and offered assistance. The FBI was also investigating as it always does with bank robberies. Havelock Avenue between 65th and 64th streets was closed while police investigated. Lincoln Public Schools briefly locked down Norwood Park Elementary, 4710 N. 72nd St., because of the robbery, said spokeswoman Mary Kay Roth. About five minutes after locking down the school, police gave the all-clear and lifted the lockdown, she said. Stay with JournalStar.com for updates on this developing story. How to make the U.S. Healthcare System greater than ever before? The U.S. Healthcare System is the only healthcare system in the world that cares about everything else, but the well-being of the regular people and the economy at a very high cost. Healthcare cost combines "social" and "recurring" costs that does not create wealth, it only transfers wealth and destroys a lot of it during the process of transferring wealth; it must be reduced to a minimum, if not, totally eliminated. Here is the mess: Obamacare (Insurance-care) Ryancare (Rich-people-care) Pharmacy-care (Fleecing-people-care) Hospital-care (Exploiting-people-care) Doctor-care (Greed-care) Lawyer-care (Tort-care) Medicare (Second-class-care) Medicaid (Third-class-care) We need to have a National Healthcare System that is FREE and available to ALL Americans, providing security, just like our National Defense System at no cost to the people. The necessity to create a system like this is not only due to it being the humane thing to do, but for economic reasons as well. To achieve this goal we need none of the above "cares." We need to build "productivity-inducing" and "cost-cutting" Super-Clinics throughout the United States to provide affordable, first-class quality healthcare to all Americans at drastically reduced cost; presently our healthcare delivery system is obsolete--they are inefficient, too costly and corrupt. The current system is not sustainable and will collapse, much less become affordable and accessible to all Americans. Create productivity-inducing and cost-cutting Super-Clinics and we will be able to provide world-class quality healthcare to all Americans and yet, cut the U.S. Healthcare cost by $2,000 per person annually. Healthcare costs must be tamed in order to create competitive manufacturing in the U.S. Next Page 1 | 2 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). The already troubled India-Pakistan relationship has been plunged into deep uncertainty after Kulbhushan Jadhav, an Indian alleged spy, was sentenced on Monday (April 10, 2017) to death for espionage and sabotage activities in Pakistan. Monday's development comes at a time when tensions between Pakistan and India run high. The past six months have seen a war of words between officials from the Indian and Pakistani governments. Ties between the nuclear-armed neighbors worsened after India blamed Pakistan for an attack on an Indian military camp in Uri inside India-administered Kashmir on Sept 18, 2016 where around 20 Indian soldiers were killed. India alleged that Pakistan-backed terrorists were involved in the attack and initially claimed that weapons recovered from them bore Pakistani markings. However, this assertion was debunked by the Indian media itself, forcing the Indian Army to retract the claim. Since then, frequent episodes of firing have been reported by the Pakistan military on the Line of Control. The escalation continued when India claimed it carried out "surgical strikes" across the control line on Sept 29, claims Pakistan rejected as baseless. Indian Reaction Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj on Tuesday (April 11) assured lawmakers that New Delhi would go "out of its way" to save Kulbhushan Jadhav from death row in Pakistan. Calling Jadhav "a son of India", Swaraj issued a warning to Pakistan saying, "I would caution the Pakistani government to consider the consequences for our bilateral relationship if they proceed on this matter." "Our position is very clear, there is no evidence of wrongdoing by Kulbhushan Jadhav," she told the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian parliament. "This is an act of premeditated murder," she said, referring to the death sentence handed to the Indian spy by a Field General Court Martial (FGCM). Ruling Bhartia Junta Party (BJP) MP Subramanian Swamy, said Tuesday that "If Pakistan hangs Kulbhushan Jadhav, then India must recognize Balochistan as an independent country." He further said if Pakistan commits what he called another atrocity after this then its Sindh province should also be seceded. Swamy said that the government must warn Pakistan of serious consequences after it awarded death sentence to Jadhav. Tellingly, Pakistan has long claimed that outside powers have tried to both meddle in Balochistan and use the border region to destabilize Pakistan as a whole. Jadhav's arrest and now conviction suggest an effort by the Pakistani security establishment to put a face on the long-alleged crimes against Pakistan. After years of allegations, the broad contours of Indian involvement in Balochistan in particular, perhaps Karachi too, have become apparent, leading Pakistani newspaper Dawn said adding: The present right-wing government in India may be more frank in its willingness to pursue covert actions against Pakistan and may have ratcheted up those activities, but Indian interference in Balochistan has been a steady complaint of the Pakistani state for over a decade. Jadha's trial Jadhav was arrested on March 3, 2016, in Balochistan's Mashkel area for his involvement in espionage and sabotage activities against Pakistan, according to the Army Public Relations. "His goal was to disrupt development of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), with Gwadar port as a special target," Army Public Relations Director Lt Gen Asim Bajwa had said, adding, "This is nothing short of state-sponsored terrorism... There can be no clearer evidence of Indian interference in Pakistan." Jadhav was tried by Field General Court Martial (FGCM) under Section 59 of the Pakistan Army Act (PAA) and Section 3 of the official Secret Act of 1923. He was charged with spying for the Indian spy agency the Research & Analysis Wing (RAW) and being involved in subversive activities in the Gilgit-Baltistan region. Next Page 1 | 2 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). (Image by fair.org) Details DMCA That's what Lewis Hill foresaw . It's what led him to create the independent, listener-sponsored Pacifica Radio. Almost 70 years later, the corporate media is still busy selling war, at times to an embarrassing degree. This can be seen in the fawning coverage of the recent U.S. attack on Syria, which came in response to the Syrian government's alleged use of chemical weapons. "I'm guided by the beauty of our weapons," gushed MSNBC anchor Brian Williams, as his station showed "beautiful pictures" of the U.S. Navy launching a missile attack on a Syrian airfield. Those beautiful missiles killed 16 people, including four kids, according to the Syrian government. But these deaths were of little interest to a corporate media caught up in the excitement of it all. Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo was practically giddy when questioning President Trump about his okaying the attack as he ate dessert with China's president. Over on CNN, Fareed Zakaria got swept up in the moment and declared, "I think Donald Trump became president of the United States last night." "If that guy could have sex with this cruise missile attack, I think he would do it," The Intercept's Jeremy Scahill said of Zakaria. These are just three recent examples of the corporate media doing what it does best: push for, and gush over, war. "In wartime," writes The Intercept's Glenn Greenwald, "U.S. television instantly converts into state media." Print's Patriotism It turns out print media may not be any better, according to a recent report by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, a media watchdog group ("Out of 47 Major Editorials on Trump's Syria Strikes, Only One Opposed"). "No need to debate the morality or utility of the strikes, because the scene played out per usual," writes FAIR's Adam Johnson. "Dictator commits an alleged human rights violation, the media calls on those in power to 'do something' and the ticking time bomb compels immediate action, lest we look 'weak' on the 'global stage.' Anything that deviates from this narrative is given token attention at best." Independent Media With the corporate media busy cheerleading for war, it's often left to independent media to ask the tough questions. Next Page 1 | 2 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). By Dave Lindorff Sending a carrier battle group to 'take out' Kim Jong-un could lead to unintended consequences (Image by ThisCantBeHappening!) Details DMCA Back in the 18th century, there was an unwritten understanding in the conduct of warfare that one didn't kill the generals in battle. This wasn't about protecting the elite while the "grunts" of the day slaughtered each other. It was a matter of common sense: If you killed the general, there was no one in a position to order a withdrawal or to surrender, once it became clear that one side was winning. With no general in command, things could become chaotic, leading to more bloodshed than necessary. In the US, ever since the brief presidency of Gerald Ford, and in the wake of the Senate's Church Committee hearings into the nefarious activities of the CIA and other secret agencies during the Nixon administration and earlier -- particularly efforts to assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro and some other national leaders -- it has been US policy not to kill heads of state. In fact, a Ford executive order, number 12333, signed by President Ford in the mid 1970s, specifically bans the killing of government leaders, however brutish. If one wants to see an example of why this is a logical policy, just look at what happened during the Obama administration, when Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafy was murdered by his US-backed captors (with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's enthusiastic support), leaving Libya in a state of total chaos from which it has never really recovered. Yet now there is talk by President Trump and his increasingly neoconservative- dominated National Security and Pentagon team of advisors of "taking out" North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un, even as an aircraft carrier attack group steams towards the Korean peninsula. Getting rid of Ford Executive Order 12333 would be no difficult hurdle for President Trump, who has been "governing" the country through ill-though-out executive order issuance -- most of them written by his political strategist Stephen Bannon, since he assumed office Jan. 20. Bannon, now being sidelined by more traditional cold war neo-cons, may not be writing those orders for his boss now, but someone else could easily do it, erasing E.O 12333 with the stroke of a pen. What would such a change mean? In the case of North Korea, it could mean a quick "decapitation" strike by US aircraft from the USS Carl Vinson -- one which would presumably destroy North Korea's missile and nuclear weapon-making capability, and killing Kim and the country's top military leadership around him. But what would the result of such a strike be? It's worth recalling that one reason for the Ford executive order against killing other countries' leaders was concern, among those who bought the official theories about the Kennedy assassination, that it might have been Castro's retaliation for all the US efforts, including under Kennedy, to kill him. That's something "warrior" Trump might want to cogitate on before he contemplates 'taking out' other foreign leaders. . But there are other reasons why launching an attack on North Korea to kill Kim and eliminate his nuclear and missile capability, is a lousy idea. One is that such an action would almost certainly it would mean the contamination of part or even much of North Korea with nuclear fallout and radiation, and perhaps South Korea too. Another is that given the long history of US "precision" targeting going terribly wrong, it would likely mean much death and destruction for the long-suffering North Korean people. It would also almost certainly mean utter bloody chaos in a country that for nearly three-quarters of a century has been ruled by one absolute tyrant or another, in which there is simply no organized system of governance at lower levels to handle anything, from delivery of health services to distribution of food. Add in the inevitable pent-up demands by many North Koreans for vengeance against those who for so long oppressed them, and if you think the chaos that followed the US invasion and overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the Baathist leadership of Iraq was bad, or that the chaos of the US overthrow of Gaddafy in Libya was bad, you ain't seen nothing yet, should North Korea's leader gets offed in a US air strike. In theory, China, South Korea or Japan could step in with troops, money and civilian personnel to help reestablish some kind of order and peace, while preventing the rise of yet another tyrannical government, but none of that is likely. The Chinese would probably not want to take it on, the Japanese are viewed negatively as a former colonial power, and South Korea may not want the financial burden of rescuing the North, which would be staggering. Meanwhile, while the US could relatively easily, and at minimal cost, "take out" North Korea's missiles, nukes and leadership, especially in the case of the Trump administration, there is absolutely no interest in taking on the costs of occupying and subsidizing the rebuilding North Korea following such an ill-conceived attack. The US has never been good at picking up the pieces after destroying a country, and under Trump, it is likely to be even less concerned about such after-effects of its violence. Will that deter the US from ending the long-standing ban on killing national leaders and launching an attack on North Korea aimed at "taking out" Kim? It's hard to say, but with Trump abandoning his domestic campaign promises left and right, turning domestic policy into a giant give-away to the rich and the Wall Street banksters, and in the process alienating most of his political base, he seems hell-bent on diverting attention abroad by taking dramatic military actions that make him appear decisive and powerful. In Syria, that is amping up the risk of a direct confrontation with Russia's air force and a potential World War III. In North Korea, it risks creation of yet another Libya, this time in Asia, complete with a flood of desperate refugees and another flood of unaccountable and uncontrollable weapons, possibly including nukes, or nuclear materials. Next Page 1 | 2 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). Unofficially, Tijuana is the taco capital of the world. Yes, Ive said it. And this is mainly because the border town is an immigrant hub for people of all over Mexico who bring their different cooking styles with them. With Sonora tortillas, Sinaloa style seafood techniques, beef from Coahuila and Bajas own prime seafood, its no wonder youll find everything from carne asada to octopus tacos in Tijuana that are unrivaled anywhere else in the country. And while San Diego is home to the top rated tacos on Yelp in the country (Tacos El Gordo, originally from Tijuana, duh), it is merely a consolation prize. Because even if they have their highlights, theyre not as good as the original. And why settle for U.S. tacos that will never measure up when Tijuana is right next door over a set of walls that very much already exist? Long border waits and prick border agents might discourage a trip to Tijuana. However, if theres anything that will change anyones mind, its these six tacos. As mentioned in a previous article, the carne asada tacos at Tacomiendo are bomb. And yet, it is possible to take it to another level by adding a chile relleno (stuffed chile pepper) on it. This double-decker taco (above) pairs a perfectly thin strip of New York steak with a chile guerito (yellow hot pepper) stuffed with Monterrey Jack cheese. Chile rellenos are mostly made with either chile pasilla or California, but Tacomiendo uses a chile guerito, which is a bit spicier and a sweet at the same time. Its definitely a mouthful, but a satisfying one. 2px); width:calc(100% 2px);"> A post shared by Jorge (@chemical_kid) on Jan 20, 2017 at 11:14pm PST Like the U.S., Mexico is a big country made up of different customs and dialects in its different regions. So if you wouldn't ask for a pop in California (please say soda), don't come looking for for al pastor tacos in Tijuana. We have adobada tacos here. And the best place to get them is in the seaside neighborhood of Playas at Tacos El Frances. Another classic Tijuana establishment that's been around since the 1980s, you'll always find this place packed, and the reason is largely over its tacos de adobada. The adobada pork marinated in a combination of chiles ancho and achiote, plus several other secret ones is trimmed directly from the spit and is lightly griddled, along with two tortillas, before receiving a handful of avocado and onto your plate. This taco will only set you back 23 pesos ($1.16), and like the asada taco from El Ruso, everything is better once you make it a quesadilla. Unlike al pastor, adobada tacos don't generally have pineapple, but trust that the cilantro, onion, and lime are enough to enhance the flavor. But if you're looking for a crunch, just reach for the complementary radishes and cucumber. 2px); width:calc(100% 2px);"> A post shared by Baja Wine & Food (@bajawinefood) on Dec 9, 2016 at 2:54pm PST If you're discouraged from loud places with lots of people and sometimes even a wait to be sat down, Mariscos El Mazateno is not for you. And it would be a shame since you'd be missing out on all the different types of Sinaloa style seafood dishes, but most devastatingly, the spicy shrimp taco named after the restaurant itself. Locals flock to El Mazateno especially after a night out for the giant, two tortilla taco overflowing with spicy shrimp marinated in chile de arbol and dripping of juices and fat settled on a bed of Oaxaca cheese. Throw some shredded cabbage, sour cream, pico de gallo and lime, and if you dare, add more spice with the assortment of salsas they provide on the tables (pick the salsa verde one!). The El Mazateno taco is so big you'll only need one, especially if you want to try other items on the menu. And, most importantly, don't underestimate the spiciness. 2px); width:calc(100% 2px);"> A post shared by Tacos Kokopelli (@tacos.kokopelli) on Jan 21, 2017 at 1:19pm PST Not all tacos are traditional, especially not the ones at Tras/Horizonte. Over the past six years or so, Tijuana has been undergoing a culinary renaissance that focuses on local product and talent. Tras/Horizonte was among the key establishments that erupted from this new movement, starting out as a taco truck and eventually growing into a full-fledged restaurant. One of their most, if not the most, representative tacos is the Kraken; mesquite-grilled octopus marinated in a Mexican pesto consisting of poblano chile peppers, cilantro and herbs on a charred tortilla, garnished with avocado slices. Tras/Horizonte may not be your average blue-collar taqueria, but it's certainly not on the snobby side, even if you can call their tacos gourmet. Chef Oso Campos took his formal training and skills learned at Michelin-starred restaurants and created eclectic concepts for typical dishes that people embraced. 2px); width:calc(100% 2px);"> A post shared by Ariana B. Hodoyan (@arianabonne) on Feb 22, 2017 at 4:45pm PST Tacos are what Tijuana does best, so of course more than a few taquerias have stood the test of time and have become institutions, serving generation of families. However, there must be a reason for it. For Tacos El Ruso in the neighborhood of El Soler, they do one thing and the do it well: carne asada tacos. For only 20 pesos ($1), expect your meat red on the inside, dripping with juice and always made to order. No such thing as reheated, over cooked, crispy as charcoal meat. Upgrade to a quesadilla for 60 pesos ($3), but, as mentioned earlier, don't come looking for other types of meat because you won't find them; this is a strictly carne asada place. So if you want to get a chance at trying the best carne asada taco in town, you better come early. Their tacos are so popular that they close when they run out of meat, well before 8 p.m. Every. Day. 2px); width:calc(100% 2px);"> A post shared by La Marce ???????? (@marce_catalan_b) on Jun 5, 2016 at 3:03pm PDT If you want the best fish taco you will ever eat, youll have to go to Ensenada for it, where it was once invented by Japanese immigrants. But if you dont feel like traveling over more than miles down south and paying the tolls, just head to any of the Tijuana Jr. restaurants and trucks around the city for a quick fix. The batter is just the right amount of crispy and does not overpower the fish, and while the portion is not generous, itll let you eat even more tacos. The tacos come dressed in chopped cabbage and pico de gallo, but you can add the cream, lime and salsas to taste. Go for the salsa verde for a non-spicy tang. The New Pornographers' seventh album, Whiteout Conditions, combines electronic flourishes with fun, upbeat rock on eleven tracks of lyrical joy and catchy songwriting. On the New Pornographers' last album, Brill Bruisers, the music found a balance between introspection and melodious release. Now, almost three years later, they've found more than balance: Whiteout Conditions, their seventh studio LP, brims with exciting, cheerful rock and roll topped with notes of electricity, oddly cut harmonies and atmospheric synthesizers. Part foot-tapping, colorful pop and part driven, anxious rock, the band from Vancouver play a tricky and successful songwriting game on the new album that's medicine to the ears. On top of its excellent music, the album's lyrical playfulness is clear from the first song. In "Play Money," Neko Case sings in the quick chorus, "For a fee I'll fight any foe / For a fee I'll stop any show." It's a line where all the power comes from singing it out loud. While the song might be about the career of a musician, the reality that you still have to make money to make it as a songwriter, its tone is far from unhappy and its lyrics preview the show of wordplay happening throughout the album. Just listen to Carl Newman's first lines on the title track: "Flying and feeling the ceiling / And barely dealing / And the faces, the faintest of praises / Are too revealing." He's throwing all the alliteration and assonance he can into the microphone over that steady guitar rhythm. This is the first New Pornographers album on which Newman wrote all of the songs. Previously, Dan Bejar had contributed songs to each album but didn't contribute to this one. According to Newman, the title track, "Whiteout Conditions," and therefore the album as a whole, work through his feelings of depression leading up to the death of his sister. "In a stage of grief so demanding," he sings, referencing antidepressants and "such a waste of a beautiful day." But the album, as any good artwork does, also comments on society and the relationship between this "human condition" and depression. On "High Ticket Attractions," the band channels Arcade Fire's power-harmonies and punching rhythms for one of the album's standout tracks. Amid the frenzy of synthesizers come voices singing of vague but looming events: "After the flame baptism you're fearless"; "When we live undersea like we ought to"; "the Mayans took all their science / And dumped it all in the drink and went silent." With hints of the apocalypse, the second coming and the rising oceans, "High Ticket Attractions" blends potential doom with joyous melodies. "Darling Shade," another highlight of the album, bursts with its own bright guitar and cheerful bass. Its harmonies layer beautifully over the frantic drums in the middle and promise a thrilling live performance. The sharply cut harmonies that open "Second Sleep" were, according to Newman, an accident of editing. He created the unnatural sound while editing the song and decided it fit with the album's electronic voices. Other notable tracks include "Colosseums," with its patient rhyme scheme, the beautiful harmonies of "We Were Here Before" and the driving guitars of "Clockwise" and "Avalanche Alley." Something of a supergroup, the New Pornographers assembled in the late nineties, when Carl Newman was joined by John Collins, Dan Bejar, Blaine Thurier, Fisher Rose and Neko Case. Their debut, Mass Romantic, came out in 2000 after four years of on-and-off recording. Six albums later, the band remains a formidable songwriting force that places lyrical complexity on the same high level as the music behind it. Writings on the Wall Many years ago, I got a phone call from Troy Torres at a political candidates office. He had seen an election estimate I had written and didn Read morePower of polls and weekend talks Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the Anti-Creasing Agent Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment 2017-2027" report to their offering. Anti-Creasing Agent Market PR-Inside.com: 2017-04-13 07:39:59 Press Information Future Market Insights 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018, Valley Cottage, NY 10989, United States T: +1-347-918-3531 F: +1-845-579-5705 Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.com Website: www.futuremarketinsights.com email Published by Abhishek Budholiya +1-347-918-3531 e-mail http://www.futuremarketinsights.com # 712 Words 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite: www.futuremarketinsights.comAbhishek Budholiya+1-347-918-3531 The anti-creasing agent market is one of the most important chemical markets for fabric finishing in the textile industry. Presently, it is a standard practice to use natural or synthetic resins to impart crease resistance in finished textiles; this enriches the look and performance as per end use requirement. In recent times, rapid growth in urbanization has led to modernization of the textile industry. Thus, it is forecasted that the anti-creasing market will witness sturdy growth in the forecast period.Several new techniques have been implemented to enhance the performance of anti-creasing agents in crease-free fabrics, such as to improve dimensional stability and produce embossed effects. Resin finishing is one such significant process employed for the improvement of dry and wet crease recovery and to retain sharp creases in fabric. Some key types of resin finishing treatments, applied on fabric for crease-free finishing are: wash and wear finishing, anti-crease finishing and durable press treatment. Also, the various types of agents used are: soda-ash, soap, acidic/alkaline catalyst and softener, along with the thermoplastic resins and solution containing thermosetting resins. Thus, the use of resins in the textile industry is expected to boost the anti-creasing agent market over the forecast period.Request For Report Sample@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-2773 Anti-Creasing Agent: Drivers and restraintsGrowing demand for crease-free textile and advancement in fabric features (texture, pattern, colors, dimension, etc.) are key factors driving the anti-creasing agent market. Increasing trends in fashion in the textile industry and evolving textile manufacturing processes have resulted in a rise in the demand for anti-creasing agent market. Emerging technologies are anticipated to give major attention to the development of the anti-creasing agent market in the coming future. Tropical areas, where consumption of cotton fabric is high, are markets with huge potential for anti-creasing agents. Crease-free cotton clothing and a varied range of cotton products may drive the demand for anti-creasing agents in such regions over the forecast period.The anti-creasing agent market offers chemicals that are processed under strict supervision, by skilled professionals. High quality and hygienic chemicals and compounds are produced, which are can be used safely. However, use of an anti-creasing agent decreases the tensile and tear strength of the textile, consequently shortening its life. Excessive use of an anti-creasing agent leaves an unpleasant odor on finished goods; it also gives the textile a stiff and harsh feel, thereby causing irritation to the user. Anti-creasing agents containing chlorine and formaldehydes pose a health risk to the consumer due to their allergic properties. This is a key restraint on the growth of the anti-creasing agent market.Anti-Creasing Agent market: segmentationThe anti-creasing agent market can be segmented based on the type:Dye-bath lubricant/anti-creasing agent, Wet processing lubricant/anti-creasing agentThe anti-creasing agent market can be segmented based on the cross linking chemical agent used:Di methylol Urea (DMU), Di Methylol Di Hydroxy Ethylene Urea (DMDHEU)Di Methylol Ethylene Urea (DMEU), Di Methylol Propylene Urea (DMPU)Tri Methylol Melamine (TMM)Anti-creasing agent market: Region wise outlookThe anti-creasing agent market can be segmented based on regions, namely, North America, South America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Japan, Asia Pacific excluding Japan, and Middle East & Africa. Among these regions, Europe is expected to account for a major share in the forecast period. Being the fashion capital of the world, advancement in textile industries, demand for innovative fabrics and dynamic fashion trends are some of the factors that make Europe the major consumer of anti-creasing agents. Thus, the anti-creasing agent market is forecasted to have better opportunities in the Europe market over the forecast period. Owing to steadily increasing urbanization in North America, this region is also expected to hold a major share in the anti-creasing agent market. Asia Pacific is one of the largest consumers of cotton fabric, thus indicating rising possibilities for the anti-creasing agent market in this region over the forecast period.Request For TOC@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-2773 Anti-creasing agent market: Examples of playersSome examples of renowned players in the anti-creasing agent market are listed below:Fratelli Ricci S.r.l., Zuhai Lingxiong Chemicals Co., Ltd.Rung Internationals Mumbai, Kunal Organics Pvt Ltd.Neochem Technologies, Star Orechem Interantional Pvt. Ltd.Finotex, Setas Color CentreAlam Chemicals, Golden TechnologiaSarex Chemicals The offices of Gov. Pete Ricketts and Lincoln Mayor Chris Beutler both said complaints would be lodged with Kansas after a stinking haze of smoke once again settled over Lincoln. Smoke blown north from agricultural burning in the Flint Hills area of Kansas caused the Lincoln-Lancaster County Health Department to issue a health warning Wednesday morning advising people to stay indoors and avoid strenuous physical activity. Ricketts spokesman Taylor Gage said the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality will follow up with counterparts in Kansas. "The air quality today is unacceptable, Gage said in an email. We will continue to work with Kansas to ensure they take action, and we will consider our options if we do not see a better plan from them." Beutler also planned to give Kansas his two cents about health concerns posed by the smoke, Chief of Staff Rick Hoppe said. "The administration is reviewing all of our options, including potential legal action. Mayor Beutler will be contacting Kansas officials to make our concerns known," Hoppe said. The air was bad enough Wednesday morning for Lincoln Public Schools to cancel outdoor recess and physical education classes for elementary and secondary students. Calvert Elementary second-graders were particularly unhappy to wake up to the haze because the health risks prompted school administrators to cancel a field trip to Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo. The school had applied for a grant to help pay for the first-time class visit, said Principal Jeff Brehm. We had some disappointed parents and students, but we were able to reschedule, he said. Lincolns Air Quality Index -- a yardstick for measuring pollution that runs from 0 on the good end to 500 on the bad end -- peaked at 163 from 6 to 7 a.m. on Wednesday. Officials said that level put Lincolns air in the red zone on the index -- unhealthy for everyone. Light winds out of the south carried the smoke from fires that happened Tuesday in the Flint Hills and surrounding areas, including Southeast Nebraska. The burns keep cedar trees from taking over the Kansas plains and are a controlled way to deal with brush and dried grass that otherwise could fuel wildfires. Nebraska has been complaining about the smoke from the annual prescribed fires for years. On one day in 2014, Lincoln had the worst air quality in the nation, attributed largely to the Kansas burns. Nebraskas Department of Environmental Quality has worked with Kansas and the federal Environmental Protection Agency since the 2014 incident to encourage landowners to spread controlled burns over a longer period of time to mitigate the nuisance. Kansas has responded positively, NDEQ spokesman Brian McManus said in an interview. The Kansas Department of Health and Environment has encouraged more fires in March to minimize the amount of smoke on a given day and created a predictive model that shows which days would be best for burning to avoid sending smoke into populated areas. The Kansas Department also issues public notices when it expects extensive burning will produce voluminous smoke. This year, spring rains in Kansas condensed the number of days in which burns could happen, McManus said. Smoky conditions generally are more prevalent at night and in the morning because of something called temperature inversion, which happens when warm air creates a "cap" on top of cooler air, trapping smoke close to the ground. The smoke tends to lift as the day warms, allowing air near the ground to warm, rise and mix with cleaner air above. Winds help clear out the smoke, Schroeder said. The smoke blanketing Lincoln on Wednesday began to lift after noon with the Air Quality Index improving from red to orange to yellow. The yellow category means there could be some pollutants that pose a health concern for a small number of people unusually sensitive to air pollution. The orange category warns of possible health effects to people with asthma, lung disease, other respiratory conditions or heart disease as well as older adults and children. With the improved conditions by noon, the school district decided to allow middle and high school students outdoors for P.E. classes and activities. Preschool and elementary school students remained inside, however, including after-school clubs. Additional burning Wednesday could lead to elevated or at worst moderate smoke conditions Thursday, but it's expected to be better than conditions Wednesday morning, according to information on the Nebraska DEQ website. The Air Quality Index, updated hourly, can be found at lincoln.ne.gov (keyword: air). PR-Inside.com: 2017-04-13 10:02:01 Helping European SMEs to increase productivity and enhance competitiveness in a global framework Paris, Madrid, 13th April 2017 - Atos, a global leader in digital transformation, leads the 'Cloud Collaborative Manufacturing Networks' (C2NET) consortium, launching the first collaborative Cloud-based platform for SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) in the manufacturing industry. This unique solution offers SMEs a single and affordable Cloud-supported platform, which has until now not existed. The project is funded by the European Union as part of the Horizon 2020 program and is made up of twenty partners including industrial entities, associations, research centers, ICT companies and public institutions. C2NETsupports SMEs to optimize their manufacturing and logistic supply chains by reducing the complexity currently surrounding manufacturing management systems. It offers a platform on which products, processes and logistical data can be securely stored and shared in the Cloud. Business benefits include: Access to data analytics in real-time - enabling businesses to respond faster and more efficiently Ease of access to supply chain management information, wherever and whenever - from any mobile device (including PC, tablet, smartphone) An easy and secure system to collaborate and share of best practice to increase productivity and enhance competiveness The project covers: The creation of a data collection environment - the C2NET Data Collection Framework - for IoT-based continuous data capture from supply network resources. Collaboration Tools - to provide support to the collaborative processes of the supply network. Cloud Platform - to integrate the data module, the optimizers and the collaborative tools in the Cloud. The Optimizers - to optimize the manufacturing and logistics assets in the supply network In addition to leading the consortium, Atos actively participates in the design and implementation of the C2NET platform, coordinating the implementation of the pilot projects and designing the business models. Concept demo The results of C2NET will be shown in real-life scenarios through four pilots that will allow supply network partners to share assets and information via the Cloud, collaborate on production and delivery plans across the supply network and provide decision-makers with data analytics in real-time. Four pilots have been developed: Automotive: To automate and encourage collaborative planning, data collection and sharing of information. Dermo-cosmetics: To develop more collaborative, agile and distributed planning processes. SMEs Industrial Park. To manage logistic flow and resources more efficiently. Hydraulic & Lubrication: To provide suppliers and customers with a centralized hub of information, accessible from anywhere, which enables forecasting, identifies supplier delays, and checks delivery status. C2NET consortium The C2NET consortium is led by Atos and consists of 19 European organizations and a third party. It includes: Atos, Universidad Politecnica de Valencia, Armines (Mines Albi as third party), IK4-Ikerlan, UNINOVA, Instituto Tecnologico de Informatica, Tampere University of Technology, Teknologian tutkimuskeskus VTT Oy, Linagora, Caja Magica, Faurecia, Novatec, Pierre Fabre, Interop-VLab, Fluidhouse, TecMinho, Flexefelina and Antonio Abreu Metalomecanica. This project is funded by the European Commission under the Framework Program H2020 with Grant Agreement No. 636909. For more information: http://c2net-project.eu *** About Atos Atos is a global leader in digital transformation with approximately 100,000 employees in 72 countries and annual revenue of around 12 billion. The European number one in Big Data, Cybersecurity, High Performance Computing and Digital Workplace, The Group provides Cloud services, Infrastructure & Data Management, Business & Platform solutions, as well as transactional services through Worldline, the European leader in the payment industry. With its cutting-edge technologies, digital expertise and industry knowledge, Atos supports the digital transformation of its clients across various business sectors: Defense, Financial Services, Health, Manufacturing, Media, Energy & Utilities, Public sector, Retail, Telecommunications and Transportation. The Group is the Worldwide Information Technology Partner for the Olympic & Paralympic Games and operates under the brands Atos, Atos Consulting, Atos Worldgrid, Bull, Canopy, Unify and Worldline. Atos SE (Societas Europaea) is listed on the CAC40 Paris stock index. Press contact: Laura Fau | laura.fau@atos.net | +33 6 73 64 04 18 | @laurajanefau This announcement is distributed by Nasdaq Corporate Solutions on behalf of Nasdaq Corporate Solutions clients. The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein. Source: ATOS via Globenewswire Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the Biopolymers Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment 2017-2027" report to their offering. Biopolymers Market PR-Inside.com: 2017-04-13 07:34:12 Press Information Future Market Insights 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018, Valley Cottage, NY 10989, United States T: +1-347-918-3531 F: +1-845-579-5705 Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.com Website: www.futuremarketinsights.com email Published by Abhishek Budholiya +1-347-918-3531 e-mail http://www.futuremarketinsights.com # 675 Words 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite: www.futuremarketinsights.comAbhishek Budholiya+1-347-918-3531 Polymers and plastics are generally used in coating and packaging applications. Around 80% polymeric materials are produced from the petroleum industry, while processing fossil fuels. The burgeoning use of plastics is burdening the environment with its increasing carbon footprint due to greenhouse gas emissions, along with other factors such as soil and ground water pollution. Thus arising a need for environment-friendly alternatives. The growing focus towards sustainable development is expected to create an opportunity for bio-based plastics and polymers in the coming years. Biopolymers are polymers that are degradable when subjected to moisture and heat, under the action of micro-organisms. They are made from waste starch, biomass and other renewable feed stock. There are some commercially available polymers (such as polylactic acid, bio-nano composites and polyhydroxyalkanoate, etc.) which are used in the electronics and automotive industries. Governments are encouraging the use of biodegradable polymers over conventional polymers so as to reduce carbon footprint. Some major automotive companies are now opting for biopolymers in their vehicles; for instance, the Ford Motor Company is using biopolymers for interior applications.Global Biopolymers Market: Market DynamicsFluctuation in crude oil prices, limited availability of petroleum resources and awareness towards ecological problems are key factors propelling the growth of the global biopolymers market during the forecast period. Changing political conditions and environmental regulations on carbon emissions and plastic usage are also forecasted to boost the global biopolymers market over the forecast period. Despite being a niche market, the biopolymers market is expected to witness significant growth over the forecast period. In addition to this, raw materials required in the manufacturing of biopolymers are obtained from agricultural wastes. Thus biopolymer production can prove to be a sustainable alternative in waste management. Being bio-degradable, biopolymers can also help in reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Owing to these advantages, there is a mushrooming interest in biopolymer manufacturing which will consequently drive the growth of the global biopolymers market over the forecast period.However, costing is a significant issue for biopolymers. According to the European Bioplastics Association, the cost of biopolymers (owing to the manufacturing cost) is still pretty steep. This could manifest as a major challenge for the global biopolymers market during the forecast period.Request For Report Sample@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-2770 Joint ventures with companies for manufacturing and investments in the research and development of biopolymers are the recent trends observed across the globe. Major biopolymer manufacturing companies are located in Western Europe, U.S., Japan and China, among others.Global Biopolymers Market: SegmentationOn the basis of product type, the global biopolymers market is segmented as below:Bio-PE, Bio-PETPoly lactic acid (PLA), Polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA)Biodegradable polyesters, Others (biodegradable starch blends, biodegradable polyesters etc.)On the basis of application, the global biopolymers market is segmented as below:Packaging, BottlesFibers, Agriculture seed coatingsAutomotive interior parts, Others (medical implants)On the basis of end-use industry, the global biopolymers market is segmented as below:Automotive, Food & BeverageBio-medical, AgricultureElectrical & Electronics, AerospaceOthersGlobal Biopolymers Market: Regional OutlookEurope is a major consumer of biopolymers in the global biopolymers market. Attributing to the laws and regulations in this region, Europe is estimated to remain dominant throughout the forecast period. After Europe, North America is forecasted to account for a major share by 2016 end. This region is estimated to witness significant growth during the forecast period. Asia Pacific is projected to witness robust growth in the global biopolymers market over the forecast period. This is mainly attributed to rapid industrialization and the need to curb pollution from manmade plastics and synthetic polymers in these regions. Latin America and Middle East & Africa are expected to invest in the research and development of biopolymers during the forecast period.Request For TOC@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-2770 Global Biopolymers Market: Market ParticipantsExamples of some of the major participants operating in the global biopolymers market are mentioned below:BASF SE, Braskem S.A.Meredian Holdings Group Inc., NatureWorks LLCCorbion NV, Metabolix, Inc.Danimer Scientific, Biopolymer InternationalSolanyl Biopolymers, HARBEC, Inc.Metabolix Inc. PR-Inside.com: 2017-04-13 21:33:49 Press Information WELLSEEKER NEW HAVEN, CT Lucia Nazzaro Co-Founder 603-674-4888 email http://www.wellseeker.com # 444 Words NEW HAVEN, CTCo-Founder603-674-4888 Digital media and commerce company, WellSeeker announced their official launch today. The wellness and self-care focused brands quest is to redefine the wellness game, by inspiring, informing and educating people on ways to reduce stress, build resiliency and increase your overall wellbeing, all while having a whole lotta fun.With 60-90% of doctors visits being stress related, its time for a change in the way we approach self-care. People dont have the time to look for ways to take care of themselves, so we are making it easy and fun. said Co-Founder, media veteran and wellness expert Lucia Nazzaro.WellSeekers approach is two-fold. Through their content, they hope to inspire and educate seekers no matter where they are in their journey, as well as expand the conversation on wellness and what it means to truly live life well. Through their bi-monthly subscription box, they will provide seekers with the latest and greatest products in the world of wellness and self-care that will help them reduce stress and build a better state of being. We know how busy you are taking care of all the people, places and details in life. With so much to do, taking care of yourself and tending to your own wellness is often lacking, but not anymore. WellSeeker has your back and we will connect you to all the hidden and helpful products you'll need to live life well! Nazzaro said.WellSeeker has created a podcast and will be launching their blog and video series in the coming months. Their bi-monthly box subscription is now open for enrollment.We hope that this starts to change the conversation around the importance of self-care and also deepens the conversations we have around wellness related issues and our culture. Its long overdue and were excited to be a part of the conversation, said Nazzaro.###About WellSeekerWellSeeker is a digital media and commerce company that is on a quest to redefine the wellness game, by inspiring, informing and educating people on ways to reduce stress, build resiliency and increase your overall wellbeing, all while having a whole lotta fun. The approach is two-fold. Through content, we inspire and educate our seekers no matter where they are in their journey, as well as expand the conversation on wellness and what it means to truly live life well. Through our bi-monthly subscription box, we will provide you with the latest and greatest products in the world of wellness and self-care that will help you reduce stress and build a better state of being. For more information, please visit http://www.WellSeeker.com ContactLucia Nazzaro, Co-Founderlucia@ wellseeker.com PR-Inside.com: 2017-04-13 17:29:01 Eversys SA and the DeLonghi Group Enter Into a Strategic and Financial Partnership. DeLonghi To Acquire 40% of Eversys for an Undisclosed Sum. William Murray Communications Louise Tabor louise@williammurray.co.uk 07769905408 or Chelsey Osborne chelsey@williammurray.co.uk 0208 256 1360 Interviews available on request www.eversys.com The two companies have agreed that the Italian DeLonghi Group acquires 40% of the Swiss Eversys Group, to include a two-way option whereby the remaining 60% would be transferred to DeLonghi within the next two to four years. Eversys SA, located in Ardon (VS), specialises in the engineering, manufacturing and international commercialisation of fully automatic espresso machines, designed for the professional Horeca market. The company, founded in 2009, achieved a turnover of 17.3m CHF in 2016 with 51 employees. The Italian DeLonghi Group is a leading stock listed manufacturer of household appliance products and is the global market leader in the segment of coffee machines for the home. In 2016 the group achieved a turnover of 1.85bn and employs over 7,100 people in multiple countries. With the investment in Eversys, DeLonghi takes the first step into the professional espresso coffee market, with a focus on the fully automatic machines segment. Eversys brings a wealth of technology, a management team with proven experience in the sector and the ambition to become a leading player in the global professional coffee market. This partnership is also driven by the technological, industrial and distribution synergies, which DeLonghi is able to assure says Fabio DeLonghi, Vice-Chairman and CEO of the DeLonghi Group. For Eversys the partnership with DeLonghi creates a significant potential of synergies, which will contribute to accelerate and secure our ambitious development plans. In addition, it offers the midterm possibility for the founders and current shareholders to resolve their succession strategy says Martin Strehl, Chairman and Delegate of the Board of Eversys. Eversys will continue to operate as a strategically separate entity, led by the previous management team and remaining located in the Region of the Valais, in Switzerland. The closing of the transaction is expected before mid-July 2017. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/201704130058 Eversys SA and the DeLonghi Group enter into a strategic and financial partnership. http://bit.ly/2o9EU28 PR-Inside.com: 2017-04-13 00:19:04 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 394 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 FSCwire / Press ReleaseThe following press release was disseminated by FSCwire for First Colombia Gold Corp.--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---Nashville, TN (FSCWire) - First Colombia Gold Corp. (OTC Pink:FCGD). has issued a press release with the following headline:First Colombia Gold Corp Announces Diversification of Energy OperationsTo view this press release on the FSCwire website, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:If you would prefer, you can also view this press release as a PDF file, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:For more information on First Colombia Gold Corp., or to see additional press releases issued by this company, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser: http://www.fscwire.com/public-company/First Colombia Gold Corp.Source: First Colombia Gold Corp. (OTC Pink: FCGD, ISIN: US3197142009, WKN: A112QT)Date: April 12, 2017Time: 6:05 PM EDT--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---The story mentioned above was issued on behalf of First Colombia Gold Corp. and disseminated through FSCwire.About FSCwireFSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.), is a global newswire dissemination, SEDAR, SEDI, and EDGAR / XBRL service provider.FSCwire is a full service global newswire dissemination company and is fully approved by all exchanges in Canada and the U.S. Press releases can be distributed for all sizes of public, private or not for profit companies and any other organization requiring news distribution. In addition to individual companies; public relations, communications and investor relations firms trust FSCwire to distribute press releases for their respective clients.In addition to newswire dissemination FSCwire also offers EDGAR, XBRL, SEDAR, SEDI, and additional services for publicly traded companies. For more information, please go to our website: http://www.fscwire.com Maximum News Dissemination by FSCwire. http://www.fscwire.com Copyright 2017 - FSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.) Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the Boiler Water Treatment Chemicals Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment 2017-2027" report to their offering. Boiler Water Treatment Chemicals Market PR-Inside.com: 2017-04-13 07:29:44 Press Information Future Market Insights 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018, Valley Cottage, NY 10989, United States T: +1-347-918-3531 F: +1-845-579-5705 Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.com Website: www.futuremarketinsights.com email Published by Abhishek Budholiya +1-347-918-3531 e-mail http://www.futuremarketinsights.com # 688 Words 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite: www.futuremarketinsights.comAbhishek Budholiya+1-347-918-3531 A single days loss of steam production in an operational unit can cost manufacturing companies much more than the total expenses bore by companies, in the maintenance of their boilers during a span of one or two years. Boiler water treatment is essential boiler systems require effective chemical treatment with accurate monitoring and control. A badly serviced steam boiler is like a potential bomb. This is precisely why getting good quality feed water and maintaining properties of boiler water correct, are of much importance. In order to understand the requirement of the feed water supplied to a particular steam boiler, a basic and simple study of its supply/feed water must be done thoroughly. Feed water usually contains dissolved solids, dissolved gases, and suspended solids. These impurities are capable of causing severe damages to the boiler and its parts. In order to keep the boiler working effectively, treatment of feed water is essential as well as highly recommended.It is typically more cost effective and economical to address the impurities by mechanical or physical means. Chemical treatment is done only to clean remaining parts and traces of impurities after the physical treatment is over. However, it is very essential to use chemical treatments for feed water as the impurities can damage boiler parts and accessories. With increasing use of boiler water treatment chemicals, their demand is estimated to grow significantly in across various end-use industries over the forecast period. These chemicals reduce the corrosion of boiler vessels and pipelines, leading to considerable increase in the equipment life. Moreover, the addition of these chemicals to the boiler water feed increases its fluidity and hence, the flow is maintained and thus, the boiler efficiency is increased.Boiler Water Treatment Chemicals Market dynamics:In order to ensure smooth working of the boilers, the boiler water feed is treated with several chemicals and agents, thereby leading to optimized and efficient steam generation. The market for boiler water treatment chemicals is growing at a fast pace owing to increasing application of boilers in commercial, industrial and manufacturing sectors. Strict boiler regulations are being put by the regulatory authorities on the manufacturing and use of boilers to ensure their safe operation and control. The regulatory authorities perform regular checks and inspections to ensure that healthy operating conditions are maintained in steam boilers, making it mandatory for boiler operators/ users to keep them safe.Request For Report Sample@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-2737 Boiler Water Treatment Chemicals Market segmentation:Boiler water treatment chemicals market can be segmented on the basis of type of chemicals and application.By chemical type, the boiler water treatment chemicals market can be segmented into:Corrosion & Scale Inhibitors, MolybdatesPhosphates, PhosphonatesOther Corrosion & Scale InhibitorsBiocidesChlorine and chlorine Derivatives, Bromine DerivativesOther BiocidesCoagulants & FlocculantsMetallic Salts, PolymersOther Coagulants & FlocculantspH Control AgentsBases, AcidsFoam Control AgentsOxygen ScavengersOther Boiler Water Treatment ChemicalsFluoridation Chemicals, Chelating AgentsAll Other Water Treatment ChemicalsOn the basis of applications,boiler water treatment chemicals market can be segmented into:IndustrialChemical Industries, Food & BeveragePulp & Paper, Oil Refineries and PetrochemicalPower Sector (Power Plants), Textile and ConstructionSteel & Metal, Equipment ManufacturingAutomobile & Aerospace, Others (Sugar mills, Pharmaceuticals etc.)CommercialsInstitutes and Educational facilities, Public Facilities (Airports, Railways)Others (Hotels & Restaurants)Boiler Water Treatment Chemicals: Regional Outlook:Key manufacturers of boiler water treatment chemicals are based in North America and Europe. The rapid industrialization in the Asia pacific region is estimated to fuel the growth of the regional boiler water treatment chemicals market. With established industries in the developing countries, the demand for boiler water treatment chemicals is expected to remain high, nonetheless increasing at a comparatively lower growth rate over the forecast period, when compared with developing countries such as China and India.Request For TOC@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-2737 Boiler Water Treatment Chemicals: Market ParticipantsSome of the market participants in the boiler water treatment chemicals market include:Bond Water Technologies, Inc,Lenntech B.V., NALCO, AN ECOLAB COMPANYChemTreat, AkzoNobel N.VFeedwater Ltd, Wilhelmsen group companyGE Corporation, AcceptaBASF SE, ControlChem Twenty-one Nebraska Wesleyan University student organizations will collaborate on a weeklong Earth Week celebration April 18-21. The keynote lecture, Understanding and Assessing Climate Change and its Implications for Nebraska, will be delivered 7:30 p.m. Tuesday by Donald Wilhite, professor emeritus of applied climate science in the School of Natural Resources at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. On Wednesday, Kelly Clancy, assistant professor of political science at NWU, will deliver a lecture focusing on how the debate over climate change is no longer scientific, but cultural. The lecture series concludes Thursday with Frank Ferraro, associate professor of psychology at Wesleyan. Ferraros talk will address student-faculty research conducted at NWU on how students respond to nature and urban environments. All lectures are at 7:30 p.m. in Olin B Lecture Hall. They are free and open to the public. PR-Inside.com: 2017-04-13 18:30:08 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 378 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 FSCwire / Press ReleaseThe following press release was disseminated by FSCwire for Gregory J. Leia--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---Calgary, Alberta (FSCWire) - Gregory J. Leia (). has issued a press release with the following headline:Gregory J. Leia Acquires Shares in Tenth Avenue Petroleum Corp.To view this press release on the FSCwire website, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:If you would prefer, you can also view this press release as a PDF file, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:For more information on Gregory J. Leia, or to see additional press releases issued by this company, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser: http://www.fscwire.com/public-company/Gregory J. LeiaSource: Gregory J. LeiaDate: April 13, 2017Time: 12:29 PM EDT--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---The story mentioned above was issued on behalf of Gregory J. Leia and disseminated through FSCwire.About FSCwireFSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.), is a global newswire dissemination, SEDAR, SEDI, and EDGAR / XBRL service provider.FSCwire is a full service global newswire dissemination company and is fully approved by all exchanges in Canada and the U.S. Press releases can be distributed for all sizes of public, private or not for profit companies and any other organization requiring news distribution. In addition to individual companies; public relations, communications and investor relations firms trust FSCwire to distribute press releases for their respective clients.In addition to newswire dissemination FSCwire also offers EDGAR, XBRL, SEDAR, SEDI, and additional services for publicly traded companies. For more information, please go to our website: http://www.fscwire.com Maximum News Dissemination by FSCwire. http://www.fscwire.com Copyright 2017 - FSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.) China ESD-Safe Field Kits Market Research Report 2016 Purchase This Report by calling ResearchnReports.com at +1-888-631-6977. Researchnreports PR-Inside.com: 2017-04-13 21:34:36 Press Information ResearchnReports 10916, Gold Point, Dr, Houston, TX, Pin - 77064. Sunny Denis Sales Manager +1 888-631-6977 email http://www.researchnreports.com # 640 Words 10916, Gold Point, Dr,Houston, TX,Pin - 77064.Sales Manager+1 888-631-6977 The market research report helps analyze the ESD-Safe Field Kits market on a China basis and also offers forecast and statistics in terms of revenue for the anticipated forecast period 2016 to 2021. This research study offers a detailed overview of the market dynamics that are expected to affect the overall industry in the coming few years. In addition, the study explains the impact of the key factors on the development and growth of the China ESD-Safe Field Kits market through the forecast period. Promising opportunities in the China ESD-Safe Field Kits market have also been mentioned in the study.This report considers the main regions i.e. North America, Middle East & Africa, Asia Pacific, China and Latin America. Top manufacturers in China market, their capacity, production, revenue, price and shares are covered in detail.Download sample pages of this premium report: https://www.researchnreports.com/request_sample.php?id=31226 To offer a clear understanding of the China ESD-Safe Field Kits market, several questions have been addressed in the research study concerning the growth of the China ESD-Safe Field Kits market. It is also been discussed with respect to projected growth rate of the China ESD-Safe Field Kits market in the near future. Also, depending on the ongoing trend of the market, the region which is anticipated to witness high growth in the next few years is studied in detail.Get Discount on this Report: https://www.researchnreports.com/ask_for_discount.php?id=31226 The study segments the market by geography into: North America, China, Asia Pacific, and Rest of the World. It provides in-depth forecasts of revenue of the market as a whole as well as each and every application segment. The competitive landscape is mapped depending on product and technology. This study also offers an overview of pricing trends and ancillary factors that will be influencing pricing in the China ESD-Safe Field Kits market. The market study, estimation, and market sizing have been done utilizing a combination of top-down and bottom-up approaches.Most important data include the key recommendations and predictions by our analysts, intended to steer a strategic business decision. The company profiles section of this research service is a compilation of the growth strategies, financial status, product portfolio, and recent developments of key market participants. The report provides detailed industry analysis of the China ESD-Safe Field Kits market with the help of proven research methodologies such as Porters five forces. The forces analyzed are bargaining power of the buyers, bargaining power of suppliers, threat of new entrants, threat of substitutes, and the degree of competition.For more inquiry before purchase: https://www.researchnreports.com/enquiry_before_buying.php?id=31226 China ESD-Safe Field Kits Market Report 2016This report studies ESD-Safe Field Kits in China market, focuses on the top players in China market, with capacity, production, price, revenue and market share for each manufacturerCompany Profiled in this Report: RS Pro Plastic Systems SCS Desco Weller FlukeComplete report available at: https://www.researchnreports.com/semiconductor-electronics/China-ESD-Safe-Field-Kits-Market-Research-Report-2016-31226 About Research n Reports:Research N Reports is a new age market research firm where we focus on providing information that can be effectively applied. Today being a consumer driven market, companies require information to deal with the complex and dynamic world of choices. Where relying on a sound board firm for your decisions becomes crucial. Research N Reports specializes in industry analysis, market forecasts and as a result getting quality reports covering all verticals, whether be it gaining perspective on current market conditions or being ahead in the cut throat China competition. Since we excel at business research to help businesses grow, we also offer consulting as an extended arm to our services which only helps us gain more insight into current trends and problems. Consequently we keep evolving as an all-rounder provider of viable information under one roof. PR-Inside.com: 2017-04-13 15:00:08 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 386 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 FSCwire / Press ReleaseThe following press release was disseminated by FSCwire for Letho Resources Corp.--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---Vancouver, British Columbia (FSCWire) - Letho Resources Corp. (TSX Venture:LET). has issued a press release with the following headline:Letho Appoints an additional Director to the BoardTo view this press release on the FSCwire website, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:If you would prefer, you can also view this press release as a PDF file, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:For more information on Letho Resources Corp., or to see additional press releases issued by this company, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser: http://www.fscwire.com/public-company/Letho Resources Corp.Source: Letho Resources Corp. (TSX Venture: LET)Date: April 13, 2017Time: 9:00 AM EDT--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---The story mentioned above was issued on behalf of Letho Resources Corp. and disseminated through FSCwire.About FSCwireFSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.), is a global newswire dissemination, SEDAR, SEDI, and EDGAR / XBRL service provider.FSCwire is a full service global newswire dissemination company and is fully approved by all exchanges in Canada and the U.S. Press releases can be distributed for all sizes of public, private or not for profit companies and any other organization requiring news distribution. In addition to individual companies; public relations, communications and investor relations firms trust FSCwire to distribute press releases for their respective clients.In addition to newswire dissemination FSCwire also offers EDGAR, XBRL, SEDAR, SEDI, and additional services for publicly traded companies. For more information, please go to our website: http://www.fscwire.com Maximum News Dissemination by FSCwire. http://www.fscwire.com Copyright 2017 - FSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.) Manufacturing Analytics Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment 2017-2027 Research Report By Future Market Insights Manufacturing Analytics Market PR-Inside.com: 2017-04-13 10:56:32 Press Information Future Market Insights 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018, Valley Cottage, NY 10989, United States T: +1-347-918-3531 F: +1-845-579-5705 Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.com press@futuremarketinsights.com Website: www.futuremarketinsights.com email Published by Abhishek Budholiya +1-347-918-3531 e-mail http://www.futuremarketinsights.com # 554 Words 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.compress@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite: www.futuremarketinsights.comAbhishek Budholiya+1-347-918-3531 Statistical tool that performs rule-based analysis to enhance business process and production quality is termed to be manufacturing analytics. The application of analytics in various industries such as in banking, retail and other are popularly known but recently there is an increase in demand for application of analytics in manufacturing sector in order to minimize operational cost, simplify supply-chain requirements and more. Additionally, the manufacturing companies which adopt process improvement programs including SCADA, lean manufacturing, and six sigma has enhanced the adoption of manufacturing analytics.Manufacturing analytics gathers data from geographically distributed resources, using PLCs, historians and offer organized and modeled analysis. On premise manufacturing analytical tools enable installation and service of these software suite at client side and are expensive.Request Report Sample@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-3113 Manufacturing Analytics Market: Drivers and ChallengesThe analysis of manufacturing process data are fading out due to increasing multiple industry data sources such as in-factory databases, sensor, images and among others have led to the increasing demand for big data analytics in manufacturing. This is the prime factor contributing to the growth of manufacturing analytics market globally. Additionally, growing demand to optimize business process and make them more agile and scalable is further encouraging the growth of manufacturing analytics software in manufacturing sector.Complex operation and low returns on investment from manufacturing analytics tools is hindering the market growth of manufacturing analytics solutions. Technical constraints including data breaching in cloud deployment and privacy are among other factors that negatively impact the growth of manufacturing analytics market.Manufacturing Analytics Market: SegmentationManufacturing analytics market can be segmented on the basis of solution, type of deployment, industry and regionsOn the basis of solution, manufacturing analytics market can be segmented into software and services. Services segment can further be sub-segmented into managed service and professional service.On the basis of type of deployment, manufacturing analytics market can be segmented into on-premise and cloud-based.On the basis of industry, manufacturing analytics market can be segmented into banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), IT and telecommunication, energy and utility, public sector manufacturing, healthcare, retail, hospitality and others.Manufacturing Analytics Market: Regional OverviewRegionally, manufacturing analytics market can be segmented into North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific excluding Japan, Japan, and Middle East and AfricaNorth America and Western Europe regions are expected to contribute majorly to the revenue of global manufacturing analytics market. Asia Pacific excluding Japan and Japan are expected to have the maximum growth opportunities in the forecast period from 2017 to 2027.Request For TOC@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-3113 Manufacturing Analytics Market: Competition LandscapeFew prominent players in the manufacturing analytics market include:SAP SE,IBM Corporation, Wipro Limited, General Electric Company, TIBCO Software, Inc., Zensar Technologies Ltd., Sisense, Inc., Oracle Corporation and Gemini Software solutions Pvt. Ltd.Recent contracts/deals in Manufacturing Analytics Market:In March 2015, Caterpillar Inc. signed an agreement with Uptake, which is a provider of dynamic analytics and insight platform to a wide array of industries. The two companies jointly develop end-to-end platform for predictive diagnostic to aid caterpillar customers monitor and optimize their fleets more effectively.In November 2016, GE Aviation launched new solution after teaming up with Capgemini. The new solutions launched enables key operations allowing digital exchange in data, maintenance and configuration of data. PR-Inside.com: 2017-04-13 00:32:01 The Board of Directors of Camposol Holding Ltd. announces that Mrs. Maria Cristina Couturier has resigned from the Chief Financial Officer position, in order to pursue new projects and personal aspirations. Mr. Jorge Ramirez, CEO of Camposol Holding Ltd., will assume the CFO functions during the selection process for the new CFO (process that has already begun). "I would like to thank Maria Cristina for playing an important role in the consolidation process of Camposol and for securing the financing of the company during the past 3 years. I wish her the best in her future endeavors," stated Jorge Ramirez, CEO of Camposol Holding Ltd. For further information, please contact: Jorge Luis Ramirez Rubio, CEO jramirezr@camposol.com.pe Jossue Yesquen, Head of IR jyesquen@camposol.com.pe Phone: +511 621 0800 Ext.: 7171 About CAMPOSOL: CAMPOSOL is the leading agro-industrial company in Peru, the largest exporter of Hass avocado and soon the largest producer of blueberries in the world. It is involved in the harvest, processing and marketing of high quality agricultural and sea products such as avocados, blueberries, grapes, mangoes, mandarins, shrimps, seashells and other products, which are exported to Europe, the United States of America and Asia. CAMPOSOL is a vertically integrated company located in Peru. It is the third largest employer of the country, with more than 15 thousand workers in high season, and is committed to supporting sustainable development through social responsibility policies and projects that increase the shared-value for all of its stakeholders. CAMPOSOL was the first Peruvian agro-industrial company in being part of the United Nations Global Compact and the first in publishing annual Sustainability Reports aligned to the GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) indicators; it has also achieved the following international certifications: BSCI, Global Gap, IFS, HACCP and BRC, among others. To learn more about CAMPOSOL please visit: www.camposol.com.pe This announcement is distributed by Nasdaq Corporate Solutions on behalf of Nasdaq Corporate Solutions clients. The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein. Source: Camposol Holding Limited via Globenewswire Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the Krill Meal Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment 2017-2027" report to their offering. PR-Inside.com: 2017-04-13 11:58:16 Press Information Future Market Insights 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018, Valley Cottage, NY 10989, United States T: +1-347-918-3531 F: +1-845-579-5705 Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.com Press: press@futuremarketinsights.com Website: www.futuremarketinsights.com email Published by Abhishek Budholiya +1-347-918-3531 e-mail http://www.futuremarketinsights.com # 578 Words 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comPress: press@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite: www.futuremarketinsights.comAbhishek Budholiya+1-347-918-3531 Krill meal is a specialty feed ingredient, which is made up of small shrimp-like crustacean, Krill. Ithas been manufactured by the companies for more than 10 years. Krill meal is a rich source of protein and more than 200,000 tons of krill meal is transported worldwide. Although there are more than 80 species of krill and currently only 6 species of krill are fished,but the two major species of krill meal is Euphausia superba and Euphausia Pacifica. Species that is used to make high valued krill meal is the South Antarctic krill belongs to Euphausia superba species. Although krill is one of the most abundant creatures in the world, its industrial usage is still on the growth phase. Unlike fish meal, krill meal has more fat content, ethoxyquin and a natural stabilizing substance. Krill meal has negligible amount heavy metals and PCBs. Krill meal is also a rich source of essential polyunsaturated fatty acids and amino acids. It krill meal helps in the promotion of growth, helps in increasing weight gain and feed conversion rates.Market Segmentation:Krill Meal market is segmented on the basis of use, distribution channel and region. On the basis of use market is segmented into human consumption, aquarium and aquaculture feed. Among all these segment application in aquaculture feed is expected to grow enormously in the coming future, ongoing research in krill meal will also boost the growth of pharmaceutical segment. The demand for Krill Meal is more due to the value it offers as well as ease of availability of its product in the market. On the basis of distribution channel the market is segmented into supermarkets/hypermarkets, convenience stores, medical stores and online stores. Convenience stores is expected to hold a relatively high share in the krill meal market.On the basis of region Krill Meal market is segmented into North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific, MEA and Japan.Request Report Sample@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-3093 Market Regional Outlook:Regional segment for the market of Chromium polynicotinateisdivided into seven different regions: North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific, MEA and Japan. Among these segment North America is expected to have the major market share globally, as it is the largest producer and consumer of Chromium polynicotinate. In Asia Pacific region the countries like China and India are generating the major revenue. In terms of revenue Asia Pacific is the second prominent contributor in theChromium polynicotinatemarket.Market Drivers:The market of Krill Meal is driven by the increasing awareness among the consumers about the health benefits associated with it. Krill Meal is not only a rich source of protein but it also exhibits some special properties such as anti-inflammatory property, anti-cancerproperty and anti-oxidant property. Companies are producing Krillproducts for human consumption and will continue to do so because of the properties it exhibits. These versatile properties of Krill Meal is attracting the pharmaceutical segment a lot and will defiantly drive the krill meal market in the forecast period. Factors that hamper the growth of krill meal market are availability of various alternate protein feeds which includes fish meal and soybean meal.Visit for TOC@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-3093 Market Key Players:Some of the key players in Krill mealmarket are SipCarp, Qrill, Shandong Keruier Biological Company, La Merced, CYT INTERNATIONAL PTE LTD, Sunflower Enterprise, NUTRAFEED, SEAPRO, Qingdao Kangjing Marine Biotechnology Co, Beijing Jin-Ye Bioengineering Co., Ltd., A-Bank Co.,Ltdand INTERRYBFLOT among others. Microdisplays Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment 2017-2027 Research Report By Future Market Insights Microdisplays Market PR-Inside.com: 2017-04-13 11:11:24 Press Information Future Market Insights 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018, Valley Cottage, NY 10989, United States T: +1-347-918-3531 F: +1-845-579-5705 Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.com press@futuremarketinsights.com Website: www.futuremarketinsights.com email Published by Abhishek Budholiya +1-347-918-3531 e-mail http://www.futuremarketinsights.com # 610 Words 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.compress@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite: www.futuremarketinsights.comAbhishek Budholiya+1-347-918-3531 Microdisplays are tiny compact displays that require magnifying optics while deployment in various electronic devices. Microdisplay devices feature user-configurable technology, high pixel density and high resolution which are widely used for smart glasses, smart watches, smart bands and other smart devices to enhance the picture quality images with high contrast ratio.Microdisplays are featured with CMOS chips which includes two-dimensional transistors. These microdisplays are applicable in rear-projection TVs, head-mounted displays (HMD), view finders in cameras and other data projector counterparts. Microdisplays enhance the voice and picture clarity when used in TVs. Technological advancements in microdiplays and emergence of microdisplay-based holographic display are encouraging the electronic equipment manufacturer to invest in R&D of microdisplays having a positive impact on global microdisplays market.Microdisplays Market: Drivers and ChallengesRapid development and continuous enhancements in display technology has given way for various types of displays in the commercial and industrial market. Microdisplays are compact small-sized displays featuring high resolution capability that improves the picture and voice quality in TVs which makes it a prime device to be used while manufacture of display devices, encouraging the OEMs to use microdiplays in many new devices such as smartphones, tablets and others. Growing number of applications in various consumer electronics and industrial electronics are major factors which fuel the growth of global microdisplays market, encouraging the devices manufacturer to use microdiaplays in the display devices.Request Report Sample@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-3131 Government regulations for the use of microdiplays in electronic devices, and high initial manufacturing costs are among the factors that impact negatively the growth of global microdisplays market.Microdisplays Market: SegmentationMicrodisplays market can be segmented on the basis of products, technology, application and regions.On the basis of products, microdisplays market can be segmented into near-to-eye products, projections product and others.On the basis of technology, microdisplays market can be segmented into liquid crystal display technology (LCD), digital micromirror devices (DMD), liquid crystal on-silicon technology (LCOS), organic light emitting diode (OLED) and othersOn the basis of application, the microdisplays market can be segmented into industrial application and consumer application.Microdisplays Market: Regional OverviewRegionally, microdisplays market can be segmented into North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific excluding Japan, Japan, and Middle East and AfricaNorth America dominates the global microdisplays market in terms of revenue as majority of the key player are based out in this region. Western Europe is among the regions that contribute to a greater extent after North America. Asia Pacific excluding Japan is the region that has maximum growth potential for microdisplays applications.Microdisplays Market: Competition LandscapeFew prominent vendors in the global microdisplays market include: eMagin Corporation, Kopin Corporation, Syndiant Inc. MicroVision, Inc., Yunnan Olightek Opto-Electronic Technology Co. Ltd., Universal Display Corporation, Himax Technologies Inc., Liteye Systems Inc., WiseChip Semiconductor Inc. and Cambridge Display Technology.Key contracts signed in global microdisplays market:In September 2012, DigiLens, Inc. was awarded with a US$ 7,50,000 U.S. government contract to continue with Phase II development of a wide view color head mounted display (HMD) with curved visor prototype. Key elements of the contract included development of a unique optical manufacturing process where traditional free-space or analog holographic recording processes transitioned to digital holographic contact copy mastering processes.Request For TOC@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-3131 In August 2012, eMagin Corporation was awarded with a contract from the U.S. Navy for R&D of a high-brightness 2,000 x 2,000 pixel OLED microdisplay. The contract was of US$ 2.4 million and the proposed work in the contract leveraged the accomplishments of prior Night Vision and Electronic Sensors Directorate (NVESD) OLED programs and further improved the OLED performance. PR-Inside.com: 2017-04-13 09:37:04 Orange Belgium will publish its results for the first quarter of 2017 on Friday, April 21 at 07:00 CET. Orange Belgium Investor Relations is pleased to invite investors and analysts to participate in a conference call hosted by: Michael Trabbia, CEO Arnaud Castille, CFO Siddy Jobe, Director Investor Relations The conference call will start at 10:00 am CET (9:00 am UK / 4:00 am EST). To access the call, please dial one of the following numbers 5-10 minutes prior to the start of the conference call in order to avoid waiting time. Consequently register with following pin code: 59620238# and provide your name and the company you work for. Belgium +32 24029640 Canada +1 4169153614 France +33 172001510 Germany +49 69222229031 Ireland +353 14311251 Italy +39 236009767 Luxembourg +352 20880696 Netherlands +31 107138194 Spain +34 914142021 Switzerland +41 225809022 United Kingdom +44 2030432440 United States +1 6467224907 The recorded session will be available after the conference call and can be downloaded from our website. You will find the link to access the recorded session on the website below. The press release for the first quarter of 2017, the roadshow presentation and the results toolkit will be available on Friday, April 21 on the financial section of the corporate website at https://corporate.orange.be/en/financial-information/financial-results About Orange Belgium Orange Belgium is one of the leading telecommunication operators on the Belgian market, with over 3 million customers, and in Luxembourg through its subsidiary Orange Luxembourg. As a convergent actor, we provide mobile telecommunication services, internet and TV to private clients, as well as innovative mobile and fixed line services to businesses. Our high-performance mobile network supports 2G, 3G, 4G and 4G+ technology and is the subject of ongoing investments. Orange Belgium is a subsidiary of the Orange Group, one of the leading European and African operators for mobile telephony and ADSL internet access, as well as one of the world leaders for telecommunication services to enterprises. Orange Belgium is listed on the Brussels Stock Exchange (OBEL). For more information: corporate.orange.be, www.orange.beor follow us on Twitter: @pressOrangeBe. Press contacts Annelore Marynissen (NL) - annelore.marynissen@orange.com - +32 479 01 60 58 Jean-Pascal Bouillon (FR) - jean-pascal.bouillon@orange.com - +32 473 94 87 31 press@orange.be Investors contact Siddy Jobe - ir@orange.be - +32(0)2 745 80 92 This announcement is distributed by Nasdaq Corporate Solutions on behalf of Nasdaq Corporate Solutions clients. The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein. Source: Orange Belgium via Globenewswire Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the Orthokeratology Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment 2017-2027report to their offering. Orthokeratology Market Trends PR-Inside.com: 2017-04-13 08:44:54 Press Information Future Market Insights 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018, Valley Cottage, NY 10989, United States 3479183531 email Published by Abhishek Budholiya +1-347-918-3531 e-mail http://www.futuremarketinsights.com # 690 Words 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United States3479183531Abhishek Budholiya+1-347-918-3531 Orthokeratology is the reduction of myopia, hyperopia, astigmatism and presbyopia using contact lenses to reshape the cornea. Modern Orthokeratology uses reverse geometry gas permeable Orthokeratology shaping lenses worn during sleeping time and can be removed during daytime. This overnight wearing provides an instant, more appropriate results than early Orthokeratology attempts. Orthokeratology is indicated in two conditions, one is to correct the refractive errors like nearsightedness but also hyperopia and astigmatism. Second is to slow the progression of myopia in childhood. Mild to moderate myopia are treated with Orthokeratology and risk associated with it is less because the corneal reshaping is temporary and patient can discontinue the lenses at any time. Studies shown that Orthokeratology can reduce myopic progression by 95% and slow axial elongation. Orthokeratology is safe when compared to others because the lenses are worn for shorter time period i.e. while sleeping rather than the daytime. Orthokeratology is non-invasive method where surgery is not required. The process of Orthokeratology mainly involves initial fittings, shaping lens adaptation and follow-ups, removing shaping lenses, performing refraction (or perform refractometry) and topography (for shape changes). Shaping lenses are checked for centration, movement and fluorescein pattern.Orthokeratology market: Drivers and RestraintsIncreased prevalence of myopia in adults with population and it can lead to retinal detachment and glaucoma which can contribute to loss of vision. World health organization identified that myopia as one of the leading cause of the visual impairment. Socio-economic factor of individuals is also effected with the severity of the myopia progression. There is no current treatment for reversing the pathological myopia, only available means is to decrease the severity and progression. All these concerns driving towards the usage of Orthokeratology. The risk of microbial keratitis is kept minimum by using the Orthokeratology. Adaptation of Orthokeratology lenses is easier and faster because of large diameter and with minimum lid sensations. Corrective actions associated with Orthokeratology is stable but not permanent. All these factors are attributing for the rapid advancement of Orthokeratology market. Other alternative methods like soft dual focus contact lenses and modified spectacle lenses are used in treatment of myopia. Till date these methods have not proved to be as successful as Orthokeratology.Request Report Sample@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-3142 The common side effects of Orthokeratology is redness, cornea staining and cornea edema. The cost of the Orthokeratology lenses and maintenance during the treatment is too high. Orthokeratology requires regular follow-up which is highly inconvenient in few cases. All these factors are directly effecting the growth of Orthokeratology market.Orthokeratology market: Market overviewOrthokeratology market is growing enormously because of increased number of pathological myopia conditions. Myopia effect socio-economic conditions of individual and the treatment is not available, the usage of Orthokeratology lenses are more advisable. By implementing the effective Orthokeratology, the natural evolution of myopia can be reduced to minimum extent. Rapid advancement of technology and genetic manipulations made it possible to reduce the risk of myopia.These factors drive the market towards high growth of the Orthokeratology market. Because of wide range availability of Orthokeratology lenses, customization is possible with this lenses. It ultimately increases the patient compliance of Orthokeratology lenses. The Orthokeratology has a built-in safeguard, whenever any adverse effects noted the lenses get discontinued and cornea retains its original position. All these factors influence the growth of the market.Request For TOC@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-3142 Orthokeratology market: Region overviewThe growth of Orthokeratology market in the US is high because of high incidence of myopia and increased complications with myopia. Europe and Asian countries are also showing remarkable growth in Orthokeratology market. Developing countries are showing the enormous growth in the Orthokeratology market because high risk of blindness in the myopia patients. The future is expected with double growth rate.Orthokeratology market: Key ParticipantsThe key participants in the Orthokeratology market is Euclid (USA), GP Specialists (USA), E&E Optics (USA), Procornea (Nederland), Alpha Corporation (Japan), Lucid (Korea), TMVC (Taiwan), Autek China (China). The competitors in the Orthokeratology market is increasing enormously. To expand the market of Orthokeratology, the companies are mainly focusing on mergers and acquisition around the globe. Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the Packer Bottles Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment 2017-2027" report to their offering. PR-Inside.com: 2017-04-13 12:02:51 Press Information Future Market Insights 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018, Valley Cottage, NY 10989, United States T: +1-347-918-3531 F: +1-845-579-5705 Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.com Press: press@futuremarketinsights.com Website: www.futuremarketinsights.com email Published by Abhishek Budholiya +1-347-918-3531 e-mail http://www.futuremarketinsights.com # 724 Words 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comPress: press@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite: www.futuremarketinsights.comAbhishek Budholiya+1-347-918-3531 Packer bottles are a prominent packaging product for primary packaging of non-liquid products. Though packer bottles were traditionally made of glass, rigid plastics such as high density polyethylene (HDPE) have been increasingly replacing the glass packer bottles. Vitamin pills, powdered chemical contents, nutritional supplements, medicinal tablets, agro chemicals, industrial chemicals, etc. are packed in packer bottles of various colors, materials, capacity size etc.The packer bottles have been used as a staple packaging solution for industries such as pharmaceutical, food and beverage, industrial chemicals, etc. throughout ages, as they provide an ideal way to pack products such as tablets, powder medicines, capsules and pills. Packer bottles manufactured through bow molding technology are characterized by cylindrical shape with wide mouth and threaded screw closure system. Packer bottle due to its characteristics offer convenience of storing non-liquid as well as viscous contents of less sensitive chemical properties.Packer bottles market is encompassed under the larger market for primary packaging. As a primary packaging product, packer bottles preserve the product from damage, contamination and leakage while protecting the contents over a long period of time through complex supply chain. Apart from this, packer bottles also allow convenient shelving and ease of handling for retailers as well as consumers.Request Report Sample@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-3098 Packer Bottles Market, Market Dynamics:Glass packer bottles have been traditionally enjoyed larger pie of packer bottles market, as glass offers resistance to chemical properties of the content along with bulk packaging and storing capabilities. However, glass due to its heavyweight and fragile characteristics pose of risk of breakage and leakage of contents. Rigid plastics such as Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and high density polyethylene (HDPE) are increasingly being preferred by manufacturers as they offer functionalities similar to glass. Plastic packer bottles offer better resistance against stress and impact compared to glass packer bottles. This allows hassle free transportation and shipping of packer bottles through the supply chain across industries.Packer bottles, which are a key packaging products for pharmaceutical products, evolve with the developments and advancements in the pharmaceutical market. Closure systems for packer bottles are gradually made of tamper evident and tamper resistant technology in order to protect the integrity and authenticity of the packed contents.However, flexible packaging formats such as blisters are progressively replacing packer bottles as preferred mediums for non-liquid products packaging. In pharmaceutical packaging market, use of blisters for packing pharmaceutical products offer higher tamper evident measure right up to the administration of the drug, as every dosage unit is packed in a separate compartments of the blister pack. This also allows protection against moisture and environment, for products with sensitive chemical properties, as moisture in packer bottles is replaced every time a bottle is opened to consume the contents within.Visit for TOC@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-3098 Packer Bottles Market, Market Segments:Packer bottles market can be segmented according to end user industry, application type, material type, color type and capacity size. As per end user industry, packer bottles are used in industries including pharmaceutical, healthcare, food, and beverages. According to application, packer bottles can be used to pack pills, capsules, tablets and powder. Based on the material used, packer bottles are made of glass and plastics. In plastics, packer bottles can be further segmented into Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and high density polyethylene (HDPE). Packer bottles are supplied in color variants including white, amber, cobalt blue and transparent. As per capacity size, packer bottles can be segmented as below 100 cc, 100 to 300 cc, 300 to 500 cc and above 500 ccPacker Bottles Market, Regional Outlook:The regional markets for packer bottles market include North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (MEA), Asia Pacific, excluding Japan (APEJ) and Japan. Emerging markets in APEJ such as India and China, due to increase in disposable income, will contribute to the growth of packer bottles market. Further benchmark performance of pharmaceutical industries in the U.S. and Europe will see higher growth in demand for packer bottles in these regions.Packer Bottles Market, Key Players:Key players operating in the packer bottles market are Berry Plastics Corporation, The Cary Company, Silver Spur Corporation, Alpha Packaging, Captivaco, Qorpak, Golden Needle Acupuncture, Herbal & Medical Supply, Kinnek, Inc., Comar, LLC., Pharmacy Automation Supplies, Kush Bottles, Inc., Aaron Packaging, Freund Container, Thermo Fisher Scientific and Thomas Scientific. WASHINGTON -- With a mellifluous name suggesting bucolic tranquility, Rep. Mark Meadows, a North Carolina Republican, is an unlikely object of the caterwauling recently directed at him and the House Freedom Caucus he leads. The vituperation was occasioned by the HFC's role rescuing Republicans from embracing an unpopular first draft of legislation to replace Obamacare. A decisive blow against the bill was struck by the quintessential Republican moderate, New Jersey's Rodney Frelinghuysen, chairman of the Appropriations Committee whose family has included a member of the Continental Congress, four U.S. senators and, in 1844, a vice presidential nominee: "Hurrah! Hurrah! The country's risin', for Henry Clay and Frelinghuysen." Although just a little over two years old, the HFC signals a revival of congressional resistance to the dangerous waxing of executive power under presidents of both parties. The HFC is a rarity, a heartening political development: People giving priority to their legislative craft and institution rather than to a president of their party barking at them. The HFC's 30 members, and six others informally affiliated, are barely 8 percent of the House, but their cohesion is a force multiplier. The cohesion comes, Meadows says, from its members being "here for a purpose." And, he adds dryly, from the fact that, for many, "This is not the best job they've ever had." Among the never more than 537 people who are in Washington because they won elections, none are more threatening to tranquility than the few who are not desperate to be here. They do not respond to the usual incentives for maintaining discipline. The HFC has rules, bylaws and weekly meetings, often featuring experts on particular issues. HFC members have, Meadows believes, "a competitive advantage" in the House because they hone their arguments together in what Meadows calls "the best debating club on Capitol Hill." If 80 percent of the HFC agree on an issue, it votes as a bloc, although members can receive two exemptions per Congress. Meadows was contented as a businessman for whom politics was an avocation. About 30 years ago, he was the only person to attend a precinct meeting, thereby becoming the precinct's chair. He rose in Republican ranks until redistricting after the 2010 census produced a congenial district, which he won in 2012. In December 2014, he and a few others were disgusted by what was called "cromnibus." This testimony to Congress' normal dysfunction was a combination of a continuing resolution to keep the government running and an omnibus spending bill. Cromnibus was another of those "this is a binary choice, so you have no choice" moments. He and eight other conservatives chose to form a group of kindred spirits. Meadows came to the nation's attention by doing something eccentric: He read the House rules. Therein he learned about a "motion to vacate the chair." Such a motion requires a vote on the Speaker. John Boehner resigned as speaker and from the House rather than rely on Democratic votes to make up for lost votes from the HFC, whose members had felt the sting of his disapproval of their insufficient docility. In last month's dispute about Speaker Paul Ryan's health care bill, the president thought it was wise to tweet a demand that the HFC "get on the team." And for Steve Bannon to summon HFC members to reportedly be instructed by him that "this is not a discussion. This is not a debate. You have no choice but to vote for this bill." And for the White House director of social media -- your tax dollars at work -- to tweet that an HFC member, Michigan's Justin Amash, "is a big liability" who should be defeated in a primary. The 32nd president, a somewhat more accomplished politician than the 45th, tried to purge some members of his party's congressional caucus. Franklin Roosevelt became angry when some conservative Southern Democrats helped to defeat his plan to break the Supreme Court to his saddle by enlarging it and filling the new seats with compliant liberals. He recruited and supported primary opponents against the offending Democrats. All survived. One of them, Georgia's Sen. Walter George, told that FDR was "his own worst enemy," replied: "Not as long as I'm alive." Republicans gained eight Senate seats in 1938 and their House ranks almost doubled, from 88 to 169. FDR never again had a liberal legislating majority in Congress. Today's president should have second, or perhaps first, thoughts about a purge. PR-Inside.com: 2017-04-13 10:14:01 Pala Investments Expands Team Pala Investments Richard Brown Tel: +41 41 560 9070 Pala Investments (Pala), a multi-strategy investment company focused on the mining and metals value chain, announces today the expansion of its investment team, with the addition of Jessica Fung and Justin Cochrane. Jessica Fung, Head of Research Jessica joins Pala following eight years with investment bank BMO Capital Markets as their lead Commodities Strategist, where she held primary responsibility for developing the banks commodity research as well as generating commodity calls and investment recommendations for the banks clients. Jessica will oversee Palas research efforts, assisting in developing commodity views and investment strategies to underpin both Palas Liquid Investments Strategies fund and Palas core Private Equity investments. Justin Cochrane, Streaming and Structured Finance Justin will support Palas efforts in structuring streaming and royalty transactions as part of Palas structured finance offering to its investee companies. Justin is an Executive of Duke Royalty Limited and was Executive Vice President, Corporate Development at Sandstorm Gold Ltd between 2010 and 2015, holding primary responsibility for sourcing, negotiating and executing royalty and stream transactions in the precious and base metals sectors globally, prior to which Justin was with National Bank Financial for nine years in their investment banking division. Commenting on the expansion of the team, Stephen Gill, Pala Portfolio Manager, said: We are very pleased to welcome Jessica and Justin. Their addition adds further depth to Palas team, and continues to underpin a robust, research-driven approach to thematic investing across the commodity space. Jessicas skill set will enable us to further increase our ability to develop conviction views around counter-cyclical and thematic investments opportunities both in our liquid strategies and PE investments. Justins depth of experience in structuring royalties, streams and other forms of non-dilutive financing will help further expand our ability to represent a creative and long-term financing partner for companies in the mining and metals space. The continued expansion of the team positions us well to generate attractive returns across the commodity cycle. About Pala Pala is a multi-strategy investment company focused on the mining and metals value chain with a strong track record of successful investments and value creation. Palas team has extensive experience within the sector and seeks to assist companies in which it has long-term shareholdings by providing strategic advice and innovative solutions in development, production, expansion and turnaround situations. Pala also pursues a range of liquid investment strategies. Pala invests across all geographies and in all mining commodities as well as mining services and consumables. For more information, visit www.pala.com. . View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/201704130054 Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the Plastic Jar Packaging Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment 2017-2027" report to their offering. PR-Inside.com: 2017-04-13 11:54:54 Press Information Future Market Insights 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018, Valley Cottage, NY 10989, United States T: +1-347-918-3531 F: +1-845-579-5705 Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.com Press: press@futuremarketinsights.com Website: www.futuremarketinsights.com email Published by Abhishek Budholiya +1-347-918-3531 e-mail http://www.futuremarketinsights.com # 758 Words 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comPress: press@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite: www.futuremarketinsights.comAbhishek Budholiya+1-347-918-3531 For many decades, plastic jars have been adopted widely for packaging of materials like food, detergents, and other consumer goods. Plastic Jars are made from compounds such as polyethylene terephthalate, HDPE, LDPE, polystyrene etc., known to have an impressive clarity, and a good ability to withstand impact. They are known to act like a barrier that can resist oil and grease, and temperature changes which may affect the product within, especially food products. Attributed to their properties which include economic price point, improved product insulation, its recyclability, resistance to UV, and minimized need for coatings to prevent dissolution with food, the preference for plastic jar has increased substantially, translating into value proposition for players operating in the plastic jar packaging market.Plastic jar Packaging Market: DynamicsGlobal consumer packaging market has transformed over the past few years, creating the need for absolute customization in terms of package design and formulations. Since, retail sector growth in developed market is staggering around 5%, and that in developing markets it has already surpassed over 8% annually, it is anticipated that it would translate in meteoric growth for the plastic jar packaging market. The global plastic jar packaging market is also growing on the backdrop of FMCG industry growth along with changing food consumption pattern. Global ready to eat food market grew at CAGR of over 6.8% over the past three years and is likely to gain momentum with growing urbanization and increasing disposable income. Despite all the positive market conditions for plastic jars packaging market, stringent policy framework and regulatory landscape are likely to impede the growth, along with developing alternate packaging options such as bag in box or bag in tubes. Concerns for the environmental effects of plastic also restrain the growth of the plastic jar packaging market. Plastic being known to take centuries to decompose, paves way for an increasing demand for new recyclable forms of plastic, which makes the market a competitive one.Request Report Sample@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-3076 Plastic jar Packaging Market: SegmentationAccording to the Society of Plastics Industry, a plastic Jar or any other plastic container with a code of 1 indicates that it is made out of PET. A plastic jar with a code of 2 represents HDPE, 3 represents PVC, 4 represents LDPE, 5 represents PE, 6 represents Styrofoam (or PS), a code of 7 may represent that the Plastic jar is made out of miscellaneous plastics that are not represented any of the other six codes. Therefore, the global plastic jar packaging market in the report is segmented as follows:-On the basis of material:PETHDPEPVCLDPEPEStyrofoam i.e. PSOn the basis of Plastic Jar type:Straight Sided JarsDomed based JarsSnap Top JarsTapered JarsOther Jar TypesOn the basis of Plastic Jar Size:Small Sized Plastic Jars (Less than 12 oz)Medium Sized Plastic Jars (13 30 oz)Large Sized Plastic Jars (31 110 oz)Very Large size Plastic jars(> 110 oz)On the basis of Plastic Jar Color:AmberFrostedClearAmbientOthersVisit for TOC@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-3076 On the basis of End use Industry:Food and BeveragesPersonal CareHome CarePharmaceuticalsChemicalsOther End Use IndustryAll these plastics have low cost of production, are safe as packaging materials and find use in a wide range of places like Kitchens, bathrooms, industries and the likes. With the increase in the number of well-informed consumers every month, the market for plastic jars is on an incline and plastic manufacturers have to work hard to properly classify their products in order to help the consumers and recyclers sort their products with ease.Plastic jar packaging market: Geographical and Competitive dynamicsBeing the most developed of all with a well-informed consumer population, North America is the largest market for plastic jars. It is closely followed by Europe, the Asia Pacific region and RoW. However, economic powerhouses like China and India represent markets that have shown the growing need for economical products that also promise quality. Rapid economic development of these countries, in addition to a large consumer base, plastic jars are anticipated to face sizable demand in the next decade. These, combined with the added benefits of plastic jars like inert nature and resistance to impact damage, protection from UV etc., increase the need for such products in these markets.Key PlayersSome of the key players in the market for plastic jars are Alpha Packaging, Constar International, Ontario Plastic Container producers Ltd, Gepack, Cospak, Amcor, Container Corporation of Canada, Graham Packaging Europe, Olcott Plastics and M & H Plastics. Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the Point-Of-Care Genetic Testing Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment 2017-2027report to their offering. Point-Of-Care Genetic Testing Market Value PR-Inside.com: 2017-04-13 08:40:00 Press Information Future Market Insights 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018, Valley Cottage, NY 10989, United States T: +1-347-918-3531 F: +1-845-579-5705 Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.com Press: press@futuremarketinsights.com Website: www.futuremarketinsights.com email Published by Abhishek Budholiya +1-347-918-3531 e-mail http://www.futuremarketinsights.com # 838 Words 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comPress: press@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite: www.futuremarketinsights.comAbhishek Budholiya+1-347-918-3531 Point-of-Care testing is defined as the clinical testing performed at or near the site where clinical care is being given to the patient. It can be performed by patients itself or any personnel. Consecutively, analyzing the DNA and finding out the best treatment option based on the genetic makeup of the patient constitute Point-of-Care genetic testing. This isa fast and quick technique based on personal genomics so to allow the efficient functioning of the drug. The idea behind this point-of-care genetic testing approach is to reduce the diagnosis time, inconvenience faced by patients and to follow personalized medicine approach for specific patient. Generally, all the diseases are combination of various genetic factors, and current genetic testing techniques require a lot of time in analyzing the problem. As a result, the use of Point-of Care genetic testing systems is prevalent in quickly diagnosing and guiding the doctors to head in a right direction.Point-of-Care Genetic testing involves amplification of genetic material and then real-time analysis to detect the genetic variations among people. The first point-of-care version of a real-time nucleic acid detection system is the Cepheids Xpert system, going to be launched this year. It combines fully integrated sample preparation for amplification and detection process. This system is designed to purify, concentrate, detect, and recognize targeted nucleic acid sequences delivering diagnosis using unprocessed samples approximately within 30 minutes.Request Report Sample@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-3138 Point-of-Care Genetic Testing Market: Drivers & RestraintsThe point-of-care genetic testing technology possesses convenient and immediate action for a therapeutic condition. The growth is likely to continue with the aim of providing less costly and closer to patients care. The use of genetics has become prominent nowadays in almost every pediatric condition, and this technology overcomes the limitations and challenges of current molecular testing techniques. Pressure on healthcare budgets and the trend to patient-centered care might be perceived as problems confined to the developed world. Moreover, the increase in population and westernization in the developing countries like China and India links it with the increase in the healthcare problems. Due to poverty and lack of sources, Point-of-Care genetic testing technology has a major scope in these countries by providing diagnostics available at low prices and at patients bedside. There are some technological limitations like failure to detect abnormal results, standardization, technological expertise, algorithmic & software complications, higher cost of maintenance & repair, poor tests result in case of contaminated samples, and sample specificity in the use of point-of-care genetic testing systems. In addition, the high cost of Point-of-Care genetic test and limited reimbursement support is hindering the growth of point-of-care genetic testing market.Point-of-Care Genetic Testing Market: OverviewA global trends of making healthcare service more patient-centeric than the service provider shows an expanding growing opportunities for point-of-care genetic testing, as there are lots of funding available from multiple sources including NIH, US Department of Defence as well as various private foundations and biopharmaceutical companies. The point-of-care genetic testing market includes various types of testing includes diabetes, hematology, oncology, infectious disease, and others indications.Point-of-Care genetic testing is going beyond the laboratory, as FDA granted its first CLIA waiver to a nucleic acid based test. The Alere I Influenza A&B and cobas Liat System and Strep A from Roche have received a CLIA waiver in 2015. In the cardiovascular domain, Spartan Biosciences received the approval from Health Care Canada for their Spartan RX CYP2C19 system in 2014, a genetic test that can be used to govern whether patients receiving the antiplatelet medication clopidigrel (Plavix) following percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) have CYP2C19 mutations that may weaken their ability to metabolize the drug.Point-of-Care Genetic Testing Market: Region-wise OutlookBased on geography, the point-of-care genetic testing market is segmented into North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, APEJ, Japan and Middle & Africa. Sustained implementation of point-of-care genetic testing requires that new technologies address the need of targeted settings. The combined power of microfluidics and smartphone technologies will be going to boost the market of point-of-care molecular testing. The US is recognized at the top country in the sector of Point-of-Care genetic testing market because of technological advancement, awareness among the population and high per capita income. In Europe, Germany is also recognized as the market player in this industry. Asia-Pacific is expected witness significant growth rate in the coming years due to increasing investment in cancer research, increasing awareness and funding by government to curb the prevalence of infectious diseases and active participation of corporates in the healthcare technologies.Request For TOC@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-3138 Point-of-Care Genetic Testing Market: Key PlayersCepheid, IQuum, Biocartis, Abbott, Idaho Technologies, ThermoFisher, Roche, Optigene, Lumora are some of the global key players in point-of-care genetic testing. In 2016, Biocartis Idyllas distribution rights were also granted to Thermofisher in the US. The Idylla platform is a fully integrated system enabling laboratories to perform a broad range of applications in oncology and beyond. But in 2014, Iquums Liat Analyzers rights were acquired by Roche Molecular Diagnostics. Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the Propylene Tetramer Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment 2017-2027" report to their offering. Propylene Tetramer Market PR-Inside.com: 2017-04-13 07:38:01 Press Information Future Market Insights 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018, Valley Cottage, NY 10989, United States T: +1-347-918-3531 F: +1-845-579-5705 Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.com Website: www.futuremarketinsights.com email Published by Abhishek Budholiya +1-347-918-3531 e-mail http://www.futuremarketinsights.com # 653 Words 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite: www.futuremarketinsights.comAbhishek Budholiya+1-347-918-3531 Propylene Tetramer with CAS 6842-15-5 is an oligomer with a quaternary structure of four propylene units. Formed synthetically by the polymerization of propylene with phosphoric acidcatalyst, propylene tetramer is a colourless clear liquid with mild pleasant odour. Propylene tetramer is an important chemical critical for the production of various downstream chemicals. Propylene tetramer is employed as an intermediate for synthesis of a wide range of chemicals such as lube oil additives, polymerization agents, surfactants, agricultural chemicals, coatings as corrosion inhibitors due to its unsaturated double bond and high branching. Due to its versatile polymeric functionality, propylene tetramer is soluble in most organic diluters and solvents such as acetone, ethanol and ethyl ether. One of the important applications of propylene tetramers is for the manufacture of dodecyl phenol or dodecene, by the alkylation of phenol using propylene tetramer, which is primarily used as used in the production of additives for engine fuels and lubricant oils. Propylene tetramer is used for alkylation of benzene to make branched chain dodecylbenzene that is subsequently sulfonated to provide a non-biodegradable surfactant.Global Propylene Tetramer Market: Drivers & RestraintsThe consumption and demand of propylene tetramer market is expected to grow with the increase in demand from end use industries. The recuperating oil and gas industry and thriving automobile production are expected to create significant demand for propylene tetramer owing to its extensive application in the manufacturing of lubricant additives. Likewise, increasing urbanization has led to an escalation in the demand for surfactants, which are a critical part of household chemicals such as detergents, this demand is expected to create significant opportunities for the global propylene market during the forecast period. The increasing production and consumption of fertilizers and other agricultural chemicals also contribute to the sustainable demand for propylene tetramer market. However, stringent environmental regulations regarding the utilization of non- biodegradable substances and presence of alternate chemical substitutes are expected to restrain the revenue sales of the market.Request For Report Sample@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-2772 Global Propylene Tetramer Market: SegmentationGlobal Propylene Tetramer Market can be segmented on the basis of application as:Oil and Fuel additives, Fertilizer and herbicideSurfactants and detergents, Paint and CoatingsWater Treatment chemicals, OthersGlobal Propylene Tetramer Market: Regional OutlookIn the global propylene tetramer market, North America is a prominent consumer of propylene tetramer, which is due to the increased sales of tetramer due to its application in the lubrication and chemical surfactants and to large industrial sector. Followed by North America, Europe is also one of the major markets attributed to the high use of propylene tetramer in the lubricant industry. The demand of propylene tetramer market in North America and Europe is expected to be moderate for the forecast period owing to increasing significance of bio friendly chemicals and presence of stringent regulations restraining the production and consumption of non-bio degradable products and chemicals. However, the market dynamics is projected to shift towards Asia Pacific owing to relatively higher consumption and modest presence of environmental regulations. Consumption growth is forecasted to be most significant in Asia, followed by Middle East & Africa and South America. In Asia Pacific region, major industrial economies such as India, China and South Korea are expected to project higher growth in terms of both consumer and producer end. Middle East & Africa and Eastern Europe are estimated to participate significantly in the market dynamics of propylene tetramer owing to the escalating consumption in oil and gas sector.Request For TOC@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-2772 Global Propylene Tetramer Market: Market ParticipantsExamples of some of the market participants in the global propylene tetramer market, Bayer AG E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company, Exxon Mobil Chemical, Shanghai Petrochemical, Dow Chemical Company, TPC Group,Chevron Oronite Company LLC, PJSC Nizhnekamskneftekhim and Qilu Petrochemical among others. The propylene tetramer market is highly fragmented and participants are focussing on both organic and inorganic expansions. Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the Microsclerotherapy Treatment Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment 2017-2027" report to their offering. PR-Inside.com: 2017-04-13 11:47:05 Press Information Future Market Insights 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018, Valley Cottage, NY 10989, United States T: +1-347-918-3531 F: +1-845-579-5705 Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.com Press: press@futuremarketinsights.com Website: www.futuremarketinsights.com email Published by Abhishek Budholiya +1-347-918-3531 e-mail http://www.futuremarketinsights.com # 719 Words 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comPress: press@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite: www.futuremarketinsights.comAbhishek Budholiya+1-347-918-3531 The very thin and tiny veins that look like a spider web below the skin is known as spider veins or thread veins. Spider vein are also known as small varicose veins. They are caused because of the malfunctioning of the valves in the veins. The bloods gets backed up in the veins resulting into swelling. Microsclerotherapy is one of the best technique to treat spider veins. It involves injecting a substance called as sclerosant, which destroys the veins over a period of time and makes it disappear. The technique is most used on legs and other body parts and rare on face due to the minimal possibility of scarring. Normally the patients require about 2 to 6 session of treatment at 4 to 8 weeks of intervals, also depending upon the size of the veins.Microsclerotherapy Treatment Market: Drivers & RestraintsRising incidence of spider veins and varicose veins is one of the major driving factor that can influence the growth of the global microsclerotherapy market. Comparatively painless procedure, minimal invasion, highly effective, fewer post-operative complications, simple analgesic required during the procedure are the important factors that will propel the growth of the global market through 2027. The incidence of spider veins are more prevalent in aging population, therefore rise in geriatric population is another factor that can positively influence the global market. Furthermore, heredity, prevalence of unhealthy lifestyle, obesity are the factors that can influence the growth of the global microsclerotherapy market during the forecast period.Request Report Sample@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-3074 Higher cost of the treatment, lack of training for surgeons, other alternative procedures, are few of the major factors that can restrain the growth of the global microsclerotherapy treatment market during the forecast period.Microsclerotherapy Treatment Market: SegmentationThe global microsclerotherapy treatment market is classified on the basis of material type and end-user.Based on material type, the global microsclerotherapy market is segmented into the following:SclerosantsSodium Tetradecyl sulphatePolidocanolChromated glycerinOthersMicro-NeedlesGraduated compression hosiery supportsOthers surgical productsBased on End-User, the global microsclerotherapy market is segmented into the following:Cosmetic and Skin ClinicsHospitalsCosmetic Training InstitutesBased on geography, the global microsclerotherapy market is segmented into following:North America (U.S., Canada)Latin America (Mexico, Brazil)Western Europe (Germany, Italy, U.K, Spain, France, Rest of Western Europe)Eastern Europe (Russia)Asia Pacific (China, India, ASEAN, Australia & New Zealand)JapanMiddle East and Africa (GCC, S. Africa)Visit for TOC@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-3074 Microsclerotherapy TreatmentMarket: OverviewMicrosclerotherapy treatment market is expected to expand at a significant growth rate across regions. Major players in this segment are working on their research and development process to build advanced products such as improved and effective sclerosants, improved after care and support. Microsclerotherapy is a widespread and a well-established technique for spider veins and with various organizations working to raise and maintain the standards of the treatment the global market is expected to anticipate a higher growth rate. Rise in prevalence of spider veins and varicose vein is one of the major factor attributing to the growth of the market. Furthermore, it is estimated that about 50 to 55 percent of the women in United States suffer from one or other type of vein disease which is one of the major factor that can accelerate the growth of the microsclerotherapy market in North America.Microsclerotherapy Treatment Market: Region-wise OutlookA geographic condition regarding microsclerotherapy treatment market, it has been segmented into seven key regions: North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East & Africa.North America is expected to dominate the global microsclerotherapy market which is then followed by Europe. Advance healthcare infrastructure, growing importance of aesthetics, continuous lifestyle associated changes, prevalence of spider vein, high disposable income etc. are few of the factors attributing the growth of the microsclerotherapy market in the North America. The Asia Pacific region is expected to register a highest growth rate during the forecast period due to increase in patient awareness and early treatments, increase in disposable income, improved technological advancement.Microsclerotherapy Treatment Market: Key PlayersSome of the prominent players operating in the global microsclerotherapy market are The Vein Clinic, STD Pharmaceutical Products, Covidien, Kreussler Pharma, VASCULAR SOLUTIONS, Medicetics, and Skin Care Clinic, Maryland Dermatology Laser, Skin, & Vein Institute, LLC, among others worldwide. Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the Environmental Catalysts Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment 2016-2026" report to their offering. Environmental Catalysts Market PR-Inside.com: 2017-04-13 07:22:36 Press Information Future Market Insights 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018, Valley Cottage, NY 10989, United States T: +1-347-918-3531 F: +1-845-579-5705 Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.com Website: www.futuremarketinsights.com email Published by Abhishek Budholiya +1-347-918-3531 e-mail http://www.futuremarketinsights.com # 551 Words 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite: www.futuremarketinsights.comAbhishek Budholiya+1-347-918-3531 Environmental catalysts are a class of catalysts that is primarily used in order to reduce the level of pollutants and harmful emissions associated with energy and other process based manufacturing industries. Besides their use in industrial applications, these environmental catalysts are also used to reduce automotive emissions. As such, these catalysts commonly find application in power plants, gas and diesel engines, steam crackers, calcination plants, cement production, FCC units in refineries, waste incineration plants, gas turbines, railroad engines, steel mills, and chemical plants among others. Environmental catalysts provide an efficacious and efficient solution for restriction of emission of nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide among others in to the atmosphere. Environmental catalysts are most commonly used in selective catalytic reduction, dieses oxidation catalysts, three way catalytic convertors among others in order to reduce the levels of volatile organic compounds emissions, ammonia emissions, and nitrous oxide emissions. Demand for environmental catalysts is expected to witness a steady growth during forecast period.Global Environmental Catalysts Market: DynamicsConsumption of environmental catalysts has witnessed a steady growth in the recent past. The growth of environmental catalysts market can be attributed to increasing efforts towards developing more efficient, cleaner and safer industrial processes in order to adhere to ever stringent regulations and norms instituted by authorities and regulatory bodies, especially in regions such as North America and Europe. The demand for environmental catalysts, in order to tackle both, stationary source emissions and mobile source emissions is expected to witness a steady growth over forecast period. Moreover, growing emphasis on reducing the level of pollutants emanating from automobiles is expected to in turn result in increasing use of environmental catalysts thus driving the growth of environmental catalysts market during forecast period. Also, increasing demand for environmental catalysts for municipal and industrial waste remediation is expected to gain momentum especially in developing regions of the globe during the forecast period.Request For Report Sample@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-2020 Global Environmental Catalysts Market: SegmentationThe global environmental catalysts market is segmented on the basis of the application of catalysts, and end-use segments. On the basis of the application that these catalysts are used for, global environmental catalysts market is classified intoVOC oxidation catalystsCO oxidation catalystsSelective catalytic reduction catalystsOthersOn the basis of end-use segments, the global environmental catalysts market is segmented intoMobile source emission control - heavy duty vehicles, light duty vehicles, motorcycles, construction equipment among othersStationary source emission control that comprises industrial applications including those in power generation, refineries, municipal waste remediation etc.Global Environmental Catalysts Market: Regional OutlookDepending on the geographies of the globe, global environmental catalysts market is segmented in to seven key geographical segments namely North America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific excluding Japan, Japan, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa.North America and Europe, relatively mature markets, dominated global environmental catalysts market over the recent past. Whereas, consumption of these environmental catalysts is expected to witness faster growth in Asia Pacific region spearheaded by China.Request For TOC@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-2020 Global Environmental Catalyst Market: Key PlayersSome of the players that operate in global environmental catalysts market are BASF SE, Johnson Matthey, CRI Catalyst Company, Axens Group, Environmental Catalyst Technology, Treibacher Industrie AG, Applied Catalysts, and EmeraChem etc. SAN DIEGO -- Did you hear about the time that grandma tried to go to prom and wound up getting grounded? Like the case of the passenger being dragged off an airplane or a tone-deaf ad agency using social protests to sell soft drinks, it's such a ridiculous story that you almost can't believe it happened. You know people can be thickheaded, but you hold out hope that -- at those moments that define us -- they'll come to their senses and do the right thing. Unfortunately, that didn't happen in Eufaula, Alabama, a town of nearly 15,000 people just over an hour southeast of Montgomery. It was there that 69-year-old Catherine Maine recently made national headlines because -- to put it simply -- her 18-year-old grandson, Bryce, is a fine young man. That's right. While many other young people think the world revolves around them, and so they're busy worshipping at the altar of their holy trinity -- Me, Myself, and I -- we've found one who thinks about other people. And, when the time came to decide who he would invite to prom on April 8, what Bryce thought about was that his grandmother had, many years earlier, missed the chance to attend her own spring soiree. So he invited her to accompany him. "My grandma is the most important woman in my life and she's never had a prom before so I figured why not let her go with me," Bryce told the television show, "Inside Edition." Naturally, Catherine was overwhelmed. She told a local television station: "I just thought, well, it's just so nice that he wanted me to go. I kept asking him, 'Don't you want to take someone else?' But he kept saying, 'No, I want my Nanny.' So I was just so shocked, privileged that he asked me." So Grandma happily accepted. She even bought a new gown for the occasion. If the story had ended there -- as it should have -- we would have been left with an adorable and heartwarming tale of family values and the payoff that comes from raising kids right. But then, what role would there be for small-minded, busybody administrators who need to micromanage every detail at their school, even if it means creating a problem where one doesn't exist? So, as word spread around town that Bryce was bringing a special guest to prom, the school principal asserted his power and declared that Catherine could not attend the event. In a statement to the media, Eufaula City Schools principal Steve Hawkins explained that -- in order to protect the "safety of students and staff" -- prom attendees must be 20 years old or younger, and he claimed that he can't break the rules. So Nanny is a security risk? Shouldn't someone warn Pappy? Bryce told a local reporter that the reason the school gave him was "alcohol ... in case, you know, she was trying to distribute it to minors." Imagine that. Nanny a bootlegger! You just never know. Besides, Hawkins said, "most high schools have an age limit for prom attendees." That's probably true, but surely they could have made an exception for Nanny. Bryce told the reporter he was "heartbroken." That's understandable. This story will do that to you. Of course, it'll also make you furious. Social media took note, and a hashtag was born: #LetNannyGoToProm. People from around the country tweeted their support for the Maines, along with a few choice words for Hawkins and the other dimwits who run the school. @MichelleRB3 summed it up when she sarcastically worried about starting "a trend of grandsons (and granddaughters) showing kindness towards their grandparents." Luckily, there are still some decent people in the world. Grandson and grandmother were invited to dine on the house at the Eufaula Country Club. So they got dressed up, and had their own party. Kindness prevailed. So should we leave it there? All's well that ends well? I don't think so. Given how poorly the powers-that-be at the school handled this situation, it's obvious that all is not well. Some public shaming is in order, and a certain grandma is owed an apology. Still, we have a more serious problem. Our schools used to reflect society's values; these days, there's hardly any resemblance. Parents count on schools to teach the three "R's." Yet what these administrators need is a crash course in the three "C's": compassion, character and common sense. And if the educators have trouble with these subjects, they can follow the example of an 18-year-old who has mastered them. PR-Inside.com: 2017-04-13 08:14:02 Wessanen 2016 AGM resolutions have been approved At the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders (AGM), held on 12 April 2017 all proposals on the agenda have been approved. These include the adoption of the 2016 financial statements and allocation of result, the proposed 2016 dividend of 0.12 per share and the reappointment of Mr van Oers as member of the Supervisory Board. The exact voting results of the AGM can be found in the Corporate Governance section of our corporate website Agenda 21-04-2017 Publication Q1 2017 trading update 25-07-2017 Publication Q2 2017 interim results 24-10-2017 Publication Q3 2017 trading update For more information Ronald Merckx (CFO) Phone +31 (0)20 3122 126 Email ronald.merckx@wessanen.com Twitter @Wessanen_250 This announcement is distributed by Nasdaq Corporate Solutions on behalf of Nasdaq Corporate Solutions clients. The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein. Source: Wessanen via Globenewswire PR-Inside.com: 2017-04-13 04:43:08 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 391 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 FSCwire / Press ReleaseThe following press release was disseminated by FSCwire for Indiana Resources Limited--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---West Perth WA (FSCWire) - Indiana Resources Limited (TSX:IXR). has issued a press release with the following headline:Withdrawal of Requisition for General MeetingTo view this press release on the FSCwire website, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:If you would prefer, you can also view this press release as a PDF file, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:For more information on Indiana Resources Limited, or to see additional press releases issued by this company, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser: http://www.fscwire.com/public-company/Indiana Resources LimitedSource: Indiana Resources Limited (TSX: IXR, TSX: IDA, ISIN: AU000IDA0, WKN: A2AMKT)Date: April 12, 2017Time: 10:43 PM EDT--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---The story mentioned above was issued on behalf of Indiana Resources Limited and disseminated through FSCwire.About FSCwireFSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.), is a global newswire dissemination, SEDAR, SEDI, and EDGAR / XBRL service provider.FSCwire is a full service global newswire dissemination company and is fully approved by all exchanges in Canada and the U.S. Press releases can be distributed for all sizes of public, private or not for profit companies and any other organization requiring news distribution. In addition to individual companies; public relations, communications and investor relations firms trust FSCwire to distribute press releases for their respective clients.In addition to newswire dissemination FSCwire also offers EDGAR, XBRL, SEDAR, SEDI, and additional services for publicly traded companies. For more information, please go to our website: http://www.fscwire.com Maximum News Dissemination by FSCwire. http://www.fscwire.com Copyright 2017 - FSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.) PR-Inside.com: 2017-04-13 16:57:08 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 385 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 FSCwire / Press ReleaseThe following press release was disseminated by FSCwire for Zara Resources Inc.--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---Toronto, Ontario (FSCWire) - Zara Resources Inc. (CSE:ZRI). has issued a press release with the following headline:Zara Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Fox Magnum AutomotiveTo view this press release on the FSCwire website, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:If you would prefer, you can also view this press release as a PDF file, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:For more information on Zara Resources Inc., or to see additional press releases issued by this company, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser: http://www.fscwire.com/public-company/Zara Resources Inc.Source: Zara Resources Inc. (CSE: ZRI)Date: April 13, 2017Time: 10:57 AM EDT--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---The story mentioned above was issued on behalf of Zara Resources Inc. and disseminated through FSCwire.About FSCwireFSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.), is a global newswire dissemination, SEDAR, SEDI, and EDGAR / XBRL service provider.FSCwire is a full service global newswire dissemination company and is fully approved by all exchanges in Canada and the U.S. Press releases can be distributed for all sizes of public, private or not for profit companies and any other organization requiring news distribution. In addition to individual companies; public relations, communications and investor relations firms trust FSCwire to distribute press releases for their respective clients.In addition to newswire dissemination FSCwire also offers EDGAR, XBRL, SEDAR, SEDI, and additional services for publicly traded companies. For more information, please go to our website: http://www.fscwire.com Maximum News Dissemination by FSCwire. http://www.fscwire.com Copyright 2017 - FSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.) 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. The Eden Park Neighborhood Association's monthly Meet and Greet meeting Wednesday (April 19) will celebrate National Poetry Month with an appearance by Nebraska's State Poet Laureate, Twyla Hansen. Hansen will read some of her works and sign copies of her books, which may be purchased at the meeting. The program begins at 6:30 p.m. at the Calvert Recreation Center, Stockwell at 46th St. CBRE Ireland released statistics on the volume of office leasing activity completed in Dublin in the first three months of the year. According to CBRE, almost 50,000m of office leasing transactions were signed in the Dublin market in the first three months of 2017 while another 50,000m was reserved at [] On 11 April in Amsterdam, Home Invest Belgium has directly acquired 7 holiday homes and 40 apartments in the complex Center Parcs Port Zelande located in Ouddorp (province of Zeeland). In the course of last November, the REIT already acquired 241 holiday homes at the same site. That way, it [] The State Agricultural Intervention Fund (PGRLF) will occupy 2,590 sq. m. of new office premises in Oasis Florenc located in Sokolovska Street in Prague 8. PGRLF, institution set up by the Ministry of Agriculture of the Czech Republic, will create a new central office for administration of subsidies and support [] UBS Asset Management's Real Estate & Private Markets (REPM) business has completed the first phase of the acquisition of the 'Catharinasteeg' development project in Leiden on behalf of one of its clients, from MRP Development, part of Meijer Realty Partners B.V. (MRP). Catharinasteeg represents a pri... [] If you are new to iQ you can schedule a demo and learn more about this opportunity. PSFK iQ - Where Innovators Turn for Research. Our professional-grade research platform is designed specifically for Retail and CX leaders who want to know whats next. Whether youre staying current on trends or need a real-time research partner to help you get ahead, count on PSFK iQ to deliver the info you need to make your next move. This is part two of The Counterterrorism Yearbook 2017: The United States published in the Australian Strategic Policy Institute's The Strategist. Read part one In November 2016, the New York Times reported that the Obama administration was set to expand its interpretation of the authorization of the use of military force to include broader authorities to strike al-Shabaab, the militant Islamist group operating throughout the Horn of Africa. This change in interpretation demonstrates just how protean the threat posed by violent non-state actors remains more than 15 years after the attacks of 9/11. For the United States countering terrorism saw both progress and setbacks in 2016. Barack Obama acknowledged as much in a speech in December when he asserted that, while the U.S. has made great strides against both al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS), terrorism would remain a threat to the U.S. for the foreseeable future. Terrorism continues to pose a range of challenges for the U.S. across the globe. Middle East: Throughout 2016, U.S. CT policy grew more assertive in combating IS. Working with elements of the Iraqi military and Kurdish Peshmerga, the U.S. has led a multinational coalition to retake critical territory from the group in both Iraq and Syria. The current operation to retake Mosul is perhaps the centrepiece of this policy, alongside the forthcoming operation to retake the Syrian city of Raqqa, IS's headquarters in Syria. Beyond reclaiming territory from IS, the U.S.-led coalition has made great strides towards attenuating the organisation's war chest. Moreover, several senior IS leaders have been removed from the battlefield. The flow of foreign fighters travelling to the battlefield in Iraq and Syria has been cut to a trickle, from a high of about 2,000 per month at its peak in mid-2015 to as few as 50 per month in late 2016. In Yemen, the U.S. is maintaining a small SOF footprint to provide intelligence to the Emirati military. And, although small swathes of territory throughout the country have been reclaimed from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, overall the group has not been significantly degraded and will remain a potent threat for the immediate future. Africa: In East Africa, al-Shabaab has withstood an onslaught from U.S.-backed forces of the African Union Mission in Somalia and continues to wreak havoc throughout the Horn of Africa. Still, there has been some progress against the militants. In March 2016, manned and unmanned U.S. aircraft conducted strikes against al-Shabaab training camps, killing an estimated 150 terrorists. In September, U.S. forces conducted what they labelled a self-defence strike in coordination with the Federal Government of Somalia near Kismayo. In response to the growing threat posed by Boko Haram, the U.S. and Nigeria are working to strengthen security cooperation. In response to the growing threat posed by Boko Haram, the U.S. and Nigeria have established working groups focused on strengthening security cooperation between the two countries. In neighbouring Niger, a new U.S. $100 million base in Agadez will allow U.S. forces to fly MQ-9 Reaper drones, substantially boosting CT capabilities in the region. One official described the base as the most important U.S. military construction effort in Africa. South Asia: In May 2016, a U.S. drone strike killed Taliban leader Ahktar Mohammad Mansour in Baluchistan, Pakistan, although many Afghanistan experts have questioned the impact that Mansour's death will have on the organisation. Moreover, the Taliban has successfully challenged Afghan Government troops, most notably in Kunduz. Overall however, the Taliban looks no closer to being defeated. During 2016, it grew in strength, muscled out nascent IS elements in the country and demonstrated its potency through a string of spectacular attacks in major cities. In 2016, there were an estimated 9,800 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The total number of U.S. troops in the country is expected to decline by about 1,400 in 2017. Europe: A success for U.S. CT policy has been closer working relationships with traditional allies, especially in Europe. Following the devastating IS-directed terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels, the National Security Agency helped the Belgians analyse phone metadata that led to the capture of Saleh Abdesalam, one of the key organisers of the terror network responsible for the attacks. Perhaps looking to capitalise on the strong relationships built over the past several years with police agencies in Germany, the UK, France and Turkey; the Obama administration has given the Joint Special Operations Command expanded power to track, plan and potentially launch attacks on terrorist cells around the globe. Latin America: Achieving lasting CT success is not only difficult but requires time and tremendous resources. A case in point is the recent peace deal announced between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the government in Colombia. The five-decade-long conflict would not have reached a peaceful ending without Plan Colombia; a multi-year, multibillion-dollar U.S. security cooperation effort. The plan provided the Colombian government with a range of capabilities including; signals intelligence, precision-guided munitions, and helicopters for mobility. The lag-effect of successful CT policy might not be conducive to political election cycles, but good CT policy can have a lasting effect when sustained over a period of years. Internationally the U.S. will continue to face a significant set of challenges. The Trump administration will need to keep pace with terrorist abilities to adapt to U.S. countermeasures while maintaining a high operational tempo punctuated by aggressive CT strikes. Continued reliance on unmanned aerial systems, SOF and small-footprint operations can be expected. One major question is whether Trump, who has been critical of Obama's handling of IS, will change the role of SOF in Iraq and Syria from advise and assist to full-fledged combat operations. Another open question is whether or not Washington will favour more intense aerial bombardment of urban population centres to raze areas ahead of the advance of coalition ground forces. Colin P. Clarke is a political scientist with the RAND Corporation and Associate Fellow at the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, The Hague. This commentary originally appeared in The Strategist on April 4, 2017. Commentary gives RAND researchers a platform to convey insights based on their professional expertise and often on their peer-reviewed research and analysis. Bosnian Serb police have accused retired Croatian General Ante Gotovina of war crimes against civilians during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, police and media have said. A police spokeswoman in the Bosnian town of Trebinje said on April 12 that police filed charges with national prosecutors against a person with the initials A.G. on suspicion of "committing war crimes against civilians and humanity." Local media identified A.G. as Gotovina. Police said the alleged crimes were committed in 1992 in the western Bosnian region of Livno. Serbs fled Livno during the war, and some now live in Trebinje, which is in the Serb-controlled part of Bosnia. An association of former war-camp detainees in Trebinje said it knew about the charges and that some of its members were ready to testify against Gotovina. In 2012, Gotovina was acquitted on appeal by a UN court that had initially convicted him of war crimes against Serbs in neighboring Croatia during the war there, which lasted from 1991-95. The court in The Hague had initially sentenced Gotovina to 24 years in prison over Operation Storm, an August 1995 operation that he commanded. The Balkan conflicts of the 1990s claimed 130,000 lives, 100,000 of them in Bosnia. Based on reporting by AFP and Starmo.ba German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel has said Berlin is ready to support Serbia on its path to the European Union membership, but added that the Balkan country must "continue reforms" and "continue to develop better relations with Kosovo." Speaking on April 12 after meeting Serbian President-elect Aleksandar Vucic in Belgrade, Gabriel said that Serbia was a "factor of stability" in the region. He said that daily protests after Vucic's election victory on April 2 were part of the country's democratic process and should remain peaceful. Vucic, who has dismissed allegations of irregularities in the campaign, said the protests presented "an expression of Serbia's democratic strength." Before leaving for Belgrade earlier in the day, Gabriel urged Balkan states to overcome their divisions, saying, "We see that some wounds of the past still run deep and still keep the tensions up." "I will assure my counterparts: The path toward the European Union remains open if you choose reforms and progress instead of divisions and stalemate," said the German minister, who is to visit Kosovo on April 13. Gabriel also said he would voice "support for democratic development and rule of law" in all countries of the region. Predominantly ethnic Albanian Kosovo broke away from Serbia in a 1998-99 war and declared independence in 2008. It is recognized by 114 countries, but not by Belgrade. Tensions are still high, both between Serbia and Kosovo and between the ethnic Serbian minority and central authorities within Kosovo. Serbia is now an EU candidate, while Kosovo is a prospective candidate. Albania, which Gabriel is to visit on April 16, and Macedonia are also candidates, while Bosnia-Herzegovina is another prospective candidate. Based on reporting by AP, Reuters, and dpa The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is the dominant atmospheric pressure mode over the North Atlantic that plays a significant role in determining the winter climate in Europe. Depending on the prevailing state of the NAO, Europe experiences mild or very cold winters and even strong storms. Geoscientists based at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) in Germany are currently reconstructing the fluctuations of the NAO over the last 10,000 years with the aim of being able to predict future developments. For this purpose, they use stalagmites obtained from subterranean caves as natural climate archives and are examining new indicators of climate change to retrieve climate information that is as accurate as possible. Initial results indicate that it is likely that the NAO will respond to the melting of the Arctic ice cap in the future, with consequences for our climate, environment, and society as a whole. Dr. Jasper Wassenburg works with stalagmites from caves in the Middle Atlas, a mountain range in the northwest of Morocco. Stalagmites are calcium carbonate deposits that grow from the floor of a cave upwards due to precipitation of calcium carbonate minerals deposited from the dripwater. Calcite is the most common form of calcium carbonate although in some cases it can also be aragonite. "Aragonite, if well preserved, can be dated with remarkable precision. So we prefer aragonite stalagmites over calcitic ones," explained Wassenburg, who is a member of the research team headed by Professor Denis Scholz at the Institute of Geosciences at Mainz University. The incorporation of chemical elements in speleothems, which is the term scientists use for the secondary mineral deposits in caves, is often depending on changes in the environment. These elements are known as climate proxies because they provide indirect evidence of climatic history. Wassenburg's study of seven speleothem samples obtained from Morocco, India, France, Spain, and a cave known as the Huttenblaserschachthohle in Germany's Sauerland region is the first attempt to identify in detail the concentrations at which trace elements tend to be incorporated in aragonite. "We have been able to demonstrate that the concentration of uranium in aragonite stalagmites is a very precise indicator of prehistoric rainfall patterns," he added. This means that stalagmites can tell us qualitatively how much it rained 200,000 years ago. Reconstruction of the North Atlantic Oscillation as far back as the onset of the current interglacial period Uranium and strontium concentrations and the relative ratios of oxygen isotopes were also analyzed in order to obtain information on past rainfall for a recent study of past NAO variability. The NAO index reflects the difference in atmospheric pressure between the Icelandic Low to the north and the Azores High to the south. One particular phenomenon of interest is that if the NAO brings dry weather to Europe, it rains in Moroccoand vice versa. The weather of the northwestern region of Morocco seems to react particularly sensitive to changes in the NAO. In this case, the samples used by Dr. Jasper Wassenburg came from a fairly small cave in which the host rock is dolomite. The Grotte de Piste is located in the Atlas Mountains at an elevation of some 1,250 meters above sea level. It is 70 to 80 meters in extent and 15 to 20 meters from floor to ceiling. The results of analysis of the speleothems from the north-west of Morocco were compared with a rainfall reconstruction obtained from other cave deposits from the Bunkerhohle or Bunker cave in western Germany. This enabled the climate researchers to trace back the fluctuations of the NAO over the past 11,000 years to the end of the last Ice Age. The best reconstruction previously available went back only 5,200 years. "We were surprised to discover that the situation during the early Holocene 11,000 years ago was quite different to that of today. The weather regimes in Europe and Morocco seem to have behaved similarly so that wet weather in Europe also meant more rain in Morocco," explained Wassenburg. This positive correlation disappeared at some point during the transition from the early Holocene to the mid-Holocene. The researchers postulate that this was attributable to a major reduction in the melt water contribution from the Laurentide Ice Sheet that still covered large areas of North America at the end of the Ice Age. "The pattern of the North Atlantic Oscillation is not as stable as we thought," stated Professor Dennis Scholz and added that the NAO will probably also be influenced by today's melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet, with potential effects on the atmosphere, the oceans, and other biological phenomena, including farming and fishing. The team plans to conduct further research in order to reconstruct the changes of the NAO over the last 10,000 years. EGFR (Epidermal Growth Factor Receptors) are involved in the development and progression of many types of cancer and bowel cancer (colon carcinoma) in particular. So-called anti-EGFR antibodies are used in the treatment of bowel cancer patients, to inhibit EGFR. However, for reasons that are not yet clear, not all patients benefit from this treatment. This could be due to the fact that EGFR is not only found in the tumour cells of bowel cancer patients but also in the immune cells surrounding the tumour. This was the main finding of a study conducted by a research team led by Maria Sibilia from MedUni Vienna's Institute of Cancer Research and recently published in leading journal Gastroenterology. "In a mouse model, we were able to show that EGFR-positive myeloid cells stimulate tumour growth. By switching off the EGFR in these immune cells, growth was as good as stopped," explains Maria Sibilia, Head of the Institute for Cancer Research at MedUni Vienna and Deputy Head of the Comprehensive Cancer Center (CCC). The study (lead authors: Sriram Srivatsa and Mariel Paul) was conducted on an interdisciplinary basis in collaboration with oncologists from the Department of Medicine I and Department of Medicine III and pathologists. Poorer prognosis for survival of bowel cancer patients with EGFR-positive myeloid cells The researchers were also able to show that the prognosis for survival was poorer in bowel cancer patients, if these EGFR-positive myeloid cells are present in the tumour -- and also because EGFR causes increased production of the cytokine interleukin-6 (IL6) in the myeloid cells. Hitherto, no consideration has been given to the presence of EGFR in the cells surrounding the tumour (stroma), because it was assumed that its expression only played a role in the tumour cells themselves. This could also explain why EGFR therapy directed at the tumour is less effective or completely ineffective in some patients. Says Sibilia: "It could be that EGFR does not actually work in the tumour itself but that it is primarily the EGFR-positive myeloid cells that act as the "power plant" for the tumour." Further studies. will now be conducted to check this premiss. Bowel cancer: 4,500 people affected every year in Austria Colon carcinoma, a malignant neoplasia of the colon, is one of the commonest types of cancer in western industrialised countries, being the second commonest cancer in women and the third commonest cancer in men. Around 4,500 people develop bowel cancer in Austria every year. More precise, personalised cancer treatment These research results could lead to better specification of patients in the future, namely into the group for whom anti-EGFR therapy works and the group for whom it doesn't, or at least not very well. "This is a further step towards precision medicine, that is to say personalised medicine," says Sibilia. This research will therefore fit in very well with MedUni Vienna's plans to build a Center for Precision Medicine (Zentrum fur Prazisionsmedizin) on the MedUni's General Hospital Campus, so that in future it will be possible to perform gene analyses for many different types of disease even more quickly and accurately, to allow the appropriate preventive measures to be implemented sooner. In this case it would then be possible to spare a group of patients the unpleasant and unnecessary side-effects of anti-EGFR therapy, such as severe dermatitis, for example. The paper that appeared in "Gastroenterology" is directly linked to the Advanced ERC Grant that Maria Sibilia received a year ago to study immunomodulation of the innate immune system to fight cancer, as part of a 60-month European Research Council (ERC) project. Future research into bowel cancer by the Sibilia group is being financed by the Vienna Science and Technology Fund Life Science Call Precision Medicine. The paper's lead author, Sriram Srivatsa was a PhD student in the "Inflammation and Immunity" doctoral school, which is funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). Carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere can be reduce in two ways -- by cutting our emissions, or by removing it from the atmosphere, for example through plants, the ocean, and soil. The historic Paris Agreement set a target of limiting future global average temperature increase to well below 2C and pursue efforts to even further limit the average increase to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. Yet the timing and details of these efforts were left to individual countries. In a new study, published in the journal Nature Communications, researchers from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) used a global model of the carbon system that accounts for carbon release and uptake through both natural and anthropogenic activities. "The study shows that the combined energy and land-use system should deliver zero net anthropogenic emissions well before 2040 in order to assure the attainability of a 1.5C target by 2100," says IIASA Ecosystems Services and Management Program Director Michael Obersteiner, a study coauthor. According to the study, fossil fuel consumption would likely need to be reduced to less than 25% of the global energy supply by 2100, compared to 95% today. At the same time, land use change, such as deforestation, must be decreased. This would lead to a 42% decrease in cumulative emissions by the end of the century compared to a business as usual scenario. "This study gives a broad accounting of the carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, where it comes from and where it goes. We take into account not just emissions from fossil fuels, but also agriculture, land use, food production, bioenergy, and carbon uptake by natural ecosystems," explains World Bank consultant Brian Walsh, who led the study while working as an IIASA researcher. advertisement The compares four different scenarios for future energy development, with a range of mixtures of renewable and fossil energy. In a "high-renewable" scenario where wind, solar, and bioenergy increase by around 5% a year, net emissions could peak by 2022, the study shows. Yet without substantial negative emissions technologies, that pathway would still lead to a global average temperature rise of 2.5C, missing the Paris Agreement target. Walsh notes that the high-renewable energy scenario is ambitious, but not impossible -- global production of renewable energy grew 2.6% between 2013 and 2014, according to the IEA. In contrast, the study finds that continued reliance on fossil fuels (with growth rates of renewables between 2% and 3% per year), would cause carbon emissions to peak only at the end of the century, causing an estimated 3.5C global temperature rise by 2100. The authors note that not only the mix of energy matters, but also the overall amount of energy consumed. The study also included ranges for high energy consumption and low energy consumption. The study adds to a large body of IIASA research on climate mitigation policy and the chances of achieving targets. "Earlier work on mitigation strategies by IIASA has shown the importance of demand-side measures, including efficiency, conservation, and behavioral change. Success in these areas may explain the difference between reaching 1.5C instead of 2C," says IIASA Energy Program Director Keywan Riahi, who also contributed to the new work. A new model The study is one of the first published results from the newly developed FeliX model, a system dynamics model of social, economic, and environmental earth systems and their interdependencies. The model is freely available for download and use at http://www.felixmodel.com/. "Compared to other climate and integrated assessment models, the FeliX model is less detailed, but it provides a unique systemic view of the whole carbon cycle, which is vital to our understanding of future climate change and energy," says IIASA Ecosystem Services and Management Program Director. This study received support from the European Research Council Synergy grant ERC-2013-SyG-610028 Detecting cancer early, just as changes are beginning in DNA, could enhance diagnosis and treatment as well as further our understanding of the disease. A new study by University of Illinois researchers describes a method to detect, count and map tiny additions to DNA called methylations, which can be a warning sign of cancer, with unprecedented resolution. The method threads DNA strands through a tiny hole, called a nanopore, in an atomically thin sheet of material with an electrical current running through it. The study was published in the inaugural issue of the journal npj 2D Materials and Applications, a new journal from Nature Press. "One or a few methylations is not a big deal, but if there are many of them and they are packed close together, then it's bad," said study leader Jean-Pierre Leburton, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Illinois. "DNA methylation is actually a starting process for cancer. So we want to detect how many of them there are and how close together they are. That can tell us at which stage the cancer is." Other attempts at using nanopores to detect methylation have been limited in resolution. Researchers begin by punching a tiny hole in a flat sheet of material only one atom or molecule thick. The pore is submerged in a salt solution and an electrical current is applied to drive the DNA molecule through the pore. Dips in the current alert researchers that a methyl group is passing through. However, when two or three are close together, the pore interprets it as one signal, Leburton said. The Illinois group tried a slightly different approach. They applied a current directly to the conductive sheet surrounding the pore. Working with Klaus Schulten, a professor of physics at Illinois, Leburton's group at Illinois' Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology used advanced computer simulations to test applying current to different flat materials, such as graphene and molybdenum disulfide, as methylated DNA was threaded through. "Our simulations indicate that measuring the current through the membrane instead of just the solution around it is much more precise," Leburton said. "If you have two methylations close together, even only 10 base pairs away, you continue to see two dips and no overlapping. We also can map where they are on the strand, so we can see how many there are and where they are." Leburton's group is working with collaborators to improve DNA threading, to cut down on noise in the electrical signal and to perform experiments to verify their simulations. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShJfg4H1IG8 Move over, honeybee and seagull: it's time to meet Moabosaurus utahensis, Utah's newly discovered dinosaur, whose past reveals even more about the state's long-term history. The Moabosaurus discovery was published this week by the University of Michigan's Contributions from the Museum of Paleontology. The paper, authored by three Brigham Young University researchers and a BYU graduate at Auburn University, profiles Moabosaurus, a 125-million-year-old dinosaur whose skeleton was assembled using bones extracted from the Dalton Wells Quarry, near Arches National Park. BYU geology professor and lead author Brooks Britt explained that in analyzing dinosaur bones, he and colleagues rely on constant comparisons with other related specimens. If there are enough distinguishing features to make it unique, it's new. "It's like looking at a piece of a car," Britt said. "You can look at it and say it belongs to a Ford sedan, but it's not exactly a Focus or a Fusion or a Fiesta. We do the same with dinosaurs." Moabosaurus belongs to a group of herbivorous dinosaurs known as sauropods, which includes giants such as Brontosaurus and Brachiosaurus, who had long necks and pillar-like legs. Moabosaurus is most closely related to species found in Spain and Tanzania, which tells researchers that during its time, there were still intermittent physical connections between Europe, Africa and North America. Moabosaurus lived in Utah before it resembled the desert we know -- when it was filled with large trees, plentiful streams, lakes and dinosaurs. "We always think of Moab in terms of tourism and outdoor activities, but a paleontologist thinks of Moab as a gold mine for dinosaur bones," Britt said. In naming the species, Britt and his team, which included BYU Museum of Paleontology curator Rod Scheetz and biology professor Michael Whiting, decided to pay tribute to that gold mine. "We're honoring the city of Moab and the State of Utah because they were so supportive of our excavation efforts over the decades it's taken us to pull the animal out of the ground," Britt said, referencing the digs that began when he was a BYU geology student in the late '70s. A previous study indicates that a large number of Moabosaurus and other dinosaurs died in a severe drought. Survivors trampled their fallen companions' bodies, crushing their bones. After the drought ended, streams eroded the land, and transported the bones a short distance, where they were again trampled. Meanwhile, insects in the soils fed on the bones, leaving behind tell-tale burrow marks. "We're lucky to get anything out of this site," Britt said. "Most bones we find are fragmentary, so only a small percentage of them are usable. And that's why it took so long to get this animal put together: we had to collect huge numbers of bones in order to get enough that were complete." BYU has a legacy of collecting dinosaurs that started in the early 1960s, and Britt and colleagues are continuing their excavation efforts in eastern Utah. Moabosaurus now joins a range of other findings currently on display at BYU's Museum of Paleontology -- though, until its placard is updated, it's identified as "Not yet named" (pronunciation: NOT-yet-NAIM-ed). "Sure, we could find bones at other places in the world, but we find so many right here in Utah," Britt said. "You don't have to travel the world to discover new animals." An international team of citizen scientists and researchers has identified a major contributor to the dramatic decline of migratory shorebird populations in Australia. University of Queensland School of Biological Sciences researcher Associate Professor Richard Fuller said Australian shorebirds were under threat due to the degradation and destruction of mudflats thousands of kilometres away in north-east Asia. Associate Professor Fuller was part of a team of researchers who worked on a shorebird study led by Assistant Professor Dr Colin Studds of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Dr Studds said a critical factor in the decline of migratory shorebirds was their dependence on mudflats in the Yellow Sea, between China and South Korea. "The more a species relies on the disappearing Yellow Sea mudflats, the faster they are declining," Dr Studds said. He said birds including species of godwit, curlew and sandpiper were under threat. advertisement Many birds follow the East Asian Australasian Flyway migratory path from their non-breeding grounds in Australia to breeding sites in the Arctic, resting and refueling in the Yellow Sea. "Scientists have long believed that loss of these rest stops could be related to the declines, but there was no smoking gun," Dr Studds said. The researchers analysed citizen science data collected between 1993 and 2012 on 10 key species, and what they found was dramatic. Even though the birds only spend one or two months of the year at the mudflats, it was the most important factor in determining the population trend. Associate Professor Fuller said the study was founded on decades of bird counting effort by volunteers across Australia and New Zealand. "Without this effort, the study would have been impossible," he said. Australia has signed agreements with China, Korea and Japan to protect migratory birds, yet the birds have continued to decline. "Every country along the migration route of these birds must protect habitat and reduce hunting to prevent the birds declining further or even going extinct," Associate Professor Fuller said. "We are particularly excited that China and Korea have recently begun the process of listing parts of the Yellow Sea as World Heritage Sites." Same-sex marriage has been the law of the land for nearly two years -- and in some states for even longer -- but researchers can already detect positive health outcomes among couples who have tied the knot, a University of Washington study finds. For years, studies have linked marriage with happiness among heterosexual couples. But a study from the UW School of Social Work is among the first to explore the potential benefits of marriage among LGBT couples. It is part of a national, groundbreaking longitudinal study with a representative sample of LGBT older adults, known as "Aging with Pride: National Health, Aging, Sexuality/Gender Study," which focuses on how historical, environmental, psychological, behavioral, social and biological factors are associated with health, aging and quality of life. UW researchers found that LGBT study participants who were married reported better physical and mental health, more social support and greater financial resources than those who were single. The findings were published in a February special supplement of The Gerontologist. "In the nearly 50 years since Stonewall, same-sex marriage went from being a pipe dream to a legal quagmire to reality -- and it may be one of the most profound changes to social policy in recent history," said lead author Jayn Goldsen, research study supervisor in the UW School of Social Work. Some 2.7 million adults ages 50 and older identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender -- a number that is expected to nearly double by 2060. Among LGBT people, marriage increased noticeably after a 2015 U.S. Supreme Court ruling legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. A 2016 Gallup Poll found that 49 percent of cohabiting gay couples were married, up from 38 percent before the ruling. advertisement For the UW study, more than 1,800 LGBT people, ages 50 and older, were surveyed in 2014 in locations where gay marriage was already legal (32 states and Washington, D.C.). About one-fourth were married, another fourth were in a committed relationship, and half were single. Married respondents had spent an average of 23 years together, while those in a committed, unmarried relationship had spent an average of 16 years. Among the study participants, more women were married than men, and of the respondents who were married, most identified as non-Hispanic white. Researchers found that, in general, participants in a relationship, whether married or in a long-term partnership, showed better health outcomes than those who were single. But those who were married fared even better, both socially and financially, than couples in unmarried, long-term partnerships. Single LGBT adults were more likely to have a disability; to report lower physical, psychological, social and environmental quality of life; and to have experienced the death of a partner, especially among men. The legalization of gay marriage at the federal level opens up access to many benefits, such as tax exemptions and Social Security survivor benefits that married, straight couples have long enjoyed. But that does not mean every LGBT couple was immediately ready to take that step. advertisement According to Goldsen, marriage, for many older LGBT people, can be something of a conundrum -- even a non-starter. LGBT seniors came of age at a time when laws and social exclusion kept many in the closet. Today's unmarried couples may have made their own legal arrangements and feel that they don't need the extra step of marriage -- or they don't want to participate in a traditionally heterosexual institution. Goldsen also pointed to trends in heterosexual marriage: Fewer people are getting married, and those who do, do so later. "More older people are living together and thinking outside the box. This was already happening within the LGBT community -- couples were living together, but civil marriage wasn't part of the story," she said. The different attitudes among older LGBT people toward marriage is something service providers, whether doctors, attorneys or tax professionals, should be aware of, Goldsen said. Telling a couple they should get married now simply because they can misses the individual nature of the choice. "Service providers need to understand the historical context of this population," she said. "Marriage isn't for everyone. It is up to each person, and there are legal, financial and potentially societal ramifications." For example, among the women in the study, those who were married were more likely to report experiencing bias in the larger community. At the same time, Goldsen said, single LGBT older adults do not benefit from the marriage ruling, and other safeguards, such as anti-discrimination laws in employment, housing and public accommodations, are still lacking at the federal level. Over time, Goldsen and colleagues will continue to examine the influence of same-sex marriage policy on partnership status and health. Healthy college students who have a relatively small inferior frontal cortex -- a brain region behind the temples that helps regulate thoughts and emotions -- are more likely than others to suffer from anxiety, a new study finds. They also tend to view neutral or even positive events in a negative light, researchers report. The researchers evaluated 62 students, collecting brain structural data from neuroimaging scans and using standard questionnaires to determine their level of anxiety and predilection for negative bias. Previous studies of people diagnosed with anxiety have found similar correlations between the size of the IFC and anxiety and negative bias, said U. of I. psychology postdoctoral researcher Sanda Dolcos, who led the study with graduate student Yifan Hu. But the new findings, reported in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, are the first to see these same dynamics in healthy adults, the researchers said. "You would expect these brain changes more in clinical populations where anxiety is very serious, but we are seeing differences even in the brains of healthy young adults," Dolcos said. The study also found that the relationship between the size of the IFC and a student's negative bias was mediated by their level of anxiety. "People who have smaller volumes have higher levels of anxiety; people who have larger IFCs tend to have lower levels of anxiety," Dolcos said. And higher anxiety is associated with more negative bias, she said. "How we see this is that the higher volume of the IFC confers resilience." "We found that larger IFC volume is protecting against negative bias through lower levels of trait anxiety," Hu said. advertisement According to the American College Health Association, anxiety is rampant on college campuses, where nearly 60 percent of students report at least one troubling bout of anxious worry every year. "There is a very high level of anxiety in the student population, and this is affecting their life, their academic performance, everything," Dolcos said. "We are interested in identifying what is going on and preventing them from moving to the next level and developing clinical anxiety." Anxiety can interfere with many dimensions of life, causing a person to be on high alert for potential problems even under the best of circumstances, Hu said. Negative bias also can interfere with a person's commitment to activities that might further their life goals, she said. Understanding the interrelatedness of brain structure, function and personality traits such as anxiety and their behavioral effects such as negative bias will help scientists develop interventions to target specific brain regions in healthy populations, Hu said. "We hope to be able to train the brain to function better," she said. "That way, we might prevent these at-risk people from moving on to more severe anxiety." The Brain and Behavior Research Foundation and Health Minds Canada supported this research. Two veteran NASA missions are providing new details about icy, ocean-bearing moons of Jupiter and Saturn, further heightening the scientific interest of these and other "ocean worlds" in our solar system and beyond. The findings are presented in papers published Thursday by researchers with NASA's Cassini mission to Saturn and Hubble Space Telescope. In the papers, Cassini scientists announce that a form of chemical energy that life can feed on appears to exist on Saturn's moon Enceladus, and Hubble researchers report additional evidence of plumes erupting from Jupiter's moon Europa. "This is the closest we've come, so far, to identifying a place with some of the ingredients needed for a habitable environment," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate at Headquarters in Washington. "These results demonstrate the interconnected nature of NASA's science missions that are getting us closer to answering whether we are indeed alone or not." The paper from researchers with the Cassini mission, published in the journal Science, indicates hydrogen gas, which could potentially provide a chemical energy source for life, is pouring into the subsurface ocean of Enceladus from hydrothermal activity on the seafloor. The presence of ample hydrogen in the moon's ocean means that microbes -- if any exist there -- could use it to obtain energy by combining the hydrogen with carbon dioxide dissolved in the water. This chemical reaction, known as "methanogenesis" because it produces methane as a byproduct, is at the root of the tree of life on Earth, and could even have been critical to the origin of life on our planet. Life as we know it requires three primary ingredients: liquid water; a source of energy for metabolism; and the right chemical ingredients, primarily carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur. With this finding, Cassini has shown that Enceladus -- a small, icy moon a billion miles farther from the sun than Earth -- has nearly all of these ingredients for habitability. Cassini has not yet shown phosphorus and sulfur are present in the ocean, but scientists suspect them to be, since the rocky core of Enceladus is thought to be chemically similar to meteorites that contain the two elements. advertisement "Confirmation that the chemical energy for life exists within the ocean of a small moon of Saturn is an important milestone in our search for habitable worlds beyond Earth," said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The Cassini spacecraft detected the hydrogen in the plume of gas and icy material spraying from Enceladus during its last, and deepest, dive through the plume on Oct. 28, 2015. Cassini also sampled the plume's composition during flybys earlier in the mission. From these observations scientists have determined that nearly 98 percent of the gas in the plume is water, about 1 percent is hydrogen and the rest is a mixture of other molecules including carbon dioxide, methane and ammonia. The measurement was made using Cassini's Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS) instrument, which sniffs gases to determine their composition. INMS was designed to sample the upper atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan. After Cassini's surprising discovery of a towering plume of icy spray in 2005, emanating from hot cracks near the south pole, scientists turned its detectors toward the small moon. Cassini wasn't designed to detect signs of life in the Enceladus plume -- indeed, scientists didn't know the plume existed until after the spacecraft arrived at Saturn. "Although we can't detect life, we've found that there's a food source there for it. It would be like a candy store for microbes," said Hunter Waite, lead author of the Cassini study. advertisement The new findings are an independent line of evidence that hydrothermal activity is taking place in the Enceladus ocean. Previous results, published in March 2015, suggested hot water is interacting with rock beneath the sea; the new findings support that conclusion and add that the rock appears to be reacting chemically to produce the hydrogen. The paper detailing new Hubble Space Telescope findings, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, reports on observations of Europa from 2016 in which a probable plume of material was seen erupting from the moon's surface at the same location where Hubble saw evidence of a plume in 2014. These images bolster evidence that the Europa plumes could be a real phenomenon, flaring up intermittently in the same region on the moon's surface. The newly imaged plume rises about 62 miles (100 kilometers) above Europa's surface, while the one observed in 2014 was estimated to be about 30 miles (50 kilometers) high. Both correspond to the location of an unusually warm region that contains features that appear to be cracks in the moon's icy crust, seen in the late 1990s by NASA's Galileo spacecraft. Researchers speculate that, like Enceladus, this could be evidence of water erupting from the moon's interior. "The plumes on Enceladus are associated with hotter regions, so after Hubble imaged this new plume-like feature on Europa, we looked at that location on the Galileo thermal map. We discovered that Europa's plume candidate is sitting right on the thermal anomaly," said William Sparks of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. Sparks led the Hubble plume studies in both 2014 and 2016. The researchers say if the plumes and the warm spot are linked, it could mean water being vented from beneath the moon's icy crust is warming the surrounding surface. Another idea is that water ejected by the plume falls onto the surface as a fine mist, changing the structure of the surface grains and allowing them to retain heat longer than the surrounding landscape. For both the 2014 and 2016 observations, the team used Hubble's Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) to spot the plumes in ultraviolet light. As Europa passes in front of Jupiter, any atmospheric features around the edge of the moon block some of Jupiter's light, allowing STIS to see the features in silhouette. Sparks and his team are continuing to use Hubble to monitor Europa for additional examples of plume candidates and hope to determine the frequency with which they appear. NASA's future exploration of ocean worlds is enabled by Hubble's monitoring of Europa's putative plume activity and Cassini's long-term investigation of the Enceladus plume. In particular, both investigations are laying the groundwork for NASA's Europa Clipper mission, which is planned for launch in the 2020s. "If there are plumes on Europa, as we now strongly suspect, with the Europa Clipper we will be ready for them," said Jim Green, Director of Planetary Science, at NASA Headquarters. Hubble's identification of a site which appears to have persistent, intermittent plume activity provides a tempting target for the Europa mission to investigate with its powerful suite of science instruments. In addition, some of Sparks' co-authors on the Hubble Europa studies are preparing a powerful ultraviolet camera to fly on Europa Clipper that will make similar measurements to Hubble's, but from thousands of times closer. And several members of the Cassini INMS team are developing an exquisitely sensitive, next-generation version of their instrument for flight on Europa Clipper. For more information on ocean worlds in our solar system and beyond, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/specials/ocean-worlds Imagine a future in which every home has an appliance that pulls all the water the household needs out of the air, even in dry or desert climates, using only the power of the sun. That future may be around the corner, with the demonstration this week of a water harvester that uses only ambient sunlight to pull liters of water out of the air each day in conditions as low as 20 percent humidity, a level common in arid areas. The solar-powered harvester, reported in the journal Science, was constructed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology using a special material -- a metal-organic framework, or MOF -- produced at the University of California, Berkeley. "This is a major breakthrough in the long-standing challenge of harvesting water from the air at low humidity," said Omar Yaghi, one of two senior authors of the paper, who holds the James and Neeltje Tretter chair in chemistry at UC Berkeley and is a faculty scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. "There is no other way to do that right now, except by using extra energy. Your electric dehumidifier at home 'produces' very expensive water." The prototype, under conditions of 20-30 percent humidity, was able to pull 2.8 liters (3 quarts) of water from the air over a 12-hour period, using one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of MOF. Rooftop tests at MIT confirmed that the device works in real-world conditions. "One vision for the future is to have water off-grid, where you have a device at home running on ambient solar for delivering water that satisfies the needs of a household," said Yaghi, who is the founding director of the Berkeley Global Science Institute, a co-director of the Kavli Energy NanoSciences Institute and the California Research Alliance by BASF. "To me, that will be made possible because of this experiment. I call it personalized water." Yaghi invented metal-organic frameworks more than 20 years ago, combining metals like magnesium or aluminum with organic molecules in a tinker-toy arrangement to create rigid, porous structures ideal for storing gases and liquids. Since then, more than 20,000 different MOFs have been created by researchers worldwide. Some hold chemicals such as hydrogen or methane: the chemical company BASF is testing one of Yaghi's MOFs in natural gas-fueled trucks, since MOF-filled tanks hold three times the methane that can be pumped under pressure into an empty tank. advertisement Other MOFs are able to capture carbon dioxide from flue gases, catalyze the reaction of adsorbed chemicals or separate petrochemicals in processing plants. In 2014, Yaghi and his UC Berkeley team synthesized a MOF -- a combination of zirconium metal and adipic acid -- that binds water vapor, and he suggested to Evelyn Wang, a mechanical engineer at MIT, that they join forces to turn the MOF into a water-collecting system. The system Wang and her students designed consisted of more than two pounds of dust-sized MOF crystals compressed between a solar absorber and a condenser plate, placed inside a chamber open to the air. As ambient air diffuses through the porous MOF, water molecules preferentially attach to the interior surfaces. X-ray diffraction studies have shown that the water vapor molecules often gather in groups of eight to form cubes. Sunlight entering through a window heats up the MOF and drives the bound water toward the condenser, which is at the temperature of the outside air. The vapor condenses as liquid water and drips into a collector. "This work offers a new way to harvest water from air that does not require high relative humidity conditions and is much more energy efficient than other existing technologies," Wang said. advertisement This proof of concept harvester leaves much room for improvement, Yaghi said. The current MOF can absorb only 20 percent of its weight in water, but other MOF materials could possibly absorb 40 percent or more. The material can also be tweaked to be more effective at higher or lower humidity levels. "It's not just that we made a passive device that sits there collecting water; we have now laid both the experimental and theoretical foundations so that we can screen other MOFs, thousands of which could be made, to find even better materials," he said. "There is a lot of potential for scaling up the amount of water that is being harvested. It is just a matter of further engineering now." Yaghi and his team are at work improving their MOFs, while Wang continues to improve the harvesting system to produce more water. "To have water running all the time, you could design a system that absorbs the humidity during the night and evolves it during the day," he said. "Or design the solar collector to allow for this at a much faster rate, where more air is pushed in. We wanted to demonstrate that if you are cut off somewhere in the desert, you could survive because of this device. A person needs about a Coke can of water per day. That is something one could collect in less than an hour with this system." Page Content Old employment law posters should be saved to help prove past compliance, even though retaining old posters isn't required, management attorneys say. Employers also should take pictures of old posters with time-and-date stamps to have a physical record that they were displayed, according to Jay Hux, an attorney with Fisher Phillips in Chicago. "From a best-practices perspective, retaining old posters makes sense to help prove past compliance," said Aaron Warshaw, an attorney with Ogletree Deakins in New York City. "For example, in the context of employment litigation, posters can sometimes be relevant evidence to show that employees were informed of their applicable rights." He recommended that employers retain old posters in paper or electronic format, "as long as they are clearly marked and not accidentally put back into circulation." Save them for the applicable time employees have to sue under the lawthe "statute of limitations"such as three years for federal wage and hour posters, he said. [SHRM members-only toolkit: Complying with Workplace Records and Reporting Requirements] "There's no legal requirement that you retain them, but it could come up in an employment litigation matter," said Jason Stanevich, an attorney with Littler in New Haven, Conn. A plaintiff's attorney could claim that the posters were not displayed and that the statute of limitations therefore should be suspended, permitting older claims to be filed. HR should be ready to disprove such claims and show that the posters were displayed in the workplace when employers said they were, he noted. Hux argued that merely keeping old posters will "not necessarily prove that they were physically posted at a prior date," though it might provide circumstantial evidence. That's why he prefers that employers take pictures of old posters displayed in the workplace with time-and-date stamps. Tips on Displaying Current Posters Stanevich said he often sees employment posters being displayed that are several years out of date. "Review them at least once a year and determine if any updates are needed," he recommended. A common mistake is to display the posters in just one place. Some posters have to be visible to applicants, so it's a good idea to have those at the entrance to the work area, he said. Break rooms and where employees clock in are other good places to display posters. It's also good to have electronic posters on the company intranet, Hux said. If there are employees who telecommute, "Make sure that the posters are designed to catch the attention of remote employees when they do come into the office," he added. If there is a work location away from company facilities, like a construction site, be sure to put the posters up there as well. If English is not the first language for a significant number of employees, the posters should use the language of the workers to effectively provide notice of their rights, he noted. Costs of Failing to Post The current penalties for first offenses in failing to display federal posters are: $12,675 for failure to display the Occupational Safety and Health Administration poster. $534 for failure to post the Equal Employment Opportunity poster. $166 for failure to display the Family and Medical Leave Act poster. "Employers should note that most penalties increase if they are deemed to be willful, which may occur after a first offense," Warshaw noted. There also are posters for the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, the Employee Polygraph Protection Act, and state laws, "which can be more burdensome on employers," Stanevich said. States have posting requirements on minimum wage, unemployment compensation and paid sick leave, as well as industry-specific posters such as those relating to minimum wage for food-service workers, among others. In Illinois, there is a posting requirement about the Victims' Economic Security and Safety Act, which applies to victims of domestic violence and their family membersa poster requirement that Hux noted would be "easy to overlook." Municipalities have poster requirements as well. In addition, federal contractors also must display posters on paid sick leave, prevailing wage under the Davis-Bacon Act and the higher minimum wage for federal contractors. "If an employee complains to an agency that the employer has failed to display required posters, such a complaint could trigger a fuller investigation," Warshaw said. "The failure to update your posters could lead to additional and potentially costly compliance issues." He cautioned, "Getting the correct posters displayed is important for compliance but also because it shows that the company is focused on getting the details right. If you are in the middle of a wage and hour audit with the U.S. Department of Labor and the investigator points out outdated posters, the agency may assess a penalty but more so it may create a sense that the company is somewhat lackadaisical in its compliance efforts. Conversely, if an employer has the correct posters displayed, then it may create some good will and trust with an investigator." Chris Drosner Follow Chris Drosner Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today The story of Rift, Central Waters Brewings new year-round India pale ale, begins two year-round IPAs ago, a decade and a half of evolution that tracks the arc of whats now Americas most popular craft style. But in the early 2000s when Central Waters introduced its first always-available IPA, Lac du Bay, the hopheads hadnt yet taken over. This was before the IPA craze, Central Waters co-owner and brewmaster Anello Mollica said. It seems like nowadays you have to have a year-round IPA. Back then you did a year-round pale ale. That was the beer that you needed to have. Lac du Bay was an English-style IPA, bigger than its pale ale kin but sharing a far-from-overwhelming floral-earthy-herbal hop profile and an ample malt backbone. The English IPA seeks balance that the newer American variant often does not. Eventually Central Waters supply of hops it used in Lac du Bay dried up, Mollica said, so in 2008 the brewery retooled its IPA to the changing times. Glacial Trail used American hops with citrus-and-pine character and bumped up the bitterness somewhat all attributes of the then-ascendant American variant of the style but retained the malty embrace of the English Lac du Bay. Mollica described it as a hybrid English-American IPA: Glacial Trail kind of held this spot as kind of not super hop-forward IPA. That worked well enough in 2008, but times, they have a-changed, again. Wisconsin beer coolers now feature iconic hoppy beers from West Coast breweries like Stone and Ballast Point and Midwestern hop masters Three Floyds and Toppling Goliath. And preferences within even the American style of IPA have changed, with the tropical profile exploding in popularity in the past three years or so. Glacial Trail really doesnt represent todays impression of what an IPA is supposed to be, Mollica said. Its not that Glacial Trail wasnt performing that well for us, its just that Glacial Trail was underperforming for me in that category. Time to switch it up. Rift, which has been rolling out gradually across the state this month, is very much that hop-forward West Coast American IPA, Mollica said. While the malt profile cuts back Glacial Trails caramel malts, Rifts real departure is in its hops. They have names youll recognize if you read this column regularly: Simcoe, Citra and Amarillo. Citra and Amarillo in particular are distinctly new-school hops, heavy with citrus and tropical fruit aromas and not commercially available at least not to a small brewery in central Wisconsin when Rifts predecessor was born. Glacial Trail being dated has more to do with what hops were available in the market in 2008 vs. what hops are available in 2017, he said. Stoked by demand from brewers, Pacific Northwest hop growers boosted production of Citra, a variety released to growers in 2007, to 6.4 million pounds last year, up 134 percent from 2014, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture report on hop production. Another new-school hop, Mosaic a hop thats not in Rift but is a star in Central Waters hop-forward pale ale, HHG has exploded since its introduction in 2012. Harvest of Mosaic grew to 5.8 million pounds last year, up 289 percent from just two years earlier. The flavors and aromas we get in the beers today were impossible to get a decade ago because those hops werent even created yet, Mollica said. That Citra, Mosaic, Amarillo and other tropical/citrus-forward hops have become the go-to varieties for IPAs is perhaps a natural evolution of beer drinkers tastes. After all, people do eat and often enjoy grapefruit, oranges, passion fruit, pineapple and mangoes. You dont hear about people eating the needles or licking the sap of a pine tree, a prominent characteristic of older-school American hops like Cascade and Centennial and the older-school IPAs that leaned on them. Growers and brewers are both trying to find the next hop that pushes beers flavor forward into uncharted delicious territory. But theres a reason Glacial Trail lasted as long as it did, even if Citra became a star hop halfway through its pretty remarkable eight-plus-year run. There are going to be new ones coming, and at some point in the future I suspect that hops that are in beers like HHG and Rift will start taking a back seat to these new flavors and aromas and other hops that will become the popular, hip thing, Mollica said. And thats the danger in being a brewer. You cant keep chasing the fad. Make a beer that you know is good and stick with it as long as you can. You have to refresh your portfolio to stay interesting, to stay unique, but I wouldnt ever dream of, every time a new hop comes out, crossing a beer off my calendar just to make a beer with a new hop. Rift Style: American IPA Brewed by: Central Waters Brewing, Amherst What its like: My pick here is a bit obscure considering how not-great it seems to sell in Wisconsin, but Rifts dry yet tropical profile reminds me of Coronado Brewings Stingray IPA. Where, how much: Rift is appearing on bottle shop and grocery store shelves as stocks of Glacial Trail are depleted. Its been in Milwaukee for more than a week but began rolling out in Madison shops on Wednesday. The very comfortable price point is the same as Central Waters other year-round six-packs, around $9 at most outlets. The beer: Rift pours a medium-pale amber with an appealing bouquet of grapefruit and orange peel, and a hint of sweetness in the background. Each sip leads with more tropical citrus that quickly recedes into an assertively bitter, dry finish that lingers a bit on the palate. But its not abrasive by any means, and its moderately light weight and modest alcohol content means its more repeatable than a lot of IPAs. Booze factor: Rifts 6.5 percent ABV is on the friendly end of the styles range of 6.3 percent to 7.5 percent but still markedly higher than many popular styles. The buzz: Central Waters has a nearly impeccable reputation in beer geek circles, largely owed to its barrel-aging program, which is among the largest and best in the country. Mollica, said he, co-owner Paul Graham and lead brewer Simon Nielsen are grateful for that, but its also motivated them to show theyre as deft with hops as they are with dark malts and bourbon barrels. We get passed over on the idea that were a hoppy beer maker and that we didnt do that style particularly well, Mollica said. That kind of stuck in the craw of a couple of us, so were like hey, lets blow that reputation out and show people that were also a hoppy beer maker. I believe Rift will add to Central Waters hop-forward successes in the past two years. HHG has been a smash hit, especially since its introduction to six-packs last spring, and Summarillo, an India pale lager that returned for its second seasonal run late last month, will soon retake its warm-weather position in my beer fridge. If theres a drawback to Rift, it may be that it covers territory already better served by HHG and Summarillo. But on its own its among Wisconsins best IPAs and, like its forebears, just might hold up for years to come. 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The Middle East has been a major export market for these UAVs and since 2015 Saudi Arabia and the UAE have both been using Chinese UAVs in Yemen combat operations. The most popular of these is the CH-4, which is similar to the American Predator. Pakistan has also been using CH-4s in combat. These Chinese UAVs sell well because many nations have been unable to buy similar American UAVs. The Americans fear that UAV secrets will be sold to enemies of the United States or that the UAVs will be used to support war crimes. China saw this as an opportunity. The new Chinese UAV plant will not only assemble UAVs but will also provide repairs, major maintenance and upgrades. In 2016 China announced two major upgrades to the CH-4 that were much awaited by users. While CH-4 entered service in 2011 as part of the Rainbow series of UAVs it was missing some key capabilities of the Predator. The new updates enable a CH-4 to be controlled via satellite. This includes firing laser guided missiles. CH-4 also has a new sensor system. Improvements in this electro-optical (EO) payload are many. The day vidcam now produces 1080p video feeds. The night sensor is FLIR (Forward Looking Infrared sensor), a technology that has been around since the 1980s, and as the heat (infrared) sensing technology became more powerful, it was possible to spot and identify targets at longer ranges. This was accomplished through the development of more sensitive heat sensors, and more powerful computer hardware and software for putting the images together. The new FLIR for CH-4 can identify targets up to 20 kilometers away and enable automatic tracking of distant (up to 18 kilometers) targets. This is made possible by a lot of other improvements like better servo control, inertial guidance inside the EO system, auto focusing and computer controlled image enhancement and identification. This makes possible a much more accurate targeting system for the laser guided missiles the CH-4 carries. The CH-4 is similar in shape to the 1.2 ton American Predator, weighs 1.3 tons, has a 14 meter (46 feet) wingspan, and is 9 meters (28 feet) long. It has max altitude of 5,300 meters (16,400 feet) and an endurance of over 35 hours. Max payload (sensors and weapons) is 345 kg (759 pounds). A CH-4 can carry 4 weapons (or electronic devices) under the wings, each weighing up to 100 kg. China offers Chinese made weapons for the CH-4. Chief among these are a Hellfire clone, the AR-1. This is a 45 kg (99 pound) missile with a max range of 10 kilometers and a 10 kg (22 pound) warhead. AR-1 can be equipped with either GPS or laser guidance. The other weapon is a copy of the American SDB (small diameter bomb) which is a 128 kg (281 pound) GPS guided glide bomb in the shape of a missile with a penetrating warhead. The Chinese version is the FT-5 and is a 100 kg (220 pound) GPS guided bomb in the shape of a missile. In early 2106 China began marketing a new combat UAV in the Rainbow series; the CH-5. This one is similar to the 4.6 ton American MQ-9 Reaper but a bit lighter at three tons. The CH-5 has a 900 kg payload and can carry smart (GPS guided) bombs as well as laser guided missiles (similar to the American Hellfire. CH-5 made its first flight in 2015, apparently has endurance of up to twenty hours and is supposed to be available for delivery in 2017. The Chinese UAVs are much cheaper (about half the price) than the American originals, but for that you get aircraft and missiles that have not had as many of the bugs worked out nor achieved anything like the nearly two decade track record of the Predator. The CH-4 was developed from the earlier (2010) CH-3. This is a 640 kg aircraft with 12 hours endurance and can carry two AR-1 missiles. Thus it is believed that the CH-5 is a scaled up version of the CH-4. In 2016 China revealed that is had sold military UAVs to ten countries, mainly in the Middle East and Africa. Most of the military UAVs delivered so far have been CH-3s and 200 smaller unarmed UAVs equipped for surveillance and reconnaissance. At the same time China has become the largest exporter of commercial UAVs which are used by police and commercial firms for a wide variety of tasks. When Gloria Gutierrez was diagnosed with terminal cancer and had to go into hospice, she wasn't overly concerned about what would happen to herself. She was more worried about where her six rescue dogs - Vera, Brandy, Light, Mega, Bruno and Muneca - would go after she passed away. Gloria Gutierrez with her dog Brandy | God's Dog Rescue "She calls these dogs her babies, and she wants to be around them all of the time," Rachel Cannady, a volunteer with God's Dog Rescue, an organization helping to rehome Gutierrez's dogs, told The Dodo. "She's is somewhat coherent of things, but she's acutely aware of the dogs, and she's protective of them." Gutierrez picked up all six dogs from the streets of San Antonio, Texas, after they'd been abandoned by their owners. Dodo Shows Foster Diaries Scared Pittie Gets So Happy When He Meets This Guy And His Pack Of Dogs God's Dog Rescue But it's 3-year-old Muneca who may have the saddest story of them all. After her owner went to jail, she was left all alone, and she got hit by a car when she tried to cross a highway. Muneca | God's Dog Rescue "She's totally crippled and drags her hind legs when she walks," Vicky Esparza, Gutierrez's daughter, wrote in an email to Cannady. "We found her in a real bad state of mange. She was hiding under a filthy trailer home full of rats, and maybe she was eating rats because all the people there would not feed her and would throw rocks at her instead." Bruno | God's Dog Rescue But with Gutierrez, Muneca got unconditional love and attention. All the dogs did. "All they know is love," Esparza told The Dodo. "My mother has always kept them with her, and they stay in the bed with her." God's Dog Rescue Unfortunately, Esparza is very ill herself, and she already has a couple dogs to care for, so adopting her mother's dogs would be difficult. With Cannady's help, Vera and Bruno now have homes lined up for them, but Brandy, Light, Mega and Muneca still need places to go. Mega and Vera | God's Dog Rescue "I don't want anything to happen to these dogs because my mother was always so concerned and worried about her pets," Esparza said. "I know it means a great deal for her for them to be OK, and for them to go to good homes with good, loving families." Light | God's Dog Rescue Esparza's only request is that the dogs stay with Gutierrez until she passes away. Brandy | God's Dog Rescue It's often said in rescue that we don't know an animal's past, but we know that animal's future. This was the case with five Lhasa apsos whose owner was referred to Critter Mama Rescue, Inc. in Ruskin, Florida, in February. The dogs' owner met the group's founder, Robin Roberts, and several volunteers in a parking lot because he said his landlord didn't know about the dogs and he didn't want to get caught with them. "The concept of having five adoptable, well cared for Lhasas sounded fine," Roberts, whose group helps people who can no longer care for their animals due to illness or hardship, told The Dodo. Roberts soon found out this was not to be the case. Roberts and a Critter Mama volunteer, Connie Phoebus, watched anxiously as the owner reached into his van and pulled out the first dog. Sequoia could barely walk | Robin Roberts "We gasped in horror," Roberts said. "These creatures didn't have faces or feet. They literally could not walk or see. The stench drifted across the parking lot and hit us hard; smelling of urine, feces and filthy dogs." Sissy before | Rick Chaboudy Roberts decided to reach out to Rick Chaboudy, executive director of Suncoast Animal League (SAL) in Palm Harbor, Florida. Robins chose SAL because it's a larger rescue than Critter Mama and better equipped to handle the complex needs of these dogs, four female and one male. Chaboudy has assisted local authorities with hoarding cases and seizures, but the Lhasa apsos were the worst case of neglect he'd ever seen in his 30 years of rescue. It took hours to remove the urine and feces-caked mats from the dogs. | Rick Chaboudy When Chaboudy picked up the dogs, he, too, was overwhelmed with their stench and appearance. Chaboudy took the dogs directly to Clint Wilson, groomer and owner of Island Dog Outfitters. Wilson is also involved in rescue and volunteers his grooming skills for dogs in need. Wilson, Chaboudy and volunteers worked until the following morning. Dodo Shows Little But Fierce Pocket-Sized Kitten Grows Up To Be A Wild Woman Once the fur was clipped away, parasites and skin conditions were revealed. | Rick Chaboudy "The mats on these dogs were so thick, one of the dog's ears was stuck to her head," Chaboudy told The Dodo. "Feces and urine were caked into the mats, but their feet were the worst. The dogs could barely walk due to having 2 inches of matted fur between their paws and the ground." Poking through the fur were toenails overgrown by 3 or 4 inches and twisted in several directions. "We removed between one and a half pound of mats from the foot of one dog alone," Chaboudy said. Toenails were overgrown by 3 to 4 inches. | Rick Chaboudy After the dogs were groomed, they were examined by a veterinarian. It was obvious these dogs had never had any vet care. They were all loaded with internal and external parasites and had skin, ear and eye infections. All were malnourished, suffering from severe dental disease and luxating patellas. All that links them to their past is a 2004 sales receipt for a puppy in the amount of $949 from a pet store in Florida, which the owner gave to Roberts. A breeder in Iowa was listed on the pedigree. There is no doubt this was a puppy mill dog whose life started out rough and just got worse. The vet determined none of the dogs were under 10 years of age. Two of the females appeared to have been repeatedly bred. The first week's challenges included learning how to walk again after being freed from the mats between their feet. | Julie LeRoy The dogs were treated for their external conditions and underwent surgery to remove decaying teeth and to get spayed and neutered. While being spayed, Helen, the dog from the pet store, was found to be suffering from pyometra, an infection of the uterus. Lilly had mammary tumors removed that later proved to be cancerous. Sequoia had a hole in her cornea. All of them had to have teeth removed. All of them are partially or fully blind. And it was all documented and streamed live on SAL's Facebook page. Once they recovered from their surgeries, the Fab Five began attending SAL events. They were featured on the local news, they interacted with people and they learned to trust. Every day, fans of the Fab Five awaited updates about them. Well wishes were posted to the page from as far away as Scotland and the UK. Chaboudy once described the dogs as "as prisoners of their own bodies, trapped inside their armor-like fur, formed out of neglect and filth." But thanks to SAL, these senior dogs would spend their golden years knowing love and comfort. Sequoia no longer hides from the others. | Suncoast Animal League Just six weeks after they left behind a life of horror, they were ready to go home with their new families. On April 2, a fundraiser was held to offset the $6,100 in vet bills the dogs had racked up. At the fundraiser, Chaboudy introduced each adopter while he tearfully let go of his Fab Five, one by one. Rick says goodbye to Sissy as he hands her over to her new mom, Gloria Phillips. | Suncoast Animal League Sissy is the poster child for the Fab Five. The videos and photos of her being groomed showed the magnitude of neglect these dogs suffered. Sissy was adopted by Gloria Phillips, who waited a long time to adopt again after losing a dog very special to her. "I knew, it's time," Phillips Told the Dodo. "I told myself, 'You're ready.'" Yvette and Jim Klausch adopted Achilles. Yvette Klausch told Chaboudy, when she submitted his adoption application, "I can guarantee you he'll never have another bad day in his life." Yvette and Jim Klausch with Achilles | Julie LeRoy Gloria Scott, who has several animals with special needs, adopted Helen. Scott previously adopted a dog named Ranger from SNARR, who won people over with his deformed legs and had his own following. Gloria Scott with Helen | Suncoast Animal League Lilly went home with Kim Tutsch, where she'll live with her rescued dachshund siblings, Hershey and Wiggles. Although Lilly's tumors were cancerous, Tutsch remains determined to give Lilly the best life possible. Kim Tutsch with her fiance and Lilly | Julie LeRoy Mila Miller was overwhelmed with emotion as Chaboudy handed her Sequoia. She and her husband Ryan, have four cats at home, including one who is 15 years old. Mila and Ryan Miller adopted Sequoia | Julie LeRoy Miller always wanted a dog and felt an older dog would be a perfect fit. Mila Miller posted this picture to SAL's page to show everyone how Sequoia was doing. | Mila Miller Chaboudy knows he will receive updates and alumni visits from the Fab Five. In the meantime, SAL is busy with 24 shih tzu and Maltese dogs taken in from a hoarder, some newborn puppies, a full shelter and weekends packed with adoption events. The impact a group of rescuers made on these dogs' lives was inspiring. | Julie LeRoy (poster by Suncoast Animal League) RACINE A 17-year-old Racine boy faces up to 20 years in prison for allegedly sexually assaulting his 11-year-old cousin. Jarriel D. Barry, Jr., of the 1800 block of Grange Street, was charged Wednesday with first-degree sexual assault of a child under the age of 12 for purportedly having sex with the girl Monday in a laundry room in the basement of his home. According to the criminal complaint, Barry told police the encounter was mutual and that he and the girl had been engaging in what he called consensual sex for three years. Probable cause was found Wednesday in Racine County Circuit Court to pursue the charge against Barry. His bond was set at $5,000. RACINE As the Wisconsin Legislature continues to discuss the 2017-19 biennial budget, the Racine Unified School Board plans to make its voice heard on school issues. The School Board legislative committee has drafted several resolutions the board will likely approve April 24. The resolutions call for more more consistent state investment in education, voucher accountability and an earlier school start date. Robert Wittke, a School Board member and Legislative Committee chairman, said district officials and the School Board work together to advocate on issues that affect Unified. School funding is a huge issue with the budget right now, Wittke said. State school funding is a very complicated issue. The political debate over school funding has led to several changes in a short time. Gov. Scott Walker has proposed increasing K-12 funding in this years budget after cutting it in past years, though legislators may not go along with it. Unified Superintendent Lolli Haws said its difficult to plan a budget when the district doesnt know how much state aid it will receive. We are putting our budgets together right now and we wont know for several more weeks what the Legislature is going to vote and decide and what the governor will sign, Haws said, while we are trying to build a budget and figure out what we can afford for compensation for employees, what we can afford as far as hiring for positions that we really, really need. Wittke said it would be better if funding was consistent to allow the district to plan better. We want something that is funded continually, Wittke said. We want the type of funding thats going to carry on for the long term. For example, Wittke said state aid currently funds less than half of what the district budgets for special education, leaving a shortfall that is made up with money from the districts general fund. We want to make sure whatever investment we get is going to be long term, Wittke said. Not something that will fluctuate every two years. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, said the current state Legislature cant lock future Legislatures into school funding decisions. He also said a lot of the states budget depends on the economy. When the economy is better, more funds are available. I think, for the most part, (Unified) knows their starting number, Vos said. School choice The Racine Parental Choice Program, like in Milwaukee, allows families up to 300 percent of the poverty level to enroll in the program, but in the rest of the state its only for families up to 185 percent of the poverty level. Both Milwaukee and Racine also allow for unlimited voucher students. In the rest of the state, voucher enrollment is capped at 5 percent of your district enrollment, Haws said. In Racine and Milwaukee its uncapped ... and then the taxpayers are paying for that. Wittke said there should be a more level playing field when it comes to vouchers. If youre going to have a voucher program here in the community, put us on equal footing to compete with it, Wittke said. The higher-income eligibility has the potential for more students enrolling out of Racine Unified than in larger areas like Madison, Waukesha and Green Bay, he said. But Vos said more families are staying within Racine Unified because they believe in the district. He doesnt support shrinking school choice in Racine. I want to maintain the maximum flexibility for families to make choices, Vos said. School start date The district has already openly discussed starting the school year earlier than the Sept. 1 mandate. We feel that the beginning of the school year is much more instructional focus than the last 10 days of the year, Haws said. The exams happen in April and May and after that its much less instructional focused. The tourism industry has favored the Sept. 1 start date because it allows families to take vacations within the state during good weather. Vos said he prefers to keep the status quo, saying he doesnt want to hamper those vacations. Wittke believes if the school year started earlier it could allow for more flexibility when it comes to testing at the end of the year and professional development for teachers. School districts can request an earlier start date, but Wittke said those requests are rarely granted. Some of our extracurricular activities in the fall begin before September 1 why not allow our school start date to align? Wittke said. Some of the schools that we compete with now that take state sponsored vouchers can start earlier. CALEDONIA A teen had to be cut out of his vehicle Wednesday morning after his car crashed into a garbage truck at Four Mile and Old Farm roads. Police said the crash happened at about 7:32 a.m. as an 18-year-old driver traveled eastbound while heading to school. He still had some frost on his windows, and with the glare of the morning sun in his windows he couldnt see, said Caledonia Police Lt. Gary Larsen. A witness stopped and said the same thing. The teen was transported to Ascension All Saints Hospital with a head injury but it is not expected to be life threatening. The garbage truck operator was not injured. The teen driver was cited for following too closely and windows not reasonably clean. At that time of day, the sun is at its worst for people traveling east. The sun creates glare and then you add to it not cleaning your window properly, then you cant see a garbage truck in front of you, or a school bus, or people crossing the street, Larsen said. Take the time to clean your windows. Garbage truck safety Dan Jongetjes, Johns Disposal Service general manager, said hes thankful his driver wasnt loading garbage from the back of the truck at the time of the crash. He was still in the cab and had not gotten out yet. He was seconds away from being back there, Jongetjes said. The crash comes as the village considers making automated garbage collection standard, which would allow the garbage truck driver to stay in the cab and use a remote controlled hydraulic arm to dump garbage into the truck. Caledonia Village Administrator Tom Christensen cited the crash that killed Racine sanitation worker Mark Gates, who was hit and killed by a car while picking up trash on Washington Avenue in December, as a good reason to move to automated garbage collection. Jongetjes said its a good reason, though not why they created the option. Were not selling this for safety, Jongetjes said. When we started the automated service 17 years ago we found that residents are going to like the cart better. Its easier to get down the driveway, it looks better on garbage day, and now it is interesting that safety is a component to this. SAN FRANCISCOWeeks after scores of advertisers boycotted YouTube, Google is still trying to mitigate the damage. Meanwhile, long-struggling competitors in the digital ad market are seizing the moment. MediaMath Inc., a New York-based seller of software for automated online ad buying, is introducing a new service to ensure that ads only run alongside hand-picked, high quality content. The curated market offering comes amid concern over some big brand ads appearing against racist, violent and offensive YouTube videos. Were developing for the largest brands in the world who need to be assured of a safe environment for digital advertising, said Erich Wasserman, MediaMaths co-founder. Were happily able to do this at a time when the market is shouting for it. Read more: Googles AI has a way to go in hunting down hate content Breitbart continues to host corporate ads despite blacklist requests Google has tried to silence the shouting. After the first wave of advertiser defections, Google introduced new controls to address the problem. When more advertisers left, Google added even more features and shifted resources into new technology that flags offensive videos and disables ads on them. Most analysts believe the YouTube boycott will have minimal impact on Google sales. Its draw is too large to keep advertisers away permanently, and the boycott has not stopped search ads, Googles bedrock. Yet some marketing agencies and advertisers are re-evaluating buying plans, cognizant of the harm poor ad placement can cause. That adds pressure on Google, Alphabet Inc.s biggest division. If you can create a driverless car and artificial intelligence, you can figure out how to keep a brand safe, Marc Pritchard, chief brand officer of Procter & Gamble Co. told Bloomberg in an advertising conference last week in Los Angeles. On Wednesday, NBCUniversal announced a deal with mobile ad company Kargo Global Inc. to place ads on 300 premium digital properties from 70 media companies. Convincing advertisers to pay up for premium content was a feat, given the discounts and wide distribution that giants like Google offer, said Kargo CEO Harry Kargman. The YouTube boycott was a gift. We were prepared for a drawn out fight, he said. Basically, the market has done it for us. MediaMath, too, views its new service as responding to a market shift. The YouTube crisis wasnt just a backlash against Google, it was a protest against the pitfalls of automated advertising in general the systems and services that let marketers accurately target consumers but also sprinkle ads everywhere across the web. MediaMath said its new service will limit that sprinkling, sending ads to websites and online videos that it constantly monitors for quality. The company said it has 7,000 advertisers and 500 publishers on board with the service, although it declined to share its pricing or early revenue figures. Its likely that shifts in digital spending away from Google, if any, would not appear until later in the year. However, some ad companies said they were seeing efforts to realign spending now to avoid the YouTube fracas. Charles Gabriel, president of Apester, which makes interactive software for publishers, said that over the past two weeks marketers began requesting safety controls on all online videos where they run ads. Google executives have argued that, given YouTubes size, brand safety guarantees for every single video are impossible. But theyve reassured marketers the issue will subside. Tara Walpert Levy, Googles vice-resident of agency and media solutions, told the audience at the Los Angeles conference that many advertisers that left over the issue have returned. But only Johnson & Johnson has said so publicly. At the conference, attitudes about the YouTube scandal were mixed. Some echoed P&Gs Pritchard. But others dismissed it as an inflated scandal, driven by the television industry, which is hosting its annual ad price-negotiation conference soon. Michael Roth, head of ad giant Interpublic Group of Cos., admitted as much on stage. Much of the YouTube hubbub, he said, was a behind-the-scenes negotiation from the older industry to compete with technology upstarts. That leverage, along with pressure from others, is necessary given the rising digital dominance of Google and Facebook. When its a duopoly, you always root for someone else to keep them honest, he said. Read more about: SHARE: The Fate of the Furious Starring Vin Diesel, Charlize Theron, Dwayne Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Jason Statham, Chris Ludacris Bridges, Nathalie Emmanuel, Kurt Russell, Scott Eastwood and Helen Mirren. Directed by F. Gary Gray. Opens Friday at major theatres. 136 minutes. PG Jumping the shark jokes already fly over the scene in The Fate of the Furious wherein Vin Diesel uses his muscle car to leap over a marauding nuclear submarine. Fair enough, except this isnt the most preposterous incident in this eighth instalment of the highly profitable wheels n squeals franchise, which noisily commences the 2017 summer-blockbuster season. More mirthful moments arise when Charlize Theron sends zombie cars spilling into NYC streets, or when Dwayne Johnson redirects a speeding torpedo with his foot. And leave us not forget previous Fast & Furious inanities whereby cars jumped out of airplanes and across skyscrapers. The fact remains that this franchise has been vaulting sea predators for years or running on fumes, to employ a more appropriate metaphor. Previous instalment Furious 7, bidding farewell to tragically departed series mainstay Paul Walker, ran with the tagline One Last Ride. Where do you go from there? Heres the confused and clamorous answer from The Fate of the Furious:Everywhere and nowhere. With Straight Outta Comptons F. Gary Gray at the helm, Diesels glowering gearhead Dom Toretto goes rogue across the globe, with his puzzled family in hot pursuit, as he falls under the villainous command of Therons cyber-terrorist Cipher, whose motivations mystify. She wants to start the Third World War using stolen nuclear codes, with Dom as her stooge. Seems shes furious about U.S. and Russia warmongers, or maybe just at the hairdresser who gave her such unfortunate cornrow braids. The reason why Cipher can kick Dom around isnt revealed until midway through the movie, and its one of the few things in returning scripter Chris Morgans screenplay that actually makes a lick of sense. The Fate of the Furious, or F8 for short, opens promisingly with a return to the series street-racer roots. Dom is visiting relatives in Havana while honeymooning with new bride Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), whom it only took him forever to marry, when he manfully challenges a local thug to a Cuban mile race through the historic Cuban capital. The thug is driving Cubas hottest car (of course), Dom is in a decrepit wacky racer that doubles as a bomb and the outcome is predictably stupid and thrilling. After this, however, the picture turns into bad 007, as a mostly immobile Theron takes charge and the action ridiculously shifts from the streets of New York City to the arctic ice of the Barents Sea. Hail, hail, the gangs all (mostly) here, trying to figure out whats got into Dom: Dwayne Johnson as federal security agent Luke Hobbs; Jason Statham as Black Ops baddie Deckard Shaw, Chris Ludacris Bridges as ace gearhead Tej Parker; Kurt Russell as shady federal fixer Mr. Nobody; Nathalie Emmanuel as super hacker Ramsey and more. A sure sign nobody really knows what to do next with a franchise is when they keep adding actors to it. Along with Theron, the new hires include Scott Eastwood as the serious sidekick to Mr. Nobody and Helen Mirren as a player to be named later who dont take no guff from nobody. It must be said, though, that Eastwood and Mirren boost the levity quotient of a series that has gotten far too serious even as it has grown ever more ridiculous. And theyre not done yet, not by a long shot. I predict theyll be eventually leaving skid marks on the moon, as long as their varooms are answered by box-office ka-chings. SHARE: OTTAWATwo hours after Commissioner Bob Paulson warned the RCMP against protesting a disappointingly low pay increase, a knot of Mounties unfurled a banner on Parliament Hill in support of a nascent would-be union and joined the yellow-stripe protest. Its a movement thats taken off. Many Mounties are using duct tape to change the colour of the iconic yellow stripe on their uniform pants. Some have torn it off or are blocking it out completely. Other Mounties are simply wearing blue tactical cargo pants that dont have the stripe but are uniform-issue clothing. The demonstration by the centennial flame Wednesday came while Parliament was hearing Malala Yousafzai champion girls rights to education, and it lasted less than three minutes over the lunch hour. But it was a huge step for Mounties under a standing order not to talk to media without permission, and whose top commander says the uniform protest undermines efforts to build a respectful workplace, risks souring relations with the government employer on the eve of unionization, and could erode public trust. Other RCMP managers object that it is disrespectful of the uniform and is a risk to public safety. Its not a safety issue, its not disrespectful; its just a show of solidarity, countered Cpl. Dennis Miller, who works with the cadet field training in the national capital region and is organizing for the National Police Federation. In an interview Miller said the uniform the NPF is asking police officers to don is the blues worn by many units already. Others on the Hill echoed that. RCMP Cpl. Lise Bradette said it is an effort to get the attention of the public for our cause and turned aside suggestions it could hurt public trust in the RCMP. It doesnt matter if you have a yellow stripe on your pants or a red one or a blue one, were still a police officer. Const. Maria Pikus agreed, saying were here for the public, and the protest is a show of solidarity. The pay raise was maybe the straw that broke the camels back, on top of all the other issues we face on a daily basis: harassment at workplace, lack of equipment, inadequate equipment, lack of backup, overworked, lack of ability to take holidays in many places because of lack of support, because of lack of membership. Its galvanized the membership across Canada, said a retired RCMP officer now working as a reservist on the Hill. Theres actually a sense of morale coming up, an esprit de corps, pride, togetherness. The indecision is kind of fading away. The yellow-stripe protest began in a North Vancouver detachment. Cpl. Bryan Mulrooney came up with the idea about a month ago as a way to boost support for the NPF, one of three groups vying to represent Mounties. Although RCMP brass had disbanded the in-house labour relations body, eliminated the pay council that used to negotiate salary and benefits, and ended payroll deductions for an employees legal fund, there was little union fervour until now. Then the Liberal government announced last week it would give the RCMP a slight retroactive pay increase in line with the broader public service (1.25 per cent for 2015 and 2016; and a 2.3-per-cent market adjustment for 2016). The NPF and others say it still leaves the RCMP 62nd out of 80 on the police pay scales in Canada. Thats when the yellow-stripe protest and the NPFs membership drive took off. Suddenly, NPF membership rolls zoomed from 4,500 last Thursday to over 9,500 today. Honestly, it took on a life of its own, said Sauve. People woke up to the fact that we have no collective voice as members; we have no ability to influence these decisions. He said it highlighted the choice for Mounties: If you want to change the harassment process, the pay package, if you want to change anything, pick a side; either stay unrepresented or join us. Meanwhile, another group the Mounted Police Professional Association of Canada is struggling to recruit support, refuses to release its roll numbers, and moved to reverse its initial opposition to the yellow-stripe protest. A separate Quebec-based group is seeking to represent francophone members in Quebec but the NPF is emerging as the lead representative body with more than half of uniformed rank-and-file nationally signed on. The NPF could file an application to certify as bargaining agent as early as next week, as it watches to see how two bills now stalled in Parliament will proceed. One that the Liberals want to repeal would require a mandatory secret vote. Another that the Liberals have put forward which was amended in the Senate sets out the scope of issues that will be open to bargaining. In an internal memo Wednesday that he later posted to Twitter, Paulson acknowledged the pay increase didnt bring Mounties up to the level of top-paid police across Canada and was disappointing and frustrating . . . maddening, even, for some. He said it was not as much as we wanted, but better than it was going to be. Returning to the issue of the yellow-stripe protests, Paulson said: I get why some of you felt it necessary to do that, I really do. I wont do it and I have to tell you how worried I am about the impact this will have on the citizens we serve. Nobody has been or will be disciplined for altering their uniform, but Paulson said some are complaining to him they feel bullied into taking part, and he warned the protest could undermine internal cohesion as well as public confidence in the RCMP. So lets (sic) please get back to the core business of keeping Canadians safe and secure and know that further changes, including independent labour representation which will bargain and negotiate with the employer in your interest, are on the way. We respect the right of members to choose, said Miller. By no means are we intimidating or trying to bully them into wearing it. SHARE: MONTREALThe Quebec government plans to ban pit bulls in the province, against the recommendations of its own experts and the anger of animal activists. Public Safety Minister Martin Coiteux announced the governments intention after tabling legislation Thursday to better control dogs in the province, particularly dangerous canines that have bit or attacked other people or animals or those that have been deemed to be potentially dangerous based on their actions or by reputation. He said that the number and severity of the attacks involving pit bulls, as well as an incident last summer in which a woman, Christiane Vadnais, was killed by such a dog, convinced him of the need to take the disputed step. In case there were still doubts about it, now there are none, he told reporters in Quebec City. People have fears about pit bulls, and with good reason. The official order to enact the ban will come once the bill is passed into law, likely in the coming months. The move comes after a working group formed by the government last summer expressly recommended that the province not follow the direction taken by Ontario in 2005. Banning a pit bull, or any dog based on its breed, is inherently difficult, the groups report concluded. Breed is a bad indicator of an animals aggressiveness because there is a great difference in the behaviour of animals of one breed that have been cross-bred with another given breed, the report said. It also cited studies that showed that pit bulls were on average more likely to attack other animals but less likely to attack other people. In Quebec, there have been six deaths caused by dog attacks in the last 30 years: one involving a pit bull, three involving huskies and two attributed to malamutes. The report said that banning any particular breed of dog was an emotional response but was counter to the majority of animal experts consulted, would be difficult to enforce, might likely provoke a legal challenge and could simply result in irresponsible dog owners gravitating to another breed of animal. The working group sought the experience of officials in Ontario more than a decade after its pit-bull ban came into effect, but were told that it was difficult to evaluate the impact of the ban because there was no mandatory reporting or tracking of dog-bite cases in the province. The Quebec working group was also told that one of the big challenges of the Ontario law was determining a dogs particular breed. A pit-bull ban that came into force last year in the city of Montreal prompted a court challenge by the SPCA, the organizations denunciation and its refusal to offer animal services for dogs under a series of contracts across the city. In a statement, the Canadian campaign manager for Humane Society International the senseless and archaic legislation goes against the findings of researchers and experts. The proposed law will do nothing to increase public safety and will divert public funding that could have been applied to proven solutions that would effectively reduce dog bites and attacks, said Ewa Demianowicz. The proposed Quebec law will set up a mandatory dog-bite registry in the province and gives municipalities the power to declare a dog potentially dangerous and a risk to public safety based on the expert opinion of a veterinarian, or if that animal is involved in a biting incident. Among the class of potentially dangerous dogs are those who make the list because of their reputation as strong or aggressive animals trained to protect, guard or attack. They include Rottweilers, American Staffordshire terriers and Staffordshire bull terriers, or any animal that is a result of cross-breeding with these types of animals. Local authorities must order a dog owner to euthanize any animal that attacks, causing serious injuries or death. They are also free to implement stronger rules in their own jurisdiction, so long as the minimal provincial standards are met. Its not only a question of feeling safe. Its a question of being safe and we think that those measures will ensure that throughout the territory of Quebec people will be safer and feel safer, Coiteux said. I understand that some groups will oppose particular measures we have proposed in this legislation, but I think that overall there is a broad consensus to go with legislation like this. Read more about: SHARE: OTTAWAThe Supreme Court of Canada will not hear the case of a man convicted of murdering his three sisters and another woman. Hamed Shafia had sought leave to appeal to the court, arguing that new evidence showing he was a youth at the time of the deaths should not have been dismissed. As is its practice, the Supreme Court did not give reasons for its ruling. But Nick Bala, a law professor at Queens University in Kingston, Ont., said the high court was clearly not concerned with the approach of the Court of Appeal in assessing the rare and narrow legal issue raised by Shafia. The issue of his age was completely lacking in any credibility, given that Shafia came to Canada with his parents, who would have known when he was born, Bala said. Though there have been cases involving minors who came to Canada unaccompanied from third-world countries whose age was uncertain, to have it come up after trial in circumstances such as Shafias is unprecedented in Canada, he said. Thursdays ruling means Shafia has exhausted his options to fight his sentence, the professor said. This tragic saga is, from a legal perspective, over, he said. Read more: Shafia brother convicted of killing 4 women asks Supreme Court to hear case Shafia family members guilty of first-degree murder Shafias lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Shafia and his parents were found guilty in January 2012 of four counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of his teenage sisters and his fathers first wife in a polygamous marriage. The four bodies were found in a car at the bottom of the Rideau Canal in Kingston, Ont., in June 2009. At trial, the judge described the killings as being motivated by the Shafia familys twisted concept of honour. The Ontario Court of Appeal earlier rejected Shafias argument that he was too young to be tried as an adult and should have been tried separately. The appeal court found no reason to allow Shafias new evidence, which it said was not compelling. The Shafia family was originally from Afghanistan but fled at the outbreak of war in the country and eventually immigrated to Canada. The new documents regarding Shafias age were found when his father sought to transfer property in Afghanistan and asked someone in that country to prepare the paperwork, court documents show. That person discovered Shafias original Afghan identity document that recorded his birth date as Dec. 31, 1991, making him a year younger than initially thought, the documents said. Other records were later obtained from the Afghan government to confirm the date, the court documents said. But instead of applying the usual test for introducing new evidence called the Palmer test the appeal court devised a new test in which Shafia was required to show that the documents were compelling evidence of age, his lawyers said at the time. The appeal court ruled the evidence did not meet that test. An adult convicted of first-degree murder faces life without parole for 25 years, while a young offender, when sentenced as an adult, faces a maximum of life without parole for 10 years. SHARE: Dr. Michael Pollanen was appointed the provinces chief pathologist in 2006, as it became clear the dangerously flawed expert testimony of Dr. Charles Smith had led to serious miscarriages of justice. In the 11 years since, he has led a forensic pathology overhaul to make sure the same mistakes dont happen again. This irony was noted by the Toronto judge who released a blistering ruling this week slamming Pollanen for falling into the same traps that led to wrongful convictions he helped overturn. Despite being unprepared, he offered expert opinions on matters that were not appropriate, not within his knowledge and expertise, and incorrect, Superior Court Justice Anne Molloy wrote. The case involved a man who was accused of the second-degree murder of his girlfriends 2-year-old son, Nicholas Cruz. It is agreed the toddler died after blunt force trauma to his stomach caused his intestines to rupture. Doctors also found new and old bruises on the toddlers body. The accused, Joel France, has since pleaded guilty to manslaughter but has not yet been sentenced. (Nicholass mother, Marleny Cruz, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in January and is serving a six-year sentence.) Molloy has not yet ruled on whether France deliberately hit or punched Cruz in the stomach, or whether the trauma was caused by an accidental fall. However, in a ruling on what evidence a jury would have been allowed to hear had the case gone to trial, she found that Pollanen allowed his personal belief that this was a case of abuse to cloud his duty to provide objective, even-handed scientific evidence to the court. Vulnerable children need to be protected. But that protective role must not be confused with the role of an expert witness testifying in court. In my view, Dr. Pollanen blurred those roles, she said. Molloy noted in the ruling that she does not question Pollanens expertise or integrity, and said she believes his bias to be unconscious. It is a compelling illustration of how easy it is to fall into these errors and how cautious lawyers and judges must be in evaluating such evidence. Pollanen is seen as a champion of wrongful convictions and did excellent work in the past in uncovering problems with forensic science, said Alan Young, a professor at Osgoode Hall who runs the Innocence Project there. He was not involved in the case. Pollanen could not be reached for comment for this article. The decision is a reminder for the courts not to be blinded by impressive credentials or convincing delivery of expert evidence, says criminal defence lawyer Daniel Brown, who was not involved in the case. As the Smith cases and the Motherisk laboratory scandal have shown, courts need to be extremely careful with scientific evidence, he says especially in cases that involve children, where it may be more difficult to maintain objectivity. (A Star investigation exposed questions about the reliability of Motherisks hair tests in late 2014, after an Appeal Court decision cast doubt on the use of the results in a 2009 criminal case involving a Toronto mother. An independent commission found the labs tests from 2005 to 2015 were inadequate and unreliable for use in child custody and court proceedings.) Pollanen fell into several major pitfalls laid out by the landmark Goudge inquiry sparked by Smiths work, Molloy found. Among them was confirmation bias reaching a conclusion and working backward to find evidence to support it, and professional credibility bias being unwilling to change an opinion once stated. At the preliminary hearing, Pollanen testified it was not possible that the injuries to Cruz were caused by a short fall onto an object. When cross-examined during a pretrial motion, he grudgingly admitted that was incorrect and acknowledged he should have said he did not know the answer because he had not looked at the literature, Molloy said. What concerns me about this is the willingness of Dr. Pollanen to take an extreme and rigid position, while knowing he had not done any research to back it up, she wrote. She found Pollanen to be disingenuous and evasive about the amount of time he spent on researching the possibility of the injuries being caused by an accident. He also repeatedly said the injuries required significant force, failing to mention it was possible for a minor degree of force to cause the same injury which Molloy found to be either misleading or the result of a troubling lack of research. Molloy found that Pollanen was overreaching when he suggested that the injuries were more likely caused by an assault rather than by accident because of the other injuries on Cruzs body, and that it is statistically likelier to be an assault. She found that such evidence would be highly prejudicial to a jury. It was discomforting that it took intensive research and a skilled cross-examination from defence lawyer Nathan Gorham to expose the critical and concerning weaknesses in Pollanens opinions, Molloy wrote. Gorham declined to comment on the decision as the case is still before the courts. The sentencing decision in Frances case is expected April 24. With a file from Star staff SHARE: How many teenagers would want to mark turning 19 by visiting Somali refugee girls in Kenya? Then again, how many teens have their birthdays recognized by the United Nations? July 12 has been named Malala Day. Pakistani Nobel Laureate and activist extraordinaire Malala Yousafzai, who survived being shot by the Taliban in 2012, is now an honorary Canadian citizen. The honour was Canada's as Malala's gumption continues to impress and inspire. Its easy to see Malalas impact in the developing world, on those far away dots on the map struggling for the right to equal education. How antiquated it must seem to 19-year-old Canadians whose government offered them free and compulsory primary and secondary education (education for indigenous children is a different story). Of what importance is Malala to these Canadians other than as a rather remote hero figure? How do we make our children relate to the powerful story of an ordinary girl? For younger children, Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls is a wonderful start, aiming to inspire with tales of a 100 women, minus the wagging finger. Once there was a girl who loved school, this story begins. Her name was Malala. In her own biography I am Malala co-written with Charlotte Lamb, and suitable for older children, she says of school, For us girls that doorway was like a magical entrance to our own special world. Once the Taliban took control of her beloved Swat Valley in northern Pakistan, though, I felt fear when I went to school, thinking that someone would stop me and harm me, she told the House of Commons yesterday. I would hide my books under my scarf. Malala is not just a spokesperson for education. She is a symbol of defiance against oppression. She is an eloquent reminder to the so-called anti-feminists the women who think feminism is an exaggerated idea made up by man-haters, the women who are ignorant of the sacrifices of those who battled for equality that were not there yet. We live in a dysfunctional world, in some parts of which going to school is a life-threatening act of courage for girls, many of whom are not allowed to grow into women who can work outside the home. In other parts, where the fight for the right to work is long-forgotten in the fine print of history, large and inexcusable gender wage gaps still exist. Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai says those who kill in the name of Islam do not share her Muslim faith. In a Wednesday address to Parliament, Yousafzai praised Canadians for standing together in the face of terrorism. In some parts of the globe, rape victims are punished for adultery or even stoned. In other parts, where gender-based rights are more firmly established, men still feel entitled to their high-profile jobs despite credible reports of settling sexual harassment claims. In all parts of the world, women are still objectified. Malala traverses various worlds: Muslim and non-Muslim, patriarchal and balanced, liberal and conservative, powerful and poverty-stricken, eloquent and silenced. Like any star destined to rise, she has naysayers trying to rob her of light. She faces the same dichotomy faced by ordinary Muslim women: shunned by their own conservatives as Western if theyre reformist and patronized as rescue projects, or worse, terrorism enablers, by Westerners if they appear conservative or devout. Its a more intense form of the labelling slapped on all women. Committed worker or bad mother? Brainy or intimidating? Sexually liberated or slutty? Leader or bossy? Malalas is the tale of collective courage. I put myself in her parents shoes and wonder about my little ones. Would I have the courage to let them risk it all to fight the good fight? I think of Malalas friends who were injured when the bullets came flying. Shazia Ramzan was shot in the shoulder and hand. Kainat Riaz was shot in the arm. Malala, who was shot in the head, was in such critical condition she had to be flown to the U.K. for treatment. Her friends didnt get any outside medical help, but they were determined to go to school after recovering, despite the pleas of their townspeople. (She later got her friends scholarships at a school in Wales.) Malala, this compassionate young woman who has forgiven her attacker, has high political aspirations. For what its worth, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau agreed in principle to put education on the G7 agenda, her father the founder of the Swat Valley school and outspoken anti-Taliban activist told the CBC yesterday. We look at Malala, and we see hope amid the wretchedness. If she has achieved so much by age 19, what more lies in store? Stop. She is not a celebrity. As a social activist, her work inherently involves trauma. Her ambitions are large enough to envelope our expectations today. They may not always be so. Eventually the youthful charm will wear off, mistakes will be made. The world will need to allow Malala the space to learn and grow, away from its prying eyes. Even if she decides to hang up her boots tomorrow, that should be OK. In existing thus far, she has already done enough. Shree Paradkar tackles issues of race and gender. You can follow her @shreeparadkar Read more about: SHARE: Legalizing marijuana was of course the main focus in Ottawa on Thursday, yet at the same time that it announced proposed legislation on the issue, the federal government also indicated it will toughen the laws around driving when impaired by alcohol. Under the proposed legislation, a police officer will be able to conduct a saliva test on a driver following a legal roadside stop if they reasonably suspect that a driver has drugs in their body. A positive reading would help the officer determine if an offence has been committed and the person would then be subjected to a further test at the police division, likely a blood test. Officers currently need a reasonable suspicion before administering a roadside breath test to a driver suspected of being impaired by alcohol. Reasonable suspicion can be as simple as the smell of alcohol on the persons breath or the person admitting that theyve been drinking. However, under the proposed legislation, when it comes to alcohol, officers who have an approved screening device for breath tests on hand when they lawfully stop drivers, such as at check stops, will be able to demand a test without first determining if they have a reasonable suspicion. The result of a failed test would not automatically lead to a person being charged with an offence, but would mean they would have to go to the police station for further tests. Criminal defence lawyer Daniel Brown questioned why the government is proposing a different standard reasonable suspicion to test someone suspected of being impaired by drugs, but no need for reasonable suspicion for someone suspected of being impaired by alcohol. Reasonable suspicion is not a high hurdle to overcome in order to demand that somebody provide a sample, and yet its a proper screening mechanism so that not all drivers are held up to perform screening tests at the will of the officer, he told the Star. He said it would be difficult to see the proposed changes to alcohol-related driving offences survive constitutional scrutiny. We've certainly heard previous governments who claim that their legislation is constitutional, only to see it overturned in the courts . . . because they dont meet constitutional standards, he said. Having at least some suspicion that a person is involved in drinking and driving, before demanding that they provide breath samples, isn't an unreasonable standard. Dr. Doug Beirness, a senior researcher and policy analyst for the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse who has studied cannabis use and driving, told the Star roadside saliva tests will also mean an increase in the cost of investigating drug-impaired driving offences. This is not going to be cheap, he said. Whereas you can do a breath test for a few cents really . . . for oral fluid youre talking at least $30 per test. That can add up really, really quickly. If were going to go the mandatory route, were going to still want to be a little bit selective of whom we test. SHARE: Scientists in Madison are preparing to join colleagues in more than 400 cities across the globe in a March for Science on Earth Day, April 22. They are hoping that area residents who are not scientists will join them, said Dave Lovelace, a research scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This is not a protest, Lovelace said Monday. It is a celebration of science. The Madison event will include a march, a rally and a science expo on the Library Mall. Keynote speakers at the rally will include Bassam Shakhashiri, UW-Madison professor and creator of the popular "Science is Fun" demonstrations, and Tia Nelson, director of the Outrider Foundation and daughter of Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson. Some of the nation's biggest scientific organizations, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Geophysical Union, are partnering with grassroots organizers to plan a rally in Washington D.C. aimed at defending "robustly funded and publicly communicated science," the Washington Post reported. The idea for a rally in support of science bubbled up online after the inauguration of President Donald Trump, who once referred to climate change as a Chinese hoax. Trump has since rolled back federal policies to curb climate change. And Trumps low priority for science is reflected in his proposed budget, which ends programs to lower domestic greenhouse gas emissions, for example, and also includes big cuts in federal funding for medical research. The Washington march will feature Bill Nye, the Science Guy, and Mona Hanna-Attisha, the doctor who helped expose lead in the water supply in Flint, Michigan. The organizers Twitter account had 345,000 followers as of Monday. Satellite marches are planned in all 50 states and Puerto Rico, including a dozen in Wisconsin, according to the March for Science web site. More than 40 countries are planning events. Activism like the March for Science is a big departure for scientists, who usually are reluctant to enter political debates for fear their work will be perceived as partisan, the Post noted. Lovelace agreed that scientists try to avoid partisan activities. The march is non-partisan, but it is political, he said. Public policy should be grounded in fact and reason. Facts should be implicit and explicit in decision-making." He added that it would be easier to accept a politician who acknowledged the reality of climate change, for example, and decided to take no action to alleviate it, than it is to accept one who denies the facts. Using alternate facts or denying a large body of evidence is antithetical to what we stand for, Lovelace said. Some of the participating scientists work at UW-Madison, but the university is not playing an official role in the event, Lovelace said. Local organizers felt it was important to have a march and rally in Madison, he said. Not only is the city home to the UW flagship campus, an internationally known research center, but also to numerous private science-based companies, he said. And a global echoing of the message conveyed in Washington as happened with the Womens March in January is a powerful statement of solidarity to policy makers, Lovelace said. Science is important in every aspect of our lives, Lovelace said. Science is for all of us. He estimated from social media response that about 1,000 people would participate in Madison. If 10,000 people show up, Ill be excited. If more than that show up, Ill be a little nervous," he said. The full slate of speakers for the event is still being finalized. Marchers will start assembling at 12:30 p.m. April 22 at James Madison Park, where the march to the Library Mall will step off at 1 p.m. The science expo, with booths and demonstrations in chemistry, physics, geology and other sciences, will run from 1-5 p.m. on the Library Mall. It will be a family-friendly event, Lovelace said, that embraces the core of the Wisconsin Idea. That bedrock philosophy of the university holds that university research should be used to solve problems and improve health, quality of life, and the environment for all citizens of the state. If you have ever been in a food court in a business tower or a shopping mall, you invariably have seen the Jimmy the Greek sign. Behind that man, Dimitrios (Jimmy) Antonopoulos, was an inspirational woman: Eleni (Helen), his wife of 53 years. Both of strong stock with no education or money when they came to Canada, Jimmy and Helens entrepreneurial spirit ended them up in the food industry, the staple employment of so many Greek immigrants. My father and mother came from extremely humble beginnings, their daughter Toula Antonopoulos said. Yes, from poverty to riches, thats the success story of Jimmy The Greek, which has grown to more than 56 locations in Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta and Manitoba. Sadly, the business will have to do without the matriarch and one of the original founders. She died April 6 at 75 after a long hardship with renal problems. The love affair between Helen and Jimmy was an arranged marriage by their parents. The pair swapped photos, Helen liked what she saw and married Jimmy, who was a shepherd tending to the care of goats and sheep at the family farm in Greece. Helen and Jimmy moved to Canada from Nafplio, Greece, in 1963, living for several years in Montreal where Jimmy learned the ropes of the food industry by making sandwiches in the cafeteria of a Woolworth store. The couple moved to Toronto where Jimmy secured employment in the cafeteria at two, long-gone, downtown institutions: Tamblyn Drugs and Boots Drug Store. When Boots closed its cafeteria, Jimmy met the famed Reichmann brothers, of Olympia and York fame, who advised him that he could step in, get space and the chance to set up a restaurant in First Canadian Place on one condition. He had to go to New York and check out the concept of an eatery. He memorized the menu and gave his approval. Thats how the Epikourion Restaurant began in 1977. With Helen helping out by preparing meals and handing out drinks, Jimmy poured his heart and soul into the Epikourion, working seven days a week for long hours. The first year, it was brutal. He lost 60 pounds because of all of the stress, his daughter Toula said. He was emaciated. He was basically half the man. One thing Eleni wouldnt do was allow Jimmy to mortgage the family home in Scarborough in order to give the Epikourion more breathing room. Soon however, the Epikourion was out of the woods and Helen and Jimmy founded the Penelope Restaurant in 1982 across from the Princess of Wales Theatre on King St. In 1985, the couples major breakthrough came when they were tipped off about a space opening up in a food court at First Canadian Place on King St., located not far from the Epikourion. They agreed to take on the lease. The couple got brainstorming about what to call the new eatery. When Jimmy first came to Canada, the customs agent asked him what his name was and he replied Dimitrios. In Canada, Dimitrios is Jimmy, the customs agent told him. So Jimmy the Greek became the moniker. Helen and Jimmy never wavered from the original concept of freshly prepared, quality food served in quick fashion from a counter in business towers and shopping centres. Think chicken souvlaki, rice, roasted potatoes, salad and tzatziki sauce, which was Helens favourite menu item along with loli water and baklava for dessert. Although the Antonopoulos family never says no, there are no plans to expand to Quebec and the Maritimes. New venues to be opened are the Yonge-Eglinton Centre, the Londonberry Mall in Edmonton and the Winnipeg Outlet Collection Mall. After our first venue got started, some customers asked if it was a franchise business. We didnt know what franchise meant but we pursued the idea, Toula Antonopoulos said. After all of these years, we only have one corporate store, the first one we opened. The rest are franchised stores. My mother used to work at the corporate store many days until four years ago when she wasnt able to work. Toula left her job as a probation and parole officer to join the family business at her parents request and she works at the head office at First Canadian Place. Jimmy, 77, stills go to the newly renovated flagship store twice a week to keep abreast of what is going on. Helen was beset by kidney and renal problems most of her life, leading to an eventual kidney donation from her daughter Tina. A few weeks ago, a mother had some issues and we rushed her to emergency, Toula said. Her body rejected the kidney. Her blood pressure kept plummeting. Then on March 25, she didnt look good. So we took her to St. Michaels. She fought so hard to live. Helen Antonopoulos leaves Jimmy, her daughters Toula and Tina and six grandchildren. A funeral service was held April 11 at St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church on Thorncliffe Park Dr. Among those paying their respects were suppliers, distributors, customers, franchisees and tenants of First Canadian Place. My mother was a woman greatly admired and loved, her daughter said. Read more about: SHARE: TORONTO, 2037If youll follow me, folks, the next stop on our walking tour is Nathan Phillips Square. Very exciting. Hard hats on, please! Safety glasses too. I dont have to tell you about the problem of glass windows falling off the Old City Hall Condos right next door, so watch your step. If youve been reading your newsfeeds I bet some of you are viewing them in your optic displays right now youll know that one of Torontos finest annual traditions is underway inside the ScotiabankCityHall council chamber. Mayor Stephanie Ford and city council are debating the one-stop Scarborough subway extension that is now planned to go 100 metres, from Kennedy station all the way to the parking lot in a Hydro field across the street, and whether or not to go ahead with it now that the cost is estimated at $745 trillion. This year marks 25 years of formal debate and sometimes trench warfare on the issue though LRT-side historians prefer to point out its actually 30 years since Transit City first proposed a line in that corridor. Either way, big milestone year, lots of ritual arguments planned, you can see the transit-fan tailgate parties on the west side of the square. But what I want to show you is one of the citys most photographed tourist attractions, the iconic Toronto: RO T sign. Youve all seen millions of pictures of its rust, its dents, its pigeons nests, the friendly family of feral raccoons that live in the half-melted O shape over there on the right. Everyone knows that the crumbling sculpture, an urban ruin protected by the heritage department, forms the name of the city, and that at night the letters RO T light up in festive colours. Its the most beloved symbol of the city governments philosophy. But what you might not know is that the meaning of the sign wasnt intended when it was first built. The sign was put in the square almost as a fun afterthought during the Pan-Am Games in 2015. At the time, all of the letters lit up! The colours were bright, the edges were clean lines, it was shiny and new. Its hard to imagine, I know, since its decaying state now seems such an essential part of its visual identity. But it just spelled the name of the city. In big, bright letters. So simple. And people loved it! It quickly became one of the most famous landmarks in the city. Tourists came here just to pose for pictures with it. Children climbed on it. The city briefly considered making a bunch more of them. One city executive in 2016 said it was the most successful marketing media branding project hed ever been involved with. This was kind of fitting so much of Torontos success had been an unplanned happy accident. After all, the 20th-century writer Robert Fulford called Toronto The Accidental City in one of his books. So even though it was meant to be a temporary sign, the government decided to keep it. But then things got really interesting. By 2017, the vinyl was peeling off. The sign started getting scuffed up. The colours might begin to fade. Because it was meant to be temporary, it would need some maintenance. The cost of fixing and improving it back then was estimated at $150,000. To a lot of people, that seemed like a bargain to preserve the beloved symbol literally the name of the city, right in front of the seat of city government that had been such a pride and tourism boon. Such a source of pure delight! But we all know that is not how politics in this city work. So council refused to approve the expense. Anyones who has studied Toronto history here will know that letting things crumble to pieces because were too cheap to maintain them is among the citys proudest traditions. Theres the RT in Scarborough, of course, which has been powered by passengers taking turns pushing it on foot since 2030. But it goes back further than that. Way back in the late 1900s, the city let a gorgeous light sculpture at Yorkdale subway station fall into disrepair and then eventually threw it out because they didnt want to replace a $28 transformer. In the early decades of the 21st century, public housing buildings started falling apart so badly that they had to close apartment towers, even though pretty much everyone said they agreed public housing was really important and worth investing in. You see the vacant and rotting ruins of those buildings all around the city today! And its hard to imagine, now that the Gardiner Expressway is so famous as the last elevated expressway left in North America (and now that constantly maintaining it, rebuilding it, and gold-plating it as a signal that the War on the Car is still over consumes 92 per cent of Torontos annual budget) but for a long time around the turn of the century, pieces of the Gardiner would fall off all the time and land on cars below, because no one could agree to tear it down but no one could agree to spend money fixing it. Anyhow, thats what happened with the Toronto sign. It deteriorated further and further, and still no one would spend money to fix it. After a while, its dilapidated state became familiar, even beloved. By the time the second Mayor Ford was running for his second term, the lights in only three letters still worked, giving the sign its now-familiar RO T appearance at night. He recognized it as such a fitting, perfect symbol of our approach to governance and infrastructure, he adapted it as his campaign slogan: DOUG: Let it ROT. After his re-election, of course, that was adopted as the citys new motto. And thats the story of the sign. As symbols of the city go, its an enduring one. Watch out those raccoons do sometimes bite if you dont feed them before posing for pictures. Okay, now if youll step this way across the square, our next stop is historic Osgoode Hall, a source of much revenue for the government ever since we started listing it on Airbnb to keep taxes low in the 2020s Edward Keenan writes on city issues ekeenan@thestar.ca . Follow: @thekeenanwire SHARE: The day after a scathing report detailed the dysfunction, culture of fear and a lack of leadership at the York Region public school board, trustees went beyond what was asked of them by the education minister and told embattled director J. Philip Parappally to step down, sources told the Star. At a special board meeting Wednesday night, trustees said they had already met the first deadline put forward in a letter from Education Minister Mitzie Hunter outlining her 22 directives, and were making progress on many others. Board chair Loralea Carruthers opened the meeting with strong words, and an apology. Im so sorry, so very sorry that so many of you have been hurt so deeply and Im sorry that our staff . . . have been hurt, too. And Im so sorry that our kids, in particular have been exposed to the worst in people instead of the best, she said. I am sorry, and my colleagues are sorry. I apologize. What will happen next is action, not empty words. And it wont be action behind closed doors either, Carruthers said. So starting tonight I can say all of the trustees are on the same page, we are united and working on a clean path forward, she said, adding they will do the right thing. Read more: York trustees, director lacking in strong, ethical leadership, reviewers find Report blasts York school board director for cultivating culture of distrust Mishandling of discrimination, dismantling of equity policy at heart of York board crisis Recommendations call for fast action to restore trust in trouble-plagued board York trustees slammed as lacking understanding of their roles, responsibilities That right thing appeared to be asking for the dismissal of the education director, J. Philip Parappally, according to sources. It was a move the chair wouldnt confirm publicly. We are going to act on the ministers directives but we obviously cant comment on a personnel matter, Carruthers said, adding any discussion with the director would be in private session. A motion passed by trustees out of the private session only approved the motion regarding a personnel matter but failed to offer more details. But a source close to the trustees said during the in-camera portion of the meeting on Wednesday, trustees unanimously agreed to call for Parappallys resignation and started the labourious and complex process to part ways with Parappally based on concerns around his performance which were detailed throughout the entire report. Parappally will have a week to respond. He was not available after the meeting for comment, but during the meeting apologized for the hurt he had caused. Trustees also put forward a number of motions to formalize a ban on travel after being criticized in the report for jetting overseas without public approvals and, in many cases, no clear purpose and also asked the director to establish the position of a senior administrator responsible for equity, as well as move forward on appointing an integrity commissioner. They also encouraged all employees to make use of the employee assistance program, a requirement Hunter said should be implemented within 24 hours. But questions remain on how the trustees will move forward, given that the report detailed a far-reaching absence of strong and ethical leadership. At the end of January, Hunter appointed a two-person review team to probe the board, after concerns that incidents of racism and Islamophobia were not properly handled, international travel was getting out of hand, and the deteriorating relationships between trustees, staff and Parappally. The review, released Tuesday, painted a troubling picture of a board in crisis, where trustees were unaware of their responsibilities, failed to hold to account then-trustee Nancy Elgie for referring to a black parent using the n-word, and were oblivious to public concerns about their travel or even why the review was ordered. It said leaders, both elected and the director, were not living up to their duties. Hunter has said if the board does not act quickly, she will appoint an investigator, which puts the board closer to provincial supervision. Parents, however, continue to call for Parappally to resign, saying the board cant move forward with him at the helm. Parappally was given an unheard-of 10-year contract under then-chair Anna DeBartolo without any real performance review. Parappally was also guaranteed a job for life with the board after the deal expired, according to a copy of his contract obtained by the Star last April. Hunter has ordered the board to renegotiate the terms of his contract and complete an independent job appraisal by the end of May. Concerns had been raised about Parappallys fractious relationships with staff and some trustees, his disrespectful dealings with parents, and a culture of distrust the reviewers said he cultivated. He is also said to have ordered senior staff to spy on one another, and the board confiscated laptops to find the source of emails critical of him and how he was hired. Many senior staff interviewed said they have no confidence in his leadership, according to the report. In fact, some interviewees said Parappallys hiring was the cause of, and the beginning of, much of the difficulty the board is facing. On Wednesday at Queens Park, Hunter told the Star she expects her directives to be followed and implemented in a timely manner. That is my expectation. I will be monitoring the boards progress very closely. When asked about the director, she said in the directions I provided to the board, there are three areas that are important thats an immediate 360 (thorough) review of the directors performance by an outside human resources expert, making sure the directors contract aligns with other directors of education, and having a policy in place for the recruitment and performance appraisal of the director. This is not the first time a director has come under fire. Donna Quan, the former director of the Toronto public board, was also harshly criticized in a provincial report two years ago. She landed a provincial research gig with York University instead of finishing out her contract at the TDSB. Sources have told the Star that Parappally had also been in talks with the province for a similar exit strategy before the reports release, which fell through after he made unreasonable demands for a payout. Parappally, who was hired in 2014, still has seven years on his contract. He earned $259,000 last year. Parents and community groups lauded the report and Hunters response, but said the board must now step up. There are a lot of families that are hurting, said Gilary Massa, of the National Council of Canadian Muslims. The report confirms the absolute failure of the board to fulfil its own policies of equity and inclusion, as well as broader issues concerning leadership and governance. The findings are deeply troubling. Its especially important to note that current staff described working in a culture of fear and distrust which was fostered by the boards director, J. Philip Parappally, added Shernett Martin of the Vaughan African Canadian Association. SHARE: Synaptive Medical wants to help neurosurgeons do a better job. The Toronto startups suite of visualization equipment and applications for neurosurgical procedures includes high-definition, 3D imaging tools (for use before and during surgery) and even a lifelike, simulated brain for practice purposes. We help surgeons be more efficient with their surgery and use better information to guide their decisions, says Synaptive Medical president Cameron Piron. But the company has yet to make a sale in Ontario, its home market, despite receiving Health Canadas green light for their suite of products last summer (the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave their approval a year earlier). In fact, only after striking deals with the Aga Khan University Hospital in Pakistan and 15 major U.S. customers, such as Seattles Swedish Health Services, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, Houston Methodist Hospital and Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, was the company finally able to find a Canadian customer in Vancouver. Certainly, our neighbours to the south take a little more initiative in taking on new technology to impact change in their health-care systems, says Piron, a medical biophysicist and serial entrepreneur who founded the company about four years ago. International customers may be more willing (and more able) to make the significant investment required installing the system can cost more than $1 million but not having a buyer at home can also be a hindrance when it comes to selling abroad, says Piron. When potential clients come to visit, its a real loss that we cant take them to a local customer . . . and be able to show an operating room, he says. Its certainly an awkward conversation of, Its being used all around the world, but its not being used here. Why not? An uphill battle Synaptive Medical is not alone. Waterloo, Ont.-based startup Intellijoint Surgical produces a device that helps surgeons achieve better accuracy when performing hip replacements. Founded in 2010, Intellijoint received Health Canadas approval in 2013. The first use of the product took place at Torontos Mount Sinai Hospital that December, but since then, sales have taken off in the U.S., not in Canada. Canadian surgeons realize what Intellijoint Hip could do for their patients, says chief executive officer Armen Bakirtzian. The problem for us was when surgeons went to their administrators to have the product paid for. Intellijoint charges $1,000 per surgery for the licence to use the technology. Bakirtzian says the problem has reached the point that his company has pretty much stopped trying in Canada and is focusing mostly on the U.S. Why are so many innovative Canadian startups facing such difficulty here at home? Hadi Salah, manager of health ecosystem partnerships at MaRS Discovery District, says some of the challenge lies within the procurement system. He explains that hospitals currently have to identify a need, find the funding for it and issue a public request for proposal (RFP) describing the solution and exact specifications it must meet. When the health-care service providers put out these specs, theyre really limiting themselves . . . because, if theres something radical out there thats innovative but doesnt meet those specs, theyre not eligible to even respond to the RFP. Read more: Diagnostic medical technology veering into Star Trek galaxies Clients in the U.S. do not face the same restrictions they tend to buy anything that works for them. Salah points to Kaiser Permanente in Oakland and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles as pioneers. We like to talk about Kaiser as a case study about how to do things, he says. About 10-20 years ago, almost all of their care was delivered in hospitals; now its significantly less because theyve gone into mobile, theyve gone into smaller clinics. So the whole model of care delivery is pretty innovative. Cedars-Sinai has partnered with Techstars to launch a venture fund and an accelerator right at the hospital, Salah adds. They select the top startups and they house them in their health system to see if they can co-develop solutions . . . and then they actually invest in these companies. Another barrier here is that many startups fall into the valley of death they lack the resources to survive the Canadian systems frequently long sales cycles. Also, most hospitals wont consider adopting a new technology if the cost isnt reimbursed by their provincial health ministry, notes Salah which, in Ontario, can take years even after Health Canada has given its approval. Preventing the valleys of death One bright light is the MaRS Excellence in Clinical Innovation and Technology Evaluation (EXCITE) program, which works to get disruptive health technologies to market faster. In fact, it is designed for what Liana Di Marco, its project manager, describes as technologies with an impact great enough to be considered changing the way that care is delivered. The program connects such companies with regulators, payers (insurance providers) and academic researchers, who all work to build an EXCITE evidentiary bundle demonstrating the value of the technology. This bundle includes clinical trial data, an economic analysis, a systematic and comparative effectiveness review and a human factors review. The results then go to EXCITEs management board members among them William Charnetski, Ontarios chief health innovation strategist who decide whether to recommend a product for adoption and use in the province. But really, says Di Marco, the end game is not only for the company to have Ontario as their first customer, but for them to take that dossier and success story to other health systems around the world. Last fall, she adds, the ministry added a bonus to the program by committing to work with a company to help it recover in revenue, at minimum, what it paid toward the EXCITE study. (For example, companies underwrite any trials required.) To my knowledge, no other health system has done that, she says. The test case Toronto-based BresoTec is the first company to go through EXCITE. Its BresoDx diagnostic tool is a cheaper, simpler and more consumer-friendly home test for sleep apnea what founder Dr. Geoff Fernie calls a game changer for those (one person in 10) who suffer from the disorder. The company was also supported by MaRS Innovation, a non-profit that acts on behalf of 16 member organizations (15 of Torontos top universities, institutions and research institutes, plus MaRS Discovery District) to help commercialize discoveries. The neat thing with MaRS Innovation and EXCITE is that you have a premarket evaluation, he says. So while youre still continuing to do all your regulatory work, all your production engineering, theyre looking at the device and how it might fit into the Ontario health-care system . . . so you compress the time. With a green light from Health Canada to sell its product, BresoTec faces one last hurdle adoption by the health-care system. Now its up to the Ministry of Health to come to a decision, Fernie says. Salah says hes seeing a lot of need and want from across Canada and the world for programs that are similar to EXCITE. This model is already being adopted by others, he says. In fact, a spinoff called EXCITE International has been launched, retaining the features of the Canadian program, but also including payer input from the U.S. and U.K. Companies that want to basically launch in all three markets globally can use this as a single entrance point, says Di Marco. She hopes that EXCITE will show health-care stakeholders that more can be achieved by working together: We need to really adjust our thinking . . . because technologys changing quickly and were going to get left behind. This article is part of a series on the Future of Health featured in MaRS, a publication that highlights the people and companies in MaRS Discovery Districts network, and the innovations that touch our lives. Learn more about the Future of Health. Read more about: SHARE: Ontarios attorney general said while he supports the idea of training for judges on sexual assault cases, hed prefer the provinces chief justice handle the issue rather than the government. This is an issue of respecting our constitution. This is an issue of respecting the judicial independence that is key to and the cornerstone of our democracy, Yasir Naqvi said at Queens Park on Thursday after pressure from the opposition during question period. Its clearly within the scope of the judiciary to determine the training that they set themselves . . . Im in conversations with the chief justice. I know she takes this matter seriously, and we look forward to the action from the judiciary. Progressive Conservative MPP Laurie Scott has proposed a private members bill that would force judges and justices of the peace to learn about the laws, myths and stereotypes around sexual assault cases, either before they are appointed or, for those already on the job, as part of their continuing education. Liberal MPP Cristina Martins also introduced her bill that would mandate such training for lawyers before they can be considered for the bench. Unfortunately, we are now hearing from the attorney general that he does not support that initiative; from the minister of community safety and correctional services that they dont support that training, PC leader Patrick Brown said Thursday. The reality is, everyone here knows this is a necessary step. This is a good idea. It shouldnt matter that an opposition member raised a good idea. This is about sexual assault victims. This is a right step. Premier Kathleen Wynne, whose government was lauded for the Its Never Okay campaign to combat sexual violence and harassment, said this is an issue of not whether we support or not . . . this is not a matter of whether or not, in our opinion, something should happen. This is about the mechanism for actually making it (happen). Scott has argued that with high-profile decisions like the so-called knees together case in Alberta, or the Nova Scotia judge who acquitted a taxi driver, saying the severely intoxicated complainant could have consented, that women need more confidence in our justice system. Sexual assault survivors must feel comfortable coming forward. On Wednesday, Naqvi told reporters that the chief justice takes this issue very seriously and she wants to make sure that the public always have confidence in our judiciary but instead of legislation, Im more inclined to work with the chief justice as I have been doing to let her know where the government stands and where government policy stands, where legislators are in terms of making sure the public has confidence in the judiciary . . . and I have full confidence in our chief justice that she will look at all the options that are available to her. Brown, however, told reporters the government should support Scotts private members bill as this would be a significant step forward and I think they should embrace it with open arms . . . I dont know why this government seems to be committed to the status quo thats obviously inadequate. Last month, Conservative interim leader Rona Ambrose brought forward a bill that would require specialized training for any lawyer wishing to become a federally appointed judge. With unanimous support, the bill is now being dealt with quickly through the House of Commons. However, Ottawa lawyer Anne London-Weinstein has told the Star that judicial independence is crucial, and that in most cases shes seen in her 20 years, judges get things right. SHARE: The U.S. Coast Guard has received no extra funding to cover the additional costs of protecting U.S. President Donald Trumps Mar-a-Lago resort during his frequent trips to the Florida estate, the services top official said Wednesday. Adm. Paul Zukunft, the Coast Guards commandant, also provided new details about the challenges the service faces in safeguarding the Palm Beach property because of its waterfront exposure on two sides the Atlantic Ocean to the east and the Intracoastal Waterway to the west. Whenever Trump visits, Zukunft said, the Coast Guard dispatches helicopters, patrol boats and anti-terrorism teams for round-the-clock patrols, Zukunft said during a breakfast with journalists. Read the latest news on U.S. President Donald Trump We have teams protecting the approaches to Mar-a-Lago on both coasts, Zukunft said. Were also protecting in the air, as well, he added, noting that the service watches for low, slow flyers and any other potential aviation threat to our commander in chief. Asked about the costs of protecting Mar-a-Lago, Zukunft said officials were trying to determine a figure to provide to Congress, but that at the moment the service was working within existing funding constraints. Is there a supplemental to support this? he said. The answer is no. Zukunfts comments highlight the growing costs to taxpayers of Trumps lifestyle, including routine jaunts to Mar-a-Lago and the need to fortify Trump Tower in New York, where Trumps wife and youngest son have chosen to live. Trump is expected to return to Mar-a-Lago this weekend for his seventh trip since the inauguration. Mar-a-Lago, the private club Trump has dubbed the winter White House, lacks the established protection measures of the White House or Camp David, and officials there in recent months have been forced to build a presidential compound from scratch. The Trump administrations draft budget last month called for cutting the Coast Guards funding by 14 per cent, or about $1.3 billion, but the White House has since said it would keep the services budget flat compared with the previous year. Three anti-terrorism teams were involved in the protection of Mar-a-Lago when Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping visited last week, Zukunft said. Those Maritime Safety and Security teams carry out port safety patrols and are trained to operate after an attack by chemical, biological or radiological means. Read more: Trump grounded from flying in personal helicopter Promoting his Mar-a-Lago resort as the Winter White House a bankable move for Trump Trump has spent about 21 days at Mar-a-Lago this year. Based on a Washington Post review of estimates of past presidential trips and assessments of security costs, Trumps continued travel there could drive the price tag for Coast Guard support at the estate into the tens of millions of dollars over a four-year term. An MH-65 Dolphin helicopter, commonly used in air patrols like those over Mar-a-Lago, costs $7,533 an hour to run, or more than $180,000 for an all-day patrol, service financial documents show. An RB-S Defender-class response boat patrolling near Mar-a-Lago costs $1,434 an hour to run, or about $34,400 a day. When former president Barack Obama flew to South Florida for a weekend in 2013, the Coast Guard spent about $586,000 to patrol waterways and cover official travel and lodging costs, according to a Government Accountability Office report last year. When the president is in town, the Coast Guard also establishes three wide-ranging security zones along the Palm Beach shorelines and in the nearby Lake Worth Lagoon, which are guarded by gunboat. The Coast Guards budget is only a fraction of the government money spent toward protecting the presidents estate. Palm Beach County spends more than $60,000 a day toward overtime for deputies and other costs when the president is in town, local-government officials said. The Secret Service has also faced an additional budgetary strain. The agency requested $60 million in funding on top of its traditional budget for the next year to help pay for the travel of the president and top-ranking officials, as well as the protection of the Trump familys private home in Trump Tower, according to internal documents reviewed by The Post. The Coast Guard post near Palm Beach traditionally focuses on other missions across South Florida and the Caribbean, including rescuing stranded boaters, securing ports and intercepting drug runners, the service says. Read more about: SHARE: For decades, Sheila Abdus-Salaam has been a fixture in New York legal circles. As the first African-American woman to serve on the states top court, she commanded the respect of colleagues for being a trailblazer, as well as having a quick legal mind. On Wednesday, Abdus-Salaams body was found in the Hudson River in what local police are calling a possible suicide. She was 65. Her body was found fully clothed in the river in Upper Manhattan at 1:45 p.m. Wednesday, a day after her husband had reported her missing, according to the New York Police Department. There were no signs of trauma or injury on the body, and the cause of death is still under investigation. It is not yet known how Abdus-Salaam ended up in the river or how long her body had been there. Her death shook the New York legal community, prompting responses from colleagues, judges, and state and local political leaders. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, D, called Abdus-Salaam, an associate judge on the New York Court of Appeals, a humble pioneer. Gov. Andrew Cuomo, D, who appointed her to the states Court of Appeals, said she was a trail-blazing jurist whose life in public service was in pursuit of a more fair and more just New York for all. Abdus-Salaam was born in 1952 to a working-class family of seven children in Washington, D.C., where she attended public school. As a teenager, she was inspired to enter the legal profession after an encounter with civil rights attorney Frankie Muse Freeman, according to a 2013 news release from Seymour James, attorney-in-charge of criminal practice of the Legal Aid Society in New York City. Before her nomination to the State Court of Appeals, Abdus-Salaam served as a justice in the First Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court, and for 15 years as a State Supreme Court justice in Manhattan. She graduated from Barnard College in 1974 and from Columbia Law School in 1977, and she spent time working with indigent clients as a staff attorney at Brooklyn Legal Services. She also served as an assistant state attorney general. Throughout her career, Abdus-Salaams colleagues have hailed the judge for her clarity as a writer and fairness as a decision-maker. Janet DiFiore, chief judge of the state Court of Appeals, said in a statement Wednesday that her personal warmth, uncompromising sense of fairness, and bright legal mind were an inspiration to all of us who had the good fortune to know her. Jonathan Lippman, the former chief judge of New York state, said he and Abdus-Salaam grew up together in the court system, including serving together on the New York Court of Appeals. It was my delight that in the latter part of my tenure are chief [of the court of appeals] that we were directly able to work together. ... She was respected and admired by everyone, Lippman said. It was a close-knit court. We had dinner together every night. In one of Abdus-Salaams most significant recent decisions, this summer she wrote the ruling on Brooke S.B. and Elizabeth A. C.C., expanding the definition of what it means to be a parent, particularly for same-sex couples. The existing definition, she wrote, had become unworkable when applied to increasingly varied familial relationships. She ruled that where a partner shows by clear and convincing evidence that the parties agreed to conceive a child and to raise the child together, the non-biological, non-adoptive partner has standing to seek visitation and custody. She was someone we could all point to especially here in Harlem not just women, but people of colour, said former Harlem Assemblyman Keith Wright, who said he has known Abdus-Salaam for decades and lived three blocks from her. Wright said often spotted Abdus-Salaam in the neighbourhood, including on the subway, where he saw her just a few days ago. She had a tremendous amount of intellect [but] she wasnt overbearing with it. She was actually always, very nice, he said. And when she spoke, people listened. Correction April 17, 2017: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly said judge Sheila Abdus-Salaam was the first female Muslim judge in the U.S. In fact, she was not a Muslim. Abdus-Salaam took her first husband's last name and continued to use it professionally after the divorce. SHARE: SAO PAULOBrazilian construction giant Odebrecht paid $40 million to President Michel Temers party and another party to ensure a contract with the state oil company, according to testimony from a former Odebrecht executive. Marcio Farias accusation came in plea bargain testimony released late Wednesday as part of the biggest corruption probe in Brazils history. The investigation, known as Operation Car Wash, has already unveiled billions of dollars in kickbacks and bribes paid to politicians by Brazilian companies. But this week, the Supreme Court announced a new wave of investigations into top politicians, including eight of Temers Cabinet ministers, dealing a major blow to his presidency and raising questions about whether he can continue to effectively govern. In opening the investigations, the court released recordings of the plea bargain testimony that underpins the probe. Other former Odebrecht executives testified that Temer was involved in the solicitation of another bribe, worth $3.2 million. Temer is not under investigation since, as president, he has temporary immunity from any crimes committed before he took office. He has denied wrongdoing. In his testimony, Faria said he met with Temer and some of his allies at Temers office in Sao Paulo in 2010 in order to bless an arrangement whereby Odebrecht would make a contribution to the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party in exchange for its help smoothing the approval of a pending contract with Petrobras. When asked whether it was clear that this money was a bribe or an illegal gain, Faria responded: Totally an illegal gain because it was a percentage on top of the contract. Faria said no figures were discussed at the meeting, but the deal was clear: Odebrecht would pay the party 5 per cent of the value of the Petrobras contract. That amounted to around $40 million, he said. Faria said Temers party later decided to cut in the Workers Party. At the time, Temer was the vice-presidential candidate on a ticket with Dilma Rousseff of the Workers Party as the presidential candidate. In the end, Faria said Temers party received 4 per cent of the contracts total, and the Workers Party received 1 per cent. In a video released on Thursday, Temer acknowledged that he had a conversation with Faria in 2010, but flatly denied the rest. I am not afraid of the facts. What disgusts me are lies, Temer said. The lie is that in this meeting I heard a reference to financial resources or shady business by the company with politicians. This never happened. Not in that meeting and not in any meeting in my public life. Two other former Odebrecht executives described a similar scenario they say occurred in 2014. According to court documents, the executives had dinner that year with Temer, who was then vice-president, and his current Chief of Staff Eliseu Padilha. During the dinner, they say, the company agreed to pay $3.2 million in supposed campaign contributions to Padilha and another Temer ally and in exchange, Temers party agreed to help Odebrecht win airport concessions. Padilha is under investigation in this case. Former Odebrecht CEO Marcelo Odebrecht, one of the executives present, testified that he closed the deal with Padilha after dessert and before coffee was served. Temer had stepped away from the table at the time. Temer never mentioned the 10 million (reals, or $3.2 million) to me, Odebrecht said in the recording released by the court. But obviously at the dinner he was aware. Padilha has denied wrongdoing. Temers office said that he categorically denies any involvement of his name in shady dealings. The corruption unmasked by the Car Wash investigation has shocked even the most cynical Brazilians for both the vast amounts that traded hands and the way in which it has spared no party. Odebrecht testified that his company also contributed to the presidential campaigns of Rousseff and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, both of the Workers Party, in exchange for favours. In one instance, in 2009, Odebrecht met with Silvas finance minister, Guido Mantega, to discuss an executive order the company wanted from the government. During the conversation, Mantega allegedly wrote down the number 50 which Odebrecht said he understood meant the company should contribute 50 million reals ($16 million) to Rousseffs upcoming campaign. On illegal campaign financing, Lula and Dilma knew the amounts, the former CEO testified. Not the precise amount, but they had knowledge of the dimension of all our support through the years. Silva and Rousseff have both denied the accusations. Rousseff was impeached and removed from office last year on charges she broke fiscal laws. I dont know what will happen to me, but I am fighting and I will prove that this country can be happy again, Silva said in a radio interview on Thursday. Read more about: SHARE: CHICAGOAirport police officers called to remove a passenger who refused to leave a United Express flight essentially walked into what law enforcement experts say was a no-win situation: enforcing a business decision by a private company. But if the passenger posed no threat and was not being disruptive, officers almost certainly could have tried an approach other than dragging him out of his seat and down the aisle, including simply telling the airline to resolve the situation itself, experts said. Cellphone video of the bloodied passenger, 69-year-old David Dao of Elizabethtown, Ky., has become a public-relations nightmare for United and led to the suspension of three police officers who worked for the Chicago Department of Aviation. The video also underscores a growing dilemma: From airlines to schools, police are called to deal with situations that in the past might have been handled without them, sometimes leading officers to respond with force far beyond the provocation. Police have an innate bias for action, but there are times that its not in their best interest or that of their agency to get involved in an issue that requires you to use a high level of force, said Jim Bueermann, president of the Police Foundation, a Washington D.C.-based research group, and former police chief in Redlands, California. You have to ask whether ... you really needed to use force when doing the airlines bidding. In an interview with ABCs Good Morning America aired Wednesday, the chief executive of United Airlines said the carrier will no longer ask police to remove passengers from full flights. After passengers were already seated on the full flight, United announced that four people needed to get off to make room for employees of a partner airline. When nobody accepted the airlines offer of $800 to relinquish a seat, the airline chose four passengers at random. All but Dao agreed to leave. Its unclear what police were told by the airline about the situation. Screaming can be heard on the videos as Dao is dragged from his window seat and across the armrest, but he is not seen fighting with the officers. He appears relatively passive while being dragged. Later hes seen standing in the aisle saying quietly, I want to go home, I want to go home. But once police were aboard the plane, it would have been difficult to walk away, especially if they did not know why the passenger was asked to leave, said Kevin Murphy, executive director of the Airport Law Enforcement Agencies Network. Once youre there, it becomes tough to disengage. You have an obligation, Murphy said. If someone is saying theyre staying no matter what the property owner says, you have to wonder why they want to try so hard, to stay ... Is there something else going on? But police officers should try to find out what they are going into and to defuse the situation, if possible, experts said. Officers with the Los Angeles Airport Police do not get involved in civil matters such as business disputes between airlines and passengers. They have sometimes refused airlines requests to board planes, said spokesman and police officer Rob Pedregon. We dont just fly into action when someone calls us, he said. Officers will basically find out the whole situation, why were here, get the background and then decide if its within our legal authority. We wouldnt get (someone) off just because the airline wants them off. If a law is broken, then we will take action. The Chicago Department of Aviation swiftly put the officer who removed Dao on leave, saying he had violated standard procedures and that the agency would not tolerate that kind of action. Two more officers were suspended Wednesday. Officials have refused to say what procedures should have been followed. The agency also said that its officers, who are not part of the Chicago Police Department, have limited authority to make an arrest. Officers could have asked themselves whether the airline had an option to reconsider its actions, said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a group that has called for greater restraint from police officers. But the bottom line, he said, is that the airline put the police officers in a difficult situation by expecting them to solve an issue that they had created. It was within their decision-making power to try someone else, Wexler said. The real question is, at what point did the airline think this is no longer their problem and turns this over to the police? He could not solve this issue the way the airline could. At the same time, police frequently overreact when someone defies an order, Bueermann said. They take the bait ... and you dig yourself in a deeper hole, Bueermann said, comparing the United situation to that of a South Carolina police officer seen on cellphone video in 2015 flipping a high school student backward in her desk-chair then dragging her across the classroom after she refused to leave. Everybody reaches a limit ... but police officers are paid in part to use their common sense to resolve a situation. SHARE: The Security Council voted unanimously Thursday to end the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti in mid-October after 13 years, sending a strong signal that the international community believes the impoverished Caribbean nation is stabilizing after successful elections. The peacekeepers helped normalize a country in chaos after political upheaval in 2004 and a devastating 2010 earthquake that killed as many as 300,000 people including the head of the UN mission itself as well as Hurricane Matthew, which caused widespread devastation in October. But they also leave under a cloud. UN troops from Nepal are widely blamed for introducing cholera that has killed at least 9,500 people in Haiti since 2010. And some troops also have been implicated in sexual abuse, including of hungry young children, an issue reported on Wednesday by The Associated Press. The resolution approved by the UNs most powerful body extends the mandate of the mission, known as MINUSTAH, for a final six months during which the 2,370 military personnel will gradually leave. It creates a follow-on peacekeeping mission for an initial period of six months comprising 1,275 police who will continue training the national police force. The new mission will also assist the government in strengthening judicial and legal institutions and engage in human rights monitoring, reporting and analysis. Britains UN Ambassador Matthew Rycrof said the resolution sends a signal that once peacekeepers arent needed, UN missions should close or transform to focus on other challenges. We are at the end of an important phase in Haiti, he said. What we now need is a newly configured mission which is focused on rule of law and human rights. Read more: UN peacekeeping has glaring accountability gaps, documents show The United Nations has been involved in Haiti on and off since 1990. A 2004 rebellion had the country on the brink of collapse, leading to deployment of the UN force, and Haiti has been trying to get its shaky democracy on a firmer foundation ever since. A political crisis and ensuing street protests stemming from a repeatedly derailed 2015 electoral cycle again threatened the stability of the country but an elected president and lawmakers are now in place. The United States has launched a review of all 16 peacekeeping missions to assess costs and effectiveness, and U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley told the Security Council that Haiti is a success story when it comes to drawing down a peacekeeping mission. With the new mission, she said, the Haitian people will be set on the path of independence and self-sufficiency. But citing the AP story, Haley said after the vote that while the departure of the peacekeepers is seen as a success, unfortunately its a nightmare for many in Haiti who will never be able to forget and live with brutal scars. Read more: More than 100 UN peacekeepers ran a child sex ring in Haiti. None were ever jailed At least 134 Sri Lankan peacekeepers exploited nine Haitian children in a sex ring from 2004 to 2007, according to an internal UN report. It was part of a larger AP investigation of UN missions during the past 12 years that found an estimated 2,000 allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation by peacekeepers and UN personnel around the world. These peacekeepers are sent into vulnerable communities to protect the innocent, not to exploit or rape them, Haley said. Countries that refuse to hold their soldiers accountable must recognize that this either stops or their troops will go home and their financial compensation will end. She said the United States and the international community are committed to Haitis democratic development, independence and economic growth and will also continue to push for accountability of UN peacekeeping missions accused of sexual abuse. The Security Council resolution recognized the recent elections as a major milestone towards stabilization. But it also said international support is needed to strengthen, professionalize and reform the police, promote economic development and face the significant humanitarian challenges following Hurricane Matthew, which struck in October. The new mission authorized Thursday by the council, to be known as MINUJUSTH, is also authorized to protect civilians under imminent threat of physical violence. The councils decision was met with conflicting emotions in Haiti, where many fear that dark days of instability will return after the foreign soldiers depart. The reason why we dont have a lot of trouble these days is because the UN people are still around. But once they take off, opportunities will open up for Haitians with guns to make things crazy again, said Gary Guerre, a 27-year-old bank clerk. Some Haitians are anxious that the chronically dismal economy will get even worse. All I know is that having the UN people around helps Haitis economy a little bit. They buy stuff and it makes the foreigners feel like theres order here, said Jivenson Arisme, a 24-year-old entrepreneur who set up a small roadside business selling kites and other items for the Easter holiday. But many Haitian citizens have always seen the multinational peacekeepers as an occupying force and an affront to national sovereignty. They should have been out of here a long time ago. I dont see how theyve been helping Haiti at all. I just see them drive by here like they are on a holiday, said Jean Wilnive, who sells live poultry from a perch near a bustling Port-au-Prince intersection. Aditi Gorur, who researches peacekeeping issues as a director of the Washington-based Stimson Center think-tank, said that a 13-year year stabilization mission may seem like a long time, but creating a stable peace with an inclusive government is a decades-long endeavour in troubled countries. If missions dont stay long enough to secure the gains they make and ensure that the host government is truly ready to manage security, UN member states will pay a much bigger price in the long-term, she said in an email. Read more about: SHARE: Colour us confused. The Trudeau government has introduced a massive piece of legislation that looks very much like the type of omnibus bill it decried when the Conservatives brought in the same thing. And its doing it at the same time its pushing another law that would do away with such parliamentary maneuvers. The opposition calls the whole thing hypocritical. The government replies that its just business as usual. Both appear to be right. The two major parties have been on both sides of this issue over the years. When the Liberals were in power, they found it convenient to package a lot of measures together in one big bill and force it through Parliament to the consternation of the Tories. When the Harper Conservatives got into office, they did the same thing while the Liberals cried foul. The difference this time is that the Trudeau Liberals campaigned on a promise to end this tiresome game, which makes it a lot harder for the opposition to properly examine proposed legislation. We will not resort to legislative tricks to avoid scrutiny, the Liberals vowed in their Real Change 2015 campaign platform. Further, they said: Stephen Harper has used omnibus bills to prevent Parliament from properly reviewing and debating his proposals. We will change the House of Commons Standing Orders to bring an end to this undemocratic practice. Now, though, the government has tabled an extensive budget-implementation bill that tips the scales at 307 pages. It includes a host of measures to put into effect its latest budget, as well as making changes that appear to undermine the independence of the Parliamentary Budget Officer. The opposition calls it an omnibus bill, the very thing the government promised to do away in 2015. And to muddy the waters further, the government has actually floated a series of changes to parliamentary rules that would end omnibus-style legislation. So the bottom line is that a government that promised to end omnibus bills, and has actually proposed changing the rules to do that, is now pushing legislation that appears to be the very thing it ostensibly opposes. Confusing? Yes indeed. For its part, the government says theres nothing to see here. A spokesman for Finance Minister Bill Morneau says the new bill contains no surprises for anyone. Oddly enough, thats exactly what the late Jim Flaherty, Harpers finance minister, said when he was attacked (by Liberals) for bringing in a 443-page omnibus budget bill in 2012. No surprises, he insisted. Cynics may see nothing new in all this. Parties say one thing when in opposition, they will observe, then conveniently change their tune once they are safely installed on the government benches. But the Trudeau government was not elected to add to the sum of political cynicism in the country. It promised Real Change and should deliver just that. It could start by actually following through on its promise to end undemocratic omnibus bills. SHARE: During the Harper years, Canadas reputation as a leader in science took quite a beating. Most famously, the muzzling of government researchers emerged as a national shame, decried by an august array of far-flung publications. Upon taking office, Justin Trudeau moved quickly and rightly to free scientists to share their work. But undoing the damage of the last decade, and fixing Canadas broken science strategy, will require much more than unmuzzling. A long-awaited new report by an independent federal panel, led by former University of Toronto president David Naylor, takes stock of the wreckage and proposes a sensible route to restoration. The Trudeau government should waste no time in following its direction. The panel paints a troubling picture. Federal investment has been in steady decline for a decade. In particular, the funding available for independent, basic science the sort of funding, that is, thats likely to attract the top talent we need to compete in the knowledge economy has shrunk by about 35 per cent per researcher. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the panel found that over the same period our performance in terms of scientific awards, publications and citations stalled relative to our peers. This is in large part the result of the previous governments misguided overhaul of Canadas science policy, which seemed to stem from a misunderstanding of how science and innovation work, and governments role in both. The Harper government essentially transformed much of Canadas research budget into a business subsidy. Again and again, the Conservatives diverted resources from basic research science for no immediate purpose other than furthering knowledge to private-public partnerships aimed at immediate commercial gain. For instance, they transformed the National Research Council, Canadas science agency, from a paragon of basic research into a toolbox for industry. They also introduced the Canada First Research Excellence Fund, a significant investment in university research partially undermined by a typical Harper-era caveat: applicants have to show that they have private-sector co-funders. Similar asterisks are all over Ottawas current science policy. As critics have long pointed out, by abandoning basic research science that no business would pay for the government scorched the very earth from which innovation grows. When the late NRC scientist John Hopps was doing esoteric research on the effects of radio frequency heating on hypothermia, for instance, he never imagined it would lead to his invention of the pacemaker. Only government can foster the robust science culture that will produce the serendipitous discoveries that fuel innovation. With this in mind, the panel gives official voice to a longstanding call of the science community: boost investment in basic research. In particular, it recommends that Ottawa increase the funding base for our four major granting agencies from $3.5 billion to $4.8 billion over the next four years. It also calls for the establishment of an advisory council, which would help coordinate the efforts of granting agencies that currently too often work at cross-purposes. There is some urgency here. By eroding our basic-science culture, Harper squandered a long-held Canadian advantage. As Britain, post-Brexit, and the U.S., post-sanity, each face research cuts, a window for reclaiming that advantage has opened. The Trudeau government has made much of its commitment to science. But beyond the great unmuzzling, it has taken little action, preferring instead, as it so often does, to consult. More than a year into its first mandate, for instance, it still hasnt fulfilled its campaign commitment to appoint a national science adviser. Thats a shame. Such a person would be perfectly placed to urge Trudeau to hurry up and act. Read more about: SHARE: This column originally appeared at 11 ET on Real Money, our premium site for active traders. Click here to get great columns like this from Jim Cramer and other writers even earlier in the trading day. The rise in consumer spending and rapid growth in e-commerce have encouraged Logos Property to start developing logistics space in Indonesia. The company is making its move with backing from two of the largest institutional investors in the world. The entrance of Logos is likely to be the start of several similar announcements. Logistics operators view Indonesia as an untapped and huge market. Its 258 million people rank it behind only China, India and the United States in population globally, but its middle class is only now coming into its own. The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Ivanhoe Cambridge have fronted up $400 million in funding for Indonesian development by Logos, which is also expanding in Singapore thanks to the partnership. In Indonesia, warehouse operators can expect rental yields of 8% to 9%. There are yearly capital gains of around 6% on top of that, bringing total annual returns to around 15%. Logos competitors Global Logistics Properties (GBTZY) from Singapore and the Goodman Group (GMGSF) from Australia both have extensive warehouse operations in China. With growth there slowing, Indonesia and its 5.1% expansion in gross domestic product present an attractive addition to the portfolio. Indonesia is currently the world's eighth-biggest economy. But it will be the fourth-largest by GDP by the year 2050, to match its population, according to Pricewaterhouse Coopers. Indonesia, India and Vietnam will be the "star performers" between now and then, PwC predicts. Ivanhoe Cambridge has also said it is looking at logistics investment in India, which like Indonesia has caught the eye of many an institutional real-estate investor in the last 12 months or so. India is currently the world's fastest-growing major economy, forecast by Oxford Economics to grow 7.2% this year. Indonesia's rate of growth is not far behind China's expected 6.3% economic advance for 2017. As the world's largest archipelago, Indonesia and its 17,000+ islands present a logistical nightmare for manufacturers and transportation companies. Most companies focus largely on Java -- which, with its 141 million residents, is the world's most-populous island. The Indonesian government and President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo are, though, committed to investment in the infrastructure that the country so desperately needs. The government on March 31 concluded a nine-month tax amnesty that resulted in the declaration of $365 billion in assets that will now enter the "proper" economy, and therefore the tax system, from the black market. That, and the removal of a fuel subsidy at the start of Jokowi's tenure, will help fund the infrastructure construction. Indonesia certainly has its quirks. The Indonesian motorbike-hailing app Go-Jek is competing fiercely with its car counterpart, Uber, in a country where it's not unusual to grab a motorbike taxi to get around. Go-Jek and its peers may be the answer to the "last mile" delivery so crucial in logistics, a role filled by courier companies in developing countries such as China. The web of warehouse development in the Asia Pacific region is already a complex one. Sydney-based Logos was founded in 2010 to manage property for the Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC. It has a portfolio of properties in Australia and in China. The Australian investment bank Macquarie Group (MQBKY) , via Macquarie Capital, bought around 40% of Logos in 2014. Ivanhoe Cambridge then reportedly acquired roughly 35% of Logos in March 2016, the rest of the company left in the hands of Macquarie and the Logos founders, both of which sold down. GLP is also backed by GIC, full name the Government of Singapore Investment Corp., which owns 37% of the Singaporean warehouse operator. Encouraged by GIC, GLP has put itself up for sale, with both Blackstone (BX) - Get Free Report and a Chinese consortium led by Beijing-based private-equity manager Hopu Investment among the suitors, according to Reuters. The Chinese consortium invested $2.5 billion in GLP in 2014. Warburg Pincus is the third private-equity bidder for GLP, according to Bloomberg, completing GLP's short list of potential buyers. The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board also backs the Goodman Group, which counts China's sovereign wealth fund, the China Investment Corp., among its largest shareholders. The Dutch pension fund APG Asset Management has also invested in warehouse space through Goodman. Logos said it has identified a "strong pipeline" of development opportunities for modern logistics facilities in Indonesia, and with this move it has opened an office in Jakarta. It recently entered the Singapore market, where it already has two warehouses and a development site. The Canadian backing will also enable expansion in the Lion City. Logos is developing new warehouse facilities to own and operate in Indonesia. But it both develops new and acquires existing warehouses in Singapore. It has found deep-pocketed partners. With $202 billion in assets under management, Canada Pension is the ninth-largest pension plan on the planet, according to the latest ranking from Pensions & Investments magazine and Willis Towers Watson. Ivanhoe Cambridge is the real-estate arm of the Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec, which manages several governmental pension plans for the Canadian province of Quebec. CPPIB and the Caisse are the two largest Canadian pension plans. Their backing has helped fund the Logos purchase for $23 million of a 26-acre (10.7 hectare) industrial property in Bekasi, a city on the eastern edge of the Jakarta suburbs. Logos will then spend another $130 million to develop a three-level warehouse on the plot, which at 1.7 million square feet would be one of the biggest logistics spaces in the country. The first phase of construction should wrap up by the end of next year. Logos is so far restricting its catchment area in Indonesia to greater Jakarta. But the port city of Surabaya, in eastern Java, is a likely second destination for warehouse operators. Beyond that, Bandung in West Java and Medan, on the island of Sumatra in the westernmost province, Aceh, are potential cities for expansion beyond that. Package-delivery companies such as UPS (UPS) - Get Free Report and Deutsche Post (DPSGY) subsidiary DHL Express are natural fits to lease newly developed logistics operations. So, too, are fast-moving consumer goods companies like Unilever (UL) - Get Free Report and Procter & Gamble (PG) - Get Free Report . At the time of publication, Alex McMillan had no positions in the stocks mentioned. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe believes that North Korea may be able to deliver missiles that have been equipped with sarin nerve gas, Reuters reports. His concern comes as North Korea may be getting ready to conduct its sixth nuclear test or launch more missiles. "There is a possibility that North Korea already has a capability to deliver missiles with sarin as warheads," Abe said in front of Parliament Thursday. The coming battle over net neutrality is beginning to take shape, with a trade group including Alphabet's (GOOGL) - Get Free Report , Amazon (AMZN) - Get Free Report , Facebook (FB) - Get Free Report , Netflix (NFLX) - Get Free Report , Snap (SNAP) - Get Free Report and others lobbying the FCC to preserve the Open Internet rules put in place under Obama. The FCC's Open Internet order, adopted in 2015, says that Internet service providers can't block legal content, throttle certain traffic or sell "fast lanes" that give priority to some types of traffic over others. President Trump has been a vocal critic. The rules aim to provide freedom and opportunity for consumers and for online entrepreneurs. However, the planned rollback in the rules would change the balance of power between companies such as AT&T (T) - Get Free Report , Comcast (CMCSA) - Get Free Report , Charter (CHTR) - Get Free Report and Verizon (VZ) - Get Free Report that provide the internet's infrastructure, and the companies such as Google, Facebook and Netflix that profit from that infrastructure. Cord cutting and new Internet-based bundles of pay-TV channels from YouTube and Dish Network (DISH) - Get Free Report are only increasing the stakes, as the network operators lose revenues from their cable TV services and rely more heavily on broadband fees. The Internet Association laid out a number of "light-touch rules" that it wants applied to wireline and wireless broadband networks, in a recent meeting with FCC officials. "The internet industry is uniform in its belief that net neutrality preserves the consumer experience, competition, and innovation online," the group said in a disclosure about the meeting. "In other words, existing net neutrality rules should be enforced and kept intact." Broadband providers should not be able to charge for fast lanes, the group said. Likewise, broadband providers should not be able to create network "choke points" to "artificially slow traffic" or extract "unreasonable tolls from over-the-top providers," which would include services by Netflix, Google's Youtube, Amazon Prime Video. Trump has likened net neutrality to a "fairness doctrine" designed to "target conservative media." White House spokesman Sean Spicer made clear that net neutrality is the next battlefield, vowing to correct the regulatory "overreach" under the Obama administration. Internet services providers could be open to something more nuanced than an outright gutting of net neutrality. Comcast and AT&T have said they actually support key principles of net neutrality such as a ban on selling fast lanes. However, the broadband providers have attacked the Obama FCC's decision to reclassify broadband as a utility, which opens the door for the government to regulate price among other matters. Privacy rules that Obama's FCC put in place are an early casualty in the Trump administration. The administration signed legislation in April that overturned an FCC ruling that put restrictions on how broadband providers sell consumer data. If the Trump administration holds to its policies and succeeds, net neutrality will be next. Alphabet, Facebook and Comcast are holdings in Jim Cramer's Action Alerts PLUS Charitable Trust Portfolio. Want to be alerted before Cramer buys or sells GOOGL, FB or CMCSA? Learn more now. Wall Street (and journalists) love the idea of a dazzling megadeal, and its latest iteration, which considers the long-rumored possibility of a tie-up between Apple (AAPL) - Get Free Report and Disney (DIS) - Get Free Report , seems almost irresistible. It's not hard to think of reasons why an Apple-Disney deal would make sense, but as several analysts have pointed out, there would be a lot of complicated moving parts involved in making it happen. RBC Capital Markets analyst Amit Daryanani, who explored the possibility in a note to clients on Thursday, doesn't seem very convinced, assigning a very small likelihood of a deal actually getting done (in his words, the possibility is merely "greater than zero %"). Still, Daryanani said Apple could be willing to pay more than $200 billion for Disney, whose current market cap is about $180 billion, and argues that investors are warming up to the idea. (TheStreet's Jim Cramer discussed the enormous appeal of thinking and writing about an Apple/Disney mega-deal in a column for Real Money on Thursday). "Our conversations suggest that investors are giving such a transaction far more consideration than they were three or six months ago," Daryanani wrote. "Tax legislation would likely move expectations higher and could be a material trading event for the stocks." Apple, whose current market cap is almost $745 billion, stands to be a big winner if President Donald Trump follows through on his plans for a tax holiday, which could result in the tech giant bringing more than $200 billion in offshore cash back to the U.S. Several analysts have said that Apple could use the repatriated money to buy back shares and increase its dividend payout. But another, certainly more eye-catching, option would be for Apple to pursue some sort of M&A. CEO Tim Cook has signaled previously that the company is open to the idea of M&A and is thinking about ways it could "play" in the original content business. "There's not a size that we would not do, based on just the size of it. It's more the strategic value of it," Cook said on the company's first-quarter earnings call. "...We're learning a lot about the original content business, and thinking about ways that we could play in that." Apple's interest in M&A and original content has caused many analysts to speculate what a combined Apple and Disney could look like. According to Daryanani, the combined company would have a market cap approaching $920 billion, putting it that much closer to beating Amazon (AMZN) - Get Free Report and Alphabet (GOOGL) - Get Free Report in the race to be the first company to reach a $1 trillion valuation. And it would create a megalith of a technology and media company with more than 300,000 employees. "The question becomes does Apple have the capacity to manage both companies?" said Nelson Wu, managing director at investment advisory firm Open Square Capital. "I think some Apple executives could cross over and be able to manage some of Disney's production capabilities like television and other media." Apple and Alphabet are holdings in Jim Cramer'sAction Alerts PLUS Charitable Trust Portfolio. Want to be alerted before Cramer buys or sells AAPL or GOOGL? Learn more now. Apple already has some consumer brand-focused executives on its payroll, such as senior vice president of retail Angela Ahrendts who is a former CEO of Burberry (BURBY) , that would mesh well with Disney, Wu noted. Moreover, Disney CEO Bob Iger has also been a member of Apple's board of directors for six years, meaning that the companies "know each other really well," said Francis McInerney, managing director of consulting firm North River Ventures. Loup Ventures analyst Gene Munster said a $200 billion deal would be out of character for Apple, however. "[There's a] 0% chance Apple buys Disney," Munster explained. "The reason is Apple buys smaller companies and builds them into bigger things." Apple's largest acquisition to date has been its $2.2 billion acquisition of high-end headphone maker Beats Inc in 2014. Besides that, other notable deals include its purchase of chipmaker P.A. Semi for $278 million in 2008 and fingerprint sensor technology producer AuthenTec for $356 million, Munster noted. Even if Apple doesn't attempt to purchase Disney, Munster believes the tech giant will increase its investment in content somehow over the next five years. That said, Apple's interest in content is the backbone for why a Disney deal would make sense, Wu noted. Apple has gradually signaled that it wants to rely less on the iPhone as its core revenue source. Currently, the iPhone generates about 60% of Apple's revenue, Wu said. "They have to release an entirely new iteration each year and if [profits] don't collapse on one iteration, probably about half could dissolve if it doesn't go over well," Wu noted. "If they're able to do this deal...it insulates them from the tech market. It frees them up to focus more on content distribution." A Disney deal would allow Apple to "instantly leapfrog" Netflix (NFLX) - Get Free Report, Amazon and Google's YouTube in terms of original content, Daryanani said, which is an attractive proposition given Apple's prior failed attempts to enter the streaming content market. "Should Apple decide that content creation and ownership is in fact strategic, then Disney could be a one-stop shop for leadership-level content capability given the strength of Disney's intellectual property," Daryanani explained. "And of course, given Apple's cash, it's one of the few companies that could actually contemplate acquiring Disney." 3-star Hotel Mulberry to open on Friday Newly-constructed Hotel Mulberry, located at the tourist hub of Thamel, will throw open its doors on Friday. The nine-storey tall three-star property offers 67 rooms. AGCO Corporation manufactures and distributes agricultural equipment and related replacement parts worldwide. It offers horsepower tractors for row crop production, soil cultivation, planting, land leveling, seeding, and commercial hay operations; utility tractors for small- and medium-sized farms, as well as for dairy, livestock, orchards, and vineyards; and compact tractors for small farms, specialty agricultural industries, landscaping, equestrian, and residential uses. The company also provides grain storage bins and related drying and handling equipment systems; seed-processing systems; swine and poultry feed storage and delivery; ventilation and watering systems; and egg production systems and broiler production equipment. In addition, it offers round and rectangular balers, loader wagons, self-propelled windrowers, forage harvesters, disc mowers, spreaders, rakes, tedders, and mower conditioners for harvesting and packaging vegetative feeds used in the beef cattle, dairy, horse, and renewable fuel industries. Further, the company provides implements, including disc harrows leveling seed beds and mixing chemicals with the soils; heavy tillage to break up soil and mix crop residue into topsoil; field cultivators that prepare smooth seed bed and destroy weeds; drills for small grain seeding; planters and other planting equipment; and loaders. Additionally, it offers combines for harvesting grain crops, such as corn, wheat, soybeans, and rice; and application equipment, such as self-propelled, three- and four-wheeled vehicles, and related equipment for liquid and dry fertilizers and crop protection chemicals, and for after crops emerge from the ground, as well as produces diesel engines, gears, and generating sets. The company markets its products under the Challenger, Fendt, GSI, Massey Ferguson, and Valtra brands through a network of independent dealers and distributors. AGCO Corporation was founded in 1990 and is headquartered in Duluth, Georgia. Weatherford International plc, an oilfield service company, provides equipment and services for the drilling, evaluation, completion, production, and intervention of oil and natural gas wells worldwide. The company operates in two segments, Western Hemisphere and Eastern Hemisphere. It offers artificial lift systems, including reciprocating rod, progressing cavity pumping, gas, hydraulic, plunger, and hybrid lift systems, as well as related automation and control systems; pressure pumping and reservoir stimulation services, such as acidizing, fracturing and fluid systems, cementing, and coiled-tubing intervention; and drill stem test tools, and surface well testing and multiphase flow measurement services. The company also provides safety, downhole reservoir monitoring, flow control, and multistage fracturing systems, as well as sand-control technologies, and production and isolation packers; liner hangers to suspend a casing string in high-temperature and high-pressure wells; cementing products, including plugs, float and stage equipment, and torque-and-drag reduction technology for zonal isolation; and pre-job planning and installation services. In addition, it offers directional drilling services, and logging and measurement services while drilling; services related to rotary-steerable systems, high-temperature and high-pressure sensors, drilling reamers, and circulation subs; managed pressure drilling, conventional mud-logging, drilling instrumentation, gas analysis, wellsite consultancy, and open hole and cased-hole logging services; reservoir solutions and software products; and intervention and remediation services. Further, the company provides equipment and drilling tools; tubular handling, management, and connection services; equipment rental services; and onshore contract drilling and related services through a fleet of land drilling and workover rigs. Weatherford International plc was incorporated in 1972 and is headquartered in Baar, Switzerland. Anger after Russia protects Syria at UN Russia has vetoed a draft resolution at the UN Security Council that would have condemned last week's alleged chemical attack in Syria and demanded that Damascus cooperate with investigators. Greek State receives 1.234 billion upfront payment - Fraport Greece will further invest about 400 million for improving and expanding the airports' infrastructure by 2021 - Focus on enhancing facilities, operational processes and the passenger experience - Single largest expansion of Fraport Group's international airport portfolio says CEO Schulte Fraport Greece (73.4 percent owned by the Frankfurt based airport operator Fraport AG and 26.6 percent by Copelouzos Group) today commenced the 40-year concession for managing and developing 14 regional airports on the Greek mainland and popular holiday islands - a mamoth investment for the country's infrastructure and economically vital tourism sector. Following the operational transfer of the airports, Fraport Greece today paid the upfront concession fee of 1.234 billion - the biggest concession fee in Greece's history - to the state-owned Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund (HRADF). Along with this upfront fee, an annual fixed concession fee of 22.9 million will be paid to the Greek State, as well as a variable annual fee based on 28.5 percent of Fraport Greece's yearly operational profit (EBITDA - earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization). Actual ownership of the airports is retained by Greece. Dr. Stefan Schulte, Fraport AG's executive board chairman explained: "Since being selected as the winning bidder for the Greek Regional Airports in 2014, we have remained steadfastly committed to this visionary project. We believe in Greece and its potential as one of the greatest travel destinations in the world. The goal of Fraport Greece is to enhance the travel experience for visitors from around the world - by upgrading and expanding facilities and by improving operational processes, shopping and services. Today is a great day for Greece and its people. It is also an important day for us because Fraport Greece is the single largest expansion of our airport portfolio and a milestone in further growing our international business." Currently, Fraport generates more than 20 percent of its annual revenue through its portfolio of international airports and subsidiaries, bundled in the company's External Activities & Services business segment. With the operational transfer of the Greek airports, the Fraport Group will significantly enlarge its international activities, further broaden its worldwide footprint and reduce dependency on the development in single regions or markets. The 14 Greek regional airports served a total of 25.3 million passengers in 2016, an increase by nine percent year-on-year. Fraport Greece will operate, manage and develop the airports over the next four decades - with responsibility for aviation as well as non-aviation areas. The mainland airports include Aktion (PVK), Kavala (KVA) and Thessaloniki (SKG), Greece's second largest city. The eleven island airports are located in Kerkyra/Corfu (CFU), Chania/Crete (CHQ), Kefalonia (EFL), Kos (KGS), Mytilene/Lesvos (MJT), Mykonos (JMK), Rhodes (RHO), Samos (KGS), Santorini (JTR), Skiathos (JSI) and Zakynthos (ZTH). Alexander Zinell, Fraport Greece's CEO, emphasized: "Today marks the beginning of a new era for the 14 Greek regional airports. Within only twelve months we have created Fraport Greece, a world-class airport operator with over 500 highly motivated staff eager to move each of the 14 airports forward into the future. We will develop and manage the airports for the benefit of passengers and airlines - for all stakeholders. These mainland and island gateways will act as a catalyst of growth for Greek tourism as well as other industries. Well-managed airports have been proven to serve as dynamic economic engines for their regions. We appreciate the outstanding support received throughout Greece and look forward to the challenges and opportunties ahead." Under the concession agreement, Fraport Greece will be investing about 400 million for improving and expanding the airports' infrastructure over the next 48 months. Hence, Fraport Greece recently signed an agreement with the Greek-based Intrakat construction and engineering company to refurbish, expand and build new facilities at the 14 airports - including five new passenger terminals. In subsequent years, Fraport Greece will make investments for maintenance and demand-driven capacity expansions. Approximately 1 billion in long-term financing for the Greek Regional Airports project is being provided by a consortium of leading financial institutions. Some 280.4 million of the total loan will be used to finance construction projects at the 14 airports, while 688 million will be used as part of the upfront concession payment to HRADF. Fraport Greece recently raised its total equity capital to 650 million. Daily News Delivery Join your colleagues and stay up to date on the latest Travel industry news and trends. Subscribe 2022 Travel Industry Wire - Lucy Gichuhi has become the first Kenyan to be elected Senator in Australia - She was elected after the Australian High Court declared Bod Day- a senator-ineligible to hold office - The former senator reportedly resigned last November and cited the liquidation of his building companies as the primary reason Lucy Gichuhi, born in Kenya, has become the first Kenyan to be elected as senator in Australia following a successful votes recount. READ ALSO: President Uhuru Kenyatta gets endorsement in the HEART of Railas stronghold She is the first candidate of African descent to be elected to the federal parliament. The high court will not be tasked with announcing her as the winner after considering among other things, questions raised about her citizenship. "I am honoured and grateful for this opportunity to serve Australia. I see it as an opportunity to give back to this great nation," Gichuhi told ABC news Gichuhi, a lawyer, reminisced of her past, growing on the slopes of Mt Kenya, walking barefoot to school and sharing abed with her 8 sisters. Lucy Gichuhi and her husband during their wedding She moved to Australia with her husband 19 years ago and joined politics after studying for her law degree. READ ALSO: FEAR after police discover 5 bullet riddled bodies in a thicket At the election in 2016, Gichuhi came second after Day and was considered eligible after Day resigned. The only thing holding her back is whether she was holding a dual citizenship at the time of the election. Gichuhi joined politics after completing her law degree READ ALSO: Jubilee accused of trying to influence ODM nominations in Ababu Namwamba's constituency Her election to the federal parliament brings to mind the United States tale where the Kenyan born Barack Obama grew from the Illinois senator to occupy the oval office. Is Gichuhi the next female Obama? See some of the reactions on social media: Also watch, Gladys Kamande tells her powerful story . Source: TUKO.co.ke - Raila Odinga took to social media to mourn the late David Mwiraria - Mwiraria died on Thursday, April 13, after battling cancer for years - Raila mourned Mwiraria as an honest man with a heart for public service - This is in spite of Raila calling for Mwiraria's resignation after he was implicated in the theft of KSh 7 billion years ago ODM leader Raila Odinga mourned former cabinet minister David Mwiraria as an honest and hardworking man prior to his death on Thursday, April 13. The late Mwiraria passed away after battling cancer for years. On behalf of my family, our party the Orange Democratic Movement and the Opposition coalition, I wish to pass sincere condolences to Hon. Mwirarias family at this trying moment, READ ALSO: Uhuru's party hands his employees mum a direct ticket The late David Mwiraria READ ALSO: More setbacks in Busia as residents DECLINE to vote unless Raila Odinga does this "I had the honour to serve with Hon. Mwiraria as fellow Member of Parliament and later as members of the Cabinet. He was an honest and diligent public servant with the interests of the nation at heart, "I will remember fondly the work we did together of reforming critical institutions like the Kenya Revenue Authority, public procurement and infrastructure financing and delivery when the National Rainbow Coalition took power in 2002, "It is Hon. Mwirarias diligence and commitment as Finance Minister that made all the difference with regard to delivering NARCs promises on key sectors of the economy as we raced to fulfill our pledges against a background of an economy that had gone to the dogs, READ ALSO: Will Joho vie in August after fake KCSE certificate? Court makes decision ODM party leader Raila Odinga Subscribe to Tuko youtube channel to watch more interesting videos! "My prayers are with the family at this hour of grief, wrote Raila. However, it will be remembered that Raila was at the forefront f politicians who called for the resignation of Mwiraria after he was implicated in the Anglo Leasing scandal. Kenyans lost KSh 7 billion in fictitious security deals that would have seen the county get a forensic lab at the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, an ocean vessel and better communication equipment for police among 18 other projects. READ ALSO: This new photo of undressed Janet has left Kenyans surprised (photo) CID was renamed to Directorate of Criminal Investigations. This begs the question, why would Raila Odinga honour him now as an honorable, honest man with the publics interests at heart? Have something to add to this article? Send to news@tuko.co.ke Watch the video below of what Kenyans think of the ongoing party nominations: Source: TUKO.co.ke Militants launched 61 attacks on positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in ATO area in Donbas over the past day. This is reported by the ATO press center. In Mariupol direction, the enemy used 120mm and 82mm mortars, grenade launchers of different systems and heavy machine guns to shell Ukrainian positions in Marinka (35 km south-west of Donetsk). Ukrainian marines near Vodiane (16km north-west of Donetsk) came under grenade launcher and heavy machine gun fire. In Donetsk direction, Russian-backed militants fired at Opytne (11.5km north-west of Donetsk), using 120mm and 82mm mortars. In addition, terrorists used 82mm mortars, grenade launchers, heavy machine guns to fire at ATO troops outside Avdiivka (18km north of Donetsk). In Luhansk direction, Ukrainian positions near Krymske (42.5km north-west of Luhansk) came under antitank grenade launcher fire. Militants also used grenade launchers to fire at Novooleksandrivka (65km west of Luhansk). ish Vice Prime Minister - Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration of Moldova Andrei Galbur at a meeting with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin thanked Ukraine for its assistance in settlement of the Transnistrian conflict. The meeting was held on the sidelines of the meeting of the Eastern Partnership, the Visegrad Four and some EU countries in Warsaw, the press service of the Foreign Ministry reported. "The sides confirmed mutual support for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine and Moldova. Galbur expressed his gratitude to Ukraine for its assistance in the process of the Transnistrian settlement," the statement said. The ministers discussed the development of the border infrastructure, as well as the introduction of a joint control at the central border section between the states. ish Auditor generals office questions Ncell deal The Office of the Auditor General (OAG) has become the first state agency to flag the taxmans incompetency in collecting tax amount due from the sale of Ncell, saying that concerned government authorities failed to determine the capital gains tax worth billions of rupees on the largest corporate buyout deal in the countrys history. Cargo tracking system to be launched in June The government plans to implement an electronic cargo tracking system for Nepal-bound shipments at Indian ports from June in a bid to slash the cost of trading. Current account deficit at over Rs6b The countrys current account deficit stood at Rs6.3 billion in the first eight months of the current fiscal year, as imports surged and inflow of remittance income decelerated. Population Recommendation Grade Men ages 55 to 69 years The USPSTF recommends that clinicians inform men ages 55 to 69 years about the potential benefits and harms of prostate-specific antigen (PSA)based screening for prostate cancer. The decision about whether to be screened for prostate cancer should be an individual one. Screening offers a small potential benefit of reducing the chance of dying of prostate cancer. However, many men will experience potential harms of screening, including false-positive results that require additional testing and possible prostate biopsy; overdiagnosis and overtreatment; and treatment complications, such as incontinence and impotence. The USPSTF recommends individualized decisionmaking about screening for prostate cancer after discussion with a clinician, so that each man has an opportunity to understand the potential benefits and harms of screening and to incorporate his values and preferences into his decision. Please refer to the Clinical Considerations sections on screening in African American men and men with a family history of prostate cancer for more information on these higher-risk populations. C Men age 70 years and older The USPSTF recommends against PSA-based screening for prostate cancer in men age 70 years and older. D Comparing different screening strategies, including different screening intervals, to fully understand the effects on benefits and harms. Developing, validating, and providing longer-term followup of screening and diagnostic techniques, including risk stratification tools, use of baseline PSA level as a risk factor, and use of non-PSAbased adjunctive tests that can distinguish nonprogressive and slowly progressive cancer from cancer that is likely to become symptomatic and affect quality or length of life, to reduce overdiagnosis and overtreatment. Screening for and treatment of prostate cancer in African American men, including understanding the potential benefits and harms of different starting ages and screening intervals and the use of active surveillance; given the large disparities in prostate cancer mortality in African American men, this should be a national priority. How to better inform men with a family history of prostate cancer about the benefits and harms of PSA-based screening for prostate cancer, including the potential differences in outcomes between men with relatives who died of prostate cancer and men with relatives diagnosed with prostate cancer who died of other causes. How to refine active prostate cancer treatments to minimize harms. How to better understand patient values about the known benefits and harms of screening for and treatment of prostate cancer; how these values influence mens assessment of the overall benefit versus harm; how to best implement informed decisionmaking programs that incorporate the values and preferences of men and their families about screening; how to adapt the informed decisionmaking process to a range of diverse patient populations as screening, diagnosis, and treatment strategies evolve; and the effects of informed decisionmaking on health outcomes and patient experience. Number of Men Affected Men invited to screening 1,000 Men who receive at least 1 positive PSA test result 240 Men who have 1 or more transrectal prostate biopsies 220 Men hospitalized for a biopsy complication 2 Men diagnosed with prostate cancer 100 Men who initially receive active treatment with radical prostatectomy or radiation therapy 65 Men who initially receive active surveillance 30 Men who initially receive active surveillance who go on to receive active treatment with radical prostatectomy or radiation therapy 15 Men with sexual dysfunction who received initial or deferred treatment 60 Men with urinary incontinence who received initial or deferred treatment 15 Men who avoid metastatic prostate cancer 3 Men who die of causes other than prostate cancer 200 Men who die of prostate cancer despite screening, diagnosis, and treatment 5 Men who avoid dying of prostate cancer 1 to 2 National Cancer Institute. Cancer stat facts: prostate cancer. https://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/prost.htmlThis link goes offsite. Click to read the external link disclaimer. Accessed March 2, 2017. Jahn JL, Giovannucci EL, Stampfer MJ. The high prevalence of undiagnosed prostate cancer at autopsy: implications for epidemiology and treatment of prostate cancer in the prostate-specific antigen-era. Int J Cancer. 2015;137(12):2795-802. Fenton JJ, Weyrich MS, Durbin S, Liu Y, Bang H, Melnikow J. Prostate-Specific AntigenBased Screening for Prostate Cancer: A Systematic Evidence Review for the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Evidence Synthesis No. 154. AHRQ Publication No. 17-05229-EF-1. Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; 2017. Kilpelainen TP, Tammela TL, Roobol M, et al. False-positive screening results in the European randomized study of screening for prostate cancer. Eur J Cancer. 2011;47(18):2698-705. Lin JS, Petitti DB, Burda BU. Overview of Prostate Cancer Screening Decision Models: A Contextual Review for the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. AHRQ Publication No. 17-05229-EF-2. Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; 2017. Pinsky P, Prorok P, Yu K, et al. Extended mortality results for prostate cancer screening in the PLCO trial with median follow-up of 15 years. Cancer. 2017;123(4):592-9. Schroder FH, Hugosson J, Roobol MJ, et al; ERSPC Investigators. Screening and prostate cancer mortality: results of the European Randomised Study of Screening for Prostate Cancer (ERSPC) at 13 years of follow-up. Lancet. 2014;384(9959):2027-35. Schroder FH, Hugosson J, Carlsson S, et al. Screening for prostate cancer decreases the risk of developing metastatic disease: findings from the European Randomized Study of Screening for Prostate Cancer (ERSPC). Eur Urol. 2012;62(5):745-52. Pinsky PF, Parnes HL, Andriole G. Mortality and complications after prostate biopsy in the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian Cancer Screening (PLCO) trial. BJU Int. 2014;113(2):254-9. Hamdy FC, Donovan JL, Lane JA, et al; ProtecT Study Group. 10-Year outcomes after monitoring, surgery, or radiotherapy for localized prostate cancer. N Engl J Med. 2016;375(15):1415-24. Cooperberg MR, Carroll PR. Trends in management for patients with localized prostate cancer, 1990-2013. JAMA. 2015;314(1):80-2. Andriole GL, Crawford ED, Grubb RL 3rd, et al. Mortality results from a randomized prostate-cancer screening trial. N Engl J Med. 2009;360(13):1310-9. Lichtenstein P, Holm NV, Verkasalo PK, et al. Environmental and heritable factors in the causation of canceranalyses of cohorts of twins from Sweden, Denmark, and Finland. N Engl J Med. 2000;343(2):78-85. Saarimaki L, Tammela TL, Maattanen L, Taari K, Kujala PM, Raitanen J, Auvinen A. Family history in the Finnish Prostate Cancer Screening Trial. Int J Cancer. 2015 May 1;136(9):2172-7. National Cancer Institute. Genetics of prostate cancer (PDQ)health professional version. https://www.cancer.gov/types/prostate/hp/prostate-genetics-pdqThis link goes offsite. Click to read the external link disclaimer. Accessed March 2, 2017. Liss MA, Chen H, Hemal S, et al. Impact of family history on prostate cancer mortality in white men undergoing prostate specific antigen based screening. J Urol. 2015;193(1):75-9. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. United States cancer statistics: 19992013 cancer incidence and mortality data. https://nccd.cdc.gov/uscs/This link goes offsite. Click to read the external link disclaimer. Accessed March 2, 2017. Ryerson AB, Eheman CR, Altekruse SF, et al. Annual report to the nation on the status of cancer, 19752012, featuring the increasing incidence of liver cancer. Cancer. 2016;122(9):1312-37. Petitti DB, Lin JS, Burda BU. Overdiagnosis in Prostate Cancer Screening Decision Models: A Contextual Review for the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. AHRQ Publication No. 17-05229-EF-3. Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; 2017. Kilpelainen TP, Tammela TL, Malila N, et al. Prostate cancer mortality in the Finnish randomized screening trial. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2013;105(10):719-25. Arnsrud Godtman R, Holmberg E, Lilja H, Stranne J, Hugosson J. Opportunistic testing versus organized prostate-specific antigen screening: outcome after 18 years in the Goteborg randomized population-based prostate cancer screening trial. Eur Urol. 2015;68(3):354-60. Wolters T, Roobol MJ, Steyerberg EW, et al. The effect of study arm on prostate cancer treatment in the large screening trial ERSPC. Int J Cancer. 2010;126(10):2387-93. Pinsky PF, Blacka A, Kramer BS, Miller A, Prorok PC, Berg C. Assessing contamination and compliance in the prostate component of the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening Trial. Clin Trials. 2010;7(4):303-11. Bill-Axelson A, Holmberg L, Garmo H, et al. Radical prostatectomy or watchful waiting in early prostate cancer. N Engl J Med. 2014;370(10):932-42. Wilt TJ, Brawer MK, Jones KM, et al; Prostate Cancer Intervention versus Observation Trial (PIVOT) Study Group. Radical prostatectomy versus observation for localized prostate cancer. N Engl J Med. 2012;367(3):203-13. Rosario DJ, Lane JA, Metcalfe C, et al. Short term outcomes of prostate biopsy in men tested for cancer by prostate specific antigen: prospective evaluation within ProtecT study. BMJ. 2012;344:d7894. Walter LC, Fung KZ, Kirby KA, et al. Five-year downstream outcomes following prostate-specific antigen screening in older men. JAMA Intern Med. 2013;173(10):866-73. Raaijmakers R, Kirkels WJ, Roobol MJ, Wildhagen MF, Schrder FH. Complication rates and risk factors of 5802 transrectal ultrasound-guided sextant biopsies of the prostate within a population-based screening program. Urology. 2002;60(5):826-30. Hoffman RM, Hunt WC, Gilliland FD, Stephenson RA, Potosky AL. Patient satisfaction with treatment decisions for clinically localized prostate carcinoma. Results from the Prostate Cancer Outcomes Study. Cancer. 2003;97(7):1653-62. Donovan JL, Hamdy FC, Lane JA, et al; ProtecT Study Group. Patient-reported outcomes after monitoring, surgery, or radiotherapy for prostate cancer. N Engl J Med. 2016;375(15):1425-37. Johansson E, Steineck G, Holmberg L, et al; SPCG-4 Investigators. Long-term quality-of-life outcomes after radical prostatectomy or watchful waiting: the Scandinavian Prostate Cancer Group-4 randomised trial. Lancet Oncol. 2011;12(9):891-9. U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Screening for prostate cancer: U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommendation statement. Ann Intern Med. 2012;157(2):120-34. American Academy of Family Physicians. Clinical preventive service recommendation: prostate cancer. 2012. http://www.aafp.org/patient-care/clinical-recommendations/all/prostate-cancer.html Accessed April12, 2017. Bell N, Connor Gorber S, Shane A, et al; Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care. Recommendations on screening for prostate cancer with the prostate-specific antigen test. CMAJ. 2014;186(16):1225-34. Qaseem A, Barry MJ, Denberg TD, Owens DK, Shekelle P; Clinical Guidelines Committee of the American College of Physicians. Screening for prostate cancer: a guidance statement from the Clinical Guidelines Committee of the American College of Physicians. Ann Intern Med. 2013;158(10):761-9. Carter HB, Albertsen PC, Barry MJ, et al. Early detection of prostate cancer: AUA Guideline. J Urol. 2013;190(2):419-26. American Cancer Society. American Cancer Society recommendations for prostate cancer early detection. 2016. https://www.cancer.org/cancer/prostate-cancer/early-detection/acs-recommendations.html Accessed April 12, 2017. Prostate cancer is one of the most common cancers that affects men. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that more than 2.5 million American men were diagnosed and living with prostate cancer in 2013.Many men with prostate cancer never experience symptoms, and without screening, would never know that they have it. In autopsy studies of men who died of other causes, more than 20% of men ages 50 to 59 years and more than one third of men ages 70 to 79 years were found to have prostate cancer.In some men, the cancer is more aggressive and leads to death. In the United States, more than 25,000 men died of prostate cancer in 2016. The median age of death from prostate cancer is 80 years, and more than two thirds of all men who die of prostate cancer are older than age 75 years.Screening for prostate cancer begins with a test that measures the amount of PSA protein in the blood. An elevated PSA level may be caused by prostate cancer but can also be caused by other conditions, including an enlarged prostate (benign prostatic hyperplasia) and inflammation of the prostate (prostatitis). Some men without prostate cancer may therefore have positive screening results (or "false-positive" results). Men with a positive PSA test may have a transrectal ultrasound-guided core-needle biopsy of the prostate to diagnose prostate cancer.Current methods cannot definitively distinguish between cancer that is likely to be aggressive and metastasize and cancer that will not progress or will progress so slowly that the patient will not experience symptoms.The goal of screening for prostate cancer is to identify high-risk, localized prostate cancer that can be successfully treated, thereby preventing the morbidity and mortality associated with advanced or metastatic prostate cancer.Adequate evidence from randomized clinical trials shows that PSA-based screening programs in men ages 55 to 69 years may prevent up to 1 to 2 deaths from prostate cancer over approximately 13 years per 1,000 men screened.Screening programs may also prevent up to 3 cases of metastatic prostate cancer per 1,000 men screened over 13 years.Adequate evidence from randomized clinical trials is consistent with no mortality benefit of PSA-based screening for prostate cancer in men age 70 years and older.Potential harms of screening include frequent false-positive results. One major trial in men screened every 2 to 4 years concluded that, over 10 years, more than 15% of men experienced at least one false-positive test result.Harms of diagnostic procedures include complications of prostate biopsy, such as pain, hematospermia (blood in semen or ejaculate), and infection. Approximately 1% of prostate biopsies result in complications requiring hospitalization. The false-positive and complication rates from biopsy are higher in older men.Adequate evidence suggests that the harms of screening and diagnostic procedures are at least small.PSA-based screening for prostate cancer leads to the diagnosis of prostate cancer in some men whose cancer would never have become symptomatic during their lifetime. Treatment of these men provides them with no benefit. This is known as overdiagnosis, and followup of large randomized trials suggests that 20% to 50% of men diagnosed with prostate cancer through screening may be overdiagnosed.Due to, in part, reduced life expectancy and delays in treatment benefits, overdiagnosis rates increase with age and are highest in men age 70 years and older.Harms of prostate cancer treatment include sexual impotence, urinary incontinence, and bothersome bowel symptoms. About 1 in 5 men who have a radical prostatectomy develop long-term urinary incontinence requiring diaper use and more than 2 in 3 men experience long-term sexual impotence. More than half of men who have radiation therapy experience long-term sexual impotence and up to 1 in 6 men experience long-term bothersome bowel symptoms, including bowel urgency and fecal incontinence.Adequate evidence suggests that the harms of overdiagnosis and treatment are at least moderate.PSA-based screening for prostate cancer has both potential benefits and harms. The USPSTF does not recommend automatically screening all men for prostate cancer. The decision about whether to be screened for prostate cancer requires that each man incorporate his own values and preferences with an understanding of the potential benefits and harms of screening. The potential harms of screening, diagnostic procedures, and treatment occur soon after screening takes place. While the potential benefits may occur any time after screening, they generally occur years after treatment, because progression from asymptomatic, screen-detected cancer to symptomatic, metastasized cancer or death (if it occurs at all) may take years or decades.The USPSTF considered whether there are screening and followup approaches that increase the potential for benefit while reducing the potential for harms. Variation across sites in randomized trials of screening suggests there may be greater mortality benefit from screening every other year compared with longer intervals and from using lower PSA thresholds for diagnostic biopsy. Although these approaches may have increased the potential benefit reported in studies, they also resulted in substantially more harmsmore false-positive results, more prostate biopsies, and more cases of overdiagnosis. This tradeoff was also observed in a review of decision analysis models; screening protocols using lower PSA thresholds (<4.0 ng/mL) for biopsy and more frequent screening intervals offered greater potential reductions in prostate-specific mortality but higher rates of overdiagnosis and other harms.Although new screening methods are being developed (such as single- and adjusted-threshold testing, PSA velocity and doubling time), evidence is insufficient to support one method of PSA-based screening over another. Evidence is also insufficient that using a prebiopsy risk calculator, with or without measurement of free PSA levels, meaningfully changes the potential benefits and harms of screening or that using genetic or adjunctive imaging tests meaningfully changes the potential benefits and harms of screening. This is an important area of current research that has the potential to decrease the harms of PSA-based screening for prostate cancer.The USPSTF concludes with moderate certainty that, overall, the potential benefits and harms of PSA-based screening for prostate cancer in men ages 55 to 69 years are closely balanced. Each mans individual values and preferences will determine whether he feels that the overall balance of potential benefits and harms is positive or negative.The USPSTF concludes with moderate certainty that the potential benefits of PSA-based screening for prostate cancer in men age 70 years and older do not outweigh the expected harms.This recommendation applies to adult men in the general U.S. population without symptoms or a previous diagnosis of prostate cancer. It also applies to men at increased risk of death from prostate cancer due to race or family history of prostate cancer. Please see the sections below for more information on how this recommendation applies to African American men and men with a family history of prostate cancer.This recommendation does not apply to the use of the PSA test for surveillance after diagnosis or treatment of prostate cancer.PSA-based screening for prostate cancer has been studied in two very large randomized clinical trials with more than a decade of followup: the European Randomized Study of Screening for Prostate Cancer (ERSPC) and the U.S.-based Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening Trial. These two trials used varying screening intervals (every 1 to 4 years) and PSA thresholds (2.5 to 10.0 ng/mL) for diagnostic biopsy.The PLCO trial may be viewed as a trial of organized versus opportunistic screening for prostate cancer because of the substantial screening rate in the control group and the high rate of screening in men in both the control and intervention groups prior to the study. Men in the intervention group were screened more often than men in the control group, and more men in the intervention group were diagnosed with prostate cancer than in the control group. The trial found no difference between groups in death from prostate cancer after almost 15 years of followup (relative risk [RR], 1.04 [95% confidence interval (CI), 0.87 to 1.24]).Overall, in the ERSPC trial, the results suggest that screening 781 men ages 55 to 69 years at enrollment (95% CI, 490 to 1,929) would prevent 1 man from dying of prostate cancer after 13 years. The results varied substantially across the individual ERSPC sites, from no significant benefit observed in Finland (the largest site) to an absolute risk reduction of 0.72% (95% CI, 0.50 to 0.94) in Sweden (a 42% relative reduction).No ERSPC trial site offered screening more often than every 2 years, and many sites screened every 4 years.Four ERSPC trial sites reported data on the effect of PSA-based screening for prostate cancer on the development of metastatic cancer after 12 years of followup. Among men randomized to screening, the risk of developing metastatic prostate cancer was 30% lower than among men in the control group. This translates to an absolute reduction in the long-term risk of metastatic prostate cancer of 3.1 cases per 1,000 men screened.Based on clinical stage, tumor grade, and PSA level, prostate cancer is classified as low, medium, or high risk for clinical progression and prostate cancer death. While treatment is thought to be most immediately beneficial for men with high- and medium-risk prostate cancer, the vast majority of cases of screen-detected cancer are low risk.As with all screening tests, some men without prostate cancer will receive positive PSA test results. This is called a false positive. The false-positive rate for the PSA test depends on the PSA threshold used. Among five ERSPC sites that reported the false-positive rate, approximately 1 in 6 men who were screened at least once had one or more false-positive results, and of the positive results in the first round of screening, two thirds were false positives. In Sweden, where a low PSA threshold was used to determine a positive test and men were screened every 2 years, more than 45% of men who participated in all screening rounds had a false-positive result over 10 years of screening.In the PLCO trial, more than two thirds of men who had a prostate biopsy because of a positive PSA test were found not to have prostate cancer.Because most cases of prostate cancer advance very slowly, if at all, the 10-year survival rate for screen-detected, localized prostate cancer is very high. In a recent major trail that enrolled more than 1,500 men who were randomized to receive either active treatment or active surveillance, the 10-year survival rate in all groups was 99%.The good prognosis for early-stage prostate cancer makes it difficult to study the effectiveness of treatment.Multiple treatment options exist for prostate cancer and new ones are being developed. In current practice, the three most common treatment options for men with screen-detected, localized prostate cancer are surgical removal of the prostate gland (radical prostatectomy), radiation therapy (external-beam radiation therapy, proton beam therapy, or brachytherapy), and active surveillance. The USPSTF considered available evidence on treatment when evaluating the effectiveness of screening and found that current evidence suggests that treatment of early-stage, screen-detected prostate cancer with radical prostatectomy or radiation therapy likely reduces risk of clinical progression and metastatic disease and may reduce prostate cancer mortality. More details about the effectiveness and side effects of active treatment can be found in the Discussion section.Active surveillance is a treatment approach that seeks to limit the harms of treatment by allowing men with apparent low-risk prostate cancer to forego surgery or radiation in favor of ongoing monitoring of their cancer. This surveillance includes regular, repeated PSA testing and often repeated digital rectal examination and prostate biopsy. Men whose cancer is found to be changing are offered definitive treatment with surgery or radiation. Active surveillance reduces the chance of overtreatment and offers men the opportunity to delay or avoid complications associated with radical prostatectomy and radiation therapy. Active surveillance has become a more common treatment choice in the United States over the past several years. In a study assessing community-based urology practice in the United States between 2010 and 2013, about half of men with low-risk prostate cancer were treated with radical prostatectomy. The active surveillance rate, however, increased from 14.3% in 2009 to 40.4% in 2013 among men with low-risk prostate cancer.In the multicenter Prostate Testing for Cancer and Treatment (ProtecT) triala recent randomized trial that compared radical prostatectomy, radiation therapy, and active surveillance in men with screen-detected prostate cancerthere was no statistically significant difference in prostate cancerspecific mortality or all-cause mortality among the three treatment groups after 10 years of followup. The overall 10-year survival rate across all three groups was more than 98%, which may limit detection of mortality differences in this trial. Approximately 50% of men randomized to active surveillance underwent active treatment (radical prostatectomy or radiation therapy) over the 10-year followup period. Men randomized to active surveillance had higher rates of metastatic disease. To prevent 1 additional case of metastatic prostate cancer during the 10-year followup, 27 men would need to have radical prostatectomy or 33 men would need to have radiation therapy instead of active surveillance.The potential benefit of screening for prostate cancer is made possible through treatment. Thus, it is important for men to consider the potential harms of treatment as they consider whether to be screened. Men who are not able or willing to tolerate treatment should not be screened for prostate cancer.Active treatment of prostate cancer can result in life-altering side effects. About 3 in 1,000 men die during or soon after radical prostatectomy and about 50 in 1,000 men have serious surgical complications requiring intervention. About 1 in 5 men who have radical prostatectomy develop long-term urinary incontinence requiring regular use of pads and more than 2 in 3 men experience long-term sexual impotence. More than half of men who have radiation therapy experience long-term sexual impotence and up to 1 in 6 men experience long-term bothersome bowel symptoms, including bowel urgency and fecal incontinence.In the United States, African American men are more likely to develop prostate cancer than white men (203.5 vs. 121.9 cases per 100,000 men). African American men are also more than twice as likely as white men to die of prostate cancer (44.1 vs. 19.1 deaths per 100,000 men).The higher death rate is due in part to an earlier age at cancer onset, more advanced cancer stage at diagnosis, and higher rates of more aggressive cancer (i.e., higher tumor grade). The disparity in death from prostate cancer may also reflect that African American men have lower rates of receiving high-quality care.The USPSTF searched for evidence about the potential benefits and harms of PSA-based screening for prostate cancer in African American men.The PLCO trial enrolled 4% African American men, which is not enough to determine whether the overall trial results differed for African American men.The ERSPC trial did not record or report any race-specific subgroup information. The low proportion of persons of African descent in European countries during the study period makes it likely that these groups were not well represented.An analysis from the PLCO trial found that African American men were significantly more likely to have major infections after prostate biopsy than white men (odds ratio, 7.1 [95% CI, 2.7 to 18.0]).Evidence is insufficient to compare the risk of false positives, potential for overdiagnosis, and magnitude of harms from prostate cancer treatment in African American versus other men.Based on the available evidence, the USPSTF is not able to make a separate, specific recommendation on PSA-based screening for prostate cancer in African American men. Although it is possible that screening may offer greater benefits for African American men compared with the general population, currently no direct evidence demonstrates whether this is true. Screening, and subsequent diagnosis and treatment, has the potential to increase exposure to potential harms. Decision analysis models suggest that given the higher rates of aggressive cancer in African American men, PSA-based screening may provide greater benefit to African American men than the general population. These models also suggest a potential mortality benefit for African American men when beginning screening before age 55 years. The USPSTF believes that a reasonable approach for clinicians is to inform African American men about their increased risk of developing and dying of prostate cancer as well as the potential benefits and harms of screening so they can make an informed, personal decision about whether to be screened. The USPSTF does not recommend screening for prostate cancer in men, including African American men, who are older than age 70 years.The USPSTF strongly encourages research on screening for and treatment of prostate cancer in African American men. It is important to consider both the potential additional benefits and harms to fully understand the value of screening. Studies are needed to confirm that African American men who undergo screening receive similar or greater reductions in prostate cancer mortality compared with men in the general population, as well as to explore the optimal screening frequency and whether beginning screening before age 55 years provides additional benefits in African American men. Studies are also needed to better understand strategies to mitigate harms and maximize benefits of screening, diagnostic followup, and treatment (including active surveillance) in African American men. It is also important that research and quality improvement activities continue to work to eliminate disparities in access to high-quality care for men with prostate cancer.The introduction of PSA-based screening for prostate cancer has substantially altered the epidemiologic statistics for prostate cancer, greatly increasing the number of men with a diagnosis of prostate cancer and thus also the number of men with a father, brother, or son with a history of prostate cancer.It is generally accepted that men with a family history of prostate cancer are more likely to develop prostate cancer. A study of twins in Scandinavia estimated that genetic factors may account for up to 42% of prostate cancer risk.An analysis from the Finnish site of the ERSPC trial concluded that men with at least one first-degree relative with prostate cancer were 30% more likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer than men without a family history.Men with three first-degree relatives with prostate cancer or two close relatives on the same side of the family with prostate cancer diagnosed before age 55 years may have an inheritable form of prostate cancer associated with genetic changes that are passed down from one generation to the next. This type of prostate cancer is thought to account for less than 10% of all prostate cancer cases.The USPSTF searched for evidence about the potential benefits and harms of PSA-based screening for prostate cancer in men with a family history of prostate cancer.Of the 7% of men in the PLCO trial who reported a family history of prostate cancer on a baseline questionnaire, prostate cancerspecific mortality among white men was lower in the intervention group than in the control group (hazard ratio, 0.49 [95% CI, 0.22 to 1.10]; p=0.08),but the difference was not statistically significant, possibly due to an insufficient sample size.No studies have assessed the risk of harms related to screening for, diagnosis of, or treatment of prostate cancer based on family history of prostate cancer.Based on the available evidence, the USPSTF is not able to make a separate, specific recommendation on PSA-based screening for prostate cancer in men with a family history of prostate cancer. Although it is possible that screening may offer additional potential benefits for these men compared with the general population, screening also has the potential to increase exposure to potential harms, especially among men with relatives whose cancer was overdiagnosed. Men who have a first-degree relative who had advanced prostate cancer at diagnosis, who developed metastatic prostate cancer, or who died of prostate cancer are probably the most likely to benefit from screening. The USPSTF believes that a reasonable approach for clinicians is to inform men with a family history of prostate cancer, particularly those with multiple first-degree relatives with prostate cancer, about their increased risk of developing cancer as well as the potential earlier age at disease onset. This discussion should include the potential benefits and harms of screening for prostate cancer so these men have the opportunity to make an informed, personal decision about whether to be screened. The USPSTF does not recommend screening for prostate cancer in men, including men with a family history of prostate cancer, who are older than age 70 years.Epidemiologic studies examining outcomes in men with relatives who died of prostate cancer versus men with relatives diagnosed with prostate cancer who died of other causes may help provide better guidance. Studies are needed that explore the optimal screening frequency and whether beginning screening before age 55 years provides additional benefits for men with a family history of prostate cancer. Additional research is also needed to help identify men with an inheritable form of prostate cancer and to understand how the potential benefits and harms of screening, including screening intervals and starting ages, may differ in these men compared with the general population.There are many areas in need of research to improve screening for and treatment of prostate cancer, including:In 2013, the most recent year for which data are available, approximately 176,000 men in the United States were diagnosed with prostate cancer and almost 28,000 died from prostate cancer.From 2003 to 2012, the prostate cancerspecific mortality rate among U.S. men decreased significantly by 3.4% per year (3.3% and 3.9% per year in white and black men, respectively).Most cases of prostate cancer found in autopsy studies are microscopic, well-differentiated lesions that did not affect mens health during their lifetime. Cases of prostate cancer found after screening in asymptomatic men are similar; most are low-risk lesions that are unlikely to cause symptoms or affect mens health during their lifetime.To update its 2012 recommendation, the USPSTF commissioned a systematic review of the evidence regarding the benefits and harms of PSA-based screening for prostate cancer and subsequent treatments of screen-detected prostate cancer.The USPSTF also commissioned a review of multiple contextual questions, including a review of existing decision analysis models and what they suggest about the potential for mitigating the harms of screening and treatment and the overdiagnosis rate of PSA-based screening.The commissioned reviews also examined the effectiveness and harms of PSA-based screening in patient subpopulations at higher risk of prostate cancer, including older men, African American men, and men with a family history of prostate cancer.To understand the potential benefits of PSA-based screening for prostate cancer, the USPSTF examined the results of the ERSPC and PLCO trials and site-specific reports from four ERSPC trial sites. To understand the effectiveness of treatment of screen-detected, early-stage prostate cancer, the USPSTF also examined the results of three randomized trials, including the ProtecT trial, and nine cohort studies.The ERSPC trial randomly assigned a core group of more than 160,000 men ages 55 to 69 years from seven European countries to PSA-based screening versus usual care.The specific screening and diagnostic protocols varied among countries (details can be found in the systematic evidence review).After an average followup of 13 years, many more men in the screening group were diagnosed with prostate cancer than in the usual care group (95.5 vs. 62.3 cases per 10,000 person-years).Four ERSPC sites reported on the cumulative incidence of metastatic prostate cancer. After a median followup of 12 years, the risk of developing metastatic prostate cancer was 30% lower among men randomized to screening compared with usual care (RR, 0.70 [95% CI, 0.60 to 0.82]; p=0.001). The absolute reduction in long-term risk of metastatic prostate cancer associated with screening was 3.1 cases per 1,000 men.After a median followup of 13 years, the prostate cancerspecific mortality rate among men ages 55 to 69 years was 4.3 deaths per 10,000 person-years in the screened group and 5.4 deaths per 10,000 person-years in the usual care group (RR, 0.79 [95% CI, 0.69 to 0.91]; p=0.001).This means that 781 men would need to be invited to screening to prevent 1 man from dying of prostate cancer.The ERSPC trial did not find a reduction in all-cause mortality.The effect of screening on prostate cancerspecific mortality differed across the ERSPC sites. Finland, which had the largest enrollment, did not find a statistically significant reduction in prostate cancerspecific mortality (RR, 0.85 [95% CI, 0.69 to 1.04]; p=0.10).An expanded cohort in Sweden, which had the longest followup period, found the largest reduction of 42% (RR, 0.58 [95% CI, 0.46 to 0.72]), which is an absolute risk reduction of 0.72% (95% CI, 0.50 to 0.94).The results of the overall ERSPC trial provide some of the most important evidence about the potential benefits of PSA-based screening for prostate cancer. The trial was rated as fair quality by the USPSTF due to several important methodologic issues, including observed differences in how men in the screening and control groups were treated for prostate cancer. Among men diagnosed with nonmetastatic prostate cancer, a greater proportion of men in the screening group had radical prostatectomy (41.3%) than in the usual care group (32.8%).Although one might expect treatment differences by screening group if screening produces a shift toward more localized clinical stages, treatment differences across ERSPC study groups persisted even with stratification by clinical stage and tumor grade. The cause for these differences is not known.In the prostate component of the PLCO trial, more than 76,000 men ages 55 to 74 years were randomized to either annual PSA-based screening for 6 years or usual care. Abnormal screening results (PSA level >4.0 ng/mL or abnormal digital rectal examination findings) were forwarded to patients and their primary care clinician, who coordinated further diagnostic evaluation.The majority of men were non-Hispanic white (86.2% and 83.8% of the screening and control groups, respectively). Approximately one third of men in both groups had either a PSA test or digital rectal examination within the 3 years prior to enrollment. An estimated 78% of men in the control group had a PSA test during the screening phase of the trial.On average, men in the intervention group received five PSA tests during the screening phase of the trial and men in the usual care group received three PSA tests.This high PSA testing rate in the control group limits the studys ability to identify a potential screening benefit. Accordingly, the USPSTF characterized the trial as comparing the effectiveness of organized versus opportunistic screening. Despite the common use of PSA testing in the control group, after 13 years more cases of prostate cancer were diagnosed in the screening group than in the control group (108.4 vs. 97.1 cases per 10,000 person-years, respectively) (RR, 1.12 [95% CI, 1.07 to 1.17]). At a median followup of 14.8 years in the PLCO trial, the prostate cancerspecific mortality rate was not statistically different between the intervention and control group (4.8 vs. 4.6 deaths per 10,000 person-years, respectively) (RR, 1.04 [95% CI, 0.87 to 1.24]).This result does not rule out the possibility of a reduction in prostate cancerspecific mortality from screening for prostate cancer.Neither the ERSPC or PLCO trial, nor any of the ERSPC site-specific analyses, found an overall all-cause mortality benefit from screening for prostate cancer.The USPSTF examined three good-quality randomized trials of treatment of localized prostate cancer and nine observational cohort studies to understand the potential benefit of active treatment (radical prostatectomy or radiation therapy) compared with conservative treatment (active surveillance or watchful waiting) on overall mortality, prostate cancerspecific mortality, and progression to metastatic prostate cancer.The U.K. ProtecT trial randomized more than 1,600 men ages 50 to 69 years with screen-detected, localized prostate cancer to radical prostatectomy, radiation therapy, or active surveillance and followed them for 10 years. Approximately 77% of men had low-grade prostate cancer (Gleason score=6) with a favorable prognosis. Thus, some men randomized to active surveillance had an intermediate-grade tumor (or other tumor characteristics) such that they may not have been considered candidates for active surveillance outside of this research study. The trial did not find a statistically significant improvement in all-cause or prostate cancerspecific mortality in any of the treatment groups. The unexpectedly high survival rate across the trial groups (99%) made any potential differences harder to detect. Longer-term followup studies may provide important additional information. The trial reported a statistically significant reduction in progression to metastatic cancer when comparing both radical prostatectomy (61% reduction [95% CI, 27% to 79%]) and radiation therapy (52% reduction [95% CI, 13% to 73%]) with active surveillance. In the active surveillance group, 6.0% of men developed metastatic cancer compared with 2.7% and 2.3% in the radiation therapy and radical prostatectomy groups, respectively. During the 10-year followup period, 54.8% of men randomized to active surveillance crossed over to active treatment.The other two randomized trials of radical prostatectomy took place prior to widespread PSA-based screening and thus recruited many men with tumors detected due to clinical symptoms. Approximately 50% of men in the U.S.-based Prostate cancer Intervention Versus Observation Trial (PIVOT) and almost 90% of men in the Scandinavian Prostate Cancer Group-4 (SPCG-4) trial had palpable tumors. The SPCG-4 trial compared radical prostatectomy with watchful waiting (a passive protocol dissimilar to active surveillance) and found a statistically significant reduction over 13 years in all-cause and prostate cancerspecific mortality.The PIVOT trial did not find statistically significant reductions overall in either all-cause or prostate cancerspecific mortality but did find a reduction in all-cause mortality with radical prostatectomy in men with baseline PSA levels greater than 10 ng/mL (median followup of 10 years; hazard ratio, 0.67 [95% CI, 0.48 to 0.94]).Five of six cohort studies examining radical prostatectomy and four of six studies examining radiation therapy found statistically significant reductions in prostate cancerspecific mortality when comparing active treatment with watchful waiting or other conservative approaches.The results of cohort studies, however, should be interpreted with caution due to the potential for bias in treatment assignment. In these real-world settings, men who are healthier may have been more likely to receive active treatment.In addition to the ERSPC and PLCO trials, the USPSTF examined the results of a good-quality cohort study embedded within the ProtecT trial (Prostate Biopsy Effects [ProbE]), a fair-quality cohort study conducted in the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) health system, and a report on complications of prostate biopsy from the ERSPC Rotterdam site to understand the potential harms of screening and diagnosis.In the large randomized controlled trials, one quarter to one third of men offered PSA-based screening had at least one positive screening test. In the PLCO trial, 13% of men had at least one biopsy. In the ERSPC trial, nearly 28 biopsies were performed for every 100 men randomized to screening.In the ProbE study, 7.3% of men reported moderate or greater pain, 5.5% reported moderate to severe fever, and 26.6% reported troublesome hematospermia within the 35 days after biopsy.Complications from transrectal prostate biopsy resulted in 1.3% of men in the U.K. cohort, 1.6% of men in the VA cohort, and 0.5% of men in the Rotterdam cohort requiring hospitalization.In these studies, two thirds to three quarters of biopsies demonstrated that the screening PSA test was a false positive.Overdiagnosis, the identification of asymptomatic cancer that would never cause symptoms or contribute to death, is one of the most important harms of PSA-based screening programs. Although there is no way to conclusively determine the overdiagnosis rate, the USPSTF used data from trials and reviewed decision analysis models to estimate the possible overdiagnosis rate. Trial data suggest that 21% of screen-detected cancers in the PLCO trial and 50% in the ERSPC trial were overdiagnosed.Using a different type of methodology than estimates based directly on single trials, three decision analysis models produced by the Cancer Intervention and Surveillance Modeling Network consortium estimated that between 1988 and 2000 in the United States, the overdiagnosis rate among cases of screen-detected prostate cancer was 22% to 42%.The USPSTF identified three good-quality and one fair-quality randomized trials and seven large fair-quality observational studies that examined the potential harms of active treatment of prostate cancer.A meta-analysis of the harms of radical prostatectomy concluded that 1 man will experience substantial urinary incontinence for every 6 men who have a radical prostatectomy rather than conservative management (95% CI, 3.4 to 11.7) and 1 man will experience long-term erectile dysfunction for every 2.7 men who have a radical prostatectomy rather than conservative management (95% CI, 2.2 to 3.6).Additionally, more than 20% of men in the PIVOT trial had a perioperative complication and 5.3% of men in a large U.S. cohort study required reintervention due to a surgical complication.A meta-analysis of the harms of radiation therapy found that 1 man will experience long-term sexual impotence for every 7 men treated with radiation therapy rather than conservative management (95% CI, 4.9 to 11.3).While results are conflicting across cohort studies regarding the association of urinary incontinence and radiation therapy, rates of fecal incontinence and bowel urgency were as high as 31.8% after radiation therapy in one cohort study,and both complications were more common when compared with conservative management in two trials and three cohort studies.After a median followup of 6 years in the ProtecT trial, there was no significant difference among men randomized to radical prostatectomy, radiation therapy, or active surveillance in reported anxiety, depression, health status, and cancer-related quality of life.The older SPCG-4 trial had similar results after a median followup of 12 years when comparing men who received radical prostatectomy versus watchful waiting.Conclusions from decision analysis models, which are consistent with the findings of randomized trials and cohort studies, suggest that more aggressive screening strategies, particularly those that use a lower PSA threshold for biopsy than generally used in the United States, provide the greatest potential reduction in death from prostate cancer. Unfortunately, these strategies are also associated with more false positives, more biopsies, and higher rates of overdiagnosis.Options for reducing the overdiagnosis rate include lowering the age at which to stop screening, extending the interval between screenings, and using higher PSA thresholds for biopsy. Unfortunately, no strategy completely eliminates overdiagnosis. PSA-based screening for prostate cancer every 2 or 4 years instead of annually appears to provide a good tradeoff between a reduction in overdiagnosis and a small reduction in mortality benefit.Decision analysis models confirm the USPSTFs conclusion that the overall benefit of PSA-based screening for prostate cancer is sensitive to the values and preferences of individual men. The magnitude of net benefit of PSA-based screening depends on how each individual weighs the potential harms of diagnosis and treatment. The value a man places on potential benefits and harms may also change over time. It may therefore be useful for clinicians to regularly revisit the decision to screen (or not screen) with their patients (Table).Although active surveillance may reduce exposure to the potential harms of active treatment, it may not be viewed favorably by some men who value definitive action, are concerned about repeat biopsies, or want to avoid a potential increase in metastatic cancer.This recommendation replaces the 2012 USPSTF recommendationon PSA-based screening for prostate cancer. In 2012, the USPSTF concluded that while there are potential benefits of screening for prostate cancer, these benefits do not outweigh the expected harms enough to recommend routine screening (D recommendation). The USPSTF continues to find that the potential benefits and harms are closely balanced. The change in recommendation grade is based in part on additional evidence that increased the USPSTFs certainty about the reductions in risk of dying of prostate cancer and risk of metastatic disease. Longer-term followup of the ERSPC trial and from some ERSPC sites found that PSA-based screening for prostate cancer prevents 1 to 2 men from dying of prostate cancer for every 1,000 men screened. Additionally, a subset of ERSPC sites has since reported that screening 1,000 men ages 55 to 69 years may prevent approximately 3 men from developing metastatic prostate cancer.Trials continue to demonstrate the harms of PSA-based screening, including false-positive results, complications from transrectal prostate biopsies, overdiagnosis (which, based on estimates from trial data, may occur in 20% to 50% of cases of screen-detected cancer), and harms of treatment, including urinary incontinence and sexual impotence. The change in recommendation grade further reflects new evidence about and increased use of active surveillance of low-risk prostate cancer, which may reduce the risk of subsequent harms from screening. This recommendation also clearly identifies African American men and men with a family history of prostate cancer as having higher risk for prostate cancer, and provides additional information to help support these men in making informed decisions about screening. With the C recommendation for men ages 55 to 69 years, the USPSTFs intention is to convey that each mans values and preferences may shift the balance of whether there is a net benefit or a net harm of screening and to promote the importance of informed decisionmaking prior to screening. The USPSTF continues to find that the benefits of screening do not outweigh the harms in men age 70 years and older and recommends against screening in these men.The American Academy of Family Physiciansin 2012 and the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Carein 2014 recommended against PSA-based screening for prostate cancer. The American Academy of Family Physicians is currently reviewing its recommendation. The American College of Physiciansin 2013 recommended that physicians discuss the benefits and harms of screening with men ages 50 to 69 years and only recommend screening for men who prioritize screening and have a life expectancy of more than 10 to 15 years. The American Urological Associationin 2013 recommended that men ages 55 to 69 years with a life expectancy of more than 10 to 15 years be informed of the benefits and harms of screening and engage in shared decisionmaking with their physician, taking into account each mans values and preferences. It noted that to reduce the harms of screening, the screening interval should be 2 or more years. The American Urological Association also noted that decisions about screening, including potentially starting screening before age 55 years, should be individual ones for African American men and men with a family history of prostate cancer.The American Cancer Societyadopted detailed screening recommendations in 2016 that highlight the importance of shared decisionmaking and the need for informed discussion of the uncertainties, risks, and potential benefits of screening. It recommends conversations about screening beginning at age 50 years and earlier for African American men and men with a father or brother with a history of prostate cancer before age 65 years.*Estimates based on benefits observed in the ERSPC trial for men ages 55 to 69 years.Result based on biopsy rate in the ERSPC trial. Current practice in the United States will likely result in fewer biopsies. The potential effect of fewer biopsies on other outcomes, including reductions in prostate cancer diagnosis and mortality, are not clear. "This opportunity for public comment expires on May 8, 2017 at 8:00 PM EST Note: This is a Draft Recommendation Statement. This draft is distributed solely for the purpose of receiving public input. It has not been disseminated otherwise by the USPSTF. The final Recommendation Statement will be developed after careful consideration of the feedback received and will include both the Research Plan and Evidence Review as a basis. Recommendations made by the USPSTF are independent of the U.S. government. They should not be construed as an official position of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services." Dozens of American soldiers have deployed to Mogadishu to train and equip Somali and AMISOM (African Union Mission in Somalia) forces fighting extremism in Somalia, U.S. military officials told VOA. The troops' arrival marks the first presence of American military forces in Somalia, other than a small unit of counterterrorism advisers, since March 1994 when the U.S. pulled out of the U.N. intervention operation in the war-torn state, five months after 18 U.S. special forces personnel were killed in a battle with Somali militiamen that inspired the movie Black Hawk Down. "United States Africa Command will conduct various security cooperation and/or security force assistance events in Somalia in order to assist our allies and partners," U.S. Africa Command spokesman Pat Barnes told VOA on Thursday. The move is another example of the acceleration of U.S. efforts to help combat violent extremism across the globe, a second military official said. The goal of the operation is to build partner capacity while helping to improve the logistics of local forces battling the military group al-Shabab. A few dozen troops from the 101st Airborne Division in Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, arrived in Mogadishu on April 2 at the request of the Somali government, a U.S. military official told VOA. The team is carrying out a train-and-equip mission that is expected to last through the end of September, according to the official. Former Deputy Secretary of Defense Rudy DeLeon, a senior fellow with the Center for American Progress, said the U.S. team will help instill the professionalism and discipline that the local force can use to create the terms for security. "It gives them the tools to help themselves," DeLeon said in an interview with VOA. The U.S. usually has a small unit of between 3 and 50 American troops in Somalia supporting U.S.-Somali military-to-military relations, and advising and assisting Somali troops. The new arrivals from the 101st Airborne Division will not be added to the mission of those Americans currently on the ground in Somalia, a military official said, "but there will be some overlap." Last week, Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed called on al-Shabab fighters to surrender within 60 days in return for education and jobs. Days later, a car bomb targeted senior officials leaving a military base in Mogadishu, killing at least 15 people and destroying a minibus carrying civilians, the Somali military said. Al-Shabab militants claimed responsibility. Battle of Mogadishu The mission of the troops sent from 101st Airborne Division, who are training in logistics and not participating in combat or peacekeeping, is nothing like the United States' peacekeeping role in the country more than two decades earlier. In the early 1990s, the United Nations attempted to provide and secure humanitarian relief in Somalia while monitoring a U.N.-brokered cease-fire in the Somali Civil War. The U.S. deployed thousands of American troops to carry out these peacekeeping missions. By late 1993, the mission had expanded to try to restore a government in Somalia. An American special operations team was sent into Mogadishu on October 3 to capture two top lieutenants of the warlord Mohammed Aidid. During the mission, two Black Hawk helicopters circling overheard were shot down. Men sent to remove soldiers from the crash sites became pinned down elsewhere, and a 15-hour battle raged that killed 18 Americans and hundreds of Somalis. Days later, then-U.S. President Bill Clinton announced that he would remove all American combat forces from Somalia by March 31. The U.S. has not sent combat troops for peacekeeping missions in the country since. The last two surviving animals from Mosul's dilapidated zoo arrived this week at an animal shelter in Jordan, after months of malnutrition and a long journey out of Iraq that included being stuck at the border for 12 days. Simba the lion and Lola the bear lived in a once-peaceful animal park that has been destroyed by months of fighting between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants. The park, located in Eastern Mosul, was retaken by Iraqi forces earlier this year. Neighbors fed Simba and Lola until the fighting became too fierce. They said a shell once hit the park, sending hungry monkeys out of their enclosures. Other animals were killed, died of starvation or escaped. Amir Khalil, a vet from animal charity Four Paws who saw the animals in Mosul in February and organized their transfer to Jordan, said the animals were in a dire state. At the time, he diagnosed skin lesions, joint problems and eye inflammation in the lion and diarrhoea and bad teeth in the bear. "They were on the brink of death. Now they are able to move, they have gained weight. Physically, they are doing better," Khalil said. Back in Jordan, Lola hesitated to come out of her travel crate until she spotted a green apple - a sure sign of better things ahead. The two animals will go through a rehabilitation program that involves hand-feeding them through the fence before being transferred to larger enclosures when their health stabilizes. The battle for the control of Western Mosul is ongoing. Somali's president vowed Wednesday that his administration will eradicate the terrorist militant group al-Shabab across Somalia within two years, and he offered its leaders peace talks. Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, better known as Farmajo, was speaking at a ceremony marking the 57th anniversary of the foundation of the Somali National Army, which was held at the compound of the Ministry of Defense in Mogadishu. "We confirm to the Somali people that we are prepared and within two years' period we will eradicate al-Shabab from all areas they are present in Somalia," the president said. He said that, after more than a decade of the insurgency, al-Shabab still is not capable of overthrowing the Somali government. Mohamed says his government, therefore, is calling on al-Shabab leaders to engage in peace talks before they are forcibly dislodged from their hideouts across the country. "We are ready to talk to al-Shabab, including its leaders. We say to the leadership of al-Shabab that you have been fighting for more than 10 years and still you cannot overthrow the government, which has international support and military power. We tell you if you do not accept peace, we will come to you at your hideouts," Mohamed said. "You cannot destroy the government, but you have been destroying the hope of the Somali people." Mohamed's remarks come a week after he declared that the country is at war with al-Shabab, and he gave the group 60 days to surrender in return for education and jobs. He also replaced the country's military and intelligence chiefs, while instructing the army to prepare a new offensive against al-Shabab extremists. Increased attacks In response to the president's declaration of war with al-Shabab, the militants have increased their attacks in Mogadishu, the country's capital. In one of the attacks on Sunday, the new Commander of the Somali National Army (SNA), Gen. Mohamed Ahmed Jimale, escaped a car bomb explosion close to the Defense Ministry where Wednesday's army anniversary commemoration was held. On Monday, a suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest penetrated a fortified Somali National Army base in the city, killing at least five soldiers. Government critics say publicly declaring war will only help the militants by inspiring them to carry out additional attacks aimed at disrupting any ongoing military plan against them. "I think it is not a good decision to declare a war in public while you are still in preparation. You see, the militants are carrying out attacks because they are either desperate or want to disrupt any plans of a military move against them," said Mohamed Omar Dalha, a member of Somali parliament. "Whenever the militants feel there is a military threat against them, or when the country is in transition from one government to another, they carry out such excessive attacks to take advantage of the situation and, most importantly, to send a message that they are still capable of harm," said Dahir Amin Jesow, a Somali lawmaker. Abdirashid Hashi, director of Mogadishu-based research group Heritage Institute for Policy Studies (HIPS), said the group has always been at war and serious about their insurgence. "Somali governments come and go, and it takes them time to adjust, but al-Shabab has been in serous insurgency for 10 years, so they have been always ready to attack in opportunistic way," said Hashi. With the help of the international community, and technical and training support from the United States, Somalia has put together a Somali national army of more than 20,000 troops. They are poorly equipped, however, and lack regular salaries. The Somali government depends on the 22,126-strong force operating under the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia. This month marks 10 years since the AU Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) started. The mission is set to withdraw from Somalia by 2020. Despite inflicting military setbacks and territory loss upon al-Shabab, the militants continue to create chaos in the country, as fears grow that al-Shabab and Islamic State are too much for the country to handle. Despite the heightened inter-Korean tensions over the North's accelerated nuclear and ballistic missile testing, and the increasing talk of a U.S. preemptive strike, few South Koreans appear concerned by the prospect of imminent conflict. In Seouls Yeouido Park, carefree crowds flock to see the cherry blossoms at their peak. Few are old enough to remember the Korea War that ended over 60 years ago, nor do they seem concerned that this region may be on the brink of war. Well, it is scary to talk about war as I am from the generation which never experienced war. But I don't really feel fear yet, said Oh, a Seoul resident who would only give her last name. War posturing North Korea and the United States seem increasingly poised for conflict over Pyongyangs repeated nuclear and ballistic missile tests aimed at developing the capability to target the U.S. mainland. The Trump administration has placed a high priority on preventing North Korea from developing a credible long-range nuclear ballistic missile capability that could directly threaten U.S. national security. The U.S. Pacific Command has ordered a naval strike force that includes the USS Carl Vinson nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, as well as guided missile destroyers and aircraft squadrons, to sail towards the Korean Peninsula over concerns that the North will soon conduct its sixth nuclear test. Satellites monitoring the Punggye-ri nuclear test site have detected recent activity. Pyongyang in the past has timed provocative military acts to coincide with the April 15 birthday of its founding leader, the late Kim Il Sung, a holiday known as the Day of the Sun. U.S. President Donald Trump Tuesday said in a tweet that North Korea was "looking for trouble." And during an interview on the Fox Business Network the president said, We are sending an armada. Very powerful. And he said North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, is doing the wrong thing. The U.S. military move has sparked speculation that Washington may be prepared to launch a military strike to take out North Korean nuclear or ballistic missile sites. Such action, analysts say, could draw the entire region into a nuclear war. North Korea state media Tuesday warned it is prepared for any American aggression and would retaliate with nuclear weapons specifically targeting, U.S. invasion bases not only in South Korea and the Pacific operation theater, but also in the U.S. mainland. Seoul at peace However in Seoul, the flare up in tensions is not causing any sense of panic, even though the city is situated within range of the Norths artillery and missile arsenal. Many in South Korea see the current crisis as political theater that has been played out repeatedly in the past. I have heard similar stories many times before. I think the possibility for war is very low, said Seoul resident Kim Hyo-dong. Many see the U.S. show of force in the region as a means to increase pressure on China to take stronger measures to restrain its economically dependent ally in Pyongyang. Others view the U.S. military posturing as a right of passage for a new U.S. president demonstrating toughness and resolve. Every time the U.S. had a new president, we had similar types of crises, but we passed through them without any major struggle, said Baek, a Seoul resident who only gave his family name. Ultimately many in South Korea expect all sides in the standoff will act with restraint to keep the peace, rather than face the risk of triggering a war that no one can win. The government in Seoul has also downplayed the possibility that the United States would take unilateral action against the North, which would jeopardize both its allies in the South and thousands of U.S. troops based in the country. There has also been no mass evacuation of American civilians and no heightened defensive readiness measures taken that would indicate the United States and South Korea are preparing for military conflict. North Korea remains technically at war with the United States and its ally South Korea after the 1950-1953 Korean conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty. It regularly threatens to destroy both countries. Youmi Kim contributed to this report. Carter Page, an adviser to then-presidential candidate Donald Trump whose communications were reportedly monitored under an FBI-obtained court order, denied Wednesday that he'd worked for the Russians. "Of course, I wasn't a foreign agent," he said in an interview with CNN. Last month, FBI Director James Comey acknowledged that his agency was investigating whether members of Trump's campaign had colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election. U.S. intelligence officials believe Moscow intervened to try to sway the election in favor of Trump. The FBI obtained a secret court order last year to monitor the communications of Page, whom the Trump campaign had hired as a foreign policy adviser in March 2016, The Washington Post reported. Citing unnamed law enforcement and other U.S. officials, the Post said the FBI and Justice Department were able to secure a FISA warrant after convincing a judge "there was probable cause to believe Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power, in this case Russia." Other reported targets Page was one of several Trump associates reported to be a focus of that investigation. Others included former campaign chief Paul Manafort, former national security adviser Michael Flynn and longtime Trump confidante Roger Stone. In the CNN interview, Page who has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin and criticized U.S. sanctions against Russia refused to say who'd brought him into the Trump campaign, calling that issue irrelevant. But he did emphasize that it was not Manafort, whom he said he'd never met or spoken with. In recent months White House officials have tried to downplay Page's role with the campaign. "This confirms all my suspicions about unjustified, politically motivated government surveillance," Page said in a statement to the Post. He also compared his situation to that of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr., who was monitored and harassed by the FBI. Page, a former investment banker, has not been accused of a crime. But in order to obtain the FISA warrant, the Post said, law enforcement officials submitted "a lengthy declaration that laid out investigators' basis for believing that Page was an agent of the Russian government and knowingly engaged in clandestine intelligence activities on behalf of Moscow." Contacts detailed Specifically, the application mentioned contacts Page had with a "Russian intelligence operative in New York City in 2013," as well as other contacts with "Russian operatives" that had not been previously disclosed, the report said. Reports last month suggested that Page met with Russia's ambassador to the U.S. on the sidelines of the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. The original 90-day warrant has been renewed "more than once" by the FISA court, the Post report said. It added that Page was the "only American to have had his communications directly targeted with a FISA warrant in 2016 as part of the Russia probe." Russia denies trying to influence the 2016 election. Trump officials insist any suggestion they colluded with Moscow is false and politically motivated, although the FBI investigation and a separate congressional probe have continued to draw headlines. Asked Wednesday during an interview on the Fox Business Channel whether he would consider asking Comey to step down, Trump said: "I have confidence in him. We'll see what happens. You know, it's going to be interesting. But, you know, we have to just look, I have so many people that want to come into this administration." Russia deployed yet another U.N. Security Council veto Wednesday to protect Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad from international condemnation for last week's deadly chemical weapons attack. "With its veto, Russia said 'no' to accountability, Russia said 'no' to cooperation with the United Nations' independent investigation, and Russia said 'no' to a resolution that would have helped promote peace in Syria," U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley told the council. "Russia has once again chosen to side with Assad," she said in reference to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad. In a vote of 10 in favor, two against and three abstentions, Moscow blocked the measure put forward by Britain, France and the United States. China, in a rare break with Russia, abstained, while non-permanent members Bolivia voted no, and Ethiopia and Kazakhstan joined China in abstaining. The draft resolution sought to condemn the gas attack and strengthen an international investigation into what happened. An earlier, similar draft resolution failed to make it to a vote last Thursday. "If the regime is innocent, as Russia claims, the information requested in this resolution would have vindicated them," Haley said. "By its failure, Russia will continue to be isolated." Haley also had a warning for the Assad regime in Damascus: "The United States is watching your actions very closely. The days of your arrogance and disregard of humanity are over," she said. "I suggest you look at this vote very carefully, and heed this warning." The Trump administration believes the Assad regime launched the April 4 gas attack on the town of Khan Sheikhoun from the Shayrat airfield. After seeing images of dying children in the chemical attack, President Donald Trump said he decided a military response was necessary. The United States launched a targeted missile attack against the airfield two days after the chemical attack. Russia's U.N. deputy envoy Vladimir Safronkov rejected the Western draft resolution, saying it "appointed the guilty party prior to an independent and objective investigation." Finding definitive evidence At an earlier session of the council Wednesday, also about Syria, Britain's U.N. Ambassador Matthew Rycroft said his government shares the U.S. assessment that it is highly likely the Assad regime was responsible for a sarin attack on the town last week. "Chemical weapons scientists at Porton Down, in the United Kingdom, have analyzed samples obtained from Khan Sheikhoun, and these have tested positive for the nerve agent sarin, or a sarin-like substance," he told council members. "We need to find out the facts, conduct a comprehensive investigation," Russia's Safronkov told the council. He questioned how foreign experts already could have concluded that Damascus is responsible. "I am amazed this was the conclusion. No one has yet visited the site of the crime. How do you know that?" he asked. Syria's Ambassador Bashar al-Jaafari said it is all "lies and accusations" against his country, and Syria no longer possesses chemical weapons, as confirmed by the United Nations in June 2014. Seeking a political solution Council members also were briefed by U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura, who is tasked with trying to bring the opposing Syrian sides together in a political settlement. He recently completed a fifth round of intra-Syrian talks in Geneva, the first time the two sides have spoken directly instead of through him. De Mistura said that while there were no breakthroughs, there also were no breakdowns, and that the parties held substantive talks for nine full days on all the issues. "Yes, the gaps are still wide," he said. He warned that the talks were overshadowed by an intensification of fighting on the ground and urged the restoration of a nationwide cease-fire. "This is a time for clear thinking, strategy, imagination, cooperation," de Mistura said. He welcomed the talks Wednesday in Moscow between U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov. He said he knows the two powers have "serious differences," but they also have "common interests and responsibilities." "They must find a way to work together, to stabilize the situation, in a deliberate, realistic and concerted way, in support of the political process," de Mistura said. Ultimately, de Mistura said there is a choice: Either the killing and destruction continue, or there is a shift to serious discussion and real de-escalation and a cease-fire to reach a political settlement. "The stakes in Syria are very high." A pedestrian walks past the offices of JPMorgan Chase in London. Bruno Iksil, a.k.a. the London Whale, lost $6.2 billion placing risky bets on financial instruments while working for JPMorgan, and has yet to be tried. (Simon Dawson/Bloomberg) Bruno Iksil achieved Wall Street notoriety with one of the worst trades in history. He lost $6.2 billion more than three times the yearly budget of the Securities and Exchange Commission placing risky bets on complex financial instruments while working for JPMorgan Chase. Iksils big losses earned him the nickname the London Whale, and set off an intense investigation into the way JPMorgan handles such sophisticated trades. The bank ultimately paid $920 million in fines to U.S. and British regulators, and its chief executive, Jamie Dimon, offered several humbling apologies for the episode. But five years later, Iksil, who is reportedly living with his family in France, has yet to be tried. After striking a deal with federal prosecutors to avoid criminal prosecution more than three years ago, the Wall Street Journal reported this week that the Federal Reserve is backing off plans to file a complaint against Iksil. The case is turning into the latest example of how U.S. regulators and prosecutors struggle to hold individuals responsible for corporate wrongdoing. Facing criticism of its record on prosecuting white collar crime, the Obama administration in 2015 announced that it would pursue more cases against individual company executives, not just corporations. Sally Yates, deputy U.S. attorney general at the time, called the policy one of the most important documents within the Justice Department community. But it remains unclear how the Trump administration plans to proceed with such cases. One test, said some legal experts, could come from the Justice Departments handling of Wells Fargos admission last year that it had fired 5,300 employees over a five-year period for opening bank accounts that customers didnt authorize. The bank announced this week that it would strip an additional $75 million in compensation from two senior executives, including former chief executive John Stumpf, after an internal investigation found the abusive sales practices were going on much longer than initially disclosed. The Wells Fargo case may be an early test of this administrations resolve to hold corporations responsible for crimes, said Brandon L. Garrett, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law. They have said they dont want to regulate businesses and banks, and that doesnt bode well for corporate crime enforcement. While not addressing any case in particular, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has noted the importance of individual responsibility, Trevor McFadden, the deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Departments criminal division, said in a February speech. Indeed, our partnerships with foreign authorities are increasingly allowing us to ensure that even individuals living abroad are held accountable for their actions, he said. Finding individuals to prosecute in the London Whale case has been particularly difficult. Iksil assembled a huge portfolio of investments designed to hedge JPMorgan against other risky bets the bank was making. But in 2012, Iksils quasi-insurance policies started to cost the bank money. Initially, JPMorgan estimated the losses from Iksils trade would amount to $2 billion, but eventually the firm disclosed the figure was even bigger $6.2 billion. Regulators and lawmakers pummeled the bank and accused Dimon of being less than forthright with regulators as he learned about the botched trades. (Dimon initially dismissed the incident as a tempest in a teapot, but as the losses grew, he called it the stupidest and most embarrassing situation I have ever been a part of.) As prosecutors began to build cases against the bank, the U.S. attorney for Manhattan announced in 2013 that the office had entered into a nonprosecution agreement with Iskil for cooperating with prosecutors. Although I dont think you could call him blameless, he did sound the alarm more than once, former U.S. attorney Preet Bharara said at the time. In 2015, Britain's Financial Conduct Authority announced it was dropping its investigation into Iksil. Now, it appears the Federal Reserve, which declined to comment, may not be filing charges either. In letters to several media outlets, including Bloomberg News, Iksil said he was not to blame for the episode. Iksil said he warned his superiors about the potentially huge losses, but was instructed to carry out the trades anyway. The governments decision to not prosecute shows that he is not culpable, Iksil wrote. Publicity surrounding the losses sustained by . . . JPMorgan typically refers to the London Whale in terms that imply that one person was responsible for the trades at issue, he said. In fact the losses . . . were not the actions of one person acting in an unauthorized manner. My role was to execute a trading strategy that had been initiated, approved, mandated and monitored by . . . senior management. Iksils attorney could not be immediately reached for comment. Two of Iksils colleagues, Javier Martin-Artajo and Julien Grout were charged with wire fraud and other offenses. But their cases have yet to go to court. Spain has reportedly refused to extradite Martin-Artajo, a Spanish national, and Grout, who is from France, has also not returned to the United States. The Department of Justice declined to comment on the issue. Grouts attorney, Edward Little, has complained about the deal Iksil struck to avoid prosecution, calling it astonishing. The governments strategy letting Iksil escape responsibility in exchange for incriminating Mr. Grout exposes the weakness of the charges and can only be explained by the political pressure put on the Department of Justice to bring a criminal case in the London Whale affair, Little said in a 2013 statement. EC receives election-related materials from China The Election Commission on Wednesday received various kinds of election-related materials as support from China for the upcoming May 14 elections. ECONOMY U.S. budget deficit hit $176 billion in March The federal government ran a budget deficit in March that was sharply higher than a year ago. Through the first half of this budget year, the deficit is running 14.7 percent higher than the same period a year ago. The deficit totaled $176.2 billion in March, compared with $108 billion in March 2016, the Treasury Department said. A big part of that jump reflected $42 billion in April benefit payments shifted into March because April 1 fell on a Saturday. Through the first six months of this budget year, the deficit is $526.9 billion. Associated Press Also in Business BlackBerry said it has been awarded $814.9 million in a binding interim arbitration decision in a dispute with Qualcomm over royalty overpayments. The companies agreed last year to arbitrate a disagreement over whether Qualcomms pledge to cap certain royalties applied to payments made by BlackBerry under a license deal. Rising fuel costs hurt Deltas first-quarter profit, which dropped 36 percent from the same period a year before. But the companys adjusted earnings beat expectations. Delta reported net income of $603 million, or 82 cents per share, down from $946 million in the same quarter a year ago. Adjusted earnings were 77 cents per share, surpassing expectations by 4 cents. Revenue fell 1 percent to $9.15 billion in the period. Amazon is introducing new tools to help parents see what their kids are doing on the companys Fire tablets. Parents who sign up with Amazons FreeTime service will be able to view each childs activities. Information will include the amount of time spent on e-books, videos, apps and Web browsing. (Amazon chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos owns The Washington Post.) Sculptor Arturo Di Modica is demanding that the Fearless Girl statue that has faced off against his Charging Bull statue on Wall Street since last month be removed. He says Kristen Visbals statue of a girl with hands on hips has turned his 11-foot-tall bull, which is supposed to represent freedom in the world, peace, strength, power and love, into something negative. From news reports Coming today 8:30 a.m.: Labor Department releases weekly jobless claims. 10 a.m.: Freddie Mac releases weekly mortgage rates. Earnings: Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase. Illegal border crossings into the United States have decreased by two-thirds since peaking in 2000. In the last decade, more undocumented immigrants have been arriving to the U.S. through ports of entry than by crossing the border illegally. For every three people who crossed illegally in 2014, six others crossed legally and overstayed their visas. Meanwhile, the number of asylum seekers has risen. In 2015, for every 12 detentions between ports of entry, six others were declared inadmissible after presenting themselves at ports of entry. A significant number in these two groups asked for protection under the U.S. law. Today, the main immigration challenges are at the nations doors. When President Trump signed his executive order on immigration in January, he declared his desire to build a contiguous and impassable physical barrier along the southern border. Two months later, Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly told the Senate that its unlikely that we will build a wall or physical barrier from sea to shining sea. Trumps desire to build a wall seems to run against the opinions of immigration officials who have years of experience in U.S. border enforcement. Although many agree the border needs more funding and improvements, the overwhelming majority say a wall along the entire Southwest border is unnecessary. Since 2012, more immigrants have been choosing to present themselves to authorities directly at ports of entry. Gil Kerlikowske, chief of U.S. Customs and Border Protection under President Barack Obama, said immigration authorities have recognized this as a new trend. We have seen a change in this last year, he said. Over the past several years, people were walking up and turning themselves in between ports of entry. In the last year, we saw more people walking to ports of entry and turning themselves in. Norma Pimentel, who has helped immigrant families at her Sacred Heart Church in McAllen, Tex., since 2014, said that she has seen an increase in those choosing to turn themselves in. A wall is not going to address that, she said. Some immigrants choose to turn themselves in because they seek protection. Antonio says he and his family fled Mexico in May from a gang that killed his aunt. Two cars arrived and armed men got out of the cars. They broke down the door. I could see them, he said. My wife, my kid and I started to run to the back door in order to escape. I circled the block, waiting until they were gone. They circled the block, too, searching for us. Antonios family hid until they could escape by car. When they got to a port of entry, they turned themselves in, asking for protection under U.S. law. In 2016, an average of 752 immigrants a day who turned themselves in were deemed inadmissible while Border Patrol made 1,140 apprehensions. Although there is no official tally on how many individuals turn themselves in between ports of entry, Kerlikowske said, they represent an important number of new arrivals today. A vast number of people are turning themselves in. They are not trying to elude Border Patrol. ... I dont even use the word apprehensions. It is much more of a border management problem, he said. Michael Fisher, who was head of U.S. Border Patrol from 2010 to 2015, confirmed this: For Border Patrol statistics, immigrants who turn themselves in between ports of entry are still considered apprehensions, as they crossed the border illegally. At the end of the day, those individuals, once it has been determined they are illegally in this country, that is an arrest whether they are waiting for us in the lobby or whether we have to chase them, Fisher said. Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly told the Senate that his agency had seen a massive drop in apprehensions in February and March. In a statement in March, he said the drop was the result of the administrations implementation of Executive Orders to enforce immigration laws. For David V. Aguilar, a former Border Patrol chief who also served as deputy and acting commissioner for CBP, this drop shows the new administration is having an impact in the flow into this country. Can that be sustained? One of the ways is keeping the removals that are being carried out now, he said. On Tuesday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions directed federal prosecutors across the country to make immigration cases a higher priority and look for opportunities to bring serious felony charges against those who cross the border illegally. Still under U.S. law, individuals who show credible fears can be allowed protection. The number of asylum seekers claiming fear of persecution or torture if returned to their country of origin has grown from 5,241 in 2006 to 94,048 in 2016. According to an annual report by DHS in 2016, the backlog of pending asylum cases has increased 1,400 percent in the last five years, and asylum applications and credible fear claims are reducing agency resources on a significant scale. Individuals who visited the U.S. legally but overstayed their visas have outnumbered those who arrived illegally since 2007. In addition to those who voluntarily present themselves to U.S. authorities, there is a larger group that wouldnt encounter the wall: People who cross legally on a temporary nonimmigrant visa and overstay. In 2014, visa overstays accounted for two-thirds of new unauthorized immigrants, according to a recent report by the Center for Migration Studies authored by the groups executive director, Donald Kerwin, and Robert Warren, former director of statistics for the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). According to the report, overstays have exceeded illegal crossings at the southwest border since 2007, and in 2014 they accounted for 42 percent of the undocumented population, a percentage that will continue to increase as long as overstaying continues to be the predominant mode of arrival. This trend follows years of border fortification and a reduction in the number of migrants from Mexico choosing to make the journey. I think it is important that policy makers have the best information for making new policies, Warren said. They should be giving feedback to the people in the embassies. But counting overstayers efficiently has always been a challenge for the United States, as there is no system in place at ports of entry to keep track of those exiting. Almost two decades passed between the last report on the subject, by the INS in 1997, and DHSs report in 2016. Even more striking is that information is still missing on how many overstayers crossed through land ports because there is a lack of infrastructure to collect information on exiting visitors. At sea- and airports, carriers are responsible for doing so. As described by Robert Warren, the change in modes of arrival raises important policy questions, not just about the need for a 2,000-mile wall but about the allocation of immigration enforcement resources compared to other strategies. Kerlikowske, who retired as a commissioner of Customs and Border Protection in January, said no one in the new administration had consulted him during the transition. This could raise questions on how information was being transferred between inbound and outbound teams and whether the most recent trends are being reflected in budget allocations. According to him, Theres never really been a good system for counting people who leave the United States. Airports in this country were never designed to have facilities for people leaving. But there is a lack of infrastructure to do so. Ralph Basham led four of the eight operational components of what is now the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and was the director of President George W. Bushs Secret Service. As the CBP commissioner between 2006 and 2009, he led the agency as it built 670 miles of fencing and doubled the size of Border Patrol in over two years. Aside from the overstays, the ports of entries are challenged. Their infrastructures need to be replaced to deal with the flow of drugs, illegal coming across and trafficking, he said. You dont need that type of infrastructure along 2,000 miles, he added. It needs to make sense where you put your dollars. Ive had numerous conversations with the administration regarding what our experiences were. Whether they take my advices or not is up to them, Basham said. For Robert Bonner, who served as commissioner of the CBP between 2003 and 2006, theres no question that the border needs more fencing and that existing fencing needs to be improved. But he doesnt believe it is necessary along the whole border. It might be marginally helpful, but more sophisticated sensoring might be even more helpful, at least for some regions of the border, Bonner said. When asked about creating new physical barriers at the border, Doris Meissner, commissioner of INS under Clinton, said, The thinking now is fighting yesterdays battles. Meissner was responsible for building up the first fence along the border in the 1990s, near urban areas like San Diego. Meissner said Trump created his candidacy by describing a border that is still out of control. Enough people were persuaded that was what we need. But is it rational? Is it consistent with the facts as we know them? No, it is not, Meissner said. David Aguilar said Border Patrol needs additional fencing, personnel and more technology, but in addition to border enforcement, he highlighted the need for building up our capability on immigration judges. The people that are from the places other than Mexico are not going to be as responsive to the tactics and the capabilities that we applied in 2000, he continued. Aguilar, who said the wall could have an important deterrent effect, said that technology might fit better along some segments of the border. For Kerlikowske, more could also be done in countries of origin. If they were safer, and have opportunities, and their economies were better you wouldnt have people from those countries subjected to the environment, smugglers, robberies, sexual assault, et cetera, Kerlikowske said. So there are things that could be done, but it just doesnt get as much attention as the big wall. Floris White Bull on Nov. 24, 2016, in the film Awake, a Dream From Standing Rock. (Josh Fox) In November, documentarian Josh Fox uploaded a short video to Facebook of Floris White Bull, who had just been released from jail. Wrapped in a blanket under a dark sky, she tearfully recounted what she witnessed at a standoff between police and activists over the Dakota Access Pipeline. The images are burned into my mind right now of the sounds of my people screaming in horror, our young people shot off those horses with those rubber bullets, she tells the camera. Were not violent criminals, and were not bad people. Were not murderers, and were not rapists, were not drug dealers just everyday people that want a better life for our children. The video, which splices her interview with footage of police in riot gear beating and hosing down activists, had 30 million views within a couple days. The thousands of comments were nearly all variations on a theme of compassion for the Native Americans protesting the pipeline under the Missouri River, which is the source of drinking water for the Standing Rock Sioux, not to mention millions of other Americans. That two-minute clip was the seed for the documentary Awake, a Dream from Standing Rock, which Fox co-directed with Myron Dewey and James Spione. The documentary stands out because theres a clear sense that Fox, who is white, didnt just parachute in and tell this story through his eyes. Its an example of how filmmakers are taking steps toward more-inclusive storytelling. Not only did Fox collaborate with Native Americans on the film, he also incorporated footage from livestreams, which have become a democratizing force, helping marginalized groups to get their messages seen. Facebook Live videos have broadcast the reality of police officers shooting unarmed black men, such as Philando Castile in Minnesota. Similarly, many activists at Standing Rock were uploading videos in real time, among them Dewey, a Native American filmmaker who prolifically captured what was happening on the ground. He filmed Morton County police firing rubber bullets and water cannons at activists in freezing temperatures, and millions of people watched. It was the online viral video outlets that really scooped everybody else, Fox said of Standing Rock. Often, when the mainstream media came, the response was pathetic and their stories were uninformed and they hadnt taken the time to really understand what was happening. On Nov. 20, police fired water cannons, tear gas and concussion grenades at water protectors, as recounted in the film. (James Spione) White Bull, who co-wrote the script for Awake, opens the movie with a lyrical and elegiac narration as she talks about the prophecy of a black snake and the young people who came together to defeat it. During a phone interview, she discussed the importance of being able to tell her own story. She reminisced about her father, another activist, who would appeal to journalists to help him shed light on injustices. But the outcome wasnt always empowering because his message was reduced to sound bites. Any time that you do interviews, theyre always subject to being cut into the story that [journalists] want to tell, she said. Its important to be able to tell your own story, and why its important to you, and why other people should care about it. Despite still lagging when it comes to diversity behind the camera, the movie industry has grown more inclusive of marginalized groups in recent years. For instance, four documentaries from black directors were nominated for Oscars earlier this year, including Ezra Edelmans O.J.: Made in America, which won. Fox brought a deep understanding of pipelines to his movie the Oscar-nominated director of Gasland has been making films critical of the oil and gas industry for the past decade. But Awake comes across as a partnership with the Native American activists on screen. They werent just the stars of a story he was telling. The doc premieres at the Tribeca Film Festival on Earth Day, April 22, the same day it streams online for viewers willing to donate at least a dollar to the Indigenous Media Fund. Given the films perspective, its no surprise that its a call to action, urging viewers to join the protest and not just through Facebook likes. The pipeline was completed and is nearly operational, but tribes are still suing to try to halt the project. Everyone involved in this project is in one way or another an activist, Fox said, but he doesnt see that as presenting a skewed story so much as leveling the playing field. We have a perspective, and that perspective makes it more true and not less true. Right now, the corporate media is so blind to the reality that their stories skew toward the oil companies and the big banks without them even trying, so you have to kind of correct that myopia. The fact that the film is told from the point of view of the self-proclaimed water protectors means that it may only reach a specific audience, but thats okay with White Bull. Im not concerned about trying to change somebodys mind who believes only in the almighty dollar and doesnt believe in leaving something for their children, she said. Im trying to help people realize that they have power even when they feel powerless. Made in Hawaii, Jakarta. African cool. And then came Michelle. A garden kept them grounded. Those two girls. Kale. Kohlrabi. Elizabeth Alexander and Paul Muldoon More than 200 poets are writing a Renga for Obama, a celebratory ode to the 44th president, which is published in the Harvard Review. The Renga for Obama, which is curated and edited by poet Major Jackson, is crafted in a traditional Japanese form of poetry, in which poets working in pairs compose a tan-renga of two stanzas of poetry. Barack Obama waits to speak at Nelson Mandela's memorial service in 2013. (Pete Souza/The White House) The first stanza is modeled after traditional haiku with three lines of five, then seven, then five syllables. The first stanza is followed by a response to the haiku with two lines, which are called waki and have seven syllables in each line. The poets collaborate to create the tan-renga, which are then submitted to Jackson. Jackson adds a new tan-renga to the poem each day for the first 100 days, creating a dynamic chain of poetry. The first lines of the Renga for Obama were published Jan. 21 in the Review. The poem is intended in the spirit of celebration, said Jackson, 48, a professor of English at University of Vermont and poetry editor of the Review. Jacksons idea for the Renga for Obama was sparked a few days before Donald Trumps inauguration. Jackson was at his desk in his home office, writing and reading about the upcoming inauguration. About 9,000 people gathered in the rain for an Obama rally at Cleveland State University on Oct. 5, 2012. (Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post) Obama eats shaved ice with daughters Sasha, 7, and Malia, 10, at Island Snow in Kailua, Hawaii, on Aug. 13, 2008. (Alex Brandon/Associated Press) It dawned on me that Barack Obama would not be in the public life of Americans as he had been for eight years, Jackson said in an interview. His public life as a servant was coming to a close. I remember when [George W.] Bushs tenure as president was coming to a close; I remember the scene on the lawn when the Obamas were escorting them to the helicopter and waving goodbye. It struck me as a poignant moment the poignant end of his life as a public servant and the historic nature of his presidency. Out of that,grew the project. His life felt epic to me. Jackson called his wife, poet Didi Jackson, into the study and explained his idea. She said go for it, Jackson recalled. We are always looking for an occasion when poetry has a great relevance to our lives. This seemed like another means to assert the relevance of poetry in our lifetime. That night, Jackson wrote an email outlining the project. But he did not hit the send button. The next morning, my wife asked, Did you send the e-mail? I said no. She said why not. I said, Im overwhelmed. She said, We need this right now. I think she was alluding to the fact that given the level of discourse, how polarized we had become as a nation, that we could use words from poets that honored us as a nation through the lens of celebrating this historic presidency. He sent the email. Obama attended the White House Correspondents Association dinner on April 30, 2016. (Yuri Gripas/Reuters) Jackson began pairing and assigning 270 poets. Christina Thompson, editor of the Review, publishes the renga each day. Jackson insisted the poem not be a reaction to Trumps presidency but a celebration of Obama. As we deepen into the first 100 days of the Trump presidency, poets cannot help but respond to a headline, Jackson said. Art should not be in the service of any political view, Jackson said. Art takes in the full range of human experience and puts it through the lens and hopefully we see an aspect fresh and new. Poets, Jackson said, interrogate language more closely than politicians. For politicians, words are tools, Jackson said. For poets, words are jewels. They are the material of our art. It becomes the very material of which we create art. The response to the Renga for Obama, Jackson said, has been huge. They have not heard directly from Obama, Jackson said, but the word on the street is that he has read it. He is a very literary-minded political leader. Here are some selections from the Renga for Obama: Healing in winter Lava-flower tea its wood Endures like laurel. Island-born, cool lava-bloom. You. Presiding, laurel-crowned. Robert Pinsky and Carol Muske-Dukes a helicopter lifts from winter lawns yet your verdant hope keeps on the snow conceals a future hatch of shadow dragonflies Kimiko Hahn and Chase Twichell The moon hidden there In the folds of day, the grey What blind bold walking Sane voice burnt in black wax wont swerve All I hope for now is reverb. Dorothea Lasky and Michael Dickman What big ears you have, Mr. President! and heart Big as big can be, Big as the Pyramid & Sphinx In the drifting sands of Time Ron Padgett and Ed Sanders We can. We will. Yes. From marrow to groove. Yes. We dare burden to break to carry our massive us. Marching poets. Each. Beat. Leaps Edwin Torres and Bob Holman Bernadette Peaches Halton has seen it all from behind the counter at Bens Chili Bowl. (Dixie D. Vereen/For The Washington Post) For decades it has been a paradox of the Washington restaurant scene that chili, the patron saint of heartburn, is celebrated as some of the citys greatest comfort food. That prestige is thanks to Bens Chili Bowl, the humble U Street greasy spoon frequented by global celebrities and politicians since it attained mythoheroic swagger during race riots in 1968. And Bens prestige is due in large part to Bernadette Peaches Halton. (Only bill collectors call me Bernadette, she said; shes had the nickname ever since her mother noticed she was, as Peaches put it, a furry baby). There is dispute about whether it was the last week of March or the first week of April, but 40 years ago, in 1977, a girl just shy of her 17th birthday sauntered into the diner looking for her first job, an after-school gig. With her practiced countryside Virginian gentility, Virginia Ali, who co-founded the joint with her late husband, the eponymous Ben, sized up the street-wise kid from the neighborhood that is now called NoMa but was then called unprintable epithets. Arent you a little young to be working? Ali asked. The job bank told me this is where I can get a job, so Im here, Peaches replied. [Bens Chili Bowl review: I get its importance. But I still wish the food were better.] She was hired. Within a few years, she was in charge of making the chili, handed the recipe and ladles by Ben himself. She promised him to live up to that responsibility. That first job became her last, her only, her one true calling. For 40 years, Peaches, Bens hidden figure, has been making the chili all of it with hardly a sick day (although now she has two assistants to handle, for example, chopping). Variety may be the spice of life, but in a pinch, cayenne will do nicely. People tell me its too hot in here. Too cold. Somethings wrong with the jukebox. Dont tell me. Tell Peaches, said Ali. She runs everything. I own it. She runs it. Peaches arrives at Bens at 3 a.m. to cook the chili, then manage the breakfast shift. (Dixie D. Vereen/For The Washington Post) Halton labels one of the five-gallon pots of chili sauce. (Dixie D. Vereen/For The Washington Post) Peaches comes in through the back door at 3 a.m. almost every day. She lights 10 stovetop burners, each with a five- or 10-gallon pot atop it (and shes usually juggling 30 pots total). Six of the burners are for chili sauce and four for browning meat and veggies. She wraps that up around 6 a.m. and then she manages the breakfast shift until noon. Now write this down, Peaches instructed me. This place has never been robbed. Even in all that heroin and crack and those gangs, weve never been robbed. No, no, no. Not on my watch. Ben and Virginia may have brought the spice, but Peaches packed the pow. [Bens Chili Bowl mural gets a Wizards makeover in time for the playoffs] She was an inner-city girl. She knew the ropes, Ali said. She could spot anything: drug deals, thieves, vandals, pickpockets, when a fight was about to break out. And I was from rural Virginia. I didnt know the city or even our customers the way she did. You were so naive! Peaches roared, slapping the table and letting her eyes bug out for effect. Then, softly and almost apologetically: We both were, missy. Ali adjusted her low-key-glamourpuss mane of white hair. I prefer reserved, she said. Bens Chili Bowl owner Virginia Ali, right, and Peaches Halton have a mother-daughter relationship that began in 1977 when Ali hired Halton for her first job. (Dixie D. Vereen/For The Washington Post) If there is an exception to the rule of Alis painstaking politeness, its Peaches. The two of them call each other missy, yes, but also candidly and determinedly think of their relationship as mother and daughter even if they banter and ballyhoo like sorority sisters at times. Im the daughter they never had, said Peaches, as Ali nodded solemnly. Ali lectured Peaches whenever the latter would date an unfit boyfriend. (Peachess current boyfriend is Ali-approved.) Their devotion is fierce. Peaches once hopped over the counter, reverse bear-hugged a customer and literally threw her out onto the street all for raising her voice and cursing at Ali. In their slow hours during the devastating construction of the Metro station across the street, when the diner was little more than a food truck at a construction site and when the staff withered to the point that Peaches was the only employee, she would pass the time with Ali by learning to cook for life, not just for Bens. She still giggles about a Heath bar-like dessert they made once. Ali taught her responsibility, promptness and the power of honesty. [Why the Bens Chili Bowl mural matters] (Zoeann Murphy/The Washington Post) Im a black woman who can say what I think to all my co-workers without worrying about them being offended, Peaches said. From Day One, for 40 years, I have always been comfortable and happy. Even when this neighborhood was all drugs and crime. Even when the mayor got caught with crack. Even when the president got shot. Even when we had to walk a wooden sidewalk next to a construction crater and go home at sundown because there was no streetlights. I was comfortable and happy. I didnt see any need to go complaining and letting my complaints drag me some other place. This is where I belong. They needed me, and I needed them. Bernard Demczuk, Bens staff historian, echoed that sentiment. If youre behind the counter at Bens, youre having fun, he said. Thats thanks to Peaches. Demczuk said that the kitchen used to be out front, flush with the counter and booths, and that the indelible presence of Peaches and his longtime crush on her kept him coming back as a regular, even in the bleak years. Since it opened in 1968, Bens Chili Bowl has become an institution in the city, drawing large crowds and surviving despite years of heavy construction on U Street and major shifts in neighborhood demographics. (Dixie D. Vereen/For The Washington Post) In a town of revolving-door lobbyists, pop-up protesters, here-and-gone congressional interns and the fickleness of the current White House administration, Peaches loyalty, built on a promise to Ben, is a marvel of integrity and reliability. Even Supreme Court justices, appointed for life, often dont serve as long as Peaches has. But Peaches is not alone. Maria Martinez, now an assistant to Peaches, is in her 19th year at Bens. James Dolo, a Bens breakfast manager, is in his 16th. Helen Tesfamichael, another assistant to Peaches, has been there 12. They are united in their faith that while tomorrow isnt promised, it can at least be pledged. I kept the faith by remembering this is the nations capital, Ali said. Where is it going? It has to go up. Its got to get better. This too shall pass. Peaches smiled at that. Well, its easier for me, she said. Whenever Im working, its dawning. Night turns into day and I get to spend that time in a kitchen, in my time, making home-cooked meals for the city and singing along with the radio. Now, youre gonna tell me thats work? Morgan is a freelance writer in New York. Alex Lopez and other students at Alcoa Intermediate School in Maryville, Tenn., plant an Eastern Red Bud tree during an Arbor Day event in March. (Mark A. Large/Daily Times via AP) In the holiday pantheon, Arbor Day is taken about as seriously as Groundhog Day. The last time you gave it a thought was probably second grade, when your class went on a tree-planting field trip. But Im going to make the case that Arbor Day is the perfect 21st-century holiday, a celebration of something that can make a dent in our most modern problems: food production and climate change. Trees! I take them for granted. My husband and I live on two acres of them, and they house our wildlife, heat our home, and, in the fall, bury our driveway in an unconscionable volume of leaves. But they do something else, as well. Thanks to the miracle of photosynthesis, trees sequester carbon. They take carbon dioxide out of the air and turn it into carbohydrates that are stored in the tree and its root system, locking away that carbon and releasing oxygen in the process. All green plants do this, of course, so what makes trees so special? Size. The bigger the plant, the bigger the sequestration, and trees are enormous. I asked Thomas Crowther, of the Netherlands Institute of Ecology and recently the lead author of a global tree census, to walk me through the math. On average, a tree will sequester 50 pounds of carbon per year small trees, less; big trees, more. Compare that to the savings you get when you switch to a hybrid car about 3,300 pounds per year and it sounds like a small number. But factor in a trees life span, which is often centuries, and the tree looks better and better. By the time the tree you plant this Arbor Day (April 28) is 70 years old, itll have the same carbon value of one Prius-year. If it lives to 200, well, you see the potential. The net of it is that a step as simple as a yearly tree planting can be as effective as a switch to a hybrid at reducing the atmospheres carbon load. So lets widen the lens. Could we have a real impact on CO2 levels if we Americans started taking Arbor Day seriously, and planted trees? I think its a beautiful idea, said Crowther. If each of those 300 million new trees were planted and monitored and grew, thats not an insignificant little chunk. It would show people how easy it is to have an effect, and it would connect people with the environment. It might spur on a hell of a lot more. Crowthers tree enthusiasm is catching, and I find myself believing in trees as environmental superheroes, fighting climate change and raising environmental consciousness in a single bound. But can they help fight the problems on American farms? Incorporating trees into farming agroforestry, its called has benefits beyond carbon sequestration. Ravi Prabhu, deputy director general for research of the World Agroforestry Center, ticked off that list of benefits: as windbreaks, they decrease the stress on crops; they can decrease temperatures; they can fix nitrogen and increase soil fertility; they decrease erosion and nutrient runoff; they can prevent water from running off, forcing it into the ground. And, some trees can be harvested for timber or grow fruits or nuts. In the developing world, where farms tend to be smaller and more diverse than they are in the United States, the potential for agroforestry is large and varied. Here at home, where a typical farm is hundreds, or maybe thousands, of acres of just a few crops, its harder to find an economically feasible way to incorporate trees. I talked with Richard Straight, technology transfer leader at the Agriculture Departments National Agroforestry Center (NAC), about how American farmers use or can use trees. The most common use is as a windbreak, Straight explains. Plant a row of trees alongside a field, and it can increase the downwind yield to a distance of about 10 times the height of the tree. Farmers also use trees as riparian borders forested strips along waterways that reduce runoff, increase biodiversity and act as windbreaks. The USDA doesnt have good data on how many farmers use these techniques, but Straight says that the NAC is seeing increased interest. The biggest obstacle, as it so often is in farming, is cost. Its just a back-of-the-envelope calculation, but Straight walked me through an example that came to just under $200 per acre. If youre farming 1,500 acres, thats a big chunk of money that you wont see much return on for a decade. And its possible there wont be a return at all. Charles Barden, professor of forestry at Kansas State University, is researching the effect of windbreaks on yield and has found that the percentage of fields with windbreaks that saw a statistically significant increase in yield varies from 17 to 45 percent. Yield isnt the only benefit, but its the one thats reflected in the farms bottom line. There was a time when USDA helped out with that cost. In the late 80s, there were bonuses for signing up that made it easy, says Straight. It was financially a good choice. But those incentives have since changed, and a lot of those windbreaks have come out. Straight acknowledges the difficulty of a long-term, uncertain benefit coupled with the financial hit not just of the expense, but of the land you take out of production. Meanwhile, in other parts of the world, trees are more than paying for themselves. In the Punjab [in India], farmers are planting poplar and wheat together and making more money on the poplar, says Prabhu. If there were opportunities like that here, it would change the calculus. Thats the line the NAC is pursuing, but its hard to find a profitable way for a highly mechanized farm, optimized for just a few crops, to find the time, workforce and market for a different kind of crop. Straights looking into a possible solution. What if agroforestry were the one-stone-two-birds solution to two ag-related issues: row-crop management and opportunities for young farmers? What if the farmers with the thousands of acres leased areas for windbreaks and riparian borders to beginning farmers trying to get hold of land? The area would then be a moneymaker for the row-crop farmer, who would also accrue crop yield and ecosystem benefits down the line. The new farmer would have a chance to try fruit, timber, mushrooms, medicinals or some other kind of perennial agriculture on a very long, skinny farm. It wouldnt be an easy balance to orchestrate, Straight warns. What would a lease look like? Could rent scale up as the crop matured? Could several contiguous farmers lease together to one new guy? But it sure is an intriguing idea. I try hard not to fall victim to the starry-eyed romanticism that sometimes informs the public conversation about farming (and Ive found that actually farming helps me do that). But trees on farms and off are something that absolutely everyone seems to support. Im going to plant a tree this Arbor Day. Will you join me? Well all sequester carbon, celebrate biodiversity and break wind together. A model of Teleocrater rhadinus, a close relative of dinosaurs. Its shown preying on a cynodont, a distant relative of mammals. (Bernardino Rivadavia Natural Sciences Museum/Reuters) Scientists have identified the oldest known relative of the dinosaurs and are expressing surprise at how little it resembled one. Researchers on Wednesday described fossils of a long-necked, four-legged, meat-eating reptile called Teleocrater rhadinus. It reached up to 10 feet long and prowled across what is now Tanzania, in East Africa, about 245 million years ago. Teleocrater lived during the Triassic Period, millions of years before the first dinosaurs. Scientists called it a close cousin rather than a direct dinosaur ancestor. Its appearance, part crocodile and part dinosaur, was different from what scientists had expected from the earliest members of the dinosaur family tree. Im surprised by the mosaic or mix of features that it possesses, said Kenneth Angielczyk, one of the researchers in the study, which was published in the journal Nature. This illustration from the Natural History Museum in London shows a teleocrater feasting on a cynognathus, a distant relative of mammals. (Mark Witton and Paul Barrett/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images) In terms of how it shakes up our understanding of dinosaur evolution, Teleocrater shows that the earliest members of the dinosaur lineage, or family tree, were very unlike dinosaurs, Angielczyk said. Dinosaurs belong to a larger group called archosaurs (ARK-uh-sores). About 250 million years ago, that group split into two branches: crocodilians (which include alligators and crocodiles); and another branch that includes dinosaurs, birds and extinct flying reptiles called pterosaurs (TARE-uh-sores). Teleocrater is the oldest-known member of the dinosaur-pterosaur-bird branch. Scientists had expected such a dinosaur forerunner to be a smallish, two-legged predator. Although dinosaur predators had two legs, the teleocrater instead was four-legged. It looked similar to a Komodo dragon, a large lizard that lives in Indonesia. Virginia Tech paleontologist Sterling Nesbitt, the studys main author, said fossils of at least four teleocraters were found in southern Tanzania. Unlike a dinosaur, the teleocrater had ankle joints that could rotate from side to side and flex up and down, giving it a crocodile-like walking style. Teleocraters remains were found in the same Tanzanian region as fossils of the two-legged meat-eater nyasasaurus, which lived perhaps 2 million years later. Some scientists regard nyasasaurus as the earliest-known dinosaur. The Hubble Space Telescope took these photos of Saturn from 1996 to 2000, showing the planet in different stages of its 29-year journey around the sun. The Hubble Space Telescope took these photos of Saturn from 1996 to 2000, showing the planet in different stages of its 29-year journey around the sun. NASA/Hubble Heritage Team via Reuters Welcome to Saturn, home to a stunning set of rings, moons and maybe even life Welcome to Saturn, home to a stunning set of rings, moons and maybe even life A tiny, icy ocean world orbiting Saturn is now a hotter-than-ever candidate for potential alien life. Cassini, an unmanned NASA spacecraft, has detected hydrogen molecules in geysers shooting off the moon Enceladus. The hydrogen may be the result of deep-sea chemical reactions between water and rock, which could spark microscopic life, scientists announced Thursday. NASA and others are quick to point out this latest discovery does not mean theres life on Enceladus (ehn-SEHL-uh-duhs), but that there may be conditions favorable for life. A liquid ocean exists beneath the icy surface of Enceladus, which is barely 300 miles across. Thanks to Cassini, scientists have long known about the moons geysers, which spew water vapor from cracks at the moons south pole. The heavy presence of hydrogen suggests chemical reactions between the warm water and ocean-floor rock that could support life. Cassini uncovered the hydrogen during its final close flyby of Enceladus in 2015, when it dove deeper than ever through the moons clouds of vapor and particles. The researchers reported that the hydrogen, along with carbon dioxide that was also found, could mean that undersea microorganisms are producing methane. The gas is produced in a similar way in Earths oceans and waterways. An illustration of Cassini above Saturn. It will dive toward the planet and burn up in September, at the end of its mission. (NASA/JPL-Caltech via European Pressphoto Agency) It really represents a capstone finding or high point for the mission, said Linda Spilker, a scientist on the Cassini project who noted that the spacecraft has been circling Saturn for more than a decade. We now know that Enceladus has almost all of the ingredients that you would need to support life as we know it on Earth, she said at a NASA news conference. Astronomers find seven planets that could contain life Observers asked the scientists questions using Twitter, including whether NASA was talking about tiny bacteria or something much bigger, such as giant squids. Most of us would be excited with any life, said Mary Voytek, a senior scientist for NASA. Were going to start with bacteria and, if we get lucky, maybe theres something thats larger. The findings were reported Thursday in the journal Science by a team from Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. Launched in 1997, Cassini is now finally running low on fuel. The spacecraft will duck through the gap between Saturn and its rings 22 times before spiraling out of control and burning up in the sky above Saturn this September. A photograph of Enceladus taken by Cassini in November 2016. (NASA/JPL-Caltech and Space Science Institute via Reuters) Cassini has no instruments that can detect life, so it will be up to future robotic visitors to seek out possible life on Enceladus, the scientists said. Europa, an ice-covered moon of Jupiter that is also believed to have an ocean, may have water-vapor jets spewing into space as well, similar to Enceladus. The Hubble Space Telescope has observed what looks to be plumes, or long clouds, coming from Europa. A spacecraft under development called the Europa Clipper could shed more light on the matter. Its set to launch sometime in the 2020s. Voytek said her money is still on Europa for potential life, versus Enceladus. Europa is much older, and any potential life there has had more time to emerge. Our readers share tales of their ramblings around the world. Who: Henry Egghart of Alexandria, Va. Where, when, why: I trekked through Torres del Paine National Park, in Chile, for a week in late February. I went with Backabush Xplorers, a meetup hiking group and travel company based in London. I had always wanted to travel to Patagonia, but it seemed so remote and adventurous. But when a group I had met while working in London was going there, I jumped at the chance to join them. The rugged landscape of Torres del Paine National Park. (Henry Egghart) Flying from Dulles International Airport to Punta Arenas, Chile, took a long time because of the layovers. There are buses from Presidente Carlos Ibanez del Campo International Airport to Puerto Natales, the gateway town to the park, 3 1 /2 hours away. It has a frontier feeling, with weathered one- and two-story houses and free-roaming dogs. There are numerous hostels, hotels, restaurants and camping gear shops. After buying food in a well-stocked supermarket, we caught an early morning bus for the three-hour ride to the park. Near the park, the cattle and sheep grazing in lush pastures gave way to herds of guanacos, a kind of wild llama, and a few rheas large, flightless, ostrich-like birds. Several buses reached the entrance station together, so a small crowd formed to pay the entrance fee and watch a mandatory video on park rules. The most important one is that fires are not allowed, and cooking stoves are only allowed in designated areas; large areas of the park have been damaged by camper-caused fires. A boat took us across a turquoise-blue lake, past stunning mountains, to the start of the hike. Highlights and high points: After we had been hiking for more than two hours by headlamp in the early morning darkness to see the first light hit the Torres, it started to rain. I feared there would be no view. But we were so high that the sun rose below the rain clouds, forming a brilliant double rainbow over the Torres and Lago Las Torres National Reserve. It was breathtaking. Cultural connection or disconnect: I thought Patagonia would be wild, remote and lonely, and much of it is. Torres del Paine, however, is Chiles crown jewel national park and very popular. Reservations are required for all campsites, camping is allowed only in designated sites next to refugios (mountain huts) and you must show your reservation to be allowed onto the trails. The best viewpoints are marked miradors, and a lot of people gather at them. The trails are rough, with frequent large rocks and puddles. On the other hand, the camping areas have warm showers, a perfect treat after a long day of hard hiking. Biggest laugh or cry: Valle del Frances turned out to be more of a climb than a walk essentially, a rubble heap of rocks and boulders left by the glacier, and I was glad I had packed my trekking poles. It was pouring rain and the trail was a series of cascades flowing down the moraine. I was not sure I could make it to the top, but just as I reached the point where the trail leveled, the clouds lifted, revealing a huge cirque and the back side of the Torres and the Los Cuernos peaks. How unexpected: It surprised me that the glaciers in Patagonia flow down into forested areas, often ending in large lakes where bright-blue icebergs break off and float away. Also, I was impressed by the friendliness and honesty of the Chilean people. I never worried about getting shortchanged or taken advantage of. One time, a 5,000 peso note (about $10) fell out of my pocket, and a young woman ran down the street to return it to me. Favorite memento or memory: This trip reminded me how beautiful, varied and well worth exploring the world is. To tell us about your own trip, go to washingtonpost.com/travel and fill out the What a Trip form with your fondest memories, finest moments and favorite photos. Constitution amendment: Govt move cuts no ice, Morcha to turn up heat A day after the government introduced a new constitution amendment bill, after withdrawing the old one that was in Parliament since January 8, the agitating Samyukta Loktantrik Madhesi Morcha (SLMM) on Wednesday said the new proposal is not acceptable to us. Someone with an out-of-state license plate is less likely to contest a parking fine, which can make their vehicles easy targets for bogus citations. (iStock) Who is sending Katherine Johnsons daughter parking tickets? The Miami Parking Authoritys citations, usually for $42 apiece, have arrived in the mail intermittently since 2014 for violations that allegedly occurred in Miami, where her daughter attends college. When Johnson challenges them, the price mysteriously drops to $15. Is this a scam? asked Johnson, a trade analyst from Burke, Va. Bogus parking tickets can affect visitors disproportionately. Someone with an out-of-state license plate is less likely to contest a parking fine, which can make their vehicles easy targets. But now travelers can fight back. And they should. The great news is that these days, there are a lot of apps and technologies that help people deal with a ticket thats bogus, undeserved or just plain yours, says Dan Lear, director of industry relations at Avvo, an online legal marketplace. [After the United incident, passengers should know their rights. If bumped, ask for cash.] There are two kinds of bogus tickets: those wrongfully issued by a parking authority and those tacked onto your windshield by a scammer posing as a city employee. The former kind has been a problem since the dawn of parking citations, but the latter seems to be a new problem, the result of easy access to handheld printers that can print an official-looking notice in seconds. Scam tickets have been sighted in Asheville, N.C., Palm Springs, Calif., and as far away as Britain, where the forgeries are so sophisticated that its reportedly impossible to tell the difference between a real ticket and a fake. When we look into the data, we see a system that is very flawed, says Chris Riley, whose own frustrations with Miami tickets prompted him to create TIKD, a ticket-fighting app. Tickets are issued unevenly and are full of the same biases we all hold as individuals, he says. Theyre also a big financial burden. I think this is why many people have such a strong reaction to them. TIKDs solution is a web app for South Florida drivers that automates the process of challenging traffic citations, thanks to computer algorithms and a network of lawyers whom TIKD hires on behalf of its customers. The company currently works on most traffic citations, with exception of criminal fines, DUIs and those received by minors. Riley says his company is considering adding parking tickets to its list of services because stories like Johnsons are all too common, and not just in Miami. Technology-based ticket-fighting options are still in their infancy. Among the choices are Parkingticket.com, which charges $4.95 a month per vehicle to fight your tickets, and smartphone apps such as WinIt, which disputes tickets in New York. The programs either help you fight a parking ticket yourself or enlist a specialist who goes to bat for you. Another recent innovation is a chatbot lawyer at Donotpay.co.uk, created last year by Joshua Browder, a Stanford University student. The site offers a series of automated responses to questions about parking tickets, which can help you fix them on your own. In New York, the site has helped motorists successfully contest more than 9,000 tickets worth more than $3 million. Browder says travelers, particularly car rental customers, are heavy users of the site. [How to tip the airline scales in your favor] From my experience, when the local government knows someone is using a rental car, they are particularly prone to issuing an unfair ticket, he says. They know that rental-car customers are likely to be wealthier, and are more prone to making small mistakes. One of the best ways to determine if a parking violation is legit and whether to fight it remains a real lawyer. Its a little counterintuitive, as parking tickets usually dont cost that much, and theres a perception that most lawyers wont take such small cases. But Andrew Hoverman, a Montgomery Village, Md., lawyer who focuses on traffic defense cases, says thats not necessarily true. Most people are unaware that they can hire an attorney to go in their stead to traffic court to fight on their behalf, he says. Perhaps the best way of fighting a bogus parking ticket no matter where it comes from is to avoid getting one in the first place. My preferred solution is mass transit. But if you drive, an app like Smoothparking, which displays legal parking spots in New York, Washington and Milwaukee, among several other cities, will warn you when a street is off limits to parking. Erica Conover learned one strategy on how to avoid parking tickets the hard way. When she moved to Boston to take a job as a technology publicist, she discovered that parking was almost impossible to find in her South Boston neighborhood. No matter how carefully she selected a spot, she would receive tickets first for a handicapped violation, then for double parking and finally for other. Each time, Conover says she was lawfully parking. Yet she felt as if she had no choice but to pay. She eventually decided to start taking pictures of her vehicle and where she parked it. When she received the next citation, she filed an appeal with the help of the digital images. It worked. [Cant sleep on airplanes? These products and techniques can help.] My advice for really making a case? she says. Take photographic evidence. They proved I wasnt in the wrong. As for Johnsons tickets? Art Noriega, chief executive of the Miami Parking Authority, said he was not aware of any current parking scams in the city but agreed to look into the citations. Miami, like most big cities, has no shortage of parking-ticket complaints, making it difficult to tell if Johnsons daughter was scammed or just the target of an overzealous parking enforcement official. The investigation remains open. Elliott is a consumer advocate, journalist and co-founder of the advocacy group Travelers United. Email him at chris@elliott.org. MARYLAND Pr. Georges will get Bikeshare in 2018 Capital Bikeshare is coming to Prince Georges County, but not until next year. The county is planning to install bike stations at National Harbor and in a stretch of Route 1 from Mount Rainier to Riverdale Park. The goal is to have the program up and running in spring 2018, a county spokeswoman said. The countys plan calls for 670 bikes and 67 stations to be phased in over the next few years. The launch in early 2018 will include 40 bikes spread out across four stations at National Harbor and 250 bikes in 25 stations along the Route 1 communities. Capital Bikeshare operates in the District and Alexandria, and Arlington, Montgomery and Fairfax counties. Prince Georges officials say the plan is to expand within the county to areas such as Greenbelt, College Park and Langley Park. Luz Lazo VIRGINIA Man is charged in graffiti incident A 20-year-old man from Annandale is facing hate-related charges after a Jewish community center, a church and a community college in Fairfax County were defaced with anti-Semitic graffiti and stickers, police said. Dylan M. Mahone was arrested Thursday after hateful graffiti was scrawled across the Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia in Fairfax City and the Little River United Church of Christ in Annandale on Tuesday, police said. Mahone was also charged in an incident March 20 in which anti-Semitic fliers were posted around the Annandale campus of Northern Virginia Community College, police said. Justin Jouvenal and Justin Wm. Moyer Mulch pile keeps firefighters busy Firefighters battled a blaze that sent flames and smoke shooting from a huge mulch pile in the Centreville area overnight early Thursday, according to the Fairfax County fire department. The blaze was sparked in the 15700 block of Lee Highway, sending firefighters from Fairfax, Prince William and Loudoun counties to the scene. Video from the scene showed firefighters using ladder trucks and backhoes to attack the smoldering pile after dawn. The flames had been knocked down. No injuries or damages to structure were reported. Man killed by truck in Fairfax County A man was killed when he was accidentally run over by a dump truck on Thursday in Fairfax County, authorities said. Around 12:15 p.m., Fairfax County police tweeted that the man was killed by the truck in the 10500 block of Georgetown Pike. Police said the investigation continues. Justin Wm. Moyer THE DISTRICT Woman is stabbed on a Metrobus A woman was hospitalized Wednesday after a stabbing on a Metrobus, Metro said. Metro spokesman Dan Stessel said the incident occurred about 2:15 p.m. on a V4 bus at 58th and Foote streets NE. An argument erupted between the victim and another woman aboard, whom she knew, Stessel said. A verbal dispute led to the stabbing, he said. The victims injuries were not life-threatening, Stessel said. Police were searching for a black woman who was described as wearing a blue uniform shirt and blue pants. Later Wednesday, Metro Transit Police charged Amber Denese Harvey, 20, of Northeast D.C., with assault with a deadly weapon/knife. Faiz Siddiqui VIRGINIA Police: Some new body cameras overheated A police department in Virginia has stopped using dozens of new body cameras issued to officers last week because of overheating concerns. Local news outlets report that Chesterfield County police say theyve pulled about 50 of the devices from service after cables between the camera and its controller overheated on several units. Officials said they noticed the problem on Friday during training. Police spokesman Capt. G.L. Netherland said his department isnt sure how many cameras are affected, so they stopped issuing them for now. Chesterfield police entered into a contract last year with Axon for 450 cameras. Associated Press MARYLAND Woman finds scorpion in spinach bag A Maryland woman who wanted to make lunch this week was met with an unwelcome surprise: what appeared to be a live scorpion in her bag of spinach. Sri Sindhusha Boddapati of Chevy Chase said she planned to make a dish of spinach and lentils with spinach she purchased Friday at the Giant Food store on Wisconsin Avenue near the Friendship Heights Metro station. Boddapati trapped the scorpion in a bottle, then assassinated it by sprinkling it with Indian pepper, said her husband, Shanmukha Pranay Rajeev Jerripothula. A Giant representative offered to refund the price of the spinach about $2, Boddapati said. A Giant representative said in a statement that it apologizes for the incident. Customer satisfaction is our highest priority, the statement said. We regret any inconvenience to the customer. Justin Wm. Moyer Larry Hogan, then Marylands governor-elect, left, stands next to Alfred W. Redmer Jr., his choice to be the states insurance commissioner, in 2014. Redmer is the subject of a complaint over an email about a fundraiser for Hogan. (Linda Davidson/The Washington Post) The Democratic Party of Maryland has filed a complaint against an appointee of Gov. Larry Hogan (R), alleging he violated a ban on fundraising activities during the General Assembly session. The complaint targets an email sent last week by Maryland Insurance Commissioner Alfred W. Redmer Jr. that invited recipients to help organize a July fundraiser for Hogans 2018 reelection bid. Maryland law prohibits state officeholders, and people acting on their behalf, from soliciting campaign contributions or advertising upcoming fundraisers during the 90-day legislative session that ended Monday. The fundraising ban is designed to minimize the role of campaign politics in lawmaking. Its not clear whether Redmer, who is not formally a member of Hogans campaign staff, would be considered acting on behalf of the governor, or whether his email amounts to a save-the-date prohibited by state law. Jared DeMarinis, director of the campaign finance division of the Maryland State Board of Elections, said he is reviewing the complaint. Without commenting on the specifics of the case, he said that generally the ban on soliciting during the General Assembly extends to people acting with the knowledge of campaign officials. Hogan campaign treasurer Chris Rosenthal said the campaign wasnt aware of Redmers email and that no one officially associated with the campaign sent out any related correspondence during this supposed time period. [Save-the-date for fundraiser at issue in 2014 Democratic primary] Redmer, who abided by the fundraising ban himself when he served as a Republican state lawmaker from Baltimore County, said he didnt think his email violated any rules because he was only looking for people to help organize the fundraiser. It was sent to two members of the Baltimore County Council and the Republicans representing the county in the House of Delegates. It was not a solicitation, said Redmer, who was appointed by Hogan in January 2015. It was a, If you are interested in helping, let me know. But the state Democratic Party, which obtained a copy of his email, thinks otherwise. The email lists the time and location of the bull roast fundraiser, and seeks members of a host committee who would be expected to raise at least $1,000 each. There is no reason to believe that this high-ranking state official appointed by the governor would be acting without any authorization in soliciting contributions for the Hogan fundraising event, wrote interim party chair Kathleen Matthews in a complaint to the state Board of Elections. Hogan campaign treasurer Rosenthal called the complaint a baseless claim from an organization with a long history of making baseless claims. Redmer has previously drawn complaints from Democrats for helping fundraise for GOP officials while serving as insurance commissioner under Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., the states last Republican governor. They say its unseemly for him to organize fundraisers that could be attended by insurance businesses he regulates, although there is no legal prohibition against such activity. The insurance commissioners job is to regulate big insurance companies and protect middle class Marylanders, said state Democratic Party spokesman Bryan Lesswing. Sparring over fundraising rules is not unusual in Maryland politics. In the 2014 Democratic gubernatorial primary, Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Browns campaign criticized then-Attorney General Doug F. Gansler for sending out save-the-dates to fundraisers during the session. Gansler in turn criticized Brown for fundraising through his running mate who did not have to abide by the ban, Howard County Executive Ken Ulman (D). A 20-year-old man from Annandale is facing hate-related charges after a Jewish community center, a church and a community college in Fairfax County were defaced with anti-Semitic graffiti and stickers, police said. Dylan M. Mahone was arrested Thursday after hateful graffiti was scrawled across the Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia in Fairfax City and the Little River United Church of Christ in Annandale on Tuesday, police said. [Church, community center hit with graffiti] Mahone was also charged in a March 20 incident in which anti-Semitic fliers were posted around the Annandale campus of Northern Virginia Community College, police said. Photos of those fliers were posted on a Twitter account of a group called the Aryan Underground, according to a search warrant filed in Fairfax County court. The tweet that accompanied the photos promised More to Come! (Claritza Jimenez/The Washington Post) The search warrant states that surveillance video captured a person in a mask putting up the stickers. At a news conference, Fairfax County police spokeswoman Julie Parker said Mahone, who spent one semester at the community college, was captured on video at the college, the synagogue and the church. We have a plethora of video to go through in this case, she said. Parker also said that Mahone is the only suspect in the three cases and that police were led to him by his use of social media. The Aryan Underground account also retweeted a tweet from a TV news station about the defacement of Little River United Church of Christ and features photos of anti-Semitic stickers placed at another college and high school. Its unclear whether Mahone has been tied to those incidents, as well. Mahone was charged with two counts each of felony destruction of property, placing a swastika on a religious property with the intent to intimidate and wearing a mask in public to conceal ones identity. Northern Virginia Community College police charged Mahone with one count of felony destruction of property and one count of wearing a mask in public to conceal ones identity. Mahone was arrested at his home. At the news conference, Jeff Dannick, executive director of the JCC, thanked the police and said the incident marked a dark few days for us during Passover. But in order for there to be light, there has to be darkness first, Dannick said. What Im looking at is the light. At the news conference, the Rev. David Lindsey of the Little River United Church of Christ also offered thanks. These crimes involved hateful phrases born of white supremacy, but the overwhelming response of our neighbors has spoken volumes about Gods love for all, he said. The killer of a retired World Bank economist in Fairfax County may have cased the victims home before Johan de Leede was shot dead inside a little over a year ago, according to a newly returned search warrant. A week before the 83-year-olds death, security lights on or near his home on the Potomac River in the Mason Neck area of Lorton illuminated and dogs began to bark, according to the search warrant filed by a Fairfax County police detective. The new details add a fresh wrinkle to what is already one of the most mysterious killings in the D.C. area. De Leede, an avid outdoorsman who was quietly living out his retirement, was shot in the back multiple times as he apparently sat in a chair in his living room watching TV, his family said. [Family of slain World Bank economist breaks silence] The suspect remained outside the $1 million home in an upscale neighborhood and shot through a back window, before slipping away into the night shortly after 1 a.m. on March 11, 2016, de Leedes family said. Police are still seeking leads and a suspect in the shooting death of Johan de Leede, shown in this undated family photo. (Family photo) The search warrant states that two neighbors were awakened by the sound of a vehicle leaving the area at a high speed on the night of the shooting. In February, police announced that the vehicle was a dark, full-size pickup truck and asked for the publics help in finding it. To date, police have not named any suspects in de Leedes killing, made any arrests or revealed a motive. A Fairfax County police spokesman said Wednesday there were no updates on the case. Second Lt. Ron Haugsdahl of the Fairfax County police homicide unit asked for the publics help in identifying a suspect in February. As far as active suspects, we still do need the publics help, Haugsdahl told The Post. Mainly, its because we havent had any breaks in the case to link evidence weve found at the scene to a suspect. In interviews earlier this year, de Leedes family said they had no idea who killed de Leede or why he was targeted. They did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday. De Leede and his wife held a dinner party with relatives at their River Drive home on the night of the killing, his family said. After his wife and relatives went to sleep, de Leede stayed up late watching TV and enjoying a glass of warm milk and a banana, as he did many nights, his family said. His wife was awakened shortly after 1 a.m. by the sound of gunfire and found de Leede slumped on the floor. She thought he had fallen but later noticed a broken window and blinds and realized he had been shot. De Leede was hit three or four times, his family said. Detectives wrote in the new search warrant the security lights on de Leedes home were illuminated and dogs barked on Feb. 27. They wrote the activity may indicate a suspect was checking out de Leedes home between the hours of 9 p.m. that night and 2 a.m. the next day. The search warrant was filed to obtain records of cellphone activity on cell towers in the area around de Leedes home during the period when detectives believe the suspect may have been casing de Leedes home. A man was killed when he was accidentally run over by a dump truck on Thursday in Fairfax County, authorities said. Around 12:15 p.m., Fairfax County police tweeted that the man was killed by the truck in the 10500 block of Georgetown Pike. Police said the investigation was ongoing, and no further details about the incident were immediately available. Issue arrest warrant against Bal Krishna Dhungel: SC orders IGP Aryal The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the newly appointed Inspector General (IG) of Nepal Police Prakash Aryal to arrest former lawmaker Bal Krishna Dhungel, an absconding murder convict, within seven days. Joaquin S. Rams, accused of killing his 15-month-old son in 2012 to collect more than $500,000 in life insurance benefits on the boy, was found guilty of capital murder in Prince William County on Thursday by the judge who heard the case. Fairfax County Circuit Court Judge Randy I. Bellows presided over the trial after both sides waived a jury. In a 62-page opinion read from the bench, Bellows rejected the defense argument that Prince McLeod Rams, who had a history of fever-induced seizures, died of one. The judge concluded that prosecutors had proved that the child was drowned or suffocated. Bellows said that Rams was in financial distress, giving him motive, and that he had the means and opportunity to kill his son that October day. Prince did not die of natural causes, whether due to a febrile seizure or some other natural process or disease, Bellows said in his ruling. He did not die by accident. The childs death, he said, was inflicted by the defendant. (WUSA9) Princes mother, Hera McLeod, 36, wept when Bellows said the word guilty. Finally, she said as she walked out of the courtroom after the three-hour hearing. Im relieved because hes not getting out. Bellows set Ramss sentencing hearing for June, although the judge has no options other than a life sentence. Ramss attorney, Chris Leibig, said he plans to appeal the verdict but declined to comment further. Rams, 44, spent the last four years awaiting trial and had claimed since before his arrest in January 2013 that he did not kill his son. But he did not testify at his trial and instead allowed his lawyers to peck away at the prosecutions theory that he drowned the toddler at a friends home in Manassas, Va., on Oct. 20, 2012. [A toddler died. Was it a tragic illness or murder?] After Virginia assistant medical examiner Constance DiAngelo ruled that Prince was drowned, Rams was charged with murder, later upgraded to capital murder. But when the defense questioned the autopsy, and prosecutors sought expert reviews of the case, one of the experts Kentuckys chief medical examiner, Tracey S. Corey said she did not think Prince drowned. The boy had suffered six febrile seizures in the weeks before he died, and the incident had the indicators of sudden unexplained death in children, according to Corey. She became a defense witness at the trial. Then in 2014, the chief medical examiner of Virginia, William T. Gormley, issued a new autopsy report, changing the cause of death from drowning to undetermined. Gormley wrote that the circumstances were suspicious, but, like Corey, he said he could not rule out a death by natural causes. [Va. medical examiner reverses ruling to no known cause of death in Prince Rams case] Prince William prosecutors Paul B. Ebert and James A. Willett stuck with DiAngelo, and Willett said in his opening statement that evidence would show Prince had been drowned. Much of the 12-day trial was dominated by the testimony of medical experts. When Gormley was on the stand for the defense, Willett asked him whether it would be possible for a large man like Rams to suffocate a small boy like Prince and not leave any marks. Gormley said it was. Suffocation became a new theme in the trial, and Bellows picked up on it. The former federal prosecutor delved into an 800-page book of exhibits, entered as evidence, and the taped 911 call to question Ramss version of events. Documents show Rams told paramedics and police, although none testified to it at trial, that he had seen Prince having a seizure in his crib, just a few feet from his then-13-year-old son, Joaquin Shadow Rams Jr. He rushed in and carried the toddler to a bathtub to splash cold water on him because he was really hot. But paramedics felt Prince was cold to the touch, and he had no heartbeat. He was taken to Prince William Medical Center, where his temperature was recorded at 91.2 degrees, 24 minutes after the 911 call began. His heartbeat wasnt restored until 40 minutes after the call and he later died. [Rams trial Day 9: Judge cross-examines defense witness, pokes hole in claim that toddler had seizure] In his ruling, Bellows detailed the evidence about Princes body temperature, and agreed with many expert witnesses that febrile seizures could not have killed the boy. What the seizures did was provide the defendant the solution to a problem how to cover up a murder that he intended to commit from the time he first put a half-million-dollar bounty on the head of his infant son, Bellows wrote. The judge ruled that Prince died from lack of oxygen to the brain and that this likely occurred prior to Prince being placed in the crib by the defendant, and that by the time the defendant picked Prince out of the crib, he had already suffered irreversible brain damage. The three people in the house with Rams his son Shadow and housemates Roger and Sue Jestice said they only saw and heard Rams splash water on the boy briefly, not place him under water. But there was a period Rams was alone with the boy, before rushing him to the tub, which Willett said gave Rams the opportunity to kill Prince. Prosecutors alleged that Ramss motive for killing his son was the purchase of three life insurance policies on the newborn boy in 2011 totaling more than $524,000. At trial, prosecutors have said that in 2012, Ramss house in Bristow, Va., was in foreclosure he and Shadow were living rent-free with the Jestices and a $50,000 line of credit was exhausted and a private school tuition bill for Shadow unpaid. Rams appeared to have no job and hadnt filed a tax return in years. Viewed in isolation, the purchase of life insurance is certainly not incriminating, Bellows wrote. In this case, however, there are a number of factors that make these purchases incriminating. Bellows also noted that, although the defense claimed that Rams bought the policies as college savings vehicles, one of the policies would have had a cash value of only $984 after 20 years. Such a paltry cash-value sum also illustrates the hollowness of the assertion that these purchases were all about savings, and not about payouts upon death, Bellows said. [Rams trial Day 11: Toddlers mom says Rams was bad father, but cause of death is unclear] The defense showed that Rams had a bank account, which he had a friend create to hide income and avoid paying taxes, which had $277,000 in deposits in the three years before his arrest, mostly from a business partner in California. They also said he was working to develop a gaming website. The defense acknowledged his debts but said that did not make him a murderer. Ebert said the trial had been a hard, long fight and that Rams continues to be a suspect in the deaths of his mother and a former girlfriend. Rams was not charged in either death and has maintained his innocence. Rams had previously collected more than $162,000 after the death of his mother in 2008, which was ruled a suicide, but was unable to collect on another life insurance policy after the unsolved slaying of his former girlfriend, Shawn Mason, in 2003. Thats the kind of person that doesnt belong on the street, Ebert said. Hes the kind of person that doesnt hesitate to kill if hes benefiting. Marine Maj. Mark Thompson is escorted from his court-martial at Marine Corps Base Quantico in handcuffs after pleading guilty to lying in a sexual misconduct case there. (J. Lawler Duggan/For The Washington Post) The Marines wrists and ankles were shackled Thursday night as two officers escorted him down a long hallway toward the car that would take him to his cell. Maj. Mark Thompson had finally admitted hed been lying for years about a sexual misconduct case. Standing in his khaki uniform earlier that day, Thompson faced a military judge in a courtroom at Marine Corps Base Quantico and pleaded guilty to charges of making a false statement and of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. For his crimes, Thompson was expelled from the Corps hed served for two decades and sentenced to 90 days confinement. I should have faced the entire truth, he said, his voice soft but forceful. Im exhausted, broken in spirit and ready to pay what I owe. The dramatic day marked the end of a six-year saga for Thompson that offered a lesson in the consequences of hubris. For years, he had fought to prove he was innocent of a crime having sex with two young women while they were students at the Naval Academy that he knew he had committed. Maj. Mark Thompson slumps in the back of the car taking him to his cell after the former Naval Academy teacher was sentenced to 90 days confinement and dismissal from the Marine Corps. (J. Lawler Duggan/For The Washington Post) At times tearful, he neither looked nor sounded anything like the once-audacious combat veteran who had always been willing to take risks, confident that he could maneuver through even the most perilous situations: Hed had at least two threesomes involving students while teaching at the renowned Annapolis campus. He had stood by as a friend and fellow Marine, Maj. Michael Pretus, lied for him at his first trial. And he himself had lied under oath to an administrative board deciding whether he should be booted from the Marine Corps. But after all of that after being convicted of sexual misconduct and still managing to save his career and a generous pension it still wasnt enough. Desperate for exoneration, Thompson brought his story to The Washington Post in late 2014, a decision that would ultimately lead him to the courtroom this week. [Read the full story: A Marines Convictions] He was on an obsession course. You couldnt get him to talk about anything else, said Pretus, whose own career was derailed by the case, told Marine investigators last year. As part of his plea deal, Thompsons punitive discharge will be suspended, allowing him to collect retirement benefits if he meets the terms of the agreement. But his retirement will be reviewed by the Navy Secretary, who could decide to demote Thompson and dramatically reduce his pension. The defense had argued that Thompson, 47, should be allowed to retire voluntarily. Lt. Clay Bridges blamed his clients behavior on unresolved emotional turmoil that followed a series of personal tragedies, including the death of his fiancee in a 2006 car accident. He couldnt control the anger and grief and took it out in a completely inappropriate way, said Bridges, who urged the judge, Lt. Col. Christopher Greer, to consider the Marines entire career, including deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Earlier, the prosecution had portrayed Thompson as far more calculating, playing an audio clip from an interview a Post reporter conducted with the Marine. In it, Thompson emphatically and repeatedly denied that hed had sex with the two women. His lies were bold and unequivocal, Capt. Conor Lamb said. This wasnt a mistake. This wasnt a moment of panic. He was trying to sell his story. One of the women, Sarah Stadler, wrote the court a letter describing the devastating impact hed had on her. This was a deliberate decision to try to destroy the lives of other people, including mine, by perpetuating lies, just to satisfy his vanity and prove how clever he was, she wrote. Instead of letting sleeping dogs lie, he pursued a calculated plan to try to rehabilitate himself at the expense of others and at the expense of the truth. What led Thompson to Thursdays plea hearing began in 2011, when amid a drunken night of strip poker at his Annapolis home he had sex with two female midshipmen, including Stadler. She testified that she and Thompson had been in an ongoing relationship. The other woman told the court that shed been raped. At his court-martial in 2013, a jury acquitted him of the sexual assault charge but still found him guilty of five lesser offenses, including conduct unbecoming an officer, indecent conduct and fraternization. He was sentenced to serve two months in a military prison and fined $60,000, though his jurors stopped short of kicking him out of the service. The next year, he faced an administrative board that would decide his fate in the service and, for the first time, he testified on his own behalf. Thompson insisted to the three officers overseeing the case that he was innocent. They believed him. In a stunning decision, the board members declared in a 2-to-1 vote that he had committed no crimes whatsoever, and all three agreed that he should remain a Marine. I beat them, Thompson texted Pretus the next day. Emboldened, Thompson asked a friend to approach The Post on his behalf. In repeated interviews, he insisted he had done nothing wrong. But the discovery of Stadlers long-missing cellphone changed everything. It contained text exchanges with Thompson that proved hed deceived the Marine board. Confronted about why he had misled authorities, he said, I simply had to, when they were coming after me for 41 years, I cant begin to say, you know, how terrifying that is. After the article was published last March, the Marine Corps launched the investigation that resulted in the new charges against him. He could have faced a prison term of up to six years. Almost no one involved in Thompsons case escaped unblemished: The Naval Criminal Investigative Service failed to discover significant pieces of evidence, including Stadlers cellphone. The cases lead prosecutor, Aaron Rugh, now an appellate judge, became the subject of an ethics investigation after The Post revealed hed made false statements to the Marine board; the Navy later cleared him of wrongdoing. And Pretus was removed from his position as a history instructor at the Naval Academy after the school learned hed been accused of having a tryst with Stadler and Thompson more than five years ago. At the hearing, a series of relatives, friends and former colleagues described Thompson as a dedicated teacher and father as well as a resourceful, capable military officer. Donald Wallace, a history professor and Thompsons mentor at the Academy, said he cautioned his friend to avoid getting too close to female midshipmen. I wish he had made different choices, Wallace said. I wish things had gone differently. D.C. police detectives arrested a Southeast Washington man Wednesday on a first-degree murder warrant for the fatal shooting in February 2016 of a 21-year-old man. Authorities took custody of 27-year-old Traveous Lamont Brown on a D.C. Superior Court bench warrant, police said in a statement. He is the second suspect police arrested in the killing of Adam Edwin Barker in the 2700 block of Langston Place SE on Feb. 29, 2016. Last March, police also arrested and charged Paul Swann, 24, of no fixed address. Officials charged Swann with second-degree murder while armed. According to an affidavit from that arrest, a witness told police that three men approached the victim and opened fire eight to 10 times. The documents filed in D.C. Superior Court said that Barker was shot in the back and that the bullet traveled into his head. He was taken to a hospital, where he died on March 1, 2016. In court papers, investigators said they found bullet casings at the scene from three guns 9mm and .380- and .22-calibers. According to video surveillance recovered at the scene, three men who wore hoods entered an apartment complex through a broken security gate. Police released no details Wednesday about what linked Brown to the incident. U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit is housed at the Lewis F. Powell Jr. U.S. Courthouse in Richmond. (U.S. General Services Administration) A portfolio of Southern cases, genteel courtroom traditions and years of forceful conservative rulings shape the enduring image of the federal appeals court in Richmond. But the bench has shed its conservative label, undergoing a sea change in the past decade, and is poised to have an immediate impact on the fledgling Trump administration. Starting next month, the full court will take up the presidents entry ban for immigrants from some countries, followed by the case of a transgender teen whose battle to use a boys bathroom challenges the presidents new policy. Since taking office, President Trump has harshly criticized federal judges, specifically deriding the San Francisco-based appeals court which put the first version of his travel ban on hold as in chaos and turmoil. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, a Richmond-based venue the administration might once have found reliably hospitable, now has a higher proportion of judges tapped by Democrats than most of the nations 13 circuit courts. That includes the pan-Western 9th Circuit with its long-standing reputation among conservatives as the nutty 9th. Roger Gregory, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, is interviewed in 2016 in his office in Richmond. (Steve Helber/Associated Press) A test of how far the 4th Circuit bench has tilted left will come May 8. The court announced this week that it would bypass the traditional three-judge panel and gather that day as a full complement to review Trumps entry ban. Within the past year, judges at the historic Italianate courthouse, who descend from the bench to shake hands with the attorneys who have argued before them, have issued major opinions that would have been unimaginable two decades ago. The court said Republican lawmakers in North Carolina deliberately undercut the political power of African American voters through targeted voting restrictions. Judges sided with the Virginia transgender teen in the first round of his fight. And in a gun decision that went further than other appeals courts, the Richmond-based circuit ruled that the Second Amendment does not protect what it called weapons of war in a case trying to undo a Maryland ban on semiautomatic, military-style firearms. Theres a persistent impression thats long been out of date that this is a very conservative court, said Steven Goldblatt, who directs the appellate litigation program at Georgetown Universitys law school and regularly appears before the court. Its a different court, with many new judges who cannot be measured by decisions reached many years ago. [Second federal judge blocks revised Trump travel ban] The courts caseload consists of appeals from Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and the Carolinas. After federal judges in Maryland and Hawaii blocked critical sections of the presidents revised travel order in March, the Justice Department appealed. The administration also asked the 4th Circuit to put the Maryland judges opinion on hold and allow the ban to take effect immediately ahead of oral arguments next month. The first-floor library at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond. (U.S. General Services Administration) The Maryland case applies only to the provision of Trumps order that would have stopped new visas for travelers from six Muslim-majority countries: Iran, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Syria and Yemen. The court also has been asked to rule again in the case of Gavin Grimm, the transgender teen challenging his schools requirement that students use a bathroom that corresponds to their biological sex. The case returned to Richmond after the Supreme Court decided in March to put off a ruling on transgender rights and referred it back to the 4th Circuit to possibly look at broader constitutional questions. When it ruled in Grimms favor initially, the 4th Circuit cited the Obama administrations position on transgender student rights. The Trump administration since has revoked federal guidelines that directed schools to allow transgender students to use a bathroom consistent with their gender identity. Last week, Senior Judge Andre M. Davis and Judge Henry F. Floyd both nominated by President Barack Obama took the unusual step of issuing a passionate statement placing Grimm among the pantheon of human rights leaders who confronted inequities through the courts. Grimms case will likely be heard in September. [Supreme Court sends transgender case back to lower court] For years, attorneys pursuing liberal-leaning policies viewed the 4th Circuit as hostile territory for civil rights and for criminal defendants, and as a reliable backstop on national security policies. But that is changing. Several national legal organizations that have the flexibility to choose where to wage their legal battles are deliberately turning to the 4th Circuit. The national groups that filed the most recent challenge to Trumps entry ban in Maryland the National Immigration Law Center and the American Civil Liberties Union could have gone to other venues. The court has become a much friendlier forum in civil rights cases, and it appears that criminal defendants have found a more open ear, said Charlotte attorney Jake Sussman, who has defended inmates on death row and successfully challenged North Carolinas ban on same-sex marriage. The 15-judge court looks very different today than it did two decades ago. In 1993, the bench had only one woman and no minorities. Three-quarters of the judges were nominated by Republican presidents, including leading conservative voices J. Michael Luttig and J. Harvie Wilkinson III, who in later years were on George W. Bushs shortlist for the Supreme Court. In the late 1990s, the court issued opinions upholding restrictions on abortions and striking down a law allowing rape victims to sue their attackers in federal court. The court in 1999 overturned the requirement that police read suspects their rights, known as Miranda rights, before interrogating them. The Supreme Court later reaffirmed Miranda rights. On national security matters, the court often upheld the post-9/11 policies of the Bush administration, supporting the detention of enemy combatants. In death penalty cases, the Supreme Court reversed a number of 4th Circuit rulings in the early 2000s, leading to a measure of relief for inmates on death row. Conservatives were stunned in 2006 when Luttig announced his retirement to become general counsel for Boeing. At the time Obama took office, the split on the court still favored Republican nominees, 6 to 5. But with four vacancies, the administration saw an opportunity to remake the court as it did on other circuit courts and diversify the bench to better reflect the demographics of the country. Rakesh Kilaru, who worked in the White House Counsels Office during Obamas tenure, clerked for Wilkinson in 2010, the year that three new judges joined the court. The picture I have that is signed by all of the judges looks quite different than the picture you would have seen a few years before, and I think thats something the president is quite proud of, Kilaru said, referring to Obama. Among the 15 active judges on the court, there are five women, of whom one is African American, one Latino judge and two African American men, including Roger Gregory, the chief judge. Gregory was initially appointed by President Bill Clinton during a congressional recess and later was nominated by Bush at the urging of Virginias two senators. Judge Diana Gribbon Motz, a Clinton nominee, was for years on the losing side, particularly on national security cases. Motz wrote the recent opinion striking down North Carolinas voting restrictions that she said target African Americans with almost surgical precision. The court now has a handful of Obama nominees on the bench to the left of her. A total of 10 of the active judges were nominated by Democrats. That leaves the 4th Circuit along with three other circuits with 67 percent of judges nominated by Democrats, ranking at the top, with the Boston-based 1st Circuit, the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit and the Federal Circuit in Washington, according to an analysis by Russell Wheeler, an expert on judicial nominations at the Brookings Institution. Wheeler cautioned that there is a spectrum of views and approaches even among judges nominated by the same president, but that the party of the president who chose a judge is not a bad predictor of a judges perspective. [Trump to inherit more than 100 court vacancies, plans to reshape the judiciary] The 4th Circuit judges and their stable of clerks assemble in Richmond about every six weeks for court week in the downtown courthouse that provided offices for Confederate President Jefferson Davis during the Civil War. Cases are argued before randomly assigned panels, and it is still possible to draw a panel of three judges all nominated by Republican presidents. But the odds have shifted, and, when the court agrees to a redo and reviews a case en banc, the balance tips decidedly left. In March, a full panel convened to revisit a 2-to-1 decision in favor of North Carolina county commissioners sued by the American Civil Liberties Union for opening their meetings with mostly Christian prayers. The court did not explain its highly unusual decision this week to skip the three-judge panel in the challenge to Trumps revised entry ban. But the move initiated by the court suggests the judges recognize the need to move quickly on a contentious issue with national significance that appears destined to end up at the Supreme Court. Allison Orr Larsen, a William & Mary Law School professor who also clerked for Wilkinson, said the court may have lost its conservative label but not its sense of collegiality. Even for those difficult, politically charged cases, Im sure they will be thoughtfully deliberated by everyone regardless of the political affiliation, she said. The court, she added, puts a premium on collaboration. Israeli recovery workers carry the body of U.S. tourist Kristine Luken on Dec. 19, 2010, after she was found in a wooded area near the village of Mata, outside Jerusalem. (Tara Todras-Whitehill/AP) Two Palestinian men serving life prison sentences in Israel for killing an American hiker from Virginia in December 2010 were charged with murder by U.S. prosecutors in a step praised by her family and by a friend also injured in the attack. Ayad Fatafta and Kifah Ghanimat, both about 39, were convicted in 2012 in an Israeli court for the Dec. 18, 2010, stabbing death of Kristine A. Luken, 44, an American tourist who grew up and worked in Northern Virginia. The attack wounded Kay Susan Wilson, then 46, a British-born Jewish Israeli tour guide. The men were jailed for life in Israel. The U.S. arrest warrants for them were issued Thursday, according to a statement released by officials with the U.S. attorneys office for the District of Columbia, the Justice Department and the FBI. We have been informed by the U.S. attorneys office and the FBI about the ongoing process, and we are very encouraged by it, said Lukens stepmother, Meg Luken, of San Antonio. Were encouraged by the fact that at least the process has started. In Israel, Fatafta was sentenced to one life term of incarceration plus 20 years, while Ghanimat was sentenced to two life terms of incarceration plus 60 years, for the stabbings and another crime, according to a statement by U.S. prosecutors. Wilson, in social-media postings, also lauded the move in U.S. courts. Although the prisoners are in an Israeli jail, should my government ever decide to let murderers free again in a prisoner exchange, these cold-blooded savages will not be released. Instead they will be shipped off to the USA to stand trial there, Wilson said on Twitter and Facebook. [Palestinians charged in killing of American hiker] Luken, a member of an evangelical group that promotes Christianity among Jews, had visited Israel several times and was hiking near an archaeological site in the Mata forest near Jerusalem with Wilson, who had befriended Luken on another tour, according to Lukens family. Israeli authorities said the attacks on the women, who were stabbed multiple times, were nationalistically motivated and were carried out by a group in retaliation for the assassination of a top Hamas operative in Dubai that January. Luken was born in Aurora, Colo., and graduated from South Lakes High School in 1984 in Reston, where her father, Larry, retired from the Defense Intelligence Agency, the family said. She graduated from George Mason University and worked for the U.S. Department of Education for 15 years and later, Patrick Henry College, before moving to Britain in 2009 and joining the evangelical group Churches Ministry Among Jewish People, her family said. (This file has been updated to correct the spelling of the name of Kay Wilson.) Jennifer Jenkins contributed to this report. President Trump listens during a news conference in the East Room of the White House on Wednesday. Thousands are expected during a Saturday rally in the District urging Trump to release his tax returns. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post) An idea that sprung from a law professors tweet after President Trumps inauguration will unfold Saturday on the Mall, where thousands of protesters plan to call on Trump to release his personal tax returns. The demonstration is expected to be the largest of more than 100 affiliated protests planned across the country. The Tax March, which falls on the nations traditional April 15 deadline to file taxes, is expected to be one of the most high-profile demonstrations of the Trump era since protesters around the world participated in womens marches marches that served as an unprecedented rebuke to Trumps presidency on his first full day in office. Presidents are not required to release their tax returns but have done so voluntarily dating to the 1970s. Jennifer Taub, a law professor specializing in business at Vermont Law School, said that after she attended a Womens March protest on Jan. 21 in Boston, she felt optimistic about the power of organized resistance. It spurred her to action the next day when she heard counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway say on national television that Trump wouldnt release his tax returns because people dont care. Taub tweeted that the nation should plan a march on Tax Day to show the White House that the public does care. At the same time, comedian Frank Lesser made a similar plea on Twitter. The tweets caught on, and now Taub and Lesser are co-founders of the march, which has garnered the support of nearly 70 progressive organizations. [Trump wont release his tax returns because people dont care, top adviser says] Jennifer Taub, a law professor at Vermont Law School, helped found the Tax Day march after being inspired by a Womens March protest in Boston in January. (Ilana Panich-Linsman) I do care about his taxes. I care about transparency and conflict of interest, Taub said. I think its important for us, we the people, to express First Amendment rights and say we want to see them. Trump has refused to release his tax returns, stating that he has been under audit. Asked for comment Thursday on the Tax March, the White House referred to comments earlier this week from press secretary Sean Spicer, who repeated that Trump is under an IRS audit, but indicated the president has been transparent with his finances. We filed our financial disclosure forms the other day in a way that allows everyone to understand, Spicer said at a Tuesday news briefing. Marchers in Washington are expected to be joined by those in more than 100 other cities across the country and around the world, including New Orleans, San Antonio, Nashville and London, organizers say. In Washington, organizers have worked with government agencies, including D.C. police and the National Park Service, to obtain permits. The Park Service permit indicates that organizers expect up to 10,000 people. Mike Litterst, a spokesman for the Park Service, said the Tax March and the Science March the following weekend are among the largest protests the agency is expecting this spring in Washington. [Womens marches: More than one million protesters vow to resist President Trump] (Gillian Brockell/The Washington Post) The Tax March will begin at noon Saturday on the west lawn in front of the Capitol, with a lineup of speakers that includes Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Rep. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Md.). From there, protesters will march west along Pennsylvania Avenue NW before ending near the Lincoln Memorial. The event is expected to end about 4 p.m. In an interview, Raskin referred to polls during the presidential campaign that showed a majority of Americans and a majority of Republicans believed that Trump should release his tax returns. Raskin said Congress couldnt have meaningful conversations about a tax revamp without knowing whether proposed tax laws would be a financial boon to Trump and his businesses. This is going to be an old-fashioned tax protest calling for King Donald to release his taxes, Raskin said. The reason why this is such a big deal is that, whether you like it or not, Donald Trump is a role model for the rest of the country. Donald Trump has made it clear that he will try to get away with whatever he can and then try to fight it out in court. If the rest of the country acted the way he did, the tax system would fall apart. Taub said she doesnt expect the president to release his tax returns as a result of the march, but she said its impact might be felt in other ways, such as compelling state legislatures to pass laws calling for more financial transparency from elected officials. New laws on the state or federal level, she said, could eventually force Trump and future presidents to release their returns. Taub said organizers also hope Congress will feel pressure from constituents to pass tax laws that benefit more than just the richest Americans. One way or another, we will see his tax returns, I believe, Taub said. Community member protests the treatment of Dr. David Dao, who was forcibly removed from a United Airlines flight on Sunday by officers with the Chicago Department of Aviation, at O'Hare International Airport. (Kamil Krzaczynski/Reuters) It was worse than when he fled Vietnam. Thats how an attorney representing the man who was dragged screaming from his seat and off a United Airlines flight said his client described the ordeal to him. Chicago attorney Thomas A. Demetrio said David Dao, 69, suffered a serious concussion, broken nose, two missing teeth and other injuries when he was dragged off United Flight 3411 at OHare International Airport on Sunday. Demetrio said Dao, who was released from the hospital late Wednesday, will need reconstructive surgery. Dao is at a secure location continuing his recovery and will speak publicly at some point, Demetrio said. [Lawyer for United victim: Will there be a lawsuit? Yeah, probably. ] Crystal Dao Pepper speaks about her father David Dao at a news conference where it was announced that a lawsuit is planned to be filed against United Airlines and the city of Chicago over the forcible removal of passenger David Dao from a flight, in Chicago, Illinoi (Tannen Maury/EPA) What happened to my dad should never happen to any human being, under any circumstance, Daos daughter, Crystal Pepper, said at a Thursday news conference with Demetrio. We were horrified and shocked to hear and see what had happened to him. We hope in the future that nothing like this ever happens again. Pepper, one of five of Daos children, said her father is a Vietnamese immigrant. I would defy anyone to suggest there was not unreasonable force and violence used to help Dr. Dao disembark that plane, said Demetrio, who along with Stephen L. Golan, is representing Dao. He said Dao told him that being dragged down the aisle of the plane, was more horrifying and harrowing than what he experienced in leaving Vietnam, following the fall of Saigon. He said they are in the process of investigating and gathering information for a lawsuit against the airline and the City of Chicago. The officers involved in the incident are city employees with the Chicago Department of Aviation. Thursday was the first time Daos family has spoken publicly about the incident. Pepper said her father and mother were flying home to Kentucky from a vacation in California. They landed in Chicago for their connecting flight to Louisville, where both work as doctors. Four of their five children also are physicians, Demetrio said. [Embattled United chief accepts blame for passenger dragging incident, says he felt shame watching video] It has been a very difficult time for our entire family, especially our dad and we are truly grateful for all of your support, Pepper said. Demetrio said no one from United, including chief executive Oscar Munoz, had reached out to him or the Dao family. Munoz issued a public apology Wednesday in an appearance on ABCs Good Morning America. Meanwhile, one of the 70 passengers onboard the flight offered more details about the incident. John Fuller of Fairfax, Va., described a chaotic and bloody scene as aviation security officers tried to remove Dao from the plane. Fuller said he and the other passengers a military family with a young child, members of a high school lacrosse team and business travelers were seated and buckled when a United employee came aboard and said that four people would have to leave the plane. She was very terse, Fuller said. She said Four people need to get off this plane or were not going anywhere. United orders review of policies following dragging incident When no one budged, Fuller said the woman left and returned with a list. She marched down the aisle. First she told a young couple they would have to leave and then a woman. Then she approached Dao, who was sitting in an aisle seat. Dao refused. Fuller said Daos wife was not picked to leave. Security was called and three officers boarded the plane. Millions of people worldwide have seen the video of what followed. One person yanked him out of his seat and then I saw them starting to drag Dao, Fuller said. A woman ran to the front of the plane shouting, What are you doing to my husband? She kept shouting, Fuller said. The police kept telling her she needed to come out or they were going to arrest her. She finally stepped outside. [Video shows man being dragged off United flight after refusing to give up his seat] But it wasnt over, Fuller said. Dao returned. But now he was bleeding. There was blood spurting out of his mouth, Fuller said. He had an agitated look. He went by me and kept saying I have to get home. I have to get home. Fuller watched Dao stumble back to his seat. The security officers returned, but refused to restrain Dao because he was injured and bleeding, Fuller said. Two paramedics boarded the plane. I saw a paramedic escorting Mr. Dao from behind, Fuller said. Hed stuffed [paper] towels in [Daos] mouth. Fuller, a retired Marine who works for the U.S. Veterans Affairs Department, then watched in horror as Dao collapsed next to his seat, lunged forward, spitting out the paper towels. They were covered in blood, Fuller said. The paramedic then turns to the captain of the plane and says, Can you get me more towels? Fuller said thats when several passengers got up and left the plane. There was blood on the seats and on the floor, Fuller said. Eventually, a United official boarded the plane and told those remaining theyd have to leave. Fuller said he was appalled by Uniteds cavalier attitude toward the cleanup. He said as far as he could tell, no hazmat team was called to clean the blood and no effort was made to protect passengers when Dao returned to the plane, bleeding. About 45 minutes later, the passengers were allowed to reboard, Fuller said. When the four uniformed crew members boarded, passengers booed. One shouted, You should be ashamed to work for this airline, Fuller said. He said the pilot came on the loudspeaker and said: Were on our way now. Were very sorry you had to witness this. Nothing more was said. And it wasnt just passengers who were shaken. Fuller said one flight attendants hands were shaking as she tried to serve passengers their beverages. Ive been flying for 45 years and Ive never seen anything like this, Fuller said. Fatal drug overdoses increased 38 percent in Virginia between 2015 and 2016, an alarming jump that state health officials attribute to abuse of synthetic opioids, heroin and prescription fentanyl. A new report from the state medical examiner found an even bigger increase 175 percent in deaths from several varieties of fentanyl, a pain medication significantly more potent than morphine. At least 1,420 people died in Virginia last year of drug overdoses, the fourth year that drugs have outpaced motor vehicle accidents and gun-related incidents as the leading cause of unnatural death in the state. The state Health Department warned that the figure may be understating the reality, because the cause of death has not yet been certified for 60 cases from 2016. The situation will probably get worse before it gets better, said State Health Commissioner Marissa Levine, who in November classified opioid addiction as an epidemic and declared a public health emergency . I dont know when well see a peak in deaths, Levine said Thursday. Its not just heroin causing people to die. Its fentanyl and synthetic fentanyl with different potencies. Were now seeing carfentanil [a drug 100 times more potent than fentanyl, used to tranquilize elephants]. Someone whos getting heroin laced with carfentanil could die easily. One of the most dramatic increases in the cause of overdose deaths came from a change in a drug. Before 2013, most fentanyl-related deaths were caused by illicit use of the prescription medication produced by pharmaceutical companies, the state report said. But in the past several years, toxicology tests showed an increase in illicitly produced fentanyl and fentanyl analogues drugs that resemble another and have a similar function but a different chemical structure. But the most deadly combination in 2016 was a mixture of fentanyl and heroin. Kathrin Rosie Hobron, Virginias forensic epidemiologist, said dealers spiked heroin with cheaper fentanyl and fentanyl analogues, or in some cases sold heroin users fentanyl but described it as heroin. The combination of fentanyl mixed with heroin has been the biggest contributor to the spike in the number of fatal opioid overdoses in Virginia, state health officials said. Thats whats really causing our problems now, Hobron said. A lot of drug users dont know what theyre using. From 2007 to 2010, about 700 people died in Virginia each year from drug overdoses, mostly from prescription opioids. By 2011, heroin began turning up more often in toxicology reports, bringing the annual death toll from drug overdoses to about 800. Illicit fentanyl use and fentanyl analogues arrived in 2013 or so, Hobron said, and total drug overdose deaths rose to 1,028 by 2015. Virginia is not alone in this crisis; in 2014, more than 28,000 people died of opioid overdoses across the country. Heroin deaths have tripled since 2010, with 10,500 deaths in 2014, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. This crisis is not restricted to rural Virginia, where some who injured themselves doing heavy physical labor took prescription opioids for pain and became addicted. In urban areas of the state, fentanyl knockoffs and heroin are the major problem, both health officials said. (Drug Enforcement Administration) Levine, the states health commissioner, issued a standing prescription in November that allows any Virginia resident to get the drug Naloxone, which is used to treat overdoses, from a pharmacy. This year, the Virginia General Assembly passed bills that legalize needle-exchange programs, because intravenous drug users are fueling a rise in hepatitis C and HIV infections; introduce initiatives to increase access to naloxone; change opioid prescription policies; and provide services to infants exposed to opioids in utero. Thats a good start, but its going to take years of partnerships between law enforcement, the medical community and the public to address the underlying causes of the epidemic, Levine said. Kapilvastu fire: 59 houses destroyed Fifty-nine thatched roof houses were reduced to cinders in a massive fire at Shitalpur in Shivaraj Municipality-10 on Wednesday. PRETTY MUCH everyone can agree that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents should be able to freely search travelers bags at the border. Their job is to stop everything from illegal weapons to illicit drugs to invasive species from entering the country. But searching through every last email on your cellphone? Thats much less defensible. Even so, CBP has the legal authority to thumb through every personal detail on Americans electronic devices without meeting any standard of suspicion, as though practically bottomless digital storage devices were the same as under-seat suitcases. This permissive regime applies only at the border; once inside the country, the Fourth Amendment demands that law enforcement officers get warrants for intrusive electronic searches. Border crossings, then, serve as front doors to the country and back doors into Americans private lives. Customs agents can gather and transmit private information to the FBI and others or simply hassle people, as a variety of anecdotal accounts suggests with little independent oversight. Border agents are exploiting the loophole more and more. CBP reported Tuesday that officers conducted 14,993 electronic-device searches across 189,594,422 international arrivals in the first six months of fiscal 2017, up from 8,383 searches across 186,376,118 arrivals in the same period the previous year. To be clear: The 2017 surge in searches began before President Trump, advocate of extreme vetting, entered office, suggesting that the numbers might continue to grow from here. Meanwhile, the courts are increasingly recognizing the obvious: Searching a phone is a lot more invasive than searching a wallet or a bag. Law enforcement officers used to face relatively few restrictions examining materials they found in, say, the pockets of someone they arrested. But recognizing that today many of the more than 90% of American adults who own cell phones keep on their person a digital record of nearly every aspect of their lives, the Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that officers could not search an arrestees cellphone without a warrant. In time, courts might take a similar tack on electronic devices at the border. But Congress should not make Americans wait for judges to place sensible privacy protections on CBP. A bipartisan group of lawmakers last week introduced a bill that would require border agents to obtain a warrant before searching through U.S. travelers electronic devices and to inform detained Americans of their privacy rights. Officials could hold a suspects device until they got a warrant to search it, and there would be an exception to the rules in case of emergency. Earlier congressional attempts to raise standards on the border were not quite as restrictive, so lawmakers might eventually settle on a lower standard. Whats clear is that they cannot leave the current system in place. The April 10 front-page article To DeVos, Fla. shows the school choice path noted that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos believes in choice-friendly education policies. The emphasis is not on holding schools accountable for student performances but on parents having the right to choose schools for their children. The article detailed how Florida funds private schools, many with a religious affiliation. To be accredited, a school must demonstrate that it has been in business for three years and follows antidiscrimination and health and safety rules. Are schools with minimal standards a proper offering? But the Metro article Soup, and ideas to chew on [April 10] showed something different. Traditional public and charter school teachers get together on their own time to make their schools and their teaching more effective. The dedicated teachers introduced in the Metro article are true change agents. Caring and creative teachers are the answer to the need for effective education. These teachers are professionals who truly relate to their students. These teachers want to provide a quality education even with limited resources. These teachers are to be commended for wanting to share effective teaching methods, materials and support. The answer to our education quandary is to find, support and appreciate dedicated teachers the teachers who want to keep learning and sharing. These teachers are building their classrooms on respect, encouragement and strong standards. Linda Ebersole, Shady Side Despite President Trumps promises to the contrary, the drumbeat of war escalates with U.S. missile strikes against the sovereign country of Syria. This military intervention, without congressional authority, was a response to an apparent chemical weapons attack that killed scores of civilians in Syria. But it is far from clear whether the Syrian regime was responsible for the heinous use of chemical weapons. It is quite possible these chemical weapons were possessed by al-Qaeda or Islamic State forces in Syria. The Trump administration could be relying on fake news to justify military escalation shades of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), an Iraq War veteran, exposed this military escalation as wrong and reckless. The U.S. foreign policy of endless wars and regime change causes untold death and destruction on the people of the Middle East (such as with the U.S. bombing that recently killed perhaps as many as 200 Iraqi civilians), destabilizes secular regimes, foments reactionary fundamentalism, creates a massive refugee crisis, sends our sons and daughters to kill and be killed based on lies and makes the world less safe. As the U.S. military-industrial complex drives this country toward another unjust war, it will laugh all the way to the bank. Melissa Dimondstein, Washington Clinton Ehrlich is a visiting researcher at Moscow State Institute of International Relations. As a law student, he spearheaded the exoneration of Sgt. Raymond Jennings. Eleven years ago while on leave from Iraq Sgt. Raymond Jennings was arrested at gunpoint and accused of murdering 18-year-old Michelle OKeefe. Jennings was convicted and appeared destined to die in prison, having been given a 40-years-to-life sentence. The California Supreme Court declined to review his conviction. Then something amazing happened: The district attorneys office in Los Angeles ordered Jennings to be released from prison last year after prosecutors expressed doubts about his guilt. Jennings is the first person exonerated by Los Angeless Conviction Review Unit a unit within the district attorneys office that helps innocent people behind bars. The program follows the model of an initiative of the same name in Brooklyn that has freed 22 people since 2014 . We expect the Justice Department to set the gold standard for ethics and professionalism by prosecutors, but here it lags behind local jurisdictions such as Los Angeles. The department has not established conviction-review units in the federal justice system, and this failure is an abdication of moral leadership that prevents state and county governments from taking the concept seriously. Federal prosecutors have created one local unit in the District, but the other 92 U.S. attorneys continue to ignore the problem. They refuse to acknowledge that a prosecutors ethical obligation to seek justice does not end once a conviction is obtained. Few people expect Attorney General Jeff Sessions to tackle this problem. As a prosecutor in Alabama, he showed little interest in helping victims of the criminal justice system, which is why many legal scholars and activists opposed his nomination. Now that Sessions is in charge of the Justice Department, the onus is on him to prove his critics wrong. There is no better starting point for reform than addressing wrongful convictions. About 2,000 exonerated people have been freed from our nations prisons in the past three decades. Worse, the harder we look, the more we find: Almost eight times as many prisoners were exonerated in 2015 as in 1989. People often imagine that this is a result of DNA testing. If that were true, convictions would be simple to overturn, and courts would be well equipped to handle the influx of claims from prisoners. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of exonerations are made on other grounds. Wrongful-conviction cases require time-intensive investigations that courts are not configured to provide. Even when a legal-aid group steps in to help a convict, it must break through the torrent of habeas petitions already overwhelming judges, from complaints on procedural errors to poor living conditions. Conviction-review units can move more quickly because of their narrower mandate. Applicants have no right to an explanation or appeal when their claims are denied, so the units do not get bogged down. This lets investigators focus their resources on the minority of cases that merit their attention. Most important, the conviction-review process is non-adversarial. It creates an internal forum for prosecutors to seek the truth rather than mechanically defend every conviction. When the state admits its own mistakes, they can be addressed rapidly. Prosecutors who resist the movement for conviction-review units are pretending that such mistakes never occur. Part of the problem is public denial. The number of wrongful convictions is so disturbing that many people try to rationalize the problem away with soothing myths: It couldnt happen to me; They were probably lowlifes anyway; or Thats what happens when you hang around the wrong people. The exoneration of Ray Jennings shatters those stereotypes. He is a devout Christian and father of five who risked his life for his country in Iraq. He was present at the scene of a murder only because he was moonlighting as a security guard while studying to become a U.S. marshal. The Justice Department should finally establish federal conviction-review units. Doing so would send the long-overdue signal that prosecutors must take responsibility for correcting their offices mistakes. Equally important, it would reassure our nation that the new attorney general has a moral compass worthy of the power that comes with the office. KMC to construct park at Tinkune The Kathmandu Metropolitan City has decided to build a temporary park in Tinkune after its earlier attempt to construct a permanent park with the statue of Buddha failed to materialise. ARMS CONTROL is a method to lock up dangerous weapons, but it has always depended on the political will of states to comply with their commitments. When the Cold War superpowers found it in their interest to reduce nuclear weapons in a way that was verifiable, they did; when they did not, the arms race zoomed ahead. The use of a nerve agent to kill civilians in Syria recently is another reminder. Dictator Bashar al-Assad and his regime relinquished a large stockpile of chemical weapons under pressure but concealed some, or made new stocks, to eventually kill again, possibly with the connivance of Russia and Iran. The arms-control agreement Damascus signed did not protect the civilians who were murdered. After the Ghouta chemical weapons attack in August 2013, which killed more than 1,400 people, Mr. Assad agreed that Syria would join the Chemical Weapons Convention, which prohibits the development, production, acquisition, stockpiling, retention, transfer or use of chemical weapons. After an agreement between the United States and Russia, some 1,300 tons of Mr. Assads declared chemical weapons stocks were removed and destroyed at sea, and the declared Syrian production facilities were destroyed. This was a worthy endeavor; one can only imagine the consequences if the Islamic State had seized the chemical arsenal. But the key word is declared. Ever since the removal operation, suspicions had been growing that Mr. Assad possessed an undeclared cache. Colum Lynch and David Kenner of Foreign Policy revealed in August the contents of a 75-page report by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which described a troubling pattern of coverup and obfuscation. In a confidential summary of the report, OPCW Director General Ahmet Uzumcu said most of the 122 samples taken at multiple locations in Syria indicated potentially undeclared chemical weapons-related activities. Only the month before, Mr. Lynch and Mr. Kenner reported, the U.S. representative to the organization, Kenneth Ward, said Syria had engaged in a calculated campaign of intransigence and obfuscation, of deception, and of defiance. Syria also repeatedly used chlorine as a chemical warfare agent. The Obama administration oversold the Syrian destruction operation as 100 percent effective. That was a mistake. The truth about these weapons is that even when small amounts slip through, they can do terrible damage. The 1995 Aum Shinrikyo subway attack in Tokyo, which killed 12 people, injured more than 1,000 and set off mass panic, involved the release of 159 ounces of sarin. In recent years, there has been far too much complacency about the dangers of non-nuclear weapons of mass destruction, including the recent failure to strengthen the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention. Chemical and biological substances that cause great harm can be easily concealed. Arms-control agreements work when they are verifiable, with intrusive inspections. But they can be subverted. Mr. Assad showed his true colors by cheating and killing. Anyone thinking about an arms-control deal with Kim Jong Un over North Koreas expanding missile and nuclear programs should keep this lesson in mind. The Trump administrations missile strike on an airfield in Syria in retaliation for Syrian President Bashar al-Assads apparent sarin attack on innocent civilians has dominated the news. Not far behind have been the reporting and commentary about the Trump administration shifting its position on foreign intervention generally and on regime change in Syria more specifically. Reporters, pundits and politicians have criticized President Trump and his national security team for changing positions on both fronts, but they were especially critical of the administration for reversing stated positions on regime change in Syria, such that they now seem to embrace the fact that Mr. Assad must go before any solution to the nightmare in Syria can be realized. Their critiques are completely understandable. And they are completely naive. Reporters, pundits and politicians cannot appreciate that evolving inputs demand evolving positions and decisions. God forbid if our presidents feet were stuck in cement. Michael Mehaffey, Clifton After years of President Trump saying on the record that Syria was not our concern and proposing a ban on refugees from Syria, and with statements made by the secretary of state that Syrian President Bashar al-Assads future would be determined by the Syrians, Mr. Assad apparently struck with chemical weapons against his own people. But where was Mr. Trumps compassion for the innocents when he tried to ban Syrian refugees? Did the fact that nearly 60 percent of Americans disapproved of him, and his own personal need to distract from the Russia probes, have anything to do with his newfound compassion? Did he ever think one of those children he attempted to ban from refugee status might be alive today were it not for his own policy? Pete Rose, Fredericksburg President Trump rose to power on a combination of meanness, incoherence and falsehoods. His strategy depended almost entirely on playing off the unpopularity and weaknesses of others. Every aspect of his approach has blown up on him since he took office, but as is always the case with Trump, he will not take any personal responsibility for whats going wrong. He must find a scapegoat. The latest object of his opprobrium would seem to be Stephen K. Bannon, the chief White House strategist. But dumping Bannon would only underscore the extent to which Trump is a political weather vane, gyrating wildly with the political winds. Hes populist one day, conventionally conservative the next and centrist the day after that. His implicit response is: Who cares? Lets just get through another week. At the moment, he is basking in praise from large parts of the foreign policy establishment for his decision to fire missiles into Syria. This is the hour of maximum danger for Bannon. Trump may now figure he should ride for a while with his newfound friends in the elite. The presence of the disheveled, ultra-nationalist Bannon just wont do at the tony country-club party Trump wants to throw for himself. [Trump has a strange new plan to threaten Democrats. Its a sick joke.] (Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post) And so Trump, in an interview with the New York Posts Michael Goodwin, did to Bannon what he has done to everyone else: He offered an entirely misleading account of their relationship. I like Steve, but you have to remember he was not involved in my campaign until very late, Trump said. I had already beaten all the senators and all the governors, and I didnt know Steve. Im my own strategist and it wasnt like I was going to change strategies because I was facing crooked Hillary. Hmm. Contrary to Trumps claim, he has known Bannon since 2011 and appeared nine times on Bannons radio show. Just a few months ago, Bannon was cast as the political genius who saw the electoral potential in the Midwestern swing states. But with Trump, every good idea is his idea and every failure belongs to someone else, so Bannon is now an afterthought. The weather vane will twirl again soon because Trump faces renewed trouble, on an old front and a new one. Trump has gone to great lengths including lying about former president Barack Obama having his wires tapped to distract from inquiries into his campaigns possible ties to Russias effort to subvert the 2016 election. [The unforgivable mistake Sean Spicer makes every day] But Tuesday brought a reminder that the story wont go away until its resolved. The Post reported that the FBI obtained an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to monitor the communications of the man Trump once listed as a foreign policy adviser, Carter Page. (Trump has since downgraded Pages role to low-level.) The news was an indication of the seriousness of the investigation of links between Trumps campaign and Russia. While Trump hopes that his administrations complete about-face on Vladimir Putin from fawning praise to hostility will settle the matter, it wont. 1 of 83 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad See what President Trump has been doing since taking office View Photos The beginning of his term has featured controversial executive orders and frequent conflicts with the media. Caption The beginning of the presidents term has featured controversial executive orders and frequent conflicts with the media. March 17, 2017 President Donald Trump, first lady Melania Trump and their son, Barron, walk to Marine One at the White House en route to Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla. Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post Wait 1 second to continue. And then the good people of Kansass 4th Congressional District cast ballots in a special election on Tuesday. While Republican Ron Estes won the seat over Democrat James Thompson, Estess winning margin of nearly 7 percentage points was anemic compared with Trumps 27-point win in the district last year. And Republican Mike Pompeo, whose appointment as Trumps CIA director created the opening, was reelected last year by a margin of 31 percentage points. This swing will petrify Republicans in Congress who, up to now, have largely stayed in line behind Trump. Its also likely to give additional spine to Trumps GOP critics, both on the far right and closer to the center. The energy in politics is now clearly on the anti-Trump side. Republicans will surely notice the sharp falloff in loyalist turnout in Republican bastions. Last year, for example, Trump carried Harper County, south of Wichita, with 1,996 votes to 393 for Clinton. Estes could manage only 837 votes there, to 307 for Thompson. And energized Democrats swung big Sedgwick County, which includes Wichita, from Trump to Thompson. As Trumps comments to Goodwin showed, he still longs to run against crooked Hillary. He also still loves to bash Obama. But Trump is on his own, with only his own record to answer for. He can let go of Bannon and anyone else he wants to blame for the chaos of his presidency. But governing is hard, especially when your principles are as flexible as your relationship with the truth. Read more from E.J. Dionnes archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. The U.S. Coast Guard has received no extra funding to cover the additional costs of protecting President Trumps Mar-a-Lago resort during his frequent trips to the Florida estate, the services top official said Wednesday. Adm. Paul Zukunft, the Coast Guards commandant, also provided new details about the challenges the service faces in safeguarding the Palm Beach property because of its waterfront exposure on two sides the Atlantic Ocean to the east and the Intracoastal Waterway to the west. Whenever Trump visits, the Coast Guard dispatches helicopters, patrol boats and anti-terrorism teams for round-the-clock patrols, Zukunft said during a breakfast with journalists. We have teams protecting the approaches to Mar-a-Lago on both coasts, Zukunft said. Were also protecting in the air, as well, he added, noting that the service watches for low, slow fliers and any other potential aviation threat to our commander in chief. Asked about the costs of protecting Mar-a-Lago, Zukunft said officials were trying to determine a figure to provide to Congress but that at the moment the service was working within existing funding constraints. 1 of 39 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad The scene at President Trumps Mar-a-Lago Club and resort in Florida View Photos The president refers to his sprawling Palm Beach estate as the Southern White House or winter White House. Caption The president refers to his sprawling Palm Beach estate as the Southern White House or winter White House. Nov. 23, 2016 A Coast Guard boat passes through then-President-elect Donald Trumps Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla. Since the election, Mar-a-Lago has assumed a prized role in Trumps presidency, rivaling Trump Tower as a focal point of his lifestyle and ambitions. Gerardo Mora/Getty Images Wait 1 second to continue. Is there a supplemental to support this? he said. The answer is no. Zukunfts comments highlight the growing costs to taxpayers of Trumps lifestyle, including routine jaunts to Mar-a-Lago and the need to fortify Trump Tower in New York, where Trumps wife and youngest son have chosen to live. Trump is expected to return to Mar-a-Lago this weekend for his seventh trip since the inauguration. Mar-a-Lago, the private club Trump has dubbed the winter White House, lacks the established protection measures of the White House or Camp David, and officials there in recent months have been forced to build a presidential compound from scratch. The Trump administrations draft budget last month called for cutting the Coast Guards funding by 14 percent, or about $1.3 billion, but the White House has since said it would keep the services budget flat compared with the previous year. Three anti-terrorism teams were involved in the protection of Mar-a-Lago when Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping visited last week, Zukunft said. Those Maritime Safety and Security teams carry out port safety patrols and are trained to operate after an attack by chemical, biological or radiological means. Trump has spent about 21 days at Mar-a-Lago this year. Based on a Washington Post review of estimates of past presidential trips and assessments of security costs, Trumps continued travel there could drive the price tag for Coast Guard support at the estate into the tens of millions of dollars over a four-year term. An MH-65 Dolphin helicopter, commonly used in air patrols like those over Mar-a-Lago, costs $7,533 an hour to run, or more than $180,000 for an all-day patrol, service financial documents show. An RB-S Defender-class response boat patrolling near Mar-a-Lago costs $1,434 an hour to run, or about $34,400 a day. When President Barack Obama flew to South Florida for a weekend in 2013, the Coast Guard spent about $586,000 to patrol waterways and cover official travel and lodging costs, according to a Government Accountability Office report last year. When the president is in town, the Coast Guard also establishes three wide-ranging security zones along the Palm Beach shorelines and in the nearby Lake Worth Lagoon. , which are guarded by gunboat. The Coast Guards budget is only a fraction of the government money spent toward protecting the presidents estate. Palm Beach County spends more than $60,000 a day toward overtime for deputies and other costs when the president is in town, local-government officials said. The Secret Service also has faced budgetary strain. The agency requested $60 million in funding on top of its traditional budget for the next year to help pay for the travel of the president and top-ranking officials, as well as the protection of Trump Tower, according to internal documents reviewed by The Post. The Coast Guard post near Palm Beach traditionally focuses on other missions across South Florida and the Caribbean, including rescuing stranded boaters, securing ports and intercepting drug runners, the service says. [Trump familys elaborate lifestyle is a logistical nightmare at taxpayer expense] [Secret Service asked for $60 million extra for Trump-era travel and protection, documents show] [To fund border wall, Trump administration weighs cuts to Coast Guard, airport security] When Stephen K. Bannon reported for work Wednesday, he did not act like a man who had just been publicly humiliated by his boss. The White House chief strategist cycled in and out of the Oval Office for meetings with President Trump and took a seat in the front row of the East Room for the afternoon visit of NATOs secretary general, flanked by some of the very advisers with whom he has been feuding. But for Bannon, the days routine obscured the reality that he is a marked man diminished by weeks of battles with the bloc of centrists led by Trumps daughter and son-in-law and cut down by the president himself, who belittled Bannon in an interview with the New York Post. The presidents comments were described by White House officials as a dressing-down and warning shot, though one Bannon friend, reflecting on them Wednesday, likened Bannon to a terminally ill family member who had been moved into hospice care. The man not long ago dubbed the shadow president with singular influence over Trumps agenda and the workings of the federal government is struggling to keep his job with his portfolio reduced and his profile damaged, according to interviews Wednesday with 21 of Trumps aides, confidants and allies. Some colleagues described Bannon as a stubborn recluse who had failed to build a reservoir of goodwill within the West Wing. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post) Bannon is a brilliant pirate who has had a huge impact, said former House speaker Newt Gingrich, a Trump supporter. But White Houses, in the end, are like the U.S. Navy corporate structures and very hard on pirates. For now, at least, Bannon may survive the turmoil, and he and other White House staffers are striving to be on their best behavior after their infighting earned them a scolding by the president over the weekend, according to the aides and allies, many of whom requested anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about internal dynamics. Bannon declined to be interviewed. [Bannon wants a war on Washington. Now hes part of one inside the White House.] But the mercurial president has a long history of turning quickly on subordinates, and the political hit late Tuesday in the New York Post was trademark Trump, using the friendly Manhattan tabloid to publicly debase his chief strategist. The president said Bannon was hardly the Svengali of his caricature, but rather a good guy who was not involved in my campaign until very late. Bannons associates were caught off guard by Trumps comments. Some interpreted them as a paternal love tap by Trump to assert his own dominance, while others worried they amounted to an indirect firing. Bannon himself was humbled, people close to him said, and his allies scrambled to defend him, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who praised him in an appearance on Laura Ingrahams radio program. In a second interview, with the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, Trump referred to Bannon as a guy who works for me and pointedly noted, as he did with the New York Post, that he was his own strategist, even though chief strategist is Bannons job title. Trump also is increasingly embracing more mainstream policy positions championed by daughter Ivanka Trump, son-in-law Jared Kushner and their allies, including ascendant National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn, instead of Bannons brand of combative nationalism. 1 of 13 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad 13 things you may not have known about Stephen K. Bannon View Photos Trumps chief strategist served in the Navy, has a daughter in the Army and once referred to himself as a Leninist. Caption Trumps chief strategist served in the Navy, has a daughter in the Army and once referred to himself as a Leninist. He served in the Navy According to Bloomberg, Bannon signed up right after college, serving from 1976 to 1983. He spent four years at sea working as an auxiliary engineer and a navigator aboard a destroyer. Courtesy of the Bannon family Wait 1 second to continue. On Wednesday alone, Trump flipped from Bannon-favored positions on issues such as the Export-Import Bank and Chinese currency manipulation, alarming some Bannon aides who feared their wing had lost influence with the president. On Ingrahams show, Sessions dismissed the suggestion that Bannons worldview, which he shares, was being sidelined. Im an admirer of Steve Bannon and the Trump family and theyve been supportive of what were doing, said the attorney general, who in recent days has unveiled tough policies aimed at illegal immigration and drug crimes. Ive not felt any pushback against me or on anything Ive done or advocated. Thomas J. Barrack Jr., a close Trump friend who chaired his inaugural committee, spent Tuesday and Wednesday in Washington meeting with the president and his senior team. He characterized the ideological disagreement between Bannon and others as natural and even healthy. The way this president makes decisions is he encourages different points of view from different people, and he curates those and comes up with his own positions, Barrack said. The lack of unanimity is just the way this president manages. He is in command and control. Trump and his team are rushing to notch accomplishments that they can hail at the 100-day mark later this month and to impose new discipline on a White House that has been riven by disorder and suspicion since Trump took office. [Inside Trumps fury: The president rages at leaks, setbacks and accusations] Justice Neil M. Gorsuch was confirmed to the Supreme Court and sworn in this week, upending Senate procedure and marking a significant victory for Trump's conservative base. But the absence of any other major legislative achievement and the public failure of a health-care overhaul has gnawed at the president, and other White House advisers have been swift in assigning partial blame to Bannon, according to Trump staffers and outside allies. Bannons effective demotion began last week when he was removed from the National Security Councils principals committee. But his real problems began much earlier. Trump bristled at the media depiction of Bannon as a puppeteer, punctuated by the Feb. 13 Time magazine cover labeling Bannon The Great Manipulator. Trump fashions himself as the leading man the protagonist of every story in which he stars and was content to have Bannon as his sidekick, but he did not welcome the competition for top billing. Bannon further imperiled his standing with the president by getting crosswise with Kushner, officials said. The two men were close during last years campaign; Kushner came to see Bannon as a wartime consigliere. But in the White House, Bannon went to war with the business leaders Kushner helped recruit to the administration Cohn and others, including Dina Powell, the senior economic counselor and deputy national security adviser. Bannon privately derided them as globalists and Democrats, officials said, even though Powell worked in George W. Bushs administration and has been called a principled conservative by leading Republican senators. Bannons supporters believe he is an essential conduit between Trump and his nationalist, populist base. The wealthy Mercer family, which has nurtured Bannons political rise and infused Trumps campaign and allied groups with millions of dollars, is closely monitoring Bannons falling fortunes. Rebekah Mercer, who directs the familys political activities, is unnerved and worried about losing her best link to a president her family takes credit for helping get elected but believes Bannon will be able to maintain his influence, people close to the family said. Ingraham wrote in an email of Bannon: Of course he didnt invent the conservative populist ideals that Trump ran on, but he is a reminder in the West Wing of what the presidents core supporters expect of the administration and the promises that must be fulfilled. I think the president has really keen political instincts and I have to believe he knows his chances of a successful first term are better with Steve on the inside than on the outside. [Horrible pictures of suffering moved Trump to action on Syria] Other Trump loyalists flatly dismiss the idea that Bannon is the id of the Trump movement, pointing out that Trump has been advocating some of the same populist positions especially on immigration and trade for decades and for more than a year on the campaign trail before Bannons hiring last summer. These people argue that a better representative of Trumps voters inside the White House is Stephen Miller, the senior policy adviser and former Sessions aide who joined the campaign early and helped Trump hone and communicate his ideas. They said Miller has worked closely with Bannon but also has strategically aligned himself with Kushner, who came to see him last year as indispensable at Trumps side. As tensions have heightened in recent weeks, the Bannon and Kushner camps have devolved into opposing firing squads. Team Bannon believes the hosts of MSNBCs Morning Joe, a show the president watches regularly, are speaking regularly with Kushner and projecting his anti-Bannon sentiments. Kushner allies, meanwhile, finger Bannon as responsible for unflattering stories involving the presidents son-in-law, including those focusing on Kushners talks with Russians. Inside a White House led by a president increasingly hungry to make deals, even with Democrats, Bannons dogmatism appears to have weakened him. The West Wing is finally appreciating its a democracy, not a dictatorship, but the rules are hard to navigate when there is such a high degree of polarization, said Richard Hohlt, a longtime Republican consultant who has observed seven different presidents since his arrival in Washington. It becomes difficult in a democracy if youre going to be all ideological purity, all the time. Trumps three oldest children Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric and Kushner have been frustrated by the impression of chaos inside the White House and feel that their father has not always been served well by his senior staff, according to people with knowledge of their sentiments. The Trump heirs are interested in any changes that might help resuscitate the presidency and preserve the familys name at a time when they are trying to expand the Trump Organizations portfolio of hotels. The fundamental assessment is that if they want to win the White House in 2020, theyre not going to do it the way they did in 2016, because the family brand would not sustain the collateral damage, said one well-connected Republican operative, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the presidents family. It would be so protectionist, nationalist and backward-looking that theyd only be able to build in Oklahoma City or the Ozarks. Bannon has borne at least part of the blame for the administrations problems governing. He was intimately involved in the entry ban, which was twice blocked in federal court, and the failed health-care push especially hurt him. Trump thought Bannon would be able to bring along the House Freedom Caucus a group of hard-line anti-establishment conservatives but they helped tank the bill to scale back the Affordable Care Act. Reince Priebus, the often-embattled chief of staff, is among the aides who feel growing pressure from the president to show that the administration can govern. Priebus has been telling confidants, Im not going to have a Memorial Day where the number one headline is Republicans cant produce a budget when everyone else in America can, according to multiple people with knowledge of his plea. For Trump, one bright spot was the decision to launch 59 missiles in Syria last week. The president was pleased with the process, overseen by national security adviser H.R. McMaster, that brought together his war cabinet and corralled its expertise in a way that resembled a more traditional White House. Hes in the best place that Ive seen him since the inauguration, Barrack said. Hes confident. He thinks hes found the groove, and with his team too. . . . He looks great. His energy level is off the map. And I think he now feels the commander in chief role. Damian Paletta contributed to this report. President Trump listens as he and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg participate in a news conference in the East Room of the White House on April 12. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post) Addressing the United Nations last fall, President Barack Obama took a moment to highlight for fellow world leaders what he called the most important fact about the state of global affairs: Human existence on planet Earth is good and getting better. War is down, he said, while life expectancy is up. Democracy is on the march, and science has beaten back infectious diseases. A girl in a remote village can download the entirety of human knowledge on a smartphone. A person born today, Obama concluded, is more likely to be safer, healthier, wealthier and better-educated and to see a path to prosperity than at any time in human history. President Trump does not inhabit this world. To Trump, the world is a mess, as he said during a White House news conference this week with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. (Victoria Walker/The Washington Post) In recent days, Trump authorized missile strikes on Syria, shifted rapidly to a tougher tone with Russia, and negotiated with Chinas authoritarian leader over what to do about North Koreas nuclear weapons program. Its crazy whats going on, Trump said. Whether its the Middle East or you look at no matter where Ukraine whatever you look at, its got problems, so many problems. Right now, he concluded, its nasty. What a time to be alive. To ordinary Americans, the gulf between the worldviews of the United States two most recent leaders could not be more vast. But historians and foreign affairs analysts said that, despite their apparent contradictions, both things can be true. The world is always a mess. Bad things happen. There are crises. People die. The question, they said, is how a president responds to the mess and how he frames the threat and the response to the public a challenge made more difficult in an age of immediate and nonstop news from across the world. President Obama constantly reminded us that our own times are not uniquely oppressive, said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian and author at Rice University. Theres a feeling due to the 24-7 news cycle that everything is a crisis mode, when the fact of the matter is, Americans have it better now than ever before. Throughout his campaign, Trump railed about the dangers and threats to Americans: inside the country in the form of undocumented immigrants and violent inner cities, and abroad in the form of Islamic State terrorists, swarms of refugees and rapacious U.S. trading partners. Time and again, Obama sought to counter Trumps apocalyptic rhetoric by putting the purported threats in broader context and cautioning Americans not to succumb to fear or anger. The Islamic State does not represent an existential threat to the country, Obama said in November 2015, just a few days after Islamic State terrorists killed 130 people in Paris. Rather, he said, they were nothing more than a bunch of killers with good social media. Obama characterized most undocumented immigrants as hard-working strivers. Globalization caused discomfort for some workers, Obama acknowledged, but he was quick to emphasize the opportunities it provided for American ingenuity in new markets overseas. Yes, were going through large, structural changes . . . [and] all these things are creating a new politics for the world, said Simon Rosenberg, founder of NDN, a liberal think tank in Washington. The challenge is not to be overwhelmed but to manage them for ones own benefit. Thats where Trump is so flummoxed. He is more fearful of the changes than he is understanding the goal of the president is to manage them for the benefit of the United States. That might have been Obamas goal, but the president recognized during his final year in office that his optimistic message to Americans was at risk of being overtaken by the chaotic images from abroad. During a town hall-style event with young people in Malaysia in September, Obama said that the flow of information bombarding news consumers on televisions, computers and smartphones makes it appear as if the world is falling apart. A war here, an environmental disaster there, and suddenly everybody is shouting and everybody hates each other, Obama said. And you get kind of depressed. You think, Goodness, whats happening? But, Obama emphasized, if you had a choice of when to be born and you didnt know ahead of time who you were going to be what nationality, whether you were male or female, what religion but you had said, When in human history would be the best time to be born? the time would be now. Steven Pinker, a psychology professor at Harvard University, has written that voluminous data back up Obamas argument. But he acknowledged that the former presidents message did fail to resonate during a rapid-fire campaign news cycle. He has the facts behind him, but to get those facts, you cant read the daily news, Pinker said. If you only look at bad things, there are always bad things. Trump is right that there is a lot of nasty stuff going on. There always is, and unfortunately there probably always will be. The question is, is there more nasty stuff? The answer is no. Unlike Obama, Trump is a voracious consumer of breathless, hyperbolic cable news programming. In the White House, he has continued to react, on Twitter, to the partisan debate and unfolding horrors on his television screen. His message has consistently been that America is being taken advantage of because of Obamas weakness. China and Mexico are beating the United States on trade. Middle Eastern refugees are flowing across borders, causing chaos and crime. Immigrants are taking American jobs. We dont win anymore, Trump said repeatedly. In his inaugural address, Trump described in stark terms problems he saw across the country as he began his presidency and said, This American carnage stops right here and stops right now. To historian Rick Shenkman, author of Political Animals: How Our Stone-Age Brain Gets in the Way of Smart Politics, Trumps rhetoric appeals to base human instincts, hard-wired from prehistoric times, to be on guard for constant threats. While some critics have suggested Trump exploits public fears, Shenkman believes he more effectively leverages public anger. People who are in an angry mood want change, he said. They will take risks for change . . . Modern political parties, and Trump in particular, have learned that if you keep people in a state of nonstop anger, they stand by you. Yet historians said Trump, like other presidents, would have to shift to a more upbeat message as his presidency matures. A presidency cant feed on failure, Brinkley said. Others suggested that Trumps recent pivot away from some of his foreign policy positions from the campaign such as calling NATO obsolete and threatening to label China a currency manipulator reflects a leader coming to terms with how complicated the world is and how difficult it will be to address the global challenges without allies and partners now that he is in charge. Right now, there is a fear, and there are problems there are certainly problems, Trump said at the White House. But ultimately, I hope that there wont be a fear and there wont be problems, and the world can get along. That would be the ideal situation. Madhesi parties fail to participate in election process Most of the agitating Madhes-based parties didn't provide the names and signature of party officials who are authorized to give official letter of nomination of the candidates to the Election Commission (EC) for the upcoming local election by the final deadline on Wednesday. People listen as Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.) speaks during a town hall at Fort Dalles Readiness Center on Wednesday in The Dalles, Ore. (Raelynn Ricarte/AP) Rep. Greg Walden is one of the Republican House leaders who crafted the measure to overhaul the health-care system that dramatically imploded before lawmakers went home for a two-week recess. But when faced with a large crowd of angry constituents in his district this week, the Oregon Republican seemed reluctant to claim the legislation as his own. Instead, Walden stressed the parts of President Obamas Affordable Care Act that he wants to keep. That did not stop about 1,500 of his constituents who packed this liberal area at two town halls on Wednesday from slamming the congressman for wanting to overhaul Obamacare in a state that heavily relies on it. Why dont you go back to Washington, [and] in the spirit of bipartisanship, grow a pair, sit down with [House Democratic leader] Nancy Pelosi and say, Lets fix Obamacare, said one middle-aged man at Columbia Gorge Community College, where about 500 people gathered. A few in the rowdy crowd at the next town hall seemed to know that Walden, as the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, played a pivotal role in crafting the GOPs American Health Care Act, which would have rolled back Obamacares system of subsidies and phased out that laws Medicaid expansion. It was an embarrassment and a disaster, said one attendee at Hood River Middle School, where 1,000 people showed up, prompting applause across the auditorium. You dont make the plan better by taking away insurance for 24 million people across the nation. Like many House Republicans, Walden has spent the past seven years attacking Obamacare and promising to repeal and replace it if the GOP secured one-party rule in Washington. But now that Walden has his wish, eliminating Obamacare is proving extremely difficult and politically dangerous. That was certainly the case at home this week in his sprawling eastern Oregon 2nd District, which he won with a comfortable 72 percent of the vote in November. Walden held events in Hood River and Wasco counties, the least conservative areas that he represents winning in Hood by just five votes in the last election. When he asked participants at the community college whether they voted for Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders in the presidential election, the vast majority raised their hands. But President Trump won Waldens district by nearly 20 points a fact Walden pointed out at one particularly heated point on Wednesday. Yet not even Trumps role in pushing the GOP health-care plan prompted Walden an ally of House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) to embrace it. He responded to most health-care questions by touting the popular portions of Obamacare the GOP plan would retain, including preventing insurers from denying coverage to those with pre-existing conditions and allowing young people to stay on their parents plans. Walden insisted that Republicans will work with Democrats on future health-care issues, although their presence has so far been conspicuously absent in negotiations around the GOP plan. There is a lot of reform with health care that is being done on a bipartisan basis and will be done on a bipartisan basis, was all Walden told one attendee at the community college, before moving on to another question. Rep. Greg Walden speaks during a town hall on Wednesday in The Dalles, Ore. (Stephanie Yao Long/AP) The only GOP lawmaker from Oregon, Walden finds himself in the same tricky position as several other House Republicans who have pledged to get rid of Obamacare but whose constituents heavily rely on it. Oregon expanded Medicaid as part of the law, and it now covers about one-fourth of all residents. It has also sought to innovate when it comes to that program. Experts said that the GOP health plan would stem federal funding to states such as Oregon. It would replace Obamacares income-based subsidies with age-based ones and phase out the Medicaid expansion, as well as limit the amount the federal government pays states for the program for low-income Americans. The GOP plan would largely scrap the laws taxes and requirements to buy insurance. [Affordable Care Act revision would reduce insured numbers by 24 million, CBO projects] The proposed changes to Medicaid would be pronounced in states such as Oregon, which is already struggling to fund its program after greatly expanding eligibility. The state has tried to lower overall Medicaid costs by employing a dozen or so Cooperative Care Organizations, which contract with the state to insure enrollees. These groups are tasked with improving patients overall health. But those efforts have not been enough, and the state in January announced a $882 million shortfall in its Medicaid program. Oregon would have been clobbered by repeal and replace in the AHCA, said Jeff Goldsmith, a Portland native and health-policy expert who writes for the nonpartisan journal Health Affairs. Many billions lost, and for a relatively poor state with limited fiscal capacity. Walden was most deeply involved in drafting the Medicaid portion of the GOP plan, but he was quick to explain at the town halls how he would have done things differently. The measure should have allowed states to continue expanding their Medicaid programs through 2020 instead of cutting off that opportunity right away, he said. . The issue is becoming increasingly toxic for lawmakers such as Walden, as liberal groups run ads against him and other Republicans supporting the effort. Walden did not refer to the AHCA by name during either of his town halls, nor did he lay out a timeline for when it might eventually get passed. Theres no value in me coming to a bad plan that hurts people, he said, prompting cries of But you did! from members of the audience. Attendees came armed with bright green, orange and yellow signs that read Agree, Disagree and Answer the Question. But they also expressed their feelings out loud throughout both meetings, which erupted frequently with boos and shouts, particularly when Walden appeared to support something Trump has said or done. He won applause only a few times, chiefly when several constituents thanked him for supporting the military. Many heatedly asked Walden to respond to Trumps calls for building a wall along the Mexico border, his push for reducing science funding, his moves to ban refugees from majority-Muslim countries and his skepticism of climate change. We dont like climate-change deniers. We need your word you will not desert us on this, said a woman named Connie. Walden noted several areas where hes bucked Trump including opposing the refugee ban and some elements of Trumps proposed budget but he was careful not to directly criticize the presidents style or approach. When he seemed to give Trump a pass on refusing to release his tax returns, people booed loudly. It seems to me [that] candidates are better-served when they do make their returns public, but thats all protected by privacy laws, Walden said. The restive crowds did not seem to ruffle Walden, who extended each session to two hours instead of the single hour they were originally scheduled to run. Come on, lets do this the Oregon way lets be respectful of each other, Walden said when interrupted by attendees. At another point, Walden even succeeded in making the crowd laugh, after a woman with several children asked why he did not criticize Trump more publicly for making derogatory statements about women. I dont speak out every time he says stuff because I dont have time for that, frankly, Walden responded. Read more at PowerPost Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said it takes two minutes to get to downtown Washington from Shepherd Park. It takes 20 minutes or more. 1 of 15 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad Where We Live | Shepherd Park in Northwest Washington View Photos A neighborhood known for its friendliness is on the cusp of development. Caption A neighborhood known for its friendliness is on the cusp of development. Shepherd Park is a Northwest Washington neighborhood named after its most famous resident, Alexander Boss Shepherd, who served as governor of the District for one year in 1873. Justin T. Gellerson/For The Washington Post Wait 1 second to continue. Describing a neighborhood as friendly might seem a bit trite, but for Jill Borris, whos lived in Shepherd Park in Northwest Washington for 16 years, the adjective fits perfectly. How else to describe a neighborhood, said Borris, where steps from her front door live two childhood friends who surprised her and moved to the community to be near her? Having friends since you were five years old is a feat in and of itself, said Borris, who has lived in a four-bedroom, four-bathroom Colonial in Shepherd Park for 17 years, but ending up on the same street is just incredible. Shepherd Park is named after its most famous resident, Alexander Boss Shepherd, who served as governor of the District of Columbia for one year in 1873. Situated in upper Northwest and bordering Rock Creek Park, Shepherd Park offers residents a wide variety of housing styles, from Tudors to bungalows, farmhouses to ramblers, and a collection of brick, stucco and split-level houses, said Marilyn Charity, an agent with Washington Fine Properties. The community is also close to major public transit lines and is a short car ride away from downtown, making its location a major selling point, Charity said. When its not rush hour you can get to downtown in 20 minutes, Charity said. The best part is that youre at the most a 10-minute walk to Rock Creek Park, and the neighborhood is totally residential. [Affordability and history in Arlingtons Buckingham neighborhood] On the cusp of development: Stephen A. Whatley, an advisory neighborhood commissioner who has lived in Shepherd Park for 30 years, said that he and his wife were sold on the neighborhood after discovering the highly rated public schools. A native Washingtonian, Whatley said that he wanted to stay in the District and became convinced about Shepherd Park after hearing friends who lived in the neighborhood talk about the community with such an affinity. Sandra Raspberry has called her four-bedroom, four-bathroom Normandy-style house in Shepherd Park home for the past 43 years. She said that she struggles to accurately capture how wonderful her neighborhood is. I cant begin to describe all of the wonderful things about Shepherd Park, she said. A few years ago during a horrible snowstorm, neighbors shoveled the sidewalks around my house and I was so grateful, Raspberry said. People wave to you when youre out walking and if I havent seen my neighbors in a while theyll come by to check on me. They put my trash can back after the garbage is collected. Its just a great place to live. Shepherd Park is a short drive to restaurants and shops in Silver Spring and Bethesda and close to attractions downtown, Charity said. The neighborhood also will benefit from the planned development of the former Walter Reed Army Medical Center, which borders Shepherd Park along 16th Street. The development plans, including 3.1 million square feet of retail, residential and commercial development, will provide residents with easy access to restaurants and shops, Charity said. [In family-friendly Bannockburn Estates, its nature and nurture] When Gloria Sulton went looking for a new house nearly 50 years ago, she was struck by how many of her must-have qualities Shepherd Park captured. The neighborhood included large, single-family houses, close access to public transportation and a park where she could walk her dog. She and her husband quickly settled on a 2,200-square-foot, four-bedroom, four-bathroom Colonial and have been happy ever since. My son was born a few months after we moved in, Sulton said. I always took that as a sign that we made the right decision about where to live. A group of men play soccer at Shepherd Park. (Justin T. Gellerson/For The Washington Post) Living there: The neighborhood is bordered by Eastern Avenue to the north, Georgia Avenue to the east, the original Walter Reed Army Medical Center to the south and 16th Street to the west. In the past 12 months, 31 properties have sold in Shepherd Park, ranging from a four-bedroom, four-bathroom Colonial for $610,000 to a 4,553-square-foot, five-bedroom, six-bathroom contemporary house for $1,575,000, said Charity of Washington Fine Properties. There are two houses for sale in Shepherd Park, a 2,546-square-foot, four-bedroom, three-bathroom rambler for $799,000 and a five-bedroom, four-bathroom Colonial for $845,000, Charity said. There are three homes under contract. Schools: Shepherd Elementary, Deal Middle, Coolidge and Wilson High schools. Transit: Shepherd Park is serviced by Metros S1 bus line and is close to the Silver Spring station on Metros Red Line. Crime: In the past 12 months, there have been 33 robberies, 26 reports of stolen vehicles, 24 burglaries, 16 assaults and one homicide in the police service area covering Shepherd Park, according to D.C. police. North Koreas neighbors are steeling themselves for more provocative action from Kim Jong Uns regime, with Japans prime minister raising the prospect of a chemical weapons attack and South Koreas military saying it is ready to mercilessly retaliate. Expectations remain high that North Korea will conduct another nuclear or missile test, or carry out some other incendiary act, to mark the most important day on its calendar: the anniversary Saturday of the birthday of Kim Il Sung, the countrys founder, and the current leaders grandfather. The worries reflect a deepening anxiety in the region amid the Norths military bluster and tough talk from President Trump. Echoing a tweet earlier this week, Trump wrote Thursday on Twitter that he believes China will be able to rein in the North, which depends on Beijing for nearly all its foreign commerce and aid. I have great confidence that China will properly deal with North Korea, he wrote. If they are unable to do so, the U.S., with its allies, will! U.S.A. (Jason Aldag/The Washington Post) [Trump thought he could muscle China over North Korea. Its not that easy.] Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Thursday that he is worried that North Korea could be developing its chemical weapons capability with Japan as its target. Its possible that North Korea might already have the ability to deliver sarin warheads on missiles, Abe told a parliamentary committee. The prospect of a sarin attack is particularly sensitive in Japan, where a doomsday cult used the nerve agent on the Tokyo subway in 1995, killing 12 people. Concerns have been growing about North Koreas chemical weapons capabilities since Kim Jong Nam, Kim Jong Uns estranged half brother, was killed with the nerve agent VX in Malaysia in February. North Korea is thought to maintain multiple facilities that are capable of producing chemical weapons and already hold a sizable amount of chemical weapons, Yoshihide Suga, Abes top aide, told reporters after a meeting of Japans national security council. [ With both the U.S. and North Korea saber rattling, is conflict imminent? ] (White House) Meanwhile, the new commander of South Koreas Marine Corps, Lt. Gen. Jun Jin-goo, called on his 30,000 troops to be ready to mercilessly retaliate against any North Korean provocations, according to the Yonhap News Agency. Kim Jong Un looked relaxed Thursday when he appeared at the opening ceremony for one of his marquee projects: the Ryomyong Street development in Pyongyang. The district, with its high-rises and fancy stores, has become a symbol of North Koreas purported economic development and improved standard of living under Kim. The most recent satellite images of North Koreas underground nuclear test site, at Punggye-ri in the northeast, show it is primed and ready, according to the 38 North website, which follows North Korean affairs. People and vehicles continue to move around the site, according to images from Wednesday, the report said. There have been varying amounts of activity, including the removal of rubble and draining of water, over the past two weeks, raising concerns that North Korea might be preparing for its sixth nuclear test. North Korea has also been firing missiles at a steady clip, and from mobile launchers that are rolled out of tunnels or hangars immediately before launch and are, therefore, difficult to spot by satellite. In 2012, two days before the 100th anniversary of Kim Il Sungs birthday, North Korea tested a long-range missile. It broke up soon after launch. North Korea sometimes seems to enjoy stoking its adversaries fears. There were similarly high expectations around a big anniversary in October, but North Korea did nothing. [ U.S. Navy sends strike group toward Korean Peninsula ] Still, doing something provocative in the next few days would have another benefit for North Korea: It would send a clear message to Vice President Pence, who is to arrive in Seoul on Sunday. Pence, who also will travel to Tokyo, is expected to reiterate Trumps tough messages on North Korea, which have been backed up by the deployment of an aircraft carrier to the waters off the Korean Peninsula. This signaling by the Trump administration, coming after last weeks U.S. missile strike on a Syrian air base and Trumps attempt to pressure China to deal with North Korea, has led to widespread conjecture about an American military strike on North Korea. Politicians in Japan and South Korea both U.S. security allies have voiced concern that their countries could become retaliatory targets for North Korea. There is particular nervousness in South Korea. The North has conventional artillery trained on Seoul and its commuter belt, home to more than 20 million people. South Korean presidential candidates from across the political spectrum insisted in a debate Thursday that the United States not launch any action against North Korea without consulting the South. South Korea will hold a snap election May 9. Japans Foreign Ministry issued a travel warning for its citizens in South Korea this week, asking them to pay attention to the situation on the Korean Peninsula. But analysts in the region say there is a low chance of U.S. military action against North Korea. This is all psychological warfare, said Narushige Michishita, a North Korea specialist at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo. Its ostensibly about North Korea, but its also about China, he said. Trump seems to be creating a situation where he can put China on the defensive and coerce them into action. [ Will North Korea fire a missile capable of hitting the U.S. mainland? Probably. ] Trump said this week that he had offered Chinese President Xi Jinping better trade terms if he cracked down on North Korea. Robert Kelly, a professor of international relations at Pusan National University in South Korea, said the Trump administration was trying to send a message to China. There is a sense that China is not taking this as seriously as a lot of us on the outside want them to, he said. But Kelly was skeptical that this tactic would work. My sense is that China doesnt respond well to overt public threats, that China much prefers backroom talks, he said. Even while supporting some sanctions, Chinas top priority has always been maintaining stability in North Korea. Beijing does not want the regime there to collapse, possibly sending millions of hungry North Koreans into northeastern China and potentially enabling the U.S. troops now in South Korea to move up the peninsula to the Chinese border. But China has appeared to take some action this week. The country reportedly has rejected some North Korean coal shipments, and a state-linked paper warned that China would restrict oil imports if the North makes another provocative move this month. Read more: Defying skeptics, Kim Jong Un marks five years at the helm of North Korea North Koreas leader is a lot of things but irrational is not one of them Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news A handout picture released by the Syrian presidency's press office shows President Bashar al-Assad during an interview with AFP in Damascus, April 12, 2017. (Handout/AFP/Getty Images) Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has broken his silence over a deadly chemical weapons attack that killed scores of civilians, describing it as a fabrication to justify American military action. In a combative interview published Thursday by Agence France-Presse, Assad dismissed photographs and video footage that moved President Trump to launch retaliatory strikes on a Syrian air base. He insisted that his government would never use banned weapons. "Our impression is that the West, mainly the United States, is hand in glove with the terrorists, Assad told the news agency. They fabricated the whole story in order to have a pretext for the attack." [For Trump, alleged use of sarin in Syria prompted a different reaction] The comments were Assads fullest since the April 4 chemical assault on the northwestern town of Khan Sheikhoun. According to victims, rescue workers and monitoring groups, it took place shortly after 6 a.m., killing more than 80 people and causing hundreds more to convulse, choke and foam at the mouth. (Louisa Loveluck, Jason Aldag/The Washington Post) The attack, which U.S. officials believe took place with the knowledge of high-ranking Syrian government officials, prompted Trump to launch the U.S. militarys first direct assault on an Assad-linked target since Syrias war began six years ago. The U.S. strike, accompanied by hardening American rhetoric on the Syrian presidents future, also dragged U.S. relations with his ally, Russia, to their lowest level since the Cold War. [Rex Tillerson meets with Vladimir Putin amid tensions over Syria] But Assad said evidence collected at the scene came only from "a branch of al-Qaeda," referring to a former jihadist affiliate that is among the groups controlling Idlib province, where Khan Sheikhoun is located. It was the Syrian governments second version of events in the space of nine days. In earlier comments, officials attributed the deaths to a Syrian airstrike that hit a rebel factory where chemical weapons were being made, releasing the toxins. "There was no order to make any attack. We don't have any chemical weapons. We gave up our arsenal a few years ago," Assad said. "Even if we have them, we wouldn't use them, and we have never used our chemical arsenal in our history." [Trump seemed dazzled by his ability to bomb Syria over dessert] The Syrian government was supposed to have given up its entire chemical weapons stockpile under the terms of a 2013 deal brokered by Russia and the United States. Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the Kremlin in Moscow, in this Oct. 20, 2015, file photo. (Alexei Druzhinin/AP) "Frankly, that didnt happen, a Western diplomat said this week, speaking on condition of anonymity. Activists and monitoring groups have continued to record chemical weapons attacks on opposition-held areas. According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, Syrian government warplanes have used chlorine gas on opposition-held territory on nine separate occasions this year. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has begun an investigation into the alleged attack, but Russia on Wednesday blocked a U.N. Security Council resolution demanding that Syria cooperate with the probe. Read more: Tillerson meets with Putin amid deepening tensions over U.S. missile strikes in Syria Chemical attack kills dozens in Syria as victims foam at the mouth, activists say Deadly nerve agent sarin used in Syria attack, Turkish health ministry says Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news Making the right noise For Delhi, Prez Bhandaris visit offers a great opportunity for right political messaging Participants practice Wednesday for a parade on the main Kim Il Sung square in central Pyongyang. (Damir Sagolj/Reuters) When North Korea launched its Kwangmyongsong-4 satellite into space in February last year, officials heralded the event as a birthday gift for dead leader Kim Jong Il. But the day also brought an unexpected prize for the countrys adversaries: priceless intelligence in the form of rocket parts that fell into the Yellow Sea. Entire sections of booster rocket were snagged by South Koreas navy and then scrutinized by international weapons experts for clues about the state of North Koreas missile program. Along with motor parts and wiring, investigators discerned a pattern. Many key components were foreign-made, acquired from businesses based in China. The trove demonstrates the continuing critical importance of high-end, foreign-sourced components in building the missiles North Korea uses to threaten its neighbors, a U.N. expert team concluded in a report released last month. When U.N. officials contacted the implicated Chinese firms to ask about the parts, the report said, they received only silence. Chinas complex relationship with North Korea was a key topic during last weeks U.S. visit by President Xi Jinping, as Trump administration officials urged Chinese counterparts to apply more pressure on Pyongyang to halt its work on nuclear weapons and long-range delivery systems. Yet, despite Chinas public efforts to rein in North Koreas provocative behavior, Chinese companies continue to act as enablers, supplying the isolated communist regime with technology and hardware that allow its missiles to take flight, according to current and former U.S. and U.N. officials and independent weapons experts. (Jason Aldag/The Washington Post) The private assistance has included sensitive software and other items specifically banned for export to North Korea under U.N. Security Council sanctions, the officials and experts said. China has officially denied that such illegal exports exist, but investigations show restricted products were shipped privately to North Korea as recently as 18 months ago. Still unclear, analysts said, is whether the Chinese government tacitly approved of the exports or is simply unable or unwilling to police the thousands of Chinese companies that account for more than 80 percent of all foreign goods imported by North Korea each year. Theres all kinds of slack in the system, said Joshua Pollack, a former consultant to U.S. government agencies on arms control and a senior research associate with the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. It could be that the Chinese dont care enough to do much about it. A second possibility is that they dont have the systems such as strong export controls in place. Or that its just corruption. [Will North Korea fire a missile that can hit the U. S.? Probably] Whatever the reason, experts say, the flow of products through China has allowed North Koreas missile engineers to achieve progress that would otherwise be difficult for an impoverished regime that is cut off from the West and lacks a sophisticated microelectronics industry. When confronted privately about such exports, Chinese officials have typically demanded high levels of proof specific names and dates that can be difficult to derive from water-damaged rocket parts pulled from the ocean, said an Obama administration nonproliferation official involved in sensitive negotiations with China over its relations with North Korea. Theyd say, give us details, but in most cases we could never say it was this precise person on this precise day, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in describing diplomatic negotiations. With them, it was never a team sport. It was always just the bare minimum of what they had to do in order to avoid having to take serious action. The Unha-3, the rocket that launched North Koreas Kwangmyongsong-4 satellite into orbit on Feb. 7, 2016, was among the most powerful ever built by Kim Jong Uns government. It is also the most worrisome. U.S. and South Korean intelligence officials have long believed that the three-stage, 100-foot-tall rocket was designed as a forerunner for a future nuclear-tipped space vehicle that could allow North Korea to threaten cities as far away as Washington. Mindful that spy agencies would seek to recover spent parts after the launch, North Korean engineers laced the rocket with explosives so that each stage would self-destruct while hurtling back to Earth. Still, South Korean navy ships were waiting to scoop up any parts that survived, eventually harvesting enough components to allow a crude reconstruction of the entire rocket. Investigators determined that the Unha-3s frame was indigenously made. But inside the rockets shell was an array of electronics, including specialized pressure sensors, transmitters and circuitry. An extensive probe by U.S. and South Korean officials revealed that many of the components had been manufactured in Western countries and shipped to North Korea by Chinese distributors a finding that was echoed in the United Nations Panel of Experts report made public on March 9. [Satellite photos suggest another n-test is imminent.] The report, which received scant attention outside the world body, described elaborate systems for disguising technology exports intended for North Korea. Some schemes involved Chinese front companies created by North Korean intelligence agencies; others were run through banks created as joint ventures by Pyongyang and foreign partners, including Chinese financial institutions. As sanctions grew tougher, the sanction-busters simply learned new tricks for getting around the rules, the panels investigators found. The Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea is flouting sanctions through trade in prohibited goods, with evasion techniques that are increasing in scale, scope and sophistication, the eight-member panel concluded. International resolve for approving new sanctions had not yet been matched, the report said, by the requisite political will, prioritization and resource allocation to ensure effective implementation. Some of the banned components exported to North Korea cant be found inside a missile frame. A separate report by U.S. weapons experts reveals how Pyongyang used Chinese middlemen to obtain access to European-made software essential for making parts that go inside advanced rockets. The report recounts a 2015 business deal in which a European manufacturer agreed to sell sensitive software and industrial-control systems to a Chinese company based in the northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang, about 150 miles from the North Korean border. The deal came with an important condition: None of the items were to be resold to North Korea. The agreement was quickly broken, according to the report by the Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington nonprofit agency that focuses on nuclear-weapons proliferation. The purchaser, a manufacturing giant in northeastern China known as the Shenyang Machine Tool Co. Ltd., integrated the European technology in its own line of industrial milling machines used to make metal parts. Two of those machines were then sold to North Korea, the report said. While North Koreas eventual use of the machines is not known, the controllers and software are used elsewhere to manufacture parts for missiles as well as centrifuges used to make enriched uranium. These goods were supplied to Shenyang Machine Tools under the condition that they would not be retransferred to North Korea or other sanctioned states, said the report, set to be released this week. European officials decided to investigate the responsible individuals in the Shenyang company but this effort failed, the document said. Shenyang officials would later claim that the transfer of sensitive technology had been inadvertent, the report said. David Albright, author of the report and a former U.N. weapons inspector, declined to identify the European manufacturer or the government that conducted the investigation, citing confidentiality agreements. The Shenyang firm did not respond to emailed requests from The Washington Post seeking comment. Albright, the author of dozens of technical studies on North Koreas weapons programs, noted that China has made a show of prosecuting other businesses that violate sanctions on trading with North Korea. But he said the Shenyang case illustrates that illicit trade continues, often under complex schemes that are difficult even for Chinese authorities to spot. [Navy sends strike group toward Korean Peninsula] But he argued that the Chinese could do much more. Its a question of priorities, said Albright, who has discussed such cases with Chinese officials. China is an export economy, and money is never a dirty word, ever. There are good people in the system who would like to do more, but as you work your way down through the bureaucracy, the interest goes way down. There are signs that Beijing is beginning to tighten the screws. In September, Chinese authorities arrested at least 11 business executives in the border city of Dandong for allegedly selling banned goods to North Korea. Among those arrested was Ma Xiaohong, the 44-year-old founder and chairwoman of Hongxiang Group, a company accused by U.S. officials of supplying Pyongyang with rare metals and chemicals used in nuclear-weapons production. China also recently curtailed coal imports from North Korea and imposed unilateral sanctions intended to pressure Kim Jong Un into halting further nuclear tests. In public comments after the Ma arrest, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said his country would be relentless in enforcing sanctions aimed at ridding the Korean Peninsula of nuclear weapons. These efforts are there for all to see, Lu said. During last weeks presidential visit, Trump administration officials urged President Xi to do still more. At a news conference on Thursday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called on China to join in a new strategy to end North Koreas reckless behavior. The same message has been delivered privately as part of a pressure campaign that dates at least to the early years of the Obama administration. In meetings, U.S. officials have warned that a failure to halt the illicit trade could speed up Kim Jong Uns nuclear timetable and increase the risk of a regional war one that could devastate regional economies and send waves of refugees streaming across Chinas border an outcome Chinese leaders are particularly anxious to avoid, according to a recently retired U.S. diplomat and veteran of numerous rounds of such talks. China may be willing to close its eyes to some things, the diplomat said, but theyre not prepared to welcome North Korea as a nuclear-weapons state. Read more: North Korea says Syria strikes prove its nuclear program is justified Opinion: Responsible nuclear negotiations havent yet been tried Tillerson: All options on the table for North Korea The rift between the United States and Russia was laid bare Wednesday when Secretary of State Rex Tillerson held his first direct talks with Russias president. Their discussions failed to ease deepening tensions over Syria and Washingtons demands that Moscow abandon its main Middle East ally. There is a low level of trust between our countries, Tillerson said in a news conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The worlds two primary nuclear powers cannot have this kind of relationship. Wednesdays meeting brought no indication that the relationship would improve any time soon. After Tillerson spent three hours talking with Lavrov and almost two hours at the Kremlin with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Lavrov, sitting three feet from Tillerson, aired a long list of grievances with the United States, some dating back many years. Unfortunately, weve got some differences with regards to a majority of those issues, Lavrov lamented. [Tillerson brings tough line to Moscow] The only concession that Tillerson appeared to have extracted from the Russians was that Putin offered to restore a hotline aimed at avoiding accidents in the air over Syria. Russia had suspended that effort after U.S. missile strikes on a Syrian air base following an April 4 chemical weapons attack on a village in rebel territory. Even this tiny success was conditional; Lavrov said the deal would apply only if the United States and its allies targeted terrorists not Syrian President Bashar al-Assads forces. Hopes may never have been high, especially after Russia sounded a defiant note before Tillerson arrived in Moscow. But if this was the chance to find common ground before the Trump administration attempts any new action on Syria, it has ended in failure. The Russians used Tillersons visit as a chance to reassert Moscows firm stance on Syria: that it will not abide by any effort to remove Assad from power. Russia effectively hid from public view the hit that the Kremlin took to its standing in the region because of the chemical weapons attack, presumably by Assad. Just two weeks ago, Russia was in the drivers seat in Syria, as the lead military and diplomatic player in a peace process involving Turkey, Iran, the Kurds and rebel groups, all orchestrated by Putin. The most important part of this was that the United States was not getting in the way. In an instant last week, when more than 50 Tomahawk missiles came crashing down around a Syrian air base, that all changed, and since then, the Kremlin has been fighting a rearguard action aimed at dulling the Trump administrations ultimatum that Russia must change sides or else. Everything Putin did appeared aimed at minimizing the effect of Tillersons visit. He and his officials dismissed U.S. evidence that Assad had carried out the attack, and then Putin added a bombshell prediction of his own: Unnamed forces were going to carry out more chemical weapons attacks and blame them on Assad. 1 of 14 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad Tillerson travels to Moscow for talks with Russian government officials View Photos In the first visit by a Trump Cabinet official to Russia, the secretary of state met with his counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and is scheduled to meet with President Vladimir Putin. Caption In the first visit by a Trump Cabinet official to Russia, the secretary of state met with his counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and is scheduled to meet with President Vladimir Putin. April 11, 2017 Secretary of State Rex Tillerson disembarks from his plane at the Vnukovo International Airport in Moscow. U.S. Department Of State/via European Pressphoto Agency Wait 1 second to continue. [Trump administration unveils intelligence discrediting Russias claims ] Tillerson reiterated the U.S. belief that Assad ordered the attack, though he stepped back from the U.S. charge that Russia was covering up Assads culpability. With respect to Russias complicity or knowledge of the chemical weapons attack, we have no firm information to indicate that there was any involvement by Russia, Russian forces into this attack, he said. What we do know, and we have very firm and high confidence in our conclusions, is the attack was planned and carried out by regime forces at the direction of Bashar al-Assad. Lavrov had a ready retort: This is obviously the subject where our views differ. Lavrov called the evidence cited by Tillerson hypothetical and demanded that the United Nations investigate. Soon afterward, however, Russia vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an investigation. There were only a handful of issues Tillerson and Lavrov said they broadly agreed on that the Korean Peninsula should be denuclearized, that Syria should be unified and stable after the Islamic State is defeated, and that there should be more communication between U.S. and Russian diplomats and militaries. Tillerson said both nations would set up a working group to seek ways to ease tensions. On most issues the chemical attack and Assad, Russias support for separatists fueling conflict in Ukraine, and Russian interference in the U.S. election chief among them the diplomats offered different explanations and facts. There were many times when it must not have been easy to be secretary of state Wednesday. Lavrov seemed to delight in recalling U.S. attempts to oust dictators in Sudan and Libya. He mocked NATOs military incursion in Kosovo in 1999. He gleefully recalled the nonexistent weapons of mass destruction that led to the invasion of Saddam Husseins Iraq. A Russian reporter reminded him that President Trump called Assad an animal and that White House spokesman Sean Spicer had to apologize for his inept and inaccurate comparison of Assad and Hitler. Trump himself seemed to deliver the coup de grace. Shortly after Tillerson and Lavrov finished speaking to reporters, Trump said in a news conference that the United States is not getting along with Russia at all and that their relations are at an all-time low. That sounded like something both Lavrov and Tillerson agreed with. Read more: While the U.S. wasnt looking, Russia and Iran began carving out a bigger role in Afghanistan The Soviet Union fought the Cold War in Nicaragua. Now Putins Russia is back. Its now illegal in Russia to share an image of Putin as a gay clown Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news Canadas Liberal government, having given its full support to last weeks illegal US missile strikes on Syria, is now providing strong backing to the Trump administrations moves to escalate military conflict in the Middle East and pursue confrontation with Russiaa course that could rapidly lead to a clash between the worlds two biggest nuclear powers. Since Monday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland have joined Trump officials in insisting that there can be no end to the war in Syria until President Bashar al-Assads regime is replaced by one more pliant to Western interests and have called for new measures targeting Russia unless it abandons its longstanding Syrian ally. Speaking Monday, Trudeau called for the Assad regime to be held to account for the April 4 chemical weapons attack in the village of Khan Cheikhoun. Just hours before US cruise missiles struck the Syrian air base at Shayrat Syrain, Trudeau was insisting that the events in Khan Cheikhoun required international investigation. But since the US staged its illegal attack, Trudeau has joined Trump and other Western leaders in proclaiming Damascus guilty of a war crime without providing a shred of evidence, and all the while suppressing the fact that Syrian opposition groups, including the al-Qaida-affiliated al-Nusra Front, possess and have used chemical weapons. In his Monday remarks, Trudeau also lashed out against Russia. I think Russia needs to be aware, made aware of its responsibility in the bloody actions last week by the Assad regime, said Canadas prime minister. He then went on to echo calls from Britains Conservative government and the Trump administration for Russia to be punished for its support for Assad, saying that Canada was open to working with its friends, allies, and partners allies to send clear messages through sanctions and other means to Russia. Foreign Minister Freeland has been no less belligerent. She urged the G7 foreign ministers who met in Lucca, Italy, this Monday and Tuesday to back US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in delivering Moscow an ultimatum, saying that Russia needs to know that he arrives in Moscow with the G7s support. Russia needs to decide, declared Freeland Tuesday, whether it wants to double down on its support for this murderous regime that is committing war crimes or whether it wants to say: We do not want to be associated with this. Freeland has a well-deserved reputation as an anti-Russia hawk. Her appointment as Foreign Minister last Januaryeven as the Trudeau government was otherwise going to great lengths to demonstrate its eagerness to work closely with the Trump administrationunderscored the Liberals strong support for the push-back from the US military-intelligence apparatus and the Democratic Party to Trumps plans to seek a temporary accommodation with Moscow, so as to focus on confrontation with China. For months, the US media, the Democratic Party, and a section of the Republicans led by Senator John McCain have supported this push-back through a neo-McCarthyite campaign, revolving around utterly unsubstantiated claims that Trump is a sap of Russian President Vladimir Putin and that Russia intervened in the US election to torpedo Hillary Clintons campaign. The Canadian media and political establishment have been fully on board with this campaign, which has now subsided because its primary objective, pressing Trump to continue and intensify the US military-strategic offensive against Russia, appears to have succeeded. Canada has been at the forefront of US-led provocations against Russia since the Western-orchestrated coup in Ukraine in February 2014, which brought a pro-Western, far-right government to power in Kiev. The Conservative government sent 200 Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) troops to Ukraine to train the countrys army and national guard, and deployed fighter jets, ships and soldiers to eastern Europe and the Baltic states as part of NATOs aggressive military encirclement of Russia. This policy has been continued under Trudeau and his Liberals. Canadian troops will soon deploy to Latvia, where they will lead one of NATOs four new forward battalions deployed on Russias borders in Poland and the Baltic states. Last month, Defence Minster Harjit Sajjan announced a two-year extension of the CAFs Ukraine mission, which, according to Trudeau, is training Ukrainian forces to liberate eastern Ukraine from pro-Russian separatists. The Canadian ruling elite is firmly opposed to any accommodation with Russia, which it views as a major economic and geopolitical rival. Canadas energy sector has long hoped to challenge Russian dominance of the European oil and gas markets. The military-intelligence establishment, meanwhile, is stridently opposed to any strengthening of Moscows presence in the Arctic, where Ottawa and Moscow have competing territorial claims, or in the oil-rich Middle East. In 2016, the Liberal government expanded Ottawas involvement in the Mideast war in Iraq. Canadian Special Forces, which initially were training Kurdish militia, are now active providing frontline advice and assistance to these forces as they join in the battle for Mosul, a brutal onslaught that has claimed thousands of civilian lives. The Liberals extended the Iraq mission at the end of March for a further three months and pledged to present a long-term plan for the presence of Canadian forces in Iraqand now possibly Syriaby June. The implications of Trudeaus embrace of the Trump administrations war drive were made even clearer by the fact that he issued his attack on supposed Russian complicity in war-crimes during a trip to France to commemorate the centenary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge. In April 1917, more than 10,000 Canadian soldiers were killed or wounded in the process of capturing a strategically insignificant position from the Germans on the Western Front. Nonetheless, the battle has been mythologized by the nationalist right as the moment Canada emerged as an independent nation. Over the last two decades in particular, right-wing Conservatives like former Prime Minister Stephen Harper have used Vimy to rebrand Canada as a warrior nation committed to aggressive military interventions, putting paid to the mythwhich they viewed as an encumbrancethat the CAF has a peacekeeping vocation. In his remarks at a commemoration ceremony Sunday, Trudeau essentially adopted this right-wing, militarist narrative, declaring that those who fought at Vimy made their country in its beginnings and helped to shape Canada as a democratic nation committed to peace. He also took up a theme addressed by Harper in a 2014 speech marking the centenary of the outbreak of World War One by noting that Canadian war sacrificesincluding the slaughter of teenage soldiershad ensured its emergence as an imperialist power. Trudeau stated that the fighting at Vimy and on the Western Front ensured that Canada had an independent seat at the negotiations of the Treaty of Versaillesi.e., a place at the table where the imperialist victors divvied up the spoils of war. Like last weeks US military strikes, the Liberal governments provocative anti-Syrian and anti-Russian statements have been almost universally supported by the media and political establishment, although the Conservatives continue to criticize the Liberals for being weak. The NDP, Canadas social democrats, failed to condemn the unilateral and illegal US air strike on the al-Shayrat air base, claiming that it was unclear where this act of war would lead. Predictably, it has fully accepted the US claims that the chemical weapons attack was mounted by Assad, declaring in an April 7 statement that he must be held accountable for these crimes. Needless to say, the NDP statement made no mention of the ruinous, illegal wars that the US, with Canadas support, has waged across the Middle East during the past quarter-century. This author also recommends: Canadian media denounces exposure of foreign ministers grandfather as Nazi collaborator [18 March 2017] Tuesday marked another major escalation in the Trump administrations attack on immigrants. Attorney General Jeff Sessions speaking in the border town of Nogales, Arizona, threatened: For those that continue to seek improper and illegal entry into this country, be forewarned, this is a new era. This is the Trump era. The lawlessness, the abdication of the duty to enforce our immigration laws, and the catch and release practices of old are over. The selection of Nogales for Sessionss fascistic speech has historic significance. The small town of 20,000 was the center of the 1918 massacre provoked by US border agents who threatened to kill a Mexican carpenter legally crossing into the US. In the altercation that followed, US soldiers killed more than 100 Mexican civilians, including the mayor of Nogales, Sonora, and participants of the ongoing Mexican revolution. Sessionss speech coincided with the publication of a new memorandum outlining new mechanisms for criminally prosecuting immigrants and anyone who attempts to protect them from deportation. The memorandum calls for prosecuting peopleimmigrant and non-immigrant alikewho commit unlawful transportation or harboring of aliens. The memo cites a statute that makes it illegal to shield [immigrants] from detection. While the statute targets coyotes who bring immigrants across the border, it also punishes parents who bring their children, as well as individuals who attempt to protect immigrants from detection. Under the statute, those who aid or shield immigrants face a possible five-year prison sentence. The memo also directs federal prosecutors to press felony charges against immigrants who re-enter the US after a prior deportation, who commit identity fraud or who enter into marriages that are fraudulent. Immigrants are often forced to acquire false Social Security numbers in order to gain employment, and immigration officials regularly claim bona-fide marriages are fraudulent, forcing couples to submit personal photos and love letters and spying on their homes and neighbors. Tuesdays memo directs each prosecutors office along the border to assign a designated Border Security Coordinator in charge of the investigation and prosecution of the offenses listed above. These officers are also responsible for coordinating with local police to carry out raids of workplaces and homes. The Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday that several California police departments are using policing manuals that direct police to target people they suspect of lacking immigration papers. The manual states that a lack of English proficiency may be considered as a factor in establishing reasonable suspicion that a person has committed a crime. The manuals, produced by the corporation Lexipol, are used by the cities of Blythe, Azusa, Brisbane, Culver City, Fontana, Fremont, Laguna Beach, Murrieta, Rialto, and Walnut Creek. Local police are not the only agencies engaged in collaboration with Trump immigration officials. According to e-mails revealed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles turned over undocumented people applying for licenses to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). In particular, the department turned over information of applicants for a special driver identification card intended for non-citizens. Roughly 50,000 immigrants have driver identification cards in Vermont. The Trump administration has also hired policy advisors from the ultra-right-wing Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) and Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) to lead the immigration round-up. FAIR was founded by the white supremacist and eugenicist John Tanton, and its leaders have said Mexicans want to turn California into a third world cesspool. ICE recently hired former CIS representative John Feere to serve as advisor to ICE Acting Director Thomas Homan. Feere recently tweeted that many pro-illegal immigration people simply hate Americans and has promoted the work of the fascist white supremacist web site Vdare and the Holocaust-denying anti-Semitic American Free Press. Freese advocates repealing birthright citizenship for US-born children of immigrants. CIS has called immigrants third world gold diggers. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) also recently hired Julie Kirchner, former FAIR executive director, as advisor to CBP acting commissioner Kevin McAleenan. Kirchners work has been widely cited by Breitbart. In 2016, she falsely claimed, hundreds of foreign born terrorists have been apprehended in the United States alone. Responding to the appointments, Heidi Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Center said, We take these designations very seriously, and CIS and FAIR are far-right fringe groups that regularly publish racist, xenophobic material and spread misinformation about immigrants and immigration. The Democratic Party has dropped opposition to Trumps attack on immigrants, focusing entirely on forcing Trump to carry out a pivot in geopolitical strategy aimed against Russia. The war atmosphere whipped up by the Democrats will only intensify the nationalist anti-immigrant climate. Two accidents claimed the lives of coal miners in the central coalfields region of Appalachia, bringing to five the total number of coal miners killed on the job in 2017. Joseph W. Partin of Williamsburg, Kentucky, and Dennis Fillinger of Harts, West Virginia, were both killed by rock falls. Partin, 33, was an auger operator at the Green Hill Mining Companys surface mine #51 in Whitley County, Kentucky. On March 30, according to the preliminary report from the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), Partin was changing worn cutter head bits at the front of the Salem Multi-head auger machine when he was struck by a rock approximately 4 feet by 5 feet by 30 inches that fell from the bottom section of the highwall. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Partin had eight years experience in mining. As with the three other fatal accidents so far in 2017, Partins death came as he worked in relative isolation. Only one other employee was at the mine at the time of the accident, which occurred around 2:09 a.m., according to MSHA. The Green Hill Mine #51 employs only five miners in total. Fillinger, 62, was a section foreman at the underground C K Coal Corporations Mine No. 5 in Mingo County in southern West Virginia. On February 23, Fillinger was struck by a piece of rock approximately 3 feet wide by 2 feet long by 3 to 4 inches thick, MSHA reports. He was administered first aid and then transported to a local medical center, where he remained hospitalized until succumbing to his injuries April 6. Fillinger had 38 years total experience in coal mining, but had worked only 10 weeks at the C K Coal operation. Every fatal accident since the start of the year has occurred at coal mines in West Virginia or eastern Kentucky. This area, once a center for mining in the US and internationally, has seen output decimated by the collapse in global demand for metallurgical coal, competition from natural gas, which surpassed coal as the chief source of domestic electrical power generation in 2015, and the geological depletion of the narrow coal seams of the region. The coal companies have laid off tens of thousands of miners and used the bankruptcy courts to escape health care and pension obligations, while relying on the pro-company United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) to suppress opposition. The current number of coal mining jobs in West Virginia and Kentucky has dwindled to a few thousand. In eastern Kentucky, only 3,742 coal miners remaindown from 14,373 in 2010. Between 1971 and 1988, Kentucky was the countrys largest coal-producing state, and the second largest until 1994. Since 2000, state data shows, quarterly coal production has plummeted from 35 million tons to just over 10 million tons. In 2016 alone, coal production fell by more than 40 percent. The West Virginia State Office of Miners Health Safety and Training reports as of March, 12,649 miners are working at 99 mines in the state. Since 2009, the mining workforce has fallen by about 8,000, and those who remain on the job face more-dangerous working conditions, ramped-up production demands, and the constant threat of furlough or mine closure. Since January 31, state data records 598 accidents at mining sites. While politicians, the media, and the operators have in the past paid lip service to the tragedies befalling miners families and their communities, coal mine fatalities are treated largely as a cost of doing business. When accidents kill, the victims are portrayed as stoic figures, aware of the dangers of their industry, dying doing what they love. In the meantime, the coal bossesincluding Trumps new commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, the former owner of the deadly Sago Mine, where 12 West Virginia miners were killed in 2006literally get away with murder. Former mining communities have collapsed into poverty, mass unemployment, and social despair. It is not a coincidence that the areas hardest hit by the decline in coal voted in the highest percentages for Trump, who campaigned on promises to revitalize the American coal industry by putting an end to the war on coala canard used by the right-wing to blame the most tepid regulations for the historic decline in the industry. As the World Socialist Web Site has reported, some 22,600 retirees and widows face having benefits cut off April 30, after Patriot Coala spinoff of Peabody Coal, the worlds largest private coal companyfiled for bankruptcy. Miners are also being hit by a sharp rise in the deadliest form of black lung disease. On March 28, President Trump signed an executive order for energy independence to further roll back safety and environmental regulations on the energy sector. In introducing the order, Trump said it called for the immediate reevaluation of the so-called Clean Power Plan; lifting the ban on federal leasing for coal production; lifting job-killing restrictions on the production of oil, natural gas, clean coal, and shale energy; and returning power to the states (see Trump launches pollution deregulation offensive). In both West Virginia and Kentucky, state governments are moving in tandem with the Trump administration to gut already weak regulations in safety, health, and environmental oversight. This will ensure that there are even more deaths and environmental catastrophes. The West Virginia legislature last month introduced a bill that would strip state safety inspectors of their inspection authority and instead mandate them only to conduct compliance visits and education. Regulators would likewise be unable to issue citations and fines for health and safety violations. An updated version presented as a compromise backs off on some of the most sweeping changes to regulatory agencies but guts the states Department of Environmental Protection definition of a healthy stream, essentially giving coal companies a pass to destroy water quality. A separate bill, signed by Democratic governor and coal executive Jim Justice April 11, allows for increased industrial and mining pollution discharges into rivers and streams. In Kentucky, the state Senate approved a House bill to reduce coal mine inspections and replace some safety inspections with mine safety analysis visits. The bill also reduces electrical inspections of mines from a mere two per year to one. Inspectors would base their analyses on interviews with coal miners, a measure that shifts the focus of inspections from operator safety protocol to the behavior of individual miners. In a statement to WYMT news, Kentucky Coal Association President Tyler White defended the change, declaring, Why just look at conditions when we know behavior is a major player in preventing mine accidents? The shift will put more pressure on coal miners who are already facing the threat of losing their jobs for reporting safety hazards or demanding better working conditions in the mines. It also sets the stage to put further blame on the workers themselves in the event of accidents or safety violations, sheltering the operator and executives responsible. The UMWA, which quietly vacated the state with the closure of the last union mine in Kentucky in 2015, has nothing to offer coal miners who will bear the brunt of these dangerous policies. In fact, the UMWA has rallied behind the loosening of regulations from the Trump administration and sought to sow fresh illusions in the prospects for a coal revival. While the UMWA has been muted on the state-level attacks on regulations, in part because of their appallingly pro-business character and consequent unpopularity in mining communities, the union proudly announces on its web site that it led the fight against a series of regulations coming out of Washington that threaten jobs in the coal industry and other industries that depend on coal. Five hours of talks Wednesday between US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and both Russias President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov left relations between the two major nuclear powers at what both sides described as a low point. Tillerson was sent to Moscow in the wake of last weeks US airstrike against a Syrian airbase to deliver what was effectively an American ultimatum to the Putin government to cease its support for the government of President Bashar al-Assad and accept Washingtons demand for regime change. In a joint press conference with his Russian counterpart after the talks, Tillerson repeated Washingtons claim, which is unsubstantiated by any objectively verifiable evidence, that the Syrian government was responsible for an alleged April chemical weapons attack that provided the pretext for the US military launching 59 cruise missiles less than three days later that killed 15 Syrians, most of them civilians. The recent chemical weapons attack was planned and executed by Syrian government forces, Tillerson said. We are quite confident about that. The Russian foreign minister, however, insisted that Russia had been presented with no proof of the US allegation and warned against any repetition of the American airstrike, which he described as a violation of international law. He said that Moscow rejected any false choice, such as you are either with us or against us. Lavrov also voiced Moscows belief that Washington is giving support to the Syrian Al Qaeda affiliate, which is the dominant force in the area where the alleged chemical weapons incident occurred in Idlib province. We have a persistent suspicion, which no one has yet been able to dispel, that Nusra is still being guarded in order to use Plan B at some point and try to overthrow the regime of Bashar al-Assad by force, he stated. The strength of Al Nusra and similar Islamist militias employed as proxy forces in the Western-orchestrated war for regime change in Syria has been so diminished by a Russian and Iranian-backed government offensive, however, that any such Plan B would require a major US military intervention, posing the direct threat of a military confrontation with Russia and Iran. Lavrov acknowledged that the discussions Wednesday centered on the US demand for regime change in Syria. We discussed Assad today, he said. I dont remember any positive examples of how a dictator was overthrown and everything was just fine afterwards. He went on to review the catastrophic consequences of US interventions from Yugoslavia to Iraq and Libya. Earlier on Wednesday, both the US and Russian presidents made statements that reflected the continuously increasing tensions. In an interview with Fox News, President Donald Trump described Assad as an evil man and an animal, warning that the Putin governments support for the Syrian government was very bad for Russia. And, in an interview broadcast on Russian television, Putin said that relations between the US and Russia were now worse than even under the Obama administration. The level of trust at the working level, especially at the military level, has not improved, but most likely has been degraded, he said. Putin dismissed US charges against the Syrian government over chemical weapons, insisting that the Assad government had destroyed its chemical stockpiles following a 2013 agreement brokered by Moscow with the Obama administration. He said that the most likely explanation for the April 4 incident was either that a Syrian airstrike hit a chemical weapons depot of the Western-backed Islamist rebels, or that the incident was staged to create a pretext for attack. The day before, Putin said that Russia had intelligence that further such provocations were in the works with the aim of justifying more airstrikes. Putin met with Tillerson Wednesday afternoon, after speculation that the Russian president would snub the US Secretary of State to demonstrate Moscows anger over the Syrian attack. It was not the first meeting between the two. Putin awarded Tillerson Russias medal of friendship in 2012, when the then-ExxonMobil executive signed deals with the state-owned Russian oil company Rosneft to exploit Russias natural resources to the joint benefit of American capital and Russias ruling oligarchy. The conflict ignited by the US-backed right-wing coup in Ukraine placed the deals on hold. The one concrete result of the discussions in Moscow was the announcement that Putin had raised the prospect of reestablishing a deconfliction hotline between US and Russian military forces operating in Syria. Moscow announced the suspension of the arrangement, designed to prevent unintended clashes between US and Russian warplanes carrying out airstrikes there, following the US cruise missile strike. In the joint press conference following the day-long discussions, Tillerson gave a faint indication of the dire implications of the rising tensions between Washington and Moscow. There is a low level of trust between our two countries, he said. The worlds two foremost nuclear powers cannot have this kind of relationship. In other words, a conflict in Syria spiraling out of control could lead to a nuclear conflagration. Following the discussions in Moscow, Russia vetoed a resolution submitted to the United Nations Security Council by the US, Britain and France ostensibly supporting an investigation by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) into the alleged chemical weapons attack, but in language clearly indicting the Syrian government. Russia was joined by Bolivia in voting against the measure, supported by 10 members of the council. Three others, including China, abstained. In the course of the Security Council debate, US Ambassador Nikki Haley warned Russia that you are isolating yourselves from the international community by backing the Assad government. Russias deputy UN envoy Vladimir Safronkov condemned the US and its allies for indicting the Syrian regime without presenting any evidence. Im amazed that this was the conclusion, he said. No one has visited the site of the crime. How do you know that? Syrias UN Ambassador Bashar Jaafari, meanwhile, said that his government had presented extensive evidence to the Security Council exposing the use of chemical weapons by the so-called rebels. Two liters of sarin were transported from Libya through Turkey to terrorist groups into Syria, he said, adding that the Damascus government no longer has chemical weapons. In Washington on Wednesday, Trump further escalated US pressure on Moscow, holding a joint press conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in which he hailed the ratification of membership in the alliance for the former Yugoslav republic of Montenegro, and publicly embraced the US-led military alliance which as a presidential candidate he had described as obsolete. I said it was obsolete; its no longer obsolete, Trump told the media, reflecting the sharp shift in the administrations policy toward confrontation with Russia. Stoltenberg praised the alliance for deploying four battalions of troops on Russias doorstep in the Baltics and Poland, including US forces. Meanwhile, Russia announced the dispatch to the eastern Mediterranean of elements of its Baltic fleet, including the Admiral Grigorovich, a cruise-missile-armed frigate, and two Steregushchiy-class corvettes, also capable of firing long-range cruise missiles. They will join six other Russian warships and support vessels already deployed in waters off Syria. Malala is 'humbled' by honorary Canadian citizenship Nobel Peace prize laureate Malala Yousafzai says she is "humbled" to become the sixth person to receive an honorary Canadian citizenship. Public school teachers in Victoria have denounced the in-principle agreement proposed last month between the Australian Education Union (AEU) and the state Labor government. The deal is the latest in a series of trade union sell-outs that deepen the assault on public education. As the World Socialist Web Site noted in its analysis, the agreement, which imposes an effective one-year wage freeze, does nothing to address enormous workloads imposed on teachers, the proliferation of insecure contract positions or the conditions of highly underpaid Education Support (ES) staff. Teacher performance monitoring, which is tied to the standardised NAPLAN testing regime introduced under the former federal Labor government, will intensify. The AEU has sought to suppress debate on the sell-out, while falsely claiming it constitutes a victory for teachers. The agreement was released about a week before the term break in order to obstruct discussion among teachers and, unlike previous deals, it was finalised without any mass meeting or industrial action. Determined to prevent any discussion, the AEU has deleted posts to its Facebook page exposing the sellout and linking to the World Socialist Web Sites examination of the agreement. Despite this, many teachers have posted comments angrily rejecting the unions claims that the creation of four student-free Professional Practise Days per year represents a workload reduction. These days, which can be used only for tasks approved by the school principal, are an insult to the thousands of teachers who work an average 15 hours of unpaid overtime every week. Teachers also disputed the unions claim that contract teachers will be offered greater security. On Facebook, one teacher declared: What disappoints me the most is that the union always exaggerates the positives within the proposed agreements Ive [witnessed]. The fine print reveals the true details, and its a letdown. Probably a no here. Now, back to work at 8.30pm, part of a still unaddressed workloaddespite what has been suggested. And still being on a contract, year after year, something that this agreement wont changedespite what has been suggested. Another added: Yep. Bulls--t. Read the actual point in the agreement. The school admin can make us do [professional development], peer observation, all the other crap that takes us away from our core business. This is not reducing our workload! Screwed again by this hopeless union. Im out. The $700 a year AEU fees can pay for some massages to keep me sane as a teacher with a crap union. I think we get conned every time, said a third teacher. I think workload reduction is a load of bulls--t along with the pay increases. If you keep giving us every damn social issue to fix no wonder we are exhausted... The other shocker is the amount for [casual relief teacher] pay. I will be voting NO as well. Another teacher commented on the AEUs Facebook page: Reading through the agreement it doesnt appear to reduce workload, only reduced face-to-face teaching time would do that, which isnt provided for. The [Professional Practise] Days are very much at the mercy of the Principal. Other teachers spoke to the World Socialist Web Site. Amanda, a primary teacher of 17 years, said: I have read the agreement and I cant see anything that alleviates our workload... We need more staff in schools, more teachers, more support staffits that simple. The government keeps cutting back support staff and everything is falling back on the classroom teachers. In the past, we had support from psychologists, speech therapists and support teachers. Ive contacted the union about these problems and they said they were not able to deal with that. Theyre not giving us any support on this. She added: The decision to have no mass meetings seems to me that they dont want people to carefully think the deal throughthat the union is in cahoots with the government. They sign-off on an in-principle agreement, but what about our right to fight for more? Why are we accepting the governments deal? I think the ongoing process of just going to delegates meetings is appalling. I think teachers need to read and carefully discuss what is in the agreement. When I first heard about the in-principle agreement I looked straight away on the unions Facebook page and some people were saying how great it was. Im not sure how they could say that when we hadnt even got the agreement. I think the wool is being pulled over our eyes. The deal seems good for the government. It has saved money and the union seems to have made some gains too. I read that union reps at the schools on the local consultative committee get 16-hours time release per year, but what about time release for teachers? We dont get anything. Since NAPLAN all we seem to be following is standardised testing, like in Britain and the US. Its harming our children. Some teachers are being forced to teach to the test, narrowing the curriculum. The emphasis is on English and Maths and not on developing the whole child. Rob, a secondary teacher, said: The government has a good deal. They didnt give us much money or lower our teaching time. I have an enormous workload with four VCE [Victorian Certificate of Education] classes. I have a pile of SACs [School Assessed Coursework] to mark each weekend. I spend about 4 to 5 hours per weekend and on holidays at least 8 hours. The day off will result in more work. If I had time off to do moderation that would be worthwhile. Ill be voting no. Ive voted against all the recent agreements, as have all our delegates from my school, but the vote seems to come out for the agreement at the delegates meeting. Two education support staff in high schools, Jessie and Asa, opposed the super-exploitative conditions for ES workers. Jessie said: I havent seen any changes in my conditions for the last five to six years. I feel that we work so hard and never get any recognition, either financially or in any other manner. There are some instances where we have to deal with autism combined with anger issues. We can be placed in physically dangerous situations... Im on the top of my scale and my wage is $600 per week. I cant support my family on that. I have to work two jobs. I work 30 hours per week at school and I work a 10-hour shift during the week to supplement my wage. The AEU is useless. They dont act on anything. The only time I see them is to pay their dues. Asa said: One of the things that concerns me is contracts, but its not in the agreement. Everyone says that you can only have three contracts, but what happens after that? Im on my second one-year contract after June. Erin described the conditions for young teachers like herself, many of whom are forced to work on insecure contracts. This is my fifth year as a teacher, she explained. Ive done three years as an emergency teacher at one school, starting in 2013, and this is my second year full-time there. One third of the teaching force at my school are on contracts. This year I stay til about 6. 30 p.m. most nights, an average of 5060 hours a week. I cried at school sometimes. Last year, I wanted to quit teaching. I was so incredibly anxious for most of the year. I felt really incompetent, because I felt I couldnt stay on top of the workload... I would stay back at work till 8 p.m. most weeknights and sometimes until 9 p.m. or 10 p.m. When I was at school I would be taking care of those extra Roles and Responsibilities or planning and assessing. The Socialist Equality Party is calling for a no vote to the AEU deal. This must be the starting point for a broader fightmobilising teachers and other sections of the working class nationallyto defend public education, along with other social rights of the working class. This struggle requires a break from the union, which has worked to subordinate teachers to the Labor Party and its reactionary standardised testing and education reform agenda. Genuinely representative rank-and-file committees must be formed at every school to take forward this struggle. The critical issue is building a new leadership in the working class that will fight for a workers government based on socialist policies, including high-quality, free public education at all levels. We urge teachers to contact us to discuss how this struggle can be taken forward. Health inspectors found a few problems at the private club. (Photo: Maralago.com) Donald Trumps private Palm Beach club, Mar-a-Lago, has been in the news lately, as the president hosts various foreign dignitaries at the estate. But just days before Trump hosted Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, restaurant inspectors cited the club for a host of food violations, including dangerous handling of raw fish and meats stored at temperatures that were too high. According to the Miami Herald, inspectors cited the swanky clubs kitchen for 13 violations. Three of the violations were listed as high priority because they posed a risk of infecting diners with food-borne illnesses. Here were the biggest violations: Fish that was supposed be served raw or undercooked hadnt been put through proper parasite destruction. (Members of the staff were told to either cook it immediately or toss it.) Two of the clubs coolers had raw meats that were above the recommended maximum temperature of 41 degrees. Chicken was 49 degrees, duck and raw beef was at 50 degrees, and ham was at 57 degrees. The two coolers were not in proper working order. There were other less severe violations, like not having hot-enough water in a sink where employees washed their hands and rusted shelves inside walk-in coolers. The violations sound pretty bad, but Darin Detwiler, D.L.P., assistant dean at the College of Professional Studies at Northeastern University and a professor of food policy, tells Yahoo Beauty that theyre not uncommon. Food not being held at the right temperature is one of the most frequent violations at restaurants, he says. And, he points out, it doesnt matter if you visit a high-end restaurant or budget-friendly chain it happens. This is a good example that money does nothing in terms of preventing a food-borne pathogen, he says. Benjamin Chapman, PhD, an assistant professor and food safety extension specialist at North Carolina State University, agrees. If you went to any online restaurant inspection database, it wouldnt take you long to find these types of violations, he says. Theyre not out-of-this-world violations. Story continues Of course, that doesnt mean they cant make you sick. Fish that hasnt undergone parasite destruction (which Chapman says is usually via freezing) can increase your risk of being infected by a parasite if you eat it raw or at undercooked temperatures. Mike Doyle, PhD, director of the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia, tells Yahoo Beauty that becoming ill from eating raw or undercooked fish is no joke. Symptoms of illness caused by fish-borne parasite infections can range from abdominal pain, diarrhea, vomiting, and weakness to appendicitis-like manifestations, he says. Reports of tapeworm infections in patients that have eaten raw salmon sushi indicate the passage of a 4-foot long tapeworm several weeks after consuming the contaminated fish. Failure to store raw meat at the appropriate temperatures increases the odds that diners could get salmonella or E. coli, Detwiler says, noting that the danger zone is between 41 and 140 degrees. Allowing raw meat to sit at this temperature allows pathogens to grow wildly, increasing the odds that theyll make a person who eats them sick. The longer that food is held at temperatures in that danger zone, the faster and more likely the pathogens are to multiply and grow, Detwiler says. Its like Russian roulette youre just putting more bullets in those chambers. Doyle says that holding meat and poultry at unsafe temperatures is a serious public health hazard that can result in harmful microbes growing to levels that could cause severe illness, especially in the young, elderly, and those with weakened immune systems. However, Chapman says its unlikely that food was going to end up on someones plate because spoilage happens at those temperatures its likely the meat would have started to look or smell funny. It might have been that the coolers had just broken and the inspector happened to come out, he said. As for water temperatures not being particularly hot for hand washing, Chapman says its not a huge deal. Theres quite a bit of research that shows water temperature isnt a factor in removing pathogens during hand washing, he says. Experts stress that it really doesnt matter if a restaurant is expensive or not these kinds of violations are common. To keep yourself safe when you dine out, Chapman recommends looking up a restaurants food inspection records online and taking a look at a few since each inspection only offers a snapshot in time. If there has been a repeat violation, that says to me that they dont know how to handle a particular area of food safety, he says. If you find thats the case at a restaurant you were considering visiting, its probably time to look for another one. Read more from Yahoo Beauty + Style: Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. For Twitter updates, follow @YahooStyle and @YahooBeauty. Korea and a few other Asian countries have a controversial history of consuming cats and dogs . Whereas the mere thought of eating Buddy for dinner is stomach-churning to most Westerners, the notion is not as unusual in many parts of Asia there is even an annual dog-eating festival in Korea... Korea and a few other Asian countries have a controversial history of consuming cats and dogs. Whereas the mere thought of eating Buddy for dinner is stomach-churning to most Westerners, the notion is not as unusual in many parts of Asia there is even an annual dog-eating festival in Korea. However, in the wake of some recent high-profile cases of animal abuse, Taiwan has become the first Asian nation to ban the selling and consumption of dog and cat meat. The Taiwanese government passed a landmark amendment to its existing animal rights laws and stated that those found guilty of the aforementioned crimes will be named and shamed violators may have their names and photos publicized and will face fines of up to 250,000 Taiwan new dollars ($8,188 USD). Consumption of cat and dog meat has never been as widespread in Taiwan as it has been in other countries like Korea, but this latest initiative fits a pattern for President Tsai Ing-wen, who identifies as an animal-lover and has also passed other laws to keep citizens from harming their beloved furry friends. Taiwan's progressive ban is part of a growing trend across Asia to end the brutal dog meat trade, and reflects the fact that a huge number of people in Asian countries do not in fact eat dog and cat and are appalled by the cruel and often crime-fueled trade, Wendy Higgins of Humane Society International told The Independent. Taiwan also sends a strong signal to countries such as China and South Korea where the dog meat trade remains and millions of dogs are killed by beating, hanging, or electrocution for eating. Photo: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images In a move cheered by conservatives, President Trump signed legislation on Thursday to reverse a rule signed by President Barack Obama that prevented states from denying federal funding from health centers such as Planned Parenthood that also provide abortion care. The dollars in question come from Title X the federal family planning program which is jointly funded by states and the federal government and provides contraception counseling, contraception prescribing, and preventative reproductive and sexual health services, including testing for sexually transmitted infections and cancer screenings. The Obama-era rule was signed to ensure that these funds go to the best family planning providers, and not to providers that meet a specific set of political criteria. Over the past year, courts throughout the country and the federal government have made it clear to states seeking to eliminate Planned Parenthood and other independent health centers that provide abortion care as Medicaid or Title X providers that doing so is illegal. Per federal law, the only kinds of standards that states may enforce on providers to participate in these programs have to do with a providers ability to perform covered services. In other words, ousting a provider for a political reason such as because they provide non-publicly funded abortions is never allowed. The Title X Family Planning Program was signed into law by President Richard Nixon in 1970, and is the only federal domestic program focused solely on providing reproductive health services when medically needed, as well as educational and counseling services to both providers and communities. Approximately 4 million Americans are served by Title X each year many of whom earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, but do not have and are otherwise unable to afford health insurance. These attacks are really on low-income women, Jamila Taylor, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and an expert in womens health and reproductive health policy, tells Yahoo Beauty. If you look at the sources of federal funding that go to Planned Parenthood one, through Title X and two, through Medicaid reimbursements those are both pockets of money with the goal of ensuring that low-income women have access to reproductive health care. When we talk about proposals to strip funding from programs that help low-income people, were talking about pushing these people farther into the cycle of poverty. Were almost saying theyre undeserving. I would encourage us to call this out as an attack on poor women. Story continues Taylor continues, We know that in terms of access to health care, if we look at those who are uninsured or lack access to health care services, these are low-income people and people of color. If you delve deeper into who Planned Parenthood serves, we know they largely serve people of color and low-income people. Seventy percent of their patients have incomes below 150 percent of the federal poverty line, and 60 percent of their patients are accessing them through Medicaid or Title X. Were really talking about stripping health care from low-income people, and when you strip health care from low-income people, this only endangers their economic security even more. And Taylor also emphasizes that efforts to limit or eliminate funding to Planned Parenthood are not so much an attack on Planned Parenthood but on the communities they serve. Planned Parenthood will still have funding from other sources; they will not close their doors. But low-income communities and communities of color who are largely underserved will not have access to a trusted provider in their community. Planned Parenthood often acts as the single access point to health care in these communities, she explains. In 21 percent of counties with a Planned Parenthood health center, Planned Parenthood is the only safety net provider in the county. In 68 percent of counties with a Planned Parenthood health center, Planned Parenthood serves at least half of all patients using safety net services. Furthermore, Taylor notes, communities that rely on Planned Parenthood are also often those in poverty. Barring Planned Parenthood from Title X will force people to delay care because they dont have the resources to pay for it without access to a Title X provider often Planned Parenthood in their community. We know for women of color and black women in particular we know they are more likely to die of cancer, both cervical and breast. Were going to put them at risk by delaying timely care, Taylor says. Even outside of the focus on defunding Planned Parenthood, people of color are more likely to face barriers to accessing health care no matter what. If they have the ability to access Planned Parenthood health centers, then they are more likely to have compassionate, patient-centered care in those spaces. Planned Parenthood facilities have a focus on ensuring that disenfranchised communities or folks that might experience discrimination in any other place have a compassionate provider in their community. As to what these attacks on the health care services that low-income women especially depend on to live their lives mean, Taylor says she believes that, fundamentally and philosophically, it goes back to this deserving-versus-undeserving thing. If you focus on policies and how they are developed, they are often a way to stigmatize being poor and having public sources for health care. There is this framing of underserving these communities. Read more from Yahoo Beauty + Style: Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. For Twitter updates, follow @YahooStyle and @YahooBeauty. Among his critics, talk of impeachment began long before President Donald Trump even took office. In September, a law professor argued that lawsuits against Trump University had already laid the groundwork for an impeachment case. A history professor who has accurately predicted every presidential election since 1984 has said Trumps impeachment is imminent. Its not just academics, either. In February, Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota said Trumps actions legitimately raise the question of impeachment. In March, Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters of California issued an even more direct warning: Get ready for impeachment. But the process of impeaching an American president, much less removing them from office, is quite challenging, as can be seen from the impeachment of President Bill Clinton and the idle chatter of impeaching Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Heres a closer look at how hard the process actually is. Impeachment talk would need to be taken seriously Trumps unconventional political ascent and business background have raised a unique set of ethics questions, but talk of impeachment has been a common part of partisan rhetoric in the past. Bush and Obama both faced idle impeachment threats that never amounted to anything. People who now believe theres a serious case for impeaching Trump will have to overcome the reputation established by those who raise the specter of impeachment merely to demonstrate political opposition. That makes it harder to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak, to figure out whats really the substantive conduct and the substantive problem, said Michael Gerhardt, a constitutional law professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. We cant rely on political rhetoric to guide us because political rhetoric is so overheated. Critics would need to settle on one argument The Constitution states that a president can be impeached if convicted of treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors. Those looking to impeach Trump would need to show he has done something that falls into one of those categories which requires more evidence. Story continues While treason and bribery are defined by the Constitution and by federal law, high crimes and misdemeanors is a less specific charge. Gerhardt said the framers intended it to refer to political crimes, including abuses of power or other offenses against the United States. They dont have to be technically criminal things things for which someone could go to prison but they do have to reach a certain level of seriousness, he said. Some of Trumps critics have argued that his business dealings are in violation of the Constitutions Emoluments Clause, which prohibits the President from accepting gifts from foreign leaders or governments. Others, including Waters, have argued that the ties between Russia and Trumps team are signs of wrongdoing. Christopher Peterson, a University of Utah law professor, maintains that theTrump University lawsuits provide grounds for impeachment and thinks theres already a fairly solid case to be made. But for Trumps opponents to realistically pursue impeachment, they would likely need to focus on investigating one offense and making a specific, formal accusation of wrongdoing. There would need to be more evidence Right now, arguments for impeachment are resting on potentially flimsy claims. The critical thing that those congressmen will have to show is that hes done something that will qualify as treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors, Gerhardt said. Thats the threshold. While there are mounting questions about potential coordination between Trumps campaign and Russian interests, no concrete conclusions have been reached. So far there hasnt been a clear smoking gun, Peterson said. I do think there are certain ways in which hes conducting himself in office that will come under scrutiny, said Gerhardt, who served on the transition team for Clintons Justice Department and later testified before the House Judiciary Committee on Clintons impeachment as a shared witness. To what end does that scrutiny end up producing any evidence or concern about how hes exercising power? He said its too early in Trumps presidency to know. The House would need to decide there are grounds for impeachment Impeachment proceedings begin in the House of Representatives, where lawmakers can introduce an impeachment resolution or a resolution authorizing an investigation into whether grounds for impeachment exist. If a House committee determines that there are grounds for impeachment, a resolution with a formal accusation of misconduct is presented to the full House for a vote. In order to impeach a president, that resolution must pass the House by a simple majority. When the Presidents own party has control of Congress as Republicans do now thats a difficult bar to clear. If a vote were to take place today, when there are five vacancies in the House, all 193 Democrats and 23 Republicans would need to vote for impeachment in order for it to pass. Impeachment is always difficult. Its designed to be difficult, Gerhardt said. Thats the nature of the process, the nature of the constitutional design. Only two presidents in U.S. history have been impeached: Clinton in 1998 on charges of lying under oath to a federal grand jury, and Andrew Johnson in 1868 on charges of violating the Tenure of Office Act by firing the Secretary of War. Both Clinton and Johnson were Democrats who faced a Republican-controlled Congress, and both were still acquitted in the Senate because opponents failed to gather enough votes in the upper chamber. (Richard Nixon resigned before he could be impeached.) The key committee chairs in the House of Representatives are reluctant to take on the President of their own party, Peterson said of Trumps situation. Whether or not they will act depends on how much political pressure is brought to bear on them. FROM COINAGE: This Is How Much It Would Cost to Paint the White House (And More Crazy Facts) The Senate would need to find the President guilty In order to actually be removed from office, the President must then be convicted by a two-thirds vote in the Senate. When the Presidents own party controls the chamber, thats unlikely to happen unless there is evidence of serious misconduct. Based on the current party makeup in the Senate, 19 Republicans would have to side with all 46 Democrats and two independents in order to remove Trump. Even Clinton and Johnson, who faced chambers controlled by the opposing party, didnt provoke a consensus that strong. Both served out the remainder of their terms. There would need to be public support for impeachment Impeachment would probably need to be popular in order for Congress to act on it. Trumps approval ratings continue to be historically low for a new president, but its not yet clear how Americans would feel about impeachment. A recent survey by the left-leaning Public Policy Polling found that voters were split: 44% support impeachment of Trump, while 45% oppose it. An impeachment trial could backfire. During Clintons impeachment proceedings, public opinion of Republicans fell, while Democrats and Clinton experienced a surge. When asked whether they wanted Clinton or the GOP to have more influence over the nation, Americans were evenly split between the two in September 1998, according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll. But by the time Clinton was impeached in December of that year, the gap had widened significantly. While 60% said they wanted Clinton to have more influence, just 31% said the same for the GOP. The proceedings also had the unintended effect of sending Clintons approval ratings to an all-time high. This article originally appeared on Time.com. A Kansas woman is accused of decapitating her ex-boyfriends mother as the womans young grandson ran away and called for help. Rachael Hilyard, 35, is facing a first-degree murder charge in the death of 63-year-old Micki Davis, who was found decapitated in the garage of Hilyards home, a spokeswoman with the Wichita Police Department tells PEOPLE. The spokeswoman says Davis and her 9-year-old grandson went to Hilyards Wichita home to pick up items belonging to her son - who had dated Hilyard - when an altercation erupted between the suspect and the victim. Her 9-year-old grandson ... he ran away from the house and called the police while the physical attack was happening. He did not see his grandmas death, or the decapitation, the spokeswoman tells PEOPLE. Rachael Hilyard 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. He did see an altercation take place so he grabbed the grandmas cell phone, ran away from the house and called 911, the spokeswoman says. Officers arrived to find Davis body in the garage and Hilyard allegedly hiding in the home, the spokesperson says. Police do not know what was used to decapitate the woman, with the spokeswoman noting that the weapon was likely a sharp object, possibly a knife. Hilyard is being held at the Sedgwick County Jail on $200,000 bail, jail records show. A Sedgwick County District Attorneys spokesperson says Hilyard has not yet entered a plea or retained an attorney. Shes going to be incarcerated for the rest of her days. I hope she just sits in that jail and thinks about that. Hope it eats her alive, Davis nephew, Casey Wallace, told KAKE. And I hope Mickis at peace. Wallace called the details of the killing gruesome, saying, Im just glad that little boy didnt see all that. KAKE identified Davis son as Jacob Gillespie III, who is currently in jail on unrelated charges related to a March police chase. Story continues Jail records show that Gillespie is being held at the Sedgwick County Jail on several charges including aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, criminal damage to property, fleeing and eluding authorities and more. He is being held on $25,000 bail, jail records show. It was not immediately clear if he has retained a lawyer or entered a plea. This article was originally published on PEOPLE.com Just weeks after Maine Governor Paul LePage granted a full pardon to a dog, a district court has overturned the decision and ordered the Siberian husky named Dakota to be euthanized. According to the Bangor Daily News, Judge Valerie Stanfill said that despite the governors pardon, Maine law requires a dog be put down after it is declared dangerous and then attacks again. Justice was not done today, Bonnie Martinolich, who represents Dakotas new owner, Linda Janeski, said to reporters after the hearing. Martinolich told the judge she intends to file a motion to stay the 4-year-old dogs execution, pending an appeal to the Maine Supreme Court. Dakota must be euthanized within 48 hours unless Stanfill is convinced to issue a stay on the kill order so advocates for the pet can pursue the appeal. In February 2016, Dakota escaped from her home and attacked and killed a smaller dog. As a result, the husky was ordered to be confined to her home, unless she was leashed and muzzled. The husky was found running loose again in January 2017. According to the Bangor Daily News, she bit the same neighbors new dog on the neck, though the pug was not seriously injured. Maine Gov Paul LePage just pardoned a dog from a death sentence. No joke. #mepolitics pic.twitter.com/IBQucwRKFf - James Pindell (@JamesPindell) March 30, 2017 Dakota was taken to the Waterville Area Humane Society as a stray. Due to a miscommunication between the Kennebec County District Attorneys Office and the animal shelter, she was adopted by a new family on March 18, three days before Stanfill issued the kill order. LePage, who is a pet parent himself to pup Veto, was contacted by staff at Waterville Area Humane Society saying Dakota was a model animal under its care. I have reviewed the facts of this case and I believe the dog ought to be provided a full and free pardon, Governor LePage said in the statement. This article was originally published on PEOPLE.com Thomas Jefferson is celebrating another birthday today, and we have 10 interesting facts about the versatile Founding Father. He was born on April 13, 1743, in Virginia and died on July 4, 1826 on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson is best known for his role in writing the Declaration of Independence, his foreign service, his two terms as president, and his omnipresent face on the modern nickel. The well-rounded Jefferson was also a Renaissance man who was intellectually curious about many things. Here are 10 interesting facts about Jeffersons pursuit of knowledge: 1. Thomas Jefferson really, really liked books. The third president, after his retirement, sold his library of 6,500 volumes to the Library of Congress after it was ransacked by the British. Jefferson needed the cash to pay off debts, but he started buying more books. "I cannot live without books," he told John Adams. 2. Jefferson the economist. Jefferson was deeply engaged in economic theory, which he learned to love during his time in France. He was a friend and translator to leading European theorists; he believed in the free market policies; and he opposed bank notes as currency. 3. Jefferson the architect. He designed the rotunda for the University of Virginia, his own home at Monticello, and the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond. Monticello has some good resources about what he called the hobby of my old age, though architecture actually a lifetime pursuit. Monticello and the University of Virginia are on the World Heritage List. 4. Jefferson the food lover. On his return from France, Jefferson brought his love of that nations cuisine back with him. James Hemings went to France as his slave, and the pair agreed that if Hemings learned how to make French cuisine, he would be freed on his return to America. 5. Jefferson the wine snob. Yes, Jefferson brought his love of French wine back to America, too. He had two vineyards at Monticello, which he apparently used to experiment with. Acknowledged as a great wine expert of early America, he sought to promote wine as an alternative to whiskey and cider. Story continues 6. Jefferson the agriculturalist. He believed in the United States as an agrarian society, in part, because it would make the nation independent from other nations. Jefferson practiced what he taught: He was one of the first American farmers to employ crop rotation and redesigned the plow to make it more efficient. 7. Jefferson the paleontologist. He was also obsessed with fossils and was involved in a great debate about the mammoth that became a political cause. Jefferson raised the profile of paleontology as president, and he has a mammoth named after him. 8. Jefferson the astronomer. Jefferson loved stargazing almost as much as he liked books. He made sure astronomy was taught at the University of Virginia, and he designed what may have been the first observatory in the United States. 9. Jefferson the writer. He was a prolific writer during his lifetime, with his authorship of the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom included in his epitaph (instead of his two terms as president). The Thomas Jefferson Papers at the Library of Congress includes about 27,000 documents, including his extensive correspondence with key historical figures. 10. Jefferson the musician. He took violin lessons as a child and played the violin as he courted his future wife, Martha Skelton. Jefferson spent considerable time studying the violin as an instrument, but by 1778 he complained about music being played in the New World as being in a state of deplorable barbarism." Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about today: 1. HOW BETTER VETTING COULD BENEFIT WHITE HOUSE Trump boasts that he hires only the best people, but his personnel choices like Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort and Carter Page keep coming back to haunt him. 2. TRUMP'S PROMISES FALLING BY WAYSIDE He hasn't been in the White House for 100 days, yet he's already reversed himself on many of his key campaign promises. 3. IN HOLY CITY, A TANGLE OF CONFLICTING CLAIMS Fifty years after Israel captured east Jerusalem, Israel and the Palestinians remain as divided as ever over the future of the sensitive area. 4. DEFENSE IN KIM JONG NAM MURDER CASE FEARS 'TRIAL BY AMBUSH' Two young women accused of poisoning Kim appear in court as their lawyers say Malaysian police still have not handed over security camera footage and documents crucial to the defense. 5. LOOK OUT, CORPORATE AMERICA The viral video of a ticketed passenger dragged forcefully off a United Express flight is only the latest example of bad behavior exposed in the digital age. 6. BREAK IN 'FAST AND FURIOUS' CASE COMES IN MEXICO Authorities arrest the suspected shooter in the 2010 killing of a U.S. border agent whose death exposed a bungled gun-tracking operation by the federal government. 7. WHO'S MAKING MILLIONS ON THE SIDE Teachers selling lesson plans to other teachers online has become a booming business. 8. FRESH QUESTIONS ABOUT BILL O'REILLY'S FUTURE The embattled TV host says the vacation he's taking was long planned. But it's an unusually lengthy one and it's fueling speculation that he might never return to his Fox News Channel show. 9. WHERE SEARCH IS ON FOR HOLY GRAIL OF CLIMATE CHANGE In the jagged red mountains of Oman on the Arabian Peninsula, geologists hunt for an efficient and cheap way to remove carbon dioxide from the air and oceans. 10. NBA PLAYOFF FIELD SET The Chicago Bulls and Indiana Pacers claim the last two available postseason spots on the final night of the regular season. Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about Thursday: 1. TRUMP: US-RUSSIA RELATIONS MAY BE AT 'ALL-TIME LOW' With the declaration, the president moves ever further from his campaign promises to establish better ties with Moscow. 2. PRESIDENT MINIMIZES BANNON AS 'A GUY WHO WORKS FOR ME' The unusual public, lukewarm support from the boss has aide Steve Bannon's friends and advisers worried he will soon be out of a job. 3. UNITED AIRLINES SEEKS TO QUELL UPROAR OVER MAN DRAGGED FROM PLANE The company says it will no longer ask police to remove passengers from full flights and will compensate customers who were on the flight when the man was removed. 4. US, CHINA STRIKE WHAT APPEARS TO BE UNUSUAL BARGAIN Trump says he won't label China a currency manipulator after receiving indications Chinese President Xi will help him deal with North Korea. 5. WHO'S RISING IN POLLS IN FRANCE Far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon is rattling financial markets by his surge just 11 days before the country's presidential vote. 6. RULE NO. 1: NO NOISEMAKERS Afraid of being heckled in their home districts, some Republican members of Congress are setting strict ground rules for town hall meetings. 7. WHY SIKHS ARE LAUNCHING MILLION-DOLLAR AWARENESS CAMPAIGN The American Sikh community hopes the effort will stop hate-fueled attacks against its people by explaining more about who they are and what they believe. 8. RUMORS SWIRL AROUND BILL O'REILLY The embattled TV host says the vacation he's taking was long planned. But it's an unusually lengthy one and it's fueling speculation about whether O'Reilly will ever return to his Fox show. 9. WHERE WORD OF THE WEEK IS VROOM! Super cars, speedy coupes and even a 700-horsepower SUV will give this year's New York auto show some serious get up and go. 10. CHARLIE MURPHY DEAD AT 57 The older brother of Eddie Murphy was a comic performer in his own right who turned in standout sketches on "Chappelle's Show." Nepal-China first ever joint military drill to commence from Sunday Nepal and China are all set to conduct their first ever joint military exercise starting April 16, the Nepal Army announced on Thursday. A job comes with more than a paycheck. It may also bring a long list of perks and benefits such as wellness plans, insurance policies and even free food. "If you think about your compensation package, 30 to 32 percent of your total compensation doesn't come in the form of salary," says Gerry Leonard, president of ADP Benefit Services in Alpharetta, Georgia. Atrium Staffing, a New York City-based employment agency, surveyed its database of job seekers and found 91 percent would accept a new opportunity if better benefits were offered. That means the stakes are high for companies in competitive markets. "The top employers are the ones thinking about how they create the best work environment and compensation packages," says Jeff Howkins, president and CEO of Ascensus College Savings. [See: 10 Work Perks That Offer Big Financial Rewards.] When it comes to benefits that offer the most value, talent experts say these are the ones you want. Health Insurance From a dollars-and-cents standpoint, practically no benefit is as valuable as health insurance. "Getting your health [insurance] provided by your employer is huge," Leonard says. The Kaiser Family Foundation found the average annual cost for an employer-sponsored family health insurance plan was $18,142 in 2016. Of that, employers covered $12,865 of the cost. Retirement Plan The standard company retirement plan nowadays is a 401(k). Although these are funded largely by workers, some firms make an automatic contribution to the fund as part of a compensation package. Others may match employee contributions to a certain level. Even more valuable is a pension that has a guaranteed payout in retirement. "Rare, but still out there," says job-hunting expert Revi Goldwasser, who works out of Los Angeles and Boca Raton, Florida. "If you are with a firm that pays a pension, stay put." [See: 10 Retirement Benefits You Need to Have.] Health Savings Account Leonard says h ealth savings accounts are still underutilized but provide a great value for employees. Money deposited into the account is tax-deductible. It then grows tax-free, and withdrawals used for qualified health care expenses are tax-exempt. Some businesses will make an annual contribution on behalf of workers as well. The only catch is that employees need to have a qualified high-deductible health insurance plan to participate. Story continues Equity in the Company Google made hundreds of people instant millionaires when the company went public in 2004. These people were workers who had been awarded stock options as part of their employment at the then startup. While not everyone is going to become a millionaire because of stock options, equity in a company can be a valuable commodity. Just be sure to balance it out with other investments. Relying on one company's stock for financial security can be a recipe for disaster if the firm has a bad year or goes under right when the money is needed. Employee Health Care and Assistance Services Benefits in this category come in a number of forms. Some companies offer screenings for early cancer detection, resources to treat chronic conditions or free gym memberships. Other employee-assistance programs offer free counseling, legal services or financial planning. In many cases, these programs prove beneficial for both employees and employers. Workers may sidestep costly problems by addressing issues proactively. Meanwhile, companies may find their workers stay healthier and more productive. ComPsych, which administers employee-assistance programs, says the cost is usually quite reasonable, too. Workers pay nothing to access services, and employers are charged a fee equal to roughly $24 per employee per year. Parental Leave Parental leave can be a significant benefit both financially and emotionally. It is also still relatively scarce. However, some companies are working to change that. "I have seven children, so I have a lot of empathy for working moms," says Vanessa Quigley, co-founder of the photo-printing service Chatbooks. Her company offers one month of fully paid leave to all employees who add a new family member. New mothers can take an additional two months off for medical leave. Both part-time and full-time workers have access to these benefits, and Quigley says they make for a stronger, more passionate workforce. "We do get incredible work and loyalty [from employees]." Some companies also offer family planning perks. SAP North America gives employees a lifetime benefit of up to $15,000 for fertility treatment and $15,000 for fertility drugs. For those planning to adopt, the company will pay $10,000 per adoption to cover associated fees. Paid Time Off Atrium Staffing found unlimited time off was one of the top three benefits job seekers desired. It's a perk that's been embraced by companies such as Netflix. Other firms have adopted innovative ways to reward their workers with time off. At translation-services company TransPerfect, co-founder Phil Shawe takes his employees on team vacations to place like Machu Picchu and the Mount Everest summit. He sees the excursions result in greater workforce productivity and employee satisfaction. Career or Personal Development At tech company VictorOps, co-founder Todd Vernon holds monthly "Lunch and Learn" meetings to mentor employees with entrepreneurial dreams. Such career-development sessions are a low-cost way for companies to afford workers the chance to gain skills and knowledge needed to further their careers. Some companies are funding personal-development initiatives for workers. Avadim Technologies, for example, sends employees on an all-expenses-paid mission trip designed to combine healthy vacation time with the opportunity to do positive social good, according to a company representative. Tuition Reimbursement or Loan Repayment While tuition reimbursement is already offered at some companies, talent experts say loan repayment will be increasingly rolled out. "Forward-thinking companies are doing that because they see young people suffocating under their student loans," says Roberta Matuson, expert on talent and author of "The Magnetic Leader." These benefits offer significant value, but workers need to understand the fine print. In some cases, they may be required to pay back benefits if they don't stay with their employer for a certain number of years. College Savings Accounts Although employers don't often make contributions to 529 college savings accounts on behalf of workers, merely offering payroll deductions for the plans can be valuable. "When people have a chance to save, they are 15 times more likely to do it," Howkins says, citing 2014 data from the Employee Benefit Research Institute. 529 Plans offer the chance to pay for qualified higher education expenses using tax-exempt dollars. Plus, some states offer deductions for certain contributions. Legislation has been introduced in Congress to allow people to use their plan to make student loan payments, and Howkins says several states are considering initiatives to encourage employers to match contributions. Parking Finding an employer who will pay for parking is no small thing in some urban areas, including Los Angeles, where parking can cost up to $400 a month, Goldwasser says. Food Complimentary meals have long been a mainstay at startups. VictorOps serves free breakfast and lunch to staff once a week. For employees who want to work off-site, the company also offers gift cards to local coffee shops and eateries. [See: 12 Millennial-Inspired Ways to Spend Less.] Older workers might not be too impressed by these perks, but Matuson reminds people that everyone has different priorities. And that's the bottom line when it comes to workplace perks, experts say. Individuals must decide for themselves which benefits add the most value to a compensation package. SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) Federal agents have seized $17 million worth of cocaine aboard a boat near Puerto Rico's southern coast. U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Thursday that the drugs weighed 1,320 pounds (600 kilograms). Officials said they arrested two people, one from the Dominican Republic and the other from Venezuela. The boat was detained Wednesday near the southern coastal town of Salinas. PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) Three Dominican brothers and a dozen other people have been arrested in New England as part of a federal investigation into alleged cocaine, fentanyl and heroin trafficking. The U.S. Attorney's office said Thursday that the suspects ran a Rhode Island-based trafficking organization that imported drugs from Mexico and supplied them to street-level dealers in Greater Providence, Greater Boston and Hartford, Connecticut. Brothers Juan Valdez, 50, of Milton, Massachusetts; and Hector Valdez, 47, and Claudio Valdez, 44, both of Woonsocket, Rhode Island, each have been charged with conspiracy to distribute drugs and unlawful use of communication facilities, such as phones, to commit drug-related offenses. Originally from the city of Bani in the Dominican Republic, they also are being charged with illegally returning to the United States after being deported to the Caribbean country. All have felony drug convictions on their records, and Juan Valdez has been deported four times, the FBI said. "Let me be clear: The Valdez brothers are not street-level dealers and runners," said Harold Shaw, special agent in charge of the FBI Boston Division. "They are kilo-weight suppliers at the top of the domestic supply chain." Investigators said the drugs shipped from Mexico were kept in Rhode Island stash houses in Cranston and Woonsocket, before being re-distributed elsewhere. Agents this week seized about 4 kilograms of heroin, 2 kilograms of cocaine and 1.5 kilograms of fentanyl, a powerful drug that has caused overdose deaths in New England and around the country. Agents also seized cutting agents and luxury cars with hidden compartments. Twelve other people also face drug-related charges, half of whom could also be facing deportation to the Dominican Republic. Most were arrested around dawn Tuesday in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut, and had their first court appearances on Wednesday. Two other people encountered during the raids were detained on civil immigration violations. Story continues The federal public defenders' office, which is representing the Valdez brothers, didn't return a call for comment. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement Thursday that President Donald Trump "has made dismantlement and destruction of drug cartels a top priority, and cases like these are integral in that effort," though the investigation precedes Trump's presidency. The FBI's Safe Streets Task Force began looking into the brothers in September and named the investigation Operation Triple Play. An affidavit shows agents used wiretaps and undercover informants. "This will make a difference in the neighborhoods of Providence, Hartford and the Greater Boston area," said Michael Ferguson, a special agent in charge of the New England branch of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration. ___ This story has been changed to correct Hector Valdez's age to 47 instead of 57. Photo credit: Westend61 / Getty From Popular Mechanics Know the Local Situation The FBI Uniform Crime Reporting documents 220,000 annual bike thefts, and that's almost assuredly under-reporting the problem. Some locations are much juicier for villains, including New York City, the Bay Area, London, Paris, and Munster, Germany. Train and transit stations are high-profile targets in Holland and Japan, places where secure, paid storage only now is being constructed with some diligence. In locations prone to theft, an exterior lock-up only means more criminal access and quick getaway with the goods. If you can keep the bike inside your house or apartment, great. If you can't and paid storage is available, get it, and don't stop there-regularly change the bike's location inside the parking place, too. Get Smart About Lock-Up Location Predictable patterns favor criminals, and bike theft is no exception. Better bikes than don't get moved around are among the easiest marks. Well-lit, high-traffic areas are good but aren't sufficient. Studies show that thieves rarely get much attention from nearby citizens or law enforcement officers, meaning, you are your only hope. Vary the spot and use a secure indoor anchor even in "safer" suburban neighborhood garages. The hardened-steel ABUS Anchor WA 50 drills into wall studs, while the Kyrptonite Stronghold Anchor adapts to concrete surfaces as well. Oxford's Anchor 10 Ground & Wall Anchor is a great value but challenging to find in the US. Make Them Walk Right Past Your Bike People steal bikes for a trio of main reasons: Spontaneous personal transportation, to snatch expensive components to strip, or to grab whole bikes for reselling online or out-of-state. Moving intact bikes far and fast is where the maximum profit resides if selling aftermarket, chop-shop parts isn't a thief's chosen enterprise. Want all three kinds of thieves to look past your two-wheeler? Get a no-name, single-speed bike with and pop off the seat and lights when you lock up. The Sole Overthrow or Vilano Rampage in black are solid on-road performers. Get the Payback Bike Seat Security System by Fortified to protect post and saddle with a "never stolen" replacement guarantee. If wheel removal is too inconvenient, Pinhead's Quick-Release 2-Pack fits most existing thru-axle models. Story continues Thieves are making quick decisions on what to target. Expensive components, tires, and high-end brand decals are begging for theft. While some recommend filling bolt heads with wax or solder to slow them down, there's something to be said for sending thieves elsewhere after a single glance. Alter the appearance with favorite or removable stickers, colored tape, or even a cheap plastic old-school handlebar basket (which also gets in the way of manhandling the bike itself or accessing the lock in the fastest time possible). Skull and bones reflective decals from RydeSafe or simple, repetitive Ishidots not only make your bike more distinctive and less theft-worthy but also upgrade after-dark safety. Use Three Locking Strategies Secure the frame to an object using a hardened chain or linked metal bars with enough flexibility to repel prying with steel poles. Or use a short-shafted U-lock (two if possible). Add locking wheel skewers or nuts to slow down parts theft. Budget $150 if the bike is worth more the $500 average US new bike value. Kryptonite's range includes the $50 Keeper 695 Foldable Lock with 6mm links that rotate to discourage prying, along with the tough-to-leverage Messenger Mini with Wheel Extension U-lock and keyless locking Wheelnutz. Abus covers with the paint-protecting Bordo Centium 6010 foldable while the 4-foot OnGuard 8017 Beast has enough 12mm chain power to pull a pickup truck out of the mud. You Might Also Like JERUSALEM (AP) For many Israelis, Har Homa is another neighborhood in Jerusalem, served by city bus lines and schools. Its quiet streets are lined with apartment buildings, pizza shops, supermarkets and pharmacies. But for Palestinians and much of the world, this unassuming neighborhood is far more. It is an illegal settlement in east Jerusalem, and in some ways, the most damaging. Har Homa lies on one of the last spaces of land linking the Palestinian areas of the West Bank to their hoped-for capital in east Jerusalem. If city planners have their way, Har Homa will soon become one of Jerusalem's largest Jewish neighborhoods, expanding a presence that many believe has already dealt a devastating blow to the Palestinian dream of independence. "It's a feeling of helplessness," said Aziz Abu Teir, the mukhtar, or community leader, of Umm Tuba, a neighboring Palestinian village, as he stared from his balcony at the sprawling rows of apartment buildings across a ravine. "You can do nothing." ___________ This is the first of several stories marking the 50 years since Israel took over the West Bank and east Jerusalem in 1967. ___________ Fifty years after Israel captured east Jerusalem, Israel and the Palestinians remain as divided as ever over the future of the sensitive area, home to major shrines of Judaism, Islam and Christianity. If anything, these conflicting claims are heating up as President Donald Trump has taken office and held talks with Israel about what settlement construction he is willing to tolerate. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, under American pressure to curb some settlement construction in the West Bank, says east Jerusalem will not be included in any understanding with the U.S. In fact, he has vowed to step up settlement activity in east Jerusalem neighborhoods like Har Homa. "This is our homeland," said Herzl Yechezkel, one of the founding fathers of Har Homa. "And we have to build it up." Story continues ___ Israel captured the West Bank and east Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians claim both areas, along with the Gaza Strip, for a future independent state a position that has wide international backing. Over the past half century, Israel has built more than 130 settlements throughout the West Bank and more than half a dozen Jewish housing developments ringing east Jerusalem, in moves that many believe are meant to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state. These settlements today are home to over 600,000 Israelis, roughly one-third of them in east Jerusalem. While Israel has never staked a formal claim to the West Bank, it says east Jerusalem, home to the city's most important religious sites, is not up for negotiations. It annexed the area, along with neighboring parts of the West Bank, after the 1967 war, and says the entire expanded city is its eternal capital. In contrast to West Bank Palestinians, those in Jerusalem have Israeli-issued residency documents and can even apply for citizenship. Israel believes that granting these rights bolsters its claim that its Jewish neighborhoods are not settlements. The Palestinians and international community, however, reject Israel's annexation and say that all land beyond Israel's 1967 boundaries is occupied, and all Israeli communities are illegal settlements. Israel's construction in east Jerusalem has complicated any partition of the city, leaving two unsavory alternatives: no border between Israel and Palestine in a shared future capital, or a border that snakes for great distances around a hodgepodge of Jewish and Arab enclaves. For the Palestinians, the presence of Har Homa, also known as Homat Shmuel, is especially painful. Netanyahu, during his first term in office, broke ground on the project in 1997, just four years after a landmark interim peace accord with the Palestinians reached by his more moderate predecessor. He defended the move by citing Israel's claims as the sovereign power and the ancient Jewish connection to Jerusalem. But the project was seen as a sign of bad faith, and led to violent protests and a halt in peace negotiations at the time. "It was done, on purpose, to prevent a Palestinian capital in Jerusalem," said Menachem Klein, a former Israeli peace negotiator and expert on Jerusalem. When Israel finally began settling Har Homa in 2002, Yechezkel, a lawyer and community activist, was among the first to move in, ignoring international controversy and a violent Palestinian uprising. Israel has since transformed the once-barren hills of the area into a bustling community of 25,000 people where, like in most east Jerusalem neighborhoods, few people would consider themselves settlers. Standing proudly on his spacious balcony, Yechezkel pointed across a valley to biblical Bethlehem in the West Bank, neighboring villages and a Christian monastery. If all goes according to plan, he said, that empty valley will soon be covered with hundreds of homes for more Har Homa residents. The goal: to hit some 40,000 residents. "It's a big victory for settling Jerusalem and strengthening Jerusalem. Despite all the screaming and all the demonstrations and all the threats," he said, "at the end of the day, the neighborhood is a big success." Abu Teir, the mukhtar of Umm Tuba, lives in one of those neighboring Palestinian communities across the ravine. For him, Har Homa's massive presence is a painful sight. The Palestinians lost more than 150 acres of land to Har Homa. Abu Teir, a 55-year-old British-educated civil engineer, said his village's lands were passed down from generation to generation, and ownership is difficult to document, making it impossible to stop development. "You feel gutted, and sorrow overwhelms you when you see something like that," he said, as he pointed at apartment buildings he claimed were built on his family's land. "The land that used to belong to my forefathers suddenly became a settlement specifically for Jewish people. It's not a fair thing," he said. "When did the Israeli government build a housing development for the Arabs?" ___ After 50 years of Israeli settlement construction, Trump could play a decisive role in determining the future of Jerusalem and any Palestinian state. Former president Barack Obama took a tough line against the settlements, and just weeks before Trump took office, the U.S. allowed the U.N. Security Council to pass a resolution that declared settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem illegal. At the time, Trump condemned the decision. Throughout his campaign, Trump vowed to take a more sympathetic approach toward Israel and the settlements. His campaign platform made no mention of a Palestinian state, and he vowed to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The family foundation of his son-in-law and close adviser, Jared Kushner, has made donations to settlement causes, and Trump himself donated money to a settlement in the early 2000s, according to U.S. records. But since taking office, Trump appears to have backtracked. He has said the move of the embassy, which is strongly opposed by the Palestinians, now needs further study. And at a White House meeting with Netanyahu in February, he called for restraint on settlement construction. Netanyahu, whose governing coalition is dominated by pro-settler hard-line nationalists, recently agreed to limit construction in the West Bank to built-up areas of existing settlements. But the decision did not include east Jerusalem, and earlier, he was quoted by the Haaretz daily saying Jerusalem "does not even enter the equation" in talks with the White House. Netanyahu often says that settlements are irrelevant to the conflict, claiming that Arab animosity toward a Jewish presence in the Holy Land goes back long before the settlements arrived. The Palestinians strongly disagree. "The ones who decided to build these settlements have one thing in mind: ending any possibility for having a Palestinian state in the future," said Samih al-Abed, a former Palestinian border negotiator. Although the dispute over east Jerusalem is often reduced to tensions surrounding sensitive Jewish and Muslim holy sites in the Old City, the entire area has deep significance for both sides. For Israelis like Yechezkel, Jerusalem has been the focus of Jewish prayers for thousands of years. Beyond the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism, and the adjacent Western Wall, every corner of the city seems to be connected to an ancient biblical tale. East Jerusalem also serves as an important bridge to the West Bank, known to religious Jews by its biblical name Judea and Samaria. Yechezkel, like many members of Israel's nationalist right wing, considers east Jerusalem and the West Bank to be one and the same, all part of the biblical Land of Israel promised to the Jews by God. "I don't differentiate between Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem," he said. For Palestinians, east Jerusalem is equally important and emotional. They revere the area not only as home to the Al Aqsa Mosque and gold-topped Dome of the Rock, but also see it as a bustling commercial and cultural center. For them, Israel's attempts to separate it from the West Bank, the heartland of any future Palestine, is like robbing the body of a vital organ. Khalil Tufagji, a Palestinian cartographer and former peace negotiator, believes Har Homa has grown too big to ever evacuate, even if a peace deal is reached. "When they make facts and reality on the ground, it means that we can't change reality on the ground," he said. Danny Seidemann, an Israeli expert on Jerusalem who is critical of the settlements, called Har Homa "detrimental" but not necessarily a deal breaker. He said the "doomsday" settlement is the neighboring area of Givat Hamatos an open area that Israel has made preparations to develop. "Givat Hamatos would for the first time since 1967 seal a Palestinian area completely, surrounded by Israeli construction," he said. Yechezkel insists Har Homa has no problems with its Arab neighbors. Its biggest problem, he said, is that the schools and public infrastructure have not been able to keep up with the rapid growth. Yechezkel, who works as an adviser to Ayelet Shaked, the country's pro-settler justice minister, dreams of expanding Jerusalem's eastern outskirts to nearby Jewish settlements 10 miles (15 kilometers) to the east and putting the idea of Palestinian independence to rest once and for all. "I think we are only at the beginning of the road," he said. "Our answer to all the critics is construction. We need to build." ___ Mohammed Daraghmeh contributed reporting. By Steve Holland and Jeff Mason WASHINGTON (Reuters) - After less than three months in office, President Donald Trump has abruptly shifted his stance on an array of foreign policy issues from the U.S. relationship with Russia and China to the value of the NATO alliance. Trump, who ran for the White House on a pledge to shake up the status quo in Washington, repeatedly lashed out at China during the campaign, accusing Beijing of being a "grand champion" of currency manipulation. Candidate Trump also dismissed the NATO military alliance as obsolete and said he hoped to build warmer ties with Russia. But at a White House news conference and in a newspaper interview on Wednesday, he offered starkly different views on those issues, saying his relationship with Moscow was souring while ties with Beijing were improving. He also lavished praise on NATO, saying it was adapting to changing global threats. "I said it was obsolete. It's no longer obsolete," Trump said as he stood at a news conference alongside NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in the White House East Room on Wednesday. The reversals on Russia and NATO could reassure U.S. allies in Europe who were rattled by Trump's overtures toward Moscow during the campaign. But the president's talk of "bonding" with Chinese President Xi Jinping could sow confusion in Asia, where U.S. allies are fearful of a rising China. Trump's apparent shifts toward a more conventional foreign policy came amid infighting within his administration that has lately seen a decline in the influence of political operatives, mainly his chief strategist, Steve Bannon. Six months ago, candidate Trump suggested he was eager for an alliance with Russian President Vladimir Putin. "If he says great things about me, I'm going to say great things about him," Trump said last September. "ALL-TIME LOW" On Wednesday, however, Trump said he had growing concerns about Russia's support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. "We may be at an all-time low in terms of a relationship with Russia," said Trump, who ordered the firing of U.S. cruise missiles at a Syrian airfield last week to punish Assad for suspected use of poison gas in Syria's civil war. While criticizing Russia on Wednesday, Trump said he and Xi had bonded during the Chinese president's visit to the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, where they dined together with their wives and held talks. Ahead of that visit, Trump had predicted "difficult" discussions on trade. The improving ties with Beijing were underscored when Trump told the Wall Street Journal in an interview on Wednesday that he would not declare China a currency manipulator as he had pledged to do on his first day in office. Trump, a former real estate developer, took office in January as a government novice whose foreign policy mantra during was a vow to keep America safe and build up the U.S. military. Christine Wormuth, former undersecretary of defense in the Obama administration, said Trump had a steep learning curve on foreign policy when he came into office but that it was beginning to even out. Hes starting to have a more nuanced and deeper understanding of a lot of issues, said Wormuth, now a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The evolving Trump foreign policy appears to reflect less of the influence of his campaign team and more the views of Defense Secretary James Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and national security adviser H.R. McMaster, all of whom are deeply skeptical of Russia. Trump' former national security adviser, retired General Michael Flynn, was forced to resign on Feb. 13 for contacts with Russia's ambassador to the United States before Trump took office. The new tone on foreign policy comes as Trump has been trying to settle the palace intrigue inside the White House, where Bannon, former chief of the conservative Breitbart News organization, has been at odds with the more mainstream Jared Kushner, the senior White House adviser who is Trump's son-in-law. In an interview with the New York Post on Tuesday, Trump offered only lukewarm support for Bannon. I like Steve, but you have to remember he was not involved in my campaign until very late, Trump said. (Editing by Caren Bohan and Yara Bayoumy) MILAN (AP) Silvio Berlusconi's 31-year reign at AC Milan is over. Italy's most successful club was finally sold by the former Italian prime minister to a Chinese-led consortium after several delays over the past few months. Berlusconi's holding company, Fininvest, released a statement Thursday announcing that it had completed the transfer of its 99.93 percent stake in Milan to Rossoneri Sport Luxembourg which was formerly known as Sino-Europe Sports. The group, led by Chinese businessman Yonghong Li, has been attempting to buy Milan for some time but the deal has hit a series of delays and the sale has been postponed twice. "I thank Berlusconi and Fininvest for their trust and the fans for their patience. From today we will build the future," Li said. The deal, which values Milan at 740 million euros (about $800 million), requires the investors to spend 350 million euros ($372 million) over three years on improvements. "The buyers have confirmed their commitment to fulfill important recapitalization investments to the balance sheet and strengthen AC Milan's finances and assets," Fininvest said in the statement. A general shareholders' meeting has been called for Friday when the names of the new president and directors will be announced. There is also expected to be a news conference on Friday. The new owners' first match will be Saturday's derby against Inter Milan, which is also owned by a Chinese company. "This is an epochal day for Milan," AC Milan coach Vincenzo Montella said. "I would like to thank Berlusconi and (vice president Adriano) Galliani for having given me the opportunity to coach a club as glorious as the Rossoneri. "In the next few days I will meet the new management and together we will find the solutions to make Milan as successful as it was in the past." During Berlusconi's reign, Milan won a number of trophies at home and abroad. The Rossoneri won eight league titles, one Italian Cup and seven Super Cups as well as five Champions League trophies and five UEFA Super Cups. Story continues But the famous Italian club has slipped from the top in recent years and is currently sixth in Serie A. Milan won the Italian Super Cup in December, beating Juventus for its first trophy in six years. "I'm leaving today, after more than 30 years, the title and job of Milan president," Berlusconi said in a long statement on Milan's website. "I do it with pain and emotion, but with the knowledge that in modern soccer, in order to compete at the top European and world levels, you need investment and resources which one single family is not able to sustain. "I will always be the first fan of Milan, the team that my father taught me to love as a child, the dream that we realized together. To the new owners I give my best and most heartfelt wishes that you achieve goals even more extraordinary than those achieved by us." WASHINGTON (AP) Democratic lawmakers and activists plan to hit the streets Saturday at Tax Day protests around the country and demand President Donald Trump release his tax returns. Organizers hope the protests dubbed the Tax March will resonate with Americans who think the president should release his returns, as his recent predecessors have done. Rallies are scheduled in nearly 150 cities, including Washington, New York, Boston and San Francisco. Activists in West Palm Beach, Florida, will hold the "March a Lago" near the resort where Trump plans to spend the Easter weekend. "We're marching on Washington, D.C., and around the country to ask Donald Trump: WHAT ARE YOU HIDING?" the organizers say on their website. "We need a president who works for all Americans, and a tax system that does, too. Release your tax returns and commit to a fair tax system for the American people." Jennifer Taub sparked the effort following her participation in Boston's women's march the day after Trump's inauguration. She concedes she isn't sure what to expect organizers think thousands will show up at some locations, possibly only dozens at others. "I'm just a law professor who sent out a tweet," said Taub, who teaches at Vermont Law School. "I'm psyched, and I think lots of people are psyched about this. We shall see." Taub's tweet about planning a #showusyourtaxes protest stemmed from the women's march and her general interest in financial matters. She has testified before Congress and wrote a book about the 2008 financial crisis. "I'm all about 'follow the money,'" Taub said. "It tells us the story about people's priorities." Liberal advocacy groups and unions have helped spread the word and organized speakers for the largest rallies. Democratic lawmakers gave organizers a shout-out before heading home for their longest break since Trump took the oath of office on Jan. 20. Story continues "There will be a lot of activism about doing the right thing for our country, telling the truth, holding the president to a standard that every president and every nominee of a party has been held to," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. Over the last 40 years, presidents and major-party nominees have released some of their tax returns. The exception was Gerald Ford. Trump's break with precedent has raised questions about possible conflicts of interest. Trump cites an audit as the reason he won't release his tax returns. White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Tuesday, "We filed our financial disclosure forms the other day in a way that allows everyone to understand." Tax Day, in fact, is Tuesday, April 18, due to the weekend and a Washington, D.C., holiday Monday. After stumbling on their health care legislation, Republicans are focused on tax overhaul. In a conference call with reporters, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York sought to tie Trump's refusal to release his tax returns to prospects for a rewrite of the tax code. "It's going to make tax reform much harder. Any time the president proposes something, the average American's going to say, 'Oh, he's not doing that because it's good for me, he's doing it as good for him,'" Schumer said. "So, for his own good, he ought to make them public." Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Reps. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., and Jamie Raskin, D-Md., are scheduled to speak at the march in Washington. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., is speaking in Chicago. Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., will speak in Los Angeles. "What you saw beginning the day after the inauguration has not let up," Schakowsky said. "We're talking about intensity. The only question any of us get now is: What can I do?" The House Ways and Means Committee has legal authority to obtain confidential tax records. The committee could then vote to make them public. So far, Republicans have handily defeated Democratic efforts to take that course of action. Now, Democrats are pushing for a vote on a bill from Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., that would require the president and all major-party nominees to publicly disclose their previous three years of tax returns with the Office of Government Ethics or the Federal Election Commission. The Democrats have initiated a petition process that would lead to a House vote if they can get a majority of lawmakers to sign it an unlikely prospect, but one that gives Democrats a chance to highlight which Republicans declined to help with their effort. At only age 30, Krysta Rodriguez faced a fight for her life. The actress, known for her roles on "Trial & Error" and "Quantico," joins The Doctors to discuss the difficult decisions she faced. Krysta grew up wanting to be a successful actress, and her career on stage, film, and TV was flourishing by the time she reached her 30th birthday. But her life changed dramatically when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Watch: Mom's Viral Breast Cancer Warning I had always had fibrocystic breasts and doctors were never concerned about that, she explains, so I never really thought about it. But when she found a drop of blood coming from her nipple, she knew something was wrong. When the results of her biopsy and mammogram came back, Krysta says, My mind just sort of went blank! How? How did this happen? I dont have a family history, Im 30 years old. She was treated with radiation and six rounds of chemo, and she chose to have hormone treatments that put her in menopause. Krysta knew that she couldnt hide what she was going through, so she started a blog to share her journey. I thought if I could take something that feels ugly and flip it on its head and make it feel beautiful, maybe Ill feel better and maybe someone else will feel better. Krysta weighed her options and decided on a double mastectomy. Breast Surgeon Dr. Kristi Funk performed her surgery, and the two have become friends. Watch: Self Breast Exam The hardest part of all of it is losing your femininity, Krysta tells The Doctors. But she has grown through the experience. What Im learning is, you dont have control over your life. When you allow life to happen and roll with those changes, its definitely freeing. Now Krysta is cancer-free and feeling great, although becoming menopausal has been challenging. When a woman goes through menopause she does it slowly, over a period of time, she points out. I received an injection and went in by that evening. She feels that menopause isnt discussed enough, and she was blindsided by symptoms like weight gain, loss of bone density, disturbed sleep, and lower libido. I love the relationship that you two built, ER Physician Dr. Travis Stork tells Krysta and Dr. Funk. Everyone wants to go to Dr. Funk! Krysta laughs. She researched surgeons for nine months and says that Dr. Funk was so supportive and reassuring that she left her office thinking, I cant believe Im excited to have this surgery! Dr. Funk says, Its one of those moments when you take those lemons and made some lemonade. Dr. Funk says that she was able to preserve Krystas breast skin and nipples and place implants that restored her original appearance. Someone said to me that you have to find a doctor that sees you well that doesnt see you sick, says Krysta. Now shes able to see this experience as a blip in her life. Nepal, India assess ongoing projects The third meeting of the Nepal-India Oversight Mechanism, co-chaired by Foreign Secretary Shanker Das Bairagi and Indian Ambassador Manjeev Singh Puri, was held in Kathmandu on Wednesday. By Hamid Shalizi and Josh Smith KABUL (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump is dispatching his first high-level delegation to Afghanistan to begin to formulate a strategy for a war that has entangled NATO forces for more than 15 years and continues to inflict heavy casualties on local troops. Afghan officials hope National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster will provide clarity from an administration that they feel has neglected their plight as it concentrates on crises in Syria and North Korea. On Wednesday, Trump announced he was sending McMaster to "find out how we can make progress alongside our Afghan partners and NATO allies." The timing of the visit has yet to be confirmed by U.S. and Afghan officials. Despite general declarations of support for the Western-backed government in Kabul, the Trump administration has given few concrete signals of its plans for Afghanistan, which remains heavily dependant on billions of dollars in American aid. U.S. forces also make up the bulk of NATO's training mission in Afghanistan, provide close air support to soldiers on the ground and form a separate counter-terrorism unit that targets Islamic State, al Qaeda and other militant networks. U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who like McMaster is a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, was forced to scrap a visit to the country in February because of bad weather. The makes McMaster's trip the first by a senior official from the new administration, although earlier this month he spent an hour on the phone to Afghan counterpart Mohammad Hanif Atmar for a detailed brief, according to one Western official. That may signal renewed interest in Afghanistan, where nearly 9,000 American troops are deployed, but exactly what the Trump administration will decide is unclear, the official added. The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General John Nicholson, told Congress in February that he needed a "few thousand" more troops to help train the Afghan security forces, which are battling Taliban insurgents as well as militants claiming allegiance to Islamic State. Afghan officials have held out hope that veterans like McMaster and Mattis would help form policies favored by Kabul, including taking a harder line on Pakistan and the Taliban. "Both these gentlemen know very well that Afghanistan's growing insecurity is because of Pakistan's ongoing support for the Taliban and other insurgent groups, and we are impatiently waiting for a clear policy announcement," said one senior Afghan government official. Pakistan denies aiding or harboring Islamist militants, and has accused Afghanistan in turn of allowing insurgents to cross from its territory into Pakistan to carry out attacks. One signal that the United States may change its policies toward Pakistan is McMaster's decision to hire Lisa Curtis, a researcher with the Heritage Foundation think-tank in Washington, to oversee South Asia affairs. In February Curtis co-authored an article calling for the United States to "levy heavy costs on Pakistan for policies that help perpetuate terrorism in the region." McMaster is expected to visit Pakistan and India as well during his trip, where the issue of violence in Afghanistan and militant groups in Pakistan will likely be discussed. "If and when it takes place, I'm sure his discussions with our national security adviser and other meetings in India will cover prominently the situation in the region most importantly in Afghanistan," said a spokesman for India's Ministry of External Affairs. Pakistan's foreign ministry spokesman Mohammed Nafees Zakaria declined to confirm McMaster's visit, saying on Thursday he was not aware of any plans. (Additional reporting by Douglas Busvine in New Delhi.; Writing by Josh Smith; Editing by Mike Collett-White) Amnesty International has slammed an unprecedented ban by Thailand's junta on using the internet to communicate with three trenchant critics of the monarchy, saying authorities had hit new lows in curbing free speech. The new order makes any online interaction with the trio in the Kingdom -- including contacting them, and following or sharing their social media posts -- a jailable offence under the Computer Crime Act. The critics covered by the order are two respected Thai academics Somsak Jeamteerasakul and Pavin Chachavanpongpun, as well as ex-reporter Andrew MacGregor Marshall. All have extensive online followings, are fierce critics of the military government that has ruled since 2014 and live in self-exile as they would face lese majeste charges inside Thailand for criticising the monarchy. Thailand's monarchy, headed by new King Maha Vajiralongkorn is already protected by one of the world's harshest royal defamation laws, which carries 15 years in jail per charge. "The Thai authorities have plunged to new depths in restricting people's freedom of expression," Josef Benedict, AI's Deputy Director for Southeast Asia, said in a statement late Wednesday as the order was circulated by Thai media. "After imprisoning people for what they say both online and offline, and hounding critics into exile, they want to cut people off from each other altogether." A senior official at the Ministry of Digital Economy denied the order raised the bar for repression in the country. "This is to benefit the people so they can search for the right information... and use their judgement so that it (the order) will not affect them," Somsak Khaosuwan told reporters late Wednesday. All media based in Thailand must routinely self-censor to stay within the law. It has been liberally used against royal and government critics since the military knocked out the civilian government of Yingluck Shinawatra nearly three years ago. Story continues Thailand's junta chief Prayut Chan-O-Cha has outlawed political organising, cornering his opponents. Junta critics have been tied up with legal cases or jailed for breaching draconian laws. Analysts say elections slated for next year will not bring real democracy. Instead they will be held under a newly promulgated charter that strengthens the army's hand over the country with an appointed upper house and toughened powers for the kingdom's highly politicised courts -- which have taken out three prime ministers in just over a decade. Thais are closely watching the actions of Vajiralongkorn, who took the throne after the death of his much-loved father Bhumibol Adulyadej in October last year. He delayed signing the charter to add clauses bolstering his power in the time of a "crisis" and allowing him to appoint a regent when overseas. The new king spends much of his time in Germany, where he is the frequent fascination of local paparazzi. Bethlehem (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - Down a Bethlehem alleyway, sunlight illuminates a golden icon of the Virgin Mary and Jesus, signalling the revival of an ancient art being practised in the workshop inside. The building near the Church of the Nativity -- the site where Christians believe Jesus was born -- houses a group of enthusiasts specialising in the sacred art of iconography. They are doing so some 2,000 years after Christian iconography began in nearby Jerusalem -- also where Christians believe Jesus was resurrected after his crucifixion, to be commemorated this Sunday for Easter. They work in both silence and in prayer, with their art a far cry from the cheap mass-produced icons sold in souvenir shops to tourists and pilgrims. "Icons are not commercial objects for us, but holy images that we honour," said Nicola Juha, who heads the Bethlehem Icon Centre. He explains that icons like theirs are used by worshippers who, for example, light candles before them and pray. According to tradition, Luke the Evangelist painted the first Christian icon in 60 AD. Ian Knowles, far from his native Britain, now teaches the same art to not only Palestinian Christians, but also those from countries including Canada and Poland. Watching the meticulous brushstrokes of his students, he said he left home to spend two weeks in the region and was still there nine years later. One of his pieces, "Our Lady of Palestine", depicts Mary shedding a tear over symbols of the Holy Land -- Jerusalem, Mount Carmel and Mount Nebo. In a nearby chapel with a blue ceiling and a Nativity scene, around a dozen students recite prayers, their nearly finished icons in hand. Archbishop Joseph Jules Zerey of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, which sponsors the iconography centre, blesses each one, holding an olive branch with holy oil. - 'A beautiful synthesis' - Each icon is unique and produced to order. Animal-hair brushes are selected in Jerusalem or even London, and the pigments come directly from the Holy Land. Story continues Hand-ground stones for yellow are from Jericho and roses used to paint faces are from Jerusalem, Juha said in the small woodworking shop where panels for the icons are carved. Rose Codneler, who has used a holiday from her work at a women's shelter in Britain to spend Easter week in Bethlehem, said the uniqueness of the icons appeals to her. For the 33-year-old Christian, spending days painstakingly painting Christ's face is "a way of getting deeper into the characters of the Bible and the story of the Bible". "Icons have always fascinating me, and more and more so in the last few years, because they are a kind of beautiful synthesis of God, prayer and also ecology in the way that the pigments are all taken from nature," she said. Knowles's class is provided periodically to visiting pilgrims for around $265 (250 euros) and all year round to some 30 Palestinian Christians. Juha says the centre has succeeded in "reviving an old, long-forgotten Palestinian tradition in Bethlehem, which is so important both in religious and geographic terms". - 'Iconography as a profession' - Bethlehem is part of the West Bank, the Palestinian territory that has been occupied by Israel for 50 years and which struggles with unemployment and poverty. Knowles points out that obtaining the best materials from Jerusalem is impossible for many Palestinians since they are barred from crossing over from the West Bank. Wearing a paint-stained apron, he says the centre is also a way of serving the local Christian communities. Christians have gone from 20 percent of the Palestinian population to slightly more than one percent over the course of 50 years. "I wanted to do something which could really help to rebuild the iconography as a proper tradition and a constituent part of the Christian community here," he said. "I think people know the Christian population in Bethlehem has been devastated over the last 50 years." Knowles said that "culturally, the Christian community is a bit on its own, so it seems to me that it was an important thing that I could offer -- to teach iconography as a profession rather just as a hobby". This year, 36 Palestinians have registered, paying fees of around 25 euros. A partnership has also been formed with The Prince's School of Traditional Arts in London, allowing 10 Bethlehem students to earn a British diploma in iconography recognised worldwide. The centre has already achieved one particular point of pride: Knowles and three of his students have produced two icons for Lichfield Cathedral in Britain and are to complete a third next summer. Related Video: For more news videos visit Yahoo View, available now on iOS and Android. HOUSTON (AP) The top Roman Catholic bishop in the U.S. lauds President Donald Trump for his anti-abortion views, for comments on the importance of Catholic schools and for promising to defend religious liberties. When it comes to refugees and immigration, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo says he and Trump will "have to agree to disagree." In a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press, DiNardo, the archbishop for Galveston-Houston and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, expressed concerns about Trump's now court-stalled executive order blocking immigration from six Muslim-majority nations and about the effects the Trump administration's immigration policies could have on families. "We have kids in our Catholic schools that are crying during the day," DiNardo said. "They're not sure whether their mommy or daddy is going to be home at night when they get back from school. ... There's no reason why that has to happen." DiNardo in 2007 became the first Catholic cardinal in the Southern United States, an area where Catholicism has flourished as more people have moved there, from both inside and outside the U.S. In his first extended interview since his more than 400 fellow bishops in November elected him to a three-year term as president of the U.S. bishops' conference, DiNardo said the conference has had "quiet initial talks" with the White House to arrange a session between him and Trump. The White House had no comment Wednesday on prospects for a meeting, although such a session would continue a common practice for the head of the bishops' conference to confer with the U.S. president. "Right now seems to me the administration is still too early," DiNardo said, but offered no timetable on when would be reasonable for him to speak with Trump. "They're still working on getting their act together. It's a massive thing to do to take over a federal administration." Story continues Trump has taken a firm stance on immigration, passing executive orders to tighten border security and restrict refugees and travelers from certain countries. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly has credited Trump's policies and widely publicized arrests of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally for a huge drop in the number of people caught by agents on the U.S.-Mexico border. The bishops' conference needs to be critical of presidential administrations at times, DiNardo said, adding that it's essential the bishops remain engaged. He pointed to the conference's statement critical of Trump's travel ban. "We're willing to register that and state that," he said. "But we always want to be able to work with every administration." DiNardo, 67, who came to Houston in 2004 as archbishop after more than six years as bishop in Sioux City, Iowa, believes most immigrants and refugees come to the U.S. for economic reasons or to flee violence in their home countries. While he agrees with the Trump administration's stance that criminals should be deported, he doesn't want to see immigrant families separated. Churches have been relying on a 2011 Immigration and Customs Enforcement directive telling agents to generally avoid "sensitive areas" such as churches, hospitals and schools when conducting deportation actions. Immigration officials said that policy is still in effect, but recent immigration arrests around the U.S., including inside courthouses, are increasing fears. DiNardo says that if immigrations agents were to show up at a church, he would advise priests to consult with legal experts at Catholic Charities. DiNardo believes the rhetoric in the U.S. on hot-button issues including immigration and abortion is too heated. "You'd like to lower the temperature so people will speak to each other too," he said. "I think that's a dimension that religious congregations and religious people and I think even religious leadership can bring to the debate. "You don't have to lose your prophetic stance to clearly state that something's wrong. If I'm a pro-life person, I respect all persons even when I vigorously disagree. I do not want to end up with name calling." On other matters, DiNardo has denounced the use of internationally banned chemicals for attacks against Syrians as morally reprehensible and sided with Pope Francis' call for peace in Syria "through dialogue and reconciliation." The bishops' conference favors a political solution to the Syrian civil war with the U.S. working with other governments. He has decried the Palm Sunday bombings by Islamic State suicide bombers that killed at least 45 people in two Egyptian Christian churches as "unspeakable persecution." In his interview with the AP, he described the state of the Catholic Church in the United States as "good" while acknowledging struggles to attract people who aren't religious. "Part of it depends on some levels on what part of the country you're in now," he said. "In the South and Southwest, we are booming. I've dedicated 26 new church buildings in the last 12 years." In the North and Northeast, meanwhile, the church is consolidating parishes. While churches will be full on Easter, a paltry 22 percent of the nearly 70 million U.S. Catholics regularly attended weekly Mass in 2016, according to a Georgetown University survey. "It is troubling," DiNardo said. "One of our goals in our priority plans is in fact evangelization, by first starting with us in the church." Warning: This review contains some spoilers about the first three episodes of The Handmaid's Tale. In the margins of my copy of The Handmaid's Tale, high school me scribbled "this is so messed up." Fast forward to more than a decade later, and the story penned in 1985 only hit me harder. As I watched the first three episodes of Hulu's adaptation of the Margaret Atwood novel, the first word I wrote down in my notes was "fuck." This is the show that will put Hulu on the map. It has a strong cast (led by Mad Men alum Elisabeth Moss), powerful writing (which is very loyal to the book) and a timely storyline. But the parallels to current events make the show, at times, almost too eerie to watch. SEE ALSO: Hulu just dropped another chilling teaser for 'The Handmaids Tale' Like Atwood's book, the 10-episode series, which debuts on Hulu on April 26, takes place in a religious dystopia called Gilead, formed following environmental disasters and plunging birthrates in the U.S. The totalitarian society, once the U.S., is rooted in twisted religious fundamentalism. It's a place where women are stripped of their rights, and some the handmaids are subjugated and used only for reproduction, a.k.a. sexual servitude. Both the book and show follow Offred (Moss), one of the few remaining fertile women who is placed in the Commanders household. It's horrifying watching Offred reduced to servant life in Gilead but what's more jarring are her flashbacks to what she and others refer to as "before." "Before" looks pretty familiar. Offred was married to man named Luke, best friends with Moira (Samira Wiley) a handmaid who was condemned for being lesbian and living life as a book publisher in Massachusetts. In flashbacks, the show sprinkles hints of "normal" riddled with warning signs of the world's demise. In one instance, Offred (then called June) is informed that she and all other women at her workplace are being let go. All women's bank accounts are also frozen that same day. Story continues "Ladies I have to let you all go, you can't work here anymore, it's the law now," says her boss Roger. "I don't have a choice. They gave me ten minutes." The concept is extreme most dystopias are. But executive producer/writer Bruce Miller did such a good job weaving in Atwood's imagined world with our own contemporary society that it feels like it could be real. We were working on this project before the primaries even begun, and through the election, it just got stranger and stranger," Miller said at a recent event. One of Miller's most distinct choices for the show was to have Moss do voiceovers for Offred, a device not used in the 1990 film adaption starring Natasha Richardson and Faye Dunaway. Voiceovers, when done poorly, can seem tacky and unnecessary. In this show, they are anything but. They're instead a way for Moss to hold viewers' hands and walk them through the twisted world of Gilead. The tactic allows viewers to get past what Offred's allowed to show on her face and really understand what she's thinking and feeling. With or without voiceovers, Moss is perfect in the role as a powerful woman fighting to survive and ultimately reunite with her daughter from "before." Image: hulu The rest of the cast which includes Wiley, Alexis Bledel, Joseph Fiennes, Yvonne Strahovski, Max Minghella and Madeline Brewer is equally strong. Even Bledel who it's hard not to typecast as annoying Rory Gilmore shines as Ofglen, a fellow handmaid and Offred's shopping partner. While Offred at first rejects Ofglen as pious, it is later revealed that Ofglen is actually a member of a resistance group. She was a professor "before" and gay which in Gilead is referred to as being a "gender traitor." Usually Bledel is not the strongest actress and the characters she plays tend to be meek. In this show, however, her portrayal of Ofglen brought me to tears. Alexis Bledel as Ofglen. Image: hulu Timeliness also plays in Hulu's favor. This is the year that Homeland and The Americans became more popular than ever, as the topics they tackle hit close to home during the Trump Administration. It's impossible to watch The Handmaid's Tale in 2017 and not think about the divided world we live in, and the rapid pace at which it seems to be changing. "When they slaughtered congress, we didnt wake up. When they blamed terrorists and suspended the Constitution, we didnt wake up either," Offred says in a voiceover. "They said it would be temporary, nothing changes instantaneously. In a gradually heating bath tub youd be boiled to death before you knew it." In the pilot, Aunt Lydia the woman in charge of training the handmaids says to the group of women: "Ordinary is just what you are used to. This will be come ordinary." Her words echo the fear of those who worry that the media is "normalizing" Trump's "Make America Great Again" vision, which has so far has targeted women, immigrants and the environment, to name a few. If anything, The Handmaid's Tale is a reminder that, as Offred tells the Commander, "better never means better for everyone." It's a terrifying and all too timely wake-up call. WATCH: The top 9 shows to watch in 2017 The end is nigh for Orphan Black, which premieres its fifth and final season on June 10 but our clone sisterhood isn't going down without a fight. In the first full trailer for Season 5, Sarah (Tatiana Maslany) and her sestras are preparing for war, but Rachel is always a step ahead. This season, they're fighting for their bodies, their lovers, their families and their freedom and the truth about their origin is finally within reach. Orphan Black's final trip begins Saturday, June 10th at 10 p.m. ET/PT on BBC America. A day before kicking off the official Star Wars 40th anniversary celebration in Orlando, Mark Hamill surprised young Jedi at the Florida Hospital for Children Wednesday, showing them the ways of "The Force." Read: Harrison Ford Surprises Fans at 'Star Wars' Anniversary The actor visited the hospital along with characters from the film, like R2-D2 and Stormtroopers, as well as folks dressed in costume to lift the spirits of the kids who are being looked after inside the facility. The Force is with us! And so is Luke Skywalker! Thank you @HamillHimself and @StarlightUS for the amazing visit! pic.twitter.com/S12hgnDQVE Florida Hospital (@FloridaHospital) April 12, 2017 The Starlight Childrens Foundation and Lucasfilm teamed up for the very special event, which also featured lightsaber battles, giveaways, Star Wars-themed coloring activities. In addition, Starlight launched Starlight VR, a new initiative aimed at placing virtual reality headsets in hospitals across the country. Starlight VR is a groundbreaking program that will entertain, educate and inspire the imaginations of hospitalized kids across the U.S. through one-of-a-kind, immersive experiences," the hospital wrote on Facebook. Story continues Read: A Show of Force: Fans Honor Carrie Fisher with Lightsaber Vigil Following his day at the hospital, Hamill tweeted: Thanks @FloridaHospital 4 letting me visit the kids in your care & @StarlightUS 4 providing #SW backpacks filled w/goodies! The staff of @FloridaHospital is a very welcoming, nice & generous group who put the needs of patients in front of their own. @StarlightUS https://t.co/AW7qXuje5e Mark Hamill (@HamillHimself) April 13, 2017 Watch: Expectant Mom Dons Chewbacca Mask During Labor: 'The Doctors Thought It Was Hysterical' Related Articles: Silicon Valley has audacious plans for shaking up the way we diagnose and cure disease. But the life sciences are far more challenging than the tech titans of this world might realize: There are countless regulatory hurdles, health care delivery obstacles, and most of all the challenge of untangling the extraordinarily complex biology of the human body. Still, giants like Apple, Google, IBM, Intel, and Microsoft are charging ahead. Here, a look at three diseases theyre attacking with a vengeance and how they might stumble: Diabetes CNBC this week broke the news that Steve Jobs launched a secret project before his death to develop a way to monitor diabetics glucose levels without poking them with needles or embedding sensors under their skin. Apples effort seems to involve developing optical sensors that would shine a light through patients skin to measure blood sugar levels. Its not the only giant in the field: Verily, the life sciences arm of Google parent company Alphabet, has been working on a smart glucose-sensing contact lens with Novartis for several years now. Read more: Silicon Valley arrogance? Google misfires as it strives to turn Star Trek fiction into reality Such devices could revolutionize treatment for millions of people with diabetes. (And, not incidentally, bring in huge revenue.) But cracking the problem has proved extraordinarily difficult. Efforts have been underway since the 1970s, at least, to reliably measure glucose without piercing skin. Theyve failed. Take, for instance, Newton Photonics, a Boston-area startup that chipped away at this challenge for more than a decade before folding. Verily, too, has struggled, despite its wealth and brainpower, as STAT reported last fall. Tears turn out to be an unreliable way to measure blood sugar. Same goes for other fluids, like sweat and saliva; they dont always dont accurately reflect blood sugar levels, since theyre affected by temperature and humidity. Story continues Thats probably why analysts arent concerned that Apples top-secret project will hit gold. One can never say never, but it is extremely unlikely Apple has succeeded where so many others have failed, Cowen analyst Doug Schenkel wrote in a client note. He covers medical device maker Dexcom, which has been working with Verily on a separate effort to miniaturize a minimally invasive glucose monitor. And he wrote that he saw no reason to view Apple as competition: Until we see data that suggests otherwise, he wrote, we are not worried. Cancer Microsoft raised some eyebrows last fall with its bold pledge to solve cancer within a decade. The disease actually, many different diseases is a far more complex puzzle than, say, a Rubiks cube, but the company has assembled what the Telegraph calls a small army of top biologists, programmers, and engineers with orders to find a way to reprogram malignant cells so they can return to a healthy state. Read more: A sci-fi cancer therapy fights brain tumors, study finds Intel, meanwhile, is jumping into the diagnostic sphere: Its All In One Day initiative aims to get cancer patients a personalized diagnosis and treatment plan, based on their lifestyle, environment, and genetics, within 24 hours. (It can now take weeks to get a tumor analyzed and sort through treatment options.) Not one to be left behind, IBM has gone all out with its IBM Watson artificial intelligence system. The computerized brain is working on ways to help doctors understand and assess treatment options. Can such efforts make a difference? Maybe. But remember that when the first chemotherapies were developed in the 1950s, many scientists genuinely believed that cancer would soon be cured. That hasnt happened, despite waves of scientific advance in the decades since. And even if Silicon Valley does deliver a useful project, the rest of the health care system will need time to catch up and work through issues such as patient privacy and data security. The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, for instance, in 2013 launched an ambitious attempt to use IBM Watson to match patients to clinical trials and help doctors better choose a course of treatment. The project got glowing media coverage. But a recent audit found multiple problems with the implementation of the system, and said it did not meet its goals. The debacle cost the hospital $62 million. Aging They say its less about living forever, and more about living better. But Silicon Valley is still chasing longevity, in hopes of understanding the genetic underpinnings of aging and ultimately prolonging human life. Googles ultra-secretive spinout Calico is working to detangle the mass of genes that contribute to longevity. Also on the docket: developing therapeutics that might stall the protein degradation typically seen in aging. Read more: Googles bold bid to transform medicine hits turbulence under a divisive CEO Wealthy tech titans are also funding anti-aging efforts, as the New Yorker recently pointed out. Billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Peter Thiel have donated huge sums to help researchers find a way to cheat death. Problem is, there isnt one root problem associated with getting old: Multiple systems fail in tandem. And discoveries that once seemed promising have not translated into quick-fix therapies. Take telomeres. A few years ago, researchers wagered that these DNA segments, which cap the ends of chromosomes, might be linked to longevity: The longer they are, the longer a life. But that doesnt just mean you can slow aging by developing a pill to lengthen your telomeres. With more study, scientists learned that the enzyme that elongates telomeres called telomerase is very active in cancer cells. So maybe you dont want a whole lot of it in circulation. For now, the concept of aging is like a tightly knotted ball of yarn. Pull one string, and instead of unraveling, everything just gets all the more complex. Correction: A previous version of this story inaccurately paraphrased an audit of the IBM Watson project at MD Anderson. By Steve Barnes LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (Reuters) - An unprecedented series of executions scheduled in Arkansas later this month will bring long-awaited closure to victims' families, the state's governor said on Thursday, as U.S. judges mull whether to halt the proceedings on grounds they are excessive and unlawful. Arkansas, which has not had an execution in 12 years, plans to kill seven inmates over 11 days from April 17, which includes three pairs of dual executions. No state has ever executed as many inmates in as short a period since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. There is no question of guilt, Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson told reporters. "They (the victims' families) need closure and they dont think they have it." Some of the convicted murderers set to die have been on death row for more than 20 years. The state has not held executions for more than a decade due to legal battles over its death chamber protocols and secrecy surrounding its drug procurement. Hutchinson has toured the Cummins Unit prison, located in the small town of Grady, that will conduct the lethal injections and said the staff set to carry out the executions is experienced and practiced. About two dozen former corrections officials and administrators wrote to Hutchinson in late March urging him to abandon the plan, saying it places an undue burden on prison staff. All the inmates scheduled to die this month have launched a series of motions in federal court in Little Rock to block the proceedings. They argue that the rush to the death chamber increases the chances of a botched execution. The American Bar Association, the leading U.S. law professionals organization, sent a letter to Hutchinson on Tuesday, saying the expedited schedule undermines due process and impedes adequate legal representation. Hutchinson has said the state must act quickly because the efficacy date for one of the chemicals in its lethal injection mix, the sedative midazolam, expires at the end of April. Story continues In 2014, Oklahoma was the last state to attempt two executions on the same night. In the first execution, a poorly secured intravenous tube popped out, lethal-injection chemicals sprayed in the death chamber and staff said the pressure of dual executions exposed flaws. It did not conduct the second execution. Oklahoma, which has put executions on hold to fix flaws, has recommended executions be held at least a week apart to allow staff time to review the proceedings and decompress. (Writing by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Editing by Matthew Lewis) Nepali man who served jail time in UK being deported A Nepali man, serving his time in a UK jail for breaching immigration law, is being deported. PARIS (Reuters) - An arson attempt left very minor damage at the Paris building where French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has her headquarters, a police source said, and Le Pen accused leftist groups of the attack. The police source said the ground floor of the central Paris building was targeted and graffiti mentioning Le Pen's National Front was found nearby. The source said the damage - to a door and a doormat, according to news agency AFP - was likely to be the result of a criminal act and not an accident. The party's premises are higher up in the building. Interior Minister Matthias Fekl condemned the attack. "These are unacceptable acts, the democratic debate must take place in the ballot box," Fekl told RTL radio, without giving any details about the attack itself. "We have been in touch with the National Front candidate's team since last night and will see with them if it is necessary to strengthen security procedures." Le Pen told France 2 television she believed a leftist group was responsible, but she gave no detail and did not say why she believed one such group was responsible. "I assume this is due to a small leftist group," she said. "These groups act in total impunity," she added, saying that the government should dissolve them. AFP said a group calling itself "Combat xenophobia" contacted them to claim responsibility for the arson attempt. (Reporting by Ingrid Melander, Sophie Louet, Helene Dauschy; Editing by Hugh Lawson) Vietnam is standing behind David Dao, the man who was violently dragged off a United Airlines flight Sunday due to an "overbooking" mistake by the airlines. Dao is Vietnamese by birth, which caused immediate uproar in his community. Protesters boycotted via social media, despite there being no direct United Airlines flights to Vietnam, Reuters reported Wednesday. The viral video of the incident showed Dao being pulled out of his seat and screaming as officers dragged him down the aircraft. He suffered a blow to the head after it was smacked against the passenger seat, which caused blood to trickle out of his mouth. Other passengers were seen screaming and crying in horror. Read: United Airlines Controversy: Watch Doctor Get Dragged Off Flight Because Of 'Overbook Situation' [VIDEO] Initially, it was speculated that Dao was Chinese when the video was posted on China's microblogging site Weibo. When the ancient-rival country discovered he was from Vietnam, anger increasingly grew. "So funny," Bui Nguyen Trong Nghia commented on the Facebook video. "Now they know he's Vietnamese, most people stand up to advocate. Whether it's Vietnamese or Chinese, there'll be discrimination as we're Asian." "Watching this makes my blood boil, I'll never fly United Airlines," Anh Trang Khuya commented, according to Reuters. Dao has a past of felony charges. He prescribed drugs to a patient in exchange for sexual relations and spent years trying to reclaim his suspended medical license. Despite his distraught past, there was no evidence the airlines knew any of his background information thus, his past did not contribute to the way he was handled on the aircraft, the Associated Press reported Wednesday. "Rubbish! When they were treating this Asian man, they never thought of human rights, otherwise they wouldn't have done it that way," user Su Danqing posted on Weibo, according to USA Today. Story continues Dao's attorney said the doctor was at a Chicago hospital receiving care for the injuries caused by the incident. Protesters Photo: Reuters Related Articles If the United Airlines passenger recently dragged off a flight looked unconscious in the videos much of the internet has now seen, that's because he probably was. The attorney for David Dao a 69-year-old man who was trying to get from Chicago to Louisville on an April 9 flight said Dao suffered a concussion and a broken nose after police officers ripped him from his seat and dragged him off the overbooked flight. Dao also lost two teeth and endured sinus damage, according to attorney Thomas Demetrio, who went on to say Dao will undergo reconstructive surgery. SEE ALSO: There's a new Chrome extension to help you boycott United Airlines "If you're going to eject a passenger, under no circumstances can it be done with unreasonable force and violence," Demetrio said at a press conference in Chicago on Thursday. "That's the law." Dao didn't attend the press conference, but his daughter Crystal was there in his stead. "What happened to my dad should never have happened to any human being regardless of the circumstance," she said. Demetrio lamented corporate mistreatment of customers and passengers as he made a statement and took questions from a crowd of reporters. "Forget the law for a minute that requires common decency in the treatment of passengers," he said. "But just treat us with respect. Make us feel like you really care." Demetrio said both United and the city of Chicago bear responsibility for dragging Dao off the plane. Asked whether we can expect a lawsuit, he said "yeah, probably." Update at 1:00 p.m. ET: United again apologized to Dao after the press conference, issuing a statement that said "we cannot stress enough that we remain steadfast in our commitment to make this right." The company pledged to "not ask law enforcement officers to remove passengers from our flights unless it is a matter of safety and security," and said they will conduct a review of policies such as overbooking and reveal the results by April 30. Video credit: Tyler Bridges via Storyful WATCH: United gives full refunds to passengers who witnessed man get dragged off plane BERLIN (AP) Police say a dozen gold bars worth some 117,000 euros ($124,000) were stolen from a woman's car while she left the vehicle briefly unattended in a small Austrian town. The 12 bars were hidden in an insulated bag behind the driver's seat of the vehicle, which was parked Wednesday afternoon in the main square of Bad Radkersburg, on the border with Slovenia. The Austria Press Agency quoted police saying Thursday that the owner intended to use the bars in a real estate deal. They weighed about 3 kilograms (6.6 pounds) in total. The 52-year-old woman discovered the theft only 10 minutes after she had left the car. The thief or thieves didn't take the insulated bag. Istanbul (AFP) - Away from the bitter frenzy of Turkey's referendum campaign, volunteer law students are patrolling squares in Istanbul to explain what the planned changes to the constitution would bring. In the historic Eminonu square where both 'Yes' and 'No' supporters are patrolling side by side, young university students approach passers by, simply asking them if they have a good understanding of the proposed new constitution. "We are neither making propaganda for the 'Yes' vote nor for the 'No' vote," law school student Nur Ozdemir told AFP, referring to the referendum on expanding President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's powers. "We are on the side of the law and trying to explain people from legal perspective," she said. The country will vote Sunday on whether to hand the head of state strengthened executive powers including appointing top public officials and assigning one or several vice presidents. The changes would implement a shake-up in the judiciary, which Erdogan has accused of being influenced by supporters of his arch foe, the US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen. - 'Legal side not debated' - This volunteer initiative by young law students, a stark contrast to the venom of the campaign, is aimed at informing voters for what they will be choosing by picking 'Yes' or 'No'. Their argument is that the changes will not hand emboldened powers not only to Erdogan but to whoever will succeed him. "We look and see that the constitutional text is not being debated at all in the context of the law," volunteer Umut said. "All the discussions are taking place on the political platform. There's nobody who examines the changes article by article," he lamented. Hesitant citizens are posing direct questions that concern their daily lives, said 22-year-old Tutku Sen. "Most of the frequently asked questions by undecided voters is if terror (attacks) will come to an end, or if their economic problems would be solved," she told AFP. Story continues - 'Koran says 'Read''- Tugba Ozbet, wearing a black chador, asked her husband to wait as she took some time to listen to what the young students would tell her. "I have my own views, they will not change but still I wanted to listen to what they will say," she told AFP. "To be put it clearly, there's nothing objectionable in the constitutional package for us," she said. "We want the presidential system not for Recep Tayyip Erdogan but for Turkey, for Turkey to be better." Another passer-by, Osman Tas, briefly chatted with the students and praised the initiative. "Even the Koran says 'Read,'" he said. "What those friends are doing is good. It's useless to hang flags everywhere and ruin the country. You obviously have to talk to people." The young volunteer Sen, stuck between loud 'Yes' and 'No' campaign music, kept on telling people about the changes. "This is not a general election or a party election. Everything is about a constitutional amendment that concerns our future," she said. President Trump was moved to launch an attack on an air base in Syria in part because of images he saw of the youngest victims of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assads most recent chemical assault on civilians. Even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered in this very barbaric attack. No child of God should ever suffer such horror, Trump said while explaining the strike, as if he were learning of such atrocities being committed at the hands of the Assad regime for the first time. While I commend his rare public display of empathy, I hope he will give the same direct and forceful action to avert the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children a year from HIV/AIDS. As the national debate unfolds regarding the merits of this air strike, George W. Bush, the last Republican president to drag us into war in the Middle East, is devoting his time to asking Congress to continue supporting the Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), arguably his greatest public health legacy. This flagship program has pioneered HIV prevention efforts and provided essential medications and health care to people living with HIV in 65 countries around the globe. Saving nearly 12 million lives is proof that PEPFAR works, and I urge our government to fully fund it, Bush wrote recently in a Washington Post op-ed in response to the nearly $300 million cut to the program in the Trump administrations latest budget proposal. By paying to test pregnant women for HIV and getting them onto lifesaving drugs that also prevent the transmission of HIV from mother to child in utero, during birth, and later via breastfeeding PEPFAR averts thousands of infant infections each year and more than 1.5 million since 1995. Given the high mortality rates of infants with HIV, that translates into thousands upon thousands of children who owe their lives and futures to the program. If Congress makes cuts to PEPFAR, more of these avoidable deaths will occur deaths that will be no less horrific than those that compelled Trump to act in Syria. And we will be just as culpable. Story continues Read more: Global health is an investment we cant afford to pass up I can see PEPFAR in action today from my vantage point working in a hospital in Rwanda, a country that is currently observing the 23rd memorial of the Tutsi genocide in the spring of 1994 that killed more than 800,000 civilians while the world looked away. Last year, in tiny Rwanda alone, PEPFAR tested 1.6 million people for HIV, provided treatment for nearly 100,000 people living with HIV, and worked with more than 4,000 pregnant women with HIV so they wouldnt transmit the virus to their children all that for less than three-quarters the cost of the 59 Tomahawk missiles launched at the Syrian air field. PEPFAR was also there to provide education, protection, and psychosocial and economic support for more than 70,000 orphans and children affected by the epidemic in the country. It is hard to overstate the impact of this program on lives in Rwanda and around the world. In the words of Paul Rusesabagina, the protagonist of the movie Hotel Rwanda, We make decisions based on emotion and then justify them later with whatever facts we can scrounge up in our defense. While that may be true, it is not how a superpower like the US should make difficult decisions regarding funding priorities or the use of its formidable military arsenal. Cutting funding from indispensable programs like PEPFAR, which are already working effectively to save innocent lives worldwide, while lobbying to divert public funds into the machinery of war to be wielded abroad in the name of preventing bloodshed, represents the height of hypocrisy. If Trump truly wants to save the worlds beautiful babies, he should expand, not decrease, funding for PEPFAR and other effective global health programs. Nicholas Cuneo, MD, is a resident physician in internal medicine and pediatrics at Brigham and Womens Hospital, Boston Childrens Hospital, and Boston Medical Center. He is pursuing work in global health and refugee health through the Harvard-affiliated Doris and Howard Hiatt Residency Program in Global Health Equity. The gunmen came in the afternoon. Wearing the drab and baggy uniform of the Islamic State, they arrived at the door of Bashar Abu Alis home in western Mosul to commandeer it as a snipers nest. There were seven or eight of the militants, all Iraqis. They used an upstairs bedroom to shoot into the broad road outside. In those days in late February and early March, the Islamic State was falling back quickly. The Iraqi military swept into the city, backed by ferocious American airstrikes and artillery. The militants had already lost the eastern half of the city and were now scrambling to mount a defense of the west side. That meant seizing some vehicles to make car bombs, setting fire to others to create smoke screens and taking over hundreds of civilian houses like Abu Alis, militarizing both the urban and the suburban landscapes of the city. Then the battle began. For 11 days, the 43-year-old coffee-shop manager cowered with his family in terror in downstairs rooms while the ISIS fighters held the high ground, taking shifts shooting at the top of the stairs. American and Iraqi warplanes rained bombs around them. I was 90 to 95% sure we were going to die there, said Abu Ali. There was no thought of leaving. Better to die in your own home, he thought. When the Iraqi military and police arrived in their neighborhood, the gunmen fled in a panic. What they left was a landscape of bombed-out buildings and twisted metal, the burnt skeletons of cars and trucks flung aside by massive explosions. There is no electricity, no running water and few shops selling food. A defused car bomb in a narrow street looks like a battle wagon from Mad Max, steel plates where the windshield and hood should be. Do you want to see the body? a resident asks, and leads the way to the corpse of a Russianshorthand used for foreign fighters from former Soviet nations, who spoke Arabic poorly. Killed at least two weeks earlier, his burnt body still lies in the street, one charred arm protruding from under a blanket. Story continues After six months of fighting, the end is in sight in the battle for Mosula victory that, when it comes, will mark a turning point in the broader war against the Islamic State. Iraqs second city has embodied the groups claim that it was in fact building a stateand a warning that Iraq might not be one much longer. When the city of 2 million fell to ISIS in June 2014, it took only hours and demonstrated less the military might of the insurgents than the hollowness of Iraqs sovereignty under a government ruled on sectarian lines: many Sunnis in Iraqs north and west preferred Sunni militants over a Baghdad government responsive only to Iraqs Shiite majority. But ISIS has now been ousted from more than half the city by a massive force marshaled against it: 100,000 Iraqi government troops and Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish militia fighters, backed by more than 5,000 American troops and crucial air support from the U.S., France, Britain and Australia. The battle is the largest in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003, and brutal proof of the maxim that war is the continuation of politics by other means. At great cost, the forces backing the fragile Iraqi republic have recaptured the entire eastern section of the city up to the Tigris River and are now besieging the militants on the western bank. The west side includes some of the poorer neighborhoods of Mosul, a once prosperous and diverse city that before the arrival of ISIS had been home to Sunni, Shiite and Christian Arabs as well as Kurds. Here the fighting is denser and deadlier than in the east. In the packed neighborhoods on the edges of Mosuls centuries-old core, soldiers trade fire with the ISIS gunmen among the houses. Iraqi infantry are now within reach of an icon of the Islamic States collapsing empire, the Mosque of al-Nuri. It was here in July 2014 that ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ascended to the pulpit to herald the establishment of a new caliphate, stretching at that time from the Turkey-Syria border to the outskirts of Baghdad. Victory is no longer a real possibility for ISIS in Mosul. The estimated 2,000 militants in the besieged area know that there is no escape and that, unlike the men upstairs at Abu Alis, they are fighting to the death. Their weapons may remain as crude as their propagandacar bombs, booby traps and hundreds of human shieldsbut the feeling is different as the end draws near. Theres a change in desperation, says U.S. Army Lieut. Colonel James Browning, who advises the 9th division of the Iraqi army in the Mosul campaign. He said the Iraqi soldiers on the ground have come to consider each ISIS fighter a potential suicide attacker. They know they have an enemy that is still willing to die for their cause, and maybe even more so now than they were before. Iraqi troops on the front lines believe the gunmen arrayed against them are some of the groups most combat-hardened, many of them foreign fighters with no expectation of going back to Saudi Arabia or Belgium or Tunisia. According to Iraqi soldiers and medics in the area, they include seasoned snipers. Last night three [soldiers] came to us dead, and all of them had, I mean, I hate saying the word, but impressive head shots, says Jonathan Reith, an American volunteer medic at an Iraqi special-operations-forces field hospital in west Mosul on April 1. Its like the person took the time, lined up the shot. The threat to civilians caught up in the cross fire is now greater than ever. As many as half a million remain in the ISIS-controlled section of Mosul, with dwindling supplies of food, fuel, water and medicine. [Theyre the] main obstacle were facing, says Jafar Jawad Qadem, a sergeant in the federal police stationed in the area. Every time we advance, there are a lot of people inside. We cant use our artillery. We cant use mortars. They do use airpower, however, and its the biggest threat to noncombatants. Reported civilian casualties from the U.S.-led air war soared to an all-time high in March, with more than 1,700 people allegedly killed in Iraq and Syria. An airstrike in the New Mosul neighborhood reportedly killed more than 200 civilians on March 17, causing worldwide consternation. As the Pentagon investigates, coalition commander Lieut. General Stephen Townsend said on March 28 that there was a fair chance the U.S. was responsible. President Donald Trump took office just a few weeks before the western Mosul offensive began, after a campaign in which he promised to bomb the sh-t out of ISIS. The U.S. military denies that the rules of engagement have changed since he took office, blaming the brutal tactics of ISIS, including human shields, for the increase in civilian casualties. What you see now is the result of fighting an evil enemy, the U.S. Central Command said in an email response to TIMEs inquiry. Still, intense use of airpower in densely populated cities risks alienating the ordinary people whose cooperation the coalition needs for the political contest at the heart of things.If youre doing a lot of damage to civilians, ISIS is going to be able to shape the message, says Lieut. Colonel Jay Morse, a retired U.S. Army judge advocate now with the Center for Civilians in Conflict. You increase the likelihood that youre going to fight this exact same fight in another city on another day. The next city where the Trump Administration will need to tackle this question is Raqqa in Syria, the last bastion of ISIS rule, whose liberation presents a tangle of new issuesespecially as the U.S. deals with the consequences of its strike on a Syrian airfield on April 6. U.S.-backed Syrian militias are poised on the edge of the city, but it remains unclear when and how they plan to take the city. The Trump Administration is also putting more U.S. troops on the ground in the Raqqa campaign, opening the door to a prolonged deployment in Syria. Then theres the thorny question of the U.S. future presence in Iraq after Mosul falls. The issue surely came up during the April 3 visit to Baghdad by senior White House adviser Jared Kushner, the Presidents son-in-law, the sight of whom, chatting with officers in a flak jacket over his blazer, was a snapshot of an Administration still finding its feet on foreign policy. Under ISIS, Mosul was a laboratory for an experiment in jihadist governance. Today remnants of its rule litter the liberated areas of the city. In the once upscale Dawasa neighborhood, the militants had taken over a restaurant, converting it into an office for registering carsISISs version of the DMV. Scattered outside, among the bombed-out buildings, lie Islamic Stateissued license plates. For all its pretensions of governance, though, most Mosul residents remember the ISIS period as a time of petty brutality. Toward the end of their 33-month tenure, the jihadists seized cars and other valuables, carting their assets across the border to Syria as they braced for the Iraqi offensive. This wasnt a state. It was a gang, says Jasem Ahmed, 57, a truck driver in Dawasa, after picking through some of the left-behind ISIS documents in the abandoned vehicles office. If you want to build a state, you have to build something, and they took everything. Today ISIS controls only 7% of Iraqi territory, down from 40% at its peak, according to the Iraqi military. Although it still controls Raqqa, the groups claims to a caliphatea territory to hold out as beacon to all the worlds Sunni Muslimswill be in tatters once Mosul is freed. But ISIS will remain a potent movement, albeit in a different form. Already it is stepping up efforts to maintain its global profile with attacks far from the theater of conflict. In recent weeks, the group has claimed terrorist strikes in St. Petersburg, London, Stockholm and Egypt, where dozens of Coptic Christians were killed as they celebrated Palm Sunday. Over time, ISIS will look less like a state and more like a terrorist group in the mold of its forebear al-Qaeda, generating headlines not by seizing territory but through spectacular acts of killing. Even as they lose territory, I think its likely that theyll maintain relevance, by shifting strategy toward asymmetric insurgency, says Noah Bonsey, a senior analyst for the Brussels-based International Crisis Group. That goes not only for targets in the West, he adds, but also for the battlefields of Iraq and Syria where the group made its name. Its not as if theyre going to be unable to operate in what will still be quite weakly governed, if governed at all, territory. In Mosul, the chaos they leave behind is visible on every corner. In the Aqeedat neighborhood, TIME was led to a heap of dead bodies sprawled in an alleyway. Women, children, two old men with white beards, they are 16 in all, their faces bloated with blood now, at least a week after they were killed. One Iraqi federal police officer said he witnessed the family die after triggering a booby trap. Another was certain they had been shot dead. In its morbid details, the debate took in both the physical horrors and the mentality abroad in a country now 14 years at war. In our experience, if its a mine, youll see body parts everywhere. But as you can see, there are bullets everywhere, the officer says. ISIS wanted to make an example of them, for others who try to flee. This article was originally published on TIME.com Moscow (AFP) - The Beslan school massacre began on September 1, 2004 when Chechen rebels seized School Number One in the southern Russian city and took more than 1,100 people hostage. It ended 52 hours later in chaotic firefights involving tank cannon grenade launchers, flame-throwers and automatic weapons that left more than 330 people dead, including 186 children. The European Court of Human Rights identified Thursday "serious failings" in Russia's handling of the siege, a ruling that Moscow deemed "absolutely unacceptable." Here is a recap of the bloody siege: - Militants seize the school - At 10:20 am, around 30 insurgents, some wearing explosive belts, seize the school in the Russian republic of North Ossetia at the start of the academic year. They lock hundreds of hostages into the gymnasium and open fire on police. One hostage taker and 11 other people are killed. The insurgents threaten to blow up the building if security forces storm it, rig the gymnasium with explosives, and demand the release of Chechen rebels detained in the neighbouring republic of Ingushetia. Around 65 of the children manage to escape. - Standoff - On September 2, the president of Ingushetia, Ruslan Aushev, negotiates the release of a group of 15 children and 11 women. Conditions deteriorate however, and just after midnight, two blasts rock the school. Rebels say they detonated two grenades in fear of an imminent attack. - Storm breaks - At 1:08 pm on September 3, two more explosions are heard, followed by sustained gunfire. Some hostages escape and some insurgents try to get away as well. Russian special forces penetrate the school about an hour later and confusion reigns for several hours, with armed local residents taking part in the assault. As conflicting casualty figures are issued on September 4, ITAR-TASS news agency identifies Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev as mastermind of the siege. He claims responsibility on September 17, and is reported killed by Russian special forces in July 2006. A final casualty toll puts the deaths of civilians and security forces at more than 330, including 186 children, and the number of wounded at around 750. Thirty one militants are killed, and one is arrested. WASHINGTON (AP) President Donald Trump likes to boast that he hires only the best people. But his personnel choices keep coming back to haunt him. One of the people Trump hired for the White House was working as a foreign agent while advising him during the election. His campaign chairman caught the Justice Department's attention for similarly surreptitious work. And a third campaign adviser was reportedly surveilled by the FBI as part of an investigation into whether or not he was a Russian spy. The tales of Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort and Carter Page none of whom still work for Trump have created a steady drip of allegations that have clouded Trump's early presidency and raised persistent questions about his judgment. For more news videos visit Yahoo View, available now on iOS and Android. At worst, Trump's personnel picks appear to have left his campaign and perhaps his White House vulnerable to the influence of foreign powers. At best, they expose the long-term implications of his understaffed and inexperienced campaign organization and undermine his promises to surround himself with top-notch talent. "Vetting new hires is standard procedure for presidential campaigns for exactly this reason," said Alex Conant, who advised Sen. Marco Rubio's 2016 presidential campaign. "Every employee is also a potential liability on a presidential campaign." Manafort, Flynn and Page have indeed become political liabilities for Trump that he can't shake in the White House. All three are being scrutinized as part of the FBI and congressional investigations into whether Trump associates helped Russia meddle in the 2016 election. The president has denied any nefarious ties to Russia and says he has no knowledge that his advisers were working with Moscow during the election. The president's culpability appears greatest with Flynn, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general who traveled with Trump frequently during the campaign and was tapped as national security adviser after the election. Flynn had been lobbying for a company with ties to Turkey during the 2016 election and even wrote an editorial on behalf of his client that was published on Election Day. Story continues "No one expects them to do the equivalent of an FBI background check, but a simple Google search could have solved a lot of these problems," Dan Pfeiffer, who served as senior adviser to President Barack Obama, said of Trump's team. After Trump's victory, Flynn's lawyers alerted the transition team that he may have to register as a lobbying for a foreign entity, according to a person with knowledge of those discussions. The White House hired him anyway. After the inauguration, Flynn's lawyers told the White House counsel's office that the national security adviser would indeed have to move forward with that filing. Flynn was fired in February after the White House said he misled Vice President Mike Pence and other top officials about his conversations with Russia's ambassador to the United States. Lobbying for foreign interests is legal and lucrative. Both Republican and Democratic operatives offer their services to overseas clients. But the Justice Department requires Americans working on behalf of foreign interests to register, disclosing the nature of their work, the foreigners they dealt with and the amount of money they made. Willful failure to register for foreign lobbying work can carry up to a five-year prison sentence, but the Justice Department rarely brings criminal charges and instead urges violators to register. On Wednesday, a spokesman for former Trump campaign chairman Manafort said that he, too, under pressure from the Justice Department, would formally file for prior foreign lobbying. Manafort's work for political interests in Ukraine occurred before he was hired as Trump's campaign chairman, spokesman Jason Maloni said, though the U.S. government raised questions about his activities after he was hired by Trump. "The work in question was widely known, concluded before Mr. Manafort began working with the Trump campaign and was not conducted on behalf of the Russian government," Maloni said. Manafort was pushed out of Trump's campaign in August after The Associated Press reported that his consulting firm had orchestrated a covert Washington lobbying operation on behalf of Ukraine's ruling political party without disclosing that work to the U.S. government. The White House did not respond to questions Wednesday about when Trump learned about Manafort's foreign lobbying work and his discussions with the U.S. government about registering as a foreign agent. The questions surrounding Page are perhaps the most serious. On Tuesday, The Washington Post reported that the Justice Department obtained a highly secretive warrant to monitor his communications because there was reason to believe he was working as a Russian spy. In March, Trump personally announced Page as part of a newly minted foreign policy advisory team. But as questions began swirling about Page's ties to Russia, the campaign started moving away from the little-known investment banker. Trump has since said he has no relationship with him. The New York Times reported Wednesday that the Justice Department only obtained the warrant after the campaign distanced itself from Page. In an interview Thursday with ABC's "Good Morning America," Page described his affiliation with the Trump campaign as having served as "an informal member of a committee which was put together a team of individuals who were looking at various foreign policy issues." Page said he does not recall if he had conversations with Russian officials about sanctions during that period. He first suggested that he never told any officials that Trump would ease sanctions on Russia, and said no Russian officials suggested that to him, but then he said he doesn't remember. "Something may have come up in a conversation," he said. "I have no recollection." Chris Ashby, a Republican elections lawyer, said that while it's easy to blame Trump for missing red flags about his campaign advisers, it's not always possible to dig up details that potential hires aren't willing to disclose on their own. "In the ideal world, you could rely on paid background checks, but you'd have to have the money and the time," Ashby said. "The farther down the ranks you go and certainly when you reach the ranks of unpaid advisers, that becomes impractical." ___ Associated Press writer Vivian Salama contributed to this report. ___ Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC Pramod Mishra is a biweekly columnist for The Kathmandu Post. He is the department chair of English Studies at Lewis University in the United States. Three gigantic requests for forgiveness have come back-to-back-to-back after Pepsi, United Airlines and White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer all had massive public relations gaffes in the last two weeks. Read: Sean Spicer Calls His Hitler Comments 'Inexcusable,' Says He Let the President Down Crisis manager Karen Kessler told Inside Edition there are four things to make a good corporate apology. "You have to apologize. You have to know who you are apologizing to. You have to know what you are apologizing for. You have to do it again after you apologize," she said. Given the current climate of backlash and subsequent apologies, the advice may never be as significant as it is today. Last Tuesday, Pepsi set social media ablaze after an ad featuring Kendall Jenner ditching a modeling gig to stand on the front lines of a protest to hand a cop a can of soda as a peace offering. Coincidentally, the commercial came on the anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.s assassination and was widely regarded as tone-deaf. Pepsi was immediately slammed, and within 24 hours the company pulled the commercial saying, "Clearly we missed the mark and we apologize." "They took a little more time than they should have, but they handled it the right way," Kessler told Inside Edition. This week brought on two controversies that led to major figures asking for clemency. Spicer, the White House Press Secretary, admitted he "screwed up" after controversial remarks about Adolf Hitler during Tuesday's press briefing, adding that he let the president down. After reporters and social media erupted in response to Spicers comments, he immediately issued a statement to clarify his comments. In no way was I trying to lessen the horrendous nature of the Holocaust," Spicer said. "I was trying to draw a distinction of the tactic of using airplanes to drop chemical weapons on population centers. Story continues Early Wednesday morning, he spoke at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., and said: It is painful to myself to know I did something like that. He also expressed his regret on CNN Wednesday, saying, "I apologize, it is a mistake to do that." The timing of Spicer's comments could not have been worse, as they were made during the Jewish feast of Passover. "His was fast, his was thorough, his was sincere, I believe," Kessler said. I think when the topic is Hitler, there is no such thing as apologizing too much. Read: Did United Airlines CEO Get Preferential Treatment When He Received Heart Transplant? The week also saw the now-infamous video of Dr. David Dao being knocked unconscious and dragged off a United Airlines plane after refusing to give up his seat. After first describing Dr. Dao as "disruptive and belligerent, United CEO Oscar Munoz changed his tune two days later in an interview with Good Morning America and formally apologized. "United is in the hall of shame and has a very big hole to dig itself out of," Kessler said. Watch: Melania Trump Settles 'Daily Mail' Lawsuit for a Reported $3 Million, Gets Apology Related Articles: Fox News anchor Bill O'Reilly is taking a break from his show amid allegations of sexual harassment at workplace that had led several companies to pull their advertisements from "The O'Reilly Factor" show. During the last few minutes of his show's broadcast Tuesday night, he told viewers that he would take a break for a few days as part of a pre-planned vacation. "The arrangements, including airline and hotel reservations, for this vacation were made last October. The vacation involves a group of people, and the timing coincides with the period Mr. O'Reilly often takes off in and around his children's spring break," Mark Fabiani, a spokesman for O'Reilly, reportedly said in an emailed statement. "Other than the vacation guest hosts, The Factor broadcast will remain unchanged until Mr. O'Reilly's return post-vacation." Read: Donald Trump Defends His Longtime Friend Bill O'Reilly Amid Sexual Allegation Claims? The announcement comes a day after Fox News' parent company 20th Century Fox confirmed it was investigating the allegations against the anchor, reports said. O'Reilly has been under investigation since April 1, when the New York Times reported about harassment allegations from five women against him, which totaled up to at least $13 million. However, he had denied any wrongdoing in a statement and said his popularity made him vulnerable to those who wanted to harm him or his employer. One source close to the matter told CNN that Rupert Murdoch, the executive chairman, might keep O'Reilly on air, but Murdoch's son James, 21st Century Fox CEO, is not keen to do that. Fox has asked the New York-based law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP a few days back to conduct an internal investigation into the allegations of Wendy Walsh, a former guest on "The O'Reilly Factor," CNN reported. Andrea Tantaros, another former Fox News host, had accused O'Reilly in a lawsuit last year claiming he and other executives of the network had made sexual advances toward her, according to reports. Story continues Related Articles Kiev (AFP) - A bloodied Ukraine marks three years Thursday since it launched a campaign against Russian-backed eastern separatists that now looks like an interminable conflict whose terms are dictated by the Kremlin. More than 10,000 people have died in Europe's only war zone in that time -- a figure unimaginable when Kiev was riding the jubilant high of its February 2014 pro-EU revolution in which a self-enriching pro-Kremlin regime was sent fleeing into Russian exile. But warning signs of Moscow refusing to let Ukraine slip out of its orbit and into the West's arms without a fight emerged almost immediately as Russia swarmed Crimea with troops and then annexed Ukraine's Black Sea peninsula in March 2014. Armed men wearing no insignia on their uniforms but proclaiming pro-Russian slogans began taking over government buildings across Ukraine's industrial east the following month. Russia initially denied sending crack soldiers to Crimea and still calls the separatist conflict a "civil war" in which it has played no part. But Kiev and the West say there is overwhelming evidence showing Moscow has sent troops and weapons across the border throughout the unrest and effectively turned the conflict into an undeclared war between the two ex-Soviet neighbours. - Rich tycoons, poor Ukraine - One of Europe's bloodiest crises since the 1990s Balkans wars illustrates how difficult it is for countries once part of the Soviet Union to chart their own course. More than two years of European efforts to bring peace to the EU's backyard through talks have produced little beyond periodic truces that have always been followed by more violence and death. Ukraine was already among Europe's poorest states in 2014 due to decades of mismanagement and graft. The war pushed its blighted economy into a two-year recession that now sees Ukrainians' per capita gross domestic product stand at just a fifth of the European average. Story continues The three years also did little to shake politics loose of the influence of a few tycoons who still play an outsized role in making big policy decisions. "Reforms face strong pushback from vested interests," the International Monetary Fund warned on April 4 after releasing another tranche of its $17.5 billion (16.5 billion euro) Ukrainian rescue package. And post-revolution President Petro Poroshenko's dream of applying for EU membership by 2020 and one day joining the NATO military alliance now looks out of reach. - Poroshenko's promise - The Ukrainian leader put aside the chocolate empire that made him into a billionaire to emerge as a unifying figure who appeared corruption-free and ready to fulfil the aspirations of the vast crowds of protesters involved in the 2013-2014 street uprising in which more than 100 died. The political turmoil of early 2014 culminated with his overwhelming victory in a May 25 presidential election. Poroshenko promised the very next afternoon to put an immediate end to a conflict that was then only a month old. Ukraine's military campaign "cannot and will not last for two or three months," Poroshenko said in front of flashing cameras of the global media. "It should last several hours." But Poroshenko's challenge was taken up immediately by the insurgents. They stormed the main airport in what later became their de facto capital city of Donetsk that same week. It marked a new and far graver chapter in a war that at its peak saw a dozen or more people killed every day. - Forever splintered state? - Currently there appears to be little chance of peace as a plan hammered out by Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France in February 2015 has stalled. A Western official said Ukraine's heavy-handed ground tactics and overall approach to the Russian-speaking region complicated a reconciliation that could make the country whole again. Kiev "is not making it easy for the east to be part of Ukraine in some meaningful way," the Western official told AFP on condition of anonymity. Donetsk city resident Arkady agreed. "It will be hard for us to be one with Ukraine again," 50-year-old Arkady told AFP without revealing his last name for safety reasons. Analysts also doubt that Putin will change his approach while in power for what may be another seven years. "As long as the current authorities continue to run Russia, it is hard to see them letting Ukraine go," Lilia Shevtsova of London-based Chatham House think-tank said. Associated Press There has already been two coaching changes halfway through the NFL season with Indianapolis firing Frank Reich this week four weeks after Carolina did the same to Matt Rhule. The NFL had a record-tying 10 coaching changes last offseason and three-quarters of the teams have changed head coaches at least once in the past five years. Here's a look at some coaches who figure to be on the hot seat if things don't turn around in the second half of the season and some assistants who could be in line for head coaching jobs. British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has slammed Russia after it vetoed a United Nations resolution condemning the use of chemical weapons in Syria. Johnson said Wednesday that the veto put Moscow on the wrong side of history, calling it a lifeline for the murderous Syrian regime, The Guardian reports. The day before, Johnson had failed to garner sufficient G7 nation backing to impose further economic sanctions on Russia. This afternoon in New York, the international community sought to make clear that any use of chemical weapons by anyone anywhere is unacceptable and that those responsible will face consequences, Johnson said. So I am dismayed that Russia has once again blocked the U.N. security council and in so doing refused to condemn the use of chemical weapons or support a full U.N. investigation into the attack. Aligning the U.K.s position with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillersons most recent statements on Syria, Johnson said that G7 nations stood ready to work with Russia but insisted that President Bashar Assad had no future in the country. He called on Russia to exert its influence of what he described as Assads murderous regime. I agree with Rex Tillerson when he says that the Assad familys reign in Syria is coming to an end, Johnson said. [Guardian] This article was originally published on TIME.com TORONTO (AP) Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government introduced legislation Thursday to let adult possess up to 30 grams of marijuana in public a measure that would make Canada the largest developed country to end a nationwide prohibition on recreational marijuana. Trudeau has long promised to legalize recreational pot use and sales. U.S voters in California, Massachusetts, Maine and Nevada voted last year to approve the use of recreational marijuana, joining Colorado, Washington, Oregon and Alaska. The South American nation of Uruguay is the only nation to legalize recreational pot. The proposed law allows four plants to be grown at home. Those under 18 found with less than five grams of marijuana would not face criminal charges but those who sell it or give to youth could face up to 14 years in jail. "It's too easy for our kids to get marijuana. We're going to change that," Trudeau said. Officials said Canadians should be able to smoke marijuana legally by July 1, 2018. The legislation must still be approved by Parliament but with Trudeau's Liberal party holding a majority its passage in considered assured. The federal government set the age at 18, but is allowing each of Canada's provinces to determine if it should be higher. The provinces will also decide how the drug will be distributed and sold. The law also defines the amount of THC in a driver's blood, as detected by a roadside saliva test, that would be illegal. Marijuana taxes will be announced at a later date. The Canadian government closely followed the advice of a marijuana task force headed by former Liberal Health Minister Anne McLellan. That panel's report noted public health experts tend to favor a minimum age of 21 as the brain continues to develop to about 25, but said setting the minimum age too high would preserve the illicit market. Canadian youth have higher rates of cannabis use than their peers worldwide. Story continues "If your objective is to protect public health and safety and keep cannabis out of the hands of minors, and stop the flow of profits to organized crime, then the law as it stands today has been an abject failure," Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale told a news conference. "Police forces spend between $2 billion and $3 billion every year trying to deal with cannabis, and yet Canadian teenagers are among the heaviest users in the western world ... We simply have to do better." Goodale said they've been close touch with the U.S. government on the proposed law and noted exporting and importing marijuana will continue to be illegal. "The regime we are setting up in Canada will protect our kids better and stop the flow of illegal dollars to organized crime. Our system will actually be the better one," Goodale said. But Christina Grant, a professor of pediatrics at McMaster University in Ontario, worries the government is conveying the message that marijuana is not harmful. She fears usage will go up because concerns about its safety will dissipate. "One in seven youths who have used cannabis will develop an addiction to cannabis and that impacts your life, schooling, job prospects, social and emotional relationships," she said. "And there is the risk of developing psychosis if you start using cannabis as a teenager. The more you use and the younger you start, you have up to four times the risk of developing some kind of psychotic illness." Former Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair, who is the parliamentary secretary to the justice minister, said officials learned from the experiences from other jurisdictions like Colorado and Washington state. While the government moves to legalize marijuana, retail outlets selling pot for recreational use have already been set up. Trudeau has emphasized current laws should be respected. Police in Toronto, Vancouver and other cities raided stores earlier last month and made arrests. The news that Canada was soon going to announce the law was noticed online last month by Snoop Dogg , who tweeted "Oh Canada!" Canadian folk singer Pat Robitaille released a "Weed song" to coincide with the government's announcement. __ Associated Press Writer Charmaine Noronha in Toronto contributed to this report. Ottawa (AFP) - The government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will unveil legislation on Thursday to fully legalize recreational marijuana use, making Canada only the second country to do so, after Uruguay. Its legalization and regulation would follow in 2018, in time for Canada's national day on July 1. The country's ministers of health, justice, public safety and national revenue, as well as a former-cop-turned-MP who spearheaded the initiative, will make the announcement. The stated aim is to reduce policing and prosecutions, and keep it out of the hands of children. Canadian political leaders have also decried the current anti-drug regime as a failure. Trudeau himself admitted in 2013 to having smoked pot five or six times in his life, including at a dinner party with friends since being elected to parliament. He has also said that his late brother Michel was facing marijuana possession charges for a "tiny amount" of pot before his death in an avalanche in 1998, and that this influenced his decision to propose legalizing cannabis. Police chiefs who support legalization point to the nearly 70,000 police-reported incidents related to cannabis, mostly possession, in 2014, saying police resources are being wasted and criminal convictions are causing undue harm. In anticipation of the legislative move, there has reportedly been a rush on licenses to produce medical marijuana, pot stocks have shot up, and dispensaries have opened in cities across the country vying for market share in what promises to be a lucrative business. The latter, however, has led to police raids and controversy, and pleas from the government to would-be sellers to be patient and wait for the legal regime to be announced. Medical marijuana use has been regulated in Canada since 2001. But cannabis remains a controlled drug, for the time being. For more news videos visit Yahoo View, available now on iOS and Android. - What will legal market look like - According to government statistics, as many as 4.6 million Canadians will consume an estimated total 655 metric tons of cannabis annually by 2018, spending an estimated Can$4.2 billion to Can$6.2 billion each year. Story continues A task force led by former deputy prime minister Anne McLellan released a report last December outlining possible regulations for creating a legal market for cannabis including plain packaging and labelling, restrictions on advertising, and retail distribution. The more than 80 recommendations included maintaining a separate medical marijuana regime, as well as criminal penalties for trafficking and selling cannabis to youth. Under the proposed rules, individuals would be allowed to grow up to four plants at home for personal use. Personal possession, however, would be limited to 30 grams (one ounce). The report also noted that the biggest concerns in more than 30,000 submissions to the task force concerned the proposed minimum age and impaired driving. Health groups expressed concern about the potential impact of marijuana on developing brains under the age of 25. But the report concluded that the "current science is not definitive on a safe age for cannabis use." Since the intention of legalization is to stop criminalizing users the panel chose an age that would not force adults under 25 to turn to the illicit market. It noted that US states where recreational marijuana use is legal had aligned the minimum age with alcohol consumption at 21. In Canada legal adulthood starts at 18 or 19, depending on the province. Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale, meanwhile, said officials are testing devices similar to roadside breathalyzers to detect cannabis. The drug has created new enforcement challenges because there is no legal or verified scientific test to determine a level of THC -- the psychoactive chemical in pot -- that causes impairment. Ottawa (AFP) - Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government unveiled legislation Thursday to fully legalize marijuana, making Canada only the second country to do so, after Uruguay. While medical marijuana use has been regulated in this country since 2001, cannabis remains a controlled substance. Its legalization and regulation for recreational use is expected in 2018, in time for Canada's national holiday on July 1. "We know that criminal prohibition has failed," former-police-chief-turned-MP Bill Blair, who spearheaded the initiative, told a press conference. "Legalization," he said, "seeks to regulate and restrict access to cannabis and will make Canada safer." According to government statistics, as many as 4.6 million Canadians will consume an estimated total 655 metric tons of cannabis annually by 2018, spending an estimated Can$4.2 billion to Can$6.2 billion (USD $3.15-4.65 billion) each year. The new regulations closely follow recommendations proposed in December by a task force led by former deputy prime minister Anne McLellan. They would allow individuals to grow up to four plants at home for personal use. Personal possession, however, would be limited to 30 grams (one ounce). And access would be restricted to adults 18 years and older. Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale warned police would "come down hard" on illicit drug activities. Trafficking outside the new regime would continue to be illegal and punishable by up to 14 years in prison, as would selling cannabis to youths, driving under its influence, and importing or exporting pot. The drug has created new enforcement challenges because there has never been a legal or verified scientific test to determine a level of THC -- the psychoactive chemical in pot -- that causes impairment, for example, while driving. Under the new regime, police would use new roadside saliva or blood tests to determine if a person is intoxicated, a crime punishable by fines or up to 10 years in prison. Story continues - Strong public backing - The move to legalize recreational use of marijuana is supported by a strong majority of Canadians, but is not without controversy and is sure to provoke a fierce debate in parliament over the coming months. Trudeau himself admitted in 2013 to having smoked pot five or six times in his life, including at a dinner party with friends after being elected to parliament. He has also said that his late brother Michel was facing marijuana possession charges for a "tiny amount" of pot before his death in an avalanche in 1998, and that this influenced his decision to propose legalizing cannabis. Opposition parties are split on the issue. The New Democrats have called for its immediate decriminalization in order to end drug prosecutions they say are causing undue harm and wasting police resources. A frontrunner for the leadership of the Tories, Kellie Leitch, meanwhile, said she would repeal the bill and reinstate the ban, if elected. In anticipation of legalization, there has been a rush on licenses to produce medical marijuana, pot stocks have shot up, and dispensaries have opened in cities across the country vying for market share in what promises to be a lucrative business, leading to police raids and calls for sellers to wait for the legal regime. "It is important to note that as the bill moves through the legislative process, existing laws prohibiting possession and use of cannabis remain in place and they need to be respected," Goodale said Thursday. "This must be an orderly transition and not a free-for-all." Health groups have expressed concern about the potential impact of marijuana on developing brains under the age of 25. But a government-appointed task force has concluded that the "current science is not definitive on a safe age for cannabis use." Since the intention of legalization is to stop criminalizing users, the government chose an age that would not force adults under 25 to turn to the illicit market. It noted that in the handful of US states where recreational marijuana use is legal, the minimum age was set at 21, in line with alcohol consumption. Health Minister Jane Philpott also said that the government has earmarked nearly Can$10 million to educate Canadians about known risks of pot use. Geneva (AFP) - Canadian scientist Mark Wainberg -- described as a "giant" of HIV science and who had recently been working on finding a cure for the condition -- has died at the age of 71, UNAIDS said on Thursday. The internationally renowned scientist, who was at the forefront of HIV research from the very beginning of the global AIDS epidemic, drowned on Wednesday while swimming off Bal Harbour in Florida, Radio Canada said. "UNAIDS is deeply saddened by the tragic death of pioneering HIV researcher Mark Wainberg," the agency dedicated to battling the disease said in a statement. Wainberg and his colleagues identified one of the main anti-retroviral medicines used to treat HIV infection and also contributed to the understanding of HIV drug resistance. "Mark Wainberg was a giant in HIV science," UNAIDS chief Michel Sidibe said in a statement, stressing that the researcher's work "contributed to saving millions of lives". Linda-Gail Bekker, head of the International AIDS Society (IAS), which Wainberg lead from 1998, said the HIV/AIDS research community had "lost one of our fiercest champions". "He was the epitome of dedication from the earliest days of the response," she said, adding that "the impact of his work... will live on through the millions of people accessing HIV treatment and those of us who were lucky enough to know him". Wainberg, who served as an informal advisor to UNAIDS, was heading AIDS research at the Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research at the Jewish General Hospital and also of McGill University's AIDS Centre in Canada at the time of his death. During his time leading IAS, he organised the 13th International AIDS conference in Durban, South Africa, and he also co-chaired the same conference in Toronto in 2006. Paris (AFP) - From the tale of a mysterious giant beast to a family drama set against the European migrant crisis, here are the movies appearing in the main competition at next month's Cannes film festival: - 'The Beguiled' - Among the titles causing the most buzz at Cannes this year is Sofia Coppola's American Civil War thriller, a remake of the 1971 version starring Clint Eastwood, featuring Colin Farrell as a wounded soldier who seduces the women around him, including Nicole Kidman and Kirsten Dunst. - 'Okja' and 'The Meyerowitz Stories' - Netflix is premiering two movies at Cannes for the first time as the streaming giant makes increasing inroads to Hollywood alongside its rival Amazon. "Okja", starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Tilda Swinton, tells the tale of a girl who risks everything to protect a shy giant animal. Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller, Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman meanwhile star in "The Meyerowitz Stories", a comedy about siblings dealing with an ageing father. - 'Wonderstruck' and 'You Were Never Really Here' - Two Amazon-backed movies have also made the cut for the main competition. Julianne Moore and Michelle Williams star in "Wonderstruck", the story of two deaf children living parallel lives in the 1920s and 1970s. "You Were Never Really Here", the latest feature by "We Need To Talk About Kevin" director Lynne Ramsay, stars Joaquin Phoenix as a war veteran who tries to save a sex-trafficking victim. - 'Good Time' - "Twilight" heartthrob Robert Pattinson stars in this crime flick by indie director brothers Benny and Josh Safdie, about a bank robber struggling to evade the police. - 'Happy End' - Fresh from winning a string of accolades for "Elle", Isabelle Huppert is back in Michael Haneke's new family drama, set in northern France against the backdrop of the European migrant crisis. Story continues - 'The Killing of a Sacred Deer' - For the second time at this year's Cannes, Nicole Kidman and Colin Farrell team up for the tale of a boy attempting to bring a talented surgeon into his family, with disastrous consequences. - 'Le Redoutable' and 'Rodin' - Two French biopics have made it into the main competition. "Rodin" stars Jacques Doillon as the famed sculptor. "Redoutable" (Redoubtable), about legendary movie director Jean-Luc Godard, is the latest offering from Michel Hazanavicius, the man behind five-times Oscar winner "The Artist". - 'Les Fantomes de Ismael' (Ismael's Ghosts) - This drama about a filmmaker disturbed by the return of a former lover features A-list French talent in the form of Marion Cotillard, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Mathieu Amalric. - 'In The Fade' - Fatih Akin presents a story of revenge in Germany's Turkish community. - 'L'Amant Double' (The Double Lover) - French director Francois Ozon's thriller follows a young woman who falls in love with her therapist before realising he's not who she thought he was. - '120 battements par minute' A film by French-Moroccan director Robin Campillo following the work of an AIDS charity in Paris in the 1990s. - 'Radiance' - The latest film by Japan's Naomi Kawase follows a photographer whose eyesight is failing. - 'The Day After' - South Korean director Hong Sang-Soo will be bringing two films to Cannes -- his new feature "The Day After", and for a special screening, "Claire's Camera" featuring Isabelle Huppert, which was shot partly during last year's festival. - 'Jupiter's Moon' - The latest offering from Hungarian director Kornel Mundruczo, whose movie "White God" won the Cannes newcomers' prize in 2014. - 'Loveless' - A brutal depiction of life in a broken family, by Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev. - 'A Gentle Creature' - Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa brings us the bleak tale of a woman trying to learn the truth about a prison in remote Russia. Personhood to rivers Although there are thousands of rivers and rivulets in Nepal, Bagmati is the only one that has come to our notice Paris (AFP) - The Cannes Festival was due Thursday to unveil which films have made the cut for its 70th birthday edition, where the silver screen's finest will be vying for glory next month. Organisers of the world's top film event on the French Riviera traditionally guard their selections jealously for the competition and the out-of-competition programme, but there has been fevered speculation over the line-up for months. Sofia Coppola's "The Beguiled" is one film that industry insiders agree is likely to earn a spot at this year's Cannes. The daughter of Francis Ford Coppola is a Cannes veteran who previously premiered "Marie Antoinette" (2006) and her last feature film "The Bling Ring" (2013) at the festival. Her latest offering "The Beguiled", an American Civil War drama about a young soldier who seduces all the women around him, features an all-star cast including Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Colin Farrell and Elle Fanning. Organisers have tapped Pedro Almodovar, Spain's most celebrated living movie director, to lead the jury at this year's festival, which will run from May 17 to 28. The official selection of movies in competition will be announced at 0900 GMT on Thursday at a Paris hotel by festival director Thierry Fremaux and the president of the event, Pierre Lescure. The organisers typically wade through some 1,800 films to winnow them down to shortlists. It is a weary process for Fremaux, who told AFP last year that he and his selection committee "watch the movies right to the end". Another favourite to earn a slot in the official competition -- also starring Kidman and Fanning -- is John Cameron Mitchell's sci-fi romance "How to Talk to Girls At Parties". - Netflix debut? - Other films in the running include Todd Haynes' "Wonderstruck", starring Julianne Moore and Michelle Williams, a story about two deaf children told simultaneously in two different timelines. Story continues South Korean director Bong Joon-ho's "Okja" with Tilda Swinton and Jake Gyllenhaal -- about a young girl risking everything to save her best friend, a giant animal -- could become the first Netflix-backed feature to screen at the festival. "War Machine", another Netflix-backed effort starring Brad Pitt as a US army general in Afghanistan alongside Swinton and Ben Kingsley, is also in the running. Other likely contenders include "Redoubtable", a biopic of legendary French director Jean-Luc Godard, by Michel Hazanavicius who made Oscar-winning silent movie "The Artist". "Ismael's Ghosts" by Arnaud Desplechin, about a filmmaker disturbed by the return of his former love, has also been tipped, featuring A-list French talent in the form of Charlotte Gainsbourg, Marion Cotillard and Mathieu Amalric. DOLJEVAC, Serbia (AP) Fatima Bakhshi stays close to her mother and two sons, afraid she might lose them as they trudge through the cold Balkan darkness. The smuggler they've paid to escort them safely into Western Europe orders them to squeeze into a car with more than a dozen other migrants. Bakhshi, the boys in her lap, is crammed so tightly in the back that she can barely breathe. The driver swerves and she yells at him to stop. Other migrants snap at her to keep quiet and she dozes off. All she wants is a new life with relatives in Ireland, away from a brutish husband and a controlling father back in Afghanistan. In an instant, on a road in southern Serbia, the 26-year-old's dream turns into a nightmare. The car hits a barrier and overturns, killing Bakhshi's mother and another person. Bakhshi's younger son is hurt, and she is so badly wounded that her legs must be amputated above the knees. "I wake up in the hospital, I see I didn't have feet, there is doctors," Bakhshi says in broken English. "Where is my mother? Where is my feet? I am calling, crying, all the time I am crying." Bakhshi's tragedy highlights the dangers facing migrants particularly women who rely on smugglers to take them on dangerous journeys through Central and Eastern Europe in hopes of finding new lives in more prosperous countries to the west. She doesn't remember many details of her journey and finds others too hard to talk about, including how they found the smuggler and how much they paid. The driver of the car fled and it's not clear if he was ever found. Tens of thousands of people remain stranded across the Balkans after countries throughout Europe last year tightened migration rules and border controls. Most are fleeing war or poverty in the Middle East or Africa. Bakhshi fled a life of abuse in Afghanistan. When she was 16, her father pulled her out of school to marry a man 10 years her senior whom she had never seen before. She says he turned out to be a drug addict who harassed and beat her severely. Story continues A year ago, she tried to leave her abusive husband and return to her parents' home, but her father wouldn't take her in. Her mother decided to help her get away. The two set off with the boys, now ages 5 and 9. Details of the journey are hazy, but Bakhshi recalls that they first went to Pakistan, then to Iran, Turkey, Greece and Macedonia. They spent eight months in a refugee camp in Greece, then were detained and pushed back to Greece once from Macedonia, before finally reaching Serbia in December. "It's very hard. You don't understand because you don't see," Bakhshi said of the ordeal. "It's very hard (on) my feet, walking to mountain and from Iran to Turkey. It's very hard." "I come here with my mother, I think I'll be happy with my kids and then I had accident in car," she said. More than three months after the Dec. 29 crash, Bakhshi is now out of the hospital, staying in a small care home in the village of Doljevac, in southern Serbia. She has started a rehabilitation program that should result in prosthetic limbs. Her children are well, by her side. Faced with her immense loss, bed-ridden and desperate, Bakhshi speaks in a hushed, low voice, smiling only at the sight of her boys playing nearby. She said her only wish remains to join her mother's brother and other relatives in Ireland so her children can have a future in a larger family. "I don't want to live, I live just for my kids," she said sadly, bowing her head. "Before I liked learning. Now it's very hard. I just sleep." The United Nations refugee agency in Serbia, the UNHCR, has declared Bakhshi a refugee and offered to help resettle her in an as-yet-undecided third country where she can have access to a better treatment than in impoverished Serbia. But the agency cannot guarantee it will be Ireland. "This depends on the quotas that are at hand," said Davor Rako, an associate protection officer for the UNHCR. "At this point in time, unfortunately, Ireland does not have a quota for UNHCR, for settlement." Vladimir Bogosavljevic, a psychologist with Indigo, a group for children and youth that also works with migrants, has worked with Bakhshi and her children. He said he hopes to enroll the boys in a local school, but that the family is anxious not to separate at all. Bogosavljevic appealed to "people of good will and in high places" to help Bakhshi and the boys join their relatives in Ireland because "so far that is her only wish." "It's important to give her hope," he said. Bakhshi said that for her, Ireland also means a connection to her late mother, whom she considers the only friend she's ever had. "Always my mother helped me. Why my mother died?" she sobbed. "I had just mother in life. Why is like this, why?" The sculptor behind Wall Streets iconic Charging Bull called for New York City to pull the popular Fearless Girl statue, which he said has transformed his work of art from a positive image to a negative symbol of fear. Arturo Di Modica, 76, was emotional at a news conference Wednesday when he described how the new 4-ft. statue of a defiant little girl placed in front of the bronze bull has changed the message of his signature artwork from being a beacon of strength and power to a threat. Shes there attacking the bull, the longtime artist from Italy said about the statue of the girl, which was placed in the center of the worlds financial capital in early March, ahead of International Womens Day. Its really bad. What they did - its negative, he added. Melissa ChanArtist Arturo Di Modica, who created the iconic Charging Bull statue on Wall Street, is seen here with his lawyers and reporters on April 12, 2017 Di Modica and his attorneys said they have not dismissed the possibility of taking legal action against the city for allowing State Street Global Advisors, an investment-service company, to put the statue of the little girl in front of the bull without first asking Di Modica for permission. The lawyers argued that Di Modicas legal rights were violated. The fearless girl is fearless because shes confronting the bull, said Norman Siegel, one of the artists attorneys. State Street said it strategically placed the statue of the girl in front of the iconic bull to make a statement about gender diversity and to send a message to finance companies to increase the number of women on their corporate boards. It has inspired thousands of people across the world and has drawn flocks of spectators to the site. Mayor Bill de Blasio extended its permit for almost one year as a response to widespread requests to make it a permanent fixture. Men who dont like women taking up space are exactly why we need the Fearless Girl, the mayor tweeted Wednesday. Melissa ChanArturo Di Modica State Street said in a statement Wednesday that the Fearless Girl represents the power and potential of having more women in leadership. Our goal with Fearless Girl was to create a powerful symbol to stand as a reminder to corporations across the globe that having more women in leadership positions contributes to overall performance and strengthens our economy, spokeswoman Anne Mcnally said. Story continues Siegel said State Street sent its message of female empowerment while exploiting the bull for commercial purposes and hurting Di Modicas honor and reputation in the process. Remove her and place her somewhere else in the city, the attorney said. Were not asking it to be banned. Gender equality is a very serious and substantial issue. It permeates throughout our society, Siegel continued. None of us here today are in any way not proponents of gender equality, but there are issues of copyright and trademark. Principles trump popularity, Siegel added. This article was originally published on TIME.com Chinese exports surged in March, the largest jump in two years, in the latest sign of robust global demand as concerns ease over a possible trade war with the US after President Donald Trump softened his stance on Beijing. The new figures, released Thursday, boost hopes that the world's number two economy is getting back on track after a recent slowdown -- it grew last year at its slowest pace in a quarter of a century. Trump, who had a cordial summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping last week, reversed course on an election campaign promise to label Beijing a currency manipulator and slap punitive tariffs on Chinese imports. He traded in his acerbic denouncements of the Asian giant's "rape" of the US economy for warm praise, telling a press conference he was "very impressed" and shared "a very good chemistry" with Xi. In a positive sign for the Chinese economy, exports jumped 16.4 percent year-on-year to $180.6 billion in March, the country's customs agency said, marking a dramatic turnaround from the 1.3 percent year-on-year drop recorded in February. Imports also rose 20.3 percent year-on-year to $156.7 billion last month, Customs said, while the trade surplus increased to $23.9 billion. A pickup in external demand, surging import prices, and a stable domestic economy boosted the figures, Customs spokesman Huang Songping told a press briefing on Thursday. The March data "reflects strong domestic demand, particularly investment demand," Zhao Yang of Nomura said in a note. "China has finally caught up with the rest of Asia with the end of the trade recession," Raymond Yeung of Australia & New Zealand Banking Group told Bloomberg News. - Softening rhetoric - While recent data has suggested China's slowdown may be stabilising, the tough language deployed by Trump had raised concerns that growing friction between the world's two top traders could tank the global economy. Story continues On the campaign trail, the billionaire politician frequently took Beijing to task for its business and fiscal policies, branding the country a currency manipulator and threatening to slap 45 percent tariffs on its imports. China for years was accused of keeping its currency artificially low to make its exports cheaper and more competitive compared to US goods. But in an interview published on Wednesday in The Wall Street Journal, Trump said: "They're not currency manipulators." He added that Beijing had not been manipulating its currency for months -- a point economists have been making for a much longer time. "The risk of a trade war has diminished substantially" following recent discussions between the two leaders, said Australia & New Zealand Banking Group's Yeung. Nevertheless, the situation remains fluid. Trump has continued to hit out at China for its massive trade deficit with the US, which was $17.7 billion in March, according to the customs data. "The foreign trade situation in China is still complex with many instabilities and uncertainties, and the difficulties that China faces are not short-term ones," the agency's spokesman Huang said, adding that foreign trade expansion is likely to fall back in the second quarter. Trump and Xi have agreed to pursue a 100-day plan on trade, which could include measures to reduce the deficit. But it remains unclear how far China will go to increase US imports. "The reality is that China's domestic investments and property markets are the dominant growth drivers this year instead of trade," Betty Wang and David Qu of ANZ Research wrote in a note. (BEIJING/PYONGYANG) - Military force cannot resolve tension over North Korea, China said on Thursday, while an influential Chinese newspaper urged the North to halt its nuclear program in exchange for Chinese protection. With a U.S. aircraft carrier group steaming to the area and tension rising, South Korea said it believed the United States would consult it before any pre-emptive strike against the North. Fears have been growing that the reclusive North could soon conduct its sixth nuclear test or more missile launches in defiance of U.N. sanctions and stark warnings from the United States that a policy of patience was over. China, North Koreas sole major ally and benefactor, which nevertheless opposes its weapons program, has called for talks leading to a peaceful resolution and the denuclearization of the peninsula. Military force cannot resolve the issue, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters in Beijing. Amid challenge there is opportunity. Amid tensions we will also find a kind of opportunity to return to talks. While U.S. President Donald Trump has put North Korea on notice that he would not tolerate any provocation, U.S. officials have said his administration was focusing its strategy on tougher economic sanctions. Trump has diverted the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier group towards the Korean peninsula, which could take more than a week to arrive, in a show of force aimed at deterring North Korea from conducting another nuclear test or launching more missiles to coincide with important events and anniversaries. The possibility of U.S. military action gained traction after the U.S. Navy fired 59 Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian airfield last week in response to a deadly gas attack. Wang warned that history would hold any instigator to account. Whoever provokes the situation, whoever continues to make trouble in this place, they will have to assume historical responsibility, Wang said. South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se told parliament in Seoul he believed Washington would consult Seoul if it was considering a pre-emptive strike. The United States has about 28,500 troops in South Korea. Story continues A Washington-based think-tank that monitors North Korea, 38 North, said satellite images on Wednesday showed activity around the Norths Punggye-ri nuclear test site on the east coast that indicated it was ready for a new test. South Korean officials said there were no new signs to indicate a test was more likely, although they also said the North appeared ready to conduct a test at any time. An influential state-backed Chinese newspaper said the best option for North Korea and its leader, Kim Jong Un, was to give up its nuclear programme, and China would protect it if it did. As soon as North Korea complies with Chinas declared advice and suspends nuclear activities ... China will actively work to protect the security of a denuclearised North Korean nation and regime, said an editorial in the Global Times, which is published by the Communist partys Peoples Daily. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe underscored fears about threats from North Korea, telling parliament in Tokyo that Pyongyang could have the capacity to deliver missiles equipped with sarin nerve gas. A senior Japanese diplomat said the United States was putting maximum pressure on North Korea to resolve issues peacefully while putting responsibility on China to sway its old ally. We will watch what action China takes, the diplomat said. While Japan did not see a high risk of military action, it expected to be consulted by the United States if it decided to attack. North Korea has about 350 missiles that can hit Japan. DAY OF THE SUN About 200 foreign journalists gathered in Pyongyang for North Koreas biggest national day, the Day of the Sun, were taken to what officials billed as a big and important event early on Thursday. It turned out to be the opening of a new street in the centre of the capital, attended by leader Kim. North Korea marks the 105th anniversary of the birth of state founder Kim Il Sung on Saturday. In 2012, it tried but failed to launch a long-range rocket carrying a satellite to mark the date and tested a newly developed intermediate-range missile last year. North Koreas official KCNA news agency said early on Thursday that Kim Jong Un had guided training of the armys special operation forces jumping from aircraft. On Tuesday, North Korea warned of a nuclear attack on the United States at any sign of American aggression. The North is technically at war with the United States and South Korea after the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce and not a peace treaty. The North regularly threatens to destroy both countries. U.S. officials said Trump was considering sanctions that could include an oil embargo, banning North Koreas airline, intercepting cargo ships, and punishing Chinese banks doing business with it. Theres a whole host of things that are possible, all the way up to whats essentially a trade quarantine on North Korea, one official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters in Washington. Customs data in Beijing on Thursday showed that Chinas coal imports from North Korea had plunged 51.6 percent in the first three months in 2017 from a year ago. China suspended issue of permits for coal imports from North Korea on Feb. 18 as part of its effort to implement U.N. sanctions. Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke by telephone on Wednesday, just days after they met in the United States for the first time, underscoring the sense of urgency about North Korea. Trump said on Twitter his call with Xi was a very good discussion of the menace of North Korea. He said later on Wednesday the United States was prepared to tackle the crisis without China, if necessary. Additional reporting by Natalie Thomas in Pyongyang, Ju-min Park and James Pearson in Seoul, Christian Shepherd in Beijing, Linda Sieg in Tokyo, and Matt Spetalnick, David Brunnstrom and Jeff Mason in Washington This article was originally published on TIME.com President Donald Trump spoke with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping by phone Wednesday, the latter calling for a peaceful resolution to escalating tensions between the U.S. and North Korea. Xi told Trump that Beijing proposed to resolve the issue through peaceful means, according to a readout released by Chinas Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The statement said that Xi also stressed his commitment to denuclearization on the peninsula, safeguarding peace and stability, stating that China remains willing to coordinate with the U.S. toward those ends. The readout does not specify who initiated the call, made just days after the U.S. alarmed Asian leaders by dispatching an aircraft carrier and strike fleet to waters near the Korean Peninsula in an apparent display of force. The move made regional neighbors nervous and infuriated Pyongyang, which warned of catastrophic responses to any further aggression by the U.S. military. North Koreas progress toward nuclear armament was high on the agenda when Trump and Xi met for the first time in Florida last week, though no breakthrough was announced for further cooperation on curbing Pyongyangs weapons program. Prior to their meeting, Trump had warned that he may attempt to use trade as leverage to coerce Beijing into cooperating, while warning that the U.S. was prepared to act unilaterally if China would not assist. Read More: Unilateral Action by Trump on North Korea Will Simply Add to an Already Intractable Problem Pyongyang has provoked Washington by carrying out five nuclear tests since 2006, and increasingly frequent missile launches. Trump expounded on Twitter this week that he had explained to Xi during their meeting that trade with the U.S. will be far better for them if they solve the North Korean problem! This was followed shortly by another tweet reiterating that the U.S. was prepared to act alone. North Korea is looking for trouble. If China decides to help, that would be great. If not, we will solve the problem without them! U.S.A., read the tweet. This article was originally published on TIME.com By Philip Wen and Joseph Campbell DANDONG, China (Reuters) - Despite heightened tension on the Korean peninsula and North Korea warning of a nuclear strike against any sign of U.S. aggression, there were few signs of strain on Thursday on the main border post between China and the reclusive nation. In Dandong, through which about three-quarters of China's trade with North Korea flows, long queues of trucks heading in both directions formed across the Friendship Bridge, despite what locals said was a relative lull due to the North's most important national holiday on Saturday marking the birth of founder president Kim Il Sung. China has signed up to wide-ranging United Nations sanctions designed at halting Pyongyang's nuclear and ballistic missile programs, and local traders told Reuters that blanket bans on key North Korean commodities exports like coal, iron ore powder and precious metals have dealt a blow to business. Trade across the border is now mainly food, textiles, plastic goods, other household items and some commodities, the traders said. Dandong residents said they were well aware of the mounting tension on the Korean peninsula, fuelled by Pyongyang's repeated ballistic missile and nuclear tests, South Korea's installation of the THAAD anti-missile system in response, and a U.S. aircraft carrier group heading to the region in a show of force. Most expressed a little anxiety, but were largely confident the situation would not flare out of control. "If a war starts, then the situation on the peninsula will completely get chaotic," said 66-year-old retiree Cai Zhengsun, who was strolling along the Yalu River, which marks the border between the two countries. "When Xi Jinping spoke with the U.S. president, he mentioned maintaining the peace on the peninsula," Cai said, referring to Wednesday's telephone conversation between the leaders of the China and the United States. "(Xi) won't allow any attacks. Although the U.S. is the world's hegemonic power, it wouldn't dare to take actions." China, which shares a long land border with North Korea, is the reclusive state's sole major ally and main trading partner. At their Florida summit meeting last week, U.S. President Donald Trump pressed Xi to do more to curb North Korea's nuclear programme. Trump said on Tuesday that North Korea was "looking for trouble" and Washington would "solve the problem" with or without China's help. The worry is that the reclusive North could hold its sixth nuclear test or more missile launches in defiance of United Nations sanctions around the time of its founder's birth anniversary. Trump has put North Korea on notice that he will not tolerate provocative actions. TRADE SLOWED Trade has slowed at the border, Chinese transport workers said. At one logistics centre for metal shipments visited by Reuters, workers were busy unloading North Korean trucks arriving from across the border. They said flows of North Korean trucks had slowed to a trickle of three or four a day since February, down from the usual 20. "Only shipments of lead are being allowed through," said the centre's foreman, who asked to be identified only by his last name, Zhang. "We used to trade all metals here, gold, silver, iron ore powder from North Korea just not copper, they keep it there for military use." China has long been wary of cutting off trade completely for fear that it could trigger a regime collapse that would send millions of North Koreans surging across the border seeking refuge. China and North Korea enjoy "normal trade activities", Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told reporters in Beijing. "It is beyond dispute for us to maintain normal trade relations with North Korea while observing our obligations to the Security Council resolutions," Lu said. However, away from official channels, unregulated grey market trade continues to flourish. At Dandong's Yicuomao port, a stream of Chinese fishing vessels carries grains and potatoes, besides alcohol, candy and cooking gas, for barter with North Korean fishermen. The vessels return from one-day round trips to North Korean waters full of fresh seafood. The Chinese fishermen who work the boats say they are often shocked by the apparent poverty of their North Korean counterparts who look "close to starvation". "What happens to the food we bring when it gets there, I don't know," one said. (Additional reporting by Christian Shepherd in Beijing; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan) By Stephanie Nebehay GENEVA (Reuters) - More than 25,000 people in famine-threatened Somalia have been struck by cholera or acute watery diarrhoea and the deadly epidemic should double by this summer, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Thursday. The United Nations is already racing to avoid a repeat of famine in the drought-hit Horn of African nation where more than 250,000 people died of starvation in 2011. Cholera, which is endemic in Somalia, is an acute diarrhoeal disease that can kill within hours if left untreated. Malnourished children under five years are especially vulnerable. Already 25,424 infected people have been identified since the start of the year, WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said by email, adding: "These numbers are projected to increase to 50,000 by summer." The case fatality rate for the disease, spread by contaminated food or water, is already 2.1 percent in Somalia, twice the emergency threshold, he said. At least 524 deaths have been recorded. Cholera can be successfully treated with oral rehydration solution. Severe cases will need rapid treatment with intravenous fluids and antibiotics, according to the WHO. Death rates among Somalis infected with cholera now reach 14.1 percent in Middle Juba and 5.1 percent in Bakool, U.N. spokesman Jens Laerke told a news briefing. "We still have 2.9 million people in level 3 and 4, level 4 being the step just before we declare a famine," Laerke said, referring to the U.N. classification. "So almost 3 million in those critical and crisis emergency levels." The centre of cholera outbreak is Baidoa, David Akopyan, U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) deputy country director for Somalia, told the briefing by telephone from the capital Mogadishu. Thirteen of Somalia's 18 regions are affected, he said. Some 500,000 Somalis have been internally displaced, many in search of water, as well as some 3 million pastoralists who have lost 70 percent of their livestock due to drought, he said. Akopyan, asked about famine, replied: "We are not exactly there, the fear is that in two months if things are not scaled up we will get there ... Hopefully famine will be prevented." (Corrects day in first para to Thursday from Friday) (Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Tom Heneghan) Prez bhandari to pay state visit to India on Monday President Bidya Dev Bhandari will be paying a state visit to India from April 17 to 21, Nepal and India officially announced on Wednesday. By Warren Strobel and Mark Hosenball WASHINGTON (Reuters) - CIA Director Mike Pompeo on Thursday called WikiLeaks a "hostile intelligence service," using his first public speech as spy agency chief to denounce leakers who have plagued U.S. intelligence. Pompeo, in an address at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, called WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange "a fraud" and "a coward." "It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is, a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia," Pompeo said. He said Russia's GRU military intelligence service used Wikileaks to distribute material hacked from Democratic National Committee computers during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia stole the emails and took other actions to tilt the election in favor of eventual winner Donald Trump, a Republican, against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Pompeo and President Donald Trump, who chose him to head the CIA, have not always been so critical of WikiLeaks. During a campaign rally last October, Trump praised the group for releasing hacked emails from the DNC by saying, "I love WikiLeaks." In July, Pompeo, than a Republican member of the House of Representatives, mentioned it in a Twitter post referring to claims that the DNC had slanted the candidate-selection process to favor Clinton. "Need further proof that the fix was in from Pres. Obama on down? BUSTED: 19,252 Emails from DNC Leaked by Wikileaks." WikiLeaks has published secret documents from the U.S. government and others and says its mission is to fight government secrecy and promote transparency. Pompeo said it has "encouraged its followers to find jobs at CIA in order to obtain intelligence." Assange has been holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London since 2012, after taking refuge there to avoid extradition to Sweden over allegations of rape, which he denies. Story continues Two of Assange's lawyers and a Wikileaks spokesman did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Pompeo's remarks. Pompeo's speech on Thursday follows a series of damaging leaks of highly sensitive CIA and National Security Agency material. In March, WikiLeaks published thousands of pages of internal CIA discussions that revealed hacking techniques the agency had used against iPhones, Android devices and other targets. Pompeo also had harsh words for Edward Snowden, the former National Security Administration contractor who downloaded thousands of documents revealing some of the electronic eavesdropping agency's most sensitive programs and shared them with journalists. "More than a thousand foreign targets, people, groups, organizations, more than a thousand of them changed or tried to change how they communicated as a result of the Snowden disclosures," Pompeo said. "That number is staggering." U.S. intelligence agencies have struggled to deal with "insider threats" - their own employees or contractors who steal classified materials and, in some cases, publicize them. In response to a question, Pompeo disputed Russia's account of a chemical weapons attack in Syria that prompted retaliatory cruise missile strikes by Trump last week. Moscow has said that Syrian rebels, rather than the Syrian government, were responsible. "None of the (accounts) have an ounce of truth in them," Pompeo said, calling Russian President Vladimir Putin "a man for whom veracity doesn't translate into English." (Additional reporting by Eric Walsh; Editing by Eric Beech and Bill Trott) Washington (AFP) - Central Intelligence Agency Director Mike Pompeo on Thursday branded WikiLeaks a "hostile intelligence service," saying it threatens democratic nations and joins hands with dictators. In his first public remarks since becoming chief of the US spy agency in February, Pompeo focused on the anti-secrecy group and other leakers of classified information like Edward Snowden as one of the key threats facing the United States. "WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service. It has encouraged its followers to find jobs at CIA in order to obtain intelligence... And it overwhelmingly focuses on the United States, while seeking support from anti-democratic countries and organizations," said Pompeo. "It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is - a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia." Pompeo compared WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange to leakers of the pre-internet days like former CIA official Philip Agee. Agee's exposing the identities of undercover CIA agents was blamed for the assassination of the agency's Athens station chief in 1974. On Wednesday, Assange published an opinion piece in the Washington Post in which he said his group's mission was the same as America's most respected newspapers: "to publish newsworthy content." "WikiLeaks's sole interest is expressing constitutionally protected truths," he said, professing "overwhelming admiration for both America and the idea of America." - CIA hacking files leaked - While it has released secret materials from around the world, WikiLeaks's notoriety comes from its US-related scoops. In 2010 it published 251,000 classified cables from US embassies around the world. Last year it published files and communications from the Democratic Party, damaging presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's campaign. US intelligence says that release was part of a Russian plot to aid eventual election victor Donald Trump. Story continues The FBI and other US agencies are in fact investigating alleged ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. The Guardian newspaper in Britain reported Thursday that British intelligence played a critical role in alerting the US government to contacts between members of Trump's campaign team and Russian intelligence operatives. Quoting a source close to British intelligence, the paper said that in late 2015 the British intelligence organization known as GCHQ became aware of suspicious "interactions" between figures connected to Trump and known or suspected Russian agents, and passed this information along to the Americans. Last month, WikiLeaks embarrassed the CIA and damaged its operations by releasing a large number of files and computer code from the agency's top secret hacking operations. The data showed how the CIA exploits vulnerabilities in popular computer and networking hardware and software to gather intelligence. Counterintelligence investigators continue to try to find out who stole the files and handed them to WikiLeaks. Assange meanwhile criticized the US agency for not telling the tech industry and authorities about those vulnerabilities so they can be fixed. Pompeo said Assange portrays himself as a crusader but in fact helps enemies of the United States, including aiding Russia's interference in last year's presidential election. "Assange and his ilk make common cause with dictators today. Yes, they try unsuccessfully to cloak themselves and their actions in the language of liberty and privacy; in reality, however, they champion nothing but their own celebrity. Their currency is clickbait; their moral compass, nonexistent." However, Pompeo did not comment on how Trump has previously lavished praise on Assange for the information he has made public. Nor did Pompeo mention that he himself had cited and linked to WikiLeaks in a tweet attacking the Democratic Party. Pompeo at the time was a Republican congressman and member of the House Intelligence Committee. The CIA declined to comment on that. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S.-led air strike mistakenly killed 18 members of a Kurdish and Arab militia backed by Washington south of the Syrian city of Tabqa, the Pentagon said on Thursday. The U.S.-led coalition forces struck the position on Tuesday after another partner in the fight wrongly told them its was occupied by Islamic State militants, the Pentagon said, underlining the complex nature of the conflict. "The target location was actually a forward Syrian Democratic Forces fighting position," the statement added. The SDF is fighting in a campaign to encircle and ultimately capture Raqqa city, Islamic State's main base of operations in Syria. The militia has closed in on the Islamic State-held Tabqa area, a focus of heavy fighting, about 40 km (25 miles) west of Raqqa. The SDF said its leadership was working with the coalition to investigate the incident and prevent it from happening again. "In the area of military operations near Tabqa and as a result of error, a painful incident took place" causing several casualties, the SDF said in a statement. (Reporting by the Washington Newsroom, additional reporting by Ellen Francis in Beirut) The Colorado State University student, who was body-slammed to the ground face-first in Fort Collins a week ago, says the violent takedown at the hands of a police officer has left her "humiliated." Read: Cops Facing Excessive Force Allegations After Female College Student Is Body-Slammed at Bar "Like all my bones were shattering in my face. I was so humiliated because everyone was watching me," Michaella Surat, 22, told Good Morning America Thursday morning. The college junior suffered a concussion and bruises on her chin. I can't go to school without feeling like someone's going to approach me and hurt me," she said. "Im getting death threats online." The Fort Collins police officer was responding to a bar fight last Thursday that allegedly involved the young woman's boyfriend. In the video, which was released over the weekend, Surat appears to be pushing away from the officer, who then slams her to the ground. The department called the move "standard arrest control." I found out that my boyfriend got kicked out of the bar so I went outside just to see what happened," Surat recalled. "Then the altercation happened and one thing led to another and it just escalated. Cops deny it was excessive force, saying she "physically obstructed and struck" the cop. The college student was charged with third-degree assault and obstructing an officer. She is due back in court next month. This shouldn't happen to anyone, no matter their size, race or color, this shouldn't happen to anyone. It's unbelievable, she said. Read: Aspiring Rapper Eats $621 Worth of Seafood, Then Jumps in the Sea to Beat the Check: Cops "This event will be thoroughly investigated," Fort Collins Police Services Chief John Hutto posted in a lengthy statement on Facebook Sunday. He added that the police were wearing body cameras and that footage will not be released until the case is closed. Story continues I have no control over the video that is already in the public domain, but I do have control over the release of the video evidence from our body worn cameras," Hutto wrote. "This is an open investigation and to release evidence, absent a truly compelling reason, would not be proper. I am committed to preserving a process that ensures a fair and impartial outcome. I am equally committed to preserving the rights of both Ms. Surat and the involved officers." Watch: Cop Tackles Man Seen Hitting Police Station Windows With Baseball Bat Related Articles: By David Lewis KINSHASA (Reuters) - In June 2015, the Belgian company Semlex signed a deal to supply biometric passports to the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to documents reviewed by Reuters. A few weeks later two companies based in the United Arab Emirates made payments totaling $700,000 to private bank accounts held in the name of Emmanuel Adrupiako, a Kabila adviser who helped handle the passport deal, according to bank documents and emails reviewed by Reuters. The two UAE-based companies have connections to Semlex, but it isn't clear whether the payments were related to the passport deal. Adrupiako did not respond to requests for comment. One of the UAE-based companies was named Berea International and the other Cedovane, both registered in Ras Al Khaimah. Officials at the emirate's corporate regulator, RAK Investment Authority, would not comment on either of the companies, citing confidentiality rules. However, Reuters reviewed an "incumbency certificate" for Berea an official document issued by the RAK Investment Authority that gives basic information about a business. It states that Semlex CEO Albert Karaziwan is a director, secretary and sole shareholder of Berea. Another director of Berea is Karaziwan's associate Cedric Fevre. Fevre is also a director of Cedovane, a Cedovane document shows. The payments to Adriupiako went through United Arab Bank (UAB). A copy of UAB documentation seen by Reuters shows that on July 29, 2015, Cedovane paid $300,000 to an account Adrupiako holds in Quebec with the Royal Bank of Canada. The reason given for the $300,000 payment was "loan agreement," according to the document. Royal Bank of Canada declined to comment. Fevre did not respond to requests for comment about Cedovane. A few weeks later, on Aug. 25, Berea paid $400,000 to an account Adrupiako has with Jyske Bank in Denmark. That payment triggered concern in Copenhagen. When Jyske Bank asked for further information, Adrupiako told the bank the money was to pay for a four-storey building Berea was renting off him as it set up shop in Kinshasa, according to bank emails and a Berea contract reviewed by Reuters. Jyske Bank said it could not comment, citing client confidentiality. UAB said in a statement to Reuters that it had followed the requirements set by its regulator in handling payments. A Reuters reporter visited the address in Kinshasa where the rented building was said to be located. The reporter found a four-storey building still under construction and there was no sign that Berea had any presence there. (Additional reporting by Noah Browning and Tom Arnold in Dubai, Stanley Carvalho in Abu Dhabi, Teis Jensen in Copenhagen, Robert-Jan Bartunek in Brussels and Matt Scuffham in Toronto; Editing By Richard Woods and Michael Williams) WASHINGTON (AP) The conservative Club for Growth is targeting powerful committee chairmen and other top Republicans, part of an aggressive ad campaign to rally support for the GOP's struggling health care overhaul effort. The television and digital ads, unveiled earlier this week, pressure Republicans to a back a revised version of the GOP health care bill that Speaker Paul Ryan abruptly withdrew last month because it lacked the votes. The Trump administration offered a new proposal last week in talks with conservative lawmakers. Under the changes, states could seek federal waivers from requirements under President Barack Obama's health care law that insurers charge healthy and seriously ill consumers the same premiums, and that they cover specified medical services like mental health counseling. The ads will air in the districts of Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee who was instrumental in pushing for the original health care bill through his panel; Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, R-N.J., head of the Appropriations Committee who opposed the GOP bill; and Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., a chief deputy whip who helps round up votes for leadership. "President Trump and House conservatives have come together with a new plan," the ad says. "It lowers premiums by giving Illinois the freedom to end Obamacare's costly and ridiculous rules. So, who's standing in the way? Professional politicians like Congressman Greg Walden." The ad urges viewers to call Walden's office. Republican moderates and conservatives had mixed reactions to the White House proposal, and Congress left town for a two-week recess without voting on any legislation. The Republican bill would repeal much of Obama's 2010 law, including tax penalties for people who don't buy policies. It would provide tax credits that would be smaller than Obama's for many lower-earning and older recipients, and would also cut Medicaid, which helps poorer people afford medical care. In a major setback for the GOP, Ryan withdrew the bill after Trump and leadership failed to convince enough House Republicans to back the legislation. Club officials had said they will spend $1 million on national ads on television and online. The ads also will run in the districts of Republican Reps. Chris Collins of New York, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, Martha McSally of Arizona, Pat Tiberi of Ohio, Charlie Dent and Tim Murphy of Pennsylvania and Evan Jenkins of West Virginia. Last summer's high-profile Florida shooting of an autism patient's unarmed caregiver has now led to charges against the police officer who pulled the trigger. The Miami-Dade State Attorney issued a warrant Wednesday for the arrest of North Miami Police Officer Jonathan Aledda in connection with the shooting of behavioral therapist Charles Kinsey. Read: Cop Who Shot Therapist Says He Was Aiming for Autistic Patient: 'I Took This Job to Save Lives' In July 2016, Aledda and others from the North Miami Police Department responded to a call about a man, possibly suicidal, with a silver weapon in his hand. The initial call came when a resident of the Miami Achievement Center for the Developmentally Disabled (MACtown), who required 24-hour one-on-one supervision, left the facility with his silver tanker truck toy in-hand, according to a statement from the state attorney's office. Kinsey, the man's behavioral therapist, closely followed in an attempt to return him to the facility. To assess the situation, North Miami police spread out over several blocks. Video of the incident shows Kinsey trying to coax the patient, seen sitting cross-legged with the toy truck in his lap, back to the center. Though he was unarmed, Kinsey said he instinctively put his hands in the air as police arrived. Two police officers were within 20 feet of the situation when Officer Aledda, who was 152 feet away, fired three shots from his Colt M4 Carbine rifle, the state attorney said. "Officer Aledda was not in a position to correctly assess the situation or in a position to accurately fire. It was one of Officer Aleddas shots which struck Charles Kinsey," the state attorney said. A statement from the Dade County Police Benevolent Association would later defend Aledda, who they say was aiming for the autistic patient and "missed." Police approached Kinsey and he was handcuffed while bleeding on the concrete, he said. Story continues When Kinsey asked an officer why he was shot, he claimed the officer responded, "I don't know." The video sparked national outrage as viewers asked that same question. "I was thinking as long as I have my hands up, theyre not going to shoot me," Kinsey later told reporters from a hospital bed. "This is what I'm thinking they're not going to shoot me. Wow, was I wrong." Aledda has been charged with attempted manslaughter, a felony, and one misdemeanor count of culpable negligence. "These charges are the result of a lengthy inquiry which included a prosecutorial review of the police investigation, numerous police and prosecutor meetings to review case evidence, site re-enactments and the taking of additional statements of police witnesses after the completion of the FDLE investigation," the state attorney wrote. Watch: Hero Mom Wounded While Shielding Her Sons From Gunfire During Dallas Sniper Attack Aledda's attorney, Robert Switkes, told ABC News following the filing of charges that his client would be exonerated, saying it was "totally inappropriate to bring any charges against the officer." In a statement he made last summer, Aledda said, "I took this job to save lives and help people... I did what I had to do in a split second to accomplish that and hate to hear others paint me as something I'm not." Watch: Community Outraged After Unarmed Black Man Gunned Down by White Police Officer Related Articles: Rio de Janeiro (AFP) - Brazilians are glued to a mesmerizing, disturbing new version of reality TV: back-to-back broadcasts of jailed executives accusing President Michel Temer and almost every other big politician of corruption. Move over torrid telenovelas and BBB, as Big Brother Brazil is known: a bigger, badder and certainly far more serious drama dominated Thursday. Soaps have their melodramatic lovers and BBB its cast of telegenic exhibitionists. The stars of this show, playing ceaselessly on national television, are mostly balding middle-aged men with glasses. But their story is the most explosive Brazil has seen for decades. They are the 77 former executives of major Brazilian engineering company Odebrecht who have pleaded guilty to running Brazil's biggest ever bribery network. In hopes of getting reduced sentences, the executives opened up to prosecutors, telling them how Odebrecht ran a special department to bribe every political party and many of the country's most famous politicians. For months, all that testimony -- in the form of videotaped depositions and documents -- remained sealed. But late Tuesday, Supreme Court Justice Edson Fachin ordered investigations into nearly 100 politicians on the basis of the Odebrecht allegations. And soon after, the plea bargain testimony was released to the public. In barely disguised panic, the nation's capital emptied, legislators deserting Congress. By Thursday they showed no sign of returning. But wherever politicians went they wouldn't be able to avoid Globo television and other outlets, endlessly replaying the videotaped testimony. Corruption had become the biggest show on air. - Lies and videotape - Top billing goes to Marcelo Odebrecht, who was CEO of the family enterprise and, until his arrest in the sweeping corruption investigation named "Operation Car Wash," one of Brazil's most prestigious businessmen. Odebrecht was sentenced to 19 years prison in 2016. On the videos, he wears a collared shirt and sometimes a blazer, looking like a self-confident executive as he recounts his crimes -- and alleged political partners -- in detail. Story continues Odebrecht is heard saying that he illicitly funnelled about $144 million to the politicians being investigated. Odebrecht and his former colleagues finger just about every top leader, including President Michel Temer and ex-presidents Dilma Rousseff, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and three more former heads of state. Many of the company's payments were in the form of undeclared donations to political parties, which prosecutors say amounted to a kind of generalized bribe buying influence right across the political spectrum. "Everyone committed this crime," Odebrecht is heard saying. "I don't know a single politician who went through any election without" the slush funds. Twisting the knife, the disgraced executive turned state's witness says: "The guy can even say he didn't know, but he received the money." As it happens, Temer is one of the few prominent politicians not to appear on the list of those facing investigation. As a sitting president, he has immunity. However, any initial relief he felt must have been dented by the clip of former executive Marcio Faria telling prosecutors that Odebrecht bribed Temer's PMDB party at a 2010 meeting presided over by the then future president. A deal was struck in Temer's Sao Paulo office for Odebrecht to win a contract with state oil giant Petrobras and "it was clear that we were talking about a bribe," Faria said. Allegedly Odebrecht was to pay the PMDB $40 million, or five percent of the contract's value. Until then, Temer had tried to stay above the fray, urging calm in Brasilia. But publication of Faria's testimony dragged him right into the muck. He replied by a video of his own Thursday, saying that "what repulses me are lies." "Its a fact that I participated in a meeting in 2010 with a representative of one of the largest firms in the country," he said. "But it is a lie that in our meeting I would have heard reference to financial amounts or scandalous business between the company and politicians." "My greatest ally is the truth, the raw material of the justice system, which will reveal all the truth of the facts." Pulse rate for mobile calls to be halved Mobile phone users will be paying less for their calls from Friday as the Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA) has ordered phone companies to halve the pulse duration from 20 to 10 seconds. Photo credit: Getty From Cosmopolitan Emily Haas, now 29, was in French class in Virginia Tech's Norris Hall on April 16, 2007, when gunman Seung-Hui Cho burst in and opened fire, shooting Emily twice in the head. He killed 12 people - including himself - in that room, as part of what remains one of the deadliest mass shootings in the United States; 32 people were killed that day and dozens more wounded across the VT campus. Ahead of the the 10-year anniversary of the attack, Emily's mom Lori, 57, spoke to Cosmopolitan.com about how their lives changed that day - and how she was once apathetic toward guns but has committed her life to gun violence prevention as the Virginia State Director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence as a result of the attack. Emily is my oldest child, and my only daughter. She has two younger brothers, so she was the first to go to college. Of course your greatest fear for your children entering college is that they wont make good decisions. You want your children safe and healthy and whole; I recall being worried for her safety, that shed abuse alcohol or get date-raped ... the kinds of things a lot of mothers worry about, you know? You dont prepare your children for mass shootings. I didnt even discuss guns with Emily. April 16, 2007 was a Monday. Emily had been home for the weekend and she had gone back [to school] Sunday afternoon around four or five oclock. Monday morning I got up and met my minister at the store. We were going to shop for fabric for stoles for my middle child's confirmation. My phone rang several times - ten years ago cell phones werent really integrated into everyday life as they are now, and I just recall saying, Oh my Gosh, Im with my minister, it would be so rude of me to look at my phone. At one point, though, and I dont know why, either divine intervention or sheer stupid luck, my phone rang again. I looked at it in my purse and I didnt recognize the number but I saw the area code was 540, which is Blacksburg, Virginia, [where Virginia Tech is located]. I said to myself, I need to answer this call. Story continues It was Emily on the line. She just said, Hi mommy, Ive been shot. Theres shooting all over. Im OK. She was with an EMT who was a young mother herself, and after she had triaged Emily, she handed Emily her personal cell phone and said, Call your mom and dad. This is a very bad scenario. They dont need to hear this on the news, they need to hear it from you. I called my husband as I rushed home. He wasnt as shocked quite as I was - his mother had called and told him there had been a shooting on campus but that it was in a dormitory and Emily was living in a sorority house at that time. He didn't think she'd been near the shooting. I was ... frantic. Just frantic. Thinking Do we pack? Are we going to be there for a day? Are we going to be there for three days? What does Emily need? What do we need? How soon can we get there and what in the hell is going on? Emergency vehicles and law enforcement vehicles and unmarked cars were passing us by the dozens and dozens on the drive there. It was just the most surreal thing. Can you imagine going 85, 90 miles an hour down the highway and people are passing you? And were listening to the radio while the body count goes higher and higher and higher. When the body count had gotten to 22 I said to my husband, How many parents are making this same drive to pick up dead children? I was trying to wrap my brain around the fact that Emily was OK, but I was terribly upset that there were other parents making that same drive to rush to the sides of their dead children. It was disturbing beyond comprehension. How many parents are making this same drive to pick up dead children? Meanwhile, we got a second call from the EMT not long after we got in the car and a third call came not long after, maybe an hour after that. Emily was assuring us she was fine, and she tried to tell us we didnt need to come. We got to the hospital mid-afternoon and she was in a hospital room. We got to see her and hug her. She'd been grazed in the head by two bullets. Her injury just required stitches and the [physical] recovery was minimal. She was OK. But we quickly got shuffled out of the room because she was surrounded by law enforcement who needed to talk to her as a first-hand witness. We spent that night in Blacksburg. We went to her sorority house late that afternoon [to get her things], and then took her to a friend of a friends house for the night - the hospital had wanted to keep her overnight but she didnt want to, so we didnt make her. We drove back to Richmond on Tuesday, all the while trying to comprehend what had happened, the magnitude of what had happened. Reports were slow. Everybody knew about the tragedy and knew about the body count, but nobody knew about the hows, the whys, the wheres, the whens, the chronology. None of that became apparent for weeks. The aftermath [of a shooting] is hard to describe. Youre just putting one foot in front of the other; all of a sudden the world doesnt remotely resemble what it did the day before. Everythings changed and youre adrift. You dont know whats going on. [I remember on] Wednesday night, Emily and I didnt sleep at all. She came down in the middle of the night sometime and we sat in the den. She had a piece of paper and she was trying to figure out who was dead and who was alive. She said I know these classmates were killed, and I know where Allison is and I know where Colin is, and I dont know where so-and-so is. She did not want the TV on because she did not want to hear or see anything about the shooter. I do think the media has had the tendency to give shooters too much coverage. Of course we need to learn from these tragedies about the motivation of the shooter and what the circumstances were that lead them to be armed. However, notoriety is often what these shooters seek and the media should not provide that. I never use the shooter's name if I can help it. And I don't believe Emily has ever uttered his name aloud. Photo credit: Courtesy of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence We had tons and tons of support and compassion from friends and family. Our family was here 24/7. Emily has 20-plus cousins, so, if you can imagine, it was crazy. And after three or four days at home with family, we began to try to pick up some pieces and gently figure out what she wanted to do to move forward. But theres just no guidebook. I couldnt go online and search How do you parent a 19-year-old who was shot and injured in the largest massacre in the history of the United States? You feel pretty rudderless. Emily is resilient. She went back to campus a week later. We stayed [with her] for a few days. She attended Madame's funeral [Ed. note: Madame Jocelyne Couture-Nowak was the French professor teaching the class Emily was in at the time of the shooting. She urged students to call 911 before the shooter entered the classroom; she was shot and killed trying to barricade the door.]. She met up with friends and sorority sisters and she began to make decisions about what she wanted the next several months to look like. Classes started back up that same day, and professors and students were given free rein to make decisions about how they wanted their spring semester to end. That was lovely and smart because so many people were traumatized by this. The ripple effects were grand and unbeknownst. They could take their grade from the day of the massacre and do nothing else for the rest of the term. They could cherry-pick which classes they wanted to attend for the remainder of the semester. They could attend and try it, and then if it didnt work they could go back. They could not attend at all. Photo credit: Getty Emily wanted to see what it would be like if she went to class. I was concerned about it, but she did it. She walked by herself to class, went to class, sat there for 45 minutes. She met me afterward and said, OK, I did it. I dont need to do it again, I'll just take my grades [for the semester]. It wasn't an experience she cared to repeat. I felt like it was my job as her parent to be there for her and guide her through some of the decisions making that nineteen-year-olds didn't have to make. Not things like who to go out with on a Friday night or what classes to take; Emily had decisions to make about her care and who and how and where and when and dealing with PTSD. She had to go back to the site of her attempted murder every single day trying to finish a college degree. That's very, very difficult for someone who has survived gun violence and is suffering from PTSD. And PTSD waxes and wanes - it might bubble up in a bigger way at certain times and then drift back. Colin Goddard, another student who was shot, and his dad Andy were at Madames funeral when Emily and I attended. Andy and I met that day and became fast friends. He had a son who was shot and survived, I had a daughter, they were in the classroom together [at the time of the shooting] and they knew each other. We learned really quickly about some of the gaping holes in Virginia's gun laws that allowed someone like [the shooter] to have easy access to firearms. We were alarmed and disturbed and upset and angry and that started on the path that led me to where I am now. I work full time for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. I'm the state director for GVP [gun violence prevention] movement here in Virginia and I am passionate about this work and committed and hoping to make a difference. Like other survivors, I got into this GVP movement because of what happened. But that's in the past and what we're working for is a future where there's less gun violence, and where we're doing more to prevent it. Our goals are to take the evidence and the policies that work and begin to apply as many as are appropriate. For example, we understand that domestic violence situations become exponentially more lethal when there's a firearm introduced. Road rage with a firearm can turn lethal. Confrontation in the streets become lethal when there's a firearm. Toddlers have killed more Americans than terrorists if you look at the numbers over time - all because somebody was careless and left firearms out and unsecured. Photo credit: Alamy We want policies that make us all safer. We think domestic abusers shouldn't have access to guns. We think that there should be a background check on all buyers - how do you stop a prohibited buyer from purchasing a gun if you don't do a background check to figure out if he or she is prohibited? We believe that you should have to have hands-on training around concealed carry. We think there should be penalties so that gun owners must properly store and secure their firearms so that children can't get access to them. We think there should be limitations on the type of firepower that everyday citizens can carry on our street. The efficacy of a lot of those policies have been proven in other states and those states have fewer deaths. New York's gun death rate per 100,000 is in the low, low, single digits. Virginia's is 10.9. It's devastating for all of the families, me included, to relive the trauma each time another school shooting occurs. And you cant help but relive it. What were also really traumatized by is the fact that someone else is now added to the club nobody wants to be in: the one where your loved ones been shot and killed or injured. But [that] club is strong, the club is active, the club is compassionate and supportive. I know dozens of families from dozens of mass shootings. Every day we have gun violence in America, so there is a camaraderie that's very understood by those [who have experienced it]. Time is a great healer. With all the gun violence we have in this country, the tragedy is brought to the surface [for Emily] very often, but she is very strong and resilient and capable and shes able to handle, clearly, any adversity thats thrown her way. Emily supports me and my work. I know she is proud of me and is committed to it - but she chooses a lower profile. She finished her college degree. She got married in 2012 and she had a baby in 2015. She became a high school French teacher. She's doing great. You Might Also Like The daughter of the United passenger dragged off a plane over the weekend told reporters her father is a loving grandfather who did not deserve the mistreatment that left him with a concussion and horrific facial injuries. Read: Passenger Dragged Off United Plane Identified; CEO 'Emphatically' Stands Behind Employees Crystal Dao Pepper, daughter of Dr. David Dao, spoke Thursday at a press conference in Chicago, where her father remains hospitalized. "We were horrified and shocked and sickened to learn what had happened to him and to see what had happened to him, she said. It has been a very difficult time for our entire family and we are grateful for your support. "What happened to my dad should not have happened to any human being regardless of the circumstances. My dad is healing right now." My dad is a wonderful father," Pepper added. "He has raised with my mother five great children who had gone on to do great things and will continue to do great things. He is a loving grandfather, she boasted. Her comments came as her father's injuries were revealed, and they're much more serious than what was first reported. Dao, a 69-year-old Kentucky physician suffered a significant concussion, a broken nose, damaged sinuses, and had two teeth knocked out as he was forcefully removed from the flight. His lawyer, Tom Demetrio, said the doctor will require reconstructive surgery. He called the police officers who dragged Dr. Dao from the plane "stormtroopers." All three were suspended following the incident. The incident happened just before takeoff on the Chicago-to-Louisville flight Sunday. The plane was overbooked and four United employees needed seats. The crew asked for volunteers to take a later flight, but when no one came forward, four passengers were chosen at random by a computer and asked to leave. Read: Just Plane Wrong: Uproar Erupts After Passenger Is Knocked Out and Dragged Off United Flight Dr. Dao refused to leave, saying he was a doctor and had patients to see Monday morning. Story continues After he was dragged off the plane, he somehow wound up back on the aircraft, shouting, I want to go home" as blood poured from his mouth and streaked across his face. Every passenger was ordered off so they could clean up the plane. The aircraft eventually departed. The CEO of United Airlines, Oscar Munoz, has since apologized for the incident. Watch: Did United Airlines CEO Get Preferential Treatment When He Received Heart Transplant? Related Articles: KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) Handcuffed and facing the judge, two young women accused of poisoning Kim Jong Nam appeared in court Thursday as their lawyers said Malaysian police still have not handed over security camera footage and documents crucial to the defense. Siti Aisyah, from Indonesia, and Doan Thi Huong of Vietnam are the only suspects in custody in the Feb. 13 killing of Kim, the estranged half brother of North Korea's ruler. Four North Korean suspects fled the country the day of the murder, police say. "The accused person should not be denied her fundamental right to a fair trial," said Aisyah's attorney Gooi Soon Seng. He said he has been waiting for police to provide surveillance video and statements from three North Korean men who were questioned and released. "Neither side may seek unfair advantage by concealing weapons behind its back. There should be no trial by ambush," Gooi said. The judge postponed the hearing until May 30. National police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said later Thursday that defense lawyers must apply for the evidence through the courts and that police have to get clearance from the attorney general before releasing it. When asked about lawyers' contention that they had sent requests five times, by fax and by hand, without getting a police reply, Khalid said, "Maybe it did not reach the correct officer. ... There must be some communication breakdown somewhere." The women are accused of smearing Kim's face with banned VX nerve agent at a crowded airport terminal in Kuala Lumpur. But they say they were duped into thinking they were playing a harmless prank for a hidden-camera show. The women face the death penalty if convicted. Gooi said he fears the women will become scapegoats because all the other people believed to have knowledge of the case have left the country. The four North Koreans who flew out of Malaysia the day of the murder are believed to be back in Pyongyang. And another three who stayed inside their country's embassy in Kuala Lumpur to avoid questioning by police were allowed to fly home late last month after Malaysia struck a surprise deal with Pyongyang to ease tensions. Story continues Malaysian police have said they questioned the three men and found no grounds to hold them. But Gooi said Thursday that at least one of those three men identified by police as Ri Ji U and known to Aisyah as "James" was key to her defense. "This amounts to a miscarriage of justice," Gooi said of Malaysia's decision to allow the men to leave the country. "They (the defendants) are already scapegoats." Khalid dismissed Gooi's claim. "They can say anything they like but we have a case with us. I am just waiting for the North Koreans to send back the four (suspects) to us," he said. Gooi told The Associated Press on Wednesday that James recruited Aisyah in early January to star in his video prank shows. Over the course of several days, he had her rub oil or pepper sauce on a victim's face, "from forehead downwards," which he would film on his phone, the lawyer said. They practiced at malls, hotels and airports, he said. Aisyah was paid $100-$200 for each prank and hoped the income would allow her to stop working as a social escort, Gooi said. Gooi said Aisyah flew to Cambodia in late January, where James introduced her to Hong Song Hac, one of four North Korean suspects who left Malaysia on the day of the murder. Hong had introduced himself as Chang, a Chinese who produces video prank shows for the Chinese market, he said. Gooi said Hong asked Aisyah to do several more pranks at the Kuala Lumpur airport a few days before Kim was attacked. He said Aisyah met Hong at the airport on the day of the killing, and that Hong identified Kim to Aisyah and allegedly put the poison on her hand. Malaysia never directly accused North Korea of carrying out the attack, but speculation is rampant that Pyongyang directed a hit on a long-exiled member of its ruling elite. Tran Huy Hoang, a cousin of the Vietnamese suspect, said she is doing well in prison and had even gained weight. "The family and many Vietnamese people believe that she is innocent," he said outside court Thursday. "We believe she was cheated and we hope that the truth will come out." New details have emerged in the missing case of Tennessee student Elizabeth Thomas, who authorities believe was kidnapped by her teacher Tad Cummins. District Attorney Brent Cooper said late Tuesday that Cummins left a note for his wife on the day of his disappearance. Brent Cooper did not reveal to the media details about the content of the note but said it was aimed at misleading the investigation of the missing teenager and help buy Cummins some time. Cooper also said the 50-year-old teacher is on medication to control his blood pressure and would most likely visit pharmacies for a refill, local media WKRN.com reported. Authorities have asked pharmacy employees to be on the lookout for Cummins and Elizabeth. Cummins and Thomas were last spotted at a Wal-Mart store in Oklahoma City on March 15. Related: 11 Facts To Know About Tennessee Teen's Kidnapping "The surveillance images of Cummins and Thomas the first obtained by investigators since the alleged kidnapping on March 13th clearly show Tad Cummins with an altered appearance to darken his hair. The same images show Elizabeth may currently have red hair. Efforts to determine what vehicle they were traveling in remain ongoing," authorities said in a release at the time. Elizabeth has been missing since Mar. 13 prompting Tennessee law enforcement authorities to issue an Amber Alert for the teen. Suspicion over the relationship between Cummins and Elizabeth were raised after an unidentified student reported seeing the two kissing in his classroom. "She is 15, a child. He is 50, a grown man. She's a high school freshman. He's a former teacher. This is, and was, not a romance," Tennessee Bureau of Investigation director Mark Gwynn told reporters. "This was manipulation solely to benefit Tad Cummins. This is not a fairy tale. This is a case of kidnapping." Last week, Elizabeth's father filed a lawsuit requesting the deposition of anyone who might have information about his daughter and his alleged abductor. Story continues Popular Stories: United Promised Regulators Ticketed Passengers Are Guaranteed Seats More Than A Quarter Of Trump's Twitter Followers Are Egg Accounts Related Articles By Chris Mfula LUSAKA (Reuters) - Zambian police denied on Thursday that opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema had been refused access to his lawyers and family since his arrest this week but his attorney insisted this was the case in an intensifying political crisis. Hichilema was arrested on Tuesday and charged with treason for allegedly obstructing President Edgar Lungu's motorcade, raising the political temperature in Africa's No. 2 copper producing country. Relations between government and opposition have been tense since August, when Lungu's Patriotic Front (PF) party beat Hichilema's United Party for National Development (UPND) in a vote the opposition says was rigged. A hearing is to be held on Tuesday to determine if Hichilema's detention is legal, the UPND said. The two men are old rivals and Lungu has beaten Hichilema, an economist and wealthy businessman who goes by "HH", narrowly in two presidential elections, including the one last year by a razor-thin margin. "We have not blocked lawyers and Mr Hichilema's members of the family from visiting him because that is his constitutional right," police spokeswoman Esther Mwaata-Katongo said, responding to a UPND accusation. Hichilema's lawyer Jack Mwiimbu said he had seen his client on Wednesday but had since been prevented from visiting him. "There are instructions for him not to be seen by anybody without authority from police headquarters. We have therefore started processing court papers. We want the court to compel the police to allow us to see our client," Mwiimbu told Reuters. Mwiimbu also said Hichilema had complained on Wednesday of feeling unwell after police fired tear gas into his house when he was arrested. The European Union called for calm and analysts said Zambia's reputation was at stake over the saga. "Political tensions in Zambia have increased over the past weeks and in particular with the events surrounding the arrest of ... Hichilema," the EU said in a statement. Political analyst Andrew Ntewewe of the non-governmental organization Young African Leaders' Initiative said the police had to show professionalism in how they were handling the case. "Suspects have rights even when in police custody. HH must quickly be taken to court. The president must also show statesmanship, magnanimity and leadership so that the country's reputation is not dented," Ntewewe told Reuters. On Saturday, Lungu passed through Mongu, 500 km (300 miles) west of the capital Lusaka, and his motorcade was obstructed because Hichilema refused to give way, police said. Zambia's economy has been depressed for years by low commodity prices, mine closures, rising unemployment, power shortages and soaring food prices - all of which Hichilema blames on mismanagement by Lungu. But Lungu, whose government has been talking to the International Monetary Fund about financial aid to help plug its budget deficit, has said he is doing his best to wean the economy off its over-reliance on copper. (Writing by Ed Stoddard; editing by James Macharia/Mark Heinrich) By Chris Mfula LUSAKA (Reuters) - Zambian police denied on Thursday that opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema had been refused access to his lawyers and family since his arrest this week but his attorney insisted this was the case in an intensifying political crisis. Hichilema was arrested on Tuesday and charged with treason for allegedly obstructing President Edgar Lungu's motorcade, raising the political temperature in Africa's No. 2 copper producing country. Relations between government and opposition have been tense since August, when Lungu's Patriotic Front (PF) party beat Hichilema's United Party for National Development (UPND) in a vote the opposition says was rigged. A hearing is to be held on Tuesday to determine if Hichilema's detention is legal, the UPND said. The two men are old rivals and Lungu has beaten Hichilema, an economist and wealthy businessman who goes by "HH", narrowly in two presidential elections, including the one last year by a razor-thin margin. "We have not blocked lawyers and Mr Hichilema's members of the family from visiting him because that is his constitutional right," police spokeswoman Esther Mwaata-Katongo said, responding to a UPND accusation. Hichilema's lawyer Jack Mwiimbu said he had seen his client on Wednesday but had since been prevented from visiting him. "There are instructions for him not to be seen by anybody without authority from police headquarters. We have therefore started processing court papers. We want the court to compel the police to allow us to see our client," Mwiimbu told Reuters. Mwiimbu also said Hichilema had complained on Wednesday of feeling unwell after police fired tear gas into his house when he was arrested. The European Union called for calm and analysts said Zambia's reputation was at stake over the saga. "Political tensions in Zambia have increased over the past weeks and in particular with the events surrounding the arrest of ... Hichilema," the EU said in a statement. Political analyst Andrew Ntewewe of the non-governmental organisation Young African Leaders' Initiative said the police had to show professionalism in how they were handling the case. "Suspects have rights even when in police custody. HH must quickly be taken to court. The president must also show statesmanship, magnanimity and leadership so that the country's reputation is not dented," Ntewewe told Reuters. On Saturday, Lungu passed through Mongu, 500 km (300 miles) west of the capital Lusaka, and his motorcade was obstructed because Hichilema refused to give way, police said. Zambia's economy has been depressed for years by low commodity prices, mine closures, rising unemployment, power shortages and soaring food prices - all of which Hichilema blames on mismanagement by Lungu. But Lungu, whose government has been talking to the International Monetary Fund about financial aid to help plug its budget deficit, has said he is doing his best to wean the economy off its over-reliance on copper. (Writing by Ed Stoddard; editing by James Macharia/Mark Heinrich) By Joseph Ax (Reuters) - U.S. authorities have charged a Detroit doctor with performing genital mutilation on 7-year-old girls in what is believed to be the first case brought under a law prohibiting the procedure. Jumana Nagarwala, an emergency room physician at a Detroit hospital who performed the procedures at an unnamed medical clinic in the Detroit suburb of Livonia, was scheduled to appear in federal court on Thursday, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. "Female genital mutilation constitutes a particularly brutal form of violence against women and girls," acting U.S. Attorney in Detroit Daniel Lemisch said in a statement. "The practice has no place in modern society and those who perform FGM on minors will be held accountable under federal law." Female genital mutilation, or FGM, typically involves the partial or total removal of the clitoris and is barred by numerous international treaties. The practice is common in several African countries, including Somalia, Sudan and Egypt, where it is often a cultural or religious tradition. The practice was outlawed in the United States in 1996, though the Justice Department said the Michigan case appeared to be the first criminal prosecution of its kind. A lawyer for Nagarwala did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday afternoon. Federal agents received a tip months ago that Nagarwala was performing FGM in Michigan, according to a criminal complaint unsealed on Thursday. A review of her phone records led authorities to two 7-year-old girls who traveled with their parents to Michigan from Minnesota in February so they could undergo the procedure. One of the children told investigators they were taken to Michigan for a "special" girls' trip, the complaint said. Medical exams of both girls showed their genitals had been altered, according to authorities. Investigators tracked down several other child victims, the complaint said. Some parents acknowledged that Nagarwala had performed the procedures on their daughters, while others denied it. A spokesman for Henry Ford Health System, which has employed Nagarwala as an emergency room physician, said she had been placed on administrative leave. Henry Ford Health System, which operates several Detroit-area hospitals, was not mentioned in the complaint. "The alleged criminal activity did not occur at any Henry Ford facility," David Olejarz said in an email. "We would never support or condone anything related to this practice." In addition to charges related to FGM, Nagarwala is charged with lying to federal agents after saying earlier this week that she did not engage in the practice. The World Health Organization has estimated that more than 200 million girls and women alive today have undergone FGM, which can cause lasting health problems. (Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Leslie Adler) Geneva (AFP) - Cholera and acute diarrhoea have killed more than 500 people and left tens of thousands of others sick in drought-hit parts of Somalia since January, the United Nations said Thursday. The UN's health agency said the epidemic had left more than 25,000 people sick, warning that number was likely to double by the end of June. WHO put the number of deaths since the beginning of the year from the epidemic at 524, while the UN humanitarian agency OCHA said 533 people had died. The case fatality rate, which measures the severity of an epidemic by defining the proportion of fatal cases within a specific timeframe, is currently 2.1 percent -- more than double the emergency threshold of one percent. OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke said the situation was particularly alarming in the Middle Juba and Bakool regions, where the case fatality rates have surged to 14.1 percent and 5.1 percent respectively. The epidemic comes as the Horn of Africa country of 12 million people faces the threat of its third famine in 25 years of civil war and anarchy. At least 260,000 people died in the 2011 famine in Somalia -- half of them children under the age of five, according to the UN World Food Program. Currently, 6.2 million people are in urgent need of humanitarian aid in Somalia, including 2.9 million who are facing "crisis or emergency levels of food insecurity", Laerke told reporters. That means they are at levels three or four on a five-level scale, where level five is famine. The dire drought and food situation has forced more than 500,000 people to flee their homes since last November, in a country where 1.1 million people are already internally displaced. And the drought is not expected to end any time soon, Laerke said, pointing out that the UN expects no improvements over the next six months at least. Even as conditions deteriorate on the ground, humanitarian actors are struggling to raise enough funds to provide aid, and to gain access to all of those in need, he said. "We are in a race and I don't know who is going to win," Laerke said. RPP to support statute amendment proposal The Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) has decided to support the constitution amendment proposal registered by the government at Parliament on Tuesday. IPANEMA, MINAS GERAIS, Brazil His nicotine-yellow eyes and haunted stare gave Jose de Moraes the look of a man who had been to the brink of death and back again. I am debilitated, he said. A 54-year-old city council employee, de Moraes caught yellow fever two months ago, the same strain that has killed nearly 200 people in Brazil since January and infected at least three times more. Today he is still too weak to climb the steps to his first-floor apartment on the edge of this quiet country town. And he is still spooked by the force of the disease. It shuts down your body, de Moraes said, describing how the virus attacked his kidneys, then his liver, and how he needed dialysis. The pain started in his back and took over his whole frame. In intensive care, he was so lost in fever, pain, and delirium that he no longer recognized anyone. I became confused. The mind doesnt work, he said. Read more: Finding the worlds unknown viruses before they find us The virus that de Moraes caught is part of a broader outbreak that has taken authorities here by surprise. Although Brazil experiences what is known as a sylvatic cycle of yellow fever in which the virus is spread between mosquitoes and monkeys in the jungle the current outbreak has fanned far beyond the Amazon jungle and out to the coast. It has confounded specialists, doctors, and health officials, and raised fears of an epidemic in Brazils urban areas that could be devastating if not quickly contained. It is the worst outbreak of yellow fever in this country in recent memory. Although Brazil appears to be moving quickly to administer vaccines and take other steps to stop the spread of the virus, it is still struggling to get the outbreak under control. And while the outbreak is still in the syvlatic cycle, a rash of monkey deaths in big cities has raised fears the situation could still get much worse before it gets better. Earlier this month, the World Health Organization added parts of Sao Paulo, Bahia, and Rio de Janeiro states to a list of areas at risk. Story continues Yellow fever virus transmission continues to expand towards the Atlantic coast of Brazil, the WHO said in a statement. The vaccine against yellow fever is highly effective, but at times has been in short supply. Last month, the WHO dispatched 3.5 million additional doses of its vaccine to Brazil from an international emergency stockpile. Brazils Ministry of Health has also adopted the WHO recommendation that one dose of the vaccine is sufficient, not two as previously advised, and said it is preparing contingency plans to recommend one-fifth of the normal dose, a strategy that proved effective recently in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The last urban epidemic of yellow fever in Brazil, spread by Aedes aegypti mosquitos, was in Rio in the 1920s. But the disease is still spread by Haemagogus and Sabethes forest mosquitoes. Rural families are most at risk. An hours drive down dirt roads from Ipanema is the tiny hamlet of Santa Constancia, where Leonel Ferreira Neto grew coffee and sugar cane, and raised a handful of cattle. He was 62 when he caught yellow fever, possibly while clearing forest on the steep hills beside his neat farmhouse. His widow, Luzia, 64, remembered he had seen a dead monkey a sign the family now know means yellow fever could be present. Yet his daughter, Maria Ribeiro, 39, said she had not received a vaccination, and in any case, her father trusted vaccines as little as he trusted school, which he only let his six children attend for a year each. He did not believe in these things, she said, after running up a vertiginous slope in flip-flops to herd a couple of cows. In photos, Ferreira Neto was a bearded, rangy, serious man who worked with an ox cart. His widow said he spent weeks in the hospital before dying, taking on the jaundiced color for which the disease is known. He was yellow, swollen, all yellow, Luzia said. The family had never seen yellow fever in the town, and she had no idea what it could do. Other areas of this vast, rural state have seen outbreaks before 16 people in Minas Gerais died of yellow fever in 2001, 21 in 2003. Adults were advised to get vaccinations every 10 years by the state and federal government. Yet just 30 percent of the population of Ipanema was vaccinated, barely 50 percent across the state. The widespread deaths of monkeys can be a signal that the disease is spreading, said Sergio Lucena, a professor of zoology and primate specialist at the Federal University of Espirito Santo, who has documented the deaths of over 1,200 since January. Last year, monkeys were found to have died from yellow fever in towns in Minas and Sao Paulo states. But authorities were slow to perceive the problem, Lucena said. In Ipanemas gleaming, modern health center, city health director Weverton Rodrigues said adults dont bother keeping their vaccinations up to date. Nor did Minas Gerais, which has 21 million people, do much to encourage them. Unfortunately I see the culture of our country as very short-sighted. You work according to demand. Basically, you put out fires, he said. A problem comes up and lets deal with it. Some specialists said Minas Gerais should have worked harder to vaccinate its population. Read more: Facing significant yellow fever outbreak, Brazil appeals for more vaccine The human cases in Minas Gerais are the result of a failure in vaccination cover, said Jesse Alves, an infectious diseases specialist at the Emilio Ribas hospital in Sao Paulo. The whole state was an area of risk. (In an emailed statement, a spokeswoman for the Minas Gerais health secretariat said the populations demand for the vaccine had always been low, and that 77 percent of the state was now vaccinated.) Yellow fever vaccinations were not recommended in Espirito Santo state, which borders Minas Gerais on Brazils eastern coast. Since January it has confirmed 148 cases and 44 deaths from the disease. Over 2.8 million people, or 79 percent of the population, have been vaccinated since then. In the state capital, Vitoria, where residents can schedule vaccinations online, the coverage is even higher: 92 percent of its 333,000 people, according to the municipal health secretary. But the scare is far from over. On a recent morning, Gilsa Rodrigues, the director of health vigilance in Espirito Santo, chaired a tense meeting in Vitoria. She had been told by specialists that Vitorias metropolitan area was basically free of yellow fever. Then laboratory results confirmed yellow fever in 22 monkeys that died there, mostly in early March. We didnt expect this, Rodrigues said. Im very tired, very worried, but Im working very hard. Other towns near Vitoria have been slow to vaccinate residents. In nearby Cariacica, where four of the dead monkeys were found, only 49 percent of the population were vaccinated, Rodrigues said. The state began vaccinating on Jan 20. In February its police force went on strike, leading to a crime wave and hundreds of deaths, complicating their work. Rodrigues said Brazils Ministry of Health did not always supply the quantity of vaccines they needed. She was forced to prioritize rural areas where cases had been found over those that had yet to report them. On a map, she pointed out Muniz Freire, a rural municipality surrounded by impacted areas that did not immediately report cases. She had to argue to get the ministry to send her enough doses of vaccine for Muniz Freire too. Six deaths have since been confirmed there. It makes you want to cry, Rodrigues said. You are facing a situation that you know what the solution is, but the decision to put the vaccine there is not in your power. Recently another 200,000 doses of the vaccine were held up for a week, she said. In March cases appeared in Casimiro de Abreu, a rural town in Rio de Janeiro state, far from anywhere else impacted. Nobody knows how they got there, said Lucena, the primate specialist. Now the state is working to vaccinate its entire 16 million-plus population, concerned yellow fever could spread to Aedes aegypti mosquitos in cities like Rio, where almost a quarter of its 6.5 million people live in the densely packed, poor communities known as favelas. When one clinic outside the Complexo do Alemao favela opened on a recent morning, a wave of people rushed in, many forming a line for yellow fever vaccines. I tried last week and there was none here, said Viviane Duarte, 19. At a vaccination center in central Rio, some waited three hours in a line that stretched a block. Staff at both centers said they were vaccinating around 500 people a day. Indiara Azevedo, 30, a civil servant, said she was getting vaccinated because where I live, there are a lot of mosquitos. Yellow fever is here, she said. Before we didnt know. A Missouri doctor has reunited with three sets of healthy triplets that he delivered within weeks of each other. Dr. Michael Paul, head of maternal-fetal medicine at Missouri Baptist Medical Center in St. Louis, delivered the first set of triplets on November 2, the second set on November 26 and the third on December 16. Read: Blind Couple Gets 3D-Printed Ultrasound So They Can Feel Their Unborn Baby Along with the babies, friendships were also born. The triplets' mothers, Jessica Kennedy, Kristen McCloy and Jeri Wright, met in the hospital and helped each other welcome their multiples into the world, which can sometimes be a lonely process, Dr. Paul said in an interview shared by the hospital. I have delivered lots of multiples over the years, and the moms are often hospitalized for extended periods of time where they can feel isolated away from their friends and family," said Dr. Paul, who is a stepdad to triplets and dad to twins. "All three moms helped each other by setting goals together and supporting one another to achieve those goals. They all had the same endpoint goal of getting as close to 34 or 35 weeks as possible to deliver. They didnt want to let anyone down." Jessica Kennedy said she and her husband, Ben, were hoping to have one more child to join their son and daughter when they learned she was pregnant with triplets. "I was completely shocked, and my husband about fainted," she said in an interview with the hospital. On November 2, 2016, she welcomed identical boys: Reed, Knox and Finn. "It's very unusual to have identical triplets and very rare," Dr. Paul said. "It's about a one in 60 million chance." Kennedy was hospitalized at 31 weeks and gave birth at 34 weeks. During that time, she bonded with Jeri Wright, whom she met via a mutual Facebook friend. "When I was a patient waiting for the babies to arrive, Jeri would come visit me and we would talk about everything," she said. "Once my boys were in the NICU, I'd stop in to visit Jeri, who was hospitalized, and then we both met Kristen." Story continues Read: Twin Babies Are Born 2 Weeks Apart: 'I Didn't Even Know That Was Possible' Kristen McCloy, who gave birth to identical boys Lucas and Colton and a girl named Emalyn on November 26, joined the other moms after getting a room next to Jeri's. "Jeri and I would walk the halls and talk all the time," McCloy said. "Jessica would come visit us when she came to see her babies in the NICU. Today, we're all friends on Facebook and we message each other, check in on each other and make sure we're all still sane." Jeri, 39, was the last to give birth. She welcomed her three boys Oliver, Finn and Beckett on December 16 and took them home after a few weeks in the NICU. "It's a scary time, but we were all there to cheer each other on," she said. Dr. Paul credits their friendship for their successful pregnancies. Statistically, two of the nine babies should have been "compromised in some way," he told the hospital. But that did not happen. "Now that these moms are all friends, they will be able to share the unique challenges of raising triplets," he said. "And theyll have one another." Watch: Adorable 2-Year-Old Triplets Are Best Friends With Their Garbage Man Related Articles: Astronomers believe that they have succeeded in taking the first-ever image of a black hole or, more precisely, of its event horizon. On Wednesday, scientists associated with the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) a collaboration that uses network of telescopes spread across the globe to create an Earth-sized telescope said that after five nights of observations, they may have snapped a photograph of the supermassive black hole residing in our galaxys heart. The staggering amount of data collected during the observations has been recorded on over 1,000 hard drives, and the first images of the black hole Sagittarius A* a behemoth 4 million times the mass of our sun will emerge either late this year or early next year. Even if the first images are still crappy and washed out, we can already test for the first time some basic predictions of Einstein's theory of gravity in the extreme environment of a black hole, Heino Falcke, a radio astronomer from the University in Nijmegen in the Netherlands who was involved in the project, told National Geographic magazine. Black holes are perhaps the most mysterious class of objects in the known universe. Part of the enigma stems from the fact that despite overwhelming circumstantial evidence for their existence, no one has actually ever seen a black hole. This is because their gravitational influence is so great that not even light can escape them. black_holes_infographic-v2 Photo: ESO, ESA/Hubble, M. Kornmesser/N. Bartmann Theyre reality-bending concentrations of matter squeezed into a very tiny space, creating an object with an immense gravitational pull, the European Southern Observatory, whose Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) joined the EHT collaboration last month, explained in a blog post. Around a black hole is a boundary called an event horizon the surface beyond which nothing can escape the black holes clutches, not even light. If the EHT project, which uses telescopes in Hawaii, Arizona, Chile, and even the South Pole, succeeds in photographing the black holes event horizon, it could provide a concrete test for Einsteins general theory of relativity. Models based on this theory predict a roughly circular shadow around the black hole. Story continues EHT project Photo: ESO/O. Furtak Now, it could be that we will see something different, Sheperd Doeleman, director of the EHT project, told BBC News in February. As I've said before, it's never a good idea to bet against Einstein, but if we did see something that was very different from what we expect we would have to reassess the theory of gravity. Related Articles It was not the salad mix they had in mind: Two people in Florida found a dead bat in their container of salad greens. The people ate some of the salad from the package before finding the bat, according to a statement about the case from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Bats can carry the rabies virus, but the CDC noted that it is "extremely uncommon" to get rabies from eating an animal with the disease. Researchers tested the bat for rabies; however, the CDC couldn't definitively rule out rabies because of the bat's "deteriorated condition." To be safe, the CDC recommended that the people get treated for rabies. Currently, both people are in good health and showing no signs of the disease, the CDC said. [9 Disgusting Things That the FDA Allows in Your Food] Fresh Express, the company that made the salad, swiftly issued a recall of the specific salad product, the Organic Marketside Spring Mix. The mix was being sold at Walmart stores in the southeastern U.S. and has been pulled from the shelves, according to a statement released by Fresh Express on April 8. But the question remains: How does a bat get into a packaged salad? "It's possible that the mechanical harvesting could pick something like this up," said Ben Chapman, a food safety specialist and an associate professor at North Carolina State University. Instead of handpicking individual plants, large food companies use mechanical harvesters that are driven through the fields, scooping up the produce in their paths. It's possible for a small animal to be picked up during mechanical harvesting, and then make it through the company's quality control steps, Chapman told Live Science. After harvesting, the produce is washed, sorted and dried on large conveyer belts, Chapman said. "It doesn't surprise me that small animals make it through this process," Chapman said, but added that "these events seem really rare." Story continues Fresh Express, the company that sold the packaged salads, said in a statement that they have "a range of stringent controls in place during growing and harvesting" that can help prevent animals from getting caught up in the process. They also said that the produce is thoroughly washed and filtered, and visual inspections are used to eliminate "unwanted debris." Chapman noted that for companies who experience an event like this, it's a good step to revisit the quality-control process to determine what went wrong and how to prevent it in the future. In addition, when something like this happens, it's smart to recall the entire batch of the contaminated food, because there's always the potential for cross-contamination, Chapman said. Animals and their feces may contain germs that can make people sick, he said. One type of bat, called the fruit bat, has been shown to carry Salmonella, he said. This isn't the first time an unwanted animal has made its way into a food product, Chapman added. Frogs, birds and rats have also been found in salads, he said. Originally published on Live Science. Editor's Recommendations Space nerds have taken trolling Trump into the stratosphere. On Wednesday, the Autonomous Space Agency Network, amateurs who promote DIY space exploration, revealed a little project it was working on. It's called "The First Protest in Space," and it involved sending an insulting Trump tweet into orbit on a weather balloon. SEE ALSO: Donald Trump finally provided a clue about NASA's future As Motherboard reported, the stunt was inspired by something the late Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell said regarding politics. "From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty," said Mitchell, who was the sixth person to walk on the moon. "You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, 'Look at that, you son of a bitch.'" So naturally, when you've got a quote this perfect and a man in politics who needs trolling, you do what you can to make a statement. In all caps, ASAN (not to be confused with NASA) straight up addressed a "LOOK AT THAT, YOU SON OF A BITCH" tweet to Donald Trump's personal handle, printed it out, and sent it reeling into the air to make a serious statement. According to ASAN, the tweet was launched from AN52 near Phoenix, "one of dozens of concrete crosses" that were used to help "calibrate the first spy satellites." Now we'd hate to burst your bubble because the first protest in space sounds cool and all, but the weather balloon only brought the tweet to near space in the stratosphere, at around 90,000 feet. Story continues The stratosphere is the second major layer of the Earth's atmosphere, and it extends from about 33,000 feet to some 160,000 feet above sea level. Outer space is widely considered to start at around 330,000 feet. Nevertheless, seeing a giant printed-out tweet trolling Trump suspended above Earth is still extremely satisfying. The two-hour-long video, set to an appropriately dramatic soundtrack, will give you a glimpse at the entire tweet's entire journey from launch to the stratosphere. Cherish this sight, because with Trump's newly proposed NASA budgets, who knows if we'll ever have the ability to troll Trump from actual space. WATCH: Astronomers built an 'Earth-sized' telescope to peer into black holes Related: For more news videos visit Yahoo View, available now on iOS and Android. Cairo (AFP) - The authorities in Egypt said on Thursday they had identified the second of two jihadist bombers who targeted Coptic Christian Palm Sunday services last week. The interior ministry made the announcement after President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi pledged as he visited Coptic Pope Tawadros II to hunt down the perpetrators of the bombings. The Islamic State group claimed the Sunday attacks, which killed 45 people and followed a December 11 suicide bombing that killed 29 in a Cairo church. Sisi's visit to the papal seat in the capital came a day after the interior ministry identified the bomber who struck outside Saint Mark's church in Alexandria, killing 17 people. Sunday's first bombing at the Mar Girgis church in Tanta, north of Cairo, killed 28 people. Sisi said "state agencies were exerting their utmost effort to chase down the perpetrators of those vile acts," the presidency said in a statement. On Wednesday, the interior ministry identified the perpetrator of the Alexandria attack as Mahmud Hassan Mubarak Abdullah, born in the southern province of Qena in 1986. On Thursday, it said it had now also identified the bomber who blew himself up in the Tanta church. "DNA tests carried out on the family of a fugitive member and the remains of the suicide bomber... made it possible to identify him as Mamduh Amin Mohammed Baghdadi, born in 1977 in Qena province, where he lived," it said. The ministry said he was a member of a "terrorist" cell, and also announced the arrest of three other members of the group. On Wednesday, it also offered a 100,000 pound (about $5,500) reward for information leading to the arrest of suspects it said belonged to jihadist cells linked to the church attacks. On Thursday, the reward was increased to 500,000 pounds. Sisi declared a three-month state of emergency after the bombings and called in the army to protect "vital" installations around the country. The Coptic Church said on Wednesday it would cut back Easter celebrations to a single mass after the bombings. The violence came ahead of Catholic Pope Francis's first visit to Egypt, which a Vatican official said will go ahead as planned on April 28 and 29 despite the attacks. Cairo (AFP) - Egypt's interior ministry said Thursday it had identified the bomber who targeted a Palm Sunday service at a Coptic Christian church in the northern city of Tanta, killing 28 people. The previous day, the ministry had named the man it said was the bomber who struck outside a church in the Mediterranean port of Alexandria. A total of 45 people were killed in the two attacks, which were claimed by the Islamic State group. On Thursday, the ministry issued another statement saying that the Tanta bomber had now been identified as well. "DNA tests carried out on the family of a fugitive member and the remains of the suicide bomber... made it possible to identify him as Mamduh Amin Mohammed Baghdadi, born in 1977 in Qena province, where he lived," it said. It said he was a member of a "terrorist" cell, and announced the arrest of three other members of the cell. The ministry also said it would increase the reward for information leading to the arrest of any member of the cell linked to Sunday's attacks from 100,000 Egyptian pounds (about $5,500) to 500,000 pounds. On Wednesday, the ministry said it had identified the perpetrator of the Alexandria attack as Mahmud Hassan Mubarak Abdullah, born in Qena in 1986. Sydney (AFP) - The sharpened teeth on the saw-like snout of the critically endangered Australian sawfish is proving little defence against its deadliest underwater predators, the crocodile and shark. A rare photograph released by Murdoch University shows a young sawfish caught in the clutches of a freshwater crocodile's jaw. It is a common occurrence for the struggling species which is also targeted by bull sharks, researchers said, as young sawfish venture upriver for the first five years their life before returning to the ocean as an adult. "For a fish that is pupped at around 800 millimetres (31 inches) total length with formidable weaponry, one would assume that rates of natural predation would be low, said the Universitys lead fisheries researcher David Morgan Thursday. "But their upstream migrations are fraught with danger, and we suspect they dont always survive. Examining 39 sawfish, which can grow up to six metres (20 feet), in Western Australia's Fitzroy River researchers found 60 percent had wounds received from crocodile or bull shark attacks, with their findings published in The Scientific Naturalist. "These scars suggest that freshwater crocodiles attempt to capture and consume sawfish regularly, but are unsuccessful possibly due to the size, sensory capabilities and defences of their prey, Morgan added. The risk of extinction for the sawfish is heightened by the loss of their natural habitat, getting caught in fishing nets and by hunters seeking a trophy fish. Researchers are urging a rethink of management techniques for Australia's northern river systems to better protect the vulnerable fish. (This April 11 story has been corrected in second paragraph to show overseas voting has finished) By Tuvan Gumrukcu ANKARA (Reuters) - Turks living overseas are turning out in greater numbers to vote in a referendum on changing the constitution to create an executive presidency, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday, a development that pollsters say could benefit him. Voters in Turkey will go to the polls on April 16 to decide on the referendum that would give Erdogan sweeping new powers. Voting for expatriate Turks began as early as late March in some countries and finished on Sunday. The referendum campaign has brought a rapid deterioration in relations with some of Turkey's European allies over the banning of some rallies by Turkish ministers in the Netherlands and Germany on security grounds, something Erdogan has denounced as "Nazi-like" tactics. A high turnout abroad is likely to boost Erdogan, pollsters say, citing past elections, but at home it could hurt him as opposition voters traditionally make up a bigger proportion of those who tend to shun the polls on an election day. "There is an amazing explosion of votes abroad. Around 1.42 million votes have been cast," Erdogan said at a ceremony in the southeastern city of Sanliurfa, calling on his supporters to flood the ballot box with "yes" votes in the referendum. The figure Erdogan cited suggests a turnout of around 50 percent, based on the 2.88 million voters registered abroad in the last general election in November 2015, according to data from the High Electoral Board (YSK). In that election the turnout was around 40 percent among expatriates, with 56 percent of those votes being cast for the AK Party, which Erdogan founded more than a decade ago. Polls show a close race days before the referendum, putting the "yes" vote slightly ahead, but indicate that nearly half the country could reject the proposed constitutional changes. Foreign vote results will be announced once the actual referendum is held on Sunday. BITTERLY DIVIDED One polling company, Mak Danismanlik, seen as close to Erdogan, said initial exit polls from abroad showed the "yes" vote at 62 percent. It said the only country where the "no" vote had prevailed was the United States. It did not say how many people it had polled or where the research was conducted. Pollsters Gezici, whose research has tended to overestimate opposition support, forecast 82-83 percent voter participation domestically and a "yes" vote as high as 56 percent if the turnout is lower in Turkey. The referendum has polarized the nation of 79 million. Erdogan's opponents fear increasing authoritarianism from a leader they see as bent on eroding modern Turkey's democracy and secular foundations. Erdogan argues that the proposed strengthening of the presidency will avert instability associated with coalition governments, at a time when Turkey faces security threats from Islamist and Kurdish militants. It was not immediately clear what the turnout in specific countries was, but in the November 2015 election, around 40 percent of the Turks in Germany cast their votes while the figure was around 45 percent in the Netherlands. Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper said Turks living there had cast 696,863 votes for the referendum, bringing turnout in Germany to 48.73 percent. (Additional reporting by Ercan Gurses and Tulay Karadeniz in Ankara and Andrea Shalal in Berlin; Writing by Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by David Dolan/Mark Heinrich) Police Chief appointment: SC asks govt to furnish clarification The Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday ordered the government to furnish clarification in writing within 15 days on why an interim order against its decision of appointing Prakash Aryal Reports are circulating that dozens of men are being held, tortured, and even killed because theyre thought to be gay in Chechnya, a republic in Russias North Caucasus. The spokesperson for Ramzan Kadyrov, head of the Chechen Republic, reportedly said no gay men could be tortured, because there are no gay men in Chechnya: Nobody can detain or harass anyone who is simply not present in the republic. And in response to that response, Russia did not do much of anything. Which is why, on Thursday the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) asked Russia to investigate just what is going on its southern dependency. U.N. human rights experts also asked Moscow to intervene. The authorities in the Russian Federation must urgently investigate the horrific reports of human rights violations against allegedly gay men in Chechnya, as well as identify, prosecute and punish any known perpetrators, said a statement from Michael Link, head of the OSCEs Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. The U.N. human rights experts urge the authorities to put an end to the persecution of people perceived to be gay or bisexual in the Chechen Republic who are living in a climate of fear fuelled by homophobic speeches by local authorities, their statement said. It is unclear whether Russia will indeed intervene, or investigate, or do anything at all. Previously, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov said the issue was not up to the Kremlin. If any actions have been taken by the law enforcement agencies which, in the opinion of some citizens, were taken with some irregularities, these citizens can use their rights, file relevant complaints and go to court, Peskov said. But Russian involvement is urgently needed, argued Link of the OSCE, who highlighted the apparent unwillingness of local authorities to investigate and prosecute the serious violations alleged to have been committed by security services. Story continues The situation in Chechnya is something of a perfect storm for (allegedly) getting away with torture. Theres Chechnya itself, which has been under Kadyrovs thumb with Putins blessing for a decade. Kadyrov follows his father, Akhmad, who started Chechenization, in which Chechnya would be a loyal part of Russia but would keep its own domestic affairs in order. More broadly, homophobia is accepted as a norm in the Caucasus. But the issue is not just regional, or religious, or cultural. As Maxim Eristavi, an Atlantic Council fellow who has been following the situation, noted on Twitter, Dismissing gay murders in Chechnya as Muslim issue is wrong: Russia has many Muslim-majority regions, weve seen nothing like this there. Gay murder spree in Chechnya is not cultural, Muslim or regional. Its part of longtime Kremlin-backed regime of state violence. It doesnt appear that this issue was raised this week by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to his counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, or to Russian President Vladimir Putin, as Tillerson did not meet with civil society leaders during his two-day visit to Russia. However, the State Departments acting spokesperson Mark Toner did issue a statement expressing concern last Friday. We urge Russian federal authorities to speak out against such practices, take steps to ensure the release of anyone wrongfully detained, conduct an independent and credible investigation into these, reports and hold any perpetrators responsible. Photo credit: MIKHAIL KLIMENTYEV/AFP/Getty Images The European Court of Human Rights said Russia violated European human rights law, failed to prevent the 2004 Beslan school siege, and deployed excessive force that exacerbated the death toll. The ruling comes after years of stalled domestic investigations into the bloody tragedy. The court, ruling on Thursday, ordered Russia to pay 3 million euros to the families of the victims. The siege took the lives of 330 people, including 186 children. Russia, which ratified the European Convention on Human Rights immediately denounced the ruling, dismissing the decision as unacceptable and saying it will appeal it. But its Russias own behavior that led to the court case in the first place. Russias investigations stalled, and the main one, which is still ongoing, suggests officials acted lawfully. So over 400 survivors and relatives of the victims filed applications to the court between 2007 and 2011. Russia now has three months to appeal the case to the Grand Chamber of Court. In September 2004, 30 militants, followers of Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, took more than 1000 people hostage in Beslan School Number One. They were demanding that Russia leave Chechnya (Beslan is in nearby North Ossetia). The hostages were kept in the school gym for three days. The gym was mined. Hostages were denied water. Russia responded by setting off explosives and exchanging fire. Fire spread. The roof collapsed. Hundreds were killed. It was reminiscent of Moscow in 2002, when Russian forces responded to a hostage situation in a theater by pumping in toxic gas, killing 170. Now, almost 13 years later, the ECHR has ruled Russia used disproportionate force, failed to try to minimize loss of life, failed to coordinate medical and rescue teams, and also knew that such an attack was coming and didnt do anything to stop it like stop the militants from meeting, or increase security at the school, or warn anyone. Additionally, for one third of the victims, the exact cause of death had not been established, because investigators didnt fully forensically examine them, or even bother to locate the hostages bodies. Story continues The Court could not avoid the conclusion that this lack of responsibility and coordination had contributed, to some extent, to the tragic outcome of the events, the judges said. We certainly cannot agree with such an assessment, in a country which has suffered from more than one terrorist attack, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov said of the ruling. And, indeed, this ruling does come not too long after a bombing on the St. Petersburg metro that killed 14 after which unfounded conspiracy theories of government involvement abounded, so often does the Kremlin make political hay out of tragedy. Photo credit: FREDERICK FLORIN/AFP/Getty Images MOSCOW (AP) The European Court of Human Rights ruled Thursday that Russia failed to adequately protect victims of a 2004 school siege in the city of Beslan that left more than 330 people dead, a verdict that Moscow said it would appeal. The France-based court said authorities did not take necessary preventive measures to save lives. It said the security forces' use of tank cannon, grenade launchers and flame-throwers contributed to casualties among the hostages. It also noted failures to increase security before the attack despite imminent threats against schools in the area. A group of 32 heavily armed radical Islamic militants seized the school on the first day of class on Sept. 1, 2004, herding more than 1,000 people into the gymnasium and holding them hostage for nearly three days. The siege ended in gunfire and explosions, leaving 334 dead, more than half of them children. Over 800 people were wounded. The court ordered that Russia pay nearly 3 million euros ($3.2 million) in total compensation to the 409 Russians who brought the case to the ECHR; they include people who were taken hostage, or injured or are relatives of the hostages or those killed and injured. The Russian Justice Ministry, announcing its intention to appeal, contended that the judges failed to grasp the gravity of the situation during the siege and specifics of efforts taken to free the hostages. The ministry said the court's assessment of indiscriminate use of weapons by Russian special forces was groundless, citing results of an official Russian probe into the siege. Dmitry Peskov, the spokesman for President Vladimir Putin, also rejected the court's view of disproportionate use of force by the government, saying that "such hypothetical assessment is hardly acceptable." He told reporters in a conference call that Russia, as a country that came under numerous terror attacks, can't accept the ruling. "Such wording is absolutely unacceptable for a country that came under attack," Peskov said. Story continues "All the necessary legal action regarding this ruling will be taken," he added. The head of the Mothers of Beslan group, Aneta Gadieva, said the payment ordered was meager. "Somebody will get 5,000 euro, somebody will get 20,000 euro. That's a small sum in compensation for moral damages," she was quoted as telling state news agency Tass. Chechen rebel warlord Shamil Basayev claimed responsibility for organizing the school siege. It came amid a particularly violent period in the Islamist insurgency that was connected with the fight between Russian forces and Chechen separatists. A week before the seizure, suicide bombers downed two Russian airliners on the same night, killing a total of 90 people, and another suicide bomber killed 10 people outside a Moscow subway station. ___ Jim Heintz in Moscow and Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report. By Gilbert Reilhac and Svetlana Reiter STRASBOURG/MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian authorities breached European human rights laws when they stormed a school seized by Islamist militants in 2004, contributing to the deaths of more than 300 hostages, the continent's rights court ruled on Thursday. Among the more than 330 dead were at least 180 children. A further 750 people were wounded when security forces used "tank cannon, grenade launchers and flamethrowers" while trying to free more than 1,000 hostages at the school in the southern Russian town of Beslan. This, said the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, "contributed to the casualties among the hostages" and did not respect the hostages' "right to life" by failing to restrict lethal force to what was "absolutely necessary". The court ordered Russia to pay 2.955 million euros ($3.14 million) in damages and 88,000 euros in legal costs. The court also said Russian authorities had been aware of a possible attack on public places such as schools but had not prepared sufficiently. "While certain security measures had been taken, in general the preventive measures in the present case could be characterised as inadequate," it said. Russia's government said it would appeal against the ruling. "We cannot agree with such a conclusion in a country that has been a victim of terrorist attacks multiple times," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. "Unfortunately the list of such countries is growing and is unfortunately growing regularly, so such conclusions for a country that endured an attack are absolutely unacceptable," Peskov said. A lawyer who represented victims of the siege and their families said they had only achieved a partial victory, and the focus would now be on trying to hold to account Russian officials over their failings. "We are not entirely happy with the decision," said Sergei Knyazkin, a lawyer for campaign group the Beslan Mothers Committee. "Three million euros in compensation is not enough, because you cannot measure the death of children in such figures." "The victims insist that the authorities carry the blame for the badly-conducted operation to free the hostages in Beslan," Knyazkin told Reuters. Militants demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya seized some 1,100 children, parents and teachers as they celebrated the first day of the school year in September 2004. On Sept. 3 the siege ended in a series of explosions and a bloody shootout when Russian forces moved in. ($1 = 0.9398 euros) (Additional reporting by Robert-Jan Bartunek in Brussels and Christian Lowe in Moscow; Editing by Mark Trevelyan/Andrew Osborn) By Jeremy Wagstaff and Byron Kaye SINGAPORE/SYDNEY (Reuters) - A company built around the research of Craig Wright, who has claimed to have invented the bitcoin cryptocurrency, has been sold to a private equity firm in a deal the company says is the biggest to date involving bitcoin's underlying blockchain technology. The deal swings the spotlight once again on to Wright, a 46-year-old computer scientist who is the cryptocurrency's most controversial figure. He hopes to remain central to the technology's future, telling Reuters the goal is to build bitcoin into a global "system with no ruler, no king." "We will scale and grow bitcoin to become what it was envisioned to be," he said. "All I do is to help grow the use of bitcoin, and I want to see it in daily use by at least a billion people on-chain. We have the funds, the people and the technology to do this." According to a news release on Thursday, Malta-based High Tech Private Equity Fund SICAV plc bought nChain Holdings, "the world leader in blockchain-centric research and development." It put no value on the deal and did not mention Wright. Reuters previously identified nChain, formerly known as EITC Holdings, as Wright's vehicle for filing hundreds of bitcoin and blockchain-related patents. UK records confirm that the target company - under both its EITC and nChain names - already filed more than 80 bitcoin and blockchain-related patents. A person close to the deal said $300 million had been invested in nChain, but it was not clear over what period of time. The Maltese fund did not respond to emails asking for comment. Reuters reported last year that EITC planned to file hundreds of patents related to blockchain, the distributed ledger technology that underpins cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. The financial industry and others are exploring its potential. The fund is managed by Liechtenstein-based Accuro Fund Solutions, part of Zurich-based Accuro Group. Accuro did not respond to an emailed request for comment. DIVISIVE FIGURE Wright remains a divisive figure in the bitcoin world. After failing to convince many in the bitcoin community that he was Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous founder of bitcoin, Wright retreated from view last year. Reuters reported last month that Wright was working with Calvin Ayre, a Canadian online gambling tycoon, to build a patent portfolio, though its purpose was not clear. Ayre was not immediately available for comment. nChain said in an emailed response to questions from Reuters that neither Ayre nor Wright had a stake in it before or after the sale. It said the company previously acquired Wright's assets and intellectual property, and he now held the post of chief scientist. Although it was not possible to confirm Wright's identity as Nakamoto, a Reuters investigation found he was deeply involved in the early development of bitcoin, and had told Australian tax officials he possessed more than 1 million bitcoin - worth $1.2 billion at the current exchange rate. Patent lawyers have noted that open-source technologies like bitcoin are not easy to patent, and even if patents are approved, they are not always easy to defend. Thursday's announcement is the first time nChain has publicly acknowledged it is filing patents. Without confirming how many bitcoins he owns, Wright told Reuters he would never "dump bitcoin." "I will sell when I do this for goods on a daily basis, or I will go down with it. Past the basics of my family's well-being, all I have is dedicated to building the systems and institutions needed to make bitcoin successful globally," he said. The news release also shed light on what Wright and nChain might do with its patents. nChain this year "intends to make some of its intellectual property assets available to the blockchain community through open-source software and royalty-free licensing." It invited interested parties to register via email. nChain's patent filings, seen by Reuters, range from the storage of medical documents to WiFi security. Investors have spent more than $1.5 billion on blockchain and bitcoin start-ups over the past four years, according to CB Insights, an internet research company. The company said it was also working on software tools and applications to support the growth of blockchain. These include a software to develop applications on the bitcoin blockchain, solutions for bitcoin blockchain scalability, inventions to improve security, on-chain scripting for smart contracts, and a decentralised trading platform that uses autonomous agents. The company also called for a neutral standards body to be set up to coordinate bitcoin's development. (Reporting by Jeremy Wagstaff and Byron Kaye; Editing by Ian Geoghegan) By David Brunnstrom and Matt Spetalnick WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Despite sending a naval force to the Korean peninsula, the Trump administration is focusing its North Korea strategy on tougher economic sanctions, possibly including an oil embargo, banning its airline, intercepting cargo ships and punishing Chinese banks doing business with Pyongyang, U.S. officials say. U.S. President Donald Trump has approved a preliminary broad approach on North Korea and asked his national security team to craft a more detailed framework for new international sanctions and other actions to counter Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs, one official said. "There's a whole host of things that are possible, all the way up to what's essentially a trade quarantine on North Korea," the official told Reuters on Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity. The U.S. officials said the administration is considering an array of stiffer sanctions that could be applied on a "sliding scale" proportionate to North Korean actions. Some steps could be applied unilaterally, and others through the United Nations, where China has a Security Council veto. The U.S. show of force, sending what Trump called an "armada" of military vessels toward the region, and North Korea's angry response, has raised fears of a military confrontation. Though U.S. officials insist that military options remain on the table, pre-emptive strikes on North Korea remain a last resort, and they stressed that - for now, at least - the Trump administration is stressing economic and diplomatic measures. U.N. economic options include an embargo on oil supplies to North Korea; a global ban on Air Koryo, its national airline; and interdiction of North Korean freighters on the high seas, a step that would go beyond an existing requirement for nations to inspect ships transiting their territory, the officials said this week. The United Nations also could prohibit the use of North Korean contracted labor abroad and expand the restrictions on North Korean coal exports to a total ban, the officials said. Story continues Another step could be a ban on North Korean seafood exports, Pyongyang's fourth-largest export to China, its main trading partner, and expanded efforts to seize assets of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his family. U.S. administration officials said final decisions on specific sanctions targets have yet to made, but they privately expressed doubts about how much further Beijing is willing to go to bring its defiant ally to heel - in spite of increasing Chinese concerns that North Korea might soon conduct a sixth nuclear test or new missile launches. Related: For more news videos visit Yahoo View, available now on iOS and Android. A phone call between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday was intended to reinforce U.S. pressure on Beijing to curb Pyongyang's nuclear and ballistic missile programs, a U.S. official said. On Wednesday, Trump, who met Xi at a first summit in Florida last week, praised China for sending coal ships back to North Korea under existing U.N. sanctions. Trump said he thought Xi wanted to help, but added: "We'll see whether or not he does." MULTIPLE SANCTIONS TARGETS While Trump emphasized the warmth of his interactions with Xi, he warned the Chinese leader last week that new sanctions could include penalties against Chinese banks and companies doing business with North Korea if Beijing did not step up pressure, one U.S. official said. "If that's the only option the Chinese leave us, there's a real possibility that Chinese entities will get hit," the official said. The U.S. aim would be to tighten the screws on North Korea in the same way it pressured Iran to open negotiations on its suspected nuclear weapons program by penalizing all foreign firms dealing with the country. "The amount of pressure that has been brought to bear economically on North Korea is far short of what was brought to bear against Iran," another senior administration official said. Some analysts cautioned that targeting Chinese entities with so-called "secondary sanctions" could backfire and make Beijing less willing to cooperate, and that dealing with a country that already has nuclear weapons differs from dealing with one accused of trying acquire them. "If you want to rely on sanctions to achieve your goal, you have to find a way to persuade or force the world into going all the way to a near full embargo or at least an embargo on key commodities like petroleum and on North Korean hard currency export earnings," said Joseph DeThomas, a former State Department official who worked on Iran and North Korea sanctions. "Only if the regime sees continuation of sanctions as fatal will it consider change," he said. Asked about the possibility of new U.S. sanctions, China's foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a regular briefing China was opposed. "China has always opposed the use of unilateral sanctions in international relations and is firmly opposed when such unilateral sanctions harm China's interests," Lu said. In a sign of Beijing's growing frustration with North Korea, China's Global Times newspaper said on Wednesday North Korea should halt any nuclear and missile activities "for its own security" - a reference to the approaching U.S. naval force. It said that if North Korea made another provocative move, "Chinese society" might back unprecedented sanctions "such as restricting oil imports." While run by the ruling Communist Party's official People's Daily, the Global Times does not always represent government policy. (Reporting By Matt Spetalnick and David Brunnstrom; Editing by Bill Rigby) By Lidia Kelly and Pawel Sobczak WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland hopes to host U.S. President Donald Trump for a short visit in July and its foreign minister will discuss the plan during a trip to Washington next week, Polish government sources told Reuters. The diplomatic offensive comes as Poland prepared to welcome on Thursday a U.S.-led deployment of 1,100 troops on its eastern flank as part of NATO plans to counter a more assertive Russia. Trump rattled Washington's European allies last year by branding NATO "obsolete" and calling for improved ties with Russia. But following a sharp disagreement with Moscow over the Syria crisis, Trump has abruptly reversed course and said on Wednesday NATO was "no longer obsolete". Trump is due to attend a summit of the Group of 20 biggest economies in Germany on July 7-8. Poland hopes he can make a stopover beforehand in the western Polish city of Wroclaw, which will be hosting a conference on Atlantic values at that time. "Poland is trying very hard to bring Trump here, even if only for a brief visit," a Polish government source said, on condition of anonymity, late on Wednesday. A second government source said a Trump visit would be "a significant development for Poland's image abroad". Poland's conservative, euroskeptic ruling party, Law and Justice (PiS), is staunchly Atlanticist and has been much more welcoming of the new right-wing Trump administration than many other European governments. Trump has been critical in the past of the European Union, with which PiS has troubled relations. Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski will discuss the invitation in talks next week with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the first government source said. A source in the office of Polish President Andrzej Duda said Warsaw expected a decision from Washington in the first half of May. "The case seems to be developing positively, although there is still no final decision," the source said. NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Curtis Scaparrotti, was due to attend Thursday's welcoming ceremony for the troops to be deployed in Poland. (Writing by Lidia Kelly; Editing by Gareth Jones) LONDON (Reuters) - Facebook failed to remove dozens of instances of extremist and child pornography even after the social network's moderators were directly informed of the potentially illegal content, an investigation by The Times showed on Thursday. Using a fake profile set up last month, a Times journalist found images and videos glorifying Islamic State and recent deadly attacks in London and Egypt, along with graphic images of child abuse, and asked site moderators to remove them. Facebook moderators removed some of reported images but left untouched pro-jihadist posts praising recent attacks and calling for new ones. The company appeared to take action only after The Times identified itself as reporting a story on the matter. Failure to remove content which is illegal under British law after company officials have been notified of its existence could expose Facebook to criminal prosecution for its role in encouraging the publication and distribution of such imagery. The social media giant faces new laws in countries around the world to force it to move faster to combat illegal content but it has struggled to keep pace as illicit posts can reappear as fast as they are identified and taken down. A Facebook spokesman said the company had now removed all the images identified by the Times as potentially illegal, acknowledging that they "violate our policies and have no place on Facebook". "We are sorry that this occurred," Facebook Vice President of Operations Justin Osofsky said in a statement. "It is clear that we can do better, and we'll continue to work hard to live up to the high standards people rightly expect of Facebook. A spokesman for London's Metropolitan Police called for individuals to report extremist content to it via an online form. It declined to comment on whether it was investigating if Facebook failed to act when notified of the illegal content. "Where material breaches UK terrorism laws, the Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU) will, where possible, seek the removal of the content by working with the relevant internet hosting company," the spokesman said. (Reporting By Eric Auchard; editing by Stephen Addison) San Francisco (AFP) - Facebook said it has started weeding out bogus accounts by watching for suspicious behavior such as repetitive posts or torrents of messages. The security improvement was described as being part of a broader effort to rid the leading social network of hoaxes, misinformation, and fake news by making sure people are who they claim to be. "We've found that when people represent themselves on Facebook the same way they do in real life, they act responsibly," Shabnam Shaik of the Facebook protect and care team said in a blog post. "Fake accounts don't follow this pattern, and are closely related to the creation and spread of spam." Accounts suspected of being bogus are suspended and holders asked to verify identifies, which scammers typically don't do, according to the California-based social network. In France, the new tactic has already resulted in Facebook taking action against 30,000 accounts believed to be fakes, Shaik said. "We've made improvements to recognize these inauthentic accounts more easily by identifying patterns of activity -- without assessing the content itself," Shaik said. "With these changes, we expect we will also reduce the spread of material generated through inauthentic activity, including spam, misinformation, or other deceptive content that is often shared by creators of fake accounts." Under pressure to stymie the spread of fake news, Facebook has taken a series of steps including making it easier to report such posts and harder to make money from them. Facebook also modified its displays of trending topics to find stories faster, capture a broader range of news, and help ensure that trends reflect real world events being covered by multiple news outlets. Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg has sought to deflect criticism that the huge social network may have been used to fuel the spread of misinformation that affected the 2016 US presidential race. Facebook last week unleashed a new weapon in the war against "revenge porn" at the social network as well as the messaging services Messenger and Instagram. When intimate images shared on Facebook without permission are reported, confirmed and removed, the company will use photo-matching technology to prevent copies from being shared again on its platform. Ira Gershwin chose to reference tomatoes, potatoes, pajamas, and oysters when he wrote the lyrics to the clash-of-cultures classic Lets Call the Whole Thing Off back in 1937. Had he been working more recently, he might have sneaked in a reference to compact Ford crossovers. Because while we say Escape, Europeans say Kuga, even though what were talking about is pretty much the exact same car. There are differences. Europe-market Kugas are built in Spain and typically ship with diesel engines, while our Escapes come from Kentucky and burn gasoline. But now theres set to be another point of distinction, with those snooty Yew-Row-Peens launching whats meant to be a luxury version: the Kuga Vignale. Unlikely as it seems, Ford of Europe is deadly serious about its new Vignale sub-brand, planning to create lux iterations of everything from the subcompact Fiesta to the minivan-like S-Max. Having sold off both Jaguar and Land Rover when times were tougher, Ford no longer has any swankier brand in EuropeLincoln has never had a presence on the Continentand Vignale models are meant to fill some of the gap. Were told that they are positioned above the existing model hierarchy and are aimed at customers who otherwise would go for a premium brand. As youd expect, the Kuga Vignale gets plusher trim and more standard equipment than its workaday cousin, and indeed it comes fitted with pretty much every available option. But it also will be sold differently, from no-hassle lounges inside select Ford dealerships to the offer of pick-up-and-drop servicing and even a concierge service that claims to be capable of getting tickets for sold-out shows. (These perks are similar to those offered to buyers of Lincoln Black Label models in the U.S.) The company says that Vignale variants will undergo extra quality checks during assembly as well, which might make buyers of lesser Kugas wonder just what Ford is willing to overlook on their cars. Story continues Luxury Slathered On with a Butter Knife There are no sheetmetal changes between the Vignale and its proletarian cousinsthe Vignale is not a Europeanized Lincoln MKCso its fair to say similarities are far more marked than the differences. The uber-Kuga gets prominent Vignale badges on its fenders and liftgate, 18-inch chrome-effect aluminum wheels, shinier trim, and an egg-crate grille in place of the slatted Escape-like one used on ordinary Kugas. Inside the cabin things get odder, and the urge to use a metaphor referencing pigs and lipstick becomes almost overwhelming. Vignale is meant to be about luxury, but the plusher materials seem to have been added with more enthusiasm than finesse. So, while power-adjustable leather front seats with a striking quilted stitch pattern feel both comfortable and classy, the matching door trim and dashboard tops have basically been pasted atop the considerably cheaper Kuga-grade items, highlighting the contrast between the two. The switchgear is unchanged and feels particularly plasticky given the upmarket aspirations, even if the central display screen gets a Vignale welcome page. Our test car was the range-topper, with a 178-hp version of Fords long-serving TDCi 2.0-liter diesel inline-four, basically the same engine weve previously sampled in the Europe-only diesel Focus ST, and with both all-wheel drive and a six-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission. Other drivetrains are available, including two less powerful diesels and a 180-hp gasoline model using the EcoBoost 1.5-liter inline-four. Although the gas engine has fractionally more power, the diesel is more expensive due to the continued popularity of compression ignition in Euro-land. Kind of Loud, But at Least Its Slow As four-cylinder diesels go, the TDCi is not a bad engine, although it is conspicuously lacking in firepower when considered against more modern European rivals. The engine is noticeably louder than Volkswagens latest Euro-spec TDI even under gentle use and gets very vocal when worked hard, but it has more than enough midrange torque to make respectable progress without breaking a sweat. Acceleration is disappointing, though, with Fords claims of a leisurely 10.0-second zero-to-62-mph time looking very slow compared with the U.S.-spec Escape that we ran from zero to 60 mph in 7.1 seconds. It certainly left us with no enthusiasm to sample any of the less powerful variants; Ford says the base diesel takes a yawning 12.7 seconds to get to 62 mph. On the plus side, the all-wheel-drive system coped well with the sometimes snowy conditions we drove in, and the rest of the behind-the-wheel experience stays predictably close to that delivered by the standard Kuga, one of the better-handling cars in its segment, aided by torque vectoring. The steering is direct and front-end responses keen, understeer is resisted admirably, and ride quality is good. It doesnt have the dynamic character of many of the cars Ford has priced it against, but its laid-back demeanor gives it a point of difference over firmer-riding German rivals. But its when discussion moves to price that the Kuga Vignales reality-distortion field flickers and dies. European car pricing is higher than in the States, but even so, the U.K. price of the 2.0-liter TDCi AWD PowerShift we drove looks fairly preposterous at 35,890 (including the requisite 20 percent value-added tax), or $45,000 at current exchange rates. That makes the Vignale as expensive as a BMW X3 xDrive20d in Blighty. The Ford has more standard equipmentplus that concierge servicebut the BMW is nearly two seconds quicker to 62 mph. The Kuga Vignale finds Fords European division trying to solve a problem that Dearborn has already addressed with the Lincoln MKC. While we arent huge fans of the Lincoln, its certainly a more convincing version of a posh Escape, the tomato to the Vignales potato. Specifications > VEHICLE TYPE: front-engine, all-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 4-door hatchback ESTIMATED BASE PRICE (UNITED KINGDOM): $32,400$36,900 ENGINE TYPES: turbocharged and intercooled SOHC 8-valve diesel 1.5-liter inline-4, 118 hp, 199 or 221 lb-ft; turbocharged and intercooled DOHC 16-valve diesel 2.0-liter inline-4, 148 or 178 hp, 273 or 295 lb-ft; turbocharged and intercooled DOHC 16-valve 1.5-liter inline-4, 180 hp, 177 lb-ft TRANSMISSIONS: 6-speed manual, 6-speed dual-clutch automatic DIMENSIONS: Wheelbase: 105.9 in Length: 178.8 in Width: 73.1 in Height: 66.767.0 in Passenger volume: 98102 cu ft Cargo volume: 34 cu ft Curb weight: 36503900 lb PERFORMANCE (C/D EST): Zero to 60 mph: 9.812.5 sec Zero to 100 mph: 32.037.0 sec Standing -mile: 17.420.1 sec Top speed: 115125 mph FUEL ECONOMY (C/D EST): EPA combined/city/highway driving: 2433/2229/2839 mpg Shree Airlines acquires first jet to begin fixed-wing operations Nepals largest helicopter operator, Shree Airlines on Wednesday welcomed its first 50-seater Bombardier Canadair Regional Jet (CRJ-200) as part of its plan to diversify and tap into Nepals expanding air travel market. Caracas (AFP) - More clashes erupted Thursday between police and protesters rallying against the Venezuelan government, after officials said a fifth person died from being shot during earlier unrest. Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse protesters in Caracas, AFP reporters saw. It was the latest in a week of clashes over a mounting crisis driven by food shortages. A 32-year-old man died from a gunshot wound suffered during clashes on Tuesday night in the northwestern town of Cabudare, a spokesman for the public prosecution service who asked not to be named told AFP. Socialist President Nicolas Maduro is fighting off efforts to oust him as Venezuela, once a booming oil exporting nation, struggles with shortages of food and medicine. Dozens of people have been injured and more than 100 arrested over the past week in clashes in various cities, according to authorities. Opposition lawmaker Alfonso Marquina on Twitter identified the latest death as Antonio Gruseny Calderon and called him "another victim of the dictatorship." - Boy killed - Marquina and officials earlier said a 13-year-old boy was shot dead in protests on Tuesday in the western city of Barquisimeto. Marquina blamed that killing on so-called "colectivos," armed supporters of the government whom the opposition accuses of attacking them during demonstrations. A 36-year-old man was killed the same night in Barquisimeto, prosecutors said. Two 19-year-old students were shot by police in earlier unrest, one on April 6 and one on April 11, according to authorities. Also on Thursday, opposition lawmaker Jose Manuel Olivares said police fired tear gas "point-blank" at demonstrators in the state of Vargas. "If they think they will scare us that way they are wrong. We will stay in the street!" he wrote on Twitter. - Street clashes - Thursday's clashes in Caracas erupted when an estimated 1,000 demonstrators kept marching after the scheduled end of a bigger opposition protest and headed for a central district where government institutions are located. Story continues Military police dispersed demonstrators. Some radical members of the rally, their heads covered by hoods, clashed with police. Another group of around 1,000 people was targeted by police with tear gas and rubber bullets as they marched from the east of the city toward a highway leading downtown. "I want to see Venezuela free of dictatorship. At peace," said protesting stay-at-home mother Aura Cuaita, 33. "I am not afraid." In the city of Carora, people lay down in the street to form the letters of the Spanish words for "Down with Maduro." Pro-government supporters fired buckshot at them, said the opposition lawmaker Marquina. Police also reportedly broke up a protest in the state of Vargas which borders Caracas. Yet another march in the west of Caracas took place without violence however, despite passing near the headquarters of security services. "Why was there no violence? Because they (the authorities) are the violent ones.... We are the guarantors of peace in this country," said opposition congress deputy-speaker Freddy Guevara in a speech. - International concern - The next major organized rallies called by opposition leaders are set for Wednesday next week. That is expected to be the next big showdown in an increasingly fraught crisis that has raised international concerns for Venezuela's stability. The opposition is demanding the authorities set a date for postponed regional elections. It is also furious over moves to limit the powers of the legislature and ban senior opposition leader Henrique Capriles from politics. Those moves have raised international condemnation including from the United States and the European Union. The US State Department on Thursday urged the Venezuelan security forces to respect people's right to assembly, and urged Maduro to reconsider its decision on banning Capriles. "It's absolutely vital that Venezuelans have the right to ... elect their representatives in free and fair elections in accordance with the Venezuelan Constitution and consistent with international instruments" said department spokesman Mark Toner. Maduro has resisted opposition efforts to hold a referendum on removing him, vowing to continue the "socialist revolution" launched by his late predecessor Hugo Chavez. Maduro says the economic crisis is the result of what he calls a US-backed capitalist conspiracy. John Boyega, Anthony Mackie and John Krasinski star in Kathryn Bigelow's upcoming movie about the Detroit riots in the summer of 1967. The movie is due in US theaters August 4. The movie world has been waiting four years to see the return of Kathryn Bigelow, the only female winner of the Best Director Oscar (with "The Hurt Locker" in 2010). For her next movie, the conflict zone specialist is leaving the Middle East -- the setting of her last two movies -- behind, and heading to the US city of Detroit to portray the Detroit riots, a major event in American history. At the end of July 1967, the Michigan city was the scene of violent protests following a police raid of an unlicensed, after-hours bar, which enflamed racial tensions, particularly between police and the African-American community. More than 40 people were killed and 500 were injured in the space of four days. The movie stars John Boyega ("Star Wars: the Force Awakens"), Anthony Mackie ("Avengers: Age of Ultron") and John Krasinski ("The Office") and is scheduled for release August 4 in US theaters -- 50 years after the event. Watch the "Detroit" trailer: Youtu.be/HFeWsDpy9y0 Sidon (Lebanon) (AFP) - A local security force deployed across southern Lebanon's Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp on Thursday, a commander said, ending a week of sporadic clashes with an extremist group. The fighting, which left nine dead and more than 50 wounded, had prompted many to flee their homes and forced schools and shops in and around the camp to close. The commander, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the local security force, which includes 100 fighters from several Palestinian factions, was able to deploy throughout the camp after a ceasefire late Wednesday night. Lebanon's army does not enter the camp by long-standing convention. "Security forces deployed in the Al-Tiri neighbourhood, which had been the focal point of the clashes," the commander said. He added that "extremist Islamist groups" had withdrawn from some areas to avoid further clashes. Fighting erupted late Friday after Palestinian factions deployed throughout Ain al-Hilweh as part of an operation aimed at combating the influence of a local Islamist group linked to Bilal Badr, a wanted militant. The commander said Badr had refused to give himself up to Palestinian security forces to be handed over to the Lebanese authorities. Badr is wanted on suspicion of "terrorism", firearms offences and belonging to an armed group, according to a Lebanese security official. An AFP correspondent said the camp had suffered major damage and that some residents had been trapped inside their homes throughout the fighting. Local activist Asef Moussa told AFP that "dozens of young people will volunteer on Friday to clean the streets and clear up the damage and rubble left by the fighting". The United Nations Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA said it welcomed the return to calm. "UNRWA... is working to restore its services in the camp as quickly as possible," said its local affairs director Claudio Cordone, adding that UNRWA would resume its activities on Friday morning. Story continues Ain al-Hilweh is the most densely populated Palestinian camp in Lebanon. Home to multiple armed factions including extremist groups, it has been plagued by intermittent clashes. Lebanese security forces do not enter Palestinian refugee camps, where security is managed by joint committees of Palestinian factions. Ain al-Hilweh is home to some 61,000 Palestinians, including 6,000 who have fled the war in Syria. By Michael Martina and Sue-Lin Wong BEIJING/PYONGYANG (Reuters) - Military force cannot resolve tension over North Korea, China said on Thursday, while an influential Chinese newspaper urged the North to halt its nuclear program in exchange for Chinese protection. Concerns have been growing that North Korea could soon conduct a sixth nuclear test or more missile launches in defiance of U.N. sanctions and stark warnings from the United States that a policy of patience was over. With a U.S. aircraft carrier group steaming to the area in a show of force and tensions rising, fears of a confrontation have been rising. (Graphic - The Carl Vinson Strike Group: http://tmsnrt.rs/2pqOMWA) China, North Korea's sole major ally and neighbor, which nevertheless opposes its weapons program, has called for talks leading to a peaceful resolution and the denuclearization of the peninsula. "Military force cannot resolve the issue," Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters in Beijing. "Amid tensions we will also find a kind of opportunity to return to talks." While U.S. President Donald Trump has put North Korea on notice that he would not tolerate any provocation, U.S. officials have said his administration was focusing its strategy on tougher economic sanctions. Trump said on Thursday Pyongyang was a problem that "will be taken care of" and that he believed Chinese President Xi Jinping would "work very hard" to help resolve the challenge. Trump has also said the United States is prepared to tackle the crisis without China, if necessary. Trump diverted the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier group toward the Korean peninsula last weekend in a show of force to try to deter North Korea from conducting another nuclear test or launching more missiles to coincide with important events and anniversaries. But a senior Trump administration official described as "flat wrong" an NBC News report citing senior U.S. intelligence officials as saying the United States is prepared to launch a pre-emptive conventional weapons strike should officials be convinced North Korea was about to follow through with a nuclear weapons test. Scores of foreign journalists are gathered in Pyongyang for North Korea's biggest national day, the "Day of the Sun", marking he 105th anniversary of the birth of state founder Kim Il Sung on Saturday. They were taken to what officials billed as a "big and important event" early on Thursday which turned out to be the opening of a new street in the center of the capital, attended by current leader Kim Jong Un. In 2012, two days before the centenary of Kim Il Sung's death, it tried but failed to launch a long-range rocket carrying a satellite. It tested a newly developed intermediate-range missile on the anniversary last year, a launch that also failed. A Washington-based think tank that monitors North Korea, 38 North, said satellite images on Wednesday showed activity around the North's Punggye-ri nuclear test site on the east coast that indicated it was ready for a new test. South Korean and U.S. officials and the think tank have been saying for weeks that North Korea could test a sixth bomb at any time. CIA director Mike Pompeo said North Korea was closer now than it had ever been to being able to threaten the United States with a nuclear-tipped intercontinental missile and increased its technical know-how with each new test. This in turn reduced U.S. options and makes it more likely that you get a bad decision, a tough day for the leader of North Korea, he told Washington's Center for Strategic and International studies. Asked if there was hope that China would do more to slow or suspend its nuclear program, he replied: "Im counting on it. Speculation about U.S. military action grew after the U.S. Navy fired 59 Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian airfield last week in response to a deadly gas attack. Washington said North Korea should see the strikes as a sign of U.S. resolve, but U.S. officials have played down the prospect of any military strike against North Korea, which would likely provoke massive North Korean retaliation and huge casualties in Japan and South Korea and among U.S. forces in both countries. The United States has remained technically at war with North Korea since the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty and the past six decades have been punctuated by periodic rises in tension and rhetoric that has always stopped short of a resumption of active hostilities. Analysts have interpreted China's warnings as an effort to persuade North Korea to shelve plans for more tests. Wang warned that history would hold any instigator to account. "Whoever provokes the situation, whoever continues to make trouble in this place, they will have to assume historical responsibility," Wang said. South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se told parliament in Seoul he believed Washington would consult Seoul if it was considering a pre-emptive strike. An influential state-backed Chinese newspaper, the Global Times, said North Korea's best option was to give up its nuclear program, and added that China would protect it if it did. "As soon as North Korea complies with China's declared advice and suspends nuclear activities ... China will actively work to protect the security of a denuclearized North Korean nation and regime," it said in an editorial. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe underscored fears about North Korea, saying it could have the capacity to deliver missiles equipped with sarin nerve gas. But a senior Japanese diplomat said Japan also did not see a high risk of military action. On Tuesday, North Korea warned of a nuclear attack on the United States at any sign of American aggression. The White House dismissed the threat, saying there was no evidence North Korea could carry it out. North Korea regularly threatens to destroy the United States and South Korea. U.S. officials said Trump was considering sanctions that could include an oil embargo, banning North Korea's airline, intercepting cargo ships, and punishing Chinese banks doing business with it. Customs data in Beijing on Thursday showed China's coal imports from North Korea had plunged 51.6 percent in the first three months in 2017 from a year earlier. China suspended permit issuance for North Korean coal imports on Feb. 18 as part of its effort to implement U.N. sanctions. (Additional reporting by Natalie Thomas in PYONGYANG, Ju-min Park and James Pearson in SEOUL, Christian Shepherd in BEIJING, Linda Sieg in TOKYO, and Matt Spetalnick, David Brunnstrom, Steve Holland and Jeff Mason in WASHINGTON; Editing by Paul Tait, Robert Birsel and Howard Goller) Washington (AFP) - A week after President Donald Trump defended the star Fox News host Bill O'Reilly following accusations of sexual harassment, he is on vacation from his hugely popular show and his future uncertain. The right-wing television personality announced what he called a long-planned break during his show on Tuesday, saying he would return on April 24 -- amid reports he may not come back. Around this time of year, "I grab some vacation because it's spring and Easter time," the combative 67-year-old host said. "Last fall, I booked a trip that should be terrific." His announcement follows a report in The New York Times last month saying the Fox cable news giant and O'Reilly had paid five women a total of $13 million in cases spanning 15 years, in exchange for their silence and agreement not to pursue litigation against Fox News, a favorite among conservatives. The revelations come as "The O'Reilly Factor," US television's most-watched cable news show, is more popular than ever in its 20-year history. Last week, the show averaged 3.7 million viewers over five nights, up 28 percent from the same week last year, according to Nielsen Research. But O'Reilly's fate may come down to his station's bottom line. Some 60 companies have said they would no longer advertise on his show following the Times report. The time allotted for companies' advertisements on the show has been cut by more than half, according to an analysis released Tuesday by Kantar Media. Fox has filled the time with extra content. That is adding to doubts about O'Reilly's future, with New York Magazine reporting sources inside the network as saying he may not return. Although Fox News co-president Bill Shine wants the host to stay, the decision is up to the Murdoch family, which owns the network, the magazine said. Fox News's parent company has said it will investigate the harassment claims. Story continues Rotating substitute hosts will replace O'Reilly during his absence, Politico reported, with guest hosts already filling in for him during the show's Friday broadcasts for months. Fox has chosen a woman to be the first host, Politico said: Dana Perino, former spokeswoman for president George W. Bush. - 'A good person' - Just last week, Trump -- reported to be an avid Fox News watcher -- came to O'Reilly's aid, calling him "a good person." "Personally, I think he shouldn't have settled," the president said, suggesting O'Reilly should have fought the lawsuits against him in court. O'Reilly himself did not directly deny any of the allegations, but said his prominence made him "vulnerable to lawsuits from individuals who want me to pay them to avoid negative publicity." Last year, Trump defended former Fox News chief Roger Ailes, who stepped down in July amid sexual harassment accusations of his own. Ailes, 76, had built the conservative news channel at the request of Rupert Murdoch, head of the media giant News Corp. Accusations of sexual harassment also roiled Trump's election campaign last year following the release of a 2005 video that caught him on a "hot mike" making vulgar and degrading remarks about women and boasting about sexually assaulting them. A dozen women came forward after the video's release to publicly accuse the Republican candidate of abusive behavior that, in some instances if confirmed, would have amounted to sexual assault. Trump has consistently denied the accusations. France and Japan want to recover pieces of a Martian Moon and bring them back to Earth, the head of France's National Centre for Space Studies (CNES) said Thursday. The Martian Moons Exploration project would launch a probe in 2024 destined for Phobos, the largest and closest of two moons circling the Red Planet. Paris and Tokyo signed a preliminary agreement on Monday, and will make a final decision before the end of the year, CNES president Jean-Yves Le Gall told AFP. "It's a very important mission because -- besides the Moon -- it would be the first time samples from the satellite of a planet would be brought back to Earth," he said by phone. Slightly egg-shaped, Phobos is 27 kilometres (17 miles) in diametre from end-to-end. Analysing its composition would solve a long-standing question as to its origins. One theory holds that the oblong moon is an asteroid captured by the gravitational pull of Mars. Another says that it is left-over matter from the Red Planet's creation event. Landing on Phobos will also provide another vantage point for observing Mars, only 6,000 kilometres (3,700 miles) distant. Getting there poses fewer challenges that landing on Mars, a graveyard for several failed missions. "It should be twice as easy because the probe will not have to go through the Martian atmosphere," Le Gall said. The Japanese partner for the project is the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. Phobos -- closer to its planet than any other moon in the solar system -- is approaching Mars by about 2 metres (6.5 feet) every century. Scientists expect the moon to be pulled apart in 30 to 50 million years. In 2011, a Phobos-bound probe launched by Russia -- it's first interplanetary mission in 15 years -- failed, with pieces falling into the Pacific two months later. In 2020, the joint Europe-Russia ExoMars mission will lauch a rover tasked with finding traces of Martian life, past or present. NASA's Curiosity rover has been criss-crossing the planet for more than three years. The American agency has plans for a manned trip in the next 10-15 years, with a similar project also being pursued by US billionaire Elon Musk. The composer Mikel Rouse, who has comfortably straddled genres from classical to pop, found something unexpected when he took part in a Black Lives Matter protest -- beauty. Rouse joined in chanting "Hands Up! Don't Shoot!" out of conviction, but the artist in him kicked in and he recorded it on his iPhone. "It sounded so musical to me," Rouse said. With digital manipulation and an anxious electronic soundscape, the technophile Rouse turned the chant into "Resolver" -- which he sees as a descendant piece of sorts to pioneering minimalist composer Steve Reich's use of repeated loops. "Resolver" is one of four interconnected songs on Rouse's album "Hemisphere," which comes out April 28. "Hemisphere" is set to a film by Rouse of quotidian images turned awry such as an upside-down railway and a stilted wedding photo session. The title track refers to US anti-drug authorities' Hemisphere surveillance program of telephone calls. But the soothing synthpop-like song is about comfort as Rouse sings of the need for companionship after the shock of Donald Trump's election as president. Rouse said he was more interested in the "objectivity of the aesthetic" than straightforward protest songs. "I think Laurie Anderson was quoted as saying, when asked why she doesn't do more political work, it's because right-wingers can also do political work," he said, referring to the experimental artist. "It has the potential to be propaganda -- so is your propaganda different from my propaganda? But at a certain level, a lot of art does reflect the kind of world that we would like to live in," he told AFP at a favorite dive bar -- which makes a cameo in the film -- near his home in Manhattan's Hell Kitchen. - Pop music 'more avant-garde than ever' - Rouse is a leading force in totalism, the movement after minimalism that incorporated a sweeping range of influences and unorthodox rhythmic structures. To mark "Hemisphere" as well as his 60th birthday, Rouse plans a career-spanning concert on April 29 at National Sawdust in Brooklyn. Story continues Like much of Rouse's music, "Hemisphere" defies easy genre classification. It breaks away from expected beats yet the songs -- intricately produced and interspersed with Arabic singing -- are quickly accessible. "I've always found it fascinating that I'm too serious for the pop world and too pop for the classical world, which kind of makes me think that I'm in the right place," he said. "Even with all the complex rhythms that are going on," he said of his latest album, "it would actually work out as good bar background music." "And that was always my goal. The seduction of the sound is what would bring people in." Rouse said categories were increasingly meaningless in an era of instant music access. He is an admirer of Frank Ocean, the introspective hip-hop star whose twin albums last year included an accompanying film. "I've always felt that the audience is usually much further ahead than the categories," he said. "I think there is an element in which pop music is more avant-garde than it's ever been." - Challenging audience expectations - The son of a state trooper in Missouri, Rouse first came to New York on the encouragement of David Byrne of New Wave icons Talking Heads, who had tapped Rouse's pop band Tirez Tirez as an opening act. His most influential works include "Dennis Cleveland," a 1996 opera in the form of a trashy talk show -- with audience members unexpectedly taking part as performers and screens showing crowd reactions. In a collaboration with choreographer Merce Cunningham, Rouse gave spectators iPods on shuffle and each heard different music while watching the same dance. "People would come up to us after the show and say, 'How did you manipulate the iPod?' They just didn't believe we weren't doing something," he said. "I said, you are the creative component that is making the connection." Upcoming projects include an interactive digital playground for children. In 2010, the New York Public Library announced it had acquired Rouse's archive. He has worked in earnest on it, easing any anxiety as he turned 60. "All artists are miserable and all we do is complain and I'm not different," he said. "But there is something about turning 60 and knowing that the stuff is there and that it's catalogued and safe that fills me with such enormous gratitude that I can't even being to express it." New York (AFP) - The composer Mikel Rouse, who has comfortably straddled genres from classical to pop, found something unexpected when he took part in a Black Lives Matter protest -- beauty. Rouse joined in chanting "Hands Up! Don't Shoot!" out of conviction, but the artist in him kicked in and he recorded it on his iPhone. "It sounded so musical to me," Rouse said. With digital manipulation and an anxious electronic soundscape, the technophile Rouse turned the chant into "Resolver" -- which he sees as a descendant piece of sorts to pioneering minimalist composer Steve Reich's use of repeated loops. "Resolver" is one of four interconnected songs on Rouse's album "Hemisphere," which comes out April 28. "Hemisphere" is set to a film by Rouse of quotidian images turned awry such as an upside-down railway and a stilted wedding photo session. The title track refers to US anti-drug authorities' Hemisphere surveillance program of telephone calls. But the soothing synthpop-like song is about comfort as Rouse sings of the need for companionship after the shock of Donald Trump's election as president. Rouse said he was more interested in the "objectivity of the aesthetic" than straightforward protest songs. "I think Laurie Anderson was quoted as saying, when asked why she doesn't do more political work, it's because right-wingers can also do political work," he said, referring to the experimental artist. "It has the potential to be propaganda -- so is your propaganda different from my propaganda? But at a certain level, a lot of art does reflect the kind of world that we would like to live in," he told AFP at a favorite dive bar -- which makes a cameo in the film -- near his home in Manhattan's Hell Kitchen. - Pop music 'more avant-garde than ever' - Rouse is a leading force in totalism, the movement after minimalism that incorporated a sweeping range of influences and unorthodox rhythmic structures. To mark "Hemisphere" as well as his 60th birthday, Rouse plans a career-spanning concert on April 29 at National Sawdust in Brooklyn. Story continues Like much of Rouse's music, "Hemisphere" defies easy genre classification. It breaks away from expected beats yet the songs -- intricately produced and interspersed with Arabic singing -- are quickly accessible. "I've always found it fascinating that I'm too serious for the pop world and too pop for the classical world, which kind of makes me think that I'm in the right place," he said. "Even with all the complex rhythms that are going on," he said of his latest album, "it would actually work out as good bar background music." "And that was always my goal. The seduction of the sound is what would bring people in." Rouse said categories were increasingly meaningless in an era of instant music access. He is an admirer of Frank Ocean, the introspective hip-hop star whose twin albums last year included an accompanying film. "I've always felt that the audience is usually much further ahead than the categories," he said. "I think there is an element in which pop music is more avant-garde than it's ever been." - Challenging audience expectations - The son of a state trooper in Missouri, Rouse first came to New York on the encouragement of David Byrne of New Wave icons Talking Heads, who had tapped Rouse's pop band Tirez Tirez as an opening act. His most influential works include "Dennis Cleveland," a 1996 opera in the form of a trashy talk show -- with audience members unexpectedly taking part as performers and screens showing crowd reactions. In a collaboration with choreographer Merce Cunningham, Rouse gave spectators iPods on shuffle and each heard different music while watching the same dance. "People would come up to us after the show and say, 'How did you manipulate the iPod?' They just didn't believe we weren't doing something," he said. "I said, you are the creative component that is making the connection." Upcoming projects include an interactive digital playground for children. In 2010, the New York Public Library announced it had acquired Rouse's archive. He has worked in earnest on it, easing any anxiety as he turned 60. "All artists are miserable and all we do is complain and I'm not different," he said. "But there is something about turning 60 and knowing that the stuff is there and that it's catalogued and safe that fills me with such enormous gratitude that I can't even being to express it." Stalled airport projects call for unified solution With all four international airport projects bogged down in problems, the parliamentary Development Committee on Wednesday directed the government to deal with them through a single window. Shirine Othman, a 20-year-old refugee from Syria now living in Athens, cant say enough good things about where she has ended up living. She bustles around her small room, pointing out the wall-mounted hairdryer, then bounces briefly on the bed before smoothing out the polyester coverlet. She enthuses about the spacious closet and the anodyne wall art on her one-minute tour, then says she has saved the best for last. When Othman, her husband and their two children arrived in Greece in March, after a terrifying night crossing from Turkey in a rubber boat, they were shunted into one of the countrys vast outdoor refugee camps. There they spent several weeks battling the cold, mud and rain in a tiny camping tent. Othman, seven months pregnant at the time, found herself sprinting for the distant portable toilets several times a night. Because of her pregnancy, Othman was able to apply for special permission to relocate to Athens, where she found something much better. What I love about this place is that I have my own room. I can close the door, and be alone with my family, she says, ducking into the tiny en suite. She beams in front of the mirror: And we have our own bathroom. Few visitors to the downmarket City Plaza business hotel in downtown Athens would give the basic amenities such rave reviews. But for the refugees that have made it their home over the past six months, it is a virtual paradise compared to the grim conditions of the government run camps that house most migrants. It is also technically illegal. Part of the hotels dining room has been turned into an activity center for refugee youth to gather for games, language tutor sessions and hanging out. Like many other Greek businesses, the City Plaza Hotel shuttered its doors in 2010 in the wake of the European financial crisis. But on April 22, 2016, a ragged consortium of Greek anarchists, leftists and international volunteers calling themselves the Solidarity Initiative for Political and Economic Refugees broke the locks, reconnected the utilities, cleaned up the rooms and occupied the building. Then they opened it up to 400 refugees fleeing wars in the Middle East, Africa and Afghanistan. Some 60,000 Middle Eastern and African refugees are currently stuck in Greece, the second act of a crisis that riveted the world when more than a million migrants crossed the Mediterranean by boat last year seeking a better life in Europe. In March Turkey signed a deal with the European Union, agreeing to stop the traffic to Europe in exchange for more than $6 billion in financial incentives. At the same time, Macedonia shut its border with Greece, trapping those who had made it out of Turkey, but not yet into the destination countries of Western Europe, in place while they wait for resettlement. Read More: The Left Behind Refugees of the Jungle in Calais The Greek governmentstill grappling with its own economic woeshas responded by establishing tented camps to house them. The facilities are basic, built on unused tracts of land far from the city center or in abandoned agricultural warehouses. They are not supplied with hot water, there are no schools or playgrounds for the children, and they rarely have adequate shower facilities or even flush toilets. Solidarity activists back in Athens say that they have a solution. The international system of housing refugees isnt working, says Nasim Lomani, a 35-year-old Afghan member of Solidarity who came to Greece 16 years ago as a refugee. As a result of the financial crisis, he says, there are at least 11 million empty buildings and houses in Europe, and 4,000 in Athens alone. They could be used for housing refugees in much better conditions; treating them like humans, and not caged animals. Baida, 27, from Raqqa, Syria, keeps an eye on her three children as they play in her familys room at the hotel. Her youngest son, 7-year-old Ahmed, has cerebral palsy and cannot walk. He has a wheelchair, but because the elevators are not working in the eight-floor building, the family keeps the wheelchair downstairs in the lobby. City Plaza is run like a cooperative, with residents taking up weekly responsibilities based on their individual capacities, from cooking meals to cleaning, group child care, and basic maintenance. (Which can be limitedthe elevators in the eight-story building are turned off, because none of the refugees currently living there knows how to maintain them.) Volunteers help out with medical clinics, administration and ad hoc activity classes. One recent weeks line up promised sushi making, English conversation, yoga, kids movies and a nightly womens dance party up on the rooftop terrace. We dont want to be good guys helping the poor refugees. We want to organize this place so the refugees can do things for themselves, says Lomani. That self-reliance is an essential part of giving refugees the dignity and purpose they crave as they attempt to forge a new life in Europe, he says. Among the refugees you can find engineers, doctors, teachers, cooks, and translators. Is it fair to put several thousand of them together in a horrible group camp, inside tents, with no jobs and nothing to do, and then ask why they are complaining and fighting? Women who made it out of some of the world's worst conflicts, like Syria and Afghanistan, cook alongside one another in the industrial kitchen of the City Plaza hotel. Reema, a 25-year-old mother of three from Homs who asked not to use her full name for fear of endangering family still in Syria, works several hours a week in the hotels industrial kitchen preparing meals for the residents. She cooks alongside Kurds, Afghans and Iraqis in the kitchen, and they all say that its one of the best things about living at City Plaza. In the camps the military and catering companies provide meals for the refugees, but they are often poor quality, or made from unfamiliar ingredients. At City Plaza, says Reema, We can cook our favorite foods. A taste of home helps with missing it so much. Read More: These 5 Different Camps Tell the Story of the Global Refugee Crisis So far, the Solidarity movement has occupied nine empty buildings in Athens, housing around 1,500 refugees. Lomani expects the numbers to rise as winter weather forces even more refugees out of the camps, which often turn into muddy swamps in the rain. City Plaza is not the solution for the refugee crisis, he says. But it is a good example of how to do it better. City Plazas owner, Aliki Papahela, thinks differently. The former Greek stage actress has appealed to the courts to force an evacuation. So far, she has seen little progressGreek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras Syriza Party is reluctant to alienate its supporters on the far Left, especially when it comes to the fraught issue of refugees. Aliki doesnt blame the refugeesin fact, she muses, they probably dont even know that they are living in a contested building. If the government or the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees wanted to rent City Plaza from her to house refugees, she says, she would be more than happy to oblige. Refugee residents of the hotel organize a women-only dance party several nights a week on the rooftop terrace. Its an opportunity for the women, many of them conservative Muslims from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, to relax, take off their headscarves and smoke hookah without worrying about prying male eyes. She was in the process of selling the hotel when it was taken over, she says, but now that its been turned into a squat, thats impossible. Meanwhile she can no longer afford to pay the property taxes and fears that the hotel, an inheritance from her late father, will soon be taken from her. I do believe that refugees have the right to a decent life, and until they find it, we must support them, she says. But not at the cost of ruin. Aliki likens her situation to that of Greece as a whole, forced to support an unfairly large share of Europes refugee burden. This is not just about me. Its about the whole of us Greeks. If someone can come into someones house and take it over because he thinks its better to give it to refugees, and because of that you have to stay poor and become a refugee yourself, well, dont you understand that in one or two years there will be nothing of us left? With reporting by Lamprini Thoma / Athens A 4-year-old girl narrowly avoided being shot as two rounds blasted through the Arizona storefront of her grandfathers barbershop, where she was watching television. Surveillance video shows the child happily dancing inside the business before settling into a padded chair. Moments later, two bullets rip into the glass behind her, missing her by inches. Read: Mom Fatally Shot Her Son in the Head as They Drove From Her Birthday Party: Cops Footage shows the terrified child jumping up and running away. Police arrested two men Tuesday in a Phoenix suburb and charged them with aggravated assault and endangerment. Michael David Hart, 23, and Rafael Santos, 21, had gone to a tattoo parlor next door to the barbershop, but were refused service because Hart appeared to be drunk, police said. Read: Hero Mom Wounded While Shielding Sons From Gunfire During Dallas Sniper Attack The two argued with the shops owner and the men returned to their car, where Hart picked up a handgun and fired three rounds as they drove away, according to a statement from the Chandler Police Department. Both are being held at the Maricopa County Jail, authorities said. They have not entered pleas. The child suffered cuts from the shattering glass. Watch: Cop Celebrates Graduation of Baby He Saved from Gunshot Wound to the Face 17 Years Ago Related Articles: Two hundred years from now, medical tricorders like the ones depicted in Star Trek will be as common as tongue depressors. Theyll be unremarkable, mobile tools on our SpaceX starships shuttling us back and forth to Mars. Diagnosing cancer will only take a single wave over our bodies with a palm-sized sensor. Thats the dream. The reality, best embodied in two XPRIZE Tricorder competition finalists, is that the devices are somewhat ungainly and they feature distinctly 21st century diagnostic equipment. They work with mobile phones, but dont try hanging either one of them around your neck. SEE ALSO: IBM's Watson will help diagnose heart disease when doctors may have missed the signs They are tricorders in only the most limited sense, and should not be confused with the so-called Tricorder phone, from SCiO. That one includes a molecular scanner for identifying everything from the medicine in pills to the freshness of tomatoes. That device is more akin to the Tricorder Star Treks chief science officer Mr. Spock carried. What the XPRIZEs tricorder-like devices can do, however, is help average consumers diagnose themselves for a variety of conditions. Final Frontier and its co-finalist Dynamical Biomarkers emerged out of a field of approximately 40 other contenders. All were competing to develop the first commercial medical tricorders, and all are at least inspired by Star Trek medical officer Dr. McCoys favorite tool. Competition sponsor Qualcomm Foundation first whittled that list down to 10 companies that would develop prototypes and test them at University of California, San Diego. That work has been going on for about a year. Based on initial performance, only two teams made it to final consumer testing phase, said Grant Campany, prize lead for the Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE. Competition organizers identified 13 illnesses and conditions, including amemia, HIV, cancer, COPD, urinary tract infection and leukocytosis, that the winning systems would have to accurately identify. Story continues We looked at a large range of diseases, chronic and acute that affect the majority of people in the world, said Campany. In the end, they chose based on the frequency of the disease and availability of subjects based, at least in part, on proximity to UC San Diego. For the tests, XPRIZE recruited people whom they knew had these maladies and then let them spend anywhere from 90 minutes to a full day with the two remaining competitor devices. Could these tricorder wannabes accurately diagnose maladies these subjects already knew they had? Test time Both the Final Frontier and Dynamical Biomarkers devices are designed for consumers, not doctors. They use mobile interfaces and customized diagnostic equipment, like blood pressure cuffs, a pulse oximeter (those things that clip onto your fingertips) and hand-held thermometers. The devices ask a series of questions, through mobile apps, collect vital signs and then choose which tests to run to identify whats wrong. Its a lot like what happens to you in the first 10 minutes of your visit to urgent care, but without a nurse or doctor present. Test subject trying out Dynamical Biomarker's tricorder-like device. Image: xprize The Dynamical Biomarkers tricorder entrant, which doesnt have a name, was developed by Chung-Kang Peng, director of the Center for Dynamical Biomarkers at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School. Trained as a medical doctor, but with a background in science and engineering, Peng and his team built a system that has modules for each of the 13 maladies. The device, which was built in cooperation with HTC, is a small printer-sized box with a smartphone sticking up out of the center. If someone uses the Bluetooth camera to take a picture of their inner ear, the phone will show them their diagnosis. While neither of the tricorders is intended for medical offices, they could end up near them or with people who have some medical training. In our scenario, we want to deploy this kind of system in rural village with no healthcare resource, said Peng, who noted that Chinas 1 million "barefoot doctors," who have helped spread medical care across the country through the use of trained townspeople, might be some of the best caretakers for this technology. They could use the tricorder to diagnose, send the information to the cloud where medical professionals are waiting, confirm the diagnosis and get treatment delivered to them on the ground. Peng says Chinas barefoot doctors is a good program, but now it needs to be upgraded to high-tech barefoot doctor. The Dynamical Biomarker tricorder may eventually sell for $500. Test subject trying out Final Frontier's Dexter. Image: xprize Basil Harris, who works as an ER doctor in Philadelphia, hopes to get his Final Frontier Dexter tricorder, which features wearable sensors and the hand-held forehead temperature reader, into more urban environments. He explained that such a device could break down the barriers that currently prevent 30 percent to 40 percent of his patients from getting the medical care they need. While Dexter is designed to be used by consumers, Harris said early deployment could be in urgent care and emergency rooms. Dexter may sell for $200 (not counting the cost of a paired smartphone), but in the long run, Harris envisions different levels of tricorder devices. There might be the $200 take-home device and larger kiosk-based ones that end up in your local Walgreens, where customers can walk in and do a quick self-diagnosis. Winning the future On Wednesday, XPRIZE announces how the judges are divvying up the remaining $9 million in prize money. Campany wouldnt share which system did the best job on diagnosis. However, hes excited about the results and potential impact 23rd-century-inspired diagnostic equipment could have on our 21st-century healthcare problems. The XPRIZE competition is designed, at least in part, to address current market failure in healthcare. Grant pointed to the escalating healthcare costs around the world and asked the fundamental question, How do you care for millions of people outside the system? Image: xprize With doctors being one of the scarcest resources in healthcare, these tricorders could have a profound potential impact. Its difficult to resolve the grand dreams of Campany, Peng, and Harris with the reality of these devices that sit on a table top and require the user to blow into tubes, cuff their arms and measure their pulse and blood oxygenation through their fingertips. It just doesnt feel like the future. Theyre not like a magical wand device that you can wave over somebody. The way I view it, these are the first-generation tricorders, said Harris. Were just scratching the surface of whats possible. WATCH: This device can help 22 million Americans sleep better at night Paris (AFP) - With 10 days left until the first round of France's presidential election, Marine Le Pen's campaign headquarters was hit by an arson attempt and pressure built on President Francois Hollande to anoint a successor. Here's what happened in the campaign on Thursday: - Le Pen HQ attacked - An arson attempt overnight on the far-right leader's campaign nerve centre in the upmarket Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore in central Paris caused only minor damage, police said. A police source said the fire was "probably criminal", adding that the graffiti slogan "FN vs KLX" was found nearby. A group calling itself "Fight Xenophobia" contacted AFP to claim the attack, which it said was carried out with petrol bombs. Le Pen, 48, is running neck-and-neck in voter surveys with centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron ahead of the April 23 first round. The 39-year-old Macron is currently tipped to win the decisive May 7 runoff vote. - Macron goads Hollande - With his former mentor, President Francois Hollande, refusing to divulge whom he will back in the election, Emmanuel Macron said he did not think voters were eager to know. "I don't think that is what our compatriots are waiting for," said Macron, who quit the Socialist government last year to launch his independent presidential bid. The deeply unpopular Hollande, who dithered until December before deciding not to seek re-election, now faces a quandary. Should he back a likely winner in Macron, as his former prime minister Manuel Valls has done? Valls also deserted Hollande to mount his own bid for the presidency, losing to Macron in a January primary. Or should Hollande plump for the Socialist candidate, Benoit Hamon, who led a rebellion last year against his labour reforms? The 48-year-old is currently trailing in fifth place in the polls. The outgoing president told the weekly Le Point, out Thursday, that he would name his choice after the April 23 first round. Story continues While he hinted at supporting Macron -- saying the French want "new measures to build on what I have done" -- he also suggested his former protege's meteoric rise was the result of a "confluence of circumstances". He also had bitter words for Hamon: "Those in the government who railed against my policies have reaped no glory since." - Top US banker not nervous - Wall Street's most powerful banker, JPMorgan Chase chief Jamie Dimon, told AFP he was not nervous over developments in the French election campaign. Analysts blamed a slight dip on Wall Street early Thursday to jitters over Le Pen's strengthening poll numbers, even though pollsters are unanimous that she cannot win in May, whoever she faces in the runoff. "The French people are going to decide who their president is going to be and whoever that is, JPMorgan Chase will deal with it and will be fine," he said. Dimon also said he had his "own personal views on who that should be... but I'm not going to go into that for the press." Star Wars fans came from galaxies far, far away and descended on Orlando, Fla., Thursday for a celebration of the original film's 40th anniversary and got a surprise they will never forget: Harrison Ford. Read: A Show of Force: Fans Honor Carrie Fisher with Lightsaber Vigil The actor, who famously portrayed Han Solo in four of the seven films, made a surprise appearance at the panel, which featured creator George Lucas and stars Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker), Billy Dee Williams (Lando Calrissian), Hayden Christensen (Anakin Skywalker), Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca) and Anthony Daniels (C-3PO). As Ford took the stage, event moderator Warwick Davis, who appeared as a Ewok in Return of the Jedi and three additional roles in The Phantom Menace, joked, I can't believe we managed to keep it a secret, considering that you landed your plane on I-4. Ford, who found himself under investigation in February after landing on the wrong runway at a California airport and crashed a plane near Santa Monica in 2015, quipped, Yeah, but it was a good landing!" Lucas also busted Fords chops about his flying skills later in the conversation. The director was discussing how he casted Ford and recalled: "I said, 'Do you know how to fly?'" Ford, referenced a line from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, part of another Lucas franchise, as he replied, "I said, 'Fly? Yeah. Land? No.'" Following the event, Mayhew took a swipe at Ford's skills on Twitter. Lovely seeing my buddy.. hell of a pilot.. but I'd love to help out a little with those landings. Always available if he needs a copilot.. pic.twitter.com/dBuQEmHbSg Peter Mayhew (@TheWookieeRoars) April 13, 2017 At the panel, the cast members also paid tribute to Carrie Fisher, who died in December. Story continues George Lucas fought back tears as he remembered his friend and the woman who brought his princess to life. "I said many times now, she really is a modern woman, and she isnt just a woman where you put guys clothes on her and she becomes a hero," he said. "She was a princess, she was a senator, and she played a part that was very smart." The actress daughter, Billie Lourd, attended the panel dressed as Fisher's iconic character, Princess Leia, and introduced a video montage of her mom in the film. Read: Harrison Ford Pays Tribute to Carrie Fisher: 'She Lived Her Life, Bravely' "My mom, like Leia, wasnt ever afraid to speak her mind and say things that might have made most people uncomfortable, but not me and not you," Lourd said. "That was why she loved you, because you accepted and embraced all of her. The strong soldier she was and the vulnerable side, who fought her own dark side. The montage featured rare and never-before-seen clips of the actress backstage in her role as Leia. The next Star Wars installment, The Last Jedi, opens in theaters this December. Watch: Newly Released Video Shows Harrison Ford's Plane Flying Over Jet Before Landing Related Articles: HONOLULU (AP) A Native Hawaiian fisherman is asking a state board to declare that only people who are lawfully admitted to the United States can get commercial fishing licenses. The petition was filed Wednesday in response to an Associated Press investigation that found hundreds of foreign fishermen confined to boats and some living in subpar conditions. Hawaii grants the foreign fishermen licenses to fish but they aren't allowed to enter the country. Malama Chun, who lives on Maui and engages in fishing as a cultural practice, filed the petition with the state Board and Natural Resources, which regulates fishing licenses. Chun's family has seen a massive decline in fish stocks over generations. He blames overfishing and says in the petition that giving licenses to people who aren't in the U.S. legally contributes to the problem. "By giving these guys licenses, it completely interferes with the ability for marine resources to be protected," said Lance Collins, an attorney who is representing Chun. "He wants the laws to be enforced so that the fisheries are protected for everyone's enjoyment." Collins cites a state law that says it is unlawful for anyone who is not legally admitted to the country to take marine life from Hawaii waters. Chun also says the fishermen's confinement to boats violates the "law of the Splintered Paddle," a state law with origins in the Hawaiian Kingdom which says people in Hawaii must have freedom of movement. The Department of Land and Natural Resources did not have an immediate response to requests for comment, said spokeswoman Deborah Ward. In a recent written opinion, Hawaii Attorney General Douglas Chin said the Department of Land and Natural Resources provides landing permits as proof the fishermen are "lawfully admitted." ___ Associated Press Writer Margie Mason contributed to this report. Miami (AFP) - It costs $200,000 to join and recent VIP guests have included the leaders of Japan and China. But the restaurant at President Donald Trump's private country club Mar-a-Lago in Florida was cited for 13 health code violations during an inspection in January. Inspectors found potentially dangerous raw fish and meat stored at above-regulation temperatures. Ham, for example, was kept at as high as 57 degrees Fahrenheit (13.8 degrees Celsius) -- far warmer than the regulation 41 degrees Fahrenheit, according to information obtained by AFP. That was among the violations detected by the Department of Business and Professional Regulation during the January 26 inspection at Mar-a-Lago. Two weeks later, Trump hosted Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the club, which has come to be called the Winter White House. Trump has spent practically every weekend there since taking power in January. In the inspection reports, first revealed by the Miami Herald on Wednesday, regulators found that fish meant to be served raw or undercooked had not been treated properly for parasites. The kitchen staff was told to cook the fish completely or throw it out. Potentially hazardous foods like red meat, chicken, hot dogs, hamburgers, shrimp and ham were stored at higher than regulation temperatures, the inspectors found. Among less serious violations of the restaurant health code, there was no instruction sign at the sink used by employees to wash their hands. And one employee failed to wear a hair net cap while cooking food. "These infractions were part of a routine inspection and were not complaint-based. The infractions were corrected on site, and the establishment was immediately brought into compliance," said Stephen Lawson, communications director for the Department of Business and Professional Regulation. Management at Mar-a-Lago declined to comment. Last week Trump also hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping at the country club in West Palm Beach on Florida's Atlantic coast for a summit meeting. Local authorities are complaining about the cost to them of Trump's visits: air space must be shut down and streets are blocked off by the US Secret Service, hurting the tourism industry. These authorities want the federal government to reimburse them for the lost revenue. Tours (France) (AFP) - A French farmer has mown the word "HELP" in giant letters into his wheat field, hoping to push presidential candidates to address the crisis in France's agricultural sector. "Political leaders do not listen to us," the 63-year-old farmer, Jacques Fortin, 63, told AFP on Thursday. "They're deaf to our anger. I hope they're not blind and will read this message of despair." In Europe's top agricultural power, the government has admitted that more than a tenth of France's 400,000 farms are in a "situation of extreme urgency". Last year, half of French farmers earned less than 350 euros ($372) a month, far below the national poverty threshold of 800 euros. The crisis has torn at the fabric of rural life, and as farmers see their livelihoods evaporate, more and more are giving up, with an alarming spike in suicides over recent years. "I live in a world where I have the responsibilities of a chief executive and I live below the poverty threshold," Fortin said. "It's not normal to live with 350 euros a month when you work every day... Some break down. Others commit suicide." Fortin, whose farm is in Athee-sur-Cher near the central town of Tours, fashioned his message in capital letters in his five-hectare (12-acre) wheatfield, with the bright green letters standing stark against the tan crops. "When they pass overhead, airliners start to descend to Orly (Paris' southern airport). Passengers can see my SOS," said Fortin, whose letters measure 100 metres (328 feet) long by 48 metres wide. "In fact, it was the pilot of a small plane who sent me the first photo by email." Besides wheat, Fortin grows corn, sunflowers, clover, flaxseed and sorghum. He said his message was a "collective SOS, expressed on behalf of all farmers". "We have had successive years of bad weather conditions in the past four years. Farmers are at the end of their rope. They are fed up," he said. Story continues Farmers predominated in the countryside in the 1970s, but they now make up just two percent of France's overall population of 66 million, according to political scientist Jean-Yves Camus. Last month, around 20 farmers drove their tractors to a gathering in the town of Brest with conservative candidate Francois Fillon to highlight their distress ahead of the two-round presidential election on April 23 and May 7. "We need support and proposals from the candidates, because so far we haven't had much of either," dairy farmer Julien Hindre told AFP at the time. Three Nepalis rescued from China The Embassy of Nepal in Beijing, with the support of local Chinese authorities, has rescued three Nepalis, who were said to have been trafficked to China in December last year, from Shandong, an eastern Chinese province on the Yellow Sea. Legendary jazz musician Herbie Hancock has revealed plans for an extensive summer tour that will include festivals and venues across the US and Europe. The pianist, who celebrated his 77th birthday on Wednesday, April 12, will begin the summer tour on June 26, 2017, in Lviv, Ukraine at Alfa Jazz, before heading to Paris for La Seine Musicale, the Love Supreme Festival in the UK and the Vienna Jazz Festival, followed by further dates in Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Iceland and Portugal. After a stop at the Marciac Jazz Festival in France, the musician and his band will head to the US, where a tour leg begins on August 6 and includes shows in New York, Washington DC, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, Hollywood and Monterey, California, among others. The pianist will be joined by a band featuring Vinnie Colaiuta on drums, James Genus on bass, Lionel Loueke on guitar and Terrace Martin on keyboards and saxophone. Tickets for many of the shows are already available. Visit www.herbiehancock.com for details. It was also announced this week that Hancock will be among a roster of musicians taking part in a concert in Havana on April 30 for the sixth annual International Jazz Day. By Nick Tattersall and Humeyra Pamuk ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Much like the vast mosque he has commissioned atop one of Istanbul's highest hills, President Tayyip Erdogan's supporters hope a referendum on Sunday will be a crowning achievement in his drive to reshape Turkey. The vote, in which millions of Turks will decide whether to replace their parliamentary democracy with an all-powerful presidency, may bring the biggest change in their system of governance since the modern Turkish republic was founded on the ashes of the Ottoman Empire almost a century ago. The outcome will have repercussions beyond Turkish shores. (Graphic - Turkey's referendum: a simple vote but a close race: http://tmsnrt.rs/2pyhiFR) Never in recent times has Turkey, one of only two Muslim members of the NATO military alliance, been so central to world affairs, from the fight against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, to Europe's migrant crisis and Ankara's shifting allegiances with Moscow and Washington. The campaign has split the country of 80 million down the middle, its divisions spilling over to the large Turkish diaspora in Europe. Erdogan has accused European leaders of acting like Nazis for banning rallies on security grounds, while his opponents overseas say they have been spied on. Erdogan's fervent supporters see his drive for greater powers as the just reward for a leader who has put Islamist values back at the core of public life, championed the pious working classes and delivered airports, hospitals and schools. Opponents fear a lurch toward authoritarianism under a president they see as addicted to power and intolerant of dissent, chipping away at the secular foundations laid by modern Turkey's founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, and taking it ever further from Western values on democracy and free speech. "Within the past 15 years he has achieved everything once considered impossible, unthinkable for Turks, be it bridges, undersea tunnels, roads, airports," said Ergin Kulunk, 65, a civil engineer who heads an Istanbul mosque association that is financing the new mosque on the city's Camlica Hill. "The biggest quality of the Chief is that he touches people. I saw him at a recent gathering literally shaking almost 1,000 hands. He's not doing that for politics. It comes from the heart," he said, as Erdogan's voice boomed from a television in the corner, broadcasting one of his daily campaign rallies. In Kulunk's office on Camlica Hill, once a hunting ground for the Ottoman well-to-do and now a popular viewing point, a signed picture of Erdogan hung on the wall next to portraits of Ataturk and Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid. But for Erdogan's opponents - including secularist liberals, left-leaning Kurds and even some nationalists - his tightening grip poses an almost existential threat. "He's trying to destroy the republic and the legacy of Ataturk," said Nurten Kayacan, 61, a housewife from the Aegean coastal city of Izmir, attending a small "No" rally at an Istanbul ferry port. "If the 'Yes' vote wins, we're headed to chaos. He will be the president of only half of the country," she said. "ONE-MAN SYSTEM" Erdogan assumed the presidency, then a largely ceremonial position, in 2014 after more than a decade as prime minister, and has since continued to dominate politics by force of personality, making no secret of his ambition for greater powers. He has ridden a wave of patriotism since an abortive coup in July, casting Turkey as at peril from a cocktail of outside forces and in need of strong leadership to see off threats from Islamic State, Kurdish militants, the enemies within who tried to oust him and their foreign backers. A poll two weeks after the attempted putsch showed him with two-thirds approval, his highest ever, but more recent surveys suggest a much closer race. A narrow majority of Turks will vote "Yes", two opinion polls suggested on Thursday, putting his support at only a little over 51 percent. Pollsters acknowledge there may be a hidden "No" vote, whose numbers are hard to assess, among traditional supporters of the ruling AK Party concerned about Erdogan's authoritarian instincts, particularly after more than 120,000 civil servants were sacked or suspended since the failed coup. Etyen Mahcupyan, a one-time chief adviser to former Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, a key figure in the AKP, wrote in the Karar newspaper on Thursday that he would be voting "No". "The (proposed) model will cause great harm in the medium term to conservatives and Turkey," he wrote, saying the changes would usher in a "one-man system" open to abuse. "Every AKP member must vigorously stand up for the protection of the party and for its capacity and potential to govern." Erdogan's supporters reject such charges, saying the 18 constitutional amendments being put to a simple "Yes/No" vote contain sufficient checks and balances, such as the provision that a new presidential election would be triggered should the president dissolve parliament. Erdogan has focused in recent campaign events on trying to ridicule the leader of the main secularist CHP opposition, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, playing videos of his gaffes in the apparent hope that voter patterns will reflect the last national election in November 2015, when AKP dominated the electoral map. Such populist tactics have won him boisterous applause from those who revere him. But he has spent less time on the details of the proposed constitutional reforms. "Eighty percent of voters in Turkey vote according to ideology. That is, they will cast their votes in this referendum without knowing its content," said Murat Gezici, head of the Gezici polling company. "If 'Yes' emerges victorious, they'll only find out what they said yes to by experience. Only then will they face the problems," he said in his Istanbul office. (Additional reporting by Umit Bektas, Melih Aslan and Daren Butler; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Andrew Heavens) By Letitia Stein PALATKA, Fla. (Reuters) - At a town hall in his conservative Florida district this week, U.S. Representative Ted Yoho drew applause for defying his own Republican Party leaders to help derail a healthcare plan that was President Donald Trump's first major legislative initiative. Far from paying a price back home, as Trump has threatened they would, Yoho and some of the other far-right members of the House Freedom Caucus appear to have support for standing their ground, based on their reception at several town halls during a two-week congressional recess. A handful of House Freedom Caucus lawmakers were facing constituents for the first time since last month's defeat of Trump's effort to repeal and replace Obamacare, which was also rejected by some Republican moderates. Many supporters made clear they expect them to work with Trump to make good on campaign promises to reform the nation's health care system. "I want it done," said Bob White, 74, after questioning Yoho on the issue during a town hall on Tuesday night in rural Putnam County, Florida. "Wield that big stick." The rebellious faction of conservatives in the House of Representatives was instrumental in toppling a plan supported by Trump to rewrite Obamacare, President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law. Trump has singled out the group for blame. Many caucus members refused to back the Republican leadership's bill because they considered parts too similar to Obamacare and said it would not have done enough to reduce insurance premiums. At town hall meetings, constituents pressed them to keep working to address problems such as high healthcare costs. The reception for Yoho and other caucus members at home could shape their approach to the Republican president and leadership controlling both chambers of Congress, said Matthew Green, an associate professor of politics at Catholic University of America, who studies congressional parties and leaders. "The Freedom Caucus members are either going to become more recalcitrant because they will be hearing from their constituents 'good job,'" he said. "Or if they dont hear that, they might be more willing to compromise." Michigan Representative Justin Amash landed in the crosshairs of the feud when a White House adviser called on Twitter for Trump supporters to defeat him in a primary. But in the farming and manufacturing area he represents in the southwestern state, home to cereal maker Kellogg Co, the four-term congressman heard cheers in a high school auditorium in Battle Creek, Michigan on Tuesday night, where he held a town hall with about 100 people attending. "If I had to choose between Justin and Trump, I'd go with Justin for sure," said construction worker Eric Smith, 34, who voted for both, but so far has found Trump lacking conservative principles. "At this point, I'd give Donald Trump a D." Retiree Cliff Ward, 72, told Amash that he was pleased with his role in the blocking the legislation, which polls showed to be unpopular and expected to end health coverage for millions. "Now we need you to work with Trump and the other Republicans to get this done," he added. GUTS TO STAND UP Living in Georgetown, Florida, a community so remote that cell phone service is a chief concern, Trump voter Melvin Shebester knew little about the House Freedom Caucus. The faction of small-government conservatives came together in 2015 and since then have been a thorn in the side of more mainstream Republican leadership in the House, including an attempt to push out former Republican House Speaker John Boehner. The 84-year-old Shebester was impressed that his congressman, Yoho, stood up to the president on a bill that he saw as rushed. "It takes a lot of guts to stand up against your party," said Shebester, attending Yoho's town hall on Tuesday night at a government center in Palatka, Florida with his son and grandson. "We can't go up there and tell Trump he's wrong," added his son, Steven Shebester, 56, who lives nearby. Many Republicans have avoided public town halls, often open to anyone interested, since the meetings became a staging ground for liberal protests earlier this year. But Yoho, a veterinarian first elected in 2012, has held several. His event in Gainesville, a college town, on Monday was crowded by left-leaning activists who at times shouted him down. On Tuesday night in Palatka, a small town in Yoho's sprawling district in north central Florida lined with oaks and Spanish moss, he took questions from about 100 constituents in a politically mixed crowd. He told reporters his office received some 3,500 calls in the days leading up to the healthcare plan showdown, with only about 215 in support. And a phone survey of constituents found the Republican plan was as unpopular as Obamacare itself. He said constituents gave him a clear message: "Stay the course." (This version of the story has been refiled to fix dropped letter in seventh paragraph) (Additional reporting by Steve Friess in Michigan and Lisa Maria Garza in Texas; Editing by Cynthia Osterman) BEND, Ore. (AP) A House committee chairman who's a leading author of the mired Republican health care bill said Thursday he's skeptical about proposals the Trump administration and conservative GOP lawmakers have discussed in hopes of breathing life into the legislation. Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., directed his skepticism at suggestions that states be allowed to sidestep the ban in President Barack Obama's health care law against insurers charging seriously ill people higher premiums than healthy customers. Conservatives say that provision is one of many in Obama's 2010 statute that drives up premiums. Critics say eliminating that prohibition would in effect make coverage unattainable for many ill consumers because insurers would be free to charge them unaffordable rates. "I'd have to be convinced," Walden said in an interview with The Associated Press. "This is one you'd have to show me and prove to me that someone with a pre-existing condition is going to have the same quality and affordability of coverage that they have today." Walden carried the same message at a raucous town hall Thursday evening in Bend, a fairly liberal town at the foot of the Cascade Range. Constituents packed a high school gymnasium and clashed with him on issues like gun control, health care, immigration and the environment. A high school student said he is concerned about climate change and the environment, drawing cheers. The more than 2,000 people present stomped in the bleachers in approval. Walden said he is not a climate change denier and supports renewable energy. But later in the almost two-hour encounter, he expressed support for the pipeline through North Dakota whose construction was halted amid protests in the Obama administration, but later approved by Trump. The crowd booed. Walden defended his position, saying it was better for oil to pass through a pipeline than to be carried by rail, citing derailment of a train carrying Bakken crude last year in the pristine Columbia River Gorge. Story continues He characterized the Republican's health care bill as "a work in progress. It needs to be improved." He said he never wants to go back to the times when a person with pre-existing medical conditions was denied insurance or faced unaffordable premiums. Some listeners shouted that America should have single-payer national health insurance. "I disagree with what he said," Rick Negus, a retired social worker, said as he left the Mountain View High School gym. "But I respect him for speaking his mind in front of a hostile audience." The White House and leaders of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus have discussed adding language to the GOP health care bill to let states seek federal waivers to that prohibition. They've also talked about letting states escape Obama's requirement that insurers cover specified treatments, such as drug abuse services. Walden is influential because he is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which wrote much of the health care bill. It's been on life support since last month. Opposition from both conservative and moderate Republicans prompted House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., to cancel a vote on the bill, an embarrassment for Ryan and President Donald Trump. Talks aimed at breaking the impasse have continued during Congress' two-week recess. Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., leader of the Freedom Caucus, has said progress has been made but there are no clear indications a deal is near. After weeks of negotiations, proposals aimed at wooing conservatives have often ended up alienating moderate GOP lawmakers. Walden said leaders have "not yet" concocted a way of gaining votes from one end of the party's spectrum without losing people from the other. But he said he had spoken to Ryan earlier Thursday and that "there are people talking." "Knowing the views of the conference, if you go too far one way, you lose people" who agreed to an earlier version of the bill, Walden said of House Republicans. Walden has been attending town hall meetings across his huge eastern Oregon district this week. Opposition to the GOP health care bill has been a heated topic raised by some of those constituents. Walden on Thursday became one of 10 mostly moderate House GOP lawmakers targeted in ads by the conservative Club for Growth. The spots accuse those Republicans of blocking the party's effort to repeal Obama's law and show Trump at a speech saying, "We gotta get it done." Asked about those ads, Walden said: "They probably have some big funder who wants to make a point, so that's what's happening. That's fine. It's democracy." __ Associated Press writer Andrew Selsky contributed to this report. MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) A Somali official says 10 Indian sailors rescued from pirates have left Somalia's waters under the escort of an Indian navy vessel. Abdullahi Ahmed Ali, the mayor of Hobyo town, says the crew was heading back to India on Thursday. Eight crew members were rescued on Wednesday by regional forces that surrounded a village near Hobyo. The other two members were rescued on Tuesday. Recent weeks have seen a resurgence of piracy off Somalia's coast after five years of inactivity. The piracy was once a serious threat to the global shipping industry but lessened in recent years after an international effort to patrol off the coast. Some Somali fishermen, including former pirates, say foreign ships illegally fishing in local waters are forcing them to return to piracy to make money. India's tourist mecca Goa is pulling the plug on its legendary all-night dance parties as the local government tries to clean up its image as a drug and rave hotspot. Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar said the government would start enforcing a long-ignored ban on loud music after 10 pm -- bad news for bars and clubs blasting out tunes into the early hours on the state's famous beaches. "There is a legal ban on holding parties after 10 pm. The ban will be upheld by the state government," he told reporters Wednesday. The former Portuguese enclave lures millions of tourists every year with its night life, sandy beaches and laid-back coastal atmosphere. But its reputation as a tropical paradise has been marred by high-profile crimes involving foreigners. Last month the naked body of a 28-year-old Irish woman was found dumped near a tourist hotspot. She had been spotted at a late night party with a local man who was later arrested for her rape and murder. In 2008, 15-year-old British schoolgirl Scarlett Keeling was drugged, raped and murdered in a case that made global headlines. Her semi-naked body was found in shallow waters near a popular party beach. Other foreigners have also died in suspicious circumstances, while drug and alcohol-related mishaps are common. The Goa crackdown comes days after a top minister from Parrikar's administration called for the late-night party ban to be enforced. "These parties are against our culture. We need to stop them immediately," Goa's water resources minister Vinod Palyekar said last week. Parrikar said his government had also instructed police to commence a crackdown on drugs, prostitution and illegal gambling in the state. Hunting ants in Africa march off to raid termite nests with military precision. Now, new research finds that these ants are truly a band of brothers. They even rescue their wounded comrades. These ant rescues aren't really selfless, researchers reported today (April 12) in the journal Science Advances. Without the fallen ants, colony sizes would probably be nearly a third smaller, because injured ants frequently die if they're not helped home. "People always think that for ants or social insects, everything they do is for the good of the colony," said Erik Frank, a doctoral student at the University of Wurzburg, in Germany, who led the research. Biologists typically downplay the importance of the individual insect, Frank told Live Science. [See Photos of Zombie Ants] "Here we show, for the first time, an example where the good of the individual, of saving an individual ant, is good for the colony as well," Frank said. Ants to the rescue! Megaponera analis ants live in sub-Saharan Africa and eat termites only termites. Multiple times a day, an ant scout will come across a foraging band of termites and rush back to its nest, recruiting as many as 500 ants to march to the termites and attack. The ants then carry the termite corpses back to the nest to feast. [Ancient Termite-Ant Warfare Locked in Amber] Two termites cling to an ant (Megaponera analis) after a raid. Injured ants like this have a 32 percent mortality rate before they can make it back to their nest, unless their nest mates carry them home. Frank et al./Sci. Adv. 2017;3:e1602187 But Frank noticed that some of the ants carried not dead termites, but living ants, back to the nest. Upon closer inspection, he realized that these ants were wounded. Some had lost a leg or an antenna, while others had an angry termite or two clinging to their bodies. "What's the benefit?" Frank wondered. "Why were they even doing this?" To find out, Frank first chose 20 random injured ants and forced them to return alone from the hunting site to their nest, without the benefit of help from their brethren. He found that 32 percent of the injured ants died on the journey. More than half (57 percent) of the injured ants that were killed were ambushed by jumping spiders because they couldn't move very quickly. Story continues A jumping spider attacks an injured ant as it attempts to return from the hunting ground to the nest. When nest mates carry their injured comrades home, they are much less likely to die. Frank et al./Sci. Adv. 2017;3:e1602187 In comparison, only 10 percent of the healthy ants fell to predators on their marches back to the nest, and Frank never saw a carried ant get attacked in 420 raids. For an injured ant, it was clearly beneficial to get rescued. "But this is not the reason this behavior has evolved," Frank said. "It obviously needs to benefit the colony as a whole." For the good of the group And it does benefit the whole colony, Frank found. By marking injured ants with acrylic paint, Frank was able to track them in subsequent raids. He found that 95 percent of the time, the once-wounded ants returned to battle. In fact, 21 percent of ants in raiding parties showed signs of previous injury. Frank also found that ants with termites attached to them had those termites removed when they were safely back in the nest; ants that lost a limb or antenna spent a few hours figuring out how their bodies worked. By the next day, those amputee ants could run nearly as fast as their uninjured nest mates. An African stink ant (Paltothyreus tarsatus kills a handicapped Megaponera analis ant, which still has a termite hanging onto it from a hunting raid. When ants rescue their nest mates, most survive to raid again. |Frank et al./Sci. Adv. 2017;3:e1602187|null|false)) In 53 observed raids, Frank saw a total of 154 ants being carried. He estimates that a typical colony rescues between nine and 15 of its injured soldiers per day. A colony of M. analis ants produces only about 13 new baby ants per day, he and his colleagues wrote, so the rescues make a major impact on the ant colony's overall population. A computational model that the researchers developed showed that without rescue behavior, colonies would likely be around 29 percent smaller. "Instead of being forced to replace these injured workers with new ones, they can just keep using the injured ones," Frank said. Further investigation revealed that a substance coming from injured ants' mandibular (jaw) glands seemed to prompt the rescue behavior. The pheromones released from the gland are a mix of dimethyl disulfide and dimethyl trisulfide, the researchers found. Healthy ants smeared with these compounds were promptly picked up and "rescued" by their nest mates. In mammals, especially humans, empathy is often used to explain heroic or helpful behavior. The pheromone discovery reveals that ants have evolved another way to prompt helpfulness. "We have the convergent evolution of two different mechanisms with the same end goal," Frank said. Original article on Live Science. Editor's Recommendations The internet erupted Monday following a viral video in which a passenger was seen being forcibly removed from an overbooked United Airlines flight. The man, screaming and bloodied, was dragged by his arms down the aisle of the plane by aviation security officers. To make matters worse, United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz issued a statement in which he apologized for having to re-accommodate these customers. Needless to say, the internet went wild over the CEOs use of the word re-accommodate. Read: United Airlines CEO Blames Passenger In Letter To Employees He said re-accommodate, late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel said in a segment on his show Monday. Just like we re-accommodated El Chapo out of Mexico. That is such sanitized, say-nothing, take-no-responsibility, corporate B.S. I dont know how the guy who sent that tweet didnt vomit when he sent that out. The internet quickly responded to the incident with memes and gifs mocking the airline, many targeting the CEOs language as well. Others compared the airlines fiasco to Pepsis failed Kendall Jenner commercial. The hashtag #NewUnitedAirlinesMottos began trending Tuesday as users offered up suggestions for the company. One user mocked the airline with a graphic of its seating chart, adding to its United First and Economy Plus sections a Fight Club section. United Airlines, for its part, has yet to issue an apology to the passenger or even take much responsibility for the incident. In a letter to employees obtained by CNBC, Munoz seemingly blamed the passenger for what took place, calling him disruptive and belligerent and saying he left the crew no choice but to call Chicago Aviation Security officers to assist in removing him from the plane. Story continues Many have called for a boycott of the airline following the video footage. United was also the subject of controversy in March after two teenage girls were barred from boarding a flight for wearing leggings. Related Articles COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) Residents of a rural southern Ohio county are holding back information on the unsolved massacre of eight family members based on fear, authorities said Thursday as the anniversary of the crime approaches. Some are worried about retaliation by the killers. Others fear incriminating themselves over their own criminal activity likely involving drugs unrelated to the slayings, investigators said during a news conference to update the public on the investigation. "There is absolutely no doubt in my mind or in any investigator's mind that there's information that may be part truth, but not all the way true," said Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader. Witnesses who come forward will be treated fairly, said Attorney General Mike DeWine, whose office is leading the investigation. The focus is on the homicide, not those individuals' crimes, he said. On April 22, 2016, investigators found seven adults and a teenage boy from the Rhoden family shot to death at four homes near Piketon. A newborn, another baby and a young child were unharmed. One of the victims, Christopher Rhoden Sr., operated a commercial marijuana growing operation on his property "with the purpose of distributing the marijuana," according to DeWine's office. Reader on Thursday pleaded for more donations to the reward fund, stuck at $10,000 for several months, for information leading to a conviction. The sheriff hinted that the victims' involvement in drug crime may be holding people back from donating. "These are human beings, regardless of what they did for a living, regardless if they live in rural Pike County," said Reader, who grew emotional at times talking about the "complete devastation" of the killings. Both DeWine and Reader said they expect an arrest someday, with DeWine saying "significant progress" has been made and the case is still his office's top priority. DeWine expressed frustration that he couldn't make public all the information investigators have gathered. Story continues "We are going to find you. We are going to arrest you. And justice will be done," DeWine said, addressing the killers. Despite a massive investigation, no arrests have been made and no suspects identified. Investigators have received 883 tips to date and conducted 465 interviews, which includes people interviewed more than once. Family members still waiting for answers say updates from investigators have dwindled. Glenna Gilley, whose 20-year-old granddaughter, Hannah Gilley, was among those killed, speculated that people with information might be afraid to come forward. "I'm sure there's someone somewhere that knows something," she said Wednesday. Gilley, 65, described her granddaughter as a good person and "a wonderful mother." The three children who were spared in the slayings are in foster care and receiving visits from immediate family members, Reader said. Last month, relatives distributed posters with photos of the victims in hopes of turning up local tips. Reader said he believes those responsible were from the area. DeWine said the killers had to be familiar with the land around the properties as well as the properties themselves. Leonard Manley, whose daughter and three grandchildren were killed, said it was suspicious that any assailants were able to get by his daughter's two dogs. Three trailers and a camper where the slayings took place were seized by investigators afterward and remain in storage. Meanwhile, the state Supreme Court is weighing lawsuits by The Columbus Dispatch and The Cincinnati Enquirer seeking the full, un-redacted autopsies of the victims. The other victims were Christopher Rhoden Sr.'s ex-wife, 37-year-old Dana Rhoden; and their three children, 20-year-old Clarence "Frankie" Rhoden; 16-year-old Christopher Rhoden Jr.; and 19-year-old Hanna Rhoden. Also killed were Hannah Gilley, who was Frankie Rhoden's fiancee; a cousin, 38-year-old Gary Rhoden; and Kenneth Rhoden, 44, Christopher Rhoden Sr.'s brother. Kenneth Rhoden died of a single gunshot wound to the head. His body was the last one found by investigators. The other victims were shot multiple times in the head and, in the case of Christopher Rhoden Sr., in his upper body and torso as well. ___ Associated Press researcher Jennifer Farrar contributed to this report. ___ Andrew Welsh-Huggins can be reached on Twitter at https://twitter.com/awhcolumbus. His work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/andrew-welsh-huggins Rome (AFP) - Italy's rice producers sounded the alarm Thursday over competition from Asia, saying the national industry was in crisis and consumers were unwittingly buying pesticide-contaminated grains harvested by exploited children. Italian farmers' association Coldiretti said imports of rice from Asia was driving the price of the home-grown staple into the ground, while lax labelling laws meant families could not trace the origins of products on supermarket shelves. "Over the last year, the sale price of rice has halved and the number of imports has quadrupled from southeast Asia," said Coldiretti head Roberto Moncalvo, as producers rallied in protest outside the agriculture ministry in Rome. He said rice grown in southeast Asia was "dangerous, grown using pesticides and by exploiting underage labour". "One in four packets of rice sold in Italy come from abroad, but the consumer does not know because the origin is not on the label". The group said Italy was Europe's largest producer of rice and could be "more than self-sufficient" if limited to home-grown grains. More than 4,200 farms in the Mediterranean country produce 1.6 million tons of rice a year. "Farmers have to sell three kilos of unrefined rice to pay for a simple coffee because of speculation and swindling which has hit national rice fields and is harming consumers," Coldiretti said in a statement. Trump says Nato 'no longer obsolete' US President Donald Trump has said Nato is "no longer obsolete", reversing a stance that had alarmed allies. Jerusalem (AFP) - Tens of thousands of Jews congregated at the Western Wall in Jerusalem on Thursday for a mass priestly blessing on Passover, a tradition of recent decades echoing a pilgrimage from antiquity. With their backs to the wall and covered in white prayer shawls hiding their heads and arms, the hundreds of male priests raised their hands and chanted the words of the blessing. Many in the crowd raised their smartphones to take pictures or video of the event. The Western Wall Heritage Foundation, which oversees the holy site, estimated that 80,000 people attended the blessing, held twice in the morning, the separated crowds of men and women spilling out from the wall's plaza to surrounding areas. Many of the participants were ultra-Orthodox Jews in dark suits and hats, but representatives of other segments of Israeli society, as well as the occasional perplexed Asian tourist, could be seen in the crowds. The blessing is part of daily prayers chanted in synagogues worldwide, but since the early 1970s, twice a year -- on Passover and Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles -- such mass events are held, evoking the biblical dictum of pilgrimage to the temple in Jerusalem on certain holidays. To members of Israel's small Ethiopian Jewish community, being near the site of the historic temples on Passover has special significance, with many having arrived from the African nation since the 1980s. Many of their elders attended, the women wearing white robes over colourful dresses, the men in their finest suits. "This is their dream, from days of yore," said Avi, a 42-year-old man of Ethiopian ancestry of the community's older members. "They came to Israel, and every opportunity they have they come here," said Avi, who travelled from the northern city of Afula to participate in the event. The Western Wall is a remnant of a supporting wall of the Second Temple complex, which was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. Story continues Above it lies the plaza where the temple once stood and which now houses the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, the third holiest site in Islam. It is the holiest site to Jews, who refer to it as the Temple Mount. It is accessible to non-Muslims via an access ramp, where dozens of Jewish pilgrims looked down at the Western Wall ceremony as they awaited their visit on Thursday. Jews are allowed to visit but not pray at the compound to avoid provoking tensions. The hilltop site in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem has seen repeated clashes, with Palestinians fearing Israel will seek to assert further control over it. Israel occupied east Jerusalem in 1967 and later annexed it in a move never recognised by the international community. When I was a medical student, I was ghosted by the surgical resident who had been assigned to mentor me for an overnight shift for which we would be on call. We met up at 5 p.m. the night of the shift. He told me to grab a snack for the night ahead and wed meet up again in an an hour to go over some stuff. I stayed up all night waiting for him, regularly paging him, even hovering in the area where I thought he would be. I never saw him again. A few months ago, it was my turn to be a mentor. A student from Harvard Medical School joined my team at Cambridge Health Alliance. That day, we were supposed to meet with the family of a patient to update them on her care, but when the time came, I just got up and left her there. Read more: Social justice should be a key part of educating health professionals I had a grand plan to teach my medical student something I was passionate about: effective doctor-patient communication. And then I forgot to communicate with her. Every generation of of physicians is responsible for educating the next. This extends beyond time we spend in classrooms to our clinical education. A lot of what we learn, we learn from more experienced doctors, and that includes everything from our physical examination skills to our bedside manner. It can be pretty gratifying. One of my co-interns had tutored his medical student on EKGs and had a good experience. I was hoping for the same connection with my student, to have that feeling of being a good educator. I had hoped to make up for the experience Id had when I was a student. When it was me being ditched, I was angry. But I chose to give the surgical resident the benefit of the doubt he easily could have gotten caught up in something important. During that clinical year, I noticed that even the residents who were excited to teach would say, be right back, and not resurface for several hours or more. As a first-year resident now, I know firsthand that simple tasks can multiply like bunnies, and pull you in many different directions at once. Sometimes, by the time I can stop and breathe, I realize Ive forgotten to eat lunch. Story continues Back in medical school, I saw that residents didnt always have time to look for their students as the saying goes, out of sight, out of mind. So I learned to watch my residents like a hawk. If they got up, I got up. If they said, be right back, I would say, Im coming with you. By the summer of my third year, Id gotten maybe too good at being a professional shadow. And Im not the only one. Ask any medical student how many times theyve accidentally followed a resident to the bathroom. But being a little stalker-ish was me taking ownership of my education. After all, in the blink of an eye, your resident could vanish into thin air and be off practicing medicine, and you arent there to learn from any of it. Yes, this was about my education. But it was also about perception. After my experience with the overnight call, I was worried about how our disconnect would be written up in my evaluations, and that maybe it would be twisted to make me look bad. This happens sometimes in medicine. So, when I saw my own medical student running toward me, frazzled, with her white coat flying behind her, I felt really bad. I had failed her in the way so many residents had failed me, and I had been determined from the onset not to let this happen. Read more: Patients come first, but do doctors feelings still count? In her case, she caught me at exactly the right time. The meeting, which she knew about, and had been waiting for, had been delayed, and then, suddenly, the family was ready. Thats why I got up abruptly and walked out of the workroom, where all the interns and medical students were in the zone, focused on writing notes. She must have turned her back for just a second. As she approached, I was with my attending, going over how I was going to present this family their options, to make sure I would do it right. I made a mental note to apologize to the student later. We went in together, and she watched me explain the patients course of care, answer the familys questions, and come up with a collaborative game plan going forward. The meeting went well, and later when we talked about it, both she and the attending gave me positive feedback. It was then when I wanted to ask for her forgiveness. It was important to me that she knew she was an appreciated member of our team. But once again it slipped my mind because I was focused on what I needed to learn from their feedback rather than on what I needed to teach. We all got caught up in the hustle and bustle of life on the medicine wards, and I never did get to apologize. With all the new responsibility of residency it was too easy to forget how easy it is to be forgotten. My medical student looked so panicked, but, of course, it wasnt her fault. While I felt bad, I also tried hard not to laugh, because this moment in my training had come full circle. The forgotten became the forgetter, and seeing her frustration reminded me, as a rule, to think about the people a few steps behind me. Thats all it takes to be a better teacher, a better mentor, and a better doctor. I wanted to teach her about efficient, effective, and empathetic communication. Instead, she ended up teaching me. Dr. Jennifer Okwerekwu is a first-year resident in the adult psychiatry training program at Cambridge Health Alliance. WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) Was the death of a 16-year-old girl the predictable result of a school bathroom fight that amounts to homicide or a tragic, unforeseeable circumstance resulting from her undiagnosed heart condition? A Delaware judge will answer that question Thursday in deciding whether three teenage girls are culpable for the death of fellow student Amy Joyner-Francis. The girls, all 17, were tried as juveniles after the April 2016 fight at Howard High School of Technology in Wilmington. An autopsy found that Joyner-Francis, who had a rare and undiagnosed heart condition, died of sudden cardiac death aggravated by physical and emotional stress from the fight. Her alleged assailant is charged with criminally negligent homicide, a felony. All three girls, who were 16 at the time of the fight, are charged with misdemeanor conspiracy. The Associated Press is not naming them because they are minors. Defense attorneys argued that Joyner-Francis was a willing participant in a fight between mutual combatants and that her death was unforeseeable. Prosecutors contend that Joyner-Francis wasn't looking to fight and was unexpectedly attacked while trying to defuse a tense situation caused by confusion over an online group chat. The judge, presiding over a non-jury trial, must decide whether the conduct of the alleged assailant and her failure to perceive the risk that Joyner-Francis might die was a gross deviation from a reasonable person's standard of conduct. Dr. Richard Ringel, a pediatric cardiologist and professor at Johns Hopkins University, testified that Joyner-Francis had Eisenmenger syndrome, an extremely rare condition for someone her age in which a heart defect combines with severe pulmonary hypertension. Prosecutors say that in an online group chat the day before the attack, Joyner-Francis offered advice to a friend about a problem involving a boy, telling her to "just be careful." A detective testified that the defendants were later brought into the chat, and that the alleged attacker thought Joyner-Francis who had warned that someone might betray another person was talking about her. A Snapchat posting by one of the defendants that same day shows Joyner-Francis talking to her alleged assailant in the bathroom, purportedly to try to defuse the situation. The posting notes that the girl later charged with homicide was "bouta fight her," followed by several emojis indicating that a person was laughing so hard she was crying. Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev on Wednesday set out a timeline for the ex-Soviet country to switch from Cyrillic letters to the Latin alphabet as part of a modernisation drive. The 76-year-old leader has long called for ditching the Cyrillic alphabet -- which Kazakhstan shares with neighbour and ally Russia -- in favour of the more widely used Latin one. In an article published in the state-owned Egemen Kazakhstan newspaper Nazarbayev called for the government to begin "preparatory work" and "create a schedule" for the switch. "By the end of 2017, after consultation with academics and representatives of the public, a single standard for the new Kazakh alphabet and script should be developed," Nazarbayev wrote. "From 2018, [Kazakhstan] must train specialists to teach the new alphabet and produce textbooks for secondary schools," Nazarbayev added in the Kazakh-language paper. Nazarbayev has said in the past that the country should switch to the Latin alphabet by 2025. The Kazakh language is part of the Turkic family, like Turkish. It currently uses a modified version of the Cyrillic alphabet with 42 letters. Kazakhstan briefly used the Latin alphabet during the Soviet era before switching to Cyrillic letters in 1940. Kazakhstan is a close ally of Russia and has the largest ethnic Russian population of the five Central Asian states that gained independence from Moscow in 1991. Russian enjoys an official constitutional status and Nazarbayev uses it along with Kazakh in speeches. Russian leader Vladimir Putin enraged Kazakh nationalists in 2014 by describing Kazakhstan as part of "the greater Russian world" and saying it never had statehood before 1991, in comments shortly after Moscow's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. Kazakhstan's education ministry has announced plans in recent years to increase teaching of English in schools but has faced opposition from defenders of the Kazakh language. LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) Police have released additional details after a Kentucky police officer shot and wounded a suspect behind a motel Tuesday night. WKYT reports (http://bit.ly/2pxkxNt ) 26-year-old Sergei Sargaev has been charged with wanton endangerment of a police officer and criminal mischief. His arrest citation says the Lexington officer approached Sargaev, who was sitting in a vehicle behind a La Quinta Inn, and asked him multiple times to roll down the window or open the door. Sargaev started the vehicle and backed it into the officer's cruiser. Police say he is white. Police say those actions endangered the officer, who then shot Sargaev. He was taken to a hospital for treatment and will be arraigned Thursday. The officer has not been identified and is on standard administrative leave. He was wearing a body camera at the time. ___ Information from: WKYT-TV, http://www.wkyt.com Kuala Lumpur (AFP) - Two women accused of assassinating the half-brother of North Korea's leader appeared in a Malaysian court on Thursday ahead of a murder trial that could see them hanged. Indonesian Siti Aisyah, 25, and Doan Thi Huong, 28, from Vietnam, were taken in bulletproof vests to a heavily guarded magistrate's court close to the airport where Kim Jong-Nam was fatally poisoned two months ago. Police accuse the pair of having wiped the banned nerve agent VX on Kim's face at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on February 13 as he was about to board a flight to Macau, where he was living in exile. Rival South Korea accuses the North of masterminding the killing of Kim, the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un. Pyongyang denies the accusation, insisting he died of a heart attack. In a brief hearing, the women were ordered to appear before the court on May 30 as state prosecutors sought more time to prepare their case. The pair did not enter a plea. Doan's lawyer asked the court to alter the murder charge since prosecutors have not identified four people mentioned in charge documents as accomplices to the women, but the judge did not entertain the request. About 100 police officers, include commandos in balaclavas and carrying assault rifles, guarded the court compound during the womens appearance. Dressed in a red top and blue jeans, Siti kept her head down throughout the hearing. Doang, also casually dressed, quietly observed the court proceedings. - 'She was cheated' - The case is due to be transferred to an upper court where the women will be tried for murder. If convicted, they could face the death penalty, which is carried out by hanging in Malaysia. The killing sparked a diplomatic crisis between Malaysia and North Korea which saw both countries banning each other's citizens from leaving and withdrawing their ambassadors. The travel ban was lifted in late March after a deal was struck involving the return of Kim's body to North Korea. Story continues Police are still looking for four North Korean men who are suspected to have taken part in the murder plot, but are believed to have returned to Pyongyang. Three other North Koreans earlier described as "persons of interest", including a diplomat based in Malaysia, have been allowed to return home under the deal. Indonesian officials have maintained that Siti was duped into believing she was taking part in pranks for a TV show, while Doan's family said she was invited to Malaysia to be an actress. Tran Huy Hoang, a young Vietnamese man who attended the hearing and described himself as a cousin of Doan, told AFP: "She loves to travel and party but she never do anything violent. "All of us believe she was cheated." Shocking new health inspection reports have revealed several violations at President Trumps prestigious Mar-a-Lago estate in South Florida that could result in "foodborne illness or injury." Read: Missiles Rain Down on Syria as Trump Family Dines at Mar-a-Lago, President Faces Russian Backlash The reports say inspectors found "high-priority violations [that] could allow the presence of illness-causing bacteria on plates served in the dining room." The routine health inspection took place on January 26, less than a week after Trump's inauguration and about two weeks before the president and first lady hosted Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The health inspectors found violations inside the compounds kitchen, where raw fish had not undergone proper parasite destruction and uncooked meat was stored at temperatures deemed too warm. According to the agency, the violations could contribute directly to a foodborne illness or injury. The president is known to take a great interest in the day-to-day operation of Mar-a-Lago's kitchen, as well as the ones in his other properties. Read: Mike Pence Won't Dine With Other Women When His Wife Is Not Around Since the scathing report, the violations in Mar-a-Lago's kitchen have been corrected and health inspectors have decided it now meets the "minimum standards." Last week, Trump hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping and he said they dined on chocolate cake as he gave the approval for a Tomahawk missile strike on a Syrian airbase. Watch: Melania Spends the Weekend in Mar-a-Lago Without Trump Following Failed Health Care Bill Related Articles: Moscow (AFP) - The Kremlin on Thursday slammed as "absolutely unacceptable" a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that there were "serious failings" in Russia's handling of the 2004 Beslan school siege. "It is impossible for us to agree with this phrasing," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists. "Such phrasing for a country that has suffered an attack is absolutely unacceptable." The court said although Russian authorities had information that an attack was being planned on a school in North Ossetia, they failed to do enough to disrupt the plot and had not sufficiently protected the hostages. Asked if Russia would fulfil the terms of the ruling over compensating the victims and their relatives, Peskov said that "all the necessary legal actions linked with this ruling will be undertaken." The justice ministry said in a statement on Thursday that Russia would appeal against the ruling within the three month deadline. It said that a number of the court's conclusions were "not backed up." The findings over the operation to rescue the hostages showed the court did not examine the tragic events "in sufficient detail," the ministry said. It said the court did not understand "the full seriousness of the situation in Beslan after the seizing of the hostages" and the "risks of the process of carrying out a rescue operation by law enforcement authorities." The court's findings over the use by Russian special forces of indiscriminate weapons while hostages were still in the building were "baseless," the ministry said. The court ruled that Russia must pay compensation to 409 surviving hostages and relatives of the deceased. A representative for the Mothers of Beslan group of victims' relatives, Aneta Gadiyeva, told TASS news agency that the amounts of compensation awarded were small. "Some will receive 5,000 euros, some will receive 20,000 euros. Those are small sums for the compensation of moral damages," said Gadiyeva, who lost a daughter in the siege. A lawyer for the victims, Sergei Knyazkin, told TASS that "we are not fully satisfied by the ECHR ruling," citing "very small amounts of compensation." ISTANBUL Turkeys most outspoken opponent of a referendum that promises to transform this NATO ally is sitting out the campaign behind bars. Selahattin Demirtas, an ethnic Kurd who had rallied a national coalition with his pledge to thwart President Recep Tayyip Erdogans bid for vast new powers, has been largely silenced, arrested in November 2016 for suspected ties to militants. A dozen more lawmakers from his Peoples Democratic Party (HDP) are also behind bars. Demirtass political career has fallen victim to the surging violence between Kurdish insurgents and the Turkish state. A peace process with the armed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) that Demirtas helped broker has collapsed, cities across the mainly Kurdish southeast lie in ruins after a reignited insurgency, and Erdogan is poised to clinch the nationwide referendum on constitutional amendments that would transform Turkey from a parliamentary system into a presidential one and could keep him in office past 2030. If the yes vote wins out, Erdogan would no longer occupy a largely ceremonial role as president, but rather would run the military and the rest of the executive branch, exert greater control over judicial appointments, and, critics argue, effectively shape the legislature, because he would be able to resume his leadership of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and select its candidates for parliament. The referendum campaign is tight, with recent opinion polls showing the yes campaign at 51 to 53 percent. A majority of Turkeys Kurds backed Demirtass left-wing HDP in the June 2015 general election, and now their vote could prove decisive in the April 16 plebiscite. Erdogans message to Turkeys 58 million voters is a potent one: Only when he has complete control can he crush one of Europes longest-running insurgencies, which has claimed more than 40,000 lives. The PKK, which took up arms in 1984, is classified as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union. Story continues The coming months, with Gods permission, will be spring for Turkey and the Turkish people and a black winter for terrorists, Erdogan said in an April 3 speech in the nationalist stronghold of Trabzon. He has hinted that he may pursue the Kurdish rebels into Iraq and Syria, where PKK-linked militias are battling the Islamic State with the U.S.-led coalition. But Erdogan has tailored a different case for Kurdish voters. Under tight security in Diyarbakir, Demirtass hometown and the largest city in the impoverished southeast, Erdogan on April 1 told supporters that a yes vote will deliver peace and prosperity. I am personally the guarantor of the rights you possess, your freedoms, the economic development you need, he said. Erdogan has traditionally attracted support from about half of Kurds conservatives grateful for the expansion of cultural rights during his rule and a peace process he launched with the PKK until it shattered in 2015. Kurds make up about a fifth of the voting public, or roughly 10 million voters. If traditional Erdogan supporters among them return to his fold, it is likely to push the yes vote above the simple majority he needs. On the other hand, if the nearly 1 million Kurdish voters who abandoned the AKP for the HDP in the June 2015 election stick with the no camp, they could jeopardize Erdogans campaign. Embracing the Kurds as equal citizens has been a key part of Erdogans political legacy, wrote Ibrahim Kalin, Erdogans press secretary, in the Daily Sabah newspaper on April 3, citing the loosening of restrictions on the Kurdish language and millions of dollars of investment in Kurdish towns and cities. The polls suggest that Kurdish voters support the constitutional referendum in higher numbers than expected. In a rare prison interview, where Demirtas submitted responses to written questions through lawyers, he told Foreign Policy that Erdogan will struggle to recapture Kurdish votes after the failure of peace negotiations and the ensuing crackdown. He predicted that a significant proportion of those Kurds who previously voted for the AKP would now vote no. The hard-line policies of the AKP and the suspension of democracy, human rights and rule of law have been rebuffed by Kurds as they distance themselves from the AKP, he said. Erdogans battle to consolidate power comes after a botched military coup in July 2016 that sought to overthrow him and killed more than 240 people. A subsequent state of emergency has allowed him to rule by decree, and some 113,000 people have been purged from the civil and security services and nearly 50,000 people imprisoned. Though not implicated in the attempted putsch, Demirtas and the other lawmakers faced a flurry of criminal charges in its wake. (The HDP lawmakers parliamentary immunity had been revoked by their fellow lawmakers in May, prior to the coup attempt, at Erdogans urging.) Turkish authorities also jailed thousands of rank-and-file members of the HDP and an affiliated party and snatched control of 82 municipalities that their elected mayors ran. Election monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe reported no campaigners have faced a de facto media ban, police interventions, and scuffles at events. Emergency rule raised concerns about whether appropriate conditions are in place to hold a referendum. Other observers also warned that the playing field was tilted in favor of Erdogans campaign. Everything is skewed in favor of the yes vote because of the silencing of the media, the removal of key political figures like Demirtas, said Emma Sinclair-Webb of Human Rights Watch. It is appalling that the population has to make this choice about the countrys future under a state of emergency when many rights and freedoms are restricted. In this polarized atmosphere, there cannot be an open discussion. Erdogan likens such criticism to an open campaign by the West for a no vote. This race has seen considerably less violence than recent general elections. Demirtas, who turned 44 in prison this week, said he was absolutely certain his arrest was designed to cripple opposition to the constitutional changes. Instead of drumming up support for the no vote, Demirtas now spends his days writing or exercising in a small yard adjacent to his cell in a prison situated near the Greek and Bulgarian borders in the former Ottoman capital of Edirne. He sees his wife, Basak, once a week and his daughters, aged 11 and 13, twice a month. The HDPs co-leader, Figen Yuksekdag, was detained with Demirtas, and in February a court convicted her of issuing terrorist propaganda, stripping her of her seat in parliament. We have been held unlawfully for five months, and we still dont know when our prosecution will begin, Demirtas said. We are confronted not with a judicial process but extrajudicial enforcement. AKP officials deny this, accusing the HDP of serving as a PKK mouthpiece. The interior minister, who oversees the police force, said last month that Kurdish-run municipalities had funneled money to the PKK and recruited its foot soldiers. Demirtas, a former rights campaigner, denies that he or his party is tied to the PKK and has long advocated for a negotiated settlement to the conflict. He ran against Erdogan for the presidency in 2014 in a quixotic bid meant to test the waters for his party to challenge the general election. In the June 2015 general election, Demirtass electoral coalition emerged as a force to be reckoned with. He galvanized voters with a pledge to block Erdogans ambitions for greater power and with a progressive party platform that included equal rights for women and respect for the environment, winning over liberal Turks once wary of his roots in a Kurdish nationalist movement. Pious Kurds who had previously backed Erdogan flocked to Demirtas, in part because he had come to play an important role in the governments two-and-a-half-year peace talks with Kurdish rebels. Demirtas ran on a mandate of seeking a political settlement that would be fair to both sides of the three-decade war. Together, these voters elected a record 80 HDP deputies to the 550-seat parliament, depriving the AKP of single-party rule for the first time. But Demirtass political rise was soon disrupted by renewed fighting between the Turkish government and the PKK, the deadliest in two decades. Some 2,000 people were killed and 500,000 displaced in 2015 and 2016, according to the United Nations. A PKK offshoot claimed responsibility for a series of bomb attacks that killed more than 100 people in western Turkish cities. Majority Kurdish towns in a half-dozen provinces were wrecked during security operations to root out PKK militants who used residential streets for trench warfare. In areas like Sur, a historic neighborhood in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir, the militants made far-fetched declarations of autonomy. Surs Roman-era walls and ancient churches and mosques, listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage site, suffered irreparable damage. Demirtas condemned the violence but reserved most of his ire for Erdogan. Some analysts see that decision as his undoing. Demirtas walked into the trap set for him by Erdogan and the PKK, said Levent Gultekin, a writer and former conservative. He failed to use the mandate he was given by voters to stand up to the PKK. Faced with that challenge, the HDP choked. For his part, Demirtas did not express regret for his partys response to the eruption of violence. Despite all that has happened, we are not asking for mercy or forgiveness from anyone, because we committed no crime. We are being held here because a crime is being committed against us, he said. Sooner or later, those who stand for peace and democracy will win. Unwilling or unable to help end the bloodshed, Demirtas bitterly disappointed both Turks and Kurds who were drawn to his conciliatory campaign promises, including farmer Mustafa Celik, 43. In a remote village outside of Diyarbakir, Celik, an ethnic Kurd, named his eighth child Evet, which means yes in Turkish, when she was born in January. We sent the HDP to parliament to bring peace, but they stood with the PKK. Who elected them: the people or the PKK? Celik said. As a Kurd, I am sad Demirtas is in jail. But if Erdogan wins the referendum, peace will return. OZAN KOSE/AFP/Getty Images MIAMI (AP) A quarter-century after he vanished on the eve of a major drug indictment, the last of Miami's fabled "cocaine cowboys" was in custody Thursday, nabbed on a suburban bike ride with his wife near Disney World. Prosecutors say the man living under an assumed name is Gustavo "Taby" Falcon, who was part of a homegrown drug gang that used super-fast speedboats to smuggle 75 tons of cocaine in the 1980s "Miami Vice" era. Falcon, 55, had been on the lam since 1991, when his older brother Augusto "Willie" Falcon and fellow drug kingpin Salvador "Sal" Magluta were indicted by a federal grand jury. U.S. Marshals spokesman Barry Golden said investigators were surprised to find him living in a typical pink stucco home in a quiet, middle-class Kissimmee suburb. "Nobody thought Gustavo Falcon was still in the United States," Golden said. At his initial court hearing Thursday in Orlando, Gustavo Falcon agreed to be sent to South Florida to face charges of conspiracy to import cocaine into the U.S. He was ordered held without bond, court records show. Augusto Falcon and Magluta were small-time drug dealers when they dropped out of high school in the late 1970s to begin building their cocaine empire that would amass more than $2 billion, according to trial evidence. They eventually owned world-class ocean racing boats and lived like royalty. Mickey Munday, who did prison time for flying cocaine loads for Colombia's Medellin Cartel, said the pair was known for their honesty in business deals legal or otherwise and the expertise of their boat-building operation. They also drove flashy cars and lived in seaside mansions, even when murders and shootings linked to their organization brought police scrutiny. "They were so flamboyant," Munday said. "Everybody in the world knew what they were doing. Why attract attention to yourself?" Story continues Gustavo Falcon was not viewed as a top leader of the organization, and vanished just ahead of a 1991 indictment that charged him along with his brother, Magluta and others. He had not been seen since until Wednesday, when U.S. marshals surveilling his rented home in Kissimmee watched him and his wife leave their garage for a bike ride. A neighbor, David Pera, said he frequently saw the couple riding their bikes and never saw them in a car. An older model pickup truck sitting in the driveway never moved, he said. "I'd say hi, they would say hi, and that was about it," Pera said Thursday. It took an exhaustive records search to bring the marshals there. Weeks earlier, they discovered a Florida driver's license issued to a Luis Reiss, traced back to a South Florida home that had been owned by Gustavo Falcon. Then they found 2013 car accident involving Reiss, which eventually led to the house he was sharing with his wife, Amelia. She also had fake identification, in the name of Maria Reiss. Marshals followed as the couple got on their bikes and headed out Wednesday for what turned into a 40-mile ride. Because they were both wearing helmets and sunglasses, it took a while for investigators to make a positive identification, Golden said. Once they felt sure enough, marshals with guns drawn stopped the couple at an intersection a few blocks from their house. "We had to be 100 percent certain this was the guy," Golden said. After his arrest, Gustavo Falcon told authorities he had been living in the Orlando area since 2009 and in the rental house since 2012. It's not clear where he was during all the other years, but officials say it's believed he was living overseas for some of that time. Authorities said they did not know if Falcon had a job. His wife was not arrested. His brother and Magluta were acquitted of all charges at their trial in 1996, leading to the resignation of then-Miami U.S. Attorney Kendall Coffey. Despondent at the loss, Coffey and others went to a strip club where he got into an altercation involving the biting of a stripper. Later, it turned out that Augusto Falcon and Magluta had bought off witnesses and at least one member of the jury, a foreman who did 17 years in prison after accepting $400,000. Magluta, now 62, was tried a second time, convicted of drug-related money laundering in 2002 and sentenced to 205 years in prison. That was reduced to 195 years in 2006. Augusto Falcon, now 61, then accepted a plea deal in 2003 on similar charges. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison and is scheduled for release from a Kentucky facility on June 17. Their mansions, boats, cars, planes, bank accounts and other ill-gotten gains are long gone, seized and sold by the government. Munday, the former cartel pilot, said Augusto Falcon and Magluta should have disappeared as well, after their initial not-guilty verdicts. "They were guys who went from nothing to having just about anything they could imagine that they wanted," he said. "As soon as they got the innocent verdict, they should have hauled out of here to Argentina." _____ Associated Press contributors include John Raoux. Follow Curt Anderson at http://twitter.com/miamicurt PHOENIX (AP) The Latest on the arrest of a fugitive accused in the 2010 killing of a U.S. Border Patrol agent (all times local): 3:24 p.m. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Thursday that the arrest of a Mexican man suspected of gunning down Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December 2010 sends a strong message to fugitives. Sessions said in a statement that the United States will hunt down and find anyone who takes the life of an American citizen, especially a law enforcement officer. Mexican authorities arrested Heraclio Osorio-Arellanes on Wednesday in the state of Chihuahua. Terry's death revealed a bungled gun-tracking operation by the government in which federal agents allowed criminals to buy guns in the U.S. with the intention of tracking them. But agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives lost track of most of the guns, and two were found at the scene of Terry's murder. ___ 12:50 p.m. The family of a Border Patrol agent whose 2010 death exposed a bungled U.S. gun-running operation says the arrest of a Mexican suspect in his killing is "fantastic news." Robert Heyer, cousin of 40-year-old Brian Terry, said Thursday that the arrest of Heraclio Osorio-Arellanes reassures the family that the culprits all will be brought to justice. Osorio-Arellanes was one of two remaining fugitives. Four others involved in Terry's death have been sentenced in federal court on murder charges. Terry's family has been critical of former President Barack Obama's administration over the operation that allowed criminals to buy guns with the intention of tracking them. Instead, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives lost track of most of the guns, two of which were found at the scene of Terry's killing. ___ 11:45 a.m. The head of the Department of Homeland Security says he hopes the arrest of a man suspected in the 2010 shooting death of a Border Patrol agent will "mark a significant step" in bringing closure to the agent's family. Story continues Secretary John Kelly said in a statement Thursday that he was thankful to Mexican authorities who arrested Heraclio Osorio-Arellanes, who's accused of pulling the trigger of the gun that killed 40-year-old Brian Terry. Terry's death exposed the Fast and Furious operation, in which the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowed criminals to buy guns with the intention of tracking them. But ATF lost sight of most, and two ended up at the scene of Terry's death. Four others have been sentenced to prison on murder charges. Kelly said the latest arrest illustrates the commitment of the administration to seek justice. ___ 8:10 a.m. Mexican authorities confirm the arrest of the suspected shooter in the 2010 killing of a U.S. Border Patrol agent whose death exposed a bungled gun-tracking operation by the U.S. government. A joint statement issued Thursday in Mexico City by Mexico's navy and its federal Attorney General's Office says the suspect in the killing of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was arrested Wednesday afternoon by Mexican marines near the border between the states of Sinaloa and Chihuahua. That's a mountainous region noted for drug activity. According to the statement, the suspect is being held while extradition proceedings are pending. The statement didn't identify the suspect by his full name, but a Mexican federal official confirmed it was Heraclio Osorio-Arellanes. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to comment officially. ___ Associated Press writer E. Eduardo Castillo in Mexico City contributed to this report. ___ 9:20 p.m. Authorities have arrested the suspected shooter in the 2010 killing of a U.S. Border Patrol agent whose death exposed a bungled gun-tracking operation by the federal government. A U.S. marshal for the District of Arizona tells The Arizona Republic (http://bit.ly/2p8y1mp ) that Heraclio Osorio-Arellanes was arrested in Mexico on Wednesday. Osorio-Arellanes was one of two men who remained fugitives in the December 2010 murder of 40-year-old Brian Terry, whose death exposed Fast and Furious, in which agents from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowed criminals to buy guns with the intention of tracking the weapons. But the agency lost most of the guns, including two that were found at scene of Terry's death. The operation set off a political firestorm. Four other men involved in the killing have been convicted or have pleaded guilty in federal court to murder charges. Fox News was first to report the arrest. BERLIN (AP) The Latest on Europe's response to the inflow of migrants and asylum-seekers (all times local): 4:05 p.m. Poland's interior minister says the country's government is considering creating container camps for asylum seekers on its border with Belarus, saying a similar system works well in Hungary. Mariusz Blaszczak made the comments in an interview on Radio Zet on Thursday, a day after the Gazeta Wyborcza daily reported that the ministry plans to put asylum seekers in containers behind barbed wire. Blaszczak did not deny those details, and said: "If there is an emergency situation we must be prepared for all scenarios." Hungary has built container camps on its border with Serbia surrounded by razor-wire and high fences. Asylum seekers from Chechnya and elsewhere have been seeking entry into Poland for many months, but most are denied entry and asylum. ___ 12 p.m. The German government says it would support a ban on the export of boats from the European Union to Libya as part of measures to stem the flow of migrants across the Mediterranean. Smugglers use often rickety vessels to ferry thousands of migrants from the north African country to Europe each month. Mass drownings are common when the overloaded boats capsize or sink. In a response to questions from Left Party lawmakers, the German government says it considers "imposing restrictive measures" on EU exports of boats, engines and vehicles to Libya to be an appropriate measure to crack down on people smuggling. The response, obtained Thursday by The Associated Press, also confirms that the EU naval mission deployed to stop illegal migration uses submarines for "covert reconnaissance" in the region. Tripoli (AFP) - At least 97 migrants were missing after their boat sank on Thursday off the Libyan coast, a navy spokesman said. Survivors said the missing include 15 women and five children, General Ayoub Qassem told AFP. He said the Libyan coastguard had rescued a further 23 migrants of various African nationalities just under 10 kilometres (6 miles) off the coast of Tripoli. The boat's hull was completely destroyed and the survivors, all men, were found clinging to a flotation device, he said. Those who had disappeared were "probably dead", but bad weather had so far prevented the recovery of their bodies, Qassem added. An AFP photographer said survivors had been given food and medical care at Tripoli port before being transferred to a migrant centre east of the capital. Six years since the revolution that toppled dictator Moamer Kadhafi, Libya has become a key departure point for migrants risking their lives to cross the Mediterranean to Europe. Hailing mainly from sub-Saharan countries, most of the migrants board boats operated by people traffickers in western Libya, and make for the Italian island of Lampedusa 300 kilometres (190 miles) away. Since the beginning of this year, at least 590 migrants have died or gone missing along the Libyan coast, the International Organization for Migration said in late March. In the absence of an army or regular police force in Libya, several militias act as coastguards but are often themselves accused of complicity or even involvement in the lucrative people-smuggling business. More than 24,000 migrants arrived in Italy from Libya during the first three months of the year, up from 18,000 during the same period last year, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. By Yasmeen Abutaleb, Lawrence Hurley and Dan Levine WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - To stop President Donald Trump from undermining Obamacare, Democratic Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey is considering an approach that has worked against the administration on immigration: using Trump's own words against him. Trump said he would let the Affordable Care Act "explode" after Republicans failed last month to pass their own repeal bill in Congress, and told the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday that he may withhold billions of dollars of payments to insurers to force Democrats to negotiate on healthcare. Public statements like that led to judges blocking Trump's proposed travel bans earlier this year, and could prove to be one line of attack in legal attempts to protect the healthcare bill, according to a handful of liberal U.S. lawyers and state attorneys general. They said they are waiting to see what action the administration ultimately takes on the healthcare law before they will officially respond. Democratic attorneys general took a lead role to successfully block Trump's executive orders restricting travel from some Muslim-majority countries, and are also resisting efforts to roll back environmental regulations. Now, the threat of potential litigation over the healthcare law from states, which takes a page from the Republicans' playbook during the Obama administration, is complicating the Trump administration's efforts to formulate its own approach on health policy outside congressional legislation, according to two conservative lobbyists briefed on internal discussions. The White House maintains that the healthcare law is "already collapsing on its own, and will continue to go in the wrong direction as more Americans face skyrocketing premiums, higher deductibles, and less choice," an administration spokesman told Reuters. "President Trump and his administration are committed to working with Congress to repeal and replace Obamacare." Noting that several federal judges cited Trump's comments on Muslims to support the idea that his executive orders unconstitutionally targeted a religious group, Massachusetts AG Healey said Trump is legally bound to enforce the ACA. But his words make it clear he is willing to sabotage it, in her view. "He is intent on setting the dynamite and blowing this up," Healey told Reuters. She said it is too early to speculate about specific legal action but said Trump's remarks about the law "suggest he is out there not just hoping that it fails but working to see it fail." In addition to Healey, Democratic attorneys general for California, Connecticut and the District of Columbia told Reuters they are closely monitoring the administration for any signs it is undermining the ACA. The California attorney general's office recently hired a health policy expert, Melanie Fontes Rainer, who worked for Democrats in the U.S. Senate. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in a statement his office is "leaning forward when it comes to protecting our people's right to affordable, quality health care." Four private lawyers in Washington D.C. said they have discussed possible challenges among themselves and potential clients who have benefited from the law. One such legal challenge being discussed is suing the Trump administration for failing to abide by the "take care clause," which requires that the president faithfully execute laws enacted by Congress, according to Deepak Gupta, a Washington lawyer who often works on public interest cases. "That the president is operating in good faith is pretty critical to how the law works. That good faith is legitimately in question," he said. Texas and other states that challenged Obama's executive action seeking to prevent immigrants from being deported cited the take care clause in their lawsuit, claiming he was failing to enforce immigration law. 'A PLAYBOOK THAT REPUBLICANS WROTE' Obamacare, former President Barack Obama's signature legislative achievement, enabled 20 million Americans to gain health insurance. The new administration could effectively cripple Obamacare with a pending Republican lawsuit over cost-sharing subsidies that was appealed by the Obama administration and put on hold when Trump took office. Trump said he may withhold the payments, which help cover out-of-pocket medical costs for low-income people, that Republicans argue must be appropriated by Congress. Proponents of Obamacare say that not funding the subsidies, which amount to about $7 billion a year, would torpedo the law because it would cause insurers to flee the individual market and could leave millions of people without a place to purchase insurance. But the administration must weigh whether to fund the subsidies at the risk of being viewed as helping the law succeed, or be blamed - and possibly sued by attorneys general - for the law's demise, according to the lobbyists, who have been briefed on internal discussions. "There's a concern that liberal attorneys general would file suits," one lobbyist said. "This is a playbook that Republicans wrote during the Obama administration." In some respects, the Trump administration has already taken steps to erode parts of the law. It said it will not enforce the individual mandate, the requirement that everyone have health insurance or pay a penalty, which experts say is needed to keep healthy people in the markets and offset more expensive patients. Dave Jones, the California state insurance commissioner, wrote a letter to Trump earlier last month requesting that the administration "stop taking administrative actions which undermine the Affordable Care Act and destabilize health insurance markets across the country." Jones is also running for attorney general in California, a heavily Democratic state where fighting the Trump administration is a key political asset. If the administration does not enforce the law, "we will certainly look at all our legal options and remedies that might be available," he said. (Editing by Edward Tobin) Lucid Motors Bids to Become Newest Silicon Valley Automotive Upstart Lucid Motors, a Silicon Valley-based upstart backed by venture capitalists, used the New York International Auto Show to display its first model, the Air, and lay out plans to make the electric car a reality for American consumers. The Air will have a base price of $52,500 after federal tax credits, Lucid says. It claims the four-seat sedan will have better performance and more comfort than comparably priced models from BMW and Mercedes-Benz. The auto luxury segment has a dizzying array of sameness, said Derek Jenkins, the companys vice president of design. The Air features a low-slung, sleek body, with a windshield that stretches all the way over the heads of front-seat passengers. Like Tesla, Lucid spreads its battery cells along the floor of the body, opening up space in what is usually the engine compartment and the interior. The car is about the same length as a conventional midsized sedan, and yet the cabin has more space than a Mercedes S-Class. Theres a model aimed at business executives with reclining rear seatsinspired by corporate jets. Lucid began as a battery company called Atieva in 2007, based in Silicon Valley. Its founders came from companies like Tesla and Oracle. Jenkins worked at Mazda and Volkswagen before coming on board. The company claims its batteries are more energy-dense than its competitors and possibly more reliable. The base model will offer 240 miles of range and 400 horsepower. The company expects to offer versions with up to 400 miles of range and 1,000 horsepower, along with all-wheel drive. A prototype Air, which was modified for high-speed testing, achieved top speeds of 217 mph at recent trial runs at an Ohio test track. Lucid has announced plans to build a factory in Casa Grande, Arizona. Production is scheduled to begin in 2019 with a goal of producing 10,000 vehicles in the first year. By 2022, the factory will employ 2,000 people and will be capable of producing 130,000 cars a year, Lucid says. Story continues In another move similar to Tesla, Lucid is promising the Air will have all of the cameras and sensors necessary for fully automated driving. But for now, there wont be any software for turning that feature onthe element technology experts say is by far the hardest challenge for fully self-driving cars. More from Consumer Reports: Top pick tires for 2016 Best used cars for $25,000 and less 7 best mattresses for couples Consumer Reports has no relationship with any advertisers on this website. Copyright 2006-2017 Consumer Reports, Inc. Photo credit: Lucid Motors / YouTube From Road & Track When we spoke with Lucid Motors chief engineer Peter Rawlinson last month, he told us the company's first car, the Air, would be fast. Like, well over 200 mph fast. Today, Lucid showed off a video of an Air prototype hitting 217 mph on a high-speed banked circuit. Damn. That puts the Air among the fastest electric cars in the word, like the Rimac Concept One and the NextEV NIO EP9. Heck, that's one mph faster than the new Ford GT. That said, it's worth noting that this isn't a proper top-speed test, since top speed is a calculated average of a car running in opposite directions to mitigate wind resistance. Still, this is seriously impressive performance from a company that few people knew about until last year. It comes courtesy of a 1000-hp electric drivetrain with motors on both the front and rear axles. Rawlinson told us the Air hits 60 mph in 2.5 seconds, which isn't quite as quick as the quickest Tesla Model S, but then again, the Model S isn't a 200-plus-mph car. More importantly, Rawlinson maintains that the Air will be a true driver's car. We're inclined to believe him because he previously worked as the chief engineer at Lotus, and his personal car is a 1967 Elan. We can't wait to drive this. via Carscoops You Might Also Like If all you've known about internet cafes are dingy darkened rooms where people stare into screens, you've got to see some of the new, slick gaming havens that are popping up in China. The Wolfz gaming lounge, opened this week, is a 1,700 square metre (18,298 square foot) space in south China's high-tech hub of Shenzhen. It's got 230 computers, 11 large rooms to book, and 5 VIP rooms. Image: WECHAT Image: WECHAT It also has a spot for professional teams to live-stream their games, and for other gamers to watch live matches around a bar. SEE ALSO: China is dominating the world in esports earnings Wolfz is also owned by a huge Taiwanese pop star, by the way. Megastar Jay Chou is such a huge gaming fan that he owns a professional League of Legends team, called J-Gaming. Image: WECHAT Image: Wechat Image: WECHAT Chou's gaming company, J-esports (), said it plans to franchise Wolfz out throughout China, Sina Games reports. The company is supported by both Chou and IDG Capital, a venture capital fund that has backed companies like Xiaomi. China's internet cafe scene is ripe for investment by bigger firms; its 160,000 cafes of which only 0.2 percent are managed by chains. Image: WECHAT Image: Wechat Image: Wechat Internet cafes in China are getting increasingly high-end as well, as players in the country demand gaming in a more social setting, according to Tech in Asia. Despite a rise in mobile gaming, cafes in China have found that players still want to watch professional live and televised esports tournaments right next to other gamers and games like League of Legends and CrossFire have been popular amongst livestreamers. The cafe says it plans to work with Chinese companies like Tencent, which owns Riot Games, the developer of League of Legends to host esports tournaments. WATCH: Old-school arcade games have made a comeback at this underground gaming tournament Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp told CNBC on Tuesday she supported Neil Gorsuch's nomination to the Supreme Court based on an interview and a review of his record. "Would he be the judge I'd pick? No, never," the North Dakota senator said on " Squawk Box ." "But he is the judge that the duly elected president picked." Heitkamp was one of three Democrats up for re-election in red states who voted to confirm Gorsuch to the Supreme Court following a bitter partisan fight. On Friday, the Senate confirmed President Donald Trump 's nominee, a day after the Senate took the "nuclear option" to advance Gorsuch's nomination by changing the rulings for filibusters. Democrats denounced the GOP's use of the parliamentary procedure, calling it an epic power grab that would further corrode politics in Congress, the courts and the United States. Democrats were also bitter after Republicans had refused to even consider former President Barack Obama 's Supreme Court pick, Merrick Garland, following the February 2016 death of Justice Antonin Scalia. Heitkamp said what happened to Garland was "atrocious." "It was appalling," Heitkamp said Tuesday. "I didn't judge Judge Gorsuch by that." Heitkamp said a great frustration many Americans have is when one party continuously obstructs the other. "Elections have consequences," she said. "This was someone who was qualified. You may not agree with all of his decisions." "There's a lot of people disappointed and there is a lot of people who walk by in the coffee shop and say thanks for your vote. They're tired of partisanship," she said. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Also From CNBC Watch The Profit on Yahoo View, available now on iOS and Android. More From CNBC KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysia's central bank said on Thursday it will support law enforcement agencies investigating the possible flow of funds to North Korea, after Reuters reported the North Korean head of a Malaysian firm had for years sent money to Pyongyang's leadership. Reuters on Monday cited a North Korean defector as saying that Han Hun Il, the founding chief executive of Malaysia Korea Partners (MKP), had for two decades funneled funds to the central committee of Pyongyang's ruling Workers' Party. MKP is also under investigation by the United Nations for the possible violation of sanctions on North Korea. Malaysia's deputy home minister had said in response that the reports could damage Kuala Lumpur's reputation as a financial hub and called on the central bank to investigate the alleged transfer of funds to North Korea. "Should there be any offence relating to the laws administered by Bank Negara Malaysia, an investigation will be conducted," the central bank said in its statement Thursday. Malaysia's historically close ties with North Korea have come under scrutiny following the assassination of Kim Jong Nam, the estranged half-brother of North Koreas ruler. Reuters reported in February that North Koreas spy agency was running an arms export operation out of Malaysia. (Reporting by Rozanna Latiff; Editing by Michael Perry) Malia Obama has been photographed several times in New York City, where she is interning at Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein's production. Recently the daughter of former President Barack Obama was spotted heading to the producers company. Malia sported a summery look, which appeared perfect for the soaring temperatures in the city. Baring her long legs, the teen wore a denim button-down shirtdress with short sleeves and a collar. She paired the outfit with black Chuck Taylor Converse, according to Yahoo that also posted pictures of the former first daughter. The 18-year-old has been spotted several times in New York City, since she left Washington, D.C., late January. She is interning at the Weinstein Company to gain experience in the film industry during her gap year before attending Harvard University this fall. Her mother, Michelle Obama, previously said Malia is planning for a career in the film industry. Last month, Malia was photographed hanging out with a tall, young man who was identified as Rob Franklin, a 2015 graduate of Stanford University. According to TMZ, Malia and Rob met at the Men's Fashion Week in New York. Her outing with Rob led to speculation that the two are seeing each other. However, Robs friends told TMZ that the two are only friends and their relationship is "strictly platonic." Separately, a recent report by Naughty Gossip said Malia had turned down several modeling offers as she wanted to focus on the film and television business. Malia has a model body that would be great for runways. She has been offered several opportunities to model but turned them all down. She wants to be behind the camera, not in front of it, sources told Naughty Gossip. She loves the film and TV business and loves reading scripts. She will leave the modeling to Kendall Jenner. She has zero interest of being famous like her dad. Related Articles (CHICAGO) - A man was charged Wednesday in the killing of a criminal court judge who was shot to death outside his Chicago home after a woman he knew was wounded by gunfire. Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said in a tweet that Joshua Smith, 37, was charged in the fatal Monday shooting of Associate Cook County Circuit Judge Raymond Myles. No details were immediately released on what led police to Smith. Guglielmi said earlier that investigators were questioning individuals in the case who were people of interest. He declined to specify how many. More details were expected to be released at a news conference scheduled for Wednesday afternoon. Myles, 66, was shot early Monday outside his South Side Chicago home. The woman he knew had already been shot and police have said Myles exchanged words with the attacker and then was shot, too. Police have not released the womans name, saying she is a witness to the killing. The FBI is offering a $25,000 reward in the case. Myles received his law degree from the University of Illinois College of Law. He was appointed to the court in 1999. Circuit court judges appointed him an associate judge in 2001 and Myles had served in the criminal division since 2009, according to Cook County Chief Judge Timothy Evans. This article was originally published on TIME.com By Gabriel Stargardter MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The body of a man, who witnesses said was tossed from a plane, landed on a hospital roof in Mexico's northern Sinaloa state on Wednesday, according to a public health service official in the region, which is home to notorious drug traffickers. The body landed on the roof of an IMSS hospital in the town of Eldorado, around 7:30 a.m. local time, said the official, who was not authorized to give his name. Witnesses standing outside the health center reported a plane flying low over the hospital and a person thrown out, the health official said. Later on Wednesday, Sinaloa's Deputy Attorney General Jesus Martin Robles said a body, found on the hospital roof, showed injuries that appeared to be related to a strong impact. He did not confirm that it had been thrown from a plane. The public health service official said two more bodies were reported to have been found in the town, about 60 kilometers (40 miles) south of Culiacan, the state capital. Local media reported that those two bodies were thrown from the same plane as the body that landed on the hospital. The official did not know if the man was alive when he was thrown from the plane. Officials from the state prosecutor's office were at the scene, he said. "This is an agricultural area and planes are regularly used for fumigation," the official said, adding that the IMSS hospital was operating normally. Local media reported that suspected gang members had picked up the two other corpses. Sinaloa is the home state of Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman, who ran the Sinaloa drug cartel until his arrest in 2016. He was extradited to the United States earlier this year. Ever since Chapo's arrest, security in the state has deteriorated, as the Sinaloa cartel struggles to adapt to infighting and fresh threats from rival groups. (Additional Reporting by Noe Torres; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Leslie Adler) Margaret Atwood wrote The Handmaids Tale, a dystopian novel about a society with a plummeting birth rate, in 1984. In the book, a totalitarian American regime strips women of their rights and forces those who are fertile to become handmaids to bear children for wealthy men and their barren wives. Atwood challenged herself to only include events in the book that had happened in history. The result was a tale about the future that can, at turns, feel all too contemporary. The story includes an environmental crisis, restrictions on abortion, marches for womens rights and Americans fleeing to Canada. When Mad Men star Elisabeth Moss signed on to play the lead Offred in the Hulu adaptation of the landmark novel, most pundits predicted Hillary Clinton would be president. But just months after filming the show, Trump won the election and protesters at the Womens March carried signs that read, Make Margaret Atwood fiction again and a Latin line from Handmaids, Nolite te bastardes carborundorum (Dont let the bastards grind you down). The book is back on top of the bestseller lists and the show, which premieres April 26 on the streaming service, is accidentally the most prescient story on TV, says Moss. The novelist and the actor sat down with TIME to discuss The Handmaids Tales newfound relevance, how they define feminism and the joys and ills of social media, from Peggy Olson memes to slut-shaming. Portrait of Elisabeth Moss and Margaret Atwood shot at the Time Inc. Photo Studios in New York, March 18, 2017. TIME: Why this show now? Elisabeth Moss: I get asked a lot whether the show is in response to the election, but we were filming beforehand. Margaret Atwood: The control of women and babies has been a part of every repressive regime in history. This has been happening all along. I dont take it lightly when a politician says something like a pregnancy cant result from a rape because a womans body knows it and rejects it. Theres an undercurrent of this [type of thinking]. And then it rises to the surface sometimes. But The Handmaids Tale is always relevant, just in different ways in different political contexts. Not that much has changed. Story continues Moss: When we first met, we were in a very loud restaurant, so I was sort of leaning over the table trying desperately to hear all of your answers. But you said that the kernel of the idea was how you would control women by shutting down their bank accounts. Atwood: Also it was, If America were going to do a totalitarian government, what kind of totalitarian government would it be? It wouldnt be communism. No surprises there. I thought it would have to be some sort of theocracy, like the 17th century in the U.S. I was always very interested in the Salem witch trials, another instance of controlling women. Moss: We touch on this more in the show than in the book, but even though things are bad for the handmaids, the government has improved some things. There are more babies being born, the air is cleaner. Atwood: A character in the book says, Better never means better for everyone. Moss: Youve said a lot, and Ive repeated often, that everything that happened in The Handmaids Tale has happened. Atwood: Somewhere at some time. I made nothing up. Moss: And now were at a time when our climate is what it is in America and in the world. Do you still feel this could happen? Atwood: Even more so. When I first published the book, some people did the it could never happen here thing. Were so far along with womens rights that we cant go back. I dont hear that much anymore. Moss: I know. One of the things when we first started talking about making the show was whether this was something that could be plausible. I love it, but is this something the public is going to buy into? And then unfortunately, six months later, it became a hell of a lot more plausible. TIME: There are some differences between the show and the book. Why did you add more nonwhite, nonstraight characters? Atwood: Were taking off from now rather than 1984, and there are more multiracial couples now. In the book I had them being so segregationist, they were just separating everybody and shipping them off the way the Nazis did. In the show, its different. So just as we have cell phones in the plot now, we have to update other things. Although I was setting it in the future when I was writing it, I didnt know anything about the future. I wrote that thing on an old typewriter in Berlin. We didnt even have personal computers yet. Moss: We wanted the show to be very relatable. We wanted people to see themselves in it. If youre going to do that, you have to show all types of people. You have to reflect current society. A question I get asked a lot in interviews: Do you gravitate toward feminist roles? This is a question I struggle to answer because I dont necessarily feel like they are feminist roles. I feel like theyre interesting women. The Handmaids Tale is considered one of the great feminist novels. I actually consider it a human novel about human rights, not just womens rights. Atwood: Well, womens rights are human rights unless you have decided that women arent human. So those are your choices. If women are human, then womens rights are part of human rights. Moss: Exactly. Atwood: When we use that word, feminism, I always want to know: What do you mean by it? What are we talking about? If the person can describe what they mean by the word, then we can talk about whether I am one of those or not. Moss: I find myself getting slightly tripped up because I am a feminist, and Im not ashamed of it. But thats not why I chose this role. I did it because its a complex character. Atwood: If it were only a feminist book, you would think, in that case, all the women are over here on the low side, and all the men are over here on the high side. But its more like the way human societies actually arrange themselves, which means some powerful people at the top. The women connected to those people have more power than the men connected to the bottom rank. Moss: The commanders wives have more power than the male servants. Atwood: You betcha. And Queen Elizabeth I had more power than Joe the peasant. (Interview continues below) Portrait of Margaret Atwood shot at the Time Inc. Photo Studios in New York, March 18 2017. Moss: What is the book ultimately about for you? Atwood: I think its about a totalitarian society in America the way it would likely beexcept maybe the outfits. Moss: Well, time will tell about the outfits. Atwood: Were heading into a situation in which health coverage is going to be removed for pregnancy and childbirth. At the same time, youre going to force women to have babies by making it so they cant get abortions. Thats like being drafted into the army. Except at least in the army, you get three square meals a day and a place to sleep. Youre not left out on the street. If youre going to take away womens choice and not give them an adequate wage or healthcare, what would you call that? Id call it a bad deal. Moss: Were not politicians, but I get asked a lot whats the average women or average person can do to prevent Gilead from happening. Atwood: Well, they can vote, just to begin with. Moss: That would help, wouldnt it? Voting helps. Showing up. Thats a good first step. TIME: Is it harder to get projects with multiple female leads made? Moss: Ive found that to be an issue. I optioned a book with two women in it and was told multiple times it was too female. I was like, Are you even allowed to say that? Atwood: Its not a problem in the world of writing because publishers have this lightbulb over their head that tells them that women read a lot of books. In fact, there was a funny thing that happened a few years ago in which they were girlifying the covers of fiction, including mens fiction. Moss: Really? Atwood: You really had to fight off the publishers to keep them from putting flowers on your book. Moss: What does Margaret Atwood read while shes relaxing? Atwood: Im pretty omnivorous. Pop sciencesomething where somebody else tells me the result with usually, I hope, lovely colored illustrations. Show me the pictures and tell me what you found out. Dont make me actually do the study and kill all those mice. Everything from there all the way through to sci-fi, spec-fic, regular novels, nonfiction, history, biography and graphic novels. A lot of history, as you might imagine. TIME: Margaret, you mentioned earlier that you were struck by the fact that Elisabeth filmed without makeup. Atwood: They wanted you to look sort of tired and baggy. Moss: The worse, the better! Atwood: Bruce Miller, who is the showrunner and chief writer, he said he felt that it allowed the acting to be more direct and because every little twitch and twinge was visible. There wasnt anything between you and the camera. Moss: Absolutely. And same with if I went paler or if I flushed or if I was cold, you could really see it. And we also did very, very close shots. Atwood: So in a situation in which someone is not supposed to be registering seething rage, for instance, you can see your character is trying to keep a straight face. But you can see the tension. TIME: Margaret, youre very active on Twitter. Elisabeth, youre not on Twitter at all. What do you make of the sometimes toxic nature of social media, including slut-shaming? Atwood: I am on Twitter, but Im too old to attract slut-shaming. I hate to break this to you, but I dont think anyones interested in me. Moss: [Sarcastically] What a shame. Thats too bad. Im so sorry about that. Atwood: Right? There are pluses and minuses of getting older. The closer you come to being dead, such as myself, the less likely you are to attract such things. Young women with some power are particularly subject to it, because its also a love-hate-love-hate thing. This is an attractive person whom Im never going to have a date with, so I hate them. Dont you think? Moss: Its similar to a scene in the show: a woman reveals that she was the victim of rape, and shes told, You brought this upon yourself. You deserve this. You go out in a sexy dress on the red carpet, so now were allowed to say whatever we want about you. But thats not O.K. Atwood: Thats always been the case. If you go back to the 19th century, it was opera stars and female theater stars who attracted this kind of thing. Its not new. It just gets amplified. TIME: Speaking of social media, Elisabeth, an image of your character Peggy from the end of Mad Men became a feminist meme. Do you think that will happen with The Handmaids Tale? Atwood: Why did that become a meme for feminism? Because of smoking? Moss: [Laughing] No. Its her walking into her new job. She leaves this old place after a very long time. Atwood: Its a brave new world. Youve come a long way, baby. Virginia Slims. Moss: Exactly. Shes walking down the hall, and shes carrying a box of her things and wearing sunglasses, doesnt give a sh-t and has made this giant leap because it takes place in the 60s. Im super-proud to have been part of a moment that people can gain any inspiration from or connect with womens rights. I can ask the same question of you: Does the fact that I have the nolite te bastardes carborundorum (Dont let the bastards grind you down) line from the book on my necklace, or the fact that people get it tattooed, is that weird? Atwood: Ill tell you the weird thing about it: it was a joke in our Latin classes. So this thing from my childhood is permanently on peoples bodies. This interview appeared in the April 24 issue of TIME. It has been edited for clarity and context. In the summer of 1986, Thomas Kaufman was waiting in the lunch line at a research conference devoted to Drosophilamore commonly known as fruit flies. A fellow biologist informed him that the California Institute of Technology was interested in getting rid of its huge inventory of fliesinsects that are used in scientific studies and distributed to researchers upon request. I said, maybe we could move the stock to Indiana, says Kaufman, a biologist at Indiana University. When he returned to Bloomington a few days later, he asked a post-doc in his lab if shed be interested in running a fly-stock center. She said she would. MORE FROM OUR PARTNERS Object Lessons Back at Caltech, the flies were ushered into tiny glass vials, placed in generously padded boxes, and sent on their way to the Hoosier state, courtesy of the U.S. Postal System. There were about 1,600 pure breeding lines at the time, different mutant strains, flies with different eye colors, bristles, wing shape, body color, and that sort of thing, Kaufman tells me. There are now more than 50,000 mutant lines in the stock collection. The center sends out thousands of fly stocks each week to scientists all over the world. Recommended: An A.I. Says There Are Six Main Kinds of Stories Its from that venerable and varied stock that Ellie Heckscher acquires her flies, or, more precisely, her maggots. Heckscher, an assistant professor of molecular genetics and cell biology at the University of Chicago, breeds flies and uses their larvae as models to study the neuronal basis of movement. It offers a gateway to understanding specific diseases in humans such as Lou Gehrigs disease. * * * Heckscher became involved with maggots while a graduate student. She has a high regard for the wee organisms, despite their icky reputation among the general populous. Story continues We work on very young maggots, Heckscher explains. Theyre tiny. Theyre actually kind of cute. I think the big ones are the ones that are gross to people. I think people associate maggots with flesh or trash, but theyre also really tough. Theyre little tanks. We think maggots really are the sweet spot now. Its true: Maggots are associated with flesh, trash, and of course disease. The larvae of botflies insinuate themselves beneath the flesh of cattle make the animals miserable and their hides worthless. Maggots that infest sheep or humans are not only unsightly, but painful, even debilitating to the host. As far as the average maggot is concerned, whether medicinal or not, its main purpose in life is to eat, grow, and reproduce. However, there are maggots whose destiny is to help both animals and humans. They are bred for the task. Recommended: Sean Spicer Throws in the Towel on Defending Trump's Policy Shifts Take, for example, maggot-debridement therapy for horses with laminitis, an inflammation of the tissues that bond the hoof wall to the bottommost bone in the equine leg. For this therapeutic procedure to succeed, not just any maggots will do, particularly not maggots found in un-emptied trash bins protruding from alleyways behind downtown eating establishments. No, this case calls for medicinal maggots. They must be freshly emergedgerm-free, and their mothers and fathers should be green blow flies, Lucilia sericata. After a sufficient supply of L. sericata is secured from a safe source, a veterinarian or another brave soul tucks the maggots in and around the wound. A nylon retention net quickly corrals the larvae. The larvae then celebrate their good fortune by eating dead tissue and destroying noxious bacteria such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), multi-drug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Escherichia coli. Maggots are used in much the same way to treat gangrene of foot ulcers in people with diabetes. * * * Researchers like Heckscher are interested in how neural circuits develop and enable organisms to move. The maggot model gives me a powerful way to ask these questions, says Heckscher, who was trained as a developmental biologist. Thats because the maggot model is of intermediate size. The creature provides researchers with roughly 10,000 neurons to work with, far more than the classic Caenorhabditis elegans, a roundworm, which offers a mere 300 neurons for scientists to explore, but far fewer than humans 100 billion neurons. An intermediate complexity model, I think, is super powerful for asking questions that people havent been able to answer, says Heckscher. We think maggots really are the sweet spot now. Maggots can helpin particular, the creation of a tiny maggot highway. Heckscher says scientists now have a detailed map of all the connections of a maggot brain, a complete picture of all its neurons. That means researchers can see individual synapses, which are the sights of communication between nerve cells. This in turn gives them a snapshot of which neurons could be talking to each other. But for now, scientists dont truly understand the neural basis of movement, according to Heckscher. Its known that neurons make muscles contract, but the organization of the circuitry is still poorly understood. Recommended: One Lesson of Trump's Reversals: It's All About Access * * * Maggots can helpin particular, the creation of a tiny maggot highway. As it turns out, maggots crawl in a really erratic way, as Heckscher puts it. She places them in tiny channels, essentially little roadways, carved into agar, a gelatinous substance derived from sea algae, so they can move in only one direction. We are really just simplifying their behavioral repertoire so we can get that link between behavior and neurons, says Heckscher. One of the great things about maggots as a research tool is that theyre clear, at least in the early stages. Clear as in transparent. That means Heckschers team can put florescent proteins into the maggots to track how they move. Among other things, Heckscher is trying to see how the maggots neurons develop from neural stem cells, undifferentiated cells that can differentiate into specialized cell types, to create networks of neurons that control movement. If you can understand that then you can imagine making stem-cell therapies, Heckscher tells me. She thinks a set of relatively simple rules might evolve time. Theres this idea that the control of movement is generated through sequential means. I think this component of time and development is going to be really important for sorting out how you get something so complex. You dont just build it overnight. Fly research got its start more than a century ago. The first fly paper was published in 1910 by Thomas H. Morgan at Columbia University, who received the 1933 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for his discoveries of the role of the chromosome in heredity. Now, flies and maggots have become workhorses for understanding diseases and opening the door to mitigating them. Are they gross? Sometimes, yes, when a gaggle of them slurp atop trash or flesh. But when it comes to studying diseases, maggots, as Heckscher says, are exquisitely built machinesand refreshingly ideal scientific collaborators. This article appears courtesy of Object Lessons. Read more from The Atlantic: This article was originally published on The Atlantic. Meet the five nurses in the running for the title of Americas Most Amazing Nurse! From the thousands of nomineesThe Doctors and Prevention Magazine received, these five extraordinary healthcare professionals have risen to the top. Barbara ODair, editor-in-chief of Prevention, says, We want to celebrate and honor these women and men. Watch: America's Most Amazing Nurse Search April Oliver is a CCAT nurse for the U.S. Air Force. She describes it as The ICU in the sky! She performs all the functions of a normal intensive-care nurse in the back of an aircraft flying at 10,000 feet. Sandy Cross is the Breast Cancer Patient Navigator at Huntsville Hospital in Alabama. She developed a breast-cancer patient assistance fund to help patients navigate a sudden, unexpected leave of absence from work while undergoing treatment. We are able to pay just about everything they would need, she explains. Billy Rosa says, Im most passionate about nurses finding their voice, finding their power. Hes a Palliative Care Nurse Practitioner at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. For me, being a nurse is the most sacred opportunity to be the change you want to be. Daniella Casimir is an Advanced Practice Nurse at NYU Hospital for Joint Diseases. She provides primary care to women with disabilities. Ive always been fond of womens health, she explains. Her job allows her to be on the front lines, taking care of the women who need it most. Laura Clary is the Manager of Sexual Assault Forensic Investigation & Domestic Violence Programs at Greater Baltimore Medical Center. The hardest part of the job is that youre seeing people on the worst day of their life, she says. Laura stresses that domestic violence doesnt discriminate it affects people from all walks of life. Its really opened my eyes. Watch: Nurse Appreciation All nurses are amazing, but our five have really gone above and beyond, concludes Barbara. They each do a job that very many people cant do. Each finalist receives $1,000 toward the charity of their choice. On May 6th, The Doctors will announce the winner on-air! Americas Most Amazing Nurse will receive a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Iceland courtesy of Blue Lagoon and WOW Air. Get to know the five finalists better in the May issue of Prevention. Mumbai (AFP) - Chaya Mohite slowly turns the accelerator as she carefully edges the salmon-coloured rickshaw forward, one of Mumbai's first female auto drivers to make use of a government scheme aimed at empowering women. The 45-year-old was one of 19 women who recently started jobs ferrying passengers through the notoriously congested streets of India's financial capital in their new three-wheelers. "This job is much better than doing household work. I can make more money and it helps us secure our futures," Mohite told AFP as she got in some last minute practice. The mother of three has spent the past two months learning how to drive at a training centre in Mumbai's eastern suburbs and is thrilled with her new skills and financial prospects. "I couldn't even ride a bicycle but today I can drive an auto rickshaw. I'm independent and it makes me happy," says Mohite, who hopes to earn 1,000 rupees ($15) a day. She is benefitting from a scheme introduced by the state government of Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is the capital, that reserves five percent of rickshaw permits for women. It announced the plan in early 2016, saying that 465 licences would be made available for women in Mumbai and the neighbouring district of Thane. Unlike similar schemes in New Delhi and Ranchi, where some pink autos are driven by women for women as a safety initiative, the Maharashtra drivers take both male and female passengers. - 'Ready to drive anywhere' - Services started in Thane last year but Mohite and her new colleagues, who will sport white lab-coat-like uniforms, are the first to ply the streets of India's most populated metropolis. "I've taught them the A to Z of auto-rickshaw driving. They are now experts and have passed an official RTO (Regional Transport Office) test," Sudhir Dhoipode, the women's instructor, told AFP. Dhoipode says he is currently teaching more than 40 women how to drive while around 500 others have expressed an interest in learning despite some community opposition in the conservative country. Story continues "People mocked us for leaving our homes and choosing to drive rickshaws but we hope we can inspire other women to come forward and take advantage of this great initiative," said driver Anita Kardak. Rickshaw permits are highly sought after in Mumbai and can be big business, with owners often renting them out for a fee or lending them to others when their shift has finished. Transport officials say they decided the women should have a different coloured rickshaw to the ubiquitous black and yellow ones to stop male relatives from taking them over. It has led to some fears the women will be at risk because they will stand out, but Mohite isn't concerned. "I don't think there's going to be any safety issue as we're capable of looking after ourselves. Driving the rickshaw is a fun feeling and I'm ready to drive anywhere in Mumbai," she said. Mexico City (AFP) - Mexican authorities arrested a man suspected of shooting dead a US border guard in 2010 and aim to extradite him to the United States, prosecutors said Thursday. Mexican marines detained the man on Wednesday near the border of the northern Mexican states of Sinaloa and Chihuahua, the public prosecution service said in a statement. The suspect, Heraclio Osorio-Arellanes, is accused of carrying out along with other suspects the killing of US border patrol guard Brian Terry in December 2010. Terry was killed on US soil while trying to intercept a group suspected of stealing drugs at the border. Evidence found while investigating the killing indirectly brought to light a controversial arms-trafficking operation involving US authorities. They allowed guns to be trafficked across the border to Mexico in the hope of tracking them, but lost trace of some of the weapons after gangs got hold of them. Mexico has notified the US government of the arrest with a view to extraditing the suspect to face trial in the United States, the prosecutors said. Xalapa (Mexico) (AFP) - Mexican reporter Noe Zavaleta has mourned murdered colleagues and received death threats himself, but he refuses to stop working despite the fear. His is the deadliest country for journalists outside of war zones -- but with all the corruption and violence, there is just too much news for him to quit. "I have had to bury colleagues and see other companions leave the country. But you still panic when it happens to you," he says, in his home town of Xalapa in the eastern state of Veracruz. Like hundreds of other journalists in Mexico, the 36-year-old has been threatened for writing about organized crime. But he keeps cranking out the stories for investigative magazine Proceso: about links between politicians and organized crime, corruption, disappearances and mass graves. "You're constantly discovering more subjects, more injustices, more material." - Bodyguards, panic button - Zavaleta knew what he was getting into when he joined the magazine in 2012 to replace a journalist who had been murdered. His predecessor in the post, Regina Martinez, had reported on corruption and abuses by Veracruz state authorities. Her killing has never been solved. Zavaleta also worked with the photographer Ruben Espinosa, who fled Veracruz after receiving threats from authorities. He was murdered in Mexico City in 2015. Zavaleta received threats last year for a report about an ex-governor accused of corruption. He saw unknown men stalking around his office, his home and that of his girlfriend. "You panic. You don't know what to do," he says. He fled to the capital and reported the intimidation to the federal authorities. They provided him with two bodyguards who stayed by his side for half the year. He still carries a panic button to alert authorities if he is in danger. "I am still working," Zavaleta says with a smile. "If I suffer more intimidation and if I have to get out again and make it public, then that is what I will do." Story continues - Journalists murdered - International media rights group Reporters Without Borders ranks Mexico as the third most deadly country in the world, behind Syria and Afghanistan. Mexico has seen 102 journalists murdered since 2000 -- 20 of them in Veracruz. March was a particularly brutal month. Three reporters were murdered and a fourth hospitalized after being shot, authorities said. One regional newspaper shut down for a lack of security. In 2016 in Mexico, 400 journalists were attacked and 11 killed, according to rights group Articulo 19. - Cost of protection - Not all journalists get bodyguards because the authorities' budgets do not always allow it, Zavaleta says -- and even the protectors are at risk. One of his former bodyguards was shot dead in late March while protecting another journalist. "They were always complaining that they needed bullet-proof vests and a better vehicle," he says. "That didn't get authorized the whole six months they were with me, because there wasn't the budget for it." - Threats from officials - Articulo 19 says more than half of the recorded threats received by journalists over the past decade have been from officials themselves. It says 99.75 percent of journalists' murders remain unsolved. "Here in Mexico no one gives you any guarantees," Zavaleta says. "You decide to come back to work because you are stubborn and determined and because you are passionate about the job." He recalls another journalist who inspired him: Jesus Blancornelas, who investigated the drugs trade in the state of Tijuana as director of Zeta magazine. Blancornelas was injured in 1997 in an attack blamed on organized crime. He went from home to work and back under military guard until his death of cancer in 2006. "I remember very well what Blancornelas used to say" to his enemies, he says: "I will stop when I want, not when you want." The first townhall meeting of 2017 was a field day for GOP Rep. Mike Coffman from Colorado, as he battled with questions regarding his support for President Donald Trump's policies. The packed auditorium at the University of Colorado Anschutz Campus in Aurora, in the outskirts of Denver, witnessed several heated moments as Coffman handled questions on topics such as health care, education, federal spending, and what would he do to check on Trump's policies, reports said. The republican stayed for nearly twice his scheduled time at the town hall answering more than 40 questions. He also faced criticism for supporting Trump's Obamacare replacement bill. At one point, a woman asked Coffman how could he stand up to a bill that would not protect people with medical histories. Another one said that without Medicaid, which is scaled back in the GOP plan, her cousin with epilepsy would die, according to Politico. Medicaid is a government health insurance program for low-income residents in the U.S. Read: Facebook Introduces Town Hall Feature On Its Website Few weeks ago, Coffman supported Speaker Paul Ryans health care bill, legislation, which was ultimately pulled off from the House Floor, just few minutes ahead of a planned vote. It was a severe blow to Trump's efforts and the GOP to repeal and replace Obamacare, reports said. Coffman is facing the consequences for backing the Obamacare repeal bill. "I voted for you because I thought you'd be a leader," an angry constituent said. "I don't see you leading," she said. Coffman vowed to protect coverage for those with pre-existing conditions and committed to changes in the current Medicaid formula. The change demands the federal government to pay 90 percent of the costs for the population that gained coverage under Obamacare. However, his answers didn't impress the constituents so much, according to reports. Negotiations for replacing the Obamacare continues as Republicans move on to gain consensus on the new bill. Republicans had left Washington D.C. last month after the GOP health bill was pulled off. However, conservative and centrist Republicans continued to discuss the health care reform bill with fellow lawmakers, the White House, and even Democrats in hopes of finalizing a deal, reports said. Related Articles To celebrate the fact that Doctor Who season 10 is now only a matter of days away, the TARDIS and its current occupants have touched down in London. SEE ALSO: 'Doctor Who' Season 10, Episode 1 is the perfect intro for Time Lord newbies On Wednesday, Peter Capaldi and his new companion Pearl Mackie appeared at the Southbank to pose next to some fairly spectacular pavement art. Epic. Image: Ray Tang/LNP/REX/Shutterstock As far as marketing stunts go, you've got to hand it to the BBC. This one is pretty cool. The official Doctor Who Twitter account was on hand to share some photos and videos from the event. Dark clouds over London's Southbank... signs of an Oncoming Storm? The TARDIS has landed! Here all day!#TimeForHeroes #DoctorWho pic.twitter.com/gjMVAnVyB4 Doctor Who Official (@bbcdoctorwho) April 12, 2017 The painting was created over 10 days by 3D artist Joe Hill. Here's a short video of Hill and writer Steven Moffat explaining how they came up with it. From the sounds of it their choice of monsters may provide a clue as to what we can expect from the coming Season: The hidden image of Peter Capaldi's face is a nice touch. Doctor Who Season 10 airs on Saturday 15 April 2017. WATCH: If the Doctor had a bad day on 'Doctor Who' MINNEAPOLIS (AP) Muslim leaders in Minneapolis are wary of a man who has been patrolling a predominantly Somali neighborhood to enforce the Islamic civil code. Abdullah Rashid has been telling residents of the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood not to drink, use drugs or interact with the opposite sex, according to his interpretation of Sharia law, the Star Tribune reported Thursday (http://strib.mn/2p0uS8J ). He's been telling Muslim women to wear a flowing head-to-toe garment called a jilbab. "What he's doing is wrong and doesn't reflect the community at all," said Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of Council on American-Islamic Relations. Rashid, 22, told the newspaper that he leads a group called the General Presidency of the Religious Affairs and Welfare of the Ummah. He says he has enlisted 10 others to help him patrol, but local Muslim leaders are skeptical. Hussein told The Associated Press on Thursday that he asked Rashid who his supporters were and that Rashid wouldn't name anybody. He said he considers Rashid to be a liar. "He does not reflect what our faith teaches," Hussein said. Rashid once listed the Masjid Shaafici Cultural Center in Cedar-Riverside as his headquarters, but the imam of that mosque, Abdighani Ali, denied any connection to Rashid. He said he hasn't seen Rashid with any followers. "We're against his ideas," Ali said. "We always encourage our community to be a part of the society." Rashid said he aims to turn Cedar-Riverside into a "Sharia-controlled zone," where Muslims learn about the proper practices of Islam and "non-Muslims are asked to respect" it. Minneapolis police received reports in February from concerned residents who saw Rashid wearing a dark green uniform labelled "Muslim Defense Force" and "Religious Police" and that bore images of flags associated with militant groups, including the Islamic State. Story continues "We've had conversations with community members that live over there," police spokesman Corey Schmidt said. "Sometimes it takes a little bit of time to deal with it, but it's something we've been monitoring." Police said Rashid has been told he can't patrol the neighborhood's huge Riverside Plaza apartment complex, which is home to many Somalis, or he'll be cited for trespassing. The complex's managers are in the process of evicting him. Rashid, previously known as Devon James Miller, converted to Islam in 2009. He said he started his group in Georgia in 2013. He married a Somali-American woman, who recently moved from Wyoming to Minneapolis, in 2015. They moved to Cedar-Riverside last year, and he applied for a permit to carry a handgun. But the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office denied his application, saying there was evidence that he'd be a danger to himself and others if allowed to carry a gun. Rashid sued. Court documents show he was arrested as a juvenile in Walton County, Georgia, for impersonating a police officer, and a school district reported he had harassed a 16-year-old classmate on Facebook, according to the documents. A school district report mentioned he had mental health issues, and his mother said he had been suicidal. Rashid's lawsuit was dismissed in March. He denied having any mental illness. ___ Information from: Star Tribune, http://www.startribune.com The moon is thought to have been formed soon after Earth itself came into being somewhat over 4.5 billion years ago. At some point in its past, our planets only natural satellite had a magnetic field, which disappeared about three billion years ago. We know the field existed because of magnetized rocks that were collected by the NASAs Apollo missions to the moon. Lunar samples from 3.1 billion years ago show the distinct presence of a magnetic field one as strong as generated by Earth today. What we dont know is how that field became inactive between then and now. There are various theories, but one put forth in a recent paper published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters is simpler and more straightforward than others. According to the paper, a dynamo in the lunar core very little is definitively known about the composition of the core of the moon powered the field. Written by scientists from the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Division at NASAs Johnson Space Center in Houston, the paper also describes how that dynamo itself was created as a result of the cores crystallization. Read: A Heat Engine To Keep Astronauts Warm On The Moon The researchers used the latest available geochemical data from the moon to create three different possible core compositions. Then they equilibrated each of those models with the temperature and pressure of the lunar interior. Based on the different amounts of iron, nickel, sulfur and carbon in the core, the paper offers the simplest explanation yet for the lunar dynamo. Moon Photo: NASA In the distant past, the moons core was likely a majority of iron and/or nickel, with sulfur and carbon present only in small amounts, giving it a very high melting point. Therefore, the lunar core began crystallizing early in the moons history, and the heat released as a result was responsible for the magnetic field recorded in samples from that time. Story continues Our work ties together physical and chemical constraints and helps us understand how the moon acquired and maintained its magnetic field a difficult problem to tackle for any inner solar system body, Kevin Righter of NASA, who was also first author of the study, said in a statement Wednesday. The paper also speculates that the lunar core, currently thought to have a solid interior and a liquid exterior, would today be partially solid and partially liquid. Titled Phase equilibria of a low S and C lunar core: Implications for an early lunar dynamo and physical state of the current core, the paper was published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters. Related Articles WEST CHESTER, Pa. (AP) A woman charged in the beating death of her young son has pleaded guilty to murder and agreed to testify against her former boyfriend in his upcoming capital murder trial. Jillian Tait also pleaded guilty Wednesday to conspiracy to commit murder and child endangerment in 3-year-old Scott McMillan's November 2014 death, which prosecutors called a "horror story." Prosecutors said the plea agreement will spare the 33-year-old Tait a possible death sentence and she will be a "critical witness" in the September murder trial of 25-year-old Gary Lee Fellenbaum III. They said Tait had accepted responsibility and, while her actions may have contributed to Scott's death in Coatesville, Fellenbaum's actions caused it. "Essentially, your honor, the defendant will act as a living adult witness to what happened in that trailer," First Assistant District Attorney Michael Noone said. The couple had met working at a Wal-Mart several months earlier and moved in together in a mobile home park along with Fellenbaum's estranged wife, Tait's 6- and 3-year-old children and the Fellenbaums' 11-month-old daughter. District Attorney Thomas Hogan in 2014 called the case "an American horror story," saying what started as spankings morphed into "concentrated, repeated, escalating abuse" and then over a three-day period the victim "was systematically tortured and beaten to death." "Scott McMillan had been punched and beaten with blunt and sharp objects, whipped, taped to a chair with electrical tape and beaten, hung up by his feet and beaten and suffered other acts of violence," authorities alleged in court papers. Prosecutors also alleged the couple went car shopping, bought pizza and engaged in sexual activity as the boy lay dying after weeks of escalating abuse. Defense attorney Laurence Harmelin said Tait "is looking forward to putting the matter behind her." Story continues "She will have a lot more to say at sentencing," the attorney said. Fellenbaum's mother said in 2014 he was a good son and she didn't believe he beat the little boy to death. "I believe he's being railroaded," Paula Fellenbaum said then. "He liked kids. He never had an issue. I don't understand it at all." North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has overseen a special forces commando operation, state media said Thursday, as tensions soar with Washington over Pyongyang's nuclear programme. President Donald Trump has sent a naval "armada" to the Korean peninsula in a show of force, accompanied by a warning that Washington is ready to take on North Korea alone if necessary. The North has since said it is ready for "war" with the US, while speculation is mounting that it might conduct a nuclear or missile test to mark the 105th birthday anniversary of founder Kim Il-Sung on Saturday. The reclusive state has long been on a quest to develop a long-range missile capable of hitting the US mainland with a nuclear warhead, and has so far staged five atomic tests, two of them last year. On Thursday, the North's state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim watched from an observation post as special forces dropped from light transport planes "like hail" and "mercilessly blew up enemy targets". With a broad smile on his face, Kim praised his troops for their precision, saying "the bullets seemed to have their own eyes", KCNA said, without identifying when the operation was held. The Rodong Sinmun -- the official mouthpiece of the ruling Workers' Party -- carried several photos from the contest including one of Kim watching the troops parachuting down from jets into an open field. Another showed him grinning from ear-to-ear as he walked by cheering soldiers. "The contest proved once again that our Korean People's Army... will show a real taste of gun shot and real taste of war to the reckless invaders," KCNA said. China -- the North's sole major ally -- has urged the US president to take a peaceful approach to resolving the North Korean tensions. Sabre-rattling between Washington and Pyonyang has unnerved China, which is losing patience with the North but whose priority remains preventing any instability on its doorstep. Seoul and Washington are currently conducting joint military drills, an annual exercise which is seen by the North as a practice for war. North Korea may have the capacity to launch a warhead loaded with sarin nerve gas, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Thursday, as tensions rise over the country's missile and nuclear programmes. Sarin has been used in deadly domestic attacks in Japan, notably in 1995 when the Aum Supreme Truth cult released it in the Tokyo subway killing 13 people and sickening 6,000 others. "There is a possibility that North Korea is already capable of delivering (via missile) a warhead containing sarin," Abe told a parliamentary diplomacy and defence committee, referring to the poison nerve agent. His remarks were reported by public broadcaster NHK and leading national newspapers. Abe did not elaborate or say where he obtained the information, according to the reports. Tensions on the Korean peninsula have spiked in recent days amid concerns that Pyongyang could be on the verge of executing its sixth nuclear test and as a US aircraft carrier-led strike group heads to the region. Originally conceived as a pesticide, sarin was used by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime to gas thousands of Kurds in the northern town of Halabja in 1988. The US believes the Syrian government employed a sarin-like nerve agent in a deadly attack in the country's northwest last week. The Aum Supreme Truth cult also used the nerve agent in a 1994 attack in the Japanese city of Matsumoto, killing seven. North Korea may have the capacity to launch a warhead loaded with sarin nerve gas, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Thursday, as tensions rise over the country's missile and nuclear programmes. Sarin has been used in domestic attacks in Japan, notably in 1995 when the Aum Supreme Truth cult released it in the Tokyo subway killing 13 people and sickening 6,000 others. The US believes the Syrian government employed a sarin-like nerve agent in a deadly attack in the country's northwest last week. "There is a possibility that North Korea is already capable of delivering (via missile) a warhead containing sarin," Abe told a parliamentary diplomacy and defence committee, referring to the poison nerve agent. His remarks were reported by public broadcaster NHK and leading national newspapers. Abe did not elaborate or say where he obtained the information, according to the reports. But Yoshihide Suga, the government's chief spokesman, did elaborate when later asked about the comments at a regular briefing. "Referring to the Syrian situation, our prime minister displayed a recognition that we can't deny the possibility that North Korea can equip (a missile) with chemical weapons," he said, referring to the suspected "North Korea... is likely to maintain several facilities to produce chemical weapons and already possess a considerable number of them," he added. Tensions on the Korean peninsula have spiked in recent days amid concerns that Pyongyang could be on the verge of executing its sixth nuclear test and as a US aircraft carrier-led strike group heads to the region. Originally conceived as a pesticide, sarin was used by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime to gas thousands of Kurds in the northern town of Halabja in 1988. The Aum Supreme Truth cult also used the nerve agent in a 1994 attack in the Japanese city of Matsumoto, killing seven. The penthouse apartments at the top of the tallest tower in Pyongyang's showpiece development offer impressive views, ice green wallpaper and purple sofas but had no hot water when the project opened Thursday. Ryomyong Street is the third prestige project in as many years in the North Korean capital, and by far the largest, said to have nearly 5,000 apartments, which according to authorities will be distributed free to deserving citizens. Its name translates as "illumination" and the official KCNA news agency described it as "an icon of modern street architecture and a fairyland representing the era of the Workers' Party". The white concrete towers come in multiple shapes square, round and octagonal and sizes, the tallest proclaimed as 70 storeys and 234 metres high. Leader Kim Jong-Un -- who made the project a priority -- opened it Thursday in front of an audience of tens of thousands of citizens and an invited coterie of international media. It was built in only around a year, to ensure completion in time for Saturday's 105th anniversary of the birth of Kim's grandfather, the North's founder Kim Il-Sung - who lies in state nearby. "Keeping up appearances in Pyongyang makes a lot of sense for the government" of the nuclear-armed country, said Chad O'Carroll, managing director of specialist service NK News. "Part of it is renovating and increasing capacity in Pyongyang, part of it is to reward those loyal to senior levels of leadership, and part of it is of course for show. "That's the reason they have invited so many journalists here, to show successful completion of a project in the face of increasing sanctions and international pressure." Kim's association with the project also bolstered his domestic portrayal as "a leader that cares about the people", he added. A giant crowd of soldiers, officials and citizens men in suits, women in traditional hanbok dresses - packed a plaza from early morning for the opening ceremony, waiting in the cold spring air for hours before Kim made his entrance, leading a delegation of senior officials and generals onto the dais. Story continues "Long live comrade Kim Jong-Un, the supreme leader of our party, nation and army," read one banner. - 'All day and all night' - Culture ministry official Kim Ok-Hwa was assigned to the construction project's technical department, and said site personnel toiled for 18 hours a day, seven days a week, for a year, to finish it on schedule. But she played down their role. "The Supreme Leader devoted his very best efforts so our effort is very small compared to his effort," she told AFP. Seeing him at Thursday's ceremony, she said, made her feel "proud we have the greatest Supreme Leader in the world". Ordinary North Koreans usually express only officially-sanctioned views when questioned by foreign news organisations. Personnel from North Korea's army among the largest in the world by numbers are regularly deployed on construction projects, where they are known as "soldier-builders". "To implement thoroughly the order of the Supreme Commander we worked all day and all night," said Lt-Col Kim Pyong-Ho, who worked on the 70-storey tower. Staff say its hot water system is geothermal, and was not switched on for the opening ceremony. But O'Carroll described the build quality on similar projects as "not so good". One of the apartment complexes erected to mark Kim Il-Sung's 100th birth anniversary collapsed in 2014, he said, with the North admitting there had been casualties. "It went up in less than a year, I believe, and it came down two years later," he told AFP. When you're rushing to complete things mistakes will be made. It is a risk." By Lidia Kelly ORZYSZ, Poland (Reuters) - Poland on Thursday welcomed the first U.S. troops in a multi-national force which is being posted across the Baltic region to counter potential threats from Russia. More than 1,100 soldiers -- 900 U.S. troops as well as 150 British and 120 Romanians -- are to be deployed in Orzysz, about 57 km (35 miles) south of Russia's Baltic Sea enclave of Kaliningrad, where Moscow has stationed nuclear-capable missiles and an S-400 air missile defense system. Three other formations are due to become operational by June across the region. "Deploying of these troops to Poland is a clear demonstration of NATO's unity and resolve and sends a clear message to any potential aggressor," NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Curtis Scaparrotti, said at a welcoming ceremony for the first arrivals at Orzysz, 220 km (140 miles) northeast of the capital Warsaw. Poland, alarmed by Russia's assertiveness on NATO's eastern flank, has lobbied hard for the stationing of NATO troops on its soil, especially since Moscow's annexation of Crimea in 2014. Polish President Andrzej Duda called the deployment a historic moment "awaited for by generations". The troops' move in Orzysz takes place as U.S. President Donald Trump appears to have changed his previously critical views of NATO and soured his attitude toward Moscow. While running for president, Trump dismissed the alliance as obsolete and said he hoped to build warmer ties with Russia. But on Wednesday, he lavished praise on NATO and said the relationship with Russia may be at an all-time low. "I said it was obsolete. It's no longer obsolete," Trump said as he stood at a news conference alongside NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in the White House. OFFICERS RESIGN Poland's ruling conservatives, the Law and Justice party (PiS) allied with Duda, have signaled plans to raise funds to modernize and increase the size of its military, even though Warsaw is already among NATO's top spenders. But the Polish armed forces have other problems. Nearly 30 top of its top generals and more than 200 colonels -- a quarter and a sixth of the army's total -- have resigned over the last year, citing in part disagreements with Defence Minister Antoni Macierewicz over personnel and other decisions. The military has also seen potential procurement delays after Macierewicz canceled a multi-billion-dollar deal with Airbus Helicopters (AIR.PA) last year. General Miroslaw Rozanski, a former senior commander, said in February he could not accept certain defense ministry decisions. "We were implementing NATO decisions. Minister Macierewicz would agree with my proposals and then different decisions would be taken," he said then. The Defence Ministry says the officers' departures amount to only a fraction more than in previous years. It has said, however, the army should be purged of commanders who began their service before the collapse of communist rule in 1989. In response to Reuters' request for a comment, a NATO official said it was up to the allies to decide how they structure their armed forces. "What is important to NATO is that the armed forces of allies meet their capability targets, that they can operate with each other and that they have the right equipment to meet today's security challenges," the official said. Polish sources said NATO, focusing on its troubled relations with the new U.S. president and Moscow, has adopted a "wait-and-see" attitude toward Warsaw. "We are indeed the trouble makers," a Polish government source told Reuters. "But because we fulfil all the obligations...because in the end we deliver, we are not the biggest problem right now. So, NATO has indeed adopted a 'wait-and-see' attitude toward us." But Daniel Keohane, a senior researcher at the Center for Security Studies at the ETH university in Zurich, said Poland's relations within the alliance could suffer. "While this should not in principle weaken Poland's position within NATO, if these generals are resigning for political reasons, and a perception of an ongoing politicization of the Polish army emerges, this could cause worry in other NATO capitals," he said. (Additional reporting by Marcin Goettig and Pawel Sobczak in Warsaw; Writing by Lidia Kelly; Editing by Justyna Pawlak and Angus MacSwan) Good news. NATO is no longer obsolete, according to President Donald Trump. On Wednesday, during his meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Trump touted an alliance he once bashed because, after fifteen-odd years of alliance operations against the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan, the former reality television host just realized now they fight terrorism. But if the most powerful political-military alliance has the real battlefield on lockdown, some worry its floundering in the battlefield of the internet, where ideas go to clash, Kremlin trolls go to spread half-truths, and ISIS goes to recruit foreign fighters. The answer, some experts argue, lies in memes those strange jokes and references that come out of the internets woodworks from seemingly nowhere, and seem to end up everywhere at once. A small contingent of academics and experts want NATO to get in on the action to confront pro-Russian, anti-NATO trolls, or to push back against internet jihadists in the cyber space. Its time to embrace memetic warfare, wrote Jeff Giesea, a widely-known social media and tech guru, in an article in 2015. Trolling, it might be said, is the social media equivalent of guerrilla warfare, and memes are its currency of propaganda. Giesea wasnt writing in Wired or TechCrunch, but rather in Defence Strategic Communications, the journal of NATO Strategic Communications Center of Excellence (or Stratcom COE, because nothings complete without an onerous acronym). Daesh is conducting memetic warfare. The Kremlin is doing it. Its inexpensive. The capabilities exist. Why arent we trying it? Giesea asked. Its a question many military minds have been asking for years. A Marine Corps Major, Michael B. Prosser advocated for the U.S. military to develop a Meme Warfare Center (MWC) in his 2006 study, MemeticsA Growth Industry in U.S. Military Operations (abstract here). Five years later, a specialized Pentagon unit, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) funded a study on Military Memetics, one of several related research programs into what it calls a subset of neuro-cognitive warfare. It argued the war of ideas was fundamental, especially when it comes to fighting terrorists, and the key characteristics of a military meme is that it be information that propagates, has impact, and persists. Like dancing cat videos, in other words, but with sharper claws. Story continues The problem is that NATO, like governments everywhere, are pretty terrible at the internet. Memes arent really part of NATOs arsenal yet, even if the alliance is desperately trying to tap into ideas from the private sector about how best to use social media. Kremlin-backed trolls and internet-savvy ISIS supporters run circles around government social media programs, often run by stodgy diplomats with no authority to be creative. (The quest for funny memes is particularly tortured: In March, NATOs Stratcom COE published Stratcom Laughs: In Search of an Analytical Framework, which included a chapter on Humor as a Communication Tool: Designing Framework for Analysis.) And government attempts at weaponizing humor can lead to some awkward moments. Such as the time NATO instructed its public diplomacy staff to create a viral video (nothing says military bureaucracy like ordering internet virality to be magically conjured up.) After half a million Euros, heres the result: What looks to be a horror film shot on an iPhone turns out to be a nice family reunion because of NATO, of course. (The other two videos in this weird PR series are equally strange and, based on the page views, conspicuously un-viral. The project was quietly dropped after it was rolled out.) Or then theres the State Departments own Think Again, Turn Away program to win the hearts and minds of would-be jihadists with snarky retorts to the America-bashing, pro-ISIS brigades on Twitter. Alas, it turns out an official State Department social media account arguing with jihadist supporters about the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal over Twitter doesnt actually amount to a plan for defeating ISIS. But if these awkward attempts fail, at least theyre trying. And who knows, now that Trump has discovered what NATO does, maybe he can lend the alliance some of his own social media magic. Photo credit: WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP/Getty Images By John L. Smith LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Six followers of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy used "armed force, threats and intimidation" against federal law enforcement officers during a tense 2014 standoff, prosecutors said, wrapping up their conspiracy case against the men on Wednesday. The six defendants are the first of 17 people to go on trial on charges related to the standoff at Bundy's property near Bunkerville, 75 miles (120 km) northeast of Las Vegas in a case that has come to symbolize tensions in the U.S. West over the federal ownership of land that ranchers use to graze cattle. Bundy and two of his sons are defendants in the second of three scheduled federal trials later this year. The men, who prosecutors have said were associated with or had been in contact with militia groups, were among hundreds who traveled to the ranch to stand up for Bundy, whose refusal to pay $1 million in grazing fees for running his cattle on federal land became a cause celebre on the political right. They thought they were going to die out there for simply carrying out their duties, Assistant United States Attorney Nicholas Dickinson said of the outgunned Bureau of Land Management rangers and National Park Service officers who were assigned to provide security for a court-ordered roundup of Bundys cattle. In closing arguments, he described the tension in the days leading up to the April 12 standoff, including communication between Bundy family members and armed militia groups. Lawyers for the defendants said in their closing arguments that the men did not pose a threat but were simply backing Bundy in a dispute over the government's land-use policy. "Some people protest with signs. Other people protest with guns," said Jess Marchese, who represents defendant Eric Parker. The men are all charged with conspiracy against the government, conspiracy to impede a federal officer, assault, threatening, obstruction of justice, extortion, interstate travel in aid of extortion, and using a firearm during a crime of violence. Story continues The eight-week trial in U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarros courtroom made use of voluminous audio, video and still photography that captured the drama, which ended peacefully. Throughout the trial of Gregory Burleson, O. Scott Drexler, Todd Engel, Ricky Lovelien, Parker and Steven Stewart, defense attorneys described their clients as patriotic citizens who learned from social media and the internet of federal efforts to remove Bundys cattle from federal public lands. Closing arguments for the defense were due to continue on Thursday. (Reporting by John L. Smith in Las Vegas; Editing by Sharon Bernstein, Toni Reinhold) Kano (Nigeria) (AFP) - Nigeria is negotiating with the help of "foreign entities" for the remaining kidnapped Chibok girls held by Boko Haram Islamists, a presidential spokesman said Thursday. As the country prepares to mark the third anniversary of the mass kidnapping on Friday, Garba Shehu told the BBC in a radio interview there were ongoing negotiations to release the 195 girls believed still be being held by Boko Haram. "Talks are ongoing through other means with the help of some foreign entities to free more schoolgirls," Shehu said during an interview with BBC Hausa. "These talks are going on with the help of some countries. You can recall the 21 schoolgirls were freed with the help of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Swiss government officials who got involved in the negotiations. These two have not withdrawn their support in the negotiations," Shehu said. "There are also other countries that are lending support to the negotiations by being involved in the talks," Shehu added. In October last year, 21 girls were freed after negotiations between Boko Haram and the Nigerian government brokered by the ICRC and the Swiss government, said the presidency. Boko Haram seized 276 students from the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok on April 14, 2014. Fifty-seven managed to escape in the immediate aftermath while three others were found or rescued by the military. Some had babies in captivity. "(The) government is in constant touch through negotiations, through local intelligence to secure the release of the remaining girls and other abducted persons unharmed," Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari said in a statement on Thursday. "On this solemn occasion, my appeal is that we must not lose hope on the return of our remaining schoolgirls." In Nigeria's capital Abuja and the commercial hub of Lagos, Bring Back Our Girls campaigners are preparing to march on Friday to mark the anniversary of the kidnapping. Story continues The Chibok schoolgirls became a symbol of the Boko Haram insurgency that began in 2009 and has left at least 20,000 people dead in northeast Nigeria. Despite a military fight-back, villages near Chibok, which is 125 kilometres (80 miles) by road from the Borno state capital, Maiduguri, have seen a wave of suspected Boko Haram attacks in recent months. Garba Shehu was not available for comment Thursday when contacted by AFP. Lagos (AFP) - Nigeria's anti-graft agency seized over $43 million in cash during a raid on a Lagos apartment in what it hailed as a victory for President Muhammadu Buhari's war on corruption following a string of setbacks. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) said in a statement issued late Wednesday it discovered the "humongous" amount of money in an apartment in Ikoyi, an upscale district of Lagos. EFCC operatives found $43.4 million along with 27,800 ($34,807) and 23.2 million naira ($73,301) in the seventh floor apartment after a tip-off from a person who noticed "suspicious movement of bags in and out of a particular apartment in the building." "She comes looking haggard, with dirty clothes, but her skin didn't quite match her appearance, perhaps a disguise," said the anonymous source quoted in the EFCC statement. The money, kept immaculate in sealed plastic wrappers, was hidden in filing cabinets and behind hidden panels in a wardrobe. No arrests have been made over the haul, EFCC spokesman Wilson Uwujaren told AFP. "It is a major seizure," Uwujaren said. "For us it shows that the policy of government and whistleblowing is commendable." The EFCC has been on the backfoot after facing resistance from the country's Senate and losing some key court battles. Last week, a Lagos court lifted an EFCC order freezing some $5 million in a bank account operated by Nigeria's former first lady Patience Jonathan. An Abuja court also dismissed a corruption case against Justice Adeniyi Ademola and his wife on technical grounds. Earlier in March, Nigeria's Senate had rejected the appointment of Buhari's nominee to head the EFCC. On Tuesday, the beleaguered government was forced to issue a statement insisting that its war on corruption is on track. "The government of President Muhammadu Buhari is committed to sustaining the anti-corruption fight, ensure that the system is cleaned up and government business is done the right way," Vice President Yemi Osinbajo said in the statement. Story continues Buhari rode to power in 2015 vowing to stop the plunder of state funds by corrupt politicians and public officials. The main opposition party, however, has accused him of conducting a political witch-hunt because many of those arrested and charged in the war on corruption are opposition party members or served in the previous administration. Related Video: For more news videos visit Yahoo View, available now on iOS and Android. By Tony Munroe and Jane Chung BEIJING/SEOUL (Reuters) - Isolated North Korea doesn't consume much oil, but curbing or cutting off its supplies in retaliation for further nuclear or long-range missile tests would be painful and potentially destabilizing to the regime of Kim Jong Un. U.S. officials have told Reuters that an oil embargo is among tougher sanctions Washington could pursue to counter North Korea's nuclear and missile programs Separately, the Global Times, an influential Chinese tabloid whose stance does not necessarily reflect official policy, said in an editorial on Wednesday that "Chinese society" would approve of "severe restrictive measures that have never been seen before, such as restricting oil imports to the North," if Pyongyang engages in further provocative activity. China, which supplies most of North Korea's crude, no longer reports its oil shipments to the country, but according to South Korean data supplies it with roughly 500,000 tonnes of crude oil annually. It also exports over 200,000 tonnes of oil products, according to U.N. data. Analysts said the impact of a full oil embargo on Pyongyang would be so damaging that China, which opposes any measures that could fuel instability in North Korea, would be unlikely to take that step or agree to such a measure in the United Nations Security Council, where it has a veto as a permanent member. "If China cuts off oil supply, North Korea would not survive on its own for three months and everything in North Korea would be paralysed," said Cho Bong-hyun, who heads research on North Korea's economy at IBK Bank in Seoul. "This could increase the possibility of North Korea's collapse and have an adverse impact on China as well. China would rather consider reducing crude oil supply," he said. North Korea has virtually no domestic oil production, and has traditionally imported the little demand it has for fuel at its refineries from China and, to a lesser extent, Russia. North Korea has two refineries: the Ponghwa Chemical Factory sits on the river border with Dandong in China, while the Sungri refinery is located on the Tumen River bordering Russia. Much of North Korea's energy is supplied by abundant domestic coal, but oil is used by the military as well as in transport and agriculture. "Cutting off all oil for an extended period of time, perhaps indefinitely, is probably the toughest economic punishment that China could impose on North Korea. It is highly unlikely that China would take such a step," said Bonnie Glaser of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "It is possible that it might reduce the flow, stop oil deliveries for a week or two, but not cut it off entirely." In 2003, China's oil pipeline to North Korea shut down for three days after a missile launch, adding to pressure on Pyongyang to draw back from nuclear brinkmanship. Chinese officials said then it was a mechanical breakdown, but some experts said it was deliberate. CREDIBLE SIGNAL Data from Seoul's Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) shows North Korea imported 525,000 tonnes of crude oil from China in 2015, up 5 percent from a year earlier. United Nations data shows China also exported 218,087 tonnes of refined oil products to North Korea in 2015, about six times what Russia sent. "The objective of a statement like this is not to follow through; the objective is to send a credible signal that would make the North Korean leadership think twice," Stephan Haggard, an expert on the North Korean economy at the University of California, San Diego, said of the Global Times editorial. "It is all about shifting North Korea into a mode where negotiations would resume," he said. (Additional reporting by Ju-Min Park in SEOUL and John Ruwitch in SHANGHAI; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan) London (AFP) - Talks on forming a power-sharing government in Northern Ireland broke up for the Easter holiday on Wednesday, six weeks into bitter negotiations which have failed to resolve the deadlock. If the feuding main parties cannot agree to form a semi-autonomous government in Belfast by early May, then a second snap election will be called or the province will be fully governed from London, the British government warned. The power-sharing executive is the cornerstone of a peace process that ended three decades of violent conflict between Catholic Irish nationalists and Protestant British unionists. It fell apart in January when the Irish republican Sinn Fein party pulled out after months of bad blood between them and the pro-British Democratic Unionist Party. A snap election followed on March 2, which boosted Sinn Fein and saw unionists lose their outright majority in the Belfast assembly, though the DUP narrowly remained the largest party. An initial three-week deadline for Sinn Fein and the DUP to resolve their differences passed with no resolution and the British government granted more time, though that time is now running out. "The current phase of round-table talks over the past 10 days to help resolve issues will pause for Easter," Britain's Northern Ireland minister James Brokenshire said in a statement. "All the parties have been actively engaged and some further progress has been made. "There is, however, still a lack of agreement between the parties on a small but significant number of issues. "The restoration of devolved government remains achievable, but more time and a more focused engagement on the critical issues are required." Negotiations so far have only underscored the continuing disagreement over how to deal with legacy issues from the pre-1998 decades of violence, including a bill of rights and the status of the Irish language. The United Kingdom's vote to leave the European Union is also weighing on the talks process. Story continues Northern Ireland will have the only land border between the UK and EU territory, and is highly dependent on cross-border trade with the Republic of Ireland. "The parties will have a final opportunity after Easter to reach agreement," said Brokenshire. He said there were provisions for an executive to be formed in early May if agreement is reached. If it is not, "this is likely to mean, however undesirable, either a second election or a return to decision-making from Westminster". TIRANA, Albania (AP) An international security agency says some 330 observers will monitor Albania's June 18 parliamentary elections. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said Thursday it is requesting the observers from member states following a request from Tirana. The country's opposition has so far declared it is boycotting the polls because it doesn't trust the government to hold free and fair voting. It is also boycotting parliament, thus blocking the launch of the justice reform, and local elections to be held next month in a western city. Albania, a NATO member since 2009, is hoping to launch full membership negotiations with the European Union. Brussels considers the country's justice reform key to its integration efforts with the 28-nation bloc. Student leaders of Pennsylvania State Universitys fraternity system apologized to the family of Tim Piazza, the sophomore who died after pledge night in February, in an open letter released this week. The fraternity experience failed your son, wrote Penn States Interfraternity Council executive board in the letter, released publicly Wednesday evening. The letter also acknowledged problems with hazing and alcohol abuse, and said the council was committed to making improvements in the fraternity system. The fraternity chapter presidents also announced they would cancel all social events for the next two weekends, and use that time for philanthropy and to reflect on the values of the Greek community and to consider any necessary changes that need to be made. The open letter from the nine-member executive board issued by the groups communications director, Michael Cavallaro, a junior from Milford Pa., and a member of Pi Kappa Alpha followed a blog post by Penn State president Eric Barron earlier this week warning that the Greek system at Penn State could come to an end if behavior doesnt improve. Barron wrote the post after nine of the universitys fraternities and sororities were found to have violated new rules put in place following Piazzas death and one fraternity, Sigma Alpha Mu, violated almost every rule. But the Interfraternity Council also took issue with the university for going without a full-time director of fraternity and sorority life for almost two years, which it said was extremely concerning, and for cutting students out of the decision to issue new rules for the Greek system, including delaying recruitment until second semester of freshman year and mandating fewer and smaller parties. We are ready to change, the group wrote, but transformation cannot happen without partnership and a willingness to listen to and work with one another. Instead of talking through open letters in the media its disappointing we have to communicate in this manner meet with us, work with us, and collaborate with us. We are your students, too. Story continues The discord between university leadership and the council has been building since the death of Piazza, 19, an engineering major from Lebanon, N.J., who was intoxicated and fell down the basement stairs at Beta Theta Pi during pledge night on Feb. 2. He was moved to a couch upstairs but fraternity brothers didnt call for emergency help until the next morning, nearly 12 hours later. Piazza died the following day. The university has permanently revoked recognition of Beta Theta Pi, which it said engaged in forced drinking, hazing and other illegal activity. A criminal investigation into Piazzas death continues. The university issued a moratorium on serving alcohol at Greek social events through the end of the semester, with the exception of parents weekend where the infractions Barron wrote about occurred. The fraternity executive board in its letter called on fraternity and sorority members to share in the responsibility to make improvements. We need to work together across chapters and councils and begin to have the difficult dialogue to address the issues of alcohol abuse, hazing and sexual misconduct that plague Penn State, it wrote. We must take responsibility for our community and can no longer make excuses for bad behavior. They also called on other students in the Penn State community to help. We are committed to partnership with any organization or group of students who share our desire to create meaningful change, they wrote. Most Popular on Philly.com By Madeline Kennedy (Reuters Health) Different types of problems are most likely to afflict people at different times of life, so common risk factors for depression change over the years, too, Dutch researchers say. But when a risk factor is uncommon among peers like widowhood or poor health in youth it can have an outsized effect on depression risk, the study team reports in The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry. A wide range of risk factors for depression is relevant across the entire life span, said lead author Roxanne Schaakxs of VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam. However, some risk factors expected to be strongly related to depression in certain ages, may actually affect other age groups to a larger extent, Schaakxs added by email. Depression is a complex condition and many experts believe that in addition to innate genetic and personality factors, risks like stressful life events, health issues and money problems can contribute to its development, the study team notes. To see which depression risk factors affect people at various stages of life, and how much of an effect each factor has, the study team analyzed data on more than 2,000 adults participating in two long-term studies of depression and anxiety. Subjects in one study were aged 18 to 65 when they began participating, while participants in the other study were aged 60 to 93 when it started. At baseline, a total of 1,431 people had major depressive disorder and 784 people had no symptoms or history of the condition. The research team assessed 19 different risk factors for depression in different age groups, comparing people who had never been depressed with people who were currently depressed. Most of the risk factors did increase peoples likelihood of being depressed at any age, including low education, recent negative life events, personality traits, reduced social functioning, an unhealthy lifestyle and poor health. However, five of the risk factors were more strongly related to depression in certain age groups. For people aged 18 to 39, health factors like overweight or obesity, pain, childhood abuse and chronic disease were strongly associated with depression. For those over 60, low income was a greater risk for depression than in other age groups. People with risk factors that were unexpected based on their age also had a higher depression risk than those in other age groups where the same risk factor was more common, researchers found. For example, chronic illness was more strongly linked to depression in younger people than older people while low income carried higher depression risk in older people though it was more common among younger people. When young people are struggling with circumstances like illness or loneliness, it may come as a surprise and they may not have the skills to cope, said Patricia Arean, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle. She stressed the importance of screening young people with chronic illnesses for depression. Fortunately, prevention interventions for depression are also good for health care: get good sleep, rest, exercise regularly, reach out to friends and family, said Arean, who was not involved in the current study. When an unexpected life event happens, pay close attention to your reaction to it, Arean said by email. If you find that you are struggling with your mood, energy, interest in things, concentration for more than two weeks, Do Not Ignore those symptoms. Go see your doctor and get help. General practitioners and therapists should not overlook risk factors for depression by assuming the risk factor is less relevant at a certain age, Schaakxs advised. SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2ovflMy The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, online April 7, 2017. MANILA (Reuters) - Philippines' President Rodrigo Duterte has canceled a planned visit to an island the Philippines claims in the disputed South China Sea, after Beijing warned him against the visit. The brash Philippine leader last week announced his plan to raise the Philippine flag in the island of Thitu and fortify it with barracks, setting off alarm bells. "Because of our friendship with China and because we value your friendship I will not go there to raise the Philippine flag," Duterte said in a speech before the Filipino community in Riyadh late Wednesday. "They said, do not go there in the meantime, just do not go there please. I will correct myself because we value our friendship with China," he said, adding that he might just send his son to the island. China claims most of the South China Sea through which about $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes annually. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims. (http://tmsnrt.rs/1GHW1LC) Duterte said Beijing warned him that "there will likely be trouble" if every head of state of contending parties will go to the disputed islands and plant flags. The popular president is on a week-long state visit in the Middle East to facilitate trade and investments, and meet with Filipinos overseas. The Middle East is the second largest source of remittances, with more than one million Filipino workers sending home $7.6 billion in last year, government data showed. Duterte, who led the warming of ties with China, had blamed the United States for the current maritime tensions for not intervening to stop China building and arming artificial islands in the Philippines' exclusive economic zone. The Philippines will reinforce, but not militarize, areas in the South China Sea controlled by Manila to maintain the geopolitical balance, Duterte said on Monday. (Reporting by Neil Jerome Morales; Editing by Michael Perry) By Carly Olson. Photos courtesy of Wright. When selecting a carpet, there are near-infinite possibilities, from handwoven Persian silk varieties to flatweave dhurries, a range that can make selection quite overwhelming. Such a dazzling variety is on full display at one gallery on New York's Upper East Side when I visit this week. Walking into a windowed pop-up gallery in the Interior Design Building, I'm immediately greeted by over 100 vibrant carpets hanging from walls, sprawled across floors, and laid underfoot. Nader Bolour, owner of venerated carpet gallery Doris Leslie Blau, has curated this diverse assortment of dazzling rugs for Wright's 20th Century Carpets auction, which will take place on April 20. And since 20th-century styles are supremely varied, from Art Deco to Swedish mid-century to Arts and Crafts, Bolour offers to give AD a personal tour of the space and a crash course in all things carpets. Swedish Mid-Century Styles "This was made in the 1940s or '50s, and it's in fantastic condition," Bolour offers by way of description, gesturing to one wall bearing an enormous Edna Martin flatweave carpet comprised of dusty red-orange squares bordered with geometric stripes and crosses. "One of the biggest draws to Swedish midcentury rugs is their simplicity yet freshness and vigor." He points to the center of the rug, noting that the style's clean lines are characteristic of Swedish rugs: "It doesn't take over the pattern like many Persian and Oriental rugs do," meaning they can work well in a myriad of interiors without distracting from a space. The versatility of the Swedish midcentury rugs make them consistently popular among Bolour's clients. Art Deco Styles A large circular rug bordered with zodiac symbols and punctuated with a deep blue constellation pattern is one of the most striking pieces in the room, and impossible to ignore. Bolour explains that this Art Decostyle piece was designed by artist Paul Follot in the 1920s. Story continues Art Deco carpets are often more art works in their own right, requiring the proper interior to let them shine. "Art Deco is a lot more specific so it's harder to use them in different settings," Bolour says. In order to accommodate an exceptional style like this Follot, Bolour suggests a modern or minimalist backdrop; "This one could look beautiful in a very modern room, a glass home with not that much going on, or even a classic deco house," he says. More: 27 Modern Living Rooms Full of Luxurious Details Arts and Crafts Styles A style conceived by William Morris in the late 19th century, Arts and Crafts carpets are characterized by their floral patterns, earth-toned palette, and whimsical symmetry. The work of two notable designers of the period will be up for auction. Displayed alongside a Hammersmith pile rug made by Morris himself is another Arts and Crafts style by notable architect and textile designer C.F.A. Voysey. "Green is a common color in these styles," says Bolour, in line with their motifs of nature. Contemporary Styles Diverging from the theme, a few contemporary carpets created exclusively for Doris Leslie Blau (which Bolour helped design) will also be up for bidding. Bolour points to a soft-blue rug that takes up significant floor space, explaining that it was inspired by a piece of glass. He encourages me to bend down and pet the carpet, and, though I hesitate at first, I'm immediately glad I did. The hand-knotted mohair is thick and cashmere soft. "We used these dreamy sky and powder blues, with just a touch of electric blue," Bolour says. Choosing a rug with a variety of different tones prevents it from looking dull and flat, and Bolour notes that a good rug should never look "brand new." Light blue is a surprisingly versatile carpet color, explains Bolour. "Today, light blue is picked out by a lot of designers when decorating. It can work well with soft grays and even work with whiteand we have a black floor here, and it even works beautifully with that," he says. A Minimal Collection Despite being immersed in the carpet world since his teenage years , Bolour himself only owns one rug. Picked up at the Bermondsey Marketa noted antiques market south of London27 years ago, the unique carpet has no famous names attached, and still little is known about his history. "The market used to be open only on Fridays from 4 am until about 8:30 am," Bolour says, "and people would have to pay cash and pick up whatever they bought." Bolour was quickly drawn to its unusual look. "I found this silk rug, probably mid-19th century, with all kinds of different wild animals on it," he explains, "and that's the only rug in my collection." Bolour credits his lack of a personal collection to his desire to share the exquisite rugs he finds, "But I wasn't such a sharer for that one," he says with a laugh. All rugs (excluding Bolour's own silk treasure) go on auction on April 20th, during Wright's_ 20th-century carpets auction. More: 11 Pared-Down Examples of Minimalist Living This story originally appeared on Architectural Digest. More from Architectural Digest: Inside Jennifer Aniston's Gorgeous Beverly Hills Home Nate Berkus Shares New Daughter/New Home Gisele Bundchen and Tom Brady's Incredible L.A. Mansion Inside Khloe and Kourtney Kardashian's California Dream Homes 126 Stunning Celebrity Homes Sarah Jessica Parker's Epic West Village Townhouse Orzysz (Poland) (AFP) - Poland's president on Thursday hailed the launch of a US-led NATO multinational battalion in an area of his country bordering Russia's heavily militarised Kaliningrad exclave as an "historic moment". The battalion is one of four NATO is deploying for the first time to Poland and the Baltic states as tripwires against Russian adventurism on its eastern flank, a region formerly under Moscow's control and spooked by its actions in Ukraine. "Generations of Poles have waited for this moment since the end of World War II, generations that dreamt of being part of the just, united, democratic and truly free West," President Andrzej Duda said at ceremonies in the northeastern Polish town of Orzysz. Poland joined NATO in 1999, a decade after it peacefully shed communism as the Iron Curtain fell in 1989. Speaking along side Duda, NATO Supreme Allied Commander US General Curtis Scaparrotti called the deployment "a clear demonstration of NATO's unity and resolve and sends a clear message to any potential aggressor." "You now form NATO's eastern flank," he told troops. Three similar NATO units, led by the Germany, Canada and Britain, are being deployed this year in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Each unit includes around 800 troops. The countries requested them after Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. The Kremlin has denied any territorial ambitions and claims that NATO is trying to encircle Russia. But Moscow's deployment last year of nuclear-capable Iskander missiles into its Kaliningrad exclave, which borders Lithuania and Poland, and frequent Russian military drills in the region have rattled nearby NATO members. The Orzysz NATO base lies around 100 kilometres (60 miles) from the Kaliningrad exclave and a stone's throw from the strategically sensitive "Suwalki Gap", a land corridor critical to the security of the Baltic states. Story continues The 65-kilometre stretch of border with Lithuania is sandwiched between Kaliningrad and Belarus. Military strategists warn it is the Achilles' heel of NATO's eastern flank: its capture would amputate the alliance's three Baltic members and so shatter its credibility. The freshly deployed NATO troops are expected to hold manoeuvres around the Suwalki Gap in June. By Laila Kearney NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York police are investigating the death of the United States' first female Muslim judge as a possible suicide, but lack important clues about how her body ended up in the Hudson River, a police source said on Thursday. The body of Sheila Abdus-Salaam, a 65-year-old associate judge who served on New York's highest court, was found floating in the river off Manhattan's west side on Wednesday. An external examination found no signs of trauma and no indication of what caused her death. "We have a long way to go," New York police Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said at a press conference on Thursday, referring to the investigation. Abdus-Salaam was elected as a New York City judge in 1991. The Washington D.C. native was also the first African American woman to serve on the state's Court of Appeals, to which she was appointed by Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo in 2013. In her more than 25 years on the bench, Abdus-Salaam became known for her liberal leanings, often favoring poor and vulnerable individuals over the powerful. "She lived up to her reputation of being smart, principled, and rigorously fair," Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, who once argued a case before Abdus-Salaam, said in a statement. Police are struggling to piece together a timeline of events between Tuesday morning, when the judge was last in contact with someone, and when her body was found, Boyce said. Abdus-Salaam spent the weekend in New Jersey with her husband, who last heard from his wife on Monday evening, Boyce said. On Tuesday morning, Abdus-Salaam spoke to her assistant in what appeared to be the last contact she had with colleagues, family or friends. Police have determined that the judge's metro card was last swiped on Monday evening at a subway stop in midtown Manhattan. As police await details from a more thorough examination of Abdus-Salaam's body, they are interviewing relatives and others who knew her. Story continues A police source said officers were working on the assumption that the judge took her own life, but Boyce declined to elaborate when asked about that at the news conference. Boyce did say that it did not appear she was taking anti-depressants or other medications, and that her death was "a surprise to everyone." About three years ago, Abdus-Salaam's brother committed suicide, the New York Times reported, citing unidentified police sources. Her mother died last spring, the Times said. (Editing by Daniel Wallis and Dan Grebler) His 90th birthday may not be for a few days yet, but former pope Benedict XVI got an early present on Thursday: a visit from his Argentine successor, Pope Francis. The two men met at Benedict's home in the grounds of the Vatican so Francis could be the first to wish him many happy returns. While the pope emeritus, who turns 90 on Sunday, keeps a low profile most of the time, Francis makes sure he is included in key celebrations in the Catholic Church and brings new cardinals to meet him. In 2013, Benedict became the first head of the church to resign in seven centuries, amid speculation he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, unable to cope at the top of an institution beset by scandals. He said he no longer had the strength of mind or body to carry on, but his health appeared to improve after he stepped down and moved into a former convent in the grounds of the Vatican. "He is serene, calm and in a good mood. He wants to do something small (for his birthday) to match his strength," Benedict's personal secretary Georg Gaenswein said in an interview with the Repubblica daily on Wednesday. "His brother Georg will come to visit for a few days, and this is the biggest present he could ask for. On Easter Monday, the day after his birthday, there will be a small party," he said. Gaenswein said the former pope was still "very lucid, but his physical strength is lessening. His legs are tied". Benedict was once a keen piano player and just a year ago was playing Mozart from memory, but now "he says his hands no longer obey him as they used to, or at least not enough to play well". He said the elderly German had "never regretted" stepping down. Pope Francis, 80, who was elected shortly after Benedict resigned, has said of the unusual situation of having two popes living so close to each other: "It is like having a grandfather -- a wise grandfather -- living at home." Vatican City (AFP) - His 90th birthday may not be for a few days yet, but former pope Benedict XVI got an early present on Thursday: a visit from his Argentine successor, Pope Francis. The two men met at Benedict's home in the grounds of the Vatican so Francis could be the first to wish him many happy returns. While the pope emeritus, who turns 90 on Sunday, keeps a low profile most of the time, Francis makes sure he is included in key celebrations in the Catholic Church and brings new cardinals to meet him. In 2013, Benedict became the first head of the church to resign in seven centuries, amid speculation he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, unable to cope at the top of an institution beset by scandals. He said he no longer had the strength of mind or body to carry on, but his health appeared to improve after he stepped down and moved into a former convent in the grounds of the Vatican. "He is serene, calm and in a good mood. He wants to do something small (for his birthday) to match his strength," Benedict's personal secretary Georg Gaenswein said in an interview with the Repubblica daily on Wednesday. "His brother Georg will come to visit for a few days, and this is the biggest present he could ask for. On Easter Monday, the day after his birthday, there will be a small party," he said. Gaenswein said the former pope was still "very lucid, but his physical strength is lessening. His legs are tied". Benedict was once a keen piano player and just a year ago was playing Mozart from memory, but now "he says his hands no longer obey him as they used to, or at least not enough to play well". He said the elderly German had "never regretted" stepping down. Pope Francis, 80, who was elected shortly after Benedict resigned, has said of the unusual situation of having two popes living so close to each other: "It is like having a grandfather - a wise grandfather - living at home." By Philip Pullella ROME (Reuters) - Pope Francis visited a fortress prison holding mafia turncoats on Thursday and again included a Muslim and women in a traditional Holy Week foot-washing ritual that previous popes had limited to Catholic men. Francis said a Mass for the 70 inmates of the prison, a 16th century fortress at Paliano 75 km (47 miles) south of Rome. During the service, he bent to wash and kiss the right foot of 12 inmates, commemorating Jesus' gesture of humility towards his 12 apostles on the night before he died. The high-security prison is reserved almost entirely for prisoners known in Italy as "collaborators of justice," those who turn state's evidence to testify against their former comrades and need special protection. During the 1980s and 1990s it held turncoats from the Red Brigades guerrilla group but now most "collaborators of justice" are former members of Italy's three notorious organized crime groups - the Cosa Nostra, the Camorra and the 'Ndrangheta. The Vatican said the 12 included three women and a Muslim man who has decided to convert to Catholicism and is due to be baptised in June. The 12 included 10 Italians, an Albanian and a prisoner from the pope's native Argentina who had written to him. His predecessors held the Holy Thursday Mass in majestic settings either at the Vatican or a Rome basilica. Francis changed the tradition after he was elected to stress the importance of going out to serve the poor, the sick and the imprisoned. The change drew the ire of traditionalists because all of apostles were male followers of Jesus, but the pope said the ritual should be open to "all members of the people of God". The visit was private because most of the inmates could not be filmed or photographed. "We are all sinners. We all have defects," the pope told the inmates in an improvised sermon broadcast by Vatican Radio. By washing their feet, Francis told them, he was willing to do "the work of a slave in order to sow love among us". He urged them to help each other. Two of the 12 are serving life sentences and the others are due to be released between 2019 and 2073. Francis has condemned organized crime groups, saying their members indulge in the "the adoration of evil". He has said members of organized crime excommunicate themselves from the Church by their actions but could return if they repented. (Reporting by Philip Pullella; editing by Mark Heinrich) VATICAN CITY (AP) Pope Francis washed the feet of a dozen inmates at a maximum security prison on Holy Thursday in a pre-Easter ritual meant to show his willingness to serve society's most marginal and give them hope. Francis urged the prisoners to help one another out and similarly "be the servant of others." Francis travelled to the Paliano detention center, located in a fortress south of Rome, to celebrate the Holy Thursday Mass at the only Italian prison dedicated to housing mafia turncoats. These "collaborators of justice" can shave time off their sentences by cooperating with anti-mafia prosecutors. Nevertheless, many of the inmates are serving lengthy terms: Two of the 12 inmates who participated in the foot-washing ceremony are serving life terms. The remaining 10 are due to be released between 2019 and 2073. Francis also visited two other inmates currently in solitary confinement. In his homily, Francis reminded the inmates that his gesture of washing their feet re-enacted the revolutionary gesture of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples before he was crucified, essentially doing the work of a slave out of love. "If you can do something, a service for your companions in prison, do it," Francis urged them during his homily. "This is love. This is like washing feet: to be the servant of others." It's the third Holy Thursday that Francis has spent at a detention center, part of his longstanding emphasis on ministering to prisoners and the need to give them rehabilitation and hope. "The Holy Father gave us message not just of hope, but he told us that the love of God is great and is ready to forgive everyone," prison director Nadia Cersosimo told Vatican Radio. Because of the nature of the prison, its inmates and their families, Francis' visit was conducted under unusually strict privacy: Vatican Radio only aired edited excerpts of his homily after the fact, and the Vatican's television service planned edited TV footage. Usually the pope's activities are covered live by at least Vatican TV and radio, if not independent media. Story continues Paliano has 60 to 70 inmates, including about 50 mafia turncoats. The prison also houses four women and has a special ward for tuberculosis-infected inmates. The Vatican said three of the 12 inmates who had their feet washed are women and one is a Muslim who is due to be baptized a Christian in June. Prisoners prepared cakes as gifts and offered the pope zucchini and cucumbers from the prison's organic garden. In an interview published Thursday in Rome daily La Repubblica, Francis said his emphasis on reaching out to inmates comes from his heart, as well as the biblical imperative to visit prisoners and accompany the least of society. "When I'm looking at a prisoner, I ask myself: 'Why him and not me?'" he said. "'Why did he fall and not me?' It's a mystery that brings me closer to them." Francis opened the most solemn period of the Catholic Church's liturgical calendar by celebrating Mass on Thursday morning in St. Peter's Basilica before heading to Paliano. On Friday, he participates in the torch-lit procession at Rome's Colosseum re-enacting Christ's crucifixion. Saturday brings the late-night Easter vigil, with Easter Sunday Mass the following day. Photo credit: Facebook From Redbook Skin cancer is the most common form of cancer in the United States, and approximately 34,940 women will be diagnosed with melanoma in 2017. One-third of women who are diagnosed with melanoma are of child-bearing age, and this woman's story is a tragic reminder that everyone - especially expectant mothers - should regularly check in with a dermatologist. In February, Danielle Janofsky, who was 6 months pregnant at the time, went to the hospital with stomach pains, according to a GoFundMe page set up by her family. "It was quickly discovered that melanoma had spread to her liver, kidney, stomach, and, finally, brain," according to the fundraising page. Danielle waited two weeks before delivering her baby prematurely by C-section. "She made the selfless and loving decision to deliver baby Jake on Friday February 24th thereby sacrificing herself so that her son could live," says the GoFundMe write-up. She died three days after giving birth. This wasn't Danielle's first bout with skin cancer: She had been diagnosed with melanoma back in 2015, but the problematic mole had been removed. After that, she had a "good prognosis," her husband, Max, informed Today. Once she became pregnant, though, she was discouraged from continuing immunotherapy, which uses the body's immune system to combat the cancer. Without immunotherapy, the cancer returned. Danielle's mother shared a heartbreaking photo on Facebook of her daughter and Max on the day after she passed. "My dearest Danielle was an amazing person," her mother wrote in the post. "Smart. Witty. Loving. She died yesterday, held in her loving husbands arms when she slipped away. I will miss her calling me up saying, 'Hi Mommy' in a voice that always reminded me of that long ago little girl. If love could have saved her, she would have lived a hundred years. I will miss you forever my Dani." The Janofsky family set up the GoFundMe page to create trust funds for Danielle's children, to help provide for their education, and to give the premature Jake proper medical care. Over $80,000 of the $100,000 goal has been raised since it was launched. Story continues It's not entirely clear if melanoma and pregnancy are linked, according to Dr. Aleksandar Sekulic, M.D., a dermatologist at Mayo Clinic and a principal member of Stand Up to Cancer's research team. "There have been a lot of opinions and suggestions that melanoma may be impacted by [a woman's] hormonal status - which dramatically changes during pregnancy - but studies [haven't found] a very clear indication of that. That means women who have been diagnosed with melanoma during their pregnancy do not necessarily fare worse than women diagnosed with melanoma who aren't pregnant." Unfortunately, that doesn't mean that in some patients pregnancy doesn't worsen the progression of melanoma. "It is possible," Dr. Sekulic says, but he reiterates the fact that there haven't been enough structured studies to make a firm correlation between the two. The only thing that is certain, he says, is that "melanoma is a preventable disease." Protecting yourself - with sunscreen and regular check-ups - no matter what age you are is crucial. (h/t Today) Follow Redbook on Facebook. You Might Also Like (WASHINGTON) - President Donald Trump likes to boast that he hires only the best people. But his personnel choices keep coming back to haunt him. One of the people Trump hired for the White House was working as a foreign agent while advising him during the election. His campaign chairman caught the Justice Departments attention for similarly surreptitious work. And a third campaign adviser was reportedly surveilled by the FBI as part of an investigation into whether or not he was a Russian spy. The tales of Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort and Carter Page - none of whom still work for Trump - have created a steady drip of allegations that have clouded Trumps early presidency and raised persistent questions about his judgment. At worst, Trumps personnel picks appear to have left his campaign - and perhaps his White House - vulnerable to the influence of foreign powers. At best, they expose the long-term implications of his understaffed and inexperienced campaign organization and undermine his promises to surround himself with top-notch talent. Vetting new hires is standard procedure for presidential campaigns for exactly this reason, said Alex Conant, who advised Sen. Marco Rubios 2016 presidential campaign. Every employee is also a potential liability on a presidential campaign. Manafort, Flynn and Page have indeed become political liabilities for Trump that he cant shake in the White House. All three are being scrutinized as part of the FBI and congressional investigations into whether Trump associates helped Russia meddle in the 2016 election. The president has denied any nefarious ties to Russia and says he has no knowledge that his advisers were working with Moscow during the election. The presidents culpability appears greatest with Flynn, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general who traveled with Trump frequently during the campaign and was tapped as national security adviser after the election. Flynn had been lobbying for a company with ties to Turkey during the 2016 election and even wrote an editorial on behalf of his client that was published on Election Day. Story continues No one expects them to do the equivalent of an FBI background check, but a simple Google search could have solved a lot of these problems, Dan Pfeiffer, who served as senior adviser to President Barack Obama, said of Trumps team. After Trumps victory, Flynns lawyers alerted the transition team that he may have to register as a lobbying for a foreign entity, according to a person with knowledge of those discussions. The White House hired him anyway. After the inauguration, Flynns lawyers told the White House counsels office that the national security adviser would indeed have to move forward with that filing. Flynn was fired in February after the White House said he misled Vice President Mike Pence and other top officials about his conversations with Russias ambassador to the United States. Lobbying for foreign interests is legal and lucrative. Both Republican and Democratic operatives offer their services to overseas clients. But the Justice Department requires Americans working on behalf of foreign interests to register, disclosing the nature of their work, the foreigners they dealt with and the amount of money they made. Willful failure to register for foreign lobbying work can carry up to a five-year prison sentence, but the Justice Department rarely brings criminal charges and instead urges violators to register. On Wednesday, a spokesman for former Trump campaign chairman Manafort said that he, too, under pressure from the Justice Department, would formally file for prior foreign lobbying. Manaforts work for political interests in Ukraine occurred before he was hired as Trumps campaign chairman, spokesman Jason Maloni said, though the U.S. government raised questions about his activities after he was hired by Trump. The work in question was widely known, concluded before Mr. Manafort began working with the Trump campaign and was not conducted on behalf of the Russian government, Maloni said. Manafort was pushed out of Trumps campaign in August after The Associated Press reported that his consulting firm had orchestrated a covert Washington lobbying operation on behalf of Ukraines ruling political party without disclosing that work to the U.S. government. The White House did not respond to questions Wednesday about when Trump learned about Manaforts foreign lobbying work and his discussions with the U.S. government about registering as a foreign agent. The questions surrounding Page are perhaps the most serious. On Tuesday, The Washington Post reported that the Justice Department obtained a highly secretive warrant to monitor his communications because there was reason to believe he was working as a Russian spy. In March, Trump personally announced Page as part of a newly minted foreign policy advisory team. But as questions began swirling about Pages ties to Russia, the campaign started moving away from the little-known investment banker. Trump has since said he has no relationship with him. The New York Times reported Wednesday that the Justice Department only obtained the warrant after the campaign distanced itself from Page. In an interview Thursday with ABCs Good Morning America, Page described his affiliation with the Trump campaign as having served as an informal member of a committee which was put together - a team of individuals who were looking at various foreign policy issues. Page said he does not recall if he had conversations with Russian officials about sanctions during that period. He first suggested that he never told any officials that Trump would ease sanctions on Russia, and said no Russian officials suggested that to him, but then he said he doesnt remember. Something may have come up in a conversation, he said. I have no recollection. Chris Ashby, a Republican elections lawyer, said that while its easy to blame Trump for missing red flags about his campaign advisers, its not always possible to dig up details that potential hires arent willing to disclose on their own. In the ideal world, you could rely on paid background checks, but youd have to have the money and the time, Ashby said. The farther down the ranks you go and certainly when you reach the ranks of unpaid advisers, that becomes impractical. This article was originally published on TIME.com President Donald Trump made an abrupt about-face on NATO, saying he no longer considers the alliance obsolete. Speaking at a joint press conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in Washington on Wednesday, Trump reiterated his belief that other NATO countries need to pay what they owe for defense spending. He had previous criticized the alliance as a whole, particularly during his campaign. I said it was obsolete, he said. Its no longer obsolete During the wide-ranging press conference, Trump did not mince his words on Russia. Right now, were not getting along with Russia at all. We may be at an all-time low in terms of relationship with Russia. This has built for a long time, the president added. But were going to see what happens. Putin is the leader of Russia. Russia is a strong country, were a very, very strong country. Were going to see how it all works out. "Right now, we39;re not getting along with Russia at all," says Trump. "We may be at an all-time low in terms of relationship with Russia." pic.twitter.com/dd2Ufftap1 - CBS News (@CBSNews) April 12, 2017 Earlier on Wednesday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson met with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow. Tillerson divulged part of the meeting in a press conference. I expressed the view that the current state of U.S.-Russia relations is at a low point. There is a low level of trust between the two countries, Tillerson said. The worlds two foremost nuclear powers cannot have this kind of relationship. Back in the States, Trump said at the NATO conference that it would be fantastic if the U.S. could get along with Russia but that right now its a nasty world. This article was originally published on TIME.com Fifteen passengers were hurt after a Qantas plane's alert system warned of an imminent stall as it approached Hong Kong, Australian transport safety officials said Thursday as they launched an investigation. Flight QF29 from Melbourne to Hong Kong was about 100 kilometres (60 miles) from its destination last Friday when a "stick shaker" alert occurred. The warning causes the control stick to shake noisily, informing pilots that the plane is about to stall. "The flight crew disconnected the autopilot and manoeuvred the aircraft in response," the Australian Transport Safety Bureau said, adding that there was "airframe buffeting". The ATSB is interviewing the flight crew of the Boeing 747 to determine the cause of the incident that it said left 15 people with minor injuries, one of whom was taken to hospital. Qantas described the mishap as "unexpected turbulence" that lasted about two minutes and launched an investigation of its own after informing the ATSB. "The flight landed normally in Hong Kong. As a precaution, the captain called ahead for the aircraft to be met by an ambulance on arrival," Australia's national carrier said in a statement. "One passenger was transferred to hospital for precautionary medical assessment as a result of their injuries and later released." The ATSB expect to release a report in the coming months. Last year, a passenger died aboard a Qantas jet bound for Dubai, with the man reportedly suffering from a heart attack mid-air. That same month, another flight from Melbourne to Dubai was three hours into its journey when one of its engines had a "slight vibration issue" and the aircraft was diverted to Sydney, the airline said. Sanaa (AFP) - A Yemeni court in the rebel-held capital has sentenced a veteran journalist to death on charges of spying for neighbouring Saudi Arabia, the press union and rebel media said on Thursday. Since March 2015, oil-rich Saudi Arabia has been leading a deadly military intervention against the rebels and their allies in the kingdom's impoverished neighbour. Yahya al-Jubaihi, 61, was convicted of establishing "contact with a foreign state" and providing Saudi diplomats in Sanaa with "reports that posed harm to Yemen militarily, politically and economically," the rebel-controlled Saba news agency reported. Prosecutors alleged that Jubaihi had been receiving a monthly salary of 4,500 Saudi riyals ($1,200) from Riyadh since 2010, four years before the rebels overran the capital, Saba added. The Yemeni press union condemned the "arbitrary" sentence, accusing the rebels of "targeting the freedom of the press." It said Jubaihi was a "veteran journalist with a long record of professional work across Yemen." He was seized from his home on September 6, it added. The rebels and their allies -- renegade troops loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh -- have controlled all government institutions in Sanaa since they overran the capital in September 2014. Rival bodies loyal to internationally recognised president Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi operate out of second city Aden or from exile in Saudi Arabia. The Aden-based information ministry said Jubaihi's trial was a "farce" and accused the rebels of looking to "settle political accounts... through a politicised judiciary." Jubaihi wrote regular columns in Saudi dailies Okaz and Al-Madina, as well as in Yemeni newspapers. He served at the government's press department in the 1990s and 2000s when Saleh was president and Hadi was his deputy. Press watchdogs and human rights groups have been deeply critical of the rebels' treatment of journalists as the conflict in the Arabian peninsula country has escalated over the past two years. Story continues In December, journalist Mohammed al-Absi, 35, died suddenly after publishing reports about alleged corruption. His family and human rights groups said a post-mortem found he had been poisoned. Eight reporters were killed in Yemen last year, according to the International Federation of Journalists. That made the country the fourth deadliest for journalists after Iraq, Afghanistan and Mexico, the watchdog added. President Donald Trump is setting his sights on eliminating the Dodd-Frank Act, a set of financial regulations aimed at preventing another credit crisis like the one that occurred in 2008. While bank investors have cheered a possible end to the burdensome regulations, deregulation of the financial sector may be setting the table for another economic crisis years down the road. Trump has called Dodd-Frank "horrendous" and said that he intends to perform "a major streamlining and perhaps elimination" of the law. Bank stocks traded higher following Election Day after Trump repeatedly pledged to eliminate corporate regulations throughout the campaign season. But what's good for banks may not necessarily be what's good for the country in the long haul. Understanding Dodd-Frank. One of the major provisions in the 2,300-page Dodd-Frank Act sets strict guidelines for the amount of capital banks must hold at all times as a protective cushion in the event of unexpected loan losses. In addition, banks must limit a certain percentage of their investments to assets that can be easily liquidated, if needed. Dodd-Frank requires any U.S. bank with at least $50 billion in assets to pass an annual Federal Reserve stress test to make sure the banks are fully prepared for a potential economic downturn. Dodd-Frank also requires each of these large banks to get the blessing of the Federal Reserve prior to increasing dividend payments and/or share buyback plans. Finally, Dodd-Frank created a new regulatory agency called the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to aide in financial regulatory enforcement and help identify abusive practices. Dodd-Frank hits a handful of banks particularly hard. Companies such as JPMorgan Chase & Co. (ticker: JPM), Citigroup ( C) and Bank of America Corp. ( BAC) are deemed "global systemically important banks." These banks have even higher capital requirements and must submit annual living wills detailing how assets could be liquidated in an orderly fashion during a potential bankruptcy. Story continues [See: 11 Ways to Buy Bank Stocks.] A history lesson. Banking booms and busts have been cyclical occurrences in the U.S. over the past century. The Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 was implemented after nearly 5,000 U.S. banks failed during the early years of the Great Depression. The Glass-Steagall Act created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, increased regulatory scrutiny of banks and prohibited commercial banks from participating in certain types of risky investment banking. The Glass-Steagall investment banking restriction was lifted in 1999. Just like during the period prior to the Great Depression, U.S. banks spent much of the early 2000s exploding in size. Banks milked every cent of earnings they could out of the U.S. housing market during the peak of the bubble. John Burnett, an associate professor of finance at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, says a repeal of Dodd-Frank could simply proliferate the cycle of banking booms and busts. "This may seem oversimplified, but to me, the long-term danger of a complete repeal is that we end up in a similar crisis again," Burnett says. Financial regulations are always a delicate balancing act between protecting consumers and allowing markets to operate smoothly. "No legislated regulation is perfect. So if the new leadership can make some improvements, that's great," Burnett says. Bankrate senior economic analyst Mark Hamrick says Dodd-Frank has limited U.S. bank lending in recent years, but that doesn't necessarily mean the law should be completely scrapped. [See: 20 Awesome Dividend Stocks for Guaranteed Income.] "Just as a flu shot doesn't provide full immunity from all strains and colds, Dodd-Frank doesn't create some kind of sci-fi style forcefield guarding against financial crises," Hamrick says. "Nevertheless, it doesn't make sense to forgo the proverbial inoculation because it fails to achieve perfection." A path to compromise. As critical as Trump has been of Dodd-Frank, he has also expressed a somewhat surprising interest in bringing back the Glass-Steagall Act's rules banning commercial banks from risky investment banking activities. While pure investment banks such as Goldman Sachs Group ( GS) and Morgan Stanley ( MS) may not be impacted significantly by a return of Glass-Steagall, Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan and others could be forced to split their commercial lending operations and investment banking business into multiple entities. Trump's chief economic advisor and former Goldman Sachs president Gary Cohn recently said that a return of Glass-Steagall would pave the way for more aggressive bank lending to small and medium-sized U.S. companies. In Washington's increasingly partisan climate, the return of Glass-Steagall could offer a rare opportunity for bipartisan compromise. U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who spearheaded the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has been pushing for a reinstatement of Glass-Steagall for several years. "The intent of the rule is a good one, and the repeal [of Glass-Steagall] has not harmed clients in a substantial way, as many of the activities that led to the 2008 crisis could still have happened regardless," says JJ Kinahan, managing director of client advocacy and market structure at TD Ameritrade. "Hopefully before decisions are made, the issue of liquidity in our markets is a primary concern. Liquidity ultimately breeds confidence and opportunity." [See: 7 of the Best Stocks to Buy in 2017.] Trump has pledged to ease the burden of regulation on American banks, a move that has created major tailwinds for bank stock investors. However, until investors are certain about what (if anything) will replace the Dodd-Frank Act, the risk that deregulation is laying the groundwork for the next U.S. financial crisis remains a threat to long-term investors. Wayne Duggan is a freelance investment strategy reporter with a focus on energy and emerging market stocks. He has a degree in brain and cognitive sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and specializes in the psychological challenges of investing. He is a senior financial market reporter for Benzinga and has contributed financial market analysis to Motley Fool, Seeking Alpha and InvestorPlace. He is also the author of the book "Beating Wall Street With Common Sense," which focuses on the practical strategies he has used to outperform the stock market. You can follow him on Twitter @DugganSense, check out his latest content at tradingcommonsense.com or email him at wpd@tradingcommonsense.com. RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) A counterterrorism court in Saudi Arabia has sentenced a poet to two months imprisonment for poetry deemed insulting to security officials. The state-linked Saudi Okaz reported Thursday that the poet, whose name was not published, had shared the poem on Twitter and YouTube. The news website says the Specialized Criminal Court in the capital, Riyadh, found the Saudi poet guilty of producing and publishing material that was disrespectful to security officials and that could harm public order. The court also ordered the poet's social media accounts closed. Dozens of Saudi rights activists are behind bars or convicted under a sweeping counterterrorism law that equates demands for reform or criticism of the government as harmful to stability. Criticism of the monarchy, however, remains prevalent on Twitter and other social media sites. MOSCOW The days preceding his visit were marked by bluster and barbed comments. But when U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson finally arrived in the Russian capital on Wednesday, he struck a conciliatory tone, and was given a tentative if tepid welcome. The former chief executive of Exxon Mobil is no stranger to Moscow, but this was his first stay as head diplomat of the United States, and the first visit to Moscow by a member of U.S. President Donald Trumps administration. The visit came amid a swift and severe deterioration in U.S.-Russian ties, but Tillerson still managed to obtain a two-hour meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a signal of the Kremlins openness to detente, in addition to his sit-down with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The status of the meeting with Putin was uncertain, having disappeared and re-appeared on official schedules over the last few days. Tensions between Washington and Moscow had increased sharply in the days leading up to the meeting, after a tumultuous week that saw the U.S. conduct a surprise missile strike against the forces of Russian ally Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in retaliation for what Washington believes was Assads use of banned chemical weapons against civilians. The United States even went so far as to accuse Russia of covering up the attack on Assads behalf, a day before the scheduled visit. On Wednesday, both Tillerson and Lavrov expressed a desire to improve relations between the two countries, even as they continued to clash on the question of who was to blame for the use of chemical weapons in Syria. Russia has claimed those weapons belonged to rebel forces, and on Wednesday, Lavrov maintained that the circumstances of the most recent attack have yet to be determined. But in a reversal from earlier this week, Tillerson appeared to walk back previous claims of Russian complicity at a press conference following the meeting: Assad has brought (this) upon himself, he said, adding that the U.S. has no firm information that Russia was involved in any way in the chemical weapons attack. We understand each other better, Lavrov said. Tillerson said that while there is a low level of trust between our countries The worlds two most foremost nuclear powers cannot have this kind of relationship. The two also announced new measures intended to prevent things from getting worse: Moscow and Washington will set up a working group designed to improve their relationship, Lavrov said, and Putin has agreed to restore a bilateral U.S.-Russia safety agreement over Syrian skies, which Moscow announced it had suspended in the wake of the missile strike. Tillerson had serious dialogue in Moscow that can help start dealing with issues. A useful first step, tweeted Dmitri Trenin, director of Moscows Carnegie Center. The shifting terms of the U.S. relationship with Russia have come under particular scrutiny during the first few months of the Trump administration. On the campaign trail, Trump pledged to improve relations with Russia only to see his plans torpedoed by a combination of suspicions over Russian interference in the U.S. election on Trumps behalf, and speedy clashes between the U.S. and Russia on the issue of Syria and the fate of Assad. Syria dominated the agenda on Wednesday. The country was discussed extensively during the meetings, Tillerson said, and during the press conference, added that the U.S. held Russia accountable for dealing with its ally responsibly. Our view is that the reign of the Assad family is coming to an end, Tillerson said, repeating what he had told reporters in Italy a day earlier. This time, however, he added: (Russia) perhaps has the best means of helping Assad recognize this reality We do think its important that Assads departure is done in an orderly way. Lavrov, whose government surprised the West last week when Putins spokesman said support for the Assad regime was not unconditional, said Moscow was not placing its hopes on any individual in Syria, including Assad. But he ruled out toppling the Syrian government, comparing that option to U.S. actions against Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Muammar Gaddafi in Libya; both interventions ended in the grisly public deaths of the former leaders, and in what has widely been considered chaos in their countries. Lavrov, who is scheduled to meet his Iranian and Syrian counterparts this Saturday in Moscow, reiterated the Russian line, saying that the future of Syria must be decided by Syrians themselves, No Syria deals can be made without Iran, a long-time Russia ally and staunch supporter of the Assad regime. There was little mention of Ukraine during Wednesdays press conference, though Tillerson said that U.S. sanctions on Russia imposed over Moscows 2014 annexation of Crimea and its involvement in the war in eastern Ukraine will remain in place. Tillerson also broke with his predecessors tradition of meeting members of Russias civil society; it wasnt clear whether the snub was intended as an overture to Putin, or a genuine lack of interest by the Trump administration. Trump later praised Tillerson for doing a terrific job in Moscow, even though relations between the two countries possibly being at an all-time low. Despite the high stakes and heightened scrutiny, there were some aspects of Wednesdays visit that seemed almost playful. The Russian Foreign Ministry released a video earlier that day voicing its hope for productive talks which featured pictures of a mountain landscape, and was set to the soundtrack of the love song The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face. Four years ago, when he was Exxon Mobils chief executive, Tillerson left Moscow with a prestigious medal pinned to his lapel and a hearty handshake from Putin. This time around, there would be no such honors only promises to work toward better relations, which is likely to prove challenging for a diplomatic novice. As if to underscore the point, at the same time that Tillerson and Lavrov were holding their press conference, Russia vetoed the latest version of a draft resolution at the United Nations to condemn the Syrian government for its role in the attack. Photo credit: ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP/Getty Images Despite the presence of Princess Leia, Queen Amidala, Rey, and Jyn Erso on our screens, it can't be said often enough: the Star Wars franchise isn't just for boys. That point will be driven home this summer by a new initiative called Star Wars: Forces of Destiny. It's a series of toys and cartoons, aimed at a younger demographic, where the women of Star Wars take center stage. SEE ALSO: We could learn a lot about 'The Last Jedi' and new Han Solo movie this weekend Narrated by Maz Kanata (Lupita Nyongo), Forces of Destiny will offer 16 animated shorts, each around three minutes long, which will be available online and on the Disney Channel beginning in July. Daisy Ridley voices Rey, Felicity Jones reprises her Rogue One role as Jyn, while Shelby Young (American Horror Story) steps in to speak for Leia. Also getting a cartoon of their own: Padme Amidala, Ahsoka Tano (Clone Wars) and Sabine (Rebels). Some of those characters will meet each other, and the stories will count as Star Wars canon. The show, animated by a San Francisco company called Ghost Bot, will absolutely pass the Bechdel test, Lucasfilm says. These tales focus on "what it means to be a hero, what it means to be a good friend," says Paul Southern, VP of licensing at Lucasfilm. For example, a short called "Tracker Trouble" takes place during the events of The Force Awakens, and shows Rey defusing a bomb set on the Millennium Falcon by its former owner, Unkar Plutt, saving the lives of Han, Chewie and Finn. Here's another glimpse of Rey in action, voiced by Ridley: Alongside the shorts, Hasbro is launching a new line of 11-inch "adventure figures" with real hair, retailing for $20 apiece. Just don't call them Barbie dolls they're a lot more posable, not to mention realistically proportioned. The women of Star Wars: Jyn, Rey, Leia and Sabine. Image: hasbro Perhaps the oddest part of the whole lineup Hasbro's first full-hair Chewbacca figure, which looks a little more Planet of the Apes than the Wookiee we know and love. Story continues Weirdest walking carpet ever. Image: hasbro Will Forces of Destiny catch on and become a full-fledged animated series? Only the Force knows for sure but it's certainly about time. WATCH: 'Rogue One' reveals some easter eggs, but plenty are still hidden Moscow (AFP) - Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov has launched legal action against opposition leader Alexei Navalny over an accusation of bribery in his report into alleged corruption by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, a court said Thursday. Usmanov has launched action against the Kremlin critic for the "protection of his honour and dignity" at Moscow's Lyublinsky court, the court's press service told TASS state news agency. Navalny, who has announced he intends to stand for president in 2018, in March released a report claiming Medvedev controls a property empire through shadowy not-for-profit organisations. The video has been viewed more than 18 million times on YouTube. Medvedev has denied the claims, which he described as "malarkey." Navalny's supporters last month held the largest unauthorised demonstration in Moscow in years, protesting over the accusations against the prime minister, one of President Vladimir Putin's closest associates. Usmanov was listed as Russia's third richest businessman by Forbes magazine in 2016 with a fortune of $12.5 billion. His interests range from metallurgy to social networking sites Mail.ru and VK and business daily Kommersant. Navalny's report says Usmanov donated a mansion in an elite suburb of Moscow whose value it estimates at $70 million to a foundation it links to Medvedev. The report says: "We know very well what such a gift means: it is a bribe." Usmanov is personally suing Navalny and his Anti-Corruption Foundation which produced the report, according to the website of Moscow city courts. In an interview with Vedomosti independent business daily on Wednesday, Usmanov said he gave the house and grounds to the foundation in exchange for land it owned, which he bought at a "nominal price". He said the house and the land were worth approximately the same -- around $50 million. "This is no bribe!" Usmanov told Vedomosti. Story continues He said he planned to sue Navalny "over the lying" in the report. Navalny, who is a lawyer, responded defiantly on Twitter, saying he would call Medvedev as a witness. He rejected Usmanov's description of the deal, saying the billionaire bought the land from commercial companies. Navalny has been targeted in a number of legal cases he describes as politically motivated. This year he was convicted of fraud in a retrial after the European Court of Human Rights quashed the original verdict. This conviction would bar him from standing for public office. Much of the debate surrounding college these days involves the ability to find a job after graduation. One profession in high demand is teachers -- nearly every state reports teacher shortages to the U.S. Department of Education, according to a 2016 report by the Learning Policy Institute. According to the report, one way to address the teacher shortage is through scholarships for prospective teachers. For those planning to pursue a career in education, several organizations already offer financial help to prospective teachers. [Check out where to find scholarships for educators.] The Zeta National Education Foundation Inc. offers the Isabel M. Herson Scholarship in Education to undergraduate or graduate students pursuing degrees in elementary or secondary education. Applicants must provide proof of enrollment. The award amount varies from $500 to $1,000 and is for one academic year. Applications for this year are closed, but check the site for deadline updates. The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics annually offers the $3,000 Prospective Middle School Mathematics Teacher Course Work Scholarship . The 2017-18 scholarship will be awarded to a current college junior who will graduate by Aug. 31, 2018. Applicants, who must be student members of the council, are required to submit a plan for completing their course work and evidence of past academic success and their commitment to becoming a certified middle school math teacher. The application deadline is May 5. The Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association awards STEM Teacher Graduate S cholarships that range from $2,500 to $5,000. Applicants must be pursuing graduate degrees or credentialing to teach science, technology, engineering or math in grades K-12 in the U.S. They must also be U.S. citizens. The deadline to apply is April 22. [Save money with scholarships for graduate school students.] The American Association of Physics Teachers grants the Barbara Lotze Scholarships for Future Teachers to students who plan to teach high school physics. Winners receive a $2,000 stipend and a student membership in the association. Story continues Applicants must be U.S. citizens and may be high school seniors or undergrads. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis -- those received by Dec. 1 are eligible for consideration at the AAPT executive board's winter meeting. The American Association for Employment Education devotes the Janice Jones Scholarship to helping address the shortage of teachers in key fields, including English as a second language, mathematics, physics, chemistry and all special education categories. The $800 award is open to full-time students enrolled in teacher prep programs at accredited universities that are AAEE members. Check the website for updates on the next application cycle deadline. [Check out careers that offer student loan forgiveness.] The Applegate/Jackson/Parks Future Teacher Scholarship is a $1,000 scholarship awarded each year to students enrolled in undergraduate or graduate education programs who demonstrate academic potential and dedication to the idea of voluntary unions. The award is administered by the National Institute for Labor Relations Research and named after three Michigan teachers the institute says were fired for refusing to pay union dues. Applicants must include a brief essay on Right to Work laws and principles as they apply to teachers. The application period is Oct. 1-Dec. 31. Finally, students should keep in mind that loan forgiveness programs are available for teachers who don't receive enough in scholarship aid to cover their full undergraduate or graduate degree. Be sure to review the Federal Student Aid website for more information on these programs. The ultimate test, of course, is in finding the right scholarship for prospective teachers to reduce the burden that student loans can place on new entrants to the field. The above scholarships can help fill in the blanks on that exam. Arthur Murray, a graduate of the University of North Carolina--Chapel Hill, is managing editor of the GoodCall.com newsroom. The organization provides access to information, data, technology and tools, including a scholarship engine, to help visitors make important decisions. Russell Byers Charter School intends to borrow millions for renovations to its building near 19th and Arch Streets, suggesting that a third Comcast tower, which many have speculated might rise on the block, won't be materializing any time soon. Plans call for spending $4.75 million to convert the basement level into classrooms and to build a new entry structure on its Cherry Street side, among other improvements meant to accommodate the middle-school grades Russell Byers will begin hosting next year, head of school Jesse Bean said in an interview. Much of the land on the block bounded by 19th and 20th Streets, between Arch and Cherry has been acquired by Liberty Property Trust in collaboration with Comcast Corp. The Malvern-based developer previously built Comcast's nearby headquarters tower at 1701 John F. Kennedy Boulevard, across the street from where it is completing work on the 60-story Comcast Technology Center. Though Liberty and Comcast have never commented on their plans for the assembled properties, they have seemed a likely site for additional space to be built for the expanding broadcast and technology giant. But the 18,600-square-foot Byers School parcel one of two mid-block properties not owned by Liberty presumably isn't part of those plans, at least not yet. Negotiations between Liberty and the charter school over the propertys sale "have stalled indefinitely," the school said in a December presentation posted on its website. We're not in a hurry to dispose of or move from our property, Bean told the Inquirer. Medical publisher F.A. David Co. also retains its property, to the immediate west of the Byers School. Libertys regional director, John Gattuso, said that he was aware of the school's expansion plans, and that his company endorses them. The Byers School is proceeding with the renovation of their building because they need to accommodate a larger enrollment in the coming school year, Gattuso said. Its totally independent of any potential plans or timing for the development of the site. Story continues On April 4, the Philadelphia Authority for Industrial Development approved $11.5 million in tax-exempt financing for the school to complete the renovations and to refinance some existing debt, according to minutes from the meeting. In addition to the new classrooms and Cherry Street facade, improvements at the school will include work on an open-air courtyard, renovations to allow natural light into the buildings lower stories, and upgrades to its parking lot, Bean said. We like our location here, he said, citing the surrounding museums and other cultural attractions. We are making accommodations that would allow us to stay here indefinitely. Most Popular on Philly.com The world is full of surprises, and as it turns out, most of them are spiders. Scientists discovered 50 new spider species during a research trip to Australia's Cape York Peninsula, including a new species of peacock spider, which dances as part of an elaborate courting ritual, and an ant-eating spider, which imitates its prey. SEE ALSO: This startup wants to build a nano satellite fleet for the internet of things Robert Raven, a spider expert at the Queensland Museum, said the team did not expect the abundance of life they found in far-north Queensland. One night they put up a white sheet, shone a light and it was simply "pounded" by insects, he recalled. "It was amazing stuff." The two-week trip was part of Bush Blitz, a program aimed at species discovery. New species of ant eating spider, Zodariidae Habronestes. Image: R. Whyte In Raven's view, the abundance of insect life in the area is due to the unique terrain of Quinkan Country. "There are amazing cliffs, gullies and rainforest through the otherwise open woodland," he explained. "It's a very heterogeneous kind of landscape, and it was just more rugged than the areas we'd been before." The team collected insects using traps and nets, and, unusually, by letting a diesel car engine idle. Bugs are attracted to the engine, though Raven is not 100 percent sure why. "It was so vibrant out there," museum scientist Barbara Baehr added. "It was just alive." Baehr, who has described 600 species in her lifetime, said we may still be aware of less than half of Australia's spider species. "We know about 3,500 [spider] species in Australia, but that's just what's described," she estimated. "There's between 9,000 and 15,000 out there." A new species of Gnaphosidae Ceryerda, "swift spider." Image: R. Whyte Raven, for his part, was most struck by a diving tarantula. "I'd never seen a big spider jump straight into water like that. It didn't try and swim across the surface or anything, it just went straight down and under," he said. "It can survive under the water for a few hours." Story continues The trip was undertaken with the assistance of Aboriginal Yalanji rangers in Quinkan Country. "Working with Bush Blitz allows us to become more aware of the issue that need our attention," Western Yalanji Aboriginal Corporation manager Brad Grogan said in a statement. "Hopefully this expedition will help us identify areas of natural values that we can protect for the future." The local community is trying to have the region heritage listed a move Baehr hopes their research will support. "It's so pristine and it's one of the last areas we have here in Australia," she said. WATCH: iPhone 8 rumors include a 'Smart Connector' for AR headset Doubling down on his formal apology following his epic Tuesday gaffe, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told Politico that his comments about the Holocaust were a straight up mistake but said he wont be resigning. I made a mistake by trying to make a comparison that was completely wrong, he told the outlet on Tuesday evening. I dont even know how to explain it. While condemning the Syrian governments chemical weapons attack last week that killed more than 80 civilians, Spicer compared Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to Adolf Hitler, suggesting that even the leader of Nazi Germany didnt sink to using chemical weapons. Asked to further clarify his comments, Spicer told ABC News Cecila Vega, I think when you come to sarin gas, there was no - he was not using the gas on his own people the same way that Assad is doing. Shortly after the Tuesday press briefing, the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect issued a statement calling for Spicer to be fired but the 45-year-old told Politico he would be back in front of the White House press pool this week. Two White House officials and two White House advisers further told Politico that Spicers job did not seem at risk, though President Trump was unhappy with the incident. FROM COINAGE: This Is How Much It Would Cost to Paint the White House (And More Crazy Facts) Defending the difficulty of Spicers position, former White House press secretary for President George W. Bush, Ari Fleischer, told the outlet, Until youve stood at that podium, you have no idea how hard it is day in and day out to never make a mistake. Fleischer added, Sean made a big one today. He handled it properly. He apologized. Now, hes going to take a pounding, and hes going to move forward. This article was originally published on PEOPLE.com Photo credit: Traci Lynn Photography From Redbook Maternity photos - when they're not tongue-in-cheek and humorous - can be an emotional experience for an expecting couple. While there are countless different ways to personalize a shoot (hence all of the many spectacular and very different viral maternity photos), the decision about whether or not to include a spouse or other family members in the photos is something that the parents generally decide among themselves. But when a military dad happens to be deployed during his partner's pregnancy, that choice is usually taken away. In a moving and unique shoot, one photographer came up with a brilliant way to make sure that the expecting father could be a part of his wife's pregnancy experience - from 7,000 miles away. Photo credit: Traci Lynn Photography Traci Fugitt of Traci Lynn Photography, a Mabank, Texas-based photographer, captured stunning images of Nicole Bedwell, who is expecting her first child, in a field of Texas bluebonnets. If it had been left at just that, they would have been a standard (though, of course, beautiful) set of maternity photos. But what sets them apart is the decision made by Bedwell and Fugitt to crop Bedwell's overseas husband Wesley, a navy corpsman, into one of the pictures. Photo credit: Traci Lynn Photography The Bedwells, who are expecting a baby girl named Pyper, hired Fugitt to document their maternity, birth, and newborn photos. The photographer explained that Nicole, having seen examples of maternity photos of spouses faded into the picture, asked to do something like that, allowing her husband to participate (albeit remotely) in the shoot. Instead, Fugitt cropped two photos together to make it appear as though the two were together. In addition to the cropped photo of Wesley kneeling at just the right height where it appears that he's laying his hands on his wife's belly, Fugitt also took photos of Bedwell holding her husband's photo, a military baby-themed onesie, and his dogtag over baby shoes. "It was just something we talked about. I just wanted him in the picture because he wasn't able to be here during the whole pregnancy so she cropped him in," Bedwell told Inside Edition. Story continues Photo credit: Traci Lynn Photography When Bedwell and her family saw the final photos, they were moved beyond words. "I cried, both of our families cried," Bedwell said. "It's been really emotional for me to have my husband gone my whole pregnancy, so the fact that Traci was able to include him in my maternity session was very emotional. We will never be having our first child again. He's my family, so having him included touched my heart. It made me happy." Photo credit: Traci Lynn Photography Though the emotional photos are bittersweet, the story has a happy ending. Bedwell developed hypertension (obviously, that's not the happy part), but thanks to the now high-risk nature of the pregnancy, Wesley was allowed to return home in time for his daughter's birth. Bedwell is set to be induced at some point today, according to Fugitt - and the baby's father will be there to see it. If you weren't crying already seeing the photos, I don't doubt you are now - because I know I am. (h/t PopSugar) Follow Redbook on Facebook. You Might Also Like By Sarah N. Lynch and Svea Herbst-Bayliss WASHINGTON/BOSTON (Reuters) - Bharat R. Ramamurti, a legislative aide for Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, is a contender for one of the vacancies on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, according to people familiar with the matter. Ramamurti is senior counsel to Warren on banking and economic policy and she is staunchly backing him for the SEC job, one of the sources told Reuters. The sources spoke anonymously because deliberations on candidates for the SEC, which is the primary regulator that polices and writes rules for Wall Street, are not public. Ramamurti declined to comment. A source said a decision on the post was not imminent. In prior instances with President Donald Trump's administration, candidates in the running for positions were sometimes dropped after their names became public. Other names that are in the mix include Vermont Law School professor Jennifer Taub, the AFL-CIO's office of investment director Heather Slavkin Corzo and Andy Green, a managing director at the Center for American Progress who previously worked for SEC Democratic Commissioner Kara Stein, the sources told Reuters. Taub and Green declined to comment and Slavkin Corzo could not be immediately reached. A spokesperson for the White House declined to comment, saying he could not discuss personnel matters. Trump must nominate three people to fill out the five-member panel, which currently is down to two commissioners - Acting Chairman Michael Piwowar, a Republican, and Stein. The nomination of Wall Street deal-making attorney Jay Clayton, Trump's choice to lead the SEC, was approved by the Senate Banking Committee earlier this month. Clayton, an independent, is still awaiting confirmation by the full Senate, which is currently away for Easter recess. Trump has not yet formally nominated anyone else for the remaining SEC spots - one Democrat and one Republican. Warren, a progressive Democrat, has been critical of the Trump administration's plans to roll back the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law. She voted against Clayton's nomination, saying his employment as a lawyer at Sullivan & Cromwell representing large banks creates too many conflicts of interest and may prevent him from being a tough regulator. As her counsel on the banking committee, Ramamurti has played a prominent role in shaping Warren's policy agenda. He helped steer her investigative efforts into the Wells Fargo fake accounts scandal and worked on bipartisan efforts to broker a deal on housing reforms for mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. (Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch in Washington and Svea Herbst-Bayliss in Boston; Editing by Chris Reese and Bill Trott) Strasbourg (France) (AFP) - Russia was responsible for "serious failings" in its handling of the 2004 Beslan school siege by Chechen rebels in which over 330 people were killed, many of them children, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled Thursday. Although Russian authorities had information that an attack was being planned on a school in North Ossetia, the court found they failed to do enough to disrupt the plot and had not sufficiently protected the hostages. Survivors and relatives of the victims who brought the case to the Strasbourg-based court hailed the decision, saying they felt their voices had finally been heard. "For us it has been 12 years of searching for the truth, of us striving to be heard, striving to tell the truth about Beslan. They have heard us," Susanna Dudiyeva, whose 13-year-old son Zaur was killed in the attack, told AFP. But the Kremlin reacted furiously to the judgement, saying it was "absolutely unacceptable". The Russian justice ministry immediately announced plans to challenge the ruling in a higher chamber of the ECHR, arguing that a number of the court's conclusions were "not backed up". It has three months to appeal. Militants demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops from the war-torn republic of Chechnya attacked the school on September 1, 2004. The attackers herded 1,100 people including 800 children into a gymnasium and rigged the building with explosives. After three days of fruitless negotiations, explosions in the school prompted Russian security forces to storm the gymnasium. A total of 186 children were among the more than 330 people who lost their lives in one of the deadliest hostage crises in history. - 'Insufficient steps' - Russian officials insist they took the best course of action faced with armed extremists, but many survivors and victims' relatives believe the security services were to blame for the firefight. "The authorities had been in possession of sufficiently specific information of a planned terrorist attack in the area, linked to an educational institution," the court said. Story continues "Nevertheless, not enough had been done to disrupt the terrorists meeting and preparing." The judges found that "insufficient steps had been taken to prevent (the attackers) travelling on the day of the attack; security at the school had not been increased; and neither the school nor the public had been warned of the threat". - 'Lethal force' - The court found that through its actions, the Russian state had violated Article 2 of the European Convention of Human Rights, which guarantees a right to life. There was an additional violation in the use of "lethal force by security forces". "In the absence of proper legal rules, powerful weapons such as tank cannon grenade launchers and flame-throwers had been used on the school," which contributed to the casualties among the hostages, the court said. The judges also said there were "serious shortcomings" in the investigation into the attack, especially that there had been "no proper examination of how the victims had died". The claimants in the case say authorities were primarily seeking to eliminate the attackers, and gave little care to avoiding killing hostages. Their lawyers have particularly criticised the lack of in-depth autopsies on the bodies of 116 victims found burned in the gymnasium. The ECHR ordered Russia to pay a total of three million euros ($3.2 million) in compensation to 409 surviving hostages and relatives of the deceased. "It's good this ruling has been passed -- I think that conclusions will be drawn so that something like this does not happen again," said lawyer Sergei Knyazkin, who represented relatives of victims. He said that awarded compensation was "small", ranging from 5,000 to 20,000 euros ($5,300 to $21,250) per person. The Beslan massacre was one of a string of brutal attacks Russia suffered in the 1990s and 2000s stemming mainly from an insurgency in Chechnya that morphed from a separatist rebellion into an Islamist campaign. There were two separatist wars in Chechnya in the 1990s and 2000s, but violence in the region has largely been suppressed under the iron-fisted rule of strongman leader Ramzan Kadyrov. However, the overwhelmingly Muslim Russian North Caucasus has emerged as one of the major sources of foreign jihadists fighting in Syria and Iraq. Gum drops have never been so soothing now that Icelandic rock band Sigur Ros has its own line of cannabis gummies. The band's earthy, ephemeral tunes will be even more chill after the "Wild Sigurberry" THC-infused gum drops are released next week. SEE ALSO: Patrick Stewart reveals he uses weed like, every single day The group teamed up with cannabis retailer Lord Jones to create the medicated gum drops inspired by the flavors of the group's native Iceland, apparently known for its foraged berries, including wild blackberries, strawberries and blueberries. The Wild Sigurberry treats come in five THC and CBD (cannabidiol, a cannabis extract) dosages, so there's plenty of options. THC will get you high, but CBD not as much. The edibles are a limited-edition offering and come in a fancy blue box with the Sigur Ros crest on the box. You can get a box of nine starting at $40. Because buying weed products isn't allowed in all states, but CBD products are, only a pure CBD version will be available nationwide. In California, select dispensaries will have the THC versions of the new product available for medical marijuana cardholders. If you live in another area where weed is legal, you can just order it online. The candy's launch gets even better with the band and cannabis retailer hosting a "sound bath" in Los Angeles as part of Tuesday's product release. Tickets for the event already sold out, according to the band's website, so don't get too excited. Those lucky attendees will get to sample the gum drops beforehand "to enjoy a fully elevated experience" at the event with music, film, and virtual reality. Looks like the rest of us will have to just set up a DIY sound bath. We'd kick ours off with the dreamy Svefn-g-englar. With Adam Rawnsley Big day. Wednesday was quite a day in the history of U.S. Russia relations, but it remains to be seen if it was a good one. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson made his first highly-anticipated visit to Moscow, where he met with his diplomatic counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, and sat with President Vladimir Putin for almost two hours. But publicly, at least, little appears to have changed. Just after their meetings in Moscow wrapped up, President Donald Trump speaking alongside NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the White House declared relations between the two powers were at an all time low, following comments earlier in the day in which he partially blamed Moscow for the Syrian chemical attack last week that killed over 80 civilians. Speaking during a press conference with Lavrov, Tillerson said there is a low level of trust between the two countries. For his part, Lavrov blasted the United States for not learning from its own history, especially past military campaigns in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan, all conflicts the Kremlin has opposed. Pressure. I really think theres going to be a lot of pressure on Russia to make sure that peace happens, Trump told Fox News Wednesday morning, because frankly, if Russia didnt go in and back this animal, we wouldnt have a problem right now, Trump said, referring to Mr. Putins support for President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. Further complicating the Syria row, Russia on Wednesday vetoed a Western-backed resolution at the United Nations Security Council condemning the chemical attack. The tally of Russian vetoes at the international body over Syria-related resolutions now stands at eight in the six-year-old Syrian civil war. China, in a surprise move, abstained from the vote rather than voting with Russia, in a sign that Moscow is isolated in its support for Damascus. Just say it. The American Ambassador to the U.N., Nikki Haley, who appears to have been given free reign to be the Trump administrations most strident voice on foreign policy issues, Tweeted Wednesday, After todays vote to hold Syria accountable its: A strong day for the US, a weak day for Russia, a new day for China & doomsday for Assad. Story continues Meanwhile in Moscow. On Thursday, Lavrov will sit down with his Syrian counterpart Walid Muallem to walk through strategies to consider the possible joint steps to minimize the negative effects of the U.S. cruise missile attack last week, which Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called a gross violation of international law for international and regional peace and security. Flip flops. On the campaign trail, then-candidate Trump railed against the high cost of Washington remaining in the NATO alliance, labeling the bedrock Western allaicne as obsolete. Now, just a little over 100 days in office, the president has done a complete 180 on the issue. After meeting NATOs Stoltenberg on Wednesday, Trump said hes decided the alliance is no longer obsolete. Trump chalked up his reversal to what he believes is the alliances newfound willingness to take on terrorism, but we should note that over a thousand non-U.S. NATO troops have died in Afghanistan since the U.S. invoked Article 5 after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Watching. As relations with Moscow suck up all the air in the room, major powers in the Asia Pacific region are lurching toward crisis. North Korea appears ready to conduct another test of its nuclear capabilities at any time, and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is warning of his countrys vulnerability to the Norths chemical weapons. Meanwhile, Japan is sending warships to take part in exercises with the USS Carl Vinson strike group which was dispatched to the far western Pacific earlier this week. The planned rendezvous is a further sign of increased cooperation between the US, Japanese and South Korean navies, The Guardian reports. Last month, Aegis ships from the three countries held a joint drill to improve their ability to detect and track North Korean missiles. There are also reports in the Japanese press that the United States told Tokyo it is willing to take military action in North Korea unless China steps in to play a bigger role in ensuring Pyongyang gives up its nuclear program. There appears to be little appetite among Asian allies for any such move, however. Welcome to SitRep. Send any tips, thoughts or national security events to paul.mcleary@foreignpolicy.com or via Twitter: @paulmcleary or @arawnsley. Intercepts. American spies intercepted conversations of Syrian troops discussing the preparation of the chemical weapons attack on Khan Shaykhun, according to a scoop from CNN. Anonymous intelligence sources tell the cable news outlet that intelligence analysts only realized they were in possession of the intercepted communications after the attack had taken place, discovering it as part of an intelligence review ordered in the wake of the incident. U.S. communication intercepts do not confirm Russian complicity in the attack but some sources tell CNN that the absence could be attributable to Russias more sophisticated operational security precautions. I just called to say Russia is signaling it might be open to restarting deconfliction talks with the U.S. for its military operations in Syria following Tillersons visit to Moscow. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said President Putin are willing to put [the deconfliction channel] back into force, provided the U.S. to continue airstrikes against the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front and refrain from further strikes against the Assad regime. Col. John Dorrian, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq and Syria, said that hell stop providing daily updates on the status of deconfliction talks with Russia because its not a productive thing to do. Today in trolling. Foreign journalists in North Korea were expecting something big when North Korea told them to prepare for a big and important event. Given that the North is on the verge of both the anniversary of founder Kim Il Sungs birthday on April 15 and an apparent nuclear weapons test by the North, reporters were wondering what was in store when minders told them to ditch their phones, laptops, and lighters as they were herded onto a bus. The surprise? The unveiling of a new street by Kim Jong Un. As veteran Reuters Korea hand James Pearson noted, the anticlimactic reveal is a tactic the North has deployed before, tweeting that They did the same to journalists in May 2016. Hours of security screening for what turned out to be a pop concert. Frigates. The Navy would like to add a new air defense capability to its frigates and it has established a study group to examine the possibility. Navy Times reports that a Navy Requirement Evaluation Team is studying the possibility of arming frigates with enhanced air defense weapons in order to protect logistics ships supplying other vessels. Stop loss. The Air Force is walking back a suggestion by one of its generals that the service could use a stop-loss order in order to deal with the exodus of military pilots to commercial airlines. In an interview with CQ Roll Call, Air Mobility Command chief Gen. Carlton Everhart said hed told airline executives that if we cant meet the requirements, the chief could drop in a stop-loss an order which extends the active duty service of military personnel. But Air Force Chief of Staff. Gen. David Goldfein told an audience at the Heritage Foundation on Wednesday, I want to make it as clear as I possibly can: I am not considering stop-loss. Air Force Times also checked in with Lt. Gen. Gina Grosso, the Air Forces deputy chief of staff for manpower, personnel and services, who said that the service will instead try to deal with its pilot shortage through monetary and non-monetary tools. Kidnapping. A member of Qatars ruling family was kidnapped in Iraq in 2015 and now one of his family members is paying an American company two million bucks to determine whether the man is still alive and try to enter negotiations with his captors. The AP discovered the payment in Foreign Agent Registration Act paperwork filed by the company receiving the money. The unnamed Qatari man was kidnapped alongside his traveling party while on a falconry hunting trip near the Saudi border by a group suspected to be comprised of Shiite militia. The wire service reports that a recent advertisement on an encrypted darknet website offering 25 million Euros for information on the kidnapped man may be linked to the American firm. Photo Credit TORU YAMANAKA/AFP/Getty Images Sony's other Spider-Man movie is taking a big swing forward. The studio has set Dope and The Get Down star Shameik Moore to voice Miles Morales in their animated Spider-Man project, Mashable has confirmed. Also coming on board is Liev Schreiber (Ray Donovan), who'll voice the as-yet-unnamed villain. SEE ALSO: Spider-Man spinoff 'Venom' coming in 2018, for real this time? First introduced in 2011, Miles Morales is a black Latino teenager who took over the Spider-Man mantle after the death of Peter Parker in the Ultimate timeline. When Marvel Comics ended the Ultimate imprint in 2015, Miles was integrated into the mainstream Marvel universe. Or, the tl;dr version for those who can't be bothered with screwy comic-book continuity: there are two Spider-Men right now, and one of them is Miles Morales. Your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Image: marvel Fans quickly took to Miles Morales, and it wasn't long before readers began clamoring for a Miles Morales Spider-Man movie. Alas, Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios opted to stick with Peter Parker when it came time to reboot the live-action franchise yet again, this time as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But earlier this year, Sony officially confirmed that their animated Spider-Man film would be all about Miles Morales. Bob Perschietti and Peter Ramsey are co-directing the feature from a script by Phil Lord (The Lego Movie). Sony's Spider-Man brand seems healthier right now than it has in years, thanks in a huge part to the studio's deal with Disney to bring the webslinger into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And the studio is wasting no time capitalizing on that recent boost. In addition to this summer's Spider-Man: Homecoming and its unannounced-but-inevitable sequels, Sony is pressing on with films based on Venom and Black Cat and Silver Sable. However, these films won't all exist within the same continuity. Only Spider-Man: Homecoming is part of the official Marvel Cinematic Universe. The Venom and Black Cat / Silver Sable films aren't technically spinoffs, because they're technically unrelated to the latest live-action iteration of Spider-Man. Story continues The animated Spider-Man movie, meanwhile, seems to exist in a completely different timeline altogether. Moore can currently be seen in Netflix's 1970s drama The Get Down. But if you really want to know what he'd be like as Miles Morales, you might want to check out his breakthrough role in Dope, where he played an endearingly geeky high schooler. The animated Spider-Man movie will be in theaters December 21, 2018. WATCH: This 'Spider-Man: Homecoming' DIY homemade trailer looks exactly like the original and we can't even South Koreas top diplomat said Thursday he was confident that the U.S. would consult Seoul before taking any serious action against North Korea, seeking to soothe lawmakers amid heightening tensions on the peninsula. Addressing a parliamentary committee on foreign affairs, the countrys Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se said U.S. officials repeatedly reaffirmed that [they] will closely discuss with South Korea its North Korearelated measures, Yonhap News Agency reports. U.S. President Donald Trump set Seoul on edge late last week when he dispatched an aircraft carrier and naval strike fleet to waters near the peninsula. The move, announced one day after the U.S. rained missiles on a Syrian air base without seeking congressional approval, signaled to foreign leaders that Trump is more disposed to authorizing military action than his predecessor. Pyongyang viewed both the U.S. strike in Syria - carried out in response to a chemical attack blamed on the Syrian government that killed upwards of 80 people - and the naval deployment to Korean waters as direct challenges from Washington. The North Korean government warned of catastrophic responses to any further aggression by the U.S. military. U.S. officials were on alert this week as North Korea prepared to celebrate the 105th anniversary of the birth of the countrys idol and founder Kim Il Sung, an event sometimes observed with extravagant displays of nationalist zeal. Journalists visiting Pyongyang for the occasion were bused to an undisclosed location Thursday morning after being told to prepare for a big and important event, which turned out to be the opening of a new skyscraper-lined street, according to Channel News Asia. Read More: Unilateral Action by Trump on North Korea Will Simply Add to an Already Intractable Problem While Thursdays event didnt live up to the hype, experts speculate that Pyongyangs erratic leader Kim Jong Un could still be planning either a nuclear test - which would be the countrys sixth - or another ballistic-missile test, launches which have become increasingly frequent over the past year. North Korea has made considerable progress in recent years toward its goal of developing a nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching U.S. soil. Story continues Agence France-Presse reports that satellite imagery analyzed by U.S. researchers, published on the site 38 North, shows activity on and around the site of North Koreas previous nuclear tests. The research described the area as primed and ready for another test, with multiple vehicles and personnel appearing to be active on the site as of Wednesday. Trump met with Chinese President Xi Jinping for the first time last week at the U.S. leaders Florida estate, where the threat of a nuclear-armed North Korea was high on the agenda, though no breakthrough was announced regarding further cooperation. Trump had previously warned that he could seek to leverage trade in his talks with the Chinese President to pressure him into helping the U.S. counter the threat. Read More: Style and Substance Are Both Concerns When Chinas Xi Jinping Meets President Trump Xi and Trump spoke again by phone this week, and the Chinese leader urged his counterpart to pursue a peaceful resolution to the crisis. Anxieties have risen in recent weeks, particularly in the wake of the rapid escalation in Syria, that the U.S. could choose to carry out a preemptive strike or otherwise provoke Pyongyang. Trump has warned that, with or without Chinas help, the U.S. stood ready to act unilaterally. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson suggested during a trip to East Asia in March that the Administration was exploring a new range of diplomatic, security and economic measures, and that all options are on the table. This article was originally published on TIME.com By Christine Kim SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's major opposition party will seek a summit with China to resolve an ongoing diplomatic spat over a U.S. anti-missile radar system if its presidential candidate is elected, the party's chief policymaker said in an interview with Reuters. Yun Ho-jung, the chairperson of the Democratic Party's policy committee and a long-time acquaintance of presidential front-runner Moon Jae-in, said the economy faces risks from possible protectionist policies from China and the United States. Moon currently holds the lead in a majority of polls, but he is closely being followed by a candidate from another opposition party, Ahn Cheol-soo. Beijing's anger over a joint plan by the South Korea and the United States to set up the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) missile system has led to the closure of South Korean businesses in China and a sudden drop in Chinese tourists to South Korea. While Yun said placed the blame for current problems with China on the ruling party, he said his party and Moon are prepared to complain to China if unfair action is taken to curb South Korea business there. "This will not be easily solved through working level talks, so after we enter the Blue House we will push for a summit with China," Yun told Reuters in an interview late Wednesday. Yun said Moon would not unilaterally begin cooperation with North Korea to restart stalled talks or joint projects and that all inter-Korean efforts should benefit both Koreas. "North Korea should not be the only one to reap profits," he said. Additionally, the lawmaker added efforts will continue to discuss with the United States how South Korea has been boosting corporate investment there and that South Korea is running a services deficit with the world's largest economy. STRUCTURAL CHALLENGES The Democratic Party would also raise taxes, aggressively increase government spending aggressively and push for a supplementary budget to boost an economy hit by an ageing, declining population if Moon wins office, Yun said. "We have had to draft extra budgets year after year because there were problems at the annual budget planning stage," said Yun. "Part of the blame is on the ruling party because they kept the budget growth rate so low." Moon said on Wednesday he will push for a supplementary budget as soon as he takes office if he is elected president and vowed to create half a million jobs per year on average through investment and government spending. Yun explained the bulk of the new jobs would initially be made in the public sector. He added this year's supplementary budget and expansionary government spending for five to seven years would avoid relying on issuing new treasury bonds but rather on surplus tax revenue. The party will also seek to raise the ratio of South Koreans' tax burden to gross domestic product by 1 to 2 percentage points, Yun said, as South Korea's ratio stands far lower than the 26.1 percent average for countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The ratio stood at 18.9 percent in South Korea last year. The Bank of Korea will be left to act independently, Yun said, but he pointed out the central bank should take on a more active role in shaping the economy. The new government, if Moon is elected, would leave exchange rates to the market, Yun added. South Korea will elect a new president on May 9 after former leader Park Geun-hye was impeached and arrested over an influence-peddling scandal that prompted hundreds of thousands of protesters into the streets for her ouster. (Reporting by Christine Kim; Editing by Sam Holmes) ANKARA, Turkey (AP) A Turkish security official says the suicide bomber accused of the deadly attack on the subway in the Russian city of St. Petersburg was deported from Turkey in 2016. Akbardzhon Dzhalilov, a 22-year-old native of Kyrgyzstan, blew himself up on a busy subway line on April 3, killing himself and 13 other people. Dozens of others were injured. The official told The Associated Press on Thursday that Dzhalilov had entered Turkey in November 2015 on a tourist visa and was deported to Russia in December 2016 for violating Turkey's visa laws. He was fined and barred from re-entering Turkey for 120 days, the official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with government regulations that bar civil servants from speaking to journalists without authorization. It was a big enough deal that George Lucas was here. The media-shy filmmaker, who sold his company Lucasfilm to Disney in 2012, didn't even show up to the premiere of Rogue One, a film he loved. But he made a surprise appearance at Star Wars Celebration in Orlando simply to commemorate the 40th anniversary of his little space movie or so we thought. SEE ALSO: We could learn a lot about 'The Last Jedi' and new Han Solo movie this weekend Lucas' appearance took an unexpected turn when, at the end of his on-stage interview, he stood with his hand-picked successor, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy, and made an emotional speech about the most dear departed member of the Star Wars family, Carrie Fisher. Thus began a cavalcade of emotional moments that had the 2,600-strong capacity crowd in the Galaxy Room at the Orlando Convention Center sobbing harder than the day Fisher left. First Lucas introduced Billie Lourd, Fisher's daughter. Lourd, dressed in Princess Leia white, her voice trembling, gave her first public eulogy for her mom. "My mother taught me two things," Lourd said. The first turned out to be a word-perfect recitation of Leia's complete "help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi" speech. The second: "If life isn't funny, it's just true, and that is unacceptable." Billie Lourd. No words. Image: chris taylor / mashable From there followed a heartfelt Fisher tribute video that immediately went viral online, quickly climbing to the top of YouTube's trending videos. In the video, we see our first glimpse of Fisher on the set of The Last Jedi last year, a few precious frames of her hanging on the arm of director Rian Johnson. Image: lucasfilm But mostly the video was packed full of candid outtakes from the Star Wars films and selections from Fisher's feistiest interviews, set to the tune of David Bowie's "Rebel, Rebel." This was no whitewashing in the tribute, both Lucas and Lourd emphasized Fisher's ability to tell the hard truths and to look unflinchingly at her own dark side. Story continues Then the stage went dark. The crowd thought the show was over ... until the fans in the front started yelling incoherently, and the lights went up on John Williams. The 85-year old maestro had been snuck into the room under cover of darkness, along with the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra. They launched into the gentle, haunting strains of Princess Leia's theme. Well, that got the waterworks started in all directions. Not a dry eye in the house when John Williams played what we should really start calling Carrie's Theme. #SWCO Chris Taylor (@FutureBoy) April 13, 2017 One more surprise remained for fans as they exited: a limited-edition poster commemorating everyone's favorite princess. Only 8,000 were made. This afternoon's tribute won't be the last emotional remembrance of Carrie the rest of the schedule is packed with what is sure to be a Celebration-long outpouring of love for the late actress. Thursday night sees the "Drowning in Moonlight" gala in her honor, and Mark Hamill takes the stage Friday for his own tribute, screen brother to screen sister. If Carrie is watching somewhere, we hope she has a selection of cutting quips to relieve the emotional tension and that she is secretly loving every minute of it. BEIJING (Reuters) - China would step up its protection of North Korea should the isolated state halt its nuclear program, an editorial in a state-backed newspaper said on Thursday, as Beijing tries to ease tensions on the Korean peninsula. Pyongyang's continued nuclear and missile testing program has prompted the United States to send a navy carrier group to near the Korean peninsula in a show of force aimed at deterring more tests. North Korea marks the 105th anniversary of the birth of state founder Kim Il Sung on Saturday, North Korea's biggest national day called "Day of the Sun". Leaders have in the past used the date to carry out weapons tests. China, North Korea's main ally, has called for a peaceful resolution of the Korean tensions. "As soon as the North Korea complies with China's declared advice and suspends nuclear activities... China will actively work to protect the security of a denuclearized North Korean nation and regime," said the editorial in the Global Times, which is published by the People's Daily, the Communist party's official paper. "This is Pyongyang's best option," it added. North Korea has launched several missile tests this year, the latest on April 5 when it fired a ballistic missile into the sea off its east coast. It conducted its fifth nuclear test on Sept. 9, 2016. China's foreign ministry on Wednesday reiterated Beijing's position of calming the situation via a "dual suspension" of North Korea's nuclear tests and the United States' joint military drills with South Korea. The main goal of North Korea's nuclear program is to protect the country's security and to place itself on an even footing with the United States, the Global Times said in the editorial in its Chinese language edition. But North Korea's nuclear ambitions are merely a "utopia", given U.S. military might and United Nations Security Council sanctions. "North Korea is currently just about the world's most isolated country, it is already totally blocked-off," the paper said. "A modern state cannot continue to exist like this." (Reporting by Christian Shepherd; Editing by Tony Munroe and Michael Perry) All week, we'll be running our 2017 summer movie preview. We've already shared our picks for action, comedy, and horror. Today, we're getting nostalgic. Nostalgia sells. Or at least Hollywood thinks it does. Hence the seemingly endless stream of remakes, reboots, retellings, reimaginings, sequels. Not to mention all the adaptations and period pieces designed to make you get all misty-eyed remembering your own misspent youth. SEE ALSO: Summer movie preview: What to watch if you want to feel a chill down your spine Fortunately, we're here today to separate the junk from the jewels. In today's chapter of our summer movie preview, we'll clue you in on the films to watch if you're feeling nostalgic ... for old-school Alien: Alien: Covenant (May 19) Oh, look, a piano-playing android. What could possibly go wrong? Image: 20th century fox Ridley Scott returned to the Alien franchise to great fanfare in 2012, but the ponderous Prometheus ultimately proved divisive, and its connection to Alien was weaker than some fans had hoped. Alien: Covenant, on the other hand, looks far more like classic Alien, from its tough-as-nails heroine (Katherine Waterston) to its white-knuckle combination of action and horror. for the highs and lows of first love: Everything, Everything (May 19) Bring tissues. Lots of tissues. Image: Warner Bros. Everything, Everything is a thoroughly modern romance, set in the present day and based on a book published just two years ago. But if you felt a nostalgic twinge while watching the trailer, you're not alone. The drama promises to recreate all intense drama of teen love: the irresistible pull of the forbidden, the nervousness of that first encounter, the thrill of that first touch and, above all, the heady realization that life will never be this exhilarating, or this devastating, ever again. for young Johnny Depp: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (May 26) Tired of modern-day Johnny Depp? How about some old-school Johnny Depp? Image: disney Johnny Depp is not the icon of cool that he was 14 years ago, when he first introduced the world to Captain Jack Sparrow. Too many bad performances and horrifying allegations have tarnished his reputation since then. But Disney is hoping to recapture some of his early magic with Dead Men Tell No Tales, even recreating a younger Depp via CG wizardry. And if that's not enough to wash off his stink (it's not for us, frankly), they're also tossing in Javier Bardem in full-on supernatural supervillain mode. Now, that we want to see. Story continues for good old-fashioned heroism: Wonder Woman (June 2) Cue guitar riff. Image: Clay Enos/Warner bros. In the gloom and doom of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman felt like a beacon of hope. Here, finally, was a DC superhero who seemed to enjoy being a superhero who marched into battle with no questions asked and even allowed herself a smirk once in a while. This summer, we'll see how the Amazonian princess became humanity's hope when she embarks on her first solo big-screen adventure. for '90s hip-hop: All Eyez on Me (June 16) No, that's not actually Tupac. No, we can't quite believe it either. Image: lionsgate This year marks the 21st anniversary of Tupac Shakur's death, which, yes, means we're very, very old. It also means it's about time someone gave him the Hollywood biopic treatment. Between star Demetrius Shipp Jr.'s uncanny resemblance to the late rapper and the film's use of Shakur's actual music (no Jackie Jormp-Jomp-ing for this team!), All Eyez on Me looks like a must-see for fans of classic hip-hop. In a poignant detail, the film opens on what would've been Shakur's 46th birthday. for the films of John Hughes: Spider-Man: Homecoming (July 7) Holy crap, a movie teenager who looks like an actual teenager! Image: sony/columbia The Marvel Cinematic Universe is heading to high school. Not only does Spider-Man: Homecoming center on a teenage superhero who actually looks like a teenage superhero (no offense, Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield), it's being billed as a John Hughes movie with superpowers. Because as anyone who went through adolescence knows, the only task more terrifying than saving the world is asking that cute classmate to the big dance. Come back every day to find out what to watch if ... Monday: ... you're an action connoisseur Tuesday: ... you're in the mood to laugh Wednesday: ... you want to feel a chill down your spine Thursday: ... you're feeling nostalgic Friday: ... you just want to see the best of the best WATCH: This list of iconic movie quotes goes up to 11 By Timothy Mclaughlin CHICAGO (Reuters) - Police have arrested a suspect in the murder of an Illinois judge shot outside his home on Chicago's South Side this week in what police believe was a targeted robbery, officials said on Wednesday. Joshua Smith, 37, was charged with the murder of Raymond Myles, who was killed early on Monday, police said. A woman was also wounded in the incident, but is expected to recover fully. Chief of Detectives Melissa Staples said police were still interviewing multiple people about the killing and the case remained open. "The motive of this crime is robbery, which we do not believe was random, nor do we believe Smith acted alone," she said at a news conference. Myles, 66, was an associate judge in Cook County Circuit Court's Criminal Division. Cook County includes Chicago, the third-largest U.S. city. The incident started when a woman exited Myles' home and encountered a man with a gun at around 5 a.m., police have said. Words were exchanged and the man then fired, hitting the woman once. Hearing the gunshots, Myles came out of the house and was shot multiple times. Staples credited surveillance cameras in the area with helping police identify the vehicle believed to be the getaway car. Police on Tuesday stopped the vehicle, which had different front and rear license plates. They believe its owner was not connected to the murder, Staples said. Smith was charged with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, aggravated battery with a firearm and armed robbery, the Cook County State's Attorney's Office said. A police spokeswoman had no information about whether Smith had an attorney. Staples said more details could emerge when Smith appears in bond court on Thursday morning. Smith was convicted of armed robbery with a firearm in 2003 and served six years in prison, she said. Shell casings recovered from the scene showed that the weapon was also used in a January robbery in which a person was wounded, Staples said. There was no indication of any relation between that incident and Myles' shooting, she added. Myles was appointed to the Circuit Court of Cook County in 1999, according to a statement from court, and served in the criminal division starting in 2009. (Additional reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington; Editing by Matthew Lewis and Leslie Adler) By John Miller ZURICH (Reuters) - Two executives of Switzerland's biggest political party violated laws against racism with a campaign advertisement suggesting people from Kosovo are violent criminals, the highest Swiss court ruled on Thursday. The case revolved around a newspaper advert headlined "Kosovars slice up Swiss" that was part of a far-right Swiss People's Party (SVP) campaign to limit immigration. The SVP, with nearly a third of seats in parliament, created the advert after a 2011 knife attack involving an aggressor of Kosovar heritage and a Swiss victim. The Federal Supreme Court in Lausanne upheld the convictions of former SVP Secretary General Martin Baltisser and his deputy, Silvia Baer, on charges of racial discrimination, ruling their ad painted people from Kosovo as violent and undermined their human dignity. The pair had appealed against their initial conviction, contending Kosovars did not qualify as a race or ethnicity. The court rejected their argument, saying ethnic Albanians in Kosovo constituted a distinct ethnicity. "Those of Kosovaran heritage are represented as inferior and a hostile climate against them is created ... as well as the idea that people from Kosovar are not welcome," the court said in a statement. "As the lower court rightly concluded, this fulfils fundamental conditions of discrimination and disparagement and the call to hate or discrimination." Switzerland's Kosovar population numbers 111,000, Federal Statistics Office data show. Many left the Balkans amid wars in the 1990s. The SVP is known in Switzerland for anti-immigration campaign advertisements as well as posters that some view as racist, including characterisations of white sheep kicking black sheep out of the country and women clad in black burqas. The SVP raised concern about the decision's impact on freedom of expression. "The law is being abused to silence unwelcome political opponents," the party said in a statement. "Such developments in a country that places high value in freedom of expression are a cause for concern." Baer, who not respond to requests for comment, remains an SVP official. Baltisser, who referred questions to the SVP, works for former government minister Christoph Blocher, the billionaire architect of the party's rise to power since the 1980s. A Bern cantonal court had fined Baltisser and Baer a combined more than 23,000 Swiss francs ($22,900). Though the ad included details of the 2011 attack in the mountain town of Interlaken in smaller print, the court said most people would still interpret its message as a broad statement, not a reference to one incident. "The average reader understands the description of the individual case merely as a shattering example of the headline's general claim that Kosovars are generally more violent and more criminal," the court wrote. ($1 = 1.0044 Swiss francs) (Editing by Alison Williams) Damascus (AFP) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who has denied ordering last week's suspected chemical attack on a rebel-held town, believes his victory is inevitable in the six-year-old war ravaging his country. Bolstered by the steady support of Russia and Iran, Assad has appeared unfazed by Western threats to his regime -- even after one of his airbases was hit last week by a barrage of American cruise missiles. The suffering of Syria's people "is the only thing that could deprive me from sleep from time to time, but not the Western statements and not the threat of the support of the terrorists," he told AFP on Wednesday. Dressed in a sharp suit, he looks more like a senior civil servant or bank manager than the autocratic leader of a country at war. But Assad remains determined to emerge from the Syrian conflict a victor. "It has always been a struggle for life and death. There was no question of stopping this war. It was either win or lose," said Nikolaos van Dam, a former Dutch ambassador and Syria expert. The 51-year-old former ophthalmologist's life changed radically when his brother Bassel, groomed to inherit power from their father, Hafez, was killed in a road accident in 1994. Assad had to leave London, where he had met his wife Asma, a British-Syrian and Sunni Muslim who worked for financial services firm J.P. Morgan. The Assad clan hails from the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, in a country with a large Sunni majority. Assad was tutored in politics by his father, who ruled Syria with an iron fist from 1971 until his death in 2000. "The regime has half a century of experience of how to stay in power. It has the support of the army and security services," van Dam said. Assad has two sons and a daughter, and says he still lives in his Damascus home, drives the children to school and goes to work in his downtown office. - 'Confident of success' - US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters this week that it appeared the "reign" of the Assad family was ending. Story continues "There is no reign of Assad family anyway in Syria," Assad told AFP. "He's dreaming, or let's say, he's hallucinating, so, we don't waste our time with his statement." When Assad came to power in 2000, he relaxed some of the heavy restrictions on freedom that existed under his father. But as the Arab Spring reached Syria in March 2011, he responded with a brutal crackdown, labelling it a "terrorist" conspiracy aimed at breaking the "axis of resistance" against Israel. Since then, 320,000 people have been killed and more than half the population has been forced from their homes -- but Assad has shown no inclination to step down. "Assad advisers maintained from the beginning that they were confident of success so long as the United States Air Force did not bomb Damascus or get involved in the war," said Joshua Landis, director of the Centre for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma. But even after the US strike on the Shayrat air base, Assad remains convinced of his victory. - Solid allies - Experts say this unwavering belief has helped him to maintain a firm grip on power despite the raging conflict. "He was from the same school as his father, and this school has always understood the importance of time, how to turn bad headwinds into good," said Waddah Abed Rabbo, editor-in-chief of Syria's influential Al-Watan daily newspaper. Still, the key to his victory, Abed Rabbo and others said, was the steadfast support Assad was able to count on from his foreign allies. "He never doubted his victory because he knew that his country had for decades nourished a solid strategic alliance with Russia, Iran and others," he said. Those alliances date back decades. The Soviet Union was a major supporter of Assad's father, and Syria's ruling elite has long had close ties with Shiite-dominated Iran. Damascus (AFP) - Syria's President Bashar al-Assad has accused the West of fabricating a suspected chemical weapons attack that prompted an unprecedented US missile strike, in an exclusive interview with AFP in Damascus. The embattled leader, whose country has been ravaged by six years of war, said his firepower had not been affected by the attack ordered by US President Donald Trump, but acknowledged that further strikes were possible. He also insisted his forces had turned over all their chemical weapons stocks in 2013 and would never use the banned arms. His comments came in an interview conducted at his office Wednesday, his first since a suspected chemical weapons attack that killed dozens of civilians in the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhun. "Definitely, a hundred percent for us, it's fabrication," he added of the incident which killed 87 people, including 31 children, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor. "Our impression is that the West, mainly the United States, is hand-in-glove with the terrorists. They fabricated the whole story in order to have a pretext for the attack," said Assad, who has been in power for 17 years. - 'A lot of fake videos' - The suspected attack on Khan Sheikhun, in Syria's northwestern province of Idlib, comes in the seventh year of the country's brutal war, which has killed more than 320,000 people and displaced over half the population. Assad said evidence of the suspected chemical attack came only from "a branch of Al-Qaeda", referring to a former jihadist affiliate among the groups that control Idlib. Images of the aftermath, showing victims convulsing and foaming at the mouth as desperate medics working with meagre resources struggled to treat them, caused global shock waves. But Assad, who appeared relaxed, said it was "not clear whether it happened or not, because how can you verify a video? You have a lot of fake videos now." Story continues "We don't know whether those dead children were killed in Khan Sheikhun. Were they dead at all?" "Who committed the attack if there was an attack?" Syria's government signed the Chemical Weapons Convention and agreed to hand over its stockpiles in 2013, under a Russian-brokered deal. The agreement averted US military action after a sarin attack on a rebel area outside Damascus that killed hundreds of people and was blamed by much of the international community on Assad's government. - 'Not convincing by any means' - Damascus denied responsibility, but agreed to turn over its stockpiles, while continuing to wage war against opposition forces. In recent months, Assad's army has clawed back significant territory, including capturing the one-time rebel bastion of eastern Aleppo. Key to the turnaround has been support from ally Russia, which launched a military intervention to bolster Assad in September 2015. The Syrian president said his forces had no military reason to hit Khan Sheikhun, describing it as having no strategic value and being far from the current battlefront. "This story is not convincing by any means," he said. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has begun an investigation into the Khan Sheikhun incident, but Russia on Wednesday blocked a UN Security Council resolution demanding that Syria cooperate with the probe. And Assad said he could "only allow any investigation when it's impartial, when we make sure that unbiased countries will participate in this delegation in order to make sure that they won't use it for politicised purposes". He insisted several times that his forces had turned over all chemical weapons stockpiles under the 2013 deal. - 'We gave up our arsenal' - "There was no order to make any attack, we don't have any chemical weapons, we gave up our arsenal a few years ago," he said. "Even if we have them, we wouldn't use them, and we have never used our chemical arsenal in our history." The OPCW has blamed Assad's government for at least two attacks in 2014 and 2015 involving the use of chlorine. The Khan Sheikhun incident prompted the first direct US military action against Assad's government since the war began, with 59 cruise missiles hitting the Shayrat airbase three days after the suspected chemical attack. Assad said his Russian allies "didn't warn us... because the Americans called them maybe a few minutes before". And he said more US attacks "could happen anytime, anywhere, not only in Syria". But he insisted his forces were unaffected by the US strike. "Our firepower, our ability to attack the terrorists hasn't been affected by this strike." Trump's administration initially took a hands-off approach to Syria, with Assad raising the possibility the new US president could even be a "natural ally". But he said the American strike showed Washington was "not serious in fighting terrorists". International efforts to find a political solution to the Syrian crisis have proved fruitless, with successive rounds of talks producing no result. The conflict has evolved into a complex multi-front war involving the regime, rebels, jihadists and Kurdish forces, as well as the Russian and Turkish militaries, and a US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group. Damascus (AFP) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said a suspected chemical weapons attack was a "fabrication" to justify a US military strike, as Moscow digs in to defend its ally despite increasing strains with Washington. In an exclusive interview with AFP in Damascus -- his first since the alleged April 4 attack prompted a US air strike on Syrian forces -- Assad said his army had given up all its chemical weapons and that Syrian military firepower was not affected by the US strike. "Definitely, 100 percent for us, it's fabrication," he said in the interview on Wednesday of the alleged chemical weapons attack. "Our impression is that the West, mainly the United States, is hand-in-glove with the terrorists. They fabricated the whole story in order to have a pretext for the attack." Western leaders including US President Donald Trump have accused Assad of being behind last week's attack in the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhun, saying his forces unleashed a chemical weapon during an air strike. The suspected attack killed at least 87 people, including many children, and images of the dead and of suffering victims provoked global outrage. The US State Department said Thursday that it amounted to a "war crime". Spokesman Mark Toner also ridiculed the Syrian president's comments to AFP, describing them as "vintage Assad". "It is an attempt by him to throw up false flags, create confusion," Toner said. Syria has denied any use of chemical weapons and Moscow said the deaths were the result of a conventional strike hitting a rebel arms depot containing "toxic substances". The world's chemical weapons watchdog said Thursday that allegations a chemical attack took place in Khan Sheikhun were "credible". The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said experts had analysed available information "and their preliminary assessment (was) that this was a credible allegation". Story continues - 'Fake videos' - In the interview, Assad insisted it was "not clear" whether an attack on Khan Sheikhun had even happened. "You have a lot of fake videos now," he said. "We don't know whether those dead children were killed in Khan Sheikhun. Were they dead at all?" He insisted his forces had turned over all chemical weapons stockpiles in 2013, under a deal brokered by Russia to avoid threatened US military action. "There was no order to make any attack, we don't have any chemical weapons, we gave up our arsenal a few years ago," Assad said. He said his forces had not been diminished by the US strike. "Our firepower, our ability to attack the terrorists hasn't been affected by this strike." Denouncing a "very barbaric" attack, Trump ordered a strike that saw 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles slam into the airbase in central Syria from where Washington accused Assad's forces of launching the attack. - Trump bats aside criticism - It was the first direct US military action against Assad's forces since Syria's civil war began six years ago, and led to a quick downward spiral in ties between Washington and Moscow. Russia accused the US of breaking international law with the attack against the Syrian regime, a key ally that Moscow has supported with air strikes since 2015. Trump gave such criticism short shrift on Wednesday, saying: "I felt we had to do something about it. I have absolutely no doubt we did the right thing." On Thursday Trump expressed confidence that US-Russia ties would improve. "Things will work out fine between the U.S.A. and Russia," he tweeted. "At the right time everyone will come to their senses & there will be lasting peace!" The polarised positions were evident at the UN Security Council Wednesday, when Russia vetoed a Western-drafted resolution that would have required Syrian cooperation in an investigation into the suspected chemical attack. It was the eighth time Russia has used its veto to block action directed at Damascus. - 'Western hysteria' - US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson received a frosty reception Wednesday on a visit to Moscow, where he said there was "a low level of trust" between the countries. Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Thursday he and Tillerson had discussed the US strike and agreed "such a situation should not be repeated". On Thursday, Moscow hosted Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem for talks with Lavrov, ahead of a three-way meeting Friday with Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif of Iran, another Assad ally. "In the context of Western hysteria, it's essential not to give in to provocations and not to allow anything that might undermine efforts exerted as part of the Astana and Geneva processes," Lavrov said, referring to Syria peace talks. Since starting with mass protests in March 2011, Syria's conflict has spiralled into a devastating civil war that has killed more than 320,000 people and forced millions from their homes. The war led to the emergence of the Islamic State jihadist group, which seized control of large parts of Syria and Iraq in 2014 but has since lost much of its territory. IS is facing twin offensives by Iraqi forces on the city of Mosul and by an Arab-Kurdish alliance on its de facto Syrian capital Raqa, backed by a US-led coalition that launched air strikes against the jihadists in 2014. The coalition said Thursday one its air strikes had accidentally killed 18 members of the Syrian alliance south of Tabqa, a strategically important town on the Euphrates River near Raqa. burs-mm/ah/kjl/ceb Pharmacists across the country have been urged to be on the lookout for a 50-year-old former teacher charged with kidnapping a 15-year-old student, because the mans blood pressure medication is running out, authorities said. Tad Cummins allegedly abducted Elizabeth Thomas on March 13 in Tennessee. The last public sighting of the pair was two days later inside an Oklahoma City Walmart, where surveillance cameras captured images of the two shopping. Read: Teacher on the Run With 15-Year-Old Student May Be Posing as Missionary in Mexico: D.A. Despite a national hunt, authorities have not been able to locate the fired instructor and the high school student. He is due for a refill of prescription pills that regulate his high blood pressure, according to Maury County District Attorney Brent Cooper. Cummins, a married father and grandfather, left a note for his wife, Jill, the morning he vanished, Cooper said. The prosecutor declined to reveal the letters contents, but called it a diversionary tactic designed to buy time. Jill Cummins has filed for divorce since her husband and the girl went missing. He has been charged with aggravated kidnapping and sexual contact with a minor. He is believed to be armed, authorities said. The teen also needs medication for severe allergies and left behind her EpiPens and antihistamine pills, her family has said. Read: Girl, 15, Allegedly Kidnapped by Teacher Shared Instagram Post: 'Every Beauty Needs Her Beast' Cummins had been suspended in February from his teaching duties after the pair was discovered in his classroom. The school district had ordered him to have no one-on-one contact with the girl after a classmate reported the two had been seen kissing on school property in January. Both denied having any inappropriate contact with the other. One day after their disappearance, he was fired by school authorities. Cummins "may have been abusing his role as a teacher to groom [the student]... in an effort to lure and potentially sexually exploit her, an official with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said. Story continues Watch: Elizabeth Smart's Dad Believes Tad Cummins Is Brainwashing 15-Year-Old Student Related Articles: Cloud computing giant Salesforce has achieved two big feats: net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in its direct operations, and a "carbon-neutral cloud" for all its customers. The San Francisco firm on Thursday said it reached the environmental milestones by investing in wind power systems, designing energy-efficient data centers and buildings, and by purchasing credits from clean energy projects to offset its remaining fossil fuel use. "We're seeing the urgency to act on climate change now more than ever," said Patrick Flynn, Salesforce's senior director of sustainability. SEE ALSO: Google's data centers, offices will use 100% renewable energy in 2017 Salesforce is part of a larger movement by global tech companies to confront their sector's growing carbon footprint. After all, storing data in the cloud and streaming millions of movie and music files still has a major environmental impact. Data centers brimming with servers consume enormous amounts of energy, as do the offices where software developers, engineers, and coders work. If tech giants get that electricity from coal or natural gas, instead of renewables, the sector's emissions will balloon. Image: salesforce To that end, Google has said it will power 100 percent of its data centers and offices with wind and solar power starting this year. Apple is investing in clean energy not only at its own buildings but also its manufacturing sites, a move that helped it earn the top score on Greenpeace's 2017 "Clicking Clean" report card. In that report, Salesforce earned a "B," mainly because the rapidly growing company has expanded into areas that largely rely on coal-fired electricity. Emissions from Salesforce's data centers more than doubled in a year's time, from 52,000 metric tons of CO2 equivalent in fiscal year 2015 to about 110,000 metric tons in fiscal year 2016, the company reported. Flynn said that's precisely why Salesforce has accelerated its clean energy efforts. Story continues The company last year signed two 12-year agreements to purchase power from wind farms in Texas and West Virginia. Both projects are expected to generate a combined 225,000 megawatt-hours of electricity each year slightly less than the 265,000 megawatt-hours of electricity Salesforce directly consumed during the last fiscal year. The Salesforce Tower, center, is seen under construction in San Francisco, Sept. 22, 2016. Image: Eric Risberg/AP/REX/Shutterstock Salesforce is also supporting two carbon offset projects, which are independently verified and regularly audited to ensure they actually translate into avoided greenhouse gas emissions. The first project helps families in Honduras replace wood-burning cookstoves with more efficient alternatives to reduce harmful indoor air pollution and carbon emissions. A project in India will help put solar water heaters atop houses, buildings, and universities to displace the use of fossil fuels. Salesforce first committed to achieving net-zero emissions in 2015 as part of a "Net Zero by 2050" initiative led by the B Team, a group of global business leaders. To reach that goal, Salesforce purchased enough clean electricity credits to cover the emissions from its offices and data centers, plus the power plants that keep its servers running. Salesforce said it would also create a carbon-neutral cloud by offsetting emissions further down the supply chain, such as emissions related to installing servers in data centers. Leah Seligmann, director of the B Team's net zero initiative, congratulated Salesforce on its milestones. "Salesforce's leadership will enable their customers to expand their networks emissions-free and inspire other companies around the world," she said in a statement. WATCH: This blooming solar system harvests energy from the sun like a flower One of three teens accused in the case of a Delaware girl who died following a high school bathroom brawl was found delinquent of criminally negligent homicide Thursday. A judge reached the verdict in the bench trial over the April 2016 death of 16-year-old Amy Joyner-Francis. Read: Girl, 16, Killed in High School Bathroom Assault: 'She Went In There to Talk Things Out' The sophomore at Howard High School of Technology in Wilmington died from a cardiac incident that she was vulnerable to because of a pre-existing heart condition, but the cardiac incident would not have occurred had she not been assaulted," the state Department of Justice said. Only one of the three1 7-year-olds was accused of criminally negligent homicide. The other two girls stood accused as juveniles of conspiracy charges. The judge found a second girl delinquent of third-degree criminal conspiracy. A third teen was found not delinquent of criminal conspiracy. All three were charged as juveniles. According to reports, the victim went into one of the high school bathrooms to settle an issue with another group of girls when the confrontation became violent and Joyner-Francis reportedly banged her head on a sink. The tenth grader was airlifted in critical condition to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead, officials said. Defense attorneys argued that Joyner-Francis was a willing participant in the fight. Prosecutors said she wasn't looking to fight and was unexpectedly attacked while trying to peacefully settle a misunderstanding. The fight was filmed and allegedly shows one girl repeatedly punching Joyner-Francis in the head and torso, according to court documents. An autopsy later revealed Joyner-Francis had a hole in the atrium of her heart and abnormally narrow arteries in her lungs. While the medical examiner concluded the victim would "probably" still be alive had she not been attacked. However, a defense witness testified that was not possible to conclude. Story continues Read: 3 Teen Girls Charged in Fatal Beating of Classmate Assaulted in School Bathroom The judge said whether Joyner-Francis would still be alive today wasn't relevant to the case. The two girls will be sentenced on May 23. Watch: Jewelry Store Employee Assaulted During Vicious Robbery Caught on Video Related Articles: Washington (AFP) - North Korea is ready to launch a nuclear test at its Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site, the 38 North monitoring group reported on Wednesday. The 38 North analysis group described the test site as "primed and ready." "Commercial satellite imagery of North Koreas Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site from April 12 shows continued activity around the North Portal, new activity in the Main Administrative Area, and a few personnel around the sites Command Center," the North Korea-related analysis website said. A barrage of recent North Korean missile tests has stoked US fears that Pyongyang may soon develop an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the US mainland. There is speculation that the country could be preparing a missile launch, or even another nuclear test -- this would be its sixth -- to mark the 105th birthday anniversary of its founder Kim Il-Sung on Saturday. The Voice of America said Wednesday night, quoting US government and other sources, that North Korea "has apparently placed a nuclear device in a tunnel and it could be detonated Saturday AM Korea time." President Donald Trump's administration has been forceful in its warnings to Pyongyang that leave military options "on the table," as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has said. The threat carries extra weight after the US strike on a Syrian air base last week. "We are sending an armada. Very powerful," Trump said Wednesday. "We have submarines. Very powerful. Far more powerful than the aircraft carrier." He was referring to a strike group headed by the USS Carl Vinson supercarrier that has been re-routed to the Korean peninsula in a show of force against Kim. The strike group, which deployed with about 6,500 sailors, is still some way south, conducting exercises with the Australian navy. The US Navy already has a massive regional presence, including another carrier strike group headquartered at Yokosuka in Japan. By Kanupriya Kapoor and Fransiska Nangoy JAKARTA (Reuters) - Washington has billed Vice President Mike Pence's visit to Indonesia next week as a booster for the Strategic Partnership between the world's second- and third-largest democracies, but a raft of bilateral tensions could sap the goodwill from his trip. Pence's counterpart in the world's most populous Muslim country has voiced worries about U.S. President Donald Trump's immigration policy, which critics say is biased against Muslims, and about his "America First" mantra on trade and investment. "We in Indonesia never change. The change is there. That's why we're asking them now, 'what is your policy now on the economy, on democracy, now that Trump is in power?'," Vice President Jusuf Kalla told Reuters on March 31. "What does it mean, 'America first'? I can say, too, 'Indonesia first' if you say 'America first'." Indonesia is one of 16 countries against which the United States runs a trade deficit that will be investigated by the Trump administration for possible trade abuses. Trump's combative approach will not sit easily with Indonesia, where economic nationalism and protectionist tendencies have flourished since a slump in commodity prices in recent years slammed the brakes on economic growth. "Unfortunately I do see a hardening of attitudes on our side," said a senior Indonesian government official, who declined to be named. "And it's of particular concern because we're on that list of 16 countries ... that are going to be investigated." The official said a tougher stand by Indonesian authorities had also contributed to a series of disputes with U.S. companies, including Alphabet Inc's Google, miner Freeport-McMoRan Inc and financial services giant JP Morgan Chase & Co. A SERIES OF FACE-OFFS Indonesia has dueled with Google over back taxes and fines running into hundreds of millions of dollars, and with Freeport in a contract row that has crippled operations at the world's second-largest copper mine, Grasberg. It also dropped JP Morgan as a primary bond dealer after the bank's research analysts issued a negative report on the country in November. "It's a very unfortunate series of issues which all happen to be American," said the official, who expects them to come up in private during Pence's visit. Indonesia is the third stop on an April 15-25 tour that includes South Korea, Japan and Australia. Google declined to comment for this report, and JPMorgan did not respond to a request for comment. Freeport Indonesia spokesman Riza Pratama said: "This visit is happening entirely independent of our current negotiations with the government of Indonesia." However, billionaire investor Carl Icahn, Freeport's third-biggest shareholder and now a special adviser to Trump, has described Jakarta's tactics over the mining contract as "disingenuous and insulting", according to the New York Times. Another potential irritant is biodiesel. The U.S. National Biodiesel Board (NBB), a producer group, has petitioned the U.S. government to impose anti-dumping duties on biodiesel from Indonesia and Argentina, claiming they have flooded the U.S. market. "This is one of the issues that we have asked the trade ministry to bring to the meeting (with Pence)," Paulus Tjakrawan, a director at the Indonesia Biofuel Producers Association, told Reuters. "Our hope is for the government to be firm ... Otherwise we will be taken advantage of," he said. "Not to act like thugs but, for example, if they put barriers to our exports, why not stop importing some of their goods?" Despite the strains, the government official said Indonesia would be careful to start its relationship with the Trump administration on the right foot. Indonesian President Joko Widodo's approach to foreign policy has been led more by economic interests than geopolitical considerations: he has pursued increased trade and investment from China but keeps a diplomatic distance from Beijing and established a strategic partnership with Washington under former President Barack Obama. U.S. ambassador to Indonesia, Joseph R. Donovan Jr, said in a statement last week that Pence's visit reflected a continued commitment to that partnership, would deepen economic engagement and boost regional security cooperation. "The U.S. embassy here certainly is going to great lengths to make the visit a success," said the Indonesian official. "My impression is he's (Pence) not going to ruffle feathers in public, he's not going to cause a ruckus." (Additional reporting by Eveline Danubrata and Fergus Jensen; Editing by Lincoln Feast) Ile-Ife (Nigeria) (AFP) - For his whole life, Hausa trader Bashiru Tanko has lived peacefully alongside the Yoruba people of Ile-Ife in southwest Nigeria. Originally from the northern city of Kano, Tanko's father settled in the Sabo area of the city, where he built a prosperous family business. "I was born and bred in this town. Even though my parents came from Kano, I have not known any other place I can call home," 41-year-old Tanko told AFP. "We have always settled our differences. We have lived together without acrimony for ages. We marry ourselves and do business together." But last month an altercation between a Yoruba woman and a Hausa trader triggered a bloody conflict that left 46 people dead, around 100 injured and houses razed to the ground, according to the police. "I was shocked that what began as a minor dispute was allowed to snowball into an unprecedented carnage," Tanko said, shaking his head in disbelief. Locals say that upwards of 200 people -- the majority Hausas -- lost their lives in the violence. "An accurate number is difficult to get, because most people don't go to hospital when they are injured, or they bury the deceased themselves," said Gbemisola Animasawun, a researcher at the Center for Peace and Strategic Studies in Ile-Ife. "But I can confirm that most killed were Hausas. They were killed inside their homes," Animasawun said. "It's still very tense out there." Tanko's family house was not spared in the mayhem. As he walked through the streets of ruined buildings, Tanko stopped at a roofless bungalow blackened by smoke and littered with damaged household items. "That heap of rubble used to be my father's house," Tanko said. "I, my wife and our four children, now squat with a relation whose house was not touched," he said. - 'Unprecedented carnage' - Hadi Ali, a local 48-year-old tailor, said criminals capitalised on the violence, seizing the opportunity to loot houses and shops. Story continues "What happened was a small matter between a Yoruba woman and a Hausa trader which was immediately settled," Ali said. "The following morning, the woman's husband, who happened to be a leader in the garage (bus station) went and mobilised his boys and they started killing our people, looting our properties and burning our homes," he said. "We are still bombarded with reports of missing people. Those killed were our people," he said. Ali said Hausas have fled the town, but would be happy to return if the crisis is resolved. "Our people are leaving because they no longer have anywhere to stay. They are afraid of being attacked again," he said. Ile-Ife's leaders claim that there is no cause for alarm, with prominent politician Bashiru Awotorebo declaring that Yorubas are ready for peace. Meanwhile, traditional ruler Ooni Adeyeye Ogunwusi has set up a panel to reconcile the two sides and "prevent a recurrence of this unfortunate incident," said Ooni's deputy Idowu Adediwura. But more needs to be done to assuage fears that the Hausa community remains a threat to Ile-Ife, and in the aftermath of the violence, there has been divisive rhetoric from political leaders. Olajire Awowoyin of Ife Progressive Forum recently blamed an influx of foreigners from Chad and Niger for the unrest. He also accused the police of being "one-sided and unfair" after arresting only Yoruba suspects. Yinka Odumakin of the Afenifere Yoruba socio-cultural group too has campaigned in favour of the "unconditional release of the suspects to avoid igniting ethnic tensions." - 'Unity in diversity' - Yet experts say that the root cause of the issue has less to do with ethnicity than with Nigeria's economic recession. "It's the trend all over the world that economic problems lead to social and ethnic tensions," said University of Lagos history lecturer Dapo Thomas. "In Ile-Ife I can see a situation where the natives perceive the Hausa settlers as appropriating the existing opportunities in terms of jobs and businesses," he said. "My advice is that every tribe should recognise its faultlines and accept to live together in unity. There should be unity in our diversity." Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, is home to some 250 ethnic nationalities divided between a mostly Muslim north and Christian south. Washington (AFP) - Tesla founder Elon Musk said Thursday the electric car startup is set to launch its first semi-truck in September, moving for the first time into that segment. Musk made the announcement in a tweet, offering few details about the plan, although he has spoken in the past about moving into the truck segment. "Tesla Semi truck unveil set for September. Team has done an amazing job. Seriously next level," he wrote on Twitter. The news comes with Tesla stock on an uptrend and the California-based group jockeying for position as the most valuable automotive maker with General Motors, even though Tesla produces far fewer vehicles. Tesla's rise reflects a belief in the market that it embodies the future of the industry and has a firmer grip than traditional players on technologies that will inject autonomous features into driving. Tesla last year sold 84,000 cars, generating $7 billion in revenue. Tesla, which has overtaken Ford in market capitalization, is on track to begin production in July of the Model 3, which is aimed at the middle market, making the electric car accessible to a broader swath of consumers. Last year, Musk announced that Tesla plans to build a new pickup truck, an urban bus, and launch a sharing system of self-driving cars. On Thursday, Musk said in response to a Twitter question that the pickup truck would be unveiled "in 18 to 24 months" and that the new roadster in the works would be a convertible. The projects are part of what the billionaire entrepreneur called a "secret" second master plan for the US electric car manufacturer. "In addition to consumer vehicles, there are two other types of electric vehicle needed: heavy-duty trucks and high passenger-density urban transport," Musk wrote last July. Asia contains the worlds two most populous nations, the country with the largest Muslim population, the two largest economies after America, and the next superpower and peer competitor to the United States. But when U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson visited the continent recently, small, impoverished North Korea nearly monopolized his attention. Why is the United States, which dominates the globe militarily, politically, and economically, fixated on this poor, isolated, and distant nation? Because America has gotten entangled where it does not belong. Washington has been deeply involved in the Korean Peninsula since the end of World War II. Subsequently, the Cold War gave a zero-sum quality to international relations, with Washingtons loss being the Soviet Unions gain. Having invested some 37,000 lives to save South Korea during the Korean War, Americas credibility was also at stake. And with the loss of China to communism fresh on Americans minds, nobody was willing to see another Asian nation go red. But that world disappeared long ago. The Korean Peninsula has lost its geopolitical significance, South Korea its helplessness, and Americas Korea commitment its purpose. While there is much to criticize in the approach of Donald Trumps administration to the rest of the world, the president correctly sees the need for a foreign policy that more effectively protects Americas interests. A good place to start shifting course is the region home to the worlds newest and least responsible nuclear power. The Koreas are no longer a proxy battleground between superpowers. There was a time when U.S. withdrawal from a confrontation with a Soviet ally in Asia would have, analysts believed, signaled weakness a continent away in Europe. But the Soviets are long gone and the cause for American commitment with them. An inter-Korean war would be tragic and the body count enormous, but absent American involvement the fighting would largely be confined to the peninsula. The continued presence of U.S. forces, by contrast, virtually guarantees the spread of conflict. Story continues South Koreas defense no longer requires Washingtons presence. The Souths economy began racing past its northern antagonist during the 1960s. Democracy arrived in the late 1980s. By the 1990s, when mass starvation stalked Pyongyang as Seouls economy boomed, the gap between the two Koreas was already huge and growing. The Souths military potential is correspondingly great though as yet unrealized in part because dependence on the U.S. presence has affected strategic choices. Yet Americas military presence has remained sacrosanct. Jimmy Carters plan to bring home U.S. troops was opposed even by his own appointees. Ronald Reagan pushed a more muscular confrontation with the Soviet Union and other communist states. With the end of the Cold War, his successors expanded alliance commitments, particularly in Europe, but also in Asia. Today, 28,500 troops remain in South Korea, backed up by U.S. forces in Okinawa and other Asian-Pacific bases, and highlighted by periodic decisions to overfly the North with bombers or send aircraft carriers to nearby waters whenever Washington wants to demonstrate resolve to Pyongyang. So why is America still there? One argument, advanced by analyst Robert E. McCoy, is moral, since it was American ignorance that facilitated the division of the Korean Peninsula in the concluding days of World War II. Some Koreans malign America for this division. But this is the wisdom of hindsight; in the chaotic aftermath of global conflict, no U.S. official wanted to push the Soviets over a faraway peninsula. The alternative was pure inaction, which would have resulted in South Koreans joining their northern neighbors in the Kim dynastys new Dark Age. Perhaps inadvertently, Washington did a very good deed. For that it deserves praise, not criticism and claims that it must forever police the peninsula. More practical is the contention of analysts such as the Heritage Foundations Bruce Klingner that U.S. backing is necessary to defend the South. Yet, in contrast to 1950, there is no reason the South cannot protect itself if properly motivated to do so by the departure of U.S. conventional forces. With a bigger economy, larger population, and significant technological edge, as well as greater international support, Seoul could construct armed forces capable of deterring and defeating the North. Doing so would be expensive and take serious effort, but so what? The South Korean governments most important duty is to protect its people. Taking on that responsibility also would force Seoul to treat Pyongyang more consistently. The Sunshine Policy begun under former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung resulted in the transfer of some $10 billion in cash and assistance to the North, even as the latter was developing missiles and nuclear weapons. That approach was viable only because Washington provided a military backstop (and if the new South Korean president, to be elected in May, revives the Sunshine Policy, as some have suggested, theres no telling if the Trump administration would be so forgiving). The South needs to bear both the costs and benefits of whatever approach it takes. But even if South Korea couldnt defend itself, the argument would still fall short. American soldiers shouldnt be treated as defenders of the earth, deployed here, there, and everywhere. The United States should go to war only when its most important interests are at stake. South Koreas prosperity is not one of those vital interests, at least in security terms. A renewed conflict confined to the two Koreas would be horrific, but the consequences for the United States would be primarily humanitarian and economic, not security. The cost would be high but fall primarily on the region. In contrast, direct U.S. involvement in another Korean War would be much more expensive than the Afghan and Iraqi conflicts, which have cost America thousands of lives and trillions of dollars. Of course, the Norths possession of what we assume to be a growing and at some point deliverable nuclear arsenal skews the peninsulas balance of power. However, this doesnt create a need for a conventional American military presence on the peninsula. Washington could still guarantee massive retaliation against any North Korean use of nuclear weapons, providing a deterrent against the Norths threats. But it is worth contemplating whether it would be better to allow South Korea to construct its own deterrent. In the late 1970s, South Korean President Park Chung-hee worried about Washingtons reliability and began work on a Korean bomb only to stop under U.S. pressure. Since then, support for reviving such work has periodically surfaced in South Korea. Encouraging such efforts might actually be in the best interests of the United States, even if America has to maintain its nuclear umbrella while the Korean bomb is developed. Yes, encouraging nuclear proliferation is a risky path. But the United States would gain from staying out of Northeast Asias nuclear quarrels. China, fearful that Japan would join the nuclear parade, might take tougher action against Pyongyang in an attempt to forestall Seouls efforts. The South could feel confident in its own defense, rather than remaining reliant upon U.S. willingness to act. A potpourri of broader claims is also made for maintaining U.S. forces. Americas presence supposedly constrains China, promotes regional stability, and deters an arms race. Lets consider those claims in order. What sort of constraint is allegedly being posed to China? If the idea is to coerce it into assuming responsibility for North Korea in the event of its collapse, Beijing has shown no interest in attempting to swallow a Korean population likely to prove indigestible. And if the calculation is rather that Washington can persuade South Korea to pressure China on non-Korean matters, its easy to predict the unfriendly response Seouls Blue House would give if invited by the White House to join it in warring against China to, say, save an independent Taiwan, counter Chinese moves in the South China Sea or, horror of horrors, defend Japan. Indeed, absent U.S. protection, South Korea and Japan might feel greater pressure to finally settle historical disputes so often misused by their nationalist politicians. As for the idea that the U.S. presence deters a regional arms race, building weapons so others dont have to is not the sort of charity America should engage in. Alliances can deter. But, as dramatically demonstrated by World War I, they also can act as transmission belts of war. Moreover, small nations often act irresponsibly such as underinvesting in defense when protected by big powers. The U.S. security presence in South Korea is an expensive and dangerous commitment that America can no longer afford. Nor has it ever brought the United States much popularity in the country, where U.S. soldiers are a constant irritant to nationalists. The South is no longer a poor nation in need of protection from the specter of global communism but one more than capable of standing on its own two feet. Photo credit: JUNG YEON-JE/AFP/Getty Images Paris (AFP) - The more toddlers play with touchscreen devices the less they sleep, according to a study released Thursday that suggests the findings could be cause for concern. For every additional hour using a touchscreen phone or tablet during the day, children aged six months to three years slept nearly 16 minutes less in each 24 hour period, researchers reported in the journal Scientific Reports. But the study could not determine if the extra screen time was responsible for tiny tots sleeping less, or if the loss of shuteye had any adverse health effects. One expert not involved in the research said the results "should be interpreted with extreme caution." Sleep is critical for cognitive development, especially during the first few years of life, when the brain and sleep patterns evolve in tandem. Earlier research has shown that television watching and video game use are linked to sleep problems in children. But the burgeoning use of touchscreens by an even younger cohort remained unexplored. In 2014, more than 70 percent of families in Britain, where the study was conducted, owned a touchscreen device. For the study, parents of 715 infants and toddlers were asked to report their child's daytime and night-time sleep, how quickly their children fell into slumber, and how often they woke during the night. The time children spent on touchscreen devices was also tracked. Three-quarters of toddlers monitored used a touchscreen tablet or phone on a daily basis. For children aged two or three, that percentage climbed to 92. On average, the devices were used 25 minutes per day. Not only did more screen time correlate with less sleep, it was also associated with a longer transition into slumber. The quality of sleep, however, did not appear to change. Several experts commenting on the findings challenged the study's methodology and conclusions. "There could be many possible explanations" for the link between screen time and less sleep, said Kevin McConway, an emeritus professor of statistics at The Open University in Britain. Story continues "It could be the other way round -- maybe the parents of toddlers who already sleep less are more likely to let their children use touchscreens," he said. It was also pointed out that the average amount of lost sleep every day -- about six minutes -- may not be significant at an age when children sleep on average 12 hours out of very 24. Others underlined the importance of following up. "This is a timely piece of research given the already controversial topic of screen use in childhood and adolescence," said Anna Joyce, an expert in cognitive development psychology at Coventry University in England. Other research has shown that scrolling touchscreens helps develop find motor skills in very young children. North Korea's vice foreign minister says it will conduct its next nuclear test whenever its supreme headquarters sees fit. Vice Minister Han Song Ryol made the comments in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press in Pyongyang on Friday. He also said the situation on the Korean Peninsula was in a "vicious cycle" as tensions with the U.S. and its allies deepen. Outside experts say the North could conduct its sixth nuclear test at virtually anytime. Meanwhile, the U.S. has sent an aircraft carrier to the region and is conducting its biggest ever joint military exercises with South Korea. Han told AP that Pyongyang won't "keep its arms crossed" in the face of a U.S. KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) Handcuffed and facing the judge, two young women accused of poisoning Kim Jong Nam appeared in court Thursday as their lawyers said Malaysian police still have not handed over security camera footage and documents crucial to the defense. Siti Aisyah, from Indonesia, and Doan Thi Huong of Vietnam are the only suspects in custody in the Feb. 13 killing of Kim, the estranged half brother of North Korea's ruler. Four North Korean suspects fled the country the day of the murder, police say. "The accused person should not be denied her fundamental right to a fair trial," said Aisyah's attorney Gooi Soon Seng. PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) North Korea's vice foreign minister on Friday blamed President Donald Trump for building up a "vicious cycle" of tensions on the Korean Peninsula, saying that his "aggressive" tweets were "making trouble." In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press in Pyongyang, Vice Minister Han Song Ryol also said Pyongyang won't "keep its arms crossed" in the face of a pre-emptive strike by the U.S. Tensions are deepening as the U.S. has sent an aircraft carrier to waters off the peninsula and is conducting its biggest-ever joint military exercises with South Korea. Pyongyang, meanwhile, recently launched a ballistic missile and some experts say it could conduct another nuclear test at virtually anytime. Story continues BEIJING (AP) China's foreign minister said Thursday that the conflict in Syria needs to be addressed through a political settlement after Beijing abstained from a U.N. resolution condemning the reported use of chemical weapons by Syria's government. The resolution brought by Britain, France and the United States was vetoed by Russia on Wednesday. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said a political settlement is the "only reliable and right way" to handle Syria. He called on the U.S. and Russia to improve communication to avoid further confrontation after Russia sharply criticized last week's U.S. bombing of a Syrian air base. Foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang told reporters Thursday that China condemns the use of chemical weapons but revisions were needed to the U.N. DOLJEVAC, Serbia (AP) Fatima Bakhshi stays close to her mother and two sons, afraid she might lose them as they trudge through the cold Balkan darkness. The smuggler they've paid to escort them safely into Western Europe orders them to squeeze into a car with more than a dozen other migrants. Bakhshi, the boys in her lap, is crammed so tightly in the back that she can barely breathe. The driver swerves and she yells at him to stop. Other migrants snap at her to keep quiet and she dozes off. All she wants is a new life with relatives in Ireland, away from a brutish husband and a controlling father back in Afghanistan. BANGKOK (AP) Efforts by authorities in military-ruled Thailand to impose order on the chaotic capital city have a fresh target: cheap and tasty pad thai. The latest crackdown by Bangkok city officials is going after the vendors whose carts sell everything from Thailand's signature noodles to spicy tom yum goong soup have become institutions on the capital's hot and humid sidewalks. The stalls with their metal folding tables and rickety plastic stools serve as a gastronomic go-to for budget-conscious locals and adventurous tourists alike. "Street food is a big part of daily life," said Nont Nontiskul, 29, a stockbroker who has lived in the city's trendy Thonglor area for more than a decade. WASHINGTON (AP) U.S. forces in Afghanistan on Thursday struck an Islamic State tunnel complex in eastern Afghanistan with "the mother of all bombs," the largest non-nuclear weapon ever used in combat by the U.S. military, Pentagon officials said. The bomb, known officially as a GBU-43B, or massive ordnance air blast weapon, unleashes 11 tons of explosives. When it was developed in the early 2000s, the Pentagon did a formal review of legal justification for its combat use. The Pentagon said it had no early estimate of deaths or damage caused by its attack, which President Donald Trump called a "very, very successful mission." The U.S. WASHINGTON (AP) Unsafe seafood. Insufficiently refrigerated meats. Rusty shelving. Cooks without hairnets. Reports show Florida health inspectors cited President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort with 15 violations in late January, days before the U.S. leader hosted Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for a diplomatic visit. Still, the state inspectors allowed the luxury resort's main restaurant and beach club grill to remain open as staff scrambled to make several immediate corrections. Among the "high priority" problems described as "potentially hazardous" were faulty fridges with meats stored well above the required 41 degrees Fahrenheit. For example, in the restaurant's walk-in cooler the duck and beef were measured at 50 degrees, while a ham was at 57. OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) Malala Yousafzai (mah-LAH'-lah YOO'-suhf-zeye) is using her honorary Canadian citizenship to call on the country's leaders to take real action to improve educational opportunities for girls. The teenage Nobel prize winner spoke to the Canadian Parliament after becoming an honorary citizen Wednesday. She asked lawmakers to make education for girls a top priority when it hosts the G7 summit next year. Yousafzai was 15 when she shot in the head by Taliban militants in Pakistan in 2012. She was targeted due to her advocacy for women's education. Yousafzai was originally scheduled to receive the honor on Oct. NEW DELHI (AP) Authorities in Bangladesh have executed a top leader of a banned militant group and two accomplices for their involvement in a grenade attack against a British diplomat at a popular Islamic shrine in 2004. The attack killed three people and wounded several others. The main target was then-British High Commissioner Anwar Choudhury, who narrowly escaped. Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said Thursday that Harkatul Jihad chief Mufti Hannan and one accomplice were hanged at Kashimpur Jail outside the capital, Dhaka, late Wednesday. The third man was executed in the northeastern district of Sylhet, also late Wednesday. The High Court and the Supreme Court had upheld their death sentences given by a trial court in 2008 and the president rejected their clemency appeals. As voters began selecting their next president, Donald Trump repeatedly warned that Election 2016 was rigged. Millions of people, Trump said, are registered in two states and may therefore vote twice. Others would steal identities from the dead. Voting machines would malfunction. In January, less than a week into his presidency, Trump told lawmakers that between 3 million and 5 million illegal votes caused him to lose the popular vote though not the election itself to Democrat Hillary Clinton. He told senators a tale about ineligible voters being bussed into New Hampshire from Massachusetts. Trump then tapped Vice President Mike Pence to lead an investigation into voter fraud. You take a look at the registration, you have illegals, you have dead people you have this its really a bad situation, its really bad, Trump told Fox News host Bill OReilly in February when asked about election integrity. Thats not how Matthew Masterson sees it. Masterson the newly minted, Republican-nominated chairman of the bipartisan U.S. Election Assistance Commission ranks Election 2016 among the most trouble-free elections ever. The Center for Public Integrity last week spoke with Masterson about a range of election-related topics. Among them: voter fraud and suppression, U.S. House Republicans attempts to kill the Election Assistance Commission and his own goals for his one-year chairmanship at the tiny agency. Formed by Congress after the 2000 presidential elections Florida voting disaster remember hanging chads? the Election Assistance Commission largely exists to adopt voting system guidelines, promote election integrity and help states improve their balloting processes. Masterson joined the Election Assistance Commission in 2014 after serving as a top elections official in Ohio. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. This story is part of Federal Politics. News about ethics, campaign finance, lobbying and influence in the federal government. Click here to read more stories in this series. Don't miss another Politics investigation: Sign up for the Center for Public Integrity's Watchdog email. Center for Public Integrity: Every time you hear somebody say, Was the election rigged?, what do you say to them? Was the 2016 election rigged? Story continues Matthew Masterson: No. The process had integrity. It was extremely well administered. And in the end, the peoples voice was heard and the process served voters well. Center for Public Integrity: How concerned are you, writ large, about voting fraud, and is this something that is real and something people need to be concerned about? Masterson: Any fraud at all is something to be concerned about. The reality and this data and information comes from those who directly run elections is that the state and local election officials, and specifically the secretaries of state across the country that looked into it, find that fraud happens. Its not widespread. Its not an epidemic. But where it happens, it needs to be identified and prosecuted I would encourage any voter that if they suspect there is fraudulent activity going on to work with their election officials to say something about it, and they can dig into it to find out what the facts are. We really need to look at just the facts. Those who run elections have the facts about this. Center for Public Integrity: What should voters know about the way elections are run across the country, and what degree of confidence should voters have going forward about the quality of the vote itself? Masterson: Coming off this election with all the conversation about rigging, hacking and whatnot: Voters should have confidence in the process, that its accessible, that its accurate, that it has integrity. This year bore this out more so than ever. With all the talk that went on, we talked to state and local election officials coming off the presidential, this was one of the best run federal elections that weve had. And thats a real credit to those who are the boots on the ground, local election officials and the poll workers. The process is secure. It can always get better [Voters] should know one fact: This election this election process, this vote, the voting machines were not accessed, were not hacked. The process was secure. They should also know there are layers of security in place that start long before the election takes place. Election officials start very early with pre-election testing, securing the voting systems, chain of custody procedures. How they train and deploy poll workers and the steps that they take to secure the system. Post-election auditing. These are all steps election officials take to have layers of security in and around the vote tally systems to ensure the process has integrity. This is not new to election officials. This conversation was news to a lot of Americans. Quite frankly, I think election officials did a great job embracing the conversation, saying, let me show you how this process works, let me educate you on the steps we take. The most important thing any voter should know: If they have questions, if they have concerns, they can get involved. They should go be poll workers. They can go watch the election testing of the voting systems. In many states, you can watch the public count of the vote or the post-election audit procedures. There are so many ways for voters to get involved. And I dont know of an election official in any jurisdiction in the country that wouldnt take more poll workers and more people involved. Center for Public Integrity: One concern is the issue of not voter fraud but voter suppression. How big an issue that is, and do you have any evidence of widespread suppression or trying to keep people away from the polls? Related: Matthew Masterson quote 1 Don't miss another Politics investigation: Sign up for the Center for Public Integrity's Watchdog email. Masterson: Its something election officials hear about all the time. I can tell you my experience in Ohio. When we dug into that. It was virtually non-existent. But to the extent that election officials could, they looked at their processes, looked at ways they could both educate the public on the process to serve voters. It is my opinion, in the vast majority of jurisdictions today in America, it is easier to vote today than it has ever been. We have more days of early voting, more resources available like online registration, more outreach to voters in the form of voter information tools that they know when they can vote, where they can vote, whats on their ballot. They are all enfranchising matters that election officials across the country have taken. The election community as a whole has really embraced this discussion to say: How can we work to serve voters better? Its as easy to vote today as its ever been. Center for Public Integrity: Youve been chairperson for several weeks now since taking over. Talk about some of your top-line goals for the next year. Masterson: Were focusing on three main areas moving forward. One is helping election officials both maintain and upgrade the election technology infrastructure. Election officials across the country have aging equipment and are either looking to upgrade or switch out that equipment. And, so, were providing a variety of resources to help them do that. Thats everything from requests for purchase that other jurisdictions are putting out across the country with a guide 10 tips on purchasing new election technology that we have for them to use and then talking to them about whats available for them out there and what serves their needs. Voters are looking to vote in ways that fit into their everyday lives. Two: accessibility. Not just in the traditional serving voters with disabilities, which has been a focus for the EAC since it started. But it also means serving voters with language needs. Were going to have a language summit coming out in the summer to really help those jurisdictions have some resources and some best practices on how to serve these voters who have language assistance needs. And then three: There is this conversation about critical [voting] infrastructure. For election officials, details matter. Any change, and new process, is uncertainty for them. Were really trying to help cope with that uncertainty by facilitating a dialogue about giving them the resources they need. Center for Public Integrity: Is your job more difficult in that there are some people on Capitol Hill who would like to see the EAC, as an independent organization, either go away or be wrapped into the Federal Election Commission? How does that affect the work you just described, if at all? Masterson: Obviously, were aware of it, but honestly, it doesnt impact us. We remain focused on serving the state and local election officials that we work with and making sure that they have the resources available to them. Were coming off the conversation on Tuesday about critical infrastructure. Were coming off the most interesting presidential election certainly any of us have ever seen and election officials have real needs and real questions about the security of the systems, the integrity of the process, so were working directly with them, as we have all along, to get them the resources they need to serve them well. Center for Public Integrity: You and your colleagues have recently been to Capitol Hill. What happened? Masterson: Senators had some questions for us about the security of the process and the steps the EAC took last year to help secure the process. Were happy to inform them, talk to them, about the work we do, and the great work the election officials do across the country. Related story: Meet the nation's new election integrity watchman Center for Public Integrity: The EAC is celebrating its 15th anniversary as an agency. In your estimation, is the EAC as important today as it was when it was first conceived and created? Masterson: Yes absolutely. Our mission remains as important, if not more important as its ever been. [Since the Help America Vote Act of 2002], elections have become more and more technological, have evolved. Up to 40 percent of voters now vote before Election Day. Thats a dramatic change in the way we operate and run elections. We have all-vote-by-mail states and innovations around online registration. Our job at the EAC is to recognize those trends and to work with those folks who do really great work out there to share those practices around the country. Center for Public Integrity: Internet voting is something that gets talked about all the time. Do you see this happening in the next couple of years or the next couple of decades? Masterson: Some states are already doing it to serve a very specific population and thats military and overseas voters. Its our job, if thats how theyve best found to serve those voters, to provide resources to help them do that well. As far as the long-term discussion around widespread internet voting: It is one of the most common questions election officials are asked. But the security risks around it are real, and I think we heard a lot of that conversation this last election cycle. As we look at the implications of internet voting on a wide scale, likely the security challenges are too great to overcome right now, but it is a conversation that is going to continue on as we look to the future, because election officials are asked about it, and theres an expectation. But were not there yet. Center for Public Integrity: What states are doing a good job at running elections? And what states need improvement? Masterson: Its hard for me to judge one state over another. But there are lots of states out there doing great work on this. One example is the states that have joined data sharing efforts where theyre exchanging data both within the states and across states to really identify: Where do we have duplicates? Where do we have deceased voters? Where do we have voters whove moved, and how do we reach out to them to make sure their information is up to date? The voter rolls today are in the best shape theyve ever been in because of efforts like that by the states. Related story: A review of key states with Voter ID laws found no voter impersonation fraud Don't miss another Politics investigation: Sign up for the Center for Public Integrity's Watchdog email. Center for Public Integrity: When the presidents budget proposal came out, there was a number of smaller agencies that had their budgets zeroed out. The EAC was not on that list. Does it give you some confidence that the president believes that youre an agency worth keeping? Masterson: We were thrilled to see that were in the budget. Its an affirmation of the work that weve been doing. The agencys existence is serving its purpose. With that reaffirmation comes a recommitment to us to every day evaluate what were doing and how we can really serve voters and election officials to fulfill our mission. Sure, were pleased to see that. But at the same time its a chance for us to make sure we remain focused on our goals and mission moving forward. Center for Public Integrity: That all being said, your budget from your creation to this day has slid over the years. Youre not as financially robust or funded as you once were. Do you have the resources internally that you need, as far as youre concerned, to do your work? Masterson: We dont know our number yet. We just know we are not on that list. But if reflective of where weve been, I think the EAC has what it needs to move forward. Weve done great work with the resources we have. Thats exactly what well continue to do. If we continue to be funded at the level were at, were thankful for that, and well take that and use it to fulfill our mission. Related story: America scrubs millions from the voter rolls. Is it fair? Center for Public Integrity: Do you see voting as a partisan issue? Has it become a partisan issue? Masterson: Coming from a state like Ohio, certainly theres a tendency to have that conversation within the legislature. What I can tell you is my experience with election officials is that most if not all the issues are completely nonpartisan. To be honest, thats how we try to model ourselves here at the EAC, as well. The three commissioners work together incredibly well to serve voters and election officials in a way that benefits the process. Thats a nonpartisan issue. The ability for every eligible citizen to exercise their rights should be a nonpartisan issue. We should want that. Thats the attitude election officials have across the country. Center for Public Integrity: What would you like voters to know going into the gubernatorial elections that come up in 2017, and of course the midterm elections in 2018, about how good the system is and how to make it better. Masterson: What Id like voters to know most is that every vote matters. If you look at state and local elections across the country, there are hundreds if not thousands decided by one or a tied vote. Every vote matters. They need to take that seriously and invest the time they need to go vote in all of these elections. If they have questions about the process, they should go get involved with their local election office. Versions of this story were co-published by NBC News, Public Radio International and TIME. This story is part of Federal Politics. News about ethics, campaign finance, lobbying and influence in the federal government. Click here to read more stories in this series. Copyright 2017 The Center for Public Integrity. This story was published by The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C. (NEW YORK) - An appeals court judge who was the first African-American woman appointed to New Yorks highest court has been found dead on the shore of the Hudson River off Manhattan. Police say the body of Sheila Abdus-Salaam, 65, was discovered just before 2 p.m. Wednesday along the rivers shore near Harlem, one day after being reported missing. Police say her body showed no obvious signs of trauma. The medical examiner is to determine the exact cause of death. Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who appointed Abdus-Salaam to the states Court of Appeals in 2013, called her a pioneer and a trailblazing jurist. As the first African-American woman to be appointed to the states Court of Appeals, she was a pioneer, Cuomo said. Through her writings, her wisdom and her unshakable moral compass, she was a force for good whose legacy will be felt for years to come. Chief Judge Janet DiFiore said her colleague will be missed deeply. Her personal warmth, uncompromising sense of fairness and bright legal mind were an inspiration to all of us who had the good fortune to know her, DiFiore said. Former Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman said he knew Abdus-Salaam for many years. He said her death of was difficult to understand. The court has suffered a terrible blow, he said. Abdus-Salaam, who was 65 years old, graduated from Barnard College and received her law degree from Columbia Law School. She started her career as a staff attorney for East Brooklyn Legal Services and served as a judge in Manhattan state Supreme Court for 14 years, according to the state Office of Court Administrations website. The president of the New York State Bar Association, Claire P. Gutekunst, said Abdus-Salaam grew up poor in a family of seven children in Washington, D.C., and rose to become one of the seven judges in New Yorks highest court, where her intellect, judicial temperament and wisdom earned her wide respect. This article was originally published on TIME.com Remember when President Obama first came into office in 2009? Roger Dow does, and it didn't start out as a very pleasant memory. But Dow, chief executive of the U.S. Travel Association, a major trade group, hopes that what the travel industry learned from that time will help erase another unpleasant memory: Remember when President Trump first came into office in 2017? Dow told the story of these two presidents and their early unhappy relationship with the travel industry to hundreds of people in Philadelphia's hospitality industry gathered Wednesday at the Convention Center for the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau's annual report, including results from the Democratic National Convention. Obama, Dow said, had just taken office as the economy was in the middle of the recession and the travel industry was still suffering from the lingering effects of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorism attacks. The Wall Street bailout was underway, but there were still reports of lavish travel spending by executives. Obama sharply criticized highly publicized Wall Street junkets to pricey conventions on the West Coast. The travel industry, already struggling, howled in protest and had snagged a White House meeting with Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett, when, unexpectedly, Obama showed up, Dow said. "He said, `I know you're not happy with me,' " Dow recalled, noting how his group explained the economic impact of tourism along with the jobs it supported at a time when the unemployment rate was soaring. "We could watch this new president saying, `Wow, now I get it.' " Fast forward to 2017, when Trump, barely inaugurated, imposed a travel ban on visitors from seven majority-Muslim countries and suspended the State Department's visa-interview waiver program, which allowed regular foreign visitors, including business visitors, to skip face-to-face interviews with consulate officers when their visas expired. Story continues Now, Dow said, it's Trump who needs to be schooled. "People from around the world, their hair was on fire. They said, `People in the U.S. don't want us.'" The impact was immediate. Philadelphia lost a convention that would have had a $7 million economic impact when the group decided to take a pass on the U.S. and book its convention in Canada or Mexico, said Alethia Calbeck, director of communications at the Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau, declining to identify the group. "We were up for a piece of business, and the organization decided to not have its meeting in the United States," Calbeck in an interview in February. "They have a largely international audience and wanted to be sure everyone would be able to attend their meeting." "This too shall pass," Dow told the group on Wednesday. "It's going to be all right, but we have work to do" lobbying the Trump administration. After all, his group has estimated, the U.S. travel industry produces $2.3 billion in direct and indirect economic impact, supports 15.3 million jobs, either directly or in related industries, and generates $157.8 billion in federal, state and local taxes. That's why, Dow said, the travel industry has to get behind a single unifying message: "America is closed to terrorism, but wide open to everyone else." Most Popular on Philly.com As spring gets into full swing, more children will be scratching from the unbearable itch of eczema, and many pediatricians will be writing prescriptions for antibiotics. "Eczema can make children miserable, so its understandable that both doctors and parents would want to do everything possible to get symptoms under control," says Megha Tollefson, M.D., an assistant professor of dermatology and pediatrics at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and co-author on a 2014 clinical review on treating childhood eczema for the American Academy of Pediatrics. But research shows that antibiotics wont cure mild-to-moderate eczema in kids any faster than standard treatment." A recent study involving 113 children with eczema (most under the age of 3) without symptoms of a serious infection such as fever or pus-filled sores showed that antibiotics don't help with eczema flare-ups. The children were treated with moisturizers as well as ointments containing a corticosteroid, which helps calm inflammation and itching. In addition, half the kids were also prescribed a weeks worth of antibiotics, either a pill or topical cream. Results, published in March in the Annals of Family Medicine, showed that all of the children, whether they received antibiotics or not, got much better in two weeks and remained stable over the next three months. Prescribing Only When Necessary Antibiotics shouldnt be used when they arent needed because the drugs can cause side effects. For example, antibiotic creams can cause skin irritation and rashes. Oral antibiotics (pills or liquid by mouth) commonly cause diarrhea, nausea, and vomiting, Tollefson says. Babies and toddlers with eczema are more prone to diaper rash, and diarrhea can make it much worse, she says. And in rare instances, oral antibiotics can cause serious harm. A recent study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed that side effects from antibiotics, most commonly severe allergic reactions, are responsible for more than 65,000 children being rushed to the emergency room each year. For children younger than 5, side effects from antibiotics such as amoxicillin (Amoxil, Moxatag, and generic) and azithromycin (Zithromax, Z-Pak, and generic) are the leading cause of ER visits due to adverse drug effects. Story continues Whats more, the overuse of all forms of antibiotics are contributing to the rise of dangerous superbugsstrains of bacteria that are resistant to multiple antibiotics. The result is a growing number of infections that are more virulent and much harder to treat. Why Doctors Overprescribe Antibiotics Given the risks of antibiotics, medical guidelines caution against overusing the drugs against eczema. For example, as part of the Choosing Wisely initiative (Consumer Reports is a partner), the American Academy of Dermatology recommends against using antibiotics unless the rash is infected. So why do doctors still commonly prescribe the drugs to treat eczema in kids? Its actually quite difficult to tell the difference between an eczema flare-up and a mild infection, Tollefson says. And testing for bacteria typically doesnt help, she says, because people often carry bacteria on their skin even when they dont have an infection. Doctors wind up prescribing antibiotics out of an abundance of caution, she says, to prevent a possible infection from getting worse. "Flare-ups are going to happen," Tollefson says. But, she adds, the Annals of Family Medicine study is "reassuring" in revealing there's no need to rush to antibiotics. In the absence of clear signs of infection, the best approach is to do a good job taking care of the skin to allow the body to heal itself, she says. Indications of an infection that do warrant antibiotic treatment, according to American Academy of Dermatology: honey-colored crusting on the rash, pus-filled yellow or red bumps, or sores and cracks that ooze pus. The skin may also be very red or unusually warm and, in some cases, children may run a fever. Antibiotic ointments cause fewer side effects than oral versions but don't work as well. "We typically reserve topical antibiotics for when there are only one or two small areas affected," says Jenny Murase, M.D., assistant clinical professor of dermatology at the University of California San Francisco and a spokeswoman for the AAD. "But when the infection is widespread or affects multiple areas of the body, oral antibiotics are generally needed." Best Ways to Manage Eczema in Kids Theres no cure for eczema in kids, Murase says, but the good news is that some children eventually outgrow it. "Once you become a teenager, the body starts to produce more oils that can help protect the skin." In the meantime, she says "to prevent flare-ups and infections, it's important to stay on top of daily skin care." Here are some tips: Moisturize. For kids prone to eczema, apply moisturizing creams to their entire body at least once daily, even when their skin is clear. Though prescription ointments shouldnt be used more than twice daily, you can use moisturizers as often as needed to soothe rough, dry skin. To prevent irritation, choose fragrance-free products. Avoid irritants. Triggers can include scratchy clothing, tobacco smoke, scented products such as laundry soap, and extreme hot or cold temperatures. Try to prevent scratching. Its easier said than done when a young child is involved, but scratching can make itching worse and lead to infection. Keep childrens fingernails short and, if necessary, have them wear light cotton gloves at night to keep them from scratching in their sleep. Ask your doctor about an over-the-counter antihistamine pill or liquid such as diphenhydramine (Benadryl Allergy and generic) to help alleviate itching. Avoid anti-itch products that you apply to your skin such as Benadryl Itch-Stopping Cream because they can be irritating for kids with eczema. Let kids enjoy bathtime. The advice used to be to limit baths to twice weekly or so to avoid drying out the skin. But Murase says that bathing can actually provide the skin with needed moisture. Soap can be drying, though. So use mild, unscented skin cleansers only on the armpits and groin and, after washing, pat the skin partly dry then apply moisturizer right away on damp skin. Talk to your doctor about adding vinegar or a very small amount of bleach to bathwater. Using a cup of vinegar or a tiny amount of unscented chlorine bleach (3 tablespoons in 20 gallons of water, about a half-full standard tub) can kill bacteria on the skin that cause infections. One recent study found that children with eczema who bathed in diluted bleach water for 5 to 10 minutes twice weekly had less-severe symptoms than those who didnt. Vinegar is safe, but keep in mind that bleach straight from the bottle is dangerous for kids if they swallow any or get it on their skin, so carefully follow safety precautions and keep the chemical locked away from young children. For more information on how to safely use diluted bleach baths, use this advice from the Seattle Childrens Hospital. Treat the first signs of a flare-up. People are sometimes reluctant to use prescription ointments that contain steroids on a mild rash, says Murase. But using those as directed, along with moisturizers, can prevent more serious symptoms. Editor's Note: This article and related materials are made possible by a grant from the state Attorney General Consumer and Prescriber Education Grant Program, which is funded by the multistate settlement of consumer-fraud claims regarding the marketing of the prescription drug Neurontin (gabapentin). More from Consumer Reports: Top pick tires for 2016 Best used cars for $25,000 and less 7 best mattresses for couples Consumer Reports has no relationship with any advertisers on this website. Copyright 2006-2017 Consumer Reports, Inc. Mike Pompeo, the former Kansas lawmaker tapped by President Donald Trump to run the CIA, excoriated WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange in his first public remarks since taking over the spy agency. We at the CIA find the celebration of entities like WikiLeaks to be perplexing and deeply troubling, he said. WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service, citing an overwhelming focus on the United States. It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is a nonstate, hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia, Pompeo said before a packed house at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank. He specifically referred to U.S. intelligence officials conclusion that Russian military intelligence used WikiLeaks to release stolen emails hacked from the Democratic National Committee, meant to help tip the 2016 election in Trumps favor. And Pompeo, who as a representative had oversight responsibility over the CIA, seemed to threaten U.S. action against the site, saying that WikiLeaks can no longer hide behind free speech arguments. It ends now, Pompeo said. Assange, for his part, has insisted that publishing the CIA files, as well as the DNC emails, has been a part of WikiLeaks mission to expose U.S. government wrongdoing. We are an organization that has a commitment to the public to publish true information and not suppress it, and to make sure that as many people read it as possible, he said in an interview with Democracy Now on April 12. Pompeos much-anticipated remarks, uncharacteristically acerbic for a senior U.S. intelligence official, come at an awkward time for the Trump administration. On Thursday, fresh revelations were reported in the Guardian that British and other European spy services warned U.S. intelligence officials about connections between Trump associates and Russian officials as early as 2015. Story continues The FBI and Congress are still conducting investigations into possible coordination between the Trump campaign or associates and Russian intelligence in order to release the stolen emails for maximum effect during the campaign. (Pompeo did not comment on the ongoing investigation but stated that the CIA was providing lawmakers and other investigators with all the resources they needed.) And Pompeos attacks on WikiLeaks sit uncomfortably for him, too: Last summer, as Assange published fresh disclosures from hacked emails of the DNC, Pompeo gleefully tweeted them out. Trump publicly cited WikiLeaks in rally speeches dozens of times in just the last month of the election and tweeted just days before the election how much he loved the website. Pompeos comments, though, come more than a month after WikiLeaks released what it calls CIA hacking tools, raising suspicions that the U.S. spy service was hoarding information about insecurities in digital products rather than sharing that information with U.S. companies so they could repair the flaws. The false narratives that increasingly define our public discourse cannot be ignored, Pompeo said. In the rest of the event, the newly minted CIA boss stressed that his agency like the rest of the intelligence community concluded that the Syrian regime had used chemical weapons against its own people. Russia has argued that the chemical release, which killed more than 70 people, came after warplanes targeted a rebel chemical weapons storage facility, claims the White House has thoroughly debunked. On Russian President Vladimir Putins response to the Syrian chemical attacks, Pompeo condemned his disinclination toward the truth. This is a man from whom veracity doesnt translate into English, he said. The former Kansas lawmaker, a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, was confirmed easily in January, after a hearing consumed by talk of Russian meddling. Pompeo, like Trumps director of national intelligence, former Indiana Sen. Dan Coats, has been publicly critical of the Kremlin and its geopolitical posturing, ostensibly putting both men at odds with the commander in chief. One lingering question for Pompeo is whether he will be willing and able to carry out a restructuring of the intelligence community, as Trump reportedly hoped to do, and if it can maintain an apolitical approach to gathering and analyzing intelligence. The new director said he would be very open to the idea of restructuring the intelligence community, including the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Early reports indicated that the Presidential Transition Team hoped to eliminate or reform the office. This structure is worthy of review, Pompeo said, comparing the restructuring to changes he made to his own small businesses. In January, he vowed to tell Trump the truth and nothing but the truth, politically popular or not. I would expect the president-elect would demand that of me, Pompeo said at the time. The CIA director said at CSIS on Thursday that the intelligence communitys relationship with the White House is fantastic, and he redoubled his earlier commitment to truth-telling, saying Trump is prepared to hear things that run completely counter to his hypotheses. Photo credit: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images On his 77th day in office, President Donald Trump changed his Russia policy. He may not have realized it as he gave the order that sent Tomahawk cruise missiles toward a Syrian airbase, but his decision to directly strike Syrian President Bashar al-Assads regime put him in direct conflict with Russian President Vladimir Putins effort to prop up the very same dictator. In the days that have followed, the administration has offered changing and even conflicting accounts of Russias complicity in Assads use of chemical weapons against civilians. While Russias advanced knowledge of the chemical attack remains unclear, what is apparent now is that Trump appears willing to publicly criticize Russia, a departure from his previous position. But the White House is going to need something more than Trumps tweet Thursday morning expressing hope that things between the United States and Russia will ultimately work out fine. The Trump administration desperately needs a strategy to deal with Russia. Russia, specifically Putin, has been a thorn in the side of four successive U.S. presidents. As a consequence, many U.S. policymakers have found themselves tangling with Russian diplomats, intelligence operatives, and military leaders on a range of topics, often without much success. In an attempt to learn the lessons of years past, weve selected five tidbits of advice. 1. Conduct a Russia review and develop a strategy. Given the ad hoc and often contradictory way in which the Trump administration talks about Russia, it is obvious that the White House has yet to develop a clearly articulated strategy. If such an effort is not already underway, an interagency team should be tasked with a thorough analysis of the current state of the relationship, the past administrations approach, and a list of options going forward. More specifically, the review should lead to a strategy that focuses on prospects for U.S.-Russia cooperation in Syria, ways in which the administration in working with European allies can counter Russian aggression in its neighborhood, and incentives to get Russia to meet its Minsk protocol commitments in Ukraine. The National Security Councils very capable senior director for Russia, Fiona Hill, would be the best person to lead such a review. No one knows Putin and Russia better. Story continues 2. Settle on a single message. Every administration must be, at times, reminded to coordinate its messaging and stick to the talking points. While some of the recent confusion makes sense because Trumps team is still new and many senior leaders at the State Department and Department of Defense have yet to be nominated, mixed messages on Russia give Putin who is a master of disinformation the upper hand. The administration should settle on a handful of core messages about its views on Russia and Putin and repeat those messages as often as possible. Coordination with European allies on such points is critical. 3. Become familiar with the Russian way of communicating. Russias ability to fudge the truth, change the subject, ignore a topic, or flat-out lie should not be underestimated. For example, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called for a U.N. investigation into the Syrian chemical attack during Secretary of State Rex Tillersons visit to Moscow, even as the Russian mission to the U.N. was vetoing such a resolution. This is supremely frustrating. Get used to it. One way to fight back is to let the U.S. media question Russian untruths. This means making the media an integral part of any international trip conducted by senior administration officials. Loop in the media to your thinking and positions, and provide backgrounders and interviews. Let it call out the Russians when you cant. 4. Know that Russian foreign policy runs together. Everything in Russian foreign policy is inextricably linked. Russia does not compartmentalize its issues. It ties Ukraine to Syria to Latin America to NATO to missile defense to nuclear weapons. This is very different from how the United States tends to handle foreign policy, which is to try to divide issues by regions and functions. This often leads to challenging discussions, since in Russias view, if the United States wants to truly cooperate, it must be willing to negotiate on the full slate of topics. In this context, Russia could offer concessions in Syria in return for U.S. concessions in Ukraine a slippery slope that can incentivize bad Russian behavior elsewhere. The Trump administration has to avoid such tradeoffs and make sure that any cooperation in Syria will not translate into acquiescence on Ukraine. 5. Distrust and verify. When the mood strikes, Putin will sometimes agree to a compromise and commit to a new policy of cooperation. But as the West has witnessed time and time again, a promise from Putin doesnt always translate into policy execution. (See the U.S. efforts to work with Russia on the Joint Implementation Center in Syria in late 2016.) In fact, the Russians use their lack of bureaucratic coordination to their advantage. It is not uncommon to get different answers to the same questions from different parts of the Russian government, leaving outsiders guessing as to what is really going on. If not managed through repeated verification with Russian officials and with folks on the ground, outsiders can be left confused and empty-handed. Photo credit: SERGEI CHIRIKOV/AFP/Getty Images President Donald Trumps chief strategist was recently removed from the National Security Council, giving rise to speculation over whether the president and Steve Bannon had a fall out. In a further escalation, Trump downplayed Bannons role in his presidential campaign Tuesday. I like Steve, but you have to remember he was not involved in my campaign until very late, Trump told the New York Posts Michael Goodwin on Tuesday afternoon. Read: Trump Strategist Steve Bannon In Power Struggle After Removal From National Security Council I had already beaten all the senators and all the governors, and I didnt know Steve, the president said. Im my own strategist and it wasnt like I was going to change strategies because I was facing crooked Hillary. Soon after Trump took office in January this year, social media was flooded with posts that indicated that the real power in the administration was being held by Bannon, sparking a movement calling for the impeachment of President Bannon. 'Impeach President Bannon' Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque Trump tweeted his anger at the claims and said: I call my own shots, largely based on an accumulation of data, and everyone knows it. Some FAKE NEWS media, in order to marginalize, lies! There have also been multiple reports that say that Bannon, the former Brietbart chief executive, was in the midst of a tussle with Trumps son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner. Kushner, Trump, Bannon Photo: REUTERS The White House said the media was blowing things out of proportion and press secretary Sean Spicer said Monday: Theres a lot of stuff that was overblown about this that makes it out into the media sometimes and gets a little more sensational than it really is. Story continues However, there seems to be some truth in the reports as the president confirmed that he had asked Bannon to sort out the issues before he has to intervene. He told the publication, Steve is a good guy, but I told them to straighten it out or I will. Related Articles Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that the United States and Russian relationship has "degraded" after President Donald Trump took office. "It can be said that the level of trust at the working level, especially at the military level, has not become better but most likely has degraded," Putin said in an interview, reports said. Putin's comments came after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson visited Moscow and met his counterpart Sergey Lavrov to discuss relations with the U.S. after the airstrike on Syria and the consequent reports that claimed Russia knew about the chemical gas attack and the Kremlin needs to stop backing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. U.S. Intelligence agencies have tried to accuse Putin of trying to help Trump during the presidential elections. However, Trump has denied all claims and also refused to directly call on the Russian president. Instead Trump expressed his desire to have closer ties between the two nations while he is still president. Trump's fondness for the Kremlin can be seen throughout his time when he took office and even before that. 1. In February 2017, Trump said he respects Putin during a Super Bowl interview with Bill OReilly. The U.S. president also defended his Russian counterpart when the Fox News host called him a killer. "There are a lot of killers," Trump said. "Do you think our country is so innocent?" 2. In January 2017, Trump said he believed that Russia had been responsible for the Democratic National Committee hacking in 2016. However, he said after he became president, he believed that Putin won't do it. He also mentioned that if he would have a good relationship with Putin then it would be beneficial for both the countries. "I think it was Russia," Trump said, adding that Putin "should not be doing it." "He won't be doing it. Russia will have much greater respect for our country when I am leading it than when other people have led it," Trump said. Story continues "If Putin likes Donald Trump, I consider that an asset, not a liability, because we have a horrible relationship with Russia. Russia can help us fight ISIS, which, by the way, is, number one, tricky. I mean if you look, this administration created ISIS by leaving at the wrong time. The void was created, ISIS was formed," he added. 3. Trump also praised Putin when he criticized Hillary Clinton and the Democrats. 4. In October 2007, Trump said Putin was doing a great job. "Look at Putin -- what he's doing with Russia -- I mean, you know, what's going on over there. I mean this guy has done -- whether you like him or don't like him -- he's doing a great job in rebuilding the image of Russia and also rebuilding Russia period," Trump told Larry King on CNN. 5. Trump said that he would get along well with Putin because he "hates Obama." "He hates Obama. He doesnt hate us. I think hed like me. Id get along great with him I think. If you want to know the truth." Related Articles Ahead of another test of North Koreas nuclear capabilities expected to occur as soon as this weekend, Washington is ratcheting up the rhetoric against the Hermit Kingdom and putting on a show of military strength, including moving an aircraft carrier strike group into position around the Korean peninsula. The buildup of firepower and tough talk comes just before the 105th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il Sung, North Koreas founding father and grandfather of the current ruler. The date is often a tense time for the region, as it is traditionally marked by displays of military strength, including missile launches. President Donald Trump has been vocal about the impending North Korean tests all week, calling the deployment of an aircraft carrier and other ships to the area an armada, while disclosing that submarines are part of the group. We have submarines, he told Fox News. Very powerful. Far more powerful than the aircraft carrier. That I can tell you. The expected nuclear test would be the countrys sixth and likely most powerful in a decade, and pushes the North Korean threat to the top of White Houses priority list, prompting a rash of tweets, statements and even diplomatic bargaining from Trump and his team. But the on-the-fly nature of the the White Houses North Korea policy has sowed confusion in Washington and foreign capitals, conveying the sense the administrations strategy is still in flux, and that the president himself is learning on the job about a strategic threat that long predated his time in office. On a visit to South Korea last month, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson hardened the U.S. stance toward Pyongyang, raising the possibility of a preemptive strike and chiding China for not applying enough pressure on the isolated country. But Trump later expressed indifference over the matter of Chinese assistance, saying on Twitter Tuesday: If China decides to help, that would be great. If not, we will solve the problem without them! U.S.A. Story continues A day later he switched his position, telling The Wall Street Journal that during last weeks U.S.-China summit, he had offered Chinese President Xi Jinping preemptive trade concessions in exchange for Beijings help on North Korea. North Korea, meanwhile, has ratcheted up its own threats. In response to Trumps Tweet on Tuesday, a spokesperson for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un responded in kind, warning if the US dares opt for a military action, crying out for pre-emptive attackthe DPRK is ready to react to any mode of war desired by the US. The timing of the missile test is problematic for all major players involved. China and the United States are struggling to find common ground on the issue while feeling one another out over trade imbalances, and South Korea finds itself in the midst of a political crisis, having just impeached its president and pushing through the last days of a last-minute presidential race. Trump described a light-bulb moment he had during his discussions with Xi after the Chinese leader gave him a thumbnail explanation of the history of the North Korean problem. After listening for 10 minutes, I realized its not so easy, Trump told the Journal on Wednesday. I felt pretty strongly that they had a tremendous power [over] North KoreaBut its not what you would think. On Thursday, Chinas foreign ministry issued a statement following a post-meeting phone call between the two leaders, saying Xi believes the most pressing problems with the North can be solved through peaceful means and is ready to maintain communication and coordination with the United States on the issue. The politics of the situation are being further complicated by the South Korean presidential race, which will likely lead to the election of a progressive candidate who has argued for a less confrontational approach to Pyongyang. The two frontrunners in the contest both sit to the left of the former President Park Geun-hye, who was impeached and faces indictment for her alleged role in a multimillion-dollar bribery scandal linked to major Korean conglomerates. But the warnings real or perceived continue. On Thursday, the U.S. Air Force dropped a massive, 21,000-lb. warhead on an Islamic State tunnel complex in Afghanistan, the largest single strike in terms of bomb payload at any point in the post-2001 American wars. Some viewed the strike a s a warning to Kim Jong Un, and an attempt for the Pentagon to steer him away from any provocative actions. I dont know if this sends a message, it doesnt make any difference if it does or not, Trump said at the White House on Thursday. North Korea is a problem, the problem will be taken care of. His comments marked the second time the president vowed to go it alone on the North Korean problem, casting aside the lessons he suggested had been learned from the Chinese leader. He went on to praise China for working very hard on the North Korean problem however, adding that hes really gotten to like and respect Xi. But militarily, the pieces continue to move. In a major show of force, the U.S. Air Force conducted a no-warning drill of the entire 18th Air Wing stationed at the Kadena air base in Okinawa on Wednesday, rolling out dozens of F-15 Eagles, E-3 Sentries, KC-135 Stratotankers, and HH-60 Pave Hawks for display. The Air Force also sent a nuke sniffer WC-135 Constant Phoenix surveillance plane capable of detecting radioactive debris to Kadena, a sure sign the Pentagon was waiting for a test. There is more than one audience for these shows of strength, however. The military display puts pressure on China to do something, because its showing Beijing that the administration is willing to flex some muscle, on the issue, said Mira Rapp-Hooper, a regional expert with the Center for a New American Security. The dispatch of the Carl Vinson is very much a deterrence and presence operation, she added, especially since any strikes against the well-defended North would not likely come from manned U.S. aircraft. Despite all of this, the Pentagon has tried to downplay to deployment of the carrier strike group, saying that American ships operate in the region on a regular basis. Yet the ships were pulled out of a planned exercise with the Australian Navy in order to steam toward Korea, signaling how seriously Washington is taking the threat from Pyongyang. Speaking before a meeting with the Turkish defense minister at the Pentagon on Thursday, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters that the bottom line is North Korea has got to change its behavior that is an agreed position among the international community nations that are working together on this. Photo Credit: ED JONES/AFP/Getty Images Washington (AFP) - President Donald Trump waxed lyrical about his good "chemistry" and "bonding" with Chinese leader Xi Jinping Wednesday -- a rhetorical U-turn which the White House believes is already paying dividends. Putting harsh campaign rhetoric about China's "rape" of the US economy in the rear-view mirror, Trump went out of his way to praise Xi for help on North Korea and Syria. Trump hosted China's leader -- the most powerful in decades -- at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida last week, and the pair spoke again by phone on Tuesday. "We had a very good bonding. I think we had a very good chemistry together. I think he wants to help us with North Korea. We talked trade," Trump said in a Wednesday press conference. "I was very impressed with President Xi and I think he means well and I think he wants to help. We'll see whether or not he does." Trump and his top aides believe that the courtship, though in the early stages, is already paying off. China on Wednesday refused to back Russia in vetoing a UN Security Council resolution condemning Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whom Trump described as an "animal" and a "butcher." "I think it's wonderful that they abstained," Trump said, adding he had spoken to Xi and was not surprised by China's decision. "We're honored by the vote. That's the vote that should have taken place." - Friendly in Florida - Last week, Trump launched a military strike against one Assad airfield as punishment for a suspected sarin nerve agent attack against a village in central Syria. Behind closed doors, a top Trump aide said China's abstention at the UN helped show how isolated the Assad regime and its Russian backers -- who vetoed the resolution -- were. "It was the relationship which was solidified at Mar-a-Lago that helped make that possible," said the official, on condition of anonymity. Story continues Trump also heralded China's decision to turn away North Korean coal shipments -- a vital export for the regime and a key part of much flouted UN Security Council resolutions. "A lot of the coal boats have already been turned back -- you saw that yesterday and today -- theyve been turned back. The vast amount of coal that comes out of North Korea going to China, they've turned back the boats. That's a big step, and they have many other steps that I know about," he said. "We have a very big problem in North Korea," Trump said, alluding to serious US concerns that Pyongyang may be only months away from marrying nuclear and missile technology to build a nuke that can reach the US mainland. "I really think that China is going to try very hard, and has already started." Trump said he also told Xi that the "way you're (China is) going to make a good trade deal is to help us with North Korea." - Grand bargain? - That was the first of several hints of what could be a far-reaching grand bargain with America's most potent geopolitical and economic rival. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Trump was more specific and backed away from a campaign promise to tackle China for manipulating its currency to gain a trade advantage. Trump had promised to label Beijing a currency manipulator on his first day in office, a designation that could have ended with punitive tariffs and a potential trade war between the world's two largest economies. China for years was accused of keeping its currency artificially low to make its exports cheaper and more competitive compared to US goods. "They're not currency manipulators," Trump said flatly, adding that Beijing had not been manipulating its currency for months -- a point economists have been making for a much longer time. "'But you want to make a great deal? Solve the problem in North Korea.' That's worth having deficits," Trump said he told Xi, in the interview with The Wall Street Journal. "And that's worth having not as good a trade deal as I would normally be able to make."arb/sst US President Donald Trump vowed Thursday that the "problem" of North Korea "will be taken care of," as speculation mounted that Pyongyang might be preparing another nuclear or missile test. "North Korea is a problem, the problem will be taken care of," Trump told reporters. Separately on Twitter he expressed confidence China, Pyongyang's sole ally, would "properly deal with North Korea." But, "if they are unable to do so, the U.S., with its allies, will! U.S.A." The ominous comments came the same day Trump ordered the dropping of the biggest non-nuclear bomb the US military possesses on Afghanistan, targeting a complex used by the Islamic State group. A US aircraft carrier and its naval strike group has been diverted to the Korean peninsula. Trump also flexed his military muscle last week by ordering cruise missile strikes on a Syrian airbase the US believed was the origin of an alleged chemical weapons attack on civilians in a northern Syria town. - North Korea test 'primed' - There are reports of activity at a nuclear test site in North Korea ahead of Saturday's 105th anniversary of the birth of the country's founder Kim Il-Sung. A US monitoring group, 38North, has described the Punggye-ri test site as "primed and ready." The Voice of America, quoting US government and other sources, said North Korea "has apparently placed a nuclear device in a tunnel and it could be detonated Saturday AM Korea time." Trump has repeatedly said he will prevent Pyongyang from developing a nuclear-tipped ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States. He has asked his advisers to give him all options for dealing with the nuclear-armed North. The US president has also said he would not signal his punches before embarking on any military action abroad. - China influence 'not what you'd think' - Asked on Thursday whether the bomb dropped in Afghanistan -- a GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb better known by its nickname, the "Mother Of All Bombs" -- was a warning to Pyongyang, Trump demurred. Story continues "I don't know if this sends a message to North Korea," he said. "It doesn't make any difference if it does or not." The North is under multiple sets of United Nations sanctions over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. In an interview published Thursday by The Wall Street Journal, Trump said he told Chinese President Xi Jinping to let North Korea know that the US has not only aircraft carriers but nuclear submarines. But Trump said Xi, during a meeting in Florida last week, had corrected his earlier misconception that Beijing could easily get rid of the North Korea threat. "After listening for 10 minutes, I realized it's not so easy," Trump said. "I felt pretty strongly that they had a tremendous power" over North Korea. "But it's not what you would think." President Donald Trump said that he offered President Xi Jinping better trade terms with the U.S. in exchange for Chinas cooperation in confronting North Korea. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Trump said he was willing to accept a continued trade deficit with China and make not as good a trade deal as I would normally be able to make if Beijing agreed to confront its neighbor and ally over recent missile launches that violated U.N. resolutions. Trump said he had changed his mind about how much influence China exerted over North Korea following Xis explanation of the two countries relationship. After listening for 10 minutes, Trump said, I realized its not so easy. For more on North Korea, watch Fortunes video: Despite promises made on the campaign trail last year to label China a currency manipulator on his first day in office, Trump reversed his position, saying that China had stopped manipulating its currency and that there were more pressing issues, such as dealing with North Korea. This article was originally published on FORTUNE.com By Scot J. Paltrow WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald J. Trump is planning to increase U.S. defense spending by $54 billion next year. But a series of recent reports by the Defense Department Inspector General and the Government Accountability Office say that Pentagon accounting systems will struggle to track how the money is spent. The reports found that the Pentagon remains unable to accurately track its $591 billion annual budget and experiences billions of dollars in accounting gaps and errors each year despite two decades of reform efforts. Taken together, the reports show that many of the endemic accounting problems exposed in a 2013 Reuters investigative series remain in place. These deficiencies not only affect (the Department of Defense's) ability to have auditable financial statements, a Feb. 9 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found, they also affect its ability to make sound decisions on missions and operations. A spokesman for the White House's Office of Management Budget (OMB) said he was confident that Defense Secretary James Mattis would properly spend the additional funds. The need to replenish our military and bolster American security is unquestioned and an important priority of this president," OMB Communications Director John Czwartacki said in a statement. "We believe Secretary Mattis will deploy all of his resources in the most effective and efficient way possible. Critics of wasteful Pentagon spending say increasing the Defense Department budget is unwise when the department is unable to account for what it already has. Its ludicrous, said Mandy Smithberger, director of the Straus Military Reform Project in Washington. Reform isnt going to happen as long as the spigot is turned on. The Pentagons continued accounting problems are drawing particular scrutiny now because the Defense Department faces a congressionally mandated legal deadline of Sept. 30, 2017, to become ready for its first audit ever. Unlike every other U.S. government department, the Pentagon has never undergone an audit because its financial records are in such disarray. A spokesman for the Defense Department comptrollers office said he is confident it will meet the deadline. The Department is committed and on track to be ready to undergo a full financial statement audit in (fiscal year) 2018, Lieutenant Colonel Eric D. Badger said in an email. DEEP CUTS At the same time Trump proposes to boost defense spending, he has called for deep cuts to other areas, a White House summary of his proposed 2018 budget shows. Whether Congress will accept or reject Trump's proposals is unclear. Trump calls for cutting the State Departments budget by $10.1 billion, or 28%. Among other things, U.S. payments to support the United Nations would be cut. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would take a particularly big hit. Trump would cut $2.6 billion, or 31%, of its budget. The White House document says the budget would eliminate more than 50 EPA programs, and cut EPAs research and development budget by $233 million, or 52%. The budget for grants to states for lead clean-up would be cut by 30% to $9.8 million. The recent watchdog reports on the Defense Department found that it lacks a unified, functioning accounting system. As Reuters reported in its 2013 series, the Pentagon has hundreds of independent systems, built ad hoc and some dating from the 1970s, that are riddled with errors and incapable of sharing accurate data. Billions of dollars disappear from accounting records. The military has spent large sums building new systems meant to solve the problem, but so far they have not. A March 16 Defense Department Inspector General report said the Navy could not find any records to back up how it had spent $866 million in the first quarter of 2016 in U.S. military operations in Afghanistan. The report said that as a result, there was no way to know what the money actually was used for. A Navy spokeswoman, Lieutenant Kara YingLing, referred Reuters to the Navys official response to the report, which said the Navy agreed with the Inspector Generals conclusions but said its accounting problems will not be fixed until it begins using a new computer system in 2019. YingLing said the Navy is on track to help the Pentagon meet its Sept. 30 audit deadline. The Feb. 9 GAO report said the Pentagon's continued bookkeeping errors affect the federal government as a whole. Defense spending makes up such a large part of the federal budget that the department's unreliable data skews accounting for the entire U.S. government, the GAO said. SYSTEMIC RISK The report noted that the Defense Department has been on the GAOs list of High Risk entities that represent threats to the federal governments financial well-being since 1995. The report said the Pentagon has remained on the list because of long-standing deficiencies with its financial management systems." The GAO report noted that the Pentagon had hired large independent accounting firms for each of the military services to try to help them meet the Sept. 30 audit deadline. But the report said the firms have found so many problems that the ability of the Pentagon to meet the deadline remains in doubt. A separate Defense Department Inspector General report issued on March 23, 2017, found that the Army continues to be unable to balance its checkbook. The report concluded that the problem for the Army grew worse in 2016. The report said that for October 2015, the Army had 177,921 discrepancies. The monthly numbers rose steadily to 790,551 for June 2016. The report did not give dollar amounts for those months. Army spokesman Wayne Hall said the number of discrepancies continued to increase in 2017 because planned fixes to computer systems have not yet been made. He said the Army is working on building more reliable systems. The report said that because rules require that the Armys numbers exactly match in monthly reports to the Treasury, the Army and the Defense Finance and Accounting Service must find a way to make them match. Their solution was to enter made-up numbers to make it appear falsely that the Armys numbers do match. The report said that for March 2016, there were $1.9 billion in such forced balance entries. Hall said the Army must make the numbers match under federal rules. In separate reports, the Inspector General found that other military services have also had problems balancing their financial numbers with the Treasurys. Accountants interviewed by Reuters said that such large discrepancies would be considered accounting fraud in the corporate world. Badger, the spokesman for the Defense Department comptrollers office, said any errors by the military services were unintentional. We strongly oppose any accusation of intentionally misrepresenting our books, Badger said in an email. Many manual accounting adjustments are often caused by the ineffective design of legacy business or financial systems. Trump has said the $54 billion in increased defense spending will send a message to the world in these dangerous times of American strength, security and resolve. Trump has also vowed to negotiate cheaper contracts with defense contractors, a problem also cited in recent watchdog reports. In a March 2016 report, the Inspector General found that the Air Force had spent billions on a contract to maintain one type of jet engine, without first getting any idea of a fair price. The open-ended contract, with a guaranteed profit margin regardless of cost, was awarded in 2011. The report said that before signing the contract the Air Force obtained no data on the actual cost of the repairs and how the costs compared to private-sector rates. The exact amount of the contract was redacted from the report. The Inspector General has not ruled on a March 2016 Freedom of Information Act request filed by Reuters that asked for the redacted information to be made public. (Editing by David Rohde.) From calling the NATO "obsolete" to tagging it "no longer obsolete," President Donald Trump took a 180-degree turn on NATO from during his campaigning last year. Trump said Wednesday, that it has shifted its focus on handling the threat of terror. "The NATO Alliance has been the bulwark of international peace and security," Trump said from the East Room of the White House during a joint press conference with NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg. "I said it was obsolete; it's no longer obsolete. Its my hope that NATO will take on an increased role in supporting our Iraqi partners in their battle against ISIS." Read: Trump Charges Merkel Billions For Money'Owed' To US For NATO Protection, White House Denies Report While campaigning, Trump had complained that the 28 countries in the NATO alliance had agreed to contribute at least two percent of their GDP to NATO, have been failing to do so. According to reports, less than a quarter of those countries are making the contributions. "NATO is obsolete," Trump had said last year. "It's extremely expensive to the United States, disproportionately so. And we should readjust NATO. And it's going to have to be either readjusted to take care of terrorism or we're going to have to set up a new -- a new coalition, a new group of countries to handle terrorism because terrorism is out of control," reports quoted Trump. In March, 2016, during a meeting with the Washington Post editorial board, he had said: "NATO was set up at a different time. NATO was set up when we were a richer country. Were not a rich country anymore. Were borrowing, were borrowing all of this money...NATO is costing us a fortune and yes, were protecting Europe with NATO but were spending a lot of money. Number one, I think the distribution of costs has to be changed. I think NATO as a concept is good, but it is not as good as it was when it first evolved. Story continues Throughout his campaigning, Trump had said the U.S. is paying more funds to NATO than many other rich countries and that the arrangement was unfair. He said: "If we cannot be properly reimbursed for the tremendous cost of our military protecting other countries, and in many cases the countries Im talking about are extremely rich...we have many NATO members that arent paying their bills," according to CBS News. Related Articles On Tuesday, President Donald Trump offered two tweets on North Korea. North Korea is looking for trouble. If China decides to help, that would be great. If not, we will solve the problem without them! U.S.A. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 11, 2017 I explained to the President of China that a trade deal with the U.S. will be far better for them if they solve the North Korean problem! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 11, 2017 In addition, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said on Tuesday that North Korea was on notice. In a uniquely puzzling press release earlier this month, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that America had already spoken enough about North Korea. The administration has also made a big deal of diverting a Navy carrier strike group toward Korean waters. Trump called it an armada. What is clear from this posturing is that the White House is focused on North Korea, and likely attempting to deter North Korean leader Kim Jong Un from testing a weapon on April 15, the 105th anniversary of the birth of his grandfather, Kim Il Sung. Whats not clear is exactly what U.S. policy toward North Korea is right now. Deterrence is not going to work. Kim Jong Un is extremely likely to call the U.S. bluff. Then what? As anyone who has studied North Korea for more than an hour knows, its the land of terrible options. There are no good, quick solutions to its nuclear program, period, and the challenge has long stumped the best and brightest among U.S. diplomats and strategic thinkers. Lets examine what the other players may be making of the White Houses rhetoric. The Chinese response to Trumps tweets is likely a mixture of irritation and confusion. After all, Chinese President Xi Jinping spent considerable time with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida last week. Presumably, Trump conveyed to Xi in clear terms that the United States wants China to place more pressure on North Korea in order to convince Pyongyang that its only option is to reverse its nuclear program. And even though Trump is just learning, thanks to Xi, that the Chinese do not want to take these steps because Beijing is more worried about regime collapse and the ensuing refugee flow than it is about the Norths nuclear weapons (something just about anyone in the Asia divisions of any U.S. national security institution could have told him), the United States and its allies nonetheless need the Chinese to step up. Making public this difficult demand in somewhat threatening terms could make it harder for China to act. At home, Xi cannot be seen to be bending to Trumps will. He has his own macho calculus to consider. Story continues Moreover, Trumps linkage of the North Korea issue to a trade deal probably puzzles Beijing. What trade deal? There is no bilateral trade deal under negotiation, and it is hard to imagine one that would make sense for both countries. Does he mean the tariffs he has threatened to impose on Chinese goods would not be as high? We dont know. In addition, the United States has made it a point to keep economic relationships and national security separate. Unlike Beijing, Washington doesnt dole out economic punishments for trading partners political or security slights, because the United States government doesnt direct industry the way China does and because the United States dont think this conflation is good for the global economy. Chinas leaders may doubt Trumps ability to deliver anything positive on trade anyway given his campaign rhetoric, even if they do pressure Pyongyang further. They also know Trumps options are limited, as discussed below, and will thus conclude that he is bluffing. Administrations often learn the hard way: It is not a good idea to back down from a threat made against China. For their part, U.S. allies South Korea and Japan were likely confused by the tweets, as they imply Tokyo and Seoul would not be involved in the planning or execution of whatever it is the United States hopes to do to solve the North Korea problem. That is troubling, as they obviously have very strong equities and have been involved intimately in the process until now. Hopefully, the consulting that Tillerson has done, and that Vice President Mike Pence will do, is allaying their concerns. Depending on the outcome of the upcoming race for president in South Korea, though, Trumps tough stance toward the North may not even be welcome any longer. As for North Korea, it already knows that it has the attention of the Trump administration. The missile strikes on Syria were not likely timed to coincide with the Xi meeting, but Pyongyang may have concluded otherwise. Its response? The Syria strikes are exactly why the North needs nuclear weapons to protect itself from Americas aggression. What Pyongyang, China, and U.S. allies know, what U.S. experts on North Korea in and out of the government know, and what Trump and his White House team hopefully now know, is that the military options for North Korea are much less clear than they were in Syria. First, we cannot be sure that a U.S. air campaign would destroy all of North Koreas nuclear facilities and weapons, because we do not know where they all are. The North could retaliate using a nuclear weapon or nuclear material if we dont destroy all of it. But even if our intelligence and aim were perfect, the fact is and has been for decades that Seoul is within artillery range of the North. The casualties from a North Korean retaliation after a strike would be unacceptably high. Any major military campaign on the Korean Peninsula and almost any would become major quickly would draw in China and, at the very least, send the global economy reeling. Moreover, as in Iraq, we dont have an answer to the key question: What comes after the strikes? What are the thousands of intervening steps that lead from a military strike to a peaceful, democratic, unified Korea? An expensive, destabilizing land war in Asia is not what Trump voters signed up for. Hopefully what Trump has up his sleeve is a plan to impose secondary sanctions on Chinese companies that do business with North Korea in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions, if Beijing itself refuses to stop these companies itself. But unfortunately, such measures are unlikely to solve the problem quickly or completely. Which brings us to the American audience for this posturing against North Korea. Americans are now waiting for Trump to do something. He has said he will take care of this problem if China doesnt act and is building up expectations in a way that reduces his room to maneuver. The time for tweeting is over. The time for war on the Korean Peninsula is never. The best option is a combination of further sanctions and intense, boring, frustrating diplomacy. Better get to consulting, and hiring, some real talent at State and Treasury. Photo credit: ED JONES/AFP/Getty Images Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Trump (Photo: AP) WASHINGTON President Trump has a new best friend in Chinese President Xi Jinping. Trump spoke glowingly on Wednesday of a personal connection with Xi that he said had developed during the two days that the Chinese leader visited over the weekend. We had a very good bonding. I think we had a very good chemistry together, Trump said of his time with Xi during a joint press conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. Trump, who added that he was very impressed with President Xi, repeatedly stated that he thought the Chinese leader had good intentions toward the United States. President Xi wants to do the right thing, Trump said. I think he wants to help us with North Korea. I think he means well, and I think he wants to help. There were other signs of goodwill between the Trump administration and China on Wednesday. Trump told the Wall Street Journal that he would reverse his previous pledge to label China a currency manipulator, which had been a cornerstone of his argument that China was cheating the U.S. and depriving American workers of jobs. As for Russian President Vladimir Putin, a man that Trump has often spoken of in equally glowing terms, Wednesdays assessment was not as kind. I dont know Putin, Trump said, before pivoting back to praise Xi, as well as NATO itself, in another sign of shifting relations between the White House and Russia. Standing next to NATOs top official, Trump said the European alliance that exists to counter Russian aggression was no longer obsolete, reversing himself on a term hed used as recently as January to describe the group. In Moscow, meanwhile, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson met with Putin for nearly two hours before declaring that the current state of U.S.-Russia relations is at a low point. Trump himself added that we may be at an all-time low in terms of relationship with Russia. Trump and Putin have taken opposing viewpoints in Syria, where the Russians are backing President Bashar Assad in a years-old civil war. When Assad used chemical weapons in an attack on his own people, Trump responded by authorizing missile strikes on the Syrian airfield where the chemical attacks originated. Story continues It was a big change from just a few months ago, when Trump praised Putin for his muted response to sanctions put in place against Russia by then-President Barack Obama. Obama imposed the sanctions because of a CIA report that showed Russia was involved with the hacking of Democratic email accounts that were then leaked publicly in an attempt to disrupt and undermine the presidential election. Russian President Vladimir Putin (Photo: AP) At the time, Trump said on Twitter that Putin had made a great move by not retaliating and added, I always knew he was very smart, words that the Russian Embassy retweeted. Throughout the presidential election, Trump often spoke highly of Putin. But since taking office, Russian meddling in U.S. affairs has become a cloud over Trumps presidency. Trumps first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, resigned over undisclosed contact with a Russian official. The reality of Russian meddling in the U.S. election, which Trump has downplayed, is now widely accepted, even among Trump administration officials. As to the question of the interference with the election, that is fairly well established in the United States, Tillerson said Wednesday at a press conference in Moscow, where he stood next to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. And it is a serious issue. We are mindful of the seriousness of that particular interference in our elections. And Im sure that Russia is mindful of it as well. As positively as Trump has spoken of Putin and Russia before he became president, he was just as hostile toward China. We cant continue to allow China to rape our country, and thats what theyre doing, Trump said a year ago in reference to Chinas trade and currency policies that allow it to export a massive supply of cheap goods to the U.S. But Xis visit to Trumps private club in Florida over the weekend cemented a change in Trumps approach to China that was already underway. The U.S. needs Chinas help to contain North Koreas rogue regime and also cant simply cede the field to China when it comes to trade in Asia. As a result, Trump and Xi have accelerated the frequency of their communication. The two leaders discussed the North Korea issue in a phone call Tuesday evening, as a follow-up to their two-day summit over the weekend. Still, there were not substantial public commitments made by Xi regarding North Korea over the weekend, but Trump cited Chinas reduction of coal imports from North Korea as a positive step, even though China reached that decision in late February. A senior Trump White House official said that the presidents personal rapport with Xi was key to getting China to abstain from voting with Russia at the United Nations on Wednesday. Russia and Bolivia blocked a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Syria and Assad for the chemical weapons attack. The senior Trump official called Chinas abstention a victory for all civilized peoples and credited the Mar-a-Lago meetings with solidifying the two leaders suddenly warm relationship. The interaction between Trumps grandchildren and the guests had a big effect on the relationship, the senior official said. Ivanka Trumps 5-year-old daughter, Arabella, performed a song in Mandarin for the Chinese president and his wife, Peng Liyuan. Read more from Yahoo News: Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has been a vocal critic of President Donald Trump through the latters campaign phase and presidency, and now the country's most popular senator has said he believes Trump will not be re-elected in 2020. In terms of the first three months in office, Donald Trump is the least popular president in the history of polling, Sanders told the Associated Press on Wednesday. I do not believe that if Trump continues these policies that he's going to be re-elected. Nor do I think that the Republicans are going to do well in 2018. Read: Bernie Sanders Slams President Donald Trump's Airstrike On Syria Sanders, who was a Democratic presidential nominee in the 2016 election, announced his bid for re-election in Vermont on Tuesday in a letter that asked supporters to help him raise funds for a nationwide tour to rally against the Trump administrations policies next week. The letter, an unusual way to announce that he will be running again, read, Please make a $27 contribution to my re-election campaign to help fund this national tour. The tour, during which Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez will be joining Sanders, will kick off Monday with a rally in Portland, Maine. Over the week, the liberal icon has appearances scheduled for Kentucky, Florida, Texas, Nebraska, Utah, Nevada and Arizona. The momentum right now is with the progressive movement in this country, Sanders told the agency. And I think the Republicans are on the defensive and will be on the defensive increasingly. Sanders gave the example of the Kansas special election Tuesday, where Republican candidate Ron Estes pulled a narrow victory against civil rights attorney James Thompson, a Democrat, for the House seat vacated by CIA Director Mike Pompeo. Despite the loss, it was a major feat for the Democrats to put up a strong fight in a region that was won by President Trump by an overwhelming margin last year. The Republicans had to spend money like crazy at the end to beat him, Sanders said. I think that's a very good omen for the future. Related Articles Ankara (AFP) - As the clock ticks down to Turkey's landmark referendum on expanding President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's powers, it's impossible to miss the posters for the government-backed 'Yes' campaign in Ankara and cities across the country. "'Yes' for a strong Turkey." "'Yes' for peace and unity," say the ubiquitous slogans, above pictures of Erdogan or the light bulb logo of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). It's much harder to find 'No' campaign material -- but some banners hang from ropes laid above streets. ''No' for our future'". The 'Yes' campaign also dominates the airwaves, with all Erdogan's speeches broadcast live and even the main opposition leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu of the Republican People's Party (CHP), struggling to make his voice heard. Yet despite the clear disadvantages in campaign capacities, the 'No' camp -- which brings together liberals, secularists and some Kurds and nationalists -- is sufficiently competitive for the result to be seen as too close to call. - 'Persuading the don't knows' - Campaigners in Ankara from the youth wing of the CHP said they were targeting undecided voters rather than persuading 'Yes' voters to change their minds. Tolgay Yorulmaz, in charge of campaigning in the Ankara district of Cankaya, said letters were given out to people voting for the first time in a door-to-door campaign. Yorulmaz said there was a "fear" among voters. "Some people tell us they tell people around them they will vote yes but say they will vote 'No' in the ballot box. "The people do not say how they will vote freely, especially civil servants." With loud campaign songs blaring in the background, one volunteer who only wanted to give her name as Sevgi said she had been speaking to the public for a month. "The undecided are generally people who vote for AKP but aren't fully convinced by this constitution or don't know what to think of it." Story continues Sevgi, a student, said she was missing classes but the campaign was "more important than university". Across the street, a dozen volunteers were distributing leaflets for the 'No' camp but without any organisation name and only a small table installed on the pavement. Ozgur Topcu, coordination secretary for the Ankara branch of the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects, said they had no choice but not to use their name. "If we put down our name they would detain us," he claimed. The OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, which is running an observer mission for the polls, said in an interim report on Friday that 'No' supporters "faced campaign bans, police interventions, and violent scuffles at their events". The report also said freedom of expression has been "further curtailed" following the closure of numerous media outlets and the arrest of journalists following last year's failed coup attempt. Turkish media reports said that a live interview with Kilicdaroglu on state-run TRT this week had been delayed and limited while the channel waited for Erdogan to finish a live speech. - 'Seriously curtailed' - While the CHP has generally been able to campaign openly, the third largest party in parliament -- the pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP)-- has faced much more significant hurdles. HDP co-leaders Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag are among 13 HDP MPs in jail as well as other party members accused of links to outlawed Kurdish militants, in what supporters say is a deliberate move to sideline them from the campaign. The OSCE added in its interim report the absence of some activists and leaders in jail had "seriously curtailed some groups' ability to campaign". The party has been only given a handful of interview opportunities on nationwide TV throughout the campaign and expressed amazement when its MP Osman Baydemir was given a 10-minute slot on TRT this week. "We are the country's third largest party and what a shame during this referendum process, our two co-chairs, lawmakers, co-mayors, officials are in prison," said Birsen Kaya, co-leader of the HDP in Ankara, at a party rally in the capital this week. Hundreds of young people were joined by pensioners and small children running around waving 'No' flags written in Turkish and Kurdish during the HDP rally. Mehtap Dincer, from the eastern province of Van, said she was rejecting the constitutional changes because "we do not want one man to have a say over all aspects of Turkey and all peoples". "We are saying 'No' for freedom. We don't want a one-man system," Hakima Ugurtas, who was with her husband and two children, said as she waved a bright red flag emblazoned with the word 'No'. ISTANBUL (Reuters) - A narrow majority of Turks will vote "Yes" in Sunday's referendum on changing the constitution to grant President Tayyip Erdogan sweeping new powers, two opinion polls showed on Thursday. The April 16 vote will decide on the biggest change in Turkey's system of governance since the modern republic's foundation almost a century ago, potentially replacing its parliamentary system with an executive presidency. Polling company Konda said the number of "yes" voters stood at 51.5 percent, but said its survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.4 percent. "When this forecast is considered within the surveys margin of error, a final judgement might be misleading," Konda said in a statement. Its survey, carried out face-to-face with 3,462 people in 30 provinces on April 7-9, showed turnout for the vote would be around 90 percent. It said the level of undecided voters had fallen to 9 percent from more than 20 percent in January and there was no evidence to indicate their preference.. The survey by pollster Gezici put support for the constitutional change at 51.3 percent, with "no" votes at 48.7 percent after the distribution of undecided voters. The poll was carried out face-to-face with some 1,400 people in 10 provinces on April 8-9. In its previous survey a week earlier it put the "yes" vote at 53.3 percent. Gezici said many people did not want to express their views during the poll's fieldwork. It put the level of undecided voters at 9.9 percent. "One of the basic problems with the work during the referendum process was the evident increase in the level of people's concern about expressing themselves," Gezici said in its analysis of the results. Two other surveys on Wednesday showed the "yes" vote on 51-52 percent. The mean average of nine polls collated by Reuters puts the "yes" vote on 50.9 percent The referendum campaign has damaged Turkey's ties with some European allies. Erdogan has described the banning on security grounds of some rallies by Turkish ministers in the Netherlands and Germany as "Nazi-like" tactics. Voting for Turks living abroad finished on Sunday and Erdogan said this week that those overseas had turned out in greater numbers, a development that pollsters say could benefit him. (Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Dominic Evans and David Dolan) By Idrees Ali WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States dropped "the mother of all bombs," the largest non-nuclear device it has ever unleashed in combat, on a network of caves and tunnels used by Islamic State in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday, the military said. President Donald Trump touted the bombing as evidence of a more muscular U.S. foreign policy since he took office in January after eight years of President Barack Obama. The 21,600 pound (9,797 kg) GBU-43 bomb, which has 11 tons of explosives, was dropped from a MC-130 aircraft in the Achin district of Nangarhar province, close to the border with Pakistan, Pentagon spokesman Adam Stump said. (Graphic - U.S. drops massive bomb in Afghanistan IMG : http://tmsnrt.rs/2nKoKks) The GBU-43, also known as the "mother of all bombs," is a GPS-guided munition and was first tested in March 2003. It is regarded as particularly effective against clusters of targets on or just underneath the ground. Other types of bombs can be more effective against deeper, hardened tunnels. It was the first time the United States has used this size of conventional bomb in a conflict. Trump described the bombing as a "very successful mission. It was not immediately clear how much damage the device did. During last year's presidential election campaign, Trump vowed to give priority to destroying Islamic State, which operates mostly in Syria and Iraq. He flexed U.S. military muscles last week by ordering a cruise missile attack on a Syrian government airbase in retaliation for a poison gas attack. "If you look at whats happened over the last eight weeks and compare that really to whats happened over the last eight years, youll see that theres a tremendous difference," Trump told reporters at the White House on Thursday. The security situation remains precarious in Afghanistan, with a number of militant groups trying to claim territory more than 15 years after the U.S. invasion which toppled the Taliban government. So far, Trump has offered little clarity about a broader strategy for Afghanistan, where some 8,400 U.S. troops remain. LONG AFGHAN WAR Last week, a U.S. soldier was killed in the same district as where the bomb was dropped while he was conducting operations against Islamic State. White House spokesman Sean Spicer said the bombing "targeted a system of tunnels and caves that ISIS fighters used to move around freely, making it easier for them to target U.S. military advisers and Afghan forces in the area." Spicer said the bomb was dropped at around 7 p.m. local time and described it as "a large, powerful and accurately delivered weapon." U.S. forces took "all precautions necessary to prevent civilian casualties and collateral damage," he said. Afghan soldiers and police, with the aid of thousands of foreign military advisers, are struggling to hold off a resurgent insurgency led by the Taliban, as well as other groups like Islamic State. The U.S. government's top watchdog on Afghanistan said earlier this year that the Afghan government controls less than 60 percent of the country. Foreign policy experts said that it appeared the use of a specialized weapon like the GBU-43 had more to do with the type of target -- tunnels -- than the United States sending any message to other countries by using such a powerful weapon. "This is a very specialized weapon, we don't have very many of them, you can only use them in a very narrow set of circumstances," said Mark Cancian, a senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank. Cancian added that while sending a message to Syria or North Korea could have been among the secondary factors considered, they would not have been the main reason for using this type of weapon. U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the use of this bomb was a sign that the United States was committed to Afghanistan. But Congresswoman Barbara Lee, a Democrat who was the only "no" vote for authorization for use of military force in Afghanistan in 2001, said the move was unprecedented and asked for an explanation. "President Trump owes the American people an explanation about his escalation of military force in Afghanistan and his long-term strategy to defeat ISIS," she said in a statement. The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said recently that he needed several thousand more international troops in order to break a stalemate in the long war with Taliban insurgents. U.S. officials say intelligence suggests Islamic State is based overwhelmingly in Nangarhar and neighboring Kunar province. Estimates of its strength in Afghanistan vary. U.S. officials have said they believe the movement has only 700 fighters but Afghan officials estimate it has about 1,500. The Afghan Taliban, which is trying to overthrow the U.S.-backed government in Kabul, are fiercely opposed to Islamic State and the two group have clashed as they seek to expand territory and influence. (Reporting by Idrees Ali. Additional reporting by Steve Holland, Patricia Zengerle and Will Dunham.; Editing by Alistair Bell) (Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a warning letter to Abbott Laboratories, citing manufacturing flaws with a range of cardiovascular devices acquired with its purchase of St. Jude Medical in January for $25 billion. The letter, dated April 12 and made public on Thursday, sent Abbott's shares down 2 percent to $42.61. The FDA, which said the company failed to disclose at least one death associated with one of the devices, said an inspection of the company's facility in Sylmar, California, raised questions about the safety of several implantable defibrillators and its Merlin@home monitor, which allows doctors to care remotely for patients with cardiac devices. The FDA investigation showed that lithium batteries in the devices were draining prematurely and that the company had "underestimated the occurrence of the hazardous situation." Abbott said in a statement it has a "strong history and commitment to product safety and quality." It said the FDA's inspection took place in February and that Abbott responded on March 13 describing corrective actions it was taking. "We take these matters seriously, continue to make progress on our corrective actions, will closely review FDA's warning letter, and are committed to fully addressing FDA's concerns," the company said. The FDA said Abbott had provided implementation dates for several corrective actions but failed to provide evidence that the actions had actually been implemented. Analysts said the FDA may now delay approval of new devices that can be used inside an MRI machine that the company had expected to see approved by the end of the year. That could help rivals Medtronic Plc, which has such devices on the market and Boston Scientific Corp which expects to launch similar devices in the fourth quarter. "These two companies stand to benefit in the event Abbott's approvals are delayed," Glenn Novarro, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, said in a research note. The affected devices, known as implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) and Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy Defibrillators (CRT-Ds) help pace slow heart rhythms and slow dangerously fast rhythms. In October St. Jude said it would recall certain models due to reports of battery failure caused by deposits of lithium forming within the battery and causing a short circuit. In its letter, the FDA said the company repeatedly concluded that the cause of premature depletion "could not be determined" even though the company's supplier had provided evidence that it was due to lithium deposits, known as lithium cluster bridging. (Reporting by Toni Clarke in Washington; Editing by Bernard Orr and James Dalgleish) By Yeganeh Torbati, Denis Dyomkin and Jeff Mason MOSCOW/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The presidents of the United States and Russia on Wednesday both presented souring views of the relationship between their two countries, exchanging sharp words as Moscow extended an icy welcome to the United States' top diplomat in a face-off over Syria. In Washington, President Donald Trump said the United States' relationship with Moscow "may be at an all-time low." Trump's comments came after he made his biggest foreign policy decision of his new presidency last week, firing missiles at Syria to punish Moscow's ally for its suspected use of poison gas. Russia condemned the U.S. action. (For graphic on battle for control in Syria click here: http://tmsnrt.rs/2nm68H0) Hours earlier on Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin was equally pessimistic, saying in an interview broadcast on Russian television, "The level of trust on a working level, especially on the military level, has not improved but has rather deteriorated." The rhetorical salvos came as U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson received an unusually hostile reception in Moscow, where any hope that the Trump administration would herald less confrontational relations was dashed in the week after the U.S. missile strike on Syria. Tillerson met Putin in the Kremlin after talking to his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, for about three hours. The Kremlin had previously declined to confirm Putin would meet Tillerson, reflecting the renewed tensions. Trump had frequently called during the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign for warmer ties with Putin, despite criticism from lawmakers in his own Republican Party. But the civil war in Syria has driven a wedge between Moscow and Washington, upending what many in Russia hoped would be a transformation in relations, which reached a post-Cold War low under Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama. As Tillerson sat down for talks with Lavrov on Wednesday, a volley of statements, including from a senior Russian official, appeared timed to maximize the awkwardness during the first visit to Moscow by a member of Trump's cabinet. Lavrov doubled down on Russia's support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, repeating denials that Assad's government was to blame for the gas attack last week and adding a new theory that the attack may have been faked by Assad's enemies. Tillerson reiterated the U.S. position that Assad must eventually relinquish power in Syria. "We discussed our view that Russia as their closest ally in the conflict perhaps has the best means of helping Assad recognize this reality," he said. Asked whether Assad could be subject to war crimes charges, Tillerson said people were working to make such a case, though he cautioned doing so would require clearing a high legal hurdle. AN ICY WELCOME Lavrov greeted Tillerson with unusually icy remarks, denouncing the missile strike on Syria as illegal and accusing Washington of behaving unpredictably. One of Lavrov's deputies was even more undiplomatic. "In general, primitiveness and loutishness are very characteristic of the current rhetoric coming out of Washington," Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told Russia's state-owned RIA news agency. But Lavrov said some progress had been made on Syria at the meeting and that a working group would be set up to examine the poor state of U.S.-Russia ties. He also said Putin had agreed to reactivate a U.S.-Russian air safety agreement over Syria that Moscow suspended after the U.S. missile strikes. Tillerson noted the low level of trust between the two countries. "The world's two foremost nuclear powers cannot have this kind of relationship," he said. Moscow's hostility to Trump administration figures is a sharp change from last year, when Putin hailed Trump as a strong figure and Russian state television was often full of effusive praise for him. In another possible setback to a thaw with Moscow, Trump said on Wednesday that NATO is not obsolete, as he had declared during the election campaign last year. But he told a news conference at the White House with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg that alliance members still need to pay their fair share for the European security umbrella. Trump said U.S. relations with Russia were not going well. "Right now, were not getting along with Russia at all. We may be at an all-time low in terms of a relationship with Russia. This has built for a long period of time. But were going to see what happens," Trump told the news conference. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Trump said his administration's policy was not to demand Assad step down as part of a "peaceful resolution to the conflict," in some contrast to Tillerson's remarks in Moscow. "Are we insisting on it? No. But I do think its going to happen at a certain point," Trump said. The Wall Street Journal cited Trump as saying that Assad's use of chemical weapons again would elicit another military response, but he also said he would not intervene in depth in the conflict. The White House has accused Moscow of trying to cover up Assad's use of chemical weapons after the attack on a rebel-held Syrian town last week killed 87 people. Trump responded to the gas attack by firing 59 cruise missiles at a Syrian air base on Friday. Washington warned Moscow, and Russian troops at the base were not hit. Moscow has stood by Assad, saying the poison gas belonged to rebels, an explanation Washington dismisses as beyond credible. Russia blocked a Western effort at the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday to condemn the gas attack and push Assad to cooperate with international inquiries into the incident. Trump came to the presidency promising greater cooperation with Russia in fighting against the two countries' common enemy in Syria, the Islamic State militant group. Tillerson is a former oil executive who was awarded Russia's Order of Friendship by Putin. Trump's relations with Russia are also a domestic issue, as U.S. intelligence agencies have accused Moscow of using computer hacking to intervene in the U.S. presidential election to help Trump win. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating whether any Trump campaign figures colluded with Moscow, which the White House denies. (Additional reporting by Polina Devitt, Andrew Osborn and Vladimir Soldatkin; Writing by Peter Graff, Anna Willard and Dustin Volz; Editing by Yara Bayoumy and Leslie Adler) By Heather Somerville SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Help Wanted: A chief operating officer to help change a Silicon Valley giant's now-notorious "bro" culture, but who can thrive in a power dynamic that hands the boss overwhelming control. At Uber Technologies Inc., co-founder and CEO Travis Kalanick commands everything from board decision-making to the exact hour the beer taps will open at the company's San Francisco headquarters. That management approach is rooted in more than just a cult of personality. Uber's governance and share structure, and the "founder-friendly" terms of the $13 billion in equity the company has raised, give Kalanick, his co-founder and a fellow employee ultimate control over the company, according to company documents and an Uber investor with knowledge of the matter. As the company searches for a chief operating officer who can in theory take on some of Kalanick's sweeping authority, that looks to be a problem. "A COO would report into Travis, so structurally, there's the rub," said Dave Carvajal, an executive recruiter for venture-backed tech companies. "This COO is going to need to have influence at the board level to effect change." Kalanick's near-total control at Uber is made possible largely by a dual-class share structure that gives certain owners 10 votes per share, according the company's certificate of incorporation filed with the State of Delaware. Kalanick, along with Garrett Camp, Uber's co-founder who is now working on another startup, and Ryan Graves, Uber CEO prior to Kalanick, together hold enough of those super-voting shares to give them control of the company, according to an Uber investor with knowledge of the matter. The documents say Uber's executive board may have eleven voting members, including nine seats controlled by shareholders with super-voting rights. But Kalanick has kept the power circle small, leaving four board seats empty. In addition to Kalanick, Camp and Graves, the board includes venture capitalist Bill Gurley of Benchmark, David Bonderman of TPG Capital, Yasir Al Rumayyan of the Saudi Arabian public investment fund and media impresario Arianna Huffington. Leaving control with founders has become popular in Silicon Valley in recent years, both because of the success of founder-led enterprises like Facebook Inc and Alphabet Inc's Google and because investors compete with each other to fund entrepreneurs by offering them the best terms. Those circumstances helped Uber obtain a $68 billion valuation, the biggest of any private venture-backed company. But with Uber rocked by scandals, including detailed accusations of sexual harassment from a former female employee and a video showing Kalanick harshly berating an Uber driver, Kalanick just weeks ago promised to "grow up" and hire a COO who would offer "leadership help." The COO search is ongoing, but Uber's human resources chief told reporters last month that Kalanick, 40, is already showing a more collaborative style. The share structure leaves investors with few options if they lose patience with Kalanick, though there is little sign of that happening. With two public exceptions, investors have either supported Kalanick or stayed silent as the company's all-important rider numbers continue to grow even in the face of controversy. Mitchell Green, a partner at Lead Edge Capital that invested in Uber at a $40 billion valuation, believes the controversies will blow over and he even wants to buy more stock. "We believe that Travis continues to drive shareholder equity value higher," said Green. CONTROL A COO DETERRENT? The most effective COOs have broad authority and direct access to the board, governance experts say. At Facebook, for example, COO Sheryl Sandberg works in partnership with founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and holds a board seat. At Uber, it's not so easy to envision what a power-sharing arrangement would look like, or how the brash founder could be an agent of managerial change under such a governance structure, the experts said. "People don't like to correct their own homework," said Bill Aulet, managing director of the entrepreneurship center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "This is a situation where the checks and balances are not really in place." An Uber spokesman declined to comment for this story. A string of high-level executive departures including company president Jeff Jones last month and top communications chief Rachel Whetstone this week has centralized even more authority with Kalanick and raised questions about the staying power of his deputies. Kalanick is known to obsess over details like office decor alongside big issues like pricing strategy and driver relations. Kalanick at one point ordered the beer taps in the office locked during certain hours, controlling when employees could pour themselves a pint, after expressing displeasure with one imbibing staff member, said one former employee. The CEO closely managed Uber's logo redesign last year, despite himself not being a designer, according to a source close to the company. Design chief Andrew Crow announced he was quitting the day after the new logo was unveiled. Soon after, Kalanick rejected the new logo designers brought him for Uber Eats, the company's food-delivery business, upset that the team hadn't shown him every iteration of the design, according to a second former employee. The CEO also at times edited press statements following a PR incident, the former employee said. He was especially anxious that the company didn't come across as too apologetic. This sort of iron grip may deter qualified COO candidates who "don't want to do their job with one arm tied behind their back," said Robert Siegel, a lecturer at Stanford University and venture capitalist at XSeed Capital. (Editing by Jonathan Weber and Edward Tobin) Uber is back in Taiwan, two months after it was unceremoniously banned but it's not all good news for drivers there. Under Uber's new agreement with regulators, it only be able to operate again in Taipei by using licensed commercial drivers, rather than private drivers. SEE ALSO: Uber is pretty much throwing in the towel in Taiwan "Drivers have to be licensed commercial drivers working for rental car companies," an Uber spokesperson told Mashable. This effectively blocks regular folk wanting to operate as ride-sharing drivers. Uber announces its return on Thursday, April 13th. Image: DAVID CHANG/EPA/REX/Shutterstock On a statement on its website, Uber announced that it would now be "partnering with licensed rental car companies to resume serving riders in Taipei...after constructive talks with transportation authorities." According to Likai Gu, General Manager of Uber Taiwan, the company wants to "partner with more legal transportation service partners in weeks and months to come." Uber first ran into trouble in Taiwan in 2016, after state officials claimed that the company was not operating lawfully. Under Taiwanese law, taxi companies are legally required to be domestically owned and operated. Uber was later ordered to suspend its services, after months of police cracking down on drivers in the capital city. Over a million people in Taiwan have downloaded the app, and according to Uber, over 15 million trips have been taken since its launch on the island some four years ago. WATCH: I tried Uber Rush for a day: Here's what happened. Entebbe (Uganda) (AFP) - Targeted killings of specific ethnic groups in South Sudan's civil war amount to "genocide", according to Britain's International Development Minister Priti Patel. "It's tribal, it's absolutely tribal, so on that basis it's genocide," Patel told reporters in Uganda on Wednesday, according to a ministry press officer travelling with her. Patel was returning from a visit to South Sudan where people have "experienced trauma and horror none of us can comprehend", she told AFP in a separate interview. Civil war erupted in South Sudan in 2013 after a power struggle between President Salva Kiir -- who is ethnic Dinka -- and his former deputy Riek Machar from the Nuer community. The Dinka and Nuer are the two largest ethnic groups in South Sudan and with their history of bloody rivalry, fighting quickly pitted the two against each other. However the conflict has also drawn in the country's myriad smaller groups, either taking sides with the government or the rebels or fighting each other for the upper hand in local conflicts over land or other issues. Refugees fleeing fighting in South Sudan have told AFP of targeted killings by government troops, who identify people according to language or tribal scarring before slaughtering them. In the southern town of Pajok, seen as sympathetic to the rebels, government troops went on a rampage last week killing at least 85 people, numerous witnesses told AFP after fleeing to Uganda. As fighting broke out in the second largest city of Wau this week, priest Moses Peter told AFP that government troops were "targeting certain groups of people". The rebels are also accused of committing atrocities. United Nations experts in early December reported "ethnic cleansing" in several parts of South Sudan. The UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Adama Dieng, has warned of "a strong risk of violence escalating along ethnic lines, with the potential for genocide." Story continues South Sudan's Information Minister Michael Makuei slammed Patel's comments as "unfortunate and misleading". "That is a very unfortunate statement given by an irresponsible person. There is no genocide," he said. "If they talk of a genocide what are the criteria of a genocide. If they talk of a genocide then the whole world will be in genocide because of what is happening in the US, in Germany, even in Britain," said Makuei, referring to terrorist attacks. Genocide is the gravest crime in international humanitarian law and also the most difficult to prove. Derived from the Greek word "genos", for race or tribe, and the suffix "cide" from the Latin for "to kill"; genocide is defined by the United Nations as an "act committed with intent to destroy in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group." burs-fb/ccr United Nations (United States) (AFP) - The United Nations Security Council on Thursday agreed to shut down the peacekeeping mission in Haiti after 13 years and replace it with a smaller police-only force. The council unanimously adopted a resolution that will end the mission known as MINUSTAH by October 15. The decision provided a boost to the new US administration's hopes of cutting back its multi-billion dollar financial contribution to UN peacekeeping. US Ambassador Nikki Haley has launched a review of all peacekeeping missions to find ways of cutting back costs and improving the operations, which have been plagued with sexual abuse and corruption scandals. After the vote, Haley spoke out against sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers, saying children in Haiti will continue to face a "nightmare" after the troops are gone. "What do we say to these kids? Did these peacekeepers keep them safe?" she asked. The council agreed that the 2,370 soldiers serving in MINUSTAH will be gradually withdrawn over six months to make way for the new United Nations Mission for Justice Support in Haiti (MINUJUSTH). That mission will have 1,275 police, which will also be drawn down over two years as the police force is built up in the poor Caribbean country. MINUSTAH was deployed in 2004 after the departure of president Jean-Bertrand Aristide to help stem political violence but it has not endeared itself to Haitians. An outbreak of cholera in 2010 was introduced by Nepalese UN peacekeepers serving in the mission. More than 9,000 Haitians died in the epidemic. - Peacekeeper abuse of kids 'must stop' - Haley said sex abuse by UN peacekeepers "must stop" and that the United States will continue to demand that countries hold accountable soldiers who face allegations while serving under the UN flag. She cited the example of a sex ring allegedly run by Sri Lankan peacekeepers in Haiti -- they reportedly lured hungry teenage boys and girls by offering them snacks and cookies. Dozens of peacekeepers were sent home over the claims. Story continues "The children were passed from soldier to soldier," Haley told the council. "Countries that refuse to hold their soldiers accountable must recognize that this either stops, or their troops will go home and their financial compensation will end," she said. With its annual budget of $346 million, MINUSTAH does not rank among the costliest peace operations run by the United Nations, but its closure signalled a shift toward smaller missions. British Ambassador Matthew Rycroft said he expected more cuts and closures of peacekeeping operations. "Peacekeepers do fantastic work but they are very expensive and they should be used only when needed. So we strongly support the ending of this mission and turning it into something else and we will see the same thing elsewhere," Rycroft told reporters. In late March, the council reduced the size of its peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, bringing the ceiling down from 19,815 troops to 16,215. Missions in Liberia and Ivory Coast will also shut down, while the large joint UN-African Union peace operation in Sudan's Darfur region is also expected to be drawn down. Tokyo (AFP) - Uniqlo's operator said Thursday that its half-year profit doubled from a year ago as sales of winter wear picked up and the chain refocuses on thrifty shoppers. Fast Retailing also cited upbeat demand at its China stores for net profit coming in at 97.2 billion yen ($891 million) in the six months through February, up from 47.0 billion last year. Revenue rose 0.6 percent to 1.02 trillion yen, it said. But the company did not upgrade its 100 billion yen full-year profit forecast, meaning results for the rest of the year were likely to come in weaker than hoped. Asia's biggest retailer -- a rival of Zara, Gap and H&M -- pointed to strong demand for sweaters and its heat-retaining clothing brand, Heattech, for upbeat first-half results. "On top of strong sales, we saw significant profit increase in the mainland Chinese" stores and in Southeast Asia, the company said in a statement. Still, warmer-than-expected weather in December and January held back sales at Uniqlo's Japanese locations. Fast Retailing has adopted a back-to-thrifty strategy after company chairman Tadashi Yanai conceded last year that an ill-fated price rise had been a mistake that hurt sales. In October, Yanai backed off his ambitious annual revenue goal -- 5.0 trillion yen by 2020. Not only did United Airlines make millions of enemies when it forcibly removed a passenger from a Louisville-bound flight, it also acted illegally, according to attorney Brian Mahany of Wisconsin-based Mahany Law. Video emerged Sunday of aviation security officers physically removing a bloodied and screaming passenger from a flight by dragging him by his arms down the aisle of the plane. The company said it needed to make room for four of its employees on the flight and had randomly selected the man (along with three other passengers) after nobody volunteered to deplane. Read: United Airlines Backlash Erupts After Viral Video Of Passenger Being Forcibly Removed Its illegal, Mahany, who was part of a $16.6 billion fraud settlement with Bank of America in 2015 and specializes in consumer protection, told International Business Times in an interview Wednesday. You cant remove, under the current rules, a passenger once theyre seated on the aircraft. You can deny them entry if youre overbooked, but once theyre on the aircraft, its a completely different set of rules. United, like all airlines, has protocol in place for overbooking incidents, said Mahany. Under Uniteds Rule 25: Denied Boarding Compensation, the airline lays out its responsibilities in dealing with an overbooked flight, but the rule deals only with passengers who have not yet boarded the plane. Per these rules, the company would have had to deny entry to the passenger before, not after, he boarded the plane. In order to require someone to leave the plane who is already seated, Mahany said, they would need to provide a lawful reason. If theyre not dressed appropriately, if they have certain communicable diseases, if theyre drunk, if theyre violent, you can remove them, he said. If they dont turn off their cell phone when theyre supposed to, you can remove them. If they wont obey lawful instructions from a crew member, you can remove them. But telling someone, Hey, weve overbooked, get off the plane, that wouldnt be a lawful instruction. Story continues LawNewz, a website run by legal correspondent Dan Abrams, agreed that the company acted illegally when it forced the passenger to de-plane. The Department of Transportation's Office of Aviation Enforcement and Proceedings said in a statement Tuesday that it had begun reviewing what happened on the flight. The Department remains committed to ensuring that airlines comply with consumer protection regulations and will not speculate during the review process on this matter, it said, explaining that it would determine whether or not the airline complied with the DOT's "oversales rule." The statement noted that it is legal for airlines to involuntarily bump passengers when there are not enough volunteers and that it is the airlines responsibility to determine its own fair boarding priorities. It also explained that the airline would have to give all passengers who are bumped involuntarily a written statement describing their rights and detailing how the airline decided who was bumped, and that "the Department mandates compensation and other protections for passengers who have confirmed reserved space on a flight." The Department of Justice also said it was reviewing the incident. Read: Rival Airlines Take Advantage Of United's Public Relations Nightmare The United flight was not an overbooking incident in the technical sense. The problem was caused by United wanting to add four of their own crew members at the last minute, said Mahany. In the grand scheme of things, thats not what made this illegal, although it certainly makes it less clear. What makes it illegal is that they allowed the passenger to board. Citing the newest apology from CEO Oscar Munoz, Mahany said the airline likely only realized they were in hot water legally days later. The newest apology says, 'We will never remove a paying passenger again.' Newsflash: they cant, he said. I think they realize today, three days later, that legally, they couldnt do what they did. The situation could have been averted had United personnel been better trained and had more control, Mahany said. The line employees arent empowered to do anything, and the cops are always going to listen to the flight crew. If the pilot says a person has to get off, theyre going to take them off. Its unclear what legal avenue the passenger will choose to pursue against the company or what the letter of the law may prescribe but with the damaging video still making the viral rounds, the aviation giant is unlikely to find much sympathy from a jury. Related Articles Lawyers for David Dao, the man who was violently dragged off a United Airlines flight Sunday due to "overbooking" by the airlines, filed an emergency court request last Wednesday for the airline to preserve evidence. The video showing Dao, who is currently hospitalized after the incident, being pulled out of his seat and screaming as officers dragged him down the aircraft at Chicago O'Hare airport, received millions of views. The airline issued an apology over the incident and said it would refund the ticket costs of all passengers on Sunday's flight. Oscar Munoz, the CEO of the airline, insisted he will not resign after two online petitions calling for his resignation gained more than 64,000 and 75,000 signatures. Senior Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Transportation Committee demanded answers from United Airlines CEO and the Chicago Department of Aviation about the removal of the passenger in the video. While Dao continues to recover in a Chicago hospital, lawyers representing him filed a petition with an Illinois State court demanding the airline and the City of Chicago to preserve all surveillance videos, cockpit voice recordings, passenger and crew lists related to the flight, BBC reported. Read: United Airlines Spent Millions Fighting Proposals To Protect Passenger Rights The airline announced Wednesday it is "reaching out" to customers on the United Flight 3411 and "offering compensation for their flights." Munoz, who had initially described Dao as "disruptive and belligerent," said Wednesday he felt "shame and embarrassment" and vowed such an incident would never happen again. The Department of Transportation's Office of Aviation Enforcement and Proceedings said in a statement Tuesday that it had begun reviewing what happened on the flight. The Department remains committed to ensuring that airlines comply with consumer protection regulations and will not speculate during the review process on this matter, it said. Story continues The statement noted that it is legal for airlines to involuntarily bump passengers when there are not enough volunteers and that it is the airlines responsibility to determine its own fair boarding priorities. However, attorney Brian Mahany of Wisconsin-based Mahany Law told International Business Times in an interview Wednesday that the airline acted illegally. You cant remove, under the current rules, a passenger once theyre seated on the aircraft. You can deny them entry if youre overbooked, but once theyre on the aircraft, its a completely different set of rules, he said. Related Articles To blow up an Islamic State tunnel complex in eastern Afghanistan, the United States has dropped one of its most powerful non-nuclear bombs the Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb, or MOAB, a 21,000-pound munition packing an explosive punch larger than almost anything else in the U.S. conventional arsenal. According to the Defense Department, local Islamic State fighters had bolstered their subterranean defenses in the province of Nangarhar, Afghanistan. The MOAB, or GBU-43, was designed as a bunker buster, to allow U.S. forces to penetrate underground nuclear facilities like those in Iran but made its debut in a more rustic setting. As ISIS-Ks losses have mounted, they are using IEDs, bunkers and tunnels to thicken their defense, said General John W. Nicholson, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, according to the Pentagon press release. This is the right munition to reduce these obstacles and maintain the momentum of our offensive against ISIS-K. There are between 600 and 800 Islamic State fighters operating in Afghanistan, according to U.S. military estimates. Last month, Afghan troops backed up by American Special Forces advisors launched a major offensive against the group in Nangarhar, which resulted in the death of U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Mark De Alencar on April 8, the first U.S. combat death in Afghanistan this year. Our goal is to defeat ISIS-K in Afghanistan in 2017, U.S. Navy Capt. Bill Salvin, a spokesman for the U.S. military command in Kabul, told Foreign Policy. He said the bomb was used against the large tunnel complex because it allowed the fighters freedom of movement to outmaneuver Afghan forces, and while U.S. forces havent been able to complete their assessment of what the strike might have achieved, what we projected is that the bomb has the ability to collapse the tunnels on top of any fighters inside. CNN first reported the use of the bomb. Story continues The news came the same day as a report that a coalition airstrike in Syria mistakenly killed 18 fighters backed by the United States. The U.S. statement also said: U.S. Forces took every precaution to avoid civilian casualties with this strike. The U.S. military is reportedly currently assessing the damage from the bomb. Read more: Mission Accomplished Will Never Come in Afghanistan: Will the Trump administration put American interests first, or the presidents own obsession with winning? On the Trail of the Islamic State in Afghanistan: In Nangarhar province, Afghan troops are hunting a new and elusive enemy: the Islamic State fighters taking root in what were once Taliban strongholds. The strike in Afghanistan is part of a huge increase in the American air war in Afghanistan that started under the Obama administration, but has increased even more sharply under President Donald Trump. In the first three months of 2017, American planes have dropped over 450 bombs on targets in Afghanistan, compared to about 1,300 for all of 2016, according to U.S. Air Force statistics. The number of strikes in the first two months of the Trump administration more than doubled the number taken in the same time period under the Obama administration. Under Trump, the White House has allowed commanders on the ground far more leeway in in striking targets in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, a welcome change for military leaders who long bristled at the control the Obama administration exercised over small troop movements and sometimes individual targets. The MOAB is also known as the mother of all bombs. It is not, however, the heaviest non-nuclear bomb. That distinction belongs to the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or MOP, an even bigger bunker-buster that weighs 30,000 pounds. This post has been updated. Photo credit: USAF via Getty Images Correction, April 13, 2017: Due to an editing error, the article originally misstated the explosive yield. It is larger than almost anything else in the U.S. conventional arsenal. (This April 12 story corrects time in GMT to 1745 GMT, not 1545 GMT in second paragraph; in fourth paragraph, corrects governor's first name to Andrew, not Mario) By Ian Simpson (Reuters) - A groundbreaking black jurist who became the first Muslim woman to serve as a U.S. judge was found dead in New York's Hudson River on Wednesday, police said. Sheila Abdus-Salaam, a 65-year-old associate judge of New York's highest court, was found floating off Manhattan's west side at about 1:45 p.m. EDT (1745 GMT), a police spokesman said. Police pulled Abdus-Salaam's fully clothed body from the water and she was pronounced dead at the scene. Her family identified her and an autopsy would determine the cause of death, the spokesman said. Abdus-Salaam, a native of Washington, D.C., became the first African-American woman appointed to the Court of Appeals when Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo named her to the state's high court in 2013. "Justice Sheila Abdus-Salaam was a trailblazing jurist whose life in public service was in pursuit of a more fair and more just New York for all," Cuomo said in a statement. The Princeton Encyclopedia of American Political History said Abdus-Salaam was the first female Muslim to serve as a U.S. judge. Citing unidentified sources, the New York Post reported that Abdus-Salaam had been reported missing from her New York home earlier on Wednesday. Attempts to reach her family were unsuccessful. A graduate of Barnard College and Columbia Law School, Abdus-Salaam started her law career with East Brooklyn Legal Services and served as a New York state assistant attorney general, according to the Court of Appeals website. She held a series of judicial posts after being elected to a New York City judgeship in 1991. (Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by Paul Tait) The University of California has filed an appeal to overturn a February decision by a US patent tribunal that dealt UC a setback in its efforts to win foundational patents on the revolutionary genome editing technology CRISPR-Cas9. In that decision, the US Patent Trial and Appeal Board ruled that CRISPR patents issued to the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in 2014 did not cover the same inventions for which UC had sought patents. The PTAB decision found that the claims can be patented separately. That left UC free to pursue its original patent applications, but was deemed a setback because the Broad was left with what many experts considered the more valuable intellectual property. UC was joined in its appeal, filed in the federal Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., by its partners in its CRISPR patent efforts, the University of Vienna and biologist Emmanuelle Charpentier, who collaborated with UC biochemist Jennifer Doudna on the pioneering CRISPR research. The appeal seeks to have PTAB reverse its decision, and conclude that the Broads patents on the use of CRISPR-Cas9 in eukaryotic cells those of advanced organisms, including all plants and animals are so similar to UCs patent application on the use of CRISPR in more primitive cells, like bacteria, that they should not have been granted. Ultimately, we expect to establish definitively that the team led by Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier was the first to engineer CRISPR-Cas9 for use in all types of environments, including in non-cellular settings and within plant, animal and even human cells, said Edward Penhoet, a special adviser on CRISPR to the UC president and UC Berkeley chancellor. Penhoet is the associate dean of biology at UC Berkeley and a professor emeritus of molecular and cell biology.. UC also intends to continue its efforts to obtain patents elsewhere in the world on the CRISPR-Cas9 technology in non-cellular and cellular settings, including eukaryotic cells, the university said in a statement. Last month, UC was told by the European Patent Office that it would be awarded a patent on the basic CRISPR-Cas9 technology on May 10. In a statement, the Broad said that given that the facts have not changed, we expect the outcome will once again be the same. We are confident the Federal Circuit will affirm the PTAB decision and recognize the contribution of the Broad, MIT and Harvard in developing this transformative technology. In a federal circuit case, the judges do not re-examine the facts determined by PTAB. Instead, UC will have to argue that the three PTAB judges committed an error of law. That, said Broad spokesman Lee McGuire, seems unlikely. THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) Syrian authorities "abetted by Russia's continuing efforts to bury the truth" still possess and use chemical weapons, an American diplomat told the international chemical weapons watchdog on Thursday. The strong comments by Kenneth D. Ward, the American ambassador to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, came amid ongoing diplomatic skirmishes over last week's deadly attack in Syria. Ward used a hastily convened meeting of the organization's executive council to launch a withering verbal attack on Syrian President Bashar Assad and his allies in Moscow. The meeting was called to discuss the April 4 attack on the Syrian town of Khan Shaykhun that killed nearly 90 people. The United States and other Western governments blame Assad's regime. Washington in retaliation launched missile strikes on a Syrian air base it said was the starting point for the chemical weapons attack, a move that ratcheted up tensions between the United States and Syria's ally Russia. Russia and Syria claim the Khan Shaykhun victims were killed by toxic agents released from a rebel chemical arsenal hit by Syrian warplanes. Assad, in an interview with Agence France-Presse, denied that any chemical weapons attack took place. "Definitely, 100 percent for us, it's fabrication," Assad said in the video released by his office. "Our impression is that the West, mainly the United States, is hand-in-glove with the terrorists. They fabricated the whole story in order to have a pretext for the attack," Assad said in his first comments since the U.S. missile strikes in response to the chemical attack. Assad denied having chemical weapons and said Syria would only allow an "impartial" investigation into the incident. But OPCW Director-General Ahmet Uzumcu told the meeting at the group's headquarters in The Hague that the preliminary assessment of OPCW experts investigating the alleged chemical attack was "that this was a credible allegation." Story continues He said investigators have collected samples that have been sent for analysis. U.S. Ambassador Ward insisted it was a deliberate attack that amounted to "a direct affront to the Chemical Weapons Convention and, indeed, a direct affront to human decency, carried out by a State Party" to the OPCW, according to the text of his speech that was posted on the organization's website. Syria joined the OPCW in 2013 under severe international pressure following a deadly chemical attack on a Damascus suburb. Assad's government told the organization it had a 1,300-ton stockpile of chemical weapons and chemicals used to make them. The stockpile was destroyed in an operation overseen by the Nobel Peace Prize winning-group OPCW, but ever since there have been questions about whether Assad had declared all his weapons. "On April 4, the lifeless bodies of innocent victims, grotesquely contorted and twisted by the nerve agent sarin, tell the real story," Ward said. Syria "continues to possess and use chemical weapons." He added that "this outrage is abetted by Russia's continuing efforts to bury the truth and protect the Syrian regime" from consequences of using chemical weapons. On Thursday night, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he and Russian President Vladimir Putin have agreed to support the OPCW investigation. Erdogan's office said in a statement that the two leaders held a telephone conversation during which the Turkish leader stressed that the use of chemical weapons "is the greatest crime against humanity." The statement says "the two leaders agreed that the attack in question be investigated by the OPCW, which is an independent organization whose legitimacy is recognized." The Kremlin in a statement confirmed that Putin and Erdogan had spoken "in favor of conducting an objective and full international investigation as soon as possible." Britain's Ambassador, Sir Geoffrey Adams, told the meeting that U.K. scientists have analyzed samples from Khan Shaykhun and they "tested positive for the nerve agent sarin, or a sarin-like substance." Earlier this week, Turkish doctors also said that test results conducted on victims confirmed that sarin gas was used. The OPCW's Fact Finding Mission for Syria is conducting an investigation and is expected to report its findings in three weeks. The organization has not revealed any details, citing the need to preserve the integrity of the probe and the safety of OPCW staff. In Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Thursday that OPCW inspectors should visit both the Syrian air base, which the U.S. said served as a platform for the attack, and Khan Sheikhoun to get a full and objective picture. He said Russia vetoed a draft U.N. resolution Wednesday because it failed to mention the need to inspect the area of the attack. "We are deeply worried by our partners in the U.N. Security Council trying to evade an honest investigation into that episode," he said. Lavrov said he emphasized the need for a wide-ranging OPCW probe during Wednesday's talks in Moscow with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, suggesting that Western nations, Russia and some regional powers could dispatch additional experts to join the investigation. ____ Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed. Washington (AFP) - Talk about a craving: an eight-year-old American boy drove his father's van to a McDonald's because he just had to have a cheeseburger. The Ohio boy said he learned to drive by watching YouTube videos, the Weirton Daily Times reported on Sunday evening's adventure. The child, at the wheel with his four-year-old sister riding shotgun, drove for about a mile and a half, stopping at red lights and letting traffic pass before he executed a left turn into the McDonald's in the town of East Palestine in eastern Ohio, the paper said. The parents were home asleep, it added. Police were alerted by people who saw the boy driving through town. When he pulled up to the drive-through window at the burger joint, employees thought it was all a joke. "The workers thought that the parents were in the back, but obviously they weren't," East Palestine patrolman Jacob Koehler told the newspaper. When police showed up the boy started crying because he thought he had done something wrong, it added. The kids' grandparents were called to take them to the police station, and in the meantime they got a meal of a cheeseburger, chicken nuggets and fries. The parents picked up their kids at the police station and no charges were filed, the paper said. New York (AFP) - A US doctor in Detroit has been arrested and charged with carrying out female genital mutilation on girls aged six to eight, prosecutors said. Emergency room doctor Jumana Nagarwala, 44, of Northville, Michigan, is accused of carrying out the widely condemned practice -- illegal in the United States -- for 12 years from a medical office in Livonia, Michigan. She appeared in a US federal court in Detroit on Thursday and was remanded into custody until at least Monday, said a spokeswoman for the US attorney's office. If convicted at trial she faces a maximum sentence of life behind bars. Congress passed a law in 1996 making it illegal to perform genital mutilation or cutting in the United States on anyone under than 18. Twenty-five US states also have laws prohibiting the practice. Prosecutors in Michigan say they believe it is the first case of its kind brought under the federal law. Some of Nagarwala's victims traveled from outside Michigan and were told not to talk about the procedure, prosecutors said. "Dr Nagarwala is alleged to have performed horrifying acts of brutality on the most vulnerable victims," said acting Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Blanco. "The Department of Justice is committed to stopping female genital mutilation in this country, and will use the full power of the law to ensure that no girls suffer such physical and emotional abuse." "The practice has no place in modern society and those who perform FGM on minors will be held accountable under federal law," said acting US Attorney Daniel Lemisch. In 2006, a court in Georgia found a man guilty of sexually mutilating his two-year-old daughter with a pair of scissors, in what was then the first recorded case of female genital mutilation in the United States. The Ethiopian immigrant was sentenced to 10 years in prison for aggravated battery and cruelty to children for the 2001 crime. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that 513,000 women and girls in the United States in 2012 were at risk of or had been subjected to female genital mutilation or cutting. Story continues The estimate was three times higher than one based on 1990 data, due to increased immigration from countries where genital mutilation is practiced. Globally, at least 200 million girls and women alive today have suffered some form of female genital mutilation across 30 countries, according to the United Nations. While concentrated in Africa, it is common in some communities in Asia, Arab states and Latin America. Half of those cut live in Egypt, Ethiopia and Indonesia, according to the UN. United Nations (United States) (AFP) - US Ambassador Nikki Haley said Thursday that sex abuse by UN peacekeepers "must stop" following a media report detailing a child sex ring run by blue helmets in Haiti. Haley told the Security Council after it voted to shut down the peacekeeping mission in Haiti that many children abused by the soldiers will continue to face a "nightmare" after the troops are gone. The US ambassador quoted a recent report by the Associated Press news agency on a sex ring allegedly run by Sri Lankan peacekeepers who lured hungry teenage boys and girls by offering them snacks and cookies. "The children were passed from soldier to soldier. One boy was gang-raped in 2011 by peacekeepers who disgustingly filmed it on a cellphone," Haley told the council. "What do we say to these kids? Did these peacekeepers keep them safe?" The United Nations has been badly shaken by a wave of allegations of sex abuse by troops it deploys in missions with a clear mandate to protect civilians. Last month, a UN report showed an increase in cases, with 145 allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse in 2016, up from 99 in 2015, although this may be partly explained by the fact that more victims are coming forward. The United States, the biggest financial contributor to UN peacekeeping, has told the United Nations and countries that contribute troops to missions that "these abuses must stop," Haley told the council. "Countries that refuse to hold their soldiers accountable must recognize that this either stops, or their troops will go home and their financial compensation will end," she said. The United States will continue to push for accountability for soldiers accused of sex abuse in Haiti and other missions, she said, before calling on the council to "join me in this effort." The MINUSTAH mission in Haiti ranks among those with the highest number of cases of sexual abuse. UN missions in the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan also have been hit by a wave of sex abuse allegations involving their peacekeepers. WASHINGTON (AP) The Trump administration has imposed sanctions on the brother of a well-known Iranian general. A Treasury Department statement says sanctions were imposed on the Tehran Prisons Organization and Sohrab Soleimani in connection with serious human rights abuses in Iran. Soleimani is a senior official in the organization. The statement says the action reflects deep concern regarding human rights in Iran. Soleimani is the younger brother of Qassem Soleimani, the former commander of Iran's elite Quds force who also advised Iraq's Shiite militias in their fight against the Islamic State group. The Treasury Department says the prison organization is responsible for, or complicit in, the detention of many prisoners of conscience and well-documented accounts of their mistreatment and abuse. MANASSAS, Va. (AP) Joaquin Shadow Rams plotted to kill his infant son from nearly the time he was born, finally snuffing out his life at age 15 months when the opportunity presented itself, a Virginia judge ruled Thursday. Rams was convicted of capital murder in the 2012 death of Prince McLeod Rams and will be sentenced to life in prison. Judge Randy Bellows' ruling caps a nearly five-year legal saga in which Rams maintained he was unfairly accused and that his son died after suffering a fever-induced seizure. Witnesses gave conflicting medical testimony about the possibility that Prince died from natural causes. But in a 62-page ruling that he read aloud from the bench for more than two hours, Bellows methodically dismissed the suggestion that Prince died a natural death. Bellows concluded that Rams planned to kill his son ever since he took out life insurance policies totaling more than $500,000 in September 2011, when Prince was only 2 months old. In the summer of 2012 a civil judge granted unsupervised visits to Rams over the objection of his mother, Hera McLeod, who feared for the boy's safety. Then, in September 2012, Rams learned that his son was suffering fever-induced seizures. The seizures "gave the defendant his alibi, his way to justify how Prince came to die in his care," Bellows said. On October 20, 2012, in just his fourth unsupervised visit with his son, Rams called 911 and said his son had a seizure and stopped breathing. Efforts to revive him were unsuccessful, and he was declared dead the next day. Prince's death fits a pattern of misfortune that has befallen those close to Rams. His ex-girlfriend, Shawn Mason, was shot and killed in 2003. Rams' mother, Alma Collins, died in 2008 in what authorities initially ruled a suicide. In Mason's death, Rams tried to collect on a life insurance policy. In Collins' death, Rams did collect a payout of more than $150,000. Prosecutor Paul Ebert said Rams is a suspect in both those cases, and authorities will decide later whether to bring charges. Story continues Rams showed no visible reaction when the verdict was announced. His attorneys said they plan to appeal but declined further comment. Hera McLeod expressed relief after the conviction but said "it's sad my son had to be the one who put him away." She said Rams should have been locked up after Mason's death, and that a judge never should have allowed him unsupervised visits with Prince after she had presented evidence that Rams was a potential danger and a suspect in Mason's death. Ebert said the case was challenging because the medical evidence was "especially convoluted." The medical examiner who conducted the autopsy concluded that Prince drowned. But her boss at the time, Virginia chief medical examiner William Gormley, overturned the finding a year later and changed the cause of death to "undetermined." Defense experts said the fact that Prince suffered fever-induced seizures was significant, but medical experts for prosecutors said fever-induced seizures are common in boys Prince's age and not fatal. Bellows in his ruling agreed with prosecutors' experts, saying the medical evidence on that point is overwhelming. Bellows ruled on Rams' guilt because the defense waived its right to a jury trial in exchange for prosecutors' promise not to pursue a death penalty. Because Rams was convicted of capital murder and the death penalty is now off the table, the only option under Virginia law at Rams' formal sentencing in June is life in prison. If prosecutors decide to bring charges in either Collins' or Mason's death, it is unlikely that there would be grounds for a capital murder charge under Virginia law. Joseph Velez, the son of Alma Collins and half-brother of Rams, said Thursday that he was glad to see a conviction for Prince's death, but said he also wants justice in his mother's death. He said he still hasn't been allowed to claim his mother's ashes, which were in Rams' possession at the time of his arrest. "My heart's dancing that we finally got some justice," he said. "But my mother did not kill herself." By Umit Ozdal and Humeyra Pamuk DIYARBAKIR/ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Mehtap Yoruk used to teach in a nursery school in southeast Turkey, until she was sacked last year in a purge of tens of thousands of state employees. Now, she ekes out a living selling chicken and rice from a food cart on a side street, dreaming of being reunited with her classroom full of children. That day may never come if Sunday's referendum grants President Tayyip Erdogan sweeping new powers, she said, scooping rice in a paper plate for a customer. "If there is a 'Yes' in the referendum, it will be much harder for us to be reinstated in our jobs. And these removals will probably expand." After an abortive coup in July, Turkish authorities arrested 40,000 people and sacked or suspended 120,000 others from a wide range of professions including soldiers, police, teachers and public servants, over alleged links with terrorist groups. The vast majority of those people, like Yoruk, say they have nothing to do with the armed attempt to overthrow the government, and are victims of a purge designed to solidify the power of an increasingly authoritarian leader. The referendum has bitterly divided Turkey. Erdogan argues that strengthening the presidency would avert instability associated with coalition governments, at a time when Turkey faces security threats from Islamist and Kurdish militants. But his critics fear further drift into authoritarianism, with a leader they see as bent on eroding modern Turkey's democracy and secular foundations. Mass detentions immediately after the attempted coup were supported by many Turks, who agreed with Erdogan when he blamed U.S.-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen for orchestrating the putsch which killed 240 people, mostly civilians. But criticism mounted as the arrests widened to include people from all walks of life such as midwives and prison guards in remote parts of Turkey, and to pro-Kurdish opposition lawmakers, effectively leaving the nation's third-biggest party leaderless. "These purges are not individual cases at all. This is a systemic phenomenon empowered by an environment of lawlessness. And in the case of a 'Yes' win that will only get worse," said Omer Faruk Gergerlioglu, a doctor and rights activist dismissed earlier this year. FROM "WAR VETERAN TO TERRORIST" A report by opposition parliamentarian Zeynep Altiok said that the purge of public employees since the coup had deprived 1.5 million students of their teachers. More than 600 companies were seized by the state, 140,000 passports were revoked and 65 elected mayors ousted, it said last month. In addition, more than 2,000 journalists were sacked and scores of TV and radio stations, news agencies and newspapers were shut down. United Nations rights experts said on Thursday those closures had undermined the chance for informed debate on the referendum, and a state of emergency imposed after the failed coup had been used to justify repressive measures which may be just the beginning if Erdogan wins greater powers on Sunday. "Given the arbitrary and sweeping nature of the emergency decrees issued since July 2016, there is serious concern that such powers might be used in ways that exacerbate the existing major violations of economic, social and cultural rights," the U.N. experts on education, poverty and free speech said. After a decade as prime minister, Erdogan assumed the presidency in 2014. He has already transformed what had been a largely ceremonial role into a platform for action, and the referendum would formally grant him executive powers once reserved for the cabinet that answers to parliament. He has also promised to reinstate the death penalty if the 'Yes' vote wins, almost certainly ending Turkey's decades-long bid to join the European Union, which bars executions. Turkey's EU candidate status has been one of the brakes on Ankara, requiring steps to improve human rights and transparency. Aysegul Karaosmanoglu, a headscarved teacher suspended two days after the coup and sacked in September, said the coup was used as an excuse by the government to purge dissidents. A "Yes" win would probably broaden and deepen that crackdown, she said. "It could create an environment for all dissidents to be hanged, or denied any chance of life," Karaosmanoglu, 45, said. "I hear they are opening lots of new prisons. I guess they'll put people like us there". She was speaking at a rare gathering in Istanbul this week of purged civil servants and families of those jailed, who came together to publicize their plight. They rejected any link with the failed coup, and some said they were sacked for causes as remote from any real wrongdoing as simply being members of a union which was deemed a Gulenist institution. Gulen, who lives in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania, denies involvement in the coup. He is a former Erdogan ally whose network was declared a terrorist group by Turkey's national security council two months before the failed coup. Ahmet Erkaslan, a gendarmerie officer who was shot by Kurdish militants during a security operation in Diyarbakir's Sur district last year, says he was sacked from his job without being given a reason. That has transformed him from a war veteran to a so-called terrorist, overnight. "I still remember the whistle of the bullets as I lay on the ground," Erkaslan said. He said he expects it will be difficult to get his job back, regardless of how the country votes in the plebiscite. "Even if the removals stop, they would no longer employ people who are critical of them," he said. (Additional reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Writing by Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Dominic Evans and Peter Graff) Warren Buffett does most of his philanthropic giving through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation eradicating diseases and supporting communities in the developing world. A new philanthropic endeavor from Buffett's son is bringing that giving closer to home. The NoVo Foundation, established by the Omaha billionaire as a charitable trust, will devote $90 million over the next seven years to support young women and girls of color in the United States. SEE ALSO: Warren Buffett basically just subtweeted President Donald Trump, shade, shade, shade Peter Buffett and his wife Jennifer Buffett, will distribute the $90 million through the NoVo Foundation. The foundation, which works on advancing adolescent girls' rights, ending violence against girls and women, helping local economies, supporting Indigenous communities, and researching social and emotional learning, first announced its $90 million commitment a year ago. Since then, the nonprofit has talked to advocates and communities about how to ensure the funding is put to its best use. In practice, the money will go to community-based organizations, to communities in the Southeast, and to policy and research groups working on issues related to the lives of women and girls of color. The foundation expects to award about $13 million in its first year. SEE ALSO: Bill Gates, VR super nerd, will now take you into the future The influx of funding for initiatives in the Southeast could be a big deal, since the foundation chose the region after seeing it had often been ignored by philanthropy. Community groups, local organizers, and advocates on the policy side can all apply for grants over the next few weeks. WATCH: This device can help 22 million Americans sleep better at night Hometown favorite convenience store Wawa is celebrating its 53rd anniversary on Thursday with free coffee and information about new stores. Customers can take advantage of the caffeinated-beverage offer all day. The chain expects to give away about two million free cups at its 750 stores across six states. Who knew @Wawa had a mascot? Meet Wally, a goose w/ moves! Giving out free today @ all locations for #WawaDay pic.twitter.com/wcwOUF2zyl Trang Do (@TrangDoCBS3) April 13, 2017 But there's more news from Wawa today. Wawa announced that it will open another store in Philadelphia. The new location with be at 22nd and South Streets. Back in October, it was reported that a Wawa would locate at the former I. Goldberg Army & Navy space at 13th and Chestnut Streets. Now, the news for that location is official as well, according to CBS3. And in yet more news from the Delaware County-based chain: The company will continue as the title sponsor of Wawa Welcome America festival to celebrate July 4th through 2019. The 2019 event will mark 10 years that the store has been involved in the festivities. To cap off the announcements, Wawa said it would distribute $2 million in first-quarter grants to charitable organizations through The Wawa Foundation to promote health, fight hunger and aid other causes. The company particularly its free-coffee offer was drawing cheers from customers on its anniversary. Most Popular on Philly.com WASHINGTON (AP) The White House says President Donald Trump will welcome Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni to the White House next week. White House press secretary Sean Spicer says Trump will meet with Gentiloni on April 20 to discuss the upcoming Group of Seven industrialized nations meeting in Italy and a "range of issues" between the two allies. The G-7 nations have urged Russia to pressure the Syrian government to end the six-year civil war and have blamed President Bashar Assad's military for a deadly chemical attack that killed more than 80 people. Trump is expected to travel to Brussels for a NATO meeting in May, followed by the G-7 meeting in Italy. The G-7 members include the U.S., Germany, France, Britain, Canada, Japan and Italy. WASHINGTON (AP) The photo from inside Donald Trump's makeshift situation room at Mar-a-Lago affirmed what White House insiders have recognized for some time that Dina Powell has quietly established herself as a White House power. Though sandwiched between other administration officials, the deputy national security adviser for strategy stands out as the only woman among 13 staffers in the room on the night the president ordered the missile attack in Syria. And in a White House that is split between outsider ideologues and more traditional operators, Powell is viewed as a steady force in the growing influence of the latter. Her West Wing experience, conservative background and policy chops have won over Trump's daughter and son-in-law. Now, Powell is at the table as the president turns more of his attention to international affairs, attempting to craft a foreign policy out of a self-described "flexible" approach to the world. "No one should ever underestimate Dina Powell." says Brian Gunderson, a former State Department chief of staff. He hired her to work in former House Majority Leader Dick Armey's office early in her career and later worked with her in George W. Bush's White House. Powell, 43, declined comment for this story. She is a rare Bush veteran in a White House that has largely shunned its Republican predecessor's legacy. She came via Goldman Sachs decidedly not a rarity for the new president originally to work on economic development at the behest of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. An Egyptian-American with international experience and fluency in Arabic, she was soon moved to the National Security Council, though she retains her economic title. Powell's ties to Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, who recruited her, and to economic adviser Gary Cohn, a fellow Goldman alumnus, mean she has been labeled by some as part of a more moderate group at the White House. But GOP leaders describe her as a longtime conservative thinker. Story continues She has quickly earned the respect of the president, who said in a statement to The Associated Press: "Dina is an extremely intelligent and competent member of my team. She is highly respected and a great person." National Security Adviser Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster said he recruited Powell "because of her exceptional expertise and leadership skills, to lead an effort to restore the strategic focus of the national security council. She has already accomplished this shift in a few weeks, establishing great relationships across our government and with key international allies." Powell's foreign policy experience was forged under Condoleezza Rice, who brought her into the State Department when the Bush administration was trying to improve diplomacy in the Middle East. Calling her a "member of my Middle East brain trust," the former secretary of state said that Powell knows the region well and "not just confined to Egypt." She added that Powell was "somebody who understood the limits of secularism in the Middle East but the dangers of fundamentalism. She brought sensitivities to those issues." Still, Powell is plunging into a national security role at a fraught moment, as the United States ponders next steps with Syria, navigates complex relationships with North Korea, China and Russia and seeks to combat the rise of ISIS. All under a president, who campaigned on a platform of "America First" but whose foreign policy has proved unpredictable. Tommy Vietor, who served as NSC spokesman under Barack Obama, said the administration is still struggling to present a coherent foreign policy. "Does 'America First' mean we don't care anymore?" he asked. "They need to do a better job making clear people understand where they stand on many issues." Powell was brought onto the national security team after a period of tumult. Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn was asked to resign in February amid revelations that he misled senior administration officials about his Russian contacts. One of his deputies, K.T. McFarland notably absent from the Florida photo is expected to exit soon. She is in line to be U.S. ambassador to Singapore. As deputy national security adviser for strategy, Powell is working to coordinate the various U.S. security-related agencies and advisers. According to a recent national security memo, she attends meetings of the National Security Council's Principals Committee and Deputies Committee. Those advisers briefed Trump with options last week after a chemical attack that the U.S. determined was ordered by Syrian President Bashar Assad. Born in Cairo, Powell moved to the United States with her family at the age of four and had to learn to speak English. She is a Coptic Christian, the faith that was targeted with bombings of two churches in Cairo on Palm Sunday. Entering Republican politics at a young age, Powell put herself through the University of Texas by working in the state Legislature. After stints with several GOP congressional members and at the Republican National Committee, she joined George W. Bush's administration. There she became the youngest person to ever run a president's personnel office. Later she served Rice as assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs and as deputy undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs. From the White House, Powell went to Goldman Sachs, where she worked for a decade, becoming a partner, looking after global investment and serving as president of the company foundation, overseeing an effort to invest in female entrepreneurs around the world. Speculation is already underway about whether her current role could grow. "She's already ascending in a big way," said Sen. Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican, who has known Powell for years. "My sense is she will continue to be someone to look for." ___ AP writer Vivian Salama contributed to this report. Newer types of "poppers" which are inhalant drugs that people use recreationally may be toxic to people's eyes, according to a new report. Poppers are often sold in sex shops or online, but cannot be legally sold as a product for human consumption; they are often labeled as household products such as "video head cleaners" or "room odorizers," according to a 2014 paper. The drugs are colorless liquids that, when inhaled, can cause temporary euphoria and sexual arousal. The new report describes 12 cases of people in southern England who experienced vision problems shortly after using poppers. Several of the patients had been using poppers for 20 years or more, but they only experienced vision problems after switching to a new brand. When the researchers analyzed the chemical composition of the poppers that the people had used, they found that one chemical, called isopropyl nitrite, was linked with eye damage. This chemical started to show up in poppers after 2006, when legislation in Britain banned the use of a similar chemical in the drugs, called isobutyl nitrite, the researchers said. "On the basis of the products tested here, it seems that isopropyl nitrite is toxic to the fovea [a small pit in the middle of the retina], and can cause significant visual disturbance," the researchers wrote in the April 10 issue of the British Journal of Ophthalmology. [27 Oddest Medical Cases] When the chemical composition of poppers started to change in 2006, doctors also noticed an increase in reports of eye damage linked to the drugs. But it wasn't clear whether this increase was due to certain chemicals in poppers, more widespread use of the drugs or better detection of the type of eye damage seen in the cases, the researchers said. In the new report, the 12 patients were seen at an eye clinic in Brighton, England, between 2013 and 2016. All of the patients were men, and they ranged in age from 31 to 59. The patients reported vision problems, such as blurriness or blind spots, that started within hours or days after they inhaled the drugs. High-resolution images of the back of patients' eyes showed damage to the fovea. Story continues The patients used a total of seven different drugs, and when the researchers tested them, they found that six contained isopropyl nitrite. In the one case where the product didn't contain isopropyl nitrite, the researchers discovered that the popper drug was not linked with the eye problems that the patient was having. Most of the patients fully recovered from their symptoms within a few months after they stopped using the products. However, some patients continued to experience vision symptoms even months after they stopped using them. It's not clear why some patients didn't recover from their symptoms, but it could be related to how frequently they used the product, the brand they used or their individual susceptibility to this side effect, the researchers said. More studies are needed over longer periods that follow users of poppers that contain isopropyl nitrite to better understand the long-term effects of these products, the researchers said. It's also not clear what fraction of popper users will experience vision problems as a side effect of the drug. Original article on Live Science. Editor's Recommendations So it continues. In February, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office decided in favor of the Broad Institute of Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which has been battling for years with the University of California over patents for the gene-editing technology CRISPR-Cas9, often shorthanded as CRISPR. On Thursday, the University of California filed its an appeal, as many expected, with the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. There would be no reason why UC wouldnt appeal this decision, says Brian Nolan, a life-sciences intellectual-property lawyer with Mayer Brown. They lost, and this is the next step. What is unusual, though, is that this case even got this far in the first place. Such cases are usually quietly settled. Instead, the two sides have racked up tens of millions of dollars legal fees. Is it worth it? If you believe CRISPR patents are worth hundreds of millions of dollars, as some have estimated, then yes. The technology allows scientist to much more easily manipulate the genomes of plants, animals, and humans. Since its discovery about five years ago, CRISPR has spurred hundreds of research papers and a handful of high-profile startups seeking to cure human diseases, including Editas Medicine, Intellia Therapeutics, and CRISPR Therapeutics. These companies have licensed the patents from one side or the other even as the patents are being hotly disputedwhich might give a sense of how eager companies are to move forward on CRISPR therapies. Recommended: The Icy Plumes Shooting Out of Saturns Moon Just Got Way More Interesting The dispute originates in research done by the Broad Institutes Feng Zhang and UC Berkeleys Jennifer Doudna, who was also collaborating with Emmanuelle Charpentier, then of the University of Vienna. Both sides claim to have independently discovered CRISPRs use for gene editing. UC filed for a patent first, but the patent office first approved the Broads patent. Story continues UC then initiated an interference proceeding with before the patent offices Patent Trial and Appeal Board, arguing that the Broads patents overlapped with its initial and still pending CRISPR patent. It is this proceeding that the UC lost in February. The UCs filing covered gene editing with CRISPR, but it did not specifically cover eukaryotic cellscomplex cells that include animal, plants, and humanswhere all the lucrative applications are likely to be. The Broads patents did cover eukaryotic cells, and its lawyers argued that getting CRISPR to work in bacteria or free-floating DNA did not automatically mean it would work in the more complex environment. Hence, there was no inferencethe decision that UC is now appealing. In statement about the appeal, Edward Penhoet, a special adviser on CRISPR to the UC president and UC Berkeley chancellor, said, Ultimately, we expect to establish definitively that the team led by Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier was the first to engineer CRISPR-Cas9 for use in all types of environments, including in non-cellular settings and within plant, animal and even human cells. The Broad countered, Given that the facts have not changed, we expect the outcome will once again be the same. If UC wins the appeal, the court could kick it back to the patent office to make another decision on interference. In past cases,the court tend to affirm the decisions of the patent office, says Brent Babcock, a patent lawyer with Knobbe Martens. The Federal Circuit is fairly differential to the board. If UC loses, it probably ends up where it is right now. (It could appeal to the Supreme Court, but the case doesnt have much compelling legal doctrine that could interest the highest court of the land, says Nolan.) That scenario could end with companies that want to use CRISPR licensing both UCs broad patent and the Broads eukaryote-specific patent. For practical economic and business reasons, they will have to get to some accommodation, says Kevin Noonan, a biotech IP lawyer with McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff. That could mean a cross-licensing scenario or maybe even a long-awaited settlement. The smart thing to do would be to settle, says Noonan. This particular fight has gotten a lot of attention, but its not the only game in town. Both sides are also, for example, fighting for intellectual-property rights to CRISPR around the world. In Europe, UC recently won a patent for CRISPR-Cas9. And scientists have since discovered and are patenting variants of CRISPR that use a component other than Cas9. One way or another, there is money to be made in gene editing. Read more from The Atlantic: This article was originally published on The Atlantic. Paris (AFP) - Former All Black Ali Williams and Australian star James O'Connor, who were both arrested in a cocaine bust in the centre of Paris, will discover their French league disciplinary fate on April 19, officials said Thursday. The French national league (LNR) had been expected to hand down a decision on Thursday, but a disciplinary commission spokesman said they were waiting to receive "complementary elements" before making a decision. Williams and O'Connor were arrested after a police drug bust outside a nightclub near the Champs Elysees in February and later fined -- Williams for buying cocaine and O'Connor for using it. The 35-year-old former lock Williams was fired by French Top 14 champions Racing 92 and O'Connor, 26, recently returned to Toulon following suspension by the club. "I have given all the evidence, and I think they will understand that I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, so yes, I'm sure it will work out," said O'Connor as he left the meeting on Wednesday after the opening session. PORTLAND, Maine (AP) The key witness in a murder that sent a teenage boy to prison for 27 years recanted Thursday and accused authorities of coercing her testimony. The stunning declaration led a judge to set bail in the case, drawing a gasp from the packed courtroom and sending the defendant's wife to her knees. Tony Sanborn, who was convicted of killing his girlfriend, 16-year-old Jessica Briggs, dropped his head into his hands in apparent disbelief after Hope Cady testified that as a 13-year-old she was pressured by police and prosecutors into identifying Sanborn as the killer. "They basically told me what to say," Cady said. Justice Joyce Wheeler said she'll have further proceedings before deciding whether to grant a motion to set aside the conviction and order a new trial. She set bail at $25,000, which Sanborn's family and friends posted later Thursday to get him released. "Quite frankly, I wouldn't want to go forward on a case based on her testimony," Justice Joyce Wheeler told the courtroom before setting bail. "It has been conceded that she is, and was a material witness in this case. She's the only eyewitness in this case." Cady said she had juvenile charges against her at the time, and authorities threatened to send her away for years. She said her vision wasn't even good enough to have been able to make out what happened: It was later tested at 20/200, poor enough to be considered legally blind. Information about her vision was never provided to Sanborn's defense team. Cady's stunning admission came in a standing-room-only courtroom packed with Sanborn's supporters, including family members and friends. Sanborn's wife, Michelle, sank to her knees and wept after the ruling as others huddled with her. "I just want to thank Justice Wheeler for being a woman of compassion and for doing the right thing, and giving me faith in our system," she said afterward. Story continues Tony Sanborn, now 44, had insisted over the years that he didn't kill Briggs, and supporters say he somehow managed to avoid becoming bitter despite being convicted as an adult and sentenced to prison for 70 years. In prison, his conduct was exemplary, and he taught classes to fellow inmates. He wed Michelle about five years ago, and he had plenty of support Thursday. He entered the courtroom with tears in his eyes as the packed courtroom erupted in an ovation. His family and friends posted bail for him late Thursday afternoon. Briggs' family left the courthouse without speaking to the media. The defense had asked for the hearing because of new evidence in the gruesome killing. Briggs' throat was slit and she was stabbed repeatedly before being thrown in Portland Harbor. Officials zeroed in on street kids, including Briggs' then-16-year-old boyfriend, Sanborn. Cady, who was the only witness, testified at trial in 1992 that she saw a group of boys surround the victim and then saw Sanborn stab her. She claimed she'd watched the event unfold from a nearby pier. Assistant Attorney General Donald Macomber asked the judge to defer on setting bail until she could hear from the detectives and the prosecutor. He also said he'd have to recuse himself because Cady's statements conflicted with his direct knowledge of the case. The hearing will continue later this month. A criminal profiler hired by the defense said the crime was so brutal that it pointed toward a serial killer as opposed to a crime of passion involving a teenager. The area where the crime took place was frequented by shipyard workers, sailors and fishermen, in addition to street kids and others. ___ Follow David Sharp on Twitter at https://twitter.com/David_Sharp_AP. His work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/david-sharp. ___ This story has been corrected to show the spelling is Briggs, not Griggs in reference to the victim's family leaving the courthouse without speaking to the media. Paris (AFP) - Supply and demand in the oil market are close to matching up, the IEA said Thursday, as landmark OPEC-led production cuts are mitigated by rising US supply and slipping worldwide demand growth. The compliance rate with the agreement among OPEC members and some non-members, including Russia, "has been impressive", the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its monthly oil market report, giving a lift to oil prices. But oil at above $50 a barrel has, in turn, attracted higher-cost producers in the United States back to the market, and frantic American drilling will push non-OPEC supply to surprisingly high levels throughout the year, the IEA predicted. "It can be argued confidently that the market is already very close to balance, and as more data becomes available this will become clearer," it said in the report. "Although the oil market will likely tighten throughout the year, overall non-OPEC production, not just in the US, will soon be on the rise again," it said. At the end of November, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) agreed to cut output by 1.2 million barrels per day (mb/d) from January 1, initially for a period of six months. Then in December, non-OPEC producers led by Russia agreed to cut their own output to 558,000 barrels per day. The aim was to reduce a glut in global oil supply that had depressed prices. Reports this week said that OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia is pushing the cartel's producers to extend the agreement by another six months at their meeting in May. - A less oil-thirsty world - The IEA made no prediction about such a likelihood, but said that a consequence of OPEC "hypothetically" renewing the deal would be to support prices more and give further encouragement to US shale oil producers. This means that non-OPEC oil production will soon be on the rise again. "Even after taking into account production cut pledges from the eleven non-OPEC countries, unplanned outages in Canada as well as in the North Sea, we expect (non-OPEC) production will grow again on a year-on-year basis by May," the report said. Story continues Oil inventories fell in March but probably showed a rise in the first quarter of this year overall because oil consumers stockpiled crude before the OPEC-led cuts took effect properly, the IEA said. "The net result is that global stocks might have marginally increased in 1Q17," it said. On the demand side, the IEA revised down its estimates for the worldwide thirst for oil, meaning there will be more oil available than previously thought. "New data shows weaker-than-expected growth in a number of countries including Russia, India, several Middle Eastern countries, Korea and the US, where demand has stalled in recent months," it said. Demand growth for 2017 is now expected to be 1.3 million barrels per day, down from the IEA's previous forecast of 1.4 million. - Interesting times ahead - Oil prices declined on Thursday, with US benchmark WTI futures down 10 cents at $53.01 per barrel, and Europe's Brent contracts four cents lower at $55.82. Analysts cited the IEA report and also OPEC's warning Wednesday that the cartel's efforts to fight a global glut are threatened by American firms pumping oil with gusto. Commodities analysts at Commerzbank said the question was now "whether the OPEC production cuts really have translated into a reduction in supplies". Oil prices are still around 25 percent higher than they were a year ago, and roughly stable over the past three months, despite frequent day-to-day volatility. Analysts struggling to distill conflicting developments into a credible oil price prediction for the rest of the year appeared to have the IEA's sympathy. "We have an interesting second half to come," it said. SANAA, Yemen (AP) More than 20 inmates escaped from a prison in Yemen's southern city of Aden on Thursday after gunmen demanding the release of detainees imprisoned without trial blocked roads and clashed with security forces. The officials said one person was killed and four police conscripts were wounded in the violence. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters, said the 23 inmates who escaped were being held on criminal charges and that it was not clear who the gunmen were. Yemen's second largest city is controlled by forces loyal to President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who fled to Saudi Arabia after Shiite rebels known as Houthis seized the capital, Sanaa, and much of northern Yemen in 2014. A Saudi-led coalition has been battling the Houthis for more than two years in a bid to restore his government. In rebel-held Sanaa, a Houthi-controlled court sentenced a prominent journalist to death on espionage charges, accusing him of collaborating with the Saudi-led coalition. Dozens of Yemeni journalists released a statement denouncing Wednesday's verdict against Yehia al-Gebeihy, who was abducted from his home by Houthi fighters eight months ago. The Yemeni journalist syndicate says at least 13 reporters have been detained by the Houthis. The stalemated war in Yemen has killed more than 10,000 civilians, displaced over three million people and pushed the Arab world's poorest country to the brink of famine. Istanbul (AFP) - The 'Yes' and 'No' camps are increasingly polarised as the countdown starts for Turkey's key referendum Sunday on expanding President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's powers. With analysts predicting a tight race that will decisively impact the country's future, here are a selection of voices from both sides of the divide. - 'Yes' - -- 'Erdogan for a strong Turkey' "Because we want Turkey to grow, because we want Recep Tayyip Erdogan to remain our leader, without him Turkey is not herself. We want to show that we are behind him," Nahil Unal, a 'Yes' supporter, said at Erdogan's giant rally in Istanbul on Saturday. -- 'Standing up to foreign powers' "For the future of our children, for Turkey to be independent again, we are here. Right now Turkey is not independent. The countries of the world are attacking us. From one side the Netherlands, from the other side the USA, France, Germany, Russia and even our neighbours," said Ihsan Eksi. -- 'Worthy successor of Ottomans' "He has a lion's heart. We know that he will defend Turkey like nobody before him," 48-year-old Metin Kaya said in Erdogan's home district of Kasimpasa. "Europe has been scared of us since the Ottoman Empire and our history is our honour which is being repeated today. That's why (Europe) they are trying to intimidate us. Erdogan is the worthy grandson of Fatih," he said referring to the Ottoman Sultan Fatih, the conqueror who seized Istanbul from the Byzantines. -- 'He loves this nation' "I watch almost all the speeches of the president. When you hear him you see that he sincerely loves this nation. No, I don't find him too aggressive. He defends us, it's normal, he's our leader," said Mesut Can, 49, a grocery store owner from the Istanbul district of Gaziosmanpasa. - 'No' - -- 'No to one man rule' Story continues "We say 'No', to have a more democratic system, so that we can remain in a democratic, parliamentary system, to say 'No' to a man who alone would lead a country of 80 million people," Saim Akbulut said at the pro-Kurdish HDP's Ankara rally on Sunday. -- 'Changes not helpful for future' "...why am I saying 'No'? And why are these women saying 'No'? It's because there is not even one article in this text about women, nothing for children, it's because we are against a regime led by just one man," Burcu Zeybek, a female opposition CHP activist, said. -- 'Against further polarisation' "He is already performing his current duties without recognising the law. It is nonsense to further polarise the country!" said Sukru Yalcin, rallying near a 'No' tent in the historic Eminonu square in Istanbul. "We are saying that it does not suit 80 million to be governed by one man's thinking." -- 'Yes won't help Kurdish areas' "They come to us and want 'Yes'. We have no reason to say 'Yes.' Why 'Yes'? They say it's for peace. Then what's your project?" said Halil Uysal, in his 30s and from the Kurdish majority province of Diyarbakir, in the conflict-torn southeast. "They say 'Yes' for development. Then what's your project? Nothing." NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York police on Thursday arrested 25 people in the lobby of Trump Tower protesting U.S. President Donald Trump's immigration and border policies. The demonstrators who sat in front of the elevators and chanted "no ban, no raids, no wall!" led security forces to close public accesses to the president's signature property, a commercial and residential skyscraper where first lady Melania Trump and son Barron Trump stay while the president is in Washington. As heavily armed police wearing ballistic vests stood guard blocking the entrances, other officers carried the protesters to police vans. The building in the heart of the Fifth Avenue shopping district was also home to Trump's campaign and has been his primary residence for years. The lobby is open to the public, though security was tightened as the 2016 campaign progressed and he was elected president. Charges were pending, a police said in a statement. The demonstrators wore T-shirts with slogans such as "No wall," in reference to Trump's proposal to build a wall on the southern border with Mexico, and "No raids," referring to U.S. arrests of suspected undocumented immigrants. "No ban" refers to Trump's executive orders seeking to restrict immigration from several Muslim-majority countries. (Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Lisa Shumaker) WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) Hundreds of people in New Zealand were evacuated from some coastal areas on Thursday as the second major storm in just over a week made landfall near the North Island town of Whakatane. But residents of the nation's largest city, Auckland, breathed a sigh of relief as the remnants of Cyclone Cook moved past them to the east. Authorities had earlier worried the storm could hit the city and cause major problems. "It seems Auckland has largely survived ... unscathed," tweeted Auckland Mayor Phil Goff. Civil defense authorities said people from about 250 homes in the beach town of Ohope were told they had to evacuate, while other households chose to leave. Authorities had earlier advised people in low elevations on the Coromandel Peninsula to evacuate to higher ground, as large waves were expected to batter the coast. Air New Zealand suspended flights from Tauranga Airport and other flights around the country were also delayed or canceled. The military said it had placed 500 troops on standby. The storm also caused power disruptions to hundreds of homes in Whakatane and Tauranga. Sarah Stuart-Black, director of the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management, said the storm was "extremely serious" and severe weather warnings were in place for much of the country. "We are watching very carefully, we're not through this yet," she said on Thursday evening. The storm was expected to move south overnight Thursday and reach the capital, Wellington, early Friday, causing more problems along the way but also losing some of its punch. The MetService weather agency predicted rainfall could exceed 100 millimeters (4 inches) in some places and cause more flooding in areas still recovering from heavy rainfall last week. Last Thursday the town of Edgecumbe was flooded when a river burst through a concrete levee on the Rangitaiki River as the remnants of Cyclone Debbie hit. The water forced 2,000 people to evacuate and flooded hundreds of homes. Many people have been unable to return to their homes since then and authorities have been scrambling to shore up the breached levee. That system and others will be tested again by rainfall from the latest storm. MetService predicted winds from the storm could gust to 150 kilometers (93 miles) per hour and that waves could rise to over 5 meters (16 feet). Photo credit: Getty From Country Living While summer may still be a couple months away, most vacationers are already booking their family vacations, and according to what people are researching through TripAdvisor, there's one getaway spot that stands out from the rest this year. Panama City, Florida is one of the hottest places to stay this summer, according to TripAdvisor Rentals' data. The popular beach destination is receiving the most attention from site users looking to book vacation rentals this June, July, and August. The Florida beach town is a hot spot for families and watersport fanatics, thanks to its beautiful beaches and parks, not to mention its affordability. The beach town sits between two state parks-Camp Helen State Park and St. Andrews State Park-and also boasts the scenic Panama City Conservation Park. What's even better? The average weekly rate for a two-bedroom rental in July is $1,835. Photo credit: Getty Images Photo credit: Getty Images The seaside area was one of four Florida destinations to make TripAdvisor Rental's list. The other top rental vacation spots for 2017 included Ocean City, Maryland, Destin, Florida; Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; Kissimmee, Florida; Gulf Shores, Alabama; Orlando, Florida; Virginia Beach, Virginia; Davenport, Florida; and North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. If you're looking to book a summer stay in any one of these destinations, you'd better book early! According to TripAdvisor Rentals, 54 percent of travelers reserve their rental three to five months in advance, and these locations are especially competitive. You Might Also Like Earlier this month, a coroner in the United Kingdom revealed that a 32-year-old man with an iPhone electrocuted himself in a bathtub late last year while the device was plugged into an extension cord. And just last week, an Alabama man suffered serious burns when the dog tags he was wearing made contact with the plug from his cell-phone charger. Does that make your smartphone a major electrical hazard? Not really, according to John Drengenberg, consumer safety director at the independent testing organization Underwriters Laboratories. As long as they're unplugged, phones, laptops, and other devices that use rechargeable batteries don't have enough power to kill you, he says, even if you were to drop one into a bath. (Although he does not recommend trying that.) But once plugged into an outlet, it becomes a potential hazard. In fact, the Electrical Safety Foundation International, a nonprofit dedicated to educating the public about such hazards, estimates that almost 70 people per year die from electrocution incidents related to consumer products. And unlike a hair dryer or electric razordevices meant to be used in a bathroomphones, laptops, and wireless speakers are not equipped with a safety mechanism known as a ground-fault circuit interruptor, which shuts off power to the device when it gets wet, much like a circuit breaker in a fuse box. In the U.S., building codes require you to use outlets equipped with GFCI in bathrooms, kitchens, and other household spaces where an electronics device might come into contact with water. In the case of John Bull, who was getting ready for a holiday party in his home near London, the smartphone he was using in the tub was plugged into an outlet located outside the bathroom, which means it almost certainly did not have ground-fault protection. Its likely that the cord itself fell into the tub, which delivered a fatal dose of current from the house wiring. Story continues In the case of Alabama's Wiley Day, the plug from the phone's charger apparently wasn't fully seated in the extension cord he was using, leaving the prongs exposed. Day was reportedly sleeping with his phone when his dog tags slipped between the charger and the extension cord. "My necklace became the conductor, " he told reporters for ABC affiliate WAAY. Day was hospitalized with second- and third-degree burns on his neck and is expected to recover. Although the two incidents involved Apple iPhones, they could have occurred with any smartphone, which is why consumers need to be careful. The manufacturer declined to comment on the mishaps but did stress the importance of employing approved charging devices as directed. Ways to Protect Yourself From Electrical Hazards Respect your phone: They seem like innocuous devices, but they can be dangerous, said Sean Cummings, the U.K. medical examiner who investigated Bull's death. So be mindful of those threats. Think twice before going into the bathroom with any device thats plugged in, Drengenberg adds. Use the right charger: Though it's not clear what type of cords or adapters were used in the Ball and Wiley accidents, a Chinese flight attendant was electrocuted in 2013 by a phone plugged into a faulty third-party charger. The incident prompted Apple to launch an education program, including a special discount for any consumer who took a third-party charger in for replacement. Drengenberg's advice: Stick to chargers approved by the manufacturer. At the very least, make sure they have a UL mark signifying that they've been put through a UL certification process. Test your ground-fault outlets: Drengenberg suggests taking 10 seconds each month to check your GFCI outlets. First push the "test" button. It should make a quiet popping sound. "At that point, anything that's plugged into the outlet should go dead," he says. "Then push the reset button and it should come back on. That's all that's required." Don't depend on extension cords: They're not meant for long-term use. "If you're using them on a regular basis, you need more outlets," Drengenberg explains. He also warns against "daisy chaining"plugging one extension cord into anotherand against using the cords in a bathroom. "Dont use an extension cord anywhere that it might get wet, he says. Seat your plugs securely: As Drengenberg notes, Wiley's accident was the result of a charger that didn't seat fully in the extension cord, leaving the electrified prongs of the plug exposed. This problem affects outlets as well, especially on a device that has a "wall wart" or similar "brick" near the plug. "Outlets do wear out, so if they're sagging instead of holding your plug securely, it's time to replace them," Drengenberg says. More from Consumer Reports: Top pick tires for 2016 Best used cars for $25,000 and less 7 best mattresses for couples Consumer Reports has no relationship with any advertisers on this website. Copyright 2006-2017 Consumer Reports, Inc. By Tova Cohen RAANANA, Israel (Reuters) - Israeli defense electronics company Elbit Systems forecasts double-digit growth for its Cyberbit business, which is transforming the technology it has long provided for military intelligence to the fast-growing commercial market. Cyberbit took shape after Elbit's $150 million acquisition of the cyber and intelligence unit of Israel's Nice Systems in 2015, blending Nice's technology designed for law enforcement and intelligence agencies with Elbit's military-focused capabilities. Today Cyberbit operates as two companies - one focused on government security and intelligence and subject to Israeli export restrictions, the other catering for the commercial market, mainly financial firms and utilities. Both are headed by Cyberbit Chief Executive Adi Dar. Elbit CEO Bezhalel Machlis described cyber as a major growth engine for the company, which is Israel's largest listed defense company group with revenue of $3.3 billion in 2016. Its Hermes drones, surveillance systems and simulators are top sellers in Europe and South America. While Cyberbit chief Dar would not disclose how much revenue his division generates, he said that cyber sales were growing by "strong double-digits" compared with Elbit's overall growth of 5 percent in 2016. "We expect that pace to continue," he told Reuters. Cyberbit entered the commercial market by developing detection and response systems to protect "endpoints" such as laptops and mobile devices, where it competes with Carbon Black and FireEye of the United States. Dar said Cyberbit is distinguished from its competitors because it is "playing on both sides of the court" -- meaning it provides technologies that can both carry out cyber-attacks and deliver defense. "We build offensive capabilities for governments," he said. "We know what agents should look for because we are from that world." Cyberbit is competing in a cybersecurity market dominated by the country's biggest tech company Check Point Software and is seeing strong demand for its cyber simulation platforms. These create a virtual network and virtual attacks, helping the public and private sectors train staff to tackle the growing threat. The simulation platforms are seeing strong demand given an increasing shortage for skilled cyberworkers. Globally, 1.8 million cybersecurity positions will be unfilled by 2022, the Center for Cyber Safety and Education estimates. In the coming weeks, the Maryland Range training center will open in Baltimore, using a Cyberbit platform to train workers in protecting critical infrastructure. In February, Cyberbit agreed with Japanese service provider Ni Cybersecurity to launch a training center in Tokyo. Japan estimates it will have a shortage of 200,000 IT security professionals by 2020, when it expects a sharp increase in cyber attacks around the Tokyo Olympics. (Editing by Toby Davis) Android fans are about to be divided into two groups: those who buy a Galaxy S8 or Galaxy S8+, and those who wish they had a Galaxy S8 or Galaxy S8+. Consumers havent even yet had the chance to experience Samsungs 2017 flagship phones for themselves, but they already know these phones are something special. Samsungs nearly edgeless Infinity Display combines with curved sides on the front and back of the phone to create a look and feel that are as close to perfect as any company has come so far, considering current technological limitations. Samsung already said Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ pre-orders have outpaced last years Galaxy S7 and S7 edge, and now the company has offered actual pre-order figures that are impressive, to say the least. Don't Miss: How badly do you want this stunning Galaxy Note 8 concept to be real? Samsung announced earlier this week that global Galaxy S8 and S8+ pre-orders are outpacing the previous-generation models. The company noted strong double-digit growth, but failed to offer any firm pre-order figures. While Samsung is still being tight-lipped with global pre-sales figures, it has now shared pre-order numbers for the local market in South Korea likely in part to make a statement to local rival LG, which already began selling its new flagship phone, the LG G6. Samsungs mobile business boss Dong-jin Koh told on Thursday reporters in South Korea that combined pre-orders of the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ have now reached 728,000 units in South Korea alone. That figure was at 620,000 just two days ago, which means that Samsung has averaged more than 50,000 new pre-orders per day since then. Also of note, that initial 620,000 figure included 150,000 high-end 128GB Galaxy S8+ models, which cost more than $1,000 each. China is the market we can never give up. Although we have had a hard time over the past two years in the market, we believe Chinese consumers will react to and recognize good products, Koh told reporters in South Korea, according to local news site The Korea Herald. Story continues Pre-order figures in other markets including the United States have not been revealed, but reports suggest Samsung is seeing strong demand around the world. Samsungs new Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ are set to be released next Friday on April 27th unless you bought yours from one carrier in particular, in which case your new phone might arrive early. Trending right now: See the original version of this article on BGR.com Earlier this year, a former Snapchat employee named Anthony Pompliano filed suit against Snap Inc. for inflating user numbers and flat-out lying to investors about the companys long-term potential for growth. Pomplianos lawsuit was originally filed this past January, albeit in redacted form. This week, an unredacted version of the lawsuit was made public and, not surprisingly, it contains some shocking revelations. The most headline-grabbing blurb (via Variety) alleges that Pompliano, while attending a meeting regarding Snapchats growth prospects, voiced concern about disappointing user adoption in international markets. Not even letting Pompliano finish his point, the lawsuit claims that Snap CEO Evan Spiegel interrupted Pompliano and boldly declared: This app is only for rich people. I dont want to expand into poor countries like India and Spain. Don't Miss: A lot of people dont like Netflixs new ratings system While its easy to take this story and run with it, some additional context is worth mentioning. First and foremost, its hard to ignore the incongruity of Pomplianos allegations. Are we to believe that Spiegel, as the CEO of a company that needs to acquire as many users as it can to placate investors, would so callously insult and ignore the people of two very populous countries? Its certainly possible, but as tends to be the case with lawsuits levied by employees, its hard to draw any solid conclusions so early on. As for inflated user metrics, Pompliano claims that Spiegel knowingly told investors that Snapchat boasted more than 100 million daily active users when in reality the figure was somewhere in the 96 million range. Per the lawsuit, Spiegel said aloud that the misrepresentation was no big deal. The lawsuit also claims that Snapchat lied to investors about user retention rates. In response to the allegations, Snaps attorneys have emphatically stated that the company did not give investors misstated user metrics back in 2015, nor did Snap employees commit any of the panoply of alleged bad acts Pomplianos complaint introduces. Story continues As for Pomplianos motivations, Snap earlier this year said that he was simply making things up after being fired after only three weeks on the job. Pompliano was a disgruntled employee fired for poor performance, the company said this past January. To rationalize his firing, Pompliano has ginned up preposterous allegations about Snap giving investors false user metrics back in 2015. Those accusations are sure to grab headlines, but they fail to grasp reality. Snaps lawyers this week even went so far as to call Pompliano thirsty in a recently filed motion accompanying the release of the unredacted complaint. Pompliano now resurfaces after three months of inactivity with new attorneys but the same publicity-hungry game plan, Snaps attorneys wrote. In his latest dramatic installment, Pompliano doubles down on the main canard from his complaint that Snap gave investors misstated user metrics back in 2015 by asserting that Snap is currently misleading investors. Both halves of that remarkable claim are false. And they regrettably show that the thirstier Pompliano grows for attention, the more he starves his filings of truth and common sense. Trending right now: See the original version of this article on BGR.com By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - Ukraine has partnered with global technology company the Bitfury Group to put a sweeping range of government data on a blockchain platform, the firm's chief executive officer told Reuters, in a project he described as probably the largest of its kind anywhere. Bitfury, a blockchain company with offices in the United States and overseas, will provide the services to Ukraine, CEO Valery Vavilov said in an interview on Wednesday. Ukraine's blockchain initiative underscores a growing trend among governments that have adopted the technology to increase efficiencies and improve transparency. Blockchain is a ledger of transactions that first emerged as the software underpinning digital currency bitcoin. It has become a key global technology in both the public and private sector given its ability to permanently record and keep track of assets or transactions across all industries. Ukraine and Bitfury are expected to sign a memorandum of understanding on Thursday, Vavilov said. Though Vavilov said he was unable to estimate the cost of the project, he said it was the biggest government blockchain deal ever so far. It involves putting all of the Ukraine government's electronic data onto the blockchain platform. "A secure government system built on the blockchain can secure billions of dollars in assets and make a significant social and economic impact globally by addressing the need for transparency and accountability," said Vavilov. There are other countries that have started blockchain programs, but they are smaller in scope involving one or two sectors, such as land titles and real estate ownership. Countries that have launched blockchain programs include Sweden, Estonia, and Georgia. "This agreement will result in an entirely new ecosystem for state projects based on blockchain technology in Ukraine," Oleksandr Ryzhenko, head of the State Agency for eGovernance of Ukraine, said in an emailed response to Reuters questions. "Our aim is clear and ambitious -- we want to make Ukraine one of the world's leading blockchain nations." Ukraine's deal with Bitfury will begin with a pilot project to introduce blockchain into the country's digital platform. The areas being explored for the pilot project are state registers, public services, social security, public health, and energy, Vavilov said. Once the pilot is complete, the blockchain program will expand into all areas, including cyber security. This is Bitfury's second government blockchain project. In April last year, Bitfury signed an agreement with Georgia to pilot the first blockchain land-titling registry. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Tom Brown) The United Airlines passenger ejection saga is about to take yet another turn as David Dao, the man at the center of it all, is slated to hold a news conference at 10 am CT live from Chicago. The obvious topic at hand will be whether or not Dao will be seeking compensation for the ordeal, and exactly what that compensation will be. The conference will be streamed live online, and you can watch it all unfold right here. Don't Miss: Galaxy S8 sales are already explosive Scheduled to speak are both David Daos lawyers and his daughter, thought its unclear if Dao himself will actually be in attendance. As TMZ reports, Daos lawyers have already gone through the preliminary steps to secure all video and audio recordings related to the incident that may exist, as well as requesting all information related to the airport officers who actually physically removed Dao from his seat and dragged him off the plane. The physical altercation left Dao bloodied and distraught, and the videos of the incident have reached all corners of the internet. In all likelihood, Daos lawyers will announce that they will be suing both United Airlines and the City of Chicago for their roles in the events that took place, though their specific requests in terms of monetary compensation may not be made public until a later date. The stream is expected to begin promptly at 10 am CT, and doesnt have a schedule end time, so well just have to see how it all plays out. Trending right now: See the original version of this article on BGR.com 1. Yes. Taxpayers are funding its operation; they should have a voice in the naming process. 2. Yes. The city should operate with a spirit of inclusivity. Residents will be responsive. 3. No. Public input can be problematic; rejection of suggestions can be divisive for residents. 4. No. Residents elect council members to make decisions on their behalf. No input is needed. 5. Unsure. Its hard to say whether public input would be more of a benefit or a hindrance. Vote View Results By Samuel Ssebuliba Ugandans are asked to contribute food relief towards people who are facing starvation in different parts of the country as they prepare to celebrate Easter. The call comes as many people in the districts of Isingiro, Katakwi, Mayuge and others continue to be affected by food shortage due to the prolonged drought that struck the country recently. While delivering his Easter massage today, the Archbishop of the church of Uganda his Grace Stanley Ntagali said Christians must emulate Jesus actions when he fed a hungry crowd with five loaves of bread. He says it is not prudent for the rest of the country to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus when others are starving to death. No Yes, a light case Yes, two or more light cases One serious case Two or more serious bouts Vote View Results To protect oak trees and help prevent oak wilt, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources advises people to avoid pruning oaks on their property from April through July. Spring and early summer pruning makes oak trees vulnerable to oak wilt, a fatal fungal disease. Any tree damage during this time creates an opening that exposes live tree tissue and provides an opportunity for the oak wilt fungus to invade and establish itself in the tree. Spring is the time when tree buds and leaves are growing, leaving the trees food reserves low. In general, the best time to prune trees is in winter. The use of tree paint or a wound dressing is not normally recommended on pruning cuts or wounded surfaces on most trees. These products are recommended for damaged oaks from April through July. An immediate light painting of wounds on oak trees during this time helps protect against the spread of oak wilt by beetles, but according to the DNR it takes just 15 minutes for beetles that are carrying oak wilt spores to land on a fresh wound and infect your tree. Oak wilt is found in all Wisconsin counties except Ashland, Bayfield, Calumet, Door, Douglas, Forest, Iron, Kewaunee, Manitowoc, Price, Sheboygan and Taylor counties. Property owners with oak trees are encouraged to check with their municipality to find out if there are local oak wilt ordinances. More information about oak wilt is available online. Visit dnr.wi.gov, and search for oak wilt. Additional information about proper pruning techniques is available from community foresters or by searching for tree pruning. With the U.S. saturated with milk and Wisconsin dairy farmers desperately seeking buyers, a new state-led dairy trade mission to Mexico announced Thursday comes at a critical time. Ben Brancel, secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, will lead a delegation of state officials and representatives from nine dairy and agricultural companies to Aguascalientes, Mexico, May 4-7 where they will attend Expo Leche, Mexicos largest annual dairy industry conference. State officials say the goal is to strengthen Wisconsins relations with its existing dairy customers but also to find new opportunities for the states dairy businesses. Brancel said the trade mission to Mexico was in planning long before the recent situation that was created when Grassland Dairy Products Inc. of Greenwood informed several dozen Wisconsin dairy farms it no longer would accept milk from them after May 1. Grassland lost its Canadian customers, who each day purchased more than 1 million pounds of ultra-filtered milk, a product with elevated protein content thats typically used in cheese production, so Grassland had to reduce its milk intake. With U.S.-Mexico relations strained from recent actions by the Trump administration over construction of a border wall and a pledge to reopen negotiations for the North American Free Trade Agreement, Brancel wants Mexico to know Wisconsin values its trade partnership. About $3 billion in Wisconsin exports went to Mexico in 2016, making it the states second-largest trading partner behind Canada. But we also are trying to identify new distributorships so we can market (Wisconsin dairy) products, he said. A significant player and potential major customer could be the Dominos Pizza operation in Mexico, Brancel said. We want to encourage them to use Wisconsin cheese on their pizza, Brancel said. Another aspect of this trip is to make sure our customers in Mexico are getting what they need, payments are coming to (Wisconsin) and products from Wisconsin are arriving in good quality with no problems. Brancel also has meetings scheduled with Mexicos minister of agriculture and other government officials to discuss potential opportunities for Wisconsin dairy products. Wisconsin sends a lot of finished products to Mexico, including cheese, but there could be opportunities for whey protein and other milk products as well as ingredients used in food production, he said. Mexico purchased about $247 million in dairy products from Wisconsin last year, according to state estimates. Mexico also is a major destination for Wisconsin manufactured goods. The Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. has organized its own trade mission there June 11-16, focusing on manufacturing and water technology, which will be led by Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch. Mark Stephenson, director of dairy policy analysis at UW-Madison, believes Mexico could purchase more dairy products despite a strong U.S. dollar. One of the reasons we have to focus on Mexico is that they are one of our biggest trading partners, Stephenson said. He said other dairy producing nations, including New Zealand, also may see opportunity in Mexico, but the U.S. has the advantage of proximity. Trade missions can be effective for Wisconsin because it can help mend relations or assure Mexico that despite whats happening at the federal level, state businesses remain interested in doing business with customers there. The strong dollar, Id categorize that more as headwinds and shouldnt impact sales too much, but we may have to discount prices to make our products more competitive on the global market, Stephenson said. Brancel said the state also has been in contact with China, Wisconsins third-largest trading partner last year, to find more markets for Wisconsin dairy products. A potential buyer was located in Shanghai for cheese and there are prospects for new customers in Hong Kong for the states 14 butter-making companies. Brancel said the state has a trade mission planned for China May 9-20, focusing on specialty food products. Another aspect of this trip is to make sure our customers in Mexico are getting what they need, payments are coming to (Wisconsin) and products from Wisconsin are arriving in good quality with no problems. Ben Brancel, secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection West Salem High School senior Abby Johnsons artwork stands apart as a mixture of abstract and realism. Abby Johnsons artistic works are on display in the Marie W. Heider Center lobby. She is West Salems art student of the month for April. The honor is bestowed upon students whose works exceed expectations. She has been experimenting with different forms and mixed media ever since she got to the high school. West Salem High School art instructor Quenten Brown said. I felt that she should be rewarded for all of the hard work she has been doing, and the best way to do that would be to give her her own little exhibit. Johnson said she was proud of the honor. I feel that being art student of the month really showcases all of my hard work that I have put in over the last four years, she said. Many of her pieces are meticulously crafted. The great thing that happens with Abby is that she is a true artist in that she will experiment with a lot of different materials, Brown said. The stuff that we see in the gallery is the representation of the many many media that she has experimented with. There are a lot of pieces that never get displayed, he added. Johnson derives inspiration from the people who influence her life. Sometimes the subjects of her work are close friends and sometimes they are famous musicians or actors whose words or lyrics have captured her attention. A series of Johnsons works depict actor Heath Ledger and artists Katy Perry and Adele. These works were assembled with carefully placed dots of gray and black paint. Up close these dots form a cloud that in which the artist can be vaguely made out, but from a distance, the dots come together to form a concrete image. Johnson described this process as similar to stippling, but on a large scale. Stippling is a process of shading using the point of a pen or pencil to place dots. The more dots and closer they are together the darker the shading. While most of her works are completed relatively quickly, these works took considerably longer. Johnson spent weeks working on a similar work of art depicting Frieda Kahlo, a Mexican artist whose works explored native folk art Mexican pop culture and surrealism. Frieda Kahlo has always been an inspiration to me, she said. The portrait was constructed using beads of various shapes and sizes glued together to form a collage in the likeness of Kahlo and many of Kahlos self-portraits. I like to use unconventional materials, Johnson said. She said for her art is a release. I find enjoyment and I find peace when I am doing paintings it is kind of life my therapy, Johnson said. From an early age, Johnson was enamored with art. I got started as an artist because my mom is an art teacher, Johnson said. Her mother, Angie Hemker, provided her with the foundation for her passion. Ever since I younger I really liked picking up a paintbrush or picking up a pencil, and I would start drawing whatever came to mind, Johnson said. This love of art has followed her all throughout school career. The teen is an active member of the West Salem Visual Arts. Johnson also turned her passion for art to helping others this winter when she used her senior exit project to raise money to fight hunger, working with Empty Bowls to raise money for a local food pantry. Brown said Johnson is one of the leaders of the art department, someone students look up to. She is fearless. She is not afraid to try and fail to make a piece, he said. As we get older, we tend to get a little more fearful. Art is the one place where a student like Abby can experiment and have fun. As her high school career comes to a close Johnson has turned her attention to college. She plans to pursue a career in art therapy or sociology at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. Johnsons work will be on display in the Heider Center lobby until the end of the month. La Crosse County is exploring new ideas to put its household hazardous materials collection program on more solid financial footing. The new plan, which is being considered as the county renews the programs contract with municipalities at the end of the year, would phase in increased contributions, put in automatic cost-of-living increases in the contributions and add a new source of income to keep the popular program solvent. The program gives county residents a place for safe disposal of toxic, caustic and otherwise hazardous items they might have around the house, including everything from pesticides and herbicides to bleach and cleaning solvents to lead paint and electronics. The program has a long list of accepted materials, all of which the county would like to keep out of the landfill and the sewer system. Since 2012, the number of annual residential users of the program has been about 10,000 per year, a big jump from the roughly 6,000 who used it every year from 2009 to 2011. More use of the collection site at the county landfill also has meant more expenses, with the program running at a deficit since 2012. The biggest reason were having this (deficit) problem is the success of the program, said Hank Koch, the countys solid waste director. For 2016, the program had total expenses of $483,136, which resulted in a deficit of $70,386, the fifth year in a row the program was in the red. In December, the county and the partner municipalities all agreed to a 25-cent per capita increase in their contribution to the program, which had been at $1 per capita since it began. The increase is projected to cut the programs deficit to $33,074, with total spending of $515,000. When that increased contribution was discussed last year, Koch projected a new contract replacing the 10-year pact that expires this year that would have another 25-cent per capita increase. In working with the municipalities on last years increase, however, it became clear that municipalities dont have much wiggle room in their budgets, particularly the smaller towns. The contract the county will likely propose will seek annual increases of 5 cents per capita for five years, after which the program contributions would go up 2 percent per year. For 2018, that 5-cent increase would have an impact ranging from $27 for the town of Washington to $2,600 for the city of La Crosse. The countys contribution, meanwhile, would rise $5,853, matching the total for the municipalities. Koch said even these measures might not be enough to balance the books for the program, so he proposed using up to $50,000 per year in county revenue from sale of metals recovered at the Xcel Energy waste-to-energy facility on French Island. The county will get feedback from municipalities and other partners in the solid waste system in the coming months, with the expectation of nailing down details for a contract extension by June 15. The American Red Cross is encouraging eligible blood donors of all blood types to give blood this spring to help insure a sufficient supply for hospital patients. Donated blood is perishable and must constantly be replenished to keep up with hospital patient need. Red blood cells are the blood component most frequently transfused by hospitals and must be used within 42 days of donation. Eligible donors can give red blood cells through either a regular whole blood donation or a Power Red donation, where available. Power Red donors give a concentrated dose of red blood cells during a single donation, allowing them to maximize their impact. During this type of donation, red blood cells are separated from other blood components, and the plasma and platelets are safely and comfortably returned to the donor. While donors of all blood types are encouraged to give blood, type O, A negative and B negative donors are urged to give Power Reds if they meet the additional eligibility criteria. Type O negative is the universal blood type and can be transfused to patients of any blood type in an emergency. Similarly, type O positive can be transfused to Rh-positive patients of any blood type. Types A negative and B negative can be transfused to Rh-positive or negative patients. Power Red donations help ensure a stable supply of these critical blood types. Whole blood can be donated every 56 days, up to six times a year, and Power Red donations may be made every 112 days, up to three times per year. Make an appointment to donate blood by downloading the free Red Cross Blood Donor App, visiting redcrossblood.org or calling 1-800-733-2767. La Crose County opportunities include: April 14: 12:30 to 5 p.m., Valley View Mall, 3800 State Road 16, La Crosse April 15: 8 a.m. to noon, La Crosse Blood Donation Center, 1427 Hwy. 16 April 17: 1:30 to 6:30 p.m., La Crosse Blood Donation Center, 1427 Hwy. 16 April 19: Noon to 6 p.m., University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Eagle Hall, 1500 La Crosse St. April 20: Noon to 6 p.m., University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Eagle Hall, 1500 La Crosse St. April 21: 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., Central High School, 1801 Losey Blvd. April 25: 12:30 to 5:30 p.m., Christ Saint John Lutheran School, 500 Park St., West Salem May 1: 1:30 to 6:30 p.m., La Crosse Blood Doantion Center, 1427, Hwy. 16 May 3: 12:30 to 5:30 p.m., Bangor Middle-High School, 700 10th St. May 4: 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., Altra Federal Credit Union, 1700 Oak Forest Drive. When West Salem local Casey Vacek graduated high school she couldnt wait to get out of dodge. Now 29, shes back and setting up shop at Barbers Arms in downtown West Salem. It seems like West Salem is happy to have a shop up and running with a younger hair stylist, Vacek said. A few months back Vacek started renting a chair at Barbers Arms while she looked for a shop of her own. She now plans to purchase the business from the owner Dawn Scheel later this year. To me, it doesnt feel like a job, she said. Basically, with my job, I just socialize all day and cut some hair. I just love to do it. Vaceks passion for hair started long before she left West Salem. Shed grown up cutting hair for her friends. For prom and homecoming and stuff like that Id always do everyones hair, she said. In those days, it was always womens hair, but that changed after Vacek graduating from West Salem High School in 2007, left for St. Cloud, Minn., to attend beauty school. I went to cosmetology school where you learn hair, skin and nails, she said. Coming out of beauty school I worked at Sport Clips, and thats where I started specializing in mens hair. From there she went on to manage shops in downtown and uptown Minneapolis and Minnetonka, always working on mens hair. I think I probably should have gone to barber school because I deal in barber services, she said. While she doesnt mind working on womens hair, it isnt her specialty. Most people understand coming into a barbershop they arent going to get the spa treatment. Guys, they dont need fancy. Im not fancy, she said. After a while, the city life began to wear on Vacek. Shed grown tired of the long hours she and her husband had to work to pay the bills. We kind of just wanted to simplify our life, Vacek said. She began dreaming of a barber shop in her hometown. I knew I always wanted a shop back home, Vacek said. I never thought my husband would move back here. She wanted to reconnect with her family and get closer to the community shed grown up in. My family is really huge; my mom has, like, eight brothers and sisters, Vacek said. Coming back, I knew I would be busy. There was something about small towns that was attractive to her. In the cities, it is just keeping up with the Joneses, Vacek said. She, her husband Joe and their two girls eventually moved to Ettrick, Wis., where they purchased an acre of land and build a tiny 432 square-foot home. After a few months getting settled, Vacek started reaching out to local salons and barbershops like Barbers Arms. She asked Scheel if shed ever consider selling the place, but she wasnt interested in selling just yet. Scheel had been working at Fort McCoy running the fort barbershop for some time, which had left very little time for her business in West Salem. Vacek said Scheel wanted to make sure her existing clients were taken care of, so, Vacek got to work and soon became the face of the business. She started working long evening hours on Mondays and Tuesdays so that clients who couldnt get out of work could still get a hair cut. However, after Scheels husband left the region to take a job in Oregon, she had a change of heart and agreed to sell the shop. Scheel said she wanted to be sure that Vacek wasnt going to close the shop after she bought it. She said Barbers Arms had been a part of downtown West Salem for more than 30 years and she wanted to see it continue to be a part of the village history. I think she will be a good fit, Scheel said. Dawn (Scheel) wanted to sell it to me in the next couple of months. I wouldnt be buying the building because she doesnt own it, she said. For more information on Barbers Arms including hours and services visit facebook.com/pg/barberarms166. Spring is here and the Gays Mills Folk Festival of Music and Dance is just around the corner. The festival happens every Mothers Day weekend and the 25th annual festival takes place May 12-14 in Gays Mills. The festival kicks off Friday at 7 p.m. with a square, contra and old-time dance in the old Gays Mills community building at 212 Main St. All dances are taught, no partners are needed and all ages and beginners are welcome. The music is live with banjos, fiddles and other old-timey instruments. Saturday activities for the whole family start at noon at Lions Park by the Kickapoo River. Afternoon activities include May crown making, an open stage (bring your talent), workshops conducted by evening performers, a Maypole dance and the ever-popular fiddle bee. Saturday afternoon also features a special event with Liz Rog, community song leader from the Decorah, Iowa, area. Rog uses group singing as a tool for building community and for restoring a sense of belonging and connection in the world. Her song circles offer a safe, fun and supported space where all voices are welcome. The Kickapoo Exchange Natural Food Store will be hosting a chili dinner in the new Watercrest Cafe behind the store between 5 and 7 p.m. This dinner features live music. And new this year, the Watercrest Cafe will be serving a Sunday brunch on Mothers Day. The Saturday concert begins at 7 p.m. in the old Gays Mills Community building and will highlight three musical performances. The Bootlicker Stringband is a Minneapolis-based old-time band. They play tunes and sing songs from many regions of the country for concerts and square dances. The five members of the band come from diverse musical backgrounds. Their collective expertise comes through with music that is of high quality, fun and entertaining. The band members are Rina Rossi on bass, Aaron Tacke on banjo, AJ Srubas on fiddle and mandolin, Lee Guthrie on fiddle and uke and Arne Pelto on guitar. And they all sing. The Radio Wranglers hail from Wisconsin and are heavily influenced by the sounds of the 1930s, 40s and 50s, with influences ranging from Country and Western, Western Swing and Honky Tonk. Drawing influences from such artists as Bob Wills, Ernest Tubb and Hank Williams, the Radio Wranglers also write original music with a taste of the past. From waltzes to boogies, hot swing to high and lonesome blues, the band presents a unique blend of true American music. Fronted by the twin fiddle team of Blaine and Ruthie McQuinn on fiddle and vocals, The Radio Wranglers are Danny Tyksinski on lead guitar, Ed Novak on rhythm guitar and Peyton Lencho on doghouse bass. The Parrishes are a musical duo Ted and Catherine Parrish based in Viroqua. The couple originally met in Chicago where they were both teaching at the Old Town School of Folk Music. Their two musical worlds converged since relocating to Viroqua. They began to perform together an eclectic mix of songs from standards to obscure gems from the past. The Parrishes also write original music that blends their musical styles and experiences. Their music showcases skills developed over many years of dedication to their art. As is the tradition, the Folk Fest winds down with a good old-fashioned Gospel Sing Sunday at 11 a.m. at Robb Park. Also, be sure to check out all the concurrent Gays Mills Spring Festival events, antique tractor pull, Sunday pancake breakfast, and much more at www.gaysmillswi.com. Ticket prices for the Gays Mills Folk Festival are $7 for the Friday night dance ($2 children) and $17 for the Saturday night concert ($5 children). All park activities are freewill donation. More information may be obtained by calling 608-632-2720 or visiting www.gaysmillsfolkfest.org. The La Crosse Area Retired Educators will meet for lunch at 11:30 a.m. Monday, May 1 at Moxies Pub,1835 Rose Street, La Crosse. The program topic is Hunger Task Force: Fighting Hunger presented by Shelley Fortner. Cost of the meal is $10. Everyone who has retired from Wisconsin public schools is invited. Reservations can be made through Karen Broadhead, 608-788-2485, or Marlene McCabe, 608-781-1039. Cook Children's Medical Center(NEW YORK) -- This nurses drawings are bringing cheer to his young patients at Cook Childrens Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas. Edgar Palomo, 27, makes dry-erase artwork on the hematology/oncology floor to lighten the mood for the kids. I've always wanted to help people, which led me to nursing, Palomo, who has been working at Cook Childrens for four years, wrote to ABC News. I never wanted to pursue anything in art, so doing the drawings helps me to combine the two together in a positive and therapeutic manner. He said hes been doing the drawings for the unit and patients for three years. As word of mouth goes around, it's gotten more frequent, he explained of his elaborate creations. I take requests from patients, families and staff. It can be a popular movie at the time or it might be something related to a holiday. Some of his drawings include famous characters from movies like Beauty and the Beast, The Wizard of Oz, Superman, A Charlie Brown Christmas and Winnie the Pooh. Each drawing takes a few hours to complete, although Palomo said, My job comes first. I can usually only work on the drawings a little bit at a time when I have some free time, he said. And there is not always downtime. Therefore, a drawing can take one to two weeks, depending on how busy the unit is. Palomo is happy that his attempt to bring some cheerful color to the floor can have such a positive impact on the kids. Anything to bring a smile is worth doing, he said. Copyright 2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. In anticipation of the 2017 tourism season, the Black River Area Chamber of Commerce has released its 2017 Official Visitors Guide. The visitors guide is the handy catch-all tool that helps to promote the Black River area and is a tool visitors can use to find their way around and a way for them to find all of the recreational things and businesses that we have to offer, said Chris Hardie, executive director of the Black River Area Chamber of Commerce. The visitors guide is placed in several locations throughout the county and at Wisconsin Department of Tourism visitor and information centers around the state. The 44-page magazine features information about annual events, the Ho-Chunk Nation, outdoor recreation, the state forest, parks and much more. This year, the Black River Area Chamber of Commerce printed 12,500 magazines. Hardie explained this is down from previous years because they have seen an increase in online traffic on the Chambers website. Hardie also said that the magazine is available digitally online at www.blackrivercountry.net. You can also pick up your own copy at the Black River Area Chamber of Commerce office located at 120 N. Water Street in Black River Falls. The visitor guide is printed with the help of The Print Shop in Black River Falls. The beautiful cover photo was taken during sunset on the Black River by Colin Droster, who is an avid kayaker of the Black River. The 67-room Gundersen Hotel and Suites will open will open this summer adjacent to Gundersen Health Systems La Crosse campus and is accepting reservations for dates after Sept. 1, hotel executives announced Thursday. Premier Hotel Properties will own and manage the facility as an independent boutique lifestyle hotel, according to a news release. Premier developed its first independent brand in partnership with Gundersen under a licensing agreement. Created in part to provide convenient quarters for Gundersen patients who travel distances for their care, as well as their out-of-town visitors, the hotel will have 67 guest studios, including 16 one-bedroom suites with full kitchens, according to Premier. The rooms will feature high-speed internet, charging stations, work spaces and sitting areas. The one-bedroom suites will have full kitchens, island-style seating and sitting areas with separate bedrooms. Amenities will include a free breakfast served daily, signature bakery items from local vendors, fresh fruits, healthy choices and traditional breakfast favorites. Also available for guests will be an indoor pool, fitness center, business center and a terrace room on the fourth floor. The terrace and executive board rooms will be available to book for groups, events and meetings. Premier, which also owns, operates and develops projects in Illinois and Missouri, also operates the Holiday Inn Express in Onalaska. The company wanted to expand into the downtown La Crosse market, said Premier founder Spencer Schram. The location and type of product we are creating aligned with a vision of the Gundersen Health System, Schram said, adding that it will appeal to a wide array of guests visiting La Crosse, including corporate and group bookings. Bookings can be made at the hotels website, with costs ranging from a $91 per diem government charge, $142 for AARP/senior and AAA rates to family suites starting at $153. Uncle Billy left an incredibly wide swath of mourners because they include not only his immediate family but an extended family of thousands who also are able to celebrate his life. Even Bill Gerrards five children sometimes call him Uncle Billy, after becoming so accustomed to hearing that honorific from everyone including governors, judges, legislators and other lobbyists because of his concern for everyone and desire to help anybody, anytime. Michael William Bill Gerrard, a La Crosse native who died April 7 at the age of 92, was an entrepreneur, developer, real estate broker and lobbyist. In 1952, he launched Gerrard Realty, a firm that was said to be the largest real estate company in the state. His main competitor was Jake Hoeschler, who founded Hoeschler Realty in 1950, although they had a healthy respect for each other, daughter Mary Ann Gerrard said during an interview Wednesday. Daughter Nancy Gerrard bought her fathers firm and, in 1991, merged with Jay Hoeschler, Jakes son, who had taken the reins of that company. A lifelong Democrat, Uncle Billy chaired the state Democratic Party in the 1970s but crossed aisles so adroitly that the common joke was that he was a member of the incumbent party. I learned everything from him, Mary Ann said as she reminisced about her fathers life and the 22 years she served with him as a lobbyist in Madison. What we all learned was to be gracious and reach out and make it all about the other guy, said Mary Ann, the eldest of Uncle Billy and wife Annas children. As deeply as he loved politics, he held his wife, children and dozen grandchildren even closer to his heart, said former Gov. Tommy Thompson, a Republican who laughed warmly as he recalled how close he became to Gerrard and his family. Everything revolved around his family because he wanted them to succeed as he did, Thompson said in a phone interview during a layover in Los Angeles as he was returning to Wisconsin from a business trip to Fiji, near Australia. He was a staunch Democrat who was very close to (former Democratic Gov.) Pat Lucey, Thompson said. And Pat Lucey became very close to me because of Uncle Billy. Laughing heartily about Gerrards incumbent party mantle, Thompson said, We loved teasing him about that. When I ran against Tony Earl, he voted for Tony because Tony was the incumbent (and a Democrat). When I won, it wasnt hours after that I got a call from Uncle Billy. He said, Boy, Tommy, we did it! Thompson said. Thompson recalled that Uncle Billy would come into his office with a list of requests. He was so nice, it was hard to say no to him. He was very persuasive and was always finding ways to get things done, said Thompson, one of the speakers scheduled to deliver eulogies at 11:15 a.m. April 22 at the Roncalli Newman Center at 1732 State St. in La Crosse. Gerrards Mass of Christian Burial will follow, at 11:30. Uncle Billy was very, very special he was a political ace, Thompson said. He had the contacts, he had the personality and he had the tact. He loved people, and he would take the extra step for everybody. Another close friend is Kenosha County Circuit Judge Mary Wagner, who met Uncle Billy as a close friend of her fiance, John Malloy. He also was an usher at their wedding in 1982. Uncle Billy was one of the greatest gifts John Malloy gave me not only Bill but the entire Gerrard family, said Wagner, who confessed to being a bit nervous about her role as a eulogist. When her husband was killed in an accident less than a year after they were married, Uncle Billy drove to comfort her during a vigil, she said. Uncle Billy was a great fan of Wagners bread, so in recent years, she would drive to Madison or La Crosse whichever spot he was living to deliver the tasty loaves to him. He listened more than he talked, she said. He used to say you could learn more listening than talking. He always asked people, What can I do for you? He was friendly and happy, and he was a great story-teller. Acknowledging his ability to work equally hard for Democrats and Republicans, Wagner said, He liked everybody. He was a great compromiser. Daughter Mary Ann said she isnt quite sure her father opted to go with Bill instead of Michael. He advocated parochial school aid decades ago, she said, adding, He did that gratis, and that was his first taste of lobbying. He felt very strongly about Catholic schools. One of his favorite causes was chiropractors insurance, she said. His is the one responsible for getting the chiropractors insurance coverage, she said. He pushed and pushed and pushed. The friendships Uncle Billy fostered in Madison flourished beyond his retirement, she said. He wasnt a 92-year-old lobbyist everybody forgot, she said. These young people would call him for counsel and to go out to lunch and dinner. Mary Ann, who said the family teased him for learning to snow ski at 45, cited family vacations in Minocqua, Wis., as the most memorable. We would have such fun, she said. He would step back from work and drive the boat. He usually worked Saturdays, so any time with him was precious. Mary Ann, who was one of her fathers caregivers during his later years, said, That was a blessing in my life, to take care of Dad. A federal program that has funded more than $428 million worth of rural Wisconsin water and sewer projects including dozens in the Coulee Region is among those targeted for elimination in President Donald Trumps proposed budget. Part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the water and waste disposal program provides grants and loans for the construction of water facilities in rural communities. According to the USDA, the 945 projects funded last year will improve the quality of life for more than 2.2 million rural residents. Trump has proposed eliminating the program, which he calls duplicative, saving $498 million in a $1.2 trillion discretionary budget that cuts $54 billion in programs while increasing defense and homeland security spending by about $60 billion. Since 2006, the water program has authorized nearly $131 million worth of subsidies for sewer and water projects in rural Wisconsin communities and an additional $297 million in low-interest loans. That includes more than $38 million for more than two dozen Coulee Region municipalities, including Arcadia, Cashton, Ettrick, Hixton, Independence and Whitehall. The average grant for Wisconsin communities was about $550,000, while loans averaged about $1.2 million per project. The USDA says its loan portfolio has a delinquency rate of just 0.43 percent. It would be kind of devastating for small communities, said Dave Lawrence, executive director of the Wisconsin Rural Water Association, a nonprofit organization that provides training and technical assistance for water system operators. Its the number one funding mechanism they use for infrastructure. The city of Viroqua last year received $7 million in assistance, one of the largest awards made in Wisconsin, to fund the citys overhaul of its 40-year-old wastewater treatment plant. City Engineer Sara Grainger said the $10 million project, expected to be completed by December, will make the plant more flexible, though the primary purpose is to replace equipment designed with a 20-year lifespan. Its just worn out, she said. Two years ago a shaft broke in one of the plants two clarifying tanks, requiring it to be shut down for almost a month. In addition to upgrading the treatment plant, the city is also moving its discharge pipe two miles away to avoid karst topography. Crevices in the current stream bed a tributary of the Bad Axe River allows the outflow to quickly infiltrate the groundwater, carrying with it fecal bacteria that arent fully removed by the treatment process. Grainger said the USDA program allows small communities to borrow money that would not be available from banks. And the grants in Viroquas case, $2 million mean ratepayers dont have to support the entire project cost. Its a huge chunk, Grainger said. The village of Viola last year received about $3.4 million including a $715,000 grant to replace unlined water mains and lead service lines. According to USDA, the village was losing over 30 percent of its water, and cracks in the old mains made the water supply susceptible to contamination. U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a first-term Democrat who has made clean water one of her signature issues, said she intends to fight to preserve the funding. For many rural communities its the difference between being able to make investments to protect clean water and upgrade sewer systems and not being able to do so, Baldwin said. The idea that the presidents budget would cut half a billion dollars to assist rural communities with water issues is frightening. Sen. Ron Johnson, a Republican elected in November to a second term, did not say whether he favors maintaining rural development programs like this one but praised Trumps preliminary budget outline. The presidents budget is the first serious attempt by any White House since Ive been serving to rein in the out-of-control federal government by providing budget discipline to departments and agencies. The general direction of this budget focuses on what should be the top priority of the federal government national defense and homeland security while protecting the hard-earned dollars of American taxpayers, Johnson said in a statement. No two people will agree on every program cut or expansion, and I look forward to working to balance fiscal discipline with what is in the overall best interest of Wisconsin and America. In his budget summary, Trump says rural communities can be served by private-sector financing or other government financing programs such as the Environmental Protection Agencys state revolving funds, which he proposes increasing by $4 million. However, the USDA program is reserved for communities of fewer than 10,000 people, while three quarters of the EPA funding goes to larger cities. Lawrence said other funding programs dont allow payments to be spread over 40 years, which is crucial to keeping payments affordable for smaller communities. I think its fair to say that there would be great difficulty for many of these small communities in getting loans and private financing outside of this program, Baldwin said. The Western Technical College District Board didnt have to look far for its next president. Western staff announced Tuesday that Roger Stanford, the current vice president for academic affairs, will succeed his boss, Lee Rasch, as the seventh president of the college. Rasch, who has led the college for nearly three decades, announced last year that he will retire June 30. District Board Chairman Dennis Treu said Stanford had a passion for student success and the technical colleges mission. Stanford has a deep respect for the work that has gone into the $79.8 million Vision 2020 strategic plan, Treu said, and offers inspiring ideas to keep the college moving forward. During his two years at Western, which has campuses in Tomah and Black River Falls, Stanford started a flexible learning initiative that targets working adult students, created a team model to help get faculty more engaged in college priorities such as student success, and led the implementation of a K-12 academy model, including the design of a facility to serve high school juniors and seniors. He said he decided to come to Western because of the colleges solid reputation and the community support that was apparent when voters approved the Vision 2020 referendum funding renovations and expansions at the campus locations in La Crosse and throughout the region. Stanford said he hoped to be able to build on that as well as bring a strong focus on data analysis and strategic planning to the presidency. Western has a stellar reputation in the district and the state for high-quality education, and has even garnered national attention for leading-edge sustainability efforts, Stanford said. I look forward to sharing my experience and continuing the momentum for many years to come. Before coming to Western, Stanford was vice president of instruction at Chippewa Valley Technical College in Eau Claire. He has also worked in higher education as an instructor, a dean and a director of professional development, in addition to 10 years teaching at the high school level. Stanford was the first in his family to attend college and is a graduate of the Wisconsin Technical College System, earning his associates degree in marketing management from CVTC. He also earned a bachelors degree in marketing education from the University of Wisconsin-Stout, a masters degree in education and professional development from UW-La Crosse, and a doctorate in curriculum and instruction from Capella University. He was selected from a pool of 35 candidates from across the United States and was one of three finalists the search committee asked to visit campus. All of three of the candidates were invited to closed-door meetings and interviews last week with the district board before the group made its final decision. Stanfords selection will be officially approved at the April 18 board meeting, and he will begin the position July 1. We had an excellent pool of applicants from which to choose, Treu said. Roger rose to the top based on his extensive experience, his enthusiasm for technical education, and his recognition of the importance of community. He is a perfect fit for Western and the district we serve. To April Beaver her service dog, Basia, is her hero. For almost two years Basia has assisted Beaver to manage her diabetes and mobility issues. Her gratefulness and amazement for her service dog is what prompted her to enter Basia in the American Humane Hero Dog Awards. The awards are an annual, nationwide competition that recognizes dogs who do extraordinary things. The dogs compete in seven categories (law enforcement/arson dogs, service dogs, therapy dogs, military dogs, search and rescue dogs, guide/hearing dogs and emerging hero dogs) and are then voted on by the public. After voting, the winners (and their human companion) from each category are flown to Hollywood to attend the American Hero Dogs Awards gala, where the American Hero Dog will be named. The American Humane Society will donate $2,500 to the charity partners of each of the eight finalists, and an additional $5,000 will be given to the American Hero Dogs charity partner. Beaver, who lives in Tomah, said she entered Basia because shes a wonderful, talented dog. Shes my hero, and shes amazing, she said. Because of her I can ... drive again, I can go to stores and not have to worry, and my family doesnt have to worry while theyre at work every day if Im going to pass out or not wake up. As a service dog who specializes in diabetes and mobility, Basia is trained to nudge and paw when Beavers blood sugar is low (under 100) or high (over 300), retrieve a blood glucose meter, a phone, glucose tablets or juice. She can also detect when blood sugar is dropping fast, brace for someone to get up after they fall, open doors, carry a laundry basket up and down the stairs, put clothes in a laundry basket and even take off socks. Basia, Beaver said, is an exception to most service dogs. Usually (dogs) are trained through all the categories (for a service dog), then at the end they are kind of given a test to see what theyre best at, she said. While most dogs only excel at one, she excelled at two. Basia is excelling in both diabetes and mobility is incredibly helpful, Beaver said, because after she had a pancreas transplant she began having mobility issues. Shortly after the transplant, I started having problems like falling down stairs my knees swell and then I can barely walk, then my legs just give out and there I go, she said. The transplant, Beaver said, was supposed to get rid of the diabetes for a time to slow down the progression of gastroparesis and other health problems related to the diabetes. However it failed. Beaver said shes blessed to have found Basia; she has saved her life many times. One life-saving event happened in November, when Beavers blood sugar was extremely high and she was surprised she didnt fall into a coma. My (insulin) pump wasnt working, but it wasnt telling me it wasnt working, so my blood sugar was 1,268, she said. (Basia) kept telling me, and you could tell she was nervous and worried, she kept nudging and pawing. ... I knew it was high because (the meter) kept saying 600, thats the highest it goes, so it had to be extremely high, she was so worried and I kept taking insulin and it wasnt working. My brother-in-law has to come to get me, and he told my husband afterward that I would talk and then I would just stop and be out of it. This is why Basia was entered into the American Hero Dog Awards, Beaver said. Shes amazing; shes my hero, and I want to donate the money, she said. Beaver and Basias charity partner for the American Hero Dog Awards is the National Education for Assistance Dogs Services. Voting for the awards ends May 3. To vote go to herodogawards.org/dog/basia. We are up to our gills in meth, the county worker told me. Four years ago one quarter of our child-protection cases were related to meth. Now, 92 percent of these cases are related to meth. Our system just isnt equipped to deal with the meth problem, said another social worker. Recently, more than 400 county supervisors and Health and Human Services staff came to the capitol. I had visitors from every county in our Senate District. These officials brought me one clear message: Help us deal with the methamphetamine problem. The statistics the county employees shared were staggering. Trempealeau County experienced more than a four-fold increase in child-protection cases in less than two years. Most of these children were living with a meth-addicted parent. Dunn County officials told me about the increase in people entering treatment. Last September, 35 percent of those entering treatment were meth addicts and this number steadily grew. By February, 60 percent of those entering treatment were addicted to meth. The county staff shared many stories about the impact of meth addiction on children. These children are exposed to the drug because addicts smoke the substance. The drug pollutes the air and surfaces of the home. All workers test children of meth addicts for exposure to meth. We tested a four-year-old and a one-year-old, said a social worker. The two children tested higher than the average meth users. The social workers said they are struggling to fill the needs of so many youngsters ravaged by the addiction of their parents. Counties assess the childs needs but, as the county staff explained, it is difficult to tease out what is happening with a child. Is a child suffering withdrawal symptoms because of second-hand drug exposure or suffering developmentally because of poor nutrition. Has the child experienced emotional or physical trauma? Certainly, the vast majority of children of meth-addicted parents suffer neglect. A social worker told me that she visited a mom in jail who decided to voluntarily give up her child. The sorrowful mom told the social worker she wished she never did meth, because it makes you forget you ever had children. Helping the large number of suffering children has stretched county budgets thin. The cases are hard. Social workers are difficult to find and often not trained to assist children from drug-troubled homes. Staff turnover is high. For the addicts themselves, treatment programs are limited. Insurance only pays for a few days of inpatient treatment. To be effective, a meth addict must stay inpatient for at least a month. In my own research, I learned the brain takes at least a year to recover from some damage done by meth. Relapses are common, as is depression and other forms of mental illness. A few months ago, I first began hearing about meth from law enforcement. Sheriffs told me the combination of mental illness and meth resulted in violence. Community and officer safety was at risk. Treatment options were very limited. Often officers must drive four to six hours one-way to deliver the addict to treatment at one of two state-operated mental health institutions. Local sheriffs explained how their entire annual budget for transporting the arrested mentally ill person was gone in the first few months of this year because of so many new cases of mental illness and meth-induced violence. Opioid users go to the emergency room, a human services manager told me. Meth addicts go to jail. Lawmakers recently paid much attention to problems associated with heroin and opioid-related drugs. However, the epidemic in western Wisconsin is meth. Counties need resources to help children who need safe homes. Our region needs treatment and emergency crisis centers. Long-term inpatient treatment is expensive but can be effective. Further, we must help those suffering from mental illness and keep them from turning to addiction instead of mental health treatment. Lawmakers will soon take up a series of bills to combat heroin. I ask my colleagues to expand their awareness and consider the impacts of meth: on our children, our county budgets, the safety of our communities and the lives of the addicts. In the spirit of rebirth, Easter and spring, I ask families affected by mental illness or drug addiction to get help. It is not easy. But there is hope. Democrat Kathleen Vinehout, Alma, represents the 31st state Senate District. Wednesday, April 12, 2017 The Oklahoma Supreme Court has reprimanded an attorney for two voicemail messages to a soon-to-be former client Nichalas Frank hired the respondent in November of 2015 to represent him in three (3) criminal cases pending in Oklahoma County District Court. Mr. Frank's grandfather paid the respondent the five-hundred dollar ($500) retainer fee required to obtain his services, and Mr. Frank was to pay an additional total of $4,000.00 to the respondent in six monthly payments. Frank, however, failed to make any further payments. On March 15, 2016, the respondent learned during a staff meeting that Mr. Frank had not made any additional payments for attorney fees. The respondent reacted to this by telephoning Frank and, in front of his staff, leaving two messages containing expletives and threats. We will address the content of the messages later in this opinion. After receiving the respondent's voicemail messages, Frank contacted a local Oklahoma City TV news station. In an interview with the station he stated he feared for his life because the respondent was pretty powerful, and "I'm pretty sure he can do what he wants to do at any moment." The TV station aired the news story on March 16, 2016, and played bleep-censored audio of both voicemail messages left by the respondent. He refused to be interviewed and did not comment on the allegations. On March 17, 2016, Mr. Frank filed a grievance with the Oklahoma Bar Association regarding the respondent's conduct. That same day the respondent filed motions to withdraw from Frank's cases and was authorized to do so by the District Court on March 21, 2016. In his written response to Frank's grievance, the respondent advised he had appeared in court on Frank's behalf and continued the cases because he was not getting paid, and he was trying to consolidate them before the same judge. The respondent went on to state that when he learned Frank had not paid the fee promised, he left the two voicemails, "in an attempt to get Frank to pay him so that he would not have to withdraw." In his written response, the respondent also stated that Frank ". . . needed me to get his attention and I did. . . . I simply spoke to him in words he understood. My communication was directed to him personally, and was intended to be private in nature. Sometimes communications with difficult drug addicted clients has [sic] to be blunt and straight forward to impress upon them the reality of their situation." The expurgated version The respondent objects to the Trial Panel's characterization of his conduct as "morally reprehensible." He believes the conduct involved merely offensive behavior and insults. He argues that the Trial Panel has expanded "morally reprehensible" beyond deceit, dishonesty, misrepresentation, criminality, and sexual misbehavior. While he appears to be focused on his choice of expletives, we are focused on the subject matter of the two recorded messages. The respondent writes that "Swear words are the exclamation marks of spoken language." Modern dictionaries describe the words used by the respondent as offensive and vulgar. Because words in dictionaries are the result of substantial research, we accept that they accurately reflect the current public opinion of the words the respondent chose to use. We delete these expletives in quoting his messages. The respondent left this message at 10:31 AM: "Mr. Frank, this is Chad Moody. It's not your [deleted]. It's not your piece of [deleted] that you step on. It's not your slave. It's not your [deleted]. It's Chad Moody who works for you, but you won't [deleted] pay me! So why don't you come to my office, because I'm having a frustrating day, and I would like to really beat the [deleted] out of somebody and that way, you can at least make yourself somewhat useful to the human race. [Deleted] pay me [deleted]!" Again, at 10:33 AM, the respondent telephoned Frank, and in front of his staff, left this message: "Mr. Frank, by the way, Chad Moody, calling you back, and at this point, I really do think you should probably find other counsel because I'm to the point of wanting to see you go to prison and that's not a good equation. It gives me a horrible conflict of interest. So I'm letting you know I've got this conflict of interest because I would love to see your sorry [deleted] in prison because you're using me like your [deleted]." The facts show that the phone calls immediately followed information from the respondent's staff informing him that Mr. Frank had not paid the attorney fees he had promised to pay. The respondent's subsequent verbal abuse and threats were a coercive attempt to intimidate Mr. Frank into paying. The substance of the messages does not support the respondent's explanations that he was trying to shock Mr. Frank into following the respondent's recommendations to him so he would receive a lighter sentence. The respondent's assertion that his choice of language was in his client's best interest and the language is protected by the First Amendment's Freedom of Speech Clause, found in the Constitution of the United States, is merely unpersuasive rationalization for rash acts. The recorded tirade reveals that the respondent no longer intended to represent his client, he only wanted his fees to be paid. He is entitled to his fees, and as an attorney, he should know bullying and threats are not acceptable behavior for a professional who has sworn to uphold the rule of law. The courts are open to protect breaches of contract. Of all people, a lawyer should know that. The conduct violated Rule 8.4(d) We are concerned that the respondent does not appear to realize that his use of intimidation and threats to collect a debt due him is unacceptable behavior for an attorney. He shows no remorse, no embarrassment for his actions. He even defends the actions as protected speech. He testifies that his client deserved it for lying to him about paying the attorney fees. From his own testimony, he has asserted that such behavior is not his ordinary course of dealing with the clientele he has chosen to represent, that is, those who are accused of violating drug laws. Neither his two attorney witnesses, nor a member of his staff, who also testified at his hearing, were willing to testify that such invective should be considered acceptable behavior for an attorney. His actions violate ORPC 8.4(d), and RGDP 1.3. Justice cannot be administered by taking the position of a foe, by belittling one's own client, nor by informing the client that his lawyer wants to physically beat him and then see him go to prison. In other words, the respondent's conduct is prejudicial to the administration of justice. Such action also brings discredit upon the legal profession. In mitigation, the facts support this is not the respondent's typical method of handling his clients. He has not been disciplined by this Court before. We expect that the respondent will not repeat his behavior. There is no evidence before this Court that Mr. Frank suffered any legal harm regarding his criminal cases as the result of the respondent's withdrawal as Mr. Frank's attorney. NewsOK reported on the sanction. (Mike Frisch) https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legal_profession/2017/04/the-oklahoma-supreme-court-has-reprimanded-an-attorney-for-nichalas-frank-hired-the-respondent-in-november-of-2015-to-repres.html Thursday, April 13, 2017 The South Carolina Advisory Committee on Standards of Judicial Conduct blesses a magistrate's 911 service A full-time magistrate is also a certified paramedic. For many years, the judge has worked part-time as a paramedic in a 911 setting in a county different than the one in which the judge presides. However, the judge plans to retire from the 911 service and instead work part time for a non-emergency service that would provide services to several counties, including the one in which the judge presides as magistrate. The job would entail transporting patients from hospital to hospital, home to doctors facilities, etc. These would be non-emergency patients who cannot utilize traditional means of transportation. Further, from time to time, the judge may be requested to cover a public event as first aid personnel. The judge does not believe that there will be any situations in which he would come into contact with law enforcement at said events. Furthermore, the events would fall under the jurisdiction of the municipal court, rather than the magistrate court. The judge inquires as to whether he may accept such part-time employment. Good to go We have addressed employment by full-time magistrate in previous opinions (See, e.g., 13-2005, 9-2014). The Code of Judicial Conduct does not prohibit part-time employment by a full-time magistrate. Canon 4D(3) permits a judge to serve as employee of a business entity if that service does not conflict with the judges judicial duties[.] Rule 501, SCACR. The commentary to that Canon states that a judges participation may be prohibited if participation requires significant time away from judicial duties. In addition, all of judges extra-judicial conduct must avoid activities that cast reasonable doubt on the judges ability to act impartially and the judge must avoid the appearance of impropriety. Canon 4; Canon 2. Here, it does not appear that the accepting part-time employment with a non-emergency medical transport service would conflict with the Canons. However, the judge should regularly re-examine the judges activities with regards to employment to determine if it is proper to continue such affiliation. (Mike Frisch) https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legal_profession/2017/04/the-south-carolina-a-full-time-magistrate-is-also-a-certified-paramedic-for-many-years-the-judge-has-worked-part-time-as-a.html The United States Commerce Department has begun a 90-day study of trade imbalances between the U.S. and some Asian nations. Experts say the review could produce a major change in Asias trading relationship with the United States. The review follows President Donald Trumps call for action against foreign importers that cheat. Among the Asian economies Trump criticized are China, Japan, Thailand, South Korea, Malaysia, India, Taiwan, Indonesia and Vietnam. Trump has said that he will make an historic reversal in U.S. trade policy after the review. Currency manipulation? A possible U.S. trade policy change is making many government officials in Southeast Asia worried. After World War II, many developing economies in East and Southeast Asia exported their products to the United States. The relationship helped end poverty for millions of people. But during th e 2016 presidential campaign, Trump charged that some trade policies, especially those of China, had harmed the American economy. He accused some countries of unfairly keeping the value of their currency low compared to the value of the U.S. dollar. This makes their exported products less costly than similar products made in the United States. Krystal Tan is an economist at Capital Economics in Singapore. She said two countries that are most worried about being named currency manipulators are South Korea and Taiwan. Countries that are officially identified as currency manipulators can face economic punishments such as fines or import taxes. Tan says if countries want to avoid economic restrictions, they will need to open their markets to more American products. Taiwan Officials in Taiwan say the trading relationship with the U.S. is not a hostile one. They note that more than 80 percent of the exports Taiwan sends are not completed products. Instead, they are put together in the United States. David Hsu is the deputy director general of the Bureau of Foreign Trade (BOFT) in Taiwan. He told reporters that the trading relationship with the U.S. is mutually beneficial. Malaysia Government and business officials in Malaysia are also worried about the U.S. trade review. In late 2016, an increase in exports increased economic growth in Malaysia to 4.5 percent. Ong Ka Chuan is the Malaysian minister of international trade and industry. Ong told reporters that Malaysia was not responsible for the large U.S. trade deficit. Ong said, Malaysia was dealing with the U.S. fairly. Ong added that any restrictions that may result from a review could harm American manufacturers in Malaysia, such as Intel and Western Digital. If Trump were to punish usthe American firms will be (the) ones (that are) dealt a severe blow, he said. Thailand and Vietnam The U.S. is Thailands third-largest trading partner after China and Japan. Trade between the U.S. and Thailand was $36.5 billion in 2016. More than $24 billion was from Thai exports. Among the top exports to the U.S. were machinery, electrical appliances, electronics and parts, rubber products and gems and jewelry. Vietnam also has a trade surplus with the U.S. in other words, it sells far more goods to the U.S. than it buys. Last week, Vietnams Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc criticized Trumps decision. He said it would have a huge impact on Vietnams economy, which depends on exports. Trans Pacific Partnership President Trump has already changed U.S. trade policy. Soon after he took office in January, Trump withdrew from the Trans Pacific Partnership or, TPP agreement. The agreement was an important part of former U.S. president Barack Obamas pivot to Asia policy. It was designed to limit Chinas growing political and economic influence in the area. Carl Thayer, a political scientist at the University of New South Wales, explains one of the effects of Trump withdrawing from the TPP. He says North Vietnam now wants to increase trade with China under the Chinese Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). Vietnam had its heart and soul on the TPP," Thayer said. "They have a massive surplus with the U.S. It almost equals their massive deficit with China. But theres not very much they can do. Theyre being pragmatic and looking at the RCEP." Thayer said Vietnam hoped for a strong American presence in Asia to balance Chinas influence, especially in the South China Sea. Now, he said, Vietnam will have to balance its relationships more equally among the U.S. and India, Russia, Japan and China. And, Thayer added, without strong U.S. action in the region, Vietnam will have to work harder to balance Chinese influence. He says relations between the U.S. and Vietnam, which have been built up over the past 20 years, may be hurt because of a possible change in trade policy. Im Kelly Jean Kelly. Correspondent Ron Corben reported this story from Bangkok. Christopher Jones-Cruise adapted the report for Learning English. Kelly Jean Kelly was the editor. We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section, or visit our Facebook page. _________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story imbalance n. a state or condition in which different things do not occur in equal or proper amounts reversal n. a change to an opposite state, condition, decision, etc. manipulator n. a person who uses or controls other people in a clever and often unfair or selfish way : a manipulative person beneficial adj. producing good or helpful results or effects blow n. a sudden event that causes trouble, damage, sorrow, etc appliances n. a machine (such as a stove, microwave, or dishwasher) that is powered by electricity and that is used in people's houses to perform a particular job impact n. a powerful or major influence or effect pivot n. the action of turning around a point : the action of pivoting massive adj. large in amount or degree pragmatic adj. dealing with the problems that exist in a specific situation in a reasonable and logical way instead of depending on ideas and theories The Brazilian city of Petropolis is known for its 19th century buildings and its Imperial Museum. The museum includes the summer home of Brazil's last ruler, Dom Pedro II. But many people who live in Petropolis are upset about having to pay a special property tax linked to the countrys former rulers. The tax is known as laudemio. It takes 2.5 percent of the value of real estate deals. The money from the tax goes directly to the descendants of Dom Pedro II, more than one hundred years after he was ousted. The property tax is an example of social injustice to many of the 300,000 people living in the city. Brazil is one of the world's most unequal places for property distribution. Almost half of the land is owned by one percent of the population. Experts say laws that were written before Brazils independence from Portugal worsen the problem. The tax was established in Brazil by the rulers of Portugal to ensure that land was passed from European settlers to their descendants. In colonial times, Brazil's land was the property of Portugal. Brazil became a republic in 1889. But the special tax was never cancelled. Many criticize the tax because it continues to earn money for only a few privileged families. Marco Antonio de Melo Breves is an official with Brazil's federal tax department. He says he does not know how much money is paid each year under the royal property tax or how much it costs the average homeowner. Breves says payments are generally made through private lawyers who make documents official. He adds that the government does not have information on how many royal descendants are receiving money from people paying the property tax. Government officials say unclear property ownership and complex land registration policies are problems in Brazil. The Ministry of Cities says half the population cannot prove full legal ownership of their homes. Ana Paula Bueno is a lawyer with the Land Governance Group at the State University of Campinas. She says removing the special property tax would require many changes to current laws. Isabela Verleun works at the Imperial Museum of Petropolis. She says that when Brazil created a new constitution in 1988, some people wanted to end the tax. Their efforts, however, were unsuccessful. Im Jonathan Evans. VOA News reported this story based on Reuters reports. Jonathan Evans adapted this story for VOA Learning English. Mario Ritter was the editor. ________________________________________________________________ Words in this Story real estate n. property consisting of buildings and land descendant n. someone who is related to a person or group of people who lived in the past distribution n. the way that something is divided or spread out As an American Navy aircraft carrier group heads toward Korea, China said Thursday that military force alone cannot end tensions on the Korean Peninsula. At the same time, an influential Chinese newspaper urged North Korea to stop its nuclear program in exchange for Chinese protection. Experts are worried that the North could soon conduct its sixth nuclear test or launch more missiles in defiance of United Nations resolutions and sanctions. The United States has also strongly warned that it will no longer be patient with the North. China cautions North Korea China is the Norths only major ally. It also gives a lot of aid to the country. But it wants the North to end its nuclear weapons program. China has called for negotiations to ease tensions. It also wants nuclear weapons removed from the peninsula. The Global Times newspaper, which is published by the Communist partys Peoples Daily, called on North Korea and its leader Kim Jong Un to stop developing nuclear weapons. As soon as North Korea complies with Chinas declared advice and suspends nuclear activities, China will actively work to protect the security of a denuclearized North Korean nation and regime, it wrote recently. On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump told The Wall Street Journal you cannot allow a country like [North Korea] to have nuclear power, nuclear weapons. Thats mass destruction. A day earlier, the president told Fox Business Network that the United States is sending an armada. Very powerful. We have submarines. Very powerful. Far more powerful than the aircraft carrier. Sources told VOA that the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier group includes the USS Ohio submarine, which is armed with 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles. Just last week, the U.S. fired 59 missiles at a Syrian airfield in response to a deadly gas attack. From Beijing, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said, military force cannot resolve the issue. Amid challenge there is opportunity. Amid tensions we will also find a kind of opportunity to return to talks. Wang warned that whoever provokes the situation, whoever continues to make trouble in this place, they will have to assume historical responsibility. Trump warns North Korea U.S. President Donald Trump has said he will not accept any military aggression from North Korea. But American officials say the administration wants to use stronger economic sanctions against the North, not weapons. U.S. officials said the president was considering an oil embargo, banning North Koreas airline, intercepting cargo ships and punishing Chinese banks that work with North Korean companies and the government. Theres a whole host of things that are possible, all the way up to whats essentially a trade quarantine on North Korea, an official told Reuters. Concerns in Japan and South Korea From Seoul, South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se told parliament that he believes the US will tell his country before it attacks the North. On Thursday morning, a spokesman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff said South Korea has no evidence that military aggression from the North will happen soon. The United States has about 28,500 troops in South Korea. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe also said on Thursday that North Korea may be able to fire missiles that have sarin nerve gas. A senior Japanese diplomat said the United States was putting maximum pressure on North Korea to ease tensions while also pressuring China to influence its ally. South Korean officials said there were no new signs showing a nuclear test by the North was likely. But they said the North appeared ready to conduct a test at any time. Pictures taken by satellites show a North Korean nuclear site is being prepared for what would be the countrys sixth nuclear test. North Korea marks the Day of the Sun on Saturday, April 15th. It is the 105th birth anniversary of its founder, Kim Il Sung. The North often makes large displays of its military strength on this day. U.S. government sources said that North Korea appears to have a placed a device in a tunnel at the site that could be detonated Saturday or even sooner. We have no comment but we will be watching closely, an official at the National Security Council told VOA. The Reuters news agency and VOA Correspondent Steve Herman reported this story. Christopher Jones-Cruise adapted the reports for Learning English. Hai Do was the editor. We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section, or visit our Facebook page. ________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story group n. a number of people or things that are together or in the same place conduct v. to plan and do (something, such as an activity) defiance n. a refusal to obey something or someone; the act of defying someone or something comply v. to do what you have been asked or ordered to do regime n. a form of government armada n. a large group of ships, boats, etc. provoke v. to cause (a person or animal) to become angry, violent, etc. aggression n. hostile action against another country, government, etc. embargo n. a government order that limits trade in some way intercept v. to stop and take someone or something that is going from one place to another place before that person or thing gets there host n. a great amount or number essentially adv. in effect; in actuality; in reality quarantine n. in economics, a blocking of trade with a country by isolating them from the world economy tunnel n. a passage that goes under the ground, through a hill, etc. detonate v. to explode or to cause (something, such as a bomb) to explode If you are a refugee, Uganda may be one of the better places to live. The countrys refugee policy is considered one of the most progressive in the world. Newcomers are permitted freedom of movement. They can operate their own businesses. And for the most part, Ugandans are welcoming. For years, Uganda has helped people from across Africa. Currently, there are more than 1.1 million refugees and asylum seekers in the country. Many have fled violence at home. They are from South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi. Solomon Osakan is a settlement officer in the office of Ugandas prime minister. He works with the United Nations humanitarian agency to direct refugee operations in the country. He says his country's refugee policy comes from wanting to help Africans in trouble. "So, I think this policy emanates from our leaders. Previously, many of our leaders were displaced as refugees, they sought asylum in neighboring countries, and went as far as Europe. In that time, this changed their perception in thinking that when you are a refugee, you need to be supported to survive; otherwise, hostility only worsens." The Ugandan system is opposite of the model followed in many other areas, where refugees are kept separate from the rest of the population and unable to leave. Uganda has refugee settlements, not camps. Host communities have donated much of the land for these settlements. Refugees receive a 50-meter by 50-meter piece of land for shelter and growing crops. The refugees are free to move around in the country. They also receive employment waivers for jobs, free healthcare and education. Many refugees benefit from Ugandas open door policy. Joyce Alua is a refugee from South Sudan. "It is good, because here, in Uganda here, we are feeling good. There is no fighting like South Sudan. And other things, also, they are good." But not everyone is pleased. Near the recently-opened Imvepi settlement, some local people, said that "outsiders" are getting the jobs, not them. Charles Acema was one of the protesters. "But the bad thing here is we are lacking of jobs. Those who are here, they do not give the jobs for us." U.N. officials and Uganda's government say many of the jobs in the settlements require skills that are not always found in the local communities. While concerned about the lack of jobs, Acema says he is happy Uganda is helping refugees. "Yes,Yes, we know that Uganda is a God-loving country. That is why they welcome refugees here. Yes." Yet many refugees at the settlement noted food shortages. U.N. officials say a lack of money for buying food is the main problem. Last year, food supplies were cut by 50 percent for refugees who arrived before July 2015, except for those considered particularly vulnerable. The United Nations says it needs about $500 million for its 2017 Uganda operations. As of the middle of March, it had only received about $35 million, seven percent of the total. Im Marsha James. Jill Craig reported on this story for VOANews.com. Marsha James adapted her report for Learning English. George Grow was the editor. _____________________________________________________________ Words in This Story asylum n. protection from arrest or expulsion from a country benefit v. to be useful to; to receive help waiver n. the cancellation of an existing right or claim emanate v. to come out from perception n. a mental image; an understanding or recognition grievance n. a feeling of being treated unfairly; a criticism particularly vulnerable adj. very needy We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section. The U.S. Defense Department says its military plane dropped the largest non-nuclear bomb ever used in combat, a 10,000-kilogram bomb, on an Islamic State target in Afghanistan. The bomb is called the Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB). Based on its acronym, the U.S. Air Force has nicknamed it the "Mother of All Bombs." Defense Department spokesman Adam Stump said it was the first-ever combat use of the bomb. Also known as the GBU-43, the bomb was developed more than ten years ago. The bomb was dropped in response to IS' increasing use of bunkers and underground passages to "thicken their defense," General John Nicholson, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan said. The Pentagon did not indicate how much damage was done to the IS stronghold or whether there were any injuries. Besides the MOAB, the U.S. Air Force has an even larger bomb known as the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or MOP. Despite its size, the MOP carries less explosive than the MOAB. It is designed to take out deeply buried targets like reinforced bunkers. The MOP has never been used in combat. Im Dorothy Gundy. Dorothy Gundy adapted this story for Learning English based on VOA and AP news reports. Hai Do was the editor. We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section. _____________________________________________________________ Words in This Story acronym n. a word formed from the first letters of each one of the words in a phrase bunkers - n. strong buildings that are mostly below ground and used to keep soldiers, weapons, etc., safe from attacks stronghold - n. a protected place where the members of a military group stay and can defend themselves against attacks In honor of 11 Nissan, Rabbi Meir Moscowitz, regional director of Chabad of Illinois, was invited to give the invocation at both the state senate and the house of representatives in the Illinois state capitol. The Rebbe taught that education is not just about accumulating knowledge; rather, it is about building character and a strong moral backbone,Moscowitz said. This is also the theme of the seder: You shall teach your children.' After sharing his remarks, he and Rabbi Avraham Kagan, emissary to River North and director of government affairs for Chabad-Lubavitch of Illinois, met with Jewish legislators and distributed shmura matzah and Passover literature. They also met with Illinois lieutenant governor Evelyn Sanguinetti and other state leaders. In what has by now become a tradition, Governor signed a proclamation declaring 11 Nissan as Education and Sharing Day. The visit culminated in a model seder at the governors home led by Rabbi Avraham Kagan and joined by emissary Rabbi Dovid Tiechtel of nearby University of Illinois. Beijing yesterday warned outside groups against seeking to intervene in the case of a Taiwanese pro-democracy activist detained in China, saying that would complicate matters and harm already tense relations between Taiwan and the mainland. Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman An Fengshan said that China had passed on letters from Lee Ming-che, who is under investigation for endangering Chinas national security, to his wife and parents. On Monday, Lees wife was prevented from flying to Beijing to seek a meeting with her husband because China canceled her travel permit. China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory, doesnt recognize Taiwanese passports and requires islanders to use to a Beijing-issued document called a Taiwan Compatriots Pass to visit the mainland. Although Beijing cut off its already limited contacts with the islands government in June, An said it had commissioned a third- party in Taiwan to relate the relevant situation to Lees wife and pass letters from Lee to her and his parents. Lees wife, Lee Ching-yu, says he has hypertension and has attempted to have his medication shipped to him. An told reporters at a biweekly news conference that authorities were protecting the legal rights of Lee, who was taken into custody on March 19, but that he had no other information about his case. However, he said outside interference would only render the issue even more complicated and harm the interests of the person concerned. A few Taiwanese people and groups with ulterior motives who are seizing this opportunity to attack the mainland are doomed to failure. They will not achieve their goal of interfering in the work of relevant mainland departments in handling the case by law, An said. An warned also against attempts by the Taiwan authorities to use the incident to attack the mainland, saying that can only make the current, already extremely grim cross-strait relationship even worse. On Tuesday, the head of Taiwans Cabinet-level Mainland Affairs Council Chang Hsiao-yueh said Chinas refusal to respond to requests for information about Lee would surely harm the feelings of the Taiwanese people. We are expressing our utmost disagreement toward China for refusing to respond to our inquiries and requests since the issue began, Chang said at a news conference. China demands Taiwans independence-leaning President Tsai Ing-wen endorse its view that the island and mainland are part of a single Chinese nation before it will restore contacts. The sides separated amid civil war in 1949. AP The Luso Bank opened its first branch in Guangzhou yesterday, becoming the first Macau bank to operate in Guangzhou. According to a report by TDM, the General Manager of Luso International Banking Ltd., Jiao Yundi, believes that the branch will provide opportunities for the banks growth. In turn, the chairman of the Monetary Authority of Macau (AMCM), Teng Lin Seng, reminded Macaus banking industry that banks which intend to operate in the mainland need to get approval from AMCM first before they are eligible to apply for a license. Prison employee enters bar pretending to be a police officer A local Portuguese civilian employee from the Correctional Service Bureau (EPM) named Manuel, pretended to be a police officer in order to get into a bar for free. According to the Public Security Police Force (PSP), the man,. who is in his 50s, claimed to be a policeman on duty while inside the bar. He also showed the bars receptionist a document with a PSP logo on it, telling the receptionist that he was on-duty and would require the MOP400 entry fee to be waived. The bars employees found the situation suspicious and reported it to the police. The case has already been forwarded to the Prosecutions Office. 188 illegal boats destroyed in Zhuhai Zhuhai destroyed 188 boats earlier this week. The boats were involved in the smuggling and transporting of drugs and other criminal activities. According to a report by Macao Daily News, the majority of the boats were made from wood and plastic. The Zhuhai police force took nearly two hours to complete the activity. All boats were seized by Zhuhai police from April of 2015, with 85 percent of them related to smuggling operations. From the beginning of 2016 until the present, Zhuhai has shut down 156 smuggling cases and arrested 1,052 people, including 896 smugglers and 156 who assisted in the smuggling. Prosecutors in Cambodia have charged a Cambodian-American man with sexually abusing 11 boys aged 10 to 15 years old. Phan Sopheak, a court spokesman in Takeo province south of Phnom Penh, said Tan Saravuth was charged Tuesday with procuring children for prostitution, a crime punishable by seven to 15 years in prison. He was arrested Friday in Phnom Penh. Police said Tan Saravuth was born in Cambodia but went to the United States as a refugee in the early 1980s. His personal documents give conflicting ages for him of 47 and 57. Action Pour Les Enfants, a nongovernmental organization that combats child sex abuse, said he told police he was arrested in the United States for sexually molesting boys and returned to Cambodia around 1997. He moved to Takeo in 2002, where he was accused of molesting the boys after winning poor village families trust with gifts to them and their children. Police began investigating Tan Saravuth last year after the community began hearing stories of his activities. Action Pour Les Enfants said in a statement that it had assisted police in their investigation and would provide psychological counseling and social support to the victims. AP Chinese President Xi Jinping told Donald Trump that talks were the only way to ease concerns over North Korea, after the U.S. leader sent warships to the region and warned he was ready to act without Beijing. All nations involved should settle their disputes peacefully through dialogue and consultation to be jointly committed to peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, state broadcaster China Central Television quoted Xi as saying yesterday. He reiterated his commitment to removing nuclear weapons from the Peninsula during the call, which Chinas foreign ministry later said had been initiated by Trump. Reports of the phone call came after Trump tweeted that North Korea was looking for trouble and that the U.S. was prepared to resolve the matter without China, the major backer of Kim Jong Uns regime. Fears of conflict have risen after the U.S. diverted an aircraft carrier strike group to nearby waters as North Korea showed preparations for a nuclear test or ballistic missile launch. Trump told the Fox Business Network that the U.S. was sending an armada, very powerful to North Korea. In a series of tweets Tuesday, he said he told Xi that any efforts by China to rein in North Korea would help improve the conditions of a two- way trade deal. The two leaders met face-to-face last week at Trumps Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida. South Koreas government sought to quell any anxiety about potential military action. Unification Ministry spokesman Lee Duk-haeng said yesterday that there was no need to worry about regional security. He added that the government was closely cooperating with other nations, including the U.S., to manage escalating tensions. South Korea was on alert for any provocations to mark symbolic dates in North Koreas history, such as the Saturday anniversary of its late founder Kim Il Sungs birth. North Korea was hosting foreign journalists in Pyongyang before the commemoration. It is irresponsible and even dangerous to take any actions that may escalate tension, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a regular briefing in Beijing yesterday. All parties should exercise restraint instead of provoking each other and adding fuel to the fire. The Global Times, a nationalist newspaper affiliated with Chinas Communist Party, warned that a nuclear test now would represent a slap in the face of the U.S. government. Such action might prompt China to restrict oil sales to North Korea, the paper said in an editorial. The Korean Peninsula has never been so close to a military clash since the North conducted its first nuclear test in 2006, it said. Pyongyangs nuclear weapons program is intended for securing the regime, however, it is reaching a tipping point. Pyongyang should avoid making mistakes at this time, the paper said. In a sign of Chinas waning patience, the country earlier this year banned coal imports from North Korea. China has repeatedly called for a resumption of six-nation talks that collapsed in 2009, while the Trump administration has said it wouldnt entertain discussions with Kims regime until it abandoned its nuclear ambitions. North Korea is dominating South Koreas presidential campaign, less than four weeks before voting on a successor to the ousted Park Geun-hye. Moon Jae-in, the candidate for the left-leaning Democratic Party of Korea, said he would fight against North Korea himself to defend his country, while calling for a bipartisan meeting to discuss national security. The special forces veteran also eased his reservations over the U.S.s move to install a missile shield on South Korean soil over Chinas objections. MDT/Bloomberg Hong Kongs government tightened property rules for the second time since November to shut a loophole that allowed investors to snap up multiple units in one shot to qualify for lower tax rates. Under the new rules, first-time home buyers acquiring more than one property in a single contract will be charged the same 15 percent stamp duty that applies to purchases of a second property, rather than the 4.25 percent duty for first-time buyers. The change, announced late Tuesday by Hong Kongs Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, took effect at midnight. Though buying multiple flats in one contract accounts for a small proportion of residential apartment transactions, theres a noticeable increasing trend, Leung said at a briefing on Tuesday. This doesnt only go against the governments goal to clamp down investor demand through the new stamp duty, it also fuels the property market sentiment. Hong Kongs leaders are seeking to address a gap that allowed the richest buyers to take advantage of rules intended to help first-time home buyers, as they face rising discontent over wealth inequality and skyrocketing housing costs. The previous attempt to rein in the market in November did little to cool demand, with prices setting new records this year in the worlds least affordable market. People have also been able to find legal ways around the restrictions, with some purchasing several units at the same time so they could still qualify for lower tax rates. The new measure will make it fairer for buyers of a single property, Willy Liu, a director at Ricacorp Properties Ltd., said in an email. However, Liu and other analysts say the latest move will do little to cool prices in the housing market. The measures real impact on the housing market will likely be mild, if not negligible, Alan Jin, Asia ex-Japan property analyst at Mizuho Securities Asia Ltd. in Hong Kong, wrote in a note. While the practice of buying multiple homes on one contract accounted for about 25 percent of sales in mid-March, the drop in demand from investors can be easily made up for by real buyers, he said. The Hang Seng Property Index was mostly unchanged in Wednesday trading, edging up 0.2 percent at 10:30 a.m. in Hong Kong as investors have gotten used to the futility of such moves. Existing home prices have surged since the previous measures in November. Housing prices in Hong Kong are close to their peak and economically unsustainable, according to Cusson Leung, managing director at JPMorgan Chase & Co.s Asia Pacific equity research unit. Price increases in the city have outpaced economic growth significantly since 2009 and any external shocks could trigger tighter liquidity in the banking system, he said. MDT/Bloomberg A top Myanmar official has said that a U.N. agencys resolution to have an international mission probe alleged human rights abuses by government security forces in troubled Rakhine state is unwanted and unconstructive. National Security Adviser Thaung Tun said in a briefing to foreign diplomats and representatives of U.N. agencies that the U.N. Human Rights Councils recent decision failed to recognize Myanmars efforts to deal with the situation and address its root causes. Soldiers and police launched aggressive counterinsurgency operations in Rakhine in October after shadowy insurgents killed nine border guards. Government forces were accused of perpetrating rape, torture and other abuses against residents of the Muslim Rohingya minority during their sweeps. The Rohingya have faced widespread discrimination in Buddhist-dominated Myanmar, which led to deadly intercommunal violence in 2012 that forced more than 100,000 Rohingya from their homes into squalid displacement camps, where many still remain. Rights group said the recent army crackdown included the burning down of more than 1,000 homes, according to high-resolution satellite images, and the killing of an unknown number of civilians, perhaps in the hundreds. More than 70,000 Rohingya villagers fled across the border to Bangladesh and another 20,000 were internally displaced. The situation has led advocates for the Rohingya to accuse the government of ethnic cleansing. Thaung Tun said the government has disassociated from the U.N. agencys decision because it did not take into consideration Myanmars efforts to stabilize the situation and address root causes, adding that the country needs help, not obstacles. We look forward to the understanding and constructive support of the international community in our endeavor to build peace, justice and development for all in Rakhine, he said. Myanmars government has appointed several teams to look into Rakhines problems, but rights groups say they are not credible because their members are not independent. Thaung Tun, however, said the governments efforts were adequate. Where there is clear evidence of wrongdoing, we will take firm action in accordance with the law, he said. Myanmars de facto prime minister, State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, defended her governments policy toward the Rohingya during an interview with foreign media last week. Her seeming inaction on the issue has come under particular criticism because her long fight for democracy and against military repression won her a Nobel Peace Prize and made her a heroine in human rights circles. Esther Htusan, Yangon, AP Philippine troops battling militants on a central resort island killed a young Abu Sayyaf commander who was involved in the beheadings of two Canadians and a German and who had sailed far from the extremists southern jungle hideouts to capture more hostages, the military chief said yesterday. Military chief of staff Gen. Eduardo Ano said that troops recovered and identified the remains of Moammar Askali at the scene of the battle in a coastal village on Bohol island. Five other Abu Sayyaf gunmen, three soldiers and a policeman also were killed in Tuesdays clashes. Ano said captured Abu Sayyaf militants identified Askali from a photo troops took of the young militant leader after death, which confirmed that the gunmen who quietly cruised into Bohol on three motorboats Monday night then clashed with troops belonged to the Islamic extremist group. Askali, who used the nom de guerre Abu Rami, had partly served as an Abu Sayyaf spokesman in recent years. This is a major blow to the Abu Sayyaf, Ano told The Associated Press. If they have further plans to kidnap innocent people somewhere, they will now have to think twice. Askali was an emerging hard-line leader of Abu Sayyaf and had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group. He had received bomb-making training from Malaysian Zulkifli bin Hir, or Marwan, a top Southeast Asia militant leader who was killed in 2015, according to a police profile. It was Abu Sayyafs first known attempt to carry out ransom kidnappings deep in the central Philippine heartland, far from the groups jungle lairs in the southern provinces of Sulu and Basilan. Ano said the troops were still hunting at least five Abu Sayyaf gunmen, though fighting had eased Wednesday. While the bold kidnapping attempt appears to have been foiled, the militants success in penetrating the bustling region of beach resorts and other popular attractions could raise concern among tourists and businessmen. Bohol island lies about 640 kilometers (397 miles) southeast of Manila and is about an hour by boat from Cebu province, a trade and tourism center which has hosted some of the meetings of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the regional bloc the Philippines is leading this year. The United States and the Philippines both list Abu Sayyaf as a terrorist organization for bombings, kidnappings for ransom and beheadings. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered troops to destroy the extremists and has threatened to declare martial law in the countrys south if the threat posed by the Abu Sayyaf and other extremist groups aligned with the Islamic State group gets out of control. The militants are still holding at least 29 captives in Sulus jungles, many of them foreign tugboat and cargo ship crewmen seized in the seas surrounded by southern Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia. MDT/AP Brazilian meat companies may lose as much as USD1.5 billion in exports this year after a corruption scandal that raised concerns on product quality led several nations to restrict purchases last month, Brazils agriculture minister said. It wouldnt surprise me if Brazil immediately lost five percent to 10 percent of its share in global meat exports, Blairo Maggi said in an interview in Sao Paulo, adding that the estimate is still preliminary. The impact could be softened as bird flu outbreaks in other countries including the U.S. curb supplies, he said. Maggi, whos been on a diplomatic offensive since allegations that meat companies bribed sanitary inspectors to clear meat sales and exports were made public last month, said that the first phase of the meat crisis is finally over as most of the export bans that followed the scandal were lifted. Still, regaining consumers confidence is work in progress, he said. The next step is the most complicated one, Maggi said. It involves the consumer who, at the point of sale, chooses between one product or another. Federal police in Curitiba in Brazils Parana state announced their so-called Carne Fraca (Weak Flesh) investigation on March 17. They said 21 companies including top producers JBS SA and BRF SA were involved in the bribing of federal meat inspectors, and provided lurid details of contaminated and adulterated meat. The intense domestic attention garnered by the revelations was soon followed by a massive media campaign mounted by Brazils meat sector and a government push to reassure the public. The South American nations meat exports are facing stricter inspections in importing nations, a move that Maggi sees eventually demonstrating that safety procedures held by Brazilian authorities and companies are appropriate. Saudi Arabia is finishing its audit of Brazil meat plants, and representatives met Maggi to discuss their findings. Maggi and agriculture ministry representatives are also going to travel to Europe and countries including China, Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia in the coming weeks and months to reassure importers of the quality of Brazilian meat. Brazil accounts for 20 percent of global beef exports and almost 40 percent of chicken exports. Beef, poultry and pork accounted for almost 10 percent of Brazils export revenues last year, and BRF and JBS are among the largest companies in the country. JBSs shares have tumbled 13 percent since March 17, when news on the probe broke. BRF shares fell 3.8 percent in the same period. Gerson Freitas Jr., David Biller and Julia Leite, Bloomberg Republicans so dominate deeply Idaho that Election Day can be anticlimactic to the Republican primary in May. That's where most races in the past several decades have been decided. Republicans on Election Day are looking to retain a U.S. Senate seat, both of the states U.S. House seats and supermajorities in the state House and Senate. Gov. Brad Little overcame his toughest challenge for a second term in May by crushing Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin despite her support from former President Donald Trump. Little will face Democrat Stephen Heidt and anti-government activist Ammon Bundy, who is running as an independent. A libertarian law firm said Wednesday that Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter mischaracterized Idaho's civil asset forfeiture laws while explaining why he vetoed a bill to made it more difficult for law enforcement to seize the assets of drug suspects. Otter appeared on the Nate Shelman Show on radio station 670 KBOI on Tuesday. Among other topics discussed, Otter defended his vetoing the bill, which passed the Legislature with bipartisan support and by veto-proof majorities in both the House and Senate the initial version got 10 "No" votes in the House, but after some amendments the final version passed both chambers unanimously. The Institute for Justice, which among its other efforts has advocated for changing civil asset forfeiture laws, took issue with two particular statements Otter made that property is only taken when someone is convicted of a crime and that property cannot be seized in misdemeanor cases. Misdemeanors, especially in drug (crimes) is for personal use, Otter said in response to a caller named Carol. If youre trafficking, it is a felony. Its the felony that triggers the asset forfeiture. Otter also said that, while law enforcement does seize property before a conviction, it returns them if the crime turns out not to rise to the level justifying a seizure. They have to hold those assets in good faith and they have surrendered a lot of assets back when the court says it doesnt rise to a felony, its a misdemeanor, he said. Not so, the Institute for Justice said. Its very alarming that the governor is so woefully misinformed about how civil forfeiture really works in Idaho, said Institute for Justice lawyer and Nampa native Dan Alban. The fact that the governor vetoed a bill that would have shined a light on this abusive practice speaks volumes. The Institute said in a news release that law enforcement in Idaho have seized property in cases where charges weren't even filed, citing a 2016 Times-News story that references a case in Twin Falls County where sheriff's deputies seized $12,000 in cash from a home after receiving a tip about drug dealing but finding just a small amount of marijuana and a pipe. No charges were ever filed, and the sheriff's office ended up returning $3,000 and keeping the rest. The standard in civil forfeiture cases is the "preponderance of the evidence," a lower standard than in criminal forfeiture or criminal cases. The Institute also said that mere drug possession, even in misdemeanor cases, can trigger forfeiture in some cases where drugs are found in a vehicle or cash or jewelry is found nearby. "The governors comments once again underscore the urgent need for forfeiture transparency, said Institute for Justice senior legislative counsel Lee McGrath. Reform opponents cannot claim there is no evidence of a problem while, at the same time, block bills that would require law enforcement agencies to report what they seized, how much they gained from forfeiting property and if they even filed any criminal charges. The bill Otter vetoed would have established new protections such as saying merely possessing cash wont be taken as evidence of a crime, a requirement for a court to find if a seizure is proportional to the crime, and a provision to let people keep property such as a vehicle needed to get to and from work when a case is pending. It also contained new public reporting requirements to track seizures. The original version of the bill would have gone farther, but the version that finally passed was fairly narrowly tailored compared to some asset forfeiture reform bills that have passed in other states, such as the one Arizona's governor signed on Wednesday. Otter said in the interview that he talked to both the sponsors of the bill and its opponents before deciding to veto it. Law enforcement, he said, urged him to veto. It wasnt near as easy for law enforcement to seize those assets than what was explained to me by the sponsors of the bill, Otter told Shelman. While he said the sponsors, Reps. Ilana Rubel, D-Boise and Steve Harris, R-Meridian, had good intentions to protect peoples property rights, Otter said there are already enough protections for innocent people in the law. Nobody changed my mind, he said. I talked to both sides to find out what their reasoning was, and I didnt get that urgency that was needed. Thats why I called it a solution looking for a problem. ACEQUIA Waiting for April 1, Dan Cress of Filer changed the oil in his boat and spent several hundred dollars on lures. Ruperts Dave Hill bought one lure to try on the opening day of Lake Walcott boating: a Kamlooper Spoon of bright orange-red and gold with black spots. Betsy and Chantry Rayl, newcomers to Burley, enlisted an experienced Lake Walcott angler as their fishing buddy. Ryan Smith of Carey, too excited to wait for his 6 a.m. alarm, got up at 5:15. And on the big morning, they were all at Lake Walcott State Parks new docks, putting boats into the water. Theres something particularly enticing about April on Lake Walcott. The attraction? Trout that average 3 pounds or more, put up a fight and make really fine eating. Youll catch some 8-pounders, Cress said, preparing to pull away from the dock shortly after sunrise. Theyre pretty close to eating a salmon, out here. Anglers can fish from the shore year-round at Lake Walcott State Park which lies within the Minidoka National Wildlife Refuge but shoreline access isnt plentiful. So the annual April 1 opening of the lakes boating season is a red-letter day for fishing. We havent missed for a lot of years, said Dan Osterhout of Declo, heading onto the lake with his wife, Marcia, and wondering whether the trout would be as active as usual for April 1. With the colder water, I hope theyre ready to hit some trolling. The couple would head about five miles upstream, where buoys mark the boundary of refuge waters closed to boating. But first, Osterhout threw open his newly replenished tackle box, showing off a dazzling array of lures. See if you think Ive got enough to find out what theyre catching on, he said. What, indeed? What works one day isnt guaranteed to work the next, said angler Scott Soletti of Twin Falls, preparing a boat in the parking lot. Fishing here changes by the day and the hour. It can really turn off and on like a light switch. Hed been spending money on new lures, too including $16 for a Lucky Strike pointer lure in the rainbow trout pattern, bought specifically for Lake Walcott. Todays the day theyre going to go on a rod, Soletti said. The one I just spent 16 bucks on I really hope catches a fish. Austin Hill of Rupert, preparing to help his grandpa launch a new jet boat, demurred at first then dropped a tip. Heres a little secret I dont tell very many people, he said. Sometimes well put little red licorice on our lures. Osterhout and his wife cover their Lake Walcott lures in cod-liver oil. And he figures a buddy spilled their secret. When Osterhout tried to replenish his supply at Burleys Walgreens store several years ago, the cod-liver oil was cleaned off the shelf. He drove to the Walgreens in Twin Falls only to find that it, too, had run out. A clerk there had seen enough Mini-Cassia customers buying cod-liver oil to get curious, and Osterhout reluctantly admitted it was for fishing. He still seems a little disgusted that his confidence was revealed. But that hasnt erased his enthusiasm for fishing Lake Walcott. When it gets good, he said, well fish four days a week, I imagine. His friends, he added, might say its more like six. Getting there From Interstate 84, take Exit 211 at Heyburn. Drive northeast on Idaho 24, continuing 5.8 miles past Rupert; turn right (east) on 400 North, also called Minidoka Dam Road. Lake Walcott State Park requires a daily $5 motor vehicle entry fee year-round unless you have the $10 annual Idaho State Parks Passport available through the Department of Motor Vehicles. You wont pay any additional fee to launch a boat from the parks docks. The 8-foot-wide, 60-foot-long poly docks one on each side of the boat ramp are wheelchair-accessible with gangplanks. They replaced the parks deteriorated wooden docks a year ago, an $80,000 project. When to fish it Boating here is open April 1 to Sept. 30, you can fish from the shore year-round, and this winters ice fishing extended into March. But Soletti figures this years best fishing on Lake Walcott will be late April and May, when the water is clearer than it was on opening day and the water is a little warmer but not yet too warm, so trout are still active and the water isnt mossy. By late June, heavy aquatic growth sticks to lures and the fish wont take them, said Bill Dutcher of Burley, the longtime Lake Walcott angler showing the Rayls the ropes on April 1. With the Snake River swollen by plentiful snowmelt, Dave Hill expects this to be a particularly good year for fishing Lake Walcott. High water brings the fish down from up above. Before the 2015 completion of a Minidoka Dam and spillway reconstruction project, water managers dropped the lake level by about half each winter, park ranger Travis Taylor said. Anglers worried that they wouldnt have enough water to launch a boat on opening day. But no more. On April 1 the lake was 95 percent full, Taylor said, checking the Bureau of Reclamation stats on his phone. And its been right around there for the last year. The skinny on stocking Lake Walcott offers bass fishing, too, but only rainbow trout are stocked, Taylor said. A federal hatchery in Hagerman plants them here once a year usually a couple of weeks after irrigation ends in the fall, so they arent lost to canals. In each of the past two autumns, Lake Walcott was stocked with 25,000 trout weighing a pound to 1.25 pounds. For at least three years before that thats as far back as Taylor remembers it got 50,000 trout weighing about a third of a pound each year. You might not catch a lot of trout here, but theyll be reliably 3 to 5 pounds. Therell be guys out here at the crack of dawn, Taylor said, but you dont need to be. Caution: wave potential Dont get so engrossed in fishing that you forget to watch the weather. Thunderstorms pop up quickly on Lake Walcott, and winds here can produce dangerous waves. Acequia angler Dan Lewis rule: If youre in a small boat, head for sanctuary as soon as you see white tips. Ive been where Ive been scared to get back, hugging the shore, said Lewis, who spent the morning of April 1 at one of the best spots for fishing from shore, the point beside the parks Scout group camp. (Shore anglers also favor deep spots just above the dam.) Lewis has watched fishing boats wait out a storm in a cove, and park employees and Minidoka County sheriffs deputies have responded to boats in trouble. Two links youll need Before you go, of course, check Idahos fishing regulations: http://bit.ly/2p3PppC And learn more about Lake Walcott State Park here: Parksandrecreation.idaho.gov/parks/lake-walcott BOISE Julius Longfellow, named for a donor and fund-raising help from Longfellow Elementary School, was 11 years old and had lived at Zoo Boise for more than eight years. This is a devastating day for ... the entire Boise community, zoo Director Steve Burns said in a late-morning news release Thursday. Julius Longfellow was beloved by visitors of all ages. He was a part of our family, and we will miss him. Zoo officials made the difficult decision to euthanize him Thursday after the giraffe fell early that morning and efforts to get him back up were unsuccessful, according to the news release. A necropsy will be performed, but zoo officials say it could be weeks before they know what caused the injury. Julius arrived at Zoo Boise in December, 2008 from the African Safari Wildlife Park in Port Clinton, Ohio. Private donations covered the costs to purchase and ship the giraffe to Boise. In just two weeks, the zoo received $32,000 in contributions. The median life expectancy for male giraffes in zoos is 13.5 years, the zoo reports. In the wild, the median life expectancy for male giraffes generally ranges between 14 and 20 years, though numbers vary. Zoo Boise still has one male giraffe, Jabari, who is 7 years old. Zoo leaders hope to find another giraffe to live with Jabari, but there are no immediate plans, according to the news release. Volunteers The Senior Companion Program at the CSI Office on Aging needs volunteers, age 55 and older, to assist home-bound seniors by providing friendly visits, transportation or other assistance as needed. Senior Companions can make positive impacts by helping to improve the mental and emotional status of their clients. Senior Companions receive a stipend per hour of service (to income eligible seniors) and can work between 15 to 40 hours a week. They receive reimbursement for mileage, and training on age-related problems. Information: Dandre, 208-736-2122, or toll free, 800-574-8656. Volunteers Community volunteers are needed to become CASA volunteer advocates to represent the best interest of abused children during the court process. Volunteer candidates must pass a background check and receive training and continued support as they speak up and make the difference in the lives of abused children. The program covers all eight counties in south-central Idaho. Information: Tahna Barton, 208-735-1177. Volunteers Interlink Volunteer Caregivers, a nonprofit organization, provides volunteers to elderly, disabled and chronically ill people, assisting with routine tasks so they can remain independent at home. Volunteers are needed in all eight counties of the Magic Valley to help with light housekeeping and also in the Wendell and Gooding area with transportation. Volunteers are reimbursed for mileage monthly and covered with excess auto liability insurance. Commitment is flexible with no minimum hours required. Information: Edie, 208-733-6333 or email ivcofmv@gmail.com. Volunteers Idaho Home Health and Hospice needs volunteers who will bring compassion, support and dignity to those facing a serious, life-limiting illness and their families. Volunteers can choose between offering respite to family caregivers or provide support with administrative tasks. Information: Heidi Walker, 208-734-4064 or Heidi.Walker@LHCgroup.com. Volunteers Horizon Home Health and Hospice is looking for volunteers to join their team to provide quality compassionate care to patients through the following activities: companionship, socialization, respite, and support for patients and families and much more. Information: Cynthia Nixon, 208-800-8085 or cnixon@horizonhh.com. Drivers The Twin Falls Senior Center needs drivers to deliver meals to homebound seniors in Twin Falls Monday through Friday. The routes take an hour or less to complete. Commitment is based on your availability. Volunteers must be 18 years of age with their own car, and have proof of liability insurance and a background check. Drivers receive 53.5 cents a mile fuel reimbursement. Information: 208-734-5084. Volunteers The Twin Falls Senior Center has a ladies group (The Crazy Quilters), who are looking for individuals to put finishing touches on quilts as a group while socializing. The group meets from 9 a.m. to noon every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. All quilt project proceeds are given to the Twin Falls Senior Center. Information: 208-734-5084. Volunteers St Lukes Home Health and Hospice is looking for new volunteers to join its team to share compassion and care and increase the quality of life for patients and their families. This program is designed to offer companionship and socialization to the patients as well as respite and support for the caregivers. Information: Marie Sharp, 208-814-7603 or sharpm@slhs.org. Volunteers St. Lukes Magic Valley Medical Center has several volunteer positions with opportunities to serve others and meet new people. You may get to congratulate someone on the birth of a new baby; smile and take someones mind off their problems; make a patients day by delivering flowers to them in their hospital room; and offer a kind word, give a hug, or listen to someone who needs to talk. For an application packet or information: Kim Patterson, 208-814-0861. BURLEY New evidence has the FBI investigating a murder case thats been cold for more than two decades. Saturday will mark 22 years since 14-year-old Regina Kriegers body was found on the banks of the Snake River weeks after she disappeared, a trail of blood leading from her basement bedroom. Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Chris Sheehan, in Boise, said he and another investigator have been assigned to the case. There is new evidence that has come out, Sheehan said. He declined to give details, saying the investigation is active. Reginas mother, Rhonda Hunnel, now lives in Indiana. She contacted the Idaho Attorney Generals Office several months ago, but was told the office couldnt help with the case. A few weeks later, she received a call back from staff at the office saying they knew someone at the FBI and would talk to them about the case. I have a lot of different feelings and emotions going through my head, Hunnel said. Im excited, thrilled and nervous. Hunnel traveled to Boise to meet with the FBI agents with her son, Cliff Krieger, who lives in Boise. We have hope that the case will resolve and provide closure for the family, Sheehan said. Sandra Barker, spokeswoman for the FBI in Salt Lake City, said the agency is officially assisting the Cassia County Sheriffs Office, still the lead agency on the case. As the mother of a murdered child, I am ready to face the challenges ahead of me as Ginas story unfolds and the truth comes out, Hunnel said. Regina disappeared Feb. 27, 1995, two days before her 15th birthday. Horseback riders found the girls decomposed body near the Montgomery Bridge, east of Rupert. Her throat had been slashed, and she had been stabbed in the heart. An autopsy showed her body had been in the river at least 30 days. Detectives made mistakes handling the case, former Cassia County sheriff Randy Kidd said in 2015. Investigators initially did not consider it a murder but one where Regina had killed herself or run away. Although there were rumors suggesting many knew what happened to the junior high student, no one came forward. Teens whispered about seeing a body in a tub at a party shortly after Regina disappeared, but Kidd said police never found an eyewitness willing to talk. Everybody had heard about it, Kidd said. These were just kids at the time, and I think there is still a fear factor. More than two decades later, Reginas family still struggles to make peace with the knowledge that the case could have been handled better. They still seek justice. The sheriffs office let down the family, the community, and most of all, Regina, Hunnel said. As mid-April draws near each year, Hunnel struggles against depression that settles over her body, and she fights to tamp down the anger that surges. I put my baby in their hands and trusted that they would take care of her, Hunnel said. Cliff turned 13 three days before his sister vanished from the house where they lived. Her murder had a profound impact on his life, he said, but its not all bad. While the death of Regina was devastating, it also made him a stronger person. I dont have a lot of fear in my life, he said. It was important for him to forgive the brutal murder to move forward with his life, Cliff said. Growing up in Burley, he said, he heard the talk about what may have happened to his sister. Everyone talks in a small town, he said. The problem was they didnt talk to the right people, and there were other people who were manipulating them with fear. People Regina had become involved with were drug dealers who were using children to deliver drugs, he said. The night she went missing, she had a conversation with their father telling him she wanted to move back to Twin Falls to live with her mother because she was uncomfortable with a situation she had gotten into and wanted out of it, Cliff said. What she didnt know was there wasnt any way out. After Regina was killed, the family felt no support. People in the community just wanted to sweep it under the rug, Cliff said. Nobody wanted to help. No one in the sheriffs office ever answered for the mistakes that were made in the case, either, he said. Justice for Regina now, he said, would help right the wrongs. For a long time he tried not to think about what happened to her, to not let hate consume him. What do you do? You have to try and let it go, he said. My sister is my angel now. GOODING A man who police say admitted to organizing a cockfight last month in Gooding County has become the first person in Idaho to face a felony for organizing rooster fights. Prosecutors charged Jose Rosario Miramontes-Tostado, 44, of Gooding with a felony count of exhibition of cockfights. Hes due to be arraigned April 24 in Gooding County Magistrate Court. Police say Miramontes-Tostado admitted he organized the fight that was discovered March 25 at 2406 East and 1300 South, northeast of Gooding. Sheriffs deputies detained 150 people during their investigation and seized 80 roosters that were euthanized the following day by the Idaho Humane Society. It was the first cockfight discovered by Idaho law enforcement in nearly 10 years and the first since the state legislature passed a law in 2012 making it a felony to organize a cockfight when drugs or gambling are involved. Gooding County Sheriffs deputies found marijuana and drug paraphernalia at the March 25 fight and said Miramontes-Tostado admitted there was gambling taking place. He told me on his own accord that they fight the roosters and make bets for money, Deputy Nick Thiemann wrote in a sworn affidavit. Gooding County Prosecutor Matt Pember said in an email that misdemeanor charges could follow for others, but we have filed felony charges against who we believe to be the organizer of the fight. We are waiting on misdemeanor reports from law enforcement regarding the numerous participants, Pember said. Law enforcement is still investigating and preparing those reports. Filing will happen soon after we receive them. Deputies responded to the rural residence March 25 after receiving a noise complaint where a neighbor said she believed she heard roosters fighting, court documents said. Thiemann went to the residence and confirmed the fighting noises, then waited for backup before entering the property. I could then see a large number of people standing around a make-shift arena. In the arena were two roosters that appeared to be fighting, Thiemann wrote in his affidavit. Deputy Germann and I gave orders for everyone to stay where they were and show us their hands. Several people fled through a back roll-up door as deputies investigated, and Thiemann used his stun-gun to subdue one man who tried to escape, court documents said. Gooding County Sheriff Shawn Gough eventually identified Miramontes-Tostado as the individual responsible for arranging the event. Deputies found 80 roosters being kept in cardboard and wooden boxes as well as marijuana and a pipe. Anyone who participated in the cockfight could be charged with a misdemeanor, while prosecutors were able to charge Miramontes-Tostado with a felony because of the drugs and gambling. The roosters were euthanized, which an Idaho Humane Society spokeswoman said is the most humane treatment. They cant be adopted or used for other purposes because theyve been given various drugs such as strychnine, caffeine, amphetamines and epinephrine to make them more aggressive and increase their endurance. October 26, 1934 April 6, 2017 HAZELTON Donald Leroy Van Voorhees, age 82, of Hazelton, Idaho flew away to his Heavenly home on April 6th 2017. Don was born in Wisconsin on October 26th 1934 to Alva and Bertha Van Voorhees. Through his life Don made many friends and shared his great sense of humor with all of those around him. Don followed in the footsteps of many of the men that influenced his life and enlisted in the Army as a young man. Don met and married three women during his time on earth that gave life to seven children. Don spent his working years in agriculture but had a deep passion for wood working. Don is preceded in death by both his parents, three sisters, a brother and two sons Rick and Gale Van Voorhees. Don is survived by his wife Patricia, his daughters Rose (Ron) Sorenson of Fargo, North Dakota, Dena (Verl) Blacker of Heyburn, Idaho, Rebecca (Rick) Burley of Twin Falls, Idaho and Son Carl (April) Van Voorhees of Rupert, Idaho along with many grandchildren. No memorial service will be held. The family wishes to thank Idaho Home Health and Hospice for their diligent understanding and care. Arrangements are under the direction of Parkes Magic Valley Funeral Home of Twin Falls, Idaho. Those wishing to share memories or condolences may do so on Donalds memorial webpage at www.magicvalleyfuneralhome.com. September 14, 1953 April 9, 2017 Robert Warner Hunsaker, 63, of Peoria, Arizona; formerly of Raft River, passed away April 9th, 2017. He is survived by his wife Shirley, their 5 children, and 7 grandchildren. Bob was born September 14, 1953 to Reginald and Ruth Hunsaker in Ogden, Utah. He was a devoted husband, father, and grandfather. His life was an example of hard work and selfless service to others. The impression he left with those he touched will be felt for generations. J. Russell & Loyeda Nelson HUNT, Idaho Graveside services will be held at 2 p.m. Thursday, April 13 at Sunset Memorial Park, Twin Falls. Refreshments afterwards at LDS Church, 667 Harrison Street, Twin Falls from 3:30 until 5 p.m. Donald Ray Bywater PAUL Donald Bywater, funeral services at 11 a.m. Friday, April 14, 2017 at the Paul LDS Stake Center. A viewing will be held from 6:00-8:00 p.m. Thursday, April 13, 2017 at Hansen Mortuary and one hour prior to services at the church. Emma Meservy Krieger KIMBERLY Emma Krieger, funeral services at 11 a.m. Friday, April 14 at the Kimberly Stake Center, 3850 North 3500 East. A viewing will take place from 6 until 8 p.m. Thursday, April 13 at Reynolds Funeral Chapel, 2466 Addison Ave. East, Twin Falls as well as Friday at 10 a.m. until 10;45 a.m. at the church. Tom Couch TWIN FALLS Tom Couch, memorial service at 1 p.m. Friday, April 14 at Rosenau Funeral Home, 2826 Addison Ave E, Twin Falls. Lawrence Cannell BURLEY Lawrence Cannell, funeral at noon Friday, April 14, at the North Logan Stake Center, 2750 N 800 E, North Logan, Utah. A viewing will be held from 6:30 until 8:30 p.m. Thursday, April 13 at Allen Mortuary of North Logan, 420 E 1800 N. Barbara Bassler TWIN FALLS Barbara Bassler, memorial service at 11 a.m. Saturday, April 15 at Rosenau Funeral Home, 2826 Addison Avenue East, Twin Falls. Sharon Johnson TWIN FALLS Sharon Johnson, funeral services at 11 a.m. Saturday, April 15 at Reynolds Funeral Chapel, 2466 Addison Avenue East, Twin Falls. A viewing will take place from 6 until 8 p.m. Friday, April 14 at the funeral home. Delfino Pep Martinez TWIN FALLS Delfino Pep Martinez, services at 3 p.m. Saturday, April 15 at Rosenau Funeral Home, 2826 Addison Ave E with visitation at 2 p.m. Junior Jay Larson GLENNS FERRY Junior Larson, celebration of life at 11 a.m. Saturday, April 15 at the VFW Hall Post 3646, Glenns Ferry. Arrangements are under the direction of Rost Funeral Home, McMurtney Chapel, Mountain Home. Jim Schmidt SPOKANE, Wash. Jim Schmidt formerly of Twin Falls, funeral mass at 11 a.m. Tuesday, April 18 at St. Peter Parish, 3520 E 18th Ave., Spokane, Wash.. President Donald Trump is getting a taste for pulling the trigger. In just the last week, the rookie commander-in-chief has presided over the use of some of the most powerful weaponry in the US arsenal, sending a signal that he is one President who relishes ordering the use of deadly force. It's clear that he believes Washington and the rest of the world are watching. First, Trump dispatched Tomahawk cruise missiles to slam into an airfield belonging to President Bashar al-Assad's Syrian government forces, to punish what the US says is their use of chemical weapons. On Thursday, the military dropped one of its most powerful non-nuclear bombs -- a 21,600-pound behemoth -- over a warren of ISIS tunnels in Afghanistan. Both actions can be justified by solid military rationales and fall into the context of mainstream foreign policy goals -- namely deterring the further use of some of the world's most heinous weapons in Syria and a desire to halt the spread of ISIS into another failed state, even as it loses ground in Iraq and Syria. But the White House also knows that the use of such eye-catching force has a political impact: Both in the United States, where Trump is politically beleaguered; and overseas, where foreign governments are trying to work out how Trump will wield US power and military might. The President described the use of a device dubbed the "mother of all bombs" in Afghanistan as "another successful event," basking in his role as commander in chief -- though preserving some mystique about the strike by declining to say whether he had personally signed off on the operation. He left open the question of whether it was conducted under widened authorizations that have freed up the Pentagon's room for maneuver since he took over from President Barack Obama. But he appeared to be quite content if his willingness to deploy some of the most powerful ordinance in the US military's inventory was interpreted by some US enemies as evidence that he was ready to to use force to carry out his threats --- toward North Korea especially, which is apparently making final preparations for a new nuclear test. "It doesn't make any difference if it does or not. North Korea is a problem. The problem will be taken care of," Trump said, referring to the Stalinist state. Authority given The President pointedly noted that the expanded authority that he has given the military since taking office had led to an escalation in the pace of operations against ISIS in Syria and Iraq and elsewhere. "What I do is authorize my military," Trump said at the White House, before comparing the proactive use of force by his own White House with the way the military was handled under Obama. "Frankly, that is why they have been so successful lately, if you look at what has happened over the last eight weeks and compare that really to what has happened over the last eight years, you will see there has been a tremendous difference," he said. Sources told CNN that Gen. John Nicholson, commander of US forces in Afghanistan, actually signed off on the use of the bomb and that the White House was informed before the bomb was rolled out of a MC-130 aircraft high over Afghanistan. But that distinction is unimportant for political purposes, as the White House seeks to position Trump as a strong commander-in-chief to satisfy the yearnings of supporters who viewed the Obama administration's public arguments and self examinations over the use of force as effete. A sense that Trump is an activist President keen to deploy military force could alter the calculations of other great powers -- for instance China, as it works out how to respond to Trump's demands to do more to rein in its ally North Korea. But supporters of the former President will likely chafe at Trump's stagecraft, given that Obama was also a war leader, who presided over a ruthless drone war against al Qaeda, and ordered the high-risk raid that killed Osama bin Laden and deployed the US military in an air war in Libya. Congressional reaction Democrats also however find themselves walking a fine line between seeking not to criticize their commander-in-chief over military action but questioning the rationale for his decision to do so. Rep. Jackie Speier, a Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, accused the White House of staging military operations overseas to alleviate the President's poor domestic political standing. "What concerns me most is the fact that what is driving foreign policy is actually our domestic policy," Speier told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on "The Situation Room." The California lawmaker also questioned whether Trump was clearly thinking through the use of force and explaining his rationale to Americans. "I am very concerned that the President is basically taking little responsibility, offering it up to his military when he is the commander in chief," she said. "He isn't necessarily front and center evaluating it then speaking to the American people and what his plans are." Another top Democrat also suggested Trump was letting the military intensify wars abroad on autopilot. "I, too, want to know if the President authorized this -- now he doesn't have to authorize everything the military does, but he should certainly be involved when we escalate the weapons used," said Eric Swalwell, a Democratic congressman from California who serves on the House intelligence committee. "We can't just bomb our way to national security," Swalwell told CNN's Jake Tapper on "The Lead," calling for details on whether any civilians were killed in the airstrike and whether the Afghan government was involved. There was no such reticence from Republicans as the sight of a GOP president flexing military power offered a rallying point with a White House that has often had tense relations with its own party on Capitol Hill. "I hope America's adversaries are watching & now understand there's a new sheriff in town," wrote Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham on Twitter. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe also praised the detonation of the MOAB, saying it "sends a clear message that the United States is committed and determined to defeating ISIS and other terrorist organizations in Afghanistan." First 100 days Trump's active posture may also help to solidify his parlous political standing, which has wobbled during his erratic first 100 days in power. Deploying fearsome military firepower against ISIS is one way of living up to his election promise to intensify the battle against the terror group. Much of the military action currently under way in Syria and Iraq against ISIS closely follows a blueprint laid down by the Obama administration, making it difficult for Trump to distinguish his own efforts. Furthermore, the President's missile strikes in Syria turned out to be possibly the most popular action he has yet taken. In a Washington Post/ABC News poll this week, 51% of Americans backed Trump's move in Syria. That figure is substantially higher than the level of Trump's approval ratings, which have typically been in the low 40s or even below so far in his administration. The political payoff Trump is reaping from the last week of military action comes at a low risk. Dropping bombs and firing off cruise missiles creates huge media coverage but does not put American troops in danger on foreign battlefields. At a time when he is tacking away from some positions that he took on the campaign trail -- on NATO and China, for example -- it also does Trump no harm to look tough in front of his supporters. In general, the image of an American president wielding a big stick plays well with voters who bought into Trump's "Make America Great Again" conceit. Global stage His week of military action may also have a more global effect if it stiffens the President's warnings and tweets notably directed at North Korea, with the credible threat of force. "I think this sends a message," said Lt. Col. Rick Francona, a retired military intelligence analyst who is now a CNN military expert. He said the Afghan operation was a sign that the new White House was happy to be seen as proactive in the use of military force and was likely to offer the Pentagon more leeway than the more hands on Obama administration. "(The military) has been wanting to use this weapon for some time -- they couldn't get approval," said Francona, referring to the MOAB. "The timing couldn't be better, we see what is happening in Korea, we see what is happening in Syria, this is not lost on everybody that is watching the United States right now." In the longer term, however, Trump is likely to face decisions on military force that are far more consequential than those he has taken in the last week. He has already had a lesson in the higher stakes when US troops are directly deployed, after facing criticism over the planning and execution of a Navy SEAL raid against al Qaeda in Yemen in January, in which an American soldier died. The increasing pace of military action will also increase pressure for the White House to outline a detailed strategy for its actions in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, and to secure congressional buy-in for its actions. And it is far from clear that the American public would back a more prolonged venture back into the Middle East, meaning that the political and international impact of eye-catching military operations, like those of the last week, could soon suffer from the value of diminishing returns. CNN's Barbara Starr, Ryan Browne and Jim Acosta contributed to this report. Third Man RecordsA limited-edition vinyl single featuring "2+2=?," a 1968 song by Bob Seger's early band the Bob Seger System, will be released on April 22 as part of the 2017 Record Store Day event. The seven-inch disc is pressed on yellow vinyl, and will be issued by ex-White Stripes frontman Jack White's Third Man Records label. "2+2=?" was the first Bob Seger System single released by Capitol Records, and appeared on the group's debut album, 1968's Ramblin' Gamblin' Man. The tune, whose title is pronounced "two plus two equals what?," is an anti-Vietnam War anthem. The vinyl reissue's B-side will feature "Ivory," another tune from Ramblin' Gamblin' Man. A black vinyl version of the single will be released at a later date. Both versions of the disc are being manufactured at the Third Man label's new pressing plant in Detroit, Seger's hometown. The single will be housed in a sleeve featuring the artwork used on an original European release of the songs. Copyright 2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. The following editorial appears on Bloomberg View: What did Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, achieve in attempting to deny a vote on Judge Neil Gorsuch, President Donald Trumps nominee for the Supreme Court? Not keeping Gorsuch off the court; he was approved on Friday. Not preserving the filibuster for use against any future Trump nominee; Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, abolished the tactic on Thursday. Not standing on principle; after rightly attacking Republicans for denying Merrick Garland a vote last year, Democrats tried to do the same thing. Schumer did, however, achieve a political victory: He placated the resistance wing of the Democratic Party, which opposes any cooperation with Republicans. Party activists had threatened to mount primary campaigns against Democrats who allowed a vote to proceed, even organizing protests outside the Brooklyn home of Schumer, who is not up for re-election until 2022. By caving to their demands, Schumer bought his conference some temporary peace. But the price for the country is steep. This resistance movement is the mirror image of the tea party, which has pushed Republicans into a period of obstructionism that persists even with their transition to the governing party. If the Democrats resistance wing calls the tune on other major questions facing Congress from infrastructure to trade to health care Americans will be poorer for it. Schumer must decide whether he wants to be the leader of the Senates Democrats or a follower of the partys activist base. His first responsibility as an American is to be a patriot and do whats right for the country. Leadership requires more than doing battle with the opposition; it requires speaking difficult truths to your own troops. It would not have required much courage for Schumer to announce that he would oppose Gorsuch while still allowing a vote to proceed. Schumers gambit will impose a second, even more harmful, cost on the country: ending the tradition that senators consider judicial nominees legal qualifications more than their political philosophy. This tradition has taken some blows in recent decades, but with Garland and Gorsuch, the two parties have bludgeoned it to death. Leading the Democratic attack may have been the most shortsighted decision of Schumers long career. Democrats will almost certainly come to regret taking revenge for Garland. It is not hard to imagine a Republican majority refusing to allow a vote on the Supreme Court nominee of a Democratic president not in the last year of his or her tenure, but in the first. With this kind of tit-for-tat obstructionism, the court might even come to lack a six-member quorum. The partisanship that has increasingly consumed Congress is now inflicting collateral damage on the courts. The long-term consequences for the country and for Schumers legacy could be severe. The Economist has two good pieces on Indias Aadhaar card. First, the bright side: IT TAKES a little over 90 seconds. At the government-subsidised ration shop in Sargasan, a village in Gujarat, Chandana Prajapati places her thumb on a fingerprint scanner. A list of the staples she and her family are entitled to this month appears on the shopkeepers computer: 10kg of rice, 25kg of wheat, some cooking oil, salt and sugar. The 55-year-old housewife has no cash nor credit card, but no matter. By tapping in an identifying number and presenting her thumb one more time, Mrs Prajapati authorises a payment of 271 rupees ($4.20) straight from her bank account. It is technical wizardry worthy of Stockholm or New York; yet outside buffaloes graze, a pot of water is coming to the boil on a pile of firewood and children scamper between mud-brick houses. Like most Indians, Mrs Prajapati would have struggled to identify herself to the authorities a few years ago, let alone to a faraway bank. But 99% of adults are now enrolled in Aadhaar, a scheme which has amassed the fingerprints and iris scans of over 1.1bn people since 2010. With her authorisation, any government body or private business can check whether her fingerprints or irises match those recorded against her unique 12-digit identifying number in its database. When it comes to identification, India has unexpectedly leapfrogged every country with the possible exception of Estonia, a tiddler with a penchant for innovation. The Aadhaar system has cut corruption and cleaned the rolls of people with fake identities trying to scam fertilizer, food or some other subsidized good. But the government wants the mark of the beast Aadhaar system to be used for just about everything including paying taxes, getting school lunches, buying airline tickets or a cell phone and that makes some people worried: In theory, the law on Aadhaar passed last year by Mr Modis government includes stringent protections against the sharing of information; its rules allowing exceptions on grounds of national security, although vaguely worded, appear well intended. Sweden has required all citizens to have a national ID number since 1947the year of Indias birthwith little trouble. Most Swedes consider the scheme, which is linked to tax, school, medical and other records, an immense convenience. But India is not a tidy Nordic kingdom. Mr Modis government, with its strident nationalism and occasional recklessnesssuch as last years abrupt voiding of most of the paper currency in circulationdoes not always inspire confidence that it will respect citizens rights and legal niceties. By sneaking the linkage between Aadhaar and tax into a budget bill, it raises concerns about intent: will the government stalk tax evaders, or perhaps enemies of the state, using ostensibly fire-walled Aadhaar data? Many Indians will remember that, following sectarian riots in the past, ruling parties were accused of using voter rolls to target victims. As the Economist wisely concludes: Somalias new President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed Farmajo is inviting al-Qaida-affiliated Al-Shabaab fighters to the table of negotiation to end years of deadly insurgency in the famine-stricken nation. According to voice of America (VOA), President Farmajo is willing to negotiate with the jihadists or a face-off which will see him eliminate them within a space of two years in a war that he declared a week ago. The extremist group frequently attacks military and government targets, but also kills civilians and kidnaps aid workers. The President offers amnesty to the brainwashed youth and pledges education and job opportunities for them if they renounce violence, the Somali presidency said in a statement. Mohamed Farmajo who took power a month ago vowed to secure the country and build the army. He has recently replaced security officers in the police and intelligence service in an effort to defeat the al-Qaida-linked group. The Horn of Africa states national Army is supported by some 22,000 African Union peacekeepers stationed in the country with a mandate to fight Al-Shabab. Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump approved a request for additional precision airstrikes in Somalia to help the African Union and Somali ground troops increase pressure on al-Shabab. Chicken will be the best-positioned protein due to its low price position in times of pressure on consumer spending power but rises in production costs and the long-term impact of COVID-19 threaten to disrupt the sector, according to Rabobank. Nigeria Department State Services (DSS) on Tuesday arrested five suspects who had allegedly concluded plans to attack the United States and United Kingdom embassies in the West African terror-stricken nation. According to the DSS, The Islamist militant group, Boko Haram suspects were arrested in Yobe state on March 22 gave details of the plot and led to the arrest of five others in Benue state. The group had perfected plans to attack the UK and American embassies and other western interests in Abuja, the DSS said in a statement. During the operation to thwart this plan, five key suspects, namely: Isa Jibril, Jibril Jibril, Abu Omale Jibril, Halidu Sule and Amhodu Salifu, were arrested. The DSS said the arrested suspects are linked to ISIS. The British High Commission in Nigeria reacted in a statement saying they are in regular contact with the Nigerian security authorities concerning potential threats to UK interests in Nigeria, Boko Harams seven-year Islamic uprising has killed more than 20,000 As a reminder, in 2011, Boko Haram attacked the U.N.s Nigeria headquarters in Abuja with a car bomb, killing at least 21 people. The new Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Bruno Tshibala on Wednesday indicated that the central African mineral-rich nation will organise next presidential polls with the countrys internal resources. We see no disadvantage to this that there is a booster that would come from our partners, but we will make every effort to mobilize domestic financial resources to fund the elections. The election has become the top priority for my government, DRC Prime Minister, Bruno Tshibala told AFP news agency in Kinshasa. International donors and other partners have yet to make financial commitments to the electoral roadmap. However, president Kabila has promised to organize the long-awaited elections this year and denied reports of foreign interference in the process. Recently, his minister of State in charge of Budget, Pierre Kangudia Mbayi, said the country could not raise the $1.8bn needed to organize the polls. It will be difficult to think that we can mobilize 1.8 billion USD this year. At this stage, I prefer to keep a language of sincerity, he said at a press conference. The amount was arrived at by the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) under a provision of the agreement between the government and a faction of the opposition in October 2016. Worlds top cocoa producers Ivory Coast and Ghana will boost ties to coordinate production strategies to tackle price volatility in the two west-African nations, Reuters reported on Wednesday. According to the heads of the two countrys marketing boards, plans are underway to hold regular meetings and to discuss how best to manage production and ensure sustainability. Ivory Coast and Ghana are the two leading producers of cocoa in the world, but the prices of cocoa at a 10-year low is expected to put pressure on the economies of the two countries, Moodys warned on Tuesday. In its latest report, the rating agency, Moodys says, while cocoa prices at a 10-year low will put pressure on the economies and fiscal position of Cote dIvoire and Ghana, both countries will be able to withstand short-term price fluctuations. Current average cocoa prices reflect a drop of around 30 per cent compared to mid-2016. Although Africa produces 80 percent of the worlds cocoa, a paltry 17 percent is processed on the continent, a situation which has resulted in Africa earning only 12 billion U.S. dollars of the 120 billion dollars cocoa industry. Unlike manufacturers and traders that are concentrated in a small number of companies and enjoy higher bargaining power, farmers receive a very small share (6-7 per cent) of the value distribution in the supply chain. Household revenue is more exposed to the volatility in prices as the agriculture sector employs about two-thirds of the population in Cote dIvoire and over 40 per cent in Ghana, it says. @ByKristenMClark The Florida House will pass out its budget proposal today for 2017-18, but it might as well be "education day" in the chamber, too. Today is also when the chamber's Republican majority will -- barring any earth-shattering surprise -- pass out its most-desired and drastic reforms for education policy this year. And unlike last year, they're all tied to the budget. Those include: -- the $200 million "schools of hope" plan to attract specialized, high-performing charter schools to Florida to serve students who currently attend failing traditional schools; -- the $214 million expansion of the "Best & Brightest" teachers bonuses, which changes the criteria to qualify and extends the bonuses to principals, too; -- and changing the formula for how local and state capital dollars for school construction and maintenance will be disbursed among traditional and charter schools, giving charter schools a cut of the local dollars they don't currently get. Democrats took a caucus position to oppose the "schools of hope" bill, and you can expect many will also vote against the "Best & Brightest" expansion and the capital outlay funding changes, too. Republicans hold a 79-41 majority, so they don't need Democratic support to push through their priorities. The Senate has its own ideas on each of these measures, of course, so the final two weeks of session will be ripe with behind-closed-doors negotiating and backroom dealing. The Senate is conceptually on board with the "Best & Brightest" expansion and the premise behind "schools of hope," but leaders in that chamber have their own ideas on how those policies could be accomplished. As well, senators on Wednesday passed their own proposal for changing capital outlay funding -- removing a main component of their bill (SB 376) so that sharing local tax dollars with charters wouldn't actually be required. (It currently is optional anyway.) The bill also includes reforms to restrict charter schools from using capital funding for "personal financial enrichment," something the Senate first sought last year. Senate Pre-K-12 education budget chairman David Simmons, R-Altamonte Springs, has previously said a mandate on school districts to share their local dollars couldn't be imposed without also affording districts the ability to collect more tax revenue locally, because districts carry a lot of debt service that has to be paid regardless. But raising the millage cap for districts makes some lawmakers wary, because it could be seen as a tax increase even though the decision to actually raise the tax would be approved locally. Simmons told the Herald/Times Wednesday that taking out the mandate from the Senate bill resolves that conflict and positions the Senate to negotiate with the House in conference committee. The House proposal (HB 5103), meanwhile, calls for a more complicated formula that requires state and local money to be divided among charter and traditional schools, while accounting off the top for the districts' debt service. Photo credit: Scott Keeler / Tampa Bay Times When he was first elected, Florida Gov. Rick Scott was so determined to meet his campaign promise of saving $1 billion on prisons that he pushed through a series of contracts with private operators that on paper claimed to produce millions in annual savings. But the promised savings have never materialized, according to audits done by Rep. David Richardson, a Miami Beach Democrat who has been a one-man investigation unit into Floridas troubled prison system. Many of the contracts, which were required to save at least 7 percent a year, actually cost the state more money than taxpayers would have spent if the programs had never been privatized. In some cases, he also found, medical care and access to programming in the private facilities was often worse. This is not saving the state money because they are more efficient; they are saving money as a contractor because they are denying goods and services to the inmates, Richardson said. His most recent prison audit, a review of Gadsden Correctional Facility in North Florida, found that the prison run by Management Training Corp. of Centerville, Utah, saved money by withholding heat, hot water, educational supplies and medical care for inmates for months. (The warden has resigned, and the company says it is addressing concerns.) The governors goal to privatize dozens of prisons was thwarted by the state Senate in 2012, but he succeeded in advancing contracts with two healthcare companies to turn over prison medical care to private contractors. Legislators made sure that the contracts with the private vendors were not managed at the Department of Corrections, where career bureaucrats might be threatened by the private competitors, and moved them to the Department of Management Services, which has expertise in contracts, but not prisons. Richardson discovered that in their zeal to hand over prison operations to private vendors, neither the governors office, the Department of Corrections, the Department of Management Services, nor the Legislatures auditors ever went back to check whether the savings were valid. On Thursday, Florida lawmakers are poised to adopt draft House and Senate budgets that Richardson says embed the same phantom savings into the budget for another year. Story here. Photo: Rep. David Richardson was joined by former Department of Management Secretary Chad Poppell at a visit to Gadsden Correctional Facility in North Florida, a private prison whose contract is managed by DMS. Photo courtesy of Rep. David Richardson. via @learyreports U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan of Sarasota is leading a push to reverse a federal decision to downgrade protections for manatees. This decision was disappointing and potentially very harmful to the survival of the iconic Florida animal, reads a letter to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. Based on widespread opposition from the public and scientists, we urge you to overturn this decision and restore manatees to endangered status. The letter said, during the public comment period for the downlisting rule, nearly 87,000 comments opposed the rule with only 72 comments in support. We would also note that the scientists invited by the Fish and Wildlife Service to formally review the downlisting plan opposed weakening manatee protections. Letter signers included Reps. Kathy Castor, Daniel Webster, Alcee Hastings, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Ted Deutch, Frederica Wilson, Val Demings, Darren Soto, Stephanie Murphy and Charlie Crist. Read the letter below. Dear Secretary Zinke, We urge you to reconsider and reverse the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decision last week to downgrade protections for the Florida manatee. This decision was disappointing and potentially very harmful to the survival of the iconic Florida animal. Despite the agencys assertion that a downlisting from endangered to threatened would not affect federal protections for the manatee, the move could cause a broader reassessment of critical state and local protections for the animals. In fact, just days after this rule proposal was announced, the Brevard County commissioners approved a resolution requesting that the Florida Legislature review slow-speed zones currently in place for boats and called for a reconsideration of the states Manatee Sanctuary Act, which established protections for manatees and their habitats in several counties, including Sarasota and Manatee. As you may know, the manatee at one time was on the brink of extinction. We cannot support any action that could lead to such conditions again. Manatees face a variety of threats to their existence, including watercraft collisions, habitat loss and red tide. Additionally, the warm water springs manatees depend on during the winter months are disappearing. We also would note that manatee deaths are on the rise, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. During the public comment period for the downlisting rule, nearly 87,000 comments opposed the rule with only 72 comments in support. We would also note that the scientists invited by the Fish and Wildlife Service to formally review the downlisting plan opposed weakening manatee protections. Based on widespread opposition from the public and scientists, we urge you to overturn this decision and restore manatees to endangered status. Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. --ALEX LEARY, Tampa Bay Times Photo credit: Associated Press It was a big day in the Florida Senate Wednesday as Democrats joined with Republicans to pass the Senate budget 39-0 and gave an overwhelming 36-3 nod to Senate President Joe Negron's priority bill to build a water-storage reservoir south of Lake Okeechobee. For a Senate that has shown signs of deep division and infighting against less veteran, and increasingly divided, Republican House, it was a formidable showing. So Negron and his leadership team didn't wait long to show their gratitude. Late Wednesday, they scheduled hearings on Monday before the Senate Criminal Justice Committee for a long list of criminal justice bills sponsored by Senate Democrats that haven't seen the light of day in years. Even Sen. Jeff Clemens, D-Lake Worth, who was among the three lone votes against Negron's water bill, gets a hearing on two of the long-sought proposals. They are: SB 848 by Sen. Darryl Rouson, D-St. Petersburg, will change the state law that automatically suspends the civil rights of felons to apply only to felons who have committed life of capital felonies. SB 934 by Sen. Perry Thurston, D-Fort Lauderdale, which will automatically restore of a former felons civil rights "other than the right to own, possess, or use firearms, after completion of his or her sentence." SB 970 and SB 972 by Sen. Randolph Bracy, D-Orlando, creates a new cause of action for victims of human trafficking to file civil lawsuits against a trafficker and creates a victims trust fund for the proceeds. SB 1436 by Clemens reduces the minimum mandatory sentences for certain drug crimes. SB 1662 by Clemens which reduces the penalty for marijuana possession from a criminal to a civil penalty and reduces other sanctions for cannabis use. For each of these bills, this will be their first hearing. Let no one say comedy is easy. It gets harder in "Noises Off," an antic script by British playwright Michael Frayn. His celebrated play follows a cast of competent and not-so-competent actors who are rehearsing for "Nothing's On!," a stereotypically bad bedroom farce set in an English country home. The script resembles a heavily redacted FBI document, with light-gray boxes demarcating when a cast member must shift between their character and their character in the play within the play, a production that rapidly begins to come to pieces. Pamyla Stiehl described it as "meta theater to the max." She's directing the production that opens next week, closing out the main-stage season for the School of Theatre & Dance at the University of Montana. The play is "an actor's masterclass," said Stiehl, an associate professor of direction and musical theater in her first year at UM. "It is so difficult for the actors," she said. "It's a lovely cap for a couple of our seniors." Six of the nine cast members play duplicate characters: parodies of theater types who have a role in the farce-within-a-farce. Graduating senior Christina Heagney portrays Dottie Otley, who she described as a "diva lead actress" who has invested money in the show. Dottie sees her role, the housekeeper Mrs. Clackett, as a career part. "Dottie has been acting for a fairly long time. Is she one of the most influential actors of her time? Probably not. In her mind, she is," Heagney said. To prepare, Heagney researched actresses that Dottie might have imagined she was in league with, such as Lucille Ball and Carol Burnett. What's more, the UM production stays true to Frayn's setting. Associate theater professor John Kenneth DeBoer worked with the cast on dialect, which in some cases involved more than one. Heagney, for instance, had to work on two accents. Dottie requires a "basic posh English accent," she said, while her housekeeper character, Mrs. Clackett needs an exaggerated Cockney accent. The layered farce poses some difficulties, particularly because they didn't want to make Frayn's broad comedy too broad. Heagney said the most challenging and interesting part of rehearsal was "finding the difference between who we are as actors and who those characters are, and completely differentiate them within the play within the play." The play is billed as a "love letter to the theater," which is code for mocking the theater world. They characters could fall into caricatures, so they worked to "flesh out these characters and who they really are." *** The play takes place on a two-level set created by scenic designer Alessia Carpoca, a professor of scenery and costume design. In an email, Carpoca said she decided the set must look nice for a company of the caliber of the "Nothing's On!" troupe, and therefore not too nice. It had to achieve that goal while also fully functioning for the purposes of the UM production. "If we go too far and deliver a non-professional-looking set, it might be the School of Theatre & Dance looking bad instead of the company of 'Nothings On!' " Carpoca writes in her set notes. "If we design and build a spectacular set, it may be too good for what the fictional theatre company can afford or has the skills to create." It has eight doors that must be sturdy enough to withstand all the slamming as people enter and exit during episodes of mistaken identity. The actors themselves have numerous spit-takes, pratfalls down stairs, and more than one incidence of trousers falling down. And the whole set rotates. In the second act, the whole two-story construction is reversed so the audience can see the backstage action. Audiences see the director and crew flail about behind the scenes, while on the other side of the set, the student cast performs a "silent movie" version of "Nothing's On!" descending into chaos, Stiehl said. Heagney, who's finishing a BFA in acting, said she feels "lucky and very grateful to be going out on such a high note." When it comes to wildlife films, bigger usually means better. Megafauna have no problem attracting the attention of filmmakers or audiences. If that's your flavor, the 40th International Wildlife Film Festival has plenty of films about big creatures: Take your pick with feature-length films like "Giraffes: Africa's Gentle Giants," "Gray Area: Wolves of the Southwest," or "Operation Whale" (which is actually about sharks gathering around a whale carcass.) And regarding the scale of a film, it doesn't get bigger than the screenings of "Planet Earth 2," the BBC's blockbuster series. Montanans who haven't seen it yet should take note: the second episode, "Mountains," features work filmed in Yellowstone National Park by Montana filmmakers John Shier and Dawson Dunning. While the larger features and creatures naturally draw your eye, film festivals are populated with short films, and in IWFF's case, short films about smaller critters that are just as intriguing as bigger films. All screenings take place at the Roxy Theater. For tickets and more information, go to wildlifefilms.org. "Archives of Extinction," 12 min. Directed by Alyse Takayesu Friday, April 21, 3:45 p.m. A narrator reads field notes circa 1901 about a collector shooting a rare species of Hawaiian bird, as viewers see row after row of drawers containing gorgeous dead specimens of island birds. Initially, you may be saddened. However, viewers soon learn that with the mass extinction that's occurred with island birds, those collectors may have provided one of the few examples of the species that still exists for scientists. Alyse Takayesu's quiet film, which makes excellent use of field recordings, pays a visit to the archives of extinct birds, and contemplates the cost they paid and the future information they can contribute: A scientist discussing gene studies that could someday allow the birds to be revived, as he says, "reconstructing valuable roles we see the environment needing now." "Running Wild," 7 min., Daniel Schmidt Friday, April 21, 4 p.m. Ultra-runners, athletes who've trained their bodies to span up to a hundred miles at a time, often face an ethical quandary: They've dedicated countless hours to a pursuit that can seem selfish. Some ultra-runners found a way to apply their rare abilities to a greater cause in Utah. In February 2014, a camera in the Uinta Mountains of Utah spied a wolverine. The sighting could indicate that the elusive species was expanding its range south, a phenomenon that begged to be confirmed and studied. A group called Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation set up a series of cameras spanning 80 miles in the remote range in hopes of sighting more wolverines. The problem is that they needed people who could visit all those cameras to retrieve footage and traps. Two ultra-runners eager to turn their passion for a greater good step in. "Microsculpture," 6 min., Tanya Cochran Monday, April 17, 7 p.m. Levon Biss, a commercial photographer in England, landed his largest museum show through his smallest subjects: insects. Shooting images of bugs with microscope lenses was initially a hobby for Biss, until he approached the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, which houses the second largest insect collection in Britain. They were impressed by the level of detail in the photos, which are stitched together from thousands of individual photos. (He explains how he individually lights each antennae). The museum then partners with Biss for a show of photographs blown up to larger proportions than he ever imagined. Slocomb will take meeting attendees on his journey to get the perfect wildflower photo starting with simple macro photography. He will also share techniques associated with his ultra wide angle sunburst series and his work in photoshop. If he runs out of flowers to show he might delve into the world of Disney theme parks films with the Muppets and others. In any case it should be a fascinating evening. Recently I received a call from my good friend Jens Gran from Polson. Gran lives on the south end of Flathead Lake on Bird Point. He is an avid fisherman and normally this time of the year a phone call from him will translate into a fishing report from either Flathead Lake or Lake Mary Ronan. In fact, a few years ago I proclaimed him the Lake Mary Ronan "guru" due to the success that he had jigging up kokanee salmon. Well, I was correct on my assumption that his reasoning for reaching out to me had something to do with a fishing report. The perch bite is on Flathead Lake ... I went out and caught close to 50 perch between 9-10 inches, Gran said. In fact I am in the process of cleaning them now. He went on to tell me he was fishing in 7 feet of water using a light jig tipped with a piece of night crawler in east Polson Bay on Flathead Lake. There was not very many boats out there while I was fishing but that might have been because it was in the middle of the week, he said. I was actually surprised to hear the good news of the perch bite because just a week ago I was on the phone chatting with Dick Zimmer from Zimmer Tackle and he figured that the perch bite on the lake might be delayed this year from the normal middle of April to the end of the month and maybe into the first part May because of the cooler weather. Zimmer has told me in the past that the perch really start to bite when the surface water temperature in east Polson Bay reaches in the mid 50s. The temperature on my fish finder showed 50 degrees, Gran said when I asked him how warm the water was while he was fishing. So if you want some great table fare and a lot of fun fishing with the kids, I suggest heading up and trying your hand at catching some perch. You also might want to bring your lake trout tackle if you are heading up to Flathead Lake because it sounds like the lake trout are biting, too. A total of 17,300 lake trout entries have been received over the first four weeks of Spring Mack Days. You might be like Kalispell angler Mike Shae who last Friday reeled in a lake trout that had been tagged that was worth $1,000. For information on how to enter log onto mackdays.com. Warmer temperatures and melted ice mean the annual walleye spawning operation on Fort Peck Reservoir is getting into full swing. According to Heath Headley, Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks Fort Peck biologist, agency staff and volunteers are again trapping fish and taking eggs from areas in the upper Big Dry Arm of the reservoir. The reservoir is about 2.5 feet higher than last year, Headley said, but we will continue to focus the operation near Nelson Creek. FWP staff have been working on setting up spawning barges, holding pens and test nets since the first week in April, and have begun spawning walleye. Headley figures they are in full operation now. We are looking to continue until we have our goal for this year, which is 50-60 million eggs, he added. Last year, according to a news release, FWP staff and volunteers captured 19 different fish species for a total of 7,982 fish from March 29-April 21. Of that total, 2,672 were walleye. Female walleye collected averaged 7.2 pounds, with males averaging 1.7 pounds. The biggest walleye measured was 14.4 pounds. BILLINGS Funding proposals for the state's medical marijuana program have moved away from a tax and toward a fee structure as groups continue to debate how money will move within the system. It's part of Senate Bill 333, a large regulatory bill that's moving through the Montana Legislature. It would set rules for a more robust program that includes testing laboratories, revamped identification cards and product tracking. The Montana House of Representatives passed the bill on Wednesday by a 65-35 vote, keeping it alive for further discussion and likely more changes. But not everyone is on board with those changes, and some feel the regulatory discussion has outpaced the scope of the state's medicinal cannabis industry. "We don't want amendments on the bill that undermine the capacity of the program to function well," said Kate Cholewa, a lobbyist for the Montana Cannabis Industry Association. "We don't want to go back and have the kind of outcomes we had in 2011, where the law structurally doesn't work." Legislators introduced 36 amendments to the bill in both House and Senate committees so far, said Republican Rep. Adam Hertz of Missoula, who introduced the bill during Wednesday's floor session. I dont think Ive in three sessions put this much time into one bill as a committee, said Rep. Tom Jacobsen, D-Great Falls, during the session. The MTCIA, which Cholewa represents, led the charge on November's ballot initiative and has been a behind-the-scenes shepherd for the regulatory bill. The group backed the initial self-funding proposal for the program: a tax system. It began as a 2 percent tax on the gross sales of medical marijuana providers, though there have been multiple changes since. This week, the House Taxation Committee amended the bill to create a fee-based system, which would be paid by providers to acquire licenses. One proposal was a tiered system that set a maximum $2,000 fee for providers with 10 or fewer cardholders. The ceiling was $10,000 for larger providers. The current proposal changed that fee to $25 per quarter for each registered cardholder. The provider would still pay that fee to keep his or her license. Many medical marijuana backers criticized the initial tax proposal, saying that it amounted to a taxation on the medication of sick patients. Those groups applauded the move to a fee system, saying that it helps the smallest providers stay in business. "I think the one thing most people don't understand, as far as what it takes to be a small provider, the cost and fees are phenomenal," said Josh Saksa, a Helena provider and spokesman for the Montana Hemp and Cannabis Coalition. According to the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services, 72 percent of providers serve 10 or fewer cardholders. For one provider, who according to the health department serves up to 600 cardholders, the annual licensing fee could be $60,000. Cholewa argued that the tax system is more equitable for mid-sized providers who don't generate enough revenue to clear the fee. She also said that by linking the provider's fee to the patient, those who only use a little marijuana might be pressured to "earn their keep" with their purchases. Cholewa backed the tax as a data point at the end of the seed-to-sale system, showing the amount of money being made in the program. "With the tracking system and putting a tax on gross sales, we will be getting that information," she said. Other provisions While much of the debate may surround how the medical marijuana program generates money, those in the industry are also looking at other provisions in SB 333. An amendment by the House Taxation committee exempted providers with 10 or fewer cardholders from submitting to mandatory product testing until April 2020. Another amendment allows for testing at a Montana Department of Agriculture laboratory. Tracking provisions were placed on cardholder purchases as well. The bill requires that medical marijuana identification cards are able to log purchases. It also specifies the Montana Department of Justice, which runs the motor vehicle division, to administer the ID cards. The bill would also regulate how much marijuana providers and cardholders can possess, what qualifications a testing lab director can have and who can oversee "chemical manufacturing" of marijuana, which is the production of oil or other concentrates. SB 333 would appropriate $1.6 million from funds already raised in the medical marijuana program to implement the new rules. What's next With Wednesday's passage of SB 333 in the House, Cholewa expects the bill to move toward a conference committee. That will allow House and Senate representatives a chance to reach consensus. But as the bill reaches each new phase, some are feeling that it's getting further away from I-182, that voters passed in November. All of a sudden there are new rules that weren't in the initiative. It's been a bumpy ride for Montana's medical marijuana industry. It has been through legislative restriction, lawsuits, ballot initiatives and now an intensive regulation effort. Some feel the state should take a step back. "This thing is too big," said Kari Boiter of the Montana Patient Rights Network. "It's too complex." Boiter is one proponent of tabling SB 333 and instead turning to HJ 36, which calls for an interim committee study to examine the program as a whole. That review, according to the bill, would conclude before September 2018. Rep. Steve Gunderson, a Republican from Libby, said as much on the House floor Wednesday. He said the bill got big quickly, and with that comes additional cost. Some in the industry were turned off by talk of revenue generation from a medical program. "If you guys want to lay some groundwork for recreational (marijuana) and revenue for the state, then by all means set up the bill," said Rich Abromeit, a Billings provider. "But leave these patients alone, because they're not recreational users." HELENA The Montana Senate confirmed Martha Williams as the next director of Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks on Wednesday. Following a two-hour confirmation hearing on Tuesday, the Senate Fish and Game Committee met for less than 10 minutes Wednesday to take action on her confirmation. Williams, an attorney and former university professor, has been acting director for about two months after her nomination by Gov. Steve Bullock. More than a dozen people spoke at the Tuesday hearing in support of Williams, praising her legal expertise, experience and demeanor. Lawmakers grilled her on questions including land acquisition, the role of game wardens and landowner relations. Williams, who formerly worked at FWP as an attorney, said she is knowledgeable and passionate about the job. She has a low tolerance for petty divisiveness and a goal of building internal and external cooperation and partnerships, she said. On Wednesday, Sen. Jill Cohenour, D-East Helena, said she believed Williams presented a clear vision for the department. Almost every person that came to the mic said integrity, integrity, integrity, she said. Sen. Mike Phillips, D-Bozeman, also touted the nomination, saying Williams, has a body of work that seems ideally suited for the job. Sen. Steve Hinebauch, R-Wibaux, said he was disappointed that Williams did not know FWPs budget when asked, but would support the nomination. Sen. Jennifer Fielder, R-Thompson Falls, who carried the confirmation resolution, said she would oppose Williams. In her opposition, Fielder said she did not receive direct answers to some of her questions, namely the role of game wardens and whether Williams recognized the political leanings of conservation groups. The committee voted 7-4 to advance the nomination to the floor. Before the full body, Fielder echoed some of her earlier comments, but said she wished Williams well. The Senate then confirmed her 47-3. Im honored by it and excited about working with everybody, Williams said when reached for comment. Theres challenges ahead, but Im looking forward to taking them on. A trend of more lenient furlough policies that began last summer at the Missoula County Detention Facility has been stopped by Missoula judges. The decision came after a January incident where its believed an inmate who was let out on a temporary unescorted leave from the jail brought methamphetamine and opiates back with him. On Jan. 19, inmates in one of the 24-person pods at the jail began behaving strangely, said Commander Jason Kowalski, who oversees the jail. We suspected right away and an inmate did inform us that he suspected that drugs were being used by other inmates in the pod, Kowalski said. That pod was put into lockdown and detention officers searched all of the cells but didnt find any drugs. Tests on several of the inmates came back positive for methamphetamine and opiates. Many of the inmates refused to do the test and to us that indicates that theres a likelihood they were going to test positive and they didnt want to have those results out on paper, Kowalski said. One of the inmates in the pod had recently returned from a furlough that a judge granted to allow him to collect personal items from his landlord. In the past, Kowalski said inmates could petition and be granted a leave from the jail for things like medical issues or family funerals, but they would be done with an escort by a detention officer. Around the middle of last summer, he said Missoula judges began allowing furloughs for a wider variety of reasons and unlike in the past, some were done without direct supervision. Those have never really been supported from a security and safety aspect from us, Kowalski said of unescorted furloughs. Once an inmate leaves our facility, its wide open again for someone to do something bad. After the January incident, a deputy came and spoke with several of the inmates who were housed in the pod but wasnt able to gather enough evidence to request charges be filed. Its the orange code we call it. They dont want to be labeled as snitches, they dont want to have anything to do with telling on their buddies, Kowalski said. Without true drugs in hand, deputies arent able to hold charges or anything like that. He said its possible the drugs were brought in by an inmate housed in a different area of the jail, as they share the same recreation area. Fewer than half a dozen inmates had been out on an unescorted furlough in the period immediately before the incident. Its very hard for us to screen for those inmates coming back in if theyve hidden it properly, and by properly I mean my guess is theyve tied it in a balloon, put some drugs in a balloon and swallowed it and its in their stomach, Kowalski said. An hour before they come back to jail they swallow it, theres no way for us do that in a general pat down. After the January incident, Kowalski said he explained the safety risks that furloughs without an officer escort created for the jail to Missoula County District Court judges. In addition to inmates who might try to sneak drugs in for their own use, he said there also could be a situation where inmates who learn that someone is about to be furloughed will threaten them or conspire with them to bring drugs back in. We really cant stop the inmate that swallows something, gets it in their stomach where we cant see it, cant feel it, cant detect it, he said. They kind of understood our situation at that point. Since the discussion with the judges, no unescorted furloughs have been granted, Kowalski said. District Court Judge John Larson said historically, he has seen furloughs as something to be used for medical situations involving an inmate. He said he sent a note to the other district court judges after hearing from the jail, and thinks that generally they all appreciate the safety risks that come up when an inmate is let out without proper supervision. It wasnt just the one incident. It was a situation where we saw a pattern of people returning from furloughs with issues, he said. Larson said he hasnt approved any unescorted furlough requests since that point, but said its possible a situation will come up in the future where one is issued. Kowalski said since the incident, they have reminded all detention staff of the importance of making sure routine checks at the jail are conducted thoroughly, and said if future unescorted furloughs are granted, the jail plans to hold an inmate in an isolated cell with video surveillance for a few days when they return. Thats just what we have to do, we have to respond to those types of situations, Kowalski said. I think it caught us off guard for the moment because it is something new to us. Plans for a new pedestrian and business-friendly complex at the Riverfront Triangle in downtown are moving forward through the Missoula City Council, with several steps being discussed in the next month. On Wednesday, the Land Use and Planning Committee heard a presentation on their choice to give up right-of-way on two sections of city streets, in order for the developer to create a greenway and public plaza. Cars arent the focus downtown, pedestrians are, WGM Groups Ryan Salisbury said. It really needs to be a walkable community. The greenway will cover Front Street from Broadway to Owen Street, while the public plaza will cover Owen Street from Front Street to the Clark Fork River, connecting with the riverfront trail. As part of the agreement, the developers, Hotel Fox Partners, have to have city Parks and Recreation staff approval of their riverfront trail designs. Salisbury said the developers also will pay to add additional lanes to eastbound West Broadway where it meets Orange Street, resulting in a left-turn lane, two straight lanes, a fully-extended bike lane and a right-turn lane, to help ease the extra traffic that wont be able to shortcut through Front Street. The committee voted unanimously to give up the right-of-ways, a remarkably different tone than their recent vote to begrudgingly cede two portions of public land to the owner of the Holiday Village Shopping complex. Salisbury had a slide noting about 15 different public benefits from the city giving up their right-of-way on the two streets. Compared to the last vacation we approved, this provides significant public benefit, Ward 5 representative Julie Armstrong said. We still retain access and pedestrian infrastructure. Additional meetings will discuss necessary rezoning of the site and a public hearing is set for May 8, for a final vote on the right-of-way discussion. *** The Public Works Committee discussed spending $1.6 million of city funds on the otherwise state-funded Higgins Avenue Bridge project, after the Montana Department of Transportation declined to fund the bridges expansion. The plans to widen the bridge would allow for 12- to 13-foot bike/pedestrian lanes on either side of the four-lane road, City Engineer Kevin Slovarp said. We really would like different pedestrian facilities, different bicycle facilities, than are out there right now, Slovarp said. Theyre used an awful lot. But the Department of Transportation told Missoula while theyd replace the existing bridge, at a cost of over $11 million, any extras would have to come out of the citys pocket, Slovarp said. That shook out into a deal that has the city funding the bike/pedestrian lane that will be added on the side of the bridge. A study to determine feasibility of narrowing Higgins to three lanes from Mount to Broadway wouldnt eliminate the need for a wider bridge, City Transportation Manager Jessica Morris said. It would give them flexibility. Ward 5 representative Julie Armstrong didnt like the lane-narrowing idea, nor the focus on Higgins Bridge when Madison and Russell Street bridges still are unfinished. I think we have too many projects on bridges going on at the same time, Armstrong said, adding she wouldnt support asking for that much money on something that isnt necessary right now. Payment from the city is due when the project goes out to bid, according to Slovarp, which would be in 2019 at the earliest. We think this is money well spent, Slovarp said, to get the facilities we want to see. Public Works Chair Jordan Hess asked the item be delayed until City Attorney Jim Nugent finalizes the language. On March 29, Montanans joined 1,300 other Alzheimers advocates from across the country in our nations capital, meeting our respective members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. On that single day, U.S. Sen. Steve Daines and U.S. Sen. Jon Tester and each elected official received the exact same message Alzheimers is the most expensive disease in America and must be a public health priority. Indeed, it is the epidemic of our generation. More than 5 million people are living with the disease and another 15 million family members are providing their care. These numbers are set to nearly triple by 2050. Families are struggling under the emotional, financial and physical weight of this devastating disease. On March 29, we urged for a greater investment in Alzheimers research and funds for vital programs providing care and support. Just one day later, over 250 people from across Montana gathered in our states capitol with a like message to beseech our elected officials to make Alzheimers a Montana public health priority. Unlike other diseases, Alzheimers is a triple threat with soaring prevalence, lack of effective treatment and enormous costs. Montana will have one of the highest percentages of senior citizens in the nation. Yet we are painfully unequipped to care today for our family, friends and neighbors let alone the growing number at risk. By 2025 the numbers of people in Montana living with Alzheimers will climb from 20,000 today to 27,000 - with no slowdown in sight. Alzheimers advocates in Montana are grateful for the leadership of Rep. Ron Ehli and the Children and Families Interim Committee. Ehli is the sponsor of House Bill 17, a measure to increase home and community-based service waiver slots and assisted living reimbursement rates. The bill unanimously passed the House and now awaits action by the Senate and approval by Gov. Steve Bullock. Why is HB 17 so vital? People can live an average of 8-12 years with Alzheimer's (or other dementias); depleting their resources and leading many of them to qualify for Medicaid services. The waiting list for these services is protracted, in excess of 500 people. These are proud, once hardworking Montanans, now largely seniors who have no real remaining assets and nowhere to turn. HB 17 would enhance the availability of Medicaid-covered home and community-based services so people can avoid or delay nursing home care an option that is more costly than assisted living facilities or private homes. And less preferable. Not surprisingly, just 8 percent of Montanans say they would choose nursing home placement over living at home with assistance or in an assisted living community if life becomes difficult due to illness. HB 17 further increases reimbursement rates to enable providers to pay more competitive wages to attract and retain caregiving staff. Alzheimers already takes a large toll on Montanas Medicaid budget. Findings from the 2017 Alzheimers Association Facts and Figures report show that last year, Montanas Medicaid spend for people with Alzheimers exceeded $139 million. By 2025, that figure is expected to increase nearly 42 percent to $197 million. There are opportunities to save significant dollars by expanding home and community based options, options that are far less costly than nursing home care. Furthermore, research shows that caregiver support programs, collaborative care models and continuity of care can reduce avoidable health care use, including hospitalizations, for people with Alzheimers and other dementias. The Alzheimer's Association joins our community partners in urging for additional care options for individuals and families buckling under the weight of Alzheimers. Please approve HB 17 and strengthen support for Montana families. Montanas two senators were split on the vote that recently confirmed Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. U.S. Sen. Jon Tester voted against confirmation, citing Gorsuchs propensity to judge cases in a way that empowers corporations over individuals. Tester believes that Gorsuch supports the massive intrusion of corporations into our election processes, a political disaster that has allowed almost unmeasurable corporate influence on campaigns and elections since the Supreme Courts Citizens United decision. That case made corporations citizens and declared their money free speech. Testers opposition to Gorsuch based on this was consistent with the position held by 75 percent of Montanans when they voted on these very questions on a state ballot issue in 2012. U.S. Sen. Steve Daines backed President Trumps nominee in a Senate floor statement where he ironically said that most importantly, the American people deserve nine members on the Supreme Court. That most important rationale rings hollow given Daines obstructionism for the last 380-plus days while the Supreme Court seat lay vacant. Getting nine members on the court wasnt the most important thing to Daines when he not only joined a partisan effort to deny a hearing to President Obamas nominee, Merrick Garland, but also refused to personally meet with the well-qualified nominee. The previous record for non-action on a Supreme Court nominee was broken back on July 26, 2016. Before and since that day, Daines maintained his obstructionism on Merrick Garland. He never said a word about the American people deserving nine members on the Supreme Court until his recent speech on behalf of Gorsuch the kind of hypocritical flip-flop that turns people off about politicians. Tester didnt hide behind delaying tactics like Daines did with Garland. In true Montana fashion, he treated Gorsuch fairly, personally meeting with him, supporting Gorsuch having a hearing and participating in an up-or-down confirmation vote. Testers reasons for voting against Gorsuch were honest and clear he was deeply concerned that dark money will continue to drown out the voices and votes of citizens [saying that] over the years, Gorsuch gave corporations the same Constitutional rights as a nurse from Plentywood, a teacher from Kalispell, or a farmer from Fort Benton. Tester said, When it comes to the letter of the law, [Gorsuch] believes corporations are people. Further, Tester said that Gorsuch, according to an opinion, believes campaign contributions deserve First Amendment [free speech] protections. Montanans know: money is not speech, said Tester. He noted his concern that if Gorsuch is confirmed, our future will be shaped with dark money. Those very issues were addressed directly by Montana when the voters overwhelming approved Initiative 166 in 2012. Specifically, 75 percent of Montana voters held that corporations are not human beings with constitutional rights and that each [state or federal] elected and appointed official [is] charged to act to prohibit corporations from making contributions to or expenditures on the campaigns of candidates or ballot issues. That directive from the people of Montana includes Daines. Those 75 percent voted that the people of Montana regard: money as property, not speech; Constitutional rights as rights of human beings, not rights of corporations; and, immense aggregation of [corporate] wealth [as] corrosive and distorting when used to advance the political interests of corporations. In rejecting Gorsuch, Tester is to be commended for following the course laid out clearly at the ballot box by 75 percent of Montanans regarding corporate citizenship and money as free speech. Daines, however, in voting for Gorsuch, chose to ignore that 75 percent, ignore their directives about this important issue, and sided with the corporate elite over the people of Montana. For casual observers of the natural world in Montana, the messages on wildfire can be confusing. Smokey Bear tells us only you can prevent wildfire, yet the Forest Service starts fires and smokes the air every spring. Fire scientists tell us our fire-adapted ecosystems need fire, yet the same scientists warn us that many present-day fires are uncharacteristic and excessively destructive. Fire-prevention technicians advise us to manage the vegetation around our houses to protect them from wildfire, while tribal historians tell us that first nations used fire for many purposes and are a model for living with fire. Our summer skies fill with smoke, helicopters and retardant bombers; and yellow shirts hurry off to battle the beast, while the daily news sadly describes the fires destruction. How can we reconcile these complex and apparently conflicting perspectives? The roots of this conflicted approach to fire trace to early European settlers on this continent. The natural world they faced was both a source of bounty and a haven of threats, real and imagined, to be subdued. As settlers moved farther west into dryer parts of the country, fire was viewed as a competitor for the wood and forage that humans might use. It affected wildlife, including an orphaned bear cub rescued from a New Mexico fire who became Smokey Bear, the symbol of our resolve. And so the battle was joined. For owners of large swaths of forested land across the West and Midwest, fire threatened the trees they intended to harvest for our use, just as it did on some national forest lands designated for sustainable harvest. At its worst, fire threatened our settlements. But what of the large landscapes designated for wildland resources, for wildlife habitat and winter range, for recreation use where forests are managed for other values? Fire in these forests warrants a more nuanced perspective and an appreciation of its role in these ecosystems. Fire is the great recycler, especially in dry-climate habitats. Trees, brush and grass grow, die and accumulate with little decay. For thousands of years, lightning and human-caused fire periodically reduced and recycled the biomass (the stuff) that accumulated. Some fires were small with relatively low impact, others were large and rambunctious. Across vast landscapes fires created patterns as they temporarily displaced some wildlife species and improved habitat for others. Over thousands of years of varied climatic conditions, plants and animals depended on the shifting pattern of burned and revegetated areas, a resilience that may help these systems in times of increased climate variation. A century of increasingly sophisticated fire suppression has allowed the unrelenting accumulation of material that might have burned with smaller, less threatening fires the very fires our firefighters easily extinguish. The stuff accumulates and conditions build for fires so large and hot we can only stand back and wait for the weather to change. Fire scientists tell us this pattern is increasing and could intensify if climate change continues. The situation is complex, and our responses must be tailored to the variety of forest conditions on our landscape and their location. Most fundamentally we must ask: When and how do we intervene, and when do we let go? The Northern Rockies Fire Sciences Network will explore these issues further in an evening session called the Era of Megafires at the University of Montana on April 24, in Kalispell on April 25, Lincoln on April 26, and Seeley Lake on April 27 (see: nrfirescience.org). Its an owners review, and you are the owners. I am writing this letter in support of Greg Gianforte for many reasons, among them being his record of success. Greg Gianforte went from mowing lawns as a child to building a very successful business, creating more than 500 high-paying Montana jobs. The American dream is not more social programs. Its time to roll back suffocating regulations heaped on us by an out-of-control federal government that is out of touch with Montana. We need new jobs to meet the challenges of the 21st century. Gianforte understands high-tech industry and the potential it holds for Montana. He spoke to me of the importance of creating good-paying jobs to help keep our young people in Montana. The lack of good-paying jobs forces people to choose between their home and their dreams. Gianforte has stated, we need to start building Montana and stop exporting our kids. As a parent of one of those exported kids, we understand exactly what he is talking about. Greg Gianforte brings the right combination of positive job creation experience and a solid work ethic to help create Montana jobs for Montana people. Please support Greg Gianforte for Congress. Sjaan Vincent, Charlo Super political action committee Congressional Leadership Fund is running shadowy propaganda criticizing Rob Quist for having a big hat and being out of tune with Montana. They assume these allegations will shock Montanans into voting against Quist. They give no rationale supporting his multi-millionaire opponent from California. Homegrown Montanan Quist has earned the right to wear the hat. Interloper and failed gubernatorial candidate Greg Gianforte is as phony-baloney as creationist museums and jackalopes. CLF consists of slippery out-of-state tricksters led by failed politician Norm Coleman (Minnesota); largest donor, billionaire Sheldon Adelson (Nevada), and some Texan tycoons who dont care one iota about Montana or our citizens. They seek absolute power to rape and plunder Montanas resources. The more science-denying flimflammers they push into Congress, the more they pillage the land and its people for personal gain. Quist genuinely represents Montana and strives to keep it the last best place. Ask yourself who embodies traditional Montanan principles of independent, strong-minded individuals. Then ask who epitomizes mud-slinging, money-grubbing robber barons. Malicious factions are doing everything possible to subdue your vote, so its important to get it done on Thursday, May 25. Vote for Rob Quist to represent our true values. Wanda LaCroix, Arlee Amy Grantham; Courtesy of Shore Fire MediaGraham Nash, Oscar-winning actor Michael Douglas and sibling pop group Hanson have been added to the lineup of the recently announced star-packed tribute concert for acclaimed songwriter Jimmy Webb, taking place May 3 at Carnegie Hall in New York City. Among the previously reported artists who will perform at the show, dubbed "A Celebration of the Music of Jimmy Webb: The Cake and the Rain," are Art Garfunkel, Judy Collins, Johnny Rivers, ex-Fifth Dimension members Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr., Glen Campbell's daughter Ashley and Webb himself. Douglas will deliver a spoken-word performance. Proceeds from the concert will be donated to the Alzheimer's Association in honor of Glen Campbell, who suffers from Alzheimer's and for whom Webb wrote such hits as "Wichita Lineman," "Galveston" and "By the Time I Get to Phoenix." The event will come on the heels of the April 18 publication of a new memoir by Webb called The Cake and the Rain. Other acts on the tribute concert's bill include country artists Toby Keith and Dwight Yoakam, and veteran pop star Amy Grant. The show is being presented by City Winery, whose founder, New York entrepreneur Michael Dorf, organizes the "Music Of" series of annual tribute concerts held at Carnegie Hall. To purchase tickets and find out more details about the show, visit MusicOf.org. Copyright 2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. HELENA - The ACLU of Montana filed a lawsuit against Cascade County for failing to respond to a request for information on the use of racial profiling and force policies and files on license plate readers which can be used to track a drivers location. According to a statement, the ACLU sent the first Freedom of Information Act request for the cell site simulators on March 24, 2016. They followed up on April 12, 2016 asking for the Cascade County Sheriff's Office policies on force and racial profiling to make the information available on the ACLU website for public use. The office didnt respond to either request, the lawsuit alleges. Cascade County Sheriff Bob Edwards said on Wednesday he wasn't aware a lawsuit had been filed and would need to do some research before commenting. Jim Taylor, legal director for ACLU Montana, said the lawsuit was filed on Wednesday and the sheriff's office hadn't been served yet. Taylor said the ACLU contacted the sheriff's office through mail each time and never received a response. Commonly called Sting-Ray devices, the cell site simulators mimic cellphone towers and force a phone to allow police to see its location as well as identifying information. Automatic license plate readers gather information from a plates location and send it to a regional sharing system where its stored for an unregulated amount of time. The ACLU said this information allows police to essentially track a persons movements. Taylor said the ACLU has tried to work with agencies that have asked for additional time to meet its requests but is unwilling to continue waiting for agencies that choose not to respond. He said the ACLU plans to also sue the other agencies that havent respond to the same request. There are 13 other jurisdictions that didn't respond to either request and 24 that only responded to one, Taylor said. There were several who gave incomplete or problematic responses. He declined to specify which jurisdictions failed to respond. When asked why the ACLU started with Cascade County, Taylor said it was the first major jurisdiction on the list alphabetically. "It's rare that we send a FOIA and we don't get anything back at all. Agencies have an obligation under state law to respond," he said. "It will cost the ones who don't financially." While the lawsuit doesn't seek damages, it asks for compliance and legal fees. After 30 years in public service management, I have a broad perspective regarding government. We always hear that government is a big business and it should be run accordingly. That feat is only possible if we treat it like a business and put the political fodder aside. Greg Gianforte has an extremely successful business career. He is an advocate for the changes we need to see in the federal architecture. Greg wants to drain the swamp in Washington D.C. by changing the architectural landscape and ensure Montanas voice is heard. Greg will strive for accountability in Congress and bring the tough issues to the table. He believes a balanced budget is paramount. He is not afraid to address term limits and fight to make sure members of Congress do not become lobbyists. Greg will fight for senior citizen rights to Social Security and Medicare, prioritize veterans issues, and develop real healthcare solutions that work. Montanas economy is a critical issue. Overregulation has stifled our economy. Greg wants to see more success and greater prosperity for Montanans. He wants to capitalize on the coal and timber industries. And, Greg is committed to reaching out to Montanans and stakeholders to develop collaborative solutions on the issues we face. Greg has a strong business acumen, has Montanas interests at heart, and he is running for the right reasons. Greg Gianforte deserves our vote for Montanas Representative to Congress. Dan McGowan, president, McGowan Enterprises Inc., Helena I see Evan Barrett is back in his fantasy-land again in the Standard 04-09-2017. Tester sides with majority on Gorsuch 75%, says Evan. Its Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch now to be respectful, Evan. Yes, as the Butte Local Development Corp. director in Butte, Evan Barretts 2003 self survey then it was Uptown Butte will become a gaming district on a half mile area 1.8 billion Nevada style little Vegas Butte. All became a folly crashed. Evan Barretts survey again but who conducted this survey Evan, State of Montana and where all over Montana? Its your own survey Evan and youre a state employee and where is the data? Show the survey process? Looks like fake news Evan. I feel it could be just the opposite with a fair and impartial Montana survey not Evans. After all Evan the last election in 2016 proved that and 2018 will be interesting. Judge Gorsuch has an outstanding academic and judicial impartial record and a perfect choice for the U.S. Supreme Court now confirmed. No Evan I dont agree with you at all perhaps most Montana voters in 2018 wont either. Yes, Senator Schumer tried to pull it all over to his partial side but failed. Now we have 51 votes rather than 60 to nominate the next Supreme Court justices and two vacancies are possible. So did Senator Schumer and Representative Pelosi do us a favor? Montana is appearing to be a battleground state in 2018 and competition is good and should be based on academic background, experience, pro second amendment, pro hunting, pro scientific management of public lands under the existing laws and someone possibly with military experience preferably active duty in my view. Why consider wealth after all multi-billionaire George Soros funds operations like riots, hate, protests, destruction of private and public property, anti police propaganda and many anti-American activities? His dough is used for all the wrong things and he does not Want America Great Again! Jack D. Jones, Butte In following our current congressional contest closely one must question is this Montana office for sale to the highest bidder? Rob Quist's opponent and backers are once again spending millions trying to buy another Montana leadership post with clever corporate TV ads filled with falsity attempting to smear Mr. Quist. Gianforte boasts he cannot be bought because of his personal wealth. For more than 40 years I have observed the way Rob Quist treats his family, friends and neighbors always with courage, honesty, dignity and respect. Despite family health setbacks Mr. Quist, in the tradition of a true Montanan (and Harry S. Truman) refused to declare bankruptcy and continued to pay his creditors. How many of us would choose the same course? It only deepens my faith in his courage and integrity. Actions speak louder than words. "One man with courage makes a majority" (Andrew Jackson). Rob Quist will fight for Montana. Together let's send this good man to Washington. Richard F. Syverson, Bigfork MUSCATINE Around one in every three Muscatine residents is a member of the Muscatine Community YMCA. "That's what we were striving for when we built it: we'd have something for everyone, and I know we do," said Jim Sturms, the Y's former executive director. When the building that currently houses the YMCA was built in 1991, Sturms said it was designed so it could be expanded, though he was surprised at the number of residents who use it. "It was even better than what I thought it would be," he said. Now with more than 9,700 members, the YMCA has outgrown the building, Sturms said. Current Executive Director Bret Olson, staff, Muscatine residents and business leaders were on hand at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Muscatine Community YMCA expansion project to show their excitement for the $7 million project, which will include two new additions and other renovations. The addition, said Olson, will include a new entrance, an adventure center for children, a new flat running track and "more elbow room" in the wellness center. Staff, he said, also are excited about changes to the office space. Olson thanked his staff and the many people and businesses who donated to the project donations included $2 million from the Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust, $1 million from HNI and $1 million from Kent Corporation. Around $6.9 million "and some change," Olson said, has been raised, with a goal of more than $7 million. One of the most memorable donations, he said, was $28 given to him by an 8-year-old. "It's all impactful," he said. Even seemingly minor changes, like a new family locker room, will make a big difference for families who are Y members, Leni and Clay Marin said. Their children, Jaydon, 6, and Cynthia, 9, spend time with them at the YMCA, the parents said. "We love it here," Leni said. But young children can bring complications, Leni said, such as when she takes Jaydon to the pool when her husband is not with them. "Just the little stuff like that I think is going to be good," she said. Their family, they said, can hardly wait to see what the building will look like after the renovations. "I think it's great, because they're making it all better," Clay said. "It needs to get a little bigger for the kids." John Kuhl, president of the board of directors, said the project will help the YMCA continue to serve everyone in Muscatine. "This is a place for people of all ages and all walks of life," he said. Kuhl said in 26 years membership at the YMCA has continued to grow, and the expansion has been needed. "This day has been a long time coming," he said. Olson said the project is expected to be completed in May 2018. The YMCA will remain open during construction, but some programs will move to different areas of the building. Estes Construction of Davenport is the construction manager and CMBA of Des Moines is the project architect. Wapello Education Association has proposed the establishment of a labor management committee to allow for teachers' input into items that state law has removed from collective bargaining. The five-year agreement the union proposed during Wednesday's school board meeting also includes a 1.5 percent salary hike. Teacher Cari Cline told a crowd of about 30 school board members, administrators, staff and community members that recent changes in Iowa's collective bargaining law made cooperation between teachers and the school district vital. The new law limits most public employee contract negotiations to issues of wages. (Previous) open discussion of (issues) has provided language that works well for both sides," Cline said. "We believe those same discussions can occur through a labor management committee and meetings that occur outside the formal bargaining process." We believe this collaborative approach to bargaining will ultimately result in what we all desire, to provide the best experience in our classrooms for our students. Our students thrive when all of those in our schools feel respected, she added. The salary hike would boost wages for a first-year teacher with a bachelor's degree from $29,380 to around $29,821. The labor management committee would collaboratively make decisions about employment matters outside the master contract and other matters mutually agreed upon. School board members had no questions on the proposal. Superintendent Mike Peterson said the district had two weeks to submit its initial proposal to the WEA. Budget and calendar approved The board approved a fiscal year 2018 budget. The budget calls for total expenditures of $11,246,420, with total revenues of $9,953,048. The fund balance will shrink from $4,075,270 to a projected $2,781,898. The tax rate will be approximately $14.85 per $1,000 of taxable valuation. The board also approved school calendars. Board president Duane Boysen cast a no vote on the calendar. School will begin Aug. 24 and end May 25. Early dismissals for professional development will be held on Wednesdays, which Boysen indicated he opposed. In other business The board agreed to acquire a Ricoh copier from Access Systems, Burlington, under a five-year lease program with a service contract provided through Service Underwriters. The cost for the lease and service contracts will be $79,368. Boysen opposed the lease and board member Larry Miller did not vote. Elementary principal Brett Nagle reported the recent kindergarten and pre-school roundups had recently been completed and the preschool roundup had attracted 28 children, with four others who did not attend the roundup also expected to attend. The district expected 27 children, with three known eligible student unable to attend. Peterson said that meant the district would need to add a second section of preschool. You cant turn 15 families away, Peterson said. The board also: Approved an $9,100 contract to launch the Write to Learn program next year. Approved a budget guarantee resolution. Approved an $8,302 contract with Northwest Evaluation Association for student assessment testing. Les emplois a Rennes sont abondants et varies. Il y a quelque chose pour tout le monde. Que vous soyez a la recherche dun emploi [] Les blattes ou cafards (Blatta orientalis) sont des insectes qui appartiennent a la famille des Blattoptera. Ils se caracterisent par leur forme allongee, leurs ailes [] Barely four months after the launch of Posh Palace Hair Studio and Spa owned by media personality Betty Kyallo and her friend Susan Kaittany, the high-end salon is already a hit with high-end clientele. The most recent high profile celebrities to get poshed up are Morgan Heritage brothers, Gramps and Mojo. KTNs Betty Kyallo on Tuesday took to Instagram to flaunt after hosting Gramps Morgan for a spa date. Sharing a picture of the celeb moment alongside Gramps and her business partner Susan Kaittany, Betty said the Jamaican reggae star was at her spa to have his dreadlocks redone ahead of the Morgan Heritage tour in Uganda. Happy to have met gramps morgan of Morgan Heritage at Posh Palace today! He came to clean up and have his locks redone, wrote Betty. A few days before, Gramps brother Mojo also had his locks touched up at the spa located at Sifa Towers in Nairobis Kilimani estate. The snaps: Warren Buffett's company reported a $2.7 billion loss Saturday as the paper value of its investment portfolio fell during the third quarter, but most of its operating businesses performed well with the notable exception of Geico. ST. HELENA The future of a St. Helena Chamber of Commerce plan to promote downtown is in question after a deadlocked City Council couldnt muster enough votes to direct staff to keep working on the project. Chamber officials said the lack of city staff support wont deter them from going ahead with the petition process with property owners who will need to approve the Property Based Improvement District (PBID) district. However, the district will eventually need council authorization. Commercial properties within the proposed district are being asked to approve a self-imposed assessment, which a new PBID board would spend on beautification, maintenance, marketing and business development. Chamber officials say the PBID would give the business community a stable source of funding without having to rely on the citys annual contract with the Chamber. On Tuesday, Councilmembers Mary Koberstein and Geoff Ellsworth said they will not vote to form the PBID. Mayor Alan Galbraith spoke in favor of it, and Councilmember Peter White said hell wait until the affected property owners have weighed in before taking a position. The fate of the PBID seems to hinge upon the vote of Councilmember Paul Dohring, who recused himself from Tuesdays discussion because hes awaiting an opinion from the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) on whether he has a conflict of interest. As an attorney, he represents clients whose properties are within the proposed district, so he asked the FPPC for advice on whether that amounted to a conflict of interest under state law. He said they told him to expect a response within a few weeks. Koberstein said she opposes the PBID based on the cost to the city and her belief that the city, not the Chamber, should be in charge of business development, which involves economic strategy and reaching out to businesses that might be a good fit for the local economy. As a major property owner, the city would have to pay $93,000 a year in assessments, a rate that could increase by as much as 3 percent a year for the five-year life of the PBID. We should take this money ourselves and do something with it instead of handing it off for supposed special benefits that, frankly, I just dont see, Koberstein said, adding that the assessment on the citys vacant Adams Street property would be $49,000 a year. Galbraith said the cost to the city would be offset by the eventual elimination of the citys annual Chamber contract of $200,000. He said the city hasnt been able to afford to hire a staffer to conduct proactive economic development, and he doesnt see that changing in the foreseeable future. The updated General Plan endorses a PBID, he added. Lets see whether the property owners embrace this, Galbraith said. It may well be, from what we heard tonight, that its going to be very hard to mobilize the sufficient number of weighted property interests to move forward. Melanee Cottrill of the consulting firm Civitas, which is advising the Chamber, said after the hearing that due to an error in the staff report Koberstein had overstated the annual cost to the city. Koberstein said the city would have to pay $65,000 a year on top of the $93,000 regular assessment, but Cottrill said the city would only have to pay the $93,000. Despite the lack of participation with city staff, the Chamber will go ahead with the first step of a two-step process necessary to form the PBID. First, petitions will have to be signed by property owners who will pay more than 50 percent of the assessment. Then, if the council votes to go ahead, property owners will be asked to vote in a ballot process, again weighted based on who will pay the most. Sewer rates Also at Tuesdays meeting, several local property owners said they are on the verge of being driven out of business after drastic increases to their sewer rates. Kathryn Kenney said her restaurant, That Pizza Place, saw its sewer bill jump from $42 a month to $840, an increase of 2,000 percent, as a result of being reclassified from a regular business to a restaurant even though weve been a restaurant for the eight years weve been there. Debbie Fradelizio said Gillwoods, which she operates with her daughter Jennifer, has also seen its sewer bill go up to the $840 flat rate for restaurants. Last year, I paid the city $8,000 for water and sewer. This year its going to be $16,000, she told the council. I cant pay that. I know you guys inherited this. I know its not your fault. But you cant put us all out of business to fix the problem. Under the new flat rate, her 55-seat restaurant is charged the same base sewer rate as much larger restaurants, which isnt fair, she said. The new rates will force her to raise prices and lose customers, stop donating to schools and charities, or underpay her employees, she said. Charles Hall, owner of the laundromat, said his base sewer rate jumped to $970 a month, which could force him to raise prices on customers who cant afford to pay more and make him uncompetitive with other laundries. The issue wasnt on Tuesdays agenda, but Ellsworth said the council urgently needs to address it, as well as parking and pedestrian safety concerns raised by neighbors of the new Las Alcobas hotel. The US military dropped America's most powerful non-nuclear bomb on ISIS targets in Afghanistan Thursday, the first time this type of weapon has been used in battle, according to US officials. A GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb (MOAB), nicknamed the "mother of all bombs," was dropped at 7:32 p.m. local time, according to four US military officials with direct knowledge of the mission. A MOAB is a 30-foot-long, 21,600-pound, GPS-guided munition. President Donald Trump called it "another successful job" later Thursday. The bomb was dropped by an MC-130 aircraft, stationed in Afghanistan and operated by Air Force Special Operations Command, Pentagon spokesman Adam Stump told CNN. Officials said the target was an ISIS cave and tunnel complex and personnel in the Achin district of the Nangarhar province. "The United States takes the fight against ISIS very seriously and in order to defeat the group we must deny them operational space, which we did," White House press secretary Sean Spicer said later Thursday. The strike "targeted a system of tunnels and cave that ISIS fighters use to move around freely." Afghanistan's ambassador to the US, Hamdullah Mohib, told CNN's Brooke Baldwin that the bomb was dropped after fighting had intensified over the last week between US Special Forces and Afghan troops against ISIS. The US and Afghan forces were unable to advance because ISIS had mined the area with explosives, so the bomb was dropped to clear the tunnels, Mohib said. Trump declined to say whether he personally signed off on the strike, but did comment, "Everybody knows exactly what happens. So, what I do is I authorize our military." He continued, "We have given them total authorization and that's what they're doing." The President has granted military commanders broader latitude to act independently on several battlefields where US forces are involved, which Trump touted as making a "tremendous difference" in the fight against ISIS. During the campaign, Trump vowed to eradicate ISIS, saying he would "bomb the s**t" out of the terror group. Gen. John Nicholson, commander of US forces in Afghanistan, signed off on the use of the bomb, according to the sources. The authority to deploy the weapon was granted to Nicholson by the commander of US Central Command, Gen. Joseph Votel, Stump said. This is the first time a MOAB has been used in the battlefield, according to the US officials. This munition was developed during the Iraq war and is an air blast-type warhead that explodes before hitting the ground in order to project a a massive blast to all sides. During the final stages of testing in 2003, military officials told CNN that the MOAB was mainly conceived as a weapon employed for "psychological operations." Military officials said they hoped the MOAB would create such a huge blast that it would rattle Iraqi troops and pressure them into surrendering or not even fighting. As originally conceived, the MOAB was to be used against large formations of troops and equipment or hardened above-ground bunkers. The target set has also been expanded to include targets buried under softer surfaces, like caves or tunnels. But while the MOAB bomb detonates with the power of 18,000 pounds of tritonal explosives, the size of its explosion pales in comparison to that of a nuclear bomb. "As ISIS-K's losses have mounted, they are using IEDs, bunkers and tunnels to thicken their defense," Nicholson said in a statement following the strike. "This is the right munition to reduce these obstacles and maintain the momentum of our offensive against ISIS-K," Nicholson added. "US forces took every precaution to avoid civilian casualties with this strike. US Forces will continue offensive operations until ISIS-K is destroyed in Afghanistan," read the statement from US Forces Afghanistan. The extent of the damage and whether anyone was killed is not yet clear. The military is currently conducting an assessment. The Pentagon is currently reviewing whether to deploy additional trainers to Afghanistan to help bolster US allies there. The Achin district is the primary center of ISIS activity in Afghanistan. A US Army Special Forces soldier was killed fighting the terror group there Saturday. There are about 8,400 US troops in Afghanistan and they regularly perform counterterrorism operations against ISIS in the Nangarhar Province. The US counterterrorism mission is separate from the NATO-led effort to train, advise and assist the Afghan army and police force. While ISIS is identified primarily with its presence in Iraq and Syria, US and coalition officials have long expressed concern about a growing presence in Afghanistan. ISIS first emerged in the summer of 2015 in the country's east, fast gaining ground and support, often among disaffected Taliban or Afghan youth. The Afghan offshoot's link to the organization's Syria-based leadership has been questioned. Many say in fact the Afghan ISIS fighters came from Pakistan and adopted the group's branding in order to get financing. DEVELOPING... MORE TO COME... CNN's Zachary Cohen, Ehsan Popalzai and Euan McKirdy contributed to this report. Spending the summer months sipping rose wines in one of the most beautiful and famous villages of France, Saint-Tropez, brings back some truly incredible memories. The sparkling aquamarine stretch of coastline between Provence, Saint-Tropez and Bandol is home to some of the finest rose wines and the perfect accompaniment to a Provence-Alpes-Cote dAzur afternoon. Each year, a group of us friends make the annual trek to Dick Eddys Annual Rose Wine Tasting gathering at his lovely Mediterranean villa in Saint-Tropez. Every year, Dick hosts this elaborate celebrity-packed party focused on discovering the finest Provence and Bandol rose wines that France has to offer. Party-goers blind taste and then vote for the very best of six to 12 various rose wines offered. Dick, a true renaissance gentleman and rose aficionado, attracts an extraordinary group of interesting people who arrive from all corners of the world for his rose event. He settled in St. Tropez in the early 1980s and recognized the excellence of rose paired with the local cuisine. Today, hes pretty much the rose guru of St. Tropezs chic jet-setting crowd. The day after the wine tasting party, we all go to le plage de Pampelonne a Ramatuelle to one of Dicks favorite beachside restaurants, Le Club 55, and spend the entire afternoon and well into the early evening sipping roses while deep in philosophical discussion. Out of this decades-long experience (Dick is well into his 30th year of rose competition) I came to appreciate the finesse, depth and excellence of Bandol and Provence roses. Rose is possibly the most difficult wine to craft properly. But when crafted properly, it outshines and outsells all other wines. I love Rose for its crisp brilliance, fruity aromas, smoothness and the wonderful mouth feel it leaves behind. For years, Ive contemplated producing a superior California rose born of those St. Tropez memories. A rose thats rich, elegant, silky smooth and an extraordinarily different rose from those available here in the United States. Essentially, introducing an ultra premium rose for serious rose lovers while making a real difference in the industry. The result is our tres Rose de Chardonnay. One of the most alluring elements about our tres Rose de Chardonnay is its ability to offer the very best of both wine worlds with the refreshing qualities of an exceptional Burgundian chardonnay along with the richness, complexity and depth of Bordeaux-styled cabernet sauvignon. What distinguishes our tres Rose de Chardonnay from all others is the grape varietals used and the French white oak barrel aging. Generally, traditional roses are produced using a combination of the lesser grapes of grenache, cinsault, carignan, syrah and mourvedre. I contend that truly exceptional wines come from ultra-superior grapes, such as chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon. We barrel age a limited production of 98 percent Sonoma Coast chardonnay blessed with 2 percent Rutherford bench Napa cabernet sauvignon wines, producing only 760 bottles. We use the traditional Provencal and Bordeaux method, then, age the wine in French white oak barrels from Tonnellerie Jean-Louis Bossuet and Tonnellerie Remond. The wood barrel staves are chosen from fully grown white oak trees, 150 to 200 years old from the Allier, Nevers and Troncais Haute Futaie forests in the center of France. These three forests have tighter grains and are some of the most sought after woods for the production of fine, more aromatically delicate wines. Given that these oaks grow at a slower rate, they produce a much tighter grain, which imparts less oak and more subtle aromatic flavors. These two particular tonnelleries forest-age the staves for 36 months before assembly of our barrels, then toast them at a specified medium toast plus (MT+) for the exquisite flavors these barrels produce. The production of these barrels is limited and they are difficult to acquire. Aging our tres Rose de Chardonnay in these oak barrels is a critical step. These barrels enhance and preserve the characteristics of the grape variety, the terroir, and the wines flavor. This rose is just at home out on the patio as it is in the formal dining room. Its a masterful match for almost any dish. The perfect pairing with this wine would be a grilled salmon salad, juicy barbecued burger, grilled chicken or summers afternoon outing at the beach with a festive crab feed. Its the beautifully fitted black dress of rose wines. This wine is everything youd ever expect in an ultra-premium rose. We may make many compromises in life, but never with our wines. According to Bouquet magazine, The rose craze came from the East Coast, more specifically from the Hamptons where rose has been enjoyed every summer for the past five to six years by a population that travels to Southern France and brings the rose lifestyle back with them from Provence back to New York, representative of a South of France lifestyle that people love to dream about. Rose is the connection between a summertime drive along the French Riviera, every time you uncork a bottle. Enjoy. San Diegos Alpine Beer Company is revered for its hop-forward West Coast IPAs, including Pure Hoppiness, Duet and Hoppy Birthday. Its latest year-round offering, Windows Up, takes a slightly different, but no less delicious, tack. Its not a game-changer by any means: Its an aromatic IPA laced with Mosaic and Citra, two of the most popular hops in America. But where Windows Up succeeds is in the alchemy of the flavors: An initial wave of pineapple and mango is followed by grapefruit and a resiny dankness, finishing dry with just enough spicy, piney bitterness. Its all bound together by a sweet, caramel-like malt. Beer writers and judges talk about balanced beers, and this one, to me, seems especially well-made: The competing flavors of tropical fruit and resin are woven together, yin and yang, into one package, with an underlying current of malt that keeps you from noticing the 7 percent alcohol by volume. When Ive been talking to friends and co-workers about Windows Up, the word that comes up most often is solid. Its not a juicy IPA. Its not a dank hop bomb. It manages to find balance between the two, in a very enjoyable way. Ready to go from zero Read more [...] Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg wrapped up a two-day visit to the United States on Thursday (13 April 2017) with a town hall meeting at George Washington Universitys Elliott School of International Affairs. Mr. Stoltenberg stressed that NATO is as important as ever in a more uncertain world, and that its strength lies in unity and the ability to adapt to a changing security environment. On Wednesday, the Secretary General met President Donald Trump at the White House to discuss the importance of NATO for the security of both North America and Europe. The two leaders agreed that NATO should enhance its role in the fight against terrorism and continue working towards fair burden-sharing in the Alliance. These will be key topics addressed at Mays meeting of Allied leaders in Brussels. Following their meeting, Mr. Stoltenberg welcomed the very strong commitment of the United States to the security of Europe, and underlined the importance of the transatlantic bond. He said: In a more dangerous and more unpredictable world, its important to have friends and Allies. And in NATO, America has the best friends and the best Allies in the world. Earlier on Wednesday, Mr. Stoltenberg laid a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery in tribute to the fallen US servicemen and women, describing it as a deeply moving experience. US President Donald Trump: Secretary General Stoltenberg, it's a pleasure to welcome you to the White House, especially at such an important moment in our great alliance. I also want to acknowledge the great work being done by our secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, to strengthen the NATO alliance, as well as the secretary's trip to Moscow to promote the security interests of the United States and its allies. He did a terrific job. Just watched parts of it, he did an absolutely terrific job. Sixty-eight years ago this month, not far from where we are gathered today, President Harry Truman spoke at the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty. In the nearly seven decades since Harry Truman spoke those words, the NATO alliance has been the bulwark of international peace and security. NATO allies defeated communism and liberated the captive nations of the Cold War. They secured the longest period of unbroken peace that Europe has ever known. This enduring partnership is rooted out of so many different things, but our common security is always number one, and our common devotion to human dignity and freedom. Since 1949, the NATO member states have more than doubled, increasing from 12 to 28. On Monday, I signed the protocol to approve the 29th, the country of Montenegro. In the coming months and years, I'll work closely with all of our NATO allies to enhance this partnership and to adapt to the challenges of the future, of which there will be many. This includes upgrading their focus on today's most pressing security and all of its challenges, including migration and terrorism. We must also work together to resolve the disaster currently taking place in Syria. We are grateful for the support of NATO members and partners in their condemnation of Assad's murderous attack using the most horrible weapons. The vicious slaughter of innocent civilians with chemical weapons, including the barbaric killing of small and helpless children and babies, must be forcefully rejected by any nation that values human life. It is time to end this brutal civil war, defeat terrorists, and allow refugees to return home. In facing our common challenges, we must also ensure that NATO members meet their financial obligations and pay what they owe. Many have not been doing that. The Secretary General and I agree that other member-nations must satisfy their responsibility to contribute 2 percent of GDP to defense. If other countries pay their fair share instead of relying on the United Sates to make up the difference, we will all be much more secure, and our partnership will be made that much stronger. The secretary general and I had a productive discussion about what more NATO can do in the fight against terrorism. I complained about that a long time ago and they made a change, and now they do fight terrorism. I said it was obsolete. It's no longer obsolete. It's my hope that NATO will take on an increased role in supporting our Iraqi partners in their battle against ISIS. I'm also sending General McMaster to Afghanistan to find out how we can make progress alongside our Afghan partners and NATO allies. Every generation has strived to adapt the NATO alliance to meet the challenges of their times. And during my visit to Brussels this Spring, which I look very much forward to, we will work together to do the same. We must not be trapped by the tired thinking that so many have, but apply new solutions to face new circumstances, and that's all throughout the world. We're not here to stand on ceremony, but to develop real strategies to achieve safety, security and peace. We're here to protect the freedom and prosperity of our citizens and to give them the future they so richly deserve. Secretary general, I'm honored to have you here today and to reaffirm our commitment to this alliance and to the enduring values that we proudly -- and I mean very proudly -- share. Thank you, very much. Thank you for being here. Thank you. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg: Thank you so much, Mr. President. We just had an excellent and very productive meeting. And its really an honour to meet you for the first time, here in the White House. We agree that NATO is a bedrock of security both for Europe and for the United States. Two World Wars and a Cold War have taught us all that peace in Europe is not only important for Europeans, but is also important for the prosperity and the security of North America. So a strong NATO is good for Europe, but a strong NATO is also good for the United States. And therefore I welcome the very strong commitment of the United States to the security of Europe. We see this commitment not only in words but also in deeds. Over the past months, thousands of US troops have been deploying to Europe. A clear demonstration that America stands with Allies to protect peace and defend our freedom. And yesterday you announced the completion of the ratification of Montenegros membership in NATO another expression of your strong commitment to Europe and to the transatlantic bond, and we thank you for that. In a more dangerous and more unpredictable world, its important to have friends and Allies. And in NATO, America has the best friends and the best Allies in the world. Together, we represent half of the worlds economic and military power. No other superpower has ever had such a strategic advantage. This makes the United States stronger and safer. We saw that after the 9/11 attacks on the United States. That was the first time NATO invoked our Article 5, the collective defence clause. Allies sent AWACS surveillance planes to help patrol American skies. And we launched NATOs biggest military operation ever, in Afghanistan. Hundreds of thousands of Europeans and Canadian soldiers have served shoulder-to-shoulder with American troops. More than a thousand have paid the ultimate price. Earlier today, I laid a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery, in tribute to the fallen. It was a deeply moving experience. We owe it to our servicemen and women to preserve the hard-earned gains we have made together in Afghanistan. We were reminded of their sacrifice just this week, when a US soldier was killed there fighting ISIL. Our mission in Afghanistan is a major contribution to the fight against international terrorism. NATO plays a key role in many other ways also. All NATO Allies are part of the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL. And NATO provides direct support to the coalition. With training for Iraqi forces in their fight against terrorists. And more intelligence-sharing. And you are right, we have established a new division for intelligence which enhances our ability to fight terrorism and working together in the Alliance to fight terrorism in an even more effective way. But we agreed today - you and I - that NATO can, and must, do more in the global fight against terrorism. In the fight against terrorism, training local forces is one of the best weapons we have. NATO has the experience, the expertise and the staying power to make a real difference. And fighting terrorism will be an important topic when NATO leaders meet in Brussels in May. The other major topic will be fairer burden-sharing in our Alliance. And we had a thorough discussion on this issue today. And Mr President, I thank you for your attention to this issue. We are already seeing the effect of your strong focus on the importance of fair burden-sharing in the Alliance. We agree that Allies need to redouble their efforts to meet the pledge we all made in 2014 to invest more in our Alliance. It is about spending more on defence. It is about delivering the capabilities we need. And it is about contributing forces to NATO missions and operations. This means cash, capabilities, and contributions. Fair burden sharing has been my top priority since taking office. We have now turned a corner. In 2016, for the first time in many years, we saw an increase in defence spending across European Allies and Canada. A real increase of 3.8%. Or ten billion dollars more for our defence. We are now working to keep up the momentum. Including by developing national plans, outlining how to make good on what we agreed in 2014. We know that we all need to contribute our fair share. Because we need to keep our nations safe in a more dangerous world. We discussed many different topics during our meeting today, including the horrendous use of chemical weapons in Syria. Any use of chemical weapons is unacceptable, cannot go unanswered, and those responsible must be held accountable. So Mr. President, thank you once again. I look forward to working with you to keeping the Alliance strong. And I look forward to welcoming you to Brussels in May, when Heads of State and Government in the Alliance meet there to address the challenges and they need to continue to adapt the Alliance to a more challenging security environment. And to respond both to the need for fairer burden-sharing and stepping up our efforts to fight international terrorism. So thank you once again. DONALD TRUMP (President of the United States): Thank you very much. Great. Thank you. So we'll have a couple of questions. Jeff Mason. JEFF MASON (Reuters): Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. I'd like to ask you about two topics if I may. First, has your view of Vladimir Putin changed after what's happened in Syria? And what is the United States prepared to do if he continues to support Assad? And on a separate question, have you made a deal after your chat last night with the President of China about China helping to reign in North Korea, and is that one reason you have decided not to label Beijing a currency manipulator? For the DONALD TRUMP: Well I'll be speaking to Yeah, you want to go ahead, go ahead. JEFF MASON: May I? For the Secretary General, do you believe NATO should continue to bolster its presence along the alliance's eastern border? And do you have, are you confident that you have President Trump and the United States support for that? Thank you. DONALD TRUMP: I'll be speaking with Rex Tillerson in a little while, calling in. I think he had a very successful meeting in Russia. We'll see; we'll see the end result which will be in a long period of time perhaps. But the end result is what's most important, not just talk. And I think that [break in transmission] everything I'm hearing things went pretty well, maybe better than anticipated. It would be wonderful as we were discussing just a little while ago if NATO and our country could get along with Russia. Right now we're not getting along with Russia at all. We may be at an all-time low in terms of relationship with Russia. This has built for a long period of time. But we're going to see what happens. Putin is the leader of Russia. Russia is a strong country. We're a very, very strong country. We're going to see how that all works out. Last night, separately, I spoke with a man that I have gotten to know. I dont know Putin but I do know this gentleman, I've spent a lot of time with him over the last two days, and he is the President of China. You were there, most of you were there, and it was quite an interesting period of time. President Xi wants to do the right thing. We had a very good bonding; I think we had a very good chemistry together. I think he wants to help is with North Korea. We talked trade; we talked a lot of things. And I said: the way you're going to make a good trade deal is to help us with North Korea, otherwise we're just going to go it alone, that will be alright too. But going it alone means going it with lots of other nations. But I was very impressed with President Xi, and I think he means well, and I think he wants to help. We'll see whether or not he does. JEFF MASON: Do you feel like you have a deal with him? And DONALD TRUMP: Excuse me? JEFF MASON: Do you feel like you have a deal with him in terms of the currency manipulation designation, and have your views changed on Putin? DONALD TRUMP: We're going to see. We're going to see about that. And I'll also see about Putin over a period of time. It would be a fantastic thing if we got along with Putin, and if we got along with Russia. And that could happen, and it may not happen; it may be just the opposite. I can only tell you what I would like to do. I would love to be able to get along with everybody. Right now the world is a mess. But I think by the time we finish, I think it's going to be a lot better place to live. And I can tell you that speaking for myself, by the time I'm finished, it's going to be a lot better place to live in because right now it's nasty. JENS STOLTENBERG: NATO is in the process of implementing the biggest reinforcement of our collective defence since the end of the Cold War. And one element of that is to increase our military presence in the eastern part of the alliance. And we are now deploying four battle groups to the three Baltic countries and Poland, and there will also be more U.S. forces in that part of Europe. And this is the first time in many, many years that we see an increase in the military presence of the United States in Europe. So we are increasing our presence, and we are also increasing the readiness and the preparedness of our forces so we can quickly reinforce if needed. We consider the presence we will have when the four battle groups are in place as sufficient given the current security situation in Europe. But of course we will assess the situation and follow the developments very closely. The message from NATO is that what we do is proportionate; it is defensive. And we don't want a new Cold War, we don't want a new arms race. And actually we strongly believe that there is no contradiction between a strong NATO, a credible deterrence and defence, and political dialogue with Russia. Actually we believe that a precondition for a political dialogue with Russia is that we are strong, and that we are united. But based on that, we can talk to Russia because Russia is our neighbour, Russia is here to stay, so we have to find ways to manage our relationship with Russia. And I am absolutely certain that the United States supports this approach partly because the United States is contributing with forces to our enhanced presence in the eastern part of the alliance, and also in the southeast of the alliance, in Romania. And the United States and the President has clearly expressed that they want dialogue with Russia, but based on unity and strength in the alliance. Then the next question is from John Sopel. JOHN SOPEL (BBC): Thank you very much. Secretary General, how long do you think it will take you to persuade the other European countries to burden share, and what are you going to do to persuade them? Mr. President, could I ask you do you think it's DONALD TRUMP: I like that question. [Laughter] JOHN SOPEL: I'm here to help. And Mr. President, do you think it's conceivable, what's your instinct: was it possible that Syrian forces could have launched that attack in Idlib last week without the Russians knowing? And have you been disappointed, surprised by Vladimir Putin's reaction since then? Thank you very much. DONALD TRUMP: I think it's certainly possible. I think it's probably unlikely. And I know they're doing investigations into that right now. I would like to think that they didn't know, but certainly they could have, they were there. So we'll find out. General Mattis is looking into it with the entire Pentagon group that does that kind of work. So it was very disappointing to see, it's disappointing no matter who does it, but when you get into the gases, especially that form, it's vicious and violent, and everybody in this room saw it all too many times over the last three or four days: young children dying, babies dying, fathers holding children in their arms that were dead, dead children. There can't be a worse sight. And it shouldn't be allowed. That's a butcher. That's a butcher. So I felt we had to do something about it. I have absolutely no doubt we did the right thing. And it was very, very successfully done, as you well know. Thank you. JENS STOLTENBERG: On defence spending and burden sharing, that has been my top priority. I have raised it in all my meetings in all capitals. I visited with prime ministers, presidents, ministers of Finance, and of course also Defence and Foreign ministers. And I expect of course all allies to make to make good on what they decided back in 2014. And a very strong and clear message from President Trump has been very helpful, so now we see that things are starting to move in the right direction. For the first time after many, many years of decline in defence spending, we now see an increase in defence spending across Europe and Canada. So they have started to move in the right direction: 3.8 percent real increase in defence spending across Europe and Canada is a significant step in the right direction. It's not enough, we still have a long way to go, but at least they have turned a corner, the European allies have turned a corner, instead of reducing defence spending, they are starting to increase defence spending. Then I think it is important to remember that this is something the Europeans do because they know that this is in their own security interest. It is in their interest to invest more in European defence because the role has become more dangerous. Many European allies of course reduce, or all European allies, reduced defence spending after the end of the Cold War because then tensions went down. But if you are decreasing defence spending when tensions are going down, then you have to be able to increase defence spending when tensions are going up. And now they are going up. So we have still a long way to go, but I'm encouraged by the fact that we have started to move in the right direction. Last year, there were five allies spending two percent, this year Romania has declared that they will reach two percent; next year Latvia and Lithuania will also reach two percent. So we go from five to eight, which is at least going in the right direction, but still we have some work to do. DONALD TRUMP: And I did ask about all the money that hasn't been paid over the years, will that money be coming back. We'll be talking about that [Laughter] DONALD TRUMP: We want to talk about that too. Anita Kumar McClatchy, where are you? ANITA KUMAR McCLATCHY (McClatchy Newspapers): (Question inaudible). DONALD TRUMP: We did talk last night. I think it's wonderful that they abstained. As you know very few people expected that. And, no, I was not surprised that China did abstain. Very, very few people thought that that was going to happen. So we're honoured by the vote. That's the vote that should have taken place. ANITA KUMAR McCLATCHY: Secretary General, you talked a little bit about Moscow, about Russia. (inaudible). JENS STOLTENBERG: The most important thing is to have a strong alliance to stay united and be firm and predictable in our approach to Russia. And that means that we have to invest in our collective defence, that's exactly what we are doing, deploy more troops in the eastern part of the alliance, increase the readiness of our forces, and increase defence spending. And I welcome the very strong message from President Trump on the importance of increased defence spending. We have started to do this, so we are implementing the biggest reinforcement of our collective defence since the end of the Cold War, providing credible deterrence. But at the same time, we have to find ways to engage with Russia, to talk with Russia; because Russia will not go away, Russia will be our biggest neighbour, and we have to find ways to live with them and to try to avoid a new Cold War, a new arms race. And that's exactly why I am very much in favour of what we call a dual track approach to Russia. And as a former Norwegian politician, I had the experience to work with Russians because Norway is bordering Russia. And Norway was able even during the Cold War to develop I would call it a pragmatic working relationship with Russia, cooperating with them on energy, on border issues, on environment, on fishery, and also on military affairs. And that was not despite our membership in NATO, but it was because of our membership in NATO. Because NATO provided the strength, the predictability, the platform for a small country to have a political dialogue with Russia. So I strongly believe that the only way to deter Russia is to be strong, but the only way to avoid a new Cold War, avoid a new arms race and avoid increasing tensions is to continue to engage Russia in a political dialogue and to make sure that what we do is defensive and proportionate in response to a more assertive Russia. (Norwegian media): What do you think European countries have to fear from Russia if this tension continues to escalate? And for you, Mr. Secretary General: the President said that the attack in Syria last week was warranted and it was also an attack on U.S. allies. Do you think that this attack was warranted, and do you see NATO playing any supporting role in future actions in Syria? DONALD TRUMP: Well I want to just start by saying hopefully they are going to have to fear nothing ultimately. Right now there is a fear, and the problems, there is certainly problems. But ultimately I hope that there won't be a fear, and there won't be problems, and the world can get along, that would be the ideal situation. It's crazy, what's going on, whether it's the Middle East or you look at no matter where, the Ukraine, you look at whatever you look at, it's got problems, so many problems. And ultimately I believe that we are going to get rid of most of those problems, and there won't be fear of anybody. That's the way it should be. We have a very big problem in North Korea, and as I said, I really think that China is going to try very hard and has already started. A lot of the coal boats have already been turned back. You saw that yesterday and today, they have been turned back, the vast amount of coal that comes out of North Korea going to China, they've turned back the boats. That's a big step, and there are many other steps that I know about. So we'll see what happens. It may be effective, it may not be effective. If it's not effective, we will be effective, I can promise you that. Thank you. JENS STOLTENBERG: NATO has constantly condemned the use of chemical weapons in Syria, and the use of chemical weapons is horrendous, and it's a clear violation of International Law. And any use of chemical weapons is unacceptable and cannot go unanswered. So those responsible most be held accountable. The strike against the airbase in Syria was a U.S. operation based on U.S. intelligence. But you have seen that within the alliance, this has been something which has been met with a lot of understanding because NATO allies do not accept that chemical weapons are used, and therefore we also strongly support the efforts of the fact-fnding commission to try to find out actually what happened and to make sure that we dont see any use of chemical weapons in the future. DONALD TRUMP: Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. The Tekhmash Corporation (a subsidiary of Rostec) has landed orders for special rubber coatings, which will keep it busy for five years. Developed by ChPO Chapayev, the hydroacoustic rubber plates mask submarines from hostile sonars, according to Tekhmashs press office. "We launched the advanced high-tech manufacturing lines for the special rubber plates in September 2016 and have been awarded a five-year order for the product. The coating features high noise-absorbing capability," Tekhmash Director General Sergei Rusakov said. "The designers succeeded in reducing the noise almost to the background level. Owing to its design features, the coating effectively absorbs the noise on various frequencies and at various depths, thus reducing the submarines acoustic signature," ChPO Chapayev Director General Alexander Livshits said. Tekhmashs ChPO Chapayev makes special coatings featuring different acoustic characteristics for use on diesel-electric and nuclear-powered submarines. As was reported in the press, eight Project 955 Borei-class (NATO reporting name: Dolgorukiy-class) and 955A Borei-M-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines are due for the Navy by 2021 and seven Project 885 Yasen-class (Severodvinsk) and Project 885M Yasen-M-class nuclear-powered hunter-killers by 2023. The Russian Navy will receive two nuclear-powered submarines in 2018 - the Project 885M Kazan hunter-killer and the Project 955A boomer. In addition, the construction of a six-ship Project 636.3 (Improved Kilo-class) diesel-electric submarine series for the Pacific Fleet has been planned. Copyright 2017 TASS. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about scholarships Students interested in learning more about the Truman Scholars Program and other prestigious awards should contact Megan Friddle in the National Scholarships and Fellowships Program. Find more information or schedule an appointment through the National Scholarships & Fellowships Program website. Chelsea Jackson, who has persistently advocated for a more equitable Emory campus and Atlanta community, has been named a 2017 Harry S. Truman Scholar. Only 61 other college students across the United States earned the highly competitive national honor, which is granted to exceptional students in their junior year who have demonstrated outstanding leadership, academic excellence and a commitment to a life of public service. Jackson, an Emory College of Arts and Sciences student double majoring in political science and African American studies, is Emorys first Truman Scholar since 2011. As part of the award, which is administered by the Harry S. Truman Foundation, Jackson will receive $30,000 for graduate study as well as professional development for a career in public service. This is going to expand her world and her launching pad. Whatever Chelsea decides to do, she will do amazing things, says her major adviser, Andra Gillespie, associate professor of political science and director of Emorys James Weldon Johnson Center for the Study of Race and Difference. Her mind is so sharp, and she excels at whatever she does. Jackson arrived at Emory from nearby Lithonia more than a little intimidated to be a public school kid in courses with peers who had personal tutors and private-school educations. She was mentored by two seniors, Jovanna Jones and Samantha Scott, who not only assured her that she belonged at an elite liberal arts school but also that her arrival meant she had the capacity to mold the university and her education in her image. It just reinforced the way I was raised, to advocate for myself, Jackson says. As a black woman, I knew I had to be the best, the brightest. When I came, I was a ball of energy wondering why things were this way or that way. Her curiosity led Jackson to seek answers. She became involved in the Emory chapter of the NAACP and co-founded the Atlanta Black Students United, a group with black student representatives from every school in metro Atlanta. Jackson was part of the group that has since seen Emory hold two Racial Justice Retreats, to share ideas and take action on demands from the Black Students at Emory. She is most proud of her work helping to overhaul Emory's Bias Incident Reporting system to increase its transparency and require specific actions be taken. The system now requires that the team contact the person making the complaint, talking them through actions and involving them in the process. She continues to push for progress to diversify the faculty and curriculum. Chelsea has the ability to raise the entire communitys consciousness with her leadership, and she deserves a lot of the credit for moving issues forward through a truly collaborative approach, says Campus Life Dean Ajay Nair, who has worked closely with Jackson on the universitys Racial Justice Retreats, and the ongoing work to achieve measureable progress. She has a level of creativity and curiosity that is remarkable, Nair says. Classroom standout That curiosity and ability to analyze all sides of any given issue has made Jackson a standout in the classroom as well. Gillespie recalls Jackson trying to talk her way into a senior-level course as a first-year student. The professor says she now regrets not giving a seat to Jackson, who just recently presented a conference paper with her entitled Personal Respectability and Public Opinion of Police Shootings: Results from a Survey Experiment. More research is in Jacksons future. Michael Leo Owens, associate professor of political science, saw Jacksons leadership in his courses and her eagerness to go beyond required readings to understand concepts. He recently nominated her for the departments honors program, and supported her pursuit of a BA/MA degree. When the Honors Admission Committee reviewed her file, members voted unanimously to make her the sole BA/MA candidate admitted, Owens says. Jackson already has her project lined up: Moving beyond questions of racial bias in prosecutors to see if a district attorneys race itself affects pursuit of felonies over misdemeanors and other questions of prosecutorial discretion. Shes there to push her peers to up their game. Even the professors know they have to be prepared, Owens says. She thinks seriously about the world and wants her opinions to be as rigorously informed as possible. Jackson describes herself as stubborn, with a specific future plan, but notes she is most successful when shes challenged. She has long aspired to lead the U.S. Department of Justice as attorney general. She knows that nearly all of the nations attorneys general come from a prosecutorial background, but she remains firm that after law school, she will work as a civil rights and human rights attorney. She is also considering suggestions from professors to pursue a doctorate with her law degree, with an ultimate goal to become a Supreme Court justice. Jacksons mentors react to such lofty goals with nods. Her activism and classroom excellence have led her to be accountable to her community and herself, and push her peers to do the same, they say. I came here wanting the best for Emory, and I believe everyone here has the best interest of the students in mind, just with a different vision, Jackson says. This is about what changes I can make that will make Emory different. Thats the legacy that was left for me, and thats the mark Im trying to leave for the next little black girl from Decatur. Then, the world. A meeting of Corps Commanders at Rawalpindi decided that "no compromise will be made on the death sentence", the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said. Army chief General Qamar Bajwa, who was briefed about the progress on Jadhav's case, presided over the meeting, the ISPR said. A Pakistani military court on April 10 awarded the capital punishment to Jadhav, who Islamabad says was an Indian intelligence agent and was caught in Balochistan in March last year. Jadhav was charged with espionage and waging war against Pakistan. India has said Jadhav, whose family lives in Mumbai, was abducted from Iran where he was engaged in business and warned that if he was hanged, it would amount to premeditated murder. Gen Bajwa also lauded the efforts of intelligence agencies and other law enforcers towards the successful execution of counter-terrorism operations across Pakistan, the ISPR said. --IANS ahm-mr/rn ( 178 Words) 2017-04-13-17:20:11 (IANS) The deceased was identified as Mashal Khan, a student at the Journalism and Mass Communication department, Dawn reported. At least 15 people were arrested in connection with the incident, which occurred in the university premises. The campus has been shut down until further notice. Mardan Deputy Inspector General of Police Alam Shinwari said the dead student was accused of running Facebook pages which allegedly published blasphemous content. He was assaulted by a mob of students and appears to have succumbed to a gunshot wound, he said. Police took the body away but students kept demanding it back. Blasphemy carries death penalty in Pakistan. In many cases, an accusation alone is enough to inspire vigilante action against suspects. --IANS ahm/mr ( 157 Words) 2017-04-13-18:56:13 (IANS) Terming the controversy surrounding 'Vande Mataram' as unwarranted, BJP MP and Union Minister Sanjeev Balyan on Thursday said that people, who are inhibiting from singing the national song, must be told that there is nothing wrong with singing it. Balyan told ANI, that a solution in this regard should be chalked out and Muslims should not think that there is something wrong with the national song. "People must understand that there is nothing wrong with singing Vande Mataram. I don't know why some people are making an issue out if it. A solution should be chalked out in this regard. I don't know why there is this mentality that Vande Mataram is not okay for Muslims. We should explain people and make them understand this," said Balyan. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath last week said not singing the national anthem is a serious issue, adding that by doing so it only highlighted one's prejudice. Adityanath breaking his silence for the first time on this issue said that the people are extending this issue for no reason. "We want to see development in this country, but our issue of conflict is over not singing the National Anthem and National song. Not singing Vande Mataram shows a prejudiced mind. This is a matter of concern," Aditynath said at the book unveiling function of 'Governor's guide' here. The Chief Minister's comments come after a controversy erupted over singing Vande Mataram in the Varanasi and Meerut Municipal corporations. A week after the mayor of Meerut asked all corporators to either sing Vande Mataram or leave the country, BJP councilors at the Allahabad Nagar Nigam on Thursday demanded that a new rule be passed under which the House proceedings would start with the national song Vande Mataram and end with the national anthem Jana Gana Mana. Some councilors objected to the proposal and it led to ruckus and disruption of the proceedings of the House. Councilors in the Opposition alleged that BJP Councilors are raising this demand because of BJP coming to power in the state. (ANI) Even as the Opposition has presented a united front over the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) tampering issue in the past few days, there seems to be infighting and disunity amongst the Congress party members with some being against their use, while others apparently not. A day after Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh came out in defence of the EVMs, citing had there been any possibility of tampering with the EVMs, he would have not won the Punjab Assembly elections, Congress leader Manish Tewari on Thursday said Singh had himself demonstrated as to how the EVMs could be manipulated, when he was the Punjab Congress Committee (PCC) president in 2001. "The Chief Minister of Punjab is a respected leader, but few years back in 2010 and even in 2001, when he was the PCC president, he had himself demonstrated as to how the EVMs can be gerrymandered," Tewari told ANI. Capt. Amarinder Singh's reaction came following his landslide victory in the Punjab Assembly elections, in which the Congress secured 77 out of 117 seats making a strong comeback after a decade. While reacting on the open challenge thrown by the Election Commission of India (ECI) to the opposition to hack the EVMs, Tewari said the poll-watchdog should not act as an advocate for the voting machines. "It's extremely unfortunate that the Election Commission has taken upon itself the role of being the lawyer for the EVMs. Democracy is based upon public trust. It is based upon confidence which elected representatives have in the process. So, therefore, if there is a lack of confidence in the EVMs, why is the Election Commission holding itself as the advocate of the EVMs? What is the difficulty if the ECI agrees to hold elections by paper ballot?" said Tewari. The Congress leader further said that if the stakeholders were unhappy with a particular process, then a revised decision was needed. "Democracy is a process which is an in interplay between various stakeholders and if, therefore, the stakeholders are unhappy with a particular process, then I am afraid the EC needs to reconsider its stand," he said. A Congress-led delegation led by party president Sonia Gandhi had submitted a memorandum on the alleged irregularities in EVMs to President Pranab Mukherjee earlier on Wednesday. The delegation included several popular Congress leaders including party vice-president Rahul Gandhi, Satyavrat Chaturvedi, and Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad among others. Post meeting with President Mukherjee, Azad said that the alleged tampering of EVMs and the backdoor entry by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to form the governments in Goa and Manipur, have raised questions on the electoral process in the country. Azad said that the united Opposition sought the President's intervention to maintain the constitutional safeguards in India. (ANI) SpiceJet today said it has added 19 new domestic and three new international flights this summer, offering more seats connecting key metros and cities as a part of its enhanced network. With the introduction of the summer schedule, the airline will increase its operation to 360 average daily flights, the air carrier said in a statement. To cater to the peak summer rush, from March to October, it has launched daily direct flights for the cities that include Surat-Jaipur, Surat-Hyderabad, Surat-Goa, Jammu-Dehradun, Jaipur- Chandigarh-Jammu, and Bengaluru-Thiruvananthapuram and Delhi- Thiruvananthapuram.Shilpa Bhatia, Senior Vice President, Commercial, SpiceJet, said, "In our constant endeavor to serve our passengers better, we have enhanced our summer schedule, considering the upcoming vacations and passenger feedback. We will continue to add more flights to our network that will give our passengers more options to travel with us. SpiceJet has been acknowledged as the most favoured airline in India. The record high PLF of over 90 per cent, for the past 23 months, bears testimony to this fact."SpiceJet has also launched three new flights on the international sectors of Delhi-Bangkok, Kolkata-Dhaka besides a flight from Bengaluru to Male via Thiruvananthapuram with the least connecting time. UNI ASH SDR ADG 1227 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0431-1228042.Xml Air Intelligence Unit of Goa Customs seized 636 gm of gold worth Rs 17 lakh from two passengers at the Airport.According to sources, in the first case 374 gm of gold was seized yesterday in the form of jewellery and raw gold which were concealed inside the handle of non-stick frying pan and inside the two door handles of mortise lock. The passenger had arrived from Doha via Dubai by Qatar Airways flight. In the second case, the officers seized 262 gms gold worth Rs seven lakh from another passenger who too concealed gold inside the handle of non-stick frying pan. He had arrived at Dabolim airport from Dubai by Air India Flight AI-994. Both the passengers hailed from Bhtkal, Karnataka. All the gold was confiscated under the provisions of Section 110 and 111 of the customs Act, 1962, and accused released after imposing penalty. Further investigation was in progress. UNI AKM NV SM SDR ADG 1215 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0169-1228015.Xml MAIT, the apex body representing country's IT hardware, training and R&D service sectors, today announced the elevation of Nitin Kunkolienker, Director (Member on Board) at Synegra EMS Ltd as President during the Executive Council Meeting held in New Delhi today. According to a press release from Goa Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI), Mr Kunkolienker has been part of the MAIT's management team in the past and has had a string of successful associations with various industry bodies starting off with Verna Industries Association (VIA). He has also headed diverse industry and social organizations like Goa Chamber of Commerce & Industry (GCCI), Vidya Vikas Mandal (VVM), Goa Management Association (GMA) and now will be succeeding Ms Debjani Ghosh for a President's role at MAIT. As his new role, Mr Kunkolienker will help MAIT catalyze the growth aspirations of IT hardware sector in India. Speaking on the appointment, Mr Kunkolienker said, ''I am excited to take on new role at an interesting juncture of time when Digital India vision is about to take off and it is opportune time to align the government policies with the industry requirements to make India a successful manufacturing hub for IT hardware. It is time for IT hardware industry in India to tap new opportunities and with MAIT being the apex body for IT hardware I look forward to working with the entire hardware ecosystem in India as we embark on this exciting journey.'' Outgoing MAIT President Ms Debjani Ghosh said, ''It's great to have Nitin elevated to the President role at MAIT. Nitin has demonstrated his ability to drive growth and has delivered results for us in the past. I am confident he will add value and extend MAIT's growth to the new charter. Mr Kunkolienker is one of the most prominent persons in the business circle of Goa hving been the President of Goa Chamber from 2001-2009 and founder President of Verna Industries Association. Mr Narayan Bandekar, President of Goa Chamber, while congratulating Mr Kunkolienker said it was a matter of pride for all Goans that an IT industry stalwart from Goa had been elected as President of a prestigious national level association like MAIT.UNI AKM NV SM1330 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0169-1228152.Xml The tour became a source of peace for the Himalayan region. Due to inclement weather, the Dalai Lama was forced to take land routes to visits the interior areas of the region. Thousands of devotees and well-wishers, including Tibetans, Indians and supporters from all walks of life basked under the spring sun and thronged the streets, from Gagal airport in Kangra to the lanes of Tsuglakhang temple in Mcleod Ganj, to celebrate the return of their beloved spiritual leader after a historic visit to Arunachal Pradesh and Assam. Speaker of Tibetan Parliament in Exile Khenpo Sonam Tenphel and Tibetan political leader Sikyong Dr Lobsang Sangay extended a warm reception to the spiritual leader at Gagal airport. The Dalai Lama wrapped up his week-long teaching tour to Arunachal Pradesh and departed for Delhi yesterday from Tawang. While Chief Minister Pema Khandu and other dignitaries saw him off at the Tawang helipad, thousands of ardent devotees from across the Himalayan region and Bhutan bade an emotional farewell to their most revered spiritual leader. Mr Khandu requested him to confer the Kalachakra Teaching in Arunachal Pradesh in the near future. The Tibetan spiritual leader reached the mountainous state of Tawang on April 7 after traversing over 550 km from Assam's Dibrugarh and crossing the 13,700 feet Sela Pass. The Dalai Lama thanked the Arunachal Pradesh government, in particular Chief Minister Pema Khandu, for making the visit 'special' and 'memorable' and promised to visit again, to confer the teachings.UNI ML RJ 1318 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0293-1227967.Xml Meghalaya will start constructing the assembly building to replace a 125-year-old Burmese teak building reduced to ashes 16 years ago, officials said on Thursday. From March 2001, assembly sessions have been held at the state's central library auditorium and later shifted to arts and culture auditorium within the premises of Brookside, the house where Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore began writing his "Shesher Kobita" in 1919. On Thursday, a high-powered committee of Meghalaya assembly, headed by Speaker Abu Taher Mondal, met to decide on a company to construct the building. Mondal said nine firms had presented their architectural designs before the assembly's high-powered committee in the presence of technical staff. "The committee will select the best among the nine designs and the chosen firm will be asked to prepare the structural design as well as a detailed project report for constructing the new building," he said. However, the Speaker said the new building would not be a replica of the heritage assembly building in Gothic style built by the British in pre-independent India. "We (government) targeted to start the construction of the new assembly chamber and the assembly secretariat within this year and complete it by 2019," Chief Minister Mukul Sangma said. "We need to have an assembly building befitting the aspiration of the people and legacy of the state, keeping in mind that Shillong was the seat of power for a long time both pre and post independence." Sangma said the proposed new assembly building would be built at the New Shillong Township in Mawdiangdiang, 12 km from Shillong, the capital of Meghalaya. He said the central government had declined to allocate any funds to the State. "The state government will earmark funds from its own resources for the building, which initial cost will be Rs 70-75 crore," Sangma said. --IANS rrk/pgh/mr ( 313 Words) 2017-04-13-14:20:07 (IANS) The accused, identified as Tatoba Garjade (35), had admitted his wife Manisha (30) to a private hospital in Hadapsar yesterday saying that she fell down from stairs. However, the woman died during treatment last night and a post-mortem revealed that she was murdered. According to police, Tatoba had told the doctors that Manisha became unconscious after falling from the stairs on the second floor of their apartment building on BT Kawade Road, Ghorpadi. Meanwhile, the police was informed about the incident and Manisha was taken to Sassoon Hospital. The post-mortem revealed that she was strangulated to death. An offence of murder was lodged at Mundhwa Police station. Police initiated a probe and questioned Tatoba, who confessed to having strangulated his wife during a fight. Tatoba has been arrested under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code. He will be produced before the court today for further remand.UNI SP NV SW SNU 1447 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0169-1228211.Xml Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC)President and home Minister G Parameshwar today said that thevictory of the ruling party in the byelections in Gundlupet andNanjangud Assembly constituencies has proved that there is no 'ModiWave' in Karnataka. Addressing a press conference, he said that the victory has alsoproved that the BJP's claim of making Karnataka free from Congresswill remain a distant dream and would not achieve 'Vision 150' inthe Assembly elections next year. "Mr Yeddyurappa's dream of winning 150 seats in the 2018 electionhas to be read by removing last two digit," he added. Mr Parameshwar said that BJP had termed the two byelection asSemifinal and a referendum on Congress, but the outcomehas proved that they have been defeated in the semifinal stageitself and the voters have given certificate that the Siddaramaiahgovernment is functioning without any corruption. "We from the beginning have been saying that the bypoll can neverbe a referendum but it was BJP which was terming it as the outcomewill see debacle of the ruling party. Now it is proved they arewrong in their calculation," he added. Mr Parameshwara said that "it is victory for inclusive growth,Politics followed by the Congress government. The out come hasgiven a message to BJP not to indulge in cast politics and divideand rule policy." He said that the victory has also proved that the ruling partyand the government are working together and there is no differenceof opinion as alleged by the opposition parties. "We worked withunity during the election and we were backed by the policies,programmes and achievements of the State Government. The peoplehave given certificate that the party is marching in rightdirection." Stating that the victory has added additional responsibility toperform, Mr Parameshwara said that Rs 1,87,000 crore budget will beimplemented and no programme will be shelved. Replying to a question, he said that whatever the allegationsmade by defeated candidate Srinivas Prasad is far from truth. "Heenjoyed all power and position in the party and now after joiningBJP just months back the Congress party has become corrupt party." "In Tamil Nadu the Election Commission cancelled the byelectionto R K Nagar because of the cash for vote controversy and if suchthing had taken place in Gundlupet and Nanjangud the EC could havetaken similar step" he added. To another question, he said that JD(S) did not field candidatebut did not officially annouce support to Congress candidates.UNI MSP CNR RSS1425 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0284-1228203.Xml Britain's top share index declined on Thursday, with financials in the spotlight as U.S. banks were set to report earnings, though volumes were light ahead of a market holiday.The blue-chip FTSE 100 index was down 0.5 percent at 7,311.88 points by 0945 GMT, in line with a broader decline on European markets.The FTSE 100 was on track to post a slight loss for the week.Financials weighed on the FTSE 100, taking off nearly 12 points. Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC, Standard Chartered and Barclays all fell by 1 percent to 1.6 percent, as investors anticipated earnings releases from their U.S. counterparts later in the day."Banks are on offer this morning, and we think that's ... because it's reporting season for the U.S. banks, so a bit of a choppy day in the banking sector globally," John Moore, trader at Berkeley Capital, said. "We're seeing a bit of risk-off ahead of the bank holiday weekend."Energy stocks were the biggest drag on the index, taking off around 15 points. BP and Royal Dutch Shell both were down around 1.4 percent as the price of oil edged lower.Stocks trading without rights to their latest dividend payout dragged, including Standard Life, which dropped 3.5 percent and was the biggest individual faller.Primark-owner Associated British Foods jumped 3.4 percent to its highest level since the beginning of January after Jefferies raised its rating on the stock to a "buy", citing continued strength in sugar and a turn in Primark margins ."The 19 April interims should confirm strong results ... thanks to fx translation boost and a sugar rebound. We also expect a more assured message on the Primark margin outlook," analysts at Jefferies said in a note.Precious metals miners were also in demand, with Fresnillo and Randgold Resources both gaining more than 1.2 percent.The underlying price of gold hit a five-month peak as investors sought safe-haven assets amid rising geopolitical tensions over U.S. relations with Russia and North Korea. A weaker U.S. dollar also helped.REUTERS SHS NS1537 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0329-1228370.Xml The bye-election for the seat was necessitated after Bahujan Samaj Party legislator Banwari Lal Kushavah, the BJP nominee's husband, was disqualified due to his conviction in a murder case in 2016. Of over 1.91 lakh voters, 77.14 per cent cast their ballots. In all, 15 candidates were in the fray. Shobha Rani, who took a lead from the very first round, polled 91,548 votes against Sharma's 52,875. There were 952 None Of The Above votes too. As soon as results were declared, BJP supporters burst firecrackers, danced to the drumbeats and offered sweets to each other. "It is vote for development. People have voted for 'Sab ka saath, sab ka vikas'," Medical Education and Health Minister Kalicharan Saraf said. "It is a win of Raje's leadership, her vision and the state's development under her leadership," Public Works Department Minister Younis Khan told IANS. The bypoll was a prestige issue for both the Congress and the ruling BJP. Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje along with state BJP President Ashok Parnami and her Cabinet colleagues spent days in the constituency to woo voters. Raje also organised a road show in the constituency. Congress fielded senior leaders, including state unit President Sachin Pilot, former Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and Leader of Opposition in assembly Rameshwar Dudi to campaign extensively in favour of party candidate. In the 2013 assembly elections, the Congress won only 21 of the 200 assembly seats whereas the BJP swept the polls by winning 163 seats. The BJP had 160 members in the assembly, with the figure now reaching 161 with the Dholpur win. The Congress has 24 MLAs in the 200-member assembly. --IANS as/tsb/vm ( 319 Words) 2017-04-13-16:02:12 (IANS) In a series of tweets from his twitter account, the PM said, "I am extremely honoured to be visiting Nagpur tomorrow, on the very special occasion of Ambedkar Jayanti. In Nagpur, I will pray at Deekshabhoomi, a holy spot that is very closely associated with Dr Ambedkar.'' Referring to the development projects, he said these will have a positive impact on people's lives. ''The development projects include IIIT, IIM and AIIMS and launch of Koradi Thermal Power Station. Will also address a public meeting,'' he tweeted. The day will culminate with a DigiDhan Mela, where he would present awards to Mega Draw winners of Lucky Grahak Yojana and DigiDhan Vyapar Yojna. ''We are unwavering in our efforts towards creating a strong, prosperous and inclusive India of Dr Ambedkar's dreams," he added.UNI SD SHK 1630 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0005-1228449.Xml Alliance partner of ruling BJP, the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) today reiterated its stand and said it is opposed to the construction of big dams and granting citizenship to Hindu Bangladeshis. AGP President Atul Bora, also the Agriculture Minister in the BJP-led Assam government, said the party will oppose any move to construct dams in the region. The AGP president said that they also oppose the Central government's move to grant citizenship to Hindu Bangladeshis who have fled to India to avoid alleged religious persecution. Mr Bora said the foreigners' issue will have to be taken up on the basis of the Assam Accord and they will not accept any digression. He also claimed that the party will seek two more ministries as and when Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal expands his cabinet. Just a day before, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) General Secretary Ram Madhav said the party is committed to ensure citizenship to the Hindu Bangladeshis residing in Assam. The BJP leader's statement comes after the recent Silapathar AASU office attack by Hindu Bangladeshi refugees led by NBBUWS leader Subodh Biswas. He further added that the BJP led Centre would soon free Hindu Bangladeshis held in detention camps. The Bangladeshi Hindus had vandalized the AASU office on March 6 under the banner of Nikhil Bharat Udbastu Samanway Samiti, a group fighting for citizenship rights of Bangladeshi Hindus. The All Assam Students' Union (AASU) and 29 other organisations representing various indigenous and ethnic communities of Assam had warned the BJP-led governments at the Centre and in the state against trying to settle Hindu Bangladeshis, who had arrived after 1971, and said these groups would not allow any such "conspiracy" to reduce the indigenous communities into a minority.UNI ABI AD1627 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0108-1228455.Xml Condemning Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh for his refusal to meet with visiting Canadian Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan by terming him "Khalistani", Aam Aadmi Party MLA and spokesman Sukhpal Singh Khaira today said it reflected the vindictiveness of Capt Singh towards Punjabis living in Canada. "It is unfortunate that Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh has not only insulted the Canadian Defence Minister, but entire Punjabis in general and Sikhs in particular, who have already proved their mettle on foreign land not only in business but in political arena as well by getting elected as MPs/MLAs to become Ministers," Mr Khaira said in a statement here. Capt Singh's "outburst'' against the Canadian Defence Minister is nothing else but his being vindictive towards him as he (Chief Minister) wanted to take 'revenge' from NRIs living in Canada because they did not welcome him (CM) during his pre-poll visit to Canada. "Captain must understand that people of Canada not only elected Harjit Sajjan as MP, but he also represents Government of Canada and as a Sikh and CM of Punjab, he should welcome the visiting Canadian Defence Minister," Mr Khaira added. It is pertinent to mention here that the Chief Minister has openly refused to meet the visiting Sikh Canadian Defence Minister and even stated "These Khalistani sympathisers had last year prevailed upon the authorities to block my entry into Canada". The AAP MLA demanded that Capt Singh should immediately withdraw his remarks against the Canadian Defence Minister. Mr Khaira said he being the senior leader of AAP and chief whip of the party would organise a welcome for the Canadian defence minister in case Capt Singh continued to stay adamant. UNI DB SW SNU 1654 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0292-1228469.Xml Leaders of the CPI -- the second largest party in the ruling Left Democratic Front goverment in Kerala -- on Thursday expressed unhappiness at a party executive meeting here over the state government's functioning. Communist Party of India Secretary Kanam Rajendran too expressed his unhappiness over the functioning of the Pinarayi Vijayan government during his media interaction after the party meeting. During the daylong meeting, various CPI leaders went hammer and tongs against what they said was the way the Kerala government under Vijayan is handling various issues. Rajendran first took on CPI-Marxist politburo member Prakash Karat, who last week reminded the CPI Kerala unit that it is still part of the LDF government and not in the opposition. Karat said the CPI-M will take up the statements against the government by some CPI state leaders with the CPI central leadership. "We are prepared for a discussion. The CPI-M just needs to intimate us the date for the discussions," Rajendran told reporters. "We will always play the role of a corrective force. We wish to remind him... that we have not taken up the opposition role... we are only concerned to see that the views of the Left are implemented," Rajendran said. Rajendran expressed displeasure against Vijayan and two senior party colleagues -- Power Minister M.M. Mani and E.P. Jayarajan -- who last week criticised Rajendran on the issue of alleged police excesses. "Neither I nor my party has created any controversy on any issue. It should be looked into by those who create it," said Rajendran while responding to a query on controversies in the past 10 months after the Vijayan government assumed office. --IANS sg/tsb/dg ( 285 Words) 2017-04-13-17:12:08 (IANS) In a bid to attract investors, the Puducherry Administration would hold a two-day investors conference in Chennai in June, Chief Minister V Narayansamy said here today.Talking to the newspersons after a consultation meeting pertaining to the setting up of a Software Technology Park here, Mr Narayanasamy said the Puducherry Administration is taking steps to attract industrial units here, thereby generating employment opportunities.As part of it, several concessions were announced in the new industrial policy, he added. Following this, several entrepreneurs have shown interest in setting up units here, Mr Narayananasamy said.The Chief Minister said a consultation meeting in respect of setting up a software technology park was held.Already, a site was allotted for the same in Mettuppalayam here, but no work materialised during the last regime, he said. Now, several entrepreneurs from Tamil Nadu and Karnataka had come forward to start industries in Puducherry and the Government would provide them all assistance, he assured.He said the software technology park would be set up in a 25 acre site at Kalapet here at a cost of Rs 10-crore. Six industrial units have come forward to set up industries here with an investment of Rs 500-crore. As many as 2000 persons would get employment from the industries producing electronic goods and accessories, he added.Mr Narayansamy said the Administration is taking steps to ensure the release of Karaikal fishermen, who were arrested by the Sri Lankan navy on charges of drug trafficking.Of the six,five have nothing to do with the case and the Government had already requested to release them. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had already written to the Sri Lankan Government to release the five, Mr Naidu informed, adding that he also got touch with the Indian High Commission in Sri Lanka over the matter. UNI PAB RJ SNU 1716 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0098-1228514.Xml Former Punjab Deputy Chief Minister and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal today asked Chief Minister Amarinder Singh not to act petty and spiteful and give the Defence Minister of a sovereign country (Canada) the respect he deserves.Reacting strongly to the irresponsible statement made by Capt Singh with regard to Canadian Defence Minister Harjit Singh Sajjan, the SAD president said, "Capt Amarinder should not have let a personal incident cloud his judgement and he should have refrained from making disparaging remarks against Sajjan as well as all other Punjabi representatives in the Canadian parliament. Punjabis worldwide are proud of their elected representatives in Canada and Sajjan is an example of personal accomplishment for the entire Punjabi diaspora. He should not be disrespected in this manner".Mr Badal said taking such stands was counter productive and would not augur well for Punjab and come in the way of trade and bilateral relations with Canada."Moreover, it is not in the fitness of things for senior political leaders to show such rancour. One can take a lesson from Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He was denied visa by the United States but that action did not make him bitter to that county. In fact, Mr Modi has gone out of way to improve relations between India and the US."Punjabis worldwide also expect Amarinder to behave in a similar fashion and show political statesmanship and use his office to improve relations with Canada not to ruin them. If the Union Government and the States are giving due deserved respect to Mr Sajjan so should Capt Amarinder and the Punjab Government. This is the least which is expected from them considering Sajjan is from their state", he added.Mr Badal also highlighted how the SAD-BJP Government tenure had witnessed a number of state visits by Punjabi ministers from Canada. "We had always accorded due respect to visiting dignitaries and even invited elected Punjabi representatives from around the world for the NRI Sammelans held to focus on NRI issues and find resolutions to their problems", he added. UNI DB RSA SNU 1823 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0292-1228579.Xml Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal today announced that land in the State would not be acquired without the consent of farmers and rates prescribed for land to be acquired for development works would be paid to the farmers without any delay. The announcement to this effect was made by the Chief Minister at a function organised to celebrate Deen Bandhu Sir Chhotu Ram Jayanti and Baisakhi Parva here. He said four regional centres would be set up under the horticultural university which was coming up in Karnal. Out of these, the regional centre to be set up in Jind would be named after Martyr Capt Pawan Kumar. The process to identify land for this centre would start soon. Deen Bandhu Sir Chhotu Ram had worked throughout his life for the welfare of labourers and workers. A strong society could be developed by following his principles. Therefore, every person should follow the path shown by Deen Bandhu Sir Chhotu Ram and contribute to the development of the country. The Chief Minister said since agricultural land was shrinking, the farmers could earn more by getting engaged in agriculture-related business or horticulture. They could earn profit by taking produce to the Mandis located in Delhi and Noida where there is huge demand of fruits, flowers and vegetables. About four crore people reside in Delhi and nearby areas, and the farmers of Haryana could cater to their needs, he added. He said the number of the Government jobs was limited and it was not possible to provide Government job to everyone. A university is being set up for developing and honing the skills of youths through about 800 technical courses. Besides, the State Government has been providing employment to youth under its 'Saksham' scheme and so far, about 9,000 capable youths have benefitted from it. With to view to providing employment and self-employment opportunities to the youth, the state government is considering a proposal to expand the provisions of the scheme, he added. Union Minister of Steel Birender Singh said time had come for the farmers to turn to sectors other than farming to increase their income. Only farming would not be enough. Farmers and their children would have to enter into different sectors otherwise they would lag behind. "Every person in the society, be it rich or poor, wants to maintain brotherhood, but some leaders mislead the people just to grind their own axes", he added. He asked people to make their own judgement about people and affairs. On this occasion, the Chief Minister announced that the Haibatpur Chowk at Safidon Road would be named after Deen Bandhu Sir Chhotu Ram. He also announced a donation of Rs 21-lakh for development of the Jat Dharamshala, Jind. Apart from this, he honoured those who had contributed and those who have promised to make contribution for the construction of rooms in Jat Dharamshala. He also inaugurated senior citizen hall constructed on the Jat Dharamshala premises and released a book entitled 'Bhartiya Prashashan' authored by Dr Pawan Arya.UNI DB SW SNU 1838 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0292-1228695.Xml "Just 2 per cent voters exercised their franchise during repoll in 38 polling stations in Budgam in Srinagar Lok Sabha seat," an official told UNI. The re-polling began at 0700 and was concluded at 1600 hrs. Meanwhile, life came to a grinding halt as business and other activities were crippled and traffic was off the roads due to strike called by Separatists today in Budgam. Even though separatists had called for strike only in election bound areas in the district, shops and business establishments were closed and traffic was off the roads in entire Budgam. However, very few private vehicles could be seen plying on some interior routes. Authorities had imposed restrictions under Section 144 CrPC in Budgam district, barring where polling was held, to prevent any law and order. The Election Commission (EC) had announced re-poll at these polling stations. picking up from para 4, line one of DR 1 (Election-JK-Repoll).UNI ABS SW SNU 1700 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0433-1228504.Xml "The Jammu and Kashmir issue is a Congress creation. Had it been left to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel who successfully unified 565 princely states, he would have tackled it successfully," Naidu told reporters here. Naidu was responding to senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad's statement that violence and failure of governance in Jammu and Kashmir were matters of grave national concern and that the NDA regime was doing nothing about it. "You (Congress) have taken it on yourself. Now, the Congress party is trying to create problems for the country by making it political. You are hard on nationalists and soft on terrorists.you sympathise with the Al Ummah and try to find fault with the RSS," said Naidu. Reacting to reports that some Congress leaders in Kerala were planning to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Naidu said the saffron party is not making any efforts in this direction. "No wise men and women can stay in the Congress as it is a sinking ship. It has deviated from reality," Naidu added. The Congress-led delegation had submitted a memorandum on alleged irregularities in EVMs to President Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday. After meeting President Mukherjee, Azad said that the alleged tampering of EVMs, and the backdoor entry by the BJP to form the governments in Goa and Manipur, have raised questions about the electoral process in the country. Azad said the united opposition sought the president's intervention to maintain constitutional safeguards in India. (ANI) The parents of students studying in private schools here strongly protested at the district headquarters against the sudden fee hike and submitted a memorandum to the District Magistrate (DM). Leading the protest, Bahujan Samaj Party leader Satyapal Chaudhary said that private schools are violating the terms of No Objection Certificate (NOC), which clearly states that the schools cannot charge building, annual, activity fee and other donations. If schools are found charging such type of fees, the NOC is liable to be null and void. Saying that the schools are continuously flouting the NOC under the nose of the district administration, Chaudhary demanded that the terms and conditions of the NOC must be displayed in the premises of all schools in bold letters. Meanwhile, All School Parents Association President Sachin Soni announced that he will be on a dharna outside the office of the District Inspector of Schools (DIOS) on April 17. Soni alleged that district officials are ignoring the issue and are not initiating any action against schools despite clear intensions of the Uttar Pradesh government. During the protest, police stopped parents from entering the DM's chamber which lead to a scuffle. After about half an hour, DM Nidhi Kesarwani asked the police to allow a five-member delegation. During talks, the matter was resolved after a memorandum was submitted to Kesarwani in which the parents demanded to enforce the terms of NOC. Meanwhile, parents started sitting on a dharma outside other public schools, including DPS Ghaziabad Vasundhara, Children's Academy and Sun Valley at Indirapuram, demanding to withdraw the inappropriately hiked fee. --IANS sps/vgu/vm ( 275 Words) 2017-04-13-21:42:07 (IANS) Objecting to comments by some people linking alcoholism with farmland suicides in the states, Kadu said it is erroneous to relate the two. In the past, he said Congress leader Narayan Rane commented that farmers commit suicide due to alcoholism, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari had observed that farmers burdened by excessive cost of weddings ended their lives. "It is wrong to say thisa All sorts of people make all kinds of allegations. Who does not drink? Seventy-five per cent of lawmakers drink, even journalists drink. Hema Malini is a bumper drinker, has she committed suicide," Kadu asked. He was speaking after addressing a farmers' rally in Nanded this afternoon when he sought to "clarify" how alcoholism and farmland suicides were not connected. Controversies are not alien to this six-time legislator from Achalpur in Amravati, who has shot into limelight for various causes and agitations, like climbing onto a water tank in 2006 in a "Sholay"-style act to draw the government's attention to farmers suicides in Vidarbha. More recently, last year he had assaulted a health department official after which the government employees retaliated against him with a strike, forcing police to lodge a complaint in the matter, and even unilaterally rejecting a fat salary hike for legislators. --IANS qn/ahm/vm ( 252 Words) 2017-04-13-21:42:12 (IANS) Senior Congress leader Narayan Rane today denied meeting BJP national chief Amit Shah along with Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis in Ahmedabad last evening. While putting all speculations about his meeting to rest in a news conference here, Mr Rane said he had gone to Ahmedabad yesterday for a personal meeting in a hotel there and at the end of the meeting, which went on till late at night, he stayed back and came back to Mumbai this morning. There were speculations in a section of media that Mr Rane went to Ahmedabad with Mr Fadnavis and might have met Mr Shah, who was also coincidentally in Ahmedabad yesterday, to have talkson possibility of joining BJP. Mr Rane asked mediapersons that, ''If I had gone to Mr Shah's residence to meet him, show the photographs of Mr Shah's house and video clip. There was an old offer from BJP. If I had joined BJP, now I would have been a minister in the central government.'' Mr Rane is unhappy with the functioning of the Congress party in the state, and BJP is searching for a strong leader to take on its alliance partner Shiv Sena in the Konkan region. A former chief minister from the Konkan, Mr Rane is influential in the region. He started as a Shakha Pramukh of the Shiv Sena and climbed the ladder. Late Sena chief Bal Thackeray made him chief minister in 1999 during the Sena-BJP government rule. However, following Uddhav Thackeray's emergence, Mr Ranedefected to the Congress in 2005. He was a minister in successive Congress governments till 2014, however, he was unhappy as he had not been offered the post of chief minister.UNI ST SS SB 2326 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0169-1229096.Xml A 35-year-old villager from the district died of sunstroke early this week, MLA from Shahapur Pandurang Barora told today.Sharing further details, the MLA said the villager Kashinath Agiwale of Dand village had walked more than 10 kms to fetch water and on way back he fell down in the backwaters of the Bhatsa lake and died instantly on Monday. The MLA today visited the family members of the deceased and consoled them.He blamed the authorities for the death of the villager and said since long he had been asking the authorities to ply water tankers for the villagers but in vain.Even in a DPC meeting, he had raised the issue of the shortage of water to the villages of Sahapur taluka but theauthorities turned a deaf ear to his demands, Mr Barora claimed.Meanwhile, the issue of death of the villager due to water scarcity and heat wave today kicked-up a controversy, with other organisations joining the bandwagon to blame the administration. Shramajivi Sanghatna chief Vivek Pandit condemned the incident and demanded that offence of murder should be registered against the tehsildar and block-development officer in this connection. He also said the activists of the Sanghatana along with the family members of the deceased will stage a 'dharna' in front of the tehsil office on Saturday to protest against the lethargy of the administration, demanding to tackle the water scarcity in the taluka at the earliest. UNI XR SS PY 2302 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0169-1229259.Xml Baloch leaders have condemned Pakistan for sentencing Indian citizen Kulbhushan Jadhav to death. Dubbing the death sentence given to Jadhav as 'inhuman and illegal', Baloch Republican Party (BRP) member Ashraf Sherjan said that Pakistan is committing a crime by giving a death sentence order to Jadhav. He urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to do everything to save Jadhav's life. Sherjan said Pakistan is indulging in a fake propaganda by stating that Jadhav is connected to Balochistan. "No spies can take their national ID card and work as a spy with spy agencies but Pakistan is doing this to label Kulbushan Yadav involved in Balochistan activities Iis totally a fake propaganda," he said. Sherjan said Pakistan should bring Jadhav to the international court if he is guilty and connected to any terrorism activity in Balochistan. He added that Pakistan by itself does not have any right to give death sentences to an Indian citizen, or for that matter to any foreign citizen. "Just last month, Pakistan tried via Interpol Brahamdagh Khan Bugti which totally failed then later few weeks ago when Abdul Bugti was delivering his speech at UN, Pakistan and China both tried to stop him and over there also Pakistan failed," he said. "So, all Pakistan's attempts on Baloch leaders are failing now and they have now brought Kulbhushan Jadhav who is an innocent Indian citizen. So that's why I'm requesting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and rest of the Indian leaders to save the life of Kulbhushan Jadhav," he added. Meanwhile, representative of Balochistan at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) Mehran Marri called the death sentence given to Jadhav as 'extra judicial killing' and a 'premeditated murder'. He said Pakistan has been carrying out pre-meditative murder and extra judicial killing in Balochistan for 70 years with full impunity. "Pakistan is forgetting that Jadhav is not a Baloch, he is from India, he has is got a backing of a very strong country and India will give befitting reply to Pakistan," he said. Marri appreciated the comment of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Subramanian Swamy, who had said if Pakistan takes such measures then India should recognise Balochistan as an independent sovereign country. "We thank him for that comment and hope he follows through what he has said," he added. Jadhav was arrested in March last year, "for his involvement in espionage and sabotage activities against Pakistan," according to a statement released by the Pakistan armed forces. The statement said Jadhav confessed that he was tasked by Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), to "plan, coordinate and organize espionage/sabotage activities aiming to destabilise and wage war against Pakistan." A military court in Pakistan earlier this week found Jadhav guilty on two counts of espionage and sentenced him to death. India has strongly objected to the sentencing, saying consular officials were denied access to Jadhav during his trial. External Affairs Minister, Sushma Swaraj had on Tuesday issued a stern warning to Pakistan, saying that Islamabad should be wary of taking such an extreme step as it could result in damaging the bilateral relations between the already hostile neighbors and vowed to go "out of the way" to save Jadhav amid an outrage in this country.(ANI) The United Nations (UN) on Wednesday declined to comment on the death sentence awarded to alleged Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav, citing the world body was not in a position to judge the case. "We are not in a position to judge the process or to have a position on this particular case," The Dawn quoted UN secretary general's spokesperson Stephane Dujarric, as replying to a poser. "Overall in terms of relations between India and Pakistan, we underline and continue to underline the need for the parties to find a peaceful solution and to engage through engagement and dialogue," he added. Earlier, Pakistan Defence Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif ruled out any possibility of an immediate execution of Jadhav, citing three appellate forums were available for him under the law. India has sent out a stern message to Pakistan with the Parliament strongly condemning the Pakistan Military Court's verdict sentencing Jadhav to death on charges of spying. Replying to the issue in the Lok Sabha during the Question Hour on April 11, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh asserted that the government would do whatever is possible to give justice to Jadhav. Singh said India's request for basic consular access to Jadhav was denied several times. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, in a suo motu statement made in both the Houses of Parliament, warned Islamabad of consequences in bilateral relations if death sentence on Kulbhushan Jadhav is carried out. She said if the decision of the Pakistani court is implemented, it will be a pre-meditated murder asserting that there is no evidence against Jadhav. There were also strong protests in front of the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi. Jadhav, who was arrested in March last year by Pakistan and accused by the country of spying, was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on Monday triggering tension between India and Pakistan. Observers and experts on criminal or espionage-related laws in a majority of countries have suggested that the death sentence against Jadhav is a clear violation of Article 36 of the Vienna Convention that makes it mandatory for every government to provide consular access to an arrested foreign national by officials of his/her government. (ANI) Venezuelans in poor areas blocked streets and lit fires during scattered protests across the country on Tuesday night, and two people were killed during the growing unrest in the midst of a crippling economic crisis.In a worrying sign for leftist President Nicolas Maduro, groups in Caracas' traditionally pro-government hillside slums and low-income neighborhoods took to the streets, witnesses and opposition lawmakers reported.Maduro foes were galvanized by footage of a crowd in the south-eastern Bolivar state heckling and throwing objects at the closely-protected leader during a rally on Tuesday, before state television cut off the broadcast.In the western Lara state, two people, aged 13 and 36, were killed during unrest on Tuesday, the state prosecutor's office said in a statement. Lara's opposition governor Henri Falcon blamed violence on "infiltrators" and "delinquents" who roamed on motorcycles after an energy blackout."They go by neighborhoods and shoot people who are protesting," said Falcon, a former member of the ruling party, urging a negotiation to end Venezuela's political crisis.The opposition says Maduro, a former bus driver and union leader who took office four years ago, has morphed into a dictator after a Supreme Court decision in late March to assume the functions of the opposition-led congress.The court quickly overturned the most controversial part of its decision, but the move breathed new life into the fractured opposition movement.Two young men had already been killed in protests during the last week, according to authorities. Many are bracing for further violence in a country that is racked by crime and has one of the world's highest murder rates.Witnesses said residents of a number of working-class Caracas neighborhoods blocked streets with trash or burning debris on Tuesday night, describing confused street melees and clashes with security forces. The capital appeared calm on Wednesday, although some roads were charred and littered with broken glass.Government officials did not provide an official account of the events, and the Information Ministry did not respond to an email seeking comment.Maduro has said that under a veneer of pacifism, a U.S.-backed right-wing opposition is encouraging violent protests in a bid to topple his government and get its hands on Venezuela's oil wealth.On Wednesday night, he said the heckling incident a day earlier in the city of San Felix was an opposition attempt to "ambush" him that was thwarted by his loyalists."They had prepared an ambush and the people neutralized it," he said. "I want to thank the people of San Felix for their expressions of fervor, passion, love and support.""MADURO DICTATOR"Maduro's adversaries are demanding the government call delayed state elections, which polls suggest would not go well for the ruling Socialists. They also want an early presidential vote after authorities quashed a recall referendum against Maduro last year.A ban on opposition leader Henrique Capriles from holding office for 15 years drew broad criticism as he was seen as the opposition's best presidential hope.But it is Venezuela's extended economic crisis that has ordinary people fuming.Venezuelans have been suffering food and medicine shortages for months, leading many to skip meals or go without crucial treatment. Lines of hundreds form in front of supermarkets as people jostle for hours under the hot sun hoping price-controlled rice or flour will be delivered.The crisis has especially hurt the poor, long the base of support of Maduro and his predecessor the late Hugo Chavez.Protesters say they have also been encouraged by stronger condemnation from American and European nations in the last two weeks."We cannot accept that the regime is willing to sacrifice Venezuelan lives to remain in power," said Luis Almagro, the head of the Organization of American States, in a video posted on Wednesday, urging elections.Another round of protests are planned for Thursday in Venezuela's more than 300 municipalities. Opposition leaders are calling for the "mother of all marches" on April 19.ARRESTS, LOOTINGAmid what the opposition coalition says is a crackdown on dissent, some 71 people were arrested on Tuesday, according to rights group Penal Forum.In total, 364 people were arrested between April 4-12 during the most sustained protests since 2014, with 183 people still behind bars, the group added.A group of young men and teenagers were arrested for throwing "sharp objects" against Maduro's vehicle on Tuesday night, according to a report by a local National Guard division seen by Reuters. Two sources told Reuters the protesters were hurling stones.Local media reported lootings overnight in the working class bedroom community of Guarenas outside Caracas, as well as in parts of the capital.State officials have tweeted images and videos of demonstrators vandalizing public property and throwing rocks at police.Despite the spiking tensions, many in the opposition worry extended protests will not spur early or fair elections, but rather increase clashes in the already turbulent country.Major anti-government protests in 2014 eventually floundered, though the opposition at the time did not have as clear-cut demands, poor neighborhoods largely abstained, and the economy was in better shape.REUTERS CJ RAI0847 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0400-1227870.Xml BananaStock/iStock/Thinkstock(OCALA, Fla.) -- A group of friends at a Florida state park caught the moment a horse attacked an alligator on video. Krystal Berry and her friends went to Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park in Ocala on Wednesday to celebrate their recent graduation from nursing school and were filming the unlikely enemies as they stood near each other in a field, she told Storyful. In the video, the group of horses appears to be grazing near the alligator when one closest to the reptile suddenly charges toward it, running over the alligator at least twice as it hisses back angrily. The alligator appears to fight back, attempting to bite the horse after the force of the attack sent it into the air. The encounter transfixed a small crowd, which seemed to be on the gator's side. "Just leave him alone," one person behind the camera says. The animals then retreat, with the horse trotting away quickly, keeping an eye on the alligator as it slowly crawls to the opposite side of the field. Berry asked park officials to check if the animals were harmed in the scuffle, and she said they told her that neither showed any signs of stress or bleeding. Paynes Prairie is located about 10 miles south of the University of Florida in Gainesville and is a popular recreational destination for students. The university's mascot is the Florida Gators. Copyright 2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. A groundbreaking black jurist who became the first Muslim woman to serve as a US judge was found dead in New York's Hudson River, police said.Sheila Abdus-Salaam, a 65-year-old associate judge of New York's highest court, was found floating off Manhattan's west side at about 1:45 p.m. EDT yesterday, a police spokesman said.Police pulled Abdus-Salaam's fully clothed body from the water and she was pronounced dead at the scene. Her family identified her and an autopsy would determine the cause of death, the spokesman said.Abdus-Salaam, a native of Washington, DC, became the first African-American woman appointed to the Court of Appeals when Democratic Governor Mario Cuomo named her to the state's high court in 2013."Justice Sheila Abdus-Salaam was a trailblazing jurist whose life in public service was in pursuit of a more fair and more just New York for all," Cuomo said in a statement.The Princeton Encyclopedia of American Political History said Abdus-Salaam was the first female Muslim to serve as a US judge.Citing unidentified sources, the New York Post reported that Abdus-Salaam had been reported missing from her New York home earlier yesterday. Attempts to reach her family were unsuccessful.A graduate of Barnard College and Columbia Law School, Abdus-Salaam started her law career with East Brooklyn Legal Services and served as a New York state assistant attorney general, according to the Court of Appeals website.She held a series of judicial posts after being elected to a New York City judgeship in 1991. REUTERS SDR RAI0835 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0431-1227860.Xml After less than three months in office, President Donald Trump has abruptly shifted his stance on an array of foreign policy issues from the US relationship with Russia and China to the value of the NATO alliance.Trump, who ran for the White House on a pledge to shake up the status quo in Washington, repeatedly lashed out at China during the campaign, accusing Beijing of being a "grand champion" of currency manipulation.Candidate Trump also dismissed the NATO military alliance as obsolete and said he hoped to build warmer ties with Russia.But at a White House news conference and in a newspaper interview yesterday, he offered starkly different views on those issues, saying his relationship with Moscow was souring while ties with Beijing were improving. He also lavished praise on NATO, saying it was adapting to changing global threats."I said it was obsolete. It's no longer obsolete," Trump said as he stood at a news conference alongside NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in the White House East Room on Wednesday.The reversals on Russia and NATO could reassure US allies in Europe who were rattled by Trump's overtures toward Moscow during the campaign. But the president's talk of "bonding" with Chinese President Xi Jinping could sow confusion in Asia, where US allies are fearful of a rising China.Trump's apparent shifts toward a more conventional foreign policy came amid infighting within his administration that has lately seen a decline in the influence of political operatives, mainly his chief strategist, Steve Bannon.Six months ago, candidate Trump suggested he was eager for an alliance with Russian President Vladimir Putin."If he says great things about me, I'm going to say great things about him," Trump said last September."ALL-TIME LOW"Yesterday, however, Trump said he had growing concerns about Russia's support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad."We may be at an all-time low in terms of a relationship with Russia," said Trump, who ordered the firing of US cruise missiles at a Syrian airfield last week to punish Assad for suspected use of poison gas in Syria's civil war.While criticizing Russia yesterday, Trump said he and Xi had bonded during the Chinese president's visit to the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, where they dined together with their wives and held talks.Ahead of that visit, Trump had predicted "difficult" discussions on trade.The improving ties with Beijing were underscored when Trump told the Wall Street Journal in an interview yesterday that he would not declare China a currency manipulator as he had pledged to do on his first day in office.Trump, a former real estate developer, took office in January as a government novice whose foreign policy mantra during was a vow to keep America safe and build up the US military.Christine Wormuth, former undersecretary of defense in the Obama administration, said Trump had a "steep learning curve" on foreign policy when he came into office but that it was beginning to even out."He's starting to have a more nuanced and deeper understanding of a lot of issues," said Wormuth, now a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.The evolving Trump foreign policy appears to reflect less of the influence of his campaign team and more the views of Defense Secretary James Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and national security adviser HR McMaster, all of whom are deeply skeptical of Russia.Trump' former national security adviser, retired General Michael Flynn, was forced to resign on Feb. 13 for contacts with Russia's ambassador to the United States before Trump took office.The new tone on foreign policy comes as Trump has been trying to settle the palace intrigue inside the White House, where Bannon, former chief of the conservative Breitbart News organization, has been at odds with the more mainstream Jared Kushner, the senior White House adviser who is Trump's son-in-law.In an interview with the New York Post on Tuesday, Trump offered only lukewarm support for Bannon."I like Steve, but you have to remember he was not involved in my campaign until very late," Trump said. REUTERS AKC 0729 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0432-1227849.Xml South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se said today he believed the United States will consult Seoul if it is considering a pre-emptive strike against North Korea.Yun's comments at a South Korean parliamentary hearing came amid rising tensions in the region over the possibility North Korea could conduct a new nuclear or missile test.The possibility of US military action against North Korea in response to such tests gained traction following last week's US strikes against Syria, which came in retaliation for a deadly gas attack. REUTERS AKC 0751 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0432-1227855.Xml Gen McMaster would be the first high-level Trump administration official to visit Islamabad. He is also expected to travel to India and Afghanistan. However, the Islamabad leg of his trip has not been officially announced. With concerns over Russia's growing role in Afghanistan, McMaster's visit almost coincides with the 12-nation meeting on Afghanistan being hosted by Moscow on April 14. The U.S. declined an invitation for the meeting, aimed at formulating a regional approach for peace and stability in Afghanistan, questioning Russian motives. A series of meetings have also begun in Islamabad to finalise Pakistan's message during Gen McMaster's visit, as reported by The Dawn. Earlier, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday in an interview with the state-run newswire APP urged the Trump administration to play a role for the resolution of Kashmir dispute. Pakistan is attending the Moscow meeting on Afghanistan, but has been stressing that U.S. participation was a must for the process to succeed. "We continue to be encouraged by Pakistan's operations in North Waziristan and elsewhere in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. Pakistan's efforts have reduced the ability of some militant groups to use North Waziristan and Fata as a safe haven for terrorism," said Adam Stump, a U.S. Defence Department spokesperson. (ANI) Addressing a weekly press briefing in Islamabad, spokesperson Nafees Zakaria said Lt. Col. Zahir had been trapped in Nepal "after being lured into a job offer", reports the Dawn. He said Pakistani authorities are in touch with the Nepali government to trace the missing ex-army man and Nepal is cooperating in this regard. Zakaria, however, warned against linking Zahir's disappearance with the case of Kulbhushan Jadhav, the alleged Indian spy sentenced to death by a Pakistani tribunal earlier this week on charges of espionage and sabotage. "It is unreasonable on India's part to link the Jadhav case with Habib Zahir," he said, reminding that Zahir had retired from the army a long time before Jadhav's arrest. Lt.Col. Zahir, who retired from the army in 2014, went missing on April 6 from Lumbini, a Buddhist pilgrimage site close to the Indian border, where he arrived after somebody by the name of Mark Thompson had contacted him via email and telephone for a job interview in Nepal. (ANI) Media reports quoted police, as saying that Judge Salaam, 65, had been missing from her home since Wednesday morning, and that they had found her body floating in the Hudson River off Manhattan's west side at around 1.45 p m local time. Police said that they pulled Judge Salaam's fully clothed body from the water and pronounced her dead at the scene. She was identified by her family. The body has been sent for an autopsy to determine the cause of death. Salaam was a judge of the Court of Appeals when New York Governor Mario Cuomo named her to the state's high court in 2013. She was a graduate of Barnard College and Columbia Law School. (ANi with inputs) Violence against civilians in Central African Republic (CAR), including summary executions and mutilations, is reaching levels not seen since the height of its years-long conflict, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has said.The country descended into chaos when a mainly Muslim Seleka rebel alliance ousted then-president Francois Bozize in 2013, sparking reprisals from Christian militias. Religion has played a waning role as splinter groups now clash over control of territory and resources.Recent violence has been concentrated in four prefectures in the centre and east, where the government and a 13,000-strong United Nations peacekeeping mission have struggled to contain the bloodshed, the medical charity said."Our teams have witnessed summary executions and have found mutilated bodies left exposed to terrorise populations," Rene Colgo, the deputy head of MSF's mission in CAR, said in a statement released late yesterday.Fighting has spread to parts of the country previously considered stable but where rival armed groups are now battling for control of towns and areas with gold and diamond mines.Some 100,000 people were displaced between September 2016 and February 2017 amid the renewed clashes, according to the United Nations, and MSF is now treating trauma victims at clinics intended to provide healthcare to rural communities."The Central African Republic is spiralling into levels of violence that have not been seen since the peak of the conflict in 2014," said MSF representative Emmanuel Lampaert.One in five Central Africans is currently displaced and around 2.2 million people, half the total population, need humanitarian assistance, according to the United Nations.The United States yesterday imposed financial sanctions against two militia leaders - one a Muslim rebel chief and the other a Christian militia leader - accused of collaborating on plans to destabilise CAR. REUTERS SHS BL1644 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0329-1228471.Xml The Syrian army said an air strike late yesterday by the US-led coalition hit poison gas supplies belonging to Islamic State, releasing a toxic substance that killed "hundreds", but the coalition denied carrying out raids in the area.A statement by the army, flashed today by Syrian state TV, said the incident in the eastern Deir al-Zor province proved that Islamic State and al Qaeda-linked militants "possess chemical weapons".The report could not immediately be independently verified.US Air Force Colonel John Dorrian, a spokesman for the coalition, said it had carried out no air strikes in that area at that time."The Syrian claim is incorrect and likely intentional misinformation," he said in an email to Reuters.The United States launched cruise missiles at a Syrian air base last week, in response to a deadly poison gas attack in the west of the country that Washington blamed on President Bashar al-Assad's government.Syria and its ally Russia deny Damascus carried out any such chemical attack. Moscow has said the poison gas in that incident belonged to rebels.The US strike on the Syrian air base was the first time Washington has deliberately and directly targeted the Syrian government. It is separately waging an air campaign against Islamic State in eastern Syria. REUTERS SHS BL1819 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0329-1228719.Xml U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday showcased a positive view towards both China and Russia. "I have great confidence that China will properly deal with North Korea. If they are unable to do so, the U.S., with its allies, will! U.S.A.," tweeted the President.
He followed it with yet another tweet this time about good ties with Russia in the future saying, "Things will work out fine between the U.S.A. and Russia. At the right time everyone will come to their senses & there will be lasting peace!."I have great confidence that China will properly deal with North Korea. If they are unable to do so, the U.S., with its allies, will! U.S.A.
Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 13, 2017
Backing away from a campaign pledge, Trump said Wednesday that his administration won't label China a currency manipulator in a report due this week, though he does think the U.S. dollar "is getting too strong." Trump began to bash China in the 2015 speech that began his campaign, saying Beijing kept its currency artificially low to give its manufacturers an unfair advantage in global trade. The change in opinion on China comes as the US faces an intractable crisis in North Korea. North Korea appears to be preparing to conduct a nuclear test in a show of defiance towards Donald Trump, who has not ruled out military action to pressure the regime into abandoning its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes. The US-based monitoring group 38 North said on Thursday that the satellite images from the North's Punggye-ri site showed it was "primed and ready" for what would be the country's sixth nuclear test since 2006. As for Russia, Trump said on Wednesday, "We're not getting along with Russia at all," following last week's airstrikes on Syria, Moscow's key Middle Eastern ally. In response to the alleged chemical attack in Syria's Khan Sheikhoun, the U.S. launched dozens of Tomahawk to destroy the Shayrat airfield in Syria, believed by Washington be the base for warplanes that carried out the chemical attack on the rebel-held town. Russian President Vladimir Putin denounced the strike as "act of aggression" and said it violated international law.(ANI) US President Donald Trump is dispatching his first high-level delegation to Afghanistan to begin to formulate a strategy for a war that has entangled NATO forces for more than 15 years and continues to inflict heavy casualties on local troops.Afghan officials hope National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster will provide clarity from an administration that they feel has neglected their plight as it concentrates on crises in Syria and North Korea.On Wednesday, Trump announced he was sending McMaster to "find out how we can make progress alongside our Afghan partners and NATO allies." The timing of the visit has yet to be confirmed by U.S. and Afghan officials.Despite general declarations of support for the Western-backed government in Kabul, the Trump administration has given few concrete signals of its plans for Afghanistan, which remains heavily dependant on billions of dollars in American aid.U.S. forces also make up the bulk of NATO's training mission in Afghanistan, provide close air support to soldiers on the ground and form a separate counter-terrorism unit that targets Islamic State, al Qaeda and other militant networks.U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who like McMaster is a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, was forced to scrap a visit to the country in February because of bad weather.The makes McMaster's trip the first by a senior official from the new administration, although earlier this month he spent an hour on the phone to Afghan counterpart Mohammad Hanif Atmar for a detailed brief, according to one Western official.That may signal renewed interest in Afghanistan, where nearly 9,000 American troops are deployed, but exactly what the Trump administration will decide is unclear, the official added.The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General John Nicholson, told Congress in February that he needed a "few thousand" more troops to help train the Afghan security forces, which are battling Taliban insurgents as well as militants claiming allegiance to Islamic State.Afghan officials have held out hope that veterans like McMaster and Mattis would help form policies favoured by Kabul, including taking a harder line on Pakistan and the Taliban."Both these gentlemen know very well that Afghanistan's growing insecurity is because of Pakistan's ongoing support for the Taliban and other insurgent groups, and we are impatiently waiting for a clear policy announcement," said one senior Afghan government official.Pakistan denies aiding or harbouring Islamist militants, and has accused Afghanistan in turn of allowing insurgents to cross from its territory into Pakistan to carry out attacks.One signal that the United States may change its policies toward Pakistan is McMaster's decision to hire Lisa Curtis, a researcher with the Heritage Foundation think-tank in Washington, to oversee South Asia affairs.In February Curtis co-authored an article calling for the United States to "levy heavy costs on Pakistan for policies that help perpetuate terrorism in the region."McMaster is expected to visit Pakistan and India as well during his trip, where the issue of violence in Afghanistan and militant groups in Pakistan will likely be discussed."If and when it takes place, I'm sure his discussions with our national security adviser and other meetings in India will cover prominently the situation in the region most importantly in Afghanistan," said a spokesman for India's Ministry of External Affairs.Pakistan's foreign ministry spokesman Mohammed Nafees Zakaria declined to confirm McMaster's visit, saying today he was not aware of any plans.REUTERS PY AN2050 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0298-1229160.Xml The chairman of the board of directors of LATAM Airlines, Mauricio Amaro, wrote in a letter to investors that he may step down, saying that it was time for "renewal."LATAM, formed via a tie-up between Brazil's TAM and Chile's LAN in 2012, is the biggest Latin America-based airline. In 2016, it registered its first profitable year, despite an ongoing recession in Brazil, its principal market."I'm very proud to have participated in the construction of this great company," Amaro wrote in the letter, which was made public late Wednesday."But for LATAM, renewal is the first word," he added.Amaro did not give a timeline for his departure, nor did he state concretely that he would leave the board. But he hinted heavily at the possibility throughout the letter.LATAM declined to comment on the matter.The airline, which is based in the Chilean capital Santiago, has units in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, among other nations. Chile's powerful Cueto family and Qatar Airways are also on the board.REUTERS PY AN2116 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0298-1229195.Xml "At 7 p.m. local time in Afghanistan last night the U.S. military used the GBU 43 weapon. It is a large, powerful and accurately delivered weapon. We targeted a system of tunnels and caves that ISIS fighters used to move around freely making it easy for them to target the U.S. military advisors and afghan forces in the area," Spicer said in press briefing on Thursday. Spicer added that they used all necessary precaution to avoid civilian causalities and collateral damage. Earlier, CNN reported that the U.S. military has dropped its most powerful non-nuclear bomb in the Achin district of Afghanistan's Nangarhar province to target the Islamic State. The Nangarhar province borders with Pakistan. According to the report, a GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb, nicknamed MOAB and also known as the "mother of all bombs" is a 21,600-pound, GPS-guided munition that is America's most powerful non-nuclear bomb. This is the first time a MOAB has been used in the battlefield, according to the US officials. This munition was developed during the Iraq War. (ANI) The United States today sanctioned Sohrab Soleimani, the brother of the commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, for his role in abuses in Iranian prisons, the White House said."The sanctions against human rights abusers in Iran's prisons comes at a time when Iran continues to unjustly detain ... various foreigners, including US citizens," White House spokesman Sean Spicer told a press briefing.Soleimani is the brother of Qassem Soleimani, who leads Iran's Quds Force, the elite special forces arm of the Revolutionary Guards.REUTERS PY AN2338 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0298-1229296.Xml Egypt's interior ministry has identified the suicide bomber in the church bombing in the Nile Delta city of Tanta as Mamdouh Amin Mohamed Baghdadi, a resident of Qena, south of Cairo, state television said today.At least 45 people were killed in attacks on a cathedral in Alexandria and the church in Tanta on Palm Sunday. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks.REUTERS PY AN2339 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0298-1229297.Xml President Donald Trump will host Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni for an official working visit on April 20, the White House said today."The leaders will discuss the upcoming G7 ... and a range of issues of mutual concern," White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters.Italy is hosting a summit of leaders from the Group of Seven biggest industrial economies in Sicily on May 26-27.REUTERS PY AN2339 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0298-1229298.Xml Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-13 01:33:51|Editor: An Shanghai Pudong Development Bank's President Liu Xinyi (4th R) and Senior Miniser of State for Singapore's Ministry of Trade and Industry Sim Ann (5th R) attend the opening ceremony of the Singapore branch of Shanghai Pudong Development Bank in Singapore on April 12, 2017. (Xinhua/Then Chih Wey) SINGAPORE, April 12 (Xinhua) -- Shanghai Pudong Development Bank (SPD Bank) announced Wednesday that it had established a branch in Singapore. The Singapore branch is the first overseas branch of SPD Bank and will spearhead its internationalization strategy, especially in Southeast Asia, the bank said. Speaking at the opening ceremony on Wednesday evening, Sim Ann, senior minister of the state of Singapore, said financial cooperation is a key pillar of the cooperation between Singapore and Shanghai and the opening of SPD Bank's Singapore branch is a milestone for the internationalization of the bank which brings vitality to Singapore's vibrant financial environment. The minister said the establishment of SPD bank's Singapore branch will further promote trade and economic exchanges and strengthen the financial cooperation between the two sides. She expressed the hope the multifaceted cooperation between Singapore and Shanghai will promote the Belt and Road Initiative. In his speech, Vice Chairman and President of SPD Bank Singapore Liu Xinyi underscored Singapore's pivotal role in the Asia Pacific region and the global financial sector, saying the bank aims to improve its cross-border financial services capabilities via the branch. "The bank plans to make Singapore Branch our key regional hub, acting as a conduit between our clients and Southeast Asia, and at the same time using the establishment of the Singapore Branch as the new launch-pad of our internationalization strategy," said Liu. SPD Bank has accelerated its pace of internationalization and comprehensive development in recent years. The Singapore Branch obtained its banking license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore on March 21, according to the bank's press release. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-13 03:39:22|Editor: An Video Player Close Combination of file photos show Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Dec. 29, 2016 and U.S. President DonaldTrump (R) at a press conference at the White House in Washington D.C., the United States, on Feb. 15, 2017. (Xinhua) By Matthew Rusling WASHINGTON, April 12 (Xinhua) -- Despite U.S. President Donald Trump's with-us-or-without-us ultimatum to Russia, Moscow is likely to continue its support for the Syrian government led by Bashar al-Assad, U.S. experts said. Trump grabbed headlines worldwide earlier the week when his administration made it clear to Moscow that the Kremlin's support for Assad would not be tolerated, after the alleged chemical weapons attack last week against Syrian civilians, including children. Trump ordered missile strikes last Friday at a Syrian airfield to retaliate for the attack. Initially, Russia earlier this week called for an investigation into the chemical attack. Russian President Vladimir Putin condemned the United States' military assault on a Syrian airfield, saying that the U.S. move represents an aggression against a sovereign state in violation of international law under a far-fetched pretext. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, during U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's visit to Moscow on Wednesday, gave the top U.S. diplomat an earful of criticism over the U.S. strike. "I...don't think Russia will align with us," Michael O' Hanlon, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told Xinhua. "But I do expect some tough talk on both sides. Putin feels that we've made this war far worse and he won't easily change his mind," O' Hanlon said, referring to Russian President Putin, who allies with Syria' s president. Experts said Russia simply is unlikely to stop supporting al-Assad. "Over time, Russia could seek to persuade Assad to transfer power to a friendly crony, with a few fig leafs of power sharing to make it look slightly like a government of national unity. That's about as far as I see Moscow pushing for change," O' Hanlon said. In terms of what actions Trump might take against al-Assad, O' Hanlon said: "I think economic pressure and perhaps the threat of a war crimes indictment may be our best tools." Wayne White, former deputy director of the State Department's Middle East Intelligence Office, told Xinhua that the idea of Washington and Moscow coming to a sweeping accommodation is highly unlikely. "U.S. and Russian interests, whether in Syria, toward NATO, human rights, etc. are far too different-despite President Trump's earlier interest in an understanding. One side inevitably would have to make big sacrifices inconsistent with some of its policy interests, but Trump and Vladimir Putin are two...assertive personalities who instinctively preserve their powerful images. In some ways, they are too much alike," White said. So long as Russia and Iran remain staunch allies vigorously fighting alongside their premier regional ally, Syria' s current government is likely to survive in some familiar form, he predicted. "For the U.S. to change that, Washington would have to field a formidable military challenge to (al-Assad)," White said. "There is no obvious surrogate on the Syrian battlefield capable of powerfully challenging Assad, even with lots more U.S. aid. The U.S. would have to take the field itself, and risk direct confrontation with the Russians and Iranians--highly unlikely," he said. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-13 03:49:23|Editor: yan Video Player Close ANKARA, April 12 (Xinhua) -- The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) on Wednesday claimed responsibility for a bomb attack in southeastern Turkey, local media reported. A statement issued on a PKK website said more than 2.5 tons of explosives had been planted in a tunnel under the targeted police building in the central Baglar district of Diyarbakir province. The explosion on Tuesday occurred during the repair of an armored vehicle in the provincial security directorate compound, which killed three people and injured 12 others. Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu confirmed early Wednesday that the incident was "a terror attack" after initially calling it an accident, daily Hurriyet reported. Investigations have revealed that PKK militants dug the tunnel in a short time and staged the attack by placing explosives underground. A 30-meter-long tunnel was dug from the basement of an apartment adjacent to the repair shop of the compound, the Diyarbakir governor's office said in a statement. According to the office, five suspects had been detained as a part of the investigation into the attack. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-13 04:34:33|Editor: yan Video Player Close CAIRO, April 12 (Xinhua) -- The Egyptian interior ministry identified on Wednesday the suicide bomber who blew himself up in Saint Mark's Church in Egypt's Alexandria governorate on Sunday, killing 11 Christians and six Muslim police officers. In a press statement, the ministry identified the suicide bomber as Mahmoud Hassan Mubarak from Suez City. "The suicide bomber was born on Sept. 28, 1986 in Upper Egypt's city of Qena and worked for a petroleum company," the statement read. On Sunday, twin suicide bombing at two churches in Delta province of Gharbiya and Alexandria province in northern Egypt killed at least 45 and wounded over 120. The ministry added that the attacker is linked to an extremist Islamist terrorist group led by a wanted terrorist leader from Qena. "This terrorist cell carried out a suicide attack last year against the Cathedral of Saint Mark in the Abbasia district in Cairo," according to the ministry. The ministry also revealed that another cell working under the umbrella of the same group has attacked a police checkpoint in the New Valley governorate, killing a number of police men. The ministry did not mention if this group belongs to the Islamic State (IS) group which claimed responsibility on Sunday for the bombings of two churches. Egypt has been fighting a terrorist wave that killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers since the military removed former Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013 and blacklisted his Muslim Brotherhood group as "a terrorist organization." Mostly claimed by a Sinai-based group loyal to the IS regional militia, the terrorist attacks focused on security forces in restive North Sinai in the beginning; but after massive security raids that killed hundreds of militants and arrested a similar number of suspects, terrorists started to target the Coptic minority in the most populous Arab country. Coptic Christians make up about 10 percent of Egypt's population. They have largely coexisted peacefully with the Muslim-majority public for centuries. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-13 04:39:34|Editor: yan Video Player Close BANJUL, April 12 (Xinhua) -- Leader of Gambia's socialist PDOIS party Halifa Sallah Wednesday advised President Adama Barrow to honor the promise of resigning after three years, an agreement he has penned with coalition partners. "It was our conviction that if President Barrow leads the example of limiting his own term, then no other leader will ever emerge again that will go beyond two terms," he said during a press conference. Barrow won against ex-president Yahya Jammeh with the backing of eight political parties on an agreement that he will rule for only 3 years and resign for fresh election. He said Barrow's resignation will require Constitutional amendment, where it will be introduced in the 1997 Constitution a provision asserting that upon resignation or vacation of the seat of the presidency, the vice president will act for 90 days thereafter the presidential election shall be held. "That provision is not in the Constitution. Therefore, as its stands he has a 5-year term. But if it is put in the constitution and adhered to, then he would be able to resign after 3 years and presidential election would be held," he said. Sallah said the objective of the Coalition in the National Assembly is to reform the Constitution and to reduce the powers of the executive, a plan "Barrow has agreed to". Barrow admitted several times during campaign that he will honor the agreement but since his victory, he has softened his position and said he would resign based on the views of his coalition members. His UDP party holds the majority in the country's National Assembly and could reject the amendment to the constitution. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (R) and U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson shake hands ahead of a news conference following their talks in Moscow, Russia, April 12, 2017. (Xinhua/AP) MOSCOW, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Russia and the U.S. on Wednesday agreed to keep on fighting international terrorism and continue discussions on Syrian conflict settlement, despite turbulent bilateral relations and a string of pending disputes between the two countries. In a news conference following talks with visiting U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and a two-hour joint meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the discussions were fruitful, underlining good prospects for future joint work. "It has been a long day...The talks were comprehensive, frank and covered the whole spectrum of issues, which are key to our bilateral relations and interaction on the international affairs," The minister said. According to Lavrov, the two parties reaffirmed their determination in the talks for the uncompromising fight against international terrorism and had deepgoing discussions in that context about grim situations in various regions including Syria, Yemen, Libya and Afghanistan as well as possible cooperation in addressing those issues. "With all the existing problems, both objective and artificially created ones, we still have quite a few prospects for joint work. Russia is open to dialogues with the U.S. in different areas, and not only to dialogues but also to joint actions," he said. Echoing the Russian stance on cooperation, Tillerson said that Russia and the U.S. will continue discussions about how to find a solution to the Syrian conflict. "Foreign Minister Lavrov and I agreed we would consider further proposals made about the way forward in Syria, including consulting with our allies and coalition members." Tillerson said in the news conference. Tensions between Moscow and Washington have further aggravated over Syria after the U.S. missile strike on a Syrian military airfield Thursday, which it claims to be in response to the alledged Syrian government's chemical weapons attack last Tuesday in Khan Sheikhoun. Earlier in an interview broadcast on Wednesday before the meeting with Tillerson, Putin said that mutual trust between Russia and the U.S., especially on the military level, had eroded in the first few months of Trump's presidency. Putin's view was share by Tillerson who, on the first visit by the Trump cabinet to Russia, said that ties between the two countries were at a low point marked by serious distrust. "There is a low level of trust between our two countries. The world's two foremost nuclear powers cannot have this kind of relationship," he said in the news conference, adding that Moscow and Washington had agreed to establish a working group to identify problems and improve bilateral relations. With a shared willingness to mend the battered ties, Russia and the U.S. agreed on Wednesday to work together on an investigation of the Syrian chemical weapons attack, although the divergence in their stances have not changed much. Tillerson reiterated Washington is "quite confident" that the recent chemical attack was planned and executed by Syrian government forces, which involved chlorine bombs and other chemical weapons on more than 50 occasions. Calling for an "objective and unbiased probe" into the chemical attack in Syria, Lavrov said that Russia has no intention to shield anyone responsible for the incident and repeated Russia's view that the Syrian government was not responsible for the attack. Russia vetoed on late Wednesday a UN resolution demanding the Syrian government cooperate with an investigation of the suspected chemical attack, saying that Moscow had consistently expressed its "categorical disagreement" with the draft resolution, which led to further criticism from the West including the U.S.. "The international community has spoken. Russia now has a lot to prove," U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley said. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-13 08:35:09|Editor: An Video Player Close KABUL, April 13 (Xinhua) -- The construction work of a China-aided Afghan vocational and technical institute started on Wednesday in Afghan capital of Kabul, the latest in China's consistent assistance to the war-hit nation. Afghan Chief Executive Officer Abdullah Abdullah and Chinese Ambassador to Afghanistan Yao Jing were among the officials attending a special ceremony which marked the start of construction of the new building for Afghan National Vocational and Technical Institute. "Afghanistan is at the process of reconstruction. And the construction of this facility is vital at the moment when Afghans need more vocational experts, professional workers as well as skilled youths," Abdullah told the ceremony. The complex, which is the largest vocational institue in the country, contains classrooms, laboratory and administration facilities as well as dormitory and sport gymnasium. Speaking at the ceremony, Yao said China will continue to support Afghanistan's peace and reconstruction process to see a peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan. Yao said he will spare no efforts in enhancing people-to-people relations, including offering more scholarships to Afghan students in China. Over 5,000 students will receive vocational education in 20 departments at the complex. Some 250 teachers of the vocational and technical institute will visit China in near future to attend training programs and the first group of the visitors will leave for China this weekend. SYDNEY, April 13 (Xinhua) -- An Australian woman has been airlifted to hospital on Thursday, after being trampled by a cow on a property in Queensland. The woman, believed to be in 20s, reportedly suffered chest injuries and was rushed to Toowoomba hospital via helicopter, as a result of the animal attack at around 8:00 a.m. local time. It has been reported that the woman was able to direct the emergency services crew of the chopper to her location, via an app on her phone that enabled them to pinpoint her location, despite being isolated. The woman is said to be recovering and in a stable condition. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-13 10:45:30|Editor: An Video Player Close by Will Koulouris SYDNEY, April 13 (Xinhua) -- One of the most influential Australian media outlets has hyped up a hypothetical "China slowdown" while highlighting the severe economic consequences it could bring to Australia. A story, published by The Australian on Wednesday, the country's only national newspaper, began with a widely circulated report by Deloitte Access Economics, which outlined a number of scenarios that were wildly hypothetical regarding China and Australia, and assessed the potential impact should any of them actually occur. The report has modelled three scenarios that it believes are plausible: a downturn in China's economy which sends Australia into recession; Asian economies perform better than expected while Australia's government has the courage to reform; and Australia gets better at being "cyber smart." Rather than covering all the three scenarios, the story purely focuses on the most controversial offering, a "China slowdown." The article was devoted to assessing the inner workings of the "China slowdown" scenario, ignoring any attempt to analyze the others, in what could best be described as an attempt to sensationalize an issue. Based on hypothetical modelling rather than data-based analytical assessments, the article would only dampen business confidence between the two nations. The Deloitte modelling, said the story, indicated that "house prices (in Australia) would fall by 9 percent, stripping 600 Australian billion dollars (449.60 billion U.S. dollars) from the wealth of families, while the sharemarket would drop 17 percent, costing a further 300 billion dollars (225 billion U.S. dollars)," if China's growth failed to reach the 6.5 percent target this year, and rather, fell to less than 3 percent. In terms of actual data and analysis, Gerard Burg, Asia economist at the National Australia Bank, told Xinhua that it was highly unlikely that China wouldn't reach its growth target, calling it a "very outside possibility." While Li Wei, Asia economist at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, believes that China will exceed the growth target, reaching 6.8 percent in 2017. "The recent growth momentum is picking up, and especially the recovery in commodity prices and industry profit will support industry growth and industrial investment going forward," Li said. "China's export growth to the United States and the European Union has been strong, and will last for a while, so recovery in the export sector will also enable China to reach its growth target," added Li. Li also stressed that the slowdown in China's housing market is much lower than experts anticipated, which adds to the widespread belief that the 6.5 percent growth target will be achieved, and possibly exceeded, in 2017. In a statement obtained by Xinhua, Deloitte Australia chief executive Cindy Hook said the modelling in the report is just a scenario, one of three put forward, without it being indicative of any predictive assessment. The statement also indicated clearly that, "none of these three scenarios is the 'most likely' outcome for Australia," while the report is full of "what if" scenarios akin to a science fiction novel about flying cars. She said it is not intended to stoke fear or harm investor confidence. While hypothetical scenarios do serve a purpose, selective appropriation of speculative data without a full assessment of all available contexts serves only to stoke fear rather than promote a shared and prosperous future for both China and Australia. Fair and balanced interaction is paramount to building an even stronger relationship between the two sides. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-13 10:45:30|Editor: An Video Player Close BEIJING, April 13 (Xinhua) -- China is a true friend of developing countries, said Namibian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, as she welcomed more Chinese investment in the southwestern African country. Ndaitwah made the remarks at a press conference here on Wednesday after she concluded what she described as an important three-day visit to China at the invitation of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Ndaitwah said the main purpose of her visit was to discuss with the Chinese side a range of bilateral, regional and international issues of mutual interest and common concern. "As a developing country, China is very much aware of the concerns and aspirations of other developing countries," Ndaitwah said, adding her country is truly grateful that China continues to be a true and trusted all-weather friend. In 2016, Namibia declared a state of emergency after experiencing a devastating drought that caused tremendous hardship to its people. China responded by donating 4,000 tons of rice to Namibia and pledged a further consignment worth 20 million RMB (around 3 million U.S. dollars). "This is a testimony of a strong relationship China has proven on multiple times that it is a true friend of developing countries," Ndaitwah said. She urged the two countries to step up economic cooperation, especially in investment and trade in areas of manufacturing, value addition, agriculture, among others. She also invited Chinese businesses to forge joint ventures with Namibian companies. "Chinese people are always welcome to visit Namibia not only for conferences and business, but also as tourists," she added. JAKARTA, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Flash floods struck Aceh province of western Indonesia, leaving two people dead, one missing and hundreds of houses damaged, a government official said on Thursday. Heavy downpours triggered the natural disaster in the districts of Aceh Tenggara and Aceh Barat, Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman of national disaster agency told Xinhua via phone. Search for the missing person has been underway while three other villagers who were swept away by the current have been rescued alive, but in condition of unconscious, Sutopo said. Strong current carrying woods and other materials damaged 298 houses, forcing scores of people to flee home and take shelters at mosques and other safer grounds, Sutopo added. Soldiers, personnel of disaster agency and volunteers have undertaken emergency relief efforts, including providing food and medicine for the affected-people. Indonesia has been frequently hit by flash floods and landslides during heavy rain. An aerial view of the Horgos International Border Cooperation Center on the China-Kazakhstan border. Ni Jianhua is never worried about slow sales in the free trade zone on the China-Kazakhstan border. After seeing the fifth client of the day out, the baby care product trader hurried to a warehouse in the Horgos International Border Cooperation Center to inspect a batch of baby carriages, which just arrived at the northwest China's port from south China's Guangdong Province. "They will be sold to Kazakhstan very soon," he said, "Products always sell out here." Ni, 44, has been doing business in Horgos, the largest land port on the border with Kazakhstan in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, since 2006. Like his fellow merchants from east China's Zhejiang Province who are dubbed as the "Chinese Jews" for their success in doing business, Ni is diligent and works hard all day long. With a startup fund of 300,000 yuan (about 43,500 U.S. dollars) 12 years ago, Ni has expanded his business and now cashes in more than 300,000 yuan every day. He is considered as one of the most successful businessmen in the FTZ today. Ni's Kazakhstani employee reports sales to Ni (L). Although he is one of them, Ni is still surprised by the rapid development of the FTZ. Covering 5.28 square kilometers, the Horgos International Border Cooperation Center opened in April 2012 as a destination for cross-border shopping. It has more than 40 duty-free shops selling luxury brands such as Omega and Versace. The facility is the world's first cross-border free-trade zone and the biggest duty-free shopping center in west China. It allows entry of citizens from any country with valid passports or with exit and entry permits. Since its establishment, more and more fortune-seekers have been enticed here. The FTZ has recorded a trade volume of 878 million U.S. dollars since opening as of last July. Ni (R) checks trade information while looking after his daughter in his shop. He has a shop covering 100 square meters. Ni has a Russian name--Vasiliy. It was given by his friend from Kazakhstan's Almaty, 378 kilometers from Horgos. The Chinese Vasiliy can discuss business with clients from Central Asia in Russian accented with a Zhejiang dialect. "I studied Russian when I came here. I was 32 years old at that time, and found it very difficult to learn the language," Ni said, "Now I can speak only a little about toys in Russian. But that's quite enough for me." "Better communication means more business opportunities," he added. Ni carries products in the warehouse when his shop is shorthanded. He walks fast, because he believes time is money. Vasiliy Ni sold a batch of balance cars and baby carriages worth 5 million Kazakhstan Tenge (about 16,058 U. S. dollars) to two Russian traders the day we visited him. He was expecting four more groups of clients. "I'm too busy. Sometimes I hope it rains so that I can have a rest," he said. Ni's wife arranges products in the shop. Ni's daughter sleeps in a display baby crib. It is noisy, but the girl sleeps soundly. Ni owes his success to his sincerity and precise targeting. "I can speak some Russian, so I know what my customers want. My products have a good quality and a reasonable price, and thus become popular." Based on the demand of his customers, he usually orders products from manufacturers in Guangdong, one of China's manufacturing hubs, and sells them to Kazakhstan and Russia. Ni (L) drives a battery vehicle to the warehouse. His Kazakhstani customer is so eager to get the products that he jumps on and goes with Ni. Ni negotiates with a client. Other clients wait for him. Balance cars sell best in Ni's shop recently. He has just ordered 500 balance cars for his Almaty client. As business booms, Ni plans to open a new shop in a newly-built shopping center, selling high-end made-in-China toys. Ni counts the bills after making a deal. At the westernmost end of the Silk Road in China, Horgos was a transit point on the ancient trade route in the Tang Dynasty (619-907). In ancient times, merchants from Central Asia, the Middle East and Western Europe braved the Gobi Desert and nomadic bandits to arrive at Chang'an, the historical name of Xi'an, then the world's largest metropolis and capital city of Tang. Today Horgos has become the youngest city on the Silk Road Economic Belt as the city of Horgos was officially established by the State Council in 2014. Put forward by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative, which includes the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, aims to build a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa along and beyond the ancient Silk Road trade routes. "I'm not the first generation of Horgos citizen, but my daughter is," Ni said, "We have schools, hospitals and everything in Horgos. We have decided to settle here." When asked about what Horgos means to him, Ni gave his answer by citing a slogan here: "If you have missed Shenzhen and Shanghai, you can't miss Horgos." Shenzhen is the showcase of China's reform and opening-up, while Shanghai is an economic center of the country. (All photos by Zhao Ge) Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-13 11:05:33|Editor: Yamei An ambulance carrying the body of banned militant outfit Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami (HUJI) ringleader Mufti Abdul Hannan leaves Bangladesh's Kashimpur High Security Prison in Gazipur on the outskirts of capital Dhaka on April 12, 2017. Bangladesh on Wednesday executed three militants, including a ringleader, for the 2004 grenade attack on then British high commissioner to the country. (Xinhua/Jibon Ahsan) DHAKA, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Bangladesh on Wednesday executed three militants, including a ringleader, for the 2004 grenade attack on then British high commissioner to the country. The ringleader was also a key suspect in the plotting to assassinate current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and blow up courts, secular institutions as well as shrines and churches. The local banned militant outfit Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami (HUJI) ringleader Mufti Abdul Hannan and his close aide Sharif Shahedul Alam were hanged at Kashimpur High Security Prison in Gazipur on the outskirts of capital Dhaka at around 10:00 p.m. local time Wednesday, Inspector General of Prisons Brigadier General Syed Iftekhar Uddin told journalists. He said the third HUJI militant Delwar Hossain was executed at the same time at a jail in the country's northeastern Sylhet city, some 241 km northeast of capital Dhaka. The militants were hanged after Bangladeshi president turned down their clemency pleas. A three-member Appellate Division bench of the Bangladesh Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha, last month dismissed the final review petition of the militants. The convicts had conducted the grenade attack on then British High Commissioner to Bangladesh Anwar Choudhury on May 21, 2004 at a shrine of Muslim saint in the country's northeastern city of Sylhet where the Bangladesh-born British diplomat came to offer prayer. Three people were killed and over 100, including Anwar Choudhury, were injured in the deadly attack. Mufti Hannan reportedly confessed to having supplied grenades for launching the attack, in a statement before a court in Dhaka in 2006. Apart from this, he has been sentenced to death in a number of other cases. He came in the limelight of Bangladesh's politics after he announced at a public rally of Islamists in 1999 to establish a Taliban like government in Bangladesh by 2000. Hannan who was arrested in August 2005 confessed to an interrogating police about his bomb planting for assassination of the then opposition leader and now Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina in 2000. The bomb was recovered by police before Hasina addressed a rally. Hannan, who wanted to establish Islam Sharia law in place of the British-origin common law, confessed that he was the mastermind in the countrywide bombings on Aug. 17, 2005. Hannan had directly participated in the war in Afghanistan against the former Soviet Union. During the war he got a bullet injury in his hand and then returned to Bangladesh in 1995 and formed his militant group Harkatul Jihad, which was banned by the government. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-13 11:15:36|Editor: An Video Player Close NEW YORK, April 12 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump has pledged a massive infrastructure plan in the country, which may bring increasing opportunities for Chinese companies, U.S. experts said here on Wednesday. "The Trump administration has been very focused on investing infrastructure, including public-private partnerships ... We are open for business and welcome Chinese companies to participate and bid for the projects," said Patric Foye, Executive Director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, on an event titled "Skyclub Dialogue: Infrastructure Development and Investment" in New York. Foye further explained that as the government agency oversees much of the regional transportation infrastructure in the two states, Port Authority processes bridges, tunnels, airports and seaports, which are "revenue-generating assets" and "expect to attract capitals from all over the world, including China." His viewpoints were echoed by Stephen Orlins, president of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, who also spoke at the event. "When I look at the one-trillion-dollar price tag that President Trump has put on the infrastructure needs of the United States ... I looked at the three trillion reserve in China, I looked at the expertise that exists in China and I looked at what China Construction America and other Chinese construction companies are doing, creating jobs in the United States," said Orlins. China Construction America Inc (CCA), a wholly owned subsidiary of China State Construction Engineering Corporation Ltd, is among the Chinese companies that have been playing an active role in the U.S. construction market. Founded in 1985, CCA now has 2,000 employees, of whom 98 percent are local employees, according to the company's president Ning Yuan, who also attended the event. Yuan said the company has successfully completed six bridge projects in the New York Metropolitan area and ranks number ten in bridge contractors across the United States. CCA is fully funded and ready to get involved in more public-private partnership (PPP) projects, he noted. Foye pointed out that Chinese companies like CCA should focus not only on capital-raising but also on engineering solutions and creativity when bidding on a project. "Continued growth and success of the Chinese firms in the U.S. will eventually give them a competitive advantage in the PPP market," said Foye. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-13 12:15:44|Editor: Zhang Dongmiao Suspect Siti Aisyah from Indonesia is escorted by police as she leaves a court in Sepang, Malaysia, on April 13, 2017. The defense lawyers of the two female suspects who were accused of carrying out the assassination on a male national of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), when appearing in court on Thursday, made complaints against the police investigators which they said could comprise their case and lead to miscarriage of justice. (Xinhua/Chong Voon Chung) SEPANG, Malaysia, April 13 (Xinhua) -- The defense lawyers of the two female suspects who were accused of carrying out the assassination on a male national of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), when appearing in court on Thursday, made complaints against the police investigators which they said could comprise their case and lead to miscarriage of justice. The two female suspects, 25-year-old Siti Aisyah from Indonesia and 28-year-old Doan Thi Huong from Vietnam, appeared for the second time at a local court in Sepang on the same day. They, along with four suspects from the DPRK, were charged with murdering the man on Feb. 13 at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Gooi Soon Seng, the defense lawyer for Siti, said the police failed to supply the defense team with CCTV recordings from various places, which could enable them to prepare the case "at the earliest opportunity." He also accused the police of not providing the defense team with recorded statements from three DPRK suspects who had been allowed to leave Malaysia. "Under the circumstances, we believe that they will not be called as prosecution witnesses and will not be made available to the defense," said Gooi. Citing the above reasons, Gooi said he feared that miscarriage of justice will ensue in the case. He also expressed his concern that negotiations between the DPRK and Malaysia, which ensured the safe return of nine Malaysian citizens barred by the DPRK from leaving, could affect the fairness of the trail. Naran Singh, the defense lawyer for Doan, also made similar complaints, saying the absence of four DPRK suspects, who fled back to Pyongyang the moment after the killing, is unfair for the two female suspects because it is possible that the four DPRK suspects' role in the case may never be clarified. The pre-trail review was meant to transfer the case to the high court in Shah Alam. But the formal hearing of the case was postponed further to May 30. Muhamad Iskandar Ahmad, leader prosecutor in the case, said they need more time to collect documents from several departments. LONDON, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Activists from Greenpeace have blocked the entrance to Coca-Cola's headquarter in Britain with a 2.5-ton sculpture showing seagulls vomiting plastic, calling for the beverage manufacturer to do more to prevent plastic marine pollution. Campaigners set up camps outside the company's office in central London on Monday, and installed the sculpture made from sand and Coca-Cola bottles. The sculpture features a five-member family in a happy beach scene, but next to them are several model seagulls regurgitating plastic rubbish. Monday's protest coincided with a press release by Greenpeace, urging the soft drinks giant to reduce the manufacturing of single-use plastic bottles. Coca-Cola has launched its "lightweighting" program to make bottles thinner to reduce costs, plastic use and carbon emissions, "but lightweighting does not prevent Coca-Cola's plastic bottles from entering the ocean and threatening marine life," the statement said. According to Greenpeace, Coca-Cola, the world's largest soft drinks company produces an estimated 100 billion throwaway plastic bottles every year, and billions of these ended up on beaches, in landfill and in the ocean. "This is affecting sea life -- a third of turtles and 90 percent of seabirds are now estimated to have ingested plastic," Greenpeace said. In a statement by Coco-Cola in Britain, the company said it was "disappointed by the stunt and the report from Greenpeace." "Globally, we continue to increase the use of recycled plastic in countries where it is feasible and permitted," it said. "We agree that action is needed, are open to doing more and to working with others to create long-term, effective solutions," it added. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-13 13:35:19|Editor: Tian Shaohui Video Player Close BRASILIA, April 12 (Xinhua) -- Brazilian President Michel Temer on Wednesday said the government must continue its work despite a massive corruption investigation targeting more than 80 officials, including members of his cabinet. "The government cannot be paralyzed," Temer said, a day after the Federal Supreme Court (STF) revealed the extent of a wide-reaching probe into corruption in the public sector. "Nothing must stop the activity of the government," said Temer, some of whose closest aides appear on the court's investigation list of suspects named in Operation Car Wash. The court's special rapporteur for the investigation, Judge Edson Fachin, on Tuesday unveiled the list, which targets eight ministers. Originally, the number was nine, but apparently Fachin asked prosecutors to exclude Culture Minister Roberto Freire due to the fact that he is over 70. Also on the list are the leaders of prominent political parties, including the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PMDB) -- the chief party in the ruling coalition -- and its closest ally, the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB). Additionally, the presidents of both the Senate and Chamber of Deputies, and 71 legislators (42 deputies and 29 senators), are under investigation. Following the release of the list late Tuesday, both houses of congress were largely empty. The suspects have all been incriminated by former executives of construction firms, such as Odebrecht, that paid bribes and kickbacks to officials in exchange for lucrative construction contracts. Enditem YANGON, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar's traditional Thingyan Water Festival was kicked off across the country Thursday morning with opening ceremonies held in regions and states. In Yangon, the ceremony was held at the biggest water throwing pandal of the region erected in front of the City Hall. Extending Thingyan new year greeting, Yangon Region Chief Minister U Phyo Min Thein unveiled the region's Water Throwing Pavilion. He called on locals to celebrate the festival in a more traditional way. The event was highlighted by performances of Myanmar traditional dance troupes in colorful dress and Thingyan music. Roads and streets were thronged with people dancing to music and dousing each other with water. There are altogether 22 large, 10 medium, and 27 small water throwing pandals erected in the commercial city. In recent years, influenced by western culture, Thingyan festival had been celebrated in a modern way with stage shows, electronic music and modern dancing. A special Rakhine ethnic traditional water festival was also launched in Yangon, in which young men and women stand face to face and drench each other with water while standing in long boats. On Wednesday, one day ahead of the commencement of the water festival, ethnic Rakhine held a traditional sandalwood grinding competition in Yangon. Rakhine women grinded sandalwood mixed with water on a flat stone to make scented water to be used to wash Buddha statues on the first day of the festival. In Mandalay, the country's second largest city in the north, water throwing pandal was inaugurated by the region's Chief Minister Zaw Myint Maung. This year's Myanmar traditional Thingyan water festival will run for four days until Sunday. The Myanmar new year falls on Monday. In Myanmar, water is a symbol of not only cleanliness but also auspiciousness. Myanmar people believe that celebration of the water festival can wash away past evil and sin and prepare for a happy year ahead. Among Myanmar's 12 seasonal festivals throughout the year, the Thingyan water festival represents the grandest which brings peace and prosperity to everyone. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-13 14:10:29|Editor: An Dancers perform during the water festival in Yangon, Myanmar, April 13, 2017. Myanmar's traditional Thingyan Water Festival kicked off here on Thursday. (Xinhua/U Aung) YANGON, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar's traditional Thingyan Water Festival was kicked off across the country Thursday morning with opening ceremonies held in regions and states. In Yangon, the ceremony was held at the biggest water throwing pandal of the region erected in front of the City Hall. Extending Thingyan new year greeting, Yangon Region Chief Minister U Phyo Min Thein unveiled the region's Water Throwing Pavilion. He called on locals to celebrate the festival in a more traditional way. The event was highlighted by performances of Myanmar traditional dance troupes in colorful dress and Thingyan music. Roads and streets were thronged with people dancing to music and dousing each other with water. There are altogether 22 large, 10 medium, and 27 small water throwing pandals erected in the commercial city. In recent years, influenced by western culture, Thingyan festival had been celebrated in a modern way with stage shows, electronic music and modern dancing. A special Rakhine ethnic traditional water festival was also launched in Yangon, in which young men and women stand face to face and drench each other with water while standing in long boats. On Wednesday, one day ahead of the commencement of the water festival, ethnic Rakhine held a traditional sandalwood grinding competition in Yangon. Rakhine women grinded sandalwood mixed with water on a flat stone to make scented water to be used to wash Buddha statues on the first day of the festival. In Mandalay, the country's second largest city in the north, water throwing pandal was inaugurated by the region's Chief Minister Zaw Myint Maung. This year's Myanmar traditional Thingyan water festival will run for four days until Sunday. The Myanmar new year falls on Monday. In Myanmar, water is a symbol of not only cleanliness but also auspiciousness. Myanmar people believe that celebration of the water festival can wash away past evil and sin and prepare for a happy year ahead. Among Myanmar's 12 seasonal festivals throughout the year, the Thingyan water festival represents the grandest which brings peace and prosperity to everyone. NEW DELHI, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Ten Indians held hostage by Somali pirates after hijacking of a cargo ship have been rescued, officials said Thursday. "I am happy to inform that 10 Indian nationals working as crew on MV AL Kausar which was hijacked by pirates have been rescued," India's foreign minister Sushma Swaraj wrote on twitter. Swaraj thanked the government of Somalia for their efforts to rescue the Indian nationals. "We thank federal government of Somalia, Galmudug state authorities and people of Somalia for their help and cooperation," she said. The Indian crew members were rescued by Somali troops on Wednesday near the coastal town of Hobyo. The crew members on board the Indian cargo ship were hijacked on April 1 while on its way to Bosaso from Dubai. Following the hijacking, the captain of the ship had informed owners as well as authorities in Dubai about the incident. Only ten crew members were taken captive, not 11 as initially reported. Pirates often attack cargo ships in international waters in absence of patrolling. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-13 14:25:36|Editor: Mengjiao Liu Video Player Close LOS ANGELES, April 12 (Xinhua) -- A U.S. conservation group and Congressman Raul Grijalva filed a lawsuit on Wednesday in an attempt to block U.S. President Donald Trump's proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall. The lawsuit seeks to push the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection to prepare a "programmatic environmental impact statement" for the U.S.-Mexico Border enforcement program, according to KTAR News. "Some areas within 50 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border have been identified as the 'critical habitat' for at least 25 species by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service," said KTAR News. "We filed the lawsuit in consideration of all perspectives of environment," Randy Serraglio with the Arizona-based Center of Biological Diversity told Xinhua on Wednesday, saying the lawsuit called for an in-depth investigation of the potential environmental impact. "The perspectives we consider in the lawsuit include wildlife, endangered species like jaguars and ocelots, border security and border patrol. The proposed border wall could affect the habitats of the threatened or endangered species," said Serraglio. "It's not because of immigration or other issues, but only for environmental factors," he said. Arizona State Congressman Raul Grijalva sided with the environmental group in this lawsuit, pointing out in a statement issued Wednesday that "American environmental laws are some of the oldest and strongest in the world, and they should apply to the borderlands." "These laws exist to protect the health and well-being of our people, our wild life and the places they live," he said. On January 25, Trump signed an executive order for a "physical barrier" to be built along the U.S.-Mexico border of nearly 3,200 km. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-13 14:50:39|Editor: Mengjiao Liu Video Player Close SYDNEY, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Round 27 of the Australian A-League begins on Friday night when the Melbourne Victory play host to the Central Coast Mariners. Without a win from their last three games, the Victory seem to have taken their foot off the gas with a spot in second place already guaranteed, but because this is the last regular season match of the year, expect the home side to kick into gear and attempt to dismantle the Mariners. On Saturday, the last-placed Newcastle Jets travel away to meet first-placed Sydney FC. Newcastle can still make it off the bottom of the table with a victory in this game and will surely be throwing everything at Sydney's defense. In South Australia, Adelaide United will also be vying to get off the bottom of the table when they host the Western Sydney Wanderers. Although it has been a very mixed season for the Wanderers, a win could see them move into the top four. Adelaide's home fans may be the difference in this fixture. In what has the making of being a very entertaining clash, the Brisbane Roar will face the Wellington Phoenix at home on Sunday. A dark horse to win the league, the Roar should be able to close out the New Zealand side, however the Phoenix are coming off some tremendous goal-scoring form in the last few weeks. Finally, the last match of the round will take place when Melbourne City FC travel away to meet the Perth Glory. The winner of this match can finish third and both sides will be looking to draw first blood ahead of the playoffs. File photo shows two released crew members of South Korea n fishing boats arrive in Aden, southern Yemen , Nov. 13, 2007. (Xinhua/Li Teng) MOGADISHU, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Security forces from Somalia's Galmudug State have rescued eight of the 11 Indian crew members who had been kidnapped from a cargo ship and taken ashore by pirates. District Commissioner of Hobyo town Abdulahi Ahmed Ali confirmed that the sailors were rescued without resistance from the pirates after the security forces overwhelmed them in the central town of Hobyo. "I can confirm that all eight Indian hostages who were being held by pirates were rescued, we have them and they are safe and in good health.," Ali said. Abdirashid Mohamed Ahmed, deputy commander of the maritime force in Galmudug State, said their forces captured three pirates. "The security forces overwhelmingly besieged them and the pirates tried to flee, but three of them were captured. All the freed crew are safe and healthy," Ahmed said. John Steed, regional manager of not-for-profit group Oceans Beyond Piracy, also confirmed the release of the Indian hostages who were believed to be being held between the vicinity of Hobyo and Haradhere in central Somalia. The Indian vessel Al Kausar carrying wheat and sugar was hijacked while en route from Dubai, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to Bosasso in Somalia. File photo by the United States -led Combined Maritime Forces (CMF) shows a ship and helicopters of the CMF approaching a German ship in the Gulf of Aden on Sept. 9, 2010. (Xinhua) The ship was released by Somalia security forces on Monday night but some of the 11 crew members were taken ashore. It was not clear whether the kidnapped crew were eight or nine. The pirating of the Indian dhow on April 1 came after the fuel tanker, Aris 13, was held for four days by armed pirates. Al Kausar was one of three foreign vessels to be hijacked after a five-year lull. The release of the Indian vessel came after Indian and Chinese navies on Sunday freed a Tuvalu-registered vessel that had been boarded by pirates. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-13 15:10:42|Editor: Yamei Video Player Close Former head of the main opposition Minjoo Party Moon Jae-in speaks during the primary election in Seoul, South Korea, April 3, 2017. The primary of South Korea's main opposition Minjoo Party to select an official presidential candidate ended Monday with a sweeping victory by Moon Jae-in, frontrunner in opinion polls and former head of the biggest party. (Xinhua/Lee Sang-ho) SEOUL, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Moon Jae-in, a presidential candidate of South Korea's biggest Minjoo Party, kept his top spot in recent opinion polls for 15 straight weeks, with less than a month left before the presidential election. According to a Realmeter survey released on Thursday, Moon garnered 44.8 percent of support this week, up 2.6 percentage points from the previous week. It was based on a poll of 1,525 voters conducted between Monday and Wednesday. It had 2.5 percentage points in margin of error. Moon ranked first in opinion surveys for the 15th consecutive week. He gained the biggest support in all regions except North Gyeongsang province, the traditional support base for conservative politicians. An early presidential election is scheduled for May 9 as former President Park Geun-hye was impeached on March 10 and arrested three weeks later over a corruption scandal. Moon was followed by Ahn Cheol-soo of the People's Party, which splintered away from the Minjoo Party in early 2016. Ahn's approval rating rose 2.4 percentage points from the previous week to 36.5 percent this week. Ahn was supported especially by conservative voters aged 50 or more, while Moon's support base was liberal and centrist voters aged below 50. Hong Joon-pyo of the former ruling Liberty Korea Party, won 8.1 percent of support, trailed by Sim Sang-jung of the progressive Justice Party with 2.8 percent and Yoo Seong-min of the conservative Righteous Party with 1.7 percent. In a simulated three-way race between Moon, Ahn and Hong, Moon gained 47.0 percent of support, followed by Ahn with 37.2 percent and Hong with 8.8 percent. In a showdown simulation between Moon and Ahn, the former beat the latter by 49.0 percent to 41.1 percent. Support for the Minjoo Party gained 1.6 percentage points from the previous week to 44.8 percent this week. The People's Party ranked second with 26.5 percent in support scores, up 3.3 percentage points from a week earlier. It was followed by the Liberty Korea Party with 9.0 percent, the Justice Party with 5.1 percent and the Righteous Party with 3.7 percent. LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan, April 13 (Xinhua) -- At least 10 Taliban militants were killed during an ongoing military operation in Afghanistan's southern province of Helmand, said a military statement on Thursday. "Over the last 24 hours, 10 militants were killed and 14 others wounded during a military operation codenamed Maiwand 5 after Afghan security forces made advances in Aynak area, Nawa District," the statement issued by army's Corps Maiwand 215 based in the region said. The raid was launched several days ago by joint Afghan security forces supported by Afghan air force to flush out militants from Nawa, south of the city of Lashkar Gah, Helmand's provincial capital. Among the killed militants was a local Taliban leader named Zia-ul-Haq, the statement added. "The security forces also found 54 landmines and roadside bombs since the raid started and the operation will continue before the area is cleared of the militants," it noted. Helmand, notorious for poppy growing, is also a known Taliban stronghold. The Afghan security forces have beefed up security operations against militants recently. But the militants responded by bombings and armed attacks. On Wednesday, five civilians were killed and three others wounded in a suicide bombing near the country's Defense Ministry in Kabul. JAKARTA, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Benoa port on Indonesia's Bali Island on Thursday received the maiden direct berthing of a cruise ship, giving an alternative for foreign visitors to visit the resort island and nearby destinations from the sea. The seaport successfully accommodated the cruise ship, Pacific Eden, in one of its piers on 11 a.m. local time as well as 1,500 of its passengers. Head of the marine tourism acceleration team at the Tourism Ministry Indroyono Susilo said that the berthing of Pacific Eden in Benoa was a historic moment for the seaport as it was the first time for a cruise ship to directly berth in the port's pier. "Previously cruise ships visited Bali used to tie their anchors in the sea, off Benoa seaport. Now they can directly berth in the pier," he said on the sidelines of an event to welcome the cruise ship in Bali. Besides visiting Bali, passengers of the cruise ship were scheduled to visit nearby prominent destinations of Lombok, Komodo Island and Labuan Bajo. Benoa is one of Indonesia's five seaports capable of accommodating visits of cruises ships. The other ones were Tanjung Priok, Tanjung Perak, Belawan and Makassar. Bali Island is expected to welcome 5.5 million foreign visitors this year after it saw the influx of foreign visitors that exceeded the target of 4.2 million ones last year. Photo taken on Nov. 2, 2016 shows giant panda Wu Wen in the Wolong National Nature Reserve, southwest China's Sichuan Province. (Xinhua/Xue Yubin) Hi, here is what you need to know about China. BEIJING -- China's top economic planner said Thursday that it had approved 56 fixed-asset investment projects with total investment reaching 240.9 billion yuan (about 35.04 billion U.S. dollars) in the first three months of this year. "The projects mainly covered water conservation, energy and transportation sectors," said Yan Pengcheng, spokesperson with the National Development and Reform Commission. - - - - KABUL -- The construction work of a China-aided Afghan vocational and technical institute started on Wednesday in Afghan capital of Kabul, the latest in China's consistent assistance to the war-hit nation. Afghan Chief Executive Officer Abdullah Abdullah and Chinese Ambassador to Afghanistan Yao Jing were among the officials attending a special ceremony which marked the start of construction of the new building for Afghan National Vocational and Technical Institute. - - - - WASHINGTON -- U.S. House Representative Judy Chu, a Chinese American, said Wednesday she is extremely "disturbed" over the violent treatment of a Chinese-American passenger who was bloodied and dragged off a United Airlines flight, while demanding for answers. "It is unacceptable to treat any human being in this manner, and United Airlines has to change its policy," Chu told Xinhua in a phone interview from her home state of California. - - - - AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands -- Wu Wen and Xing Ya, two Chinese giant pandas arrived on Wednesday evening at Schiphol airport in Amsterdam for a 15-year stay in a Dutch zoo, making The Netherlands the seventh European country that hosts this endangered and adorable black and white bear. The KLM special cargo flight transporting the pandas landed at around 19:30 local time. When the cages were unloaded from the plane, hundreds of people watching the live broadcast on a big screen in a nearby hall erupted into applause. SYDNEY, April 13 (Xinhua) -- The Aussie market took a fall on Thursday ahead of Australia's four-day Easter holiday period, with political uncertainty and pressure on iron ore prices weighing heavy on the index. At the close of trade, the S&P/ASX 200 index fell 44.10 or 0.74 percent at 5,899.90, while the broader All Ordinaries index was down 43.00 points or 0.72 percent at 5,925.90. "Perhaps too much is made of geopolitical events, but we are on the eve of a four-day break with the Easter holiday, so investors aren't sure what going to happen," Commsec market analyst Tom Piotrowski told Xinhua. Base metals and material stocks were hit on Thursday, seeing big loses. "For the month iron ore prices are down 25 percent and this week they fell 17 percent," Piotrowski said. "Safe havens like gold are definitely being sought." The Commonwealth Bank slid 0.50 percent, National Australia bank lost 0.39 percent, Westpac was down 0.52 percent and ANZ finished 0.72 percent lower. Rio Tinto plummeted 4.43 percent, BHP Billiton dropped 3.99 percent, Fortescue Metals saw drastic loss at 6.78 percent, while gold miner Newcrest added 0.52 percent. Woodside Petroleum dived 2.07 percent, Santos fell 1.04 percent and Oil Search was down 1.19 percent. Wesfarmers gained 0.36 percent, while Woolworths slipped 0.41 percent. Telstra lost 1.42 percent, Qantas was down 1.27 percent and CSL finished 0.21 percent higher. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-13 15:45:53|Editor: Zhang Dongmiao Indian paramilitary troopers stand guard at a polling station during re-polling for the by-election in Budgam district, part of Srinagar, summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir, April 13, 2017. Re-polling for the by-election in Indian-controlled Kashmir's Srinagar constituency began on Thursday amid tight security following Sunday's violence, officials said. (Xinhua/Javed Dar) SRINAGAR, Indian-controlled Kashmir, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Re-polling for the by-election in Indian-controlled Kashmir's Srinagar constituency began on Thursday amid tight security following Sunday's violence, officials said. The re-polling is going on in violence-hit Budgam district's 38 polling stations. On Sunday, violence marred the by-election in the district with people, mostly youth, coming out on roads and clashing with police and paramilitaries deployed on poll duty. Eight people were killed and over 200 people including government force personnel were injured in the daylong clashes, forcing the Election Commission of India to defer similar polls in Anantnag constituency scheduled on Wednesday by more than a month. The voter turnout on Sunday in Srinagar constituency was recorded at 7 percent, the lowest in decades, a result of a boycott called by region's separatist leaders. Youth shouted anti-India and pro-freedom slogans during the election. Reports said the agitated youth destroyed electronic voting machines, locked polling stations and even chased paramilitary personnel from the polling booths at some places. Seven of the eight killings that took place on Sunday were reported from Budgam district. Officials following the violence ordered re-polling in Budgam district, part of Srinagar parliamentary constituency. Voting began at 7 a.m. local time and will end at 4 p.m.. Authorities have deployed hundreds of police and paramilitary personnel in poll-bound areas to foil attempts of violence. "We have taken all the precautionary measures by deploying adequate security in the poll-bound areas," a local official told Xinhua. "We will not allow the attempts by some people to sabotage the process." Some of the candidates in fray have pulled out in protest because they wanted the re-polling to be delayed. A close contest is between Nazir Ahmad Khan of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) and former Indian minister Farooq Abdullah belonging to regional party National Conference. Results of Srinagar constituency are expected to be counted on Saturday. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-13 16:05:58|Editor: Xiang Bo Video Player Close NANCHANG, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Once laid-off, Song Ying's life experience, full of ups and downs, has earned her a chance to attend China's major national meeting this year. The mould worker, 48, from Guixi Huatai Copper Industry Company, was just elected by around 50,000 Communist Party of China (CPC) members in Yingtan city, eastern China's Jiangxi Province, as a national delegate candidate to the 19th CPC National Congress. Her nomination, which still needs to be reviewed, does not affect her everyday work, developing new moulds in the workshop. Nationwide, a total of 2,300 delegates will be elected before June to represent China's 88 million CPC members to take part in the national congress. The meeting, slated for the second half of the year in Beijing, will discuss and set the future direction for the Party and state, as well as elect a new central leadership. "I didn't expect so many people to trust and elect me. I'm very grateful," said Song, who became a CPC member five years ago. People placed their trust in her for various reasons. At the age of 33, she was laid off from a brewery where she worked for 16 years, but pulled herself together to find a job as a warehouse keeper in a copper firm. Song wanted more, and she pushed herself to become a skilled mould worker, learning from colleagues. Over the past decade, she has led a team to develop new technologies, creating a profit of more than 30 million yuan (around 4 million U.S. dollars) for the previously loss-making factory. The CPC national congress takes place once every five years. The delegates are not full-time and come from all walks of life: state leaders, officials, workers, farmers and teachers. The upcoming session will see a higher percentage of grassroots delegates working on the frontline like Song. These frontline workers should account for no less than one-third of the delegates, representing provincial level regions, the central financial sector and centrally-administered enterprises in Beijing, which increased by 1.33, 13.3 and 1.33 percentage points respectively, compared to the 18th CPC National Congress. Governments at various levels put forward that Party officials, front-line workers, women and those from ethnic groups should account for a certain proportion of the total. Meanwhile, excellent Party members making outstanding contribution to reforms, technological innovation and poverty alleviation should also be recommended. As a migrant worker contributing to poverty relief, Yu Dechun has been nominated as a candidate delegate in Shuizi township, Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province. Yu, 45, has helped many women in the township find jobs related to housekeeping services in cities, increasing their annual income by 8,500 yuan per capita. More focus on grassroots delegates represents a change in Party membership. Party authorities approved 1.965 million new candidates in 2015, of whom 977,000 were frontline workers, such as industrial employees, farmers, herders and migrants. "The rising number of frontline delegates can better reflect the views of Party members and cement public support for the Party," said Chu Xiaotao, deputy head of organization department of Yingtan city. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-13 16:21:02|Editor: Zhang Dongmiao Video Player Close WASHINGTON, April 13 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the relations between the United States and Russia "may be at an all-time low." The United States is "not getting along with Russia at all," Trump said at a press conference at the White House. Trump said that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had completed a successful meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, where "things went pretty well." But he said it was an open question where relations go from here. "It would be a fantastic thing" if the two nations got along better, Trump said, but cautioned that "it may be just the opposite." Any hope that the Trump administration is poised for a potentially historic rapprochement with Russia has been dashed after the U.S. missile strike on a Syrian airbase last Thursday. At the press conference, Trump, who frequently called for warmer ties with Putin during his presidential election campaign, defended his decision to launch 59 missiles at the Syrian airbase in response to the alleged chemical attack the United States has said the Syrian government should be blamed for. "It can't be a worst sight. And it shouldn't be allowed. That's a butcher," Trump said. "So, I felt we had to do something about it. I have absolutely no doubt we did the right thing. And it was very, very successfully done." When asked whether Russia had prior knowledge about the Syrian government's alleged use of chemical weapons, Trump said it's "possible," but "unlikely" that Russia had known in advance of Syria's plan to launch a chemical weapons attack on its own citizens. Trump's grim assessment of U.S.-Russia ties came shortly after Tillerson struck a similar tone after meeting with Putin in Moscow. "There is a low level of trust between our two countries. The world's two foremost nuclear powers cannot have this kind of relationship," he said at a news conference, adding that Moscow and Washington had agreed to establish a working group to identify problems and improve bilateral relations. PUTIN-TRUMP HONEYMOON TURNS SOUR Putin has condemned the U.S. military assault on a Syrian airfield, saying that the move represents an aggression against a sovereign state in violation of international law under a far-fetched pretext. Earlier in an interview broadcast on Wednesday before the meeting with Tillerson, Putin said that mutual trust between Russia and the United States, especially on the military level, had eroded in the first few months of Trump's presidency. During Tillerson's visit to Moscow on Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov gave the top U.S. diplomat an earful of criticism over the U.S. strike. Calling for an "objective and unbiased probe" into the chemical attack in Syria, Lavrov said that Russia has no intention to shield anyone responsible for the incident and repeated Russia's view that the Syrian government was not responsible for the attack. Russia on late Wednesday vetoed a United Nations (UN) resolution demanding the Syrian government cooperate with an investigation into the suspected chemical attack, saying that Moscow had consistently expressed its "categorical disagreement" with the draft resolution, which led to further criticism from the West, including the United States. "The international community has spoken. Russia now has a lot to prove," U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said. Wayne White, former deputy director of the State Department's Middle East intelligence office, told Xinhua that the idea of Washington and Moscow reaching a consensus is highly unlikely. "U.S. and Russian interests, whether in Syria, toward NATO, human rights, etc. are far too different despite President Trump's earlier interest in an understanding," White said. "One side inevitably would have to make big sacrifices inconsistent with some of its policy interests, but Trump and Vladimir Putin are two...assertive personalities who instinctively preserve their powerful images. In some ways, they are too much alike," added the expert. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-13 16:41:09|Editor: Xiang Bo Video Player Close SHANGHAI, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Starbucks will provide an insurance plan to help thousands of its employees in China care for their aging parents, as the global coffee chain sticks to its ambitious expansion plan in the traditionally tea-drinking country. Starbucks executive chairman Howard Schultz made the announcement during his China visit this week. According to the company, full-time employees on the Chinese mainland with parents under the age of 75 years can apply for the China Parent Care Program, which covers medical treatment for 30 common critical illnesses among the elderly in China. More than 10,000 parents are expected to benefit, it said. In an interview with Xinhua, Schultz said the decision was made after the company discovered the Chinese have unique and powerful family responsibilities to their parents. Schultz said the commitment was so real and powerful that a survey found 70 to 80 percent of the company's Chinese employees think taking care of their parents is the most desirable benefit they could receive. "When I sat down (with the employees) and said, 'Tell me what is your dream for yourself,' the only thing that kept coming was not about themselves but 'to take care of my parents,'" Schultz said. "It is a very easy decision for us....but I view it as a significant opportunity to say thank you to our people and to reassure them of fulfilling their commitment," he said. The Seattle-based coffee chain entered the Chinese market 18 years ago. But it was not until very recently that its coffee business made leaps and bounds. In 2011, there were only around 400 Starbucks in China, but today the number has soared to 2,600. And the coffee chain's footprint has gone beyond major metropolises to 127 cities. About 40,000 people were employed. China has become Starbucks's largest overseas and fastest-growing market. Schultz confirmed an expansion plan announced last year under which Starbucks China aims to double its number of stores to 5,000 by 2021 and add 10,000 new jobs every year in the next five years. "We are going to play a 'long game' and we are investing heavily to build a big and enduring business," he said, adding that he is optimistic about the Chinese economy and consumers. He said people have come to accept that coffee is a beverage that brings people together, which feeds people's longing for human connection just as well as Chinese tea has. Starbucks China CEO Belinda Wong credited the company's success in China to the country's rapidly expanding middle class, a rising coffee market, and the growth of ritual coffee-drinking behavior. Schultz said Starbucks will open its first international roastery and reserve tasting room at the end of this year in Shanghai. Its first roastery opened in Seattle about two years ago to display premium coffee beans and demonstrate unique brewing techniques. Schultz said the Shanghai roastery will be twice the size of the one in Seattle and he cannot wait for it to open. Starbucks will also continue digital innovation to appeal to China's millennials, Schultz said. The company has recently partnered with Wechat to enable mobile phone payment and started to offer gifting on the popular Chinese social media platform. JAKARTA, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Indonesia's national search and rescue office said on Thursday that a cargo plane going missing on Wednesday had crashed into a mountain in Papua province. A signal from the cargo plane had been detected and the crashed plane was located in the deep forest in remote Oksibil, spokesman of the national search and rescue office named only Marsudi told Xinhua by phone. "The plane collided with a mountain in the deep forest area in Oksibbil," he said. Rescuers flying there could not reach the area partly due to the poor weather condition, said Marsudi. The spokesman confirmed that only a pilot was aboard the cargo plane. The cargo plane was en route from Wajo to Sentani when the crash occurred, the spokesman said. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-13 17:56:33|Editor: Zhang Dongmiao Video Player Close BEIJING, April 13 (Xinhua) -- A former senior legislator in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province was sentenced Thursday to 14 years in prison for accepting bribes. Gai Ruyin, former deputy head of the Standing Committee of Heilongjiang Provincial People's Congress, was also fined 2 million yuan (about 291,300 U.S. dollars) and ordered to return all this ill-gotten gains by the First Intermediate People's Court of Tianjin, north China. The court found Gai guilty of taking advantage of his various positions in Heilongjiang to help others secure projects, business opportunities and promotions from 2003 to 2015, according to a press release. In return, he accepted money and property amounting to more than 23 million yuan personally or through other people, the court said. The court decided to be lenient as Gai pleaded guilty, expressed remorse, returned his illegal gains and offered information about other crimes. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-13 18:06:35|Editor: Xiang Bo Wang Shouwen (L), Chinese vice minister of commerce, Keiichi Katakami (C), Japan's deputy minister for foreign affairs, Lee Sang-jin, assistant minister of Republic of Korea Ministry of Trade, shake hands during the 12th round of talks on a trilateral free trade agreement in Tokyo, Japan, April 13, 2017. Top negotiators from China, Japan and the Republic of Korea(ROK) met here Thursday on pushing forward trade in goods and services as well as investment at the 12th round of talks on a trilateral free trade agreement (FTA). (Xinhua/Ma Ping) TOKYO, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Top negotiators from China, Japan and the Republic of Korea (ROK) met here Thursday on pushing forward trade in goods and services as well as investment at the 12th round of talks on a trilateral free trade agreement (FTA). Wang Shouwen, Chinese vice minister of commerce, said at the meeting that while global economy is facing a slowdown and uncertain future, and world trade and investment are encountering impediments, China's economic growth in the past decade underscores the fact that global trade has played and will continue to play a key role in driving the world economy. Wang said that if China, Japan and ROK could make substantial headways in the FTA talks, it will send a positive signal to the world on anti-protectionism and safeguarding economic globalization. The experiences gained from the talks on the trilateral FTA will also contribute to the negotiations on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), the Chinese vice minister said. Keiichi Katakami, Japan's deputy minister for foreign affairs, and Lee Sang-jin, assistant minister of ROK Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, attended the meeting. Trilateral talks on China-Japan-ROK FTA, launched in November 2012, were aimed at forging a comprehensive, high-level and mutually beneficial free trade agreement with unique values. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-13 18:26:42|Editor: Xiang Bo Video Player Close BEIJING, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Wang Jianyi, chairman of Chinese optical cable provider FUTONG Group, lauded the company's decision to expand into Thailand as a win-win move. "In China, competition in the rapidly growing optical cable sector is squeezing profit margins, but in Thailand the product is still in short supply," Wang said. By manufacturing products at their destination -- in FUTONG's case at the Thai-Chinese Rayong Industrial Zone, an industrial park on the east coast of Thailand -- Chinese firms are answering demand while expanding their own businesses. At the Thai industrial zone, companies have spent 2.5 billion U.S. dollars on building plants and facilities. These firms have generated 120 million U.S. dollars in taxes and created more than 20,000 local jobs. The industrial park is just one project under the Belt and Road Initiative, a grand trade and infrastructure plan proposed by China in 2013. Building upon the ancient routes, the modern belt and road will be a transnational network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa and promoting common development among all the countries involved. The industrial zone in Thailand shows that China's ambitious plan more than just visionary or political rhetoric -- it is reality, and the benefits are already being felt. FORUM TO BUILD MORE CONSENSUS This time next month over 1,200 representatives, including the leaders of more than 20 countries and 50 international organizations, will gather in Beijing for the first Belt and Road Forum. Attendees of the two-day forum, which will start May 13, will discuss cooperation on infrastructure, trade and energy development, according to China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The forum comes at a time when, more than ever, countries must seek to reach broader consensus on how to achieve innovative and inclusive growth amid the sagging global economy. One event to watch, in this regard, will be the round-table summit, as world leaders will discuss policy and strategy coordination. A number of projects, deals and longer-term initiatives are expected to be pushed forward, while a mechanism for long-term cooperation will be discussed. "The forum will build consensus among all participants, reinforcing the international community's confidence in the Belt and Road Initiative as well as for globalization itself," said Wang Yiwei, a senior researcher at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University. COUNTING ON CHINA PLAN The world economy has still not fully recovered from the global financial crisis. Moreover, uneven resource allocation between developed and developing countries has only made matters worse. One of the priorities of the Belt and Road Initiative is to help developing countries be heard and to explore a more equitable, reasonable and justified global governance system, said Ou Xiaoli, a senior official of the National Development and Reform Commission. China, for its part, is willing to share its experience and expertise in infrastructure, trade and energy development with countries along the routes to achieve common prosperity. According to a report co-authored by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) and China Bond Rating, investors tend to favor the energy, transportation and information technology sectors. The value of all infrastructure projects in 66 countries and regions that fell under the initiative in 2016 was just under 500 billion U.S. dollars, according to accounting firm PwC. "Better infrastructure will help transport goods and talent from China to areas with resources and demand, and then there will be more projects in retail, real estate and other market-oriented sectors in countries with large populations," said Sean Prior, counsel at the law firm Mayer Brown JSM. FANS AROUND THE GLOBE Openness, inclusiveness and mutual benefit are the hallmarks of the initiative and the source of its strong support, said Liu Jieyi, China's permanent representative to the United Nations (UN). Since the initiative was proposed, it has won support from over 100 countries and international organizations, with the signing of nearly 50 inter-governmental agreements of cooperation. In addition to developing-country partners, China signed a cooperation agreement with New Zealand in March, the first developed Western country to do so. Since 2013, China has invested more than 50 billion U.S. dollars in countries along the Belt and Road, according to a CASS report. A total of 56 economic and trade cooperation zones have already been built by Chinese businesses in 20 Belt and Road countries, generating nearly 1.1 billion U.S. dollars in tax revenue and creating 180,000 local jobs. A recent resolution adopted by the UN also highlighted the role of the initiative in advancing regional economic cooperation, urging involved parties to help create a favorable environment for projects under the initiative by improving security, among other efforts. The initiative offers "great potential" for advancing the UN's sustainable development agenda through economic growth, trade opportunities, job and income generation, infrastructure building and capacity building, said UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs Wu Hongbo. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-13 18:31:45|Editor: Zhang Dongmiao Video Player Close ADDIS ABABA, April 13 (Xinhua) -- The United States government reinstatement of bans on groups that provide abortions is endangering family planning works being done in Ethiopia, according to an NGO official. Adam Zeleke, a Senior official at the Family Guidance Association of Ethiopia (FGAE) which at 51 years old is Ethiopia's oldest family planning organization, says on Thursday up to 10 percent of their annual funds are affected by the ban. In January, the administration of new U.S. President Donald Trump reinstated funding ban for international family planning charities that provide abortion or actively support the procedure. Originally banned under the late U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1984 from Republican Party, it was repealed by President Barrack Obama of Democratic Party in 2009 highlighting partisan divisions over abortion in the United States itself. The volunteer based FGAE, through its 52 service delivery clinics, gives abortion services provided that the fetus or the expectant mother life is in danger, for individuals under 18 years of age, for victims of rape and incestuous relationship and for those who cannot afford to raise a child. But the ban on abortion-related funds which amount to 20 million plus U.S. dollars annually has affected other gender and contraceptive services which have been mixed up in the ban, according to FGAE. "FGAE gives reproductive health services to more than 500,000 people annually, helping cut the birth rate of Ethiopia's ballooning population from 7 children per family in 1992 to 3.2 in 2016," says Zeleke. FGAE also says contraceptive use in the same period has jumped from 4 percent to 32 percent of the general population. With a population nearing 100 million, mostly youth, Ethiopia is facing the challenge of feeding its population and providing job opportunities for hundreds of thousands of new job seekers annually. The U.S. government provides FGAE funds through its own institution Center for Disease Control (CDC), the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) and an NGO Pathfinder Ethiopia. "Although the funding ban amounts to just 10 percent of our funds, the fact that we the U.S. government was the largest provider of funds to abortion services will affect our services greatly," says Zeleke. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-13 18:56:49|Editor: Zhang Dongmiao Video Player Close DAMASCUS, April 13 (Xinhua) -- The Syrian army on Thursday said the U.S.-led anti-terror coalition struck a chemical weapons depot controlled by the Islamic State (IS) group in eastern Syria, killing hundreds, including civilians. The U.S.-led airstrikes targeted the big depot containing chemical materials in the town of Hatleh in the eastern countryside of Deir al-Zour on Wednesday, said the army in a statement. It added that large numbers of civilians were among those killed due to the suffocation caused by the spread of the toxic materials. The explosion of the arm depot left a big white cloud, which turned into yellow, said the statement. "This incident is a sign of the coordination between the terrorist groups and the powers supporting them to find pretexts to frame the Syrian army and accuse it of using chemical weapons," the statement said, almost a week after the opposition accused the Syrian government air force of firing toxic gas on the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib province. At the time, the Syrian government rejected the accusations, blaming the rebels of storing chemical materials in the targeted area. The U.S. was quick to accuse the government, launching a missile strike against Syria's largest airbase, causing damages and killing six soldiers and nine civilians. This time, the military statement said that the terrorist groups, including IS and the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front are in possession of chemical weapons. "The terrorist groups are capable of obtaining, and stockpiling such weapons with the help of well-known regional countries and that what Syria has been warning against in every instance the rebels used chemical weapons against civilians and government forces," the statement said. FRANKFURT, April 13 (Xinhua)-- German federal prosecutor's office Thursday filed an arrest warrant against Abdul Beset A., a 26 year-old Iraqi who was detained following an attack on the Borussia Dortmund team bus. The authority which is located in Karlsruhe, a city in southwest Germany, released a statement, saying that the detained Iraqi is suspected as a member of the Islamic State (IS) group. At the end of 2014, the young man had established contact with IS, before he entered German at the beginning of 2016 via Turkey, according to the authority. However, there is so far no evidence showing that the accused participated in the Dortmund attack. Borussia Dortmund team bus was hit by three explosions on Tuesday evening, on its way from hotel to stadium, which badly damaged the vehicle, injuring one player. GAZA, April 13 (Xinhua) -- A senior official in Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah Party said on Thursday there are contacts with the Hamas Movement to soon initiate practical steps toward ending 10 years of internal Palestinian discord in Gaza. "We cannot wait until we hurt our own national cause ourselves. As Palestinian people and leaders, we must cooperate to end this tragedy," senior Fatah member Azzam al-Ahmad told the official "Voice of Palestine" Radio. He added that everyone agrees on implementing "what we agreed upon by forming a unity government with extended full authority over the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in accordance with the law." Al-Ahmad, who leads the Fatah Party dialogue with Hamas, pointed out that all the Gaza Strip's problems, whether material, moral or political, "can only finish by ending the anxious chasm." Regarding the Fatah members' meeting with Hamas representatives in Gaza, Al-Ahmad said that contacts are in place and several delegates are present in Gaza and it is not just merely a visit. He stressed that "we want decisive and clear guarantees and not to waste time networking nor in meetings." On Wednesday, Hamas welcomed the anticipated Fatah delegation scheduled visit to the Gaza Strip early next week in order to launch discussions regarding putting an end to the internal Palestinian division, which has lasted for 10 years. Salah al-Bardawil, a senior Hamas member told reporters that Hamas welcomes any delegation in Gaza and clarified that the Fatah movement includes and involves Palestinians. Fatah's central committee said on Saturday that a liaison committee was formed to discuss with Hamas final solutions regarding recent steps taken by the Islamic movement in the Gaza Strip. The Central Committee said after meeting with President Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah that the newly-formed committee will promptly discuss perspectives and final solutions with Hamas, with a deadline set for April 25. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-13 19:11:58|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close SARI PUL, Afghanistan, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Eleven militants were killed after Afghan air force struck their position in the country's northern province of Sari Pul, a military source said on Thursday. "The Afghan army's helicopter gunships launched airstrikes against a Taliban hideout in Sayyad district on Wednesday. And 10 militants were also wounded following the raid," a press officer of army's Corps 209 Shaheen based in the region told Xinhua. The targeted militants' hideout and 15 motorcycles were also destroyed by the attack in the province, 350 km north of Kabul, the source added. Sari Pul province, as well as neighboring Faryab and Jawzjan provinces, has been the scene of heavy clashes between security forces and militants over the past couple of years as the militants have been trying to challenge government forces in the once peaceful region. The Taliban insurgency has been on the rampage since the beginning of 2015 when the Afghan security forces assumed full responsibilities of security from the U.S. and NATO troops. The militant group has yet to make comments. Enditem MOGADISHU, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Somalia President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed vowed on Thursday to stabilize the country by defeating Al-Shabaab militant group which has waged a series of attacks against his government. Mohamed said the militants who have continued to kill and maim innocent civilians in Mogadishu should take advantage of the amnesty issued recently, warning that those continuing to commit acts of terror will face the full force of the government. "We will look nowhere. We will use the same tactics that we used in the past and we will liberate the country with the capability of our troops," Mohamed said in a statement issued in Mogadishu. The president, who made the remarks during the Somali National Army (SNA) 57th anniversary celebrations held in Mogadishu, said his government was ready to dialogue if the militants take advantage of the amnesty, but promised to pursue them if they do not renounce violence. He warned that those continuing to commit acts of terror will face the full force of the government and promised to deploy the same tactics that forced out Al-Shabaab from the capital city and other major towns. "The leaders of Al-Shabaab should know that they are not destroying the government of Somalia. The government has international support and a large army. You are destroying property and killing your brothers. The leaders of Al-Shabaab should know that they have been fighting for the last 10 years and we have patiently waited to negotiate," Mohamed said. "If you refuse the peace that we are extending to you, we will come after you wherever you are. I am asking you to stop killing people. Let us negotiate, disarm and develop the country," he added, urging the public to brace for a major offensive that will be jointly undertaken by the SNA and AMISOM. Mohamed pledged to tackle corruption and address the welfare of soldiers as part of ongoing efforts to rebuild the army. He paid glowing tribute to AMISOM for the role it has played in pacifying the country but noted that for the SNA to be able to play its part, effectively, there is need to have a clean and dedicated leadership, which the administration has started putting in place. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-13 19:27:05|Editor: Zhang Dongmiao Video Player Close SANAA, April 13 (Xinhua) -- A Yemeni security court here under control of Iranian-allied Shiite Houthi movement sentenced Wednesday a veteran journalist to death over charges of spying for neighboring Sunni Saudi Arabia, Houthi-controlled state Saba news agency reported on Thursday. Yahya al-Jubaihi, 61, was convicted of "illegally establishing contact with a foreign state which is Saudi Arabia and providing its diplomats in Sanaa with reports that posed harm to Yemen's army, political position and economy in return for 4,500 Saudi riyals (1,200 U.S. dollars) from Riyadh since 2010," Saba reported. The Yemeni Journalists Syndicate, however, strongly condemned the heavy sentence against al-Jubaihi, saying he was a well-known veteran journalist across Yemen, and accusing Houthis of "targeting the freedom of the press." The Houthis ousted Saudi-backed internationally recognized government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and seized control of northern Yemen, including the capital Sanaa, in September 2014. Saudi Arabia led a military coalition and intervened in the Yemeni conflict since March 2015 via an air campaign. The campaign is attempting to restore power to expelled President Hadi and his government. So far, some 10,000 Yemenis have been killed in the air campaign and ground battles, with three million others displaced. DAKAR, April 13 (Xinhua) -- At least 20 people were killed on Thursday in fire at a Senegalese religious retreat, according to local media. NEW DELHI, April 13 (Xinhua) -- The Indian government said Thursday that Pakistan has been denying its requests for consular access to meet Kulbhushan Jadhav, a former navy officer sentenced to death on charges of spying. The government said it has no information about the whereabouts of Jadhav in Pakistan. "Kulbhushan Jadhav is a kidnapped innocent Indian, who is a retired officer of Indian navy and we have communicated it to Pakistan a year ago, when it came into our notice that he has been illegally detained there," India's foreign ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay told media. "So far we had made 13 consular access requests to Pakistan in case of Kulbhushan Jadhav but the requests have been turned down and therefore we don't know where or in what condition he is being held." According to Baglay, Pakistan has also not shared any details about Jadhav's condition. India Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj has told the Indian parliament that her ministry would go "out of the way" to save Jadhav. Jadhav, according to Pakistan, was arrested on March 3 last year in restive Balochistan province and sentenced to death on Monday by a military court for carrying out "espionage and sabotage activities against Pakistan." Shortly after his arrest, Pakistan military's Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) released his confessional video admitting involvement in spying. Balochistan is hit by a separatist insurgency and Pakistan blames India of backing the separatism in the province. India rejects Pakistan's claims and said Jadhav was "kidnapped" and tried on "concocted charges." New Delhi believes Jadhav has been picked up from Iran. In these conflicting reports how and where Jadhav was detained remains shrouded in mystery. According to media reports, he has 40 days to appeal to the court against his death penalty. The two nuclear-armed neighbors - India and Pakistan have a long history of diplomatic spars and both sides often accuse each other of sending spies into their territories to create trouble. Last year the two countries blamed each others that officials at their respective missions in New Delhi and Islamabad for spying and subsequently forcing each other to withdrew them. In 2013, Sarabjit Singh, an Indian man on death row, was killed after an attack by fellow prisoners. A Pakistani prisoner Sonaullah sentenced for life died in a similar circumstances days later. The attack on Sonaullah was seen as an apparent retaliation to the death of Singh. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-13 19:47:11|Editor: Zhang Dongmiao Video Player Close RAMALLAH, April 13 (Xinhua) -- A senior Palestinian official said on Thursday that a high-ranking delegation is expected to visit Washington at the end of April in preparation for President Mahmoud Abbas's scheduled visit to the United States. Palestinian Minister of Foreign Affairs Riad al-Maliki said in a Radio statement that the Palestinian delegation will head for Washington the last week of April to prepare for Abbas's visit with U.S. President Donald Trump early in May. On March 10, Abbas received a phone call from Trump with an invitation to visit the U.S. soon. Last month, U.S. Envoy for International Negotiations, Jason Greenblatt, visited Palestinian territories and Israel, and held talks with Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It was Greenblatt's first visit to the region since Trump took office as the U.S. President this January. Greenblatt affirmed that Trump is committed to achieve permanent peace between Palestinians and Israelis through direct peace negotiations. The last peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians ended in vain around the end of March 2014 following nine months of U.S.-sponsored peace talks. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-13 20:34:56|Editor: Yamei Former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda (2nd L, front) attends a conference of an executive committee for holding a series of activities marking the 45th anniversary of the normalization of China-Japan diplomatic relations, in Tokyo, Japan, April 12, 2017. Japan will hold a series of activities marking the 45th anniversary of the normalization of China-Japan diplomatic relations this year and the 40th anniversary of a bilateral peace and friendship treaty next year, said Sadayuki Sakakibara, chairman of Japan Business Federation, here on Wednesday. Sakakibara, head of an executive committee for holding the activities, said at the first conference of the committee here that Japan hopes to further enhance friendly exchanges with China through these activities. (Xinhua/Ma Ping) CAPE TOWN, April 13 (Xinhua) -- A nationwide bus strike continued on Thursday, frustrating thousands of commuters who are stranded on the eve of the Easter holiday. Thousands of bus drivers have gone on strike to protest against the dehumanizing conditions faced by employees in the bus passenger sector. The services of Golden Arrow and MyCiti in Cape Town, Rea Vaya in Johannesburg, Gautrain buses and Putco in Gauteng Province, as well as some long-distance bus services have all been suspended because of the strike action. In Cape Town alone, 220,000 Golden Arrow passengers were affected, according to the company. The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), which organized the strike, vowed on Thursday to continue the strike indefinitely until its demand for a 12-percent wage increases is met. The union has rejected the latest wage offer of 7.5 percent increase by employers in the bus passenger sector. Talks with employers broken down on Wednesday, leaving the striking workers with no choice but to continue their strike action, NUMSA acting national spokesperson Phakamile Hlubi said. "We were hoping that the employer would engage meaningfully with our demands and put a fair offer on the table, but that wasn't the case," he said. It is clear that the employers do not care about resolving the strike, neither do they care about the welfare of the workers, or the public at large, Hlubi said. "We call on all workers to unite behind this just cause for equality and dignity. We will not return to work until the employer starts to treat our members like human beings, instead of slave labor," said Hlubi. Easter is one of the most important holidays in South Africa. From Friday to Monday, thousands of pilgrims and holiday makers will be travelling to attend church service and travelling to different holiday destinations. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-13 20:37:21|Editor: Yamei Video Player Close Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang (Photo source: fmprc.gov.cn) BEIJING, April 13 (Xinhua) -- China on Thursday reaffirmed that dialogue and consultation are the only effective way to solve the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang made the remarks at a daily press briefing Thursday. Lu said it has always been the stance of the Chinese government that dialogue and consultation are the only way to achieve denuclearization and safeguard peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula. "We have taken note of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's remarks that Russia and the United States agree that the only solution to the Korean Peninsula unclear issue is political," Lu said. "We hope all related parties will forge consensus on this general direction and fundamental principle and make concrete efforts accordingly," said Lu. Lavrov made the remarks Wednesday after talks with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. NAIROBI, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Kenya and the World Bank will partner to roll out a project to improve maternal, child and adolescent health, Kenyan officials said on Thursday. The five-year Transforming Health System for Universal Care (THS-UC) project will begin in October and end in September 2021 and will strengthen institutional health capacity in order improve quality of health services in the counties. Co-chair of THS-UC Project William Muraah told a media briefing in Nairobi that Kenya has received a 150 million U.S. dollar loan from the World Bank to fund the project that aims to disburse resources to the 47 counties in order to improve their primary health services. "The five year project will improve access to and demand for quality primary health care services so as to reduce maternal deaths," Muraah said. Government data indicates that Kenya loses 362 women for every 100,000 live births. Muraah said through the project Kenya should reduce the figure to 70 per live births by the year 2030. According to the ministry of health, 15 out of 47 counties account for 85 percent of all maternal deaths. He said that the counties with weaker health systems will receive more priority funding as compared to the ones with stronger health systems. THS-UC will be implemented by the 47 counties government because health is a devolved function. Muraah, who is also the Meru County Executive Committee Member in Charge of Health, said that all the county governments are currently developing work plans to execute the project. He noted that project is aligned to Kenya's constitution, the second medium term development plan as well as the Sustainable Development Goals. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-13 21:17:29|Editor: Xiang Bo Video Player Close BEIJING, April 13 (Xinhua) -- China will keep its tough stance on terrorism and will maximize anti-terror efforts to "root out violent, terrorist activities," Chinese police chief Guo Shengkun has said. China will adhere to its tough policy and reinforce the role of intelligence and information, Minister of Public Security Guo told a national anti-terror work meeting on Wednesday. His speech at the meeting was released Thursday. Guo, also head of the national anti-terrorism leading group, asked police authorities to campaign against violence and terrorism and "deepen anti-extremism work," as well as curb the spread of audio and video items related to violence and terrorism. He also asked them to motivate the people to participate in anti-terror work and ensure a safe, stable environment for the upcoming 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. NAIROBI, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Kenya's ministry of agriculture has announced invasion of fall armyworms in the country and discouraged citizens from moving plant materials from one region to another as the pest ravages farms in the East African nation. The pests have infested several farms targeting mainly maize, thus, worsening the country's food crisis affected by a six month drought. "The Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries announces the invasion of fall armyworms in western, southern and south rift regions. The public is discouraged from moving infested plant materials to areas where the pest has not been detected," said the ministry in a statement Thursday. In Kenya, the movement of green maize for roasting is a thriving business, posing a serious threat in spreading the pest. The ministry identified a variety of crops that the pest is ravaging, including cereals such as sorghum, millet, rice, millet, wheat, maize and barley. Pasture grasses like Bermuda, hay and Napier grass are also being attacked by the pest, the ministry said. "Other susceptible crops include kales, cabbages, legumes or pulses, bananas, tomatoes, capsicum, ginger, spinach, amaranth, onions, sugar beet, citrus, cucumber and sunflower." The ministry noted that the armyworm is a migratory pest, with the adult pest having a capacity to fly over 30km drifting through air current. "Fall armyworm is a ferocious feeder which upon invasion quickly destroys maize. The caterpillar feeds on the outer foliage making large and ragged holes. Attack on maize at early vegetative stage can result into 100 percent loss if no control measures are taken," said the ministry. Farmers in different parts of East Africa's biggest economy, especially those in maize growing areas like Bungoma, Busia, Siaya and Kakamega and wheat growing areas like Nakuru and Uasin Gishu, have reported armyworm infestation. The invasion spells a huge trouble for citizens, who consume up to 4 million bags of maize every month, according to the ministry, with the country producing only 40 million bags annually and the rest is imported. "Maize is the most important staple in Kenya with a per capita consumption of more than 78kg per annum. Currently, approximately 11,000 hectares of off-season maize have been infested. Therefore, the pest has the potential to cause national food insecurity. This pest is of great socio-economic importance and warrants attention," said the government agency. The armyworm, according to the ministry, undergoes full egg-larva-pupa-adult metamorphosis, with the female laying tiny eggs in masses of 150-200 covered by a protective protein sheath, making it hard to eliminate. However, the ministry recommends late evening spraying with requisite chemicals at least three times starting at two weeks after emergence, then when the maize is at knee high and just before tussling. "Plant early and adhere to regional planting calendar, use recommended fertilizers and keep fields weed-free to boost plant vigour," the government told farmers. County governments in affected regions have allocated millions of U.S. dollars to help farmers fight the pest. Farmers, on their own, however are also recording some level of success in fighting the pest, with some noting it is just a matter of time before they eliminate the armyworms. "For now, I have tamed the worms through constant spraying. Farmers should remain vigilant all the time looking for signs of new attacks and spray with pesticides immediately. One should never spray once and believe the armyworms have been eliminated," Samuel Ambuche, a farmer in Bungoma, said Thursday. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-13 21:42:41|Editor: Xiang Bo Video Player Close NICOSIA, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Chinese investors have contributed to a large extent to the revival of the construction sector in Cyprus following its collapse after the 2013 economic crisis, an expert in the property market said on Thursday. Kyriakos Talatinis, president of Cyprus Association of Valuers and Property Consultants, told Xinhua that investment by Chinese in the Paphos area was one of the reasons the property market jumped 40 percent in 2016 compared to 2015. He said that the Paphos area in western Cyprus attracted mostly Chinese buyers as property developers from this region were the first to visit China to attract customers after the Cyprus's 10-billion-euro bailout in March 2013. "As early as 2013, Chinese people started buying property in Paphos, " he said. Data showed that contracts for property transactions submitted to the land registry department reached 7,063, an increase of 43 percent in 2016 for the eastern Mediterranean island. "Not all regions benefited by the same ratio. Land development in Limassol went up by 59 percent, and by 40 percent in Paphos. Demand came mostly from foreign purchasers and especially in Paphos from Chinese buyers," Talatinis said. Land registry department data showed that in 2016 there had been 295 completed purchases by foreigners in Paphos out of a total of 958 for the whole of Cyprus and another 627 sale agreements in which the buyers are non-Cypriots had been filed with the land registry department, out of a total of 1,183. Filing a sale contract with the land registry department is a guarantee for the purchaser that the same property cannot be legally sold more than once. Talatinis said that for the size of Cyprus and its economy, even one-half of these would have made an impact. But home buying is still far behind its 2008 peak, the year Cyprus joined the eurozone, when a total of 16,000 contracts were filed with the land registry department. Talatinis said prices are still down to between 70 and 75 percent relative to 2008 but there is a fluctuation between regions. Prices for sea-side properties in Limassol and Paphos are close of even above those of 2008 due to foreign demand, but in other areas are still depressed. The Federation of Associations of Building Contractors Cyprus said the increase in construction is continuing in 2017. The association president, Costas Roushas, said data showed that building activity increased by 23 percent in the first two months this year relative to the same period in 2016, on top of an increase of 21 percent for the whole of last year. Roushas said a factor which helped the construction of new houses was a cut of 50 percent in transfer fees introduced last year by the government. He said that reducing value added tax on the purchase of houses to 5 percent from the current level of 19 percent could boost even more the construction sector. Roushas said that a considerable part of the activity is due to the construction of high-rise luxury buildings in Limassol offering luxury apartment and office space. At least three complexes up to 30 floors high are under construction along the sea-front of the city. (1 euro = 1.06 U.S. dollars) ISLAMABAD, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Security forces have killed four militants and arrested another 12 in Pakistan's east Punjab province during the past 24 hours, officials said on Thursday. Colonel Amjad Iqbal, the spokesman of paramilitary troops Rangers in Punjab, said the forces launched a search operation in Dera Ghazi Khan district of the province on an intelligence tip-off. The spokesman said a soldier also got injured during the clash of firing with the militants during the operation. He said the operation was carried out under Radd-ul-Fasaad, the ongoing combat to eliminate terrorists and their networks from the country. All the four militants were affiliated with banned outfit Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan and a huge cache of arms and ammunitions were recovered from their custody. "Four suicide jackets, one rocket launcher, six rockets, six detectors, four charged boosters and 18 other weapons were recovered from the suspects' possession," he said. The spokesman said Rangers arrested 12 suspected militants during raids in Sheikhupura, Sambrial and Kharian cities. WARSAW, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski said that during his visit to Washington next week he would ask for U.S. help to retrieve from Russia the wreckage of a Polish presidential plane that crashed in 2010, Polish public television TVP reported Thursday. "I have been invited to Washington by (U.S.)Secretary of State Rex Tillerson," Waszczykowski told TVP. "We will, first of all, talk about bilateral cooperation, military cooperation, about security in our part of Europe," the Polish minister said. They are also to discuss Russia's return to Poland of the wreckage of the presidential plane that crashed near Smolensk, western Russia, on April 10, 2010, killing all 96 people on board. Several important Polish figures died in the crash, including then President Lech Kaczynski and his wife. "We are still waiting for support from our allies on this matter," Waszczykowski stressed. "I will certainly present the whole issue of the Smolensk disaster and our diplomatic struggle to get the wreckage back, and I will ask for assistance," the minister said. Seven years ago, a Polish government plane, Tupolev Tu-154, crashed near a military airfield in Smolensk. Among the victims were dozens of senior government officials and military commanders. The delegation was underway to nearby Katyn in western Russia to attend events commemorating Polish victims of Katyn executions in 1940. MOSCOW, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Montenegro's upcoming accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) will harm stability in the Balkans and in Europe as a whole, Russia's Foreign Ministry said on Thursday. "We consider this step as a manifestation of inertia in Washington's policy, reflecting the logic of confrontation on the European continent, creating new dividing lines," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. On Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump signed a protocol to ratify Montenegro's accession to NATO, and the Balkan country will officially join the alliance as its 29th member next month in Brussels. Montenegro's accession to NATO is not based on real public opinion and has incurred criticism even in the United States, the statement added. Tensions between NATO and Russia have escalated as both are engaged in military build-up along the Russian border. Moscow strongly opposes the bloc's eastward expansion, which it says threatens its national security. Enditem Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-13 22:22:49|Editor: Xiang Bo Video Player Close GUANGZHOU, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Chinese police in several provinces arrested more than 430 suspects in connection with Internet-based pyramid-style schemes. Police in Guangdong, Beijing, Zhejiang and Henan busted multiple gangs, said the Public Security Department of Guangdong Province on Thursday. The illegal fundraising schemes involved 4 billion yuan (580 million U.S. dollars), with victims from across the country, said the department. Guangdong police began to investigate the cases in March. Some Internet companies in the province organized themselves under the disguise of charities or high-tech biological products with promises of high returns. In the first quarter, Guangdong police investigated more than 100 illegal fundraising cases and arrested more than 170 suspects, up 18 percent and 26 percent respectively. JAKARTA, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Two boats capsized Thursday off Indonesia's main island Java, leaving at least 11 people dead and five others missing, an official said. Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman of the national disaster agency, said overcapacity maybe the reason for the mishaps in Majalengka regency, West Java and Gresik regency, East Java. "In the first accident, a wooden boat in Majalengka flipped over on a river as it carried 14 farmers to harvest their crops," Nugroho said, adding that nine people died and five survived. Meanwhile, another overloaded boat carrying 13 people also capsized on a river in Gresik, leaving two people drowned, five missing, and six survived. Nugroho added the rescue team will continue searching the missing on Friday. In January, 23 people were killed, 17 went missing and 190 passengers were rescued when a massive fire engulfed a boat carrying hundreds of people to an island north of Jakarta in celebration of the New Year. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-13 22:32:52|Editor: ZD Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (R) and Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki meet the press after their talks in Beijing, capital of China, April 13, 2017. (Xinhua/Cui Xinyu) BEIJING, April 13 (Xinhua) -- China said on Thursday that it has no geopolitical concerns in its role in the Middle East and reaffirmed that its stance would always be fair and just. "China has played a positive and constructive role in the Middle East for years. There is no geopolitical consideration in its role, nor intention to make a balance with any other country," Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters after his talks with visiting Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki in Beijing. Wang added that China welcomed any country that wanted to support the region more and give more attention to the Palestine-Israel issue. He said the Palestine issue can only be settled with concrete action. The foreign minister voiced support for the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, the two-state solution, the establishment of a fully independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital, and any other help that would ease the Palestine-Israel situation. Wang urged the relevant sides to immediately stop any action that may undermine peace talks and mutual trust, and called for the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 2334, and for the building of new settlements and violence against civilians to stop. The resolution, adopted on Dec. 23, 2016, condemned Israel's settlements on occupied Palestinian territory as illegal, and urged it to halt building. Wang called for the resumption of peace talks as early as possible, and hoped the international community could enhance cooperation in this regard. Wang said China has made and will continue its efforts to promote the solution of the Palestine-Israel issue. China has always supported Palestine on its capacity building and will continue to offer support and help within its own capacity. Riyad al-Malki is on a four-day official visit to China from April 12 to 15 at the invitation of Wang. Sun Chunlan, head of the United Front Work Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, meets with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on April 13, 2017. (Xinhua/Zhao Dingzhe) CAIRO, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Egypt is an important partner of China in promoting the Belt and Road Initiative, a visiting senior Chinese official said here on Thursday. When meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Sun Chunlan, head of the United Front Work Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, hailed the long-standing traditional friendship between the two countries and continuous developments in bilateral ties. The presidents of the two countries have reached a broad consensus on developing the comprehensive strategic partnership, pointing out the directions of bilateral ties, she said. "China attaches great importance to developing friendly relations with Egypt and regards Egypt as an important partner in promoting the Belt and Road Initiative," Sun said. The Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road Initiative, known as the Belt and Road Initiative, was proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013 with the aim of building a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa along ancient trade routes. "China would like to comprehensively deepen pragmatic cooperation in various fields with Egypt and achieve joint development on the basis of mutual benefit and a win-win situation," Sun added. She also condemned the recent terrorist attacks in Egypt and expressed condolences to the victims. For his part, Sisi said Egypt admires the great achievements made by the Chinese people under the leadership of the CPC. "Egypt highly values the comprehensive strategic partnership between the two countries and is willing to participate in the Belt and Road Initiative actively," Sisi said, adding that he welcomes more Chinese companies to invest in Egypt. Egypt is willing to strengthen cooperation with China to combat terrorism in all its forms, he said. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-13 22:52:59|Editor: Tian Shaohui Moon Jae-in, a presidential candidate of South Korea's biggest Minjoo Party, speaks during a campaign for the upcoming presidential election in Seoul, South Korea on April 13, 2017. The country's presidential elections will take place on May 9. (Xinhua/Lee Sang-ho) SEOUL, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Five major South Korean presidential candidates had heated discussions Thursday in the first TV debate, with less than a month left before an early presidential election. The presidential by-election is scheduled for May 9 as former President Park Geun-hye was impeached on March 10 and arrested three weeks later over corruption allegations. The three-week election campaign period is to kick off next week. The first debate was centered on security issues as geopolitical risks escalated following the news reports that the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier and its accompanying battleships re-routed and headed to the Korean Peninsula. The rare re-routing of the U.S. super carrier boosted worry here about a possible U.S. airstrike on nuclear facilities of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). All of the South Korean presidential contenders agreed to the importance of blocking any military conflict on the peninsula, but they showed subtle difference in ways to resolve a possible security crisis. Moon Jae-in of the biggest Minjoo Party, a frontrunner in recent opinion polls, said he would immediately have a phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump to make sure his firm opposition to any unilateral pre-emptive strike on the DPRK without South Korea's consent. And then, he would ask the DPRK through various channels to immediately stop any provocation, which can lead to the U.S. attack, while cooperating with China in the meantime. Ahn Cheol-soo of the centrist People's Party, a runner-up in opinion surveys, said he would first have phone calls with U.S. and Chinese leaders, before announcing a statement to ask the DPRK to stop any provocations. Hong Joon-pyo of the former ruling Liberty Korea Party and Yoo Seong-min of the minor conservative Righteous Party opened a possibility for the U.S. strike though they emphasized that any military action should be shunned. The other key issue on security was the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system, which Seoul and Washington agreed in July last year to deploy in southeast South Korea. Two mobile launchers and a part of elements of the THAAD battery were delivered on March 6 to a U.S. military base in South Korea. One battery is composed of six mobile launchers, 48 interceptors, the AN/TPY-2 radar and the fire and control unit. Sim Sang-jung of the minor progressive Justice Party showed the clearest position in an opposition to the THAAD deployment, saying THAAD is incapable of defending against the DPRK's nuclear-tipped missiles. THAAD is designed to intercept incoming missiles at an altitude of 40-150 km. Pyongyang has capability to avoid the intercepting range as hundreds of DPRK missiles targeting South Korea flies at an altitude of less than 40 km. Sim said the so-called "THAAD panacea" insistence on the U.S. missile shield capable of shooting down all DPRK missiles would be of no help to national security, and that any attempt to politicize security issues would be the most dangerous security policy. Yoo Seong-min of the Righteous Party, who insisted on South Korea's purchase of two more THAAD batteries in addition to the deployment of the U.S. missile defense system operated by the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK), agreed with Sim's claim on a harmful effect from the security issue politicization. Moon reiterated his stance that the THAAD issue must be relayed to next government, while Ahn said it would be hard to reverse the THAAD deployment decision, which he described as an agreement between governments, in a stark contrast to his party's opposition to THAAD in South Korea. Ahn's change in stance on THAAD seemed to have considered conservative voters, many of whom have yet to be informed of how THAAD operates and still believe THAAD is capable of intercepting DPRK missiles. Support for Ahn, especially among the elderly conservative voters, jumped recently as the voters failed to find an outstanding conservative politician following the impeachment of former President Park Geun-hye, who was once viewed as a political icon in the conservative bloc. Chinese Ambassador to Zimbabwe Huang Ping (3rd R) and Zimbabwean Minister of Industry and Commerce Mike Bimha (3rd L) attend the launching ceremony of the Grand Tiger pickup trucks in Harare, Zimbabwe, March 27, 2017. A joint venture of Chinese and Zimbabwean auto companies on Monday launched a top-of-the-range pickup truck, the Grand Tiger, in Zimbabwe. The launch followed the joint venture forged between Beijing Automotive Group Co. Ltd (BAIC Group) and two Zimbabwean companies to form Beiqi Zimbabwe (Pvt) Ltd. (Xinhua) HARARE, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Chinese ambassador to Zimbabwe Huang Ping has urged Zimbabwe to improve its investment climate to attract more foreign direct investment (FDI). FDI into Zimbabwe has been low over the years mainly due to poor economic conditions and policy inconsistency. FDI into the country stood at approximately 300 million U.S. dollars in 2016. While delivering a lecture at Zimbabwe Staff College on Tuesday, Huang said any country wishing to attract foreign investment should have sound laws and regulations to protect investments, state-run news agency New Ziana reported. "Whoever is ready for cooperation and has the cooperation conditions in place will be among the first for Chinese investors to develop such cooperation with," he said. "That is why we have been stressing the necessity for the Zimbabwean government to foster a sound and favorable environment for investors to come here and carry out business," he added. He cited the establishment of the Special Economic Zones (SEZs) as a positive step, which would help attract much needed foreign investment. Government has so far identified three SEZs - Sunway City in Harare, Bulawayo industrial hub and Victoria Falls financial hub, as part of a raft of measures the government is implementing to lure FDI. Chinese Ambassador to Zimbabwe Huang Ping and Zimbabwean Minister of Industry and Commerce Mike Bimha drive the Grand Tiger pickup truck in Harare, Zimbabwe, March 27, 2017. (Xinhua) A range of tax incentives will apply in the SEZs, including exempting companies from corporate income tax for the first five years of operation and allowing duty free importation of capital equipment. Apart from establishing SEZs, Zimbabwe is also in the process of amending various laws that have hindered ease of doing business. Some of the laws being amended include the Companies Act, Shop licensing Act and the Procurement Act. The government is also aiming to reduce the days it takes to register a business from 30 days to between 10 and 15 days. The Chinese ambassador said Zimbabwe should work to attract funding from the 60 billion U.S. dollars that China pledged to push forward China-Africa cooperation at the 2015 Forum on China-Africa Cooperation summit held in South Africa. Beijing promised the funding in loans and grants to Africa over the next three years. Chinese President Xi Jinping also unveiled a ten-points economic cooperation plan for China and Africa, to be financed by the three-year financing facility. The plan includes financial support for, among other things, industrial, agricultural and infrastructural development in Africa. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-13 23:28:06|Editor: yan Video Player Close ADDIS ABABA, April 13 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has recognized Ethiopia's significant gains in human development and advised the East African country to work on its achievements. Ahunna Eziakonwa-Onochie, UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative to Ethiopia, said Thursday Ethiopia still belongs to the low human development category. "However, the country has made significant gains in human development, with the human development value increasing by 58.3 percent from 2000 to 2015," said Eziakonwa-Onochie. Yinager Dessie, Ethiopian National Planning Commissioner, also asserted that the Ethiopian government, in addition to its efforts in improving access to basic public services, is committed to halt major social barriers, including corruption and gender discrimination. "The Ethiopian government believes in ensuring sustainable and inclusive growth through human capital development and improving the quality of social services," he said. Latest Human Development Report launched by UNDP on Thursday also urged the global community to invest in combating epidemics and violence and ensuring security. According to the report, impressive progresses were registered in human development over the past 25 years. "People now live longer; more children are at school; and access to basic social services has improved; and overall, there has been improvement in people's standard of living," said the report. The report, however, noted that the world's citizens are not benefiting from equitable and universal access to quality education, health care, social protection and gender equality. Out of 188 countries for which the human development index was presented, 41 countries belong to low human development category, the majority of which being in sub-Sahara Africa. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-13 23:33:08|Editor: yan Video Player Close BERLIN, April 13 (Xinhua) -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel criticized the legal obstacles to countering terrorism after an attack on the Borussia Dortmund team bus on Tuesday, Deutsche Presse Agentur (DPA) reported Thursday. Merkel noted that variations among the laws and regulations at the federal and state level would make the country vulnerable when facing a terrorism threat. "(There are) unfortunately very different levels of laws in individual states," Merkel said. She referred to North Rhine-Westphalia, saying the state did not allow policemen to conduct random checks and added that surveying people perceived as potential threats was not allowed in every state. Merkel called on states to work in close coordination with the federal government and to do everything to "ensure safety in freedom" for German citizens. On Tuesday, a bus carrying the Borussia Dortmund team was hit by bombs. One of its players was injured. German prosecutors have detained a Iraqi suspect over the incident and investigations are ongoing. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-13 23:43:09|Editor: yan Video Player Close WASHINGTON, April 13 (Xinhua) -- An air strike against the Islamic State (IS) group in northern Syria on Tuesday by the U.S.-led anti-terror coalition mistakenly killed 18 members of allied forces there, the Pentagon said Thursday. "The strike was requested by the partnered forces, who had identified the target location as an ISIS (IS) fighting position," the Pentagon said in a statement. "The target location was actually a forward Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighting position." Media reports said the strike was intended to target IS militants south of Tabqa. The SDF, with the help of air and ground support from the U.S.-led coalition, has surrounded the IS stronghold. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-13 23:43:09|Editor: yan Video Player Close KIGALI, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Rwanda government officials on Thursday paid tribute to 13 opposition politicians killed by the genocidal regime during the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. The murdered opposition politicians were hailed for their courage shown towards denouncing the former government's atrocities and human rights violations. Speaking at the memorial event, Bernard Makuza, Rwanda Senate President, hailed the slain politicians for their heroism. "Politicians played a major role in the planning and executing the genocide; however, the ones we are remembering today chose to oppose it," he said. Some of the killed politicians were supposed to be part of a transitional government that was to be set up under Arusha Peace Accord. The memorial event was attended by government officials, political leaders and families of the 13 fallen politicians. The event also attracted members of the foreign diplomatic corps accredited to Rwanda. The slain politicians are honored at the last day of the official week of mourning, which started last Friday. The day is dedicated to remembering the brave politicians killed during the 100 days of genocide, which claimed about 1 million lives. The genocide started after a plane carrying the ex-Rwandan president, Juvenal Habyarimana (a member of the ethnic Hutu majority) was shot down on April 6, 1994. Rwandan Hutus blamed ethnic Tutsis for the attack and sought immediate revenge. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-13 23:43:10|Editor: ZD Video Player Close Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli (L) and Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov shake hands during the fourth meeting of the China-Russia Investment Cooperation Committee in Moscow, Russia, April 12, 2017. (Xinhua/Wang Ye) MOSCOW, April 13 (Xinhua) -- China and Russia have agreed to further expand investment and energy cooperation to promote bilateral ties. The pledges came out of the fourth meeting of the China-Russia Investment Cooperation Committee, co-chaired by visiting Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli and Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, and the meeting between Zhang and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich in Moscow on Wednesday. The main task of the committee meeting is to have in-depth discussions about new measures to lift the scale and level of the investment cooperation between the two countries, turning the advantages of high-level political ties into more cooperation results, Zhang said. The committee meeting is also meant to prepare for meeting between leaders of the two countries later this year, he said. Zhang put forward three proposals to boost two-way investment cooperation. He called on both countries to further synergize China's Belt and Road Initiative and Russia's Eurasian Economic Union to give full play to the role of investment cooperation on integrating the two sides' interests, complementing resources, synergizing industries, and conducting technology exchanges, among others. The two countries need to actively explore cooperation on the third-party market, he said. Besides, Zhang encouraged the two countries to continue to boost cooperation on major projects and properly implement the projects they've agreed upon. China is ready to take an active part in the development of Russia's Far East, Russia's import substitution strategy and privatization process, and jointly set up more symbolic investment cooperation projects, the vice premier said. He also suggested both sides enhance regional cooperation and the cooperation between small- and medium-sized enterprises from the two countries. China has always viewed Russia as its top priority partner for investment cooperation, said Zhang. He said China hopes that the two sides will continue to give full play to the complementary advantages in such areas as resources, market, industry, technology, capital and human resources to benefit common development. For his part, Shuvalov said Russia is satisfied with the progress made since the third investment cooperation committee meeting held in Beijing in June 2016, and is ready to implement the goals and tasks of investment cooperation set by the presidents of the two countries. Stressing that Russia attaches great importance to the Belt and Road Initiative and the high-level forum on it to be held in May in Beijing, Shuvalov said Russia would like to further link it with Russia's Eurasian Economic Union. Russia will closely follow the 73 cooperation projects set up during the fourth meeting and facilitate their implementation, he said, adding that he hopes both Russian and Chinese enterprises will lift their competitiveness on the global market. During a separate meeting with Dvorkovich, the Russian chair of the China-Russia Energy Cooperation Committee, Zhang expressed the hope for implementing the presidents' consensus on the energy sector so as to better prepare for the two leaders' upcoming meeting through his current visit. Hailing the sound basis, wide-range areas and great potential of the China-Russia energy cooperation, Zhang said the two countries need to continue to deepen their cooperation, jointly promote the projects including the east-route gas pipeline project and the Yamal liquefied natural gas (LNG) project, and conduct cooperation in areas including gas storage and natural-gas-burning power generation. Echoing Zhang's remarks, Dvorkovich said the Russia-China strategic partnership of comprehensive coordination is in line with the fundamental interests of both countries and both peoples. China's economic growth is conducive not only to the recovery and growth of global economy, but also to the pragmatic cooperation between Russia and China, he said. Russia is willing to work with China to push cooperation in energy and other areas to yield more results, Dvorkovich said. China's import of crude oil from Russia set a new record last year. According to statistics from Russia, in January 2017, Russia became the biggest crude oil exporter to China, exceeding Saudi Arabia. According to Chinese Customs data, fuel supplies from Russia rose by a quarter last year compared with 2015, up to 1.05 million barrels per day. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-13 23:58:16|Editor: yan Video Player Close ANKARA, April 13 (Xinhua) -- The countdown starts for the Sunday's key referendum to decide on whether to change the constitution for an executive presidency with a neck to neck race between "nay" and "yea" sayers, but undecided voters may be the determinant of poll results, according to local analysts. A recent survey conducted on April 12 shows a close race, putting the Yes vote slightly ahead with 52.5 percent after the distribution of undecided voters, Ozer Sencar, chairman of the pollster Metropoll told Xinhua. Turkish electorate will go to polls to vote Yes or No for an 18-article charter change that would shift the existing parliamentary system to an executive presidency, which President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said will increase stability in Turkey. But the some nine percent of the voters still undecided could determine the fate of the referendum, the analyst said, stressing that some of those undecided votes may not go to polls, but they are not at a point when their behavior are foreseeable. If the nine percent undecided among Turkey's approximately 56 million voters tends toward Yes or No vote, they would swing the balance on referendum results, Sencar said. As President Erdogan has appeared at the campaign stage for Yes on charter change, which will extend his powers, he reversed the halting momentum of the Yes campaign. Sencar underlines his personal influence on voters, with rhetoric attacking at the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) that leads the naysayers, has increased Yes votes. Erdogan uses stinging rhetoric to appeal to Turkish nationalists and ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). The Yes campaign is backed by the AKP and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). "Erdogan uses method of polarization in each election. He designs his rhetoric on the grounds of this polarization. He intentionally does not get into the specifics of the constitutional changes brought to the people," Sencar said while elaborating on the campaign arguments which falls away from genuine constitution change discussions. Thereby, the president consolidated some of traditional AKP voter bases with an increase from 87 percent to 91 percent in April, the analyst said. A recent survey by pollster KONDA on April 13 indicates seven percent increase in Yes votes after President Erdogan took the field to campaign in February. KONDA predicts 51.5 Yes vote against 48.5 No vote with a participation of 90 percent Turkish citizens. Meanwhile, a crisis with the Europe after the banning of some rallies by Turkish ministers in the Netherlands and Germany on security grounds has worked for the increase of Yes campaign, Sencar stated. "There is an amazing explosion of votes abroad. Around 1.42 million votes have been cast," Erdogan said on Tuesday. Some 2.88 million voters were registered abroad in the last general election in November 2015. Naysayers are lacking any single leader, with the main opposition CHP and the pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP) the two main political parties at the parliament backing No votes. While the HDP has strong grassroots among Turkey's Kurdish voters, who makes up at least one fifth of the population, some conservative Kurdish voters remain undecided. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-14 00:03:17|Editor: yan Video Player Close LAGOS, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Nigeria is striving to reduce importation of petroleum products, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources Ibe Kachikwu said Thursday. In a statement to Xinhua, the minister said such effort will receive a boost if major International Oil Companies (IOCs) operating in the country build signature refineries. Signature refineries are bigger than modular ones but do not produce up to the large-scale refineries in Nigeria. They are built mainly to augment local need to reduce importation. Kachikwu, who recently had an audience with officials of oil giant ExxonMobil, made a case for the deepening of investment in the oil and gas sector by IOCs operating in Nigeria. He met with Eni in January and the Italian company pledged to work with Nigeria to revamp the Port Harcourt Refinery. He has also scheduled meetings with Shell, Chevron and Total. Kachikwu urged ExxonMobil to deepen its investments in the country by developing human capital. He said this could be run on joint-venture basis with the Nigerian government providing the needed incentives. The minister reiterated the gains made through the signing of the repayment agreement for the Joint Venture Cash Call in 2016, saying the initial payments to the IOCs would be made by end of April. He said it would be expedient if the IOCs reciprocated the government's gesture and commitment by ensuring that they ramp-up investments in the sector. He also commended the IOC for its enduring partnership with Nigeria which, he said, had grown stronger over the years. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-14 00:08:19|Editor: yan Video Player Close BISHKEK, April 13 (Xinhua) -- China and Kyrgyzstan vowed to strengthen cooperation and coordination in border affairs as a Chinese delegation concluded a three-day visit here, the Kyrgyz Border Service (KBS) announced Thursday. The delegation of the Border Defense Department of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security visited neighboring Kyrgyzstan's Border Service between April 10 and April 13, during which the heads of the two agencies discussed border security issues. The two sides acknowledged the fruitful work in the field of combating transnational crime and in ensuring security and stability along the two countries' borders. They agreed to enhance inter-agency communications, conduct regular analysis of the situation in the border areas, share information and experience, and continue joint patrolling along the borders. In addition, they also stressed the need for conducting joint anti-terrorism exercises, with the Chinese side proposing cooperation in personnel training as well as providing military and technical assistance to the KBS. The two sides inked an agreement on Chinese provision of technical support to the KBS worth 1 million RMB (161,048 U.S. dollars). Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-14 00:23:21|Editor: yan Video Player Close KIEV, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Ukraine's central bank on Thursday lowered its estimate for the country's gross domestic product (GDP) growth this year, citing the negative impact of the blockade in the industrial eastern region of Donbas on the economy. According to the revised forecast, the Ukrainian economy will grow 1.9 percent this year, down from the central bank's January projection of 2.8 percent. "This downward revision resulted from expectations that the hold on trade in eastern Ukraine and the loss of the production facilities located in the rebel-controlled areas will decrease the output of some industries," the bank said in a statement. The export-oriented metallurgical and mining industries, as well as coke production and electrical industry, will be hit by the blockade the most, the statement said. In the same time, the negative effects of the blockade will be partially offset by the projected good demand on the Ukrainian products on the global market, it said. Since late January the trade between the government-controlled and non-government-controlled areas in eastern Ukraine has been suspended as activists had blocked the movements of cargo trains. The blockade has triggered the energy crisis in Ukraine, causing the deficit of anthracite coal, which is used in electricity production and metallurgy. The Ukrainian economy grew by 2.3 percent in 2016 compared with a consolidated decline of 16.5 percent over the previous two years. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-14 00:38:26|Editor: yan Video Player Close SHANGHAI, April 13 (Xinhua) -- The latest benefit of the Shanghai Free Trade Zone (FTZ) is to its non-Chinese residents, who can apply for permanent residence in China simply with a letter of recommendation from the FTZ authorities. According to the social security bureau of Shanghai Pudong New Area, the new policy will take effect in mid-April, and apply to both the applicants and their spouses and minor children. The move was made following 10 rules related to China's entry and exit policy announced by the Ministry of Public Security (MPS), which authorize Shanghai Zhangjiang National Innovation Demonstration Zone and Shanghai FTZ to recommend high-level foreign staff for permanent residence permits, Chinese "green cards". Those with permanent residence will enjoy the same rights as Chinese citizens in areas such as investment, housing purchases and schooling. The reform is to support Shanghai's ambition of becoming a world sci-tech innovation hub. Those who qualify for the fast track application include well-known award winners or high-level talent scheme finalists, such as Nobel laureates, the Chinese government "Friendship Award" and other world-class, national and municipal awards; people in charge of Shanghai FTZ-based national laboratories, engineering laboratories, foreign investment R&D institutions, and top-level talent from innovation and start-up enterprises. A Chinese green card is one of the hardest to obtain with no more than 7,000 issued since 2004, when the policy was introduced. That compares with about 600,000 foreigners currently living in China, and the application procedure is rather complicated. In 2016, 1,576 foreigners became permanent Chinese residents, an increase of 163 percent on the previous year, according the MPS. China has made huge progress in easing its residence and entry policies for foreigners since September 2015, which has helped attract more talent from overseas as well as boosting international exchanges and the economy, according to a ministry statement. Shanghai saw six times more permanent residence applications from foreigners and their families in 2016 from 2015. The number of such applications in Beijing last year increased 426 percent. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-14 00:48:28|Editor: yan Video Player Close BEIJING, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Chinese central authorities released a detailed 10-year youth development plan Thursday, vowing better education, employment and healthcare for the nation's youth. "Youth" in the context of the plan released by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council refers to those aged from 14 to 35. The Middle- and Long-term Youth Development Plan (2016-2025) sets a general goal of establishing a "youth development policy system and work mechanism" by 2020 and improving the system by 2025. Specifically, the plan sets educational goals of an average 13.5 years of education for the newly added labor force and a gross higher education enrollment rate of over 50 percent within 10 years. It aims for 90 percent of the groups to meet physical standards and give them more accesses to mental and physical care. "Youth is the country's future and the nation's hope," reads the plan. Authorities will strengthen educational campaigns targeting different ages within the group to champion patriotism and socialism with Chinese characteristics, making the "Chinese dream" a common goal for them, according to the plan. The government will also narrow the educational gap across the country and pump more capital and resources into the less developed western areas, it says. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-14 00:48:28|Editor: yan Video Player Close LUSAKA, April 13 (Xinhua) -- The Zambian government on Thursday warned that it would not allow lawlessness in the country following the arrest and charging of an opposition leader with treason. Sporadic riots have been reported in various parts of the country after Hakainde Hichilema, leader of the United Party for National Development (UPND), was arrested and charged with four counts of crime including treason, for alleged failure to give way to President Edgar Lungu's motorcade. On Thursday morning, riots broke out in Kanyama, a densely populated slum west of the country's capital Lusaka, as the opposition leader's supporters took to the streets to call for his release. Police spokesperson Esther Mwata-Katongo confirmed the outbreak of the riots but noted that quick action by police prevented the riots from worsening. On Wednesday, police arrested four tax drivers in southern Zambia's Choma district for inciting rioters. Minister of Home Affairs Stephen Kampyongo said the security wings will not entertain any kind of lawless and that anyone found trying to disturb the peace will be arrested. "We have also seen that some social media publications are inciting people to riot. No one is going to hide behind social media and we are going to pursue those agitating lawless and violence," he said. He told reporters in Lusaka that following the conclusion of the investigations and arrest of the opposition leader by the police, it now remains up to the courts of law to handle the matter judiciously. Meanwhile the Zambian president said he will not interfere in the work of the police or the judiciary, saying they should be allowed to work independently. Geoffrey Mwamba, vice-president of the UPND, demanded release of Hichilema and said the arrest was politically motivated. "There were no police officers along that road and no vehicle in our convoy tried to block the presidential motorcade. The arrest of our president is a planned move," he said. He said the strategy of the ruling party was to create a one party state by arresting opposition leaders on trump-up charges, closing critical media and denying citizens fundamental rights such as right to assembly. A consortium of civil society organizations said the arrest of the opposition leader might fuel the existing tension in the country and called for dialogue between Lungu and the opposition leader. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-14 00:58:30|Editor: yan Video Player Close LUSAKA, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Chinese telecom giant Huawei on Thursday signed a memorandum of understanding with Zambia's biggest public university for an Information Communication Technology (ICT) development program aimed at boosting knowledge in learners. The Chinese firm signed the deal with the University of Zambia (UNZA) for the establishment of a Huawei Authorized Network Academy and Practice Center at the learning institution situated in Lusaka, the country's capital. Thomas Hu, the company's country director, said the program includes the provision of wireless, transmission, optical fiber access and solar power courses and equipment from Huawei as well as a laboratory to allow students to get hands-on practices. The program, he said, will enhance the empowerment and skill transfer of the ICT talents in Zambia. Under the program, Huawei has spent 350,000 U.S. dollars to establish the academy and center while 12 ICT lecturers have been trained. The company, he said, intends to set up a 17,500-dollar scholarship for top five students at the university to further their studies. According to him, the massive investment in ICT development over the years requires catching up of human resources development. Felix Phiri, Permanent Secretary in Charge of Special Duties at Cabinet Office, commended the company for the initiative, saying it will provide an opportunity to many students to attain Huawei ICT certification as well as equip them with ICT skills. He said most of the learning institutions in the country lacked modern and advanced technological equipment to train skilled graduates for the industry. "All too often, the private sector bemoans the lack of real-world class skills of those coming out of institutions of higher learning, complaining that young graduates do not have the hands-on experience necessary to apply themselves on the job," he said. According to the agreement, the academy will be run by Huawei in collaboration with UNZA for three years and thereafter it will be handed over to the university. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-14 01:03:32|Editor: yan Video Player Close WARSAW, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Polish President Andrzej Duda attended a welcoming ceremony for NATO's multinational battalion battle group in Orzysz, northeastern Poland on Thursday. The decision to send four multinational battle groups to Poland and the Baltic States was confirmed during a NATO summit in Warsaw in July 2016. The battalion arrived in Poland in March. Troops from the United States will be supported by soldiers from Britain, Romania and Croatia. Apart from Duda, Polish Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz and ambassadors of battle group member countries took part in the event. "NATO troops have come to Orzysz to defend us and deter any enemy who could threaten Poland and its allies," said Macierewicz. Also on Thursday, Duda held a meeting in Warsaw on with NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Curtis M. Scaparrotti, giving the general the Commander's Cross with Star of the Order of Merit. After the meeting, Scaparrotti said the current deployment of NATO troops on the eastern flank showed NATO's commitment to defending Poland's sovereignty and its people, while Duda said that Poland was aware of the obligations connected with its NATO membership. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-14 01:08:33|Editor: yan Video Player Close ST. PETERSBURG, April 13 (Xinhua) -- St. Petersburg metro may hire more security staff and buy new surveillance equipment after the recent terrorist explosion. TASS reports that some stations already have all the necessary modern equipment, including gas sensors, 24 stations have digital video surveillance systems. On April 3, a suicide bomber organized the explosion in St. Petersburg subway, killing 15, and dozens of others were injured. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-14 01:18:37|Editor: yan Video Player Close WASHINGTON, April 13 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. military has dropped the largest non-nuclear bomb in Afghanistan on an Islamic State target, U.S. military sources said Thursday. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-14 01:38:41|Editor: yan Video Player Close LUSAKA, April 13 (Xinhua) -- A statement issued by a former governor of Zambia's central bank that the country's public debt has reached crisis levels has raised fears as to whether the country risked plunging into another unsustainable debt situation. Caleb Fundanga, who served as Bank of Zambia (BoZ) governor from 2002 to 2011, recently warned that Zambia's public debt has reached crisis levels. The former governor's fears emanated from a recent debt sustainability analysis conducted by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that indicated that Zambia has a high risk of external debt distress, emanating from the Eurobonds maturing between 2022 and 2027. This is in contrast to another analysis conducted by the two institutions in 2015 that had showed that the country's external debt distress was considered to be moderate. The former central bank governor, in remarks delivered at a public discussion organized by the Economics Association of Zambia (EAZ), an association representing economists, added that the country will face significant fiscal pressure between 2022 and 2027 as the Eurobonds mature. On the other hand, the ratio of external debt service to revenue is projected to increase and breach the sustainable threshold of 20 percent between 2022 and 2027 from 9 percent on average, he added. Zambia's debt has increased considerably following the issuance of three Eurobonds. The country issued three Eurobonds of 750 million dollars in 2012, the second one of 1 billion dollars in 2014 and a further 1.25 billion dollars in 2015. According to government figures, the debt was standing at 9.44 billion dollars as at September 2016, comprising 6.7 billion dollars of external debt and 2.7 billion dollars of domestic debt. According to analysts, the country's external debt has escalated by 240 percent in the five-year period between 2011 and 2016 from 1.97 billion dollars to 6.7 billion dollars. However, other independent sources have put the country's debt at about 12 billion dollars, a move that has caused consternation from stakeholders who feel that the country could plunge back into another unsustainable debt. "The government must undertake fiscal consolidation to avoid rapid accumulation of debt as current debt levels are unsustainable," the former central bank governor said. He has since advised the government to explore cheaper sources of finance and maximize borrowing from concessional and semi-concessional sources while moderating commercial borrowing. The fear of the country's debt becoming unsustainable was highlighted by Finance Minister Felix Mutati in his 2017 budget presentation to parliament on 11th November, 2016. In his address, he had stated that the government needed to be responsible to ensure debt sustainability and added that the country was "walking a tight rope". Muna Hantuba, an economist, also expressed concern over the country debt, saying the public debt was a crisis. The economist, who was speaking at the same public discussion, urged the government to refrain from borrowing more money and avoid growing the debt crisis. The Jesuit Center for Theological Reflection (JCTR), a social and economic lobby group, is concerned over the high debt levels especially if the borrowed money was not being used on high-return projects. According to its statement, increased debt levels usually imply higher taxes on the already heavily taxed citizens and consequently a higher cost of living. Zambia's debt crisis became increasingly acute in the 1980s as a result of a fall in oil prices in the 1970s and dropping copper prices that forced the government to borrow heavily to finance development. Zambia's foreign debt, which had reached alarming proportions of about 7.2 billion dollars by the year 2000, was written off when the country attained the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative completion point in 2005. The HIPC program was launched in 1996 by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to reduce the external debt burden of eligible HIPC countries to sustainable levels in a reasonably short period of time. The southern African nation was among 18 African nations that qualified for the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI), in which G8 countries agreed to cancel 100 percent of the debt owed. As a result of that debt cancelation, Zambia's debt was reduced to only 500 million dollars, leaving the country with enough resources to improve its economy. U.S. President Donald Trump (R) and visiting NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg attend a joint press conference in Washington D.C., the United States, on April 12, 2017. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu) MOSCOW, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Montenegro's upcoming accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) will harm stability in the Balkans and in Europe as a whole, Russia's Foreign Ministry said on Thursday. "We consider this step as a manifestation of inertia in Washington's policy, reflecting the logic of confrontation on the European continent, creating new dividing lines," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. On Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump signed a protocol to ratify Montenegro's accession to NATO, and the Balkan country will officially join the alliance as its 29th member next month in Brussels. Montenegro's accession to NATO is not based on real public opinion and has incurred criticism even in the United States, the statement added. Tensions between NATO and Russia have escalated as both are engaged in military build-up along the Russian border. Moscow strongly opposes the bloc's eastward expansion, which it says threatens its national security. Vladimir Safronkov (Front), Russian deputy ambassador to the United Nations, addresses an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on the situation in Syria at the UN headquarters in New York, April 7, 2017. (Xinhua/Li Muzi) MOSCOW, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Thursday called for the United Nations' chemical weapons watchdog to send an international group of inspectors to investigate an alleged toxic gas attack in Syria last week. "Today there is an emergency meeting of the OPCW Executive Council in the Hague and we have sent our proposal to form such a delegation," Lavrov said at a press conference. He was referring to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, an international body for chemical weapons control. The diplomat suggested that the group of inspectors should include experts from Western countries, countries in the Middle East and Russia. The investigation should be carried out "transparently, independently and professionally" both in the airbase where the Syrian aircraft allegedly carrying chemical weapons took off, and in the area where the alleged toxic gas was used, Lavrov said. The United States and its allies accused Damascus of gassing civilians on April 4, but Russia said the intoxication was possibly caused by the explosion of chemical weapons produced and stored by the rebels in a local depot during a raid by the Syrian Air Force. On Wednesday, Russia vetoed a U.N. resolution drafted by the United States, Britain and France demanding that the Syrian military provide unfettered access for UN investigators to details of their operations on the day of the alleged attack. U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley criticized Russia for denying the UN-led investigation and blocking a resolution that would have helped promote peace in Syria. Lavrov, however, said at Thursday's news conference that the vetoed proposal was formulated "unilaterally" as it only asked the Syrian government to open access to all its military facilities. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-14 01:48:45|Editor: yan Video Player Close TIRANA, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Albania's state-run Albgaz sh.a, a newly-established public gas company, signed here on Thursday a Memorandum of Cooperation with Greek natural gas transmission system operator DESFA, according to Albanian Energy Ministry. The ministry said in a press statement, Albgaz will get expertise from Greece's DESFA on operating the Trans Adriatic Pipeline. The memorandum was signed in the framework of commitments taken by the Albgaz sh.a, in respect of the agreements reached between the government of Albania and TAP AG for improvement of the Albanian section of the gas pipeline, Albanian ministry said. Albanian authorities see such an agreement as a significant step for the Albgaz sh.a and the natural gas sector in Albania, because it paves the way to signing of a contract between Albgaz sh.a and TAP AG for maintenance and operation of the Albanian section of the pipeline. This contract would generate revenues for the Albgaz sh.a during the coming years and create new jobs, officials from the ministry of energy told media. Albgaz had offers of cooperation from many European gas firms, but it chose DESFA for this stage, ministry representatives said. TAP will bring central Asian gas into Europe by 2020 via Greece and Albania to Italy. TAP is considered as the largest foreign investment ever realized in Albania so its economic impact is expected to be higher in the coming years. African migrants from Nigeria wait at Tripoli's Mitiga International Airport prior to being repatriated to their homeland under a voluntary repatriation program coordinated by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) on March 23, 2017. (Xinhua Photo) TRIPOLI, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Libyan coastguards on Thursday rescued 23 immigrants off the coast of the capital Tripoli after their inflatable boat sank, carrying nearly 120 migrants. Ayob Qasem, spokesman of the Libyan coastguards, said some 97 migrants are feared missing, including 15 women and children. "The base of the boat got wrecked and the boat had sunk." Qasem revealed. Qasem said the migrants are of African nationalities, and those rescued were taken to Tripoli naval base for medical and humanitarian assistance. Due to the insecurity and chaos, immigrants depart from Libya though the Mediterranean towards Europe in rickety boats, many of whom drown on the way. Thousands of immigrants have reached Italian shores this year and hundreds have drowned crossing the sea. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-14 03:49:25|Editor: yan Video Player Close by Bosun Awoniyi LAGOS, April 13 (Xinhua) -- The fight against corruption is gaining momentum in Nigeria as active whistleblowers in recent days exposed slush funds and accounts to the authorities, especially the nation's anti-graft police. President Muhammadu Buhari's administration has recently decided to fight corruption through the whistle-blowing policy as a new approach. This would allow citizens who report corruption-related offenses via a secure online portal earn a cut from the recovered loot. The whistle-blowing policy would provide government agencies like the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) with actionable tips to track and recover stolen government funds. Offenses that can be reported include mismanagement of public funds and assets, violation of financial regulations, solicitation of bribes, and manipulating data and records. When tips lead to the successful recovery of ill-gotten funds, whistle-blowers are entitled to between 2.5-5 percent of amount recovered. The Nigerian government also promised whistle-blowers that "confidentiality will be maintained to the fullest extent possible within the limitations of the law." So far, the whistle-blowing policy appears to be working in Nigeria. On Wednesday, the country's anti-graft police busted a home where it recovered at least 38 million U.S. dollars 23 million Naira and another 27,000 pounds in Lagos state. On Tuesday, a tip-off by a whistle blower led to the discovery of 4 billion naira kept in two separate accounts at the Gurantee Trust Bank (GTB) Plc, suspected to be proceeds of crime. Local media reported that the money belongs to a former deputy governorship candidate in central-north Niger State. The suspected owner of the account and the account officer are currently on the run. In another similar case, a whistleblower on Monday led EFCC operatives to intercept a cash haul in various currencies at the popular Balogun Market in Lagos. The money include 547,730 pounds and 21,090 euros as well as 5,648,500 niara. Last week, it was also a whistleblower that led the EFCC operatives to a huge cash kept in bags at a Bureau de Change in LEGICO Plaza in Victoria Island in Lagos. Operatives found 448.85 million naira inside Shop 64, when it was forced open. In February, EFCC retrieved 9.8 million dollars from Andrew Yakubu, former group managing director of Nigeria's state oil company following a tip off. Commenting on the loot, Lai Mohammed, Nigeria's minister of information, said the whistle-blowing policy has led to the recovery of over 180 million dollars from various corrupt individuals as at February. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-14 03:59:28|Editor: ZD Video Player Close Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli (R) meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, Russia, April 13, 2017. (Xinhua/Wang Ye) MOSCOW, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin said here on Thursday that he is glad to attend the Belt and Road Forum for international cooperation to be held in Beijing on May 14-15. Putin made the remarks when he met with visiting Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli, who was here for the fourth meeting of the China-Russia Investment Cooperation Committee and the meeting with the Russian chair of the China-Russia Energy Cooperation Committee from Tuesday to Thursday. China put forward the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013, with the aim of building a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa along the ancient Silk Road trade routes. China has viewed Russia as an important partner among the Belt and Road countries, Zhang told Putin, adding that the Chinese government will make good preparations for Putin's attendance. It is the strategic consensus reached by both Chinese President Xi Jinping and Putin to integrate the Belt and Road Initiative and Russia's Eurasian Economic Union, said Zhang. China has attached great importance to Russia's initiative of the Eurasian Economic Union and related ministries of both sides are in discussions of concrete measures to boost the integration, the vice premier said. He called on both sides to speed up the construction of major energy projects, expand two-way investment and finance cooperation in order to promote the common development. Hailing the rapid growth of two-way trade volume since last year, Putin said the bilateral trade structure has improved. Sound progresses have scored on the Russia-China cooperation on major energy projects, said Putin. The east-route gas pipeline project and Yamal liquefied natural gas (LNG) project have advanced smoothly, while the west-route gas pipeline projects are under negotiation, he said. Putin said Russia welcomes the active participation of Chinese investors into Russia's economic development. He also called on the two sides to explore new areas of cooperation in order to add new impetus into the strategic partnership of comprehensive coordination. During Zhang's three-day stay in Moscow, he also met with Igor Sechin, the chief of Russian oil company Rosneft and Alexei Miller, CEO of Russian natural gas company Gazprom respectively. The two sides exchanged views on further cooperation. praisaeng/iStock/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- A passenger flying on United Airlines was stung by what appeared to be a scorpion last week, according to the airline. The passenger was stung on a flight from Houston to Calgary, United said in a statement to ABC News. After the passenger was stung, the flight crew immediately consulted with a MedLink physician on the ground, who provided guidance and informed them that the sting was not life threatening. Medical personnel met the aircraft after once it arrived in Calgary, United said, adding that it is "reaching out to the customer to apologize and discuss the matter." United has been at the center of controversy after cellphone video emerged showing a bloodied passenger being dragged off an aircraft on Sunday. The passenger's attorney said Thursday that he will need reconstructive surgery and will probably sue the airline. Copyright 2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. Chinese police Shu Jian (1st L) and Sa Yiming (2nd L) talk with two tourists from Beijing outside the Colosseum in Rome, Italy, May 2, 2016. (Xinhua/Jin Yu) MADRID, April 13 (Xinhua) -- The world's leading outbound market, China, spent 12 percent more on tourism abroad in 2016 according to preliminary data by the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO). The data show that China's international tourism spending grew by 11 billion U.S. dollars to 261 billion dollars, consolidating "China's position as number one source market in the world since 2012, following a trend of double-digit growth in tourism expenditure every year since 2004". Chinese citizens especially travelled to Japan, the Republic of Korea and Thailand, but also to the United States and some other destinations in Europe, the WTO said. Chinese market was followed by the U.S. market, whose spending rose by 8 percent in 2016 to 122 billion dollars, up 9 billion dollars on 2015. In Europe, Germany, Britain, France and Italy are those markets included in the top 10, all reporting growth in outbound demand in 2016, with Germany being the world's third largest market with a 5 percent increase in international tourism spending in 2016 to 81 billion dollars. "Despite the many challenges of recent years, results of spending on travel abroad are consistent with the 4 percent growth to 1.2 billion international tourists arrivals reported earlier this year for 2016," UNWTO Secretary-General Taleb Rifai said. "People continue to have a strong appetite for travel and this benefits many countries all around the world, translating into economic growth, job creation and opportunities for development," he added. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-14 04:49:44|Editor: yan Video Player Close BUJUMBURA, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Burundian senators on Thursday called for creating a commission to work with mainly Arab countries to curb human trafficking. The call was made as Burundian foreign minister Alain Aime Nyamitwe was invited to the parliament upper chamber to answer senators' questions on human trafficking reported on some Burundian women working in Arab countries mainly Oman and Saudi Arabia. "The commission to be set up would ensure that Burundian people working in those Arab countries are enjoying good working conditions. The commission would also ensure that Burundian agents working in those countries have return tickets and are in contact with Burundian diplomatic missions in those counties," Burundian Senate President Reverien Ndikuriyo said during the debate. According to him, unemployed Burundian people can get hired in those countries if the employment is well-organized. Nyamitwe said monitoring every Burundian national working in Arab countries was sometimes difficult due to the shortage of financial means. Human trafficking is a serious issue in Burundi according to organizations in charge of children's rights promotion. By mid June 2016, the Burundian police had arrested seven people over human trafficking and identified 11 companies involved in human trafficking in the country. The arrested persons included three Burundians and four Kenyans. Four of the 11 companies or organizations involved in human trafficking are based in Burundi, four in Saudi Arabia, two in Oman, and one in Kenya. The four Burundian companies had been collaborating with the remaining seven foreign companies in the human trafficking business. Police said that since April 2016, over 280 people, mostly girls, had fallen victim to human trafficking. The Burundian police suspected that those girls engaged in sex work after they arrive at their destinations. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-14 05:04:47|Editor: Tian Shaohui Image taken by a mobile device shows debris at the site where a head-on collision between a gas tanker truck and a passenger bus occurred on a highway in Mexico's southern state of Guerrero, on April 13, 2017. The death toll from a head-on collision between a gas tanker truck and a passenger bus in south Mexico on Thursday climbed to 24, officials told Xinhua. (Xinhua/Str) MEXICO CITY, April 13 (Xinhua) -- The death toll from a head-on collision between a gas tanker truck and a passenger bus in south Mexico on Thursday climbed to 24, officials told Xinhua. Mexico's President Enrique Pena Nieto has expressed his condolences to the relatives of the victims via Twitter. The tanker was loaded with fuel when it crashed, and exploded into flames a little more than a minute after impact. The accident occurred at or before 6:30 a.m. (11:30 GMT) along a stretch of highway in the town of Petacalco, Guerrero, near the Pacific port of Lazaro Cardenas, Michoacan. The Century 21 Highway, which connects central Mexico with the busy industrial port, was closed for several hours during the heavy traffic of Holy Week, as vacationers headed to the coast. Cesar Mayeres, Guerrero's secretary of civil protection, said state forensic experts reported a total of 24 victims by 2 p.m. local time (19:00 GMT), when forensic operations at the site were practically concluded. Both drivers of the two vehicles are among the dead. Another nine people, ranging in age from three to 56, were injured in the accident and were taken to a hospital in Lazaro Cardenas for treatment, Mayeres said. The cause of the collision is still under investigation, said Mayeres. The bus passengers were all members of one family and their neighbors who had rented the vehicle to travel from Morelia, the capital of Michoacan, to either Zihuatanejo or Acapulco, both beach resorts in Guerrero, for Easter weekend. Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-14 05:59:56|Editor: yan Video Player Close KIGALI, April 13 (Xinhua) -- New Chinese ambassador to Rwanda, Rao Hongwei, Thursday presented his credentials to President Paul Kagame. Presenting his credentials to Kagame, Ambassador Rao Hongwei conveyed to President Kagame the cordial greetings and good wishes of Chinese President Xi Jinping. He spoke highly of Rwanda's great accomplishments achieved in national building and reconciliation. "There is a deep traditional friendship between China and Rwanda and a strong bond between our two peoples. In recent years, through mutual understanding and sincere cooperation, the two sides enjoy stronger political trust, rapid growth in economic and trade cooperation, and closer people-to-people ties." Rao said. "Last month, the two heads of state had a successful meeting in Beijing. Both sides agreed to enhance the level of strategic cooperation between the two countries," said the new envoy. For his part, President Kagame welcomed Ambassador Rao on his assumption of new office. He asked ambassador Rao to convey his cordial greetings and good wishes to President Xi Jinping and stressed the Rwandan government and himself will render full support and assistance to Ambassador Rao. Kagame said that Rwanda and China enjoy a long-time friendship. Rwandan government and people appreciate the valuable support from China. "Last month, I paid a successful and fruitful visit to China. President Xi Jinping and I reached significant consensus on enhancing our cooperation in various fields. By working together with the Chinese side, Rwanda is willing to bring the bilateral relations to a new high." he said. Ruslan Bultrikov, the deputy permanent representative of Kazakhstan, speaks during an exclusive interview with Xinhua News Agency at the UN headquarters in New York, April 6, 2017. (Xinhua/Li Muzi) by Xinhua writer Gu Zhenqiu UNITED NATIONS, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Kazakhstan is proud that it is the country where Chinese President Xi Jinping first put forward the Belt and Road Initiative, and fully supports the efforts to bring this important Chinese vision into reality, a senior Kazakh diplomat told Xinhua in an exclusive interview. "We are proud that this initiative was first announced in Kazakhstan during a visit of President Xi Jinping," Ruslan Bultrikov, the deputy permanent representative of Kazakhstan to the United Nations, said. In a speech delivered at the Nazarbayev University on Sept. 7, 2013, President Xi proposed that China and Central Asia join hands to build a Silk Road economic belt to boost regional cooperation. The Chinese president's speech "is very symbolic because this concept was first announced during his meeting with students, who represent the young generation and for whom great project will be carried out," Bultrikov said. KAZAKHSTAN'S FULL SUPPORT "Kazakhstan has been very supportive of this proposal since its announcement," he said, adding that "now (it) comes its implementation stage." "Being the largest land-locked country, Kazakhstan is very interested in developing its infrastructure and transportation, as well as developing trade and economic relations with its neighbors and beyond," he said. "From this point of view, this immense and significant plan proposed and implemented by China, is very important for us, and is in line with our priorities and national strategies." For example, Bultrikov said, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev announced in November 2014 his new economic plan, known as "Nurly Zhol" (meaning "bright path" in the Kazakh language), which will drive investment into critical infrastructure and priority sectors totaling around 9 billion U.S. dollars. "The main objective of this national program is to build infrastructure, namely, of new roads and railroads -- to connect remote places within the country, as well as, to provide transit for foreign goods and travel from the East to the West, and from the West to the East," he said. "So we consider this major plan as not only the restoration of the great Silk Road, which existed on our territory for a long time, but also as an absolutely new approach because this Belt and Road Initiative is not only about trade and transportation. It is (also) about developing calculation in different spheres, including technological transfer, cultural exchanges and relevant sectors," he said. "The fact that China is implementing this project with partners is very valuable for us because China is our largest trade and economic partner and one of the largest investors in Kazakhstan, he said. "Together, we can further develop transportation and infrastructure projects." Ruslan Bultrikov, the deputy permanent representative of Kazakhstan, speaks during an exclusive interview with Xinhua News Agency at the UN headquarters in New York, April 6, 2017. (Xinhua/Li Muzi) PROGRESS ACHIEVED The deputy permanent representative said that currently, Kazakhstan, along with international donors and partners, has completed construction of the West China-West Kazakhstan Road, which will significantly reduce costs and time of transportation of goods. The building of new roads will help create new jobs in the country, he said. "Another important encouraging aspect of this initiative is that it went global; of course, it's about connecting Asia and Europe, but now countries from different regions are interested in joining this effort. It will make a difference," he said. China's Belt and Road Initiative, a master plan to integrate 65 countries from East Asia to Western Europe, is poised to improve the living standards of 4.4 billion people -- more than half of the world's population. More than 100 countries and international organizations have joined the initiative, and more than 40 of them have cooperation agreements with China. Chinese businesses have helped build 56 economic and trade cooperation zones in 20 countries along the Belt and Road, with a total investment exceeding 18 billion U.S. dollars, thus helping to generate more than 1 billion U.S. dollars in tax revenue and more than 160,000 jobs. "We are very optimistic and most supportive of this, and are ready to work together with China and other partners "to make this Belt and Road Initiative a reality, Bultrikov said. China will host a Belt and Road Forum for international cooperation in Beijing this May to explore ways to address regional and global economic problems, generate fresh energy for interconnected development, and ensure that the Belt and Road Initiative delivers greater benefits to people of the countries involved. "Taking into account the very active development related to the Belt and Road Initiative and interest from many partners, countries and international organizations in the practical implementation of this project, I believe the meeting in May will further contribute to advancing and realizing the goals of this extraordinary initiative," he said. "Taking into account that if implemented, this endeavour will cover more than half of the world's population -- almost half of world's GDP, we believe that it will be of interest not only for the countries engaged in implementing this project within the framework of Belt and Road Initiative, but also for the entire globe," Bultrikov said. Noting a rising trend of protectionism and voices against globalization, he said, "I believe that globalization is a reality; we have to live with it, and every country is influenced by the situation of the world economy." "The principle of free trade must prevail, and we are ready to live according to these rules," he said. On the Chinese concept of building "a community of shared future for humankind," Bultrikov said, "We all know that the Chinese civilization is very ancient with longstanding traditions. We also know that it is the Chinese culture to foresee and plan for generations ahead, and not just for the five to 10 years to come." "We therefore understand why the Chinese leader has made pledges which are directed to future generations," he said. "I believe that with political will from other countries and from China, of course, these ideas can be implemented and we will share the future together peacefully." At present, Kazakhstan is one of the elected 10 non-permanent members of the UN Security Council. As a non-permanent member of the 15-nation Council, he said his country is "closely cooperating with China and other permanent members" in the area of peace and security -- the main mandate of this major UN body. The Belt and Road Initiative was included in a Security Council resolution on Afghanistan on March 17, he said that was "reflecting the understanding that there is no peace without development, and no development without peace." "We are also cooperating closely with the Chinese delegation on almost all subjects within the General Assembly," Bultrikov said, citing the example of the cooperation of Kazakhstan and China, when the two countries were members of the open-ended group, together with Indonesia. for formulating and implementing the 17 Sustainable Development Goals."I personally was a member of the Troika," he said. Bultrikov, who was born in June 1971, joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan in 1993, and he was Kazakhstan's vice minister of environmental protection from 2011 to 2012. Angelin going ahead Last week, Oilfield Workers Trade Union (OWTU) President-General Ancil Roget said workers were not responsible for the platform for Angelin not being fabricated in TT. Take your platform and go! We are not prepared to have any type of construction in an environment that is unsafe, unhealthy and void of good industrial relations practice, Roget told reporters during a protest outside of the OPM in St Clair last week. In a statement, bpTT (BPs local subsidiary) said the decision not to fabricate the platform in La Brea was difficult but, necessary to preserve Angelins project schedule. The Angelin field is located in the Columbus Basin off the south-east coast of Trinidad. The company said while it continues talks with the National Gas Company (NGC) to progress the completion of a gas sales agreement as a prerequisite to the sanction of Angelin, it continues to pursue all options to maintain the project schedule and first gas goal of early 2019. This is a priority to ensure that gas supply volumes can be maintained in 2019 and beyond, bpTT said. The company also said it, remains fully committed to maximizing local content in all our operations however given the compressed project timelines and other competitiveness factors for the Angelin project local fabrication is no longer a feasible option. The company said it is also, committed to maintaining an option of fabrication in-country for future platforms and will be working with local service providers on key competitiveness factors such as productivity. Coming out of discussions which Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley had with BP in Houston last month, Young said, They (BP) are sanctioning Angelin. He said while some persons are blaming the Government for delays regarding the Angelin project, Young disclosed, The truth is that, no negotiations and discussions, no matter how BP tried to progress those discussions were taking place, by the prior administration. Young accompanied Rowley to meetings with BP, Shell, Exxon Mobil and EOG Resources in Houston from March 29 to 31. Reiterating that the former Peoples Partnership (PP) government had failed to re-negotiate several energy contracts when they were supposed to, Young stated, TT is in a very different place from when these contracts were negotiated. Against this background, Young said, Coming out of those conversations, there was a finalisation of the price that the future purchase of gas would be made by NGC. Observing that up streamers are demanding higher prices for their gas, down streamers want reduced prices to continue producing their commodities, the minister explained that Government, through the NGC, is trying to find the best price. Explaining that what was agreed to in the discussions with BP and Shell was augured well for TT, Young said, One of the things we managed to negotiate last week with BP as well as Shell and to get them to agree on is a continued supply of gas up to 2019. He said these companies also agreed that any increase or finds of gas or increased efficiencies on their part will see them selling to NGC to assist the downstream industry. Young said, From that aspect, weve gotten more gas going until 2019. Noting the Juniper project will be on stream in the third quarter of 2017 and will maintain the countrys gas production at its current levels, he said, When you are in a situation like this, any more scuffs of gas is going to assist. He said, What we have been speaking to them about is an allocation of more gas to the downstream (industry). On discussions with Exxon Mobil, which is active in Guyanas emerging energy sector, Young said, The Prime Minister had prefaced that with meetings with President (David) Granger in Guyana. TT is about to sign a new MOU on energy with the Government of Guyana but, we are really looking to play a supporting role to the government of Guyana going forward. He also said Exxon was invited to TT to see the infrastructure that is available here. In a statement on Tuesday, the TT Chamber of Industry and Commerce said the lost opportunity to have the Angelin platform fabricated in La Brea, should concern us all. The Chamber said beyond the immediate loss of jobs and much needed economic activity, what has resulted is the potential elimination of any prospects of building additional platforms for neighbouring oil and gas fields. The Chamber said, Anyone genuinely concerned about the welfare of those suffering job losses will not treat this matter cavalierly; neither would they suggest that we encourage further loss of opportunity. With resources becoming increasingly scarce, the Chamber said TT, is in a crunch to remain attractive to foreign direct investment. The Chamber said the posturing of the labour movement and apparent delays by Government in finalising the gas supply contract with bpTT may have led to a compression of the time to deliver on gas from the Angelin project. The Chamber also said recent statements made during Rowleys visit to Houston suggested that while there was agreement in theory, nothing was signed. Saying this points to a critical gap in our decision-making process, the Chamber reiterated that it cannot be business as usual, particularly in times of economic hardship. Sagewan Alli: Renew focus on diversification The Rowley administration appears not to be able to catch a break, only days before making the announcement of a continued US$5 billion-dollar investment over the next five years by BP, before sustaining this blow. Even in better times, the loss of the Angelin would have roused commentary. In the new reality of low commodity prices and, with the country clutching at straws to shore up revenues, BPs decision has serious implications. But did it have to? For decades since Independence, governments have recognised this countrys need to diversify away from its dependence on oil and latterly, natural gas. But as of 2013-2015, the energy sector still contributed over 40 percent of GDP, adjusted downward to the late 30s when oil and gas revenue losses are taken into account. Because it is liable to make up a significant part of our revenues for the forseeable future, it remains in the countrys interest to seek out opportunities in oil and gas. But is this being done at the expense of the non-energy sector? The manufacturing sector averages an eight to nine percent share of GDP over the same period, while the financial sector contributes 14 percent, Distribution and Restaurants, 12 percent, Transport Storage and Communication seven to eight percent and Construction and Quarrying between about five percent. Tourism contributes just one percent to TTs GDP. This, despite successive governments giving incentives, setting up programmes and funding special purpose enterprises to the tune of hundreds of millions to develop non energy sectors in the economy. Getting diversification right is important. The country is on a deadline. By 2025-2030, studies show that TTs current oil and gas reserves will be depleted. Why hasnt diversification progressed further? It is not correct to say there is no diversification. There certainly is an amount of diversification. We do have a manufacturing sector, we do have agriculture, and we have agro processing. We do have a tourism sector. For what its worth, a variety of sectors exist, said Indera Sagewan Alli, a competitiveness consultant and regular commentator on the countrys economic affairs. What has been happening in TT said Sagewan Alli is not true diversification. For that she said, there should be a more balanced contribution from the other sectors of the economy to GDP. Oil and gas should not contribute more than 20 percent. The problem is weve paid an inadequate amount of attention to these different sectors and what has happened is that they have all contracted, she said. Some, have disappeared entirely. Using the car assembly industry as an illustration, she said, We used to assemble vehicles in Trinidad. That was value added taking place in Trinidad. We no longer do that. Now we are simply importing vehicles. She said this was a lost opportunity for us to move up the value chain, perhaps specialising in creating certain parts for specific models of vehicles. If we were thinking strategically, what we could have done was have foreign investment that would have supported the assembly already taking place. We did not do that. She believes since then the country has compounded the situation by having no clear vision for our non-energy sectors. The problem, she said, was a lack of vision, versus a lack of political will, because over the last 20 years diversification efforts were some of the most well-funded government projects to date. I believe much of what has been done has been to satisfy calls for diversification. She said there continued to be too much disconnection between the various areas needed to make diversification work. Even if we have a vision of where we want these sectors to go, their development cant happen in a vacuum. First, Sagewan Alli said, TT must realise that since many of these diversification initiatives were started, the world had changed. The ability to be competitive in producing goods and services had become paramount. We must be able to figure out what goods and services we can offer competitively, as well as the world demand for it. And there should be a match between the two. Beyond this, the country then has to work out a strategy for achieving this and plot this plan out on a timeline with a deadline for execution, she said. There should also be better linkages between the sectors identified for development, educational training to support them and the use of research and development coming out of the University of the West Indies and the University of Trinidad and Tobago. Additionally, there also needed to be proper legislative and fiscal support for non-energy sectors during diversification and most importantly, measurement of the use of resources to see if the sectors were developing as envisioned. Questions need to be asked, Sagewan Alli said, By spending this money, what do you hope to achieve in this fiscal year? By the end of the year, there needs to be measurement to see if they are achieving those objectives. This simply isnt being done. We need to start looking at what we want to achieve. What kind of country we want to have? What kinds of jobs we want to create? What do we have in this country that will enable us to achieve these objectives? What can we borrow from the rest of the world to help us be more competitive and create products and services that customers want? The dynamic must shift revenue earning capacity to other sectors, she said, While they may not earn as much as the energy sector, they are still capable of earning foreign exchange and creating sustainable employment. WITCO reports flat profit, illegal competition He said the company faced a drop in consumption of its products and a decline in profit before taxation to $693.7 million in 2016, about the same as the $693.5 million recorded in the previous year. In addition, it had to contend with an upsurge in illegal cigarettes smuggled into the country. He said these cigarettes are being offered at cheap prices compared to the price of its own premium Du Maurier brand, however an analysis done at the labs of its parent company, the British American Tobacco Company (BAT) found the smuggled cigarettes contained foreign matter such as feathers, insect carcasses, plastic, synthetic material, grit and droppings among other things. He said to counter the incursions of these smuggled brands, WITCO had brought back onto the market one of its old favourites, Mt Dor cigarettes, which it was selling at a price of $17 in order to compete. He said the company was able to regain some of the market share it had lost to the cheaper brands. Du Coudray noted that consumers across various sectors including food and alcohol were no longer loyal to brands but were looking for the cheapest product to satisfy a particular need. He said that with the Government battling to increase its revenue, the company had to deal with increases in corporation and excise taxes and the average consumer was looking for value for their money; struggling to pay for their usual brands in all sectors with a reduced disposable income. He said while the company has seen its revenues reduced it merely means that the market is shifting from WITCO brands to the cheap illegal products because of the economic situation. He said when this happens, WITCO loses, and the government loses because it is not collecting taxes and the consumer is also losing by buying cigarettes without proper standards. Du Coudray said the Minister of Finance would need to consider whether he has collected taxes from all the players in the market. According to Du Coudray, The minister did indicate in the 2016/2017 budget speech an acknowledgement of an increase in illegal products in the market and promised strong legislation and enforcement. Unfortunately, we have not seen any major developments in this area. Du Coudray said the has company introduced new products, launching the first capsule in regular sized cigarettes in the Caribbean. The smoker flicks or crushes the capsule in the cigarette filter to change its flavour. This new cigarette was put on the market in the last quarter of last year in a bid to increase the satisfaction of its customers. However, he said its attempts to introduce new products are hampered by Government regulations designed to discourage new smokers from taking up the habit. Another restriction for the company will be the introduction of graphic packaging, showing the effect of smoking on various body parts, also intended to discourage smokers. Du Coudray said the company was awaiting the images and once it receives them it will have eight months to begin using them. However, he said while the graphic images might produce some initial reaction from the consumer, in other markets where they have been introduced, such as Canada and Australia, it has been found that sales rebound. He said You dont need the images to know you are smoking a controversial product. They are just a reminder, so what happens is that after a short period, sales materialise back to the normal levels. The shock and awe factor is gone. Questioned about electronic cigarettes, he said there was a potential market in Trinidad and Tobago and while he believed WITCO would have a presence in that market in the next five years, he did not see electronic cigarettes replacing tobacco which he believed will be around for the next 50 years. In response to a question, Du Coudray said the company does not see any likelihood of staff cutbacks. While it was always looking at ways of making its operations more efficient, he said it does not foresee any cutbacks in the immediate future, adding, In fact, because of the challenges of the economy and the market we are going through, we may actually bring more people to help us deal with the challenges that we are facing. Finance and technology The evolution of technology in the financial sector has been occurring over the past few decades and has generally been met with favourable regulatory response. The transition to a digital financial industry began years ago and included the rise of the ATM machines. We now have electronic cross-border payment systems such as SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications) and also here in Trinidad and Tobago, the establishment of RTGS (real time gross settlement systems). This process took place through a carefully developed partnership between the major central banks and financial institutions, targeted at both supporting economic and financial globalisation, and reducing the serious risks intrinsic in cross-border payments, predominantly systemic risks. Crypto-currencies have unfortunately faced more skepticism, and understandably so. In January 2011, an ambitious entrepreneur named Ross Ulbricht produced an online marketplace called Silk Road which was truly unique. Firstly, it was not accessible on the normal Web but it existed in an encrypted and secretive part of the Internet known as the dark Net. Secondly, it presented a range of illegal merchandise not found on eBay or Amazon, typically drugs, catering to discerning users by proposing customer reviews and vendor ratings. Thirdly, the Silk Road was able to function because it used the new Bitcoin virtual currency that permitted users to stay unknown and carry out transactions with little fear of intervention by law enforcement. While the Silk Road was ultimately shut down and its inventor arrested and convicted, the potential use of the Bitcoin and the prospects for a digital economy assisted in instituting it as tool worth keeping. Bitcoin was really developed in 2008 as a concept by an anonymous developer known by the pseudonym of Satoshi Nakamoto, who posted a paper detailing the currency to a cryptography mailing list. The paper details a decentralised system with no issuing authority that would serve as a means of exchange and also as an anonymous and fully open log of all transactions (known as the blockchain). The currency became fairly popular, but it was not until the establishment of the Silk Road that it was truly noticed. While it is obvious that Bitcoin has some eye-catching characteristics, it also has some grave difficulties that have prevented it from being embraced by the mainstream. The lack of an issuing body and no central authority responsible for the payment scheme may lead one to believe that it is not even possible to take on any sort of regulatory effort. However, Bitcoin has some practices that suggest some form of regulation is required if it becomes widespread. We can agree that the use of finance for economic development has long been an important focus for policy-makers seeking to support growth in developing countries. Currently, there is merit in applying technology to address challenges and create opportunities across the financial sector. It should be recognised however that policy-makers and regulators will face the challenge of rapidly transforming financial systems, technological developments and alternative currencies in coming years, since Bitcoins are presently used in transactions by some establishments in Trinidad and Tobago. It is of utmost importance that we build the necessary infrastructure to support their regulation and oversight. Technology is the great enabler He was speaking at a Howard University Open Day held at the Success Laventille Composite School on April 7. bmobile was a proud sponsor of the event which was hosted by i95.5 FM as part of its ongoing Laventille Nights Series. Addressing the room full of students, parents, guardians and teachers, Dr Frederick spoke about the importance of having the support of parents, family and a good network of the right friends and mentors. He also shared his life journey of dreaming big and studying and working hard to achieve his academic and career goals, despite having financial challenges and sickle cell disease. Two Howard alumni, Sheldon John who grew up in San Juan and Carlton Serrette, who lived in Morvant, also shared their individual life stories of being accepted to Howard despite their humble beginnings. Assuring the audience that Howard University offered an environment that will not limit them but unleash their potential, Dr Frederick stated that he invited the two alumni to speak because some persons at a previous open day held in Laventille thought that because he was from a different neighborhood, they could not have the same opportunities as he did. Trinidad and Tobago has one of the best education systems in the world and you have to apply yourself every day to take advantage of this opportunity and get a good education. Your educational pursuits do not start when you apply to university. It starts from before, he said. Hassel Bacchus, TSTTs Acting Chief Technology Officer, discussed the importance of the use of technology in education for the advancement a society. Technology is what enables us to dream bigger and go further. Under the leadership of our CEO, Dr Ronald Walcott, we are transforming TSTT into an agile broadband company so we can deliver the services Trinidad and Tobago needs to allow its citizens to reach their full potential. We are making a multi-billion dollar investment to bring our entire nation to a point where it is, and you can benefit from, a fully-enabled ICT society. Bacchus continued, When you marry technology and education you get really spectacular results. Together, they provide the three Es: 1. They are enablers of individuals and society; 2. They encourage entrepreneurship; and 3. They are equalizers. With the advance of technology today, there is nothing that you cannot figure out, produce or do, regardless of where you live or where you are in life. Its no longer about who has and who doesnt have. Technology levels the field. The event also attracted prospective Howard University students from all over Trinidad and Tobago. Cyril Ann Hunte, 25 and Aphea James, 19, travelled from La Brea and Bon Accord, Tobago, respectively. I always had an interest in Howard University because it reflects what I stand for as young, black woman growing up in todays society. I wish to study political science and law at Howard and needed to find out more about their scholarships and financial assistance. It was a really great experience because the two alumni who spoke made us realize that they were just like us at some point in time but they were able to get into Howard and improve on their lives. I felt inspired, said James. Hunte has been performing and teaching theatre arts since 2009. I believe that doing a Theatre Arts-Acting degree at Howard will expose me to invaluable experiences that will equip me to excel in my field and make a difference. I am glad that I came today because I learned that there are no scholarship age limits that would give preference to a younger person now leaving high school over an older person like myself. School principal, Hamida Baksh and Tony Lee, i95.5/RED President, welcomed the open day participants. Stephen Weeks, US Embassy Public Affairs Officer, discussed the steps a student should follow to become eligible to study in the United States, as well as tips to lower the costs of attending a foreign university or college. The afternoon session then closed with a question and answer segment with the Howard University President. Growing from STEM Recognising the need for fourth industrial revolution workers, many countries have coordinated their efforts to boost science, technology, mathematics and engineering (STEM) careers. As Trinidad and Tobago engages in its economic planning, policy makers must recognise that if we are to re-industrialize our country, we must choose products with high value-added along the international value chain of products. Additionally, if we are to modify, utilise or simply integrate new technologies in every facet of our existence, we must develop the skills to do so. Technology is going to dramatically reshape our workforce in the coming years and Trinidad and Tobagos ability to rapidly adapt to technological change, and even more importantly, innovate, will be paramount for job creation and our future economic success. STEM, as is being implemented, is an educational program developed to prepare primary and secondary students for college and graduate study in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. In addition to subject-specific learning, STEM aims to foster inquiring minds, logical reasoning, and collaboration skills. It is important to add that STEM must not only be limited to primary and secondary schooling, given todays pace and scale of disruption. Our country needs to ensure a modern workforce is available to capitalize on the opportunities presented by the Fourth Industrial Revolution which must include out of school programs. STEM should also be a part of the re-tooling of sections of our work force. STEM education can contribute to the creation of critical thinkers. It certainly has in many countries increased science literacy, and has the potential to facilitate the next generation of innovators. Innovation leads to new products and processes that sustain our economy. This innovation and science literacy depends on a solid knowledge base in the STEM areas. At a very simplistic level and not to over emphasize the point, STEM based education can lead to science and technology-based innovation which can result in science and engineering-based entrepreneurship finding its way into new technology companies which with proper incentives, planning and coordination, can produce exports. This must be both the hope and thrust of our efforts to achieve economic growth as well as diversification in a rapidly changing business environment globally. Most jobs of the future will require a basic understanding of math and science. In this regard, in our country there has to be seen a partnering of government, the private sector, community leaders and educational institutions, especially those at the tertiary level. Perhaps the relevant authorities, the private sector, the government planners and the education sector after careful evaluation and review of the efforts that are taking place around the world, may arrive in a timely manner at the conclusion that we must create a STEM Initiative that will provide a sustainable means to ensure related learning is truly everywhere. One of the interesting phenomenon that is observed from several countries is that STEM education helps to bridge the gender gaps sometimes found in math and science fields. Initiatives in a number of countries have been established that increase the roles of women in STEM-related fields. STEM education has the potential to break the traditional gender roles. We have an opportunity to re-engineer our economy. Let us look at the changing global environment and identify the prerequisites to help us survive and be competitive Charran heads new Chaguanas Chamber executive It is for that reason that I chose to initiate the CCIC Safety, Security and Sustainability Expo that the Chaguanas Chamber will hold in June of this year. This expo will highlight all the latest technology and thinking in the areas of safety and security, but it will also address issues of crime and bullying through speakers who will bring their personal stories on how they have helped to turn around crime and bullying in their own schools and towns. Sookhai was addressing CCIC members during its annual general meeting, held last Wednesday at the chambers new office at the corner of Cumberbatch Street and Main Road, Chaguanas. Although he has been succeeded by Vishnu Charran as CCIC president, Sookhai promised to lead promotional efforts for the expo because he believes it is an important undertaking not just for the chamber, but for the entire country. Thanking the people of Chaguanas for their incredible support of the chamber, Sookhai said organisations like the Chaguanas Chamber have to shine like a beacon to society and we have to show great resolution and commitment to getting things done for our members and for our people, Sookhai advised. During his tenure, Sookhai was also responsible for the signing of a number of memoranda of understanding (MOUs) and establishing significant relationships with organisations like YTEPP, Servol and COSTAATT, among others. Sookhai also recently led a large delegation of Chaguanas business entities to a meeting with the Minister of Works and Transport to discuss the ongoing traffic and other issues affecting the borough. Sookhai told the gathering that he and the CCIC had been able to achieve all they had during his tenure because of the support of the membership of the Chamber and because of the incredible support of the people of Chaguanas. The new executive of the Chaguanas Chamber is as follows: Vishnu Charran (president); Alan Julien (vice-president); Baldath Maharaj (secretary); Trevor Joseph (treasurer); Vashty Maharaj; Liaquat Shah; Deepak Lall; Zamanath Ali; Warren Thompson; Richie Sookhai (immediate past president). Murder in Maracas At about 11.40 pm, Fernando who worked in the National Reforestation and Watershed Rehabilitation Programme, was sitting outside his La Mango Road home, when two gunmen shot him multiple times. They ran to the back of Fernandos house and escaped. Residents who heard the gunshots, alerted police. Relatives yesterday described the victim as a quiet person who kept to himself. They added that they had no confidence in the police solving the murder and charging anyone. I spoke to him last night, because he is always by us. We live further up the hill. I dont know what could have caused this, said a relative. An autopsy is expected to be performed at the Forensic Science Centre in St James today. The murder toll yesterday stood at 148. AROUCA SLAYING In an unrelated incident, Akile Mitchell, a welder who lived in Arouca was shot dead on Tuesday night but relatives believe his murder will not be properly investigated as they alleged Mitchell was being targeted by police. I dont think police will make any effort because they too wanted him dead, said a relative. Up until last Tuesday he was in trouble with police. Monday he was complaining his feet were swollen because he had been held for four days by police. About 4 am on Tuesday they came back and said they had a warrant to search. They searched and then took him back to jail with 11 other men. They said he get hold for two guns, but they released him after. Police officers told him he had to die, the relative claimed. However, the family believe Mitchell was murdered by gangsters after he refused to join the group. According to reports, police found 22-year-old Mitchells body at about 10.30 pm, after they responded to a report of gunshots being heard at Windy Hill, Bon Air North in Arouca. Yesterday relatives said Mitchell enrolled in the Milat programme, along with other institutions and earned certificates in welding and plumbing. Relatives said he made several reports to the Police Complaints Authority after being harassed by police. Cunupia robbery accused on $250,000 bail Justin Heeraman, an auto electrician of Chin Chin Road, Cunupia appeared before Magistrate Joanne Connor to answer to the charges. It is alleged that Heeraman and two other men robbed the patrons of cash and cellular phones on April 4. Nine counts of robbery with aggravation were read to him. The charges were laid indictably by PC Huggins of the Cunupia Police Station and the accused man was not called upon to plead. Heeraman was arrested on Sunday by police officers and later charged. The case was adjourned to May Cedros proprietor freed of shooting villager with pellet gun Stephen Singh, 63, a proprietor of Bois Bourg Village was charged with wounding 60-year-old Wayne Shine Vesprey with intent to do him grievous bodily harm. The incident occurred on November 24, 2005. After leaving the court, Singh commented on the issue of trials by jury. I believe it should stay, he said. There is no other fair system. His attorney Kevin Ratiram said he intends to sue the State on Singhs behalf because the accused man had given a statement to the police but it never surfaced at the trial. The States case was led by attorney Stacy Lallo- Chong. Vesprey testified that Singh shot him during an argument inside Singhs shop. The bullet penetrated the forehead and Vesprey was rushed to hospital. In his defence, Singh testified that he was trying to protect his wife from being raped when he shot Vesprey. He said Vesprey, who appeared to be drunk, entered the shop at about 12.30 pm and started dancing to the music which was being played. He told Justice Holdip and the nine-member jury that he refused Vespreys request for a nip of Puncheon rum and Vesprey started cursing. Shine started to rock the gate and it opened. He leaned over the counter and make a grab for my wife. He said that he will rape she. I had the gun behind the fridge and I pulled it. I fired. I didnt aim at no specific place on him. Singh also testified that he gave an interview to police officers and he signed two pieces of paper. However, he said he never saw the statement he gave. Police officers who testified denied they ever took statements from Singh although he was, at that time, the suspect in the matter. The jurors deliberated for just over an hour and returned with the not guilty verdict. What has gone wrong at the port? The Act, which was proclaimed on June 14, 1962, provides for a co-ordinated and integrated system of harbour facilities and port services. The issues of the authority and its ferry service have become more pronounced as the lease term of the inter-island ferry Super Fast Galicia comes to an end on April 21. The Galicia was initially leased for a six-month period but with a number of extensions the ferry worked the inter-island route for over three years. This lack of planning is one of the issues identified as what is wrong with the port. The 19th report of the Joint Select Committee of the fifth session of the tenth Parliament appointed to inquire into and report on Government Ministries, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises that specifically looked at the administration and operations of the Port Authority of Trinidad and Tobago, found the authority was suffering from a lack of funds to finance its plans for the expansion of the Port of Port-of-Spain and other related facilities; the existence of various challenges regarding vessel and cargo traffic management. In particular, PATT identified shortcomings such as poor infrastructure to store cargo, excess dwelling time for cargo and unproductive work practices. The authority needs to boost its capacity to monitor and remove abandoned or derelict vessels; There was a significant disparity between the amount of revenue earned by the inter-island ferry service and the amount expended on providing the service. It appeared that the main option for increasing the services income was to increase fees/fares, among others. These problems identified in 2014-2015 suggests change with the port and its operations is slow. Dr Trevor Townsend, senior lecturer in transport engineering, Department of Civil Engineering, said while things have changed with the port, its ferry and other services, there is still work that needs to be done Three major areas should be considered for an efficient and cost-effective running of the port and its operations; the vessels and their configurations, infrastructure, demand for the services offered. Townsend said, What one would do from an analyst perspective is to look at all of those things and keep trimming, to see if you had the right mixture. In a more medium term you want to look at what type of vessel you had and what arrangements you would make in terms of operational costs and the configuration in terms of passengers and type of staff it would carry These were the things, he said, which should be looked at on an operational level with respect to the port on a day-to-day basis and year-to-year basis. He added that it seemed as though the organisations and its attendant bodies had an issue with acquiring operating vessels in a good enough time frame, something any port should constantly be looking at. You also have to look at the question whether or not the organisation has the required capability of adapting with arrangements in terms of how it is funded, can it acquire the necessary operating vessels in a good enough time frame. There seems to be a problem in this case of the negotiations in terms of the vessels, where approvals have to be given and how approvals take place, what options might or might not have been available. And these are the things that have to be looked at by the Board of management on a regular basis. While saying he was not upto- date with the specifics of the current situation, he said, there appeared to be some level of discontinuity with, how arrangements have to be made to provide a temporary measure before something more medium to longterm could be put in place. He said globally TT stood, not as good as many but better than some. However, he believes the country was not doing some things correctly, not just in terms of how we run our inter-island ferry but how we run our inter- island airline and how we run our intra-island transportation system. The fundamentals of running good transportation systems are that there must be data and an understanding of your demand and its characteristics. You must understand the cost structure of your organisation because you have to link that cost structure to your capabilities to service that demand. You must understand the nature of the equipment you are using and the service which lies on its replacement arrangement and have those proper arrangement sin place. The more you can understand and confer those things the better able you are to provide the public with what they need. From what I have seen in almost all of our cases, that is not how we have been operating. They do what they can with what they have. That means you would probably be doing, in most of the cases, crisis-type arrangements, Dr Townsend said. Former chairman of the Board of the Port Authority of Trinidad and Tobago, Christine Sahadeo, said while there is a robust model existence it has not been fully implemented because the separate entities do not have the requisite autonomy to be held accountable, accordingly. When asked about some of the problems affecting the port and its operations, she told Newsday productivity levels and cost-efficiencies and effectiveness were some of the major issues. Some of the major difficulties reside in productivity levels where it ought to be and also ensuring that the payroll cost is approximately 80 percent of the ports total operating cost and a critical review is necessary. In her view, the port must introduce key performance indicators and ensure necessary action is taken accordingly. People have to be held accountable and, in my humble view, the reason whyis because they are full legal entities. The fact remains by Cabinet minutes of 2002, they introduced these separate legal entities (Port of Port-of-Spain Limited, Destination Trinidad and Tobago Limited, and Trinidad and Tobago Inter Island Company Limited) to improve transparency, corporate governance and accountability. These entities are still not fully operationalised. KPIs (key performance indicators) are not in place and hence they lack proper transparency. With the full operationalisation of these entities it should result in higher levels of transparency, corporate governance and accountability. She said the Inter-Island Ferry service was subsidised but that it was necessary, to ensure there is a high level of efficiency [to ensure] that the subsidy is reduced. She said a subsidy can be offered but it should be a very efficient model thereby reducing Government subsidy. She said if anything was needed by one body, for example, the Port of Port-of Spain, a request had to be put in and then a manager determine if it is valid, they then determine if it would be purchased nowhow can you hold the CEO of PPOS or TT IT accountable and they are not in control of the entire operation? The problem would have been curtailed, substantially if these separate legal entities were made to operate as such and be held accountable, accordingly. Sahadeo said the service was an essential one and needed all players to get it right. It is an essential service and it is critical we get it right because it impacts on all of TT . It is very critical that all players, board, management, workers and the union, come together to ensure we deliver a cost-effective and efficient service. But ultimately, she felt, I dont think we have gotten the model right as yet. UTT students take class to the stage As part of the MA programme the students were required to take Fundamentals in Calypso Compositions, a course that covers both theoretical and practical aspects of calypso composition. They delved into the basics of calypso poetics, rhetorical devices, themes, genres, rhythms, and calypsonian persona, all of which was supposed to teach them how to analyse calypsoes with a layer of objectivity. They were also taught how to find the message and see how it works with the music and the performance. The students were given an assignment to put together a calypso tent, inclusive of marketing and performances. According to lecturer Dr Kela Francis,The tent was their practicum; this year I decided to use the tent format and let the students make a presentation to the public. They each composed their own calypso and presented it. It was the first time writing a calypso as well as performing on a stage for some of them. The students were all involved in several jam sessions during class time to work out their songs before the big day. Twenty students performed for the audience, which included professor Hollis Chalkdust Liverpool and Dr Rudolph Ottley. Among the students were seasoned performers like Wayne McDonald (bassman), Marcus Baptiste (pannist), Natalia Dopwell (vocalist), Michelle Henry (musician), Dean Williams (guitarist),Yanz Garcia (pannist) and Karen Forde (dancer). The band Acoustic Kaiso Makers and chorus were made up of students from the MACS class. The overall performances by both the first timers and experienced performers were well received by the audience. Professor Liverpool praised the students for a job well done, adding that some of calypsoes were well composed. Children tell the best stories It is another unique publication designed to engage the countrys young readers ages five to 13, as it contains their own stories with illustrations that can be coloured, bound between glossy covers. With some of the nations top yarn-spinners inspiring the children during the month-long annual caravan, many imaginative ideas find their way onto the pages of this book. They address community spirit, problem solving at school, the environment, personal, social and community relationships and include cultural reflections and folklore, among other topics. Each year the storytelling caravan makes it way around Trinidad and Tobago awakening the joy of hearing and telling stories. The stories told by children are collected and published to coincide with the annual April festival. The caravan is due to make stops in Couva, Chaguanas, Cedros, San Fernando, Toco, Siparia and Port-of-Spain before April 30. Danielle Delon, director of the childrens festival says, We find that giving children an opportunity to personalise stories requires them to read and better understand the composition of stories. And, as the book is divided into segments for under- eight and nine-plus children, the illustrations offer a progression of detail, so young artists are able to practice control over the tools used to fill in between the lines. The 2016 childrens stories have contributed to the biggest collection so far in the series of annual colouring books. Twenty-one stories, published as a 9x12 colouring book within full-colour covers, are now ready for all fans of fantasy. This is a limited edition with free copies going to children whose name appears in the book. For more information contact the Bocas Lit Fest office at: 222 7099 or by e-mail at: info@bocaslitfest.com The 2017 NGC Bocas Lit Fest, that includes a full childrens festival, runs from April 26-30. NOT GOOD FOR TT However, while acknowledging Rogets statement was unhealthy, Rowley said, this is still a free country and leaders choose to lead their followers the way they see fit. At the end of the day, it is Trinidad and Tobago in the boardrooms from where I have just come. Lead in a way that is beneficial to the national well-being, Rowley urged leaders, at every level. Fortunately it will fall to the worker as to where they are being led, he added saying that Government must ensure the best decisions are made for the wider national good. Asked several times, in an interview yesterday morning aired on CNC 3s The Morning Brew programme, if Rogets comments had any impact on the countrys investment climate, Rowley said, I think BP was as disappointed as we were, because every single day we need to be attracting foreign investment to this country. Workers have a responsibility, he said, to influence their leadership, to understand what the reality is, and what the current circumstances call for. BPs decision to build the Angelin platform outside of Trinidad and Tobago, he said, was taken a long-time ago and it was one of the reasons he met with top executives in the US, to see if he could get them (BP) to change their mind. Their decision, he said, was made after the contractor for the earlier Juniper project did not meet deadlines. Rowley said it was a matter of concern when investors are picking up their plants in South America and taking them to North America where gas is more available in terms of volume and price. In TT, he said, plants are closing because of a lack of gas. That is not the kind of environment that attracts investment in the gas industry. On discussions with Exxon Mobil in Guyana, Rowley said his discussions was based on TT having an oil refinery with a capacity to produce 168,000 barrels of oil a day. We are only producing 72,000 barrels. If we can get oil from Guyana to be refined in our refinery, it puts us in a better position, he said. During the last Caricom Heads of Government meeting in Guyana last year, Rowley said, he spent some time with Guyanas President David Granger and his senior Cabinet members discussing the issue. TTs public and private sector is saying to Guyana, the prime minister said, that they want to be a part of that countrys oil industry arrival and its operations. On the issue of a Petrotrin committee looking at the overall operations of the problem plagued State-owned company, Rowley said its deadline to submit a report has been extended from June 1, and will now be given until December. Noting that many things are going wrong at Petrotrin, Rowley said, Government will not be hesitant to make decisions which might be unpopular, if those are the recommendations, so as to put the company in the best position. Guilty of killing mother and infant son The murders took place in 2005 and 12 years later, 41-year-old Anand Baboolal, also known as Son, went on trial. Justice Althea Alexis- Windsor ordered that he suffer death by hanging for the murders of 26-year-old Ria Ramlochan and Ishmael Timothy Ragbir. The child was stabbed 14 times and one of his ears was severed. The State led evidence that Baboolal committed the murders on a day unknown between August 10 and 13 at Ramlochans Solomon Street, Mayaro home. He was arrested at a camp behind a sawmill along Tabaquite Road, near New Grant. He and Ramlochan were in a relationship and he used to visit her. The State, represented by attorneys Shabaana Shah and Chantal Hospedales, relied on a confession which Baboolal gave to police in the Rio Claro Police Station. He told the police Ramlochan was stabbed during an argument but gave no account of how Ishmael was stabbed and ended up in the river. The State called 12 witnesses including Supt Moses Charles and Insps Alexis Garcia, Azam Hamid and Fitzgerald George. Baboolal, who was represented by attorney Rekha Ramjit, did not testify but called, as a witness, a doctor who said he examined Baboolal on the day he was arrested. Shah told the 12-member jury that Baboolal has nine convictions for larceny which he committed between 1998 and 2002 in Mayaro. The jurors began their deliberations at about 1pm yesterday after receiving directions in law from Alexis-Windsor. They returned three hours later with the verdicts. Baboolal was asked if he had anything to say before sentence was passed on him. He replied in the negative. Rotary Club thanks Newsday for helping Shannen In a statement sent to the media yesterday, the club said it was inspiring that the paper pushed crime stories aside and published the article written by Darcel Choy and Janelle De Souza. In our minds, it brought the plight of our sick and disabled children in society to the nations front. (This allowed) decision makers to place the highest priority to decisions taken regarding the health and well-being of our children, all driven through care and love for each other. The organisation said Rotarians in various clubs, members of the public, employees of organisations and companies across the country responded to the call when the story was published. Contributions made through Republic Bank Limited, as well as funds raised elsewhere have totalled $190,490.15 to date. President Michael Ibrahim anticipates that by April 20, the date scheduled for handing over to Shannens family, our financial goal of $250,000 will be achieved. As a result, we are asking those who wish to contribute to this worthy cause to donate a minimum of $20. Carmona: Being a judge is a lonely job I have to warn you, it is going to be a lonely job because many times as it has happened to the Chief Justice, as it has happened to myself personally, we have had to go to functions and see certain persons there and you could turn right back and leave because justice itself, is based to a large extent on perception, Carmona said. And, if you are seen talking to the wrong person, people perceive it in a particular way. But you are only human and you have to speak to any and everyone not knowing who they are sometimes. Carmona spoke after formally installing Chief Magistrate Marcia Ayers-Caesar, Registrar Kevin Ramcharan and Acting Senior Magistrate Avason Quinlan-Williams as new Puisne Judges of the Supreme Court at Presidents House, St Anns. Saying he has followed closely, the careers of Ayers-Caesar, Quinlan-Williams and Ramcharan, in relation to clarity of vision, jurisprudential depth and objective adjudicative process, Carmona said the new appointees are well-suited to their new portfolios. So that what is happening here today, is something that should have happened a long time...looking for judges in the trenches of the Judiciary because in the trenches you have excellence, he said. I can tell you, I have seen that excellence at the Court of Appeal, defending your judgements over the years. Carmona told the new judges that they had the ability to bring real justice in all forms and fashions through their volunteer work particularly with young people. Because not only will you all be engaged in the actual adjudication of cases, but you all are people of heart, he said. I know that you all have gone beyond the bench to engage change among our young people. Many times persons are prepared voluntarily without payment, to go beyond that boundary to change lives. No Easter holidays for cops Officers have planned extensive anti-crime operations in all nine divisions across the nation. These exercises will include road blocks, stop and search, DUI and speed exercises. Yesterday, Tobago Divisional head Snr Supt Joanne Archie advised people visiting the sister isle to obey the law and avoid spending the weekend in a cell. We will be out in our numbers to ensure all who use the roads be it pedestrian or motorist do so in a safe environment. We are asking visitors and residents not to throw caution to the wind. We will be there not to give people a hard time, but to ensure they are safe during the holiday period on the island, Archie said. ACP (Crime) Irwin Hackshaw added that police will be making checks on camps across the nation and there will be patrols on the beach. Hackshaw said there will be a heightened police presence in all communities. He advised the public to apply all precautions, ensure their valuables are secured and when possible, to travel in groups. Lambert slams nonsensical statement from Energy Chamber The chamber said such action is damaging to safety culture and undermines the entire safety management in the sector. However, Lambert said he was not aware that any trade union has been using the issue of safety excessively for the purpose of collective bargaining. He said hearing such a comment from a responsible entity was The most nonsensical statement I have heard. He said the trade unions would use the provisions of the law and the proposals of their collective agreement. He said not all trade unions are involved in the energy sector but the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act was for everyone and wherever there are workers, there are problems relating to health and safety. In its statement, the chamber said in the energy sector where risks are high, safety is a top priority. A strong safety culture is vital for the continued success and competitiveness of the Trinidad and Tobago energy sector, the chamber said. Every individual working on any energy sector facility has a duty to stop work in any situation that will put themselves or others in harms way. Lambert said his union particularly does not use health and safety as a tool for the purpose of negotiation. So whichever entity or institution has made that, it is very unfortunate and I think the whole statement is nonsensical. The chamber said adherence to worldclass safety management systems played an extremely important role in the ability of TOFCO to deliver the Juniper topside on schedule with high quality work. TOFCO achieved over two million man hours without a lost time incident on the Juniper construction project: this is excellent safety performance. It added, Allegations of poor safety management both damage the reputation of the company and the local industry and are not supported by the facts. The protests that shut down the Juniper project and caused delays were about jobs and a few individuals trying to seek direct personal benefits. Safety was used as an excuse for illegal strike action. The chamber said the right to refuse work enshrined in the OSH Act is very specific and there are explicit procedures in the law that need to be followed, but the right to refuse work is not in the legislation to provide a cover for illegal strikes over pay. It said misusing this important provision in the law undermines safety. Police engage gay rights groups In a statement to the media on Tuesday, the Alliance for Justice and Diversity said last Wednesdays meeting with Phillip and other senior police officials was a historic session aimed at cooperation in strengthening policing. Womantra co-director Khadija Sinanan said the meeting was a very promising engagement with receptive leaders of the Police Service. The goal on both sides was to improve how the TTPS can serve, protect and restore the confidence of members of LGBTQI (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer or Questioning, and Intersex) communities. The meeting was the fruit of the Womens Institute for Alternative Development (WINAD) efforts at strengthening relationships between the police and NGOs by a series of quarterly meetings. The LGBTQI groups used that channel to reach out to Acting Commissioner Stephen Williams who assigned DCP Phillip to build a liaison with them, respond to their concerns, and develop action steps. CAISO head, Colin Robinson said, The primary thrust was to help us understand how the service works, how it deals with policing issues that affect us, and who we can engage to ensure good policing or address bad policing. We asked police to provide us with a trustworthy and stigma-free channel to report crimes. The police promised to work with LGBTQI communities on further meetings and linkages with police and changes to policing procedures for investigating gender-based, sexual and hate violence including the possible creation of a broad special victims unit. The meeting also resolved to a future review of five recent murder cases to ensure LGBTQI communities have reliable public information about any patterns or threats of violence and can help solve cases. The LGBTQI groups will participate in criminology research and in how the Police Academy assesses and continuously improves its training on sexuality and gender, the latter initiative is a key part of the Alliances safety campaign. The groups, working with the Equal Opportunity Commission and the University of the West Indies, and with the support of the European Union, hope to partner with the Academy and TTPS human resources managers to strengthen how the Service prepares officers to police domestic and bias violence. Terry Ann Roy of the group, I Am One, said, Were working to improve policing, to make people safe, not make them scared. What we owe each other are facts, change and leadership that makes us safe. And a lot less drama. Responding to a gay policemans recent testimony to news media about unsolved murders and attacks against gay men and officers who shame LGBTQI victims and fail to take or investigate reports, the alliance pleaded with him and others to share concrete, specific details of all such issues at justicediversitytt@ gmail.com. NGO: Dont rush into parenting King was addressing a youth forum on Tuesday hosted by the Caribbean Youth Development Network at the University of the West Indies (UWI), St Augustine. She cautioned that parenting is not something to enter into lightly. Saying that the family is the cell of the body of society, King said, When parents fail, societies and institutions fail. The quality of parenting impacts on the quality of our people. She said parents must produce good people who can work well with others and so make the world a better place. King lamented that little is being done by other entities such as the State to address the huge crater that exists in people-making. King asked the audience if any of them had perfect parents. No one raised their hand. Very few parents feel they are good enough or adequate, she remarked. They did the best they could. Parents are not magically made perfect when they have a child. However she advised those aspiring to be parents to remain authentic, even by embracing their imperfections. Admitting to others, including your children, that you have your doubts and that you just dont know is authentic. She urged those youngsters who eventually opt to become parents to give prominence to creating good people from their offspring. Alternatively there is no shame in not having children, she said. If you chose to become a parent, give it the humongous amount of time it requires. Theres nothing more important than raising good people. King urged more State help towards parenting such as better maternity and paternity leave like some foreign countries. When parents thrive, societies and organisations will thrive. She advised the youngsters to find their purpose in life which, she said, is not easy to do. Whatever you are doing, find something in it that you like and give it your best. Then you begin to get a sense of what excites you, what floats your boat. Try different things. Listen to what people are telling you. If youre stuck, its time to move on. She urged youngsters to aim to show their parents that they can ultimately pay their bills. If pursuing something offbeat, youngsters should create a good case to sell the idea to their parents. Parents want the best for their kids and to know that youll be okay when theyre not around. CISL to close Rowley gave this confirmation in response to a question from Couva South MP Rudranath Indarsingh in the House of Representatives. The Prime Minister explained that Government has done a general evaluation of the State Enterprise sector. He explained that on a case by case basis, companies within the sector will be examined. Rowley said if these companies have outlived their usefulness or strayed from their mandate, a determination will be made if dissolution is the best option. The Prime Minister also said the vast majority of State Enterprise companies have complied with a directive to submit their financial reports by March 31 and this will better inform the Government about the true state of their respective affairs. Recently, Government took decisions to dissolve the Tourism Development Company (TDC), Caroni Green and the Government Human Resource Service Company Ltd (GHRSL). Govt did not terminate Galicia lease Cudjoe explained that while the new board of the Port Authority are considering other recommendations for the domestic seabridge when the Galicia ends its service on April 21, the TT Spirit and TT Express will be used to transport critical supplies and perishable goods to Tobago. Earlier in the sitting, Works and Transport Minister Rohan Sinanan said the authorised signatory for the charter party agreement for the Galicia was signed by permanent secretary in the transport ministry, Verna Johnson. The Galicia was acquired under the former Peoples Partnership government. Options available on forex Asked what Government was doing about the forex shortage, Rowley said preference is given to certain categories including manufacturers and pharmaceuticals. They are given preference because they are producing something, he said. They are creating employment, and in fact, they should be exporting and earning foreign exchange, but there is no guarantee that, that would work. If the manufacturer earns foreign exchange and does not put it back in the system after given preference, that will not fix anything. The numbers show that the amount of forex Central Bank is putting into the system, if it is properly distributed, we should be better off than we are right now, he said. Asked if the problem was in the banking system, Rowley said, The problem is all around. You see a sign offering $8 for a US dollar. You know that is illegal, but every policeman in Trinidad and Tobago would pass that there and not ask anybody a question. That is what is happening. Admitting there is not enough forex to meet all demand, Rowley said, We as a government is saying to the banks, there are priorities...manufacturers, pharmaceuticals, public debt. Nevertheless, as a nation of distributors and with some captains of industry having made their reputation by being distributors, he said, if they do not get enough foreign exchange to buy and distribute they believe the country is falling apart. We have used your information to see if you have a subscription with us, but did not find one. Please use the button below to verify an existing account or to purchase a new subscription. Battered by the oil price slump, the underdeveloped banking sector in Algeria sees new financing sources in Islamic finance to tap into the huge informal economy and catch up with Morocco and Tunisia, which have already allowed such participatory banks to operate. As it edges towards offering banking services to suit more religiously conservative investors, Algeria wants Islamic banks to attract funds from a huge pool of cash held outside the formal banking system in a bid to offset oil prices and its energy revenues, Reuters reported. On the footsteps of Morocco, six Algerian state-owned banks are planning to launch Islamic finance services by the end of 2018 under the supervision of a national sharia board, Reuters learned. Yet, the underdeveloped banking system may hinder the launch of Islamic banking. The banking sector in Algeria remains state-dominated and highly corrupt thus thwarting foreign direct investments. While Algeria moved recently to privatize banks, this must not be mistaken for true liberalization. Absent is a crackdown on corruption or real reforms to create modern banking that attracts foreign direct investment. Another huge barrier for Islamic banks is the lack of a legal framework technical expertise, which makes Algeria lag behind neighbors Morocco and Tunisia that have already developed legislation for Islamic finance and Sukuk bonds, overseen by a central religious board. Experts expect Islamic banks to attract money from conservative swathes of the Algerian population operating in the informal economy, which, according to Reuters, accounts for $90 billion. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank have repeatedly urged Algeria to reform the underdeveloped banking sector and modernize its stock exchange to help attract investment. With the drop in oil prices and the widening trade deficit, the Algerian government drafted an austere appropriation bill for 2017 with the introduction of new taxes. The Algerian government released its 2030 vision for economic development, dubbed New Growth Model, warning of the unsustainability of the current subsidies system and urging economic diversification to reduce dependency on hydrocarbons. In all sectors of the public service (electricity, gas, water, rail transport, telecommunications), tariffs are kept at levels lower than the cost of operations for more than a decade for social considerations, the document said adding that this financial support is no longer sustainable for the state. In this respect, the study sees the measures to curb subsidies under the 2017 appropriation bill as a start of the end of this dependence. The document clearly acknowledges that the slump in oil prices unveiled the fragility of the Algerian economy and its vulnerability to international oil and gas price volatility. Therefore, the study advocates developing the non-oil economy, notably renewable energy, agriculture and industry. In view of its very low foreign debt, Algeria has time to carry out reforms. Yet, regime opacity, bureaucracy, widespread corruption and vested economic interest amid the Algerian ruling elite makes reforms hard to implement. Trimming public spending and raising revenue through VAT and taxes on electricity, fuel and tobacco have so far provoked unrest, with rioters in the eastern city of Bejaia clashing with police and torching state buses at the start of January, says the document. The proposed reforms in the document ignore the widespread corruption that affected almost all large-scale projects in Algeria. Algerias flagship development project, the East-West Highway, fell victim to the national malaise. Originally allocated a budget of $6 billion, rampant graft saw the project eventually completed for a price of almost $15 billion, making it mile for mile the most expensive road in the world. For some analysts the superficial nature of the reforms suggested in the document aim at polishing a facade similar to the regimes democratic facade where a group with vested interests in maintaining the authoritarian status quo and rent economy maintain a firm grip on the government machinery by ruling without actually governing. Meanwhile, the combustible material continues to pile: imploding demography, unemployed youth, languishing oil prices, regional turmoil and latent militant groups. Control Risks, the specialist risk consultancy, issued its 2017 RiskMap showing that Morocco continues to maintain its standing as the safest country for business and travel in North Africa. Morocco was the only country to be given a low security risk status in Riskmap, the leading guide to political and business risk and an important reference for policy makers and business leaders. The Riskmap showed that security conditions remain compromised in Algeria whose coloring in the map reflects high security risk in most of the country apart from a medium security risk in heavily militarized areas surrounding oil and gas wells. The security risk in Libya has been assessed as extreme, while in western Egypt it was considered high. Tunisias risk was ranked medium by Control risks. At the Arab level, only Morocco, Jordan, Qatar, the UAE and Oman were labelled safe in the map that evaluates the likelihood of state or non-state actors engaging in actions that harm the financial, physical and human assets of a company. The map assesses the extent to which the state is willing and able to protect financial, physical and human assets and the extent to which state or non-state actors are capable of harming those assets. Riskmap has also identified the following as major risks for business in 2017: Political populism exemplified by President-elect Trump and Brexit, Persistent terrorist threats, Increasing complexity of cyber security, a potential brake on US regulation could lead to a transformation of the global regulatory environment and the intensifying geopolitical pressures driven by nationalism, global power vacuums and proxy conflicts. Your digital subscription includes access to all content on our agricultural websites across the nation. Access unlimited content and the digital versions of our print editions - This Week's Paper. President Trump and his new BFF, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images President Trump had spent much of his first 83 days in office attempting to roll back his predecessors initiatives. On Wednesday, he shifted focus and spent the day rolling back his own. Trump reversed course, flip-flopped, or reneged on at least five of his own promises and policy initiatives in one day. At least, thats how many we found. 1. Whether NATO is worth saving: After repeatedly declaring NATO obsolete as both a candidate and president-elect, Trump met with Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg Wednesday and came away with a new perspective. He likes NATO now because they made a change, but experts say that change wasnt really much of a change at all. 2. Whether the federal government should hire new workers: On his third day as president, Trump signed an executive order freezing the hiring of new federal workers outside of the military. This was the fulfillment of a campaign promise to reduce [the] federal workforce through attrition and, presumably, a part of Steve Bannons plan to deconstruct the administrative state. On Wednesday, the freeze melted. 3. Whether the U.S. Export-Import Bank should exist: Candidate Trump on the export lending agency in August 2015: I dont like it because I dont think its necessary. President Trump on the Export-Import Bank in April 2017: Its a very good thing. 4. Whether China is a currency cheat: Labeling China a currency manipulator was supposed to happen on Trumps first day in office. Instead, on day 83, he told the WSJ, Theyre not currency manipulators. 5. Whether Janet Yellen is a good Fed chair: In that same WSJ interview Trump softened his position on Fed chairwoman Janet Yellen. In May of 2016, he said he would most likely replace her, and in September, during a debate, he said she should be ashamed of herself. Now he says, I like her, I respect her. As far as his future plans for her, he would only say, Its very early. A member of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces. Photo: Delil Souleiman/AFP/Getty Images The U.S.-led coalition in Syria mistakenly killed 18 members of an allied force on Tuesday in what U.S. Central Command is calling a misdirected strike. The strike in Tabqah, Syria, was ordered by partner forces on the ground who believed that ISIS fighters had taken up the location. They were wrong: The strike ended up hitting fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces, an alliance led by Kurds that has been fighting ISIS alongside the U.S. The Coalitions deepest condolences go out to the members of the SDF and their families, U.S. Central Command said in a statement. The Coalition is in close contact with our SDF partners who have expressed a strong desire to remain focused on the fight against ISIS despite this tragic incident. Tuesdays incident comes as SDF fighters prepare for an assault on Raqqa, Syria, the ISIS capital located 25 miles northeast of Tabqah. With the help of the U.S.-led coalition, the SDF is attempting to isolate the city by taking control of surrounding territories. We aim to liberate dozens of villages and clear the last obstacles in front of us to pave the way for the operation to liberate Raqqa city, an SDF statement said. Though the group had previously said the assault on Raqqa would begin this month, that schedule has been delayed. Photo-Illustration: Castle Rock Entertainment, Getty Images On Monday, the Department of Health and Human Services told the New York Times it intended to continue making cost-sharing reduction payments, which compensate insurance companies that cover low-income customers in the exchanges established by Obamacare. Eliminating the payments which cost the government about $7 billion a year would make premiums spike by about one-fifth, or cause insurers to get out altogether. House Republicans sued to stop the payments during Obamas presidency, as part of their totalistic campaign to destroy the law. Now, faced with the prospect that such a destruction would unfold on the GOPs watch, the Trump administration was indicating it would let the payments continue. The precedent is that while the lawsuit is being litigated, the cost-sharing subsidies will be funded. It would be fair for you to report that there has been no policy change in the current administration, Health and Human Services wrote the Times. The next day, however, HHS rescinded its statement. In its place, it issued a communique which differed from the old one not only in substance, but in style: The updated HHS position rejected the payments and expressed its reasoning using the crass, zero-sum logic and pidgin-English, populist diction favored by the president himself. We have not been contacted by Democrats to help save Obamacare, perhaps because they consider Obamacare to be a losing cause. Democrats need to help solve this failed Obamacare plan, explained an HHS spokesperson. It read as if the bureaucracy of a modern, industrialized government had been captured by hackers communicating via Google Translate. And indeed, it soon emerged that Trump had personally dictated the new statement in a fit of anger. As he subsequently revealed in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, he plans to use the payments as ransom to compel the Democrats to agree to his terms. Obamacare is dead next month if it doesnt get that money, Trump told the Journal. I havent made my viewpoint clear yet. I dont want people to get hurt What I think should happen and will happen is the Democrats will start calling me and negotiating. So, now assuming that Trump understands what he is saying and will stick to it, which can never be assured about any stance he takes Washington has settled in for a hostage standoff. Such episodes have become familiar in American politics. In a normal political negotiation, the two sides disagree about what policies are helpful or harmful. In a hostage-style negotiation, on the other hand, the two sides agree that a particular policy is harmful, and one side threatens to allow it, out of the belief that it can exploit the other sides greater concern for the public welfare, in order to extort unilateral concessions. In recent years, as the Republican Party has radicalized, it has grown increasingly prone to hostage-style bargaining. Trumps own obsession with dominance makes him especially attracted to hostage-taking. (Recall his refusal during the primary to commit to endorsing the party nominee, explaining that he needed to use the threat of hurting the party as leverage.) There are, however, several reasons to doubt that Trump will collect on his ransom. The first is that, while terrorists and other criminals generally operate outside of a public-opinion framework, elected officials operate within it. There is not a long record of voters reelecting public officials who openly threaten them with harm. Polls have shown that the public expects Trump and his Republican majority to make Obamacare work: If the exchanges collapse, the public backlash will redound to the benefit of the opposition party. Democrats may have a strong humanitarian rationale for preserving the system, but their political interest runs in exactly the opposite direction. Trump is threatening Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer to meet his demands or else he will give them a majority in Congress. Whats especially absurd is that its not even clear what Trump is demanding. His putative ransom is that Democrats start calling me and negotiating. But Democrats have stated all along their willingness to negotiate over strengthening the Affordable Care Act. What theyve opposed are plans to repeal the law, or to use it as a mechanism to finance tax cuts for the rich at the expense of coverage for the poor. There are easy fixes to the problems facing some of the state exchanges Sarah Kliff shows how Alaska did it but Trump could get Democrats to vote for that sort of thing without a threat. So what does Trump want? Suppose Pelosi and Schumer walk into the Oval Office, palms upraised, and agree to meet all of Trumps demands if he promises to let the exchanges live a little longer. Does he think he can get Democrats to vote for some version of his American Health Care Act, a bill that has been polling at 17 percent? That theyll throw millions of people off their insurance, in order to keep some other people from losing insurance? Any health-care negotiation between Democrats and Trump would quickly run into the same barrier that foiled the negotiations between Republicans and Trump: The presidents utter ignorance of policy makes it impossible for him to agree to, let alone propose, anything of substance. Trump agrees with whoever he speaks with last, and speaks with lots of people who disagree with each other. Trump couldnt close deals with politicians who agree with him. Its hard to imagine him closing deals with politicians who dont. The Obamacare exchanges are economically stable. They face a threat from massive policy uncertainty emanating from Washington; it will take at least some managerial proficiency to assure jittery insurers that the exchanges are also politically stable. Trump is threatening to kill Obamacare through naked malevolence. But the real danger is that hell kill it through incompetence. Trump signs an Executive Orders, including an order to review the Dodd-Frank Wall Street in February 2017. Photo: Pool/Getty Images It took just two weeks into his presidency for Donald Trump to take aim at Obamas chief piece of financial reform, the Dodd-Frank Act that 2010 legislation aimed at creating a modicum of oversight and consumer protections on Wall Street. On February 3, Trump issued an executive order giving the Department of the Treasury a broad mandate of empower investors and issued a memo seen as a first step in reversing the fiduciary rule, which requires brokers to act in the best interests of their clients. Neil Barofsky, for one, saw this coming. Appointed by President George W. Bush to oversee the financial bailout as inspector general, he was a harsh critic of Dodd-Frank from the beginning not because of its complexity, but because it didnt go far enough. During a conversation at the law firm of Jenner & Block in midtown Manhattan, where hes now a litigation partner, Barofsky weighed in on how Trumps administration could defang Dodd-Frank in the immediate future, and whats in store for the U.S. economy. Why have you always been so down on the Dodd-Frank financial regulations? I think what were seeing right now is the proof of the objections made by me and a lot of other reform-minded people back when Dodd-Frank was implemented. We warned about the limitations of taking an incremental approach, as opposed to just taking a meat cleaver to the banks and breaking them up, or using a size cap. Its harder to put big banks back together again than it is to repeal, or scale back, or simply not enforce the rules. What did Dodd-Frank do? It put a tremendous amount of discretion in the hands of the financial regulators. There are a couple very obvious problems with that. One, it assumed regulators would get it right that theyd be omniscient, and would be able to see around corners, in a way that the whole history of financial regulation demonstrated that they cannot do. Second, it resided on this presumption that future regulators would be of the exact same mind as those who were responsible for pushing through Dodd-Frank that is, they would recognize that it was important to constrain big banks, and that it was important for there to be increasing capital levels, because of the implicit guarantees of too-big-to-fail. But obviously Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke and President Obama were not going to be running the Treasury, the Fed, and the White House forever. All you need is a change in philosophy. And given the incredible power Wall Street has over Washington I dont mean bags-of-money corruption, but the ideological corruption, the campaign-contribution corruption it was inevitable that the banks would be deregulated again. You dont actually have to do anything to gut Dodd-Frank. You dont have to apply this inane idea of canceling two regulations for every new one. You dont actually have to pass legislation. You just have to appoint a bunch of people in these jobs who are not going to care. Its like Dodd-Frank was more of a tool kit that any presidential administration could use at its discretion, not a series of structural reforms. Yes. What legislation should do after a catastrophe is say, Big banks got too big. They enjoyed implicit guarantees of the government. They took outsized risks, fully confident that they would never suffer the losses of failure, and that they would get bailed out, that the executives would retain their financial compensation, that ultimately shareholders would suffer from a drop in their stock price, but the creditors would all be made whole. And therefore they believed all these risks were worth taking. Would that kind of reform legislation be reversible? Of course! President Hillary Clinton, too, could have brought back the deregulatory environment and allowed the banks to get back together again. But even that would have taken some time, and would have taken a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and the House, and a full legislative process. But they didnt do that. They regulated the banks in this technocratic way. Now, did I think the deregulation would happen so soon, that it would be so extraordinary, that wed see so many people from the big banks filling in the regulatory apparatus? That we would so soon see a president turn to the CEOs of Wall Street and say, If I need advice on Dodd-Frank, I know exactly where to go and get it? Did I think that would happen so quickly? I wasnt that prescient. But for those who fought so hard to keep more-meaningful reform from happening the Tim Geithners and the Ben Bernankes and Larry Summerses of the world if they woke up shocked to see that their entire experiment was a failure, shame on them, and shame on how captured they were in not making the big moves that needed to be made back then. Putting aside concepts like corruption, deregulation is just the philosophy. Its a wrong philosophy, but this is sort of the free-market view of the world. To them, the financial crisis was all because of greedy homeowners and government-sponsored entities. And theyre wrong theyre empirically wrong but thats their belief, and they were never shaken from it throughout the crisis. If you really believe the unrestrained, giant banks are good for the world, then here we go again. How do you respond when people say Dodd-Frank is too complex or has too many duplicative rules? Well, yeah. Its too complex. It should have been two pages: BREAK UP THE BANKS. It could have been one sentence. I mean, obviously it couldnt be one sentence, but theyre totally right. Its too complex. The problems of Dodd-Frank are real: It did overregulate, probably, smaller financial institutions. It did increase the compliance obligations and regulatory burden on institutions that, in and of themselves, are not a threat to the financial system. That was a big political mistake. It probably did raise the barriers to entry and solidify too-big-to-fail banks as too-big-to-fail banks. Theres something to a lot of these individual criticisms. Boom, bust, bailout. Thats the cycle. Theres a good case to be made for bringing down each one of these very complicated and imperfect barriers, but when you start doing that and not replacing them with other sensible regulation to deal with the too-big-to-fail problem, you invite another crisis. Because, remember, banks are a lot bigger today than they were in 2008. Why do you think that, in the bailout period and when Dodd-Frank was passed, everyone failed to understand the importance of breaking up the banks? Not everyone. Look at Senator Sherrod Brown and Senator Ted Kaufman. New York Magazine reported on Dodd-Frank when it happened. I quoted this in my book because I thought it was such a powerful and important quote: An unnamed source from the Treasury was interviewed I have a pretty good guess about who it was and the person was talking about the Brown-Kaufman amendment. The comment was, If we had wanted to break up the banks, it would have passed. But we didnt want it to happen, so it didnt. And, you know, Summers and Geithner and [Gene] Sperling were going senator-to-senator to lobby against Brown-Kaufman and breaking up the banks. It wasnt that people didnt know. A lot of people knew. And frankly, if the administration had wanted it to happen, it would have happened. So I look at Dodd-Frank as more of a political failure of the reform movement. I think if the reform movement had been better organized and more ready for that moment last time, it would have happened. I have no doubt that that is not going to be what holds it back next time. That doesnt mean its going to happen, but as far as organization, as far as having thought leaders, as far as having the academic research having all of that lined up thats not going to be the problem. What are the deregulatory measures immediately within reach for this administration that youre most concerned about? Capital levels are the simplest thing to understand. Banks fund themselves with capital and debt so the question is: How much of their funding should consist of their own capital? In other words, when a bank makes money, what do you do with the money? Do you take the profits and give them out to your shareholders? Or do you hold onto some of it and fund your business going forward? When you invest in your business, youre increasing your equity capital, so youre relying less on borrowed money. And that way, when losses come, as they inevitably do in the business cycle, you have the losses come out of capital. So the more you have, the smaller a dent it is when you have losses, and when you run out of capital, youre bankrupt. Thats what happened to Lehman Brothers. One of the things that Dodd-Frank has done, and regulators have done since then, is increase the percentage of the assets of a bank that have to be funded by capital as opposed to debt. So when you lower that, it means the banks will be more leveraged theyll borrow more and have thinner capital cushion, which means that when they have losses, theyll be closer to failure. And the capital levels are under the discretion of the executive branch? More or less, yes. But another measure they can take is just nonenforcement. You dont have to get rid of the living-wills requirement meaning these documents the banks have to submit explaining how they could be wound down, in the case of failure, without destroying the entire financial system. You could just sort of say, Eh, theyre good. Then you attack the bigger structural issues. You appoint as the Feds vice chair of banking supervision someone who doesnt believe in banking supervision. Look, we did that. We did that with [Alan] Greenspan. We have a great experiment in this country of regulators who dont believe in regulation. So, how do you think our regulatory infrastructure will look in four years? Do you think it will all be dismantled? It depends on what they do. If theres any silver lining to all this, its that if all they do is nonenforcement, and they dont take on the major changes in regulations, and they dont make any legislative changes, then the next administration could dial it back. We could have this ping-pong depending on whether its a Republican or a Democrat. Things will get tightened a little bit more and become a little bit more safe. But ultimately, this doesnt get fixed until the next crisis. And when the next crisis hits, well just have to hope that the sanity of breaking up the banks has its day. That was one of the many problems with Dodd-Frank: It doesnt lend itself to dramatic fixes. So either this administration will repeal Dodd-Frank, as the president has promised, or theyll just attack certain provisions and not enforce which I think is more likely and then well have another crisis, and well see whos in power at that moment to effect a breakup. So what should we expect next? Big short-term gains, and then Yeah. Boom, bust, bailout. Thats the cycle. Were now in a full-throttled boom, so people will make a lot of money, and then they wont. Geniuses will figure out exactly how best to time this, so theyll make a lot of money on the way up, but know when to get out and short, and theyll become billionaires, and Michael Lewis will write another book about them. God bless them. I wish I could do that, too wish I was that prescient. Last time around, the idea that got pushed out was that everyone who didnt time it right was an idiot. Talking to people on Wall Street, its clear that everyone else was not an idiot. With the people who lost, it wasnt necessarily that they didnt know this was an unsustainable bubble. They just thought it had another year or two left in it. You look at the markets right now, and all the dumb money from retail investors, for instance is coming in right now, so that means its going to go up. But when is it going to pop? The guys who know that are the ones who become billionaires. What do you think is the best thing we can hope for during the next four years? My best hope is that the next crisis is not as severe as the last one, and that the political environment is such that, when it happens, we can finally make the deep structural reforms that we have to so we can avoid this cycle, and protect ourselves from the political cycle as well as the economic cycle. Maybe it happens in three years, and that sets up a wave of election of people who will make the necessary reforms. I mean, look: I hope it never happens. I hope Im totally wrong, and it turns out that Alan Greenspan and the free-marketers were right, and we just go up, up, up, up. Ive never been so hopeful to be proven wrong. Paul Manafort. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Days after he was essentially replaced by Steve Bannon last August, Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort stepped down amid reports that he failed to properly disclose his work for former Ukranian president Viktor Yanukovych to the U.S. government, which is illegal. Around the same time, claims emerged that Manaforts name appeared 22 times in handwritten ledgers that tracked cash payments from Yanukovychs pro-Russia political party between 2007 and 2012. Since then, the scrutiny of Manaforts business dealings and his connection to pro-Russian political figures in eastern Europe has only intensified, and now Manafort has realized that he should probably register as a foreign agent. Manaforts spokesman, Jason Maloni, said he will register with the Justice Department after receiving formal guidance recently from the authorities regarding his years of work for Ukrainian politicians. Maloni emphasized that the work was not conducted on behalf of the Russian government. Manafort will be the second top Trump adviser to retroactively disclose work that may have benefited a foreign government. Last month, former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn registered work that could be construed to have principally benefited the Republic of Turkey, which was conducted as he was advising the Trump campaign. Its common for the Justice Department to work with those who violate the Foreign Agent Registration Act rather than prosecuting them, but thats just a small part of Manaforts potential legal headaches. While he initially claimed the ledger listing $12.7 million in illegal off-the-books payments was fake, on Wednesday the AP confirmed that Manaforts consulting firm received at least $1.2 million of that money. Manafort acknowledged the payments, but suggested they were legal because they were not made in cash. Mr. Manafort has always denied that he ever received any cash payments for his work and has consistently maintained that he received all of his payments, for services rendered, through wire transfers conducted through the international banking system, he said in a statement. And theres more. On Wednesday, the New York Times reported that on the day he left the Trump campaign, Manafort created a shell company that received $13 million in loans from two businesses with ties to Trump. One firm was led by a Trump economic adviser and the other was backed by a Ukrainian-born billionaire who is now an American citizen. Manafort and his wife ultimately secured $20 million in loans, which appear to be part of an effort by Mr. Manafort to stave off a personal financial crisis stemming from failed investments with his son-in-law, according to the Times. Aside from questions about his already-murky financial dealings, Manafort is also dealing with probes into his potential ties to Russia. In February, the Times reported that Manafort was one of the Trump campaign officials whose contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials are being examined by U.S. intelligence. Manafort has not been charged with a crime, and he says hes never had anything to do with the Russian government. Meanwhile, in Yemen. Photo: Ahmad Al-Basha/AFP/Getty Images Last week, more than 70 people were murdered with toxic gas in northern Syria. Images of the dead, many of them children, inundated social media and then cable news broadcasts. When the president of the United States and his daughter saw them, they were (reportedly) horrified. The sight of beautiful babies cruelly murdered moved the former to abandon his years-long opposition to American action against the Assad government. Within two days, Tomahawk missiles were falling on a Syrian airfield. Americas news media and the leaders of both its major parties hailed this muscular defense of human rights. Granted, Trumps missiles did, themselves, kill a couple of Syrias beautiful babies. And his decision to launch them without congressional approval undermines our Constitution. And no military intervention short of a full-scale ground invasion could guarantee an end to Assads crimes against his own people. But such concerns are trivial, the pundits reasoned, when weighed against the imperative to punish crimes against humanity. After all, if the worlds one great power doesnt uphold proscriptions against violations of human rights, then, for all practical purposes, human rights cease to exist. True, the U.S. strike wont do anything to end Syrias humanitarian crisis but merely establishing a (theoretical) deterrent against the use of chemical weapons was more than enough justification for Trumps attack. While all those bombs were being dropped (and columns being written), Saudi Arabia was deliberately starving the people of Yemen with our governments tacit support. For years, the U.S. has backed the Saudis intervention in Yemens civil war, despite the kingdoms fondness for dropping American-made bombs on Yemeni hospitals. Since 2015, the Saudis have imposed an aerial and naval blockade on Yemen, which has kept commercial and humanitarian resources from reaching the poorest country on the Arabian Peninsula one that imports nearly 90 percent of its food. This, combined with airstrikes that have devastated Yemens economy (and killed thousands), has left 3.3 million of the countrys residents acutely malnourished. More than 2 million of those malnourished Yemenis are children. And in rural pockets of the nation, famine has already set in, according to a new United Nations World Food Program report. The situation is getting close to a breaking point in Yemen with unprecedented levels of hunger and food insecurity. Millions of people can no longer survive without urgent food assistance, Stephen Anderson, WFPs country director in Yemen, said in a statement obtained by Reuters. We are in a race against time to save lives and prevent a full-scale famine unfolding in the country, but we urgently need resources to do this. Photo: Saleh Al-Obeidi/AFP/Getty Images In Syria, more than 70 people were murdered with chemical weapons. In Yemen, millions are on the brink of being deliberately starved to death. In Syria, the perpetrator of the crime was a longtime adversary of the U.S., over whom we have no diplomatic sway. In Yemen, it was a longtime ally that depends on our government for military aid. In Syria, our intervention directly killed more innocent people in the immediate term, while doing nothing to end the countrys broader humanitarian crisis. In Yemen, we could end the humanitarian crisis almost immediately, by using our leverage over Saudi Arabia to end its blockade, and delivering emergency funds to the United Nations food program actions that would kill no one. In Washington, many bleeding hearts, on both sides of the aisle, have hailed Trumps bombing of Syria as a moral necessity while treating our complicity in the starvation of Yemen as unworthy of comment. If our political leaders feel morally compelled to deliver missiles to Syria but not food aid to Yemen what, do you suppose, they mean by morally? Thick as thieves. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images There was a time in the very recent past, when the idea of a billionaire president running the White House like it was the D.C. branch of his family business leveraging his office to increase the profit margins of his hotels and resorts, giving his daughter and son-in-law veto power over vast swathes of executive policy, and subordinating his campaign promises to the best interests of his brand would have sounded like the plot of a gratingly bleak and unsubtle satire of the post-Citizens United era. Now, that plot may be the best-case scenario for the next four years of American governance. Congress cant (or wont) stop President Trump from putting far-right bloggers on the National Security Council. The judicial branch cant prohibit him from starting a trade war with China, publicly disowning our NATO allies, or calling for the dissolution of the European Union. In the wake of an economic crisis or terrorist attack, the Fourth Estate will be powerless to prevent the president from using his bully pulpit to direct public anxiety onto vulnerable minority groups. But Trumps desire to protect the value of his brand just might. Over the past week, the president has slowly but surely de-operationalized Steve Bannon. First, the Breitbart-chairman-turned-chief-White-House-strategist lost his seat on the National Security Councils Principals Committee. Then, he was all but ordered to accept the presidents son-in-law as his superior, or else pack his bags. Finally, Trump began disparaging Bannon in public interviews, suggesting that he had almost nothing to do with Novembers victory, and that he was just a guy who works for me. This palace intrigue had an immediate and striking effect on White House policy. Suddenly, it became Americas job to police the boundaries of legitimate mass murder in Syria; NATO stopped being obsolete, and was suddenly worth expanding; China ceased to be a currency manipulator thats coddling North Korea, and resumed its status as our number-one frenemy; and the administrative state was finally granted permission to hire new workers. By themselves, these developments are not all unambiguously good. One could make a sound argument for Bannons position on last weeks Syria strike, or against the wisdom of expanding NATO into Montenegro. But Bannons narrow stances on these subjects are far easier to defend than the worldview that informs them. The White Houses anti-globalists didnt oppose bombing Syria out of concern over the strikes constitutionality or its second-order effects, but because they reject the idea that the American government has any responsibility to address humanitarian crises overseas whether using bombs, food aid, or refugee admissions. Similarly, their skepticism of NATO is not chiefly informed by a desire to avoid inflaming tensions with Russia, but by an aversion to all the institutions of international governance that have sustained the postwar liberal order. At the end of the day, its better to have our government run by Goldman Sachs and the blob, than by wild-eyed ethnonationalists with a soft spot for fascism and dreams of a civilizational war between the West and the Muslim hordes. And to the extent that the White House is moving away from the latter, we probably have its more kleptocratic instincts to thank. As the Washington Post reports: Trumps three oldest children Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Eric and Kushner have been frustrated by the impression of chaos inside the White House and feel that their father has not always been served well by his senior staff, according to people with knowledge of their sentiments. The Trump heirs are interested in any changes that might help resuscitate the presidency and preserve the familys name at a time when they are trying to expand the Trump Organizations portfolio of hotels. The fundamental assessment is that if they want to win the White House in 2020, theyre not going to do it the way they did in 2016, because the family brand would not sustain the collateral damage, said one well-connected Republican operative, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the presidents family. It would be so protectionist, nationalist, and backward-looking that theyd only be able to build in Oklahoma City or the Ozarks. Of course, in a just world, the Trump brand would already be poison. Its insane that a man who has touted his fondness for sexual assault, demonized Muslims and immigrants, and spread racist conspiracy theories about the first black president can earn money by licensing his personal image to other peoples businesses. But people generally like to pretend that the world they live in isnt utterly mad, and so, to this point, the presidency seems to have legitimized Trump more than Trump has delegitimized the presidency. The American mainstream once regarded Ronald Reagan as a moronic, far-right joke; now, Democrats deliver paeans to his statesmanship. So the Trump scions still have plenty to gain or lose from how the next four-to-eight years unfold. At present, there is no sign that President Trump is turning away from the most nefarious aspects of his reactionary populism. Anti-trade talk that threatens well-heeled investors portfolios has dissipated; draconian immigration policies that threaten the lives of the undocumented have not. Amid all this weeks headlines about Trumps pivot toward the mainstream came reports that the Department of Homeland Security is readying plans for a national deportation force. While Trump will need congressional appropriations to fulfill his grandest, most xenophobic ambitions, theres plenty he can do under existing law to make daily life terrifying for the most vulnerable people in America. Already, undocumented victims of domestic abuse are forfeiting their access to the protections of our justice system, out of fear that ICE agents will be waiting for them at their local court houses. Already, Attorney General Jeff Sessions is instructing federal attorneys to ramp up prosecutions of those who harbor the undocumented. And as for those others who enjoy the formal protections of citizenship: Sessions is already giving police departments the green light to routinely violate the civil liberties of their African-American constituents while also rolling back attempts to reduce the number of false convictions that our criminal-justice system produces through the use of dubious forensic science. Donald Trump will not abandon these policies because they degrade Americas social fabric. But he may temper the worst of them because they degrade his brand. Running as an anti-establishment outsider, Trump needed to court the enthusiasm of the GOP primary electorate and a few reactionary billionaires by getting to the right of his opponents on issues of immigration and racial equality. But running as an incumbent, hell have less incentive to center his campaign on the far-right fringe. Despite the failures of his travel ban and health-care law, Trump has lost scant support from the non-college-educated voters who responded most enthusiastically to his message on immigration. Current polling suggests hes at far greater risk of bleeding upscale, suburban support. Moving to the center to shore up his grasp on the country-club set may alienate the Mercer family, but now that hes president, Trump has plenty of other billionaires he can turn to for campaign funds. Amazing paragraph. The populist base is one wealthy heiress. https://t.co/430IUwzZyx pic.twitter.com/PjAXxadZ1s Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) April 13, 2017 All of which is to say: Its far from clear whether its in Trumps best political interest to fulfill all his promises to his populist base. If his personality cult is strong enough to keep such voters on board when hes threatening to cut the social programs on which they desperately rely, it is almost certainly strong enough to make them cool with allowing the good immigrants to stick around. Trump can still regale the so-called deplorables with dog-whistle appeals to their racial resentment, without deporting millions of undocumented people. And an all-talk-no-action approach to right-wing populism may make it easier for Trump to retain or grow his share of college-educated whites. If Trump has no political interest in keeping right, then he definitely has no financial one. Theres a reason most major, consumer-facing brands align themselves with a toothless kind of wokeness: Young, socially liberal city-dwellers are more likely to try new products than your average elderly person in rural America and the formers brand loyalty is more coveted, since they are less likely to die soon. Whats more, were living in an age of global capitalism; no brand wants to cater to American nationalism at the expense of overseas sales. Trump Hotels is a global business whose consumer base skews highly educated and cosmopolitan. And Ivanka Trumps lifestyle brand is targeted at young, urban, professional women a demographic for whom Steve Bannon holds little appeal. If President Trump were to disregard all his campaign promises and ideological commitments and govern solely on the basis of whats best for his own bank account, America would become a more kleptocratic nation. It would probably also become a more humane and decent one than it is today. A Border Patrol agent speaks with Central American immigrant families who crossed into the United States seeking asylum on April 14, 2016, in Roma, Texas. Photo: John Moore/Getty Images It looks like the courts will strike down President Trumps executive order punishing sanctuary cities, and congressional Republicans appear to have little interest in shutting down the government to fund the border wall. But the Trump administration isnt about to let legal troubles or a lack of money crush its dream of deporting undocumented immigrants by the thousands. Mick Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, is said to be pushing Congress to include funding cuts for sanctuary cities in its must-pass appropriations bill, though that heightens the risk of a shutdown at the end of August. And earlier this week, Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a memo instructing federal prosecutors to step up their prosecution of aliens and those who harbor them. For those that continue to seek improper and illegal entry into this country, be forewarned, Sessions said during a trip to the border in Arizona. This is a new era. This is the Trump era. Now the Washington Post has obtained an internal memo from the Department of Homeland Security that details how the agency could build up a deportation force like Trump promised during the campaign, and speed up the processing of deportation cases. David Lapan, a spokesman for the department, told the New York Times that the document is only a draft that hasnt made it to the front office yet, and anything in it is subject to change. Trump has called for hiring an additional 5,000 Border Patrol agents and 10,000 more Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, and the memo outlines several ways that could be accomplished. This includes ending polygraph and physical fitness tests for some applicants, and eliminating part of the entrance exam that tests Spanish language skills, though the appropriate level of proficiency would still be required to graduate the academy. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has also determined how to expand the number of beds in detention centers by 33,000, according to the document. This includes 21,000 beds in 27 private and government facilities that could potentially serve as detention centers, as well as another 12,500 beds in exiting CBP facilities. The Trump administration hopes to keep those attempting to enter the U.S. illegally in Mexico, regardless of their nationality, as theyre being processed in American immigration courts. Mexico objects to this, but the memo presents several options for speeding up these proceedings, such as holding video conferences or stationing more immigration judges on the border. The memo also describes plans to expand a program scaled back under the Obama administration, which currently allows 37 local law enforcement agencies to help enforce federal immigration laws. DHS says applications from 18 new departments are under consideration, with another 50 expressing interest in participating. DHS does note throughout its assessment that many of these plans cant move forward without new funding from Congress and plenty of it. The memo says stationing judges at the border would cost $400,000 per location, and hiring just 500 agents would cost $100 million. Trump has requested $1.5 billion for a border wall and another $2.6 billion for border security next year, but delivering that funding doesnt appear to be a priority for GOP congressional leaders. For now, CBP is forging ahead with the resources it does have, using $20 million in reappropriated funding to build a prototype of the southern border wall. And ICE appears to be taking advantage of Trumps expanded definition of which criminals should be targeted for deportation. This is an administration that very much is interested in setting up that mass deportation infrastructure and creating the levers of a police state, Marielena Hincapie, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, told the Post. In these documents, you have more proof and evidence that theyre planning to carry it out. The best deals. Photo: Olivier Douliery/Bloomberg via Getty Images On Wednesday, President Trump announced that he plans to use the powers of his office to jeopardize health-care access for millions of low-income people, while destabilizing Americas insurance markets because he believes that voters will blame the ensuing chaos on the Democratic Party, leaving Chuck Schumer desperate to negotiate with the White House over Obamacare repeal. Ever since his plan to finance a tax cut for the rich by throwing millions off Medicaid died without a vote, Trump has repeatedly assured the American people that their health-care system will collapse under his watch. It hasnt always been clear whether this sentiment was intended as a prediction of an event Trump (wrongly) believed to be inevitable or as a promise to bring Obamacare down by any means necessary. But in a new interview with The Wall Street Journal, the president essentially confesses to the latter intention and he has already settled on a means of sabotage. Back in 2014, the House GOP sued the Obama White House over payments that the federal government was making to insurers, in order to compensate them for the cost of providing discounted deductibles to low-income Obamacare enrollees. Without these cost-sharing reductions, fewer insurers would participate in the Affordable Care Act and its markets would likely collapse. House Republicans argued that the payments were being made unconstitutionally, without a congressional appropriation. Last May, a federal judge agreed but she put her decision on hold while the Obama administration appealed. Now, all Trump has to do to trigger a health-care crisis is withdraw that appeal. And he says hes on the cusp of doing just that, as the Journal reports: In an interview in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump said the White House may lack authority to make the payments established under his predecessor to reduce copayments and deductibles for some of the poorest customers who buy insurance under the 2010 Affordable Care Act. Cutting off the payments could trigger turmoil in insurance markets. I dont want people to get hurt, Mr. Trump said. What I think should happenand will happenis the Democrats will start calling me and negotiating. Shorter Trump: Nice affordable health care for the poor you got here, would be a real shame if something happened to it. There are a couple obvious problems with this plan: 1) Trumps hostage and his ransom are the same thing: Hes threatening to cut off health-insurance subsidies for poor people if Democrats dont vote for his health-care plan, which significantly reduces health-insurance subsidies for poor people. 2) It will be hard to convince the public to blame Democrats for Obamacares destruction, after you publicly declared your intention to destroy Obamacare so that people would blame the Democrats for what you did. Still, according to the Journal, Trump is seriously considering the idea: When the Journal asked if he would agree even to release guidelines from which lawmakers could begin writing tax legislation, Mr. Trump said, simply, No. Im going to get health care done, Mr. Trump said. Several times he steered the conversation back to the subsidies to health insurers, known as cost-sharing reductions, that help prop up the Obamacare. Schumer should be calling me up and begging me to help him save Obamacare, Mr. Trump said about Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a fellow New Yorker. He should be calling me and begging me to help him save Obamacare, along with Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrat in the House. Mr. Trump said Democrats should be motivated to find negotiate on health care because they own Obamacare. The president doesnt want to shoot this hostage, but Democrats should be calling him up and begging him not to shoot the hostage. They should be grateful for the chance to negotiate a deal in which he merely cuts off all the hostages fingers. After all, who is the public gonna blame for the hostages murder: the people who loved it, or the guy with the gun shouting all of this through a bullhorn? Oscar Munoz, president and CEO of United Airlines. Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images The passengers who watched Chicago aviation police drag a limp David Dao off an airplane on Sunday will receive full refunds for the cost of their tickets. The reimbursement announcement follows several apologies from United CEO Oscar Munoz, who has vowed to investigate the incident and promised that the airline will never again use force to free seats on overbooked flights. Clearly, United has reached the point in this PR nightmare where its willing to do anything that might possibly engender good will. But travel-industry expert Henry Harteveldt told Bloomberg that he doubts the refunds will do much to move the needle not after Uniteds disastrous response in the immediate aftermath of the incident. Still, he said, its a smart thing to do. There were 70 passengers on Sundays United Express flight 3411 from Chicagos OHare International to Louisville International Airport in Kentucky. The cost to the company of the reimbursement has not yet been released, nor has it been said if it will be given in cash. A spokesperson would not tell Bloomberg if passengers would receive money, frequent-flier miles, or, for that matter, small bags of pretzels equal to the value of their tickets. The leader of the free world? Photo: Dominique A. Pineiro/Department of Defence via Getty Images There may be no better testament to the insanity of our epoch than this: Last week, a series of reports suggested that the presidents 36-year-old son-in-law, a real-estate heir with no experience in government or public policy, who had never detailed his political views to voters or stood for an election, was consolidating his power inside the White House and most greeted this news as a welcome relief, because it meant that the former chairman of a (soft-core) white nationalist website was less likely to sabotage the European Union, the United Nations, and every other institution of the postwar, liberal order. If America has to have an absurdly unqualified, unelected shadow president, its probably better to have Jared Kushner in that role than Steve Bannon. But its still a little scary and a lot weird that Kushner has as much power as he does. As of last week, Ivanka Trumps husband was tasked with overseeing the rewriting of Americas trade agreements; solving the Israel-Palestine conflict; developing a geopolitical strategy for the broader Middle East; ending the opioid epidemic; modernizing the technology and data infrastructure of every federal agency; remodeling the governments workforce-training programs; and developing transformative projects under the banner of Trumps $1 trillion infrastructure plan, such as providing broadband internet service to every American. And now, the Washington Free Beacon reports that Kushner has also become the unofficial head of the National Security Council: Kushner has taken aggressive action to micro-manage the NSC, overshadowing even recently installed National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, according to sources both inside and outside the White House who described Kushners behavior as highly unusual and damaging to the countrys national security infrastructure. Sources who spoke to the Free Beacon described wide-ranging frustration at the NSC over Kushners influence over some of the most important foreign policy portfolios, such as Iraq, Israel, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and China, among others. Senior NSC staff are finding their hands tied when it comes to performing even perfunctory duties, such as talking points and statements on high profile issues that must go through Kushner for approval. The installation of Dina Powell, a confidant of Kushners wife Ivanka, to the NSC is said to have been orchestrated by Kushner in order to solidify his power over the foreign policy organization, sources said. Jared has been pegged as the shadow secretary of state, said the White House official. But in a way hes kind of also the shadow national security adviser and secretary of defense. This report comes in the wake of Bannons eviction from the NSC principals committee, and amid growing murmurs that the Breitbart mastermind might soon be returning to the private sector. Given that context, its possible that the Free Beacons story reveals less about Kushners actual role than it does about the bitterness of the White Houses Bannonites. Especially since a couple paragraphs in the piece read like blatant attempts to drive a wedge between Kushner and McMaster: Kushner, in many ways, has even overshadowed McMaster, who sources described as seeking to avoid infighting in the White House. This has only minimized his power on the NSC, officials said. On the other hand, Bannons team is said to be more respectful and willing to defer to the organization as West Wing staffers have traditionally done under past administrations. Nonetheless, even if these leakers are exaggerating the degree of Kushners micromanagement, its clear that hes one of the most powerful people in our government, and has an avid interest in shaping Americas foreign policy. And we know almost nothing about how he sees the world. Say what you want about the tenets of Bannonism at least, its an ethos. Photo: David Merron Photography/Getty Images We start learning how to form friendships pretty much as soon as were born: the first time we hold a gaze, return a smile, or recognize a face or a voice. By the time were old enough to understand the word friend, we already know that a bond with another person is something worth pursuing it makes us feel good. But learning to form friendships is also part of a parallel learning process: We gain our first real friends by separating them from the not-friends. Kids spend the first decade or so of their lives figuring out what it takes to sustain a meaningful friendship and they do it, in part, by discovering what it means to leave people out. Its a process that begins before we can even talk. For the first few years of life, kids engage in what psychologists call solitary play: Plunk two tiny humans down next to one another, and they may enjoy having the company, but theyre not really going to interact. Somewhere between the ages of 3 and 5, that transforms into parallel play, where theyll do the same activities alongside one another; theyre still not playing together, exactly, but theyre getting closer. From there, they move on to associative play, which involves a little more interaction, like conversation or sharing toys. And by around kindergarten age, theyre at cooperative play, coordinating their make-believe roles or working together toward a shared goal. As the level of their interaction grows, theyre careful to keep things at a level they can handle which sometimes means turning away potential playmates. Two preschoolers who are playing together will often reject a third kid whos coming over not because theyre trying to be mean, but because theyre working at the edge of their cognitive limits to coordinate their play, says psychologist Eileen Kennedy-Moore, co-author of the forthcoming book Growing Friendships: A Kids Guide to Making and Keeping Friends. When its already mentally taxing to be part of a functioning duo, turning it into a trio can make for information overload. As kids get older and their brains can handle more people at once, their play situations can become more elaborate and, by extension, include more people. For a time, at least. As kids learn to play together, theyre also working on acquiring a critical piece of knowledge: that other people are actually other people, with their own opinions and their own minds. It doesnt take long for kids to learn that they like some people more than others; even a 12-month-old can show a preference for some of its fellow babies. But the ability to think about their relationships as relationships in a way that allows them to sort some people into the more permanent category of friends, and the leftovers into not friends is something that takes years to develop. The psychologist Robert Selman broke this down into five distinct phases. In the first, which kicks in somewhere between the ages of 3 and 6, kids are more or less chubby little tornadoes of self-absorption. Theyre capable of liking others, and playing with others, but tend to see other kids as extensions of themselves. They get very upset when a friend has a different opinion. It kind of blows their mind, Moore says. Here the friends are really like momentary playmates theres kind of a love the one youre with quality. These are the preschoolers who turn away the new would-be playmate. Exclusion is common, but its also momentary, without any longer-lasting social implications. The second phase, which typically begins around kindergarten or a little after, is what Moore describes as the whats in it for me phase: Kids are more aware of their pals independence, but channel that awareness into a sort of tit-for-tat dynamic. We hear kind of a bargaining thing, like, Ill be your friend if you do this, she says. More than anything else, a friend is someone who will do nice things for them. Next is a judgmental phase, where kids gain a more sophisticated grasp of social rules and become hyperconcerned about fitting in; after that, a phase of intense, emotional bonding, where they easily become jealous of their friends other relationships. The last phase, which some kids reach as early as age 12, is mature friendship: They place a high value on emotional closeness theyre not as possessive, Moore says, and they can accept and appreciate differences between the friend and themselves. By the late elementary-school years, when most kids are in one of those latter three stages, almost everyone has enough of a grasp on the concept of friendship to claim membership in a friend group. For one thing, they now have the cognitive capacity to handle that group-based interaction, unlike their younger selves. More important, though, kids at the cusp of adolescence gravitate toward groups as kind of a security blanket theyre starting to pull away from their parents and forge their own identities, and its often a lonely process. Having a gang makes it a little less so. When youre not sure who you are, Moore says, theres safety in being part of the herd. Theres also more than just safety. When youre trying to figure yourself out, your gang can be a kind of guidepost, explains Sarah Gaither, a social-psychology professor at Duke University: We all want to maintain this positive view of who we are, and the groups we belong to only reinforce that positive view. And if you build your identity around a group, its important to define what that group isnt. Thats what really ends up pushing kids to be more exclusionary to other kids, Gaither says. If theyre really trying to reaffirm, Im in this group and this group is important to me. Over the course of elementary school, physical aggression is replaced by tattling, and then eventually by gossip both ways of drawing boundaries, and of keeping an errant peer in their place. The act of shutting people out, then, doesnt necessarily have much to do with the ones on the outside; more often, its an act of self-preservation. This means that if a kid on the outside wants to break through, Moore says, they have to do it in a way that makes it clear they arent a threat to the character of the group. It boils down to a strategy she calls watch, then blend: Learn the rules of the group youre trying join whether its little kids playing a game of tag, or high-schoolers complaining about a certain teacher then join in only once youre sure you can play by them. If everybody is enthusiastic about something, then the kid should express similar enthusiasm, she says. This is not about having to be like everybody else. Its really just picking up the climate of the group. Fitting in, in other words, can come down to how well you draw the line: On one side is us bonded by whatever it is that bonds us and on the other is everyone else. Justice Sheila Abdus-Salaam. Photo: Mike Groll/AP Sheila Abdus-Salaam, a trailblazing judge on New Yorks top court, was found dead on Wednesday in the Hudson River, multiple outlets reported. Abdus-Salaam made history in 2013 with her judgeship when she became the first African-American woman to serve on the seven-member Court of Appeals in New York. Abdus-Salaam, 65, had previously earned the distinction of being the first female Muslim judge in the United States when she began as a New York State Supreme Court Justice in 1994, according to the New York Times. Abdus-Salaams body was found fully clothed and without visible signs of trauma, police told the New York Daily News. Residents had called authorities shortly before 2 p.m. when her body was found floating on the bank of the Hudson River by the parkway near 132nd Street. Her husband, who identified the body, had reported her missing from her home in central Harlem earlier that morning, according to the Daily News. Police are still investigating how she ended up in the river. Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, who appointed Abdus-Salaam to the appeals court, said in a statement that the late judge was a pioneer in the field. Through [Abdus-Salaams] writings, her wisdom, and her unshakable moral compass, she was a force for good whose legacy will be felt for years to come, Cuomo said, according to the New York Daily News. As a judge, Abdus-Salaam was a consistently liberal voice on the court. According to the New York Times, she often sided with the marginalized: On the court, Judge Abdus-Salaam was among the most reliable and steadfast liberal voices, regularly siding with vulnerable parties the poor, impoverished immigrants and people with mental illnesses, for instance against more powerful and established interests. She also tended to lean toward injured parties who brought claims of misconduct, fraud or breach of contract against wealthy corporations. Abdus-Salaam was born into a working-class family in Washington, D.C., and graduated from Barnard College. She later earned her J.D. from Columbia University School of Law and it was there that she became classmates with former U.S. Attorney Eric Holder. Holder was also present at her swearing-in ceremony in 2013, where he lavished her with praise. He recalled to the audience then, [Abdus-Salaam] could boogie, but there was a seriousness about her, a strong sense of purpose at a relatively young age. Ultimately, he added, She never forgot where she came from. Indeed, Abdus-Salaam developed an interest at a young age in her family history, according to the New York Times. Her research into her family ancestry led to the discovery that her great-grandfather was a slave in Virginia. The fact that, a few generations later, she was in a vastly different position wasnt lost on her. All the way from Arrington, Va., where my family was the property of someone else, to my sitting on the highest court of the State of New York is amazing and huge, she said in 2014 when she recalled the lineage in an interview about black history, according to the Times. It tells you and me what it is to know who we are and what we can do. Jennifer Plotnick and Kent Rogowskis guests believed they were at an engagement party until the officiant started the ceremony. Photo: Sarah Kuszelewicz and Falcon Griffith/Chellise Michael Photography Youre already sleeping in the citys best venue. Heres our everything guide to the apartment wedding, including how one couple pulled it off, advice from a wedding planner who specializes in atypical venues, a word from the fire marshal, and more. How One Couple Did It The wedding of: Jennifer Plotnick and Kent Rogowski, plus 90 guests Where: Their Clinton Hill apartment Why at home: It cost less than $12,000. How they made room: We moved all the furniture in the living room to one side to create a seating area for the older crowd, which later in the evening became a place to nap for tired guests. The backyard was lined with benches and chairs, and our caterer, Comparti, had the idea to put the bar in the very back of the yard to draw people outside. The food was laid out on a long picnic table outside. Outdoors had a more relaxed vibe, while there was a DJ in our living room for people who wanted to dance. Photo: Sarah Kuszelewicz and Falcon Griffith/Chellise Michael Photography Which space pulled double duty: A whole bathtub was filled with cans of banana-cream pudding for dessert, and our bedroom was taken over by the catering crew and used as storage for anything that we wanted to remove from our living room. How they decorated: Our florist, Putnam & Putnam, covered the archway in our dining room (where we performed the ceremony) with flowers and placed another incredible arrangement above our mantle. The truth is it didnt matter what the rest of the apartment looked like, because the flowers looked so good. The only things we added outside were some string lights throughout the yard and a bunch of Mexican falsa blankets so that people could sit outside and keep warm if it got too cool. Photo: Sarah Kuszelewicz and Falcon Griffith/Chellise Michael Photography Who came in handy: We had a security guard outside. That was good, because we werent worried about having doors open and people coming in and out. How people made themselves at home: People were picking at the leftover catering trays. It was like, Wait, theres more mac and cheese? Let me get in there. A Blue Marble ice cream cart was stationed outside. Photo: Sarah Kuszelewicz and Falcon Griffith/Chellise Michael Photography Or Have Your Wedding in Someone Elses Apartment Photo: Courtesy of Splacer Converted Synagogue 40 guests max; $1,000/hour Why it works for a wedding: The chefs kitchen will please your caterer, the three terraces (and many living rooms) will space out your guests, and the Star of David windows will placate your Jewish grandma. Photo: Courtesy of Splacer Greenwich Village Brownstone 110 guests max; $150/hour Why it works for a wedding: The parlor floor is laid out like a professional venue, with one intimate room for the ceremony, a second space for cocktails, and a large area with an adjacent kitchen for the reception. Photo: Courtesy of Splacer East Village Townhouse 60 guests max; $173/hour Why it works for a wedding: Soaring ceilings and an open floor plan make this multi-floor split-level feel spacious. A dramatic indoor balcony is great for photos. Photo: Courtesy of Splacer Soho Loft 50 guests max; $143/hour Why it works for a wedding: The bedroom is located in back, away from the loft space, making it helpful for food prep (or coat storage). The Planner Says Matthew David of 360 Design specializes in atypical venues. How can you figure out the best use of your space? Create anchor points: This is the window we want to be married in front of, this kitchen island will be where we serve food. Its important to have a floor plan for whats going to happen over time to best achieve a good flow. What areas can be repurposed? We often have to look for a back of house area, as it allows for more use of the main space. New Yorkers are used to seeing a coat check in hallways, but itd also be great to use a neighbors kitchen. Its about storing ice in the washing machine using every nook and cranny. What about decor? Dont put enormous floral arrangements in your home. Arrange little notes of flowers like sculptures, little works of art. I would consider bringing in a lighting company, like Levy Lighting, to highlight your focal points and draw guests over to them, like a spotlight on the ceremony area or the food. No matter what you use, make sure each bulb is dimmable. Balloons can be fantastic if theyre done right maybe hundreds of one shape in one color, filling a ceiling. Anything else couples might not think of? You need to watch all the scents in a small space. You might want to make food choices that are welcoming; some cheeses are very stinky. And Now a Word From the Fire Marshal Give Lieutenant Anthony Mancuso of the FDNY and his comrades some peace of mind and dont fill your apartment with hundreds of flickering tea lights. Theyre dangerous because people like to put them everywhere. But then they forget about them, Mancuso says. And just because theyre in a big jar doesnt mean theyre safer. You leave one burning in there and the glass gets hot and brittle. It could shatter. Flameless candles are colorful, scented, and even remote-operated these days. *This article appears in the summer 2017 issue of New York Weddings. President Trump loves signing things. Photo: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images On Thursday, President Trump signed a bill into law that repeals the last rule proposed by the Obama administration: a rule that prevents states from withholding Title X family-planning money from health-care providers that offer abortion. The bill narrowly passed in the Senate last month; Vice-President Mike Pence had to be called in to cast the deciding vote, sending the measure through 51-50, Reuters reported. It was my honor to break tie vote in Senate overturning last minute Obama rule & restoring state control over Title X family planning funds. pic.twitter.com/jebspF3F3K Vice President Mike Pence (@VP) March 30, 2017 The Title X program provides close to 4 million low-income Americans with basic health and family-planning services, such as cancer screenings, birth control, and STI screenings because of the Hyde amendment, no Title X money goes toward abortions or abortion research. But Republicans want to see the power to distribute Title X money returned to the states, meaning state governments can choose which providers are funded and which arent. The measure is widely seen as an attack on Planned Parenthood, which said in a statement last month that it could have far-reaching implications for peoples access to health care through the Title X family-planning program across the board, and could embolden states to discriminate against family-planning health-care providers, both Planned Parenthood health centers and independent clinics. Its a sign of the repeal measures unpopularity that it almost died before it could be passed last month, Pence and GOP Senator Johnny Isakson (who was literally wheeled to and from the Senate chamber due to a recent back surgery) were called in to cast tie-breaking votes that allowed the measure to proceed. And because the vote took place under the Congressional Review Act, which allows regulations to be overturned by a simple majority, there was no chance for dissenting lawmakers to filibuster. Two Republican senators initially voted against the measure, and one Senator Susan Collins pointed out that it was pretty redundant. Its important to recognize that there is already a bar against using federal funds for abortion, and that bar stays in effect, she told Politico. She added, Were talking about federal family-planning funds and I dont think that those funds should be subjected to state restrictions. I'm afraid to admit I have no clue who she is.... :X I'm really annoyed at my beta readers for my book. I gave them copies in early Jan and asked them to have me edits by end of March and they're not done. One just started. Like I get they have lives but don't commit when I tell you my deadline straight up Reply Thread Link ughhh that is the worst. Reply Parent Thread Link I am just so happy she is alive. I remember being terrified reading her tweets Reply Thread Link no against her or anything but this started to feel more like a milking the cash cow attempt. she's seven years old, she's not gonna be the one who's writing this. also no i won't be reading this, i don't need to grasp the full concept of what my great, amazing, perrrrrrfect government helped to create. i was dying with ultimate shame when i saw her photos with erdogan. Reply Thread Link oh no, i have nothing against them. my cringe was at turkish government officials (and for reasons everyone could understand i'm not gonna elaborate because i love my country and i would never criticise our president ) as for the book, i feel like it'd be more honest if they admitted it's gonna be with her mother's help etc. "her book" thing kinda rattles me (and it's not their fault ofc, it's the pr aspect). the only problem i have with bana (or more correctly, her twitter) in general is that the tweets. these tweets are supposed to be written by a 7 year old. tone the fucking propaganda down a couple hundred notches down. (p.s. i hate all parts of the syrian civil war equally) Reply Parent Thread Link The book is going to be about the war she and her family was in, a war they did not ask for. They have been given an opportunity to tell their story. It's not "milking it", they want this horrible war to stop. Look at her twitter account, they have a message and we should listen Reply Parent Thread Expand Link but i have to admit i have no idea what you mean with this "i don't need to grasp the full concept of what my great, amazing, perrrrrrfect government helped to create" so i maybe talk about a different thing than you! Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Simon and schuster, its a no from me but get those coins Reply Thread Link Good for her. Fuck Simon and Schuster though. Reply Thread Link I hate that Erdogan is using her and her family as propaganda tools. Good for her, but fuck Simon and Schuster. Reply Thread Link lbr whom doesn't erdogan use as pr tools? my nerves are so rattled, i can only wish for referendum to end. Reply Parent Thread Link Simon and Schuster make me generally angry considering, but I still read many of the authors they publish. I'm proud of this little girl. I hope she does well. Reply Thread Link 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 Reply Thread Link aww but for real....didn't they JUST give/revoke a deal to Milo? I see them trying to redeem themselves Reply Thread Link y'all know that account is 100% fake, right? Reply Thread Link Literally nobody gives a shit about this post. Or you. You are slippin' bb. Reply Thread Link you cared enough to comment! Reply Parent Thread Link Not really. Commenting doesn't equal caring. You are annoying. That is all. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Cool for her Reply Thread Link I was so confused by your comment for a sec but then I got it and howled Reply Parent Thread Link LOL IRL Reply Parent Thread Link omfg I wasn't ready for this comment Reply Parent Thread Link lol fuck Reply Parent Thread Link lololol damn Martha Reply Parent Thread Link hahahah I'm crying Reply Parent Thread Link MARTHA Reply Parent Thread Link lmao Reply Parent Thread Link Oh damn, NOW who will talk to us about Sudan???? Reply Thread Link jodie comer better win for thirteen, omg. Reply Thread Link She was so good! I adore her. Reply Parent Thread Link the night manager was really good. I keep meaning to watch National Treasure. Reply Thread Link American ones suck too, honestly. Except for the Tonys, those are fun. Reply Parent Thread Link victoria >>>>>>>>>>>>>> the crown Reply Thread Link i personally really liked it, i have the blu ray copy Reply Parent Thread Link no Reply Parent Thread Link no Reply Parent Thread Expand Link I liked Victoria, but I'm gonna go with 'no' because the downstairs plots were pointless and boring. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link I enjoyed Victoria, but The Crown was better. I look forward to season 2 of both though Reply Parent Thread Link God no. Prince Albert ruined the show. Horrible casting. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link The Night Manager star surprisingly misses out on a nomination for his role Wasn't that surprised, tbh. But I'm sure Benefulofhimself will pick up the pretentiousness slack if he wins Reply Thread Link As always, it's Sarah Lancashire's to lose, but I have a real soft spot for Nikki Amuka-Bird. I haven't watched Last Tango since they Did The Thing (killed off the qwoc) but Nicola Walker is so good she deserves all the awards. I really, really want Diane Morgan to win because Philomena Cunk is some of the funniest shit I've ever watched. Reply Thread Link they'll have to drown their sorrows in "dirty beer" as we say in humanitarian language Reply Parent Thread Link lmao Reply Parent Thread Link lmao Reply Parent Thread Link lol Reply Parent Thread Link detectives have concluded that the "muppets most wanted" actor died accidentally while engaging in autoerotic asphyxiation. he was found naked in his tent with an "I <3 T.S." tank top wrapped around his neck. the heartbroken people of south sudan have taken to the streets carrying giant effigies of their fallen savior. children wail with grief and women rend their clothes in agony as they cry out to the heavens, demanding answers from a silent god. Reply Parent Thread Link this is amazing lmao Reply Parent Thread Link comment of the damn year Reply Parent Thread Link I made it three episodes before giving up on The Crown. I just don't care about 20th century royals. Reply Thread Link mte modern royals are so boring. i want some crazy murderous inbred habsburg shit. Reply Parent Thread Link YES. I watched Queen Margot as a palate cleanser after The Crown, now I want to see Visconti's Ludwig. Reply Parent Thread Link there's a turkish show on netflix called magnificent century about suleman, sultan of the ottoman empire which is sooooo fun to watch. it's in turkish though, so you can't really watch and multitask or you'll miss what's going on. but the drama is iconic tbh. Reply Parent Thread Link I've been watching it at the slowest pace, like part of an episode every few weeks, I'm on episode 6 now... I think you're right, I just had a hard time understanding why I don't like it when I thought it should be up my alley and other friends who I wouldn't think would be as into it love it? Reply Parent Thread Expand Link it's so confusing to watch and everyone looked the same and sound the same. there's no quirks and individuality in their conversations and speeches. i was so bored. Reply Parent Thread Link I watched the whole thing and you're not missing anything. It's not even the fact that they're boring (which they are) it's such a badly paced show. I don't understand what everyone loves about it. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link I haven't watched The Crown but Happy Valley is up there with my all-time faves. It's perfection. Reply Thread Link +1 happy valley is amazing and sarah lancanshire gives one of the best performances on tv of all time imo Reply Parent Thread Link same here. Happy Valley is amazing. Reply Parent Thread Link Yep! I hope Happy Valley and Sarah Lancashire win. Reply Parent Thread Link Yep yep. I hate that we didn't get a new series this year Reply Parent Thread Link Absolutely. Sarah is obviously amazing but the whole cast was just great. Reply Parent Thread Link Sarah Lancashire FTW. Reply Thread Link I enjoyed The Crown, but Happy Valley was fantastic. I know the guy who plays Tommy is a priest on another show so I was surprised by how much I hated him on HV. Reply Parent Thread Link sexy vicar yaaas! sexy vicar yaaas! Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Happy Valley was so fucking good. I honestly didn't think they were going to be able to make a second season as good as the first one but it was amazing. It deserves all the awards. The Crown was good but it doesn't compare. James Norton continues to impress me with his talent. It's amazing how much I adore him on Grantchester and want him to die every time I see him on Happy Valley. I think he should've got a nom for it tbh. Reply Parent Thread Link YES QUEEN!!!! I miss Catherine Reply Parent Thread Link thats hilarious Reply Thread Link i need a great plot twist where danny is killed off in the last episode and someone takes his place (coughmoonknight). fuck danny and fuck finn jones too while were at it. Reply Thread Link I'm so on board with this idea. Reply Parent Thread Link nah i think they shouldve just switched it to an asian guy, like asian dudes are barely around media-wise already, to put a eurasian girl in their place is a bit :/ Reply Parent Thread Link and none for gretchen weiner Reply Thread Link I don't know why Charlie Cox's face is cracking me up Reply Thread Link he looks like that blubber fish Reply Parent Thread Link Ohhhhmy gooodddd I can never unsee this now jesus Reply Parent Thread Link omg the blobfish? I see it, bless his heart. Reply Parent Thread Link he really does lol Reply Parent Thread Link he kind of suffers from the same derp-y smile that Jennifer Lawrence does Reply Parent Thread Link bc he looks high as a kite? lol Reply Parent Thread Link Hmmm Charlie is looking good Reply Thread Link Still waiting for Angela del Toro White Tiger to join this group. Reply Thread Link Loras isn't amazing or anything and it sucks they didn't cast an Asian actor but Iron Fist is still a much better show than Snoredevil Reply Thread Link but Iron Fist is still a much better show than Snoredevil Quite an unpopular opinion but ia. Reply Parent Thread Link sis this lie! delete this comment!!! Reply Parent Thread Link sorry bb but I made it through six episodes of Daredevil and it was just so boring it literally put me to sleep. like every character was bad. even Claire was just there to be brutalized for Matt's manpain. Reply Parent Thread Link I couldn't make it through Iron Fist. I wasn't a huge fan of DD, but I disagree so hard. Reply Parent Thread Link now sis Reply Parent Thread Link I thought Luke Cage was the worst. It was so slow and pretty much all they did sas talk, granted i didnt even make it to the end Reply Parent Thread Expand Link sis i saw the way they cut together a fight scene, ironfist is terrible Reply Parent Thread Link I haven't even watched Iron Fist, but I'm inclined to believe you Reply Parent Thread Link The only good Netflix Marvel show is Jessica Jones anyway Reply Parent Thread Link ia, though I find it funny how the worst part of Iron Fist is... The Iron Fist. I was literally there for everyone else but him. Ward's storyline was pretty great, IMO. Reply Parent Thread Link I mean I'd like to pretend this means something & iron fist is getting the shaft but it took them forever to put out the luke cage & jessica jones ones from jessica jones series so I don't think this means a single thing Reply Thread Link Comics related, but is anyone else absolutely guttered to see Greg Rucka leave WW? I am so upset and so absolutely worried about who they'll replace him with. I was hoping he would stay on but with how many comics he's writing that was a pipe dream. :( Reply Thread Link I heard it's Gail Simone coming back. Reply Parent Thread Link That would make my whole year, but until then I'm going to be hell nervous. Hoping that the announcement is super soon. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link OMG PLEASE Reply Parent Thread Link I hope so but Gail trolls to much. I want Fabian to do the art, he shouldn't be wasting his time on Suicide Squad. Reply Parent Thread Link He is not a defender Reply Parent Thread Link What if they made one and he was Asian instead just to fuck with him even more? I would die. Reply Thread Link Omg, that would be amazing. Reply Parent Thread Link But the character isn't, nor was he ever, asian so that wouldnt happen. Reply Parent Thread Link considering how condescending they were to people when asked not to whitewash brown characters, funko pop would never. Reply Parent Thread Link How long did it take for POPs of the other three to come out? I guess Funko probably already had licensing to make him but just didn't rush it. & I can't believe the 'I don't know why people buy these things' crowd didn't get here first. Reply Thread Link I don't know why people buy these things Reply Parent Thread Link lol I agree, they're so stupid. they're literally just made to be collector bait Reply Parent Thread Expand Link it's cute to have a couple of your faves since they're cheap but some people don't know how to stop Reply Parent Thread Link Truly unreal. One of the most shocking things I've ever seen. Reply Thread Link same Reply Parent Thread Link MTE Reply Parent Thread Link I am shocked at how blunt it was tbh like he didn't tip toe or anything, it was just like BAM Reply Parent Thread Link I wonder if they asked Zeke if they could air that. I mean it would've been a weirdly edited tribal had they cut it out, but I wonder if they granted him that courtesy. This was a heartwrenching tribal. Everything Varner was saying was gross. Oh sorry, I didn't think I'd get this reaction. Sorry I thought he was out to everyone but this tribe, therefore it's a deception. Sorry. I have transgender friends and I'm their biggest ally sorry. It was all very disgusting. And worse, he had a long time before tribal to think about it too. :/ Edited at 2017-04-13 04:56 am (UTC) Reply Thread Link he has trans friends, he's a gay man, he's an LGBTQ activist AND on top of all that he's from North Carolina so he should be extra aware of struggles trans ppl have right now ....and he still fucked it up Reply Parent Thread Expand Link White gays are the worst, breaking news Reply Parent Thread Link (marco rubio voice) let's dispel with the notion that the community is free of lateral oppression Reply Parent Thread Expand Link People assume white gay men are allies. They dont care about anyone but themselves. I remember when they had Colton as the gay conservative contestant like it was some groundbreaking oxymoron. He is one of a million white gays who gladly voted for Trump. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link wooooooow @ this dude rn omg Reply Parent Thread Link yikes. so that's why the apology is so well worded... i was gonna give him some credit but nope Reply Parent Thread Link Sorry I thought he was out to everyone but this tribe, therefore it's a deception. This was the most mind-boggling piece of logic. And when Varner said "there are levels of deception y'all don't even know about" he's clearly saying that Zeke is lying about being a man because he isn't really a man. Just terrible shit. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link The GLAAD statement says that CBS worked with Zeke and GLAAD so I'd imagine that yeah, Zeke had a lot of say in what was aired. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Yeah... He literally asked "why haven't you told anyone you're Transgender", and then said he said it because he thought everyone knew. Then what was the fucking point? Reply Parent Thread Expand Link I'm not a fan of Varner or Zeke, but I needed a whole box of tissues to make it through tribal. Just about every emotion possible came up--never thought I'd see that on Survivor. Reply Parent Thread Link I hope he did have some say, though he said at the end he hoped someone watching at home would be helped by this and it would lead to the greater good. Reply Parent Thread Link From the interview with Jeff Probst I read he asked Zeke about it and the original casting (for Millennials v Gen X) and Zeke told Jeff that he was prepared for it to come out and would deal with it. So I think going into the show Zeke was well aware that it could come up, but was just taken by surprise at tribal. Edited at 2017-04-13 04:29 pm (UTC) Reply Parent Thread Link this was so horrifying to watch. zeke's expression throughout made me want to throw up. Reply Thread Link hoooooly shit how could he ever think that was okay Reply Thread Link I still can't believe Varner thought this was a good idea - and he really did think it was a good idea if you watch the whole tribal council; he outs him, then defends the outing and he only apologizes when he realizes no one is siding with him. Also, isn't Sarah a Trump supporter? The entire time she was talking I was side-eyeing her cause I'm pretty sure she supports Trump Reply Thread Link I think Sarah is a cop in a conservative town so I would wager that she is. Reply Parent Thread Link Yeah she's a huge trump supporter Reply Parent Thread Link Fuck her. She deserves some heat for trying to make this about herself. Metamorphosis my ass. Reply Parent Thread Link I may get some heat for this,.. so I apologize in advanced, but Sarah has always given me lesbian vibes. She took it very hard and so the whole time she was crying, I thought she was gonna say that she's a lesbian who's still in the closet or something of the sort hence why outing someone is really not cool. Idk, I don't care if she is or isn't but it's where my mind went with her and her strong reaction towards the whole situation. Reply Parent Thread Link I may get some heat for this,.. so I apologize in advanced, but Sarah has always given me lesbian vibes. She took it very hard and so the whole time she was crying, I thought she was gonna say that she's a lesbian who's still in the closet or something of the sort hence why outing someone is really not cool. Idk, I don't care if she is or isn't but it's where my mind went with her and her strong reaction towards the whole situation. Reply Parent Thread Link Honestly I thought she was going there too Reply Parent Thread Link yeah idgi did he think that everyone was going to be like OMG ZEKE HOW COULD YOU NOT TELL US, YOU LIAR!!! GO VARNER!! ??? like I don't get his thought process at all and how it was beneficial for him to do that Reply Parent Thread Link WOW wtf This is going to be one of the worst moments in both of their lives Reply Thread Link thats....about as good an apology as you can make in that situation. I am actually shocked. I'm glad Zeke has so much support in his favor (I dont watch the show but still). Reply Thread Link I couldn't make it through the whole thing. That was disgusting. Reply Thread Link Pepsi: Uh-oh. United: We're the worst. Sean Spicer: I got this. Jeff Varner: The week isn't over, y'all.#SurvivorGameChangers K.A. Coleman (@KA_Coleman) April 13, 2017 The THR article is wonderful. Zeke is an amazing writer! Reply Thread Link *North Korea: SIKE Reply Parent Thread Link now i get why so many tweets were referencing survivor. :( Reply Parent Thread Link yah - they did not even go vote individually. probst was basically like "so we all agree that [the attacker] should go?" Reply Parent Thread Link Probst handled it really well IMHO. In Zeke's article he talks about how Probst gave him time to collect himself and kind of kept checking to make sure he was OK as the conversation was unfolding. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Yeah, he was voted off Reply Parent Thread Link Jeff was voted out. They didn't do the usual voting though. They all just agreed he had to go. Reply Parent Thread Link Nope. They didn't vote, the host was like, "Yeah, we're all in agreement he's gone?" Everyone was like, "Yeah" so he left without a vote at tribal council. Which is basically only happens to pond scum on Survivor -he was kicked off in a gentle way. I think the host was too shocked to really react well, otherwise, he might have been kicked off more bluntly. Edited at 2017-04-13 05:16 am (UTC) Reply Parent Thread Expand Link I know we're supposed to accept when people make good apologies but I don't understand how if he knows all that, he still did it? It just goes to show how even when you're an ally your privilege is always there. Christ on a stick. Reply Thread Link I don't think it's a good apology?? because of the "I recklessly revealed something I thought everyone already knew" like...he's lying, he's straight up lying because you can't say you thought people knew when you publically asked "why haven't you told everyone" and claimed it as ~desception~ the lie taints any chance of it being a good apology.... Reply Parent Thread Link I didn't watch the video until just now and you're right, it's just laced with a lot of buzz words but if you actually know the context it's bullshit. I guess my end conclusion kind of should've led me to realizing the apology was shit anyways lmao, oh well. Reply Parent Thread Link All of this is true, but his apology wasn't good at all. Even in his Twipology he qualifies his ignorance with "I revealed something that I mistakenly thought everyone knew...". Which just contradicts the idea that it would be deception in the first place, or that Zeke didn't tell anybody. Reply Parent Thread Link It wasn't a good apology. He kept bringing up "deception" even after he apologized, which is transphobic bullshit Reply Parent Thread Expand Link wow what a dick. you could tell he didnt expect everyone to turn on him for it because he couldnt even defend his actions. Reply Thread Link Yeah he really thought everyone would see it the same way he did. Reply Parent Thread Link I was so relieved when everyone turned on him, because if you had asked me before I probably would have been super pessimistic and guessed that it'd be AT LEAST split but holy shit, NO ONE was with him. it's really sad how wonderful that is, like...hope for humanity a little bit. Reply Parent Thread Link In Zeke's (fantastic) article he also talks about how "outing" a trans person is also totally pointless or irrelevant unless you're specifically trying to make a point that they aren't really male or female. I'd never thought of it that way and it just struck a chord. I mean outing is always something no one should never do but it really drove home for me that Varner *was* coming from a malicious place when he did it. Reply Parent Thread Link Exactly Reply Parent Thread Link I was outed as gay by my brother to our uncle because "he asked if you were and so I said yes" and when I told him he had no right to do this (my brother is not a friend or ally to the LGBTQ community in anyway) he simply told me "He fucking asked me and not you, you don't dictate what I say...." Reply Parent Thread Link What a scumbag. This week has reminded me that humans are trash, all of us. Shut it down! Reply Thread Link I'd be down with watching the world burn. Where is the meteor at?! Reply Parent Thread Link You could just see Sarah having some growth as a person right there in tribal. I hope seeing her reaction makes some people watching the show grow too. Highly recommend everyone read Zeke's article, it was really well written and just good. Reply Thread Link The article is so amazing! It's awesome that he's been able to take back whatever power Varner had in that moment and turn it into something great. Reply Parent Thread Link holy shit that article really was amazing, so well written and I love how he kept referring to Verner as "former local news anchor" Reply Parent Thread Link Her personal growth was nice I guess but she clearly didn't grow that much with the way she fanatically supported Trump after that. Zeke's article was excellent. Reply Parent Thread Link I never got into this one but their other soap 'Undressed' got my 12 yr old self SHOOKETH. I'm going to need a post on them next! Reply Thread Link i loved undressed, i used to stay up late to watch it and put the volume on low on the tv so my mom wouldn't catch my 11 year old self watching it Reply Parent Thread Link Thats pretty much our entire generation sis. Reply Parent Thread Link Lmfao same Reply Parent Thread Link saaame lol Reply Parent Thread Link Sis the only thing on mtv back then that I didn't watch on damn near mute was Daria lol Reply Parent Thread Link This is how everyone watched it. I had the remote in hand too, in case I needed to quickly change the channel. Reply Parent Thread Link lmao I remember I thought Undressed was porn Reply Parent Thread Link undressed was everything to pre-teen me Reply Parent Thread Link i was in fucking love w/ this show, no one ik irl knows wtf i'm talking about when i try to mention this show and how amazing it was. Reply Thread Link lmao. same. well just one of my really good friends in school watched it and we would talk about it in class. i was pissed i never got to see the finale (my friend had to recap it for me) and we missed a few of the final episodes because they were aired at weird times after 9/11. it was a struggle. it was years before i finally got to see the proper uninterrupted ending online like in 2011. smh. Edited at 2017-04-13 05:40 am (UTC) Reply Parent Thread Link I used to record the episodes starting like in the middle of the series..and I *missed* the last episodes because they aired them at 11pm and I had to be in bed because it was school nights. Ugh..lol Reply Parent Thread Expand Link I was mad Ivan finally got some man on man action and the show NEVER CAME BACK!!! my poor lonely gay self. Reply Thread Link When he worked himself to eat his wife out and he went to throw up in the bathroom..I could not lol Reply Parent Thread Link Lol my husband did the same thing! But I'm pretty sure he was out in high school so I dunno why he did lol Mess Reply Parent Thread Link when my friend told me Jeff kissed Ivan in the finale i was desperate to find the finale online on a fucken dial up connection. but it didn't exist lmao. literally took years for someone to upload all the episodes on YouTube. bendito. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Holy shit I watched this when I was 11. Don't remember much about it tho. Reply Thread Link I think I caught some of this but I didn't start it and the schedule was screwed up so I just gave up. If I knew that there was a gay storyline, I would have tried harder. God, I love watching Zay on GT, he seemed to always be having the time of his life even in the most far-flung places. Reply Thread Link you may have tried even harder to thirst over Zay in this SG scene tbh. Reply Parent Thread Link I can totally relate with her lol Reply Parent Thread Link 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 Reply Thread Link I have a vivid memory of watching this show when it was briefly in a 7pm time slot. There was a storyline where two teen girls decided to seduce and entrap a rapist (WHY was this such a common soap storyline in the 90s/00s). Right when the rapist was about to attack one girl her BFF burst through the window guns blazing. It was problematic AF but my tween self was shook! Reply Thread Link I always thought it was a game show but I may be confusing it with something else that aired around that time. Idk how to describe the show itself though and that's going to bug me. Reply Parent Thread Link I lived for this show. I had basically no gay characters on TV to watch, so I tried to record as many episodes as possible. They are on unmarked VHS tapes along with Pokemon episodes somewhere in my parents garage. I had such a crush on Ivan Reply Thread Link Never watched this, but have loved Megalyn Echikunwoke since seeing her in "Funny Valentines". Is she still with that old guy, tho? Reply Thread Link HUH! I must've missed this but definitely knew Megalyn Echikunwoke (not sure what other show she was on but I definitely remember ha face back then. so heey gurl!!!) & Robert Hutchinson totally looked familiar?? so vague rn.... and there were some man on man action in 2001?!? where the hell have I been at that time? *clutches my pearls* Reply Thread Link it was ahead of it's time!!! this is why i titled this post "forgotten" or in your case "never knew." smhhh. you binge watch it now sis. there are links below before the source. it's tacky but a fun way to kill half an hour or so if you're bored and miss the early 00's. Edited at 2017-04-13 07:29 am (UTC) Reply Parent Thread Link Definitely Reply Parent Thread Link I swear she was on Passions on another soap. Her face looks familiar from daytime. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Would Sasha ever find out Natalia was his mother and not his sister? I didn't even know this show existed until this post but.. Reply Thread Link sis the details on it are cringeworthy. when Sasha was in an accident and her brothers had already given blood for their brother Natalia demanded she give blood knowing her brothers wouldn't be a match. because of this it was revealed how Boris allowed Julie's father (William Whitmore) to come to the house and rape his daughter Natalia when she was 13. then Boris shipped her off to an asylum to give birth and shortly after boarding school in hopes she'd never come back home. Boris and his wife raised Sasha as their own and made Natalia have everyone believe he was her sister and not his mother so that it wouldn't hurt the family name. he made Julie's father sell him his company for a very low price and made him sign away any rights to Sasha and to go away otherwise he would turn him in to the police for rape. but he couldn't care less for his daughter and tells Natalia in flashbacks that she asked for it...he's a vile misogynist POS. William died a few episodes before the finale and tells Jeff to tell Natalia that he was sorry for what he did to her. when she's told of his apology to her she says it was 16 years too late and couldn't care less about his death. Reply Parent Thread Link What. The. Hell. MTV is a MESS marketing this to 12 year olds. Reply Parent Thread Link damn since revivals are all the rage these days MTV should throw these actors a bone & bring this show back to give it a proper ending Reply Thread Link Def gonna tell my sis about this because we were HOOKED Reply Thread Link Wait. I do not remember the existence of this show AT ALL even though I was literally 20 at the time it aired. I was alllll about TRL and the Real World and I watched MTV constantly back then so I feel like I should totally remember it. I remember plenty of other obscure MTV programs from that era... Would this show have been more my speed if I was, like, 14 rather than 20? This post got me thinking about 9/11 - speaking of MTV it played the news all day long that day. At 11pm they turned (gentle, fairly soft) music videos back on and started with Coldplay's Yellow. They were brand new at the time. I hated the song before that day, but have had a soft spot for it ever since then. Edited at 2017-04-13 08:54 am (UTC) Reply Thread Link it was time we had this conversation. i figured a lot of ONTD didn't know - i only knew one person IRL that knew of this show. literally nobody else knew what this was if i ever mentioned it.it was time we had this conversation. #justiceforspydergames Reply Parent Thread Link Lol you have done it proper justice here today! I just don't get it bc there's literally no reason that I wouldn't remember it! I was watching MTV ~constantly~ back then. Reply Parent Thread Link They also played Rock the Boat on that loop and it made me feel so uncomfortable because Aaliyah was killed after that video shoot. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link It doesn't resonate with me at all and I was 15 in 2000. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link I remember they played ms Jackson and commons the light as well during the morning and evening music bits after 9/11. It has stuck in my memory Reply Parent Thread Expand Link I think this is Cher 3.0, Cher 2.0, and Original Cher Reply Thread Link The kardashians are awful but I do give them props for speaking about Armenian culture etc Reply Thread Link As an Armenian, I never got into the Obama hype after he failed to fulfill his promise of recognizing the Armenian Genocide. To this day, I still rage at the media outlets and people who say it didn't happen. I hate the Kardashians, but I am so proud that they are not afraid to talk about it. Edited at 2017-04-13 04:28 pm (UTC) Reply Thread Link Did you see the episode where Conan took his assistant to Armenia? I thought it was really well done. Reply Parent Thread Link I died when I saw it. It was really good. Reply Parent Thread Link wow i could have SWORN he did. thats shitty Reply Parent Thread Link The movies stars Christian Bale and Oscar Isaac. Reply Thread Link has there ever been good pics of Kim's new butt? Reply Thread Link I saw some pics on ig. She def inflated it again. It looks bigger than what it was a few months ago but not huge like it was before she got pregnant. Reply Parent Thread Link lol..it never changed? It's the same as it always was Reply Parent Thread Link http://radaronline.com/photos/kim-kardashian-butt-implants-plastic-surgery-removed-claim-surgeons-kuwtk-photos/ But idk cause the pics are never clear Recently she seems to have a smaller butt look:But idk cause the pics are never clear Reply Parent Thread Link This is the one where Oscar Isaac plays an Armenian Doctor? So has played an Egyptian, and now an Armenian? I guess he is the go-to guy when in it comes to people from the middle-east/eastern Europe. Reply Thread Link And isn't he really from Central America? Reply Parent Thread Link yeah one of his parents is from guatemala Reply Parent Thread Link Alfred Molina can retire! Reply Parent Thread Link Ambiguously brown... But because he's a fan-favorite, apparently it never gets brought up? Reply Parent Thread Link And he plays Joseph in that nativity movie. Reply Parent Thread Link The movies stars Christian Bale and Oscar Isaac, the film is a love story set during the period. This made me think it was a story between their characters but I see it is not and involves another love triangle. No thank you. But as others have said props to them for speaking out about. Reply Thread Link mte I was like o rly but quickly realized that's not the case oop Reply Parent Thread Link Has Kourtney's lower jaw always been that asymmetrical or is it just some weird angle that's making it look that way? Also, Kim looks like she could be Cher's daughter in these photos. Reply Thread Link Shit, my jawline is so asymmetrical it makes me a 6. I pray I'll grow a beard one day to hide and become an 8 Reply Parent Thread Link My nose is crooked as hell and I've looked in to getting it fixed. I personally don't mind obviously asymmetrical faces though - too symmetrical faces are boring and robotic to me. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link There's more Armenians in California than in Armenia. I don't think there are any big names out there. Reply Parent Thread Link Is there anyone else? Are Armenians seen as non-white or too "exotic" in the US? I'm racking my brain trying to remember any younger Armenian American actors. I know there is David Dastmalchian (who plays creepy rather well).Is there anyone else? Are Armenians seen as non-white or too "exotic" in the US? Reply Parent Thread Expand Link I kan't with Kourtney's wonky jaw and Kim's wonky eye. Reply Thread Link why kim look like jafar tho Reply Thread Link lol I've been calling her that for a few months, she's a mix of Jafar and Cher Reply Parent Thread Link chefar Reply Parent Thread Link Oscar Isaacs accents make me uncomfortable. Reply Thread Link Props tbh Reply Thread Link Beijings patience with North Korea is wearing thin as Pyongyang continues to conduct nuclear missile tests. According to a state Chinese media outlet, Huanqui, China is considering a suspension of its crude oil exports to its neighbor should North Korea conduct a sixth nuclear test. North Korea depends on China for 90 percent of its crude oil supply, and stopping these will wreak havoc on the dictatorship, which China has been trying to avoid, since a regime collapse is likely to result in a massive influx of refugees. It has also opposed President Trumps urging to penalize North Korea for the nuclear tests so far, but now it seems the mood is changing having another nuclear neighbor is hardly Chinas idea of a stable regional environment. Asias biggest economy also has other ways to make Kim Jong Un give up nuclear tests, such as stopping or reducing the food aid it sends to the impoverished nation, or cutting North Korean foreign currency transactions that go through Chinese banks. The White House meanwhile has sent an armada to the Korean peninsula, and is now mulling over measures such as an oil embargo, a ban on the countrys only airline, and interception of ships carrying cargo to North Korea. Also among the measures being considered is penalizing Chinese banks doing business with Pyongyang. Related: Oil Markets Turn Bullish Amid Spiking Geopolitical Risk Last year, a Korean media outlet described the most likely scenario for the country, should China halt crude oil supplies. The whole nation would be paralyzed in this scenario, from government agencies to the military to production. Alternative supplies are not really an option: although Russia and some Middle Eastern producers have from time to time sent crude North Koreas way, they are unreliable suppliers, the outlet noted, especially now, when U.S.-Russian relations are at such a low point over Syria. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: The EIAs short-term energy outlook, released on April 11, predicted increases in American energy production, along with an increase in imports. The agencys forward predictions on the outlook of U.S. oil and gas production are mostly bullish, despite earlier reports that total energy production in the U.S. had fallen by 4 percent, a change driven largely by declining demand for coal and low oil and gas prices. However, while the agency expects natural gas prices to climb, there are only moderate expectations for future increases in the price of oil, a sign that the EIA doesnt expect demand to seriously outstrip supply in the short-term. The EIA report estimated the average U.S. oil production in 2016 to have been 8.9 million bpd. Looking ahead, the EIA estimates the average for 2017 to hover around 9.2 million bpd and 9.9 million the following year, an increase of 11 percent in two years. While natural gas production declined in 2016, the agency expects this trend to be reversed in 2017, with natural gas production increasing by 0.8 billion cubic feet per day. The forecast for 2018 predicts an additional increase of 4 bcf/d. Higher prices in natural gas, expected to rise from the March level of $2.88 to an average of $3.10 in 2017, with a further increase to $3.45 in 2018, will likely contributed to a decline in the share of electricity supplied by natural gas in the coming years, as gas loses its competitive edge. Surprisingly, the EIA predicts that natural gas share will fall from 34 percent to 32 percent by 2018, while that of coal will increase from 30 percent to 31 percent. Non-hydropower renewable energy (solar and wind) will see a modest increase from 9 percent to 10 percent. While bullish on the Henry Hub price for natural gas, the EIA estimate is decidedly more cautious on crude oil prices. The report predicts WTI to hover around $52 for 2017, increasing to $55.10 the following year. The WTI-Brent spread will diminish, with Brent at $54.23 and $57.10 for 2017 and 2018. Finally, U.S. domestic gas prices will rise to $2.46/gallon this summer, up from $2.23 last year. Overall, the years national average (which, of course, varies considerably from region to region) will be around $2.39/gallon, resulting in increased gasoline spending of $200 per household. The EIA also reported activity in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) which set an annual high of 1.6 million bpd in 2016, surpassing the high set in 2009. GOM oil production, which because of long development times is less sensitive to short-term market fluctuations, is expected to increase in 2018, averaging 1.7 million bpd in 2017 and 1.9 million bpd in 2018. While the short-term outlook is positive, a major fall in the exploration/development rig count likely portends a decline in GOM production by 2020. An interesting corollary to the short-term report on supplies and prices is the EIAs report on total U.S. crude oil imports, which rose by a significant margin for the first time in several years. Imports increased by 514 million barrels of oil equivalent/day, reaching 7.9 mmbop/d, which is still a ways off from the 2005 peak of 10.1 mmbop/d. Most U.S. crude oil imports come via pipeline from Canada, while Mexican imports continued their six-year decline. Imports from OPEC countries increased as well, particularly Nigerian and Iraqi crude. (Click to enlarge) Data from EIA Higher imports doesnt necessarily mean a commensurate decline in U.S. production, of course. Particular varieties of overseas crude are in high demand in the U.S. The increase in Nigerian light crude imports is due to its similarity to Bakken output. As production from that region declined in 2016, refiners looked to Nigeria to pick up the slack. Thats good news for the Niger River Delta, which had a rough year, but the outlook for the countrys future exports isnt all rosy, with reports indicating that its losing export markets to the United States. Many analysts and traders dont find much to be confident about in the EIAs regular predictions, which are variable and sometimes pretty wide off the mark. The rise in imports, after years of stagnation or relative declines, reflect changes in refinery patterns and the drop in energy production for the year. That decline was due, in part, to the low price of oil that endured for most of 2016. Despite the expectation that coals share will go up in the coming years, the EIA still doesnt believe total coal production in 2018 (785.2 million short tons) will rival the level reached in 2015 (897 million short tons). The increase will likely be a short-term development. An increase in prices, which may be stronger than the EIA predicts, will spur additional growth in output in 2017-2020. The agency prediction that coal consumption will increase at the expense of natural gas seems hard to parse out, given the wide belief that the U.S. coal industry is in the midst of the long-term crisis. Its possible that natural gas production will increase and be fed into higher gas exports, with a number of new LNG export terminals scheduled to be constructed before 2020. The ramifications of political action in support of higher energy production will likely touch on coal, natural gas and oil together, but opening up federal lands and reducing restrictions are bound to aid oil and gas more than coal, which remains at a competitive disadvantage. So, overall, the EIA offers an interesting picture of the future of U.S. energy, but one that offers only possibilities, not certainties. By Gregory Brew for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: The OPEC Monthly Oil Market Report is out with OPECs crude oil production numbers for March 2017. All data is through March 2017 and is in thousand barrels per day. (Click to enlarge) Looking at the above chart it seems obvious what most OPEC nations were doing. They announced in the summer of 2016 that there would likely be quota cuts beginning in 2017. And those cuts would be a percentage of their current production. So everyone began making heroic attempts to increase production by the end of 2016. Now, after everyone who felt that they should cut, has cut, they are right back to the level that they were at before the cuts were proposed. (Click to enlarge) There is always a considerable difference between what the OPEC nations say they are producing and what the Secondary Sources say they are producing. The March MOMR had Saudi producing 9,797,000 bpd in February while Saudi said they were producing 10,011,000 bpd. The April MOMR has revised Saudis February production up by 155,000 bpd. (Click to enlarge) This is a snip from one of my Excel spreadsheets. It shows revisions made in the previous two months data by Secondary Sources. For instance, Saudi Arabias January production numbers were revised down by 56,000 bpd while their February production numbers were revised up by 155,000 bp. OPEC 13 Jan. numbers were revised down by 73,000 bpd while their Feb. numbers were revised up by 124,000 bpd. Not much is happening in Algeria. They peaked almost 10 years ago and have been in slow decline ever since. Angola peaked in 2010 but have been holding pretty steady since. Ecuador peaked in 2015. They will be in a slow decline from now on. Any change in Gabon crude oil production is too small to make much difference. Iran has increased production the last three months, though down slightly in March. However, one source says it is a fallacy. Irans Oil Production: Fallacy Or Fallowed We believe Iranian destocking is being misinterpreted as production, and actual production will decline as the year moves forward. Iraq is down 73,000 bpd from their December peak. Kuwait is down 166,000 bpd from their November peak. That is about 5.8%. Libya still has problems, and will likely continue to have problems. Related: Is The Oil Price Rally Running Out Of Steam? Nigeria and Libya are exempt from quota cuts because of rebel problems. Dont look for those problems to clear up any way soon. Qatar has been in decline since 2008. Her decline will continue albeit at a very slow pace. Saudi Arabia cut in January, then stopped cutting. I think this is where we will be for some time unless there is a real shake up in OPEC. The UAE is down almost 200,000 bpd since December. This is the largest percentage cut in OPEC. I dont think it is all voluntary. Venezuelas problems will continue. They ae now below two million barrels per day. They are at 1,972,000 bpd. Last March their production was 2,286,000 bpd. They have dropped 314,000 bpd in 12 months. Thats 13.7 percent in one year. Eyeballing the chart, it looks like World oil production, total liquids, is down about two million barrels per day since peaking in November 2016. OPEC crude production is down 1.45 million barrels per day since November so Non-OPEC liquids, plus OPEC NGLs, would be down just over half a million bpd since then. By Peak Oil Barrel More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Wilsonville, OR Oregon Republican Party Chairman Bill Currier filed an official Judicial Complaint with the Oregon Commission on Judicial Fitness and Disability against Multnomah County Judge Monica Herranz for her role in helping a criminal defendant to escape Federal ICE Agents on January 27th, 2017. The complaint filed by Currier alleges, based on an audio recording and local press accounts, that Judge Herranz aided and abetted Diddier Pacheco-Salazar, a suspected illegal alien, in escaping ICE agents by opening a secure door in the back of the judges chambers to help him evade capture by the agents who were waiting to detain him in the hallway outside of Judge Herranzs courtroom. Mr. Pacheco-Salazar had just pleaded guilty to a DUII in her court prior to escaping the Multnomah County Courthouse by means of the Judges private access route. On the audio recording of the court proceedings after Pacheco-Salazars guilty plea and the conclusion of the hearing, Judge Herranz can be clearly heard stating we dont want him to go back out there in an apparent statement of her intent to help Pacheco-Salazar avoid capture by the ICE agents awaiting him in the hall outside the normal exit from her courtroom chamber. It is also believed that the door opened to enable Pacheco-Salazar to exit the Judges chambers and avoid the notice of the ICE agents is a secure door that can be opened only by authorized personnel using a credential unique to each person. The Oregon Code of Judicial Conduct prohibits a judge from committing a criminal act. OCJC 2.1(B). A judge may not use the judicial position to gain personal advantage of any kind for another person. OCJC 2.2. Any willful action by the Judge with the intent of circumventing courthouse security protocols to help an admitted criminal who may pose a danger to the community to evade Federal law enforcement officials is a severe ethical breach, and may qualify as a violation of the judicial code of conduct, and may also be an intentional violation of 8 U.S. Code 1324. This looks like another example of the rampant lawlessness weve come to expect from sanctuary cities, noted Chair Currier. But this is a bridge too far for a member of our judicial system to appear to aid and abet criminal illegal aliens and to openly attempt to subvert or obstruct federal law enforcement. A judge must uphold the laws regardless of their personal or political leanings. Any witnesses, such as public employees, should be contacted by investigators to determine the exact nature and degree of any ethical breach and for the Commission to take appropriate action. The Oregon Republican Party is the states arm of the Republican National Committee. Its Chairman and officers are dedicated to promoting Republican principles within the state of Oregon and to improving the lives and livelihoods of Oregons working families through economic freedom and equal protection under the law. Flipkart is hosting a new edition of Samsung Mobiles Fest from April 11 to April 13. As part of the fest, Samsung is offering its discounts and exchange schemes on popular smartphones. The South Korean brand has begun the three-day sale period from today, and the sale features seven Samsung smartphones with flat discounts up to Rs 3,000, and exchange offers of up to Rs 16,000. The Samsung Galaxy On Nxt is priced at Rs 15,490, Rs 3,000 less from its original price. Users can avail of up to Rs 14,500 discount on exchange. At the Samsung Mobiles Fest sale, Samsung Galaxy J5 is priced at Rs 10,990 and you can get up to Rs 10,000 off on exchange. For Samsung Galaxy A9 Pro, there's a flat discount of Rs 2,590 and you can get up to Rs 16,000 off on exchange. Flipkart, India's leading e-commerce marketplace, has raised $1.4 billion from Tencent, eBay and Microsoft. The funding comes amid reports that Flipkart is expected to acquire Snapdeal in a deal that is apparently being pushed by SoftBank, which is one of the biggest investors in Snapdeal. Flipkart recently raised $1.4 billion from Tencent, eBay and Microsoft. The funding comes amid reports that Flipkart is expected to acquire Snapdeal in a deal that is apparently being pushed by SoftBank, which is one of the biggest investors in Snapdeal. Top civilian,military leadership decided not to bow down to any pressure over Indian ISLAMABAD: The top civilian and military leadership has decided not to bow down to any pressure over the death sentence awarded to Indian spy Kulbushan Jadhav. Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa on Wednesday called on Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif at PM House and took him into confidence on the convicted Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) spys trial and subsequent sentencing by a Field General Court Martial (FGCM). Both the leaders agreed that no compromise can be made on the countrys security and stability and that elements threatening Pakistans territorial integrity will be dealt with an iron fist. Kulbushan Jadhav was arrested on March 3, 2016, through a counter-intelligence operation in Balochistans Mashkel area over his involvement in espionage and sabotage activities against Pakistan, ISPR had said in a statement on Monday. Pakistan had turned down Indias request seeking consular access to Jadhav last year due to his involvement in subversive activities in the country. Jadhav was tried by the FGCM under Section 59 of the PAA and Section 3 of the official Secret Act of 1923. He confessed before a magistrate and the court that he was tasked by RAW to plan, coordinate and organise espionage and sabotage activities seeking to destabilise and wage war against Pakistan through impeding the efforts of law enforcement agencies for the restoration of peace in Balochistan and Karachi, the ISPR had said. The army chief also briefed the prime minister on current security situation in the country, according to a statement by the PM House. The COAS apprised the PM about progress in the ongoing operation Raadul Fasaad in the country. The prime minister expressed satisfaction over the gains made in the operation and appreciated the role of armed forces for their matchless sacrifices towards the national goal of achieving peace in the country, the statement said. Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Maryam Aurangzeb also said on Wednesday that Pakistan will not tolerate threats from any country on matters related to its national security. No laws have been violated in awarding the sentence, she said, adding, Details of Jadhavs involvement have already been shared with different countries and it has been proved beyond doubt that he is an Indian spy. The minister, however, clarified that Wednesdays cabinet meeting didnt discuss the Indian spy issue. It was not on cabinets agenda nor was it discussed during the meeting, she said. Sitting alongside Maryam, Minister of State for Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) Dr Tariq Fazal Chaudhry said that the state did not take revenge or followed any discrimination in the trial. India and international community must understand that the death sentence was according to Pakistani laws, he said. We did not change any law and neither are we victimising anyone, he said, adding that action was taken after evidence was collected and everything was done in accordance with the existing laws of the land. A day earlier, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif told Upper House of Parliament that Kulbhushan Yadav would get no concessions as due process of law was followed while sentencing him to death. Hitting out at New Delhi, the minister had said, They used the term premeditated murder. All I want to say is it was premeditated murder in Gujarat. It was premeditated murder when Samjhota Express was attacked. It is premeditated killings of Kashmiri youths in the Held Kashmir, which continues unabated. Following the announcement of death sentence on Monday, India summoned Pakistans High Commissioner to New Delhi Abdul Basit and handed over a demarche saying, If this sentence against an Indian citizen, awarded without observing basic norms of law and justice, is carried out, the government and people of India will regard it as a case of premeditated murder. The mathematical (and other) thoughts of a (now retired) math teacher, Former Vice-President of Sierra Leone, Chief Samuel Sam-Sumana has called on the international community to ensure that the political leadership in his country guarantees his safety in his bid to register as a voter during the ongoing voter registration process. Chief Sam-Sumana says he has been unable to exercise his right to register as a voter for fear of his life and safety as well as that of his family. The former Vice-President who was dismissed under controversial circumstances by President Bai Koroma in 2015 reiterated the call when he called on former President Jerry John Rawlings at his office in Accra on Wednesday. Sam-Sumana informed the former President he had taken the matter of his dismissal to the ECOWAS Court of Justice seeking an enforcement of his fundamental human rights, describing his removal as unconstitutional. The court has set April 25, 2017 for the hearing of the matter. A letter authored by Solicitor for Chief Sam-Sumana, Dr. Raymond Atuguba and addressed to President Ernest Bai Koroma requested the President to provide security for the safety of his client, his family, supporters and well-wishers as they take steps to participate in this all important political process. The voter registration process opened on March 20, 2017 and closes on April 16, 2017. Presidential elections are scheduled in Sierra Leone for March 7, 2018. President Koroma sacked Chief Sam-Sumana as Vice President in March 2015 for abandoning his duties but the former stated that he had been compelled to seek asylum in a foreign embassy because his life was in danger. Source: Peacefmonline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video WOOD PELLET SPECIFICATION made from sawdust calorific value 4539kcal/kg ash content < 1% density 1.270kg/liter Diameter 8mm Density: 1100kg/m3 Moisture content: <9% Ash content: <1.8% Sulfur content: <0.01% Nitrogen content: <0.16% Caloric value: 4750 Kcal/kg QUEENSBURY Kevin S. Chapman, the central New York man who pleaded guilty last year for his role in the murder of Glens Falls resident Kevin Jenks, was sentenced to up to life in prison Thursday in Warren County Court. Warren County Judge John Hall imposed an 18-years-to-life term after Chapman apologized as he read from a lengthy statement in which he blamed money problems for his decision to take part in a robbery of Jenks. Hall also heard victims impact statements from Jenks daughter, Monique Reyes, and sister, Cindy Jenks, who told of the impact the homicide had on them. Reyes called Chapman a monster and a coward. She said the loss of her father has had deep impact on her, as she suffers from anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. He was an amazing person who lit up every room he walked into, Reyes said of his father. Cindy Jenks cried as she talked of how her other brother, disabled by a head injury, doesnt understand why Kevin Jenks is no longer around. She said Kevin Jenks was the strength of their family. We will all go on but our family has been altered forever, Cindy Jenks said. Chapman read a statement in which he said he had money problems, and his co-defendant, Robert Henry, came up with plan to rob Jenks. He said he did not know of any plan to hurt Jenks. I will pay for this for the rest of my life, he said. I would change places with Jenks if I could. Warren County Assistant District Attorney Matthew Burin said he believed the maximum term was warranted. Chapmans plea deal called for a range of between 15-to-life and 18-to-life. He said the minimum was not warranted based on Chapmans dishonesty about his actions, including lying at his guilty plea about who had a gun that was brought to Glens Falls. Chapman will have to serve 18 years before becoming eligible for parole. Hall also directed Chapman pay $1,085 in restitution. Chapman, 50, pleaded guilty last fall to second-degree murder and agreed to testify against the man who masterminded the robbery and strangulation death of Jenks in his Dix Avenue home last July. Henry, 46, of Ilion, was convicted of second-degree murder, first-degree robbery and numerous other felonies after a two-week trial in February. Police said Henry was a former resident of the Glens Falls area who knew Jenks, who was a manager at CR Bard Inc. and a former Glens Falls bar owner. Henry and co-defendant Kevin Chapman drove from the motel where they lived in Herkimer County to Jenks home to rob him, and Jenks, 58, was choked to death after he was bound. The men then looted his home, stealing electronics, jewelry and a car, among other valuables. Police tracked them after they used Jenks cellphone when they returned to central New York. Henry is being held in Warren County Jail pending a hearing May 5 on whether he should be sentenced as a persistent felon because of his criminal record, which includes four prior felony convictions. That could add life sentences on top of the sentence he will face for murder. FORT EDWARD The Cambridge man who faces a retrial for a 2011 triple murder and arson wants some of the charges dismissed as well as the alleged murder weapon barred from his trial. The lawyer for Matthew A. Slocum filed a motion Thursday, seeking suppression of all firearms in the retrial, arguing that police learned of the shotgun from Slocum but his admissions to police have been barred from the retrial. The reference to the shotgun stems from the suppressed statements of the defendant, wrote Slocums lawyer, Washington County Public Defender Michael Mercure. Slocum was convicted of three counts of second-degree murder as well as arson and lesser charges for the July 2011 shooting deaths of his mother, Lisa Harrington, 44; her husband, Dan Harrington, 41; and Dan Harringtons son, Joshua OBrien, 24, in their Eagle Bridge home. He allegedly set the Turnpike Road house on fire after shooting them and fled to Massachusetts and New Hampshire with his then-girlfriend, Loretta Colegrove, and their infant son. Slocum was convicted during a trial in 2012, but the conviction was reversed, because appeals courts found that police denied him his right to counsel when questioning him in an interview that led to a confession. That confession is barred from the retrial. Slocum was in Washington County Court on Thursday for a status conference in his case. Prosecutors from the Albany County District Attorneys Office assigned to the case as special prosecutors were going over evidence issues and discussing pretrial motions. Slocum did not speak during the proceeding. Mercure is seeking dismissal of four lesser, theft-related charges that were thrown out during the 2012 trial, arguing he can not face them again after that dismissal. The district attorneys office informed Mercure it had emails from Slocum that he sent from Washington County Jail that may be used as evidence at trial, although prosecutors did not elaborate on what they contain. Inmates can pay to use jail computers to access email services. Lawyers in the case are also debating whether testimony from the late Washington County sheriffs Senior Investigator Bruce Hamilton will be introduced from the prior trial. Much of his testimony relates to the confession that is no longer usable as evidence, Mercure said. Albany County Assistant District Attorney John Galarneau also told Washington County Judge McKeighan that rodents had chewed bags containing evidence that had been stored after the trial, but it was unclear what impact that would have. I dont see that as a major issue, as we believe the evidence implicates Loretta, Mercure said. Matthew maintains his innocence. If it is a problem at all, it is a problem for the people, not the defense. The defense blamed Colegrove for the killings at the first trial. She was not charged, but testified against Slocum in 2012 and is expected to testify in the retrial. McKeighan adjourned the case until May 4. Jury selection in the case is to begin June 8. Mercure said there have been no plea deal discussions in the case. QUEENSBURY A three-time felon is headed to prison for 5.5 years for selling drugs in Glens Falls last year. James J. Sennett, 50, pleaded guilty to attempted criminal possession of a controlled substance, a felony, in connection with his arrest last October by Glens Falls Police. He was arrested and charged with selling unspecified narcotics on two occasions, and had prior felony convictions that included a 2011 conviction in Warren County for selling prescription painkillers. Warren County Judge John Hall sentenced him to 5.5 years in prison to be followed by 3 years on parole. He also has to make $300 restitution for the money he was given by the police informant or undercover officer to whom he sold drugs. QUEENSBURY -- A Level 2 sex offender from Horicon has been sentenced to 9 months in Warren County Jail for not registering his address when moving last fall. Albert B. Denno, 36, of Route 8, pleaded guilty to failure to register as a sex offender in connection with his arrest last fall by the Warren County Sheriff's Office. He is a registered sex offender because of a 2012 felony sexual abuse conviction related to sexual abuse of a 10-year-old girl in Warren County. He was sentenced to 4 months in jail and 10 years on probation in that case. MOREAU The town should stop insuring its three water towers, Supervisor Gardner Congdon proposed. He reasoned that they are unlikely to burn down and are grounded, so they are probably safe from lightning strikes. They are insured for up to $4.8 million in damages. The towns insurance policy premium for all property went up by $5,000 this year, to $85,920. Congdon is trying to cut that back. But board members worried that the town might be taking too much of a risk. The insurance would cover any problems with the water itself, even acts caused by terrorism. If you call it vandalism or terrorism, NYMIR (New York Municipal Insurance Reciprocal) covers both, said insurance agent Dave Meager. If someone gets sick from the water and says you didnt treat it properly, thats covered. If its insured, board member Todd Kusnierz said. Congdon also proposed dropping insurance on the towns salt shed. Its concrete with a roof on it. I know it cost a lot to build, but theres nothing that can happen to it, he said. Meager disagreed, citing an incident in Milton. Their salt shed did burn down, he said. Kusnierz also noted that other things could happen to the building, which cost the town $68,300 to build in 2012. I think we should have insurance, he said, noting that insurance would cover it if it got struck by lightning or blown over. Congdon disagreed. Blown over? Its got concrete walls, he said. Town Attorney Malcolm OHara estimated that the town would save $200 by dropping the insurance on the building. Meager agreed. Your savings is minimal, he said. Im not saying you shouldnt do it. I dont want you to pay one cent more than you have to. The board also considered dropping all insurance on the Sandbar Beach bathhouse and the one-car garage at the old Town Hall in the village. They may also drop comprehensive and collision vehicle insurance on five old pickup trucks, some of which are almost 20 years old. The town would save $1,422 by dropping that coverage, and could save another $1,400 or so by increasing the deductible on heavy equipment, Meager said. The town has a $500 deductible now. For a municipality, thats a low deductible, he said. Those two changes could almost eliminate the entire premium increase. As a former budget officer myself, I like to say, is there a way to reduce the impact of the increase? Meager said. Im doing my best to keep your premium within your budget. He plans to get figures for each proposed reduction in property insurance for the towns next meeting, on April 25. The towns policy expires May 1. KINGSBURY A vehicle carrier driver over corrected after its load shifted causing a rollover Wednesday evening on Route 4. No serious injuries were reported, but three people were involved as well as two vehicles. The vehicles were headed southbound as the truck traveled north at about 5:30 p.m. State Police Sgt. Luke Splittgerber said, One woman was transported for neck and back injuries to Glens Falls Hospital. Her name was not released. She was driving a Jeep Cherokee that experienced extensive damage as it came to rest in a ditch. The windows were broken and airbags deployed. Splittgerber said, The driver of the truck was fine, suffering only minor injuries and was treated at the scene. Shannon OBrien, of Gansevoort, was traveling south in her BMW and opted for the ditch. I just heard a loud screeching and I saw the back end come out, OBrien said. I took the ditch. OBrien was not sure what caused the crash. I couldnt see him, the cab or the other car, she said. OBrien said she was traveling at 50 to 55 mph and the sun was directly in her eyes. Splittgerber said, The truck driver felt his load shift. He said the trailer of the truck swerved into the gravel and likely struck a utility pole at the scene. The truck then fell on its side distributing its load and blocking the roadway. The truck was carrying three vehicles at the time destined for a junkyard. The driver put the value of the automobiles at a couple hundred dollars, Splittgerber said. Two vehicles remained on the back of the carrier while another was thrown. Tow crews were called to the scene to remove the vehicles to allow the roadway to reopen. The Department of Environmental Conservation was also called to inspect the cleanup of diesel fuel and oil and gasoline spilled from the carriers vehicles. Route 4 was closed at Kingsbury Road northbound and at Route 149 southbound. Tractor trailers were rerouted at Route 32 northbound to avoid the area. Kingsbury Volunteer Hose Co. No. 1, Fort Ann EMS, State Police, Washington County Sheriffs Office, DEC and National Grid responded to the scene. President Donald Trump took credit Wednesday for steering NATO's focus toward terrorism, declaring the military alliance is no longer outdated after castigating its focus and financing on the campaign trail last year. "I said it was obsolete," Trump declared at the White House. "It's no longer obsolete." The about-face came during a joint appearance with NATO's secretary general in the East Room. Trump's original stance, which he voiced as a candidate, had caused unease among some US allies, who worried a retreat from NATO would embolden Russia's territorial ambitions in Europe. Trump said Wednesday he'd changed views after NATO's leaders assured him the group would turn its attention to combating groups like ISIS going forward. "The secretary general and I had a productive discussion about what more NATO can do in the fight against terrorism," Trump said. "I complained about that a long time ago, and they made a change and now they do fight terrorism." Trump's allegation that NATO just recently began combating terror isn't accurate; the alliance has played a central role in Afghanistan for more than a decade. Its involvement in that war came after the United States invoked NATO's Article 5, the provision calling for collective defense, after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. Since then, NATO troops have deployed to Afghanistan by the thousands in a bid to stabilize the country and combat terror groups based there. Member countries have also pushed for better intelligence sharing to combat terrorism, which NATO has sought to facilitate through a new Joint Intelligence and Security Division. That addition, however, came in the middle of last year, and NATO said then that the new division wasn't prompted by Trump's campaign rhetoric, but rather a desire among members to better share information after a string of terror attacks in Europe. The meeting Wednesday was Trump's first face-to-face meeting with Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO leader. The two will meet again in May when Trump travels to the group's headquarters in Brussels for talks. Trump has long insisted the US carries too much of the burden within the defense collective, and had angrily lambasted other nations for not spending sufficient amounts on defense. Since taking office, however, Trump has softened his language, saying he'll maintain US commitment to NATO while reiterating its member nations must step up their military financing. "In facing our common challenges, we must also ensure that NATO members meet their financial obligations and pay what they owe. Many have not been doing that," Trump said Wednesday. "If other countries pay their fair share instead of relying on the United States to make up the difference, we will all be much more secure and our partnership will be made that much stronger." Trump's position on NATO has been the subject of consternation for European leaders, who worried his dismissals of the alliance could encourage Russia, which NATO has worked to check through troop mobilizations on the bloc's eastern edge. Trump has voiced support for the group since taking office, however, and Wednesday attempted to assure European nations fearful of Russian territorial aggression. "They are going to have to fear nothing, ultimately," he said. "Right now there is a fear. There are problems, certainly problems, but ultimately I hope that there won't be a fear and there won't be problems and the world can get along. That would be the ideal situation." A whole lot has been written about the Boreas Ponds property, the latest and last parcel in New Yorks grand acquisition of tens of thousands of acres of former Finch Paper land in the Adirondacks. The Boreas land is beautiful, everyone agrees, and although much of it is quite wild, it was until recently managed as timber land and is crisscrossed with logging roads. The three ponds themselves are deeper and bigger than they would be because of a dam that was originally built to make it easier to float out logs cut from the forest. One of the questions drawing lots of attention and debate is whether the dam should be maintained, knocked down or allowed to deteriorate. The other questions concern access. Should the 7-mile road into the property be kept open, so people who want to enjoy this new state jewel can drive right up to it? Should the roads around the ponds and any of the other miles of existing roads be opened to bikers and horseback riders, or should the roads, like the dam, be allowed to crumble away? Those who want to limit and restrict access to Boreas Ponds are advocating for the land to be treated as if its still in private hands. A private owner like Finch Paper can close its roads, knock down its own dam and restrict access to its property. But the public owns the property now. Infrastructure that we paid for, like the roads and the dam, should be maintained. One of the suggestions for management of the property has been to block the road a mile from the ponds and put a parking lot there. But for many older people, a walk of even one mile is an obstacle that makes visiting a place difficult or impossible. If youre a private owner, you can prohibit bike-riding on your roads, even if theyre heavy-duty roads built to carry logging trucks. But when the public owns the land, the publics desire to use it has to be weighed against other interests, such as expansion of the wilderness. It is environmentalists who have pushed over the years for the state to buy Adirondack land. It was an environmental organization the Nature Conservancy that made possible the public purchase of the Finch holdings. But now, it is environmentalists who want the public kept out. The seemingly trivial disputes about use of the Boreas tract have led to such passionate debate that the Adirondack Park Agency recently delayed the decision on how to classify it. There is a failure here by the environmentalists to see things in perspective, which is part of a recurrent inability to appreciate their own victories. But to be fair, the most sensible thing Ive seen written about these issues was by an environmentalist. Peter Bauer, director of Protect the Adirondacks, concluded an essay that criticized the way the Park Agency has approached classification of the land, with the following: Under every classification scenario for the Boreas Ponds tract, far more roads will be closed than retained. The forests will grow wilder and older. Log landings and tote roads will reforest. the inexorable powers of nature will restore the forests that surround the Boreas Ponds, and the promise of the Forest Preserve will endure as a bright place on New Yorks landscape ... The views of the High Peaks from the ponds will be just as glorious if, somewhere in the distance, someone is riding a bicycle along the shore. Welcome Guest! You Are Here: Welcome Guest! You Are Here: Home Regional News East Both China and the US have pushed back on the claims of troops massing, however. International observers fear that North Korea may conduct another nuclear test this weekend on the anniversary of the founding of Kim Jong Un's regime, but the US has broadcast loud and clear that nuclear posturing in the Korean peninsula will no longer be tolerated. In March, Business Insider talked to Sim Tack, a North Korea expert at Stratfor, a geopolitical-analysis firm, who speculated how Chinese forces could stop North Korea's nuclear program without firing a shot. Tack predicted China would "definitely react to and try to prevent" a US strike on North Korea. The US increasingly has touted military strikes as an option against the Kim regime, even going as far as positioning an aircraft carrier off Korea's coast. "The overt presence of Chinese forces would dissuade the US from going into that territory because they would run the risk of inviting that larger conflict themselves," Tack said. Chinese forces in North Korea would "be in a position to force a coup or force Kim's hand" to disarm, Tack said. Ultimately, China, North Korea's biggest backer, would attempt "to make sure North Korea still exists and serves Chinese interests while it stops acting as a massive bullseye to the US," he added. In this way, China could preserve its buffer state from falling to Western influence, prevent a US military strike on its borders, and even prevent a nuclear war. Rep. Mike Coffman of Colorado said during a town hall meeting Wednesday, "He needs to go. Because I just don't think he's serving the president well." Coffman's audience erupted in cheers. Spicer on Tuesday attempted to emphasize the atrocity of last week's chemical-weapons attack in Syria by comparing Syrian President Bashar Assad to Adolf Hitler. Spicer said, "someone as despicable as Hitler didn't even sink to using chemical weapons." Spicer's ahistorical anecdote prompted harsh criticism far and wide, with several high-profile figures, lawmakers, and organizations urging President Donald Trump to fire him. The press secretary, who, in roughly three months on the job, has been cornered for making a number of controversial statements, apologized profusely for the Hitler remark, but also made a couple more verbal blunders in the process. Coffman did the same thing during his town hall meeting after saying Spicer should resign. The audience's cheers briefly turned to boos when Coffman attempted to elaborate on Spicer's Hitler comments. But the number heavily cited across social media, $314 million, was how much the US military paid for 20 such bombs, technically called the Massive Ordnance Air Blast. The US Air Force dropped one MOAB the largest nonnuclear bomb in the US's arsenal on an ISIS target in a remote part of far northeast Afghanistan, according to the Pentagon. White House press secretary Sean Spicer said the goal was to destroy "a system of tunnels and caves that ISIS fighters used to move around freely, making it easier for them to target US military advisers and Afghan forces in the area." One MOAB costs about $16 million, and 20 have been produced, according to the military equipment site Deagel.com. Many celebrities and other Trump critics used Twitter to express their frustration at the administration authorizing the use of such an expensive bomb, but they cited the total cost instead: The official also mentioned that due to the substantial amount of intelligence gathered from the region, the US could not have examined all of the data prior to the attack. No communications that confirmed Russian involvement were intercepted, according to the official, however, he did say that it was likely due to the Russians being more careful in their communications, CNN reported. Russian jets, which may have been purchased by Syrian forces, were reportedly used to drop the ordinance that contained chemical agents. Further, a Russian-made drone was also reported to have been identified in the area, circling potential targets for a follow-up assault that hit a hospital. Since the attack, US officials, including Defense secretary Jim Mattis, confirmed there was "no doubt" of the Syrian government's involvement. Additionally, Turkish officials confirmed that Syria was still in possession of chemical weapons, and that autopsies on the victims did indeed show traces of sarin gas, despite Russia's assertions that Syria's chemical weapons capabilities had been destroyed in 2013. "We know they have the expertise. And we suspect that they have help," a US military official said on April 7. U.S. forces in Afghanistan dropped a 22,000-pound bomb on Islamic State forces in eastern Afghanistan Thursday, the Pentagon announced in a statement. Gen. John W. Nicholson, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said the bomb was the right munition to use against the Islamic State because of the groups use of roadside bombs, bunkers and tunnels. It is the first time the bomb, called a GBU-43, has ever been used in combat. The GBU-43 is one of the largest airdropped munitions in the U.S. militarys inventory and was almost used during the opening salvos of the Iraq War in 2003. By comparison, U.S. aircraft commonly drop bombs that weigh between 250 to 2,000 pounds. This particular bomb is not the biggest in the Pentagons non-nuclear arsenal. The larger 30,000 pound GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, designed for destroying heavily fortified bunker complexes, has never been used outside a test environment. While the GBU-57 is heavier, the GBU-43 has a larger warhead and explosive yield. The U.S. military has targeted similar complexes and dropped tens of thousands of bombs in Afghanistan, raising the question of why a bomb of this size was needed Thursday. It was unclear what the GBU-43 strike accomplished, as the bomb is not designed to penetrate hardened targets such a bunkers or cave complexes. A spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan did not respond to a query regarding the bombs effects on its intended target, an Islamic State tunnel complex in Nangahar province. The Pentagon said in its statement that U.S. Forces took every precaution to avoid civilian casualties with this strike. President Trump on Thursday praised the military as the greatest in the world. We have given them total authorization and thats what theyre doing and frankly thats why theyve been so successful lately, he said. The GBU-43 is an evolution of the unguided 15,000-pound BLU-82 bomb. First used in Vietnam, the C-130-launched BLU-82 was often dropped to turn patches of jungle into helicopter landing zones. This earned the BLU-82 the nickname Daisy cutter. The BLU-82 was used multiple times in the early stages of the war in Afghanistan when U.S. forces were closing on Osama bin Laden in the mountains of Tora Bora on the Afghan-Pakistan border. Nangahars Achin district is a stronghold of the local Islamic State branch in Afghanistan, which U.S. officials say is made up of mostly Pakistani and Uzbek militants. The group, which calls itself Khorasan Province, has struggled to expand beyond Achin and a handful of other districts in the east. - More, washingtonpost The Trump administration has tried to force Moscow's hand with U.S. spy reports about chemical weapons being used in by the Assad regime. It also used them to justify recent missile strikes against Syrian President Bashar Assad's military bases. Trump has also accused intelligence agencies of leaking information about his associates' connections to Moscow, and blamed them for allowing an unverified dossier to be leaked. But he alsoblamed the media no doubtautopsies have showed that sarin gas was used. Russia has instead argued that the Syrian air force carried out a conventional attack that hit a chemical weapons cache controlled by the rebels. However, as chemical weapons expert Dan Kaszeta told Bellingcat, sarin in storage consists of unmixed components, and dropping a bomb on them would not turn them into a nerve agent. "It is an infantile argument," he wrote. In particular, high-deductible health plans are on the rise. According to a September survey, the percentage of workers with an insurance plan that requires them to pay up to $1,000 out of pocket passed the 50% mark for the first time. That means consumers have a clearer picture of how much healthcare costs them, and that unexpectedly high costs are hitting more people. There's been a fair amount of coverage about what insurers, drug companies and middlemen in the healthcare industry are doing. But what can doctors do to counter the rising medical costs patients are facing? Elisabeth Rosenthal, journalist and author of "An American Sickness," which details how the American healthcare system got so expensive and dysfunctional, told Business Insider there's one big thing doctors can do to lower the cost of medicine. "It's to bring up the cost issue," she said. "Because it's kind of like the scary Voldemort in the doctor's office." That is, the topic is as taboo as He Who Must Not Be Named. To that end, here's how Rosenthal's seen doctors try to keep costs down: By referring patients to one imaging facility over another, based on which location has the best deal. "It takes a little extra work," she said. "Physicians will tell me they'll call those facilities and no one will tell them what's charged." But if they hear that one of their patients was overcharged, they have the power to not send them to that center any more. Patients can play a role in this too. Rosenthal recommended having doctors look at her network list, pick out which ones they would recommend based on that group. The next step would be if centers started providing up-front prices. A movement of specialists are Ultimately, physicians have one priorty: making sure you feel well, and costs shouldn't get in the way of that. But having these conversations about cost is a relatively new phenomenon. "I think doctor's are on your side and they're trying to innovate, but it's new for them too, this world of prices and costs," she said. "It's just because insurers have mostly in the past just paid, we've all been kind of blind to this, and now patients are waking up." If alien life exists, it will likely be found in a place with three key ingredients: water, warmth, and food. Scientists have long thought such conditions may exist under the icy shell of Enceladus, a moon of Saturn that's about 272 miles (505 kilometers) wide. Those suspicions grew after NASA's Cassini spacecraft found plumes of water shooting out fissures in the ice. But Cassini also "sniffed" and "tasted" the water of Enceladus, and on April 13, scientists revealed they'd found traces of hydrogen a gas that deep-sea microbes on Earth can eat for energy. Scientists behind the new research, which was published in the journal Science, also think the gases likely form and bubble up from hydrothermal vents that litter the dark seafloor of Enceladus. "This is the closest we've come, so far, to identifying a place with some of the ingredients needed for a habitable environment," Thomas Zurbuchen, the head of NASA's science mission directorate, said in a press release. While the discovery does represent any evidence of aliens, the space agency says the new information "will help inform future ocean world exploration ... and the broader search for life beyond Earth." A candy store for microbes On Earth, hydrothermal vents form in the darkness of the deep ocean, where seawater seeps into the planet's rocky crust, meets volcanically active rock, and blasts back toward the surface. The intense heat and chemistry of rocks can rip molecules of water apart to form hydrogen, carbon dioxide, and other chemicals, which gush out of holes in the seabed. Where sunlight is lacking, this chemistry can be a lifesaver: Certain microbes can process the hydrogen into sugar. When Cassini tasted the plumes coming out of Enceladus, about 99% was water and 1% was hydrogen. That amount of hydrogen "is considered to be one of the most powerful chemical energy sources that could support life," Alexis S. Templeton, a geologist and microbiologist at the University of Colorado at Boulder, told Business Insider in an email. "It would be like a candy store for microbes," Hunter Waite, a space scientist and lead author of the new study, said in NASA's press release. , a research scientist at the Southwest Research Institute and a co-author of the study, put it a little differently: Enceladus is generating about 300 pizzas' worth of calories an hour through hydrogen production, he said during a televised press briefing about the discovery. However, while many scientists think life on Earth may have started out at hydrothermal vents more than 3.7 billion years ago, the new evidence of hydrothermal vents at Enceladus doesn't mean we've found extraterrestrial life. In fact, Cassini finding as much hydrogen leaking into space as it did should dishearten fans of aliens. "Normally when you put a stack of pizzas in a cafeteria, they disappear quickly," Mary Voytek, an astrobiologist at NASA, said during a televised press briefing. "So we have this build-up of food that's not being used." Still, many scientists we contacted were optimistic about the findings. Kevin Hand, a planetary scientist at NASA JPL who wasn't involved in the research, told Business Insider that if Enceladus does indeed harbor such microbes, they could form the base of a food chain within the moon that could be "somewhat similar to what we see at sites like the Lost City hydrothermal site on Earth." And Mark Sykes, director of the Planetary Science Institute, says the discovery of hydrogen gas at Enceladus backs up computer models of how subsurface oceans work on icy worlds across the solar system, including Europa (a moon of Jupiter), Ceres (a dwarf planet in the asteroid belt), Pluto, and possibly Titan (another moon of Saturn). "For decades we have been asking the question, 'Does water equal life'?" Sykes told Business Insider in an email. "Enceladus is making the contents of its subsurface ocean directly available to us so we can drill further into this question." An icy barrier to humanitys biggest questions The new study isn't foolproof, though. One of its big unanswered questions, says Philipp Heck, a cosmochemist at the Field Museum, is whether Enceladus' water jets are actually a good representation of its ocean water. "As that liquid escapes, some of it forms ice and stays behind, and some of it doesn't and continues into the vacuum of space," Heck, who wasn't part of the research team, told Business Insider. "So the composition Cassini sampled may be different than the original liquid." This makes it much harder to know if the water sampled by Cassini in 2015 was representative of Enceladus' long history. If the mix of chemicals in the jets and the ocean are similar, then it's likely Enceladus has harbored a life-friendly environment for millions of years. Some scientists even want to drop nuclear-powered robots into the ocean to map its sea floor, but this could be difficult since the moon's icy crust is probably 2 to 3 miles (3.2 to 4.8 kilometers) thick. However, the cracks that spew out water from Enceladus may offer shortcuts. "Wouldn't it be great to dive into those ice fractures with a robotic spacecraft and swim through that ocean?" Hand said. NASA hasn't announced any plans to re-visit Enceladus, though it is working on the Europa Clipper mission. That probe will orbit Jupiter's moon, map its icy crust, and look for water plumes similar to those spewed out by Enceladus. (Images by the Hubble space telescope suggest plumes exist at Europa, but the photos are too grainy to say for certain.) A previous version of the mission to Europa called for a lander, but a recently approved NASA budget axed it. Assuming NASA could scrape together enough financial support to scout for signs of life in an alien ocean world, however, Voytek knows which one she'd pick. "My money for the moment is still on Europa," Voytek said, "but it could be on any of these moons." They say government has refused to pay them since April last year. According to the Chief Executive Officer of the Chamber of Pharmacy Ghana, Anthony K Ameka, says the pharmacies who accepted NHIS cards have no money and are unable to purchase drugs from suppliers anymore. READ ALSO: Government to clear backlog Of Nurses He expresses that though they are willing to provide effective healthcare services government is not helping considering the accumulated amount in arrears. "Government is the major beneficiary of services provided by these pharmacies and nonpayment of supplied medicines on time makes their work very difficult. We have been pressured by producers to make payments but have no money to do that". We are overwhelmed by the situation. For a whole year we have not had payment for services rendered and this is gradually crippling our business, he added. He stated that importing medicines these days is very difficult and each time we import, we are expected to pay within 45 days but government does not also pay within that stipulated period. Some of the companies are folding up because government is not settling its indebtedness and owners have to contract loans at a high interest. Foreign companies are now taking over most of the companies in Ghana because the locals are unable to overcome some of these challenges, he observed. The High Commissioner who spoke to 3FM NEWS said we commend the government for their seriousness in approaching the galamsey issue; they are not shying away but recognizing that it cant be ignored. We would like to give credit to the sector minister John Peter Amewu for his excellent work in tackling the issue which is a problem for a lot of people, he added. READ ALSO: US to strengthen bilateral relationship with Ghana for economic growth The Ambassador also said illegal mining has become an issue of concern due to its negative impacts on the environment . it is bad for the environment, poisoning the water bodies degrading the agricultural land, threatens Ghanaians who work in the mining industrythe menace cheats the government of revenue and is a disincentive for investment. READ ALSO:Singapore pledges to support industries in Ghana He intimated that the Australian government is in firm support of the Ghanaian governments fight against illegal mining. We are working in partnership with them; were helping to sponsor a stakeholders engagement meeting later in the year to bring all concerned to talk about the issue. We see this as an issue that has to be tackled so we are keen on working with the Ghanaian people on it. READ ALSO:Germany to help Ghana clean its payroll system She said the note, issued to celebrate the Banks with new security features of international standard, continued to receive commendations across the globe and urged the citizenry to keep it clean to market the country. Issued to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Bank, the notes she said meet all required international standards with its new security features and has been commended across the globe. She urged Ghanaians to keep the notes clean to continue to keep the good image of the country. Ms Ashiley made these assertions while addressing the media and representatives of banking institutions need to introduce the new GH5.00 banknote. She highlighted the issuance of commemorative banknotes was an international practice and that the country did not do anything out of the ordinary. Ms Ashiley said the notes were a one-off prints and that they would not be reprinted, thus, a collective item, which individuals could preserve and sell in future for some fortune. Mr Dominic Owusu, Chief Engineer, BoG, who took the participants through public security recognition features of the note, said the tactile mark, which helps the blind to identify the note and the QR Code were very important information features attracting international attention. He said banknotes were business cards for countries and advised the citizenry to use the notes well. The Minister for Finance, Ken Ofori Atta, and the Czech Ambassador to Ghana, Margita Fuschova, signed on behalf of both countries. The agreement gives investors a stable and predictable tax environment and consequently, will encourage investments in both countries. READ ALSO: Here are the countries Ghana has signed Double Taxation Avoidance agreements with It will also eliminate the incidence where income from both countries are taxed twice and as well as increase Ghanas Exchange of Information network, which allows treaty partners to exchange information in order to mitigate tax risk and tax evasion across borders. In addition, tax evasion through the mutual assistance in the collection of taxes will also be reduced. Furthermore, cross border trade and investments between the two countries by the elimination of tax impediments will be greatly enhanced. The agreement will also foster diplomatic and other relations between the two countries. READ ALSO: Ghana signs Double Taxation Agreement with Mauritius This agreement has been entered to by both countries for the Avoidance of Double Taxation and the Prevention of Fiscal Evasion with respect to taxes on income. The Minister for Finance expressed the hope that diplomatic and economic ties will improve with the signing of this agreement. Among the titles causing the most buzz at Cannes this year is Sofia Coppola's American Civil War thriller, a remake of the 1971 version starring Clint Eastwood, featuring Colin Farrell as a wounded soldier who seduces the women around him, including Nicole Kidman and Kirsten Dunst. 'Okja' and 'The Meyerowitz Stories' Netflix is premiering two movies at Cannes for the first time as the streaming giant makes increasing inroads to Hollywood alongside its rival Amazon. "Okja", starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Tilda Swinton, tells the tale of a girl who risks everything to protect a shy giant animal. Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller, Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman meanwhile star in "The Meyerowitz Stories", a comedy about siblings dealing with an ageing father. 'Wonderstruck' and 'You Were Never Really Here' Two Amazon-backed movies have also made the cut for the main competition. Julianne Moore and Michelle Williams star in "Wonderstruck", the story of two deaf children living parallel lives in the 1920s and 1970s. "You Were Never Really Here", the latest feature by "We Need To Talk About Kevin" director Lynne Ramsay, stars Joaquin Phoenix as a war veteran who tries to save a sex-trafficking victim. 'Good Time' "Twilight" heartthrob Robert Pattinson stars in this crime flick by indie director brothers Benny and Josh Safdie, about a bank robber struggling to evade the police. 'Happy End' Fresh from winning a string of accolades for "Elle", Isabelle Huppert is back in Michael Haneke's new family drama, set in northern France against the backdrop of the European migrant crisis. 'The Killing of a Sacred Deer' For the second time at this year's Cannes, Nicole Kidman and Colin Farrell team up for the tale of a boy attempting to bring a talented surgeon into his family, with disastrous consequences. 'Le Redoutable' and 'Rodin' Two French biopics have made it into the main competition. "Rodin" stars Jacques Doillon as the famed sculptor. "Redoutable" (Redoubtable), about legendary movie director Jean-Luc Godard, is the latest offering from Michel Hazanavicius, the man behind five-times Oscar winner "The Artist". 'Les Fantomes de Ismael' (Ismael's Ghosts) This drama about a filmmaker disturbed by the return of a former lover features A-list French talent in the form of Marion Cotillard, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Mathieu Amalric. 'In The Fade' Fatih Akin presents a story of revenge in Germany's Turkish community. 'L'Amant Double' (The Double Lover) French director Francois Ozon's thriller follows a young woman who falls in love with her therapist before realising he's not who she thought he was. '120 battements par minute' A film by French-Moroccan director Robin Campillo following the work of an AIDS charity in Paris in the 1990s. 'Radiance' The latest film by Japan's Naomi Kawase follows a photographer whose eyesight is failing. 'The Day After' South Korean director Hong Sang-Soo will be bringing two films to Cannes -- his new feature "The Day After", and for a special screening, "Claire's Camera" featuring Isabelle Huppert, which was shot partly during last year's festival. 'Jupiter's Moon' The latest offering from Hungarian director Kornel Mundruczo, whose movie "White God" won the Cannes newcomers' prize in 2014. 'Loveless' A brutal depiction of life in a broken family, by Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev. 'A Gentle Creature' Here is a list of Ghanaian artists who have taken advantage of their growing brand to hook up with global music superstars. Shatta wale and 50cent Ghanaian Dancehall artiste, Charles Nii Armah popularly called Shatta shared a video of himself and American Rapper, Curtis James Jackson III, known professionally as 50 Cent. In the video posted on Facebook, the musicians were really enjoying their time together judging from the laughter at the background. READ ALSO: Shatta Wale hangs out with 50 Cent Sarkodie and Ace-hood Years after arguments for Ghanas BET award winner Michael Owusu -Addo popularly known as Sarkodie to do a collaboration with American artiste Ace-Hood, he shot a video with him. The video was finally shot by South African director Justin Campos of Gorilla Films and it became the talk of town for years. Fuse ODG and Edsheeran In June 2016, Edward Christopher also known as Ed Sheeran made a trip to Ghana and recorded a song with Ghanaian born UK residence Fuse ODG. During his stay in Ghana, Ed noted that his favorite food was Waakye which he couldn't do without. READ ALSO: Fancy Gadam receives rousing welcome in Tamale Reggie Rockstone/Kwaw Kesse and Wyclef. Items that were impounded by the police during the arrest on Saturday included five excavators, two Toyota pick-ups, a box of live ammunition. Others were a pump action gun, two locally manufactured guns and a silver pan containing gold dust. READ ALSO: Five Chinese and five Ghanaians back in court over galamsey The arrest of the illegal miners comes on the back of an operation conducted by the Rapid Deployment Force (RDF) of the Eastern Regional Police Command to flush out illegal miners from the region. The Eastern Regional Police Commander, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP) Mr George Alex Mensah, told the Daily Graphic that the suspects, who are currently in police custody, would be put before a court, pending further investigations. Some five Chinese and five Ghanaian illegal miners are already standing trial after being arrested around the Ankobra river in the Western region last month. Mrs Akufo-Addo, who is a native of the region, charged the royals to involve themselves in developmental agenda within their respective communities. The First Lady, who expressed her gratitude for the visit, encouraged active participation by the queen mothers in their various communities to help improve the lives of their people and Ghanaians in general. Speaking at a press conference at the Police Headquarters in Accra, explained that it is a difficult terrain to police. It is not very easy at all to gather the intelligence that we may require. We are aware that some crimes are being committed in there and it is such a difficult terrain. READ ALSO: Five arrested over Agbogbloshie clashes The IGP said a major solution to the problem presented in Old Fadama is for us to ensure that the people are relocated. With intelligence, we may gather it, but for 100 percent, we are unable to achieve. These are some of the lapses in intelligence gathering that occasionally we encounter. Two people died after a recent clash between Konkombas and Dagombas at the Agbogbloshie Yam Market on Tuesday. Several others were left injured. READ ALSO: 2 dead after Konkombas and Dagombas clashes at Agbogbloshie Meanwhile, the Minister of the Interior, Ambrose Derry, has directed the IGP to meet with the leaders of the Dagombas and Konkombas at Agbogbloshie in Accra today [Thursday]. A statement released by the Board on Thursday said the three, namely Madugu Suraku, Maxwell Momo Golafale and Daniel Njoku Egbuta were arrested on different occasions possessing and trafficking in narcotics while going through arrival and departure formalities. It said that Madugu, a Ghanaian was arrested on March 29, 2017 on his return from Nairobi Kenya. "A urine test conducted on the suspect proved positive for narcotics. The suspect, upon interrogation confessed having ingested 35 pellets of a powdery substance suspected to be speedball. Forensic analysis confirmed the substance being speedball, a combination of cocaine and heroin, all nacortics substance," the statement said. READ ALSO: What cocaine does to your body and brain A second suspect, Maxwell Momo Golafale was arrested two days later while going through departure formalities to China. The statement indicated that he had concealed in his luggage "two slabs of compressed dried leaves suspected to be cannabis, popularly referred to as weed." Daniel Njoku Egbuta, the third suspect, who is a Nigerian was arrested on arrival from Sao Paolo, Brazil on April 5, 2017. The suspect had ingested 111 pellets of cocaine. A urine test conducted on him showed that it was cocaine. The statement added that Egbuta later confessed being an ex-convict, having served a jail term for similar drug trafficking offence in Ecuador. He has since expelled all 111 pellets of cocaine. The three suspects have been arraigned before court for prosecution. The eight suspects have been charged with causing disturbance in court, resisting arrest and rescuing persons in lawful custody. They had been denied bail by a Kumasi Circuit court on Monday, April 10, when they were remanded in police custody. This was in spite of arguments by their lawyer, Gary Nimako, that their offence was a bailable one. READ ALSO: Police arrest eight vigilante members who stormed court to free suspects on trial He argued that the case centred more on national security and hence his clients should be bailed but the judge refused. The lawyers subsequently took their plea for a bail to the High Court after the denial. In a statement issued by ACEP, it said: this signals timely completion of the Sankofa Gye Nyame (SGN) field Development, estimated to produce 2,633,110 barrels of oil in 2017 when production starts in the last quarter of the year. READ ALSO: Ameri Power Plant has no operating license Though the projected production for 2017 is not significant compared to the existing field, this will contribute to overall fiscal stability in governments estimates for the year. The vessel, which has the capacity to produce 58,000 barrels of oil and 98 million standard cubic feet of gas daily, was named after ex-president John Agyekum Kufour. It will operate at the Offshore Cape Three Point oilfields in the Western Region. READ ALSO: Breakdown of how much Ghana loses to illegal imports The FPSO Kufuor is owned by ENI Oil, Ghana Limited, Vitol Upstream, Ghana Limited and the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation. It is expected to sail into Ghanaian waters by April 2017, to start work. Ghanas first FPSO was named after the countrys first president, Kwame Nkrumah. The vessel is estimated to cost US$875 million. The second vessel was named after Professor John Evans Atta Mills. READ ALSO: FIGOSP proposes a minister in charge of local content According to ACEP this development signals prospective investors of the oil and gas potential of the country. It is, therefore, important for government to take advantage of the current upstream environment to attract capable companies to sustain oil production. Further bold step will be required to sanction companies holding on to licenses without meeting their minimum work obligation. We recommend that non-performing contracts should be reviewed and, where necessary, relinquishment decisions be urgently taken on inactive blocks to free up space for more serious investors. Ex-President Mahama was addressing his former appointees of his administration when he met them to show his appreciation for the work they did during his governance. But Mr Mahama justified his appointments saying the critics possibly do not like his appointees. Just say I dont like the people, not that they are young because all those people you are referring to are above 40 years. How can you call a 40-year old man with a wife and children, a young man surrounding the President? I cannot understand. When I became deputy Minister to my brother, Ekwow Spio-Garbrah, I was 39 years old. Yes, we were young, but we served and served properly. Im sure Spio was around 40 years at the time. We cant say he was a small boy. In the evolutionary period, all those who surrounded President Rawlings were in their twenties and thirties. So its not about age, he argued. He further stated that the NDC has always given opportunities to the young people to prove themselves and there was no need to blame them. Our party has always given opportunity to young people that are what we are, so if we lose we cannot blame young people for our loss. And the point is that the demographic of Ghana is shifting in favour of young people, 35 and below makes up 60% of our population. So if you want to appoint officials, where are you going to get them from? he asked. Blame me for NDC's 2016 defeat Meanwhile, the former President has asked critics within the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to blame him for the loss of the party in the 2016 general elections. The cause of our loss is multifaceted, adding that the accusations should be directed at him. Addressing a press conference on Wednesday, the NDC Chairman, Kofi Portuphy said the party finds it surprising that these same groups that had previously condemned every action of the previous government have now remained silent. All of a sudden, they have abandoned their neutral outlook. They have ceased being the conscience of the nation. We dont want to believe the attitude of some clergy and civil society towards the disturbing developments in the political scene in Ghana is borne out of political or ethnic prejudice or is arousing out of hypocrisy and double standards, he said. Mr Portuphy added that a number of such groups only condemned the Delta Force attack on the court where 13 members of the pro-NPP vigilante group escaped. He, however, criticised the groups for not coming out publicly to condemn the NPP attacks on members of the NDC. Where was the Ghana Bar Association, CODEO, Peace Council when the NPP brought in mercenaries from South Africa to train these terrorist elements. Where was the Peace Council, when after the elections, these NPP elements attacked, burned down and a took over operations of toll booths at Tiafre in the Brong Ahafo Region and in Tema at the Motorway? The passenger, 69-year-old David Dao, has obtained a personal-injury lawyer and asked the Cook County Court to issue an order for United and the city of Chicago to keep all footage, audio recordings, and any other reports and material from the flight, according to the Chicago Tribune. The incident involving Dao happened Sunday evening in Chicago aboard a plane bound for Louisville. A fellow passenger recorded a video that showed Dao being yanked from his seat and dragged off the plane with blood on his face. Dao told WLKY, a local Kentucky station, on Tuesday that he was still being treated at a Chicago hospital for injuries he suffered. He also said he was not doing well and "everything" was injured. United said in a statement that it needed room on the aircraft to transfer crew for another flight and that it offered $1,000 to customers to give up their seats. When no one volunteered, it selected several passengers to deplane. Dao was chosen, but United said he refused to get off the plane. Employees then contacted Chicago Aviation Department officers to help remove Dao. One of the officers involved has since been put on leave, and the department has launched an investigation. United's CEO, Oscar Munoz, quickly came under fire for his initial response to the incident. He issued another statement on Tuesday formally apologizing for how Dao was treated. "Like you, I continue to be disturbed by what happened on this flight, and I deeply apologize to the customer forcibly removed and to all the customers aboard," Munoz said. "I want you to know that we take full responsibility and we will work to make it right." In an interview with GMA, Munoz said he apologized to the passenger identified Tuesday as Dr. and promised that nothing similar would happen on a United Airlines flight again. "The first thing that I think is important to say is to apologize to Dr. Dao, his family, the passengers on that flight, our customers, our employees that is not who our family at United is," Munoz said. "You saw us at a bad moment, and this can never, will never happen again on a United Airlines flight. That's my premise, and that's my promise." The high court in the capital, Podgorica, said the 14 people were charged with "creating a criminal organization." The two Russians were also charged with "terrorism." Montenegrin authorities said the 14 accused attempted to take over parliament, assassinate then-Prime Minister would have forced their way inside and, during the confusion, opened fire on the crowd "so that citizens would think that the official police are shooting at them." Had it been executed, such a scenario would have had an unforeseeable consequence," he told The Telegraph. Larry Pittman, a Republican representative from Concord, North Carolina, was defending a bill he filed on Tuesday that would restore a ban on same-sex marriage, in defiance of the US Supreme Court. One commenter told Pittman to "get over" the marriage ruling, eliciting the lawmaker's head-turning response. "And if Hitler had won, should the world just get over it? Lincoln was the same sort (of) tyrant, and personally responsible for the deaths of over 800,000 Americans in a war that was unnecessary and unconstitutional," Pittman said. The seemingly unprompted comparison to Hitler drew immediate backlash from other commenters, one of whom asked him to explain why he thought the Civil War was "unnecessary." Pittman's office did not respond to a request for clarification. The "Uphold Historical Marriage Act," sponsored by Pittman and three other Republicans, says that the Supreme Court's 2015 ruling on same-sex marriage "is null and void in the State of North Carolina," and contains language from the Bible. The bill would order state government to return to Amendment One, a same-sex marriage ban that was approved by voters in a 2012 referendum. The bill is not expected to be heard. Thanks for signing up for our daily insight on the African economy. We bring you daily editor picks from the best Business Insider news content so you can stay updated on the latest topics and conversations on the African market, leaders, careers and lifestyle. Also join us across all of our other channels - we love to be connected! The GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast, whose acronym has inspired the nickname "Mother of All Bombs" or "MOAB," weighs over 21,000 pounds. It was developed during the Iraq War. It had not been used in combat until now. It was dropped on an ISIS-Khorasan, or ISIS-K, camp in the Achin district of Afghanistan's Nangarhar province, which borders northwest Pakistan, US officials with direct knowledge of the mission told CNN. An online simulator called HYDESim, which stands for High-Yield Detonation Effects Simulator, "maps overpressure radii generated by a ground-level detonation." "These radii are an indicator of structural damage to buildings," the simulator says. Through the simulator, you can see how the MOAB would affect New York City, Los Angeles, London, and other big cities, based on the HYDESim's estimate of its explosive yield. (The exact yield is classified, but it's approximately .011KT) Based on the simulator's calculations, the effects of the bomb would be widely felt, causing "most glass surfaces, such as windows" to shatter, "some with enough force to cause injury" as much as a mile from the blast site, according to the simulator. The actual blast would likely destroy one or two city blocks. By contrast, the US's most powerful nuclear bomb the B83, with a 1.2 megaton maximum yield would have a blast radius of nearly 20 miles. The MOAB strike on Thursday "was designed to minimize the risk to Afghan and US forces conducting clearing operations in the area while maximizing the destruction of ISIS-K fighters and facilities," US Central Command said in a statement. "As ISIS-K's losses have mounted, they are using IEDs, bunkers, and tunnels to thicken their defense," Gen. John Nicholson, commander of US forces in Afghanistan, said in the statement. "This is the right munition to reduce these obstacles and maintain the momentum of our offensive against ISIS-K." Watch footage of the MOAB being tested: Now, Kim Jong-un stands within a few years of completing a credible intercontinental ballistic missile the US would very much struggle to defend against. Despite the UN and key players like China and the US consistently voting in favor of sanctions on North Korea, the regime still finds way to slip around them. Much like their nuclear warheads and missiles, North Korea's sanction evasion techniques are " One tactic North Korea has used for shipping missile components and military equipment is sailing under false flags. Though it's illegal to trade military goods with North Korea, a North Korean ship, the 'Jie Shun,' was seized in Egypt carrying tens of thousands of North Korean-made explosives while sailing under a Cambodian flag. For small Asian countries who cannot afford arms and equipment from China and can't get past US and European arms regulations, North Korea offers cheap, accessible gear. North Korea injects uncertainty into the paper trail of its banking system by using " US forces in Afghanistan dropped the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb, whose acronym has inspired the nickname "Mother of All Bombs," over the Achin district of Afghanistan's Nangarhar province, which borders northwest Pakistan. The MOAB, which was developed during the Iraq War, is the US's largest nonnuclear bomb and had not been used in combat until now. The 30-foot-long bomb weighs 21,000 pounds 18,700 pounds of which is the warhead and was dropped from a C-130 aircraft a little after 7 p.m. local time on Thursday, the Pentagon said. "This is a weapon that would be used against a large footprint on the ground," CNN analyst Barbara Starr said. The target in question was reportedly an ISIS complex of tunnels, caves, and a camp where personnel were assembling. The bomb explodes in the air above its target and creates overpressure designed to crush tunnels and everything in them. The area is very close to the Pakistan border, Starr said, and "is still a border that is not really controlled." "And they have seen ISIS develop on the Afghanistan side of the this border," she added. "At 7:32 p.m. local time today, US forces - Afghanistan conducted a strike on an ISIS-K tunnel complex in Achin district, Nangarhar province, Afghanistan, as part of ongoing efforts to defeat ISIS-K in Afghanistan in 2017," US Central Command said in a statement, referring to the ISIS branch in Afghanistan and Pakistan, ISIS-Khorasan. "The strike used a GBU-43 bomb dropped from a US aircraft," the statement said. "The strike was designed to minimize the risk to Afghan and US forces conducting clearing operations in the area while maximizing the destruction of ISIS-K fighters and facilities." "As ISIS-K's losses have mounted, they are using IEDs, bunkers, and tunnels to thicken their defense," Gen. John W. Nicholson, the commander of US forces in Afghanistan, said in the statement. "This is the right munition to reduce these obstacles and maintain the momentum of our offensive against ISIS-K." Russia, Pakistan, and China have also warned of increasing ISIS activity in Afghanistan. The Central Command statement said US forces "took every precaution to avoid civilian casualties." However, the size and power of the MOAB means damage to the surrounding area can be extensive. "Dropping a 21,000 lb bomb is not exactly a battle," journalist Jeremy Scahill said on Twitter about the bombing. "It's a mass killing machine." The MOAB's deployment comes just a few days after a US Special Forces operator was killed in the same region of the country during operations against ISIS. "The soldier was mortally wounded late Saturday during an operation in Nangarhar Province," US Navy Capt. Bill Salvin said on Twitter on Saturday. You can see video footage of the MOAB below: The Taliban has also been resurgent in Afghanistan in recent months, reclaiming territory that US-coalition forces had long fought to hold. In 2016, Afghanistan reportedly lost almost 15% of its territory to Taliban control. Other important development programs, including education, infrastructure, and women's rights, are reportedly foundering. In recent months, civilians have come under fire, both from ISIS and Taliban attacks and from coalition forces. Questions have been raised about how US officials apportion compensation in incidents where Afghan civilians are killed in US-led military operations. US conduct in Afghanistan has also attracted criticism. The International Criminal Court has said US forces may have committed war crimes in Afghanistan through the "cruel or violent" interrogation of detainees, mostly from 2003 to 2004. Numerous US military officials have also expressed concern about Russian activity in the country. Afghan officials have said Iran and Pakistan have provided aid to the Taliban. Army Gen. Joseph Votel, the chief of US Central Command, has said the war in Afghanistan has settled into a stalemate and that he thought "it will involve additional forces to ensure that we can make the advise-and-assist mission more effective." The US-led war in Afghanistan will enter its 16th year in 2017. This spring, 300 Marines are scheduled to deploy to the country. Even after 15 years of occupation, opium cultivation in the country has risen, going up 10% in 2016, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. Afghanistan's deputy minister of the interior for counternarcotics said the country's campaign against drugs was failing. "The government is too busy fighting against terrorism and the Taliban and is losing the battle against drugs," he said in October, "but everything is interconnected." The US has deployed heavy ordnance in the country before. In November 2001, during the initial invasion of Afghanistan, the US dropped "daisy cutter" bombs which weighed 15,000 pounds and were first used to clear helicopter landing zones in the jungles of Vietnam on Taliban positions. 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! The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) gathered that the gunmen also abducted four staff of two Telecommunication companies. Lagos Police Commands Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), ASP Olarinde Famous-Cole, who confirmed the incident, said the policemen killed, were taken by surprise. He said the command was after the suspected gunmen, assuring that measures would be taken to ensure the release of those held captive NAN gathered that the gunmen had stormed the place from Ode-Omi creek, a border town between Lagos and Ogun States, to commit the crime. An eyewitness, Jude Ajagun, said those abducted were staff of TYDACOM Limited and Erickson Limited. We were working in a site being developed by one Onoside, who contracted us. While on duty, we started hearing sporadic gunshots and we scampered for safety; I hid beside some blocks, while I was watching the scene. I saw about six heavily armed men; three were wearing mask and they sighted three policemen attached to an estate developer and shot them dead. Two other civilians were also shot while four others were injured. The gunmen thereafter, abducted four staff of Telecom companies and marched them towards Ode-Omi, Ajagun said. A staff of Ericson, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they had been keeping vigil since Wednesday. He said that as at Thursday, the gunmen were yet to establish contact with the company. We are expecting a call from them to know what they want as ransom, but they have not established contact with us. We are appealing to the kidnappers to tamper justice with mercy as those abducted are innocent. And now, May is not sure she wants to go ahead with the wedding again. Read her story here: "My name is May, a 28-year-old troubled woman. I am in a serious dilemma at the moment because my wedding is coming up in June this year but I am not sure I want to go through with it. While my fiance, Jason, and our families are looking forward to the wedding with great anticipation, my enthusiasm has been dwindling by the day and at times, I have been tempted to tell him The reason for my lackadaisical attitude to my wedding is the sudden appearance of Prince, my ex-boyfriend who dumped me four years ago and traveled out of the country. In truth, Prince was my first real love and despite the fact that we have been apart for four years, the love I had for him has never been able to quench and with his coming back into my life has further complicated things for me. I find myself falling in love with him all over again and in spite of myself, I believe we were meant to be together and I am even happy he came back before I got married to another man. I am not saying that I do not love Jason, after all, I agreed to marry him but Prince is one man that no one can ever replace. I met Prince in my first year at the university while he was in his third year. Before I met him, I had had some relationships but they were all meaningless. Prince became my breath, my life and soul. I worshiped the ground he walked and could do anything for him. When we made love for the first time, I felt more drawn to him and vowed never to sleep with another man as long as I lived. But two years after he graduated, Prince traveled out of the country without letting me know. His friends too could not help matters as no one was sure where he went to. Some said he had gone to an obscure country in Europe, while some said he had traveled to either Asia or South Africa. As days rolled into weeks, months and years and no word came from Prince, I was totally cut off from the world. I stayed for two years without dating any other man. Attempts by friends to match-make me with other men failed. My family was becoming worried and my mother pleaded with me to forget Prince and move on with my life. After so much pressure, I decided to give in to Jason who had been asking me out for a very long time. Our affair did not last for more than eight months when he proposed to me and shortly after, we had our introduction and a date was fixed for the wedding. But just as I was looking forward to it, Prince suddenly showed up. I don't know how he got my number but he just called me up one day in the office and told me he was lodging in a hotel in Festac Town. Without waiting for his invitation, I went to the hotel to see him and it was as if we did not have any break. I just fell into his hands and while we made love, I knew that nothing had ever changed. He told me he had first traveled to China to look for greener pastures but he was deported after some months and in the past four years, he had traversed many parts of the world trying to make ends meet. What finally killed me literally was when he said all he did was to have a better future for me. I told him I was getting married in a month's time and he broke down and cried like a baby. That was when I knew Prince was made for me and the doubts about my intending wedding crept into my mind. I have tried to justify my actions but in truth, I see no reason getting into a marriage I will not be happy in because I will still find a way to sneak into the arms of Prince. May." Dear readers, after going through May's letter today on Morning Teaser, you will agree that she is really confused and needs your advice. So what will you tell her here? How Nigeria voted: She should follow her heart and make a decision - 24% She should let go of the past and move on with her new life - 47% She should tell Jason that she is no longer interested in the marriage - 18% She should seek spiritual guidance to handle the situation - 12% The EFCC uncovered about $38million, N23million and 27,000 from an Ikoyi apartment. This is the latest loot that the EFCC has found this week. The numbers can make someone dizzy. The amount is just staggering. Thanks to the whistle blowing policy, the EFCC is finding stolen money faster than the Colombian government discovering Pablo Escobar's hidden money in Narcos. It's almost unbelievable to think the many empty houses we pass every day in Ikoyi has millions of dollars and Naira stashed in them. It's the same thing as standing on a spot and not knowing there is a treasure buried under it. This describes the struggle of the common man in Nigeria. Money is everywhere, you can feel it but you don't know exactly where it is. It's frustratingly elusive. A lot of sharp guys in the know are now snitching and exposing a lot of corrupt politicians. Nigeria is hard. Money must be made at all costs. Everyone wants a slice of the action right now. Anyway, whistle blowing is the new Yahoo-Yahoo. Why work all month and get a miserable pay when you can call the EFCC and blow the lid on some hidden money that you are aware of? Just imagine how much the whistle blower who tipped the EFCC to the money in the Ikoyi apartment would get? That's a whole lot of money. Even the boys who press the keyboards all day won't see that This might be a fool's journey. You have to be an insider within the corruption cabal to know where exactly the loot is. Who cares though? Fortune favours the bold. There is a strong temptation to buy a torch light and search many of the abandoned/unoccupied houses in Ikoyi and Victoria Island. You never know, you might strike gold and stumble on a stash of dollar bundles hidden away. As a patriotic citizen, it is your right to find where these corrupt politicians are hiding our money. It is your civic duty. Also, it will make you a rich man overnight. Serving Nigeria is not free, there must be some monetary reward attached to it at the end of the day. Offor made the appeal while briefing newsmen as part of the activities to commemorate 2017 African Vaccination Week (AVW), which begins on April 24. She recommended for a fund where people can donate money through different kind of taxes such as telephone tax and VAT to support immunisation financing. According to her, GAVI and other partners that are supporting vaccine and immunisation programmes are gradually deflating their support in the country, meaning that Nigeria has to take full responsibility for vaccine financing. The first phase of gradual withdrawal has commenced in 2017. Nigeria will only receive 75 per cent of the donor funding for vaccine and immunisation from GAVI and other partners. In 2018, the support will also drop to 50 per cent and subsequently the support will be deflated by 2022, she said. Offor said the immunisation and vaccination funding gap in Nigeria was above 130 million dollars. As stakeholders we have developed various advocacy groups to persuade government and private sector organisations to bridge the funding gap. Besides, Offor said the NGO is advocating for the local production of vaccines as another alternative of bridging the vaccination gap in Nigeria. She added that National Immunisation Financing Task Team (NIFT) was also working to bring the private sector to support the government on immunisation financing and demand for vaccination services. The AVW is an annual event instituted by WHO regional office and implemented by African countries. The theme of the 2017 AVW is: Vaccines protect everyone, get vaccinated. Bello said this at the commencement of the programme on Wednesday in Minna. Represented by the Project Coordinator of the foundation, Dr Ohize Stephen, she said the training had become necessary to reduce the scourge of the disease which is the second leading cause of female cancer deaths in the country. She said that the idea was to integrate breast and cervical cancer screening into the primary health care system in the state. We believe strongly in strengthening the existing system and bringing in interventions into the system. We intend to improve the capacity of these health workers to deliver and support them and their health facilities, she added. The governors wife disclosed that the foundation would establish a cancer screening unit in each of the 25 local government areas of the state. She said that over 35,000 females are estimated to have cancer each year in the state, with breast and cervical cancer the most common. One of the participants, Ms Rabi Idris, applauded the foundation for the initiative, adding that it will enable them educate and mobilise the women at the grassroots. Cancer is very rampant now and is ravaging women in the state especially in the rural area. This training will help me educate and mobilise the women at the grassroots and ensure that they go for screening regularly, Idris said. Another participant, Mr Salisu Sule, described the training as an eye opener, adding that he is now better informed as he has been taught the symptoms to look out for. According to a report by SaharaReporters, the house which was raided by the EFCC following a whistle blower's confidential alert, is reportedly located at Osborne Towers, Ikoyi, Lagos. The report further revealed that other residents of the house as embattled ex-Chief of Air Staff, Adesola Amosu, a former Managing Director at the NNPC, Esther Nnamdi-Ogbue and Godwin Obla, a senior lawyer and former prosecutor to EFCC. ALSO READ: EFCC discovers $38M, N23M in Ikoyi home Discovered in the house according to a breakdown by the EFCC are $38million, N23.2million and 27,800. Mu'azu is yet to react to the reports that the building belongs to him. The recovery by the EFCC is coming two days after EFCC operatives recovered 547,730 and 21,090 as well as N5,648,500 from a Bureau de Change operator in Balogun Market, Lagos. In the same vein, the EFCC recovered N449, 000, 860 hidden in an abandoned Bureau De Change office also in Lagos six days earlier. ALSO READ: EFCC uncovers N4B owned by ex-Dep Gov This was reportedly confirmed by a military officer and vigilante, according to a report published by Punch. Two male suicide bombers reportedly detonated their explosives at a checkpoint in Dalori, near a camp for internally displaced people on Wednesday evening, April 12, 2017. We lost a soldier in the Boko Haram attack at Dalori Sector 3 checkpoint while a mobile policeman was injured, a military officer was reportedly quoted. It was also reported that the attackers set fire to makeshift sheds at the checkpoint and carted away weapons during the attack. ALSO READ: DSS stops terrorists from attacking US, UK embassies in Abuja "There is a lot of negotiation going on," he said. He said the government has "gone quite far" with negotiations to free more girls. He said one of the major challenges that is stalling their rescue is the existence of two factions in the Boko Haram leadership. Speaking to journalists and activists on Tuesday, April 11, at the state house in Abuja, the Vice-President disclosed that the each faction is holding on to some of the girls. One of the factions is led by Abubakar Shekau, the erstwhile leader of the group, while a breakaway faction is led by Abu Musab al-Barnawi, who is believed to be the son of the late founder of the sect, Mohammed Yusuf. ALSO READ: DSS stops Boko Haram from attacking US, UK embassies in Abuja Boko Haram had seized 276 pupils from the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok on the night of April 14, 2014. About 57 of the girls managed to escape shortly after their abduction. In a statement to commemorate the three-year abduction of the Chibok girls on Thursday, April 13, 2017, President noted that the federal government would do everything necessary to ensure their rescue. Buhari maintained that his administration has successfully degraded the Boko Haram terrorist sect. The president noted that his administration would bend over backwards to ensure the safe return of the remaining Chibok girls. We were determined to secure the release of the Chibok girls and others forcefully abducted from their homes and communities and retake the occupied territories. He said: "Determined to secure the freedom of the abducted girls and recover lost territories, this administration gave the necessary political and logistical backing which energised gallant members of our armed forces and other security agencies to overrun the headquarters of Boko Haram in the Sambisa Forest and scatter the terrorists from their strong base. "Today, the group has been degraded and is no longer in a position to mount any serious, coordinated attack, other than sporadic suicide attacks on soft targets. Even at that, their reach is very much confined to a small segment of the North East where they had previously held sway unchecked. On the Chibok girls, we have had reason to celebrate the return of twenty-four of them and thousands of other Nigerians who were forcibly abducted by the terrorists. As a parent, I am eternally grateful to God that some of the girls were found alive and have been reunited with their families. Government is doing all within its powers to reintegrate the freed girls to normal life. Furthermore, Government is in constant touch through negotiations, through local intelligence to secure the release of the remaining girls and other abducted persons unharmed. Like I have repeatedly said, the federal government is willing to bend over backwards to secure the release of the remaining Chibok girls. We have reached out to their captors, through local and international intermediaries, and we are ever ready to do everything within our means to ensure the safe release of ALL the girls, the president added. Mr Tijjani Tumsah, the Vice-Chairman of the Presidential Committee on North-East Initiative, made the disclosure in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Thursday. Some 276 female students of GGSS, Chibok, located in Borno South Senatorial District, were abducted by members of Boko Haram on April 14, 2014, and 50 of them escaped from their abductors. Among the remaining 219, the government negotiated the release of 21 by the sect in 2016, while three others escaped on their own. We intend to finish with the school before next session and make it functional for educational activities to pick up. We have varieties of programmes, including psycho-social and counselling programmes for women and girls and community engagements." In terms of the structure itself, the school has to be fortified in terms of early warning systems to protect the girls." A whole lot of issues that have been planned to ensure the safety and comfort of the students of the school judging by the previous unfortunate incident, he said. Tumsah said the committee would implement relevant programmes that would boost education, which had suffered a setback through Boko Haram activities in the North-East. He said the committee was contemplating suitable programmes that would help in de-radicalising the youth in keeping with the Muhammadu Buhari administration Plan of Action. Egwu stated this on Thursday when members of the committee visited IDC in Owerri. He expressed displeasure over the poor state of infrastructure in most of the industrial centres visited by the committee. Egwu noted that the committee was in the Owerri centre of IDC for oversight function and to ascertain how the funds appropriated for the centres were utilised. He, however, commended the Owerri centre for being little active, compared to some other centres visited. Sen. Barnabas Gemade, a member of the Committee, also noted that the centres when functional had the capacity to promote industrialisation and increase the gross domestic product of Nigerians. He said that reviving the moribund centres was in line with the diversification policy of the present administration. IDCs are meant to give foundation for producing the middle level staff for industrialisation of the nation. Because they are not working very well and have remained moribund in most of the centres, 23 of them in the country, our level of industrialisation is the way it is. This is part of the reason for the recession which has come to this nation, Gemade said. The Director-General, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), Dr Dikko Radda, said the nations quest for industrialisation would remain a mirage if adequate attention was not paid to the revitalisation of the centres. I believe we are going to get it right this time because the lawmakers are here and they are the people that appropriate funds for the development of these centres. They are really worried about it. Government will put more priorities on IDCs because we are in the process of diversification of the economy. There is no way you can diversify the economy without industrialisation, he said. Mr Matthew Mbanu, the IDC Coordinator in Owerri, who conducted the committee members round both the old and new offices of the centre, identified inadequate power supply as the major problem facing the centre. Sule, according to the prosecutor, D.D Fomyul, robbed one Mrs Zipporah Mang, of her Toyota Corrolla car at gun point. The judge, Justice Y.G Dakwak, adjourned the matter till May 31, when the defence counsel, Mr David Adudu prayed the court to adjourn the matter to enable him file a written address. The prosecuting counsel, Mr Mantu John, holding brief for G.D Fwomyon did not object to the adjournment, but prayed the court to give him three weeks to file his final written address. The judge however adjourned the matter till May 31, to enable both parties file their final written addresses. The prosecutor, Mr G.D Fwomyon, Director of Public Prosecution, had told the court that the defendant in company of two others, now at large committed the offence on Dec. 5, 2013. Fwomyon said that the defendant with two others were armed with a locally made pistol and robbed one Mrs Zipporah Mang, of her Toyota Corrolla car, valued at N3 million. He said that on the said date, the defendant trailed Mrs Mang to her home, Behind WAEC Office, Bukuru, Jos, and robbed her at gun point. The prosecuting counsel said that the defendant had told the police, in a confessional statement, that himself and two others, Abba and Tutu, whom he met in prison sometime in 2010, met on the said date at Angwan Rukuba to arrange for the robbery. The statement quoted the defendant as saying that Abba who knew the complainant and her address guided them to her house, but on reaching there met her absence. The statement said that the defendant and his gang alighted from a Keke Napep when they saw the complainant returning home and they pointed a gun at her. The INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmud Yakubu, disclosed this when he visited the Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr Ibrahim Magu, in Abuja. A statement by spokesman of the EFCC, Mr Wilson Uwujaren, quoted the INEC chairman as saying that 70 of the affected staff in three states were still in denial. Yakubu, according to Uwujaren, said they would be referred to the EFCC for further investigation. Also indicted, he said, are 21 retired staff mostly acting under the aegis of WANEO (West African Network of Election Observers). Yakubu said 21 retirees had been blacklisted from monitoring elections and other activities organised by INEC in the future, according to Uwujaren. If we get our election right, we get our democracy right as the right people will be elected and once we get our democracy right we will get national progress and development on track. INEC is on the same page with the EFCC in this big responsibility of sanitising the country, the INEC chairman was quoted saying. Responding, Magu was said to have expressed the anti-graft agencys readiness to prosecute all the indicted INEC staff. We are already prosecuting some of the INEC staff, we have started in Lagos and we are in the process in Port-Harcourt, Kano and Gombe, Magu reportedly said. While expressing satisfaction with the collaboration between both agencies, Magu commended the INEC boss for supporting the investigation involving some of his staff members. He said: What you have done will change the course of electioneering in this country, by bringing in sanity and credibility. It will send a signal and serve as deterrent to any person who may wish to perpetrate fraud in the electoral process whether as a monitor or staff of INEC. Magu assured INEC of continued support from the EFCC, noting that the agencys functions are central to the future of the country, and that the next election must be different. "The company is serene and has the utmost confidence in the management," its chairman Emma Marcegaglia told shareholders at the group's general assembly in Rome. Eni and fellow petroleum Goliath Shell are accused of corruption in the 2011 purchase of OPL245, an offshore oil block estimated to hold 9 billion barrels of crude, for $1.3 billion. Both companies are charged with corruption in Nigeria and are being investigated by Italian prosecutors in connection with the deal, which allegedly saw Nigeria's former president Goodluck Jonathan and his oil minister pocket bribes. The spotlight intensified Monday when corruption watchdogs alleged that Shell executives knew that money earmarked for the controversial deal was being used to bribe senior Nigerian officials. But Marcegaglia said an internal investigation at Eni had found no wrongdoing. "Internal audits were carried out with the help of independent external consultants. These checks included an examination of the documents made available by the judiciary during the conclusion of the investigation," Marcegaglia said. She said the company was "cooperating fully" with the authorities. In a report by The Nation newspaper, the media office of the ex-President denied the allegations on Tuesday, April 11, 2017. In a statement signed by the ex-president's media aide, Ikechukwu Eze, the allegation was regarded as false and one more in the series of fake news sponsored by those threatened by Jonathans continuously rising profile in the international community. The statement reads The man quoted by the report said he assumed that Dr. Jonathan wouldbe bribed. Since when has the assumption of a crook been enough to smear the reputation of a patriot and international statesman like Dr. Goodluck Jonathan? The report also wrongly claimed that Jonathan and Etete had known each other for years, according to Shell staff, when Jonathan served as a tutor to Etetes children while he was a minister. This claim is clearly ridiculous and nothing can be further from the truth. In the first place, the former President couldnt have been a tutor to Etetes children without first establishing contact with the family. This is because Jonathan met Etete who served as the Petroleum Minister in Gen. Abachas military regime for the first time under the succeeding civilian administration, when he was already the deputy Governor of Bayelsa State. Even then, the fact remains that ex-President Jonathan has never met any of Etetes children. ALSO READ: Goodluck Jonathan denies collecting cash from Malabu oil deal Besides, Jonathan couldnt have been anybodys private tutor during that period, because he was already in the directorate cadre in Oil Mineral Producing Areas Development Commission, OMPADEC (now NDDC), having already left the academia, at the time Etete was a servingminister. This story, coming so soon after the fake news that Dr. Goodluck Jonathan refused British help in rescuing the Chibok Girls (a story that the British Government debunked) and that he plans to contest the 2019 elections (another lie), proves that these fallacious stories are deliberately contrived for reasons that are yet to be publicly disclosed. It is instructive that this same old fable apparently intended to rubbish Jonathans name locally and internationally, is being recycled with more lies added to garnish the narrative, at a time theex-President is making efforts to resolve the issues in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Again, let us point out for clarity and for the umpteenth time that while he was in office and now that he is out of office, former President Jonathan did not open and does not own any bank account, aircraft or real estate outside Nigeria. Anyone with contrary information is challenged to publicly publish same, Eze said. The ex-President also appealed to the media to report facts rather than innuendo and gossip. Bashar said this while decorating newly-promoted officers of the command on Thursday in Lagos. He said that it took Aliyu three years to earn a degree, adding that this had elevated him to a higher level. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Aliyu was promoted from the rank of Customs Assistant 1 to Assistant Superintendent of Customs 2. Bashar said that the Comptroller-General of Customs, Retired Col. Hameed Ali, had promised to encourage officers to improve on their education with a promise to promote officers with additional qualifications. He congratulated the newly-promoted officers, saying that they now had greater responsibilities. Officers should not be seen fighting on the streets. You must keep off assault and you should not exchange words with your subordinates. Take advantage of the generousity of the service because promotion is not a right, but a privilege. I pray that the way we are decorated, we will leave to decorate others too. I wish all the officers will make Customs proud and try to be the change agents, he said. Bashar said that officers in his command benefited from the promotion in all the hierarchies. Speaking on behalf of the newly-promoted officers, a Deputy Comptroller, Mr Adebisi Alade, commended the Customs management for promoting them after the tedious examination. He said that Comptroller Bashar had improved officers attitude to work, adding that officers were proud to associate themselves with the disciplinarian. Alade promised that they would be more dedicated and honest in discharging their responsibilities to government. NAN reports that Comptroller Bashar decorated five other officers who were elevated to the rank of deputy comptroller. Mr Babatunde Akinbiyi, the Public Relations Officer (PRO), Traffic Compliance and Enforcement Agency (TRACE) in Ogun, confirmed the accident to journalists in Abeokuta. He said that the deceased included one female and four males who were inside the commercial bus. He said that the accident involved a white Mazda Bus with Registration number LAGOS LSD 454 XT and Mack truck marked LAGOS AKD 39 XU. The TRACE spokesman explained that officials of the agency at the scene reported that the commercial bus rammed into the truck from the rear during a rain storm in the area. He said that the accident consequently led to a gridlock which affected Gov. Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun, who was travelling to Lagos. The road traffic official said that the governor ordered his security details to commence rescue operations and those injured were rushed to the Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital, Sagamu. According to him, corpses of two passengers who died instantly were also taken to the mortuary. The governor was on his way to Lagos when his convoy suddenly met the gridlock caused by the accident which occurred at the New Makun City along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. Immediately, the governor was aware of the accident, he ordered that the injured should be quickly conveyed to the Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital, Sagamu. The two victims who died instantly at the scene were equally taken to the morgue of the same hospital. The meeting, which took place at the Government House in Abeokuta, had in attendance the deputy governor of Ondo State, Chief Agboola Ajayi, and his counterpart in Ogun, Mrs Yetunde Onanuga. Briefing newsmen after the meeting, Ajayi gave an assurance that people living in both communities would soon realise that they had no reason to fight each other. Ajayi said that the informal meeting was only to discuss issues affecting the two communities. The deputy governor promised to invite his Ogun counterpart to a stakeholders meeting in Ondo State where all the traditional rulers in both communities would have the opportunity to discuss issues amicably. We are one. We will resolve all the issues. We are expecting the boundary commission to come and conduct the survey which had been done in Ogun, and we will amicably agree and come to live together. The two communities have done so many things together. The two governors of our states are credible leaders, so I believe when the community leaders see smiles on television, they will see reason that we mean well, he said Earlier, Onanuga, who also affirmed that the meeting was not official, explained that the sister states deemed it fit to hold a meeting to discuss some of the boundary issues. She noted that the two states had resolved to continue with the peaceful coexistence they had been enjoying in the past. This is not an official meeting. It is an informal one at the instance of his Excellency, the Deputy Governor of Ondo State and Chairman of the Ondo State Boundary Commission. Their administration just assumed office, the two sister states deemed it fit to hold a boundary meeting to resolve some of the issues we have between our two states and that was why the meeting was held. I can authoritatively tell you that we have resolved to go back and talk to our people to live happily, she said. Onanuga said the two states would work with the National Boundary Commission to conduct a survey in Ondo State similar to what was done in Ogun after which a meeting would hold to resolve the outstanding issues. The Governor Akinwunmi Ambode administration told the court on Wednesday, April 12, that it only went back to the community to pack debris. But the lawyers representing the community in court insists that armed men, who shoot anyone that comes into the community, are still stationed in the area. On Friday, March 17, 2017, residents of Otodogbame woke up to the sounds of helicopters, gunboats and police trucks on a mission to demolish the community - the area was levelled afterwards. Offering insight into the cause of the stalemate in the court-ordered mediation between its officials and inhabitants of Otodogbame, the government said it did not pull out of the mediation, but that the residents were making impossible demands. "We appeared before the mediation, but they are asking the government to build houses for them, over 300 people," S. Quadri, counsel to the government told Justice S.A Onigbangbo. "The government never made any offer to the people that were displaced, how do we relocate them, they should not just come anywhere they see and settle. If they want to settle in Lagos, they should come with their money and buy land to settle." Earlier on Wednesday, the court had struck out contempt proceedings instituted by the Otodogbame community against Governor Akinwunmi Ambode. The court said it lacked jurisdiction to try Abode because of the immunity he enjoys. ALSO READ: Lagos govt allegedly evict residents forcefully, set houses on fire However, the court faulted the alleged action of the governor. "If the governor had truly ordered the forceful eviction and demolition of the second applicant, he undermined the principles of the rule of law and the same process which put him in office in the first place," the judge said. Reacting to the judges decision, Megan Chapman, co-director of Justice Empowerment Initiatives, a community-based legal and empowerment organisation which represents the residents of Otodogbame, said immunity is Ambode's escape route. "It was reported to us as at yesterday that government brought two gun boats in the community. So, the reality may be that they arent safe to go back there and enjoy their rights in the community," Chapman said. She said it is clear that Ambode would escape punishment because of the immunity he enjoys. She said: "The judge has made his position clear on this case that he finds the action of the governor reprehensible and in flagrant disregard to the rule of law which is detrimental to democracy in Nigeria. "It is beyond his powers to commit the governor to prison but if he could, he would have and thats a strong pronouncement; and I hope it reaches the ears of the governor so he understands that what he is doing is undermining the rule of law, undermining the principles of democracy and its damaging the society at large." THE GUARDIAN Magu doesnt need Senates nod as EFCC chair Osinbajo Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has declared that Ibrahim Magu does not need the Senates confirmation as the substantive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to function in that position. DSS foils ISIS, Boko Haram plot to bomb UK, US embassies The Department of State Services (DSS) has foiled a plot by Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)-linked Boko Haram militants to attack British, American embassies and other western interests in Abuja. Five suspected members of the group based in Benue State and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) have been arrested in connection with the plot. 11 listed firms fail to file 2016 financial statement to NSE The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) has announced failure by 11 listed firms to meet up with the deadline of filing their Audited Financial Statements (AFS) for the year ended December 31, 2016. THE NATION NEWSPAPER DSS foils planned attacks on UK, US embassies FIVE insurgents suspected to be members of the Boko Haram terrorist group have been arrested by operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS) Buhari insists on Magu IBRAHIM Magu will remain the boss at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the Presidency has said. EFCC finds $43m, N23m, 27,000 cash in Lagos home ACTING on a tip-off, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) yesterday found $43.4 million (about N13.237 billion), N23 million and 27,000 cash at House 16, Osborne Road in Ikoyi, Lagos Island. VANGUARD NEWSPAPER FG negotiating with Boko Haram on Chibok girls Osinbajo The Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, has said negotiations are ongoing for the release of more Chibok schoolgirls still in the custody of Boko Haram terrorists, expressing optimism that the dialogue would yield the desired result. Why Buhari did not attend FEC meeting Lai Mohammed PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari was not on hand yesterday to preside over the Federal Executive Council, FEC, meeting as Vice President Yemi Osinbajo took charge. $1.3bn Malabu scam: Why EFCC raided Adokes Kano home for documents The raid, according to sources, was aimed at retrieving vital documents that could help the security agencies establish a solid case against Adoke, who had already been charged along with eight others over the $1.3 billion controversial Malabu Oil payout. __________________________________________________ THE PUNCH NEWSPAPER Commendation as DSS foils ISIS plot to attack US, UK embassies The Department of State Services said in Abuja, on Wednesday, that it had burst a ring of ISIS-linked Boko Haram members based in Benue State and the Federal Capital Territory. How EFCC recovered $43 million, 27,000 and N23m during house raid The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on Wednesday raided a house in Ikoyi, Lagos recovering about $43m, N23m and 27,000 in cash. We wont replace Magu, says Osinbajo Gasau said the present scholarship arrangement, which is disproportionately focused on the Overseas Scholarship Scheme is not sustainable any longer. A statement by PTDF spokesman, Mr Kalu Otisi, quoted Gusau to have stated this at an interactive session with Vice-Chancellors of Federal Universities in Nigeria. ALSO READ: FG approves N400m for Nigerian students on foreign scholarship He said: "At the centre of the agenda is the domestication of all PTDF training and capacity building programmes, with the implication that Nigerian universities will now play a greater role in the process as partners and major stakeholders. "The bulk of the scholarship for both the Masters and PhDs to be offered going forward, would be for training in Nigerian universities. The PDP Chairman made the comments while speaking with journalists after a visit to the party secretariat in Calabar, Cross River state. He (Fayose) cannot speak for the southwest PDP. The southwest PDP that I know cannot allow the likes of Fayose to be speaking for them, Sheriff said according to The Nation. Fayose is alone and he is speaking for himself not the PDP of southwest. He is the only governor that is causing problem among the 12 PDP governors that we have today. If he wants to leave the party, he should go and there will be peace in the PDP because he is the architect of the crisis in our party. For the record, all the southwest PDP chairmen and their leaders are with me. So where is Fayose getting his support base from? He is alone and hes just playing the script of his author. He should go if he wants, Sheriff added. The PDP has been rocked by a leadership crisis since it attempted to remove Sheriff as chairman in May 2016. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the bills were: Rivers State Education (Return of Schools) Amendment Law of 2017 and Rivers State Honours Law of 2017. Others were: Rivers State Reserve Fund (Repeal) law of 2017, Rivers State University Law of 2017 and Rivers State University Teaching Hospital Law of 2017. The governor noted that the Return of School law was important because it allowed the State Government to intervene in mission schools already returned to their owners. He stressed that the law would help in sustaining the quality of education in mission schools returned by the government to their previous owners. Wike noted that the State Reserve Fund (Repeal) Law is important as the previous law was no longer relevant due to the financial recklessness of the immediate past administration. The governor stated that the past administration refused to obey the law as it carelessly withdrew funds from the savings meant for the future. Between February 12, 2014 and May 27, 2015, the immediate past administration in the state withdrew N53billion from the funds without passing through due process. The State is today suffering from the financial recklessness of that administration as it squandered state resources through illegal withdrawals, he added. The governor stressed that the State University Law of 2017 was created to avert the loss of accreditation of several courses by the University due to directives by the National Universities Commission. Also, the Speaker of the House of Assembly, Mr Ikuinyi Ibani, said that the lawmakers would always place the interest of the state above any other interest in discharging their legislative responsibilities. Father Jacques Hamel, 85, was killed at the altar in front of a handful of worshippers, while conducting a mass last July in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, near the northern city of Rouen. The two 19-year-old assailants slit his throat, further horrifying France and the world two weeks after a radicalised truck driver killed 86 people in Nice. "If it succeeds, the martyrdom of Father Jacques Hamel will be officially recognised according to Church criteria," said the Rouen diocese, for whom Hamel "died for his faith". Beatification is a first step to canonisation or sainthood. In October, Pope Francis agreed to waive the five-year "cooling off" period usually observed after the death of a candidate for sainthood, before launching the process for Hamel's beatification. As Hamel is considered a "martyr", his beatification and canonisation does not require proof of miracles. Hamel's attackers, Adel Kermiche and Abdel Malik Petitjean, were shot dead by police outside the church. The bank, in partnership with CcHub, made the announcement at a press conference which held at the Union Bank head office in Marina, Lagos. Personalities in attendance include Union Bank CEO Emeka Emuwa; Lola Cardoso, Head of Group Strategy at Union Bank; CcHub CEO Bosun Tijani; and Femi Longe, Head of Innovation at CcHub. The Centenary Innovation Challenge is targeted at businesses and ideas in the areas of financial inclusion, education and agriculture, so if you have an interesting idea or business in any of these sectors, be sure to apply. (Note: Businesses applying must be for-profit organisations). Application entries close on May 19, 2017. As an Institution we are taking the lead in tackling social problems in communities where we do business in a sustainable way. Last year, we kicked off our first ever internal innovation challenge in the bank The Annual Case Challenge and we are currently working on implementing the transformational ideas that came through that would allow us provide the simplest and smartest solutions, making our customers lives better, says Emeka Emuwa, Union Bank CEO. We also believe that we cannot tackle these social problems alone which is why today we are partnering with Co-Creation Hub (CcHub) to launch the Centenary Innovation Challenge. ALSO READ: 5 incubators we think were awesome this year From April 25, 2017, the bank (also in conjunction with CcHub) will hold 7 roadshows across the country in Lagos, Abuja, Enugu, Oshogbo, Kaduna and Yola. 10 startups will be selected as semi-finalists and those 10 startups will go into an intensive bootcamp aimed at helping them develop and better flesh out their ideas. Our approach to corporate citizenship helps us leverage on our heritage as a strong financial institution to support local efforts aimed at achieving sustainable development and driving social change. For the past two years, our approach to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has focused on three strategic pillars financial inclusion, agriculture and education and this is the foundation the Centenary Innovation challenge will be built on, said Lola Cardoso, Head of Group Strategy at Union Bank. We have continued to engage communities across the country, which informs our internal decisions. For sustainability, we are also investing in provision of alternative energy sources and also leveraging on businesses that provide recycle resources. With the Centenary Innovation Challenge, there is no better partner than CcHub as regards our plans moving forward. After the bootcamp, the 10 startups will pitch to a panel of experts and three startups will emerge winners. A N1 million prize awaits the second runner up, N1.5 million goes to the first runner up, and N2 million for the first place winner. This will be in addition to networking, mentorship and other non-financial opportunities that will be made available to the chosen startups. Based on our work for the past 7 years, we have seen that there are very few credible platforms to leverage on to build sustainable businesses in Nigeria. This partnership with Union Bank for the Centenary Innovation Challenge is important to us, especially in implementing platforms that can help us provide solutions for our communities and the country as a whole," said Bosun Tijani, Co-Founder and CEO at CcHub. "Over 98 per cent of support we get is derived from outside Nigeria, so this relationship with Union Bank is our first with a Nigerian financial institution. Clearly, this is a commitment that we would want other reputable institutions to emulate. Contrary to what a few people might think, a lot of Nigerians love Big Brother Naija. For the drama, for the banter, for the sheer love or sometimes hate, for the housemates. And it got us wondering, what group of individuals drive Nigerian followership this much? Politicians. So we thought up a few politicians and imagined what it'd look like if they, with their personalities and character, made it to the show. 1. The Chief Drama Queen/King. Is there any Nigerian politician more dramatic than Uncle Dino Melaye? Dino Melaye is literally becoming a weekly show at this point, giving us back to back drama, whether he's saying people should patronise "Made in Nigeria" women, or he's fighting over something in the house, Dino is a qualified candidate. Period. 2. The Baby Boy/Yoruba Demon. What do we have here? Someone who can dance at the weekly Big Brother Parties? Check. Someone who can still do ruthless things in the house just so he can win his game? Check. Ambode it is. 3. The "Everybody Hates Me" Jerk. We all know the Big Brother House needs one person who is unnecessarily dramatic, who believes everyone is trying to victimise them. Who believes people might even kill them. But in actual fact, no one really gives a fuck. Nyesom Wike's the guy for this one. 4. The Resident Intellectual. The house smartass who just seems to know everything and have two heads. And yes, they still manage to have sharp mouth and have drama in them. Best candidate for this one is definitely El-Rufai. 5. Miss Independent. Independent? Won't take nonsense? Who else? Florence Ita-Giwa. 6. Most likely to be the first to sleep with someone. He will go to any lengths to get the attention he wants. The way he wants. When he wants. Give it up for Fayose. Also likely to win, because life is not just fair sometimes. 7. So much potential but will be eliminated at the second eviction. I mean, people know he's bright. People know he might hold some promise. But people just don't dig him. I mean, it sucks to be Atiku at this point. 8. The Chilled Lady who somehow makes it to the final. Have you ever thought that perhaps, the most likely, but unhyped woman that might make it to the Presidency in Nigeria might just be Abike Dabiri? What are the odds? 9. He's probably fine, or fresh, or neat, but inconsequential in the big scheme of things. Need I say more? Do we need to call Ben Bruce when it's pretty obvious? 10. That Sufferhead story we empathise with. Nigerians like to hear a sufferhead story. It makes success more valid. It satisfies a deep aspiration we all have; the aspiration to blow, and go and give testimony. So, tell them you didn't have shoes were you were a kid, and they'll vote for you in drovveeeees. Who's going to be Big Brother though? Easy, The Godfather. Gotovina was acquitted on appeal by a UN court in 2012 for war crimes against Serbs in neighbouring Croatia during that country's 1991-1995 war, as the break-up of the former Yugoslavia unleashed a string of bloody conflicts across the region. The Hague-based tribunal had initially sentenced Gotovina to 24 years in jail for war crimes against Serbs during the August 1995 Operation Storm, which Gotovina commanded and which practically ended the war in Croatia. In Bosnia, a police spokeswoman in the southern town of Trebinje said Wednesday that they had filed charges with national prosecutors against a person identified only by the initials A.G., on suspicion of "committing war crimes against civilians and humanity". Local media identified the suspect as Gotovina. The crimes were committed in 1992 in the western Bosnian region of Livno, police spokeswoman Jovana Cvijetic told AFP without elaborating. Serbs fled Livno during the war, and some now live in Trebinje which is in a Serb-controlled part of Bosnia. An association of former war camp detainees in Trebinje said it knew about the charges and that some of its members were ready to testify against Gotovina. "We have members who were directly tortured by Gotovina," association chief Vukan Kovac said, quoted by Beta news agency. "We will do our utmost that this time, justice be served." Prosecutors can either launch a probe or dismiss the charges. Soaps have their melodramatic lovers and BBB its cast of telegenic exhibitionists. The stars of this show, playing ceaselessly on national television, are mostly balding middle-aged men with glasses. But their story is the most explosive Brazil has seen for decades. They are the 77 former executives of major Brazilian engineering company Odebrecht who have pleaded guilty to running Brazil's biggest ever bribery network. In hopes of getting reduced sentences, the executives opened up to prosecutors, telling them how Odebrecht ran a special department to bribe every political party and many of the country's most famous politicians. For months, all that testimony -- in the form of videotaped depositions and documents -- remained sealed. But late Tuesday, Supreme Court Justice Edson Fachin ordered investigations into nearly 100 politicians on the basis of the Odebrecht allegations. And soon after, the plea bargain testimony was released to the public. In barely disguised panic, the nation's capital emptied, legislators deserting Congress. By Thursday they showed no sign of returning. But wherever politicians went they wouldn't be able to avoid Globo television and other outlets, endlessly replaying the videotaped testimony. Corruption had become the biggest show on air. Lies and videotape Top billing goes to Marcelo Odebrecht, who was CEO of the family enterprise and, until his arrest in the sweeping corruption investigation named "Operation Car Wash," one of Brazil's most prestigious businessmen. Odebrecht was sentenced to 19 years prison in 2016. On the videos, he wears a collared shirt and sometimes a blazer, looking like a self-confident executive as he recounts his crimes -- and alleged political partners -- in detail. Odebrecht is heard saying that he illicitly funnelled about $144 million to the politicians being investigated. Odebrecht and his former colleagues finger just about every top leader, including President Michel Temer and ex-presidents Dilma Rousseff, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and three more former heads of state. Many of the company's payments were in the form of undeclared donations to political parties, which prosecutors say amounted to a kind of generalized bribe buying influence right across the political spectrum. "Everyone committed this crime," Odebrecht is heard saying. "I don't know a single politician who went through any election without" the slush funds. Twisting the knife, the disgraced executive turned state's witness says: "The guy can even say he didn't know, but he received the money." As it happens, Temer is one of the few prominent politicians not to appear on the list of those facing investigation. As a sitting president, he has immunity. However, any initial relief he felt must have been dented by the clip of former executive Marcio Faria telling prosecutors that Odebrecht bribed Temer's PMDB party at a 2010 meeting presided over by the then future president. A deal was struck in Temer's Sao Paulo office for Odebrecht to win a contract with state oil giant Petrobras and "it was clear that we were talking about a bribe," Faria said. Allegedly Odebrecht was to pay the PMDB $40 million, or five percent of the contract's value. Until then, Temer had tried to stay above the fray, urging calm in Brasilia. But publication of Faria's testimony dragged him right into the muck. He replied by a video of his own Thursday, saying that "what repulses me are lies." "Its a fact that I participated in a meeting in 2010 with a representative of one of the largest firms in the country," he said. "But it is a lie that in our meeting I would have heard reference to financial amounts or scandalous business between the company and politicians." The ruling left-wing government says that past socialist and conservative administrations for decades allowed health contractors to overcharge Greek hospitals for equipment, supplies and medicine in return for kickbacks. "For years, public (funds) were pillaged, hurting social security funds and benefiting powerful interests," the PM said. Wednesday's move came as Greek magistrates are stepping up an investigation into claims of widespread bribery by Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis. Greece's justice minister last week said Novartis had likely bribed "thousands" of doctors and civil servants to promote its products. "National health service doctors and state officials were bribed to promote drugs in an illegal and anti-scientific manner," Kontonis said. The Swiss pharmaceutical giant has also been investigated by American and Chinese authorities, and forced to pay millions of dollars (euros) in fines. The middle-aged couple live in the shelled-out northern outskirts of the Russian-backed separatist rebels' de facto capital city of Donetsk in the eastern industrial heartland of the divided former Soviet state. They speak Russian like those around them and think of the fighting that invaded their lives three years ago on Thursday as a permanent conflict that may splinter their homeland for good. "It will be hard for us to be one with Ukraine again," 50-year-old Arkady told AFP without revealing his surname. "Imagine if your neighbour attacked you with a knife and wounded you. Would you stay friends with that person and invite him over for tea?" Daily journal of grief One of the bloodiest conflicts in Europe since the 1990s Balkans wars has killed more than 10,000 people and driven at least two million from their homes. Irina fills in the details of those hard-to-fathom numbers. One entry describes how her husband was picking apricots when shrapnel from a shell hit him in the head and broke one of his ribs. "Over time, you tend to forget everything, especially when there is shelling every single day," the 48-year-old says of her diary. The windows of their two-storey house have thick slabs of wood nailed over them to protect the glass through which icons peek out. "Only 40 or 50 people still live here," she says of her Severniy suburb of Donetsk. "Every home has been damaged. In March alone, they hit our neighbour's house six times. The shelling is more intense now than when the war started," Irina says. Fellow Severniy resident Lidia said the latest fighting caused an electricity blackout -- something they have long ago grown used to. "It feels like no one needs us," the 67-year-old pensioner says. 'Mutually beneficial war' The European Union and the United States fully back Kiev's claim that Russia started and supported the war in order to meddle and disrupt its Western neighbour's affairs after its February 2014 ouster of a Kremlin-backed regime. Ukraine's subsequent embrace of the West was followed by Russia's annexation of Crimea in March 2014 and the takeover of government buildings in the east in April by groups of armed men who swore allegiance to Moscow. Kiev responded by launching a military offensive to win back the separatist region. But Russia denies any involvement in the war to this day despite its soldiers being repeatedly captured or killed in the war zone and tanks and other heavy weapons being spotted crossing the border into Ukraine. jpegMpeg4-1280x720Arkady says he is disappointed by Kiev's deadly military tactics. But he also believes that Moscow has left his family and those like him out on a limb. He notes that the Kremlin now recognises separatist-issued IDs which make it easier for those living in the war zone to visit their relatives and friends in Russia. But Moscow has not supported the two rebel provinces' claim of independence from Kiev and has described the conflict as Ukraine's internal affair. "It seems that the war is mutually beneficial to both sides," Arkady says. State prosecutors said a 13-year-old boy was one of two new victims in recent clashes. Opposition lawmaker Alfonso Marquina identified the teenage victim as Brayan Principal and said he was killed during unrest in the western city of Barquisimeto on Tuesday night. The boy "was shot in the abdomen last night," Marquina said. He blamed the death on armed supporters of the government. A 36-year-old man was also killed in Barquisimeto in a separate incident, the state prosecution service said. Two 19-year-old students were killed during earlier unrest, one on April 6 and one on April 11, according to authorities. Food crisis Maduro is fighting efforts to oust him as Venezuela, once a booming oil exporter, struggles with shortages of food and medicine and a wave of violent crime. Dozens of people have been injured and more than 100 arrested since last Thursday, according to authorities. Scuffles broke out between government supporters and opponents during a Holy Week procession at the Santa Teresa church in central Caracas on Wednesday. The last major clashes in Caracas erupted on Monday during protests formally called by the opposition. The opposition has not organized any major protests since then, but sporadic rallies and blockades have been reported across the country, including those in Barquisimeto. Riot police in Caracas and other cities have fired tear gas and water cannon at stone-throwing demonstrators, whose leaders have vowed to keep up pressure on Maduro. No major protests were announced for Wednesday, but opposition leaders called for huge rallies on April 19. That will be the next big showdown in an increasingly tense crisis that has raised international concerns for stability in Venezuela. International concern The opposition is demanding the authorities set a date for postponed regional elections. It is also furious over moves to limit the powers of the legislature and ban senior opposition leader Henrique Capriles from politics. Those moves have also raised international condemnation including from the United States and the European Union. The strongest criticism has come from the secretary general of the Organization of American States, Luis Almagro. He has echoed the opposition's claim that Maduro has installed a dictatorship. On Tuesday, Venezuelan television interrupted the live broadcast of a military parade when Maduro, who was taking part, was hit by objects thrown from a crowd. Reports on social media said the projectiles included eggs and stones. He has resisted opposition efforts to hold a referendum on removing him, vowing to continue the "socialist revolution" launched by his late predecessor Hugo Chavez. Sarin has been used in domestic attacks in Japan, notably in 1995 when the Aum Supreme Truth cult released it in the Tokyo subway killing 13 people and sickening 6,000 others. The US believes the Syrian government employed a sarin-like nerve agent in a deadly attack in the country's northwest last week. "There is a possibility that North Korea is already capable of delivering (via missile) a warhead containing sarin," Abe told a parliamentary diplomacy and defence committee, referring to the poison nerve agent. His remarks were reported by public broadcaster NHK and leading national newspapers. Abe did not elaborate or say where he obtained the information, according to the reports. But Yoshihide Suga, the government's chief spokesman, did elaborate when later asked about the comments at a regular briefing. "Referring to the Syrian situation, our prime minister displayed a recognition that we can't deny the possibility that North Korea can equip (a missile) with chemical weapons," he said, referring to the suspected "North Korea... is likely to maintain several facilities to produce chemical weapons and already possess a considerable number of them," he added. Tensions on the Korean peninsula have spiked in recent days amid concerns that Pyongyang could be on the verge of executing its sixth nuclear test and as a US aircraft carrier-led strike group heads to the region. Originally conceived as a pesticide, sarin was used by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime to gas thousands of Kurds in the northern town of Halabja in 1988. The Russian veto came after US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declared following talks in Moscow that there was a "low level of trust" between the United States and Russia. China, another veto-holding power at the council, abstained in the vote, as did Kazakhstan and Ethiopia. Bolivia voted against the measure and 10 other council members supported it. "With its veto, Russia said 'no' to accountability, Russia said 'no' to cooperation with the UN's independent investigation and Russia said 'no' to a resolution that would have helped to promote peace in Syria," said US Ambassador Nikki Haley. "The international community has spoken. Russia now has a lot to prove," she said. Russian Deputy Ambassador Vladimir Safronkov recalled that Moscow had "consistently expressed our categorical disagreement" with the draft resolution but that Western governments had insisted on a vote. The proposed resolution would have condemned the alleged attack and expressed the council's full backing to investigators from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). The draft would have demanded that the Syrian government provide flight plans, flight logs and other information on its military operations on April 4, hand over the names of commanders of any aircraft and provide access to air bases to UN investigators. Russia on the 'wrong side' The West has accused Assad's forces of carrying out the attack in Idlib province that shocked the world. France and Britain expressed its dismay over the Russian veto. "This puts Russia on the wrong side of the argument," British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said in a statement in London. In Paris, French President Francois Hollande said: "Russia bears a heavy responsibility" by systematically opposing multilateral action to protect its Syrian ally Assad. UN investigators already have the mandate under previous resolutions to look into allegations of chemical weapons use in Syria but the West had pushed for council resolution to underscore its support for a thorough investigation in the Khan Sheikhun case. Syria is obliged to cooperate with the OPCW as a member of the Chemical Weapons Convention, which it joined in 2013, but access to sites has been a complicated issue. "To Assad and the Syrian government: you have no friends in the world after your horrible actions," Haley said. jpegMpeg4-1280x720"The days of your arrogance and disregard for humanity are over. Your excuses will no longer be heard. I suggest you look at this vote very carefully and heed this warning," she added. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in Moscow following his talks with Tillerson that the OPCW should be allowed to carry out an "objective investigation". Russia presented a separate draft text condemning the US military strikes in Syria and requesting an OPCW investigation, but it was uncleaer whether that measure would come up for a vote. "Despite the quantity of existing problems... there are considerable prospects for joint work," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a news conference after talks with Tillerson and Russian President Vladimir Putin. "Russia is open to this, open to dialogue with the US in all different areas, not only to dialogue but to joint action aimed at results in the areas where this corresponds to the interests of both countries." Tillerson, who met with Putin earlier Wednesday, deplored the "low level of trust" between the countries, whose relations have dropped to a post-Cold War low over Ukraine and Syria. "The world's two foremost nuclear powers cannot have this kind of relationship," Tillerson said. Lavrov said both sides were set on leading an "uncompromising fight against international terrorism". He said Moscow was ready to resume a deal with Washington to avoid incidents in Syrian airspace as the two countries lead separate bombing campaigns. "Today the president confirmed our readiness to return to its implementation on the understanding that the original aims of the air forces of the American coalition are reaffirmed, namely the fight with IS and Al-Nusra," Lavrov said. The deal was suspended after US strikes against a Syrian airbase following last week's suspected chemical attack in Idlib province, in an act Moscow labelled "aggression against a sovereign state". Lavrov however said that the two sides still "diverge" over their evaluation of the alleged chemical attack, which Washington has blamed squarely on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Despite initial hopes in Moscow of better ties with the US under President Donald Trump, the two powers have descended into a furious war of words over the attack in the town of Khan Sheikhun and the retaliatory US strike against the forces Kremlin ally Assad. Davenport man faces up to 30 years for robbery, shooting A Davenport man was sentenced Wednesday to up to 30 years in prison in connection with a robbery and shooting in December. Jovonta E. Litt, 24, pleaded guilty last month to willful injury resulting in serious injury, intimidation with a dangerous weapon, possession of a firearm or offensive weapon as a felon and going armed with intent. During a hearing Wednesday, District Court Judge John Telleen sentenced Litt to up to 10 years each on the willful injury and intimidation charge and up to five years each on the remaining charges. He ordered that the sentences be served back-to-back for a total of up to 30 years. In exchange for Litts plea, Scott County prosecutors dismissed a charge of first-degree robbery. The robbery and shooting occurred at 7:06 p.m. Dec. 1 at GD Xpress, 4607 N. Pine St. According to police, Litt and co-defendant Nakia Ivy, 20, arranged to meet to buy drugs from the man and others. While there, Litt brandished a black semi-automatic handgun and demanded money. He then fired the handgun two times, striking the man in the upper back, causing a broken rib, according to police. The man was taken to Genesis Medical Center-West Central Park, Davenport, in a private vehicle, according to police. Ivy was charged with first-degree robbery, willful injury resulting in serious injury and intimidation with a dangerous weapon. She has a final pretrial conference June 21. Litt was charged in July with willful injury causing serious injury and intimidation with a dangerous weapon after police say he shot a man in June. Prosecutors dismissed the charges in October after the victim recanted identification of Litt as the person who shot him, according to court documents. He was convicted of second-degree burglary in 2010 and is prohibited from possessing a firearm. Tara Becker Brady Street block to be closed today The city of Davenport reports that Brady Street will be closed to traffic today between 2nd and 3rd streets for water main and line repairs. Crews anticipate repairs will be completed by the end of the day. The water main will be shut down during this time. IowaAmerican Water is notifying affected property owners. Drivers can access the River Center Parking Ramp from 2nd Street. Times staff Moline police ask public's help in identifying robbery suspect Moline police are asking the publics help in identifying a woman who robbed another woman outside of the Genesis Medical Health Complex on Wednesday. Moline Police Detective Scott Williams said that at about 2:11 p.m., a woman leaving the Genesis Medical complex, located at 3900 28th Ave., was followed by another woman. When the victim reached her vehicle, the other woman ripped the victims purse from her hands. A struggle ensued with the victim suffering injuries, Williams said. The suspect is described as a white woman wearing a pink sweater. The suspect left with the purse in an SUV believed to be a newer Ford Escape. Anyone who can identify the woman is asked to call Crime Stoppers of the Quad-City Area at 309-762-8613 and leave an anonymous tip. Crimes Stoppers will pay up to $1,000 for information leading to an arrest and conviction. --Thomas Geyer A Port Byron woman has been arrested in connection with a purse snatching that occurred Wednesday in the parking lot of the Genesis Medical Health Complex in Moline. Julie Marie Calderon, 51, is charged with one count of robbery and two counts of aggravated battery. She was being held Thursday in the Rock Island County Jail on $50,000 bond. Moline Police Detective Scott Williams said a tip to Crime Stoppers of the Quad-Cities led to Calderons arrest. Williams said that at 2:11 p.m. a woman leaving the Genesis Medical complex, located at 3900 28th Ave., was followed by another woman. When the victim reached her vehicle, the other woman, now identified as Calderon, ripped the victims purse from her hands. A struggle ensued with the victim suffering injuries, Williams said. Calderon was able to flee with the purse. Robbery is a Class 2 felony under Illinois law that carries a prison sentence of three to seven years. Aggravated battery also is a Class 2 felony, but this charge could be enhanced to a more serious level of felony if the Rock Island States Attorneys Office determines the crime meets the legal requirements for enhancement. Calderons criminal history includes a conviction in 2008 of aggravated identity theft, as well as a 2006 conviction of forgery and a conviction for drug possession in 2005. Each of those cases were prosecuted in Rock Island County. The Rev. Willie Jones vividly remembers moving to Davenport from Mississippi in 1962. Jones, 66, and pastor of Peoples Missionary Baptist Church in Rock Island, was in junior high school then and attending J.B. Young. Speaking Wednesday to a crowd of about 100 at Modern Woodmen Park in Davenport where the Scott County and Moline YMCAs hosted a small celebration showing the impact the Y has had since its inception 159 years ago, Jones said it was the first non-segregated school he had ever attended. I got called to the office one day, and thought I was in trouble, Jones said. But someone from the Y was there and asked me if I wanted a membership. Jones took them up on their offer, he said, And for two years I got to go to Camp Abe Lincoln. I got to go camping and canoeing and served for a time as a counselor. What I learned there served me throughout high school, my time in the military and now in my time in the ministry. They welcomed me with open arms, Jones said. Davenport YMCA Branch Executive Frank Klipsch IV said that between the Scott County and Two Rivers Y facilities, about 30,000 kids are served seasonally, such as in the summer programs or in the Solutions and Achievers programs. Klipsch said that the Y raises more than $1 million annually, and provides more than $2.5 million in direct financial assistance to families and children in need of the Ys programs. We have 1 million visits a year at the Moline Y, said Moline Y CEO Mike Wennenkamp. There are about 2 million visits at the Quad-Citys YMCAs each year. But the Two Rivers Y is not just about Moline. There is a program office at the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center in Rock Island, and there is the Y Quad-Cities Rowing Program at the Sylvan Boathouse on 1st Avenue in Moline which will get a strength component that is expected to be ready in early fall. Klipsch said that one in four Quad-City residents is served by the YMCAs of the Quad-Cities, with more than 90,000 Quad-City residents being members. While there are plenty of programs for adults, mentoring kids is huge at the Y, not to mention saving them. Victoria Vazquez, 17, a junior at Mid City High School in Davenport, is in the Y Achievers program. At one point in her life, not long ago, a hot shower was a luxury, and shed be able to have one every few weeks. She was pretty much homeless. Vazquez said it was the Ys Marlo Clarke, who is the Director of the Ys Achievers program, who reached out to her. They gave me a job in the early learning center, Vazquez said. And she got career direction. I want to either go into pediatric medicine or some health care for children, she said. Zarious Heard, 12, and Nick Kroeger, 14, both students at Frank L. Smart Intermediate School in Davenport, said the Solutions Program has benefited them both. Heard is a social butterfly and made the rounds to everyone at Wednesdays gathering saying hello and asking them about the favorite part of their day. I always make it to school, but I would show up late to my classes so I had a lot of calls home and referrals and got into trouble, Heard said. This was two to three months ago and my grades were terrible. Now I make it to class on time and my grades are all As and Bs. Kroeger said he had almost all failing or D grades. Now Ive got all As and Bs. Thats what its all about, helping people, Klipsch said. There is prosperity in the Quad-Cities, but there is also poverty, he added. We believe its important for our community to fully understand the impact and connections being made through our charitable work, Wennenkamp said. 1. April showers continue to rain down on Q-C A good Thursday to all. Here's what is on tap for the Quad-Cities per the National Weather Service. Showers and thunderstorms are likely before noon then isolated showers between noon and 2 p.m., then isolated showers and thunderstorms after 2 p.m. The chance of precipitation is 60 percent with new rainfall amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch possible. Skies will be mostly cloudy with a high near 66 degrees. Tonight scattered showers and thunderstorms are possible between 9 p.m. and 4 a.m. with a low around 51 degrees. The chance of precipitation is 30 percent. Friday brings a slight chance of showers and thunderstorms with showers likely after 1 p.m. Skies will be mostly cloudy, with a high near 73 degrees. The chance of precipitation is 60 percent with new rainfall amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch possible. Friday night brings a 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms before 1 a.m. with a low around 60 degrees. 2. Brady Street closed today between 2nd and 3rd streets The City of Davenport reports that Brady Street will be closed to traffic today between 2nd and 3rd streets for water main and line repairs. Crews anticipate repairs will be completed by the end of the day. The water main will be shut down during this time. IowaAmerican Water is notifying affected property owners. Drivers can access the River Center Parking Ramp from 2nd Street. 3. Moline police ask public's help in identifying robbery suspect Moline police are asking the publics help in identifying a woman who robbed another woman outside of the Genesis Medical Health Complex on Wednesday. Moline Police Detective Scott Williams said that at 2:11 p.m., a woman leaving the Genesis Medical complex, located at 3900 28th Ave., was followed by another woman. When the victim reached her vehicle, the other woman ripped the victims purse from her hands. A struggle ensued with the victim suffering injuries, Williams said. The suspect is described as a white woman wearing a pink sweater. The suspect left with the purse in an SUV believed to be a newer Ford Escape. Anyone who can identify the woman is asked to call Crime Stoppers of the Quad-City Area at 309-762-9500 and leave an anonymous tip. Crimes Stoppers will pay up to $1,000 for information leading to an arrest and conviction. 4. Clinton passes on Rhythm City barge The city of Clinton's loss is Chad Pregracke's gain. Rhythm City Casino Resort had proposed donating its barge to either the city or Living Lands & Waters, but after Clinton's Tuesday committee-of-the-whole meeting, the city made it clear that it could not accept it without investor support. Clinton City Administrator Matt Brooke told the City Council that while the barge could be gifted, it still came with a minimum price tag of $563,000, which represented the cost to relocate and bring gas and sewer to the barge. Read more. 5. Torn down homes in Bettendorf A Times reader asks our "Ask the Times" columnist Roy Booker about three homes that have recently been torn down in the vicinity of Parkway Drive and Heather Lane. "Were they demolished because they are in the flood plain or is something else being built?," the reader asks, adding: "It is near Grant Wood School and the Bettendorf Community School District has plans to build a new school. Did the district buy the property and have the houses demolished?" Read Roy's answer. 6. Circa 21 actors share the stage and a house Its their day off, so cast members of Circa 21 Dinner Playhouse walk down the steps of their shared house and sound off to-do lists. These seven working actors have come from all over the country to perform in The Music Man, which runs through May 13. Part of the deal? Living under one roof. In 1984, Circa 21 bought the eight-bedroom house to offer actors a free place to stay during their roughly two-month residency in the Quad-Cities. Over the years, the house, which can occupy 15 people at a time, has been a revolving temporary home for hundreds of actors. Read more. BISMARCK, N.D. | The chairman of the Three Affiliated Tribes is balking at a North Dakota lawmaker's suggestion that the tribe help pay for repairs at a historic Native American site as a way to improve state-tribal relations following the Dakota Access pipeline protests. The Bismarck Tribune reports that Chairman Mark Fox is rejecting the idea from Republican Rep. Jim Schmidt to pay part of the $3.5 million to restore the Double Ditch Historical Site, where thousands of Native Americans once gathered to trade along the Missouri River. Erosion has caused some graves at the site to be exposed. Fox said protests against the four-state oil pipeline aren't related to North Dakota's responsibility to protect human graves and historic sites on state-owned land. "I take offense to any state legislator suggesting we pay for the state's failure to properly conduct responsible government-to-government relations with the Standing Rock Sioux Nation," Fox said. Amy Mossett, a Three Affiliated Tribes member working with the North Dakota Historical Society on the bank stabilization project, said while she was pleased Schmidt was considering repairing relations, she thought connecting Double Ditch to the protest was a mistake. "Knowing that the state representatives from District 31 are having a discussion about reconciliation with Standing Rock is a good thing but it's an equally important matter separate from Double Ditch," Mossett said. Legislators have been discussing how to fund repairs needed to stop erosion at the archaeological site. The House took away backing for a $1.25 million loan authorized during the last legislative session to complete the project. The Senate has passed a plan to transfer $1 million from the state's Parks and Recreation budget to the North Dakota Historical Society for the fixes and to allow the loan. Schmidt has also suggested the historical society might also look for funding in a grant from the Outdoor Heritage Fund. "It fits that program perfectly," said Schmidt, adding that the Double Ditch repairs need to get done. Pennington County saw a drop in murder cases and sexual assaults yet a rise in drug arrests and thefts between 2015 and last year, according to the 2016 sheriffs office annual report released Wednesday. There was a significant decrease in the number of reported murders, from 10 in 2015 to three in 2016. The figures largely involved Rapid City homicides: nine in 2015 and two in 2016. Sexual assaults were also down, from 224 to 197, a 12 percent decline. Meanwhile, arrests on methamphetamine violations spiked by 35 percent, from 551 in 2015 to 742 last year. State and local officials have raised the alarm over what they describe as a meth epidemic sweeping South Dakota. Use of meth and other illegal drugs, along with alcohol abuse, drives a big percentage of Pennington County crimes, said Sheriff Kevin Thom. Thefts also rose, by 13 percent, from 2,383 to 2,693 incidents. Included in the report were data sets from the Rapid City and Box Elder police departments, which operate within Pennington County. Thom said the rise and fall in numbers reflect the ebb and flow of crimes from year to year. Child pornography cases decreased from 71 to 55, while solicitation of a minor increased from 24 to 39. Thom attributed these developments to greater law enforcement activities, as well as information campaigns that help improve awareness and reporting of offenses against children. He noted that visitors to the Black Hills contribute to the number of local offenses, including thefts and traffic accidents. The 59-page report, which gives an overview of the Pennington County Sheriffs Offices responsibilities, also provides statistics on the county jail. Its average daily inmate population last year was 537 versus 518 in 2015. These include people on electronic monitoring, or house arrest. Federal inmates defendants whose cases were being heard in federal court made up about a fifth of the total: 102 in 2015 and 120 last year. The average this year is 149, according to data provided to the Journal on Wednesday by Chief Deputy Brian Mueller, who supervises the jail. Those numbers are up dramatically, largely driven by reservation cases, Thom said. Thats contributed to this average daily population increase. The report also highlighted two county cases that grabbed headlines last year. One was the discovery of an elderly womans body being stored in a freezer in a Rapid Valley home. The body, which turned out to have been transported from out of state by the womans son, was discovered in the course of a Social Security fraud investigation. The son died before the body was found, and an autopsy showed the woman had died of natural causes. The other case was the seizure from a Creighton residence of 76 animals, many of which were emaciated. The homeowner has been charged with 37 counts of inhumane treatment of an animal. The case is still being heard at the county courthouse. The annual report, Thom said, is part of his office's efforts at transparency and accountability with taxpayers. Last year, the sheriff's office had a budget of $30 million, a third of Pennington County's $84.7 million total budget. For some two dozen college students and other adults, spring break was spent cleaning trails, mowing and doing other physical labor, while offering spiritual support to individuals and families in Costa Rica. The mission trip was organized through Ridgeview Bible Church. Burt Newman, the churchs director of student ministries, said the congregation works to have a global view of missions and finds ways to practice it in a hands-on fashion. When it came time to plan this trip, the church wanted to go someplace where we had a connection, Newman said. Ridgeview Bible Church supports the mission organization Movida, which does a lot of work in Central America. In coordinating the mission trip, Movida suggested the group visit Costa Rica, as the agency is trying to establish a greater connection there. The group visited Upala, Costa Rica, an area that suffered damage during Hurricane Otto in November 2016. Dr. Kristi Johnson joined the group, which also included her two daughters. They cleaned trails, mowed and completed other tasks at a Christian camp and did some basic exams during home visits. She wasnt able to do any in-depth medical care because the mission trip was unable to find a Costa Rican doctor to accompany her. Among the supplies the group took with them to Costa Rica were ostomy supplies donated by Chadron Community Hospital. The supplies were given to a local hospital, Dr. Johnson said, for which they seemed very grateful. This was Dr. Johnsons sixth mission trip shes been to Mexico and Jamaica multiple times and she said her passion runs high for seeing college students realize just how fortunate they are. It makes a huge impact, she said. Hannah Andersen was one of those college students who took part in the mission trip. She shared her experiences with her social work classmates and the public last week. Despite the language barriers, she found a way to communicate with her host family and discovered the importance of music, food and family. The whole experience gave me a really different perspective, she said. Newman said it is great to see the kids immerse themselves into the culture and jump in to help others. Even though we are thousands of miles apart, it was apparent that we have the same goals in working toward Christ, he continued. Christianity is not just an American thing. The group stayed with host families, visited schools, provided physical labor and prayed with families. Not many of those with whom they visited spoke English, and very few of the group spoke Spanish. But we still had the same view of Christ, Newman said. That was really cool to experience. He hopes the church is able to continue such trips and maybe someday even plant churches around the world. A pair of burglaries Wednesday has led to the arrest of one individual and the identification of three other suspects in incidents this week that are likely connected to an earlier rash of burglaries, stolen vehicles and thefts from vehicles. A 17-year-old male from South Dakota was arrested this week in connection with two burglaries in Chadron Wednesday and on suspicion of being in possession of stolen property. Police are searching for two other 17-year-old males as well as Laney Bacon, 18, as persons of interest. All are believed to be from Pine Ridge, S.D. The arrest came after two burglaries were reported early Wednesday, the first in the 700 block of Lake Street at 3:30 a.m. The resident reported seeing several individuals inside their garage; the subjects, wearing black hoodies, ran south when the resident opened the garage door. Officers responded but were unable to locate anyone. Four hours later, a resident reported a burglary in the 400 block of West Eight Street. Officers discovered items missing from the residence during a search of the surrounding area, as well as a backpack that contained items connected to other thefts, as well as vehicle keys that had been reported missing in Chadron and Gordon, though the vehicles had not yet been stolen. The backpack was later identified as also having been stolen during a series of thefts several weeks ago in Chadron. At a little after 10 a.m., a resident on Eighth Street contacted police again to report that a male wearing a black hoodie was in the area in which the officers had recovered the stolen items. That is when police officers were able to make contact with the juvenile suspect. The investigation is still ongoing and there is a strong correlation to the thefts and burglaries that have occurred in Gordon, Rushville and Chadron, which resulted in stolen cars, dirt bikes, four-wheelers, guns and electronics, said Sgt. Aron Chrisman. The juvenile was transported to a detention center in Madison on suspicion of burglary, attempted burglary, possession of stolen property, possession of a stolen vehicle and trespassing. Police are still searching for a black 2005 Chevy Equinox with Nebraska plates 61E562. The vehicle was stolen from Gordon, and it is believed that the group of suspects arrived in Chadron in the vehicle. It is believed the three persons of interest still at large are in possession of the car at this time, Sgt. Chrisman said. Gordon and Rushville have experienced similar thefts in recent weeks. Anyone with information on the crimes is asked to contact a local law enforcement agency or the Nebraska Crime Stoppers. DEADWOOD | Officials will be at Lead-Deadwood Elementary School from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. today to encourage parents to register their children in a child-identification program. SDCHIP generates packages of various identifying items of children for parents or guardians. The information includes dental impressions, a DNA cheek swab, a digital still photo, fingerprints and a video image interview. The South Dakota Child Identification Program is part of MASONICHIP, an initiative of the Masons. Attorney General Marty Jackley said it is a comprehensive child identification program designed to assist in the event a child goes missing. CHADRON, Neb. | A pair of burglaries has led to the arrest of one individual and the identification of three other suspects in incidents this week that authorities say are likely connected to an earlier rash of burglaries, stolen vehicles and thefts from vehicles. A 17-year-old male from South Dakota was arrested this week in connection with two burglaries Wednesday in Chadron and on suspicion of being in possession of stolen property. Police are searching for two other 17-year-old males, as well as Laney Bacon, 18, as persons of interest. All are believed to be from Pine Ridge. The arrest came after two burglaries were reported early Wednesday, the first in the 700 block of Lake Street at 3:30 a.m. The resident reported seeing several individuals inside their garage; the subjects, wearing black hoodies, ran south when the resident opened the garage door. Officers responded but were unable to locate anyone. Four hours later, a resident reported a burglary in the 400 block of West Eight Street. Officers discovered items missing from the residence during a search of the surrounding area, a backpack that contained items connected to other thefts, as well as vehicle keys that had been reported missing in Chadron and Gordon, though the vehicles had not yet been stolen. The backpack was later identified as also having been stolen during a series of thefts several weeks ago in Chadron. At a little after 10 a.m., a resident on Eighth Street contacted police again to report that a male wearing a black hoodie was in the area where the officers had recovered the stolen items. That is when police officers were able to make contact with the juvenile suspect. The investigation is still ongoing and there is a strong correlation to the thefts and burglaries that have occurred in Gordon, Rushville and Chadron, which resulted in stolen cars, dirt bikes, four-wheelers, guns and electronics, said Sgt. Aron Chrisman. The juvenile was transported to a detention center in Madison on suspicion of burglary, attempted burglary, possession of stolen property, possession of a stolen vehicle and trespassing. Police are still searching for a black 2005 Chevy Equinox with Nebraska plates 61E562. The vehicle was stolen from Gordon, and it is believed that the group of suspects arrived in Chadron in the vehicle. It is believed the three persons of interest still at large are in possession of the car, Chrisman said. During the first two weekends of March, Chadron police investigated four residential burglaries, eight thefts from vehicles and three stolen vehicles. The cars were all eventually recovered, but no suspects had been identified until this week. Gordon and Rushville have experienced similar thefts in recent weeks. Anyone with information on the crimes is asked to contact a local law enforcement agency or the Nebraska Crime Stoppers. In this photo taken on November 20, 2015, a worker sorts coal on a conveyer belt, near a coal mine at Datong, in China's northern Shanxi province. [Photo/VCG] Mergers and restructuring among domestic coal sector are accelerating, with about 10 enterprises producing more than 100 million tons of coal annually projected to be established by 2020, Economic Information Daily reported on Thursday. Related departments have been asked to issue guidance on promoting the sector's mergers, restructuring, transition and upgrade. Small coal mines based in different regions will implement mergers and restructuring within two years, meanwhile, about 10 big companies will be set up by 2020, the newspaper said. The government also encouraged enterprises to strengthen trans-regional cooperation to cut overcapacity through stock swap. China will reduce coal production by at least 150 million tons this year, Premier Li Keqiang said in the Government Work Report at the fifth session of the 12th National People's Congress. The government pledged to make more use of market- and law-based methods to address the problems of "zombie enterprises," encourage enterprise mergers, restructuring, and bankruptcy liquidations. Last year, six enterprises' production exceeded 100 million tons, while in 2015, it was eight, Zhang Hong, deputy secretary-general of China National Coal Association, told the newspaper. The State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission earlier said that the number of centrally administered State-owned enterprises (SOEs) will be reduced to no more than 100, which now stands at 102. The government also promised measures such as introducing a mixed ownership system and more efforts to make SOEs leaner and healthier, especially in the steel, coal and power sectors. There will be about 3,000 coal enterprises in 2020, mostly large companies, running about 6,000 collieries nationwide, with large-capacity coal mines the majority, according to the coal industry 2016-2020 development plan. Why does someone have to die or get maimed in a crash before those who text, check Facebook or indulge in other social media while driving are held accountable in South Dakota? How many more lives must be destroyed before lawmakers start worrying more about public safety on our roads than about their personal safety while working during the legislative session? On April 28, a former employee of the Oglala Sioux Tribe Department of Corrections is expected to plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter. The weapon: an SUV owned by the tribe. The trigger: a cellphone that she wouldnt put down while driving on a two-lane highway. As the 28-year-old woman was using her cellphone to look at Facebook her vehicle swerved across the center stripe and crashed into a van with three people, including a 58-year-old woman who later died. Another passenger had her right leg amputated below the knee. The distracted driver now faces up to eight years in prison while family members mourn the loss of a loved one lives needlessly shattered. In the meantime, thousands of South Dakotans have continued texting, checking Facebook and otherwise paying more attention to their phones than the road while driving through our communities and on our highways with virtually no risk of being stopped by law enforcement. You see it every day in Rapid City if you arent one of those glued to the little screen in your hand. Stoplights are like coffee shops for those who look at their phones as soon as they stop and rarely are ready to drive when the light turns green. We see them swerving down the streets or going much slower than the flow of traffic on busy streets like West Main and Omaha. Sometimes they are pecking away on their cellphones and other times they are looking at the phone like they might be watching television at home. Sometimes, you see children in their vehicle. Everything seems fine as they are blissfully ignorant of the dangers they pose to themselves and others until they plow into another vehicle, motorcycle, bicyclist or pedestrian that is anything but an accident. In 2014, the state Legislature approved a bill that makes texting while driving a secondary offense, which means drivers cant be pulled over just for doing that. Rather, they can only be ticketed if they are pulled over for another traffic violation such as speeding, reckless driving or driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. The fine is $100. The law, however, is apparently not deterring anyone as there is a virtual epidemic of what is more broadly known as distracted driving. Lawmakers who just invested considerable time on legislation vetoed by Gov. Daugaard that would allow them to carry guns in the capitol need to revisit our soft distracted driving laws. South Dakota needs laws that make texting while driving a primary offense with a larger fine, and lawmakers should consider legislation that only allows hands-free cellphone use. Perhaps, stronger laws and vigilant enforcement of them might have prevented the collision in 2015 that took an innocent womans life and likely will send another woman to prison. In the meantime, the judge in this case should send a message to others by sentencing the distracted driver to the maximum sentence. A judge has thrown out a lawsuit that challenged voting by absentee ballot in Detroit, saying a Republican candidate for secretary of state failed to produce any evidence of violations. Wayne County Judge Tim Kenny says critics have raised a red flag of election law wrongdoing. But Kenny says his ruling takes down that flag. Kristina Karamo and others sued to try to force Detroit voters to vote in person or go to the city clerks office to get an absentee ballot. They made a variety of allegations about how Detroit reviews signatures on absentee ballots and monitors ballot drop-off boxes. The judge says they failed dramatically to back up any of it. DALLAS | Toyota will spend more than $1 billion to overhaul its largest production plant in the world, the Japanese automaker announced last week. The $1.33 billion investment in the auto giant's Kentucky factory, which employs 8,200 people, will help the plant make Camrys more efficiently and will speed up production timelines in the future through a more nimble, higher-tech development process, the company said. "Toyota New Global Architecture is about exciting, ever-better vehicles for our customers as it will improve performance of all models," Toyota North America CEO Jim Lentz said in a statement. The upgrades are part of the company's plans to invest $10 billion in the U.S. over the next five years, which is coming on top of the almost $22 billion Toyota has spent in the U.S. over the past 60 years. Kentucky officials said Toyota's contributions to the state's economy have been crucial. Besides the Camry, the plant also makes Avalons, Venzas and the Lexus ES 350. It produces about 450,000 vehicles a year. "Toyota is a global icon," Gov. Matt Bevin said in a statement. "This $1.33 billion investment is further proof of their commitment to producing American-made cars that are among the finest quality found anywhere in the world." Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, too, thanked Toyota for its more than 30-year commitment "to the Commonwealth." The announcement comes as global companies with big stakes in the U.S. economy scramble to highlight their commitments to employing Americans in hopes of staving off any friction with President Donald Trump. Trump has sent stock prices tumbling with tweets some of which have contained inaccurate information scolding companies for moving jobs out of the country or praising them for boosting employment stateside. The president said in a statement that Toyota's investment is a sign manufacturers are responding. "Toyota's decision to invest $1.3 billion in their Kentucky plant is further evidence that the economic climate has greatly improved under my administration," the statement said. In January, Trump slammed Toyota for plans to bulk up its manufacturing operations in Mexico. Since then, the Japanese automaker has taken pains to underscore the billions of dollars it has invested in the United States and the thousands of American workers it employs. The Camry, the company's top-selling vehicle, has been rated as the Most American Made car by automotive website Cars.com. The Kentucky factory has produced more than a third of the Toyotas made in North America since 1986. Toyota cited a recent study by the Center for Automotive Research that the company commissioned, which found that the automaker directly or indirectly supports the employment of almost 30,000 jobs in Kentucky. The center is a Michigan-based think tank that studies the economic impact of automakers in the U.S. The same study said Toyota has invested $2.6 billion in Texas over 14 years and supports 50,000 jobs many through its San Antonio truck plant. And this year, Toyota will open its $1 billion new North American headquarters in the Dallas suburb of Plano a construction project that was an unprecedented and expensive logistical undertaking in and of itself. The move has been held up as a shining success for North Texas' economic development strategy, which involves reeling in big corporate employers who bring high-paying jobs and plans to invest a lot of money in new offices. Those new offices often anchor vast mixed use developments, which in turn employ more workers and add to the tax base. More than 4,000 Toyota employees are expected to move to the Lone Star State from Southern California home of its current North American headquarters as well as from New York and Kentucky. ECHR orders Russia to pay about 3 mln to Beslan terror attack victims Context ECHR accepts complaint filed by Beslan terror attack victims MOSCOW, April 13 (RAPSI) The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has awarded about 3 million in compensation to victims of terror attack on a school in the Russian town of Beslan. The Strasbourg court also ordered Russia to pay costs and expenses amounting to 88,792 to the applicants. On September 1, 2004, about 30 terrorists attacked a school in the town of Beslan, in the Republic of Northern Ossetia-Alania, taking more than 1,000 people hostages. Crisis culminated in the assault of the school by government forces. 334 people died during the events, 186 of deceased were children. Victims of the attack and their families filed seven applications with ECHR between 2007 and 2011. Complaints were merged into one by the court with overall number of applicants reaching 447. They claimed that Russian authorities failed to prevent the terrorist attack and fulfill their duty of protecting civilians. Applicants also claimed that assault was poorly organized and that there was no proper investigation into the events. ECHR held that Article 2 (right to life) of the European Convention on Human Rights had been violated. According to the Strasbourg court, Russian authorities were aware of the planned terrorist attack but did not take necessary measures to prevent the tragedy. The court also exposed serious shortcomings in planning and controlling the operation of hostages rescue. Moscow court upholds unification of embezzlement cases related to Russian Border Agency MOSCOW, April 13 (RAPSI) The Moscow City Court has upheld unification of criminal cases against former head of the Federal Border Development Agency Dmitry Bezdelov charged with embezzlement and his alleged accomplices, RAPSI learnt in the court on Thursday. In December 2016, the Meschansky District Court of Moscow has ruled to return the case against Bezdelov to the Prosecutor Generals Office. The case was also unified with similar cases against other defendants. Earlier, lawyer Boris Kozhemyakin expressed an opinion that cases may be united because of potential existence of documents proving innocence of the agencys ex-head in another case. Investigators claim that in 2009, Bezdelov, then head of the Federal Border Development Agency, conspired with a number of other people to embezzle public funds allocated for the construction of checkpoints on the state border. From September 2009 to May 2013, they allegedly stole and laundered up to 490 million rubles ($7.5 million). Bezdelov resigned from his post in October 2013 after a probe had revealed inappropriate use of budget funds by the agency. He was arrested in Rome in October 2014 after he had been put on the international wanted list. Italy's court of appeals upheld the decision to extradite Bezdelov to Russia in October 2015. The Supreme Court left the judgment intact. Two defendants in the case were sentenced earlier to long prison terms. Another one absconded during the trial and was put on the federal wanted list. CORTEZ, Colo. Two generations ago, they were often written off as a bunch of hippies making backpacks and climbing gear for niche markets. But in recent decades, companies such as Patagonia and REI have become consumer powerhouses and political players, increasingly eager to influence decisions over public lands. A sign of that clout came this year, when the outdoor industry decided to pull its twice-yearly trade show from Salt Lake City, where it been based since 1996. The shows injected tens of millions of dollars into the Utah economy, but industry leaders decided to pull out after Gov. Gary Herbert and other Utah Republicans started lobbying President Donald Trump to roll back the Bears Ears National Monument, a 1.35-million-acre conservation area in southern Utah that Native Americans and environmentalists have championed for years. Industry leaders said they had mixed feelings about leaving Salt Lake but felt compelled to make a move after Herbert refused to reconsider his position. "Outdoor recreation is a huge economic driver in Utah and Colorado, and we felt it wasn't being respected," said Sam Mix, outdoor marketing manager for Osprey Packs, which is headquartered in southwest Colorado. "Public lands are where our customers go to recreate. Without these big wide-open spaces, we'd have no business and no reason to exist." Made up of 1,200 companies, the Outdoor Industry Association is based in Boulder, Colorado, with an outreach office in Washington, D.C. The group estimates that consumers spend about $120 billion on outdoor recreation products each year, ranging from apparel to tents, bicycles and camping gear. Since 1989, dozens of leading outdoor companies have paid into a mechanism to support public lands and environmental causes. With membership dues based on a company's annual revenues, the industry's Conservation Alliance has doled out more than $15 million in grants. Compared with oil companies and others with a commercial interest in public lands, the outdoor industry isn't much of a lobbying force. Recreational Equipment Inc. REI spent $210,000 on lobbying last year. Patagonia spent $90,000. By contrast, Exxon spent more than $11 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Yet because of its unique customer base, the industry has learned it can mobilize thousands of dedicated outdoors people through digital campaigns. Over the last three years, for instance, Patagonia alone says it has invested $1.7 million in grants and videos to promote Bears Ears, an expanse of red rock canyons, forests and Native American antiquities spread out south of Canyonlands National Park. Patagonia, a private company with roughly $800 million in annual sales, has a long history of supporting conservation causes. In recent years, Bears Ears has been its signature issue. In 2015, it produced a lavish video "Defined by the Line" that introduced many outdoors enthusiasts to this region. If you click now on the company's main website, the first image that pops up is a photo of the area's red-rock mesas, superimposed with a message, "Defend Bears Ears." Top Patagonia executives became interested in Bears Ears because of their rock-climbing employees, according to Hans Cole, whose company title is "director of environmental campaigns and advocacy." Patagonia employees, he said, brought back stories of challenging, picturesque climbing sites such as those at Indian Creek. It was only later that Patagonia learned about the cultural significance of the area, which is filled with ancient rock art and cliff dwellings considered sacred by local tribes. When Cole paid his first visit to Bears Ears in the fall of 2014, he recalls hiking to the top of Comb Ridge and "standing on the lip of this mind-blowing landscape" while meeting tribal elders worried about the future of the area. "We were at a point at Patagonia where we wanted to encourage our audience to get even more involved," said Cole, who has worked eight years at the company. "We were looking for a place where there was an overlap incredible climbing and yet a need for conservation and land protection. ... Bears Ears was it." In late December, President Barack Obama used his authority under the Antiquities Act to designate Bears Ears a national monument. In announcing the decision, the White House noted the inability of Utah's U.S. lawmakers to protect the area's artifacts and habitats through public lands legislation. Even so, the Utah delegation lashed out at what they called Obama's "midnight monument." By February, the state Legislature passed a resolution asking Trump to undo the new national monument. Herbert signed it, along with a resolution asking Trump also to rescind the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, designated by President Bill Clinton in 1996. Outdoor industry officials had warned Utah leaders not to take such action. Days after Herbert signed the resolution, Outdoor Retailer announced it would move its trade shows out of Utah after its contract with Salt Lake City ended in 2018. "We've been listening to the concerns from the industry and agree that it's time to explore our options," said Marisa Nicholson, show director for the trade group. Some Utah opponents of the Bears Ears monument say they couldn't care less about the trade show's exit. Leaders of livestock and mining businesses oppose the monument, fearing that such designations will limit how and where they can earn their livelihoods in the future. "Let them go!" said Sandy Johnson, a rancher whose family has raised cattle on federal land near Bears Ears since the 1920s. "You start bending to those kind of people and you become a hostage." For Salt Lake City, though, the industry's announcement was a bombshell. According to a University of Utah economic report, nearly 32,000 people visited Salt Lake County because of Outdoor Retailer's summer show last year, spending $32 million and generating $3.1 million in local taxes. Another 21,000 visitors and $20 million in economic impact was expected from January's winter show. In addition, Outdoor Retailer had recently signed a nonbinding letter of intent to expand from two to five shows yearly. Salt Lake City and Gov. Herbert urged the industry to stay in town. But top executives at REI, the North Face and Patagonia were disappointed in Herbert's overtures during a Feb. 16 telephone call. The outdoor industry says it continues to seek a home outside Utah for the shows in 2019, with possible bids coming from Denver, Portland, Oregon, and other cities. Montana Gov. Steve Bullock has directed his economic development team to ready a bid for the show if the state is invited to do so. In a recent interview with McClatchy, Herbert acknowledged the industry has "had a great run in Utah" and made a case for the trade shows staying in the state. "We have 15 million more acres of public land" than Colorado, he said. "I still hope we have opportunities to reconcile some differences and let them understand we have spent hundreds of millions of dollar on providing the best outdoor recreational opportunities in America." Industry officials say the decision is done. "Utah is a great outdoor state," said Mix, the Osprey Packs executive. But too many of the state's elected leaders "are representing a vocal, small minority the sagebrush rebellion contingent." Mix said Osprey and others in the industry would continue to support land conservation efforts in Utah, even with the trade show's departure. The industry is gearing up for whatever decision Trump might make on Bears Ears, said Corley Kenna, communications director for Patagonia. If Trump tries to rescind the monument, something the law makes no provision for, "We will use every tool available to speak out and fight it," she said. The Associated Press contributed to this story. HELENA After emotional support Wednesday from a state lawmaker who said she had an abortion as a teenager and regrets it, a bill that would have asked Montana voters to decide if life begins at conception failed to clear an initial hurdle in the Senate. I always thought Id have another chance, said Sen. Jennifer Fielder, R-Thompson Falls. I blew it because I believed what they taught me in school. ... Get pregnant, OK, no problem, get an abortion, throw it away. House Bill 595 is carried by Rep. Derek Skees, R-Lakeside. If passed, it would put a measure on the ballot in November 2018 asking voters to decide if "personhood" starts at conception and end access to abortion in the state. To get on the ballot the bill needs 100 votes from the House and Senate. It got 30 in an initial Senate vote Wednesday on top of 58 from the House last month. It still has a final vote Thursday, where it needs 42 votes or it will be considered failed. In support of the bill, Fielder said science has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt life begins at conception. Fielder cited a study by Northwestern University saying that a "zinc firework" occurs when a human egg is activated by a sperm enzyme in support of her claim life begins at conception. The Northwestern study was done to measure the quality of an egg and help doctors choose the best fertilized eggs to transfer during in vitro fertilization, according to a press release from Northwestern. Under HB 595, fertilized eggs, zygotes, embryos and fetuses would have full protection as persons under the state Constitution. Because several forms of contraception work by not allowing fertilized eggs to implant in a womans womb, the bill would also outlaw many types of birth control. The bill does not allow for exceptions in the case of rape, incest or of the pregnancy endangers the life of a woman. It was amended to remove the ability to file criminal charges against a woman who has a miscarriage. Speaking in opposition to the bill, Sen. Diane Sands, D-Missoula, said that access to birth control has caused a drop in abortions. This bill would make it more difficult for a woman to get birth control, she said. Sands continued by saying that women vote with their bodies, and the 60-some million who have gotten an abortion in the last 40 years have made clear their choice. Trust women and trust their vote. Vote against this bill. Fielder said the bill is about protecting the lives of innocent children. The womb is supposed to be the safest place on earth for life and these atrocities are being committed there, she said. A second bill to restrict abortion was debated on the House floor on Wednesday before passing on a 60-to-40 vote. Senate Bill 329, sponsored by Sen. Keith Regier, R-Kalispell, will have a final vote before moving to the governor's desk. The bill, also referred to as the Montana Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, says a fetus has pain receptors connected to the brain by 20 weeks and bans abortions after that point with an exception for a medical emergency. Several Democrats spoke in opposition to the bill, saying it was hypocritical of Republicans to support government interference instead of respecting a decision between a woman, her family and her physician. They also opposed no exception for a victim of rape or incest and disagreed with policy that would allow a father to take punitive action against a woman or a physician who has an abortion in violation of the bill. It would also allow a judge to have discretion on whether a woman would maintain her privacy in court. Rep. Kathy Swanson, D-Anaconda, said the Montana Constitution is rock solid in protecting the privacy of citizens. "How is it that we as politicians, lawmakers, that there's not regard to privacy?" Swanson said. "There's no regard to respect the decision, the wrenching decision of a woman, her physician, her family and her god." Rep. Nate McConnell, D-Missoula, said there isn't a statute of limitations on when a father could take action. He said a man could serve time in prison for sexually assaulting a woman and when he gets out, take action against his victim if she had an abortion after 20 weeks. "He could sue the woman for aborting the fetus he created through a heinous act," he said. "That is reprehensible." But Republicans said an abortion is punitive to the fetus. Rep. Lola Sheldon Galloway, R-Great Falls, said she supports the bill to be a voice for an unborn child. "They have a right to live," she said. "That's the plea." Skees said the discussion had gotten off course and that the bill still allows a woman to make a decision to get an abortion before 20 weeks. "Please folks, this is about pain and 20 weeks of life," he said. Software applications, film industry marketing and fashionable compression socks are creating good-paying jobs in Missoula. Five Missoula companies have received a combined total of $322,100 in state grants to create 43 new jobs, according to an announcement from Gov. Steve Bullock. The funds are being awarded through the Big Sky Economic Development Trust Fund Program (BSTF) from the Department of Commerce. The money is meant to promote long-term stable economic growth in Montana through job creation and planning. Missoula County will distribute the funds. A company called Orbital Shift, which creates a cloud software application that allows employers to create and maintain staff schedules, will receive $120,000 to expand and create 16 new jobs. The money will be used for purchase of equipment, software, furnishings, lease rate reduction and reimbursement of wages. The same company also got $80,000 to create 16 new jobs in Bozeman. Modern Entrepreneur, a company that offers a range of full-service digital sales and marketing solutions for small to medium-sized businesses, will get $75,000 to create 10 new jobs in Missoula. HB Enterprises, a company that created a marketing tool called GatherBoard that provides a functional calendar, got $29,600 to create four new jobs. VIM & VIGR, a company that manufactures fashionable compression socks, got $37,500 to create five new jobs. Audience Awards, which is in the business of securing high quality video assets for major brand marketers to use in their marketing programs, got $60,000 to create eight new jobs. Paige Williams, the founder and CEO of Audience Awards, said her company now has a total of 17 employees across the country with eight in Missoula and one in Kalispell. The Big Sky Trust expansion grant helps me to take care of the costs of hiring people, like getting them set up with computers and desks, she said. For a startup like ours, it makes a huge difference. The majority of expenses is getting people started and hired and the more we can keep doing that the more we can keep hiring in Missoula. Its also great to make sure people are being hired at a livable wage. Williams said her company has utilized the grant money before to add marketing experts and developers. According to Emilie Saunders, a spokesperson for the Department of Commerce, the Big Sky Trust Fund is funded by the states coal severance tax fund. Its a reimbursement grant program, meaning that each business only receives the money after working with the state to document the job creation. Then, there is a site visit to review the progress, and after that the grantee is reimbursed for the cost of those jobs. According to Missoula Economic Partnership grants manager Nicole Rush, who works with local companies to go through the rigorous application process, the program reimburses businesses up to $7,500 for each new employee they hire as long as they are paid at least 170 percent of the state minimum wage. To get the top award, each job has to pay the Missoula County median wage, which is $18.50 an hour. *** A company in Ravalli County called EverStone Sustainable Products, which makes and installs recycled glass surfacing panels, got $22,500 to create three new jobs in Hamilton. A company in Flathead County called SmartLam, which will be building a cross-laminated timber manufacturing facility, got $247,500 to create 33 new jobs in Columbia Falls. Another company in Kalispell called Stoll Innovations got $15,000 to create two jobs in Kalispell. All told, Bullock announced $860,366 in grants that will be doled out in seven different communities to create 97 new jobs. From manufacturing and tech start-ups to value-added ag and craft brewing, Montanas economy is growing and adding jobs faster than any other state, he said in a statement. This investment in our small businesses enables them to grow and hire more workers, strengthening our communities and our local economies. This fiscal year, the BSTF program has awarded $1.7 million in job creation funds for 249 new jobs and $775,022 in planning funds for 40 projects. More information can be found at bstf.mt.gov. HELENA After voting to again amend a referendum asking voters if the right to hunt, fish and trap should be expressly stated in the Montana Constitution, lawmakers voted to kill the measure Wednesday. Senate Bill 236, brought by Sen. Jennifer Fielder, R-Thompson Falls, would have amended the constitutions Harvest-Heritage clause to state hunting, fishing and trapping is a right held by citizens of the state. Fielder says she brought the bill in response to initiatives such as I-177, which sought a ban on most public land trapping but was defeated by voters last year. The bill initially drew opposition from trapping opponents but also several sportsmen groups and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. Concern from the groups and agency centered on unintended consequences of elevating the activities to rights, and what that meant for regulating hunting, fishing and trapping. They also contended that those protections already existed in the Harvest-Heritage clause, which says, The opportunity to harvest wild fish and wild game animals is a heritage that shall forever be preserved. Fielder amended the bill prior to Senate passage to alleviate some of those concerns about changing opportunity to right. The amendment drew additional support from the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, but continued opposition from FWP and others. SB 236 narrowly passed a House committee on a 10-9 vote Tuesday, after adding clarifying language that the right to hunt, fish and trap did not trump private property rights. After Rep. Kirk Wagoner, R-Montana City, introduced the bill Wednesday on the floor, Rep. Tom Jacobson, D-Great Falls, brought an amendment to strip most of the bill, and simplify it to say, The opportunity to harvest wild fish and wild game animals wildlife through hunting, fishing, and trapping is a heritage that shall forever be preserved. Wagoner resisted the amendment but it drew support from Rep. Jeff Essmann, R-Billings, who said the Constitution should be simple, clean and effective. The body voted 55-45 to amend the bill. Rep. Bradley Hamlett, D-Cascade, rose in opposition, saying he still had concerns about elevating hunting, fish and trapping, and what that could mean if, for example, instream flow conflicted with senior water rights for agriculture. The House then voted SB 236 down 48-51. As a referendum which would then go to the voters, SB 236 needed yes votes from a total of 100 lawmakers. After passing the Senate on a 30-20 margin, it needed 70 House votes to pass. The $90 million home of Reebok founder Paul Fireman, located on 150 Woodland Road in Chestnut Hill, is on the market. Listed by Business Insider as the seventh most expensive home in America on the market, the home boasts eight-bedrooms, seven full bathrooms, five half bathrooms, more than four fireplaces and a four-car garage. Built in 1999, the 26,000-plus square-foot home is surrounded by lush greenery on 14 acres of land just five miles from central Boston. Reebok plans to move its headquarters from Canton to Boston by September 2017. For more information on this home, visit the listing on www.trulia.com. CALEDONIA, MI - Joel and Kristie Koning achieved last fall what many couples are contemplating with dread this spring. They sold their old house and bought a new house in a matter of weeks. That's a daunting task in a tight seller's market where homes sell fast and the competition from other buyers is stiff. Despite building demand from buyers, few homes are hitting the market this spring. The average house sold last month was on the market just 28 days - a historic low, according to the Grand Rapids Association of Realtors (GRAR). "We needed to find a house and move in before I went back to work," said Kristie Koning, an interior designer who was ending a maternity leave. The couple was looking for a bigger home than the one they had owned since they got married in 2013. When they found the house they wanted in a subdivision outside of Caledonia, the Konings moved fast, put in an offer and had it accepted within days. The Konings then had to sell their old house, a 1950s-era bungalow located outside of Caledonia. Fortunately, the old house sold within two days and the Konings were able to avoid double house payments. Their success story may be difficult to repeat as the inventory of houses for sale continues to lag. As home buyers get ready for the spring buying season, only 1,300 houses were listed on the market by GRAR members, whose West Michigan territory includes Kent County, eastern Ottawa County, Ionia County and the northern halves of Barry and Allegan counties. New listings have been slow to come on line, according to GRAR statistics. At the end of March, new listings for the year were down 4.2 percent from the first two months of 2016. That's almost 300 fewer listings than in March 2016 and nearly half of the 2,504 houses that were on the market in March 2014. Meanwhile, prices are shooting up. The average pending home sale stood at $206,457 during the first three months of this year. That's up 9.8 percent from 2016, when the average home price stood at $187,018. Adam Paarlberg, president of GRAR, said he hopes more homeowners will list their homes for sale this spring as they gain confidence in the market. "We think there is going to be a spring surge," said Paarlberg, an associate broker with Greenridge Realty Co. "The difference is that there wasn't much of a winter slowdown this year." "We also anticipate we'll see more people selling. The million dollar question is which one will increase more," Paarlberg said. The rise in home prices should give home owners the confidence to sell their existing house, he said. Preparation is key for would-be buyers, especially if they are looking at a home between $150,000 and $300,000 says Realtor Pat Vredevoogd Combs, who has been counseling home buyers for more than 45 years. "We sit down and explain the marketplace and we explain multiple offers," said Combs. "And, we look at how their offer might be accepted." For the right house at the right price, that may mean making an offer above the asking price. It may mean writing a flattering letter which promises to care for the house, Combs said. In most cases, buyers should have their financing lined up and a real estate agent on the lookout for listings before they hit the association's website, Combs said. Most listings do not show up right away on the association's website, she said. "I've got four houses coming on the market that nobody knows about," Combs said. "You need someone watching for you all the time or you are going to miss all the good buys." Combs said she prepares her buyers to move quickly with a good offer if they find the right house in the right location. "If it's priced right and shows well, it's going to be sold within two weeks." For those who think they won't find another house if they list their home for sale, Combs said she has a spare bedroom that's available. "If we can't find you that perfect house, you can move in with me," she said. "In 46 years, I've never had anyone move in with me." America must return to conservative principles of less government,reduced taxes, less spending and a balanced budget! Cut,cap and balance! Military force cannot resolve tension over North Korea, China said on Thursday, while an influential Chinese newspaper urged the North to halt its nuclear programme in exchange for Chinese protection. With a U.S. aircraft carrier group steaming to the area and tension rising, South Korea said it believed the United States would consult it before any pre-emptive strike against the North. Fears have been growing that the reclusive North could soon conduct its sixth nuclear test or more missile launches in defiance of U.N. sanctions and stark warnings from the United States that a policy of patience was over. China, North Korea's sole major ally and benefactor, which nevertheless opposes its weapons programme, has called for talks leading to a peaceful resolution and the denuclearistaion of the peninsula. "Military force cannot resolve the issue," Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters in Beijing. "Amid challenge there is opportunity. Amid tensions we will also find a kind of opportunity to return to talks." While U.S. President Donald Trump has put North Korea on notice that he would not tolerate any provocation, U.S. officials have said his administration was focusing its strategy on tougher economic sanctions. Trump has diverted the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier group towards the Korean peninsula, which could take more than a week to arrive, in a show of force aimed at deterring North Korea from conducting another nuclear test or launching more missiles to coincide with important events and anniversaries. The possibility of U.S. military action gained traction after the U.S. Navy fired 59 Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian airfield last week in response to a deadly gas attack. Wang warned that history would hold any instigator to account. "Whoever provokes the situation, whoever continues to make trouble in this place, they will have to assume historical responsibility," Wang said. South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se told parliament in Seoul he believed Washington would consult Seoul if it was considering a pre-emptive strike. The United States has about 28,500 troops in South Korea. A Washington-based think-tank that monitors North Korea, 38 North, said satellite images on Wednesday showed activity around the North's Punggye-ri nuclear test site on the east coast that indicated it was ready for a new test. South Korean officials said there were no new signs to indicate a test was more likely, although they also said the North appeared ready to conduct a test at any time. An influential state-backed Chinese newspaper said the best option for North Korea and its leader, Kim Jong Un, was to give up its nuclear programme, and China would protect it if it did. "As soon as North Korea complies with China's declared advice and suspends nuclear activities ... China will actively work to protect the security of a denuclearised North Korean nation and regime," said an editorial in the Global Times, which is published by the Communist party's People's Daily. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe underscored fears about threats from North Korea, telling parliament in Tokyo that Pyongyang could have the capacity to deliver missiles equipped with sarin nerve gas. A senior Japanese diplomat said the United States was putting "maximum pressure" on North Korea to resolve issues peacefully while putting responsibility on China to sway its old ally. "We will watch what action China takes," the diplomat said. While Japan did not see a high risk of military action, it expected to be consulted by the United States if it decided to attack. North Korea has about 350 missiles that can hit Japan. 'Day of the sun' About 200 foreign journalists gathered in Pyongyang for North Korea's biggest national day, the "Day of the Sun", were taken to what officials billed as a "big and important event" early on Thursday. It turned out to be the opening of a new street in the centre of the capital, attended by leader Kim. North Korea marks the 105th anniversary of the birth of state founder Kim Il Sung on Saturday. In 2012, it tried but failed to launch a long-range rocket carrying a satellite to mark the date and tested a newly developed intermediate-range missile last year. North Korea's official KCNA news agency said early on Thursday that Kim Jong Un had guided training of the army's special operation forces jumping from aircraft. On Tuesday, North Korea warned of a nuclear attack on the United States at any sign of American aggression. The North is technically at war with the United States and South Korea after the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce and not a peace treaty. The North regularly threatens to destroy both countries. U.S. officials said Trump was considering sanctions that could include an oil embargo, banning North Korea's airline, intercepting cargo ships, and punishing Chinese banks doing business with it. "There's a whole host of things that are possible, all the way up to what's essentially a trade quarantine on North Korea," one official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters in Washington. Customs data in Beijing on Thursday showed that China's coal imports from North Korea had plunged 51.6 percent in the first three months in 2017 from a year ago. China suspended issue of permits for coal imports from North Korea on Feb. 18 as part of its effort to implement U.N. sanctions. Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke by telephone on Wednesday, just days after they met in the United States for the first time, underscoring the sense of urgency about North Korea. Trump said on Twitter his call with Xi was a "very good" discussion of the "menace of North Korea". He said later on Wednesday the United States was prepared to tackle the crisis without China, if necessary. POKHARA: Hotels in touristic town Pokhara have been packed out with domestic tourists on the eve of Nepali New Year 2074 BS. According to Bharat Raj Parajuli, Vice-chair of Pokhara Tourism Council, rooms in all hotels of the town have been booked for today and tomorrow as domestic tourists continue to flock to the city rich in natural beauty to celebrate the Nepali New Year. This tourist arrival has elated hoteliers of Pokhara as they are busy welcoming guests. However, the arrival of foreign tourists after the 2015 Gorkha earthquake is not satisfactory, added the Western Regional Hotel Associations outgoing chair Parajuli. There are around 500 hotels in Pokhara. Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal KATHMANDU, April 13: Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has urged the senior leaders of the Madhesh-centric parties to avoid agitation and instead come to consensus and collaboration. The call by the Prime Minister for a dialogue comes a day after the Madhesi Morcha, an alliance of Madhesh-centric parties decided to wage a movement after rejecting the second constitution amendment bill registered by the government at the parliament secretariat. In a telephone call to the leaders today, PM Dahal urged them to come to the negotiating table and thereby not go after the incitement of anyone, according to the PM's press advisor Govinda Acharya. Dahal made a call to Federal Socialist Forum Nepal Chair Upendra Yadav, Tarai-Madhes Loktantrik Party Chair Mahantha Thakur and Sadbhawana Party Chair Rajendra Mahato and expressed his willingness to resolve any outstanding issues. Stating that local-level elections were the need of the nation, he urged the leaders not to give themselves to instigation and resolve national issues through talks and dialogue. The government had withdrawn its earlier constitutional amendment proposal to replace it with a new one on Wednesday. However, the Madhesh-based parties said the new proposal too does not address their demands. Saying that the prejudices cannot meet the national necessities, Dahal added that the disputed issues could be settled through talks and dialogues. PM Dahal also drew attention of the leaders to focus on problem solving by joining the talks immediately after returning to the capital city. He also argued that the new amendment proposal was registered at the request of the Madhes-centric political parties and stressed to hold talks and create environment conducive by remaining in the periphery of the same proposal. The government was moving according to the needs of the country and people and the government was ready to proceed by taking all parties and sides into confidence, Acharya quoted the PM as saying. In response, the top leaders of the Madhes-centric political parties expressed their readiness to join the talks, taking the PM's call positively. RSS Kathmandu, Nepal: The Supreme Court (SC), the apex court of the country, has issued a verdict in the name of newly appointed Inspector General Nepal Police to nab absconding murder convict CPN Maoist center leader and former member of the parliament Bal Krishna Dhungel within seven days. Responding to a contempt of court writ filed by advocate Dinesh Tripathi, a single bench of Justice Ananda Mohan Bhattarai handed down the verdict on Thursday. Though the SC had repeatedly been issuing such verdicts to arrest the murder accused Dhungel, neither the Nepal Police nor other state agencies had shown apathy to implement the SC verdict. Dhungel was convicted of the murder of Ujjan Kumar Shrestha, a resident of his home district of Okhaldhunga during the insurgency period. The bench has ordered the newly appointed IGP Prakash Aryal to arrest Dhungel within next seven days, imprison him and submit the report to the Court. Advocate Tripathi had moved to the court on Wednesday to file a contempt of court case against Dhungel. The threats issued by Dhungel for physical attack to the Chief Justice Sushila Karki and former Chief Justices Kalyan Shrestha and Khil Raj Regmi went viral on social media, the SC had taken the threats in a note while issuing the verdicts. Everyone should comply with the court order in accordance with Article 126.2 of the Constitution and failure to do so would result in actions as per Article 128.4 of the Constitution, the bench has stated in the verdict. Before issuing the verdict, Supreme Court Registrar Nrip Dhoj Niraula had written a letter to Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal urging him to arrest Dhungel. WARNING for European visitors European Union laws require you to give European Union visitors information about cookies used on your blog. In many cases, these laws also require you to obtain consent. As a courtesy, we have added a notice on your blog to explain Google's use of certain Blogger and Google cookies, including use of Google Analytics and AdSense cookies. Thank you for reading! Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading. You have permission to edit this html. Edit Close You have permission to edit this collection. Edit Close Are the US and Russia entering a new Cold War? I was a latecomer to horror film; as a kid/teenager, I was far more interested in science fiction, and was a bit of a wimp when it came to horror. Arriving at it in my 20s, it's now become a big part of my life, and how horror is used to examine social/cultural/political issues has become a bit part of my academic work. When I saw Beloved on its release, I went as a big fan of the books' author, Toni Morrison. I approached both the film (and the book) as historical text. Certainly, the book delves into a wonderful lyrical surrealism, particularly in Morrison's description of what Beloved experienced when she was buried, and in what Paul D and Sethe experienced when they were slaves. Fantastic genre films set within known historical time periods/events are a bit rare, though not unknown. The Purple Rose of Cairo wouldn't be the same story were in not set in Depression-era America, looking at it did at unemployment/spousal abuse; The Dead Zone is a product of the cold war era and right-wing politics. In my book on genre film from Spain, I write about The Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth and their ties to the Spanish Civil War, and the concepts of post- and prostetic memory. Post-memory is that which is contained in generations that did not directly experience a trauma (such as slavery), but still feel it repercussions. Prosthetic memory is cultural; similar, in that it is experiences by those who did not witness the trauma, but it is a part of collective memory. The audience of Beloved is part of the collective memory of slavery, and Morrison and the main actors are a part of both. Of course, Beloved was directed by a white man, and two of the three screenwriters were also white men; an issue that likely would have caused more of a stir today (though I believe it was a little frowned on at the time). And certainly, it would be great to see what a black woman at the helm, given the focus of the story on black women and women's issues. How do later generations deal with such a traumatic history, one that still indirectly affects them, as slavery and its aftermath, from Jim Crow laws to the Civil Rights movement, continue to affect Black people in the United States? In referering to magic realist literature, Fredric Jameson talked of the fantastic as filling in the holes of history. So in using the fantastic, or more specifically in the case of Beloved, Morrison, and subsequently the film's creators, use horror to express that which history has left behind. So how does this translate into horror? Without a doubt, slavery was/is horrific, with atrocities brought upon its victims in ways even art cannot or dares not depict. (Side note: I read an article about the diary of a Union soldier, who when traveling through the South in the last days of the American Civil War, couldn't bring himself to write about the terrible things he saw being done to slaves, because they were just too horrible). In film (as in the life), the mother-child relationship is seen as sacrosanct, and any violation, particularly by the mother, is seen as one of the worst kinds of evil. Juxtapose this against the horrors of slavery, and this is one of the purest forms of horror: body horror that is all too human. Looking at Beloved through this lens, I was much more frightened and disturbed than I remember from my first viewing. Not in a jump-scare kind of way, but a horror down to my soul. Demme, coming soon off of Silence of the Lambs, used much of the same techniques: extreme close-ups to put the characters in our face, so that we know them and we become them; a fixation on the body in the shadows; a way of depicting anger, pain and passion in the visual spectrum that is mimicked by a swooping camera over the intimate space, using graceful shots to confront the viewer with the barely conceivable. Demme also has a knack for pulling out pretty gut-wrenching, intimate performances. Winfrey is not a great actor, but certainly a good one, and her Sethe is a marvel of both restraint (keeping house together to spare her living daughter Denver excessive pain, until that pain returns in the form of Beloved), and the ecstasy of pain and love, as is Danny Glover's Paul D; both people for whom the horror and trauma of what they experienced is always hot on their heels, ready to pounce and consume them even as they try to put on the brave face of their still-fresh freedom. Thandie Newton, in one of her first major roles, has the most difficult task of portraying a baby in the body of a young woman; a baby that's been dead for nearly two decades and who only knows how to express in the most extreme and violent emotional ways, both for pleasure and for pain. People of colourful and their experiences are woefully underrepresented in genre film, especially black women. And while Paul D is a part of the story, this is a black woman's tale. When I first saw the film, I remember being horrified by young Sethe (played brilliantly by LisaGay Hamilton) and her act of killing/attempting to kill her children rather than see them return to a life of slavery. On this second viewing, while the scene is still harrowing, I understood her actions. Perhaps this is because I'm now much more educated in both past and present racial politics; or perhaps, even though I'm not a parent, with age, I understand that there are fates worse than death. In this scene, Demme again keeps much of the focus on Sethe's face, forcing us to recognize her humanity and the reasons behind her actions, even is her actions are terrible. On this second, long-overdue viewing, Beloved was even better than I remember it; probably because I was looking at it with a better understanding of horror film, and a better understanding of racial politics. While it still works as a drama, it should be included in discussions on horror films, and even perhaps in its execution of the surrealist textual adaptation. As a journalist, programmer, and filmmaker, I've been to my fair share of film festivals. I've just arrived home from Chattanooga Film Festival 2017, and.... WOW. Only in its fourth year, this incredible festival has managed to blow most of them out of the water. Admittedly, they've had guidance from the deranged minds at Fantastic Fest, but the execution comes from the weirdos in Chattanooga. This festival blisters with a passion for films from its festival director Chris Dorth, Jr., CFF assistant director OG Chris Dortch, Sr, and all of the other staff and volunteers, who are too numerous to name. Chattanooga forges new friendships and strengthens existing ones. Tentative deals were struck, that festival unicorn, sometimes caught when you gather a ton of creative minds together in one place. The festival also puts on hilarious events like the Scripts Gone Wild drunken reading, the requisite karaoke and parties, a concert on a nearby riverboat, another annual presentation from the encyclopedic font of film knowledge that is Joe Bob Briggs (this time on Tennessee films), and even a pub crawl celebrating one notorious filmmaker's retirement. I didn't even get into the special brand of madness that is Everything is Terrible! live. The show was packed with acolytes and newcomers to the church of the weird and awkward. If you've never seen this show and it's in your area, do it. It's hard to describe the multi-media performance, but it's something that you won't soon forget. And the Acro-Cats cat circus made an appearance with a few felines for some tricks ahead of the jaw-droppingly adorable sensation that is Kedi. Everyone lost their minds; both when the live cats did tricks for treats, as well as through the astonishingly well-edited doc on street cats in Istanbul. There were workshops for guests, too, like the Snowfort Speaks talk, wherein producers Travis Stevens and David Lawson discussed the ups and downs of making films; the Daniel Noah (of Company X and SpectreVision) pitch sessions, at which filmmakers like myself went onstage, pitched projects, and received feedback; a Cat Planet acting and movement workshop; and the Justin Benson and Aaron Moorehead-led presentation on script-to-screen. That is, the duo told the audience what was originally written in a script, showed an assembly cut, and then presented a final cut of the scene in question with coloring, more edits, and added visual effects. It was a kickass learning experience. And of course, there are the films, which is why we were primarily there in the first place. The 35mm screenings were a serious treat; the Charles Bronson and James Colburn vehicle Hard Times --- directed by Walter Hill --- looked pristine. Fantastic Fest's Zack Carlson introduced the film, and if I recall correctly, we were the first audience to see the restoration. Carlson showed off his awesome Bronson tattoo, as well! The secret screening was the excellent 1980s Rutger Hauer scarefest The Hitcher. Other 35mm screenings included the strange, found-in-a-car-trunk Jungle Trap, and the AGFA-presented The Zodiac Killer and The Dragon Lives Again, starring Bruce Lee in Hell. All this genre-loving goodness is nothing to speak of the contemporary films! Short blocks and feature screenings alike brought in scores of filmmakers who were floored by the festival. Evan Katz appeared in person with his new, Netflix-bought crimefest Small Crimes, starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Game of Thrones) adopted from the novel by Dave Zelserman. Graham Skipper attended for the world premiere of his first film Sequence Break. The Lure; Mayhem; S is for Stanley; Lake Bodom; The Devil's Candy; Bitch; and Buster's Mal Heart. Cast members Andre Gower and Ryan Lambert of Fred Dekker's beloved The Monster Squad came for both the film's q&a, plus a live recording of their Squad Cast. There is just too much awesomeness to be contained in a post like this, so head on over the Also playing were:; and. Cast members Andre Gower and Ryan Lambert of Fred Dekker's belovedcame for both the film's q&a, plus a live recording of their Squad Cast. There is just too much awesomeness to be contained in a post like this, so head on over the fest's website to see what you missed --- and get a glimpse of what future editions might look like. Again, this festival was truly something special. Headed by some of the most sincere, film-loving peeps I've met in the fest world --- and with the breadth of live events, presentations, 35mm screenings, parties, workshops, and more --- I'm a total fan of the Chattanooga Film Festival. I cannot wait to attend every single festival hereafter, if I'm able. It's a sentiment of everyone I spoke to over the weekend. Congrats to the winners of the Chattanooga Film Festival 2017 Awards: Audience Award Mayhem (Joe Lynch) Best Feature Sequence Break (Graham Skipper) Best Short Hell Follows (Brian Harrison) Tennessee Filmmaker Award Dream Keeper (Whitney Stevenson) Student Filmmaker Award Potential Collab (Nate Burke) Dangerous Visions Award End of Decay (Chris Todd and Mike Wilchester) Just like many artists, Emily Dickinson never saw fame nor recognition as a poet in her lifetime. Her poetry and letters were only read and appreciated posthumously, after her death in 1886. Many of her admirers of her work say, not only her intimate poems touched them, but also with unusual punctuation and dashes, her style was ahead of its time. One of her ardent admirers happens to be Terence Davies (Long Day Closes, Deep Blue Sea) one of the greatest living British filmmakers. The nationality of his female subject might be different here, but there are a lot of common themes coursing through A Quiet Passion which his past films also bear - family, struggling within a strict social norm, independence and freedom, isolation and depression. Born in a wealthy, respected family in Amherst, MA with loving parents and supportive siblings, Emily (played by Emma Bell as younger, then Cynthia Nixon as older Dickinson) grows up to be an honest, smart young woman who can think for herself. She is seen first as a young woman in Mount Holyoke Seminary school, defying the wishes of her teacher with her logical defense to be indecisive in either accepting or denying god. But being a woman of the 19th Century, Emily struggles from early on with her self image, patriarchy, conservative, puritanical society, sexism, the thought of death and immortality. Davies, an ardent reader of Dickinson's poetry, composed a truly beautiful script here, imagining much of the film's dialog that lends the full view of the complicated poet and the great Cynthia Nixon personifies her in flesh and blood. Even though Dickinson lived most of her adult life in isolation, through her letters and 1,800 unpublished poems, and as we see in the film, she led a quite passionate inner life. Unlike many fathers in Davies' other films who terrorize the working class families and women, Edward Dickinson, played here beautifully by Keith Carradine, is a learned, dignified man who is a main stable force for Emily to depend upon. Strict but humble, it is his dignity and sense of right and wrong that deeply affects Emily's upbringing. She strikes up a friendship with free spirited Ms. Buffam (amusingly played by Catherine Bailey) whose acerbic wit matches her own. They talk about being friends forever but both know that when the time comes, more extroverted Buffam would marry and settle and move away. And she does. Dickinson briefly romances a married pastor but the bitter experience turns her more into isolation. After their parents' death, Emily becomes more embittered with life, she isolates herself even further, wearing only white and communicates her thoughts mostly in letters. Her devout younger sister Vinnie (Jennifer Ehle) becomes her only source of checks and balances against Emily becoming a bitter, defeated person. Death and immortality were her big themes in her writing as she was weary of attaching herself to anyone and always worried about everyone close to her leaving. Calling herself nobody, she was aware that her writing wouldn't be recognized by anyone in her lifetime. Davies succeeds in showing a complicated woman bound by tradition and societal rules. But however tragic and lonely her life was, he also shows us that Dickinson lived the way she wanted to, that it was her own choosing, that she was a thoroughly modern woman, defining the world the only way she knew how. A Quiet Passion is another masterpiece from Davies. A Quiet Passion opens in New York on Friday, April 14 (Lincoln Plaza Cinema, Quad Cinema). National roll out to follow. Dustin Chang is a freelance writer. His musings and opinions on everything cinema can be found at www.dustinchang.com An unabashedly old fashioned, bows-and-arrows school boy fantasy based on David Grann's non-fiction bestseller of the same name, The Lost City of Z stars Charlie Hunnam as a British army officer turned explorer, Col. Percival Fawcett, who had a perilous obsession with the Amazon jungle. Despite years of being stationed overseas and proving his leadership abilities, according to his sneering superiors Fawcett "had a bad choice of his ancestry" -- his father was a drunkard and a gambler, and therefore forfeited his advancement in the army. With the help of the uppity Royal Geographical Society, together with Britain's interests in the rubber industry in the Amazon, Fawcett is granted an expedition into Eastern Bolivia to map the fuzzy Bolivian and Brazilian border deep in the jungle. The two-year expedition means being away from his spirited wife Nina (Sienna Miller) and his young son, Jack. But a man must do what he's got to do -- to restore his family name in good standing in a rigid society and be a hero and whatnot. Fawcett's small team, including Costin (Robert Pattinson) and Manley (Edward Ashley) with an Indian guide, goes up the river only to be attacked by various Indian tribes and suffer diseases and hardship. But the explorers not only find the source of the river, they also find evidence of an ancient civilization: broken potteries and sculptures of human figures. After returning home, Fawcett becomes an advocate against the general notion of the natives of America as arrow chucking, cannibalistic savages who are forever stuck in the early Iron Age. Finding the lost civilization in the Amazons becomes an obsession for him. With the backing of rich patron/fellow explorer James Murray (Angus Macfadyan), Fawcett and his team set out a second expedition, despite angry objections from Nina. When disease and the unforgiving climate of the jungle becomes too much for out-of-shape Murray, they have to abandon the mission. At home, the accusations fly and Fawcett strains his ties with the Royal Geographical Society. The first World War interferes with Fawcett's obsession as he is sent to the frontline, where he sees many of his friends die and himself getting injured in the horrific battle of Somme. Now nearing 50, and his son Jack a young man, father and son try once again to find the lost city. You can't escape the shadow of Werner Herzog when it comes to making a film set in the Amazon. Aguirre, The Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo, about a man's obsession and his futile attempt to wield the course of nature both spiritually and physically, are towering examples to measure up to. All the hardships and suffering in the making of these films are justified by the breathtaking end results. It might not be fair to compare, since Gray is a very different kind of filmmaker, who prides himself in emotionally fine-tuned dramas. Despite all the glorious pretty picture show, well-rounded characters and fine acting don't really suit the adventure genre. But that's just it. His attempt at showing 'it's the journey not the destination' lacks a proper bravado and zeal, constantly interrupted by Fawcett struggling with domestic life and in finding his stature in the rigid society. Shot on 35mm by Darius Khondji (who also shot Gray's period piece The Immigrant), The Lost City of Z is a very handsome movie. Gray does his best to be faithful to the source material and instill every character with humanism. But I find Nina Fawcett's proto-feminist character too propped up to be believable in this otherwise male-oriented adventure film. There is nothing particularly wrong with The Lost City of Z. I buy that one man's obsession -- 'a man's reach should exceed his grasp' -- is a worthy subject for a movie. Obviously, it's much less offensive than that last Indiana Jones film or Apocalypto, where the depiction of natives are concerned. But do we need another film about a white man's journey to validate another culture's worth in this day and age? The Lost City of Z (as well as The Immigrant), as a sumptuous and elegant epic it might be, doesn't quite justify all the effort put in by everyone involved. Review originally published during the New York Film Festival in October 2016. The film opens in select theaters in the U.S. on Friday, April 14. Dustin Chang is a freelance writer. His musings and opinions on everything cinema and beyond can be found at www.dustinchang.com. The Southern District of Florida blog was started in 2005 by David Oscar Markus , who is a criminal trial and appellate lawyer in Miami, Florida. He frequently practices in federal courts around the country, including his hometown, the Southern District of Florida and the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. He is a former law clerk to then-Chief Judge of the District, Edward B. Davis. If you are currently a print subscriber but don't have an online account, select this option. You will need to use your 7 digit subscriber account number (with leading zeros) and your last name (in UPPERCASE). Early press reports on the new 21-member Ohio Death Penalty Task Force | Main | Notable USSC compilation of federal guideline departure provisions November 3, 2011 Florida defendant gets LWOP sentence for mere possession of (lots of) kiddie porn The lengthy sentences sometimes given to downloaders of child pornography in federal court often are much longer than those handed out for this crime in state courts. However, as detailed in this local piece from Florida, headlined "East Naples man sentenced to life in prison for child porn," some state sentences for child porn possession are even more extreme than federal law provides: An East Naples man was sentenced to life in prison Thursday following his conviction last month in one of the countys largest child pornography cases. The sentencing of Daniel Enrique Guevara Vilca, 26, came after a six-person jury found him guilty Oct. 6 on 454 counts of possessing child pornography. Collier County sheriffs investigators seized a computer from Guevara Vilcas Landover Court apartment in January 2010 and found about 300 sexually explicit pictures containing children and 38 hours of taped child pornography. Guevara Vilca faced more than 300 years in prison. The minimum sentence under a state score sheet was 152 years in prison. Guevara Vilca turned down a 25-year plea agreement before trial.... The sentence is the most severe in county history for a child pornography possession case. In 2009, Naples resident Douglas Deering received a 25-year sentence as part of a plea deal on 197 child pornography possession counts. This companion piece, headlined "East Naples man's life sentence for child porn too harsh, attorney says," reports that the defendant's attorney will challenge the constitutionality of this sentence on appeal: His defense lawyer, Lee Hollander, argues that others in Collier County have committed crimes more serious and violent, yet received lesser punishment than Guevara Vilca, who had no prior criminal record.... People who are actually creating child porn or molesting children are getting lighter sentences than people who are in possession of it, Hollander said. The guy is doing life in prison for looking at child porn. Im sorry, but that just doesnt compute. Less sympathetic Thursday was Assistant State Attorney Steve Maresca. He said it was offensive to claim possession of child porn is a nonviolent crime, adding that consumers such as Guevara Vilca keep alive a market for children to be sexually abused. I think (the sentence) sends a message that this is a serious crime, Maresca said. This is a crime that continues on and on. Those images are there forever, which means some of those children have to deal with it forever. [Collier Circuit Judge Fred] Hardt had little choice but to follow state law in putting Guevara Vilca behind bars for life. A sentencing score sheet required a minimum sentence of about 152 years in prison a far cry from the 25-year plea agreement Guevara Vilca rejected before the trial. The number and severity of the charges allowed Hardt to impose a life sentence under state law. Hardt reviewed several factors that could have allowed him to depart from the minimum guideline, including the defendants mental health history and the constitutionality of the sentence. He found no reason to impose a lighter sentence. The fact that this court might and Im not saying it does believe that this sentence is disproportionate is not valid grounds for departure, Hardt said. Hollander said he plans to appeal the sentence, calling it a cruel and unusual punishment that violates the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution. The principle of his claim that a child porn consumer shouldnt receive a life sentence when child sex abusers often receive lighter punishments drew debate Thursday from state law professors. That argument can be made, said Bob Dekle, a University of Florida law professor who spent about 15 years prosecuting sex crimes in northern Florida. How good it is and how persuasive is another question. I dont find it very persuasive.... Tamara Rice Lave, an associate law professor at the University of Miami with expertise in sex offender laws, suggested a life sentence for child pornography possession is excessive. I dont think somebody should get life in prison for possessing child pornography that they didnt produce, Lave said. I dont think it should be the same as somebody who commits first-degree murder or a string of violent crimes. Part of what the justice system needs to do is punish proportionally. Hollander said his appeal of the sentence probably is going to end up in front of the Florida Supreme Court in some shape or form. November 3, 2011 at 10:05 PM | Permalink TrackBack TrackBack URL for this entry: https://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d83451574769e20162fc203e8a970d Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Florida defendant gets LWOP sentence for mere possession of (lots of) kiddie porn: Comments "Less sympathetic Thursday was Assistant State Attorney Steve Maresca. He said it was offensive to claim possession of child porn is a nonviolent crime, adding that consumers such as Guevara Vilca keep alive a market for children to be sexually abused." This is the fallacy that no one ever seems to question out loud in court. Possession of child pornography is not a violent crime. The images may depict violence, the production of the images may have involved violence, but possession of the images is not violent. On a computer, the images are simply a collection of bytes on a metal disk that can be combined into an image on an monitor. Viewing them does not actually send out some kind of pain ray and cause physical harm to another person far away. Simply saying it's violent doesn't make it so. No one can defend the possession of child pornography. But there's no point in making it sound like a worse crime than it already is. Posted by: C.E. | Nov 3, 2011 11:10:44 PM That will teach the bastard for actually having a trial! (Remember what those are?) I also ran across this liberal claptrap: Contemporary policies concerning crime and punishment are the harshest in American history and of any Western country. Michael Tonry, The Handbook of Crime And Punishment (Oxford Press 1998) paperback ed. at page 3. American punishment is comparatively harsh, comparatively degrading, comparatively slow to show mercy.James Q. Whitman, Harsh Justice (Oxford Press 2003) paperback ed. at 19. The current American prison system, is a leviathan unmatched in human history.... with five percent of the worlds population[it] houses 25 percent of the worlds inmates... We have become progressively more punitive... Despite a sharp national decline in crime, American criminal justice has become crueler and less caring than it has been at any other time in our modern history...Glenn C. Loury Why are so many Americans in Prison(Boston Review 2007)(found at http://bostonreview.net/BR32.4/loury.html)) Can you believe what these left wing pinkos in the North actually write. Do they really believe this nonsense? In Texas, we execute them for stuff like this, guilty or not. Long Live the Confederacy!! Posted by: Bubba from Texas | Nov 3, 2011 11:11:33 PM "Viewing them does not actually send out some kind of pain ray and cause physical harm to another person far away." Actually C.E. that not correct. There is an entire body of research that holds that merely looking is itself an act of violence. It's not a new idea but it found it current inspiration in a poem written by Nikki Giovanni in the 1980s. "like the wind blowing across a field of wheat your smile whispers to my inner ear with the relief of recognition i bend to your eyes casually raping me" This whole idea has been a constant theme of feminists for a long-time. I've always been somewhat bemused about how eager many conservatives have been to jump into bed with feminists on this topic. They may think they are out saving children but if certain groups had their way half the bubbas in the world would be put in jail for looking at their wife "funny". Posted by: Daniel | Nov 4, 2011 12:37:47 AM http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/vitamin-eye/200907/eye-eye-visual-violence-0 Sorry of the second post. I meant to include this link to give a taste of what I'm talking about. Posted by: Daniel | Nov 4, 2011 12:42:30 AM Bubba -- "That will teach the bastard for actually having a trial! (Remember what those are?)." Translation: The defendant was not just a pervert, he was a dunce too. Now there's a powerful case for you! P.S. Yes, some of us do remember what a trial is. It's one of those things you can get any 'ole time by telling the prosecutor that he and his proposed bargain can go to a warm place. The real reason so many defendants opt for the plea bargain -- as you must know if you ever had a criminal practice -- is that the prosecutor has dumbed down the charges so much, and given away so much of the store, that the deal is irresistable. Posted by: Bill Otis | Nov 4, 2011 6:47:23 AM Article: "The principle of his claim that a child porn consumer shouldnt receive a life sentence when child sex abusers often receive lighter punishments drew debate Thursday from state law professors." me: I would hope that everyone would agree that actually abusing a child is worse than looking at pictures of child abuse. I would hope that anyone, even people who believe that there is harm from transmitting images of abuse, would realize that the original abuse and production of the image is way worse than the mere possession of the image potentially several years after the fact. Anyone who thinks that it is good policy to punish people who merely possess child porn worse or even the same than actual child abusers is delusional. Article: That argument can be made, said Bob Dekle, a University of Florida law professor who spent about 15 years prosecuting sex crimes in northern Florida. How good it is and how persuasive is another question. I dont find it very persuasive.... me: maybe the next time a convicted icky perv child molester tells his prison psychologist that he thought about using child porn as a substitute for raping the little girl next door, but decided against it because he'd get less - or at least the same - time for the rape, Professor Dekle will feel some responsibility. I doubt it though becasue people like this Professor and the prosecutor quoted above are too interested in getting the easy win to put icky pervs away to realize that by spouting nonsense like this they are actually insulting people who were actually sexually assaulted as children. Trust me, when I say that a statement like this law professor made is actually highly offensive. And again, I'm not sure if the market substitution theory for icky pervs is actually accurate or not - but I'm not willing to risk that real children might be attacked to help prosecutors and legislatures tout their toughness against icky pervs by going after real targets. ginny :) Posted by: virginia | Nov 4, 2011 9:53:43 AM ugh, I managed to totally mangle that last sentence - it should say "going after easy targets rather than stopping real child abusers" ginny :) Posted by: virginia | Nov 4, 2011 9:56:41 AM ginny, it's nice to demonize those who feel that child porn is an outrage and needs to be stamped out. Posted by: federalist | Nov 4, 2011 11:28:50 AM "The real reason so many defendants opt for the plea bargain -- as you must know if you ever had a criminal practice -- is that the prosecutor has dumbed down the charges so much, and given away so much of the store, that the deal is irresistable." The corollary to that is that the statutory penalty for the actual crime is so perversely hideously, severe, given the nature of the crime; that a defendant would be an idiot to take a chance on a jury. Thus, any bogus plea with a lesser penalty, a defendant would be foolish not to agree to; Guevara Vilca's case being a being the foremost example. Posted by: Jardinero1 | Nov 4, 2011 1:39:55 PM What if a person were obsessed with viewing bodies of corpses. And that person's twin was obsessed with viewing "porn" pictures of age 17.92 year males and females; 24 hours per day, excepting timeout for eating and health necessities? Posted by: JAG | Nov 4, 2011 2:06:38 PM Under the theory that viewing is as bad as doing, one who possesses a picture of someone committing a murder should be punished every bit as harshly as the murderer. And under federalist's view, anyone who points out the illogic of this is demonizing those who feel that murder is an outrage and needs to be stamped out. Huh? Posted by: streetlaw | Nov 4, 2011 6:24:12 PM Funny. The real promoter and generator of horrible, violent porn? This feminist running dog prosecutor. By these sprosecutions, child porn becomes a bigger profit center for international crime syndicates. What I don't understand? 1) Why defense lawyers do not demand a Daubert hearing on the claim that buying child porn increases its production, when it is the prosecution of child porn that increases the production of horrific, violent scenes, by increasing prices. 2) Why defense lawyers do not move for total e-discovery of the computers of the prosecutor and judge. They are the most likely to have child porn on them because the US government is the biggest buyer, downloader, and subscriber to child porn in the world. The feminist running dog prosecutor can explain to the FBI how those images were part of his job. 3) These prosecutions are price supports for East European crime syndicates. I would like to know if legitimate business front organizations owned by the crime syndicates provide any funding, material support, or other considerations to the election campaigns of these feminist running dog prosecutors and judges. Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Nov 4, 2011 7:51:26 PM ginny:) I usually object to your "icky perv" references but not today. Note how federalist used the term "stamp out" instead of "providing justice" to your comment. Well, Congress and the "gubermint" have been doing that for years. You see, these types of crimes are much easier to prosecute and demonize than the actual harm. We create more lies and dumb down the voting populace. Like the POS AWA! Loss of individual and constitutional rights only because (my views are justifiable)! Posted by: albeed | Nov 4, 2011 11:21:27 PM Proportionality fluctuates with emotion; the family of a victim frequently advocates Draconian sentencing. Troubling to me is secrecy in sensitive prosecutions as well as the strict definition regarding the age of responsibility. As a retired courts observer I've wondered at the disparity of convictions between 18 year-olds and younger; changing morals and reports of younger perpetrators & victims tear the standard from the eighteen-year-old and move it about as public emotion dictates. IMO, a new scaled-responsibility based on relative development is needed: a knowledgeable juvenile could be as responsible as an adult but adult sentencing needs to be diluted for statuary offenses as opposed to criminal and abusive activities. A high school or Junior high school romance ought not to be criminal nor should one suddenly become a criminal by virtue of aging. A hard age statue ought to be a graduated one. Posted by: Bobertbobert | Nov 5, 2011 6:24:10 AM I am a former New York County Assistant District Attorney. I read about Vilca case in the Nov. 5 New York Times article. The sentence is a horrendous miscarriage of justice. As the blogger federalist put it, the statutory penalty is perversely hideously, severe, given the nature of the crime. I assume there was trial testimony about the psychology of actually abusing versus viewing pornography. Can anyone here comment on whether that was strong, whether it was largely disallowed by the judge? What will be the arguments on appeal? Is it just as to sentencing (I am not familiar with Fla. law). Can any expert on this blog comment on the chances of a successful appeal? It would be great if an expert in the field of the psychology of pornography would contribute to this blog. Thank you. Posted by: sumili | Nov 5, 2011 2:41:33 PM If the viewing of child pornography is a violent crime, then didn't the law enforcement officers who found this stuff on the defendant's computer, and the judge and the jury who had an opportunity to examine the evidence against him engage in a violent crime? Aren't law enforcement officers who look at child pornography as they attempt to track its creators engaging in a violent crime (because merely looking at such stuff is a violent crime)? Aren't researchers who view child pornography in an effort to understand the causes and effects of child sexual abuse engaging in a violent crime? If the viewing of child pornography is a violent crime simply because a crime must be committed in order to view it, then isn't the possession of illegal drugs a violent crime because the production, distribution and sale of such products is a violent endeavor? I think that you can tell that I don't think that looking at child pornography, as disgusting and vile as it is, is a violent crime. Similarly, I think that looking at pictures of humans having sex with animals is disgusting and vile, and that animals, like children are incapable of giving consent. However, I don't think that looking at pictures of humans having sex with animals is a violent crime. Should people who look at pictures of humans having sex with animals be punished for violating statutes that prohibit animal cruelty? Posted by: ND | Nov 5, 2011 2:46:24 PM Since two people brought it up let me address the issue: "Aren't researchers who view child pornography in an effort to understand the causes and effects of child sexual abuse engaging in a violent crime?" and "It would be great if an expert in the field of the psychology of pornography would contribute to this blog." There are no experts on child porn and psychology. They simply don't exist. At least, there is no professional who would admit to it because the mere possession of child porn by anyone who is not a law enforcement officer is by definition illegal. The whole "but I just have it for research" purpose was settled in a series of court cases back in the late 80s. Child porn remains the only academic subject matter that it is illegal to study. So those who are looking for official expertise on the subject will find that there isn't any. That's deliberate. Posted by: Daniel | Nov 5, 2011 3:15:59 PM "Aren't researchers who view child pornography in an effort to understand the causes and effects of child sexual abuse engaging in a violent crime?" I once watched a judge at a sentencing tell a defendant that every time he viewed images of child pornography, he harmed the children in those images. He then asked the prosecutor to show him samples of the some of the images the defendant possessed. Prosecutors are just as bad. If a CP case goes to trial, the defense is usually that the defendant didn't know about the images, or that someone else downloaded them, or whatever. No one denies they are child pornography. But the prosecutors fight like hell to make sure they can show the images to the jury, even if the defendant stipulates they constitute child pornography. Then, at sentencing, the prosecutor will raise the same argument: every time CP is viewed, the children are victimized all over again. And so it goes. Posted by: C.A. | Nov 5, 2011 8:04:43 PM C.A. -- "If a CP case goes to trial, the defense is usually that the defendant didn't know about the images, or that someone else downloaded them." Could you tell us the percentage of cases in which that is anything other than an outright lie? I'm well aware that it's above zero; the question is how much. Is it 10%? 15%? What? Posted by: Bill Otis | Nov 5, 2011 9:50:53 PM Huh? I haven't heard of many trials where the defense was that the images were not child pornography. Not many of these cases go to trial to begin with, but the defense usually goes to knowledge, whether the defendant is the one who downloaded them, etc. In my experience the images are so unbelievably horrendous that no one would try to argue that they do not contain child pornography. There was one case in Puerto Rico, where the Government charged a defendant with possessing child pornography. At his trial, or maybe some pretrial hearing, the actor in the video came to testify that she was in her 20's when the videos were made, contrary to the testimony of the Government's expert, who concluded she was under the age of 18. I have heard of an appeal where the defendant argued that the Government did not put on sufficient evidence that the images were of actual children, i.e., that it was possible they were photoshopped, but I don't know if that was argued at trial. Typically in a CP cases I'm familiar with, the defendant is simply claiming that there is insufficient evidence that he was the one who downloaded the images or that there's reasonable doubt, because someone else had access to the computer. Posted by: C.A. | Nov 6, 2011 2:15:11 AM C.A. -- Thank you for your response. I was not, however, asking about burden of proof or questions the defense raises about that. You had said that the defense is that the "defendant didn't know about the images, or that someone else downloaded them." My question is: In what percentage of cases is that claim true? Defendants are sometimes successful in arguing that the government did not meet its burden, but in fact they did the deed. To give one notorious example, the OJ jury found that the government did not meet its burden, but I have yet to find a single sensate person who thinks he didn't actually do it. So, again, my question is not about the BOP. It's simply this: In what percentage of CP cases, where the defense is that someone else did the downloading or the defendant didn't know the pics were on his computer, is that claim actually true? Posted by: Bill Otis | Nov 6, 2011 9:34:03 AM I just wanted to jump in on this interesting conversation... First, I do think that Assistant State Attorney Steve Marsesca is right to point out the market dynamics involving child pornography. If people didn't want it, there'd be no reason to make it. That does not mean, however, that those who view child pornography are perpetrating a violent crime. That would mean that every time someone looked at a photo of a murder he/she would be committing a violent crime, which is of course preposterous. Second, before I got my PhD and became a law professor, I was a deputy public defender in San Diego. I actually handled a few ugly CP cases. In some cases it is clear that the accused (or someone who had access to his computer/email/credit card) actually downloaded the material because they paid for it or saved it into a new file or emailed it to someone else. In other occasions, however, the illegal images have been deleted and are recovered from the hard drive. That creates the real possibility of false accusations because if the accused inadvertently views CP (and it is all over the internet) or receives an email with an image and immediately deletes it, these images go into is/her hard drive and remain there indefinitely. And finally, I'm not sure how one would be able to figure out in what percentage of cases the defendant is actually innocent of the charge. The weakest cases for the prosecution are thrown out at prelim. or are plea bargained. The stakes are very high in sex cases. Not only is it difficult to select a fair and impartial jury, but there are also serious mandatory minimums. As a result, it is easy to understand why an innocent person would plead guilty to a lesser offense. Posted by: Tamara Lave | Nov 6, 2011 4:00:36 PM @Tamara. "First, I do think that Assistant State Attorney Steve Marsesca is right to point out the market dynamics involving child pornography. If people didn't want it, there'd be no reason to make it." Except for the fact, as you hint at, most cases of child porn don't involve the actual exchange of cash. So how can there be a "market" when something is not as a general rule bought or sold. The concept of a market simply makes no sense as applied to child porn. People make child porn for all sorts of reasons but rarely is done out of an economic motive. In this regard your own experience might be misleading you. Child porn which is purchased with a credit card is going to be prosecuted simply because the money trail makes it easier to convict. But in the larger picture such cases are outliers. To me comments like your are a sad reflection of an American cultural disease. We are so used to defining everything in capitalistic terms that we cannot simply believe that there are people out who do things without money on their minds. If there is a market for child porn it's overwhelmingly a barter-based market. I think, however, it's just better to drop the market analogy entirely. Posted by: Daniel | Nov 6, 2011 4:57:53 PM Daniel, i appreciate your comments, but that's not quite what I meant. I'm not saying that people make child porn out of an economic motive, although I'm sure that some do. What I mean is that if there wasn't a demand for child pornography then there would be no reason to produce it. And the point that I'm making is that the accused's desire for child pornography is partially responsible for it being made. That's where the harm comes from, and that's why it should be punished. Tamara Posted by: Tamara Lave | Nov 6, 2011 7:51:55 PM "And the point that I'm making is that the accused's desire for child pornography is partially responsible for it being made." Stated this way I agree. I do think, however, that the key word is "partially". I think the impact of demand on supply is usually overstated. There was sexual interaction with children by adults long before photography was invented. A primary use of photography by pedophiles is as a seduction technique. Children are trained in ordinary life to be compliant before a camera. Moreover, the act of self-recognition through a photograph typically delights a child: the identify with it as a form of play. So when a pedophile hauls out a camera the first thought in his or her mind is usually not that their going to take some photos to share with some anonymous stranger on the net. They pick up the camera to bring the child to heel. Moreover, once the photos are made some pedophiles use them as blackmail to ensure the silence of the child. It's easy to make the child feel guilty and at fault for what has happened and the simple threat of exposure is yet another control technique. Even if society could somehow magically prevent the dissemination of every single picture of child porn it would still be made by pedophiles. They need it to control and groom the child. The actual demand by third-parties for explicit pictures is a motive in only a minority of cases. People who haven't examined the problems in detail usually overestimate, often vastly overestimate, the demand side of the equation because it serves as a basis for their vapid moral preening. Getting a conviction for possession on some poor sop who in a moment of personal weakness while going through some life crisis downloaded something off the internet and wasn't smart enough to hide his tracks is whole lot easier than actually addressing the root causes of pedophilia. Frankly, rather than lauding harsh sentences for pedophiles all of us should feel profoundly embarrassed. If a third party has possession of child porn that means that there was some act of child abuse that we as a society failed to prevent. Talking about demand is the wrong focus. Eliminate the supply. Posted by: Daniel | Nov 6, 2011 9:54:57 PM federalist: "it's nice to demonize those who feel that child porn is an outrage and needs to be stamped out." me: when have I ever said that child porn is anything but an outrage? When have I ever indicated that I would not like to see it stamped out? However, if given a choice between totally eliminating all existing child porn images and all future sexual assaults of children, I would pick eliminating all future sexual assaults. And I would hope that everyone would feel the same way. Remember the fact that child porn is an outrage because a child was sexually assaulted to create those images. I believe that as society we should focus on eliminating future childhood sexual assaults - and that sentences in those cases needs to reflect it. To punish mere possession of child porn the same as creation of child porn or the most violent rape of a child may put children at risk of being sexually assaulted if icky pervs - I honestly do not know whether it will or not, but why risk it? ginny :) Posted by: virginia | Nov 7, 2011 2:23:52 PM Ginny :): Not all CP that has been prosecuted means an actual child was abused. Check out the case of a Japanese ANIME comic collector who was prosecuted for CP. Posted by: albeed | Nov 7, 2011 10:59:46 PM Also, keep in mind that many states have mandated child porn laws for images depicting FICTIONAL or computer generated images of children. To state that having such images would be a "violent" crime would be like watching any Dirty Harry movie or any crime and violence movie, subjecting every viewer to committing a criminal, violent act. The bottom line is that we are legislating emotions, not reality. Note the only sentences in excess of 100 years is for child related sex offenses, not murder or non sexual violence against adults and children alike. Posted by: Eric Knight | Feb 3, 2012 12:57:00 AM Do you have an update on the progress of an appeal in this case. I had the condo unit below this boy. I would only see his brother and him one or two times a year when I came to vacation for a week or two. I can't remember the brother Daniel saying anything. The older brother did all the talking. My wife and are were teachers and we always thought Daniel was mentally challenged, maybe special Ed in school. The life in prison WOP. Most people tell me that's impossible when I tell them the sentence. I guess he was smart enough to use a computer. Seems unfair but I'm sure the judge sends murders,rapists,child sex offenders,pedophiles and kidnappers to prison with the same sentence. Posted by: Jeff wilhelm | Jan 31, 2015 11:14:51 AM Post a comment "Pot legalization efforts forge ahead in key states" | Main | Latest litigation news over controversial pardons in Mississippi February 1, 2012 Notable recent state child porn sentencing developments in South Dakota Thanks to this brief new AP article, which is headlined "South Dakota child pornography convict gets 100-year prison sentence cut about in half," I learned about a fascinating ruling from last year by the South Dakota Supreme Court in South Dakota v. Bruce, 2011 S.D. 14 (SD April 6, 2011) (available here). Working backwards, here is the latest sentencing news in this notable case: A 100-year prison sentence handed down to a Pierre man convicted of possessing child pornography has been cut about in half. The South Dakota Supreme Court last year ruled that the initial sentence for 48-year-old Troy Bruce was excessive and ordered a new sentencing. KCCR radio reports that Judge Mark Barnett on Tuesday sentenced Bruce to a total of 55 years in prison. Bruce will be eligible for parole after serving one-fourth of the sentence. He also was given credit for about two years he already has served behind bars. This report prompted me to wonder if the South Dakota Supreme Court had actually deemed a child porn sentence to be unconstitutional, and the Bruce ruling nearly does. Here are notable snippets from the majority opinion in Bruce: Bruce was convicted of possessing one DVD containing fifty-five videos of child pornography. He received the ten-year maximum sentence on all fifty-five counts. Forty-five of the sentences were suspended, but the sentences on the remaining ten counts were to be served consecutively resulting in a total sentence of 100 years. Bruce contends that this sentence was cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment.... When such statutory ranges are established, the legislative intent is that "the more serious commissions of [the] crime . . . deserve sentences at the harsher end of the spectrum.... Imposing the maximum possible term where the circumstances of the crime only justify a sentence at a lower range violates legislative intent to reserve the most severe sanctions for the most serious combinations of the offense and the background of the offender. Bonner, 1998 S.D. 30, 25. Further, we now adopt Justice Konenkamps recommendation that courts look at two additional determinants when assessing the seriousness of a child pornography offense: (1) the specific nature of the material and (2) the extent to which the offender is involved with that material. Blair, 2006 S.D. 75, 83.... With respect to the seriousness of this offense, the pornography involved much more than lewd images but less than the worst possible material covered by the statute.... With respect to Bruces involvement, he was convicted of possessing the one DVD containing fifty-five images. Although thirty other discs containing child pornography images were found, the court consider[ed] Counts 1 through 10 as one act for the purpose of determining parole eligibility. Additionally, there was no evidence that Bruce manufactured or distributed child pornography. Finally, there was no evidence suggesting that Bruce had ever sexually abused a child, had sexual contact with a child, or solicited a child for sexual images. This was a case of simple possession of images. Bruces character and history reflect that he was a divorced forty-eight year old with three children, one who was still a minor. Other than a careless driving offense, Bruce had no prior criminal history. He was a former member of the National Guard and a veteran who had served in Saudi Arabia and Iraq during Operation Desert Storm.... Bruces maximum sentences were not reserved for the most serious combination of criminal conduct and background of the offender. We therefore conclude that this is the exceedingly rare case in which Bruces sentence was grossly disproportionate to the particulars of the offense and the offender. See Bonner, 1998 S.D. 30, 25. Because Bruce did not present comparative information with which to conduct an intra- and interjurisdictional analysis, we reverse and remand to the circuit court to consider that evidence on resentencing. A concurring opinion in Bruce adds these notable observations: In South Dakota, gross disparity in the sentence length for possession of child pornography exists. For example, in State v. Martin, 2003 S.D. 153, 674 N.W.2d 291, the defendants sentence for possession of child pornography was a term of two years in the penitentiary with all but forty-five days in jail suspended subject to additional conditions. In the present case, the aggregate sentence is a term of 100 years in the penitentiary. Yet the facts of the two cases are similar: both involve the possession but not the manufacture or distribution of multiple computer-based images of child pornography. The difference in the length of the sentences for these similar crimes is shocking. I think it is safe to assert that, not just in South Dakota, but all across this great nation, "gross disparity in the sentence length for possession of child pornography exists." I have seen and heard of many state (and few federal cases) in which a child porn possession conviction results in only months in prison, and yet a few months ago in Florida (as reported here) Daniel Enrique Guevara Vilca received a sentence of life without the possibility of parole for mere child porn possession! What a sad and disturbing mess. February 1, 2012 at 12:06 PM | Permalink TrackBack TrackBack URL for this entry: https://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d83451574769e2016300883a2e970d Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Notable recent state child porn sentencing developments in South Dakota: Comments At the upcoming House Judiciary committee hearing on post-Booker disparity, count on the disparities in child porn cases being blamed entirely on liberal judges (despite the fact that more than half the bench were GOP appointees). When you staff the Judiciary committees with former prosecutors and DOJ detailees, the committees unsurprisingly will look for ways to give prosecutors more power. Posted by: Thinkaboutit | Feb 1, 2012 12:20:10 PM It is sad and disturbing. And like the rest of the "SEX OFFENDER!!!!!" mess, it's immoral. The people behind it are criminals. I have to say if a criminal government imprisoned my child for very long for something like this, people would be paying for it with their lives. Guaranteed. Posted by: FRegistryTerrorists | Feb 1, 2012 1:21:58 PM It is hard to see how a 55 year sentence addresses the appellate court's concerns for a 48 year old man. The de facto length of the maximum sentence for the man, given his life expectency, is essentially unchanged. Of course, if good time routinely reduces the length of a sentence by, for example, 50%, then the likely sentence has dropped from 50 years to 27.5 years, which would afford the man at least a plausible chance of a couple of years of freedom in his dotage. Posted by: ohwilleke | Feb 1, 2012 1:28:48 PM while 100 years was a ludicrous sentence given the offense, the following sentences from the opinion makes it clear that prison is where this icky perv belongs: "One pretrial issue involved the State's use of other acts evidence in the form of a disc containing child pornography. The disc was found in Bruce's safe and was stained with his semen" how icky! erika :) Posted by: virginia | Feb 1, 2012 4:52:32 PM Erika: I haave read that more than 50% of American women own a V-br-t-r or a device which was illegal in Texas until a couple of years ago. How double icky!! Posted by: albeed | Feb 1, 2012 5:15:37 PM albeed...How double icky!! Kudos again :-) Posted by: comment | Feb 1, 2012 5:27:59 PM All kidding aside, I have a serious question about receipt and possession of CP. I receive many spam E-mails from virus infected computers from people I know. However, if I have any question about the E-mails I delete them immediately without opeing them up or their attachments, or knowing their content. If any of these E-mails contained CP, could I be charged with receipt of CP (but not possession), even though I did not know it? As I understand it, If you receive CP, you are to contact LE immeduately (and say bye-bye to your computer for a long time.) In order to put a stranglehold on its citizens, Is this why the gubermint makes receipt prosecuted more severely than possession? Posted by: albeed | Feb 1, 2012 5:58:35 PM Albeed, that is what happened to my husband. He received e-mails from a drunk crazy guy (we are pretty sure he went to a treatment center before he could be sent to prison) and because my husband opened the e-mails and they contained two pictures of CP my husband was charged with Receiving, not possesion. 5 years mandatory minimum. By the way the guy continued to send pictures to my husband. The whole thing took place one night in about a two hour time period. The Feds tried to charge my husband with the pictures that were sent after my husband logged off and had deleted the pictures from drunk crazy guy. Posted by: JS | Feb 2, 2012 12:55:24 PM @ albeed: Can't we all just agree that sex in any form is icky, irrespective of whether it complies with the particulars of a state or federal statute? I think that's the major unstated premise we're dealing with, wouldn't you agree? Posted by: Guy | Feb 2, 2012 1:03:46 PM Guy: You know, I am an old-fashioned type of male pig. I have had s-x with only one woman (my wife of greater than 35 years) and I still enjoy it. I think she does too. She never referred to it as icky and neither did I. Posted by: albeed | Feb 2, 2012 1:22:37 PM @ albeed: I'm having to put on my thinking cap here, but I'd be willing to venture a guess that even that, in the eyes of some keyboard commandos, would probably be regarded as icky as well. It is, after all, sex. :) Posted by: Guy | Feb 2, 2012 6:06:54 PM albeed, the ickiness lies not in the act of self pleasure, but in the fact that this icky perv was pleasuring himself while looking at pictures of little girls being raped. you can try to spin a scenario where someone might innocently run across images of little girls being raped, but they pretty obviously do not apply here. its pretty obvious this icky perv gets off on little girls being raped so he definitely belongs in prison. erika :) Posted by: virginia | Feb 3, 2012 8:22:04 AM guy: "Can't we all just agree that sex in any form is icky, irrespective of whether it complies with the particulars of a state or federal statute?" me: sex between consenting adults is never icky. sex between an adult and a 5 year old is always icky. why is that concept so diffiuclt for some people to understand? :) guy: "I think that's the major unstated premise we're dealing with, wouldn't you agree?" me: you obviously don't know me very well ;) erika :) Posted by: virginia | Feb 3, 2012 8:34:24 AM STRAWMAN ALERT! STRAWMAN ALERT! The board now contains a proposition that the real problem with those opposed to child pornagraphy is that they oppose sex per se. Can anyone spot the strawman in this picture? Let me rephrase that. Can anyone NOT spot the strawman in this picture? Posted by: Bill Otis | Feb 3, 2012 12:24:37 PM She never referred to it as icky and neither did I. -- You're doing it wrong. Posted by: Soronel Haetir | Feb 3, 2012 6:56:17 PM Soronel: Good one! Do you have the Texas SO data yet? Posted by: albeed | Feb 3, 2012 7:16:19 PM albeed, Yeah, but my premise going in was wrong. There are no offenses that land someone on a non-publicly available Texas registry. There are offenders who are not publicly listed for various reasons (certain juveniles, those whose processing is not yet complete mostly) but it is always tied to something about the offender and not the underlying offense. Given that my entire premise was wrong I didn't see much point in going forward. Certainly if you were to use a categorical approach of the sort used for ACCA predicates every offense that gets someone listed is a serious felony. When I was in contact with TX DPS there were about 1100 non-listed offenders and close to 70k listed. There really isn't enough data to try and quantify how many of the total are Romeo and Juliet type cases but the perusal of the public database I've done leads me to believe it's a small slice of the total. Posted by: Soronel Haetir | Feb 3, 2012 8:20:35 PM Soronel: Any slice is too high, or do we give up on good human beings and say, O well? Posted by: albeed | Feb 3, 2012 10:15:36 PM soronel, when it comes to consensual relationships between adults, what one person may find icky, another person may find extremely pleasurable. albeed, I know you wanted Texas, but try looking at Delaware and Iowa's sex offender registry which have much better search interfaces. Delaware allows searches by offense at conviction. Iowa has an excellent advanced search interface which allows you to search by almost any feature you want. Iowa also allows you to sort results by age. Both are states with lower populations so there aren't as many results. In both cases, it will reveal that "Romeo-Julliet" relationships rarely land people on the sex offender registry. On the other hand, masturbating while looking at pictures of little girls being raped or raping little girls will always land someone in prison and on the sex offender registry. And should - because those offenders are dangerous! Erika :) Posted by: virginia | Feb 5, 2012 8:06:43 AM Erica, What is the study you found that says people who look at pictures are dangerous? Just your opinion? Posted by: Curious | Feb 5, 2012 4:13:57 PM Curious: Yes, it is just Erika's feminist opinion. eriKa: That you just blew off my comment on another post that there are 6 times more sex offenders per capita in Oregon than Pennsylvania, (quite a statistical anomoly don't you think) tells everyone how arbitrary and capricious these laws are. Posted by: albeed | Feb 5, 2012 10:33:52 PM curious: "What is the study you found that says people who look at pictures are dangerous?" me: when the pictures are of little girls being raped, it is pretty self evident that the person is an icky perv pedophile who desires to have sex with little girls or an icky perv sadist who gets off on the infliction of pain on girls. Icky pervs are dangerous because of the risk that they will ecsalate their behavior and actually attack and rape a child. Once a person has shown an attraction to the rape of little girls (or boys), he (or extremely rarely she) has shown him (or extremely rarely her) to be an icky perv and society needs to treat icky pervs as being dangerous. Now because the icky perv as far as can be proved has only looked at pictures they deserve a sentencing break over that of someone who actually rapes a child. However society still needs to take steps to protect itself from the icky perv and because there is no effective treatment for pedophilia those steps need to be eliminating the icky perv's access to children through a prison sentence, placement on the sex offender registry, "treatment," and restrictions on freedom to prevent access to children following release. erika :) Posted by: virginia | Feb 6, 2012 6:19:15 AM albeed, under our federal system, states are free to set their laws as they desire. If Oregon has more sex offenders per capita due to more restrictive laws, Oregon has made that decision. If by contrast, Oregon has more icky pervs per capita than Pennsylvania, it should lead one to ask what makes Oregonians so likely to molest children or what attracks icky pervs to move to Oregon. Erika :) Posted by: virginia | Feb 6, 2012 6:26:11 AM Erika: My comments are about justice, not what our current perverse lawmakers consider to be vote-getting prostitution. I am glad you are a legend in your own mind. However, you don't realize that your continued use of the icky pervs noun is somewhat akin to using the N word in the old south. It has no absolute descriptive value except to demean, not explain. Posted by: albeed | Feb 6, 2012 9:28:54 PM Some people here apparently think that the Registries and "restrictions" on freedoms somehow "prevents access to children". That is quite indicative of someone who has no grip on reality. I assure you that a person can be listed on a nanny, big government Registry and spend as much time around children as one likes. And of course, as many people on here know, some people spend a lot of time around random children just because they are listed on a government list. BTW, where are the rest of the Registries? We are waiting. Posted by: FRegistryTerrorists | Feb 7, 2012 6:18:57 PM albeed, icky pervs are icky pervs based upon their actions. are you seriously comparing the treatment of pedophiles who act upon their disgusting desire to have sex with children to discrimination based upon race? don't be riduculous! :) Erika :) Posted by: virginia | Feb 10, 2012 12:11:21 PM albeed, incidentially, would you agree with classifing this mother as an icky pervette? http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/woman-admits-to-sex-acts-with-infant-daughter/article_150d8aba-4b97-11e1-9f78-001a4bcf6878.html incidentially, for her 100 years in prison is too low of a sentence! Erika :) Posted by: virginia | Feb 10, 2012 1:43:42 PM Erika I would kindly appreciate it if you could take your insignificant feminist views and smear them on some other blog that shares the same ignorant thoughts as your own. This blog is for open-minded individuals who want to discuss justice and injustice, not "icky pervs" Posted by: PleaseUSJesus | Feb 10, 2014 8:06:53 PM I am the brother of Troy Bruce. What is very shocking about this case is the amount of evidence that was not allowed in the case that would show Troy Bruce may not in fact be guilty. In a book called "Protecting our Kids?" Troy and his family were interviewed and also the case was looked at. What was found is that Troy was found guilty by the jury due to what is called (Just in Case). In other words "just in case he may be guilty" the jury found a determination of guilt. Some of the jury member interviewed we shocked at the amount of time given to Troy as they had thought that he would get a few years at the most. Many have expressed guilt over the decision. The police found a few cd disc with the CP on it. The police actually had a warrant to search for marijuana and claim they saw child porn on the main computer in the living room that 5 people had access to. Later it would be found out that in fact no child porn was on the computer, only the disc the police found. The informant for the police was Troy's ex-girlfriend, he was kicking her out as she was spending all his money at the casinos and would leave for days with his truck. Right before the raid she removed two computer towers that were hers. When she had to finally surrender them, both of the hard drives were wiped clean. Someone had formatted them. Her son also lived with them for awhile. (It was not allowed into court that her son had spent time in a facility for molesting his siblings and was not suppose to have access to a computer, he was on it all the time). Also the ex girlfriend had accused others of crimes like this. She accused a doctor of molesting her, she accused her brother in law of molesting her kids and now she was accusing my brother of having child porn.Also it was found that much of the child pornography was downloaded while Troy was away for a week and did not have computer access. This case was so poorly handled that any appeal failed. Troy's lawyer waved right after right only to try to fight back the rights he waved. If you look at South Dakota, you will find cases were the individual molested children, recorded it and sold it. They all received less time. Many people that actually distributed this material will often receive a sentence of only months. Troy was a decorated war veteran and a registered nurse working with hospice patients. His accuser was unemployed and throughout the trial requested money from the court. She would also harass my elderly parents for over a year wanting Troy's property claiming it was hers as she lived in the apartment. She would also get a cell phone in Troy's name after he was in jail and not pay the bill. Long story short, "Just in Case" type decisions need to go away. Corey Posted by: Corey | Jan 29, 2016 11:24:35 AM Post a comment Effective coverage of the considerable challenges of sentencing reform in Louisiana | Main | "Four Decades and Counting: The Continued Failure of the War on Drugs" April 13, 2017 Florida judge imposes 100 years in prison for child porn possession for first offender claiming innocence This local article about a state sentencing in Florida, headlined "Man, 37, sentenced to 100 years for child porn conviction," reports on a remarkably severe sentence handed down yesterday. Here are the details: A 36-year-old St. Johns County man is looking at spending the rest of his life behind bars after Circuit Court Judge Howard Maltz sentenced him to 100 years in prison Wednesday morning. The sentencing came nearly two months after a jury found Jesse Graham Berben guilty on 20 counts of possession of child pornography at the end of a two-day February trial. Berben, who maintained his innocence even through his sentencing hearing Wednesday, was arrested by St. Johns County Sheriffs Office detectives in April 2015 after authorities obtained a search warrant for his Washington Street apartment where he was living with his father at the time and finding files containing the pornography on his computer. His arrest report indicates that Berben denied knowing anything about the files or how they ended up on his computer. While he admitted to having a peer-to-peer file-sharing program that he used to download music, he denied using his computer to keep or download child pornography and said that if such files were found that it must have been compromised in some way. Berbens attorney, Tom Cushman, said after the sentencing that his client had maintained his innocence to him from the day that they first met, and that Berben had been offered a plea agreement from the state that would have netted him a prison sentence of about 5 years, but he refused to plead because he said he was not guilty and he wasnt going to plead guilty to something he didnt do and become a registered sex offender with it. The sentence he ultimately received was more than four-times the lowest permissible sentence Maltz could have handed down based on sentencing guidelines submitted in court Wednesday (the maximum sentence was life in prison). It was also beyond even what Assistant State Attorney Mitch Bishop asked for while standing in for his colleague Chris Ferebee, who prosecuted the case. Bishop, in his remarks before sentencing, said that the images most of them movie files found on Berbens computer depicted children, some as young as 5-years-old, engaged in various sex acts. He pushed back on the notion, expressed by some, that merely possessing such images is not nearly as bad as carrying out the acts depicted. The problem with that is that viewing these images, possessing these images creates a market for someone else to produce them, he said. I dont think that point should be overlooked. Berben, he argued, not only downloaded the files but kept them in the file sharing program, making them available to others. Bishop asked Maltz for a sentence that would include the rest of Berbens meaningful life, arguing that someone who is sexually gratified by or even sexually curious by such images does not possess much rehabilitative potential.... Cushman, citing his clients 10 years of military service and lack of any criminal record, asked Maltz to consider something far less than Bishop asked for, and pointed out that the sentencing guidelines for the possession of child pornography made his client eligible for a punishment possibly greater than if hed actually committed the act.... Maltz, though, citing the images seen at the trial, called the case quite troubling and said he agreed with the states argument against any notion that possession of the images is a victimless crime. I see little difference in culpability between those who actually sexually abuse and exploit children, and those who encourage and promote the conduct by downloading and sharing videos of such, which I think warrants a significant sentence, he said. Maltz sentenced Berben to five years in prison for each of the 20 counts, to be served consecutively. Cushman said Berben plans to appeal the sentence. I am pretty sure that Florida lacks any general parole provisions, so the defendant in this case is certain to die in prison if his convictions or sentence is not modified on appeal. Notably, a somewhat similar case from Florida a few years ago, the Vilca case discussed here where an LWOP sentence was imposed for child porn possession, had convictions reversed based on a discovery violation as noted here. Also, in a similar case from South Dakota, the Bruce case discussed here, the South Dakota Supreme Court found a 100-year prison sentence for child porn possession constitutionally excessive. It will be interesting to see if this case might get the level of attention that some others involving extreme prison terms sometimes do. And it will be interesting to see how the Florida courts engage with these matters on appeal. April 13, 2017 at 11:19 AM | Permalink Comments While possession of child pornography is a serious crime that should be seriously punished, this sentence is totally disproportionate; it breeds disrespect for the law and brings the criminal justice system into disrepute. But nothing new under sun here as the following scholars and courts have noted: American punishment is comparatively harsh, comparatively degrading, comparatively slow to show mercy. James Q. Whitman, Harsh Justice (Oxford Press 2003 paperback ed) at page 19 Contemporary policies concerning crime and punishment are the harshest in American history and of any Western country. The Handbook of Crime And Punishment (Oxford Press 1998) paperback ed. at page 3. See U.S. v Newhouse, 919 F.Supp.2d 955 (N.D.Iowa 2013) (totally disproportionate, unduly harsh sentences breed disrespect for the law.); See Testimony Of Justice Anthony Kennedy before the Senate Judiciary Committee February 14, 2007 in response to Senator Whitehouse (Our sentences are too long, our sentences are too severe, our sentences are too harsh... [and because there are so few pardons] there is no compassion in the system. Theres no mercy in the system.), video link accessible at Professor Bermans Sentencing Law and Policy Blog of Feb. 15, 2007); Justice Kennedy s ABA speech of 2003 (A country which is secure in its institutions, confident in its laws should not be ashamed of the concept of mercy. As the greatest of poets has said 'mercy is the mightiest in the mightiest. It becomes the throned monarch better than his crown.'); Posted by: Michael R. Levine | Apr 13, 2017 12:01:15 PM I agree completely with Mr. Levine. Such a draconian sentence, essentially a sentence of life, is the same sentence imposed on the Green River killer, and many other serial killers (Kacynski, the mail bomber, etc) . Where is our sense of justice? Absolutely outrageous. Both judge and prosecutor should hand their heads in shame. Posted by: Dave from Texas | Apr 13, 2017 12:28:48 PM Clearly, this is a horrible crime, if in fact, the guy is guilty. And that seems to be a big if. I know this--if I were the prosecutor, I'd want to be absolutely f'ing sure that this guy is guilty. From what I read here, I am not sure that's the case. The article may not tell the whole story. Posted by: federalist | Apr 13, 2017 12:29:20 PM Federalist, I agree it's a serious crime, and it should be seriously punished. But assuming he's guilty as sin, which I do, the sentence is still draconian. As Dave from Texas points out, why does this man deserve an effective sentence of life in prison, the same sentence imposed on the Green River Killer, Theodore Kacyznski, Jeffrey Dahmer, and many other maniacal killers? Give me a break. Justice is not served by such a disproportionate sentence. Posted by: Sarah | Apr 13, 2017 12:46:43 PM Given that I believe that any crime more serious than the theft of a couple hundred dollars should carry a presumptive death sentence I have no problems with this outcome as such. As presented the article does raise questions about actual guilt but I have encountered enough slanted reporting that I would have to see much more before those concerns became anything more than curiosity. Posted by: Soronel Haetir | Apr 13, 2017 1:17:00 PM Sara, Accepting the jury's guilty verdict he deserves it because at the life end of the sentencing range once you get to a certain point of seriousness all offenders have earned their ticket to the slammer. I see making that gradation on the worst of those who draw such a sentence (instead of the least) as being a logical mistake. An example of what I mean, if you were to accept my threshold for a presumptive death sentence then it would not matter how many offenders are beyond that point. There just isn't room for gradation once you reach the life sentence or execution range. Posted by: Soronel Haetir | Apr 13, 2017 1:21:46 PM Sorry, Sarah. Posted by: Soronel Haetir | Apr 13, 2017 1:22:07 PM There are so many things wrong here I don't know where to begin but I'll focus on the basics, which is his guilt. This case is ripe for overturning on that grounds alone because it confuses the possession of equipment with the act of downloading. Here is the relevant fact: "where he was living with his father at the time" So how did they know the father didn't do it? Did the father testify that he didn't do it so it was an issue of credibility? Courts have routinely held that if a computer is in a shared environment where more than one person has physical access to the computer a jury is not allowed to impute the act of downloading to the person who owns the computer because that abrogates the governments burden of proving who downloaded the material. I realize that this is a sentencing blog but I'd still like to know more about whether he is really guilty or not. We have seen in other jurisdictions defendants have their convictions overturned. Posted by: Daniel | Apr 13, 2017 1:39:23 PM I'll be the one to chime in and say: the prosecutor's theory for why this crime deserves a harsh sentence seems dubious. In a world of peer-to-peer file sharing, does downloading of child pornography create a market for it? There are other reasons why it's bad, but if there's little or no evidence of the "market" justification, that's another reason why this sentence is way out of line. Posted by: MW | Apr 13, 2017 3:13:27 PM Just as an aside... If you watch the decapitation or other murderous videos that are released by terrorists, and you download the video and keep it as a file, does that make you liable for a prison sentence just as if you actually did the terrorizing or murder yourself? While other people may claim that child porn is different because "you only get killed once, but can be victimized over and over again," they negate the actual crime by minimizing the act itself and maximizing the non-physically-destructive viewing crime. Posted by: Eric Knight | Apr 13, 2017 3:14:27 PM I would love to see prosecutors and judges that do these kinds of things get wacked. They deserve it. They are clearly a danger to Americans. No respect for government or their criminal employees. F them. Posted by: FRegistryTerrorists | Apr 13, 2017 6:04:48 PM Eric Knight | Apr 13, 2017 3:14:27 PM: It doesn't make any sense to me why child porn is illegal yet it is not illegal to watch children being murdered. And frankly that doesn't make sense to any normal person with a brain. It is nothing but America's idiotic obsession with s*x. It's a witch hunt. Posted by: FRegistryTerrorists | Apr 13, 2017 6:09:28 PM If he didn't pay for the porn, then how can he of created a market for it. I have to guess that Florida Elects judges. Hopefully when the pythons finish eating all the animals in Florida, they will start on the Government. Posted by: Stephen | Apr 13, 2017 6:41:48 PM I feel for him. I too was convicted of same offense. P 2 P file downloaded for nature images and had illegal images in it. Since they were coded and not previewable, I saw them after I downloaded. I did not keep them , but the goon squad came and that was the end of my life. I received 90 days and a forever sentence on a worthless list. The authorities know where this stuff thisbut would rather chase the innocents because it's easier for them. I am eligible for reduction, but so what, my life is ruined so that judges, politicians, and law enforcement can gain points with an ignorant public. I wish him the best, and hope the judge suffers horrible tragedies the rest of his life Posted by: Chris | Apr 13, 2017 6:45:59 PM *I am a member of an advocacy group working for the civil rights of registered citizens. The judge in this case is an idiot who knows nothing of the research and facts associated with child pornography. CP is free on the Internet. No market can be driven on something that is free. Claiming that there is no difference between viewing and abusing is totally illogical. For centuries the public observed public executions-- is that the same as being the executioner?? I know of some men who were convicted of possession of child pornography and they did not serve one day in prison. I believe the usual sentence is five to seven years. Given the vast disparity of this sentence and the usual sentence, I would like to know what justification the judge could have for his decision. Whatever happened to "equal protection under the law?" I have to assume that this judge is seeking re-election points and I believe he cannot possibly have a conscience and sentence a young man to live the rest of his life in prison for this offense! Posted by: Margaret Moon | Apr 13, 2017 10:49:13 PM I have proposed e-discovery of the judge's computers and devices, as a duty in professional standards of due care for all defense lawyers. The lawyers are unanimous, that will be left to a pro se litigant, even if they see the reasoning behind it. Posted by: David Behar | Apr 14, 2017 2:00:21 AM Sarah. Thank the feminist lawyer and its male running dogs for this witch hunt of the productive male. We males owe them payback. Posted by: David Behar | Apr 14, 2017 2:03:35 AM Judge and prosecutor should be so ashamed, how do they sleep at night? Hope the appeal has a better end result for this young man who has maintained his innocense from day one. Wish he had taken the plea, but I totally understand, why would you want to go to prison for 5 yrs and be put on the registry if you are innocent? I believe those P2P share websites can corrupt your computer with CP files you didn't ask for, even if you are just dowloading music. Have read too many stories on advocacy sites about it happening to others, and I seriously doubt all those people are "making up" the same story. Can only imagine this guy's thoughts on how the law has failed him. So sad. Posted by: kat | Apr 14, 2017 9:05:34 AM kat: Decisions like this, without EVIDENCE that there was a transfer of money or a deliberate search for said files demonstrates that the law has failed ALL of us. The protections provided by the Constitution and the Law aren't worth the paper their printed on. This not only leads to disrespect for LE, judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys who do not cry out loud enough, but outright hatred of government, lawmakers and idiots which turn a blind eye to it. Posted by: albeed | Apr 14, 2017 12:17:53 PM Where is the evidence that criminalizing the viewing and possessing of KP eliminates any market for someone to produce it? When has criminalizing anything deterred the behavior being targeted? If it were even remotely possible, would there be a need for judges, criminal attorneys, or jailers? Giving this guy 100 years isn't going to put a dent into the KP "market." Posted by: Huh? | Apr 14, 2017 6:38:08 PM IN my experience, the judicial system probably has more porn on their computers and backgrounds. One hundred years for porn (pictures), a first time offender? Somebody sure thinks they are above the Law. Incompetent judicial system? Who made the porn? Who sent the porn? Where is the Law that you can not view material that is in public view? This is completely wrong in our society, he claimed to be innocent, what ever happened to innocent until proven guilty? Courts are lazy and waste money for profit. Posted by: LC in Texas | Apr 15, 2017 10:46:15 PM While CP should be illegal, it should be treated more so like a copyright case and focus on the producer. We don't prosecute people if they possess a torture video such an ISIS video of people getting burned,amputated,beaten,etc In addition are "adult rape" videos treated the same? What about abu grahib? If the person committed a henious, there's a great chance he/she would receive a lesser sentence. Posted by: ash | Apr 16, 2017 1:21:00 AM these judges one day are going to one day get a harsher punishment trust me Posted by: spence | Aug 7, 2017 12:18:39 AM Check out my link. This is an example of over punishment. 10 years? I can't believe it. Please sjare my story guys. https://www.gofundme.com/the-justice-system-failed-mehelp Posted by: Lawrence Archer | Mar 21, 2018 2:19:46 AM Post a comment "Four Decades and Counting: The Continued Failure of the War on Drugs" | Main | Over-burdened New Orleans public defenders talk of challenges to 60 Minutes April 13, 2017 "Three Reasons Why Virginia May Execute an Innocent Man" The title of this post is the headline of this notable new commentary authored by LawProf Cara Drinan. Here are excerpts: In 2006, a jury convicted Ivan Teleguz of hiring someone to kill Stephanie Sipe, his ex-girlfriend and the mother of his child. Now, more than a decade later, Virginia is scheduled to execute Teleguz on April 25, 2017, and there is substantial evidence suggesting that Teleguz is innocent. How is that possible in the United States the land of the free, where a poor person is entitled to legal counsel and a criminal defendant has numerous chances to be heard in court? Actually, it happens with some ease, and in part, it happens because of conscious choices we have made about our legal system. There are at least three reasons for this counter-intuitive reality. 1. Prosecutors, Not Judges or Juries, Resolve Most Criminal Cases in America ... Teleguzs case demonstrates this phenomenon well. There was no physical evidence connecting him to the murder of Ms. Sipe; the prosecutions case was based on the testimony of three witnesses. Since his trial, two of those witnesses have recanted their testimony and have admitted that they lied when they implicated Teleguz in exchange for favorable treatment from the government. The Commonwealth repeatedly told the third witness, Ms. Sipes actual killer, that he would face the death penalty unless he cooperated with them by agreeing to testify against Teleguz in Ms. Sipes murder and sticking to that story. Not surprisingly, he did just that and he is serving out a life sentence while Teleguz faces imminent death. 2. The Myth of the Right to Counsel ... Teleguz suffered at the hands of a broken system. Counsel in death penalty cases are held to a heightened standard of performance, and as part of that standard, they are expected to conduct extensive, careful investigation to prepare for the sentencing phase of the trial. Teleguzs trial counsel was far from diligent, and as a result, the jury heard evidence that Teleguz was involved in another arranged murder. This evidence persuaded the jury to vote for the death penalty. Heres the wrinkle: not only was Teleguz not involved in such a crime, the crime never happened. Years after his trial, that fact came to light, and the government has now acknowledged that the alleged prior murder did not happen. But the jury verdict stands. 3. Not So Appealing Appeals Process ... Surely, the multi-layered appellate process would ferret out an error of this magnitude and provide a remedy? Not necessarily. In 1996, Congress passed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) and in the process gutted the federal writ of habeas corpus, which a federal court can use to order the release of someone wrongly imprisoned. Today, the American appellate process is an intricate web of procedural rules, and, in fact, "we have purposefully designed our system of appellate review to examine almost everything but factual guilt or innocence." That might be defensible if we could be confident in the accuracy of our criminal justice system, but we cant be. Since 1989, there have been more than 2,000 exonerations in the United States. In 2015 alone, 58 people were exonerated of homicide convictions. Like many of those individuals, Teleguz has consistently maintained his innocence. Today there is new evidence to support that claim that no court has fully examined. In the next few days, Governor Terry McAuliffe cant do much about prosecutorial overreach, problems with indigent defense, and the complex appellate process. But he can recognize that, because of these systemic failures, there is substantial doubt about Teleguzs guilt. Governor McAuliffe should grant clemency and stop Teleguzs execution. This recent AP article, headlined "Conservatives urge Virginia governor to spare inmate's life," highlights that it is not only a law professor urging Gov McAuliffe to act in this capital case. UPDATE : A commentor has usefully noted that the Fourth Circuit opinion in this case, which is available here, provides a different perspective on this case and Teleguz's claims of innocence. April 13, 2017 at 06:30 PM | Permalink Comments Professor Berman, Do you believe that you have any obligation in your blog to correct the misstatements baldly asserted by Prof. Drinan? Have you read the opinion of the 4th Circuit in this case? It shows that alleged "recanted" statements consisted of affidavits and not testimony. It also shows that one such affidavit was made by the habeas attorney who purportedly spoke with someone overseas who claimed to be the witness. It similarly shows that all the law enforcement witnesses who were accused of misconduct testified before the U.S. District Court Judge and all flatly denied all the alleged misconduct. (One such allegation was that the prosecutor visited him in prison and brought cookies she had baked for him...) The Judge found their testimony "credible" and found the recanting affidavits "unreliable". Education for citizenship indeed. Posted by: Cal. Prosecutor | Apr 13, 2017 7:42:02 PM Prosecutor needs a 12 ga vasectomy Posted by: MidWestGuy | Apr 13, 2017 8:36:17 PM Prosecutor: Of course, it would have been ideal if the recantations had been in the form of live testimony (and not affidavits), but as the Dist. Ct. judge noted, the witnesses were unavailable to testify. One of the key witnesses had left the US and was not amenable to subpoena power and the other pleaded the 5th because he feared exposure to additional criminal charges. Posted by: CHD | Apr 14, 2017 8:53:15 AM So the triggerman killed Stephanie Sipe out of the clear blue sky? Posted by: federalist | Apr 14, 2017 9:08:03 AM I see National Review posted a letter from twenty-five conservatives and libertarians requesting the governor to halt the execution because of doubt of guilt: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/446727/conservatives-gov-mcauliffe-dont-execute-ivan-teleguz This includes something used to help show he was dangerous/guilty enough to execute: "At trial, the prosecutor argued that Teleguz should be sentenced to death, in part, because he was dangerous and involved in another murder in Ephrata, Pennsylvania. Yet, it was later revealed that the testimony about this supposed murder was completely fabricated the murder in Ephrata never even happened." The concern in all the analysis I could find focused on the deficiency of the evidenced used to convict. I could not find an alternative theory for the crime being offered. That would be useful, obviously, but not necessary. Posted by: Joe | Apr 14, 2017 10:11:54 AM Joe, the problem is that we can't trust "your side" (a term I use loosely)--many of these innocence claims (e.g. Roger Coleman, Troy Davis in 2011 and probably the worst of all, Kevin Cooper) turn out to be completely bogus. A lot of the "conservatives" take headlines and don't go into the weeds and take an opportunity to virtue-signal. The true believers have time to manufacture innocence claims (Glossip) and a friendly press doesn't ask hard questions. Your side cries wolf way too often, and it drowns out legit claims of innocence. Posted by: federalist | Apr 14, 2017 10:41:37 AM I guess the way to defeat conservatives/libertarians in various instances is to agree with them. The National Review promoting the case here. Look! A squirrel!!!! Posted by: Joe | Apr 14, 2017 10:58:06 AM ETA: Again, the coverage focuses on doubt on the evidence of guilt. While it would be useful, and maybe somewhere it was offered, an alternative theory of the crime is not necessary. And, conservatives/libertarians in this specific case [like liberals sometimes in specific cases joined with their causes] also are doubtful. The fact federalist is suspicious is duly noted. Likewise, in another case, a liberal minded sort would be suspicious if it was argued (with across the board support) that a claim of racism was unfounded even though the person making it seems trustworthy or whatever. We can move past that and focus on the specifics. Posted by: Joe | Apr 14, 2017 11:02:20 AM Fed: Your above statement has a lot of common sense. Why would a stranger kill a person, and not profit from it? Posted by: David Behar | Apr 14, 2017 11:59:55 AM Cal. Prosecutor: is there an affirmative misstatement in when Prof Drinan wrote, or are you just asserting that this advocate should have made the case for the other side? I am eager to avoid reprinting any blatant misstatement, but I am not sure I see what fits that description here. Posted by: Doug B. | Apr 14, 2017 1:51:58 PM The Fourth Circuit analyzed the "other murder" issue. Apparently, the evidence at trial did not show that Teleguz was involved in the other murder but rather that he was present when threats were made and about a week later somebody was killed. The witness's testimony was either ambiguous about the location of the murder or was mistaken as the murder. The threats took place in one location. The witness's testimony suggests that the murder took place in the same location. The evidence at the federal habeas hearing showed that the murder took place at a different location in a nearby town and that Teleguz was connected to that murder. So the claim that the alleged murder did not happen is wrong; it happened but at a different location than described by the witness (who while he witnessed the threats was merely relaying hearsay about the murder). As such, the claim that the other murder did not happen and everybody agrees that it did not happen is misleading at best. Posted by: tmm | Apr 14, 2017 1:55:45 PM From today's Washington Post: "Gilkes, one of the men Teleguz allegedly asked to kill Sipe, confessed that, as a part of his testimony, he had fabricated a prior murder said to have occurred in Ephrata, Pa., and pinned it on Teleguz. The prosecution then used this testimony to paint Teleguz as a dangerous man to convince the jury to sentence Teleguz to death. Since Gilkess retraction, both federal law enforcement and a senior assistant attorney general have confirmed there is no evidence the Ephrata murder ever occurred." https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/all-opinions-are-local/wp/2017/04/14/mcauliffe-should-grant-teleguz-clemency/?utm_term=.2bf92ba3b26f Posted by: CHD | Apr 14, 2017 2:04:16 PM Prof. B, Could we start with the title of the post? Reading the 4th Circuit opinion shows that none of Drinan's claims hold water. I expect her kind of snake-oil peddling from the anti-DP crowd, but that does not mean you have to fall over that cliff. One of the primary reasons I read your blog daily is because I have found you to be a thoughtful advocate for your positions and not a shrill zealot, willing to obfuscate, if not flat out lie. Even a brief mention of the findings by the 4th would have served that purpose. Does someone "recant" court testimony by a mere affidavit (let alone one done over the phone across the ocean)? "The Commonwealth repeatedly told the third witness..." when the District Judge hearing the matter found otherwise? The IAC issue? Appeals don't deal with "guilt or innocence"? I quoted the OSU motto at you because I want to be educated by your pieces, not rendered insensible by extremists who far-too-often ignore anything contrary to their claims of "innocence". We have far too much of that going on from both sides of the political spectrum. Posted by: Cal. Prosecutor | Apr 14, 2017 3:28:39 PM Mammmmmmammmmmmiaaaa!!!!!!! Civilized world lives well and safely without capital punishment and the peril to kill an innocent person. Il resto son cazzate. Posted by: Claudio Giusti | Apr 14, 2017 3:40:13 PM The title of this post, Cal. Prosecutor, is a direct quote of the title of the Prof. Drinan's commentary. When I feel like the title of a piece that I have decided to spotlight captures its essence effectively and provocatively, I often use the title (in quotes) as my post title. Doing so is not meant as an endorsement of that title, as I hope you and others understand. For example, the post just prior to this one quotes the title of a Cato commentary, "Four Decades and Counting: The Continued Failure of the War on Drugs," which I am certain Bill Otis and many others could describe as reflecting a certain kind of zealotry. I do not think simply reporting/reprinting a commentary from a widely-read publication (HuffPo) authored by a tenured lawprof amounts to "falling over a cliff." I get that you see Prof Drinan as an anti-DP extremist based on this commentary, but I did not extensively dig into the case before posting this commentary because I know of Prof Drinan's work on other matters and her writings generally do not strike me as extreme or shrill or lies. That all said, I very much appreciate the push back here so that I make sure I do not fall over any cliffs, and I especially see the value of adding a link to the Fourth Circuit opinion in order to allow readers to get another perspective on the case. And so I will. Posted by: Doug B | Apr 14, 2017 4:02:50 PM "...or are you just asserting that this advocate should have made the case for the other side?" This subject has been reviewed many times. David Duke, former head of the KKK, hates Jews and blacks. He does not lie about them on his web site. He selects news stories that make them look bad. He should be considered a liar by that biased selection, by his repeated violation of the exception fallacy, by his not providing the other side of the story. Journalists have a Code of Ethics duty to provide both sides of each story. When they fail to do so, the defamation should be per se since they are violating their own rule. That makes the NY Times, NPR, HuffPost equivalent in credibility to the David Duke web site, a hate speech, false propaganda outlet. I believe all college professors or even kindergarten teachers should be neutral transmitters of information on a subject. Indoctrination by biased propaganda is a rip off of tuition fees, and should be seen as a tort of fraud. Professors who fail to present both sides are advocates, and should clearly label their utterances as such. Otherwise, the use of the title, Professor, is misleading, since the expectation is one of complete presentation of all sides of a subject. The author called herself a professor of law. David Duke is honest. She is not. Posted by: David Behar | Apr 14, 2017 11:18:00 PM Virginia has had a disgusting history for at least the past 25 years in sending innocent people to death row because unscrupulous prosecutors and states Attorneys General like Mary Terry who served as a nominal Democrat chose to suppress evidence that would have proven innocence of clients. Her decision to suppress evidence is an admission of the defendant's innocence and that crooked politicians like her have something to hide. People like her who knowing lie under oath and suppress exculpatory evidence shows felonious obstruction of justice. Ms. Terry and others of her ilk belong in prison for a good long time and should have to pay massive restitution to the innocent people they have knowingly railroaded. In the case of one defendant in 1990 (a Getano, I believe)came close to execution. The only thing that spared his life was when Governor Wilder, the nation's first black governor, commuted his sentence to life imprisonment. (Virginia did not allow its governors, at least back then, to free the wrongfully convicted). The fact that Ms. Terry called herself a Democrat makes her behavior all the more repugnant. It's bad enough when a Republican does that, but at least one can expect that type of crap from a Tea-Party Republican. But for a nominally Democrat to do that is totally unacceptable. Posted by: wiliam r. delzell | Apr 15, 2017 3:47:40 PM tmm's comment is appreciated but find it a bit interesting various qualifiers like "apparently" are included. The details seem a bit hazy. In various cases, the question of doubt on the facts simply isn't really a strong argument to use. Here, and the mixture of the support to block the execution to me is notable, it does seem appropriate to highlight that fact. This is not one of those clear-cut cases where taking a life, if you support the death penalty, should be done. Posted by: Joe | Apr 16, 2017 12:22:19 PM Joe, as someone who has handled multiple appellate cases, I do not fully trust any opinion's recitation of the evidence. Courts get to choose what part of the facts of the case they wish to emphasize in their opinions and different people reading the full record may come to a different conclusion. Not having the full record, I can only say what appears to have happened based on the opinion. Posted by: tmm | Apr 16, 2017 7:09:42 PM Joe, as someone who has handled multiple appellate cases, I do not fully trust any opinion's recitation of the evidence. Courts get to choose what part of the facts of the case they wish to emphasize in their opinions and different people reading the full record may come to a different conclusion. Not having the full record, I can only say what appears to have happened based on the opinion. Posted by: tmm | Apr 16, 2017 7:09:43 PM "Apparently" ... "suggests" ... "either ambiguous" then ... "evidence at the federal habeas hearing showed" ... no qualifier. I duly note the comment but am not sure that this agnosticism is consistently shown in tmm comments. But, won't assume to properly judge that from my limited memory there. Posted by: Joe | Apr 18, 2017 4:16:37 PM Post a comment In one of multiple cases in recent years in which a civilian was fatally shot by San Francisco police, the District Attorney's Office announced today that no charges would be filed against the two officers involved in the shooting. As the Examiner reports, despite public pressure, DA George Gascon released a 25-page document of investigative findings Wednesday and concluded that the shooting was justified. The incident began on February 26, 2015 when 20-year-old Amilcar Perez-Lopez was allegedly in a fight with another man it was originally reported that Perez-Lopez was trying to steal a bicycle at knifepoint, though that is now unclear. Two plainclothes officers arrived on the scene and approached Perez-Lopez and the bicyclist, identified as Abraham P., and reportedly identifying themselves as police officers and demanding that Perez-Lopez drop his weapon. Perez-Lopez apparently did not drop his weapon, and fearing that the other man's life was in danger, officers fired on Perez-Lopez and he died. Witnesses, including Perez-Lopez's roommates, have repeatedly said that Perez-Lopez was shot in the back, but according to the report he was first shot by one officer several times as he was running toward him with the large kitchen knife, and the second officer fired once as Perez-Lopez was "kind of moving in different directions." Both officers and Abraham P., as well as a jogger in the neighborhood who served as a witness, attest that Perez-Lopez appeared crazed, possibly in an altered state, with bloodlust in his eyes an autopsy showed he had a blood-alcohol level of 0.19, almost 2.5 times the legal limit for driving. The officers say that he did not appear to acknowledge that he heard them when they said they were police, and told him to drop his weapon. The original cause of the fight remains unresolved in the report, with different witnesses saying either that Perez-Lopez was made because Abraham wouldn't sell him a bike, or he attacked Abraham because Abraham had stolen his cellphone. Still other witnesses report that Perez-Lopez was angry because Abraham wouldn't let him into a building at 2843 Folsom Street. After the shooting, Abraham P. was heard saying, "That officer saved my life. The officer in the tan pants just saved my life." Two of Perez-Lopez's roommates contest the officers' account that Perez-Lopez refused to drop his knife. They say they either heard the knife hit the ground before shots were fired, or that the officers didn't give Perez-Lopez enough time to respond before the shots were fired. According to the report's conclusion, "Based on the facts, circumstances and applicable law in this matter, there is insufficient evidence to file any criminal charges against Officer [Eric] Reboli or Officer [Craig] Tiffe." Further, the report reads, "The officers accounts describing what they observed as they reached the scene are consistent with the evidence. Contrary to stories circulated in the community that the altercation had been amicably resolved and Perez-Lopez was casually walking home alone by the time the officers showed up, overwhelming evidence confirms that the knife chase was still very much in progress when Officers Tiffe and Reboli arrived." Perez-Lopez's family is continuing to move forward with a civil suit against the city and the SFPD, and they believe that his killing was not justified. Previously: Activists Dispute Official Account Of Fatal SFPD Shooting, Plan Protest At Town Hall Tonight The news that broke late Wednesday regarding the District Attorney's decision not to pursue charges against the two SFPD officers involved in the fatal February 2015 shooting of Amilcar Perez-Lopez is still reverberating around the city. Police accountability activists say they were warned as long ago as last summer that DA George Gascon thought the case was un-prosecutable, as San Francisco Magazine reports, but that isn't going to stop community members frustrated by the number of deaths at the hands of police, and the seeming lack of accountability in any of the cases so far. A small protest of about 25 people gathered outside Mission Station and blocked an intersection at Valencia and 17th Street Wednesday night, as Mission Local reports. Some carried signs asking for the Department of Justice to investigate the case. Officers Eric Reboli and Craig Tiffe were exonerated in the 25-page report that resulted from a two-year investigation, and in particular the DA's Office was satisfied with expert testimony that explained how it was possible that Officer Reboli said Perez-Lopez was coming toward him with a knife when he opened fire, but four of the five shots that Reboli fired entered Perez-Lopez's body from back to front. That testimony came from use-of-force expert Charles J. Key, who explained, "A subject can turn 180 degrees more quickly than the fact that he/she has turned can be comprehended [by an officer]. Given the necessity for the shooter to focus on the mechanics of shooting, the shooters recollection of the event will, also, be more specific as to what caused him/her to shoot rather than what the subject was specifically doing after the time the decision to shoot was made and during the time the shots are being fired." Deputy Public Defender Rebecca Young spoke to ABC 7 after reading the DA's report saying she was "horrified" by how it reached its conclusions. "The district attorney's office hired experts to clear the police, hired reconstructioists to recreate the scene, and every part of this investigation seems to have been geared toward clearing these officers not toward doing an impartial investigation." Gascon issued a statement saying "I take my responsibility in these cases incredibly seriously. [And] It is my sworn duty to follow the facts and the law, wherever that may lead." But in this case, as activists who met with him last July said to SF Mag, "He went through, point by point: Heres what happened, heres what we turned up, here are all the Supreme Court decisions constraining me, the laws of California constraining me. Long story short: I cannot file charges against the officers; I dont have enough evidence to hold up in court.'" Meanwhile, though this is the second recent high-profile case in which officers have been cleared of criminal wrongdoing, following the fatal shooting of Alex Nieto in March 2014, 10 more cases remain in which the DA must make charging decisions involving officers and the death of a civilian. The Mario Woods, Luis Gongora, and Jessica Williams cases, which all occurred within six months last year and led directly to the resignation of Chief Greg Suhr, are the highest profile and could present the biggest challenges for the DA's Office, which took two years and two months to come to a decision in the Perez-Lopez case. The Chronicle runs down the remaining seven cases that remain under internal investigation: Nicholas McWherter McWherter, 26, an armed man suffering from an apparent mental crisis, was killed after he shot and seriously wounded Officer Kevin Downs in the Sunset District on Oct. 14, 2016. ... Javier Lopez Garcia Garcia, 25, was apparently suicidal when he was killed Nov. 11, 2015, after he ascended to the sixth floor of a construction site near St. Lukes Hospital in the Mission and fired a gun. He allegedly said at the scene, Today will be the day that I die. Herbert Benitez Benitez, 27, had been in the Civic Center area behaving erratically and allegedly tried to take a police sergeants gun out of his holster when another sergeant shot him Oct. 15, 2015. Alice Brown A 24-year-old woman who struggled with drug addiction, Brown was shot by Sgt. Thomas Maguire and Officer Michael Tursi on March 17, 2015, after she allegedly sped away from a gas station at Van Ness Avenue and Pine Street, crashing into vehicles and a building and driving down a one-way street in the wrong direction. Matthew Hoffman Hoffman, 32, allegedly pulled a replica gun from his waistband, prompting two sergeants to shoot him outside Mission Station on Jan. 4, 2015. Investigators searching his phone reported finding notes about plans to force officers to kill him in a suicide by cop situation. OShaine Evans Evans, 26, was shot by Officer David Goff on Oct. 7, 2014. Police said he was the driver for two passengers who had stolen a laptop out of a car near AT&T Park, and had a gun in his lap when Goff approached him. Goff said Evans pointed the gun at him, forcing him to shoot. Evans family has disputed the account. Giovany Contreras Sandoval Sandoval, 34, a suspect in a carjacking [from San Rafael], was shot after leading officers on a three-county chase, flipping a sport utility vehicle in the Financial District and allegedly pointing a pistol at officers on Sept. 25, 2014. Related: No Charges To Be Filed In Police Shooting Of Amilcar Perez-Lopez Even for as food-obsessed a city as San Francisco is, we have a surprisingly excellent variety of bakeries and patisseries some like Craftsman & Wolves creating modern, idiosyncratic treats and riffs on classics, and others like Tartine, Arsicault, and 20th Century Cafe keeping centuries-old traditions alive every day with their world-class confections, breads, and Viennoisserie. We are lucky to be a city where you can not only get a Parisian-quality croissant, but also some of the best focaccia this side of Liguria, and crusty sourdough loaves the likes of which no other city in the country gets to eat. If you're gluten-averse or militantly Paleo, I pity you for how many of these earthly pleasures you are missing out on in this fair city. But hey, more for the rest of us. Jay Barmann 20th Century Cafe Pastry chef Michelle Polzine opened up her Hayes Valley cafe five years ago in tribute to the kinds of baked goods she loved the most traditional indulgences of the Central and Eastern European cafe scenes of the early part of the last century, things like knishes, pierogi, poppyseed babka, linzertortes, and bagels. She's filled this niche ever since, serving up what's easily the city's finest Krasinski torte (a many-layered Russian honey cake), that landed on 7x7's 100 Things To Eat Before You Die list, as well as seasonally changing specials. Polzine is also, remarkably, gluten-intolerant herself, an issue she only developed well into her career, so she will frequently offer items that are gluten-free, like mohnkuchen, a poppy-seed-based cake layered with jam. Jay Barmann 198 Gough Street at Oak Arsicault Last summer, the fairly new Richmond district bakery Arsicault struck gold with a glowing honor from Bon Appetit, getting named the best new bakery in the country. Immediately there were lines down the block for baker Armando Lacayo croissants, which critic Andrew Knowlton declared were "simultaneously so preposterously flaky it leaves you covered in crumbs, so impossibly tender and buttery on the inside that it tastes like brioche, and so deeply golden that the underside is nearly caramelized." Lacayo also makes terrific kouign amann, almond croissants, morning buns, and a mean chocolate chip cookie, and if you don't believe the hype, you can at least acknowledge that a lesser baker probably couldn't maintain 4.5 stars on Yelp. Jay Barmann 397 Arguello Boulevard near Clement Photo of some of b. patisserie's delights: Facebook b. patisserie Belinda Leong's Pac Heights patisserie serves perfect macarons, cheesecakes, mousses, and elegant little individual cakes that looks straight out of a Parisian pastry case. She specializes in Viennoiserie, specifically croissants and her signature, buttery kouign ammans, which is like if puff pastry got impregnated by a god. On weekends there's also two kinds of banana bread, which will make that leaden loaf you once attempted look like roadkill. Eve Batey 2821 California Street at Divisadero. Black Jet Baking Co. via Facebook Black Jet Baking Co. Although it's the newest bakery on this list to score a brick-and-mortar retail location (they opened this month in the former Sandbox/Pinkie's space on Cortland Ave in Bernal Heights), don't mistake Black Jet Baking Co. for a newcomer. Many hav sought out baker/owner Gillian Shaw's delightful confections since she began delivering cookies and grown-up pop tarts in 2010. Black Jet's philosophy skews toward fun, classic baked goods with a twist: Think fresh, homemade versions of Hostess funny bones, Oreos, and "German Shepherd Devil Dogs." Caleb Pershan 839 Cortland Avenue at Gates Street A post shared by Butter Love Bakeshop (@butterlovebakeshop) on Nov 26, 2016 at 8:29am PST Butter Love Bakeshop Nestled in a small storefront on the western end of Balboa Street, Esa Yonn-Brown's pie and pastry prowess has garnered recognition from the NYT and Serious Eats, but has managed (so far) to avoid the crushing crowds that might impel you to skip some of the other spots on this list. Though pie is their thing (both big ones and tiny, muffin-sized gems), their buns, cookies, and cakes are also binge-worthy treats. They also bake their own delicious bread, which is then sliced and used for fantastic, daily-changing sandwiches like mom never used to make. It's one of the west side's hidden gems, a place so good I considered leaving it off this list because I don't want to share. Eve Batey 3717 Balboa Street, between 38th and 39th Avenues An impressive lineup at Craftsman & Wolves. (Photo: Seek New Travel) Craftsman & Wolves Pastry chef William Werner's modern patisserie is unlike any other you'll find in the city or even the country with an array of unique creations like the matcha snickerdoodle; an Earl Grey, ginger, and blond chocolate scone; and the now locally famous Rebel Within, a savory asiago and green onion muffin with sausage and a whole, runny, soft-boiled egg inside. The operation now has three locations, in the Mission, Bayview, and Nob Hill, offering similar menus, though the fancier box cakes (think violet vanilla cheesecake; and pineapple, pine, lime cake) in the pastry case are only available in the Mission and Nob Hill. Dangerously, C&W can also be found on Caviar and Uber Eats. Jay Barmann 746 Valencia (at 18th Street), 1643 Pacific Avenue (between Van Ness and Polk), and 1598 Yosemite Avenue (at Keith Street) Biscuits like you wouldn't believe at Devil's Teeth. Photo: Diana B/Yelp Devil's Teeth Baking Company In my many years in SF, I've come to realize that the buttermilk biscuits I took for granted in my home state of Indiana aren't as easy as they seemed. I've had a lot of crappy, Southern wannabe biscuits in this town! But not at Devil's Teeth, where I can get the kind of buttermilk biscuits my middle-school Home Ec teacher would have awarded an A to. Other standouts include their doughnut muffins (pretty self-explanatory), their monkey bread, and their full range of cookies. Eve Batey 3876 Noriega Street between 45th and 46th Aves (Photo Joe Starkey / Thrillist) Heartbaker At Heartbaker, Former Kokkari and Aqua pastry chef Sybil Johnson is doing some great baking, not the least of which are her Italian doughnuts (bomboloni) which come filled with a variety of seasonal flavors, including amaretto custard, nutella, and rum custard rolled in cinnamon sugar. The bread pudding is also a home run, and the salted caramel brownie is so great I once yelled "get your own!" at my husband when he asked for a bite. They also serve a great brunch (with "real" food) and sport a Wednesday-Friday happy hour, so it's a great spot even when you're craving savory over sweet. Eve Batey 1408 Clement Street at 15th Avenue A post shared by Jane (@janeonfillmore) on Mar 18, 2017 at 3:19pm PDT Jane With three locations: Fillmore Street, Larkin Street, and in that old KFC on a tough stretch of Geary, Jane is rapidly building a little baked goods empire. We're talking six types of croissants, breads galore, nine-inch layer cakes...and even, I kid you not, a decent-sized menu of baked goods for the gluten free. (I have not tried the latter items, but for even attempting they get my applause.) Founder Amanda Michael turns her house-made breads into great cafe-dining options, as well, with a solid egg sandwich and enough fancy toasts to generate a thousand thinkpieces. Eve Batey 2123 Fillmore Street, 1881 Geary Boulevard, 925 Larkin Street Le Marais, Michelle S. via Yelp Le Marais An homage to the cafe culture of owner Patrick Ascaso's native France, Le Marais has made a name for itself as a bakery, bistro, viennoiserie, and patisserie. It's also a rising empire, with two locations, a third imminent in the Castro, and a recently announced location and production facility in the Lower Nob Hill area. Le Marais replicates the light, leisurely brunches of Paris, and its hearty breads and flaky pastries stand out among the crowd. Caleb Pershan 2066 Chestnut Street near Steiner Street, 9000 North point Street near Polk Street; and shortly at Sanchez and 18th Photo: Yelp Liguria Bakery One of the oldest of old-school bakeries in town, this North Beach institution makes only one thing: focaccia. And it is the best focaccia you will ever eat. They directly supply a few of the neighborhood restaurants providing, for instance, the bread for all the sandwiches at Mario's Bohemian Cigar Store across Washington Square Park but otherwise they just make a couple of flavors each day, each sold as a foot-long slab, and they close up shop as soon as they sell out. It's cash only, but stupidly cheap at just $5.50 per slab, and you'll want to try to get there early enough before the pizza focaccia sells out though the regular garlic and rosemary varieties are also heavenly. Jay Barmann 1700 Stockton Street at Filbert A post shared by MARLA (@marlasf) on Feb 26, 2017 at 3:16pm PST Marla Bakery If you're in the market for homemade english muffins, kickass bread, and a respectable bagel, Outer Richmond standby Marla Bakery has you covered, with a counter just steps from the impressive oven where it all happens. Besides those culinary workhorses, you'll find a standout dark chocolate chip cookie, a (weekends only) pecan sticky bun worth the eventual trip to the dentist, and savory scones that go beyond the standard. They also make a mean breakfast, serve a cozy and comforting dinner, and their Marla Americano cocktail is one of my favorite drinks in the city. Eve Batey 3619 Balboa Street between 37th and 28th Avenues Mr. Holmes Bakehouse via Facebook Mr. Holmes Bakehouse Mr. Holmes is the bakehouse the Cruffin built. Its wild success story starts in the Tenderloin, where daily lines still form for that mash-up croissant/muffin treat. The Holmes empire, which seems destined to grow further, has now come to include three SoCal outposts plus one in Seoul. With baked goods as delicious and unexpected (see the root beer float cruffin) as they are photogenic, Mr. Homes's clean, bright branding has brilliantly capitalized on Instagrammers' food obsessions. A trip to Mr. Holmes isn't just a jaunt to a delicious bakery it's a social media photo op that will have your followers drooling. Caleb Pershan 1042 Larkin Street between Post and Hemlock Streets Photo courtesy of Neighbor Bakehouse Neighbor Bakehouse The husband-and-wife team of Greg and Christine Mindel opened their retail operation in Dogpatch just two years ago, but have been doing a wholesale business for the last five years. They produce some excellent sweet and savory items, including croissants, morning buns, and sauerkraut tarts and their croissants, especially, can compete with the likes of Tartine and Arsicault. Also don't miss their more eclectic stuff, like the kimchi toast, and or the chocolate pudding "doughp bun." Jay Barmann 2343 Third Street near 20th Photo: Yelp Schubert's Another venerable, old-school SF bakery operation, Schubert's has been in continual operation for over 105 years, having begun business on Fillmore Street and then moved to its present spot in the Inner Richmond in the 1940's under original owner, German baker Oswald R. Schubert. The place is now under its fourth generation of owners, and Ralph and Lutz Wenzel are responsible for the signature, traditional cheese cakes, mousse cakes, and Swedish Princess Cakes. This is where you go for an excellent sheet cake, or a traditional, whipped cream iced Black Forest cake. And while the ingredients may not all be organic or whatever, you won't be disappointed with the flavors. Jay Barmann 521 Clement Street between 6th and 7th Avenues Morning buns at Tartine. (Photo: Janice C. /Yelp) Tartine Bakery It's all been said enough times in enough publications before that tourists actually make their way to the Mission just to get in line. The bread is, we admit, fantastic and chewy and delicious. The morning buns are insane. The cakes, cookies, open-faced sandwiches, gougeres, croissants, you name it. All of it's good. Great even. Does anyone like standing in line for things? No. Especially not before coffee. But if you happen by this place and the line isn't too far out the door, especially before the bread comes out in the late afternoon, just get in it. You know you want it. And it does go pretty fast. Jay Barmann 600 Guerrero (at 18th Street) Esther A. via Yelp Thorough Bread and Pastry Michel Suas, who became a head pastry chef in Paris at the tender age of 21, literally wrote the book on bread and pastry, but why read it when you can taste it at Thorough Bread in the Castro/Duboce Triangle. Since 2008, Thorough Bread has been baking its cakes, breads, cookies, and tarts with love and what I suspect is high quality butter in generous quantities (Suas is also a partner in b. patisserie and provides the bread there). A low-key atmosphere and a leafy back patio make Thorough Bread a lovely spot to spend the morning, to say nothing of your entire calorie allowance for the day. Caleb Pershan 248 Church Street between 15th and Market Streets Tout Sweet cake. (Photo: Frankie Frankeny) Tout Sweet This menagerie of colorful pastry located in Macy's in Union Square downsized slightly in February, but it's as eye-catching as ever. Yigit Pura, the highly pedigreed pastry chef whom you might recall from his Top Chef: Just Desserts win, opened his shop in 2012. Punnily named tout suite is French for "right away," and tout also means "all" Tout Sweet sources its chocolate from San Francisco's Guittard. While the macarons of every flavor might draw you in, stay for the petits gateaux: tiny, whimsical cakes you'll be forgiven for not wanting to share. Caleb Pershan Macys Union Square, Geary Street Entrance, 251 Geary Street Honorable Mentions: Acme Bread Co. (Ferry Building) Boudin Bakery (Macy's basement, Pier 39, and other locations) The Golden West (8 Trinity Alley) La Boulangerie de San Francisco (multiple locations) La Victoria Bakery (2937 24th Street) Noe Valley Bakery (4073 24th Street) Susie Cakes (2019 Chestnut Street) Every week, the Shepherd Express will serve as a clearinghouse for any and all activities in the greater Milwaukee area that peacefully push back against discriminatory, reactionary or authoritarian actions and policies of the Trump administration. We will publicize and promote actions, demonstrations, planning meetings, teach-ins, party-building meetings, drinking/discussion get-togethers or any other actions that are directed toward fighting back to preserve our liberal democratic system. Thursday, April 13 Speaking Your Truth to Power, 6-7:30 p.m., OmTownYogis (1841 N. Prospect Ave.) The Wisconsin biennial budget is currently being crafted by the Joint Finance Committee. During the month of April, the committee will be taking input on the budget from Wisconsin citizens. Each participant in this workshop will produce their own concise and effectively written message advocating a position or concern. This workshop is free, with donations appreciated. Saturday, April 15 Release Your Tax Returns MKE County Courthouse Rally & March, 11 a.m.-3 p.m., Milwaukee County Courthouse (901 N. Ninth St.) A rally and march will be held at the Milwaukee County Courthouse on tax day calling on President Donald Trump to release his tax returns. We march because it is in the best interest of the American people to know what financial entanglements and conflicts of interest our leaders have, said the events Facebook page. Laughing Liberally Milwaukee, 8-10 p.m., ComedySportz Milwaukee (420 S. First St.) Laughing Liberally Milwaukee is a monthly progressive political comedy show hosted by comedian, satirist and progressive talk radio host Matthew Filipowicz. This months show features some of Milwaukees top liberal and progressive comedians including Josh Ballew, Stevie Leigh Crutcher, Jason Hillman, Dana Ehrmann, Deon Green and The Accountants of Homeland Security. Solidarity: A Benefit for Refugees, 8-11 p.m., Riverwest Public House (815 E. Locust St.) This benefit show, featuring performances from Painted Caves, Marielle Allschwang & The Visitations, and special guest speakers Kelly Todd and Jeremy Auit, raises funds for refugees in Syria as well as those living in Milwaukee. The cover is $5 and further donations will be accepted. All proceeds go to the Lutheran Social Services: Refugee Resettlement and Diaconia Connections. Wednesday, April 19 Refuel the Resistance, 5-8 p.m., Bounce Milwaukee (2801 S. Fifth Court) Every Wednesday, Bounce Milwaukee offers a space to organize, as well as a free drink to anyone who brings evidence of resistance in the past week, including protest signs, an email to an elected official or a selfie at the capital. Friends of the Shepherd Help support Milwaukee's locally owned free weekly newspaper. LEARN MORE To submit to this column, please send a brief description of your action, including date and time, to savingourdemocracy@shepex.com. Together, we can fight to minimize the damage that this administration has planned for our great country. Last year, the Milwaukee Public Library (MPL) digitized its collection of local concert and show posters, bringing one of its most unique collections to the public and encouraging users to engage in the process of memorializing an important chapter of Milwaukees cultural history. The Wisconsin Concert Poster Digital Collection includes hundreds of shows posters, mostly from early 1980s Milwaukee-area venues. The collection is the work of Steve Bertolas-Jeske. As a high school junior in Germantown, a friend turned Bertolas-Jeske on to the music of bands such as the Velvet Underground, the New York Dolls and Devo stuff that wasnt getting played on local radio. As a kid, my bedroom walls were covered in posters of the Fonz, Bugs Bunny and Spiderman, Bertolas-Jeske said. In middle school these were replaced by rock posters. Bertolas-Jeskes grandparents lived on Van Buren Street in those days, just a block from Brady Street. On weekend family trips into the city, Bertolas-Jeske and his sister would explore the neighborhood as the adults played cards. We quickly discovered Brady Street, he said. Compared to our suburban neighborhood it was fantastic. Cool shops and quirky people. A poster for a show at the Starship in downtown. Note the damage to the poster that resulted from it being pulled from a city telephone pole. Visiting Brady Street became a regular weekend outing when Bertolas-Jeske got his drivers license, and when it came time to decorate his college apartment in Whitewater, he found Brady Streets telephone poles to be an unlikely source of local color. In the early 1980s, Bertolas-Jeske recalled, Milwaukees music scene was buzzing, with nearly every bar featuring live bands. The main way of promoting these shows was with posters and with Brady Street being a haven for young people, its telephone poles were plastered with cheaply-produced show bills and flyers. Stay on top of the news of the day Subscribe to our free, daily e-newsletter to get Milwaukee's latest local news, restaurants, music, arts and entertainment and events delivered right to your inbox every weekday, plus a bonus Week in Review email on Saturdays. SIGN UP One of the most interesting features of this collection is the fact that these posters were meant to be disposable. They were made cut-and-paste style, photocopied and stapled up. Bertolas-Jeske used a pocket knife to carefully remove the staples and would even occasionally go a few layers deep to acquire a poster that had been papered-over. Some posters in the collection even have scorch marks on them, a result of the old Brady Street game of trying to set poster fires on the polls with a flicked cigarette. A few were obtained directly from a band member who was putting them up as I happened to walk by, Bertolas-Jeske said. My most memorable acquisition was from this tall guy named Spot. He would walk around the East Side in a long coat putting up posters for the Violent Femmes Years later I figured out that this was Brian Ritchie, the bands bass player, doing some leg work and promoting the band. A poster for a show at Zaks in Riverwest. A collector since childhood, Bertolas-Jeske eventually covered four walls of his Whitewater apartment with show posters. He focused on bands he liked and graphics that caught his eye but grew to appreciate the paper and ink craft of the posters. He said that the local music scene changed drastically when the drinking age was changed from 18 to 21 and he eventually fell out of the habit of collecting the posters. In 2002, Bertolas-Jeske began to thin out his various collections and decided to donate the posters to the library. The posters remained a bit of a secret gem at the library until this past year, when a digitization project gave the collection new life, complete with metadata tags that can be used to sort the posters by band and venue. The collection drew a considerable amount of attention from local music fans. Liz Kaune, MPLs Digital Projects Librarian, said that as links to the collection made their way around social media, people who had shared Bertolas-Jeskes habit of saving show posters began discuss their own collections. Eventually, Kaune set up a Flickr group where people could contribute images and memories. Bertolas-Jeske also hopes that the new accessibility of the collection leads to a greater exploration of this era. My hope is that others will be able to add their posters from this wonderful time in Milwaukee music to MPLs online collection, he said. I am glad [the posters] have found a good home. The poster collection can be viewed here. Anyone wishing to contribute to the collection can visit the poster collection Flickr page. Looking to capitalize on the controversial comments of U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, some Siouxlanders are underway with a diaper drive to aid people who can use the items for their children. Jackie Stellish, of Sioux City, said she didn't agree with the comment by King about children that drew national attention. Stellish helped launch Iowa Welcomes Everyone's Babies diaper drive, which will deliver hundreds of diapers over the month of April. King on March 12 tweeted that America "can't restore our civilization with somebody else's babies." The tweet was in support of a Dutch politician who opposes immigration and has spoken against Islam. King tweeted that Geert Wilders "understands that culture and demographics are our destiny." King followed the controversial social media post with several interviews on national outlets where he defended his comments. Critics accused King of racism and condemned the support the tweet received from some white nationalist leaders. Stellish said some people held Iowa protest rallies about King's comment, a wording she said "is just ridiculous." But her aim was to make a difference and widely demonstrate the values of tolerance and a helping nature that Iowans have. "We need to turn this into a positive," Stellish said. The diaper drive began in Sioux City with the Faces of Siouxland Multi-Cultural Fair on April 2, and will run through April 30. Stellish said the initial day was great, with more than 600 diapers. The diapers (and baby lotion and like items donated) will go to many agencies in western Iowa counties that King represents, including the Community Action Agency of Siouxland and Mary J. Treglia Community House, both in Sioux City. Other places for diapers include West Central Community Action Agency in Denison and Upper Des Moines Opportunity in Storm Lake. Stellish is also among the Sioux City organizers for a Saturday event. Action Iowa, a grassroots progressive action group, is working with Americans for Democratic Action and Indivisible Iowa, on a tax rally, to coincide with the typical deadline for filing federal tax returns on April 15. Tax marches will take place in Cedar Rapids, Cedar Falls, Des Moines, Davenport and Sioux City. The city march will be held at noon, with a walk from the downtown Wilbur Aalfs Library to the Federal Building. The organizers say President Donald Trump should release his tax returns and that any upcoming tax reform must include changes aiding the poor and working class people, not the rich. SIOUX CITY | Police say a 27-year-old man sexually assaulted a child in his vehicle on April 3. Trent Warner, of Sioux City, was arrested Thursday accused of second-degree sexual abuse. A news release said the crime took place inside Warner's vehicle April 3 while it was parked in the 1000 block of Nebraska Street. The department was notified Tuesday. On Thursday, investigators brought Warner in for questioning and he was arrested and charged with the class B felony. The release did not state the victim's age or additional information. The incident is under investigation. If anyone has additional information regarding this, or any other felony crime, the release said to call Crimestoppers at 712-258-8477. For almost three decades, Liu Jingxu and his wife have cared for his learning-disabled elder brother in Qingdao, Shandong province. Despite having a son and daughter of their own to care for, the couple, now both in their late 70s, took on the responsibility after Liu's parents died in 1989. The elder brother had been raised by his parents his whole life and the only hobbies he had were reading comic books and eating snacks. Liu's wife, Sun Daofang, would buy something for him every time she went shopping. "My brother-in-law is a grateful man," Sun said. "He receives a disability allowance of 400 yuan ($58) from the government each month and he always insists that I keep half of it - if I refuse, he leaves all the money on the table and waits until I take it." This money was welcome at the time, as Liu made only a humble living working at a textile mill and Sun was a housewife, tending to a small parcel of land. In June 2015, Liu's son had a brain hemorrhage and fell into a coma. Every morning for four months, his parents took the earliest bus they could and traveled the 40 kilometers to the hospital where he was receiving treatment. At noon each day, Sun had to go back home to make lunch for the elder brother. After waking from his coma, Liu's son was paralyzed and the couple now have to take turns caring for him and the elder brother. Last November, the brother was hit by a car while out taking a stroll. Though not badly hurt, he was hospitalized for seven days. Liu and Sun, now age 78 and 75 respectively, struggle to stay optimistic. "My son is getting better, but what about my brother? What if something happens to me and my wife?" Liu said. "I often joke with him that he dare not get sick, so that we can both hang on for a few more years and die in peace." Over the past 28 years, the couple have been told by community centers, governments, relatives and friends that they should put the elder brother in a nursing home, but Liu has always politely declined. "There is no home sweeter than home. As long as my wife and I are able to, we will not send him away. We have been living together for 30 years and we know his temperament, habit, likes and dislikes, and he could not live a happier life anywhere else," Liu said. Last year, Liu and his wife were honored with a good Samaritan award from the city's Chengyang district for their dedication to their family. xiechuanjiao@chinadaily.com.cn Liu Jingxu (right) and his elder brother at their home in Qingdao, Shandong province.Provided To China Daily (China Daily 04/13/2017 page7) Delek US Holdings, Inc. engages in the integrated downstream energy business in the United States. The company operates through three segments: Refining, Logistics, and Retail. The Refining segment processes crude oil and other feedstock for the manufacture of various grades of gasoline, diesel fuel, aviation fuel, asphalt, and other petroleum-based products that are distributed through owned and third-party product terminal. It owns and operates four independent refineries located in Tyler, Texas; El Dorado, Arkansas; Big Spring, Texas; and Krotz Springs, Louisiana, as well as three biodiesel facilities in Crossett, Arkansas, Cleburne, Texas, and New Albany. The Logistics segment gathers, transports, and stores crude oil, intermediate, and refined products; and markets, distributes, transports, and stores refined products for third parties. It owns or leases capacity on approximately 400 miles of crude oil transportation pipelines, approximately 450 miles of refined product pipelines, an approximately 900-mile crude oil gathering system, and associated crude oil storage tanks with an aggregate of approximately 10.2 million barrels of active shell capacity; and owns and operates ten light product distribution terminals, as well as markets light products using third-party terminals. The Retail segment owns and leases 248 convenience store sites located primarily in West Texas and New Mexico. Its convenience stores offer various grades of gasoline and diesel under the DK or Alon brand; and food products and service, tobacco products, non-alcoholic and alcoholic beverages, and general merchandise, as well as money orders to the public primarily under the 7-Eleven and DK or Alon brand names. It serves oil companies, independent refiners and marketers, jobbers, distributors, utility and transportation companies, the U.S. government, and independent retail fuel operators. Delek US Holdings, Inc. was founded in 2001 and is headquartered in Brentwood, Tennessee. The following companies are subsidiares of Abbott Laboratories: 3A Nutrition (Vietnam) Company Limited, ABON Biopharm (Hangzhou) Co. Ltd., AGA Medical Belgium, AGA Medical Corporation, AGA Medical Holdings Inc., ALR Holdings, AML Medical LLC, APK Advanced Medical Technologies LLC, ATS Bermuda Holdings Limited, ATS Laboratories Inc., Abbott, Abbott (Jiaxing) Nutrition Co. Ltd., Abbott (UK) Finance Limited, Abbott (UK) Holdings Limited, Abbott AG, Abbott Asia Holdings Limited, Abbott Asia Investments Limited, Abbott Australasia Holdings Limited, Abbott Australasia Pty Ltd, Abbott B.V., Abbott Bahamas Overseas Businesses Corporation, Abbott Belgian Investments, Abbott Bermuda Holding Ltd., Abbott Biologicals B.V., Abbott Biologicals LLC, Abbott Bulgaria Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Capital India Limited, Abbott Cardiovascular Inc., Abbott Cardiovascular Systems Inc., Abbott Delaware LLC, Abbott Diabetes Care Inc., Abbott Diabetes Care Limited, Abbott Diabetes Care Sales Corporation, Abbott Diagnostics GmbH, Abbott Diagnostics International Ltd., Abbott Diagnostics Technologies AS, Abbott Doral Investments S.L., Abbott Equity Holdings Unlimited, Abbott Equity Investments LLC, Abbott Established Products Holdings (Gibraltar) Limited, Abbott Finance Company SA, Abbott Financial Holdings SRL, Abbott France S.A.S., Abbott Fund Tanzania Limited, Abbott Gesellschaft m.b.H., Abbott GmbH & Co. KG, Abbott Health Products LLC, Abbott Healthcare (Puerto Rico) Ltd., Abbott Healthcare B.V., Abbott Healthcare Costa Rica S.A., Abbott Healthcare LLC, Abbott Healthcare Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Healthcare Private Limited, Abbott Healthcare Products B.V., Abbott Healthcare Products Ltd, Abbott Holding (Gibraltar) Limited, Abbott Holding GmbH, Abbott Holding Subsidiary (Gibraltar) Limited, Abbott Holding Subsidiary (Gibraltar) Limited Luxembourg S.C.S., Abbott Holdings B.V., Abbott Holdings LLC, Abbott Holdings Limited, Abbott Holdings Poland Spoka z ograniczona odpowiedzialnoscia, Abbott Hungary Korlatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag, Abbott Iberian Investments (2) Limited, Abbott Iberian Investments Limited, Abbott India Limited, Abbott Informatics Asia Pacific Limited, Abbott Informatics Canada Inc, Abbott Informatics Corporation, Abbott Informatics Europe Limited, Abbott Informatics France, Abbott Informatics Germany GmbH, Abbott Informatics Netherlands B.V., Abbott Informatics Singapore Pte. Limited, Abbott Informatics Spain S.A., Abbott Informatics Technologies Ltd, Abbott International Corporation, Abbott International Enterprises Ltd., Abbott International Holdings Limited, Abbott International LLC, Abbott International Luxembourg S.ar.l., Abbott Investments Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Ireland, Abbott Ireland Financing Designated Activity Company, Abbott Ireland Limited, Abbott Japan Co. Ltd., Abbott Kazakhstan Limited Liability Partnership, Abbott Knoll Investments B.V., Abbott Korea Limited, Abbott Laboratories (Bangladesh) Limited, Abbott Laboratories (Chile) Holdco (Dos) SpA, Abbott Laboratories (Chile) Holdco SpA, Abbott Laboratories (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Abbott Laboratories (Mozambique) Limitada, Abbott Laboratories (Pakistan) Limited, Abbott Laboratories (Philippines), Abbott Laboratories (Puerto Rico) Incorporated, Abbott Laboratories (Singapore) Private Limited, Abbott Laboratories A/S, Abbott Laboratories Argentina Sociedad Anonima, Abbott Laboratories B.V., Abbott Laboratories C.A., Abbott Laboratories Finance B.V., Abbott Laboratories GmbH, Abbott Laboratories Inc., Abbott Laboratories International LLC, Abbott Laboratories Ireland Limited, Abbott Laboratories Limited, Abbott Laboratories Limited - Laboratoires Abbott Limitee, Abbott Laboratories NZ Limited, Abbott Laboratories Pacific Ltd., Abbott Laboratories Poland Spoka z ograniczona odpowiedzialnoscia, Abbott Laboratories Products B.V., Abbott Laboratories Residential Development Fund Inc., Abbott Laboratories S.A., Abbott Laboratories SA, Abbott Laboratories Services Corp., Abbott Laboratories Slovakia s.r.o., Abbott Laboratories South Africa (Pty) Ltd., Abbott Laboratories Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Abbott Laboratories Trustee Company Limited, Abbott Laboratories Uruguay S.A., Abbott Laboratories Vascular Enterprises, Abbott Laboratories d.o.o., Abbott Laboratories de Chile Limitada, Abbott Laboratories de Colombia S.A., Abbott Laboratories de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Abbott Laboratories druzba za farmacijo in diagnostiko d.o.o., Abbott Laboratories s.r.o., Abbott Laboratories(Hellas) Societe Anonyme, Abbott Laboratorios S.A., Abbott Laboratorios S.A., Abbott Laboratorios del Ecuador Cia. Ltda., Abbott Laboratuarlari Ithalat Ihracat ve Ticaret Ltd.Sti, Abbott Laboratorios Lda, Abbott Laboratorios do Brasil Ltda., Abbott Limited Egypt LLC, Abbott Logistics B.V., Abbott Management GmbH, Abbott Management LLC, Abbott Manufacturing Singapore Private Limited, Abbott Mature Products International Unlimited Company, Abbott Mature Products Management Limited, Abbott Medical (Hong Kong) Limited, Abbott Medical (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Abbott Medical (Portugal) Distribuicao de Produtos Medicos Lda, Abbott Medical (Schweiz) AG, Abbott Medical (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Abbott Medical (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Abbott Medical (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Abbott Medical Australia Pty. Ltd., Abbott Medical Austria Ges.m.b.H., Abbott Medical Balkan d.o.o. Beograd (Novi Beograd), Abbott Medical Belgium, Abbott Medical Canada Inc./ Medicale Abbott Canada Inc., Abbott Medical Danmark A/S, Abbott Medical Devices Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Abbott Medical Espana S.A., Abbott Medical Estonia OU, Abbott Medical Finland Oy, Abbott Medical France SAS, Abbott Medical GmbH, Abbott Medical Hellas Limited Liability Trading Company, Abbott Medical Ireland Limited, Abbott Medical Italia S.p.A., Abbott Medical Japan Co. Ltd., Abbott Medical Korea Limited, Abbott Medical Korlatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag, Abbott Medical Laboratories LTD, Abbott Medical Nederland B.V., Abbott Medical New Zealand Limited, Abbott Medical Norway AS, Abbott Medical Overseas Cyprus Limited, Abbott Medical Sweden AB, Abbott Medical Taiwan Co., Abbott Medical U.K. Limited, Abbott Medical spoka z ograniczona odpowiedzialnoscia, Abbott Middle East S.A.R.L., Abbott Molecular Inc., Abbott Morocco SARL, Abbott Nederland C.V., Abbott Nederland Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Netherlands Investments B.V., Abbott Norge AS, Abbott Nutrition Limited, Abbott Nutrition Manufacturing Inc., Abbott Operations Singapore Pte. Ltd., Abbott Operations Uruguay S.R.L., Abbott Overseas Cyprus Limited, Abbott Overseas Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Overseas S.A., Abbott Oy, Abbott Point of Care Canada Limited, Abbott Point of Care Inc., Abbott Poland Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Procurement LLC, Abbott Products (Philippines) Inc., Abbott Products (Spain) S.L., Abbott Products Algerie EURL, Abbott Products B.V., Abbott Products Distribution SAS, Abbott Products Egypt LLC, Abbott Products Limited, Abbott Products Limited Liability Company, Abbott Products Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Products Operations AG, Abbott Products Operations LLC, Abbott Products Romania S.R.L., Abbott Products Tunisie S.A.R.L., Abbott Products Unlimited Company, Abbott Resources Inc., Abbott Resources International Inc., Abbott S.r.l., Abbott Saudi Arabia Trading Company, Abbott Scandinavia Aktiebolag, Abbott Sociedad Anonima de Capital Variable, Abbott South Africa Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Strategic Opportunities Limited, Abbott Trading Company Inc., Abbott Universal LLC, Abbott Vascular Devices (2) Limited, Abbott Vascular Devices Limited, Abbott Vascular Inc., Abbott Vascular Instruments Deutschland GmbH, Abbott Vascular International, Abbott Vascular Japan Co. Ltd, Abbott Vascular Limitada, Abbott Vascular Netherlands B.V., Abbott Vascular Solutions Inc., Abbott Ventures Inc., Abbott West Indies Limited, Abbott drustvo sa ogranicenom odgovornoscu za trgovinu i usluge, Advanced Neuromodulation Systems Inc., Alere, Alere (Shanghai) Diagnostics Co. Ltd., Alere (Shanghai) Healthcare Management Co. Ltd., Alere (Shanghai) Medical Sales Co. Ltd., Alere (Shanghai) Technology Co. Ltd., Alere A/S, Alere AB, Alere AS, Alere AS Holdings Limited, Alere BBI Holdings Limited, Alere Bangladesh Limited, Alere China Co. Ltd., Alere Colombia S.A., Alere Connect LLC, Alere Connected Health Limited, Alere Connected Health Ltd., Alere Diagnostics GmbH, Alere DoA Holding GmbH, Alere GmbH, Alere GmbH (Austria), Alere GmbH (Germany), Alere HK Holdings Ltd., Alere Health B.V., Alere Health BVBA, Alere Health Corp., Alere Health Sdn Bhd, Alere Health Services B.V., Alere Healthcare (Pty) Limited, Alere Healthcare Connections Limited, Alere Healthcare Inc., Alere Healthcare Nigeria Limited, Alere Healthcare S.L., Alere Holdco Inc., Alere Holding GmbH, Alere Holdings Bermuda Limited, Alere Holdings Pty Limited, Alere Home Monitoring Inc., Alere Inc., Alere Informatics Inc., Alere International Holding Corp., Alere International Limited, Alere Lda, Alere Limited, Alere Limited (New Zealand), Alere Medical BVBA, Alere Medical Co. Ltd., Alere Medical Pakistan (Private) Limited, Alere Medical Private Limited, Alere North America LLC, Alere Oy Ab, Alere Philippines Inc., Alere Phoenix ACQ Inc., Alere Pte Ltd, Alere S.A., Alere S.r.l., Alere S/A, Alere SAS, Alere San Diego Inc., Alere Scarborough Inc., Alere Spain S.L., Alere Switzerland GmbH, Alere Technologies GmbH, Alere Technologies Holdings Limited, Alere Technologies Limited, Alere Toxicology AB, Alere Toxicology Inc., Alere Toxicology S.r.l., Alere Toxicology Services Inc., Alere Toxicology plc, Alere UK Holdings Limited, Alere UK Subco Limited, Alere ULC, Alere US Holdings LLC, Alere s.r.o., Alisoc Investment & Co, Amedica Biotech Inc., Ameditech Inc., American Generics S.A.S., American Medical Supplies Inc., American Pharmacist Inc., Antares S.A., Apica Cardiovascular Limited, Aquagestion Capacitacion S.A., Aquagestion S.A., Arriva Medical LLC, Arriva Medical Philippines Inc., Arvis Investments Limited, Atlas Farmaceutica S.A., Avee Laboratories Inc., Axis-Shield AD III AS, Axis-Shield AD IV AS, Axis-Shield AS, Axis-Shield Diagnostics Limited, Axis-Shield Ltd., BBI Animal Health Limited, BBI Diagnostics Group 2 Public Limited Company, Banco de Vida S.A., Bioabsorbable Vascular Solutions Inc., Bioalgae S.A., Biohealth LLC, Biosite Incorporated, Bosque Bonito S.A., Branan Medical Corporation, Brandex Europe C.V., British Colloids Limited, CFR Chile S.A., CFR Interamericas EL Salvador Sociedad Anonima de Capital Variable, CFR Interamericas Nicaragua Sociedad Anonima, CFR Interamericas Panama S.A., CFR Pharmaceuticals, California Property Holdings III LLC, CardioMEMS LLC, Caripharm Inc., Cephea Valve Technologies, Cephea Valve Technologies Inc., Colibri Medical Aktiebolag, Comercializadora y Distribuidora CFR Interamericas Honduras S.A., Concateno South Limited, Concateno UK Limited, Consorcio Tecnologico en Biomedicina Clinico-Molecular S.A., Continuum Services LLC, Cozart Limited, Dextech S.A., Diagnostik Nord GmbH, Distribuciones Uquifa S.A.S., Domesco Medical Import-Export Joint-Stock Corporation, Duphar International Research B.V., Endocardial Solutions, Epocal (US) Inc, Esprit de Vie S.A., European Chemicals & Co, European Drug Testing Service EDTS AB, European Services S.A., Evalve Inc., Evalve International Inc., FARMINDUSTRIA S.A., Fada Pharma Paraguay Sociedad Anonima, Fadapharma del Ecuador S.A., Farmaceutica Mont Blanc S.L., Farmacologia Em Aquicultura Veterinaria Ltda., Farmacologia en Aquacultura Veterinaria FAV Ecuador S.A., Farmacologia en Aquacultura Veterinaria FAV S.A., Fernwood Investment S.A., First Check Diagnostics LLC, Focus Pharmaceutical S.A.S., Forensics Limited, Forestcreek Overseas S.A., Fournier Pharma Corp., Fournier Pharma GmbH, Fournier Pharmaceuticals Limited, Framed B.V., Gabmed GmbH, Garden Hills LLC, Global Analytical Development LLC, Globapharm & CO LP, Glomed Pharmaceutical Company Limited, Golnorth Investments S.A., Gynocare Limited, Gynopharm Sociedad Anonima, Gynopharm de Centroamerica S.A., Gynopharm de Venezuela C.A., Hi-Tronics Designs Inc., IDEV Technologies Inc., IG Innovations Limited, IMTC Finance B.V., IMTC Holdings B.V., IMTC Technologies Inc., Ibis Biosciences LLC, Igloo Zone Chile S.A., Igloo Zone S.L., Inmobiliaria Naknek S.A.C., Innovacon Inc., Instant Tech Subsidiary Acquisition Inc., Instant Technologies Inc., Instituto de Criopreservacion de Chile S.A., Integrated Vascular Systems Inc., Inverness Canadian Acquisition Corporation, Inverness Medical (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Inverness Medical Innovations Australia Pty Ltd., Inverness Medical Innovations Hong Kong Limited, Inverness Medical Innovations SK LLC, Inverness Medical Investments LLC, Inverness Medical LLC, Inverness Medical Shimla Private Limited, Inversiones K2 SpA, Inversiones Komodo S.R.L., Ionian Technologies LLC, Irvine Biomedical Inc., Kalila Medical, Kangshenyunga S.A., Knoll UK Investments Unlimited, LLC VeroInPharm, Laboratoires Fournier S.A.S., Laboratorio Franco Colombiano Lafrancol S.A.S., Laboratorio Franco Colombiano del Ecuador S.A., Laboratorio Internacional Argentino S.A., Laboratorio Synthesis S.A.S., Laboratorios Lafi Limitada, Laboratorios Naturmedik S.A.S., Laboratorios Pauly Pharmaceutical S.A.S., Laboratorios Recalcine S.A., Laboratorios Transpharm S.A., Laboratory Specialists of America Inc., Lafrancol Dominicana S.A.S., Lafrancol Guatemala S.A. Sociedad Anonima, Lafrancol Internacional S.A.S, Lafrancol Peru S.R.L, Lake Forest Investments LLC, Lightlab Imaging Inc., Limited Liability Company Abbott Laboratories, Limited Liability Company Abbott Ukraine, Limited Liability Company VEROPHARM, Lung Fung Hong (China) Limited, Mansbridge Pharmaceuticals Limited, MediGuide LLC, MediGuide Ltd., Medscreen Holdings Limited, Metropolitana Farmaceutica S.A., Midwest Properties LLC, Murex Argentina S.A., Murex Biotech Limited, Murex Biotech South Africa, Murex Diagnostics Inc., Murex Diagnostics International Inc., Natural Supplement Association LLC, Negocios Denia Sociedad Anonima, Neosalud S.A.C., Nether Pharma N.P. C.V., NeuroTherm LLC, Normann Pharma-Handels GmbH, North Shore Properties Inc., Novamedi S.A., Novasalud.com S.A., Nutravida S.A., OJSC Voronezhkhimpharm, Omnilab Iberia Sociedad Limitada, OptiMedica, Orgenics France SAS, Orgenics International Holdings B.V., Orgenics Ltd., PBM-Selfcare LLC, PDD II LLC, PDD LLC, PT Alere Health, PT. Abbott Indonesia, PT. 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Ltd., Shanghai Si Fa Pharmaceutical Company Limited, Sinensix & Co., Spinal Modulation LLC, St. Jude Medical, St. Jude Medical AB, St. Jude Medical ATG Inc., St. Jude Medical Argentina S.A., St. Jude Medical Asia Pacific Holdings GK, St. Jude Medical Atrial Fibrillation Division Inc., St. Jude Medical Brasil Ltda., St. Jude Medical Business Services Inc., St. Jude Medical Cardiology Division Inc., St. Jude Medical Colombia Ltda., St. Jude Medical Coordination Center, St. Jude Medical Costa Rica Limitada, St. Jude Medical Europe Inc., St. Jude Medical Export Ges.m.b.H., St. Jude Medical GVA Sarl, St. Jude Medical Holdings B.V., St. Jude Medical India Private Limited, St. Jude Medical International Holding, St. Jude Medical LLC, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings II, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings NT, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings SMI S.a r.l., St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings TC S.a r.l., St. Jude Medical Mexico Business Services S. de R.L. de C.V., St. Jude Medical Middle East DMCC, St. Jude Medical Operations (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., St. Jude Medical Puerto Rico LLC, St. Jude Medical S.C. Inc., St. Jude Medical Systems AB, St. Jude Medical Turkey Medikal Urunler Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Standard Diagnostics Inc., Standing Stone LLC, Swan-Myers Incorporated, TC1 LLC, Tendyne Holdings Inc., Tendyne Medical Inc., Thoratec Delaware LLC, Thoratec Europe Limited, Thoratec LLC, Thoratec Switzerland GmbH, Tobal Products Incorporated, Topera GmbH in Liquidation, Topera Inc., Tremora S.A., Tuenir S.A., TwistDx, UAB Abbott Laboratories, UAB Abbott Medical Lithuania, Union-Madison Realty Company Inc., Unipath Limited (dba Alere International/aka Cranfield), Unipath Management Limited, Unipath Pension Trustee Limited, Veropharm, Veropharm Limited Liability Partnership, Vida Cell Inversiones S.A., Vida Cell S.A., Vivalsol, W&R Pharma Handels GmbH, Western Pharmaceuticals S.A., X Technologies Inc., Yissum Holding Limited, ZonePerfect Nutrition Company, eScreen Canada ULC, eScreen Inc., ( ), and Abbott Laboratories Baltics. Read More The gravity of the existential threat we face from Islamic Jihad is truly of epic proportions. It is essentially a battle pitting free-civilized man against a totalitarian barbarian. What is at stake is the struggle for our very soul - namely who we are and what we represent. The lives that were sacrificed for individual rights and freedoms that we've come to cherish are being chiseled away from right under our noses by the stealth jihadists. And many of us are in denial and totally clueless. The left's appeasement and pandering to evil is nothing new. What makes their utopian delusions so infuriating and unpardonable is that it is not only they who will have to pay the consequences, and deservedly, so, they are thwarting and undermining our best efforts at resistance and are thus dragging us down in the process as well. By Peter Lancz,, the head of the Raoul Wallenberg World Campaign Against Racism. WASHINGTON (April 13, 2017)Responding to Sunday's incident on a United Airlines jet, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., is drafting a bill that would prohibit airlines from forcibly removing passengers after they have boarded a flight.Van Hollen's proposed Customers Not Cargo Act would make it illegal for airlines to force passengers to leave a plane due to overbooking or to accommodate flight crews flying as passengers.The proposed legislation comes after David Dao, a 69-year-old physician, was dragged by airport police off a full United Airlines Express flight at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport after he refused to give up his seat for airline employees who, according to United, needed to board the plane in order to staff a flight the following day. The flight was operated by Republic Airline under contract to United, according to WikiPedia A passenger-recorded video shows three City of Chicago Dept. of Aviation security personnel involved in the physical extrication where Dao can be seen being dragged down the isle by his arms, head-first on his back. Dao's face was dripping with blood in the footage, and fellow passengers could be heard screaming and yelling for the violence to stop. The security team was reportedly requested by United staff.The incident quickly went viral on social media and sparked worldwide public outrage resulting in, what many consider, less-than-genuine apologies from United.According to one of Dao's attorneys, Tom Demetrio, at a press conference today, Dao was discharged from the hospital Wednesday night. Dao lost two front teeth, suffered a "significant" concussion, has a broken nose and sinus injuries and will undergo reconstructive surgery, Demetrio said."It made my blood boil, it really upset me," Van Hollen told Capital News Service Thursday, referring to the video. "It was outrageous."Dao was one of four customers who were selected to leave the flight to Louisville, Kentucky after all passengers declined United's initial call for volunteers. Dao said he could not volunteer his seat because he had patients to see the next morning. The four were reportedly selected by a United Airlines computer software program using unknown metrics; industry experts say ticket price, frequent flyer status and even boarding time could be factors.Van Hollen plans to introduce his bill after the congressional recess."What has to happen is a change of policy," Van Hollen said.The bill would direct the Department of Transportation to update the policy on overbooked flights and push airlines to offer incentives for passengers to voluntarily deplane.Current regulations require airlines to compensate passengers when customers are involuntarily removed from a flight before boarding, but Van Hollen said the rules for bumping a passenger from a flight after boarding is completed need to be reexamined. United Airlines' policy regarding "Denied Boarding Compensation" is outlined in "Rule 25" and can be found online at www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of-carriage.aspx "The financial risk of overbooking should be on the airline that overbooked, not the passenger that paid for a ticket and is sitting on the airplane," Van Hollen said.The incident highlighted a broader issue with airline rules that could potentially affect everyone, Van Hollen said."It is a very perverse and backward incentive in the system," he said.According to Van Hollen, airline companies are allowed to offer any amount of value to encourage a customer to voluntarily give up a seat before boarding, but if a passenger has to be forcibly ejected from a plane, then there is a maximum reimbursement of a little more than $1,000.Van Hollen said this could encourage airlines to eject a passenger rather than provide sufficient incentives before boarding.He said he expects bipartisan support for this bill.Demetrio, said in today's press conference that his client will probably file a lawsuit against the company and the city of Chicago. Mens designer Andrew Christian will be stopping in Fort Lauderdale on his national book tour of SEX = POWER = FREEDOM, a book that shows underwear models in their natural habitat and is filled with messages of LGBT empowerment. SEX = POWER = FREEDOM is more than just a collection of pictures. Christian said that he started the book to be sexy and provocative, but that as he wrote it he began to incorporate more and more positive messages to the LGBT community. When I went out to do this [book] I did so to let LGBT people know that they are not alone all around the world, Christian said. [This book] has inspired people and given them hope. The book is 200 pages of glossy black and white photos that, according to the books description, will push the limits of sexuality, create conversation, and stir quite a bit of controversy. Creating this art and coffee table book has been an endeavor into bringing positive awareness about LGBT empowerment about LGBT empowerment and how it relates to political freedom in the USA around the world, the description continues. This coffee table book features the Andrew Christian Trophy Boy pushing the limits of sexual desires and what that means for everyone in modern society. Christian has been to a lot of gay pride events all over the world, and he noticed that while American prides tend to be celebrations, pride events in other parts of the world tend to be political movements. There are a lot more closeted people in those communities, and there are courageous people who are out and proud and have to deal with the ramifications of that, Christian said. Christian submitted the book for print back in October, but said he rescinded the copy and rewrote much of it following Trumps presidential win. It is remarkable how our community always comes together, we have been through hard times before and we are going through hard times now, but we will get through them, Christian said. If you want to get a signed copy of SEX = POWER = FREEDOM and meet Andrew Christian, come to the Pride Factory, located at 850 NE 13th St in Fort Lauderdale on April 15 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. There will also be a limited number of gold collector's books that will be raffled off during the event. Sharing politically-charged articles on social media is one form of social activism, but its clear many women in South Florida want to do more. Thats the reason more than a hundred women and a handful of men gathered at the Pride Center on Thursday, March 16 for Nasty Women Womens Activism 101. Those in attendance heard from several speakers on a panel: Equality Floridas Cindy Brown, Planned Parenthoods Carly Cass, Community Advocate Jessmarie Gonzalez, Educator T Pena, Spoken Word Performer May Reign, Community Organizer Jasmen Rogers and Social Justice Educator Lutze Segu. The Pride Centers Roya Amirniroumand moderated the discussion. The goal of the evenings discussion was to talk to women about the various strategies available to help them become involved as activists in meaningful ways. What took place was a free wielding conversation about womens rights, oppression, trans rights and race. The conversation kicked off with the panel giving advice on how to start as an activist. Know who your elected representatives are, said Cindy Brown of Equality Florida. Know their position and how they voted. The most effective way to reach out to your representative is face to face. Visit them in their offices in Tallahassee or Washington, DC. Community Organizer and Black Lives Matter Activist Jasmen Rogers advised women to find their focus by asking themselves what they feel compelled to do. A lot of people want to join us, she said. We need writers, cooks, photographers, journalists and more. We need a lot that doesnt involve civil disobedience. Ask yourself, what can I do? What do I want to do? That will help you figure [out] how you can contribute. Educator Lutze Segu told the audience to think locally. Give money to grassroots, local organizations, she advised. She also encouraged new advocates to revisit past movements of activism. Queer women, trans folks, black and brown women have always been resisting. Just because you are waking up to it, doesnt mean its new. Educator T Pena says new activists should start small. Its easy to get overwhelmed, Pena said. Figure out what youre passionate about. Break that down to a molecular level. One main message that was in the undertone of the evening there is universal experience of womanhood. For example, Cindy Brown suggested attendees should not unfriend those on social media who may disagree with them politically. Its important for us not to shut ourselves off to the opposition, she advised. Understanding where the opposition is coming from can help us have a conversation. But Lutze Segu disagreed. We dont need everyone to get it, she countered. Some people are going to be bigoted and homophobic. Peace to them most Americans are mainstream and can be converted. Guidance on ways to deal with the onslaught of social media opinions came up a lot during the conversation. Sometimes I shut out social media to avoid burnout, T Pena said. The constant barrage of news can put you in a depressing place. I take a day out of the week that I spend with my son, Jessmarie Gonzalez said. Surround yourself with a great group of friends for support. Planned Parenthood Organizer Carly Cass relies on her friends but offers this advice. When you are with that group of friends, limit the venting. The conversation eventually moved to the future with the panel discussing their goals for the next year. My goals are to inspire the youth through literacy, said Author, Entrepreneur and Spoken Word Artist May Reign. Activism does not look like anything. It doesnt wear a head wrap. It doesnt wear a leather jacket with an afro. We need people in the control room, the boardroom and on the block. Carly Cass plans to invest in grassroots candidates. Lutze Segu wants women to spend the coming months reading and studying other social movements. If we know our history, she told the audience, We know we can survive Trump. Race was another recurring subject that came up often during the discussion. Cindy Brown asked what she could do to be better advocate for people of color. Lutze Segu responded. I think white folks need to do a reckoning, she stated. You are complicit in white supremacy. You benefit from white supremacy. You dont want to make a black or brown person your cultural tour guide. Talk to other white people about oppression. Other topics included ways cis women could be more supportive of their transgender sisters and supporting organizations like Dream Defenders, Black Lives Matter, Miami Workers, SAVE and The Pride Center. Audience members said they supported having regular meetings to discuss activism the question is will it help everyone get on the same page. There are some lines that must not be crossed even in reality TV. On the last episode of Survivor: Game Changers, that boundary was broken. Spoilers ahead. On Wednesday nights episode, alum Zeke Smith was outed by fellow contestant Jeff Varner. During the episodes tribal council, openly gay Varner was making the case to stay on the island. There is deception here, deception on levels, Jeff, that these people dont even understand, Varner told the host Jeff Probst. Theres more, he said, turning his attention to Smith. Why havent you told anyone youre transgender? Smith and his fellow castaways sat stunned until Varner broke the silence to justify his question. What Im showing is a deception, he explained. But the fellow castaways did not accept that explanation instead, they rallied against Varner. Nobody has the right to out anybody, one contestant said as the castaways erupted in Smiths defense. It was for Zeke to discuss when he was comfortable discussing it, another contestant remarked. Two seasons playing Survivor, Ive told nobody, Smith said. Varner shifted his tone and apologized to Smith. You cant unring the bell, Probst told Varner. Smith explained why he didnt out himself as transgender on the show I didnt want to be the trans Survivor player. I wanted to be Zeke the Survivor player. Instead of the typical secret ballot used to vote a contestant off the island, Probst openly polled the tribal council. They voted Varner off the island. Nobody on the planet should do what I did tonight. Ever, Varner said in the closing credits. And Im so sorry to anyone I offended, especially to Zeke and his family. After the episode aired, GLAAD Transgender Media Program Director Nick Adams weighed in on Smiths outing. "Zeke Smith, and transgender people like him, are not deceiving anyone by being their authentic selves, and it is dangerous and unacceptable to out a transgender person. It is heartening, however, to see the strong support for Zeke from the other people in his tribe. Moments like this prove that when people from all walks of life get to know a transgender person, they accept us for who we are." Varner later took to Twitter to apologize. Yep. I did that. And I offer my deepest, most heartfelt apologies to Zeke Smith, his friends and life allies, his family and to all those who my mistake hurt and offended, he wrote. I recklessly revealed something I mistakenly believed everyone already knew. I was wrong and make no excuses for it. I own responsibility in what is the worst decision of my life. He closed his apology with a message to people like him: We cisgender Americans live with an enormous amount of privilege and should spend time pondering how we can use that for greater good. When we disrespect or discriminate, or turn blind eyes to it, we wound all of us. I am deeply saddened at what my mistake unleashed and I promise to use its lessons to do the right thing. Zeke also shared a message with his fans on Twitter: We cannot control the hazards we face, we can only control how we respond, he said. Love each other. 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. NASA PAO Wheel of Fortune SpaceRef I just love the media advisories NASA issues such as this one for Thursdays NASA to Reveal New Discoveries in News Conference on Oceans Beyond Earth press event. They are always filled with names, affiliations, specific instruments, buzz words, tantalizing hints, etc. This makes it so much easier for me to use Google, preprint servers, and simple journalistic tools like email and phone calls to figure out what NASA is going to announce. Who needs embargoed papers? NASA loves to make the media play connect the dots. And if you follow these missions, then its even easier to play. This advisory includes the sentence NASA will discuss new results about ocean worlds in our solar system from the agencys Cassini spacecraft and the Hubble Space Telescope and lists participants including Hunter Waite, Cassini Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer team lead at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in San Antonio, Chris Glein, Cassini INMS team associate at SwRI. Duh ocean worlds, Cassini they are talking about Enceladus. Hmm 2 people who work with the Cassini Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer. Lets do some Googling. Full story We can't seem to find the page you are looking for. You may have typed the address incorrectly or you may have used an outdated link. Theres just something about going out on top. After Chef Gerard Craft won the 2015 James Beard Award for Best Chef: Midwest, he shuttered his 11-year-old restaurant, Niche, in St. Louis. In its place now is Sardella, an Italian-influenced American restaurant that catches a bit of the Old World charm. I really love the restaurants in Europe that are open all day long, Craft says. You can go in there in the morning and get a really, really great espresso, and then maybe some pastries, then in the afternoon a good lunch, and then at night its an actual restaurant thats serving good dishes. So we just wanted to maybe reimagine what that looked like with our mentality, food, and beverage. Mornings at Sardella are full of natural light bouncing off the restaurants white wood, antiqued mirrors, and blue and white tiles. A camel-hued leather banquette with multiple tables and two cozy booths juxtapose the bar with table seating in between. Walking in off a busy suburban street, guests are greeted by a large seasonal flower display held behind glass and framed like a postcard. After turning the corner, guests proceed to a coffee bar to order drinks and pastries, delivered every morning from the restaurant groups commissary. The food options are reinforced by a petite seven-item kitchen menu. A fan favorite has been the Griddler: bacon, egg, cheese, and rice griddled on a piadana flatbread served with a green salsa. The house-made English muffin stars in two traditional breakfast items: a fried egg sandwich with bacon, pepper jack cheese, red pepper jelly, and Crystal hot sauce aioli; and a cured salmon with creme fraiche and an herb salad. If you need to catch up on current events, theres a newspaper rack with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Wall Street Journal, and New York Times by the pastry case. The coolest thing in Italy is [that] morning time at the cafe is a bit like night time in the bar, Craft says. Everybodys gathering, theyre having a little espresso, maybe a pastry, and theyre just kind of talking about their general day, whats going on, politics to me thats always been something that Ive wanted to capture, in trying to kind of bring people together in the morning. Steering the ship for the coffee program is lead barista Jordan Howe, a local coffee veteran with recent stints at Reeds American Table and the Living Room, where he was a competition barista in 2015. Sardellas coffee menu features offerings from Sump Coffee, with filter coffee brewed via FETCO while espresso drinks are made on a two-group Faema E61 Jubile machine with a Mazzer grinder. There are also fresh-squeezed juices and tea options from local company Big Heart Tea Company. Signature drinks impress, like the Cup of Sunshine latte, a riff on matcha tea. Its made with a pulverized dose of Big Hearts Cup of Sunshine tea blend (organic turmeric, ginger, tulsi, Malabar peppercorn, and cinnamon), whisked together with water, then topped with steamed milk. Howe also collaborates with Sardellas executive pastry chef Sarah Osborn and company pastry chef Mathew Rice on different ingredients for Sardellas coffee program, such as Rices Burnt Vanilla Latte. Were working with some of the guys in our kitchen to work on new ideas for shrubs and things, Howe says, adding his goal is to offer a larger, more exciting spring drink menu than wed [been] able to in the past. While the coffee and short-menu breakfast program operate on weekday mornings, Sardella recently introduced weekend brunch. Craft says the menu will focus on heavier food items, such as Nutella Risotto Balls breaded with Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Cacio e Pepe Eggs. Howe will also flex his bartending muscles, rolling out coffee cocktails in addition to the normal coffee menu. Im really excited to let Jordan just kind of go and see what he comes up with, Craft says. Id like to see the coffee program expand and grow. I think itll happen organically. Evan C. Jones is a Sprudge.com contributor based in St. Louis. Read more Evan C. Jones on Sprudge. Public Citizen Applauds U.S. Sen. Van Hollen's 'Customers Not Cargo Act' to Prevent Future Corporate Airline Assaults Statement of Lisa Gilbert, Vice President of Legislative Affairs for Public Citizen Contact: Angela Bradbery, 202-588-7741, abradbery@citizen.org; Don Owens, 202-588-7767, dowens@citizen.org WASHINGTON, April 13, 2017 /Standard Newswire/ -- Note: In response to public pleas for greater consumer protections in the wake of a United Airlines passenger being dragged from his seat Sunday after refusing to give it up for commuting crew members, U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) has introduced legislation to prohibit carriers from forcibly removing boarded passengers from a flight due to overbooking, oversales or airline staff seeking to fly as passengers. Airlines and corporations clearly are not people, because if they were, a number of them would have been arrested and prosecuted for assault, theft and/or bad public interactions with their customers. Senator Van Hollen's legislation is a timely and overdue step to reassert the rights and importance of the American consumer in the marketplace and in our democracy. Public Citizen encourages all members of the Senate to respond to the justifiable and widespread public outrage by co-sponsoring this timely legislation. Read this release on our press page. Ecumenical Patriarch Will Visit WCC in Geneva Contact: World Council of Churches, +41-79-507-6363; www.oikoumene.org/press GENEVA, April, 13, 2017 /Standard Newswire/ -- The World Council of Churches (WCC) will welcome His Holiness Bartholomew I, Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch, on Monday, 24 April. He will speak about issues concerning the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church, the ecumenical movement, the protection of the environment and the protection of children. Interpretation in French will be available, and the lecture will be followed by a reception. His All-Holiness Bartholomew will be in WCC during His official visit to Switzerland on the occasion of His 25th anniversary of enthronement as Ecumenical Patriarch, the 50 years of the Orthodox Centre of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Chambesy and the 20th anniversary of the opening of its Institute of Postgraduate Studies, on 22-24 April. When: 24 April, 2017, 12:00, followed by a reception Where: Ecumenical Centre, Visser 't Hooft Hall, 150 route de Ferney, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland About the visit: His All-Holiness Bartholomew's visit includes two days of anniversary events in the Orthodox Centre of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, a public lecture in the University of Fribourg and a pilgrimage visit to the Taize Community. Programme of the festivities in the Orthodox Centre of Chambesy Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in Taize Media contacts: Please contact WCC director of communication Marianne Ejdersten: mej@wcc-coe.org, +41 79 507 63 63 The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith, witness and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical fellowship of churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings together 348 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 550 million Christians in over 120 countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic Church. The WCC general secretary is the Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, from the [Lutheran] Church of Norway. The essential component of totalitarian propaganda is artifice (het toepassen van kunstgrepen. svh) . The ruling elites, like celebritie... Play at the new site will be free and first come, first served through the... For the third straight year, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will use controversial lethal methods to reduce the population of salmon-chomping cormorants near the mouth of the Columbia River. Its goal this year is to kill about 2,400 birds and spray about 4,000 nests with vegetable oil, which prevents the eggs from hatching. This years actions began April 11. The goal is to reduce the number of breeding pairs on East Sand Island to about 5,600, about one-third as many has inhabited the island before the four-year population-reduction effort began in 2015. Next year is the last scheduled year of the effort. No official current bird count is available. According to the Corps, double-crested cormorants eat up to 11 million juvenile salmon annually, making them a threat to the survival of juvenile salmon, which are listed on the Endangered Species Act. In some years theyve eaten up to 18 percent of all the young Columbia River salmon and steelhead making their way downriver to the ocean. Last year, the Corps killed about 3,000 birds mostly by shooting them from boats and oiled another 1,100 nests. They had intended to kill 3,100 and oil about 5,200 nests. It fell short of the oiling goal because of an incident during May 2016, when the Corps reported a significant disturbance caused many cormorants to temporarily abandon their nests for six to eight weeks. The Corps stopped all culling and oiling activities during that period, according to the Corps website. The corps has spent about $2.2 million during the first two years of the program a cost that includes studies and reports in addition to the actual control efforts. And it expects to spend about $1 million this year, said Michelle Helms-Raper, a spokeswoman for the Corps Portland District. She said the agency has no plans to deviate from its original blueprint for cormorant control. Our plan is to continue to follow our plan, to continue to work with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to implement this plan, and thats all we can speak to at this point, Helms-Raper said. Robert Winters, project manager for the Corps, said the entire operation is meant to keep both the salmon and cormorant populations viable. Its a delicate balance of trying to improve salmon survival while trying to maintain a viable population of cormorants, Winters said. Portland Audubon Society representatives continue to oppose the Corps plan, saying the agency has picked the wrong enemy. Our perspective is that this [plan] will do nothing to protect salmon and that theyre using it as a distraction from the real causes of salmon decline, which are the Columbia and Snake River dams, said Bob Sallinger, the conservation director for the group. Their ongoing failure to address those challenges is the real problem. Their focus on cormorants is simply a distraction. The conservation director said dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers harm salmon by impeding their passage, attracting predators, and by tampering with the water flow and temperature. Efforts to improve fish passage through dams has improved salmon survival in recent years, and returns of adult chinook and sockeye salmon to the Snake River have been on an upswing over the past 15 years. Reasons for the species decline are complex and many-faceted. Returns still are erratic and remain well below historic levels, and the four lower Snake River dams especially remain in conservation groups crosshairs in the battle to recover endangered runs. Farther downstream, conservationists would like the corps to change the flow cycle of water through the Columbia River dams to make it more favorable to salmon survival, Sallinger says. Sallinger also stated that the continual killing of cormorants could endanger the entire Columbia River colony. Theres a real risk that if they continue the kind of behavior that theyve been doing up there this year and next year, they could cause complete colony failure, Sallinger said. Those colonies can only take so much stress, and the fact that theyre going to be out there again is unconscionable. Helms-Raper is aware that certain groups, like the Audubon Society, arent happy with the lethal control methods. She said theyll continue to be transparent about their actions and the amount of cormorants culled and nests oiled. Weve heard from some folks who have some very strong feelings about this program and about the management plan, and we understand that this can be a very emotional issue for folks, Helms-Raper said. What weve done is advise them to take a look at the information thats on the website. All of the information is there about the process that was followed and the considerations that were part of the decision-making process to get to the point where we are now. Sallinger, meanwhile, said the Corps has failed to realize three separate issues that their program was causing. Its far easier to blame the birds, or blame the sea lions (than the dams), Sallinger said. The risk that theyre really facing is one, that they dont recover the salmon, and two, they imperil another species because of their foolish activities, and three, that they waste millions of taxpayer dollars pursuing solutions that arent actually going to solve the problem. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Portland division will have a weekly update posted on their website every Thursday regarding their activities on East Sand Island. For more information, visit their website or call (503) 808-5150. The father of a three-year-old boy who died as a result of a fire that destroyed a travel trailer in Longview April 6 has been discharged from the Legacy Oregon Burn Center. Hospital officials did not disclose if Geoffrey Lawhead had been transferred to another facility. Four others were injured in the fire: Allie Lawhead, Geoffrey Lawhead's wife, their two-year-old daughter Hazel, a grandmother and a neighbor. The three-year-old, Robert Lawhead, was found dead at the scene. All of the injured were taken by ambulance to PeaceHealth St. John Medical Center in Longview. Geoffrey Lawhead was transferred to the Oregon burn center in Portland in critical condition the day after the fire. Geoffrey Lawhead was still in critical condition Friday afternoon after he was taken to the Legacy Oregon Burn Center in Portland. The family had been staying in the trailer, which was parked outside a residence on the 900 block of 17th Avenue, for a few days while trying to get back on their feet, said Cassandra Charles, Geoffrey Lawheads sister, in an interview last Friday. Charles and her partner, Jeremiah Neuneker, live in the adjacent duplex along with the Lawheads grandmother. The two owned the trailer and were letting the Lawheads live there while Geoffrey looked for a job. The Lawheads grew up in the Rainier area and had relocated to California for a couple years before recently returning to Southwestern Washington. A GoFundMe account has been set up for the family at The cause of the fire remains under investigation. A 39-year-old Cowlitz County man convicted of murdering his 7-year-old neighbor in 1994 will be re-sentenced in early May due to recent U.S. and Washington State Supreme Court rulings that state juveniles convicted of murder cannot be given mandatory life sentences without parole. Timothy Edward Haag, of Longview, was sentenced to life without parole Jan. 13, 1995. Although Haag was 17 at the time, he was tried as an adult in Cowlitz County Superior Court and given a mandatory sentence of life without parole due to a 1994 law. That law required juveniles convicted of homicidal offenses to be given life sentences. Haag was convicted of first-degree aggravated murder after he choked and drowned 7-year-old Rachel Dillard in early June 1994. Haag could potentially be released on parole if the court decides to grant him the minimum sentence required, which is 25 years. His defense attorney is arguing that he deserves to be given a reduced sentence and released because he has been an exemplary prisoner. However, Haag could also be sentenced to life without parole again. Haags case is one of many across the state and nation affected by a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that stated mandatory life without parole sentences for juvenile homicide offenders is unconstitutional. The court ruled it violates the Eighth Amendments prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Another U.S. Supreme Court ruling shortly after made the previous ruling retroactive, meaning all juvenile homicide offenders sentenced to mandatory life without parole sentences before 2012 have to be resentenced, said Terry Mulligan, director for the Cowlitz County Office of Public Defense. The Washington State Supreme Court then followed up with rulings of their own that set state laws regarding sentencings for juvenile cases of this nature, Mulligan said. He said an advocacy group went through court records and identified all cases in Washington where juveniles were given mandatory life sentences. Haags case is the only one in Cowlitz County that fits the requirements for resentencing, Mulligan said. In Haags trial, he admitted to the murder, but he offered little reason for his motivation. In a report filed last week in Cowlitz County Superior Court, public defender Simmie Baer and two psychologists explored in great detail Haags life in 1994, including his mental and emotional state, and the factors leading up to Rachel Dillards death. Baers case rests on numerous factors in Haags life at the time of the murder, including trauma-related depression stemming from a combination of issues. According to court records, Haags biological father left the family and never returned. Haag and several of his four siblings lived in poverty and he was psychologically mistreated by his stepfather, whom the family moved in with because he had money. Haag was also bullied in school for years due to his height and weight and often was isolated and depressed, according to court records. At the time of the murder, Haag was best friends with Alex Dillard, Rachel Dillards older brother. However, Alex was abused and was removed from his home and put into foster care, according to court records. He later left the state for Job Corps work. Haag did not take the sudden loss of his best friend well. In 2015, he revealed to Baer that he was attracted to men, which had been previously unknown and was unknown at the time of Haags 1995 trial, which took place at a time when it was less socially acceptable to be gay. Haag stated he was traumatized by his fears about the rejection he would experience if his sexual orientation was revealed, according to court records. Haag told Baer and the psychologists that he was in love with Alex and was angry at the Dillard family for causing Alex to leave. In the court reports filed, Haag is often referred to as a volcano that erupted. Unfortunately, on that day in 1994, (Haags) heightened immaturity, depression, rage and shame created a perfect storm for his complete mental collapse, the court records state. He was a teenager burdened by trauma, loss, immaturity, shame and depression, whose self-identity and psyche shattered at the moment Rachel Dillard came into his home. Baer and psychologists state in the court records that Haag has been a model prisoner, has since been reformed and deserves a lesser sentence. In the 22 years he has been in prison, mostly at the Stafford Creek Corrections Center in Aberdeen, Haag has only had one infraction, according to court records. Haag has worked numerous jobs within the prison. He earned a high school diploma and has taken classes offered for juvenile offenders with life sentences, according to court records. Haag had led an exemplary life before this tragic event and he has led an exemplary life in prison; his caseworker Lou Ann Anderson says he is rare and uncommon, in the most positive sense of the words, according to court records. Timothy Haag is much more than his worst act; he has lived an honest, ethical, empathetic and remorseful life in the twenty-two years he has been imprisoned; he deserves a sentence of twenty-five years. Ryan Jurvakainen, with the Cowlitz County Prosecutors office, said Wednesday his office just received the paperwork for Haags case and is reviewing it. Jurvakainen said he was not sure whether the prosecution will agree with Baers recommendation of 25 years or if it will seek a longer sentence. Part of his review will be evaluating what other courts have done in similar cases across the state, Jurvakainen said. He said he was unsure whether Superior Court Judge Gary Bashor or Michael Evans will be the one re-sentencing Haag. There is an affidavit of prejudice filed against Marilyn Haan hearing the case, and Stephen Warning was Haags defense lawyer during the trial in the 1990s. Haags re-sentencing is scheduled for 9 a.m. on May 3. Bagging a gobbler in the spring turkey seasons that opens Saturday in Washington and Idaho is a mini version of bowhunting for elk. A turkey hunter who scouts out a place to hunt and acquires the know-how has a high likelihood of calling in a hormone-charged bull that can be carried back to the pickup or Prius in one easy load. Much of what goes into being a safe and successful turkey hunter was covered for 21 students in a free class this week in Spokane sponsored by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. Asked to summarize some of the main points of the class, instructor Rich Mann rose to the challenge even though he says he cant fully cover the topic of turkey hunting in a three-hour class. Since his retirement as a Washington Fish and Wildlife police officer, hes been working as a field rep for the National Wild Turkey Federation. Hes also been a turkey hunter for 35 years. From that experience, the spotlighted these points. Know the bird: Washington has three wild turkey subspecies, each with a different habitat preference. A hunter should know turkey habits and be able to identify a legal bearded turkey. Look for tracks and other indicators, such as wing drag marks, that indicate a strutting tom is present. An elongated and J shaped dropping suggest a gobbler while a dollop is usually a hen. Tracks longer than 2 1/2 inches likely are toms; shorter tracks are probably hens or jakes. Scout: Get out before sunrise and late in the afternoon to drive, walk, look for sign and listen. Talk to landowners and other people who might have a bead on where turkeys have been hanging out. School bus drivers in rural areas can be good sources, for example. Find out whether land is public or private and get permission as necessary. Be equipped: A license and turkey tag, full-choked shotgun, shot shells, calls and camouflage clothing are the basics to be assembled. Decoys and blinds are used by some hunters. A camo day pack with sitting pad, snacks and water, survival kit, knife and other gear should be considered. Practice: Pattern your shotgun for loads with tight groups. Learn to make basic yelp, cluck and purr sounds starting with slate or box calls. In the field, avoid calling too much, which can turn off gobblers. Be safe: Be as passionate about safety as you are about bagging a tom. For example: Avoid wearing or carrying anything thats red, white or bluethe colors found in the head (aiming spot) of a spring tom. Be sure of your target: Never shoot at movement or color. Make sure you can see the entire bird before shooting. Keep a hunter-orange vest and cap in your day pack to be donned after shooting a turkey for an added measure of safety when carrying a turkey out through the woods. Set up with forward openings for at least 30 yards and with a bulletproof backstop at your back, such as a large tree, for protection from a hunter who might be moving in from behind. If you see somebody coming toward your setup, dont wave or move; that might trigger an excited and undisciplined hunter to shoot your way. Call out to identify yourself as person. Say no to decoys made for hunters to hide behind while sitting or sneaking, Mann said. The last thing I would do is be behind a fanned out turkey tail in the field. The literature says theyre effective, but so so are grenades. Be ethical: Go beyond the basic laws to be a good sportsman by not moving in on someone elses bird. Shoot at toms that are within range, generally inside 35 yards, for a tight-pattern kill shot to the head and neck. Never abuse public or private property. tech2 News Staff The Reserve Bank of India has given approval to Amazon India to enable and use a digital wallet system on its online shopping portal. The official license (Prepaid Payment Instrument) was given on 22 March however the official news comes today right after Flipkart got a funding of $1.4 billion to take over eBay India. Amazon India customers currently could only pay through a two-factor authentication processes. With the addition of an e-wallet, customers will now be able to make payments faster as well as top-up their wallet for future purchases. With this, Amazon also gets a streamlined channel to offer cashback, quicker refunds and more. Amazon India was seen promoting its Amazon Pay platform which offered quick check-in and check-out using a customers Amazon account. However, this was only restricted to transactions on Amazon. With the new license, it seems that the company will offer their new wallet service under the same branding. "We are pleased to receive our PPI (prepaid payment instrument) license from the RBI. Our focus is providing customers a convenient and trusted cashless payments experience. RBI is in the process of finalising the guidelines for PPIs. We look forward to seeing a continuation of the low limit wallet dispensation with simplified KYC & authentication. This will allow us to help customers adopt digital payments at scale and thereby contribute towards making India a less cash economy," said Sriram Jagannathan, VP payments, Amazon India. tech2 News Staff Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), one of the leading institutions for technical education in the United States has taken a historic step in its partnership with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) with plans for a TCS Hall at the CMU campus in Pittsburgh. The hall will be supported by a $35 million (around Rs 225 crore) grant by TCS, which is the largest single industry donation to the university in its history. N. Chandrasekaran, Chairman of Tata Sons, said "The history between the Tata Group and Pittsburgh has roots that go back more than a century. Our founder, Mr. Jamsetji Tata, came to the worlds steel-making capital in the early 20th Century to understand technologies that he would later use to launch Indias own industrial revolution. We are pleased to come full circle and launch this facility, fostering further digital technology research in driving what is the largest economic and development opportunity ever faced by mankind the 4th Industrial Revolution." Subra Suresh, President of CMU, said "The leadership of TCS and Tata Sons are harnessing the power of one of the worlds largest business groups to bring some of most promising new technologies to the marketplace. We believe that operating at the intersection of technology and humanity, CMU and TCS each bring extraordinary strengths to this unique partnership." The Governor of Pennsylvania, Tom Wolf said "This is an exciting time for Pennsylvania and Carnegie Mellon University. We are very pleased to have TCS break ground in Pittsburgh, as they join a number of cutting-edge companies which recognize the many benefits of locating in southwestern Pennsylvania. We look forward to increasing the state's economic growth by supporting university partnerships, which create jobs and enhance communities." The TCS Hall will house research and academic spaces where both TCS and CMU will explore next generation technologies, including artificial intelligence systems, cloud technologies, robotics and autonomous vehicles. The grant also supports TCS Presidential Scholarships and Fellowships, with the first "TCS Scholars" to be selected in 2017. The facility is planned as a 48,000-square-foot building and will be a brick and steel structure with an architecture that pays homage to the historic contributions of Pittsburgh to previous industrial revolutions. The facility will feature an innovation courtyard, an environmentally friendly and sustainable rain yard, and an area dedicated to the exploration of robotics. tech2 News Staff A team of researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology in the US, the Singapore University of Technology and Design and the in China have collaborated to develop a 3D printing technique that allows objects to permanently change shape as a response to the application of heat. The technique uses layers of shape memory polymers, with the layers designed to respond differently to heat. Martin L. Dunn a professor at Singapore University of Technology and Design said "The key advance of this work is a 4D printing method that is dramatically simplified and allows the creation of high-resolution complex 3D reprogrammable products. It promises to enable myriad applications across biomedical devices, 3D electronics, and consumer products. It even opens the door to a new paradigm in product design, where components are designed from the onset to inhabit multiple configurations during service." Zhen Ding, a researcher at Singapore University of Technology and Design said "We use computational simulations to design composite components where the stiff material has a shape and size that prevents the release of the programmed internal stress from the soft material after 3D printing. Upon heating the stiff material softens and allows the soft material to release its stress and this results in a change often dramatic in the product shape." The process is called 4D printing as the objects can transform once they have been 3D printed. The research could be used for creating objects with two states, a contracted one for shipping, and an expanded one for regular use. The new technique also has potential applications for robotics, architecture, medical devices and toys. The research was published in the journal Science Advances. PTI Karnataka government has said it would sign a contract worth Rs 615.82 crore with IT major Wipro to connect government offices from the Gram Panchayat level in the State. It would be implemented under the Karnataka State Wide Area Network (KSWAN) project- I and II. "KSWAN, that initially began in 2009, has ended in 2014. Now the cabinet has given the go ahead for KSWAN-I and KSWAN-II. For this, we will be signing a five-year contract with Wipro. Rs 615.82 crore bid has been accepted," Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister T B Jayachandra said. Speaking to reporters after the cabinet meeting here, he said Rs 185.60 crore would have to be paid to BSNL for bandwidth for five years. KSWAN was initially set-up in December 2009 under Centre for e-Governance with assistance of the Union Government to provide reliable and most secure network connectivity and bandwidth upgradation on-demand to user departments across Karnataka. The network envisages establishing most reliable fault-free video, voice and data communication services to all Government offices across Karnataka. Stating that the project is to interconnect all government offices from gram panchayat level,Jayachandra said "We are aiming to connect up to 10,000 offices from 4,000." The cabinet also agreed to convene the next session of the state legislature in June, he said. "We will have to ratify GST which will come into effect from July 1. By then we will have to do it, so it will be probably in the June first week. Also our vote on account is only for three months," he said. Among the other decisions taken by the cabinet were giving consent on the civil aviation policy that was sought by Civil Aviation Ministry, from the state. tech2 News Staff Mark Zuckerberg, the 32-year billionaire, co-founder and CEO of the worlds largest social network recently revealed his thoughts on what it takes to manage a global community. Facebook is currently home to about 2 billion users, more than a fifth of the worlds total population. Of that, Indians comprise of around 200 million users, a few million ahead of the USA. As a percentage of Indias population, that number is insignificant. As a percentage of Indias internet-enabled population, its not so bad, but its still worse than in saturated markets like the US and Japan. Zuckerberg, in an interview with Fast Company (FC), touched on a number of points that are very relevant to a nascent market like India. With the surge in low-cost internet-ready devices and a dramatic drop in the price of data access, Facebooks next billion could easily come from India. Facebooks CEO has always maintained that the whole point of Facebook is to make the world a more open and connected place. In the FC interview, he makes a small addition, stating that Facebook will now, hopefully build some of the social infrastructure for a global community. If you remember Zuckerbergs ideologically charged treatise that describes Facebook as a force for change in the world, he said pretty much the same thing. Frederic Filloux, on Medium, presents a compelling argument for why Facebook can never be a force for global change. As he explains, Facebook is an advertising machine par excellence, and thats what it will remain. He alleges that Facebook will do what it must to keep its ad-revenue high. On fake news FC put a similar question to Zuckerberg and he appeared to almost be offended by the very notion of it. People want business leaders to be authentic and stand for things. One of the most frustrating things I read is when people assume that we dont do something because it will cost us money, says Zuckerberg. He tries to explain that balancing the ideals of free speech and the hurtful nature of hate speech is very hard. People should have the ability to say what they think, even if someone else disagrees with that. And freedom of speech is a funny thing because people always want freedom of speech unless people disagree with them, he says. He admits that Facebook is widely criticized for allowing the spread of misinformation for money, a claim that Zuckerberg believes is untrue. He believes that people in a community want information all the time, real information, and that they just need the tools to help them acquire it. In a country like India, this argument for access to quality information hits home. Misinformation spreads through the most popular mediums of communication. In a country like India, as internet penetration increases, mediums like WhatsApp will be, and already are, sources of misinformation. If over half of tech-savvy Americans can see Facebook as a source of news, what chance will real news have in our country? If Facebook can indeed work out a mechanism to provide quality news, thats good news overall. Local sensibilities Speaking of news, India is a very touchy country. Some subjects that are fine in other countries are taboo here. Nudity, cows, religion, all such topics are hotbeds of controversy. In his treatise, Zuckerberg did explain that he was aiming for what was, in essence, community driven censorship. Its not for someone in California to decide what Indias sensibilities are, after all. I still believe more strongly than ever that giving the most voice to the most people will be this positive force in society. Giving the most voice to the most people can lead you to controversial things as well. There are laws in some countries that youre not allowed to say certain things, and as a general principle we try to follow local laws. Do we agree with all of those? Not necessarily, claims Zuckerberg. Referring to a recent case in Pakistan, where a Facebook group encouraging the depiction of Prophet Muhammad resulted in death threats against Zuckerberg, the Facebook CEO points out that Facebook simply pulled the page in Pakistan, but kept it live elsewhere. Were trying to give people as much of a voice as we can around the world, realizing that its not perfect at any given point in time, says Zuckerberg. He believes that such issues will persist, that nothing is perfect. He hopes that 20-30 years in the future, when Facebook is closer to achieving its core objective, things will have changed. On moving too fast Another of Zuckerbergs arguments that is very apt for India revolves around the technological revolution. As we charge forward towards our own hopes of transforming into a digital India, people who dont adapt fast enough are going to be left behind. Zuckerberg said that we dont acknowledge this aspect of technology. He believes that people who are the luckiest and most fortunate have a responsibility to the people who are not that lucky. He also believes that infrastructure is key to bringing up all sections of society. It may be that when people are economically struggling they need a stronger social support structure. But it is always an important need, and I think we are overlooking the extent to which over the last 30 or 40 years some of the infrastructure for that social community has declined, he tells FC. Interestingly, Zuckerberg doesnt think that propping people up is the solution. Hes very clear on the fact that everyone must have a sense of purpose and meaning and dignity. He believes that this is necessary for any society to grow. Hes not averse to giving tools that will enable this, however, and he believes that Facebook can be that tool. A community must be able to decide for itself. The importance of doing something Most importantly, its necessary to do something, reveals Zuckerberg. It may not be perfect, but nothing ever is. Anything will have its ugly side and you deal with the consequences. The only way to move forward as a society/community, however, is by trying to do something. You will face failure, but the positives will eventually outweigh the negatives. Whatever we believe of Facebooks motivations and the means with which it intends to achieve change, one has to admit, it is trying something different. hidden Chipmaker Qualcomm Inc said on Wednesday it was asked to refund Canada's BlackBerry Ltd $814.9 million in an arbitration over royalties for certain past sales. U.S.-listed shares of BlackBerry were up 17.8 percent at $9.07 in heavy trading, while they were also up 17 percent at C$12.03 in Toronto. Qualcomm's shares were down about 2 percent at $54.20. The dispute started in 2016 following Qualcomm's agreement to cap certain royalties applied to payments made by BlackBerry under a licensing deal. Qualcomm said on Wednesday it does not agree with the decision of the arbitration panel, but the payment is binding and not appealable. With BlackBerry planning to invest for growth in its software businesses, the arbitration award will strengthen the company's balance sheet and increase the likelihood of acquisitions, Canaccord Genuity analyst Michael Walkley wrote in a note. He increased the price target to $9.50 from $8. Qualcomm is fighting a lawsuit filed by Apple Inc, which has accused the company of overcharging for chips and refusing to pay some $1 billion in promised rebates. The U.S. government has accused Qualcomm of resorting to anticompetitive tactics to maintain a monopoly over key semiconductors used in mobile phones. BlackBerry said on Wednesday a final award, which will include interest and reasonable attorneys' fees, will be issued after a hearing on May 30. BlackBerry, which has a market valuation of about C$5.45 billion, reported revenue of C$1.31 billion in 2016, while Qualcomm, which has a market capitalization of $81.75 billion, reported a revenue of $23.5 billion. Sullivan & Cromwell LLP represented BlackBerry in the proceeding. Reuters tech2 News Staff Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi is expected to launch the Mi 6 next week. But today we have speculated information about another flagship smartphone from the company. According to a source, Xiaomi is working on the next version of the Mi Note. The third generation of the device is expected to come packed with high-end specifications including a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor which will paired with 8 GB of RAM. As for the storage options Xiaomi could offer two variants, one with 128 GB and the other one with 256 GB. The display is expected to be similar to what we saw on the Mi Note 2. Which means that the Mi Note 3 could feature a dual-edge curved display measuring at 5.7 inches. Even the battery is expected to be similar, offering 4,070 mAh capacity. Even though the Mi Note 2 is a brilliant handset, Xiaomi hasn't been able to sell it much. The reason is because it usually restricts its Mi Note series to its hometown and a few other regions. Secondly, it has been reported that the smartphone maker has been facing production issues due to the curved screen, just like Samsung. For the Mi Note 3, Xiaomi will use the same display but will have an improved building process. While we don't have a confirmed launch date, the new smartphone is expected to launch somewhere around Q2 of 2017. hidden Yahoo Inc has been hit with a lawsuit saying it failed to safeguard more than $17 million it pledged to help jailed Chinese dissidents in a 2007 settlement. The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday in federal court in Washington by a group of Chinese dissidents, accuses Yahoo of "willfully turning a blind eye" while Harry Wu, a high-profile political activist charged with administering the funds, used them for personal gain. The company had a legal duty to make sure the funds were used properly, but instead used the settlement as "window-dressing" to "stem the immense criticism over Yahoo's complicity in egregious human rights violations," the lawsuit says. Only $700,000 of the $17.3 million settlement fund has actually been used to help jailed dissidents, according to the lawsuit. Yahoo spokesman Mike Sefanov declined to comment, saying the company does not discuss ongoing litigation. Yahoo originally established the fund to settle a lawsuit brought by the company's users in China, who were jailed for expressing their political views after Yahoo turned over information about them to the Chinese government. The company appointed Wu as administrator of the fund and its own general counsel as trustee, according to the lawsuit. The Shanghai-born Wu, a U.S. citizen who died last April, was director the Laogai Research Foundation, a Washington-based human rights organization. His estate is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit. It was not immediately clear if a lawyer had been hired to represent the estate in the matter and an operator said there was no listed telephone number for the foundation. A number associated with Wu's last address was not in service. The dissidents claim that Wu immediately began using the funds for personal gain, giving himself and his wife substantial raises. He and his foundation bought two Washington properties for $1.45 million and $2.55 million that were used to house a museum on Chinese prison camps, the lawsuit says. The dissidents also contend that Wu used settlement funds to defend himself against lawsuits accusing him of sexual harassment and misusing federal grant money. Yahoo ignored "numerous red flags," including direct warnings from an employee of the foundation and concerns from a shareholder, the dissidents said. The lawsuit demands that the full amount of the settlement fund be replenished, and that the settlement be modified to ensure that dissidents are the sole beneficiaries. Yahoo is expected to be acquired by Verizon Communications Inc later this year. Reuters Pohela Baishakh 1424 Sheikh Arif Bulbon : Pohela Baishakh has come once again. Bengali New Year, Pohela Baishakh, occurring on April 14, is the first day of the Bengali calendar, celebrated in Bangladesh. Bangla New Year or Pohela Baishakh connects all ethnic Bengalis irrespective of religious and regional differences. After a whole year, it has come back with colours, joy and happiness to bless the Bengalis. It will be time again to participate in fairs and festivals. It will be a time to feast on traditional food. And, of course, it will be time to look exquisite in the colours of Baishakh (red and white). If we walk inside the big malls or walk across the nearby neighbourhood boutique houses we will definitely be attracted by the similarity struck in the colours of the clothes put on display. But here is where creativity and art strikes in! Although in any fashion house, the colours of dresses on display are red and white- no two dresses are alike. There is so much detail and work put on each dress that the colour theme is not at all monotonous but the trend and style in which each shop are competing to attract customer attraction brings in a whole new diversity in the collections. Then again, we have a deep attachment with these two colours during Baishakh. It represents our cultural roots and the festive times of Baishakh. This is why the colours and the dresses are even more endearing to us. The rich diversity of the collections by different designers is inevitably conspicuous. A good amount of time before the auspicious event is spent by people looking for the perfect Baishakhi outfit. Motifs come to life and patterns dance gracefully on the traditional Baishakhi attires. Meanwhile, on the occasion of Pohela Baishakh the countrys boutique and fashion warehouses expect around 25 per cent more sales than the previous years on the occasion of the upcoming Bangla New Year, thanks to the introduction of a new festival allowance for the government employees amid political stable situation. The government has announced a festival allowance for the Bangla New Year for all its. The government has announced a festival allowance for the Bangla New Year for all its employees to be calculated at 20 per cent of the basic pay. According to the Eight Pay Scale, the government has to pay Tk 317 crore as bonus to its employees. While visiting several shopping spots in different areas of the capital, it was found that all the shops and boutique houses were over crowded just few days ahead of Bangla New Year scheduled to be observed on April 14 amid huge festivity. Fashion houses and shops displayed a wide range of new collection of cloths with various colors and designs to attract the buyers, who bear the essence of Bengali culture in their minds. While contacting with Fashion Entrepreneurs Association of Bangladesh (FEAB) President Azharul Haque Azad he said, We are hoping over 20 per cent sales this year compared to the years before as the overall condition is different now and the government has declared the first-ever festival bonus for Bangla New Year amidst quiet political situation. He also said, We have set a target of Tk 1,500 crore earnings from Baishakhi sales. The local fashion houses and manufacturers are ready to achieve the target as they have already brought a lot of new colorful designs to attract the buyers, he added. Since the flavor of the consumers is being changed all the time, we have also brought a lot of new products including Sarees, Panjabi, Salware and Kamiz designed by our designers, manager of Bangla Mela at a city branch said. Considering the scorching summer, all the items have also been made of pure cotton to give a comfortable feeling to the consumers, he added. Experiencing the previous years sluggish business, we have set a 30 per cent growth target for this year and we are very hopeful to attain it, said Md Salauddin Ahmed, branch in-charge of Anjans. Salauddin Ahmed also said, We have designed some unique products like hundred percent cotton, half-silk, screen print and block print in the red and white and there are some special package for a family in a color, which includes dress for mother, father and babies. Though the amount of festival bonus is not a big one, it, however, gives me a cushion to Bangla New year expense, said Mustafizur Rahman Nabil while shopping at Bashundhara City. However, private sector employees have expressed their utter dissatisfaction as the government did not give any sort of indication to the private sector employees in this regard. We are already under tremendous pressure due to the implementation of eight pay scales to bear the everyday burnt while extra benefits offered only to the government official pushed up the prices of products, Md Habibur Rahman, a private service holder, said. n Models: Shihab Khan, Ashraful Islam, Ringson Rinku, Hayat Khan Saba, Mishu and Kakoly. Dress courtesy: Tolve, La Reeve Designer: Marzia Mahzabin Photo: Moin Ahamed Asia Council fellowships for Bangladesh Campus Report : The Asia Council fellowships for graduate studies at world's top universities in US, UK and Asia opens for the first time for students of Bangladesh from March 30. The fellowship was instituted last year to fund outstanding students from selected Asian countries to avail the best in global education and enable them to emerge as future global leaders in their chosen field. The application deadline for 2017 fellowship is April 30. The council offers three different fellowships. The Asia Council Global Leaders Fellowship is meant to support Asian students for Graduate Studies at Harvard University, University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The Asia Council Asia Fellowship supports Asian students for Graduate Studies at National University of Singapore, Peking University, University of Hong Kong, University of Tokyo, Seoul National University and Kyoto University. Welcoming Bangla New Year M. Mizanur Rahman : Pahela Baishakh is traditionally the most ebullient festival in the life of Bangalee people who get together irrespective of caste or creed and turn out happily with colourful dress with festive outlook. Though the weather that this Baishakh wears on overcast cloudy sky with a symbol of a ferocious storm called 'Kal- Boshekhi Jhor', the Bengali people waive it like a simple air. The beginning of Pahela Baishakh gives us a focal point of pleasant enthusiasm of festivity of an auspicious time to carry ensuing days, months for a year new irrespective of social, economic, and political diversities of our people until the next Pahela Baishakh arrives at our door. Before we conceive our enormous dreams of creative works on different programmes materialised time flies like air. Yet we are not disheartened or disappointed in hoping the better future. This is what our struggle for existence. We are that people who fight to fit ourselves and achieve rights. For ages immemorial Bangalee people are basically the lovers of nature. Their waves of air naturally appear rhythmically poetic. It is evident from their age-old customs and traditions. Ritually some customs and traditions of different religious communities differ among one another to some extent. But in their festivities we often find communal harmony. It appears from their sentiment and emotion, as they are the sons and daughters of nature itself. Nature takes them as if on its lap and brings them up on its swinging cradle like the mother herself. That is what the reason why Bangalee people usually called the land where they live as the motherland. It is very difficult to ascertain when Bangalees have started living on cultivation. Naturally the people of Bengal used to live on cultivating their land sowing seed of foodstuff and reaping them during the harvesting season. These soft-hearted people coexist with the aliens who were allowed to trade on their soil and bartered their harvested fruits whatsoever long before the urbanisation and industrial revolution took place like other nations who boost mostly on agro-economy. Beside their foodgrains like rice, wheat, barley etc. Bangalees used to cultivate vegetables, spices and engaged themselves in developing fishery and livestock in support of agriculture. Earlier tools and appliances were not as developed as nowadays. Farmers had to eam their living on farming by strenuous but hard labour. Yet after the lot of scientific development of farming the farmers have to adopt planning objectives and best possible techniques and scientific knowledge about cultivation of crops, pattern of cropping, and economic use of land, fertiliser, seeds and pesticides. No, there were no such developments earlier but natural bounties were abundant. In those days Bangalee people had their fisheries, poultry and livestock in plenty. There were no dearths of clothes also. They used to weave clothes in their homemade handloom. The land of Bengal used to give forth enormous agricultural products. Naturally Bangalees were so affluent that they could export surplus agricultural products to farflung countries like Southeast Asia, Middleeastern and African counties beyond Indian peninsula meeting out all local demands. The French traveller Francois Bernier had given the vivid accounts of it in details in his book 'Travels in Mogul Empire'. Most probably Bangalees fixed Pahela Baishakh as the first day of Bengali New Year on account of its harvesting season of the year. Historically it is stated that Emperor Akbar (1542-1605) of Mughal empire while extending his suzerainty over Bengal simply ordered his General Todarmal to exact taxes or revenue from Bangalees in cash or kind during the Bengali harvesting period on very soft terms and conditions, so that his subjects would have the easy time to pay revenues. After Todarmal won Gujrat in 1574, Emperor Akbar appointed him as his Revenue Secretary. Later Todarmal won the battle of Bengal in 1576 and was made the Subedar of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa by the emperor. During this period the emperor ordered to survey the entire area under his suzerainty and introduced a new system of eaming revenue that remained in force for some considerable period of his reign. It has been assumed that the emperor Akbar might have introduced the above-mentioned Bengali day of festival. That might not be the fact. The Bangalee people who are apt to take advantage of all auspicious moments to celebrate the time of their choice with joys at heart. The event of 'Punyah' of the zamindars of those days could not signify such joyous moments, because the collection of revenues in the name of 'Punyah' by zamindars were mostly extortion exerting their muscle power over the teeming farmers under their heels could hardly be termed as the celebration of Pahela Baishakh by the people in joyous mood. However on Pahela Baishakh, with an auspicious outlook, closing their business accounts of the previous year for opening a new red-ledger called 'Khero Khata', the Bangalee businessmen start a fresh the ongoing business transaction. A few days before Pahela Baishakh, concerned businessmen would send colourful cards inviting their customers with sweet words to attend their business place. The customers also used to repay their dues, if any, on that day to keep mutual relations with respectful reciprocity. This is what maintenance of good relation between the businessman and the customer since early times. Maintaining good-will and confidence is always a pre-requisite for every goods business. On the auspicious day of Pahela Baishakh we all realise this in attending business places being entertained with sweetmeats and sweet words of the host businessmen. This has become an age-old Bangalee custom. It's really commendable. Throughout Bangladesh and also in West Bengal, Assam, Tripura of India including all of its surrounding villages this sort of celebration of Pahela Baishakh is in vogue till now. So this legendary festival gives a pleasant look among the Bangalee people with a pledge of composite communal harmony. In spite of the hottest summer season intermingled with sudden change of sky-being overwhelmed with cloudy but grayish colour wrapping the shining sun by the cyclonic storm that tempts all over the horizon, but the Bangalee people remain undaunted and face it. They have been enjoying this hard time with a high morale since long unknown period. Even those Bangalees migrated abroad and living around the world celebrate Pahela Baishakh also with similar customary ebullience and enthusiasm. The urban Bangalee people, specially in Dhaka, commemorate 'Bangaliana' by taking Panta Bhat (watered rice) with pieces of fried hilsa fish and slices of aubergine at Romna Botomul (root of the banyan tree), Dhaka, in the big fair of Pahela Baishakh. Most of the cultural organisations like Chhayanant, Bangla Academy, Shishu academy. Nazrul Academy and others used to present Tagore's and Nazrul's seasonal songs in Bengali and stage dance drama on this occasion. Tradesmen of different colourful toys, flutes, balloons and handicrafts crowd here and sell their items to the fascinated children. The people of almost all classes throng here to enjoy the occasion with fedstive mood. The Botomul, as it were, resounds welcoming this great festival. "Esho hey Baishakh, Esho, Esho, Taposho Nishshasho Baye .... (Come O Baishakh ! Come and breathe out of devotee's fragrant air ... ) The young girls having dressed with red-bordered yellow sari and red or white flowers set in bun within the tuft of their coiled hairs seem to have always been the additional attraction of the fair. And young boys wear colourful long boutique Punjabi and payjama that give no less attraction adding to festival's seemingly graceful but enthralling ambience. Professor Muntasir Mamun in his book, "The Festivals of Bangladesh' described, "The most important function of Baishakh and the first day of Baishakh is the fair. The New Year, fairs of our country are also nothing but the changed forms of the oldest 'seasonal festivities' and 'agricultural festivals' of Bangladesh." All festivities bear pleasure of heart. So our Pahela Baiskah festival overcoming such hottest summer brings to us blissful pleasure of our heart no matter what agonies lie ahead. Let our great Bangladesh, with its enduring and ardent people live in heavenly bliss from the first day of Baishakh for good enternally. Let us recollect a few lines of our National Poet Kazi Nazrul Islam on this sacred occasion. "Let us sing of them/ who brought forth on earth/ the fruits of their toil. Their hardiest labour that contributed basket-full of fruits and flowers/ as offerings for earth .... Let us sing of them. " All set to celebrate Pahela Baishakh Tribal people floating flowers in the Kaptai Lake on the occasion of 3 -day long Boisabi Festival on Wednesday. BSS, Chittagong : Brisk preparations are afoot to welcome the Bengali New Year-1424, popularly called Pahela Baishakh, on Friday. Socio-cultural organisations including the district administration have chalked out an elaborate programme to celebrate the day to be participated by the people of all sects, religions and opinions. The law enforcement agencies have taken extensive security measures in the city and district for the celebration in a cheerful and festive environment. Police and Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) have taken special steps to tighten security in the city and its adjacent district. The authorities of Chittagong Metropolitan Police (CMP) and District Police took decision to deploy 3,150 police personnel and nearly 250 RAB members for uninterrupted the celebration of "Pahela Boishakh" in the city and district. CMP sources said they would deploy 1,650 police personnel at 92 points and set up 32 check posts in different strategic places in the city. All entry and exit points of the city are being monitored round-the-clock by setting the Closed Circuit TV Cameras, the sources added. RAB will also deploy over 250 personnel in different strategic areas in Chittagong city and district to maintain law and order, RAB sources added. RAB personnel will be deployed in close proximity of the check-posts and they will extend security assistance to police, besides protecting all key point installations (KPIs) in and around the city. Reazaul Masud, Additional Superintendent of Police (Special Branch) of Chittagong district, said they will also keep alert over 1,500 police personnel at important places including upazila headquarters on the occasion. Special security measures will be taken especially at the large Boishakhi Mela venues at DC Hill, CRB area, Shilpakala Academy, Foy's Lake, Patenga Sea Beach, Chittagong Zoo, Swadhinata Park, Chittagong Port, Naval Museum and Shishu Park, the sources added. A 'Mongol Shovajatra' organised by district administration will be brought out in the city on Friday to be participated by people from all walks of life. Vehicles to be restricted on Pahela Baishakh: The law enforcing agencies particularly Chittagong Metropolitan Police (CMP) has taken special security measures for Pahela Baishak, the first day of Bengali New Year. The CMP has directed to stop movements of vehicles at DC Hill area and its adjoining roads Jamal Khan, Momin Road, Buddhist Temple road, Nandan Kanon, Enayet Bazar, CRB Shirish Tola area and its adjoining roads Kazirdewri, Stadium, Tigerpass Bypass road, Patenga sea beach and its adjoining roads Katgor to seabeach, Airport to sea beach and Golden Beach roads from 6 am to 6 pm on April 14 to observe Pahela Baishak, the first day of Bengali New Year. CMP Commissioner Iqbal Bahar held a press conference at the commissioner's conference hall on Wednesday morning. Addressing the press conference CMP Commissioner Iqbal Bahar said police has taken special measures for controlling the law and order situation on April 14 to observe the Pahela Baishakh, the first day of Bengali New Year. He said, "CMP will stop movements of vehicles at DC Hill area and its adjoining roads, CRB Shirish Tola area and its adjoining roads, Patenga sea beach and its adjoining roads from 6 am to 6 pm on April 14 to observe the Pahela Baishak, the first day of Bengali New Year." World Health Day observed at Dhaka CMH Director General of Medical Services Major General S M Motahar Hossain addressing as Chief Guest at a Scientific Seminar and discussion held at CMH. Dhaka Cantonment on Thursday on the occasion of World Health Day-2017. Photo: ISPR A scientific Seminar and discussion was held at Combined Military Hospital (CMH), Dhaka Cantonment on Thursday on the occasion of World Health Day- 2017, says an ISPR press release. Director General of Medical Services Major General S M Motahar Hossain was present as Chief Guest. Consultant Surgeon General, Major General Munshi Md Mojibur Rahman; Consultant Physician General Md Abdul Ali Mia and Commandant Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC), Major General Foshiur Rahman were present as special guests. The theme of this year's World Health Day was "Depression-Let's Talk". Professor and Adviser Spacialist of Psychiatry Brigadier General Azizul Islam hosted and anchored the programme and opening speech was given by Commandant CMH Dhaka Brigadier General Md Mahbubur Rahman. The key note paper of the programmer was presented by Senior Psychiatrist Colonel M Kamrul Hasan. Speakers briefed on the information. symptom, management and preventive measures on depression . From this discussion it was proved that, about 75 lakhs people are suffering from depression in Bangladesh and about 35 crores of people through out the world. Chief Physician, Chief Surgeon, Advisor Specialists and other senior officers of CMH, Dhaka, participated in the programme. Medical diploma holders to get govt jobs Staff Reporter : The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court on Wednesday published full text of its judgement that removed obstacles for the medical diploma holders of the Bangladesh Technical Education Board to get job in government, semi-government and autonomous organisations. The medical diploma holders' lawyer M Ashsraf Ali said that from now these graduates of Bangladesh Technical Education Board would be able to compete for different concerned posts including the post of medical technologist. The Appellate Division uphold the judgement of the High Court about the appointment of these medical diploma holders in the government, semi-government and autonomous organisations. The High Court delivered the verdict on November 21, last year. We welcome Pahela Baishakh THE nation celebrates 'Pahela Baishakh' - the Bengali New Year-1424 today with colourful festivities and eye catching socio-cultural events. The day breaks with welcoming soirees at the city's Ramna Botomul as it has emerged as a tradition of our New Year's celebration over the past decades. Meanwhile, soirees and celebration at other places in city parks, colleges and university campuses and open-air grounds turn the occasion to an event of endless jubilation. Similar festivities welcome the Bengali New Year in the districts and at local level. Expatriates abroad also celebrate the occasion with fanfare highlighting Bengali culture. We welcome the New Year and join the nation wishing the people everything that would bring them good and keep them away from every other evil. The occasion always comes to fulfill people's new hopes and aspirations leaving behind pains and perils of the outgoing year. Pahela Baishakh originally appeared in Bengali calendar for collection of revenue by Moghul Empire Akbar from farmers of this region; which was later accepted by local traders to mark the opening of new business year. The occasion has assumed more socio-political colour now contributing to reshaping Bengali culture with emphasis on its secular values. It is a public holiday and most people will stay out-door enjoying open air festivities. 'Hilsa-Panta' highlights the occasion to a growing section of people in the city although its origin can't be traced far into the past. The occasion brings brisk business to wayside vendors while band groups, theater parties and vocalists render to the crowds in streets and public places. Needless to say we are concerned about public safety in the light of the unpleasant occurrences two years back when unruly elements went berserk sexually harassing women in Suhrawardy Uddyan. The time is also marked by militants' threats and attacks from religious extremists groups taking public their victims. We are however confident that the law enforcers will take elaborate measures to thwart the risk of such attempts in the capital and outside. The 'Mongol Sovayatra' highlights the Pahela Baishakh celebration marching city streets from the Institute of Fine Arts of the Dhaka University in the morning. Displaying signs and symbols of old relics, ghosts and animals; which are highly ambient of pagan culture it invariably marks the cultural transition now at work in this predominantly Muslim society. Organizers claim it is part of secular culture and although it is in direct conflict with Islamic values, it nonetheless reflects the cultural diversity in our society. We share a liberal democratic outlook within our religious faith and socio-cultural values; but nonetheless we join to celebrate the occasion with renewed commitment to our past heritage. We wish everybody a happy Bengali New Year today on this occasion. Woman killed in `shootout` with BGB in Cox`s Bazar Staff Reporter : A woman was killed and four more received bullet injuries in a shootout between Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) and suspected drug dealers in Cox's Bazar's Teknaf Upazila early Thursday. The deceased has been identified as Jaheda Khatun, 50, a resident of Myanmar's Maungdaw Township. Those who received gunshot injuries are Maungdaw residents Rasheda Khatun, 25, Mojuma Khatun, 49, Mohammed Kashem, 70, and Mohammad Shafiq, 20, a resident of Teknaf. Cox's Bazar Sector Commander of the BGB Colonel Md Rafiqul Haque said the incident took place on the estuary of the Naf River near the Shaha Pori Island around 4:00am. The victims were smuggling Yaba by an engine-run boat, the BGB official said. They opened fire on the BGB patrol team while trying to enter Bangladeshi waters, the border guards retaliated, injuring the five, he said. "They were taken to Teknaf Hospital, where doctors declared Jaheda dead. The other victims have been transferred to Cox's Bazar Sadar Hospital," the BGB official said. He said the BGB has confiscated the trawler with a 'huge consignment' of methamphetamine based yaba tablets. Yaba is usually smuggled into Bangladesh through 45 routes of Cox's Bazar district, bordering Myanmar's Rakhine State, according to intelligence agencies. Chemical attack '100 pc fabrication': Assad Syrians ride a motorcycle amid destruction in a rebel-held neighbourhood in Daraa in southern Syria. AFP : Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said a suspected chemical weapons attack was a "fabrication" to justify a US military strike, as Moscow digs in to defend its ally despite increasing strains with Washington. In an exclusive interview with AFP in Damascus-his first since the alleged April 4 attack prompted a US air strike on Syrian forces-Assad said his army had given up all its chemical weapons and that Syrian military power was not affected by the US strike. "Definitely, 100 percent for us, it's fabrication," he said in the interview on Wednesday in reference to the alleged chemical weapons attack. "Our impression is that the West, mainly the United States, is hand-in-glove with the terrorists. They fabricated the whole story in order to have a pretext for the attack." Western leaders including US President Donald Trump have accused Assad of being behind last week's attack in the rebel-held town Khan Sheikhun, saying his forces unleashed a chemical weapon during an air strike. The suspected attack killed at least 87 people, including many children, and images of the dead and of suffering victims provoked global outrage. Syria denied any use of chemical weapons and Moscow said the deaths had been the result of a conventional strike hitting a rebel arms depot containing "toxic substances". In the interview, Assad insisted it was "not clear" whether an attack on Khan Sheikhun had even happened. "You have a lot of fake videos now," he said. "We don't know whether those dead children were killed in Khan Sheikhun. Were they dead at all?" He insisted several times that his forces had turned over all chemical weapons stockpiles in 2013, under a deal brokered by Russia to avoid threatened US military action. US-Russia ties `may be at all-time low`: Trump Al Jazeera News : President Donald Trump has declared that US relations with Russia "may be at an all-time low". His top diplomat offered a similarly grim assessment after meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow earlier on Wednesday. "Right now we're not getting along with Russia at all," Trump said flatly during a White House news conference. Only weeks ago, it appeared that Trump, who praised Putin throughout the US election campaign, was poised for a potentially historic rapprochement with Russia. But such a scenario seems highly unlikely as the two sides have clashed repeatedly over Syria following last week's suspected chemical attack and US missile strikes. "It'd be a fantastic thing if we got along with Putin and if we got along with Russia," Trump said. "That could happen, and it may not happen," he said. "It may be just the opposite." Earlier in the day, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said relations are at a low point and marked by serious distrust. "There is a low level of trust between our two countries," Tillerson said in Moscow during a news conference with Sergey Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, adding that the "degradation" of US-Russian ties needs to end. "The world's two foremost nuclear powers cannot have this kind of relationship," he said. US and Russia have recently traded caustic accusations following a US strike on a Syrian airbase in retaliation to the suspected chemical attack on a rebel-held town in Syria, blamed by Washington on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is backed by Russia. Tillerson's comments echoed televised remarks by Putin, who earlier on Wednesday said the trust between the two countries had "deteriorated" since Trump was elected US president. "One could say that the level of trust on a working level, especially on the military level, has not improved but has rather deteriorated," Putin said in an interview broadcast on Russian television. "On Syria, they are miles apart and it doesn't seem that there's been any breakthrough at all," Al Jazeera's James Bays, reporting from the White House, said. Speaking to reporters, Tillerson reiterated Washington's position that Assad must eventually relinquish power - a position starkly at odds with Russia, which has been bombing rebel-held areas in Syria in support of Assad's forces since September 2015. For his part, Lavrov warned against an international effort to remove Assad from power, citing the cases of Iraq and Libya to argue that the toppling of autocratic rulers by external forces leads to chaos. He said Moscow was ready to resume a deal with Washington to avoid incidents in Syrian airspace as the two countries lead separate bombing campaigns. "Today the president confirmed our readiness to return to its implementation on the understanding that the original aims of the air forces of the American coalition are reaffirmed, namely the fight with IS [ISIL] and al-Nusra," Lavrov said. The deal was suspended after US missile strikes against the Shayrat airbase following a suspected gas attack in Khan Sheikhoun, in an act Moscow labelled "aggression against a sovereign state". Tillerson said the US is confident in its assessment that Syrian government forces used chemical weapons in the bombing on Khan Sheikhoun and alleged that Syria has used such weapons more than 50 times in the past. Lavrov said Russia has no intention to "shield anyone", adding that a United Nations chemical weapons watchdog must conduct an "objective and unbiased probe" into the attack that killed dozens of people. Al Jazeera's Rory Challands, reporting from Moscow, said the press conference highlighted the two diplomats' "differences in style, in position and in views of the world". "There was no dramatic proposals made, no big deals discussed," Challands said. "The conversation was basically about how to stop it [the relation] from getting worse, not necessarily about grand steps to make it any better." The press conference came just moments before Russia again cast a veto at the UN Security Council, blocking a bid from the US, UK and France to condemn the suspected gas attack and push the Syrian government to cooperate with investigators. China, which has vetoed six resolutions on Syria since the civil war began six years ago, abstained from Wednesday's vote, along with Ethiopia and Kazakhstan. Ten countries voted in favour of the text, while Bolivia joined Russia in voting no. US first female Muslim judge found dead in Hudson River Reuters : A groundbreaking black jurist who became the first Muslim woman to serve as a U.S. judge was found dead in New York's Hudson River on Wednesday, police said. Sheila Abdus-Salaam, a 65-year-old associate judge of New York's highest court, was found floating off Manhattan's west side at about 1:45 p.m. EDT (1545 GMT), a police spokesman said. Police pulled Abdus-Salaam's fully clothed body from the water and she was pronounced dead at the scene. Her family identified her and an autopsy would determine the cause of death, the spokesman said. Abdus-Salaam, a native of Washington, D.C., became the first African-American woman appointed to the Court of Appeals when Democratic Governor Mario Cuomo named her to the state's high court in 2013. "Justice Sheila Abdus-Salaam was a trailblazing jurist whose life in public service was in pursuit of a more fair and more just New York for all," Cuomo said in a statement. The Princeton Encyclopedia of American Political History said Abdus-Salaam was the first female Muslim to serve as a U.S. judge. Citing unidentified sources, the New York Post reported that Abdus-Salaam had been reported missing from her New York home earlier on Wednesday. Attempts to reach her family were unsuccessful. A graduate of Barnard College and Columbia Law School, Abdus-Salaam started her law career with East Brooklyn Legal Services and served as a New York state assistant attorney general, according to the Court of Appeals website. She held a series of judicial posts after being elected to a New York City judgeship in 1991. Govt employees` hospital sick itself Reza Mahmud : The Sarkari Karmochari Hospital at Fulbaria, Dhaka city is itself sick. Its all Intensive Care Units are not in order. "Most of the machines and equipments of the 150 beds hospital do not work. Specially all the ventilation units render no service from its beginning," says an official on condition of anonymity. The hospital is situated beside Fazlul Haque Muslim Hall of Dhaka University. It has been built for the government employees and for giving limited service to the poor people. The ICU of the hospital were installed in October 2016. When contacted, Sadia Sajmin Siddiqua, hospital Superintendent, told The New Nation on Wednesday, "All the ICU units are not in function. We are trying to restore those." In reply to a question as to 'why all the new machines are out of order?' She said, "There were some problems for the government in buying and repairing any machinery." The Superintendent said, "One machine we found workable. But we want to avoid risk. If we admit any patient, it will be a risky decision, because the other machines are not alright." She said also that the machines are not new, as those were bought in 2013 when the Prime Minister opened the new building of the hospital. But the officials said that the machines had not been seen ever workable after those were set in the ICU. Sources said, the machines had not been collected transparently. "The authority of the hospital might have linked to corruption. A fair investigation can unearth the truth," said one of the employees of the hospital. A patient, who is a government employee, said preferring anonymity, "When it is a matter of luck to get a seat in the ICU in any government or private hospital, all the six beds of ICU are inactive here." Some patients and their relatives alleged that a group of dishonest doctors and officials are responsible for anarchy. They use to refer serious patients in other private clinics and hospitals for a handful of booty. It causes huge problem for the poor patients, added one of them. The officials said, there are sufficient number of doctors, nurses and other staff, but smaller number of patients. The Superintendent said 100 seats out of total 150 beds are found full most of the time. The official data shows that about 1, 69,338 patients had taken treatment from outdoor of the hospital in 2016. College student killed in city road accident Staff Reporter : A college student was killed in a road accident in the city's Moghbazar area on Thursday afternoon. The victim has been identified as Nazmul Huda alias Pial, 20, a third year student of Marketing Department of Government Bangla College at Mirpur. He is son of Md Abul Khayer, resident of Modinabagh in the capital's Mugda area, police said. "Pial was injured when a motorcycle hit him at Moghbazar Intersection at 11:30am. Locals rushed him to the Dhaka Medical College and Hospital (DCMH) around 2:00pm. He was declared dead at about 5:00pm," said Md Bachchu Mia, In-Charge of DMCH Police Outpost. The body has been kept at the hospital morgue after conducting the autopsy, the police official said. Batamul blast trial yet to end Sagar Biswas : The trial procedure of sensational Ramna Batamul bomb blasts case during Pahela Baishakh celebrations in 2001 could not come to an end though 16 years elapsed in the meantime. Court officials said that the explosive case in this connection under Speedy Trial Tribunal-1 has been delayed as the witnesses did not respond to the trial. The next hearing date is fixed on April 24. But four accused of the case are still absconding. In fact, the trial in Ramna Batamul bomb blast case remains stuck as the police failed to produce the arrested accused before the court. As a result, the victims' family members are yet to get justice because of the slow trial process. Ramna Batamul bombing was a serial bomb attacks on 14 April 2001 at a cultural programme of the Pahela Baishakh celebrations arranged by Chhayanot, a leading cultural organisation of the country. Ten people, including Md Sujan, a Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami [HuJI] militant, died and at least 40 more people were wounded in the synchronized blasts. The Islamist militant outfit HuJI later confessed their involvement in the attack. Meanwhile, another case of murder in connection with the same incident had disposed off in 2014 where the court awarded death sentence to eight accused, including Chief of HuJI Mufti Abdul Hannan. Mufti Hannan, however, was hanged on Wednesday [April 12] night being convicted in another criminal case. Interestingly, the Ramna bomb blast case was cracked after Mufti Hannan gave confessional statements before the court on November 19, 2006. The case remained stuck in the court for several years, but it got speed during the tenure of caretaker government. "One of the two cases has been disposed. The witnesses are not responding in the explosive case though the court issued summons for several times. For this reason, the trial procedure is being prolonged," Dhaka Metropolitan Public Prosecutor Mohammad Abdullah Abu said. Echoing the same, Special Public Prosecutor Abu Abdullah Bhuiyan said: "So far we assume, the witnesses have lost interest in this case after the completion of another case relating to the incident." On the other hand, the Defence Lawyer Faruk Ahmed said the case has been delaying intentionally not producing the witnesses during trial procedure. Only two witnesses were present in the hearings in last two years We also want that the case will be disposed off soon." According to the documents of the explosive case, after framing charge in 2009 seven witnesses gave their statements before the court. On February 2, 2014, the fresh charge was framed amending an act. After that, only two witnesses gave their statements in last two years. That means, out of 90 witnesses, only nine persons gave their statements before the court. Earlier, two charges were filed with the Ramna police station; one for murdering people and another for illegal possession of explosives. On November 29, 2008, the Criminal Investigation Department of police submitted two charge-sheets accusing 14 persons including HuJI kingpin Mufti Hannan. Eight years after the bomb attack, a Dhaka court in 2009 brought charges against Mufti Hannan, chief of HuJI and 13 others of his militant outfit. Of them, eight of the accused were sentenced to death in 2014. Those sentenced included Mufti Hannan, Maulana Akbar Hossain, Arif Hasan Sumon, Maulana Tajuddin, Hafiz Jahangir Alam Badr, Maulana Abu Bakr alias Hafiz Selim Hawladar, Maulana Abdul Hai and Maulana Shafiqur Rahman. The other six, Shahadatullah Jewel, Maulana Sabbir, Shaokat Hossain alias Sheikh Farid, Maulana Abdur Rauf, Maulana Abu Taher and Maulana Yahia, were sentenced to life term in prison. Power of water diplomacy has to be effective: Friendship is not enough The failure of the Indian government to sign the Teesta water deal basically goes to strong opposition of West Bengal Chief Minister Ms Mamata Benarjee. This is the third time she foiled the attempt after 2011 and 2015. This time she was forthright and said there was not enough water to share with Bangladesh. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been sincerely trying to do what is right for sharing water of international river Teesta. But he has limitation, India being a democracy. He is now sending a team to Sikkim to see the water reserves in the upstream as Mamata has said there is no water in Teesta to share. Now it should be clear to Bangladesh that sweet smiles of friendship is not everything when it comes to water sharing by India with Bangladesh. Certainly, Mamata Benarjee, the Chief Minister of West Bengal, is not alone in protecting selfish interest of India. Our friendship has to be made meaningful by hard diplomacy with India. Through diplomacy a country protects its interest. Mamata's proposal that our share of water can be arranged from five other common rivers is highly deceptive. If she is so sure then let her show it, but for now she has more reasons to agree to sharing of Teesta water as temporary measure. The Chief Minister's problem is that she does not agree to sharing water of Teesta according to the international law. Sharing international water is not a matter of convenience or inconvenience, it is a right not to be denied. This time, a new controversy over the defense MoUs with India continues in public discourse. In all intent and purpose this defence MoU looks like a joint defence deal. Every nation has its own defence arrangement. To have joint defence with India we have to know which country is our enemy. Bangladesh government finds itself in another difficult controversy that is brewing between Bangladesh and India. We do not see any such MoU is necessary. We are not thinking of any war coming from outside. Our defence matter is highly sensitive to us for our own sovereignty. No country's defence is an open game to share with everybody. Let us be serious about our national interests. 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. Third Circuit Court of Appeal candidate was questioned about her role at LSI and whether the company had received document requests from federal investigators looking into the business practices of the company. Third Circuit Court of Appeal candidates Candyce Perret, left, and Susan Theall faced off Wednesday in what may be their only dual appearance before the April 29 runoff. Photo by Robin May Third Circuit Court of Appeal candidate Candyce Perret said at a Wednesday forum that she would resign from bench if she is elected and later indicted in the ongoing federal investigation into Louisiana Specialty Institute, a company owned by her husband, Hunter, but for which she has served as corporate counsel. Perrets statement came in response to questions by audience member and Lafayette attorney Katherine Hurst at a noon forum organized by the Louisiana Citizens Action Network at Lafayettes Petroleum Club. It was one of the rare occasions where Perret has agreed to participate in a forum with her runoff opponent, Susan Theall. About 60 people attended the event, which began with opening statements from the two candidates then gave way to questions from audience members from the floor. Perret was questioned about her role at LSI and whether the company had received document requests from federal investigators looking into the business practices of the entity for a number of years. Perret maintained what has become her standard line that neither she nor her husband has been contacted by federal investigators. She said Wednesday that LSI has not been asked to produce records for federal investigators nor been contacted in any way. As The IND reported in its Feb. 9 story, "Federal investigation looms over Perret Court of Appeal candidacy," plaintiff and defense lawyers moved to have LSI medical billing charges thrown out in the 15th Judicial District Court in 2013 after they discovered that LSI had submitted invoices for providers with which the company did not have contractual relationships. LSIs billing charges for care provided to a patient in what has become known as "The Stelly Case" was a sticking point in the settlement of the case. LSI and Hunter Perret refused to defend the billings to either the lawyers or, later, Judge Kristian Earles. When it was discovered that LSI did not have written agreements with the providers, the attorneys contacted the providers, got the direct charges for the services provided and the judge ordered those bills paid, throwing out all of LSI's charges. Attorney Ian McDonald of Jones Walker was representing the insurance company in the case. In his motion to dismiss LSIs billing, McDonald charged the company with profiteering. Candyce Perret was not working as counsel for LSI at the time, but was doing so in 2014 when LSI charges were challenged again in a 16th JDC personal injury lawsuit known as "The Narcisse Case." Hunter Perret was called as a witness in that case, as was Dr. Baylor Jewell who claimed that his electronic signature had been used without his permission by someone at LSI. Jewell also testified in open court that he believed his medical reports had been altered in ways to make it appear that injuries were more serious than he had assessed them to be. Hurst, who was a Vanessa Anseman supporter in the primary, according to her Facebook page, prefaced her question by saying: Its widely known in the legal community among lawyers and judges that there is a federal investigation into LSI underway. Hurst then posed the question: Would you resign your seat if you or your husband were to be indicted?" Perret first parried by saying that the same question could be put to Theall. Perret alleged that there is an investigation underway into reports involving loans provided to Theall in her successful 2011 race for the Division M seat on the 15th JDC. Hurst said she would then address the question to both candidates. Perret replied that she would resign her seat, if elected and then indicted. She did not say whether she would resign her seat if her husband Hunter, who was in the audience, was indicted. Theall said that there is no investigation underway in connection with loans she obtained in 2011 from Lafayette businessman Burton Zaunbrecher. Theall was targeted with a number of questions about the loans by audience members during the session, including one by attorney Kay Karre Gautreaux, who lost to Theall in that 2011 election. Campaigns get tough when the money runs out, Gauthreaux told Theall and the audience. Mine ran out that year, but yours did not. You got those loans when the maximum contribution in that campaign was $2,500. Theall maintained that the process of obtaining the loans from Zaunbrecher had been reviewed by her CPA Mark Shirley and that Shirley had told her he ran the process by the state Ethics Administration. Kathleen Allen, director of the Ethics Administration, told The IND in March that loans to committees (in the case of judicial elections) could not exceed campaign contribution limits. Theall told Gautreaux and the audience that the loans Zaunbrecher made to her were personal loans for which she is on the hook. She said she made the loans to her campaign. In response to another question about the loans, Theall said that her case was different from the Ourso Case in which a father gave his candidate son money that was later classified as loans. Theall said her matter has been reviewed and that there is no investigation taking place. Allen of the Ethics Administration told The IND in March that the statute of limitations for campaign finance violations involving contributions was three years. The fact that the loans to Theall were made in 2011 appear to make the question moot. Read more about the questionable "loans" here. Theall and Perret were also questioned regarding judicial philosophy and experience. Both candidates pointed out that appellate courts deal only in the business of reviewing matters of law, not rehearing cases. Both Perret and Theall said they are pro-life Catholics and that, regardless of their personal views, they would be bound by the laws as written by the Legislature and signed by the governor. This might have been the only forum where the two candidates will face each other prior to the April 29 runoff. Perret has not accepted an invitation extended by Lafayettes Concerned Citizens for Good Government to participate in a forum Monday evening at Alesis restaurant. Theall has accepted. In other related news on the election, The IND is pursuing a public records lawsuit against Orleans Parish Civil District Court Clerk Dale N. Atkins to unseal three cases in which Perret was sued by her former fiance, high-profile New Orleans plaintiffs attorney John W. Houghtaling II, in 2004, 2005 and 2006. Both Perret and Houghtaling are fighting this news organization's efforts to bring the suits back into the public domain. The IND, citing case law, is arguing that the trial court cannot seal an entire civil case record from public inspection and that neither Perret nor Houghtaling has standing because they "do not constitute parties in interest (with respect to the Clerk of Court's ministerial duty or any action to enforce it)" in this news organization's request to the clerk to inspect and copy the records. On April 10, Perret emailed Fred Herman, Atkins' attorney: Mr. Herman, I am a candidate for judge, 3d circuit court of appeal and the general election is April 29. The Independent Weekly, an online rag column, has been trying to unseal personal records of mine in CDC. They have been relentless in harassing me and my family. They were able to unseal one document ex parte through misrepresentation to the court. They are now attempting to unseal other documents, one of which is a confidential settlement agreement between me and my ex-fiance. A hearing was held in March before Judge Griffin and their request was denied. I just learned that the Independent Weekly is again attempting to unseal this confidential settlement agreement via a Petition for Mandamus directed to Honorable Dale Atkins. Before any hearing goes forward, I wanted to let you know that the parties to the agreement object to these records being unsealed and will be intervening in this matter. Perret's statement that The IND was "able to unseal one document ex parte through misrepresentation to the court" is false. The paper received from a source the 2005 suit, in which Houghtaling sought a restraining order against her, alleging she threatened, stalked and harassed him. Her email to Herman came the same day Houghtaling issued the following threatening email to IND attorney Gary McGoffin: Gary, one of those suits contains a DEC action on confidential settlement terms. If you get this out and your client publishes terms of a confidential settlement by avoiding me from lodging an objection I will pursue any legal and all legal rights I have against you and your client. A hearing in front of Orleans Parish Civil District Court Judge Piper Griffin has been set for 9:30 a.m April 20, nine days before the election. Early voting starts this Saturday, April 15, and will run through the following Saturday, April 22. Voters in eight parishes will have the final say on the candidates on April 29. The parishes in the district include Acadia, Allen, Evangeline, Iberia, Lafayette, St. Landry, St. Martin, and Vermilion. The race is for the eight years remaining on the term for the seat made vacant when Jimmy Genovese of Opelousas won election to the Louisiana Supreme Court over Marilyn Castle of Lafayette in November. Turnout in Lafayette Parish is expected to nearly double from the 9.4 percent primary turnout thanks to the presence of a proposed half-cent sales tax issue by the Lafayette Parish Public School System appearing on the ballot. Perret led Theall by fewer than 2,000 votes in the March 25 primary, despite a huge financial advantage over Theall and Anseman. The interim director of the Louisiana State Museum resigned this week, issuing a letter accusing the lieutenant governor and his staff of interfering with museum management and attempting to "commandeer" museum-owned apartments for personal use. Tim Chester, foreground; Billy Nungesser, background Photo Illustration The interim director of the Louisiana State Museum resigned this week, issuing a letter accusing Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser and his staff of interfering with museum management and attempting to "commandeer" museum-owned apartments in a historic French Quarter building for personal use. Nungesser denies the allegations, telling The New Orleans Advocate that interim director Tim Chester had not been moving quickly enough to find a permanent director or make other changes. The Louisiana State Museum encompasses nine properties, five of them in New Orleans' French Quarter. The State Museum is part of the state's Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, which is overseen by the Lieutenant Governor's Office. But the museum also has a semi-independent board of directors. It was during a Monday meeting of the board that Chester stepped down. "Since last fall, the museum staff and board have been struggling with the Lieutenant Governor usurping the authority of the board with his staff writing and implementing staff position descriptions that are out of sync with the museum's brand and marketing and its internal management structure," Chester said in a letter to the board. Chester, a consultant who took the interim position in October, also said Nungesser attempted to override museum officials and board members who objected to plans to loan U.S. Sen. John Kennedy artworks for his office (Kennedy has withdrawn the request). "Some of the things in there are bald-faced lies," Nungesser said, referring to Chester's resignation letter as "cowardly." "I think he's an agitated old man who was not moving quickly enough in anything I wanted done at the museum," Nungesser said. "I wanted accountability. I wanted to know where people were, what they were doing." Chester was hired last fall as an interim replacement for Mark Tullos, who headed the museum from 2013 until Nungesser dismissed him in May 2016. At the time he was hired, Tullos was the fourth person to hold the job in five years. When he was lieutenant governor, Mitch Landrieu pushed through legislation giving him, rather than the board, the power to hire and fire the museum director. Not long afterward, David Kahn, who had been hired two years earlier, resigned. One of Chester's complaints centered on a vacant apartment in the Lower Pontalba Building, a historic state-owned building at Jackson Square. "Keys to the museum apartment were taken away from our staff, and staff was told scheduling and use of that apartment would happen out of Baton Rouge," Chester told the board. Nungesser said the request to turn over the keys stemmed from a tour he took soon after his term began in January 2016, when he was told that nobody was staying in the apartment. But when he went inside with a maintenance person, they found someone in the apartment, he said. Nungesser said he had used the apartment two or three times and noted that Chester had stayed there for weeks when he was first hired. It also has hosted legislators, tourism officials, musicians and the grandson of the person who donated the building to the state, he said. The museum has never been denied use of the apartment when it has asked for it, he said. Chester also accused the lieutenant governor of "attempting to intimidate" museum staff to avoid paying the normal rental fees for hosting private, after-hours events at museum facilities. When asked to pay the fees, an official in Nungesser's office replied, "Tim Chester doesn't own that museum. The lieutenant governor does," Chester said in his letter. Nungesser said he has not held an event at any museum facility and never received an invoice from the museum. He said the allegation may refer to a time when his staff requested to host a seafood event at the museum something the office routinely does at other museums around the state and was told they would have to pay. CARBONDALE Doug and Lisa Cherry had just started a new church in Carbondale and were busy trying to get that established. While the church had a policy about preventing abuse of children, after an alleged incident with their underage daughter, church administrators ramped it up, said Nathan Cherry, who oversees the volunteers for the Victory Dream Center in Carbondale. New church administrators sought to improve its volunteer process. Though the church runs a food pantry, its administrators do not allow sex offenders on the property. Basically all our volunteers have to go through a fairly significant background check, Nathan Cherry said. "I think because of our rigorous volunteer application process, it screens out folks who obviously arent there for the right reason." The church contracts with a service that conducts the background checks on those wanting to volunteer. For a while and for the time being, it might just have to settle for the handful of volunteers it has, the 10 to 12 adults who have passed the "rigorous" background screening, Nathan said. Victory Dream Center attracts about 50 to 75 local youth to its Wednesday night Reality youth meetings for sixth- through 12th-graders. On Sunday mornings, the church averages about 15 youth in its various Sunday school and youth church services. Its an area where we really struggle, because we have so many people who have a challenging past," Nathan Cherry said. "Its hard to find people that you can really trust with the kids. A LifeWay Research report on background checks of church volunteers indicated that almost half those screened had some sort of criminal offense. In 2008, LifeWayResearch started working with backgroundchecks.com to offer churches the service, for a fee. The 2013 report indicated that 53 percent (44,946) of the background checks returned some type of issue, according to Jennie Taylor, a LifeWay coordinator who manages the backgroundchecks.com program. Those issues ranged from minor traffic violations to felony convictions, Taylor reported. While most of the issues revealed didn't require any action, more than 22.5 percent (19,202) of the screenings returned records with misdemeanor or felony offenses, according to the Lifeway Research report. Insurers like GuideStone provide coverage and advice to church leadership. GuideStone suggests that faith-based groups develop a formal sexual and misconduct prevention program; implement sound selection and work practices; utilize physical controls; establish training and communication; plan a response to allegations; and maintain oversight and validation. For instance, when developing a plan, the company advises that a facility have "at least two complimentary controls for every high-risk activity," such as having more than one person attend to any children and individual with "diminished mental or physical capacity." The company defines "high-risk activities" as offsite activities, toileting, touching and counseling, for instance. GuideStone also has a checklist for churches that are developing a child-abuse prevention and control program, noting that that program "should prohibit interaction between confirmed sex offenders and at-risk individuals." It goes on to identify "at-risk individuals." It also suggests that faith facilities "provide a clean and easy way for individuals to report allegations to your organization." In its report Protecting Children and Youth from Sexual Misconduct in Your Church, the Alabama Baptist Convention State Board of Missions also suggests that religious institutions establish a two adult rule. It notes, however, that a husband and wife working in the same room should be considered as one adult. Elkville church adopts new policy Churches such as the Ekville Christian Church have recently introduced child-protection plans for its church, for volunteers who work with the children. Soon after arriving at Elkville Christian Church, Bryce Pitlick thought about introducing a policy that would govern how adult volunteers interacted with the church's youth populations. It was a congregation where most of those who worked with youth had done so for years, with no known problems of which Pitlick was aware. About a year after his arrival, his church did adopt such a policy, its Child Abuse Policy. The policy governed how volunteers were to interact with youth, such as not being alone with a child in a closed room, and stipulated how the church was to respond in the event there was an allegation of child abuse. The form was given to youth volunteers, who had to sign it, saying they'd received a copy of it and that they were willing to submit to a background check. The church has not yet done any background checks, he said, but might conduct those as it approaches its Vacation Bible School season and will possibly attract volunteers who don't typically work with youth. CARBONDALE Seventeen-year-old Nick Mechler has been interested in airplanes as long as he can remember. His family was staying in St. Louis Union Station Hotel for the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament when Nick was 4 or 5. There was a model shop at Union Station that had not only model trains, but also model airplanes. On the way out, we went to the store and I found a model P-51 Mustang," Mechler said. "The second I brought it into the car, I broke the left landing gear." After some tears were shed, Mechler got a second model P-51 Mustang and broke the right landing gear. The two plans still are displayed in Mechlers room. Now it doesnt bother me that theres a piece missing," he said. "They signify something else. They signify the beginning of when my interest was spiked in aviation in general." Then, when Mechler was 11, he received a coupon for a free discovery flight. I took the flight in February and I kind of fell in love with it, Mechler said. He not only fell in love with flying at age 11, he also began his flight training. He began taking flying lessons as part of Civil Air Patrol Shawnee Composite Squadron two years ago. Last year, on his 16th birthday, Mechler took his first solo flight in a Cessna 172 Skyhawk, a single-engine plane that seats four. He had about 40 hours of flight time under his belt when he took the skies above Veterans Airport of Southern Illinois. Sixteen is the minimum age that the FAA will allow someone to solo. To do it on their 16th birthday is almost unheard of, said Maj. Wesley Flannell, of Shawnee Composite Squadron. To be licensed, a pilot must pass a written test, pass a check ride and have a minimum of 40 hours of flight time. Mechler said a pilot must also log so many hours of solo and cross-country flying, as well as instruction. The oral part of the ride took about three hours, with the flight adding about two hours. Nick completed the testing on his 17th birthday, March 24. Flannel said 17 is the minimum age to take the pilot test also a rare feat. Its rare for anyone to do either one, but for someone to do both is really rare. I personally have not ever heard of anyone else doing that, Flannell said. Cadet Mechler has been one of my best students said Capt. Aron Peterson, Mechlers flight instructor. He studied hard and is a dedicated pilot. Age has nothing to do with it. When Mechler passed his flight test and earned his private pilot license, he became the youngest pilot in the nation. Theres something about it," Mechler said. "Aviation has its own community and everyone is helpful and kind." That community includes members of the Shawnee Composite Squadron of CAP. I honestly could not thank them enough, Mechler said. Next, Mechler will work on his instrument endorsement, which will allow him to fly in conditions with less visibility and stricter weather minimums. The Carbondale Community High School junior said it will require a lot of his attention. He also is looking at his options after high school. He would like to study aviation at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, either as a civilian or with ROTC. Mechler also would like to take a pilgrimage to see a rocket launch, but says that will not happen for a few years. I couldnt have gotten my license if it werent for the support of my dad and his helping me through it, Mechler said. I understand how lucky I am to have the opportunity and the ability to know what I want to do. Flannell said the Civil Air Patrol is a good option for youth who are interested in aviation or want to become pilots. Membership in the Civil Air Patrol is open to everyone 12 and older. Future or past military service is not required. For more information, visit gocivilairpatrol.com or capvolunteernow.com, or contact Flannell at 618-926-2364, wesley.flannell@shawneecap.org. A Campbell Hill teen is charged with driving under the influence and is recovering in a St. Louis hospital after a single-vehicle crash early Thursday. According to a news release from the Jackson County Sheriff's Office, deputies responded about 1:15 a.m. Thursday morning to reports of a one-vehicle crash on Illinois 4 near Brick Plant Road in Campbell Hill. The release said Chace Hille, 19, of Campbell Hill, crashed his 1997 Ford pickup truck into the ditch line; evidence indicated Hille was traveling southbound on Illinois 4 when he lost control and his vehicle exited the roadway, overturning before coming to rest on its side. Hille was cited for driving under the influence of alcohol, driving on a suspended license and operation of an uninsured motor vehicle. An ambulance transported him from the scene of the crash to a local hospital, and he was later taken to a St. Louis hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries. The Southern An Indiana man has been sentenced to prison for burglary, according to a Thursday news release from Union County States Attorney Tyler R. Edmonds. Dejun Deneil Booker, 36, has been sentenced to nine years in state prison after pleading guilty to two counts of burglary, both Class 2 felonies. The release states that Booker burglarized a tavern near Ware in the early morning hours of Sept. 5. Booker was arrested the next day by Union County Sheriffs Deputies after an extensive search in the vicinity of Morgan School Road. During the search, Booker also burglarized a vehicle at a residence on Morgan School Road. The Jackson County Sheriffs Office, Illinois State Police, Illinois Conservation Police, Anna Police Department, Jonesboro Police Department and Cobden Police Department assisted the Union County Sheriffs Office with the search. The Southern MARION Gov. Bruce Rauner spent Tuesday and Wednesday touring the state to talk about the need for a balanced state budget. On Wednesday afternoon, he spoke at a rally in the lobby of Aisin Manufacturing. Rauner told those gathered that the fight in Springfield is about a balanced budget and no more deficit spending rather than just raising taxes. Lets be crystal clear. Thats just duct-taping over our problems. That will not solve our problems because the systems broke, Rauner said. If we get a big tax hike on all you working men and women, all that means is you got a pay cut. And, that is wrong. That is not fair. Rauner said politicians have been misspending and wasting money for years and do not deserve more tax dollars. He said the answer is to shrink the political class and the bureaucracy in the government and put money back in your pockets of families. We should be kicking tails. And you know what? Im a competitive son of a gun, and it frosts me that so many of our jobs are moving out to Indiana, to Missouri, to Texas, to Tennessee when weve got the best people, weve got the best location, weve got the best transportation, Rauner said. He continued saying regulation, red tape, restrictions and taxes have put Illinois businesses in a position where they cannot be competitive. Indiana is drawing Illinois businesses because they are pro-business and pro-growth. Companies want to come here. They want to be here, but we got to change the system. Thats what were fighting to do. Thats what this battle is about. They say its about the budget, but it is really about the future of Illinois, Rauner said. Rauner also spoke briefly to media after the rally. When asked about whether or not he supported another stop-gap budget, he suggested that SIU and public schools need a balanced budget that would allow them to be funded for years and years. The key to getting balanced budgets that stay balanced is to grow the economy faster and shrink some of the wasteful bureaucracy. Otherwise, we will never be funding SIU at the level they really need. We could help them for a couple months, but we shouldnt be helping them for a couple months. Lets help SIU grow and become the world class university for the long term, Rauner said. Rauners visit also drew protests. Its time for Southern Illinois to stand up and speak out against Gov. Rauners refusal to deal with with the Democrats, Debbie Gunter of Marion said. Gunter, who is retired from Mississippi State University, said the lack of funds and debt in Illinois is because Republicans have kept the state income tax rates lower than in almost every other state, adding that at least 40 states have higher income tax rates, including Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana. We need a state budget and we need it now, Gunter said. Mary Ingram of Marion said the state of Illinois has been without a budget for two years, causing many not-for-profit agencies, state vendors, providers and SIU to suffer. Ingram is a retired liaison between the state of Illinois, circuit clerks offices and Illinois Disbursement Unit for Child Support. She is owed money from the state for dental work she had done and paid for out of her pocket. Protesters lined a grassy area between Redco Drive and the Dairy Queen Parking Lot until a young man who appeared to be a Dairy Queen employee said the owner of the property had instructed him to ask the protesters to leave his property. He said he would have to call police if they would not move. The protesters moved to the corner of Redco and Banterra drives, just north of the Dairy Queen. CARBONDALE Television commentator and best-selling author Keith Boykin will speak at Southern Illinois University Carbondale this month, one of the highlights of the inaugural four-day Salukis United in Diversity Conference. A variety of activities are planned during the April 19-22 conference, designed to bring the campus and community together to highlight and strengthen SIUs diversity and inclusivity. Boykin will speak at 5 p.m. in the Student Center Ballrooms on April 22, followed by an awards ceremony and reception at 6 p.m. Boykin is the founder and first board president of the National Black Justice Coalition and the author of four books, all Lambda Literary Award nominees. The most recent publication is For Colored Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Still Not Enough, the winner of the 2013 American Library Association Stonewall Award for Nonfiction. A St. Louis native, Boykin is a graduate of Dartmouth College and earned his law degree at Harvard Law School. He served as special assistant to the president and director of specialty media for President Bill Clinton, the highest-ranking openly gay person in Clintons White House. He spoke at the Millennium March on Washington and has appeared on numerous national news and media programs, including Anderson Cooper 360, The Tyra Banks Show, and the Montel Williams Show. While there is no cost to attend Boykins lecture, attendees must register in advance at conferenceservices.siu.edu/conferences/salukis-united-for-diversity.php. The celebration begins on April 19 as faculty and graduate teaching assistants make presentations and discuss diversity from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Student Centers Ohio Room. Afterward, the Chancellors Diversity Council will host a meet and greet event in the Mississippi Room, giving everyone a chance to get acquainted with the council and discuss their thoughts about campus diversity. Students will gather at the Student Center at 4 p.m. on April 20 to participate in a Unity March and Celebration as a show of support for international and underrepresented students, faculty and staff. Students are encouraged to wear shirts that illustrate their diverse backgrounds, according to conference organizer Naomi Tolbert, a political science and international affairs major who is also vice president of cultural experiences and diversity for the Honors Assembly, a student trustee on the SIU Board of Trustees and a McNair Scholar. This will be an inspirational Saluki celebration of the differences we have and a time to embrace them and come together, Tolbert said. The walk will conclude in the area around the Shryock Auditorium steps for a campus-wide celebration featuring remarks by Interim Chancellor Brad Colwell, a barbecue and music provided by a DJ. There will be Safe Zone workshop sessions at 10 a.m., noon and 2 p.m. on April 21 in the Mississippi Room at the Student Center, giving everyone the opportunity to learn about LGBTQ issues and how to help foster an inclusive and affirming campus. A documentary focusing on race relations will be shown at 5 p.m. in the Student Centers Delta Room. The awards to be presented following Boykins lecture will recognize groups and individuals on campus for their efforts in the past year to enhance and strengthen SIUs diversity and inclusivity. Tolbert said conference events all free and open to the public will serve several purposes, including building Saluki pride, encouraging community engagement, and identifying and recognizing the efforts various units and organizations at the university are making to enhance diversity and inclusivity. The conference also is designed to give students, faculty, staff, administrators and community members opportunities to interact and address any issues or concerns. The weeks fun and interactive events will address different aspects of diversity, providing knowledge, intercultural interactions and opportunities to enhance communication and inclusivity, Tolbert said. The goal is to get as many members of the campus and community of all backgrounds involved as possible in order to broaden the scope of understanding. We also want to create a foundation for future diversity events and initiatives. Salukis United in Diversity Conference sponsors include the Office of the President, Office of the Chancellor, the Office of Diversity, the Diversity Council, the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute, Student Affairs, the Student Center and University Housing. CARTERVILLE Parents of students in Carterville Community Unit School District 5 will have to take a new route to school beginning April 24 because of the temporary closure of West Grand Avenue. West Grand Avenue will be closed to through traffic for construction between Greenbriar Road and Lions Drive through the completion of construction in August. The road was originally scheduled to close April 17, but the closure was delayed by one week by IDOT and the contractor. The City of Carterville and Carterville Unit 5 School District strongly encourage parents and students leaving the elementary or high school to use the Cambria Road to Sycamore Road detour route to travel east when leaving either campus. This route is recommended because of the uncontrolled left turn across multiple lanes at Cambria Road and Illinois 13. The West Grand Phase 2 project will encompass widening, resurfacing, curb, gutter, storm sewer and sidewalk. The project will be similar to the completed West Grand Phase 1 from Dent Street to Greenbriar, said Mayor Brad Robinson. Eighty percent of the funding for Phase 2 is from the federal Surface Transportation Program for Urban Areas (STU) and was awarded from the Southern Illinois Metropolitan Planning Organization (SIMPO). Carterville is the first community to begin a SIMPO-awarded STU project within its programmed year since the creation of SIMPO in 2010. The federal Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century grant program (MAP-21) is providing 80 percent of funding for sidewalks. Robinson said Phase 2 was originally scheduled to begin in October 2016, but Carterville negotiated with the contractor and IDOT to delay the construction until April 2017 to prevent closure of West Grand for most of the 2016-17 school year. Due to the scope of the work, there are 85 working days in the program contract. Because of this, the entire project could not be completed during the Carterville Unit 5 School District's summer break, Robinson said. Four weeks needed to be scheduled into the project either at the end of the school year or the beginning of the next school year in August 2017. The city negotiated with the contractor and IDOT on a number of issues trying to lessen the impact on neighbors, students and their families, including lengthening the work day and leaving one lane of West Grand open using a flagger. Lengthening the work day could not be facilitated because of labor and contract issues. The contractor agreed to leave one lane open at an additional cost of more than $100,000, but IDOT would not allow this because of safety concerns with the narrow work area and open ditches. Myself and the city council sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this will cause," Robinson said. "We encourage all drivers who must be in this area to be patient and drive carefully. We also expect progress to occur much faster on this phase in comparison to the previous project because most of the calendar days of this work count as contract work days." He added that days between Nov. 1 and April 30 do not count against work days in road construction contracts. Les Winkeler Sports editor Les Winkeler is sports editor and outdoors writer for The Southern Illinoisan. Follow Les Winkeler Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today As evening settled in, I walked the periphery of the Winkelers Bend clearing, gathering kindling for a fire. The last rays of the sun funneled through the towering oaks on the west side of the Kaskaskia River, casting a mosaic pattern on the trees surrounding me. The nasal notes of omnipresent white-breasted nuthatch filled my ears, along with the occasional chattering of a red-bellied woodpecker. Despite the myriad sounds in the air, it was clear nature was calling it a day. The wind that had rippled through the forest earlier in the afternoon was dying down. There was still a gentle reminder of the earlier gusts, carrying away the midday warmth. A fire would be comforting on several levels. First, there is the inherent warmth. Second, there is something genuinely peaceful about staring into the glowing embers, watching the intensity wander through the bed of coals with the breeze. And, there was a brief hearkening back to childhood when the scary sounds of the night forest seemed swallowed by the flames of the campfire. And, so I built the fire carefully, starting with the kindling, graduating to small dry oak branches that had been gathered from the clearing. When the branches were fully ablaze, I pilfered chunks of firewood that had been split and carefully stacked by cousins and uncles. Winkeler: Florida trip is "Back to the Future" Its hardly a DeLorean DMC-12, but my Honda Civic has proven capable of taking me Back to t There soaking in the warmth of the fire, I glanced up through the still-barren branches of the oaks. A nearly full moon was framed in the darkening sky. That sight only added the comfort I felt in this special place. Sitting alone in the gathering dark, I turned to my iPod. The machine seemed to understand the time and setting, randomly choosing tunes my dad, his brothers and friends had played and sang around campfires on this very spot for generations. The wave of nostalgia was broken in short order by the hooting of barred owls. The owls reminded me of the purpose of my visit to Winkelers Bend the following morning would be my lone chance to harvest a turkey. After turning the music off, my ears quickly adjusted to the sounds of the dark forest. The Kaskaskia River rolled swiftly just a few yards behind me. But, even the sucking, slurping sounds of the rushing water couldnt drown out the background chorus of frogs. Several more owls hooted before the first turkey gobbled, probably less than 80 yards south of where I was seated. A few seconds later, another turkey gobbled to the north, and then another. One seemed to be across the river, the other was impossible to tell. As my concentration sharpened I heard the clucking of hens, clearly just across the river. By the time the turkey called it a night, I had heard five different birds, at least three of which were on the right side of the river. Within 30 minutes, two Winkeler cousins arrived. We plotted our strategy for the next morning, based on my campfire observations. We opted to set up on the first bird I had heard. He gobbled bright and early, just where I thought hed be. We set up not 40 yards away and within minutes heard him crashing to the ground. However, his next gobble indicated he had clearly headed away from us. Our prospects grew dimmer when we saw a pair of hens headed in the same direction. The tom continued gobbling for at least 45 minutes, but we never saw him again. Walking into Rob Lorenzs ceramic studio in De Soto, one is welcomed by the warmth of earth-tones in the shape of coffee mugs, bowls, pitchers and jugs. He takes one of the most abundant resources on Earth, clay, and creates from this malleable material objects both utilitarian and decorative. Lorenz originally became interested in ceramics about 10 years ago while studying for his Bachelors in Art Education. After taking a few classes in ceramics, he graduated in 2007 with a BFA in Ceramics as well as an education degree. He then returned to school in 2013 to study for a Masters in Ceramics at SIU in Carbondale. When asked why he liked ceramics, Lorenz remarks that he enjoys the process. In fact, that process is rather extensive. The clay is first kneaded and wedged, thrown on a pottery wheel, decorated, fired, glazed, and then fired again in a kiln sometimes for up to 24 hours. In his personal studio, he uses an electric kiln, which gives him more control over the final product. He also enjoys using a wood-fired kiln and explains how this method gives him less control over the resulting exterior, all the surface color and everything comes from the atmosphere in the kiln all the wood ash settles on the pots and melts and creates the glaze and the color on the pots. And although this process involves a more varied outcome, the end product is intriguing in its varied color. Similarly, he has also used a process known as soda-firing. Pieces are fired in a gas kiln, and once the temperature reaches a certain point, a solution of baking soda is sprayed in the kiln; baking soda does the same thing as wood ash. It vaporizes and settles on the pot and melts and creates a glaze. Some of the works in his thesis exhibition were fired using this process and drew heavily from Southern folk pottery forms such as butter churns, grave markers and the most recognizable form the face jug. Although he did recreate these traditional forms, the soda-fired pieces are contemporary interpretation[s] of the traditional works and commercially based such as thermoses in the style of the popular Stanley thermos and Enamelware style coffee pots. Affixed to many of these pieces is the word logo (instead of an actual logo) which is meant to [poke] fun at commercialism and marketing. And many of Lorenzs works are inspired by Southern folk pottery, particularly by the Kirkpatrick brothers out of Anna, who were well-known names in the ceramics world during the late 1800s and early 1900s. The Kirkpatrick brothers often used pig imagery, and even made a flask in the shape of the pig; it was during prohibition so it was referencing the evils of alcohol. Which is why he often affixes pictures of pigs to beer glasses and whiskey jugs. Lorenz particularly likes the pig imagery, but he also transfers images such as birds, flowers and wave patterns. Using a laser-printed image, he applies a colorant called an underglaze to the image and then transfers it to the pot. Some of these images are rather intricate, and sometimes they will come out slightly messy, which doesnt bother him. Perusing the shelves in his studio one finds many coffee mugs, which happen to be the most sought-after items for customers due to their functionality. However, he especially enjoys making jugs and has recently been interested in making a Korean form called a moon jar that is meant to look like a moon. Many of the forms also have different textures and colors, which is due to the varied clays that Lorenz uses in his work. Some are fired to higher temperatures, such as stoneware and porcelain, and some, like the red earthenware clay he dug out of the ground himself, fires to lower temperatures, and gives the pottery a deep red brick color and a smooth finish. Other clays can give the forms a rougher surface, depending on the particle content of the clay. For Lorenz, the clay itself appears to be the inspiring factor behind choosing ceramics. He finds it to be an intuitive process, it's really immediate ... It's just a natural thing that people do. You can give somebody a piece of paper and a pencil and they might draw something and they might not. But you give somebody a piece of clay, most of the time they're gonna make something and they're going to enjoy it. Lorenz often brings his work to sales, such as the SIU Holiday Craft Fair and the Scratch Holiday Bazaar, which he organized with a former graduate classmate, Stephanie Dukat. The Holiday Bazaar was held at Scratch Brewing Company in Ava (see photos from the event in Social Seen on page 13), where he has also been commissioned to make ceramic beer steins for their Oktoberfest event. Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, has developed a robust West Wing portfolio. He has been deeply involved with presidential staffing, recently launched a task force meant to modernize government using lessons drawn from the private sector, and has played the role of shadow diplomat, advising on relations with the Middle East, Canada and Mexico. And though Kushner had no previous diplomatic or government experience, Trump also tasked him with trying to broker a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. Kushner was also the latest Trump associate to be swept up into the ongoing probe into contacts with Russian officials. The White House confirmed last week that he had volunteered to be interviewed by the Senate intelligence committee. He has also been involved in an ongoing feud with Steve Bannon. The man who drowned in Lake Marion near Eutawville Tuesday afternoon has been identified as 26-year-old Lenwuan Mack of Planter's Trace in Santee. Orangeburg County Chief Deputy Coroner Sean Fogle reported Wednesday that Mack died of asphyxia due to drowning. He said the incident remains under investigation. Witnesses say Mack jumped from the dock at the Indian Bluff Park boat landing around 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday. He told witnesses he knew how to swim before he jumped. Within a moment after jumping, Mack called for help, and one of the bystanders tried unsuccessfully to bring him to safety. The Eutawville Fire Department arrived on the scene within minutes. About an hour later, the dive and rescue team of the Canaan Fire Department also arrived and attempted to locate Macks body. At about 9:30 p.m., a South Carolina Department of Natural Resources diver entered the water to search for Macks body, finding it within a few minutes. The diver and emergency responders pulled his body ashore at 9:40 p.m. DENMARK -- Denmark Technical College was among the exhibitors at the System Legislative Luncheon on April 5, sponsored by the South Carolina Technical College System in Columbia. All South Carolina technical colleges were invited to set up booths for the state legislators to meet students from the various technical colleges and to show their return on investment. Denmark Tech showcased robots from its Electromechanical Engineering Technology Program and a drone equipped with a GoPro camera. In spite of the severe weather, legislators turned out to view the exhibits. Attending the event and manning the DTC booth was Interim President Dr. Christopher Hall; Stephen Mason, associate vice president for economic and workforce development; and three of the college's current engineering students, Cameron Foster, Jucobee L'Zar Archer and Robert Bradley Jr. Unfortunately, the rainy weather thwarted their plans to fly the drone with the camera, but they were still able to display it and explain how it could be used. Hall said he was pleased with the reception Denmark Tech received. Our students were outstanding, they were articulate and comfortable speaking with the legislators about their projects and their coursework at Denmark Technical College, he said. The students particularly enjoyed meeting with S.C. Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, who represents House District 66 in Orangeburg. Cobb-Hunter, a strong supporter of technical colleges, and had her picture taken with the students and administration. The students were very impressed that she took the time to speak with them and seemed genuinely interested in their projects. The students answered questions about their engineering knowledge, thoughts on cybersecurity and went into detail about the building of the robots and the drone they were demonstrating. Bradley spoke about the experience. It was great getting to rub elbows with the legislators. I have had so many opportunities here at Denmark Tech, such as an internship last summer at Norfolk State University sponsored by the college's Consortium Enabling Cybersecurity Opportunities and Research project," he said. "I recently spoke with someone going into the same field at another college who made the comment that he wished he could have the same opportunities that I have had here at Denmark Technical College. I like being a big fish in a little pond, and Denmark Tech has given me a great start. Bradley is graduating in May and will be interning at Savannah River Site this summer. For more information about Denmark Technical College, call 803-793-5176 or visit www.denmarktech.edu. ROCK HILL President Donald Trumps approval rating of 43 percent has remained steady in South Carolina for the past two months, according to the latest Winthrop Poll released Thursday. His approval numbers in South Carolina continue to be a few points higher than his national average. The 45th president has a disapproval rating of 47 percent among Palmetto State citizens. An earlier Winthrop Poll in February showed similar ratings. Trump has strong support (79 percent) among residents who identify GOP or lean Republican. Trumps support is more than 2.25 times higher than that of Congress. Only 19 percent of South Carolina residents approve of the way Congress is handling its job. Other polling results include Nearly 60 percent of Winthrop Poll respondents said the country is headed in the wrong direction. Yet two thirds of South Carolina residents said the countrys economy is very good or fairly good. More than half (54 percent) think South Carolina is moving in a positive direction, while 67 percent think the condition of the states economy is either very or fairly good. Nearly 54 percent described their own financial situation as good or excellent. S.C. residents said the most important problem facing the country is politicians/government, followed by racism, jobs/unemployment, then immigration/refugees. Those surveyed said the most important issues facing the Palmetto State are roads/bridges/infrastructure, education, jobs or unemployment and racism. When asked if state services, including highway troopers, social workers, mental health experts, and schools, have kept pace with the growth of the Palmetto State, 62 percent of poll respondents said they somewhat or strongly felt that these services have not kept pace. Only 11 percent said that they strongly felt that services have kept pace with growth. S.C. Gov. Henry McMasters approval rating in South Carolina stands at 47 percent. However, his approval rating is 25 points higher than his disapproval rating, putting him very much above water. The S.C. General Assembly got an approval nod from 47 percent of those polled while 38 percent disapprove of the job theyre doing. U.S. Sen. Lindsey Grahams approval is nearly evenly split among all South Carolinians. He has a 45 percent approval rating and a 47 percent disapproval rating. His approval among Republicans, and those who lean Republican, stands at just under 50 percent. The states junior senator, U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, is much more highly rated among the Republican base. He has a strong 82 percent approval rating among the GOP. Scotts popularity among the general public remains high as well, with 60 percent reporting approval of the job he is doing. NORWAY -- A Norway Town Council member has been charged with interfering with a traffic stop involving a member of his family, the town's police department announced Wednesday. The Norway Police Department obtained arrest warrants for Councilman Michael Andrew Singleton. The warrants were issued by Magistrate Peggy Doremus. The 42-year-old was arrested by the Orangeburg County Sheriffs Office on a charge of one count of hindering/interfering with an officer, according to the statement from Norway police. The charge is a misdemeanor carrying a penalty fine of not more than $3,000 or imprisonment for no more than three years, or both, at the discretion of the court having jurisdiction. A second charge for stopping/parking in a roadway is also a misdemeanor. It carries a penalty of a fine of not more than $100 or imprisonment for no more than 30 days. According to the arrest warrant, at approximately 6:31 p.m. on April 9, while on Harrison Avenue and 3rd Street in the town of Norway, Officer Jamie T. Lucas of the Norway Police Department was conducting a traffic stop when Singleton stopped and parked his vehicle in the roadway. Singleton exited his vehicle and demanded the officer tell him what was going on, according to the warrant. The encounter occurred prior to Lucas issuing a traffic ticket to one of Singletons family members. According to the warrant, Singleton told the officer that he is the police commissioner and that the officer may want to resign. He said he is the officers boss. Further investigation found that the defendant is not the police commissioner and it is believed that he attempted to illegally use his council position for his familys benefit, according to the warrant. The case has been turned over to the 1st Circuit solicitor, according to the Norway Police Department. The investigation is ongoing and additional charges may be requested. Singleton was booked at the Orangeburg County Detention Center. Norway Police Chief Scott Ward said Singleton was due in court in Orangeburg Wednesday afternoon for a bond hearing. The Orangeburg Consolidated School District Three Board of Trustees at its April 4 meeting approved the 2017-2018 school calendar, scheduling opening day on Aug. 17. The schedule also designates Aug. 21, the day of the total eclipse, as a school holiday. Based on input from district teachers, the trustees made the decision to provide students with the opportunity to spend as much time as possible observing the rare phenomenon. With the legislation that was passed allowing us to start school before the third Monday this year because of the eclipse, extensive conversations took place in the schools, among principals and staff members around this, Superintendent Dr. Jesulon Gibbs-Brown said. (In choosing this calendar option), we will be starting before the third Monday. So, we would come to school for two days, be out on that Monday because of the total eclipse and then come back on Tuesday. In addition, board members approved a field trip for students in the Mentoring Program at Holly Hill Roberts Middle School. Participants will miss one day of school when they travel to Charleston to spend the night camping out aboard the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown at Patriots Point. Trustees also received updates on the following: Aerospace engineering The district recently received a grant that will enable it to offer aerospace engineering as a career pathway. The district is now exploring ways to bring in the additional staff necessary to teach the required courses. Gibbs-Brown said she believes this new career pathway is a great opportunity for us to be able to offer (aerospace engineering) to our students and strategically position students for future opportunities in this high-tech industry, which is expanding in the area. Water line break at Elloree Elementary Construction crews working on new gas lines in Elloree clipped the line serving the school in late March. Town officials provided bottled water for students and staff members to drink while the line was out of service. The districts transportation team then rounded up enough bus drivers in the middle of the day to transfer the students to Lake Marion High School for the rest of the afternoon. Spring testing During his curriculum update, Dr. Marty Conner reminded trustees that testing will take place for much of the remaining school year. School buses District Transportation Director Kevin Addison expressed his hope that warmer weather will help alleviate some of the mechanical issues that were experienced by older buses this winter. Facility upgrades Operations Director Gerald Wright reported contractors completed work on security improvements at the outer entrance of Lake Marion High School. Similar work is progressing at the entrance of Holly Hill Elementary, he said. The maintenance team has also begun evaluating each of the schools to determine what maintenance projects need to be tackled this summer, Wright said. New teachers The districts efforts to recruit new teachers continues to pay dividends, it was reported. Several local principals and district staff attended Teach Ohio 2017 on the campus of Ohio State University in early April, and more than 20 prospective teachers applied for positions in District Three at the event, it was noted. District officials are also visiting in-state colleges and universities to recruit teachers. An educating effectiveness round-table, sponsored by the University of South Carolina School of Education, will meet in the district on May 22, it was announced. LMHS Athletic Banquet This years event is scheduled for May 12. Details will be announced about the event once they are finalized. The OCSD3 Board of Trustees will hold its next regular meeting at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 9. Orangeburg-Calhoun Technical Colleges Associate Degree Nursing and Practical Nursing programs are ranked among the best in South Carolina, according to websites dedicated to the professions. OCtechs ADN program is ranked third out of 29 registered nursing programs in the state by RegisteredNursing.org, while the PN program is ranked fifth out of 16 licensed practical nursing/licensed vocational nursing programs in S.C. by PracticalNursing.org. The rankings are based on NCLEX-RN and NCLEX-PN pass rates over a four-year period, from 2011 to 2014. It is an honor for our Associate Degree and Practical Nursing programs to receive this recognition, said Kay Blackwell, dean of Nursing and Health Science at OCtech. Our programs are committed to excellence in nursing, and I am very proud of the students, graduates and faculty. We appreciate the strong support of administration in the expansion of our programs as we continue to provide the best in quality nursing care to those in our community and the surrounding areas. Last year, 100 percent of OCtechs ADN Flex, ADN Traditional and PN Flex program graduates passed their licensure exams and 90 percent of the colleges PN Traditional program graduates passed the NCLEX. RegisteredNursing.org cites the colleges well-trained faculty, hands-on practical skills, challenging curriculum, small class size and personalized instruction as key components in producing highly skilled nursing graduates. After analyzing nursing programs in South Carolina, it became evident that Orangeburg-Calhoun Technical College not only supports students during their time on campus, but also prepares them for a career beyond OCtech, said Brooke Wallace, founder and managing editor of RegisteredNursing.org. The strong RN program prepares students to conquer the NCLEX-RN and produces graduates who have the ability to confidently carry out what they learned into the healthcare world. Nursing and Health Science admissions packets are still being accepted for the fall. The next health information program session will be held at 10 a.m. Monday, May 8. Online HIP sessions are also available. All applicants are required to attend a HIP session to receive an admissions packet. For more information about OCtechs competitive Nursing and Health Science programs, visit http://www.octech.edu/admissions/nursing-health-science. NEESES -- Dorothy Strong has been shopping at Piggly Wiggly since she moved to Neeses about 50 years ago. She and her late husband used to visit the grocery store every morning to get a cup of coffee at the store's restaurant. Strong's children and grandchildren have worked at the store for several years. When the Piggly Wiggly had to close a little over two months ago following a fire, she was saddened, Strong said. On Wednesday, the store celebrated its grand reopening. With a smile on her face and fortified by a good breakfast, Strong said now she is happy. "I missed it," the 85-year-old said. In addition to the food, she just likes the atmosphere, she said. "I sit here and look at everybody," Strong said. "I don't know where they come from to eat here. It is good to get out of the house." She said she is "big on the Pig" because "they cook good." The store's management team, especially Bobby Fogle, makes everyone feel welcome, Strong said. "He does something like none other," she said, noting that Fogle engages and talks to the customers. "Oh Lord, it is great to have it back open," Springfield resident Vivian Argo said as she shopped for milk. "It is so convenient. I don't have to be running from this place, to that place, to that place." Argo said during the past two months, she had to find other places to shop, including Williston, Orangeburg and Denmark. "I do prefer to have it here," she said, noting she would shop at the Neeses Pig at least twice a week. She said she has been shopping at the store "for a long time." The reason she keeps coming back is simple, she said. "Everybody is nice and helpful," Argo said. Springfield resident Betsy Wishert has been a regular at the Neeses Pig for the past decade. "I have been checking to see when they would open," she said. "I am glad they are back." Wishert said the last two months have required shopping excursions to Williston and Barnwell. She said she has missed the employees at the Neeses Piggly Wiggly. "The people are friendly and you get to know them," she said. "I like how they have the restaurant. That is always good. I like the layout; it has always been easy to find stuff." Neeses residents Curtis and Rhonda Lucas say the store reopening has been a godsend as they not only do their own shopping there, but also shop for an elderly couple. The Lucases said they've been regular customers at the grocery store for 20 years. They had to travel to Wagener to do their shopping for the last couple of months, they said. "It feels like 50 miles," Curtis Lucas said. "We could tell the difference. We could tell a big difference in our wallets and in our gas." "It is still very nice," he said of the Neeses store, referring to the work done to bring it back after the fire. "They did a good job in remodeling it. We have been waiting and praying." Lucas said the store has "good people and good prices." Store manager Robbie Stevens expressed his joy at having the store open once again. "It is good to see customers back," Stevens said. "I am glad they did not find another home to shop." "We are glad to be open," Store Operator Chuck Fogle said. "It is good to see everybody again." The store held a soft reopening on April 7, but Wednesday was the official reopening. The grand reopening celebration will continue for a month, featuring buy one-get one specials and opportunities to register for prizes. People can register to win televisions, a gas grill, coolers and gift cards. Drawings will be held weekly for four weeks. The grand prize drawing will be held the first week of May. The store reopening is welcome news for area residents as it is the only grocery store in Neeses. An electrical fire started in the ceiling of the restaurant portion of the business during the early morning hours of Feb. 9. Ten fire departments responded to the blaze. A water line that ran across the ceiling area of the kitchen melted from the heat of the fire. As a result, water fell from it and onto the fire, keeping the flames from producing more extensive damage. Although the physical damage was confined to the restaurant portion of the building, the entire store sustained water and smoke damage. The store had been closed while crews replaced the buildings electrical wiring and ceiling tiles. Equipment and display shelves were refurbished and made like new. The building was insured, but Fogle declined to provide a dollar amount of the damage. Fogle operates several Piggly Wiggly stores in The T&D Region including one in Denmark and two in Orangeburg. The grand reopening specials are running at those stores as well. Istah Mack, pictured with his daughter, was not known to be involved in any acts of a violent nature. A family in Chester Cottage, a community in the North Central Windward constituency, is living in fear after a male member was shot. At about 10pm on Thursday 6th April, while making his way home, Istah Mack, a 30-year-old labourer of Chester Cottage, was shot in the left side of his chest and lower back by unknown assailants. Mack was taken to the Georgetown Hospital by ambulance, where he was given emergency treatment and then rushed to Milton Cato Memorial Hospital, Kingstown, where he remains warded. He has already undergone a series of procedures to remove the bullets and extract excessive fluid from his cheat area. Many persons in the community are of the opinion that the incident is in retaliation for an altercation that occurred a few years ago. The incident resulted in the death of a young man, also from Chester Cottage, and a relative of Macks was implicated in the stabbing death. However, a few months ago, the case was discontinued, and the Mack family in the community has been the subject of a number of threats from persons close to the deceased. Istahs sister - Inesha Mack, told THE VINCENTIAN that, based on the information from her brothers doctor, "He will pull through. He walk and talking better now, said Mack, "My brother dont trouble people, she added. Inesha said that after her brother was shot, the family did not venture outside because a number of males were at the gate leading to the house that she , her mom and other siblings share. According to Inesha, there was at least one man armed with a with cutlass. They were heard to say that anybody from the family that they get hold of will be killed. "Dem ah kill children, man, woman. I am not going to work , I am scared, said the grieving sister. The group of men eventually left, on noticing the police presence. Inesha said she would like to see the arrest of the man or men responsible for shooting her brother,and those whio have made threats against her family. "Take them in, talk to them. Let them know the lives they want to take is innocent lives, she said. Inesha has since left the community, fearing for her life. "I have to stay somewhere else because I am afraid, my family is worried, she said, adding that her brother was not known to be involved in any "violence,, a sentiment that other persons in the community echoed. Meanwhile, the situation in Chester Cottage remains tense as reports indicate that gunshots have been heard repeatedly in the area since the incident involving Istah. There have also been reports of skirmishes. The ECGC Foundation INC., in collaboration with the University of the West Indies Open Campus, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, handed over bursaries to two (2) Open Campus students on Tuesday April 11th at 10:00 am. The ceremony was held at the Tele-Conference Room of the Open Campus, and was addressed by Mrs. Deborah Dalrymple, Head of the Open Campus, and Mr. Osmond Davy, Chief Executive Officer of the East Caribbean Group of Companies. The recipients of the awards were: Ms. Hannah Hamilton who is pursuing a B.Ed. in Educational Leadership and Management; and Mr. Kimron Shallow, who is reading for a B.Sc. in Economics. A number of fields of bananas remain unattended to as far as combating the Black Sigatoka disease is concerned, said Saboto Caesar (inset), Minister of Agriculture. Government may be forced to enact legislation to deal with farmers whose fields are affected by the Black Sigatoka disease, but who are not tending to them as required. Minister of Agriculture, Saboto Caesar made the point during last week Thursdays meeting of the House, in response to Arnhim Eustaces MP for East Kingstown - question about the spraying programme for the Black Sigatoka. According to Caesar, last year the ministry had to find resources to hire workers to go into fields to perform de-leafing duties. "That is something unheard of in other countries, and it is something done by farmers, Caesar said. He added that plantain farmers were the ones guilty of not doing the required practices for the control of the Black Sigatoka. "What I want to note is that we might be pushed to the level of some countries producing bananas whereby the government and the chief agricultural officer would have to take drastic actions, whereby persons are not tending to their fields at the required levels. The practice was unfair to other farmers, the minister said, who would have invested money into their fields, and he said that he thought that the time had come for legislation to be updated in order to take action against farmers who were not following the required standards. In direct response to the question, Caesar said that the intensity levels of the Black Sigatoka had decreased from week 1, where it was 3.35 to 1.33 in week 12. This, he said, was still higher than the preferred 2 mark, but he explained that the conditions late last year the rainfall, some of the roads were hard to traverse, and ground crews were not able to access affected fields. There was one aerial cycle conducted, and the second got underway last week. Ground crew operations have also been working between January and March, covering a total of 2,037 acres of bananas, plantains and fields with a mixture of bananas and plantains. The Banana Services Unit has also scheduled 20 Black Sigatoka Management training workshops, Caesar said. "These would focus on detecting and improving the physical control of the disease, he said. Judy Boucher has captured the hearts of audiences across Europe, the UK, the Caribbean and here in SVG. The music of St Vincent and the Grenadines and the rest of the Caribbean has received a boost from an upcoming show in honour of Vincentian songstress, Judy Boucher. The organisers of the event dubbed, Accolade: A tribute to Judy Boucher, had said that the broader intention of the event was to take a version of the show to Europe, in an effort to take advantage of opportunities available to music professionals and others in the creative industries, under the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the European Union (EU) and CARIFORUM. The promoters of Accolade announced on Tuesday, that even before the show, it has received support towards their broader intention. A release said that the effort has received the support of at least one of the regions development agencies, i.e. the OECS Export Development Agency. Sobers Esprit, the Business Development Officer for the Creative Industries in the Unit, in commending the promoters for staging the show, Accolade, offered to increase the awareness of the show through its communications platforms, as well as the services of the St Vincent and the Grenadines-based Island Network, one of its clients in the music business. Island Network as a result is now providing logistical and other technical support to the show. Accolade The show in honour of Judy Boucher will take place at the Russells Auditorium on Saturday, April, 22, 2017, from 8:00 pm. It is being held to mark the 30th anniversary of the release of Judy Bouchers hit, Cant Be With You Tonight, which catapulted her to international recognition. The show will feature music, dance, drama, poetry and more - all in honour of Judy. Among the highlights of the show will be a segment, during which well-known Vincentian artistes will serenade Judy with hits from her repertoire. Judy will also make a brief appearance. Organisers say that Accolade: A tribute to Judy Boucher, is expected to be an annual event in St Vincent and the Grenadines, to celebrate Caribbean artistes/personalities. In his address to a dedication ceremony of the World Pediatric Project designated Operating Theatre at Milton Cato Memorial Hospital (MCMH) on Friday April 7th, Prime Minister Ralph E. Gonsalves said, "All children are our children. He was expressing profound appreciation and thanks to the World Paediatric Project for its continuous and outstanding initiative in working with medical and government sectors of St. Vincent & the Grenadines in developing a Regional Hub for Peadiatric Care at the MCMH. World Pediatric Project (WPP), founded 16 years ago, is a non-profit global network linking worldwide paediatric surgical, diagnostic and preventative resources to heal critically ill children in developing countries. WPP sends paediatric diagnostic and surgical teams to the Caribbean and Central America and, thanks to a gift from The United Children of the World Fund in 2008, The Project, in collaboration with the Virginia Commonwealth University Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, in 2009, has been instrumental in constructing a new Paediatric Critical Care Unit, in the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital. The new unit will increase the surgical capacity of visiting teams of medical professionals, and creating a caring environment for post-operative paediatric cases. In addition to significantly upgrading the St. Vincent facility, WPP also provides a comprehensive training program for the units new nurses, assuring hundreds of infants and children a safe place to begin life, helping them to overcome the many obstacles and challenges life has presented them. Each year, World Pediatric Project sends St. Vincent & the Grenadines, surgical and diagnostic teams in the paediatric specialty areas of orthopedics, general surgery, ophthalmology, plastic surgery, urology, physical therapy, diagnostic cardiology and neurosurgery. The Hon. Ralph E. Gonsalves, Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, referred to the WPP doctors, nurses and other medical professionals as Angels of Life. Prime Minister Gonsalves concluded his remarks at the dedication ceremony by announcing that the planning and design work has already begun for a brand-new 150 bed critical care paediatric hospital to be built on a site at the now decommissioned Arnos Vale Airport. The site has been chosen; and an expected construction start date within two years, will further advance St. Vincent and the Grenadines as a central Eastern Caribbean hub for the treatment of all children. The effect of WPPs initiative has resulted in the development of a regional hub in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, centralizing paediatric critical care services for children from many of the islands in the Eastern Caribbean region. Rotating volunteer paediatric surgical and diagnostic teams of specialists travel to St. Vincent and the Grenadines, while children from surrounding islands travel to SVG to see and be treated by the visiting professionals. We usually think of patients coming to the doctor; with WPP the doctors come to the patients. WPPs visiting surgical and diagnostic teams have provided upwards of EC 112 million dollars (54 million in SVG) in donated in-kind medical services, through more than 7,500 surgical consultations and 940 life-saving surgeries to children from Anguilla, Antigua, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago and of course, St. Vincent. "Saving Lives One Flight at a Time Due to the enormous cost of air travel, the support of a unique organization based in Las Vegas Nevada, Miracle Flights, has relieved much of the financial burden that would be the responsibility of already overextended parents and caregivers. Miracle Flights provides children and their families, free flights to specialized care facilities and the opportunity to receive valuable second opinions. Miracle Flights also arranged the transportation at no cost for the medical professionals who arrived in St. Vincent on last weekends mission. Mark E. Brown, the Chief Executive Officer of Miracle Flights, stated that the organization provides no-cost transportation for children and their parents or caregivers to specialists in the United States and the Caribbean. While there is no ban on the sale of carbonated drinks in schools here, the Ministry of Education is moving to discourage their consumption. The Ministry of Education is not considering an immediate ban on the sale of carbonated drinks in and around schools across the country. So said Minister of Education, St Clair Jimmy Prince in response to a question put forward by Opposition Senator, Marcia Barnwell in Parliament last week Thursday. Barnwell asked whether the Ministry of Education was considering the ban, in keeping with the governments policy on preventative health care. Prince, however, noted that his Ministry did not condone the practice of either the sale of carbonated drinks in and around schools, and parents giving their children these soft drinks for consumption. "We have to teach our children at home and in school to consume beverages with less sugar, and encourage them to drink more water, the education minister said. "It is the responsibility of all of us to ensure that our children receive the requisite knowledge, so that they could make proper decisions regarding their consumption of sugary beverages and the demand for them, he continued. And while government will not move for an immediate ban on carbonated beverages, Prince mentioned the need for a consultative process to begin to discourage the consumption of carbonated drinks at home and in schools. "We have to work with our stakeholders to come up with the best solution, he said. In a related matter, Prince said that Ministry of Education had collaborated with the Health Unit in the Ministry of Health to provide guidelines for healthy eating in the Schools Feeding Programme. According to the Minister, in December 2014, a decision was taken to remove corned beef from that programme, because of its high fat and sodium content. Artificially flavoured drink mixtures have also been removed and replaced with natural fruit juices, and there is a move to remove chicken sausage from the menu and have it replaced with a healthier option, Prince explained. Campaigns are currently ongoing in schools across the country to encourage students to eat healthy, and most schools have dedicated fruit day. But Prince acknowledged that there were some schools that were not following the guidelines. "The ministry is trying to reach out to those institutions to ensure that the teachers understand the importance of providing healthy foods for the students. We expect that they will adhere to these guidelines, he said. Left: Antonio Que Pasa Gellizeau was found guilty of money laundering in July 2013. Right: Colin Williams, DPP, views the recent ruling against Antonio Que Pasa Gellizeau as a model for similar investigations. Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Colin Williams is of the view that the work done in the case of Antonio Que Pasa Gellizeau, the biggest ever money laundering case in the Eastern Caribbean, could serve as a model for similar investigations and prosecutions. The DPP was speaking to THE VINCENTIAN on Monday, six days after the Eastern Caribbean Court of Appeal dismissed Gellizeaus appeal against convictions on two money laundering charges. The businessman was convicted and sentenced to ten years in prison for bringing into the country on the yacht Jotobin April 5, 2008 at Calliaqua US$1.73 million, approximately EC$4.6 million in cash, the proceeds of criminal conduct. He was also sentenced to ten years for concealing the cash. The sentences, handed down by Justice Wesley James at the Criminal Assizes, July 22, 2013, run concurrently. Then Chief Magistrate Sonya Young had committed Gellizeau and Bermudian seaman Winston Franklyn Robinson to the High Court for sentencing, after convicting them on both charges March 9, 2012, at the Serious Offences Court. Robinson was sentenced to five and a half years on October 7, 2013, for the crimes, but the Court took into account the five and a half years he had already spent in custody, resulting in him being released. The DPP described the decision of the Appeal Court as a "solid judgement. He commended the investigators for a job well done. He explained that a lot of circumstantial evidence was put together, and a substantial amount of investigative work was done. He added that much assistance and support came from the Regional Security System Asset Recovery Fund. He also lauded the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) for good work. The DPP pointed out that the next step is to complete the confiscation of all properties held by Gellizeau, whether in his name or in the name of other persons. "The intention of the state is to dispossess, through confiscation proceedings, all Gellizeaus ill-gotten gains, the DPP explained. A confiscation application for Gellizeaus assets was filed the same day he and Robinson were convicted. The application, prepared by the DPPs Office in conjunction with the FIU, has been made in relation to EC$10 million believed to be Gellizeaus benefits from criminal conduct. This includes vehicle, houses, yachts and cash. In the 30-page written judgement, the Appeal Court concluded that "The Chief Magistrate in her very careful reasons for decision assessed the evidence of the several witnesses and attached appropriate weight to their evidence in coming to her decision. She did not err in so doing. The Appeal was heard in St. Vincent and the Grenadines November 25, 2016, and handed down in Grenada on April 5. Justices Louis Blenman, Mario Michel and Paul Webster presided. Keith Scotland of Trinidad and Tobago and local attorney Mikhail Charles represented the appellant, while Senior Counsel Gilbert Peterson of Trinidad and Tobago, assisted by Crown Counsel Sejilla McDowal, appeared for the respondent. From left to right: Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of Johannesburg, Professor Ihron Rensburg; Pro Vice-Chancellor and Principal of The UWI, Cave Hill campus, Professor V. Eudine Barriteau, and Vice-Chancellor of The UWI, Professor Sir Hilary Beckles. The University of the West Indies and the University of Johannesburg (UJ) in South Africa have signed a Memorandum of Agreement for the establishment of an Institute for Global Africa Affairs, which will focus on research and policy development, and assist with curriculum development. The agreement was initialled on Monday, March 27, 2017 by The UWI Vice-Chancellor, Professor Sir Hilary Beckles and Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the UJ, Professor Ihron Rensburg. The institute, to be managed by a board of directors, will operate at both universities and facilitate the exchange of professors and students. It will examine a number of issues pertinent to both regions, including economic development, entrepreneurship, post-colonial governance, climate change, and youth and their identity. Commenting on the partnership, Sir Hilary said that it presents a tremendous opportunity to share intellectual content. "We are creating a jointly owned and managed institution to bring some of the finest thinking and research of the two universities together so as to participate in changing the conversations about sustainable development in this long 21st century, he said, following the signing of the agreement at The UWI, Cave Hill campus in Barbados. He further explained, "There are going to be dozens of courses that are currently offered at UJ that will be of special interest to our students at the UWI. The UJ Vice-Chancellor anticipates that a joint Masters degree in Global Africa Studies would be introduced in a few months to be followed by a joint PhD programme. "The conversation brought us to focus on what the new Africa and the new African should be grappling with, what our responsibilities would be as the two universities, in particular, as we put together this new Pan African joint institute between ourselves. Were deeply convinced that the manner in which industrialisation has proceeded, certainly the evolution of our continent over the last two generations cannot be repeated, said Professor Rensburg. Pro Vice-Chancellor and Principal of The UWI, Cave Hill Campus, Professor V. Eudine Barriteau who was present for the signing, expects that arising from the collaboration, Caribbean students will be better equipped with African knowledge that can guide Caribbean development. Left: It was only last year that the St Vincent Cocoa Company (SVCC) launched its first line of chocolate bars. Right: L-R: Andrew Hadley and Wilf Marriott, principals of the SVCC, have much of which to be proud. Prestat Finest Chocolates, established in 1902, is one of the worlds oldest and most famous chocolate brands and much loved by English royalty and nobility. It was also a favourite of Roald Dahl, author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the creator of Willie Wonka. Each year, Prestat handcrafts a perfect and unique chocolate Egg for Her Majesty The Queen and fills it with a range of chocolate truffles and chocolate delights. So it is with huge pride that the Vincentian Chocolate Company, a subsidiary of the St Vincent Cocoa Company (SVCC) can announce this years Easter Egg for Her Majesty will be made using Vincentian Chocolate. This is following a recent visit to St Vincent by Mr Nick Crean, co-owner of Prestat, on the invitation of Harry Marriott, Chairman of SVCC. Under the expert guidance of Andrew Hadley, Managing Director of SVCC, Mr Crean visited cocoa farms in Vincys glorious mountains, as well as SVCCs world-class cocoa handling facility at Dickson. At its offices in Kingstown, he declared: "The St Vincent Cocoa Company is one of the most impressive stories of investment and sustainability I have come across. It brings employment to the island and will benefit the economy of the region. It is clear that the cocoa industry in St Vincent has an exciting future and is in safe hands. On tasting Vincentian Chocolate at the Companys factory, Mr. Crean declared that "Vincentian Chocolate is one of the most unique and rewarding chocolate ouvertures I have ever tasted. The World Pediatric Project (WPP) concluded its Physical Therapy Mission at the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital on Friday, 31st March 2017, after five days of consultation and therapy. The mission, originating out of Richmond, Virginia, was led by Physiotherapist Mrs. Kim Wesdock who was making her tenth visit to SVG. Other members were first-time worker, Pediatric Physiotherapist Lisa Babco visiting for the first time, and Elaine Plemmet, a pediatric specialist from St. Lucia who has joined the mission for the second year. A total of forty-one children were seen, inclusive of two from Grenada and one from Trinidad and Tobago. Head physiotherapist Kim Wesdock, explained that the WPP mission works closely with the Physiotherapy Department at the hospital, and when they arrive, they would already have a schedule with which to work. Children are seen daily: annual reassessments and new patients. According to Eastern Caribbean Representative of the WPP, Mrs. Jacqueline Browne-King, the physiotherapy mission always tends to be labour intensive. Progress of children who have been on board are assessed and their exercises are streamlined for greater effectiveness. The new children are given a total assessment of their developmental stage, then an analysis of what they need and how best to chart their programme to benefit from the services, is conducted. Local Physical Therapist, Mrs. Janelle Ballah and her team have been an integral part of the physiotherapy missions of the World Pediatric Project. Their job has been called a great one, despite the challenges they face through numbers. Representative Browne-King acknowledged, "They have to cater to the in-hospital patients, the out-patients, and the community; so its really a challenge. Wesdock was careful to explain that, in many instances, the Physiotherapy Mission of the WPP feeds the Orthopedic Mission, so the best arrangement is for one to follow the other. Therefore, the next mission of the World Pediatric Project will be the Pediatric Orthopedic Mission, scheduled to be conducted at the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital between Sunday, April 9th and Friday, April 14th. The WPP has been changing lives of thousands of children throughout the Eastern Caribbean, through the delivery of direct critical-care services. We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking Accept, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. By Azernews By Amina Nazarli Representation of the EU together with the embassies of European countries will celebrate Day of Europe in the southern region of Azerbaijan -- Lankaran on May 6 and 7. The program of the Day of Europe provides for a lot of interesting cultural events, including an exhibition, concerts and movies that will introduce the inhabitants of this region to European culture. In addition, next year the EU office planned to implement a number of economic projects in Lankaran, therefore, it is not an accident that the event is held there. The diplomatic mission also plans to launch a website that disseminates information about the culture and way of life of Europeans. The portal will not contain any information of a political nature. The future resource is aimed at making the European culture and values more recognizable in Azerbaijan. Lankaran is among the brightest and most beautiful regions of the country. Exquisite architecture, wonderful climate and magnificent landscapes are the hallmarks of the region. The region occupies the east coast of the Caspian Sea and whole Lankaran lowlands up to Talysh Mountains. On the local shore of the Caspian Sea there are many fine sand beaches. Wet subtropical climate without harsh winters, dry and hot summer and rainy autumn underlie the richness of the local flora and fauna. Agriculture is the most developed sector here, while the fertile soil of the region is ideal for growing citrus fruits, rice, grapes, tobacco and tea-growing. The region is a home of Azerbaijan's first tea plant, built in 1937. Another attraction of the city is the lighthouse of the 18th century. Once the Caspian Sea level was much higher, the water came up to the lighthouse. Gradually, the coastline retreated, and now you should move almost half a kilometer from the lighthouse to the sea. By Azernews By Laman Ismayilova Switzerland very strongly supports the efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group for peaceful resolution of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Swiss Ambassador to Azerbaijan Philipp Stalder told Trend. We think that both conflicting sides should sit down at the negotiation table and hold meaningful peace negotiations in a more structured way, the ambassador said. Of course, any conflict has negative impact on the neighboring countries and the whole region and that is, unfortunately, also the case for the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Armenia broke out a lengthy war against Azerbaijan laying territorial claims on its South Caucasus neighbor. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia still controls fifth part of Azerbaijan's territory and rejects implementing four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts. By Azernews By Rashid Shirinov The territorial integrity of sovereign states and the inviolability of borders are the basic principles of the international relations, Member of the Christian Democratic Union faction at the German Bundestag Mark Hauptmann said on April 12. He made the remarks replying to the question of The European Azerbaijan Society (TEAS) regarding the role and participation of the international organizations in the process of solution of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The correlating four resolutions of the United Nations Security Council explicitly marked the priority of the immediate withdrawal of Armenian Armed Forces out of the territories of Azerbaijan, which were occupied against international law, and the need for the return of IDPs to their homeland, the MP reminded. Armenia occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijani territories as a result of the Nagorno-Karabakh war. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities. Hauptmann emphasized that return of IDPs to their homeland is an important concern for Germany. He also stated that Germany supports the conflict resolution within a multilateral format in the scope of the OSCE Minsk Group and will do this in future as well. We were happy to hear that the ongoing confidence building between the conflicting parties will be priority for Austrias OSCE chairmanship this year. The peaceful solution may only be achieved at negotiation table, Hauptmann noted. The German MP also touched upon the issue of Armenian Armed Forces attack on Azerbaijani positions along the line of contact in April 2016. On April 2, 2016, all the frontier positions of Azerbaijan were subjected to heavy fire of large-caliber weapons, mortars and grenade launchers by Armenian army. Azerbaijani counter-attack led to liberation of several strategic heights and settlements. The armed clashes resulted in deaths and injuries among the Azerbaijani population. The military operations were stopped on April 5 with mutual consent of the sides. He added that Germany strongly condemns any aggression. Further escalations of armed violence have to be prevented, in order not to allow Khojaly tragedy to happen again, the MP stressed. As a result of the Armenian attack on the Azerbaijani town Khojaly in 1992, a total of 613 people were killed, including 106 women, 63 children and 70 elders. 487 people were severely wounded, including 76 children. 1,275 people were captured and subjected to unprecedented torture, the fate of 197 people still remains unknown. By Azertac Leadership of the "G. S. Rakovski" National Defence College of the Republic of Bulgaria arrived in Azerbaijan. During the meetings held at the Armed Forces Military Academy, relations of the two countries in the field of military science and education, including the expansion of cooperation between the academies, as well as the implementation of joint projects were discussed, Azertac reported. Head of the Military Academy, Lieutenant General Heydar Piriyev comprehensively informed the Bulgarian delegation about the activities, structure, international relations as well as the material and technical base of the Academy. Speaking about the importance of developing relations between the two educational institutions, Major General Grudi Angelov, the head of the "G. S. Rakovski" National Defence College, noted that ties with the Azerbaijan are successfully developing in all areas of military science and education. The sides also signed a document on cooperation between military academies in the field of scientific research, exchange of experience, joint activities, organization of training and other issues of mutual interest. Then the Bulgarian delegation visited the Azerbaijan Higher Military School named after Heydar Aliyev for closer acquaintance with the development of the military education system in Azerbaijan. By Azernews By Kamila Aliyeva China has urged all parties, particularly the United States and Russia, to increase communication and coordination to avoid clashes in dealing with the Syrian crisis, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said "A political solution is the only to deal with the Syria issue," Wang said on April 13, Xinuanet reported. The statement came after Russia vetoed a UN resolution drafted by the United Kingdom, France and the United States demanding a speedy investigation into an alleged chemical weapons attack in the Syrian province of Idlib on April 4. Russia's UN Ambassador Vladimir Safronkov said that the draft pre-judged the Syrian government as responsible for the attack. Western powers, including the United States, blame the Syrian government for the attack. The United States fired 59 cruise missiles at the Shairat military base in central Syria in response. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said that the Syrian government troops have never used or intend to use chemical weapons against civilians and against terrorists. Wang went on to say that China calls on the international community to maintain solidarity and continue to support the UN as the main channel of mediation. The minister confirmed that Chinese government's special envoy to Syria, Xie Xiaoyan, will visit countries involved for an in-depth exchange of views. Wang reaffirmed China's condemnation and opposition to use of chemical weapons. "China supports an independent and comprehensive investigation into reported chemical weapon use in Syria." Action taken should be within the UN framework and in accordance with the UN Charter and basic norms of international relations, Wang said. The UN and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) have already taken up the investigation of the incident, but so far they have not published any conclusions about possible perpetrators of the incident. The stocks of chemical weapons were successfully exported from Syria. In January 2016, the O.P.C.W. announced that the last of the Syrian stocks had been destroyed. French Tech Dubai UAE, an initiative backed by the French Government to support the start-up scene in the Middle East, will be the exclusive International Tech Partner of the Private Equity Mena Forum & Awards 2017. After the French government selected the UAE to be part of an international start-up network called La French Tech, French Tech Hub Dubai UAE attracts entrepreneurs, local talents and investors from all around the world to come to France. As the PE Forum will focus on the venture capital side of the private equity industry, French Tech Dubai UAE will be able to make beneficial to participants the experience from the fast growing market in France, as together with Germany and the UK they represent 65 per cent of the VC funding in Europe. Also, the importance of a proper ecosystem is key to the success of the entire investment cycle and France is quickly becoming a Startup Nation with one in every three French people having already been an entrepreneur. PE Forum will take place at the St. Regis Hotel in Al Habtoor City, Dubai on April 19 and will bring together leaders in the private equity and alternative assets community, including limited partners, general partners and consultants from across the region and the world. The event challenges the issues facing the industry through a full day of interactive sessions followed by a gala dinner honoring Women in Finance in the Middle East. The Forum will bring together the investment community as well as showcase some entrepreneurs. During the Forum, French startups founders will run a discussion panel titled Hear it from the entrepreneur . French Tech is a term used to describe the French startup community: everyone who works in or for a startup in France or for a French startup abroad. Entrepreneurs of course, but also investors, engineers, designers, developers, incubators, media, public organizations, research institutions, etc. who are committed to the growth of startups and to their international prosperity. - TradeArabia News Service Liberty House Group, a major player in manufacture of steel and advanced engineering products, has roped in some of the most prominent international metals industry figures to lead its newly-launched speciality steels business. The move comes in anticipation of completion of Libertys agreed 100 million ($124 million) acquisition of Tata Steel UK Speciality Steels, employing around 1,700 people in the North of England. A definitive agreement was signed between Liberty and Tata Steel in February and the acquisition is expected to be completed in the near future, subject to the necessary regulatory approvals. The management board designate of Liberty Speciality Steels will include Jon Bolton as chief executive, Peter Hogg as chief operations officer and Chris Kirby as chief financial officer. Bolton is currently chief executive of Libertys plates and UK steel development, and chair of the employers body UK Steel; while Hogg is moving from his role as director of long products maker, British Steel and Kirby joins the team following a number of years as a senior consultant to major international metals, mining and energy firms. Bolton is one of the most widely-respected figures in the industry, jointly chairing the UK Steel Council along with the Secretary of State for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy - and advising government regarding the sector. A graduate in electrical engineering, he has over 30-years experience in steel on both sides of the Atlantic, most of this in senior positions with Tata Steel and its predecessors Corus and British Steel. Jon is also known for his contribution to the development of new skills across the sector, particularly through the Industrial Cadets programme of which he is a founder and ambassador. Hogg, is joining Liberty from British Steel, where he became a director at the companys inception in 2016, following a 25-year career that spanned top leadership roles in the sector across the world. Since entering the industry as a Cambridge University engineering graduate in 1991, he has distinguished himself in a series of key manufacturing and commercial roles with Tata Steel UK and its predecessor companies. This included a period as managing director of Tatas Speciality Steels division. The chartered engineer is also a member of the management board of UK Steel and has been a leading member of the industry team constructing a steel sector deal with the UKs Governments department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Kirby is a chartered accountant with over 30 years experience of senior financial management internationally, including 25 years in the mining and metals industry with publicly-listed and privately-owned companies, most recently Maaden Aluminium, the largest integrated aluminium manufacturing complex in the world. Cambridge MA graduate Chris was also group financial controller with Toronto- based copper, nickel and precious metals producer Vale Inco. The three men will play a key role in finalising the transfer of the Tata Steel UKs Speciality business to Liberty over the coming weeks and in implementing a new plan to take the business forward, building its markets in the UK and across the world. Executive chairman of the Liberty House Group, Sanjeev Gupta, said: "Speciality Steels will play a pivotal role in achieving our over-arching Greensteel vision and we are appointing a management team of the highest calibre to lead this crucial operation." "The business will provide us with very significant melting capacity and will also make the high-grade steel we need for our advanced engineering operations. Were very excited to have such talented people at the helm," he added.-TradeArabia News Service Hussain Sajwani, the founder, chairman and CEO of Damac Properties, a leading luxury real estate developer in the region, received major recognition at the Top CEO Awards 2017 ceremony held in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Sajwan clinched the top spot amongst the real estate CEOs and ranked number 11 in the list of 100 regional CEOs compiled by Trends magazine in conjunction with Insead business school. The red carpet awards ceremony, held recently at King Abdullah Economic City Saudi Arabia, celebrated achievements of Top CEOs in the GCC region. It paid tribute to 100 business leaders whose efforts toward the success of their organisations are instrumental in the continued growth of the GCC and have excelled in the field of leadership, said Mediaquest, the media and events company behind the initiative. A leading luxury developer, Damac has been at the forefront of the Middle Easts real estate market since 2002 bringing luxury living experiences to residents from all over the world. As of December 31, 2016, it has delivered approximately 17,900 homes. On the win, Sajwani said: "It is indeed an honour to receive this award, which I whole-heartedly dedicate to my team who worked long and hard to make Damac Properties what it is today." "This award reaffirms our success and achievements as a company, and celebrates our contribution to Dubais overall success story and the wider GCC," he noted. Julien Hawari, co-CEO at Mediaquest, said: "Top CEO Awards distinguishes itself from other schemes by stipulating that only CEOs of listed companies are eligible for entry. The awards are based on the financials of these companies, with the entire evaluation process being fully transparent and audited." Trends works in partnership with Insead to ensure that the program formula is the most accurate it can be and collaborates with Hawkamah to include corporate governance and disclosure criteria as integral components of the ranking, explained Hawari. "The entire work has a final review by Deloitte, who provide an independent, authoritative stamp of approval. The overall result is that Top CEO is the most reliable barometer of business leadership performance for the region," he added. The awards ceremony was attended by close to 400 senior business figures from a wide cross-section of industries, keen to salute and celebrate the achievements of the regions leading executives.-TradeArabia News Service The Dentist's Lifestyle Conference and Exhibition is set to promote medical and Dental tourism in Bahrain by positioning Bahrain as the foremost destination among clients seeking cosmetic dental procedures. The Conference, now in its second edition, will be held under the patronage of his excellency Lieutenant General Doctor Shaikh Mohammed bin Abdulla Al Khalifa, president of the supreme council for health. The conference will take place on April 20 and 21, at the Bahrain International Exhibition and Convention Centre (BIECC). A number of high-profile partners have already signed up for the conference, including US-based company invisaligin clear aligner, Saudi Dental society, Basheer Shakib for dental supplies, and index holding - owner of AEEDC Dubai Conference & Exhibition, which is the largest dental conference in the region. DLS bahrain has also attracted dental companies from Turkey, Europe, and China. The conference is organised by Tarteeb events management and BDA scientific Events management. Dr. Mohammed Al Aradi, founder of BDA and the head of marketing and PR for DLS bahrain, said The conference highlights Bahrains burgeoning dental sector and the robust licensing and legal framework which makes it easy for dental practitioners to set up a business here while maintaining stringent quality controls. We hope that this conference will attract further foreign investment in this sector. Tarteeb general manager Mohammed Al Muharraqi added: Bahrain is the ideal destination for clients seeking cosmetic dental procedures as the industry is well developed, the quality of the services offered is world-class, and there are numerous tourist attractions on offer for visitors to enjoy while they have their procedure done. The conference sponsors include invisaligin (platinum Sponsor), McLaren Automotive motors; coral pay with their sea floating hotel "The C Hotel" which is hosting all speakers and guests, and At Bahrain Tourism Company, which will organise country tours for the visitors. The conference will include a cinema which will be sponsored by Ram Dental at the venue, an art exhibition, and a mobile dental clinic by Al Mansoori Clinics. - TradeArabia News Service Axalta Coating Systems, a leading global supplier of liquid and powder coatings, has launched the first of a kind automotive refinish training centre in Dubai, UAE. The centre will provide expert training in the use of the companys products used in the repainting of vehicles in body shops, said a statement from Axalta. The opening of the next generation facility follows the October 2016 opening of Axaltas regional office in Dubais Jebel Ali Free Zone Authority (Jafza), it said. The centre, Axaltas 47th such endeavour in the world, will host world class training programmes for body shop, repair and refinish technicians to hone their skills and learn to use the latest coating technologies found in Spies Hecker, Standox and Cromax, its premium refinish coating brands, and other refinish brands which are available in eighteen countries in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region. We are excited to be able to expand our presence in Dubai and the region over such a short time span, said Charlie Shaver, chairman and CEO of Axalta, who formally inaugurated the new facility. The opening of this world-class customer learning and development facility highlights our commitment to invest in the region and support our customers, he said. This interactive training and education facility establishes a solid foundation that will provides continuous support and development to vehicle repair specialists that will both enhance the level of refinishing services and optimise the use of our technologies in the region, he added. Axaltas consistent investment in product development and technology solutions has resulted in innovative waterborne refinish coating systems that enable its customers to reduce waste while being more productive, profitable and sustainable. The centre will enable customers to maximise their use of these products which can reduce the time and energy needed to repaint vehicles. Fadi Medlej, managing director Mena, Axalta, said: Decisions related to automotive repair are following global trends in favour of environmentally responsible products, as well as enabling refinish technicians to improve their productivity at work place while delivering superior car jobs results. The new facility will meet the needs of refinish technicians who will be trained in the use of all our products, and especially our latest waterborne products, be able to provide vehicles with a durable and beautiful finish, he added. TradeArabia News Service Airbus, one of the leading planemakers in the world, has shortlisted the five finalist student teams competing in the fifth edition of the Fly Your Ideas challenge. The radical concepts selected cover a wide range of innovations going from an alternative to satellite imagery, to improved aircraft taxiing, clever ways of boarding, new areas for luggage storage or offering a new business model using existing Airbus aircraft, said a statement from the company. Representing nine different nationalities and eight universities across Africa, Europe and Asia-Pacific, the five finalist teams embody true diversity, which is a key driver of innovation and performance, it said. The students, competing for a 30,000 ($31,928) prize, also demonstrate a wide variety of disciplines from natural sciences to engineering and business, it added. The runner-up team will receive 15,000 ($15,964) at a live event taking place on May 17, in Toulouse, France. Their inventive ideas were selected from over 350 entries in Airbus biennial global student competition, run in partnership with UNESCO. Students ideas had to answer one of five challenges identified by Airbus to provide sustainable future solutions. The innovations proposed by the five finalist teams look at alternative business models, passengers experience and flight operations, said a statement. The five finalist teams from Hong Kong, France, Australia, Nigeria and the UK will soon travel to Toulouse, France, where they will spend a week at the Airbus ProtoSpace facility to prototype, test and visualise their ideas using state-of-the-art equipment with personal guidance from Airbus. At the end of their week at Airbus, the students will present their innovative projects and the newly developed prototype in front of Airbus experts and personalities from the aerospace and academic world. Airbus launched Fly Your Ideas in 2008 with the aim of engaging with universities and students worldwide and from all backgrounds to: stimulate innovative ideas for a sustainable aviation industry and identify opportunities for R&T development and/or interaction with academic research teams. The challenge received UNESCO patronage in 2012 with a renewed partnership in 2014 and 2016, it added. TradeArabia News Service The upcoming second annual Maritime Tanker Conference in Dubai, UAE is expected to attract over 150 top executives from across the regional tanker business, as well as global participants. The event will take place on October 24 at the Grosvenor House Hotel. A high level group of expert speakers and panellists is being assembled by The Maritime Standard, and will include representatives from leading tanker owners and managers, port operators, trade organisations, brokers and analysts, law firms, financiers and technology providers. The event has also secured sponsorship support from a number of high profile maritime companies and organisations. The one day Conference will focus on the challenges and opportunities that remain open to the tanker sector in the Middle East and the Indian Subcontinent today. Speakers and panellists will assess global and regional economic and trade trends that will affect the movement of crude oil, products and petrochemicals. After key note speakers, individual sessions will highlight key issues, and solutions, and will assess likely investment patterns in ships and terminal facilities, as well as the development of technology and other support services. Trevor Pereira, managing director of The Maritime Standard said: The inaugural event in 2016 was such a success that we have decided to return to the same venue and date, the day after The Maritime Standard Awards, to build on what proved to be a successful formula. We will have some big names from the industry speaking and the high quality audience of decision makers and influencers will make this a Conference that will add real value, in terms of information gathering and networking. The Maritime Standard Tanker Conference is certain to generate a high level of interest so I would urge people to book now, as spaces will be strictly limited." TradeArabia News Service Kanoo Machinery, one of the exclusive dealers of world-class brands in the Middle East, showcased the latest high-technology Massey Ferguson tractors and Bobcat compact loaders at a recent event in Dubai, UAE. The machinery was displayed at AgraME 2017 the largest agribusiness event in the Middle East which features manufacturers and suppliers of machinery, equipment and industry advancements, to cater to the growing market and to improve agriculture practices in the region. During the exhibition, Kanoo Machinery featured its Massey Ferguson Global Series - the new MF4708 tractors re-engineered from the ground up to meet the needs of present and future farming, said a statement from the company. With the MF 4700 Series, each component and every assembly have been designed to ensure rock-solid reliability and integral dependability in all weathers, in all environments - whether from haulage in Africa, through livestock farm tasks in Europe, to rice cultivation in Asia and livestock block chores in North America, it said. Furthermore, Kanoo Machinery displayed its new Bobcat T590 Compact Truck Loaders and their attachments, ideal for loading and unloading tasks where space is limited but the need for maximum lift height is necessary, with a rated operating capacity (no more than 35 per cent of tipping load) of 992 kg, and a tipping load of 2,834 kg; plus a maximum travel speed of 11.8 km/h. David Atkinson, general manager, Kanoo Machinery, said: We are proud to say that we are a member of The Kanoo Group, one of the largest family-owned businesses in the Middle East, established in 1890. Our products are run by our trained staff who know the machines inside out, and are able to provide advice, parts, service and support whenever required to keep the machines running at its optimum, he said. He added: We have an extensive inventory of fast moving machines, parts and consumables to ensure fast response time to machine breakdowns. We maintain stocks in all our branches and a more comprehensive inventory at our Distribution Centres in Al Quoz and Jebel Ali Free Zone, he added. Kanoo Machinery's Mogallan Bhagat (field sales manager, Dubai & NE - Industrial Products), Ahmad Swaid (brand manager - construction equipment), Abdul Tausif Butt (regional manager), Mohammed Al Hashimi (regional manager - government business and export) and Mohammed Habeeb Hussain (government business - sales), actively played a part in the exhibition. Kevin Vines (manager, business and commercial - operations, Pakistan and Middle East) and Alessandro Rigoni (regional service manager, Europe Middle East) from AGCO - the parent company of Massey Ferguson and a world leader in farm equipment, also contributed to the event participation. Mostly from Kanoo Machinery have gathered a considerable amount of sales leads from customers in the UAE and the Middle East in the recent trade show and are optimistic with the constant growth and development of agribusiness industry in the region, it stated. TradeArabia News Service The UAE has launched its National Space Program, which will offer a solid platform to prepare Emiratis cadres specialized in airspace sciences. Vice President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum and Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander approved the programmes strategy during a visit to the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center (MBRSC). Crown Prince of Dubai Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid, and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan also attended the tour that also included the launch of satellite manufacturing complex as part of the MBRSC. The move is part of the UAE ambitious space programme as it aims reaching Mars in 2021 and building first settlement on the Red Planet in 2117. The Emirates Mars Mission (EMM) is set to launch the Hope spacecraft in July 2020 on a seven-month journey to the Red Planet. The UAE National Space Programme also includes a new program to prepare Emiratis astronauts. Our national space program is a solid platform to prepare Emiratis cadres specialized in airspace sciences, and qualify future generations that are able to contribute to humanity knowledge, Mohammed bin Rashid said. We plan to send the first Emirati astronaut to the space over the next few years, and starting from today, we are preparing the first Emirati and Arab astronaut to join scientists at the International Space Station. Sheikh Mohammed said that the UAE space programme is a message to the Arab world that our sons are able to compete on the global level. Our objective is to show the world that we are able to contribute to humanity through quality knowledge and scientific discoveries, he said. Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed said that the UAE is making a new national leading achievement every day on all levels thanks to the leadership of President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan and the vision of Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid. We are very proud of Emirati youth playing a pivotal role in shaping an ambitious future for their own country and pursuing higher education in the field of science and knowledge, he said. Present during the tour were Minister of Cabinet Affairs and Future Mohammed Abdullah Al Gergawi, and Minister of State for Defence Affairs, Mohammed Ahmad Al Bowardi, along with senior government officials. - TradeArabia News Service The UAE National Space Program, which envisages a Mars mission and preparing Emirati astronauts, was launched yesterday by Vice President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum and His Highness Sheikh Mohamed in Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander. The program, which will be executed by young Emirati cadres, was announced during a visit by the dignitaries to the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center (MBRSC), said a Wam news agency report. Crown Prince of Dubai HH Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid, and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs H.H. Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan also attended the tour that also included the launch of satellite manufacturing complex as part of the MBRSC. The move is part of the UAE ambitious space program as it aims reaching Mars in 2021 and building first settlement on the Red Planet in 2117. The Emirates Mars Mission (EMM) is set to launch the Hope spacecraft in July 2020 on a seven-month journey to the Red Planet. The UAE National Space Program also includes a new program to prepare Emiratis astronauts. "Our national space program is a solid platform to prepare Emiratis cadres specialised in airspace sciences, and qualify future generations that are able to contribute to humanity knowledge," Mohammed bin Rashid said. "We plan to send the first Emirati astronaut to the space over the next few years, and starting from today, we are preparing the first Emirati and Arab astronaut to join scientists at the International Space Station." Sheikh Mohammed said that the UAE space program is a message to the Arab world that our sons are able to compete on the global level. "Our objective is to show the world that we are able to contribute to humanity through quality knowledge and scientific discoveries," he said. Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed said that the UAE is making a new national leading achievement every day on all levels thanks to the leadership of President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan and the vision of Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid. "We are very proud of Emirati youth playing a pivotal role in shaping an ambitious future for their own country and pursuing higher educations in the field of science and knowledge," he said. - TradeArabia News Service The Dubai Future Foundation (DFF) concluded the second round of the Dubai Future Accelerators (DFA) with 28 Memorandums of Understanding (MoU) signed between Dubai government departments and innovative companies from around the world. Twelve entities took part in the successful second round of the DFA program, which connects emerging technology companies with Dubai government bodies to test new approaches at the city- scale. The Road and Transport Authority and Uber agreed to explore what regulations would be required to test autonomous flying vehicles in Dubai. The Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) signed four MoUs with Funzi, Proversity, Zspace, and iMake, who will launch an e-training program for schools in Dubai and train Emirati nationals in 21st century skills. The Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) signed an MoU with Desolinator to test a household desalination plant that uses solar energy to turn seawater into drinking water; other MoU's were signed with Mulk holding and SolarBanks. Moreover, the Dubai Health Authority (DHA) signed agreements with ASG Medical Equipment, ArcSecond and Photothera Labs to develop advanced health solutions, including a new technology to treat the eye retina for diabetic patients. Du signed an MoU with Ultimate AI to use artificial intelligence to dramatically improve customer service in both Arabic and English. The Department of Naturalization and Residency Dubai (DNRD) will work with ObjectTech and Luther Systems to streamline the process for becoming resident in Dubai using biometric and blockchain technology. Dubai Economy (formally DED) signed MoUs with Otonomos and MarketIQ to create new and innovative licensing procedures, reducing processing time for applications by 80 per cent. Dubai Police (DP) signed three agreements with Papilon, Velours, and Parabon, to deploy facial recognition glasses, a DNA-image database, and indoor mapping technologies that increase efficiency by 90 per cent. Etisalat will work with Mobile Doctors, AlTibbi, and Made of Genes in order to bring the latest telemedicine technologies to the large medical institutions in the region, as well as to pilot a "geno-bank" to Dubai. "The United Arab Emirates is now a world-class destination for innovators to come and work with our government institutions to shape the future of vital sectors," said Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of the Board of Trustees at the Dubai Future Foundation (DFF), as he attended the closing ceremony. "The UAE is offering technology companies an ideal platform to test global technologies and future solutions, which cements its leading position in the future industry and in the global charge to shape the future of the most vital sectors today." The list of MoUs included agreements between Smart Dubai, Avanza Solutions, and Consensys to standardize government services payment gateways using blockchain technology in Dubai. The Dubai Municipality signed an MoU with Renca to legalize 3D printing building material, as a way to promote 3D printing in construction. They also signed with Winnow to encourage the deployment of the Internet of Things (IoT) to reduce food waste across the hospitality sector. "The Dubai Future Accelerators program sets an example and a business model where various sectors - public and private - can come together to draw up scenarios to face the challenges of the future, and benefit from the opportunities to secure sustainable development and prosperity for future generations," Sheikh Hamdan added. "The second edition of the program witnessed seismic shifts in the field of future technologies. This reiterates the fact that UAE is now a global hub for exporting advanced technologies and a platform to exchange experience and learn about the latest developments. Furthermore, the initiatives launched today will enhance the program's reputation as the world's best platform to connect the private and public sectors to build the future." DFA's second round also launched the DFA Future Team Heroes Award. This was given to the government team that came up with innovative solutions, added significant value to the program and boosted efforts to realise the forward-thinking vision of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who has called for increased cross-sectoral cooperation. TradeArabia News Service Germany-based BMW Group sales achieved their best-ever March, with sales in the month totalling 254,862, a 5.9 per cent increase year-on-year. It was also a record first quarter with sales of the BMW Groups three premium brands, BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce, increasing by 5.3 per cent; a total of 587,237 vehicles have been delivered to customers around the world so far this year. Weve achieved a strong start to the year, with our X-family models and the BMW 7 Series being the main growth drivers, said Dr Ian Robertson, member of the BMW AG Board of Management with responsibility for Sales and Brand BMW. March was the first full sales month for the new BMW 5 Series Sedan and the customer feedback for this benchmark car is already very positive. Our electrified models also continue to show extremely strong growth, with almost 20,000 sold in the first quarter, meaning were on track to achieve our target of 100,000 electrified vehicle sales this year. As we start the biggest model offensive the company has ever undertaken, Im confident 2017 will be another record year for the BMW Group, retaining our leading position in the industry, he added. The BMW brand achieved its best-ever first quarter, cracking the half million mark for the first time this early in the year. Global BMW sales totalled 503,445 units, an increase of 5.2 per cent on the same period last year. Sales of BMW brand vehicles in March totalled 212,093, an increase of 5.3 per cent compared with the same month last year. Many models throughout the range contributed to this growth: in March, deliveries of the BMW X1 increased 21.0 per cent (26,759); sales of the BMW X5 were up 20.7 per cent (17,678) while deliveries of the flagship BMW 7 Series grew 74.8 per cent (7,134). The BMW 5 Series, of which the new generation sedan had its first full month on sale in most markets, was delivered to around 35,000 customers worldwide. With its broad offering of premium electrified vehicles, the popularity of the BMW Groups innovative BMW i and BMW iPerformance models continues to grow rapidly. Since the beginning of the year, almost 20,000 electrified vehicles have been delivered to customers worldwide, double the number sold by this time last year. First quarter production of electrified vehicles totalled more than 24,000 vehicles. Scandinavia continues to be a strong region for electrified vehicle sales. As of early April, over 10,000 BMW i3 vehicles have been delivered to customers in Norway since launch. March also saw the launch of the plug-in hybrid BMW 530e iPerformance in most markets. That model is expected to be a strong growth driver for electrified vehicle sales, as is the MINI Cooper S E Countryman ALL4 plug-in hybrid which will start delivery in June. Sales of MINI brand vehicles achieved their best-ever March with a total of 42,447 delivered to customers around the world, an increase of 8.7 per cent compared with the same month last year. March rounded off the brands record first quarter with sales totalling 83,059 (+6.1 per cent). MINI continues to demonstrate solid growth around the world, said Peter Schwarzenbauer, member of the BMW AG Board of Management responsible for MINI, Rolls-Royce and BMW Motorrad. The MINI Clubman in particular has shown strong growth of over 21 per cent in the first quarter, proving that its perfect blend of everyday usability and MINI-typical emotional characteristics is exactly what our customers want, he continued. With the new MINI Countryman weve just recently brought to market, Im sure the momentum were seeing at MINI will continue through the year, he added. Following the second highest annual sales record in 2016, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars sales in the first quarter of 2017 were up year-on-year. This was based on full market availability of Dawn compared with the same period last year. In total, 733 Rolls-Royce motor cars were delivered to customers across the globe (+33.0 per cent). Demand for Rolls-Royce models remains strong in most regions, although this is set against ongoing market volatility in the global luxury industry as a whole. Rolls-Royce continues to strive for long-term sustainable growth. March was also a positive month for BMW Motorrad with a total of 18,265 motor-cycles and maxi-scooters delivered to customers, an increase of 10.9 per cent on the same month last year. In the year-to-date, sales total 35,636 units, an increase of 5.5 per cent. BMW & MINI sales in the regions/markets at a glance All major sales regions achieved an increase in sales both in March and in the first quarter. Many markets achieved double-digit increases, including China and Mexico/Latin America. In the beginning of April the BMW Group handed over its 3 millionth vehicle to a customer in China. TradeArabia News Service Motorcity, the sole and exclusive distributor of Chery vehicles in Bahrain, has announced the launch of the new sedans, Arrizo 3 and Arrizo 5, and the SUV, Tiggo 3. Motorcity senior general manager, Dr Bijan Majidi presented the new generation of Chery products at the press conference, emphasizing on the new product lines innovative technology content and benefits: Safety: C-NCAP five stars safety standards achievement. Performance: High power and torque, low fuel consumption and emissions, and efficient and quiet engines. Comfort: Environmentally friendly materials, quiet and spacious cabin, high performance A/C, active suspension system, ISO FIX children seat and safety lock and many other novelties. The new Arrizo 3 (B segment sedan) and Arrizo 5 (C segment sedan) are both powered with a 1.5-litre high performance and low consumption engine and available with automatic transmission and CVT gearboxes. The Arrizo 5 in its luxury version includes a push-button-start, cruise control, automatic climate control, electric sunroof, leather seats and multifunctional steering wheel, among many other options. The new Tiggo 3, 2.0-litre, 137 HP, combines style, technology, quality, reliability and safety all in one, and is considered the best seller urban SUV in the Chery range, worldwide and in Bahrain. All the Chery models are offered with five years/150,000 km warranty and road assistance. China-based Chery is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, and Motor City, one of the first Chery dealers in the GCC, is celebrating 10 years with Chery in Bahrain. Chery has delivered its vehicles to over five million consumers across the world, earning high recognition from consumers. The brand has earned trust from overseas consumers through quality products and services, ranking among the most popular Chinese brands abroad. Chery has exported vehicles to over 80 countries and regions, established 10 overseas manufacturing plants as well as nearly 2,000 distribution and service networks abroad, and has been China's largest passenger vehicle exporter for 13 consecutive years. By late 2015, Chery had become the first Chinese automaker whose passenger vehicle output exceeded five million units and achieved cumulative exports of over 1.1 million units, accounting for 38 percent of China's cumulative passenger vehicle exports. TradeArabia News Service A new talent development programme by Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority has been launched, in co-operation with the Abu Dhabi Education Council, said a report. The programme, launched by Sheikh Hazza bin Zayed Al Nahyan, deputy chairman of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council, aims to explore emerging talent and develop their artistic skills while attracting a number of distinguished artists worldwide, said a report in WAM. "The launch of this initiative is in line with Abu Dhabi's efforts to discover talented people, enrich its resources and unleash their potential to contribute to cultural and artistic production while giving young people the opportunity to develop their skills, which will positively contribute to the civilised image of Abu Dhabi and the UAE," Sheikh Hazza said. The programme will provide a platform to support artistically talented students through collaborative agreements with a number of local and international institutions as well as training of specialists and teachers from the Abu Dhabi Education Council by the Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority. Meet award-winning artisans and buy their products at Kerala Arts and Crafts Village Some western farmers, religious leaders and land advocates are asking the new Secretary of the Interior to slow down a review, and potential dismantling, of methane gas regulations that limit flaring and leaks. Federal agencies were instructed to review all regulations potentially burdensome to energy production in a March 28 executive order from President Donald Trump. The Bureau of Land Managements methane waste rule, finalized Nov. 15, was one of a handful of regulations singled out in the presidents order. The Department of the Interior responded with a promise to gauge whether the methane rule was aligned with the president's directions within 21 days. Thats not enough time in some Westerners opinions. In a Wednesday letter to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, formerly a congressman from Montana, groups like the Wyoming Association of Churches and Native American Voters Alliance asked that if the rule were to be reviewed by the department, it should be done with the same process that created it, including formal public comment periods and public forums. That process reflects how the Bureau of Land Management arrived at the current rule, and it is important that you hear from the people who are most affected by the waste of resources, the letter states. The groups request a 60-day extension to account for the intricate nature of this issue. Three weeks is not sufficient to review a rule that was three years in the making, with hundreds of thousands of pages of comments, reports, studies and other documentation, the letter states. A recent poll from Colorado College reported that 87 percent of Wyomingites supported strict methane emissions limits on public land. Yet, the rule has found its way to the center of controversy as a fresh Congress sought to rapidly undo federal rules and regulations that they say limit industry development on federal land. Members of Wyomings delegation have publicly supported the possible elimination of the methane rule. Industry groups argue that the BLM rule is punitive as it requires costly manpower to check for leakage along pipelines and interconnections, as well as mandates the purchase of infrared equipment to detect leaks. Those in favor of these rules say the cost is recouped by saved natural gas resources that can then be sold. Wyoming has similar regulations to the BLM's methane rule in the Upper Green River Basin, where pollution years ago led to increased air quality controls from the states Department of Environmental Quality. Some companies in Wyoming, like Jonah Energy, have reported a net benefit after the implementation of stricter emissions controls. The Secretary's review of the rule is not the only challenge it faces. The rule was flagged for repeal under the Congressional Review Act, which allows congressmen to dismantle midnight regulations from an outgoing administration with a simple majority vote in each house. However, unlike other Obama-era rules caught in the crosshairs and promptly eliminated in recent weeks, the methane rule still sits in the Senate where it was introduced. Congress only has 60 working days to utilize the CRA, which means the methane rule must be addressed by May if Congress wants it struck down. The methane rule is also opposed in the courts, with Wyoming and other states arguing that the BLM has overstepped its bounds by regulating air quality. That power is the purview of the Environmental Protection Agency, some say. Supporters of increased gas restrictions shoot back that the methane rule is about wasted natural resources as much as air quality. A Wyoming judge refused to stay the implementation of the methane rule while it progressed through the courts. It took effect in January. Signees of the letter to Zinke include leaders from the Western Values Project, Native American Voters Alliance, the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union and the Rocky Mountain chapter of the Vet Voice Foundation. Saturday watercolor sessions The schedule for the Saturday Morning Watercolor Sessions from 10 a.m. to noon for March and April at Art 321 is below. These are coordinated by Ellen Black, 265-6783. $10 per session. April 15, painting on Yupo; April 22, practice session; April 29, building perspective, Dave Sneesby. Tax march Saturday Indivisible Casper will sponsor a free public rally in coordination with the national Tax March at 1:30 p.m. on April 15 in Pioneer Park (across East B Street from the IRS offices in the federal office building.) Everyone is welcome. The rallys first purpose is to demand that the president release his tax returns. The rallys second purpose is to oppose the $54 billion increase to military spending in this already disproportionate allotment in the presidents proposed budget. Indivisible Casper is nonpartisan, nonviolent and carries forward the sentiment of the Womens March. Indivisible Caspers Constituents Tax March Casper Rally page is at https://www.facebook.com/events/801112356703419/.Town Hall April 18 Indivisible Casper invites you to Constituents Town Hall Three. Every political point of view is welcome. Wyomings members of Congress have been invited by certified letter to attend to discuss the issues of the day. Since Congress in not in session, it is hoped they will attend. If they do not, your comments and questions will be passed on to them in writing. Please come with your questions and ideas at 7 p.m. April 18 to the Food for Thought building, 900 St. John in North Casper. Please call Andrea at 251-0352 with any questions about the town hall. Indivisible is a nationwide organization formed to respond to the Trump agenda in a non-violent manner. It is built on the values of inclusion, acceptance and fairness. Learn Cybersecurity The Natrona County Library will offer a Cybersecurity class from 10 a.m. to noon on Wednesday, April 19. This course will help you to understand online security and start to protect your digital life, whether at home or work. You will learn how to recognize the threats that could harm you online and the steps you can take to reduce the chances that they will happen to you. Call 577.READ x2 or email reference@natronacountylibrary.org for more information. Using maps in geneology research The Natrona County Library and Natrona County Genealogical Society will host a genealogy workshop on maps at 7 p.m., on Thursday, April 20 in the librarys glass enclosure on the first floor. The workshops primary focus will be the use of maps in genealogy research: what can be learned from them, where to find them, and the best types of maps. Free and open to the public. Call 577-READ ext. 2 or email reference@natronacountylibrary.org for more information. Beginning Experience in Douglas Beginning Experience of Wyoming is a weekend program that offers healing and renewal to divorced, widowed and separated men and women. It is a nonprofit, faith-based comprehensive program offered to all, regardless of religious preference. A Beginning Experience weekend offers support and direction to help resolve grief or anger that can follow the end of a marriage by divorce, separation or death. The next Beginning Experience weekend will be in Douglas and starts at 7 p.m. on Friday evening, April 28, and runs through Sunday around 4 p.m. on April 30. The cost of the weekend is $150, which includes sleeping arrangements, meals, and materials. Scholarships are available. Registration deadline is April 26, 2017. Ask these team members for more information: Curtis at 307.240.1232 or email westcurtis2014@gmail.com; Diane at 262.4142, Paulette at 267.6375. Landowner solutions workshop A casual learning conversation about country living issues will be held at 6 p.m. April 25 at the Glenrock Community Library, 506 S. Fourth St. Admission is free. Topics will include fighting weeds and animal health among others. Please pre-register so materials will be available. Contact Scott Cotton, UW Extension, 235-9400 or Scotton1@uwyo.edu. Write Brain Books training Mercer Family Resource Center will host a Write Brain Books Training from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. April 26, at Mercer Family Resource Center, 535 W. Yellowstone Hwy. The training is $30 and includes lunch. The founder of Write Brain Books will facilitate the training, and is for anyone who works with youth and look for a new way to incorporate literacy into his or her programming/instruction. Write Brain Books are illustrated, wordless books that inspire kids of all ages to become published authors of their own storybooks, each receiving published, hardcover copies of their original tales. To register for the training, please contact Mercer Family Resource Center at 265-7366. For more information on the Write Brain Books training, please contact Keri Owen, NCPC grant assistant, at 265-7366 or kowen@mercercasper.com. Call for portraits at Art 321 This is an open call to all artists in the community, working in any medium, to exhibit their artwork in the Art 321Casper Artists Guild Portrait Exhibit in May. Please note that artwork needs to be delivered to Art 321 Gallery by April 28. McIntyre photo workshop May 5-6 If you love the photography of Suzette McIntyre now on display at Art 321 Gallery, you will be eager to sign up for her workshop coming in May. Convergent Photography is 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Friday and Saturday, May 5 and 6, instructed by McIntyre. Participants need to bring a digital camera. Fee is $130 for members/ $170 non-members. Job fair May 3 The Department of Workforce Services is holding a Youth Job & Career Fair with the intent of informing youth and young adults in Casper of job openings, career opportunities, and college or training options that are available to them in the Casper community. Youth and young adults between ages 16 and 24 who want to jump-start their careers are encouraged to attend. Individuals should dress to impress and take copies of their resumes to the Agriculture Resources & Learning Center from 9 a.m. to noon on May 3. The event aims to connect youth with a range of employment opportunities and help them explore the diversity of education and career options available to them in the future. For more information, call 234-4591. Felt scarf workshop at Nic A felt scarf workshop will be held from noon to 3:30 p.m. May 13 at the Nicolaysen Art Museum, instructed by Tatiana Lushnikova. Fees are $40 for members, 30 for students with valid student ID, and $55 for non-members. Please pre-register and pay by May 8. Bring a friend and save $10 on your class fee. This class is recommended for high school students and older. In this class, students will learn the process of wet felting and produce their own piece of handmade fiber art. For more information, contact Zhanna at zgallegos@thenic.org or call 235-5247. Corporate team building with (theater) murder Casper Theater Company will be teaching teambuilding workshops. After determining areas of emphasis designed to a specific business, the workshop will be steered in that direction. For more information, visit www.caspertheatercompany.net, or Casper Theater Company on Facebook or call Casie at 247-6167, or Donna at 267-7243 to set up a time. Teen Challenge spring groups Smart Step Families: Putting two families together is never easy. The Smart Step Families, led by a Christian couple, will give answers and encouragement. Thursday evenings starting in March. Call Pastor Mark or Linda at 259-1081. Insight: Discovering the path to Christian character, especially in the midst of stress. For more information, call Teen Challenge Wyoming at 258-5397. There are nine sessions to the class. Professionals in Recovery: An ongoing Christian recovery group. For more information, call Gary at 267-7777. Free to Grow: Helping people overcome disappointments and setbacks that have arrested or are presently hindering their emotional and spiritual development. Starts in February and meets on Thursdays. For more information, call Jane at 797-7271 or Judy at 251-5644. There are 12 sessions to the class. Peacemaking: In this world of division and conflict, its important for Christians to stay grounded in what the Bible teaches about resolving differences with others in a God- honoring way. Sunday at 4 p.m. For more information, call Teen Challenge Wyoming at 258-5397. There are 12 sessions to the class. Stepping into Freedom: A Christ-centered 12-step program that offers support for anyone struggling with a life controlling problem like drug addiction, alcoholism, sexual addiction, gambling or workaholism. There are 12 sessions to the class. New ministry at HPCC Family Life Ministry at Highland Park Community Church is offering premarital, marriage enrichment, and parenting workshops, seminars, retreats and conferences, empowering families to thrive through Gods love. Please visit the website for more information or to register, http://hpcc.church/FLM. Self-transformation class set A Conscious Co-Creation/Self-Transformation & Healing seminar/live webinar will be offered from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. April 22 and 23, taught in person at the Agricultural Resources & Learning Center, 2011 Fairgrounds Road, and also via live webinar. In the seminar/playshop, participants will learn how the universal and physical laws of creation work together with thoughts and ideas to form daily experience; how modern science bears out what the ascended masters have known for eons; and how to become aware of, and instantly start changing, the patterns of thought and emotion that are prevent realizing best potentials for a healthy, joyful, fulfilling life. The class is taught by Cathy Hazel Adams, practitioner of Intuitive Multidimensional Transformation & Healing, and Matrix Energetics certified practitioner. For full class description and registration information, visit: www.cathyhazeladams.com and click on Classes & Webinars in the left sidebar, or call 797-9677 for more information. Dementia caregiver support Wyoming Dementia Care offers five Alzheimers Caregiver Support groups each month. Caregivers of those with dementia-related illnesses and the loved ones they care for are welcome at any of the group sessions. Professional staff from Intermountain Home Companions will be on hand to offer separate activities and snacks for those who need care. There is no charge for Wyoming Dementia Cares support groups or for the respite care provided during the approximately one-hour sessions. The morning support group sessions meet on the first and third Thursday of each month at 10 a.m. at Central Wyoming Senior Services, 1831 E. Fourth St. The afternoon support groups meet at 1 p.m. on the second Tuesday of each month at Life Care Center of Casper, 4041 S. Poplar. The evening groups meet on the second and fourth Wednesday of the month at 6:30 p.m. at Meadow Wind Assisted Living, 3955 E. 12th St. For information, email wyodementia@casperseniorcenter.com or call Dani Guerttman at 265-4678. Family continues suicide support Good Grief, Support will continue at 5:30 p.m. on the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month at the 12-24 Club, 500 S. Wolcott, by request of attendees. Anyone who is grieving a suicide or death or considering suicide is encouraged to attend. Attendance, as well as the content, will be strictly confidential. The Fresh Start Cafe will be open, and you can eat during the meetings. This meeting place was offered by Dan Cantine of the 12-24 Club. You need not be a member to attend. For more information, email jlh35@hotmailcom. New depression group begins J.R.s Hunt for Life is offering See it Clearly, a free peer support group for people suffering from depression and other mental conditions that lead to suicidal thoughts and actions. The group is led by like-minded peers wishing to offer support. Anonymity and confidentiality is offered to all attending. Meetings are at 6:45 p.m. on the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month at 500 South Wolcott in the conference room on the second floor, (12-24 Club). Those who have considered or attempted taking their life or are struggling are welcome. For more information, email jlh35@hotmailcom. Family offers faith-based groups The family of J.R. Hunter, who committed suicide, now has two additional support groups, these faith-based, in addition to the groups they run on the second and fourth Wednesdays of each month at the 12-24 Club. Those continue. For more information, email jlh35@hotmailcom. J.R.s Hunt for Life presents two faith-based grief and depression peer to peer support groups at 5:30 and 6:30 p.m. at Restoration Church, 411 S. Walsh. For more information, email jlh35@hotmailcom. Grief Support Group, Good Grief: A faith-based grief support group that the family hosts on the first and third Tuesdays of the month at 5:30 p.m. at Restoration Church. The familys loss has moved them to offer this to anyone grieving. For more information, email jlh35@hotmailcom. Depression Support Group, See It Clearly: A faith-based free peer to peer support group for persons suffering from depression and other mental conditions that may lead to suicidal thoughts and actions. The group is led by like-minded peers wishing to offer support. Anonymity and confidentiality is offered to all attending. Meetings are at 6:30 p.m. on the first and third Tuesdays of the month at Restoration Church. Those who have considered or attempted taking their life or are struggling are welcome. For more information, email jlh35@hotmailcom. Parkinsons exercise Rocky Mountain Therapy is offering a Parkinsons exercise program. Join us from noon to 1 p.m. Thursdays at Rocky Mountain Therapy, 2546 E. Second St., Building 500. These classes are open to anyone with Parkinsons or caring for someone with Parkinsons. Thursdays class is tailored for the individual with more advanced Parkinsons and focuses on improving endurance, safety and managing symptoms. We are open to all ages and can tailor the class to meet varying exercise needs. The cost of the class is $5. To RSVP, call 577-5204 and ask for Jerri or Shannon. Celebrate Recovery every Friday Celebrate Recovery meets at 5:30 p.m. every Friday at Highland Park Community Church, just south of Elkhorn Valley Rehabilitation Hospital on East Second Street. A family meal starts the evening, followed by praise and worship. At 7 p.m., theres either a lesson from Celebrate Recoverys planned curriculum or a testimony by a person who has found recovery through Christ. Then, people go to gender-specific small groups until 8:30 p.m., when dessert and fellowship conclude the evening. Child care is available at no cost. For more information, contact Chris at 265-4073. Here and Now: Dementia-focused monthly art class Classes are every third Tuesday of the month from 1 to 3 p.m. There is no charge. Here and Now is a program made possible through a collaboration between Wyoming Dementia Care and the Nicolaysen Art Museum. It is designed to provide a supportive environment for people with dementia and Alzheimers and their loved ones. To register, contact Dani with Wyoming Dementia Care 265-4678, ext. 106, or at wyodementia@casperseniorcenter.com or Zhanna Gallegos at 235-5247 or at zgallegos@thenic.org. Thursday support meetings Alcoholics Anonymous: 6:30 a.m., 917 N. Beech; 8:30 a.m., 500 S. Wolcott; 10 a.m., 328 E. A; noon, 500 S. Wolcott; 2 p.m., 917 N. Beech; 5:30 p.m., 1124 Elma, Imitate the Image Church; 5:30 p.m., 328 E. A; 7 p.m., 500 S. Wolcott, closed; 7 p.m., Shepherd of the Valley, public welcome; 8 p.m., 328 E. A; 8 p.m., 4600 S. Poplar, closed; 8 p.m., 917 N. Beech. Douglas: 7:30 p.m., 628 E. Richards (upstairs in back). Unless otherwise noted, all meetings are open. Casper info: 266-9578; Douglas info: (307) 351-1688. Al-Anon: 7 p.m., 500 S. Wolcott, Ste. 200. Douglas: 5 p.m., Congregational United Church, 405 N. 6th St. Narcotics Anonymous: Noon, 500 S. Wolcott, 12-24 Club; 8 p.m., 4700 S. Poplar (church basement). Web site: http://www.urmrna.org. Holy Week service at Holy Trinity Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church, 1350 E. C St., announces its schedule of services for Holy Week: Holy Thursday Morning (Divine Liturgy), 9 a.m.; Holy Thursday Evening (Crucifixion), 7 p.m. Noon services for Holy Week Servants United will again host a 30-minute, all-community worship and prayer service each day at 12:05 p.m. through Friday at First United Methodist Church across from the library. This years theme is The Good News, with messages given by local pastors. Learn about Airbnb The Natrona County Library will offer an Airbnb class from 2 to 4 p.m. Learn how to navigate the site and create listings. Feel free to bring digital photos of the space you would like to list along with any other information about your listing, and receive help with your first post. Call 577.READ, ext. 2, or email reference@natronacountylibrary.org for more information. Community impact at Pizza Ranch Pizza Ranch, 5011 E. Second St., hosts Community Impact nights from 5 to 9 p.m. normally on Mondays and Wednesdays. Members of nonprofit groups bus tables for tips, and 20 percent of meal tickets from diners who mention the group are donated as well. Dine-in, delivery or pickup orders qualify. Thursdays nonprofit is NCHS Speech and Debate. 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. An international potluck is scheduled in the Werner Technical Center, Rm. 105 from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. For more information, call 268-2230 or email mdugan@caspercollege.edu. Holy Week at St. Marks Holy Week at St. Marks Episcopal Church, Seventh and Wolcott: Maundy Thursday services start at 6 p.m. followed by the Prayer Watch, which concludes with a 7:30 a.m. service Good Friday. Holy Week at Christ Episcopal Christ Episcopal Church, 415 W. Cedar in Glenrock, hosts The Maundy Thursday liturgy with Communion and Stripping of the Altar at 6 p.m. Taco bar at Elks Wednesday night special at the Casper Elks Lodge is taco bar with all the fixings. All you can eat for $7. Children 5 to 12 are $3, serving from 6 to 7 p.m. or until gone. Also enjoy a dessert for $1. Member, significant other and guest accompanied by a member. For more information, call 234-4839. The menu is subject to change. All proceeds will go to Elks Charities. Holy Week at Grace Lutheran Grace Lutheran invites the community to join in the Gift of the Lord week. Thursday is Maundy Thursday, the gift of bread and wine, worship is at 7 p.m., with foot washing and communion. Car club meets All members of the Oil Capitol Auto Club are reminded that the regular club meeting will take place at 7 p.m. at Zs Classics on East Yellowstone. All members are urged to attend. Any questions, call Jerry at 577-7119. Johnny Sketch presents workshop Johnny Sketch and the Dirty Notes will hold an educational performance for fourth- and fifth-grade students at 1 p.m. at Kelly Walsh High School Auditorium. The interactive performance aims to encourage potential young musicians to play in their band or orchestra through demonstration of different instruments and types of music. Also, the band will hold a free workshop for jazz music students age 14+ at Casper Colleges Wheeler Concert Hall from 4 to 6 p.m. All are invited to attend to learn more about the art of performance and talk to New Orleans musicians about the music industry. For information about the workshop, call the WSO office at 266-1478. The education programs are offered free to the public. Open house at Werner An open house for the Werner Wildlife Museums newest exhibit, Elemental Earth: Artisans and Nature will be held from 4 to 6 p.m. The open house is free and open to the public at the museum, 405 E. 15th St. Refreshments will be served. The museum is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and is free and open to the public. According to India Hayford, museum assistant, the exhibit features contemporary crafts celebrating life in Wyoming. The Casper Needle Guild, a local chapter of Embroiderers Guild of America, will also be on hand to demonstrate various types of needlework. Stitchers are welcome to bring their own handwork and join the stitching circle in the Africa-Arctic Room during the open house. Softball umpires meet Anyone interested in umpiring adult or youth softball this summer should attend the Umpires Clinic at 6 p.m. at the Casper Recreation Center, 1801 E. Fourth St. The clinic will include information about umpire registration, league rules, pay rates and scheduling. A follow-up meeting and clinic will be held at 6 p.m. April 27 at the Casper Recreation Center. All interested umpires should attend. Additional information is available at the Casper Recreation Center, 235-8383. Holy Week at OSL Join us for Holy Week Services at Our Saviours Lutheran Church, 318 E. Sixth St. All are welcome and invited. Maundy Thursday, 7 p.m. Holy Week at Prince of Peace Prince of Peace Lutheran Church invites all for Holy Week. The Maundy Thursday service will be held at 7 p.m. Beekeepers meet Learn about bees and meet area beekeepers. Natrona County Beekeepers Association will meet at 7 p.m. in the basement of the College Heights Baptist Church, 600 W. 21st St. Coin club meets The Casper Coin Club will meet at 7 p.m. in the Crawford room of the downtown library. John Harold of C.C. Coins will give a presentation. Call Al at 237-1156 with questions. Reserve for Republican women event The public is invited to join the Natrona County Republican Women at 10 a.m. April 15 at the Ramada Plaza, 300 W. F St., for a breakfast buffet, style show, auction and door prizes. Tickets are $40 in advance, credit cards accepted at mkt.com/ncrwgiftshop or mail checks to NCRW, PO Box 52062, Casper 82605; and $50 at the door, where credit cards, checks, cash are accepted. RSVP before April 13. Call 307-215-9749 or email NCRWMEMBER@gmail.com. Membership dues of $30 to NCRW can also be paid at that time. Deadline for volleyball tourney signup The eighth annual Casper Coed Volleyball Tournament, hosted by the City of Casper Recreation Division, will be held April 22-23. It is anticipated that teams from all over the region will play in the tournament. Saturday play will consist of pool play, which will determine the seeding for the Sunday double elimination bracket. Matches will be played at the Casper Recreation Center and Natrona County School District facilities. The $100 per team entry fee is due no later than Thursday. Checks should be made payable to the Casper Recreational Leagues Association (CRLA). Online registration is available. Entries may be mailed or delivered to Casper Recreation Center, 1801 E. Fourth St., Casper, WY 82601. If additional information is needed, contact the Casper Recreation Division at 235-8383 or go to the website, www.crlasports.com.Follow community news editor Sally Ann Shurmur on Twitter @WYOSAS A former Casper doctor charged with sexually assaulting six patients pleaded not guilty Thursday. Paul Harnetty, 47, appeared in Natrona County District Court to enter pleas to 10 charges that stem from allegations he assaulted women during gynecological exams in 2014 and 2015. The alleged victims say Harnetty, while working as an OB-GYN at Community Health Center of Central Wyoming, touched them during exams in ways that made them uncomfortable. That included touching their vaginal area without gloves and rubbing them in ways that didnt seem to be in line with a medical exam, court documents allege. The case appears likely to revolve around two questions: Was Harnetty acting within his duties as a physician, and did that role give him significant influence over the women? Natrona County District Court Judge Thomas Sullins scheduled a five-day trial in the matter for June 26. Prosecutors originally charged Harnetty with 12 counts of second- and third-degree sexual assault. A judge at his preliminary hearing dismissed two of them. Harnetty is no longer licensed to practice medicine in Wyoming. He voluntarily relinquished his license in October after the state medical board began investigating him. He stopped practicing at the Community Health Center in October 2015 and resigned his Wyoming Medical Center privileges a month later. WASHINGTON President Donald Trump hasn't been in the White House for 100 days, yet he's already reversed himself on many of his key campaign promises. In several interviews this week, the president has forged new positions on topics ranging from NATO to Chinese currency manipulation. They come as other campaign promises lag, including Trump's vow to build a concrete wall along the length of the southern border and have Mexico pay for it. "One by one we are keeping our promises on the border, on energy, on jobs, on regulations," Trump tweeted Wednesday evening. "Big changes are happening!" One by one we are keeping our promises - on the border, on energy, on jobs, on regulations. Big changes are happening! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 12, 2017 Here are some of the areas where a president who prides himself on his flexibility has been willing to dispense with past positions: 1. NATO Trump cemented his shift in posture toward the 28-nation military alliance as he stood alongside its leader Wednesday at the White House. As a candidate, Trump had dismissed NATO as "obsolete," saying the post-World War II organization wasn't focused on combating the growing threat from terrorism and complaining that too many members weren't paying their fair share toward defense. He struck an entirely different tone Wednesday, one he had been warming up to during frequent telephone conversations with his world counterparts. "I said it was obsolete. It's no longer obsolete," Trump said of NATO at a news conference with Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg after they met in the Oval Office. Trump still insists that NATO members meet a 2014 agreement to boost defense spending to 2 percent of gross domestic product within a decade. He has backup on this point from an important ally: Stoltenberg. Currently, just the U.S. and a handful of other countries are meeting the 2 percent target. 2. CHINA/CURRENCY During his campaign, Trump insisted that one of his first acts as president would be to direct his treasury secretary to label China a currency manipulator. It was part of a "contract" with American voters that he pledged to fulfill. Only days ago, in an interview with the Financial Times, Trump reiterated that campaign pledge. By Wednesday something had changed. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Trump declared point blank, "They're not currency manipulators." Trump told the paper he'd changed his mind because China hasn't been manipulating its currency for months. He said a U.S. declaration of Chinese manipulation could jeopardize efforts to secure the country's help in containing the threat posed by North Korea. Trump has mentioned that he and Chinese President Xi Jinping have developed somewhat of a bond. 3. EX-IM BANK Trump also appears to have grown fond of the U.S. Export-Import Bank, which has been a rallying cry for conservatives who consider it a mechanism of crony capitalism. The conservative political network established by billionaires Charles and David Koch has railed against the agency. Trump opposed the Ex-Im Bank during his campaign. But he said in the Journal interview that he supports the bank, which helps U.S. exporters by making and guaranteeing loans. Congress allowed the Ex-Im bank's charter to expire in 2015, then eventually revived it over the objections of some conservatives. But it still isn't able to conduct major business due to vacancies on its board, hurting top exporters like Boeing and General Electric. 4. RUSSIAN PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN As the U.S. relationship with Russia careens from cozy to frosty, Trump is keeping his distance from Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump has made conflicting statements about his ties to the Russian leader in the past. At a press conference last July, he said: "I never met Putin, I don't know who Putin is. He said one nice thing about me. He said I'm a genius." But during the Republican primary he boasted of their ties. He said at a November 2015 primary debate, "I got to know him very well because we were both on '60 Minutes,' we were stablemates, and we did very well that night." The two appeared on the same program, but their segments were taped in different countries. For Trump, dealing with investigations into possible contacts between his campaign associates and the Russian officials, keeping Putin at arm's length may be the best political play. 5. MILITARY The man who once slammed the U.S. military as a "disaster" is singing its praises now that he's in charge. In an interview with Fox Business Network's Maria Bartiromo that aired Wednesday morning, Trump talked up U.S. military strength, sounding almost in awe of its prowess. But just a couple of months ago, the president was bemoaning the military's state at rallies across the country. "We're going to rebuild out military. Our military is in shambles," he said at a rally in Delaware last April. 6. FEDERAL RESERVE During his campaign, Trump was critical of Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, accusing her of keeping borrowing rates low to help rival Hillary Clinton and Democrats. Trump said at the time that he would likely replace Yellen when her term as chair ends next year. At the first presidential debate in September, Trump said the Fed was "being more political than Secretary Clinton." But that was then. Trump, in the Wall Street Journal interview, left open the possibility of re-nominating Yellen for a second four-year term. PLEASE NOTE! Due to the March 23, 2020 NM DOH Public Health Order, These Event Listings Are Not Accurate! All non-essential businesses are closed, public gatherings are prohibited! (One day some of these events will be rescheduled or will resume, but they are not happening now!) We've collected a few front pages from newspapers.com to give you a look at some April 13 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 conservation group and U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva filed on Wednesday what they say is the first federal lawsuit against President Trumps proposed border wall. It calls for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to put together a report on the environmental impact of construction of the wall and expanded patrolling operations on the U.S.-Mexico border. It also asks a judge to find that DHS has violated the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to make an environmental assessment since 2001. DHS said it does not comment on pending litigation. The lawsuit was filed in Tucson by the Center for Biological Diversity and Grijalva, D-Arizona, who represents Congressional District 3 and is a ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee. American environmental laws are some of the oldest and strongest in the world and they should apply to the borderlands just as they do everywhere else, said Grijalva, whos expansive district includes about 300 miles of the border, in a statement. Trumps wall and his fanatical approach to our southern border will do little more than perpetuate human suffering while irrevocably damaging our public lands and the wildlife that depend on them. The lawsuit names as defendants Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly; the U.S. Department of Homeland Security; Kevin K. McAleenan, acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection; and the CBP. Wildlife conservationists say the wall would be detrimental to rare animals such as jaguars and ocelots that are known to traverse the international line and are listed as endangered species. What we need is a thorough analysis and some real science to determine just how much damage has been done and how much more would be done by the proposals that are on the table now, said Randy Serraglio of the Center for Biological Diversity. Prior legal challenges to border fencing have been unsuccessful. The Southwest border already has roughly 650 miles of fencing in various forms, along with underground sensors and camera towers. The latest lawsuit is broader than others and considers the larger implications of more Border Patrol operations, not just the wall, Serraglio said. Trump has promised to build the wall and make Mexico pay for it, though Mexico has refused. The push to add 5,000 new Border Patrol agents and to increase overall border surveillance operations have come at a time when illegal crossings are at historic low. PHOENIX Rebuffing prosecutors and sheriffs, Gov. Doug Ducey signed legislation Wednesday to make it more difficult for them to seize property. Reforms have been needed in this area for some time, the governor said in a prepared statement. Ducey was not alone in his assessment: Only Rep. Becky Nutt, R-Clifton, voted against the measure. The new law will require prosecutors to provide clear and convincing evidence to a judge that property is connected to criminal activity before they can seize it. That means either it was used as part of a crime or it was acquired with proceeds from criminal activity. That is more rigorous than the current standard, which allows seizure based on preponderance of the evidence. The lowest of standards, it means only that it is more likely than not the property is linked to a crime. Rep. Eddie Farnsworth, R-Gilbert, who crafted the changes, said the new standard is appropriate as there is no requirement that someone be convicted of a crime or even charged before prosecutors can try to take property. The change, which takes effect later this year, also will remove some disincentives that now exist for people to challenge the government if they contend their property was wrongly seized. Under the current law, property owners are responsible for their own legal fees, even if they win. It makes no sense, Farnsworth said, to have to hire an attorney for $20,000 to recover a vehicle that might be worth half that much. The other change eliminates the possibility that a property owner who fights forfeiture and loses could be on the hook for the governments costs and legal fees. Prosecutors and sheriffs from throughout the state had sought a veto. Ducey, however, said, As public servants, we are entrusted with not only protecting public safety but also the rights guaranteed to every citizen of this great state and nation. Todays important legislation strikes an appropriate balance between enabling law enforcement to do their jobs while upholding civil liberties. He was not swayed by prosecutors claims it will undermine the ability to fight crime. Tucson police are asking the public for help in identifying an armed robber who pointed a gun to the back of an employee's head at a fast-food restaurant on the south side. The robbery occurred March 1 at Arby's, 1530 W. Valencia Road, which is west of Interstate 19 near South Midvale Park Road, according to a Tucson Police Department Facebook post Wednesday. The assailant entered the restaurant and pointed the gun at the worker, and then placed the gun to the back of the worker's head, while demanding money. He left with an undisclosed amount of cash, police said. Investigators are asking the public to notice the tattoo on the man's right hand. The robber is described as between 25 to 35 years old and is about 5 feet 10 inches tall. He has a medium build with dark hair and light skin. Anyone with information is asked to call 88-CRIME, an anonymous tipster hotline. In-state students at Pima Community College will pay 3.8 percent more for tuition this fall, money that could help cover pay raises for the schools workforce. PCCs Governing Board on Wednesday approved a $3 per credit increase for Arizona residents, making the Tucson school the third-most-costly of 10 community colleges statewide. The cost per credit will increase from $78.50 to $81.50. The change will add $72 a year to the annual tuition tab of a student taking 24 credits a year, who will now pay $1,956. A student taking 30 credits a year will pay $90 more for a total bill of $2,445. The board voted 4-1 in favor of the increase, with supporters arguing the extra money is necessary to retain quality employees and improve college operations now that PCC no longer receives state funding. I dont like year after year putting this burden on students, said board member Demion Clinco. If we dont do a (tuition) increase, we cant do a wage increase, he added. We have to build a high-quality institution and we have to do that through (employee) compensation. Board chair Mark Hanna, who also supported the increase, called the decision agonizing because many students already struggle financially. But the tuition increase is critical in order for our college to be financially sound and for us to reward our employees in a proper manner, Hanna said. Luis Gonzales, the boards newest member, was the lone vote against the increase. I dont buy the argument that you have to raise tuition for students to pay for a raise. There are other places we could cut, he said. PCC employees last pay raise was in 2015. International students and U.S. students from outside Arizona will see their tuition rates rise by 1 percent if they study on campus and by 5.9 percent for online classes. Students over age 55 will pay a reduced rate of $40.75 per credit, an effort by the college to boost enrollment in that market segment. The college has also capped tution fees at 15 credits per semester, meaning students will not have to pay extra for any other classes they want to take. Apprentice lineman Tanner Acken with Tucson Electric Power begins his trip up a power pole to repair damage done when a City of Tucson garbage tangled with some power lines west of Norris Ave. and south of Speedway Blvd behind the Aloft Hotel in Tucson, AZ. on Wednesday, April 12, 2017. The outage was reported at noon and affected about 430 customers in the area. Crews expect to work into the night to replace some broken cross members on poles and inspect and replace any necessary power lines. PHOENIX State senators voted 16-14 Wednesday to require judges to void citizen-backed initiatives if they are not in strict compliance with every requirement of Arizona election law. HB 2244, approved by the Republican-controlled Senate with only one GOP lawmaker dissenting, would scrap existing laws and long-standing court rulings that say groups seeking to create statutes at the ballot box need only substantial compliance with the law. That has been based on findings by judges that the intent of circulators and signers was clear and that voters were not deceived. Sen. Martin Quezada, D-Glendale, said the changes will make it more difficult for groups to get their questions before voters. He said it means that technical violations would void otherwise legitimate petition drives. And Quezada sought to narrow the scope of the legislation. For example, Quezada proposed that a petition could be voided if the text of a ballot measure submitted to the secretary of state is not identical to whats being circulated. But other errors, like stapling a copy of the text to the petition instead of having it on the petition itself, would be judged under the looser substantial compliance law. That proposal was rejected. But Republicans were more sensitive to criticism that adopting a strict compliance requirement could lead to invalidating an initiative solely because the printed margins are too narrow or the size of the lettering is too small on the petitions. They agreed to an amendment by Sen. Steve Montenegro, R-Litchfield Park, requiring the secretary of state to prepare a sample initiative form. It spells out that circulators are presumed to be strictly complying with the law if they use that form. Montenegro said this should take care of problems that can occur when initiative backers create forms but reproduce them using a printer or copier that might spit out versions that dont meet those margin and typeface mandates. If any committee goes on that site, downloads that form, uses that form, theyll have safe harbor because they are strictly complying to what that initiative petition should look like, he said. Those changes, however, were insufficient to satisfy Democrats who said this bill along with two others being pushed by Republicans is simply an attack on the right of voters to propose their own laws. Sen. Steve Farley, D-Tucson, said the framers of the Arizona Constitution created the initiative process to ensure voters have the opportunity to act. He argued that quashing ballot efforts because they dont meet certain technical requirements violates that right. I dont care if this is scrawled on the back of a piece of bark peeled off a cottonwood tree, Farley said. I want these petitions to be accepted if they are genuine electors, he continued, arguing that he believes the measure will be found unconstitutional. Sen. Sylvia Allen, R-Snowflake, however, said the additional requirements are necessary. She said the 1998 Voter Protection Act bars lawmakers from repealing or significantly altering anything approved at the ballot. That constitutional measure, approved by voters, followed a decision by lawmakers the prior year to effectively repeal a 1996 law legalizing the medical use of marijuana and other otherwise illegal drugs. There is no way now to protect the people if there is unseen consequences in initiatives that are passed, Allen said. It is completely false, Quezada responded. He said lawmakers, with a three-fourths vote of both the House and Senate, can amend voter-approved measures to fix technical problems. The only requirement is that the change furthers the purpose of what voters approved. HB 2244, which now needs House approval, is part of a three-bill package being pushed by the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry and other business interests in the wake of the decision by voters last year to increase the state minimum wage immediately to $10 an hour, going to $12 an hour by 2020. HB 2404, forbidding paying petition circulators on a per-name basis, already was signed by Gov. Doug Ducey. And SB 1236, awaiting debate, would make the organizers of initiative drives liable for fines for violations of election laws committed by petition circulators. U.S. Rep. Martha McSally spent nearly an hour in Vail on Wednesday talking to Cienega High School students, mostly seniors about to graduate. The two-term Republican, who represents Congressional District 2, spent most of the time answering questions from students ranging from whats next regarding Syria to explaining why she doesnt wear a Fitbit. But McSally repeatedly found herself trying to differentiate herself from President Trump and legislation backed by the Republican-controlled Congress. Here are three takeaways of McSallys positions from the high school town hall: Transgender bathrooms are state, local issue After being told transgendered students use a bathroom in the nurses office at the high school, McSally advised students to discuss the issue with school administration and state representatives. Did you engage the chain of command, the retired Air Force colonel asked the student who posed the question. Regardless of who you are and who you love, you should be given every opportunity in this country. She said she has fought for LGBTQ issues at the federal level, but said this fight was best decided locally, not by Congress. Trump administration was tested by Assad When a Cienega senior asked McSally about the missile strikes in Syria and told her he was entering the Air Force after graduation, McSally said she supported Trumps decision to hit Syria. She said the Tomahawk missiles fired by the United States did not cripple the Syrian regime but told the students it sent a message to Syria President Bashar al-Assad. McSally said Assads decision to use chemical weapons against the civilian population was a test of the new administration and that the whole world was watching how Trump would respond. Privacy hound McSally wont use a Fitbit McSally faulted media reports about Congress allowing internet service providers to the sell the browsing histories of their users, saying the recent rollback of FCC privacy rules isnt the real issue. She argues Congress needs to move forward on a commonsense approach that tells users in a simple fashion what information their internet providers, social-media sites and various devices are gathering and what those companies are making available to third parties. McSally said she shuns so-called free services that collect private information about users, even going so far as to leave a small fitness device that tracks her activities from steps to calories burned at home. The device was given to her as a gift, she told the crowd. Public records The Civil Service Meeting minutes in this case were produced by the city after repeated requests by the Star over two weeks, during which city officials violated Arizona Public Records law by failing to produce the minutes in a prompt manner. The Arizona Public Records Law regarding open meetings says that minutes "shall be open to public inspection three working days after the meeting." The Star made a public records request for the minutes on March 27, to which city spokeswoman Lane Mandle responded that they weren't ready yet and they'd be posted on the website as soon as they were done. The Star responded, citing the law and statute number and hours later, received a reply that the the minutes had been requested from the city's human resources department. The minutes were finally released on April 11, after the Star informed Mandle that a story was being prepared detailing the city's refusal to release the minutes. We dare you to read these facts without sneezing. 1. The name is Spanish and means "green stick" The bark of a palo verde tree is green because it's filled with chlorophyll. Unlike most trees, this plant gets a lot of photosynthesizing done through its bark. According to The Arizona Native Plant Society, only about a third of the palo verde's food is produced by the leaves. 2. It's the Arizona State Tree! Designated as the Arizona's State Tree in 1954, the palo verde joined the ranks of the cactus wren, bola tie and saguaro cactus blossom as a state symbol. 3. There are two types of palo verde Arizona hosts two native species, the Foothills Palo Verde and the Blue Palo Verde. The Foothills Palo Verde (Cercidium microphyllum) can be found mostly on rocky slopes. They have a yellow-green trunk, tiny leaves and pods that constrict around the seeds. The Blue Palo Verde (Cercidium floridum) are usually spotted next water sources, like washes, and have a blue-green trunk. Read more about the differences here. 4. There's also a species called "Desert Museum" It's named after the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. According to a Los Angeles Times article, the name was created about thirty years ago when staff members at the museum began to notice thornless palo verde trees that bloomed throughout the summer. 5. They can easily live a century The Foothills Palo Verde can live to be about 100 years old. Some can even age up to 400 years. 6. Blue Palo Verde can grow up to 30 feet The height and low-water maintenance of these trees makes them perfect for landscaping. Register for more free articles. Log in Sign up The Foothills Palo Verde can grow up to 20 feet. 7. You can eat the seeds Harvesting happens just before monsoon season. Pick them when the pod is green and the seed tender. Eat them like you would peas or edamame. They've been know to be a little sweet. You can also wait to harvest them until the seed is fully developed and the pod is dry. At this stage they're best eaten sprouted. Learn more about the harvesting process here. 8. You can also eat the flowers You can eat these yellow bursts of spring raw. Sprinkle some in your next salad. 9. They don't contribute as much as you think to your seasonal allergies A story written in the Star in 2011 says most palo verdes cause few or no allergy symptoms. The pollen produced by the plant is sticky and heavy, making it difficult to travel far in the wind. However, the large quantities of dried fallen yellow flowers are known to do some damage. Learn more about Arizona trees and allergies here. 10. The cactus is their best friend According to a Desert Museum fact sheet, the palo verde is the primary nursing plant for baby saguaros. The more you grow! Editor's note: Kathryn Ferguson died Sunday, April 9 after an unexpected cancer diagnosis last week. By the time of the diagnosis, the cancer had already spread, said friend and fellow dancer Michelle Morton. Morton has set up a GoFundMe page to help fund the medical and now funeral expenses in support of Ferguson's husband. She is survived by her husband, sister and nieces. Morton and others plan to put on a final dance show in Ferguson's honor. #ThisIsTucson first published this profile on Friday, February 24. As a little girl growing up in Tucson, Kathryn Ferguson envisioned her future as a goat herder. She would practice walking barefoot in the desert, outlining the rooms of her house with rocks, imagining a goat pen just there. Although she let the goat-herding dream go (things like school and parents got in the way), she has remained tethered to the desert, the borderlands and the people. As a Tucson native, Ferguson grew up around both American and Mexican cultures. Her godparents were Mexican-American. For the last 13 years, she has volunteered with the Tucson Samaritans, a humanitarian aid group dedicated to providing water, food and other emergency supplies to border crossers in distress. "Crossing with the Virgin: Stories from the Migrant Trail" chronicles the border experiences of Ferguson and other Samaritan volunteers. Ferguson, now in her 60s, also has two documentaries on the region to her name: "The Unholy Tarahumara" and "Rita of the Sky." Her 2015 book "The Haunting of the Mexican Border: A Woman's Journey" recounts the stories she has lived and the people she has loved on both sides of the U.S. - Mexico border. "It's a memoir, which I think is a very embarrassing word," Ferguson says. "I was so surprised it was a memoir but the University of Mexico (Press) categorized it that way. I thought it was just a nonfiction book about me in the desert with some other people." After studying fine arts at the University of Arizona, Ferguson went to Spain to learn flamenco dance. She ended up in Morocco, where she discovered belly dancing, an art form that would take her around the world. Tucson was always home base, and for more than 40 years she has taught belly dancing classes out of her own studio, Xanadu Belly Dance Studio at 2408 N. Loretta Drive. The experiences she had dancing the world nourished a passion for people and culture that she now channels toward immigration issues. It's a delicate line to walk for Ferguson, who says she would rather transport medically compromised immigrants to a hospital than abide by the federal immigration law prohibiting the transportation of illegal immigrants. "Because what am I going to do, sit there and let somebody die in front of me?" she says, though it hasn't been an issue yet. "Absolutely not." About 10 years ago, two No More Deaths volunteers were arrested after they attempted to transport illegal immigrants to a medical clinic, according to Star archives. The charges were eventually dropped. "You can provide them with food and aid because it's humanitarian assistance," says Bob Kee, a 12-year Tucson Samaritans volunteer. "You're not moving them along physically to another point. You're enabling them to stay alive. They're making the choice to go on or not, but we're not moving them in any way." Standard procedure now is to call the U.S. Border Patrol or 911 in dire medical situations, Kee says. "We encourage people, if they encounter someone in desperate need of water, medical attention or food and they have it, it's okay to provide it, but contact 911 or local law enforcement," says Daniel Hernandez, a public information officer for the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector. Volunteers still have to be careful not to "aid or abet" illegal immigrants as the law prohibits. In her book, Ferguson recounts her own brushes with law enforcement, and in one instance writes that she was detained and then released by government officials after a chance encounter in the desert. "The intensity of her passion and how that sense of the humanitarian element exists in doing this work, I think for her that's really paramount," Kee says. And so she continues to trek dusty trails with backpacks full of water, hoping to prevent another death. "When I go out, I'm looking for people," she says. "I'm looking to see their eyes." This is what Ferguson had to say about the border, belly dancing and life as a badass. Note: The interview has been edited for clarity. Why she loves the border: "It began in my childhood, because I have just been going back and forth across the border for my whole life, but of course, in childhood, you don't know it's going to be a big deal. We used to go across just to go grocery shopping. To buy chocolate and coffee. ... It was just part of my childhood, and it was always an occasion to look forward to, to go across the border into Mexico." Wandering the desert as a Samaritan: "Everyday we would go out and say in Spanish, 'Hello everybody, we're friends. We bring water and food. Don't be afraid.' And then bam! Somebody steps out onto the trail in front of you and you're just shocked every single time. You're out there looking, and you're calling, and you're still shocked when somebody is out there, one person, or a few people, in the middle of nowhere. You're just walking along and you're there with the cholla cactus and the trees, and then bam! There is this face that steps onto the trail in front of you, and it's always a surprise. It's a life-changer. What is some wonderful person doing in the middle of the desert looking all beat up? Why are they out there? There is no reason they should be out there." Documentaries fueled her love for Mexico: "I came back from North Africa ... and I was working at the PBS station in Tucson on the video crew ... I learned how to use cameras and white balances and all of that ... I was going down into Mexico's Sierra Madre ... and I met this man who is Raramuri ... and I ended up going back and forth, still working at the PBS station. ... The documentary was about the changing world of the Tarahumara people. One guy, was who was governor of his village, couldn't wait to get rid of his traditions, and I thought this was interesting because another friend was very into the traditions. ... The other film is called 'Rita of the Sky' ... about a woman who had walked from Mexico to Kansas ... No one could speak to her because she only spoke 50 words of Spanish and the rest was her native language ... They put her in a mental hospital for 10 years and thought she was speaking the gibberish of a crazy person ... " How belly dancing fits in: "Instead of studying flamenco dance for a few weeks in Spain, we ended up taking this drive to Morocco. The thing that got me was the music. We were in this place in Casablanca, and there were these five drummers playing instruments. ... I had this ballet background, and I was sitting there you eat on the floor and the musicians come out and it's like dynamite. And then this woman comes out dressed in lace, many colors, head to toe, lace up her neck, lace to her wrists ... She came to a table near me and picks up this round bread, and she ripped it off with her teeth, this piece of bread, and she just chewed in 6/8 rhythm ... I thought what's this? And all the sudden she is waving her hands and then she just starts to dance and picks up this tray with glasses of hot tea and puts this silver tray on her head and starts dancing ... I was just hooked. It was like something between some other culture and a circus, and this driving rhythm. It just took my breath away." What she learned dancing around the world for nine years: "Everybody is the same. The Mexicans are the same as the Arabs as the Americans. The more I have been out around different cultures, the more I realize we are so much the same, and those things where we maintain our differences, that's like when you have a big dinner and you have olives and dates and all of this food on the table ... You have all of these cultures that are the same, that's us sitting down to eat, but everything you taste has a different taste." Her father's gift: "My father always encouraged me. My father used to say, 'You can do anything you want, especially you can do anything any man can do.' ... Other than love he was so loving that was the biggest gift I got from him ... It was never a thought that I couldn't go do something." Doing it all as a woman: "To see the world from a woman's point of view is like nothing else. It's fantastic. ... I think if you're a woman with a sense of humor, you're Annie Oakley. That's it in a nutshell, isn't it?" Your name, age, occupation. Kathryn Ferguson, author, dancer/choreographer, filmmaker. I'm on a mission to _______________________. Connect the dots between arts, people, and politics, and have fun along the way. What's your astrology sign? Does it fit you? Leo. Maybe it fits because I dream of following big cats in the wild. Describe yourself in three words... Feral, curious, instinctive. And in five emojis. Your first-ever job? Register for more free articles. Log in Sign up In middle school, I wrote a play starring my next-door neighbors, and I charged admission. We earned enough to buy a pie. How long have you lived in Tucson? I'm a native Tucsonan. Who and/or what inspires you? Pretty much everything. The wild. Animals. Color, paintings, words, sounds, laughter. My father who always made me laugh. Contradiction. The secret to coping with stress is ________________. Dance. Your favorite Tucson spot? The end of a dirt road where the trail begins. What are your favorite three songs and why? 1. "Galician Flamenca" by Gino D'Auri who was a flamenco guitarist and a friend I loved. When I need to remember who I am, I go to this song. 2. "Mal Hombre" by Lydia Mendoza, about the eternal struggle between women and men. 3. "Kiko and the Lavender Moon" by Los Lobos. It is about a misfit who comes out at night to dance and dance. Your go-to order at your favorite Tucson restaurant? Kimoto Vol. 1, salmon sushi at Saga Sushi. What's your favorite Tucson-only thing? Saguaros and everything that lives near them. You know you're a Tucsonan when _____________. You stay in town during the summer because you love the heat. What constitutes your morning getting-ready routine and how long does it take? Coffee and more coffee for 15 minutes. Listen to the birds for as long as it takes. Throw on fantastic fabrics and earrings, 5 minutes. Favorite app at the moment? Picmonkey.com Give us a two-sentence pep talk. Don't stop 'til you drop. Just one more little hill and you are there! What would you tell your teenage self? Don't fall in love yet. What's a quality you got from your mama? Love red dresses. And one you hope to pass on to the next generation? Find your passion. The last great book you read? Every five minutes it is a different book, but recently "H is for Hawk." The last great movie you watched? So many great movies but recently loved "Ixcanul," a movie made in Guatemala. People would be surprised to hear you're actually a ______________ expert. Mideastern dancer/choreographer, Egyptian style. Is there something you've always wanted to learn, but haven't had the time? Flamenco dance, photography. Anything you've always wondered about Tucson? What happens when the water leaves? Favorite ice cream flavor? Caramel. Where can our readers follow you on social media? thehauntingofthemexicanborder.com Is there something you REALLY nerd out about? Dogs, especially Airedales, Labradors, and Xoloitzcuintles. What's your spirit animal? Gila Monster. Which fictional character (from TV, movies, books, etc.) just gets you? Calamity Jane in the "Deadwood" TV series. What makes you feel the most confident? Connecting with someone while we laugh. The best piece of advice you ever received? Love more. Help India! By Siddhant Mohan, TwoCircles.net Several media outlets have been running stories since Wednesday that the Election Commission of India has issued an open challenge to opposition political groups to hack the electronic voting machines, EVMs. Outlets are also mentioning that EC has assigned the first week of May for such a challenge. This news followed an event after representatives of 16 political parties gone to meet President of India regarding the recent controversy started on EVM. Support TwoCircles However, a closer look at the whole situation reveals that neither the Election Commission nor Press Information Bureau has issued any kind of official statement regarding the open challenge. Also, election commission held no press conference yesterday or day before for the announcement of same. Several outlets are using wires of Press Trust of India (PTI) and Asian News International (ANI), where it was first announced that Election commission has challenged political groups, tech experts and scientists to show that EVMs are hackable. See the tweet by PTI below Many outlets carried this news from the ANI. The first two paragraphs of the news item sent by ANI, which was published on 11:56 PM of April 12 has first two paragraphs as, Following concerns raised by the Opposition parties over the alleged tampering of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) post assembly polls, the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Wednesday threw an open challenge to the party leaders and dared them to hack the voting machines. The invitation, given to political parties, scientists and technicians, will be available from the first week of May to prove whether the EVMs could be hacked or not. The story doesnt mention which official under what power issued the aforesaid challenge. ANI also doesnt mention the official source as other outlets are doing while reporting the same news. Outlets such as New Indian Express, India Today, Hindustan Times and Times of India have gone to mention official sources as the source of their news. While others are mentioning news agencies for their inputs. Moreover, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has also questioned the whole Election commission challenge with a tweet asking is the story is planted? Why are these stories ascribed to sources? How credible are they? Why hasnt EC issued any formal statement? Or is it just a plant? https://t.co/Cxvu4nBUg8 Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) April 13, 2017 Arvind Kejriwal and Aam Aadmi Party are among the group of opposition parties who claim that EVMs are being tampered in most of the elections. The truth is that the Election Commission had issued a FAQ through PIB few days back where EC tried to point out that how EVMs are not hackable, question by question. Help India! By TCN News Aligarh: Today Aligarh Muslim University organized the inaugural session on the Second Two Day National Workshop on Urdu Translation of Dr. B.R. Ambedkars Writings. The event was presided over by Brig. S Ahmad Ali (Veteran), AMU Pro-Vice Chancellor and was addressed by various eminent speakers. Support TwoCircles Brig. Syed Ahmad Ali, in his presidential remark, expressed his desire of mass propagation of Ambedkars ideas through the translation of some of his far-sighted works which include Ambedkars writings and speeches on the dimension of territories and states and how the size of the state affects administration and management. He also brought to focus Ambedkars ideas on the Article 370 of the constitution, which speaks of the issue of Kashmir. Along with these issues of contemporary relevance, Syed Ahmad Ali also emphasized on Ambedkars Economic treatise, his role in the RBI and his Ph.D. thesis, Problems of Rupee: Its Origin and Solution. He congratulated the Prof. Mohammad Asim Siddiqui, the Managing Editor at Urdu-CWBA Dr. Ambedkar Foundation, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, for his dedication to the task. The Guest of Honor Prof. Emeritus Farhatullah Khan made a practical observation that translation is something impossible but an inevitable task. He stressed upon the beauty and persuasive effect of Urdu language. Urdu, according to Prof. Khan, is the most appropriate language to powerfully express the ideas of a strong leader and reformer like Ambedkar. He explained the complexities of translating such terms like child labor, Dalit etc from English to Urdu. Dr. Suhail Ahmad Farooqui of Jamia Millia Islamia, an accomplished translator of more than hundred works which include Tagores Gitanjali, commented that it is not enough to know the language and its literal meaning but in order to reach more approximation in translating a work, we need to learn about the speakers and their background as well. According to him source work and the translated work are mirror images of each other. The Dean of the Faculty of Arts Prof. Shaikh Mastan emphasized the relevance of Ambedkar and his contribution in the making of the present-day India. Prof. Mohammad Asim Siddiqui, the Managing Editor of the translation project explained the aims and objectives of the workshop and threw some light on the difficulties in translating his works which touch varied subjects like law, sociology, history and economics. The event was conducted by Prof. Samina Khan of Department of English who also enlightened us with her share of assignment speaking about Women rights, Dalit women and their plights and other women issues dealt by Ambedkar. Peer Mohammad Ashraf proposed the Vote of Thanks. A number of translators involved in the project along with academicians and scholars attended the event. The work on the Urdu translation of Ambedkar, all 34 volumes from English to Urdu, had been assigned to AMU by Ambedkar Foundation, Ministry of Empowerment and Social Justice, Government of India. An academic group researches the DNA of a Dingo for determining the genes for domestication. darwin | sandy news.| dingo to dna as dog to domestication of dogs darwin lost water australian dingo of Sandy or genes dogs | The winner of the World's Most Interesting Genome Competition wasn't even human. It was dog! Sandy is a 100 percent pure desert dingo. Runners up were a sea slug, Temple Pitviper snake, pink pigeon and a bombardier beetle. ||| australian darwin australia genes Dingo it dna to Domestication of dogs in Sandy Test is or dna in genes dogs scientific | DNA of the dog was examined by Professor Bill Ballard leading a team from NSW's universities and the University of Arizona. These scientists benefit from a money prize that went with the win: the Pacific Biosciences SMRT Grant. They will spend this to test some of the premises suggested by Charles Darwin. ||| Test as Dingo it go dna | Sandy on on at dna in | || It does not take much thought to accept Darwin's belief that canines were selectively bred by Man to domesticate them. Having a tame pure-bred dingo was a great opportunity to analyze how domestication took place. Comparing genes of domesticated dogs with Sandy will show the sequences for behavior and temperament. | Domestication interesting | not. | to travel news to australia | | Unfortunately, real canis lupus are dying out: pet dogs often leave the vehicles of travellers in the bush and breed with the wild species. In my opinion making it a species is not scientific. Considering fertile offspring is the result means there is no "mule", which would be a requirement to categorize the creature as such. | or an up Test. | lyn death darwin rescue wild-born email learn dealing study science rescued arlington purebred domestication photo proposal pup barry needed sandy siblings pictured hypotheses facebook kim sequencing unsw eggleton tested challenging twitter animals raised vote central tweet gift theory enable won selection track process share park dingoes dingoes park share process track selection won enable theory gift tweet central vote raised animals animal twitter challenging tested eggleton unsw sequencing professor ballard kim facebook hypotheses pictured siblings needed barry pup proposal domestic photo purebred arlington rescued competition science study genome dealing learn email wild-born rescue death lyn world | | Genetics What do Gibraltar and Scotland both have in common? The electorates that voted in last year's EU Referendum both overwhelmingly decided that Britain should remain a part of the European Union. But what are the differences between both countries' leaders since Brexit? The Rock's Chief Minister, Fabian Picardo, has accepted last year's result and Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is refuting it. With the British Overseas Territory no doubt feeling intimidated by Spain's attempt to bully them, Mr. Picardo has emerged as the right leader for the right time. However, it is not only the Spanish Mr. Picardo has so far engaged in a war of words with, but an even bigger body; the European Union. Gibraltar's Chief Minister was quite right to attack the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, for behaving like 'a cuckolded husband taking it out on the kids.' Despite the strong possibility that Spain could easily occupy the Rock as a distraction from upcoming Brexit negotiations and from unfolding economic problems, the Chief Minister has been bold enough to take a stand against a bully. It is no secret that if the Spanish suddenly occupied the Rock, they could easily overwhelm the Royal Navy protecting it and close the border between the two countries, destroying the British Overseas Territory's economy in the process. To give credit where its due, then today it belongs to Mr. Picardo, who seems to be the Rock's modern day equivalent to Winston Churchill at the moment. With two key allies in Britain and America, there is no reason why Gibraltar's Chief Minister should not feel secure in attacking their Spanish neighbours. Before the events of the last three weeks, not many people had heard of Mr. Picardo, but the irony is that Brexit, an outcome he wanted to avoid, has made him the hero the Rock needs at this time. 'Grow up!' Two words a parent would say to their children when they are fighting or misbehaving. And a typical response from one of the siblings being naughty would be 'it wasn't me, it was him/her.' But this is exactly how Spain is reacting in its war of words with Britain over Gibraltar. During today's and last Tuesday's incursions by the Spanish Navy to intercept British waters, the Spanish Government were quick to deny they were provoking the Royal Navy, like a naughty children who fails to take responsibility for their actions. If I were Prime Minister Theresa May, I would inform the Spaniards that they need to stop behaving like children over its historical claim to the Rock. Some people question the relevance history has as a subject on the National Curriculum, but it is taught to us for a reason; to prevent future generations from repeating the mistakes of the past. Ever since the creation of NATO, Europe has been at peace. With Spain and Britain being key players in this alliance, this has helped prevent numerous European countries engage in conflict over territorial disputes. But what do the Spanish hope to achieve by provoking a fellow ally and (for now) member of the EU? The point is, history should remind the Spanish of their humiliating attempts to challenge Britain's status over Gibraltar and what happens every time Spain uses an opportunity to challenge the British. In 1779, the Spaniards allied with the Americans during their Revolution, which culminated in a three-year battle over the Rock in between 1779-82 that Spain lost. They did the same again in 1804 when they joined the French in battling the British during the Napoleonic Wars. But the Spanish were instead occupied by the French. Now that's what you call karma. And again, the Spaniards have used another attempt to undermine the British to try and reclaim its sovereignty over the Rock. If Mrs May took Lord Howard's advice literally in the wake of constant Spanish incursions into Gibraltar's waters, it may serve to benefit the current Spanish Government to read some historical textbooks, 'grow up' and accept the Rock will remain British, with or without Brexit. Nuclear Concerns as North Korea prepare to celebrate the "DAY OF THE SUN" Approximately 200 reporters including those from Japan and U.S are in the capital of North Korea Pyongyang, as the North Korean's prepare to celebrate the "Day Of The Sun" on April 15th, marking the 105th anniversary of the birth of the countries founder and Kim Jong-un's grandfather Kim II Sang, there are growing concerns that the North just might be planning to hold it's 6th Nuclear test in a decade, even though historically they have never done Nuclear tests on this date. These concerns are raised due to satellite images from U.S- based monitoring group 38 North. The images of the North's Punggye-ri site on the 12th of April showed, "continued activity around the North Portal, new activity in the main administrative area, and a few personnel around the sites command centre" stated 38 North on their website. Journalists, we're woken up before dawn and told to leave their mobile phones and wear suits and taken to an undisclosed location, where their Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un showed up and opened a new highrise apartment complex in spite of U.N sanctions. However later there were images of Kim Jong-un at a specials operations military exercise, where his commandos were jumping out of aircraft. Effectively giving off a show of military and economic strength. Japan's Nikkei business paper said on Thursday that the U.S had sent a "sniffer" plane to Japan to monitor any nuclear tests. North Korea historically marks significant dates with shows of military force and analysts presume that they might detonate a Nuclear weapon to celebrate the birthday this Saturday. Doing this will, however, serve as a big test to Trumps already aggressive stance towards the North. Nuclear Activity Mt. Mantap is the world's only active nuclear test site after most other nuclear states gave us such activity in a bid to end arms races and their costly repercussions of military actions and reactions. North Korea does their testing by burying approximately 5,000 feet high, that's about halfway up this mountain of 7'234 feet. Previous test sites five and two were done at 2,625 feet deep with a magnitude of 5.3 and 1,600 feet deep with a magnitude of 4.5. To prevent radioactive spilling the test site is usually partly backfilled, and underground tunnels culminate in a hook, allowing them to seal themselves up after a blast. A design believed to have come from Pakistani nuclear tests. Experts now rely on a kind of seismologic data used to track earthquakes to pinpoint the geographic site of a nuclear blast. Each of the Norths detonations generated shock waves that registered across the globe. By spacing their nuclear tests, doing 5 in a span of 10 years, Siegfried S. Hecker a former director of the Los Alamos weapons laboratory in New Mexico, the birthplace of the atomic bomb stated, "You can learn a lot in that time." Nine countries are known to possess nuclear arms, most having advanced from simple atomic bombs to more complicated hydrogen bombs. Nuclear experts estimate North Korea is between stage 1 and 3, an intermediate stage of development. Stating that the way to achieve more destructive power is by raising the amount of thermonuclear fuel that an exploding atom bomb can ignite. Sean Spicer, the Press Secretary for Donald Trumps White House, created a heck of a headline this afternoon at todays press briefing, when he compared Trumps latest enemy to a certain Nazi dictator that Trump himself has often been compared to. He spoke ill of Russia for standing by Bashar al-Assad, the President of Syria, following his chemical weapons attack on his own citizens. Spicer said that even somebody as despicable as Adolf Hitler did not go as far as to sink to the use of chemical weapons. One reporter asked Spicer to clarify, because Hitler did sink to that One of the journalists in the room finally asked Spicer to clarify what he was on about, because Hitler and his Nazi cronies sunk to using gas chambers to wipe out millions of Jews and other non-Aryan minority groups they wanted rid of. Spicer then dug himself into a deeper hole by saying that while Hitler did use gas, he did not use it against his own people the same way that Assad is doing. But yes, he did. German Jews and gypsies were Hitlers own people, right? The reporters in the room were very quick to remind Spicer that there was that thing called the Holocaust that Hitler did in which a few chemical weapons were thrown around, because when someone in the White House makes a glaring mistake in their (alternative) facts, journalists go nuts. Spicer does remember the Holocaust, it turns out. He was listening in history class when his teacher told him Hitler used deadly gases in the Holocaust centres...I understand that. Spicer was misunderstood by spectators Spicer cleared up his comments later, saying that he was in no way attempting to lessen the horrendous nature of the Holocaust. See, journalists have seen his comments as making light of the Holocaust. Instead, he means to emphasise how terrible and devastating the Syrian chemical weapons attack was by draw(ing) a contrast between it and the Holocaust. He then refocused on Assad, saying that Hitler didnt gas innocent people. Of course he did, unless being Jewish or being black or being disabled is a crime. Spicer said that the way that Assad used (chemical weapons), going into towns and dropping them on innocent people, before just ending the statement there and kind of trailing off. He could clearly see how much hed f*cked up by even mentioning Hitler when he said that being taken to task on his lack of knowledge about World War II was not the intent of his comments. News outlets are trying to make sense of Spicers remarks Spicer, tugging at his sweaty collar and taking a big gulp, cleared the air a little bit by finally saying that both the Syrian attack and the Holocaust are reprehensible and inexcusable. News outlets, confused by the shocking and probably historical moment, went to historians. Apparently most historians actually agree with Spicer that the Nazis did not use chemical weapons during the Second World War. CNN said that while Hitler was faced with a mustard gas attack whilst serving in World War I, he did not sign off on the Nazis using chemical weapons against Allied forces, even when Allied forces were showing signs of winning. So who knows? Its the era of alternative facts. Officials from Gibraltar have confirmed that a Spanish gunship has entered British waters off the Rock in a second illegal move to antagonise Britain. A Spanish Navy ship called Infanta Cristina embarked upon a similar move last week, where the Royal Navy forced it to leave. These events emerge amid increasing Brexit tensions over the Rock's future. Last Tuesday, the Foreign Office said the Royal Navy 'successfully challenges all unlawful maritime incursions into British Gibraltar Territorial Waters.' However, Spain's foreign ministry refuted the claim, saying the ship was sailing through Spanish territorial waters. Both Prime Minister Theresa May and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson confirmed to the people of Gibraltar that the British Overseas Territory will remain British once Brexit has been fully implemented. Mrs May would 'go to war' Gibraltar's Chief Minister, Fabian Picardo, has said he remains committed to the Rock remaining as a British Overseas Territory. The Infanta Cristina entered British waters last Tuesday lunchtime as part of a venture the Gibrlatar Government said was an 'illegal incursion.' But it soon left the waters after it was challenged by the Royal Navy's HMS Scimitar. This incident came a day after the Spanish Government suggested the British should 'calm down' over Gibraltar's future. Spanish Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis made the remarks in response to former Conservative leader Michael Howard's comments over the Rock. The former Tory home secretary said on The Sunday Politics Mrs May is willing to 'go to war' over the British Overseas Territory's future. 'Like a cuckolded husband' An EU document suggested Spain would be provided with a veto on post-Brexit agreements regarding Gibraltar, meaning they could use upcoming negotiations as an opportunity to deny Britain access to the Single Market if it does not surrender its sovereignty over the Rock. Mr. Picardo, said the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, was behaving like 'a cuckolded husband who is taking it out on the children' for allowing Spain to use Brexit as an opportunity to settle its historical claims to the Rock. US President Donald Trump also provided his support for the Prime Minister's position on Gibraltar. However, Lord Howard compared Mrs May to his former boss, Margaret Thatcher, who went to war to defend the Falkland Islands from an Argentinian invasion in 1982. Following the former Tory leader's comments, former UKIP leader Nigel Farage said the EU had made an 'absolutely catastrophic error' and Britain would not be intimidated. 'A UN breach' A spokesman for HM Government of Gibraltar said Infanta Cristina's incursion was a 'breach of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.' But it remains unclear which Spanish ship carried out today's incursion. This event represents the emerging difficulties the Prime Minister will have in trying to secure Gibraltar's future as a British Overseas Territory once Britain prepares to negotiate its way out of the European Union. It also adds to the sense of anxiety people travelling to Spain from Gibraltar, and vice versa, for work face over the complexities of negotiating a successful outcome for both sides. A lack of certainty over how Brexit would affect Gibraltar's status resulted in the Remain side winning a 96% share of the vote in last year's EU Referendum. The Rock has had three referendums in 1967, 2002 and 2013 to decide whether or not it wants to remain British, and in each one, the people of Gibraltar voted overwhelmingly in favour of remaining as a British Overseas Territory. Spain lost Gibraltar to the British in 1704 during the War of Spanish Succession. The Rock's status as a British colony was confirmed by the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) which ended the conflict. However, the Spanish attempted to retake Gibraltar during the American Revolution (1775-83) where it fought a three year battle over the Rock (1779-1782) and lost. The British also managed to prevent the Spanish from reclaiming the Rock during the Napoleonic Wars when Spain allied with the French in 1804. More follows on this story. NORTH KOREA'S MISSILE AND NUCLEAR HISTORY North Korea started missile tests in the year 1993 with the latest happening in April 2017. The first missile was a Rodong missile, a single-stage liquid propellant medium-range ballistic missile, developed in the mid-1980's by North Korea as a scaled up adaptation of the Soviets SS-1 more commonly known by its NATO reporting name Scud. In 1999 it agrees to a moratorium on long-range missile tests, in 2005 it fires short-range missiles into the Sea Of Japan, in what has been interpreted as political gestures. After failed missile tests in July of 2006 and July of 2009, in 2012 they successfully launched a three-stage rocket containing Kwangmyongsong-3 unit 2 satellite. in 2013 and 2014 they conducted missile tests and in May 2015 claimed a successful missile launch from a submarine. In February 2016 they had the successful launch of the Kwangmyongsong-4 satellite, in the same year they designed a test engine for an intercontinental ballistic #missile and also claims to launch a missile capable of striking the United States. In February 2017 North Korea launched its first medium-range ballistic missile the Pukguksong-2 missile over the Sea of Japan. In March 2017 North Korea launches four ballistic missiles from the Tonghchan-ri launch site in the North West. Some flew up to 620 miles before falling into the Sea of Japan. In April North Korea fired a middle-range ballistic missile from its Eastern port of Sinpo into the Sea of Japan. On the Nuclear side, North Korea started its Nuclear tests in 2006 and over the span of a decade has done tests also in 2009, 2013 and twice in 2016. All the tests were done underground with the first test registering a yield at 2KT (kilotons), later revised to 0.7KT by The Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources, a state-run Geology institute in Germany. The same institute in 2016 registered an initial yield of 25KT. As you can see the increase in yield is substantial. THE TENSION BETWEEN NORTH KOREA AND THE UNITED STATES Now since President Kim Jong-un formally came to power in April 2012, he has continued to push the agenda of defence and military strength. As the new government in the United States comes into place President Donald Trump decided to send an armada into the Korean Peninsula in response to Kim Jong-uns missile and nuclear threat. North Korea is not taking this lightly as their officials state "they would counter reckless acts of aggression with whatever methods the U.S wants to take." While also stating "We will make the U.S fully accountable for the catastrophic consequences that may be brought abut by it's high-handed and outrageous acts." President Trump on Tuesday responded on Twitter stating, "North Korea is looking for trouble. If China decides to help that would be great. If not, we will solve the problem without them! U.S.A " He also states "I explained to the President of China that a trade deal with the U.S will be far better for them if they solve the North Korea problem." This has the makings of a stage set for a #showdown, which I would offer would not be the best route to go, because of the collateral damage of a war between these two countries both with nuclear capabilities. The collateral damage would be of obscene amounts... Frankly, I am not convinced that a war will be worth it, in the long run, I support the ideology of peace over war all the time. We'll be keeping a close eye on this, and time though will tell, what happens. Do keep watch for updates on this issue from us in the future. Ukip was created as a container for hard-right Eurosceptic but could reimage themselves and use left wing arguments to great effect. They created a perception that they stood up for the working classes. This gained them some popularity that flourished under Nigel Farages leadership. Where they forced the Conservatives to promise a referendum on the UKs membership to the European Union (EU) in the run up to the 2015 general election. But has UKIP run its course? With a couple of Conservative defectors including Douglas Carswell and Arron Banks as a major donor they were growing but after Brexit what is next for the party? Post-Brexit UKIP The party has seen Brexit as their great success and legacy, but others more liberal minded will see the rise in hate crime and deep rooted divisions within society as their legacy. They increasingly and constantly used toxic language to stir the dissatisfaction towards Westminster against institutions such as the EU. It has even contributed to the Conservatives lurch towards the right, and despite several UKIP MEPs they have done little to help change or improve the EU either. However, since the 23rd June 2016, UKIP has struggled to adapt itself from the vote to leave the EU. They have lost Arron Banks as a major donor and Nigel Farage spends most of his time in America attempting to climb Trumps greasy pole. Douglas Carswell, their only MP quit the party stating that it was mission accomplished. Current Leader Paul Nuttall failed to capitalise on the Brexit support during the Stoke-on-Trent by election, where Labour held. Furthermore, they are only contesting just 48% of council seats in Mays local election, less than the Green party. UKIPS lack of direction Whether it is a lack of funding or they are focusing their efforts on seats they have more chance at success hasnt been confirmed. However, this highlights a clear decline for UKIP though. They have no real push for an alternative message, they have lent heavily on Euroscepticism throughout the country and have seen a decline in support since Brexit and the Conservatives increasingly right wing approach. The party offer little else and with sexist, racist, xenophobic plus other abhorrent remarks by several leading members, they are often in the news for the wrong reasons. They have little else of substance within the manifesto that blamed immigration or the EU at every opportunity. But the issue for them is that they have two fronts of attack, immigration and the EU. With one of those removed from the equation, they are more likely to become BNP 2.0. UKIP need to find another approach or platform soon but with political apathy rising and a system that needs a serious overhaul. The question currently remains, how long before UKIP follow the BNPs route back to obscurity? Tillerson's mission It's not every day an American Secretary of State flies into Russia with a serious agenda. Rex Tillerson, it seems means business as he meets his counterpart, Sergei Lavrov and both want to see where the other one is coming from. Tensions have obviously escalated since the American air strike on the Syrian base in retaliation for Assad's chemical attack. Tillerson may have as some have described dubious links to the Russians never the less he is hoping to pull Russia away from its orbit of supporting Bashar al-Assad. Is Tillerson on a hopeless quest? How likely is it that Rex Tillerson a hard-bitten negotiator previously from the oil industry can make Putin see sense and distance himself from Assad? Well, when you consider that Bashar al-Assad is Russia's man in the Middle East and ensures their writ runs in Syria not very likely. The Russians have a naval base on the Med on the Syrian coast and have military personnel there so they have too much to lose in giving up Assad. The most likely outcome of the meeting between Tillerson and Lavrov is some kind of compromise deal. Although tensions exist now between Russia and America neither wants to see Syria become an Islamic state run by Jihadis of either Islamic State or Al Qaeda. This could be a working basis by which a compromise agreement can be made and hopefully de-escalate simmering tensions between the two sides. What was said before Tillerson's meeting As Rex Tillerson arrived in Moscow for talks with Sergei Lavrov a Russian deputy foreign minister described the American behaviour as "Loutish and primitive". Sergei Ryabkov was the minister who said this and said the Americans position on the 6-year long Syrian war remains a mystery. Vladimir Putin is apparently humiliated by the American air strike even though the Americans supposedly briefed him. Why does he feel humiliated one could ask well there could be many reasons but those are best known to him. One thing is certain though Tillerson's counterpart Sergei Lavrov and the other Sergei have said they regard the American attack as provocative and illegal. Maybe next time and God forbid there is a next time the Russians will take action against US interests in the Middle East. As if to prove this in the aftermath of the American strike the Russians said they would be beefing up Syrian air defences. Tillerson and Lavrov Both men know that in their negotiations there is now a lot at stake and perhaps the Syrian conflict could cause a wider conflagration. Let us hope that in their talks the deal they hammer out will be for a peaceful way forward for Syria and the world at large. pakistan is a state carved out of British India by the machinations of the English rulers. Unfortunately, the nation has degenerated into chaos and Islamic militancy. The nation is itself faced by a local homegrown Islamic movement. In 2014 the radical Islamic militants attacked a school in Peshawar and massacred over 150 children. Pakistan which had introduced a moratorium on death penalty in 2008 revoked it and death by hanging was restored. Initially, this was only for terror-related crimes, but within 2 months was extended to all crimes that merited a death penalty as per the PPC. The Pakistan government has now gone on an execution spree and over 400 convicts have been executed by hanging in 2016. 94% of the persons hanged are for non-terrorist related crimes like murder. The latest person to be awarded the death penalty is the alleged Indian agent Kulbhushan Yadav. Amnesty international has adversely commented on these hangings, where very little opportunity is given to an accused to defend himself. Most executions Pakistan is in the dubious company of China and Saudi Arabia which have carried out the maximum executions since 1989. China leads but numbers are not available as the execution data is kept secret. Yet thousands are executed every year, mostly by firing squads. Saudi Arabia carries out execution as per the Sharia by beheading the convict. In Pakistan, the mode for hanging is death by the noose. This is in vogue since British days. 400 hanged to death in 2016 The judicial system in Pakistan is antiquated and many a time a convict does not have an opportunity to defend himself. Many courts award the death sentence as a routine, with the result that hundreds are on death row in Pakistan. The Pakistan government enforces the death penalty rigidly and over 400 were hanged to death last year.Pakistan thus is fertile ground for Killing Fields. The law in Pakistan appears inadequate. In a recent verdict, the Pak Supreme Court acquited 2 individuals of the charge of murder, after they had already been executed. Even the Pak prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was hanged to death on dubious evidence by the man who had ousted him, general Zia ul Haq. Last word The state of Pakistan is riven by violence and crime. Despite the hangings, the terror acts and crimes have not come down but have shown a marked increase. Pakistan also has the dubious distinction of enforcing the punishment of death for blasphemy. This has been adversely commented upon by the USA. Research undertaken by ecologists from the Mexican National Autonomous University has revealed that the proposed border wall with Mexico will turn out to be an ecological disaster because it will have an adverse effect on the wellbeing of at least 800 species of wildlife. They will forfeit their freedom of movement and that will lead to a disturbance of the ecosystem. The crux of the problem Fox News reports that according to the study, the creation of a physical barrier in the form of a border wall will break up the present ecosystem which is home to animals like jaguars, black bears, and bighorn sheep. The result will mean not only a disruption in the pattern of their migration but also to several associated problems. Professor Gerardo Ceballos, the leader of the research team, has devoted the last six months traveling the full length of the border, from Tijuana to Texas. He has pointed out that the U.S.-Mexico border consists of mountains, jungle, coastline, and wildlife have always enjoyed full freedom to hunt, reproduce and migrate. He goes on to add that nearly 800 species of wildlife would face the heat and 140 of them are already in danger of extinction these are the bald eagle, grey wolf, armadillo, and jaguar. The range of their movement will reduce drastically and this will, in turn, affect their reproduction patterns. Suggestions on how to avoid the eco-disaster Professor Gerardo Ceballos feels that if the purpose of the wall is to prevent entry of illegal immigrants from Mexico into the U.S., it could be achieved by other more effective and less harmful methods. One option could be to resort to aerial surveillance or augment the presence of Border Patrol. These would be better options because these would not destroy the ecosystem. AnimaNaturalis is the leading animal rights organization of Mexico and its founder Leonora Esquivel, has indicated that her organization will take up cudgels on this issue in case the construction of the border wall gets the approval of the U.S. Congress. Her organization had recently taken up the cause of animals performing in circuses and succeeded in banning the practice. In her opinion, the border region is an area of natural beauty and diversity. Playing around with the ecosystems and introducing a physical barrier is detrimental to the wellbeing of wildlife. Ecology plays an important part in our lives and environmentalists cry themselves hoarse whenever they feel there is an imminent threat. In view of the revelations of the study, it would be worthwhile for the authorities to reexamine the Mexican border wall issue and ensure that the ecological balance is not disturbed. Over the last week and a half, the story that has dominated the news cycle has been Donald Trump and his allegations that former President Barack Obama wiretapped his office inside Trump Tower. With the White House still refusing to release evidence to back up the claim, one host on MSNBC has had enough. MSNBC on Trump Ever since his upset election win over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton last November, the pressure has counted to mount on Donald Trump in regards to the scandal linking his administration to the Russian government. Days after the Washington Post broke the bombshell story revealing that current Attorney General Jeff Sessions had been in contact with the ambassador to Russia during the election, the former host of "The Apprentice" scrambled to change the narrative. Taking to his Twitter account, Trump pushed the aforementioned wiretapping conspiracy, but has since refused to issue any further comment. After the Department of Justice asked Congress for more time to find proof, MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski decided to give her thoughts during the March 14 edition of "Morning Joe." The House Intelligence Committee had requested evidence of Donald Trump's wiretapping claim, and gave a deadline of Monday. However, the White House pushed for an extension via the Justice Department, and Mika Brzezinski is now calling out the president. "If the president was lying, don't you think at some point he ought to say, 'I apologize, I am just an idiot,'" Brzezinski said, before adding that Trump might also want to say of himself, "I will not do that again, because it was idiotic." Justice Department asks for more time on Trump wiretapping claim https://t.co/6XsandOAdT pic.twitter.com/wAqijtYS04 Fox News (@FoxNews) March 14, 2017 "Were you lying, Mr. President?," Mika Brzezinski went on to ask. "Did you make it up? Was it some little spurt of activity that you had out of need to have action?" she continued. The MSNBC host referred to Trump's claim as a "very serious allegation," while also ripping into White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer for defending the "ridiculious" allegation. Moving forward As of press time, no evidence has been released by the White House to validate the allegations made by Donald Trump. Since the claim was first made, Barack Obama released a statement denying any wrongdoing, and only time will tell how the situation concludes. According to "All Christian News" on Monday, March 13, 2017, a pastor is being accused by another pastor of setting fire to his own church in order to collect insurance money. While this is a sad and unbelievable story, there is evidence that this has allegedly happened on more than one occasion. Accused of setting fires Pastor Thaddeus Matthews in Memphis, Tennessee is claiming that Pastor Stephen L. Brown set fire to his church so he could collect insurance money. In fact, Matthews has accused Brown of setting two fires. The first fire occurred at the Light of Glory International Church in Memphis in 2010 just two years after the church was started. It took more than 60 firefighters to put out the fire. A 45-year-old firefighter was overcome with heat exhaustion and taken to the hospital where he later recovered. The roof of the church partially collapsed. Brown collected $400,000 from the Insurance Company in addition to donations from church members and people in the community. Brown requested $1.1 million from the insurance company for damages caused by a second fire. Reportedly, the insurance company has declined to honor Brown's request for compensation. However, the pastor is not giving up on his claim. He plans to appeal the insurance company's decision. Pastor's advice Pastor Matthews is advising Pastor Brown not to repeal the insurance company's decision because the fires are suspicious, and if the cases are turned over to federal investigators, the pastor could go to jail for arson if he had anything to do with the two fires. Matthews also believes that if Brown pushes the issue, the insurance company might make it extremely hard for other churches who might have a legitimate claim. Did the pastor start the fires at his own church? Even though the insurance company paid $400,000 for the first fire, Pastor Matthews believes Pastor Brown had something to do with both fires. The insurance company is standing firm on its decision not to honor the $1.1 million claim. When Donald Trump was running for president, he crafted a unique foreign policy that talked tough on building up the military, but promised not in act too aggressively in areas where the United States was not heavily involved. Over the last week, the president has made foreign policy decisions that have left many scratching their heads. Bomb dropping One of the biggest talking points used by Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election was that he would destroy the Islamic State (ISIS) starting from the day he got into office. No one really knew what to make of Trump's rhetoric, as he's been known to make comments but not always deliver with action. Two weeks ago, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad launched a chemical attack that killed close to 100 of his own people, including dozens of innocent women and children. In response, Trump ordered the military to fire 59 tomahawk cruise missiles at a Syrian airbase, which has resulted in a mixed reaction from both critics and supporters. Just a week after the attack on Syria, the United States military dropped the largest non-nuclear bomb in history on a tunnel in Afghanistan that was being used by ISIS. As reported by Bloomberg on April 13, the president has broken his silence. The military dropped a 21,000-pound bomb called the GBU-43B on the ISIS tunnel and complex located in the eastern part of Afghanistan on Thursday morning. The bomb is also known under several other names, like "MOAB" or "Massive Ordnance Air Blast," but it's more popular nickname is the "Mother of all bombs." The bomb was first available to be used in 2003 during the start of the Iraq War under former President George W. Bush, as well as in later years by then President Barack Obama. Both commanders in chief, however, declined to use the weapon. BREAKING: U.S. military drops largest non-nuclear bomb in arsenal on ISIS tunnel in Afghanistan, @ckubeNBC reports NBC News (@NBCNews) April 13, 2017 Trump Speaks on Bomb Dropped in Afghanistan: Very Successful Mission https://t.co/1GsbKnzKbk (VIDEO) pic.twitter.com/IjkTF37l7r Mediaite (@Mediaite) April 13, 2017 Trump's take While addressing reporters in the White House on Thursday, Donald Trump praised the dropping of the bomb, while taking time to gloat over what took place. Trump referred the action as a "very successful mission" and that he was "very proud of the military." When asked if he was the one who authorized the dropping of the bomb, the billionaire real estate mogul didn't give a straight answer, but simply replied, "Everybody knows exactly what happened." Trump's comments were similar to the vague nature of the remarks made earlier in the day by White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer who took questions from reporters during a press briefing. The Daily Mail apologized to First Lady Melania Trump on Wednesday and agreed to pay an undisclosed sum of money to cover damage from the two lawsuits stemming from an article that suggested that she was an escort before meeting the president. The Daily Mail issues a full retraction and apology A lawyer for the British tabloid said that the publication acknowledges that the story they publish was not true and they would like to withdraw from them. He went on to say that the newspaper would like to offer a genuine apology to Mrs. Trump and for any stress it may have caused to her personally and to her businesses. To settle the lawsuits, The Daily Mail agreed to pay her damages and all her legal costs. The settlement details The terms of the settlement weren't immediately available, according to The New York Times. She had initially asked for damages to the tune of $150 million, at least, but that's not what she received. Mrs. Trump received $2.9 million for damages. While it wasn't the amount she originally asked, Melania's attorney said she was pleased with the offer. How it came to legal action The Daily Mail published the article in August and used quotes from a magazine based in Slovenia, the country Mrs. Trump was born. In September, Melania announced her plans to sue the magazine, as well as a Maryland blogger. The British tabloid quickly posted a retraction once they knew it was not true. Trump went forward with the lawsuit. The state of Maryland rejected the lawsuit, stating they didn't have jurisdiction to hear the case. Melania filed a new case in New York in early February. The case doesn't mention the White House or President Trump. The lawsuit claims that the article caused her to lose business revenue and alleged that her value depreciated because of the things stated about her. Melania Trump wins $2.9 million in damages from Daily Mail, gets apology. pic.twitter.com/3uW6XAOhA8 Tennessee (@TEN_GOP) April 12, 2017 According to BBC, Trump's lawsuit stated, "Melania has a unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity... to launch a broad-based commercial brand in multiple product categories, each of which could have garnered multi-million dollar business relationships for a multi-year term during which [she] is one of the most photographed women in the world". Statement from Trump's attorney According to the New York Times, Melania's attorney, Charles Harder confirmed the settlement in a statement. He said,"The legal actions concerned allegations published in late August 2016 questioning the nature of work undertaken by Mrs. Trump in the 1990s when she worked as a professional model and republished the allegations that she provided services beyond simple modeling." According to the attorney, the August 2016 article also alleged that Donald and Melania met three years before they claim, suggesting that she was "his call girl." You can see how that could be damaging to her reputation. The magazine admitted that the allegations were not true, and they hope to Mrs. Trump will forgive them for the inflammatory article. The Daily Mail only retracted part of the story The publication admitted that Melania never worked as an escort, but stood by the claim the first lady initially met Trump in 1995, not in 1998 at Fashion Week as they claim. In Melania Trump's eyes, this case is closed, and she accepted The Daily Mail's apology for publishing to the damaging story. Daily Mail Apologizes, Pays Damages To First Lady Melania Trump For Defaming Herhttps://t.co/afRM1BHXlS pic.twitter.com/UMyDg7xMo2 Gary Nabhan (@GPN14) April 12, 2017 Do you think The Daily Mail will think twice before posting a fake story about someone else? Did you believe the scoop that Melania Trump was an escort? The Daily Mail stated they would publish the details of the settlement and the retraction in the US and UK online versions. They will pay $2.9 million in damages, plus pay Mrs. Trump's legal fees. With news that #President Trump has Changed his mind on the virtues of #NATO on Thursday, critics and analysts around the world dug deep into his changing ideologies and pointed out his shift in thinking and attitude. The #NATO alliance has in fact not changed much at all in the last three months, and if there have been any transformations in its structure or objectives these were most certainly put in place before Trump arrived in the West Wing. Persuasion works President Trump has, for the past few weeks, been lobbied, persuaded and informed by both his own inner core team as well as those leaders in the UK and Germany on the virtues of the #NATO group. And he has, we are led to believe, found new positives in an organization that he once called musty and outdated. But as #Ivo Daalder, currently head of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, points out, nothing really has changed in the last 80 days in NATO. And Daalder should know. He was an ambassador to NATO when President Barack Obama was in office and knows the lay of the land. Daaldo added that the one element that has changed is Trump's understanding and appreciation of the alliance and how it makes #Europe and beyond a safer and more stable place. Now that President Trump is facing a renewed threat from Russia, his views of #NATO have changed. And for good reason. If the United States is to be in conflict with the Soviet super force, then Trump will need NATO to protect US interests. But it was a different story a few months ago. When running for the presidential election, Donald Trump had roundly criticized NATO, calling it an old fashioned and obsolete institution which suffered from musty thinking and outdate attitudes, one that focused on the adversaries of yore, and not sophisticated new threats. Trump explained the NATO connection as a burden to over-drained American resources and emphasized this by claiming that many in the organization didnt pay for their share of expenses and that the United States had to dig deep into their pockets to fund the alliance's objectives. . No longer obsolete But yesterday Trump described NATO as being rehabilitated, and he took credit himself for championing it and turning it into a cost sharing and new age terrorism-fighting stronghold of Europe and the US. He described it as being 'no longer obsolete', this on Wednesday as he generously met with NATOs secretary general Jens Stoltenberg at the White House. Fox News is reporting that The United States has dropped the largest nonnuclear bomb in its arsenal on an ISIS tunnel complex in Nangarhar Province in Eastern Afghanistan. The GBU-43B Massive Ordinance Air Blast weapon, known popularly as the mother of all bombs was developed during the early days of the Iraq War but has never before been used in combat. The MOAB contained 21,000 pounds of explosives and made a 300-meter blast crater. The weapon was delivered by an MC-130 aircraft. As of this writing, American military personnel are assessing the damage wrought by the MOAB weapon. The United States military has not yet revealed why the weapon was used, but likely two considerations came into play. The MOAB was designed to wipe out an extended area such as an enemy base. Since the target was described as being a tunnel system, the weapon was likely deployed to collapse the complex using its blast effects. The bomb also likely wiped out every ISIS jihadi in the strike zone with devastating results to that organizations plans for Afghanistan. The other reason the MOAB was used was likely psychological. Big explosions that wiped out an entire target along with anyone in it tend to be impressive and fearsome. The use of the weapon sends a message to every enemy of the United States that is hard to ignore. Whether the enemy is ISIS or some other entity, such as North Korea, it must be wondering what is coming next and whether it would be wise to concentrate too much in a single place. While the use of the MOAB is said to have been under consideration for months, its deployment constitutes part of a new aggressive strategy on the part of the United States. It comes on the heels of a missile strike on a Syrian airfield that was used to launch a Sarin gas attack as well as the deployment of a United States Navy carrier battle group off the coast of North Korea to counter that countrys threats to launch nuclear weapons against its enemies. The message is quite clear. If you propose to become a problem for the United States, then you should be prepared to be attacked and destroyed. After eight years of a relatively passive national security policy on the part of the Obama administration, the new approach is at once bracing and frightening. Enemies of the United States always have the option to stop being a problem. Indeed, that would be the preferred outcome of the deployment of a shock and awe weapons such as the MOAB. Thursday was a Big Day in a big week in the #United States and things showed no signs of slowing down. In no particular order: President Trump expressed a newfound appreciate for NATO today, calling it a great alliance which was a complete turnaround on his previous NATO views, since he had once described the international organization as 'obsolete'. Elsewhere on Thursday, there was the shocking death of a prominent high court judge as well as both a misdirected bomb in Syria and a mega blast that the US military issue to ISIS held caves in Afghanistan. NATO turnaround President Trump is increasingly known for his changeable thinking, and Thursday was no different. He decided this week to celebrate #NATO as a leading alliance with new thinking and aims, this after disparaging the organization last year when he was running for President. He met with some #NATO senior leaders in the White House and was seen to be celebrating the newfound common ground between the leaders of Europe and America. The meeting took place between Jens Stoltenberg, the secretary general of Alliance and Trump at a press conference on Wednesday. New York judge dies In New York on Thursday, news spread about the death of #Sheila Abdus-Salaam, a judge on New York States highest court, whose body was discovered in the Hudson River in Manhattan on Wednesday. There were no signs of trauma and later reports spoke of the suicide of her brother a few years earlier, as well as the death of her mother a year ago. Abdus-Salaamwas a judge at #New York States loftiest court and she served justice as the first black woman ever in that position. She was fully clothed when her body was taken out of the Hudson River, and even there was uncertainty surrounding her death but it wasn't being treated as suspicious. Her surviving husband has clarified and identified that it was her body. Abdus-Salaam had been one of only seven judges within the #State Court of Appeals since 2013. Mr Cuomo, who had nominated her, spoke of her working lass roots and her deep and compassionate understanding of the issues facing New Yorkers every day. In nominating her, #Cuomo had tried to diversify the court, and a second African American judge, Rowan Wilson, joined her in the court only recently this year. Abdus-Salaam was a steadfast liberal and was very reliable and trusted, and often saw on level with vulnerable parties, such as immigrants and the mentally ill when they appeared against more powerful New Yorkers. US airstrike mistakenly kills 18 Elsewhere on Thursday, news came that an airstrike by the United States' coalition bombed and killed 18 Syrian soldiers who had actually sided with the US, the military reported. The Tuesday bombing blast took place in Tabqah, Syria, and it was the third time in four weeks that US coalition strikes had injured or taken down allies or indeed civilians. This most recent bombing was asked for by coalition allies who are based around the city of Tabqah, according to the US military's central intelligence headquarters where the combat operations in the Middle East are managed and overseen. Another bomb is dropped In other bombing news, on Thursday news arrived that the United States set off the mother of all bombs on a cave held by the Islamic State in Afghanistan according to the Pentagon. The bomb was the largest non-nuclear bomb in the US's stockpile and it was so huge that it had to be deposited from the back of a cargo airplane. Technically known as the GBU-43-B Massive Ordnance Air Blast, it struck a deep underground burrow complex within the #Nangarhar Province of #Afghanistan, and the US military didn't state exactly how many deaths resulted but the number is expected to be sizable. The White House accused Russia and Syria, with the most serious charge so far, arguing that there is incontrovertible evidence that Syria used sarin (a chemical weapon with extreme potency) in an air strike last week, and that Russia is trying to cover up the attack and is thus helping their allies. "The Syrian regime and its primary ally Russia want to confuse the world by not admitting its responsibility for the use of chemical weapons against the Syrian people in this and in the previous attacks," the US National Security Council said in a statement the statement. Russia bombed a hospital The press release states that the use of chemical weapons is "unacceptable" and represents "a clear threat" to the United States and the world. Although it does not mention Russia specifically, the communication warns: "This is a critical moment - we need to show that deception and false facts have no weight and that excuses of those who protect their allies make the world a more dangerous place." The three officials of the administration of the US President Donald Trump, who wanted to remain anonymous because of commenting on classified information, confirmed for USA Today that Syria and its ally Russia are trying to cover up evidence of an attack with chemical weapons in the town of Khan Sajkun, which killed 50 -100 civilians, including a large number of children. US officials said that the testimony of eyewitnesses, video footage from the field, hospital records, and analysis of the World Health Organization, all indicate that it was sarin. Also, medical testing samples of blood and urine of victims conducted in Turkey have confirmed that precisely this type of extremely deadly poison was used in the attack. The rebels were not able to manufacture evidence in such a short time Rebels are simply not able to manufacture such evidence in such a short time, it was explained further in the statement, which was released just in time as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the United States Rex Tillerson was traveling to a meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow. Associated Press reports that the Pentagon were aware of the drone, probably Russian, which was flying above the place of the attack. Shortly after the attack, that plane bombed a hospital where survivors were transported for treatment. US officials believe that Russia thus attempted to conceal evidence of war crimes of their allies. Although Trump in recent days did not comment on further plans of the United States regarding Syria, his colleagues confirmed that the US is ready to carry out new attacks against the regime of Bashar al-Assad in the event that its forces use the poisonous gas again. In a statement, the US Department of Defense said that the rocket attack on the airbase Sejrat destroyed 20% of operable aircraft of the Syrian army, as well as platforms for filling ammunition, fuel, and air defense. Thanks to the destruction of the Syrian Air Force assets, using a single airstrip is at the moment, of "military worthless interest," the statement added. The Pentagon has confirmed that the US Military has dropped the largest non-nuclear bomb called M.O.A.B an acronym for Massive Ordinance Air Burst Bomb at a suspected ISIS headquarters in afghanistan. The attack was in retaliation for the death of a Green Barrett soldier in the country a few days before during a firefight with Taliban and ISIS insurgents. The bomb is also nicknamed the "Mother of all bombs" due to its massive size. What is M.O.A.B.? The MOAB is America's largest non-nuclear weapon, which is a 21,000 lbs conventional bomb, which is designed to destroy any target, even a highly bomb-proofed bunker utterly. The bomb was dropped on an area, which was suspected to house a large contingent of ISIS fighters in the Nangahar province in the Afghanistan. This is the most destructive attack the US made in the country after the US was pulled out of the country. Nangahar Province is in a mountainous area in North Afghanistan near the Pakistan border. The Pakistan border is one of the most problematic areas in Afghanistan as ISIS insurgents easily cross this area to fight with the Taliban. What is the impact of M.O.A.B. in modern warfare? This was the first time the "Mother of all bombs" was deployed on an enemy target. Though it was part of the Air Force arsenal during the Iraq war, it was only during this attack was the bomb first used in combat. An ordinance of this size can easily demolish and devastate any structure in any kind of terrain. Ever in the mountainous area of Nangarhar, this massive weapon can easily destroy tunnels and even bunkers that have been dug into the mountain itself. This weapon is also not nuclear, so radiation will not be a hazard, making it an effective weapon for destroying highly defended strategic targets. As compared by Fox News, a single Tomahawk missile used to bomb Syria after the alleged chemical attack of Assad's forces on a rebel-held village weighed only 1,000 lbs. Weapons of this type are essential for eliminating targets of opportunity without committing soldiers into the area. This has been the tactic used by the United States to neutralize enemy targets without essentially sending squads of infantry. The Pentagon also said that they had made all the precautionary measures to avoid civilian casualties in the attack. It is still not sure how the military will be able to halt the surge of ISIS fighters helping Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan, which is slowly gaining ground in the area. According to military intelligence, the Taliban has now gained more ground today than it had during the start of the Afghan war 16 years ago. We can only hope that someone at President Donald Trumps Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida took a photo of the cake that could go down in history as one of the most unusual political comments of all time. Not since Marie Antoinette allegedly made her comment about cake during the period before the French Revolution has a piece of pastry played a part in important events. Tension Chinese President Xi Jinping well knew the importance of his Summit with United States President Donald Trump last weekend. The matters on the agenda at the Mar-a-Lago resort included trade issues and naturally the means to limit North Koreas development of a nuclear arsenal that worry not only Americas Asian allies but also Beijing itself. As often happens in international affairs other issues then raised their head and the Chinese President found himself dealing with an American President distracted by the crisis between the United States and Russia over Syria. A few days before the Bashar Al-Assad regime attacked the rebel held town of Khan Sheikhoum with gas weapons and the images of dead civilians, and particularly children, made the rounds of the world. As a result, and reportedly also after the distressed reaction of daughter Ivankas to the images, President Donald Trump instructed the National Security Council (NSC) to prepare recommendations for an American reply to the attack. In the meantime pressure between the United Nations and Russia increased with the Russian veto a motion to the United Nations Security Council sponsored by the United States, Great Britain and France condemning the actions of the Kremlins ally. Dessert These actions were the background to the revelation that President Donald Trump made in an interview on FOX Business when he described how he advised President Xi of the attack. In his own words, as reported by Huffington Post, the President said, I was sitting at the table. We had just finished dinner. Were now having dessert. And the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that youve ever seen. And President Xi was enjoying it. President Trump was then told that the missiles were ready to launch and then on their way. The President then explained in the interview, ..., the missiles were on their way and I said Mr. President, let me explain something to you... Weve just launched 59 missiles heading to Iraq (sic) and I want you to know this. And then he was eating his cake and he was silent. In answer to the question of President Xis reaction President Trump replied So he paused and then he asked the interpreter to please say it again. I did not think that was a good sign.... He was OK with it. He was OK. We now know that the official Chinese reaction to the American attack on Syria came on President Xis return to Beijing and it was not as OK as President Trump stated. Presidential The simple fact that the attack was carried out so quickly after the recommendations of the NSC already indicates a willingness for precipitous action in a delicate international situation should serve as a warning sign of the lack of foreign policy agenda by the Oval Office but to consider and carry out the attack during a State visit by a rival of Russia and to tell its President of the attack in such an offhanded way is not the sign of presidential behaviour. Furthermore, the Presidents obvious enjoyment at explaining how he advised the Chinese President of the attack hides two important aspects of his behaviour. It displays a lack of respect towards the Chinese President who should have been formally advised of the attack and this incident once again shows that the President does not personally follow the actions he has ordered as he also did during the attack in Yemen in the first week of the presidency when an American soldier was killed. While President Trump promised a new form of diplomacy during his successful residential campaign few imagined that the promise would be kept in this way. Diplomacy is not simply speaking in polite terms to opponents, it is also protecting the image and reputation of the country on the world stage and the incident at Mar-a-Lago with President Xi Jinping was certainly not that. As with his tweets, we must now wonder whether or not the photo of the Chocolate Cake will be placed in the national archives because it certainly played an unwelcome role in a serious international situation. In stating that relations with Russia may be at an all time low President Donald Trump tacitly admits the reality of a foreign policy crisis that was avoidable on the part of the White House. The decision to launch a military strike on a Russian ally was never going to solve the issue of Bashar Al-Assad and only highlighted the lack of foreign policy guidelines by an Oval Office that is about to end its honeymoon period. Message Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had an important appointment in Moscow on Wednesday. He was due to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin after a long meeting with the countrys Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. The simple fact that Americas highest ranking diplomat was made to wait two hours for the scheduled appointment was a message to the world that the relationship between Moscow and Washington was at a crisis point. Yet weeks ago when the Secretary of State announced that he would not attend the NATO conference for the Moscow meeting Americas allies were worried that the Oval Office had decided to relax its stance on its historic rival who was still under international sanctions as a result of its conflict with the Ukraine and the annexation of that countrys region of Crimea. Attack What changed the stance in the few short weeks was not just the gas attack on the Syrian rebel town of Khan Sheikhoum in Iblid province last week that led to the Americas Tomahawk strike on Syrias Shayrat air force base in retaliation. Up to that point President Trump seemed to prefer rapprochement with Russia to maintaining its close ties with its NATO allies. With the release of the images of dead civilians in Iblid attack, and particularly those of the children that shocked the world the Oval Office decided to act in an extraordinarily short time for such a reply. This attack angered not only the Kremlin but also many Trump supporters who had backed him due to campaign promise that he would not undertake such actions during his term of office. Without doubt the National Security Council in its recommendations to the President for its possible replies to the gas attack had stressed the major issue of the Syrian situation. Dictator Bashar Al-Assad is an ally of Russia and such an attack was a direct affront to Moscow. Inconsistencies The emotive reply to the tragedy in Khan Sheikhoum was always bound to have a negative impact on relations with Russia given that countrys previous vetoes of a U.S. sponsored motion in the UN Security Council denouncing the attack. Worse still, the attack also came as President Trump was hosting Chinese President Xi Jinping at his Mar-a-Lago resort. This change of diplomatic direction was not the first by Donald Trump since entering office on January 20th. Over the last nearly three months he has changed his stance with China at least three times first over the One China policy, then on trade and finally on North Korea. Finally on Wednesday President Trump praised NATO after previously stating that the United States led alliance was obsolete. These changes of foreign policy are, to say the least, confusing to Americas allies and also to the public. The contemporary plan to subject the State Department to major budget cuts and the failure to fill important positions in his Administration give the impression of a rudderless ship rather than an Oval Office with a sure direction for the country as a world leader. While the current crisis with Russia may not be the worse between the two countries, and the simple memory of the 1962 Cuba Crisis quickly comes to mind, it is one that could deteriorate if it is not handled correctly. Allies and foes The only way that the White House will be able to resolve the current situation is to set a clear and precise path for future foreign policy for the country. At the present time the constant changes of stance and attitude by the Oval Office are increasing distrust on the part of Americas international rivals and uncertainty on the part of its allies who have often planned their own foreign policy agenda on Americas ambitions. The White House should be worried by todays statements reported in the Australian press by former Australian Foreign Minister and former head of the International Crisis Group Gareth Evans at a speech in that country's National Press Club who defined President Trump as the most ill equipped President in US history and that Australias foreign policy must be less United States, more Asia and more self reliance. If one of the United States staunchest allies sees the President of the United States in this way, how do Americas foes see him? The recent US bombing of Syria following the use of outlawed chemical weapons on innocent civilians deserves praise. The US government however needs to tread carefully to avoid starting another unnecessary war in the Middle East. Parties broke international agreement It is without a doubt the parties involved in the Syrian war broke the international agreement on the use of chemical weapons. Even though it has not been verified whether the Syrian regime or the rebel groups deliberately used banned chemical weapons on unarmed civilians. The Russian authorities have been quick to assert that the incident was caused by fumes resulting from a destroyed chemical manufacturing plant. The US and other parties have downplayed this assertion. The gruesome images of men, women, and children suffocating to death should be a wake-up call for the international community to unite to end the proliferation of chemical weapons and its use on innocent populations. It is not the first time chemical weapons have been used in Syria. In 2013, dozens of people suffocated to death after a rebel-controlled region was hit by chemical weapons. US should Work with Assad to end war The US government should shun blunt accusations on both Russia and the Syria regime and instead seek ways it can work with The Russian government especially in finding an amicable solution to the sickening Syrian conflict. Its time the Trump administration realized that Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad aught to be part of the solution if sustainable peace is to be guaranteed in the region. Failure to acknowledge Assad as the legitimate leader of Syria will only intensify the conflict and plunge Damascus into greater disaster. The US should note that the strategic location of Syria will favor Russia should both the US and Russia seek military actions without common agreement. The Russian federation is also not relenting on its support for President Assad. After the US bombing of an airfield alleged to have been used in a chemical attack, Moscow vowed to revamp the Syrian air force. Russia has further deployed its warships within the same waters used by the US to launch the attack on Syria. The US and Russia should work together Having two military giant nations loaded with missiles and even atomic weapons (if need be) within the same location is extremely dangerous. A simple provocation or mistake would simply result in a full fledged battle. This would likely exacerbate the situation in Syria. Considering the fact that both the US and Russia have their own vested interest in the middle East, the UN and the international community should act speedily in finding ways to avoid another bloodshed in the Middle East. President Trump should tread carefully to avoid the mistakes similar to the ones President George W Bush made before invading Iraq in 2003. As it later turned out Saddam Hussein never had weapons of mass destruction. This is despite the widely accepted rhetoric that branded Saddam Hussein as the problem of the time. Western powers too, including Britain should avoid endorsing any further US-led attacks on other sovereign states without verified intelligence information. Scheana Shay has been under a lot of pressure to share the man she is dating with the world. She announced she was seeing Robert Parks Valletta recently, but has pretty much kept everything about their relationship under wraps. Shay teased fans and followers with glimpses of him earlier this year on Snap Chat, but only admitted to the fact they were an item when she felt like the time was right. According to Radar Online, she is being accused of being shady about keeping him off her social media accounts. Things have not been easy for Scheana Shay over the last few months. Her marriage crumbled last fall, shortly after Katie Maloney and Tom Schwartz tied the knot. The marital issues she faced will be displayed on "Vanderpump Rules," and the reunion proved to be harder than she imagined. Her estranged husband, Mike Shay showed up to film. There are rumors circulating the two hashed out some of their personal issues on camera, which is exactly what the network wanted. Scheana is still legally married While divorce papers were filed and signed in December, Scheana and Mike Shay are still married. They officially parted ways before the holidays, with her purchasing him a ticket to Michigan to see his family. Scheana mentioned that gesture on "Watch What Happens Live" shortly after the new year began. That was also around the time she was being coy about who she was seeing, and fans thought it might have been Mike Comrie. As of now, Scheana is still married to Mike but she already feels like the chapter has been closed. Bad relationship luck Being in a relationship isn't easy but being in one with a married man can ruin your life. Scheana Shay was one of the women Eddie Cibrian cheated on Brandi Glanville with. This caused a lot of havoc for Shay, especially when it came to events being held at SUR for the "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills." Aside from being the other woman and having her marriage fail, there is still hope for Scheana to get her happily ever after. Fans wish Scheana Shay the best and hope that things with her new beau work out well. Once she starts dropping photos of him on social media, fans are going to go nuts. Australia: the Great Barrier Reef is dying and one scientist has described it as 'terminal.' Global warming appears to be the culprit according to The Nature Journal. In 2016, the results of a study were published that showed severe concentrations of coral bleaching stretching to the north, and this was bad enough, but 2017 has scientists despairing over the state of the Great Barrier Reef. Science Alert reported that scientists, who say Global Warming is killing the reef, pointed out that this year the bleaching has spread 500 km (311 miles) further south. Great Barrier Reef - four years of bleaching There have been four big bleaching events on the Great Barrier Reef since 1998, but this is the first time it has happened in two consecutive years. Scientists point out that it takes at least a decade for coral to recover from a bleaching event and James Kerry from James Cook University's ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies said that the second consecutive year of damage is probably going to allow 'zero' chance of recovery in places. Scientists report that "out of the 2,300 km (1,430 miles) of Great Barrier Reef, 1,500 km (932 miles) is now bleached." While Bleaching does not immediately kill the corals, over time they starve to death, Science Alert explains. According to findings within the science community coral reef bleaching that the Great Barrier Reef is experiencing is caused by the water warming up. The corals become very stressed when temperatures rise and this causes them to eject the algae that live in their tissues. The beautiful colors that are caused by those colorful algae disappear and the coral turns 'bone white.' The coral reef is home to hundreds of corals and a stunning array or marine life. Some experts hold out little hope for reefs There are proponents of Global Warming and those who simply don't believe in it, but as the Science Alert article points out, it is time to get real. When an expert in his field like James Cook University water quality expert, Jon Brodie is moved to tears and describes the Great Barrier Reef as 'terminal,' to the Guardian, then disbelievers should know that things are severe. It is possile that ultimately the only way the reefs will survive is if there is a huge reduction in carbon emissions. To cite Science Alert - 'World, if you're waiting for a wake up call, this is it.' It is not too late but action has to be taken immediately if our grandchildren are going to ever experience this wonder of the world. View of a stand of China Construction Bank at a financial expo in Beijing, Sep 8, 2016. [Photo/VCG] China's banking regulator on Wednesday issued a notice vowing to address regulatory loopholes and urging the country's lenders to effectively control risks. The move is the latest following a string of measures taken by the regulators to contain systemic risks and asset bubbles, an indication of tightening financial regulation in the country. The China Banking Regulatory Commission said in the notice that it will strengthen supervision and address regulatory shortcomings to prevent practices that exploit regulatory loopholes. The CBRC is also drafting rules to better regulate the financial institutions' shareholders, aiming to clarify the qualifications and quantity requirement and to improve transparency of shareholders' backgrounds and their capital sources. The regulator ordered the banks to raise the standard and quality of the information disclosure on the financial products, while pledging tougher punishment for wrongdoings. It also urged local bureaus of the CBRC to strengthen supervision through information technology as well as on-site inspection. Chinese commercial banks are facing the twin pressures of declining profitability and rising funding costs, as the central authorities push for financial deleveraging to prevent risks that will weigh on their earning prospects, analysts said. The CBRC on Monday issued guidelines that highlighted 10 major risks in areas including inter-bank lending, wealth management and investment business, property and online financing. "The new guidelines will mean stricter regulation of the interbank business and banks' off-balance-sheet business," said Qu Jun, an analyst at GF Securities Co. "Banks with a relatively weak capital position and high liabilities in the interbank business will see greater business constraints and increased pressure on profitability pressure in line with the process of tightened regulations and the acceleration of financial deleveraging," he said. China has ramped up efforts to curb financial risks as worries have emerged about high corporate leverage, rising credit defaults by companies, as well as risks in the property market. A CRH train production site of CRRC's Qingdao Sifang Co Ltd in Qingdao, Shandong province. [Photo/Xinhua] CRRC Sifang Co Ltd, a subsidiary of China's rail giant China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation, will provide 11 eight-unit trains for the rail project linking Jakarta to Bandung in Indonesia, the company announced on its website on Wednesday. CRRC has not disclosed the deal value, however, according to Chinese news portal Sina.com, the value was 2.51 billion yuan ($364 million). The deal is part of an Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contract signed on April 4 between a consortium of Chinese and Indonesian firms and KCIC, a firm tasked with monitoring the high-speed train project and unveiling the construction phase of the project. The 142-km-long railway project, expected to be built in three years, could cut the travel time between these two cities from several hours to half an hour. CRRC also signed a $191 million contract with Malaysian authorities on March 11, promising to build 22 multiple units for the latter. The purchase marks the company's first successful attempt to localize its manufacturing and management in Malaysia, which signifies great progress for China's future rail exports. While it's a well-known cliche that you can find a Chinese restaurant in just about any city in the world, it was still interesting to see them in Rome and in Palermo, the capital of Italy's province of Sicily. The Ristorante Cinese Hong Kong in Palermo serves Chinese dishes with an Italian twist. There's fettuccini con frutti di mare (noodles with seafood); capellini con pollo in brodo (chicken noodle soup); ravioli al vapore (steamed dumpling) and panini cinese (steamed bao). In Rome, in Via Carfour, around the corner from the Roman Colosseum and many of the city's ancient ruins, can be found the Citta in Fiore Chinese restaurant. On the same street, quite a few of the vendors selling souvenirs were of Chinese and Japanese origin. I spoke in Italian to a Chinese woman who ran one such shop; she had been in Italy for several years. Of course I had to add a zai jian at the end of the conversation, which drew a smile. Another vendor I spoke to had been in Italy for 25 years. It's not only businesspeople. When I arrived in Rome from New York and had to go through passport control, I would say at least 70 percent of the hundreds of people standing on line at that particular time were young visitors from China. On Via del Colosseo, I saw a young Chinese couple who apparently were getting married, with the young woman wearing a beautiful qipao. A poster at the airport in Palermo advertises Alitalia flights to Pechino (Beijing). It features three flight attendants superimposed on the Great Wall. In February, President Xi Jinping welcomed his Italian counterpart Sergio Mattarella to Beijing. "China welcomes Italy to participate in the Belt and Road Initiative," Xi said. Xi called for more cooperation in technological and industrial innovation and in heritage, promoting the building of culture centers and language teaching in the respective countries. Xi also stressed that China was willing to work with Italy to maintain world peace, development and stability through communication on global economic governance, multilateralism and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Italy is China's fifth-largest trading partner in the European Union, and China is Italy's top trading partner in Asia. The China-Italy Chamber of Commerce was optimistic about Belt and Road Initiative-related projects, its chairman Sergio Bertasi said during Mattarella's state visit. "A large part of Belt and Road Initiative-related projects will be in the Balkans/Eastern European area, which is an area well known to Italy and where Italian companies have great ties with local companies," Bertasi said. "The Belt and Road Initiative could further leverage Chinese interest for investments in Italy, a hub in the ancient Silk Road," he said. According to a January study by Rhodium Group and the Mercator Institute for China Studies, between 2010 and 2016, Italy ranked third among European destinations of Chinese investments abroad ($13.3 billion) behind the UK and Germany. "I recall Made in China 2025 as a formidable opportunity for cooperation between Italian and Chinese companies. Italy and China will equally benefit from the modernization of Chinese industry," Bertasi said. Sun Yanhong, associate researcher on Italian studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said in February that the two countries "share a great yearning for works on innovation" as they restructure economically. Italy needs capital, and China offers a market to help revitalize its economy, Sun said. Contact the writer at williamhennelly@chinadailyusa.com (China Daily USA 04/13/2017 page2) The chief of the International Monetary Fund warned of protectionism and praised China ahead of the IMF/World Bank annual spring meeting in Washington next week. "We are at a moment where the global economy needs both - a foundation of sound domestic policies combined with a steadfast commitment to international cooperation," IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said on Wednesday at Bruegel, an economic think tank based in Belgium. She described the world economy as "gaining momentum as a cyclical recovery holds out the promise of more jobs, higher incomes, and greater prosperity going forward". "But just as we see this momentum unfolding, we also see - at least in some advanced economies - doubts about the benefits of economic integration, about the very 'architecture' that has underpinned the world economy for more than seven decades," she said, clearly referring to the sentiment in the Brexit, the ongoing French presidential election as well as the rhetoric and policy of US President Donald Trump. Lagarde believes that the finance ministers and central bankers from the 189 IMF member countries meeting on April 21-23 will have these questions in mind. IMF's World Economic Outlook to be released before the meeting will show that the outlook for advanced economies has improved with stronger manufacturing activity. Meanwhile, the emerging and developing economies have driven the global recovery in recent years, and they will continue to contribute more than three-quarters of global GDP growth in 2017, with China remaining the main engine. Lagarde cited China as a success story, saying that "we estimate that China's integration into the global trading system accounted for as much as 10 percent of the average overall productivity increase in advanced economies between the mid-1990s and mid-2000s". "Enormous gains like that translate over time into higher living standards. Today, billions of people enjoy longer, healthier, and more prosperous lives, largely because of our ability to harness the power of trade and productivity," she said. Lagarde warned of some downside risks: political uncertainty, including in Europe; the sword of protectionism hanging over global trade; and tighter global financial conditions that could trigger disruptive capital outflows from emerging and developing economies. She called on the world to build on policies that have delivered so much for the world. "And at the same time, we must avoid policy missteps - or as I have described them, 'self-inflicted wounds'," she said. Lagarde noted the negative side effects of technology and trade, from job losses in some sectors to social challenges in those communities. chenweihua@chinadailyusa.com (China Daily USA 04/13/2017 page2) Please turn JavaScript on and reload the page. Loading... Checking your browser before accessing the website. This process is automatic. Your browser will redirect to your requested content shortly. Please wait a few seconds. Benjamin Radford In July 2007, a rancher in the small Texas town of Cuero captured a strange creature that had been attacking her livestock. She claimed the blue, hairless animal had been lurking around her ranch for years, and when it was hit by a car, she suggested she had finally captured a chupacabra, the vampiric goat-sucking monster of lore. Tissue samples were sent to biologists at Texas State University for DNA analysis, and while the rancher waited for the results she sold thousands of "2007: Summer of the Chupacabra" T-shirts and caps. New Mexico, of course, has its own chupacabra stories. Most are merely rumors and speculation about the fate of dead livestock, idle talk with no hard evidence. That is, until 2002, when a bizarre creature was found half-buried in the rocks and sand on the sun-baked West Mesa outside of Albuquerque. It wasnt a dog or coyote. It wasnt a bird or cow. In fact, it was unlike anything the finder had ever seen. The creature was dead but not rotting, nor was it a skeleton. Instead it was dried, almost as if the desert winds had carefully preserved the mystery. It had a vaguely human-like face, a pointy head, what seemed to be stubby wings and a long tail. The man who found it passed it along to his friend Bob Wheeler, who kept the curiosity and occasionally showed it to his friends and family to freak them out. One person thought it looked like a gargoyle; another suggested an alien. But Wheeler settled on his own identification: [To people of] Spanish heritage, its the chupacabra, Wheeler told a reporter from KOB Channel 4. The goat sucker is what they call it." In February 2005, one of Wheelers friends suggested he ought to have professionals identify the creature. The remains were taken to Brian Gleadle of New Mexicos Department of Game and Fish. Rio Rancho Journal writer Barbara Armijo reported the results on Feb. 12: A creepy-looking skeleton found on the West Mesa several years ago is not the remains of the dreaded chupacabra, a mythical creature said to suck the blood from goats. Benjamin Radford Instead of a chupacabra, Gleadle said, the bizarre creature is a skate, an animal related to stingrays. Yet Gleadles explanation doesnt complete the story, for he didnt fully identify the crusty creature either. Gleadle offered an opinion as to the objects origin: Its common for a slice of the actual wing to be used as a food source, and thats what we believe was the case with this one Someone had to have caught it in the ocean, most likely the Gulf of Mexico. They then probably cut the part that was edible and tossed the rest. Whether skate or chupacabra, the story had legs. Some mystery-mongering websites were quick to post stories and images of the creature, and it made the local news. KOB-TV's website noted that After doing some research, Eyewitness News 4 has concluded that the creature probably lived in the ocean at one time and probably isnt either a chupacabra or an alien. When I saw the newspapers photograph of the ex-chupacabra, I immediately recognized it as a Devil Fish, also known as a Jenny Haniver. It is in fact a cut-up, deformed and carefully dried skate; it was created as an oddityessentially a faked monster. Jenny Hanivers date back more than 300 years and are sold in curio shops around the world but especially in the Caribbean. I have seen dozens of them in carnival sideshows, and in fact I own one. But the mystery deepens: Why did an ocean animal end up on a desert mesa? A clue can be found in the newspapers photograph. The left leg of Wheelers creature was broken off at the knee, which probably explains why it was thrown away. The skate was never used for food; it would not have been specifically formed into a Jenny Haniver, nor would it have been so well-preserved if that had been the case. It was merely a damaged curio item, tossed out on the mesa instead of in the dump. Wheelers identification of the Jenny Haniver as a chupacabra is instructive, since the remains look nothing like the typical descriptions of the vampiric beast. (It is far too small, for example, has wings and lacks spiny back ridges.) The chupacabra label was simply a catch-all name for something strange I cant identify. This often happens in monster sightings, where any phenomenon that seems odd or inexplicable is identified as Bigfoot, or a lake monster, or a chupacabra. The Cuero, Texas, chupacabra was also finally identified, the results made public just after Halloween: The strange, blue-hued creature was not a chupacabra, nor even a gray fox as some suggested. DNA sequencing revealed that it was instead a Texas coyote with a bad case of mange. The Cuero and Westside chupacabras are only the latest of many strange-but-known finds over the years mistakenly labeled as mysterious creatures. In these casesunlike the real chupacabrawe have the body; we have hard evidence. And, when hard evidence is available, we find an explanation. HCM CITY A series of cultural activities were held at the HCM City Youth Cultural House yesterday to celebrate the common New Year festival of Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, and Myanmar. They were organised by the HCM City Buddhist Association, the city Union of Friendship Organisations (HUFO) and the cultural house, and attended by nearly 1,000 guests. The four countries traditional New Year customs were re-created, including bathing a Buddha idol in water and wearing wish bracelets. There was a performance of traditional music and dance from Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar, and an exhibition of photos featuring their landscapes and peoples. Le Hung Quoc, HUFO director, said: The celebration aimed to promote cultural exchanges between the city and neighbouring countries and help the citys people know more about their New Year celebrations. As part of the celebrations, the citys Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union had organised from April 5 to 9 several cultural events in which local students and their Lao and Cambodian counterparts studying in the city took part. They attracted 300 local students and 72 foreigners, who also went on a field trip to Bao Loc city in the Tay Nguyen (Central Highlands) province of Lam ong. On April 14 the Lao and Cambodian New Year will be celebrated at the Laotian Students Dormitory in District 3. In Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, and Myanmar, the New Year is respectively called Bunpimay, Chol Chnam Thmay, Songkran, and Thingyan, and falls usually between April 13 and 15. VNS PARIS The Cannes Festival was due on Thursday to unveil which films have made the cut for its 70th birthday edition, where the silver screens finest will be vying for glory next month. Organisers of the worlds top film event on the French Riviera traditionally guard their selections jealously for the competition and the out-of-competition programme, but there has been fevered speculation over the line-up for months. Sofia Coppolas The Beguiled is one film that industry insiders agree is likely to earn a spot at this years Cannes. The daughter of Francis Ford Coppola is a Cannes veteran who previously premiered Marie Antoinette (2006) and her last feature film The Bling Ring (2013) at the festival. Her latest offering The Beguiled, an American Civil War drama about a young soldier who seduces all the women around him, features an all-star cast including Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Colin Farrell and Elle Fanning. Organisers have tapped Pedro Almodovar, Spains most celebrated living movie director, to lead the jury at this years festival, which will run from May 17 to 28. The official selection of movies in competition will be announced at 0900 GMT on Thursday at a Paris hotel by festival director Thierry Fremaux and the president of the event, Pierre Lescure. The organisers typically wade through some 1,800 films to winnow them down to shortlists. It is a weary process for Fremaux, who said last year that he and his selection committee "watch the movies right to the end". Another favourite to earn a slot in the official competition also starring Kidman and Fanning -- is John Cameron Mitchells sci-fi romance How to Talk to Girls At Parties. Netflix debut? Other films in the running include Todd Haynes Wonderstruck, starring Julianne Moore and Michelle Williams, a story about two deaf children told simultaneously in two different timelines. South Korean director Bong Joon-hos "Okja" with Tilda Swinton and Jake Gyllenhaal - about a young girl risking everything to save her best friend, a giant animal - could become the first Netflix-backed feature to screen at the festival. War Machine, another Netflix-backed effort starring Brad Pitt as a US army general in Afghanistan alongside Swinton and Ben Kingsley, is also in the running. Other likely contenders include Redoubtable, a biopic of legendary French director Jean-Luc Godard, by Michel Hazanavicius who made Oscar-winning silent movie The Artist. Ismaels Ghosts by Arnaud Desplechin, about a filmmaker disturbed by the return of his former love, has also been tipped, featuring A-list French talent in the form of Charlotte Gainsbourg, Marion Cotillard and Mathieu Amalric. AFP A NANG A New Zealand Navy ship (HMNZS Te Kaha), with 177 crew members, arrived at a Nangs Tien Sa Port on Wednesday for a four-day visit to the city. Crew members of the ship performed a traditional Maori dance during the welcome ceremony at the port. Crew member of a New Zealand Navy ship perform their traditional dance at a Nangs Tien Sa Port during the four-day visit. VNS Photo Cong Thanh The crew members, led by Lieutenant Colonel Steve Lennik, will have a sport exchange with Vietnamese Navy Zone 3 and performance with students of Phan Chau Trinh high-school during the visit. The ship will leave on Sunday. VNS KUALA LUMPUR A group of nine lawyers will defend oan Thi Huong, with her murder trial due to begin on Thursday, said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA). The 29-year-old Vietnamese national and another 25-year-old Indonesian woman, Siti Aisyah, are the two main suspects of the murder of a North Korean man named Kim Chol at Kuala Lumpur airport on February 13 this year. They face the death penalty if convicted. Bui Quoc Thanh, vice head of MOFAs Consular Department, told the press on Wednesday afternoon that the group includes two Malaysian lawyers, Hisyam Teh Toh Teik and Naran Singh, who the Vietnamese embassy hired on March 29 for the case. They are considered among Malaysias best and most experienced criminal defence attorneys. Naran Singh has three lawyer partners working on Huongs case while Hisyam Teh Toh Teik has one. The Viet Nam Bar Federation also sent three Vietnamese lawyers to defend Huong. Thanh said that both the Vietnamese and Malaysian lawyers believe she is innocent. Viet Nam asks Malaysia to assure a fair, objective and non-discriminatory trial and to ensure the legitimate rights of oan Thi Huong, he said. During up to seven consular visits with Huong in the Kajang state prison, she always asked embassy officials to inform her family that she was healthy and they should not visit, Thanh said. She was concerned about their safety should they come to Malaysia. Huongs father, oan Van Thanh, flew to Malaysia on Wednesday and had the first contact with Huong since her arrest. Huong is in stable condition and in good health, an embassy official said. VNS HA NOI President Tran ai Quang has lauded extended co-operation between Vietnam News Agency (VNA) and Japans Kyodo News in recent years, saying it is in accordance with the Viet Nam-Japan extensive strategic partnership. During a reception in Ha Noi yesterday for Kyodo News President and Editor-in-Chief Masaki Fukuyama, President Quang highlighted significant progress in bilateral ties in the 44 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1973. Expressing support for co-operation plans between the two news agencies, the State leader said as official news agencies of Viet Nam and Japan, VNA and Kyodo News should popularise each countrys culture, business environment and people, contributing to deepening mutual understanding and trust. At the same time, both sides should continue providing timely, comprehensive and objective coverage of Viet Nam -Japan ties to boost the bilateral extensive strategic partnership, he said. On the APEC Year 2017 with nearly 200 meetings and the 25th APEC High-level Week to be held in a Nang, the host said it enables the two news agencies to co-ordinate in coverage to contribute to the success of the events. He told his guest that Viet Nam is refining mechanisms and administrative procedures, improving competitiveness and its business climate, and prioritising industrialisation and modernisation, during which, the country is ready to support foreign enterprises, including those from Japan. Amid increasing trade protectionism, Viet Nam backs global trade liberalisation, he said, adding that countries should accelerate negotiations and signings of bilateral free trade agreements to enhance economic, trade and investment links. On regional and global issues, he said during meetings, Vietnamese and Japanese leaders underscored the need to work together at multilateral forums to maintain peace. Fukuyama, for his part, briefed the host of the outcomes of collaboration between VNA and Kyodo News. He said the Japanese people as well as major corporations, groups and local companies are interested in business opportunities in Viet Nam, so Kyodo News holds an important responsibility for presenting full and accurate coverage of Viet Nam, its people, culture and business climate. VNS National Assembly (NA) Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan (centre left) meets with Vojtech Fillip (centre right), Chairman of the Czech Republic and Morava Communist Party and Deputy Chairman of the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Republic in Prague yesterday. VNA/VNS Photo Trong uc PRAGUE Viet Nam attaches great importance to developing multifaceted co-operation with its traditional friends in Eastern Europe, including the Czech Republic, said National Assembly (NA) Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan. She made the affirmation at a meeting with Vojtech Fillip, Chairman of the Czech Republic and Morava Communist Party and Deputy Chairman of the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Republic in Prague yesterday as part of her four-day visit to the European country, which started on Tuesday. Ngan said she supported the enhanced ties between the Party of Viet Nam and the Czech Republic and Morava Communist Party, which she said was an important co-operation channel between the two countries. The co-operation between the two countries has progressed across many fields over the years, including politics, trade-investment, national defence and security, and science and technology. The two sides continue to exchange many visits of high-ranking delegations. Ngan said she hoped that the Czech Republic and Morava Communist Party would continue working to promote comprehensive relations between the two countries, particularly in fostering the relations between localities of the two countries. Agreeing with the top Vietnamese lawmaker, Czech Republic and Morava Communist Party Chairman Fillip said the two countries should establish co-operative relations between the two Parties at both central and local levels. The Czech side was ready for increasing this co-operation, he said. He proposed to increase co-operation between press agencies of the two countries, which would help to facilitate exchanges and information sharing between the two Parties. He expressed his belief that the upcoming State visit to Viet Nam by the Czech President would contribute to lifting the relations between the two countries to new heights. Later the same day, NA Chairwoman Ngan received leaders from the Czech Chamber of Economy, the Czech Top 100 Association, and a beer firm. She expressed her pleasure at meeting with the leaders of the Czech association, hoping that they will encourage businesses to invest and do business in Viet Nam. She briefed participants on Viet Nams legal system towards further international integration, as well as the countrys favourable conditions for investors to expand their operations in the region. Viet Nam was willing to serve as a bridge for Czech businesses to expand to other markets in Southeast Asia, she affirmed. Echoing Ngans sentiment on the economic and trade relationship not meeting its potential, Vice President of the Czech Chamber of Economy Borivoj Minar said Czech associations wanted to improve the situation. He stressed that many Czech firms and associations had visited and sought opportunities for investment and business in Viet Nam recently. According to Minar, the Czech Republic is an open market and his chamber is willing to provide support to bring Vietnamese commodities to Europe. Many Czech goods, including manufacturing products and food, were present in Viet Nam, he said, hoping for more Czech products to enter the Southeast Asian market in the future. Viet Nam was attractive to Czech firms, he said, adding that Czech businesses were ready to co-operate and transfer technology to produce goods such as manufacturing and produce preservation technology. Through Viet Nam, Czech enterprises wish to expand to other markets in the region, he said. - VNS PRAGUE Viet Nam attaches great importance to developing relations with traditional friends in Central Eastern Europe, with the Czech Republic a prioritised partner. National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan made the statement during talks with President of the Senate of the Czech Parliament Milan Stech in Prague on Wednesday. She said Viet Nam remembers the assistance of the Czech state and people in the cause of national independence and reunification. The top legislator thanked the Czech parliament and government for recognising Vietnamese-Czech people as one of the countrys ethnic minority groups in 2013, calling this a valuable asset for the two nations friendship. She highlighted the traditional friendship and co-operation between Viet Nam and the Czech Republic over the past 67 years, which have been nurtured by the two countries leaders and peoples. Viet Nam is willing to create favourable conditions for Czech businesses to explore long-term investment in Viet Nam, Ngan said. The Southeast Asian country also hopes to work with the Czech Republic at regional and international forums, especially the United Nations, Asia-Europe Meeting and ASEAN-EU, she added. She affirmed that Viet Nam will help the Czech Republic enhance relations with ASEAN, and proposed the European nation support Viet Nams candidacy for a non-permanent seat in the UN Security Council for 2020-21. Bilateral co-operation has seen progress in various fields in recent years thanks to high-level delegation exchanges, she said. She welcomed Czech President Milos Zeman to pay a State visit to Viet Nam in 2017, a move expected to open a new period of development for bilateral amity. There is a plenty of room for the two countries to step up co-operation in economics, trade and investment, she said, noting that the Czech Republic added Viet Nam the only nation in ASEAN into its list of 12 key trade markets. Chairwoman Ngan proposed the Czech Republic enable businesses to sign deals to export Viet Nams farm produce and seafood to the market and to import industrial goods, materials and spare parts from the Czech Republic. She also called on the European country to make it easier for representatives of Vietnamese businesses to obtain visas to study the Czech market, seek partners and attend trade fairs and exhibitions. Senate President Stech said Viet Nam has the closest relations with his country in Southeast Asia. The two sides need to reach an agreement on investment protection to drive economic relations forward, he said, adding that Czech companies are willing to set up joint ventures with Vietnamese firms to boost investment in science and technology. He described Viet Nam as a successful economy in Southeast Asia, and suggested the two sides make use of their respective strengths for mutual development. Both sides agreed to push the EU to sign the Viet Nam-EU free trade agreement, which will boost trade between Viet Nam and the Czech Republic. Parliamentary co-operation has been reinforced over the past few years thanks to regular high-level delegation exchanges. The host and guest agreed that the two countries legislative bodies should increase rapports at multilateral parliamentary forums such as Inter-Parliamentary Union and Asia-Europe Parliamentary Partnership. Viet Nam and the Czech Republic will coordinate to monitor the implementation of co-operation agreements and projects signed between the two countries governments. At a meeting with the press, the two sides affirmed that they reached consensus in various fields, and the co-operation potential is enormous. Chairwoman Ngan said leaders of the Vietnamese and Czech legislative bodies had a candid discussion on issues of mutual concern. President Milan Stech said both sides agreed to create a legal investment protection corridor for private enterprises. With a large population and high economic growth, Viet Nam can attract Czech investors, he added. The same day, the President hosted a banquet to welcome the Vietnamese top legislator and her entourage to visit the Czech Republic. VNS PRAGUE Chairwoman of Viet Nams National Assembly Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan and Prime Minister of the Czech Republic Bohuslav Sobotka agreed that the two countries should enhance co-operation during their meeting in Prague on Wednesday. Ngan is visiting the Czech Republic on April 12-14 as part of her European tour, which began on April 6. Speaking at the meeting, the top Vietnamese legislator said despite progress in co-operation between Viet Nam and the Czech Republic in trade and investment, the two nations should work to unleash their potential. Two-way trade reached US$249 million last year and the Czech Republic ranked 45th out of 116 countries and territories investing in Viet Nam with 34 foreign direct investment projects, worth approximately $90 million, she noted, proposing leaders of the two countries increase visits to each other for market research and improve the work of the Viet Nam-Czech Intergovernmental Committee for economy and science-technology co-operation. Ngan suggested her host stimulate Czech investment in Viet Nams fields of interest, including renewable energy, metallurgy, mining, infrastructure development, supporting industries, environment, textile and garment, and mechanical and electronic manufacturing. The Czech PM agreed, saying that Czech exports to Viet Nam only made up about 10 per cent of bilateral trade and it is time to boost partnerships in trade, commerce and investment. Aside from strengths in foreign direct investment, the Czech Republic has advantages in supplying advanced technologies in mining and energy, Sobotka said, adding that the European country wishes to join projects in infrastructure development, healthcare, pharmaceuticals and information technology in Viet Nam. On education, Chairwoman Ngan hoped the Czech Republic will push co-operation agreements and collaborative training projects in fields of its strength, like engineering, agriculture, medicine and pharmacy, electrics and electronics. She also asked for continued support from the Czech government in strengthening the comprehensive partnership between Viet Nam and the European Union (EU) and hoped it would push the ratification of the Viet Nam-EU Free Trade Agreement and the EUs recognition of Viet Nam as a market economy. In security-defence, Ngan expected the Czech Republic would assist Viet Nam in training cyber-security specialists. She also affirmed the National Assembly of Viet Nams support for the two governments to ink deals on combating crime and on the transfer of prisoners. Echoing his Vietnamese guest, PM Sobotka said Czech enterprises look forward to opportunities in security-defence. They also agreed to fast-track the launch of streamlined visa processing between the two countries. Sobotka said he expects the number of Czech tourist arrivals to Viet Nam to grow considerably once Viet Nam simplifies the application process for short-stay visas. Meeting with Czech President The same day, Chairwoman Ngan was also welcomed by Czech President Milos Zeman. In the meeting, Ngan stressed that the two countries have enjoyed time-honoured friendship and co-operation nurtured by many generations of their leaders and people over the past 67 years. Viet Nam remembers the Czech Republics support for its past struggle for national liberation as well as the current nation building and development, she affirmed, thanking the country for recognising Vietnamese-Czech people as an ethnic minority group. In past years, the two sides have enjoyed progress in bilateral relations in polictics, diplomacy, trade, investment, defence, science and technology, while co-operating at regional and international forums as the United Nations and AsiaEurope Meeting. Viet Nam is willing to help the Czech Republic boost collaboration with ASEAN and its member states, Ngan said, adding that it can also supply human resources for the Czech Republic as the European country lacks labourers. Viet Nams top lawmaker told the host that during her visit, she met with President of the Senate of the Czech Parliament Milan Stech and Chairman of the Czech Parliaments Chamber of Deputies (lower house) Jan Hamacek to discuss measures to boost bilateral parliamentary co-operation. She asked for continued support from the Czech President to develop the parliamentary relationship, for the interests of the two countries people and for peace, development and prosperity in the region and the world. President Milos Zeman expressed his delight at the expansion of investment in Viet Nam by Czech and Vietnamese-Czech businesses. He said that a number of enterprises will accompany him during his upcoming State visit to Viet Nam. He hoped the two countries will sign many economic contracts to improve the bilateral relations. He asked Viet Nam to consider porviding a short-term visa waiver for Czech citizens. VNS KUALA LUMPUR A Malaysian court in Sepang district of Selangor state postponed a hearing for two women suspected in the death of a North Korea citizen to May 30. Judge Harith Sham Mohamed Yasin announced the postponement on Thursday. The hearing, which was scheduled for the same day, was postponed due to a lack of documents. As such, the case was not transferred to the Shah Alam High Court for a joint trial. Deputy public prosecutor Muhammad Iskandar Ahmad said that they need another month and a half to prepare necessary documents. Earlier, the two suspects - Vietnamese national oan Thi Huong, 28, and Indonesian national Siti Aisyah, 25, were taken to the courthouse under heavy security. The murder of a North Korean man, named Kim Chol, took place at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on February 13. On March 1, the two women were charged with murder and pleaded innocent, claiming they thought they were taking part in a game show. VNS HA NOI Politburo member and Secretary of HCM Citys Party Committee inh La Thang on Thursday attended the opening ceremony of HCM City days in Osaka 2017 as part of a visit of HCM Citys high-ranking officials to Japan. The event has been held to celebrate the 10-year partnership between HCM City and Osaka prefecture and the 20-year partnership between HCM City and Osaka City. In the context of improved Viet Nam-Japan ties, the partnership between HCM City and Osaka has been a bright spot, Le Thanh Liem, standing deputy chairman of HCM Citys Peoples Committee said. The two-day event has been filled with exhibitions which feature HCM Citys achievements and sport and tourism exchange activities between the two countries and cities. Visitors to the event can also enjoy traditional music and a fashion show of Vietnamese traditional dress (ao dai) and conical hats. The same day, Thang and HCM Citys delegation met with Osaka Prefectures Governor Ichiro Matsui and Osaka Citys Mayor Hirofumi Yoshimura. Thang said that Osaka is one of localities that offers the most important environmental solutions to HCM City, including water management techniques, solid waste classification, climate change adaptation and student exchanges. Thang confirmed receiving Ichiro Matsuis letter about sending a delegation of Japanese students to HCM City in 2017, saying that HCM City will support the students. On the occasion, Thang also thanked leaders of Osaka Prefecture and Osaka City for helping the Vietnamese living and working in Osaka. For his part, Osaka Prefectures Governor Ichiro Matsui said that HCM City days in Osaka introduces Vietnamese culture and energetic HCM City, saying that the event would promote friendship between the two sides. Osaka is preparing to host World Expo 2025, hoping HCM City will engage in the event which is a good chance for the two countries to promote economic and tourism co-operation, he said. Osaka Prefecture is Japans second largest economic hub. The city has seen rapid economic development but still preserves ancient architectures and cultural identities. Earlier on Wednesday, Thang and Governor of Hyogo Prefecture Toshizo Ido attended a conference boosting economic co-operation between the two localities in which the two leaders agreed to expand co-operation in industry, seaport service and hi-tech agriculture. VNS Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc delivers speech at a teleconference with leaders of 63 cities and provinces nationwide held in the northern province of Lao Cai on Wednesday. VNA/VNS Photo Thong Nhat LAO CAI Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has urged ministries, sectors and localities to seek measures to promote traditional herbal medicines, to take advantage of the countrys potential in the field. Addressing a teleconference with leaders of 63 cities and provinces nationwide held in the northern province of Lao Cai on Wednesday, the PM noted that for thousands of years, Viet Nam has used herbal medicines. With three quarters of its natural area mountains and forests, Viet Nam has more than 5,000 herbal plants with medicinal value, which are a great advantage for localities to exploit the resources for domestic use and exports, he said. PM Phuc affirmed that traditional medicines are a treasure of the country, which can contribute to poverty reduction. He asked for solutions to tackle problems facing the sector, including poor planning in developing production chains that leads to low effectiveness and small-scale production as well as difficulties in markets, risk of extinction of many rare herbal plants and limited use of advanced technology in the field. The government leader also called for support policies for herbal plant growing as part of high technology agriculture development, while stressing the need to ensure confidentiality of some rare and precious herbal plants. He suggested three centres for traditional medicine research be set up nationwide, asking ministries, sectors and localities to raise public awareness of traditional medicine and encourage innovation and entrepreneurship in this field. It is also a must to tighten control of the trade and distribution of herbal medicinal materials to prevent smuggling and protect domestic herbal medicine production, he said. Representative from many provinces said they will turn herbal medicine development into one of the economic priorities so as to tap into local advantages. An official of central Quang Nam Province, which is famous for Ngoc Linh ginseng (Panax vietnamensis or Vietnamese ginseng), said it is necessary to expand and upgrade transport infrastructure to attract investment in developing this rare indigenous species. Home to nearly 1,000 medicinal plant species, northern Quang Ninh Province asked the Government to increase support for businesses and local households to tap into this resource, enhance the training of specialised pharmacists, and promote the trade of Vietnamese herbal medicine in the region and the world. Meanwhile, the northernmost province of Ha Giang considers herbal medicine development as a start-up priority, an official said, adding that they have contracted research institutes to develop products from local herbal plants. According to the Institute of Medicinal Materials, Viet Nam has 5,117 herbal plants and fungus, along with 408 species of animals and minerals used as materials for nearly 1,300 traditional remedies. Domestic demand for herbal medicinal materials is about 60,000-80,000 tonnes per year, mostly for producing foods, medicines and cosmetics. The Ministry of Health assessed that the economic value of herbal plants is much higher than other food plants, suggesting that sustainable growing will help reduce poverty for many regions. Boosting tourism industry Yesterday, Phuc also instructed the northern province of Lao Cai to focus on developing its tourism industry, which is considered a key economic sector in the fight against poverty and the promotion of the cultural identities of ethnic minority groups in the northwestern region. Tourism should contribute 30 per cent to GDP, he said at a working session with local authorities. Tourism contributed to 11.5 per cent of the provinces GDP in 2010-2015. In 2016, Lao Cai welcomed 2.77 million tourists, up 33 per cent from 2015. The province has set a target of welcoming 6 million tourists by 2020. Lao Cai is expected to become a key tourism centre of the northwestern region by 2020, with Sapa becoming a national tourism site. The PM also instructed the province to boost border gate economic development. Promoting border gate economic development was a way for Lao Cai to build the locality into a commodity entrepot for countries in the Mekong sub-region and China as well as a modern logistics centre for the region, with a system of seaports, airports, railways and road transport, he said. He asked Lao Cai to deal with issues relating to the environment and social security and strive to fulfill its socio-economic tasks in 2017, particularly in completing the disbursement of investment capital for infrastructure development. Responding to the provinces proposals, PM Phuc agreed to invest in developing the Lao Cai border gate economic zone into a commodity entrepot for countries in the Mekong sub-region. VNS HA NOI Experts have called on the Ministry of Finance to be considerate and transparent with their plan to spend the environmental protection tax applied on gasoline, which they have just proposed to double. The Ministry of Finance is drafting an amendment to the law on environmental protection tax. It suggests lifting the tax on gasoline from the current VN1,000-4,000 to VN3,000-8,000 per litre. Higher tax rates for other fuel products, such as diesel and fuel oil, are also proposed in the draft amendment. Should the new tax rate be applied, the price of gasoline will rise to more than VN22,000 (roughly US$1) a liter, according to analysts. Some experts and lawmakers say the hike would hurt peoples daily lives and Vietnamese gas production. Tran Ngoc Vinh, NA deputy from Hai Phong Province, said environmental protection is a necessary task, but protection the environment cant be based on taxation. Most people use personal vehicles when traveling to work, a hike in gasoline prices would be a burden for them, Vinh said. Ngo Tri Long, former head of the Ministry of Finances Price Management Institute, said that the proposed ceiling rate is so high that it will surely affect the market in general, Long added. Moreover, its irrational if the Government tries to collect tax to make up for budget mismanagement, and its absolutely a bad thing for the whole economy, Long said. Previously, the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry expressed concerns about the negative impact the new tax rate will have on the economy. au Anh Tuan, head of VCCIs Legal Division, said the proposed environment tax hike would hurt enterprises and the economy, since fuels are an important input for the transport, agriculture and seafood sectors. Need for transparency Pham inh Thi, director of the ministrys Tax Policy Department under the finance ministry, said gasoline contains chemicals that adversely affect the environment. It is therefore subject to special consumption taxes and environmental protection taxes with different names around the world. However, Ngo Tri Long said the most important thing is transparency in spending the environmental protection tax revenue. In 2016 the total collection of environmental tax was VN40 trillion (US$1.7 billion) but we spent only VNDD10 trillion ($440 million). That means we havent used up the fund, why do we need to increase the tax rate? he said. Moreover, he said the tax is often set as a percentage of a goods price, but in this case the tax was set at too rigid a number. That means that whatever the price of gasoline, the tax will always be VN4,000, or VN8,000. Why? Its unusual, he said. Nguyen Quang Thai from the Viet Nam Economics Science Association, wondered about tax collection. Will it stand as a separate fund or will it all go the state budget? If it is for the environment protection causes, it must be spent on the environment he said. This must be clear so that even if the tax is increased, people can still accept it, he said, adding that he doubted that the National Assembly would pass such proposal. Responding these opinions, Thi, head of the Department of Tax Policies, emphasised the ratio of 1% budget collection spent on environmental protection was just direct expenditure, not including indirect expenditure. The environmental protection tax is collected according to the State Budget Law and spent according to the State Budget Law, not that the revenue from the environmental protection tax is only used for environmental protection, he said. Therefore, it is impossible to say the environmental protection tax is spent less than collected and used not for the right purpose. However, such answer was not satisfactory to some. Bui Thi An, an NA deputy from Ha Noi, said more information needs to be announced. Its necessary to say upon what foundation such tax figures were proposed. How much do we need to make the air clean? How specifically will these tax revenues be spent? she said. An added that it has been more than a year since the environmental protection tax was increased from VND1,000 to VND3,000, but no report has been announced on the spending of those funds. Nguyen Xuan Phuong, a resident of Hoan Kiem district, said if the tax will be strictly and seriously used to improve the environment, then hes all in for it. I can say I , and many people, would be more than willing to pay the proposed tax if it is spent effectively on our environment, he said. VNS Having control over their lives, making independent decisions, and keeping up to date on social and political issues can help ensure womens rights at work and at home, participants said at the Women Bettering the World summit held on Wednesday in HCM City. Photo vietnamfriendship.vn HCM CITY Having control over their lives, making independent decisions, and keeping up to date on social and political issues can help ensure womens rights at work and at home, participants said at the Women Bettering the World summit held on Wednesday in HCM City. With the participation of more than 1,000 guests, including female leaders of many countries, the summit, held for the first time in Viet Nam by Forbes Viet Nam, discussed the status of women empowerment in todays world. Participants agreed that more women worldwide hold important roles in Government and big companies and are succeeding in fields once dominated by men. However, most women still struggle to balance work and home life, while many people in various parts of the world continue to believe that women should not do what men do and that housework should be the priority. Women should be able to have control over their lives in all fields of life, especially in financial issues, said Nguyen Thanh Phuong, chairwoman of Viet Capital. Phuong said that todays women should have the right to make her own decisions about family and career. Nguyen Thi Mai Thanh, CEO of REE, said women should keep up to date on political and social issues, which can help them succeed in business. Dont assume that as a woman, you can wait for help from others, Thanh added. It is never too late for women. Set your standards for happiness and your needs. ao Thu Hien, CEO of Golden Path Academics, said that women should determine their own lives but should seek a balance between private and public life. All decisions are yours. Dont ever ask what you have to do. Just ask what you want to do, she said. Gender equality Although acknowledging years of progress for women, participants at the summit said there were still obstacles to women empowerment. Nguyen Van Anh, director of the Centre for Studies and Applied Sciences in Gender, Family, Women and Adolescents, said women still suffered from domestic violence, not only in rural areas but in urban areas as well. They do not dare live with their desires, Van Anh said. Van Anh said that her centre, which opened 20 years ago, continued to see domestic violence cases. The difference is that people who come to us now are younger. This is a positive sign because it shows that women know how to respond after a conflict in the family, she said. Ton Nu Thi Ninh, former ambassador of Viet Nam to the EU, said she saw positive signs of increasing gender equality in the country. People have recognised the role of women in the development of the country and society, while many women have joined sectors once dominated by men. However, Ninh said that many women continue to suffer from domestic violence and remain poor. She said that Viet Nam lagged behind other countries in gender equality. We have gained progress in gender equality, but it hasnt been adequate to our potential. We should do more, Ninh said. VNS HA NOI Oversized billboards featuring popular brands have been common in Ha Noi for a long time now. However, removing these illegal billboards is trickier than erecting them, needing committed enforcement and companies to follow regulations. The large signs that cover the front and sometimes also the sides of a building pose a legitimate fire concern. Firefighting forces said the panels block possible exits for those inside buildings should fire occur. Also, as they are made from highly inflammable materials such as styrofoam or plastic and furnished with lighting systems, they can cause fires. The lesson of last years devastating fire that destroyed a karaoke bar and killed 13 remains raw and the tragedy began with an overbearing store sign that covered the front of the eight-storey building and went up in flames after an electrical malfunction. Throughout the city, its hard not to notice ubiquitous and large black boards with the words thegioididong.com (roughly translated as Mobile World) in yellow. Owned by Mobile World Investment Corporation, The Gioi Di ong chain specialising in consumer electronics is a household name. Their store signs are conspicuous, and so are their violations. According to the Ministry of Constructions regulations, the total area of a front-facing store sign must not exceed 20 sqr.m, however, the sign panel of the The Gioi Di ong store located at 470-472 Le Duan stretched upwards of 120 sqr.m, six times above the limit. Independent billboards (not attached to buildings) usually found on highways must not be bigger than 120 sqr.m, but The Gioi Di ongs billboards measure 130-150 sqr.m. Bui Minh Hoang, head of the culture management office under the municipal Department of Culture, said that metal-frame advertisement board or store signs over 20 sqr.m on buildings are only legal with a permit from authorities. However, none of the stores belonging to this brand can produce such permissions, Hoang added. Similarly, the The Gioi Di ong on ai La Street, Hai Ba Trung District, stretches dozens of metres in width and is at least five metres high, vastly over the limit. Perhaps most egregiously, in the outlying district of Thanh Tri, a The Gioi Di ong store featuring a 100 sqr.m sign towers near the headquarters of the districts Peoples Committee. Article 34 of the Law on Advertising (2012) says that signs must contain information regarding its owners, however, the brands signs contain only the website of the company plus its logo. The company has made systematic and flagrant violations not only in the city, but also in other provinces, Hoang said. According to Hoang, these violations from a well-known brand indirectly led to more companies doing the same, thinking that this practice would go unpunished. Cleanup campaign soon commenced As an extension of the sidewalk cleanup campaign currently underway in cities throughout the country, the capital citys authorities are planning a similar scheme to tackle illegal billboards. In reality, these oversized and garish advertising boards werent erected unnoticed. The management of billboards on buildings is delegated to local governments (wards and district-level). However, as far as accountability is concerned, a recent inter-sectoral campaign to get rid of billboards in ong a District shone a light on this murky subject. The local construction department said it wasnt their job, but the culture departments responsibility, however, the culture department can only demolish offending boards, but the buildings the boards are on are within the construction departments jurisdiction. Nguyen Duy Tuan, Department of Culture and Communications of the outlying Thanh Tri District said local officials have only been able to meet with the employees, never the owners [of The Gioi Di ong] so not one violation has been corrected. In addition, under law, the highest fine for each illegal billboard is a paltry VN 10 million (US$440). In 2016, the municipal Peoples Committee took down some 190 billboards that werent attached to buildings. Vo Nguyen Giap street, for example, is no longer cluttered with panels that obstruct drivers vision. This was not an easy task considering the resistance from offenders, ranging from litigation threats, small protests and harassment directed against officials. Chairman of Ha Noi Peoples Committee Nguyen uc Chung has directed competent agencies to tackle oversized storefront signs next. The culture department does not have enough manpower to list and handle all the storefront signs. An inter-sectoral task force has been established to take an inventory of all billboards and offending signs in the city by the end of April, Bui Minh Hoang, head of culture management, said. Once the violating cases have been identified, reminders will be issued to local governments to take care of the signs and a report will be compiled to submit to higher-ups for further guidance, he added. It remains to be seen whether authorities renewed efforts will produce fruitful results, but targeting transgressions is a good first step. VNS HA NOI Following an overall inspection of all karaoke shops, Ha Noi has decided to suspend 126 shops and asked more than 530 others to temporarily close. The 530 shops can reopen by the end of this year if they address the violations. The information was declared this week in a meeting attended by the press and the Ha Noi Party Committees Commission for Publicity and Education. Deputy director of the Ha Noi Department of Fire Prevention and Control Police Nguyen Tuan Anh said following a fire at a karaoke shop on No 68 Tran Thai Tong Street, Cau Giay District, on November 1 last year, which killed 13 people, the police conducted an overall inspection of all karaoke shops. The police checked more than 1,500 karaoke shops and imposed administrative fines on 353 shops, worth VN871 million (US$38,700). Common violations included lack of fire prevention and control measures because the shops were located in small alleys, limited water sources and large advertisements that hindered an emergency exit in case of a fire. Tuan Anh also said the capital had nearly 2,700 water outlets for fire control, but 380 outlets could not be used because they were too far from water plants. The capital needed some 4,000 more water outlets for fire control, he said. Under the present conditions, firemens ladders could reach only till the 16th floor, therefore fire prevention was very important, Tuan Anh said. Director of the Ha Noi Department of Fire Prevention and Control Police Hoang Quoc inh said information about a fire was generally reported to the police 6-10 minutes late. Almost 70 per cent of fires were informed to the police by neighbours, while only 30 per cent were informed to by house owners themselves. VNS A NANG Some 136 at-risk babies have received milk over two months from 46 donor mothers from the countrys first human milk bank at the a Nang Hospital for Women and Children. International and Vietnamese experts on breastfeeding, newborn care and human milk banks heard this at a workshop held today in central a Nang City, organised to learn more about the establishment of the countrys first human milk bank. At the event, hospital representatives shared initial achievements and challenges of the milk bank and the role of early essential newborn care in ensuring there are enough milk donors to feed all infants in need of human milk. Since 2015, the a Nang Department of Health and the a Nang Hospital for Women and Children have been working with PATH and Alive & Thrive to highlight the importance of human milk and the ability of human milk banks to offer a solution for optimal growth and development for at-risk children. As a result of this partnership, Viet Nams first human milk bank opened on February 6, 2017. The hospital has trained health staff across departments to provide breastfeeding support for all mothers and infants to ensure infants receive the best nutrition possible. Since its opening, 136 at-risk babies have received milk from 46 donor mothers, who passed strict hygiene and safety testing, totaling 60 litres of donated human milk. Nguyen uc Vinh, director of the Maternal and Child Health Department at the Ministry of Health, said: The human milk bank is giving at-risk children of a Nang City a chance of survival. We hope the lessons and experiences from this model will be applied in other locations in Viet Nam. The human milk bank represents more than just a location where breast milk is donated and received to save the lives of vulnerable children; it also aims to raise awareness on the importance of breastfeeding and promote the same in society. The rate of breastfeeding in Viet Nam in general, and in a Nang city in particular, should be increased to a level of importance equal with breast milk, director of the a Nang Health Department Ngo Kim Yen said. One of the key things we see in the development of the human milk bank here in Viet Nam is that it cannot operate alone -- it must be integrated within a wider model of newborn care, Program Director of Alive & Thrive in Southeast Asia Roger Mathisen said. The human milk bank provides a link between neonatal care and breastfeeding, connecting at-risk newborns with human milk. An integrated approach linking neonatal care, human milk banking and breastfeeding promotion is vital to its success, Mathisen added. Studies have repeatedly shown that of all the known solutions to reduce child mortality (22 deaths out of every 1,000 live births among children under five in Viet Nam), human milk has the greatest potential impact on child survival and development; it contains the key nutrients infants need to build strong immune systems and is the best and easiest food for babies to digest. While all newborns can benefit from human milk, not all women are able to provide breast milk for their babies. Sometimes the mother is too ill or on medication incompatible with breastfeeding. For infants at greatest risk -- pre-term, low weight or orphaned -- the World Health Organisation recommends donor milk as the best alternative. The a Nang Hospital for Women and Children is the top-ranked hospital in the field of pediatrics and obstetrics with 900 planned beds and 1765 actual beds. Each year, the hospital welcomes 13,000-15,000 births. The hospitals neonatal pediatrics department provides treatment for some 120 babies with low weight, premature birth or illness each day, and is also a training centre for neonatal care for many domestic and international hospitals. VNS HA NOI The Ha Noi Peoples Court on Wednesday sentenced two Japanese men for trafficking seven gold statues via the Noi Bai International Airport in August last year. Iwamura Masakazu, 46, was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment and Kitada Takayoshi, 34, was sentenced to eight years imprisonment. Iwamura Masakazu is the former director of the Japan-based RG Innovation Company, which mediates on behalf of Vietnamese workers who wish to work in Japan. Aware that gold products are sold at very high prices in Japan, after visiting Viet Nam several times to study the trade market, Iwamura Masakazu decided to take gold products from Viet Nam to Japan to earn profits. Iwamura Masakazu asked Kitada Takayoshi for help, who agreed to be part of the scam. In July last year, the two men visited the Sinh Dien Gold and Gemstones Co Ltd in the northern province of Bac Ninh and asked the owner of the company to make seven gold statues. They made an appointment to collect the products one month later. To deceive Vietnamese customs, Iwamura Masakazu asked Kitada Takayoshi to get the seven gold statues plated in silver. On August 3 last year, the Noi Bai International Airport Customs found seven statues in Kitada Takayoshis luggage that were not declared at customs. Customs check revealed that the seven statues weighed nearly 7kg and were worth more than VN6.7 trillion (US$297.6 million). VNS HA NOI Three Vietnamese teachers have won prizes in the Microsoft Education Exchange 2017 in Toronto, Canada. This year, the annual forum attracted around 300 educators from 83 countries and territories, who discussed and shared experiences in education innovations. As part of the exchange forum, a competition was organised among teachers. Participants were divided into five-person groups of different nationalities and had to work on a randomly selected project and submit it in 24 hours. Tran Thi Thuy, a teacher from uc Hop High School in Hung Yen Province, and her group won the first prize of this years education exchange. Le Thanh Ha from Ha Nois Olympia School was also awarded the first prize for a group challenge. Nguyen Thi Lieu, vice-principal of uc Tri Junior High School in HCM City, was honoured with the Outstanding Individual title after she, for the first time, challenged herself with playing new roles of a mentor and an international judge at the forum. VNS Russian Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vladimir Safronkov holds up his hand as he votes against a draft resolution that condemns the reported use of chemical weapons in Syria at the Security Council on April 12, 2017, at UN Headquarters in New York. AFP/VNA Photo Russian Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vladimir Safronkov holds up his hand as he votes against a draft resolution that condemns the reported use of chemical weapons in Syria at the Security Council on April 12, 2017, at UN Headquarters in New York. AFP/VNA Photo UNITED NATIONS, United States Russia on Wednesday vetoed a UN resolution demanding the Syrian government co-operate with an investigation of a suspected chemical attack, blocking Security Council action against its ally for an eighth time. Britain, France and the United States had put forward the measure in response to the suspected sarin gas attack in rebel-held Khan Sheikhun on April 4 that left 87 dead, including 31 children. The Russian veto came after US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declared following talks in Moscow that there was a "low level of trust" between the United States and Russia. China, another veto-holding power at the council, abstained in the vote, as did Kazakhstan and Ethiopia. Bolivia voted against the measure and 10 other council members supported it. "With its veto, Russia said no to accountability, Russia said no to co-operation with the UNs independent investigation and Russia said no to a resolution that would have helped to promote peace in Syria," said US Ambassador Nikki Haley. "The international community has spoken. Russia now has a lot to prove," she said. Russian Deputy Ambassador Vladimir Safronkov recalled that Moscow had "consistently expressed our categorical disagreement" with the draft resolution but that Western governments had insisted on a vote. The proposed resolution would have condemned the alleged attack and expressed the councils full backing to investigators from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). The draft would have demanded that the Syrian government provide flight plans, flight logs and other information on its military operations on April 4, hand over the names of commanders of any aircraft and provide access to air bases to UN investigators. Russia on the wrong side The West has accused Assads forces of carrying out the attack in Idlib province that shocked the world. France and Britain expressed its dismay over the Russian veto. "This puts Russia on the wrong side of the argument," British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said in a statement in London. In Paris, French President Francois Hollande said "Russia bears a heavy responsibility" by systematically opposing multilateral action to protect its Syrian ally Assad. UN investigators already have the mandate under previous resolutions to look into allegations of chemical weapons use in Syria but the West had pushed for council resolution to underscore its support for a thorough investigation in the Khan Sheikhun case. Syria is obliged to cooperate with the OPCW as a member of the Chemical Weapons Convention, which it joined in 2013, but access to sites has been a complicated issue. "To Assad and the Syrian government: you have no friends in the world after your horrible actions," Haley said. "The days of your arrogance and disregard for humanity are over. Your excuses will no longer be heard. I suggest you look at this vote very carefully and heed this warning," she added. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in Moscow following his talks with Tillerson that the OPCW should be allowed to carry out an "objective investigation". Russia presented a separate draft text condemning the US military strikes in Syria and requesting an OPCW investigation, but it was unclear whether that measure would come up for a vote. The OPCW executive council will discuss the investigation during a meeting Thursday in The Hague, the Russian envoy said. AFP WAVERLY The director of a Waverly day-care center has been arrested on misdemeanor charges after police searched her home and vehicle last week. Kelly Raney Hampton, 44, of Waverly, was arrested April 6 for possession of methamphetamine, possession of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia and unlawful possession of a prescription drug. She was released from the Bremer County Jail the same day. Hampton is the director of the Little Learners Preschool and Daycare on Technology Place in Waverly, according to records with the Iowa Department of Human Services. According to police, officers were notified about the odor of marijuana at an apartment building at 401 24th St. N.W. at 12:18 p.m. April 6. Police found the smell coming from Apt. 2, where Hampton lived, and a short time later she arrived at the building. Authorities were able to obtain a search warrant for the apartment and her vehicle, and they found a plastic bag with suspected meth residue in her dresser, an unlabeled bottle with two hydrocodone pills and pipes in her apartment and marijuana in her apartment and under the drivers seat in her vehicle, according to court records. WATERLOO -- Waterloo police have apprehended a man that failed to return to a correction facility this week. On Wednesday, officer, acting on a tip from Cedar Valley Crime Stoppers, located and arrested Nicholas Robert Campbell-Scott, 19, in the area of East Donald and Niles streets. Campbell-Scott had been wanted for going missing from a Residential Center in Cedar Rapids. He had been serving time for second-degree robbery, eluding, possession of contraband, burglary and carrying weapons. Campbell-Scott was transported to the Black Hawk County Jail and booked in on his warrant. He was admitted to the work release facility on March 31, and went missing Sunday. WATERLOO A Waterloo man has been detained on probation charges and his brother has been charged with attempting to support ISIS following a series of FBI raids. The Waterloo resident, 37-year-old Wayne Johnathon Jones II, is only being held for allegedly absconding while on probation for a 2001 misdemeanor battery conviction out of Kenosha, Wis., according to jail officials and court records. He was taken into custody during a predawn raid at his Western Avenue apartment Wednesday. He is currently in the Black Hawk County Jail and is being held without bond. Officials at the FBI declined to comment on the Waterloo operation. In a simultaneous raid in Illinois, Wayne Jones brother, 35-year-old Joseph D. Yusuf Abdulahad Jones, and his brothers friend, Edward Abdul Wali Schimenti, 35, both of Zion, Ill., were taken into custody. Both are charged with conspiring to provide and attempting to provide material support and resources to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, a terrorist organization. The Illinois men allegedly gave cellphones to a person they believed was an ISIS devotee traveling to fight in Syria. The cellphones were to be used as detonators for improvised explosive devices. Joseph Jones told the man he hoped the phones could be used to kill many nonbelievers, court records state. Joseph Jones and Schimenti also drove him to an airport to begin his journey overseas. Schimenti told him to drench that land with they, they blood, court records state. The traveler, it turned out, wasnt an ISIS follower going to Syria. He was a confidential informant working with the FBI. According to a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago, Joseph Jones and Schimenti pledged their allegiance to ISIS and advocated on social media for violent extremism. In one online posting, Joseph Jones bemoans his inability of find a good black Islamic State flag on eBay. Nothing but filthy Shia and Iranian flags pop up, he wrote, according to court records. In the fall of 2015 the two met three people they believed were fellow ISIS followers, but two of the individuals were undercover FBI employees and the third was cooperating with law enforcement. Over the next several months Joseph Jones and Schimenti met the undercover informants on numerous occasions, during which Joseph Jones and Schimenti discussed their devotion to ISIS and shared ISIS execution videos, the complaint states. Some of the meetings took place in Waukegan, Zion, Bridgeview, North Chicago, Highland Park and Chicago. One of the undercover operatives eventually brought Joseph Jones an Islamic State flag and in April 2016, Joseph Jones allegedly shared photos of himself and Schimenti holding the flag in front of a sign reading Welcome to Illinois Beach State Park, court records state. Joseph Jones allegedly asked an undercover FBI agent to share the photo on his Google+ account with a caption reading Support from dar ul fuffar, meaning support from the land of the infidels. During a later recorded conversation with the cooperating source, Schimenti commented he would like to see the ISIS flag on top of the White House, according to court records. In February and March 2017, Schimenti worked out with the cooperating source at a gym in Zion, the complaint states. Schimenti believed the man intended to travel overseas to fight for ISIS, and Schimenti commented the exercises would make you good, you know, in the battlefield, according to the complaint. At one point in the sting operation, Schimenti allegedly made comments about the Great Lakes Naval Station in the Chicago area, and investigators believed he was considering it as a target. At another point, the complaint refers to comments Schimenti made about being angry at a gay coworker. Sharia [Islamic Law] comes here, we are putting you [homosexuals] on top of Sears Tower and we drop you, Schimenti said, according to the complaint. Last month the pair furnished several cellular phones to the cooperating source, believing they would be used to detonate explosive devices in ISIS attacks, the complaint states. On April 7, Joseph Jones and Schimenti drove the cooperating source to OHare International Airport in Chicago with the understanding he would travel to Syria to fight with ISIS, the complaint states. WATERLOO As Waterloo Community Schools begins applying a new collective bargaining law to its staff contracts, the initial proposals offered to employee groups for negotiations this week looked grim. Each of the three proposals was largely a long list of items to be deleted from the contracts. Some components are now excluded from public employee bargaining under the legislation signed by Gov. Branstad while others are permissive meaning they can be included in the contract if both sides agree. Its directly attributed to the changes in the law, the districts chief negotiator Brett Nitzschke, of the Cedar Rapids law firm Lynch Dallas, said at one of the sessions. Because of the requirements under the law its the districts position if somethings excluded we have to take it out, he said at another session. District negotiators also took out the permissive items, but he made clear that they will discuss those issues with each group and consider continuing to include them in the contracts. The tactic is being used to reserve the districts right under the law. Nitzschke added, This is a lot of change that were trying to implement because its been forced on us. Negotiators also offered initial wage proposals for the contracts, which will go into effect July 1. Increases of 1.1 percent in base wages were included for the Waterloo Education Association and the Waterloo Educational Support Personnel. No increase was included in the proposal to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 2749. Nitzschke noted that those are only a starting point. He said the district is also waiting for the Public Employee Relations Board to clarify what constitutes base wages a brand new term included in the legislation. During the past two weeks, each the groups have offered their initial public bargaining proposals. Now they begin negotiating behind closed doors with the district. The WEA contract covers 887 teachers, counselors and family support workers. The WESP contract covers 353 secretaries, home school workers, clerk typists, paraeducators, study hall monitors and behavior intervention specialists. The AFSCME contract covers roughly 200 food service, custodial and maintenance staff. In an opening statement, Superintendent Jane Lindaman counseled the employees to come at the process with a collaborative spirit. With recent legislative changes, there is no doubt that the negotiations process is not only complex, it is also unclear, sometimes with more questions than answers, she said. Now as we kick off this process, I want to urge each person in the room to think of the changes not as something to fear, but something to navigate. DECORAH A motion to rezone property in Bluffton for a new home failed to receive approval from the Winneshiek County Board of Supervisors on Monday. The supervisors held the second reading of an ordinance to rezone 10 acres of agricultural property to R-2 unincorporated residential before voting to waive the third and final reading and vote on the matter. Supervisors Dean Thompson, John Beard and Mark Kuhn voted against the rezoning and Board Chairman John Logsdon voted in favor of the change. Supervisor Floyd Ashbacher was absent. Wayne Mashek of Cresco wanted the rezoning to build a house on the property located on the east side of the road between 3294 and 3306 Chimney Rock Road near Bluffton. The Winneshiek County Zoning Commission has recommended the rezoning be approved. His plan was to build the house set back from the top of the bluff, over the Upper Iowa River, so it is out of the Bluff Impact Zone but still in the Bluff Protection Zone. If the supervisors had approved the rezoning, Mashek would have been required to submit a site plan to the Zoning Commission to build within the protection zone. Beard said bluff protection and impact zones were established for a reason. If we make any variations, it opens us up for a challenge for any respective change in the use. It makes it harder for P&Z and our Board, he said. After a public hearing on the rezoning last week, Thompson said allowing a change to unincorporated residential zoning would be contrary to the countys 2012 comprehensive plan for conservation of bluff land. Lawmakers will pay a greater share for their state health insurance coverage under one of the 26 bills that Gov. Terry Branstad signed into law Wednesday. At present, lawmakers pay $20 a month for single health insurance and from $20 to $344 a month for family coverage, according to the Legislative Services Agency. Noncontract executive branch employees pay $26 to $79 a month for single coverage and from $210 to $335 per month for family coverage. Senate File 230 says lawmakers will pay the same health insurance premiums as those non-contract executive branch employees. Other bills that will become law dealt with longer straight truck lengths on Iowa highways, the regulation of bass fishing tournaments and the tagging of deer carcasses. RESTROOM CAMERAS: Legislation to ban video monitoring of public restrooms, locker rooms or showers in public buildings cleared the House Government Oversight Committee on Wednesday. However, some members pushed back, arguing cameras can be helpful in preventing bullying, vandalism and other crimes. SF 499, which has been approved by the full Senate Government Oversight Committee, was drafted in response to the Iowa City Public Library, where video cameras were installed in public restrooms as a theft deterrent. Pete McRoberts of the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa told lawmakers there is a reasonable expectation of privacy in a restroom, and it is very concerning for a government agency to videotape anyone in a state of undress. Rep. Mary Wolfe, D-Clinton, agreed people should not be filmed while sitting on toilet doing their business, but questioned whether they should have an expectation of privacy in the common area of a restroom. The committee approved the bill 7-2, making it eligible for consideration by the full House next week. SOBRIETY MONITORING: Iowa senators voted 49-0 Wednesday to require drivers arrested for or convicted of impaired driving to participate in twice-daily sobriety monitoring as well as require some drivers to install ignition interlocks. SF 444, which now goes to Gov. Terry Branstad, also says a distracted driver who struck and killed someone could be convicted of a Class C felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. The bill makes cellphone use while driving evidence of reckless driving with willful or wanton disregard for public safety. The legislation also creates a 24/7 monitoring program for people convicted of alcohol-related crimes. FENDER-BENDER PROTOCOL: The Senate voted 49-0 Wednesday to change the protocol for drivers involved in fender-bender accidents. House File 313, which goes to the governor, requires Iowa drivers involved in a minor, property-damage traffic accident to first move the vehicle from the travel portion of a roadway if the vehicle can be removed safely. Current law requires the driver involved in an accident resulting only in damage to stop the vehicle at the accident scene until the driver has fulfilled the legal requirement relating to the exchange of personal information with the other driver involved. However, safety officials say that increases the possibility of secondary accidents. VOLUNTARY EXCLUSION: The Iowa Senate voted 47-2 Wednesday to send the governor legislation allowing Iowans to sign a voluntary exclusion prohibiting them from entering an Iowa-licensed casino. Under current law, a voluntary exclusion is for life. Senate File 442 would allow a person to choose either a lifetime ban or a five-year exclusion. The five-year exclusion could be renewed for another five years or for life. The bill allows banned persons to attend functions at a casino but not be on the gaming floor. SENATE CONFIRMATIONS: The Iowa Senate confirmed 40 of Gov. Terry Branstads appointments to state posts, boards and commissions. During Wednesdays votes, senators approved Doug Ommen (49-0) as Iowas insurance commissioner; Howard Hill (37-12), Chad Ingles (37-12) and Bob Sinclair (46-3) to the state Environmental Protection Commission; Nancy Maher to the state Transportation Commission; and Jeff Lamberti (49-0) and Carl Heinrich to the state Racing and Gaming Commission. Maher and Heinrich were among 35 appointees approved by a 47-1 en bloc vote, while the other confirmations were handled via individual voters. Gubernatorial nominees are required to receive a two-thirds majority or at least 34 affirmative votes to be confirmed by the Iowa Senate. Even before the Senate confirmed Neil Gorsuch as a justice of the Supreme Court, and before it nuked the filibuster for nominees, the Trump administration and conservatives were already plotting to fill the next vacancy. Indeed, they have made overtures to swing Justice Anthony M. Kennedy to get him to feel comfortable with retirement. If Kennedy goes, or if a liberal justice gets sick or dies, Democrats have few levers to stop Republicans from confirming a nominee even more conservative than Gorsuch. The future, then, holds a Supreme Court where Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. is the swing vote a scary eventuality for progressives. Last year was the real moment for the left to act on the Supreme Court. Conservative Justice Antonin Scalia had died, creating the first opportunity in decades to move the court to the left on issues including the environment and civil rights. There could have been a majority to overturn the controversial 2010 Citizens United decision, which has ushered in a new era of big money in politics. But within an hour of the public announcement of Scalias death, Republican Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell pledged no nominee from President Barack Obama would get a hearing before the Senate. When Obama nominated a well-respected moderate judge, Merrick Garland of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Republicans stood their ground and Democrats failed to take to the streets. Whether it was because Garland was a middle-of-the road white male, or because liberals did not understand what was at stake or for some other reason, the court issue did not motivate the left. But it did motivate the right. Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, easily won re-election in Iowa despite his obstruction. According to exit polls, of the one in five voters who said Supreme Court appointments were their most important issue, 56 percent supported Donald Trump and 41 percent supported Hillary Clinton. Of the 28 percent of voters who said Supreme Court appointments were not important to their vote, 52 percent supported Clinton while 39 percent supported Trump. If Kennedy or Justice Stephen Breyer or Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg leaves and Trump gets to appoint a replacement, the court will move dramatically to the right. There could well be five justices to overturn Roe v. Wade, the case guaranteeing women the right to an abortion. The court could hold that all affirmative action plans in public education violate the Constitution. The court could make it much harder to assert claims that restrictive voting laws violate the equal protection clause or the Voting Rights Act. If progressives think the Supreme Court is conservative now, just wait. With the filibuster gone, the options for the left should another vacancy occur before 2020 are slim. The left could encourage protests and try to pressure moderate senators not to confirm a hard-right nominee, but that seems unlikely. Sad as it may be, liberals may have no choice but to put faith in Roberts as a political actor. With Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr., Clarence Thomas, Gorsuch and another hard conservative to his right, Roberts could calculate overturning Roe v. Wade and turning the abortion question over to the states would actually be disastrous for the Republican Party. Suddenly every state election would become a battle over abortion, and many apathetic liberals could turn into motivated ones. Granted, Roberts would almost certainly not fight to save Roe but he might vote to kill it with 1,000 cuts rather than overturn it outright. I dont mean for liberals to find comfort in this scenario. (Roberts likely wont have any compunction against destroying what is left of affirmative action or removing the remaining limits on money in politics. Want to donate $100 million to your favorite presidential candidate? No problem.) On the contrary, the possibility Roberts restraint is the best hope for preserving progressive constitutional rulings shows us the left is in a truly poor position. The only real solution is for Democrats to pray for the current justices good health and then to take back the presidency and the Senate. And once they do, perhaps theyll play hardball themselves by increasing the number of justices on the court and packing it with liberals. Apr 13, 2017 | By Benedict BeeHex, a 3D printed pizza specialist that was once affiliated with NASA, is collaborating with cauliflower pizza crust company CaliFlour to develop a 3D printed vegan pizza crust. The companies recently demonstrated the 3D printing process at a sold-out event in Columbus, Ohio. Cali'flour partners with BeeHex on 3D printed vegan pizza crust You might think BeeHex and its 3D printed pizzas are the future of food. You might, on the other hand, think that BeeHex (along with similar niche 3D printing companies) is dragging 3D printing down into the depths of pure novelty. Either way, its hard to ignore the now Columbus-based company, what with its frankly bizarre backstory and headline-grabbing 3D food printer. If you arent familiar with the food 3D printing company by now, heres the gist: in 2013, the group of engineers that would eventually form BeeHex were awarded a grant from NASA to develop a 3D printer that could print food in space for hungry astronauts. Yum. Later on, members of Congress noticed this had happened, decided it was a colossal waste of money, and hastily pulled the plug on the project. The BeeHex crew rallied, continued their research, and decided to make a terrestrial food 3D printer instead. This 3D printer now 3D prints customizable pizzas at concerts and sporting events. The BeeHex pizza-making 3D printer In what will surely be music to the ears of vegans everywhere, BeeHex has now announced a partnership will cauliflower crust specialist CaliFlour that will see it 3D printing vegan pizzas crusts (and plant-based dessert doughs.) The two companies recently showcased their new printed foodstuffs in front of a 300-strong crowd at GroundWork, a nonprofit-friendly IT firm based in Columbus. CaliFlour represents the type of forward-thinking collaborations were looking for, commented BeeHex CEO Anjan Contractor. Their organic, plant-based approach to crusts appeals to vegan and health-conscious markets that appear ready to grow tenfold over the next year. BeeHex says its work with CaliFlour is a continuation of its commitment to making fresh food products whose calories can be easily counted. More importantly, the 300 spectators witnessing the first BeeHex 3D printed vegan pizza crusts seemed to be impressed. Perhaps they just came for free pizza, but 300 attendees for a product launch cant be scoffed at. Pizzas 3D printed by BeeHex (non-vegan) The team at BeeHex combines the authenticity and technological capability that it takes to revolutionize how food is made, said CaliFlour founder Amy Lacey, who even suggested that the BeeHex pizza printing system made dough better than human hands. Anjan, Jordan French, Ben Feltner, and Chintan Kanuga are rapidly building out what could be the next major platform play in the Internet of Things space in a way that lets people personalize their foods. After raising $1 million in a funding round at the beginning of March, BeeHex moved its headquarters to Columbus. To complement its pizza printing powers, the company is now working on a fine-point dessert 3D printer for frostings, cakes, and other desserts. Posted in 3D Printing Application Maybe you also like: Apr 13, 2017 | By Tess Dutch 3D printer manufacturer Nectar has announced that it has received a one million euro investment from Dutch investment company TIIN Capital and venture capital firm PPM Oost. The funding will allow the Arnhem-based 3D printer developer to increase its production, sales, marketing, and R&D for its upcoming Nectar One 3D printer. Nectar was founded in 2013 by Nick Wilderink and Stein de Haan, the companys current CEO and CTO, respectively. The two were driven to develop an affordable 3D printer that would enable users to not only make accurate and good quality 3D prints, but to do so in a user-friendly and accessible way. The fruit of their labors is the Nectar One, an industrial delta-style 3D printer which features a modular architecture and an integrated HEPA and carbon filter module. Currently, Nectars team is working hard to bring its first product to market, and the added boost from the 1 million investment is sure to help the process along. According to the companys blog, it needed capital to scale even further and expand [its] business to drive growth. Thanks to TIIN Capital and PPM Oosts interest in the Dutch 3D printer developer, Nectar will be able to increase its production and invest more in its sales, marketing, and R&D departments. Were glad that we have two very experienced investors on board with TIIN Capital and PPM Oost, commented Wilderink. They are a huge asset to our business and will help bring hassle free 3D printing to many more companies. Nectars focus on reliability, usability and ease of use mean that we had to build our own 3D printer and software from the ground up. This requires a significant investment in time and money and with our current round we will be able to expand production and R&D to further build upon the Nectar One ecosystem. So far, the 3D printer has already been tested by launch customers such as Teijin Aramid, a Dutch subsidiary of Japanese Chemical and Pharmaceutical company Teijin. The company was provided with one of the first Nectar One 3D printers to manufacture complexly structured prototype components. A recent post by Wilderink on 3D Hubs says that the 3D printer is ready to ship and that the company is looking for makers or businesses to provide feedback about the Nectar One. Nectar has listed a number of specifications for its upcoming 3D printer on its website: Build volume: 280 mm x 400 mm height Maximum bed temperature: 150 degrees Celsius Maximum nozzle temperature: 300 degrees Celsius Closed Loop Filtering System Replaceable Active Carbon & HEPA Filters LAN-port, USB-B & 230V Power The 3D printer is also compatible with a range of different materials, including ABS, PLA, HIPS, ASA, PC, PA 12, and PET G. The Nectar Ones cost is listed as 5,999 on the Nectar website, though if you participate in the 3D Hubs feedback program, you could be eligible for a 20% discount. Posted in 3D Printer Company Maybe you also like: Apr 13, 2017 | By Tess A team of students from a German university has built a single-person racing vehicle using 3D printing technologies. The impressive racer, called TOXIC, is powered by a single cordless electric drillthe kind you might find in your own tool kit. Last summer we wrote about the annual Akkuschrauberrennen (Cordless Screwdriver Race) that is hosted by the HAWK University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Hildesheim, Germany. For nearly a decade, the event has brought together students teams from various universities to design and build the fastest one-person vehicles operated by nothing but a cordless electric screwdriver. For the 2016 races, the competition required that all teams use an organic-inspired design and incorporate at least one 3D printed component into their racer. Obviously, this piqued our interest immensely. (You can read more about the races and their results here.) Team Toxic, comprised of five students from Hochschule Coburg (or the Coburg University of Applied Sciences), built a truly stunning 3D printed vehicle for the races that we would be remiss to not mention. The vehicles structure (as well as its name) was inspired by the shape of a stinging scorpion, which can kind of be discerned by looking at it. Its framework, however, is what we really want to draw attention to. The racers 3D printed framework integrates a visually striking triangular structure which provides strength and durability to the vehicle without adding on too much weight. Of course, being built for one purpose (going fast while only being powered by a cordless drill), the rest of the vehicle is quite rudimentary, using the drivers shifting weight for steering, for instance. At its full power, the TOXIC racer has reached speeds of up to 12 miles per hour. (A full battery runs for about a mile.) Impressively, Team Toxic took home the second place audience award with its 3D printed vehicle at the 2016 races, which took place on June 25, 2016. As the 2017 annual Akkuschrauberrennen approaches, we cant wait to see what kind of 3D printed vehicles will be showcased this year! Students Achim Staude, Bastian Reichhardt, Christian Kropfeld, Martin Ehlers, and Christoph Uebel all worked on Team Toxic. Posted in 3D Printing Application Maybe you also like: willi wrote at 4/14/2017 3:49:01 AM:That is some pretty hefty music for 12mph! Still, it looks very nice! :-)Eric Spidell wrote at 4/14/2017 12:05:29 AM:Wow! I want the files to print my own! Apr 13, 2017 | By Benedict Select KFC restaurants in India are offering customers 3D printed figurines of themselves when they buy the KFC I-Box, a 5-in-1 chicken meal. The chosen restaurants have set up Twindom full-body 3D scanning booths where customers can get themselves digitized. KFC India staff show off their new 3D printing capabilities Its been a long time since I wondered what toy I might be getting in my McDonalds Happy Meal. Regardless of the fact that I prefer adult portions, I dont imagine that any plastic trinket would persuade me to buy a particular kind of fast food, from McDonalds, Burger King, or anywhere. At least, thats what I thought before I heard about this ridiculous new campaign from KFC. The chicken behemoths Indian locations are offering customers the chance to turn themselves into 3D printed selfies, miniature figurines made using a combination of 3D scanning and 3D printing technology, when they buy an I-Box 5-in-1 meal. We can only presume that the 3D printed figurines are boneless. Excited chicken lovers queue for their 3D printed selfies at a KFC restaurant in India KFC launched the campaign last month across select Indian restaurants, where Twindom 3D scanning booths have been set up to allow I-Box customers to digitize and 3D print themselves. Once the process is complete, they can pick up their chicken, fries, soda, and tiny miniature clone, presumably feeling like theyve got a pretty good deal. Toy collectibles are passe and so are selfies, said Lluis Ruiz Ribot, CMO of KFC India. The KFC I-Box takes things to a whole new level: the Smart Toy is unique, personalized, and a mini-you. The unusual marketing campaign was brought about with the help of Little Me, a 3D printed figurine company based in Mumbai that brought a number of Twindoms Twinstant Mobile full body 3D scanners to the participating KFC restaurants. These $23K scanners can be set up in about 20 minutes, and take 5-10 minutes to generate 3D previews. A Twinstant Mobile 3D scanning booth Interestingly, KFC isnt the only company trying to cook up publicity with 3D printed selfies. Landmark Bank in Texas recently launched a campaign called Become a Landmark in an attempt to entice new customers to open an account. The reward? A 3D printed figurine, of course. Landmark Banks slogan for the campaign is Dont be a number, be a Landmark, the idea being that the customer will get personalized, long-term attentionlike a landmark. Landmark Bank attempts to woo prospective bankers with its 3D printed figurines The idea of using 3D printing as a way to offer personalization to customers is interesting and one I think we will see more of as brands look to differentiate and create unique experiences to drive customers to physical stores. said Will Drevno, co-founder of Twindom. Posted in Fun with 3D Printing Maybe you also like: KW wrote at 4/27/2017 10:44:53 PM:What KFCs offer this? Do you know their location?A. Graves wrote at 4/14/2017 3:17:24 AM:Which printer are they using? Apr 13, 2017 | By Tess A joint team of international researchers has unveiled its latest achievement: a 3D printing method that allows printed objects to permanently transform into different forms when exposed to heat. The new technique, a type of 4D printing, was the result of research conducted by the Georgia Institute of Technology in the U.S., the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), and the Xi'an Jiaotong University in China. 4D printing, which introduces the element of time and movement into 3D printing, has been in development for some time, with researchers from around the globe developing various different printable materials that can change form once exposed to elements such as water and heat. Much of the existing 4D printing research has relied on the use of hydrogels, which are incredibly soft, making it difficult for them to maintain their form once they have transformed. With new research coming out of Georgia Tech, SUTD, and Xi'an Jiaotong, however, it now seems to be possible to create 3D printed objects that can transform permanently, marking a significant step forward for 4D printing technology. The research was recently published in the journal Science Advances under the title "Direct 4D printing via active composite materials. The 4D printing process consists of 3D printing layers of shape memory polymers (SMPs), with each layer essentially programmed to react differently when exposed to heat. SMPs, for those unfamiliar, are smart polymers which are designed to remember their original shape and to shape-shift into a pre-determined shape when heat is applied. A previous study by the research team dealing with SMPs was able to make objects that could fold on themselves using hinges. Jerri Qi, a professor from the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech, said of the new method: This new approach significantly simplifies and increases the potential of 4D printing by incorporating the mechanical programming post-processing step directly into the 3D printing process. This allows high-resolution 3D printed components to be designed by computer simulation, 3D printed, and then directly and rapidly transformed into new permanent configurations by simply heating. To demonstrate the new 3D printing technique, the research team manufactured a number of different transformable objects, including a rather complex flower whose petals contract and bend when exposed to hot water, and a lattice structure which can expand up to almost eight times its original size when placed in the same water. "Our composite materials at room temperature have one material that is soft but can be programmed to contain internal stress, while the other material is stiff," explained Zhen Ding, a postdoc researcher at SUTD. "We use computational simulations to design composite components where the stiff material has a shape and size that prevents the release of the programmed internal stress from the soft material after 3D printing. Upon heating the stiff material softens and allows the soft material to release its stress and this results in a changeoften dramaticin the product shape." As seen in the demo videos, the transformations for the 3D printed objects is remarkably fast, taking only about five seconds to completemuch faster than previous hydrogel 4D printing techniques. The researchers even have some degree of control over the final transformed shape, as it is controlled via various printing parameters which are implemented. While the process is still in its early stages, the technology does show promise for a number of different applications. For instance, 4D printed objects could be extremely useful for creating compactly stacked or rolled structures, which can be shipped easily and then expanded when they are needed. The research team even says that it could one day be possible to have objects react to different types of stimuli, such as light, or even electricity. Martin L. Dunn, a professor at SUTD, said the technique "promises to enable myriad applications across biomedical devices, 3D electronics, and consumer products," adding that it "even opens the door to a new paradigm in product design, where components are designed from the onset to inhabit multiple configurations during service. Posted in 3D Printing Technology Maybe you also like: Apr 13, 2017 | By David As modern society becomes increasingly globalized, some of the most popular technological innovations on the market are aimed at keeping people in contact with their loved ones. The latest product from robotics startup OhmniLabs is a telepresence robot, made using 3D printing technology, that will allow families to stay in touch and participate in the same activities no matter where they are in the world. An Indiegogo campaign has been launched to raise funds for the project. Based in Santa Clara, California, the OhmniLabs team is made up of robotics experts and tech entrepreneurs who believe in the power of consumer robots to make a positive impact on peoples everyday lives. And the team is certainly making use of its extensive experience in AI, machine learning, multi-agent systems, industrial design, mechanical & electrical engineering, and cloud infrastructure to make its dreams a reality. The new robot currently being crowdfunded is known as the Ohmni, and it has the potential to revolutionize the way we think about telepresence. It is specifically designed for homes and families, and will allow for the kinds of shared experiences and group interactions that existing video chat solutions, such as Skype or Google Hangouts, arent ideally suited to. According to Thuc Vu, co-founder and CEO of OhmniLabs, We created a robot that people can use everyday to not only communicate but experience life together. The possibilities are endless. I use Ohmni with my grandma in Vietnam and its amazing how natural our interaction is. The Ohmni was built almost entirely from 3D printed parts, on-site at the OhmniLabs base in Santa Clara. It was designed from the ground-up with simplicity being the most important factor. Only the most basic level of technical knowledge is required to use the robot, meaning that elderly family members will be able to stay in touch just as well as their more tech-savvy relatives. Additionally, operation of the Ohmni is 100% remote, as it is controlled via a small docking station; and set-up is incredibly quick and straightforward, with the robot being fully assembled out of the box, ready to connect to WiFi and make a call at the touch of a button. Finally, no account or software installation is necessary, as the robots cloud technology can integrate with a Google or Facebook account to authenticate a user. The robots ultra-smooth head and body movements can be controlled using a mouse or touchpad, which reportedly makes the experience of video calling feel more natural, as the camera can track exactly where the user wants it to without any jerkiness or awkward repositioning. The GlideDrive motor technology also means that the robot is whisper-quiet, helping to eliminate any sounds that could interfere with a familys interactions. From an aesthetic perspective, the Ohmni robot makes use of a variety of high-quality materials, such as brushed aluminium and bamboo, so users won't have to sacrifice style to incorporate the Ohmni into their homes. OhmniLabs has conducted a pilot program over the past six months to gain feedback on their product, collaborating with families that have elderly relatives living far away. The ability to easily connect on a daily basis has proven very helpful for these people and feedback has been positive, so much so that this program was recently featured in the New York Times Retirement section. The crowdfunding campaign starts today and is scheduled to end on May 10. Early backers will be receiving the first Ohmni robots, 3D printed to order, in four months time. The Super Early Bird price is just $1,599 per unit, and there are a number of other benefits and pledge options to take advantage of if you visit the Indiegogo page. Posted in 3D Printing Application Maybe you also like: Megan Mayhew Bergman at The Paris Review: Its February 1959. Marilyn Monroe and Isak Dinesen have joined Carson McCullers for lunch at her home on the Hudson River in Nyack, New York. A photograph from that day shows Marilyn and Carson leaning into each other. Isak, invited to America by the Ford Foundation for what would be her first and last visit, toasts Arthur Miller, whos nearly out of the frame. Carson wears all black and a depressed demeanor. Marilyn, in fur and a plunging neckline, tells a story about finishing pasta with a blow-dryer. Isaks cheekbones announce themselves underneath the hem of her turban; she recalls the first time she killed a lion and ingests little more that day than oysters, grapes, and amphetamines. In eight years they will all be dead. For me, the picture is like looking at the fractal nature of womanhood: something carnal, intellectual, and willful existing inside of one body. Internal conflicts shaped Monroe, McCullers, and Dinesen as creators. Marilyn aspired to make her own films and control her image while negotiating a growing dependence on pills and fear of abandonment. McCullers, broken down by seizures, divorce, and addiction, continued to write in the shadow of the masterpiece she wrote at twenty-two. Dinesen, brave enough to face down a lion and manage a coffee farm outside of Nairobi, began to starve and diminish herself. more here. Nikhil Barot in Nautilus: A little over a decade ago, Farr Curlin, a physician and professor of medical humanities at Duke Divinity School, became curious about the spiritual lives of his colleagues. He already knew that patients religious beliefs and communities matter: Both influence medical decisions and change the meaning of illness. But the influence of physicians religiosity on their work was relatively unknown. So he and his colleagues conducted a national survey of physicians religious characteristics. He found that, compared to a sample of the general U.S. population, physicians were twice as likely to cope with their own major life problems without relying on a higher power. Doctors were also less likely to carry their religious beliefs into other dealings in life. Curlins survey was the first of many to show that doctors are less inclined to bring up spiritual and religious matters with patients and their families, even though addressing these dimensions of illness can help coping with death, and even though patients frequently welcome the discussion. When spiritual needs are not met, concluded Michelle Pearce, a University of Maryland clinical psychologist and her colleagues in a 2012 paper, patients are at risk of depression and a reduced sense of spiritual meaning and peace. Yet according to a 2013 study, despite recognizing the importance of spiritual care to patients, physicians and nurses infrequently provide it. A report published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology found that most cancer physicians, nurses, and patients believe such care would have a positive impact. The evidence suggests that physicians might do well to take a Past Spiritual History, similar to the Past Medical and Past Surgical Histories that are a routine part of patient-doctor encounters. A Past Spiritual History represents a biopsychosocial-spiritual approach to understanding illness, which may not only enrich the dialogue between patients and health providers, as one 2006 study concluded, but also inform what treatments are acceptable within a given patients system of values. For many people, this spiritual history unfolds within the context of an explicit religious tradition, wrote Christina Puchalski, a professor of medicine at George Washington University, and colleagues, in the Journal of Palliative Care. For others it unfolds as a set of philosophical principles or significant experiences. More here. 1 bottle dry sparkling wine, chilled Roll up each strip of lemon rind; place 1 into each of 8 Champagne flutes. Add 1 tablespoon liqueur and 1/2 teaspoon juice to each glass. Divide Champagne evenly among glasses. Serve immediately. Serves 8.Recipe adapted from Cooklng Light. Michelada 4 cups chilled Clamato 4 cups chilled Mexican lager (about three bottles) 1/2 cup fresh lime juice 1 1/2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce 1 teaspoon hot sauce (such as Tapatio or Sriracha) 1 teasooon Maggi seasoning (can substitute liquid aminos or soy sauce) 2 tablespoons kosher salt 1/2 teaspoon chili powder Lime wedges (for serving) Mix Clamato, lager, lime juice, Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, and soy sauce in a large pitcher. Mix salt and chili powder on a small plate. Rub rims of pint glasses with lime wedges and dip in salt mixture. Fill glasses with ice, fill with lager mixture, and garnish with lime wedges. Serves 8.Recipe adapted from Bon Appetit. Since local mosquito-borne transmission of Zika virus was first reported in Brazil in early 2015, the virus has spread rapidly, with active transmission reported in at least 61 countries and territories worldwide, including the United States. Zika virus infection during pregnancy is a cause of microcephaly and other severe brain anomalies. The virus is transmitted primarily through the bite of an infected Aedes mosquito, but other routes of transmission include sexual, mother-to-fetus during pregnancy, mother-to-infant at delivery, laboratory exposure, and, possibly, transfusion of blood products. Most persons with Zika virus infection are asymptomatic or have only mild symptoms; hospitalizations and deaths are rare. When symptoms are present, maculopapular rash, fever, arthralgia, and conjunctivitis are most common. Zika virus testing is recommended for persons with possible exposure (those who have traveled to or live in an area with active transmission, or persons who had sex without a condom with a person with possible exposure) if they have symptoms consistent with Zika virus disease. Testing is also recommended for pregnant women with possible exposure, regardless of whether symptoms are present. Treatment is supportive, and no vaccine is currently available. The primary methods of prevention include avoiding bites of infected Aedes mosquitoes and reducing the risk of sexual transmission. Pregnant women should not travel to areas with active Zika virus transmission, and men and women who are planning to conceive in the near future should consider avoiding nonessential travel to these areas. Condoms can reduce the risk of sexual transmission. Eshel initially resists. But whatever gifts God may have denied to Norman, charm and the power of persuasion were not among them. He buys those shoes for the guy, sticks Eshel's business card in his pocket and files Eshel in his mind as a possible cog in some yet-to-be-crafted business deal. Three years later, Eshel finds himself unexpectedly elevated to prime minister of Israel. Norman can't believe his luck or maybe he can, for he's so relentlessly enthusiastic about everything that it's hard to tell if he understands 90 percent of his efforts are futile. In any case, Norman cashes in on his newfound international influence unaware that the favors a New York fixer bestows on a Queens borough bureaucrat can have shattering results on the world stage. Gere hurls himself into the role of Norman with an abandon his character would savor. Perpetually wide-eyed, his hair tousled like a 5-year-old's, Gere's Norman lurches across the snow-packed landscape of urban parks, barking greetings to businessmen who at that moment would clearly prefer to have a mugger on their heels. It's a funny bit, but Gere who even now continues to establish himself as one of the screen's most subtly inventive actors allows glimpses of the pain that lies beneath Norman's hyper exterior. He is clearly alone in the world. He seems to have been married, but maybe not. He wears the same clothes most of the time, and we never get to see his home. In one especially poignant scene, Norman appears to be bedding down for the night in Penn Station. Cedar masterfully leaves a gauzy veil draped across his central character, a man whom time has passed by. Then again, time may never have been in sync with Norman's odd bundle of needs: a desire to help others entangled in a passion to be seen as a player in the city he seems to wander like an aging, homeless dog. When Norman makes one final grand gesture to seal his biggest deal, it strikes us as outrageous and just right. Joya DiStefano waves a sock puppet to show she disagrees with what U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., is saying during a town hall meeting at Aiken Technical College on Monday night. Assyrian Party Meets With Kurdish Party After Office Closure TEV-DEM official Abdul Salam Ahmed meets Assyrian politician and ADO leader Gabriel Moushe Gawrieh in Qamishli. ( ANHA) Abdul Salam Ahmed, member of the Executive Committee of the Democratic Society Movement in Syria (TEV-DEM) on Wednesday met with Gabriel Moushe Gawrieh, the head of the Assyrian Democratic Organization (ADO) after the local self-administration shut down the office of ADO in northeastern Syria last month. The PYD-led self-administration also closed two headquarters for the Assyrian Democratic Association in the cities of Qamishli and al-Malakiyah (Derik) in mid March. Officials of the PYD-linked TEV-DEM and ADO discussed on Wednesday the recent political crisis "and the need to respect the laws of the administration," Ahmed was quoted by ANHA as saying. According to the TEV-DEM official, both parties agreed to hold regular meetings to discuss all issues and exchange views. It's however unclear if ADO will be able to open its office again. The local canton administration issued a 24-hours deadline in mid March that political parties had to register according to the law of April 2014, or face closure. Following the deadline, all offices of non-registered parties in Rojava were closed. "The meeting between the two parties took place in a crucial stage as a result of closing down offices of ADO by Self-Administration, as ADO lacks an official permit. The meeting comes amid ongoing efforts to alter this decision," David Vergili, a representative for the European Syriac Union in Brussels told ARA News. "The power of the Democratic Self Administration [in northern Syria] relies on its authenticity, pluralism and full representation of all segments and groups in the region." "The process is still alive and cooperation and bilateral relations are key to ease tensions and find durable solutions for a long term projects," he said. This is the first time that TEV-DEM officials meet with a leading member of ADO--an Assyrian party that is part of the Syrian Opposition Coalition. "They are with Etilaf [opposition], but they are able to play on two sides," Vergili added. The Assyrian Democratic Organization (ADO) was established in Syria in 1957 and is the largest Assyrian political faction in the country. ADO is also one of the founders of the Syrian National Council (SNC)--in October 2011. Gabriel Moushe Gawrieh spent two years in the jail of the Syrian government and was released in June 2016. April 13, 2017 Usama Abdul Raouf, vice president of Al-Azhar University's Assiut branch, announced the opening of special classes for female students at the all-male faculties of pharmacy and medicine in early 2018. The March 27 decision was made to spare female students the long commutes to other branches of Al-Azhar University. The decision sparked controversy. Some thought that Al-Azhar was giving up its Sharia values that forbid the mixing of men and women, while others saw the decision as a victory for the civilized world and an opportunity for cultural and social development in Upper Egypt and change in Egyptian societys perception of women. Raouf told Al-Monitor that Al-Azhar University took the step to make the lives of women students easier and that the Assiut branch is only administratively affiliated with the all-male faculties. He added, Female students will study in a building within the same campus three meters from that of male students and separated from it with a fence. Behind it, a medical science building was constructed to hold classes for female students as a prelude to establishing independent faculties of pharmacy and medicine for them in the future. Equipping the morgue at the Faculty of Medicine requires huge funding. That is why the morgue at the all-male student faculty is also used by female students but on a different schedule. Three days for male students and three days for female students. Raouf explained that Al-Azhar University was founded in 970 as an Islamic university for the study of Sharia-related topics such as the Hadith. Nonreligious courses such as engineering and medicine were introduced in 1961, the same year women were first allowed to study at the university. He said that Islamic courses cover several topics that may cause embarrassment to students such as intercourse and menstruation, noting that male and female students have always been separated but benefited from the same material and educational resources. He asserted that Islam guarantees women rights, including the right to education, but prevents mixing between male and female students. The existence of all-female faculties allows female students to ask questions about sensitive issues without being embarrassed by the presence of young male students. The presence of young men among female students puts psychological pressure on both sexes, and this may cause them to be distracted by emotional and sexual issues and affect their ability to learn, he said. Raouf dismissed the idea that women could be adversely affected by an all-female university equipped with all the necessary resources for their education. Women form their personalities through proper education and upbringing and not by mixing with men, and this is what makes their character strong, he said. Amna Nasir, the former dean of the Faculty of Islamic and Arabic Studies at Al-Azhar University's Alexandria branch and a parliament member for the governorate of Assiut, told Al-Monitor that when she headed the school in 1997, she tried to enroll female students in Al-Azhars all-male Faculty of Engineering in Cairo and had to fight a fierce battle with the university council. She was able to enroll the female students, who took classes in a building adjacent to the department's main building during their sophomore year, but finished their senior years in mixed classes. This was the first and last time Al-Azhar University students mixed, she said. Nasir indicated that she promised before the university council to assume full responsibility for the change and said, After 40 years in the service of Al-Azhar as a professor I believe separation between male and female students is not justified in Islam. She explained, In the era of the Prophet Muhammad, men and women mixed. Umm Omara was a female Muslim fighter who fought alongside men. Rufaida al-Aslamiya was a female medical and social worker who treated wounded men in wars. Umm Hani was a great female companion who gave shelter to two male nonbelievers from Mecca. The Prophet Muhammad learned about her actions and said, 'We shelter the person you have sheltered, Umm Hani.' The two men embraced Islam. Nasir told Al-Monitor, Criticism and objections by intellectuals against Al-Azhar were able to shake the rigid mindsets. President Abdel Fattah al-Sisis open mind and balanced perspective in dealing with Egyptian women's issues will surely spread to other issues, including the curriculum and internal rules of Al-Azhar, which in the near future will be bound to reconsider its curriculum. I believe mixed education will spread in all Al-Azhar faculties. She concluded, Mixed education in Upper Egypts universities will bring about cultural and societal development and change societys perspective on women, since men will feel that their fellow female university classmates are worthy of leadership positions. Sheikh Sherif al-Hawari, a member of the Salafist Calls board of directors, has a different opinion. He told Al-Monitor that mixed education could lead to great aberrations and indecency. He argued, In the era of the Prophet Muhammad, men and women were allowed to mix under specific rules and cases of necessity. To this moment, necessity knows no law. Islam does not prohibit a woman from having a necessary medical surgery by a non-Muslim surgeon. But the rule in Islam is that men and women should not mix. It is not permissible to generalize the special cases that occurred in era of the Prophet Muhammad without considering the reasons. Hawari went on, When male and female students mix, they tend to commit sins. Whoever denies this denies an established fact. Even in Europe and the United States, where liberalism originated, churches have been demanding for decades the prohibition of mixed public education, but to no avail, and this is why these churches established gender-segregated education. Legislation was passed to [allow such practices] in light of the spread of the negative effects of mixed education that threatened entire communities. April 12, 2017 On April 2, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) received its first operational Magic Wand mid-range anti-missile system (also known as David's Sling). In the future, this advanced weapons system will also be able to handle cruise missiles. The incorporation of Magic Wand into Israel's missile defenses complements Israel's other anti-missile systems such as the Arrow and Iron Dome. It provides Israel with a perfect, multilayered response to almost all of the ballistic threats posed by the rockets and missiles in its enemies' arsenals. Iron Dome can intercept short-range Qassam and Grad rockets fired at it by Hamas from the Gaza Strip, as well as short-range rockets that Hezbollah might fire. The Arrow anti-missile system (Arrow 1, Arrow 2 and the new Arrow 3 archetype) is designed to intercept long-range ballistic missiles such as Iranian Shahab missiles, which follow a suborbital trajectory outside the atmosphere. Shahab missiles are designed to carry particularly heavy payloads, including nuclear warheads. Magic Wand is the final piece of the puzzle. It is designed to intercept mid-range missiles such as Scuds. Israel may be the first country in the world with such a multilayered defense system, yet it has already proven its mettle in several operational trials. In 2014, Iron Dome had an impressive record intercepting Hamas rockets fired during Operation Protective Edge, almost completely eliminating the strategic missile threat posed by Hamas to the Israeli Home Front. A few weeks ago, on March 17, Israel's Arrow missile also received an unanticipated public unveiling when it successfully downed a failed Syrian surface-to-air anti-aircraft missile (SAM) fired at Israeli air force jets during a sortie in northern Syria. Syria's antiquated, heavy missile missed the aircraft, reached high altitude and then began falling back to earth. Once the Arrow's sophisticated radar system recognized that it would fall in Israeli territory, posing a significant threat, it immediately initiated the automatic firing of an Arrow missile at the SAM, which it intercepted successfully. Nevertheless, no one in Israel was particularly happy about this, since it forced the country to admit that it had launched an attack on Syria. While Russia issued a formal reprimand, the Israeli leadership, particularly its defense establishment, reconsidered its initial reservation. As it turned out, they were pleased by this tangible evidence that the Israeli Home Front now benefits from a level of defense unprecedented anywhere else in the world. Despite these achievements, Israel is still far from being fully impervious to the ballistic threat posed by its enemies. It is estimated that Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and Syria now have about a quarter of a million rockets and missiles between them. In the most extreme scenario, with Iran joining the melee, the number of missiles increases considerably. The most ominous threat now facing Israel is the possibility of a surprise rocket and missile attack in which all of its enemies Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Syria and Iran fire tens of thousands of rockets and missiles at Israel in a single day, in a coordinated attack. Israel compares such a scenario to the "1973 Yom Kippur surprise," in which Egypt and Syria attacked Israel simultaneously. As of now, Israel has no response to such an attack. The assessment is that, in such a scenario, the Israeli air force will successfully destroy thousands of long-range missiles and launchers, mainly those belonging to Hamas and Hezbollah. Similarly, Israel's missile defense systems will intercept many more missiles. Nevertheless, the Israeli Home Front will still suffer hits from thousands more rockets and missiles, the most accurate of which could reach Israeli air force bases, impeding the air force's capacity to respond. One senior Israeli military official told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that "the only response to such a threat is deterrence. Our enemies know exactly what price they will pay for initiating such a move, and it will be much higher incomparably higher than the price paid by Israel." But Israel's defensive systems must also deal with another challenge, i.e., extremely short-range rockets whose range is measured in hundreds of meters to just a few kilometers from the border. While these kinds of rockets are for the most part very primitive and basic, the fact that they are in the air for no more than a few seconds makes it difficult to some extent for existing anti-missile systems to identify, pinpoint and hone in on them, and to intercept them on time. With this kind of threat, the impact of the more ancient rockets is actually the most dangerous one. During Operation Protective Edge, the IDF paid an especially high price in the number of soldiers killed by mortars at meeting points along the border. Hezbollah has begun developing enormous mortars with explosive warheads that are much heavier than those of regular mortar shells. Their short, steep trajectory could make it especially difficult for Israel to shoot them down. In other words, they could threaten IDF soldiers taking up position along the northern border, as well as adjacent Israeli localities. It is estimated that integrating laser-guided interceptors as an additional part of the solution to the threat will provide an adequate response to this problem. In this clash of minds and developments, Israel leads the rest of the world by several orders of magnitude. On the other hand, this has resulted in an internal debate among defense experts within the country. Israel's approach to defense has always been based on three pillars: deterrence, warning and guaranteeing a decisive outcome. The fact that Israel's enemies are aware of its enormous power deters them from engaging in confrontations. Israel's intelligence agencies provide warning of its enemies' hostile intentions well in advance, and the IDF has the ability to shift the conflict to enemy territory and conclude it decisively. The modern era has reduced the possibility of a decisive outcome in battle considerably. Traditional gauges of victory are irrelevant when a sovereign state is locked in combat against guerrilla groups. In the past decade, Israel introduced a fourth component defense to its overall approach to security. It is an element that has not figured as prominently before now. A tangible example of this new component is the multilayered missile defense system, but this leaves many in the defense establishment feeling uneasy. They worry that the systems' defensive capacities could cause the critical operational branches of its military to atrophy. As one senior defense official told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, "When the political leadership is unruffled by the 50 days of Operation Protective Edge and the Home Front doesn't suffer any significant casualties, the need for a decisive outcome is not as urgent as it once was. The country's leadership could then evade the need for ground maneuvers or achieving any decisive outcome whatsoever." Regardless of how they feel about it, however, no one (in Israel) today would agree to forego Magic Wand, Iron Dome or the Arrow missile defense system willingly, at least not until all the rockets and missiles surrounding Israel rust. That is precisely what former Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon recommended long ago. April 10, 2017 In an exclusive two-part interview with Al-Monitor, Sheikh Naim Qassem, deputy secretary-general of Hezbollah, dismissed the April 6 US military strike against the Shayrat air base in Syria as muscle flexing and a one-time incident. Speaking April 8 in Beirut, Hezbollah's number 2 also called the missile strike a blatant and unjustified attack. Qassem argued, There was no investigation into what actually happened in Khan Sheikhoun, which on April 4 had been the target of the apparent chemical weapons attack that led US President Donald Trump to order the missile strike as a warning to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whom he blamed for the incident. Qassam further remarked, The American attack on Syria is an attempt on the part of the US to shirk its responsibility in taking part in a political solution in Syria and a confirmation that it continues to support the terrorist path in moments of loss. The US, however, will not be able to achieve any of its objectives. The Syrian army is keeping up morale, making gains and moving forward. There is no turning back. The US and its terrorist allies and proxies will face more defeats. Two days earlier, on April 6 at a Hezbollah office in southern Beirut, Qassem said that it was too early to judge if the American administration would take unilateral action against the Syrian government after US officials blamed the Syrian government for the chemical attack in Khan Sheikoun. After the attack, he asserted, The US military strike is merely muscle flexing and a show of strength. Things ended there because any deviation from the existing equation in Syria or any interference against the regime will lead to dangerous results because of the Russian presence [in Syria]. There is no reason for escalation. Although the US has not determined its policies in dealing with the Syrian crisis, toppling the regime is out of the question. Hezbollahs number 2 also warned that Israel would face serious consequences if it escalated militarily against the Syrian regime and its allies. He therefore ruled out Israel becoming directly involved in Syria or being able to change the situation on the ground there. He added that Hezbollah has no intention of establishing a permanent presence in Syria. Qassem downplayed the likelihood of an Israeli war on Lebanon, saying that recent Israeli talk of Hezbollah being its biggest military threat did not necessarily mean that Israel was preparing to go to war. The following part of the interview took place April 6. Al-Monitor: During Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Libermans visit to Washington March 7, sources said that a war on Lebanon was at the top of the agenda during the discussions. It was also reported that Liberman received a message that the United States will support Israel in any future war. In light of these reports, do you think 2017 will witness a new Israeli war on Lebanon? Qassem: I do not think it would be convenient to respond to or even discuss sources, which would lead to a lot of analysis that may not even be realistic. Regarding the issue of a new war on Lebanon, we must look at Israels current situation, as it will try to avoid going into a losing war. This is not to mention its ongoing problems, as it is seeking to gain further acceptance by the international community. Israel is also waiting for developments in Syria. In light of all this, I do not believe Israel is looking into a new war in the near future. But we, as Hezbollah, are accustomed to always be prepared for any surprises. In terms of readiness, we are prepared to defend ourselves against any Israeli folly. But I do not expect this to happen anytime soon. Al-Monitor: How do you explain Israeli statements that Hezbollahs threat to Israel has become greater than that of Iran? There are many Israeli statements suggesting an imminent war. Qassem: Wars are not based on statements, but on decisions and facts. Statements may have other objectives sometimes, such as generating additional momentum for the Israeli leadership or to boost morale in the face of many challenges, including preparation for a possible event in the future. Statements are not always an indication of an imminent war. Al-Monitor: We often hear Israeli officials talking about the danger of Irans and Hezbollahs permanent military presence in Syria. Do you believe that Israel will escalate its military activity inside Syria in the near future? Qassem: Israel has been helping Syrian rebels all along, in order to fight the regime and to change the equation in Syria. We can say that it has failed in doing so. The developments in the Syrian arena that have tipped in favor of the regime are an indication that Israel has lost its bet and failed in this direction. I do not believe there is much for Israel to do in Syria. This was the maximum that it could do. The issue is not linked to an Israeli decision alone, as this is a complex equation. Israel cannot have free rein in Syria without anticipating serious consequences. Al-Monitor: Does Hezbollah intend to have a permanent presence in Syria? Qassem: No. Hezbollah is currently present in Syria to support our Syrian brothers so that the Syrian resistance will not fall under the mercy of Israel. As long as we are needed in Syria, we will remain there. When Syrians reach political solutions to save their country, and they no longer need us, we will return home. We do not have any political, military or financial ambitions in Syria. We are fighting there to protect the resistance axis. This does not require our permanent presence there. We will stay in Syria as long as we are needed there. Al-Monitor: That means that Hezbollah is not planning on creating a new resistance front in the Golan Heights? Qassem: The question of the Golan Heights concerns the people of the Golan and Syria. If the people there decide to start a resistance or a similar action, this would be their call and the call of people working on the ground. But we do not want to discuss Hezbollahs position in this regard. Al-Monitor: A recent report by the International Crisis Group said that Hezbollahs alliance with President Bashar al-Assad has become a burden, and the party is now seen as a Shiite militia. What do you think of this statement? Qassem: Hezbollah is a resistance fighting to bring down the Israeli project and is now fighting [in Syria] to put an end to the new takfiri project, which emanates from the Israeli plan. When we fight, we cooperate with all concerned parties, be they Sunnis, nationalists, secularists, Christians or any other national affiliations, according to the place, time and circumstances. Therefore, Hezbollah is a resistance project, and everyone knows that. Hezbollahs network of contacts, be it in the Lebanese or Syrian arena, or anywhere it is needed, goes beyond sects and factions. These inaccurate reports have no weight on the ground and are only part of the political media lobbying to harm Hezbollah, but they are ineffective. Al-Monitor: Some believe that Hezbollahs support for Assad has decreased its popularity, especially among Sunnis. Qassem: The majority supporting President Assad in Syria is an overwhelming Sunni majority in addition to prominent scholars, who are well known and respected in the Arab and Islamic worlds. Our support to Syria is in support of the Syrian homeland, with all its sects and factions regardless of their affiliation. These accusations by some parties in Syria are merely attempts to compensate for their losses, after Hezbollahs success within the national and Islamic frameworks. Al-Monitor: Obviously, there is a big difference between the Barack Obama administration and the Donald Trump administration. The latter seems to be much more aggressive toward Iran. In light of this, do you expect any American escalation against Hezbollah? Qassem: In my opinion, there is no difference between the Obama administration and the Trump administration. The Obama administration was also hostile to Iran [and] issued sanctions against Hezbollah while also waging bad and negative propaganda against the party. This is not to mention that it supports Israel. Al-Monitor: But Obama said in an interview with Thomas Friedman, for instance, that the main threat to Saudi Arabia comes from inside Saudi Arabia and not from Iran. Trump has a different rhetoric, one that is closer to that of the Gulf countries, that Iran is the source of all problems. Qassem: The difference between Obama and Trump is that the latter makes direct hostile statements with a lot of uproar and clamor. But for us, all the US administrations are alike, supporting Israel to the fullest against the Palestinians. They are also for the Saudi war on Yemen. This is why I cannot say there is a fundamental difference between the Trump administration and the Obama administration except for some media and tactical additions in Trumps rhetoric against us and against Iran. Al-Monitor: On the domestic level, do you think the election of President Michel Aoun has brought further momentum to Hezbollah or not? Qassem: The election of President Aoun has reinforced the stability of Lebanon. After a long vacuum, now the administration is working toward achievements for the benefit of the country. Boosting the countrys strength means boosting the strength of all its components, including us. Al-Monitor: Do you think the Lebanese parliamentary elections will be held as scheduled? Qassem: It is too late to hold the elections as scheduled, unless a law is passed in the coming days and if there is enough time for the necessary preparations to hold them. We will have to wait and see if the law will be passed. April 13, 2017 RAMALLAH, West Bank Palestinians have mixed expectations about a potential US role in reviving the peace process with Israel. Some are optimistic that Jordans King Abdullah II and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will be able to convince US President Donald Trump's administration to energize negotiations impartially, while others fear Trump's previously stated support of Israel indicates he will either heavily skew the process in Israel's favor or torpedo it all together. After the Arab League Summit on March 29 in Jordan, Abdullah and Sisi set in motion political action in the United States to mobilize the peace process between Palestinians and Israelis. The two leaders are making their move based on agreements reached during the summit: Arab leaders there mainly agreed to work toward setting "a specific timetable for ending the conflict based on the two-state solution, observing the Arab Peace Initiative adopted during a 2002 summit. Azzam Ahmad, a member of political party Fatah's Central Committee, said in an April 2 statement that the Fatah-ruled Palestinian Authority (PA) is counting on Sisi and Abdullah to convey to Trump the decisions reached during the recent summit and during a March 29 tripartite meeting among Sisi, Abdullah and PA President Mahmoud Abbas. During that meeting, the leaders agreed to coordinate their next steps and persuade Trump of the Palestinian wish to resume the peace process with Israel. Sisi visited Washington and met with Trump on April 3. Their talks addressed the Palestinian cause, among other issues. Two days later, Abdullah met with Trump, after which he praised Trump's commitment to dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, saying he had high hopes for the Arab League peace initiative, which could help Trump bring together Palestinians and Israelis. Abbas is due to meet with Trump in Washington this month. Palestinian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tayseer Jaradat told Al-Monitor that Abdullah and Sisi have seen a positive change in Trump's position on the Palestinian cause, most notably when he instructed CIA director Mike Pompeo to meet Feb. 15 with Abbas in Ramallah. Another sign of this change are the two meetings held in March between Abbas and Trumps special representative for international negotiations, Jason Greenblatt, during which they exchanged views on how to revive the political process. A Fatah source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that the PA is awaiting details of the meetings that Sisi and Abdullah held in Washington. Meanwhile, the PA is also preparing to send a delegation of officials to Washington soon to prepare for Abbas visit. Author and political analyst Ahmad Rafik Awad told Al-Monitor, The PA is greatly relying on the Egyptian and Jordanian roles, as they are important players in the Middle East. The US administration and the international community perceive Jordan and Egypt with utmost respect and credibility as moderate states and partners in the fight against terrorism, especially since they have signed peace treaties with Israel. Awad added, The PA wants Egypt and Jordan to be a bridge and a mediator with the US administration to explain Palestinian positions." Despite that reliance, some members of the Palestinian leadership have expressed concerns about the US administration potentially striking a deal to eliminate the Palestinian cause by, for example, launching a broad, regional political process involving Israel and Arab countries before finding a solution to the Palestinian cause. We don't know how Trump might handle the Palestinian cause or how he might respond to our position on reviving the peace process," Abbas Zaki, a member of Fatahs Central Committee, told Al-Monitor. Trump has bound himself from the very beginning to support Israel by appointing ambassadors and envoys like Thomas Friedman. So no matter how diplomatic Trump can be, he can only look at the Palestinian cause through the eyes of his pro-Israel advisers," Zaki said. "Trump declared his absolute support for Israel even before taking over the presidency by pledging to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and to support the [Israeli] settlements. He added, This is why we fear that Trump might strike a deal to eliminate the Palestinian cause altogether, especially since he realizes that Arab countries have no power or influence in the region compared to Israel." About the nature of such a deal, Zaki said it could favor the Israeli policy of allowing settlement activities to continue and insisting on recognizing the Jewish character of the State of Israel, with Jerusalem as its capital, as well as denying the Palestinian refugees their right to return, all of which are conditions that Palestinians can't accept. Nayef Rajoub, a leader of Hamas in the West Bank, told Al-Monitor, The endeavor of the Egyptian president and the king of Jordan is only a desperate attempt to breathe life into the dead peace process." He believes the attempt will fail, or "succeed," only at the expense of the Palestinian cause. Like Zaki, Rajoub expressed concern about Washington potentially cooking up a way to intentionally thwart Palestinian efforts. I believe the US administration has a new political scheme in the making to eliminate the Palestinian cause. Both the Palestinian and Arab situations are weak [compared with Israel's], which makes it impossible to reach a political solution to our issue. [It] only paves the way for further concessions," Zaki said. Despite the Palestinian reliance on Egypt and Jordan to persuade the United States to launch the peace process without bias in Israels favor, the Palestinian situation will remain on hold pending the options Trump presents to Abbas during their upcoming meeting in Washington. April 13, 2017 With a message of fighting terrorism through the art of theater, the Sharm el-Sheikh International Festival for Youth (SITFY) brought together performers from around the world to share their stories and give Egyptians a taste of other cultures. For its second run, from April 1-8, the festival hosted 18 theater performances from 15 different countries, including Egypt, France, Iraq, Italy, Kuwait, Mexico, Oman, Spain, South Korea and Tunisia, temporarily transforming the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh into a cultural hotspot of events. By establishing this festival, we wanted to respond in a cultural way to all the terrorist attacks that have recently taken place, because culture and arts are our way to enlighten the minds of people, Mazen El-Gharabawy, festival president, told Al-Monitor. SITFY was first held in January 2016, a few months after the downing of a Russian plane in the Sinai Peninsula in October 2015. At that time, a number of countries, including Russia, the United Kingdom and France, decided to suspend flights to Sharm el-Sheikh. Egypt experienced a tragic drop in tourist visits, a crisis from which it still suffers. We wanted to invite theater practitioners from all over the world to come to Sharm el-Sheikh, perform and watch other peoples performances and prove to the whole world that this city is safe and stable, Gharabawy, who is also an actor and theater director, said. The festival is being organized with the support of the Egyptian Ministries of Culture, Tourism, and Youth and Sports, in addition to the South Sinai governorate and other institutions. The dominant theme of our festival is arts counterterrorism. Some of the performances we chose are tackling issues related to war and terrorism, because these issues not only affect Egypt but also other parts of the world. So, we are all affected by the same issues, said Gharabawy. To spread theater culture among young people, festival organizers invited some 350 students from universities in Cairo, Fayoum, Gnoub al-Wady, Aswan, north and south Sinai, and other governorates, to take part in workshops on acting, directing, puppetry, scenography, street art and writing for theater. We invited university students from each governorate in Egypt, especially the border cities, to participate in the activities, through which we help them understand arts better and teach them more skills, so they become more involved in arts and think in a positive way in all aspects of life, festival director and actress Wafaa al-Hakim told Al-Monitor. We want to integrate students in society to prevent them from becoming potential extremists or adapting harsh attitudes at a young age. Arts help people to be more understanding and creative. This years festival featured performances that tackled illegal migration, the war against the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq, terrorism and oppression in different parts of the world. In the Tunisian-Canadian production Al-Shaqaf, which in colloquial Tunisian also refers to a small boat used to transport illegal migrants, the everyday tragedy such migrants face was presented in a deeply painful but realistic way. Every day we have illegal migrants drown at sea, but all of them are treated as numbers. But what are their stories? We wanted to tell what might have brought them here, director Sereen Qanoun told Al-Monitor. The play was jointly stage directed by Tunisian Sereen Ezzeddine Qanoun and Lebanese-Canadian Magdy Abu Matar. The piece, which won for Best Play Script at the festival, highlights why some people attempt to illegally migrate. Not only war urges people to escape from their countries, but so does social oppression, said Qanoun. We wanted any person from any country, when watching the play, to feel concerned about the issue. South Korea was presented by Butterfly, directed by Ha Kyung-Hwa, a professor of acting from Suwon Womens University. The emotional piece examines the oppression of women and is inspired by the story of the comfort women, who were forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army in conquered territories before and during World War II. In the performance, actresses recall the horror that South Korean women suffered at the time and how they retain a sadness from the experience. The performance won the festival prize for Best Choreography. My performance is about unfairness toward women, Kyung-Hwa told Al-Monitor. Now our relationship with Japan is OK, no problems. But we cant forget the history. The director also mentioned that she was inspired by a statue of a comfort woman outside the Japanese Embassy in Seoul. In one of the scenes, the actresses wear mufflers like the statue there. Angela Jeon, coordinator of the South Korean troupe, said that when she heard about the festival she called her friend Kyung-Hwa, and they applied. It is a beautiful city, and the weather is so nice. People are so kind, Jeon told Al-Monitor. Taking advantage of Sharm el-Sheikh's warm weather, the Iraqi performance Maot Saleh lel Shorb (An Edible Death) was performed on the beach. The piece, which deals with illegal immigration, begins with actors emerging from the sea, having survived a boat wreck. They then narrate the tragedies that led them to escape from their countries. The performance highlights the horrors of IS in Iraq, the war in Syria and instability in other Arab countries, all of which have pushed people to escape to Europe where they hope they can lead better lives. We not only speak about Iraqis, however, director Mohamed Zaki told Al-Monitor. We refer to the situation of all the Arab people. Zaki, who was affected by the performance, remarked, There are many people who escaped war and illegally migrated by the sea. Some of them were friends of mine who drowned at sea. After An Edible Death wooed the audience, the festival organizers said they will work on hosting more street and open-air performances at future festivals. We wish that we could make street activities not only in Sharm el-Sheikh, but also in all the streets of Sinai and in all the Egyptian governorates, festival director Hakim said. April 12, 2017 Picture this: A group of well-mannered, middle-aged men and women are traveling to the picturesque Aegean town of Ayvalik as the mosques loudspeakers announce, Strangers have entered our village, do not open your doors. Members of the secular nongovernmental organization (NGO) Ataturkist Thought Association experienced this April 4 as they approached the town to talk to the residents about the upcoming referendum. They were the ones the imam called strangers. Ahmet Uzgec, the head of the NGO, told the media that there is quite a bit of confusion among citizens. Some elderly were told that if the April 16 referendum on providing greater powers to the Turkish presidency does not pass, their retirement funds will be cut off, along with the government aid provided for the disabled. The event in Ayvalik, where advocates of the NGO were shunned by the imam, was not an isolated incident. Not many can dispute that the mosques have become campaign centers for Erdogans referendum. Indeed, there are several examples, some of which were documented by opposition media outlets. For example, on Feb. 3, Huseyin Gulec, the imam of a prominent mosque in the Umraniye district of Istanbul, was recorded by a phone camera advocating for "yes" during his Friday sermon. Umraniye has voted overwhelmingly for Islamist parties since 1994, but it is still home to rather moderate Muslims as well. Gulec told the congregation that those who oppose the presidential system are ignorant. The imams statements were passionately pro-government as he defended the state of the Turkish economy and warned against those criticizing the government. He cursed the naysayers, saying they were against the grandiose infrastructural successes of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), such as the third airport. However, Gulec backed down as one member of the congregation yelled, This is a mosque and we are here to pray, but you are declaring naysayers as traitors. Immediately, Gulec reverted back to reciting prayers in Arabic. In Turkey, nearly all mosques and there are almost 85,000 are registered under Turkeys official religious body, the Diyanet, which is currently operating under the prime ministers office. The Diyanet has extensive human and capital resources both inside and outside Turkey. The Turkish state not only trains and pays the salaries of the imams, but also covers the expenses of the mosques. In return, the imams who are government employees have to follow strict government guidelines in their sermons. Imams who fail to adhere to these sermons, particularly in Kurdish areas, have been prosecuted for decades. Al-Monitor interviewed 14 imams from Ankara and Istanbuls conservative districts March 14-19. Imams are gently prodded to advocate for the yes vote, but they are also advised not to be too provocative. The Diyanet employs the carrot and stick policy on them: Imams are fearful that pro-AKP mukhtars (elected local officials) attend and report about their sermons. Those who are not supportive of the referendum efforts can be labeled as being pro-Gulen movement and punished. Others have mentioned the rewards the government provides for the good imams. Another added that they are also competing against the alternative mosques and religious orders, saying, Those orders get the lions share. We are the ones walking a tight rope. If we do not advocate for the government, we are out of a job. If we do and a member of the congregation complains about us, we are taken to court for organizing a political movement. But religious orders can do as they please without any supervision. Indeed, the imams observation about religious orders are crucial. Although these establishments are generally quite circumspect, some news reports have emerged about their efforts. For example, a video of Masum Bayraktar, a prominent figure from the Ismailaga Order, shows him telling his followers that naysayers are nonbelievers and foreigners. He used the derogatory word for foreigner, gavur, known for centuries to denigrate non-Muslims. Bayraktar sought solidarity among believers against the nonbelievers. He warned his followers repeatedly that if they waver, nonbelievers would take away all of their Islamic freedoms. There are undeniable signs of concern among the Islamists. First, learning from the bleeding wounds from his battle with the Gulen movement, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is worried about the burgeoning religious orders and subgroups. Initially, the AKP government acquired its core support from these groups by opening up space for them on social and economic fronts. However, when Gulens rivalry turned dangerous, Erdogan began fearing that other rivals might emerge. Therefore, the AKP tightened its grip in social and economic arenas; 1Turkey saw the growth of Erdogan-family led NGOs, such as the Ensar Foundation or younger sons TURGEV and younger daughters KADEM. Under the emergency law since August 2016, hundreds of NGOs have been shut down, along with Alevi and Shiite media outlets, while Erdogan-approved ones are flourishing. During Al-Monitors interviews with the imams, another common concern was the rise of alternative mosques, known as street masjids. Although masjid literally means a place of worship, in Turkey it has been used differently than a mosque. For example, Friday prayers are not allowed in a masjid. However, it has become an open secret that some of these masjids are more active and popular than mosques. Local imams are worried about losing congregations to these masjids and wonder why the government allows them. Who leads and attends these alternative services? We see that younger imams are not able to be government employees because there is a supply surplus in imams and growing unemployment overall, and these imams are against the idea of being told what to preach by the state. Their congregations are mostly young and middle-aged Turks who are dismayed by the economic difficulties, marginalized in the suburban peripheries of big cities and looking for alternative ideas to the stale government rhetoric. An attendee of a neighborhood masjid told Al-Monitor, I am tired of hearing the same old lies on television, in the papers and at the mosque. So I come here now. Real Islam does not need the Diyanet, it is solely based on the Quran [holy book of Islam] and the hadith [words and deeds of the Prophet Muhammad], and this is how I pray. We are always asked for donations at the regular mosque; here at least I know we are supporting the imam and not some unknown cause. When asked about his vote for the referendum, he lifted his hands up and said Hayirlisi meaning for the best, but also including syllables of no in Turkish. The Diyanet and its mosques in every small town provide an unmatched power for the government. But this is a referendum, so the weight of votes in small towns will not be as high as in local and general elections. Erdogan has lost several crucial allies during this referendum process, but the Diyanets imam army seems to be dedicated. In major cities, the Diyanet is losing some ground to its competitors. Erdogan, a savvy politician, is well-aware of that, and that is why a brand-new Erdogan image appeared last week: A photo of Erdogan teaching the Quran to his grandson taken on the night of the July 15 attempted coup is now being praised on all pro-Erdogan media outlets. Bad southern accents in movies make our skin crawl, and we hear them pretty often. In fact, it's all too rare when we feel like Hollywood gets it right when it comes to depicting the South, its people and culture with any accuracy on the big screen. So when they do finally nail it, we breathe a sigh of relief. That inspired us to look back at the films that actually understand the region, putting a magnifying glass on the South and actually managing to transport us to the place through the settings, characters, music, food and, yes, the accents. It's all about authenticity. We couldn't list them all here, but these are a few of our favorites. Don't Edit Sling Blade (1996) Arguably our all-time favorite film about the South, made with such care by an actual southerner in Arkansas native Billy Bob Thornton, who plays a simple man hospitalized since his childhood murder of his mother and her lover as he gets released to start a new life in a small town. Thornton earned an Oscar nomination for best actor and even won for adapted screenplay, only further confirming this slice-of-life's greatness in our eyes. What makes it so southern? The language, the accents, the biscuits. Just listen to the texture in the voices of Thornton's characters, starting with the delightfully antiquated manner in which his protagonist Karl speaks. Also keep an eye on outstanding supporting performances from Alabama native Lucas Black, Arkansas native Natalie Canderday and Kentucky native Dwight Yoakam, who nearly steals the whole show. While somewhat dark in subject matter at times, it's as fine a piece of southern filmmaking as you'll find. Don't Edit The Apostle (1997) After his happy life spins out of control, a charismatic preacher from Texas changes his name, goes to Louisiana and starts a new community church. A California native and longtime Hollywood vet would seemingly have no business understanding the South as much as he clearly has throughout his career in films like "The Great Santini" and "Get Low." But the Oscar-winner gets it like too few do, and his masterpiece reflecting that knowledge comes in this redemption drama exploring the importance the Christian faith in the area. What makes it so southern? The people, the setting and the church. Duvall shot most of the film in Louisiana, and he rounded up locals to fill the shoes of its colorful characters in need of the Holy Ghost. Look for Alabama native Walton Goggins in a small role as a member of Duvall's congregation. And if "Sling Blade" ever had movie "kin," this is it, considering Duvall and Billy Bob Thornton trade cameos in each film. Thornton knocks his two scenes out of the park as a racist construction worker and non-believer keen on destroying Duvall's new church, delivering one of the more powerful scenes of the 1990s late in the film. Don't Edit Mud (2012) Two young boys encounter a fugitive and form a pact to help him evade the vigilantes that are on his trail and to reunite him with his true love in Arkansas native Jeff Nichols' coming-of-age adventure starring Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon and Sam Shepard. What makes it so southern? The place, the tone and the boys. Nichols filmed the entire film in his home state of Arkansas including towns like Dumas, De Witt, Lake Village, Crocketts Bluff and Stuttgart, while casting many roles with locals. The true stars of the show are newcomers Tye Sheridan (from Texas) and Jacob Lofland (from Arkansas) as the boys who help McConaughey's vigilante, giving a young pair of talented southern actors an opportunity instead of rummaging through Hollywood casting calls. Nichols reportedly Nichols cast boys who could already pilot boats and ride dirt bikes, instead of ones who would have to be taught on set. Don't Edit No Country for Old Men (2007) Violence and mayhem ensue after a hunter stumbles upon a drug deal gone wrong and more than $2 million dollars in cash near the Rio Grande in Joel and Ethan Coens' bleak adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's bleak novel. It won Oscars for best picture, directors, screenplay and supporting actor (Javier Bardem). What makes it so southern? The pace, the tone, the dread. Here comes the "Texas ain't even the South" chatter, and it can just get on for all I care. For a pair of Minnesota boys who now live in New York, the Coen brothers latched on to more southern "isms" than most modern filmmakers born outside the region (and heck, born inside it, too). First of all, they cast prominent roles with a couple of actors who actually pull off the accents with precision -- Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin and Woody Harrelson -- also casting smaller roles with real-life southerners like Beth Grant, Gene Jones, Margaret Bowman and Kathy Lamkin. The film moves at a slow and steady tick, much like many of its characters speak. Don't Edit Don't Edit Raising Arizona (1987) When a childless couple of an ex-con and an ex-cop decide to help themselves to one of another family's quintuplets, their lives become more complicated than they anticipated. Sticking with the Coens for a moment, you might scratch your head and think...Arizona? What makes it so southern? The accents, the wackiness. I've personally never been to Arizona, but I wouldn't guess they'd talk precisely like the folks in Alabama do on a daily basis. Yet this is the world the Coens created to tell this story. Of course, they don't ever specifically confirm the film actually takes place in the titular state, with one of the characters' names being Arizona, after all. But stars Nicolas Cage and Holly Hunter nail a pair of southern accents, as do co-stars like John Goodman, William Forsythe, M. Emmet Walsh and Trey Wilson. The language, with words so carefully chosen by the Coens, even feels deep-fried, with Cage even at one point telling his missus, "I'll be out directly" before wandering into a convenience store he plans to rob. Don't Edit To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) Gregory Peck won an Oscar for his portrayal of noble attorney Atticus Finch in this 1962 adaptation of Harper Lee's novel of the same name. Set in the fictional town of Maycomb, Ala., during the 1930s, it tells the story of Finch and his family as he defends a black man against an undeserved rape charge, and his kids against prejudice. What makes it so southern? The values, the history, Harper Lee. A must-see for southerners. It won three Oscars for actor, adapted screenplay and art direction and scored five more nominations for picture, director, supporting actress (Birmingham native Mary Badham), cinematography and musical score. Widely considered an American film classic, the film stays true to the book in confronting the South's troubled past during its troubled present at the time when it came to race relations. Instead of stereotyping the region as we often see in other films, director Robert Mulligan and screenwriter Horton Foote fleshed out Lee's thoughtful characters, painting them with a less broad brush than we're used to now. Don't Edit Moonlight (2016) A chronicle of the childhood, adolescence and burgeoning adulthood of a young, African-American, gay man growing up in a rough neighborhood of Miami. Barry Jenkins' portrait of masculinity in the South won the best picture Oscar, along with screenplay and supporting actor (Mahershala Ali) for 2016. What makes it so southern? The fear, the internalization, the soundtrack. We so rarely see films at this level about poor black characters, let alone poor black gay characters in the South, that Jenkins and co-writer Tarell Alvin McCraney's 3-act story of a young men struggling with his sense of identity felt so vibrant and fresh even for 2016. It will ring true for people with a similar struggle to its protagonist, young Chiron, whose environment doesn't fully nurture that identity as he struggles with masculinity, sexuality and general self, causing him to internalize every last emotion all the way into his adulthood, when he finally has a chance to express it with a long-lost friend. Its soundtrack also features Atlanta's own Goodie Mob, complete with the the chopped and screwed technique the film's composer even applies to its score. Co-stars Bessemer native Andre Holland (read our Q&A). Don't Edit Hud (1963) An honest and hard-working Texas rancher has a conflict with his unscrupulous, selfish, arrogant and egotistical son who sank into alcoholism after accidentally killing his brother in a car crash. What makes it so southern? The quiet, the simmer, the family drama. Filmed in and around the Texas Panhandle, director Martin Ritt's drama based on Larry McMurtry's 1961 novel finds a desolate town full of troubled individuals who can't escape one another despite their disdain in such a small town. The always-likable Paul Newman does some career-best work, managing to turn just about every last viewer off, no matter how charming his Hud can seem. Melyvn Douglas, Patricia Neal and Brandon deWilde round out a terrific cast. Don't Edit Selma (2014) Ava DuVernay's critically acclaimed chronicle of Martin Luther King's campaign to secure equal voting rights via an epic march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965 earned an Oscar nomination for best picture and a win for best song ("Glory"). What makes it so southern? The reverence, the compassion, the moment. The first true Hollywood portrayal of Martin Luther King Jr. on the big screen captures the Civil Rights leader's essence thanks to David Oyelowo's thunderous performance as well as DuVernay's grasp of the character as well as the moment in time that would shape the South and the nation forever. Also filmed in Georgia, the production shot the key Bloody Sunday march scenes at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, recreating an unfathomable event that we'll never forget. Don't Edit Don't Edit Mississippi Burning (1988) Two FBI agents with wildly different styles (Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe) arrive in Mississippi to investigate the disappearance of some civil rights activists in 1964, as the investigation is met with hostility and backlash by the town's residents, local police and the Ku Klux Klan. It received seven Oscar nominations including best picture, director, actor and supporting actress (Frances McDormand). What makes it so southern? The sweat, the energy. While roundly criticized by many for its fictionalization of history by black activists involved in the Civil Rights Movement, the brutal confrontation of the South's past seems like a breath of fresh air compared to more schmaltzy efforts to do so these days. Its detractors make sound points about the fact that Hollywood could use less Civil Rights Era stories told exclusively from the perspective of white people, but this managed to entertain while still asking tough questions of the region's history. Difficult to watch at times due to the violence, it brings the best out of Gene Hackman, who plays a former Mississippi sheriff, as well as several actors actually born in the South including Michael Rooker (Alabama), Brad Dourif (West Virginia), Stephen Tobolowsky (Texas) and Frankie Faison (Virginia). Filmed in Mississippi and Alabama, it might tweak history and paint with a broad brush at times, but it also gets plenty right about the culture. Don't Edit Coal Miner's Daughter (1980) Biographical story of Loretta Lynn, a legendary country singer that came from poverty to worldwide fame, as she rose from humble beginnings in Kentucky to superstardom and changing the sound and style of country music forever. Michael Apted's take on Lynn's life won Sissy Spacek and Oscar and gave young Tommy Lee Jones one of his first big breaks. What makes it so southern? Loretta daggum Lynn, country music, a man named Doo. Again, we come back to the accents, and Spacek (a Texas native) gives one for the ages, disappearing into the Kentucky girl and even doing her own (excellent) singing! It's also a pleasure to watch Jones make a star out of himself as the alcoholic, abusive and downright pathetic husband who new his young wife had star potential and wanted to ride it to the top. A joy to watch, with some sad bumps in the road. Don't Edit A Face in the Crowd (1957) An Arkansas drifter becomes an overnight media sensation, becoming drunk with fame and power as he's in danger of being exposed for the fraud he is. Elia Kazan's downright prophetic southern satire was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." What makes it so southern? The ferocity, the irresistibility. Even longtime fans of "The Andy Griffith Show" will simply not recognize the man who would play the sheriff of Mayberry, here as the wild, rambunctious and charming Larry "Lonesome" Rhodes, the drifter discovered by a producer of a small-market radio program in rural northeast Arkansas who quickly rises to fame on national television. Brimming with "down-home" wit and a bloated ego, Rhodes' unique brand of charisma captivates people with little to no familiarity with the place that created him, suggesting that when outsiders get a taste of the South, they can't let it go. Don't Edit Deliverance (1972) Intent on seeing the Cahulawassee River before it's turned into one huge lake, an outdoor fanatic takes his friends on a river-rafting trip they'll never forget into the dangerous American back-country. Director John Boorman's thriller also stars Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty and Ronny Cox was a critical and commercial success that earned three Oscar nominations and a dollop of notoriety. What makes it so southern? The river, the woods, the danger. The film's legacy certainly hasn't done the South any favors, in that pop culture has largely hijacked it due to one controversial scene and used it to paint the region as nothing but a backwoods hell hole where city folk come to suffer. But upon further review, it remains on the greatest thrillers ever made with tightly wound suspense, shocking violence and a tangible reverence for the nature in which the story takes place. Don't Edit In the Heat of the Night (1967) An African American police detective is asked to investigate a murder in a racially hostile southern town in Norman Jewison's 1967 best picture winner starring Sidney Potier and Rod Steiger. What makes it so southern? The tension. A city cop comes to philosophical blows with a smalltown police chief in this adaptation of John Ball's 1965 novel. While set in Mississippi, Jewison filmed most of it in Illinois, though that doesn't cheapen the impact enhanced by the performances, namely Steiger's Oscar-wining turn as a racist cop in need of a reality check. Don't Edit Don't Edit The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968) When a deaf and mute man moves to a small city to be near his only friend confined in a hospital, he grows attached to his landlady's sensitive 16-year-old daughter in this adaptation of the Carson McCullers novel of the same name. What makes it so southern? At first glance, not much, given it calls no attention to its setting, an unnamed small southern town. Frankly, that's why we love this melancholy ensemble drama featuring rich performances, led by a young Alan Arkin, who earned an Oscar nomination in a silent role. It also stars Sondra Locke, Stacy Keach (from Georgia), Percy Rodriguez and Cicely Tyson. Filmed in Selma and Demopolis (featuring a scene in the historic Hotel Albert), it rarely comes up these days in conversations about movies about the South. But the fact that it uses the setting so quietly as the rather sad story plays out is one reason we love it. Don't Edit Bernie (2011) In small-town Texas, an affable mortician strikes up a friendship with a wealthy widow, though when she starts to become controlling, he goes to great lengths to separate himself from her grasp. Richard Linklater's true crime comedy stars Jack Black in what some consider a career-best performance as the titular Bernie Tiede. What makes it so southern? The gossip, the extras, the choir. Born in Houston, Linklater finally told his most obviously southern story, buoyed by Black's spunky charisma, complete with an accent and every little affectation under the sun, which might seem overdone before you consider the character's a put-on of sorts. The director brilliantly uses locals to recount the true story via interview, including co-star Matthew McConaughey's own mother, who steals a few scenes. Don't Edit Tender Mercies (1983) A broken-down, middle-aged country singer gets a new wife, reaches out to his long-lost daughter, and tries to put his troubled life back together. Robert Duvall won his only Oscar in Bruce Beresford's redemption tale written by Horton Foote. What makes it so southern? Country music, Duvall, a sense of purpose. We happily return to the Duvall well with this quietly powerful family drama that teaches us it's not too late to get our act together, especially for the sake of our loved ones in need of our presence. Tess Harper and Allan Hubbard lend steady support as Duvall's country singer's newfound family and foundation. Filmed in Waxahachie and Palmer, two towns in Ellis County in north central Texas, we recommend it if only for one of the best songwriting lessons ever filmed, proving Duvall could have made it as a musician. Don't Edit Hustle & Flow (2005) With help from his friends, a Memphis pimp in a mid-life crisis attempts to become a successful hip-hop emcee. Craig Brewer's southern rap parable famously won the Oscar for best song, with Three 6 Mafia accepting the award on stage. What makes it so southern? The grit, the inspiration, the struggle. Terrence Howard scored an Oscar nomination of his own for his heartfelt take on DJay, a depressed pimp unsatisfied with where his life as led him in his hometown Memphis. Finally able to express himself emotionally, through songwriting as well as thoughtful conversations with pregnant prostitute played by Taraji P. Henson, DJay opts to use his personal struggle and the environment that produced him to further his artistic ambition. We also recommend Brewer's followup, the Mississippi blues-soaked drama "Black Snake Moan." Don't Edit Ben Flanagan | bflanagan@al.com What did we miss? We couldn't name them all, so we want you to share your picks for favorite movies that actually understand and accurately depict the South. Please name your favorites in the comments. Don't Edit Don't Edit Ben Flanagan | bflanagan@al.com The best and worst movies about Alabama Read this list of the 25 best and worst movies about Alabama, according to critics. Mike Warsaw.jpg Pope Francis has appointed EWTN CEO Mike Warsaw as a Consultor to the Vatican's Secretariat for Communications. (EWTN) Pope Francis appointed EWTN Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Michael P. Warsaw as a Consultor to the Vatican's Secretariat for Communications. The appointment was announced at the Vatican on Wednesday, April 12. As a consultor, Warsaw will have a role in advising Pope Francis and the Holy See on matters related to media and communications. The appointment comes as part a broad restructuring of the media operations of the Vatican. "I am extremely humbled and honored by the Holy Father's appointment," Warsaw said. "This is a tremendous recognition of the role which EWTN plays in the life of the church throughout the world. I am grateful to Pope Francis for his confidence and look forward to serving the universal church in this post." Warsaw joined EWTN in 1991 and has held senior management positions in the areas of television production, satellite operations and technical services. He became president of EWTN in 2000 and assumed the post of chief executive officer in 2009. Warsaw was named chairman of the board of EWTN in 2013. In that capacity he oversees the network's strategic direction and mission around the world. With the network's 2011 acquisition of the National Catholic Register, Warsaw assumed the role of publisher of that newspaper. Prior to joining EWTN, Warsaw was employed by the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. He currently serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of The Catholic University of America, the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, and the Catholic Distance University. The Secretariat for Communications was established by Pope Francis in an apostolic decree on June 25, 2015. It has the task of carrying out the restructuring, reorganization and consolidation of the various communications outlets of the Holy See including the Vatican Television Center, the Vatican Publishing House, L'Osservatore Romano newspaper, Vatican Radio, the Holy See Press Office, Photographic Service and the Vatican Internet Service. The office is headed by Monsignor Dario Vigano, who serves as Prefect. EWTN Global Catholic Network, in its 36th year, is the largest religious media network in the world. EWTN's 11 TV channels are broadcast in multiple languages 24 hours a day, seven days a week to over 268 million television households in more than 145 countries and territories. EWTN platforms also include radio services transmitted through SIRIUS/XM, iHeart Radio, and over 500 domestic and international AM & FM radio affiliates; a worldwide shortwave radio service; the largest Catholic website in the U.S.; electronic and print news services, including Catholic News Agency, "The National Catholic Register" newspaper, and several global news wire services; as well as EWTN Publishing, its book publishing division. Birmingham Mayor William Bell Birmingham Mayor William Bell said the city school board should consider a candidate from the state or from within the city school system for the superintendent post. "I think some consideration should be made to include in the process of their deliberation that someone from the state of Alabama should be included in that process," he said at a Thursday morning press conference. "At this time, I am not prepared to say who that someone should be." He said most of the last five or six superintendents have been from out of the state. "All of them came without really knowing all of the challenges that the city school system faces," Bell said. "We've never really had anyone with a substantial understanding of our school system remaining in that capacity for a long enough period of time to make the type of changes that are necessary." The names of the five finalists for the Birmingham City Schools superintendent were released Tuesday afternoon. They are: The finalists are: Garrett L. Brundage, of Conyers, Ga.; Ronnie A. Dotson, of Grayson, Ky.; Timothy Gadson III, of Minneapolis, Minn.; Lisa N, Herring, of Louisville, Ky.; and Regina Thompson, of Blythewood, S.C. The lack of a finalist from Alabama drew outrage from the community and from, at least, three board members: Cheri Gardner, Sherman Collins Jr. and Daagye Hendricks. Many parents and community members say they wanted to see interim superintendent Larry Contri receive the permanent post. Contri, a 49-year veteran of the school system, has declined to comment on whether he applied for the job. Birmingham Board of Education President Wardine Alexander School Board President Wardine Alexander said on Thursday that Contri planned to retire on June 30. Alexander said board members learned the names of the finalists at the same time the public did. She said she was "surprised" that none of the candidates were from Birmingham. When asked if she would prefer a local candidate, Alexander said she values all of the city school employees. "I wanted the best candidate to come to the top," she said. The school board contracted with the Alabama Association of School Boards to conduct the nationwide superintendent search in order to keep the process confidential, Alexander said. The association said 47 people applied for the position. The search process began about two months after the Birmingham Board of Education fired superintendent Kelley Castlin-Gacutan. Castlin-Gacutan was fired without cause after a 6-3 vote on Sept. 22, 2016. She had only served 16 months on the job. On Thursday, Alexander said each school board member had a chance to tell the association what they were looking for in a superintendent, and whether an internal candidate should receive additional weight. Hazel Boykin, a parent of a seventh grader at Bush Hills Academy, said she is upset about the candidates for the superintendent post. She said the school board doesn't listen to the parents. She said the school board isn't acting in the best interest of students. "They don't have (parents) involved in the process," Boykin said. Boykin said the parents she has talked with support Contri because he knows the needs of the students. Richard Franklin, president of the Birmingham American Federation of Teachers, said teachers are also concerned that none of the finalists are from Birmingham. He said he knows of several administrators in the school system who applied for the superintendent post and didn't even get an interview. Franklin said the selection process hasn't been transparent, and as a parent he is disappointed that parents haven't had any input in the process so far. Alexander said the board is moving forward with interviewing the five finalists on Wednesday. She said parents will be able to share their input by completing a survey following the interviews. Public input will have the same weight as the board, Alexander said. Bell said he has received numerous calls from the community concerned that none of the finalists were from Alabama. He said he plans to speak with every board member individually, but ultimately the decision on who to hire is up to the school board. He said the hiring decision rests with the board. Hiring timeline The five finalists for Birmingham schools superintendent will be interviewed via Skype from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Wednesday, April 19 in the auditorium of Birmingham City School's Central Office. The interviews are open to the public and will be livestreamed on the school system's website. Following the interviews, Birmingham residents will be asked to complete a survey about the candidates. The survey can be completed through noon on Friday, April 21. According to the school system, survey scores and board members' scores on the five candidates will be presented to the school board on Friday, April 21 at 5:30 p.m. Two finalists will be selected during that meeting. The two finalists will be interviewed at the central office on Tuesday, April 25 and Wednesday, April 26 at 5:30 p.m. A resident survey on the two finalists will be online from April 25 until noon on May 1. The new superintendent is expected to be in place by July 1. Updated at 1:13 p.m. Highway 119 in Pelham is now open following an investigation into suspicious packages. The packages weren't explosives, police said. Update: Police Chief Larry Palmer told reporters at the scene shortly before 12:30 p.m. that the packages were not explosives. Shortly before 12:50 p.m., the department reported on Facebook the road would soon reopen. Original article continues below. A busy highway in Pelham is still closed while police are investigating two suspicious packages. Police said before 9 a.m. Cahaba Valley Road, also called Highway 119, was shut down between Southgate Dr. and Oak Mountain State Park Road due to the packages being investigated. Capt. Pat Cheatwood confirmed the two packages are coolers and were located at the Taco Bell on Highway 119. The roadway was still closed as of 11:00 a.m. Some businesses surrounding Taco Bell have been evacuated as a precaution, but police said businesses not on the main roadway are still open. Alabama Bone and Joint, which is located on Cahaba Valley Road, is open and is continuing to see patients. "As soon as it is safe to reopen the roadway we will do so," the police department posted on Facebook. In 2017, Rola Sleiman began her role as an officially ordained pastor in Tripoli, Lebanon. Tripoli, Lebanon To anyones knowledge, Rola Sleiman is the first female pastor in the entirety of the Arab Christian world. Its a straightforward tale: a young churchgoing girl decides to study theology in university, and upon graduation returns to the church of her youth in Tripoli, Lebanon. The only twist is that she is the first woman to reach such a vocation. I didnt really have it in my head to become a pastor, says Sleiman as she sat in Tripolis National Evangelist Presbyterian Church. And yet, she became an officially ordained pastor on February 26, 2017 a historic appointment for a role which had previously been restricted to men. Its evident that Pastor Sleimans direct demeanour and good humour helped pave her path to the pulpit. She stands at the podium, making sure her pants are hidden while she jokes with the churchs organ player. Im getting photographed in my jeans its going to scandalise our congregation! she laughs. WATCH: Lebanons women warriors Explaining how she fell into the role of the first female pastor, she recalls the initial circumstances which brought her to this point. The way everything turned out, looking back, I think it was Gods will to make this statement. She says this tentatively, processing the enormity of her ordainment. This is my church, and I wasn't going to leave it, by Rola Sleiman Sleiman didnt come from exceptionally devout roots: Her parents were Evangelist Presbyterian churchgoers, but not more religious than the average household. She attributes her theological path to a teenage phase, when, like many her age, she began questioning: She wanted answers, so she read. I read the Bible, the Quran, the Old Testament and I was convinced with my faith. Im not saying its the Truth for everyone, but to me, this is where I felt convinced. Her path was clear at an age where most teenagers struggle with their purpose. When Sleiman was 17, she applied to be adopted by the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon, the denominational umbrella which forms the Evangelical Presbyterian federations throughout the Levant. The Synod adopted her and subsequently sponsored her degree in Theology and Christian Education. Upon graduation, she had the option to serve in several of the Synods churches around Lebanon, including in her hometown of Tripoli. Sleiman was drawn to Tripoli and the church she had grown up attending. I felt there was something that I had to do here, in my hometown I just felt that I had to go. It was a gut feeling which proved accurate. In 2006, George Bitar, the pastor of the church which Sleiman grew up attending, left the country to travel. Having formal theological training qualified Sleiman to take on the task of leading Sunday services on a temporary basis. However, as the 2006 July War with Israel erupted in Lebanon, Bitar was unable to book a flight home, and Sleiman ended up conducting services for six months. When Pastor Bitar returned, it was brief. He had attained a visa to the United States, and in 2008 moved there with his family for good. In the absence of an appointed pastor for the church, Sleiman continued as interim minister, building a relationship with her congregation as time passed. This is my church and I wasnt going to leave it, she says with conviction. Still, as Reverend Sleiman was not an officially ordained pastor, difficulties manifested. She was unable to perform sacraments or baptisms without supervision from an ordained cleric in the Synod male supervision. Additionally, the Synods committees, a collection of elders and pastors from across Syria and Lebanon, could not vote on a number of issues without the presence of an ordained representative from Tripoli. READ MORE: Sexism in Lebanon Different and unequal Tripolis National Evangelist Presbyterian Church needed a pastor. It was time for the Synod to officially appoint a representative so decisions could be made. When the church was asked who they wanted to represent the congregation, the answer was obvious. After years of being interim minister, My church was used to me. They didnt think of me in terms of gender, as a woman or a man. I served them, doing visitations, preaching well, and I convinced them through my service, says Sleiman. Ultimately, the vote to ordain Reverend Sleiman passed in the Synod 23 to one, with remarkably little resistance. The city of Tripoli, known as the second capital of Lebanon, has been heavily affected by the neighbouring civil war in Syria, with sectarian fighting and car bombs making news headlines. Furthermore, in 2014, assailants set fire to Tripolis Christian-owned Saeh Library and torched up to two-thirds of the librarys 80,000 books and manuscripts in what was reported as a religiously motivated attack. But mainstream media has depicted her beloved city in a skewed light, insists Sleiman, by focusing on distorted sectarian divisions and a small number of youth that join organisations such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS). While Lebanons delicate confessional system has historically suffered due to sectarian divisions and civil strife, Sleiman believes in representing her denomination peacefully. To me, it was about pastoring our small group, in order to take care of it and ensure [our] continuity, she says. Tripoli is a historically diverse city, but its Christian population dwindled during Lebanons 15-yearlong civil war, that began in 1975. Heavy economic burdens intermingled with religious tension, leading many to immigrate. Christians now make up an estimated six percent of the population in Tripoli. Evangelical Presbyterians are a tiny denomination spread across Lebanon and Syria, and representing their presence is a significant factor in Pastor Sleimans decision to lead and foster her congregation in its current location, which consists of approximately 33 families. Although there is an Evangelical Presbyterian sister-school on the outskirts of town, the National Evangelical Church itself is situated in the centre of the old city, surrounded and well-known among the majority Muslim shopkeepers in the neighbourhood. READ MORE: A Day Without a Woman strike aims to raise awareness Her congregation is on great terms with the surrounding community, asserts Sleiman. I cant imagine living in any other city, she says. The people [of Tripoli] are so supportive. Being the first female pastor in the Arab world is a responsibility that at times seems ordinary to Sleiman; other times the enormity of the historic appointment weighs on her. The title hasnt added to anything I wasnt already doing. On the other hand, I feel there are so many more eyes on me, like people are waiting either for me to succeed or fail. Beyond the historic religious decision, Sleiman has been thrust into the position of promoting gender equality in Lebanese society through her work. Lebanons delicate political structure has left much to be desired politically, especially for women, who frequently bear the brunt of most socioeconomic problems. The month of March marks International Womens Day every March 8. This year, as hundreds of women marched the streets of Beirut to demand equal rights, Rev Sleiman began her role as an officially ordained pastor in Tripoli. Reverend Sleiman, who has a Syrian father and a Lebanese mother, was born and lived in Tripoli all her life and considers herself Lebanese, but does not have Lebanese nationality. Because Lebanese mothers cannot pass on their nationality to their children, Sleiman must periodically renew her Syrian passport and residency permit to maintain legal status in Lebanon. We have laws that oppress women, she says, while clarifying her position against the oppression of all peoples. Its time to leave all that behind. Some people would tell you my ordination happened late. I think, better late than never. At least a door has opened, Sleiman muses. These doors need to be opened everywhere. Pastor Sleimans strides are not lost upon her. Alhamdulillah, she says, using the Arabic word which both Christians and Muslims use to denote Thank God. Veeru Kohli now works to eradicate this form of slavery in Pakistan, home to about two million bonded labourers. Azad Nagar, Pakistan The car made its way down the narrow, winding, mostly unpaved road towards Azad Nagar a settlement on the outskirts of the southern Pakistani city of Hyderabad that is inhabited by freed bonded labourers. Inside was Veeru Kohli, a former bonded agricultural labourer who is now an activist working for the eradication of this form of slavery. Almost 45.8 million people are trapped in bonded labour across the world and Pakistan is home to more than two million of them, according to the Global Slavery Index. Kohli is a familiar face in Azad Nagar, which means land of the free. More than 100 families currently live here in thatched roof houses that lack electricity and running water. A small temple serves as a place of worship for the mostly Hindu residents. Kohli does not know her age but appears to be around 50 years old. She is wearing a bright pink ghagra and choli skirt and blouse with a black shawl draped over her shoulders and a vermilion on her forehead, a practice followed by Hindu women. She vividly recalls how the contractor at the farm in Umerkot, around 150km from here, where she worked as a bonded labour would beat up her children. Life was hell back then, she says. We worked for a feudal lord and never got to see any sort of payment for all our efforts. There was no accountability, sometimes my children used to eat, other times there was no food. We would get random vegetables from the jungle and eat them raw, she explains as she sits on a charpai, or cot, surrounded by other women. The business of slavery Bonded labour was outlawed in Pakistan in 1992, but it is still widespread in brick kilns, as well as in the agriculture, mining and fishing sectors. The bonded labourers become trapped after taking out a small loan often to pay for medical care or a wedding. As the loan accrues interest often at exorbitant rates they are unable to pay it back and future generations of their family remain enslaved. I started working when I had two kids, Kohli says, although she doesnt remember which year that was or how old she was. We were desperate for money. My children worked with me, cutting grass and picking up cow dung. Altogether we were eight families, around 45 people, enslaved by that feudal lord for over two years. In addition to beating up my children, he didnt let me marry off my girls. He didnt let us leave despite repeated requests. Members of religious minorities, underprivileged castes and poor Muslims are especially vulnerable to the system of bonded labour. If those feudal lords liked someones girl, they would summon them and convert them to Islam. How can you change someones religion like that? But this is what happened there. Its not right but it happened openly, Kohli says, struggling to contain her emotions. After being enslaved for two years, Kohli finally fled in 1998. She didnt use the bus for fear of being caught as had happened to some before her but instead, walked barefoot through the jungle. She walked for two days, her feet bleeding from the thorns that had become embedded in them, before reaching her brothers home about 50km from there. With his support and the involvement of the police, she then returned to the feudal lord who had enslaved her to demand that he free the rest of her family. The real struggle But, Kohli explains: After being freed, I realised the real struggle had only just started. My aim was to free as many bonded labourers as I could because, having gone through what they do, I feel the pain and the suffering. Unfortunately, those in power are either part of it or turn a blind eye, refusing to accept bonded labour exists in Pakistan, she adds. Kohli has travelled across Pakistan as part of her campaigning work, for which she was honoured with the Frederick Douglass Freedom Award, named after the African-American former slave and abolitionist and given by the NGO Free the Slaves, in 2009. She was also invited to speak on the issue in neighbouring India. With the belief that boardroom talks and lectures have limited impact, she decided to enter politics. We beg these politicians for small things but never hear back. I hoped to win a seat in the Assembly [Sindh Province] and work for the poor, she says. I got death threats and was also offered bribes following that decision, but I stood firm. She failed to win a seat in the 2013 Assembly but her courage in taking on the then ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) in a region where it is well-established inspired many of those looking for a political alternative. Then last December, she decided to challenge Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, the son of the assassinated former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, in the PPP stronghold of Larkana, in Sindh, about 300km north of Azad Nagar. Larkana has in the past elected Benazir Bhutto to the National Assembly. It is also the birthplace of the partys founder Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Benazirs father. The elections are yet to be held but before Kohlis election campaign could pick up momentum, she decided to withdraw her name. Limited funding and resources are the main reasons she cites for pulling out of the race. I really wanted to stand up against Bilawal and show him that ordinary people have a voice too, but its unfortunate that fighting against the influential requires a lot of resources, she says. Larkana is in a big mess right now. We couldve worked to improve the condition of the city. But were poor, were labourers and barely have enough to eat. We couldnt carry out the plan we had. A hero for other women In Azad Nagar, women come out of their houses to greet Kohli as she walks past. They tell her how much better their lives are now that they are no longer bonded labourers. The settlement was built with help from a local NGO Green Rural Development Organization (GRDO) and Action Aid in 2006. With space for 310 families over 4.5 hectares of land, Azad Nagar was planned as a place where freed bonded labourers would live temporarily as they began their new lives. But it has become a permanent home for many of its residents. We started with two or three families, we thought they could come here, stay for a bit and then move on to where they would find work, says Ghulam Haider, one of the founding members of GRDO. Some families arrive and stay for longer, some even become a permanent fixture. We dont force them to leave. They have found work here on the fields or in the nearby towns. They are happy here and more importantly, they live a free life. In the middle of the settlement, a small school now lies unused. Of the 150 or so children who live here, only 16 go to school. They attend one that is about 1km away. The other children play in the fields or help their parents with chores. As we enter the closed school, some children are quickly ushered in to recite the alphabet in English. They smile as they jump from chair to chair. The older residents of Azad Nagar also seem happy. This life is so much better for us. We work on the brick kilns next door and are able to earn some money, say Soomri, who gave just one name. Earlier, we were kept in bondage literally. My three sons were chained up. The two years we spent there were hell, she adds. Her face is wrinkled and her hands rough from the work she was made to do as a bonded labourer. On one of her fingers is a wedding ring. After we fled, they kidnapped my husband who was later beaten to death, she says. They wouldnt even let us bury his body. Sharing tales of misery Such stories are not uncommon here. But still the women laugh and talk animatedly about what has happened in the settlement since Kohli last visited. But Kohli cannot stay long. She is on a mission to free some other bonded labourers. So she walks towards the car, stopping at one house to enquire about the wellbeing of those who live there. These people are like family to each other, she says. They share a past full of struggle. But if we stay together, we can form a better future. Kohli might have withdrawn from the election race but she continues to inspire others to fight for their rights and for a brighter future. I tell them to earn an honest living and send their kids to school. There is no fear any more, she reflects. Istanbul, Turkey Vehicles of rival campaigns wander the streets of Istanbul as they blast their propaganda songs calling on Turkeys citizens to vote on their side in the upcoming referendum on April 16. Only days left to the key vote, Yes and No camps campaign at full speed in the 15 million megalopolis in a last ditch effort to convince Turks before they vote to accept or reject the proposed constitutional changes that might deeply change how Turkey is governed. The proposed constitutional amendments seek to transform Turkeys political system into an executive presidential one, significantly empowering the top office, while abolishing the prime ministry, which holds the main executive power in the current system as the head of the cabinet. READ MORE: Turkeys constitutional reform All you need to know The Yes camp seeks support for what they say is a more stable and secure Turkey under a new system. The No camp believes the changes will lead to a one-man rule that will undermine Turkeys democratic institutions and lead to arbitrary governance. The constitutional changes are backed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) he founded and the far-right Nationalist Action Party (MHP), whose support at parliament was key to take the proposal to a public vote. The MHP has been going through an internal fragmentation since their leadership decided to back the proposed constitutional amendments. Various senior MPs, who entered the parliament under the partys banner, campaign for No. The AK Party carries the whole Yes campaign, with very limited and separate appearances from the MHP, the smallest of the four parties represented in the parliament. The two parties argue the new system will prevent a return to fragile parliamentary coalitions at a time when the country is facing challenges such as multiple security concerns, an influx of refugees from Syria and the fallout from a failed coup, which led to an ongoing state of emergency across the country. Stability and security Erdogan said at a recent rally that Turkeys current system has created many short-lived governments, adding that government changes have histrorically been far more frequent in Turkey than Western countries. The fact that we had 48 governments is not the expression of the strength of our democracy, but the instability of it. The governing systems codes are stability and security, he said in another rally, adding that Turkey paid a great price in the past due to lack of both. During the past few years, deadly bomb attacks claimed by or blamed on Kurdish fighters groups and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) killed hundreds of security forces and civilians. Security concerns were further emphasised when some members of the Turkish army dramatically tried to topple the government last July in a failed coup until they faced strong resistance from the populace and the rest of the army. Turkey accuses Fethullah Gulen, a religious leader who lives in self-imposed exile in the United States, of orchestrating the coup attempt that killed around 300 people in total and led to purges within state institutions. The government says the purges aim at removing Gulens supporters from the institutions. Many Yes voters express their confidence in Erdogan and say the need for economic and political stability is the reason for the direction of their vote. I have seen Turkeys most volatile times during my lifetime: economic downturns, coups and lousy coalitions, said Fatma Aksoz, a Yes supporter, in the district of Eminonu. We have had a stable government for 15 years now. What if we stay in the current system and in years ahead, we have to deal with another coalition government and instability? the 57-year-old pensioner told Al Jazeera. Q&A: Executive presidency will help Turkish democracy Yes voters angry at EU Among the backers of the constitutional changes, there also seems to be a strong and growing negative sentiment against the European Union (EU) and the pro-Kurdish Peoples Democracy Party (HDP). Eighteen-year-old student Enes Arslan told Al Jazeera: Terrorists (Kurdish separatists), the party that supports them (HDP) and the EU are Turkeys foes and they are against the presidential system. Thats enough reason to vote for the changes. The opposition Peoples Democracy Party (HDP), which is for No in the upcoming vote, has been hit by a series of arrests of its officials, including MPs and coleaders. The government blames the HDP, which is the third largest party in parliament, of having links to the outlawed armed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is viewed as a terrorist group by the EU and US. And recently tensions have been high between the EU and Turkey. Turkish officials have been engaged in a war of words with Germany and the Netherlands since last month after the two EU member states barred Turkish ministers from speaking at referendum campaign gatherings within their borders. There are millions of Turks living in Europe, mainly in Germany, France and the Netherlands, who might end up determining the outcome of the referendum. Turkish citizens living abroad cast their votes at Turkish diplomatic missions between March 27 and April 9. READ MORE: Turkeys opposition: Referendum will deepen problems No camp against one-man rule No campaign, mainly carried out by the main opposition centre-left Republican Peoples Party (CHP), argues that the proposed changes will degrade separation of powers and governmental checks and balances in Turkey by giving one individual too much power. The supporters of the CHP play anthems and promo songs across Istanbul referring to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founding father of modern Turkey, as they wave national flags and hand out leaflets calling for rejection of what they say will be the end of democracy in the country. Power, without any checks, would be disastrous. Democracys existential goal is not to leave power unchecked, CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu recently said at a rally. The HDP, which has been hit by mass arrests, is running a much smaller campaign. Every word of the president is perceived as a rule in the current climate. They are trying to take the nation hostage by formally taking this [climate] into law through the referendum, Ahmet Turk, a senior HDP MP, said. Both CHP and HDP officials and supporters say that the AK Party and the presidency use state resources at its disposal for campaigning purposes and Turkeys media outlets cover the No campaign far less than the opponent one. We are going to this referendum in unequal conditions. They use the states planes, vehicles, money and television channels, said Kilicdaroglu. No voters worry about future Many of the No voters worry about their future under the new system as they are not sure how their lives will be affected. A president with such powers might make further arbitrary changes in Turkish laws at every level that will immensely affect our daily lives, 59-year-old pensioner Cevdet Ersal told Al Jazeera, adding that the changes will create a monarchy. Hilal Mert, a 19-year-old student, said: I want to live in a country where different institutions can monitor each other through a separation of powers. Who will stand for my rights if there is nobody to monitor the one holding the power? A Yes vote in the upcoming referendum will allow the president to assign ministers, high-level state officials and vice-presidents, a newly established position, as well as half the members in the countrys highest judicial body. Furthermore, it will allow the president to dissolve the parliament, and issue executive decrees and state of emergencies. Turkish presidency traditionally used to be a neutral and largely ceremonial role without any political responsibility in line with the current constitution. However, Erdogan has effectively transformed the office to a more politically active one after he became Turkeys first president to be elected by popular vote in 2014 in line with a set of prior constitutional changes passed in a similar referendum in 2010. Before taking over the presidential office, Erdogan served three terms as prime minister since 2002, when his party secured a landslide victory in the first elections it entered at a time the country was suffering from political instability and a major economic downturn. After taking over the presidential office, Erdogan claimed numerous times that the fact that he was elected with popular vote had transformed the presidential office compared with past presidencies and this change was needed for a stronger Turkey. Follow Umut Uras on Twitter: @um_uras Upholding journalistic integrity is the only way to combat pay-per-click business model poisoning media, say experts. In an age overwhelmed with clickbait stories, where clicks mean money, is mainstream journalism losing its relevance? And are there any alternative sustainable business models, which allow professional journalists the freedom to produce meaningful and balanced journalism? These were some of the questions put to a panel of TV and radio directors from across the globe at the UNESCOs Journalism Under Fire Colloquium, recently held in Paris. Vicente Jimenez, director-general of the Spanish radio network Cadena SER, kicked off the discussion by citing some of the most-read stories in Spain last year: We are often looking for stupid or irrelevant stories for large amount of clicks to increase our income. by Vicente Jimenez, Director General of Cadena SER Compulsory military service for unemployed people! Workers forbidden from attending university! A ban on Halloween processions to avoid offending Muslims! They were all fake news. Jimenez argued that the click business model was poisoning media. We are often looking for stupid or irrelevant stories for large amount of clicks to increase our income, he said. Look right now at the top newspaper websites and youll find many stories about cats, about the different ways of cooking some meal, or whether Lady Diana was taller than her husband. Giles Trendle, Al Jazeeras acting managing director, agreed that the media was challenged by the proliferation of new platforms and mediums. Read more: Fake news symptomatic of crisis in journalism But, he said, engaging with new technologies should not necessarily mean losing ones soul. Hold firm to your editorial principles, which is a valid business model in itself. We have to champion what we do as quality, credible, balanced journalism that is factual and comprehensive, and cherish our editorial integrity, Trendle said. The fundamentals of quality journalism will eventually prevail over the low-grade yellow journalism, he added. Everybody told us we would fail With less than 1 percent of El Salvadors population able to access the internet, the business reasons for setting up an online investigative news site in the 90s may not have been obvious. But without resources to set up a print newspaper, Carlos Dada and his colleagues launched El Faro online in 1998. El Faro specialised in long investigative stories and Dada, editor-in-chief, explained: Everybody told us we would fail because the internet, this new media, was there for breaking news, short stories. El Faro did survive and became platform agnostic, using a mix of media platforms to reach out to as many people as possible. Dada said that holding firm to their social mission of educating their readership to become informed citizens, and in doing so strengthening democratic institutions, has been key to their business success. According to Andrius Tapinas, the founder and chief executive of Liberty TV in Lithuania, crowd-funded journalism could be a way forward in an environment starved of state subsidies, especially for small media outlets. Although Lithuanian television stations are freely accessible online, Tapinas with a group of journalists took a gamble to set up an online television channel that viewers could access through a monthly subscription. Six months after its launch, Liberty TV competes with state television in terms of audience numbers, Tapianas said. With a stable subscriber base, the channel avoids the tyranny of the click business model. Tapinas also emphasised the need for innovation. Our TV channel is the biggest Lithuanian broadcaster on YouTube but we get four times less subscribers than a 17-year-old guy who is doing some fun stories from his mothers basement, Tapinas said. So do we cry, or do we adapt by maybe hiring this guy? Crowd-funded journalism has also been implemented successfully by other media outlets, notably by the French online investigative and opinion journal Mediapart, which is entirely funded by its 130,000 subscribers, and which has over the past few years broken important corruption stories such as the Cahuzac affair. That scandal led in 2013 to the resignation of Francois Hollands former budget minister, Jerome Cahuzac. Indian politics is headed in a most challenging direction, one which could have momentous implications for the countrys pluralistic society and the world. This sharp political turn in India has been most starkly visible in the growing political success of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), founded in 1980. In 2014, the BJP won a landslide electoral victory, bringing Prime Minister Narendra Modi to power. In March this year, the party swept to victory again in local elections across India, including in the countrys most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, where the BJP won over three quarters of the seats on offer. The new chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Yogi Adityanath, has attributed the partys success to the prime ministers strongman image and popularity. Supporters of Modi point to his focus on economic development and growth to explain his popularity. India was the fastest-growing major economy last year, posting a GDP growth of 7 percent, compared to 6.8 percent for China. Critics, on the other hand, claim the so-called Modi-wave is based on an appeal to divisive Hindu majoritarian politics. Hindutva At the centre of this controversy is the BJPs ideology of Hindutva, or Hinduness, which is rooted in a belief that a Hindu majority in India is united around a common culture which forms the basis of the nation. This claim is a contested one, and has its roots in the regions encounters with colonialism during the 19th and 20th centuries. During this time, a Western, orientalist image of India as essentially religious was pervasive, and ushered in the birth of a public sphere in which different parts of the elite claimed to speak on behalf of distinct and competing religious constituencies. The defining Hindu nationalist contribution to these debates was to envision the boundaries between the Hindu majority and the Indo-Islamic or Christian minorities as not only religious, but national as well. This allowed for the reframing of upper-caste Hindus not as a powerful minority, but as part of an imagined national Hindu majority. The vision of a Hindu nation was built around ideas of Hindu unity and organisation, or Hindu sangathan. OPINION: A new India where fringe is the mainstream One influential and controversial symbol of this vision can be seen in the contemporary politics of cow protection. While the cow is considered to be a sacred animal by some Hindus, the BJP and other Hindu nationalist organisations have long presented beef consumption and cow protection as a dividing line between Hindus and non-Hindus. During their electoral campaign in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP pledged to pass laws to end the river of blood of cows, oxen and buffalo. Abattoirs, many of which are run by Indian Muslims, have since faced a crackdown by state authorities. A central tenet of diversity in Hindu politics was the idea that numerically large lower-caste groups were a key part of the Hindu society, and it was this shifting consciousness which allowed for the imagination of a Hindu majority in the region. by At times, Hindu organisation has been accompanied by a violent activism directed towards anyone accused of eating beef or slaughtering cows. Caste politics Many leading thinkers primarily view the growing power of Hindu nationalism through its encouragement of Hindu and Muslim intra-communal conflict. Yet, this ignores the much-contested place of lower-caste groups within Hindu nationalism. Addressing the politics sparked by these conflicting views provides another compelling prism through which to understand the significance of Hindu mobilisation and recent electoral victories. During the course of 19th century debates, Hindu activist organisations such as Arya Samaj turned their attention to the issue of caste and, in particular, the position of lower-caste groups within the Hindu society. This raised questions over where the boundaries of Hinduism were, considering that caste practices often cut across religious traditions, and Hindu as a religious identity was unfamiliar to many, who now found themselves categorised within it. A central tenet of diversity in Hindu politics was the idea that numerically large lower-caste groups were a key part of the Hindu society, and it was this shifting consciousness which allowed for the imagination of a Hindu majority in the region. The BJP seeks to mobilise this diversity into a consolidated idea of Hindu identity and nationhood. OPINION: Indias beef sanctity While the BJPs campaigning in recent elections around symbols such as the cow have played a role in this, grassroots movements affiliated with Hindu nationalism that have been operating outside, politics and whose activism is often incorrectly seen as of little consequence to Indias social landscape, also played a role. My own research demonstrates how these seva (service) projects, including approximately 14,000 schools and cultural societies, link the histories and heroes of lower caste groups into a broader story of Hindu society. For example, in dramatic folk plays about the Hindu God-King Rama in Uttar Pradesh, lower-caste groups such as Nishads are placed at the forefront of the myth and celebrated for their masculine and ethical qualities, in a manner similar to the BJPs presentation of an angry Rama in colourful badges, stickers and posters. OPINION: Can caste be banned from Indian politics? Alongside this incorporation, in the neighbouring state of Jharkhand, tribal and lower caste groups use these ideas of moral comportment to shatter stereotypes and create a space for themselves in the Hindu nation. These stories present the cultural ethos of marginal Hindus as central to building any Hindu nation, claiming that its decline is the responsibility of more powerful Hindu figures, whose actions, such as alcohol consumption, are corrupt and quite inimical to the demands of an ethical Hindu identity. While these ideas of Hindu organisation and nationalism have been on the rise, they have been increasingly challenged by thinkers who assert an alternative and independent lower-caste identity. These activists claim the legacy of BR Ambedkar, the principal framer of the Indian constitution. An important leader of the Dalit, or the former untouchable, caste, Ambedkars work helped inspire the rise of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), or the Majority Peoples Party. Since the 1980s, the BSP has put forward a forceful critique of Hindu nationalism, and from this period onwards lower-caste politics have developed into a major aspect of Indian life. This brings us back to the 2014 and 2017 elections. Of all the competing views of community, religion and nationhood offered during the campaigns, it was the BJPs invocation of the symbols of Hindu unity which gained popular support and caused lower-caste parties to regress. In the most recent polls, the Hindu nationalists successfully captured 69 of the 89 seats reserved for lower-caste representatives, compared to just two for the BSP. Tracing Indias difficult and momentous turn towards Hindu nationalist politics allows us to consider an increasingly powerful paradigm at work in the world: one which twists the kaleidoscope to reveal not the messy entanglements of human history and belonging, but instead sharp divisions and monopolised spaces. Ketan Alder lectures in religions and politics at Lancaster University. He is currently writing a book on Hindu activism in modern India. The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy. Survivors tell authorities 15 women and five children among the missing after boat headed for European shores sinks. At least 97 people are missing and believed to have drowned after their Europe-bound boat sank in the Mediterranean Sea on Thursday, according to the Libyan coastguard. Spokesman Ayoub Qassem said 23 migrants were rescued around 10 kilometres off the coast of Tripoli after authorities received a distress call. Fifteen women and five children are among those still missing. The boat, which was packed with African nationals seeking asylum in Europe, completely collapsed, he said. The survivors, all men, were found clinging to a flotation device. Those who had disappeared were probably dead, Qassem said, adding that bad weather had prevented the recovery of their bodies. Libya has become a key departure point for people risking their lives to cross the Mediterranean to Europe. Hailing mainly from sub-Saharan countries, most of the asylum seekers board boats operated by people traffickers in the countrys west, heading for the Italian island of Lampedusa 300 kilometres away. READ MORE: IOM African migrants traded in Libyas slave markets Since the beginning of this year, at least 590 people have died or gone missing along the Libyan coast, the International Organisation for Migration said in late March. In 2016, more than 5,000 people lost their lives at sea an annual record as they undertook perilous journeys to escape war, poverty, and persecution. In 2015, at least 3,771 refugees died while crossing the Mediterranean, up from 3,279 deaths the year before. More than 24,000 asylum seekers arrived in Italy from Libya during the first three months of the year, up from 18,000 in the same period last year, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. The German government on Thursday said it would support a ban on the export of boats from the European Union to Libya as part of measures to stem the flow of people across the Mediterranean. In February, EU leaders inked a deal to give $215mn to Libyas fragile government to stop migrant boats in the countrys territorial waters. In first interview since deadly gas attack in Idlib, Syrian leader says US missile strike based on falsified evidence. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said a suspected chemical weapons attack was a fabrication to justify a US military strike, AFP news agency reported. In his first interview since the April 4 incident prompted a US cruise missile attack on Syrian forces, Assad insisted his army gave up all of its chemical weapons three years ago and that Syrian military power was not affected by the US strike. Definitely, 100 percent for us, its fabrication, Assad said of the poison gas incident. Our impression is that the West, mainly the United States, is hand-in-glove with the terrorists. They fabricated the whole story in order to have a pretext for the attack, added Assad, who has been in power for 17 years. Western leaders including US President Donald Trump have accused Assad of being behind last weeks attack in the rebel-held town Khan Sheikhoun, saying his forces unleashed a chemical weapon during an air strike. Assad said his forces had not been diminished by the 59 US cruise missiles launched at an Syrian airbase in Homs in retaliation for what Trump called a very barbaric attack. Our firepower, our ability to attack the terrorists, hasnt been affected by this strike, Assad said. The chemical attack killed at least 87 people, including many children, and images of the dead and of victims suffering from gas poisoning provoked global outrage. At the time of the incident Syria denied any use of chemical weapons, and Moscow said the deaths had been the result of a conventional strike hitting a rebel arms depot containing toxic substances. But in his latest interview, Assad insisted it was not clear whether an attack on Khan Sheikhoun had even happened. READ MORE: Russia slammed for vetoing yet another Syria resolution You have a lot of fake videos now, he said. We dont know whether those dead children were killed in Khan Sheikhoun. Were they dead at all? An open source investigation by journalist Elliot Higgins pieces together the timeline of the Khan Sheikhoun attack and attempts to debunk previous claims by the government in Damascus and Russia that the chemical cloud was released after Syrian jets targeted a rebel weapons depot in the town. US military officials said they observed a drone flying over a hospital in Khan Sheikoun that was providing treatment for gas victims. About five hours later, the UAV [drone] returned, and the hospital was struck by additional munitions, one official said. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has begun an investigation into the alleged attack, but Russia on Wednesday blocked a UN Security Council resolution demanding Syria cooperate with the probe. A British delegation at the worlds chemical weapons watchdog said on Thursday that samples taken from the attack site tested positive for the nerve agent sarin. Assad said Syria would only allow an impartial investigation into the poison gas incident. He insisted several times his forces had turned over all chemical weapons stockpiles in 2013, under a deal brokered by Russia to avoid threatened US military action. The OPCW has blamed Assads government for at least two attacks in 2014 and 2015 involving the use of chlorine. In the lead up to the government takeover of the rebel-held half of Aleppo last last year, Human Rights Watch reported on the governments systematic use of chlorine gas, marking at least eight incidents in which military helicopters dropped the chemical into residential areas. Scientists around the world are working to capture an elusive image of a black hole for the first time ever. A hundred scientists in eight locations around the world have coordinated efforts over the past two weeks to capture the first-ever image of a black hole. The project, called the Event Horizon telescope, is hoping to get a picture of Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole shielded by dust and gas 26,000 light-years from Earth, at the centre of our Milky Way galaxy. To do this the scientists combined the power of eight radio telescopes in Spain, Mexico, Chile, the United States and Antarctica. The bigger your telescope, the better your resolution, Heino Falcke, a professor of astroparticle physics and radio astronomy at Radboud University in the Netherlands, told Al Jazeera. We need to [be able to] see a mustard seed in New York from Europe and need a telescope the size of the Earth to get that resolution. Couple radio telescopes around the world [together] and then you essentially get that. Unlike traditional optical telescopes that detect light waves, radio telescopes pick up radio frequencies emitted by objects such as planets and stars. These are frequently very weak, which is why large telescopes are needed. They need to be at very high mountains because humidity absorbs those radio waves, said Falcke. Radio telescopes have been linked together in this way for more than 30 years, but this is the first time so many have been focused on one part of the galaxy at the same time. Although the team said this initial attempt went well, they will have to be patient. Each telescope produces 2-3 million gigabytes of data per night during the experiment, making the transmission of the data a challenge. It is stored on hard drives as it is impossible to send by the internet right now, particularly from Antarctica where it is now winter and there are no flights back, we have to wait half a year to get all this data together and combine it, said Falcke. The data will also have to be correlated, a complicated process that researchers said could take up to a year. Once it is analysed, the team hope to have an image of black hole and the bright matter that is believed to hurtle around it. It may be like a solar eclipse where you see a dark shadow in the middle and then fire around, Falcke said. Hawking: There may be a way out of black holes This ring is called an event horizon, the area around a black hole where the gravitational pull is so strong it makes escape even for light impossible. Falcke said getting an image and a better understanding of this exotic region is important as it would confirm or challenge the fundamental theories that underpin physics. We think [black holes] exist but we have never seen it, so proving that it actually exists in our universe I think is very fundamental, he said. [If] you can test it and measure it very precisely in the years to come, [you will] see whether Einstein is correct with his ultimate theory of time and space, or do we need to change it? To do this the researchers hope to add additional telescopes to the array in coming decades, allowing them to conduct even more precise observations of black holes and their effect on the universe. US put North Korea on notice it wont tolerate any provocation, while Pyongyang threatened a nuclear strike in response. Military force cannot resolve tension over North Korea, China said on Thursday, while an influential Chinese newspaper urged the North to halt its nuclear programme in exchange for Chinese protection. With a US aircraft carrier group steaming to the area and tension rising, South Korea said it believed the United States would consult it before any preemptive strike against the North. Fears have been growing that the reclusive North could soon conduct its sixth nuclear test or more missile launches in defiance of UN sanctions and stark warnings from the United States that a policy of patience was over. China, North Koreas sole major ally and benefactor, which nevertheless opposes its weapons programme, has called for talks leading to a peaceful resolution and the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula. Military force cannot resolve the issue, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters in Beijing. Amid challenge there is opportunity. Amid tensions we will also find a kind of opportunity to return to talks. While US President Donald Trump has put North Korea on notice that he would not tolerate any provocation, US officials have said his administration was focusing its strategy on tougher economic sanctions. Trump has, however, diverted the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier group towards the Korean peninsula, which could take more than a week to arrive. Wang warned that history would hold any instigator to account. Whoever provokes the situation, whoever continues to make trouble in this place, they will have to assume historical responsibility, Wang said. North Korea vows to respond to reckless US moves South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se told parliament in Seoul he believed Washington would consult Seoul if it was considering a preemptive strike. The United States has about 28,500 troops in South Korea. A Washington-based think-tank that monitors North Korea, 38 North, said satellite images on Wednesday showed activity around the Norths Punggye-ri nuclear test site on the east coast that indicated it was ready for a new test. South Korean officials said there were no new signs to indicate a test was more likely, although they also said the North appeared ready to conduct a test at any time. An influential state-backed Chinese newspaper said the best option for North Korea and its leader, Kim Jong-un, was to give up its nuclear programme, and China would protect it if it did. As soon as North Korea complies with Chinas declared advice and suspends nuclear activities China will actively work to protect the security of a denuclearised North Korean nation and regime, said an editorial in the Global Times, which is published by the Communist partys Peoples Daily. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe underscored fears about threats from North Korea, telling parliament in Tokyo that Pyongyang could have the capacity to deliver missiles equipped with sarin nerve gas. A senior Japanese diplomat said the United States was putting maximum pressure on North Korea to resolve issues peacefully, while putting responsibility on China to sway its old ally. We will watch what action China takes, the diplomat said. While Japan did not see a high risk of military action, it expected to be consulted by the United States if it decided to attack. North Korea has about 350 missiles that can hit Japan. North Korea says its not afraid of US military strike On Tuesday, North Korea warned of a nuclear attack on the United States at any sign of American aggression. The North is technically at war with the United States and South Korea after the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce and not a peace treaty. The North regularly threatens to destroy both countries. Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke by telephone on Wednesday, just days after they met in the United States for the first time, underscoring the sense of urgency about North Korea. Trump said on Twitter his call with Xi was a very good discussion of the menace of North Korea. He said later on Wednesday the United States was prepared to tackle the crisis without China, if necessary. US Central Command says air strike was supposed to hit an ISIL fighting position in Syrias northern Raqqa province. At least 18 members of the American-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were killed in a US-led coalition air strike that mistakenly targeted them in Syrias Raqqa province. In a statement released on Thursday, US Central Command (CENTCOM) said 18 SDF fighters died in the air raid south of the city of Tabqa on April 11. The attack was believed to be hitting members of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS). SDF was founded in Syrias mainly Kurdish northeastern region in October 2015, and is made up of at least 15 armed factions, mostly fighters from the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units and the Free Syrian Army. The strike was requested by the partnered forces, who had identified the target location as an ISIS fighting position. The target location was actually a forward Syrian Democratic Forces fighting position, CENTCOM said. The coalitions deepest condolences go out to the members of the SDF and their families. The coalition is in close contact with our SDF partners who have expressed a strong desire to remain focused on the fight against ISIS despite this tragic incident. The coalition added it is assessing the cause of the friendly fire attack. READ MORE: Evacuation from Syrias Madaya and Zabadani begins The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Thursday at least 25 other SDF fighters were killed in clashes against ISIL in the suburbs of Tabqa. The incident occurred as US-backed Syrian forces prepared to retake Raqqa, ISILs stronghold in Syria, as they moved in from the citys north. SDF captured the strategic Tabqa airbase from ISIL last month.The airbase is 45km west of Raqqa, Raqqa province was taken by ISIL in January 2014 from the former al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, and ISIL seized Tabqas airbase from the Syrian government in August 2014. Central Command says largest US non-nuclear bomb used in combat dropped on ISIL caves and bunkers in countrys east. The US has dropped the largest non-nuclear bomb it has ever used in combat in eastern Afghanistan on a series of caves used by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group, according to the Pentagon. The GBU-43 bomb was dropped on Thursday from a MC-130 aircraft in the Achin district of Nangarhar province, close to the border with Pakistan, said Adam Stump, a Pentagon spokesperson. Also known as the mother of all bombs, the GBU-43 is a 9,797kg GPS-guided munition and was first tested in March 2003, just days before the start of the Iraq war. The US Central Command (CENTCOM) said the strike was designed to minimise the risk to Afghan and US forces conducting clearing operations in the area. But the ultra-heavy explosive equal to 11 tonnes of TNT with a blast radius of 1.6km on each side could potentially cause many civilian casualties. Towering flames The non-nuclear bomb killed at least 36 fighters and destroyed a deep-tunnel complex of ISIL, Afghan officials said on Friday while ruling out any civilian casualties. As a result of the bombing, key Daesh [ISIL] hideouts and deep tunnel complex were destroyed and 36 IS fighters were killed, the Afghan defence ministry said. The bomb landed in the Momand Dara area of Achin district, according to Esmail Shinwari, the local governor. The explosion was the biggest I have ever seen. Towering flames engulfed the area, Shinwari told AFP news agency. An Afghan armed opposition source told AFP news agency from an undisclosed location that local residents had described the ground shaking like an earthquake, with people being knocked unconscious by the blast. People have started leaving the area fearing more bombings, he said. Another armed opposition source told AFP that 800 to 1,000 ISIL fighters were believed to be hiding in the area. Right munition General John Nicholson, head of US and international forces in Afghanistan, said the bomb was used against caves and bunkers used by ISIL in Afghanistan, also known as ISIS-K. As ISIS-K losses have mounted, they are using IEDs, bunkers and tunnels to thicken their defence, he said. This is the right munition to reduce these obstacles and maintain the momentum of our offensive against ISIS-K. ISILs offshoot in Afghanistan, created in 2015, is also known as the Khorasan Province. READ MORE: On the front line of Afghanistans battle with ISIL Mark Kimmitt, a retired brigadier-general in the US army and former deputy assistant secretary of defence, played down the use of the GBU-43, saying it is just another tool the military has. It allows us to go after deeply buried and hardened structures. Its good use against tunnels and its also good use because its going to set off IEDs in the area, he told Al Jazeera. Kimmitt said it was not at all certain that political authorities were informed of the raid before it was carried out. Although the size of the bomb was a bit larger than normal, it was a routine military mission against a routine military target, he said. The White House would not confirm whether or not President Donald Trump had authorised the use of the bomb. Everybody knows exactly what happened and what I do is I authorise my military, Trump told reporters. We have the greatest military in the world and theyve done their job as usual. So, we have given them total authorisation. US officials say intelligence suggests ISIL is based overwhelmingly in Nangarhar and neighbouring Kunar province, among tens of thousands of civilians. ISIL strength Estimates of ISILs strength in Afghanistan vary. US officials have said they believe the group has only 700 fighters, but Afghan officials estimate there are closer to 1,500 in the country. Western and Afghan security officials believe fighters frequently switch allegiances between armed groups, making it difficult to know who is to blame for violence. Peter Galbraith, a former US diplomat and former UN deputy special representative for Afghanistan, said ISIL would have to be targeted in different locations for the US military strategy to succeed. READ MORE: Dear Donald Trump Letters from Afghanistan ISIL doesnt concentrate its forces so you have to target it in many different places, he told Al Jazeera. He said conditions for military operations in ISILs Syrian and Iraqi strongholds, Raqqa and Mosul, are different, as they are urban areas with civilian populations. A bomb of this magnitude could cause a lot of collateral damage, Galbraith said. But when youre using it in a remote, rural part of Nangarhar province in Afghanistan, you presumably can have some confidence that youll not have civilian casualties, or at least not many of them. Kremlin objects to the ruling that blamed Russia for deaths of more than 300 hostages in 2004. Russian authorities breached European human rights laws when they stormed a school seized by fighters in 2004, contributing to the deaths of more than 300 hostages, the continents rights court ruled. However, following the ruling on Thursday, the Kremlins spokesman objected to the ruling, saying it was impossible for it to agree with this phrasing. Such phrasing for a country that has suffered an attack is absolutely unacceptable, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists. Armed fighters demanding withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya seized around 1,100 children, parents and teachers as they celebrated the first day of the school year in September 2004. Three days later, some of the rebels detonated explosives during a bloody shootout when Russian forces moved in. On Thursday, the France-based court said authorities did not take necessary preventive measures to save lives. It said the security forces use of tank cannon, grenade launchers and flame-throwers contributed to casualties among the hostages. It noted failures to increase security before the attack despite imminent threats against schools in the area. The Russian Justice Ministry said it would appeal the verdict and that a number of the courts conclusions were not backed up. It contended that the judges failed to grasp the gravity of the situation during the siege and specifics of efforts taken to free the hostages. The court also said Russian authorities had been aware of a possible attack on public places such as schools but had not prepared sufficiently. While certain security measures had been taken, in general the preventive measures in the present case could be characterised as inadequate, it said. The court ordered that Russia pay nearly $3.2m in total compensation to the 409 surviving hostages and relatives of the deceased. IN PICTURES: The Beslan massacre, 10 years on All the necessary legal action regarding this ruling will be taken, Peskov said, adding that the courts finding showed it did not examine the tragic events in sufficient detail. The head of the Mothers of Beslan group, Aneta Gadieva, said the payment ordered was meager. Somebody will get 5,000 euros, somebody will get 20,000 euros. Thats a small sum in compensation for moral damages, she was quoted as telling state news agency TASS. Two female suspects appear in court but lawyers warn they feared a trial by ambush with police not sharing evidence. A Malaysian court postponed a hearing for two women accused of killing North Korean leader Kim Jong-uns half-brother at Kuala Lumpur airport earlier this year. Kim Jong-nam died after the two women attacked him at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in February as he prepared to board a flight to Macau. The hearing, which had been scheduled for Thursday morning, was postponed to May 30 after defence lawyers complained about lack of access to police evidence, including CCTV footage and the suspects mobile phones. Wearing bullet-proof vests, Indonesian Siti Aisyah, 25, and Doan Thi Huong, 28, from Vietnam, were to a heavily guarded magistrates court near the airport where Kim Jong-nam was fatally poisoned on February 13. One of their lawyers warned they feared a trial by ambush with police not sharing evidence. Police accuse the pair of having wiped the banned nerve agent VX on Kims face at the airport. US and South Korean officials say the murder was orchestrated by the Norths leader Kim Jong-un. Kim Jong-nam, the eldest son of the late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, had spoken out publicly against his familys dynastic control of the isolated, nuclear-armed nation. Pyongyang denies the accusation, insisting he died of a heart attack. READ MORE: Who produced the VX poison that killed Kim Jong-nam? Lawyers for Aishah and Huong told the Malaysian magistrate court that police had not responded to requests to provide evidence, including CCTV recordings and statements from three North Korean suspects that were allowed to leave the country. The three suspects returned to Pyongyang along with the body of Kim Jong-nam as part of a swap deal with North Korea, which had banned nine Malaysians from leaving the country in a diplomatic spat. Weve lost an opportunity to cross-examine them, Aishahs lawyer Gooi Soon Seng told reporters outside the court. There should be no trial by ambush. Malaysian police have identified four other North Koreans as suspects. They are believed to have left Kuala Lumpur for Pyongyang on the day of the killing. About 100 police officers, include commandos in balaclavas and carrying assault rifles, guarded the court compound during the womens appearance. The case is due to be transferred to an upper court where the women will be tried for murder. If convicted, they could face the death penalty, which is carried out by hanging in Malaysia. Aisyah and Huong have told diplomats from their countries that they had believed they were carrying out a prank for a reality television show, and not a murder. Tran Huy Hoang, a young Vietnamese man who attended the hearing and described himself as a cousin of Doan, told AFP news agency she loves to travel and party but she never do anything violent. All of us believe she was cheated, he said. Lawyer for academic critical of president alleges authorities want to confine her to a mental hospital. A Ugandan academic detained for likening President Yoweri Museveni to a persons bottom fears authorities are trying to have her declared insane to lock her up in a psychiatric facility. Stella Nyanzi, a research fellow at Ugandas Makerere University, was charged with cyber-harassment for referring to Museveni as a pair of buttocks in one of her Facebook posts, according to court documents. Nyanzis lawyer, Nicholas Opiyo, said on Thursday she told him two men presenting themsleves as doctors tried to trick her into taking a psychiatric test a day earlier. The two were from a government mental hospital, he claimed. They [the government] do not want to go to trial, Opiyo said. They just want to delegitimise Stella, characterise her as a fool, a mad person and confine her to a mental hospital. READ MORE: Academic Stella Nyanzi charged with cyber-harassment At her court hearing on Monday, Nyanzi had objected to prosecutors request for an evaluation of her mental health. Frank Baine, a spokesman for the Uganda Prisons department, denied the two men who visited Nyanzi were mental health specialists. The medical exam was a routine medical exam that every new inmate undergoes to avoid risks of spreading infection, he said. In Uganda mental exams are usually reserved for suspects accused of crimes such as statutory rape. Nyanzi, a single mother of three, remains in custody pending a bail hearing. She has denied the charges but said she often writes metaphorically to speak truth to power. She is popular on Facebook for her relentless criticism of Museveni, 72, who has ruled Uganda since 1986. New York-based Human Rights Watch said Nyanzis arrest and prosecution was an indicator that those who express critical views of the Ugandan government, especially the first family, can face its wrath. Museveni secured his latest term in office last year in a poll that independent monitors said lacked credibility and transparency. Some Ugandan politicians have been recently saying they would back a proposal to remove the age limit from the countrys constitution, the last obstacle to a possible life presidency for Museveni. More than 1,100 soldiers to be stationed in Orzysz, about 57km south of Russias Baltic Sea enclave of Kaliningrad. Poland on Thursday welcomed the first US troops in a multinational force being posted across the Baltic region to counter potential threats from Russia. More than 1,100 soldiers 900 US troops as well as 150 British and 120 Romanians are to be deployed in Orzysz, about 57km south of Russias Baltic Sea enclave of Kaliningrad, where Moscow has stationed nuclear-capable missiles and an S-400 air missile defence system. Three other formations are due to become operational by June across the region. READ MORE: Russia vows response to NATO plan in Poland and Baltics Deploying of these troops to Poland is a clear demonstration of NATOs unity and resolve and sends a clear message to any potential aggressor, NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Curtis Scaparrotti, said at a welcoming ceremony for the first arrivals at Orzysz, 220km northeast of the capital, Warsaw. Poland, alarmed by Russias assertiveness on NATOs eastern flank, has lobbied hard for the stationing of NATO troops on its soil, especially since Moscows annexation of Crimea in 2014. Polish President Andrzej Duda called the deployment a historic moment awaited by generations. Russia vowed to take retaliatory measures in May 2016 if NATO deployed more battalions in Poland and the Baltic states, adding it would reinforce its western and southern flanks with new divisions. OPINION: Is a Russia-NATO conflict in the making? Moscow has reacted angrily to the alliances military presence in countries that were once part of the Soviet Union and to exercises close to its borders. Russia said it would install S-400 surface-to-air missiles and nuclear-capable Iskander systems in the exclave of Kaliningrad, in retaliation for the NATO deployment of its so-called defence shield in Eastern Europe. Mob attacks three students in university canteen over blasphemy allegation, killing one and wounding two others. Islamabad, Pakistan One university student has been killed and two others wounded during a violent mob attack after being accused of committing blasphemy in the northern Pakistani city of Mardan, police say. The three men were attacked by fellow students while conversing in the cafeteria of the Abdul Wali Khan University on Thursday, local police official Pir Muhammad told Al Jazeera. Other students who overheard the victims talking first surrounded them and then started attacking them, said Muhammad. The two who were wounded have been taken to the hospital and are safe and sound. According to local police official Tariq Aziz more than 100 people suspected of being part of the mob have been arrested so far. In Pakistan, a shrine to murder for blasphemy Blasphemy against Islam is a sensitive subject in Pakistan, where punishment for the crime ranges from a fine to a mandatory death sentence, depending on the specific offence. Currently, about 40 people are on death row or serving life sentences for blasphemy in Pakistan, according to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. Increasingly, however, right-wing vigilantes and mobs have taken the law into their own hands, killing at least 69 people over alleged blasphemy since 1990, according to an Al Jazeera tally. Those killed have included people accused of blasphemy, their lawyers, their relatives, judges hearing their cases and members of their communities. Several people were arrested following the attack in Mardan on Thursday, and an investigation into who was responsible for instigating the violence was ongoing, said Muhammad. Asad Hashim is Al Jazeeras Web Correspondent in Pakistan. He tweets @AsadHashim UK ambassador to UN asks how anyone could look at the faces of lifeless children and yet veto resolution. Western powers have lashed out at Russia after it vetoed a United Nations resolution that would have condemned the suspected use of chemical weapons in northern Syria and demanded a speedy investigation. The vote on the Security Council resolution drafted by Britain, France and the United States was 10 in favour, Russia and Bolivia against, and China, Kazakhstan and Ethiopia abstaining. After the vote on Wednesday, Britains UN Ambassador Matthew Rycroft looked at the Russian envoy and asked: How could anyone look at the faces of lifeless children and choose to veto a resolution condemning those deaths? He said samples taken from the site of the April 4 attack had been analysed by British scientists and tested positive for the nerve gas sarin. He said President Bashar al-Assads government was responsible. US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley told the council that with its veto, Russia said no to accountability, Russia said no to cooperating with the UN investigation, Russia said no to helping keep peace in Syria. Russia chose to side with Assad, even as rest of the world, even the Arab world, comes together to condemn the murderous regime. It was the eighth veto by Russia, a close ally of Assad, on a Western-backed Syria resolution and reflected the deep division that has left the UNs most powerful body struggling to tackle the use of banned chemical weapons and to help end the six-year Syrian conflict. China has vetoed six resolutions. Call for investigation The draft resolution would have required Assads government to provide access for investigators and information such as flight plans. Russias UN deputy ambassador Vladimir Safronkov told the council before the vote that a resolution was unnecessary, and the draft put forward by the Western powers pre-judged that the Syrian government was responsible for the attack on Khan Sheikhoun in which nearly 90 people died. Safronkov said Russias foreign minister asked US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson during talks earlier on Wednesday in Moscow to jointly request the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to immediately put together an independent international mission to visit Khan Sheikhoun and the airbase that the US attacked in retaliation. Tillerson is considering the request, he said, and we expect that Washington will have a constructive reaction. READ MORE: Syria chemical attack survivors vow to fight for justice In Washington, President Donald Trump was asked if he thought it was possible that Syrian forces could have launched the alleged attack, from an airbase they share with Russian forces, without Russia knowing about it. I think its certainly possible. I think its probably unlikely, he said. I would like to think that they didnt know, but certainly they could have. They were there. After the vote at the UN, French President Francois Hollande said Russia bears a heavy responsibility for continuing to protect Assad and blocking a united international response. US-based Human Rights Watch said the veto tells those responsible for chemical attacks that they can flout the laws of war and attack civilians without consequences. Under a 2013 deal between the US and Russia, struck after a chemical attack in suburbs of Damascus killed hundreds of people, Syria was supposed to dismantle its chemical weapons arsenal. The Russians really became the guarantor for Assads behaviour in regards to chemical weapons and the guarantor for Assads promise that he had given them all up, Jessica Ashooh, of the Atlantic Council, a foreign policy think-tank in Washington, DC, told Al Jazeera. She said that in light of that deal, the Idlib attack was very embarrassing for the Russians. We saw a veto from Russia today because the reality is, theres absolutely no question that Bashar al-Assad and his regime were responsible for the strikes. Tributes flow in for first black woman to serve as a judge on New Yorks highest court after unexplained death. Tributes were paid on Thursday to Sheila Abdus-Salaam, the first African-American woman to serve on New Yorks highest court. Police pulled Abdus-Salaams fully clothed body from the Hudson River on Wednesday, a day after she was reported missing. The 65-year-old was pronounced dead at the scene. No cause of death has been announced. There were no signs a crime had been committed in her death, a police spokesman said on Thursday. Law enforcement officials speaking on condition of anonymity told US media that investigators were treating the death as a suicide. One of the officials said both the judges mother and brother had died in recent years around Easter, the brother by suicide. Results of an autopsy conducted on Thursday were inconclusive. The cause and manner of death are pending further studies following todays examination, Julie Bolcer, a spokeswoman for the citys medical examiner, said in a statement. Abdus-Salaam was widely reported to have been the countrys first female Muslim judge. Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo hailed Abdus-Salaam as a trailblazing jurist whose life in public service was in pursuit of a more fair and more just New York for all. As the first African-American woman to be appointed to the states Court of Appeals, she was a pioneer, Cuomo said. Through her writings, her wisdom and her unshakable moral compass, she was a force for good whose legacy will be felt for years to come. Bright legal mind Chief Judge Janet DiFiore said her colleague will be missed deeply. Her personal warmth, uncompromising sense of fairness and bright legal mind were an inspiration to all of us who had the good fortune to know her, DiFiore said. Nihad Awad, national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said her example and work on civil rights issues were inspiring to women, Muslims, and African Americans. Her story was a story of success, empowerment and inspiration, he said. The president of the New York State Bar Association, Claire P Gutekunst, noted Abdus-Salaam grew up poor in a family of seven children in Washington, DC, and rose to become one of the seven judges in New Yorks highest court, where her intellect, judicial temperament and wisdom earned her wide respect. Abdus-Salaam graduated from Barnard College and received her law degree from Columbia Law School. She became a public defender in Brooklyn after law school, the New York Times said, representing people who could not afford lawyers. She went on to serve as a lawyer for New York state government and citys office of labour services. In one of her first cases, she won an anti-discrimination suit for more than 30 female New York City bus drivers who had been denied promotions. She held a series of judicial posts after being elected to a New York City judgeship in 1991. On Twitter and Facebook, some social media users criticised what they called a muted reaction to Abdus-Salaams death, while others alleged foul play. The body of Muslim Judge Sheila Abdus-Salaam was found in the Hudson River. WTF??!! How is this not in all of the headlines? (@sanejones) April 13, 2017 https://twitter.com/fred_mim/status/852530606072152064 As tensions rise over Syria, US president seems to walk away from campaign promise to improve ties with Moscow. President Donald Trump has declared that US relations with Russia may be at an all-time low. His top diplomat offered a similarly grim assessment after meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow earlier on Wednesday. Right now were not getting along with Russia at all, Trump said flatly during a White House news conference. Only weeks ago, it appeared that Trump, who praised Putin throughout the US election campaign, was poised for a potentially historic rapprochement with Russia. But such a scenario seems highly unlikely as the two sides have clashed repeatedly over Syria following last weeks suspected chemical attack and US missile strikes. Itd be a fantastic thing if we got along with Putin and if we got along with Russia, Trump said. That could happen, and it may not happen, he said. It may be just the opposite. Earlier in the day, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said relations are at a low point and marked by serious distrust. There is a low level of trust between our two countries, Tillerson said in Moscow during a news conference with Sergey Lavrov, Russias foreign minister, adding that the degradation of US-Russian ties needs to end. The worlds two foremost nuclear powers cannot have this kind of relationship, he said. READ MORE: Trump Putins best frenemy US and Russia have recently traded caustic accusations following a US strike on a Syrian airbase in retaliation to the suspected chemical attack on a rebel-held town in Syria, blamed by Washington on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is backed by Russia. Tillersons comments echoed televised remarks by Putin, who earlier on Wednesday said the trust between the two countries had deteriorated since Trump was elected US president. One could say that the level of trust on a working level, especially on the military level, has not improved but has rather deteriorated, Putin said in an interview broadcast on Russian television. On Syria, they are miles apart and it doesnt seem that theres been any breakthrough at all, Al Jazeeras James Bays, reporting from the White House, said. Differences over Assad Speaking to reporters, Tillerson reiterated Washingtons position that Assad must eventually relinquish power a position starkly at odds with Russia, which has been bombing rebel-held areas in Syria in support of Assads forces since September 2015. For his part, Lavrov warned against an international effort to remove Assad from power, citing the cases of Iraq and Libya to argue that the toppling of autocratic rulers by external forces leads to chaos. He said Moscow was ready to resume a deal with Washington to avoid incidents in Syrian airspace as the two countries lead separate bombing campaigns. Today the president confirmed our readiness to return to its implementation on the understanding that the original aims of the air forces of the American coalition are reaffirmed, namely the fight with IS [ISIL] and al-Nusra, Lavrov said. The deal was suspended after US missile strikes against the Shayrat airbase following a suspected gas attack in Khan Sheikhoun, in an act Moscow labelled aggression against a sovereign state. Tillerson said the US is confident in its assessment that Syrian government forces used chemical weapons in the bombing on Khan Sheikhoun and alleged that Syria has used such weapons more than 50 times in the past. Lavrov said Russia has no intention to shield anyone, adding that a United Nations chemical weapons watchdog must conduct an objective and unbiased probe into the attack that killed dozens of people. Russian veto Al Jazeeras Rory Challands, reporting from Moscow, said the press conference highlighted the two diplomats differences in style, in position and in views of the world. There was no dramatic proposals made, no big deals discussed, Challands said. The conversation was basically about how to stop it [the relation] from getting worse, not necessarily about grand steps to make it any better. READ MORE: What next for US-Russia ties after Syria strike? The press conference came just moments before Russia again cast a veto at the UN Security Council, blocking a bid from the US, UK and France to condemn the suspected gas attack and push the Syrian government to cooperate with investigators. China, which has vetoed six resolutions on Syria since the civil war began six years ago, abstained from Wednesdays vote, along with Ethiopia and Kazakhstan. Ten countries voted in favour of the text, while Bolivia joined Russia in voting no. The UN Security Council voted unanimously on Thursday to end its 13-year-long peacekeeping mission in Haiti and replace it with a smaller police. The move signals the international community believes the impoverished Caribbean nation is stabilising after successful elections. The peacekeeping mission one of the longest-running in the world and known as MINUSTAH has been dogged by controversy, including the introduction of cholera to the island by UN troops that killed thousands of Haitians, as well as sexual abuse claims against them. The 15-member Security Council acknowledged the completion of Haitis presidential election, along with the inauguration of its new president, as a major milestone towards stabilisation in the Caribbean country. What we now need is a newly configured mission which is focused on the rule of law and human rights in Haiti, British UN Ambassador Matthew Rycroft said. Peacekeepers do fantastic work but they are very expensive and they should be used only when needed, Rycroft said. The shutdown of the $346m mission, recommended by UN chief Antonio Guterres, comes as the United States looks to cut its funding of UN peacekeeping. The US is the largest contributor paying 28.5 percent of the total budget. Al Jazeeras Mike Hanna, reporting from the UN headquarters in New York, said the decision to downsise may be because of American pressure to save money. The US has been demanding that the UN become leaner and meaner in its operation, and has at times threatened to withhold some of the massive funding that it gives the organisation, Hanna said. READ MORE: Haiti: Jovenel Moise confirmed as new president There are 2,342 UN troops in Haiti, who will withdraw over the coming six months. The new mission will be established for an initial six months, from October 16, 2017 to April 15, 2018, and is projected to exit two years after its establishment. It will be a police force of about 1,000 personnel. UN peacekeepers were deployed to Haiti in 2004 when an uprising led to the ouster and exile of then-president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. It is the only UN peacekeeping mission in the Americas. Haiti suffered a two-year political crisis until the recent election and inauguration of President Jovenel Moise. It has suffered major natural disasters, including an earthquake in 2010 and Hurricane Matthew last year. But the impoverished Caribbean country has not had an armed conflict in years. UN peacekeepers have been accused of sexual abuse and blamed for the cholera outbreak. Haiti was free of cholera until 2010, when peacekeepers dumped infected sewage into a river. The UN does not accept legal responsibility for the outbreak of the disease, which causes uncontrollable diarrhea. Some 9,300 people have died and more than 800,000 sickened. In late March, the council reduced the size of its peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, bringing the ceiling down from 19,815 troops to 16,215. Missions in Liberia and Ivory Coast are also set to end, while the joint UN-African Union peace operation in Sudans Darfur region is also expected to be drawn down. Arrested on treason charges, Hakainde Hichilemas party claims he has been denied access to a lawyer. Zambian police have denied the main opposition partys claim that its detained leader Hakainde Hichilema was denied access to his lawyers and family members. Hichilema was arrested on Tuesday and charged with treason for allegedly obstructing President Edgar Lungus motorcade on a main road. We have not blocked lawyers and Mr Hichilemas members of the family from visiting him because that is his constitutional right, police spokeswoman Esther Mwaata-Katongo said. READ MORE: UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema charged with treason Hichilemas lawyer Jack Mwiimbu, however, said that he had seen his client on Wednesday but had since been prevented from visiting him. There are instructions for him not to be seen by anybody without authority from police headquarters. We have therefore started processing court papers. We want the court to compel the police to allow us to see our client, Mwiimbu told Reuters news agency. Mwiimbu said Hichilema had complained on Wednesday of feeling unwell after police fired tear gas into his house when he was arrested. Treason is a non-bailable offence in Zambia, with a minimum jail term of 15 years and a maximum sentence of the death penalty. The two political leaders are old rivals, with Lungu beating Hichilema narrowly in two presidential elections. Lungu, the Patriotic Front leader only just won last Augusts vote, which the opposition United Party for National Development (UPND) says was rigged. On Saturday, Lungu passed through Mongu, 500 km west of the capital Lusaka, and his motorcade was obstructed because Hichilema refused to give way, police said. The opposition leader disobeyed police orders to give way to the presidential motorcade in an attempt to put the life of the republican president in danger, the police chief told reporters in Lusaka on Wednesday. Zambias economy has been depressed for years by low commodity prices, mine closures, rising unemployment, power shortages and soaring food prices that Hichilema blames on mismanagement by Lungu. Hichilema has launched several legal attempts to challenge the result of the August election, which he lost narrowly. He says that the vote was rigged and accuses Lungu of political repression in Zambia, which has been known for its relative stability. The election campaign was marked by clashes between supporters of Lungus Patriotic Front (PF) party and the UPND. Hichilema, a wealthy self-made businessman, has run unsuccessfully for president five times. The UPND called on supporters not to protest on Thursday as it said the government was seeking a chance to impose a state of emergency. Some supporters at the press conference carried placards reading Release HH before Zambia goes into flames. First dates can be a pain. Among people, theyre often characterized by awkward silences or unshakable nerves. But among jumping spiders, a pencil-eraser-sized arachnid common in Florida, they can be fatal. In the first study of its kind, a UF researcher has found that cross-species courting attempts by male jumping spiders sometimes end with a phenomenon called sexual cannibalism. Lisa Taylors research was published April 5. Taylor, who researched while pursuing her doctorate at Arizona State University, said the predatory females will eat a male if he doesnt interest her or if he is the wrong species, of which there are more than 100. Despite this apparent violence, Taylor said the findings dont hamper her adoration for the bite-size bugs. Most spiders that people are familiar with are kind of scary and creepy, and just not particularly charismatic, she said, but jumping spiders are really adorable. She said the males courting habits could be explained by them being unable to tell the different species of females apart. Its up to females to distinguish the bright, multi-colored males, and they may attack them as an available food source. Kevin McGraw, an ASU life sciences professor, advised Taylor on her study. He said sexual cannibalism is only shown in a few spider species and praying mantises. He said female jumping spiders have evolved to be larger so they can produce and carry more eggs, while male jumping spiders are smaller and more agile. Im not saying the females are couch potatoes by any stretch, McGraw said. A micro-CT image of a scanned jumping spider, called Anasaitis canosa. Enjoy what you're reading? Get content from The Alligator delivered to your inbox Subscribe Now A UF doctoral student told police officers and academics Wednesday that security in schools will likely increase after Mondays school shooting in San Bernardino, California. Kenneth Noble, a P.h.D. candidate in the College of Education, spoke at the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere at noon to an audience of nine about his dissertation on the history of policing in schools. He explained how an increase in police presence in schools started after the Columbine shooting, which happened about 18 years ago. Part of the push for a larger police presence in schools has come from a media portrayal, but also the fact that (school shooting and crime) are happening, Noble said. He said police officers in schools work to keep the school safe from crime and also improve the citizenship and respect for authority of students. Noble expects school security to be more of a topic of discussion after Mondays shooting, in which a man allegedly shot his estranged wife to death before killing himself, according to the Associated Press. In the gunfire, two students were also shot, and one 8-year-old student died after being taken to the hospital. With any school shooting, it causes concern, he said. In Alachua County, the 16 schools in the Alachua County Sheriffs Office jurisdiction have at least one school resource officer stationed on campus, said ACSO spokesperson Art Forgey. He said Eastside High School and F. W. Buchholz High School have two deputies. University Police also have one officer stationed at P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School, Sgt. Tim Peck said. Peck, who attended Nobles talk, said police officers are a good resource for schools. (School resource officers) offer a personal touch, a personal interaction with a police officer, he said. Contact Meryl Kornfield at mkornfield@alligator.org and follow her on Twitter at @MerylKornfield Enjoy what you're reading? Get content from The Alligator delivered to your inbox Subscribe Now Dirtybird Records has made quite the name for itself in the tech house world since its inception in 2005. The label, founded by techno king Claude VonStroke, seeks to present fans with a sound VonStroke describes as tech funk, a more lively type of techno that keeps it light and fun. Over the past twelve years, the notable label has curated various events, such as the annual Dirtybird BBQ and Dirtybird Campout, while simultaneously bringing many heavy hitters on board, from Justin Martin to Shiba San. This Friday, Gainesville will host Dirtybirds own Ardalan at Over Easy Creatives bimonthly event, Over Easy and Friends. The event will be held at Gallery Ultralounge, located at 233 W. University Ave., from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. Tickets range from $10 to $15. Bringing the San Francisco-based artist was a team effort coordinated by Orlando group Alliance Events and Gainesville groups Over Easy Creative and Lucid Nightlife. Les Voss, the owner of Over Easy Creative and one of the openers for Friday, said Ardalans sound fit perfectly with the events the group normally hosts. Even though we havent met Ardalan, it feels like we have because the networks there, Voss said. Listening to someones music, you almost get a sense of who they are, and it seems like he fits perfectly with our vibe. Voss said Ardalans sound is lighter than some techno and will fit well in a setting like the one Gallery offers. Id say its a little more playful, he said. Its like a happy techno. Voss said Alliance Events contacted him and Matt Collins, the owner of Lucid Nightlife, about bringing Ardalan to Gainesville the day after he plays a show in Orlando. Islam Ahmed, the director of Alliance Events, said Ardalan popped up on his radar back in 2015 when he opened up for Martin at an event in Orlando. I watched Ardalan for the first time ever as support, and it was completely mind blowing, he said. I fell in love with the label, and I actually ended up going to Miami the next day with Justin Martin and Ardalan to check out what its like to experience that in Miami. Hunter Reid, a Tallahassee-based producer who will also open the show, said he too is an Ardalan fan and also a fan of Dirtybird as a whole. Enjoy what you're reading? Get content from The Alligator delivered to your inbox Subscribe Now Dirtybird is a huge influence in my musical style, and a few of their artists have been the most helpful to me in finding and honing my sound, he said. Reid added he plans to test out some of the music from his new extended play Friday and is excited to see what everyone thinks. Clarification: This article has been updated to reflect that Twelve'Len is a featured act, not a headliner. There will also be two outdoor stages instead of one. Swamp Records is showcasing musical talent from Florida on the last day of classes. A variety of local Gainesville and Florida-native bands will take the stage for the fourth annual Swamp Records Showcase on Wednesday. The event will be hosted at a new venue this year, Heartwood Soundstage. Despite the location change, Swamp Records Co-President Stephanie Elkin said the essence of the show will remain the same. The event will feature one indoor and two outdoor stages, with 14 acts performing from 6 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. Lavares Joseph, a Miami native, multi-genre artist known by his stage name, TwelveLen, is one of the featured acts. Joseph discussed the importance of celebrating community through art. If youre not the one to highlight whats going on in your city or your state, no one else is, he said. Student Government Productions has presented past showcases, but this is the first year the event is entirely self funded by Swamp Records. They took to the community for sponsorships, Elkin said. Swamp Records promotes and supports local Gainesville music talent, so many of the artists performing already work with the organization. While the performing artists are primarily from Gainesville, the showcase has acts coming from all over the state. We see who is making moves in the Gainesville music community, who is making moves up and coming, who is exciting, and also extend that beyond Gainesville to the whole Florida music community, said Elkin, a 22-year-old UF masters in international business student. The main goal of Swamp Records Showcase is to bring the community together and highlight the diverse talent in the area, Elkin explained. Enjoy what you're reading? Get content from The Alligator delivered to your inbox Subscribe Now Our music community is so unique and special, she said. Gainesville is home to a bunch of really talented and creative people. Local community vendors and food trucks will service the event, including Soup to Nuts Food Truck, Dank Cakes and Always True Co. Tickets are $8 in advance on eventbrite.com and $10 at the door. Correction: This article has been updated to reflect that 52,000 trees were planted last year. Gainesville has been deemed a tree city by the Arbor Day Foundation for the last 30 years, and for the last three, two local for-profit companies have teamed up to provide the city with a fun way to celebrate its trees around Earth Day. This Saturday from noon to 11 p.m., the third annual Tree Fest will take place at Swamp Head Brewery. This free event is the result of a partnership between Solar Impact, Inc., a local solar energy company, and Swamp Head Brewery, the first solar-powered brewery in Florida. Theyre (Swamp Head) very interested in sustainability, said Mike Garrett, the director of sales and marketing at Solar Impact, Inc. Solar was a big piece of their dream for their new building. Weve got just enough solar in Swamp Head to make it the first solar-powered brewery in the state of Florida. Swamp Head gave out trees every Earth Day before Tree Fest started thanks to a partnership with the Alachua Conservation Trust. Were two for-profit companies in the Gainesville area, making a commitment to be here, trying to make a positive impact, Garrett said. People are going to Swamp Head anyway. Now when youre drinking, youre also fundraising. For every beer sold during Tree Fest 2017, five trees will be planted. For every T-shirt sold during Tree Fest 2017, 20 trees will be planted. Money raised from the sponsorships will directly increase the number of trees planted as well. There are currently more than 30 sponsors. We have a significant number of private individuals who like this idea so much that they give us a couple hundred dollars (as sponsors), Garrett said. One hundred percent of every single dollar we collect from sponsorships goes directly to tree planting. Noon to 5 p.m. is family and community time at the event. There will be free bounce houses for kids, and community partners will be tabling and offering activities. The bounce houses and tabling will shut down at 5 p.m, and live music will run from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. Food will be available from Cilantro Tacos, Pops Brick Oven Pizza, LEJ Pretzel Company and DeConna Ice Cream. Cinema Verde, Citizens Climate Lobby and Keep Alachua County Beautiful are some of the organizations that will be tabling. Enjoy what you're reading? Get content from The Alligator delivered to your inbox Subscribe Now Last year, 52,000 trees being planted. The goal for this year is to raise enough money to plant 75,000 trees. The 1-year-old longleaf pines will be planted by the Alachua County Conservation Trust at the Little Orange Creek Preserve, a new nature park set to open in Hawthorne, Florida. If we can throw the coolest and most impactful Earth Day party in Florida, thatd be pretty nice, Garrett said. In March, Gainesville-based punk trio UV-TV released their debut full length album, Glass. Having spent the last couple of years making their rounds through Gainesville clubs and going on brief tours of the East Coast, UV-TV made a name for themselves in Florida. However, 2017 finds these three Gainesville punks thinking bigger. They signed to Canadian-based label Deranged Records, which released Glass, and they are currently on a tour of the U.S. lasting about a month, which will be their longest to date. You have probably seen UV-TV play around town before, opening for touring acts like B Boys or Parquet Courts, or playing smaller benefit shows at the CMC or the Atlantic. Maybe youve even seen UV-TVs members working at Pop-A-Top downtown. Comprised of Rose Vastola, Ryan Hopewell and Ian Bernacett, UV-TV is a trio of gawky 20-somethings. They play noisy, feedback-driven punk songs with occasional ambient breaks. Glass opens with fast and loud power chords on Wasting Away. The instrumentals immediacy hearkens back to classic hardcore punk bands like Minor Threat or Circle Jerks, but just as quickly as the track begins, its traditional punk instrumental is offset by vocalist/bassist Vastolas saccharine vocals. Her vocal relationship with the rest of the bands sound on this track, and on much of the album, is reminiscent to Blinda Butchers work on My Bloody Valentines Loveless. Though surrounded by a harsh and noisy instrumental, its sweetness is a welcome addition to the bands sound. Glass finds UV-TV experimenting with style, from noisy bubblegum pop punk tracks reminiscent of Peach Kelli Pop on Youre High, to Sonic Youth-inspired dissonance on the title track, to Yeah Yeah Yeahs-style shrill and hypnotic guitar riff on Hear. While much of Glass shows UV-TV riffing on short and simple pop punk song structures, the moments when the band hits their stride are often the least characteristic of this. UV-TV will occasionally embrace the downbeat the slow-burning meandering instrumentals on tracks like Severed Hand, and this is when they are the most interesting to listen to. Its these long plays that showcase the strong chemistry between the members of this band, from the call-and-response vocals of Bernacett and Vastola, to the heavy grooves in rhythm between Vastola and drummer Hopewell. Glass closes on Dissolve: a six-minute-long soundscape that slowly builds in intensity toward one long climax of textured strumming and conceited guitar noodling. This big rock-star crescendo is then sped up exponentially until the slow tempo reaches for speed and energy paralleled by the first tracks of the album. In this theatrical final track, UV-TV gives their listeners closure. Glass comes full circle by its finale, and it still managed to stay fresh and interesting throughout. A fresh appeal is being made to the Nigerian Government by UN human rights experts* to take all necessary measures to rescue 195 girls still missing after they were kidnapped in 2014 from their secondary school in Chibok, northeastern Nigeria. It is deeply shocking that three years after this deplorable and devastating act of violence, []http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Appa-sourceTheAfric... The Singapore-based ocean carrier, now a subsidiary of Frances CMA CGM, will commence the Asia Fremantle Express (AFX) service between Singapore and Fremantle on April 27, 2017. Singapore-based ocean carrier APL, now a subsidiary of Frances CMA CGM, is launching a new, dedicated service between Singapore and Fremantle, Australia, later this month, according to a statement from the company. Full schedules and vessel details are not yet available, but APL said the weekly Asia Fremantle Express (AFX) will commence with the first sailing from Singapore on April 27, 2017. The AFX will have a full port rotation of Singapore, Fremantle, and back to Singapore. APLs new AFX service will enhance our existing Oceania service network of five services that serve Australia, Chan Khai Tou, head of Intra-Asia Short Sea and Oceania Services at APL, said of the new string. With its industry-leading 7-day direct transit between Singapore and Fremantle, the AFX service is the solution for time-sensitive cargo, particularly reefer shipments from Fremantle. Complementing APLs Asia Australia Express (AAX), the AFX service adds another weekly shipment cut-off time in Singapore and Fremantle which shippers can count on for a more flexible supply chain management. According to ocean carrier schedule and capacity database BlueWater Reporting, the joint Asia Australia Express (AAX) loop is operated with five vessels one each from APL and parent company CMA CGM, and three from fellow subsidiary line ANL with an average capacity of 5,253 TEUs. The AAX, which also counts China COSCO Shipping, NYK Line and TS Lines as slot purchasers, has a full port rotation of Singapore, Port Kelang, Fremantle, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Fremantle, and back to Singapore. Jaxport CEO Eric Green said the $23.5 million grant marks a milestone in our initiatives to build the port of the future and move cargo in the most efficient and eco-friendly way possible. It is a rule of thumb in contemporary politics that you should not mention Hitler in any context. Democrats and liberals regularly compare Republicans and conservatives with Nazis, but for the GOP, the MSM will make sure it backfires with round-the-clock selective righteous indignation. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicers inarticulate invocation of Hitler in the context of Syrian sarin gas attacks was meant to condemn the use of such weapons, the operative word here, in war against civilian or even military targets. As Spicer meant to say, even the evil Hitler never dropped sarin gas bombs on London. The Nazis feared retaliation in kind. Spicer meant to justify our cruise missile retaliation. Spicer is aware of the Holocaust and he millions who perished in the ovens and the gas chambers and in ghoulish medical experiments. He did not mean to excuse these atrocities, but to condemn the Syrian and Russian version. Spicers remarks have met with calls from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and the usual liberal suspects for Spicers resignation. Yet Pelosi and et al see no problem with embracing the anti-Semitic likes of Al Sharpton, an Obama adviser, or Rep. Keith Ellison, deputy chair of the DNC. The mainstream media, having failed to derail or even anticipate Donald Trumps victory, have now seized on attempting to discredit various Team Trump members. They started with one of the architects of his victory, calling Navy veteran, entrepreneur, and Breitbart publisher Steve Bannon a white nationalist. They cite as evidence some Breitbart headlines designed to provoke and attract readers as being beyond the pale. Compared to what? The New York Times, perhaps? Publishers dont necessarily control every jot and tittle of content in their publications, but if one concedes the point of Bannons critics, those who have problems with Bannon advising Trump had no problem with race-baiter Al Sharpton serving as advisor to President Obama on, of all things, race relations: As Politico magazine reported: A few days after 18-year-old Mike Brown was gunned down in Ferguson, Missouri, White House officials enlisted an unusual source for on-the-ground intelligence amid the chaos and tear gas: the Rev. Al Sharpton, a fiery activist who became a household name by provoking rather than pacifying. In Ferguson, Sharpton established himself as a de facto contact and conduit for a jittery White House seeking to negotiate a middle ground between meddling and disengagement. Theres a trust factor with The Rev from the Oval Office on down, a White House official familiar with their dealings told me. He gets it, and hes got credibility in the community that nobody else has got. Theres really no one else out there who does what he does. Let us be grateful for that. If one wanted to send a sane message about justice and peace, Al Sharpton is arguably the worst person to call. He is an instigator, not a peacemaker, someone who rose out of obscurity by propagating the false Tawana Brawley rape case in which New York law enforcement officials were accused of raping a black teenager. As Investors Business Daily noted, Tawana Brawley paid for her part in that big lie. Al Sharpton never has. Sharpton embraced the hands up, dont shoot mantra meant to indict racist cops and police departments after the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri after he committed a strong-arm robbery on his way to assaulting Officer Darren Wilson. Blessed are the peacemakers, but Al Sharpton is not one of them. The Sharptons of the world dont want to solve the real problems of the black community, preferring to exploit back unrest with clueless race-baiting such as when Sharpton and his National Action Network organized the Justice for All march in Washington, D.C. last December: You thought youd sweep it under the rug. You thought thered be no limelight, he said. We are going to keep the light on Michael Brown, on Eric Garner, on Tamir Rice, on all of these victims because the only way Im sorry, I come out of the 'hood -- the only way you make roaches run, you got to cut the light on." As IBD notes, Al Sharpton has made career of anti-Semitic and racial agitation: Sharpton has made a career of racial incitement. He once called Jews "diamond merchants" and described whites moving businesses into Harlem as "interlopers." He helped incite three days of anti-Semitic rioting in 1991 in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, turning a tragic traffic accident into a riot where two people died and more than 100 were wounded. Then there was Freddy's Fashion Mart in Harlem in 1995, subject to the Sharpton campaign to drive out "interlopers." To scare the Jewish owner away, Sharpton turned a tenant-landlord dispute into a racial conflict, resulting in arson of the store and seven deaths. So the liberal left was okay with Sharpton, but thinks Steve Bannon is a white nationalist who threatens all human decency? This comes as the Democratic National Committee considers Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison, the only Muslim in Congress who has deep ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, for the position of SNC Chairman. As the watchdog group Jihad Watch reports: Ellison has spoken at a convention of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). Yet ISNA has actually admitted its ties to Hamas, which styles itself the Palestinian arm of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Justice Department actually classified ISNA among entities who are and/or were members of the US Muslim Brotherhood. It gets worse. In 2008, Ellison accepted $13,350 from the Muslim American Society (MAS) to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca. The Muslim American Society is a Muslim Brotherhood organization: In recent years, the U.S. Brotherhood operated under the name Muslim American Society, according to documents and interviews. One of the nations major Islamic groups, it was incorporated in Illinois in 1993 after a contentious debate among Brotherhood members. Thats from the Chicago Tribune in 2004, in an article that is now carried on the Muslim Brotherhoods English-language website, Ikhwanweb. Also, the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) raised large amounts of for Ellisons first campaign, and he has spoken at numerous CAIR events. Yet CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case so named by the Justice Department. CAIR officials have repeatedly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups. Nor did the liberal left and the mainstream media, forgive the redundancy, have problems with the curious pasts and associations of Hillary Clinton advisor Huma Abedin. As Investors Business Daily has editorialized: Abedin also has some interesting family connections. Her father is said to be close with the Saudi government's Muslim World League, and her mother is said to be a member of the Muslim Sisterhood. World Trade Center bombing prosecutor Andrew McCarthy wrote in National Review: "The ties of Ms. Abedin's father, mother and brother to the Muslim Brotherhood are both specific and substantiated." The Muslim Brotherhood took power in Egypt with the Obama administration's approval after it had all but abandoned the government of Hosni Mubarak, a long-time ally and friend. It was while Abedin was advising Hillary that State dropped its long-standing policy of having no dealings with the Muslim Brotherhood. As Andrew McCarthy wrote in National Review, Huma Abedins family and work history suggested a devotion to Islamic supremacist ideology that may go a long way to explaining our imploding Middle East policy from Baghdad to Egypt: Ms. Abedin worked for many years at a journal that promotes Islamic-supremacist ideology that was founded by a top al-Qaeda financier, Abdullah Omar Naseef. Naseef ran the Rabita Trust, a formally designated foreign terrorist organization under American law. Ms. Abedin and Naseef overlapped at the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs (JMMA) for at least seven years. Throughout that time (19962003), Ms. Abdein worked for Hillary Clinton in various capacities. The Democratic Party also had no problem with venerating former KKK member Robert Byrd or with Hillary Clintons admiration for Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, whose objective was the extermination of the black race. They are quiet about the racism of the Orwellian-named Black Lives Matter movement or that Jim Crow laws were written by Democrats. Steve Bannon is not a white nationalist. Sean Spicer is not an anti-Semite. They are patriotic Americans. Their only real crime is getting Donald Trump elected President of the United States. Daniel John Sobieski is a freelance writer whose pieces have appeared in Investors Business Daily, Human Events, Reason Magazine and the Chicago Sun-Times among other publications. Should the United States have prolonged the Syrian civil war by arming the rebels? Based on recent experience, one wonders if deposing ruling monarchies is in the best interest of either the peoples of the Middle East or of the world at large. Consider the following: The failure of the Carter administration to support its ally Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, led to establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the regions greatest threat. The reward to the United States for its implicit support of the Iranian revolution was an attack on its embassy, the ensuing hostage crisis, throngs in the streets screaming Death to America, and support of terrorism aimed at the U.S. and its allies. The result to Israel is likely to be increasingly dire in months and years to come. The failure of the Obama administration to support U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak, president of Egypt, and a key supporter of the peace with Israel negotiated by Anwar Sadat, led to a near takeover of Egypt by the Muslim Brotherhood, described as a terrorist organization by a number of allies in the region. Only intervention by the military saved Egypt from Islamic totalitarianism. While hardly virtuous, Muammar Gaddafi, following a wakeup confrontation with President Reagans military followed by the implicit threat of George W. Bush's anti-terrorism campaign after 9/11, had given up his nuclear ambitions and was actually providing significant assistance in world efforts to defeat Islamic terrorism. Hillary Clinton, Obamas first-term Secretary of State, decided that Colonel Gaddafi should not be allowed to put down a rebel insurrection within Libya and led an international effort to free Libya from his predilection to violence. Again, our interference resulted in tragedy for America and disaster for the people of Libya. Saddam Hussein, the counterweight to Iran in the Middle East, was a cruel dictator with the propensity to involve himself in world politics and commit despicable acts. After 9/11, in addition to its war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Bush administration opted to invade Iraq due to concerns over Husseins weapons of mass destruction. The ensuing government of Iraq was transformed from Sunni Muslim control that kept a firm hand on its Shiite Muslim majority population to Shiite Muslim control that abused its minority Sunni Muslim population. The result has been a continued reign of terror as car bombs and suicide bombers continue attacks on both branches of the Islamic tree. Our involvement in Iraq was then followed by the disastrous and premature Obama decision to withdraw U.S. forces, thereby creating the opening for creation of a caliphate by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) that has been on a murderous rampage throughout not only the Middle East but now extends into Europe, Africa, and even the United States. That brings me back to the question of Syria: if the United States had not encouraged Syrians in their rebellion against the Assad government, if we had not surreptitiously armed Islamist rebels with weapons from Gaddafis stockpiles in Libya, if we had not trained and equipped something we called the Free Syrian Army, might not the civil war in Syria have ended by now with far fewer casualties than our prolonging of the war effort has allowed? I dont know the answer to this question, but it seems worthy of serious consideration. Is it a curious coincidence that this revolutionary wave engulfing one Islamic nation after another from Tunisia in 2010, to Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria and Iraq occurred within mere months of one another? Is it a coincidence that demonstrations, protest and riots over this same period of time occurred in Morocco, Bahrain, Algeria, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman and Sudan with lesser protests in half a dozen other nations? Is it a coincidence that where such demonstrations were immediately met with violent response and repression from governments, pro-government militias and counter-demonstrators such unrest largely passed but where the U.S. and its allies have intervened in support of regime change, battles still rage and horror rules the day creating a tidal wave of refugees threatening western civilization? Do the United States and/or Western Europe really want to force regime change in Syria or should we instead support a ceasefire with the current government in place? There are steps we can take short of regime change that perhaps, based on our recent experience might lead to a better result. Everyone by now who does not live under a rock has seen the horrible beating of Dr. David Dao by an OHare International Airport security officer, with what seems to be OHare airport police backing the security officer up. Most everyone with a conscience is offended and horrified at what occurred to Dr. Dao. Pretty much everyone would also tell you that the response from United was one of the worst PR boners of the past 100 years. Between stating in an email to United employees that the doctor had been belligerent, to suggesting that the doctor actually fell and hurt his head while being beaten by airport security, to then having the CEO of United apologize for having to re-accommodate passengers on an overbooked flight (the flight was not overbooked), to finally having to apologize only after losing one billion dollars in stock valuations. The list goes on and on. United now has become a punchline, a joke, about how badly airline passengers are treated by both the airports and by the carriers themselves. We can all agree that airports have become a horrid place to be, and there are many reasons for air travel having become such a mess. Everything from the FAA to the TSA to other problems I cannot even fathom. But there is an even bigger threat to our freedom here. That is: the fact that at an airport, OHare law enforcement seems to have acted at the behest of United Airlines to make up for the stupidity of the employees and station managers of United. Meaning that for any and all intents and purposes, OHare police were literally acting as enforcers for a corrupt or inept company who wanted to cover up its mistake of improper scheduling -- and instead of spending a couple thousand dollars transporting the employees, Uniteds station manager called in their paid for Gestapo to do their dirty work. United could have said to the passengers that this plane cannot take off until the doctor has left -- and then sat on the runway until either Dr. Dao relented or until someone else relented. Of course, United could have done the smart thing and not loaded anyone until they had four passengers who would give up their flight for the United employees. But no instead, they corrupted local law enforcement, whose authority we should try to respect, into doing their dirty work, to cover up their own ineptitude. One of the great things about the American experiment is that our court system and law enforcement responders have always been neutral whenever they go to a crime scene or to handle a domestic violence scene. Police might make a mistake, but at least they are trying to be fair whenever they respond to any situation. But not here. Not this time. At OHare airport, law enforcement works for the airlines who have mistreated their passengers and in this case, law enforcement and airport security physically abused Uniteds passenger to make up for Uniteds mistake. This is not the first time United has tried something like this. Just last year, United tried to remove a first-class passenger from a flight to make way for a higher priority passenger. When the passenger protested, United employees threatened to call the airport police and put the man in handcuffs. Imagine -- threatening a first-class passenger with arrest and jail because United wanted to give the seat to a higher priority passenger. So it is very evident that United feels as though it can have its passengers arrested if they cant make up for its own ineptitude. And federal law backs up United here. If a passenger does not obey any flight attendant, that passenger has committed a federal crime. So all United (or any other air carrier) need to when they make a mistake is to remove the passenger or threaten them with being arrested. Most people will get off the plane rather than being arrested. God bless the good doctor for refusing to give into such bullying. (For the record, the passenger who was fraudulently bumped from first class suggested to Uniteds senior management that they refund his ticket and donate $25,000 to a charity of his choice. United instead offered the first-class passenger $500 credit to his next flight on United. And of course nothing to any charity) So for United, they dont need to train their employees on how to handle difficult situations. When there is a problem, all the employee or station manager need do is call the police and have the officers arrest someone yes, thats good for business. But federal law allows for United to do this. Meaning that federal law has helped to corrupt local law enforcement by all but requiring airport police to arrest someone who has a legitimate disagreement with an airport employee while on the plane, no matter how inept the airline employee has been. While we can all agree that under no circumstance should any passenger be allowed to be unruly during a flight, we cannot use federal laws/statutes and those who are sworn to enforce those laws to make up for the incompetence of corporations and their employees. The end result would be tyranny by cop. And by Oscar Munoz, CEO of United Airlines. John Massoud is a local District GOP Chair in Shenandoah County, is the head of the Freedom Caucus of the Shenandoah County GOP, and also is a businessman in Northern Virginia. And in 32 years of operation, Mr. Massoud also has never had any of his customers arrested because of a mistake made by any of his employees or contractors. The moral sentiments of the population determine what political leaders are willing to do. The moral sentiments of a country may be consistent with reality or may be based on Utopian fantasies, but, either way, they control public policy. Some people say that Americas problems are solely the result of people abandoning morality. But some of our biggest problems are actually the result of widely accepted, but irrational moral ideals that are destructive in the long run. To illustrate, lets examine the concepts earn and deserve. In reality, material products and human services are the product of human labor. Food and shelter, for example, do not exist in nature ready for use. Medical care does not exist in nature. Humans must work to create these things. Poverty is the default position. This is not a situation that was devised by mean people. This is not a situation that can be wished away. This is just reality. Earning the material things you desire means producing them by your labor or trading what you do produce in a free exchange with others for the things they produce. I will give you my eggs for your potatoes. Money was invented to make this exchange easier. Earning is the name given to your required productive effort. Personal responsibility is the name we give to the acceptance of realitys demand that work is required to get the things we desire. In Americas past, this was a widely understood virtue. In America today, a corrupted concept of deserve has replaced the concept of earn. In its original usage, deserve meant to do things or show qualities worthy of reward or punishment. So, if you did all the things necessary to grow a crop, you earned the resulting harvest. Today, deserve is completely divorced from that meaning. Today, deserve is a utopian term pertaining to a world of wishes, detached from reality. You may have the moral sentiment that all people deserve (have a moral right to) free housing, free food, free medical care, etc.. You could also say that you think it would be wonderful if fairies delivered these goods to people. Reality does not allow for either free things or fairies. These two wishes are equally unrealistic. But reality is not a relevant concern to Utopian dreamers who imagine that, with the right leaders in charge, everyone can have everything they really need for free somehow. That is our current situation in America. The prevailing moral sentiment is that everyone deserves all the basic things they want whether they earn them or not. Only mean people would argue or think otherwise. All Democrats and some Republicans accept this utopian moral ideal. This determines what legislative initiatives are even possible to discuss. Here is an example of how legislating utopian ideals works in practice. Progressives believe that everyone deserves to own a home. Community organizers (including Obama) organized protests demanding that banks drop their standards for making home loans. Increasingly, the government required banks to make irrational home loans to people who had little possibility of ever repaying the loan. In the mortgage crash of 2008, reality reasserted itself, as it always does. The mortgage plan that had no possibility of working, stopped working. The point here is that moral sentiments can require politicians to follow a path that is certain to fail. Do not confuse utopian actions with benevolence. Utopianism leads to chaos and destruction. Truly benevolent actions help people in the long run, in the real world. Consider more examples of destructive policies that are supported by popular moral sentiment and are therefore unlikely to be successfully challenged. A recently released study by the Food and Nutrition Service showed how the recipients of food stamps spent their money at one grocery chain, so this is just a small sample of what was spent nationally. For this chain, the amount spent in 2011 for soft drinks was nearly $358,000,000; for candy, $134,000.000; for cakes and cookies, $146,000,000, and so on. The proper way to look at this policy is this we are borrowing massive amounts of money from our grandchildren for the purpose of harming current welfare recipients. It is a lose-lose policy, bad for people at both ends of the transaction. I dont believe there is much chance of replacing policies like these with better policies because current moral sentiments do not allow restriction on people who deserve to eat whatever they want. Doing the right thing for our grandchildren would not be allowed. One of the primary things that should bring people down from their utopian fantasies is thinking about the immorality of placing debt on the next generations. Except for emergencies, it is clearly immoral to consume for our pleasure now and give the bill to our grandchildren. Short-sighted politicians simply avoid thinking about our unbelievably massive debt in any serious way. They buy votes by borrowing from the future and spending now. Debt limits are not limits at all. Politicians of both parties, when confronted, admit that this wild spending is not sustainable, but then they cast that thought aside and spend more. Things that are not sustainable will end. Politicians who expand all our big-government programs pretend they are the good people who care. They are, in fact, guaranteeing great harm from the coming collapse of unsustainable utopian programs. Another big social problem that cannot be addressed honestly is the quiet catastrophe of millions of men who choose not to work. There is explosive growth in the number of men who want to live as children for their entire life, letting others work to provide the things they need. There are currently 2 times as many infantilized men in this dont care about work category as there are men who are reported by the government as unemployed. This is truly shameful behavior and should not be tolerated, but it will be tolerated and even defended by todays moral arbiters. How many people do you think can hop into the wagon before those pulling the wagon refuse to pull? There is a limit. An even more important issue where politically correct morality does not allow honest policy discussions is race relations. No person who honestly assessed the problems in the black subculture would say that racist white policemen shooting blacks for no reason is their most significant problem. Yet we grant the moral high ground to a well-funded racist hate group which makes this absurd claim in destructive protests across the nation. In reality, a subculture that celebrates violence, denigrates women, does not value education, ignores the responsibility of caring for children, and ignores personal responsibility in general, has no chance of success. Melanin offers no protection from this fact. It is true for all people. People who really cared about black lives would concentrate on the changes that would help the most. But the things that would help most cannot be honestly discussed. Even black people who talk about black cultural values are attacked by the PC thought police. The enforced moral position regarding a significant subculture in the black community is that nothing at all is their responsibility and none of their problems are their fault. The problems are all the fault of white people and police. White shaming is rapidly being institutionalized in education, government bureaucracies, and popular culture. Following Alinskys advice to rub raw the sores of resentment may achieve his desired goal of revolutionary hatred, but it is not what decent Americans, black or white, want to see. Decent Americans seek to follow the moral advice of Martin Luther King, who had a dream that one day people will be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin. Sadly, Kings dream was crushed by the so-called black leaders who followed him. To them, any judgement of character is absolutely forbidden; skin color is everything. White people, at some point, will rebel against the false charges of racism that are relentlessly hurled against them. When they have had enough and start to answer the charges rather than meekly ignore them, the left will say, See, we told you they are racists. The left will claim the moral high ground and they will continue to shape destructive social policy. Mao sent moral crusaders into the countryside during the Cultural Revolution. Young, idealistic monsters purged China of wrong thinking. We have similar self-righteous moral crusaders at our colleges and on our streets. They will not tolerate opposing viewpoints. People like Charles Murray and Heather MacDonald were recently silenced by organized mob violence at Middlebury and Claremont colleges. By the thousands, social justice warriors are organizing for action. We will see much, much more of them in coming months, with increasing disruption and violence. Their actions will have the moral support of the media, the universities, and leftist politicians because these are the very groups who are creating this army. It remains to be seen whether the majority of Americans will tolerate the violent intolerance. The recent ObamaCare debate should have made clear the reasons why Republicans cannot do what needs to be done to create a long-term sustainable system. Our utopian moral ideals have already closed that possibility. Whatever legislation is passed will be an entitlement program involving massive government spending and promising more than can be delivered. Thinking that government bureaucracies are the key to managing anything efficiently and inexpensively means that you have not paid any attention at all to how the world works. Government-run health care is a black hole for debt that will consume resources beyond our wildest imagination. And we already have more in debt than any nation in history. By some estimates, our debt, including unfunded obligations, is two hundred trillion dollars, which is more the twice the yearly economic output of the entire world! Add massive new entitlements to our other unfunded obligations simply cannot work. But current moral sentiment will require that we do it. If disaster is the certain outcome of an action, how can it be considered good? Beware of good people who cannot think. There is an imaginary world where the laws of economics do not apply, where wishing is more powerful than facts, where debts never come due, where racist police are the biggest threat facing black communities, where politicians can control the worlds climate with a vote, where open borders and a welfare state are a desirable combination, where Islam has nothing at all to do with Islamic Jihad, where you can load ever increasing freeloaders into a wagon, whip the ever decreasing horses, and expect the horses to pull the load forever. Progressives live in that world. They believe that reality can change its nature to fit our desires. But there is an objective reality that is indifferent to our wishes. We are going to keep racing toward the cliff because it is the right thing to do. And by right I mean right in the Utopian dream world that shapes our moral sentiments. In the real world this can only be destructive. Bryce Buchanan has a blog at www.realitybatslast.com Numerous cities have declared themselves to be sanctuary cities, where local police are forbidden to cooperate with federal immigration authorities in enforcing our national immigration laws. Legislation is now moving through the California legislature to implement such a policy throughout that entire state. Why this energy to protect violators of our laws? Oddly, the answer goes back to the founding. Due to a residue of the notorious three-fifth compromise, sanctuary cities encourage illegal immigration because undocumented residents (to use the politically correct term) are counted in determining representation in the House of Representatives and state legislatures. The more undocumented a city has, the more seats it gets. When the Framers were deciding how to apportion the House of Representatives, the southern states wanted to count slaves and the northern states wanted to only count free citizen residents. They compromised by counting three-fifths of the non-free population. To implement this, the House is apportioned on the basis of the gross total population rather than the citizen population. As illegal immigration was not a great issue in 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment simply carried forward this practice. As a result, the Census Bureau explicitly includes both legal non-citizen and undocumented residents in the census. In our era of historically high immigration, this has a major impact on legislative apportionment because these immigrants are very unevenly distributed. The Census Bureau estimates that the proportion of non-citizen population in the states varies from 14% in California to less than 1% in West Virginia. This has a direct impact on the states political power. California, on its way to becoming the first sanctuary state, has five or six more members of the House (and consequently Electoral College votes) counting its non-citizen population than if House seats and Electoral College votes were based on only citizen population. No wonder California politicians favor illegal immigration. This disparity can be even more pronounced within states. In my new book Fifty States, Not Six I show how New York City has ten or more seats in the 150 member Assembly (the lower house of the New York State legislature) counting non-citizens than it would if apportionment were based on the citizen population. This is true across the Nation, where immigrants tend to concentrate in urban areas, which generally are the areas which have declared themselves sanctuary cities. For example, according to the Census Bureau estimates 7.4% of Illinois residents overall are non-citizens. However, in Cook County (Chicago) non-citizens are 11% of the population, which is 61.5% of Illinois total non-citizen population. Without Cook County, Illinois non-citizen population would be only 4.8%. This difference corresponds to about five seats in the Illinois House of Representatives, which would go to other parts of the state if apportionment was based on the citizen population. On a national level, this also means that Cook County probably has one more seat in the federal House of Representatives than it would if only citizens were counted. That is a seat which would otherwise go to downstate Illinois or to suburban areas. If you ask what difference one seat in Congress could make, consider Representative Luis Gutierrez grotesquely gerrymandered Illinois 4th district. Congressman Gutierrez core constituency appears to be undocumented aliens. If you ever wondered how a member of Congress could be elected when his prime constituency supposedly cannot vote, now you understand. If apportionment were based on the citizen population, it is doubtful that the 4th district would survive, and Congressman Gutierrez would have to face a constituency of native-born African-American citizens for whom amnesty for undocumented aliens is not the highest priority. Of course, sanctuary city politicians claim that their policies are based on compassion for the stranger. However, if they really cared about poor people, one wonders why they promote flooding our Nation with low-skilled workers who deprive the native-born poor of all races of wages and opportunities. The more logical explanation is the desire to increase the size of the low-skilled, welfare-dependent electorate. Many believe that these non-citizens are being allowed to vote right now. However, even if this is not true, it is undeniable that non-citizen residents are increasing the representation of sanctuary cities in Congress and state legislatures. So, what do we do about this? The surest solution is to amend the Constitution to apportion on the basis of the citizen population rather than the gross population. I propose such an amendment in Fifty States, Not Six. (By allocating electoral votes proportionately, the amendment would also permanently eliminate the Democrat blue wall.) However, our Constitution is the most difficult to amend in the world. A fallback position relates to the Census. Although the federal constitution is an impediment for the federal House of Representatives, states arguably could apportion their legislatures based on citizen rather than gross population. However, states rely on the federal census to do their apportionment, and the federal census only counts the gross population. The 2020 census is not so far away. Congress should pass a law providing that the 2020 census count the citizen population as well as the gross population. This way states wishing to apportion based on the citizen population would have the information to do so. In addition, the results of these parallel counts would illuminate the selfish motives of sanctuary cities, and build support for a constitutional solution. Our country should be governed equally by all of its citizens. However, by encouraging illegal immigration, sanctuary cities are showing yet again their belief in the old leftist principle that some are more equal than others. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and pretty much everyone on Twitter had a good chortle at Andrea Mitchell's expense when, after she shouted out a question at a press briefing, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov dourly asked her: "Who is bringing you up? Who is giving you your manners?" T-Rex laughed along with the crowd when Lavrov told her she was free to shout again once they got their statements done. Tillerson's guffaws were all over Twitter and the blogosphere. What was surprising here was Mitchell's thin-skinned response. She whined to MSNBC that Tillerson should have stuck up for her. Then she sniffed that it was just typical "Putin hospitality," quoting former President Obama's Putin-hating ambassador, Michael McFaul. Apparently, she expected Tillerson to defend her own obviously out-of-order behavior and considered Putin a brute for not rolling out the red carpet for her. This was surprising from someone billed as a veteran foreign correspondent, supposedly familiar with the ways of foreign lands. I don't really fault her for trying to get a question in in an unconventional way. The news industry is competitive, and every once in a while, such a calculated faux pas yields a story. But if one is going to do that, one must recognize that rebukes are the flip-side of taking the risk, and having a thick skin while on the job and trying to produce news is a must. Stranger still is her apparent ignorance of one of the most important keys to understanding anything about the Russians and how they think: they are formal. Formalism is a very Russian characteristic. Formal describes how Russians are. If you can recognize that, you can go pretty far to making yourself understandable and recognizable to a Russian. The California-style laid-back, loosey-goosey, every-day-is-casual-Friday whatever culture of the sun-baked West Coast couldn't be more different from the formal, propriety-obsessed culture of the Russians, particularly the Russian state. In his excellent book called Inside Out, detailing the experience of renovating and improving a building in post-Wall St. Petersburg Russia in the 1990s, Glenn Williamson, now a professor of real estate at Georgetown University, had this intriguing passage on page 13: Sitting at the table during the negotiations was nevertheless a priceless experience. The Finns thought we owed them money for work they had done. We thought they owed us work that was incomplete. Finns tend to be laconic yes or no, five or ten and to the point. They mean what they say, exactly as they said it. Turks, on the other hand, tend to talk a lot. They are sincere, but the words are more about building a relationship, and less about what is actually said. Their first-choice solution to problems was often to suggest we go out to dinner. On their part, Russians can be quite formal. The translator hired by Skanska to translate from Finnish to Russian was very dramatic, almost as if he were auditioning for a play. He would deliver the words with wild hand gestures to convey their full meaning. At one point, Kleptov turned away from his Finnish counterpart and spoke directly to the translator. "I don't care what he said," Kleptov declared, "but you are a translator and I am a director and you cannot speak to me in that way." Sound like Lavrov? Quite a bit. And quite a useful thing to know when dealing with Russians: they like their propriety. Such details ought to have been known to Mitchell if she were the experienced correspondent she claims to be and had any knowledge of Russian culture. Apparently, she didn't. No wonder she got Lavrov's lesson in Russian manners. A Diesel in the Shed. You can have your solar panels and your turbines on the hills; You can use the warmth of sunshine to reduce your heating bills. You can dream youre self-sufficient as you weed your veggie bed; As long as you make sure to keep A diesel in the shed. When I was a kid on a dairy farm in Queensland, Australia, we relied on green energy. Horses and human muscles provided motive power; firewood and beeswax candles supplied heat and light; windmills pumped water; and the sun provided solar energy for growing crops, veggies and pastures. The only "non-green" energy used was a bit of kerosene for the kitchen lamp, and gas for a small Ford utility. Our life changed dramatically when we put a diesel in the dairy shed. This single-cylinder engine drove the milking machines, the cream separator, and an electricity generator, which charged 16 lead-acid 2-volt batteries sitting on the veranda. This 32-volt D.C. system powered a modern marvel bright light, at any time, in every room, at the touch of a switch. There were no electric self-starters for diesels in those days just a heavy crank handle. But all those efforts, all that noise, and all those fumes were superseded when every house and dairy got connected to clean, silent "coal power by wire." Suddenly, the trusty "Southern Cross" diesel engines disappeared from Australian sheds and dairies. In just one lifetime, candles and kerosene were replaced by diesel, which was then replaced by clean, silent, ever ready electricity. Today, after Aussies have enjoyed decades of abundant reliable cheap electricity from coal, green energy gambling has taken Australia back to the era that kept a diesel in the shed. Tasmania is the greenest state in Australia. It once had a vibrant economy that created mines, sawmills, farms, orchards, oil and metal refineries, dams, hydro-power, and railways. It is now a green no-go land. Greens have stopped new hydro developments, opposed mining, crippled the timber industry, prevented new wood chip developments, and will probably celebrate when the last refinery closes. Tasmanians get their electricity mainly from hydro assets created long ago by their more productive ancestors. But recently, a long drought caused a shortage of Tasmanian hydro-energy they became reliant for up to 40% of their electricity needs on the Bass-link undersea cable bringing electricity from reliable coal-fired stations in Victoria and New South Wales. However, the overloaded Bass-link cable failed, and an old gas-powered station was brought back into service (importing gas from Victoria) to keep the lights on. Subsequently, their politicians hurriedly put 150 diesel generators in their shed (costing A$11 million per month). South Australia is the next greenest state in Australia, hosting about 35% of Australia's wind turbines. These were force-fed into existence by mandatory green energy targets and tax benefits. In a burst of green destruction, they also closed their gas-fired power stations and demolished their coal-fired station. However, wind power failed recently, and a storm tore down their lifeline-bringing reliable coal power from Victoria. Now Premier Weatherill is planning to install up to 200 megawatts of diesel generators in his shed. Many residents are following his lead. As some wag said: Question: "What did South Australians have before candles?" Answer: "Electricity." The U.K. has been badly infected by the green energy virus. Engineers warned that this intermittent and unpredictable supply had increased the risk of blackouts, so the U.K. government offered subsidies for emergency backup power. This subsidy, plus consumer concerns, put so many diesels in British sheds that they now provide a major backup capacity for U.K. electricity. Many Spaniards found that a diesel in the shed was very profitable. Their government had been drinking green ale and offered attractive subsidies for solar power produced. The subsidy was very successful so successful that someone eventually noticed that some suppliers were even producing "solar" power at night. It was coming from diesels in their sheds. Finally, our green media likes to feature some green energy enthusiast who is "off the grid." But it usually emerges later in the show that there is a diesel in his shed, too. Those who remember the days of relying on a noisy, smelly diesel in the shed have no wish to be dragged back there by green zealots. Viv Forbes is a writer in Rosevale, Queensland, Australia and can be reached at this email: vforbes@carbon-sense.com. Further Reading: Tasmanias Bass Link cable fails. Gas imports boom: http://www.smh.com.au/ business/energy/hit-from- basslink-power-cable-failure- 560m-and-rising-energyquest- 20160602-gp9mxg.html Tasmania puts some diesels in the shed: http://www.abc.net.au/news/ 2016-06-08/hydro-tasmania-to- decommission-diesel- generators-basslink-fixed/ 7492078 South Australia demolishes their last coal power station: https://wattsupwiththat.com/ 2017/04/10/south-australia- demolishes-their-last-coal- power-station/comment-page-1/# comment-2473296 South Australia puts some diesels in the shed: http://www.danvhp.com.au/2017/ 03/jays-green-credentials- burned-by-diesel-generators/ UK offers subsidies to put some diesels in the shed: https://www.theguardian.com/ environment/2015/may/06/uk- energy-bill-subsidies-driving- boom-in-polluting-diesel-farms The Sun in Spain shines better at night: http://www.theecologist.org/ News/news_round_up/465409/ spanish_nighttime_solar_ energy_fraud_unlikely_in_uk. html All about diesel back-up Generators: http://www.aip.com.au/pdf/ Diesel_fuel_Back-up_ Generation.pdf An arrest has finally been made in connection with the 2010 murder of border patrol agent Brian Terry, who was killed with a gun supplied to a drug cartel by the U.S. government in the Fast and Furious scandal. Fox News: The suspect, Heraclio Osorio-Arellanes, was apprehended by a joint U.S.-Mexico law enforcement task force that included the Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Marshals and the Border Patrol Tactical Unit (BORTAC). A $250,000 reward had been sought for information leading to the arrest of Osorio-Arellanes, who was captured at a ranch on the border of the Mexican states of Sinaloa and Chihuahua. U.S. authorities have said they will seek his extradition. Terry was killed on Dec. 14, 2010 in a gunfight between Border Patrol agents and members of a five-man cartel "rip crew," which regularly patrolled the desert along the U.S.-Mexico border looking for drug dealers to rob. The agent's death exposed Operation Fast and Furious, a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) operation in which the federal government allowed criminals to buy guns in Phoenix-area shops with the intention of tracking them once they made their way into Mexico. But the agency lost track of more than 1,400 of the 2,000 guns they allowed smugglers to buy. Two of those guns were found at the scene of Terry's killing. The operation set off a political firestorm, and then-Attorney General Eric Holder was held in contempt of Congress after he refused to divulge documents for a congressional investigation. Four members of the "rip crew" already been sentenced to jail time in the U.S. Manual Osorio-Arellanes was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to first-degree murder in February 2014. In October 2015, Ivan Soto-Barraza and Jesus Sanchez-Meza were convicted by a federal jury of nine different charges, including first-degree murder and attempted armed robbery. Rosario Rafael Burboa-Alvarez, accused of assembling the "rip crew," was sentenced to 27 years in prison after striking a plea agreement with prosecutors. The last remaining member of the "rip crew," Jesus Rosario Favela-Astorga, is believed to still be at large. I was reading a very poorly written Los Angeles Times article about North Carolina legislators introducing a bill to define marriage as between a man and a woman, and I was surprised to read the following sentence: Opponents of the legislation castigated it as an unnecessary step that will stoke division in a state still reeling from the fallout of a controversial bill regulating which bathrooms transgender people can use. I have rarely seen a sentence so sensationalistically, so chock-full of so many liberal buzzwords. The over-dramatization of facts makes this news article read like an action thriller. Compare "The Earth reeled from the fallout of the asteroid impact." to "North Carolina reeled from the fallout of the bathroom legislation." It's a totally ridiculous use of words for this situation. Let's look more closely at the key words and phrases: Controversial : Whenever a Democrat does something radical, and Republicans try to restore things to the way they were, the Republicans are called "controversial." Having separate bathrooms for boys and girls, which was the rule for as long as we had public bathrooms, is now "controversial." So is enforcing immigration law, or repealing Obamacare to restore the system of insurance we had before 2009. Suddenly finding a constitutional right to abortion, or gay marriage, where none existed before, however, is not controversial. Castigated : Castigate means to criticize severely. But in the print media, only liberals do the castigating Chuck Schumer castigating Trump (why doesn't matter), Obama castigating Republicans, and the New York Times castigating Trump. Why are liberals always the ones to do the castigating? Why are Republicans never described as castigating Democrats? Furthermore, given the sexual nature of this topic, I can't help but wonder if the writer, consciously or not, used the word castigated as a proxy for castrated. Republicans came out against gay marriage, and their opponents were so outraged they tried to orally castrate them. Stoking division : If you read the print media, the phrase "stoking division" goes only with Republicans. Trump stokes divisions when he talks about Islamic terrorism. Also concerns rather than divisions can be stoked, when talking about Trump's economic policies. It's funny that liberals, who are the ones to talk constantly about race, class, and gender, are always the ones to talk about stoking divisions when they are the stokers in chief. By the way, stoking can mean to encourage, but it can also mean to "add coal to." That's an odd phrase for a liberal to use. Or maybe they use it on purpose, to tie Republicans to energy sources they find morally objectionable. Stoking can also be seen as a form of work or labor, something else liberals probably find objectionable. And again, remember that this "stoking division" phrase was picked in the context of an article about sexual orientation. Again, I can't help but wonder if "stoking division" was a place marker for "stroking diversion," in the conscious or unconscious mind of the writer. Reeling from the fallout : Reeling involves losing one's balance. Reeling is a bipartisan term. President Trump can leave Washington reeling, but President Trump can also be reeling under liberal attack. Usually, Republicans are reeling when they have done something the media consider immoral, and liberals are reeling when Republicans either try to cut the budget or enforce existing laws, both of which are also considered immoral. And where you have reeling, you often have fallout. Fallout is most often used to describe a lethal cloud of radioactive gas or debris, but it has come to have a symbolic meaning, for the results of an action taken. This article talks about "Muslim ban fallout." Well, better Muslim fallout than nuclear fallout, right? As a way of exaggerating the importance or negative impact of a policy, it is often said to have "fallout." But why can't writers in the liberal media simply write what they mean without using all this flowery symbolic language? Why can't they simply say, "Opponents of defining marriage between a man and a woman say North Carolina is still suffering from economic boycotts from its bathroom decency bill"? I think they feel that if they write plainly, their writing will lose whatever mystique they imagine it has. What are your favorite liberal media buzzwords? Ed Straker is the senior writer at NewsMachete.com. Don't be surprised if your Brazilian friends refer to every politician as a crook. Frankly, they've got good reasons to reach that conclusion. Down in Brazil, where the last president was impeached for corruption, the new man is now sitting under a huge cloud of his own. This is from Simon Romero of The New York Times: A judge on Brazil's Supreme Court authorized new corruption investigations on Tuesday involving dozens of the country's most powerful politicians, dealing yet another blow to the beleaguered government of President Michel Temer. The ruling by Justice Luiz Edson Fachin allows federal prosecutors to start new inquiries of at least eight ministers in Mr. Temer's cabinet, including his chief of staff, Eliseu Padilha, and his foreign minister, Aloysio Nunes Ferreira, as well as much of the Senate. Altogether, this means that nearly a third of the cabinet and nearly a third of the Senate will be the target of inquiries in this new phase of the colossal scandal that emerged three years ago into graft around Petrobras, Brazil's national oil company. Brazil has been Exhibit A of crony capitalism for some time. It is a terrible drain on the economy, one of the top 10 GDPs of the world. Graft is so common that it is an accepted cost of doing business, or not at all different from having good coffee around when your customers come in for a plant tour. According to a 2013 report by Forbes: A 2010 study by the FIESP (the Federation of Industries of Sao Paulo State, in its acronym in Portuguese), the average annual cost of corruption in Brazil is between 1.38% to 2.3% of the country's total GDP. The World Bank lists Brazil in its database with a GDP of $2.253 trillion as of 2012, while the OECD expects Brazil to grow 2.5% this year. If the numbers of the FIESP study are to be believed, just in 2013 something between $32 billion and $53.1 billion can be accounted as "corruption money," which, it is important to remember, gets out of circulation that hits growth. To put into perspective, if that money was invested in Brazil's precarious education system, the number of Brazilian students enrolled in elementary school could be improved from its current 34.5 million to 51 million. Better schools and better bridges and better roads and so on. Last, but not least, let's not forget about the voters. In other words, they voted for these people. Yes, they voted for them when the economy was booming and there was plenty of money to pay for all of those campaign promises. The investigation of President Temer will take months, so don't expect an impeachment or resignation any time soon. Nevertheless, it just makes Brazilians more cynical, and they were pretty cynical before all this started a couple of years ago. P.S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter. According to several sources, North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un has ordered 600,000 people to evacuate the capital city of Pyongyang. The report originally appeared in Pravda, but a reporter for Channel News Asia tweeted that foreign journalists have been told to prepare to move out of the capital without their cell phones. We've been told to be ready to move out at 620am, but no idea why. Also, no cell phones allowed. #Pyongyang #Dprk pic.twitter.com/DO1yziIEMq Jeremy Koh (@JeremyKohCNA) April 12, 2017 Daily Express: Reports in Russian newspaper Pravda Report claim more than 600,000 people around 25 per cent of the city's population are being urgently evacuated, as tensions escalate between North Korea and the United States. According to South Korean media, residents in the kingdom have said goodbye to each other, sparking concerns the tyrannical leader could be about to act after months of nuclear weapon testing. Foreign reporters have been told to prepare for a "big and important event" on North Korea's biggest national celebration, called 'Day of the Sun'. A tweet from Channel NewsAsia's Beijing Correspondent Jeremy Koh said: "We've been told to be ready to move out at 6.20am, but no idea why. Also, no cell phones allowed." More than 200 foreign journalists are in Pyongyang as the country marks the 105th birthday of its founding president Kim Il Sung on April 15. Officials in North Korea have already warned nuclear war could break out at any minute thanks to the "extremely tense" situation on the Korean Peninsula. The US sent a navy strike group towards the Western Pacific in a show of force, with North Korea retorting with warnings of a nuclear attack in retaliation to any show of aggression. China has also moved 150,000 soldiers close to the North Korean border in preparation for war. The move comes after president Trump launched 59 Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian airfield in response for the country's brutal chemical attack which left 79 civilians dead. North Korean officials have given no clues as to the nature of the "surprise event" or where it would take place. However, past announcements of a similar nature have turned out to be relatively low-key. Kim issued another nuclear warning yesterday i.e., if provoked, North Korea would use nuclear weapons. So what is going on? To sum up: 1. The U.S. is moving a carrier strike force to the Korean peninsula. 2. China has moved 150,000 troops to Korean border to handle an expected flood of refugees if an attack occurs. 3. Kim has threatened to use nukes if provoked. 4. Reporters are being told to expect a "big event," while some reports perhaps not reliable claim that Kim has ordered the partial evacuation of the capital. Taken together, the signs are ominous. But should these stories be understood as being part of a pattern? Or is the juxtaposition of all this information a coincidence? Certainly, prudence demands the former. But if you've read Barbara Tuchman's "Guns of August," you might recognize that it's entirely possible that the confluence of events could easily lead to misinterpretation, and what seems bellicose or ominous as part of a pattern is actually separate reactions to similar events. Nothing takes place in a vacuum, of course. But we may be reading too much into what's really happening in North Korea. Intelligence reports indicate that Kim may be readying another nuclear test to coincide with the North's national holiday, the "Day of the Sun," which honors the birth of North Korea's founder, Kim Il-sung. Or Kim may be about to order another missile test. Either event could be misinterpreted and lead to war. So even if there's nothing really ominous about these events, tensions are so high that a misunderstanding or an error could let loose the dogs of war on the Korean peninsula. President Trump has changed his positions on Syria, NATO, China, the Fed, and the Ex-Im Bank (not to mention Obamacare repeal and prosecuting Hillary Clinton), all within the past few days. President Trump is abandoning a number of his key campaign promises on economic policy, adopting instead many of the centrist positions he railed against while campaigning as a populist. Trump will not label China a "currency manipulator," ... despite a campaign pledge that he would apply the label on his first day in office. He also said he was open to reappointing Federal Reserve Board Chair Janet L. Yellen after saying last year that the central banker should be "ashamed" of what she was doing to the country. And he embraced the Export-Import Bank, a government agency that he mocked last year and that has long been despised by conservatives who labeled it crony capitalism. Last week, he ordered airstrikes against the Syrian military, even though he promised during the campaign to keep the United States out of conflicts in the Middle East. The shift on Syria enraged some of Trump's campaign supporters who had embraced his isolationist foreign policy. Also on Wednesday, Trump praised the work of NATO, a pact between the United States and some of its closest allies that Trump once called "obsolete." "It was once obsolete; it is no longer obsolete," he said Wednesday after meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. Trump's embrace of moderate positions also suggests a waning influence among the hard-line nationalist White House advisers who helped Trump win the election, as well as the rise of other advisers many of whom hail from New York who have more centrist, even left-leaning views. It doesn't matter if Trump pledged to do something on his first day in office. It doesn't matter if he called something obsolete just two months ago. It doesn't matter if he explicitly promised to do or not to do something. Trump is unmoored by any political belief system. He's like an army tank that can be driven in any direction. When the driver is Steve Bannon, we sometimes applaud. But now that Jared Kushner & Co. are in the driver's seat, they are driving in the opposite direction. If Ivanka had married Chairman Mao, I believe that President Trump would be espousing the virtues of class warfare and collective farming, and pro-Trump websites would tell us what a clever plan this is to revolutionize food production in America. When you combine a lack of belief system with government by nepotism, this is what you get. The only thing that surprises me is people who are surprised by this. Ed Straker is the senior writer at NewsMachete.com. "Donald Trump must get those kids out of the White House," a blunt South African observer of our politics barked at me, weeks back. "You're looking more and more like us." She was alluding to the nepotism on display in the Trump White House. Since the president started strafing Syria, it has become evident that Trump's favorite offspring needs to be booted from the People's House. The British press, more irreverent than ours, seconded the broad consensus that Ivanka had nagged daddy into doing it. For The Kids: The First Daughter was, purportedly, devastated by the (unauthenticated) images of a suspected gas attack in Syria. Brother Eric Trump confirmed it: "Sure, Ivanka influenced the Syria strike decision." White House spokesman Sean Spicer didn't deny it. Eric had headed back to the Trump Organization, as he promised during the campaign. Ivanka just wouldn't go. Who could fail to notice that the first daughter, a cloistered, somewhat provincial American princess, has been elevated inappropriately in the White House, while first lady Melania, a cosmopolitan steel magnolia, has been marginalized? That Ivanka, now her father's West Wing adviser, drove the offensive in Syria is but a logical deduction. Ivanka promises that she and her poodle, Jared Kushner, are in compliance with the law. Clever lawyers told her so. Legalistic assurances pertaining to the 1967 Anti-Nepotism Statute mean nothing. Law is hardly the ultimate adjudicator of right and wrong. Donald's daughter has no place in the White House, no matter how cutely she "argues" for her ambitions: "I want to be a force for good." (Who defines "good," Ivanka? Limited and delimited government means that it's not you.) "I want to pursue my passions." (Your passions, Ivanka, are not necessarily the people's passions or even within the purview of their government.) Whether she's tweeting about the accomplishment that is the war on Syria or about inflicting her kids on China's first couple, Ivanka's tweets have the insipid emptiness of a contestant in a beauty pageant. "Proud of my father for refusing to accept these horrendous crimes against humanity." "Proud of Arabella and Joseph for their performance in honor of President Xi Jinping and Madame Peng Liyuan's official visit to the US." Such provincialism and solipsism were certainly part of the Obamas' international persona. Barack and Michelle gave the queen of England an iPod, customized with images and audio from Mr. Obama's inaugural and DNC addresses. Wily Arabs are hip to White House dynamics. They know who's running the White House and whom to flatter. For doing their bidding, Syrian rebels "we don't know who they are," cautioned the Old Donald have even given President Trump an honorific: Abu Ivanka al-Amriki: father of Ivanka the American. I don't think President Donald Trump's dispiriting deviation of policy on Syria signaled a lack of core beliefs. What the folly of bombing Syria signals, very plainly, is that what Ivanka wants, Ivanka gets. Republicans and Democrats likely know it but won't say it. The former because Ivanka is a woman. Republicans dare not wage war on a woman, much less if she wages war on Syria. The latter because Ivanka is a Democrat by any other name. In Ivanka, you have a point person in an ostensibly populist, rightist administration who has no idea that men, not women, are lagging in the labor force and in institutions of higher and lower learning. Democrats appreciate that. In Ivanka, you have a businesswoman, in an ostensibly business-friendly administration, who has vowed to "close the [mythical] gender pay gap" on our dime. A business magnate should have grasped the following logic: "If women with the same skills as men were getting only 78 cents for every dollar a man earns, men as a group would have long since priced themselves out of the market. That entrepreneurs like Ivanka haven't ditched men en masse to employ women suggests that different abilities and experience are at work, rather than a conspiracy to suppress women" ("The Week of the Whining Womin"). Democrat-dominated news networks are mum about the Susan Rice spying and unmasking scandal. GOP TV is deaf and dumb about the clash between the America First faction of the administration (Steve Bannon) and the Kushner couple (Ivanka and Jared). The gentle reader should know by now that there's not a dime's worth of difference between the standard operating procedures of the two parties and their media. On Twitter, former supporters of Donald Trump were quick to turn on Jared Kushner. The hashtag #FireKushner gained momentum. But I ask you to study Mr. Kushner. The man's a mouse. Have you ever heard Jared Kushner utter a word in public? Do you even know what he sounds like? The poor man looks low T like he might one day go the way of Bruce Jenner, now Caitlyn Jenner. Jared's not wearing the pants in the Kushner castle. Behind every "good man" is a woman. Pushing, pushing. And that woman is the beguilingly beautiful Ivanka. President Trump's not listening to his uncharismatic son-in-law; he's listening to Ivanka. And Ivanka is promoting Kushner, who is channeling Ivanka. For Ivanka did Donald Trump ditch the policy he promised the Deplorables on Syria, not for her husband. On Daddy's coattails has Ivanka Trump inveigled her way into the People's House, where she'll ambitiously promote her anemic husband and their joint agenda. More than anything, Ivanka and Jared crave respectability. Both have been scarred by the scandals of their fathers. Befitting young Democrats in high society, the Kushners would like to be able to press flesh with local and global elites. There will be none of that no warm welcomes from the gilded and the glamorous at Davos with Donald's unsexy America First agenda. Ilana Mercer is the author of The Trump Revolution: The Donald's Creative Destruction Deconstructed (June 2016). Follow her on Twitter and Facebook. Subscribe to Ilana's YouTube channel. Now here's a list from estimable investigative report Sharyl Attkisson about where the major press leans ideologically. Nice to see that one publication with the masthead matching the one here, right there in the center on the right side, situated between The Economist and National Review. Attkisson asked for advice on tweaking the chart as to the placements, which I can helpfully offer for starters: The Wall Street Journal, National Review, The Economist, and Forbes can all move a couple of ticks leftward. Daily Beast can move several ticks left. Meanwhile, The Hill, RealClearPolitics, the Daily Signal, and the Daily Caller can probably move a tick or two to the right. Readers are encouraged to help her out with their own takes if they are so inclined. But what's most significant is how many new media organizations are being included in her list of most influential news carriers. American Thinker, along with several other emerging publications, such as Hot Air and Zero Hedge (and many others), has come to supplant the traditional mainstream media as readers turn to alternatives. And it's becoming impossible to ignore, as Attkisson's chart demonstrates. Nice to see American Thinker so recognized. Thanks, Sharyl Attkisson. (ANSA) - Rome, April 13 - A Serbian suspected of killing two people and thought to be armed and dangerous was named Thursday as Norbert Feher, Italian police said after consulting officials in Serbia where he is wanted for robbery and sexual violence. The 41-year-old Feher, who also goes by the name of Igor Vaclavic, under which he was tried in Ferrara some years ago, is the suspected killer of Davide Fabbri, a 52-year-old who was shot dead during an attempted robbery at his bar at Budrio, near Bologna, on April 1, and of a voluntary environmental ranger who was shot dead near Ferrara Saturday. To escape a manhunt, police said Wednesday, Feher may have stolen a boat belonging to a farmer that recently went missing in the area of the search. Special police units, helicopters, drones, sniffer dogs and marksmen are being used in the manhunt across the provinces of Bologna, Ferrara and Ravenna. The suspect was said to be armed with at least two guns and around 40 bullets. A provincial police agent was also seriously wounded in Saturday's shooting on the Mondo Nuova road around 8 km from Portomaggiore. Police said Feher is foraging fruit, vegetables and eggs as he continues to elude his pursuers. - ROME- Syrian state-run news agency Sana said Thursday that ''hundreds of people, including civilians'' were killed in eastern Syria in a raid carried out by the US-led anti-ISIS coalition against a ''depot of chemical weapons of the Islamic State'' in the region of Dayr az Zor. Sana quoted the army chief of staff. ''Many people died suffocated by toxic gas inhalations'' in the raid, wrote Sana, adding that this allegedly occurred ''yesterday between 5:30 and 5:50 pm''. According to the Syrian army, the ''depot of poisonous substances'' struck was in Hatla, east of Dayr az Zor, in the region by the same name bordering with Iraq. Syrian President Bashar al Assad on Thursday told Agence France Presse, in an interview quoted by international media that a gas attack blamed on his government last week in Idlib province was ''100 percent fabrication''. He claimed that the Syrian army had given up all chemical weapons. Assad told AFP that the US strike did not reduce the capability of Syrian government forces. Syria:U.S. intercepted chemical warfare communications, CNN 'U.S. did not know prior to Idlib raid it was going to happen' (ANSAmed) - WASHINGTON, APRIL 13 - A US senior official was quoted by CNN as saying that the US military and intelligence community intercepted communications featuring chemical experts and Syrian military personnel discussing preparations for the sarin attack in Idlib last week. The intercepts were part of a review of all the intelligence right after the attack to determine responsibility for the use of chemical weapons in the attack in north-western Syria, which killed at least 70 people, CNN reports. The same source stressed that the US did not know prior to the attack that it was going to happen, CNN also said. The US usually gathers a significant volume of communications intercepts in areas like Syria and Iraq. The material is often not procesed unless a specific event requiring investigation by intelligence analysts takes place. According to CNN, no intelligence intercepts revealing that Russian military or intelligence officials discussed the attack have so far emerged. The source told CNN that the Russians are likely to be more careful in their communications in order not to be intercepted. (ANSAmed). Turkey: 543 PKK, ISIS suspects detained in anti-terror raid 412 allegedly tied to Kurdish rebels and 131 to jihadists (ANSAmed) - ISTANBUL, APRIL 13 - A reported 543 suspected militants of the PKK and ISIS were arrested in Turkey last night in an anti-terror operation. Security forced detained 412 alleged Kurdish rebels in operations across 21 provinces while 131 suspected jihadists with the so-called Islamic State were arrested in 13 provinces, according to the Turkish interior ministry. Weapons, ammunitions and documents were seized during the operations. The raids occurred after the PKK claimed an attack Tuesday against a police station in Diyarbakir and three days ahead of a key referendum on the presidential system. (ANSAmed). Kosovo: Gabriel urges Belgrade, Pristina continue dialogue (ANSAmed) - PRISTINA, 13 APRIL - German Vice Chancellor and FM Sigmar Gabriel, who is visiting Pristina, reiterated a call to Belgrade and Pristina to normalis relations and continue dialogue. Speaking after a meeting with Kosovo PM Isa Mustafa, Gabriel said peaceful relations between Serbia and Kosovo were a precondition for EU membership for both sides. He said the EU could do "significantly more" to support Western Balkan countries on their way to the EU. The EU should do more to back "infrastructure projects" in the Western Balkans, he said. A Kosovo army can only be formed in line with regulations and in coordination with Serbs, Gabriel also said, urging the Kosovo assembly to pass a border demarcation agreement with Montenegro to pave the way for a visa liberalization. (ANSAmed) YEREVAN, APRIL 13, ARMENPRESS. FAST (The Foundation for Armenian Science and Technology) announced the formation of the Advisory Board and the appointment of the Chief Executive Director, IDeA Foundation told Armenpress. Impact investor and social entrepreneur, co-founder of the IDeA Foundation Ruben Vardanyan made his first statement on the intention to create the FAST Foundation in July 2016, noting that the Foundation would focus on "the development of environment for technological innovations in Armenia and mobilization of scientific, technological and financial resources of the Armenian and international community". Ruben Vardanyan and Noubar Afeyan on behalf of the IDeA Foundation, Fr. Mesrop Aramyan on behalf of the Ayb and Luys Foundations, the high tech and innovations entrepreneur Artur Alaverdyan became the co-founders of the FAST Foundation. Board of Trustees of five people was established, including the co-founders; Artur Alaverdyan was appointed Chairman of the Board. At the present moment the following persons have agreed to become members of the FAST Advisory Board: Noubar Afeyan, Ph.D., Flagship Pioneering, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, MIT, Senior Lecturer 2000-2016, current Corporation Board member (USA), Naira Hovakimyan, Ph.D., W. Grafton and Lillian B. Wilkins Professor of Mechanical Science and Engineering (USA), David Yang, Ph.D., ABBYY, Founder and Director of the Board (USA/Russia), Professor the Lord Darzi of Denham OM KBE PC FRS, Institute of Global Health Innovation, Director (UK), Serge Tchuruk, Alcatel, former CEO and Total S.A., Chairman, former CEO (France), Garaped Antranikyan, Hamburg University of Technology, President (Germany), Mikhail Pogosyan, Moscow Aviation Institute, Rector (Russia), Yuri Oganessian, Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions, Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Scientific Director (Russia), Andre Andonian, McKinsey and Company, Managing Partner (Japan), Armen Gevorgyan, Staff of Presidential Administration, Chief (Armenia), Hovhannes Avoyan, PicsArt, CEO and Founder (USA/Armenia), Vardan Sahakian, PhD in Physics, State Committee for Science, Deputy Head, the scientist with the highest scientometric indices (h-index) in Armenia (Armenia). Other members might join the Board in future. As the Head of the Advisory Board Noubar Afeyan stated: The future of Armenia will depend greatly on its capacity to innovate and to provide competitive products and services within the global markets. The Foundation for Armenian Science and Technology is a timely catalyst in making this potential a near-term reality. In my opinion the main mission of the FAST Foundation is that it will consolidate the intellectual power in Armenia and abroad, focusing it on solving the actual tasks which determine the scientific and technological progress of the country, Yuri Oganessian mentioned. Back in Soviet times Armenia held absolute leadership in scientific and technological innovations of the big country. In 1956 the USSR government launched the Yerevan Computer Research and Development Institute after Mergelyan, and since then we were well known for leading IT and software developments in USSR. The collapse of former Soviet Union, the major earthquake, the long-lasting economic and energy crisis destroyed the economy of the country leading to mass immigration. I am hopeful that FAST will give the opportunity to re-establish ourselves again as leaders in a number of major industries, in education and academic fronts as well, and this time we will come across as leaders on a global scale outside the borders of former Soviet Union, Naira Hovakimyan commented. This is an immensely exciting time for Armenia with the launch of The FAST Foundation. As a society we are facing increasing challenges in every industry and through the development of a platform for bringing about the technological revolution in Armenia, we can remain at the forefront of the development of innovative technologies, Professor the Lord Darzi of Denham said. The businessman, architect of innovative ecosystems Armen Orujyan was appointed Chief Executive Director of FAST. Athgo, a non-profit organization created by him in 1999 in Los Angeles, is one of the leading business platforms in the world and has the status of consultant of the United Nations Economic and Social Council. Under his leadership, Athgo promoted the development of innovative ecosystems in Europe and Africa, nearly 10,000 young innovators, entrepreneurs and students from 80 counties of the world obtained the support for implementation of their projects and initiatives, including a financial one. The world is experiencing an exciting and unprecedented technological transformation. Exponential advances are taking place in all verticals empowering people and economies. FAST propelled by its Founders vision, historical scientific accomplishments of Armenia and Armenians around the world, and access to global resources can thrust Armenia into becoming one of the leading if not the leading scientific and open innovation hubs. I envision a world where Armenia is a trendsetter of disruptive and cutting edge innovation in the region and beyond. I find it inspiring and a privilege to be involved with the Founders and all other stakeholders in helming this initiative forward, Armen Orujyan stated. During the 9 months from the first announcement of FAST, its co-founders have conducted a series of efficient discussions in different cities in the world with the participation of scientists, investors and entrepreneurs. The team in Yerevan has created a database of almost 5,000 scientists and engineers from Armenia and the Diaspora. More than 120 people from that database contributed to the discussions of the FAST initiative. A significant contribution into this preparatory work was made by the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU), American University of Armenia, Synopsis, NSF, National Instruments and more than a hundred people who made important and valuable suggestions. Our main goal is to unite the state and the private sector, the general public and the elite, the citizens of Armenia, the diaspora and our partners in other countries, the donors and the international organizations, - in order to turn Armenia into one of the leading R&D hubs of the world together, Ruben Vardanyan stated. We want to accelerate the creation of an innovate ecosystem in Armenia for science-intensive startups, to promote the commercialization of science by using the potential of the local and global scientific, engineering and entrepreneurial community. The main task of FAST is to build a road with a two-way traffic between Armenian science and the global business, Artur Alaverdyan said. FAST intends to become a platform for bringing the technological breakthrough in Armenia in the areas of IT and computer science, artificial intelligence, robotics, biotechnology, advanced engineering and manufacturing technologies. The Foundation will be based on 4 pillars: education, research, start-ups and production. Expert council will be formed for every direction. FAST is planned to pursue three main goals: to serve as a catalyst for technological development, concentrate the efforts and last, but not least, to coordinate the progress in the field. At the same time, FAST will operate according to the principle of an open platform that is ready for the development of partnership relations with private, state, public and scientific organizations in Armenia and in foreign countries. Organizationally FAST will operate as a FOF, without pursuing a commercial objective by itself. The initiative will create commercial venture funds and other business structures. The scope of the initial financing for the development of the Foundation will be up to USD 15 million. The co-founders will launch a global fundraising campaign to attract up to USD 250 million within five years. YEREVAN, APRIL 13, ARMENPRESS. Georgian Business Days will be held in Armenia in May, economic development and investments minister Suren Karayan said after the Cabinet meeting, speaking on the economic cooperation with the Georgian side. Georgian businessmen will be briefed on not only the possibilities of the Armenian market, but also the Meghri Free Economic Zone on the Iranian border. Production in this FEZ will enable facilitated exports not only to Iran, but also to EEU states. We will have specific substantial discussions, Georgia has great interest in making investments in Meghris FEZ, he said. The government approved the decision on creating the FEZ on March 30. It is expected to begin operating in autumn. YEREVAN, APRIL 13, ARMENPRESS. Patriarchal Vicar of Istanbuls Armenian Patriarchate Archbishop Aram Ateshian announced that upon inviting elected Patriarchal locum tenens Archbishop Garegin Bekchyan to the St. Savior hospital he had notified him on presenting a written agreement draft, Ateshian told Istanbuls Armenian Zhamanak daily. He also commented on Bekchians April 11 announcement, speaking on his viewpoint on refusing to step down from his post. We are trying to reach the combination of our Church right and the states expectation. With this very purpose we had prepared the agreement draft, which was refused by Archbishop Garegin Bekchian. One of the goals of that agreement was to keep our Church Assemblys reputation high. If Archbishop Garegin Bekchian had accepted the draft, then we would have been able to have the chance to make new steps based on the agreement between us. In the event of such agreement, in order to notify on a tangible solution result we would have to try to go to the Istanbul governorate together. Petros Shirinoghlu, chairman of the board of trustees of the Holy Savior national hospital, would have assisted us. Therefore, I would have been able to personally introduce the elected locum tenens to the relevant authorities, there must have been some kind of a guarantee on his activities prospects and the further perception of official bodies. We have already explained all this nuances, however, unfortunately, we were unable to have a positive result. Therefore, the persistence over not stepping down which was attributed to me and this circumstances endless repetition created an impression of lack of seriousness among us in this current difficult situation, he said. On the morning of April 13, Ateshian and Bekchian served Holy Thursday masses, Bekchian in the Holy Stepanos Church and Ateshian in Istanbuls Holy Mother of God Church, dedicated to the Last Supper. After she was detained by the Cuban authorities and had her passport confiscated, [the artist and activist] suffered harassment, surveillance and physical abuse. Her crime was proposing to restage Tatlins Whisper #6, a performance piece about free speech, in Havanas Revolution Square. She was granted an exit visa to go to London for this years Frieze, but warned that she might not be allowed back. Kap-Dwa: A mysterious, 3.5-meter-tall, two-headed Giant from Patagonia There isnt a shortage of ancient texts and general evidence that supports the notion that giants existed on Earth. However, youve probably never encountered a story like this. Meet Kap Dwa, a two-headed, 3.5-meter-tall giant from Patagonia.While there are many elaborate hoaxes that show massive bones and strange-looking skeletons all around the globe, there are some discoveries that challenge our understanding of life on Earth. Kap Dwas story is beyond fascinating and many find it hard to believe.So, where did he come from?The story begins in 1673 when this massive two-headed giant was captured by Spanish sailors where he remained captive until he was killed while trying to escape from his captivators, as the Spaniards killed him with a pike through the chest.The story fades away after that, but it is believed that his mummified remains somehow got to England in the 19century.In 1914, after being passed from one showman to another, the mummified remains of Kap Dwa ended up at Westons Birnbeck Pier. There, his remains spent some 45 years on display until Lord Thomas Howard purchased the remains in 1959. Kap-Dwa continued to amaze people and somehow ended up in Baltimore Md, in a strange, collection at Bobs Side Show at The Antique Man Ltd in Baltimore, owned by Robert Gerber and his wife.You may think, this is nothing but another elaborate fake.However, Kap-Dwa does exist and the mummified remains can be found in Gerbers collection.Mr. Gerber however, tells a much different story than the above.According to Gerber, Kap-Dwa was in fact found already dead on a beach with a massive spear embedded in his chest. The creature was mummified by locals in Paraguaynot Patagonia until an English Captain called George Bickle came across his remains, eventually transporting him to England, to a museum in Blackpool where he stayed on display for several years.Eventually, the mummified remains were transported back to the Americas to Baltimore.Ok, so he did exist, does that prove Giants were common in the past?Well, while its certainly possible that such a being may have existedand Kap-Dwa is most likely realthere is abundant proof of fake giants all around the globe. This, however, does not mean that because one of them is fake, all others are as well.We can find numerous ancient texts and accounts that mention the existence of giants. Some of these texts can even be found in religious books like the bible.There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. -Genesis 6:4The Nephilim are believed to have been the offspring of the sons of God and the daughters of men before the Deluge according to Genesis 6:4; the name is also used in reference to giants who inhabited Canaan at the time of the Israelite conquest of Canaan according to Numbers 13:33.And there we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, who come of the Nephilim; and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight. -Numbers 13:33.Kap-Dwa may have been real, and our planet is anything but uncommon when it comes to people with extraordinary height.The tallest man on Earth, when last measured on 27 June 1940, was found to be 2.72 m.The issue with the two heads can also be explained as conjoined twins are not that uncommon.It is up to you to conclude whether or not, something like this is possible, and whether or not the existence of Kap-Dwa proves that in the distant past, giants did exist on Earth, and there are still many things that remain unexplained on Earth. Bhaskar also took a jibe at the media for hyping about USFDA observations. Bhaskar also announced that Hyderabad would host the IPHEX 2017 from April 27-29. Hyderabad: The Indian pharmaceutical sector is expected to see a slight fall in the export value in FY17 due to price erosion and lack of any blockbuster drug, a top official said here on Wednesday. Pharmexcil director general Ravi Uday Bhaskar cited the lack of any blockbuster drugs in the fiscal year and price erosion in Africa and Latin American markets saw a dip in the export value. He said, In FY 2015-16, two blockbuster drugs had their patent period expired. It helped the pharma sector greatly as it notched up $16.89 billion in exports. With no major drugs in the 2017 fiscal, the pharma sector has seen a near-flat year. Till February 2017, the pharma sector has exported drugs worth $15.21 billion and this is expected to touch $16.14 billion. When asked about the reason behind the dip in exports, he added: Price erosion in African and Latin American market has played a role in the dip. On USFDA regularly sending observations against Indian pharma firms, Mr Bhaskar said, India is exporting 35 per cent of drugs manufactured here to the United States. Therefore its only logical that USFDA inspect the Indian firms more regularly and throughly to protect its citizens. Mr Bhaskar also took a jibe at the media for hyping about USFDA observations. Observations are similar to a showcause notice and only 10% of the complaints are really serious while the rest only need 2-3 days to comply with standards. He also announced that Hyderabad would host the IPHEX 2017 from April 27-29. Ranbir will be playing the mercurial actor in Rajkumar Hirani's highly anticipated biopic. Mumbai: Ranbir Kapoor inarguably is among the top young lead actors in the country today, largely owing to his immense talent and versatility. However, Rajkumar Hirani's upcoming biopic on mercurial actor Sanjay Dutt remains his biggest and most sensational project till date, where he will be seen playing the eponymous star. While pictures of Ranbir sporting long locks, also 90's Sanjay Dutt had gone viral, the actor has pulled a shocker with his latest look for the film. Ranbir has phenomenally metamorphosed into a middle-aged Sanjay Dutt, with a salt and pepper beard and a receding hairline. The pictures are such that one might need to look twice to realize it's not Sanjay. The film, which also stars Paresh Rawal, Manisha Koirala, Dia Mirza, Sonam Kapoor, Vicky Kaushal and Anushka Sharma, is slated for a Christmas release, and already has generated sky-high hype. However, the film will face some tough competition with Salman Khan's 'Tiger Zinda Hai,' which is all set to clash with the biopic during the Christmas weekend. But for now, let's just admire Ranbir's transformation. She said that her ad was from 10 years ago and also reminded him of his close relative who had also promoted it. Mumbai: While the debate over promoting fairness creams has been going on since a long time, some of the biggest Bollywood celebrities have come on board such brand endorsements. Abhay Deol made headlines on Wednesday when he took to social media to slam celebrities like Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone, John Abraham, Sonam Kapoor, Shahid Kapoor, Ileana DCruz, Vidya Balan, Sidharth Malhotra for promoting fairness creams as it was propagating racism. The actor shared pictures of the ads they featured in and gave interesting captions for the pictures. Out of all the celebrities, Abhays Raanjhanaa and Aisha co-star Sonam was the only one to respond to the criticism. The actress reminded Abhay how he had conveniently skipped his cousin Esha Deols ad also promoting a fairness cream. Abhay responded by saying that even that was wrong too. Sonam also said that she had shot for her particular ad ten years ago and was not aware of the ramifications then but complimented him for bringing up the issue. However, for reasons unknown Sonam later deleted the tweets. It would also be interesting to see what Shah Rukh, Deepika and other stars also have to say about it. The book is taught at various schools affiliated to CBSE, which clarified that it 'doesn't recommend any books by private publishers'. New Delhi: Excerpts from a class XII Physical Education textbook defining 36-24-36 as the "best body shape for females" have sparked an outrage on social media with critics demanding that the text be withdrawn. The book titled "Health and Physical Education" written by Dr VK Sharma and published by Delhi-based New Saraswati House, is taught at various schools affiliated to CBSE. CBSE, however, clarified that it "does not recommend any books by private publishers in its schools". "36-24-36 shape of females is considered the best. That is why in Miss World or Miss Universe competitions, such type of shape is also taken into consideration," read an excerpt from the chapter "Physiology and Sports" which is going viral. Various Twitter users shared picture of the mentioned text and demanded that the publishers withdraw the content and schools replace the book in their curriculum. In a statement, the CBSE said, "Schools are expected to exercise extreme care while selecting books of private publishers and the content must be scrutinised to preclude any objectionable content that hurts the feeling of any class, community, gender, religious group. Schools have to take responsibility of the content of the books prescribed by them." This, however, is not the first incident about improper content being found in textbooks taught in CBSE schools in recent months. Excerpts from a class IV environmental science textbook that suggested students to "kill a kitten" as part of an experiment had gone viral on social media, forcing the publisher to withdraw it from the market last month. Similarly, a class XII Sociology book cited "ugliness" and physical disability of a girl as reasons behind the dowry issue prevalent in the country. The HRD Ministry had last month said that CBSE has no mechanism to evaluate the quality of textbooks of private publishers. "There is no mechanism to evaluate the quality of textbooks of private publishers. The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has no mandate to prescribe or recommend the textbooks of private publishers in its affiliated schools," Minister of State for HRD Upendra Kushwaha had said in response to a written question in Lok Sabha. 'There were, in fact, 5 ministers in Justin Trudeau govt who were Khalistani sympathisers and I will not have any truck with them,' he said. Chandigarh: Terming Canadian Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan a Khalistani sympathiser, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Wednesday said he would not meet him during his expected visit to India later this month. Harjit Sajjan is a Khalistani sympathiser and so was his father, the Chief Minister alleged during a programme in a private TV channel. There were, in fact, five ministers in the Justin Trudeau government who were Khalistani sympathisers and I will not have any truck with them, he claimed. On the issue of beef ban, the Punjab Chief Minister said, people has the right to and should be allowed to eat whatever they want. Amarinder also made it clear he was not in favour of a ban on Pakistani artistes, and said he would be happy to invite them to Punjab and would also love to visit Pakistan again. Urging New Delhi to be wary of China on the other border, he said it is time to mend fences and make friends with Pakistan. Recalling Englands War of Roses, the Chief Minister said the India-Pakistan tension is going the same way and needs to give way to peace. Asserting that there a deliberate malicious attempt by vested interests to pull down Rahul Gandhi, he urged the people to give the Congress vice president a chance. Amarinder said he had always found Rahul Gandhi extremely perceptive and willing to listen, besides being open to suggestions and ideas. He admitted that the AAP had posed a challenge in the recently-concluded assembly polls, and claimed that their failure to project a Punjabi for the Chief Ministers post cost them heavy AAP had no future unless they change their style of functioning, the Chief Minister said and states have to work with the Centre and it is important to maintain a working relationship. Amarinder claimed that He had excellent relations with the previous NDA government at the Centre during his last tenure as the Chief Minister of Punjab. Referring to his governments crackdown on drugs, he said with the STF launching a crackdown, things were moving in the right direction. Hundreds of youngsters were voluntarily coming to the rehabilitation centres and the anti-drugs helpline had so far received more than 4,000 calls, Amarinder said He, however, ruled out formation of an Unified Command of the northern Indian states, including Jammu and Kashmir, to fight drugs and terrorism. Responding to a question, Amarinder said though the NIA had given a clean chit to former Gurdaspur SP Salwinder Singh in the Pathankot terror attack, he had not done the same and would bring the police officer to book. On the contentious SYL issue, the Chief Minister reiterated his stand that the state had no water to spare and pointed out that even Prime Minister Narendra Modi had taken note of his concern on the issue. Only 576 voters of the total 34,169 cast their votes across all polling stations till 2 pm. Women coming out from a polling station after casting their vote for Srinagar Parliamentary constituency of Jammu and Kashmir at Budgam. (Photo: PTI/File) Srinagar: Only 1.68 per cent voters cast their franchise till 2 pm at 38 polling stations of Srinagar Lok Sabha constituency where repolling was ordered by the EC following violence during Sunday's polls for the prestigious seat. Only 576 voters of the total 34,169 cast their votes across all polling stations till 2 pm, officials said in Srinagar. While no votes have been polled in Khansahib Assembly segment so far, only three votes were cast in Budgam segment and 27 votes in Chrar-e-Sharief segment, the officials said, They said Beerwah segment recorded 293 votes and Chadoora saw 253 people cast their votes during the corresponding period. The voting began at 7 am and will end at 4 PM. Barring a stone pelting incident at Soibagh area in Budgam district, the situation in the poll bound areas has been peaceful so far, the officials said. Miscreants pelted stones at polling station at Soibagh but they were chased away by the security forces, they said. There was an altercation between opposition National Congress and ruling PDP workers at Badran in Beerwah area over allegations of bogus voting, the officials said, adding that the issue was later resolved with the intervention of the polling staff and security personnel posted on duty there. Eight people were killed in firing by security forces as unprecedented election-day violence marred the bypoll for Srinagar Lok Sabha seat which saw the voter turnout plunge to an all-time low of 7.14 per cent. Rampaging mobs took to streets in scores of places across the Lok Sabha constituency straddling Srinagar, Budgam and Ganderbal districts, perpetrating wanton violence and arson, even setting ablaze a polling station and attempting to set on fire two others, amid a boycott called by the separatists. Environmentalist Vimlendu Jha said the report by the NGT clearly indicts the Art of Living for damaging the flood plains of Yamuna. New Delhi/Gurugram: Disagreeing with the report of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) holding Sri Sri Ravi Sankar's Art of Living (AOL) foundation responsible for destroying the Yamuna floodplain during the 'World Culture Festival' in 2016, the foundation on Thursday said there is not enough scientific data in the report, which seems arbitrary. "We have a fundamental doubt on this report that has been put out. We don't see enough scientific data on this report, which can then justify and then go to the next step to quantify the amount of 'so called' damage. I have personally gone through that 31-page report, not enough scientific data is available. It still seems very arbitrary," Art of Living spokesperson Jaideep Nath said. He further said there are some photographs in the report which comprise pre-monsoon and post monsoon. "An area, in most of north looks very brown in the month of March-April and through the summer months, then the rain blesses the land and everything becomes green. You cannot say after pictures are brown and the previous ones seem very green. That is not right," he added. He requested the court to evaluate the issue objectively. "There is no damage. They are talking of soil compaction, but in actual the soil is not compact, the nature of the soil is that it cannot get compacted," Nath said. "Our legal team is ready along with the environmentalists who work with us. There has been an unfair accusation made that art of living has damaged something," he added. Meanwhile, environmentalist Vimlendu Jha said the report by the NGT clearly indicts the Art of Living for damaging the flood plains of Yamuna. "It clearly says that almost 119 hectares of the flood plain have been completely destroyed. It also says that it will take almost Rs. 40 crore and minimum 10 years to restore the flood plains," he said. "All the vegetations have been destroyed, all the small water bodies on the bank of Yamuna has been destroyed. If someone has damaged the environment, however powerful that organization is, it needs to pay and the responsibility needs to be fixed," he asserted. The NGT appointed Committee of Experts has said that the rehabilitation of Yamuna floodplains destroyed by AOL's 'World Culture Festival' will cost Rs. 13.29 crores and take almost 10 years. The green panel had last year allowed the AOL to hold the three-day ' World Culture Festival' on the Yamuna flood plains but following the event the former slapped a fine of Rs. five crore as interim environment compensation on the foundation for damaging biodiversity of the ecologically sensitive floodplains. The Art of Living had submitted the final installment of its compensation amounting to Rs. 4.75 crore in June 2016. The foundation had deposited the compensation amount through demand draft to the DDA on June 3, 2016. Thousands of security personnel were deployed across Budgams five segments ahead of the re-poll. Srinagar: The re-poll held on Thursday at 38 polling stations located in Jammu and Kashmirs central district of Budgam, the worst-hit by violence during by-poll to prestigious Srinagar Lok Sabha seat on Sunday, was by and large peaceful. But the voter turnout is embarrassing lowest 2.o2 percent. The re-poll concluded in a peaceful atmosphere. Out of 35,169 voters, a total of 709 voters exercised their right of franchise which amounts to a poll percentage of 2.02, said J&Ks Chief Electoral Officer Mr. Shantmanu. The by-poll to Srinagar Lok Sabha seat held on Sunday was marred by widespread violence leaving eight people dead and dozens wounded which augmented anger among the people in Kashmir Valley. Also a meager 7.14 percent of over 1.2 million voters turned up to use their democratic right which was the lowest in five decades. This raised questions about the sanctity of this election. The Election Commission (EC) ordered re-poll at 38 polling stations in five Assembly segments of Budgam even though the by-poll to Anantnag Lok Sabha seat scheduled for April 12 was deferred by it till May 25 in view of widespread violence witnessed in Srinagar. Thousands of security personnel were deployed across Budgams five segments ahead of the re-poll. Each area where the re-poll was being held gave the look of a fortress whereas strict security restrictions were imposed elsewhere in the district after invoking Section 144 CrPc. The Internet services available at fixed broadband lines were again suspended for more than six hours on Thursday whereas mobile internet services remain suspended since April 8 night. [Director General of Police, Shesh Paul Vaid, said that the Internet services in the Valley will be fully restored by Thursday night] A vast majority of voters stayed away from the polling as no votes were polled at 27 out of 38 polling stations, the official sources said. The 2.02 percent turnout is the lowest in the election history of Jammu and Kashmir, they added. Witnesses and official sources said that while not a single vote was polled at 27 polling stations, three out of 7,122 votes were cast in Budgam, 261 out of 14,837 in Chadoora, 58 out of 8,126 in Charar-e-Sharief and 357 out of 4, 233 in Beerwah segments. The Kashmiri separatists have termed the lowest turnout as their victory and said that the same should service as eye-opener to New Delhi and its stooges in the State. The alliance of key separatist leaders Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik which had asked the people to boycott the elections on the premise that any such exercise held within the ambit of Indian Constitutions cannot be a substitute to promised plebiscite said in a statement here, Delhi and its henchmen must stop these flop shows and foolish moves as these are proving a nuisance and a reason for continuous bloodshed. The Mirwaiz also wrote on micro-blogging site Twitter.com The utter contempt people of #Kashmir have shown towards farce called election, an eye-opener for those who cant read writing on the wall. Former Chief Minister and opposition National Conference working president, Omar Abdullah, while reacting to 2.02 percent voter turnout tweeted If you thought things couldnt get worse than the 7 % we saw on the 9th of April. Though the CEO said the entire exercise was a peaceful affair and thanked people and officials for making it so, street clashes were reported from a few areas of Budgam during or soon after the re-poll was over. The security forces fired teargas canisters and shotgun pellets to disperse stone-throwing crowds while the former were withdrawing from poll duty in NasurUllah Pora village of Budgam. The locals alleged that the security forces ransacked some residential houses and damaged stationary cars and other vehicles in the area, the charge denied by the authorities. Clashes were reported also from Beerwah, Soibug, Magh-e-Mehtab and a couple of other areas but these were marginal when compared to Sundays violence and mayhem witnessed across the constituency, the police sources said. The by-poll result will be declared on April 15. The by-poll to the two Lok Sabha seats in Kashmir Valley- Srinagar and Anantnag-were necessitated by the resignation of sitting members of ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) including its president Mehbooba Mufti. While Ms. Mufti who was elected from home constituency Anantnag in the 2014 elections quit her Lok Sabha seat to fulfil the Constitutional obligation following her appointment as Chief Minister, her party colleague Tariq Hameed Karra resigned from both the PDP and Parliament in protest against its forging an alliance with ideologically-divergent BJP to form coalition government in the State. The voting in Anantnag is scheduled to be held on Wednesday. The Centre had earlier told the court it was not feasible to introduce Urdu as one of the mediums for NEET from current academic year. New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday directed the central government to include Urdu as a language in National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test (NEET), a common entrance test for admissions in MBBS and BDS courses across the country, exam from academic session 2018-19 onwards. A bench comprising justices Dipak Misra, A M Khanwilkar and M M Shantanagoudar told the petitioner, who has sought a direction for making Urdu as a medium for NEET 2017 scheduled on May 7, that it would not be possible for the government to include Urdu this year. "We direct the Union of India to include Urdu as a language in NEET examination from academic session 2018-19 onwards," the bench said. When the counsel for the petitioner insisted that Urdu language should be included in NEET examination from this year itself, the bench said, "the whole problem is that this year it is not possible." "There are lots of difficulties. Please try to understand that we can't ask them (Centre) to do miracles. The examination is on May 7 and today is April 13. Lots of process is involved in this," the bench said. Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar, appearing for the Centre, said that they were not opposed to the suggestion of conducting NEET examination in Urdu medium also from 2018 academic year onwards. The solicitor general had on March 31 told the Supreme Court that a students' body seeking NEET examination in Urdu language has accused the Centre of being communal. The submission was made while referring to the affidavit filed by Students Islamic Organisation of India (SIO) through its national secretary Thouseef Ahamad. The Centre had told the court it was not feasible to introduce Urdu as one of the mediums for the NEET from the current academic year. At present, NEET is being conducted in ten languages -- Hindi, English, Gujarati, Marathi, Oriya, Bengali, Assamese, Telegu, Tamil and Kannada languages. The court had earlier sought reply from the Centre, MCI, DCI and CBSE on the plea suggesting making Urdu as a medium for NEET 2017. Lets not let things drift. It is in the national interest of Pakistan to have good relations with India, Mr Kasuri said. New Delhi: The news item Pak envoy calls Jadhav terrorist that appeared in this newspaper on April 12 erroneously mentions that the event Improving Indo-Pak Relations organised by the Centre for Peace and Progress at the India International Centre in New Delhi was cancelled. The event was held as per schedule and the participants at the event included former Pakistan foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, former Union minister Mani Shankar Aiyar, former BJP leader Sudheendra Kulkarni, PDP MP Muzzaffar Beg, senior advocate Ram Jethmalani and Prof Bhim Singh, among others, said O.P. Shah, the events organiser. Speaking at the event, former Pakistan foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri said both neighbours should not stop the process of dialogue. Lets not let things drift. It is in the national interest of Pakistan to have good relations with India, Mr Kasuri said. A solution based on force is not tenable. Pakistan can do nothing and neither can India. What has force got us? Simply outwitting each other will not work, he added. These remarks by the former Pakistani leader come at a time when the Pakistani authorities have sentenced Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav to death on charges of espionage. Pakistan Army Chief Qamar Javed Bajwa said that there would be no compromise on Mr Jadhavs death sentence. File photo of former Indian naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav who has been sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on charges of 'espionage'. (Photo: PTI) New Delhi/Islamabad: India is placing its fourteenth request to Pakistan for consular access to former Indian naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav through the Indian high commission in Islamabad, government sources said in New Delhi on Thursday. Indias ministry of external affairs (MEA) also said it had no information on reports that a former Pakistan Army officer of the rank of lieutenant colonel had been kidnapped near the Indo-Nepal border on the Nepalese side, sparking speculation that a prisoner swap was being considered as a last option by the government to save Mr Jadhav, who has been sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court. However, Pakistan Army Chief Qamar Javed Bajwa said that there would be no compromise on Mr Jadhavs death sentence. Pakistan has ignored 13 previous requests by India over the past about one year for consular access to Mr Jadhav. Pakistan has accused Mr Jadhav of carrying out sabotage activities in Balochistan on behalf of India, which has rejected the charges, terming them ridiculous and baseless. Union home minister Rajnath Singh reiterated that India would go to any extent to ensure justice for Mr Jadhav described by the Indian government as a kidnapped, innocent person. On whether Mr Jadhav was carrying a genuine Indian passport under an assumed name, the MEA said ascertaining of any fact would first require consular access to him. The MEA wondered whether any genuine spy would walk into Pakistan with his original passport with him, which is what the Pakistanis have alleged. New Delhi also said it had no knowledge of Mr Jadhavs location in Pakistan or his condition, asserting that the government was making all efforts to get him back. The MEA also said the two countries were in touch through diplomatic channels. MEA spokesperson Gopal Baglay said the Pakistani military courts verdict was verdict was indefensible and against the principles of natural justice, with no due process of law being followed. Referring to the literal meaning of the word Kulbhushan, Mr Baglay said that while Kul meant family, Jadhav was dear not just to his family but to the entire nation. He said the entire country was concerned about his welfare and that the sentiments of all Indians were with him. The issue has triggered fresh tension in Indo-Pak ties and India has warned Pakistan of the consequences Mr Jadhavs hanging could have on their ties and vowed to go out of the way to save him amid pervasive outrage in the country. The court had asked the Centre to provide funds to EC for introduction of VVPAT system with the EVMs. New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the Centre to file its replies by May 8 on petitions filed by the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and a Samajwadi party MLA challenging voting through electronic voting machine without addition of voter verified paper audit trail (VVPAT). A bench of Justices J. Chelameswar and Abdul Nazeer issued notice after hearing senior counsel and former finance minister P. Chidambaram appearing for BSP and SP MLA. The court also permitted Congress, Trinamul Congress and other parties to intervene after senior counsel Kapil Sibal informed that the Congress was also intervening in the matter. At the outset Mr Chidambaram said, We only want a direction to the EC to comply with a 2013 Supreme Court directive which made it mandatory for use of VVPAT in EVMs. EVMs remain highly vulnerable and susceptible to hacking. What one man can invent, another man can hack. Explaining the VVPAT, Mr Chidambaram said if the EVM is fixed to a VVPAT machine, the voter can see whether the symbol the voter presses is the symbol the EVM registers in the system. Verification of the vote is an indispensable part of voting. Only a paper trail can restore the confidence of the people. In the absence of VVPAT, if the voter presses a button on the EVM, he will not know what the machine has recorded. He read out the 2013 Supreme Court judgment which had directed the EC to introduce in a phased manner the paper trail in Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, saying it is an indispensable requirement of free, fair and transparent polls which will restore confidence of the voters. The court had asked the Centre to provide funds to EC for introduction of VVPAT system with the EVMs. MEA spokesperson Gopal Baglay said that Pakistan had not shared with India any details of Kulbhushan Jadhavs location, or his condition. New Delhi: The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Thursday said that the Indian government is not aware of the whereabouts of former naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav, who was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court. MEA spokesperson Gopal Baglay said that Pakistan had not shared with India any details of Kulbhushan Jadhavs location, or his condition. In a press conference, Baglay also said India had no access to the former naval officer, accused by Pakistan of being a R&AW agent. So far Pakistan has denied all our requests for consular access. The so-called legal process done by Pakistan was opaque, Baglay stated. "Jadhav is a kidnapped innocent Indian, who is a retired officer of the Indian Navy and these two facts were communicated to Pakistan more than a year ago," he added. Amarinder Singh had earlier alleged that Sajjan, like his father, is a Khalistani sympathiser. New Delhi: Canada on Thursday described as disappointing and inaccurate the comments allegedly made by Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh that five ministers, including defence minister Harjit Sajjan, in the Justin Trudeau government were Khalistani sympathisers. According to news agency reports, Mr Singh had earlier alleged that Sajjan, like his father, is a Khalistani sympathiser and he (the CM) would not meet him during his scheduled visit to India in April. There are, in fact, five ministers in the Justin Trudeau government who are Khalistani sympathisers, and I will not have any truck with them, Mr Singh was quoted by news agencies as saying. Reacting to the remarks, the Canadian high commission in New Delhi was quoted as saying, The comments regarding Canadas ministers are both disappointing and inaccurate. It also said Canada greatly values its relationship with the people and the government of Punjab, and looks forward to further advancing it. We regret that the chief minister of Punjab is unavailable to meet with Canadas minister of defence. The chief minister is welcome to visit Canada, the high commission was quoted as saying. Mr Siddaramaiah said he was told that the EVMs used in the two by-polls had voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT). Bengaluru: The Congress may be sceptical and carping about the vulnerability of electronic voting machines to tampering, but for chief minister Siddaramaiah, it is not an issue, at least in Karnataka. We cannot say tampering (with EVMs) has taken place in these elections, he said, buoyed by the victory of the Congress candidates in the Nanjangud and Gundlupet Assembly by-polls, in which the party retained both the seats in spite of a tough fight by the BJP. His party had only spoken about the scope for tampering, Mr Siddaramaiah told reporters when asked about his stand on EVMs in the light of the outcome of the by-polls. The chief minister said he had asked the party candidates and agents to ensure that the EVMs were thoroughly checked and also told the officials to educate the voters about them. Mr Siddaramaiah said he was told that the EVMs used in the two by-polls had voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT). His remarks come against the backdrop of a campaign launched by the Congress-led Opposition on alleged EVM tampering after a string of defeats in the Assembly polls, including in Uttar Pradesh where the party was decimated. Ratcheting up pressure on the Election Commission, the Congress had also led an opposition delegation to President Pranab Mukherjee and taken up the issue of alleged EVM tampering with him, noting that it raised bona fide concerns on the possibility of manipulating electoral outcomes. The Congress wants a return of the old ballot paper system but there are divisions within the party on the issue. Former Union minister M. Veerappa Moily reportedly said in an interview that by questioning the reliability of EVMs, the Congress was displaying a defeatist mindset. The the level of preparedness is inadequate to protect public health New Delhi: South Asian nations including India are "vulnerable" to emerging infectious diseases like Zika and Ebola and their level of preparedness is "inadequate" to protect public health, a new analysis on Wednesday said. Inadequate surveillance and uneven health system capacity may accelerate the spread of the emerging infectious diseases in the region, which is already burdened by diseases like tuberculosis, HIV and malaria, an analysis as part of a collection of twelve analyses on health in South Asia published in British Medical Journal (BMJ) said. The analysis pointed out that although sporadic cases of dengue infection were seen in many South Asian countries in the 1960s, regular epidemics only occurred in the early 1990s in India and Sri Lanka. "In India and Sri Lanka, by around 40 years of age 90-95 per cent of adults have been infected with the dengue virus, while 41 per cent have been infected with chikungunya," it said. Noting that Anthrax is endemic in large parts of South Asia, the analysis said that in the border areas of India, Bangladesh, and Myanmar, poor vaccination and surveillance have been accompanied by "increasing" anthrax cases, which prompted Bangladesh to announce a "red alert" in 2010. Noting that rabies remains endemic in eight countries in South East Asia, with 1.4 billion people at risk, the authors in the analysis said that the region contributes about 45 percent of global rabies deaths, while the "rhetoric" on elimination continues to grow. "Brucellosis, bovine tuberculosis, and a range of food-borne diseases contribute to the morbidity and mortality attributable to zoonotic infections but are struggling to gain the attention of policymakers in the subcontinent, despite it resulting in 150 million illnesses, 175,000 deaths, and 12 million disability-adjusted life years," the analysis said. The analysis found that the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus A/H5N1, which was introduced to the subcontinent in 2005 through wild birds, has since become endemic across large parts of northeast India and Bangladesh, across porous international borders. "It has resulted in losses of around USD 500 million," the analysis by Centre for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy (CDDEP) Director Ramanan Laxminarayan and colleagues said."South Asia stands vulnerable to emerging infectious diseases. Examining the vulnerability to emerging and growing infectious disease threats and the capacity to respond to outbreaks, the analysis finds the level of preparedness is inadequate to protect public health," it said. South Asia is defined by the World Bank as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka and is home to a quarter of the world's population. It bears a significant proportion of the global burden of infectious disease, with longstanding battles against TB, HIV and malaria. "Emerging and growing infectious diseases, like Zika, Ebola, MERS-CoV, and avian influenza, are adding to the already significant burden of disease, and their spread may accelerate in the face of factors such as inadequate surveillance and uneven health system capacity. "The current state of affairs appears to result from a severe policy neglect, including a general lack of commitment to the 'One Health' approach in policy discourse, which would consider the interrelation of animal health, human health, and the environment," the authors noted. The analysis found that Nipah virus emerged in Malaysia in the late 1990s, initially being misdiagnosed as Japanese encephalitis (JE), and there have since been frequent outbreaks in Bangladesh and to a lesser extent in India.They said the lack of preventive measures and surveillance has led to some previously sporadic diseases like Nipah virus and Chandipura virus becoming "endemic" in these countries. There has also been a marked rise in incidence, even as mortality rates have decreased, for some diseases, they said. "With rapid shifts in urbanisation and increasing population, South Asia has the opportunity and obligation to implement meaningful policy changes to prepare against emerging infectious diseases.Millions of lives are at stake and betting against the spread of emerging infectious diseases would be irresponsible," said Laxminarayan. The analysis noted that the elimination of polio from many countries in the region, most recently in India, is a "landmark" achievement."At the global scale, South Asia must become more engaged in the health security agenda. The government of India is a founder contributor to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation (CEPI), an initiative that aims to accelerate the development of new vaccines for high threat pathogens. "This leadership is commendable, but such research and development pipelines need to be linked to strengthened surveillance, response, and research platforms within South Asia to ensure that it can be evaluated and implemented locally. Finally, global science communities can help enhance regional conversation to encourage local collaboration," it added. Metropolitan cities are increasingly becoming pet friendly, with taxi services, spas and restaurants especially for pets. Lets say youve had a great evening out, or are enjoying an exotic vacation. Even as you revel, you know that, the only thing on your pets mind is your arrival back home. If only you could treat your pet to something nice! Thats just what we have in Hyderabad now. The city is increasingly becoming pet friendly, with a plethora of services at the pet parents disposal. Sean, from a pet taxi service in the city with a customer, Dodo. Srivatsava Gorthy, a Hyderabadi based in California, has started a pet taxi service, Unikorn. Sean Thomas, the programme manager, explains, Cab drivers are usually apprehensive about customers with pets because they shed fur or there are chances of the pet soiling the seats. Our services help you get your pet to the vet or anywhere else. Some people have said that theyve been waiting for something like this. The service, priced at seven rupees per kilometre, is rather economical. We have had car owners who prefer this service, just so that they dont have to clean up after, adds Sean. A puppy lounging at a pet-friendly cafe The city has also seen a rise in cafes that allow pets, like the Autumn Leaf Cafe in Jubilee Hills, and the Coffee Cup in Secunderabad. The latest addition to this bandwagon is a cafe primarily meant for pet dogs Cafe De Loco, founded by Roochira and Hemant Sakarwal. The open space, with eye-level seating for pet parents and their dogs, was inaugurated by Amala Akkineni. A few months ago, while on a vacation with my family, I started weeping on the flight because all of us were off to have fun, while Pluto (her pet Shih Tzu) was in a homestay. I wanted something special for pets, so that they too can enjoy an evening and socialise with other dogs, says Roochira, who is looking forward to host birthday parties for pets. The dog park at Necklace Road is another paradise for canines. What started in 2013 with just about three to four regulars, now boasts of 200 pets. Sunday mornings are the busiest, but the park is open on weekdays too. Muskaan, of a pet grooming service, highlights how pet grooming has picked up pace in the last three years. Stylish haircuts like spikes and mohawks and body massages are popular. The girl, who was brought to Delhi from Bihar, was 'beaten mercilessly leading to swelling in her eye and several marks on her body'. New Dehi: An eight-year-old girl employed as a domestic help in east Delhi's Pandav Nagar area was allegedly assaulted by her employers following which she was rescued by the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW). The minor girl, approached neighbours for help, who called up the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) helpline. "The girl was brought from Bihar and made to work as a domestic help. Last evening the girl was beaten mercilessly leading to swelling in her eye and several marks on her body. The girl was so traumatised that she ran to a neighbour's house crying, who informed us," a DCW official said. "The girl has been rescued and placed in a shelter home. Police is investigating the issue and we have been told that the employers are absconding. The victim's parents have been informed about the incident and they are coming from Bihar," he added. The accused was arrested the next day and booked for attempt to murder and under the Arms Act. New Delhi: A Class XII student was allegedly shot at outside south Delhi's Saket District Centre following a brawl in a pub, police said today. The student, Ankit Meena had gone to the pub with his friends on Sunday. On the dance floor of the pub, when he was trying to get out, Ankit brushed past Bhanu who got angry, they said. Bhanu allegedly got into a scuffle with him and later shot at Ankit while his friends had gone to get the car, police said. The accused was arrested the next day and booked for attempt to murder and under the Arms Act, they said. Ankit is a student of Government Boys School in J block area of Saket. His father has a furniture business while his mother is a homemaker, police said. Dan Crawford | April 12, 2017 7:58 pm by Barkley Rosser {originally published at Econospeak) For the world as a whole and the US in particular, when it is put like that it is pretty obvious: China. It has the worlds largest population, largest economy in PPP terms, a rising military, expanding interests around the world, including making territorial demands on several neighbors, not to mention being a nuclear superpower as well as cyberpower, and more. Syria has a population of 22 million and an economy half the size of Puerto Ricos. It is not a major oil exporter. However, last week it certainly looked like Syria was more important. President Trump meets with President Xi at Mar-a-Lago, and almost nothing is reported about the meeting other than some vague remarks. Important matters such as trade policy (the US has initiated an anti-dumping suit against China in steel), South China Sea issues, North Korea nuclear testing issues (US has just sent a major naval group towards the place), issues over currency management (with Trump long charging China with currency manipulation, even though it is now widely accepted that while they did it in the past the Chinese are not doing so now), climate change (where China is becoming world leader on the international policy stage while Trump claims that global warming is a Chinese hoax). They barely had a press conference, and what really went on in the meeting remains largely mysterious. So, wow, much better to have the headlines and the commentaries taken up with the apparently one-shot firing of 59 Tomahawk missiles at a base in Syria, after apparently warning both the Russians and the Syrians we were going to do it, in response to a chemical attack in Syria that killed about 80 civilians, including some children. This was certainly a bad attack, but it remains unclear if it was the Syrian military or some rebel groups, although probably it was the government, and if it was the government, it is unclear if it was done by some local commander on his own or with the explicit orders of President Assad, and if the latter, was it done with the foreknowledge of their allies, the Russians, and most especially President Putin. The Russians and Iranians are claiming that the rebels did the chem weapons attacke and are denouncing the US attack. But who really knows? I sure as heck do not, and I am not sure anybody in the US government knows either, especially given the 25 reasons that have since been given for this by various administration officials. There is also the weird matter that if it was the Syrian government, they probably did it in response to Trump declaring that we did not favor overthrowing Assad, which was previous US official policy, alhough in fact little had been done in a long time to do that, with the US effectively cooperating with the Russians and Syrians against Daesh/ISIS, if quietly and not fully. So on the relation between this stuff and China, once Xi Jinping got home the Chinese media jumped all over Trump for the missile attack, saying almost certainly accurately that a major reason Trump did it was to distract people from all the investigations of his Russia ties. See? He is doing something Russia does not like, and Putin has announced no more cooperation on saying where planes are flying in Syria. Wow, what a great outcome. And that Xi appears not happy with Trump probably means that Trump was as unpleasant on trade to Xi in private as he was to Merkel in public, not to mention to the Mexicans. And we know Xi is not happy with this new naval maneuver with regard to North Korea. Indeed, some people think Trump did the missile attack to scare North Korea and China, although it is unclear Trump is really smart enough to think that one through. So for all the official happy talk, it looks like this very important meeting did not go well, although it is not clear that not having all those commentators praising Trump for being presidential while shooting off missiles in Syria would have helped on this more important matter of US-Chinese relations. As a final point I want to remind people of something that I have seen zero commentators mention, even the astute Juan Cole who does at least note that what is going on in Syria looks like classic power politics not driven by economics. That is that the Russia-Syria alliance is a strategic and deep one. The only Russian naval base outside of Russia is at Tarsus in Syria, in Latakia Province where the ruling Alawis are dominant. It was rebel advances into that province threatening their base that led the Russians to engage in massive bombing raids to support the Assad government, and Cole does note that not using chemical weapons (which the Syrians were supposed to have gotten rid of) will mean they will bomb a lot instead, and horrible as chem weapons are, thousands of children were killed in the bombing in Aleppo. In any case, that naval base has been there since 1971 in Soviet times. This is a deep strategic relationship, and this must be kept in mind. The book, titled Health and Physical Education, is taught at various schools affiliated to CBSE. New Delhi: A day after a social media outrage broke over excerpts from a Class 12 textbook defining a perfect female body, Union HRD minister Prakash Javadekar on Thursday condemned the said definition as sexist. He has ordered action in the matter even as the private publisher has decided to stop the printing and sale of the book. Excerpts from the Physical Education textbook, which went viral and irked negative reactions read, 36-24-36 shape of females is considered the best. That is why in Miss World or Miss Universe competitions, such type of shape is also taken into consideration. Various Twitter users shared picture of the mentioned text and demanded that the publishers withdraw the content and schools replace the book in their curriculum. The book, titled Health and Physical Education, is taught at various schools affiliated to CBSE. The text is unacceptable. I have instructed the officers to take appropriate action, Mr Javadekar said. CBSE, however, clarified that it does not recommend any books by private publishers in its schools. Schools are expected to exercise extreme care while selecting books of private publishers and the content must be scrutinised to preclude any objectionable content that hurts the feeling of any class, community, gender, religious group. Schools have to take responsibility of the content of the books prescribed by them. The publishers also announced that they have stopped the printing, selling and distribution of the revised book with immediate effect. We do review our books from time to time but some points have remained uncorrected due to an oversight and hence the book will again be reviewed by our editorial board and any inconsistencies found will be corrected, the publishers said. The governments counsel said that she was unaware of the NGOs objections and sought time to file replies to the allegations. Mumbai: Expressing concerns over malnutrition-related deaths in Melghat, activists complained to the Bombay high court that no action has been taken by authorities to curb the same among children aged 0-5 years in the region, despite giving presentations on the same to the court a couple of months back. The court has asked the authorities to submit reply within two weeks. A division bench of Justices V.M. Kanade and C.V. Bhadang was hearing the public interest litigation filed by Dr Rajendra Burma regarding the plight of tribal areas where malnutrition deaths among infants was very high. The court had held a special hearing on March 1 wherein various government authorities and NGOs working in the area were present. The authorities had made presentations on the measures taken to curb and address the malnutrition deaths issue. The court had asked the NGOs present, to file replies in light of the presentations. On Wednesday, while referring to government statistics for the period of April 2016February 2017 of Melghat area, the NGOs pointed out that the number of deaths had risen contrary to the governments claims and the presentations were an eyewash. Purnima Upadhay of NGO Khoj said, The statistics show that in 11 months the number of deaths in children in the age group of 0-5 is 485 while the number of still born cases are 172. These are statistics of Melghat alone, the number would be higher if one takes cases from other regions too. She further pointed out that no official took the trouble to visit the affected areas and none of the assurances given to the court through the presentation were being implemented. She also informed that the government websites to address the malnutrition issue were non-functional. The governments counsel said that she was unaware of the NGOs objections and sought time to file replies to the allegations. The court allowed the same and gave them two weeks keeping the matter for hearing on May 3. The PACs report on the woman and child welfare department in the state was tabled in the House on April 7. Activists have expressed fears that if the suggestion were to be included in the law, it would be misused widely and malpractices would increase. Mumbai: Undeterred by the uproar cause by the state Public Accounts Committee (PAC) suggestion to make pre-natal sex determination and tracking of pregnant women mandatory, PAC chairman Gopaldas Agarwal has defended his panels controversial suggestion. Mr Agarwal said, We have put a thought across the table for debate and discussion. If one wants to accept it, its okay; and if one wants to drop it, theres no issue. Our aim is to improve the child sex ratio in the state, and it has been proved that 1994s Pre-conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PcPNDT) Act has failed. Therefore, we all need to think out of box to find the solution to this problem. The PACs report on the woman and child welfare department in the state was tabled in the House on April 7. Social and womens activists have slammed the suggestion, claiming it would weaken the cause. They said, instead, the PcPNDT Act must be strengthened. However, buttressing his argument, Mr Agarwal said, The PcPNDT Act holds only doctors responsible. But it is the social responsibility of parents to save the girl child. Our suggestion could help create social awareness. If we start tracking pregnant woman with female foetuses along with the district health officer, the doctor and the woman concerned plus an NGO that is experienced in this field, it could improve the situation. Activists have expressed fears that if the suggestion were to be included in the law, it would be misused widely and malpractices would increase. According to Mr Agarwal, If we keep a watch on such women with this long chain of tracking, it will definitely put pressure on her and her family members. He added that doctors would also be held responsible for their misdeeds. I am not protecting doctors. They will be booked as per the law if they do anything illegal. PAC guidelines are not mandatory for the House or while making or amending laws. But many a time, these suggestions are taken as guidelines. In this case, Mr Agarwal firmly said that he didnt feel it was wrong to make such suggestions. Everyone is free to speak. If the state government or legislative Houses thinks that our opinion is good, they can discuss and suggest amendments in the PcPNDT Act to the Centre. He added the panels was not the ultimate solution and the people concerned could some of their own to make a strong provision. Florence Schechter is trying to raise the money through crowdfunding and other social media The woman thought of the idea while she was research for a video on animal ideas and she didn't find information on vaginas in general. (Photo: Youtube) Talking about orgasms has always been tough for women and not many are able to talk about everything related to the vagina too. Recently, a UK woman decided to do something about the lack of enough information about the vagina and is now on a mission to open the world's first vagina museum by crowdfunding for it. According to a report in the Metro, Florence Schechter was troubled when she didnt find enough information on vaginas when she recently wanted to make a video on animal vaginas. The Youtuber then moved to check about vaginas in general but did not find much so she thought of making a vagina museum like they have one for penises in Iceland. Florence has now launched a campaign to open the worlds first vagina museum that would educate people and celebrate it at the same time. The Youtuber now has a dedicated Instagram account for the cause and is hoping people would help her achieve the task of making the museum Mobile network has not yet reached around 50,000 villages across the country, the government said today. There are many locations in the Northeast, Naxal-hit states, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep where mobile network has not reached yet, Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha said in Lok Sabha. "We have never claimed that mobile network has reached all over the country. There are around 50,000 villages where mobile network has not reached," he said. The Minister said he has written to all states to inform his Ministry how many of the villages in their state the mobile network has not reached. Sinha said an ambitious project 'BharatNet' is being implemented for providing 100 mbps broadband connectivity to all Gram Panchayats, approximately 2,50,000, in the country. The phase-I to connect 1,00,000 GPs is being implemented currently, he said. "As on March 31, 2017, trenching and ducting has been completed for 11,294 km (4,780 GPs), Optical Fibre Cable has been laid for 12,172 km (4,213 GPs) and 443 GPs have been provided with broadband connectivity," he said. Replying to a supplementary, the Minister said the problem of call drops has been resolved to a great extent and as per a survey of TRAI, the call drop situation has been improved by 60 per cent. He said with the allocation of more spectrum through auction and installations of BTS (Base transceiver station) in more areas, call drop problem has been improving. Replying to another question, Sinha said the government has no plans to offer shares of BSNL to its employees and the company is making operating profit in last two years after increasing the customer base. Trump said Xi paused for 10 seconds and then asked the interpreter to say it again. I didnt think that was a good sign. US President Donald Trump and First Lady in meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife (Photo: AP) Washington: US President Donald Trump gave the order to strike Syria with dozens of cruise missiles during dessert with visiting Chinese leader Xi Jinping, he said in an interview aired Wednesday. We had finished dinner. Were now having dessert. And we had the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that youve ever seen and President Xi was enjoying it, Trump told the Fox Business television network. And I was given the message from the generals that the ships are locked and loaded, what do you do? Trump said. And we made a determination to do it, so the missiles were on the way. And I said, Mr. President, let me explain something to you -- this was during dessert -- weve just fired 59 missiles. Trump said Xi paused for 10 seconds and then asked the interpreter to say it again. I didnt think that was a good sign. But then, Trump said, Xi responded that anybody that was so brutal and uses gases to do that to young children and babies, its OK.... He was OK with it. He was OK. Trump had been hosting Xi at his private Florida resort Mar-a-Lago on April 6. The US missiles struck a Syrian air base in retaliation for Syrias alleged chemical attack on a rebel-held town, killing 87 civilians, many of them children. Pentagon chief Jim Mattis said Tuesday there was no doubt the Syrian regime was behind the chemical attack. But Russia, Syrias ally, disputes that, saying no evidence has been produced. Trump, in his interview, said all 59 missiles fired hit their targets and called the display of military prowess unbelievable, amazing, incredible, brilliant and genius. Trump regularly spends his weekends at his Mar-a-Lago resort, which his staff has nicknamed the Southern White House. They feature Sikh families explaining how the world's fifth-largest religion aligns with American values The ads, which will air in part on CNN and Fox News, make no mention of the more than 300 hate crimes (Photo: Representational Image/AFP) New York: Sikhs in the United States are launching a million-dollar awareness campaign that seeks to stop violent attacks against followers by explaining more about who they are and what they believe. The "We are Sikhs" campaign set to launch Friday is funded by Sikh leaders who have become frustrated with attacks that have persisted since Sept. 11, 2001, from the angry and uninformed who see followers' beards and turbans and wrongly believe they are Muslims. The ads, which will air in part on CNN and Fox News, make no mention of the more than 300 hate crimes reported by Sikhs in the US since the 2001 attacks. Rather, they feature Sikh families explaining how the world's fifth-largest religion aligns with American values of tolerance, religious freedom and opportunity for all. Monitoring group says Pyongyang may launch its sixth nuclear test, Kim oversees a special forces operation. Washington: North Korea is ready to launch a nuclear test at its Punggye-ri nuclear test site, the 38 North monitoring group reported. The 38 North analysis group described the test site as primed and ready. Commercial satellite imagery of North Koreas Punggyeri nuclear test site from April 12 shows continued activity around the North portal, new activity in the main administrative area, and a few personnel around the sites command centre, the North Korea-related analysis website said. Meanwhile, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has overseen a special forces commando operation, state media said on Thursday. The Norths state-run Korean Central News Agency said Mr Kim watched from an observation post as special forces dropped from light transport planes like hail and mercilessly blew up enemy targets. The North has said it is ready for war with the US, while speculation is mounting that it might conduct a nuclear or missile test to mark the 105th birthday anniversary of founder Kim Il-Sung on Saturday. The Voice of America said on Wednesday night, quoting US government and other sources, that North Korea has apparently placed a nuclear device in a tunnel and it could be detonated on Saturday. President Donald Trumps administration has been forceful in its warnings to Pyongyang that leave military options on the table. The threat carries extra weight after the US strike on a Syrian air base last week. We are sending an armada. Very powerful, Mr Trump has said, referring to a strike group heading to the Korean peninsula in a show of force against Kim. The statue of lady justice has ruffled feathers in the Muslim-majority nation with hardliners saying it is a Greek god. Dhaka: Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has been accused of kowtowing to hardline Islamists after expressing dislike for a controversial statue that religious radicals want removed from the Supreme Court. The statue of lady justice has ruffled feathers in the Muslim-majority nation, with hardliners staging massive protests in recent weeks against what they say is a Greek god unbefitting Bangladesh. Protesters want the statue of the blindfolded woman holding scales, said to represent justice, destroyed and replaced with a Koran, despite Bangladeshs secular Constitution. Ms Hasina, who had kept the furore at arms length, broke her silence late on Tuesday after inviting top Islamist leaders to her residence where she described the statue as ridiculous. I dont like it myself. Its being called a Greek statue, but how did a Greek statue get here? she said in comments published in online news portal bdnews24.com. Court officials have defended the statue as a symbol of justice while secular groups expressed dismay that Ms Hasina and the secular ruling party, the Awami League, was seemingly siding with hardliners on the issue. The government and Awami Leagues kowtowing to this type of demand will be suicidal for Bangladesh, Shahriar Kabir, secretary of Bangladeshs leading secular rights group, said. Ms Hasina also said on Tuesday her government would recognise degrees from hardline madrassas, paving the way for millions of religious scholars to qualify for jobs. UN said at his daily briefing here in response to a question on the death sentence awarded to Jadhav by a Pakistani military court. United Nations: Amid spiralling Indo-Pak tensions over the death sentence handed down by Pakistan to Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav, the UN on Thursday underlined the need for the two countries to engage in dialogue. However, the world body said it was not in a position to comment on Jadhavs case. We are not in the position to judge the process, to have a position on this particular (Kulbhushan Jadhav) case, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres spokesman Stephane Dujarric said at his daily briefing here in response to a question on the death sentence awarded to Jadhav by a Pakistani military court. Overall in terms of relations between India and Pakistan, we continue to underline the need for the parties to find a peaceful solution through engagement and dialogue, Dujarric said. His remarks come just days after Pakistan army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa approved Jadhavs execution after a military court sentenced him to death for espionage and sabotage activities, evoking a sharp reaction from India which warned Islamabad to consider the consequences on bilateral ties if he is hanged. Reacting strongly to Jadhavs sentencing, India has said that if the ruling was carried out, the government and people of India will regard it as a case of premeditated murder. Dina Ali had her passport confiscated, was gagged, tied with duct tape, wrapped in a sheet by two men at Manila airport in Philippines. She claimed that her family wanted to kill her and that Philippines and Saudi governments violated human rights and international law. (Photo: Videograb) A Saudi woman was gagged, tied with duct tape and wrapped in a sheet by two men at Manila airport in Philippines. According to a report in The Australian, Dina Ali Lasloom, 24, trying to flee from her family in Saudi Arabia, landed in Manila early on Monday morning, from where she intended to go to Australia and seek asylum. She said she had also obtained a tourist visa in secrecy. However, her passport, boarding pass and travel documents were confiscated by Philippines Airlines staff and they said that they had orders to not allow her to board her flight to Sydney. She said in a video, They took me and locked me up for thirteen hours, just because Im a Saudi woman, with the co-operation of the Saudi embassy. She claimed that her family wanted to kill her and that Philippines and Saudi governments violated human rights and international law. She alleged that they had confined her and treated her like a criminal. Saudi Arabian women are not allowed to travel without approval from their male guardian, and Saudi embassies are known to assist families in tracking down women who have fled abroad, said the report. A Canadian tourist Meagan Khan who came to help her at the airport was quoted as saying that Lasloom said her family, her uncles, are very strict and abusive to her, so she ran away. Khan said Laslooms family forcibly asked her to choose between being a teacher or a slave - and so the victim worked as a teacher. But she was not allowed to leave the house without being escorted by a man. Khan also lent her phone to the victim so that she could put up posts on Twitter. On Monday afternoon, two men accompanied by a woman from the Kuwaiti embassy approached Lasloom, who identified the men as her uncles and Saudi diplomats. One of the men claimed he was her father but she angrily denied it and insisted that he was her uncle. The tearful victim kept saying, theyll kill me if I go back. The police interviewed her before she asked for a lawyer. A local lawyer was hired for USD 1200, who Lasloom said was hired by her family so that it could be claimed that she had received legal representation. Feminist activist Moudhi Aljohani said that police officers fooled Lasloom into moving to Terminal 1 where she was forcibly put on a Saudi Airlines flight. She screamed and physically resisted, attracting attention of other passengers. She alleged that her uncles had assaulted her in front of the Filipino officials. It is believed that Lasloom has been detained with an Amnesty International representative, said the report. Ex-Muslim activist Taleb Al Abdulmohsen, who has helped people flee Saudi Arabia, said that Lasloom did not explain her circumstances to him. But he said that most of the people who sought his help were either domestic violence victims, gay or had rejected Islam. Abdulmohsen recollected an incident where one woman who attempted to flee to New Zealand last year, was nabbed in South East Asia and sent back to Saudi Arabia, where a male relative sexually abused her. Words such as enemy and foreign spy agency by the foreign office are often used to suggest the involvement of India and R&AW. Islamabad: Pakistan claimed on Thursday "foreign spy agencies" may have "trapped" and then abducted one of its former army officers, who has mysteriously disappeared from a Nepalese town close to the Indian border. Lt Col Muhammad Habib Zahir disappeared on April 6 from Lumbini, a Buddhist pilgrimage site near India's border town of Sonauli, where he had apparently gone for a job interview. Foreign Office spokesperson Nafees Zakaria said Zahir was "trapped" and Pakistan was in touch with Nepal to trace him. "He was lured after being offered a job... The role of foreign spy agencies cannot be ruled out," he said, without naming any country. But words such as "enemy" and "foreign spy agency" by the foreign office are often used to suggest the involvement of India and its external intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW). Zahir, who retired from service in October 2014 from the artillery wing of the Pakistan Army, worked for a private firm but had posted his profile online seeking another employment. A caller, who identified himself as Mark Thompson, had reportedly contacted Zahir - via email and telephone - for the job interview and he was provided an air ticket to travel to Nepal. An initial probe by Pakistani security agencies has showed that a phone number registered in the UK was computer-generated to contact Zahir and emails and website domains were registered in India. From Nepal, Zahir had contacted his family last Thursday and since his phone numbers could not be reached. His last message from Lumbini read he had reached his destination. His disappearance has coincided with the death penalty handed down to former India naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav by a Pakistani army court for his involvement in "terrorism and espionage". But Pakistan has repeatedly refused India any consular access to Jadhav. The sentencing has evoked strong reactions from India, with External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj saying the country will go out of its way to secure Jadhav's release. Today, Zakaria warned against linking Zahir's case with Jadhav's as the Indian national was an "irrefutable proof of Indian state's involvement in terrorism, subversion and terror financing." "It would be unreasonable on India's part to link the Jadhav case with Zahir," he said. He said the "R&AW agent was arrested red-handed", who identified himself and has "confessed" in their custody. The foreign office spokesperson also said four terrorists arrested by Sindh Rangers yesterday from Karachi have "confessed" to having "links" with the R&AW. "India remains involved in subversive and terrorist activities and terror financing in Pakistan. Kulbhushan Jadhav is an irrefutable proof. The arrest of four terrorists by Sindh Rangers, yesterday, is also a case in point," he said. "Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to Bangladesh [also] confessed to India's involvement in [then] East Pakistan in 1971," Zakaria said. Zakaria condemned the killing of what he said were 14 Kashmiris by Indian security forces in the past one week. He said 250 others were also injured. He called upon the international community to help stop bloodshed in Kashmir. by Mathias Hariyadi Spiritual retreats are organised in preparation for the renewal of priestly promises. For Indonesias Catholics, seeing so many religious is a source of joy and curiosity. Catholics in Semarang, Malang and Bogor show enthusiasm. Jakarta (AsiaNews) In what is becoming an annual tradition, priests gather during Holy Week across Indonesia for a two-day retreat with their bishop to prepare the renewal of their priestly vows during Mass Chrism. In Jakarta, the ceremony falls on Holy Thursday. Other dioceses have already performed the solemn event in the past few days. This morning, in the capital hundreds of priests and religious attended the Mass in the cathedral celebrated by Archbishop Ignatius Suharyo Hardjoatmodjo. In Semarang, more than 330 priests attended the Chrism Mass in the local cathedral on Tuesday, with great participation of the local community. For Catholics in Indonesia, seeing so many religious together is always a source of joy and curiosity. Fr Sukendar Wignyomartaya told AsiaNews that in anticipation of the service, the archdioceses priests took part in a retreat whose central theme was the apostolic exhortation Amoris laetitia. "Spreading the Word of God in the contemporary social context" was the topic religious discussed in the diocese of Malang during their retreat, which also saw the presence of Mgr Henricus Pidyarto Gunawan. In a brief statement to AsiaNews, the bishop expressed his joy for the enthusiasm with which priests and faithful attend the Chrism Mass in every diocese. The diocese of Bogor, in West Java province, also organised two days of recollection. The main theme of our retreat was the fidelity of us priests to Jesus, the Church and humanity, Fr August Surianto Himawan told AsiaNews. Some 128 are from the Vicariate of Phnom Penh, the others from the apostolic prefectures of Battambang and Kompong Cham. The new converts are mostly young adults with a Buddhist background. In Cambodia, MEP missionary notes that the Church promotes "integral evangelisation", which embraces people in "in all their dimensions". Phnom Penh (AsiaNews/EDA) About 300 Cambodians will be baptised during Holy Week, joining Cambodias 23,000-strong Catholic community. The ceremony will be held on the Easter Vigil, in each of the countrys three ecclesiastical districts: the Apostolic Vicariate of Phnom Penh and the apostolic prefectures of Battambang and Kompong Cham. In the vicariate alone, 128 people will be baptised in a festive service that will unite the whole community. In the recent past, Easter celebrations have become particularly important in Cambodia. The first Mass celebrated after the years of war that devastated the country took place in 1990. That "Easter Sunday Mass has remained in the memory of the faithful as the Resurrection Mass, said Fr Vincent Senechal, vicar general of the Paris Foreign Missions Society (Societe des missions etrangeres de Paris, MEP), who worked in Cambodia as a missionary from 2002 to 2016. The main religion in the nation of 15.9 million inhabitants is Theravada Buddhism (96 per cent). By contrast, Catholics constitute only 0.2 per cent of the population, but their presence in the Southeast Asian nation dates back to the 16th century. In the 1970s, the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot perpetrated mass slaughter. This was followed by Vietnams domination (1979-1989). The result can be seen in the numbers: In 1970, there were 65,000 Catholics; in 1990, there were 5,000. Relations with the authorities and the discreet but steady work of evangelisation of the missionaries have given a new impetus to the countrys Catholic community, which is getting ready to embrace hundreds of new believers. In addition to 300 baptisms, the vitality of the local Church is reflected in the ongoing diocesan investigation on 35 martyrs killed under the bloody Maoist regime, in the ordination of new priests, like Fr Stephane Se Sat last December, and in the construction of new places of worship, like the Chapel of St Therese of the Child Jesus in Takeo, in the Apostolic Vicariate of Phnom Penh. Local Church sources report that the new converts reflect the sociological reality of the country: they are young adults, mostly ethnic Khmer, from a Buddhist background, who heard about the Church through its presence in various social domains, in particular health care, education and vocational training. As Fr Senechal noted, the Church in Cambodia promotes an "integral evangelisation, aimed at developing people in all of their dimensions: socio-economic, educational, professional, spiritual and family." One of the Churchs initiatives of social entrepreneurship is the "Peace Village" set up in late 2015 by Mgr Olivier Schmitthaeusler, which allows disabled people and people living with AIDS to live alongside able-bodied people. by Nirmala Carvalho The desecration was discovered by a faithful who visited the church to pray. The case was registered against unknown persons. Christian Leaders condemns yet another act of intimidation against the Christian minority. "Clear indication of awakening sectarian strife". Mumbai (AsiaNews) - Unknown criminals have desecrated a cross in Santacruz West, an affluent suburb of Mumbai (Maharashtra). The desecration of the cross in the local church took place yesterday. A woman of 42 entered the place of worship around 7 in the morning to pray. She went to the altar and noted that the cross had been "decorated" with a garland of slippers. Speaking to AsiaNews, Sajan K George, president of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), condemns yet another act of intimidation against Christians that falls in a week, Holy Week, already marked by numerous incidents of violence and abuse against the minority and its sacred places. The case was registered against unknown assailants at the local police station in accordance with sections 295 (damage or injuries to a place of worship with intent to insult the religion of any class) and 427 (act of vandalism causing damage amounting 50 rupees) of the Indian penal Code. Speaking to AsiaNews, Sajan K George, President of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC) said, "GCIC decries the desecration of the Holy Cross, which deeply wounds our Religious Sentiments especially during Holy Week, This is most shameful that a garland of slippers was put on the Sacred Corpus of Jesus Christ. In Indian traditions, flower garlands are used to venerate and honour and here the Sacred Body of Jesus was garlanded with slippers- this is a clear indication of rousing communal disharmony and wounding religious sentiments, and a move to incite the Christian people with this shameful act. The president of the GCIC notes that what happened yesterday is the "second episode of desecration in the space of two months in Mumbai, after the decapitated statue of the Virgin in Kurla district". This is even more sad, he concludes, because "Mumbai is the financial and cosmopolitan capital, tolerant of all religions. Here it is really common to see people of all castes and faiths who flock to Marian shrines and bring offerings to the Virgin Mary like coconuts, flowers, candles, and more. So adorning the sacred body of Jesus with a garland of slippers is a malicious act intentionally done". The Interior Ministry reveals the name of attacker, discovered through DNA. Mahmoud Abdallah Hasan Mubarak, already known to the authorities and on a list of "suspects on the run". Continuing investigations to identify even the suicide bomber in Tanta. Coptic Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans celebrate low key Easter in sign of mourning for the victims. Cairo (AsiaNews) - The Egyptian Ministry of the Interior has identified one of the suicide bombers who April 9 last struck the church of Tanta and Alessandria,causing 45 dead and over a hundred injured; the explosions were claimed by the Islamic State (IS), who also announced further violence against the Christian community. In particular, the authorities have revealed the name of the aggressor that struck in Alexandria and assured "further efforts" to trace the suicide bomber who blew himself up in Tanta, during the celebration of Palm Sunday. Ministry sources say that " tests carried out on the remains of the DNA [of the corpse] recovered on site" show that the author of the massacre at St. Mark's Church, in Alexandria, was Mahmoud Abdallah Hasan Mubarak. "He was born in 1986 in Qena, in the south, - says the source - and lived in the Suez province." The identification would take place by comparing the DNA found at the scene with those of a list "of suspects on the run". The alleged bomber was working for an oil company and was linked to a "terrorist network" attack against the Coptic Cathedral of St. Mark in Abassiya in Cairo last December. "The security services - concludes the ministerial source - continue their efforts to identify the suicide bomber who carried out the attack on the church of St. George in Tanta". Meanwhile, the Christian community in Egypt, under a three month a state of emergency in accordance with provisions of President al-Sisi in response to the attacks, is preparing to celebrate a low key Easter in sign of mourning for the victims. Yesterday the Coptic Orthodox Church announced that there will only be celebrations on Easter Sunday, while all other rites will be cancelled. Similarly the Catholics and Anglicans have called off the Easter Vigil on Saturday night. The Christian leaders explain that "considering the situation" all the festivities "were cancelled, with the exception of one celebration" of the Easter Mass. Easter will also be dedicated to the memory and prayer for the victims of the attacks. The traditional delivery of sweets to the children by the Copt Patriarch Tawadros II has also been cancelled. As anticipated to AsiaNews by Fr. Rafic Greiche, spokesman for the Egyptian Catholic Church, the attacks have cast "a shadow" on Easter and stolen "the joy of the feast." However, Pope Francis has confirmed his visit later this month, hoping it will restore confidence and calm to the affected communities who fear "new attacks in the future . The vote scheduled for May 19. Since 1979, the outgoing leader has always won a second term. Grand Ayatollah loyalist , Ebrahim Raisi, to challenge Rouhaniand as well as Hamid Baghaei, former number two of Ahmadinejad who has stunned everyone by announcing his candidacy. The challengers accuse Rouhani of undermining the economy. President responds with data indicating "progress." Tehran (AsiaNews) Irans presidential elections in scheduled for next May 19, sees the nations conservative wing - fragmented into factions often in opposition to each other - looking for a single candidate to beat outgoing moderate President Hassan Rouhani. A task is not easy since the Islamic Revolution of 1979 all of the Republic's leaders have been re-elected for a second term. To avert the debacle of 2013, conservatives have relied on primaries, held on April 9, which have decreed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei loyalist Ebrahim Raisi as main challenger to Rouhanis. Called the "knight" of spiritual guidance and leader of Iran's Shiite establishment, he is a member of the hard-liners who oppose the current leadership. Raisi heads the powerful Astan Quds Razavi charitable foundation, is the guardian of the tomb of Imam Reza, one of the most important sites for Shiite pilgrims in Mashaad, North-east city and the birthplace of the presidential candidate. In the recent past his name even had emerged as a potential replacement for the 77-year old ayatollah Khamenei. For this Raisi stalled before welcoming the nomination. A defeat in the presidential election, in fact, greatly reduces chances of seeking - in the future - the highest and most prestigious office in the country. His profile reassures conservatives and attracts the attention of the most "religious" voters, though his figure does not seem - for now - capable of securing a majority of the vote. Descending - so it is said - from the Prophet and depicted with his black turban, the 56 year old conservative leader has made a career in the judiciary to become, in 2014, the Attorney General of Iran. Another possible challenger is the ultraconservative Hamid Baghaei, a close associate of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And Ahmadinejad is also back at the center of the political stage and announced yesterday, to everyone's amazement, his registration in the lists of candidates for president. In direct contravention to Khameneis instructions, "blocking" the race for the third term in view of this "divisive" figure, the leader of the ultraconservative has defined the words pronounced by the Supreme Leader "just a suggestion." He has the support of the most radical and extremist fringe of the Iranian leadership, which wants a "strong man" to contrast with Donald Trump. Now it is up to the Council of Guardians of the Constitution to assess the applications and announce, on April 27, the official list of candidates. However, rather than religious issues, Raisi and Baghei (and Ahmadinejad himself) intend to focus on issues like poverty and corruption to defeat Rouhani, accusing the incumbent president of having worsened the economic situation of the country. Even the nuclear deal, according to these critics, has not resulted in the much desired kick start to the economy compared to a partial abandonment of the nuclear program and "concessions" to the international community. The economic issue will be central in the next election campaign, and it is no coincidence that, in these days, and even before announcing a candidacy, President Rouhani held a press conference in which he strongly defended the achievements under his mandate. Dismissing criticism from conservatives, the head of state talked about tangible improvements in the agriculture, health, energy and access to the Internet. "In every element considered - said Rouhani - the figures show us that after [the nuclear deal] there is more space for movement and progress" in the economic field. The purchase of aircraft thanks to contracts with Boeing and Airbus will allow 4 billion dollars that the Iranians spend on travel to remain in the coffers of the country. He did not spare harsh criticism of the United States for imposing sanctions on Iran, and having attacked an air base in Syria, one of the key allies of Tehran, in response to an alleged chemical attack by Damascus against rebels and jihadis in the province of Idlib. He called sanctions imposed by Donald Trump in the beginning of this mandate "unreasonable" and accused Washington of acting "as if it thought it were the leader of the world." Conversely, Rouhani held out his hand to the old regional rival, Saudi Arabia, stressing that Tehran is "ready to improve relations" with Riyadh, if " attacks stopped" in neighboring Yemen. China abstains with Kazakhstan and Ethiopia. Bolivia votes with Russia. Trump calls Assad "a butcher" and "animal". Lavrov recalls US failures in Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. Journalist Rober Perry, chemical attack launched from Saudi-Israeli base in Jordan. Pat Buchanan: The 400 thousand deaths in Syria are everyones responsibility. New York (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Russia has vetoed a UN Security Council resolution criticizing the Syrian government for the chemical attack in Khan Sheikhoun (Idlib). The resolution demands the Syrian government cooperate with an investigation by providing information on its military activities on the day of the attack, the names of the squadrons commanders, and access to air bases. The resolution, proposed by the US, Britain and France, had 10 votes in favor, two against (Russia and Bolivia), three abstentions (China, Kazakhstan, Ethiopia). A few hours earlier, US President Donald Trump had called his Syrian counterpart Bashar Assad "a butcher" and an "animal". Western governments immediately attributed responsibility for the gassing to Syria. It gave Trump the opportunity to make a radical U-turn in his Middle East and international policy. In addition to Syria, this change in course has also affected Russia. From a possible partner in the fight against terrorism, Trump now sees relations with Moscow as "at the lowest level." Similar concepts were used yesterday by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson after his meeting, which lasted six hours, with Russian Foreign Minister Serghei Lavrov. At the press conference that followed, Tillerson reiterated condemnation of Assad and his exclusion from the future of Syria. Lavrov warned against hasty conclusions, recalling US policy failures in Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. And with regards Iraq, he also recalled the "charade" of false accusations on the possession of weapons of mass destruction that were never found, but were the pretext for the invasion of the country. To show Moscow's willingness to dialogue, Lavrov said that Russia will resume the agreement for the prevention of aircraft accidents in the Syrian sky - stopped after the US attack on the Sharyat air base - and Putin met Tillerson for two hours, in a visit that was not previously announced. The Khan Sheikhoun chemical attack continues to be subject to the most varied hypotheses and readings. For the US there is "evidence" that the raid was carried out by the Syrian air force. But at Moscow's request to publish proof, Washington says it cannot for security reasons. According to sources quoted by US journalist Robert Perry, the raid was actually launched from Jordan, as a base for special operations where Saudis and Israelis work to support the Syrian rebels. The incident was specially designed to force a change by the Trump administration following the March declaration that the White House no longer sought the removal of Assad. Pat Buchanan, a Republican, and former White House counsel, questions whether the US president does not want to drag the country into a war against Assad and his allies in Syria. "This gas attack [Chemical] he adds - is an atrocity ... The civil war in Syria has caused 400 thousand deaths. Were they all killed by the Assad army? Of course not, but also by aircraft and by US drones, by the Russians, the Israelis, Turks, and then again by the Kurds, the Iranians, Hezbollah, al Qaeda, by the Islamic state and the rebels supported by the United States. " Francis celebrated the Mass for the Lord's Supper in the Paliano prison, near Frosinone. The "pope stands in for Jesus and I would like to do the same as He did." Francis performed the rite of "washing of the feet" with 12 of the facilitys 70 inmates, ten Italians, an Argentine and an Albanian. Rome (AsiaNews) - The "Washing of the Feet" on Holy Thursday "is not a folk ceremony" but a gesture to remember what Jesus did, to remember that "God loves us to the end", despite our sins, said Pope Francis during the Mass of the Lord's Supper at the prison of Paliano, near Frosinone, south of Rome. The Holy Father told the 70 inmates, especially those who turned states evidence, that, as Jesus teaches us, the pope is the first called to "serve" in order to "sow love." Francis commented He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end, a passage in the Gospel that recounts the Last Supper. The Lord, he said, knew he was going to betrayed, and that Judas was going to hand him over, but he loved to the end and gave his life "for each of us." "Loving to the end is not easy, because we are all sinners, we all have limits, defects, so many things, and, yes, we all know love, but we are not like God who loves without looking at the consequences, to the end. He is an example. And to show this, He who was 'the leader, who was God, washed the feet of his disciples." Washing the feet, the pope said, "was a custom performed before the midday and evening meals" because people got their feet dirty from walking. "But slaves performed this," Francis noted. Jesus "overturned" this rule and did it himself. Speaking to Simon Peter, who did not want to let Jesus do it, he said "that He had come into the world to serve, to serve us, to be a slave to us, to give his life for us, to love to the end." "Today, as I was coming, and when I arrived, people greeted me. 'The pope is coming, the leader. The head of the Church . . . '. The head of the Church is Jesus, right! Lets not joke about it. But the pope stands in for Jesus and I would like to do the same as He did. In this ceremony, the priest washes the feet of the faithful: he overturns [the positions]. Whoever seems the greatest has to do slave labour, in order to sow love, to sow love among us." Francis asked the inmates to help each other, to perform "a service" for one another "because this is love, this is like washing the feet. It is serving others." Once, Francis said, "the disciples were arguing among themselves about who was the greatest, the most important." Jesus told them that "the one who wants to be important, must be the smallest and the servant of everyone." This, he added, is what God does with us. God "serves us; he is the Servant." "All of us are poor souls! But He is big, He is good. And He loves us the way we are. Therefore, during this ceremony, let us think about God, about Jesus. This is not a folk ceremony. It is a gesture to remember what Jesus gave. After this, he took the bread and gave us His Body; [then] he took the wine, and gave us His blood. And so is Gods love. Let us think about God's love, today only." Afterwards Francis proceeded to perform the rite of the "washing of the feet" to 12 of the 70 detainees, ten Italians, an Argentine and an Albanian. They included three women and a Muslim who will be baptised in June. Paliano is a special prison. It is the only correctional facility in Italy reserved for people who turn states evidence. Two prisoners are purging a life sentence, whilst the others can expect to be freed between 2019 and 2073. Answers Africa is one of a kind platform created for Africans both locally and in the diaspora and those seeking for more in-depth information about Africa. We have always focused on creating the highest quality informational contents right from the beginning. We share the most relevant information on the latest and trending news, events, people, and places in Africa. We produce contents across various categories including Politics, People, Love and Romance, Nature, Entertainment, Technology and pretty much everything else that Africans may find relevant. We aim to answer the most relevant questions about Africa in areas of entertainment, famous people, emerging technologies while we also engage with various distribution capabilities to connect with Africans in need of information who rely on our website to keep in touch with the world that is changing so fast. These are some of the articles you may be interested in reading: 10 Famous TV Personalities Born In Ethiopia Ethiopia is a country best known for its fast athletes like Dibaba and Bekele, breathtaking models like Liya Kebede and of course Haile Selassie but there are also famous TV personalities who are doing a great job in entertainment and pushing the country to civilization. The following is a list of ten most famous TV ... 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Is Cesar Millan Dead, Who Is The Wife & What Is His Net Worth? Cesar Millan is the famous dog whisperer who often stirs up mixed emotions. The Mexican-American is precisely speaking, a dog behaviorist; he has been in the game for over 25 years. His Emmy-nominated television series, Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan further pushed his method and tactics into the limelight. The series was produced from 2004 ... Is Thomas Sanders Gay and Does He Have A Boyfriend? By the time Vine was shut down in January 2017, Thomas Sanders was already popular within and beyond the internet community for his heavy involvements on the online video hosting platform. After the tragic shutdown of Vine impacted on the growing career of the multi-talented personality, he immediately switched over to YouTube where he continued to upload ... Is Shepard Smith Gay, Who Is The Boyfriend & What Is His Net Worth? There are only a few media personalities who are as bold and confident as Shepard Smith. 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Joel Osteen Divorce Rumors, Net Worth & Family Members Joel Osteen is an American Televangelist, Senior Pastor of Lakewood Church based in Houston, Texas, a husband and a father of two. He is an author of many books, seven of which are New York Times Best Sellers and his televised sermons capture more than 7 million viewers per week and 20 million every month ... Who Is Todd Chrisley? What To Know About His Children, Gay Rumors & Net Worth Premiered on the USA network in 2014, Chrisley Knows Best is one of the most watched family reality TV shows in the U.S. The series which is currently in its sixth season is centered around U.S real estate mogul Todd Chrisley and his family. The show reveals Todd the patriarch of the Chrisley family as a strict dad who rules ... Who Is Shannon Bream Of Fox News? 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The Progression of Howard Sterns Career As A Media Personality And Why He Divorced His First Wife Howard Stern is a legendary American radio host, who has also done some notable work as an actor, producer, author, as well as photographer. The radio personality achieved worldwide fame as a result of his self-titled radio program, The Howard Stern Show. As a professional radio personality, he has worked in different radio stations. Since 2006, ... Lisa Joyners Biography Ethnicity, Net Worth and Other Key Facts Lisa Joyner is an American Journalist, TV talk show host, and actress. Some of her well-known works are her correspondences for the Los Angeles based TV KCBS, inFANity show, Find My Family Show including her film and television appearances in Brimstone, American Sweetheart, The Bold and The Beautiful among others. Lisas passion for reconnecting people with their biological families ... Amanda Balionis Rise Through the Ranks of Sportscasting and the Identity of Her Boyfriend Amanda Balionis is an American sportscaster currently working as a golf broadcaster for CBS Sports. Among so many of her works in the field of sports reporting, Amandas PGA Tour coverage seems to be the most popular so far. She covered the Super Bowl working with CBS Sports social media team in Atlanta, where she ... Dissecting Charles Paynes Sexual Allegations, Its After Effects and More About His Wife Charles Payne had a respectable career as an analyst on Wall Street before he made the transition to television and became a contributor and later a host on Fox. In that time, his expertise has come under scrutiny, and he has been at the center of at least one major controversy. The major controversy in question ... Erik Asla And Tryra Banks Split: Everything You Need To Know Tyra Banks and Erik Asla have called it quits! 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He is also an actor a HopgoodGanim has launched a new patents practice, its first non-legal service offering, tapping a veteran of Australias mining, energy, and minerals sector to oversee the new unit.The new director, who cannot be named yet due to contractual matters, is said to have vast international and patent prosecution experience and a background in metallurgical and mechanical engineering and minerals processing. He will be working closely with partner Hayden Delaney, who oversees the firms intellectual property law team.Hes a person Ive been working with for a number of years. I know him very well. Hes already been working closely with a number of our clients at the firm and its great to be able to have him as part of the firm and as part of the team so that together, we can offer our clients a full suite of IP services, Delaney said.Unlike most law firms and competitors in the space, we integrate a patent-attorney practice with an IP law practice, enabling us to service our clients needs from every aspect of the IP life cycle through from IP protection, patent prosecution, [and] trademark prosecution through to IP commercialisation, complicated licensing transactions, he said. And finally, if you need us, we have a capable set of IP litigators who are there to enforce and protect your IP assets when you need it most, he said.HopgoodGanim said that the new practice and the new appointment reflect client demand for more than just legal advice. Though the patents practice is the first non-legal offering of the firm, it has already been expanding business advisory services for some time, said Bruce Humphrys, HopgoodGanim managing partner.Delaney said that he personally appreciates the chance to work with clients from product concept to launching in the market.Personally, its very fulfilling as a commercial lawyer to be able to work closely with a client from the very early stages of a product idea or invention, through to seeing that idea come to fruition on the open market and to then be a part of that process to protect their intellectual property, he said.He said that the new practice allows them to cater to clients who may be avoiding conflicts of interest.Given the current market where a large number of patent attorney firms are consolidating and listing on the ASX, we know that clients are looking for independent firms which are not impacted by perception of conflict that can occur within consolidated groups, Delaney said. International law firm DLA Piper has closed its office in Canberra according to a news report.The firm has quit the Australian capital amid partner exits including office managing partner Anthony Willis who joined Maddocks in February.The report from The Lawyer says that the firms government clients in Canberra will be serviced by co-managing partners in Australia, Jim Holding and Melinda Upton , from the remaining offices in Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney.The latest round of promotions as Clyde & Co has added nine lawyers to the partnership, almost half of them in Asia Pacific.In Perth, Tim Searle becomes a partner in the insurance practice; insurance saw the lions share of promotions across the firms global offices.Kevin Martin is promoted in Hong Kong and China to corporate and insurance partner; Leon Alexander will become partner in trade & commodities/marine in Singapore; and Dennis Wong is promoted to partner in Hong Kong & Chinas projects & construction team.The Vietnamese-born doctor who has made headlines around the world after being dragged off an over-booked aircraft is to sue the airline.David Dao has hired two attorneys; one specialising in personal injury claims against airlines, and a corporate law specialist.The case is likely to focus on two key elements.Firstly, whether United Airlines had a legal right to remove Mr Dao; reports suggest that while the terms of carriage allow for denial of boarding, it does not allow for removal from the aircraft except for certain circumstances.Secondly, the amount of force used will be a key part of the damages that are sought. The number of skilled occupations open to people from abroad wanting to make a new life in the state of Western Australia are set to be cut drastically.The state's current skilled migration occupation list has been closed while a review is undertaken. Western Australia's new Premier Mark McGowan said he will limit the number of jobs available to foreign workers.McGowan has written to Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull requesting that the city of Perth be removed from the Regional Skilled Migration Scheme [RSMS] which offers foreign workers a path to Australian permanent residency.Under RSMS if a foreign worker is offered a full time job by their sponsor where there is deemed to be a genuine need for skilled overseas employees they can gain residency and almost 5,000 were hired under the scheme in the 2015/2016 financial year.McGowan confirmed that the review of the current list of 160 occupations where the state needs skilled foreign workers will be subject to extensive cutbacks to the number of professions on it.It is thought that engineers, electricians, bricklayers, nurses, and mechanics could be taken off the list, which has not been updated since 2014.'Obviously we need skilled doctors, we need haematologists, we even need pastry chefs. But some of those other occupations obviously should be removed. We need the list to reflect the reality that tens of thousands of West Australians are now out of work,' he said.'This is about putting West Australian jobs first, it is about making sure West Australians get the opportunities for jobs in our state,' he added.He has the backing of Labour Party leader Bill Shorten who pointed out that a changing economy meant it was time to tighten temporary work programmes. 'Perth's inclusion in the Regional Sponsored Migration Scheme reflected the huge demand for workers during the peak of the mining boom. Those times have passed and it's time it changed,' he explained.However, previous state Premier Colin Barnett is against the changes and said that the overhaul pf the list would deprive regional areas in particular of specialists such as doctors.He claimed that the number of people arriving in Western Australia from overseas was typically only about 1,000 a year and the new policy would mean turning away people who could became valuable Australian citizens. The number of people visiting Australia in the 12 months to February 2017 increased by 10% compared with the same month last year, the latest figures show.But while the country remains ever popular there was a fall of 2.1% in the numbers visiting in the month of February with 780,100 doing so and officials have taken steps to keep encouraging people to visit Australia.Some $5 million is being made available to the tourism sector in Queensland which has recently been affected by Cyclone Debbie to make sure all facilities are ready for new visitors.Trade, Tourism and Investment Minister Steven Ciobo said that the message is that this part of Australia is open for business and pledged funds to mend damaged infrastructure.Funds will also be spent on marketing Queensland abroad in conjunction with Tourism Australia and with money from the Queensland Government a total of 10 million will be spent overall.With 8.35 million visitor arrivals in the 12 months to the end of February 2017, Australia wants to continue to attract a high number of people. A breakdown of the figures show that those arriving for a holiday were up 16.8% year on year and business visitors increased by 2.5%.Students increased by 11% to 549,700 over the same period, while those arriving to work fell by 2% to 300,900.While more visitors are expected from China, there is a new direct air route from Melbourne and Sydney to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam launching next month. Assistant Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment, Keith Pitt, said that the flights will boost tourism and business opportunities in both countries.The Jetstar Australia flights will begin in May 2017, operating four times weekly from Sydney and three times weekly from Melbourne, subject to regulatory approval.Pitt explained that the routes will build the rapidly growing Vietnamese tourism market, which has seen a 21% increase in Vietnamese visitors to Australia in the past 12 months.Tourism is a $120 billion a year industry employing about one in 12 Australians and accounting for 10.9% of Australia's exports and Australia is also a leading destination for Vietnamese students abroad.'Vietnam is Australia's fourth-largest international education market and we want our universities to remain a preferred choice for Vietnamese students,' Pitt added.Pitt has recently attended the Executive Education and Training Showcase, involving 15 Australian education and training institutions, highlighting the potential for Australian education providers to deliver tailored education products and services in Vietnam. dazbuster said: Hi all, so yesterday my wifes 309 visa sponsorship was finally approved and she must leave australia for decision. Any idea how long the decision takes once she has left? She leaves next saturday to thailand to wait to return ..... Click to expand... Ours (a PMV, but similar) was done the next working day, after leaving Australia.I emailed the immigration office from the airport, after passing Passport control, to say we had left. But it was after 6pm on a Friday. ( I was hoping to get a message back before the flight took off, so we could turn around immediatelyBut we got it on the Monday.It seems most are a day or two, but some do take a lot longer.We originally gave Immigration details of our departing flight and return flight into Australia 7 days later, and asked if that would be sufficient, they only said ".". Highlighting the rapid growth of Armenias information technology (IT) sector, an Armenian software company has attracted $5 million in funding from private investors in the United States. Founded by three Armenian IT engineers and an Armenian-American finance specialist in 2013, the company, Teamable, develops special software used by businesses for hiring skilled workers. It allows them to look for and identify potential employees through their social media accounts. Teamable currently employs 36 people working at its offices in Yerevan and San Francisco. Most of them are software engineers based in the Armenian capital. The company announced on Wednesday that two U.S venture capital firms, True Ventures and SaaStr Fund, will invest $5 million in its operations. Vazgen Hakobjanyan, one of the companys founders, said on Thursday that the funding will result in many jobs and new opportunities in the sector. The company has already had stable revenue for the last two years, he told RFE/RLs Armenian service (Azatutyun.am). This business model has been tested and is working. Teamable already has over 50 corporate clients, among them the U.S. taxi network Lyft, the online payments operator Stripe and the Chinese-American Internet service provider Baidu. What sets Teamable apart is that our smart algorithms surface candidates based on the unique qualities and needs of each company, rather than keyword searches that yield candidate pools that are too general to be useful to recruiters, the companys Armenian-American chief executive and co-founder, Laura Bilazarian, was quoted by VentureBeat.com as saying. Hakobjanyan stressed the importance of Diaspora Armenian involvement in the local tech industry. Armenia has strong software developers, an open culture, an energetic generation [of young people] that wants to achieve big things, and a Diaspora, he said. We can achieve wonderful results if we use it correctly. This is why we are saying [to the Diaspora] come here not to give us money but to do business with us and it usually works, added Hakobjanyan. IT is the fastest growing sector of Armenias economy, having expanded by over 20 percent annually for over a decade. Around 15,000 people currently work for 450 or so IT firms operating in the country. Officials in Yerevan say they generated more than 4 percent of Gross Domestic Product last year. The Armenian IT industry is dominated by subsidiaries of U.S. tech giants like Synopsis, National Instruments, Mentor Graphics and VMware. The sectors expansion is also increasingly driven by homegrown Armenian companies like Teamable. More than 300 of them have reportedly been set up since 2007. The most successful of these startups is PicsArt, one of the worlds leading mobile photo editing and sharing applications. The company now employs over 350 people in Armenia and boasts 90 million active monthly users worldwide. Like Teamable, PicsArt has an office in San Francisco mainly dealing with sales, marketing and investor relations. It raised $15 million in venture capital funding in 2015 and another $20 million in 2016. Another Armenian software firm, CodeFights, attracted $10 million last year. Industry executives say that the inadequate professional level of many graduates of IT departments of Armenia universities hampers even faster growth. According to their estimates, there are between 2,000 and 4,000 job vacancies in the sector at present. In January this year, a team of government officials and IT executives proposed a wide-ranging reform of engineering education in Armenia aimed at addressing this personnel shortage. Prime Minister Karen Karapetian welcomed their plan. 13 April 2017 17:48 (UTC+04:00) By Rashid Shirinov A group of Armenian women, wearing black clothes, had gathered outside the Government Building in Yerevan on April 13, protesting against the soldier deaths. The mothers of five Armenian soldiers, who were killed in non-combat conditions in different years, demanded the government to find out the real reasons of the deaths of their sons in the army. They demanded the government to punish those responsible for the death of their children, Armenian media report. Mothers complained that neither Armenias Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan nor President Serzh Sargsyan received them so that they could demand answer from them. [Defense Minister] Vigen Sargsyan says he is incompetent. I asked him about the murders, he said he is not competent. But why does he sit in the chair of Defense Minister then?, asked Irina Ghazaryan, whose son Arthur died in non-combat conditions. She added that Vigen Sargsyan should apologize. Recently, Helsinki Citizens' Assembly Vanadzor Office informed that this year six soldiers died in non-combat conditions in the Armenian Armed Forces since the beginning of 2017. Two deaths were caused by murders, two soldiers died of accidents, one committed suicide, and another one died of health problems. The statistics of non-combat losses of the Armenian Armed Forces continues to grow steadily. Armenian media state that a total of 206 deaths were recorded in the Armenian army from 2010 to 2015, and a considerable part of them, 48, were suicides, while 43 were murders. As for 2016, a total of 162 deaths were registered in the Armenian Armed Forces, including 51 cases in non-combat conditions. Frequent death cases, violence, brutality, and non-obedience reign in the army of the Former Soviet republic. The government is faced with protests and disagreements among people who are unwilling to do their military service. Armenian parents are afraid of sending their sons to Army and therefore try to find any opportunity to keep their sons far from that horror. Many youth flee abroad so that not to serve in the army. --- Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 13 April 2017 14:17 (UTC+04:00) By Joseph S. Nye I frequently travel overseas, and invariably my foreign friends ask, with varying degrees of bewilderment: What in the world is going on in your country? Here is what I say. First, do not misinterpret the 2016 election. Contrary to some commentary, the American political system has not been swept away by a wave of populism. True, we have a long history of rebelling against elites. Donald Trump tapped into a tradition associated with leaders like Andrew Jackson and William Jennings Bryan in the nineteenth century and Huey Long and George Wallace in the twentieth century. And yet Trump lost the popular vote by nearly three million. He won the election by appealing to populist resentment in three Rust Belt states Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin that had previously voted Democratic. If a hundred thousand votes had been cast differently in those states, Trump would have lost the Electoral College and the presidency. That said, Trumps victory points to a real problem of growing social and regional inequality in the United States. J.D. Vances recent best-selling book Hillbilly Elegy compellingly describes the vast difference between California and Appalachia. Research by the Princeton economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton shows that the demographic trends among lower-income whites without a college degree are worse than those for African-Americans, who historically anchored the lower extremes of inequality. In 1999, mortality rates among whites with no college were around 30% lower than those of African-Americans; by 2015, they were 30% higher. Moreover, manufacturing employment, once a prime source of high-paying jobs for working-class whites, has fallen sharply over the last generation, to just 12% of the workforce. These previously Democratic voters were attracted by Trumps promises to shake things up and bring back manufacturing jobs. Ironically, Trumps efforts to repeal President Barack Obamas health-care legislation would make their lives worse. The second thing I tell my foreign friends is not to underestimate Trumps communications skills. Many are offended by his tweet storms and outrageous disregard for facts. But Trump is a veteran of reality television, where he learned that the key to success is to monopolize viewers attention, and that the way to do that is with extreme statements, not careful regard for the truth. Twitter helps him to set the agenda and distract his critics. What offends commentators in the media and academia does not bother his supporters. But as he turns from his permanent self-centered campaigning to trying to govern, Twitter becomes a two-edged sword that deters needed allies. Third, I tell my friends not to expect normal behavior. Normally, a president who loses the popular vote moves to the political center to attract additional support. This is what George W. Bush did successfully in 2001. Trump, by contrasts, proclaims that he won the popular vote and, acting as though he really did, appeals to his base voters. While Trump has made solid centrist appointments to the Departments of Defense, State, and Homeland Security, his picks for the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Health and Human Services are from the extremes of the Republican Party. His White House staff is divided between pragmatists and ideologues, and he caters to both. Fourth, no one should underestimate US institutions. Sometimes my friends talk as though the sky is falling and ask if Trump is as dangerous a narcissist as Mussolini. I tell them not to panic. The US, for all its problems, is not Italy in 1922. Our national political elites are often polarized; but so were Americas founders. In designing the US Constitution, the founders goal was not to ensure harmonious government, but to constrain political power with a system of checks and balances that made it difficult to exercise. The joke goes that the founders created a political system that made it impossible for King George to rule over us or for anyone to ever do so. Inefficiency was placed in the service of liberty. It is still early in the Trump presidency, and we cannot be sure what might happen after, say, a major terrorist attack. So far, however, the courts, the Congress, and the states have checked and balanced the administration, as Madison intended. And the permanent civil servants in the executive departments add ballast. Finally, my friends ask what all of this means for American foreign policy and the liberal international order led by the US since 1945. Frankly, I dont know, but I worry less about the rise of China than the rise of Trump. While American leaders, including Obama, have complained about free riders, the US has long taken the lead in providing key global public goods: security, a stable international reserve currency, relatively open markets, and stewardship of the Earths commons. Despite the US-led international orders problems, the world has prospered and poverty has been reduced under it. But one cannot be sure it will continue. The US will need to cooperate with China, Europe, Japan, and others to manage transnational problems. During the 2016 campaign, Trump was the first major party candidate in 70 years to call the American alliance system into question. Since taking office in January, statements by Trump and his appointees suggest that it is likely to persist. American hard and soft power, after all, stems largely from the fact that the US has 60 allies (while China has only a few). But the stability of the multilateral institutions that help manage the world economy and global commons is more uncertain. Trumps budget director speaks of a hard-power budget, with funds cut from the State Department and the United Nations system. Other officials advocate replacing multilateral trade deals with fair and balanced bilateral arrangements. And Trump is repudiating Obamas efforts to address climate change. I tell my friends I wish I could reassure them on these issues. But I cannot. Copyright: Project Syndicate: What I Tell My Non-American Friends --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 13 April 2017 17:17 (UTC+04:00) By Sara Israfilbayova Azerbaijan regards the UAE as one of its most important partners in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East. "The UAE is one of the most important partners of Azerbaijan in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East region," said Azerbaijani Ambassador to the UAE, Dashgin Shikarov. At the same time, Azerbaijan is the most important partner of the Emirates in the Caucasus, he added. Bilateral relations between Azerbaijan and the UAE, especially their political component, are at a high level: relations between these countries are based on multi-vector cooperation taking into account mutual interests. The two nations see rapidly increasing economic cooperation and are keen to promote tourism. Frequent visits of the leaders of two countries significantly strengthened the political ties between the countries, at the same time stimulated the growth of economic interaction, particularly in the field of tourism. The tourism has become popular recently between the countries thanks to facilitation of visa regime for the UAE citizens. President Ilham Aliyev issued a decree on simplifying the visa regime for citizens and residents of the UAE. The overall trade turnover between Azerbaijan and the UAE for the past two or three years amounted to approximately $70 million. Mainly Azerbaijan imports goods from the UAE, which are, in fact, re-exported from other countries. It is mostly metallurgical and chemical products, textiles, building materials, tobacco products, household equipment. Azerbaijan mainly exports to the UAE fruits, juices, nuts, metal semi-finished products and so on. Realizing the strategy of development of the non-oil sector, trade mission have been established in the UAE, as well as in other countries, to promote the brand "Made in Azerbaijan". That enabled Azerbaijan to supply 200 tons of apples and a container of pomegranate juice to the UAE. The sides also reached an agreement to export honey, meat, mineral water, tomatoes and other fruits and vegetables to Dubai. Earlier UAE Economy Minister Sultan bin Saeed Al Mansoori noted on the eve of the sixth meeting of the intergovernmental commission on economic, commercial and technical cooperation, which will be held on April 20 in Abu Dhabi, the economic cooperation between Azerbaijan and the UAE does not reflect the existing potential between the two countries. According to the minister, during the meeting the parties will discuss the possibilities of strengthening cooperation in the spheres of energy, environment and natural resources. Such meetings are a good platform for the development of bilateral economic ties, investments and trade at a level that justifies the expectations of the heads of the states, he said. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz Azerbaijan will start large-scale exercises on April 16 to inspect the combat readiness, organization of command and control of troops and means, including their interoperability in a combat simulated environment, Trend reported. April 13, 2017, 17:29 Azerbaijan to start large-scale exercises STEPANAKERT, APRIL 13, ARTSAKHPRESS: The exercises will involve 30,000 military personnel, more than 250 tanks and armored vehicles, up to 200 missiles and artillery systems of different calibres, multiple launch rocket systems and mortars, 25 combat aircrafts of various purposes, as well as new types of electronic warfare assets and unmanned aerial vehicles. The drills will last until April 21. 13 April 2017 14:31 (UTC+04:00) By Amina Nazarli Azerbaijan plans to open trading houses in the United Arab Emirates and China, said Sahil Babayev. The Deputy Minister of Economy announced about this while addressing the 4th International Caspian Energy Forum Baku 2017 on April 12. He stressed that Azerbaijan has already opened such a trade house in Belarus, and the work is underway to open trading houses in Russia and Ukraine. President Ilham Aliyev signed a relevant decree on January 26, and endorsed the economy minister to appoint trade representatives to the countrys diplomatic missions abroad and open trade houses in foreign countries to facilitate the export process, promote an export of competitive Azerbaijani production and enable the countries to expand trade operations. Trade representatives will take measures to expand Azerbaijan`s economic and trade relations with foreign countries, protect economic interests of Azerbaijan, increase export of Azerbaijani goods and services, promote Azerbaijans business environment and investment opportunities. Babayev said that in the first quarter of 2017, Azerbaijan's exports increased by 50 percent, while non-oil exports saw a 32.5 growth, and agricultural exports rose by 44 percent, and exports of industrial products increased by 25 percent. The Trade House of Azerbaijan passed a state registration in Belarus on February 21. The Minsk City Executive Committee registered the Trade House, which will support the promotion of Azerbaijani goods under the Made in Azerbaijan brand in Belarus, and engage in marketing research, participation in exhibitions and other activities related to the promotion of Azerbaijani goods. The entity in Belarus became the first Trade House established as part of the state policy to encourage export of Azerbaijani production. -- Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 13 April 2017 15:37 (UTC+04:00) By Kamila Aliyeva Russian and Azerbaijani entrepreneurs enjoy effective and fruitful cooperation which was highlighted at a meeting with local entrepreneurs that is taking place in Baku on April 13. Russian companies willingly participate in a variety of oil and gas projects, as Azerbaijan proved to be a reliable partner. Professionalism, qualifications, technologies and opportunities that exist in Azerbaijan allow implementing the most complex and ambitious projects here, according to Alexander Kaznacheev, the first vice-president of Russian Gazprombank. "It's a special pride for us to tell you about the business with the [Azerbaijani state oil company] SOCAR. Relationships were built for years, now we can say that we have made a unique project called SOCAR Polymer," he stated at the meeting. The experience that the bank acquired in Azerbaijan allows us to say that we can invest in this country, Kaznacheev said. Kaznacheev noted that one of such projects is our next SOCAR GPC project, which is deemed to mark the beginning of a new era in development of Azerbaijans petrochemical industry and turn the country into a major player in the industry. SOCAR launched the GPC project worth $4 billion to maximize added value of the upstream-midstream-downstream oil and gas chain and create a cutting-edge standard processing industry in Azerbaijan. The Dutch ING Bank, the State Development Bank of China as well as the Russian Gazprombank act as financial consultants to SOCAR GPC. Azerbaijan is seen as an advantageous investment destination for many as REC a joint stock company specialized in export transactions, providing consultations on issues related to exports, assistance in organizing exports, providing financial and non-financial support, and interacting with relevant ministries and agencies is considering a number of projects with the country. A member of the board, managing director for client work and underwriting of Exar JSC Nikita Gusakov, in his turn, noted that the Russian Export Center (REC) supported export to Azerbaijan for about $500 million. "Azerbaijan is a strategic market for Russian companies, and it has always been a country of special focus for us. We have quite large projects planned, including a joint one with Gazprombank," he said. Currently, REC is considering 10 more projects on financial support worth over $460 million and 15 projects on non-financial support, according to Gusakov. The largest export project of the REC in Azerbaijan, as he noted, is the support of supplies for the Azerbaijani Railways CJSC with track equipment worth $231 million. Other projects include support for the export of metallurgical products worth $40 million, food products ($2 million), animal and vegetable products ($18 million), radio electronics and electrical equipment ($115 million), ground transportation ($19 million) and others. Gusakov mentioned that the company develops the network of trading houses and currently we have four trading houses in different countries, while several more are functioning on the basis of trade missions of the Russian Federation." This year REC plans to open four or five trading houses in various countries including Azerbaijan, according to Gusakov. "The trading house is a platform that entrepreneurs can use to sell their goods. In Azerbaijan we basically aim at working with small and medium-sized enterprises," he said. At the same time, he added that, for the REC, the trading house in Azerbaijan will be the first one in the South Caucasus. Russian-Azerbaijani partnership is regarded as an important factor of regional stability. Azerbaijan ranks fifth in Russia's foreign trade with the CIS countries (following Belarus, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan). At the same time, Russia is also considered to be a leading importer of Azerbaijani goods. Today, more than 600 companies with Russian capital operate in Azerbaijan. About $3 billion of the Russian investments were invested in economy of Azerbaijan, while the share of the Azerbaijani investments in the Russian economy constitutes $1 billion. The overall trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Russia in 2016 amounted to $2 billion. --- Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 13 April 2017 18:08 (UTC+04:00) By Amina Nazarli Azerbaijan Deposit Insurance Fund (ADIF) has so far paid compensations worth over 727.1 million manats ($437 million) to depositors of Parabank, Zaminbank, Dekabank, Kredobank, Caucasus Development Bank, Atrabank, Bank of Azerbaijan, Gandjabank, Texnikabank and Bank Standard, which were closed in 2016. Banks Volume of paid compensations (million manats) Volume of paid compensation out of the total volume (pct) Bank Standard 436,613 99 Zaminbank 54,566 75 Dekabank 3,087 98,7 Kredobank 27,771 99,9 Caucasus Development Bank 1,974 94,4 Atrabank 14,28 98,1 Bank of Azerbaijan 24,161 97 Gandjabank 0,976 94 Texnikabank 120,433 98,2 Parabank 43,199 98,5 The licenses of all the banks were revoked in 2016, as their assets were not classified in line with the law, and they didnt create adequate reserves and their aggregate capital did not meet the minimum requirements. Some 32 banks are currently implementing their activities in the country. -- Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 13 April 2017 10:03 (UTC+04:00) By Amina Nazarli Representation of the EU together with the embassies of European countries will celebrate Day of Europe in the southern region of Azerbaijan -- Lankaran on May 6 and 7. The program of the Day of Europe provides for a lot of interesting cultural events, including an exhibition, concerts and movies that will introduce the inhabitants of this region to European culture. In addition, next year the EU office planned to implement a number of economic projects in Lankaran, therefore, it is not an accident that the event is held there. The diplomatic mission also plans to launch a website that disseminates information about the culture and way of life of Europeans. The portal will not contain any information of a political nature. The future resource is aimed at making the European culture and values more recognizable in Azerbaijan. Lankaran is among the brightest and most beautiful regions of the country. Exquisite architecture, wonderful climate and magnificent landscapes are the hallmarks of the region. The region occupies the east coast of the Caspian Sea and whole Lankaran lowlands up to Talysh Mountains. On the local shore of the Caspian Sea there are many fine sand beaches. Wet subtropical climate without harsh winters, dry and hot summer and rainy autumn underlie the richness of the local flora and fauna. Agriculture is the most developed sector here, while the fertile soil of the region is ideal for growing citrus fruits, rice, grapes, tobacco and tea-growing. The region is a home of Azerbaijan's first tea plant, built in 1937. Another attraction of the city is the lighthouse of the 18th century. Once the Caspian Sea level was much higher, the water came up to the lighthouse. Gradually, the coastline retreated, and now you should move almost half a kilometer from the lighthouse to the sea. -- Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 13 April 2017 10:27 (UTC+04:00) By Laman Ismayilova Switzerland very strongly supports the efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group for peaceful resolution of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Swiss Ambassador to Azerbaijan Philipp Stalder told Trend. We think that both conflicting sides should sit down at the negotiation table and hold meaningful peace negotiations in a more structured way, the ambassador said. Of course, any conflict has negative impact on the neighboring countries and the whole region and that is, unfortunately, also the case for the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Armenia broke out a lengthy war against Azerbaijan laying territorial claims on its South Caucasus neighbor. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia still controls fifth part of Azerbaijan's territory and rejects implementing four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 13 April 2017 11:47 (UTC+04:00) By Rashid Shirinov Russias Embassy in Baku continues to monitor the situation with Russian citizen Alexander Lapshin, detained in Azerbaijan, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing on April 12. Blogger Lapshin, who owns citizenship of several countries, will stand trial in Baku for his illegal visits to the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. Zakharova said that the period of investigation of Lapshins case has been extended to July 15. No complaints have been received from Lapshin regarding the detention conditions. Lapshins medical examination has been conducted at the request of the Embassy, and we keep control on the situation, said Zakharova. The blogger illegally visited Azerbaijan`s Armenia-occupied lands and now is charged under the articles 281.2 (appeals directed against state) and 318.2 (illegal border crossing) of the Criminal Code of Azerbaijan. He violated Azerbaijani laws on state border in April 2011 and October 2012. Helped by his accomplices in the occupied territories, Lapshin paid a number of visits to Azerbaijan`s occupied lands, where he voiced support for "independence" of the illegal regime, and made public calls against Azerbaijan`s internationally recognized territorial integrity on April 6 and June 29, 2016. As for Marat Ueldanov, Zakharova said that on March 28, the Russian Embassy in Azerbaijan sent a note to the Foreign Ministry with a request to conduct a medical examination of Ueldanov. The Russian citizen of Armenian origin, Marat Ueldanov, was arrested in early June 2016 in Azerbaijan on charges under the article on illegal acquisition, production, storage and distribution of narcotic drugs on a large scale. The Embassy is in constant contact with lawyers and relatives of the detained citizens, Zakharova said. --- Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 13 April 2017 11:15 (UTC+04:00) Azerbaijan has particular role in enhancing intercultural dialogue, said Deputy Prime Minister of Croatia and Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Davor Ivo Stier as he met the country`s Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov. Davor Ivo Stier expressed satisfaction with the development of bilateral relations between the states, stressing the importance of cooperation in energy sector, Azertac reported. On cooperation in energy field, Mammadyarov provided insight into the TAP project. The FM said there are wide opportunities for cooperation in economic field. The minister thanked the Croatian Government for support to Azerbaijan`s internationally recognized territorial integrity and sovereignty and the country`s stand regarding the Armenia-Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 13 April 2017 10:52 (UTC+04:00) By Amina Nazarli Azerbaijans Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov has stated that the country has been a reliable EU partner and has demonstrated a strong political will to develop relationship with EU based on mutual respect, equal partnership and common interests. The minister made the remark as he addressed a meeting of Foreign Ministers of Visegrad (V4) Group and Eastern Partnership countries, the Foreign Ministry reported. The minister noted that this traditional format is an excellent opportunity to review state of play on our cooperation, as well as to deliberate on ways and means for further synergy. We welcome the EUs commitment in the Global Strategy for the EUs Foreign and Security Policy, adopted in 2016,that the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of states, the inviolability of borders and peaceful settlement of disputes are key elements of the European security order and these principles apply to all states, both within and beyond the EUs borders. Recent visit of President of Azerbaijan to Brussels in February opened a new chapter in bilateral ties with official launching of negotiations process on a new bilateral document, said. Mammadyarov emphasized that Azerbaijan is entering into negotiation process with strong belief that the new and ambitious agreement will upgrade the ties to a level of strategic partnership and would meet the needs and the priorities of the parties in the changing political and security environment. The first meeting on a new agreement between the EU and Azerbaijan was held in Brussels on February 7, 2017. The new agreement should replace the 1996 partnership and cooperation agreement and should better take account of the shared objectives and challenges the EU and Azerbaijan face today. Mammadyarov went on to say that strategic partnership in the field of energy remains the cornerstone of the Baku-Brussels cooperation. The Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) is a unique project of energy security and diversification with right balance of interests between producers, transit countries and consumers. Strong political support for timely implementation of SGC has been once again expressed during the 3rd Meeting of SGC Advisory Council, recently hosted by Azerbaijan and attended by high level dignitaries from SGC countries, partner states and European Commission, he said. Mammadyarov continued: We are willing to enhance our dialogue in other areas of common interest, inter alia, connectivity, environment, education, tourism, culture and mobility, as well as people-to-people contact, support for small and medium enterprises. Due to its strategic role of a natural bridge between Asia and Europe, Azerbaijan has always been an active participant and key enabler of regional and trans-regional connectivity initiatives. Today Azerbaijan has involved in implementation of three major projects to promote East-West and North-South corridors, so called geographical crossroad. Launch of the strategic Baku Tbilisi Kars project (BTK), railroad connection between Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey will facilitate regional trade and uninterrupted railway access between East and West. We expect that the project will be completed this year. With improving cost and time performance of shipments between Asia and Europe BTK will be a strong alternative to current routes. The minister reminded that in 2016 there was launched the first container train starting from China crossing Central Asia, Caspian Sea further to Azerbaijan and Georgia with destination to Europe. This test train proved that this route can reduce the transit period from 30-35 to 15 days. Azerbaijan is also embarking on another remarkable project - construction of a new Baku International Sea Trade Port (Alat) the biggest and multi-purpose port in the Caspian Sea with potential capacity of handling 25 million tons of cargo annually. Standing at the intersection of railroad connections to Europe, Russia and Iran, and in close proximity to Baku airport the Alat Port will allow seamless connection to regional hinterland and air cargo, as well as cost effective rail ferry access to other Caspian Sea ports, the minister said. Ministerial Declaration on Developing the external dimension of the TEN-T adopted last summer in Rotterdam provides solid platform to enhance our transport dialogue. We welcome the inclusion of the Azerbaijani part of the East-West corridor, both road and rail, into TEN-T core networks, as well as inclusion of the North-South corridor into TEN-T comprehensive networks, he said. Mammadyarov further said that future of EaP strongly depends on lasting security, peace and stability in the region suffered from conflicts. We believe that timely and active role to be played by the EU is important for stability and development in our region, he added. He said Azerbaijan is interested in a negotiated settlement of the conflict and roadmap based on principles of international law. Particularly, as it is enshrined in the Global Strategy for the EUs Foreign and Security Policy-2016. However, the country keeps all rights to restore its violated territorial integrity by all possible means in its disposal if already decades-old negotiations do not yield any results, Mammadyarov said. Te minister said that the April events of 2016 and the most recent provocation taken place in the line of contact on February 25, 2017 proved the fragility of the situation of no war, no peace. Despite above-mentioned concerns and against the backdrop of geopolitical and security changes and challenges in the EU neighborhood, strengthening dialogue with the EU is among our priorities. Over the recent years bilateral and multilateral tracks of the EaP proved to be useful instruments in sharing experience and exchange of best practices with European partners. At the end of April we are embarking on negotiations with EU on a new bilateral Agreement. It is a must for Azerbaijan that the new Agreement clearly reflects EU`s support for and respect to the sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity and inviolability of the internationally recognized borders of Azerbaijan. The respect to the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, as well as to other countries of EaP, is not only the issue for us; it is also the matter for the EU, and crucial for development of the region, Mammadyarov added. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 13 April 2017 11:11 (UTC+04:00) Leadership of the "G. S. Rakovski" National Defence College of the Republic of Bulgaria arrived in Azerbaijan. During the meetings held at the Armed Forces Military Academy, relations of the two countries in the field of military science and education, including the expansion of cooperation between the academies, as well as the implementation of joint projects were discussed, Azertac reported. Head of the Military Academy, Lieutenant General Heydar Piriyev comprehensively informed the Bulgarian delegation about the activities, structure, international relations as well as the material and technical base of the Academy. Speaking about the importance of developing relations between the two educational institutions, Major General Grudi Angelov, the head of the "G. S. Rakovski" National Defence College, noted that ties with the Azerbaijan are successfully developing in all areas of military science and education. The sides also signed a document on cooperation between military academies in the field of scientific research, exchange of experience, joint activities, organization of training and other issues of mutual interest. Then the Bulgarian delegation visited the Azerbaijan Higher Military School named after Heydar Aliyev for closer acquaintance with the development of the military education system in Azerbaijan. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 13 April 2017 12:57 (UTC+04:00) By Amina Nazarli Azerbaijan and the U.S. celebrated the 25th anniversary of establishment of the diplomatic relations with a solemn event at the International Mugham Center in Baku on April 12. A special exhibition organized at the Center featured the history of bilateral ties between the two countries. U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan Robert Cekuta, addressing the event, spoke of the history of these relations, noting his country was one of the first to recognize Azerbaijans independence. Cekuta said over the past 25 years, the U.S. provided over $1.3 billion as assistance to Azerbaijan. This is a humanitarian assistance to help farmers, to help develop new industries, to help develop new companies and new businesses, noted the ambassador. The important thing about the relationship between Azerbaijan and the U.S. has been the people and what they have done together to build a strong relationship, as well as to help make Azerbaijan a strong, prosperous, democratic, independent country, added Cekuta. The diplomat said that during the 25-year period, over 6,000 Azerbaijanis have studied in the US and also Americans have come to Azerbaijan to study and work at universities. Along with this, U.S. education specialists, teachers and professors assisted Azerbaijanis in various educational institutions in Azerbaijan, he noted. The ambassador also said the U.S. has been supporting Azerbaijan in diversification of its energy supplies. We have continued working with Azerbaijan over 25 years and discussing the energy projects to move them forward. These projects are very important for European energy security and global energy security, added Cekuta. In turn, Minister of Culture and Tourism Abulfas Garayev expressed congratulations on behalf of the Azerbaijani government, noting the two countries are reliable partners and successfully cooperate also in the humanitarian sphere. -- Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz I attended the government primary school but absconded when Fr Theis started Mariant Catholic Mission primary school near my village of Kondo. I didnt like walking to Kandep every morning in the cold with barely any clothing covering my body. Fr Theis was my teacher at Mariant. The other was American missionary, Fr Jerry Gerald Theis SVD (pictured), who established the first mission station at at Pindak village, later moving to the present location at Mariant in Kandep. One was Jim Fenton, an Australian. He was the patrol officer who in 1960established Kandep patrol post in what is now Enga Province. Fr Theis and Jim Fenton are two people mentioned in my book, I Can See My Country Clearly Now. They were the first to bring change to my backward people. I was privileged to meet Jim Fenton in Brisbane last year when I attended the Brisbane Writers Festival. In 2013, at age 81, Fr Theis came to Mariant from Mt Hagen where he lived to celebrate his Golden Jubilee with my people 50 years spreading the word of God. I missed that special occasion but my family was there to participate in the festivities which lasted three days. I want to share with PNG Attitude readers the Easter Message Fr Theis sent me a couple days ago. Fr Theiss Easter Message We are a bit early in exchanging our greetings. Thank you for news from my 'home' in Kandep. How have you been keeping? I hope that many people are clinging to the world view of Jesus Christ and not that of tribalism and politics. Our USA culture 'stinks' these days and so I am still preaching Christ crucified, died, buried and risen. The mention of your sibling, Clara, brought back many memories. How is she? How is her life today? Of course I still remember Agnes Maiapu and the 'boys'. Give my greetings to all your family and all the members of Kondo and surrounding tribes. Ask them to be forgiving of any harm I may have unknowingly caused in my youth and inexperience; pray for me a sinner. [Signed] Fr Jerry Theis SVD (the 'J' in my formal name stands for Joseph. 'Jerry' is what my family and friends call me) On behalf of my family, I wish Fr Theis SVD a Happy Easter. The photograph here is of him as a young man with his parents before travelling to Papua New Guinea. I thank him for starting the new mission school near my village. I dont know what I would be doing today if Fr Theis hadnt guided me along the path when I took those first uncertain steps to receive an education. Me, a boy straight from the village. No, Father, nobody holds any grudges against you. You opened their eyes and years to the outside world. You showed my people a new way of life. Your good name still lives among them. Of eight students you taught, one became a lawyer, one a high school headmaster, another a primary school headmaster, another a DPI Officer, another trained to be a surveyor but instead became a church pastor. The only girl, Agnes is a retired primary school teacher. And me? A radio broadcaster and journalist. Thank you, Fr Theis. God will continue to bless you and keep you in good health to celebrate more Easters to come. 13 April 2017 15:44 (UTC+04:00) By Kamila Aliyeva The foreign ministers of the Visegrad Group countries called for further progress in the ongoing process of negotiations with Azerbaijan over new framework agreement with the EU, according to the joint statement of the foreign ministers of the Visegrad Group and the Eastern Partnership countries following the April 12 meeting in Warsaw, Poland. The ministers reaffirmed their strong support to the Eastern Partnership as a strategic dimension of the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) and a key and active factor of stability and economic progress in Eastern Europe. They also called on EU institutions for appropriate steps to keep Eastern Partnership high on the EUs agenda according to the EU Global Strategy and ENP Review, the statement said. The ministers recognized the wish of Azerbaijan to continue visa liberalization dialogue and expect further steps in that direction, according to the statement. The Visegrad Group, also called the Visegrad Four, or V4 is a cultural and political alliance of four Central European states Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia for the purposes of furthering their European integration, as well as for advancing military, economic and energy cooperation with one another. The first meeting on a new agreement between the EU and Azerbaijan was held in Brussels on February 7, 2017. The next round of negotiations on a new agreement on strategic partnership between Azerbaijan and the European Union will be held in Baku on April 25. The new agreement should replace the 1996 partnership and cooperation agreement and should better take account of the shared objectives and challenges the EU and Azerbaijan face today. The agreement will follow the principles endorsed in the 2015 review of the European Neighborhood Policy and offer a renewed basis for political dialogue and mutually beneficial cooperation between the EU and Azerbaijan. The new agreement envisages the compliance of Azerbaijans legislation and procedures with the EUs most important international trade norms and standards, which should lead to the improvement of Azerbaijani goods access to the EU markets. --- Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 13 April 2017 18:13 (UTC+04:00) By Sara Israfilbayova The fourth meeting of the joint commission on demarcation of the state borderbetween Azerbaijan and Russia is being held in Baku on Thursday. The Azerbaijani delegation is led by Deputy Foreign Minister, Chairman of the State Commission on demarcation of state border between Azerbaijan and Russia Khalaf Khalafov, while the Russian delegation is led by Vadim Viktorovich Postnov, Co-Chair of the Azerbaijan-Russia Joint Commission on Demarcation. The event brings together members of state commissions, government officials and experts of both countries, as well as heads of border districts. The meeting which is to last until April 17 is focused on determination of the state border line on the area with the designation of special border marks in the Azerbaijani-Russian state border, as well as the work carried out to date. Azerbaijan is bound by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west and Iran to the south and has an 11 km border with Turkey in the south west. AzerbaijanRussia border is 390 km in length. The boundary is set by the contract signed in Baku on October 3, 2010. The border demarcation between Azerbaijan and Russia is carried out in accordance with the agreement on the delimitation [determination of the general position and direction of the state border between neighboring states through negotiations] of borders by the parties. Russia remains at the moment the only neighboring country with which Azerbaijan has fully completed the process of delimitation. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 13 April 2017 17:41 (UTC+04:00) By Rashid Shirinov Azerbaijan's Armed Forces will conduct large-scale exercises on April 16-21, Defense Ministry reported on April 13. The Armed Forces will conduct military maneuvers in order to inspect combat readiness, organisation of command and control of troops and means, including their interoperability in a combat simulated environment. The exercises will be held in accordance with the plan approved by the President of Azerbaijan, Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Ilham Aliyev. Defense Ministry noted that the exercises will involve 30,000 military personnel, more than 250 tanks and armored vehicles, up to 200 missiles and artillery systems of different calibers, multiple launch rocket systems and mortars, 25 combat aircrafts of various purposes, as well as new types of electronic warfare assets and unmanned aerial vehicles. During the maneuvers, Azerbaijan's Armed Forces will exercise different methods of modern combined arms operations in difficult terrain conditions. The scenario of the exercises will cover the disposition of command and control posts to a theatre of operations, deployment of mobilized resources to designated areas, establishment of strike groups and their application on designated directions, transferring of combat aviation to alternative airfields, as well as movement of rocket and artillery troops into reserve firing and starting positions. The Azerbaijani Army, which today is considered the most modern army in the Caucasus, consists of Air Force and Air Defense Forces, the Navy, and the Land Forces. Today, Azerbaijani Army is one of the most powerful, highly disciplined armies in the world and the leading in the region, which is equipped with modern military machinery. The skills and combat readiness of the Azerbaijani army are growing year by year, as the countrys Armed Forces regularly conduct military exercises. The army building process in Azerbaijan is progressing as well. --- Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 13 April 2017 10:05 (UTC+04:00) By Trend Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson held a joint news conference following bilateral discussions in Moscow on Wednesday, April 12, Sputnik reported. Lavrov reiterated Moscow's calll for an "independent and thorough investigation" in both Idlib and Sha'irat incidents. "We have other affects available to us, and we are not trying to impose anything on anyone" but Moscow doesn't believe it is fair or just to place all blame on Damascus prior to an objective probe of the chemical attack. Lavrov expressed that a UN security council resolution would be counterproductive and may only legitimize accusations against Damascus. On April 14, Moscow will host Afghanistan, central Asian nations for a summit, and Lavrov has an extended an invitation to the US to allow their representation at the summit. Lavrov and Tillerson discussed the "special responsibility" Moscow and Washington bear for maintaining "strategic stability." This will include "business-like, pragmatic" discussions on arms reductions, Lavrov said. Business interests in both nations want to reverse the trend of negative relations between Moscow and Washington, he added. "On the whole, we all realize the current situation is far from easy, and the international situation is far from easy," and that other parties may want to try and take advantage of these tensions. "We are open to this dialogue..and not just dialogue, but [to] working together," in areas of mutual interest. "We understand each other bettter after today's talks," Lavrov noted. "There's a low level of trust between our two countries," Tillerson began his remarks. "The world's two foremost nuclear powers cannot have this kind of relationship," he said. He then stated Moscow and Washington should end tit-for-tat strategies which can provoke tensions. Moscow and Washington have agreed to create a working group dedicated toward solving low-level problems. "We both believe in a stable and unified Syria," the US diplomat said. Tillerson said Washington's belief that Assad planned and executed a chemical attack is "conclusive" and said it is not the first time Damascus has used chemical warfare since 2011. Lavrov disagreed: "Russia insists on an objective investigation." There is "no proof" that Washington's account of what happened in Idlib is true, Lavrov said. "They have brought this on themselves," Tillerson said of international pressure against Assad. "We think its important that Assad's departure is done in an orderly way," he added. "the final outcome in our view does not provide a role for Assad or the Assad family. We will not accept that, we don't believe the world will accept that," Tillerson said. Lavrov said the US and Moscow are not "world's apart" on many issues, as one reporter had suggested. "We need to learn the lessons of the past, otherwise we cannot be successful in the present," he said. For instance, in Yugoslavia, NATO "launched war" to bomb presidential areas, the Chinese embassy, and when they finally ran out ammunition, they went to the UN Security Council. "Many of these actions were in violation of the Geneva convention," Lavrov said. Similarly, in Iraq, "all the pretexts" the US used for invading the country, such as WMDs, "were fake." In Libya, an international coalition that ousted former dictator Muammar Gaddafi has not produced an positive example that might be followed for a regime change operation. "The very statehood of Libya is even in danger right now," the Russian foreign minister pointed out. Moscow knows the "obsession" with overthrowing a dictator, Lavrov said. "We've seen all that and we all know how it's going to end." Tillerson said cybertools have "emerged" to influence elections as well as interfere with the software systems relied on by weapons systems. "I can only confirm that we are interested in having close cooperation on cybercrime," Lavrov stated. "We discussed no further sanctions" based on recent events in Ukraine, Tillerson said. "He did not make any threats in our discussions today," Lavrov confirmed. The Russian diplomat said he is not interested in hypothetical and speculative scenarios in Syria, but that "we want to establish truth." "There is a presumption of innocence" in Syria, Lavrov said. Lavrov said that he had requested evidence that Russia interfered with the US elections, but that he has seen nothing resembling fact. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 13 April 2017 15:07 (UTC+04:00) By Kamilla Aliyeva The U.S. and Russia, trying to reduce rapidly rising tensions amid situation in Syria, have clashed over a range of issues, especially the future of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, during a daylong visit by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to Moscow on April 12 which included the talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The meeting, during which a number of topical issues like Syria, Ukraine, Korea and issues of bilateral relations were discussed, lasted for about five hours. Before the beginning of the meeting, Lavrov stressed that Moscow had accumulated a lot of questions on the recent statements of the United States, which relate to bilateral relations and international problems. Earlier both countries expressed their readiness to cooperate with each other on a constructive and equal basis. Lavrov also called Tillerson's visit "timely", as it provides an opportunity "to frankly and honestly try to clarify the prospects for cooperation on all issues, primarily on the formation of a broad anti-terrorist front." The U.S. Secretary of State, for his part, expressed the hope that this meeting with Lavrov would help Moscow and Washington to establish an open dialogue and would "explain and express those points" in which the positions of Russia and the U.S. diverge. Following this meeting, Tillerson held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Kremlin. At a joint news conference after a meeting with Putin, the two sides summed up the results of the talks in Moscow. "The talks turned out to be thorough, frank, covering the whole range of issues that are key for our bilateral relations, for interaction on international affairs," Lavrov said at a news conference. "We reaffirmed our common commitment to an uncompromising fight against international terrorism," he said, noting that several times the leaders of Russia and the United States discussed the topic on the phone. The history has proved, when Moscow and Washington cooperate, not only our nations win, but the whole world, according to Russian Minister. Tillerson stated that relations between Moscow and Washington are "at a low point" and marked by serious distrust. He noted that the sides agreed that there should be more high-level communication between U.S. and Russia, both at the diplomatic and military level. Lavrov said that Moscow and Washington will appoint special representatives to uncover "irritants in relations" without emotions. Moreover, Moscow and Washington have agreed on the need for the United Nations to investigate the use of chemical weapons in Syria. Lavrov also expressed Russias view that there is no need for a U.N. Security Council resolution on the attack until the U.N. chemical weapons watchdog has completed an objective probe. Lavrov reaffirmed Russia's position once again that the Syrian government wasn't responsible for the attack on the town of Khan Sheikhoun in northern Syria. He also warned against an international effort to remove Syrian President Bashar Assad from power as it would profit the Islamic State group. Lavrov cited the Western experience in Iraq and Libya to argue that the ouster of autocratic rulers by external forces leads to chaos. He insisted that Russia wasn't holding on to Assad, but supports dialogue between various Syrian factions to determine the country's future and to preserve it as a united, secular state. However, Tillerson stressed that Washington believes that Syrian President Bashar Assad and his family would not be able to participate in the future governance of Syria, but the departure of Assad should be "orderly." He added that enough evidence to bring war crime charges against Assad may be collected over time, but there was not enough proof at the moment. Both sides agreed to continue consultations on Syrias future. The Russian foreign minister also expressed concern that Washington appeared to protect the terrorists of the Jabhat Fatah al Sham (formerly known as Nusra Front) group (outlawed in Russia) active in Syria, in order to try to overthrow Assads government by force. In connection to that, Putin said, as quoted by Lavrov, that Russia was ready to return to the suspended memorandum of understanding on preventing aerial incidents in Syria, if the United States confirmed that their goal there was to fight the terrorists of Daesh (banned in Russia), the Nusra Front and other terrorist groups. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump stated that the U.S. is "not getting along with Russia at all" and relations between the two global powers are at an "all-time low." Trump said in a White House news conference that he's hopeful he can improve relations with Putin but "we're going to see what happens." According to some experts, this meeting was used by two sides to reassert their firm stances on Syria rather than coming to a common compromise. There were only a handful of issues Tillerson and Lavrov said they broadly agreed on that the Korean Peninsula should be denuclearized, that Syria should be unified and stable after the Islamic State is defeated, and that there should be more communication between U.S. and Russian diplomats and militaries. Russian experts also put a strong emphasis on Tillerson's meeting with Russian leader as they predicted that this meeting would happen only if Tillerson and Lavrov found some common ground. --- Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 13 April 2017 16:42 (UTC+04:00) By Kamila Aliyeva Kazakhstan hopes for facilitation of the visa regime with the countries of the European Union. The Kazakh Foreign Ministry announced about this in a message released following a meeting of Kazakh FM Kairat Abdrakhmanov with a German Bundestag delegation. The delegation was led by the head of the Germany-Central Asia Parliamentary Friendship Group, Manfred Grund. Abdrakhmanov stressed the need for further expansion of people-to-people contacts between Germany and Kazakhstan, and the EU and Kazakhstan in general, noting that Kazakhstan is taking serious steps to this end. Previously, Kazakhstan introduced a visa-free regime for the OECD and EU nationals, holding any passport type, for a stay for a period of up to 30 days. Astana is also taking other measures to facilitate visits of foreign investors, business delegations and tourists to the country. Kazakhstan is improving the standards in the sphere of control of citizens documents, the country does not pose a risk of migration, and therefore counts on counter-steps from the European side to facilitate the visa regime for Kazakh citizens visits to the Schengen Area, which will correspond to the agreement on enhanced partnership and cooperation between Kazakhstan and the EU, the Foreign Ministry said. The European Union and Kazakhstan signed an Enhanced Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (EPCA) in Astana on December 21, 2015. This agreement, which constitutes the first of its kind signed by the EU with one of its Central Asian partners, elevates relations between the EU and Kazakhstan to a new level. In 1991- 2014 the EU funded more than 350 projects in Kazakhstan for the total amount of 180 million euros, which have been allocated to policy advice and technical assistance to various ministries, agencies and committees of the government of Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan has not received any new bilateral assistance from the EU since 2014. Nevertheless, since 2014 Kazakhstan participates in European Unions regional Development Cooperation Instrument (DCI) program for the Central Asia for 2014-2020. The program envisages projects in five Central Asian countries with a total budget of 245 million euros. The EU will launch 9 new projects worth almost 3.76 million euros in Kazakhstan in 2017 in the sphere of juridical reform, democracy and human rights, NGO and local public administration. --- Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 13 April 2017 16:54 (UTC+04:00) By Kamila Aliyeva China has urged all parties, particularly the United States and Russia, to increase communication and coordination to avoid clashes in dealing with the Syrian crisis, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said "A political solution is the only to deal with the Syria issue," Wang said on April 13, Xinuanet reported. The statement came after Russia vetoed a UN resolution drafted by the United Kingdom, France and the United States demanding a speedy investigation into an alleged chemical weapons attack in the Syrian province of Idlib on April 4. Russia's UN Ambassador Vladimir Safronkov said that the draft pre-judged the Syrian government as responsible for the attack. Western powers, including the United States, blame the Syrian government for the attack. The United States fired 59 cruise missiles at the Shairat military base in central Syria in response. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said that the Syrian government troops have never used or intend to use chemical weapons against civilians and against terrorists. Wang went on to say that China calls on the international community to maintain solidarity and continue to support the UN as the main channel of mediation. The minister confirmed that Chinese government's special envoy to Syria, Xie Xiaoyan, will visit countries involved for an in-depth exchange of views. Wang reaffirmed China's condemnation and opposition to use of chemical weapons. "China supports an independent and comprehensive investigation into reported chemical weapon use in Syria." Action taken should be within the UN framework and in accordance with the UN Charter and basic norms of international relations, Wang said. The UN and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) have already taken up the investigation of the incident, but so far they have not published any conclusions about possible perpetrators of the incident. The stocks of chemical weapons were successfully exported from Syria. In January 2016, the O.P.C.W. announced that the last of the Syrian stocks had been destroyed. --- Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 13 April 2017 17:00 (UTC+04:00) By Laman Ismayilova The Turkish Summertour and Coral Travel tour operators intend to initiate flights from Azerbaijan to the Turkish city of Bodrum, the Turkish media reported on April 13. Summertour is expected to initiate charter flights from Azerbaijan to Bodrum seven days a week, while Coral Travel intends to initiate flights to Bodrum twice a week from May. Tour operators expect a lot of Azerbaijani tourists to visit Bodrum this year. Summertour also plans to initiate direct flights from Azerbaijan to Turkeys Alanya beach resort city in 2018. More than 600,000 Azerbaijani tourists visited Turkey in 2016, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute. Azerbaijani tourists often travel to Turkey for vacation in July and August. Turkey which provides high-quality and inexpensive vacation for many international tourists has long ago become one of the most favorite destinations for many Azerbaijanis. Other popular destinations of Azerbaijanis include Georgia and European countries. The number of foreigners visiting Turkey dropped to 25.3 million in 2016. That is a 30 percent drop compared to 2015. Turkeys tourism revenue dropped to $22.1 billion in 2016, a 29.7 percent decrease compared to 2015, as the number of foreign arrivals to the country witnessed a dramatic plunge, the official data showed. Turkeys Tourism Ministry confirmed that the drop is correlated to a number of terrorist attacks and to the failed military coup on July 15, 2016. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz Bakersfield, CA (93308) Today Showers this morning, becoming a steady rain during the afternoon hours. Morning high of 65F with temps falling to near 55. Winds WSW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 80%.. Tonight Considerable cloudiness with occasional rain showers. Low 47F. Winds ENE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%. But if our publishers need some perspective on their plight, and some inspiration, then they ought to read Phil Fitzpatrick's remarkable article ' The Lost Creative Writing Generation of Papua New Guinea' , which was published late last year on the popular PNG Attitude blog. All of these complaints are justified. The life of a Kiwi book publisher can be a difficult one. The book market here is so small, this or that publisher says. Grants are inadequate. Bookshops are closing, as internet imperialists like Amazon expand. Fitzpatrick begins his article by recalling the beginnings of written Papuan literature in the 1960s and '70s. As agitation for independence from Australia grew, the University of Papua New Guinea in Port Moresby became a base for a generation of young writers. They worked in English and Tok Pisin, rather than one of their nation's eight hundred or so indigenous languages, and adapted traditional oral storytelling techniques to the page. Ulli Beier, a German Jewish scholar who had taught in Nigeria before fleeing the Biafran conflict, got a job teaching creative writing at the University of Papua New Guinea, and began to edit and publish anthologies of the nation's emerging literature. A Papua Pocket Poets series was successful, and the journals Kovave and Papua New Guinea Writing were established. In the 1980s, though, Papua New Guinean writers struggled for support. Papua New Guinea had won independence, but successive governments struggled to find funds for roads and schools, let alone literary grants and creative writing courses. Libraries decayed and closed, local publishers folded, and the Australian and New Zealand literary worlds remained steadfastly uninterested in Papua New Guinean texts. Over the last decade the internet and cheaper publishing have revived PNG literature. After Digicel raised its towers across Papua New Guinea, bringing the worldwide web to the territory beyond Port Moresby, writers began to self-publish on blogs and social media. When Phil Fitzpatrick and his friend Keith Jackson established an annual Crocodile Prize for creative writing in 2011, they were deluged with material. Fitzpatrick pays tribute to Martyn Namorong, the self-styled 'educated savage'. Namorong 'bombarded' Fitzpatrick and Jackson with 'short and incendiary essays' on Papuan society and politics. Namorong grew up in a logging camp in Papua New Guinea's western province, and learned English by listening to shortwave broadcasts from Radio Australia. Namorong has made himself an enemy of the government of Peter O'Neill, a businessman who was elected on an anti-corruption platform but has since been fighting a warrant for his arrest on charges of corruption. Last year police opened fire on students of the Papua New Guinea University, after they marched to demand that O'Neil address the charges against him. Seventeen students were wounded. Taking advantage of cheap Chinese publishers, Fitzpatrick and Jackson began to produce anthologies of new Papuan writing, and then to issue books by individual authors. By the time Fitzpatrick and Jackson had established Pukpuk Publications, some Papua New Guinean writers had begun to bring out their own books. Baka Bina, for instance, used Amazon's CreateSapce to self-publish a novel called A Man of Calibre, which describes 'two torrid days during a family dispute in an Eastern Highlands village'. Apart from Rapa Nui and the Philippines, no Pacific society developed its own script and written literature before contact with Europe. There has been a tendency for scholars to contrast the oral traditions of the Pacific with the written traditions of the West, and to suggest that the two are profoundly different, and perhaps incompatible. But the alacrity with which PNG writers have adapted an indigenous storytelling tradition to new technology and new publishing opportunities shows that there need be no dichotomy between oral and written literatures. The PNG literary movement of the 1970s stalled partly because of a lack of support from the country's wealthy southern neighbours. We shouldn't let a new Papuan generation suffer the same neglect. I'm ordering some books from Pukpuk Publications. Thanks for visiting ! The use of software that blocks ads hinders our ability to serve you the content you came here to enjoy. We ask that you consider turning off your ad blocker so we can deliver you the best experience possible while you are here. Thank you for your support! Two U.S. senators are seeking to limit the duration opioids are prescribed to treat acute pain. U.S. Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and John McCain unveiled legislation Thursday that would limit opioid prescriptions for acute pain to a seven-day supply. A similar measure has been adopted by several states, including Arizona and New York. Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and McCain, R-Arizona, said their bill would target one of the main causes of the opioid epidemic the over-prescription of drugs that are used to relieve acute pain, such as a broken bone or a wisdom tooth extraction. The legislation wouldn't apply to prescriptions for chronic pain treatment, the senators said. The regulation would be enforced through the Drug Enforcement Agency licensing process. Doctors and other medical professionals must be licensed by the DEA to prescribe schedule II, III or IV controlled substances and they must renew the licenses every three years. Gillibrand and McCain's bill would require medical professionals to certify during the licensing process that they will not prescribe more than a seven-day supply of opioids as initial treatment for acute pain. In many cases across the country, heroin addicts have said they switched to the drug after their prescription for painkillers ran out. Heroin tends to be easier to obtain and cheaper than prescription opioids. "Too many lives have been destroyed, too many families have been torn apart and too many communities all over New York are suffering because of this tragic epidemic," Gillibrand said. "I am proud to join with Senator McCain in this urgent fight against the over-prescription of opioids and I look forward to seeing it pass through the Senate as quickly as possible." McCain highlighted the heroin and opioid epidemic in his state while making the case for the bill's passage. He said individuals who are addicted to prescription opioids are 40 times more likely to become addicted to heroin. In Arizona, McCain said that more than 1,000 people were treated in emergency rooms for drug overdoses in 2014. Heroin overdose deaths increased by 44 percent from 2013 to 2014. "We have a long way to go to end the scourge of drugs across our communities, but this legislation is an important step forward in preventing people from getting hooked on these deadly drugs," McCain said. Gillibrand has advocated for tougher restrictions on the prescribing of opioids to treat acute pain. Last year, she called on then-President Barack Obama and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to issue guidelines on how medical professionals should prescribe opioids for acute pain treatment. Gillibrand also partnered with a Republican, U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, to introduce legislation that would require the CDC to issue opioid prescription guidelines. New York took action last year to limit initial opioid prescriptions for acute pain treatment. Prescriptions for the medication may not exceed seven days. The idea for the legislation came from the state Senate's Task Force on Heroin and Opioid Addiction. State Sens. Fred Akshar, George Amedore, Terrence Murphy and Rob Ortt, members of the task force, praised Gillibrand and McCain for introducing legislation to establish a national standard. "We offer our strong support and partnership to help advance this important initiative on the federal level," the senators said in a joint statement Thursday. "When it comes to helping our most vulnerable neighbors who are battling this disease of addiction, we cannot allow partisan politics to prevent the passage of common sense policy that will ultimately save lives." The central Bank is in plan to hire more workers following a high rate of bank malpractises. According to the CBK governor, the national treasury and the CBK has failed to combat the banking crisis in Kenya. He said that by adding more watchdogs will make the financial system in Kenya be more proactive and more secure.The CBK has posted several in jobs that will make the CBK more adhesive to the financial sector cartels. Some of the positions include the information systems auditors, general operations auditors, risk officers, portfolio officers, market analysts and finance officers. CBK has been trying for the last two years to expand its inspection staff to enforce compliance in the banking sector.It is clear that we need to strengthen our bank supervision dramatically in order to evade such cases of banks closure. We have several examples which happened within the last four years. Some of the banks were not necessarily to be closed if we had a a good well vast financial knowledge watchdogs." Says the CBK governor Njoroge. Former finance minister David Mwiraria died at Karen Hospital today after a long battle with Cancer. The former minister had been diagnosed with cancer since 2015 and was always treated.He went to London, then South Africa and later today died at Karen Hospital.He was among the closest friends of the former president Mwai Kibaki and the former prime Minister Raila Odinga. He was born on September 3, 1938, and he was among who fought for Kenya multipartyism.He was also the Minister for Environment and Natural Resources previously Finance Minister of Kenya until December 2007 when Kenya held its General Elections.He was one of the Former President Kibaki top benches. He was also allegedly to be part of the anglo-leasing scandal. The scandal which also involved the ANC leader Musalia Mudavadi. The family is yet to give out an official statement. Sheila Abdus-Salaam, the first African-American woman to serve on the state Court of Appeals, was found dead Wednesday near the Hudson River in New York. She was 65. The New York Police Department told media outlets that Abdus-Salaam's body was found in the water along the Hudson River in Manhattan. She was reported missing before her body was found near the river. There were no obvious signs of trauma or foul play, authorities said. Janet DiFiore, chief judge of the state Court of Appeals, remembered Abdus-Salaam as a beloved colleague. "Her personal warmth, uncompromising sense of fairness and bright legal mind were an inspiration to all of us who had the good fortune to know her," DiFiore said. "Sheila's smile could light up the darkest room. The people of New York can be grateful for her distinguished public service. Our thoughts and prayers are with her family, and we will miss her greatly." Abdus-Salaam was nominated by Gov. Andrew Cuomo to the seven-member Court of Appeals in 2013. She was confirmed by the state Senate in May 2013 to fill the seat vacated by the late Judge Theodore Jones Jr. Prior to her nomination to the state Court of Appeals, Abdus-Salaam served as an appellate division justice. After learning of Abdus-Salaam's passing, Cuomo released a statement calling her a "trailblazing jurist." "As the first African-American woman to be appointed to the state's Court of Appeals, she was a pioneer," Cuomo said. "Through her writings, her wisdom and her unshakable moral compass, she was a force for good whose legacy will be felt for years to come. "I was proud to appoint her to the state's highest court and am deeply saddened by her passing. On behalf of all New Yorkers, I extend my deepest sympathies to her family, loved ones and colleagues during this trying and difficult time." Abdus-Salaam was born in Washington in 1952. She earned a bachelor's degree at Barnard College and graduated from Columbia Law School. The early part of her career was spent working as an attorney, including an eight-year stint as assistant attorney general in the state Department of Law, Civil Rights and Real Estate Financing bureaus. She was elected to the New York City Civil Court in 1991. She went on to serve 15 years as a state Supreme Court justice in Manhattan. When Cuomo nominated Abdus-Salaam to the state Court of Appeals, she pledged to treat those who appear before the court with respect and dignity. "This nomination presents me with an opportunity to continue to serve New Yorkers," Abdus-Salaam said in April 2013, "and advocate for justice and fairness here in New York state." Raila Odinga hosted by ODM Gubernatorial Candidate Hon Simeon Lesirma. I am accompanied by Laikipia North MP Mathew Lempurkel and ODM Kajiado Chairman Daniel Osoi. PHOTO | Courtesy ODM party is considered to be the biggest party in East Africa. According to the latest report, ODM has 7,006 Aspirants while JAP has 6,568 Aspirants. In Tanzania before elections, CCM had 2,700 Aspirants while CHADEMA had 1,780 Aspirants while Uganda largest Party NRP had 4,028 Aspirants.The ODM has the resources of being a standalone party compared to Jubilee. The 6,568 Aspirants were withdrawn from the former independent parties like TNA, URP, APK etc. To boost up the Numbers Jubilee has been buying local parties across the country as claimed by the Majority leader Hon Adan Duale.NASA coalition has a Total of 11, 045 Aspirants from the major parties. The NASA big parties Wiper (990), ANC(2,100), Ford Kenya(946) while small parties contribute to 3000 Aspirants.The Jubilee Affiliate parties contribute a total of 1,900 Aspirants while KANU has the largest number of 880 Aspirants. The registered candidates will compete with one another in order to make the next government. Currently, ODM has the largest number of Senators and Governors across the country.In Total Jubilee and its affiliates has a total number of 9,568 Aspirants while NASA coalition has 14,045. These numbers comprise of all Aspirants from all political levels which include; Women Representatives, Members of County Assembly, Members of Parliament, Presidential flag bearers, Members of the Senate and Governors. People in Kenya are carrying too much staff than expected. Both physical and mental. Kenyan Economy is going in the bad side. Politicians should not celebrate this. PHOTO | Courtesy It has been very difficult to convince people on what the Government has done because the Majority of Kenyans have become poorer than they were five years ago. That is the main reason the Jubilee introduced the Public information Portal so that Kenyans see what it has done in a portal.The Government has introduced the real delivery of failure as what the critics mock. According to the political Analyst Prof Edward Waswa Kisiang'ani, he contrasted what was there in the former President Mwai Kibaki regime and now. He said that country is now in preparation to be sold if the debts and cost of living will not be constrained.In 2013 and in 2017, Prices were as follows for the main commodities; Milk(Ksh 40) to Ksh 70, Sugar (Ksh 80) to 150, Unga (Ksh 70) to Ksh 180, Electricity (Ksh 13 per unit) to Ksh 18, Parrafin (Ksh 50) to 80, Water 20lts (Ksh 3) to Ksh 20 even school fees rose from KSH 7000 for day secondary schools to Ksh 15000 and Ksh 26000 to Ksh 55000 for Boarding schools respectively. The National debt rose from 1 Trillion to 4.3 Trillion, Job lost rate rose from 2% to 60% due to Company and Small/ Medium scale businesses closure and that brought to an inflate rate of 10% from 3% in 2013.Because of lack of better words, the government introduced the portal where the majority of Kenya can assess mobile phones for calls and text but not data. Kenya is considered to have approximately 25 Million people with handheld devices for communication. A quarter of it surf using different service providers."If people cannot see the development record in their respective areas and are languishing in poverty, purporting to be good in a portal will not help. Even the majority of people do not even understand what is a portal. So the government has two things to tell people. To define a portal then to defend track record" Prof Kisiang'ani said. Something went wrong, please try again later. Invalid email Something went wrong, please try again later. Police officers were the scene of a serious sexual attack in Bath - exactly a week after it happened. The officers were on Victoria Bridge Road in the early hours of Good Friday (April 14) to see if they can identify any witnesses to the assault. A woman was attacked on the road sometime between 4.15am and 5am last Friday (April 7) by a man of slight build who was wearing a black top and red cap. A 30-year-old man arrested in connection with the incident has been released but is still under investigation. Police are still trying to contact two men who helped the victim after the attack. Speaking ahead of the witness appeal, Detective Inspector Adam Bunting said: "The victim is being kept fully supported and informed as our inquiry progresses. "We're deploying local officers at the scene exactly a week after the incident in the hope we can identify anyone who witnessed the incident or who saw anything suspicious in the area at the time. "In particular, we're still keen to speak to two men who supported the victim in the moments after the assault before officers arrived. "We believe the two men, who are described as being aged in their 40s or 50s, could have information which could assist us. "Anyone with information, no matter how insignificant they think it might be, is urged to contact us as it could prove to be crucial." Anyone with information is asked to call 101 and provide the call handler with the reference 5217076623. Victims of rape or sexual assault, recent or non-recent, can self-refer to The Bridge, a Sexual Assault Referral Centre available 24/7 365 days a year. Visit their website at www.thebridgecanhelp.org.uk or call 0117 342 6999. For advice on how to keep yourself safe you can visit www.avonandsomerset.police.uk/advice/crime-prevention-advice/dealing-with-threats-and-hate-crime/keeping-yourself-safe/ . You can also visit www.thisisnotanexcuse.org for details of charities and organisations who are experts in supporting victims. GET OUR APP Our Spectrum News app is the most convenient way to get the stories that matter to you. Download it here. Update: 8:05 a.m. The Jay B. Starkey Wilderness Park in New Port Richey reopened Saturday morning after being closed since Wednesday due to wildfires. The Suncoast Bike Trail going into the park is also open. Original Report: Over 100 wildfires continue to burn across the state, prompting Gov. Rick Scott to put the Florida National Guard on standby. In the Tampa Bay area, Pasco County is seeing the worst of it with four wildfires. Two are 100 percent contained. Florida Forest Service officials gave updated numbers on the fires Thursday morning in a press conference. The Campground fire has burned about 75 acres and is 100 percent contained, according to Judith Tear of FFS. About 1,600 gallons of water were dropped on the fire yesterday. The fire was caused by lightning. The fire at Silver Palm is 70 percent contained and involves about 55 acres, Tear said. The Bike Trail fire is 150 acres and about 65 percent contained. There are 11 burn bans across the state, including locally in Citrus, Hernando, Pasco and Polk counties. There are four fires in Pasco County. A fire in Hudson (South Wind) started Wednesday and burned about 18 acres but is 100 percent contained. A cigarette is believed to be the cause of that fire. Officials stressed that Starkey Wildnerness Park and the Suncoast Bike Trails are still closed until further notice. There have been reports of residents going around barricades to go inside the park, which is affecting the work being done by fire crews. About 75 residents have been evacuated from that area. The Guard will provide a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter to fight the fires in the Tampa area if necessary. The aircraft would be flown in support of the Florida Forest Service and will be equipped with the ability to both collect and dispense large quantities of water onto fires without having to land. There are 11 burn bans across the state, including locally in Citrus, Hernando, Pasco and Polk counties. There are currently no plans for a statewide burn ban -- the last time that happened was 1998. According to the FFS, escaped debris like burning embers are the leading cause of wildfires in the state. Pinellas and Polk remain at high risk for fires, according to officials but the most active area has been Pasco County. Two state agencies are teaming up to encourage farmers to sell food products at service areas along the Thruway. The state Department of Agriculture and Thruway Authority are seeking vendors for farmers markets at the service areas. The agencies view the opportunity as a way to promote agriculture and New York-made food products to a larger audience. Nearly a dozen farmers participated in the farmers' markets last year during the spring and summer months. There are 19 service areas along the Thruway. Bill Finch, acting executive director of the Thruway Authority, said his agency takes pride in the initiative. State Agriculture Commissioner Richard Ball called the markets a "welcome addition" to the service areas. "They highlight each of the region's agricultural strengths and provide our farmers a unique opportunity to connect with new consumers," Ball said. "Taste NY Farmers Markets also give travelers healthy food options and a chance to interact in person with our state's great producers." Vendors interested in participating should email travelersservices@thruway.ny.gov for more information. Gov. Andrew Cuomo and state Court of Appeals Chief Judge Janet DiFiore are among those who paid tribute to Sheila Abdus-Salaam, a Court of Appeals judge who was found dead Wednesday near the Hudson River in Manhattan. She was 65. Abdus-Salaam was the first African-American woman to serve on the state Court of Appeals. She was nominated to the court in 2013 by Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The state Senate quickly confirmed her nomination. Here are statements from some of New York's top leaders on the passing of Abdus-Salaam: Gov. Andrew Cuomo "Justice Sheila Abdus-Salaam was a trailblazing jurist whose life in public service was in pursuit of a more fair and more just New York for all. "As the first African-American woman to be appointed to the States Court of Appeals, she was a pioneer. Through her writings, her wisdom, and her unshakable moral compass, she was a force for good whose legacy will be felt for years to come. "I was proud to appoint her to the states highest court and am deeply saddened by her passing. "On behalf of all New Yorkers, I extend my deepest sympathies to her family, loved ones and colleagues during this trying and difficult time." Chief Judge Janet DiFiore "The New York Court of Appeals was saddened to learn today of the passing of Judge Sheila Abdus-Salaam, a most beloved colleague since she joined the Court in May 2013. Her personal warmth, uncompromising sense of fairness, and bright legal mind were an inspiration to all of us who had the good fortune to know her. Sheila's smile could light up the darkest room. The people of New York can be grateful for her distinguished public service. Our thoughts and prayers are with her family, and we will miss her greatly." State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman "The passing of Justice Abdus-Salaam is an enormous loss for New York, our judiciary, and all who knew, respected, and loved her. "Justice Abdus-Salaam was not simply a trailblazer as the first Muslim female judge in the United States and the first African-American woman on the New York Court of Appeals. During her time on the bench, Justice Abdus-Salaam earned the respect of all who appeared before her as a thoughtful, thorough, and fair jurist. "I join all those who knew Justice Abdus-Salaam in mourning this terrible loss." Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie "I am shocked and saddened to learn of the passing of State Court of Appeals Judge Sheila Abdus-Salaam. Justice Abdus-Salaam was a dedicated public servant who served New York with honor and distinction as the first African-American woman to sit on the Court of Appeals. She was highly respected and an inspiration to so many throughout her career. Her passing leaves a void that will be difficult to fill. This is a sad day for all New Yorkers. On behalf of the New York State Assembly, I extend our deepest condolences to Justice Abdus-Salaam's family and friends." Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan "I am shocked and saddened to learn of the tragic and unexpected death of Sheila Abdus-Salaam, an associate judge of the Court of Appeals. "Nominated by Governor Cuomo and confirmed by the State Senate in 2013, she was the first African-American woman to ascend to the state's highest court, where she served with professionalism and with honor. "On behalf of the entire New York State Senate, we offer Ms. Abdus-Salaam's family our condolences and our prayers during this extraordinary difficult time. While they have lost a cherished member of their family, New York has lost a committed judge, public servant, and leader far too soon." Senate Democratic Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins I was saddened to learn of the passing of Justice Sheila Abdus-Salaam. Her elevation to New York's highest court as the first African-American woman and Muslim was an inspiration to so many. New York was a better place because of her life of service. We offer our deepest condolences to her family and friends. The Women's Bar Association of the State of New York "The Womens Bar Association of the State of New York (WBASNY) expresses our condolences and sincere sorrow on the loss of Justice Sheila Abdus-Salaam. A long-time member of WBASNY, we knew her to be as warm and approachable as she was scholarly and distinguished. As the first African-American woman and the first Muslim to sit on our states highest Court, she will be long remembered as a trailblazer and an example to women in the law. She will be missed by our members and by the legal community as a whole. On behalf of WBASNY members across New York, we extend our deepest sympathies to her family and friends." Correction: Some of the statements here identify Sheila Abdus-Salaam as a Muslim. She was not. A martial arts teacher in McKinney formally from Beaumont has been accused of sexually assaulting two students. A woman said that Timothy Vidal, who worked at Tiger Rock Martial Arts, had sex with her and made inappropriate remarks toward her when she was 16 years old. Vidal was already in custody for another assault, the Dallas Morning News reports. Sgt. Jon Felty with the Allen Police Department told that outlet that Vidal turned himself in last week in connection with an assault on a 16-year-old female. This victim came forward after learning of his arrest. She said in an affidavit obtained by the Dallas Morning News that he raped her when they went to a storage facility during work hours. She said that this happened twice. A third incident reportedly happened in Galveston, where they traveled for a competition. The victim said she was raped in Vidal's rental unit. The fourth attack, the victim said, happened at a La Quinta Inn & Suites. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 5 1 of 5 Texas Department of Public Safety Show More Show Less 2 of 5 Texas Department of Criminal Jus Show More Show Less 3 of 5 4 of 5 Show More Show Less 5 of 5 A confirmed member of the Aryan Brotherhood who bolted from a halfway house is now considered a top fugitive in Texas. The Texas Department of Public Safety is searching for 58-year-old Billy Wayne Gilliland, who was convicted of murder in 1988. The agency added Gilliland to the 10 Most Wanted List and is offering a $7,500 reward for his capture. The Multi-County Crime Stoppers is offering an additional $1,000, according to information provided by the Liberty County Sheriff's Office. A jury in Liberty County convicted Gilliland of murder in 1988 and he was sentenced to life in prison. Gilliland was released in 2014 on parole to a halfway house. He fled the De Valle, Texas, facility in October 2016. Gilliland is 6 feet tall and weighs approximately 180 pounds. Gilliland has numerous tattoos on his back, chest, arms and left shoulder. He also may wear glasses. Police say he has connections to Baytown, Conroe, Midway and Liberty County. Anyone with information may call the Crime Stoppers hotline at 1-800-252-TIPS (8477) or text the letters "DPS" followed by a tip to 274637 (CRIMES) from a cell phone. Houston ISD is investigating an incident at Longfellow Elementary in southwest Houston where it was reported that an inappropriate image was shown to students during a presentation. HISD senior media relations specialist, Ashley Anthony, said the school notified parents of children in the 5th grade class of the incident when it happened last week. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate On April 12, 1861, the bloodiest conflict in American history began when Confederate forces attacked a Union-controlled fort in South Carolina. It was the first act of aggression mounted by the Confederacy, which had formed just a few months earlier. 150 YEARS LATER: Confederate memories still linger in Texas At the time, Texas had only been a state for 16 years, but it too joined the Confederacy despite protest of Sam Houston, who was replaced as the state's governor because of his refusal to pledge an oath of allegiance to the rebellion. Roughly 3 million men, 90,000 of them Texans, participated in the war. By the end of the conflict 620,000 died, or roughly 2 percent of America's population. The introduction to Ken Burn's "The Civil War" best explains why the bloodshed is so surreal even to this day: "American homes became headquarters, American churches and schoolhouses sheltered the dying, and huge foraging armies swept across American farms and burned American towns. Americans slaughtered one another wholesale, right here in America in their own cornfields and peach orchards, along familiar roads and by waters with old American names." IN PHOTOS: Civil War-era maps show Texas, Gulf of Mexico in new light The last battle of the war took place in Texas, near Brownsville, and actually ended in a Confederate victory. According to the Texas State Historical Association, when the victorious commander interviewed captured Union prisoners, he learned that Confederate forces were surrendering throughout the South. Shortly after, despite the general who oversaw Texas during the war attempting "to keep his command intact," he "found his soldiers heading for their homes." Click through to see the most eerie and rare photographs of the civil war. During an interview with Fox Business Network, President Donald Trump said he wants to pass a healthcare bill before diverting his efforts to tax reform, Politico reports. Here are four highlights: 1. President Trump said to Fox Business, "I want to do it first [healthcare] to really do it right." 2. After Republicans withdrew the American Health Care Act from the House floor, President Trump indicated he wanted to move onto tax reform and pursue a tax code overhaul. 3. During the interview, President Trump said he did not intend to "put deadlines" on a healthcare or tax reform legislation, but told Fox Business that "healthcare's gonna happen at some point." 4. President Trump said if the party passes a healthcare bill, they will have a smoother path in implementing a tax overhaul. He did say however if a healthcare plan doesn't come to fruition soon, he will "start the taxes, But the tax reform and the tax cuts are better if I can do healthcare first." Los Angeles-based Shriners for Children Medical Center is holding a dedication ceremony for its new facility which features an ASC, according to Pasadena Now. Here are four notes: 1. The new $77 million medical center is replacing Shriners' Children's Hospital in Los Angeles and will be located in Pasadena, Calif. 2. The 75,000-square-foot facility will house an ASC in its outpatient care facility. 3. The outpatient care facility will also include rehabilitation units. 4. Shriners Hospitals for Children Administrator Lou Lazatin told Pasadena Now, "There is no facility of this kind that is totally dedicated to kids. This is really to serve the children of the San Gabriel Valley." The following hospitals announced or completed plans in the last week to expand, upgrade or renovate their facilities. 1. SwedishAmerican plans $130M tower, upgrades at Rockford location Rockford, Ill.-based SwedishAmerican, a division of the University of Wisconsin-Madison's UW Health system, will invest $130 million in a tower and other renovations to its Rockford campus. 2. Christus Spohn Hospital to relocate trauma center Corpus Christi, Texas-based Christus Spohn Hospital Memorial will shutter its trauma center May 2 and move it to Christus Spohn Shoreline in Corpus Christi the same day. 3. Aurora Health Care plans $324M healthcare complex Milwaukee-based Aurora Health Care is expanding, with plans to build a replacement hospital and new outpatient surgery center and medical office building in the greater Sheboygan, Wis., area. 4. Massachusetts General to help develop new 300-bed hospital in China Boston-based Massachusetts General Hospital and Jiahui Health Network are pursuing a strategic collaboration to create Jiahui International Hospital in China's Shanghai Province. 5. Medical City Arlington completes ED renovation, expansion Medical City Arlington (Texas) has finished the expansion of its emergency department, part of a larger $100 million expansion and renovation project. 6. St. Joseph Mercy Brighton opens 1st Short Stay Center in Michigan St. Joseph Mercy Brighton (Mich.) expanded its facility to include a Short Stay Center that will allow patients the opportunity to stay overnight at the hospital without requiring inpatient admission. 7. Mercy Health's new Ohio facility officially open to patients Mercy Health Howland Medical Center opened in Warren, Ohio. Nonprofit hospitals will likely face an array of challenges amid regulatory and political uncertainty, but those located in states that may expand Medicaid in the future could see a financial boost, according to Fitch Ratings. Here are seven things to know. 1. At present, 31 states plus the District of Columbia have opted for Medicaid expansion, leaving 19 nonexpansion states. 2. The GOP's ACA replacement bill called for a Medicaid expansion "freeze" to take effect by Jan. 1, 2020. However, the American Health Care Act was pulled from the House floor last month due to lack of support. 3. Since President Donald Trump's decision to pull the AHCA, a number of states have pursued Medicaid expansion. In North Carolina, GOP lawmakers proposed a bill to expand Medicaid. Additionally, Maine residents will have a chance to vote on Medicaid expansion in November, according to Fitch. 4. Some states have tried to expand Medicaid recently, but were not successful. For instance, Republican Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback on March 30 vetoed a bill to expand the state's Medicaid program under the ACA. The state House subsequently voted to uphold the governor's veto. And in Virginia, lawmakers earlier this month rejected expanding the state's Medicaid program. 5. Nonprofit hospitals in states that opted for Medicaid expansion initially saw financial benefit, such as decreased bad debt, and Fitch predicts the same would happen initially for nonprofit hospitals in states that expand the program in the future. 6. States that expanded Medicaid effective January 2014 will see federal funding for expansion decrease beginning this year. "States such as Washington and Connecticut have announced reduced Medicaid reimbursement rates for 2017. This would likely also affect hospitals in the states that expand this year over the longer run," Fitch said. The agency noted payment related to Medicaid expansion could also change under President Donald Trump's administration, which subsequently could affect nonprofit hospitals. 7. Overall, Fitch said it has a negative sector outlook on nonprofit hospitals "based on our long-term view that the sector will be increasingly challenged by regulatory and political uncertainty, the growth in Medicare and Medicaid payer exposure and meager rate increases." Here are 10 recent news updates on health IT companies. Healthcare providers can purchase Allscripts' interoperability solution on the Microsoft Azure cloud computing platform. Amazon and Merck unveiled the Alexa Diabetes Challenge to explore how voice-command technology can support chronic disease management. Hartford (Conn.) HealthCare and GE Healthcare are embarking on a seven-year partnership to improve patient wait times and efficiency of care. GE Healthcare and eMedApps joined forces to bring a new business continuity solution into GE Healthcare's Centricity EMR. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted IBM a patent for its drug discovery machine learning model. IBM opened the IBM Watson Health Center in Helsinki, Finland, as part of a five-year collaboration agreement between IBM and Tekes, a Finnish funding agency. Health Catalyst named Carolyn Wong Simpkins MD, PhD, its chief medical informatics officer and Stanley Pestotnik its vice president of patient safety products. McKesson hosted a dedication event on April 6 for the grand opening of its new Las Colinas campus in Irving, Texas. McKesson on April 3 completed its acquisition of CoverMyMeds, a Columbus, Ohio-based provider of electronic prior authorization solutions. MDLive, a virtual medical and behavioral healthcare provider, appointed Richard Gilbert, MD, president of its medical group. Galax, Va.-based Twin County Regional Hospital announced its CEO Jon Applebaum is departing for a new role, according to a Galax Gazette report. Here are four things to know: 1. Mr. Applebaum is taking on the role of president and COO at Novant Thomasville (N.C.) Medical Center. 2. He will assume his new position on May 6. 3. He has served as Twin County Regional CEO since 2007. 4. Twin County Regional Hospital has started the search for a new CEO. The incident aboard a United Airlines flight at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport represented a major test of leadership for United CEO Oscar Munoz, and he "flunked," according to some critics. In an op-ed published in The Los Angeles Times, reporter Michael Hiltzik said the United employees' "toxic" decision to drag a Kentucky physician off of United flight 3441 to make room for airline personnel "can be blamed directly on the men at the top, their chief executives," according to the report. According to Mr. Hiltzik, Mr. Munoz's two initial responses to the incident were to side with the employees, stating the staff treated the passenger David Dao, MD "politely" and "apologetically" until Dr. Dao became "disruptive and belligerent," leaving airline employees with no other option but to "call Chicago Aviation Security Officers to assist in removing the customer from the flight," according to the report. In an email to company employees obtained by the LA Times, Mr. Munoz reportedly said he "stand[s] behind all [employees]." Mr. Munoz did not acknowledge any mistreatment on the part of the employees until his third public statement Tuesday, in which he "deeply apologize[d] to the customer forcibly removed and to all the customers aboard," stating "no one should ever be mistreated [that] way," according to the report. For Mr. Hiltznik, Mr. Munoz's "knee-jerk support of United's staff" underlies a larger issue with the company's internal structure and employees' inability to deal with workday glitches. Mr. Munoz's apologies and promises to conduct an investigation don't empower employees on the ground to take the initiative to solve customer complaints before they become a major issue. "[Mr. Munoz's responses don't give] a concrete indication of plans to change United's culture to encourage creative thinking on the ground. If United's culture doesn't change, he'll have to take the blame [for more public relations issues that are sure to come]," he wrote. HHS Secretary Tom Price, MD, said physicians should continue to submit ideas for how to move Medicare away from a fee-for-service model, according to Bloomberg BNA. Dr. Price met with the Physician-Focused Payment Model Technical Advisory Committee April 11 for its first voting meeting on alternative Medicare payment models. The advisory committee, created under the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015, has already received half a dozen alternative payment recommendations. At the meeting, Dr. Price said innovative payment models that replace fee-for-service models may work better and curb physician burnout. He said burnout in part results from Medicare's "one size fits all" model, the report states. Dr. Price also said it is important for providers in rural and underserved areas, who may think the U.S. healthcare system favors larger groups, to send recommendations for alternative payment models. HHS requested limited-scale testing for two recommendations thus far: Elgin-based Illinois Gastroenterology Group's care management program for chronically ill patients, sponsored by SonarMD, and the American College of Surgeons-Brandeis Advanced APM, which uses episodes of care to quantify cost and value-based reimbursements, Bloomberg reports. This article was updated April 14, 2017 at 12:03 p.m. Diagnosed with a severe joint disorder at 21 years old that left her unable to smile or talk, as well as depressed and suicidal, one nurse executive credits the compassion of the caregivers who tended to her during her hospital stays as the motivating force she needed to persevere and live the life she wanted. At 21 years old, Debra Fox, RN, was diagnosed with temporomandibular joint disorder, a disorder that causes severe pain in one's jaw joints and muscles. Forty-eight surgeries later, Ms. Fox is still unable to smile, but she said she's doing much better than ever before. Now, the 57-year-old woman serves as CNO of Las Vegas-based University Medical Center of Southern Nevada. In an interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Ms. Fox credits her survival to the compassion and care of those attending to her throughout many hospital stays. She said it's now her mission to ensure everyone that walks through UMCSN receives the same level of quality care in their time of need. "Often, the difference between death and survival in a health crisis is how a caregiver interacts with you, how much confidence he or she showed in your ability to survive and thrive I've personally experienced both the best and the worst in nursing care. I made a vow that if I survived and recaptured my career I would provide a work environment where nurses could engage with patients in a therapeutic way, where correct behaviors were role-modeled. If patients come away from UMC[SN] saying all our caregivers are compassionate and caring, then I'll be happy." To view the full article, click here. If you would like to contribute a quote for this series, please email Alyssa Rege at arege@beckershealthcare.com to be featured in "Quotes from the Front Line," a daily series that highlights the joys and the frustrations medical personnel face daily while on the job. As the Cayuga Economic Development Agencys business development specialist, my focus is new business for Cayuga County. I work to attract new businesses to either expand or relocate here and provide assistance to entrepreneurs who want to start or acquire a business. The attraction side of my work involves collaboration with local, regional and state partners. These are usually multi-million dollar projects, and they can take a few years to materialize. On a smaller scale, I work with dozens of entrepreneurs each year to help them build successful business plans and find connections to the resources they need to start and grow. The following story describes this kind of business assistance that starts with an entrepreneurs idea and ends with a new retail store: L.B. Lightning Cyclery in downtown Auburn. It was Mike and Pam Parks dream to turn their longtime hobby of building, fixing and restoring bikes into a small business. Having recently retired from his career in government and settling in the town of Genoa last spring, Mike drafted a business plan and set to work making that dream a reality. From his work with the government, he was aware of the Small Business Administration and contacted the Syracuse district office, which referred him to the Small Business Development Center at Onondaga Community College. They referred him to CEDA and the Auburn chapter of SCORE, located at 2 State St. in Auburn. Our first meeting, like most of them, began with learning of his plans to open a retail store to sell bikes and accessories with a workshop to provide repair service. We analyzed his drafted business plan and I helped him improve areas that were lacking information or detail by asking key questions and offering suggestions. He already had most of his plan figured out: the products and services he would provide, which suppliers he would use, the estimated startup costs and a general location. According to Mike, I "asked a lot of questions throughout the process that helped generate additional thoughts and ideas in the development, operation and marketing of the business." One of my strengths is my knowledge of local information. The assistance I was able to provide included filling him in on all of the things going on locally that might positively or negatively influence his plan. Since Mike and Pam moved here from out of state, this local information was invaluable. We discussed things like the Emerson Park Master Plan, the future Owasco River Greenway Trail, the YMCAs Bon Ton Roulet, Erie Canals Go Bike Erie initiative, Auburns Downtown Revitalization Initiative plan, and the growing tourism industry. We also looked at the available commercial properties, discussed the developments underway, and weighed the pros and cons of various locations throughout the city. Ride the Lightning: Bicycle retail, repair shop opening in downtown Auburn AUBURN Mike Parks spent the majority of his life in Washington, D.C. An employee of the st I referred him to other business professionals and made introductions to various business people and bicycle enthusiasts throughout the community to provide further ideas, advice and assistance. As a certified SCORE mentor, I sometimes co-mentor to assist entrepreneurs in the areas of expertise they require. Mike took advantage of SCOREs free and confidential services and consulted with Irene Stafford, a former business owner and accountant. With his financials calculated, we discussed available funding opportunities such as local loan programs, those offered by our regional partners, and SBA guaranteed loans. Mike had already enlisted the help of a local commercial broker, but since he really wanted to be in the downtown Auburn area, I referred him to the Business Improvement District, an organization that works closely with all of the downtown businesses, property owners and tenants. While my focus is all of Cayuga County, our partners at the Auburn BID know the downtown properties inside and out. L.B. Lightning Cyclery was a good candidate to work with Cayuga-Onondaga BOCES Graphic Design & New Media class to have a business logo designed. Mike had a client meeting with a few of the students, who would each design a few mockups from which he could choose. From there, he was able to make some iterations to the design and now has a custom-designed logo with mockups for T-shirts, building signs and stickers, created by Lucas Wingfield, a senior at Skaneateles High School. Once L.B. Lightning Cyclery was ready for its grand opening, Mike took advantage of the Cayuga County Chamber of Commerces free ribbon-cutting ceremony and officially cut the red ribbon on Oct. 28. He has since joined the Cayuga County Chamber of Commerce and takes full advantage of all the membership benefits to promote his new business. Throughout the process, I followed up with Mike at key points for status updates, to discover if he had hit any snags, and to discuss strategies to keep everything moving forward. The kinds of entrepreneurs I work with vary greatly from one to the next. Some people are just throwing around ideas, while others have 50-page business plans and patents that will change the world. Therefore, every meeting is fun and interesting, and the services I am able to provide change with each situation. If you know someone who is thinking about starting or acquiring a business, please share the information that CEDA and SCORE provide free and confidential business assistance. There are so many services for new and existing businesses at 2 State St. that you just have to give us a call to find out how we might be able to assist your business! The following is a roundup of recent events pertaining to hospital-union relationships, including strikes, legal battles, rallies, unionization efforts and contract agreements. All events were reported since March 21. 1. Butler Hospital union workers reach labor deal with Care New England A union representing employees at Butler Hospital, a substance abuse and psychiatric facility in Providence, R.I., approved a four-year agreement with Care New England. 2. Tufts Medical Center RNs to picket amid ongoing contract talks Many of the nearly 1,200 registered nurses at Boston-based Tufts Medical Center planned to picket over ongoing contract negotiations. 3. Montana nurses vote down unionization effort Employees at Great Falls, Mont.-based Benefis Health System voted against joining the Montana Nurses Association. 4. Northwestern Memorial employees call for $15 minimum wage: 3 things to know Workers at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago rallied over wages. 5. Queen of the Valley appeals employees' union vote for third time Queen of the Valley Medical Center in Napa, Calif., for the third time is appealing a union election that took place last fall. 6. Federal mediator heads to Massachusetts hospital after 19 failed negotiation attempts with nurses union A federal mediator was solicited to help with negotiations between Pittsfield, Mass.-based Berkshire Medical Center and the union representing its nurses. 7. 1,200 Tufts Medical Center RNs give go-ahead for possible strike Nearly 1,200 registered nurses at Boston-based Tufts Medical Center voted for a potential one-day strike. 8. Vibra Hospital of Western Massachusetts nurses ratify union contract About 80 nurses from Springfield-based Vibra Hospital of Western Massachusetts ratified a three-year union contract. 9. Nearly 500 workers at Brigham and Women's Faulkner Hospital join SEIU Workers at Partners HealthCare's Brigham and Women's Faulkner Hospital in Boston voted in favor of unionization. Bedford, Mass.-based ConforMIS reported results from its iTotal PS total knee replacement study. Researchers compared knee kinematics of 13 patients implanted with the iTotal PS customized total knee replacement device with 18 patients implanted with the Zimmer Biomet NexGen PS total knee replacement device. The study used real-time mobile X-ray imaging and 2-D and 3-D registration to evaluate patients six months post-surgery. Researchers presented the data at the 2017 British Association for Surgery of the Knee Annual Meeting, held from March 28 to 29. Here are four takeaways: 1. The study revealed iTotal PS patients experienced a greater average range of motion during a deep knee bend (112 degrees) compared to the NexGen PS patients (94 degrees). 2. The iTotal PS patients also demonstrated greater lateral femoral rollback of 11.73 mm compared to 4.69 mm for NexGen PS patients. 3. While iTotal PS patients saw medial translation of 2.8 mm, NexGen PS patients only saw 1 mm. 4. iTotal PS patients also saw greater axial rotation of 10.85 degrees versus 7.58 degrees for NexGen PS patients. Democrats in Oregon filed an ethics complaint against orthopedic surgeon and state representative Knute Buehler, MD, R-Bend, over unreported payments from medical device and pharmaceutical companies, according to The Bulletin. The ethics complaint alleges Dr. Buehler didn't disclose payments he received from Stryker and Pfizer while serving as a state representative from 2013 to 2015. The payments made from Stryker and Pfizer to Dr. Buehler are available on the CMS Open Payment Program. Dr. Buehler's office reported he sought guidance from the ethics commission on the payments, but Stryker wasn't a "business with which [he] is associated" according to state statutes. According to the Open Payments data, Dr. Buehler received 13 payments from Stryker in 2013 totaling $15,854; $12,250 was consulting fees. The following year he received payments totaling $52,367 with consulting fees reaching $35,250. In 2015, Dr. Buehler received $27,723.98 from Stryker with consulting fees of $17,000. All the payments from Stryker were made directly to Dr. Buehler. He also received $1,000 from Pfizer in 2014. Dr. Buehler alleges the charges are "politically motivated" and called them an abuse of the ethics process. He is a rumored potential candidate for the Oregon governorship election in 2018. Here are eight things for spinal surgeons to know for April 13, 2017. Cervical Spine Research Society names 5 new officers The Cervical Spine Research Society elected new officers for the 2016-2017 year: Darrel S. Brodke, MD: President Jeffrey C. Wang, MD: President-elect Alexander Vaccaro, MD, PhD: Vice President Christopher I. Shaffrey, MD: Treasurer Rick Sasso, MD: Secretary Medtronic voluntarily recalls neurosurgery product Dublin, Ireland-based Medtronic is voluntarily recalling all unused units of its StrataMR adjustable valves and shunts. The company decided to issue the product recall following a boost in the product complaint rate. The product is intended to manage hydrocephalus by controlling the cerebrospinal fluid flow drained from the brain to subdue intracranial pressure. Mazor Robotics earns FDA clearance for Mazor X Align software Caesarea, Israel-based Mazor Robotics earned FDA approval for its Mazor X Align software. Mazor X Align helps surgeons create a patient-specific, 3-D spinal alignment plan, combining preoperative planning, image processing and computerized anatomy recognition elements. The company plans to release the software to a limited number of Mazor X customers in early May. Brigham and Women's Hospital becomes 31st INSPIRE study site for spinal cord injury Boston-based Brigham and Women's Hospital is the 31st INSPIRE trial site and Yi Lu, MD, PhD, will serve as the principal investigator at the site. The study examines InVivo's Neuro-Spinal Scaffold, designed to treat patients within the first few hours after spinal cord injury. Aesculap offers warranty against delamination & visualization A 1st in spine industry Center Valley, Pa.-based Aesculap Implant Systems launched a warranty program for its Plasmapore surface-enhancing technology portfolio. Under the warranty, Aesculap will give facilities a device replacement if a reoperation occurs due to a "clinically relevant delamination or the generation of impaction debris or a CT or MRI artifact caused by the device that impedes a physician's ability to visualize adjacent anatomy." Dr. Scott Blumenthal performs 1st US herniated disc surgery with Anchor Orthopaedics tissue kit Scott Blumenthal, MD, of Plano-based Texas Back Institute, performed the nation's first herniated disc repair surgery with the AnchorKnot Tissue Approximation Kit by Burlington Mass.-based Anchor Orthopaedics. He noted the majority of discectomy procedures heal through the body's scar tissue, often taking six weeks or more. By using the AnchorKnot Tissue Approximation Kit, Dr. Blumenthal said patients return to function and rehabilitation earlier. Self-employed specialists earn 28% more than employed peers Medscape surveyed more than 19,200 physicians in more than 27 specialties, seeking information about their salaries. While self-employed primary care physicians make 4 percent more than their employed counterparts, self-employed specialists see a significant 28 percent jump in earnings compared to employed specialists. Global cervical artificial disc replacement market to exceed $3B by 2024 The global artificial disc market will likely surpass $4.5 billion by 2024, according to a Global Market Insights report. The cervical segment of the global market accounted for more than 65 percent of total revenue and will likely exceed $3 billion by 2024, while the lumbar segment drew in $240 million in 2015. To continue following the latest news and information for Bedfordshire and surrounding areas, simply enter your full postcode below Co Tyrone meat firm Dunbia says it has "no plans" to move any of its Northern Ireland operations to Britain. The processor was responding to a story in the Belfast Telegraph reporting that the company had considered moving some of its work to Britain amid concerns over the fallout from Brexit. However, the Dungannon-based company stopped short of denying or clarifying whether it had discussed at a senior level moving some processing across the Irish Sea. In a statement it said: "The headline and implications of this story are completely untrue. Dunbia has no plans to move its Northern Ireland operations to Great Britain." Well-placed sources said the company had discussed considering focusing its meat processing in Britain because of concerns over potential delays at ports if border controls were introduced after Brexit came into force. The firm was contacted on Tuesday for a comment regarding whether the issue had been discussed or considered at a senior level, but it did not wish to respond. Dunbia is run by brothers Jim and Jack Dobson and has annual sales of around 787m. In 2015 the Belfast Telegraph revealed that the company was being put up for sale. Last year the firm sold its pork arm in Cullybackey, Co Antrim, to Cranswick plc, which is based in England. The pork operation employs around 360 staff and processes almost 8,000 pigs a week. Cranswick's latest accounts show the business was acquired for 16.9m in cash, with a further 1.25m payable under certain conditions. Dunbia has seen its pre-tax profits grow to more than 7m. It saw turnover fall from 826.6m to 787.6m. In its latest company accounts, ending March 27, 2016, the firm said a drop in turnover "was driven by deflation in livestock price". Alison Clarke and Leanne McDowell model clothes from Ballymenas Marmalade Boutique and Camerons during a recent promotion Northern Ireland retailers are anticipating a busy Easter with seasonal shoppers already taking to the high streets, it has been claimed. From high street butchers to shopping centres, traders expect the later timing of Easter this year will work to their benefit. Overall, retailers estimate that this week and next should add around 5% to 'normal' sales. Aodhan Connolly of the NI Retail Consortium said people will be splashing out on everything from food to furniture. "For food, gatherings here mean that the pre-Easter week is the second largest of the year after Christmas," he said. "Traditionally in Northern Ireland, the four-day break encourages shopping trips for larger ticket items, like furniture and larger appliances." Mr Connolly said that Easter would bring a welcome fillip to the sector. "2017 has been a tough year so far for retail," he added. "Our footfall has been down since the start of the year and the political and economic instability can only have a detrimental effect on consumer confidence and spend." And he said the Easter effect was particularly welcome as companies were now facing new pressures from the introduction of the apprenticeship levy and a rise in the national living wage. "Retailers will be hoping Easter boosts retail sales in April, whether it's shoppers making the most of the holiday or those choosing to spruce up their homes," Mr Connolly said. Glyn Roberts, the chief executive of Retail NI, said: "Definitely the timing of Easter will be better for retailers this year as the prospect of better weather should bring people out shopping." Paul McMahon, the chairman of Belfast Chamber of Trade, said footfall in the run-up to Easter was up on the year before - but that it was due to the later timing of Easter. "With some schools already on their break, we are seeing the benefits of increased spend across all sectors which we expect to be sustained in the coming week," he said. John Apperley, co-owner of McAtamney Butchers - a chain of 11 businesses - said: "Definitely the next week or two will be busy - and the fact that Easter is a bit later this year will help. "But it does depend on the weather. If it's good weather, people will definitely be out." And Mr Apperley added some McAtamney Butchers would open on Easter Monday. "We'll be open in Ballymena and Coleraine as Easter Monday and Tuesday are good shopping days in towns like that," he said. Retailers in Ballymena also said they were anticipating a good Easter. Alison Moore, manager of the Business Improvement District - set up to improve shopping in the town, said it had held a fashion event last Saturday to encourage visitors to the town over Easter. "Retailers in the town reported a busy and successful day of trading," she said. "As part of the event, several fashion bloggers reviewed the town's retail offering and as a result we expect further visitors to visit the town over the coming weekend and weeks ahead." Ms Moore said Easter promotional events were also being held at Fairhill shopping centre, shoe shop McKillens and Bluebird Children's Clothing. This week, research company Springboard said footfall in Northern Ireland's shops fell by nearly 4% during March, the second month in a row which had experienced a steep drop. Numbers had declined across all retail destinations. Robson Green was appearing on Top Of The Pops during the meeting in 1995. Robson Green has said he was once locked in conversation with Cat Stevens for 20 minutes before realising who the star was. Green was performing with his then band-mate Jerome Flynn on Top Of The Pops in 1995 when he started discussing the music industry with Stevens, also known as Yusuf Islam. Speaking ahead of the release of the new series of Grantchester, Green, 52, said that Stevens came into their dressing room where they chatted for two hours. He said: I only realised 20 minutes into the conversation that it was Cat Stevens/Yusuf. Eventually I asked, Whats your link with the music industry? He said, I wrote the song Boyzone are singing. And I suddenly put two and two together and went, Oh my God, its Cat Stevens! Stevens, who has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, wrote Father And Son and it appeared on his 1970s album Tea For The Tillerman. Boyzone reached number two in the UK singles chant with their cover of the track in 1995. Devastated Bangor parents Marty and Emma Bells daughter Josie died when she was just five months old from a rare lung condition and other serious complications. Here, her dad pays an emotional tribute - and offers a public thank you - to the medical teams who cared for her. A distraught dad whose baby daughter passed away just three weeks ago has paid a heartfelt tribute to the courage of his little girl who smiled through a gargantuan battle for survival. The heart-rending story of little Josie Bell's short life is told by her dad Marty who is bursting with pride and love for the five-month-old who faced a series of complicated surgeries. Doctors did everything they could to try and save the fragile infant, but months of dedicated care just weren't enough. Little Josie passed away on March 24 leaving a huge gap in the lives of her devoted family, mum Emma (35), dad Martin (28) and young brother Ollie (5) and sister Ava (3). The Bangor tot seemed in full health when she was born which made her illness, detected just before Christmas, all the more shocking. Doctors said they had never seen a case like it after discovering the two-month-old baby's lungs resembled those of someone aged 60. Josie came through a series of complex surgeries, which her dad said she smiled through until the very end when she shut her eyes. She passed away peacefully in her mum's arms. Since then the family has gone to spend time with relatives in England to grieve after losing their beloved little girl. Marty says: "She was so brave and so determined and we are very proud of her. "She overcame a lot of hurdles which I think many kids wouldn't have got through. There is no doubt that it was absolutely horrendous what she went through, but she smiled the whole time. "It actually gave us precious time with her. It is very hard, though, and we have good days and bad days. But we are a very close family and we are supporting each other. The positive thoughts we have of Josie help us cope." Josie came into the world "a little smiler" and for the first two months of her life she appeared normal, healthy and happy, grinning all day long. In December she developed a cough and Emma took her to their doctor who suspected she had picked up a viral infection and advised keeping a close eye on her. A day later on December 6, though, she was struggling to feed and her worried parents took her back to the doctor who immediately rang for an ambulance to take Josie to the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast where she was treated for bronchiolitis and had to be resuscitated twice that night. Her parents could never have guessed at that point that they would not get their beautiful baby girl home again or the major surgeries that lay head for her. Over the next three months Josie came through many invasive operations on her tiny body and on several occasions it was thought she wouldn't make it, only for her to surprise everyone by pulling through. In the end, though, her parents believe it was all too much for her. Marty recalls: "When she went to hospital the doctors quite quickly put her on a ventilator which she stayed on from December 6 until March 24 when she passed away. "CT scans were taken of her lungs and the doctor told us he had never seen anything like it before. Josie's lungs resembled those of a 60-year-old and they had no idea why. "Four days after she was admitted to hospital she needed ECMO treatment which unfortunately wasn't available here and her only chance was to go to Glasgow where they had the ECMO machine, similar to a heart-lung machine used for open heart surgery, to oxygenate her blood." After being taken to Scotland, Josie appeared to be doing well. Then on Christmas Eve her condition suddenly deteriorated. Marty and Emma received a night-time call summoning them to the hospital as she wasn't expected to make it. Marty explains: "She looked really fragile and was critical, on the edge of passing away. She surprised everybody by rallying again and after a couple of days she was comfortable enough to come out of sedation. She was smiling and happy. "You would expect the child to be miserable but she just kept smiling at us and really did look happy." However, on January 3, doctors discovered a problem with Josie's heart. Her blood was overflowing into her lungs and de-oxygenated blood circulating in her body. A week later on January 10, she had to endure open heart surgery and, not for the first time, her parents were told to prepare for the worst. Incredibly Josie woke up from the surgery with a beautiful smile on her face. Marty says: "It felt as though she was saying 'what are you getting upset about, I'm fine'." Slowly she showed signs of improvement and doctors decided Josie was strong enough for a biopsy in an attempt to find out what was wrong with her lungs. This involved yet more surgery. After the operation doctors decided to send baby Josie back to the Royal as she no longer needed the oxygen machine. But Marty was worried it was too soon for his fragile daughter to make the journey. On January 30, Josie left Glasgow on a private jet with a medical team on board on her way back to the Royal Victoria Hospital. Josie travelled in an incubation pod but the pressure in the cabin caused one of her lungs to collapse. She was stabilised back in Belfast, but then developed trouble feeding. And there was more bad news to come as specialists found out she had a problem with her bowel. This necessitated more surgery on February 2 when she underwent an operation to repair her bowel. She also had an appendectomy simultaneously and a procedure to insert a feeding tube into her intestine. Marty says: "She was critically ill. We were signing forms again for major surgery and she was very weak. We were told the chances were that she wouldn't come out of this surgery. "But again she did well. She was still sedated and was having good days and bad days. "Three weeks before she passed away the medical staff told us that they had got to the limit of what they could do for her. They had given her all the operations and medicines they could. "There was nothing more they could do for her," he adds. "They had to keep her sedated as she would have been in a lot of pain and was on life support. We had to make the decision whether to switch the machine off or not. As a father and mother having to choose whether to let your daughter go... I just couldn't do it. "We always believed she could fight this and she had fought it all with a smile on her face. Then she had a serious episode and was on the edge of death. "We had just left the hospital to go home and see the other children when we got a phone call and rushed back up. They had managed to get her back. At that stage she had been sedated for three weeks and we hadn't seen her smile or her eyes open. "We decided that Josie was letting us know she was tired of fighting. It was time to give her a break and let her go. "She wasn't in any pain but they were running out of options. Had she woken up she would have been in a lot of pain and that helped us to make the decision. "On Thursday, March 23, all of our family gathered and the kids took hand prints and foot prints of Josie. We took pictures and we spent the day with her. "The next day it was just me and my wife and the medical staff withdrew the care. Emma said she had brought her into the world and she wanted to be holding her when she left the world. "I held Josie and then my wife held her, and she passed away in her mum's arms. "It always felt that Josie had done things exactly as she wanted to do. As well many major surgeries she had blood tests, scans, X-rays and 90% of the time she had a smile on her face. "As hard as it was and as hard as it is now, we are immensely proud of how much she fought. Josie came through so much and we are just very proud of her. "A lot of bad things are said about the health service but with Josie we saw the good side. All the nursing staff and doctors were amazing, and not just to our baby, but they helped my wife and I too. "We are really happy with the level of care she had and everyone gave her every chance." While it's early days for the family, Marty hopes in the future to raise funds for the hospitals who cared for his daughter to keep little Josie's memory alive. He adds: "We want to try and do something to preserve her memory in a nice way and keep her name going." Devastated Bangor parents Marty and Emma Bell's daughter Josie died when she was just five months old from a rare lung condition and other serious complications. Here, her dad pays an emotional tribute - and offers a public thank you - to the medical teams who cared for her. By Stephanie Bell AUBURN As a young Hispanic male growing up in the Bronx, Eli Hernandez and his brother-in-law had what many minorities call "The Talk." "If you get pulled over, put your hands on the wheel," his brother-in-law said. "Ask permission. Act as if you have no rights." Now, Hernandez is having that talk with someone else: the Auburn city manager and chief of police. On Wednesday night, Hernandez was one of dozens of local leaders and community members who attended a public forum with Auburn Police Chief Shawn Butler and City Manager Jeff Dygert. The event a 90-minute discussion at the Booker T. Washington Community Center in Auburn was organized by the Auburn/Cayuga Branch of the NAACP to begin building a more positive relationship with city officials. "I think that it's very important for all of us to make sure that we secure Auburn as a safe haven," said Hernandez, the president of the local NAACP chapter. "What has been happening all over the country, we don't want to ever happen here. ... Not in our town." We don't have a specific problem in the city of Auburn," Butler added. "We've been lucky not to have a major incident like you've seen all across the country. But I'm not naive to the fact that it could happen at any minute. That's why Butler and Dygert agreed to host the forum, giving the community an opportunity to discuss police and city relations. Both the chief and the city manager shared their plans for the city's future, including an effort to increase diversity in the workforce while providing police officers with additional training in the field. "We're trying to get a feel for how we can improve relationships within the city," Dygert said. One way Butler said he hopes to do that is through anonymous surveys of both the police and the public surveys that Syracuse University's school of public affairs has helped design. Those surveys will then be used to establish a strategic plan within the department to improve relations with the community. This is a process. It's not an overnight thing, Butler said. But this is a great start. And Rhoda Overstreet-Wilson, a board member at Booker T. Washington, agreed. These meetings are historical, she said. I've lived here over 40 years and this kind of communication has not happened. ... We are definitely on the right track to building a positive relationship with our city leadership. "This gives me hope." Nobody is saying a luke warm can of beer equates to a pint poured, left to settle and placed in front of you in the cosy surrounding of a welcoming pub. But the Easter drinking laws don't apply at the off-licence and most should be open as normal. It's worth bearing in mind that they close all day on Easter Sunday. Visit a Belfast hotel and you WON'T get served before 5pm on Good Friday. If you are a resident, however, present your room key and the optics and taps are yours through the day. Hop on the Ferry - out on the high seas the law doesn't apply, although you'd need good sea legs as opposed to hollow ones. All aboard: Hitch the Enterprise south - licencing laws don't restrict service in the bar carriage on the Belfast to Dublin service. Although you can't drink on normal Northern Ireland Railways services. The Republic has similar licencing laws to our own, if you considered staying in the Fair City. Pubs can't serve alcohol before 5pm on Good Friday - but there are places to legally get a pint. It's that time of year once again when the Good Friday licencing laws leave a few of us baffled over when and where you can wet your whistle. In Northern Ireland alcohol can only be served between 5pm and 11pm on Good Friday. Bars have to stop serving at midnight on Thursday and Easter Saturday. And on Easter Sunday, bars and restaurants have to stop serving alcohol at 10pm. Off-licences are closed all day on Easter Sunday. Click through the above pictures to see where and when you can get a drink - legally - before the pubs open. Hospitality Ulster chief Colin Neill has said the sector is faced with losing out on 16million with the closure. Restriction in the Republic are set to ease next year in the Republic. Mr Neill warned that Northern Ireland could be left. Read More We need your consent to load this Social Media content We use a number of different Social Media outlets to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content. Manage Preference Easter opening hours FRIDAY APRIL 14 5pm to 11pm Pubs and restaurants can open earlier than 5pm to serve food, but not alcohol. SATURDAY APRIL 15 11.30am to midnight (If they have a late licence) SUNDAY APRIL 16 12.30pm to 10pm EASTER MONDAY Back to normal. More than 250 counselling sessions were held in Northern Ireland in the last year for children who are lonely. (NSPCC/PA) More than 250 counselling sessions were held in Northern Ireland in the last year for children who are lonely. Across the UK, more than 4,000 young people were counselled for loneliness in 2016/17. Some were aged just six. The NSPCC said children were reaching out to Childline for help with feelings of isolation as they struggle with the pressures of growing up in today's society. Latest figures show that in the last 12 months it delivered 4,063 counselling sessions - equivalent to 11 a day - to children and teenagers across the UK. In Northern Ireland, Childline's two bases in Belfast and Foyle carried out 256 sessions. Neil Anderson, who heads the NSPCC here, said it was a multi-faceted problem. "There is no single reason for this number of young people suffering from loneliness and as result there is no simple fix to the problem," he said. "What is clear is that the world is becoming an increasingly complex place to grow up in with children and teenagers facing daily pressures to achieve what society defines as a successful life - grades, relationships, physical appearance. "It is therefore vital that children and teenagers have people around them, in particular parents, who they can really open up to about how they are feeling." This is the first year Childline has recorded loneliness as an issue, with children aged as young as six seeking help for the problem more commonly associated with the older generation. Many young people said they feel invisible and misunderstood. Other factors include the growth of social media. The NSPCC found 73% of counselling sessions about loneliness were with girls. One 15-year-old girl who came forward said: "I've thought about ending my life because I think it's pointless me being here. "I don't feel like anyone cares about me and I'm lonely all the time. "I've tried to talk to people about how stressed and anxious I feel, but they're not bothered. "It's like I'm worthless. Whenever I compare myself to other people, it makes me realise how pathetic I am. I wish I was different." Northern Ireland drivers are paying 17% more for their car insurance than they did just a year ago, according to a newly released survey. The latest Confused.com car insurance price index shows that drivers here are now forking out 943 for the average comprehensive cover - a rise of 135 on the previous year. Female drivers in Northern Ireland have the third highest premiums of all women in the UK, with average premiums costing 925, an annual increase of 127. Meanwhile, the average price for male drivers has been revved up by 142 to 958. Of all motoring groups, 17 to 20-year-old males pay the heftiest insurance at 2,430. In contrast, 66 to 70-year-old men pay the least, with their cover costing 421. Across the UK, motorists are now paying just 77 less than the highest-ever average premium of 858, which was set in 2011, and prices look like surpassing this figure by the end of the year. But the cost of the average premium could shift up another gear and pass the 1,000 mark in 2018 due to extra pressures imposed on the insurance industry. These include a cut to the Ogden rate used to calculate payouts, which will see insurers handing over more for personal injury claims, as well as the insurance premium tax (IPT) increasing to 12% in June. SDLP MLA Patsy McGlone, a former chair of the Assembly's economy committee, described the increases as "a disgrace". "These price hikes will add to the cost of living and will further stretch families," he said yesterday. "I think that it is partially because we don't have the same competition in the market here. "Often you will see adverts about deals and when you ask for a quote and put in your address you will find a big disparity with other parts of the UK. "As many of us have found, the price drops when you shop around online, and I would certainly urge people to do so." Amanda Stretton, motoring editor at Confused.com, added: "Drivers in Northern Ireland are seeing car insurance prices accelerate, and there seems to be no signs of slowing. "And as the industry adapts to additional pressures, such as the drastic Ogden rate cut and the hike in IPT to 12% from June this year, we could be on course to drive past the 858 peak we saw in 2011. "As car insurance costs continue to climb, average premiums could even break the 1,000 barrier by next year. "Thankfully, insurers are now required to show drivers their premium from the previous year at point of renewal. "So, being able to compare the amount they paid in the previous year and armed with the knowledge that prices are rising across the board, motorists should be more inclined to shop around." The DUP leader has promised to better understand the Irish language as she announced a series of meetings with supporters of the tongue. Arlene Foster pledged to engage with those lacking party political baggage or demands. An Irish language act is a key demand of Sinn Fein in exchange for returning to devolved government at Stormont. Mrs Foster said: "We do want to respect and indeed better understand the language and culture which we are not a part of and, to that end, over the next short period of time, I do intend to listen and to engage with those from the Gaelic/Irish background, those without party political baggage or indeed demands, people who genuinely love the Irish language and don't want to use it as a political weapon. "So I very much look forward to that engagement over the next short period of time." In February, the former Stormont First Minister said more people spoke Polish than Irish in Northern Ireland and declared the party would never agree to an act protecting it. Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams has said a deal to restore powersharing is being held up by disagreement over "mainly rights-based issues", such as language. Mrs Foster said yesterday: "In terms of the Irish language, we firmly believe that it needs to be seen in the context of the whole cultural respect and affirmation of identity in Northern Ireland. "We do recognise that there are people who love the language, who want to speak the language and be facilitated in that respect, but we also say that in respect of Ulster Scots and Orange and British identity that there needs to be respect held for those cultures as well. "So it is about not just one side or the other, it is about mutual respect for everybody and that is the way in which we are approaching these negotiations; to have that affirmation of identity not just for one section of the community, but for everyone who lives in Northern Ireland and we think that is a very positive way forward." DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds said the party's MEP Diane Dodds had joined Irish language activist Linda Ervine recently, speaking to people in mainly-loyalist East Belfast about the issue. He said: "It is important that kind of engagement takes place, we have no difficulty with that whatsoever." Meanwhile, early May has been set as the latest deadline for the Stormont talks to restore devolution. Secretary of State James Brokenshire said he is likely to either announce another Assembly election - which would be the third in a year - or bring back some form of direct rule from Westminster in or around the middle of next month. As meetings between the five main parties dwindled towards an Easter break last night - with no more round-table sessions expected until the week after next - Mr Brokenshire said he believed the gaps between the parties are "surmountable". "But if no Executive is formed by early May, I will need to take further steps to ensure Northern Ireland has the political stability it needs," he said. "This is likely to mean, however undesirable, either a second election or a return to decision-making from Westminster." Mr Brokenshire, who has said there is no public appetite for either option, is attempting to achieve momentum in a talks process which gives every impression of becoming increasingly bogged down. Despite the lack of any deal, there has been some progress. On dealing with the legacy of the Troubles, the last few weeks are said to have revived a high degree of consensus on proposals contained in the Stormont House Agreement. On the controversial Irish language act, there are proposals in an options paper on legislation, which also includes Ulster Scots. It also sets out the possibility of combining the roles of an Irish language and Ulster Scots commissioner in a single post. Other vexed issues include, however, setting a budget, a programme for government, a Bill of rights tailored for Northern Ireland, same-sex marriage and whether Mrs Foster should stand aside as First Minister until the inquiry into the Renewable Heat Incentive scandal is over. With the shutters coming down last night, Mr Adams pointed the finger at his party's power-sharing partners. "The DUP are at a crossroads but the problem for us is that we don't know whether they know they are at a crossroads or not," he said. But he also added that far bigger problems had been overcome in the past and rejected suggestions that the crisis would not have escalated if the late Martin McGuinness was still alive. "We are not negotiating here for Martin McGuinness. Martin is gone - God rest him. We are negotiating for the future and Martin was about the future more than anything else," he said. "The DUP in particular and the British government have not yet embraced the fact that the institutions can only go forward on the basis of rights for everyone. "It's about rights for ethnic minorities, for unionists, for women, for gay and lesbian citizens and Irish speakers." SDLP leader Colum Eastwood said he was furious, angry and frustrated. "I don't know how I can look at the public out there when I meet them over the next couple of days that once again we have missed another deadline. I don't think it's good enough," he said. Ulster Unionist senior negotiator Tom Elliott asked why Sinn Fein could not await the findings of a commission into equality issues they had agreed to in the St Andrews deal. Accusing SF of "going through the motions", the MP said it appeared they did not want to see the Assembly and Executive "up and running". If direct rule is implemented "it will be a long time before these institutions are back up and running. That's not to the benefit of Northern Ireland," he added. TUV leader Jim Allister said that "mandatory coalition will never work. It is time to bury it". "It is long past the point where we must recognise that it cannot work and move on," he said. The project aims to generate 57 years' worth of research Pictured (l-r) are director and chief executive of South West College Malachy McAleer, CEO of the Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB) Gina McIntyre, and Jill Cush Head of Innovation and Business Development for South West College. Picture: Michael Cooper A cross-border EU-funded project will generate almost 60 years of renewable energy research, promoters said. The four-year scheme will be led by South West College in Northern Ireland and aims to develop new products and processes for sale. It will also facilitate access to state-of-the-art advanced manufacturing equipment to ensure research can be delivered to a world-class standard. The Special European Union Programmes Body (SEUPB) announced funding worth 5.8 million euro (4.9 million), to be matched by government departments in Belfast and Dublin. SEUPB chief executive officer Gina McIntyre said: "The region as a whole is adversely affected by low levels of research and innovation within certain business sectors. "The Renewable Engine project will help to address this through the creation of a new cross-border collaborative partnership that will generate industry-relevant research. "This research will prove invaluable for businesses working within the renewable energy sector in terms of increasing both their competitiveness and profitability." Upon completion, the project aims to generate 57 years' worth of research developed at PhD level and above. The SEUPB added: "This research will lead to commercial advantage for the participating businesses, on both sides of the border." Project partners involved within the creation of a "super cluster" include Queen's University Belfast, the Institute of Technology Sligo, the University of Strathclyde, Manufacturing NI, Action Renewables and Mid Ulster Council. The IRA should issue posthumous pardons to all those killed by its security department on the watch of British agent Freddie Scappaticci, a former republican prisoner has said. Anthony McIntyre last night said it would be hypocritical for republicans who campaigned against other miscarriages of justice to continue to rely on corrupted and contaminated evidence. And he accused IRA and Sinn Fein leaders of engaging in a massive cover-up when Scappaticci was identified in the media as the top British agent Stakeknife. Mr McIntyre was speaking after a BBC Panorama investigation linked Stakeknife to at least 18 murders. A 35m inquiry Operation Kenova has been set up to investigate his activities. The Ulster Unionist Party yesterday said that the inquiry, led by Bedfordshire Chief Constable Jon Boutcher, would be very uncomfortable for senior Sinn Fein figures. And the party warned that the probe must not be compromised for the sake of the peace process. Scappaticci was identified in the media in 2003 as Stakeknife, the Armys most senior known agent in the IRA. He has denied the allegation. The Belfast bricklayer ran the IRAs security department, known as the nutting squad, for over a decade while working for Army intelligence. Former IRA member McIntyre, who knew Scappaticci, said that the Provisional leadership had behaved disgracefully after the spy had been unmasked. Expand Close Ulster Unionist MLA Doug Beattie / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Ulster Unionist MLA Doug Beattie Like the Catholic Church hierarchy in sex abuse cases, the IRA leadership acted to protect themselves and their own reputations by covering up the truth about Stakeknife, rather than reaching out to help those who had been wronged, he said. Stakeknife sent dozens of people to their deaths as alleged informers. Surely the IRA leadership is not going to continue to rely on the evidence of a British agent? Expand Close Anthony McIntyre / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Anthony McIntyre Any case he was involved with is tainted beyond salvation. The evidence cant be relied upon. Republicans who were screaming about miscarriages of justice in the cases of the Birmingham Six and Guildford Four cannot remain silent on this, he added. Expand Close Police chief Jon Boutcher / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Police chief Jon Boutcher Stakeknifes involvement makes the verdict reached against dozens of men and women gravely unsafe. Im thinking in particular of the executions of Charlie McIlmurray, Michael Kearney, Vincent Robinson and Anthony McKiernan. BBC Panorama reporter John Ware has claimed that when Scappaticci was outed by the media, he decided not to flee the country but instead met two senior IRA figures. They reached an understanding that he would issue a firm denial that he was Stakeknife, which the Provisionals wouldnt challenge. After Stakeknifes outing, the Sinn Fein PR machine also swung into action. Martin McGuinness denounced the nameless, faceless securocrats making outrageous allegations against the west Belfast man. Gerry Adams said that he would have to accept Scappaticcis claims of innocence and rebuked those journalists who had pursued the story. Mr McIntyre said: The IRA leadership, who put people down holes for the slightest misdemeanour, effectively colluded with a top British agent to cover up his nefarious role in the deaths of Irish citizens. Freddie Scappaticci continued to live in west Belfast and no senior Sinn Fein or IRA figure said a single bad word about him. Ulster Unionist MLA Doug Beattie yesterday said that the current investigation into Stakeknifes activities would be very uncomfortable for a number of senior republicans. He insisted that, if there was any evidence of wrongdoing, then those responsible must be brought before the courts. I sincerely hope that the Operation Kenova investigation into the activities of Stakeknife covers all angles, including looking at the inner workings of the republican movement, Mr Beattie said. It is crucially important that this investigation is allowed to proceed unhindered, no matter how uncomfortable or inconvenient that may be for Sinn Fein. In the past we have seen investigations dropped to facilitate the peace process. In terms of Stakeknife, it looks like the tentacles go right to the top of the republican movement in both the IRA and Sinn Fein. Mr Beattie said he had received reassurance from the Director of Public Prosecutions Barra McGrory that the investigation would examine IRA structures right up to Army Council level. The UUP man said that there must be a clear and unambiguous statement from Sinn Fein that it would co-operate with the inquiry. A mother who died after falling from a boat while on holiday in Northern Ireland slipped while checking its mooring ropes, police have said. The woman's husband dived into the waters of Lough Erne but failed to find her. The couple, from Co Donegal in the Irish Republic, were in a hired cruiser with their two young children when the incident happened shortly after 1am. The dead woman was in her 30s. The boat was moored at Devenish Island, a popular visitor attraction near Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh. It is understood she was checking the vessel was securely tied to the jetty before going to bed when she slipped and fell into the water. Emergency services found her body just before 2am. Intensive attempts to resuscitate her failed. Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) Chief Inspector Clive Beatty said the woman's husband dived into the lough to search for her. "Police arrived a very short time later with all the other emergency services and at 0154 hours we recovered a body from the water," he said. "We performed CPR ourselves and transferred then to the ambulance who continued to conduct CPR until 0257 hours when unfortunately she was pronounced deceased at hospital." Mr Beatty said the two children were asleep on the boat when their mother fell into the water. "They are a family from Donegal and they were up here on holiday just for the Easter weekend," he told BBC Radio Ulster. "We'd like to extend our sympathies to the family at this very tragic time." Former Stormont first minister Arlene Foster, an Assembly member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone, extended her condolences. The Democratic Unionist leader said: "This is heartbreaking news for the area. I want to extend my sympathy, thoughts and prayers to the friends and family of this young woman. The death of a young life will come as an immense shock to this area and in particular the woman's family. "Lough Erne and Devenish Island is often pictured as a scene of beauty but today it is the scene of such tragic circumstances. I wish to thank the emergency services and the RNLI who attended the scene. As we enter into the holiday period, I would urge everyone to exercise caution while on the water." Sinn Fein Assembly member Jemma Dolan said: "The news of the death of a woman in her 30s in a boating tragedy in Lough Erne near Devenish Island has shocked the local community. "I'd like to commend the efforts of the emergency crews who came to the scene to provide assistance. "My thoughts are with the family and friends of this young woman from Donegal at this difficult time." Enniskillen RNLI were tasked on Thursday morning to reports of a person in the water at Devenish West jetty. A lifeboat was launched and assisted police in caring for the victim before transferring her to waiting paramedics on the mainland. Local fire crew provided assistance on the mainland. A statement said: "All involved at Enniskillen RNLI would like to pass on their condolences to the family and friends who are in our thoughts and prayers." Police at the scene of a security alert in the Pacific Avenue area of north Belfast following the discovery of a suspicious object on April 13th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph) Police at the scene of a security alert in the Pacific Avenue area of north Belfast following the discovery of a suspicious object on April 13th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph) Police at the scene of a security alert in the Pacific Avenue area of north Belfast following the discovery of a suspicious object on April 13th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph) Police at the scene of a security alert in the Pacific Avenue area of north Belfast following the discovery of a suspicious object on April 13th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph) Police at the scene of a security alert in the Pacific Avenue area of north Belfast following the discovery of a suspicious object on April 13th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph) Police at the scene of a security alert in the Pacific Avenue area of north Belfast following the discovery of a suspicious object on April 13th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph) A suspicious object which sparked a security alert in north Belfast was deemed "nothing untoward". Pacific Avenue, just off the Antrim Road was closed and the Army bomb squad called to the scene. Deputy Mayor or Belfast, Mary Ellen Campbell said a suspected pipe bomb was behind the alert and residents evacuated from their homes. Police added: "A security alert which started earlier at Pacific Avenue in north Belfast has ended. Police say nothing untoward was found. The road has now been reopened to traffic." We need your consent to load this Social Media content We use a number of different Social Media outlets to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content. Manage Preference We need your consent to load this Social Media content We use a number of different Social Media outlets to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content. Manage Preference Exploratory drilling may soon begin at the site of the Central New York Regional Welcoming Center on South Street in the city of Auburn. Drilling was supposed to begin Thursday and continue into Friday, said Jennifer Haines, director of planning and economic development for the city. It did not appear that drilling had begun on Thursday, she said, but she expected it to take place soon. Parts of the parking lot across from the Auburn YMCA at 25 South St. may be closed during that time, she added. It is expected to take a day or two. Called geotechnical drilling, the work is part of a site investigation to know what may be in the soil. Haines said there used to be structures including the Women's Educational Industrial Union and two residential buildings on that site. "We just want to make sure that we know what we're getting into," Haines said. A traffic study of the area is also in the works and will help the city and designers determine pedestrian and car traffic flow to make the area safe. Haines said that study is expected to be complete in four to six weeks. Haines presented more on the city's plans for the welcome center to the Cayuga County Legislature's Planning Committee meeting Tuesday night. The center, which will be built with state funding and operated by the city, will be designed by a Brooklyn-based firm called nArchitects. The city has held several stakeholder meetings, she said, including with members of the YMCA, the Seward House, Auburn Public Theater and others. There are plans to hold a public meeting sometime in May to give updates on the center and get feedback. Haines said a date for that had not yet been scheduled. The city is also looking for feedback and suggestions about the welcome center on its webpage, auburnny.gov/Public_Documents/AuburnNY_WelcomeCenter/index. The center, she told legislators on Tuesday, will promote central New York and the Finger Lakes Region, highlighting the lakes, tourism, wine, beer, agriculture and could also include I Love NY retail and Taste of NY products. There also may be office spaces with tenants, which could include the Auburn Downtown Business Improvement District and the Cayuga County Tourism office. The center is slated to open in the fall of 2018. The funding of Orange lodges and halls out of a Stormont grants scheme poses "major questions about the role of institutionalised bigotry", Sinn Fein has said. Declan Kearney said money handed over by the Community Halls scheme had quadrupled from 500,000 to 1.9m on the watch of former DUP minister Paul Givan. He said: "It has been suggested that this scheme was in place to help groups which would not apply for funding from the Lottery scheme, reportedly because of a 'faith-based' reluctance to benefit from gambling. "This explanation simply does not stack up, particularly following the revelations that Orange lodges and other groups which had supposedly not applied for Lottery funding did in fact do so." "It now transpires that the Randalstown Ulster Scots Cultural Society will receive 8,500 in Big Lottery Funding for improvements to Randalstown Memorial Orange Hall, despite already receiving 25,000 from the Community Halls scheme." He added: "The restoration of public confidence in the political process and re-establishment of the political institutions will depend upon transparency, fairness and equality in the governance of all public funds and decision-making. There is no place for any form of institutionalised bigotry in terms of public policy or government." Clergy from various churches in Lisburn at last years Good Friday event A Presbyterian minister is remaining tightlipped over whether he plans to take part in a popular cross-community Easter procession. Rev Michael Davidson has refused to say whether he will attend tomorrow's annual event, where the head of the Presbyterian Church Dr Frank Sellar is expected to speak. The Walk of Witness, where a cross is carried, has become a popular way for representatives from the main Christian churches in the city and the public to mark Good Friday. It is understood that Rev Davidson, who was installed as minister of Railway Street Presbyterian Church in September 2015, did not attend last year. The Walk of Witness takes place through the city centre and starts at 12.30pm. In a statement, a Church spokesman said that attendance was a matter of "personal conscience", despite it being advertised on the Church's website. Presbyterian Moderator Dr Sellar will be at the walk, which he said he was "looking forward to". The Church spokesman added: "It is anticipated that Presbyterians from a number of our local congregations will be attending this annual Good Friday's event in Lisburn. "This year the Moderator, Dr Frank Sellar, has been invited to address the inter-church gathering and he is looking forward to the opportunity to speak about the sufferings of Christ on the cross leading to cleansing, forgiveness and new life to all who place their hope and trust in Him. "No doubt some will be more comfortable with participating than others, and that ultimately is a matter of personal conscience, which no doubt we would all want to respect." When contacted by the Belfast Telegraph, Rev Davidson said he had no comment to make. He added: "I have plenty of Easter services and I am preparing for one at the moment." One Railway Street Presbyterian Church member contacted the Belfast Telegraph to express their disappointment. "We could have no representation there," they said. It comes days after a Church of Ireland minister refused to take part in a similar event in Lambeg because of theological differences with the Catholic Church. Rev Eddie Coulter said he held "deeply held theological disagreements" with Rome. A mother and baby who narrowly escaped injury when thugs hurled a brick through a window just inches from where they slept have fled their Antrim home. One-year-old Nadia Olivia would normally sleep alone in a cot where one of the bricks landed, but on Tuesday night her parents decided to bring her into their bed as she had been suffering from a cough. Her father Patryk Grzechnik, a 24-year-old joiner originally from Poland, moved to Northern Ireland with his girlfriend Martyna two years ago in search of a better life. Yesterday neighbours spoke of their anger over the attack on the family's home at Tarragon Park, branding it "wicked". The racist thugs smashed two of the windows, throwing bricks through the kitchen window at the front of the house and the upstairs bedroom window right beside the bed where the family of three were sleeping. Police are treating the incident - which happened at 2.20am yesterday - as a hate crime. Mr Grzechnik told how the loud bang of the brick breaking the glass woke them up. Shards were thrown across the bed and floor and a chunk of brick landed in the baby's cot. He said he did not know why he had been targeted, adding that he was relieved no one had been injured. He told the Belfast Telegraph: "I like it here and I like my neighbours. "I don't know why this has happened to me. "I think maybe because of Brexit some people don't like immigrants and they think of us because we are from Poland - but I don't know. "My girlfriend is too scared to stay here now and she has taken Nadia with her. I will stay here, but I don't know what I will do next. "My friends in Poland ask me why. But I like it here." SDLP councillor Roisin Lynch was among those to visit Mr Grzechnik. She said: "The reckless thugs who smashed the windows in the home not only sought to terrorise this family, but they could have seriously injured a young child, who luckily wasn't in the cot that a brick landed in. "Those responsible for this attack stand alone and against people in our town." Alliance councillor Neil Kelly said: "This is an absolutely outrageous attack, carried out by a bunch of cowards who have no reason to treat others in this way." PSNI Sergeant John Hamilton appealed for anyone with information on the incident to come forward. They can contact Antrim police on the non-emergency number 101, quoting reference 80 of the 12/04/17. Information can also be passed anonymously to Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111. Sergeant-Major Francis James Joyces medals which fetched nearly 2,000 in an auction Eight medals awarded to a Northern Ireland war hero have sold for nearly 2,000 at auction. They were presented to Company Sergeant-Major Francis James Joyce, affectionately known as Paddy, who was born in Belfast in January 1877. The sale price was more than double the sum expected. Mr Joyce overcame a difficult start - at 13 he was staying at the Caistor Union Workhouse in Lincolnshire - and, at the age of 20, he joined the Army by enlisting in the King's Royal Rifle Corps. He fought in numerous battles in the Boer War in South Africa. In one of these battles, at Bakenlaagte on October 30, 1901, he was wounded after taking a bullet in his left arm. He later recalled: "I took cover behind an ant-heap but it did not stop the bullet through my left arm, just a sharp twinge, that's all, not enough to stop me firing whenever I could get my man. "They were now within 50 yards. I had visions of them rushing us and felt for my sword-bayonet. I had left it behind - the only time I had ever left any kit behind. "However, the loss of my sword saved my life. For I know that with it I would have stood up to attack." Attached to the ribbon of Mr Joyce's Queen's South Africa 1899-1902 medal are six clasps, one for each of the major battles at which he fought during the Boer War. They are Talana, Defence of Ladysmith, Orange Free State, Laing's Nek, Cape Colony and, by coincidence, Belfast. Mr Joyce fought at the Battle of Belfast, which took place in the Mpumalanga Province in August 1900. After surviving the horrors of the Boer War, Mr Joyce went on to serve in Malta, Greece, Egypt and India. Then in 1915, during the First World War, he was in action in France. He spent more than 20 years in the Army before returning to England and settling at Winchester, where he died at the age of 59 on April 27, 1936. Yesterday his eight medals sold at Spink in London for 1,920, more than double the 700-900 they had been expected to fetch. The medals were his Meritorious Service Medal, his Queen's South Africa 1899-1902 Medal, his King's South Africa 1901-1902 Medal, his British War and Victory medals, his 1914-1915 Star, his Delhi Durbar Medal and his Army Long Service and Good Conduct Medal. His Meritorious Service Medal, with its distinctive crimson and white-edged ribbon, was awarded for "meritorious service by those members who are of irreproachable character with at least 20 years of service and already hold the Long Service and Good Conduct Medal". A protest calling for the return of the girls Ministers have stressed their commitment to tackling Islamic extremists in Nigeria on the third anniversary of the mass abduction of hundreds of schoolgirls. More than 270 girls were kidnapped by Boko Haram from a school in Chibok, in north east Nigeria, in an event which sparked an international outcry and led to a global Bring Back Our Girls movement supported by former first lady Michelle Obama. Foreign Office Minister Tobias Ellwood and International Development Minister James Wharton issued a joint statement condemning the actions of the "barbaric terrorists" and calling for the return of the stolen girls. Nigeria announced the release of 21 schoolgirls in October after negotiating with the extremist group but at least 195 girls remain captive. It comes days after Nigerian security officials foiled an attack by Boko Haram on the British High Commission in the capital Abuja. Mr Ellwood and Mr Wharton said: "Our thoughts are with the Chibok girls who remain missing, their families and all those abducted by Boko Haram. "We are working side by side with Nigeria in the fight against Boko Haram and call for the release of all those who have been taken. "During our visits to Nigeria last year, we heard how people's lives have been devastated by Boko Haram. "We are committed to supporting Nigeria in the fight against these barbaric terrorists." The Foreign Office travel advice for Nigeria warns of "a continuing high threat from terrorism" and "major towns and cities remain particularly at risk". The vast majority of Taser uses in 2016 were non-discharges Police in England and Wales deployed Tasers at a rate of 30 times a day last year, new figures show. Forces recorded a total of 11,294 uses of the devices in 2016 - a rise of 904, or 9%, on the tally in the previous 12 months. Of these, five "uses" were due to accidental discharges. Home Office statistics show that the number of instances where the weapons were discharged fell in 2016. Of the known 11,289 uses, 17% (1,910) were discharges - a decrease of 10, or 1%, on 2015. Of the 1,910 discharges, 92% (1,755) were fired, which was a rise of 26, or 2%, on the previous year. Instances categorised as "drive stun" and "angled drive stun" accounted for the remaining 155 discharges. The vast majority of Taser uses in 2016 were non-discharges , with 9,379 in this bracket - an increase of 11% on the previous year. Red-dot was the most common type of use, accounting for 51% (5,744) of the total uses in 2016. This is where the device is not fired but deliberately aimed and then partially activated so a laser red dot is placed onto the subject. The new figures relate to use of the Taser X26, which will be replaced by a new device, the Taser X2. Authorised for use earlier this year, t he X2 model can be fired twice if it misses or does not subdue the target on the first go. Taser use has been at the centre of controversy in the past after a number of deaths. Surveys carried out by rank-and-file police associations have indicated there is strong support for the equipment to be issued to more frontline officers. Che Donald, lead on Taser for the Police Federation of England and Wales, said: "There has been a fall in the number of times Taser was discharged, which demonstrates that each use of Taser is proportionate to the manner and threats faced by officers. "More than 80% of uses were non-discharges - with the number of red-dot uses making up more than half of all Taser usage. "This shows that by virtue of possession of a Taser, police officers are gaining compliance of members of the public. This is further evidence that greater roll-out of Taser across the service would be beneficial." Policing Minister Brandon Lewis said: "Taser is an important tactical option to help specially trained police officers resolve potentially violent situations safely. "However, any use of force by the police must be lawful and proportionate. "These statistics provide important insight into the police's use of Taser. "But we're going even further, and from April 1 all officers will be recording who Taser and other types of force are being used on, the location and outcome of any incident, along with the ethnicity and age of those involved bringing unprecedented transparency to police use of force." Lucy Wake, Amnesty International UK's government and political relations manager, described the figures as "alarming". She said Taser "should only be used in a strictly limited set of circumstances, namely a threat to life or the risk of very serious injury". MORAVIA The Moravia Central School District Board of Education has adopted the proposed 2017-18 district budget. School Business Administrator Jeff Lawrence and Superintendent John Birmingham presented the budget at a school board meeting Wednesday that had few changes from the version presented at the previous board meeting. The tax levy increase for the district is 1.84 percent, while the tax cap for the district set by the state is 3.14 percent. The budget will see a 3.94-percent spending boost, at $22,382,141. The recent state aid increase for the district, $103,930 more than the figure from Gov. Andrew Cuomo's proposal from the earlier in the year, will not alter the budget dramatically, Lawrence said. "Just because we're getting more state dollars doesn't mean we have to run right out and spend it," Lawrence said. Lawrence said if the district has extra funds by the end of the next fiscal year, that money will be directed toward reserves. "Because there are some things down the road that we want to accomplish, and that money will then lower the impact of the tax burden on the community," Lawrence said. Six retirements at the end of the year will create approximately $103,000 in salary breakage. An elementary school special education teacher and a teaching assistant will also be added to staff. In regard to the teachers' retirement system pension funds, rates will see a dip, resulting in an approximated savings of $100,000. Additionally, health insurance rates are set to remain flat, with a minor bump from new teachers who might take health care benefits and retirees accepting health care. The district will also propose the purchase of three 66-seat buses. Voters will head to the polls May 16 to vote on propositions, the budget and board of education candidates. Maria Ridulph was just seven years old, when she was murdered. A Belfast-born man has been cleared of the murder of a seven-year-old girl in the United States. Jack Daniel McCullough (77) was convicted of murdering Maria Ridulph in 2012 and jailed for life. She was abducted while playing with a friend near her home in Sycamore, about 50 miles west of Chicago, Illinois, in 1957. The Belfast man was only a teenager at the time and he wasnt arrested and convicted of the crime until more than 55 years later, after a career in the US military and later as a police man in Seattle. Last year evidence was uncovered supporting his alibi that he was in a different city, attempting to enlist in the US Air Force, at the time of the brutal murder which shocked the States at the time. The FBI concluded that Mr McCullough could not have driven the 35 miles in a 22-minute time span and therefore could not have committed the crime. Lawyers for Mr McCullough have said they could pursue legal action for the wrongful conviction. Mr McCullough was born in Belfast and moved to America with his mother at the age of seven. Negotiations are continuing with Boko Haram over the release of the remaining Chibok schoolgirls who were kidnapped three years ago by the extremist group, Nigerian officials say. The government "has gone quite far with negotiations", Vice President Yemi Osinbajo said on Wednesday night. He spoke shortly before Friday's three-year anniversary of the mass abduction of 276 schoolgirls from a village in the country's north east. At least 195 of them remain captive. Nigeria in October announced the release of 21 Chibok schoolgirls, saying for the first time that it had been negotiating with the extremist group, mediated by the Swiss government and the International Committee of the Red Cross. The government denied a ransom was paid and that it had freed some detained Boko Haram fighters in exchange for the girls. At the time, officials said they were pressing on with negotiations and expected the release of a second group of 83 girls "very soon". No more have been freed. Mr Osinbajo indicated that Nigeria has faced some challenges in the latest negotiations but did not give details, citing security reasons. The failure of Nigeria's former government to act quickly to free the girls sparked a global Bring Back Our Girls movement. Members of the movement demonstrated on Thursday in Lagos, Nigeria's commercial hub, demanding that the government does more. The vice president said securing the safe release of the schoolgirls and others held by Boko Haram is "a matter of conscience". Nigeria's military in the past year has rescued thousands of Boko Haram captives while liberating towns and villages from the group's control, but many have been detained as possible Boko Haram suspects. The Nigeria-based Boko Haram's seven-year Islamic uprising has killed more than 20,000 people and driven 2.6 million from their homes, with millions facing starvation. AP Northern Ireland is an English-speaking community with two indigenous minority languages, Irish Gaelic and Ulster-Scots. However Sinn Fein continue to demand a stand-alone Irish Language Act, with Irish Gaelic as an official language in Northern Ireland alongside English. They want to ignore our linguistic plurality and replace it with a divisive linguistic polarity. That is why the demand by Sinn Fein for an Irish Language Act continues to be one of the areas of contention in the current political negotiations. Much of the debate has been about the cost of such legislation and it was noticeable that when the Gaelic League published its proposal for an Irish Language Act, with an estimated cost, the head of another Irish language group suggested that this was an underestimate. Sinn Fein are evasive about both the content and the cost of an Act but some things are clear. Actions speak louder than words and the actions of Newry, Mourne and Down District Council are an example of the strident approach of republican politicians. New council signage has Irish as the first language with English relegated to a secondary position and just in case anyone isnt aware of that Irish first policy, the council has erected 18 Irish-English boundary signs on roads leading into the council area. Such signs have not received a universally warm welcome and already some of them have been defaced with the Irish words painted out. Most unionists regard the Irish first signs as simply ethnic territorial marking by Sinn Fein and the SDLP. The first language on the signs is not the language that is shared and used by almost everyone in Northern Ireland, whatever their creed, culture or politics, but a minority language which is totemic for just one community. So would an Irish Language Act mean the introduction of such Irish-English signage across Northern Ireland? Well some years ago a Sinn Fein minister proposed the introduction of Irish-English road and traffic signs so we know its part of their vision. Meanwhile, Translink are consulting on the introduction of Irish language signage on buses in Londonderry. There is already bilingual Irish-English signage on buses in nationalist west Belfast and Translink propose to introduce such signage in Londonderry as a pilot on one route and with the intention of rolling it out across the city. A stand-alone Irish Language Act would move this process into top gear and provide a legal basis for implementing the Sinn Fein vision of an overwhelmingly Gaelic Northern Ireland, one that would be a cold house for unionists. The Irish Gaelic language is a totemic language for Irish nationalists and republicans and that was illustrated in the recent census in the Irish Republic. Most people there like to have Irish as the first official language of the state but only 1.7% speak it every day! We have two indigenous minority languages in Northern Ireland, Irish Gaelic and Ulster-Scots, and both are part of our cultural diversity and cultural wealth. Both have a rich history and impact on our lives every day. Many of our place names are Anglicised versions of Gaelic names while some are derived from Ulster-Scots words. At the same time our Ulster dialect draws heavily on the Ulster-Scots language and to a lesser degree on Irish Gaelic. The Belfast Agreement made substantial commitments to Irish Gaelic in response to demands from Sinn Fein, while ignoring other linguistic and cultural traditions. Those commitments have facilitated the growth of Irish-medium education and broadcasting. However, they have not provided the basis for a shared and better future, based on equality as well as diversity. The census in the Republic is a stark reminder of the totemic nature of indigenous minority languages, especially Irish Gaelic, and fundamentally the contention in Northern Ireland is about cultural identity more than language. If we are to build that shared and better future we need a proper engagement around these matters and that will take time. All our indigenous cultural identities should be valued, not just one. The attitude of Gerry Adams and Michelle ONeill may persuade some into considering a quick fix, but that would be a mistake. It was interesting to read the letter by Diane Dodds last week regarding Gibraltar. I certainly hope that she will put as much energy into getting the best deal possible for Northern Ireland as she appears to be seeking for Gibraltar. Of course I am sure that Diane Dodds does not need to be reminded that her party supports Brexit - the very thing that has resulted in Gibraltar being in this potential mess. I hope she's happy now. Worried Carrickfergus Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams, along with Michelle ONeill and other party colleagues, speaks to reporters at Stormont Hands up who knows what the key sticking points are in the Stormont talks? Anyone? Is it too much to expect the parties to publicly spell out just what the problems are? We all have a bit of a stake in the stalemate, after all. Of course, we know the main issues which have been under discussion - legacy, Irish language, Brexit, same sex marriage etc. But what precisely are the seemingly unbridgeable gaps between the parties? Take an Irish Language Act, for example. Are the DUP and UUP opposed to any legislation on the subject, no matter what it contains? Is it just the title of the proposed Act, or the fact that it wouldn't cover other languages? Or are there more concrete areas of disagreement on how far to promote the use of Irish in the public sphere and the estimated costs involved? If it's principally about the cost, how much are they talking about? Then there's the legacy dilemma. We've been told for many months that progress is being held up by disagreement over national security - particularly the extent to which disclosures relating to the Troubles could be blocked on national security grounds. Presumably, the talks have looked in great detail at potential mechanisms for deciding when disclosures could be withheld - and who would take such decisions. Any chance we could see just what has been proposed, what has been ruled out by one side or another, and why? I am, of course, being hopelessly naive once again. Negotiations happen in secret. Parties don't reveal their hands. It's a game of poker, disguised as a game of chess, masquerading as a downhill ski slalom. Or something like that. But there is an infuriating vagueness, a slackness of language that is adding to the feeling of deja vu all over again, the mood of 'can you all please just stop'? I still keep reading that power-sharing collapsed over RHI. Really? Over a problem that at its worst would have cost around 0.2% of the Executive's annual current account spend? It was plainly about much more than RHI. There's a need for more frank speaking on legacy too. Whatever can be agreed at talks is inevitably going to be limited, when it comes to dealing with the past. It's not going to give victims what they actually deserve - their loved ones back and the years of pain rubbed out. Any mechanisms established for looking into the past will also lead to few, if any, fresh prosecutions. And expectations of full truth-telling about Troubles actions should be managed too. Memories will have faded, witnesses will be unreliable or just not there anymore. And that's before we come to all the vested interests in keeping secrets under wraps. There's loose talk, meanwhile, on the idea of London-Dublin 'joint authority' in the event of the Stormont talks failing. Few people spell out what they actually mean by the phrase. Do they mean London working hand in glove with Dublin when it comes to big decisions about this place? That's already been the case for many years. Or are they actually talking about Northern Ireland being shifted out of the UK? Into a new, hybrid constitutional position where day to day government - including running and funding public services - is jointly done by London and Dublin ministers? Who thinks that's even close to the thinking of either Theresa May or Enda Kenny? And how would it fit with the consent principle in the Good Friday Agreement? The joint authority talk is partly fuelled by the idea that it was on the agenda if the 2006 St Andrews Agreement hadn't been struck and implemented. But what was talked about then was a much more vague "British-Irish partnership" that didn't have to mean very much at all. Ian Paisley used that "threat" to justify his power sharing U-turn, but that spin has no bearing on where we are today. Where we are is where we've been since all the March 2 votes were counted. It's a mess that can be fixed, but might not be. Surely a bit more plain speaking and blunt honesty would help a bit? Pictured is Kyle Hewitt, who was arrested by State Police for allegedly pouring bleach into the gas tank of what he thought was the vehicle driven by someone he was engaged in a dispute with. The vehicle actually belonged to someone who was not involved in the episode. On the days when I need to heat up my lunch and am waiting for the microwave oven to do its job, I often find myself staring in amazement at a copy of a framed 1873 page from a predecessor paper, the Auburn Daily Advertiser. The front page has eight columns of content. The left two columns are devoted to news reports, one locally focused and one with dispatches from around the globe. The rest is filled by dozens of advertisements, mostly text, hawking all kinds of products: steam engines, stoves, German lessons, "millinery goods," seltzer, wallpaper and many more items. In short, it looks nothing like the pages of today's newspapers. How we got from the look of that page nearly 150 years ago to today would be a fascinating anthropological study. But I'm confident that one big driver of the years of changes is a continuous quest to make our products better. Newspapers and newspaper websites are must evolve. We try every day to provide articles, photos and videos that our readers will want to see, and we aim to do it through a convenient and clear format. Feedback and a lot of trial and error result in frequent adjustments to the way we go about things. That brings me to a few changes we've made with content and presentation in recent weeks. They're all aimed at doing things a little better. One is the launch of a new look for our nation/world page in the print edition. Although our mission is to be, first and foremost, a provider of local news and information, we know that many readers also want us to give them a rundown of the biggest stories beyond our market. The new nation/world page format attempts to provide a more engaging design while also including a wider variety of stories. Prior to making this change last week, our nation/world page would typically have two to four stories. Now we have a design that still does that, while also finding room for briefs or roundups that bring the total number of topics covered up to about 10 each day. A change in local content that started in recent days is a tweak to our "Look Back" feature in the Lake Life section. For several years, this glimpse back at what was in our paper on different dates in history included images on Sundays only. It turns out, that's by far the most popular day of the week for the "Look Back," so we've now tweaked the presentation to have a photo every day. A final change came about as a result of a reallocation of staff time. At the start of the year, facing a shortage in available employee hours, we stopped collecting and publishing enterprise listings from the Cayuga County Clerk's Office. That content was taking a considerable amount of time to gather and type up for publication. Now we've figured out a way to bring back enterprise listings that pertain to business entities, and they will be featured about once per week, on our records page in print and the records section online. March was a bloody month in Bangladeshs war on terror the single deadliest month since terrorists laid siege to a cafe in Dhaka in an Islamic State-claimed attack that left 29 dead in July 2016. At least 30 people were killed amid a flurry of bombings, grenade attacks and other types of violence that began March 6 and unfolded as Bangladeshi security forces launched counter-terrorism raids nationwide. Eighteen suspects, three law enforcement officials and five children were among the dead. (See timeline) Officials and security experts said militants have re-organized and are bolder now, resorting to new tactics and more powerful explosives. Moreover, 10 of the slain militants died by blowing themselves up a tactic rarely seen in Bangladesh since 2006. The bombs recovered from the JMB are much more powerful than those they used before, Sanowar Hossain, an additional deputy commissioner with the Bangladeshi polices counter-terrorist branch, told BenarNews. The sudden prevalence of suicide bombings is yet another sign that local militants have developed links with the so-called Islamic State (IS), according to Nur Mohammad, a former police chief in Rajshahi district, where banned domestic group Jamaat-ul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) was born. What happened is the JMB got connected with the destructive IS ideology. Like the IS, the JMB radicalized the youth with the misinterpretation of Islam that they would straight go to heaven if they were killed in suicide bombings for the cause of Islam, Mohammad told BenarNews. This is an undeniable fact that the local militants belonging to the JMB have connections with the IS, he said. Sanowar Hossain pointed to a 10-kilogram (22-pound) bomb found in a bag recovered from a man who died in a blast at a police checkpoint at the entrance to Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka on March 24. At least six police personnel were injured while trying to defuse the bomb, he said. [T]he militants are regrouping with renewed violent strength. They are not eliminated; they went into hibernation following the death of their members in police raids after the Holey Artisan cafe attack, security analyst Sakhawat Hossain, a retired brigadier general, told BenarNews. More Musas may emerge At least 59 suspected militants have been killed in 16 raids carried out by police and security forces since the Holey Artisan Bakery cafe siege in July 2016. They include Tamim Chowdhury, the alleged leader of the cafe attack, killed in a raid last August; and the man who took over for him as commander of Neo-JMB, a faction that embraces IS ideology. Mainul Islam, alias Musa, was killed in a 72-hour operation against a militant hideout in northeastern Sylhet district in late March, police said. Musas killing was a blow, but more Musas may emerge in the future, a source in the Bangladeshi polices counter-terrorist branch told BenarNews on condition of anonymity. Neo-JMB militants stockpiled huge quantities of bombs and explosives at dens that were raided last month in Sitakundo, Sylhet, Moulvibazar and Comilla districts, another police source told BenarNews. Sources cited an intelligence report detailing how the Neo-JMB had become more organized following the death of Chowdhury, a Bangladesh-born Canadian citizen. The group has recruited a pair of bomb experts who have experience working in Syria. Between December 2016 and February 2017, Neo-JMB added other recruits, the sources said. Origins Neo-JMB is an offshoot of JMB, which was founded in 2003 with the mission of turning Bangladesh into a state governed by Sharia law. In 2005, JMB carried out 600 simultaneous bombings across the country, but they resulted in only two deaths. JMB became dormant for several years after its founder, Sheikh Abdur Rahman, and his second-in-command, Siddiqul Islam (Bangla Bhai), were executed in 2007 for the bombings two years earlier. But they were not finished. They have come up full strength. Not only JMB, al-Qaeda subscriber Ansarullah Bangla Team has been very powerful and active in Bangladesh, Shafqat Munir, a research fellow at the Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies, told BenarNews. ABT is a group that local police have blamed for targeting secular bloggers, intellectuals and gay-rights advocates in killings that took place in the country from February 2013 to May 2016. But while Bangladeshi authorities have killed many more suspected Neo-JMB members than they have arrested, the chief of the national polices counter-terrorist branch recognizes guns and firepower alone arent enough to eradicate the militant threat. The authorities need to attack extremism at its roots, developing a more comprehensive approach to help young people resist the lure of joining radical groups, Monirul Islam said. Counter-terrorism programs at present are largely limited to police operations but they need to be expanded, he said. Militants cannot be eliminated in this way. The religious affairs ministry, education ministry, information ministry and cultural affairs ministry must work together. We need a separate program for those who are in jail, Islam told BenarNews. Bangladesh is preparing to kick off the Bengali New Year with a colorful parade deemed by UNESCO as part of the worlds heritage, but fundamentalists in the Muslim-majority nation are calling for the festivals cancelation, saying it promotes non-Islamic values. Unease over the encroachment of hardline Islam ideology on Bengali culture has been deepened by what many see as concessions made to fundamentalist groups in recent days by Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Mangal Shobhajatra, the parade that starts the new years festival known as Pohela Boishakh, is a long-standing tradition that brings together thousands of people of all faiths and backgrounds and celebrates Bangladeshs cultural richness and diversity. This years Mangal Shobhajatra procession will take place on Friday. Symbols of non-Muslims are used in Mangal Shobhajatra. It is not acceptable to make the majority people observe this kind of event, which are performed by infidels, Maulana Abdul Latif Nejami, chairman of the conservative group Islami Oikkyojot, told BenarNews. The Mangal Shobhajatra, an integral part of Pohela Boishakh, was introduced by fine arts students at Dhaka University in the 1980s to add a colorful procession to the first day of the Bengali year. The celebration has spread to other cities, as well. In 2016, the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) added the Mangal Shobhajatra to its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. But just five months after the UNESCO listing, Islamic groups are demanding a ban, saying the celebration contradicts the tenets of their religion and is not part of their countrys culture. Government officials have responded by imposing a series of restrictions on celebrations across Bangladesh, citing security concerns. Among those restrictions is a directive from Dhaka Metropolitan Police to conclude new years celebrations by 5 p.m. During the past week Police Commissioner Asaduzzaman Mia has been warning that all people who participate will be subject to a body search by police, and that festive masks and horns will not be allowed. The restrictions caused Sammilito Sangskritik Jote, an alliance of cultural organizations, to drop its programs at Rabindra Sarobar in the capital Dhaka, even as members plan to celebrate the Bengali new year. We will defy their threats and celebrate Pohela Boishakh with more festivity and enthusiasm this year, Sammilito Sangskritik Jotes Ramendu Majumder told BenarNews. Concerns over religion Secular groups have criticized recent moves by government officials, including a statement made this week by Prime Minister Hasina to a group of Qwami madrassa members that she does not like the new Statue of Justice that stands in front of the Supreme Court, because it is not Islamic enough. She said she would meet with the chief justice to discuss its removal. Conservative Muslim groups had been staging streets protests in recent weeks demanding that the statue of the woman wearing a sari and holding the Scales of Justice be removed. The womans statue holding the scales cannot be the sign of justice. Allah is the sign of justice and the Quran is the rule of justice. Erecting a scale-holding Greek or Roman statue at the Supreme Court premises in a Muslim majority country like Bangladesh is in no way acceptable to the people, Mohiuddin Ruhi, the joint secretary of Hefazat-e-Islam, a national organization of teachers and students at madrassas, told BenarNews in February. Government officials also recently agreed to recognize the madrassas Dawra-e-Hadith degree as equivalent to a masters degree. Professor Emeritus Serajul Islam Choudhury questioned the move, telling The Daily Star the education system implemented by the madrassas Islamic boarding schools is not comparable to mainstream education. Previously, educators expressed concerns over changes being made in textbooks following demands from Hefazat-e-Islam, whose influence is coveted by the ruling Awami League and opposition parties to win votes. Violence Previous Pohela Boishakh celebrations have been met with violence, including in 2001 when a bombing by Islamic militants killed at least 10 and injured 50 people. Other terror attacks in different venues over the years have also targeted cultural activists, secular writers and publishers and people of different faiths. More recently, someone defaced a Pohela Boishakh mural at Chittagong University on Wednesday. That same day someone partially erased the description from the Dhaka University monument Memory Eternal, consisting of names of university teachers, students and staff who died while fighting for Bangladeshs independence from Pakistan in 1971. Islami Tradition Protection Committee, an alliance of Islam based political parties, has been carrying on protests against the new years celebration. Mangal Shobhajatra is not any part of Bengali culture, committee member Maulana Sultan Mohiuddin told BenarNews. Symbols of the deities of a particular religion are carried in Mangal Shobhajatra. This cannot be continued in a Muslim majority country. The minister of cultural affairs defied any threats. The celebration will be more jubilant this year, Asaduzzaman Nur said. To curb militancy is a priority for this government. Political movements are not enough to resist militancy, so cultural movement is a must. Fine arts students at Dhaka University craft projects for Mangal Shobhajatra, the Bengali New Year's procession, April 4, 2017. [Newsroom Photo] ein Google-Unternehmen Google-Dienste anzubieten und zu betreiben Ausfalle zu prufen und Manahmen gegen Spam, Betrug und Missbrauch zu ergreifen Daten zu Zielgruppeninteraktionen und Websitestatistiken zu erheben. Mit den gewonnenen Informationen mochten wir verstehen, wie unsere Dienste verwendet werden, und die Qualitat dieser Dienste verbessern. neue Dienste zu entwickeln und zu verbessern Werbung auszuliefern und ihre Wirkung zu messen personalisierte Inhalte anzuzeigen, abhangig von Ihren Einstellungen personalisierte Werbung anzuzeigen, abhangig von Ihren Einstellungen Wenn Sie Alle ablehnen auswahlen, verwenden wir Cookies nicht fur diese zusatzlichen Zwecke. Nicht personalisierte Inhalte und Werbung werden u. a. von Inhalten, die Sie sich gerade ansehen, und Ihrem Standort beeinflusst (welche Werbung Sie sehen, basiert auf Ihrem ungefahren Standort). Personalisierte Inhalte und Werbung konnen auch Videoempfehlungen, eine individuelle YouTube-Startseite und individuelle Werbung enthalten, die auf fruheren Aktivitaten wie auf YouTube angesehenen Videos und Suchanfragen auf YouTube beruhen. Sofern relevant, verwenden wir Cookies und Daten auerdem, um Inhalte und Werbung altersgerecht zu gestalten. Wir verwenden Cookies und Daten, umWenn Sie Alle akzeptieren auswahlen, verwenden wir Cookies und Daten auch, umWahlen Sie Weitere Optionen aus, um sich zusatzliche Informationen anzusehen, einschlielich Details zum Verwalten Ihrer Datenschutzeinstellungen. Sie konnen auch jederzeit g.co/privacytools besuchen. Throughout this years budget process, lawmakers heard a lot about the need to bring New York states criminal justice system in line with the rest of the nation and pass Raise the Age. Yet for many people from the Finger Lakes region, there is another criminal justice reform that needs to be enacted, legislation that hits close to home, but has stalled in the New York State Assembly for several years. That legislation is Brittanys Law. This important public protection measure is named for 12-year-old Brittany Passalacqua. In 2009, Brittany and her mother, Helen Buchel, were brutally murdered by Helens boyfriend, John Edward Brown. The killer had been released from prison where he was incarcerated for inflicting domestic violence on his infant childa heinous crime that Helen was unaware of and vital information that could have saved them both. To help prevent further tragedy, Brittanys Law would require convicted domestic violence offenders to register with the state Criminal Justice Division upon parole or release from incarceration, hospitalization or institutionalization. This information would be disseminated to the public via a registry similar to the one for sexual offenders. In todays information driven world, knowledge, more than ever, is power, and in cases like Brittany Passalacqua, it can be lifesaving. Like sexual abuse, perpetrators of domestic violence are often repeat offenders, prone to escalating violence. By creating a registry of these violent offenders, we can help keep New York safe for everyone. This year, I will join with state Sen. Cathy Young as a co-sponsor of Brittanys Law to pass the bill in the New York State Senate. My only hope is that now my Assembly Democrat colleagues will pass Brittanys Law and the governor will sign this important criminal justice measure into law. Pam Helming Canandaigua Helming is senator for the New York State 54th Senate District The Bible has been under attack in the western world for over 200 years but never more intensely than today. These attacks have taken different forms and have come from many different corners of the academic world, from philosophers, to scientists, to textual critics. In the specialized world of archaeology the attacks have increased dramatically in the past 50 years. Once a specialization filled with Bible believing individuals, the field of archaeology is now overrun with atheists and skeptics, agnostics and those committed to the destruction of the Bible as a source of true historical information. These attacks on the Bible are a part of a sweeping movement in western culture. Spearheaded by academic elitists in the university and the public educational system, the news and popular media, and the entertainment industry, these revisionists cloak themselves with supposed objectivity, purity of motives, and the superiority of science over the "uninformed", "unscientific", religious community. They regularly mock those who question their world-view and their conclusions by name-calling and the worst forms of anti-Bible and anti-Christian propaganda. They have powerfully infected the church by turning Bible believing Christians against the very Scripture which is the foundation of truth and life in this world. Instead of contending for the Bible, Christian academics, pastors, and lay-persons are making egregious accommodations to these destroyers of faith and truth. In these days of intense spiritual battle, God has called ABR to step into the gap to contend for the truth and to assist the church in this critical hour. ABR is a non-profit ministry dedicated to demonstrating the historical reliability of the Bible and to give answers to questions being asked by believers and non-believers alike. We do this by using original archaeological fieldwork and research along with studies in other apologetic disciplines. We take on the bold claims of skeptics and critics. We challenge the bizarre anti-biblical propaganda that is purveyed upon the public as gospel through television and print media. We uphold the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is God's message for the salvation of all mankind! PHOENIX -- State senators voted 16-14 Wednesday to require judges to void citizen-backed initiatives if they are not in "strict compliance'' with every requirement of Arizona election law. HB 2244, approved by the Republican-controlled Senate with only one GOP lawmaker dissenting, would scrap existing laws and long-standing court rulings that say that groups seeking to create statutes at the ballot box need only "substantial compliance'' with the law. That has been based on findings by judges that the intent of circulators and signers was clear and that voters were not deceived. Sen. Martin Quezada, D-Glendale, said the changes will make it more difficult for groups to get their questions before voters. He said it means that technical violations would void otherwise legitimate petition drives. And Quezada sought to narrow the scope of the legislation. For example, Quezada proposed that a petition could be voided if the text of a ballot measure submitted to the secretary of state is not identical to what's being circulated. But other errors, like stapling a copy of the text to the petition instead of having it on the petition itself, would be judged under the looser "substantial compliance'' law. That proposal was rejected. But Republicans were more sensitive to criticism that adopting a "strict compliance'' requirement could lead to invalidating an initiative solely because the margins are too narrow or the size of the typeface is too small. They agreed to an amendment by Sen. Steve Montenegro, R-Litchfield Park, requiring the secretary of state to prepare a sample initiative form. More to the point, it spells out that circulators are presumed to be strictly complying with the law if they use that form. Montenegro said this should take care of problems that can occur when initiative backers create forms but reproduce them using a printer or copier that might spit out versions that don't meet those margin and typeface mandates. "If any committee goes on that site, downloads that form, uses that form, they'll have 'safe harbor' because they are strictly complying to what that initiative petition should look like,'' he said. Those changes, however, were insufficient to satisfy Democrats who said this bill -- along with two others being pushed by Republicans -- is simply an attack on the right of voters to propose their own laws. Sen. Steve Farley, D-Tucson, said the framers of the Arizona Constitution created the initiative process to ensure voters have the opportunity to act. He argued that quashing ballot efforts because they don't meet certain technical requirements violates that right. "I don't care if this is scrawled on the back of a piece of bark peeled off a cottonwood tree,'' Farley said. "I want these petitions to be accepted if they are genuine electors,'' he continued, arguing that he believes the measure will be found unconstitutional. Sen. Sylvia Allen, R-Snowflake, however, said the additional requirements are necessary. She said the 1998 Voter Protection Act bars lawmakers from repealing or significantly altering anything approved at the ballot. That constitutional measure, approved by voters, followed a decision by lawmakers the prior year to effectively repeal a 1996 law legalizing the medical use of marijuana and other otherwise illegal drugs. "There is no way now to protect the people if there is unseen consequences in initiatives that are passed,'' Allen said. "It is completely false,'' Quezada responded. He said lawmakers, with a three-fourths vote of both the House and Senate, can amend voter-approved measures to fix technical problems. The only requirement is that the change "furthers the purpose'' of what voters approved. And Quezada said there is a remedy if lawmakers truly believe that an initiative is harmful and should be repealed: Send the measure back to voters, something that needs only a simple majority. "That's why it's called the Voter Protection Act,'' Quezada said. "The Voter Protection Act protects the people,'' he said. "It doesn't protect us. The people are being protected from us.'' HB 2244, which now needs House approval, is part of a three-bill package being pushed by the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry and other business interests in the wake of the decision by voters last year to increase the state minimum wage immediately to $10 an hour, going to $12 an hour by 2020. HB 2404, forbidding paying petition circulators on a per-name basis, already was signed by Gov. Doug Ducey. And SB 1236, awaiting debate, would make the organizers of initiative drives liable for fines for violations of election laws committed by petition circulators. Backers of the changes said they are trying to protect the integrity of the initiative process. But Allen made it clear she is focused in particular on the newly approved minimum wage hike. "The unseen consequences of that we can't fix,'' she said. "I have so many small business owners not knowing what they're going to do to face this bill,'' Allen continued. "And they were outnumbered in that election by those who take these wages.'' Sen. Andrea Dalessandro, D-Tucson, said she foresees a legal challenge if Ducey signs this measure into law. She said it is up to the courts, and not the legislature, to decide how to interpret the constitutional right of voters to propose their own laws. "And it will yet again waste taxpayers' money like we've done so many times,'' Dalessandro said. Montenegro tacked on another amendment to require the secretary of state to prepare a handbook of rules and regulations for initiatives ahead of each election and make that available on its web site. He said that should help initiative backers be in strict compliance with the law. But there's a political element to all of that: Montenegro already has announced he intends to challenge incumbent Michele Reagan in next year's GOP primary. And Reagan was the subject of an investigation last year by the attorney general's office last year after Reagan failed to update the broader election manual ahead of the election despite a requirement that the manual "shall'' be updated before every election.'' Michael Bailey, the chief deputy attorney general, acknowledged that Reagan adopted unique interpretation of that law. But he declined to pursue the matter, saying the current law on handbooks is not absolutely clear and, no matter what, Reagan committed no criminal offense. Last month the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled two Muslim women, one in Belgium, the other in France, who were dismissed by their employers for wearing headscarves did not suffer direct discrimination. This was on the basis that employers are within their rights to ban visible political or religious clothing and symbols in the workplace as long as it is part of a requirement for all staff to dress neutrally. This is contrary to an earlier ruling by the European Court of Human Rights upholding the rights of employees to display religious symbols at work. The ECJ ruling has been interpreted by some as Islamophobic, given the ramifications will likely impact Muslim employees due to their Islamic clothing and symbols being seen as far more objectionable and less neutral than clothes and symbols associated with other religious traditions. The decision also prompts debates about the extent to which views that were formerly the preserve of the far-right about Muslims and Islam have begun to shape and inform the political and policy mainstream thereby having the potential for Islamophobia to become increasingly unquestioned and worryingly normal. For more than a decade now, Europes far-right milieu has been shifting their ideological focus away from the historical threat posed by Jews and Judaism to the contemporary equivalent presented by Muslims and Islam. Citing the alleged Islamification of certain European cities of which the greater visibility of Muslim women has been a recurrent discourse - the argument goes that Muslims will eventually destroy the very nation states that in the words of the far-right had generously sought to afford them a new home. For the far-right, its all part of the Islamic invasion. At its most extreme, this line of argument was justification enough for Norways Anders Behring Breivik who, shortly before killing eight people with a bomb in Oslo and a further 69 at a summer camp on the island of Utya, uploaded a manifesto to the internet that sought to justify his actions on the need to resist the Islamic invasion of Europe in order to protect the continents identity, culture and values. Germanys Nationalsozialistischer Untergrund (National Socialist Underground) and Swedens Peter Mangs have put forward something similar. Islamophobic campaigns have also brought about unprecedented success for some from within the far-right also. For example, the British National Party achieved unprecedented electoral success in local, European and London mayoral elections on the back of campaigns such as Islam Out of Britain and Islam Referendum Day. Elsewhere, those such as Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest) in Belgium and the Dansk Folkeparti (Danish Peoples Party) in Denmark have achieved similar. It is not uncommon in Europe for Islamophobic messages to feature in the discourse of those in the political mainstream either. Some examples include the former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi who stated that Milan would soon be an Islamic city or the Sverigedemokraterna (Swedish Democrats) which called for measures to limit the birth rate of Muslim migrants to the country. Most recently and most resonant with the far-right - the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orban referred to the current refugee crisis being part of an Islamic master-plan to take-over Europe. The normalisation of Europes Islamophobia is most concerning however when it can be shown to go against the liberal values upon which contemporary Europe is founded; fairness, equality and liberty among others. For some, this is explicitly stated as with the self-declared socialist Pim Fortuyn whose political ideology and that of his political party Lijst Pim Fortuyn (Pim Fortuyn List) - was informed by the perceived incompatibility of Muslims and Islam with the liberal way of life he stated was definitive of the Netherlands. In France, left-wing movements such as Resistance Republicaine (Republican Resistance) have recently protested holding placards bearing slogans such as Islam out of the Louvre and No to the Islamisation of Alsace-Lorraine. In France too, its ban on the wearing of the niqab or full-face covering worn by a small number of Muslim women continues to be justified on the basis that such a garment has no place in a secular, liberal society. Similar bans also exist in Belgium, Switzerland and Bulgaria as also some parts of Germany and Italy. Maybe the most shocking were the scenes that accompanied the forcible undressing of Muslim women on a number of French beaches last summer due to locally imposed bans on the wearing of burkinis. Most striking though was the lack of any concerted or vociferous protest against those womens human rights from within either the social or political spaces. Instead, debates raged about why too much clothing on a beach could be seen to be a threat to us and who we are. The same could be said of last weeks ruling by the ECJ when the socio-political response failed to even constitute a whimper. An interesting comparison can be made to the United States and the response to Trumps proposed Muslim ban. Aside from legislators and politicians in various states seeking to overturn the ban, the response by thousands of ordinary Americans was to take to the streets and protest against what they saw was the undermining of American values. For ordinary Americans, Muslims were the victims rather than the cause. In Europe, rarely are Muslims seen to be the victims irrespective of what injustice they have to endure or what spurious allegations are made of them. Maybe Trump is providing us with a timely distraction behind which we can hide just how normal our Islamophobia might be. Pannar Seed, a DuPont seed business in Africa, recently announced the appointment of a local leading agri-input supplier, Elgon Kenya Limited, as its distributor within Kenya for its maize hybrids. Through this strategic collaboration, Elgon will distribute selected Pannar maize varieties to farmers from the beginning of the 2017 sales season. Hans via pixabay The collaboration with Elgon extends a long-standing relationship with DuPont and aligns with our strategy to address, through collaboration, the challenges which impact the productivity of Kenyan smallholder farmers, said Humphrey Kiruaye, commercial head of DuPonts seed business in Kenya. Elgons strong presence and breadth within the market will augment our footprint and address these challenges by giving Kenyan maize farmers access to seed in the market." Elgon Kenya Limited is the largest agri-input supplier and has a vast supply chain network across Kenya. The company offers farmers a one-stop shop for agrochemicals, seeds, and fertilisers. A call on farmers to embrace hybrid seeds The Elgon Kenya Ltd managing director, Bimal Kantaria, called on farmers to embrace certified hybrid seeds since this is the first step towards better yields and success in farming. We have to adapt to changing conditions and ensure that our farmers have easier and timely access to varieties that can comfortably feed them and the nation. We are glad our collaboration with Pannar is steering this resolve forward, Kantaria said. Maize is a staple crop and a significant contributor to Kenyas economic and social development, providing jobs, income, and food. The country currently has a national average maize yield of about two metric tons per hectare, which is below the yield of the US yield of 10 tons per hectare. By adopting hybrid seed and using improved farming inputs and techniques, participating farmers will be able to achieve significant productivity gains and increase their yields two-fold or more. Elgon Kenya is the largest agri-input supplier company in Kenya with a firm grip in other sectors such as cereals, seeds, irrigation, tea and coffee which attract the bulk of food producers in Kenya. The company has rolled out key interventions and low-cost innovations targeting smallholder farmers, such as miniature irrigation kits, low-cost greenhouse sheeting materials, fertiliser packaging, a farmers clinic programme, and an annual reward scheme now in its fifth year. Agbiz newsletter Safrea unravels the fake news phenomenon Fake news, post-truths, alternative facts - call it what you will, there's a definite need to cut through the clutter of bias, opinion and untruths getting published as hard news. Here's what Herman Wasserman, professor of media studies at UCT and Lauren Green, senior analyst at BrandsEye mentioned at Safrea Cape Town's recent fake news event. The month kicked off with news of an international alliance set to combat the spread of fake news and improve public understanding of journalism across the globe. Its a positive step as fake news is simply everywhere these days, especially online where there are fewer gatekeepers than before. This means anyone can publish news at the click of a button, spreading misinformation and damaging the credibility of the publishing industry overall. Thats why theres a strong local move against fake news too at 6pm on 23 March, the South African Freelancers' Association (Safrea) Cape Town hosted a fake news event. On the night, speakers Wasserman and Green discussed the rise of fake news in South Africa and abroad, and how media professionals can buck the trend. Wassermans main points are summarised below Herman Wasserman, professor of media studies at UCT. We're living in a 'post-truth era', where public opinion is shaped by ideas that appeal to emotion and personal belief rather than objective facts. The media ecology has changed with a move to online commercial media, cutbacks to investigative journalism, the sharing economy and the 'filter bubbles' we find ourselves in confirmation bias. Fake news plays into these fears, biases and preconceptions. On the point of what consumers can do to ensure theyre linking to credible online news sources, Wasserman recommends making use of fact-checking services and platform tagging through Google and Facebook. We also need greater media literacy in terms of learning how to spot fake sites, and a rising trend amongst users as creators and curators to take responsibility and think before sharing. Doing so will strengthen links between journalists and audiences in doing what fake news producers won't investigate, analyse, contextualse, research and connect not only facts, but truths that resonate. I also chatted to Green post-event Lauren Green, senior analyst at BrandsEye. Talk us through the current scourge of fake news. What has led to this, and whats the result on reliable publishers, advertisers and readers alike? Talk us through the current scourge of fake news. What has led to this, and whats the result on reliable publishers, advertisers and readers alike? There are important distinctions to be made within the holdall category of fake news. There is no doubt of the increase in explicitly fake news based on content lacking veracity but we also have, for example Donald Trump lambasting the media who disagree with him as being fake news. White House Correspondents Dinner will be full of lying Neocon hacks, ignorant morons & #FakeNews propagandists pic.twitter.com/hoSycwGBza Ian56 (@Ian56789) April 11, 2017 Media bias is something that has always existed in subtle ways more recently weve seen the rise of a so-called alternative online press, whose bias is significantly more explicit (i.e. Breitbart). Also, within the context of fake news, there should be a distinction between highly sensationalised click bait news and content that aims to shift political or social discourse. Social media has obviously led to an increase in the dissemination of this content its no longer limited to face-to-face interaction or dark corners of the web. There is also the added legitimacy of stories being shared by respected authors, close friends or acquaintances. Actor James Woods, for example, tweeted a lot about voter fraud during the US election. What we saw when we analysed the reaction to a fake story about Hilary Clinton being endorsed by an Isis leader is that fake news can have real traction. Through our crowdsourced analysis we found that 87% of the authors who shared this article believed it to be true. In what appears to be confirmation bias in action, the motive for sharing fake news was that it bolstered their reasons for distrusting the candidate. When the FBI announced that no wrongdoing had been found within the email scandal, this story received very little traction. Simply lumping all these categories together may be a reason for citizen confusion and in this context of blurred boundaries, it may be that citizens themselves are not making distinctions between bias or content that contests their world view, alternative online press and explicitly fake content. This obviously has the possibility of seeding distrust of any news source. Definitely. Whats the difference between fake news that originates in SA to the rest of the world then? Definitely. Whats the difference between fake news that originates in SA to the rest of the world then? The SA online news sites producing fake content with sensationalist headlines, e.g. On his first day in office, Donald Trump said he will arrest Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe and SIX other African leaders before the end of February. Or theres, South Africa offers Khama Billiat, Tendai Ndoro and others permanent residency so they can play for Bafana Bafana. These seem only to be aiming at clickbait. These sites produce a mixture of fake and true stories, more often than not accompanied by incredibly sensationalist headlines. We dont seem to have a prevalence of hyperpartisan sites as in the US and elsewhere in the world. South Africas fake news disseminated through social media, particularly through Twitter, appears to be politically motivated. Our analysis on the paid Twitter phenomenon has shown that there is a clear attempt to undermine the treasury and defend the Guptas. How can we each do our part to squeeze out fake news? How can we each do our part to squeeze out fake news? The first rule is for people to never share articles they havent read in full! Also, if citizens are reading from an unfamiliar source they should do their best to investigate the source. If an article seems too outrageous to be true, consumers should first check what other credible news sources have followed the story. Hopefully we dont see the kind of confirmation bias we saw in the US, which allows fake stories to travel far further than they should. But as the conversations around fake news and media bias become more commonplace, hopefully consumers will become more discerning. Africa Check has created a great guide on this. Seems its up to everyone to get things back to a clear moral, ethical standpoint. Dont believe everything you read... Click here for more from BrandsEye on fake news and click here for more from Safrea, which regularly holds free events for its members. Following its reacquisition from Tiger Branded Consumer Goods of South Africa, the Nigerian Dangote Flour Mills has returned to profitability after four years of losses. Thabo Mabe, CEO of Dangote Flour Mills. It has posted a profit before tax of N11.82 billion for its financial year ended on 31 December 2016. Review of the results indicated that the groups operating profit went up to N16 billion, compared to a loss of N8.6 billion posted at the preceding year. Profit after tax went up to N10.6 billion in contrast to a loss of N12.5 billion in 2015. Revenue went up by 120% from N48 billion to N105 billion, while gross profit increased by 556.8% to N29 billion compared to N4 billion in 2016. Capital market analysts described the companys performance as heart-warming given that the company had recorded losses in the past. Dangote Flour Mills consist of Dangote Flour, Dangote Pasta and Dangote Noodles. Having reacquired the flourmills, the new board of directors and management started a restructuring process. Speaking on the repositioning, the chairman, Dangote Flour Mills, Ighodalo Asue, said, We bought back Dangote Flour Mill from Tiger Branded Consumer Goods and by this move, it means we have a stronger, better, sophisticated and more focused company. Since the takeover, we have taken many steps to reposition the company through expansion to drive growth. We are also using this medium to restate our commitment to increasing our shareholders. The group chief executive officer, Dangote Flour Mills, Thabo Mabe, attributed the return to profitability to several strategies adopted by the company to increase market share and create value for shareholders. He noted that the company was driven by the vision of putting its products on the table of every Nigerian. A R4bn titanium dioxide pigment (TiO 2 ) production plant is planned for the Richards Bay industrial development zone (IDZ). The plant, a technology partnership between Nyanza Light Metals and Avertana of New Zealand, will utilise waste steel slag that Evraz Highveld Steel and Vanadium has been stockpiling at its Witbank operations - about 45m tonnes, which equates to about 200 years of project life. South Africa consumes around 35,000,tonnes per annum (tpa) of titanium pigment, mainly in paint manufacturing. The Nyanza project will produce 50,000 tpa of titanium dioxide pigment, which it will sell locally and export to the rest of Africa and the Middle East. Job creation The agreement follows a successful pre-feasibility study coupled with piloting studies conducted between 2015 and 2017 by Nyanza and its technical partners. About 550 permanent jobs and 1,200 indirect jobs are anticipated when the plant is fully operational, with 800 being created during construction. Building of the plant is expected to start in 2018, with production scheduled to begin in 2020. New technology The project will bring new technology to South Africa and help the governments industrialisation programme and efforts to add value to the South African mining and mineral processing value chain. Avertana, which has developed a proprietary process to extract titanium from the waste steel slag, refines titanium as well as other industrial minerals and chemicals from steel waste, with a lower carbon footprint than existing processes and with minimal residual waste. The overall manufacturing process is novel and unique and will be a world first. This is largely because conventional processes use purer feed stocks such as rutile and ilmenite, which have titanium content ranging from 50% to 96% while Nyanzas feed stock has a TiO 2 content of 32% or less. The focus of the feasibility studies has been to develop a unique process and demonstrate that we could use this waste steel slag and produce a world-class grade pigment, says Donovan Chimhandamba, CEO of Nyanza. Market Titanium dioxide pigment is the most widely used white pigment in the world, accounting for about 70% of the pigment market. Due to its unique opacifying and whitening capabilities, it is used in everything from paints and coatings, cosmetics, and foods to papers and plastics. Global annual demand for titanium dioxide pigment is estimated at about six million tonnes, equating to approximately $15bn, with the paints and coatings sector accounting for more than 57% of demand. Titanium dioxide pigment prices in 2011 reached heights of $4,300 per tonne. Successful implementation will see the following benefits accrue to the country: The Green Talents - International Forum for High Potentials in Sustainable Development was launched in 2009 by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and honours 25 young researchers each year. The 2017 competition is now open for entries. Sustainable development means finding a balance between the need for socio-economic development, the protection of the environment, and the preservation of our earth for present and future generations. These topics of global political relevance demand international research cooperation. The 2017 Green Talents competition will address these topics with a special focus on the theme of Sustainable Production and Consumption. Long-lasting contacts between up-and-coming talent and established experts have an important role to play here. This is why the Green Talents competition aims to build up an extensive, interdisciplinary network of experts from science and industry to work together on the opportunities, and creating liveable and decent conditions for all, explains minister and patron of the award Johanna Wanka. Access Germanys research elite Since its inception, the award has recognised 182 young researchers and scientists from 51 nations for their outstanding achievements and contributions to making their communities, countries and societies more sustainable. The award winners are selected by a jury of German experts and are granted access to Germanys research elite. The 2017 Green Talents award includes an invitation to the fully funded two-week Science Forum 2017, consisting of: a visit to leading German science and research facilities with unique insights from experts at these institutions, individual appointments with German experts of the winners choice to discuss opportunities for research and cooperation, networking opportunities at the award ceremony in Berlin with participating Green Talents alumni, a fully funded research stay of up to three months at an institution of the award winners choice in 2018, and exclusive and unique access to the Green Talents alumni network. Deadline for submissions is 23 May 2017, 12pm CEST. For more info, download the competition flyer or go to www.greentalents.de. The Nelson Mandela Bay municipality is on a mission to make the city more disabled-friendly by improving accessibility to all tourism hotspots. Konstantin Labunskiy via 123RF Raising awareness about the struggle of disabled people, the metro has trained tour guides to be sensitive to the needs of those with disabilities and avoid marginalising them. There are about 100,000 disabled people in the Bay. The municipality, with the East Cape Parks and Tourism Agency, hosted a workshop at Kwantu Towers yesterday to raise awareness about the need to accommodate disabled tourists. Guides from Port Elizabeth companies attended the workshop, which looked at ways to communicate and physically prepare their businesses for disabled customers. Avoiding incidents where disabled tourists feel helpless For freelance tour guide Willy de Jong, 76, disability awareness will help avoid "stupid" incidents. "I have been a tour guide for more than 22 years now and I have come across stupid incidents that would have been easily avoided if we had known better," De Jong said. He referred to a recent incident where a wheelchair-bound tourist could not get into a taxi being used as a shuttle because there was no ramp. "In the past, we were forced to use boards to create a ramp but now we can use portable ramps," De Jong said. "This helps avoid an incident where they feel helpless." The Association for Persons with Physical Disabilities' executive director in the Bay, Brian Buizuidenhout, said more workshops should be held as disabled people were marginalised in tourism. "It is important that we understand that everybody deserves their space and recognition. "People with disabilities are tired of being ignored in terms of facilities that are made available." Including disabled people in the tourism economy Bezuidenhout said the metro needed to invite the 100,000 disabled people in the city to contribute to the economy. "They are an important part and they are not helping the economy in terms of tourism because the facilities are not in place," he said. Lungton Tours owner and tour guide Lunga Ngabaza said even though he had never had to accommodate a disabled customer before, the workshop had helped him to prepare for it. "Why would you leave a customer behind just because they are physically challenged? That alone is a reason why more tour guides ought to be involved," Ngabaza said. Promoting universal access The workshop was in line with a commitment made by Nelson Mandela Bay Tourism last year to pursue awareness and training on how to ensure people with disabilities felt welcome in the city. Economic development, tourism and agriculture political head Andrew Whitfield said it was important to constantly promote universal access and ensure that visitors with disabilities felt welcome in the Bay. He said the campaign also included sign language training, designed to encourage tour guides to develop the skill further and facilitate the best experience possible. Source: Herald Part of attracting investment to a country is education. This is no difference in Africa. The advantage the continent has is that it does not need to replicate the West, instead it can look at what is on offer globally and choose the best. This is according to Tony Blair, former prime minister of the UK who addressed VIPs, the media and delegates at Monash South Africa as part of a panel discussion on Preparing higher education and skills for an international world at Monash South Africa, in Gauteng. African countries need to make education a priority he said. As prime minister, education was a priority for me, however, if I was back in office today, I would make it an even bigger top priority. No substitute for education There is no substitute for education and this applies not only to primary education, but also tertiary education, that is university education, and to be successful, a country must have at least one world-class university. One good institution serves as an example to others. The lessons are clear, universities, like any other institution of a country, must be of a high standard and run properly. He said todays world requires a mix of public and private providers. State institutions often need to be shaken up, and while this can be a difficult lesson, it can be very necessary. Adding to this, he said that countries need to look outside of themselves. There is a huge market of ideas in the world today, go out and explore and bring back the best. Get outside providers if that is what it is going to take, he said. Technology is vital Education today is about learning to be creative. The accelerated pace of change is the single biggest characteristic of the world today. Therefore, you have to be equipped for tomorrow. Technology is vital here, not only in teaching young people how to use it, but teaching them how it works in the workplace. Young African people are very happy and committed to their countries. Therefore, apart from education, governance and security are important for countries so that their citizens feel safe and secure. Young people will not stay if they feel there are no opportunities or if they feel unsafe. For young people to stay and work in Africa, governments need to think about what they want and need. Where there is a well-run government, there is never a shortage of young people. Government also needs to devote funds to education. Like everything else, there is a way of doing it well and a way of not, and sometimes it is the most basic of things that need to be fixed, like teachers turning up. There is no point of enrolling a child if there are no teachers, he said. As part of the Rockefeller Foundation's 100 Resilient Cities Programme, Durban aims to create a city that will survive and thrive in spite of environmental and societal changes. To this end, Tongaat Hulett, Dube TradePort Corporation and the eThekwini Municipality have entered into a partnership to develop a resilience framework for the northern area of Durban. An aerial view of the uMdloti River from the N2 to the sea. The key corridor of land identified for this project stretches from the Ohlanga River in the south to the uThongathi River in the north and includes the uMdloti River. It extends inland to the outskirts of Verulam and beyond Tongaat into the Buffels Kloof area. The project arose out of an acknowledgement that economic development is key if we are to alleviate poverty, which is an imperative at national, provincial and local government level, explains Rory Wilkinson, planning director of Tongaat Hulett Developments. In order to achieve this, cities need to grow in a way that optimises land use, infrastructural provision and promotion of investment which will generate inclusive economic development, while managing the pressure urbanisation places on the natural environment through large-scale land transformation. Sustainable approach to development All parties acknowledge the need for balanced, sustainable development, based on enhancing the ecological footprint and incorporating a process towards obtaining both agreement on the extent of this footprint as well as an approach to development in the region. At the heart of the framework is the effect on degraded wetland habitat in the region, much of which is under sugar cane. All partners recognise the need for growth and development to overcome poverty and to provide economic upliftment for the community and that this should not come at a cost to the natural environmental assets which need to be preserved, protected and, where possible, enhanced. The concept of resilience means that business, government and society generally need to move beyond the concept of sustainable development to the ultimate goal of creating environments that are adaptive to change, explains Hamish Erskine, CEO of Dube TradePort Corporation. By building ecosystems that have the capacity to respond to development-induced changes, we will be ensuring that we are creating a lasting impact on the well-being of our people. Our partnership in driving this northern development area is one of the cornerstones of this principle. Our continued efforts need to be integrated and our strategies need to be aligned in order for us to collectively accomplish this goal across our land holdings, which may prove to be a model for development throughout the region. Limiting impact on natural environment In the case of Durbans northern corridor, resilience means avoiding impacts on the natural environment wherever possible and seeking synergies that lead to enhancement of ecological performance wherever possible. If this is not possible, then impacts need to be mitigated appropriately. The development and preservation of greenbelts in the estuarine regions of the three river systems, referred to as receiving areas is key to this mitigation and enhanced resilience. These ecosystems play a critical role in water purification, flood attenuation and maintenance of the areas natural biodiversity, all of which are important in adapting to the likely negative impacts of climate change. Consultants BiomimicrySA, Eco-Pulse Environmental Consulting Services and GroundTruth have undertaken studies which have led to the development of a wetland management framework that provides for wetland gains and losses within the existing mitigation hierarchy and ultimately, the environmental rehabilitation of these consolidated offset receiving areas to compensate for wetland losses in an area where environmental thresholds have already been exceeded. This, in turn, provides mitigation for where wetlands will be impacted upon by proposed development. The project is a pilot initiative between the three partners, and the learnings from this experience could help to inform how developments and environmental impacts are managed in future. Proactive rehabilitation We are looking to exceed the loss from the developments with proactive rehabilitation and enhancement to reach a position of net gain of environmental functioning in the region, adds Wilkinson. This will ensure a solution that addresses the issue of an integrative approach to urban development. Through adopting a holistic rather than piecemeal approach, we can achieve the best ecological functioning and social and economic gains. We envisage the partnership between the eThekwini Municipality, Tongaat Hulett and Dube TradePort as one which creates a joint future for the expansion of the city and its environs. The Arizona Historical Society Pioneer Museum's newest exhibit, Todos Unidos: The Hispanic Experience in Flagstaff., focuses on how Hispanic residents experienced Flagstaff from the 1880s to 1950s. Todos Unidos is an opportunity to explore a wide range of complex historical issues interpreted through objects and immersive text. The exhibit presents the connection between past and current topics facing the community. The public grand opening of Todos Unidos is set for Friday from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Todos Unidos will be on display for one year. Debuting with Todos Unidos is Cuseum - a new way of interacting with visitors. Cuseum is a free downloadable smart phone app that will assist visitors in the exploration of Flagstaffs communities. By providing access to exclusive exhibit media content and location based notifications, visitors can continue their museum experience long after they leave Pioneer Museum. Built in 1908 as the Coconino County Hospital for Indigent, the Arizona Historical Society Pioneer Museum showcases Flagstaffs history from 1882 to the present. The museum is located at 2340 N. Fort Valley Road. The museum is open Monday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Admission is $6 (adults), AHS members and veterans free. For more information, call 774-6272. Humanities showcase documents contemporary human experience During the Northern Arizona University Humanities in Action Showcase, students, faculty and staff will share their research and insights about the evolving human condition. The free and public showcase is Thursday from 4-6 p.m., at Ashurst Hall on the NAU campus. The Humanities in Action Showcase highlights research work about northern Arizona trends, how humanities and the arts enhance life, how to build bridges of understanding across professions, and more. Faculty and students from the Departments of English, Global Languages and Cultures, History, the Honors Program, the School of Art, Philosophy in the Public Interest, and the Interdisciplinary Writing Program/the University Writing Commons, will present posters, works of art, music and/or spoken word, and short talks on topics including: the arts and the technological revolution; traditional and contemporary Navajo identity; films within films; teaching global diversity to create local tolerance; the value and importance of philosophical conversations; climate science and the literary arts; and designing sustainable housing for the homeless and a harbor in Havana. Humans continue to use philosophy, literature, religion, art, music, history and language as modes of expression to understand our world, said Alexandra Carpino, interim associate dean for NAUs College of Arts and Letters. Knowledge of these records of the human experience provide us the opportunity to feel a sense of connection with the past, present and future. For more information about the showcase, call 523-8801. Businesses are faced with a host of new opportunities and challenges as they introduce new digital tools and services within their organisations for the benefit of both their customers and employees. The need to effectively educate, manage, and empower their employees as they work through transitions and become accustomed to the changing workplace and business landscape are among these challenges. Galina Peshkova via 123RF Lyndy van den Barselaar, managing director of Manpower South Africa explains that the digital age presents opportunities for business and economic growth. According to a report released this year by Siemens, the adoption of digitalisation by African countries could add $300-billion (about R4 trillion) to the continent's economy by 2026, with South Africa poised to derive the majority of the resulting benefits. Empowering employees in the digital age Naturally, the evolving business landscape and the addition of advanced digital tools are spurring the need for new skills in order to empower employees and businesses alike. Empowering employees in the digital age involves increasing both the authority levels and accountabilities for the employees, by implementing policies and creating an environment conducive to knowledge sharing. Employees who operate a specific function within a business develop their skills daily, in so far as they know exactly what works efficiently and what doesn't, and have creative ideas on improving situations and solving problems. They become experts without the power of exercising their expertise. Empowerment makes it possible and takes it a step further by creating opportunities for them to gain experience, learn new skills and generate knowledge which is particularly important where new technologies and platforms are being introduced. Employee empowerment benefits individuals, managers and the overall productivity of a business, and if adapted to well, can result in employees becoming more involved, stimulated, and feeling valued, explains van den Barselaar. She states that employee empowerment can be achieved in three ways: Firstly, through providing the necessary training for the digitalised employee or customer, since digitalisation is not only about improving what businesses do with technology, it is about changing businesses through the adoption and use of technology. Digitalisation often alters the way businesses interact with their employees or how they are able to create a unique value proposition using technology. Shifting toward a fully digital working environment can be an ongoing learning process. It is important for an organisation to assess the gaps between the current and required skills and implement training to ensure these gaps are closed, she explains. Secondly, through setting goals and looking ahead. It is important that employees have a clear idea about the outcome of various tasks, as it empowers them with a broader perspective of the organisations overall mission, vision, goals and, strategic plans. The better an employee understands his or her job, and how it contributes to the overall success of the organisation, the better equipped they are to make informed decisions in this regard. Thirdly, through granting adequate authority and a human-focused strategy. Empowerment implies accountability, along with the freedom to make decisions. The performance management process helps to create the accountability for results and the outcomes of decisions the employee makes through ongoing communication and the performance review process. Performance reviews become even more imperative when new technologies are introduced, as they provide a platform for discussion around the use of these technologies, their role in the business and how the employee is adjusting to the use of such technologies, says Van den Barselaar. Technology has enabled companies to move away from a one-size-fits-all approach to personalised experiences, not only for their customers but also for their employees. Empowering employees and providing relevant technologies assists in building a satisfied workforce, resulting in higher-quality work and productivity, she concludes. Sandra Gordon, head of Pam Golding Properties Research, provided advice at the inaugural Property Buyer Show on what to look for when investing in property. You have to do your homework, she said, in order to identify the areas of the market that are performing well. You can't base your investment decisions on oversimplified data as the South African property market incorporates a wide range of performances that are driven by a number of factors. Gordon pointed to three fundamental factors, according to Savills, that are crucial in determining how the property market works: demographics, affluence, and availability of land and housing. Where these three factors are positive, she said, the property market is generally buoyant. Bottom-heavy population pyramid South Africa currently has a bottom-heavy population pyramid with two thirds of the country's population under the age of 34; 34 is also the average age of the first-time property buyer. "If you've got all of those people coming into the market, it pushes everyone else up the property ladder," explained Gordon, and they are already having a huge impact on the market. According to data from Ooba, loans issued to first-time buyers rose from 40% in 2007 to 55% in 2015. While this has dropped a bit since then, due to the economic sensitivity of first-time buyers, it is anticipated in the long term that that percentage will continue to rise. "In terms of sheer numbers," said Gordon, "South Africa has a strong positive for the local housing market." The stand out regional market of late has been the Western Cape, with semigration to the province from the rest of South Africa becoming increasingly popular. According to FNB's data on repeat buyers, 17.4% of all sales in the Western Cape were to people in other provinces, particularly from Gauteng - this is another major source of demand for the Western Cape housing market, said Gordon. Cape Town, apart from its profile as a major tourist destination, also has international appeal based on the lifestyle it offers high net worth individuals and millennials. Growth in cities While South Africa's declining GDP is not good news for the national property market overall, growth in South Africa's cities remains strong, she said, using Cape Town as an example - over the next five years, there are plans for around R16bn worth of investment in the city's CBD. Other growth nodes she referred to include Kwazulu-Natal's North Coast and Sandton CBD. "Yes, it's disappointing that the overall economy is not growing well and there are repercussions, but in terms of property markets, there are still really vibrant growth nodes and those are the areas in which you want to look for properties as an investment," said Gordon. Expensive vs expansive cities Contrasting Cape Town and Joburg, Gordon spoke of expensive cities versus expansive cities - Cape Town's limited land availability due to geographical constraints makes it an expensive market, while Joburg's expansiveness allows for greater room for development and in turn a greater supply and lower average house price. Sandra Gordon, head of Pam Golding Properties Research, at the Property Buyer Show Lifestyle trends Once these fundamentals are established, as a potential investor, you need to understand the type of lifestyle people are looking for and what kind of property would be most suitable to them, said Gordon. Things to consider include traffic congestion and access to reliable public transport, transport expenses, and distance from work and schools. A very strong international trend, which is now picking up in SA as well, is the 'live, work, play' lifestyle which entails giving up the large suburban home and making use of public and/or private facilities. Another lifestyle trend involves self-sufficient estates which provide a range of facilities including schools, hospitals and retailers. Transport corridors are also attractive to property seekers owing to convenient public transport access. While people usually downscale during economic downturns or are prompted to because of their life stage, it is now also becoming a lifestyle trend, explained Gordon, as smaller homes require less of an ongoing time and monetary investment to maintain. According to data from Absa, nearly 83% of current housing stock in South Africa is freehold homes, 12% is sectional title or apartments, and 5.3% is estates. While freehold homes dominate the market, over the last three years nearly half the units that have been built are apartments. "What that's telling you is that the current stock is old-fashioned," said Gordon. "The future is about apartments, and that's where the demand is and the market is responding to that by producing more apartments, but it's going to take a time before that adjustment is reached." Whether to Airbnb a property or rent it long-term is something that also needs to be considered when buying an investment property as this impacts how long it would take to pay off that property. With Airbnb, however, beware the potential backlash, warned Gordon: "It is worth investigating what you can generate using Airbnb versus long-term rental. The only difficulty with Airbnb is that you are starting to see major backlash against it across the world because in some cities it is pricing locals out of the market." The Western Cape leg of the Property Buyer Show took place 8-9 April at the CTICC. For more info, go to www.propertybuyershow.com. Thousands of anxious commuters hoping to visit their loved ones over Easter are scrambling to make alternative travel plans as the bus drivers' strike bites. Image via Greyhound Regular bus commuters queued for taxis and crowded into trains across the country as the strike began yesterday. Long-distance travellers were affected in many cities. Passengers demanded answers and refunds from bus companies including City to City Translux and Greyhound. Troubled commuters Themba Jack at Cape Town Station waiting to travel to Port Elizabeth did not know if he would get home in time to prepare for an important church event. He was told to wait for two hours before he could collect a refund. He booked a City to City ticket on 6 April 2017. I am in a hurry. I need an alternative [and] my money is with them he said. Chiedza Gochera was shocked to find no buses for her trip to Harare Zimbabwe at Park Station, Johannesburg. I am unhappy. I am travelling with my daughter and I fear for her safety and mine This is such an inconvenience and nothing was communicated to us about the strike. I will have to buy another ticket and hopefully Greyhound will refund me she said. Alex Wilsons plan to visit his brother in Cape Town was scuppered at an empty bus terminal in Durban. The 28-year-old Malawian national from the Bluff spent R670 on his ticket and was due to board an Intercape bus at 9.30am. Im disappointed that Im no longer going. I was going to spend two weeks but I will have to make another plan to get there he said. Caster Mathebula 30 of Bushbuckridge, Mpumalanga was also left in the lurch in Durban. He had booked a ticket with Greyhound to travel to Johannesburg. Unions, employers meeting Unions representing striking workers met employers yesterday afternoon in a bid to reach an agreement that could end the strike. Autopax spokesman Nozipho Jafta said: We have not been able to operate any of our services today. So what we have done those who want a refund and where we have cash we were able to refund them or told them to come back tomorrow. Refunds were a sore point for many. Nokulunga Bokvel who booked a City to City bus from Cape Town to Queenstown in Eastern Cape had to borrow R170 to make alternative travel arrangements. I booked a return ticket but they said they can only refund me for one for now and we will have to see later. I had to ask someone from work [for the extra R170] said Bokvel. Unions are demanding a 12% wage increase. From the time we began mediation ... they have not demonstrated any commitment to engage meaningfully with the demands a union spokesman said. Source: The Times Amplify, a paid fellowship for content creators launched in 2016, has seen its first graduates qualify. Three teams of young storytellers from Rwanda, Kenya and Nigeria presented their final projects to a judging panel, comprising Professor Bitange Ndemo, Pamela Sittoni of Nation Media Group, Patricia Obozuwa of GE Africa and Google Kenya's Charles Murito. The panel described the presentations as a bold, dynamic and provocative approach to storytelling. Each country cohort was tasked with creating a branded content campaign for GE Africa. The judges singled out Kenya in particular for their attention to detail and their ability to bring to life some compelling stories about the impact GE Africa was having in Kenya. Zain Verjee, aKoma co-founder. Zain Verjee and Chidi Afulezi, co-founders of aKoma, a content and storytelling platform focused on Africa, created Amplify in partnership with The MasterCard Foundation, to develop a fellowship of young, dynamic multimedia content creators who will create compelling stories about Africa. Launched in September 2016, the intensive six-month fellowship saw 25 fellows writers, photographers, animators, and videographers learn technical, creative and business skills to enhance their careers in content creation for Africa. Verjee says, Seeing our first group of Amplify fellows flex their creative talent and take storytelling to new levels in their final presentations, both creatively and technically, has been an incredible experience. Our fellows consistently delivered stories and insights from across Africa that are generally ignored by international media outlets. The entire process of this inaugural fellowship has revealed the dynamic talent bursting out of every seam of the continent. Stories are important to our perception of one another and our understanding of us, says Jamie Farshchi, editorial manager, The Mastercard Foundation. Through aKoma, the Amplify fellows are broadening our understanding by telling stories that may not otherwise be heard. Patricia Obozuwa, director of communications and public affairs of GE Africa expressing excitement at the graduation said, We are committed to skills development in Africa and as such, are proud to partner with aKoma on this first of a kind training initiative. There is no better time than now to invest in developing content creators who can help tell the African story in new and exciting ways. Verjee concludes, Together with our partners, The Mastercard Foundation and GE Africa, we have been able to deliver mentorship, facilitate pan-African collaboration between young creatives and foster a community of learning, shared interests and importantly passion for authentic African storytelling. The Amplify Fellows are the next generation of influencers and thinkers for Africa, and we are thrilled to have been a part of their journey. Founded by CNN alumni Zain Verjee and Chidi Afulezi, aKoma is an open source content platform and storytelling community where a combination of user generated and original content about Africa and its diaspora are created, published and shared with the world. Addressing attendees at a panel discussion on the challenges and opportunities of doing business in Africa, Abel Sithole, senior research associate at the Institute of Futures Research (IFR) of the University of Stellenbosch Business School (USB), asked What is Africa to you? Abel Sithole Ultimately, it is Africans own perceptions of Africa that dictate what can be achieved on the continent. The continent should revise its view of itself, and Africans need to consider themselves as equal to the rest the world. Once this mindshift has been achieved, the continent will be in a position to negotiate on equal terms with China and the rest of the world, as Africa is an equal contender with other continents. He identified a lack of insight into the multitude of cultures in Africa as one of the many challenges experienced when conducting business in Africa. The majority of the panel agreed that a true understanding of Africa required one to experience the continent by visiting it and not merely relying on external sources of information. Basic things we take for granted in South Africa and the rest of the world, actually present potential investment opportunities which could be explored. Ivan Thuynsma, panel member and Vesta sales director for South and West Africa was of the opinion that another challenge and Africas Achilles heel, is the absence of a long-term infrastructure plan that is to the benefit of the continent. However, Africa is unique when compared to the rest of the world. It should not be intimidated by, nor measured against, Western standards. Africa offers a vast number of opportunities for those prepared to venture into business. The panel acknowledged and concluded that good leadership and selecting people with similar values are crucial success factors in exploiting business opportunities in Africa. This will offset the challenges of corruption, which is a worldwide phenomenon and not only an African challenge as incorrectly perceived by many. Ultimately, our perception of Africa dictates what can be achieved on the continent. The panel discussion forms part of a new module, Perspectives on African Frontiers, as part of USBs MBA programme. The aim is to equip students with a keen appreciation of the challenges and opportunities of doing business in Africa by developing an intimate understanding of the contextual environment within which businesses operate on the continent. A few years ago, there was a sense of hope and optimism around Africa. Today that sense has faded and so we need to work to get back to that. Despite this, Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, says he is optimistic about the continent. CEO of Monash South Africa Sharad Mehra and former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. Blair addressed VIPs, the media and delegates at Monash South Africa in Gauteng on the topic of internationalisation and Africa. We are seeing a new generation of leaders emerge and countries are taking their destiny into their own hands. People are not looking at outside reasons why their country is not functioning well, and there is a desire and determination to make it work. This is different to before. While there are still great challenges in government, there are ways to overcome this, and that is why I am optimistic about Africa, he states. However, vital to this is the business environment. Getting business to invest in a country is not complicated; it requires a business environment that is not bogged down in corruption or bureaucracy. Vital and allied to this is the rule of law. While he says that he cannot think of a single first world country that is successful where these elements are not present, he admits that reform in any institution is difficult. That said, there are smart people here, so Africa needs to make it work. It is about the institutions and an attitude of mind. Internationalisation is about looking at what is out there, choosing the best option and bringing it back. If your government is operating properly, a country can achieve anything. It is about doing the right thing or not. How Africa internationalises is up to it. But, there are many lessons the countries on this continent can learn from. In 1960 the West African country Sierra Leone and South Korea in Asia were both third world countries. Today one is still a third world country, while the other, South Korea, is a first world country. Why? Because South Korea put in place institutions that are resilient and not corrupt, and accepted the role of the market and the state. It successfully worked to escape old-fashioned idioms, looked at lessons from across the world, and then implemented them. On the continent Rwanda is an example of a country that has benefited from lessons across the world, in particular the reform of its education system. Singapore is another good example of a country that deliberately went a particular route, and as a result as has gone from inviting intellectual capital into its country to exporting it today. He believes globalisation is a good thing, and is the opening up of the world. London, he says, is a great city because of its diversity. Anti-globalisation protests represent different things for different people, so anti-globalisation right wing protests are against immigrants, but the same protests, but for the left wing, are based on the concept that international capital is bad. But you cannot stop immigration any more than you can stop capital moving around the world. It is futile to resist globalisation, so what we need to do is better prepare people for it. When you look at Africa as a contributor to globalisation and the global economy, you have to first look at intra-African trade. Currently this sits at only 12%. Therefore, Africa has to make this a priority and break down the barriers between the continents different countries. Subscribe to daily business and company news across 19 industries SUBSCRIBE The Coconino County Democratic Party recently named Flagstaff City Council member Eva Putzova as this years Eleanor Roosevelt award winner. The award is given annually to someone in the community who has demonstrated Democratic values in their service to the community. Though she never held elected office, Mrs. Roosevelt was viewed as a tireless defender of the average American. She was the champion of the underdog, saying I see it as our duty to comfort the afflicted, and to afflict the comfortable. According to a press release, Putzova was chosen because she ran her campaign for Flagstaff City Council as a Democrat on the theme of Shared Prosperity for all residents of Flagstaff. She led the 2015 lawsuit that struck down the Arizona Legislatures attack on the autonomy of Charter Cities. She led the initiative campaign to raise Flagstaffs minimum wage. Putzova worked with indigenous residents to change the Columbus Day holiday to Indigenous Peoples Day. She continues to lead the efforts to provide affordable housing to Flagstaff. Putzova came to the U.S. from Slovakia in 1998, moved to Flagstaff in 2001, and became a U.S. citizen while residing here. Her service to the Flagstaff community began with her board membership and subsequent presidency of Friends of Flagstaffs Future, where she tackled issues of zoning, climate change, clean energy and social justice. She was an early supporter and organizer for the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign and served as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 2016. She has been a champion values including raising wages, expanding access to affordable housing, ending systemic racism, guaranteeing civil rights for people of color and women and the LGBT community, honoring indigenous people and tribal nations, combating climate change, and building a clean energy economy. Putzova recevied the award at the annual Roosevelt-Kennedy Dinner. The March 25 event drew 200 community members to the Doubletree by Hilton. Special guests and speakers included Jonathan Nez, vice president of the Navajo Nation; Congressman Tom OHalleran; State Sen. Jamescita Peshlakai; and Col. (ret.) Hollace Lyon, senior vice-chair of the Arizona Democratic Party. PHOENIX (AP) Gov. Doug Ducey signed legislation Wednesday that will make it tougher for prosecutors and law enforcement to seize cash and property from people suspected of a crime, effectively overhauling the state's civil forfeiture laws despite opposition from state prosecutors. Ducey signed the measure after being caught between the state legislature and county prosecutors. House Bill 2477 by Republican Rep. Eddie Farnsworth is meant to reform rules dictating when prosecutors can seize someone's assets. Officers can currently seize property based on suspicion alone without the need of a conviction or a charge. Police and prosecutors acquire Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization or RICO funds after seized property is forfeited. The governor commended Farnsworth for his work on the legislation and Arizona lawmakers' bipartisan support of it in a written statement. "This bill will allow law enforcement to take appropriate action against drug cartels and other criminal enterprises, while ensuring citizens do not have their property seized without proper due process," Ducey said in the statement. The bill has support from diverse groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona and the state chapter of Americans for Prosperity. The measure will change Arizona's civil asset forfeiture laws to require prosecutors to prove property was involved in a crime by "clear and convincing" evidence, a step above the current standard. Farnsworth has said RICO laws have deviated from their original intent to pursue big criminal enterprises like cartels and are now hitting smaller time infractions. He has said his bill will increase accountability through its reporting requirements and redirect the laws to fulfill their actual purpose. Opponents say the changes would cause logistical issues for county boards of supervisors and county attorneys. They also criticize the bill's further standard of proof and the claim that excessive seizures take place. The governor's approval comes after recent inquiries into whether officials in Pinal County have misused seizure profits and a guilty plea from a former top Pima County official to misusing RICO funds in February. Flagstaff Mayor Coral Evans is challenging residents to commit to water conservation throughout the month of April. The city is competing in the Wyland National Mayors Challenge for Water Conservation, which asks residents to take an online pledge to conserve water through various activities, such as only running full loads in the dishwasher, committing to less food waste and other water-saving habits. As of Wednesday evening, Flagstaff was leading the contest in its category against cities of a similar size. Bozeman, Mont., and Andover, Minn., were in second and third place as of Wednesday evening. Cities with the highest percentage of residents who make a pledge are entered for drawings, including home improvement gift cards, home irrigation equipment and the grand prize of a Toyota Prius, city spokeswoman Meg Roederer said in a press release. To take the pledge, visit mywaterpledge.com during the month of April. Reciba en su email: noticias de ultima hora, analisis tecnicos o el cierre de mercado Email no valido Nombre requerido Recibira las informaciones mas relevantes del dia en tiempo real Que informacion desea recibir? Noticias de Ultima hora Boletin Cierre de Mercado Boletin analisis tecnico Boletin Fundsnews Debe seleccionar un tipo de boletin Acepto la Politica de privacidad Debe aceptar la politica de privacidad Responsable EMPRESAS DEL GRUPO WEB FINANCIAL GROUP Finalidad La remision de informacion, novedades y promociones Establecimiento o mantenimiento de Relaciones Comerciales. Legitimacion Consentimiento del interesado. Interes legitimo en el desarrollo de la relacion comercial Destinatario Empresas del Grupo WEB FINANCIAL GROUP Derechos Acceso, rectificacion, supresion, limitacion, oposicion y portabilidad Informacion adicional Politica de Privacidad de nuestra pagina Web + INFORMACION CAMP VERDE Zach Hauser hopes that part of his family-owned property will remain a farm forever. Hauser and his dad have applied for conservation easements for much of their property. This sets restrictions on the land, essentially making it only usable for farming purposes. My kids kids kids down the line, they cant sell it and try to subdivide it, Hauser said. It would have to be sold to someone like me, as a farmer. Its just one of the measures the Hauser family has taken to ensure the farms success in the future. Making sure theyre sustainable also fits in with their long-term goals. The farm recently switched from a flood system to a drip irrigation system on a carrot field to help reduce their water usage. Its an improvement funded by the national water restoration campaign, Change the Course. The campaign brings together the public, corporations and conservation organizations to raise awareness and restore freshwater ecosystems. Change the Course funds 32 projects in 10 states, mostly in the Southwest. Eight of those projects are in Arizona. On average, each American uses about 100 gallons of water a day, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The agency projects that by 2030, Arizona will see a 109-percent increase in population, with each Arizonan using between 126 to 150 gallons of water per day. For the Hausers, the decision to switch to drip irrigation was an easy one. Hauser said the flood system uses pretty much twice what the crop actually needs drip can get in the 90-percent range efficient so youre barely putting on what the crop needs and maybe a little bit more. Thats critical because the Verde River provides irrigation for farming, rafting and fishing for locals and a habitat for wildlife. (The Verde River) is our only source of water in this valley, Hauser said. If theres no water here, theres no farming. Hauser and his father own Hauser & Hauser Farms, a 600-acre farm spread out throughout the area. Its the biggest user of water in the Verde Valley. The drip irrigation system, which costs between $1,000 and $3,000 per acre, is one of the many projects Hauser & Hauser Farms has installed with the help and financing of the Bonneville Environmental Foundation, the nonprofit organization that founded Change the Course. Its really expensive. Its not a cheap thing to get into and then theres a learning curve, Hauser said. For somebody to just do it on their own, that would be a big leap of faith. Thats why the foundation steps in to help. About 30 major corporations help underwrite the projects through Change the Course. Val Fisherman, chief development officer at the foundation, said corporations often want to help balance their own water footprint by becoming sponsors. Coca-Cola, a major partner for Change the Course, vows to use 27 percent less water per liter of product over 13 years. According to its website, the company used 2.7 liters of water to make 1 liter of product in 2004, mostly to keep equipment clean. By 2015, Coca-Cola lowered this number to 1.98 liters of water to make 1 liter of product. Change the Course gives these corporate donations to smaller nonprofits to fund water conservation projects. Its a big win for small nonprofits who might not get the time in front of these large corporations, Fisherman said. Were like another fundraising arm for some of these nonprofits. Some of the money has funneled down to the Arizona Nature Conservancy, which funds water conservation projects in Arizona, including the drip irrigation system on Hauser & Hauser Farms. The conservancy has worked with the Hausers for seven years, said Kimberly Schonek, Verde River project manager at the Nature Conservancy. Schonek said the conservancy works a lot in the Verde Valley, between Sedona and Prescott, mostly on irrigation ditches. (Were) trying to focus our work on how to use water efficiently as possible while integrating it into their farm needs and then reaching out to other farmers, Schonek said. Change the Course funds about half of the conservancys water conservation projects in the Verde Valley. It provided all funding for Hauser & Hauser Farms drip irrigation system and a project that will replace a ditch with a pipe. The ditch, which was built in 1903, runs about a mile from West Clear Creek to 10 shareholders. Schonek said the pipe would provide more water to the farmers and people who need it. They lose somewhere around 20 percent of their water theyre trying to convey, Schonek said of the ditch. The pipe wouldnt necessarily save money, but it would lead to less water waste because water will no longer seep into the soil, said Jess Mulcaire, part shareholder of the ditch. Hauser said he wouldnt save money with the drip-irrigation system on his carrot farm, either. Right now, our water usage is based off a per-acre, so the amount of water is not regulated, Hauser said. But us being responsible, we like to use as little as possible. Hauser said because theyre the largest user of water in the area, they will set an example that will inspire others to do the same. We got to do our part to preserve it and hopefully others will want to do the same, Hauser said. Its our only source of water in this valley. We have to take care of it. Change the Course plans to expand its reach to all of North America, helping to provide funding to water conservation efforts nationwide. WASHINGTON Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Tucson, and the Center for Biological Diversity challenged President Donald Trumps proposed border wall on environmental grounds Wednesday, going to court to force the administration to follow environmental protection laws before starting construction. The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Tucson charges that the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection have failed to abide by the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires an environmental analysis of the proposed border wall before construction. Grijalva and the center are calling on the agencies to conduct an in-depth investigation of the proposals environmental impacts, according to a news release from Grijalvas office. That goal was echoed by a Randy Serraglio, the centers Southwest conservation advocate, who said he is hoping for good, sound scientific analysis of the walls environmental impact to come out of the suit. We feel that the Trump administration should follow the law, and his border wall proposal is not only preposterous, its potentially extremely damaging, Serraglio said. Both Homeland Security and CBP declined to comment on the suit Wednesday because as a matter of policy the agencies do not comment on pending litigation. The suit comes the same month that Homeland Security officials began reviewing bids from companies interested in starting construction on border wall prototypes. It was filed just two days after Attorney General Jeff Sessions visited the border in Nogales, where he issued new guidance calling on federal prosecutors to more vigorously pursue immigration cases. Grijalva said that given Trumps efforts to follow through on the border wall and other immigration and deportation campaign promises, advocates felt litigation was the only way to get some transparency and some honest facts and science. We dont expect to be heard by Sessions, we dont expect to be heard by Trump himself, Grijalva said of the need to go to court to force action. Serraglio said that the last programmatic environmental impact statement for the U.S.-Mexico border enforcement program was done in 2001, and things have changed dramatically since then. Those things, according to the lawsuit, include greater scientific knowledge and the designation of final critical habitat within 50 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border under the Endangered Species Act. Serraglio said the existing sections of the border wall were built without environmental review. At that time, the suit said, then-Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff waived more than 35 laws that might have hindered the construction of the original border wall. Serraglio said the consequences of that construction are already being felt, and include millions of dollars of damage caused by flooding and erosion in areas surrounding the border. He also said the natural movement of many species, some endangered or threatened, is completely blocked by the current wall, which could get worse with an expansion. Its (the wall) absolutely unnecessary, it will be incredibly expensive, the effectiveness is unknown, Serraglio said. Grijalva left little doubt about where he stands on the issue. Trumps wall and his fanatical approach to our southern border will do little more than perpetuate human suffering while irrevocably damaging our public lands and the wildlife that depend on them, Grijalva said in a prepared statement. What kind of representative government do we have in Arizona? The state legislature recently passed bills to block citizen initiatives, making it nearly impossible for Arizonans to put their own laws before the voters. (Arizona Daily Sun, March 19, 2017) At the same time we have representatives Bob Thorpe and Brenda Barton who wont meet with constituents or talk to them, or even answer emails. Our Founding Fathers separated church and state for a reason. They had witnessed divinely inspired monarchs brutally suppress new ideas and religious clerics torture and execute men of science. Those who believe that the Grand Canyon was created 6,000 years ago have a right to their opinions, but they do not have a right to promote them with state and federal dollars. Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESAs), under the pretext of helping the disadvantaged, are a thinly veiled attempt by a few to create a Christian theocracy in the U.S., and a few narrow-minded state legislators are using it to pander to their base and profit from the construction of private schools. No wonder they refuse to meet with us. ESAs may provide educational choice, but they present a longer-term threat to our liberty and are de facto unequal. Shame on Arizona for leading the nation down this dangerous slope. In my 70 years I have not been more fearful for our American way of life since the era of Joe McCarthy. Creating an excellent public education system with school choice in Arizona not starving our public system through huge tax credits to the wealthy is the answer. STEVE FINGER Flagstaff A file photo. WASHINGTON (PTI): The US sees India as a pivotal nation for its security in the Asia Pacific region, the Pentagon has said as the Trump administration quietly started the process of implementing the recent designation of India as a "major defence partner". "The relationship between India and the United States is on track. Secretary (James) Mattis has made the defence relationship with India a top priority," Pentagon Spokesman Captain Jeff Davis told PTI. "He sees India as a pivotal nation in the region going forward for our security," Davis said, weeks after Mattis had a successful meeting with India's National Security Advisor Ajit K Doval at the Pentagon. According to media reports, Doval's American counterpart Lt Gen H R McMaster is slated to visit India soon. The White House refrained from making any comment on the visit. Keeping defence ties on the forefront of the India-US relationship, the Trump administration is believed to have started the process of implementing in letter and spirit the recent US designation of India as a "major defence partner" . Mattis in his first phone conversation with the then Indian Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar is believed to have said that he is ready to take off the India-US defence relationship from where it was left by his predecessor Ashton Carter. The assurance is being fast implemented by the Pentagon, sources said. A day before Trump was sworn in as the 45th President of the US, the Department of Commerce federal notification that relaxed India-specific defence export control norms. Under this, the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) amended the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) by establishing a licensing policy of general approval for exports or re-exports to or transfers within India of items subject to the EAR. In addition, BIS amended the end use and end user provisions of the Validated End User (VEU) authorisation to state that items obtained under authorisation VEU in India may be used for either civil or military end uses other than those that are for use in nuclear, missile, or chemical or biological weapons activities. The move on the last day of the previous Obama administration is believed to address some of the major concerns of India when it comes to import of state-of-the-art defence technology and military hardware to India. "The changes in the Export Administration Regulations, reflective of India s status as a Major Defence Partner, will enhance defence ties as well as private sector linkages," a State Department official told PTI. License applications to export military and related dual-use items to India will generally be approved, the official said. "Under the Department of Commerce's Validated End User program, Indian entities can qualify for a general authorisation for exports and re-exports of military and related dual use items, consistent with US law, for projects in support of official US-India defence cooperation, other than those that are for use in nuclear, missile, or chemical or biological weapons activities. "India is the only country in the world authorised to receive both military and dual-use items under a VEU programme," the State Department Spokesperson said in response to a question. "Our defence partnership with India is among our most important in the world. The United States supports India s rise as a net security provider in the region, and the breadth of our defence cooperation, including through the US-India Defence Trade and Technology Initiative, is continually expanding," the official said. The support to India US defence relationship comes from the opposition Democratic party too, reflecting the bipartisan support to the ties between the two largest democracies of the world. "This remains an exciting time in the US-India relationship, as we are starting to realise the potential of our bilateral cooperation and economic investment," Senator Mark Warner, ranking Member of the powerful Senate Intelligence Committee said. Noting that India is fast becoming one of the largest, most dynamic, and most diversified markets in the world, Warner said one aspect of the bilateral relationship between the two countries that has gained real momentum in recent years is the defence trade relationship, which is part of a broader growth in bilateral defence cooperation. "Given the growing convergence of Indian and US security interests and the deepening of our defence trade and technology cooperation relationship, last year my colleagues and I advanced legislation to make permanent the organisational structures within the Department of Defence that support this aspect of the relationship," said Warner, who is also Democratic Co-Chair of the Senate India Caucus, which is the only country-specific caucus in the US Senate. "Additionally, I have been advocating with the US administration for approval of the Indian request for unmanned, unarmed drones for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance that could advance our shared interest in better maritime domain awareness in the Indian Ocean," he said. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 13/04/2017 (2035 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Wearing a variety of striking shades of pink, students throughout Brandon School Division came together on Wednesday to celebrate respect while standing up against bullying. This is the sixth year Pink Day is being celebrated in Manitoba, and only the second year its been celebrated twice, once in February and now in April, said Maxine Schminke, respect education outreach co-ordinator with the Canadian Red Cross. Compared to the first year, (Pink Day celebrations) have just snowballed, Schminke said. Its great to see how all the schools are supporting it and the kids are celebrating it. Tim Smith/The Brandon Sun King George School students Jenaya Shotbolt, Chanice Chartrand and Phoenix Rockley with Youth Revolution serve up pink floats at recess on Wednesday morning during the Canadian Red Cross Pink Day in support of bullying prevention. Schools throughout Brandon held their own Pink Day events. Each school got creative in how they wanted to celebrate, ranging from assemblies and school walks to pink ice cream sundaes and photo booths. The students of George Fitton School got especially ambitious, organizing a Pink Day flash mob assembly, while Valleyview Centennial School students did a pink bunny hop through the halls. The overall message this year is hashtag heroes assemble, so its about being a hero for somebody, not just on Pink Day, but everyday, Schminke said. Its about intervening in bullying situations when they happen, being a support person for someone who has been targeted, standing up for respect and creating a different school culture thats free from bullying, Schminke said. While students want to make a difference in the amount of bullying that happens within schools, some students are already seeing a difference. Grade 5 student Daniel Perez at King George School said he hasnt been bullied at all so far, and that he believes Pink Day is the reason. I think that everyone can stop bullying, if you want to, you can do it, said Perez, adjusting a pink lei that was doubled up around his neck. We have really learned about bullying and I want to keep on (learning). Perez is an anti-bullying ambassador at King George, part of a group of students that have been trained in bullying prevention. Tim Smith/The Brandon Sun King George School student Haley Saunders with Youth Revolution helps Grade 1-2 students in Brittany DesRoches' class with an exercise about kindness on Wednesday morning during the Canadian Red Cross Pink Day in support of bullying prevention. Schools throughout Brandon held their own pink day events. They are in charge of going around to each classroom and educating their classmates on bullying, through games and different exercises, Perez said. They asked me last year if I wanted to do (be an ambassador), and I wanted to help people so I said yes, he said. Ive learned that people sometimes take bullying as friendly teasing but sometimes it goes over the line, so its just knowing and learning those boundaries. edebooy@brandonsun.com Twitter: @erindebooy Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 13/04/2017 (2035 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. For his leadership role in the local indigenous community, Barry French was given a few prestigious awards during an event at Victoria Inn on Wednesday. Hosted by the Interprovincial Association on Native Employments Westman Chapter, a luncheon found French named one of the days Champions of Aboriginal Employment. The Brandon Urban Aboriginal Peoples Council then joined the chapter in bestowing him with a star blanket, after which the Rotary Club of Brandon Sunset presented him with a Paul Harris Fellow award; one of the most prestigious awards in Rotary. Tim Smith/The Brandon Sun Barry French, centre, is presented with a star blanket by Jason Gobeil, Aboriginal Community Coordinator with the Brandon Urban Aboriginal People's Council and Doug Pople, career planning and placement officer with Brandon University, during the Champions of Aboriginal Employment Luncheon at the Victoria Inn's Imperial Ballroom on Wednesday. Following Wednesdays awards ceremony, French said that as a product of his indigenous environment he still finds it difficult to feel proud of himself, but that he managed to get there that afternoon. I have to admit, its a bit overwhelming, so its very kind of people, he said. Presenting the Champions of Aboriginal Employment award on behalf of the host organization, member Jason Gobeil cited French as a personal mentor who provides a staple of wisdom and knowledge in our community. Also calling French a gift to our community, Gobeil commended the community steward for his efforts toward the betterment of his community. French is an active person. In addition to his present employment as a staff training co-ordinator with the Brandon Correctional Centre, French volunteers with a number of organizations in the Brandon area. French is a member of the Interprovincial Association on Native Employments Westman Chapter, is a board member with the Prairie Mountain Health Board and has volunteered with various other organizations, including anti-gang initiatives. Much of this work has centred on improving the lives of the local indigenous community. While hes a member of the Inuk Inuvialuit of the Inuit, he retains deep connections with Westmans indigenous communities. In Westman, French has found significant limits in public understanding of indigenous people, as exists through much of Canada. Things are improving in large part thanks to the Truth and Reconciliations work, however theres still a lot of gaps in public knowledge, such as of the existence of Project Surname, a 1970 effort of the federal government to assign last names to the Inuit in northern Canada. A lot of people also dont realize half of indigenous youths time spent in the residential school system was devoted to working, French said. We need to focus a bit ore on the truth part of truth and reconciliation, he said. If you dont have the facts youre just making stuff up, and thats a dangerous thing to do. We have a to look at future-based perspective in terms of engaging the indigenous community with the mainstream, so we have to look at what are the factors in the past that created the challenges. French is retiring from his position at the Brandon Correctional Centre in 10 business days, but he still plans on remaining involved in local efforts to improve relationships between the indigenous community and the community at large. Tim Smith/The Brandon Sun Birdtail Sioux First Nation Chief Ken Chalmers of delivers the keynote speech during the Champions of Aboriginal Employment Luncheon at the Victoria Inn's Imperial Ballroom on Wednesday. Its definitely something Im passionate about and I know theres a lot of work to do, he said. While he said that hed like to ease back in his public roles on retirement, he admitted that its unlikely to happen and that hes more likely to be dragged back in. Its important work, French said. If we dont have people doing the little things now, then the big things later are going to be too hard. During Wednesdays ceremony, Alternative Landscaping, the Brandon Wheat Kings, the Brandon Chamber of Commerce and Spearing Service Ltd. were also honoured with Champion of Aboriginal Employment awards for their inclusive hiring practices that incorporate indigenous people. Spearing Service L.P. Manitoba operations manager Jason Schmecht said that the oil industry fluid management company he represents has found success by tapping into indigenous job placement agencies. While he said that he recognizes there are various bits of discrimination floating around regarding the hiring of indigenous people, he affirmed, We found that not being the case, and that they have nothing but good things to say about their hires. The annual Champions of Aboriginal Employment Awards Luncheon continues to serve an important role in Brandon, organizing chair Dayle Hughson said. Its very important to encourage young aboriginal people that they are going to be able to get jobs, that they should continue their education and go to university, finish high school, go to ACC; it just helps them to look at people who have been successful, she said. It just kind of gives them something to drive for. tclarke@brandonsun.com Twitter: @TylerClarkeMB Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 13/04/2017 (2035 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. A petition being circulated in Brandon calls on Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to maintain current funding levels for Assiniboine Community Colleges English language classes. Written in both English and Spanish, the petition states the major budget cuts will have a devastating impact on hundreds of students, and urges Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen to reverse the decision. It is not in our national interests to place further obstacles before people we have welcomed and who are enthusiastic about contributing to Canadas economy, states the petition. IRCC and ACC recently finalized a new three-year contract, which slashes the colleges budget for its English Language Training program from $730,000 to $196,000 in 2017-18. It will be decreased to $185,000 in 2018-19 and $176,000 in 2019-20. The number of student registrations in the program is now 503. With the cuts, the college will only be able to take 100 students next year one-fifth of the current number of registered students. IRCC has stated the higher level classes have been under-utilized in Brandon. The local organizations dispute that claim. IRCC recently told The Brandon Sun that they are focused on ensuring the recent influx of vulnerable newcomers have access to language services. Many are arriving in Manitoba through Canadas Syrian refugee initiative. Given that these people have higher needs and lower literacy levels, IRCC has allocated settlement funding dollars towards the basic, lower-level language classes that this population requires, stated an IRCC spokesperson recently. As a result, IRCC has had to make some tough decisions, including reducing funding for higher-level language classes. Canadian Language Benchmark levels 1 to 4 are the focus, while levels 5 to 8 are reduced. ACCs program offers only the higher levels, and the demand continues to increase, as immigrants work to pursue higher education and better-paying career paths. CLB Level 4 is not adequate for full comprehension and engagement with the community, states the petition. It is certainly not sufficient for employment (and specifically professional positions) since most employers require a minimum of Level 6 or higher, even for jobs in retail and stores. HyunJoo Lee is currently enrolled in ACCs English training. She is originally from Korea, and has dreams of becoming a health care aide. She must achieve Level 8 before she can pursue that goal. I have to do more study and more assessment, Lee said, adding there will only be a few class options and only one teacher at ACC next year. Its not enough its really awful, and very hard. Lee and her classmates have signed the petition, which was dropped off at the office of Brandon-Souris Conservative MP Larry Maguire. Everybody (is) very unhappy, she said. We want to keep study(ing) English to further our goal and (pursue) higher education, like college or university. Maguire said he supports the efforts of the ESL instructors and students in urging the government to reverse this drastic cut and inexcusable action. The petition was recently dropped off at my office and I know more people are looking to sign it, he said. I will personally deliver the petition to the Liberal government and let them know what their cut means for Westman communities and residents.I will continue to press them to reverse this decision. Maguire said he has repeatedly asked for a meeting with the immigration minister, to no avail. It is apparent the Liberals have no intention whatsoever of listening to the people of Westman, he said. The Liberal government and its ministers are completely ignoring emails and correspondence on important matters facing Westman constituents. IRCC responded to The Brandon Suns request for comment via email: We will continue to work with this organization and other service providers in the area to monitor and assess the needs of the community, and will make adjustments to funding as necessary, stated IRCC spokesperson Nancy Chan. jaustin@brandonsun.com Twitter: @jillianaustin People gather in front of the Harris County Courthouse Annex No. 8 on Baker Road for a National Day of Prayer observance in this file photo. Some area leaders are seeking to have the facility named in memory of Harris County Precinct 3 Assistant Chief Deputy Clinton Greenwood. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 13/04/2017 (2035 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. A man accused of trying to kill another man by cutting his throat has been allowed to withdraw his guilty plea to attempted murder by a judge who believed the accuseds word over that of his former lawyer. Justice John Menzies ruled that the accused, who maintains his innocence, entered the guilty plea after receiving misleading legal advice from his lawyer at the time. Menzies ruled the lawyers version of what happened in this case was not credible. The accused entered a guilty plea as a result of being advised of a plea bargain with the Crown which did not exist, Menzies stated in a written decision released on Wednesday. The court should not allow the guilty plea to remain in effect where accused persons are being persuaded to enter guilty pleas on the basis of misleading legal advice. It would be a perversion of justice. Jesus Arnoldo Sorto Granados was charged with attempted murder, two counts of assault with a weapon, and possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose. Those charges were laid in relation to an Aug. 16, 2014 incident in which its alleged that a man used a knife to slit the throat of another at a Brandon house party during a dispute. The victims trachea was cut and the wound came within millimetres of major arteries. The wound needed 100 stitches and victim was hospitalized for 11 days. Sorto Granados pleaded guilty to attempted murder on May 3, 2016, the day his trial was set to begin. As a result, the Crown dropped the remaining charges. Sorto Granados is originally from El Salvador an has lived in Canada for 12 years. A transcript of those proceedings showed that, through a Spanish interpreter, the accused confirmed to Menzies that hed tried to kill the victim and he waived his right to a trial. He also confirmed that he entered the plea voluntarily, while the Crown pointed out there was no true plea bargain in place. However, last month Sorto Granados applied to have his guilty plea withdrawn, maintaining he was innocent of the crime. He argued that his former lawyer, Bob Harrison, had pressured him to plead guilty. Both Harrison and Sorto Granados testified during the hearing into the plea withdrawal. The accused claimed that, the day before the plea, Harrison told him he would get six years in prison if he pleaded guilty to attempted murder, but he could get 15 years if it went to trial. Menzies also pointed to an affidavit in which Sorto Granados states that, the morning of his trial, Harrison again told him that the Crown would ask for six years if he pleaded guilty to attempted murder. He claims he pleaded guilty to avoid a 15-year sentence. On the stand, Harrison told court that it came as a surprise when Sorto Granados expressed a desire to plead guilty minutes before his trial. Harrison said hed never told Sorto Granados to plead guilty, nor discussed entering a guilty plea with him until the morning of his plea. Harrison acknowledged that, prior to that day, hed told his client that the Crown wanted eight to 10 years while he would ask for six, but maintained he never mentioned 15 years. Both Harrison and Crown attorney Jim Ross confirmed in court that there was no Crown offer for six years. In his decision, Menzies said the matter came down to credibility and he believed the accuseds version of events over those described by Harrison, who he found evasive in his testimony. Menzies stated that he didnt believe Harrisons claim that he hadnt discussed a plea bargain or guilty plea with the accused prior to the morning of his trial. Menzies said Harrison confirmed that hed talked to the accused about what he would seek if he pleaded guilty and that hed told Sorto Granados there was a sentencing advantage to such a plea. I do not understand how these conversations could arise absent a discussion about pleading guilty, Menzies stated in his decision. Menzies also referred to a letter Harrison sent to his client on May 6, 2016, three days after the guilty plea. It stated that, two days before he pleaded guilty, Sorto Granados had been informed that Crown and defence would seek six years. During cross-examination by Sorto Granados current lawyer, Norm Sims, Harrison said the letter was mistaken and should have said the Crowns position was 10 years. But Menzies found the letter confirmed the accuseds account and contradicted Harrisons claim that he hadnt discussed a guilty plea with the accused prior to the day of the plea. Menzies wrote that he was convinced that Harrison had told his client that there was a plea deal for six years if he pleaded guilty, and that was a major factor in why Sorto Granados did just that. A viable defence is also a factor in deciding whether a guilty plea can be withdrawn. Sorto Granados maintains he didnt try to kill anyone that hed been attacked by at least three people, pulled a knife in self defence, and that the accused was cut in the struggle. Harrison agreed that Sorto Granados had maintained that position even prior to his preliminary hearing in June 2015. ihitchen@brandonsun.com Already have an account? Log in here Police are concerned for the well-being of a 16-year-old girl who entered into an unknown vehicle on Highway 250 near Beresford. We need your support! Local journalism needs your support! As we navigate through unprecedented times, our journalists are working harder than ever to bring you the latest local updates to keep you safe and informed. Now, more than ever, we need your support. Starting at $4.99/month you can access your Brandon Sun online and full access to all content as it appears on our website. or call circulation directly at (204) 727-0527. Your pledge helps to ensure we provide the news that matters most to your community! Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 20/03/2017 (2059 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. When it comes to the business implications of Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus promise to legalize marijuana, Rick Macl plans on getting in on the ground floor. Last weekend found the local cannabis advocate open Brandons latest head shop, Growers n Smokers, at 223 18th St. North. Where other head shop owners might beat around the bush, Macl isnt one to bite his tongue when it comes to his businesss true intentions. His shop is about the promotion of cannabis, marijuana, pot or whatever other word one prefers. Tim Smith/The Brandon Sun Rick Macl, owner of Growers n Smokers on 18th Street North, stands behind the counter in his marijuana supply shop on Saturday after opening the store on Friday. Understandably averse to the idea of going to prison, Macls promotion of cannabis is limited by the confines of the law, which means his shop does not sell any actual cannabis, focusing instead on its related paraphernalia. The business will change as the laws allow, and Macl has a two-year plan to transform his shop into a cannabis dispensary as soon as legally possible. Until then, hes focusing on the sale of equipment that will allow those legally allowed to grow marijuana at home to do so. A self-described poster boy for ADHD, Macl can talk your ear off when it comes to subjects hes passionate about, and cannabis is most certainly one of these subjects. Although he admits to illicit recreational smoking in the past, it wasnt until about six years ago that he began recognizing its medicinal properties. Promoting these properties has since become one of his lifes callings. Around that time, he was playing with his son on the floor when he heard a popping sound. He tried to get up off the floor and found that he was unable to, paralyzed from the waist down. His paralyzation was thankfully only temporary, and he was able to become mobile enough to visit a doctor who informed him that a bulging disc in his back had been pushing on nerve endings, which hed later receive surgery to correct. Macl was prescribed Oxycontin to deal with the associated pain, which he took for more than a month until he reached a breaking point. Glued to his couch in a dazed state, he remembers getting up from his couch to do something and promptly forgetting what that something was. Returning to the couch, he remembered what that something was, got up and then forgot, again. Repeating this process about five times within approximately 10 minutes, he realized the zombie-like state Oxycontin had put him into. The next day, he returned to his doctor and told him, verbatim: Youre killing me with this stuff. Im done! He was then prescribed cannabis, at which point a weight was lifted off his shoulders. He was a whole new version of himself, and considered himself normal again. Over the subsequent six years, he investigated different strains with varying levels of THC (the psychoactive component of cannabis), CBD (a component with different health benefits), and terpenes (flavours) until he found the best products to meet his health needs. Now, he wants to help others, with Macl considering Growers n Smokers an educational hub for his visitors a one stop shop. Theres a big educational gap in our health-care system at this time, he said, noting that while few doctors do prescribe cannabis, they rarely identify which strains might assist with different ailments. Theres a vast difference between strains, with some beneficial and others detrimental depending on ones condition. This, Macl said, is an important area of education he intends to fill. Until hes able to sell cannabis himself, he plans on linking customers with Health Canada-approved, and therefore legal, cannabis suppliers, with his personal favourite being Alberta-based Aurora Cannabis Enterprises Inc. Using intel from clients, hes also compiling a list of doctors willing to provide patients with cannabis prescriptions. So far, he has nailed down six, including four in Brandon. Only its second day of operations, Growers n Smokers was already boasting a steady stream of clients on Saturday. Most of the people who came in the businesss door had grey hair on their heads, and many of them carried the same passion as Macl, including one older gentleman whod been smoking cannabis for decades and balked at the idea of doctors more readily prescribing Oxycontin than they do marijuana. He had to drive out to Alberta to get his prescription, while Oxycontin is much more readily prescribed. Things should change by this summer, Macl said, optimistic that Trudeau will follow through on his election promises to legalize marijuana, which might allow him to take the next step with his business. Setting up Growers n Smokers on this premise might have been a gamble, but Macl is maintaining his optimism that itll be a winning one. tclarke@brandonsun.com Twitter: @TylerClarkeMB Birthday wishes Call 281-422-8302 or email sunnews@baytownsun.com to wish someone a happy birthday. We will print your birthday wish on Page 2 of The Sun. Happy Birthday Wishes Opinion Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 13/04/2017 (2035 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Islamophobia the fear of Islam has recently been targeted by the federal government with its passage of motion M-103, which condemns those who target Islam. I confess I am an Islamophobe. But let me explain. I strongly believe everyone should be able to worship or not worship as they choose and have their right to do so respected. I also believe people should have the right to join or leave any religion without fear of reprisal. I also believe we all have the right to freely criticize other belief systems, religious or secular, with the corresponding obligation to tolerate criticism of our own belief systems. That criticism can be harsh. I do not believe extremely intolerant concepts such as Holy War, apostasy, or blasphemy laws have any place in a civilized country. Finally, I believe women must have the same rights as men. In short, I believe in tolerance. I fear any belief system, religious or secular, that is intolerant. And the reason I fear certain segments of Islam is because they are intolerant. I point to Muslim countries such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia that base their oppressive systems on Sharia law a literal interpretation of the Quran. Citizens of those countries do not have the right to exercise many of the rights we in the West believe to be fundamental. A person who renounces Islam is guilty of apostasy and liable to the death penalty. A person who blasphemes faces the same fate. Women do not have the same rights as men. This is all done in the name of Islam. Aspects of the operating philosophies of al-Qaida and now the Islamic State group are but more radical versions of this fundamentalism. Intolerance of this kind is by no means unique to the Islamic world. Something similar to Sharia law applied for thousands of years in the Judaeo-Christian world. A person reading Leviticus will be struck by the eerie resemblance of those passages to todays proclamations from IS. Apostates and heretics were put to death in that Old Testament world, as they were later in New Testament times. The concept of Jihad, or Holy War, was very much a part of those worlds. The chilling exhortations of the fierce prophets of old to annihilate every sinful man, woman and child in the name of God, or the battle cries of the bloodthirsty popes of the Middle Ages calling on the faithful to go to the Holy Land and slaughter infidels (namely Muslims) because God commanded them to, make these ancient warmongers brothers-in-arms to the worst of the IS brutes of today. The Jewish and Christian worlds lived for a very long time with absolute intolerance. But heres the thing: the Jewish and Christian worlds evolved. They changed. Their holy books didnt change those books still contain all the vicious and bloody parts that inspired the old violence, hatred and intolerance. But, after countless religious wars, burnings of so-called heretics and other atrocities, these religions reinterpreted their holy books in such a way as to first allow and then, insist upon tolerance. Today, only the lunatic fringe of the Christian or Jewish world still believes in primitive concepts such as Holy War, apostasy sanctions or blasphemy laws. But, such is not the case in countries such as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, or with those in the West who advocate intolerance. Hatred of Muslims must be loudly denounced, just as anti-Semitism or other extreme forms of intolerance must be denounced. Respect for the freedom of others to hold any belief is essential to our way of life. Muslims, like everyone else, must be free to worship in peace. But, just as I can be critical of Israels settlement policies, or the Popes sexist policies, I insist on my right to criticize Islams intolerance. And that is why I am an Islamophobe. Brian Giesbrecht was a Manitoba provincial court judge from 1976 until 2007. He is now retired. This column was also recently published by the Winnipeg Free Press. Opinion Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 13/04/2017 (2035 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Make them enter legally Regarding all the recent immigrants who are coming over the border illegally. I think our government should concentrate more on taking care of our country. There are a lot of things that we have to take care of here. There is a new Trump tax that is coming in that is threatening Canadian businesses and industry. There is enough hardship going on already with trying to feed people with food banks, etc. We do not need people illegally crossing into this country. If they are doing it legally, then that is fine. But this just puts more strain on government resources and organizations in this province and country with them jumping the border. We should just transport them back to the United States and have them do it the proper way. Time to stand up for blood services Who are the brain dead who decided to close the blood clinic in Brandon? This could cause tragic consequences for blood supplies due to less donations. We should all stand to have this overturned. Decision to close blood services a bad one I want to send a short note to voice my disappointment with the decision to close the mobile clinic that collects blood in Neepawa. Im disappointed with ALL the closures, but will only speak to the one that affects me. I had hoped that the closure of the Brandon clinic, that more resources could go into the mobile rural clinics. When I almost lost my husband in 2008 to what should have been a routine surgery, I recognized the importance of blood donation. I also own a business, and recognize that operational costs have to make a business viable. Im just not sure at what cost lives become about making a business decision. Im fairly certain that most of the donors from Neepawa and its service area will not travel to Brandon to donate. The good and the bad To the gentleman from Deloraine who rescued the poor defenceless cat from the garbage you will forever be the cats guardian angel, thank you. To the individual who did this to an innocent little creature there are no words to describe you. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 13/04/2017 (2035 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Volunteers with a Brandon military museum are left shrugging their shoulders after they were left without any federal funding this year. They arent the only ones. After allocating $4.6 million to military museums in the 2015/16 fiscal year, the federal government, through the Directorate of History and Heritage, did not have a dime to give to Canadian Armed Forces museums for the present year, National Defence said. Colin Corneau Faye Carkener looks over medals given to the mothers of soldiers who died in the First World War, popularly called "Dead Mens' Pennies", kept at the 26th Field Regiment Museum, Tuesday afternoon. Carkener's father started the museum in 1978, largely with hat pins and other military paraphernalia gathered by her grandfather. The stewards of the 26th Field Regiment RCA/XII Manitoba Dragoons Museum in Brandon didnt want to provide an exact figure on this years funding ask but they were seeking in the neighbourhood of $50,000, shared museum curator Edd McArthur. The money would have gone toward a bigger project the museum wanted to get off the ground, as well as regular maintenance like artifact management or hiring a summer intern. McArthur wasnt one to cast blame. Their museum based in the Brandon Armoury is, after all, owned by the military, which ensures their operation and covers heating and lighting. We dont want to become adversarial, McArthur said, stating they have already submitted their funding application for next year. Museum vice-president Brian Midwinter said the volunteer group would press on like always. Their current fundraising activities are enough to keep their affairs in order. Like with every other institution supported by the federal government, were subject to what Im going to call the vagaries of the budgeting and financial management process, he said, so if nobodys getting anything, were not getting anything. The museum will survive without funding, like in the past. Last year, the groups funding application, which specified their demands, was received after deadline and not approved. Prior to that, McArthur believes, the museum annually received at least some money they sought. Through donations and fundraising, the Brandon museum collects $5,000 to $6,000 annually. One of their main appeals is the Vimy Night Fundraiser Celebration, which ran last Saturday. Requests for comment from the RCA Museum were deferred to CFB Shilo spokesperson Lori Truscott spoke on behalf of the RCA Museum. She did not have enough information to discuss how a loss of funding may affect operations, she said. In a recent year, DHH provided $71,500 through the Museum Development Funding grant and an additional $60,000 for the acquisition of a 13-pounder artillery piece, Truscott shared. According to a spokesperson with National Defence, the CAF Museums Committee is the body which considers the funding requests of CAF museums. The funding is provided through the Military Personnel Command, which must prioritize funding for a number of military activities, including the training, health and welfare and care of personnel and their families, the statement read. There are currently 70 military museums in Canada. Colin Corneau Edd McArthur, curator of the 26th Field Regiment RCA/XII Manitoba Dragoons Museum, looks over medals kept at the museum's Armouries building location, Tuesday afternoon. In Brandon, museum volunteers didnt have much to say about the money they lost out on. Theyd rather talk about their mission, preserving the histories of two local regiments and their contributions to various war efforts. Midwinter pulled out a recent find, discovered by a museum researcher, of a stack of papers detailing his grandfathers enlistment and medical records from the First World War. Midwinter never knew where his grandfather, Charles William Midwinter, was wounded, learning recently it happened at Passchendaele. Through the facilities available out of this museum, weve been able to close that information loop in the family history, said an appreciative Midwinter. This is the kind of stuff that were really about here. The museum is open Tuesdays at the Brandon Armoury from 9 a.m. to noon and 1-4 p.m. ifroese@brandonsun.com Twitter: @ianfroese An Irish man has been found dead in Manchester. The 20-year-old was found shortly before 1.40am on Wednesday morning, near a car park on Spear Street. He has been formally identified as Dylan Crawford. He was taken to Manchester Royal Infirmary where he was later confirmed dead. A Home Office post mortem took place yesterday which was inconclusive and an investigation is underway to establish the cause of death. Officers investigating the death have now arrested two men on suspicion of theft and supplying prohibited drugs. Police are also appealing for anyone who was in the area at the time to get in touch. Detective Inspector Rebecca Boyce of GMPs City of Manchester team said: We are still working to determine the exact circumstances surrounding Dylans death. This has been a fast moving investigation and we have now made two arrests, however our investigation continues and we need witnesses to come forward. We are also looking for anyone who was around the Spear Street, Back Piccadilly Street and Oldham Street area between 11.30pm on Tuesday and 12.30am on Wednesday to come forward. Even at this time of night the area would be fairly busy so it is possible that somebody may have seen something. No piece of information is too small. According to his Facebook profile, Dylan was working as cabin crew at Ryanair. The Manchester Evening News says his family said: Our Dylan was a loving, kind and a very trustworthy individual. He saw the good in everyone and that was his downfall. He loved to travel and would give the world to anyone. He was the heart of our family and words cant describe how devastated we are. Our home will never be the same without him. We love you son, brother, cousin and friend. May you rest in peace, darling." Anybody with information should contact police on 0161 856 4409, quoting incident number 150 of 12/04/17, or the independent charity Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111. A former high-flying bank executive who exposed alleged law-breaking in the industry a year before the crash is relying on friends for food, he has told a parliamentary watchdog. Jonathan Sugarman said his life had been "utterly destroyed" because he did "the right thing" in trying to uphold the law in his role as a risk manager for Unicredit Ireland, the Irish arm of Italys biggest lender. The Central Bank - the industry watchdog - did nothing when he warned regulators the bank was operating with billions of euro less than it was legally required to have in available cash, he said. Despite walking into a Garda station in Rathmines, Dublin, eight years ago to report alleged offences under the Central Bank Act, he said he has never heard anything back after being told the complaint was passed to the fraud squad. Mr Sugarman told the Oireachtas Finance Committee it was the "harsh fact of the matter that official Ireland has absolutely and completely destroyed the lives of every single whistle-blower" regardless of which organ of the state was exposed. Asked why he did not take a case against the Central Bank, he responded: "I have no means." He added: "Thanks to friends I can feed myself. When I needed to go to the dentist a few weeks ago, my friends got together and paid the dentist." Fianna Fails John McGuinness, chairman of the committee, declared his shock at Mr Sugarmans evidence and vowed to quiz the Central Bank and Garda Commissioner Noirin OSullivan about his plight. "I find what you have told us absolutely shocking," Mr McGuinness said. "It is a story I have heard many times in relation to whistle-blowers. I respect you and applaud you for it - your story has been listened to today." Mr Sugarman said that a year before the 2008 banking bailout, he went to the Central Bank and said his own employer was operating with a 20% liquidity breach. This effectively meant the lender had 4 billion to 5bn less in available cash than was allowed under the regulations. The Central Bank acknowledged the letter the next day but he never heard anything again. "Naturally the bank was delighted - we got off scot-free. Why would we make issue of it? We are here to make money." Mr Sugarman said the Irish banks had to be bailed out in 2008 - costing the taxpayer 64 billion euro - because everyone was breaching the regulations. Every breach of the liquidity regulations was an offence, he said, punishable by up to five years in jail. "How many risk managers are sitting in Mountjoy (prison)?" he said. "The letter of the law clearly states that they face five years in prison. "In Iceland they have 25 bankers in jail." He resigned from Unicredit in September 2007 over "issues of integrity" when outside consultants told him the lender was operating at an even higher liquidity breach of 40%. Bosses persistently blamed it on a technical glitch and auditors KPMG signed off on the banks accounts, he said. Mr Sugarman has been unable to find work since - even elsewhere in Europe. "What I find absolutely incredulous is that my life has been utterly destroyed simply because I did the right thing," he told the committee, which is investigating the banking sector. "People who didnt adhere to the regulations got off absolutely scot-free. "I have been unable to work for over 10 years and I am totally unemployable as a result of upholding the law of the Republic of Ireland." Mr Sugarman said the kindess of others was putting food on his table and keeping a roof over his head. He says revelations this week that the Central Bank continues to find regulatory breaches among international banks in Dublins IFSC financial district show little has changed. "How could this possibly be going on 10 years after Jonathan Sugarman came through the Central Bank front door and said, Im telling you we are in breach, nine years after all the banks were found to be in breach?" he said. - Press Association The government recently announced a proposal to make more of our rivers swimmable' by 2040 it has attracted significant controversy, demonstrating the level of concern about the state of our rivers among ordinary New Zealanders. In this talk, Catherine Knight, author of, will provide important context to this debate by exploring some of our complex and often conflicted history with rivers since humans first settled in Aotearoa New Zealand. She will argue that knowing our history is an important foundation to forging a better future, both in terms of our environment and our socioeconomic wellbeing. A Catholic priest has been jailed for 17 years for repeatedly sexually abusing a teenage boy when he worked as a teacher in the 1970s. Father Michael Higginbottom, 74, was working at St Joseph's College, a boarding school in Upholland, Lancashire, when the sexual abuse took place. Liverpool Crown Court heard that his victim attended the seminary, for boys who wanted to become priests, for six months when he was aged between 13 and 14. In a victim statement read to the court, he said: "My sexual abuse happened so often I became numb to what was happening to me. "I cried so often I believe I could have drowned in my own tears." The victim, now in his 50s, said he used to pray that he would die to escape the abuse. He said: "There are worse things than death - living with an evil man and being left alone at Upholland." The trial heard he would be struck with a strap if he did not attend Higginbottom's living quarters, where much of the abuse happened, at appointed times. The first incident happened about a week after the victim arrived at the school. He said he was invited into Higginbottom's living quarters and the priest locked the door and ordered him to undress before sexually assaulting him. When he returned home from the school he became rebellious and his schoolwork suffered, he said. He added: "Upholland, and him, have stolen so much of my being. I had to salvage something out of this empty shell." The court heard the victim also made allegations against two other priests at the school, but both had since died. Adam Birkby, defending, said that since the offences, Higginbottom had led a "positive" life as a parish priest. He said he suffered a number of health problems including type-2 diabetes and a heart condition. Sentencing, Judge Andrew Menary QC said: "For a period of six months in the late 1970s you made a young boy's life a living hell. "What you did to him there effectively destroyed the remainder of his childhood and did a good job of destroying any faith he ever had." Higginbottom, of West Farm Road, Newcastle, had denied four counts of buggery and four counts of indecent assault but was found guilty after a trial. The court heard that during his time as a physics teacher at the school, which has since closed, he would give electric shocks to pupils as a punishment. Judge Menary said: "You employed methods which today, if not then, would be recognised for what they were - cruel and sadistic bullying." The trial jury was told that allegations had been made against Higginbottom by another former pupil in 2007 and the Catholic Church had settled the claim out of court for 35,000. Police had investigated the claims and, although Higginbottom was charged, no evidence against him was offered in court and not guilty verdicts were entered. Higginbottom was told he would be subject to the notification requirement of the Sexual Offences Act for the rest of his life. Hundreds of people in New Zealand have been evacuated from some coastal areas as the second major storm in just over a week made landfall near the North Island town of Whakatane. But residents of the nation's largest city, Auckland, breathed a sigh of relief as the remnants of Cyclone Cook moved past them to the east. Authorities had earlier worried the storm could hit the city and cause major problems. "It seems Auckland has largely survived ... unscathed," tweeted Auckland Mayor Phil Goff. Civil defence authorities said people from about 250 homes in the beach town of Ohope were told they had to evacuate, while other households chose to leave. Authorities had earlier advised people in low elevations on the Coromandel Peninsula to evacuate to higher ground, as large waves were expected to batter the coast. Air New Zealand suspended flights from Tauranga Airport and other flights around the country were also delayed or cancelled. The military said it had placed 500 troops on standby. The storm also caused power disruptions to hundreds of homes in Whakatane and Tauranga. Sarah Stuart-Black, director of the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management, said the storm was "extremely serious" and severe weather warnings were in place for much of the country. "We are watching very carefully, we're not through this yet," she said on Thursday evening. The storm was expected to move south overnight and reach the capital, Wellington, early on Friday, causing more problems along the way but also losing some of its punch. The MetService weather agency predicted rainfall could exceed 100 millimetres in some places and cause more flooding in areas still recovering from heavy rainfall last week. Last Thursday, the town of Edgecumbe was flooded when a river burst through a concrete levee on the Rangitaiki River as the remnants of Cyclone Debbie hit. The water forced 2,000 people to evacuate and flooded hundreds of homes. Many people have been unable to return to their homes since then and authorities have been scrambling to shore up the breached levee. That system and others will be tested again by rainfall from the latest storm. MetService predicted winds from the storm could gust to 150 kilometres per hour and that waves could rise to over five metre. AP Pope Francis washed the feet of a dozen inmates at a maximum security prison on Maundy Thursday. During the pre-Easter ritual meant to show his willingness to serve society's most marginal, Francis urged the prisoners to help one another and similarly "be the servant of others". Francis travelled to the Paliano detention centre, south of Rome, to celebrate Maundy Thursday Mass at the only Italian prison dedicated to housing Mafia turncoats. These "collaborators of justice" can reduce their sentences by cooperating with anti-Mafia prosecutors. Many of the inmates are serving lengthy terms: Two of the 12 inmates who participated in the foot-washing ceremony are serving life terms. The remaining 10 are due to be released between 2019 and 2073. Francis also visited two other inmates currently in solitary confinement. In his homily, Francis reminded the inmates that his gesture of washing their feet re-enacted the gesture of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples before he was crucified, essentially doing the work of a slave out of love. "If you can do something, a service for your companions in prison, do it," Francis urged them during his homily. "This is love. This is like washing feet: to be the servant of others." It was the third Maundy Thursday that Francis has spent at a detention centre, part of his long-standing emphasis on ministering to prisoners and the need to give them rehabilitation and hope. "The Holy Father gave us a message not just of hope, but he told us that the love of God is great and is ready to forgive everyone," prison director Nadia Cersosimo told Vatican Radio. Paliano has 60 to 70 inmates, including about 50 Mafia turncoats. The prison also houses four women and has a special ward for tuberculosis-infected inmates. The Vatican said three of the 12 inmates who had their feet washed are women and one is a Muslim who is due to be baptised a Christian in June. Prisoners prepared cakes as gifts and offered the Pope vegetables from the prison's organic garden. In an interview with La Repubblica, Francis said his emphasis on reaching out to inmates comes from his heart. "When I'm looking at a prisoner, I ask myself: 'Why him and not me?'" he said. "'Why did he fall and not me?' It's a mystery that brings me closer to them." Francis opened the most solemn period of the Catholic Church's liturgical calendar by celebrating Mass on Thursday morning in St Peter's Basilica before heading to Paliano. On Friday, he will participate in the torch-lit procession at Rome's Colosseum, re-enacting Christ's crucifixion. Saturday brings the late-night Easter vigil, with Easter Sunday Mass the following day. AP Russia's foreign minister says Moscow expects the UN's chemical weapons watchdog to conduct an extensive probe into last week's chemical attack in Syria. Sergey Lavrov said that inspectors from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons should both visit the Syrian air base, which the US said had served as a platform for the attack, and the town of Khan Sheikhoun that was hit to get a full and objective picture. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has said claims he was behind a deadly gas attack targeting his own people is "100 percent fabrication". Addressing the allegations the Syrian leader said his army has already given up chemical weapons. Russia has agreed to support an independent investigation into the use of chemical weapons in northern Syria, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said. Mr Erdogan's office said he and Russian President Vladimir Putin had agreed to back a probe by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). A spokesman said the two leaders held a telephone conversation on Thursday, during which the Turkish leader stressed that the use of chemical weapons "is the greatest crime against humanity". A statement said: "The two leaders agreed that the attack in question be investigated by the OPCW, which is an independent organisation whose legitimacy is recognised." Mr Erdogan and Mr Putin also discussed peace efforts for Syria and their joint efforts to extend a ceasefire agreement to the whole of the country. Meanwhile, a misdirected airstrike by the US-led coalition earlier this week killed 18 allied fighters battling the Islamic State group in Syria, the US military said. US Central Command said coalition aircraft were given the wrong coordinates by their partner forces, the predominantly-Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces, for a strike intended to target IS militants south of their Tabqa stronghold, near the extremists' de facto capital, Raqqa. The strike hit an SDF position instead, killing 18. Central Command said the strike was launched on Tuesday. Several nations have lent their air power to the US-led coalition to defeat the Islamic State group. It was not clear which air force was behind the strike. The SDF acknowledged the strike on Thursday, saying a number of its fighters were killed and wounded. The SDF-linked Hawar News Agency reported the group was holding funerals for 17 of its fighters in the border town of Tal al-Abyad, though it did not link them to the strike. An activist-run group, Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, says three days of mourning have been declared for the town. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 25 SDF fighters were killed in the last two days of battle. The SDF meanwhile announced the launch of a fourth phase of their campaign to capture Raqqa, a Euphrates River city that is home to 300,000 people. The SDF, with US-led air and ground support, has surrounded Tabqa, some 25 miles south west of Raqqa. They say they are working to clear Islamic State militants out of Jalab Valley, north of Raqqa. The SDF says it wants to isolate Raqqa before attacking it. Their closest position is less than five miles north east of the city. But the countryside south of Raqqa is still under IS control. It is unclear how many stages are planned for the campaign. In a separate development, President Bashar Assad said a chemical attack on a rebel-held town earlier this month that was widely blamed on his forces was a "fabrication". "Definitely, 100% for us, it's fabrication", Mr Assad told Agence France-Presse in his first comments since a US missile strike on a Syrian air base in response to the chemical attack. "Our impression is that the West, mainly the United States, is hand-in-glove with the terrorists. They fabricated the whole story in order to have a pretext for the attack." Syria strongly denied it was behind the April 4 chemical attack on Khan Sheikhoun, which killed 87 people. AP The Democrat leadership has made constant, profound and incredible pronouncements that one's supportive vote for Republicans is tantamount to surrendering Democracy forever. Understanding their sincere thinking in their extreme position: How will you still vote on this election day? Democrat; because the continuance of this Democracy from the existential threat of extreme Republicans is paramount. Republican; the process of having a choice is the democratic method within what "Democracy" exists. The ACT's unemployment rate remains stable at 3.7 per cent, according to March data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. It's the second-lowest jobless figure in Australia, behind only the Northern Territory at 3.5 per cent. The ACT has the second-lowest unemployment rate in Australia. Credit:Photography Project The trend unemployment rate in Australia increased by less than 0.1 points to 5.9 per cent. The number of people in work rose by 16,500 to slightly more than 12 million. "We have seen strengthening in full-time growth over recent months, following falls in full-time employment recorded through much of 2016," ABS spokesman Jacqui Jones said. A man accused of stabbing his wife to death in a "frenzied" attack as she breastfed their 10-month-old son has been found guilty of murder. Maged Mohommed Ahmed Al-Harazi, 36, did not visibly react as the jury handed down its verdict in the ACT Supreme Court trial on Thursday after less than five hours of deliberations. Maged Al-Harazi was on Thursday found guilty of murdering his wife Sabah Al-Mdwali in March 2015. His wife's family members exclaimed "yes" and clapped from their seats in a packed public gallery. The five-week trial heard from more than 100 witnesses and revolved around whether Mr Al-Harazi was the killer who inflicted 57 stab wounds on his wife, Sabah Al-Mdwali, in the early hours of March 17 in 2015. The safety scare involving a Qantas jet last week is so rare and serious that most pilots go their whole career without encountering such a scenario, an aviation expert says. Fifteen people were injured when the Qantas 747 flying from Melbourne to Hong Kong on April 7 had a "stick shaker" incident about 110 kilometres southeast of its destination, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau said. The ATSB, which is investigating the incident, said the pilots experienced "airframe buffeting" while holding at 22,000 feet and disconnected autopilot and "manouevred the aircraft in response". The safety watchdog is treating it as a "serious incident", meaning there were indications that an accident causing loss of life or aircraft damage nearly occurred. The "stick shaker" is a warning system that causes the aircraft's control stick to vibrate, alerting pilots they are about enter a "stall condition", said Keith Tonkin, an aviation expert and managing director of Aviation Projects. The battle for cashbox, Molopo Energy, is getting a little testy. In its bid to take over Molopo and install its own management, shareholder Keybridge Capital who has John Bolton, father of corporate raider Nicholas as its largest investor has rejected assertions, made by the corporate watchdog, that it has any related parties issues. Ombudsman: Kate Carnell has discovered big business offers loans to small business in her inquiry into late payments. Credit:Sean Davey The stoush escalated this week when the Australian Securities and Investments Commission applied to the Takeovers Panel, asking for orders to force Keybridge Capital and its former subsidiary, Aurora Funds Management, to reduce their combined stake in Molopo, which stands at about 37 per cent. ASIC has sought interim orders restraining Keybridge and Aurora and their respective associated entities from exercising any voting rights, acquiring any further relevant interests in Molopo and disposing of any Molopo shares. Internet giant Google's decision to not take up residence at the Bays Precinct in Sydney has set the leasing market aflutter, as it means the group will be back in the market for new digs. It is currently in the Pymont environs at the GPT Group's Workplace6 with Accenture and the Mirvac 1 Darling Island Road, which it shares with Fairfax Media, the publisher of The Sydney Morning Herald. An artist's impression of the redeveloped White Bay Power Station. Google last year extended its lease at Workplace6 until 2021, and with Accenture hotly tipped to move to the Lendlease Sydney International House at Barangaroo in the next few years, it will allow Google to take out the rest of the property. But over the years the Google mandate has alternated between 20,000 square metres up to 100,000 sq m. That is why the Bays precinct is an obvious new home for the group. Google, like other tech businesses, also prefers a campus-style office in a city fringe area as opposed to a high rise corporate, CBD tower. We can't have it both ways. We can't demand justice for toddler Mason Lee, and then risk prosecutions at the centre of his treatment by releasing prematurely a report into his case. A report into Mason Lee's death will remain secret until the court process is complete. We can't say we want a government that responds to the advice of experts and then demand the same government act against that advice. Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says the report will be released in full following the trials, and her decision not to release it immediately comes after a briefing to cabinet from the DPP, who advised it should not be made public yet. In a recent submission to Treasury Department the St Vincent de Paul society implored the government to dump the work-for-the-dole scheme developed by Tony Abbott as a junior minister in 1998 on the ground it was not only cruel, but ineffective. "For too long, governments have taken a harsh approach to the long-term unemployed, wielding a punitive stick on the back of those already doing it tough. Work for the dole is a demonstrable failure, with studies showing that the program provides neither a pathway to a job nor any substantial training or skill development," the submission said. "Forcing job seekers to accept almost any job on minimally acceptable terms and conditions, including casual and insecure forms of work, does not help jobseekers secure decent and sustainable employment. We have not made progress if the 'welfare poor' becomes the 'working poor'." Now you might suspect that Vinnie de P is stacked with bleeding hearts and this is the sort of soft line it would take, but there is hard data to back their position. ACT Parks and Conservation Environment director Daniel Iglesias said the traps were invisible "killing machines" and they were sadly fairly widespread. The limp bodies of these freshwater aquatic mammals, which play a similar ecological role to otters in the Australian environment, were found at Yarramundi Reach on the southern shore of Lake Burley Griffin. Native water rats, platypus, and other species are being killed by illegal traps left in Canberra's lakes. Compliance ranger with parks and conservation service Richard Kosh. Photo: Jamila Toderas Credit:Jamila Toderas Platypuses, native water rats and other species are drowning in illegal traps left in Canberra's lakes. Two platypuses killed in an illegal opera house style trap at Point Hut Pond in 2015. Credit:ACT Environment Directorate "We don't know how many nets are in use but what we do know is while these nets are illegal for use in the ACT you can buy them quite readily," he said. The yabby or opera house traps are illegal for use in any public waterway in the ACT and are only legal for use west of the Newell Highway, which runs through Narrandera. Penalties for illegal use in the ACT are high as $7000 but the government said prosecuting such cases was difficult. "There are significant fines for people we are able to determine are using, in possession of [the nets], or killing the native animals," Mr Iglesias said. Amendment limiting damages from hog waste disposal does not apply to current federal lawsuits Rep. Jimmy Dixon, a retired Duplin County hog farmer, pleaded with fellow House members to remember the people who put food on the table.A handful of his Republican colleagues (and several Democrats) said being faithful to the principles of common-law jurisprudence, separation of powers, and property rights outweigh the interests of any single industry, no matter how important.The House passed House Bill 467 - a measure limiting court damages in some nuisance lawsuits to the actual value of the property involved - Monday evening by a 68-47 margin. But not before an amendment passed from Rep. John Blust, R-Guilford, blocking the law from applying to current federal lawsuits involving hundreds of plaintiffs and one major defendant - Smithfield Foods, the world's largest pork producer.Blust also noted the common-law standard of requiring parties that damage the lives or property of others to compensate victims fully.Blust said.The amendment passed by a 59-56 vote after more than an hour of debate. The lower damage limits would apply to future cases, but not the massive litigation now before U.S. District Court Judge Earl Britt.Rep. Ted Davis, R-New Hanover, another primary sponsor of the original legislation, said damage limits should apply to the Smithfield lawsuits because Britt had noted the North Carolina statutes were not clear about the monetary damages that apply to "temporary nuisances" like seasonal treatment of hog lagoon waste, implying he wouldn't rule on the cases until he got some guidance from the legislature.But House Minority Leader Darren Jackson, D-Wake, said Britt wasn't asking for help. He was citing the law.Blust, and Rep. Hugh Blackwell, R-Burke, warned their colleagues against intervening in existing lawsuits. Blust said the bill would encourage more constituents to come forward and ask lawmakers to change damage amounts if they were likely to lose a lawsuit.Rep. Joe John, D-Wake, a former member of the North Carolina Court of Appeals, argued that the bill would violate separation of powers, placing the legislative branch in the center of an ongoing judicial dispute.Blust said, adding,The bill passed an initial vote on Thursday by a 64-48 margin with no discussion or debate, a little more than 60 seconds after the bill was introduced. Rep. Bill Richardson, D-Cumberland, objected to final passage of the bill, giving legislators a few days to review it and get input.H.B. 467 goes to the Senate. Two Australian children are spending Easter under guard as Immigration Department officials work to deport their Fijian parents. The Prasad family, from Eastlakes in Sydney's south, were taken from their home on Monday. Father Jitend Prasad was originally placed in Villawood detention centre and mother Joytika put under round-the-clock guard with her three children in an apartment in Parramatta. The Prasads, ethnic Indians, have lost numerous appeals for protection from the Australian government. They said they had been threatened by indigenous Fijians during the 2000 military coup and would be persecuted again if forced to return to village life in Fiji without land or income. The case is unusual because the couple have two Australian-born children, Jasmita, 15, and her brother Jasneel, 12, who are full Australian citizens and cannot be forced to leave the country, even if their parents are deported. Barnaby Joyce has been called "irresponsible" by one of Australia's most senior conservationists after the Deputy Prime Minister dismissed wetlands adjoining Adani's Abbot Point coal port as little more than a "duck-shooting pond". The brawl over Adani's threats to the onshore environment and the Great Barrier Reef escalated as Liberal backbencher Sarah Henderson broke ranks to question a potential $1 billion government loan to develop rail infrastructure for the Indian conglomerate's proposed Carmichael mine in Queensland's Galilee Basin. Australian Conservation Council president Geoff Cousins said Mr Joyce had "failed to check his facts" on the Caley Valley wetlands, a 5000-hectare bird habitat that environmentalists say was damaged by coal dust contamination from the Adani terminal during cyclone Debbie. Mr Joyce this week played down the wetlands' ecological value, describing it as a "swamp" built for duck shooters. A losing candidate in Saturday's North Shore by-election will take the extraordinary step of legally challenging the election results to try to instigate an inquiry into claims election officials provided incorrect information to voters. Mosman Councillor Carolyn Corrigan was on Thursday morning declared to have lost Saturday's byelection for the seat of North Shore by about 3400 votes on a two-party preferred count despite a 15-point first preference swing away from the Liberal Party. Cr Corrigan secured 45.3 per cent of the two-party preferred vote on the final count. But the government declared victory on a tense election night after it became apparent that not enough preferences were flowing to her from other independents and the Greens to close the gap with Liberal candidate Felicity Wilson. In an extraordinary eleventh-hour appeal Cr Corrigan formally asked the Commission to suspend its announcement of results pending an inquiry in a letter sent late on Wednesday. Ten years ago, mining towns were some of Queensland's richest postcodes. Today, it is affluent suburbs in Brisbane's "wealth belt" that are some of the most well off. An analysis of Tax Office data has shown those with Queensland's highest incomes live in suburbs like Ascot, Hamilton, Bulimba and Teneriffe. Eagle Farm in the 4009 postcode had the highest average taxable income for 2014-15 at $105,319. The 4007 postcode, home to Ascot and Hamilton, had an average taxable income of $103,320. Pubs and clubs will be handed $4000 to install ID scanners as concerns mount venues will be forced to close early if they do not meet the deadline to have the machines ready to go in less than three months. ID scanner companies have advised that "very few licensees" have committed to buying their approved systems, despite them being mandatory in Safe Night Precincts from July 1 in venues that trade after midnight. ID scanners will be installed at pubs and clubs in Queensland's Safe Night Precincts. Credit:Wayne Taylor That meant some Brisbane bars could be forced to shut their doors early at 10pm until they could get the ID scanners installed. And with a two-month lead time required to get the ID scanners installed by the due date, the clock is ticking. A man captured in a citizen's arrest after allegedly flashing his penis at a woman and sexually assaulted three others in the previous week does not think he has done anything wrong, a court has heard. The 39-year-old man, who can not be named for legal reasons, was kept behind bars after a magistrate was told he had the mental age of a 14-year-old and his alleged offences would likely go before the Mental Health Court. The man appeared in Roma Street Magistrates Court on Thursday, Credit:Tammy Law The Everton Park man, whose mother is his full-time carer, was accused of sexually assaulting three women in the suburb from March 28 to April 11 and attempting to assault a child. Police described the allegations as random groping and said a member of the public detained the man on Monday after he exposed his penis to a woman near a shopping centre on the corner of busy South Pine Road. Drivers allegedly more than five times over the limit, a motorbike tearing down a highway at nearly double the speed limit and a car crashing into a fish and chip shop - the first day of the Easter road campaign just about had it all. There were no fatalities on south-east Queensland roads by Friday afternoon, but two people were left in a critical condition in hospital. The driver of a ute is suspected by police of dangerous driving prior to hitting a tree. Credit:7 News Queensland - Twitter A motorcycle was recorded on Thursday by a speed camera on the Bruce Highway at Landsborough on the Sunshine Coast doing 193 kilometres per hour in a 110 zone. Meanwhile, a 22-year-old man was charged after allegedly returning a blood-alcohol level of 0.273 in the carpark of a fast food outlet at Mount Isa just before midnight. Hundreds of impatient motorists on the Eastern Freeway are being fined every month for illegally driving in the express lane that is reserved for buses, taxis, motorbikes and cars carrying more than one person. Data indicates the problem has grown worse in the past year, with the number of fines issued jumping by 55 per cent. Wait your turn ... The Eastern Freeway near Hoddle Street. Credit:Eddie Jim Victoria Police issued 2372 fines for driving in the freeway transit lane in the 12 months to March 20, compared with 1526 fines in the previous 12 months, data obtained by the Victorian Liberals shows. The transit lane is enforced on the freeway's citybound lanes between 7am and 9.30am on weekdays. The grandson of Carlton great Laurie Kerr has been found not guilty of the brutal murder of his mother because he was in a psychotic state at the time. However, Stephen Bailey will stay in prison for another six months, because of a shortage of beds at Victoria's high-security psychiatric hospital. Stephen Bailey (left) is lead into the Supreme Court in Melbourne on Thursday. Credit:Joe Castro The body of his mother, Penelope Bailey, was found in a creek bed in suburban Donvale in 2015, three days after her son was arrested when he was seen running through traffic in his underwear. The Supreme Court this week heard Bailey, 36, was experiencing a "florid state of psychosis" when he killed his mother on October 5 in her Mont Albert North home. Hospitals are putting violent patients into comas as a last resort to protect staff who are being sprayed with blood, held hostage, and bashed on the job, a leading doctor says. Simon Judkins, a spokesman for the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine, said more funding was needed to protect health workers from a growing number of dangerous patients, including some who are lashing out due to long waits for care. Simon Judkins, spokesman for the Australasian College of Emergency Medicine. Credit:Jason South Dr Judkins, an emergency physician who is also an advisor to the Victorian government, said some people with ice-induced psychosis were now being put into comas, and placed on ventilators in intensive care units for 24 hours to protect themselves and staff who do not have enough resources to restrain them. "We've put them into comas just to control them," he said. "It's a last resort but it happens pretty frequently." A Kalgoorlie policeman has described the town's 2016 riots as the "scariest day" of his 27-year long career, during a court hearing into the case of a man accused of running down a teenager in the town. Inspector Tony Colfer made the comments in the WA Supreme Court on Thursday during a hearing into the case of the man charged with the manslaughter of 14-year old Kalgoorlie boy Elijah Doughty. Young people mourning for Elijah. Credit:Heather McNeill Elijah's death on August 29 last year sparked tensions in his Goldfields home town with Indigenous supporters carrying signs calling for 'justice' and saying 'the lives of our kids matter'. A violent riot erupted outside the Kalgoorlie Courthouse when the accused man was first due to appear in court, leaving officers injured and police cars damaged. Bangkok: Lawyers say the defence of two Asian women accused of the nerve-agent assassination of Kim Jong-nam has been damaged by Malaysia allowing North Korean suspects to leave the country. Gooi Soon Seng, a lawyer acting for 25-year-old Indonesian Siti Aiysah, says a suspect identified as Ri Ji-u, known as James, "is a key to our defence" as Ms Aiysah had met Mr Ri before the attack on Mr Kim at Kuala Lumpur airport on February 13. Selvi Sandrasegaram, centre, lawyer for Indonesian suspect Siti Aisyah in the death of Kim Jong-nam. Credit:AP She and 28-year-old Vietnamese Doan Thi Huong claim they were duped into believing they were taking part in a television prank show, Just for Laughs. Lawyers for both women complained during a court hearing in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday about the release of Mr Ri and two other North Korean suspects on March 30, one of them a diplomat at North Korea's embassy. They also complained they have not being provided with statements police obtained from the suspects. Mr Sudarsa's battered and bloodied body was found on Kuta beach on August 17 last year with 42 injuries. The court heard the Bali police officer of 35 years and Taylor had fought in the sand after the British DJ had accused him of stealing Connor's handbag. Taylor, 35, from Halifax, admitted to bashing the police officer with weapons including a beer bottle smashed into the back of his head, but insisted he was acting in self defence. However Connor said her only role had been to try and separate the brawling pair. Prosecutor Agung Jayalantara told Fairfax Media last month prosecutors were appealing the decision because they had requested both Connor and Taylor face the same sentence - eight years' jail. It is standard operating procedure for prosecutors to appeal in Indonesia if the sentence is less than two-thirds of that requested by prosecutors. Despite being found guilty of the same crime as Taylor, Connor said it was not a discrepancy that she had been given a lesser sentence because what the two had done had been very different. "David being sentenced to six years was fair because he was the one who hit the back of the victim's head, causing him to die, as per the forensic doctor's conclusion," Connor wrote. "When what I did was just to separate the fight. Even though I was involved in the fight, the prosecutor has to see that nothing I did caused the victim's death." Therefore, Connor said, she should not be given the same punishment. "In my opinion the sentence by the judges was not a discrepancy, but the right decision," she said. "If it's the same punishment then it is very unfair for me, because it violates my rights, as I am being punished for an unintentional crime." Connor said she had offered a donation to assist the victim's family and help lessen their burden but in the end it was not something they had accepted. "David and I didn't intend or want the fight that caused Wayan Sudarsa's death. What I did at the time was to defend myself from something I saw as a threat." The judges in the Denpasar District Court rejected key elements of Connor's defence including her claim that her only role in the police officer's death was to break up the fight. Judge Wayan Sukanila said Connor was not trying to separate Taylor and Mr Sudarsa when she sat on top of the police officer but was trying to help Taylor and prevent the victim from fighting back. He was equally sceptical about her claims that she cut up Mr Sudarsa's cards in order to protect him from identity theft, saying she instead acted out of guilt. Connor said it was a "one-sided opinion" for the prosecutor to suggest she had not learned her lesson from the sentence. "I, Sara Connor, personally feel very guilty," she said. The lesson she had learned from the incident, her life experience in Bali and the punishment imposed had been a bitter one that would last all her life. Connor begged the High Court judges to give justice to her in accordance with the level of her mistake. "Let me learn from my mistake to be a better person. Give me also the chance to redeem myself," she said. Prosecutor Agung Jayalantara said Connor's signed statement, which she submitted and signed herself rather than through lawyers, was the counter argument to their appeal. Bannon's trouble is he fights too hard he calls his office "the war room." And his mistake was to go to war against Trump's son-in-law and counselor Jared Kushner and his less hardline allies in the administration. White House press secretary Sean Spicer speaking to the media. Credit:AP On Monday, Spicer hosed down reports of the Bannon-Kushner infighting, but on Tuesday, Trump was talking them up. He told the New York Post that he had issued an ultimatum: "Steve is a good guy, but I told them to straighten it out or I will." US President Donald Trump and then-White House chief strategist Steve Bannon in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington in February. Credit:AP It was a cruel jab - Bannon headed the Trump campaign for the last 11 decisive weeks; he was a key player in the transition; and on arriving at the White House he was the man. But there was an echo in Trump claiming that he hardly knew Bannon. It was the language the administration has resorted to in disowning a cast of troublesome characters, including sacked National Security Adviser Mike Flynn and Bannon's predecessor as campaign boss, Paul Manafort. "Bannon's more of a libertarian than anything else, if you want to know the truth," Trump said overnight during an interview in the Oval Office. Spicer's Tuesday gaff was so bad that he went on national TV to make an abject, if rare White House apology for what was an appalling clanger "Hitler didn't even sink to using chemical weapons." The spokesman told CNN's Wolf Blitzer: "I mistakenly used an inappropriate, insensitive reference to the Holocaust I apologise. It was a mistake to do that." But he still hadn't recovered his stride having earlier mispronounced Assad's name, he expressed regret that his comments had distracted from Trump's "attempts to destabilise the region." Later on Tuesday, Spicer was still groveling in an interview with Politico: "I don't even know how to explain it. It was a straight up mistake." Spicer is no stranger to trouble often because his boss demands that he trade in falsehoods, like his first inauguration day appearance in the press room, when he insisted against all the evidence that the Trump crowd had been bigger that Barack Obama's. He's also confiscated his staff's phones to have them searched for clues to identify the dozens of White House staffers who leak to the media. Ari Fleischer, a press secretary for George W. Bush, came to Spicer's defense - "Until you've stood at that podium, you have no idea how hard it is day in and day out to never make a mistake Sean made a big one today. He handled it properly. He apologised." "Now, he's going to take a pounding, and he's going to move forward," Fleisher told The Washington Post. Some media critics gave Spicer a pass, blaming his stumble into such a weird rabbit warren not on anti-Semitism so much as the failure by Donald Trump to enunciate a coherent Middle East policy that Spicer might then be able to sell from the lectern. There have been occasional reports of Trump's frustration with Spicer, but his cutting public remarks about Bannon sounded like a kiss of death, though the signaling from the White House on how they might be read was contradictory probably because they were being filtered by factional allies and enemies. But it follows Bannon's ceremonial removal from his prestigious perch on the National Security Council, at a time when the portfolio of Kushner, husband to Ivanka Trump has been expanding. And Trump, apparently is sick and tired of hearing about how Bannon won the election and is deemed to be so such a force in the White House that some refer to him as President Bannon. Trump has had a go at both Kushner and Bannon but in private. He has reportedly taken to mocking media coverage of the breadth of Kushner's vast portfolio; but he has also taken to evicting Bannon from some meetings, telling him that his presence is not required. But Kushner has something that Bannon can never trump Kushner is family. And even if Bannon is retained, it could be challenging for such boisterous and aggressive operators to continue to serve a president who so dissed him in public. Even before Trump's outburst, there were reports that Bannon's influential connections beyond the White House were looking for a post for him. Trump reportedly holds Bannon responsible for the bungled launch of Trump's migrant and refugee crackdown and, in part, for the botched negotiations with Congress on the failed GOP effort to repeal and replace Obamacare. But as the self-appointed holder of the torch for the populist and nationalist policies, on which Trump ran for election, Bannon collides frequently with Kushner, Ivanka and others who he disparages as "the Democrats" who have been urging Trump to back away from some of his campaign promises and much of his rhetoric. To the extent that the internecine wars are about the direction and future of the Trump presidency, the timing could not be worse for Bannon in the aftermath of Trump's missile strike on Syria and his Florida summit with Chinese Leader Xi Jinping, some analysts detect a retreat from the isolationist cocktail of his America First rhetoric and Bannon's "destruction of the administrative state," as Trump aligns himself more with the Washington foreign policy and national security establishment. The evidence, they say, is that he is backing away from his frothy anti-China rhetoric on Wednesday he even abandoned his oft-repeated threat to formally brand Beijing as a currency manipulator. On trade with China, Trump is talking about diplomacy, not tariffs. Loading And though Trump personally has not backed away from his bromance with Russia, his national security team is hammering Moscow on Syria and on Crimea. Washington: An airstrike by the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group killed 18 Syrian fighters allied with the United States, the military said Thursday. The strike, on Tuesday in Tabqah, Syria, was the third time in a month that US-led airstrikes may have killed civilians or allies, and it comes even as the Pentagon is investigating two previous airstrikes that killed or wounded scores of civilians in a mosque complex in Syria and in a building in the west of Mosul, Iraq. Fighters from the predominantly-Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces carrying the coffins of their comrades, who were killed Tuesday by a misdirected airstrike by the US-led coalition. Credit:AP Tuesday's strike was requested by coalition allies who were on the ground near Tabqah, the US Central Command, which oversees combat operations in the Middle East, said in a statement. The fighters had called in the airstrikes and "identified the target location as an ISIS fighting position," it said, using another name for the Islamic State. The Central Command statement said that the target location turned out to be a "fighting position" for the Syrian Democratic Forces, who have been fighting the Islamic State alongside the United States. A Detroit emergency room doctor has been charged with performing genital mutilation on young girls in what is believed to be the first criminal case of its kind brought by US prosecutors. Jumana Nagarwala, 44, of Northville, Michigan, was charged in federal district court in Detroit with female genital mutilation, transportation with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity and making a false statement to a federal officer, court records show. One of the tools that can be used to carry out the process, held by Jennifer Chiwute from Tanzania speaking in Australia promoting a campaign to end female genital mutilation. Credit:Simon O'Dwye In a criminal complaint, FBI Special Agent Kevin Swanson alleged that two young girls travelled with their parents from Minnesota so Nagarwala could perform the procedure on them in early 2017, and that investigators had identified other children who might have been victimised between 2005 and 2007. The Justice Department said the case is believed to be the first brought under the particular US law that criminalised female genital mutilation. Well done to Chemical Synthesis CDT PhD student Krishna Mistry (working with Paul Pringle and Duncan Wass) who won a prize for the best talk at the 14th European Workshop on Phosphorus Chemistry held recently at Cluj in Romania. The 14th European Workshop on Phosphorus Chemistry was held from March 20 22, 2017 at BabesBolyai University Cluj-Napoca, Romania. The workshop supports and reinforces the position of European groups within the field of phosphorus chemistry worldwide. The topics of the workshop covered all modern aspects of phosphorus chemistry in a wide range of disciplines including organic, inorganic, polymer and biomolecular chemistry as well as material science and others. State Senator Steve Santarsiero (D-10) presented a check to Yardley Borough Police Chief Joseph Kelly for $68,600 for the purchase of a new police vehicle and motorcycle during a visit to the station. Our police put themselves on the line every day to keep our community safe, said Sen. Santarsiero. Dating back to when I was a Lower Makefield Township Supervisor more than... Jensen Ackles is a busy man. Not only he is in the midst of filming the end of Supernatural season 12, he also has a three-year-old daughter and two newborn twins at home. Jensen shared an adorable photo on his Instagram account of what it is like to handle his newborn twins and the specific challenges that can emerge. In addition, Jensen also posted some behind-the-scenes footage filming a scene for an upcoming episode of Supernatural. 3 Reasons Supernatural Should Have Kept Mick Davies Alive>>> In the cute snapshot Jensen can be seen feeding his twins, daughter Arrow Rhodes and son Zeppelin Bram, simultaneously. The color-coordinated outfits tell us that Arrow is (probably) on the right with Zeppelin on the left. Jensen wrote underneath the picture When the remote control is right between your legs and you cant change the channel. When the remote control is right between your legs and you cant change the channel. #twins A post shared by Jensen Ackles (@jensenackles) on Apr 10, 2017 at 6:58pm PDT Its easy to miss the first time with the endearing fatherly love catching your eye but there is a remote in front of Jensen. As much as the dad jokes about not being able to change the channel he does seem a little too preoccupied with his young ones to look at anything else. [WATCH] Supernatural Preview: Who Is Black Bill?>>> As mentioned, Jensen also posted a video of the filming of Supernatural. In the quick video Jensen can be seen on a set cameras monitor dramatically coming around a corner in character and shooting off two shots from his handgun. It looks like it is just a regular handgun too, not the infamous Colt which has factored back into Supernatural again. Just another Monday morning I love this job! #slowmo #doubletap #spnfamily A post shared by Jensen Ackles (@jensenackles) on Apr 3, 2017 at 9:24am PDT Yet the background does offer some kind of hint. Its pretty unremarkable but it does look similar to the Sam and Deans Men of Letters bunker. Could Sam and Dean be on the precipice of having their home invaded by the British Men of Letters or some other antagonists? The chances are pretty good as Supernatural has been building up to a huge conflict on the horizon. What are your theories on the set video? Is the shooting taking place at the bunker? Could it be at some other location? Is it too hard to tell? How adorable are Jensens newborn twins? Supernatural season 12 airs Thursdays at 8/7c on The CW. Want more news? Like our Supernatural Facebook page! (Image and video courtesy of Instagram,/ Jensen Ackles) Contact: Attila Nemecz Attila Nemecz Attila.Nemecz@beaufortccc.edu WASHINGTON, NC Due to a drop in full-time equivalent (FTE) students, Beaufort County Community College is making a necessary ten percent budget cut. The drop in FTE will result in an anticipated $1.1 million reduction in funds from the state. While supply, travel and equipment budgets will be reduced significantly, personnel will also be reduced due to its disproportionate share of the budget. Half of the community colleges in North Carolina are facing similarly lean budgets.BCCC has experienced a downward trend in FTE during the past few years. The vice presidents of all divisions were asked to make a reduction in their budgets. While reductions were made in other areas, personnel loss could not be avoided as it is approximately 74 percent of the overall budget.The staffing reductions will not take place until July 1, 2017 when contracts are regularly renewed. The reductions include three full-time faculty, four full-time staff and four part-time staff non-renewals. Additional savings will come from leaving three full-time and two part-time positions unfilled and downgrading one position., said Dr. Barbara Tansey, president of BCCC.The budget from the state is based on a two-year rolling average of FTE students attending the community college and, therefore, a reduction is expected during the 2017-2018 fiscal year. While the number of students has remained more stable in the current year, a significant drop in enrollment two years ago is now being felt in the budget. College administrators are hopeful that this unprecedented cut will be the last major cut. As the student populations stabilizes, so will the budget.The number of students in curriculum and continuing education programs dropped from 3,797 in the fall of 2015 semester to 3,541 during the fall of 2016, a 6.7% decrease. Since community colleges accommodate different kind of students, enrollment numbers are standardized using a formula called Full-Time Equivalent (FTE). One FTE equates to a full-time student taking 16 credit hours for two semesters. The drop in FTE was 8.1% for the year, and the budget formula was weighed down by a more significant decrease during the previous year.Staffing decisions were based on the performance of programs and changes in statewide mandates. Care was taken to not eliminate any programs or hurt services on which students rely.The college experienced a decline in enrollment after it withdrew from the Federal Student Loan Program in 2014 after BCCC's default rate spiked to 29 percent. More recent trends in student enrollment are a reflection of a larger demographic shift in the region. All of the counties in BCCC's service area have lost population during the last six years, with Beaufort losing 233 people, Hyde losing 393 people, Tyrrell losing 266 people and Washington losing 1,033 people. All of the counties have seen their citizens get older as well, with the average age in Beaufort and Washington Counties now at 44 years old.said Tansey.The college has shifted its focus to dual enrollment programs for high school students, with a third of its enrolled students now coming from those programs.The College hopes that these are the only budget reductions and contract non-renewals it will have to make. These reductions will help BCCC continue its mission to provide accessible and affordable quality education, effective teaching, relevant training and lifelong learning opportunities to the people of Beaufort, Hyde, Tyrrell and Washington Counties. The Builders Merchants Federation has launched its second Regional Centre of Excellence in the North West, at Sentinel Performance Solutions' facility in Warrington. Matt Haines, BMF regional manager West Midlands, North West and North Wales, attended the launch with Sentinel's trade marketing director Neil Davies, and trade marketing manager Daniel Cheung. BMF members around the country have welcomed the new regional centres, which will give them access to BMF training and events on their doorstep. Speaking at the launch, Neil Davies said: "Sentinel is proud to be partnering with the BMF. At Sentinel we look forward to working with the BMF as we seek to educate and inspire the next generation of builders' merchants to meet the challenges of the rapidly changing construction industry." Mr Haines added: "The BMF is very appreciative of Sentinel allowing the BMF to use the impressive facilities at their Warrington Offices, very conveniently located five minutes off the M62, to become a second Centre of Excellence in the North West Region. We very much look forward to welcoming members to the venue when the BMF Regional Meeting is held there on 4 October, 2017." Pictured, from left: BMF regional manaeger Matt Haines, and Sentinel's trade marketing director, Neil Davies. Everything you need to know for election day in Burlington County elections "Legendary Rhythm & Blues Revue at Knuckleheads in Kansas City on February 8, 2008. Magic Dick (harp player for the J. Geils Band), heats up the house with the classic "Whammer Jammer" - includes Tommy Castro (guitar), Chris Sandoval (drums), and Scot Sutherland (bass)....though I think Tommy and Scot are just clapping - Dick and Chris are doing all the work." It is just as important to me to read the comments under the videos to get some background information on the life and times of each musician. Those comments will give an indication of their impact people. It also is a great place to gain a few personal tidbits from people who may have known or seen them in their best or worst of times.Usually, I gain a newfound appreciation for musicians that I only knew incidentally. That is certainly the case with the J. Geils Band. Stan has indicated in the comment section that they were truly a Rock and Roll band that I would enjoy.Subsequent research has confirmed his statement. I was aware of the song below but never really associated it with the band. The mouth harp has always been one of the most versatile instruments of musicians. Unlike a Piano or Guitar, it is easily transportable and can be brought out at a moment's notice to render the melody of a song. Beyond that, it allows the jamming of a true musician in a free form performance.The video was recorded in 2008 and it is a rendition ofby Richard Salwitz, known as Magic Dick . He was a member of the J Geils band. While there are several versions of the song done by the band, I chose this video because it shows the energy and virtuoso of Magic Dick. Interestingly enough, this is not the J. Giles band. It also reminds me that some of the best music is still performed in bars with smaller crowds. Here are the notes from the YouTube link. Telecom major Bharti Airtel has modified its 'fastest network' commercial campaign by dropping the word "officially" a move that follows rival Reliance Jio contesting the claim. The advertisement regulator, the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI), had asked the company to modify or withdraw the commercial that claimed Airtel to be "officially the fastest network" in India by April 11. The modified advertisement is pitching Airtel as "India's fastest network" without the word "officially" as was seen in the earlier advertisement. Bharti Airtel had come out with the advertisement campaign claiming it to be officially the fastest network in India on Ookla's finding. Rival Reliance Jio contested the claim and moved the ASCI against the commercial. Reliance Jio alleged that Airtel deliberately used the word "officially" in its advertisement to "deceive" Indian mobile consumers as Ookla, LLC is a commercial enterprise which gives awards for money and does not have any accreditation from the Indian government. The ASCI found the ad to be misleading and asked the company to modify or withdraw the commercial by April 11. Upholding the complaint filed by Reliance Jio, the ASCI said that the Airtel TV commercial (TVC) was "misleading" and "contravened Chapters" of its Code as well as guidelines on disclaimers clauses. Bharti Airtel did not reply to an email query sent to it. However, a company source said that "Airtel has filed review petition with ASCI and advertisement continues to be on air as per norms." One of the conditions for seeking a review of an ASCI decision is that the advertiser should confirm suspension of the offending advertisement, pending review. Online marketplace Amazon India has secured a licence to operate pre-paid payment instrument (PPI) or mobile wallet in the country as it tries to compete more aggressively against rivals Snapdeal and Paytm. Sandeep Aggarwal, founder and chief executive officer of Droom, plans to raise $50 million and to become a unicorn, a start-up with valuation of $1 billion, by the end of this financial year. The e-commerce platform launched Credit, a marketplace to get loans to buy used automobiles, a first of its kind in India, on Thursday. Infosys on Wednesday appointed Independent Director Ravi Venkatesan as co-Chairman amid calls from founders to diversify the board. The board expansion comes against the backdrop of an ongoing tussle between the founders and the management over contentious issues such as CEO salary hike, severance package to former employees and corporate governance standards. "Ravi will help me enhance the board engagement in supporting the management in the execution of the company's strategy," R Seshasayee, Infosys Chairman, said in a statement. Venkatesan, who has been on the Infosys board since April 2011, has made "valuable contribution to the development of strategic direction of the company during his tenure", the company said. "This is an exciting time for the technology industry and I am delighted to have the opportunity to work more closely with Sesh (Seshasayee), Vishal and his leadership team in their transformational journey," Venkatesan said. Unlock 30+ premium stories daily hand-picked by our editors, across devices on browser and app. Full access to our intuitive epaper - clip, save, share articles from any device; newspaper archives from 2006. Curated newsletters on markets, personal finance, policy & politics, start-ups, technology, and more. Pick your 5 favourite companies, get a daily email with all news updates on them. 26 years of website archives. Ravi Venkatesan doesnt own a car. He instead uses Uber for his commutes across Bengaluru every day. A keen observer of how technology disrupts businesses, Venkatesan knows how Uber and its rival in India, Ola, have enabled thousands of drivers to transition into the formal economy. To him, while technology disrupts businesses, it also creates opportunities that never existed in the past. At Infosys, as the newly-appointed co-chairman, he will bring these insights to help shape Chief Executive Vishal Sikkas vision to take the IT services behemoth to its next phase of growth. For this transition to succeed, a leadership that understands the need to adapt is essential, Sikka has been articulating over the past two years. Venkatesan seems to think alike. Success requires correct diagnosis. What the industry is facing is not disruption but a crisis stemming from a self-inflicted inability to adapt. Success now requires the courage and tenacity to shift focus, resources and most of all intellect away from legacy businesses towards the brightest opportunities, wrote Venkatesan on November 1 on his LinkedIn post. What will make the difference at the firm level is nothing more than the quality of leadership. The 53-year-old, who led Microsoft India and Cummins as its chairman and helped cement their businesses in the country, doesnt like to flaunt his success. Soft-spoken and polite, he builds relationships, while ensuring that the organisation keeps pace with the changing times without compromising on its core values. So, when the rift between the board and its founder N R Narayana Murthy came out in the open, Venkatesan was the backroom boy who engaged with the old guard. Murthy, who had raised concerns over corporate governance lapses, and questioned R Seshasayees leadership of the board, had also sought that a co-chairman be named, initially recommending Marty Subramanyam, a former director and a professor to the post. Although the management did not elaborate on how the decision was made, it appears that Murthy, too, is in agreement with the choice. Venkatesan has the right credentials. Having served as India heads for two multinational firms, Cummins for 16 years and later at Microsoft, he has global exposure. On the board of since 2011, he has seen Infosys change from a founder-led board to a professional one. Those who know him say he has the mindset to work with leaders without ego. Venkatesan is on the board of several large and is the chairman of Bank of Baroda. He is passionate about education and social issues. Cummins College of Engineering, Indias first engineering college for women, in Pune, was established by him. He is also the co-founder of Social Venture Partners, a global network of philanthropists who invest in the social sector, besides being a venture partner at Unitus Seed fund, which identifies technology start-ups that look at disruptive traditional businesses. His social venture is to identify large scale problems and find ways to solve them. The returns are not for private gain, says a business leader who knows about his work. Venkatesan and his wife, Sonali Kulkarni, the India head of Japanese firm Fanuc, are nature lovers who can regularly be seen taking walks in Bengalurus Cubbon Park. They love dogs and have adopted a street dog, Toffee. They both married late Venkatesan was 47 and Kulkarni, a great granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi, was 45 then. In between his busy schedule, Venkatesan has found time to write a book, Conquering the Chaos Win In India, Win Everywhere, a playbook for multinationals looking to win in the local market. From his past interviews, it is easy to see the direction Infosys is headed. The challenges for Indian becoming global are in many ways the same as they are for Microsoft or GE operating in India. The top one is to find the right balance between being Indian and being local. So in America, they need to feel like an American company. The country head should be American, said Venkatesan in a 2013 interview to Business Standard. The majority of employees should be American. Most operating decisions should be taken locally, not in India. Promotion should be blind to the passport. You have to operate sensitively and sustainably so that each country sees you as a force for good not someone who is taking away jobs. That should be music to Donald Trumps ears. A 21-year-old Delhi University (DU) student allegedly committed suicide by hanging herself at her residence in north Delhi's Roop Nagar area, following which her former boyfriend has been booked for abetting the suicide, police said on Wednesday. Citizen Group Files Suit Against Beaufort County Board of Commissioners Suit alleges multiple violations of state Open Meetings Law Washington, NC, April 13, 2017: The Citizens for Better Government of Beaufort County, NC ("CBG"), with the assistance of the Civitas Institute, has filed suit against the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners. The suit alleges that the Board has, on numerous occasions, violated North Carolina's Open Meetings Law. Specifically, the suit alleges that the Board has illegally entered into closed session on several occasions. The Board closed its meetings to the public four times in 2015. A review of the redacted minutes of the closed sessions revealed discussions that should have taken place in view of the public. CBG is represented by Jonathan Strange of The Strange Law Firm and Elliot Engstrom of Engstrom Law, PLLC. "Decisions made in backrooms out of the public's view are bad business," said CBG Chairman Ray Leary. "The CBG originated as the "Stop the Jail Committee". As we worked on that issue we came to realize that the problem was not so much the bad decision on the jail as it is the culture that has developed with the County Commission to make their decisions outside of their public meetings. This interferes with the Board's accountability to the public. We have tried on repeated occasions to get the Board to comply, without success. We believe, and North Carolina law requires, that the public's business should be conducted in public. We are determined to make sure that the Board will conduct the public's business in open meetings as required by North Carolina law." "We are honored to partner with the CBG in this important effort. Government that operates with transparency and citizen oversight is more likely to be thrifty and efficient in the use of public resources," said Francis X. De Luca USMCR(Ret), President, Civitas Institute. The suit seeks an injunction requiring the Board to comply with the Open Meetings Law. "CBG is not seeking monetary damages from Beaufort County," Leary said. "We are simply asking the commissioners to follow the statutes governing closed meetings and public records." Contact: Ray Leary Citizens for Better Government of Beaufort County NC (252) 402-5662 willeary@suddenlink.net PO Box 954 Chocowinity, NC 27817 on Thursday executed banned Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami chief Mufti Abdul Hannan and his two associates for a 2004 attack on a shrine that killed three people and wounded the British high commissioner at the time. Hannan was hanged at Kashimpur Jail in Gazipur along with his accomplice Sharif Shahedul alias Bipul at 10:01 PM (local time), Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said. His associate Delwar Hossain Ripon was executed in Sylhet jail, the minister added. Gazipur Superintendent of Police Harun Ur Rashid said the autopsies of Hannan and Bipul have been completed and their bodies will be sent to their village homes amid tight security. President Abdul Hamid had rejected their mercy petitions this week. Earlier, the authorities beefed up security in and around the Kashimpur jail. The family members of Hannan - his wife, two daughters and elder brother - met him in the jail this morning. Ripon's family members also met him at the Sylhet jail. Hannan, 60, who studied in India and Pakistan, had fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan before returning to join HuJI, media reports said. On March 19, the Supreme Court reconfirmed its earlier verdict, endorsing death penalty to Hannan and the two others for the 2004 attack on the then UK envoy. The then Bangladeshi born British High Commissioner Anwar Chowdhury narrowly escaped the grenade attack at a shrine in northeastern Sylhet that killed three people, all policemen, and injured 70 others. Anwar sustained minor injuries. The HuJI operatives carried out the attack at the shrine of saint Hazrat Shahjalal in Sylhet, also the birthplace of Chowdhury, as he went to visit there 18 days into his new assignment in Dhaka. A speedy trial tribunal originally tried the case and delivered its verdict on December 23, 2008, sentencing to death HuJI leaders Sharif Shahedul Alam and Delwar Hossain alongside Hannan. Hannan and seven other kingpins and operatives of Huji were earlier sentenced to death by another court in Dhaka for a deadly 2001 bomb attack that killed 10 people during Bengali New Year celebrations at a public park. HuJI was formed in 1992 by Bangladeshis who took part in the Afghan war against the Soviet forces in Afghanistan. The US has designated HuJi as a foreign terrorist organization and "specially designated global terrorist" while Indian officials suspected the outfit's links in the Jaipur serial bombings and several other blasts there. has witnessed a spate of attacks on secular activists, foreigners and religious minorities since 2013. The BJP on Wednesday disowned a youth leader whose offer of Rs 11 lakh to anyone beheading West Bengal Chief Minister sparked outrage. Police filed a case against him. An unperturbed Banerjee said she considers such threats as "blessings". As the Trinamool Congress and Congress raised the issue angrily in Parliament, demanding action against Yogesh Varshney, the Bharatiya Janata Party distanced itself from the Aligarh-based leader. BJP Secretary Rahul Sinha said such comments cannot be condoned. "We doubt if he has the credibility to be a BJP Yuva Morcha leader. Such comments cannot be supported by anyone. He has made a most jihadi-like statement," Sinha said in Kolkata. "We will continue to oppose on political grounds. But the BJP does not approve the politics of hatred and murder though such extreme comments were made by Trinamool Congress leaders earlier," he said. Speaking in Murshidabad, Banerjee said: "I am being abused variously. I consider that as blessings. The more they abuse us, they more we will march forward. "Now we are in Bengal. Slowly we will move on to Bihar, Odisha, Jharkhand, Delhi, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh." In the Lok Sabha, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar condemned the remarks. "The statement ... is completely wrong. We condemn it. is an elected leader and she must be respected," he said. Varshney of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha made the statement after police clashed with people taking part in a Hanuman Jayanti rally in West Bengal's Birbhum district on Tuesday. "She stands up for Muslims. Aren't Hindus human beings? If there was some humanity, then there wouldn't be so much discrimination against the Hindus," he said after apparently seeing a video of police assaulting the rallyists to disperse them. "There is only one thought that crossed my mind after watching that video... Whoever will cut off Mamata Banerjee's head, I will give that person Rs 11 lakh as reward," Varshney said. Varshney's offer went viral on social media, triggering widespread condemnation. He later apologised, saying he made the statement in a fit of rage. Describing the comment as a provocation against a popular Chief Minister and an attack on women, opposition leaders denounced Varshney. Trinamool Secretary General Partha Chatterjee said people like Varshney had no idea what stuff Banerjee was made of. "She was thrown out of the Kolkata police headquarters and dragged out of Writers Building (Secretariat) during CPI-M regime. Police dragged her by the hair from Singur during the land movement (in 2006) but nothing could stop her," Chatterjee said. Eminent Bengali writer Nabanita Deb Sen said: "I feel so annoyed. Where are we living? Fatwas are being issued, death threats are being given. Why shouldn't he be arrested and punished?" Thespian Bivas Chakraborty added: "Politics is going into the hands of mentally disbalanced and insane people. In such a situation, nobody is secure." In Parliament, Trinamool leader Saugata Roy sought action against Varshney. "I urge the government to take all possible action against the leader who has threatened a popular and down-to-earth Chief Minister," he said. Supporting him, Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge said action should be taken against the BJP leader. --IANS team-md/mr/vd As India-Pakistan ties remain heated with the neighbouring nation's latest step to impose death sentence on former naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav, the Union government is exploring all the options that can be taken to save Jadhav. India said on Thursday that the alleged Indian spy sentenced to death in Pakistan was innocent of the charges hurled at him. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) also said that New Delhi was not aware where was held and the condition he was in due to Islamabad's refusal to provide consular access to him. "We have no information and the Pakistan government has also not shared with us his location and how and where he is held and what his condition is," spokesman Gopal Baglay told the media. He reiterated that there was no credibility to Jadhav's secret military trial and described as "baseless" the charges of espionage and waging war against Islamabad levelled against him. He said India was engaged in efforts to bring back Jadhav but added that he would not like to speculate on the steps being taken, including who all New Delhi may talk to. The spokesman said he had no information about the alleged abduction of a retired Pakistani military officer in Nepal. The imposition of a death sentence on one year after the former Indian naval officer was captured is the latest in the Pakistani militarys efforts to keep the India-Pakistan issue on the boil. this year is a festival to particularly savour for Christians around the world. In a relatively rare occurrence, Eastern and Western traditions find that their liturgical calendars coincide, with Sunday happening on the same date. It wont happen again until 2034. Platforms like eBay, Uber, Airbnb, and Freelancer are thriving, growing the and disrupting existing business. The question is how to ensure that the transformations they entail have a positive impact on society. Here, universal basic income may have a role to play. The Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime will be launched as planned on July 1 to boost economic growth and state revenues, a finance ministry official said on Wednesday, despite calls from some businesses for a delay. The new three-year strategic paper, which forms part of its 15-year vision document, and seven-year national development agenda that replaced the five-year plans would be conceptually different from the earlier documents. "Strano e difficile a crederci, ma e proprio cosi! Strange and hard to believe, but that's right! This is how Italian journalist and blogger Veronica Triolo begins her post on an American writer who con sorriso, grinta ed entusiasmo, si e appassionata al nostro paese (with a smile, determination and enthusiasm, became passionate about our country). This passion, she notes,non e superficiale e non e basata sui soliti banali stereotipi (isnt superficial nor based on the usual banal stereotypes) but reflects years of study and research on every aspect of Italian culture: from history to art, music, fashion, cinema, food, wine and lifestyle. When we met after a presentation of LA PASSIONE at the British Institute in Florence, Veronica wondered how her "pazzo e disordinato paese" (crazy and messy country) was able to fascinate and inspire me. You can read her complete interview in Italian at fragolosablog.com. Here is an English translation: Your passion for my country is really flattering. Dont you have the impression we take all we have -- history/art/cultural heritage/lifestyle/food/fashion -- for granted? Italians grow up surrounded by cultural richesin their churches, monuments, countryside, wherever they turn. Rather than taking it for granted, I think that they accept and appreciate the beauty around them as a given, part of their heritage and birthright. They may not realize how extraordinary their patrimony is until they get to know other countries and culturesor until foreigners like myself, looking at Italy through what one reader called virgin eyes, point out Italys unique contributions to Western civilization. What are the main differences of attitudes towards life of an American, compared to an Italian? Americans come from so many different cultures and countries that we have a broad range of attitudes so its hard to generalize. However, many Americans focus on pursuing goals, whether educational or economic, so at times we strive so hard to achieve them that we lose touch with the everyday joys of living. Many Americans are always on the go, rushing to appointments, wolfing down fast food, working all hours of the day and night. Italians also work hard, but they take the time to savor a good meal, to chat with friends, to hold their families close, to stop and appreciate beauty wherever they may find it. This is one of the important life lessons Ive learned from Italians. What is the most efficient way or method to promote Italy abroad? (Your book being a perfect example.) I wrote all three of my Italy-based booksLA BELLA LINGUA, MONA LISA and LA PASSIONEto share the richness of your culture with other foreigners. The more that non-Italians learn and understand about Italys language, history, art, crafts, food, fashion and other cultural endeavors, the more they can appreciate them. Italy has done a remarkable job in promoting its culture through the Made in Italy promotions. As I note inLA PASSIONE, people in every part of the world sip espresso, drive Fiats, buy Italian purses and clothes and relish Italian cooking. In my view, the world seems more Italian than when I first discovered Italy thirty years ago. Im happy to play some small part in continuing to spread a passion for Italy and its wonderful, warm-hearted people. When it comes to assuring protection and justice to (feriwalas) in India, Delhi seems a bit serious, even as those like Nagaland and Gujarat lag, shows a report published by think tank Centre for Civil Society on Wednesday. Europe-based company ERGO has begun scouting for a new partner for its life business in this country. The Avantha Group, with which it had signed a joint venture (JV) agreement, has decided to withdraw, and the partnership stands effectively dissolved. Business Reform Action Plan 2017 The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), Ministry of Commerce and Industry, in partnership with the World Bank Group, released the Business Reform Action Plan (BRAP) 2017 for implementation by States/UTs on 13.04.2017. The BRAP includes 405 recommendations for reforms on regulatory processes, policies, practices and procedures spread across 12 reform areas, that is, labour regulation enablers; contract enforcement; registering property; inspection reform enablers; single window system; land availability and allotment; construction permit enablers; environmental registration enablers; obtaining utility permits; paying taxes; access to information and transparency enablers and sector specific reforms spanning the lifecycle of a typical business. This year there are 103 new set of reforms (out of 405) focusing on central inspection system, online land allotment system, online single window system for granting construction permits, registration under Inter State Migrant Workmen (RE&CS) Act, 1979, approval for boiler manufacturer and boiler erector etc. BRAP 2017 also includes two new sectors i.e. Healthcare and Hospitality. The last date to implement the reform is 31.10.2017. The Indian delegation led by the Commerce and Industry Minister of State Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman, participated in day-long India conference in Nagoya city, in Aichi Prefecture of Japan.. . Governor of Aichi Prefecture, Hideaki Ohmura thanked the Ministry of Commerce and Industry for establishing the Aichi Desk in 2016 within the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP). Governor Hideaki acknowledged that the India Conference will further encourage the companies in Aichi Prefecture to invest in India.. . Smt. Sitharaman commended the contribution of Aichi Prefecture towards manufacturing value addition despite high savings rate among the Prefectures in Japan. It was discussed that India could learn from Aichi Prefecture as to how manufacturing can grow along with savings. The Minister acknowledged the increase in FDI from Japan in recent years. Although Japan is the 3rd largest foreign investor in India (USD 25.2 Billion in cumulative FDI during the April 2000 December 2016), behind Mauritius and Singapore (ranked 1 and 2) , it can be considered a top investor as the other two countries are used by companies from across the world to route investments.. . Smt. Sitharaman urged the Governor to consider diversification of investment in other sectors such as Food Processing, Textiles, Medical Equipment, Electronics, Information Technology, etc. Both sides agreed for deeper engagement in future.. . The Minister invited Governor Hideaki to lead a delegation of Japanese companies to MSME clusters in India to explore partnership and investment opportunities. It was discussed that the delegation could visit before the expected visit of Japanese Prime Minister in second half of 2017. Governor Hideaki mentioned that Aichi Prefecture companies have an appetite to grow their business overseas and hoped the partnership would bring prosperity to both sides.. . The Minister reiterated the potential for huge synergies between India and Aichi Prefecture. She highlighted key reforms undertaken to ease the business operations in India including passage of Goods and Services Tax (GST) bill, advancement of the Budget session, introduction of a new Insolvency and Bankruptcy code, reduction in corporate tax and commitment to level it with international benchmarks, etc.. . Smt. Sitharaman also emphasized the importance of flagship initiatives including Digital India, Start-Up India, and JAM (Jan Dhan, Aadhar, and Mobile) trinity in driving the future growth. She said India wants to increase the contribution of manufacturing sector to GDP to 25% and Japan is a natural partner in our goals.Ambassador of India to Japan Sh Sujan Chinoy termed Commerce and Industry Minister's visit as a rare opportunity to review economic relations between the two countries.. . A presentation on 'Make in India was made by Secretary DIPP, Mr. Ramesh Abhishek. The Secretary highlighted the unparalleled opportunities and advantages that investors could leverage by Making in India. The Secretary stressed on the recent reforms undertaken on Ease of Doing Business, the investments being made and planned for skilling under the Skill India program, and strengthening of Intellectual Property Regime.. . The Indian economy is more open than ever with 100% FDI allowed in most sectors and the impact was shown in the comparison of FDI data from before and after the launch of 'Make in India' initiative. Total FDI increased by 56% from USD 83.7 Billion during July 2012-September 2014 period to USD 130.4 Billion during October 2014-January 2017 period; during the same period equity FDI increased by 69% from USD 57 Billion to USD 96.1 Billion. Secretary further highlighted the huge investments India is making in Infrastructure development .. . Several meetings with leading Japanese companies were held to explore areas of mutual cooperation. The Minister also held interaction with the Japanese and Indian media.. . MJPS The UK Secretary of State for Defence Sir Michael Fallon is on a four-day visit to India from April 11, 2017. The India-UK delegation level talks were held here today where the UK side was led by Sir Michael Fallon while the Indian delegation was headed by the Defence Minister Shri Arun Jaitley. . . Following is the text of the Joint Statement issued after the talks: . . Minister of Defence Shri Arun Jaitley and Secretary of State for Defence Sir Michael Fallon set out a shared vision for the India-UK Defence Partnership. . . At the invitation of Minister of Defence Shri Arun Jaitley, the Secretary of State for Defence Sir Michael Fallon visited India for the India-UK Strategic Defence Dialogue during 11-14 April 2017. The visit reaffirmed and consolidated UK-India defence cooperation in the framework of the Defence and International Security Partnership, agreed in November 2015, and the subsequent Joint Statement between the Governments of India and the UK in November 2016. . . This enduring defence partnership will encompass not only cooperation in defence industry but also stronger military to military engagement, including training and advanced joint exercises. . . The renewed engagement will place capability and technology development at its core and seek to harness the complementary strengths of both nations in defence manufacturing and use the combined strengths of their respective private and public sectors to develop defence solutions for use in both home and shared export markets. . . The Defence Ministers will also continue to consult and co-ordinate policies across a range of global security challenges, especially those intended to eliminate the scourge of international terrorism, in pursuit of their shared goal of a more secure world. . . AN ENHANCED DEFENCE PARTNERSHIP. . Based on the Defence and International Security Partnership (DISP) and building on existing Defence Consultative Group (DCG) mechanisms, both sides will explore additional areas for institutional engagement. . . The Ministers agreed to further strengthen their naval and maritime interactions, including enhanced Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) through the bilateral technical agreement to exchange information to track terrorist and pirate vessels, a key deliverable of the DISP. The two Ministers also agreed to further develop cooperation between the UK Hydrographic Office and the Indian Navy Hydrographic Office. . . India and the UK will endeavour to build a range of Capability Partnerships focussing on varied aspects of military effectiveness such as specialised training interactions and exchange of best practices in the following areas Counter Terrorism (CT), Counter Improvised Explosive Devices (CIED), Air Force Training, Air Total Safety, Aircraft Carriers, Maritime Safety, Shipbuilding and UN Peacekeeping. Efforts are already underway with exchanges of subject matter experts to discuss air safety collaboration and future CT requirements. The Ministers tasked the relevant Executive Steering Groups (ESGs) to finalise proposals for consideration at the next DCG meeting scheduled later this year. . . As India and the UK continue to transform and modernise their defence structures with a shared desire to maximise the efficiencies and operational benefits of establishing joint force structures, the two Ministers agreed to share relevant experience in this domain. . . DEFENCE INDUSTRY. . Whilst acknowledging the progress being made, the two Ministers recognised the potential for further cooperation in defence manufacturing between the UK and Indian companies under the Make in India framework. . . Shri Jaitley welcomed the UKs interest in manufacturing in India as evidenced through recent announcements including the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Bharat Dynamics Ltd. and Thales UK on technology transfer opportunities for missile systems and efforts to develop an Advanced Hawk jet trainer jointly by the BAE Systems and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). . . To further encourage and facilitate cooperation between the UK and Indian companies, the two Ministers agreed to extend the current Defence Equipment Cooperation MOU and work towards early completion of an expanded MOU, that will provide a platform for the UK and Indian industries to collaborate on and support transfer of technology on projects in areas of mutual interest. . . The two Ministers welcomed measures to ensure life cycle support and sustenance of UK-origin defence platforms used by India, which may include setting up joint ventures and other collaborative arrangements. . . The UK and India will encourage interactions between the Indian Army Design Bureau and Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S)/Army Capability Branch through their Defence Equipment Sub-Group. . . The UK and India will explore establishing a secure communications method in order to share classified material. The two countries will also consider upgrading their bilateral General Security Arrangement. . . SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY . . The two Ministers recognised the need for stronger R&D cooperation, including access to Defence R&D training, to enable new and vibrant technology partnerships across the Defence domain. . . They noted recent progress made on Defence Science and Technology collaboration with the signing of the Phase 2 follow-on research Collaborative Project Agreement on Human Sciences, signed at Aero India 2017. . . CONCLUSION. . The above commitments will better enable the UK and India to meet the evolving threats and challenges that face democracies in the 21st Century. Both countries recognised their shared perspectives on the regional and international security situation and agreed to maintain their close interaction in this regard. . . Secretary of State for Defence Sir Michael Fallon thanked Minister of Defence Shri Arun Jaitley for the warm hospitality extended to him and his delegation and looked forward to a return visit by the Minister of Defence to the UK." . . NW/NAO/MKT/DK President of India condoles the passing away of Dr. Akhilesh Das The President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee has condoled the passing away of veteran Parliamentarian, educationist and philanthropist, Dr. Akhilesh Das. In a message to his wife, Smt. Alka Das, the President has said, I am sad to learn about the passing away of your husband, Dr. Akhilesh Das, a friend and colleague for long years. A veteran Parliamentarian, educationist and philanthropist, Dr. Das served the nation in various capacities including as Union Minister of State in the Ministry of Steel. As Mayor of Lucknow, Dr. Das contributed extensively in the development of the city and acquired the reputation of being an able administrator. In his passing away, the nation has lost a well known public figure, whose services shall be remembered for long. Please accept my heartfelt condolences. I pray to the Almighty to give you and all members of your family the strength to bear this irreparable loss. Until a few days ago, Americans and the world had reason to think that the Trump administrations policy toward Russia would involve cooperation and harmony and seek to reverse the acrimony and dysfunction that had come to characterize relations between the Kremlin and the Obama administration. Lawyers for the passenger dragged from a plane in Chicago filed an emergency request with an Illinois state court on Wednesday to require the carrier to preserve video recordings and other evidence related to the incident. Fake news has become an important focus for news foundations, democratic interest groups and various journalism academics and researchers, following claims that the US presidential elections may have been influenced by anti-Clinton propaganda created by Russia and shared on social networks. As the USS Carl Vinson and its carrier battle group steam through the Pacific toward the Korean Peninsula, many are wondering if the Trump administration could be so rash as to attack North Korea. After Ross Gay's father was diagnosed with stage 4 liver cancer, Gay, while caring for his dad, made a surprising and gratifying discovery. His old man had freckles. "The reason I got that close to him was because he was dying, but the joy it gave me to find out that he had freckles was a kind of grace," Gay said. "Instead of being purely devastated by his dying, I was flummoxed by his ... has announced to compensate all passengers on the flight in which a passenger was forcibly removed from his seat after refusing to give up his seat on an overbooked flight. The devastating gas attack in Syria, attributed to the Assad regime, and the swift US missile response is a game-changer for all parties involved in the Syrian conflict. This is a complex war, but it helps to look at the key players in three interlocking layers. faces write-offs, restating accounts and restructuring its power assets after the Supreme Court disallowed compensatory tariff for changes in international regulations. The company is exploring restructuring subsidiaries, so that all assets can be brought under the holding company, said a person with knowledge of the development. An email query to went unanswered. owns the 4,620 MW Mundra power plant, unlike other plants in Karnataka, Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Maharashtra, which are owned by subsidiaries. Adani Power has six subsidiaries. The idea is being considered, however, it is one of the many options being considered, the source added. Adani Power may have to act sooner on a write-off. The company has recognised Rs 4,400 crore as revenue from the Mundra project on account of compensatory tariff up to December 2016. This amount may have to reversed or 80% of it written off. According to analysts at Nomura, at least 80% of the compensatory tariff is attributed to changes in Indonesian coal pricing regulations. Adani Power will also have to restate financial statements of previous years and inform the stock exchanges accordingly. This will widen the companys losses, according to analysts. Another option available to Adani Power is refinancing debt in order to save on the interest cost. Adani Power may need to infuse more equity to maintain its debt-equity ratio as an erosion of net worth is likely with the write-off, said an analyst with a brokerage firm who did not wish to be identified. The earnings downgrade is damaging in light of the leverage at Adani Power -- 400% financial leverage when compared to the equity capitalisation of the Adani group, said Tim Buckley, director of energy finance studies of the Sydney-based IEEFA. This raises the question whether Adanis Mundra power plant will potentially end up as a $5 billion stranded asset, he added. The plants long-term power purchase agreement is too low to allow a viable return. Given excess thermal power generating capacity in India, Mundra could see falling utilisation rates combined with expensive fuel and a non-commercial electricity offtake tariff, he said. Tata Power, the other company affected by the Supreme Courts ruling on Tuesday, may need to explore fewer options. Analysts at Ambit Research said Tata Power could look at sourcing domestic coal at competitive rates and selling power to merchant . The Supreme Court has referred the case back to the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission to quantify the tariff relief for plants that had to use imported coal due local shortages. The Adani groups Tiroda and Kawai projects have no local coal linkage and the interpretation by Rajasthan and Maharashtra regulators on non-availability of domestic coal as a "change in law will be critical, according to Anirudh Gangahar and Archit Singhal at Nomura. In their view, full recovery of the compensatory tariff -- Rs 3,300 crore has been recognised so far for the two projects -- is debatable. Adani Power is likely to go back to the CERC for compensatory tariff at Tiroda and Kawai, said an analyst with a brokerage firm who did not wish to be identified. However, analysts do not see much scope for compensatory tariff for domestic regulatory reasons. The Rs 2,50,000-crore gems and industry has recommended 1.25 per cent of levy for it under the coming Goods and Services Tax (GST). are once again gaining traction, given the improving ordering scenario. The low base effect is helping them post better order growth than in the year-ago period. While the mention of infrastructure usually prompts investors to look at stocks such as Siemens, BHEL, L&T and ABB India, there are mid-cap stocks such as VA Tech Wabag, Jain Irrigation, Greaves Cotton, Carborundum Universal (CUMI) and Sintex Industries, which investors can look at, given the niche segments they cater for. Being uniquely positioned, most of these companies were vulnerable to the pressures of demonetisation as their clients were sensitive to such unforeseen events. However, the recovery has been convincing since then and companies expect a steep improvement in FY18 in terms of profitability and ordering activities. The four per cent drop in shares of on Thursday is likely to impact several equity mutual fund (MF) schemes. is one of the most-owned stocks by India's equity schemes with an allocation of over three per cent, or Rs 19,500 crore, of the total equity asset under management. Nearly 460 equity schemes (including exchange-traded funds or ETFs, Equity Linked Savings Scheme, and balanced funds) have invested in shares of . Put together, MFs own 191 million shares of the information technology (IT) major, making it the most-owned stock in the sector. Despite negative flows for Indian IT sector over the last few quarters, Infosys has continued to remain among the top five picks of fund managers. After an absence of 38 years, McLaren is to return to the Indianapolis 500 next month, using Honda engines. On May 28, McLaren will enter a single car in the 101st Indianapolis 500, powered by Honda. The car will be run by the Andretti Autosport team, headed by founder, owner and Chief Executive Officer Michael Andretti, a former IndyCar champion, who raced in Formula 1 for McLaren alongside the legendary Ayrton Senna for a single season (1993) and is the son of three-time IndyCar champion and one-time Formula 1 champion Mario Andretti. The McLaren-Honda-Andretti entry, a Dallara DW12 chassis as used by all IndyCar teams, will be driven by current McLaren driver Fernando Alonso, who has started 275 Grand Prix, has won 32 of those races, has become Formula 1 world champion twice, and has been Formula 1 runner-up three times. Its engine will be a Honda 2.2-litre twin-turbo V6, limited by IndyCar regulations to 12,000rpm. Since the Indianapolis 500 will take place on May 28th, the same day as the Monaco Grand Prix, Fernando will not race at Monaco this year. The Indianapolis 500 will be the only 2017 IndyCar race in which Fernando will compete, however, and the Monaco Grand Prix will therefore be the only 2017 Formula 1 race in which he will not compete. In due course McLaren-Honda will announce the identity of the driver who will race Fernando's car at Monaco. Fernando Alonso said, "I'm immensely excited that I'll be racing in this year's Indy 500, with McLaren, Honda and Andretti Autosport." "The Indy 500 is one of the most famous races on the global motorsport calendar, rivalled only by the Le Mans 24 Hours and the Monaco Grand Prix [which Fernando has won twice, one of those victories at the wheel of a McLaren (in 2007)], and it's of course a regret of mine that I won't be able to race at Monaco this year." "But Monaco will be the only 2017 Grand Prix I'll be missing, and I'll be back in the cockpit of the McLaren-Honda MCL32 for the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal in early June," he added. Zak Brown, Executive Director, McLaren Technology Group, said, "As an American, albeit one who fell in love with Formula 1 at a very young age, I've always regarded the Indy 500 as a fantastic motor race." "Equally, this project wouldn't have been possible without Honda's support and encouragement. And our car - the McLaren-Honda-Andretti - will be decked out in the papaya orange livery made famous by our founder Bruce McLaren, and in which Johnny Rutherford drove McLaren IndyCars to Indy 500 victory in both 1974 and 1976. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Baloch leaders have condemned Pakistan for sentencing Indian citizen Kulbhushan Jadhav to death. Dubbing the death sentence given to Jadhav as 'inhuman and illegal', Baloch Republican Party (BRP) member Ashraf Sherjan said that Pakistan is committing a crime by giving a death sentence order to Jadhav. He urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to do everything to save Jadhav's life. Sherjan said Pakistan is indulging in a fake propaganda by stating that Jadhav is connected to Balochistan. "No spies can take their national ID card and work as a spy with spy agencies but Pakistan is doing this to label Kulbushan Yadav involved in Balochistan activities Iis totally a fake propaganda," he said. Sherjan said Pakistan should bring Jadhav to the international court if he is guilty and connected to any terrorism activity in Balochistan. He added that Pakistan by itself does not have any right to give death sentences to an Indian citizen, or for that matter to any foreign citizen. "Just last month, Pakistan tried via Interpol Brahamdagh Khan Bugti which totally failed then later few weeks ago when Abdul Bugti was delivering his speech at UN, Pakistan and China both tried to stop him and over there also Pakistan failed," he said. "So, all Pakistan's attempts on Baloch leaders are failing now and they have now brought Kulbhushan Jadhav who is an innocent Indian citizen. So that's why I'm requesting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and rest of the Indian leaders to save the life of Kulbhushan Jadhav," he added. Meanwhile, representative of Balochistan at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) Mehran Marri called the death sentence given to Jadhav as 'extra judicial killing' and a 'premeditated murder'. He said Pakistan has been carrying out pre-meditative murder and extra judicial killing in Balochistan for 70 years with full impunity. "Pakistan is forgetting that Jadhav is not a Baloch, he is from India, he has is got a backing of a very strong country and India will give befitting reply to Pakistan," he said. Marri appreciated the comment of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Subramanian Swamy, who had said if Pakistan takes such measures then India should recognise Balochistan as an independent sovereign country. "We thank him for that comment and hope he follows through what he has said," he added. Jadhav was arrested in March last year, "for his involvement in espionage and sabotage activities against Pakistan," according to a statement released by the Pakistan armed forces. The statement said Jadhav confessed that he was tasked by Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), to "plan, coordinate and organize espionage/sabotage activities aiming to destabilise and wage war against Pakistan." A military court in Pakistan earlier this week found Jadhav guilty on two counts of espionage and sentenced him to death. India has strongly objected to the sentencing, saying consular officials were denied access to Jadhav during his trial. External Affairs Minister, Sushma Swaraj had on Tuesday issued a stern warning to Pakistan, saying that Islamabad should be wary of taking such an extreme step as it could result in damaging the bilateral relations between the already hostile neighbors and vowed to go "out of the way" to save Jadhav amid an outrage in this country. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Development and progress of Bangladesh can only be expedited if curbs are put on the spread of drug addiction, terrorism and militancy, said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Thursday. Seeking the wholehearted cooperation of the nation's citizens, the Daily Star quoted Hasina, as saying,"The goal ahead of us is to expedite the country's development through implementing various development initiatives by curbing terrorism and militancy, and we seek your cooperation in materialising this goal." The prime minister said this during a video conference at her official residence Gono Bhaban in Dhaka with local administration, public representatives and people from all strata of four districts under the Mymensingh division. The video conference was connected to 4019 points of Mymensingh, Netrakona, Jamalpur and Sherpur, and reached out to some 28 lakh people. Agriculture Minister Begum Matia Chowdhury, Information Minister Hasanul Haque Inu and Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan, MPs, secretaries concerned were present on the occasion. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Banned militant outfit Harkat-ul Jihad al-Islami (HuJI) chief Mufti Abdul Hannan and his two associate's were on Wednesday night executed by the Bangladesh Government for killing three persons in a grenade attack on the then British high commissioner Anwar Choudhury at Hazrat Shahjalal (RA) Shrine in Sylhet in 2004. The HuJI chief was responsible for killing of more than a hundred people in 13 terror attacks between 1999 and 2005, reports the Daily Star. Bangladesh Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan was quoted by an online news website Bdnews24.com as saying that Hannan, along with his accomplices Sharif Shahedul and Delwar Hossain Ripon, were executed at Kashimpur in Gazipur. Earlier, Bangladesh President Abdul Hamid had rejected their plea for clemency against the death sentence. The Supreme Court of Bangladesh had this year on March 19 upheld the death sentences for the HuJI chief and his two accomplices and later rejected their pleas to review the decision. Hannan had also been sentenced to death for killing 10 people and injuring scores in a bomb attack on Chhayanaut's programme at Ramna Batamul on the Bangla New Year in 2001. A Sylhet court had earlier sentenced Hannan and his two associates to death on December 23, 2008. The High Court upheld the death penalty on December 7 last year. Meanwhile, the inhabitants of Kotalipara upazila in Gopalganj have vowed to resist the burial of Hannan in his ancestral home, reports the Dhaka Tribune. Locals alleged that his father was against the independence of Bangladesh, and also flew the Pakistani flag after 1971. A meeting was held recently at the house of Hiron Union Parishad chairman Munshi Ebadur Rahman where participants said they would resist if Hannan's body was brought to the area for burial. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Kids are coming to school more often and getting better at computing numbers at Lame Deer Middle School since world-class musicians began working with students. But something numbers cant show is the joy musicians from the Silk Road Ensemble have brought to the Northern Cheyenne students. It wasnt immediate. When percussionist Shane Shanahan, bagpiper Cristina Pato and bamboo flute player Kojiro Umezaki first started visiting Lame Deer School in 2011, students were shy. On Monday, when the three musicians visited the school, there were high fives in the hallway, and holas" of greeting to Pato, who is from Spain. Lame Deer Middle Schools math proficiency improved by 41.67 percent between 2011 and 2013. Reading proficiency and attendance also improved, important achievements attributed to arts education. Lame Deer School superintendent Gerald Chouinard said a creative environment gives kids choices. It provides them with opportunities, Chouinard said. Integration of the arts and outside cultures gives the students the ability to share our culture with the outside. It builds year after year. Lame Deer music teacher Natalie Parker said having professional artists come to the school brings an intangible gift. It brings joy to the kids, she said. When the Silk Road Ensemble, founded by acclaimed cellist Yo-Yo Ma, first visited Lame Deer School, students were apprehensive about the strangers. They wouldnt participate. They just looked at them. The students have grown having that relationship. You can just see the brightness in their faces. One special moment was three years ago when Parker took a group of Lame Deer students to perform at the White House. Two students who were on that trip, Kaylyn American Horse and Haden Standing Water, are now high school students planning their futures. It encourages me to do things and not be afraid, said sophomore American Horse, who wants to be a veterinarian. Standing Water, a junior, said he envisions pursuing music and traveling, maybe to Germany, where he can perform possibly in a military band. It all started with learning to play the marimba. This makes me want to go more places, he said. Chokecherry pudding and fry bread The musicians battled heavy fog and several inches of snow to get to the school from Billings and Wyoming on Monday morning. In February, they picked up a Grammy Award for Best World Music and Monday, they were eating tacos in a bag and talking about making chokecherry pudding and fry bread. Shanahan taught students different rhythm patterns and Umezaki showed his group how to use their feet to press dough flat to make Ramen noodles. "The relationship is everything," said Umezaki, who was born in Japan. "What art does is show them there are no boundaries." Pato led a storytelling circle where students wrote and illustrated stories based on their favorite foods. Do you know what person came up in all of their stories? Their grandmothers, Pato said. When the Turnaround Arts School program scaled back in 2015, the Silk Road Ensemble was so committed to the students at Lame Deer School, they kept visiting, using their own money matched by the school district to follow through. You have choices in life, things you have to do and things we want to be doing," Pato said. "When we met the children here, even when the program ended, we had to keep coming. What I love about it is they share their culture with us, and we share ours with them. Principal Steve Ewing said his students have many challenges, but the most daunting is poverty. If there was a way to overcome poverty, that would take a lot off of our kids, Ewing said. Here, there are two meals to eat a day and a safe place to be. Lame Deer Middle School is 99 percent Native American and 100 percent of them qualify for free and reduced-cost lunch. There are 142 students in the high school and 93 students in the middle school, which is the target group of the Turnaround Arts Schools. Lame Deer art teacher Susan Wolfe is a bit of a hero to the tribe and the students. She worked with the Office of Public Instruction to apply for the Turnaround Arts School program, which pairs some of the countrys lowest achieving schools with professional musicians, writers and artists, including Yo-Yo Ma, Trombone Shorty, Elton John and Jason Mraz, in addition to the Silk Road Ensemble. "I have seen the Ensemble reach kids who have never spoken in the classroom," Wolfe said. Art fills the hallways at Lame Deer School, and Ewing has three student sculptures in his office. Not only have the arts boosted scores and attendance, but they have boosted morale. U.K. Secretary of State for Defence Michael Fallon, who arrived in India on Tuesday on a four-day visit, met his Indian counterpart Arun Jaitley on Thursday. Fallon was given a special guard of honour upon his arrival. He later laid the wreath at the Amar Jawan Jyoti here. Fallon, who is accompanied by a high-powered delegation, will chair the first India-UK strategic dialogue. The dialogue was decided to be held during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's November 2015 visit to Britain. This visit is expected to further cement the bilateral defence and international security partnership. Fallon, the third British Cabinet Minister to visit India in April, is also expected to visit Mumbai. He will also meet Indian Defence Ministry officials, military staff, business and opinion leaders, the British High Commission said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Central Board of Employees Provident Fund (CBEPF/EPFO) held its 217th special meeting in New Delhi today under the chairmanship of Union Minster of State for Labour and Employment Bandaru Dattatreya. In pursuance of the government's policy for optimum use of information technology for efficient service delivery and widening the reach of EPF benefits, Mr. Dattatreya launched the Aadhaar Seeding Application. The EPFO has developed this seeding application with the support of Common Service Centers (CSC) and CDAC. The CSCs are ICT enabled front end service delivery points at the village level for delivery of government and private services. With the implementation of the Aadhaar Seeding Application, a provident fund member or pensioner can walk into any field offices of the EPFO or CSC outlets with UAN and Aadhaar and seed the Aadhaar with the UAN. The Board has recommended a proposal of extending minimum assured benefit of Rs.2,50,000/- (Rs. Two lakh fifty thousand) on death of EDLI member. Provisions have also been recommended in EDLI Scheme for Loyalty cum life benefit to members on superannuation on completion of 58/60 years of age/total and permanent disablement with minimum 20 years of contributory service as a pilot project for two years. Thereafter the scheme will be reviewed. Central Board also took note of the fact that EPFO has enrolled 49,39,929 workers during January 1, 2017 and March 31,2017. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Syrian President Bashar al-Assad claimed Thursday that the alleged chemical weapons attack in Khan Sheikhoun was a "fabrication" to justify the U.S. missile strike. Acoording to media reports Assad said in an interview, his first since the alleged April 4 attack prompted a US air strike on Syrian forces, "Definitely, 100 percent for us, it's fabrication. They fabricated the whole story in order to have a pretext for the attack." He added that the Syrian army had given up all its chemical weapons and that Syrian military power was not affected by the U.S. strike. The suspected chemical attack killed at least 87 people, including many children, and images of the dead and of suffering victims provoked global outrage. Syria denied any use of chemical weapons and Russia backed its claim saying said the deaths had been the result of a conventional strike hitting a rebel arms depot containing "toxic substances". In the interview, Assad insisted it was "not clear" whether an attack on Khan Sheikhun had even happened and questioned the authenticity of the videos being circulated online. "You have a lot of fake videos now. We don't know whether those dead children were killed in Khan Sheikhun. Were they dead at all?," he said. Denouncing the chemical attack, President Donald Trump ordered a strike that saw 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles destroy the airbase in central Syria. It was the first direct US military action against Assad's forces since the start of Syria's civil war six years ago and led to a quick downward spiral in ties between Washington and Moscow. Russia accused the United States of breaking international law with the strike against the Syrian regime, a key ally that Moscow has supported with air strikes since 2015. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Congress Party on Thursday said the death sentence awarded to Indian Kulbhushan Jadhav is a calculated game played by Pakistan and expressed disappointment over the fact that Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not handle this matter with the seriousness it deserved. Congress leader P.C. Chacko told ANI that there is absolutely no allegation against Jadhav about the espionage activity in which he was involved. "But what is surprising is that Prime Minister of India's intervention we have not seen till today. It is a clear violation of international understandings, agreements, rules and everything.Why the PM of India did not contact the PM of Pakistan or he did not asked the UN," Chacko said. "This is the calculated game of Pakistan to put the blame on India that we are entering in espionage activity, but unfortunately the issue is not being handled with the seriousness it deserved by the Prime Minister of India and the government," he added. Slamming Pakistan's military court for issuing the death sentence to Jadhav, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj earlier on Tuesday issued a stern warning and said that Islamabad should be wary of taking such an extreme step as it could result in damaging the bilateral relations between the already hostile neighbours. Pakistan's Security Advisor Lt. Gen. (Retd.) Nasser Khan Janjua, however, yesterday said that Pakistan and India cannot remain enemies forever and need to engage with each other to resolve their disputes. The United Nations (UN) on Wednesday declined to comment on the death sentence awarded to Jadhav, citing the world body was not in a position to judge the case. Jadhav, who was arrested in March last year by Pakistan and accused by the country of spying, was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on Monday triggering tension between India and Pakistan. Observers and experts on criminal or espionage-related laws in a majority of countries have suggested that the death sentence against Jadhav is a clear violation of Article 36 of the Vienna Convention that makes it mandatory for every government to provide consular access to an arrested foreign by officials of his/her government. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting M. Venkaiah Naidu on Thursday downplayed the allegations of EVM tampering and said that opposition parties are leveling baseless allegations as they are not able to digest the upsurge of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the nation. Asserting that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led NDA dispensation works with utmost transparency, Naidu said that the opposition parties are hell bent in denouncing the government to spoil its impression in front of the masses.. "The Congress Party and the Communist Party, in the wake of numerous defeats, are behaving like this. They are not able to digest the fact that people of the nation have selected the BJP. Which is why they are trying to create a negative image of our party then they are also not letting the parliament function. These rival parties don't want people to think good of the BJP and Prime Minister Modi," said Naidu. "Now they are targeting the Election Commission. When they win then it's okay, and when they don't then its wrong. When the Congress won in 2004 then the EVMs were correct, when the AAP won in Delhi with 67 seats then EVMs were right and now that the BJP has won then all of a sudden, they are alleging that the machines were tampered. The complaints the opposition parties have made against the BJP in front of the President are wrong. We work with utmost transparency," he added. A Congress-led delegation has submitted a memorandum on the alleged irregularities in EVMs to President Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday. The delegation included several popular leaders like Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Satyavrat Chaturvedi, and Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad among others. Post meeting with President Mukherjee, Azad said that the alleged tampering of EVMs, and the backdoor entry by the BJP to form the governments in Goa and Manipur, have raised questions on the electoral process in the country. Azad said that the united Opposition sought the president's intervention to maintain the constitutional safeguards in India. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Strongly condemning the video in which a security personnel is being roughed up by a youth while he was returning from a polling booth in Srinagar, Indian batsman Gautam Gambhir on Thursday said that at least a 100 jihadi lives must be taken for every slap on an Indian soldier's face. The video features a CRPF personnel using immense restraint even when he is attacked by the youth. The video shows the jawan walking when suddenly a local attacks him. The impact of the attack makes the jawan's helmet roll down the road. This caused him some injuries. Expressing his anger towards the same, Gambhir wrote on Twitter, "For every slap on my army's Jawan lay down at least a 100 jihadi lives. Whoever wants Azadi LEAVE NOW! Kashmir is ours. #kashmirbelongs2us." For every slap on my army's Jawan lay down at least a 100 jihadi lives. Whoever wants Azadi LEAVE NOW! Kashmir is ours. #kashmirbelongs2us Gautam Gambhir (@GautamGambhir) April 13, 2017 Gambhir did not stop there and explained what the Indian flag signifies. "Anti-Indians hav forgotten dat our flag also stands 4: saffron - fire of our anger, white - shroud for jihadis, green - hatred 4 terror," he added. Meanwhile, former Indian opener Virender Sehwag also lashed out at the video, saying that abuse of the country's CRPF jawans is completely unacceptable. "This is Unacceptable ! Can't do this to our CRPF jawaans .This rot has to stop. Badtameezi ki hadd hai," Sehwag tweeted. This is Unacceptable ! Cant do this to our CRPF jawaans .This rot has to stop. Badtameezi ki hadd hai. pic.twitter.com/rZbqGbXk6O Virender Sehwag (@virendersehwag) April 13, 2017 In wake of the prevailing tension in the Kashmir Valley, the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Monday deferred the Anantnag by-polls till May 25. Earlier, it was scheduled to be held on April 12. A school designated as polling station for Anantnag by-polls was set on fire in Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir. A Panchayat Ghar was also set ablaze in Pulwama district. The Srinagar parliamentary constituency witnessed lowest voter turnout for the by-polls in the wake of the clashes. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Human Rights Watch (HRW) has urged Saudi Arabia to investigate the death of a Pakistani transgender woman at a Riyadh police station following a raid on an event space in February. It also said that Saudi authorities should also immediately release five Pakistanis who remain in detention if they are held only on suspicion of committing morality related "offenses". On February 26, local media outlets reported that Saudi police in Riyadh had raided a rented hall and arrested 35 Pakistanis gathered there. A Saudi news website released photos of 10 of the Pakistanis at the hall, some dressed in women's clothes, as well as a box of rings. Pakistani transgender activists told Human Rights Watch that some of the those gathered at the hall, including the detainee who died in detention, are transgender women, known as Khawaja Saras in Pakistan. "Saudi Arabia's aggressive policing of the private consensual activities of Saudis and foreigners diverts resources from actual problems such as preventing and solving crimes," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "Saudi Arabia should immediately end this nightmare for Pakistani families by credibly investigating why this woman died in police custody and releasing the other Pakistanis still in jail," Whitson added. The HRW said it confirmed the death by reviewing official documents after earlier media reports, including assertions by a family member that she was tortured in custody. March 28 media reports in Pakistan said that a representative of the Pakistani Foreign Affairs Ministry told a meeting of the Pakistani Senate's Human Rights Committee that Saudi authorities had arrested the 35 Pakistanis after monitoring them for two months. He confirmed that 29 of them were eventually released, while five remain in detention. The son of the transgender woman who died in detention told the committee that his family received her body on March 11. "When we opened the coffin, my father's teeth and jaw were broken. Moreover, there were marks of wounds on the body," he was quoted as saying. Saudi Arabia's Interior Ministry denied the torture claims while admitting only that "[o]ne 61-year-old person suffered a heart attack and died in the hospital after being treated." Saudi Arabia has no written laws concerning sexual orientation or gender identity, but judges use principles of uncodified Islamic law to sanction people suspected of committing sexual relations outside marriage, including adultery, extramarital and homosexual sex, or other "immoral" acts. An HRW review of LGBT-related cases from 2013 listed in a Saudi Justice Ministry of Justice report found three cases in which authorities accused men of wearing makeup or dressing in women's clothes. The sentences ranged from 20 days in prison to a year-and-a-half, and between 20 and 300 lashes. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) New Delhi [India], Apr. 13 (ANI): India, the land of culture and rich heritage, has a number of museums both to educate and entertain the future generation. But if we examine the state of most of our museums, they lack maintenance and upgradation, which can be attributed to lack of interest among the people and to administrative apathy. ANI spoke exclusively to renowned Australian heritage and museum specialist Vinod Daniel on the same, and he said that the basic mantra to determine the success or failure of a museum or a heritage site is driven by three important operational factors namely autonomy, leadership and institutional skills. He threw light on the loopholes that exist for museums and their preservation. Daniel said, "We need to think over how we can make the museum more attractive for the audience. In the West, they make sure that whatever they do is more audience oriented. Hence, it becomes more interesting for the people to visit such places. They set their target group. For example, if it's a museum for children then the whole focus is on them and their choices. Their approach is very scientific. I think that kind of approach needs to happen." Clearing some misconceptions, he said museums are not just buildings to store history, but also to entertain and educate the audience. Citing an example, he said, "If you go to Singapore right now, its cultural sector is one of the most vibrant, right from the way the museums are maintained and promoted, to the festivals and events they do in certain periods of the year, to innovative things that they try." He said it is not enough just to have a good policy to change the current not-so-good situation of the Indian museums. Daniel said, "Leave the policy, things should be sorted out at the operational level. What I feel is firstly a director should be appointed for five-plus years. Many museums have administrators of the IAS level who are generally rotating. When they rotate, you can't have a proper leadership as change in this sector takes time." "Secondly, you should have a space there for the directors to work in an autonomous way, where they don't have to report to the government in a line management way. Most of the museums report directly to the government and is totally dominated by their thinking and changes happening there." In 2011, the UNESCO had on a related note said that Indian museums have "substandard maintenance." Daniel continued saying, "If you see all the big museums, may be Australian museums, they all report to a board, who might be appointed by the government. But there lies a point of separation in it." "Thirdly, you need a skilled workforce which understands what museums are and at different levels be it technical, administrative or at the curative level. As directors or managers, the appointed people should understand what museums are. I think a big focus should be to upskill the current staff as a lot of them have no training. At the same time, you need to plan for the future and have professional degree programs in technical areas." Stating that some museums in India are doing well, he concluded, "Many think, let's put some money and bring a difference. Money can bring a change, but on a very temporary level. I think it is much more about people and their ideas." Daniel is recognised globally for his work on museums and heritage preservation and is a member of the International Council of Museums. He has also been Chair of Ausheritage and is a former member of the Board of the Australia-India Council. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former foreign secretary Bhupatray Shashank on Thursday said Pakistan has been giving different expressions all along on alleged Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav, adding that India must consider concrete strategy to deal with Islamabad. "Initially Pakistan government was saying that it has not yet reached a stage in the matter of investigation to share with the international community. It shows that there were different voices and they were giving different expression all along on Kulbhushan. Ultimately when the decision was made it was military courts decision.This action against Kulbhhushan Jadhav is against all norms of international conduct. Whatever they have been trying to do for bilateral relations with India they seem to have forgotten all that process," Shashank told ANI. He further said that the Indian Government should consider various strategies to deal with Pakistan in a situation when the latter is speaking in different voices. "Pakistan is going through various internal churns and military seems to be trying to impose its will on everyone else. The military is taking the decision on substantive matters. India should consider all these factors and see where it goes from here," he added. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) earlier in the day said that India has no information of Jadhav's whereabouts, adding that Pakistan's 'indefensible' verdict is violation of basic norms of law, justice and international relations. "Kulbhushan Jadhav is a kidnapped innocent Indian, who is a retired officer of the Indian Navy. And these two facts were communicated to Pakistan one year ago when the matter of his illegal custody came to our knowledge. We had made 13 requests for the consular access, but it was denied by the Pakistan," MEA official spokesperson Gopal Baglay told the media here. "What is his condition, where is he being held, these facts cannot be ascertained. The Pakistan Government has also not shared with us his location or any specific details as to how and where is he being held and what is his condition," he added. Crying foul over the proceedings against Jadhav, Bagley said that the former has been denied proper defence, adding the verdict is indefensible. "No due process has been followed in the proceedings which is complete violation of basic norms of law, justice and international relations," he added. Baglay further said that Pakistan's High Commissioner Abdul Basit was summoned as soon as the information of Jadhav's death sentence came to India's knowledge. "It was made clear to the Pakistan Government that given the circumstances of the case namely kidnapping of Jadhav, absence of any credible evidence to substantiate the concocted charges against him and the farcical nature of proceedings against him. the Government of India will regard it as premeditated murder if the indefensible sentence awarded to him were carried out," he added. Reiterating External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj's assertion, Baglay said lack of evidence and denial of consular access shows that charges levelled against Jadhav are baseless. "The EAM also informed the Parliament that Government of Pakistan had approached us this year to access the investigation and this further underlines the insufficiency of evidence," he added. Stating that Jadhav's matter is associated with the sentiments of the nation, Baglay said the Parliament has spoken in one voice on it and would ensure justice to the former. "The senior ministers of government have told the Parliament that government will do everything that is possible to ensure justice to Kulbhushan. We are engaged in achieving this objective," he added. Earlier, Swaraj warned Islamabad of consequences in bilateral relations if Jadhav's death sentence is carried out. She said if the decision of the Pakistani court is implemented then it will be a pre-meditated murder asserting that there was no evidence against Jadhav. Jadhav, who was arrested in March last year by Pakistan and accused of espionage, was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on Monday triggering tension between the two Asian neighbours.. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Union Minister for External Affairs (EAM) Sushma Swaraj on Wednesday informed that 10 Indians who were working as a crew on a commercial vessel which was hijacked in Somalia by pirates have been rescued. Swaraj in a series of tweets announced the development. "I am happy to inform that 10 Indian nationals working as crew on MV AL Kausar which was hijacked by pirates have been rescued," Swaraj tweeted. Swaraj also took the occasion to thank the government of Somalia for their participation. "We thank Federal Government of Somalia, Galmudug state authorities and people of Somalia for their help and cooperation, she added. Swaraj lauded India's High Commissioner in Kenya Suchitra Durai for her successful endeavours in the regard. "I appreciate Ms.Suchitra Durai, our High Commissioner in Kenya for her good work," she said. Pirates stormed the "Al Kausar" ship off the Indian Ocean coast near Yemen on March 31, holding the 10-man crew hostage. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) HELENA Montana Gov. Steve Bullock has appointed a new director of the state Department of Corrections. Reginald Michael previously was the Chief U.S. Probation Officer in Miami. Michael said in a statement released by the governor's office Wednesday that he will aim to strengthen the corrections system, reduce recidivism and improve public safety. The statement says Michael has worked in criminal justice for more than 30 years. He replaces Mike Batista, who retired before Bullock was sworn in for his second term in January. The department has been run since then by interim director Loraine Wodnick. IT Major Infosys Ltd. on Thursday announced the appointment of Ravi Venkatesan as the board's co-chairman. Venkatesan, an Independent Director, will now take over as the co-chairman owing to the decision taken by the Infosys board amidst an ongoing string of arguments between the founders and the management over issues such as salary hike and corporate governance standards among others. Recognising Venkatesan's contribution to the company's growth trajectory since his recruitment in April 2011, Infosys board stated the appointment is crucial towards implementing the company's strategy. Earlier today, Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka while discussing the company's Q4 results said the company is expecting the revenue growth to be between 6.5 to 8.5 percent in constant currency. With regards to fiscal year 2017, the board announced a final dividend of Rs. 14.75 per share amounting to Rs. 4,078 crore. The revenues were Rs. 68,484 crore for the year ended March 31, 2017, with a year-on-year (YoY) growth of 9.7 percent. Operating profit was tabulated to be Rs. 16,901 crore,with YoY growth recorded at 8.2 percent. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Union Minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi on Thursday said that the Congress and other opposition parties should not bang their heads over the use or non-use of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) post their defeat in the recent polls. Naqvi told ANI that the opposition parties should introspect as to why they lost instead of banging their heads about faulty EVMs. "The Opposition parties should accept a fact that they have been mandated by the voters to sit in the opposition. Instead of crying foul play over the EVMs, they should introspect and correct the reasons behind their defeat," said Naqvi. "Now, when the Election Commission has thrown open a challenge to them to examine the EVMs, they should come forward and try to do the same," he said. The Election Commission yesterday issued a challenge to all political parties to prove that the EVMs can be tampered with. This came after Congress, Left, AAP and others claimed that the EVMs were tampered with to favour the BJP. Refuting the charges of EVM tampering, Naqvi said, "The Congress formed two successive governments at the Centre when elections were held through EVMs. Similarly, Mamata Banerjee became chief minister of West Bengal, Arvind Kejriwal won Delhi, Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati became chief ministers of Uttar Pradesh, Nitish Kumar became Bihar Chief Minister, and Left Parties won elections in EVM based elections." Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) Jitender said, "It is a joke that when other political parties won elections conducted on EVMs then they didn't find blame with the machines, but when the BJP won then they alleged that the EVMs have been manipulated to help BJP." He added, "One of our political friends even claimed that the EVMs were manipulated in such a way that every vote was going in the BJP's kitty. Should someone ask if this was the case then why did opposition parties win even few seats?" He said the countrymen, especially 65 percent youths of this country believe in logic and not in leaders who only talk and don't deliver. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) U.S. President Donald Trump has taken a u-turn over his stand on NATO by saying that he no longer considers it to be 'obsolete'. "I complained about that a long time ago, and they made a change and now they do fight terrorism. I said it was obsolete. It's no longer obsolete," the Washington Post quoted Trump as saying during a joint press conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Wednesday. Trump had been consistently critical of NATO and its importance to U.S. allies. He had called NATO as an outdated organisation and said that it is costing the United States too much money. Trump had even suggested replacing it with an alternative organization focused on counterterrorism and repeatedly using the word 'obsolete' for it. Stoltenberg said that NATO had established a new division for intelligence, which had enhanced its ability to fight terrorism and working together in the alliance to fight terrorism in an even more effective way. "But we agreed today, you and I, that NATO can and must do more in the global fight against terrorism," he said. Calling on NATO members to meet their financial obligations, Trump said that member-nations are expected to contribute two percent of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to defence. Stoltenberg said ensuring that the cost burden is better shared amongst the member countries has become a top priority for him. Thanking NATO members for condemning Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's use of chemical weapons, the US President said he has absolutely no doubt over the U.S. strikes in Syria as it was a right thing. He added that it was done very successfully. Trump described his meeting with NATO Secretary General as 'great' and said that that the two agreed on the importance of getting countries to pay their fair share & focus on the threat of terrorism. "Great meeting w/ NATO Sec. Gen. We agreed on the importance of getting countries to pay their fair share & focus on the threat of terrorism," Trump tweeted. Trump described Bashar al-Assad as "a butcher" for the chemical attack which the United States Government has accused him of carrying out on his own civilians. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pointing out at the irony of Pakistan sentencing Kulbhushan Jadhav to death and claiming itself to be a peace-loving country at the same time, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday said Nawaz Sharif makes such statements due to the Pakistan Army's control over him. BJP leader S. Prakash said Sharif comes up with statements in order to please the Pakistan military as he did not have complete authority over administration. "A former navy officer is sentenced to death without trial or evidence, but still they claim him to be a terrorist. Such concocted stories are webbed and are made to believe for their own compulsions. I am sure the Government of India is keenly observing all the developments and that Kulbhushan Jadhav will be safely brought back to India," Prakash told ANI. Appreciating India's humanitarian gesture of rescuing two Pakistan commandoes Prakash said even during the Pathankot attack, two people were arrested on suspicion, but the Indian Army returned them to Pakistan after finding them innocent. Resonating similar sentiment, another BJP leader Shaina NC said it was ironical that Nawaz Sharif talked about a peace-loving country when Pakistan is giving conviction to a person who is falsely implicated in an espionage case. "We need to stand united to speak up against this injustice. We will ensure that Jadhav comes back to India," Shaina told ANI. "In the name of humanity, India has always stood up and by rescuing these two Pakistanis on the shores of Gujarat, it is apparent that we are a country with a difference. We will not let down our people, but at the same time we do believe that there is an aspect to being human," she added. The Indian Coast Guard (ICG) and fishermen saved the lives of two members of Pakistan Maritime Security Agency (PMSA), who had crossed over to the Indian waters off the coast of Gujarat, and recovered bodies of four, after their boat capsized in the Indian waters on April 9, a day before Kulbhushan Jadhav was awarded death sentence by the Pakistan Military Court on charges of espionage in Balochistan. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Jammu and Kashmir Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh on Thursday dubbed as 'unfortunate' the incident in which a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel was roughed up by a youth in Srinagar and assured action against the perpetrators. This is a very unfortunate incident. There will be stern action against perpetrators. It's noteworthy how jawans were patient. Our security forces are disciplined. Such incidents aren't acceptable at all. Action will be taken," Singh said. The video features a CRPF personnel using immense restraint even when he is attacked by the youth. The video shows the jawan walking when suddenly a local attacks him. The impact of the attack makes the jawan's helmet roll down the road. This caused him some injuries. In wake of the prevailing tension in the Kashmir Valley, the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Monday deferred the Anantnag by-polls till May 25. Earlier, it was scheduled to be held on April 12. A school designated as polling station for Anantnag by-polls was set on fire in Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir. A Panchayat Ghar was also set ablaze in Pulwama district. The Srinagar parliamentary constituency witnessed lowest voter turnout for the by-polls in the wake of the clashes. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) North Korea appears to be preparing to conduct a nuclear test in a show of defiance towards United States President Donald Trump, who has not ruled out military action to pressurise the regime into abandoning its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes. The U.S.-based monitoring group 38 North on Thursday said that the satellite images from the North's Punggye-ri site showed it was "primed and ready" for what would be the country's sixth nuclear test since 2006, The Guardian reports. "Commercial satellite imagery of North Korea's Punggye-ri nuclear test site from April 12 shows continued activity around the North Portal, new activity in the Main Administrative Area, and a few personnel around the site's Command Center," 38 North said on its website. "In the courtyards of the main administrative area are approximately 11 probable tarp-covered pallets of equipment or supplies, a formation of personnel, and several individuals walking about," the site added. South Korean officials, however, have played down speculation that a nuclear test was imminent. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Pakistan Army said Thursday there will be 'no compromise' on the issue of death sentence awarded to alleged Indian spy Kulbushan Jadhav by a military court. The remark comes as Pakistan faces hostile backlash from India over the death penalty to Jadhav. In a Corps Commanders' Conference presided by Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa, "The forum was also briefed about Kulbushan Sudhir Jadhav. It was concluded that no compromise shall be made on such anti state acts," according to an ISPR statement. The statement said that the forum also reviewed national security environment and recent developments in the region. "Forum reviewed progress of operation Radd-ul-Fasaad and provision of support to ongoing National Housing and Population census. COAS appreciated formations, intelligence agencies and Law Enforcement Agencies for successful execution of operations," the statement added. Jadhav was awarded the death penalty on April 10 in an unprecedented decision that sparked a diplomatic spat between the two hostile neighbours. Pakistan media reported yesterday that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and General Bajwa have agreed not to come under pressure from India over the issue. During a meeting, the Army Chief took the Prime Minister into confidence regarding Jadhav. On Tuesday, Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj warned Islamabad that it risked damaging bilateral ties with New Delhi if it went ahead with the execution of Jadhav. Jadhav was arrested in March last year in the restive Balochistan province and accused of being a Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) agent, who was fuelling the Baloch separatist movement and attempting to sabotage the multi-billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. India has, however, so far categorically denied such charges. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Pakistan Foreign Office (FO) said Thursday that the role of foreign intelligence agencies cannot be ruled out in the disappearance of retired Lt Col Habib Zahir, a former Pakistan Army officer, who went missing in Nepal earlier this month. Addressing a weekly press briefing in Islamabad, spokesperson Nafees Zakaria said Lt. Col. Zahir had been trapped in Nepal "after being lured into a job offer", reports the Dawn. He said Pakistani authorities are in touch with the Nepali government to trace the missing ex-army man and Nepal is cooperating in this regard. Zakaria, however, warned against linking Zahir's disappearance with the case of Kulbhushan Jadhav, the alleged Indian spy sentenced to death by a Pakistani tribunal earlier this week on charges of espionage and sabotage. "It is unreasonable on India's part to link the Jadhav case with Habib Zahir," he said, reminding that Zahir had retired from the army a long time before Jadhav's arrest. Lt.Col. Zahir, who retired from the army in 2014, went missing on April 6 from Lumbini, a Buddhist pilgrimage site close to the Indian border, where he arrived after somebody by the name of Mark Thompson had contacted him via email and telephone for a job interview in Nepal. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be visiting Nagpur tomorrow on the occasion of Ambedkar Jayanti. In a series of tweets, the Prime Minister said, "I am extremely honoured to be visiting Nagpur tomorrow, on the very special occasion of Ambedkar Jayanti "In Nagpur, I will pray at Deekshabhoomi, a holy spot that is very closely associated with Dr. Ambedkar. A series of development projects are going to be inaugurated in Nagpur tomorrow, which will have a positive impact on people's lives," he added. The Prime Minister further said the development projects include IIIT, IIM and AIIMS and launch of Koradi Thermal Power Station, adding that he would also address a public meeting. "Will join culmination of the DigiDhan Mela, where I will present awards to Mega Draw winners of Lucky Grahak Yojana and DigiDhan Vyapar Yojna. We are unwavering in our efforts towards creating a strong, prosperous and inclusive India of Dr. Ambedkar's dreams," he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Speaking on consular access being denied to alleged Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav despite several requests by India, special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam on Thursday said it should have been granted to the Indian High Commission. "It is very clear that Pakistan has completely violated Geneva Convention based on the public international law. Though Indian Consulate had approached 13 times for consular access Pakistan had denied it without any reason. Now India has applied for the counsular access and I hope Pakistan this time will give it," Nikam told ANI. He further said the appeal is required to be preferred by Jadhav himself under his own signature. "For preferring the appeal and giving instructions to our Consulate, his mental condition is required to be examined. I am apprehending that when Pakistan is wholly relying upon the 'so called' confession of Jadhav, then it is quite possible that they might have tortured him very badly," he added. Nikam also said that though there might be no external injuries but internally Jadhav must have sustained injuries. "Our consulate will require to examine firstly his health and to seek proper instructions from Jadhav for doing the further legal step," he said. He asserted that the first legal step will be that Jadhav will require to challenge the said order of death penalty awarded by the Army Court of Pakistan before the Supreme Court. "I will not be satisfied with this legal step also because even if this death penalty is stayed and if it converts into life imprisonment, there is no guarantee about the life of Jadhav. Therefore we must ask for fresh trial for Jadhav," he added. He said that the trial should take place in the presence of human activists, representatives of United Nation and as well as Indian Consulate nominee because then that will be the justice. "We will require to convince the whole globe for a fair trial because according to us Jadhav was apprehended in Iran when he was on a private business purpose which has been confirmed by Iran itself," Nikam added. The Indian High Commission in Pakistan will make a fresh request for consular access to alleged Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav, sources said. This comes after the Ministry of External Affairs earlier in the day said that India has no information of Jadhav's whereabouts, adding that Pakistan's 'indefensible' verdict is violation of basic norms of law, justice and international relations. " Kulbhushan Jadhav is a kidnapped innocent Indian, who is a retired officer of the Indian Navy. And these two facts were communicated to Pakistan one year ago when the matter of his illegal custody came to our knowledge. We had made 13 requests for the consular access, but it was denied by the Pakistan," MEA official spokesperson Gopal Baglay told the media here. "What is his condition, where is he being held, these facts cannot be ascertained. The Pakistan Government has also not shared with us his location or any specific details as to how and where is he being held and what is his condition," he added. Crying foul over the proceedings against Jadhav, Bagley said that the former has been denied proper defence, adding the verdict is indefensible. "No due process has been followed in the proceedings which is complete violation of basic norms of law, justice and international relations," he added. Baglay further said that Pakistan's High Commissioner Abdul Basit was summoned as soon as the information of Jadhav's death sentence came to India's knowledge. "It was made clear to the Pakistan Government that given the circumstances of the case namely kidnapping of Jadhav, absence of any credible evidence to substantiate the concocted charges against him and the farcical nature of proceedings against him. The Government of India will regard it as premeditated murder if the indefensible sentence awarded to him were carried out," he added. Reiterating External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj's assertion, Baglay said lack of evidence and denial of consular access shows that charges levelled against Jadhav are baseless. "The EAM also informed the Parliament that Government of Pakistan had approached us this year to access the investigation and this further underlines the insufficiency of evidence," he added. Stating that Jadhav's matter is associated with the sentiments of the nation, Baglay said the Parliament has spoken in one voice on it and would ensure justice to the former. "The senior ministers of government have told the Parliament that government will do everything that is possible to ensure justice to Kulbhushan. We are engaged in achieving this objective," he added. Earlier, Swaraj warned Islamabad of consequences in bilateral relations if Jadhav's death sentence is carried out. She said if the decision of the Pakistani court is implemented then it will be a pre-meditated murder asserting that there was no evidence against Jadhav. Jadhav, who was arrested in March last year by Pakistan and accused of espionage, was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on Monday triggering tension between the two Asian neighbours. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) HELENA After voting to again amend a referendum asking voters if the right to hunt, fish and trap should be expressly stated in the Montana Constitution, lawmakers voted to kill the measure Wednesday. Senate Bill 236, brought by Sen. Jennifer Fielder, R-Thompson Falls, would have amended the Constitutions Harvest-Heritage clause to state hunting, fishing and trapping is a right held by citizens of the state. Fielder said she brought the bill in response to initiatives such as I-177, which sought a ban on most public land trapping but was defeated by voters last year. The bill initially drew opposition from trapping opponents but also several sportsmen groups and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. Concern from the groups and agency centered on unintended consequences of elevating the activities to rights, and what that meant for regulating hunting, fishing and trapping. They also contended that those protections already existed in the Harvest-Heritage clause, which says, The opportunity to harvest wild fish and wild game animals is a heritage that shall forever be preserved. Fielder amended the bill prior to Senate passage to alleviate some of those concerns about changing opportunity to right. The amendment drew additional support from the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, but continued opposition from FWP and others. SB 236 narrowly passed a House committee on a 10-9 vote Tuesday, after adding clarifying language that the right to hunt, fish and trap did not trump private property rights. After Rep. Kirk Wagoner, R-Montana City, introduced the bill Wednesday on the floor, Rep. Tom Jacobson, D-Great Falls, brought an amendment to strip most of the bill, and simplify it to say, The opportunity to harvest wild fish and wild game animals wildlife through hunting, fishing, and trapping is a heritage that shall forever be preserved. Wagoner resisted the amendment but it drew support from Rep. Jeff Essmann, R-Billings, who said the Constitution should be simple, clean and effective. The body voted 55-45 to amend the bill. Rep. Bradley Hamlett, D-Cascade, rose in opposition, saying he still had concerns about elevating hunting, fish and trapping, and what that could mean if, for example, instream flow conflicted with senior water rights for agriculture. The House then voted SB 236 down 48-51. As a referendum which would then go to the voters, SB 236 needed yes votes from a total of 100 lawmakers. After passing the Senate on a 30-20 margin, it needed 70 House votes to pass. Expressing grave concern over the video in which a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel is being roughed up by a youth while he was returning from a polling booth in Srinagar, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday assured that he has spoken to Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) Director General (DG) Sudeep Lakhtakia and the issue will be sorted out soon. "I have spoken to Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) Director General (DG) Sudeep Lakhtakia and we spoken about it, things will be sorted soon," said Rajnath. Meanwhile, CRPF DG Sudeep Lakhtakia also stated that the law will take its own course but their men should not lose their moral. "The process of law will take its own course. We will see that morale of CRPF men is not hurt or get low," Lakhtakia told ANI. The video features a CRPF personnel using immense restraint even when he is attacked by the youth. The video shows the jawan walking when suddenly a local attacks him. The impact of the attack makes the jawan's helmet roll down the road. This caused him some injuries. In wake of the prevailing tension in the Kashmir Valley, the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Monday deferred the Anantnag by-polls till May 25. Earlier, it was scheduled to be held on April 12. A school designated as polling station for Anantnag by-polls was set on fire in Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir. A Panchayat Ghar was also set ablaze in Pulwama district. The Srinagar parliamentary constituency witnessed lowest voter turnout for the by-polls in the wake of the clashes. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Wednesday said that relations with Moscow are at "a low point" after meetings in Russia that seemed to do little to bridge a deepening diplomatic divide over the Syria chemical attack. "Relations are at a low point; there is a low level of trust between the two countries," Tillerson said at a news conference with his Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, CNN reports. Tillerson and Lavrov spoke to the press after meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow in an extended display of U.S.-Russian disagreements over the chemical attack that left more than 80 dead. In a blatant response to the alleged chemical attack, the U.S. launched dozens of Tomahawk to destro the Shayrat airfield in Syria, believed by Washington be the base for warplanes that carried out the chemical attack on a rebel-held town on Tuesday. Russian President Vladimir Putin denounced the strike as "act of aggression" and said it violated international law. Meanwhile, Tillerson said that he and Lavrov discussed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad at length and that he made clear that the Trump administration has come around to the view that the Syrian President cannot stay in power. "Our view is that the reign of the Assad family is coming to an end and they have brought that on themselves with their conduct," the top U.S. diplomat said. Washington has been investigating Russia's possible involvement in the chemical attack in Syria that prompted U.S. President Donald Trump to launch the first direct military assault against the Bashar al-Assad regime. The Pentagon has been looking for any evidence that Moscow knew about or was complicit in the attack in Idlib province that killed at least 80 people and injured dozens more, the CNN reported quoting a senior US defense official as saying. However, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said, "That is not true," when CNN asked about U.S. allegations that Russia may be complicit. Russia has also denied a chemical weapons attack took place in Syria saying the deaths in Khan Sheikhoun were caused by a Syrian regime airstrike on a rebel-controlled chemical weapons factory on the ground. Western leaders backed the U.S. action, saying Assad had brought it on himself. The U.S. military official said the Pentagon was examining specifically whether a Russian warplane had bombed a hospital in Khan Sheikhoun five hours after the initial chemical attack, with the aim of destroying evidence. A U.S. defense official says intelligence shows a Russian drone flew over the hospital in Idlib that was treating victims of the chemical attack, prior to the site being later bombed by an unknown aircraft. The Russians operate drones in the area routinely so the Pentagon cannot be certain the drone operator even knew what was happening, but the drone was a Russian asset. The U.S. military has a variety of classified technical means to determine who is operating aircraft in the region. Approximately 20 Syrian regime planes were destroyed in the US strike, according to two U.S. senior military officials. Reacting to the U.S. strike Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said Washington had carried out an "unjust and unabashed assault" against Syria which "shows nothing but short-sightedness, a narrowness of vision and blindness to political and military realities." A statement from Syria's general military command said the strikes caused "extensive material damage" and undermined counter-terror operations by the Syrian Army. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court on Thursday will hear the petition of Haji Ali Dargah in connection with entry of women in its sanctorum. The Supreme Court last year on December 1 extended the stay granted by the Bombay High Court to facilitate an appeal against its decision to lift the ban on entry of women near the sanctum sanctorum of the famous Haji Ali Dargah till October 24. Prior to 2011, the dargah did not discriminate against women and allowed free entry of people across religions. However, in March 2011, the dargah's board of trustees imposed a ban on women's entry calling it a "grievous sin". On October 24, the Haji Ali Dargah Trust had told the Supreme Court that it was ready to implement the Bombay High Court's order to allow women's enter to the sanctum sanctorum of the shrine located in South Mumbai and had sought four weeks for infrastructural changes to make arrangements for it. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court on Thursday will hear the petition seeking direction to ban sex determination test advertisements on search engines. The apex court, last on April 11 heard the plea in the regard and observed that it cannot curtail free choice of a researcher as right to know is a fundamental right. A three-judge bench presided by Justice Dipak Misra asserted that the court cannot refrain a researchers quest. "We cannot curtail free choice of researcher as right to know is a fundamental right. This will be dangerous," the apex court said. "There should be no advertisement on sex determination. If somebody does it, it is an offence. But suppose we pass any general order (banning all info relating to sex determination on web), it would offend Article 19(1)(a). It has got its own pedestal and sanctity and we don't think anybody should derail it," it added. Sabu Mathews George, the petitioner in this case, sought blocking of sex determination test advertisements on web portals including Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi presented that the distinction between right to know and advertisement must be recognised. The apex court adjourned the matter till April 13. The apex court had earlier on February 17 pulled up search engine giants Google, Yahoo and Microsoft for allowing online advertisements on sex determination tests, prohibited in India. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Syrian Army claimed Thursday that a US-led airstrike against the Islamic State near Deir ez-Zor killed a large number of civilians, due to the suffocation resulted from inhaling toxic substances. According to SANA news agency, "The General Command of the army and armed forces said that the aircrafts of the so-called "US-led International Alliance" on Wednesday between the hour 17:30 and 17:50 carried out an airstrike against a position of ISIS terrorists that includes a large number of foreign mercenaries in the village of Hatla to the east of Deir Ezzor, causing a white cloud that became yellow as a result of the explosion of a huge store that includes a large amount of toxic materials." In a statement issued Thursday, the Army General Command stressed that the airstrike of the "US-led International Alliance" killed hundreds, including large numbers of civilians, due to the suffocation resulted from inhaling toxic substances. This comes amid escalated tensions between the two countries as U.S. President Donald Trump ordered a missile strike on the Shayrat airfield of the Syrian air forces, believed by Washington to be the base for warplanes that carried out the chemical attack rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun killing 87 people, including many children. The majority of the international community has blamed the attack on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad but the government has denied involvement in the toxic attack and blamed rebel groups. Russia and Iran have meanwhile stood by the Syrian government over the issue. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Launching a veiled attack on the Election Commission of India (ECI) over its open challenge, Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh on Thursday questioned the poll watchdog, citing those who are involved in the 'roaring' business of hacking would never expose themselves. In a series of tweets, Digvijay Singh said, "Those who are hacking are doing roaring business why should they expose themselves?" Emphasising that the poll panel's only aim was to bring the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) to power at any cost, Singh asserted that the saffron party and the hackers are the biggest beneficiaries. "BJP and the Hackers are the only beneficiaries. No one kills a Golden Goose?" Singh tweeted. Following concerns raised by the Opposition parties over the alleged tampering of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) post assembly polls, the (ECI) on Wednesday threw an open challenge to the party leaders and dared them to hack the voting machines. The invitation, given to political parties, scientists and technicians, will be available from the first week of May to prove whether the EVMs could be hacked or not. The move comes days after the Opposition parties suggested that the entire voting process be held through ballot paper. A 13-member delegation led by Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice president Rahul Gandhi also met President Pranab Mukherjee and presented a memorandum to him in this regard. In the memorandum, they raised questions over the malfunctioning and alleged tampering of the EVM machines, while stating that it has raised question on the electoral process. The delegation of opposition parties also sought his intervention. "Non-BJP ruled states are being destabilised by misusing the powers of Governors, the recent example being Goa and Manipur," the opposition stated. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday showcased a positive view towards both China and Russia. "I have great confidence that China will properly deal with North Korea. If they are unable to do so, the U.S., with its allies, will! U.S.A.," tweeted the President. I have great confidence that China will properly deal with North Korea. If they are unable to do so, the U.S., with its allies, will! U.S.A. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 13, 2017 He followed it with yet another tweet this time about good ties with Russia in the future saying, "Things will work out fine between the U.S.A. and Russia. At the right time everyone will come to their senses & there will be lasting peace!." Things will work out fine between the U.S.A. and Russia. At the right time everyone will come to their senses & there will be lasting peace! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 13, 2017 Backing away from a campaign pledge, Trump said Wednesday that his administration won't label China a currency manipulator in a report due this week, though he does think the U.S. dollar "is getting too strong." Trump began to bash China in the 2015 speech that began his campaign, saying Beijing kept its currency artificially low to give its manufacturers an unfair advantage in global trade. The change in opinion on China comes as the US faces an intractable crisis in North Korea. North Korea appears to be preparing to conduct a nuclear test in a show of defiance towards Donald Trump, who has not ruled out military action to pressure the regime into abandoning its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes. The US-based monitoring group 38 North said on Thursday that the satellite images from the North's Punggye-ri site showed it was "primed and ready" for what would be the country's sixth nuclear test since 2006. As for Russia, Trump said on Wednesday, "We're not getting along with Russia at all," following last week's airstrikes on Syria, Moscow's key Middle Eastern ally. In response to the alleged chemical attack in Syria's Khan Sheikhoun, the U.S. launched dozens of Tomahawk to destroy the Shayrat airfield in Syria, believed by Washington be the base for warplanes that carried out the chemical attack on the rebel-held town. Russian President Vladimir Putin denounced the strike as "act of aggression" and said it violated international law. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) United States National Security Advisor Lt Gen H.R. McMaster is expected to visit Pakistan soon as part of his upcoming tour of the region for assessing the situation in Afghanistan, The Dawn reports. Gen McMaster would be the first high-level Trump administration official to visit Islamabad. He is also expected to travel to India and Afghanistan. However, the Islamabad leg of his trip has not been officially announced. With concerns over Russia's growing role in Afghanistan, McMaster's visit almost coincides with the 12-nation meeting on Afghanistan being hosted by Moscow on April 14. The U.S. declined an invitation for the meeting, aimed at formulating a regional approach for peace and stability in Afghanistan, questioning Russian motives. A series of meetings have also begun in Islamabad to finalise Pakistan's message during Gen McMaster's visit, as reported by The Dawn. Earlier, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday in an interview with the state-run newswire APP urged the Trump administration to play a role for the resolution of Kashmir dispute. Pakistan is attending the Moscow meeting on Afghanistan, but has been stressing that U.S. participation was a must for the process to succeed. "We continue to be encouraged by Pakistan's operations in North Waziristan and elsewhere in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. Pakistan's efforts have reduced the ability of some militant groups to use North Waziristan and Fata as a safe haven for terrorism," said Adam Stump, a U.S. Defence Department spokesperson. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The United Nations (UN) on Wednesday declined to comment on the death sentence awarded to alleged Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav, citing the body was not in a position to judge the case. "We are not in a position to judge the process or to have a position on this particular case," The Dawn quoted UN secretary general's spokesperson Stephane Dujarric, as replying to a poser. "Overall in terms of relations between India and Pakistan, we underline and continue to underline the need for the parties to find a peaceful solution and to engage through engagement and dialogue," he added. Earlier, Pakistan Defence Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif ruled out any possibility of an immediate execution of Jadhav, citing three appellate forums were available for him under the law. India has sent out a stern message to Pakistan with the Parliament strongly condemning the Pakistan Military Court's verdict sentencing Jadhav to death on charges of spying. Replying to the issue in the Lok Sabha during the Question Hour on April 11, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh asserted that the government would do whatever is possible to give justice to Jadhav. Singh said India's request for basic consular access to Jadhav was denied several times. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, in a suo motu statement made in both the Houses of Parliament, warned Islamabad of consequences in bilateral relations if death sentence on Kulbhushan Jadhav is carried out. She said if the decision of the Pakistani court is implemented, it will be a pre-meditated murder asserting that there is no evidence against Jadhav. There were also strong protests in front of the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi. Jadhav, who was arrested in March last year by Pakistan and accused by the country of spying, was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on Monday triggering tension between India and Pakistan. Observers and experts on criminal or espionage-related laws in a majority of countries have suggested that the death sentence against Jadhav is a clear violation of Article 36 of the Vienna Convention that makes it mandatory for every government to provide consular access to an arrested foreign national by officials of his/her government. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Central Bank of India rose 2.11% to Rs 103.90 at 10:24 IST on BSE after the bank's board of directors approved allotment of equity shares to the government on a preferential basis. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 12 April 2017. Meanwhile, the S&P BSE Sensex was down 41.34 points or 0.14% at 29,597.71 On BSE, so far 12,000 shares were traded in the counter as against average daily volumes of 6.93 lakh shares in the past one quarter. The stock hit a high of Rs 103.90 and a low of Rs 102.65 so far during the day. The stock had hit a 52-week high of Rs 112 on 20 June 2016. The stock had hit a 52-week low of Rs 73.10 on 24 May 2016. The large-cap bank has equity capital of Rs 1902.17 crore. Face value per share is Rs 10. Central Bank of India's board of directors approved raising of equity capital by issuance and allotment of 5.59 crore equity shares at Rs 104.15 per share aggregating to Rs 583 crore to the government on a preferential basis. Central Bank of India reported net loss of Rs 605.70 crore in Q3 December 2016, lower than net loss of Rs 836.62 crore in Q3 December 2015. Total income fell 1.79% to Rs 6787.87 crore in Q3 December 2016 over Q3 December 2015. The Government of India holds 81.28% stake in Central Bank of India (as per the shareholding pattern as on 31 March 2017'). Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Alexis Bonogofsky and Mike Scott will present the seminar Politics and Chill at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, April 20, at Petro Hall on the Montana State University Billings campus. Scott is senior organizing representative with the Montana chapter of the Sierra Club. Bonogofsky is a writer, photographer, organizer and goat farmer. Bonogofsky said she and Scott have been holding workshops and speaking to students recently who are discouraged by polarization. They feel politics is angry and vitriolic. The goal of the hour-long seminar, she said, is to de-politicize politics and help students engage without being dragged into the rhetoric. Its a nonpartisan, low-key and fun way to get people talking about politics, she said. The last time she and Scott led a workshop, about 65 people attended. According to a news release from student organizers Abbie Deubner and Baylie Bullington, who are both in their first year of study at MSU Billings, some fellow students have reported they are intimidated even by the process of registering to vote much less knowing for whom to cast their ballot. In light of the recent election, a lot of students believe the best way to avoid conflict is to dismiss politics altogether, the two students said. So we decided to do something about it! The students said Bonogofsky and Scott will help students think outside the box when it comes to politics, without being partisan. It is worth the time, the students said. They are very good at what they do. Heritage Foods rose 1.71% to Rs 1,092.20 at 11:25 IST on BSE after the company said it has completed acquisition of dairy business of Reliance Retail. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 12 April 2017. Meanwhile, the S&P BSE Sensex was down 51.52 points or 0.17% at 29,591.96. The S&P BSE Small-Cap was up 86.88 points or 0.58% at 14,939.15. On the BSE, 834 shares were traded on the counter so far as against the average daily volumes of 5,305 shares in the past one quarter. The stock had hit a high of Rs 1,103.95 and a low of Rs 1,089.20 so far during the day. The stock had hit a record high of Rs 1,173.85 on 13 February 2017. The stock had hit a 52-week low of Rs 496.50 on 29 April 2016. The stock had underperformed the market over the past one month till 12 April 2017, falling 0.91% compared with 0.68% rise in the Sensex. The scrip, however, outperformed the market in past one quarter, rising 22.1% as against Sensex's 8.79% rise. The small-cap company has equity capital of Rs 23.20 crore. Face value per share is Rs 10. Heritage Foods said that the company has received approval from Competition Commission of India and completed the process of acquisition of dairy business of Reliance Retail. The company is taking control of entire dairy business of Reliance Retail with effect from 12 April 2017, Heritage Foods said. Post the transaction closure, Reliance Retail will continue to trade in dairy products including Heritage dairy products through its retail and wholesale channels, it added. Heritage Foods' consolidated net profit rose 75.11% to Rs 19.91 crore on 14.43% growth in total income to Rs 667.97 crore in Q3 December 2016 over Q3 December 2015. Heritage Foods operates in dairy, retail, agri, bakery and renewable energy segments. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Infosys fell 2.01% to Rs 949.30 at 10:10 IST on BSE after the company reported weak Q4 March 2017 results before market hours today, 13 April 2017. Meanwhile, the S&P BSE Sensex was down 36 points, or 0.12% to 29,607.48. On the BSE, 5 lakh shares were traded in the counter so far, compared with average daily volumes of 2.56 lakh shares in the past one quarter. The stock had hit a high of Rs 990.95 and a low of Rs 941.40 so far during the day. The stock hit a 52-week high of Rs 1,278 on 3 June 2016. The stock hit a 52-week low of Rs 900.30 on 9 November 2016. The stock had underperformed the market over the past one month till 12 April 2017, falling 6.40% compared with 0.68% rise in the Sensex. The scrip had also underperformed the market in past one quarter, falling 3.12% as against Sensex's 8.79% rise. The large-cap company has equity capital of Rs 1148.47 crore. Face value per share is Rs 5. Infosys' consolidated net profit fell 2.8% to Rs 3603 crore on 0.9% decline in revenues to Rs 17120 crore in Q4 March 2017 over Q3 December 2016. Consolidated operating profit fell 2.8% to Rs 4212 crore in Q4 March 2017 over Q3 December 2016. Consolidated net profit rose 6.4% to Rs 14353 crore on 9.7% rise in revenues to Rs 68484 crore in the year ended March 2017 over the year ended March 2016. Operating profit rose 8.2% to Rs 16901 crore in the year ended March 2017 over the year ended March 2016. The result is as per International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). The board of the company has identified that to pay up to Rs 13000 crore, or $2 billion, to shareholders via dividend or share buyback in Financial Year ending March 2018 (FY18). The board announced a final dividend of Rs 14.75 per share for the financial year ended 31 March 2017. The company said its consolidated revenue is expected to grow 6.5%-8.5% in constant currency terms in the fiscal year ending 31 March 2018, under IFRS. The company said its revenue is expected to grow 2.5%-4.5% in Rupee terms in the fiscal year ending 31 March 2018, under IFRS, based on the exchange rates as of 31 March 2017. The company said its revenue is expected to grow 6.1%-8.1% in Dollar terms in the fiscal year ending 31 March 2018, under IFRS, based on the exchange rates as of 31 March 2017. Liquid assets including cash & cash equivalents and investments at Rs 38773 crore as on 31 March 2017. Infosys' CEO, Dr. Vishal Sikka, said that unanticipated execution challenges and distractions in a seasonally soft quarter affected the company's overall performance. At the same time, Infosys continued to see many positive signs of its strategy execution; its software-led offerings continued to show strong momentum and client success, with continued adoption of Mana, our AI platform; Zero Distance marked its 2-year anniversary as a grassroots cultural movement for innovation with IFRS - INR strong client resonance, and the company's employee engagement continued to drive down attrition, especially with top performers. Attrition declined during the quarter reflecting the company's focus on better employee engagement. Utilization during Q4 reached 82% which is the highest in Q4 over the past several years, said U. B. Pravin Rao, COO. In FY2017, operating margins were steady as the company continued its sharp focus on operational efficiencies. Cash provided by operating activities during the year was robust and exceeded $2 billion, a new high, said M. D. Ranganath, CFO. The company's capital allocation policy is aimed at balancing the strategic and operational needs of the company as well as enhancing shareholder returns. Infosys is a global leader in technology services and consulting. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Held on 12-13 April 2017 The Board of Director of Infosys at its meeting held on 12-13 April 2017 approved the appointment of Ravi Venkatesan, Independent Director as the Co-Chairman of the Board. The Board has recommended a final dividend of Rs 14.75 per equity share for financial year ended 31 March 2017. The dividend will be paid on 27 June 2017. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) For manufacture and supply of High Energy Materials for aerospace and defence applications Premier Explosives announced that the Company has received the Management System Certificate from DNV GL Business Assurance, USA after the company has been found to conform to the Quality Management System Standard: ISO 9001:2008 and AS 9100c. This certificate is valid for Development, Manufacture and Supply of High Energy Materials (Propellants, Pyrotechnics, Special Devices and other Chemicals) for Aerospace and Defence Applications. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) At least 10 Taliban militants were killed during an ongoing military operation in Afghanistan's Helmand province, a military statement said on Thursday. "Over the last 24 hours, 10 militants were killed and 14 others wounded during a military operation codenamed Maiwand 5 after Afghan security forces made advances in Aynak area," the statement said. Among the victims was a local Taliban leader named Zia-ul-Haq, Xinhua news agency reported. "The security forces also found 54 landmines and roadside bombs and the operation will continue before the area is cleared off militants," the statement added. --IANS ksk/vt (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The High Court on Thursday stayed the trial against opposition leader and BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia in four separate vandalism and arson cases. The court also issued four separate rulings asking the government to explain why the proceedings should not be scrapped, the Daily Star reported. A High Court bench of Justice Md Miftah Uddin Choudhury and Justice ANM Bashir Ullah passed the order after hearing four separate petitions by Khaleda seeking to stay the proceedings. After the BNP was prevented from holding a rally on January 5, 2015 to protest the anniversary of the 10th Bangladesh parliamentary elections, Khaleda called a nationwide blockade, bdnews24.com reported. In the course of the blockade that lasted 90 days, vehicles and buildings were fire-bombed, leading to almost 150 deaths. The former Prime Minister was named in several of those cases on charges of inciting violence. Among the four cases, three were filed with Darussalam Police Station and another case was filed with Jatrabari Police Station in 2015 during anti-government agitation enforced by Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led alliance. Trial courts later took cognisance of the charges of the cases after police submitted chargesheets to the court. --IANS soni/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Indian Army has sought a camouflage system to make its armoured fighting vehicles invisible to all kinds of sensors, said an army report. The army in the report said the modern sensors can locate armoured vehicle -- tanks and personnel carriers -- through their heat and radar signature and to ensure the safety of the vehicles it desires protective systems that can render the vehicle completely invisible. "The sensors are fitted right from satellites, aircrafts, helicopters, UAVs in the third dimension to the ground-based long range surveillance equipment operating continuously during day and night. Thus, camouflage now is a necessity for survivability of the force right from the time it moves out of its permanent locations to the time it prosecutes its might on the enemy," the report said. The Indian Army on March 24 released the 'Compendium of Problem Statements, Volume II' here. The 28 new problem statements, part of Volume II, would allow the industry and academia to understand the needs of the army and come up with indigenous solutions for military requirements. At present, the armoured vehicles are camouflaged through paints and multi spectral camouflaged nets. These passive methods do not provide the level of protection that is required in future conflict scenario. The army has asked the industry to come up with the solution through electronic camouflage which will blend the vehicle in its surrounding. This would enable the vehicle to change the image of the hull in concert with the changing environment. In another option, the army has suggested for development is that of 'Quantum Stealth', a system being developed by a Canadian company, where a special material would make the vehicle invisible by bending the light waves around the target and will also removes infrared (night vision) and thermal signatures and also the shadow of the vehicle. Speaking to IANS, Maj. Gen. Rajiv Narayanan, former Additional Director, Military Operations, said: "That's the way ahead. It generates artificial signature around it. It can deceive the enemy. We cant wish it away." "You need futuristic technology for Indian industry and academia," said Narayanan while talking about the idea behind the sharing of problems with industry, "This kind of projects will improve the thinking of academia. As researchers come to DRDO from academia it will also benefit." The first volume, with 50 problem statements, was released on December 5 last year. --IANS rs/pgh/dg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Indian Army has sought a camouflage system to make its armoured fighting vehicles invisible to all kinds of sensors, a report has said. The Army, in the report, said the modern sensors can locate armoured vehicle -- tanks and personnel carriers -- through their heat and radar signature and to ensure the safety of the vehicles it desires protective systems that can render the vehicle completely invisible. "The sensors are fitted right from satellites, aircraft, helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles in the third dimension to the ground-based long-range surveillance equipment operating continuously during day and night. "Thus, camouflage now is a necessity for survivability of the force right from the time it moves out of its permanent locations to the time it prosecutes its might on the enemy," the report said. The Army on March 24 released the 'Compendium of Problem Statements, Volume II' here. The 28 new problem statements, part of Volume II, would allow the industry and academia to understand the Army needs and come up with indigenous solutions for military requirements. At present, the armoured vehicles are camouflaged through paints and multi spectral camouflaged nets. These passive methods do not provide the level of protection required in future conflicts. The Army has asked the industry to come up with the solution through electronic camouflage which will blend the vehicle in its surrounding. This would enable the vehicle to change the image of the hull in concert with the changing environment. In another option, the Army has suggested for development is that of 'Quantum Stealth', a system being developed by a Canadian company, where a special material would make the vehicle invisible by bending the light waves around the target and also removes infra-red (night vision) and thermal signatures and also the shadow of the vehicle. Speaking to IANS, Maj. Gen. Rajiv Narayanan, former Additional Director General, Military Operations, said: "That's the way ahead. It generates artificial signature around it. It can deceive the enemy. We can't wish it away." "You need futuristic technology for Indian industry and academia," said Narayanan while talking about the idea behind the sharing of problems with industry. "This kind of projects will improve the thinking of academia. As researchers come to Defence Research Development Organisation from academia it will also benefit." The first volume, with 50 problem statements, was released on December 5 last year. --IANS rs/tsb (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Filmmaker S.S. Rajamouli says a magnum opus like the two-part "Baahubali" could be possible thanks to an actor like Prabhas, who has dedicated so much time to the project. Rajamouli was at an event here for the IMAX poster launch of "Baahubali 2: The Conclusion" on Wednesday. Praising Prabhas, Rajamouli said: "The whole film 'Baahubali' was possible because of Prabhas, who being a lead actor in the south film industry, believed in this project and gave three and half years of his life to the film. I don't think anybody can get so much involved in the project with that kind of passion, time and commitment." "I think whether director or producer or any other professional involved in it, we are all being carried on a big ship called 'Baahubali'. 'Baahubali' is the ultimate product and we are the people who worked on it, so I don't think I am a bigger person than the project," added Rajamouli when asked about how a filmmaker often gets less attention compared to his film. Speaking about the IMAX experience, he said: "It was 15 years ago when I first saw a film in IMAX format. In our childhood, we used to see film on 70mm screens and then suddenly we got this larger than life experience in IMAX, through which we literally felt like being in that space and time itself. "So the first image I saw, and I decided to make my films in IMAX format. And today, when the dream has got fulfilled, it's a quality moment for me." "Baahubali 2" has been digitally remastered in the IMAX format. Its story lent itself to the format, Rajamouli said, adding: "People need to see it on bigger screens with wider sound to experience what we intended to see." "We have big theatres now but we still need more number of theatres to take the audience there. It's a business model now to release the film in maximum number of theatres to get maximum viewership. And for a film like 'Baahubali', where people are anticipating so much about the movie that trailer of the film has crossed 100 million views is on par with any Hollywood film. "So, it makes all sense to release the film at maximum number of theatres." The movie also features Rana Daggubati, Anushka Shetty, Ramya Krishnan in pivotal roles. --IANS iv/rb/vt (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Unhappy even after meeting the President and five central ministers, Tamil Nadu farmers protesting here for a month on Thursday expressed their anger against the BJP. The farmers, who have been protesting at Jantar Mantar here, have been demanding loan waivers, drought relief packages and formation of a Cauvery management board to resolve their irrigation issues. "The BJP is completely against farmers and is pro-corporate. They can waive of lakhs of crores of loans of the corporates but not farmers," said P. Ayyakannu, President of the National-South Indian Rivers Linking Farmers Association. Tamil Nadu is facing a severe drought. In January, the state government declared Tamil Nadu drought-hit after over 100 farmers allegedly committed suicide. Claiming that nothing has grown over 29 lakh hectare in Cauvery delta since 2016 due to lack of water, the protesting farmers said the BJP and its central government were apathetic to their suffering. "Only President Pranab Mukherjee seemed serious about our issues, but none of the five ministers we met seemed really concerned," he said. "Worse is that the Prime Minister is not even ready to meet us though we farmers stripped ourselves outside his office. Our action was meant to say we have nothing... We will continue our agitation." The farmers had met Finance Minister Arun Jaitley thrice. He gave them assurances but the farmers don't see their demands being met yet. Earlier this month, the central government approved Rs 1,712 crore under the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) for Tamil Nadu. But the state government has sought a relief package of Rs 40,000 crore. --IANS kd/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) MISSOULA - Law enforcement officials have cancelled their missing person advisory after Lacey Moore, 17, was found and is safe. Moore had called 9-1-1 Wednesday morning saying she was being held at gunpoint outside an apartment building in Missoula. The Montana Department of Justice, which had issued the missing/endangered person advisory for Moore, did not provide additional details. At 9:40 a.m. Wednesday, Moore called police saying she was being held at gunpoint near an apartment complex at the intersection of Milwaukee Way and Catlin Street before the line went dead. Attempts to call her back were unsuccessful. As police were driving over, they received another call that a shot had been fired. By the time they arrived, three cars believed to have been involved had left the scene. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party won the Dholpur assembly seat in Rajasthan as Shobha Rani Kushavah trounced Congress rival and former minister Banwari Lal Sharma by over 38,000 votes in the April 9 bypoll. The bye-election for the seat was necessitated after Bahujan Samaj Party legislator Banwari Lal Kushavah, the BJP nominee's husband, was disqualified due to his conviction in a murder case in 2016. Of over 1.91 lakh voters, 77.14 per cent cast their ballots. In all, 15 candidates were in the fray. Shobha Rani, who took a lead from the very first round, polled 91,548 votes against Sharma's 52,875. There were 952 None Of The Above votes too. As soon as results were declared, BJP supporters burst firecrackers, danced to the drumbeats and offered sweets to each other. "It is vote for development. People have voted for 'Sab ka saath, sab ka vikas'," Medical Education and Health Minister Kalicharan Saraf said. "It is a win of Raje's leadership, her vision and the state's development under her leadership," Public Works Department Minister Younis Khan told IANS. The bypoll was a prestige issue for both the Congress and the ruling BJP. Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje along with state BJP President Ashok Parnami and her Cabinet colleagues spent days in the constituency to woo voters. Raje also organised a road show in the constituency. Congress fielded senior leaders, including state unit President Sachin Pilot, former Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and Leader of Opposition in assembly Rameshwar Dudi to campaign extensively in favour of party candidate. In the 2013 assembly elections, the Congress won only 21 of the 200 assembly seats whereas the BJP swept the polls by winning 163 seats. The BJP had 160 members in the assembly, with the figure now reaching 161 with the Dholpur win. The Congress has 24 MLAs in the 200-member assembly. --IANS as/tsb/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The ruling Congress on Thursday retained the two assembly segments of Nanjangud (SC) and Gundlupet in Karnataka, while main opposition BJP drew a blank in the hard-fought by-polls on April 9. In the prestigious Nanjangud constituency, ruling party's candidate K. Keshavamurthy defeated Bharatiya Janata Party nominee Srinivasa Prasad by 21,334 votes. In the Gundlupet constituency, Mohan Kumari Uruf alias Geetha of the Congress defeated BJP's C.S. Niranjankumar by 10,877 votes. Of the 1,56,315 votes polled in Nanjangud, Keshavamurthy secured 86,212 (55 per cent) and Prasad 64,878 (41.5 per cent). The total electorate in the reserved seat is 2,01,823. The by-election was necessitated due to the former lawmaker (Prasad) resigning from the reserved constituency in October after he was dropped from the Cabinet as Revenue Minister in June. He joined the BJP in early January. The by-election for Gundlupet was caused due to the death of Congress lawmaker and Cooperation Minister Mahadeva Prasad in early January. Geetha is his widow. Of the 1,74,955 votes polled in Gundlupet, Geetha bagged 90,260 votes (51.6 per cent) and Niranjankumar 79,383 votes (45.4 per cent). The total electorate is 2,00,892. Nanjangud in Mysuru district is 170 km and Gundlupet in Chamarajanagar district is 210 km from Bengaluru in the state's southwest region. "I thank the voters of Gundlupet and Nanjangud for electing our candidates. The outcome motivates our leaders and cadres for the assembly elections due in 2018," party's state unit President G. Parameshwara told reporters here. BJP's state President B.S Yeddyurappa, who campaigned extensively, acknowledged the defeat of the party's candidates in both the assembly seats. "I accept the defeat in the bye-election. But we will bounce back in the 2018 assembly elections with 150 seats. I thank our party workers for poll campaigning," Yeddyurappa said in a tweet. As the regional outfit Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) did not contest, the Congress managed to prevent the division of "secular" votes. --IANS str/fb/vgu/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Actor Manraj Sigh, who features in web-series "Romil And Jugal" in which two boys deal with the stigma around homosexuality with their family and society, says he once faced a dilemma in life -- when he cut his hair. The young Sikh describes the action as an act of rebellion. Asked if he had ever faced a dilemma over any of his decisions, Manraj told IANS here: "Yes, I did. I am a Sardar, but I am more inclined towards spirituality rather than being religious. So at age 19, when I cut off my hair, it was a shock for my mother. "She is a religious lady, so accepting my outlook towards religion and spirituality was not easy for her. It was quite a rebellious thing at that young age. "It was a very difficult phase where I had to make my mother understand my belief, which is not very conventional, given that she is a religious and traditional person." Asked if he took such a step because he wanted to become an actor and turban might create an obstacle to get roles in films, he said: "No. Why do I have to grow my hair to belong to a community? It feels like you are from one organisation that divides people. "I believe in spirituality and humanity, which is more universal and that brings people closer." Before stepping into acting, Manraj worked in the marketing field for an international fashion brand. Now he is happy to feature in "Romil and Jugal", a web-series coming out on Ekta Kapoor's ALTBalaji platform. Manraj is playing the character of a young homosexual boy Jugal, who comes from a progressive south Indian family. He discovers his sexual orientation early on in life. What intrigued him to accept the role? "One of the important facts of our web-series is the way we have dealt with the subject. Here, we are treating these characters as normal people with different orientation who deserve equal respect and not in a caricaturist manner," Manraj explained. He feels more discussion in society about the LGBTQ community can reduce the stigma around it. "I think one of the very important facts that can resolve distance and create awareness is conversation. We do not converse openly with our parents if we have a different sexual orientation. In school, kids do not get to know about the fact that homosexuality exists. "Their mind is conditioned with the fact that homosexuality is abnormal, unnatural and a crime for some. In our show, we are not giving any lecture, but treating these characters as normal, and showing a homosexual love story as a normal one... That says a lot." Dircted by Nupur Asthana, it also features Rajeev Siddhartha, Suchitra Pillai and Mandira Bedi. It will go live from April 16. --IANS aru/rb/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Delhi Congress leaders on Thursday met President Pranab Mukherjee and sought his intervention to register an FIR against the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government, including Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, over corruption allegations by the Shunglu Committee. "Met Rashtrapati ji requesting him to intervene for registration of FIR against Kejriwal government on corruption found by Shunglu Committee," Ajay Maken, who led the Congress delegation to the meeting, said on his Twitter account. In the memorandum submitted to the President, Maken appealed to the President of India to file FIR against Kejriwal, his ministerial colleagues and Delhi government officials under the Prevention of Corruption Act, following their indictment by the Shunglu Committee report. "The Shunglu Committee report, which examined 404 files of the Delhi government, has indicted the Kejriwal Government on various cases of corruption, nepotism and gross abuse of official position by various public servants within the AAP government, including the Chief Minister of Delhi," said Maken after meeting Mukherjee. The Shunglu Committee had raised questions on several appointments by the Delhi government and had also found irregularities in allotment of government bungalows. --IANS sid/rn (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A 25-year-old youth on Thursday alleged that he was thrashed by policemen, first in a flat and then in a police station, in east Delhi at the behest of his father's creditors. Anshul Mishra, a resident of south Delhi's Madanpur Khadar area, alleged that he was picked up on Wednesday morning by Assistant Sub-Inspector Surajbhan, posted in Geeta Colony Police Station, and three others when he was coming back home from Loni area of Ghaziabad. "Surajbhan and his associates were working at the behest of some people whom my father Shivdutt Mishra owes some money. They first took me to Surajbhan's flat where they tortured me to know my father's whereabouts," Anshul told IANS. "I was released on Thursday morning in Sarita Vihar area of south Delhi by Surajbhan and his associates who threatened me not to go to police," he said. Anshul, who works as an accountant, said he was asked to go to Geeta Colony Police Station when he went to the office of the Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) at Sarita Vihar. "He was not beaten up by any policemen... The matter is being probed. His father, who works as a building material supplier, owes some people Rs 3 crore but has been untraceable for sometime," a senior police officer said. He is falsely accusing the policemen, the officer said. --IANS sp/lok (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) It's been a bumpy ride for a 65-year-old yellow cab driver, Gazi Jalaluddin. A good student who was forced to give up formal education due to poverty, he now runs two schools and an orphanage in his native Sundarbans, ensuring a smoother journey for the underprivileged in a land at the mercy of the rivers. "I don't know how much longer I will be able to keep it up through driving. My two sons are also driving and help in the endeavour. There are 425 students in total. Since it's run as a non-governmental organisation (Sunderban Orphanage and Social Welfare Trust) we do not have access to government funds. I have tried communicating with the local district administration about assistance but to no avail," the bespectacled Gazi said while taking a break from ferrying passengers. Gazi's schools are located in the Joynagar area of the Sundarbans (in South 24-Parganas district), about 60 km from Kolkata. With a 25-member staff -- 21 are teachers -- the schools are completely dependent on the income from taxi rides, donations from good samaritans and passengers who are considerate enough to offer some money when they learn of Gazi's unique venture. His cab proudly displays his mobile number (9735562504) and an appeal for help with the message: "This taxi's total income is spent for the development of orphans mission, Sikkhyatan mission and IIPF school for the orphans. So kindly don't give any traffic case against this taxi." Gazi divides his time between Narendrapur in South 24 Parganas and Joynagar in the Sundarbans area of the same district. Part of the week he spends at Narendrapur plying the cab and the rest back home in the Sundarbans. Citing his wife as an inspiration, Gazi revealed his family lives on the premises of one of the schools. "I had to quit studies when I was seven years old. I had stood first in class two and was going to the next class. But my parents were unable to afford books; so I had to give up. That drove me to do something for the underprivileged," Gazi reminisced without any pangs of remorse. His dream of setting up a school finally took wing in 1998. But the road was not short and the journey was peppered with obstacles. "I spent my boyhood begging on the streets of Kolkata and then I started plying rickshaws. Gradually I started driving a taxi. From 1980, I used to arrange books and clothes for children and ensure they went to school. I used to impart driving lessons to the youth to make sure they have a source of livelihood. "When I reached a financially stable position, I started a small primary school with 16 students in the plot of land I own. I gave up the plot (four to five kathas) for school use. That became bigger with the acquisition of more land and is now a school-cum-orphanage," he explained. Later on, through donations of land, he acquired around seven kathas from locals and passengers. This became the site for his second school. "In both the schools, students are taught till Class 4 and in one we have recently introduced Madhyamik (Class 10 board exams under the West Bengal education board). My earnings through taxi rides is around Rs 450 (a day). The money that is left from food expenditure and maintenance of the vehicle goes to the schools. "I want to expand the schools and target secondary and higher secondary education. I have faith in people and hope they come to our aid as poverty is still the root cause of unemployment and lack of education in the Sundarbans. Life is difficult for the people in the remoter areas due to natural disasters. Education will go a long way in helping them achieve self-sufficiency," Gazi signed-off on his way to pick up another commuter. Australia may be considering India a priority country in its international relationship as the two nations move towards closer strategic and security cooperation following Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's just-concluded visit to India, but in its official travel advisory Australia continues to flag India as a travel destination that warrants a "high degree of caution" . In fact, an intending Australian traveller to India may be well discouraged from planning a visit to the country -- or even cancelling a planned visit -- if he or she were to read all the warnings and caveats about the "high threat of terrorist activity, civil unrest and crime, and the high rate of vehicle accidents" as well as the safety of women, poor air quality and social volatility. The Australian travel advisory was updated as late as March 20 this year -- days before Turnbull visited India and reviewed with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi "the entire gamut of bilateral relations; number of forward-looking decisions taken to further strengthen our partnership". India has been trying to woo visitors from Australia with its "Incredible India" campaign. Last year, India organised "Confluence: Festival of India in Australia" from August to November "to provide a boost to tourism and to the art precincts in" Indian cities. But the advisory on the website of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade of the Australian government says "there are several regions of India where we advise Australians to reconsider your need to travel, or avoid all travel". "Violent protests and demonstrations occur sporadically throughout India," says the advisory. "Exercise a high degree of caution in India because of the high threat of terrorist activity, civil unrest and crime. Pay close attention to your personal security at all times and monitor the media for information about possible new safety or security risks." The advisory also includes venues of Indian festivals, religious sites and markets where "travellers should maintain heightened vigilance". Without naming Pakistan or any other country, the advisory points out that militants cross "the border into India with the intention of conducting attacks". "It is likely they will continue to try and do so. Terrorist groups regularly issue statements threatening to launch attacks in India." "The threat of terrorism exists in all Indian cities and tourist centres. In the past, terrorists have targeted areas frequented by tourists including hotels, markets, tourist sites, transport hubs and public transport networks, and religious sites. "Attacks have also targeted local courts, sporting events and cinemas, and Indian security and political establishments. Major tourist sites and shopping centres are also potential targets for attack," the advisory goes on to say. Cautioning against "dangerous" road travel, "undisciplined and aggressive" driving practices "poor quality and congested" Indian roads, Australian visitors are also warned that "you are three times more likely to be killed in a motor vehicle accident in India than in" the home country. "Accidents are commonplace and the number of road traffic deaths is high. Travelling by road at night is particularly dangerous due to insufficient or non-existent street lighting and the presence of other vehicles driving with headlights off or on high beam. Vehicles may travel in the wrong direction, often without warning." The advisory also flags women safety as a high-priority issue, cautioning females visiting India for religious purposes against risks of sexual assaults by faith leaders. "There are persistent allegations and media reports of sexual misconduct involving religious groups and their leaders in India. Australians visiting India for such religious purposes should be aware of these risks." It also notes that foreign women could be subjected to "unwanted attention and more serious harassment and assault" in India where "successful prosecutions are rare". After reading this ominous advisory not many Australians may be inclined to make India their immediate travel destination. (Sarwar Kashani can be contacted at sarwar.k@ians.inThings will work out fine between the U.S.A. and Russia. At the right time everyone will come to their senses & there will be lasting peace!
Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 13, 2017
will@cvradio.com
Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox speaks to a group of Utah State University students.
LOGAN Utah Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox encouraged students of Utah State Universitys political science department to make a difference by becoming involved and staying informed. His 50-minute discussion took place during a USU Institute of Government and Politics event on campus Wednesday afternoon.
Cox said the lack of involvement is making the political divide worse, because candidates running for election cater to those who are more vocal, which is usually the hyperpartisan. With that, compromise becomes rare and damaging and incendiary comments are made.
Like most of those in attendance, Cox was a once USU political science student. He graduated in 1998, and said during that time, politicians on different sides of issues were often kind to each when they werent on the floor. He said they would work through issues and come to compromises. He added that oftentimes they would go out to eat or attend other events together. He said it has changed now.
Now that is absolutely not the case, he said. They dont talk to each other. They dont spend any time together. They genuinely dont like each other.
Ive often compared Washington D.C. to a dumpster fire, but its not fair to dumpster fires. However bad you think it is, I think it is worse.
But Cox has hope it could change, and he thinks millennials could play a big part in it.
Millennials could be the most influential voting bloc in the country, he said. The problem is we dont have enough of you getting involved.
Cox issued a challenge to the students to surround themselves with people different than themselves, instead of just listening to political debate. He said by getting to know those who are different, they will come to realize those people have similar goals and values, but it is just that often the method of reaching those are different.
He cited state legislation that was passed a few years ago as an example of working together across political divides. In the same piece of legislation, additional protections were offered to both the LGBT community as well as different religious groups and faiths.
This was at a time when states in our country and our country itself were being torn apart by these two factions, he said. We had leaders of all religious faiths, the LDS church, the Catholic church, Jewish and Muslim faiths coming together with leaders of the LGBT community and they were hugging and crying together and it was a cool thing. You can do that.
Cox said the availability of many different media organizations makes it too easy for people to only follow the new source with slant they agree with, which polarizes the country even more.
I like to read publications on the left and the right, and compare them every day, he said. Filter these results. Figure out what is right and what is true, dont rely on someone else. Then find ways to get involved.
A good way of getting involved, Cox said, is reaching out and communicating with those in office. He said many of them, especially at the state and local levels, are actually more available than most think.
Crews are still cleaning up flood damage in some parts of Cache County. Cache County Executive Craig Buttars informed the Cache County Council Tuesday that disaster declarations have been made by both Cache County and by the state of Utah.
We are waiting for a federal declaration to come from the White House, said Buttars. We are hoping that will come by April 25th. That way we can begin to plan for the reconstruction and for the roads that need repair.
Buttars said for any federal money received, the county must match it by 25%. He says the major damage was on the Mendon Road, which has been closed since the flooding began.
Buttars also informed the council that a contractor will soon be selected for a multi-purpose building to be built along with improvements at the Cache County Fairgrounds. Buttars said four bids were submitted and they were all good bids.
He said the lowest bidder was Darrell Anderson Construction Company, a Logan-based company.
They had considered things in their recommendations that some of the other companies hadnt considered, Buttars explained, like the possibility of asbestos or things like that that need to be cleaned up in the process of tearing the old buildings down.
They even have the equipment and the ability to do that themselves. That was one important factor but there were several.
Members of the Cache County Council are hoping to start construction on the project shortly after the 2017 Cache County Fair.
Workers move coal to a transport vehicle in Tianjin on Wednesday. Tianjin has banned polluting diesel-powered coal trucks from its port three months ahead of schedule. Photo: Xia Weicong/Caixin
(Beijing) Tianjin has intensified its war on smog by banning polluting diesel-powered coal trucks from its port three months ahead of schedule, Caixin has learned.
Under the move, all coal handled by the port will be transported by railway instead of diesel trucks beginning at the end of April. The city had originally agreed to apply the ban in July.
The ban is part of a plan proposed in March by Chinas Ministry of Environmental Protection, which contained radical measures to tackle air pollution, such as reducing targeted cities steel output by 50% in winter and setting up coal-free districts. All ports in Hebei province, which borders Tianjin, are required to ban diesel-powered coal trucks by September.
Tianjins Environmental Protection Bureau announced in a conference late Tuesday night that it would move up the start date, following Tianjin Mayor Wang Dongfengs visit to the port, according to sources close to the matter.
One of the reasons behind the decision could be Tianjins deteriorating air quality, said a source close to the ministry. From January to March, the city dropped eight places to 10th-worst in Chinas air-quality rankings.
As one of China's most heavily polluted areas, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region has struggled to battle severe smog in recent years. The port of Tianjin, Chinas second-largest by cargo volume, was ordered to stop handling all goods due to low visibility caused by smog. The delays cost importers 78 million yuan ($11.3 million), according to the minutes of a meeting Caixin acquired.
Banning coal-carrying diesel-powered trucks in the port is a costly step, which is designed to reduce emissions to improve air quality in many cities, most importantly in Beijing.
The trucks depart from northern Chinas coal-producing Inner Mongolia region, running 500 to 900 km to the Port of Tianjin. From there, about 100 million metric tons of coal products are shipped each year to users in southern China for power generation.
Such trucks have become a major contributor to Beijings air pollution. Eight thousand trucks pass through the capital each day, and 7,000 of them are coal-carrying, according to a research report Caixin acquired in March.
A source close to the ministry said that the huge emission created by those trucks can offset one of Beijings major anti-smog measures, which uses an odd-even system to restrict car use every weekday based on the final digit of a cars license plate.
In 2016, Tianjins port handled a total of 110 million metric tons of coal, 51% of which was transported by trucks, port data showed.
The port authority said in February that it was applying for permission to build more railway lines for transporting coal. Local media reported that it was seeking cooperation with neighboring ports in Hebei province in coal transportation.
China Railway Corp. has supported Tianjins port by approving in February the use of nearly 3,000 trains to Taiyuan, Huhehaote, and other locations to meet the expected demand. The company said they would provide more trains in the future.
Contact reporter Song Shiqing (shiqingsong@caixin.com)
UBA Staff and Laureats UBA
The United Bank for Africa Plc (UBA) once again demonstrated its commitment to excellence in customer service, by celebrating staff who have strives to implement the Banks core values of Enterprise, Excellence and Execution.
Lagos, 8th April 2017 Eko Hotel Expo Centre, Lagos, Nigeria, the United Bank for Africa gathered customers, captains of industry, dignitaries from politics and diplomacy, staff and Board members from its 19 African country network, to witness the 2017 UBA CEO Awards.
The prestigious annual event was first established in 2008 to celebrate outstanding performance within the UBA Pan-African family, showcasing excellence, significant innovation and service in key areas of the Groups business.
UBAs industry-leading recent promotion of 3000 staff members illustrated the Banks appreciation of their contributions and their service delivery to customers. Amongst a distinguished audience, the Bank and senior management on Saturday night again celebrated its staff at the CEO Awards Ceremony, in UBAs inimitable style bringing together Lions and Lionesses from across Nigeria and Africa.
Over 10 Awards were given. Of each award category, the GMD, Kennedy Uzoka said We recognize and appreciate that there are so many staff members who have demonstrated aspects of each of our core values, but we have had to single out the very best. We celebrate our Lions and Lionesses who used their ingenuity and creativity, as well as their industry experience and passion, to work tirelessly to deliver excellent service to our customers and to continue to achieve exceptional results within the Group.
There were winners who had excelled in innovation and execution across Africa. There were also those who were rewarded for their entrepreneurial abilities. The CEO of UBA Ghana, Mrs Abiola Bawuah was chosen in the special award category of Business Leader who defied all odds and opened up new opportunities for the Bank. Mrs Bawuah was described by the GMD as a relentless CEO, who breaks barriers, extends the horizon and motivates, inspires and encourages others.
UBA Cameroon also received an award for highest sales of Visa Prepaid cards in Francophone Africa; Isong Udom the MD/CEO received this on behalf of the subsidiary.
The Award which stole the show went to Ibrahim Ogbanagbo, the UBA security staff at the UBA Oba Akran branch in Lagos, who found $10,000 cash belonging to a customer and returned it to the customer. Ogbanagbo talked about how the $10,000 could have changed his life and how he could have taken it, but how his upbringing, as well as UBAs value and focus on Integrity would never have allowed him to do so. He was given the Excellence Award for his display of honesty and integrity.
The Group Chairman, Tony Elumelu went on stage to congratulate Ogbanagbo personally. Elumelu said that Ogbanagbo exemplified someone who is committed to the hallmarks of Excellence in the execution of his duties.
This is an example to us all. How anyone, no matter their position in our Group can distinguish themselves and set an example. Today, we stand here to celebrate a junior UBA staff member, who returned money that was misplaced and who through this action, gained much more than he could ever have imagined. As a leading pan-African bank, this is what we stand for and we commend Ibrahim Ogbonagbo for living the principle of integrity.
In all it was a night to remember, an evening of reward and celebration, and perhaps most poignantly, the story of how the integrity and honesty of a UBA security staff could become the role model of an African group of over 25,000 people and a symbol of the paramount commitment of UBA to its customers.
By Wilson MUSA
Ayah Paul W. Musa
The Yaounde Appeals Court has rejected the Babeas Corpus appeal by defense Counsel of jailed AYAH Paul Abine on grounds that the complainant did not go through the right quarters before filing the appeal.
The court session scheduled which started by 11 am Thursday April 13, 2017 was given few minutes of recess after Justice Ayah Paul pointed out some irregularities in the process.
The case was later adjourned due to some technical reasons according to Judges at the Appeal Court.
It was said that the defense counsel did not follow the normal procedure for filing appeal cases, according to the judges; the individual concerned was supposed to personally present it to the President of the Appeals Court upon acknowledgement receipt.
The Counsel of AYAH Paul has immediately filed an appeal at the Supreme Court, meaning that the fate of the National President of the Popular Action Party, PAP, will only be decided by his own colleagues at the countrys highest court.
This is the second time the Habeas Corpus is being rejected. The first was on March 21 when the Mfoundi High Court turned down the appeal.
AYAH Paul Abine was arrested on January 21, 2017 in the heart of Anglophone crisis.
By Wilson MUSA
Francois Louceny Fall U. N.
The representative of the United Nation, UN, Secretary General to the Central Africa sub region, Francoise Lounceny Fall has called on the Government of Cameroon to free all persons arrested during the crisis that have hit the two English Speaking regions of the country.
The UN representative made the declaration in Yaounde Wednesday night April 12, 2017 to the Press after spending three day investigation in Cameroon.
Mr Fall also called on the Government to reinstate Internet in the two English speaking regions. The release of those arrested and return of internet according to the UN staff is the right step in the right direction towards restoring peace in these regions.
The representative of the UN Secretary General to the Central African sub region before his media outing met with various strike leaders including those imprisoned, Teachers Trade Unionists and other key actors in the struggle.
He welcome measures put in place by Government to solve the crisis and urged them to immediately implement the measures and also put in motion the National Committee to promote Multiculturalism and Bilingualism.
Francoise Fall however said the UN cannot decide on the form of the state because it is the responsibility of Cameroonians to decide through ballot.
Mr Fall revealed that he met with Prof. Maurice Kamto of CRM political party, the man who few days back criticized the UN and other International bodies for keeping sealed lips on the Anglophone crisis.
By Wilson MUSA
| BY Ricki Green |
When Moodley was at Naked, he received some of the industrys top honors for campaigns like Steal Banksy for Art Series Hotels, which won Cannes and Effie Gold, Overstay Checkout for Art Series Hotels, which won Cannes Silver, and the Speedkills for Transport Accident Commission (TAC), which received Gold at both New York Festivals and Spikes Asia.
| BY Ricki Green |
CB Exclusive Saatchi & Saatchi Australia has today announced the hire of Aussie expat Sesh Moodley (left) to the new deputy executive creative director role, based at Saatchi & Saatchi in Sydney.
A native of Sydney, Moodley joins Saatchi & Saatchis Sydney office after five years in the US, most recently as ECD at Victors & Spoils Boulder, an innovative agency model started by Crispin alums. Prior to Victors & Spoils, Moodley worked as creative director with Crispin Porter + Bogusky for three years focusing on the growth of key business across Miami and Boulder, where he ran one of the agencys biggest accounts, Best Buy. Moodley departed his CD role at Naked Comms Sydney in 2012 and moved to AKQA San Francisco where he led creative efforts for global brewer Anheuser Busch.
Throughout his career, Moodley has enjoyed multiple wins at Cannes, D&AD, Clio, One Show, Spikes, New York Festivals and the Effies including Grand Prix recognition. He has also received two Warc awards for innovation.
The agency has also confirmed the promotion of current executive creative director, Mike Spirkovski (left) to the newly created position of national chief creative officer. Both appointments come off the back of last years big hire that saw award winning strategist Kate Smither join the senior management team as chief strategy officer.
Spirkovski joined Saatchi & Saatchi in 2014 from iris Sydney, and under his creative leadership, the agency has achieved significant creative success for its clients, most notably, best campaign of the year at the AdNews Awards (2015), best car ad in the world at the One Show Automotive Awards and its second Innovation Lion in a row at Cannes for Toyotas LandCruiser Emergency Network, which has also won at numerous local and international award shows. Prior to joining iris in 2013, Spirkovski was creative director at Droga5 Sydney where he helped grow the agency to win accounts such as Woolworths and Qantas.
Says Michael Rebelo, CEO, Saatchi & Saatchi Australia and New Zealand: It was such a natural decision to elevate Mike into this new position. He has been the creative partner every CEO wishes for, a fine leader of our creative department and a top partner and friend to our clients and the agency team. The great thing about Mike, even though he has achieved so much for Saatchi & Saatchi, is that his ambition is boundless.
As the deputy executive creative director at Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney, Moodley will oversee all brands and creative product across the Sydney office, working in to national chief creative officer, Mike Spirkovski.
Says Moodley: Ive always been a big fan of Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney and their game-changing ideas for big brands. I couldnt be more stoked to be back home for this role working with Mike and the team. What also excites me is the opportunity to help lead the agencys creative efforts for some of Australias most iconic brands. I cant wait to get stuck in and live up to their Nothing is Impossible spirit.
Says Spirkovski: Its a privilege and an honour to take up this new role. Im really proud of what we have achieved as an agency over the past few years, and now with a strong deputy like Sesh in place, I know we will strive for even greater things. Ive known Sesh since our days at Leo Burnett in the mid 2000s. Hes a prolific creative thinker whos always on the edge of finding change and ways to grow and do better work. Sesh has developed into an inspiring leader, one that we are lucky to have as part of the Saatchi team.
| BY Ricki Green |
Bonds has launched a new campaign via Clemenger BBDO, Melbourne reminding Australians to refresh their sock drawers. Featuring long standing Bonds Ambassador Pat Rafter, the campaign launch film sees Rafter return to the limelight for what he thinks will be his next big Bonds Underwear commercial. The ad takes a humorous turn when Rafter realises his underwear modelling days are over and hes been relegated to a sock model.
Rafter has been the face of Bonds for over ten years and whilst his prior engagement with the brand has seen him front Bonds Underwear and the Bonds Baby Search campaign, this time he toes the line as the face of Bonds socks.
Says Emily Small, head of marketing, Bonds: Pat has been an ambassador for Bonds for over ten years. He was the natural choice when it came to promoting our comfy socks range and is always up for a laugh.
Its clear that former Bonds underwear ambassador Rafter was an obvious shoe-in for the Bonds Sock campaign, continuing to win over Aussies with his charm and humour.
Hailed as Australias favourite sock, Bonds Socks offer cushioned soles to provide extra comfort, a contoured heel for a better fit and Invisi Grip technology so socks always stay in place.
Rafter, in the twilight of his modelling career, shows us he is a jock of all trades in the latest campaign for Bonds Socks that launches on TV and social, along with in store and OOH activity.
Bonds
Head of Marketing, Bonds: Emily Small
Marketing Manager, Bonds: Michelle Taylor
Brand Manager, Bonds: Kedda Ghazarian
Clemenger BBDO
Creative Chairman: James McGrath
Creative Directors: Richard Williams & Ant Phillips
Group Managing Director: Simon Lamplough
Account Management: Paige Prettyman, Rebecca Orlandi
Strategic Planner: Michael Derepas
Senior Producer: Lisa Moro
Print Producer: Sharon Adams
Production Company: Guilty
Director: Tony Rogers
Production Producer: Rohan Timlock
DOP: Marin Johnson
Editor (Offline): Tim Parrington
Colourist: CJ Dobson
Online: Sam Coates
Sound Engineer: Paul LeCouteur
| BY Ricki Green |
The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity has announced new initiatives in 2017 to support young creatives to thrive in the industry.
To share and promote the voices of young creatives, Cannes Lions launches The Future of Creativity: The Cannes Lions Young Creative Poll. This short questionnaire, open to those aged 30 and under, takes less than two minutes to complete and will gauge how young creatives globally feel about the industry and their future within it. The results will be published in May.
The Cannes Lions School builds upon its world-renowned training and learning offering, with the launch of The Night School. The school Campus, home to the academy classrooms, will be transformed after dark into a space for all Cannes Lions attendees to explore creative ideas and have fun through crafted workshops. Running from Tuesday 20 Thursday 22 June, with a different theme each night, special guests will be interviewed by Night School host Jon Burkhart, co-author of Newsjacking: The Urgent Genius of Real-time Advertising and co-founder of Urgent Genius, the worlds first blog dedicated to reactive creativity.
Cannes Lions launches its third week-long Masters of Creativity programme designed to support industry talent to make the transition into senior management. This years challenging brief, available to download from www.canneslions.com, asks participants to convince European adult consumers that Oreo cookies are not just for kids. It will be led by Jill Baskin, Mondelez International VP global creative, and Karen Costello, SVP executive creative director, The Martin Agency.
The 2017 masters are:
Content: Eleonore Ogrinz, Head of International Advertising, Red Bull
Creative Effectiveness: Adrian Farina, Senior Vice President of Marketing, Visa, Inc-Europe
Creative Selling: Beth Rilee-Kelley, President, The Martin Agency
Creativity: Rob Reilly, Global Creative Chairman, McCann Worldgroup
Data: Alan Schulman, National Director of Content Marketing & Creative Experience, Deloitte Digital
Innovation: Scott Galloway, Clinical Professor, NYU Stern School of Business
Media: Nick Brien, Global CEO, iCrossing and President of Hearst Marketing Services
Strategic Leadership: Sarah Watson, BBH Global and NY Chief Strategy Officer
Starting on Sunday 18 June, delegates attend eight exclusive presentations from leading professionals and are then assigned into multi-disciplined, multi-functional teams who will present their pitches on Friday 23 June. The jury is chaired by Keith Reinhard, chairman Emeritus, DDB Worldwide and senior marketing officials of the Mondelez International team.
Says Baskin: Oreo is the worlds favourite cookie but theres still room to grow. We look forward to seeing how this dynamic group of creative thinkers and brand activators find ways to get Europeans to consider Oreo as an adult treat, in addition to a biscuit kids love.
| BY Ricki Green |
Acclaimed international director Paul Middleditch will join Brisbane Advertising and Design Club (BADC) as guest speaker at a special lunch event next week, Friday, April 24 from 12:30pm-2:30pm at The Sky Room at Brisbane Convention Centre.
Middleditch is the creative mind behind some of the nations most memorable and awarded campaigns, including Carlton Draughts Big Ad and Yellow Pages Not Happy Jan and will deliver an insightful speech that poses the question: is the Big Ad dead?
His long list of credentials, madcap humour and unbridled energy presents an opportunity for all interested to hear from one of the best in the business at an entertaining and inspiring networking event.
The keynote address will focus on the power of great storytelling in a media landscape thats overflowing with content, also sharing his personal insights into the industry, gained during a long and successful career.
The event includes a two-course lunch and beverage package.
| BY Ricki Green |
The Australian National Maritime Museum has appointed The Certainty Principle as the creative agency to promote three major museum exhibitions in 2017.
Its latest collaboration is Escape From Pompeii: The Untold Roman Rescue a world class international exhibition that brings to life the untold story of the Roman Navy and its dramatic attempt to rescue citizens of Pompeii following the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79AD.
The key art was created and animated in 3D and is being used across all campaign assets, including a projection on the roof of the museum, TV commercials, online and social content, print, outdoor, transit and signage in and around the museum and Darling Harbour.
Says Jackson Pellow, brand and marketing manager, the Australian National Maritime Museum: Given peoples ongoing fascination with the story of Pompeii, this exhibition is expected to attract significant audiences over the coming months. The pressure was on to deliver exceptional creative that would drive visitation, and already the pre-launch sales are well above target.
While many people know of the tragic eruption that buried Pompeii and Herculaneum under huge amounts of volcanic ash and debris, not many know that the Roman Navy attempted to evacuate people affected by the eruption or indeed its important role in the success of the Roman Empire. The exhibition is told through the words of the Roman Navys commander of the fleet, Pliny the Elder and his nephew, Pliny the Younger who witnessed the event and created the only surviving first-hand account of the disaster.
Says Matt Daunt, CEO, The Certainty Principle: Were thrilled that we have been able to help bring this untold story of Pompeii to life. We worked closely with the curators of the exhibition to ensure everything we were creating was in line with the vision of this incredible story. The result is a powerful and engaging campaign reflecting the intensity of the Roman Navys evacuation attempt.
The exhibition includes an extraordinary collection of objects, some of which have never toured outside Italy before together with an 8-minute 3D animation that recreates the events on that fateful day in 79AD. It is a rare and exciting chance for visitors to see 2,000-year-old Roman artefacts and haunting body casts of victims of Mount Vesuvius.
The Certainty Principle will also be working with the Australian National Maritime Museum on the upcoming Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2017 exhibition which opens on 31st May.
Escape from Pompeii: The Untold Roman Rescue exhibition is now open at the Australian National Maritime Museum.
| BY Ricki Green |
The One Club for Creativity, the worlds foremost non-profit organization devoted to elevating creative work in all aspects of advertising and design, today announced the appointment of Michael ORourke (left) as executive director in charge of the ADC Awards and programming.
He will oversee all ADC Awards programming and growth on a global level as the prestigious 96-year old organization expands its progressive remit in its first year under recently formed The One Club for Creativity (TOCC) umbrella organization.
ORourke joins TOCC from the International Awards Group/New York Festivals, where he served as president and spent the past 10 years managing New York Festivals Advertising Awards, AME Awards, Midas Awards and Global Awards. He was responsible for all facets of award show programming and marketing, exhibitions and screenings of winning work, and educational and civic partnerships.
Says ORourke: ADC began as a progressive force back in 1920 as the first creative organization for the commercial arts. Im extremely honored and excited to now be able to leverage The One Club for Creativitys global platform and resources to continue and expand this legacy as a progressive catalyst for the next 100 years of commercial craft, design and innovation. Im energized by the opportunity to be part of the clubs esteemed heritage and give back to the creative community of a global stage.
Says Kevin Swanepoel, chief executive officer, The One Club: Michaels background, deep industry knowledge and enthusiasm make him the ideal fit to lead the ADC Awards into the next phase of its evolution. His vision is in sync with the programs progressive mission, and we look forward to the inspiring initiatives hell lead.
ORourke becomes the latest addition to TOCCs formidable senior management team, led by Swanepoel. The team includes Yash Egami, vice president, content and marketing, who has led The One Club charge in those areas for more than a decade; Gabriela Mirensky, director, awards and design, who previously served for a dozen years as director of competitions and exhibitions at AIGA; and Tony Gulisano, global chief growth officer, who has over three decades of experience directing award programs, including 26 years with the Clio Awards.
Says Swanepoel: Weve assembled a powerhouse leadership team who have a level of skills, connections and experience thats unmatched by any other creative industry organization in the world. This team is laser focused on achieving our vision of being the worlds foremost non-profit organization to celebrate and elevate the global creative community.
Merger officially approved, three ADC board members join The One Club board
The One Club and ADC announced their merger in October, last year to form The One Club for Creativity, which serves as the umbrella organization for The One Show, ADC Awards, Young Guns, Creative Week, One Screen, Hall of Fame and a wide range of global education and diversity programs. The new entity celebrates the legacy of creative advertising and design, and uses that legacy to inspire future generations.
The merger was recently officially approved by the New York State Attorney Generals office, effective April 1, 2017. As part of the merger, three members of the ADC board of directors Brian Collins, chief creative officer, COLLINS; Philippe Meunier, creative chief/co-founder, Sid Lee; and Robert Wong, executive creative director, Google have joined The One Club board.
The awards shows each have their distinct focus: the ADC Annual Awards maintains its historical concentration as the champion for craft, design and innovation, while The One Show continues its focus on creativity of ideas and quality of execution.
The One Club for Creativity now offers an unparalleled array of complementary programming across creative disciplines. All initiatives fall under five key pillars: education, inclusion, diversity, professional development and gender equality.
In addition to awards shows, TOCC programming includes Creative Boot Camps, Here Are All The Black People multicultural creative career fair, Creative Leaders Retreat, Young Ones honoring students, Creative Womens Leadership Series, the 50/50 Initiative, Paper Expo, Hands On, Henry Wolf Photography Workshop for NYC public school students, Saturday Career Workshops for talented high school juniors in the five boroughs of New York and others.
Says Swanepoel: No other organization gives back to the advertising and design industries with this level of comprehensive educational and development programming on a global basis. The One Show and ADC Awards generate the revenue that is then funneled right back into the industry to fund these important initiatives.
TOCC will celebrate excellence in craft, design and innovation for professional work at the ADC 96th Annual Awards Gala on May 8, 2017, 6:00-11:00 pm at Artbeam, 540 West 21st St., NYC. Student winners will be presented at the Young Ones & ADC Student Awards Ceremony on May 9, 2017, 6:00-10:00 pm at West Edge NYC, 88 10th Avenue, NYC. Both awards shows are part of The One Club for Creativitys Creative Week in New York.
| BY Lynchy |
Dentsu Aegis Network Indonesia has appointed SK Biswas, Chief Operating Officer of Dentsu Aegis Network Indonesia, to succeed industry veteran Harris Thajeb as CEO of Dentsu Aegis Network Indonesia. Harris Thajeb will move into the role of non-executive Chairman and continue to work closely with Biswas focusing on local stakeholder relationships.
Biswas (pictured), who was appointed Chief Operating Officer of Dentsu Aegis Network Indonesia in September 2016, has over 25 years experience in the communications industry, more than half of which are in senior leadership positions in emerging markets, managing creative, media and digital agencies. He will report directly to Dick van Motman, CEO of Dentsu Aegis Network Southeast Asia.
Whilst we were plotting acceleration of growth in Indonesia especially with the recent addition of Dwi Sapta group, both Pak Harris and I agreed that one of the key imperatives is to have this 900-strong team spearheaded by the next generation of leadership. We both identified Biswas as the perfect candidate for this task given his convergent experience, energy level and deep knowledge of the local market. I could not ask for a better transition and leadership evolution having the old and the new guards partner so maturely and closely, said Dick van Motman, CEO of Dentsu Aegis Network Southeast Asia.
Thajeb said, In the last few months, Biswas has proven himself considerably in his role as Chief Operating Officer. At Dentsu Aegis Network, weve always had a focus on talent and Im confident of Biswas ability to ensure that we will power through the next phase of growth in the market, bringing not just scale but greater innovation and differentiation to our businesses and clients.
Here are the battleground states that could have us waiting on election night
"People have rightly explored options about what you can do around housing affordability. [We have] ruled out [changes to] negative gearing and now the PM has dealt with this issue as well. So there are other ways that you can provide help but you don't want to fuel the prices. You don't want to create a situation that is worse than what we have got at the moment," he said.
One Coast tag.JPG
The Mississippi legislature has approved the sale of a new specialty tag featuring the 'One Coast' concept. Orders for the new tag are now being taken through Visit Mississippi Gulf Coast.
(Visit Mississippi Gulf Coast image)
JACKSON, Mississippi -- The Mississippi legislature has approved a specialty tag featuring the 'One Coast' concept and orders for the new tag are now being accepted.
Sponsored by Visit Mississippi Gulf Coast, proceeds from the sale of the specialty tag will go to the non-profit Tourism Fund, designed to support and enhance the efforts of Visit Mississippi Gulf Coast by promoting and advancing tourism on the Mississippi coast.
The One Coast tag will cost $31 if paid by check; $32.25 if paid online through PayPal (including $1.25 PayPal processing fee). This fee is in additional to the normal cost of a Mississippi car tag.
The new tag can be pre-ordered online at https://www.gulfcoast.org/one-coast-tag/.
In announcing the new tag, Visit Mississippi Gulf Coast noted the following:
Tag registration dates will remain the same. Those purchasing the specialty tag are only paying for that tag and not their annual renewal. Renewal dates will remain the same.
Tags will be available mid-July, contingent upon the pre-sale of at least 300 of the One Coast tags. Buyers will be notified when the tags will be available and can be picked up at a county courthouse.
The One Coast tags must be picked up within 50 days of the buyer being notified. Existing tags must be turned in to claim the new specialty tag.
The Mississippi Department of Revenue reports annual revenues of about $10 million from the sale of specialty car tags throughout the state. There are currently more than 200 specialty tags available in the state.
Our work with law enforcement agencies across the country has allowed us to crack down on a wide array of animal cruelties -- like cockfighting. Photo by Meredith Lee/The HSUS
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Yesterday, we hosted John Thompson, the deputy executive director of the National Sheriffs Association, at our national headquarters and bestowed upon him a Humane Leadership Award for helping bring humane sensibilities into the consciousness of the nation. Thompson is straight out of central casting as a law enforcement man, yet his heart is just as broad as his shoulders, as hes shown time and time again. He led the effort to get the FBI to embrace a new animal cruelty reporting framework to accumulate data on perpetrators and put that information into a central, searchable database. He actively engages legislative and law enforcement leaders to pass critical animal welfare laws and improve the national landscape for animals, the people who care about them, and the communities in which they live.
The Humane Society of the United States is privileged to work with the brave men and women dedicated to making our communities safer. To that end, we partner with law enforcement officials across the country on a wide array of investigations, trainings, and legislation. The National Sheriffs Association is one of our best partners.
In a cooperative effort between The HSUS and federal authorities that lasted three months, a Southern District of Alabama grand jury indicted four individuals last month on federal charges in connection with the investigation of a major cockfighting pit in Citronelle, Alabama. The FBI arrested four suspects yesterday eight months after federal law enforcement officers, with The HSUS on site, searched the Citronelle property where they uncovered a huge arena with bleacher seating, concession stands, trophies, cockfighting paraphernalia, and rental holding spaces for participants birds with room for more than 1,000 animals. In 2012 The HSUS filed a complaint with the Alabama attorney generals office requesting an investigation of the Alabama Gamefowl Breeders Association, arguing that it is unlawfully masquerading as a nonprofit entity while profiting from illegal cockfights. In the indictment, an undercover FBI agent describes attending an illegal cockfighting derby at the Citronelle property on May 7, 2016, when the agent witnessed the president of the Alabama Gamefowl Breeders Association address the crowd about his groups efforts to block legislation to strengthen the penalties for cockfighting in Alabama and soliciting donations. The AGBA president was not among those indicted, but its secretary was indicted for selling merchandise at the derby.
This is the sort of spade work we are doing with law enforcement agencies every day. In 2016, in cooperation with the National Sheriffs Association, we recognized 20 additional law enforcement professionals with Humane Law Enforcement Awards. Awardees were acknowledged for their commitment to humane law enforcement training and their pursuit of animal cruelty prosecutions. Recipients included a Detective with Naples Police Department who pursued felony animal cruelty charges after an individual drop-kicked a native bird off a pier, as well as a group of officers and an assistant district attorney in Cabarrus County, North Carolina who worked with our Animal Rescue Team to shut down a puppy mill.
Our work with law enforcement officials touches upon the entire spectrum of the American justice system, from Sheriffs to prosecutors to Attorney Generals offices. Through our Law Enforcement Training Center and Humane State program we have trained thousands of officers on animal cruelty and fighting investigations. In addition to our daylong trainings, we often participate in National Sheriffs Association conferences nationwide, most recently in Georgia, Maine, and Missouri, and with their counterparts at the Prosecutors Associations.
Recently we held our first collaborative domestic violence/law enforcement training at the Kansas City Police Academy. The HSUS partnered with the Kansas City Police Department, the Great Plains SPCA, and the Rose Brooks Center to train officers about investigative techniques for cruelty and fighting investigations, the link between cruelty to animals and interpersonal violence, and on how we can work together to protect our communities. Fostering these relationships is critical as we continue to advocate for the passage of The Pet and Women Safety (PAWS) Act, a critical piece of federal legislation that will provide greatly needed protections and funding to both victims of domestic violence and their pets.
In our Humane Puerto Rico and Humane Oklahoma programs, we are making animal cruelty training available to just about every law enforcement agent in these jurisdictions, and already thousands have participated. We are soon to launch Humane Kansas, and bring the same comprehensive animal protection program that were delivering to Oklahoma and Puerto Rico.
Like so many other people in society, many law enforcement agents dont know the severity and scale of animal cruelty and neglect, until we document these problems and present them. John Thompson was one of those peopleindifferent, at one point, to the plight of animals. It was exposure to The HSUS and the love of a pet dog he acquired that pricked his conscience and set him off on a determined course to help all animals. Now he cannot be deterred in fighting animal cruelty, everywhere. Just like The HSUS.
And with thousands of law enforcement personnel fighting animal cruelty with us, we wont be deterred in our quest to create a humane society.
Our Promise: Welcome to Care2, the world's largest community for good. Here, you'll find over 45 million like-minded people working towards progress, kindness, and lasting impact.
Care2 Stands Against: bigots, racists, bullies, science deniers, misogynists, gun lobbyists, xenophobes, the willfully ignorant, animal abusers, frackers, and other mean people. If you find yourself aligning with any of those folks, you can move along, nothing to see here.
Care2 Stands With: humanitarians, animal lovers, feminists, rabble-rousers, nature-buffs, creatives, the naturally curious, and people who really love to do the right thing.
You are our people. You Care. We Care2.
TERI-Deakin Nanobiotechnology Centre (TDNBC) eleven Indian students have been awarded a three-year tuition fee waiver worth 1.1 million AUD by the Australian government.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Australian counterpart Malcolm Turnbull who arrived here on a four-day visit inaugurated the TDNBC.
The announcement was done by the Australian Education and Training Minister Senator Simon Birmingham during his visit to TDNBC in Gurgaon with a high-level delegation.
A statement issued by TERI read, "The visit marked the celebration of the Indo-Australian academic and research alliance.''
"The TDNBC facility is not incredible because we are commissioning bricks and mortar, it's incredible because of the brains, the students, the knowledge that is embedded within the facility, and the potential that they (students) are going to realise in so many different ways," the statement quoting Simon Birmingham said.
More about the program:
Under the scholarships program, each student is provided with a full tuition-fee waiver from Deakin University up to an amount of approx. AUD 100,000 for a period of three years.
Under the program, students travel to Deakin University in Australia for a period of six to eight months during their Ph.D. to work closely with their supervisor.
"Under this program, Deakin University and TERI will provide joint supervision to the students.
TDNBC envisions meeting the demand for a global, skilled workforce in nanobiotechnology," said Jane den Hollander, VC, Deakin University.
TERI DG Ajay Mathur said that within five years, the Centre aims to have a number of researchers, including Ph.D. students, enrolled at Deakin.
"With its cutting edge technology at the disposal of these bright minds, this Centre will help India make a mark on the global map for building new capabilities and bringing new innovations in the field of science and technology," he said. The Researcher's Residences at TDNBC, having an accommodation for 50 residents, was also inaugurated by the Australian minister today.
2,000 private schools supplied with NCERT books: Javadekar
The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has recently sent a show-cause notice to all its affiliated schools across the country for not providing complete information on their official website.
The CBSE board has fined Rs 50,000 to 2,077 schools for not complying with its order for making a list of details about the institutions public.
The CBSE board currently has 18,179 affiliated schools, both government and unaided across India.
More about the CBSE norms:
All the CBSE schools were informed earlier to make all the details public on their website.
The details included right from the number of water taps to Wi-Fi facilities including a complete breakup of monthly fees of each class and school results.
The schools had to disclose their reserve funds and balance sheets online.
In order to provide all the details online, CBSE had initially fixed October 31, 2016, as the deadline but later extended it by a month as many schools expressed their inability to furnish the data at such short notice.
"We will offer another opportunity to the schools to comply once the (board) exams are over. However, we have issued notices to these schools imposing a penalty of Rs 50,000 each for non-compliance and they have to pay the fine," Chaturvedi said.
The CBSE memorandum said, "The information shall only be filled online through the link given on board's website and also uploaded on school's website."
About CBSE:
CBSE was established in 1962. CBSE affiliates all Kendriya Vidyalayas, all Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas, private schools and most of the schools approved by central government of India.
Every year, the board conducts the class 10 and class 12 exam in the month of March.
State Elections Cause Delay In CBSE Class 10 & Class 12 Results
The admit cards for the National Eligibility-Cum-Entrance Test(NEET) undergraduate programme 2017 will be released by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on April 15. Candidates can download it from the CBSE official website.
How to download the NEET UG admit cards:
In order to download the NEET UG admit cards, candidates must follow the steps given here:
Log on to the official website cbseneet.nic.in
Click on the link, 'Download NEET 2017 admit cards'
Fill in the necessary details
Click Submit
After submitting the same, the admit cards will be displayed on the screen
Save it to your computer and take a printout for future use.
What will the NEET UG admit card contain?
The admit card will have the details that the candidate had alreadu the candidate's roll number, name, father's name, category, sub-category, photograph, signature, date of birth, language of question paper with name and address of examination centre allotted. Candidates are advised to verify their details on the admit card before printing it.
NEET UG paper pattern
The test shall consist of one paper containing 180 objective type questions (four options with single correct answer) from physics, chemistry and biology (botany and zoology) to be answered on the specially designed machine-gradable sheet using ball point pen.The duration of the exam will be of three hours.
About NEET UG
It was formulated in order to bring in a common entrance exam for the undergraduate medical courses. After a lot of legal arguments, NEET succesfully came into force on April 2016 replacing All India Pre-Medical Test (AIPMT)
Undergraduate medical courses from Institutes such as All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi, Postgraduate Institute for Medical Education and Research in Chandigarh, Jawarharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education & Research JIPMER are outside the purview of NEET since they were framed by different laws.
Deadline to Choose Centre and Correct Application for NEET 2017 Closes Today: Apply Now!
Stylist June Ambrose Calls Out Adidas for Copying in New Campaign
June Ambrose is speaking out against adidas for copying a costume she created for Missy Elliott 10 years ago. According to Ambrose, who took to her Twitter account last week to call out the German sportswear giant, rapper Dej Loaf wears a costume in adidas most recent Originals campaign that looks a bit too much like the blowup suit finished with black patent leather that Missy Elliott wore in her 1997 debut video, "The Rain."
Ambrose, a bona fide stylist phenomenon, who has worked with everyone from Jay Z and Nas to Pharell and Justin Timberlake on some of the most iconic music videos to date, tweeted: They say imitation is a form of flattery, however, recognize my original work with @MissyElliott @HypeWilliams #fail #copycats. She elaborated in a statement to the New York Post, saying: We did a lot of things with [adidas] and Missys brand. I didnt expect that from [them]. I was insulted. Its like the big corporation taking advantage As an artist, collectively as a group its like were hidden figures now.
Jeff Sledge, VP of A&R at Elliotts record label Atlantic Records, spoke out about the costumes this week: Missy loves Dej and shes worked with Adidas, so theres nothing against them. She just felt hurt the creatives werent given proper credit. Its blatant that its Missys thing from The Rain. They couldve given some kind of nod or something,
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By Alyson Klein and Andrew Ujifusa
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has announced a slate of hires for key positions in the department. Many of these folks have been working in the Education Department since the beginning of the Trump administration, but now they will have more formal, official roles.
None of these folks have received formal nominations from the White House, and will not need Senate confirmation to step into their roles. But some will be serving in an acting capacity in positions that they can be nominated formally for later.
For instance, Candice Jackson will be a deputy assistant secretary in the Office for Civil Rights and acting assistant secretary. And Jason Botel, who had been serving as a senior White House adviser, will be a deputy assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education and will serve as acting assistant secretary of that office.
Heres the full rundown:
Josh Venable - Chief of Staff
Venable worked in politics in DeVos home state of Michigan, but spent almost two years as the national director of advocacy and legislation at the Foundation for Excellence in Education, started by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
Dougie Simmons - Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations
Simmons has worked for the Republican National Committee and for Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who later became one of President Donald Trumps rivals for the GOP nomination.
Ebony Lee - Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy
This isnt Lees first stint at the department. She worked in the Office for Innovation and Improvement during President George W. Bushs administration, from 2005 to 2007. Since then, she has been working on charter school policy at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Lee has been a point person on implementation of the Every Student Succeeds Act.
Robert Eitel - Senior Counselor to the Secretary
Eitel most recently worked on regulatory issues for Bridgepoint Education, which runs for-profit universities. He also served as a deputy general counsel in the department under President George W. Bush.
Candice E. Jackson - Deputy Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights and Acting Assistant Secretary
Candice E. Jackson previously worked as an attorney in private practice in Vancouver, Wash. Her 2005 book Their Lives: Women Targeted by the Clinton Machine focused on women who said they were harassed or intimidated by President Bill Clinton and his supporters, and highlighted instances in which Clinton was accused of sexually assaulting or raping them. Civil rights advocates were not happy about her prospective appointment.
She also coordinated a public event featuring several of these women during the 2016 presidential campaign, with President Donald Trumps support.
James Manning - Senior Adviser to the Under Secretary and Acting Under Secretary
Manning headed up the education departments transition for the Trump team.
Manning worked on higher education issues at the department under President George W. Bush. Read testimony Manning gave to the House foreign affairs committee in 2007 about postsecondary issues here . America must remain the primary destination for international students. We must work together to make sure our nations institutions of higher education continue to be open to students from around the globe, Manning said.
Jana Toner - White House Liaison
Toner served in a similar role during the George W. Bush administration.
Jason Botel - Deputy Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education and Acting Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education
Botel has been a senior White House adviser for the Trump administration. He is a Teach for America alum who started a KIPP charter school in Baltimore. Most recently, he was the executive director of MarylandCAN, an advocacy organization in Baltimore.
Jose Viana - Assistant Deputy Secretary and Director for the Office of English Language Acquisition
A former Elementary and Middle School teacher and school administrator, who has most recently served as the State Program Administrator for Migrant Education for the state of North Carolina. Jose is a first generation American, whose father was a political prisoner from Cuba, according to the department.
Also slated to join these folks is Carlos Munizthe White House announced that the president would nominate Muniz as the departments general counsel.
Follow us on Twitter at @PoliticsK12 .
This post features an interview conducted by the Education Research Alliance for New Orleans team (@era_nola ) with responses from community leader Flozell Daniels, Jr. (@Flozell Daniels ).
In Mondays post, we discussed our latest study on the effects of the New Orleans school reforms on segregation . We had the chance to discuss our findings with Flozell Daniels, Jr., the CEO and President of the Foundation for Louisiana . In his civic capacity, Daniels currently serves as Ex-officio and Policy Committee Chair of the Urban League of Greater New Orleans Board of Directors; he is also a founding member and Board Chairman of the Orleans Public Education Network.
ERA-New Orleans: Do you think increasing integration in New Orleans publicly funded schools should be a priority going forward?
Daniels: While there are merits to students being exposed to different kinds of people and cultures and diverse environments in the school setting, increasing integration really cannot be a priority in the short term. The data reminds us that the schools are so overwhelmingly segregated that it seems our focus ought to be on evidence-based investment to improve achievement, which would strengthen students and their families where they are. This debate has run for more than 40 years now, and in New Orleans, we have seen little change pre- or post-reform. So while the efforts of some schools to create more diverse student bodies are laudable, the emphasis should continue to be on improving student outcomes. This seems to be backed up by the evidence that when the schools are integrated, they tend to be higher-performing schools.
ERA-New Orleans: How do you see school choice addressing school segregation in NOLA so far and in the long run?
Daniels: I have long held that, not withstanding the best efforts of many people, school choice has not created actual choice for most families and public schools. The evidence tells us that the overwhelming majority of schools are segregated, so there is a bit of a chicken and egg analogy here which seems to suggest, as I have said before, that until absolute outcomes significantly improve, white parents will not choose to send their children to low-performing schools. I also dont understand school choice to create a space that answers the very difficult questions around this communitys history of racial segregation in education that in many ways continues today. It seems to me that making investments in proven strategies that will substantively improve schools at the neighborhood level might improve the likelihood of diverse people in neighborhoods sending their children to neighborhood schools, therefore having more integrated and diverse environments.
ERA-New Orleans: What do you take away from the study that may inform your work and others in New Orleans?
Daniels: Now that this study has reminded us that we have seen no significant change in ameliorating segregation, it seems that our focus should be on building consensus on what strategies work to improve academic and psychosocial outcomes for children in public schools.
With almost a week left until the 2017 Shanghai Auto Show kicks off, Citroen has spilled the beans on the interior of the new C5 Aircross.
Previewed by an official rendering, the cabin of the new SUV is dominated by a large screen mounted in the middle of the dashboard, and by the digital display that replaces the traditional analogue dials.
Double air vents, a multi-function steering wheel, an automatic gearbox, electronic parking brake, and five drivetrain settings that should enhance its off-road abilities, are also visible, along with plenty of storage spaces in the minimalistic layout of the interior.
Citroen didnt have much to say about their new C5 Aircross, except that it features an Advance Comfort program that sees the debut of a suspension system equipped with Progressive Hydraulic Cushions, a first for the French brand Citroen will illustrate how it works in Shanghai.
Joining it on the showroom floor will be the C-Aircross and CXPerience studies for their China premiere, alongside a new generation C5, and the local C3-XR SUV.
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If youve ever visited an automotive plant or really any other factory chances are youve seen what an assembly line looks like. Its just the way things are done, and while methods and practices evolve and improve over time, its hard to imagine when they were done any differently.
But they were. More than 104 years ago, no one was building anything on an assembly line. And more than any vehicle its made or technology its championed, that above anything else remains Fords greatest contribution to the industrialized world.
According to the United States Census Bureau, it was 104 years ago today on April 13, 1913 that the Ford Motor Company set up the first moving assembly line at its old plant in Highland Park, Michigan before the city (on Detroits outskirts) was even incorporated.
Before Henry Ford implemented the assembly line, it took workers more than 12 hours to complete a single Model T. Once it was installed, though, it took only 93 minutes. Eventually, the bureau reports, a new Model T rolled off the assembly line every 24 seconds until Ford had made 15 million of them. Most automakers havent produced that many of any model in fact most havent even come close.
The production improvement didnt just help the companys bottom line although you can bet it did that, too. While most car prices only increase over time, the assembly line actually drove Fords prices down from $825 in 1909 (before the assembly line) to $260 in 1925. If thats not progress, we dont know what is and the rest of the world followed.
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Talk about Soviet cars and one of the first things that pops to mind is the Lada Niva.
With its back to basics flair, the SUV has been around for 40 years, and during this time, it was slightly updated, but beneath the skin, it remains as Spartan as ever.
However, turning 40 means that Lada had to prepare something, and they did two special editions of the Niva, or 44 as it is currently called: the Edition and 40th Anniversary, which will be produced in 1977 examples.
The former can be ordered in beige, red, white, terracotta and gray-blue, on top of a few interior enhancements that include the bright red-orange instrument cluster, stainless steel sills, eco-leather wrapped steering wheel and seats, with a combo of different shades, and the logo that reminds about their anniversary status.
As for the 40th Anniversary models, these come with a camouflage look on the outside, a factory first for the aging SUV, along with black seats with contrast stitching, and same special logos.
Ladas special vehicles will arrive at dealers this June.
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While Citroen continues to drop new teasers of the C5 Aircross, the brands latest SUV has leaked in all of its glory.
Published by AutoHome and Worldscoop, these images portray the final production version of the vehicle, which was inspired by the Aircross Concept, though has a more toned-down look.
Citroen have yet to detail the exact specifics of the car, but the Chinese media reports what was already on everyones mind, which is that it uses the PSA EMP 2 platform, shared with the new Peugeot 3008, known as the 4008 locally.
The architecture however isnt the only thing thats being shared by the two vehicles, as almost the entire engine lineup is expected to be adopted by the new C5 Aircross. This includes the turbocharged 1.6-liter and 1.8-liter units, producing 167hp and 204hp locally, both married to a 6-speed auto gearbox, which power the Peugeot 4008 in China. A 2.0-liter turbo could then join the family later on.
Besides the regular version of the SUV, Citroen might also launch a long wheelbase version, in the same vein as the Volkswagen Tiguan Allspace/L, with up to 7 seats, but this is nothing more than a simple rumor at this point.
Citroen will launch the new C5 Aircross in China in Q3 this year, subsequent to its premiere at Auto Shanghai. Dongfeng-PSA will then be responsible with the local production, while the European models will be assembled in Rennes, France.
* Article has been updated with new photos. Thanks go to David for the tip!
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It looks as though the Trump administration has had bigger fish to fry lately, which might place specific trade barriers off the front burner.
That being said, analysts as well as other industry executives from the NADA/J.D. Power Automotive Forum warned the public about getting complacent with regards to this issue.
Im from the school of politics that its never dead until its actually dead, argued John Bozzella, president of the Association of Global Automakers, while discussing proposals for a border adjustment tax on goods crossing in from Mexico.
I do agree that we need tax reform, he states, but a border adjustment tax raises the price of every single car every dealer in this room sells.
Furthermore, Peter Welch, president of the National Automobile Dealers Association, said that customers would revolt if dealers tried to increase prices because of a border tax, as reported by Autonews.
Our customers are incredibly price sensitive $1,700 is one number Ive read. If that actually trickles down to the hood of a car, we would see an economic calamity the likes of which weve never seen before.
On the other end of the spectrum, Nariman Behravesh, chief economist for IHS Markit, went on to say that the border adjustment tax is dead, while mentioning that the upside to that is that a pro-growth agenda could be really good, unlike protectionist populism.
Opening image via Donald Trump@Facebook
PHOTO GALLERY
Photo: Contributed
Andrew Weaver was teaching a class of University of Victoria undergraduates about climate science and public policy when he realized he needed to do more than just lecture.
The internationally recognized climate scientist, who was part of a team that shared a Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore, often asked students whether the present generation owed anything to future generations in terms of the environment it leaves behind.
Students usually agreed that their grandchildren deserved an Earth free of the worst impacts of climate change. But when Weaver asked whether they voted, they replied their votes didn't count or that politicians were all corrupt.
"You have the power to change the system," he remembers telling students. "If you're not engaged in it, you have no one to blame but yourself."
But Weaver could only say those words for so many years without taking action himself.
He had spent decades contributing to science that proved climate change was real and it was primarily human-caused. As part of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, he'd authored multiple reports that showed clear scientific consensus on the issue.
Weaver had advised former Liberal premier Gordon Campbell on his groundbreaking climate plan, which included Canada's first carbon tax. But he watched as politicians from all sides attacked the plan.
When he was asked a fourth time to run by former Green leader Jane Sterk, Weaver said yes.
"I said, 'OK, Jane, I'll run. The reason why I'll run is not because I have this idea of being a career politician. I'll run because I have to practice what I preach.' "
He didn't expect to win in Oak Bay-Gordon Head in 2013, but he became the first Green elected to the B.C. legislature. He is a prolific writer of private member's bills that have sometimes attracted Premier Christy Clark's support, including a proposal to ban mandatory high heels for restaurant servers.
Although he doesn't see politics as a career path and has called for term limits for legislature members, Weaver has a knack for the political game. Despite leading a third-place party, he's managed to grab a disproportionate amount of media attention.
Weaver's friends say he is unusual in politics because he makes decisions based on evidence rather than on partisanship.
Weaver, 56, is on leave from the University of Victoria. He's authored 16 scientific papers since he was elected.
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Castanet is running profiles on all three of B.C.'s main party leaders:
Check out the BC Election 2017 page for full election coverage.
Thirty-five educators from the United States and Canada will explore some of the worlds marvels as fellows of the Lindbald Expeditions National Geographic Grosvenor Teacher Fellow Program , a national fellowship program for teachers committed to geographic education.
The finalists were announced last month, after more than 500 teachers applied with responses on how they will further their students understanding about the planet and challenge them to think critically about generating solutions for a healthier, more sustainable future.
The program is designed to give teachers opportunities to learn alongside environmental and geographic specialists on expeditions to the Canadian High Artic, Antarctica, Southeast Alaska, Svalbard, Iceland, Greenland, or the Galapagos Islands, so that they may incorporate their field-based experiences into their own instruction and professional communities.
Wendi Pillars, a frequent contributing writer for Education Week Teacher from the Center of Teaching Quality Collaboratory and an English-as-a-Second-Language teacher at Jordan-Matthews High School in Siler City, N.C., is one of the selected teachers.
Pillars will take part in an 11-day expedition to Norways Arctic Svalbard, which she described as the land of the ice bears and home to the midnight sun, arctic flora, fauna, and all sorts of Nordic magic of yore. (Fun fact: There are actually more polar bears than people in Svalbard!)
Pillars has taught in Czech Republic, Norway, England, Nepal, and the Philippines. She said her experience abroad has taught her how to understand cultural differences and to stop and observe from a place of curiosity, which she encourages her students to practice.
Theres definitely an interdisciplinary aspect with global education. Global perspectives offer students different viewpoints to learn about different cultures, Pillars said.
She will be traveling in June with three other teachers, naturalists, and Lindbalt-National Geographic photographers aboard the National Geographic Explorer, the partnerships ice-class vessel and expedition ship. The entire cohort gathered at National Geographic headquarters in Washington for a three-day conference in March to meet and learn from naturalists, scientists, researchers, and past fellows in pre-expedition workshops and training.
It was wonderful to be around a diverse group of educators. Some were formal educators and others were informal, like zookeepers and tour guidesall of these different perspectives, Pillars said. Just being around teachers who are also looking for new ways to think about and incorporate global education into classrooms was wonderful.
Teachers on each expedition are provided with a box of tech tools, like 360 cameras and GoPros, to use with guidance from a certified photo instructor from the program. That way, teachers can show their students landscapes, wildlife, and footage of their travels.
Fellows make a two-year commitment to National Geographics education program and are also expected to engage with the community in some outreach of their choosing.
For her community outreach, Pillars will be offering professional development for teachers in her district to teach them how to better integrate global education into their classrooms.
I always think theres a danger of separating certain skills in different classes because then its easy to pawn off the responsibility and say that global education will happen in that class, Pillars added. In actuality it would be far more impactful for students to see and understand the interdisciplinary connections within different content areas. I think it will help teachers to reframe their content at a time when its vital to rethink what we are teaching, to reconsider what will hold the greatest value for our students in their futures.
Through her adventures, Pillars hopes her students catch the bug of curiosity.
Our school has a high percentage of English-language learners, and their ability to travel freely is limited, she said. For many of them, this type of travel is an idea they would have never even entertained. My goal is to open any window I can for them into what our world holds, and ideally, plant seeds of wonder for further exploration.
She also hopes that this opportunity will help all of her students learn how to think more deeply about the world around them.
The idea of an authentic audience pervades my instructionstudents understand that the work they do is not just for my eyes, but to teach others in some way, Pillars said. We speak to experts via Skype to clarify information, we have written books to teach elementary students and produced videos for the community on different topics, as examples. Doing this helps foster the idea that learning is meant to be applied, to take action in some way.
Image by Flickr user Christopher Michel , licensed under Creative Commons ; headshot provided by Pillars
Photo: Getty Images
A Nanaimo man who is part of a Block Watch group may have thwarted a break in to his own home.
Jason Grant was returning to his Brookfield Drive home on April 7 when he saw a man at the side of his house.
I initially thought he might be a door-to-door salesperson, or dropping off fliers, said Grant, who casually asked the man what he was doing and was told, "I thought Ryan lived here."
Grant assured the stranger there was no Ryan and watched as the man walked away. He immediately called police, who quickly located the individual.
The man is well known to Nanaimo and Lower Mainland police, was on probation for various break and enters. Officers didn't have sufficient grounds to arrest him, but did ensure he left the area.
Block Watch is a free, community-based crime-prevention program where neighbourhoods take a proactive approach to crime by forming a communication chain between residents.
Vernon and Kelowna both have block watch programs.
Photo: Thinkstock.com
After decades as a marijuana renegade, British Columbia is eagerly anticipating the federal government's bill legalizing marijuana.
Growing pot has become a backyard tradition in B.C., and politicians, entrepreneurs and ordinary citizens are convinced marijuana offers unprecedented economic, social and health opportunities as Ottawa gets ready to introduce its legislation.
Vancouver-based Tantalus Labs, which grows medical marijuana in greenhouses, released a report this month that said the industry could create 15,000 jobs in B.C.
It said B.C.'s illegal marijuana market provides 40 per cent of Canada's black market and is worth $2.7 billion, with 85 per cent of that going to organized crime.
Dan Sutton, executive director at Tantalus, said "B.C. bud is a household name, globally. We have a storied cultural history associated with cannabis and it's time for us to leverage that brand."
None of B.C.'s provincial political parties have touted marijuana legalization in the May 9 election campaign.
NDP Leader John Horgan said he supports legalization. "I've been thinking about it a lot," he said in a recent interview. "We need to be prepared here in B.C."
Horgan said he's met with the B.C. Government Service Employees Union about marijuana sales. The union has 4,000 members at government-run liquor stores and provincial liquor distribution outlets. He's also met with operators of private beer and wine stores, pharmacies, marijuana dispensaries and craft beer brewers.
"We need to find a way, a (sales and distribution) model that, I think, is a hybrid of all those things," Horgan said.
Liberal Leader Christy Clark said she has three concerns about marijuana once it becomes legal: she wants organized crime out of the business, assurances that legal marijuana is safe and of high quality, and that it's kept away from children.
Clark said in an interview last week she doesn't want people to believe that there are no risks associated with smoking pot because the government has legalized it.
Green Leader Andrew Weaver said the Greens will support marketing opportunities for B.C. craft marijuana growers.
"We will fight very hard to ensure that the big multinationals do not step in and take up the market," he said.
Photo: CTV
Two of six teens were thrown from their vehicle in a violent crash in Vancouver's Shaughnessy neighbourhood, Wednesday.
Their Mazda 5 struck a tree about 3:30 p.m., causing severe damage to the vehicle and sending the engine flying into a nearby fence.
One of the teens was ejected through the rear window, and all six were sent to hospital with varying degrees of injury.
Police say only two were wearing seatbelts.
None of the injuries are believed to be life threatening.
with files from CTV Vancouver
Photo: CTV
A construction worker died Wednesday after a fall at a Surrey job site.
The workplace accident happened about 4 p.m. at a mansion under construction on the 3100 block of 137A Street.
The victim was taken to hospital, but died from injuries sustained in the fall, according to WorkSafe BC.
The worker is believed to be a man in his fifties.
with files from CTV Vancouver
Photo: The Canadian Press
While tensions between his country and the United States appeared to be escalating rapidly, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made a high-profile appearance in Pyongyang on Thursday, not to denounce Washington but to cut a ceremonial ribbon to mark the opening of a new highrise district.
With more than 100,000 people gathered in a huge rally to mark the event, Kim stood front and centre on a red-carpeted stage to cut the ribbon.
The event was part of the run-up to the 105th anniversary of the birth of national founder Kim Il Sung, which falls on Saturday and is North Korea's most important holiday.
Nothing official has been announced, but a large-scale military parade is expected Saturday.
Tensions in the region have risen with the dispatch of a U.S. aircraft carrier to the area and the deployment of thousands of U.S. and South Korean troops, tanks and other weaponry for their biggest-ever joint military exercises. Pyongyang has warned of war if it sees any signs of aggression from south of the Demilitarized Zone.
Life in the North's capital, however, has been outwardly quite normal over the past week, with residents turning out each day to prepare for their parts in mass events such as the parade, synchronized card displays or dancing parties in public plazas.
North Korea also has a history of connecting landmark construction projects to important political dates. The most recent previous example is another new street, Mirae Street, which was built in time for the 65th anniversary in 2015 of the founding of North Korea's ruling Worker's Party.
Pyongyang has invited a large contingent of foreign media to cover the events, and the modern and shiny new residential street is clearly one of the places they most wanted the foreigners to see.
The sprawling development project also includes Pyongyang's tallest apartments, at 70 stories tall.
Motorists are being advised snow tires are still needed if you are travelling higher elevation provincial highways today.
Snow is falling on the Okanagan Connector, Highway 1 through Rogers Pass and Highway 3 from Salmo to Creston.
Snow accumulations up to five centimetres can be expected through the morning and into the early afternoon.
Expect rain or wet flurries later in the day as temperatures at higher elevations warm up.
More flurries can be expected in the evening and overnight.
DriveBC is also warning Highway 3 will be closed from 12:30 p.m. to 2 p.m. for avalanche control in both directions 30 kilometres west of Creston for 27 kilometres.
Photo: Contributed
It's a purr-fect political product for those who want their pet to take a swipe at B.C. Premier Christy Clark.
Politikats is a company founded by a University of B.C alumni that makes a line of politically inclined cat scratching posts of global leaders. They have created a scratching post for Canadian cats who loves B.C. politics.
"Politikats, which mostly focused on world leaders, like Putin, Trump, and Netanyahu, didnt have to look far from home to find its newest model for cat owners who like to let their felines literally take a swipe at leaders whose policies incite strong opinions, says the company.
The one-of-a-kind, handcrafted cat scratching post took more than 140 hours to make and will be auctioned off one day before the May 9 election, with proceeds going to support a grassroots entrepreneurship initiative for First Nations youth on Vancouver Island.
Clarks head was hand-carved in clay, cast in a mould, and entirely handpainted. Her body was 3-D-printed and hand-wrapped in sisal rope. The B.C. premier stands atop a luxurious, red velvet carpeted base.
Photo: The Canadian Press
British Columbia's New Democrats have unveiled their election platform, forecasting three years of balanced budgets coupled with big spending promises for affordable childcare and relief for commuters in the Lower Mainland.
The NDP expects to reverse a Liberal tax cut to the top two per cent of earners, as well as introduce a housing speculation tax and a one-per-cent increase to the corporate tax rate.
Draining $500 million from what the NDP call Premier Christy Clark's liquefied natural gas "fantasy fund" will be used to eliminate tolls on two of the Lower Mainland's busiest bridges over three years.
A speculation tax of two per cent is predicted to raise $200 million a year and apply to all property owners who don't pay income tax in B.C.
In a statement, Liberal candidate Mike de Jong says there's no way for the NDP to balance the budget, which he describes as reckless.
The NDP is hoping to upset B.C. Liberal hopes for a fifth straight election victory when voters head to the polls on May 9.
Photo: Contributed
A winning ticket sold in Coquitlam will be making someones day a lot brighter after winning big on Wednesday's Lotto 6-49 draw.
The lone winning ticket is worth $9.3 million.
On that same draw, another ticket sold in Burnaby matched five winning numbers plus the bonus number drawn to win over $100,000.
All lottery prize winners have 52 weeks from the draw date printed on their ticket to come forward to claim their prize.
Photo: CTV
UPDATED: 2:35 p.m.
British Columbia's New Democrats are promising three years of balanced budgets while also reining in auto insurance rates and BC Ferries fares if they win the provincial election.
The NDP expects to finance its campaign commitments by reversing a Liberal tax cut to people who earn more than $150,000 a year, hiking the corporate tax rate and putting a price on housing speculation.
"It's affordable. It makes sense. It's fully costed," NDP Leader John Horgan told supporters Thursday as he released his party's platform at a restaurant in Coquitlam.
The NDP says it will phase out medical service premiums and eliminate interest on student loans if it wins the May 9 election.
A $500-million prosperity fund that was supposed to consist of revenue from liquefied natural gas earnings, which Horgan calls Premier Christy Clark's "fantasy fund," will be used to eliminate tolls on two of the Lower Mainland's busiest bridges over the next three years.
"There are no tolls in Kelowna. There are no tolls on the Sea-to-Sky Highway. Why should there be tolls for people who live south of the Fraser River?" Horgan asked about the Port Mann and Golden Ears bridges.
The NDP would increase the corporate tax rate by one point, to 12 per cent, which Horgan said would raise funds while keeping B.C. competitive. Horgan said he wouldn't change a Liberal plan to reduce the small business tax.
Runaway housing prices have been an issue in parts of British Columbia and the NDP would bring in a speculation tax that would apply to all out-of-province property owners. The two-per-cent tax on a property's assessed value would give the government $200 million a year in additional revenue, the party said.
"If they're not paying taxes in British Columbia, they're not growing our province," Horgan said.
The platform also includes plans for $10-a-day childcare and an annual $400 rebate for renters.
While operating expenses are predicted to produce small surpluses over the next three years, the New Democrats expect to add $7 billion to the province's debt over five years through capital expenditures aimed at creating 96,000 jobs.
Illinois Men Pledge Allegiance to ISIS, Get Arrested
The Department of Justice announced the arrest of two Illinois men, Joseph D. Jones and Edward Schimenti, who allegedly pledged their allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and advocated their support for violent extremism on social media.
Jones, also known as "Yusuf Abdulhaqq," and Schimenti, also known as "Abdul Wali," were charged with conspiring and attempting to provide material support and resources to ISIS, which has been designated as a terrorist organization. And their support allegedly went beyond just watching some videos and posting photos online.
Conspiracy
According to the criminal complaint, Jones and Schimenti befriended three individuals they believed were fellow ISIS devotees in 2015. As it turns out, two of the individuals were undercover FBI agents and the third was cooperating with law enforcement in their sting operation. Jones and Schimenti discussed their devotion and commitment to ISIS with their newfound friends, according to the DOJ, and even "shared photographs of themselves holding the ISIS flag at the Illinois Beach State Park in north suburban Zion." Schimenti allegedly said he wanted to see the ISIS flag "on top of the White House."
Providing Material Support
Perhaps the most damning of the allegations, however, accuse Jones and Schimenti of procuring cell phones for use in explosive devices and aiding what they believed to be their friend's trip to join ISIS in Syria:
According to the complaint, last month, the pair furnished several cellular phones to the cooperating source, believing they would be used to detonate explosive devices in ISIS attacks overseas. On April 7, Jones and Schimenti drove the cooperating source to O'Hare International Airport in Chicago with the understanding that the source would be traveling to Syria to join and fight with ISIS. Schimenti told the source to "drench that land with they, they blood."
The pair are now facing at least 20 years in prison, if convicted.
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Photo: CTV
The University of British Columbia has approved a new sexual misconduct policy that will create centralized offices at its Vancouver and Okanagan campuses to prevent and respond to sexual violence.
All public universities in B.C. must have policies by May 19, but UBC began working on a policy several months before Premier Christy Clark's government passed legislation last year.
The policy was accepted by the board of governors Thursday, will take effect in about a month, and cover a broad range of misconduct including sexual assault, harassment and stalking.
The university will hire directors of investigations to review reports and refer them to external investigators, who will have 60 days to complete their work.
Until now, sex assault reports have often been resolved informally with a few cases advancing to a non-academic misconduct process where allegations were judged by a panel of students.
An independent review of UBC's handling of multiple reports about a PhD student in 2015 found that while staff acted in good faith, miscommunications and an unclear process led to delays.
Photo: The Canadian Press FOhio State Attorney General Mike DeWine, right, alongside Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader
Fear in the community is holding back information about the unsolved massacre of eight family members in southern Ohio nearly a year ago, investigators said Thursday.
Some of that fear is of retaliation by the killers, and some is fear of witnesses incriminating themselves over their own criminal activity likely involving drugs unrelated to the slayings, investigators said.
"There is absolutely no doubt in my mind or in any investigator's mind that there's information that may be part truth, but not all the way true," said Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader.
Witnesses who come forward will be treated fairly, said Attorney General Mike DeWine, whose office is leading the investigation. The focus is on the homicide, not those individuals' crimes, he said.
On April 22, 2016, investigators found seven adults and a teenage boy from the Rhoden family shot to death at four homes near Piketon, in southern Ohio. A newborn, another baby and a young child were unharmed.
One of the victims, Christopher Rhoden Sr., operated a commercial marijuana growing operation on his property "with the purpose of distributing the marijuana," according to DeWine's office.
Reader on Thursday pleaded for more donations to the reward fund, stuck at $10,000 for several months, for information leading to a conviction.
The sheriff hinted that the victims' involvement in drug crime may be holding people back from donating.
"These are human beings, regardless of what they did for a living, regardless if they live in rural Pike County," said Reader, who grew emotional at times talking about the "complete devastation" of the killings.
Both DeWine and Reader said they expect an arrest someday, with DeWine saying "significant progress" has been made and the case is still his office's top priority. DeWine expressed frustration that he couldn't make public all the information investigators have gathered.
"We are going to find you. We are going to arrest you. And justice will be done," DeWine said, addressing the killers.
Despite a massive investigation, no arrests have been made and no suspects identified.
Photo: Twitter
Almost a month into spring and winter seems unwilling to relax its grip on parts of British Columbia.
Environment Canada says a snowfall warning is in effect for the entire Peace River region of northeastern B.C.
Up to 10 centimetres of snow is forecast Thursday, with as much as 15 centimetres closer to the Rocky Mountains.
The weather office predicts a second wave of snow will blanket the region Thursday night.
Special weather statements are also in effect for northern sections of the Chilcotin region of central B.C. and for areas around Fort Nelson in the province's northeastern corner.
Environment Canada says as much as 20 centimetres of snow could come down northeast of Fort Nelson before Saturday.
Photo: CTV
President Donald Trump is sending North Korea a message, calling it a "problem" country that "will be taken care of."
Trump made the comment after he was asked about the U.S. military's decision to drop the largest non-nuclear weapon it has ever used in combat on an area of eastern Afghanistan.
He was asked whether dropping the bomb sends a message to North Korea as it continues to pursue nuclear and other weapons, Trump replied it makes no difference.
"North Korea is a problem, the problem will be taken care of," Trump said.
Trump wants to work with China to help control North Korea, but over the past weeks he has signalled a willingness to handle the issue alone.
Trump and China's president discussed North Korea at a meeting last week in Florida.
with files from CTV
Photo: The Canadian Press
President Donald Trump is sending North Korea a message, calling it a "problem" country that "will be taken care of."
Trump made the comment after he was asked about the U.S. military's decision to drop the largest non-nuclear weapon it has ever used in combat on an area of eastern Afghanistan.
Read more.
Photo: The Canadian Press
A misdirected airstrike by the U.S.-led coalition earlier this week killed 18 allied fighters battling the Islamic State group in northern Syria, the U.S. military said Thursday.
U.S. Central Command said coalition aircraft were given the wrong co-ordinates by their partner forces, the predominantly-Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces, for the strike on Tuesday that was intended to target IS militants south of their Tabqa stronghold, near the extremists' de facto capital, Raqqa. The strike hit an SDF position instead.
Several nations have lent their air power to the U.S.-led coalition to defeat the Islamic State group, and it wasn't clear which air force was behind the errant strike.
The SDF acknowledged the strike, saying a number of its fighters were killed and wounded. On Thursday, the group held funerals for 17 of its fighters in the border town of Tal al-Abyad, the SDF-linked Hawar news agency said, though it did not say whether they were killed in the friendly fire incident.
An activist-run group, Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, said three days of mourning had been declared for the town. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 25 SDF fighters were killed in the last two days of battle.
The SDF, meanwhile, announced the launch of a new phase of its campaign to retake Raqqa. The Kurdish fighters, with U.S.-led air and ground support, have surrounded Tabqa, some 40 kilometres (25 miles) southwest of the city and are working to clear Islamic State militants out of Jalab Valley, north of Raqqa.
The SDF says it wants to isolate Raqqa before attacking it. Its closest position is less than eight kilometres (five miles) northeast of the city. But the countryside south of Raqqa is still under IS control.
Meanwhile, President Bashar Assad said a chemical weapons attack on a rebel-held town in northern Idlib province last week that was widely blamed on his forces was a "fabrication."
In Washington, State Department spokesman Mark Toner called Assad's comments "an attempt by him to throw up false flags, create confusion."
United Airlines Passenger Dragged Off Flight Lawyers Up
Dr. David Dao was one of four passengers on a United Airlines flight that was recently forced to give up his seat for UA employees. The airline claims that the flight was overbooked and it needed four passengers to give up seats for employees that needed to be at the plane's destination for work.
After Dr. Dao boarded, while in his seat, he was asked to exit the plane. When he refused, stating that he had patients to see the next day, police were called, and he was forcibly removed from his seat, and literally dragged down the plane's aisle and off the plane. The incident was captured by cell phone video by a few passengers, who posted the videos to social media.
Social Response
United Airlines has been embroiled in a public relations nightmare as a result of their corporate policies that resulted in Dr. Dao being battered and physically dragged off a flight while bleeding. The airline quickly attempted to defend their actions. However, the social media backlash seemingly caused the airline to do a 180, issuing an apology and a statement asserting that police will never be used again to remove a passenger from an overbooked flight.
Despite the public apology and claims of corrective action, Dr. Dao has retained attorneys to potentially pursue legal claims.
Legal Claims
Although the intensity of the online backlash has subsided slightly, the passenger has retained an attorney. In addition to potential claims for injury against the airline, there are potentially claims against the police department and officer for excessive force.
Furthermore, in the aftermath of the incident, many media sources started researching Dr. Dao's background. However, media outlets may have published rather private, personal and potentially embarrassing information about Dr. Dao, which could cause him financial damages.
As a result of these published articles about Dr. Dao, he may have strong claims for defamation against the media outlets that failed to check their sources and reported inaccurate information. Additionally, Dr. Dao could have claims for invasion of privacy.
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Put Down Your Tablets and Smartphones and Start Using a Desktop PC
For the past ten years or so, we've been careening to a Star Trek-like future, where all our computing is done in a simple, hand-held device. Smartphones let us bill hours via apps, tablets let us port word processors around as easily as a magazine.
But if you want to experience the future, you might want to look to the near past. The desktop PC, that humming, churning plastic box from the '90s, has suddenly jumped to the forefront of innovation.
Put Away Your Phone, Grandpa
As laptops, tablets, and smartphones have taken over an increasing share of the computing market, desktops have been largely left behind -- until recently.
"With nothing left to lose, desktop makers are rethinking what a stationary computer is good for," the Wall Street Journal's Geoffrey Fowler reports. "Now you can draw on them, stack them in modular pieces, or use them to surround your head in pixels." The future of desktop computing is far removed from the boxy, budget PC running Windows 7 in a sad, florescent-lit office. Hell, so is the present.
HP, for example, has a PC with a massive, curved screen. Using it is a bit like computing on an IMAX theater, according to Fowler. Microsoft, now that it's moved into hardware, has released an elegant, though expensive, touch screen PC.
Some computers are looking more like home decorations than PCs. The Pavilion Wave, for example, resembles a small speaker or sculpture, allowing it to disappear into the background, while still offering decent computing power. And it costs about as much as an iPad.
Should You Upgrade to a PC?
The current PC evolution is fueled by several well-timed developments, according to Fowler. First, large screens are cheap, and if there's one place where PCs outperform their hand-held competitors, it's on screen space. Second, Windows 10 has allowed programmers to integrate touch and other inputs more easily. The cloud, too, has changed PCs, allowing them to become smaller and sleeker as the tough computing gets handled in a server farm somewhere in Iceland.
What's this mean for legal professionals? You might not need a touch screen or a sleekly designed computer (though they're both cool), but almost every lawyer could use more screen space. Now you can get it, without having to clutter up your office with two or three separate monitors.
These new PCs' huge screens can let you multitask with ease, spreading docs and windows and projects across your screen like you might have once scattered files across your desk.
Does this mean you have to run out and buy a new PC, or give up your beloved tablet? Of course not. But if you're in the market, now is a good time to experiment with some of the personal computer's evolving, cutting-edge forms.
Want information on effective advertising? Let the experts at FindLaw's Lawyer Marketing give you a hand.
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Sandra Bullock and Bryan Randall selected a highland as their spot for a vacation in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. They were seen to enjoy the trip for a romantic getaway, and the wedding is expected to come soon.
Bullock and Randall were locked arm-in-arm as they walked into the car on the weekend vacation according to E! News. They went for a shopping at local Whole Foods store and looked very relax. She donned a plaid jacket and ripped jeans paired with Uggs boots, while her lover looked equally casual with a t-shirt, a hooded jacket, and a jacket as three layers with a beanie hat.
"They were both smiling and having a good time," a local citizen describe the celebrity couple. The citizens in the resort city in Wyoming can see how Bullock is very happy with him around. Furthermore, Randall is able to get close to her children.
A friend of hers told Daily Mail that Randall is like a father to her kids. Bullock has two adopted children Louis and Laila, aged seven and five. While Randall has one daughter Skylar, who is now 22-year-old. She was estranged from her father since she was a baby.
Randall and Bullock currently stay in her mansion in Beverly Hills with Louis and Laila. Bullock also took Skylar to live with them. Skylar is reported to be happy with her two adopted siblings. It seems the wedding between Randall and Bullock will come soon.
Since they started the relationship, Randall and Bullock stay low from the spotlight and never share their picture in the social media. This made it difficult for the media and fans to keep track on them, but one certain thing is that she has found happiness with him. Watch the exclusive photos from E! News as the couple spent their weekend in Wyoming below:
Fiji: clinker shipment unloaded for Pacific Cement Ltd
13 April 2017
The vessel MV Festival, carrying 24,000t of clinker for Pacific Cement Ltd, has reached Lami Town, Fiji. The method of discharge has been changed due to a High Court ruling, meaning trucks must now be loaded in a barge and the clinker unloaded into the trucks onboard said barge. As this process takes longer than the previous method, the vessels crew had to apply for visa extensions, which were approved.
The Suva High Court had banned Pacific Cement from offloading clinker from the barges to Trucks in Lami as it did not have a permit to do so.
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Iraq and Pakistan discuss co-operation for cement industry
13 April 2017
Iraq and Pakistan have discussed close mutual cooperation in the areas of cement, trade and commerce. While meeting Shamim Ahmed Firpo, president of the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) on 12 April, Ambassador of Iraq in Pakistan, Dr Ali Yasin Mohammed Karim, said that some factories including 18 cement plants were available in Iraq, but they were not working properly as compared to Pakistans advanced industrial units and infrastructure.
"As factories in Iraq need improvements, therefore the private and public sectors of Iraq and Pakistan can undertake joint ventures in all the sectors of the economy including cement industry.
We prefer private sector's joint ventures which are quicker as compared to joint ventures at public sector level," he added.
Commenting on China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the Iraqi Ambassador said that Iraq was considering establishing gas terminals at Port Qasim and Gwadar worth billions of dollars to facilitate meeting the energy requirement of several industrial sectors, including the cement industry.
Attock Cement and Lucky Cement have already formed joint ventures with Iraqi entrepreneurs for cement production.
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This blog is looking for wisdom, to have and to share. It is also looking for other rare character traits like good humor, courage, and honor. It is not an easy road, because all of us fall short. But God is love, forgiveness and grace. Those who believe in Him and repent of their sins have the promise of His Holy Spirit to guide us and show us the Way.
Without any forethought or preparation, Christopher Knight walked into the Maine woods in 1986 and lived there in complete solitude for the next 27 years, subsisting on what he was able to steal from local cabins. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll tell the story of the North Pond hermit, one man's attempt to divorce himself completely from civilization.
We'll also look for coded messages in crosswords and puzzle over an ineffective snake.
Show notes
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CNN is reporting that President Trump is now implementing the "bomb the shit out of them" portion of his campaign promises.
The U.S. bombed Afghanistan Thursday. The so-called 'mother of all bombs," a 21,600-pound munition, was dropped on an area identified as an ISIS base. The U.S. military is currently assessing damage, and no information has been provided on casualties.
Is Trump sending a message to North Korea? Couldn't the sending of messages be more conservatively accomplished with a witty tweet?
FIRST ON CNN: The US has dropped its largest non-nuclear bomb in combat on Afghanistan https://t.co/ET0PLACzOe CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) April 13, 2017
Trump implementing "bomb the s*it out of them" https://t.co/lIQXuNQVRt John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) April 13, 2017
JUST IN: U.S. military bombs Afghanistan targeting Islamic State caves Reuters World (@ReutersWorld) April 13, 2017
US drops largest non-nuclear bomb in Afghanistan battlefield, military sources say. Watch CNN: https://t.co/ltOn6zeTH5 CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) April 13, 2017
It's the 1st time a MOAB was used in the battlefield, officials say; it was developed during the Iraq War but never used in the battlefield CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) April 13, 2017
DOD: A US MC-130 dropped a GBU-43 with 11 tons of TNT on a series of caves targeting #ISIS in Achin, #Afghanistan today at 7pm local time. Kristina Wong (@kristina_wong) April 13, 2017
MOAB also known as 'Mother of all bombs" a 21,600 lbs munition; dropped Thursday & US military currently assessing damage David Wright (@DavidWright_CNN) April 13, 2017
NEW: The U.S. has dropped a 21,000 lb. bomb on ISIS fighters in Afghanistan. Largest US weapon outside of a nuclear bomb @ckubeNBC reports. Tom Winter (@Tom_Winter) April 13, 2017
The GBU-43/B is called the "Massive Ordnance Air Blast" or its nickname, the "Mother of All Bombs." The US's largest non-nuclear bomb. https://t.co/UBe2n8eKBd Kristina Wong (@kristina_wong) April 13, 2017
DOD: First time this bomb has been used in combat. This has been in the works for months. No assessments of civilian deaths. https://t.co/ScC1HRKO1m Kristina Wong (@kristina_wong) April 13, 2017
Bowalley Road Rules
The blogosphere tends to be a very noisy, and all-too-often a very abusive, place. I intend Bowalley Road to be a much quieter, and certainly a more respectful, place.
So, if you wish your comments to survive the moderation process, you will have to follow the Bowalley Road Rules.
These are based on two very simple principles:
Courtesy and Respect.
Comments which are defamatory, vituperative, snide or hurtful will be removed, and the commentators responsible permanently banned.
Anonymous comments will not be published. Real names are preferred. If this is not possible, however, commentators are asked to use a consistent pseudonym.
Comments which are thoughtful, witty, creative and stimulating will be most welcome, becoming a permanent part of the Bowalley Road discourse.
However, I do add this warning. If the blog seems in danger of being over-run by the usual far-Right suspects, I reserve the right to simply disable the Comments function, and will keep it that way until the perpetrators find somewhere more appropriate to vent their collective spleen.
Entertainment / Music
by Staff Reporter
A 24-year-old Bulawayo based musician, Dama, has vowed his 8 to 4 job as law firm clerk will never stop him from creating music.Dama, born Muziwandile Khumalo, hails from Tsholotsho.Recently Dama told Sunday News that he dreams of making music his full time job."I grew up around people who appreciated music. My brothers were very musical people and they taught me to play the guitar. It was not until 2009 when I moved to Bulawayo that I realised how much that had influenced me, I realised I wanted music to be my full-time job," said Dama.Dama said with his musical background he could have chosen any genre of music but since people of Bulawayo love house music, he had to sing for the people."I try not to make my music monotonous, I keep it diverse, soulful and versatile while it still remains within the confines of house music. That way, people who do not necessarily enjoy house music are still able to enjoy my music," he said.In December last year Dama released "Ngena Wena".Ngena Wena is a joint effort from Dama and Melloworks Studios for production as well as from Shirati Drums. The track, like all of Dama's work, is distributed for free on social media and other online platforms.
The Tennessee Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution will convene their 112th State Conference at the Franklin Marriott Cool Springs Conference Center April 20-23.
The Chief John Ross Chapter of Chattanooga will be will be attending the Conference and taking part in workshops, business sessions, committee meetings, and social functions. Honored guests will include the State Regents of Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, and North Carolina.
Workshop topics include Preserving Our History with Myers Brown of the Tennessee State Library & Archives; Creating Family Archives and Beyond with Pamela Byers of Byers Genealogy Research Services; and Leaving a Legacy with Carolyn Bendall, a Total Image Consultant.
The speaker at the opening night session will be Dr. Michael Birdwell, history professor at Tennessee Tech and renowned Sgt. Alvin C. York historian. Speakers at the Saturday events include Rich Meyer, the director of Alumni and DAR Relations at Hillside School in Hillside, Ma.; Patricia Ann Pierce and Yvonne Wood, both members of the Tennessee Woman Suffrage Monument Board; and Anne Byrn, local cookbook author, who will speak about the history of cake baking in America.
Chapter regents, including the Chief John Ross Regent Jessica Raz Mines Dumtru, will be honored at the Chapter Regents Banquet.
Virginia R. Petty, 89, of Chattanooga, passed away peacefully on Wednesday, April 12, 2017 at her home.
A lifelong resident of Chattanooga, Virginia was loving wife, mother and friend to all she met, a life well lived. She has gone to be with her Savior, now sheltered in the arms of God.
Virginia married her high school sweetheart on June 28, 1947. She graduated from Central High School Class of 1945, and for 20 years she served on the Planning Committee for class reunions. For a brief period in the mid 1980s she worked for J.C. Penney at the East Gate location in the ladies dress and coat department. She was well known for her trade mark hair styles worn over the years as times changed, meticulously well kept, and for her style, grace and elegance. Virginias kindness and loving spirit has blessed many souls over the years, she will be forever missed by her family, friends and loved ones. A true lady always knows when to leave.
Virginia was preceded in death by her parents, Ralph A. and Kitty T. Roberts, and sister, Betty Joyce Hasty.
She is survived by her loving husband of 70 years, Homer T. Petty, sons, Michael and Darrell, former daughter-in-law, Cindy Holton, grand-dog, Jenny, nephew, Mark (Penny) Hasty and his son, Chase.
A graveside memorial will be held at the Chattanooga National Cemetery on Monday, April 24, at 11:30 am.
The family would like to express their deep gratitude to Hospice of Chattanooga and her wonderful caregivers Nurse Kim, CNAs Tonya, Ruby, Amissa.
Please share your memories of Virginia with the family at www.chattanoogaeastchapel.com.
Arrangements are by Chattanooga Funeral Home, Crematory and Florist, 404 S. Moore Road, East Ridge, Tn. 37412.
News / International
by AP
Dakar - Senegal says at least 20 people have been killed in a fire while attending a Muslim spiritual retreat in the eastern part of the country.Government spokesperson Seydou Gueye said on Thursday that several others were injured in the fire on Wednesday in Medina Gounass village.President Macky Sall offered condolences to victims' families. He said the interior ministry would visit the site on Thursday.Senegalese national TV reported that strong winds and makeshift shelters allowed the fire to spread, though the cause of the fire was not immediately known.Thousands of Muslim men from Senegal, Guinea and other West African countries meet annually in Medina Gounass for the spiritual retreat.
Representatives from IBM Watson, pictured in its housing case, will be on hand at the Chicago Machine Learning Venture Capital Summiton April 19. (Andrew Spear / The Washington Post)
Inventors, major companies and venture capitalists will unite next week for the first Chicago Machine Learning Venture Capital Summit.
Representatives from Google, IBM Watson, Microsoft and some of Chicago's top investment firms will be among the speakers at April 19 event.
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Cayse Llorens, founder and managing director of the summit, believes the technology has the potential to change the way people interact with everything from email and music to financial planning.
"We want to see that spark at this summit that creates the next Uptake, the next Tempus, the next Google, the next IBM Watson," said Llorens, who's also studying venture capital at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business. "All the key players are going to be in a room to do that."
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Three local startups will also face off in a pitch competition: bSmart, which aims to help diabetics track and predict blood sugar levels; Enodo Score, a predictive analytics platform for commercial real estate; and Heretik, e-discovery software to make the contract review process smarter. All three startups will receive access to TechNexus resources as a prize.
The summit will be held from 5:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. at the Chicago Marriott Downtown, 540 N. Michigan Ave. More than 500 people are expected to attend, Llorens said.
Robert Holly is a freelance writer.
Twitter @robertwadeholly
Josh Chapman, the former CEO of GiveForward, will serve as thefirstchief operating officer for health-tech incubator Matter. (GiveForward photo)
Chicago health-tech incubator Matter has hired Josh Chapman, the former CEO of GiveForward, to serve as its first chief operating officer.
Chapman said he'll focus internally on helping the hub expand, allowing Matter's CEO, Steven Collens , to work with external partners.
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Chapman most recently worked as CEO of Chicago-based GiveForward, a crowdfunding website that focused primarily on medical care. That company was acquired by San Francisco-based YouCares in March; Chapman left the company March 15. Before joining GiveForward, Chapman was vice president of operations at Cars.com.
Collens told Blue Sky at the start of 2017 that a goal was to establish Matter as a presence on the national stage. "We're creating a much more intentional focus on our culture, performance and accountability," he said at the time.
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Chapman said his background with GiveForward, working with patients in need of medical assistance and their families, will bring insight to Matter. The two-year-old health-tech hub, based in the Merchandise Mart, has 20 employees and 200 member companies.
"For me, the opportunity to become a part of the Matter community, a community of health-care innovators who aspire to heroic change, was extremely attractive to me," he said. "My last role, as the CEO of GiveForward, was focused specifically on people going through medical situations, so I learned a lot about health care."
agorden@tronc.com
Twitter @AudreyGorden
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has issued a warning letter to north suburban-based Abbott Laboratories related to battery and cybersecurity problems with heart devices made by a recently acquired company.
The Wednesday letter adds to Abbott's woes over devices. In recent weeks, Abbott's new, dissolvable heart stent also has faced scrutiny over safety concerns.
The letter accuses St. Jude Medical a Minnesota company acquired by Abbott in January of failing to recognize and address problems with the batteries in its implantable defibrillators, which have since been recalled.
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The devices, implanted in the chest, can provide pacing for hearts that beat too slowly and deliver shocks to stop dangerously fast rhythms. Normally the devices alert patients, through a series of vibrations in the chest, months before they need to be replaced. Batteries in some of the devices, however, ran out sooner than expected, giving patients, in some cases, as little as 24 hours' notice before the batteries died.
As of October, two people had died in incidents associated with devices that couldn't deliver needed shocks to the heart because their batteries died early. Other patients reported fainting or dizziness from devices in which the batteries ran out early.
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St. Jude also may have failed to properly investigate and prevent possible cybersecurity issues with its pacemakers and implantable defibrillators, according to the letter.
The FDA issued a notice in January that St. Jude's implantable heart devices are vulnerable to cybersecurity attacks that might allow a third party to control the devices remotely.
The FDA said at the time there hadn't been any reports of patients being harmed because of cybersecurity issues, and St. Jude pledged to "immediately deploy" cybersecurity updates. That FDA notice came less than a week after Abbott acquired St. Jude, though an investment firm first called for a recall of the devices last fall, alleging cybersecurity problems.
"We take these matters seriously, continue to make progress on our corrective actions, will closely review FDA's warning letter, and are committed to fully addressing FDA's concerns," Abbott spokesman Jonathon Hamilton said in a statement Thursday.
In its letter, the FDA said if Abbott didn't promptly correct the violations, its actions could include "seizure, injunction and civil monetary penalties." Some other Abbott devices waiting for regulatory approval might not get approved until the violations are corrected, the FDA said.
Analyst Rick Wise with brokerage and investment banking firm Stifel wrote in a report Thursday that the problems outlined in the FDA letter may be a "lingering concern" for Abbott, though they "are fixable and resolvable given Abbott's considerable manufacturing expertise and some time."
Debbie Wang, a senior equity analyst with Morningstar, said the problems aren't going to sink Abbott but could become an issue if they take too long to resolve. That's partly because any delay in fixing the issues could hold up FDA approval for other Abbott products, she said.
Abbott, for example, has been working to get FDA approval for implantable defibrillators that can safely go through MRI scans.
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"That could be held hostage by the FDA until the company has sufficiently addressed all these concerns," Wang said.
Abbott spokesman Hamilton said in a statement that the company is "evaluating how this may impact anticipated product approvals" from the California facility that the FDA inspected before releasing its letter.
The FDA letter Wednesday followed a rough few weeks for one of Abbott's other devices as well: a dissolvable heart stent called Absorb. The device is used to open blocked heart blood vessels and gradually dissolves in the body.
The stent grabbed attention last summer when it became the first technology of its kind approved in the U.S. But late last month, the FDA wrote a letter to health care providers warning them that patients who received the stent had a higher rate of major heart problems compared with those who received the company's metallic, drug-coated stent. The FDA said it was working with Abbott to conduct additional analyses.
Shortly after that notice, Abbott wrote a letter to doctors in Europe advising them that starting May 31, the devices may only be used in Europe at certain sites that monitor the effects of the devices on patients over time. Last week, regulators in India issued their own alert, asking doctors to report any adverse events with Absorb.
Hamilton said Absorb trials around the world have shown the stent works just as well as metallic, drug-coated stents when implanted properly. He said the data showing a higher rate of heart problems among those with Absorb stents stems from the stents being implanted in too-small blood vessels and not being implanted correctly, he said. He also said that most of the hospitals that use Absorb in Europe will continue to be able to use it under the new guidance.
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Wang, with Morningstar, said she doesn't expect the recent issues with Absorb to have too much of an impact on Abbott, noting that Absorb was always likely to be a niche product with limited use.
lschencker@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @lschencker
The Canada Goose store in SoHo in New York. (Arash Moallemi)
Goodbye, Armani suits. Hello, $900 parkas.
Canada Goose has leased 10,000 square feet in the Park Hyatt Chicago, where the maker of down parkas is planning a rarity: a standalone store.
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The "Arctic luxury apparel" retailer currently has just two stores, which opened in late 2016 in the Yorkdale mall in Toronto, where the company is based, and in New York's SoHo neighborhood.
Now, Canada Goose is planning a two-level store in the Park Hyatt hotel, according to real estate sources.
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The space in the North Michigan Avenue building was previously occupied by a Giorgio Armani store, which relocated to nearby Oak Street in 2015.
The Canada Goose store in Yorkdale Shopping Centre in Toronto. (Arash Moallemi)
Canada Goose's Chicago store will be more than twice the size of its first two shops and is part of an expansion effort by the company, which went public in March on the New York and Toronto stock exchanges.
A Canada Goose spokeswoman declined to comment on plans for Chicago. Retail broker Peter Caruso, a vice president of Jones Lang LaSalle who represented landlord Hyatt Hotels in the lease, declined to comment.
A March 15 regulatory filing listed a 10,188-square-foot "inactive" space in Chicago on a list of Canada Goose's leased facilities, with a lease expiration of June 2027. That appears to be a reference to the future Michigan Avenue store, but the prospectus does not include addresses.
The company sees opportunities for stores in the Mid-Atlantic, Midwest and West regions of the U.S., according to the prospectus. It adds: "In the fall of 2016, we opened our first two retail stores in Toronto and New York City and anticipate opening a select number of additional retail locations where we believe they can operate profitably."
Private-equity firm Bain Capital has a controlling interest in Canada Goose, which raised $255 million in the initial public offering.
Canada Goose was founded in a Toronto warehouse 60 years ago and typically sold coats to rugged outdoor adventurers. In recent years, the brand's circular red logo became ubiquitous in large, cold-weather cities after several celebrities took a liking to the fur-lined parkas.
The Canada Goose store in SoHo in New York. (Arash Moallemi)
The company's fiscal 2016 revenue was $290.8 million.
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So far, most sales have been online or at other retailers' stores. But in its prospectus, the company said it plans to open three new retail stores in fiscal 2018, with a long-term target of having 15 to 20 shops.
rori@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @Ryan_Ori
United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz and two members of his medical team, Dr. Allen Anderson, left, and Dr. Duc Pham, on Jan. 11, 2016. (United Airlines/PRNews Foto)
United Chief Executive Oscar Munoz, who on Jan. 6 had a heart transplant, said Friday that he is headed to his Chicago home from the hospital.
In a letter to employees of the Chicago-based airline, Munoz, who had been in the top job for six weeks when he was felled by a heart attack, said he feels "as strong as ever."
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He credited his medical team at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
"My doctors have been impressed with my progress and foresee a quick recovery," Munoz wrote. "I feel great, and it won't be long before we are working side by side again."
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Meanwhile, he said he expects to participate in key meetings.
"My new heart makes me feel like I've been given a new set of wings," he said.
United has said Munoz is expected to return from medical leave at the end of the first quarter or the beginning of the second quarter. He had a heart attack Oct. 15.
Munoz, 57, also noted that United received its highest customer satisfaction performance for a holiday period in more than three years.
byerak@tribpub.com
Twitter @beckyyerak
The "ringleader" of a yearslong telemarketing scheme must pay at least $65,000 and possibly up to $2.2 million after settling with the Federal Trade Commission in a massive lawsuit.
The consumer protection agency said Thursday that Justin Ramsey, who was responsible for placing millions of unsolicited telemarketing calls to people on the national do-not-call list, will have to pay the full $2.2 million penalty if he and his company are found to have lied about their finances.
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Calling someone whose number is on the national do-not-call registry is illegal for telemarketers unless the recipient has provided his or her explicit, written permission or they have an existing business relationship with the caller.
But as far back as 2012, according to the FTC's lawsuit, Ramsey began collecting phone numbers from websites such as yellowpages.com and 411.com and began calling them in an attempt to sell home security systems.
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The number of calls grew to an enormous scale. In a single week in 2012, Ramsey allegedly placed 1.3 million prerecorded calls, 80 percent of which affected people who were already on the do-not-call list. The range of products Ramsey tried to sell gradually expanded to include "auto warranties, solar products, debt relief services, and vacation and travel packages,'" according to the complaint.
Even after the states of Indiana and Mississippi sued to stop the calls, Ramsey continued. In one case he threw out a document served to him by the Mississippi attorney general's office without reading it, according to the FTC complaint. In an email obtained by the FTC, Ramsey complained about the do-not-call list to a business partner.
The complaint names two other people as defendants: Brian Offner and Christopher Herghelegiu, who were executives of two companies also named in the suit. Both men settled separately with the FTC.
More than 2.4 billion robocalls are placed every month, according to the Federal Communications Commission, which has also taken action to stem the practice. Some are legitimate calls by businesses trying to serve their customers. But many other robocalls such as the kind Ramsey made are illegal. Unsolicited automated messages account for the largest source of consumer complaints to the FCC.
Phone companies have asked the government for greater leeway to block problematic calls before they ever reach consumers. In addition to selling services Americans do not want, robocalls are known to have misled innocent people into scams or fraudulent schemes that impose costs on millions of consumers. Many robocalls originate from overseas, or deliberately mask their location using a technique known as "spoofing."
The settlement now goes to a judge for final approval.
News / National
by Stephen Jakes
Ahead of Zimbabwe's independence on April 18th, Ambassador Harry Thomas Jnr will on April 13th (4 pm Zimbabwe time) participate in a panel discussion on the future of Zimbabwe. The discussion is organized by VOA Africa Division and will be moderated by veteran journalist Blessing Zulu.Ambassador Thomas Jr. started his assignment in Zimbabwe on February 25th 2016 after presenting his credentials to President Robert Mugabe. His assignment to Zimbabwe is his second as a diplomat since the southern African country attained its independence in 1980.He joined the Foreign Service in 1984, and has served as U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines from 2010 to 2013 and to Bangladesh from 2003 to 2005. He also served in the White House as the Director for South Asia at the National Security Council from 2001 to 2002. His other postings include: New Delhi, India; Kaduna, Nigeria; and Lima, Peru. A graduate of the College of the Holy Cross and Columbia University, Ambassador Thomas Jr. also served at Arizona State University as the State Department's Diplomat-in-Residence for the Southwest from 2013 to 2015.After meeting President Mugabe, the top American diplomat pledged "to continue the important work of building strong and respectful relations between" the two countries."We stand by the commitments that we made to the people of Zimbabwe at independence in 1980; to work together to promote democratic institutions, equitable economic growth, public health, and food security," he said at the time. "The United States shares the desires of the people of Zimbabwe, who want to see a peaceful, democratic, and prosperous Zimbabwe that provides for its people and contributes to regional stability."Ambassador Thomas' immediate assignment has included overseeing U.S. government response to the 20152016 El Nino induced droughts and the construction of the New Embassy Campus in Bluffhill Harare. The latter has created more than 850 job opportunities for local Zimbabwean workers and injected more than $30 million dollars into the local economy each year since construction work began. On the humanitarian front, the United States has ensured that humanitarian assistance reaches two million Zimbabweans during the El Nino-induced drought that led to widespread crop failure and left 4.1 million rural Zimbabweans food insecure.During the VOA organized discussion, Ambassador Thomas Jnr. will be joined by Dr. Chipo Dendere, Assistant Professor, Gettysburg College; Dr. Tawuya Katso, Developmental and Social Consultant; and Dr. Rhoderick Machekano, Zimbabwe Diaspora Network North America (ZDNNA) while Amanda Bennett, VOA Director will give the opening remarks.
Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 11 (Redfin)
2141 Ohio St. in Chicago: $1,249,00 Listed on April 5, 2017 This four-bedroom home in Ukrainian Village has luxury-level finishes throughout and includes complete Smart Home controls. The main floor features oversized windows for natural light, an accent wall and ceiling accents, a large kitchen island with a quartz countertop, high-end stainless steel appliances and natural white oak hardwood floors. The second level has a total of three bedrooms and two bathrooms, a stackable washer and dryer hook-up, and a master suite with a spa-inspired bath, and a walk-in closet with a full closet system. The lower level has a fully equipped media room, a full bathroom, a dry bar, a laundry room and a large guest bedroom. The home also includes four outdoor areas, including a deck and pergola above the garage and a rooftop with indoor access. Agent: Al Medina of Redfin, 773-303-6486 To feature your luxury listing of $800,000 or more in Chicago Tribunes Dream Homes, send listing information and high-res photos to ctc-realestate@chicagotribune.com.
Illinois Lt. Gov. Evelyn Sanguinetti and her husband, Ray, have traded up, paying $723,500 for a newly built, two-story single-family house in Wheaton .
Before being elected lieutenant governor in 2014, Sanguinetti, 46, had served on Wheaton's City Council since 2011.
Located in a mixed-use residential development in northeast Wheaton, the Sanguinettis' new house has a three-car garage and sits on a 0.34-acre parcel. Because the couple purchased the house new, few details were available about its features. Also listed on the deed is the name of Ray Sanguinetti's father, Alfred.
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In December, the Sanguinettis sold their five-bedroom, 1,959-square-foot house on Wheaton's east side for $387,000.
A spokeswoman for the lieutenant governor did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the deal.
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Bob Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.
Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 16 (VHT Studios)
Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 5 Billionaire Ken Griffin, Illinois richest man, paid $58.75 million in November for the top four floors in the Near North condominium building at 9 W. Walton St., known as No. 9 Walton. This photo shows a rendering of the lobby. (JDL Development / E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune (inset))
Most people in Elmwood Park and the neighboring communities are familiar with New Star Restaurant. New Star Restaurant started over 60 years ago, by the well-known Moy family, and was loved by all the residents of Elmwood Park. In 2014, Tommy Moy retired and the restaurant has been honored to carry on the torch to continue serving all of their customers the same honest and delicious Chinese food every day, according to its website.
Well, a couple of weeks ago, New Star Restaurant provided our nonprofit organization, Spotlight, with a most delicious and very reasonably priced meal for our group of 120 people. Spotlight Youth Theater is a children's educational theater company for students ages 6-18. They offer classes in voice, drama, dance, camps, as well as produce 30 fully staged musicals a year. Spotlight Youth Theater helps foster leadership, discipline, arts, excellence, teamwork and self-confidence in the youth of our community.
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As each play finishes its production, the families that are involved with the production come together to celebrate all the hard work that the talented actors and directing team had accomplished. One of the best ways to celebrate such a fantastic accomplishment is through fellowship and food. We had reached out to New Star Restaurant to see if they would be interested in providing our meal at an affordable cost, since this is a nonprofit organization. Not only did New Star Restaurant accommodate our request for reasonable pricing, they provided us with a most delicious dinner. The food was delivered nice and hot, and the students and their families all were extremely pleased with the service that New Star Restaurant had provided us. Many people requested ordering again from New Star Restaurant.
Thank you again to New Star Restaurant. You now have a new fan base in Spotlight Youth Theater.
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Samantha Chierici
Chicago
From left to right, Lake Forest College students Lexie Nogulich, a sophomore from Glen Ellyn, junior Jack Hirsch from Riverwoods and senior Xhris Fitzgerald of Lake Forest converse with Rebecca Graff, assistant professor of sociology and anthropology, after their panel presentations on the Archeology of Now at the 20th Student Symposium at Lake Forest College on April 11. (Gina Grillo / Pioneer Press)
On April 11, Lake Forest College canceled all classes to devote a full day to its 20th Student Symposium, a public event dedicated to celebrating student achievement throughout the academic year.
The annual event included 50 presentations, both scholarly and creative, representing the multidisciplinary works of LFC students.
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"The Symposium promotes those students who are committed to critical thinking and who represent the values of our liberal arts institution," said Davis Schneiderman, associate dean of the faculty and chair of the Symposium committee. "It provides an opportunity for them to share their work with their peers and faculty, and is a distinction and an honor."
This year's event included presentations on everything from archaeological explorations of the Ogilvie Transportation Center to a study of the implications of the election rhetoric between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, and the market potential for solar energy on the LFC campus.
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Jack Hirsch, a junior from Riverwoods, presented his research on the contemporary archaeology of LFC's dormitories.
"This gives us the opportunity to research the issues that we are most passionate about, those issues first inspired through our course readings," he said.
This year's symposium included an inaugural "The World in 2050" contest, where students produced responses to the question: what will the world of the future hold at the half-century mark?
Two first place winners this year were Sam Miller for his entry entitled "Perpetual Motion," and Jacob Badagliacco for "The Pendulum Planet: 2050," and both received an award of $2,000. Cash prizes for third and fourth place, along with four honorable mentions, were also awarded.
Gina Grillo is a freelance for Pioneer Press.
Lizzie Black Kander has been called the "Jane Addams of Milwaukee" for her tireless social service work, which included editing and publishing "The Settlement Cook Book" in 1901. The book provided more than recipes; it taught newcomers to this country how to cook and eat like Americans. Over 113 years, 40 editions and more than 2 million copies sold, "The Settlement Cook Book: The Way to a Man's Heart" remains the most famous and profitable charity cookbook ever published.
"She is the perfect ideal of an American. Something has to be done, and she does it," says Jan Longone, adjunct curator of American culinary history at the University of Michigan's Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library in Ann Arbor. "She really made a difference across America. She introduced new cuisine, new techniques and helped people assimilate."
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For as Angela Fritz wrote in a 2004 article for the Wisconsin Magazine of History, the cookbook's goal "was not to catch a man but to become an 'American.' It was Lizzie Black Kander who set those goals, and in the course of achieving them created a piece of American culture that could be found in kitchens throughout the country."
Born in Milwaukee, Kander spent much of her life working with and for the city's poor and immigrant communities, notably recently arrived Jews from Russia and eastern Europe. In 1898, she began offering cooking classes to girls at the Milwaukee Jewish Mission, which merged in 1900 with another Jewish charitable group to become The Settlement. Kander served as its president for nearly 18 years, according to the biography "A Recipe for Success: Lizzie Kander and Her Cookbook."
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As author Bob Kann wrote in the book, Kander noticed students were spending too much time copying down the recipes instead of cooking with them. So she suggested a cookbook be written for use in the class. When The Settlement board rejected her request for $18 (about $500 today) to publish the cookbook, Kander went out and found the money.
"The Settlement Cook Book" was "an immediate success," notes the Wisconsin Historical Society in its online page about Kander. "Combining recipes with instructions on cleanliness, food storage, and housekeeping, Kander's cookbook was an amalgam of Jewish and American traditions, all presented within a modern domestic science framework," the society wrote.
What seems surprising today is the number of non-kosher dishes in the cookbook.
"There were few so-called Jewish recipes in the book, because there was an assumption that the immigrants already knew how to prepare those," Ellen F. Steinberg, author of "From the Jewish Heartland: Two Centuries of Midwest Foodways," wrote in an email.
Besides learning to cook in the American way, readers learned how to entertain like Americans, whether that meant mixing a Manhattan cocktail or coming up with lemonade for 150 people. And then there was advice on how to live American, from properly dusting a room to setting a table to lighting a fire.
"That sounds funny to us, but for someone who didn't know how to work in someone's house, learning how to light a fire was important," says Steinberg, a food writer and cultural anthropologist living in River Forest, Ill.
A second edition followed in 1903. Kander, as Kann and Langone noted, was not satisfied with just reprinting the first edition. She corrected recipes, reorganized them and added new ones. And so it went. Kander never stopped working on the cookbook, tailoring successive editions to changes in economic conditions, technological innovations and cultural fads.
"As it got bigger, it got more encompassing, more all-American," Steinberg said. "There were recipes for everyone in there."
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There were 23 editions of "The Settlement Cook Book" published before Kander died in 1940 at age 82. Proceeds from the book, as her obituary in The New York Times noted, raised the initial $75,000 needed to organize the Milwaukee Jewish Center. Sales continued to benefit the community for decades as further editions were produced.
Over the decades, "The Settlement Cook Book" became a much-beloved, essential companion to many. And that's why Lizzie Kander still matters to Kann.
"Her cookbook is still being used throughout the world. Her cookbook is still cherished with families," says the Madison, Wis., based author. "There are still animated discussions in families on which generation should inherit the family cookbook from the previous generation. The cookbook is still alive, still being used."
wdaley@tribune.com
Manhattan cocktail
From the 1903 edition of "The Settlement Cookbook." Sheridan rye is an old whiskey brand. Apricotine is an apricot liqueur.
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1/3 whiskey (Sheridan rye)
1/3 Vermuth bitters
1/3 water
And add a dash of angostura, apricotine and orange bitters, and a slice of lemon peel. Sweeten to taste.
Potato flour cake
This recipe from the 1903 edition of "The Settlement Cookbook" calls for potato flour, which would make the sponge cake a good Passover dessert. Garnish with fresh fruit and confectioners' sugar with a kosher-for-Passover certification (or skip the confectioners' sugar).
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9 eggs
1 3/4 cup sugar
Scant cup of potato flour
1/2 lemon (rind and juice)
Separate the whites and yolks of eggs. Beat the whites of seven eggs very stiff. To the well-beaten yolks of nine eggs and the whites of two, add the sugar and lemon juice. Beat thoroughly, add the potato flour, and beat again. Now fold in the beaten whites very carefully, and bake slowly in a moderate oven. Bake forty to fifty minutes.
Nutrition information per serving: 202 calories, 5 g fat, 1 g saturated fat, 167 mg cholesterol, 31 g carbohydrates, 9 g protein, 73 mg sodium, 2 g fiber
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Note: The recipe as published is short on details. In the test kitchen, we baked the cake at 325 degrees, using a 10-inch tube pan with a removable bottom. Then we inverted the pan over an empty wine bottle to cool for 90 minutes. A thin knife was used to run around the edges of the cake before removing the pan.
To build a fire
From the 1903 edition of "The Settlement Cookbook."
It is necessary to have:
1st, Fuel. Something to burn.
2nd, Heat. To make fuel hot enough to burn.
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3rd, Air. To keep the fire burning.
International Cannes Film Festival General Delegate, Thierry Fremaux (L) and Festival President Pierre Lescure (R) stand by the 70th festival's 2017 offical poster, during a press conference to announce the movies in official competition for the 2017 International Cannes film festival, on April 13, 2017 in Paris. (Lionel Bonaventure / AFP/Getty Images)
The Cannes Film Festival turns 70 this year, and for its anniversary edition, the glamorous cinema showcase will launch star-driven new work from American directors Sofia Coppola ("The Beguiled"), Noah Baumbach ("The Meyerowitz Stories"), and Todd Haynes ("Wonderstruck") -- which should see such celebs as Nicole Kidman, Adam Sandler, and Julianne Moore walking the red carpet -- but not a single Hollywood studio film.
Kidman stars in a whopping four projects at this year's fest: Coppola's "The Beguiled," Yorgos Lanthimos' "The Killing of a Sacred Deer," John Cameron Mitchell's out-of-competition title "How to Talk to Girls at Parties," and Season 2 of Jane Campion's series "Top of the Lake."
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The lineup includes fresh features from such world-renowned filmmakers as Michael Haneke ("Happy End"), Andrey Zvyagintsev ("Loveless") and Hong Sangsoo, who brings two films to the Croisette, "The Day After" and the Isabelle Huppert-starrer "Claire's Camera." There are also English-language entries from Greek director Lanthimos (who follows up his Cannes-launched "The Lobster" with "The Killing of a Sacred Deer") and South Korean auteur Bong Joon-ho, whose "Okja" stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Tilda Swinton.
MOST READ ENTERTAINMENT NEWS THIS HOUR
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In all, festival president Pierre Lescure and general delegate Thierry Fremaux announced 49 films from 29 countries at Thursday's press conference in Paris, including films from 12 female directors and nine first-time feature helmers.
Despite being the source of so much controversy in world news, Russia makes an especially strong showing this year, whereas prolific film hubs China and India are entirely unrepresented. There is also a surprising lack of new work from Romania, Belgium, Italy, and Spain, which have had strong showings in recent years. "Russia used to be lagging behind," Fremaux said. "This year, we saw many Russian films, many beautiful works which suggest that there is some sort of new wave or a renewed vitality in this big country."
Among other surprises was the inclusion of a virtual reality project from Alejandro G. Inarritu titled "Carne y arena," as well as two television projects, Campion's "Top of the Lake: China Girl" and David Lynch's "Twin Peaks" revival.
The festival will open with French director Arnaud Desplechin's "Ismael's Ghosts," which stars Charlotte Gainsbourg and Marion Cotillard, while Un Certain Regard kicks off with Mathieu Amalric's "Barbara," a biopic of the mono-monikered French chanteuse. The choice of "Ismael's Ghosts" comes two years after Fremaux was strongly criticized for letting the Directors' Fortnight steal away Desplechin's "My Golden Years." (Though not yet announced, Directors' Fortnight is expected to open with Claire Denis' "Black Glasses" and close with Sundance breakout "Patti Cake$," and will surely include a number of high-profile projects left out of the official selection, such as Ruben Ostlund's "The Square" and Bruno Dumont's Joan of Arc musical "Jeanette.")
Fremaux makes a point of never discussing films that were not selected, but addressed several emerging trends at the press conference, including the rise of online distributors and the explosion of high-end TV drama. "Basically, two big players have appeared in the last few years, Amazon and Netflix, which are two new operators for filmmakers, producers, and for festivals," he said, pointing out that Amazon had more films in competition last year.
Both "Okja" and "The Meyerowitz Stories" are Netflix original productions (though Fremaux described the latter as a Scott Rudin production), while Amazon Studios backed both "Wonderstruck" and Scottish director Lynne Ramsay's "You Were Never Really Here," which Fremaux said was not yet done but was accepted with three scenes still to shoot.
"Regarding the situation with Netflix, it's a unique and unheard-of situation for us. After discussing it at length with Pierre Lescure [and the team, we came to the conclusion that] the Cannes festival is a lab," Fremaux said. "We're not going to start debating here the fact that even [television] series, unless proven otherwise, are using the classical art of filmmaking and of cinematic narration....It's because those two series are signed Jane Campion and David Lynch, who are filmmakers and friends of the Cannes Film Festival, that we are showing their work."
As it is, France already hosts several television festivals, with a new one called Cannes Series coming to the city next April, while the Berlin, Toronto, Sundance, and SXSW fests now all feature series sections. But Fremaux was firm that his event would not follow suit. "As you know, our friends at the Berlin Film Festival opened a section for series. That's not our intention. The Cannes Film Festival is a festival of films."
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Although the 2017 lineup was announced Thursday, Fremaux suggested that there's always the possibility that Cannes may add one or two more titles before the start of this year's event, which will run May 17-28. Scheduled to take place at the same time but not part of the "official selection," Directors' Fortnight and Critics' Week will be announcing their lineups later this month.
Watch the latest movie trailers.
Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 122 Sophie Turner as Jean Grey, anger management student, in "Dark Phoenix." The film, the latest in the "X-Men" franchise, costars James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Jessica Chastain. Read the review. (Twentieth Century Fox)
Chicago Shakespeare Theater announced most of its 2017-18 season of theatrical productions Thursday including the first programming at The Yard at Chicago Shakespeare, its newest indoor theater on Navy Pier fashioned from the shell of the former open-air Skyline Stage.
The first production in The Yard will be James Thierree's "The Toad Knew" (Sept. 19-23) presented by his French ensemble La Compagnie du Hanneton. Part of the World Stage series, "The Toad Knew" is a fanciful piece about family relationships. It premiered last August at the Edinburgh International Festival in Scotland.
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In the winter, CST will stage its educational "Short Shakespeare!" program in The Yard: "A Midsummer Night's Dream" runs Jan. 24 to March 10, 2018.
But the most prominent attraction in what will be a relatively light debut season for the new space will be a "Macbeth" (April 25 to June 24, 2018), adapted and directed by Aaron Posner and the illusionist Teller. The Scottish play will be replete with illusions by the team that previously combined on "The Tempest."
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Artistic director Barbara Gaines kicks off the new Courtyard Theater mainstage season with an all-female production of "The Taming of the Shrew" (Sept. 16 to Nov. 12), featuring additional dialogue by Ron West, a longtime performer and writer at Second City.
In the winter, associate artistic director Gary Griffin will stage Lolita Chakrabarti's "Red Velvet" (Dec. 1 to Jan. 21, 2018). "Red Velvet" was first seen in 2012 at the Tricycle Theatre in London and later at the St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn with Adrian Lester; it's a piece about the 19th century African-American actor Ira Aldridge.
A production of Friedrich Schiller's "Mary Stuart" (Feb. 21April 15, 2018), as translated by Peter Oswald, follows at the Courtyard, directed by New York-based Jenn Thompson. Oswald's translation debuted in 2005 at the Donmar Warehouse in London and then moved to the West End.
And in May, Ireland's acclaimed Druid Theatre will bring Garry Hynes' well-received 2016 production of Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot" to Navy Pier. Having previously stood Druid watch at the Galway International Arts Festival, Vladimir and Estragon will wait on Navy Pier from May 23 to June 3, 2018.
Ed Gero in "The Originalist" at Arena Stage (Arena Stage)
Court Theatre will present the Arena Stage production of John Strand's "The Originalist," the Hyde Park company announced Wednesday.
Edward Gero will star as Antonin Scalia in Strand's play about a polarizing court case taken on by the divisive supreme court justice and a Harvard Law School grad with opposing views. Arena Stage artistic director Molly Smith will direct.
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The production premiered at Arena with Gero, traveled to the Asolo Repertory Theatre in Florida and will play the Pasadena Playhouse in California before reaching Chicago next year.
The cast of "The Originalist" also includes Jade Wheeler as Cat and Brett Mack as Brad.
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The production closes out the company's 63rd season, playing May 10-June 10, 2018 at Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis Ave.
MORE FROM THE THEATER LOOP:
'Quixote' added to Writers Theatre's 2017-18 season
'The? Unicorn? Hour?' lets stunts and ridiculousness out for a romp
In 'Peter Pan on Her 70th Birthday,' siblings confront growing old
Watch the latest movie trailers.
Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 122 Sophie Turner as Jean Grey, anger management student, in "Dark Phoenix." The film, the latest in the "X-Men" franchise, costars James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Jessica Chastain. Read the review. (Twentieth Century Fox)
In this June 8, 2015, file photo, a loggerhead sea turtle heads to the ocean, as onlookers watch at Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park in Key Biscayne, Fla. (Alan Diaz / AP)
Many Florida beaches welcome a special type of visitor as the weather gets warmer: sea turtles.
Female sea turtles crawl out of the water from spring to early fall to build nests and lay eggs on the beach at night. Babies hatch some 60 days later and crawl back into the sea. It's a fragile process. Only an estimated one in 1,000 turtles survives to adulthood, according to the Sea Turtle Conservancy.
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It's a crime in Florida to disturb sea turtle nests or harass turtles. Visitors should keep their distance, staying behind any turtle they might see, and must not shine lights in nesting areas, including flashlights, cellphone lights or camera lights. Some beaches turn off artificial lights to promote nesting activity.
There are several sanctioned ways to observe sea turtles.
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Turtle rehab facilities around the state sometimes hold public releases when an injured turtle has recovered enough to return to the sea.
And public sea turtle watches take place at night on a number of Florida beaches, typically with participants registering in advance for the walks, which tend to fill up quickly. Trained guides who hold special permits scout for nests, looking for a turtle that's far enough along in the process that she won't be distracted. Tour participants are then escorted to the area for a look. The tours usually take place between 8 p.m. and midnight.
In this July 9, 2013, file photo, Bill Ahern, a conservation specialist for the Miami-Dade County Parks, holds a loggerhead sea turtle egg as he prepares to relocate the nest on Haulover Beach in Miami. (Lynne Sladky / AP)
Sign-ups open May 1, for example, for weeknight walks June 1-July 27 in Melbourne Beach, Florida, hosted by the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge. The walks cost $15 and are limited to 20 people a night.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission lists guided sea turtle walks as well as facilities that house captive sea turtles at myfwc.com.
In many areas where nesting takes place, turtle patrols hunt for nests by day and rope them off so they can't be disturbed. In Gulf County in northwest Florida, where sea turtle season runs from May 1 to Oct. 31, the St. Joseph Peninsula Turtle Patrol on Cape San Blas takes a "turtle walkabout" each morning at dawn looking for signs of crawls. Nests are marked, and small groups of visitors can join part of the patrol, which includes measuring and marking nests with posts and caution tape so beachgoers know to stay away. Details at floridacc.org.
Three varieties of sea turtle, green, leatherback and hawksbill, are classified as endangered. Two varieties, loggerhead and olive ridley, are listed as threatened.
In this July 9, 2013, file photo, a loggerhead sea turtle hatchling makes its way into the ocean along Haulover Beach in Miami. (Lynne Sladky / AP)
Sometimes, visitors may simply stumble across a nest or nesting turtle. For example, it's not unusual to see loggerhead turtles on Florida's central east coast, where they nest by the thousands. "When it's high season for nesting," said Visit Florida spokesman Tim Declaire, "all you need is a late-night walk on the beach."
Just remember: Don't get too close and don't shine any lights. When nesting is disrupted, a turtle may fail to lay her eggs or may not fully camouflage her nest. Hatchlings face additional challenges: They may die before reaching the water or be caught by predators.
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The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission lays out warnings and other information in this brochure: myfwc.com.
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Police officers investigate the scene of a shooting in the 1000 block of West Winona Street, where a man was shot and killed on March 31, 2016. (Alexandra Chachkevitch / Chicago Tribune)
One day early last year, I woke up to the sound of gunfire.
It was not the first time I'd heard the successive popping of a weapon, but it always had been in the distance. This time, it was outside my bedroom window.
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My first instinct was to jump out of bed and look out. But I decided to lie still, as if the slightest stir from my apartment would alert the shooters that someone was watching, and that the witness might then herself become a victim.
So I remained quiet. Until the noise of screeching tires alerted me that it was OK to move about.
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I live in Uptown, by no means a highly affluent community but certainly not a ghetto. Its landscape is strewn with vintage walk-ups, glossy high-rises, magnificent old theaters left over from the heyday, and more than its fair share of halfway houses and homeless shelters.
It is a neighborhood of immigrants from Africa and the Middle East, of urban professionals, lakefront liberals and working-class families with carefree children who ride scooters on the sidewalk in the summer.
But it also is home to the Conservative Vice Lords, the Black Gangster Disciples and the Black P Stones, three of the Chicago's most notorious street gangs. And every now and then, the violent side of Uptown crosses over into the peaceful side, putting everyone at risk.
According to police, the shooting that occurred on my block was gang-related. A man had been sitting in his parked car when two men walked up and started firing, striking him in the chest, arm and hand. The injured man was able to drive himself to a hospital.
Later that morning, I noticed two police officers standing on the corner across the street. It isn't clear why they were there. They didn't seem to be scouring for evidence or looking for witnesses. Perhaps their only mission was to reassure residents that the neighborhood is safe.
But there is no safe harbor from Chicago's violence, not really. Regardless of where you live or your station in life, it is possible that violence will somehow cross your path.
A Cook County judge was shot to death Monday after coming to the aid of his girlfriend who had been shot in the leg outside his home in a middle-class African-American neighborhood on the South Side. A day later, two 12-year-old boys on spring break were shot and injured outside a store in the affluent Old Town neighborhood on the Near North Side.
The corner of Broadway and Wilson Avenue in Uptown on Jan. 1, 2017, near where two people were shot and killed around 4:25 a.m. (Michael Tercha / Chicago Tribune)
There have been shootings at or near some of the city's most public places Navy Pier, Grant Park and McCormick Place proving that violence knows no boundaries.
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It's been said many times that the violence is not just a problem for poor, predominantly African-American and Latino communities on the South and West sides. It's a problem shared by all of us.
That doesn't mean that Chicagoans should be afraid to move around freely in our beautiful city. But we do need to take off our blinders while doing so.
After a series of incidents near Navy Pier, the city beefed up security in the area and instated a youth escort policy requiring those under age 18 to be accompanied by a parent or guardian at all times. Adults entering the grounds may be asked to present a driver's license or another valid ID. And on Michigan Avenue during the summer, police officers are stationed on almost every corner.
That's what happens when the city's most popular tourist areas are threatened by the violence. But in our neighborhoods, it is up to us.
The morning after the shooting on my block, I approached the officers standing on the corner, not as a reporter but as a citizen, and asked, "What can we do as residents to make this stop?"
One of them said, "Call the police if you see suspicious characters loitering in the area."
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I replied, "What do you mean by 'suspicious'? This is Uptown; almost everybody looks suspicious."
He smiled and shrugged. Clearly, he did not have an appropriate answer. But I didn't really need him to tell me what I should do.
Long before I moved to the neighborhood four years ago, my street was part of a thriving block club. Residents came together to force out the prostitutes who picked up clients from the corner near my front door. They went to court over slumlords who took advantage of their immigrant tenants, and they forced gangs from our block to others some distance away.
But over time, as people moved away and the problems eased, the block club faltered. Gradually, the problems that had taken years to ward off began creeping back.
The shooting outside my window energized me. I promised to inquire about the block club and volunteer. But before the month's end, the excitement had waned. Family commitments and work required too much of my time, so I let myself off the hook.
I did nothing. Neither did many others on my block. Not because we didn't care, but because we are not perfect people.
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By summer, there was another shooting, this one in front of a fast-food restaurant. The familiar flashing blue lights indicated that something awful had occurred.
Not too awful, though. No one was injured that time. But by the end of last year, nine people in Uptown had died.
dglanton@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @dahleeng
Opinion / Blogs
We thank you every day the almighty,We thank you for blessing your Comrades,We thank you for the fauna and flora,We thank you for the plateau between the Zambezi and Limpopo.The land that has invited cunning forces,Coming all the way from beyond,We thank you for all the riches, culture and personality.All enshrined in the womb of our ancestors,We thank you for giving us time to honour our heroes,Our own Sons and daughters of Zimbabwe,Their sacrifices remained a Midas touch.Great salutation gallant fighters,You fought for your land,Your fight was for our well being,Your choose was above special,You left us with endless tears,But your blood wiped them dry,Today liberation is a song, a song for many.With neo-colonialism a satanic hymn,Sons and daughters of Zimbabwe.That land is in the hands of black majority,It should be given financial and technical support,To fulfil the desire of your spirits;The spirits of Nehanda Nyakasikana and Sekuru KaguviWe need total empowerment,Land, land, land is our national heritage.Sanctions imposed by Western countries,Had boomeranged in causing the region and many black Zimbabweans.To open their eyes, to this unwarranted pressure.Our land means our sovereignty,Our resources means our integrity,A great honour to our heroes,Rest in peace, Lala Nokuthula.Sons and daughters of Zimbabwe.Long live Zimbabwe,Long live our Independence,We salute you, thank you!!!Zikhomo Kwambili, asante sana.We salute you for the INDEPENDENCE
The chemical spill from the U.S. Steel facility in Portage caused beaches in and around Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore to close and left officials scrambling to determine the extent of damage caused to the local environment. (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune) (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune/Chicago Tribune)
While federal environmental officials scrambled to protect Lake Michigan from a cancer-causing metal spilled into a northwest Indiana tributary, their political bosses in President Donald Trump's administration are pushing a new budget that would scuttle efforts to crack down on the pollutant nationwide.
The spill of hexavalent chromium, reported Tuesday by the U.S. Steel Midwest Plant in Portage, prompted the neighboring Ogden Dunes community to shut off its drinking water intake and the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore to close four beaches as a precaution. Chicago conducted emergency testing of water drawn at an intake crib off 68th Street, about 20 miles across the lake from the spill, but found nothing unusual.
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U.S. Steel said it appears a broken pipe joint allowed a still-undetermined amount of wastewater to spill into a ditch next to the plant, where steel forged at the nearby Gary Works is coated with hexavalent chromium and other rust-inhibiting materials.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said there was no immediate threat to Lake Michigan. But the spill draws renewed attention to a toxic metal made infamous by the movie "Erin Brockovich."
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(Tribune Graphics)
Steel mills and chrome plating operations are major industrial sources of hexavalent chromium, which testing nationwide shows already is routinely found in the water supplies of more than 200 million Americans, including millions in the Chicago area. The Portage plant is one of six facilities on the southern shore of Lake Michigan that legally released a combined 1,696 pounds of the metal into Lake Michigan and its tributaries during 2015, according to federal records.
The EPA and the National Toxicology Program linked the dangerous form of chromium to stomach cancer nearly a decade ago. Yet plans to adopt the first national standards for the metal in drinking water have been repeatedly delayed by objections from the chemical industry, and there are signs the new administration could scrap the effort altogether.
Trump's proposed budget would abolish the Integrated Risk Information System, the EPA office working on hexavalent chromium standards in drinking water, as well as sharply reduce funding for scientific reviews of toxic chemicals and cut back on the agency's enforcement of environmental laws.
The administration also is moving to eliminate a program that has provided roughly $300 million a year to fund cleanup and restoration work on the Great Lakes, including projects that address past environmental damage caused by U.S. Steel and other polluters in northwest Indiana.
"Considering what we're seeing right now in northwest Indiana, that doesn't make any sense," said Molly Flanagan, vice president for policy at the nonprofit Alliance for the Great Lakes. "This situation is exactly what the EPA was created to do: respond to environmental emergencies, regulate polluters to make them follow the law and protect us from nasty things that endanger public health."
Chicago began quarterly testing for hexavalent chromium in drinking water about six years ago after the nonprofit Environmental Working Group reported finding the metal in the city's tap water and in drinking water from more than two dozen other cities.
Results posted online by the Chicago Department of Water Management show levels as high as 0.30 parts per billion in treated drinking water last year 15 times higher than a health goal California officials adopted in 2009 based on the National Toxicology Program study. But levels in Chicago and other cities are below a controversial regulatory limit California later adopted: 10 parts per billion.
The California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment defines the health goal, 0.02 parts per billion, as an amount that reduces the lifetime risk of developing cancer to a point considered negligible by most scientists and physicians. The state's regulatory limit was adopted based on other considerations, including the added cost of water treatment.
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At home, people can reduce chromium levels in their tap water with reverse osmosis technology or devices certified by NSF International, a nonprofit group that tests the effectiveness of water filtration. Inexpensive and widely sold carbon filters aren't certified to address the problem, the group says.
The Portage Lakefront and Riverwalk in Portage, Ind., shown here on April 12, 2017, was closed after a spill of hexavalent chromium by the U.S. Steel Midwest Plant. (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune)
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Industry lobbied fiercely against tougher regulations after it became clear that hexavalent chromium has contaminated water supplies throughout the nation. The "Erin Brockovich" movie dramatized one of the most high-profile cases: a miles-long plume of the toxic metal dumped by a utility in rural Hinkley, Calif., that led to a $333 million legal settlement over illnesses and cancers.
The American Chemistry Council, the chemical industry's chief trade group, contends other studies show "no adverse health effects" at the current EPA standard of 100 parts per billion for total chromium, a measurement that includes the dangerous form of the metal and other forms, one of which is an essential nutrient in tiny amounts.
Health groups say hexavalent chromium is so dangerous that a national standard is long overdue.
"Even a single gallon of hexavalent chromium could contaminate billions of gallons of drinking water," said David Andrews, senior scientist at the Environmental Working Group. "The lack of a drinking water standard ... is just one more example of our failed drinking water regulations."
Indiana officials once sought to relax limits on chromium discharges from U.S. Steel's Gary Works, the largest industrial polluter on the Great Lakes. State officials backed down and imposed more stringent restrictions after Tribune reporting prompted federal regulators in 2007 to block a new water permit for the steel mill.
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mhawthorne@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @scribeguy
Listings are subject to change. Please call the venue in advance. To submit items to the calendar, go to newssunonline.com/community.
Monday
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Six Drinks That Changed the World: Did you know that each time you reach for a beer or sip a cup of tea you are making history? Joyce Haworth tells the story of six remarkable beverages that, in small and great ways, affected some of the most amazing transformations in human history. Samples are served and registration is required. Please call or visit the library's website to register or for more information. 1 p.m. Monday, Ela Area Public Library, 275 Mohawk Trail, Lake Zurich, free, 847-438-3433
Knights of Columbus Bingo: Knights of Columbus is having weekly bingoas a fundraiser to help support Santa Maria church and the community. Knights of Columbus is a nonprofit family fraternal service organization. 6:45 p.m. Monday, Santa Maria Del Popolo Catholic Church, 116 N. Lake St., Mundelein, free, 847-566-8213
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Tuesday
Expand Your Connections Building Your Network: This event is facilitated by Marc Silver, partner, Barnus & Thornburg, LLP. Reframe your thinking about what networking is all about. Show up and you might be surprised to find the information and connections you are looking for while helping others. Bring your business cards and handbills. 7 p.m. Tuesday, Career Resource Center, 40 East Old Mill Road, Lake Forest, free, 847-295-5626
Vernon Hills High School Spring Band Concert: The Spring VHHS Band Concert includes the Concert Band performing "The Orange Bowl March" by Henry Fillmore, "Tis a Gift" by Anne McGinty, and "Jungle Fantasy" arranged by Iwai. The Symphonic Band performs "Americans We March" by Henry Fillmore, "Ovation Overture" by James Hosay, and "Incantation and Dance" by John Barnes Chance. The Wind Ensemble performs: "Molly on the Shore" by Percy Grainger, and "Symphony #3 Slavyanskaya." Tickets available at the door. 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Vernon Hills High School, 145 Lakeview Parkway, Vernon Hills, $2-$3, 847-932-2283
Wednesday
Start Strong Business Boot Camp: This accelerated small business boot camp in four sessions, explores business fundamentals needed to start and run a new business. Evaluate your business idea including personal objectives, business feasibility, market potential and financial strength. This class provides the resources, support, and motivation. 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, College of Lake County, Grayslake Campus, 19351 West Washington St., Grayslake, $100, 847-543-2033
Start Smart: High school graduation is fast approaching and if you are looking for direction, this is presented by Career Vision. This is for high school students, college sophomores and their parents to learn how to identify college majors and career direction. Please call the library or visit their website to register. 7 p.m. Wednesday, Ela Area Public Library, 275 Mohawk Trail, Lake Zurich, free, 847-438-3433
A decorated Army veteran with a green card who has been ordered back to his native Mexico asked the state for forgiveness while his attorney implored the Illinois Prisoner Review Board on Thursday to ask Gov. Bruce Rauner to pardon his felony drug conviction.
The petition for clemency is one of three efforts to keep Miguel Perez Jr., who served two tours in Afghanistan, from being deported. In addition to appealing a final order of removal, they hope a pardon would encourage the government to grant citizenship retroactively to when he joined the military in 2001. Advocates say erasing crimes from immigrants' records has halted deportations in the past.
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"I'm pretty much asking for forgiveness and hope they get the right message to Gov. Rauner," Perez, 38, said in an interview Wednesday from a Wisconsin detention center where he awaits deportation to Mexico a country he hasn't lived in since he was 8.
"I really want to say I'm sorry to the state of Illinois," said Perez, who did not appear at Thursday's hearing.
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Cecilia Garcia, left comforts Esperanza Perez, mother of Miguel Perez, as she leans on the Rev. Luis Retamal of Grace Covenant Church, where she is a congregant. (Nancy Stone / Chicago Tribune)
The Cook County state's attorney's office opposes Perez's petition for clemency, a legal request filed with the state for leniency or forgiveness of a past crime.
"We cannot lose track of the specific facts of this case, which is why we are opposing executive clemency," assistant Cook County State's Attorney Peter Goutos told the review board Thursday. "We must hold the big drug dealers accountable."
While Perez was convicted of delivering less than 100 grams of cocaine, Goutos said he was arrested for delivering much more and received a reduced sentence after a plea deal. Goutos also pointed out that Perez was given a general discharge from the military after a drug infraction and was arrested for misdemeanor cannabis possession as a teenager.
Perez is one of many legal permanent residents who have served in the U.S. military, then confronted the possibility of deportation to their native countries after committing a crime.
After returning to Chicago after his military service, he sought treatment at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Maywood, where doctors diagnosed him with post-traumatic stress disorder. He was supposed to return for more tests to determine whether he also had a traumatic brain injury. But the hours of waiting and slow progress took its toll.
In the meantime, he reconnected with a childhood friend who provided free drugs and alcohol. On the night of Nov. 26, 2008, while with that friend, Perez handed a laptop case containing cocaine to an undercover officer. Perez pleaded guilty to the drug charge and served half of a 15-year prison sentence.
If the 4.4 pounds of cocaine Perez delivered had ended up on the streets, it "would have affected tens of thousands of people once distributed throughout our community," Goutos said.
Perez's attorney, Chris Bergin, emphasized to the board that Perez accepts responsibility for committing the crime.
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"We're not here today to excuse in any way the fact that he handed a lot of drugs to an undercover officer," said Bergin, who added that Perez is receiving psychological help and medication in custody. "He's somewhat back to the old Miguel and he understands how terrible it was, that decision, that drugs can be used to destroy a lot of lives."
The family of Miguel Perez Jr. pleads for his safe stay in the United States on Feb. 6, 2017. Perez Jr. faces deportation to Mexico where cartels frequently force former U.S. military members to share training tactics or face execution. (Chicago Tribune)
After hearing a number of cases Thursday morning, members of the review board were scheduled to meet in closed-door sessions to decide what they will recommend to the governor. The board's guidance remains confidential unless the governor chooses to disclose it.
Last year, Rauner cleared a backlog of clemency petitions that dogged at least two previous governors but granted only 3 percent of the requests. Of 2,333 petitions, Rauner issued 79 pardons. He also commuted the sentence of a drug offender. That rate is far lower than that of Rauner's predecessor, Gov. Pat Quinn, who approved roughly 36 percent of petitions as he tried to clear the backlog he inherited from his predecessor, Rod Blagojevich. Rauner has said he wants to make decisions on future clemency requests within six months.
According to the governor's office, Rauner considers how long it has been since petitioners completed their sentences, why they need clemency and whether it's affecting their ability to get professional businesses licenses or a job. He also takes into account the applicant's military and community service records, the nature of the crime and their acceptance of responsibility.
As is the case with many other green card-holding veterans, Perez, a father of two U.S. citizen children, mistakenly thought he became a U.S. citizen when he took an oath to protect the nation. Military superiors never offered to help him expedite his citizenship, his attorney told the review board Thursday.
"Had that been done we wouldn't be sitting here today?" asked Donald Shelton, a member of the review board from Springfield. "Absolutely right," Bergin replied.
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Perez discovered the oversight when he was summoned to immigration court shortly before his release from Hill Correctional Center in Galesburg last year. Instead of heading home to Chicago from prison, Perez was placed in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and transferred to the Wisconsin detention center for immigrants awaiting deportation.
In a statement released Thursday, the state's attorney's office said its opposition to a pardon did not equate to support for Perez's deportation. His immigration proceedings are a separate matter.
"Regardless of the outcome of Mr. Perez's clemency hearing, he is still subject to removal by the federal government," the statement said. "Mr. Perez's case is an unfortunate reminder of the need for immigration reform, particularly when it comes to veterans who have served our country."
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Edith Crigler, a member of the panel from Cook County, commended the presentation given by Bergin and other advocates on behalf of Perez.
"It seems to me a lot of his trouble started after his deployment," she said. "Most of the guys who returned from the terrible, terrible war ... weren't able to get adequate care."
Last month, an immigration judge denied Perez's request for relief under the United Nations Convention Against Torture, a protection that resembles asylum, and ordered that he be deported a decision Perez has appealed. He and human rights advocates believe his life would be in danger if he were sent back to Mexico.
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Perez's mother, Esperanza Montes Perez, pleaded with the board to bring her son home.
"He has already served his debt to society," she testified. "I believe he deserves a pardon from the state of Illinois. My son is my hero. I love my son. I need my son by my side."
mbrachear@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @TribSeeker
A police sergeant replaces a soda can, used as a temporary evidence marker for a bullet casing, with an official marker at a double shooting on the corner of Chicago and Lockwood avenues in the Austin neighborhood Thursday, April 13, 2017, in Chicago. Two men were transported to different hospitals, one in critical condition. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)
Four men were wounded Thursday in shootings in Chicago, according to police.
In the latest attack, two men were shot on the West Side in the Austin neighborhood. That shooting happened about 3:30 p.m. near Chicago and Lockwood avenues, police said.
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Police said the victims were standing on a corner when a white Dodge Caravan pulled up and someone fire shots.
A 26-year-old man suffered a wound to the left knee and was taken to West Suburban Hospital in Oak Park where his condition was stabilized. The other victim, 32, was shot in the leg and was taken in critical condition to Stroger Hospital, police said.
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About 25 minutes before the West Side shooting, another person was shot in the Uptown neighborhood on the North Side.
About 3:05 p.m., a 26-year-old man was walking in the 1000 block of West Wilson Avenue when he was approached by four men. One of them pulled out a gun and fired shots, striking him in the left thigh, police said.
The victim was taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center where his condition was stabilized, police said.
Earlier Thursday, a 20-year-old man was wounded in a drive-by shooting in the South Chicago neighborhood, police said.
According to preliminary information, shortly after 10:15 a.m., the victim was in the 8000 block of South Coles Avenue when someone in a black vehicle drove up and fired shots in his direction.
The man suffered a wound to the hip, and walked into Advocate Trinity Hospital and reported he was shot in a drive-by, police said.
No one is in custody and police were investigating.
Cook County Circuit Judge Jessica O'Brien has been removed indefinitely from the bench after she was indicted earlier this month on federal mortgage fraud charges.
A civic-minded judge whose inspiring rags-to-riches story helped her become the first Filipina elected to the Cook County bench was indicted Wednesday on mortgage fraud charges.
Judge Jessica A. O'Brien, who presided over a small-claims courtroom and had served in prominent roles on numerous bar association boards, allegedly lied and concealed relevant facts from lenders to obtain more than $1.4 million in mortgages on two South Side investment properties that she purchased and sold between 2004 and 2007.
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O'Brien was then working as a special assistant attorney general for the Illinois Department of Revenue, where she also reportedly held the position of chief counsel to the Illinois Lottery. A spokesman for the Department of Revenue was not able to confirm that Wednesday afternoon. She resigned from the department after she was elected judge in 2012, the spokesman said.
O'Brien was reassigned to non-judicial duties Wednesday by 1st Municipal District presiding Judge E. Kenneth Wright Jr., a spokesman for Chief Judge Tim Evans said. An executive committee of Evans and 17 other judges will meet next week to decide whether O'Brien will be removed from the bench while the case is pending.
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She could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
O'Brien, who is married to a judge, immigrated to the United States after high school, earning degrees in culinary arts and restaurant management, according to her online biographies. She then made a career change and went to John Marshall Law School, graduating in 1998 and later serving on its board.
She was the first Asian elected president of the Women's Bar Association of Illinois and also served on the board of governors for the Illinois State Bar Association. The judge also co-founded a foundation in 2008 that award scholarships to law students from diverse backgrounds.
While working for the Department of Revenue, O'Brien also owned a real estate company and worked part time as a loan officer for a Lincolnwood business, federal prosecutors say. Her co-defendant Maria Bartko also worked at Amronbanc Mortgage Corporation as a loan originator.
In August 2004, O'Brien applied for a mortgage on a property in the 600 block of West 46th Street, falsely stating that she made $6,800 a month as an IDR attorney and omitting the $260,000 she and Bartko owed on another property they'd purchased, according to the charges.
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A little over a year later, O'Brien refinanced mortgages on that property and another she bought a month later in the 800 block of West 54th Street, falsely stating she made $20,000 a month at her realty company O'Brien Realty LLC.
In 2006, she applied for a commercial line of credit to pay expenses on the two properties, falsely stating that her realty company made a $100,000 annual profit, the charges say. A year later, O'Brien decided to sell the properties to Bartko.
The future judge allegedly paid Bartko and a straw buyer to purchase the two properties, according to the charges.
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She is scheduled to be arraigned next week.
Her husband, attorney Brendan O'Brien, was elected as a Cook County judge last year.
sschmadeke@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @SteveSchmadeke
The police oversight agency that the city was forced to create in the fallout of the major Chicago Police Department scandal in 2015 has an official start date: Sept. 15.
The website for the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, chicagocopa.org, was also announced. And on Wednesday, COPA released proposed rules and regulations that will guide the agency that replaces the long- and often-criticized Independent Police Review Authority.
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The rules and regulations will go into effect on the Sept. 15 start date.
COPA was authorized by the Chicago City Council last year after revelations that IPRA had been ineffective and had failed to properly investigate or punish police misconduct.
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The failures were documented in Tribune investigations as well as a U.S. Department of Justice civil rights probe launched after the release of video of the fatal shooting of Laquan McDonald.
McDonald, a black teenager, was shot 16 times in October 2014 by Officer Jason Van Dyke, who is white, as he appeared to be walking away from the officer. The police dashcam video of the shooting was made public in November 2015, after the city dropped its objections to its release. The video release sparked weeks of protests and led to murder charges against Van Dyke, the firing of police Superintendent Garry McCarthy and eventually the Justice Department investigation.
The investigation concluded about a year later that black and Latino residents were more likely to be victims of excessive force by Chicago police, but also that oversight of officers who break the law or violate department rules has been lacking.
To contain the political fallout, Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced immediately after the video was released that former federal prosecutor Sharon Fairley would take over IPRA and that the agency would be overhauled. In August 2016, the City Council voted to create COPA.
Fairley, who will lead the agency during the transition, provided hiring updates and new details on COPA's structure on Wednesday in a seven-page report. Among those are that COPA has created an advisory panel of community members. They are also developing an information technology system independent of Chicago police and a way for complainants and officers to track their cases online.
The rules and regulations released Wednesday mark an effort by COPA to be transparent about how its investigators will conduct its inquiries, COPA spokeswoman Mia Sissac said. The rules cover an assortment of issues, including how complaints can be filed, the recording of interviews, and when COPA can recommend when an officer under investigation can be placed on restricted duty.
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The public will be allowed to comment on the rules until May 29. The document and instructions on how to comment are on the agency's website.
"The point is the public input from both the community members and the Chicago Police Department members is very important," Sissac said. "We have to engender trust. To be effective we have to have the confidence and trust of the community."
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Attorney Sheila Bedi called the decision to post the proposed regulations "encouraging" and a "commitment towards transparency."
But Bedi, a professor at Northwestern University's MacArthur Justice Center, also cautioned that simply asking for public comment is not enough, pointing to the recent decision by the Chicago Police Department to seek comment regarding its proposed use-of-force policy. Bedi said public comments were not adequately considered.
"It is important that IPRA/COPA does not go the way of the Chicago Police Department where comments were submitted and it was very clear they only took into consideration what the officers said," Bedi said.
asweeney@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @annie1221
Cook County Associate Judge Raymond Myles was killed and a female companion was wounded after the two were shot April 10, 2017, outside his residence on Chicago's South Side. (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune) (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune/Chicago Tribune)
In a surprise twist, Cook County prosecutors charged Thursday that the killing of Associate Judge Raymond Myles had been hatched weeks ago as a plot to rob his girlfriend, not to target the judge.
At a bond hearing for the first suspect charged in the shooting, prosecutors said the gunman had been tracking the movements of Myles' girlfriend for two to three weeks to learn her schedule.
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Joshua T. Smith, identified by authorities as the getaway driver, gave a videotaped statement to detectives in which he said his partner decided to lay in wait for the girlfriend before 5 a.m. Monday after observing she regularly left the judge's Far South Side house to work out early in the morning, according to prosecutors.
The gunman confronted the woman by the back garage of the two-story brick residence, shooting her in the left thigh and snatching her gym bag. Apparently hearing the gunfire, Myles, 66, emerged on the rear porch and confronted the gunman. He was shot fives times and killed. His girlfriend, 52, is expected to survive.
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Smith, who said he stayed in the getaway car in the alley behind the judge's house in the West Chesterfield neighborhood, told detectives he heard gunshots, then picked up the gunman and drove off.
The gunman fled with only the woman's gym bag but tossed it away in anger when he discovered it contained no money, prosecutors said.
Police are still seeking the gunman and are investigating a possible third participant, according to law enforcement sources.
Smith, who drove a car owned by his former girlfriend, told her and her daughter to lie to police and claim that the car had been stolen in an effort to throw off investigators, according to prosecutors.
Smith, 37, dressed all in black, was ordered held without bond during a hearing Thursday at the Leighton Criminal Court Building, the same courthouse where Myles had worked for years and won respect as hardworking and friendly. Spectators packed the courtroom, many standing to be able to witness the hearing.
To avoid a conflict of interest because of Myles' nearly two decades on the bench, Robert A. Miller, a judge from DuPage County, traveled to the courthouse on Chicago's Southwest Side to handle the bond hearing.
Cook County Associate Judge Raymond Myles (Circuit Court of Cook County)
"This defendant agreed with another person to rob a female," Miller said in ordering Smith to be held without bond. "They both set off with the knowledge that the robbery was going to take place with the firearm."
Smith faces felony charges of first-degree murder and aggravated battery not armed robbery or attempted murder as well as first reported by the state's attorney's office. He also was charged with a misdemeanor count of obstruction of a peace officer for allegedly instructing his ex-girlfriend and her daughter to lie to police for him. Police have said the ex-girlfriend did not know about the robbery plot.
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Smith's family members who attended the bond hearing declined to comment later.
In court, Smith's lawyer, assistant public defender Kristina Yi, had asked the judge to set a bond, noting that Smith was not alleged to have fired any gunshots and calling the evidence against him circumstantial.
Since his discharge from parole in 2008 after pleading guilty to armed robbery five years before Smith has been "a positive and contributing citizen" who co-owns a small business and has two teenage children, Yi said. She also noted that he had voluntarily met with police.
In a statement to reporters after the hearing, Yi noted her admiration for Myles' reputation as a tough but caring jurist and said his death was a "tragic loss."
"He believed in the human spirit and potential for change," she said. "We will diligently carry out our obligations and duty. Judge Myles would have expected nothing less of us."
(Tribune Graphics)
Smith crossed paths with Myles briefly in 2001 when court records show he appeared before the judge on a charge that he did not have proper documents for a vehicle. The charge was later dismissed, according to the records.
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The brazen attack on Myles, believed to be the first fatal shooting of a Chicago-area judge in more than three decades, touched off a massive investigation with Chicago police working around the clock since Monday morning.
In court, Assistant State's Attorney Guy Lisuzzo said surveillance cameras captured a burnt orange Pontiac Sunfire circling the block and the area around Myles' residence in the 9400 block of South Forest Avenue early Monday. Smith drove the car while the gunman rode in the passenger seat, he said.
Smith stopped in an alley near Myles' home, and the gunman got out to await the judge's girlfriend, according to the prosecutor. Smith allegedly backed up the car some distance.
The two knew that she regularly left the house early in the morning to go to the gym, Lisuzzo said.
When the woman came out, Smith's partner confronted her, shooting her in the leg and grabbing her gym bag, Lisuzzo said.
When Myles came out of the house to confront the gunman, he was shot twice in the left thigh, once in the shoulder and once in the left hip. He also was grazed by a bullet on his right thigh.
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The gunman ran back down the alley and jumped into the Pontiac, and the two fled, Lisuzzo said.
When the gunman realized the bag contained no money, he became upset and tossed it out the car window into a garbage container, according to the prosecutor.
Smith then dropped the other man off and drove the car to his garage, Lisuzzo said. He allegedly told his ex-girlfriend and her daughter to tell police the car had been stolen.
At a Wednesday night news conference at police headquarters following Smith's arrest, Chief of Detectives Melissa Staples said video surveillance in the area of the judge's home played a crucial role in identifying the car used in the holdup and its license plate. The cameras did not capture the shooting itself, however, she said.
There had been a push recently to get cameras installed throughout the neighborhood an effort that the judge had joined in.
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Tactical officers found the getaway car in the Calumet Police District on the city's Far South Side on Tuesday night, even though its license plate had been switched since the shooting in an attempt to "hinder our investigative efforts," Staples said. The officers noticed the car had different plates on the front and rear, she said.
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Staples told reporters that the shell casings found outside the judge's home matched those retrieved at the scene of an attempted armed robbery and shooting in the Englewood neighborhood in January.
A man, who police sources say has gang affiliations and a long arrest record, was shot and wounded in that incident. But aside from the ballistics evidence, Staples said the two shootings don't appear to be linked. Police said that guns used in Chicago shootings often change hands and that the victim of the January holdup attempt was not cooperating.
mcrepeau@chicagotribune.com
jgorner@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @crepeau
Twitter @JeremyGorner
Police are asking for the public's help locating a man who went missing Sunday in Chicago's South Shore neighborhood.
Brandon Robinson, 21, was last seen April 9 in the area of the 2100 block of East 72nd Place, Chicago police said. He was wearing a Pittsburgh Pirates jersey and dark jeans.
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Police said he frequents the area Roosevelt Road and Wabash Avenue. Robinson may be in need of medical help, police said.
He is described as black with a medium complexion, black hair and brown eyes. He is 5 feet 8 inches tall, and weighs about 140 pounds. Police said he has tattoos on his chest and arms.
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Anyone with information on his whereabouts should call detectives at 312-747-8380.
Former Milwaukee police Officer Christopher Manney, who was fired for improper procedure in the lead-up to a fatal shooting, started the process to appeal in circuit court May 7, 2015. (Rick Wood, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)
MILWAUKEE, Wis. A federal judge has ruled that a Milwaukee police officer who fatally shot Dontre Hamilton in 2014 violated Hamilton's constitutional rights by illegally patting him down for weapons.
The decision by U.S. District J.P. Stadtmueller means Hamilton's family could be entitled to receive damages from the officer, Christopher Manney, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. Manney was fired for not following police procedures during the confrontation with Hamilton, but the officer was never charged with a crime. Hamilton's family filed a civil suit against Manney.
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The shooting happened when Manney approached Hamilton in a city park after receiving a report that he was asleep there. Manney came up behind Hamilton and patted him down. The two struggled and Hamilton got control of Manney's baton. Manney shot Hamilton 14 times.
Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle listensas Cook County Democrats host a forum with Democratic gubernatorial candidates at Erie St. Cafe on March 27, 2017. She announced Wednesday that Cook County taxpayers will be out an extra $1.6 million after mistakes were made in seeking federal grant funding. (Phil Velasquez / Chicago Tribune)
Cook County taxpayers will be out an extra $1.6 million after mistakes were made in seeking federal grant funding for the county Department of Homeland Security.
County Board President Toni Preckwinkle said Wednesday that the errors were discovered after she fired Ernest Brown from his post as the agency's executive director of homeland security and an internal investigation of the department was conducted.
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Preckwinkle, however, said she did not dismiss Brown because of suspicions about financial issues. Instead, she was reacting to a media report of crimes committed by now-convicted police officers working in public housing during the 2000s, when Brown was their commander.
"I asked for his resignation," Preckwinkle said. "He declined to resign, so I fired him. I did so on the basis of information that I learned about his tenure in the Chicago Police Department. I lost confidence in his ability to lead the department (of Homeland Security)."
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Brown was dismissed in November, and died in January of an apparent heart attack suffered at a South Loop restaurant.
The county found invoices that were not submitted to the state for federal grant reimbursement. Officials said the state oversees more than $21 million in Urban Area Security Initiative program grant funds the county receives each year.
Most of the $1.6 million in question was for training purposes for homeland security programs, and the Illinois Emergency Management Agency later denied reimbursement. The state agency said the expenses were ineligible "because the federal procurement guidelines were not followed and pre-approvals were not obtained," said Martha Martinez, who heads up the county's Bureau of Administration.
The County Board on Wednesday approved spending $1.6 million in local taxpayer money to cover the mistakes, though officials said they still hope to convince the state to pay about $534,000 that covered salaries.
Meanwhile, the county Homeland Security Department was placed under the supervision of the administration bureau. The county has hired two people and might hire two more to oversee the grant process. At least part of those salaries would be covered with grant funds, officials said.
And the Homeland Security Department, now being run by interim Executive Director Mark Edingburg, will have to prepare quarterly and annual reports on grant funding. "There are several layers of corrective action that are being taken," Preckwinkle told county commissioners before the vote.
Preckwinkle hired Brown in October 2015. At the time, he was police chief in west suburban Darien. While in the Chicago Police Department, he had climbed to the rank of chief of patrol and at one time was viewed as a possible contender for the superintendent's post.
From 2000 to 2002, Brown commanded Chicago police officers assigned to public housing. During those years, a sergeant and officer under his command were arrested and convicted of robbing a purported drug stash house of $20,000 in cash and what appeared to be 11 pounds of cocaine.
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Brown's leadership of police in public housing and his relationship to later-convicted Sgt. Ronald Watts was noted in a story by Jamie Kalven of the Invisible Institute a story about corrupt cops and the police code of silence that Preckwinkle said brought issues surrounding Brown to her attention.
hdardick@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @ReporterHal
Opinion / Columnist
Ever wondered why the Zimbabwe Government and its ministers find parastatals attractive despite them costing the taxpayer billions of dollars? Our previous article asked questions on the wisdom of the government taking over Telecel mobile network. This article explores the reasons and why the Telecel conundrum and indeed government ownership of parastatals are attractive to politicians but costly to the taxpayer.Zimbabwe is known to have generated Rolls Royce parastatal related millionaires overnight without any explanation on how they made their money. In most cases Zimbabwe's miraculous millionaires do not have any business; they simply become millionaires through their relationship with government officials or parastatals.We will explore why ministers are very keen to be appointed into ministries that are responsible for parastatals by scrutinising the money trail and hypothesise on why the government would want to own Telecel despite the fact that they already own NetOne.Parastatals are companies that are owned by the public/tax paying citizens. Traditionally, they are organisations that are considered of significant strategic importance to the country or critical to the public but too unprofitable for a private company to invest in. In recent times, questions have been asked about why the Zimbabwean government wants to hold on to parastatals when they are neither of strategic importance nor profitable. Some examples that come to mind are mobile phone networks as questioned in our last article, National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ), Grain Marketing Board (GMB), Zimbabwe United Passenger Company (ZUPCO) and the Cold Storage Commission (CSC).Our quest starts with a look at the governance of parastatals. The parastatal board (senior management team) is appointed by the responsible minister. Decisions on how to spend money (including on tenders) is made by the parastatal board. The boards are not necessarily performance managed in terms of how much they improve shareholder value, they are considered 'good' if they are loyal and play ball. Directors who come up with innovative ideas and strategies that represent the best interests of the taxpayer are sidelined because their ideas put the looter's opportunities in jeopardy. That explains why ministers are very keen to 'reshuffle' the boards of parastatals soon after their appointments; they want to put 'their people' into the board - people who will do the minister's bidding - people who do what the minister wants instead of what the public deserves.Zimbabwe's parastatals are costing the taxpayer a fortune and have contributed immensely to the national debt. They are unprofitable and do not represent value for money. In fact, taxpayer's money keeps pouring in as debt, and comes out on the other side in individual pockets. That is the reason why parastatals are the most heavily geared companies in the country - their debt outweighs equity.The question then is: How are parastatals looted? If one follows the money, one can have a feel of where the money leaks out of these institutions. Two main looting opportunities are salaries and perks of the 'boards' and procurement/tenders. Salaries and perks are where executives are paid exorbitant salaries that are not commensurate with their responsibilities and performance. Salary scandals were explored extensively when the 'Ca$hbert' Dube PSMAS scandal was unearthed. Only a feeble mind to believe that everything that Cuthbert Dube earned ended up in his personal pocket.Procurement and tendering are other vehicles of looting. A minister running a ministry that oversees a parastatal and appoints the board of the parastatal has a lot of say in how that parastatal award tenders. Looting from tenders is generally done in three main ways; awarding tenders to cronies, inflating tender value in order to cream off the extra value or kickbacks or a combination of cronyism and inflated values. In all cases, the objectives are the same; steal from the citizens and benefit personally.The cronies have also perfected the art of looting; they make sure that they keep the minister and the ruling party happy. They donate to the cause. Jonathan Moyo's admission that he diverted Zimdef money to party programs is just a tip of the iceberg. President Mugabe has been alerted to scandals many times and he chooses to look away. Readers may recall Minister of Energy Samuel Undenge admitting that a high profile tender had been awarded unprocedurally but nothing was done to him. That emboldens the looters and the vicious cycle goes on and the taxpayer continues to pay. The Zimbabwean government is even known to shun 'foreign' strategic investors because such investors are considered to stand in the way of the looting spree. We are not surprised to learn that MTN (one of the biggest players) was turned away from acquiring a 49% stake in NetOne. If the Stragegic Parternship had been approved as proposed way back in 2012, the state of mobile communications in Zimbabwe would be at par with world standards.A forensic audit of all material tenders that have been awarded by parastatals would be interesting. Who was awarded the tenders, did the tenders represent value for money for the taxpayer, whom are tender winners related to? Not long ago, we heard one Wicknell Chivayo boasting that he made his money from tenders when he was asked what business he was involved in. As hard to swallow as his answer might seem, Chivayo actually described what happens in the real world of tendering in Zimbabwe. An audit of those awarded tenders would even be more interesting as it gives insights into how they spend the money.The looting process is as follows;1. Citizens' money is poured into parastatals2. Parastatals award inflated tenders to cronies through a crony board appointed by the minister3. Cronies give kickbacks to public officials and donate to 'the party'4. Ministers look away and parastatals run out of cash5. Ministers go back to the citizens to ask for more cash and the cycle goes onThere is a fundamental corporate governance flaw in giving one person (the minister) sole power of appointing boards of directors of parastatals. For transparency and accountability, such authority should lie with the parliamentary committee which would thoroughly scrutinise any deals.Zimbabweans United for Democracy (ZUNDE) strongly believes that at the centre of rebuilding Zimbabwe is good governance. There is no way good governance can prevail if a minister who knows very little about the ministry they run is given excessive powers to do as they please for as long as they keep the master happy through looting of public assets.Also, acquisition of a private mobile operator by Government is contrary to the global trend where governments are moving out of mobile communications business. The money wasted in this business could be put to better use if it was spent on health, education, infrastructure and other social services.The collapse of many parastatals that used to perform very well at independence was not accidental. It was a product of many years of systematic and state-sanctioned looting, which continues to this day. There must be an end to this madness and the only way of achieving this is through electing a proper and responsible government.When looting becomes second nature to ZANU PF, we must not accept it as normal.David Mutori is a UK-based economist and pro-democracy activist. He can be contacted on mutorid@gmail.com. Benjamin Paradza is the Exiled Judge of the High Court of Zimbabwe and President of ZUNDE. He can be contacted on contact@zunde.org; wwwzunde.org; @zundezim
Republican Presidential hopeful Ben Carson speaks during the annual Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington on March 4, 2016. (Saul Loeb / AFP/Getty Images)
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson was rescued by firefighters from a stuck elevator while touring an affordable housing development in Miami on Wednesday morning.
The secretary was visiting the Courtside Family Apartments as part of a two-day listening tour in the area to learn about the challenges low-income people face finding affordable housing. The Miami Herald estimates Carson was trapped for about 20 minutes.
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The #BreakingNews no one asked for but everyone deserves. Ben Carson and wife freed from Miami housing complex elevator. per @JuliaNBC6 pic.twitter.com/FmEFwqNLg8 Chris Stewart (@CStewartNews) April 12, 2017
Alonzo Mourning, the famed former Miami Heat player, was waiting for Carson when he was released. Mourning partnered with Miami's Housing Trust group to develop the complex in response to the need for more affordable housing in the area; it was funded through a public-private partnership. Michael Liu, the director of Miami-Dade County Public Housing, was also in the elevator.
When Stephen Bannon reported for work Wednesday, he did not act like a man who had just been publicly humiliated by his boss.
The White House chief strategist cycled in and out of the Oval Office for meetings with President Donald Trump and took a seat in the front row of the East Room for the afternoon visit of NATO's secretary general, flanked by some of the very advisers with whom he has been feuding.
But for Bannon, the day's routine obscured the reality that he is a marked man - diminished by weeks of battles with the bloc of centrists led by Trump's daughter and son-in-law and cut down by the president himself, who belittled Bannon in an interview with the New York Post.
The president's comments were described by White House officials as a dressing-down and warning shot, though one Bannon friend, reflecting on them Wednesday, likened Bannon to a terminally ill family member who had been moved into hospice care.
The man not long ago dubbed the "shadow president" - with singular influence over Trump's agenda and the workings of the federal government - is struggling to keep his job with his portfolio reduced and his profile damaged, according to interviews Wednesday with 21 of Trump's aides, confidants and allies. Some colleagues described Bannon as a stubborn recluse who had failed to build a reservoir of goodwill within the West Wing.
"Bannon is a brilliant pirate who has had a huge impact," said former House speaker Newt Gingrich, a Trump supporter. "But White Houses, in the end, are like the U.S. Navy - corporate structures and very hard on pirates."
For now, at least, Bannon may survive the turmoil, and he and other White House staffers are striving to be on their best behavior after their infighting earned them a scolding by the president over the weekend, according to the aides and allies, many of whom requested anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about internal dynamics. Bannon declined to be interviewed.
But the mercurial president has a long history of turning quickly on subordinates, and the political hit late Tuesday in the New York Post was trademark Trump, using the friendly Manhattan tabloid to publicly debase his chief strategist. The president said Bannon was hardly the Svengali of his caricature, but rather "a good guy" who "was not involved in my campaign until very late."
Bannon's associates were caught off guard by Trump's comments. Some interpreted them as a paternal "love tap" by Trump to assert his own dominance, while others worried they amounted to an indirect firing. Bannon himself was humbled, people close to him said, and his allies scrambled to defend him, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who praised him in an appearance on Laura Ingraham's radio program.
In a second interview, with the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, Trump referred to Bannon as "a guy who works for me" - and pointedly noted, as he did with the New York Post, that he was his own "strategist," even though chief strategist is Bannon's job title.
Trump also is increasingly embracing more mainstream policy positions championed by daughter Ivanka Trump, son-in-law Jared Kushner and their allies, including ascendant National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn, instead of Bannon's brand of combative nationalism.
On Wednesday alone, Trump flipped from Bannon-favored positions on issues such as the Export-Import Bank and Chinese currency manipulation, alarming some Bannon aides who feared their wing had lost influence with the president.
On Ingraham's show, Sessions dismissed the suggestion that Bannon's worldview, which he shares, was being sidelined. "I'm an admirer of Steve Bannon and the Trump family and they've been supportive of what we're doing," said the attorney general, who in recent days has unveiled tough policies aimed at illegal immigration and drug crimes. "I've not felt any pushback against me or on anything I've done or advocated."
Thomas Barrack Jr., a close Trump friend who chaired his inaugural committee, spent Tuesday and Wednesday in Washington meeting with the president and his senior team. He characterized the ideological disagreement between Bannon and others as natural and even healthy.
"The way this president makes decisions is he encourages different points of view from different people, and he curates those and comes up with his own positions," Barrack said. "The lack of unanimity is just the way this president manages. He is in command and control."
Trump and his team are scrambling to notch accomplishments that they can hail at the 100-day mark later this month and to impose new discipline on a White House that has been riven by disorder and suspicion since Trump took office.
Justice Neil Gorsuch was confirmed to the Supreme Court and sworn in this week, upending Senate procedure and marking a significant victory for Trump's conservative base. But the absence of any other major legislative achievement and the public failure of a health-care overhaul has gnawed at the president, and other White House advisers have been quick to assign partial blame to Bannon, according to Trump staffers and outside allies.
Bannon's effective demotion began last week when he was removed from the National Security Council's principals committee. But his real problems began much earlier. Trump bristled at the media depiction of Bannon as a puppeteer, punctuated by the Feb. 13 Time magazine cover labeling Bannon "The Great Manipulator."
Trump fashions himself as the leading man - the protagonist of every story in which he stars - and was content to have Bannon as his sidekick, but he did not welcome the competition for top billing.
Bannon further imperiled his standing with the president by getting crosswise with Kushner, officials said. The two men were close during last year's campaign; Kushner came to see Bannon as a wartime consigliere. But in the White House, Bannon went to war with the business leaders Kushner helped recruit to the administration - Cohn and others, including Dina Powell, the senior economic counselor and deputy national security adviser.
Bannon privately derided them as "globalists" and "Democrats," officials said, even though Powell worked in George W. Bush's administration and has been called a principled conservative by leading Republican senators.
Bannon's supporters believe he is an essential conduit between Trump and his nationalist, populist base. The wealthy Mercer family, which has nurtured Bannon's political rise and infused Trump's campaign and allied groups with millions of dollars, is closely monitoring Bannon's falling fortunes. Rebekah Mercer, who directs the family's political activities, is unnerved and worried about losing her best link to a president her family takes credit for helping get elected but believes Bannon will be able to maintain his influence, people close to the family said.
Ingraham wrote in an email that Bannon is "a reminder in the West Wing of what the president's core supporters expect of the administration and the promises that must be fulfilled. I think the president has really keen political instincts - and I have to believe he knows his chances of a successful first term are better with Steve on the inside than on the outside."
But other Trump loyalists dispute the idea that Bannon is the id of the Trump movement, pointing out that Trump has been advocating some of the same populist positions - especially on immigration and trade - for decades and for more than a year on the campaign trail before Bannon's hiring last summer.
These people argue that a better representative of Trump's voters inside the White House is Stephen Miller, the senior policy adviser and former Sessions aide who joined the campaign early and helped Trump hone and communicate his ideas. They said Miller has worked closely with Bannon but also has strategically aligned himself with Kushner, who came to see him last year as indispensable at Trump's side.
As tensions have heightened in recent weeks, the Bannon and Kushner camps have devolved into opposing firing squads. Team Bannon believes the hosts of MSNBC's "Morning Joe," a show the president watches regularly, are speaking regularly with Kushner and projecting his anti-Bannon sentiments. Kushner allies, meanwhile, finger Bannon as responsible for unflattering stories involving the president's son-in-law, including those focusing on Kushner's talks with Russians.
Inside a White House led by a president increasingly hungry to make deals, even with Democrats, Bannon's dogmatism appears to have weakened him.
"The West Wing is finally appreciating it's a democracy, not a dictatorship, but the rules are hard to navigate when there is such a high degree of polarization," said Richard Hohlt, a longtime Republican consultant who has observed seven different presidents since his arrival in Washington. "It becomes difficult in a democracy if you're going to be all ideological purity, all the time."
Trump's three oldest children - Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric - and Kushner have been frustrated by the impression of chaos inside the White House and feel that their father has not always been served well by his senior staff, according to people with knowledge of their sentiments. The Trump heirs are interested in any changes that might help resuscitate the presidency and preserve the family's name at a time when they are trying to expand the Trump Organization's portfolio of hotels.
"The fundamental assessment is that if they want to win the White House in 2020, they're not going to do it the way they did in 2016, because the family brand would not sustain the collateral damage," said one well-connected Republican operative, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the president's family. "It would be so protectionist, nationalist and backward-looking that they'd only be able to build in Oklahoma City or the Ozarks."
Bannon has borne at least part of the blame for the administration's problems governing. He was intimately involved in the entry ban, which was twice blocked in federal court, and the failed health-care push especially hurt him. Trump thought Bannon would be able to bring along the House Freedom Caucus - a group of hard-line anti-establishment conservatives - but they helped tank the bill to scale back the Affordable Care Act.
Reince Priebus, the often-embattled chief of staff, is among the aides who feel growing pressure from the president to show that the administration can govern. Priebus has been telling confidants, "I'm not going to have a Memorial Day where the number one headline is 'Republicans can't produce a budget' when everyone else in America can," according to multiple people with knowledge of his plea.
For Trump, one bright spot was the decision to launch 59 missiles in Syria last week. The president was pleased with the process, overseen by national security adviser H.R. McMaster, that brought together his war cabinet and corralled its expertise in a way that resembled a more traditional White House.
"He's in the best place that I've seen him since the inauguration," Barrack said. "He's confident. He thinks he's found the groove, and with his team too. . . . He looks great. His energy level is off the map. And I think he now feels the commander in chief role."
The Washington Post's Damian Paletta contributed to this report.
Second City Third City Fourth City?
Ever since the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago has been the midcontinental metropolis. But that distinction is slipping away as our population decreases. Demographic trends indicate that Houstonians will outnumber us by 2030. We've already lost our Second City title to Los Angeles, and now we're on the way to losing our current spot in the rankings to an agglomeration of office parks and strip malls with a negligible cultural footprint.
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There's more than simple civic pride on the line here. Sitting atop the standings with the anchors of the East and West coasts is essential to Chicago's reputation as a global city.
"The farther we fall down that list, the less appeal the city and region have," says Alden Loury, director of research and evaluation for the Metropolitan Planning Council.
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There is, however, a way for Chicago to augment its population and keep Houston in its place. It's the same method the city used to grow to international prominence in the first place: Annex the suburbs.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Chicago expanded aggressively, luring in the formerly independent entities of Lake View, Jefferson Park, Hyde Park and Pullman with the promise of city services such as sewers and electricity. But except for the addition of O'Hare, that movement ended in 1930. By the post-World War II era of suburbanization, Chicago was boxed in by established villages that marketed themselves as escapes from filthy, crowded city living.
By contrast, Houston has used annexation-friendly state laws to inflate itself to three times Chicago's geographic size over the past 70 years.
"Houston and other Sun Belt cities are really different than Eastern cities, in that many of them have never been surrounded by municipalities," says Kyle Shelton of Rice University's Kinder Institute for Urban Research. "Annexations were easier for them to pursue because they didn't have anyone to fight." As a result, seven of the nation's 10 largest cities are in the Sun Belt. Toronto used a similar process to leap past Chicago in population, amalgamating with five neighboring suburbs. Miami, Nashville, Tenn., Charlotte, N.C., and Indianapolis have all merged with their surrounding counties.
The time has come for Chicago to take another look at annexation. Consider this: According to the Illinois Municipal League, Illinois has 1,298 municipalities more than any state, including California with 478 and more than a shrinking state struggling with a fiscal crisis can afford to maintain. The U.S. Census Bureau estimated that the Chicago area lost 19,570 people in 2016, more than any metro in the nation. Building subdivisions halfway to the Mississippi River may have made sense when the population was expanding. But now that it's contracting, we should look at whether we need every little Bedford Park and Burnham and whether excessive taxation and layers of government are hurting our ability to compete with the more efficiently run Sun Belt.
Many inner-ring suburbs have been left behind by Chicagoland's creep across the prairie, as middle-class homeowners flee to ever-more-distant communities. So they jack up property taxes to provide basic services, repelling businesses and developers. Meanwhile, the Loop a gritty wasteland during the suburban heyday of the 1970s and '80s is filling up with wealthy professionals.
Unlike our fellow Midwestern population losers Detroit, Cleveland and St. Louis, Chicago has something to offer its suburbs: lower taxes. Because it contains so much valuable commercial, industrial and residential property, Chicago's 6.9 percent property tax rate is the lowest in Cook County, according to the Cook County clerk's office. The village of Riverdale, which lies across the Calumet River from a Chicago neighborhood of the same name, pays 29.7 percent. There's a long list of border suburbs where property tax rates are double those of the city, including Cicero, Stickney, Bridgeview, Bedford Park, Evergreen Park, Oak Lawn, Blue Island, Calumet Park and Dolton.(Suburbs that join the city would be able to keep their school districts, since those entities are separate from municipalities.)
"There are some places that are really struggling outside Chicago, especially some places to the south," says Loury. "Now is really an opportune time, given what's happening with the state budget. There are municipalities starving for revenue. They should really be thinking about making a case to join the city. Some of the south suburban communities are in free fall. I'm not sure they can support themselves with a lack of amenities and the high tax rate."
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What does Chicago have to gain? More people mean more tax dollars from the state and federal government. And vacant suburban land would become more desirable at the city's lower tax rate. Loury can envision Chicago expanding "several miles to the south," but thinks annexation would be a tougher sell to middle-class north and northwest suburbs even Harwood Heights and Norridge, which are surrounded by the city.
But just because something makes sense financially doesn't mean it's easy to make happen. Politics and civic pride are two obstacles: In Illinois, annexation requires a referendum in both the annexing city and the targeted community. Village residents and trustees are reluctant to give up power and patronage. Consider the story of East Cleveland, a bankrupt Ohio suburb whose mayor was recalled after proposing annexation to Cleveland.
"Most municipalities have their own culture and their own identity, so it's not common that you'd see a municipality dissolve itself," says Brad Cole, executive director of the Illinois Municipal League.
Joining the city is a bureaucratic change, not a surrender of local identity. Few communities have as much self-regard as Hyde Park or Beverly, but they maintain their sense of distinctiveness within the confines of Chicago. If they could get over themselves, so can Lincolnwood and Elmwood Park, which, far from having their own cultures, have been rendered indistinguishable from the city neighborhoods across the street by decades of urban sprawl.
As Columbia College history professor Dominic A. Pacyga wrote in "Chicago: A Biography," an 1889 annexation "(made) Chicago the nation's second-largest city overnight."
If we annex enough land this time around, we can not only keep Houston at bay, we can pass Los Angeles, and become the Second City all over again.
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Edward McClelland is the author of "Nothin' but Blue Skies: The Heyday, Hard Times and Hopes of America's Industrial Heartland" and "How to Speak Midwestern."
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White House press secretary Sean Spicer on Wednesday tried a humble apology after arguably his worst 24 hours on the job no small feat, considering his previous gaffes, mispronunciations, lies, exaggerations and insults. "I made a mistake there's no other way to say it I got into a topic I shouldn't have, and I screwed up," Spicer said in an appearance at the Newseum. The topic, of course, was the Holocaust and his bizarre assertion that not even Hitler used gas on his own people. (That it was uttered on Passover made it all the more cringe-worthy.)
Listen, a guy who speaks of "Holocaust centers" and issues multiple clarifications in writing after his original statement (which the press room generously offered to let him correct) cannot characterize such profound ignorance and stupidity as a "mistake" as when one gets a name (like Bashar al-Assad) or fact (like crowd size) wrong.
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So the White House should fire him, as many Democrats, including Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., are suggesting? Maybe not so fast.
In a way, Spicer is the perfect figure to transmit indeed channel the president and his administration. Spicer's condescension ("Stop shaking your head," he instructed April Ryan) is nothing new, nor is Spicer's historical ignorance. Remember, this crowd claimed that leaving "Jews" out of the Holocaust Remembrance Day statement was appropriate. Likewise, Spicer's lack of mastery over basic policy issues, his fake conspiracy theories, preference for bullying and bluster, and abject dishonesty mirror those of his boss, to an almost uncanny degree.
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The ethos of arrogance they are so important that they need not be held accountable for their statements has been the one constant since Trump announced his campaign for the presidency. Trump's victory, however, does not mean underlings like Spicer can get away with egregious lies and bizarre gaffes. For one thing, Spicer has to face the press (not just a single friendly interviewer) en masse and on an almost daily basis. For another, Spicer lacks the confidence to pull off the lies, not to mention the stature to deflect inquiry. He's a sitting duck for fact-checkers, cable TV news vilification and, most important, "Saturday Night Live" mockery.
And so it doesn't seem equitable to fire Spicer for gross and perpetual dishonesty, ignorance and rudeness. If that were the standard, most of the Trump staff would need to go. The press has contempt for him and vice versa, but that shouldn't be grounds for firing him. After all, Trump thinks the media are "losers" and "the most dishonest people"; there's no reason that Spicer's attitude should cause alarm in this White House. Spicer doesn't know basic facts? The fellow who never seemed to grasp during the campaign what the nuclear triad is and until recently thought NATO (whose forces took part in Afghanistan) was not concerned with terrorism isn't exactly the sort of person to demand precision and accuracy, now is he?
Spicer is uniquely inept and unpleasant, to a degree we've not seen in any White House press secretary. But then we've never had a president like Trump, one lacking in the desire to "get it right" and to learn what he needs to know. In that regard Spicer is the perfect reflection of the Trump White House its boorishness and its cluelessness, its willful ignorance and its disdain for alternative, reliable sources of facts.
Besides, who else (other than those already working in the White House) could Trump get to debase himself by defending Trump's lies?
Washington Post
Jennifer Rubin writes the Right Turn blog for The Post, offering reported opinion from a conservative perspective.
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U.S. Rep. Brad Schneider supports the airstrikes in Syria over chemical weapons, but says President Donald Trump must seek congressional approval for further action against Syrian President Bashar Assad. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)
The U.S. missile strike April 7 in response to the use of chemical weapons by Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime has stoked a long-overdue public debate about our nation's interests, engagement and strategy for addressing Syria's ongoing civil war and the humanitarian crisis it has created. As we consider our responsibilities and options, I believe it is important to distinguish between the broader civil war and the Syrian regime's recent and prospective use of chemical weapons.
Furthermore, going forward it is imperative that Congress and the American people have their voices heard. Any further U.S. military action must only be undertaken with the formal authorization of Congress, and after full and complete deliberation.
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Six years into the Syrian civil war, nearly 500,000 people are dead, millions have been forced from their homes, and no end to this awful tragedy is in sight. Amid this chaos, one thing seems certain: There is no easy solution to the crisis. Only through working to change the dynamic of the battlefield can the international community bring forth the conditions for a political solution.
Separately, we must be clear that chemical weapons, like biological and nuclear weapons, constitute a class of weapons altogether different from conventional warfare, and their use is wholly unacceptable at any time and at any scale.
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It would always be better if the response came from the international community, but as long as Russia, Assad's benefactor and protector, continues to block any direct action at the United Nations Security Council, it falls to the U.S. to take the lead.
That's why I supported last week's limited action against the airfield from which Assad's air force launched the chemical attack. It sent a clear and proportionate message that such use of chemical weapons will not be tolerated. Furthermore, we should be forthcoming in signaling to Assad our absolute commitment that any future use of chemical weapons is equally unacceptable.
However, one strike and bold statements on chemical weapons alone cannot and will not bring an end to the broader Syrian civil war. It is now incumbent upon President Donald Trump and his administration to formally and clearly articulate a comprehensive strategy for confronting the Syrian crisis. Such a strategy must include precise definition of our national interests, goals and objectives, and demonstrate balanced application of both hard and soft power. Without a coherent strategy, our measured response to Assad's chemical weapons could be the first step toward a devolution into a quagmire that once again leaves the United States embroiled in a foreign conflict in the Middle East with no clear mission or plan for exit.
Unfortunately, the signs coming from the administration are not encouraging. President Trump campaigned for office on a platform of diminishing the United States' involvement in world affairs. His recently proposed budget outline would reduce funding for the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development by nearly a third. His Cabinet officials offer unfocused and unclear proclamations, frequently contradicting one another and sometimes even themselves. The administration has to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time, capably committing to defeat Islamic State while simultaneously working to bring an end to the civil war and hold Assad to account as the war criminal he is.
But it is also time for Congress to exercise its constitutional responsibility, and deliberate and vote on an updated Authorization for Use of Military Force, not only in regard to the civil war in Syria but for our ongoing global campaign against Islamic State, al-Qaida and the violent extremism threatening our world.
The brave men and women serving our nation, in our military as well as our diplomatic services, deserve nothing less.
U.S. Rep. Brad Schneider, D-Deerfield, represents the 10th District. He is a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Early in Barack Obama's presidency, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was dispatched to Moscow in a bold bid to reset relations with Russia. She came with a prop, a big red button that she thought said "reset" in Russian. She was mistaken the prop actually said "overload" and the reset bid went nowhere. The Kremlin continued marginalizing (or killing) its political opponents, invaded U.S. ally Georgia, then invaded Ukraine.
Shortly after his election, Donald Trump signaled a new course with the Kremlin, with fawning language about Vladimir Putin and talk of a new friendship with Russia. That hasn't worked either: The Kremlin still treats its citizens' dissent like a crime, Moscow has deployed ground-launched cruise missiles in violation of a 1987 nuclear arms treaty, and Washington accuses Russia of covering up Syrian President Bashar Assad's chemical attack on his civilians.
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Attempts by these two U.S. administrations to wipe the slate clean with the Kremlin have fallen flat for one fundamental reason: Resetting relations with a country and a government that hold views so antithetical to America's and that chronically aim to undermine American interests just isn't going to happen. And, for now, it shouldn't.
Rapprochement certainly wasn't the feel in Moscow this week, as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson met with Putin and his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov. The talks were fraught with tension, and afterward, the only thing both sides could agree on was that U.S.-Russia relations neared rock bottom. Ties with Russia, Trump said, "may be at an all-time low."
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So be it. It's Russia that has evoked memories of the Cold War. The most recent example: Moscow's denial of Syria's atrocity. The air base that Trump hit with Tomahawk missiles was targeted because it's where Syrian jets took off from before dropping sarin gas onto the town of Khan Sheikhoun, killing at least 85 people. Russian troops were stationed at the base. How likely is it that those Russians didn't know what Assad's forces also stationed there were up to?
Consider also what happened last October in tiny Montenegro, an eastern European nation the size of Connecticut but with fewer people (626,000) than North Dakota. Montenegro has allied itself with the West, and in so doing has rankled Moscow. On Election Day in the Balkan nation, Serbian and Russian nationalists tried to assassinate the country's prime minister, an attempt that U.S. officials suspect was engineered by Russia's intelligence community. The attempt failed.
Trump just signed Senate legislation backing Montenegro's accession to NATO. That's sure to incense Moscow, which still sees NATO through an us vs. them prism. Trump's support for NATO expansion, as well as his about-face on his views about the Western military alliance "I said it was obsolete, it's no longer obsolete," he said Wednesday, with NATO's secretary-general at his side suggest that Trump's starting to get it: A reset with today's Russia isn't possible. Tomorrow's Russia? We can hope.
That said, the U.S. has three major opportunities to find common ground with the Kremlin:
Washington and Moscow share an enemy Islamist militancy. The suicide bomber who recently struck a subway train in St. Petersburg was an ethnic Uzbek who may have trained with the Islamic State. The attacker who rammed a stolen beer truck into a crowd in Stockholm earlier this month, killing four, was an Uzbek who had shown an interest in Islamic State, Swedish authorities said. Former Soviet republics in Central Asia have become seedbeds for Islamic State terrorists, and it behooves Russia to cooperate in the fight against Islamist militant groups. That cooperation can begin in Syria, where Russia and Assad have ignored going after Islamic State, instead leaving it to U.S.-backed Syrian Kurd and Arab militias to do the job.
Another common interest: North Korea. Russia maintains ties with Pyongyang but shares U.S. concerns about Kim Jong Un's nuclear arsenal. It also shares a border with North Korea. While China is the key to any resolution to the North Korea conundrum, having Russia more involved in the effort to rein in the reckless dictator would benefit Washington and Moscow.
Even in Iran, where the U.S. and Russian policy diverge, there's a common aim Russia, too, doesn't want to see a nuclear-armed Iran, and backed that up by signing on to the Obama-engineered nuclear arms deal with Tehran.
Working together where interests coincide is the necessary first step toward stabilizing U.S.-Russia relations. But the Trump administration's shelving of a more extensive reset is not only the right course. Given the Kremlin's intense pursuit of an anti-American agenda, for now it's the only logical course.
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Regarding your editorial "Sour milk from the dairy industry": Dairy interests are right to object to the use of "milk" to describe beverages made with almonds, soy beans, rice and other plants.
One beef is that the imitators have stolen milk's "nutritional equity." Cow's milk is an economical, nutrient-dense beverage. For about a quarter you can buy 8 grams of protein, plus calcium and essential vitamins and minerals. The more-expensive sweetened almond milk has 1 gram of protein and 14 grams of added sugar.
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The dairy industry isn't seeking special protection. It is just asking the federal government to enforce its own legal definition of milk. Milk comes from a mammal, says Uncle Sam, and milk cannot be adulterated. If a dairy processor were to water down cow's milk and label it as milk, that would be a fraud. But bottlers of almond-flavored water face no such action when they take the word "milk" and apply it to their beverages.
If food definitions are going to have any meaning, the federal government has to do its job. The dairy industry is asking for nothing more than that.
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Jim Carper, Deerfield, editor in chief, Dairy Foods
Opinion / Columnist
It never rains but pours for the new political outfit called the National People's party. The party that is still nursing the wounds of an acrimonious split that saw Joyce Mujuru parting ways with the Elders Rugare Gumbo and Didymus Mutasa over alleged irreconcilable differences has once again been embroiled in yet another clashes that saw the party Spokesperson Jealous Mawarire exchanging fights with the Presidential Spokesperson Gift Nyandoro. There is a lot to learn from these latest upheavals plaguing the new political party. The resignation of Jealous Mawarire from the party is a microcosm of the macrocosm, a minor reflection of the major battles that lie ahead.It's self-evident on the part of Joice Mujuru that being at the helm of a political party is no walk in the park. These two dramatic episodes have forced a lot of people to question the leadership qualities of Joice Mujuru. If she cannot manage her officials, what more of a government?Welcome to the field of opposition politics Madame Joice Mujuru. A field where discipline of party cadres is difficult to enforce. A field where there are less incentives to lubricate loyalty and maintain unity unlike in government where benefits of incumbency and the trappings of office incentives party cadres to fight for a common goal. However there are salient issues in these upheavals that might be behind, one being phallocracy and the politics of infiltration.Phallocracy is a society or system which is dominated by men and in which men sex is thought superior. Africa and Zimbabwe in particular are phallocratic societies where the leadership of women in powerful positions is frowned upon and deemed taboo. It is this pervasive patriarchal tendency that is making life difficult for Joice Mujuru. This is one of the reasons why Joice Mujuru is finding it difficult to be in full control of the fledgling political outfit.The other thorn in the flesh with regards to opposition is the politics of infiltration. It can be orchestrated in a subtle and sophisticated way and put the opposition formations in a state of quandary. There are innuendos that the two guys from NPP (Mawarire and Nyandoro) stage-managed a fight. They know their motives. Issues of press statement cannot lead to such fist-fighting. It's highly probable that either one of them is an agent provocateur or both of them. Agent provocateurs exist in politics. There is more to meets the eye. I personally smell a dead rat. The spectacle of brawling politicians is not a new phenomenon but it normally takes place in the form of ''legislative violence'' which broadly refers to any violent clashes between members of the legislature triggered by highly divisive issues.An agent provocateurs is an individual who clandestinely infiltrate a group with the ulterior motive of weakening it from within. As such they will in reality be representatives of a different group diametrically opposed to the interests of their apparent allies. The objective maybe to create unrest, disunity, and ill-will or just to create a scene while professing to hold the ideals of the group at heart.Alternatively an agent provocateur may encourage fellow group members to carry out crimes or other nefarious activities while secretly reporting their activities to the real master. A political organization or government may use agents' provocateurs against political opponents. The provocateurs try to incite the opponent to do counter-productive or ineffective acts to foster public disdain or provide a pretext for aggression against the opponent.Joice Mujuru and the National People's party need to exercise a lot of caution in their recruitment drive. They need to be wary of charlatans and imposters who come in sheep's clothing with the intention to sabotage and dent the image of the new political outfit.
A 22-year-old Batavia man remains in Cook County Jail on drug charges in connection to a March traffic stop on Chicago's Northwest Side.
Diego Luna, of the 1200 block of East Wilson Street, was arrested March 26 by tactical officers in the Jefferson Park neighborhood, according to Chicago police, who said Luna had nearly 10 pounds of marijuana, a small amount of an unspecified controlled substance, cash and other items at the time of the stop. Prosecutors charged Luna with manufacturing and delivery of marijuana.
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Luna - who is being held on $100,000 bail, according to the Cook County Sheriff's Office - was listed in jail records as having a court appearance on Thursday, but Cook County prosecutors said Luna has a hearing scheduled for April 17.
Kane and Kendall county court records show Luna with a history of minor traffic violations.
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Marijuana and other items that Chicago police say that Batavia resident Diego Luna had in his vehicle during a traffic stop in the city. (Chicago Police Department / Handout)
Dan Campana is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News
An Aurora man who police say fled a local hospital to avoid arrest after crashing a car during a police pursuit last month is back in custody after a Kane County judge increased his bail in two unrelated cases to a total of $250,000.
Billy J. Cole Jr. was released from jail Saturday after his stepbrother posted the $7,500 bond for his $75,000 bail for a handful of felony charges connected with the police pursuit, crash and foot chase March 27 in Aurora.
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At the time of the crash, Cole was out on two separate bonds one cash and one signature on unrelated charges of attempted murder and aggravated drunken driving.
He's facing felony charges including attempted murder, class 3 felony aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and misdemeanor DUI in connection with a December 2015 attack in Aurora while he was driving a Chevrolet Malibu with three passengers, according to court records.
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About two months after his release from Kane County Jail by posting $5,000 bond in the attempted murder case, Cole was charged Dec. 20 with two counts of aggravated DUI on a suspended or revoked license, both class 4 felonies; reckless driving, a class A misdemeanor; and driving with license revoked, a class A misdemeanor, according to Kane County court records.
Court records indicate Cole did not sign conditions of bond, which included abstaining from alcohol and driving, on the December DUI case, but was released again Feb. 15 on a personal recognizance bond by Judge Donald M. Tegeler Jr.
Tegeler on Wednesday raised the attempted murder bail to $150,000 and added a $100,000 bail to the DUI case, essentially revoking the signature bond, according to court records.
While Kane County deputies initially took Cole into custody after the crash, which also injured his sole passenger, medics took him to Rush-Copley Medical Center. He stayed one night and walked away the next day as officials were preparing a warrant, Kane County Sheriff spokesman Lt. Patrick Gengler said.
Cole eluded authorities for about two days, until they got a court order for his cellphone records and found he was in Quincy, where U.S. marshals took him into custody, Gengler said.
He faces charges of aggravated fleeing and attempting to elude a police officer, a class 3 felony; aggravated reckless driving causing great bodily harm, disability or disfigurement, a class 4 felony; leaving the scene of a personal injury accident, a class 4 felony; driving on a revoked license where two or more people were injured, a class 4 felony; driving on a license revoked for DUI, a class 4 felony; resisting or obstructing a peace officer, a class A misdemeanor; and disobeying a stop sign, a traffic offense.
Since Cole was 18, he has served time for several criminal convictions, most recently discharged from prison in October 2014, according to Illinois Department of Corrections records.
When medics took Cole to the hospital, the sheriff's office didn't know the full extent of his criminal record, Gengler said.
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The sheriff's office, under the impression Cole was likely to be there for another day, didn't assign an officer to watch him at the hospital, Gengler said.
To Gengler's knowledge, Cole, knowing he would eventually be arrested, walked out of the hospital before he was medically discharged.
When to assign an officer to guard someone at the hospital is ultimately a judgment call unless the person is already in custody at the jail, in which case the sheriff's office does assign someone, Gengler said. After discussing the case with Sheriff Donald Kramer, Gengler said the department, moving forward, will continue to evaluate each case based on its individual facts.
"In the Cole case we did not think that he was going to flee based on the medical information we were provided," Gengler said in an email Wednesday. "That turned out to not be the case and now looks like we may have made the wrong decision."
hleone@tribpub.com
Twitter @hannahmleone
Richard Irvin speaks at a recent forum on safety in Aurora at Main Baptist Church while Police Chief Kristen Ziman (left) and Mayor Robert O'Connor listen. Irvin will take the oath of office as Aurora's next mayor May 9. (Sean King / The Beacon-News)
Just five days after becoming Aurora's mayor-elect, Richard Irvin was in church listening to some of the older men reminisce about a bygone Aurora.
They were talking about being denied entrance to certain restaurants or stores, or the use of certain bathrooms.
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Which means the historic nature of Irvin being elected the 58th mayor of Aurora and the first of African-American heritage is not lost on him. He has his own story in that regard, one that has become well-known throughout town, of being raised by a single mother in public housing, joining the U.S. Army, fighting in Operation Desert Storm, and coming back to become a lawyer, practicing in his hometown.
And now he will be mayor, a symbol, he said, "to give other young people motivation, a beacon of hope for success for the future."
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Irvin's campaign manager, Dennis Cook, puts his own historic twist to it, pointing out that Irvin was elected on April 4 the same day in 1864 that the U.S. Senate began its debate on the 13th Amendment to abolish slavery.
"I think it's great," Cook said of the historic moment.
Cook said just a couple of days after election day, he had to travel to Boston for a meeting. While standing in a group in the historic statehouse there, he suddenly heard someone shout out, "One Aurora!" Hearing Irvin's familiar campaign slogan, he turned and looked to find an old friend "I haven't seen in a while."
He had been following the election online, and had read the stories about the outcome.
Also following the story were Gov. Bruce Rauner and former Gov. Pat Quinn, who both called Irvin this week to offer congratulations and to remind him of the historic nature of his election. Irvin said it pointed out to him the status Aurora enjoys "as the second-largest city in the state of Illinois."
But what really brings a smile to Irvin's face is talking about walking down the street this week and having a man working on a garbage truck jump out to shake his hand.
"The garbage man," he said, chuckling. "That was nice."
And it fits with the coalition that supported him, he said, a combination of blacks, whites, Asians, Hispanics, Democrats, Republicans, conservatives, liberals, independents, rich and poor.
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"I want to be the mayor of all of us," he said. "Here in Aurora, we have overcome so many obstacles. This was just one more to overcome in our progress toward equality."
The historic nature of Irvin's election is not just one for the city, but for Irvin himself.
He began thinking about being mayor 20 years ago, and unsuccessfully ran twice before for the position. He also ran two successful, citywide campaigns for alderman at large, a position he has held for 10 years.
This explains why he was at a loss for words election night, and has been on a whirlwind in the short time since his ascendancy to the top elected position in town.
He already has been taking meetings with the mayor's office, city staff and with people serving on his transition team. He said his transition is important so when he takes the oath of office May 9, "we can hit the ground running from day one."
Irvin also attended a meeting with the board of directors for Invest Aurora, the city's non-profit corporation that deals with economic development and redevelopment. The corporation effectively replaced the city's Economic Development Commission, and Irvin made reinstating that commission one of his campaign planks.
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Irvin said this week the two entities are not mutually exclusive. He said he would use Invest Aurora "in conjunction with creating the Economic Development Commission" for what he considers a key goal of his administration: to attract, retain and expand business "throughout the whole city."
Irvin also said he realizes there will have to be some fence-mending after a long campaign that got ugly at the end, and ended with him beating opponent Rick Guzman by only about 170 votes.
He paraphrases the political philosopher Machiavelli in calling politics war without bloodshed.
"The campaign was a war," he said. "There was a victor. Now it's time for us to heal. Now we've got to join together to fight for what's best for the city."
To that end, he says rumors that he will make big changes immediately at City Hall on his first day, possibly laying off a large number of employees, are not true.
"That would be irresponsible," he says. "I will assess our strengths and weaknesses, and decide what's best going forward."
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One job he does have to fill is his own alderman at large position. He will appoint the new alderman to finish the about two years left on the term. He said he already has been getting calls and inquiries about it, and will appoint someone within about a month.
"Man, it's only been a week; it feels like it's been a month," he said. "I had a couple days to come off the high, a couple days to think about the gravity of it, about the responsibility. I don't look at it this as a job, I look at it as a responsibility."
slord@tribpub.com
Michelle Meyer, executive director of Mutual Ground, said the nonprofit signed a contract with the state Department of Human Services in July for $489,000 in funding. She said the Aurora shelter has received only $116,000 of the contracted amount so far this year. (Linda Girardi / The Beacon-News)
Those who work to help victims of domestic violence and sexual assault came to Aurora Wednesday to "demand that the state" come through on its funding promises for social services.
Officials for the agencies said the state budget crisis that has gone on for nearly two years has pushed them into uncharted waters with respect to the future of their services.
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"It is difficult for us to plan because we don't know what the future looks like. We don't know where the funding is coming from," said Carrie Boyd, director of policy for the Illinois Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
She said the coalition's member agencies signed and executed contracts with the Department of Human Services.
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"We have rendered those services and upheld our end of the bargain. We now demand that the state uphold theirs," Boyd said.
Michelle Meyer, executive director of Mutual Ground in Aurora, said the group signed a contract with the state Department of Human Services in July including $489,000 in funding.
She said the Aurora shelter in August received $116,000 of the contracted amount and nothing since.
She said Mutual Ground also had a contract with the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault for $194,000 and it has received $56,600 of the contracted amount.
If Mutual Ground doesn't receive any payments during the next couple of months, the state will be $510,000 behind in its payments, Meyer said.
She said Mutual Ground is meeting with donors and planning fundraisers to help make up the budget gap.
"We are doing everything in our power," Meyer said. "We are only 12 days into this month and we have turned away seven adults and 11 children that requested shelter. That's huge."
She said since the first of the year, 45 adults and 12 children have been turned away from counseling, which forces people to seek counseling that they must pay for or do without, she said.
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She said the shelter's staff has been reduced by 33 percent, from 46 to 31 staff members, because of the funding shortage.
"Even though we haven't received funding, we have been trying to do more with less," Meyer said. "We are doing our part. The state needs to do its part."
Vickie Smith, executive director of the Illinois Coalition Against Domestic Violence, said the group is reaching out across the state to inform communities what is going on with the state budget.
"Raising additional dollars to try to make up what the state is not honoring in their own contracts is a daily challenge," she said.
Smith praised the work of the case workers in the room that answer the phone calls and have the person-to-person meetings with families and their children forced to say, "'I am sorry. There is no room.' This is not the time to say that to people who have nowhere else to go," she said.
"It's beyond heroic that you are able to maintain your composure and ability to face these families who have nowhere else to turn but us," she said.
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Gretchen Vapnar, executive director of the Community Crisis Center in Elgin, directed her comments to Springfield.
"There are so few of you who will look into our eyes," Vapnar said about lawmakers.
Vapnar said the Elgin agency has not received $400,000 in contractual funding agreed to by the state. She said the agency provides 8,760 hours in service to clients annually.
State Sen. Linda Holmes, D-Aurora, said that the most difficult time she has "spent in Springfield has been the past two years."
"Who would have thought that the Rod Blagojevich days were the good old days," she said.
She said the ongoing budget problems are impacting all sectors of the state, including businesses.
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Holmes said she did support Senate Bill 6 which was a provision of a proposal that would have fully funded domestic violence and sexual assault services with $18.6 million for fiscal year 2017.
"I know you don't want to hear the blame game. But the grand bargain was blown up by the governor," Holmes said. "In his political war, it doesn't even make sense."
"I am sorry for the state, I am embarrassed for the state and I will continue to fight," Holmes said.
Linda Girardi is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
Thord Umbenstock, a resident of Countryside Nursing Home in Dolton, went missing at a Homewood Walmart Tuesday afternoon. (Homewood Police Department / Handout)
A Dolton man was reported missing after a nursing home group outing, Homewood police said.
Thord Umbenstock, 64, a Countryside Nursing Home resident, disappeared Tuesday afternoon from a Homewood Walmart, 17550 S. Halsted St., officials said.
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His last known location was getting off a Pace bus at 95th and State between 5:30 and 6:00 p.m. Tuesday, officials said. Security cameras captured him walking north from the store at approximately 3:27 p.m. Tuesday. Umbenstock is 6-feet 3-inches tall, 265 pounds and was last seen wearing a black and blue jacket, orange shirt and blue jeans, officials said.
Caregivers told police that he has a history of mental health disorders, officials said.
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Anyone with information should contact the Homewood Police Department at (708) 206-3420.
mmccall@tribpub.com
@MatthewMcCall_
Sister Jacquie Dewar, left, and Lauren Plesha, a junior at Mother McAuley High School, help assemble Easter baskets on Tuesday for children staying at Margret's Village shelter in Chicago. (Gary Middendorf)
Seventeen-year-old Lauren Plesha carefully slid decorative plastic wrapping over the small wicker basket. Inside the basket was an assortment of goodies, including a stuffed animal and jelly beans.
A few minutes earlier, other students from Mother McAuley High School in Chicago had poured candy into pastel plastic eggs and readied other treats for loading into other Easter baskets.
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None of the teens have met the recipients of the baskets, but that didn't matter to those who gathered Tuesday at Mercy Circle assisted living facility in Chicago to create the Easter-themed bundles.
The teens from McAuley were joined in the effort by Mercy Circle residents from the Mercy Circle assisted living facility. The baskets they created are headed to children staying at one of two South Side homeless shelters.
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"I know I'm really fortunate to have everything that I do and have the mom that I do. So to reach out and help kids and mothers just feels really good," Plesha said.
Nonprofit organization Margaret's Village oversees Maria Shelter, which has been open in Englewood for more than 40 years, and Believe Shelter in South Chicago.
At any given time, about half the beds at either shelter are taken by children. Fifty teens and younger children will be getting baskets this time.
"I can't wait to see their faces, when their eyes light up, because they'll get an Easter basket," said Angela Hicks, executive director of Margaret's Village.
They will be delivered Thursday, she said.
Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday >
"I overheard a mother telling her little girl 'I'm not going to be able to get you an Easter basket this year, but I promise you we are going to do something special,'" Hicks said. "So that mom is going to be happy, that child is going to be surprised."
The effort to put together Easter baskets for the residents at the shelters was started years ago by Joan Guilfoyle. Her daughter, also named Joan Guilfoyle, said she was happy to see the effort continuing with the students at Mother McAuley High School.
"My mother was a kind and generous spirit. She wanted to do things for people all the time. And this was one of her ideas," Guilfoyle said.
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Supplies and gifts for the baskets were paid for by the Mother McAuley Mothers' Club, Mercy Circle and the office of 19th Ward Alderman Matt O'Shea, who attended Monday's event. State Rep. Fran Hurley, D-Chicago, and State Sen. Bill Cunningham, D-Chicago, also helped put together the Easter presents.
O'Shea, who brought together the McAuley students and Mercy Circle residents for the basket preparation, said the event gives seniors an opportunity to be active while also teaching the "youngsters" about service to the community.
"There's no greater need than what you're seeing in the Englewood community, and Margarette's Village is a wonderful organization that has been in Englewood for years," he said.
Nick Swedberg is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
Lemont High School students placed among the top ten in 15 categories at the 2017 Future Business Leaders of America State Leadership Conference last month in Springfield. Lemont students combined to win four events, marking the fifth time in eight years the school has brought home multiple titles. Lemontas state champions included juniors Reece Graham, Martynas Juskelis and Alex Paulius, and sophomore Anna Mietus. (Lemont High School \ Handout)
H-F grad wins endowed prize for music
Clara Deck, a graduate of Homewood-Flossmoor High School and a senior geology major at The College of Wooster, received the Josh Farthing Endowed Prize at Wooster's 47th Annual Recognition Banquet. The Josh Farthing Endowed Prize is awarded to a non-music major who demonstrates a strong interest in music.
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Mystery author to bring new book to Evergreen Park library
Award-winning, best selling author Sara Paretsky will return to the Evergreen Park Public Library at 6:30 p.m. April 24. In her new book, "Fallout," Paretsky brings her legendary investigator V. I. Warshawski back for a puzzling case that will take the private investigator out of her comfort zone and into deadly new territory as she searches for a young film student and a former film star who are on the run in the heart of the Midwest. Books will be available for purchase and signing. Registration is encouraged at 708-422-8522 or online at evergreenparklibrary.org.
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Weather spotter training event pairs with health expo
The 2017 New Lenox Severe Weather Spotter Training/Health and Safety Expo will take place April 26 at Lincoln-Way West High School, 21701 Gougar Road. The event is sponsored by the New Lenox Safe Communities America Coalition and Citizen Corps Council, the National Weather Service, Will County Emergency Management Agency, and Lincoln-Way District 210. The free Health and Safety Expo will be from 5 to 7 p.m. just outside the Performing Arts Center. Approximately 50 organizations from the health, safety, fitness, preparedness and emergency response industries will participate. Attendees will have the opportunity to receive free literature, giveaways, and health screenings. The free Severe Weather Spotter Training will be held from 7. to 8:30 p.m. The training will provide those in attendance with information regarding what to look for during severe weather season. The program is open to anyone wishing to learn about severe weather. Registration is at Eventbrite, https://basic_spotter_tng_lwwest.eventbrite.com. More information is at 815-462-2123.
March for Babies set for SXU's Chicago campus
Saint Xavier University will host the annual March of Babies 5K Walk at6 8 a.m. April 30 at its Chicago campus, 3700 W. 103rd St. It is the third year the university has hosted the family-friendly walk. About 2,000 people are expected to participate in the event, which has a fundraising goal of $250,000. Last year's event brought in $240,000 for the cause, which is the signature fundraiser for the March of Dimes. More information on the event and participation is at www.marchforbabies.org/event/southsuburban.
Send news to communitynews@southtownstar.com.
A McDonald's eatery in Oak Forest would tear down its existing structure and build a new one at the same site under a plan approved Tuesday by the City Council.
In a 7-0 vote, aldermen agreed to allow McDonald's, 5441 W. 159th St., to provide two drive-thru lanes instead of a single lane that currently exists at the site.
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There also would be an elimination of three parking spaces on the property, which would shrink by three yards.
The changes are meant to accommodate the additional drive-thru capacity, while also making it easier for motorists to enter and leave the McDonald's property from 159th Street proper, instead of turning onto Debra Drive and enter an adjacent housing subdivision.
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Ald. Richard Simon, 2nd Ward, said some residents complained to him about what they feared would be an increase of McDonald's-related traffic near their property.
But Simon said Tuesday he and city Administrator Troy Ishler had talked in detail with McDonald's officials to get them to make adjustments in their design to keep traffic out of the subdivision as much as possible.
With the changes, Simon said, "I support this the way we have it now."
Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday >
Oak Forest community Planner Katie Ashbaugh said the city's planning and zoning board gave its approval to the McDonald's expansion project back in February, following a review by Baxter & Woodman, the city's engineering contractor.
She said Illinois Department of Transportation officials had done their own review of the proposal to ensure that traffic flow didn't cause problems for the nearby neighborhood.
The new facility also will include a spruced up interior and an overall larger eatery, city officials said.
In other business, the City Council also approved the sale of property on 159th Street at Lorel Avenue to allow for a planned Sherwin Williams paint store.
KC Realty is acquiring the site for $100,000, and is negotiating a deal by which the site will be sold to Sherwin Williams later this year. The site is located next to a Family Dollar store at 5400 W. 159th St.
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Mayor Henry Kuspa said the development of a paint store at the location still needs review of the city's planning and zoning board, then will come before the full City Council for a review some time this summer.
Gregory Tejeda is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
Opinion / Columnist
Budgets
Transparency
Service Delivery
Infrastructural Development
Re-Engangement Plan
Partnership With Stakeholders
Tinashe Eric Muzamhindo heads Mentorship Institute of National Development and Sustainability. He is also a development consultant and analyst. He can be contacted at greatorminds@gmail.com
One thing I have observed with the current mayor of Harare Bernard Manyenyeni he is a professional guy who does his things in a professional way. In fact as MINDS we promote professionalism in all private and public institutions. Our role on governance matters is to promote transparency and professionalism. I took part in the state of the city address and this programme was done in a more and professional way. I'm going to outline things that the mayor pointed out that made some of the things successful and also failures at the same time. This meeting was worthy attending because it was not a political meeting but rather it was an update on the state of the affairs of the nation. Harare has become the centre of power due to economic, social development and it is the centre of tourism and attraction as well.The mayor bemoaned the issue of budgets. The council's revenues compared to the current expenditure we are really in danger zone and at the same time, salaries and wages have consumed much of the revenue making it difficult for the day to day running of the council business. Most of the revenue are going to ZINARA and as we speak ZINARA is not accountable for most of the funds. I think there is need for decentralization of power and at the same time the issue of devolution should be implemented urgently.Bernard Manyenyeni is one of the guys who has done exceptionally very well as far as transparency is concerned. If you see people trying to push people like Manyenyeni out then you should know the reasons behind that. He will leave council chambers with clean hands. This is what we have been advocating as a nation to urge people in strategic positions, and positions of influence to be transparent and accountable for public resources.Most of the people in general they complain citing the issue of service delivery but the mayor has made it clear that one of the major challenges is finance and accountability. The wage bill is too big to an extend that more than 65% of the council revenue is being consumed by wage bill. So what can be really done with such matters? The first one will be to downsize staff and give them packages so that the wage bill will be reduced. The other issue will be to venture into projects that can sustain the council, coming up with new incoming generating schemes and at the same time, having internal controls and cutting expenditure. There is also need for council to clean up the mess.The mayor bemoaned the lack of proper infrastructure. There is need for a proper budget to come up with good propositions. Look Harare is the heart of Zimbabwe were most of the business usually takes place, and it is the centre of attraction and there is need to improve our standards and at the same time to have clear objectives. Most of our buildings in town they need renovation because they are too old and they pose a danger to the public and tourists. There is also need for the city of Harare to look further on the issue of improper structures, or shacks and illegal structures around Harare. The local Government ministry and city of Harare should come up with a manageable housing policy document that should be followed consistently.In every economic plan and objectives there is need for a re- engagement plan with investors and international community. We are in this worst era because we do not have capital injection as an economy, bad policies and governance. What the Government through the ministry of Local Government and Harare city council is to come up with a plan to engange Diasporas who can invest in the city of Harare and at the same time approach donors who can assist financially or who may want to partner with the city of Harare. But remember all investors are worried about the political environment and at the same time the issue of property rights and protection of investments.If one wants any organization to be successful there is need to involve all stakeholders to build a strong institution. You cannot go it alone, every successful manager is supposed to involve other stakeholders for you to be a successful person, and this is what Manyenyeni has managed to do. In leadership you need to consult and involve others for their inputs and contributions.
Terminal 1 is seen in the foreground as a United Airlines airplane rolls down the runway after landing at O'Hare Airport on Tuesday, April 11, 2017. (Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune)
Despite recent revelations that Fox News and anchor Bill O'Reilly had settled five complaints of sexual harassment against him to the tune of millions his ratings went up.
A few days later, a United AirIines passenger was dragged from an airplane to make room for crew members on a full flight and United's stock initially went up.
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And for this, we pay good money?
The shock wasn't so much that monetary values seem to increase in direct correlation to the diminution of moral values but that we've become passive bystanders to appalling behavior and allegations. Well beyond defining deviancy down, as the great statesman Daniel Patrick Moynihan once described our cultural devolution we hardly know what it is anymore.
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Which reminds me of another great social observer, author Flannery O'Connor. Frequently asked why Southerners write so much about freaks, she replied that it was because Southerners could still recognize them. Whether this was ever true is debatable only beyond the Confederate states.
What is true today is that social media has become the church lady and the party-line operator rolled into one. If somebody misbehaves, not just two people know about it. Within hours or minutes, millions do. Like a single organism endowed with the accumulated moral fortitude of human society, Twitter demands justice.
In viral videos of the airplane fiasco, passengers are heard protesting as security officials dragged the man down the aisle toward the exit. But even their objections were relatively muted. Was this a one-off, crazy incident, they must have wondered? Or, was it just a matter of time until the blood-sucking, tentacled tripod machines in "War of the Worlds" reach down to select their next human cocktail to drain? But maybe that's just me.
Still. It happened. Right here in the USA. On a plane. To a random guy.
United stocks rallied and the friendly skies were no wiser.
That is, until the outrage gathering on social media reached investors. By the time the market closed Tuesday, United's shares were down 1.1 percent and the company had lost $255 million in market value not because of the airline's treatment of the passenger but because of investors' loss of faith in the company's ability to handle a crisis.
As for O'Reilly, o'really?
I was beginning to think I was the last person on the planet for whom mention of "O'Reilly" prompted the instant association to "loofah." O'Reilly. Loofah. O'Reilly. Loofah. Yes, my fellow Americans, not only is O'Reilly a smug, sarcastic, windbag/anchor of the self-promoting commercial called "The O'Reilly Factor," he is also allegedly a sex talker of some renown.
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Thirteen years ago, O'Reilly settled with a "Factor" associate producer, Andrea Mackris, who sued for sexual harassment. Specifically, she alleged that in telephone conversations, he bragged about his global sexual exploits, encouraged her to release tensions with a mechanical aid, and spoke of a shower fantasy with Mackris and "that little loofah thing." Later in the same conversation, for reasons unknown, she said he changed his terminology to that "falafel thing" word of the day, eh? which falls somewhat short of corr1ecting the record.
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Your honor, I did not say her little loofah thing. I said her little falafel thing. There's a big difference, you know.
The upshot of the Mackris and more recent Fox News scandals was that women were paid for their silence, in some cases quite well. Gretchen Carlson was awarded $20 million to settle her suit alleging that Fox News boss Roger Ailes sexually harassed her for several years. Ailes is gone; Carlson is rich.
Mackris was paid as well, though not nearly so well. The tapes she supposedly had that would have proved her case were never released, she faded into scandal history, and O'Reilly went on to become Fox's ratings god for reasons I've failed to glean.
Then #bootoreilly was born and thousands of women shared their experiences with workplace harassment. At last count, more than 60 advertisers, including Jenny Craig, Advil and Mercedes-Benz pulled their commercials from the show. Even O'Reilly is only as valuable as the bucks he brings in.
In a pre-Twitter age, the United event might have gone unnoticed by more than a few reporters who corralled a few passengers for interviews if that. Pre-social media, allegations of O'Reilly's brutish behavior might have been passed off as just-a-guy having some innocent fun.
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Alas, and for good, the party's over for boors and bullies. Except, of course, for the president of the United States.
Kathleen Parker is a columnist for the Washington Post.
Markham Mayor David Webb Jr., center, is shown at a Markham City Council meeting in a file photo from December. Markham's next mayor should address the city's failure to publish meeting agendas and minutes on its website, columnist Ted Slowik writes. (Ted Slowik / Daily Southtown)
Uncertainty about the mayoral situation in Markham is raising additional questions about a lack of transparency and possible Open Meetings Act violations.
I'll tell you why it also raises questions about 150 Tinley Park public employees who appear to receive $100,000 or more in total annual compensation.
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But first, regular readers will recall I wrote about the Markham mayor's race in January when I noticed campaign signs around town for Roger Agpawa. He's the fire chief in Country Club Hills who pleaded guilty to a felony charge 20 years ago as part of a medical fraud scheme.
State law prohibits convicted felons from holding elected municipal office, but apparently no law says a felon can't run for office. What would happen, I wondered, if Agpawa won the Markham election?
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Voters answered that hypothetical question last week by apparently electing Agpawa to be their mayor, according to unofficial results.
The Cook County state's attorney's office said in a letter to Markham officials last month it would take the city to court if Agpawa is sworn into the mayor's seat.
John Murphey, village attorney for Country Club Hills, suggested the Illinois General Assembly should address the issue by amending state law to allow convicted felons to hold elected municipal offices if their convictions occurred 15 or more years in the past.
I think it's unlikely the state legislature could address the issue before Markham needs to act to fill its looming mayoral vacancy.
It's up to the Markham City Council to decide what to do about the situation. The most logical path, experts have told the Daily Southtown, would be for the four sitting Markham aldermen to choose someone from the council to serve as mayor. The four were elected in 2015 and serve until 2019.
I sought information about the Markham City Council from the city's website. Names and phone numbers for aldermen are provided, and I left phone messages with all four city council members but did not hear back from any of them before my deadline.
I was struck by how Markham's website provides no information about city council meetings. No agendas or minutes are published and I could find no information about when scheduled meetings occur.
I called the city and was told by a representative in the mayor's office the city council meets on the first and third Wednesday of each month.
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Websites have been around for more than 20 years, and most communities in the south suburbs do a good job utilizing the internet to make information available to citizens.
Most towns take advantage of this low-cost opportunity to promote transparency. Publishing meeting agendas and minutes is a basic step. Many communities go above and beyond minimal expectations.
A lot of villages and small cities in the Southland publish detailed financial reports, strategic plans, ordinances, building codes, permit applications and other information to make it easier for residents and others to conduct business with the city.
These are taxpayer-funded operations, after all, and the prevailing wisdom is that people have a right to know how their tax dollars are being spent.
For example, Tinley Park on Wednesday published on its website its 2018 fiscal year employee compensation report. Village Treasurer Brad Bettenhausen says in the introduction that publication of the report complies with state law requiring Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund employers to post a list of employees who receive $75,000 or more in annual compensation.
Thanks to Tinley Park's compliance, anyone could see that Village Manager David Niemeyer appears to top the list with a salary of $182,774, a vehicle, pension, insurance and other benefits that push his total compensation to $236,011 for the year.
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I counted 150 Tinley Park employees who apparently receive at least $100,000 annually in total compensation. These include department heads, patrol officers and maintenance workers but also people with job titles like reference librarian, utility billing technician and telecommunicator.
I left a message asking Bettenhausen to confirm that 150 individuals are listed as receiving $100,000 or more in total compensation, but did not hear back from him.
Five individuals, including Niemeyer, apparently will receive more than $200,000 in total compensation this year.
Kudos to Tinley Park for making the information available on its website. I think the village may want to take steps to rein in costs to taxpayers for generous employee salaries and benefits, but I give village officials credit for promoting transparency.
Similarly, Orland Park publishes extensive public documents. From the homepage, you can click on a link and quickly access minutes of board of trustees meetings dating back to 2006.
Chicago Heights, Homewood, Olympia Fields if you visit the websites of towns throughout the Southland you'll find most offer easy access to public information. Some sites look like they've adopted newer formats more recently. Others look outdated, but nonetheless serve utilitarian purposes of providing information.
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Towns appear to use a variety of functions to provide people with basic public information through their websites. The city of Palos Heights uses the Google Drive tool to provide access to PDFs of city council agendas and minutes.
Markham's failure to publish meeting agendas, minutes and notices on its website may violate the Open Meetings Act.
"A public body that has a website that the full-time staff of the public body maintains shall also post on its website the agenda of any regular meetings of the governing body of that public body," the law states.
It's possible Markham's website is maintained by someone other than a full-time staff member. Some smaller communities contract with vendors to maintain their websites. When that's the case, a representative of the municipality typically someone in the clerk's office will provide meeting agendas for online publication.
I called and emailed the Markham clerk and deputy clerk on Wednesday but did not receive a response before my deadline.
Steven R. Miller, Markham's city attorney, said he was unaware agendas were not published online and could not say whether Markham was in compliance with the Open Meetings Act.
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"That one I can't answer," Miller told me. "I haven't looked at the website."
The Illinois attorney general's office provides a public access counselor to answer questions about Open Meetings Act compliance. The act "requires that all public bodies designate employees, officers or members to receive training on compliance with this law."
"Each public body must submit the list of designated persons to the public access counselor," the attorney general's website says. "Designees must successfully complete the electronic training on an annual basis."
I spoke by phone with a representative of the attorney general's office who said if Markham's website is maintained by a full-time employee, the city should post meeting agendas to comply with the Open Meetings Act.
Josh Sharp, vice president of government relations for the Illinois Press Association, agreed.
"If a government body has a public website, the law says there are three things it must publish: minutes, agendas and notices of upcoming meetings," Sharp told me.
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Because of the law's compliance training requirement, a municipality that doesn't publish agendas, minutes and meeting notices cannot plead ignorance, he said.
"To say they don't know, that just isn't true," Sharp said.
I'm curious to find out who maintains Markham's website and who are the city's Open Meetings Act compliance designees. I'll let you know when I find out.
Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday >
It may be that Markham complies with the letter of the law, but its failure to publish meeting agendas and minutes on its website violates the spirit of the Open Meetings Act, in my opinion.
Markham is a city of about 15,500 residents. I have seen Markham comply with another Open Meetings Act requirement that meeting notices and agendas be posted in buildings at least 48 hours prior to meetings.
I've seen websites for smaller, more rural communities with fewer staffing resources do better jobs making basic public information available to residents.
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This is a deficiency I would urge the next mayor of Markham to address. At this point, no one can say who will be Markham's mayor when David Webb Jr.'s term ends in a couple weeks.
Presumably, that's up to Markham aldermen Ernest Blevins, Clifton Howard, Rondal Jones and William Barron to decide as it stands.
tslowik@tribpub.com
Twitter @tedslowik
BBK I will respect the presidency when our president stops lying, tweeting nonsense, and stops the weekly trips to Florida that is costing us $3 million every trip. You should be concerned about the Supreme Court. Our democracy is in jeopardy. Maybe, you should stop telling others to "grow up" because they have a different point of view from yours and respect others' opinions.
Orland Park
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It seems to me funny that stores advertise dressing up for Easter. All the people I witness being shown on airplanes, shopping or eating out wear flip flops, pajama pants and old worn out hoodies. And that's just the men.
Oak Forest
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I'm not a Cubs fan, but the idolization of professional athletes has crossed the line of "overkill." People, they make millions, they produce nothing of lasting substance for mankind, they work six months a year and about six hours a day. Save your money and time and focus your attention on serving those more deserving of your commitment. Pro athletes don't need you, however, many "lower profile" others do.
Note to Gov. Bruce Rauner the people of Illinois are not stupid. Of course, your quickie tour of the state has everything to do with next year's election. You are a do-nothing governor who has already sunk $50 million into your campaign fund. Your job is to work with the state legislature to better Illinois. You can start by helping to solve the current budget crisis so Illinois doesn't sink deeper into debt. Your so-called reforms cannot solve the state's problems if people and businesses don't want to locate here because of the fiscal crisis both you and the legislature are currently exacerbating.
El
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For years, a wild turkey has captured the attention and curiosity of some neighborhoods in Bartlett where it is often seen roaming around. Its sightings are documented on a local Facebook page.
So when rumors began circulating the turkey who goes by the names Loosey or Lucie had been fatally injured in a hit and run Wednesday, locals panicked.
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Bartlett resident Heather O'Brien, along with friends Ramses Godinez and Destiny Garcia, set up a makeshift memorial on Wednesday to honor the local celebrity.
"When the news of her rumored death happened (which still has yet to be confirmed), members of the community were extremely upset over it," said O'Brien, 20. "Seeing how important to our community the turkey was, I decided to make a memorial in her honor where she was rumored to have been hit by a car."
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The memorial included flowers, candles, a cross, a frame with a picture of the turkey, and two signs. One read, "her last words: gobble-gobble-gone" and the other said "in memory of the Bartlett turkey" with the advice to please drive carefully.
A makeshift memorial near the corner of Bartlett Road and Struckman Boulevard in Bartlett. The memorial is for a wild turkey that has been a surprise but welcome resident of the neighborhood for years. The animal was believed to have been killed by a driver Wednesday, but police say no animal was found and no driver reported hitting a turkey. (Rafael Guerrero / The Courier-News)
It hasn't been confirmed Loosey/Lucie was involved in an accident. On Thursday, Bartlett Police Cmdr. Michael McGuigan said there were no police reports filed involving an incident with a turkey, nor had public works or other agencies picked up turkey road kill.
"As far as we know, that turkey is still alive," he said.
Danielle Mancinelli, who often sees the turkey sleep near her Bartlett home, said she heard it could have been a goose that was hit, not a turkey. Other people online said it may have been a duck.
However, had a turkey been killed, it would have been difficult to identify it as there are "many turkeys" in the area, said McGuigan. According to a Thanksgiving 2015 Chicago Tribune story, more than 150,000 wild turkeys live in Illinois and in every county.
The Facebook group "I spotted the Bartlett turkey" and its page exploded upon news something had happened to the bird, from well wishers to deniers. The group has more than 700 followers, and pictures show the animal in the neighborhood as far back as 2009. A wild turkey can live for as long as 10 years.
"The turkey was someone loved by everyone in Bartlett," added O'Brien.
A female wild turkey, dubbed Loosey or Lucie by Bartlett residents, with Suzanne LaPlante in 2010. (Chuck Berman / Chicago Tribune)
raguerrero@tribpub.com
Elgin Community College instructor Alison Douglas, left, listens in as interim vice president of teaching, learning, and student development Peggy Heinrich, right, talks about adult education funding with Douglas' advanced ESL students. (Rafael Guerrero / The Courier-News)
At Elgin Community College, its adult education services, which include English as a Second Language classes, receive about $1.45 million from state and federal sources.
When and how the state's portion of the total makes it to ECC about $842,000 has become a growing concern amid an ongoing budget impasse in Springfield.
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"If you've been following the news, you know that the state of Illinois has been having some trouble," ECC interim vice president of teaching, learning and student development Peggy Heinrich told students in an ECC advanced ESL class Wednesday.
Half of the 28 students who make up ECC's advanced ESL group got a one-hour introduction into how their class and others get money to operate, with Heinrich and state Sen. Cristina Castro, D-Elgin, speaking on the subject.
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"Investing in adult basic education is important," said Castro, a former ECC student. "Not only does it set you in a good path, it also helps you get a good job and provide to our economy. There is the triple effect if you don't invest in education when you see it in the end, when people are not getting good jobs or being able to compete in the marketplace."
The students arrived with thoroughly-researched questions. During the session, one student realized how the lack of funding made it more difficult for her to attain in-school childcare for her children while she took classes.
"Their life experiences provide some richness to what they ask," said Alison Douglas, ECC English professor.
The 28 students come from 10 countries and speak 8 languages, said Douglas, who instructs the advanced ESL class. Student Chong Wiitanen, 32, whose first language is Thai, said he found the presentations informative and eye-opening.
"I'm surprised the state is in so much debt," he said, referring to Castro's remark that the state loses about $11 million every day with no budget. "I'm still surprised at the cuts to education and that we may run out of money."
Fellow classmate Jose Camargo, 21, said he's been following state news more closely of late, thanks to headline-grabbing stories regarding Chicago Public Schools and Chance the Rapper's efforts to help them. He said someone has to help out the colleges, too.
"When I hear about literacy programs where students can learn other languages, I think there should be more partnering happening," said Camargo, whose first language is Spanish.
Partnerships may have to become an option for ECC because funding is uncertain, like other community colleges and public higher education institutions in the state. Unlike other colleges, though, the impact on ECC has not been significant outside of some layoffs at least not yet. The ECC board of trustees planned to use reserves to offset adult education operation costs this school year, but a stopgap budget by the state last year alleviated that need.
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Trustees cannot bail ECC and its adult education services forever as reserves have a finite amount, said Castro. The future of the ECC/Harper College Education and Work Center, for instance, is murky, she said. The Hanover Park center provides ESL classes, computer courses, adult basic education and GED classes, among other services, to a majority-Latino population and other groups.
"You have many programs who can sustain themselves and many who cannot," said Castro, a first-term state legislator. "ECC's elected board has had the foresight to be very strong fiscally and put money away in case of emergencies. However, they can't do it forever, and I realize that."
raguerrero@tribpub.com
The owner of Nick's Liquors closed at its Clock Tower Plaza location for several weeks will be fined $2,250 for nonpayment of its Elgin liquor taxes following a liquor commission vote Wednesday.
The City Council, which also meets as the liquor commission, heard an update on the Smooth Fox restaurant and bar following a fight there over the weekend.
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According to Elgin Corporation Counsel Bill Cogley, Condos Riverside Corp., the owner of Nick's Liquor at 71 Clock Tower Plaza, paid the city via check in late November for three months of its taxes. Those checks, totaling about $8,000, bounced, Cogley said.
"Despite numerous notices, they have not paid for the subsequent months as well," Cogley said.
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The store later closed.
No one from Nick's Liquors attended the council meeting, which approved the complaint for nonpayment of the city liquor tax on a 5-1 vote. Commissioner Carol Rauschenberger voted against additional fines, noting health problems of one of the principal owners.
The corporation's attorneys did file a response to the city's complaint, but it did not contain any admissions or denials to the complaint, Cogley said.
Cogley said he was waiting on an Elgin police report to see whether a complaint should be filed against the Smooth Fox, 51 S. Grove Ave.
Elgin police were called to the bar and restaurant just before 3 a.m. Sunday for a large fight outside the building, Cogley said.
While that fight is still under investigation, Elgin Chief of Police Jeff Swoboda said, several people were arrested on misdemeanor charges.
When those people were released from the Elgin jail, a second fight broke out in front of the police station, Swoboda said. More arrests were made, he said.
Police also asked the restaurant manager for access to the bar's video surveillance system as they investigated another incident, Lt. Jim Lalley said. Lalley said the request was declined.
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The question of bringing in Smooth Fox owner Justin Hodge in front of the liquor commission may be moot on several points, Cogley said.
Hodge is in Kane County Jail on issues not related to his liquor license. The bar has not renewed its liquor license.
Because the commission meets on a monthly basis, any request by Hodge for renewal would not be decided until the May meeting.
After April 30, Smooth Fox would no longer be allowed to sell liquor, Cogley said.
Mayor David Kaptain said he was not interested in a special meeting to approve a Smooth Fox liquor license. "We are not going to have a special meeting for his needs," Kaptain said, noting that Hodge had been a no-show at previous meetings the commission had asked him to attend regarding other police calls and problems at the location.
"He has been negligent in attending. We owe him no special favors at this point," Kaptain said.
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Janelle Walker is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.
It is hard for Kane County Sheriff's Court Security Deputy Kim Duda to believe her friend and colleague, Holly Quinn, isn't at her post in the Kane County Judicial Center where she has been a friendly, familiar face for 20 years.
Quinn, 59, died on Friday.
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"She has to be here," Duda said Tuesday. "She takes care of everybody. It still doesn't seem real."
Quinn's funeral will be at 10 a.m. Thursday at Williams Kampp Funeral Home in Wheaton.
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Quinn, of Winfield, graduated from West Chicago Community High School in 1975 and earned her associate's degree from College of DuPage in 1977, according to her obituary. She worked with the Glen Ellyn police department and joined the Kane County Sheriff's office in 1997, working as a deputy in court security, it stated.
"It's a great loss" for the department, Kane County Sheriff Don Kramer said. "She was well liked in the courthouse. She came to work every day with a good attitude."
Duda said Quinn always remembered family and friends' birthdays, sending cards or calling. She even remembered Duda's daughters' birthdays and always had something for them, she said.
"She was always there for me or whoever else needed her," Quinn's husband, John said. The two would have celebrated their sixth anniversary in June. "She was special to me. She was always a go-to person if you were in a bad mood, she would change it."
"I am still at a loss," John Quinn said.
Lisa Quinn had good memories of her stepmom. "Her and I always had so much fun, even if we were going to the store," she said, adding the family is trying to cope with the loss. "I loved her so much."
Gloria Casas is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.
Hundreds of mourners packed a hall on the Northwestern University campus Wednesday to remember Mohammed Ramzan, the 19-year-old freshman who died earlier this week in a boating incident with his crew team.
The patter of feet and thumps of folding chair seats as people walked into Lutkin Hall on the university's Evanston campus and took a seat were the only sounds to be heard as the evening memorial service for Mohammed Ramzan got underway.
"He was the embodiment of what we all hope to be: generous and gracious," said Patricia Telles-Irvin, Northwestern University's vice president for student affairs.
Many of the mourners, most of them dressed in black, sobbed.
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"It is OK to let yourself feel, let yourself mourn and have time to heal," said Telles-Irvin.
The mother of Mohammed Ramzan, right, the 19-year-old Northwestern University freshman and crew team member who died Monday, arrived from Pakistan and attended a vigil held Wednesday, April 12, 2017 for Ramzan at Lutkin Hall on the university's Evanston campus. Ramzan fell out of the boat the team was in as they practiced early Monday morning. HIs body was recovered later that day. (Genevieve Bookwalter / Pioneer Press)
Others noted how the mourning for Ramzan extended beyond the memorial service.
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"Our entire campus is grieving right now," said Christina Cilento, president of Northwestern's Association of Student Government.
Ramzan's mother, Seema Naz Ramzan, entered the hall dressed in a black coat and wearing a pink and green floral hijab. She was seated in the front row.
Several people, including university officials, said she had only hours earlier arrived in Evanston from Pakistan, following news of her son's death.
She was escorted by a man identified as Ramzan's grandfather and he also aided the mother in walking.
Seema Naz Ramzan sat quiet and solemn throughout the service in the hall, which included several speakers, and a candlelight vigil held outside.
The memorial service started with a reading in what organizers said was Ramzan's favorite chapter from the Quran.
The text was recited in English and his native language Urdu.
Ramzan went missing Monday morning after he fell overboard while practicing with the Northwestern University club crew team, according to a NU news release.
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His body was recovered later that day from the North Shore Channel in Lincolnwood, university officials said.
Neither the university nor the crew team has provided details about the incident, including how Ramzan fell into the water.
Also, the Illinois State Police, which is heading the death investigation, would not comment.
A GoFundMe page was started late Monday night to raise money for funeral expenses for the family, according to the website.
As of Wednesday night, the page had raised more than $21,000 toward a $15,000 goal.
The organizers who set up the crowd-funding campaign said on the site that money left over from the funeral expenses would be donated to a charity "very dear and near to his heart."
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In addition to several students who spoke at the memorial service of their friendship with the first-year freshman from Auburn, Washington, Maytham Al-Zayer, a member of the crew team, also paid tribute to Ramzan.
"He exuded love, trust and comfort," Al-Zayer said. "His soul may have been too beautiful for this world."
Tahera Ahmad, associate chaplain and director of interfaith engagement at Northwestern, told of the questions she said motivated Ramzan, and encouraged students to consider how those questions apply to their own lives.
"He was a mercy to all of us," said Ahmad.
gbookwalter@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @GenevieveBook
Opinion / Religion
Ihechukwu Njoku - freelance Nigerian journalist
The world has reacted with shock to the announcement that USA used its largest non-nuclear weapon for the first time in an attack targeting ISIS forces in Afghanistan on Thursday evening.U.S. forces used a GPS-guided GBU-43 bomb, which is 30 feet long, weighs a staggering 21,600 pounds and has been described as the 'Mother Of All Bombs.'A crater left by the blast is believed to be more than 300 meters wide after it exploded six feet above the ground. Anyone at the blast site was vaporized and all living creatures within a 1.7 mile radius of the blast are not expected to survive.Followers of Nigerian 'Prophet' T.B. Joshua were quick to point out that last Sunday 9th April 2017, the cleric had warned of an incident that would occur on Thursday which would "cause conflict" between the super-power nations."I want us to lift up our voices and pray this coming Thursday - whatever that will happen that will cause a conflict between the super-power nations," Joshua told his congregation and viewers on Emmanuel TV."I see a situation where one will tempt the other - and that will provoke the whole thing," he continued in the prediction."This coming Thursday and Friday, pray that whatever that will happen that will cause one of the super- nations provocation to retaliate, the Lord should hold their temper. We ask for calmness, in the name of Jesus Christ!Joshua then instructed his congregants to observe a period of prayer and fasting on the days mentioned. "The foundation for a devil's workshop is on the ground," he solemnly noted.His prophecy comes on the backdrop of another prophetic message in January 2016 in which he called for prayers for North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, stating that he saw an 'arrow' being released from North Korea with global repercussions.Tensions are at an all-time high in the Korean peninsula with news of an imminent nuclear test by North Korea amidst President Donald Trump's assertion he would "solve" the North Korean problem, with or without the assistance of China.
One of Lake County's most experienced lawmen is hanging up his badge after 50 years on the job, a tenure that included high-profile cases and numerous leadership positions.
On Thursday, Lake County Undersheriff Ray Rose, who earlier in his career was the lead investigator in the infamous Patricia Columbo triple-homicide case, officially announced his retirement, effective April 30.
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Rose, 70, said a final trigger for his decision to retire was realizing he would need to take time off for his grandson's graduation from college this spring.
"It's going on 50 years I've been doing this. With summertime approaching, I think it's time to catch up with my life," Rose said Thursday. "It's time to start looking at things a little differently."
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Highlights of Rose's career include climbing up through the law enforcement ranks in Franklin Park and Elk Grove Village before serving more than 20 years as police chief in Mundelein.
He is also a past president of the Illinois Police Chief's Association and the Lake County Police Chief's Association, and has chaired a number of task forces and committees including the Lake County Major Crimes Task Force and the Lake County Metropolitan Enforcement Group (MEG).
In 2013, after retiring from Mundelein, he accepted his appointment as undersheriff by Sheriff Mark Curran.
During the time since, he has concentrated his efforts on progressive law enforcement issues, including a more community-oriented view toward law enforcement and programs beyond incarceration to address people with mental health and addiction issues.
"We're moving from the warrior capacity to the guardians of the community capacity," Rose said.
Rose said the shift in programs and philosophy at the Sheriff's Office has only worked because the employees have bought into it, and that while there are still "some bumps" between administration and deputies, he believes the office is running steadily in the right direction.
Rose cites the Elk Grove Village murder investigation and eventual conviction of Patricia Columbo and Frank DeLuca as the biggest case in his career.
"They killed her father, mother and 13-year-old brother (in 1976). They shot them and stabbed them. She stabbed her brother 87 times with a scissors," Rose said. "I was the lead investigator in Elk Grove Village.
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"I've been to every one of the parole hearings since then except one. The whole purpose of that is to remind them how incredible and vicious this crime was and why they shouldn't release them."
Rose said one thing he will continue doing in retirement is attending those parole hearings, and he is scheduled to conduct a slide presentation on the case for the Cook County State's Attorney's Office this spring.
"It was the biggest crime that I was involved in and it was a true learning experience on so many levels. It was a triple homicide," he said. "Now you hear about something like that almost every day on the news. As a society, we can't tolerate this kind if thing."
In recent years, however, Rose has focused on being a leader in countywide rehabilitation and educational efforts aimed at helping with crime prevention, treating those with addiction and mental health issues and reducing recidivism. He said the deputies and staff of the Sheriff's Office have embraced the effort through actions ranging from new training programs to saving scores of people from overdose deaths with the opioid antidote naloxone.
"Hats off to them for buying in," he said.
County Board Chair Aaron Lawlor was among those praising Rose on Thursday, saying, "I think Ray Rose has made a transformational change in the Sheriff's Office."
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"He's been a role model to all of us," Lawlor said. "Especially now, when it's hard to be in law enforcement."
Curran said Thursday he has no immediate plans to name a replacement for Rose, noting that a series of new administrative hires, including deputy chiefs from Evanston and Vernon Hills, has helped shore up the experience that will be lost when Rose leaves April 30.
"Undersheriff Rose, he's been in the business 50 years and worked hard for 50 years," Curran said. "You don't gain wisdom without years. This is an industry where most people get to age 50 and they can draw a pension. Not many stick around to give back."
Personally, Curran said integrity is the word he would use to describe Rose.
"You hear that a person is a straight-shooter," Curran said. "The undersheriff not only has no hidden agendas, but cares about people on a personal basis."
Sgt. Christopher Covelli, a spokesman for the Sheriff's Office, said Thursday he was grateful to have had the chance to work with Rose.
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"I met him for the first time when he came here in 2013. He's touched so many people and so many lives," Covelli said. "One of the qualities I find most insightful is that he always stands up for what is right, even if it's hard, and instills that in all of our employees.
"He instills leadership qualities in everyone who works for him," Covelli added. "He shares his knowledge in hopes they will take that and use it in their careers."
Rose said he plans to stay in the Lake County area with his wife, where he still has a granddaughter attending local schools and longtime friends and family connections. His children and grandchildren figure heavily in his retirement plans.
"Everything right now is good," he said.
jrnewton@tribpub.com
Twitter @jimnewton5
State Rep. Scott Drury, left, and Ralph Martire, right, of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability spoke during a forum in Lake Forest on April 10. (Mark Lawton / Chicago Tribune)
Ralph Martire, executive director of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, said he has a solution for the state budget crisis, although people may not like it: raise state income taxes.
Martire spoke, along with State Rep. Scott Drury, 58th District, on Monday at the Gorton Community Center as part of the "Understanding the Budget Impasse: Finding Pathways to Resolution" event, organized by the Lake Forest Lake Bluff League of Women Voters.
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The Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, a non-partisan nonprofit based in Chicago, projects the deficit will grow in fiscal year 2017 from about $9.4 billion to more than $12 billion, Martire told an audience of about 50.
Resolving the growing state deficit would take about $7 to $7.5 billion, he said.
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"It's not a lot of money in the context of the Illinois economy," Martire said. "We have a $770 billion economy. We're talking about 1 percent of our economic activity."
That translates to an increase from 3.75 percent to 5.25 percent on state income taxes, Martire said. Along with an increase in state income taxes, Martire proposed expanding sales tax to include consumer services and taxing some though not all retirement income.
But Drury said getting a tax increase approved in the General Assembly would be challenging.
"You just don't trust the Illinois government with your money," Drury said. "It's not waste, fraud and abuse, it's an utter lack of trust in the system. People don't think the money is going to a good cause."
Gaining the trust of residents would require state officeholders to be honest about the problem, Drury said. And that's a challenge.
"It's easier to run and get re-elected doing nothing than it is to do our job," Drury said. "It's about winning elections. That's why I don't think we'll have a (state) budget for two more years."
To pass a budget, Drury suggested that each political party create a budget and put them into sealed envelopes.
"Let's unseal them in a public square and debate them," Drury said. "We'd have a budget in 10 minutes."
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Resident James Borg said he was impressed by the talk.
"I thought it was a superb program," Borg said. "(Martire) has such a clear, informative presentation."
"It was very enlightening," said resident Joyce Newcomb.
mlawton@pioneerlocal.com
@pioneerlocal.com
Federal officials said they have broken up a massive Mexico-to-Illinois heroin smuggling ring, resulting in the seizure of more than 190 kilograms of the drug and the arrests of 18 men and a woman, three of them from Aurora.
Warehouses in Naperville, St. Charles and Sugar Grove were used to unload at least some of the heroin, which was sold across the Chicago area, including the parking lot of a shopping mall on Chicago's southwest side, according to a release from the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Northern District of Illinois.
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The release did not provide a dollar value for the drug, as heroin prices have fluctuated in recent years. An agent of the U.S Drug Enforcement Agency told NBC News in 2014 heroin was worth $65,000 per kilogram, which would make the recent seizure worth $12.4 million.
"Operation Over the Top" lasted more than a year, and included last month's seizure of 80 kilograms of heroin from a home in Hanover Park, the release stated. Authorities also raided and shut down a heroin "stash house" in Bensenville, and removed another 85 kilograms of heroin and cocaine from warehouses in St. Charles and Sugar Grove, and from a vacant lot on Chicago's west side, the release stated.
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Three members of an Aurora family were part of a faction of smugglers and drug dealers who unloaded their heroin at unidentified warehouses in Naperville, St. Charles and Sugar Grove, according to the release.
David Contreras, 39; his brother, Juan Contreras, 35; and Juan Contreras' nephew, Edgar Rodriguez-Contreras, 32, stored the heroin, which had come hidden in secret compartments inside of semi-tractor trailers, the release stated. The compartments were then filled with money and the trucks took back to Mexico, the release stated.
Rodriguez-Contreras, David Contreras and two other men pleaded guilty earlier this year to their roles in the ring, admitting they had conspired with Juan Contreras in the crimes. All are awaiting sentencing.
Juan Contreras is charged with conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute and distribution of a controlled substance. He is scheduled to appear Oct. 16 in U.S. District Court in Chicago.
Hanover Park resident Julio Cesar Flores-Saenz, 29, was arrested last month with approximately 80 kilograms of heroin hidden in his home and a compartment of a vehicle he owns, the release stated. Authorities said Flores-Saenz last October distributed four kilograms of heroin to men in Philadelphia and Riverside, Calif.
Noel Miranda, 36, of Chicago, is accused of selling a kilogram of heroin in December to an undercover buyer in the parking lot of the Ford City shopping center, just south of Chicago Midway Airport, according to the release.
The other ring members are from Bensenville, Chicago and Midlothian, as well as Michigan, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Texas and Mexico, the release stated.
The probe was led by the Drug Enforcement Agency, with assistance from agents of the U.S. Attorney's Office, the FBI and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations division.
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"This investigation is an example of the extraordinary determination and cooperation among our law enforcement partners," said Acting U.S. Attorney Joel R. Levin. "Our office remains committed to halting the stream of heroin and other dangerous narcotics into our communities."
wbird@tribpub.com
DuPage County prosecutors plan to retry the man whose conviction for the 1995 arson murder of his mother-in-law in Naperville was set aside by a judge based on advances in fire science.
Judge Liam Brennan, who last week vacated the conviction, set a $100,000 bail for William Amor at a hearing Thursday and remanded him to the DuPage County Jail. Brennan had ruled it would have been impossible for Amor to have set the fire as described in a police confession.
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Amor's attorneys from the Illinois Innocence Project said they would explore options to raise the $10,000 cash bond Amor would need to be released while awaiting retrial.
Amor will be retried for the 1995 murder of Marianne Miceli, who died in a September 1995 fire at the Naperville condo she shared with Amor and his wife, Miceli's daughter, Tina.
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"This case has actually gotten better against the defendant," Assistant State's Attorney Mike Pawl told the judge.
Amor was found guilty in 1997 of lighting the fire that killed his mother-in-law, telling investigators that he sparked the blaze with a cigarette and some newspaper soaked in vodka. But new advances in fire investigation, as described by experts during hearings last year, made that confession "scientifically impossible," Brennan ruled.
And with the confession acting as the linchpin of the state's case against Amor, its subsequent unraveling cast doubt on the original jury's finding of guilt, Brennan ruled. Amor has said that he made the confession under duress from the investigators.
The ruling returned the case to the pretrial status, meaning Amor was entitled to a bond hearing, and the judge was presented with two diametrically opposed arguments: The Innocence Project attorneys argued that Amor should be released on his own recognizance, and prosecutors asked that he be held without bail.
Pawl pointed to Amor's history of failures to appear on DUI and other traffic counts from the 1980s. Amor's attorney, Erica Nichols Cook, argued that her client's alcoholism accounted for his spotty past record, but that Amor had been sober for 22 years. A friend in South Bend, Ind., had agreed to take in Amor, Nichols Cook said.
The judge said he would not at this point agree to Amor living out of state should he post bond, but Brennan said he would be willing to revisit the issue. Amor is due back in court May 10.
Miceli, who was 40 and partially disabled from a childhood accident, reported the fire at the condo, but was found dead of smoke inhalation by the time firefighters arrived. Amor and Miceli's daughter had left the condo a short time before the fire was reported to go to a movie.
Amor later confessed and was sentenced to 45 years in prison, which, under the sentencing laws in effect in 1997, makes him eligible for parole next year.
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Clifford Ward is a freelance reporter.
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Heading an administrative staff, managing advertising, tracking all transactions and commissions for 25 real estate brokers, and even troubleshooting the computer system in her office on occasion is no easy task for any employee, but Margaret Kinnare manages to do it all with finesse and ease.
That's why Kinnare, a River Forest resident, was recently was presented with the Administrative Professional of the Year Award for 2016 by the RE/MAX Northern Illinois real estate network. Her day-to-day efforts as office administrator at RE/MAX in the Village, 189 S. Oak Park Ave., have made major contributions to the continued success of her place of work, the folks at RE/MAX said.
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"It feels terrific, and it was such a surprise," said Kinnare. "It's especially nice to know it reflects the views of the people I work with every day."
According to RE/MAX, the award recognizes the efforts of administrative staffers that make major contributions not only by facilitating daily operations but also by creating an office environment that supports the productivity and spirit of the entire brokerage team. Kinnare said not only does she work with some terrific people but she also is crazy about the nearby residents.
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"I adore the group I work with and the community I work in," Kinnare said. "Having my desk right at the front window has helped me get to know so many neighbors and to watch the revitalization of downtown Oak Park in recent years. People stop in almost every day just to say hello, and I've made many new friends."
Besides her daily multi-tasking, Kinnare also was recognized for her exceptional versatility. She has worked in real estate since 1995 and joined RE/MAX in the Village in 2007, initially focusing on handling the advertising program. Over time, however, her duties expanded.
"I come in each day with a plan of what I'm going to accomplish that day, but I have to be flexible because unexpected demands arise constantly," she said. "Also, I have someone who assists me several days a week, and that's a huge help."
She said working in such a busy and successful office keeps her working constantly, "but that is exactly what I like," said Kinnare.
"I don't enjoy work that has a lot of down time," said Kinnare. "The brokers I work with are experienced and highly professional, so even though the pace is fast, they are on top of things, which makes my job much more manageable."
Way to go to RE/MAX in the Village Realtors Elissa Palermo and Gary Mancuso, who recently joined the RE/MAX Hall of Fame, which means they both have earned more than $1 million in gross commissions while affiliated with RE/MAX.
Mark your calendars now for the "Upside of Downsizing," a seminar for retirees with Realtor Roz Byrne of RE/MAX in the Village and Meredith Morris, an Oak Park resident who is owner of Caring Transitions Chicago Western Suburbs. The pair will share their downsizing expertise at 10 a.m. April 29 at Brookdale Oak Park, 1111 Ontario St.
Felicia Dechter is a freelance columnist for Pioneer Press.
Oak Park and River Forest High School Superintendent Joylynn Pruitt-Adams is taking time away from the school following the shooting death of her grandson, officials said Thursday.
According to a statement released by district spokeswoman Karin Sullivan, Pruitt-Adams lost her 17-year-old grandson, who died Wednesday in Missouri.
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"We have been deeply saddened to learn that yesterday, District 200 Superintendent Dr. Joylynn Pruitt-Adams lost her beloved 17-year-old grandson during a shooting in University City, Mo.," the statement read. "Our thoughts and prayers are with Dr. Pruitt-Adams and her family, who have requested that their privacy be respected during this difficult time."
Taylor Simpson, a junior at Lieberman Learning Center, was identified as the shooting victim as well as being Pruitt-Adams' grandson in a letter released by the School District of University City.
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According to Sullivan, Pruitt-Adams left the school to be with her family in Missouri, and is expected to be away from OPRF for all of next week. Pruitt-Adams joined OPRF as interim superintendent in the summer of 2016 and was named the district's superintendent in December.
Before joining OPRF, Pruitt-Adams retired as the superintendent of the School District of University City in University City, Mo., a position she had held since 2007.
"Our hearts are broken," School District of University City Superintendent Sharonica Hardin-Bartley said in the letter released by the district. "This is a terrible tragedy, and our prayers are with Dr. Pruitt-Adams and all of Taylor's family."
sschering@pioneerlocal.com
Twitter: @steveschering
Oak Park School District 97 administrators spelled out a budget approval timeline April 11 at the board of education's first meeting after voters approved two revenue-generating referendum questions on April 4.
Oak Park voters supported the two questions a tax rate increase and a bond issue by wide margins. Officials had said the district would have faced steep staffing and programming cuts had the effort failed. The tax increase, which would bring about roughly $13 million in new revenue in its first year, was approved by about 54 percent of voters. Just over 59 percent of voters backed the bond issue, which would produce $57.5 million for facilities improvements.
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District administrators and board members were careful to emphasize community involvement, fiscal transparency and better district communication moving forward.
"We are not going back out to the community for another referendum," District 97 Superintendent Carol Kelley said April 11. "So, what that means is that everything that we do now, we're talking about aligning our fiscal resources to our vision because we want to make sure that we are being fiscally responsible and also really intentional in honoring the community's voice."
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The District 97 vision, listed on its website, says it "will create a positive learning environment for all students that is equitable, inclusive and focused on the whole child."
Assistant Superintendent of Finance and Operations Alicia Evans echoed her colleague.
"So, now we have the money to do what we need to do," Evans said. "We need to make sure we are very respectful of the voice of the taxpayers that gave us their confidence."
Over the next month, Evans and Kelley said, the district will develop a working draft of the budget. Then, after community input, including the district's "Let's Talk" forum, a final document will be presented to the board in late July or early August. Final approval is expected in September 2017.
"I've been talking to a lot of voters; they've been expressive ," school board member Jim O'Connor said. "There's definitely a lot of people who are expecting us to make this stretch, just like they do their own budget at home."
Acknowledging that message, board members amended a motion requesting up to $1.1 million for new classroom library and reading curriculum materials from district administrators. Administrators said the last refresh was more than a decade ago.
Board members requested district administrators inventory existing material and bring back a specific dollar amount by June 2017.
Board President Jim Gates gave his support for the program, which the board had previously discussed in January 2017, but said the optics of a significant purchase "on the heels" of the referendums were not great. The board, Gates said, must demonstrate why the program is cost-effective and necessary, reaching out to the community to explain the rationale.
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"I think it's critical, especially with a big-ticket item like this," Gates said. "And not just to the school community. We know how those folks voted; we've gotta get this out to the broader segment of the community."
Thomas Vogel is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
Three Park Ridge residents recently reported being targeted by phone scammers asking for money, two of them nearly falling for the scam, police said.
On March 27, a woman told police she was contacted by a man who claimed to be her grandson and asked for money in order to return from a trip he had taken. The woman does not have grandchildren, police said, and when she informed the caller she was going to call police, he allegedly threatened her.
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The following day, police said an 80-year-old woman received a call from a man posing as her son who needed money after being arrested. According to police, a second caller then got on the line and instructed her to purchase four, $1,000 Walmart gift cards and then call him back with the card numbers so the money could be transferred.
Ron Davis, administrative services supervisor for the Park Ridge Police Department, said the woman did purchase the gift cards, but before sharing the account numbers, she called her son and learned he had not been arrested.
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On April 4, a 43-year-old woman nearly lost $2,000 when she was contacted by men claiming to be with the FBI, police said. According to police, the callers told the woman she owed taxes to the IRS and needed to pay it by purchasing two, $1,000 gift cards and calling back with the account numbers.
Park Ridge Deputy Police Chief Lou Jogmen said the woman attempted to buy the cards, but was told by a cashier that she was being scammed. The woman never made the follow-up call to provide payment, Jogmen said.
Police advise residents not to send money via gift cards over the phone or wire money to an unknown address. In the event that a person claims to be a family member, police recommend verifying their identify by calling the individual directly on their known phone number.
"If you are contacted, double and triple check with family before making any hasty financial decisions," Davis said.
"The sad part is, once that money goes away, you're never going to see it," he added.
In late February and early March, police said an elderly Park Ridge couple lost $46,000 in a so-called "grandparents scam" when they loaded money onto more than 20 gift cards and shared the account numbers with someone on the phone, believing they were helping a grandson pay his bail and legal expenses related to an arrest in Chicago.
Park Ridge residents who receive a suspicious phone call or are unsure about the legitimacy of a call they have received should contact the Park Ridge Police Department at 847-318-5252.
jjohnson@pioneerlocal.com
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Twitter: @Jen_Tribune
Design Your Own Bookmark contest
Throughout April, children ages 4 to 13 are invited to visit the Hammond Public Library, 564 State St., to design a bookmark. The winning bookmark will be chosen during children's book Week, May 1-7. It will then be printed and distributed throughout the library's Summer Reading Program. More information is with Youth Services at the library, or 219-931-5100, Ext. 336.
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Library to host an historical look at Gary
Gary native and author, Kendall Svengalis, will present an historical view of his hometown at 2 p.m. April 19 at the Hammond Public Library, 564 State St. The program is free. The presentation is part of the research Svengalis conducted for his mystery novel, The Great Emerson Art Heist. Signed copies of the book will be available for $20. Information is with Mary Schons at 219-931-5100, Ext. 327.
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Dinner to benefit flood victims in Peru
The Peruvian community of Northwest Indiana will partner with The Valparaiso International Center to host a presentation and dinner from 6-9 p.m. April 21 at 309 E. Lincolnway, Valparaiso. Pork, chicken, beef and vegetarian options will be available, as well as carryout. All proceeds will go to Caritas Felices, a Peruvian foundation that helps children and families in need in the small towns of northern Peru. The minimum donation for dinner and one dessert is $10 per person. RSVP is with Kenneth Kincaid at kkincaid@pnw.edu or Sonia Kincaid at soniark.pe@gmail.com.
Bishop Noll entrance exam
Bishop Noll Institute will host an entrance exam for prospective students at 8 a.m. April 22 at the school, 1519 Hoffman St., Hammond. Participants are to arrive by 7:50 a.m. through Door A and bring No. 2 pencils. The test takes approximately 3-1/2 hours. Walk-ins are welcome. The exam is $25. Register at 219-932-9058 or nrepay@bishopnoll.org.
Softball umpire training
The Crown Point Parks and Recreation Department will host a USA Softball Umpire Training Clinic from 12:30-5 p.m. April 23 at the Crown Point Civic Center, 101 S. East St. Registration will begin at noon. Those who complete the clinic will be eligible to umpire for Girls Youth Softball, Adult Women's Softball and Adult Men's Softball. The clinic is free. Register by April 19 with John Stroia at 219-661-2272 or jstroia@crownpoint.in.gov, or with David Chandler at 765-729-9780 or dchandler@usasoftballindiana.org.
Kona Ice giving away free shaved ice on Tuesday
Kona Ice will be hosting its fourth annual National "Chill Out" Day, by giving out free shaved ice Tuesday afternoon via trucks parked at NorthShore Health Centers in Portage and Lake Station. The truck will be at the NorthShore Health Center in Portage, 6450 U.S. 6 from noon to 1 p.m., then it will travel to the NorthShore Health Center in Lake Station, located at 2490 Central Avenue and give away free shaved ice from 1:30-2:30 p.m. To learn more about Kona Ice's giveback efforts, visit: http://www.kona-ice.com/giveback-programs/
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Partners for Clean Air Awards luncheon
The regions' top leaders in air quality improvements will be honored at the Michiana Area Council of Governments' (MACOG) 2017 Partners for Clean Air Award Luncheon from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. April 25 at Matterhorn Conference Center, 2041 Cassopolis St., Elkhart. Shawn Seals, senior environmental manager in the Indiana Department of Environmental Management's Office of Air Quality, will deliver the keynote address. She will provide an update on the status of air quality in the state and region and also will discuss the $39 million Indiana is set to receive as a result of the Volkswagen diesel emissions settlement. The event is free and open to the public, but registration is required at http://southshorecleancities.org/events.php. More information is with Lauri Keagle at 219-644-3698 or Carla Keirnan at 575-287-1829 Ext. 302.
Staff report
The Purdue Northwest student steel bridge team competed in the recent American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) regional Great Lakes Student Conference Competition at Milwaukee. Pictured (from left) are Juan Padilla, Alex Metz, Sang Kang, Neil Weber, Romulo de Carvalho Silva (captain), Krista Tracy, Kawthar Alahmed and Maeve Cucolotto. (Photo Provided by Purdue University / Post-Tribune)
Learning through engagement and discovery is a strategic goal of Purdue University Northwest.
Such student learning is experiential in nature, integrating classroom and laboratory lessons with the applied learning that occurs in a job or internship, competitive interactive setting and through personal encounter.
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Throughout the year, Purdue Northwest students test and enrich their knowledge in various ways of engaged learning and discovery.
Student teaching, student nursing clinical experiences and the development of senior design projects by engineering, technology and other students are traditional examples of how college/university students apply in real world ways the classroom and laboratory lessons they master. But the list goes on.
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Astronaut-like challenges
Two weekends ago, two teams of engineering students traveled to Huntsville, Ala., to defend their three 2016 titles at the NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) Human Exploration Rover Challenge.
The competition, held at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center, challenges College-University Division student teams from across the globe to design, construct and race human-powered rover vehicles. The vehicles are designed to perform in challenging terrains similar to uninhabited planets, moons, asteroids and comets.
Though mechanical difficulties prevented the PNW rovers from successfully defending two of their titles, PNW did reclaim its "On to Mars 3 Rover Sample Retrieval Challenge" award for its ability to pick up large and small rocks, sand and liquid samples in the fastest time. In a vote of all participating teams, PNW also received the "Team Spirit Award."
Steel bridge building
Additionally, during the same weekend, another group of PNW engineering students, representing the university's American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) chapter, placed fourth in the ASCE regional Great Lakes Student Conference Competition, just missing a qualifying berth in national competition.
The competition challenges students to apply their knowledge of civil engineering in a series of related contests. One such contest, the Steel Bridge category, tested the student teams to respond effectively to such real world engineering issues as spatial constraints, fabrication processes, project management and effective teamwork.
"The steel bridge competition simulates a real world design challenge, requiring the bridge be designed for safety, economy and constructability," Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering and faculty advisor Chien-Chung Chen said. "Our students' participation in this competition enabled a great experiential learning opportunity in application of critical thinking, problem-solving, teamwork, communication, project management and time management skills."
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PNW students competed against peers from 18 other colleges and universities, including Purdue West Lafayette, Rose-Hulman Institute, the University of Wisconsin, Notre Dame and the University of Illinois.
Student Research Day
More than 200 undergraduate and graduate students from PNW's Hammond and Westville campuses presented research they have been conducting during the past academic year under the guidance of faculty mentors during Student Research Days March 28-29.
Poster sessions were held during which the student researchers could discuss their scholarly projects with attending visitors.
"This event is an opportunity for students to really shine and showcase the work they've been doing," interim Associate Dean of the PNW Honors College and Student Research Office Director Vanessa Quinn said. "It also affords them the opportunity to gain valuable experience presenting their research and develop professional skills they will need down the road. Students are exposed to high impact practices that bear directly on their long-term success."
Wes Lukoshus is assistant vice chancellor of media relations and communications at Purdue University Northwest.
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wlukosh@pnw.edu
Delivering harmonic versions of hit rock 'n' roll songs, Under the Streetlamp highlights the vocal prowess of, from left, Brandon Wardell, Christopher Kale Jones, Eric Gutman and Shonn Wiley. The quartet performs with the Northwest Indiana Symphony Orchestra at 7:30 p.m. April 27 at the Star Plaza Theatre in Merrillville. (Photo courtesy of Star Productions)
Vocal verve meets symphonic grandeur at the American Songbook concert April 27 at the Star Plaza Theatre in Merrillville.
The Northwest Indiana Symphony Orchestra presents the vintage stylings of Under the Streetlamp, a quartet that puts a 21st century energy into throwback pop.
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Its material covers doo-wop, 1950s rock and the Motown sound.
PBS specials such as "Rockin' Round the Clock" have greatly contributed to the national following that has been built.
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"We tend to give people exactly what they want from a song," said Brandon Wardell, a member of Under the Streetlamp. "We make sure we give them something new so they're not just listening to us trying to imitate the artist."
Although evoking nostalgic feelings is a key for Wardell and his comrades, the covers of pop standards and rock hits are intended to emit a fresh sheen.
Under the Streetlamp touts a marketing slogan in that vein: "Retro never sounded so now."
Dishing "what people remember from the radio" decades ago is done with the accents that spring from the quartet's custom design, Wardell said. "We stand on the shoulders of the artists that did the songs originally, and we make them fit into our sound."
The scheduled fare includes Bobby Darin's "Dream Lover" (1959), Elvis Presley's "Burning Love" (1972) and 1964's "Goin' Out of My Head," a Top 10 single for Little Anthony and the Imperials.
Likewise set for a performance at the 3,400-seat venue is Frankie Valli's "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You" (1967).
"That is absolutely breathtaking with an orchestra," said Wardell, a North Carolina native who performed on Broadway in the Beach Boys musical "Good Vibrations."
There is good chemistry between Under the Streetlamp and the region the Star Plaza Theatre calls home, said Kirk Muspratt, conductor and music director of the Northwest Indiana Symphony Orchestra.
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"Under the Streetlamp and Northwest Indiana are a perfect match," Muspratt said in an orchestra press release.
He pointed to two of the quartet's PBS specials that were taped at the Star Plaza Theatre.
"Once I learned that they now had a symphony show, I wanted us to be one of the first orchestras in the country to present it," he said. "It will be a big hootenanny of every kind of pop music."
The music of the Beatles and Detroit's Motown legacy resonates with 38-year-old Eric Gutman, the newest member of Under the Streetlamp.
Although born after the heyday of the Fab Four and Motown's peak years, Gutman's familial background helped ingrain his love of the tunes he now sings professionally.
"I love this music; my dad brought me up on this music," Gutman said. "I'm from the Detroit area."
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Aside from well-synced harmonies, Under the Streetlamp throws in some choreography and the music of a backing band when it hits the stage.
Having just joined the group a matter of weeks ago, Gutman dove into the group's repertoire.
"I had to learn two dozen or so songs," he said.
Most of the members of Under the Streetlamp have had prominent cast roles in the hit musical "Jersey Boys," which tells the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.
Bob Kostanczuk is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
'American Songbook'
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Where: Star Plaza Theatre, 8001 Delaware Place, Merrillville
When: 7:30 p.m. April 27
Tickets: $29-$69; students $10
Information: 219-836-0525, www.NISOrchestra.org
Earl Harris, Jr. watches as members of the Indiana house and senate were sworn in at the state capitol in Indianapolis, IN., on Nov. 22, 2016. Harris Jr. has introduced a bill in Indiana aimed at assisting East Chicago amid lead and arsenic contamination. (Mark Davis / Post-Tribune)
An East Chicago legislator's bill to help address lead and arsenic contamination in the city is moving forward to the governor.
A bill entered by Earl Harris, Jr., D-East Chicago, is aimed at securing more resources for East Chicago to help address contamination issues both at the U.S.S. Lead Superfund site and the city as a whole. Both the Indiana Senate and House of Representatives passed the bill and it was sent to Gov. Eric Holcomb for his signature Wednesday.
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"I cannot express my happiness that we were able to help the residents of East Chicago, who did not create the problem but have been unfortunate victims of it," Harris said, in a statement.
Harris' bill would compel the Indiana Department of Environmental Management to assist with clean up of the U.S.S. Lead Superfund site and test soil and water throughout the city; have the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority to work with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to relocate residents of West Calumet; and push IDEM to do more thorough testing of the city's water.
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Harris lauded Holcomb's attention to addressing the contamination issues in East Chicago, including a disaster declaration the governor signed in February a request that former governor and Vice President Mike Pence denied.
Holcomb's disaster declaration will bolster efforts to assist residents affected by lead and arsenic contamination around the U.S.S. Lead Superfund site. As a part of that declaration, state officials would ask the EPA for funding to replace lead pipes at the Superfund site.
At Holcomb's direction, Indiana state agencies have already begun providing assistance to the city, including relocation assistance for the residents of the West Calumet Housing Complex and pledging to provide water filters to residents in the remainder of the Superfund site.
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)
clyons@post-trib.com
Twitter @craigalyons
What's Quickly? It's where readers sound off on the issues of the day. Have a quote, question or quip? Call Quickly at 312-222-2426 or email quickly@post-trib.com.
U.S. Steel has leaked a potentially carcinogenic chemical into Lake Michigan. With the EPA being dismantled, we won't be getting these bulletins much longer.
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Trump remembers the details of the chocolate cake he was eating while launching the missiles, but couldn't remember which country he was attacking. Sad.
In addition to Manafort, Flynn, Erik Prince, J.D. Gordon, Caputo, Gates, Cohen, Stone and Kushner, Trump had Carter Page, a Russian spy on his campaign team. Let me repeat that, Trump had Carter Page, a Russian spy, on his campaign team.
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The White House press secretary needs to be articulate, sensitive and able to put out fires, not create them. Time for Sean Spicer to go. Surely, there is a better candidate for the job.
White House accuses Russia of cover-up in Syria chemical attack. Gee, who ever thought that guy in Russia was a nice guy?
Betsy DeVos has rolled back the reform on how student loan debts can be collected. By the way, DeVos has an interest in Performant Financial, which collects on defaulting student loans. Who knew?
Protections against predatory collection of student debts instituted by the Obama administration have just been rescinded by Betsy DeVos. It's all part of the Trump administration effort to make it seem that Obama never existed.
Post Tribune Twice-weekly News updates from Northwest Indiana delivered every Monday and Wednesday >
Thank heavens the Washington Post journalist who exposed that idiot in the White House to be liar that he is was not fired. If it wasn't for the media and their mostly accurate reporting, we would never know what a liar, cheater, misogynist, evil person the WH occupant really is. It would be hidden under the "rug" like his income taxes and non-existent charitable donations.
Trump and his insider pals have been doing everything possible, legal and illegal to manufacture some evidence to fit his wild accusations. At the end of the day he will still be found guilty.
If you book a flight and do not show, you still have to pay for it so United's overbooking is just to make more money. They are getting paid for the seat twice.
I hope United Airlines files a lawsuit against the unruly passenger who refused to follow directions to give up his seat. If he gets away with this with no penalties, you will see passengers all over the world not following flight crew directions. The airlines will lose all authority. It will end up just like Chicago where the police officers have lost authority to chase runaway or resisting arrest criminals.
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So Bill O'Reilly has a best selling book. What's the title? "The Least Expensive Way to Settle Sexual Harassment Lawsuit"?
Fox News: The poster channel for Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Doing all they can to bring sexual harassment and assault to the forefront.
Read more at www.post-trib.com/quickly.
The Made in Illegality campaign -- which includes The Platform of French NGOs for Palestine, International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH), as well as the French Union La CGT. France's financial support goes beyond the French government's November 2016 decision to support labeling products produced in the settlements and instead supports the boycott of such products.
The campaign's goals include "prohibiting the import of settlement products," "excluding the settlements from their bilateral agreements and cooperation with Israel," and "excluding companies which are active or located in the settlements from public markets and public procurement procedures..."
The French government (Agence Francaise de Developpement, AFD) provided the Platform of French NGOs for Palestine with 46,560 in 2009, 199,000 from 2011-2014, and 225,000 from 2014-2017. The Council of Ile de France Region provided the Platform with 62,000 in 2013, 22,000 in 2014, and 20,000 in 2015. Claude Leostic, President of The Platform, was denied entry to Israel, and compared Israel to Nazi Germany: "...The people of France resisted the Nazi barbarians... But you have been suffering for more than 40 years, as incredible as it seems in this modern world, and that came after the Nakba..."
According to NGO Monitor, "40% (225,000) of The Platform's 2014 project "Mieux agir pour le respect du droit en Palestine" (Improved Action for the Respect of Rights in Palestine) was funded by the French government (AFD). This project was partnered with Ittijah. In 2010, the head of Ittijah, Amir Makhoul, was sentenced to nine years in prison for spying for Hezbollah during the 2006 Lebanon war....
CJE SeniorLife will close its Personal Care Program later this month due to inadequate state funding and the financial crisis in Springfield, officials recently announced.
"For eligible older adults, CJE provides personal care services at home through a subsidized program for low income seniors administered by the Illinois Department on Aging," CJE SeniorLife says about the program on its website. "These services, for those who qualify, include assistance with bathing, grooming, dressing, errands, light housekeeping, meal preparation and respite."
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The program is set to discontinue April 28.
The elimination of the program means discontinuation of these in-home services or care management to about 265 low-income and at-risk older adults, according to CJE SeniorLife.
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"These vulnerable and frail older adults will need to be transferred to new providers in a service network that is shrinking daily as more providers cancel state contracts due to lack of payment," CJE SeniorLife officials stated in a news release announcing the closing.
Officials said closing the Personal Care Program will also result in elimination of about 86 jobs held by CJE's full-time and part-time in-home employees.
"This was an extremely heart-wrenching decision for our board and senior leadership team," CJE SeniorLife President and CEO Mark Weiner said in the news release.
Weiner said CJE which stands for Council for Jewish Elderly was founded 45 years ago to provide services and programs meant to aid in the independence of older adults in the community.
"Home and community-based services have been the cornerstone of our agency's work and we know for a fact that it is more cost-effective for people to age-in-place than move to a nursing home," he said about the nonprofit in the release. "But our state's fiscal crisis is causing us to cut a vital program, and while we are committed to protecting our mission, we also have to be financially prudent."
CJE officials said the decision was made after "extensive deliberation" by the executive committee of CJE's board of directors and its senior leadership team.
Seniors in Lincolnwood, Morton Grove, Niles and Skokie are among those served by CJE, a company spokeswoman confirmed.
As a result of the closing, according to the news release, CJE will terminate the Managed Community Care Program contract and its chore housekeeping contract. CJE had already closed its Community Care Program providing in-home personal care services through the Illinois Department on Aging earlier in the year.
Agency officials said that since July 2016, CJE SeniorLife has been reimbursed less that 40 percent of what it was owed by the state.
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Over the last nine months, they said in the release, CJE reached out to the Illinois Department on Aging, state legislators and the comptroller's office to try to get reimbursed for services, but were unsuccessful.
"CJE simply does not have the resources to provide these services indefinitely without jeopardizing the viability of the entire organization," according to the release.
CJE annually serves more than 23,000 seniors with a wide range of health and human services, according to the organization.
Department on Aging spokewoman Veroncia Vera told the Skokie Review that seniors enrolled in the CJE program would not lose services as a result of its closure.
"Any affected CJE clients will be transitioned to other providers under the Community Care Program and will continue to receive the care and assistance they need without interruption," said Vera.
Vera said the Department on Aging also looks forward to the state coming up with an appropriations plan.
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"We urge legislators to work with the governor to pass a balanced budget with reforms to ensure the long-term stability of our human services programs and protect our aging network and the seniors they serve," she said.
CJE officials said other SeniorLife services and programs for low-to-moderate income seniors in the city and surrounding suburbs will continue to operate.
Those include adult day services with transportation, independent housing, short-term rehabilitation at Lieberman Center for Health and Rehabilitation in Skokie, assisted living at Weinberg Community for Senior Living in Chicago, benefits counseling and home-delivered meals.
CJE SeniorLife's home delivered meals manager Magdalyn Guzzo recently said that state funding owed to that program, which serves nearly 300 seniors, has not come through for a couple years.
What has made continuing on possible, she said, is that the program receives nearly 40 percent of program funding through the Older Americans Act distributed through the federal Department of Health and Human Services.
CJE SeniorLife's Personal Care Program relies more heavily on state funding, according to the organization.
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Many of CJE's surviving programs also benefit from support by Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, grants from foundations and corporations and donations.
CJE officials said over the next few weeks leaders will work the Illinois Department on Aging and AgeOptions to transition at-risk seniors from the personal care assistance to other programs.
misaacs@pioneerlocal.com
@SKReview_Mike
Investigators are trying to determine what caused a house fire in Skokie on Saturday that left three people temporarily homeless, authorities said.
The fire happened on the second floor of a two story residential building in the 4800 block of Elm Street in Skokie, authorities said.
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Fire officials said there was smoke coming out of the home when firefighters arrived.
No one was home at the time of the blaze, they said.
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It took 18 fire fighters about 20 minutes to extinguish the blaze, the structure sustained fire and smoke damage and three people were temporarily displaced due to the fire and fire damage, authorities said.
Brian L. Cox is a freelancer
Students from Nazareth Academy in La Grange Park used prayer, song, dance and personal reflections to commemorate Christ's final day, and to celebrate their anticipation of the joyful coming of his resurrection.
The Stations of the Cross are a 14-step Catholic devotion that focuses on specific events from throughout the day including Jesus being condemned to death, carrying the cross, falling, being nailed to the cross, dying and being laid in the tomb.
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Students, parents and community members gathered Wednesday in the chapel at the Congregation of St. Joseph to take part in the telling of the sacred story.
For each station of the journey, a student narrated the station and another offered their personal reflections on what the station means to them. For the second station that marks how Jesus takes up the cross, one student discussed how she relates to it because of her own struggle with dyslexia.
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She mentioned that she is planning a career in theater and will need to continue to work to overcome dyslexia.
"I will continue to tap into my courage to continue this journey with my cross," said Meghan Rooney of Hinsdale.
Another student related to the seventh station, when Jesus falls a second time, to his family's challenges when his father was diagnosed with Hodgkin Lymphoma.
"I truly believe it was our Christian faith that kept us on our feet," the student said.
He said he believes the station is about rising above adversity.
"I don't believe the seventh station is about Jesus falling. It's about Jesus getting back up," he said.
During the narration and reflection on the stations, other students carried a large cross slowly through the chapel.
Makalya Lee, a senior from Lyons, said taking part in the event was inspiring.
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"It's awesome," she said. "I think it really helps me connect with God and my classmates, too."
"The kids' reflections were really beautiful," added her mother, Georgina Lee.
Kathy Altosino of Woodridge attended with friends. She, too, was touched by how the students related events from their own lives to each of the stations.
"Their personal stories brought reality to it," she said.
For some stations, students depicted aspects of the journey through dance. For others, the choir performed songs that members chose themselves.
Janet Rausch, campus minister, said the students started working on some aspects of the program a month ago.
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"I love that the kids drive this," she said. "I love their personal stories. They chose the music and they drive the stories."
amannion@tribpub.com
Twitter @triblocalam
Lucy Spahr of Winnetka, a junior at New Trier High School, won an honorable mention in the 2017 "StudentCam" documentary competition sponsored by the C-SPAN public affairs network. (Lucy Spahr)
When Winnetka teen Lucy Spahr first heard of the 2017 "StudentCam" documentary competition late last year from David Heineman, her Advanced Placement U.S. History teacher at New Trier High School, she knew she wanted to take part. And the 17-year-old junior knew what she wanted her documentary to be about.
"The question was, 'What is the most important issue you think the Congress should address in 2017?' I immediately thought of global warming, especially considering the attitude in Washington now," Spahr said.
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Spahr set to work on "Global Warming: The Dead Zone" writing a script, gathering news clips, informational graphics and shooting her own footage with the help of family members, then boiling what she had down to a film of just over six minutes.
StudentCam judges were impressed with the result: Spahr's documentary won honorable mention in the public affairs network's contest, which drew more than 2,900 entries from students in 46 states and Washington D.C, according to C-SPAN. On April 4, C-SPAN officials visited New Trier to honor her efforts at a school assembly and to present her with a $250 check.
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The contest, which has been held since 2006 according to the contest website, requires students in middle or high school to create a five- to seven-minute documentary on an issue affecting their community or the nation. Young videographers must use some C-SPAN footage to do so, and they need to include different points of view on the issue, thus reflecting C-SPAN's dedication to showing multiple sides of all issues, competition rules state.
As a young boy he loved playing at the ocean, but the story flashes forward, and he can't do that anymore... Lucy Spahr
This year's theme was "Your Message to Washington," asking participants to outline what they thought was the most urgent issue for America's new president and Congress to address this year.
Doug Hemmig, a spokesman for C-SPAN, said judges noticed Spahr's dedication: "What stood out as well was her passion for the topic, the interest that she took in it."
Hemmig said they were also impressed with what he called her unique look at global warming "through the eyes of the ocean and the water."
Spahr said she thinks her film stood out from other entries because she didn't create a film that was solely a news documentary. Instead, she wrote a narrative script as the backdrop for the news clips and graphs she included, speaking in the voice of an old man, walking along the water's edge.
"As a young boy he loved playing at the ocean, but the story flashes forward, and he can't do that anymore, because ocean oxygen levels are down because of global warming, and the ocean is a dead zone," Spahr said.
Spahr cast younger brother Spencer, a New Trier freshman, and grandfather Donald Lubin of Highland Park as the old man and his younger self.
She completed her work in a matter of weeks, getting it to judges by the deadline, which was Inauguration Day. She heard last month that her work had won an honorable mention.
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Although this was Spahr's first documentary, she has always had an interest in video, and last summer created a music video with friends, she said.
Mother Alice Spahr said her daughter made films for fun when she was younger, and this summer took a film class while attending a summer program at the University of California, Los Angeles.
"She definitely has a special talent at storytelling and being able to use different components to put something together," she said.
Lucy Spahr's mother and grandfather were on hand for the April 4 assembly to view the video, which her mother called "very moving."
Heineman, too, called the film moving.
"I was really impressed. Beyond the issue that she's raising, and the content she used, the way she tells the story was really compelling," he said.
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Spahr donated her $250 to the Greenpeace organization, her mother said.
Spahr said she would be interested in making another documentary.
"It's really rewarding to film, and editing, and watch how everything comes together," she said.
Information on this year's StudentCam contest is available at www.studentcam.org. Spahr's documentary can be viewed here: https://www.viddler.com/v/7c81fcfd.
kroutliffe@pioneerlocal.com
Twitter: @pioneer_kathy
It's Election Day, Pueblo. Make sure your vote is counted
Ballots must be returned to a staffed voter center or a drop box by 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 8 at the latest to be counted. It's not too late to register.
[April 12, 2017] WatchGuard Video Issues Response to Taser/Axon's Free Offer and Industry-Wide Competitor Challenge
ALLEN, Texas, April 12, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- WatchGuard Video, the market leader in video evidence systems for law enforcement has issued the following response to the recent offer of free body cameras by Axon Industries (AAXN), formerly Taser International (TASR), and their challenge to other competitors in the body camera space. "WatchGuard believes that companies who serve the law enforcement community should be held to a high standard of ethics, and the standard for companies that manage criminal evidence should be even higher. The "Free Offer" promoted by Taser/Axon (AAXN) last week for law enforcement agencies, in our opinion, represents their latest maneuver to avoid the competitive bid process and a mechanism to logistically force agencies into a costly, long-term Evidence.com subscription. Agencies that accept the offer will discover firsthand, at the end of the trial period, the only option to retain searchable access to their evidence is through a paid subscription that can cost 10 times as much as the plastic Axon camera. In our opinion, the offer is a trap, not a trial. The offer made by Taser for a "one year free trial" of their body camera and storage is a trap, not a trial. Taser knows that once law enforcement agencies use their camera, it will capture video that will become case evidence. This case evidence will be subject to various retention requirements which can last for up to seven years. The trap is that Taser provides no option for agencies to manage this evidence outside of their paid subscription service. In our opinion, there are significant "gotchas". Unlike nearly every other vendor in the industry, Taser does not offer evidence management software that can run on computers that are on-premise or on another loud service. Other companies in the industry such as WatchGuard Video, L3/Mobile-Vision, and VieVu all provide agencies with the ability to continue to use a version of their evidence management software, without cost, for the long-term management of the evidence if the agency discontinues utilizing the vendor's hardware. Taser does not offer any database program for agencies to manage, or even retain a basic search capability for their evidence outside of their paid subscription service. The Evidence.com software purposely provides no database export, only a raw file export. We believe this "gotcha" is the explicit design and intent of this thinly veiled trap.
In our opinion, nothing is "Free" and this offer is no exception. This "free" offer from Taser appears as another attempt at avoiding the competitive procurement process. The administrators who believe this is a no-cost agreement and contend that it should not be subject to the competitive bid process, will be the same administrators who, in one year, will have to convince their city to budget and fund an Evidence.com subscription for the long-term management of the collected evidence. Our response to Taser's competitor challenge is with an offer of a different kind. WatchGuard Video urges all law enforcement agencies to consider the quality of the equipment, the ethics of the vendor and the real cost of ownership with any technology purchase. WatchGuard Video promises that the total three-year cost of ownership for a complete deployment of VISTA HD body worn cameras with Evidence Library 4 Web software will be less than the total cost of ownership of a comparable deployment with Axon cameras and Evidence.com software, even if the first year from Taser is without charge . WatchGuard challenges all U.S. law enforcement agencies considering Taser's offer to conduct a fair, three-year total cost-of-ownership comparison. If the three-year deployment proposal from WatchGuard Video is not less than a comparable three-year deployment proposal from Taser, WatchGuard Video will give the city 25 VISTA cameras with a perpetual, no cost license to evidence management software."
About WatchGuard Video
WatchGuard Video is the technology pioneer and market leader for law enforcement video systems and evidence-management software. One-third of the agencies in the United States utilize WatchGuard's proprietary solutions to capture, manage and share digital video evidence using the most durable, reliable and highest-quality American-made products including the 4RE in-car and VISTA body camera systems. To learn more please, visit www.watchguardvideo.com or call 1-800-605-6734. AXON, Taser and Evidence.com are trademarks of Axon Enterprise, Inc., some of which are registered in the US and other countries. Contact: Jaime Carlin
[email protected]
469-342-8974 To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/watchguard-video-issues-response-to-taseraxons-free-offer-and-industry-wide-competitor-challenge-300439075.html SOURCE WatchGuard Video
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By Dezan Shira & Associates
Editor: Alexander Chipman Koty
On March 31, Shanghai became the first city in mainland China to grant a residence permit to a foreign worker providing domestic services. The development is notable given the Chinese governments usual reluctance to grant foreigners visas for unskilled labor, and reaffirms Shanghais status as the mainlands most international city.
The first foreigner accorded the one-year permit was a maid from the Philippines, who was granted a visa to work for an American executive in Shanghais Pudong district. The Shanghai Entry-Exit Administration Bureau has now granted the permit to over 20 foreign domestic workers.
Employers must apply to the Entry-Exit Administration Bureau on behalf of the foreign domestic worker that they would like to hire.
Individuals eligible to apply for a foreign domestic worker to obtain residency are:
Foreign high-level professionals with a permanent residence permit (green card) or work permit;
High-level professionals from Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan; and,
Foreigners with a masters degree or above.
Foreigners employed in the following areas are also eligible to apply on behalf of a domestic worker:
The Shanghai Free Trade Zone;
The Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park;
Higher education or scientific research institutions; and,
Professional areas the Shanghai Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau recognizes as helpful to scientific and technological innovation.
RELATED: Payroll and Human Resource Services
The application requires supporting documents such as a labor contract, a statement of financial support, proof of personal insurance, and a health certificate. Each foreign employer is allowed to employ only one foreign domestic worker. Chinese nationals are not permitted to hire foreign domestic workers.
Foreign domestic workers can first enter China with a tourist visa before applying for the residence permit. However, the Exit-Entry Administration of the Shanghai Municipal Public Security Bureau in Pudong is currently the only office able to process such applications.
Foreign domestic workers were ineligible to work in Shanghai until July 2015, when limited high-level executives and professors were allowed by the authorities to hire foreign domestic workers. This latest reform is part of a series of measures from the Shanghai municipal government aimed at attracting foreign experts and professionals to the city. The municipal government eased visa policies for foreigners in December 2016.
The relaxed visa rules for foreign domestic workers are expected to lead to the arrival of more workers from countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines. An estimated 100,000 to 200,000 Filipino domestic workers are already working in China illegally, though there is demand for more given their English language ability.
Both domestic service employers and employees will benefit from the reform in Shanghai, which will create more transparency and regulatory oversight for a local labor market that was affected by grey practices.
About Us China Briefing is published by Asia Briefing, a subsidiary of Dezan Shira & Associates. We produce material for foreign investors throughout Asia, including ASEAN, India, Indonesia, Russia, the Silk Road, and Vietnam. For editorial matters please contact us here, and for a complimentary subscription to our products, please click here. Dezan Shira & Associates is a full service practice in China, providing business intelligence, due diligence, legal, tax, IT, HR, payroll, and advisory services throughout the China and Asian region. For assistance with China business issues or investments into China, please contact us at china@dezshira.com or visit us at www.dezshira.com
Dezan Shira & Associates Brochure
Dezan Shira & Associates is a pan-Asia, multi-disciplinary professional services firm, providing legal, tax and operational advisory to international corporate investors. Operational throughout China, ASEAN and India, our mission is to guide foreign companies through Asias complex regulatory environment and assist them with all aspects of establishing, maintaining and growing their business operations in the region. This brochure provides an overview of the services and expertise Dezan Shira & Associates can provide.
An Introduction to Doing Business in China 2017
Dezan Shira & Associates Silk Road and OBOR investment brochure offers an introduction to the region and an overview of the services provided by the firm. It is Dezan Shiras mission to guide investors through the Silk Roads complex regulatory environment and assist with all aspects of establishing, maintaining and growing business operations in the region.
Cuba hosted a Chinese Bridge language proficiency contest on Wednesday, featuring seven local students of Chinese.
Students enrolled at the Confucius Institute in Havana demonstrated their language skills, as well as their knowledge of China's history and culture.
Sponsored by the institute, in conjunction with the University of Havana and China's Ministry of Education, the contest aims to promote cultural ties between the East Asian country and other regions of the world.
Following three competitive rounds in which students demonstrated their verbal and grammatical skills, and familiarity with Chinese customs and culture, Diana Blanco was declared the winner.
"I'm really excited about winning this contest because studying Chinese is very important in my life," said Blanco, currently an intermediate-level student.
"I am grateful to the jury and the professors of the Confucius Institute for selecting me as the winner and I will continue to deepen my knowledge of the language," she added.
During the competition, Blanco related a tale about her dreams, correctly answered history, grammar and general knowledge questions, and recited a poem, all in Chinese.
China's ambassador to Cuba, Chen Xi, was on hand to present the award, which includes an invitation to travel to Beijing as Cuba's contestant in the international Chinese Bridge competition.
Fellow intermediate-level students Deborah Velazco and Jessica Jaime came in second and third place, respectively, with performances that earned them the praise of the public and the jury.
Chen congratulated the contestants on their high level of language proficiency and artistic interpretations.
"Language is an instrument for communication and for developing cooperation, and in this sense it is important that many more Cubans learn Chinese to deepen our relations more fluidly," said the diplomat.
Chen also highlighted the work carried out since 2008 by the Confucius Institute, where hundreds of Cubans have studied Chinese.
"Every day, more and more Cubans are interested in studying the Chinese language and it is largely a result of the successful work of the Confucius Institute, which strives for more people to learn Chinese every year," he said.
More than 100 million people around the world study Chinese, allowing Beijing to better strengthen its economic, trade and cultural ties with different nations, said Chen.
The diplomat also thanked the Cuban government for its cooperation since 2006 in offering more than 3,000 scholarships to young Chinese students keen to study Spanish in the island.
[April 12, 2017] DSLUG 2017 Conference Registration is Open
TAMPA, Fla., April 12, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The 10th annual Dynamics SL User Group (DSLUG) Conference is taking place Sept. 12-15 in Tampa, FL and it is THE conference for Dynamics SL users and partners to attend.
Join over 500 of your Dynamics SL peers for unparalleled education and networking opportunities. 2017 is an exciting year for the DSLUG Conference, as we celebrate 10 years of this premiere annual event for Dynamics SL users. Experienced. Progressive. Growing.
The DSLUG conference brings you the most experienced Dynamics SL speakers, with content and networking experiences addressing what is top-of-mind for SL users across roles, industries, and specialty topics. Attendees consistently rate the conference content as excellent, with an average 2016 session rating of 4.8 out of 5 and speaker rating of 4.89 out of 5.
Mark your calendars and add one more day! This year's conference has grown to include an additional day of content t provide even more valuable content and networking experiences. With over 100 sessions in four days, you'll have the opportunity to explore solutions and gain a deeper understanding of Dynamics SL.
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To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/dslug-2017-conference-registration-is-open-300439104.html SOURCE Dynamic Communities
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Chinese language has become more and more popular in Thailand due to the increase of Chinese tourists and China's development, which drives a Confucius Institute in Bangkok to voluntarily help train local teachers to meet the growing demand for learning Mandarin here.
On a hot Saturday afternoon recently, Mandarin teachers around Bangkok came to the Confucius Institute at Bansomdejchaopraya Rajabhat University (BSRU) to take their weekly three-hour course of Mandarin and Chinese culture, taught by teachers of the institute.
"Our teachers voluntarily use their spare time to train local teachers here every week," said Wen Xiangyu, Chinese dean of the Confucius Institute, which was established in 2006.
In Chinese teacher Song Chunzhi's class, some 20 Thai teachers were learning Chinese expressions and making new sentences under Song's instruction.
"I have been taking the course for three years, it helped me a lot," said Nantawat Radsamee, a Mandarin teacher in a primary school called Wat Ladplakao after the class.
The Confucius Institute also went to Nantawat's school and held a cultural event there to celebrate the Chinese lunar Year of the Rooster in February, which attracted many pupils to join.
Prasat Seri, an fine arts teacher, has been attending the course for several years. He even drew pictures to teach Chinese characters and made a picture book, which was later promoted by Bangkok's Department of Education as a standard textbook to teach Mandarin in all primary schools of the city.
Prasat expressed gratitude to the teachers of the Confucius Institute in helping him check and edit the picture book.
"I love the course, especially the cultural part as there are always something new every week," he said.
Besides Song's class, there were other three classes ongoing every Saturday as the Confucius Institute has put local teachers in different classes according to a language test at the beginning of every semester.
According to Wen, the Chinese dean, the Confucius Institute at the BSRU has cooperated with Bangkok's Department of Education in this training course for at least five years.
Around 1 million Thais are learning Mandarin right now, which means a lot of Mandarin teachers are needed, said Wang Wei, a teacher at the Confucius Institute.
Teachers of the Confucius Institute, originally from Tianjin Normal University of China, used their expertise in education to start the training program with Bangkok's Department of Education.
"We have thought of many activities to attract local teachers to keep coming to the classes," said Wen, and every year, 20 outstanding teachers of some 100 teachers in total get the chance to study Mandarin in Tianjin Normal University for a month with full scholarships.
She said Bangkok's Department of Education and the BSRU have given much support to the training program.
Thanita Praewanich, deputy director of Bangkok's Department of Education, praised teachers of the Confucius Institute for their expertise and devotion during a ceremony to mark the end of the training course in this semester late March.
"In five-year time, the training course here has covered 438 schools around Bangkok, and some outstanding local teachers went to China for further study, and became mainstay of our educational system," Thanita said, adding that the training program should go on.
Sutipporn Chotratanasak, Thai dean of the Confucius Institute, said the Confucius Institute even helped the BSRU to become more popular due to the training program and a postgraduate program.
Besides the training program, the Confucius Institute is working with the BSRU and Tianjin Normal University to enroll Thai students for a postgraduate program.
Every year, some 25 Thai students would choose to be in the postgraduate program and they would go to learn in Tianjin Normal University with full scholarships and come back for work, mainly as Mandarin teachers in secondary and primary schools, according to Wen.
"We have enrolled students for the program for three years, and some 94 percent of the first batch of students have found schools and the second batch is doing internship here in our institute," said Wen.
Wang believes training local teachers are very important for the Chinese-language teaching in the long term. "Thais cannot always rely on Chinese to teach them, they have to have their own Mandarin teachers."
"Some schools told us they don't need teachers with master degrees, but I think they will gradually understand a teacher with a master degree can help them improve their Chinese-language teaching significantly," Wang said.
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With profitability appearing achievable last year, ofo Inc is planning a simultaneous expansion at home as well as overseas markets this year, said Dai Wei, the bike-sharing startup's founder and CEO.
A rider in Qingdao, Shandong province, scans bar code for riding an ofo bike. [Photo/China Daily]
Ofo's iconic yellow bikes will be available for rental in 200 Chinese cities and 10 foreign markets by the year-end, Dai, 27, said in an email.
That would signify a major scaling up of operations since ofo has been operating in only 43 Chinese cities and three foreign marketsthe United States, the United Kingdom and Singaporeso far.
The startup's 2.5 million bikes out in various markets make it one of the leading players after Mobike.
Profit appears possible in 2017, Dai said, as "ofo was very close to making a profit last year".
Free-rides now offered by Chinese bike-sharing companies to attract new riders, only delay profits. Such free bicycle rides can't be compared with the cash-burning subsidy wars waged by taxi-hailing apps such as Didi Chuxing and Uber last year, he said.
In China alone, intense competition followed the emergence of 29 bicycle-sharing service providers that put 3 million bikes on streets. According to the China Bicycle Association, the figure will reach 20 million in China this year as the concept of sharing economy becomes increasingly popular.
Industry analysts said more and more Chinese bike-sharing service providers will likely go global.
In March, Mobike followed ofo into the Singapore market, its first foray overseas. The two players charge just half a Singaporean dollar (36 cents) for each ride.
"Important factors that determine outbound destinations (for business expansion) are the (local) government's stance, regulatory environment, and local riding behaviors," Dai said.
The bike-sharing service entails high operating costs, he said.
Ofo started off on college campuses in 2014. It received funding from Didi Chuxing and Lei Jun, founder of gadget maker Xiaomi. The latest round of funding raised $450 million, valuing ofo at over $1 billion.
With the high-profile development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area gaining pace, Hong Kong is looking to play its part to fulfill the area's ambitions, said the city's top mainland affairs official on Wednesday.
Raymond Tam Chi-yuen, Hong Kong's secretary for constitutional and mainland affairs, made the remarks after talks with the National Development and Reform Commission.
Tam said the NDRC is considering making Hong Kong the locomotive of the strategy and the bay area's window to the world.
The NDRC is expected to submit a full plan of the strategy to the State Council at the end of this year.
In a sign of Hong Kong's determination to get a slice of the action, outgoing Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying will lead a delegation of senior officials and business leaders on a three-day visit to six mainland cities in the bay area next week.
As the one and only world-class financial hub in the area, Hong Kong has an irreplaceable role as the "super connector" between overseas and mainland markets for this mega project. It stands out among the 11 cities across the bay area, as a gateway for overseas investors to the massive mainland market, and a springboard for mainland firms going global, said Dominic Wu Sze-yin, chairman of the Asia Financial Risk Think Tank.
"The city has what it takes to become an exporter of high-end service industries and government management expertise, putting the Pearl River Delta region on course to upgrade its industries amid ever-increasing labor and manufacturing costs," said Fielding Chen Shiyuan, Hong Kong-based Asia economist at Bloomberg Intelligence.
Back in the 1980s, the region timed its takeoff when Hong Kong sought to relocate its manufacturing business and invest excess capital. Nowadays, hard-pressed local manufacturers, feeling the pinch from cheaper manufacturing bases in neighboring less-developed countries, have undergone a yearslong painful transformation.
"Again, this is where Hong Kong could come in, by helping the region climb up the value chain and find the next new growth engine," Chen said.
For Hong Kong, the bay area plan ensures it will reap the fruits of the regional economic integration, he added.
After suspending business on the island for two months, Uber announced their return to the Taiwan market Thursday, after several rounds of negotiations with regulators.
Taiwan insisted that the company could only operate as a "technology platform" rather than as a transportation company because it registered as such when it entered Taiwan in 2013.
"Uber will partner with local car rental companies and mainly work as an online booking platform on the island," said Ku Li-kai, Uber's general manager in Taiwan.
Only licensed commercial drivers registered with local rental car companies can accept orders on Uber. Users place orders on Uber and select rides based on driver information and price. Uber does not provide price comparison but only shows one price from one company at a time. If the passenger does not like the price offered, another request must be made.
Though authorized to resume operations, Uber still faces huge fines amounting to over 830 million new taiwan dollars (27 million U.S. dollars) for unlicensed ride-sharing services.
In February alone, Taiwan's transport authority issued 22 fines to Uber amounting to over 230 million new Taiwan dollars, and ordered the company to suspend services. The company later announced it would quit Taiwan.
Ku said Uber would continue to work with authorities to settle the issue.
Shijian 13, China's most advanced communications satellite, is launched at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan Province on Wednesday. [Photo/Xinhua]
A Chinese satellite will not only enable passengers of high-speed trains to watch high-definition videos more smoothly but also help those at the scene of natural disasters report emergencies.
Shijian-13, China's first high-throughput communications satellite, was launched from Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China's Sichuan Province at 7:04 p.m. Wednesday.
The satellite, with a transfer capacity of 20 Gbps and a designed orbital life of 15 years, was sent into orbit on a Long March-3B carrier rocket.
The satellite, which has a higher message capacity than the combined capacity of all of China's previous communications satellites, is capable of providing better Internet access on planes and high-speed trains, as well as in less-developed regions.
While in orbit, the satellite will undergo tests on its broadband multimedia satellite communications system and the high speed laser communication technology between the ground and the satellite.
"The launch is a milestone for China's communications satellite technology," said Tian Yulong, chief engineer of the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence.
Different from previous satellites fueled by chemicals, Shijian-13 is the first Chinese satellite to be powered by electricity.
Using electricity as propellant could potentially improve efficiency by as much as 10 times compared with those that use chemicals as a propellant, said Zhou Zhicheng, commander in chief of Shijian-13 satellite system, adding that it can also help extend satellite life and reduce launch weight significantly.
For the first time, a large number of domestic components have been used on the communications satellite. It is also the first time a laser communications system has been installed on a Chinese high orbit satellite with a long lifespan.
The satellite and the rocket were designed by academies affiliated with the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp., and the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology respectively.
It was the 246th flight mission by a Long March carrier rocket.
A nurse at the China-Japan Friendship Hospital cares for an inpatient. [Photo/China Daily]
China will press to strengthen medical partnerships and arrange closer ties between top-tier hospitals and grassroots medical services to provide better health management and care for urban and rural residents.
A set of measures was approved during the State Council's executive meeting on Wednesday, presided over by Premier Li Keqiang.
"The goal for the medical partnerships is to make quality medical care more accessible to the wider public, especially in less-developed areas," Li said. "We've managed to set up nationwide medical insurance coverage and increased medical competence in grassroots medical institutions. The coverage is among the highest in the world. What we mostly need now are medical professionals."
People are demanding more and better healthcare, and the allocation of medical resources is a tough balancing act.
The idea of building partnerships across medical institutions providing different levels of care would help bridge the gap of resources. According to the National Health and Family Planning Commission, by 2016 medical partnerships had been set up in 205 cities across China.
"Currently, high quality medical resources are mostly in big cities. These should further trickle down to lower tiers so that wider demand will be met," Li said. "We must encourage joint partnerships of city level hospitals and grassroots institutions, while imposing expense reimbursements."
Wednesday's meeting yielded new measures.
Administrative fragmentation between regions, fiscal expenses, insurance payouts and human resources will be resolved. More diversified forms of medical partnerships will be encouraged, with top-tier hospitals taking on leading roles. The guidelines encourage an internet-based medical information platform to help better diagnose and prescribe treatments for rural patients.
More will be done to allocate high quality medical resources to wider regions. To do this, teams of medical professionals will be sent to less developed areas with enhanced sharing of health and medical services.
China will accelerate building a cascaded medical system and will introduce demand-oriented and contract-based family doctors. The government plans to cover all impoverished regions with such services this year while inviting private healthcare institutions to participate.
The guidelines stress better coordination systems and policies in new medical partnerships, allowing a more balanced allocation of resources across different levels of medical centers. The government will encourage diverse forms of payments and performance at grassroots levels will be included in evaluations of medical practitioners, who often can work at any organization within the partnership.
"The government needs to have well-designed, concrete guidelines to build medical consortia, taking local conditions in different regions into consideration," Li stressed. "Local governments are encouraged to have their own ideas in exploring systematic innovation."
Wang Chen, president of the China-Japan Friendship Hospital, said strengthening medical partnerships is the best approach available to improve the nation's health system.
He said medical resources remain limited, fragmented and unevenly distributed. Also medical doctors' abilities vary.
"As it's hard and time-consuming to train quality physicians, medical partnerships is the most feasible way to systemize and optimize resources available now," he said.
Photo from Metro police's Weibo account shows four foreigners who dined on a Metro train yesterday attend an "education" meeting with police and the Metro operator. [Shanghai Daily]
Four foreigners who set up a table and dined on a Metro Line 11 train last Friday in Shanghai wrote an apology letter yesterday.
The incident sparked an online uproar, with the foreigners accused of displaying bad manners.
The Metro operator and police officers have summoned and talked to the foreigners, whose nationalities and names were not released, about their behavior and they apologized in the office of Shanghai Shentong Metro Group.
Metro police said a total of six foreigners were involved, all of them working for the same company. As two of them were on a business trip, the remaining four attended the meeting, which was held yesterday.
Eating and drinking on the Metro is not illegal but is discouraged in Shanghai. However, setting up a table in the middle of a train carriage could be dangerous as it might block movement of commuters or injure others, which could mean a 50 yuan (US$7.25) fine, according to the Metro operator.
Police said they did not punish the foreigners because after checking surveillance footage, the table was small, not as big as it looked in the photo (initially published on the Internet), and there were not many people in the carriage.
Whether to ban eating or drinking on the Metro has long been a controversial subject in many Chinese cities, including Shanghai and Beijing.
In Hong Kong, it is illegal. People there can be fined HK$2,000 (US$257) if found eating or drinking on Metro trains or platforms.
Eating and drinking are also banned on Singapores subway. But there is no such rule in New York.
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Konggar Airport in Tibet [File Photo]
Konggar Airport in Tibet, one of the highest-altitude airports in China, was able to accommodate a Tibet Airlines wide-body Airbus 330 aircraft overnight for the first time, the airline announced Wednesday.
The 3,600-meter-high airport in Lhasa was able to accommodate the plane after the airline's technicians solved the problem of re-starting the aircraft's engine in a low air pressure environment after an overnight stay.
A new oxygen diffusion device has been designed to increase air supply during the engine ignition process, the airline said.
High-altitude airports (over 2,438 meters above sea levels) pose safety issues for pilots as low air pressure affects flight performance. All five airports in Tibet are classified as such.
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A former senior legislator in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province was sentenced Thursday to 14 years in prison for accepting bribes.
Gai Ruyin, former deputy head of the Standing Committee of Heilongjiang Provincial People's Congress, was also fined 2 million yuan (about 291,300 U.S. dollars) and ordered to return all this ill-gotten gains by the First Intermediate People's Court of Tianjin, north China.
The court found Gai guilty of taking advantage of his various positions in Heilongjiang to help others secure projects, business opportunities and promotions from 2003 to 2015, according to a press release.
In return, he accepted money and property amounting to more than 23 million yuan personally or through other people, the court said.
The court decided to be lenient as Gai pleaded guilty, expressed remorse, returned his illegal gains and offered information about other crimes.
[April 12, 2017] Active Allocator Partners With TradeIt to Enable Multi-Broker Portfolio Optimization Execution
NEW YORK, April 12, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- ActiveAllocator Holdings LLC ("ActiveAllocator") announced integration with TradeIt, a proprietary order management system which securely routes trade orders to brokers to facilitate securities order execution. This partnership enables investors to optimize their existing portfolios on ActiveAllocator by linking their brokerage account and sending order messages to their broker directly from ActiveAllocator's platform. To take advantage of this feature, users login to their broker via secure oAuth popup, specify the type of order and number of securities to trade generated by ActiveAllocator, and execute the trade to optimize their portfolios. TradeIt further provides real-time portfolio data from the user's brokerage firm, which is imported into ActiveAllocator to provide the most current picture of their portfolio's forward facing characteristics. Sameer Jain and Brian Jones, ActiveAllocator's co-founders, noted, "Our integration with TradeIt for trade execution will now allow our customers to optimize their portfolios by buying or selling publicly listed equities and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) with their choice of broker. They can now trade securely, safely and quickly through most of the popular brokerages." "TradeIt is fast becoming the platform of choice for seamless order execution through many of the large brokerages," said Nathan Richardson, co-founder and CEO of TradeIt. "Our partnership with ActiveAllocator helps financial advisors and retail investors to increase their investible universe, makes for automated implementation, permits scalability in managing assets, eases trading and periodic rebalancing and helps express house views while making strategic allocation decisions."
ActiveAllocator helps investors go beyond traditional model portfolios by utilizing disruptive technology driven personalization for purposes of creating directional, semi-directional and non-directional market exposures. In fostering trade execution, it further augments advisor-client interactions by bringing in analytics driven, fact based, collaborative, product agnostic thinking to investment decision making. This enables financial advisors who offer various types of advisory services and programs, including wrap programs, mutual fund asset allocation programs, financial planning services, retirement plan consulting services, investment research, and other customized advisory services to bring added value to their practices. About ActiveAllocator
ActiveAllocator.com is the world's first portal that seamlessly integrates traditional, illiquid and alternative investments within recommended portfolios. A FinTech digital disruptor, ActiveAllocator offers financial advisors a seamless way to understand and assess alternative investments' potential contributions within the context of their client's actual portfolio holdings. ActiveAllocator can help advisors allocate client assets appropriately, as well as to identify and gain exposure to an appropriate set of active managers and funds. About TRADEIT TradeIt is a technology that connects developers to major US brokerage firms with a single, modernized API integration. App publishers use TradeIt to embed multi-broker trading functionality that makes their content actionable for their users. TradeIt is live on 30 apps for investors and boasts 80 content partners across the digital finance ecosystem. For more information please visit www.trade.it. Contact
Email: media(at)activeallocator(dot)com
Phone: +1 312 498 1903
https://www.activeallocator.com/
[email protected]
www.trade.it Related Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTCQc0_-XLg 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/active-allocator-partners-with-tradeit-to-enable-multi-broker-portfolio-optimization-execution-300439116.html SOURCE Active Allocator
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A classroom at Tongxin Experimental School in Picun, a village near Beijing's Capital Airport. The slogan above the blackboard reads "study hard, become a good person". [John Sexton/China.org.cn]
When, on April 6, the Chinese Ministry of Education announced a significant increase in the country's secondary education coverage, this signified the next phase of the government's sustained efforts to raise the standard of living of the nation's poorest families.
The stated target of 90 percent coverage by 2020, an increase of 2.5 percent from 2016, aims at providing opportunities for talented youngsters in China's rural western regions, facilitating a more level playing field with respect to that enjoyed by their more affluent counterparts in the nation's large cities in the east.
This initiative appears to form an integral part of the government's policy to reduce the pressure in the country's major population centers, encouraging residents without an official urban household registration, or hukou , to leave the overpopulated first-tier cities for greener pastures elsewhere.
Yet, a fact of modern life in the rapidly developing urban centers is that continued development requires manpower. Life would grind to a halt if the majority of workers in low-skilled jobs motorcycle couriers, restaurant staff, cleaners, construction workers would leave for less expensive living quarters in the country's interior.
Despite the government's well-meaning efforts, migrant workers are probably here to stay for the foreseeable future. But many face impossible personal choices, particularly regarding to their children's education. Instead of leaving their offspring behind, many choose to take their families along on their journey seeking a better life.
Yet, without urban hukous, they are ineligible to send their children to the public schools in the cities. The major cities simply don't have the resources to accommodate the huge annual influx of children from migrant families without compromising on educational quality.
These children are forced to join the end of the line. They are only allowed to attend public schools if space permits, and then often only after paying substantial out-of-district tuition fees, money most of their parents can ill afford - despite the fact that new, tighter regulations in Beijing for example have resulted in many migrant parents paying into the city's social security system in the last few years.
It is therefore not surprising that many migrant parents opt to send their children to privately run schools set up in their local communities, which often charge lower fees but which may not offer the same level of education quality as the much better-resourced public schools.
Figures are hard to come by, but to give an idea of the scale of the problem, according to a study based on information from the All China Women's Federation and published by the Financial Times last year, in 2010 there were 35.8 million migrant children in China, up by 41 percent compared with 2005. Of those, 16 million were of secondary-school age.
According to the Beijing Municipal Commission of Education, the capital's school population in 2015 included 470,800 migrant children and 647,200 children in the possession of local hukous. In other words, more than 40 percent of the school-aged children attending the first nine years of Beijing's public schools were not officially registered in the capital.
Although these numbers may seem large, they represent a mere fraction of the total number of migrant children in Beijing. The most recent figures available indicate that in 2008, some 20 million migrant children were living with their parents in China's first- and second-tier cities. In Beijing alone, an academic study led by scholars at Stanford University found that in 2014, there were 230 well-established schools for migrant children.
I know from experience that these schools are often bare-bones institutions, with few of the educational resources that are much more abundantly available at their public-school counterparts, even in remote western areas. A few years ago, my colleagues and I traveled to remote Sichuan to engage the local secondary-school population in hands-on physics education.
Although we brought extensive kits with us as a gift to the local school district, we soon learned that our materials were superfluous to their needs; instead of resources, they rather needed experience in modern, hands-on teaching methods.
Yet, at the schools for migrant children in Beijing which my students and I visit on a monthly basis to offer "Fun with Physics" days, jointly with the Migrant Children's Foundation (MCF), materials are among the resources most needed.
Our efforts to provide an appreciation of scientific thinking to children from migrant families merely scratches the surface. Although the MCF is increasingly working with students from both local universities and international schools, the scale of the education problem is too large for just a voluntary effort to make a lasting impact.
Mass migration from the rural western areas to the affluent eastern cities will likely remain a fact of life for decades to come. Educational authorities would certainly welcome more resources to foster hidden talent among the largely ignored community of migrant workers.
Richard de Grijs is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:
http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/RicharddeGrijs.htm
Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
Flash
Laos witnesses slight drop in tourism revenue in 2016 Laos received just more than 4.23 million foreign visitors in 2016, down from 4.68 million foreigners in 2015.[Photo/Xinhua]
Tourism injected more than 724 million US dollars into Laos' national budget during 2016, according to the latest data from the Tourism Development Department under the Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism on Sunday.
The revenue generated by tourism in 2016 dropped slightly from the figure of more than 725 million US dollars generated by the sector in 2015. The decrease was partly due to the fact that foreign tourist arrivals to Laos declined in 2016, reported Lao state-run media Vientiane Times.
Laos received just more than 4.23 million foreign visitors in 2016, down from 4.68 million foreigners in 2015. Visitors from Thailand and Vietnam, the main sources of foreign visitors to Laos, dropped remarkably by more than 400,000 and 100,000 people respectively.
The number of foreign visitors had fallen because Thai authorities have been promoting domestic tours vigorously, encouraging people there to travel within Thailand through promotional incentives. Foreign tourist arrivals to Laos in previous years were also boosted by a large number of Vietnamese workers who entered the country on tourist visas.
After governments in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the regional bloc of which Laos is a member, tightened measures to regulate foreign workers, it is believed that Vietnamese workers were more reluctant to enter Laos, further contributing to the drop, according to the report.
Tourism services have also been deemed inadequate in some respects, including the inability of some drivers and tour guides to speak English, which can pose problems when visitors need to get to places.
Meanwhile, tour operators have suggested activities and improvements to tourist sites to help promote the year 2018 as Visit Laos Year.
Flash
U.S. President Donald Trump addresses a press conference at the White House in Washington D.C., the United States, on April 12, 2017. U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that his administration won't label China as currency manipulator, and complained that the U.S. dollar is too strong. In an interview with Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, Trump said "they (China) are not currency manipulators," according to the report. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu)
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that his administration won't label China as currency manipulator, and complained that the U.S. dollar is too strong.
In an interview with Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, Trump said "they (China) are not currency manipulators," according to the report.
Trump during the election campaign had accused China of manipulating its currency to gain from exports, while many economists have argued that the Chinese currency, RMB, has been at equilibrium level in recent years.
The International Monetary Fund declared the RMB as no longer undervalued in 2015.
In the interview, Trump again complained that the U.S. dollar is too strong. "I think our dollar is getting too strong, and partially that's my fault because people have confidence in me. But that's hurting -- that will hurt ultimately," Trump said.
Flash
Wu Wen and Xing Ya, two Chinese giant pandas arrived on Wednesday evening at Schiphol airport in Amsterdam for a 15-year stay in a Dutch zoo, making The Netherlands the seventh European country that hosts this endangered and adorable black and white bear.
The KLM special cargo flight transporting the pandas landed at around 19:30 local time. When the cages were unloaded from the plane, hundreds of people watching the live broadcast on a big screen in a nearby hall erupted into applause.
During their debut at the hall shortly after a sanitary check, both Wu Wen (Beautiful Powerful Cloud, the female panda) and Xing Ya (Elegant Star, male) made tentative steps then strolled in rounds in their tailor-made cages, saluting crowds of camera as if with somewhat curiosity.
The two three-and-half-year-old giant pandas moved in an agile way that does not match their weight of over 100 kilograms. The bamboo leaves prepared by their hometown keepers in their cages for the 9-hour trip were almost half consumed.
"It's a small step for Wu Wen and Xing Ya, but a big step for the history of Sino-Dutch relations," said Wu Ken, Chinese ambassador to the Netherlands.
The two black-and-white woolly balls also enthralled children waiting at the scene for the big moment. While some were screaming in excitement, some were holding their breath in awe for their first meeting with the pair.
There are some 2,000 giant pandas in the world. A conservation reliant vulnerable species, most of them live in captivity inside China. Before Wu Wen and Xing Ya traveled to the Netherlands, China had only agreed to carry out joint research on pandas with 12 countries, among which six in Europe. They are the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Austria, Spain and Belgium.
The arrival of Wu Wen and Xing Ya in The Netherlands "fully proves the high level of our bilateral relations which are now at their best time," said Wu Ken.
This year marks the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and the Netherlands. "This significant 'panda moment' marks the beginning of a new chapter in our relations," he added.
"What a beautiful day. What a special moment," said Ronald van Roeden, Deputy Secretary-General at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
He recalled many years of efforts by the Netherlands to take part in the cooperation project for the protection of the giant panda. Ouwehands Zoo located in the center of the country had been bidding for this since 2000. During the state visit of Dutch King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima to China in October 2015, an agreement was finally signed.
"With this symbolically expression is given to the excellent status of the relationship of the Dutch-Chinese relations...And now they are here, finally! And we are proud and unbelievably happy with their arrival to the Netherlands," he said.
After the ceremony, Wu Wen and Xing Ya headed for their new home in the zoo in Rhenen, where a special compound with 7 million investment by the Ouwehands Zoo is waiting for them.
The pandas are expected to be given some 50 kilos of bamboo per day, which will be provided by a bamboo grower in the central south of the Netherlands. The bamboo grower also supplies a selection of different types of bamboo for pandas in Vienna and Edinburgh.
The zoo will also launch education program on endangered species and research projects on the breeding of panda in collaboration with Wageningen, the Dutch leading university and research institute on agricultural and nature.
However, eager visitors will have to stay patient before seeing the panda pair at the zoo, because they will first be held in quarantine for up to six weeks.
Flash
Vladimir Safronkov (C, front), Russian Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations, addresses a Security Council meeting on the situation in Syria at the UN headquarters in New York, on April 12, 2017. (Xinhua/Li Muzi)
Russia Wednesday vetoed a Western draft resolution on an alleged chemical attack in Syria's northwestern province of Idlib.
Among 15 council members, ten voted in favor; Bolivia and the council's veto-wielding power Russia voted against; China, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan abstained.
The document drafted by the United Kingdom, France and the United States demanded the Syrian military to provide UN investigators with unfettered access to details of their operations on the day of the alleged attack.
The text also condemned the reported use of chemical weapons and demanded a speedy investigation.
On April 4, a reported toxic gas attack hit the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun in Syria's Idlib, killing over 80 people and wounding scores of others.
Two days later, the United States launched 59 cruise missiles against the Shairat military base in central Syria, where the United States believes airplanes carrying chemical weapons took off.
Ahead of the vote, Russia's Deputy Representative to the UN Vladimir Safronkov told the council that putting the draft resolution into a vote did not serve a useful purpose.
Safronkov said Russia has proposed an independent international mission sent by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to visit Khan Sheikhoun and the Shairat airbase for investigations.
He said that Russia hopes the United States can give a constructive response to this suggestion.
China's Ambassador to the UN Liu Jieyi said China supports the UN and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in conducting a comprehensive, objective and impartial investigation into relevant cases.
Liu said China supports the language in the text that condemns the use of chemical weapons and demands an investigation into the alleged chemical attack.
However, he said some elements of the text need to be amended to secure consensus among council members and therefore China abstained.
"We deeply regret the failure to reach such consensus on the draft resolution," he noted.
Liu also called upon relevant parties to stay on the course for the political settlement to the Syrian issues, uphold the Syrian-owned and Syrian-led principle and support the United Nations as the main mediator.
Western powers, including the United States, blamed the government of Bashar al-Assad of the attack.
The Syrian government denied possession of chemical weapons, while the Russian Defense Ministry accused Syrian rebels of producing toxic agents in a depot which exploded under a strike by Syrian warplanes and caused the contamination.
After the vote, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said with its veto, Russia said no to cooperation with UN's investigation and Russia said no to a resolution that would have helped to promote peace in Syria.
Flash
The U.S. is "not getting along with Russia at all" and the relations between the two countries "may be at an all-time low" , U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday.
Trump made the remark at a joint press conference with visiting NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the White House. It came shortly after U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in Moscow that the U.S. and Russia have reached a "low point" in relations.
The Russian government has condemned the missile strikes by the United States on a Syrian airbase last Thursday, calling Washington's move "aggression against a sovereign state in violation of international law."
At Wednesday's press conference, Trump defended his decision to launch 59 missiles at the Syrian airbase in response to the alleged chemical attack the U.S. has said the Syrian government should be to blame.
"It can't be a worst sight. And it shouldn't be allowed. That's a butcher," Trump said. "So, I felt we had to do something about it. I have absolutely no doubt we did the right thing. And it was very, very successfully done."
Asked about Russia's prior knowledge about Syrian government's alleged use of chemical weapons, Trump said it's "possible", but "unlikely" that Russia had known in advance of Syria's plan to launch a chemical weapons attack on its own citizens.
"I know they're doing investigations into that right now. I would like to think that they didn't know, but certainly they could have. They were there. So we'll find out," Trump said.
Stoltenberg said within the NATO alliance, the U.S. military action on Syria has been met with understanding.
"Any use of chemical weapons is unacceptable, cannot go unanswered and those responsible must be held accountable," the NATO chief said.
Flash
Bolivia's right-wing factions on Wednesday agreed to work in concert to prevent the reelection of President Evo Morales and his Movement for Socialism (MAS) party.
With general elections still some two years away, opposition figures, including two former presidents, an ex-vice president and three leaders of conservative parties, pledged to join forces to defeat the left-leaning government in 2019.
At a press conference held in La Paz, the parties signed a pact, which they titled a "joint declaration in defence of democracy and justice."
The declaration accuses Morales of having "broken the limits of independence and coordination between the branches (of government), and transformed the judiciary into an instrument of political persecution."
Several of the signatories said they were the subject of legal proceedings that were politically motivated.
Morales, Bolivia's first indigenous president, has been popularly reelected to office since first being elected in 2005, and has said he would like to run again. He lost a recent referendum on a constitutional amendment that would have allowed him to run again by a slight margin.
Bolivia's deputy minister of autonomy, Hugo Siles, accused the right wing of launching an "intentional disinformation (campaign) obviously motivated by political interest."
The declaration was signed by former presidents Jorge Quiroga (2001-2002) and Carlos Mesa (2003-2005), and ex-vice president Victor Hugo Cardenas (1993-1997), as well as the leaders of the National Unity party, businessman Samuel Doria Medina; Social Democratic Movement, Santa Cruz Gov. Ruben Costas; and Sovereignty and Liberty party, La Paz Mayor Luis Revilla.
Flash
The number of children used in "suicide" attacks in the Lake Chad conflict has surged to 27 in the first quarter of 2017, compared to nine over the same period last year, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said in a new report on Wednesday.
The increase reflects an alarming tactic by the insurgents: so far, 117 children have been used to carry out bomb attacks in public places across Nigeria, Chad, Niger and Cameroon since 2014.
Girls have been used in the vast majority of these attacks, the report said.
As a consequence, girls, boys and even infants have been viewed with increasing fear at markets and checkpoints.
Meanwhile, the report also highlights the challenges that local authorities face with children taken into administrative custody for questioning and screening, raising concerns about the prolonged periods of custody.
In 2016, almost 1,500 children were under administrative custody in the four countries.
Flash
South African Parliament Speaker Baleka Mbete has decided to postpone debate and vote on the motion of no confidence in President Jacob Zuma, Parliament said Wednesday.
The decision followed a request by the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA), under whose leader the motion was tabled, for postponing the motion pending conclusion of the Constitutional Court application by the United Democratic Movement (UDM), Parliament spokesperson Moloto Mothapo said.
The motion was originally scheduled for April 18, as requested by DA leader Mmusi Maimane.
But the UDM approached the Constitutional Court (ConCourt) on Monday, asking for an order to have voting on the motion of no confidence conducted through a secret ballot.
The ConCourt on Tuesday granted the UDM access to argue its application for a secret ballot when a motion of no confidence in Zuma is conducted.
Under the court ruling, other involving parties can file opposing papers until April 21.
Following the court order, several opposition parties have called for the postponement of the debate.
The UDM said a new date should be set for April 25 so as to allow the respondents time to file their papers.
While agreeing to the postponement, Mbete did not say when the debate would be conducted, according to Mothapo.
The postponement of the motion will be referred to the National Assembly Programme Committee for its consideration after the constituency period, Mothapo said.
"The Programme Committee will be requested to reflect on the implications of the postponement of the motion of no confidence on the programme of the House, especially in light of Rule 90 (rule of anticipation)," the spokesperson said.
In terms of Rule 90, postponed motions remain on the programming system of the Assembly, thereby blocking any MP from tabling a similar motion until the one that has been tabled is debated and voted on.
The DA submitted the motion in the hope of toppling Zuma, who has been criticized for reshuffling the cabinet on March 31, with the sacking of Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan and nine other ministers.
The move has prompted international rating agencies Standard & Poor's and Fitch to downgrade SA's credit rating to junk status.
Opposition parties believe that a secret ballot would allow MPs of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) to vote in favor of the motion.
The ANC has rejected calls by opposition parties for a secret ballot.
The party has said its MPs must vote according to the party line.
Some ANC MPs reportedly voiced fear that they would be disciplined or removed if they vote in support of the motion.
For a vote of no confidence motion to be successful, it requires 201 of the 400 National Assembly MPs to vote in favor.
If the motion is successful, then the president, his deputy, cabinet ministers and all their deputies must resign as provided for in section 102 of the Constitution.
In 2016, Zuma survived two no confidence motions in Parliament that is dominated by ANC MPs.
Flash
The Egyptian interior ministry identified on Wednesday the suicide bomber who blew himself up in Saint Mark's Church in Egypt's Alexandria governorate on Sunday, killing 11 Christians and six Muslim police officers.
In a press statement, the ministry identified the suicide bomber as Mahmoud Hassan Mubarak from Suez City.
"The suicide bomber was born on Sept. 28, 1986 in Upper Egypt's city of Qena and worked for a petroleum company," the statement read.
On Sunday, twin suicide bombing at two churches in Delta province of Gharbiya and Alexandria province in northern Egypt killed at least 45 and wounded over 120.
The ministry added that the attacker is linked to an extremist Islamist terrorist group led by a wanted terrorist leader from Qena.
"This terrorist cell carried out a suicide attack last year against the Cathedral of Saint Mark in the Abbasia district in Cairo," according to the ministry.
The ministry also revealed that another cell working under the umbrella of the same group has attacked a police checkpoint in the New Valley governorate, killing a number of police men.
The ministry did not mention if this group belongs to the Islamic State (IS) group which claimed responsibility on Sunday for the bombings of two churches.
Egypt has been fighting a terrorist wave that killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers since the military removed former Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013 and blacklisted his Muslim Brotherhood group as "a terrorist organization."
Mostly claimed by a Sinai-based group loyal to the IS regional militia, the terrorist attacks focused on security forces in restive North Sinai in the beginning; but after massive security raids that killed hundreds of militants and arrested a similar number of suspects, terrorists started to target the Coptic minority in the most populous Arab country.
Coptic Christians make up about 10 percent of Egypt's population. They have largely coexisted peacefully with the Muslim-majority public for centuries.
[April 12, 2017] Centric Software Opens New Office in Hong Kong
CAMPBELL, Calif., April 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Centric Software announces the opening of a new office in Hong Kong, bringing its innovative Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions to local retailers, brands and manufacturers. Centric Software is the leading PLM solution for fashion, retail, footwear, luxury, outdoor and consumer goods companies. The opening of the Hong Kong office confirms Centric Software's explosive growth in Asia, having recently opened an office in Tokyo, Japan in 2016 and Shanghai, China in 2014. In addition, the company recently announced the signature of its first customer in Australia, Redbubble. Leveraging the success and continued growth in the region, now with 25 Asian customers, Centric plans to further develop the market in Hong Kong and the surrounding regions. "Prior to the opening of our new Hong Kong office, we had already built strong momentum with several large customers. Companies in Hong Kong and throughout South East Asia need modern, mobile-based PLM solutions. It's a big space to grow," said Nick Wei, Regional Sales Director Hong Kong at Centric Software. "The fashion market is very competitive and companies need every possible advantage beginning with the products they make and sell; products are the heart of any brand, retailer or manufacturer. Making great products starts with reat product development technology, like Centric PLM," Wei adds.
Supporting not only retailers and brands, but also original design manufacturers (ODM) and original equipment manufacturers (OEM) with flexible, configurable, out-of-the-box and intuitive PLM, Centric Software solutions enable companies to speed time to market, improve team collaboration and cut costs while developing deeper bonds with trading partners. "Fashion companies here are really excited to finally have a modern, mobile PLM solution available to them. They want innovative easy to use, cloud and mobile-based PLM software that provides a 'single version of the truth' solution," Wei explains, "Centric's mobile applications, which are the first to be developed in the sector, keep product teams connected at all times to aid product design development and execution."
"In Asia, when a company invests in a technology partner, they want to know you are present and a have strong local team to service them. This new office will allow Centric Software to work in close proximity with our customers and provide them with the industry best practices and Agile DeploymentSM knowledge needed to enable their ambitious growth strategies," Wei concludes. "We are very excited to announce the opening of our new home in Hong Kong," said Chris Groves, CEO of Centric Software. "We will continue to build on innovations made with our customer partners in the region and will look forward welcoming new ones into the Centric family." Centric Software, Inc. (www.centricsoftware.com) From its headquarters in Silicon Valley and offices in trend capitals around the world, Centric Software builds technologies for the most prestigious names in fashion, retail, footwear, luxury, outdoor and consumer goods. Its flagship product lifecycle management (PLM) platform, Centric 8, delivers enterprise-class merchandise planning, product development, sourcing, business planning, quality and collection management functionality tailored for fast-moving consumer industries. Centric SMB packages extended PLM including innovative technology and key industry learnings tailored for small businesses. Centric Software has received multiple industry awards, including the Frost & Sullivan Global Product Differentiation Excellence Award in Retail, Fashion and Apparel PLM in 2016 and Frost & Sullivan's Global Retail, Fashion and Apparel PLM Product Differentiation Excellence Award in 2012. Red Herring named Centric to its Top 100 Global list in 2013, 2015 and 2016. Copyright 2017, Centric Software Inc, All rights reserved.
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Flash
A video, showing a black young man was slammed and beaten by a white policeman for allegedly jaywalking in Sacramento, capital of California, has sparked nation-wide outrage in social media Wednesday.
The video, first released by witness Monday, showed that the officer followed and confronted the man, identified as Nandi Cain Jr., after Cain crossed an intersection and asked Cain took his hands from pockets.
Cain stopped and argued that he had done nothing wrong.
After some words were exchanged between Cain and the officer when they were standing in middle of the street, Cain took off his jacket, then the officer violently threw Cain to the ground and began to punch him in the head.
Bystander Naomi Montaie, who took the video and posted it on Facebook, was heard screaming in the video, "Oh my God! Why'd you take him down like that? No! That was wrong!"
Montaie filmed the five-minute-long video as the officer called for back-up. Six additional officers arrived to assist in Cain's arrest. Cain was initially charged with resisting arrest but it was later dropped and he was released.
Sacramento police released the dashcam video of the incident later, in which viewers can hear the officer demanded Cain to get down to the ground and Cain's response, "I don't have nothing."
Sacramento City Council discussed the incident Tuesday night. A policeman said in the meeting when he reviewed the dashcam video, he was troubled by what he saw and alerted superiors.
Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg asked what would have happened if no one caught the incident on camera, and called the incident "disturbing."
Sacramento police said in a statement that the officer was already on unpaid administrative leave and the department would turn the results of the investigation over to the Sacramento County DA' s office.
Cain was quoted by NBC as saying that at that time he felt like the policemen were going to draw a gun out and shoot him or try to break his arms off.
"It was supposedly for jaywalking," Cain said of the initial arrest. "And then, when they put me in handcuffs and they were driving off, I heard them (talk) about they were going to get me for resisting arrest. But as you can see on the video clearly, I didn't resist at all."
Flash
Missile Frigate Yulin [File photo / Xinhua]
The Chinese military confirmed on April 12 that a PLA (People's Liberation Army) vessel had rescued a Tuvalu-registered cargo ship from pirate control in the Gulf of Aden on April 9.
The Ministry of National Defense (MOD) said in a statement that a PLA task force on escort mission in the Gulf of Aden and the waters off Somalia received intelligence at dusk on April 8 that a Tuvalu-registered cargo ship (hull number OS 35) had been hijacked by pirates in the waters northwest of the Socotra.
The distress signal sent by the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Organisation (UKMTO) said a boat carrying an unconfirmed number of pirates had berthed alongside the cargo ship. The Chinese guided missile frigate Yulin instantly dashed to the area while informing other countries' escort fleets of the incident.
Yulin launched the rescue operation in the early hours of April 9, shortly after arriving at the scene at midnight. Sixteen Special Forces soldiers boarded the hijacked vessel and managed to rescue all 19 crew members. All of the personnel and cargo on the ship were unharmed.
But the MOD's information bureau did not mention whether there were casualties on the pirates or whether they were arrested, pending trials.
The MOD said that the rescue operation exhibited the Chinese military's resolution and capability in anti-piracy missions, and exemplified China's commitment to preserving international navigational safety.
The statement added that China maintained an open and clear attitude towards international cooperation on anti-piracy.
Other sources claimed the Indian navy also participated in the rescue operation but only PLA soldiers boarded the cargo ship and freed its crew.
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Flash
Former U.S. President Barack Obama will meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin next month at a religious conference, local media Zeit Online reported on Wednesday.
They will meet at the historic Brandenburg Gate, according to the organizers. The two figures will take part in a discussion event, covering topics like "democracy" as well as "local and global responsibilities."
Obama's successor Donald Trump is expected to visit Germany in July when Germany hosts the G20 summit in Hamburg.
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Flash
In line with a UN resolution, China suspended all coal imports from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Feb. 19, the General Administration of Customs (GAC) said on Thursday.
The action was in accord with the UN Security Council Resolution 2321,which took effect on that date, GAC spokesperson Huang Songping told a press conference.
The UN Security Council adopted the resolution on Nov. 30, in response to the fifth DPRK nuclear test on Sept. 9 last year.
A total of 2.7 million tonnes of coal was imported from DPRK in the first quarter of 2017, down 51.6 percent year on year, all before the resolution came into effect, said Huang.
[April 12, 2017] Libre Wireless Technologies Supplies Media Syncing Platform to Lenbrook International to Create World's First Hi-Fi Amplifier to Feature Chromecast Built-In for Audio
Libre Wireless Technologies, Inc., a leading embedded WiFi (News - Alert) and Wireless solutions provider, has been chosen by Lenbrook International, manufacturer of respected high fidelity audio brands NAD Electronics, PSB Speakers and Bluesound, to implement Google's (News - Alert) popular Chromecast built-in platform into the world's first high fidelity amplifier. The NAD C 338 HybridDigital Integrated Amplifier, launched earlier this year, is the first NAD product to contain Libre Wireless's LibreSync media streaming modules and software platform, which includes Google's Chromecast built-in for Audio. In combination, the NAD C 338 reshapes the landscape for what a hi-fi amplifier can be, featuring not only NAD's legendary true-to-source, powerful HybridDigital amplification technology, but also as a hub for wireless streaming of high-resolution audio content from Google services and a user's own local music library. "We are quite proud to be selected by Lenbrook and their NAD brand, recognized worldwide for innovation and performance," says Jordan Watters, Chief Revenue Officer at Libre Wireless Technologies. "Our strengths are well aligned as Libre similarly strives to deliver best in class performance and industry leading features to our partners. The NAD team has shown their aggressive pursuit of delivering value to their customers by being one of the first in this category to offer the best in high performance amplification combined with Chromecast built-in and the latest and greatest in WiFi streaming technologies."
"We are very excited about this partnership, as it fits into our broader strategy to redefine the hi-fi amplifier," says Greg Stidsen, Director of Technology and Product Planning for NAD Electronics. "Expectations of what technology should be capable of doing just continue to shift as consumer lifestyles shift. So partnerships like this one with Libre Wireless will become increasingly important to ensure we can keep up with changing consumer demands." About Libre Wireless Technologies, Inc.
Libre Wireless Technologies has extensive expertise and experience in developing WiFi/Wireless technologies with IoT, Media streaming and voice interface/control software and SDK platforms, electronic modules and RF/antenna design solutions. The Libre team has deep WiFi/BT (News - Alert) technology, IoT and A/V system design experience combined with world wide sales, technical support and design partnerships. The LibreSync platform incorporates unique media streaming technology, scalable mic-to-cloud voice processing modules, broad mobile platform ecosystem support, seamless interoperability, scalable price/performance solution options, optimized and flexible WiFi/Bluetooth options (1x1 11n, 2x2 11n, 11n/ac) and extensive system level features. Optimized for performance, power, size and cost, LibreSync solutions provide ODM's and CE Brand customers with the most complete, flexible and ecosystem leading Smart Home, voice and media streaming platform available. About Lenbrook International Based in Pickering, Ontario, Canada, Lenbrook International designs and manufactures renowned high fidelity audio brands Bluesound, NAD Electronics and PSB Speakers. A subsidiary of the privately held Lenbrook Group of Companies formed in 1978, its products are distributed in over 80 countries through sister companies Lenbrook Americas, Lenbrook Asia, as well as through a network of partners. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170412006277/en/
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US President Donald Trump's decision not to label China a currency manipulator is a positive step in the two sides' efforts to enhance bilateral cooperation. It provides further proof that China and the United States are warming to each other after the meeting between President Xi Jinping and Trump at Mar-a-Lago, Florida, on April 6-7.
On Wednesday, Trump backed away from his campaign promise that he will name China a currency manipulator as one of his first acts in office. The US Treasury Department also confirmed that its semi-annual report on currency practices of major trading partners, due out later this month, will refrain from doing so as well.
The US stance immediately won approval from Beijing, which said it will contribute to the healthy development of two-way trade and investment.
China has repeatedly denied the accusation that it is a currency manipulator, and in an interview with The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, Trump agreed this is not the case, saying, "they (China) are not currency manipulators".
Such an objective, and justified, approach to the currency issue will certainly help maintain the good momentum that has been maneuvered in ties.
It is natural for China and the US to have differences on issues. But as long as the two sides act in good faith to resolve those differences through communication and consultation, their disagreements can be managed.
As Xi said in his meeting with Trump, China is willing to work together with the US to enhance high-level exchanges and dialogues and expand cooperation.
As far as bilateral trade is concerned, it has brought huge benefits to the two peoples as the two countries have become each other's top trading partner. In the first quarter, bilateral trade in goods registered a growth of 21.3 percent.
China has made it clear it does not pursue a trade surplus and it hoped the US would loosen restrictions on its exports to China. The two countries have decided to give themselves 100 days to discuss issues in trade, which shows the two sides are making concrete efforts to work together.
Both intrinsic factors and the external environment have contributed to frictions in bilateral trade. Putting the blame solely on one side and threatening punitive measures have only deepened the divide.
Accommodating each other's concerns and following the principles of mutual respect and mutual trust is the only way to usher in a win-win outcome.
SINGAPORE - The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and Shanghai Municipal Financial Services Office (SFSO) held the 3rd Singapore-Shanghai Financial Forum (SSFF) on Wednesday to promote financial linkages and collaborations between Singapore and China's Shanghai.
Nine Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) were signed between Singapore and Shanghai's financial institutions and corporates, according to the joint media release statement by MAS and SFSO.
An agreement was signed between Shanghai Pudong Development Bank and Singapore Exchange to deepen capital market cooperation and encourage more Chinese corporates to tap Singapore's capital markets.
Singapore's Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp (OCBC) and Bank of Shanghai also pledged to work closely together to extend their collaboration in areas such as trade finance, corporate and investment banking and loans and cross-border financing.
United Overseas Bank (UOB) and Nufin Data Private Limited further agreed to co-develop financial technology and data analytics solutions.
Meanwhile, Shanghai Municipal Financial Services Office will also work with Singapore in fostering multi-level and multi-dimensional cooperation, to further the development of the New Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.
Deputy Managing Director of MAS Jacqueline Loh said this edition of the SSFF takes Singapore-Shanghai financial cooperation to new heights, with entities from both sides forging agreements to work closer together.
"We will build on the strong partnership with our Shanghai counterparts to facilitate greater collaboration as we navigate the new financial world order," Loh added.
Jin Xingming, Deputy Secretary General of the Shanghai Municipal Government, said Singapore and Shanghai can deepen cooperation in the three areas of renminbi internationalization, developing the Belt and Road Initiative and strengthening FinTech capabilities in times of changing global financial world order.
A worker fills an order at the Lazada's warehouse in Jakarta, Indonesia. [Photo/Agencies]
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd expects to complete the construction of an e-commerce and logistics hub in Thailand by 2019, taking the internet behemoth closer to Southeast Asian economies and its goal of shedding its reliance on the Chinese market.
Building of the park is on a "steady course" and marks the company's long-term investment in Thailand, Alibaba said in an emailed statement to China Daily.
Under an agreement with the Thai government in December, Alibaba vowed to help develop the country's e-commerce sector through providing training to small businesses and individuals, and exploring ways to enhance its logistics capabilities.
Alibaba said the hub is designed to provide a one-stop service connecting SMEs, manufacturers, service providers and logistic partners, complementing its existing investment in Lazada Group, a dominant regional e-commerce platform in which Alibaba holds a majority stake.
"We hope the park will empower Thailand's innovative internet startups and boost the country's technology ecosystem," the statement added.
Under the agreement, Alibaba and its subsidiary Lazada will offer e-commerce training to 30,000 Thai SMEs to aid their access to both domestic and international e-commerce platforms and nurture software developers.
The deal also calls for Alibaba to advise the country's postal serviceThailand Poston shipping and logistics.
The Chinese online giant is marching into a region on the cusp of a digital shopping boom fueled by fast-growing mobile phone usage.
Consultancy eMarketer projects that e-commerce sales, excluding travel, will grow at a rate exceeding 15 percent in Thailand annually over the next four years, reaching $5.69 billion by 2020.
In a similar move, Alibaba in March established the first digital free trade zone dubbed Electronic World Trade Platform in Malaysia, offering small businesses lower barriers for entry and easier access to financing.
"Alibaba's investment here will be different from that in Malaysia, where it is expected to be an e-commerce platform only. In contrast, its investment in Thailand will be broader, covering production platforms ... particularly in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam," Thai Industry Minister Uttama Savanayana was quoted by the Bangkok Post as saying.
US President Donald Trump attends a press conference at the White House in Washington DC, on April 12, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]
WASHINGTON US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that his administration won't label China as currency manipulator, and complained that the US dollar is too strong.
In an interview with Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, Trump said "they (China) are not currency manipulators," according to the report.
Trump during the election campaign had accused China of manipulating its currency to gain from exports, while many economists have argued that the Chinese currency, RMB, has been at equilibrium level in recent years.
The International Monetary Fund declared the RMB as no longer undervalued in 2015.
In the interview, Trump again complained that the US dollar is too strong. "I think our dollar is getting too strong, and partially that's my fault because people have confidence in me. But that's hurting -- that will hurt ultimately," Trump said.
A view of Hong Kong's famous Victoria Harbour. [Photo/Agencies]
With the high-profile development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area gaining pace, Hong Kong is looking to play its part to fulfill the area's ambitions, said the city's top mainland affairs official on Wednesday.
Raymond Tam Chi-yuen, Hong Kong's secretary for constitutional and mainland affairs, made the remarks after talks with the National Development and Reform Commission.
Tam said the NDRC is considering making Hong Kong the locomotive of the strategy and the bay area's window to the world.
The NDRC is expected to submit a full plan of the strategy to the State Council at the end of this year.
In a sign of Hong Kong's determination to get a slice of the action, outgoing Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying will lead a delegation of senior officials and business leaders on a three-day visit to six mainland cities in the bay area next week.
As the one and only world-class financial hub in the area, Hong Kong has an irreplaceable role as the "super connector" between overseas and mainland markets for this mega project. It stands out among the 11 cities across the bay area, as a gateway for overseas investors to the massive mainland market, and a springboard for mainland firms going global, said Dominic Wu Sze-yin, chairman of the Asia Financial Risk Think Tank.
"The city has what it takes to become an exporter of high-end service industries and government management expertise, putting the Pearl River Delta region on course to upgrade its industries amid ever-increasing labor and manufacturing costs," said Fielding Chen Shiyuan, Hong Kong-based Asia economist at Bloomberg Intelligence.
Back in the 1980s, the region timed its takeoff when Hong Kong sought to relocate its manufacturing business and invest excess capital. Nowadays, hard-pressed local manufacturers, feeling the pinch from cheaper manufacturing bases in neighboring less-developed countries, have undergone a yearslong painful transformation.
"Again, this is where Hong Kong could come in, by helping the region climb up the value chain and find the next new growth engine," Chen said.
For Hong Kong, the bay area plan ensures it will reap the fruits of the regional economic integration, he added.
A rider in Qingdao, Shandong province, scans bar code for riding an ofo bike. [Photo by Huang Jiexian/For China Daily]
With profitability appearing achievable last year, ofo Inc is planning a simultaneous expansion at home as well as overseas markets this year, said Dai Wei, the bike-sharing startup's founder and CEO.
Ofo's iconic yellow bikes will be available for rental in 200 Chinese cities and 10 foreign markets by the year-end, Dai, 27, said in an email.
That would signify a major scaling up of operations since ofo has been operating in only 43 Chinese cities and three foreign marketsthe United States, the United Kingdom and Singaporeso far.
The startup's 2.5 million bikes out in various markets make it one of the leading players after Mobike.
Profit appears possible in 2017, Dai said, as "ofo was very close to making a profit last year".
Free-rides now offered by Chinese bike-sharing companies to attract new riders, only delay profits. Such free bicycle rides can't be compared with the cash-burning subsidy wars waged by taxi-hailing apps such as Didi Chuxing and Uber last year, he said.
In China alone, intense competition followed the emergence of 29 bicycle-sharing service providers that put 3 million bikes on streets. According to the China Bicycle Association, the figure will reach 20 million in China this year as the concept of sharing economy becomes increasingly popular.
Industry analysts said more and more Chinese bike-sharing service providers will likely go global.
In March, Mobike followed ofo into the Singapore market, its first foray overseas. The two players charge just half a Singaporean dollar (36 cents) for each ride.
"Important factors that determine outbound destinations (for business expansion) are the (local) government's stance, regulatory environment, and local riding behaviors," Dai said.
The bike-sharing service entails high operating costs, he said.
Ofo started off on college campuses in 2014. It received funding from Didi Chuxing and Lei Jun, founder of gadget maker Xiaomi. The latest round of funding raised $450 million, valuing ofo at over $1 billion.
Chinese farmers should view product promotion through the lens of "Internet Plus," said an official with the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) on April 12.
"Innovation has always been key in brand-building. We have long passed the time where farmers only toiled on their land. In our era, 'Internet Plus' must be highlighted. China is the world's largest consumer of meat and crops, with an annual consumption of 50 kilograms and 450 kilograms per capita respectively. It is time that we promote our brand overseas," said Song Chengmin, a macroeconomic management official with the NDRC, at a conference on agricultural branding in Linyi, Shandong province.
The conference was held by the Linyi government and the People's Tribune on April 12. Its theme was the proposal made by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2015 to strengthen brand-building for agricultural products.
Hu Xiaoyun, director of the China Academy for Rural Development at Zhejiang University, pointed out that it remains difficult to sell many Chinese agricultural products at high prices, even though they are equal in quality to their overseas counterparts.
"Even at some high-end venues in China, we are served foreign tea instead (of Chinese tea). This is heartbreaking because tea originated in China and we see a huge amount of tea production every year," Hu said.
In fact, China is not short of agricultural brands, but is enmeshed in an age of "wilderness," according to Dang Guoying, a researcher with the Rural Development Institute at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Dang told reporters on the sidelines of the conference that a large crowd of small Chinese brands cannot win out against Western giants. To spur domestic agricultural development, authorities should encourage brand-building rather than offering blueprints.
"On top of the agenda is our mission to find a carrier to hold the brand. It is usually giant agricultural cooperatives that do this job in the West. There are reportedly up to 1 million co-ops in China, which is in fact bad for brand-building," Dang explained. Echoing the NDRC official, Dang also agreed that access to the internet could bring down the cost of agriculture.
"With the help of the internet, some less developed regions have become known in other regions, and business deals have been made. This pattern could promote basic infrastructure construction," Dang said, adding that a beneficial cycle could be perpetuated in rural areas to boost sales as well as brand-building.
BEIJING China's leather exports dropped 11.3 percent year-on-year to $76.4 billion in 2016 on weak demand, according to the China Leather Industry Association.
Exports to the United States, the largest overseas market, declined by 15 percent year-on-year, Ye Xiangju, deputy secretary general of the China Leather Industry Association, said at a press conference.
The decline was caused by higher raw material costs, lower demand and weaker comparative advantage of Chinese leather products in the international market, according to Ye.
In 2016, imports dipped 7 percent from the previous year to $8.9 billion, Ye said.
For the first time, imports of finished leather products surpassed raw materials in value during last year.
The industry's sales revenue last year stood at 1.4 trillion yuan ($203 billion), up 3.2 percent year-on-year, 2.9 percentage points lower than that in 2015.
[April 13, 2017] kCura Brings Relativity Fest to London
400 members of the e-disclosure community will join the developers of Relativity for an all-day conference full of forward-thinking discussions and presentations on the latest in legal tech. LONDON, April 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- kCura, developers of the e-disclosure software Relativity, brings its annual event Relativity Fest London to the United Kingdom on 25 April 2017. The event brings some of the best aspects of Relativity Fest to the UK, including keynotes, educational sessions, and networking with legal professionals from around the globe over the course of a full day. "We are excited to bring the Relativity Fest experience to the United Kingdom and share it with our international community," said Steve Couling, VP of International at kCura. "The last few years have been evolutionary for e-disclosure in Europe and Asia Pacific. With a growing number of courts approving technology-assisted review, progressive adoption of analytics, and the increasing complexity of cross-border litigation, there couldn't be a better time for legal professionals to come together to discuss the future of e-disclosure." The event sessions will cover all the latest trends and market developments in e-disclosure: Analytics Around the Globe
With legal departments seeking to drive down costs, and case law in the United States , Europe , and now Australia validating the defensibility of TAR, analytics is quickly becoming the most important piece of a caseteam's toolkit. The panel of industry experts will discuss the successes, the roadblocks, and specifics of implementing analytics in different regions.
With legal departments seeking to drive down costs, and case law in , , and now validating the defensibility of TAR, analytics is quickly becoming the most important piece of a caseteam's toolkit. The panel of industry experts will discuss the successes, the roadblocks, and specifics of implementing analytics in different regions. From Processing to ECA and Investigation: Know Your Data Before Review
A case getting off on the right foot comes long before the first coding decision is made. This session will demonstrate how Relativity Processing can be used to streamline the process by keeping all data in one platform.
A case getting off on the right foot comes long before the first coding decision is made. This session will demonstrate how Relativity Processing can be used to streamline the process by keeping all data in one platform. Creating Dashboards for Your Entire Case Lifecycle
In this session, attendees will learn how to enhance their Relativity experience with data visualization. With the ability to use Relativity dashboards for reporting and interacting with their data, case teams will be better equipped to do everything from prioritising their review from the outset, to running quality control checks prior to production. Relativity Fest London will include a robust lineup of speakers from the e-disclosure industry such as the Honorable Andrew Peck, US Magistrate Judge, Southern District of New York; Steven Whitaker, former Senior Master, Senior Courts in the Queen's Bench Division; Chris Dale, Founder of the eDisclosure Information Project and many others. During the event, attendees will have the opportunity to learn about the latest features of Relativity and new ways to rapidly review and analyze data to uncover the true story behind it. Reviewers can now save even more timeand tell a more accurate and cohesive storywith easy-to-read email thread visualisations that help them quickly identify relationships between senders and recipients, as well as gaps in information and missing documents.
Attendees will also learn more about Relativity's hybrid connected experience, which allows legal teams to easily unite all their data, including matters and workflows, regardless of where they resideon-premises, in an appliance, or in the cloud with RelativityOne. "We have always been passionate about bringing our community together to help solve the most complex and challenging data problems," said Andrew Sieja, president and CEO of kCura. "Relativity Fest London is a great opportunity for us to become closer and more connected to our customers in the UK and throughout Europe." Register for Relativity Fest London that will take place at 155 Bishopsgate on the 25th of April 2017. About kCura kCura are the developers of Relativity, an e-discovery platform used by more than 12,000 organizations to manage large volumes of data and quickly identify key issues during litigation, internal investigations, and compliance projects. Relativity has over 150,000 active users in 40+ countries from organizations including the U.S. Department of Justice, more than 70 Fortune 100 companies, and more than 195 of the Am Law 200. Corporations, law firms, and government agencies use Relativity on-premises, in the cloud, or as a hybrid platformwith hosted, on-demand solutions available through a global network of partners. As a platform, Relativity also allows developers to design, build, and integrate applications that extend its functionality. kCura has been named one of Chicago's Top Workplaces by the Chicago Tribune for six consecutive years and received the CityLIGHTS Lighthouse Award from the Illinois Technology Association in 2016. Please contact kCura at [email protected] or visit http://www.kcura.com for more information. Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/445801/Relativity_Logo.jpg
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HONG KONG Hong Kong could make good use of its unique advantages and contribute to the success of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), Leung Chun-ying, chief executive of China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region said Wednesday.
As the international financial center in Asia, Hong Kong could make good use of its unique advantages under "one country, two systems", its world-class talents and its extensive experience in handling large-scale projects in contributing to the success of the AIIB, Leung said during a meeting with AIIB President Jin Liqun.
AIIB announced last month that its board of governors had approved 13 applications to join the bank, including Hong Kong.
During the meeting held Wednesday afternoon, Leung thanked Jin for his enormous support for Hong Kong's participation in the AIIB, and the two exchanged views on issues of mutual interest.
Hong Kong would become a new member of AIIB once it confirms the acceptance of the bank's articles of agreement and deposits the first instalment of capital subscription with the bank, Leung said.
Tourists pose for a photograph in front of the Xiongxian government building in North China's Hebei province, April 8, 2017. The building has become a new attraction after an announcement came that the county would be part of the Xiongan New Area. [Photo/VCG]
XIONGAN NEW AREA Expansive economic zone in the making, Xiongan New Area is like a magnet for those seeking fortune.
Since an announcement was made April 1, people have crowded squares and streets in front of government buildings in Xiongxian, Anxin and Rongcheng counties, taking photos, exchanging information and looking for places to set up shop.
When a brief property craze died down, private entrepreneurs, internet engineers, scholars, restaurateurs and lawyers came here, joined by ministries and State-owned companies from Beijing. More than two dozen State-owned enterprises have pledged support for development of the new area.
Feng Chuan, 28, drove with his wife and a friend to the gates of Xiongxian county government on the weekend.
"I come to see for myself what Xiongan looks like now, and to understand why this area was chosen. I should be prepared for future opportunities here," Feng said.
Feng quit a well-paying post at Standard Chartered Bank to work with a software firm in Tianjin. "Xiongan will become the capital of innovation in the future. We are looking for opportunities in the internet industry," he said.
"I hope specific plans for the area will be made public as soon as possible," Feng added.
"We hope to start our own business and make the first bucket of money in our life," said his wife Bi Ying, giggling shyly.
A family from Changzhou, Jiangsu province, about 1,000 kilometers to the southeast, drove here overnight to look into the possibility of opening a branch of their restaurant business here.
"People have to eat, right?" said Yu Hongping, the father.
On April 1, China announced plans to create Xiongan New Area, a new economic zone about 100 kilometers southwest of Beijing. The new area spans the counties of Xiongxian, Rongcheng and Anxin in Hebei, and is home to Baiyangdian, a major wetland in northern China.
Chinese leaders hope the new area will help address severe "urban ills" of traffic congestion and air pollution in Beijing, by curbing the capital's population growth and moving non-capital functions out of Beijing.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, called for efforts to build Xiongan into "a demonstration area for innovative development."
"General Secretary Xi has set the goal, we need to figure out how to realize it, how to innovate," an official with the preparatory committee of Xiongan told Xinhua.
"Xiongan is a move to adjust China's economic and spacial structure," said Xu Kuangdi, a renowned metallurgist and former mayor of Shanghai. Xu is also director of an experts council for coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.
"Xiongan represents a strategic effort to seek coordinated development between big cities and small towns. It is a ground to test new economic growth models and push for supply-side reform," Xu said.
Growth based on innovation, new ideas and methods, not exports or investment, is seen as a solution to China's growth conundrum. Top Chinese leaders have called for efforts to eliminate barriers to innovation and unleash productivity.
Experts said new rules regarding household registration and real estate management may be enforced in Xiongan, which is expected to be an example of a future city in China.
Xiongan New Area will initially cover around 100 square km and expand to 2,000 square km in the long term. Location of the central area and industrial layout, among other details, have yet to be published.
An official with the preparatory committee said they might welcome hi-tech industries such as 5G communications, bio-medicine, artificial intelligence and internet finance industries.
"There will not be large communities like Tiantongyuan in northern Beijing, no broad streets, but a green, organically connected and well-functioning place, a forest city, you might call it," the official said.
According to a government circular on Xiongan, the three counties feature geological advantages, convenient transport, an excellent environment and ample room for development.
"There are never any traffic jams here," said Zhou Jinhua, a retailer who sells doors, in Rongcheng County.
XIAMEN More bridges instead of barriers are expected to allow cross-Straits intelligent manufacturing industries to jointly tap the market, as they are more complementary than competitive.
The remark was made by Li Rongmin, head of the Taipei office of China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products, at the 2017 Xiamen Industry Exposition which opened Wednesday.
He said that the mainland encourages investment both in and from Taiwan. Cross-Straits industries should cooperate in fields such as standards, personnel exchanges, finance and Internet cloud computing.
"Taiwan is strong in research and the electronic information industry," said Li, "but not in its investment environment."
The Chinese mainland has been growing very rapidly in international resource integration, robot manufacturing, 3D printing and other technologies. It also has great demand for semiconductors and high-end machine tools, he added.
Intelligent manufacturing is what the cross-Straits cooperation should aim for, said Gou Tai-chiang, chairman of the Taiwan Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers' Association, who is attending the expo.
It would be conducive to cross-Straits industrial transformation and upgrading from traditional manufacturing to high-end manufacturing, said Gou.
"I hope that the cross-Straits industries, with support from the internet and big data, will combine Taiwan's technology and product foundation with the mainland's talent and market, and grasp the opportunities from the Belt and Road Initiative," he said.
Xiamen Industry Exposition, authorized by the Ministry of Commerce, has been held annually since 1997. The event has received more than 10,000 enterprises as exhibitors over the past two decades.
NEW YORK US President Donald Trump has pledged a massive infrastructure plan in the country, which may bring increasing opportunities for Chinese companies, US experts said here on Wednesday.
"The Trump administration has been very focused on investing infrastructure, including public-private partnerships ... We are open for business and welcome Chinese companies to participate and bid for the projects," said Patric Foye, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, on an event titled "Skyclub Dialogue: Infrastructure Development and Investment" in New York.
Foye further explained that as the government agency oversees much of the regional transportation infrastructure in the two states, Port Authority processes bridges, tunnels, airports and seaports, which are "revenue-generating assets" and "expect to attract capitals from all over the world, including China."
His viewpoints were echoed by Stephen Orlins, president of the National Committee on US-China Relations, who also spoke at the event.
"When I look at the $1 trillion price tag that President Trump has put on the infrastructure needs of the United States ... I looked at the three trillion reserve in China, I looked at the expertise that exists in China and I looked at what China Construction America and other Chinese construction companies are doing, creating jobs in the United States," said Orlins.
China Construction America Inc (CCA), a wholly owned subsidiary of China State Construction Engineering Corporation Ltd, is among the Chinese companies that have been playing an active role in the US construction market.
Founded in 1985, CCA now has 2,000 employees, of whom 98 percent are local employees, according to the company's president Ning Yuan, who also attended the event.
Yuan said the company has successfully completed six bridge projects in the New York Metropolitan area and ranks number ten in bridge contractors across the United States.
CCA is fully funded and ready to get involved in more public-private partnership (PPP) projects, he noted.
Foye pointed out that Chinese companies like CCA should focus not only on capital-raising but also on engineering solutions and creativity when bidding on a project.
"Continued growth and success of the Chinese firms in the US will eventually give them a competitive advantage in the PPP market," said Foye.
XIAMEN China's eastern port city of Xiamen will open a freight train service to Moscow on April 21, according to a meeting Thursday.
The train will go via the cities of Nanchang, Nanjing, Jinan and Jinzhou, and pass Manzhouli Port before entering Russia.
It will take 13 to 14 days to finish the journey, which stretches 10,920 kilometers to Moscow.
The freight service will be operated by Xiamen Haicang Investment Group.
The Xiamen-Moscow freight train service will boost the opening up of Xiamen and China-Russia trade, and contribute to the Belt and Road Initiative.
Xiamen has active trade with Russia. In 2016, exports from Xiamen to Russia reached about 5 billion yuan ($727 million), and imports from Russia were 1.9 billion yuan.
The 2017 BRICS Summit will be held in Xiamen in September.
Chinese bike-sharing company ofo Inc has signed a deal with China CITIC Bank to offer expanded financial services for ofo users.
Under the partnership, announced on Thursday, CITIC Bank will provide tailor-made co-branded cards for ofo users. Card holders won't have to pay the 99 yuan ($14.4) deposit normally required to ride ofo bikes.
The co-branded card, which is a credit and debit card, also entitles holders to free personal accident insurance.
Ofo said the two companies will work on a series of cooperation programs, including the management of deposits, payments, cross-border finance, credit support, marketing and pro bono programs.
"We two will work on more innovative programs in the future, combining the sharing economy and financial services. Thus, we can offer better services for our clients and boost the development of both industries, ofo chief executive officer Dai Wei said.
Guo Danghuai, vice president of CITIC Bank, said: Our partnership with ofo will enable us to offer more inclusive financial products and services via the new form of sharing economy.
Ofo has deployed more than 2.5 million bikes and has more than 30 million registered users. It has provided over 500 million rides since its debut, according to the company.
In March, ofo tested waiving its deposit for Sesame Credit members in Shanghai. By teaming up with Sesame Credit, a social credit rating unit backed by Ant Financial Services Group, the company allowed users with 650 points or higher to ride without paying the deposit.
Ant Financial Services Group has lashed out at rival Euronet Worldwide in an increasingly hostile battle for a United States money transfer company.
In January, Ant Financial announced plans to buy MoneyGram for $880 million but was hit with a counter bid of $940 million from Euronet which claims to have a better chance of closing the deal because it's not subject to national security probes that foreign investors are subject to.
Euronet chief executive officer Mike Brown said earlier this week that a deal with the Chinese company posed a risk to national security and was unlikely to get clearance from US regulators due to the proximity of many MoneyGram vendors to US military bases.
Euronet has conducted broad-based political attacks in Washington against Ant Financial and the integrity of MoneyGram's business and data security practices, in an attempt to stop a compelling transaction involving a core competitor, Doug Feagin, president of Ant Financial International, said in a statement.
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the US has the power to veto foreign investments if it concludes that national security is being threatened.
Brown's comments have outraged Ant Financial.
Euronet has sought to create phantom national security arguments and encouraged political interference in a commercial transaction," Feagin said. "A closer examination of Euronet's self-serving claims demonstrates that its hostile bid for MoneyGram does nothing to advance American interests."
He said Euronet has over 85 percent of its assets outside of the US, including nearly all of Euronet's servers and data centers where its customer information resides.
He also claimed that Euronet derives only 28 percent of its revenue from the US and pays virtually no tax in the country, according to its annual report to shareholders.
Besides, Euronet has told investors it plans to cut $60 million in costs if it acquires MoneyGram, which would inevitably impact US facilities and employment, leading to significant US job cuts, he said.
If Ant Financial proceeds with the acquisition, Feagin said MoneyGram would continue to independently operate all its data systems and Ant Financial would not have access to any US customer data.
Additionally, the entire Texas-based MoneyGram management team and all of its employees in the US, including the data security team, will remain in place at MoneyGram, he noted.
The Chinese e-payment giant remained confident of closing the transaction and fulfilling the shared mission of serving people who don't use traditional banks with MoneyGram.
Alex Holmes, chief executive officer of MoneyGram, has also refuted Browns claims in a Financial Times interview published on Wednesday.
The reality is that we collect and transmit a limited amount of personally identifiable information from most of our customers. This information is stored at our secure IT facility in the US. These practices will continue unchanged under our proposed merger with Ant Financial, Holmes was quoted by the newspaper as saying.
He added that MoneyGram would remain subject to examinations and audits by US regulators while operating independently from Ant with respect to data collection.
Feagin said Ant Financial intends to invest significant additional money and resources in MoneyGram, including expenditures to maintain the highest standards of data security and user privacy.
Ant Financial is China's biggest internet-finance conglomerate, with its online payment and escrow service, a money-market fund, a credit-rating system and an internet bank. It has set a target of having 2 billion customers globally over the next decade.
China's tech giant Tencent has been crowned the most valuable brand among Chinese-listed companies this year, beating the country's telecom companies and big banks, according to a recently released list.
The rankings prepared by Tsinghua University's National Entrepreneurship Research Center and National Business Daily, looked at 4344 Chinese enterprises that were listed on the A-share market or as concept stocks overseas as of last year.
"We can measure any Chinese listed company's brand value on the basis of its data," Professor Zhao Ping of Tsinghua University's National Entrepreneurship Research Center told china.com.cn.
In the list, the concept of brand value covers a company's business earnings, a brand's contribution to total revenue and brand potential.
The top five companies' brand value combined accounts for 53 percent of the brand value of the top 100 companies.
Let's take a look at the top 10 most valuable Chinese brands.
No 10 Agricultural Bank of China
Brand value: 104,901 million yuan ($15.2 billion)
[April 13, 2017] Impartus Rolls Out Revamped Interactive Video Learning Solutions
BANGALORE, April 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The start-up with its game-changing video-based learning solutions aims to improve the quality of higher education in India Impartus, a provider of innovative video-enabled learning solutions aimed at the higher education sector, today rolled out a newer version of its video solutions; making out-of-class learning more interactive and engaging for students and educators. Its core features of 'Lecture Capture', 'Video Conferencing' and 'Flipped Classroom' makes it a must-have tool for institutes adopting video learning strategy. The new version of Impartus' solution now provides a completely redesigned interface with enhanced user experience. Students can now engage and collaborate more effectively. The key features now include an improved video conferencing experience, in-video search, unlimited cloud storage, discussion forums and interactive video quizzes. Impartus' all new discussion forum enables students to post their questions, they can also upvote, downvote and write answers for the existing questions thereby sharing their knowledge. The advance search including In-Video Search lets students discover more relevant and comprehensive content. They can find their peers, follow them and get familiar with their learning patterns. Students can now upload all of their course content on the cloud and can access it from anywhere/anytime. Impartus' new user interface is available on both Android and iOS. "At Impartus, we are makingcontinuous efforts to make learning more engaging, and our new release has significant feature additions along with a fresh interface designed based on detailed user feedback. Videos have become a part of mainstream education and our comprehensive solution facilitates interactive learning, making it simpler for students to comprehend even the most difficult topics. The goal is to improve learning outcomes and enable effective learning by students which are not limited by classroom boundaries," says Amit Mahensaria, Co-Founder and CEO of Impartus Innovations.
"I have immensely benefited from my institute's decision to adopt Impartus' video platform, which has proved to be extremely useful. The USP of the platform is that it is highly interactive, which makes it fun and interesting to use. The new version and features are designed in a way, which enables us to study better and also create a healthy competitive study culture as we are able to view how peers are utilizing the app," says Aditi Ghosh, a student of BITs Pilani, Hyderabad. "We have observed that technology has been really effective in enhancing learning requirements of students and equally effective in helping teachers improve their teaching methodologies. Impartus' solution has enabled our teachers to evaluate their lectures and teaching techniques and improvise to suit students' requirements. They have also been fast and responsive in customising their solution to suit our needs. Through Impartus' interactive platform, teaching is no more limited to the lectures in classrooms," says Dr B Sadashive Gowda, Principal, VVCE Mysore.
About Impartus Impartus provides innovative video learning solutions that drive better outcomes for the education sector. Impartus Lecture Capture is currently being used by over 85+ leading institutions across India such as IIM Bangalore, BITS Pilani, Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, College of Engineering, Pune, Shiv Nadar School, NIT Surathkal, KMC Manipal, VIT Vellore, SASTRA University and IIIT Bangalore. We have achieved market leadership in India and an expanding presence across emerging markets including Malaysia, Greater China and Kenya. Impartus' head office is located in Bangalore, India. The company is funded by Kaizen Private Equity, India's premiere education-focused private equity fund. Learn more at http://www.impartus.com or write to us at [email protected]. Media Contact:
Gurpreet Singh Sachdeva
[email protected]
+91-9901503011
Impartus Innovations Pvt. Ltd.
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Tourists riding shared bikes visit the Forbidden City in Beijing on March 18. With the advent of the era of shared bicycles, a variety of colorful bicycles add vibrancy to the Chinese capital. [Photo by Du Jianpo/For China Daily]
Zhang Qiang, a 30-year-old engineer, was stunned when he saw that his bike, parked near a subway station in Beijing, was surrounded by fleets of internet-connected bicycles, which can be borrowed and returned with just a smartphone.
This is the Rainbow War as each bike company paints their products in orange, blue, yellow, green and other colors. Within just a year they have become a common sight in major cities.
But the rapid growth also spawns security concerns and worries that streets may be crowded with bicycles, just as Zhang witnessed. Several cities are rolling out policies to regulate the sector.
Wang Xiaofeng, CEO of Beijing Mobike Technology Co Ltd, and Dai Wei, CEO of ofo Inc, two arch rivals in the bike-sharing industry recently talked with China Daily, sharing their opinions on overseas expansion plans, government regulation and how the sector will reshape itself. Beloware the edited excerpts.
Wang Xiaofeng (left), CEO of Mobike, and Dai Wei, ofo CEO.
Why is bike-sharing burgeoning in China?
Wang: Dock-free bike sharing is a home-grown innovation. We are the first one to experiment with the idea. The chic design and convenience of Mobike lures a greater number of young users, which fueled its popularity. Usually, it is very, very time-consuming for consumers to embrace new internet-connected products. But we markedly shortened the process. We built a network of more than 1 million connected bikes within just 300 days. That helps us stand out from other IoT applications.
Dai: ofo was the first across the world to raise the concept of bicycle-sharing free from docking stations. Thanks to the use of smartphones and the mobile internet, users can pick up bikes wherever they find them at their convenience. By thinking outside the box, public bike services are regaining vitality.
Will 2017 be the year of a cash-burning subsidy war among industry players?
Wang: The bike-sharing sector is in an infant stage where more efforts are needed to cultivate users. But giving out subsidies is not the only solution and we will embrace more innovative ways. We are, for instance, using "red envelopes" to motivate users to choose bikes that sit idle. It can not only lure new users but help dispatch bikes to where demand is high.
Dai: The ride-for-free promotion we offer is different from the last round of competition waged between Didi Chuxing and Uber, as it only slows down profit schedule other than burning cash to subsidize users.
Cooperation will outweigh competition in the bike-riding industry in the future. Ofo's idea is to set up a grand sharing plan in cities, connecting all bike manufacturers, products and users. The company will stick to it and help establish a smart commute system, assist regulators in devising industry guidelines and optimize users' transportation experience.
Riders in Kunming, Yunnan province, park shared bikes in April 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]
There are cases of users vandalizing shared bikes. How should the companies address the issue?
Wang: Such cases are isolated and only a tiny, tiny number of users are damaging bikes. The problem is over-exaggerated to some extent. We have taken a range of steps to prevent such cases from happening, starting from product design. Our real name verification system and credit system also help solve this problem. Our bikes have a very low damage rate.
Dai: The vandal cases are isolated. Ofo appeals to its users to remember others, especially by parking bikes in the right place. We at the same time have increased our operational staff to ensure supervision. The staff check the condition of the bikes and their parking.
In the future, ofo will actively work with related regulatory bodies in setting up parking points and ensuring the safe and orderly use of shared bikes. Ofo is also working with China Telecom and Huaiwei in a joint research on a narrow band of the internet of things, or NB-IoT solutions for smart bicycle locks.
Cities including Shanghai and Beijing are considering regulating bike-sharing amid security concerns and sidewalk congestion. What role should the government play in the booming sector?
Wang: Bike-sharing is a new thing. It takes time to straighten out relevant policies and laws to guide the industry. We welcome the government to play an important role in that. Also, it is unsustainable if enterprises just blindly throw bikes into a city without careful planning. Rather than wait until the government moves to rein in the wild growth, it is better to start refining services as soon as possible.
Dai: The government plays an important role in guiding healthy and orderly development of the industry. Bike-sharing companies should maintain an active dialogue with the government, assisting in devising industrial standards and setting up parking points.
What are the keys in replicating the bike-sharing model to overseas markets?
Wang: It is a systematic project to march into an overseas market. It means far more than just throwing bikes into foreign cities. Mobike, for instance, registered a company in Singapore as early as August, 2016, but we did not offer services there until March. It takes time for us to partner with local banks, transportation partners and authorities to offer a highly localized solution. Singaporeans, for instance, don't use WeChat and Alipay that much. They need a more local way to pay for the bike-sharing service. We now have dozens of Singapore-based employees. It is important to offer truly localized products.
Dai: Localization is an issue faced by any Chinese firms when going abroad. Ofo is no exception. The challenges include adapting to their specific rules and regulation, learning local consumer behavior and bonding with local culture. Ofo has been busy exploring a localized model that is replicable for peers to follow in their overseas expansion.
Please use three keywords or phrases to describe the bike-sharing industry over the past year and predict new trends in 2017.
Wang: The keywords for 2016: Home-grown innovation, Rainbow War, and smart transportation services.
The keywords for 2017: Refining services: Enterprises should focus on refining services and optimizing operations this year. No more blind expansion is needed.
Smarter commute: The industry will become increasingly smarter and technology will play a very more important role.
A more orderly market: Bike-sharing is beneficial to almost every one. It doesn't touch the vested interests of anyone. We desire a more standardized and orderly environment to grow.
Dai: The keywords would be sharing, smart commute and new travel. Ofo will accelerate its expansion at home and abroad. Right now, we have covered 43 Chinese cities and started trial operations in Singapore, London and California. I believe we have taken a concrete step, and will keep benefiting the world with low-carbon and environmental-friendly ways to commute.
Contact the writers at masi@chinadaily.com.cn and daitian@chinadaily.com.cn
A cashier scans a buyer's WeChat Pay code on his mobile phone at a supermarket in Shenzhen, Guangdong province. [Photo provided to China Daily]
WeChat Pay, one of the Chinese mainland biggest mobile payment platforms, has boosted its cross-border business by launching a new service in Hong Kong.
In a move that is expected to promote businesses of local merchants, it opened a channel for membership card applications when customers pay through WeChat.
After paying for their goods through the platform, they will receive information from local merchants' WeChat official accounts automatically on becoming a member.
The virtual membership card will enable customers to be given details on vendors' latest activities, while at the same time help local merchants gain new followers and promote their businesses.
Hong Kong, which is a major destination for Chinese mainland outbound tourists, is a key market for WeChat Pay to develop its cross-border business, said Grace Yin, director of WeChat Pay international operations.
"We will further increase our investment in the cross-border payment business in Hong Kong to help local merchants better serve mainland tourists," Yin said.
WeChat Pay's move comes at a time when Hong Kong's retail industry is still struggling to recover from a "chilling winter" caused by the decline in the number of mainland visitors.
Mainland arrivals dropped 6.7 percent year-on-year in 2016, according to the Hong Kong Tourism Board. The situation saw a slight improvement this year, rising 1.1 percent from January to February compared with a year earlier.
"Linkage of WeChat payment and the merchants membership system will enable us to provide a better shopping experience to consumers, thereby enhancing our brand reputation. Moreover, with data on WeChat Pay users, we will be able to understand our consumers better," said Wang Yifan, social media specialist with British cosmetics brand Lush, which has a number of stores in Hong Kong.
Chinese players and their UK partner unveiled plans for the world's first crowdfunding index in London on Tuesday, in an initiative to systematize data for the rapidly expanding sector.
The index is being jointly developed by the Chengdu-based fintech and big data company BBD, the Academy of Internet Finance at Zhejiang University and Cambridge-based Crowdsurfer Ltd, a UK company which collects data about crowdfunding sites.
"The index will capture information from thousands of crowdfunding platforms worldwide and enable investors to assess investment opportunities and manage risks," said Zeng Tu, CEO of BBD China. The index will be available to the public in the coming months.
The index will play a role that is similar to that of the FTSE Index to the global equity market. The index's changes will be indicative of the ups and downs of the crowdfunding market as a whole.
Crucially, it will be available to banks and asset managers, so they can create derivative products, such as a fund that tracks the index, which has not yet been formally named.
The derivative products will allow investors to enjoy the profits of the industry without directly investing in crowdfunding platforms.
Regulators and policymakers will be able to use the index to monitor the size and growth of the alternative finance segment, and create policies to support its healthy development.
Crowdfunding gained prominence after the 2008 financial crisis severely battered the credibility of traditional banks. It has been supported by the growth of internet technology.
By 2015, 11.4 billion yuan ($1.65 billion) had been raised through crowdfunding platforms in China. The World Bank forecasts great crowdfunding growth potential in China, estimating it will be worth $50 billion by 202552 percent of the global total.
Crowdsurfer Chairman Richard Baker said the index will capture both peer-to-peer crowdfunding and equity crowdfunding, and may have sub-indexes for different industries.
The Academy of Internet Finance opened a London office on Tuesday. Ben Shenglin, AIF's dean, said it will work on the index, build fintech collaborations and support knowledge exchange with British universities.
A photo of Fu Gui at 4 posted by his family on baobeihuijia.com (left) and a photo of Fu Gui at 10 posted by himself on the same site.[Photos provided to chinadaily.com.cn]
BEIJING Baidu succeeded in using artificial intelligence to reconnect a man with his family 27 years after he was abducted, the company announced Wednesday.
Working with baobeihuijia.com, a charity group dedicated to connecting missing children and their families, Baidu used its cross-age facial recognition program to analyze pictures of abducted children uploaded by the victims and their birth families and identified potential matches through the comparison of selected facial features.
Fu Gui, 33, who was born in Chongqing Municipality, western China, was abducted in 1990 and later transferred to Fujian Province, southeastern China. He registered with baobeihuijia.com in 2009, and his natural family did the same in early 2017.
Baidu's facial recognition program was able to draw up a short list of potential identities for the man from pictures uploaded to the site, and a DNA test later verified the correct match.
Baidu has about 200 million sample pictures that it uses to improve the sensitivity and accuracy of its facial recognition program, which can be over 99 percent accurate.
Baidu's founder and CEO Robin Li, who is also a national political advisor, proposed during the annual parliamentary sessions in March that AI systems, like facial recognition, could be used to help find missing children and suggested that there should be a central database with missing children's information.
As one of the top 10 candidates for the Global Teacher Prize, Yang Boya attends the Global Education and Skills Forum in Dubai in March. [Provided to chinadaily.com.cn]
As the only Chinese among the top 10 teachers in the world by the Global Teacher Prize, Yang Boya talks to the global audience about her psychological support programs and also about China's education system's positive points and shortcomings.
Yang, 28, a psychology teacher at the Affiliated Middle School of Kunming Teachers College in China's southwest Yunnan province, has set up a center where students can seek professional guidance from psychologists.
"As a psychologist as well as a teacher, I developed support programs with my colleagues for teenagers five years ago," Yang says. "We interacted with many teenagers from different schools as we tried to understand their problems and aspirations."
Yang and her team realize that the values of teenagers reflected the values of their families. "Even when they showed improvement during our program, old habits returned as soon as they went home," she says.
So they begin to develop a training program for parents. "Our program is highly interactive. We use simulation, role play and other experiential activities to help parents not only gain scientific understanding about adolescent development, but also become the kind of parents who empathize with their children and walk alongside them."
"As the programs progressed, we received a phone call from the local government which wanted to collaborate with us to expand and scale up the program. Their involvement brought us more credibility, technical expertise, and resources. It also brought more teachers onto our team," Yang says.
She says students are the first stakeholder in education, parents the second, and government the third. "In order to gain greater influence, we need to expand our reach beyond students and involve parents."
As the first Chinese teacher among the top 10 candidates for the Global Teacher Prize, Yang attend the Global Education and Skills Forum in Dubai in March.
Disillusioned with standardized, test-based tuition, some parents are setting up their own schools. Zhao Xinying reports.
Brad Walsh, a Canadian teacher at ETU, with some of his students.[Photo by Zou Hong/China Daily]
Having seen the ETU School in Beijing develop from an idea to a facility with 15 full-time teachers and more than 30 students, co-founder Li Yinuo is confident of success and feels ready to take the next step.
"Our goal for 2017 is to expand our school from the current scale of K-Grade 1 (kindergarten to Grade 1) to K-Grade 3, which means a further 80 or 90 students will be recruited in the academic year that will begin in September," said the mother of three, a former partner at McKinsey, a global management consultancy, in Beijing and Palo Alto, California.
ETU is located on the campus of the No 80 High School in Beijing's Chaoyang district. Although it has just three classrooms and one teachers' room, the school has attracted attention from parents disillusioned with standardized, test-oriented education in traditional schools. A large number of education specialists seeking innovation in the field have also expressed an interest.
When ETU's spring semester started in February, Feng Shu transferred her 6-year-old son to the new project from an international school near Beijing's North Fifth Ring Road.
"Although the facilities and hardware at ETU are not as fancy as those at my son's previous school, I took the decision to bring him here because I believe that rather than producing 'testing machines', ETU tries its best to help children discover themselves and help them to become happy, fulfilled people," the Beijing resident said.
Finding a way out
The idea of establishing the school came to Li early last year when she was trying to move her family back to Beijing from California's Silicon Valley. Like many parents, Li found it hard to find an ideal place for her eldest son.
"Our efforts to find a satisfactory school ended in vain because the public ones available to us were too uniform and reliant on tests, while international schools offer an education that is too Westernized and lacks Chinese roots," she said.
Li is not alone in her concerns. Yang Dongping, director of the 21st Education Research Institute, a think tank in Beijing, said many parents are concerned and dissatisfied with their children's education. They believe State schools are too reliant on exams, and the excessive workload exerts too much pressure on children.
"But for a long time, parents could only face this education system with an attitude of 'tolerate, criticize and go back to tolerating'," he said, adding that many parents choose to break the cycle by sending their children to study overseas.
That dissatisfaction may be one of the driving forces behind a recent exodus of children. At the end of 2015, almost 35,000 Chinese children were studying at K-12 level in the US, according to a report published last year by Eol, a leading Chinese education portal. In 2010, the number was about 9,000.
Li was reluctant to follow that path because she didn't want her son to grow up as a "foreigner", knowing little about Chinese language and culture. She said she had seen many young Chinese in the US "suffering from a vague national identity and failing to integrate into either community".
In her opinion, the ideal education should be tailored to inspire, motivate and protect children's intrinsic desire to learn, tap their potential, discover their strengths and help them become the person they want to be. It also should help them grow up as globally competent citizens, or as she described it, "truly Chinese, truly global".
According to Yang, rather than complaining and leaving, many parents, particularly well-educated couples in big cities, are now trying a "third way" by conducting educational experiments and exploring diverse forms of learning, such as homeschooling, which is discouraged by the education authorities.
Shijian 13, China's most advanced communications satellite, is launched at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan province on Wednesday.[Photo/Xinhua]
Technology makes transmission of high-resolution video possible
China launched its most advanced communications satellite at 7:04 pm on Wednesday, marking the start of the country's large-capacity communications network in space.
Shijian 13, which was developed by the China Academy of Space Technology and based on its DFH-3B communications satellite platform, was lifted atop by a Long March 3B carrier rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan province.
The satellite, which weighs 4.6 metric tons, is expected to stay for 15 years in a geostationary orbit about 36,000 kilometers above Earth, the academy said.
The satellite features a Ka-band broadband communications system capable of transmitting 20 gigabytes of data per second, making it the most powerful communications satellite the nation has developed.
Zhao Jian, a space program official at the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense, which oversees China's space programs, said the transmission capacity of Shijian 13 exceeds the total capacity of all of the country's previous communications satellites.
He said that in addition to its communications missions, the satellite will also be tasked with conducting space-to-ground laser communications experiments.
Zhou Zhicheng, head of the China Academy of Space Technology's Institute of Telecommunication Satellite, said Shijian 13 would use electric propulsion after it enters orbit, which will extensively reduce the chemical fuel the satellite carries.
All public hospitals have been told to end the longtime practice of drug price markups by the end of September as part of the ongoing healthcare reform, the top economic planner said on Wednesday.
Public hospitals' loss of revenue will be offset for the most part by an increase in the prices of patient services, and more government investment is expected, a National Development and Reform Commission statement said.
The markups, a key source of income for public hospitals, are a major but thorny issue in healthcare reform, which aims for universal coverage of basic healthcare services, according to the National Health and Family Planning Commission.
Since the 1950s, public hospitals have been selling drugs at a markup. The maximum is 15 percent. Although the policy helped make up for a lack of adequate government healthcare funding, "gradually it evolved into a way to reap profits, contributing to worsening problems like overprescribing, an excessive use of antibiotics by hospitals, and rising medical expenses", said Wang Hesheng, vice-minister of the health and family planning agency.
With the expected drop in revenues from drug sales, authorities will adjust the fees for medical services, the NDRC said on Wednesday.
Charges related to the expertise of medical staff, like those for diagnosis, surgery and rehabilitation, will rise, while those for tests requiring major medical equipment will drop, the commission said.
The commission also is requiring local price regulators to carry out other necessary reforms following the measure, including changing medical insurance payments so rising service fees are covered by insurance reimbursement. Also, attention must be given to meeting the basic healthcare needs of low-income people.
Many public hospitals in China had already abolished drug price markups before Wednesday's announcement.
In Beijing, more than 3,600 medical institutions, including all public ones, had abolished the practice starting Saturday.
The measure is expected to lower the cost of outpatient treatment by about 5 percent, but the cost for inpatient treatment, including surgery, will rise by about 2.5 percent, said Li Sufang, deputy director of the Beijing Commission of Development and Reform.
Drug sales accounted for a third of the income of public hospitals last year, according to the Beijing Commission for Health and Family Planning.
The Chinese mainland accused Taiwan of harming cross-Straits relations by playing up a case involving a Taiwan man who is under investigation on the mainland, an official said on Wednesday.
Lee Ming-che, a Taiwan resident, was detained on suspicion of harming national security this month.
An Fengshan, a spokesman for the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, reiterated at a regular news conference on Wednesday that Lee is being investigated in accordance with the law for suspected activities endangering national security.
The communication mechanism across the Taiwan Straits has been suspended since last year because the island's new leader, Tsai Ing-wen, has failed to acknowledge the 1992 Consensus, which embodies the one-China principle.
Considering human rights, the mainland-based Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits has entrusted a Taiwan-based NGO to inform Lee's wife of the case and pass letters from him to his family, An said.
Families can also pass on related goods to Lee, he said, adding that so far, the association has not yet received any goods from the family.
"Some groups in Taiwan with ulterior motives have used the case to attack the mainland, cause trouble and interfere with the investigation. They won't succeed," An said.
Lee was reported missing on March 19, while in Guangdong province. According to media reports, Lee had planned to attend a meeting that day in Zhuhai, but failed to show up.
An also welcomed Taiwan businesses to join the Xiongan New Area development.
"All businesses, regardless of their country, region or city, are welcome to join the Xiongan New Area program, as long as their line of work suits the overall industrial plan of the area," An said.
On April 1, the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council announced the establishment of the new area to boost the coordinated development of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei province.
Hundreds of restaurants and guesthouses around a well-known lake in Yunnan province have suspended business for the construction of a project to protect the ecological environment.
Most venues close to Erhai Lake, a popular tourism spot in Yunnan's Dali Bai autonomous prefecture, posted notices about the suspension of their services, after the prefectural government announced on March 31 that a pollutant-interception project would be constructed, according to a China Daily reporter who visited the area.
The decision to suspend businesses was made as the rapid development of the local economy, including the development of its tourism industry - which has brought large numbers of tourists to the lakeside - has imposed great pressure on the environmental carrying capacity. Local authorities said measures must be taken to curb the exacerbation of the issue.
The project was initially due to be completed in December 2018, but the first stage of the project is now expected to be finished ahead of schedule and come into service by the end of the year, with a sewage processing capacity of 5,000 cubic meters a day, authorities said.
Many business owners around the lake expressed their understanding of the policy, saying that a clean and beautiful Erhai Lake will guarantee the prosperity of Dali and of their own lives.
However, they also said they face practical problems, such as how to make a living during the suspension.
A local resident and founder of a guesthouse close to the lake, surnamed Zhao, started his venture after he graduated from college in 2014.
He said that many tourists had booked stays at his guesthouse before the policy was issued, so he now has to contact the 189 bookings to explain to them one by one that they have to cancel their stay because of the suspension.
The owner of another guesthouse near the lake, surnamed Shi, said he didn't know what to do apart from wait to see what happens.
"Numerous people running a business like mine have lost their sources of income. Some had borrowed money to start their businesses and now have to worry about paying debts without having an income," he said.
Zhang Yong, deputy Party chief of Dali, said the prefecture is drafting a series of regulations on running guesthouses near the lake, with possible clauses such as valid licenses being required, and guesthouses having their own sewage treatment facilities and meeting discharging standards set by environmental authorities.
The regulations are expected to be released before the construction of the project is completed, Zhang said.
Li Xinyi in Dali contributed to this story.
[April 13, 2017] Cloud Foundry Announces 2017 European Summit in Basel, Switzerland
SAN FRANCISCO, April 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Cloud Foundry Foundation, home of the industry-standard multi-cloud platform, today announced the date and location of its 2017 European Summit in Basel, Switzerland, from October 11-12 at the Congress Center Basel. Registration, a speakers call for papers and sponsorship opportunities are now open for the event. More than 700 businesses, developers and vendors from across Europe gathered at last year's Summit in Frankfurt to share best practices and hear senior executives from leading organizations like Allianz, Bosch, Fidelity, Siemens, Volkswagen, Rakuten and the Dutch Government describe how Cloud Foundry has helped them build and deploy robust, resilient and flexible cloud-native applications across multiple cloud platforms. Last year the event sold out - secure your spot at the lowest possible ticket price of 180 if you register by 18 April. "Cloud Foundry Summits have become the place for companies, both providers and users, to catch up on the latest advances in the cloud native world and make valuable business connections," said Abby Kearns, Executive Director, Cloud Foundy Foundation. "For enterprise developers especially, the Summits are a place to learn not just from their peers, but also to train and become certified on Cloud Foundry."
Attendees will join other developers and CIOs to gain first-hand access to Cloud Foundry roadmaps, training and tutorials, and to see how others are using Cloud Foundry to support continuous innovation and application portability. Attendees will also have access to the new Cloud Foundry Developer Certification (CFDC) at Summit. Performance-based, community-based and independent of any distribution vendor, Cloud Foundry Developer Certification is the guaranteed way to demonstrate cloud skills and allow developers to be highly productive while working on top of Cloud Foundry. Cloud Foundry is an open source technology backed by the largest technology companies in the world, including Cisco, Dell EMC, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Google, IBM, Pivotal, SAP and SUSE, and is being used by leaders in manufacturing, telecommunications and financial services. Only Cloud Foundry delivers the velocity needed to continuously deliver apps at the speed of business. Cloud Foundry's container-based architecture runs apps in any language on your choice of cloud Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Microsoft Azure, OpenStack, SoftLayer, VMware vSphere, and more. With a robust services ecosystem and simple integration with existing technologies, Cloud Foundry is the modern standard for mission critical apps for global organizations.
Keynote speakers and full conference schedules will be announced later this summer. For more information about Cloud Foundry Europe 2017 visit https://www.cloudfoundry.org/event/europe-2017/. You can submit a speaking proposal for Summit Europe here or register for Early Bird pricing here for 315 before August 8. About Cloud Foundry Foundation
The Cloud Foundry Foundation is an independent non-profit organization formed to sustain the development, promotion and adoption of Cloud Foundry as the industry standard platform for cloud applications. Cloud Foundry makes it faster and easier to build, test, deploy and scale applications. Cloud Foundry is an Apache 2.0 licensed project available on Github: https://github.com/cloudfoundry. To learn more, visit: http://www.cloudfoundry.org. Contact:
Jessica Rampen
Cloud Foundry Foundation
[email protected]
650-787-3548 To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cloud-foundry-announces-2017-european-summit-in-basel-switzerland-300439206.html SOURCE Cloud Foundry
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Liu Jingxu (right) and his elder brother at their home in Qingdao, Shandong province.Provided To China Daily
For almost three decades, Liu Jingxu and his wife have cared for his learning-disabled elder brother in Qingdao, Shandong province.
Despite having a son and daughter of their own to care for, the couple, now both in their late 70s, took on the responsibility after Liu's parents died in 1989.
The elder brother had been raised by his parents his whole life and the only hobbies he had were reading comic books and eating snacks. Liu's wife, Sun Daofang, would buy something for him every time she went shopping.
"My brother-in-law is a grateful man," Sun said. "He receives a disability allowance of 400 yuan ($58) from the government each month and he always insists that I keep half of it - if I refuse, he leaves all the money on the table and waits until I take it."
This money was welcome at the time, as Liu made only a humble living working at a textile mill and Sun was a housewife, tending to a small parcel of land.
In June 2015, Liu's son had a brain hemorrhage and fell into a coma. Every morning for four months, his parents took the earliest bus they could and traveled the 40 kilometers to the hospital where he was receiving treatment. At noon each day, Sun had to go back home to make lunch for the elder brother.
After waking from his coma, Liu's son was paralyzed and the couple now have to take turns caring for him and the elder brother.
Last November, the brother was hit by a car while out taking a stroll. Though not badly hurt, he was hospitalized for seven days.
Liu and Sun, now age 78 and 75 respectively, struggle to stay optimistic.
"My son is getting better, but what about my brother? What if something happens to me and my wife?" Liu said.
"I often joke with him that he dare not get sick, so that we can both hang on for a few more years and die in peace."
Over the past 28 years, the couple have been told by community centers, governments, relatives and friends that they should put the elder brother in a nursing home, but Liu has always politely declined.
"There is no home sweeter than home. As long as my wife and I are able to, we will not send him away. We have been living together for 30 years and we know his temperament, habit, likes and dislikes, and he could not live a happier life anywhere else," Liu said.
Last year, Liu and his wife were honored with a good Samaritan award from the city's Chengyang district for their dedication to their family.
Michelena takes water samples from the Wenruitang River in Wenzhou, Zhejiang province. [Photo/Wenzhou Evening News]
Toby Michelena, a professor from Wenzhou-Kean University, is always taking some of his students to the Wenruitang River in the city of Wenzhou, Zhejiang province to gather water samples at weekends.
In December last year, Michelena and his students launched a one-year project to study the Wenruitang River and its fauna for the purpose of restoring the river's ecosystem.
"We are now researching an 18-kilometer section of the river which runs across the core region of Wenzhou and many agricultural areas," Michelena said proudly. He added that he feels real satisfaction in protecting the river and helping it become cleaner.
Michelena used to practice environmental protection in Washington and he has long been interested in water pollution. Therefore, after arriving in Wenzhou, he started to keep an eye on the water quality of the Wenruitang River, a significant waterway in Wenzhou.
Michelena hopes that he and his team will be able to use their knowledge to analyze the source of the river's pollution and set specific goals and plans to make it cleaner.
NANCHANG -- Once laid-off, Song Ying's life experience, full of ups and downs, has earned her a chance to attend China's major national meeting this year.
The mould worker, 48, from Guixi Huatai Copper Industry Company, was just elected by around 50,000 Communist Party of China (CPC) members in Yingtan city, eastern China's Jiangxi Province, as a national delegate candidate to the 19th CPC National Congress.
Her nomination, which still needs to be reviewed, does not affect her everyday work, developing new moulds in the workshop.
Nationwide, a total of 2,300 delegates will be elected before June to represent China's 88 million CPC members to take part in the national congress.
The meeting, slated for the second half of the year in Beijing, will discuss and set the future direction for the Party and state, as well as elect a new central leadership.
"I didn't expect so many people to trust and elect me. I'm very grateful," said Song, who became a CPC member five years ago.
People placed their trust in her for various reasons. At the age of 33, she was laid off from a brewery where she worked for 16 years, but pulled herself together to find a job as a warehouse keeper in a copper firm.
Song wanted more, and she pushed herself to become a skilled mould worker, learning from colleagues.
Over the past decade, she has led a team to develop new technologies, creating a profit of more than 30 million yuan (around $4 million) for the previously loss-making factory.
The CPC national congress takes place once every five years. The delegates are not full-time and come from all walks of life: state leaders, officials, workers, farmers and teachers.
The upcoming session will see a higher percentage of grassroots delegates working on the frontline like Song.
These frontline workers should account for no less than one-third of the delegates, representing provincial level regions, the central financial sector and centrally-administered enterprises in Beijing, which increased by 1.33, 13.3 and 1.33 percentage points respectively, compared to the 18th CPC National Congress.
Governments at various levels put forward that Party officials, front-line workers, women and those from ethnic groups should account for a certain proportion of the total.
Meanwhile, excellent Party members making outstanding contribution to reforms, technological innovation and poverty alleviation should also be recommended.
As a migrant worker contributing to poverty relief, Yu Dechun has been nominated as a candidate delegate in Shuizi township, Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province.
Yu, 45, has helped many women in the township find jobs related to housekeeping services in cities, increasing their annual income by 8,500 yuan per capita.
More focus on grassroots delegates represents a change in Party membership. Party authorities approved 1.965 million new candidates in 2015, of whom 977,000 were frontline workers, such as industrial employees, farmers, herders and migrants.
"The rising number of frontline delegates can better reflect the views of Party members and cement public support for the Party," said Chu Xiaotao, deputy head of organization department of Yingtan city.
The United Nations Belt and Road Initiative workshop was held on April 12 at the United Nations' headquarters in New York.
The workshop, organized by the United Nations Economic and Social Council, was called "The Belt and Road Initiative: Progress and Future Cooperation - Dialogue between the United Nations and Chinese experts".
The forum was aimed at helping United Nations secretariat officials understand how the initiative intersects with the United Nation's 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The China Energy Fund Committee (CEFC) is an NGO with Special Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council.
Deputy Chairman and Secretary General of CEFC, Patrick Ho Chi Ping, was invited to introduce the Belt and Road Initiative at the workshop. Ho said that China's BRI is in line with all the SDGs covered by the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda.
The Belt and Road Initiative, in the form of Globalization 2.0, will provide strong support for the achievement of the UN 2030 goals. The 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda covers 17 Sustainable Development Goals and 169 targets. It contains five categories; people, planet, prosperity, peace and partnership.
The agenda will push the world towards three unprecedented achievements the eradication of extreme poverty, overcoming inequality and injustice, and the mitigation of climate change.
The agenda shows that investment in infrastructure is essential for achieving sustainable development and strengthening community building in various countries.
BRI provides powerful support and protection for achieving these goals. Ho emphasized that the Belt and Road Initiative is not just a wish and a slogan anymore, rather, offering the only realistic path to much-needed global growth, sustainable development and peace at a time of rising uncertainty.
Hong Pingfan, Chief of the Global Economic Monitoring Unit of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, said that the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs has established capacity development projects in particular to assist countries in the area along the initiative to analyze and formulate policies.
International cooperation on the initiative is also advanced to accelerate the implementation of the United Nations agenda for 2030 and sustainable development goals. Hong said that the project has four main tasks.
First, to provide training and build a network of cooperation. Secondly, to carry out different levels of policy discussion. Thirdly, to proceed with cross-country joint research and policy analysis and finally, to publish research results and a variety of related papers.
The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs will select 20 countries to undergo international cooperation in the first phase.
Director of the General Assembly and ECOSOC Affairs Division, Ion Botnaru, said that globalization is facing a huge challenge, and infrastructure construction is fundamental. The initiative supports infrastructure in the nick of time.
The establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank has brought hope for the project. The importance of the Belt and Road Initiative is not limited to infrastructure. It is a comprehensive initiative that people in both developed countries and developing countries benefit from.
This is why we want to intensify efforts to put it into practice, Ion Botnaru said that aligning the Belt and Road Initiative with the United Nations 2030 agenda is the most important issue at present.
When you have a political agenda that is supported by 193 member states, as the 2030 agenda is, it will then be much easier to get the support and cooperation of the local government.
Cuba hosted a Chinese Bridge language proficiency contest on Wednesday, featuring seven local students of Chinese.
Students enrolled at the Confucius Institute in Havana demonstrated their language skills, as well as their knowledge of China's history and culture.
Sponsored by the institute, in conjunction with the University of Havana and China's Ministry of Education, the contest aims to promote cultural ties between the East Asian country and other regions of the world.
Following three competitive rounds in which students demonstrated their verbal and grammatical skills, and familiarity with Chinese customs and culture, Diana Blanco was declared the winner.
"I'm really excited about winning this contest because studying Chinese is very important in my life," said Blanco, currently an intermediate-level student.
"I am grateful to the jury and the professors of the Confucius Institute for selecting me as the winner and I will continue to deepen my knowledge of the language," she added.
During the competition, Blanco related a tale about her dreams, correctly answered history, grammar and general knowledge questions, and recited a poem, all in Chinese.
China's Ambassador to Cuba, Chen Xi, was on hand to present the award, which includes an invitation to travel to Beijing as Cuba's contestant in the international Chinese Bridge competition.
Fellow intermediate-level students Deborah Velazco and Jessica Jaime came in second and third place, respectively, with performances that earned them the praise of the public and the jury.
Chen congratulated the contestants on their high level of language proficiency and artistic interpretations.
"Language is an instrument for communication and for developing cooperation, and in this sense it is important that many more Cubans learn Chinese to deepen our relations more fluidly," said the diplomat.
Chen also highlighted the work carried out since 2008 by the Confucius Institute, where hundreds of Cubans have studied Chinese.
"Every day, more and more Cubans are interested in studying the Chinese language and it is largely a result of the successful work of the Confucius Institute, which strives for more people to learn Chinese every year," he said.
More than 100 million people around the world study Chinese, allowing Beijing to better strengthen its economic, trade and cultural ties with different nations, said Chen.
The diplomat also thanked the Cuban government for its cooperation since 2006 in offering more than 3,000 scholarships to young Chinese students keen to study Spanish in the island.
The opening ceremony of the "Chinese Culture Enters ASEAN" activity was celebrated in grand style at the Bangkok Chinese Cultural Center on March 31, with distinctive Chinese music, dances, acrobatics and performances featuring Confucian traditions provided by the Shandong art group.
More than 400 distinguished guests from China and Thailand attended the ceremony, including Wissanu Krea-ngam, Deputy Prime Minister of Thailand, Phinij Jarusombat, Thailand's former deputy prime minister and president of the Thai-Chinese Cultural and Relationship Council, Vice-Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin and Chinese ambassador to Thailand Ning Fukui.
Wissanu said at the ceremony that Chinese culture is profound and boasts a long history. The cultural exchange activity will give Thai people an opportunity to understand Chinese culture as well as the Qilu culture, and promote friendship between the two peoples.
Liu said that Shandong has rich cultural resources and has made great contributions to the promotion of Chinese culture to the whole world.
Vice-Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin delivers a speech during the opening ceremony of the "Chinese Culture Enters ASEAN" activity at the Bangkok Chinese Cultural Center on March 31. [Photo/fmprc.gov.cn]
Several cultural events took place during the three-day cultural exchange activity in Bangkok, all expressing the essence of Qilu culture. They included a book fair, exhibitions of drawings of Confucius, Shandong painting and calligraphy and intangible cultural heritages and cultural lectures.
A potential homebuyer checks out a property project in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, Dec 17, 2016. [Asianewsphoto by Long Wei]
The fixed-asset investment in 23 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions (excluding agricultural households) is expected to increase to more than 45 trillion yuan ($6.52 trillion) in 2017, raising public concerns.
Some people have even inappropriately compared the fixed-asset investment with the 4 trillion yuan stimulation package in 2008. The fact is, the government had allocated 4 trillion yuan as extra investment to offset the impact of the global financial crisis and stimulate the economy, and the amount was far less than the total social fixed-asset investment. For example, China's annual social overall fixed-asset investment reached 45 trillion yuan in 2013, rising to 50 trillion yuan in 2014, 56 trillion yuan in 2015 and about 60 trillion yuan last year.
Based on last year's growth rate of fixed-asset investment, the overall amount for this year is expected to be about 65 trillion yuan. Thus the 45 trillion yuan fixed-asset investment of the 23 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions is in accordance with the growth tendency of such investment in recent years.
That people are surprised to see even reasonable economic data shows their concern about local government debt. Although provincial-level governments can generally manage their local debts, some can encounter risks. So if a province or region faces a shortage of pension payment funds, it should be alert to financial risks.
Besides, people should understand that government funds do not account for the entire amount of fixed-asset investment; a considerable amount actually comprises social investment. Private investment declined sharply last year because of some economic factors, including periodical and structural adjustments. And reducing costs is one of the key tasks of the supply-side structural reform, which is expected to promote private investment.
Since government debts in some regions are the result of debt replacement and past accumulation of debts, the total debts signify the cumulative financial risk of the few past years. Also, local governments' special debt is included in the government-managed fund, which mainly consists of income from the transfer of rights to use State-owned land. Last year, the income from the transfer of such rights was 3.74 trillion yuan, up 15.1 percent year-on-year, which accounted for 88 percent of the local government-managed fund (4.24 trillion yuan).
In some regions the income from transfer of State-owned land use rights declined sharply, which was partly responsible for the increase in local government debt.
Investment should be facilitated and promoted, as President Xi Jinping said during a panel discussion with lawmakers from Shanghai at the annual session of China's top legislature last month. But the scale of local government investment should be strictly controlled, and the central government must provide necessary support for local governments so that they can meet their capital shortage in order to deliver public services and public goods.
Moreover, the market should be allowed to play a decisive role in resource distribution, and as private investments are of great significance to macroeconomic stabilization and local economic development, proper channels should be created to attract them to local projects. For instance, the public-private partnership is a significant financing channel for local governments' fixed-asset investment.
According to Ministry of Finance data, PPP projects across the country saw rapid growth last year, when 11,260 PPP projects were registered with a cumulative investment of 13.5 trillion yuan. And since large scale fixed-asset investment is expected to be made in local areas through PPPs this year, local governments should properly weigh the risks of both local government debt and PPP in order to avoid fiscal risks.
The author is a research fellow at the National Academy of Economic Strategy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
A 69-year-old male who was violently dragged off a United Airlines flight is seen a video clip. [Photo/Twitter]
Video of an Asian passenger being dragged off a United Airlines flight by airport police in Chicago on Sunday night, which went viral on the internet, has drawn widespread public anger.
The apparent overuse of force by law enforcement personnel was disturbing, as the 69-year-old man, David Dao, can be seen to be bloodied and obviously dazed.
Dao posed no security threat at all to other passengers. But he was forcibly removed from the overbooked plane after he refused to relinquish his seat when asked to do so, with justifiable reason: As a doctor, he needed to get home to treat patients.
The way Dao was treated is inexcusable, yet the airline's CEO Oscar Munoz in his statement on Monday called Dao "disruptive and belligerent", suggesting he was to blame for the altercation.
This callousness fueled more outrage, and sparked calls for people to boycott the airline.
The CEO's latest statement on Tuesday, in which he described the removal as "truly horrific", and that the airline took "full responsibility", at least recognizes the truth of the matter. However, his promise to review the airline's overbooking policies may have come too late, because the damage to the airline's image has already been done.
It is common for US airlines to "bump" passengers from overbooked flights. But the latest case should prompt the airline industry to review this practice. Although, the airline claimed that Dao was randomly selected by a computer, one cannot help but wonder what parameters are used for the selection process.
Meanwhile, no company can thrive by showing it does not care about its customers.
In this sense, the US airline companies can learn from their Asian counterparts, such as Emirates, Singapore Airlines and Cathay Pacific, which excel in ensuring customer satisfaction as shown by numerous surveys and awards.
A surface-to-surface medium- and long-range ballistic missile Pukguksong-2 is test-fired by DPRK on Jan 12, 2017. [Photo/VCG]
For those convinced a military solution to the current crisis on the Korean Peninsula is unavoidable, Chinese President Xi Jinping's latest emphasis on "resolving problems through peaceful means" in a phone conversation with his US counterpart on Wednesday should act as a reminder that the worst-case scenario should and can be avoided.
Tensions on the peninsula have spiraled to such a degree that both Pyongyang and Washington appear to be readying themselves for a costly showdown.
After dispatching the US Navy Carl Vinson carrier strike group to the Korean Peninsula, US President Donald Trump on Tuesday again vowed to "solve the North Korean problem", with or without Beijing's help.
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea, however, has shown little sign of backing off. Instead, it responded with a threat of nuclear attack on US forces in the region and "in the US mainland".
But the bellicose rhetoric aside, Republic of Korea Defense Ministry spokesman Moon Sang-kyun made a crucial point that testifies to the special significance Xi placed on a peaceful resolution when he urged people not to "get blinded by exaggerated assessment of the security situation on the Korean Peninsula".
The truth is that although the prospect of war may seem real, no party really wants a war. Many sources indicate Washington is increasing the pressure in the hope that Pyongyang will change course without a shot being fired. Otherwise, it would not have insisted that Beijing could and should help rein in Pyongyang.
Nor should we neglect what happened on Tuesday in the Supreme People's Assembly in Pyongyang. In sharp contrast to its war rhetoric, Pyongyang reinstated its long-gone foreign affairs committee, appointing two diplomats known for dealing with their US and ROK counterparts in past negotiations. Maybe this is not intended specifically for the current crisis. But it does reveal an interest in diplomacy on Pyongyang's part.
The ROK, on the other hand, knows full well it would be the foremost casualty should war break out, and that a peaceful removal of the nuclear/missile threat from the DPRK would be in its best interests.
Since peace is in the interests of all stakeholders, they should not give up on a non-military solution.
And the first step is to stop adding fuel to fire.
The DPRK, in particular, must refrain from conducting another nuclear/missile provocation on Saturday, when celebrating the 105th anniversary of the birth of its founding father.
While the US and the ROK should suspend their large-scale military exercises and cease their belligerent brinkmanship.
A misstep by either side at such a critical juncture could prove disastrous, and the damage irreparable.
WeChat Pay advertisements hang from the ceiling at a supermarket in East China's Hangzhou city. LONG WEI/CHINA DAILY
IN 2013, a company that sold self-made coins based on the "five elements" of feng shui to its customers at 5,000 yuan ($725) a piece and offered a percentage to those who sold the coins to other people was charged by the Ministry of Public Security with illegal pyramid selling, and 33 of the organizers were detained or arrested. However, a recent online video shows the organization is still alive, even expanding. Thepaper.cn comments:
Reports show that the pyramid selling organization came back to life with the help of social media chat groups.
Those doing illegal pyramid selling can expand with unprecedented efficiency and attract large numbers of new members within a very short time by micro-marketing using social media platforms such as WeChat.
Worse, this makes it even more difficult for the police to catch them. Traditionally, pyramid selling groups would shut their members in a certain place and effectively brainwash them. The police could strike by finding these places. Now the pyramid sellers can brainwash their victims online and the organizers can hide their identities. That makes it even more difficult for the police to catch them.
Many of the victims of such online pyramid selling schemes are senior citizens who lack the ability to distinguish information online. A typical example is the above-mentioned coins. On Saturday, a China Central Television report revealed the whole process and many senior citizens watched the report. But some pyramid selling organizers continued cheating in their WeChat groups by saying that the government supports the coins and the report was fake.
It is time for the authorities to take more effective measures. As the illegal pyramid selling organizers go online, the police should go online, too, so as to track down the gang leaders. More importantly, transparency should be further promoted so that people will more easily get to know the names of the pyramid selling organizations. Only with the joint efforts of all will such illegal pyramid selling be curbed.
Saudi Arabia Homeland Security & Public Safety Market 2017-2022 - Research and Markets
Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Saudi Arabia Homeland Security & Public Safety Market - 2017-2022" report to their offering.
Saudi Arabia Homeland Security 2015-2022 Cumulative Market - $112.5 Billion
Saudi Arabia Holds the World Record of HLS & PS Market Size / Per Citizen
The turmoil in the Arab world, the ongoing conflicts in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, and the Iranian driven Sunni-Shi'ah divide in the Kingdom, are forcing the ruling royal family of Saudi Arabia to face critical junctures. Saudi Arabia government, which has at its disposal $610B of petrodollars reserves, spends "whatever it takes" to secure the country's stability and defeat any internal or external regime change threats. This policy places Saudi Arabia as the global leader in Homeland Security & Public Safety market size per capita.
Saudi Arabia plans to procure during 2017-2020 as much as $90B of Homeland Security & Public Safety related products and services. This huge market will create a highly profitable business environment for state-of-the-art security products and service providers.
The reprt provides an updated extensive data of 11 leading vendors active in Saudi Arabia including:
- Airbus Defense and Space
- BAE Systems
- Boeing (News - Alert)
- Finmeccanica SpA
- General Dynamics Corp.
- L-3 Security & Detection Systems
- Leidos Inc.
- Lockheed Martin Corp.
- Northrop Grumman Corp.
- Raytheon
- Thales (News - Alert) Group
Key Topics Covered:
1 Executive Summary
2 Business Opportunities in the Saudi Security Sector
3 Market Drivers
4 Market Inhibitors
5 SWOT Analysis
6 Competitive Analysis
7 Market Dynamics
8 Saudi Arabia Homeland Security & Public Safety Market - 2015-2022
9 Aviation Security Market
10 Border Security Market
11 CBRN Security & Hazmat Safety Market
12 Saudi Intelligence Community Market
13 Critical Infrastructure Protection Market
14 Maritime Security Market
15 Police Modernization & 1st Responders Market
16 Private Sector Security Market
17 Safe City Market
18 Other Vertical Markets
19 Homeland Security & Public Safety Biometrics Market
20 Homeland Security & Public Safety C2/C4ISR Systems Market
21 Cyber Security Market
22 Emergency Communication Market
23 Immigration Enforcement Market
24 Perimeter - Border Security Technologies Market
25 Video Surveillance Market
26 Explosives & Weapon Detection Market
27 Personal Protective Gear Market
28 Intrusion (News - Alert) Detection Technologies Market
29 Homeland Security & Public Safety Video Analytics Market
For more information about this report visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/rb4xn6/saudi_arabia
View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170413005569/en/
Guizhou province will roll out a series of new tourism policies to attract travelers from far and wide in the coming months.
The southwestern province will offer tourists from Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei as well as travelers from outside the mainland free tickets to major scenic spots between April 29 and May 16, Guizhou tourism development commission's director Li Sanqi says at a tourism promotion event in Beijing early April.
The tickets will half-price from May 17 to June 10.
Self-drivers from Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei in cars with less than seven passengers will pay no highway charge in Guizhou during April 29-May 16.
Air flights connecting Guizhou to the three northern sites will be discounted from April 29 to June 10, and some prices will be more than 50 percent off.
The province is also inviting veteran travelers and travel business operators from countries and regions along the Road and Belt, such as Vietnam, Cambodia and the Philippines, to experience local tourism resources and plan optimized tour packages and tips. The campaign will be ongoing through September.
The idea is to build an image of Guizhou among foreign guests, according to Li.
The province witnessed more than 40 percent growth in both the number of visitors and tourism income in 2016.
Guizhou boasts majestic landscape scenery and diverse ethnic elements and is an important hub connecting central and southern China.
Related:
Miao Sisters Festival celebrated in SW China's Guizhou
Breaking down the process of ancient tea making
Torsten Dressler, managing director of Kempinski Hotel Beijing Lufthansa Center gives a welcome speech at the Kempinski 120th anniversary festivities. [Photo provided to China Daily]
The first Kempinski luxury hotel in China will embrace a mixture of European elegance and Asian design through a recently launched renovation project, the hotel executive said.
The move is part of celebrations of the hotels 25 years in China and the 120th anniversary of Kempinski, said Toresten Dressler, managing director of the Kempinski Hotel Beijing Lufthansa Center, during an Ignite the Night event with bespoke celebrations on April 8.
The hotel celebrated worldwide deserts with a competition for Dessert of the Year at the hotel beginning in April, he said.
In the competition, parties competed to make the best dessert to mark the celebration of the 120th anniversary. The winning dessert will be featured worldwide in all Kempinski properties.
Markus Semer, chairman of the management board and CEO of Kempinski Hotels, said: Our founder, Berthold Kempinski, paved the way for a new standard of hospitality, based on timeless European elegance and impeccable service.
He created venues that introduced guests to new experiences, in unique and original surroundings, and his innovative and entrepreneurial approach has remained the inspiration for our development over the years.
JAKARTA -- A plane with several people on board lost contact on Wednesday in Papua province of eastern Indonesia, search and rescue operation have been underway, spokesman of Indonesian transport ministry J. A. Barata said.
"The cargo plane lost contact today (Wednesday). Now we are checking the number of crew," Barata told Xinhua via phone.
Marsudi, spokesman of the national search and rescue office, said the C208 Caravan plane was on route of Wajo and Sentani.
It departed at 2:45 p.m. local time and was scheduled to arrive at 3:24 p.m. local time, Marsudi said.
"The plane sent S.O.S. message during the flight," Marsudi said.
"Search and rescue for the plane is underway now, involving a plane and personnel from local search and rescue office. But the weather seems unfavorable," said Marsudi.
UNITED NATIONS -- A Chinese envoy said Tuesday that China hopes the new Haitian government will embark on a path of development suited to its national conditions.
"We hope the new government in Haiti identify as soon as possible a development path that fits its national situation, accelerate infrastructure, agriculture, tourism and other major sectors of development with a view to eradicating poverty, creating more jobs, improving people's livelihoods," among others, said Liu Jieyi, China's permanent representative to the UN at a Security Council meeting on Haiti.
Sandra Honore, Special Representative and Head of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), briefed the Council on developments in the country from October 2016. Since then, she said, Haiti has made significant progress in consolidating democracy and maintaining security and stability with the inauguration of Jovenel Moise as President on Feb. 7, marking the restoration of constitutional order.
"China hopes all parties in Haiti jointly maintain this positive momentum and contribute to the overall stability and development of the country," said the Chinese envoy.
Liu expressed hope that the international community, including countries in the region, will continue to contribute to improving conditions in Haiti, help build a stronger national police force, and support the government's effort to maintain stability.
"At the same time, we hope that the international community will provide more assistance to help hurricane stricken areas in Haiti to build," he said.
In her briefing, Honore noted that the island's police force continues to show an increased ability to combat crime and maintain public order. Areas for improvement include strengthening internal management and oversight and increasing the police-to-population ratio.
She said a six-month extension of MINUSTAH, set to expire on April 15, would encompass the creation of a new mission, which would unfold against the backdrop of a significantly improved political situation. It would also occur at a time when there was a crucial window of opportunity to address the root causes of the political crisis that had preceded the elections.
The Chinese ambassador commended the move, saying that "this is a recognition of the Haitian government's ability to maintain stability."
"China supports the recommendation by this Security Council and the Secretary General and hopes MINUSTAH withdraws in an orderly manner, while ensuring stability in Haiti," he said.
Sir Keith Burnett and Professor Zhen Huang, vice-president for international affairs at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, sign the exchange agreement. [Photo provided by the University of Sheffield to chinadaily.com.cn ]
The University of Sheffield and Chinas Shanghai Jiao Tong Universityhave signed an agreement to begin exchanges of students, a further strengthening of Sheffields China program, which is among the most active in British education.
The exchange will provide Shanghai Jiao Tong undergraduates with opportunities to study abroad at a leading research university. Similarly, students attending the university in South Yorkshire will get a chance to learn at an institution ranked in Chinas top 10 that is in one of the worlds major metropolitan cities.
The program will be available to students across all disciplines. Sheffield expects most interest from China to be directed at its engineering and mechanical engineering departments.
Sir Keith Burnett, president and vice-chancellor of the University of Sheffield, said the agreement augments the universitys close relationship with China.
"Im delighted that now our students will also be able to experience one anothers universities," he said.
The University of Sheffields Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre and Shanghai Jiao Tong University are collaborators on a joint research institute, the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology.
Located in the historic heart of the UKs steel industry, the University of Sheffield is known for its advanced manufacturing, and the SAST will work on the development of thin-walled structures for rockets in Chinas space program.
As well as the SAST institute, Sheffield agreed last year to form a research institute with Nanjing Tech University, from East Chinas Jiangsu province. It will offer courses in chemistry, financial mathematics, and materials physics.
Sheffield is home to 2,800 Chinese students and is the fourth most popular choice among Chinese students among Russell group institutions, a self-selected association of 24 public research universities in the United Kingdom.
Burnett, who speaks Mandarin, founded the Sheffield China Gateway scheme, which is being developed with the Sheffield Chamber of Commerce to attract and support inward investment and Chinese businesses.
Last year, Chinas Sichuan Guodong Construction Company announced plans to invest 1 billion pounds ($1.25 billion) during the next 60 years into the city of Sheffield, the biggest-ever Chinese investment into the UK outside London.
The initial investment will be 220 million pounds during three years and will reportedly involve a major hotel development, student accommodation, retail structures and leisure space.
Burnett said: "China is a quarter of the worlds population and we face many similar challenges around energy, sustainable jobs and healthcare as our populations age. If we can pool our expertise and energy over years and decades, we have the potential to do real good in the world and to bring a powerful boost to the future economy of the UKs Northern Powerhouse."
The Northern Powerhouse is a development plan that was started by the previous Conservative government that is aimed at boosting the economy and transport links in the North. It is chaired by former Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne.
To contact the reporter: angus@mail.chinadailyuk.com
President urges US leader to help defuse Korean Peninsula situation
The Korean Peninsula issue should be settled through peaceful means, President Xi Jinping told US President Donald Trump on Wednesday, adding that Beijing is willing to continue a dialogue with Washington on the issue.
Xi spoke by telephone with Trump on the issue just days after his meeting with the US president on April 6 and 7 in Florida.
Xi "stressed that China sticks to the target of the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and that China is committed to peace and stability of the peninsula," according to a news release issued by the Foreign Ministry.
"China holds that the issue should be solved through peaceful means and is ready to maintain communication and coordination with the United States on the issue," the statement said.
The two presidents also talked about the situation in Syria. Xi said any use of chemical weapons is unacceptable and that the path of political settlement should be followed.
He expressed the hope that the UN Security Council would speak in one voice, as it is important for the council's members to remain united over the issue.
Xi said his recent tete-a-tete with Trump at the Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida has produced important results, which have won a positive response from among the Chinese people and the international community.
He and Trump have increased mutual understanding and established sound working relations, he added.
He urged the two sides to promote economic cooperation, expand exchanges in military, law enforcement, technology and communication, enhance communication and coordination regarding major global and regional issues through a newly established four-pronged dialogue mechanism.
Xi also asked teams from China and the US to work together to make sure Trump's visit to China later this year will achieve fruitful results.
Trump has called the meeting with Xi at Mar-a-Lago a success. He said he was looking forward to his state visit to China this year.
When asked about the reason behind the phone conversation, which came right after Xi's US trip, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said on Wednesday that the two presidents agreed to keep close communication through all kinds of channels.
"After all, the time of the meetings was limited," he said.
Lu said Beijing had taken note of remarks made by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that Washington would consider talking with Pyongyang after the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to the north stops all nuclear and missile tests.
Ruan Zongze, executive deputy president of the China Institute of International Studies, said the situation on the Korean Peninsula issue is "very severe" and became an important topic of the phone conversation between the two leaders.
The US and the Republic of Korea to the south are conducting their biggest-ever military exercises, and the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier group is heading to the area.
"Once the situation is out of control, it will be a disaster to China and the region. So China has clearly expressed its resolution to keeping stability there, which is Beijing's bottom line," Ruan said.
The change of tone is a move forward in the right direction on the issue, Ruan added.
Xinhua contributed to this story.
The Dalai Lama's actions won't change Beijing's position on Tibet-related issues and the boundary question, a Foreign Ministry official said on Wednesday, after India invited the Dalai Lama to visit the disputed eastern section of the China-India boundary despite China's concerns.
The Dalai Lama's behavior, like claiming to be a "son of India" and endorsing false statements by the so-called Arunachal Pradesh officials in disputed areas in Southern Tibet, indicate that the Dalai Lama clique's position is thoroughly "foreign", said Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang.
Lu made the remarks when asked to comment on the Dalai Lama's attack on the Chinese government during his stay in the disputed region, as well as Indian officials' repeated, inappropriate speeches over the boundary question.
China strongly objected to India over the visit, and Lu said China will "take further measures to safeguard its territorial sovereignty and national security".
"The 14th Dalai Lama's show won't change China's position one bit on the boundary question and Tibet-related issues," Lu said. On the contrary, it will only make people see more clearly the Dalai Lama's true intention to split China and undermine the interests of its people, including the Tibetan ethnic group, all under the cover "of religion", Lu added.
The spokesman also slammed India's insistence on inviting the Dalai Lama to the disputed region and "indulging" him, as well as Indian officials making provocative political speeches.
This shows that the Dalai Lama's trip goes beyond what India claimed to be "religious activities", Lu said. It also shows that India had violated the "solemn commitment" it made over Tibet-related issues, and its behavior will adversely affect the two countries' efforts to solve territorial disputes through negotiations, he added.
"The boundary question and Tibet-related issues bear on the political foundation of China-India relations," Lu said, urging India to stop "provocative moves".
Jia Duqiang, a researcher at the National Institute of International Strategy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said India "will gain nothing from the move", which will damage its ties with Beijing.
"China will not make any concessions when it comes to its core interests, sovereignty and Tibet-related issues", he said.
Jia said to repair ties, India must give assurances that such incidents will not happen again.
US President Donald Trump listens during a joint news conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg hold in the East Room at the White House in Washington, US, April 12, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]
WASHINGTON - The US is "not getting along with Russia at all" and the relations between the two countries "may be at an all-time low" , US President Donald Trump said Wednesday.
Trump made the remark at a joint press conference with visiting NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the White House. It came shortly after US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in Moscow that the US and Russia have reached a "low point" in relations.
The Russian government has condemned the missile strikes by the United States on a Syrian airbase last Thursday, calling Washington's move "aggression against a sovereign state in violation of international law."
At Wednesday's press conference, Trump defended his decision to launch 59 missiles at the Syrian airbase in response to the alleged chemical attack the US has said the Syrian government should be to blame.
"It can't be a worst sight. And it shouldn't be allowed. That's a butcher," Trump said. "So, I felt we had to do something about it. I have absolutely no doubt we did the right thing. And it was very, very successfully done."
Asked about Russia's prior knowledge about Syrian government's alleged use of chemical weapons, Trump said it's "possible", but "unlikely" that Russia had known in advance of Syria's plan to launch a chemical weapons attack on its own citizens.
"I know they're doing investigations into that right now. I would like to think that they didn't know, but certainly they could have. They were there. So we'll find out," Trump said.
Stoltenberg said within the NATO alliance, the U.S. military action on Syria has been met with understanding.
"Any use of chemical weapons is unacceptable, cannot go unanswered and those responsible must be held accountable," the NATO chief said.
An increasing number of families in the United States are turning to Chinese nannies, whose language skills may be one of the reasons that make them a better option.
For Chinese immigrant families, nannies who speak Mandarin can help pass on cultural heritage and use traditional child-rearing techniques.
Other parents hope a nanny will give their children a head start in life to help prepare them for the future. It seems that wealthy US families believe that exposing their children to Mandarin at an early age is one way to do that, according to a report from Chinese online publication Red Star News.
In the San Francisco Bay Area, many American parents seek caregivers fluent in another language and culture. Nanny agency Bay Area 2nd Mom has seen a sharp increase in recent years in requests for nannies who speak a language other than English. The Chinese language is one of the favored ones.
In New York, Chinese-speaking nannies are in such high demand they can command a salary of around $20,000 more than the average nanny would earn.
One Chinese woman even managed to secure a salary of $70,000-a-year after two families tried to outbid each other to get her, according to childcare service agency Lifestyle Resources.
The report also cited US President Donald Trump' granddaughter, Arabella Kushner, as an example. Arabella, 5, is the child of Trump's daughter Ivanka and Jared Kushner.
Arabella, accompanied by her little brother, Joseph, sang the traditional Chinese song, Jasmine Flower (or Mo Li Hua), and recited the Three Character Classic (or San Zi Jing) to visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort.
Arabella has reportedly been learning Chinese since she was a very small child, taught by a Chinese nanny.
Apart from nannies, there are several other ways for a US child to learn Chinese.
Missionary schools in communities and immersion elementary language schools in the US have offered Chinese classes, Yang Yanli, a veteran Chinese teacher who worked in some US schools, told Red Star News.
In middle schools and colleges, they have optional courses for students to learn the language, according to Yang. Also, people can have a Chinese home tutor for their children, she said.
Yang was born in Changchun, Northeast China's Jilin province, and graduated from Beijing Normal University. She immigrated to the US with her husband about 10 years ago.
Yang once taught students Chinese in a US public school, later in a missionary community school. She also worked as a Chinese governess.
"Students in many US cities start to learn a foreign language -- which is usually Spanish and French -- in their seventh school year. Because of China's development in recent years, many schools have begun offering Chinese classes too. The number of students taking up optional Chinese classes is increasing in colleges, compared with years ago," Yang said.
Yang once taught twins Chinese at their home in Maryland. The parents worked for Ronald Reagan before, with photos of the former US president on their house desk.
In addition to hiring Yang as governess, the family had a Chinese nanny. What's more, the parents kept a Chinese student living with them, offering the student meals and accommodation for free. All this was to help their twin children learn Chinese, according to Yang.
Yang herself, like most Chinese immigrants in the US, wanted her children to study Chinese too. Her second child was born in the US, and she sent the child to a missionary school for Chinese classes, because she didn't want them to forget their mother tongue.
US families who have adopted Chinese children also send them to learn the language.
A relative of one of the victims reacts after a church explosion killed at least 21 in Tanta, Egypt, April 9, 2017.[Photo/Agencies]
CAIRO - Egypt on Wednesday named the suicide bomber who attacked a cathedral in Alexandria as 31-year-old Mahmoud Hassan Mubarak Abdullah, describing him as a fugitive with links to militant cells that carried out previous strikes in the country.
Abdullah detonated his explosives at the entrance to Saint Mark's Cathedral, the historic seat of the Coptic Pope, killing 17 people as mass was being conducted. Hours earlier, another bomb tore through a church in Tanta, a city in the Nile Delta.
Egypt's government imposed a three-month state of emergency in the wake of the attacks.
The interior ministry said in a statement that Abdullah had been a resident of Suez province and used to work for a petroleum company.
It posted a photograph on its Facebook page of a man it said was Abdullah, placing the image alongside a picture taken by a surveillance camera outside the church.
Islamic State claimed responsibility for the Palm Sunday attacks, which killed 44 people in total and wounded scores more a week before the Coptic Easter.
The interior ministry said Abdullah had links with the Islamist militant cell behind the December suicide bombing on Cairo's main Coptic cathedral, an attack also claimed by Islamic State.
Authorities are still trying to identify the Tanta attacker, the ministry said. It added that security forces killed seven suspected militants in a shootout on Monday as they met to plan attacks on minority Christians.
The statement named 19 other suspected militants believed to belong to the same cells and offered a 100 thousand Egyptian pound ($5,515.72) reward for any information on them.
Sunday's attacks were the latest against a religious minority increasingly targeted by Islamist militants, and a challenge to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who has pledged to protect them as part of his campaign against extremism.
Islamic State has waged a low-level war against soldiers and police in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula for years but it is increasingly targeting Christians and broadening its reach into Egypt's mainland.
Reuters
[April 13, 2017] KinerjaPay Corp. Adds Leading Multi-Finance Companies to Its Platform
JAKARTA, Indonesia, April 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Columbia Cash & Credit, Mega Auto Finance and WOM Finance Provide Credit To Millions Of Indonesians KinerjaPay Corp.,(OTCQB: KPAY), a digital payment and ecommerce platform, ("KinerjaPay" or the "Company") announced that consumers can now use its platform to make payments to Columbia Cash & Credit, Mega Auto Finance and WOM Finance. Edwin Ng, Chairman and CEO for KinerjaPay Corp. commented, "These three multi-finance companies are leaders in Indonesia's motorcycle sector, which was estimated to include 80 million motorcycles from various brand in in 2015. Exposure to their customers provides KinerjaPay with a substantial opportunity to build our own member base." Ng went on to say, "Multi-finance companies are less regulated than traditional banks, therefore tend to generate higher yields than conventional bank loans. However, as they cannot accept deposits, they rely on borrowing and bond issuances for their capital and therefore their cost of capital is higher. Participating in the KinerjaPay platform not only facilitates their ability to collect payments, but should make it easier for them to attract customers, both of which would improve their return on capital." Columbia Cash & Credit is a pioneer retail chain store, that has been providing installment options for its customers in Indonesia since 1982. The retail business comprises a network of approximately 300 outlets in 300 cities, serving 1.5 million customers in Indonesia. Mega Auto Finance (MAF) and Mega Central Finance (MCF), established in 2007, provide retail motorcycle financing specifically for Yamaha (Indonesia's best-selling motor cycle brand) and Suzuki motorcycles through partner dealers and branches across the country. MAF's and MCF's networks currently operate approximately 200 branches in Java, Sumatera, Kalimantan, and Sulawesi. WOM Finance is also engaged in motorcycle financing, specalizing in the Honda brand. The Company services 1 million active customers through seven regional offices and is supported by a network of 170 offices throughout Indonesia.
The Indonesian economy generates nearly $1 trillion annually, however only 42% of the 250+ million citizens have bank accounts and only 5% have credit cards. KinerjaPay's network of payment channels and mobile apps allow un-banked Indonesian consumers and business to shop and pay bills quickly, safely and conveniently. About KinerjaPay
KinerjaPay enables consumers to "Pay, Play and Buy" through its secure web portal and mobile applications. Based in Indonesia, the Company provides easy and convenient payment solution while shopping online at its marketplace platform. With its current omni-channel platform, users can perform various payment services such as credit card bill payment, utility, phone bill, healthcare insurance and direct transfer to anyone at their convenience. KinerjaPay is also planning to launch other eCommerce verticals such as travel market, delivery services, and online gaming in the near future. The Company's services are available through its mobile applications and on its website at http://www.kinerjapay.com. Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This press release may contain forward-looking statements, about KPAY's expectations, beliefs or intentions regarding, among other things, its product development efforts, business, financial condition, results of operations, strategies or prospects. In addition, from time to time, KPAY or its representatives have made or may make forward-looking statements, orally or in writing. Forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking words such as "believe," "expect," "intend," "plan," "may," "should" or "anticipate" or their negatives or other variations of these words or other comparable words or by the fact that these statements do not relate strictly to historical or current matters. These forward-looking statements may be included in, but are not limited to, various filings made by KPAY with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, press releases or oral statements made by or with the approval of one of KPAY's authorized executive officers. Forward-looking statements relate to anticipated or expected events, activities, trends or results as of the date they are made. Because forward-looking statements relate to matters that have not yet occurred, these statements are inherently subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause KPAY's actual results to differ materially from any future results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Many factors could cause KPAY 's actual activities or results to differ materially from the activities and results anticipated in such forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, the factors summarized in KPAY 's filings with the SEC. In addition, KPAY operates in an industry sector where securities values are highly volatile and may be influenced by economic and other factors beyond its control. KPAY does not undertake any obligation to publicly update these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Please see the risk factors associated with an investment in our securities which are included in our Annual Report on Form 10-K as filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on February 11, 2016. For more information, please visit our website http://www.kinerjapay.co. There you will find access to all of our past press releases and SEC filings regarding the activities discussed in this letter. Media Contact:
KinerjaPay Corp.
Email: [email protected]
+62-8229-777-0098
SOURCE KinerjaPay Corp.
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Emmanuel Macron, head of the political movement En Marche! (Onwards!) and candidate for the 2017 presidential election, waves to supporters at the end of a campaign rally in Pau, France, April 12, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]
Polls showed France's presidential election campaign tightening further on Wednesday as financial markets fretted about the rising popularity of a far-left candidate who wants to put France's European Union membership to a vote.
Investors have long been anxious about election frontrunner Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front, who has promised a referendum on whether to quit the EU and ditch the euro.
She has been joined on the list of investors' concerns by far-left veteran Jean-Luc Melenchon, who has surged in the polls after strong performances in two candidates' debates.
The Communist-backed Melenchon also wants a referendum on EU membership after an attempt to renegotiate the EU treaties.
The latest Ifop-Fiducial poll on Wednesday showed Le Pen winning 23.5 percent in the April 23 first round, one point ahead of centrist Emmanuel Macron.
Both Le Pen and Macron's support dipped by half a point from Tuesday while conservative Francois Fillon was stable on 19 percent and Melenchon unchanged on 18.5 percent.
The top two candidates go through to a run-off on May 7, where polls say Macron would easily beat Le Pen.
Traders cited the French election, as well as US relations with Syria and North Korea, as reasons why investors switched to safe assets, such as gold or US Treasuries, on Wednesday.
"Risk sentiment is not strong at the moment because of tensions in North Korea and also risk of a ... rising Melenchon," said Nomura currency strategist Yujiro Goto in London.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov shakes hands with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson during a news conference following their talks in Moscow, Russia, April 12, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]
MOSCOW - Russia and the US on Wednesday agreed to keep on fighting international terrorism and continue discussions on Syrian conflict settlement, despite turbulent bilateral relations and a string of pending disputes between the two countries.
In a news conference following talks with visiting US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and a two-hour joint meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the discussions were fruitful, underlining good prospects for future joint work.
"It has been a long day...The talks were comprehensive, frank and covered the whole spectrum of issues, which are key to our bilateral relations and interaction on the international affairs," The minister said.
According to Lavrov, the two parties reaffirmed their determination in the talks for the uncompromising fight against international terrorism and had deepgoing discussions in that context about grim situations in various regions including Syria, Yemen, Libya and Afghanistan as well as possible cooperation in addressing those issues.
"With all the existing problems, both objective and artificially created ones, we still have quite a few prospects for joint work. Russia is open to dialogues with the US in different areas, and not only to dialogues but also to joint actions," he said.
Echoing the Russian stance on cooperation, Tillerson said that Russia and the US will continue discussions about how to find a solution to the Syrian conflict.
"Foreign Minister Lavrov and I agreed we would consider further proposals made about the way forward in Syria, including consulting with our allies and coalition members." Tillerson said in the news conference.
Tensions between Moscow and Washington have further aggravated over Syria after the US missile strike on a Syrian military airfield Thursday, which it claims to be in response to the alledged Syrian government's chemical weapons attack last Tuesday in Khan Sheikhoun.
Earlier in an interview broadcast on Wednesday before the meeting with Tillerson, Putin said that mutual trust between Russia and the US, especially on the military level, had eroded in the first few months of Trump's presidency.
Putin's view was share by Tillerson who, on the first visit by the Trump cabinet to Russia, said that ties between the two countries were at a low point marked by serious distrust.
"There is a low level of trust between our two countries. The world's two foremost nuclear powers cannot have this kind of relationship," he said in the news conference, adding that Moscow and Washington had agreed to establish a working group to identify problems and improve bilateral relations.
With a shared willingness to mend the battered ties, Russia and the U.S. agreed on Wednesday to work together on an investigation of the Syrian chemical weapons attack, although the divergence in their stances have not changed much.
Tillerson reiterated Washington is "quite confident" that the recent chemical attack was planned and executed by Syrian government forces, which involved chlorine bombs and other chemical weapons on more than 50 occasions.
Calling for an "objective and unbiased probe" into the chemical attack in Syria, Lavrov said that Russia has no intention to shield anyone responsible for the incident and repeated Russia's view that the Syrian government was not responsible for the attack.
Russia vetoed on late Wednesday a UN resolution demanding the Syrian government cooperate with an investigation of the suspected chemical attack, saying that Moscow had consistently expressed its "categorical disagreement" with the draft resolution, which led to further criticism from the West including the US.
"The international community has spoken. Russia now has a lot to prove," US Ambassador Nikki Haley said.
CANBERRA - Fifteen passengers on a Qantas flight from Melbourne to Hong Kong were injured after a "stick shaker" incident occurred on a Boeing 747 jet last week, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) confirmed on Thursday.
"Stick shaker" is a term used to describe when the control stick shudders to warn those in control of the plane that a stall could be imminent. It's a phenomenon one aviation expert described as "extremely rare" but "very serious."
In a statement released on Thursday, the ATSB said it would be conducting an investigation into the incident, which occurred last week.
"The ATSB is investigating a stick shaker activation involving a Qantas Boeing 747, VH-OJU, 110 kilometers southeast of Hong Kong on 7 April 2017," the statement said.
"While holding at flight level 220, the flight crew received a stick shaker activation and detected airframe buffeting. The flight crew disconnected the autopilot and maneuvered the aircraft in response. Fifteen passengers received minor injuries.
"As part of the investigation, the ATSB will interview the flight crew and gather additional information."
A Qantas spokesperson confirmed the incident late Wednesday, and said in addition to the ATSB investigation, the airline would conduct its own review of the stick shaker incident.
"Customers on QF29 experienced unexpected in-flight turbulence when travelling from Melbourne to Hong Kong on Friday. We notified the ATSB of the occurrence, and our own teams are also reviewing the event," the spokesperson.
Meanwhile, aviation expert Geoffrey Thomas told News Corp that a stick shaker was an aerodynamic stall which occurs when "the angle of attack of the wing increases beyond a point such that the lift begins to decrease." He said they were both "extremely rare" and "very, very serious."
"The airflow over the wing begins to separate and it breaks up. There is a sudden decrease in altitude, which is why some passengers may have been injured," Thomas said on Thursday.
The ATSB has said that a report into the incident will be released "within several months."
US President Donald Trump attends a press conference at the White House in Washington DC, on April 12, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]
US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he will not label China a currency manipulator.
Trump made the remarks in an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, indicating that China will not be named a currency manipulator in a US Treasury Department report on the exchange rate policies of its major trading partners. The report is expected to be released later this week.
"They're not currency manipulators," Trump told the Journal.
During the campaign, Trump vowed to impose 45 percent tariffs on Chinese exports into the US, triggering concern about a possible trade war between the two largest economies.
Such concerns have been greatly eased lately, especially following the first meeting between Trump and his Chinese counterpart President Xi Jinping in Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida last week.
Both sides have spoken positively of the meeting. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said both sides reached several important consensuses and the meeting has set a constructive tone for the development of the bilateral relationship.
Wang praised the meeting for boosting mutual understanding and establishing a good working relationship and personal friendship between the two leaders. Trump also accepted Xi's invitation to visit China this year.
The two sides also announced the China-US Comprehensive Dialogue mechanism to be overseen by the two presidents. It includes four pillars: Diplomatic and Security Dialogue; Comprehensive Economic Dialogue; Law Enforcement and Cybersecurty Dialogue; and Social and Cultural Issues Dialogue.
Most top US economists don't believe China has manipulated its currency in the past years.
The most recent US Treasury semi-annual report issued last October said China met only one of the three criteria for measuring a currency manipulator.
In its last annual evaluation of the Chinese economy, the International Monetary Fund described the value of the Chinese currency, known as yuan or renminbi (RMB), as "remains broadly in line with fundamentals."
US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin also signaled in the past months that the US is unlikely to name China a currency manipulator anytime soon.
Larry Summers, US Treasury secretary from 1999 to 2001 and an economic adviser to former President Obama from 2009 to 2010, admitted recently that the US has been wrong to push for the appreciation of the yuan while the market force is to keep it down.
Ex-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reacts as he submits his name for registration as a candidate in Iran's presidential election, in Tehran, Iran April 12, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]
TEHRAN -- Iran's former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad registered for the upcoming Iranian presidential election on Wednesday.
During the registration in Iran's Interior Ministry, Ahmadinejad, expressed hope for victory.
He vowed to serve the Iranians, and try hard for the establishment of "justice and freedom" if he is reelected as the president.
Ahmadinejad was accompanied by his confidant former controversial deputies Hamid Baqaee and Rahim Mashae. Baqaee also registered for the presidency.
In Sept. 2016, local media quoted Iran's Supreme Leader as saying that "I do not find it advisable that you (Ahmadinejad) participate" in the next presidential elections.
The former hardline president, Ahmadinejad, was a two-term president for 8 years, before President Hassan Rouhani took the office in 2013 election.
On Tuesday, Iran's Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli announced registration of candidates for Iran's 12th presidential race began in capital Tehran.
The registration will last for five days and all the hopefuls will undergo the subsequent vetting process by the country's high legislative body, namely the Guardian Council of the Constitution.
The Guardian Council will assess the qualification of the applicants and announce the names of the qualified candidates by April 27.
According to the schedule released by Iran's Interior Ministry, the campaign for presidential race will kick off on April 28 and will continue until the end of May 17.
The hopefuls will have 20 days for electoral campaigns, ahead of the election day slated for May 19.
The candidate should basically be an Iranian national, prudent and capable of taking on leadership duties, and being religious and believing in the Islamic republic's principles and its official religion.
The United Nations Security Council on Wednesday failed to adopt a draft resolution on the alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria's northwestern province of Idlib as Russia vetoed it.
Russia and Bolivia vetoed the draft resolution tabled by France, the UK and the US. Ten of the 15 Security Council members voted in favor of it. China, Ethiopia and Kazakhstan abstained.
The draft resolution asked Syria to provide immediate and unfettered access to and the right to inspect any and all sites. It also requested the UN secretary-general report on the issue every 30 days pursuant to resolution 2118 (2013), in which the council had decided that Syria would not use, develop, produce, acquire, stockpile or retain chemical weapons.
On April 6, two US naval vessels deployed in the eastern Mediterranean Sea launched 59 cruise missiles against the Shayrat airbase in Syria in what Washington asserted was a response to a chemical weapons attack on civilians in Idlib province on April 4, which killed more than 80 people. The Syria government denied possession of or any use of chemical weapons and of all weapons of mass destruction.
Vladimir Safronkov, Russia's deputy representative to the UN, said before the vote that the draft failed to serve a useful purpose. He requested to conduct an independent investigation immediately on the incident in the town of Khan Shaykhun and the Shairat airbase.
Liu Jieyi, China's ambassador to the UN, said: "China opposes the use of chemical weapons by any state, organization and individual under any circumstances."
China supports the UN and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to conduct a comprehensive, objective and fair investigation in the alleged chemical attack and to hold the perpetrators accountable based on solid evidence that can stand the test of history and facts, Liu said.
Liu said China supports the draft resolution's text condemning the use of chemical weapons and demanding an investigation.
"Regretfully, in spite of efforts by China and other Security Council members, we couldn't reach agreement on the draft," Liu said, calling for all parties to remain committed to a political solution to the Syria issue.
Nikki Haley, US ambassador to the UN, said after the vote that with the veto, Russia said "no" to a text that would have promoted peace in Syria.
Russia votes against motion on alleged attack; China abstains
The United Nations Security Council on Wednesday failed to adopt a draft resolution on the alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria's northwestern province of Idlib as Russia vetoed it.
Russia and Bolivia vetoed the draft resolution tabled by France, the UK and the US. Ten of the 15 Security Council members voted in favor of it. China, Ethiopia and Kazakhstan abstained.
The draft resolution asked Syria to provide immediate and unfettered access to and the right to inspect any and all sites. It also requested the UN secretary-general report on the issue every 30 days pursuant to resolution 2118 (2013), in which the council had decided that Syria would not use, develop, produce, acquire, stockpile or retain chemical weapons.
On April 6, two US naval vessels deployed in the eastern Mediterranean Sea launched 59 cruise missiles against the Shayrat airbase in Syria in what Washington asserted was a response to a chemical weapons attack on civilians in Idlib province on April 4, which killed more than 80 people. The Syria government denied possession of or any use of chemical weapons and of all weapons of mass destruction.
Vladimir Safronkov, Russia's deputy representative to the UN, said before the vote that the draft failed to serve a useful purpose. He requested to conduct an independent investigation immediately on the incident in the town of Khan Shaykhun and the Shairat airbase.
Liu Jieyi, China's ambassador to the UN, said: "China opposes the use of chemical weapons by any state, organization and individual under any circumstances."
China supports the UN and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to conduct a comprehensive, objective and fair investigation in the alleged chemical attack and to hold the perpetrators accountable based on solid evidence that can stand the test of history and facts, Liu said.
Liu said China supports the draft resolution's text condemning the use of chemical weapons and demanding an investigation.
"Regretfully, in spite of efforts by China and other Security Council members, we couldn't reach agreement on the draft," Liu said, calling for all parties to remain committed to a political solution to the Syria issue.
Nikki Haley, US ambassador to the UN, said after the vote that with the veto, Russia said "no" to a text that would have promoted peace in Syria.
wanglinyan@chinadailyusa.com
China is willing to develop more balanced economic and trade ties with the United States, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Thursday in response to US President Donald Trump's saying he no longer regards China as a currency manipulator.
"We have no intention to stimulate exports through devaluing the currency, and there is no basis for the continuous devaluation of (Chinese currency) renminbi," spokesman Lu Kang told a news conference.
Lu said that during the first meeting between President Xi Jinping and Trump in Florida last week, the two leaders had a "long and deep discussion" on economic and trade issue. The two sides reached an important consensus on making joint efforts to expand cooperation in all areas and properly handle disagreements, he added.
"China is, of course, not a currency manipulator, which is an objective fact," Lu said, adding that China will continue to push forward the reform on the formulation mechanism of RMB exchange rate.
Lu's comments are in response to the recent remarks by Trump that his administration won't label China as a currency manipulator. Trump also complained that the US dollar is too strong.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, Trump said "they (China) are not currency manipulators".
A rare pair of vases from the Qianlong period (1736-1795) is expected to fetch 2 million pounds ($2.5 million) in the upcoming Christie's Asian Art sale in London.
A magnificent pair of famille rose butterfly' double-gourd vases from the Qianglong period (1736-1795).
The porcelain vases will be the centrepiece of the136 -lot auction on 9 May at Christie's headquarters on King Street.
The auction giant said it is the first time a pair of these rare Qinglong vases will go to auction. Previously, only four other single vases of this type have gone under the hammer.
Cherrei Tian, Christie's specialist in Chinese Works of Art and Paintings said the vases are not identical but are complementary to each other.
"The flowers on the vase are facing down, some rising and blooming in slightly different ways," Tian added, "The leaves and butterflies are painted so delicately, which is a contrast to the solid colours of the petals. It just shows the superb craftsmanship of the period."
The pair, recently discovered in a country home in England, were collected in the 1930s by an English lady from a noble family and have been passed down to the current owner.
Tian said, "They have never been on the market, it is the first time the vases has ever been offered at auction. For Christie's to offer them as a pair is really exciting."
She added that the vases reflected the lifestyle of the Emperor Qianlong who was particular with his taste, "Qianlong was an emperor who had everything, and so for him if it was not extreme, he would not have it."
Other highlights on offer at the Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art sale include a white marble two-handled vase, also from the Qinglong period. This piece is expected to go for 20,000-30,000 pounds.
A series of paintings which belonged to the late Sir Percy Cradock, the British ambassador to China from 1978 to 1983, will also go under the hammer. The collection includes a painting by Zhang Daqian (1899-1983).
Scholar and Pine by Zhang Daqian
A second Asian art sale will take place at Christie's South Kensington branch on 12 May.
One of the standout pieces of that sale is a rare pair of Republic Period famille rose porcelain landscape' seals signed by the renowned ceramicist He Xuren (1882-1940) and dated 1927. They were a gift to the Chinese Commander-in-Chief of the Kuomintang army, Zhu Peide, and bear his seal.
A fine and rare pair of famille rose landscape' seals
Katie Lundie, associate specialist, Chinese Works of Art said, "Republic porcelain tends to attract young collectors looking for a more individual and free style, and can be distinguished from the pieces of the 18th and 19th centuries, which have a more rigid array of designs and were largely made under strict imperial supervision. They would be particularly desirable to a collector looking for a one of a kind', specially-commissioned and historically-significant show piece."
Christie's Asian Art week last month in New York broke sales records, a success London is hoping to replicate.
To contact reporter: boleung@mail.chinadailyuk.com
[April 13, 2017] Webgility and Skubana Host Free Webinar on How to Pump Up Your Profits Online
SAN FRANCISCO, April 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Webgility, the leader in multi-channel e-commerce automation software, today announced that it will host a free webinar, Thursday, April 20, at 11:00 a.m. PDT on how to increase online profits via efficient inventory and improved accounting. Registration is now open. Featuring Skubana CEO Chad Rubin, and hosted by Webgility Head of Product Rob McGrorty,the webinar will share everything high-volume e-commerce companies and Amazon super sellers need to know to build a streamlined, profitable business. "Automation is the secret sauce of efficient e-commerce business. Instead of spending time worrying about logistics, now entrepreneurs can focus on growing their businesses and improving their specialties," said Rubin. "This webinar is going to lay out how you can automate online sales, no matter how many channels you want to sell on, all while keeping your records accurate and up-to-date." In this webinar, Webgility and Skubana will reveal: why syncing multi-channel inventory reduces costs and improves profit margins;
insider secrets to increasing profits while selling on multiple channels;
tips on being fully efficient n Amazon FBA; and
how to automate your accounting and learn from the data
Webgility, Inc. is the leading provider of e-commerce automation software for multi-channel retail companies, managing millions of transactions for 10,000-plus online stores every month. Webgility's e-Commerce Virtual ERP is an antidote to the "app fatigue" plaguing today's online sellers. By integrating with best-of-breed online retail solutions, Webgility's Unify software anchors the Virtual ERP and brings efficiency, order, and scale to otherwise chaotic workflows and business operations. In doing so, Unify empowers online retailers to focus on their passion rather than their operations. Webgility is a certified partner of Intuit, QuickBooks, Xero, and NetSuite, and works with more than 85 e-commerce platforms (including Amazon, eBay, BigCommerce, Shopify, and Magento), payment processors (PayPal, Stripe, Shopify Payments, Square), and SaaS providers. For more information, visit http://www.webgility.com. To learn about Unify for Skubana, visit http://skubana.webgility.com
ABOUT WEBGILITY
Webgility, Inc. is the leading provider of e-commerce automation software for multi-channel retail companies, managing millions of transactions for 10,000-plus online stores every month. Webgility's e-Commerce Virtual ERP is an antidote to the "app fatigue" plaguing today's online sellers. By integrating with best-of-breed online retail solutions, Webgility's Unify software anchors the Virtual ERP and brings efficiency, order, and scale to otherwise chaotic workflows and business operations. In doing so, Unify empowers online retailers to focus on their passion rather than their operations. Webgility is a certified partner of Intuit, QuickBooks, Xero, and NetSuite, and works with more than 85 e-commerce platforms and SaaS providers, payment processors, and hosting providers. For more information, visit http://www.webgility.com. For more information, please contact: Eileen Conway
Zealot Communications for Webgility
650-245-9015
[email protected] To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/webgility-and-skubana-host-free-webinar-on-how-to-pump-up-your-profits-online-300439137.html SOURCE Webgility
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Last week, I attended a lecture on China labor law by our own Steve Dickinson. The thrust of Steves speech was that Chinas employment laws have changed, they are being enforced against foreigners, and they are very different from U.S. employment laws. In a nutshell, the biggest differences are that written contracts with all employees are required in China and firing an employee in China generally must be for cause. Neither of these are true in the United States.
Judging from the audience questions (and this was an extremely sophisticated audience), many were surprised by this and many had trouble understanding the full import.
A few days later, Steve and I were talking about this with a group of Chinese lawyers in Qingdao with whom we are working on a couple of international litigation matters. In explaining to them some of the cases we have handled for American clients who got themselves into trouble by improperly laying off Chinese employees, it soon became apparent to Steve and me that the Chinese lawyers were not grasping why these American companies were making these mistakes. They would ask questions like, how could these American companies really believe they could lay off 100 people without first securing their approval and that of the government as well? When Steve and I told them about US employment laws, the Chinese lawyers found them so bizarre, they actually laughed.
We told them of how there is a saying in the United States that one can fire an employee for good reason, bad reason, or no reason at all, just so long as the reason for firing is not one prohibited by law (such as racial or gender discrimination). We talked about how one might fire an employee for wearing a green shirt. We told them of how most employees in the United States do not work under written contracts and how companies generally prefer not to use employment contracts. It took at least half an hour for us to give a basic explanation of employer-employee relations in the U.S. Even then, it was pretty clear these exceedingly bright international lawyers were still nonplussed.
It was a good exercise for Steve and me as it helped reinforce American companies (Europes employment laws are not so wildly different from Chinas) so often act on Chinese employment law matters based on completely false assumptions as to how things are really done there.
What are you seeing out there?
In China, an offer letter () is a written document delivered by an employer to an employee stating the employers intent to enter into a labor relationship with the employee. An offer letter typically proposes the employees work title, work location, wages, and the term of the employment arrangement.
Despite the relatively common use of employment offer letters in China (especially by state-owned enterprises) no Chinese law specifically addresses them. For that reason and for the reasons set forth below, employers should be careful in using them.
To begin with, despite what many believe, offer letters are not an official labor contract and they do not satisfy the legal requirement that labor contracts be in writing. Under Chinese law, an offer letter is regarded as an employers unilateral act expressing its willingness to enter into an employment relationship with a potential employee. An offer letter is deemed to be an offer () and it is governed by Chinas Contract Law, not by Chinas Labor Contract Law. A labor contract is a legal document evidencing the existence of a labor relationship between the employer and the employee but an offer letter has no such effect. So even when the employee returns a signed offer letter, the employer must nonetheless execute a formal labor contract with the employee within one month after the employee begins working for the employer to be in compliance with Chinese law.
Under Chinas Labor Contract Law, an employer can be required to pay its employees twice the employees monthly salary if it fails to execute a written labor contract within one month of the commencement of the employment relationship. Further, if the employer goes more than a year without having a written labor contract with an employee, the employee lacking the written labor contract will be deemed to have entered into an open-term labor contract with its employer, which essentially means there is no definitive end date to the labor relationship.
Nearly all of the offer letters our China lawyers have reviewed made statements violating PRC labor laws. This alone generally makes it a bad idea to refer to the offer letter in any eventual labor contract. But on top of this, nearly all of the offer letters we see also usually also contain terms that conflict with the labor contracts and/or other employment agreements such as the employers rules and regulations.
When an offer letter makes sense for our clients, we usually recommend that they insert a provision in the formal labor contract (in Chinese, of course) explicitly providing that the labor contract supersedes the offer letter.
In conclusion, if you are going to use an offer letter, you should, at minimum make sure of the following:
It is common for China employers to deliver an offer letter to a potential expat employee stating the employers intent to enter into an employment relationship with that employee. An offer letter is typically a 1-2 page document and it usually proposes the employees work title, responsibilities and duties, work location, wages, employee benefits, and term of employment.
As more and more Chinese companies are hiring foreign high level executives, our work representing expats on their employment contract negotiations has soared. Five years ago, our China employment lawyers did maybe one or two of these a year and now we commonly have one or two of these sorts of representations going at any given time. What we have learned from them is that Chinese companies tend to be incredibly one-sided and sloppy in the way they handle their employment relationships.
When retained by an executive expat, the first thing we usually do is review their offer letters. And one of the first things we notice nearly every single time is that the Chinese company is proposing to hire the expat executive on illegal terms. In other words, pretty much every offer letter we see calls for an employment contract/employment relationship that would violate Chinas labor and employment laws. And if you are wondering how or why this is so often the case, let me tell you: if you are the foreign employee and you are working on an illegal contract, you are setting yourself up for big problems and those big problems will 99 times out of 100 end up hurting you and benefiting your employer. In other words, these Chinese employers are acting illegally for a reason: it is a great way for them to gain permanent leverage over you.
The following represent three incredibly common mistake/illegalities we see in not just offer letters but also employment contracts and employer rules and regulations when my law firms China employment lawyers represent executive expats in their employment negotiations with Chinese companies, along with my comments on why they matter.
1. In accepting this offer, you certify you understand your employment will be on an at-will basis. Quoting a phrase popular in China, I shall repeat important things three times (), so here goes: China is not an employment at-will jurisdiction, China is not an employment at-will jurisdiction, China is not an employment at-will jurisdiction. This means Termination of a China-based employee generally requires cause. Employers nonetheless sometimes put in their documents that the employee is being hired on an at will basis because this can cause their foreign employees to believe they can be fired for good reason, bad reason, or no reason at all even though they cannot. See Chinas Labor Laws: The Cultural Disconnect Goes Both Ways.
2. During the first six months probation period. The Chinese employer puts this in the documents but does not mention anything regarding the proposed term of employment. Without there being any proposed term of employment there is no way to determine whether the proposed probation period complies with Chinese law, and that is exactly how the employer wants it. Six months is the longest probation period allowed under Chinese law, but unless the proposed term of employment is three years or longer, the proposed six-month probation period violates the law. When we see a provision like this (and we see this provision all the time) is push back and say, well if you are calling for a six month probation period, the employment term is three years and we ask that you please write that in the documents. At which point the potential employer says, no, we were thinking of a one or two year employment term and then we get them to reduce the probation period accordingly, to the benefit of our expat executive client.
3. During the probation period, the Company will have the right to terminate your employment with or without cause. Also not legal. Since the probation period is part of the term of employment, the probation period also cannot be treated as employment at-will. Chinese employers put in provisions like this for the same reasons they put in provisions trying to get their potential employees to believe that their entire employment term will be at will and for the same reason they regularly write in an overlong probation period: to gain leverage over their expat employee.
A bit of context may be helpful here. We have represented a number of Chinese companies in their United States and European (mostly Spain and Germany) operations and, almost without exception, they tend to be wary of hiring foreigners. Rightly or wrongly they view foreigners as overpaid and spoiled and they particularly do not like having to pay a foreigner $300,000 for a job they view as similar to one for which they are paying $150,000 to a Chinese citizen in China. This sort of thing causes all sorts of tension within the company and it is not unusual for foreign hirings not to work out because of this. I know this is probably an exaggeration, but it seems like the rare case where there is not someone powerful within every Chinese company scheming to make the life of the new expat hire miserable from day one, in an effort to drive the expat out of the company. Chinese companies know their history with expat hiring and retention is poor and the above sort of terms are their way to prepare in advance for the expat leaving, which they see as nearly inevitable. Our job as lawyers representing expat executives is to get them documents that will make it as difficult as possible for their Chinese employers to terminate them and to make it as lucrative as possible for the expat executives should such a termination occur.
And offer letters are important no matter what the employment contract eventually says, especially since so many China employment contracts expressly incorporate the terms of xyz offer letter. Of at least equal importance though is that the negotiations over the terms of your offer letter will set the stage for the negotiations over your actual employment contract. And if you agree to offer letter terms that tell your China employer that they can push you around, they will obviously expect you to agree to those same terms and additional similar terms in the employment contract itself. On the flip side, if you show your potential China employer that you know the score and you wont be bullied, you have set yourself up for receiving an appropriate and maybe even favorable employment contract down the road.
[April 13, 2017] United States Healthcare IT Market Outlook 2022: Cloud Computing and M-health Technologies Propelling Healthcare Industry
DUBLIN, Apr. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "US Healthcare IT Market Outlook 2022" report to their offering. The US Healthcare IT market has witnessed a gradual shift owing to factors like government initiative programs, emergence of latest technology and strategic collaboration in the sectors among players. The stringent regulation followed by increasing adoption of healthcare IT system in hospital is reviving the healthcare IT market while encouraging the investments from existing and new players. The latest report US Healthcare IT Market Outlook 2022 provides comprehensive insight on the industry by its segment and component. The component segment of US Healthcare IT industry is driven by HIT hardware followed by HIT services and HIT software. While the segment wise market is segmented into clinical information system and non-clinical information system, the clinical information system industry drives the Healthcare IT market by segment. A comprehensive insight on the sub-segment of the industry provides descriptive analysis on the driving factors staing overall growth of the industry.
Moreover, the report covers the regulatory framework related to the industry while providing an idea about the fluidity of the healthcare IT industry. Further, it covers a detailed analysis of the potential growth areas which helped in clearly identifying and highlighting the segments that offer the maximum opportunities for growth in the country.
Further, with a view to provide a balanced outlook of the US healthcare IT market, our report includes the competitive landscape of key industry players, namely, Allscripts, GE Healthcare, Mckesson, Cerner, Athenahealth Inc, Medical Information Tech Inc etc. covering key financials, strength & weakness analyses and recent activities. On the whole, the report provides all the pre-requisite information for clients looking to venture in this industry, and facilitate them to formulate schemes while going for an investment/partnership in the US Healthcare IT industry.
Key Topics Covered:
1. Analyst View
2. Research Methodology
3. Market Trends and Drivers
3.1 Cloud Computing and M-health Technologies propelling healthcare industry
3.2 Rising Strategic Collaborations in Healthcare Industry
3.3 Government Initiatives forming Comprehensive Healthcare System
3.4 Innovative Technology Advancing HIT Market
3.5 Virtual Healthcare Accelerating Healthcare Information Technology
4. Healthcare IT Market Outlook 2022
4.1 By Component
4.1.1 HIT Hardware
4.1.2 HIT Software
4.1.3 HIT Services
4.2 By Segment
4.2.1 Clinical Information System
4.2.2 Non-Clinical Information System
5. Potential Growth Areas
5.1 ICD 10 System
5.2 Telemedicine
5.3 Patient-Centric Monitoring
5.4 Personal Health Records
6. Regulatory Assessment
7. Competitive Landscape
- Allscripts Healthcare Solutions, Inc.
- Athenahealth Inc
- Cerner Corporation
- GE Healthcare
- McKesson Corporation
- Medical Information Tech Inc.
For more information about this report visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/nx74qh/us_healthcare_it Media Contact: Laura Wood, Senior Manager
[email protected]
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[April 13, 2017] Brandwatch reveals speaker lineup at Now You Know Conference 2017
NEW YORK, April 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Brandwatch, the leading social intelligence company, is announcing its full keynote and speaker agenda for the firm's second annual Now You Know Conference on May 8-9 in Denver, Colorado. Professor Nick Bostrom, global authority on superintelligence and existential risk, and Altimeter CEO Charlene Li, join the Now You Know Conference in Denver as keynote speakers to examine the theme of truth during these complicated times of fake news, alternative facts, and the prevalent question of data validity. Also featured during the two-day conference is an all-woman panel on creativity and data in marketing including prominent tech and design players Alex Sinclair, Global Creative Director, IBM Interactive Experience, Elizabeth Lukas, CEO of North America at Decoded, Becky Wang, CEO at Crossbeat, and Joanna Pena-Bickley, Global Chief Experience Officer at ThinxMachine. Hundreds of social intelligence practitioners and marketing professionals from the world's most recognizable brands and agencies will descend upon the southwestern tech hub for two days of riveting talks, interactive workshops, roundtables andmasterclasses. Attendees will have the privilege to hear from experts at Walmart, Bank of America, 3M, Metia and many more digitally-savvy companies.
"Leaders are not yet fully embracing the technologies and practices that are driving digital transformation in business today," said Charlene Li, Principal Analyst at Altimeter. "I'm excited to address this important topic in my keynote talk at Brandwatch's Now You Know Conference this May. It's vital for business leaders to acknowledge and adapt to the demands of digital leadership. I'll be sharing how to activate the necessary shift from a traditional mindset to one that encourages engagement throughout the organization." Reflecting on last year's conference in Chicago, Allyson Hugely, President, Measurement and Analytics at Weber Shandwick, commented it was, "Hands down one of the best informational and networking events I've attended in years."
Partners and sponsors for the event include Turbine Labs, Hootsuite, Accenture Interactive, Uber, FullContact, The Curtis, Revel decor, and InsideHR Communications. There's still space left at the conference. Purchase tickets here to get closer to the the truth at this year's Now You Know Conference in Denver. About Brandwatch Brandwatch is the world's leading social intelligence company. The company's flagship products, Brandwatch Analytics and the Vizia platform, fuel smarter decision making around the world. The Brandwatch Analytics platform gathers millions of online conversations every day and provides users with the tools to analyze them, empowering the world's most admired brands and agencies to make insightful, data-driven business decisions. The Vizia platform distributes visually-engaging insights to the physical places where the action happens. The Brandwatch platform is used by over 1,300 brands and agencies, including Unilever, American Airlines, Whirlpool, Asos, Walmart, British Airways, and Dell. Brandwatch continues on its impressive business trajectory, recently named a global leader in enterprise social listening platforms by the latest reports from several independent research firms. Increasing its worldwide presence, the company has offices around the world including Brighton, New York, San Francisco, Berlin, Stuttgart, Paris and Singapore. Brandwatch. Now You Know. www.brandwatch.com |@Brandwatch |press office |contact Contact: Dinah Alobeid, 1-917-846-2381 [email protected] To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/brandwatch-reveals-speaker-lineup-at-now-you-know-conference-2017-300439401.html SOURCE Brandwatch
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(Photo : Getty Images) A Boeing 787 Dreamliner, one of the world's largest aircraft, arrives at Beijing Capital Airport.
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Keywords: girl forgotten, left behind, parents forgot child
A couple left their daughter behind in a plane after landing in Guangzhou, local media reported.
The parents boarded the plane with their 10-year-old daughter at the Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport. The girl reportedly sat alone at the back of the plane during the entire flight. When the aircraft landed in Guangzhou's International Airport just past midnight on Tuesday, the parents got off the plane.
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During one of their routine checks after every flight, cabin crews found the girl still asleep. Her parents were already heading to the arrival hall in a shuttle bus when the girl woke up. The family reunited 20 minutes after the child was found. The father thought that his daughter was following them when they were getting their luggage.
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Tagsgirl forgotten, parenting fail, left-behind, child left behind, child forgotten in plane, daughter forgotten in plane by parents, parents, parents forgot children, parents forgot daughter in plane, parents forgot daughter, mar a lago
[April 13, 2017] SAP Promotes Proven Leaders to Strengthen the Company
WALLDORF, Germany, April 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today announced newly expanded responsibilities of key executives. Robert Enslin and Bernd Leukert will shift and expand their portfolios as members of the Executive Board of SAP SE. The Supervisory Board of SAP SE has named Adaire Fox-Martin and Jennifer Morgan to the Executive Board. The moves underscore SAP's commitment to customers' ongoing digital transformation and its effort to foster top talent. "I am pleased that executives such as Rob, Bernd, Adaire and Jen are stepping into bigger leadership roles to transform the way we drive innovations with our customers," said Hasso Plattner, Chairman of the Supervisory Board. In addition, two new leadership assignments were announced for current EMEA President Franck Cohen and SAP Cloud Platform President Bjoern Goerke. Cohen will become chief commercial officer and Goerke chief technology officer. "We have always considered it a privilege to nurture careers and leaders," said Bill McDermott, CEO and Member of the Executive Board. "SAP is a company focused on innovation, scale and growth. I'm proud of this leadership team and know they are poised to keep SAP on the rise." The Supervisory Board has asked Enslin, head of Global Customer Operations, to be president of the new Cloud Business Group. He will oversee SAP Ariba, SAP Fieldglass, Concur, SAP SuccessFactors, and SAP Hybris solutions as well as the SMB Solutions Group organization. Leukert, head of Products & Innovation at SAP, will expand his portfolio to accelerate SAP's platform and digital transformation strategy. Enslin and Leukert will jointly lead key growth businesses at SAP, ensuring that development teams and customer-facing teams are in lockstep with one another from the design thinking and innovation process to customer-facing initiatives. With Enslin's increased focus on cloud businesses at SAP, Fox-Martin and Morgan will ascend to the co-presidency of Global Customer Operations, overseeing all SAP regions and building on their success in the Asia-Pacific-Japan region and North America, respectively. Fox-Martin will oversee EMEA and Greater China. Morgan will oversee the Americas and Asia-Pacific-Japan regions. As chief commercial officer, Cohen will lead SAP's channel business as well as assume responsibility for all sales processes and go-to-market initiatives across SAP. As CTO, Goerke will advance the company's technology strategy and serve as a key external spokesperson.
All changes will be effective May 1, 2017. Steve Singh, president of Business Networks and Applications, will leave SAP SE at the end of this month. Singh collaborated closely with Enslin, and together they transitioned Concur solutions into the SAP product family. Singh built a strong foundation for business networks at SAP and plans to focus on other entrepreneurial interests outside of SAP.
"Steve Singh's character and entrepreneurial spirit are greatly admired around the world," McDermott said. "When SAP acquired Concur Technologies, we knew Steve would play a significant role in strengthening the SAP cloud portfolio. We also knew he would eventually go back to his start-up roots. We could not be more grateful for everything Steve has done." SAP will publish its financial results for the first quarter as planned on April 25, 2017. For more information, visit the SAP News Center. Follow SAP on Twitter at @sapnews. About SAP As market leader in enterprise application software, SAP (NYSE: SAP) helps companies of all sizes and industries run better. From back office to boardroom, warehouse to storefront, desktop to mobile device SAP empowers people and organizations to work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively to stay ahead of the competition. SAP applications and services enable more than 345,000 business and public sector customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and grow sustainably. For more information, visit www.sap.com. Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "expect," "forecast," "intend," "may," "plan," "project," "predict," "should" and "will" and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect SAP's future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including SAP's most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates. 2017 SAP SE. All rights reserved.
SAP and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE in Germany and other countries. Please see http://www.sap.com/corporate-en/legal/copyright/index.epx#trademark for additional trademark information and notices. For customers interested in learning more about SAP products:
Global Customer Center: +49 180 534-34-24
United States Only: 1 (800) 872-1SAP (1-800-872-1727) For more information, press only:
Nicola Leske, +49 6227 7-50852, [email protected], CET
Rajiv Sekhri, +49 6227 7-74871, [email protected], CET
Andy Kendzie, +1 202 247 7064, [email protected], ET
SAP News Center press room; [email protected]
For more information, financial community only:
Stefan Gruber, +49 6227 7-44872, [email protected], CET To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sap-promotes-proven-leaders-to-strengthen-the-company-300439402.html SOURCE SAP SE
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(Photo : Getty Images) China to start construction of its first ever Antarctic airfield as early as year's end.
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China has picked a location to set up its first ever airfield in Antarctica, with plans for construction expected to begin as early as year's end.
The airfield, which aims to facilitate Beijing's research efforts on the region, will be station near China's Zhongshan station on Antarctic's Prydz Bay. Members of China's 33rd expedition, which ended recently ended a 161-day mission, conducted a survey on a three-square-kilometer area and chose a place for the future airfield, China Daily reported citing Sun Bo, the deputy director of the State Oceanic Administration's Polar Research Institute of China.
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"At first the airfield will have only one runway, so the construction will be easy," Sun said, adding that this would only entail flattening and maintaining the selected area. He also noted that fixed-wing jets need to have a pair of runners to land.
"Next, we plan to build some runways in the same area. They will be flatter than the first runway and will be capable of accommodating large fixed-wing planes that are not equipped with runners," Sun said.
China currently has four Antarctic bases - Changcheng, Zhongshan, Taishan, and Kunlun. And supply vessels are used to transport crews and equipment in and out of the continent. It works with other nations for aerial observation, for which it has a Xueying 601 plane, but it does not have its own airstrip.
Actual work on the site will likely begin after the 34th expedition starts its mission later this year. The 33rd Antarctic expedition, with 328 members, has returned to its base in Shanghai last Tuesday. The mission conducted scientific research and experiments around the four bases. The two vessels that carried the team, the Xuelong icebreaker and Haiyang 6, also carried out oceanographic and geological research.
Meanwhile, China has also reportedly selected a location for its fifth Antarctic station, China Daily noted, citing Lin Shanqing, the deputy head of State Oceanic Administration. The proposed station will reportedly be built near the Ross Sea, with construction slated to start in 2018.
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Tagschina, Antarctica, Antarctic expedition, Xueying 601 plane, Xuelong icebreaker, Haiyang 6
(Photo : PLA) PLAGF tanks on parade.
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China has massed over 150,000 men of the People's Liberation Army Ground Force (PLAGF); hordes of tanks and other offensive military hardware along its 1,400 kilometer-long border with North Korea in a mammoth show of force apparently meant to attain two contradictory goals.
State-run Chinese media, including the Global Times, said the deployment of the troops to the Chinese provinces of Liaoning and Jilin bordering North Korea was made ahead of persistent reports North Korea plans to explode its sixth nuclear bomb on or before April 15, the 105th birthday of North Korea's founder, Kim Il Sung.
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Kim also ignited the Korean War on June 25, 1950 in an attempt to subjugate South Korea and bring the entire Korean peninsula his rule. China fought alongside North Korea against a coalition of 16 nations led by the U.S. that fought under the United Nations Command.
Global Times only a few days ago published an editorial defining China's reasons for invading North Korea. It said the threat of a "nuclear leakage or pollution" that damages the environment of northeast China (which shares a border with North Korea) will trigger a response from China.
"This is the bottom line of China, which means China will never allow such situation to happen. If the bottom line is touched, China will employ all means available including the military means to strike back," said the editorial.
The northeastern Chinese provinces of Liaoning and Jilin share borders with North Korea. These two provinces and Heilongjiang are part of the Northern Theater Command, one of five new war zones of the People's Liberation Army.
China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, however, said it wasn't aware of any build-up of Chinese troops along the country's northeastern border with Korea and blamed South Korean media for the war mongering.
Global Times, which is owned by the People's Daily (the newspaper of the Communist Party of China, cited South Korean diplomats as saying it was true China held "military drills" along the North Korean border.
There have also been reports in Chinese state-run media that China and South Korea agreed to take new measures against North Korea if the rogue state conducts another nuclear test or launch an intercontinental ballistic missile.
Analysts, however, speculate the massing of Chinese troops isn't only aimed at destroying North Koreans nuclear weapons-making facilities. It might also be aimed at preventing the U.S. from launching devastating missile strikes at these facilities.
One of these experts said China will definitely try to prevent a U.S. attack on North Korea by deploying PLAGF forces along its border with North Korea. The logic is that the presence of Chinese forces should deter the U.S. from bombing North Korea's nuclear facilities, which are located along the border with China, because an attack will run the risk of igniting a larger conflict.
Positioning PLAGF group armies along the border might also persuade North Korean officials who oppose Kim Jong-un to launch a coup d'etat and overthrow the despotic young leader.
China has no intention of destroying North Korea, which serves as a buffer state against the U.S. and South Korea, but is only interested in deposing Kim. By supporting anti-Kim forces, China hopes to exert significant influence over any post-Kim government.
Should the reports of 150,000 men of the PLAGF and their equipment massing at the border be true, this will mean a large part of the fighting strength of the Northern Theater Command responsible for the North Korean border area has been re-located to the border.
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Tagschina, People's Liberation Army Ground Force, North Korea, Kim Il Sung, Liaoning, Jilin, Kim Jong Un
(Photo : GETTY IMAGES) A woman and her son watching TV in Chongqing.
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Never underestimate a child who wants to watch TV.
Parents of a 10-year-old boy were left mourning after the boy surnamed Lu jumped from his bedroom window of the family's 20th-floor apartment in Chongqing on Monday night. The child was angry and upset because his parents banned him from watching TV.
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Their street's surveillance camera showed that the boy hit a car, bounced off its hood, and landed on the street near a passerby.
Police has declined to give any details of the incident.
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TagsTV, bizarre news, Weird News, TV, hit a car, grizzly crime, Suicide, children, children suicide in China, TV in China, parents, parents said no tv
(Photo : Getty Images) China launched its first ever throughput communications satellite Shijian-13 on Wednesday, aboard a Long March 3B rocket.
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China has launched its first high-throughput communication satellite, Shijian-13 (also called Chinasat 16), which cannot only give better internet access to planes and remote regions but also help during natural calamities.
"The launch is a milestone for China's communication satellite technology," Tian Yulong, chief engineer of the State Administration of Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense, said.
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The satellite took off at 11:04 GMT on Wednesday from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan Province, boarding a Long March-3B carrier rocket. It will release the Shijian 13 into an elliptical, egg-shaped orbit with a high point of about 22,300 miles above the Earth and a low point of a few hundred miles up.
The satellite would provide better internet service for planes as it has a transfer capacity of 20 Gbps. It would also allow passengers of high-speed trains to enjoy watching videos in high definition. Aside from these technological advantages, the satellite could help people on the ground report emergencies in case natural calamities strike.
With an orbital life of 15 years, the Shijian-13 is China's first satellite to be powered by electricity and could potentially improve by as much as 10 times compared with chemically powered propellants. The electric propulsion system is also lighter compared with traditional rocket thrusters.
State-run Xinhua described the satellite as China's first high-throughput, a class of telecom relay aircraft that could deliver more bandwidth and capacity to end users through frequency allocation and targeting high-demand regions with spot beams.
China plans to launch five more communications satellites within this year. The country is targeting to send 22 communication satellites into space by 2025.
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Tagschina, Satellite, communication satellite, Shijian-13, Long March 3B rocket
Shijian-13.
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China for the first time launched a satellite on April 12, the 56th anniversary of history's first human spaceflight that saw Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin become the first person to orbit the Earth.
Gagarin was also the first human to travel into space. He achieved this feat aboard the Soviet spacecraft, Vostok-1. This historic day has since been celebrated as the International Day of Human Spaceflight.
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Shijian-13 is an experimental geostationary communications satellite that will test electric propulsion on a DFH-3B bus. It will be renamed ZX 16 or ChinaSat 16 after the experimental phase.
The satellite carries China's first high-throughput satellite payload (HTS) with a capacity of 20 gigabits per second. Its transfer capacity of 20 gigabits per second capacity is larger than all of China's communications satellites combined.
It will provide Ka-band satellite broadband and multimedia services. Shijian-13 will enable better internet access in less-developed regions of China, as well as on airplanes and high-speed trains.
She was launched aboard a Long March-3B carrier rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest Sichuan Province at 7:04 p.m. on April 12.
Shijian-13 is also the first Chinese satellite powered by electricity. This method of propulsion will improve its efficiency by as much as 10 times compared to satellites using chemicals as propellant.
"The launch is a milestone for China's communications satellite technology," said Tian Yulong, chief engineer of the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense.
A large number of domestic components were used to build Shijian-13. It also has the first laser communications system installed on a Chinese satellite in geostationary orbit.
The satellite and the rocket were designed by academies affiliated with the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp., and the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology respectively.
China plans to launch six communications satellites this year. Shijian-18 will be orbited in June to test the DFH-5 satellite platform.
By 2025, China will have 22 communication satellites. Five of these will be based on new designs, according to a medium-long term development plan for civilian space infrastructure released in 2015.
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Tagschina, April 12, 1961, yuri gagarin, Vostok-1 spacecraft, International Day of Human Spaceflight, ChinaSat 16, Long March-3B carrier rocket
(Photo : US Navy) F/A-18E/Fs aboard the USS Carl Vinson.
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A squadron of warships from the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) will join the nuclear powered aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70), and its carrier strike group to patrol the Sea of Japan (or East China Sea) off the east coast of the Korean peninsula as North Korea prepares to explode its sixth nuclear bomb.
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Japanese media confirmed the news of the involvement in the U.S. Navy partols by an unspecified number of JMSDF warships. Speculation is rising this JMSDF battle group might include the massive helicopter carrier JS Kaga (DDH-184), the second of only two ships in the Izumo-class of helicopter destroyers. Kaga was commissioned into the JMSDF on March 22.
She is outfitted primarily for anti-submarine warfare (ASW) and carries specialized helicopters for this purpose. She can deploy up to 28 aircraft (mostly helicopters) or 14 larger fixed wing aircraft.
Reliable sources told Japanese media JMSDF intends to join the Carl Vinson's Carrier Strike Group for drills in the Sea of Japan. Tokyo has not issued an official statement about the deployment of JMSDF warships to patrol with the Americans.
Japan's willingness to conduct joint naval patrols along North Korea's eastern border is being seen by some analysts as illustrating the U.S. isn't acting alone in Asia against North Korea's unending provocations.
These provocations involve a relentless launch of ballistic missiles and a sixth nuclear bomb test that might occur on or before April 15, the birthday of the late Kim Il-sung, founder of the North Korean state and grandfather of the current leader, Kim Jong-un.
Only a few days ago, the Carl Vinson and her Carrier Strike Group One (CSG-1) were redeployed northwards from the South China Sea to patrol the Sea of Japan.
The United States Pacific Command (USPACOM) said CVN-70 was being sent to waters off North Korea "to maintain readiness." The carrier is escorted by two Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers belonging to Destroyer Squadron 1.
The Carl Vinson CSG last month took part in joint drills with the Republic of Korea Armed Forces (ROKAF) to prepare for any sudden change on the peninsula. These changes might include a collapse of the North Korean regime or an invasion of South Korea by the north.
The USS Carl Vinson is the flagship of CSG-1. Units assigned to CSG-1 are the USS Carl Vinson; Carrier Air Wing Seventeen; the Ticonderoga-class cruisers USS Bunker Hill (CG-52) and USS Lake Champlain (CG-57) and the Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers of Destroyer Squadron 1.
The offensive power off Carrier Air Wing Seventeen rests on its four squadrons of McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 strike fighters totaling over 40 jets.
The U.S. Navy deployed CSG-1 to the disputed waters of the South China Sea on Feb. 18, a month later than originally expected. The Vinson belongs to the United States Third Fleet.
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TagsJapan Maritime Self-Defense Force, JMSDF, USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70), U.S. Navy, JS Kaga (DDH-184), Carrier Strike Group One (CSG-1)
(Photo : Getty Images) A massive investment program in clean energy is slated to attract 5.4 trillion yuan ($780 billion) of new investments into the Chinese energy system over the next 15 years.
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China's wind and solar industry is anticipated to increase fivefold by 2030, significantly boosting the country's GDP, according to Greenpeace.
A massive investment program in clean energy is slated to attract 5.4 trillion yuan ($780 billion) of new investments into the Chinese energy system over the next 15 years. And the wind and solar sectors could pump a whopping 14.3 trillion ($2 trillion) into the country's GDP. By 2030, China's wind and solar industries would be worth 1.57 trillion ($230 billion) and contribute 1.1 percent of China's annual GDP, Business Green reported.
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"The potential benefits of wind and solar energy in China are staggering," Yuan Ying, climate and energy campaigner of Greenpeace East Asia, said. "Not only could China rid itself of fossil energy sources to the tune of 300 million tonnes of standard coal, it could also save enough water to meet the annual basic needs of 200 million people and add billions of dollars to the national economy."
Demand for direct job opportunities is also expected to leap fourfold to 2.4 million. And indirect jobs like transportation and raw material production is forecasted to increase to 5.3 million in 2030 from 1 million in 2015. Overall, China's wind and solar industries will employ 7.7 million people by 2030.
Ditching coal for emissions-free renewable energy could also bring financial gains. The external environmental benefits are slated to reach 0.3 RMB/kWh, amounting to 456 billion yuan ($66 billion) as a result of replacing fossil energy sources. In 2015, the two industries added about 0.16 RMB/kWh.
Coal-powered plants could also bring water crisis to the country since they consume massive amounts of water. In 2015, the development of solar and wind energies reduced water consumption by 0.57 billion cubic meter. The figure is forecasted to increase to as high as 3.6 billion cubic meter per year in 2030, which is equivalent to the yearly basic needs of 200 million citizens.
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Tagsrenewable energy, solar power, Wind energy, china, China GDP, Greenpeace
[April 13, 2017] Atento appoints Marcelo Geraldi Velloso as Executive Director for Multisector Businesses in Brazil
SAO PAULO, April 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Atento S.A. (NYSE: ATTO), the leading provider of customer relationship management and business process outsourcing services (CRM/BPO) in Latin America, and one of the three top providers worldwide announces the appointment of Marcelo Geraldi Velloso as Executive Director for Multisector Businesses in Brazil. Prior to joining Atento Brazil, Mr. Velloso served as Atento's Business Vice President in Mexico, where he was responsible for operations, clients and business development for the telecommunications, finance and multisector verticals. Born in Belo Horizonte, MG, the executive holds a Bachelors in Economics from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and a General Management Graduate Certificate from Harvard University in Boston. He has over 20 years of professional experience in major companies in Latin America, especially in the banking and financial services sector. Before joining Atento, he held leadership positions in HSBC Mexico, where his scope of responsibilities included retail banking administration and aset management. He was responsible for managing over 11,000 people and 1,000 banking branches throughout the country. Mr. Velloso began his career in the area of marketing and product management for the Gillette Company in Brazil and the United States.
"The appointment of Marcelo Velloso to lead Atento's multisector business practice in Brazil reflects our commitment to adding the best talent to our team and providing the best services to our clients. His broad experience in sectors such as telecommunications and financial services, will contribute greatly to the success of our business," says Mario Camara, Managing Director of Atento Brazil. Mr. Velloso says "I'm extremely happy and honored to be a part of the Atento team in Brazil. I am looking forward leveraging my experience and industry knowledge to growth or business and contributing to the success of our clients in the country."
About Atento
Atento is the largest provider of customer relationship management and business process outsourcing (CRM BPO) services in Latin America, and among the top three providers globally, based on revenues. Atento is also a leading provider of nearshoring CRM/BPO services to companies that carry out their activities in the United States. Since 1999, the company has developed its business model in 13 countries where it employs 150,000 people. Atento has over 400 clients to whom it offers a wide range of CRM/BPO services through multiple channels. Atento's clients are mostly leading multinational corporations in sectors such as telecommunications, banking and financial services, health, retail and public administrations, among others. Atentos shares trade under the symbol ATTO on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). In 2016, Atento was named one of the Worlds 25 Best Multinational Workplaces by Great Place to Work for a fourth consecutive year. For more information visit www.atento.com To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/atento-appoints-marcelo-geraldi-velloso-as-executive-director-for-multisector-businesses-in-brazil-300439436.html SOURCE Atento S.A.
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A nurse in Sweden must assist with abortions if she wants to keep her job, a Swedish court ruled this week.
The Swedish Appeals Court decided Wednesday that Ellinor Grimmark could be forced to help with abortions or else be fired from her job.
Grimmark was fired from her position at a hospital in 2014 because she refused to assist abortions. She filed a claim that the hospital wrongly discriminated against her, but as she looked for other work, she said that other employers didnt want to hire her because of her objection to abortions.
As a midwife, I want to exercise a profession which defends life and saves lives at all cost, she told a newspaper. Are healthcare practitioners in Sweden to be forced to take part in procedures that extinguish life, at its beginning or final stages? Somebody has to take the little childrens side, somebody has to fight for their right to life.
A midwife described to me how she had held an aborted baby in her arms, still alive, and cried desperately for an hour while the baby struggled to breathe, she added. These children do not even have a right to pain relief. I cannot take part in this.
According to LifeNews.com, because the ruling contradicts international law that protects conscientious objection, Grimmark is considering taking her case to the European Court of Human Rights.
Participation in abortions should not be a requirement for employment as a medical professional. In accordance with international law, the court should have protected Ellinors fundamental right to freedom of conscience, said ADF International Director of European Advocacy Robert Clarke in a statement to LifeNews after the ruling. For that reason, Ellinor is considering an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.
Photo credit: Thinkstock
For the fifth time, the annual SOLA Conference for collegians will be taking place this spring, from April 28 to 29 at New Life Community Church in Artesia, CA.
The conference, which has drawn hundreds of college students each year, is unique in that it is hosted and organized through a partnership between several local churches in Southern California. This year, the conference is organized by pastors and leaders from nine churches, including All Nations Community Church, Bethel English Church, Christ Central of Southern California, Crossway Community Church, Good News Chapel, Good Stewards Church, Gospel Life Mission Church, New Life Vision Church, and Living Hope Community Church.
This years conference will be held under the theme, Here We Stand: Always Reforming, in commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation.
Our identity as a network and movement is shaped around the 5 SOLAs of the Reformation, and we didnt want to miss this opportunity to explicitly champion these amazing doctrines, said Michael Lee, the executive pastor of All Nations Community Church. We dont believe there is a better message to offer collegians than the call to live under the authority of scripture alone, to rely on Christ, grace, and faith alone, and to live for the glory of God alone.
Different aspects of the sola themes grace alone, scripture alone, and glory to God alone will be explored during the main sessions, which will feature speakers such as Joshua Harris, author and preacher; Ryan Kwon, the lead pastor of Resonate Church; and Steve Bang Lee, the college and teaching pastor at Living Hope Community Church.
While some seminars will touch upon the Reformation theme as well such as one titled, How the Protestant Reformation changed the world many will be on more specific topics such as struggling with shame as Asian American women; gender identity and the Christian response; choosing to be committed to a local church; and what evangelism and missional living may look like in a post- Christian society; among others.
Organizers expressed hopes that the conference would comfort, inspire, and challenge college students as they reflect on the doctrines of the Protestant Reformation, what the Protestant Reformation meant at that time, and what it means for current day Christians.
Personally, I would love our students know that though they may feel part of a marginalized faith as our world continues to change, theyre not alone. Theyre standing on the shoulders of giants who have walked before them, said Steve Bang Lee. I pray that gives them a sense of strength and peace to know that theyre not part of some isolated religious movement, but theyre part of an unstoppable Kingdom that Jesus is moving forward.
I also would love for the students to walk away with a sense of inspired responsibility that in the blink of an eye, they will be the spiritual leaders of their generation, and that the things they sow in to in the here and now, will have a ripple effect in the then and there, Lee added.
The SOLA Conference has grown in a number of ways over the years. For one, the number of churches involved in the organizing process has grown, from four churches in 2015, seven in 2016, and nine this year.
The conference has also grown to become an entity beyond the conference itself: the SOLA Network.
Led by a team of pastors from the nine local churches which organize the conference, the SOLA Network offers resources online through blog articles and videos through which Christian leaders offer their insights. The SOLA Network will also be hosting another conference in June specifically for young adults, called SOLA Nexus, for the first time this year.
And in its fifth year, the SOLA Conference has become a known, regular gathering that many college students now look forward to each year to reexamine and rejuvenate their faith, according to Stanley Ng, the executive and college pastor at Bethel English Church.
The SOLA Conference has been bringing multiple groups of collegians from multiple parts of Southern California to worship at one place, all in One Name, said Ng. It can be easy for students to find themselves back into the general routine: the repeating aim for a decent grade, the part-time work hustle, the balance of fun and friends all that eventually overwhelms us.
SOLA is the annual pitstop for collegians to engage with the gospel with other collegians, he continued. Its an opportunity to connect, pray, and fellowship.
Alabama governor Robert Bentley went far beyond what most Americansincluding his evangelical supportersconsider cheating, according to a new survey.
Bentley resigned Monday amid an investigation into administration-wide efforts to cover up his ongoing affair with an aide who previously attended his Sunday school class. Among the evidence against the former governor are logs of romantic text messages the two exchanged while Bentley was still married to his wife of 50 years.
His sloppy communication revealed his secret. His wife saw the messages on her iPad, which had been synced over the cloud to the governors phone: You look beautiful and Im so in love with you, followed by heart-eyed emojis.
Evangelicals are more likely than Americans on average, but less likely than mainline Protestants and Mormons, to consider such text messages as a form of infidelity, according to new research by YouGov and Deseret News.
Flirtatious messages cross ...
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'Church Security Seminar' to be Held in Ft. Worth, Texas Contact: Chuck Chadwick, National Organization of Church Security & Safety Management, 972-712-8818
FORT WORTH, Texas, April 12, 2017 /Christian Newswire/ -- Attendees will leave with a greater understanding of how to address critical church security issues during the upcoming seminar entitled "The Three Strands of Church Security." The 1-day seminar, presented by the National Organization of Church Security & Safety Management, to be held at Christ Chapel Bible Church in Fort Worth, is designed to help church leaders address critical security issues faced by all churches.
Session topics include: Security Policies and Procedures
Emergency preparedness Active Shooters, Emergency planning, Evacuations
Mail and package screening precautions, Offering Security and Procedures, Background Checks, effective emergency communications.
Getting Started - How to get a Security Ministry started at your church?
Assembling and training your Church Security Team
How to protect your Pastor, church staff and congregation during services and throughout the week.
Terrorism What should your church really be concerned about?
Handling Disruptive/Exceptional Persons
Technology - What measures are the most effective - Burglary, Fire, Access Control and Video Surveillance systems. The seminar will be presented by nationally known speaker:
Chuck Chadwick Chuck started his career in church security in 2002 as the director of security for one of Dallas / Fort Worth's largest Christian churches with attendance of over twenty thousand per weekend and numerous campuses throughout the metroplex.
In 2005 Chuck founded the National Organization for Church Security and Safety Management serving thousands of churches across America.
In 2006 he licensed Gatekeepers Security Services which serves Texas churches with over 350 licensed Personal Protection Officers.
In 2009 the Christian Security Institute was established as a private security school training hundreds of licensed church personal protection officers.
2016 brought about the American Society of Christian Gatekeepers which serves individuals with security strategies dealing with Christian ministries.
Today Chuck spends most of his time managing these various entities and in research and development of church security resources. The conference will be Saturday, April 29 9:00 a.m. noon. Admission is $49 per person.
The location: Christ Chapel Bible Church, 3701 Birchman Ave, Fort Worth, TX 76107
For more information, call 972-712-8818 or visit the seminar website at www.nocssm.org.
The National Organization of Church Security & Safety Management was founded in 2005 by Charles "Chuck" Chadwick to help churches throughout the nation in addressing church specific security and safety issues.
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Houston's second annual Black Restaurant Week will be April 17 through the 30, when the city will highlight black-owned businesses.
Among the notable places participating are Holley's Seafood Restaurant & Oyster Bar, Lucille's, Kitchen 713, Da Marco's, The Shack and several others.
The teen accused of killing his parents was released on bond Wednesday afternoon, according to court records.
Antonio Armstrong Jr., 17, is accused in the July 2016 deaths of his parents, Dawn and Antonio Armstrong who were found dead inside their southwest Houston townhome. He was released on a $200,000 bond.
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A Baytown politician, in his very first elected position, recently got to bend the ear of a political vet to see just what he's in for, thanks to NPR.
Charles Johnson was recently elected to Baytown's city council. He's not leaving his job at a nearby chemical plant because council member pay isn't too terribly much. He filled out the paperwork, did the door-to-door campaigning, won the election, and was sworn in back in January at Baytown City Hall.
NPR's "All Things Considered" caught up with him as he moves into his fourth month in office.
HOT AND FRESH: Krispy Kreme to open in Baytown
NPR paired Johnson with Ryan Coonerty, who is the Third District Supervisor for Santa Cruz County, California, for a mentoring session of sorts to see what tips the Californian could share with the Texan. It's part of a new series called "Been There" which features people who have put in the time with those that are just starting their journey.
Johnson is an example of a private citizen and family man that decided to get into public life to make a difference where he lives. That's where a lot of politicians start, as outsiders. Even though he grew up in Baytown and started a family there, he had a lot of learn about city politics.
Coonerty was the mayor and a councilman in Santa Cruz for close to a decade, so he had plenty of similar experiences to share.
A NEW CAUSE: Harris County officials push to name courthouse in Baytown after Clint Greenwood
"All of a sudden you have ran, campaigned and then you are standing before your community with your hand in the air and you are upholding to some pretty high ideals to support and defend the Constitution of the United States and to really serve your community," Coonerty said in the NPR piece. "It's humbling and inspiring and scary all at the same time."
Coonerty said that interacting with people who had more experience than him was a challenge. Learning all about his colleagues and what motivates their constituency was key.
He also gave Johnson some tips on dealing with the public, like bringing business cards everywhere and getting your frozen foods at the grocery store last.
"Because, people are gonna stop you in the aisles, and they're gonna want to talk to you, and your food will melt. Everything is gonna take you a little bit longer, cause people all have opinions," Coonerty said.
WANTED: Baytown robbers on the loose after shooting clerk
Constituents also have strong opinions on issues that a politician has to vote on. Coonerty said that this is the hard part, because it's not easy to make a decision that will make everyone happy.
Another essential tip from Coonerty was the essential art of ribbon-cutting at various ceremonies.
"You don't want to screw up somebody's big opening of their restaurant by not being able to actually cut the ribbon," Coonerty said. "It's actually surprisingly tricky to cut things with those giant scissors."
Judging by Johnson's official Facebook page he's been doing a fine job in his community so far.
(Bloomberg) -- A developer has dropped plans to use the Trump Organizations new Scion brand for a proposed $50 million hotel in downtown Dallas after the project drew national attention, scuttling the potential partnership.
Dallas Councilman Philip Kingston said he was informed by Mike Sarimsakci, founder of Alterra International, on Tuesday that he plans to team with a different hotel operator for the project. Kingston said he met with Sarimsakci and others at Dallas City Hall at Sarimsakcis request after Kingston and another council member criticized the developers plans to go into business with President Donald Trumps company. The Trump Organization said it asked Sarimsakci to halt the plan after he called attention to it by talking to local and national media.
The current situation is the result of a phone call this developer made to our company asking whether he should pursue the project with the city council. We told him that he should not, Trump Hotels said Thursday in an emailed statement. This developer made quite a bit of noise about a potential deal and now there is more noise about the possible dissolving of this deal.
Sarimsakci didnt respond to calls and emails seeking comment. The news about the project being halted was reported Wednesday by the Dallas Morning News.
More for you Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago kitchen had more than a dozen health code violations
Sarimsakci said in February that the Scion project would be funded by individual investors in countries including the U.S., Turkey, Qatar and Kazakhstan. The 220-room hotel was set to open in the first quarter of 2019. Trumps family company, now run by his two oldest sons, would have licensed the Scion brand and managed the hotel, and didnt plan to invest any equity capital, Sarimsakci said at the time. He said he had signed a letter of intent with the Trump Organization.
Trump No More
Mike is trying to proceed with the project, but the Trump Organization is no longer the operator he is seeking to do a deal with, Kingston said in an interview Wednesday.
Hotel-development projects often dont come to fruition, Trump Hotels said in its statement.
Trump Hotels Chief Executive Officer Eric Danziger outlined plans for a national expansion at an industry conference in January, five days after the president took the oath of office amid calls by ethics experts to divest himself of his business holdings.
Trump Hotels business model with Scion is to find partners to put up the equity capital while the company licenses its brand and manages the properties, a typical arrangement in the lodging industry. The companys Scion line is intended to attract travelers seeking less expensive accommodations and a more modern design than Trump Hotels namesake luxury properties offer.
Trump Hotels had previously declined to comment on the Dallas project, citing company policy not to speak about deals that arent signed. A letter of intent is merely an informal agreement to explore a deal.
We do not announce deals that are not signed for a variety of reasons. We also take our relationships with partners and potential partners very seriously and we keep the specifics of our business dealings private, Trump Hotels said in its statement Thursday. Having said that, we wouldnt want for this situation to be misconstrued or misrepresented.
The new hotel Sarimsakci plans to develop is still likely to have foreign money backing it, Kingston said, citing his conversation with the developer.
Kingston said he is a Democrat who voted for Hillary Clinton in the November election. He said Trumps anti-Mexican and anti-Muslim campaign rhetoric, along with his actions and conflicts of interest as president, caused him to object to the Scion project.
Bad Brand
The president is a bad brand and we have to protect the Dallas brand, Kingston said. Were trying to sell ourselves internationally as a city thats welcome and open for business travelers, new residents, innovators, young professionals, and the president is an extremely bad brand. Hes a hateful and ignorant man who says things that are hurtful to the people I care about.
The Trump administration imposed a travel ban on seven Muslim-majority countries in January, sparking chaos at airports, lawsuits and criticism from technology and travel industry executives. Judges blocked the executive order, and a federal judge ruled last month that a revised travel ban was just a cleaned-up version of the original.
Kingston, a practicing lawyer, said Trumps disregard for the rule of law -- and for the decisions of the judiciary -- is specifically hurtful to me and my profession.
2017 Bloomberg L.P.
Sansoro Health Raises $5.2 Million to Drive Integration of Digital Health Applications with Electronic Medical Records
Sansoro Health, an award-winning pioneer in data integration for health care, today announced that it has closed $5.2 million in Series A funding led by Bain Capital Ventures. Sansoro Health makes it easy to exchange real-time health care data between digital health applications and electronic medical records (EMRs). The new funding will be used to expand sales, marketing and operations to accelerate Sansoro Health's vision of transforming health care IT ecosystems through real-time digital health interoperability.
"Innovation in health care will drive improved patient outcomes at lower cost, and meaningful change demands modern, secure data exchange," explains Jeremy Edes Pierotti, CEO, Sansoro Health. "True interoperability empowers health care organizations to evolve, adapt and innovate to serve patients. We could not be happier to have the recognition and partnership of Bain Capital Ventures, a leading health care and technology investor that recognizes what is needed in health care to accelerate progress."
Sansoro Health won the 10th annual Venture+ Forum startup competition as part of the 2016 Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Annual Conference. The company was also selected by Healthcare Informatics (News - Alert) as one of only six national "Up and Comers 2016." Additionally, Sansoro Health won the Software and Web Applications category of the 2016 annual Leaders in Health Care Awards, presented by Minnesota Business.
Sansoro Health's integration software Emissary creates value for leaders across digital health, insurance, life sciences and health systems by quickly and securely connecting applications to EMRs for a seamless exchange of health data. The plug-and-play solution leverages robust web services to provide bi-directional, EMR-agnostic APIs to connect third-party technology products with major EMR platforms. Emissary has been implemented by nearly 20 healthcare organizations since its introduction in 2015 - facilitating the exchange of thousands of API calls per month.
"Sansoro Health solves the #1 problem for most hospital CIOs, who often have a 2-3 year backlog of systems to integrate," said Yumin Choi, managing director of Bain Capital Ventures. "Jeremy has built a spectacular team with deep industry expertise, and they've developed an elegant solution that is far superior to anything we've seen in this space. Unlike other vendors that rely on limiting data formats, Sansoro offers robust integration that can cut implementation from months to days."
BCV has a long history of success in healthcare technology and services. Active portfolio companies include Apixio (healthcare data science), Quanterix (high-definition diagnostics) and Remedy Partners (bundled payment SaaS (News - Alert) and services). Prior exits include ABILITY Network (Summit Partners); Accelecare (Healogics); Boston Heart Diagnostics (Eurofins); Enclarity (LexisNexis (News - Alert)); Humedica (UnitedHealth); Liazon (Towers Watson); Liberty Dialysis (Fresenius); MedeAnalytics (Thoma Bravo); MedHOK (Hearst); MinuteClinic (CVS); and National Cardiovascular Partners (Fresenius).
Prior to the Series A investment, Sansoro Health received $1.2 million in seed funding in 2016, led by San Francisco-based investor Healthy Ventures with additional funds from TreeHouse Health and angel investors.
About Sansoro Health
Sansoro Health makes it easy to exchange real-time health care data between digital health applications and electronic medical records. Sansoro's core product, EmissaryTM, leverages APIs for a quick and secure plug-and-play solution enabling innovators to scale quickly and health care to take the next big step towards true interoperability. For more information, visit http://sansorohealth.com.
About Bain Capital Ventures
Bain Capital Ventures partners with disruptive B2B founders to accelerate their ideas to market. The firm invests from seed to growth in enterprise software, infrastructure software and industries being transformed by data. BCV has helped launch and commercialize 200-plus companies since 1984, including investments in DocuSign, Kiva Systems, LinkedIn (News - Alert), Rapid7, SurveyMonkey, Taleo and TellApart. BCV has approximately $3.7 billion of assets under management with offices in San Francisco, New York and Boston. Follow BCV via LinkedIn or Twitter.
View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170413005726/en/
Three gunmen are on the run after robbing a northwest Houston IHOP early Thursday morning, police said.
The men entered the IHOP off of Highway 290 near Hollister Road around 2:45 a.m. They held up the employees at gun point and demanded money. The employees opened the cash register and the safe. The robbers nabbed the cash from both and escaped.
Some heavy hitters are scheduled to appear at next week's "Celebration of Reading." Several boldface names, including David Brooks and Sue Grafton, will be in Houston Thursday to read and discuss their work at the Barbara Bush Houston Literacy Foundation's big book event.
An annual fundraiser hosted by Barbara Bush and by Maria and Neil Bush, "A Celebration of Reading" supports the work of the Bush family's local and national literacy foundations.
Here's the lineup for Thursday's event:
David Brooks: The New York Times columnist was just added to the lineup last week. His most recent book, "The Road to Character," is about finding the core values that lead to a rich, rewarding life amid the distractions of a self-centered culture. He's known for more best-sellers that reflect on our culture, including "Bobos in Paradise" and "The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character and Achievement."
More Information A Celebration of Reading
6:30 p.m. Thursday, April 20
Hobby Center for the Performing Arts, 800 Bagby
Tickets start at $100; www.bushhoustonliteracy.org See More Collapse
Sue Grafton: Grafton's the author of the "Alphabet Series" of mystery novels, which started with "A is for Alibi" in 1982. Since then, she has churned out a bestseller for every letter of the alphabet "B is for Burglar," "C is for Corpse," and so on. Grafton's series has almost reached the end: The 25th installment, "Y Is For...", will be published in August.
Jim Gaffigan: The stand-up comedian is also the author of two books. "Dad is Fat," Gaffigan's first book, is a collection of essays on life with his wife and five kids. "Food: A Love Story," published last year, is billed as "an in-depth, thoroughly uninformed look at everything from health food to things that people actually enjoy eating."
Read Chronicle columnist Ken Hoffman's interview with Gaffigan.
Bill Browder: Browder, the co-founder and CEO of Hermitage Capital Management, is author of the bestseller "Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice." Browder made his fortune investing in Russia; in 2005, he had become the country's largest foreign investor when he suddenly was deported and declared a threat to national security. In 2009, Browder's tax attorney was killed in prison after alleging that Russian officials had committed fraud against taxpayers.
Houston native Harris Wittels loved jokes and he loved Phish, so the inaugural Harris Phest honoring the comedian and writer will offer some version of both.
A stand-up comedian and writer for "Parks and Recreation," "Master of None" and "The Sarah Silverman Program," Wittels died in February 2015 in Los Angeles. His sister Stephanie Wittels Wachs will mark his birthday, April 20, with the event at the 8th Wonder Brewery.
Humble Rotary invited Michael Bell, community engagement manager for Rise Against Hunger, to speak on the work he does with the possibility of the future involvement from the Rotary Club.
Rise Against Hunger advocates for hunger issues around the world, specifically targeting countries with the highest rates of food scarcity.
"We were founded in 1998. We started packing meals in 2005, and since then our meals have been distributed to over 70 different countries but we focus in areas with high rates of food insecurity," Bell said.
Bell was first introduced to the organization when it was known as Stop Hunger Now, while in college in Jackson, Mississippi.
"I volunteered with their meal packaging program, and then when I moved down here to Houston, I was looking for something to do and I learned that they wanted to launch a program here in Houston," Bell said.
With a need to always help people and work to eradicate world hunger, Bell said the road to success is thanks to the number of volunteers and partnerships that have help grow the organization.
"Over all, the growth of our organization since the beginning, since 2005, our meal packaging program has grown exponentially, now we really are with the brand change," said Bell.
Bell said that Rise Against Hunger also works by investing in the community.
"We invest in the communities that we serve, so we don't consider ourselves a food bank. We distribute our foods internationally to developing countries with high rates of food scarcity," said Bell.
To follow along with how many meals Rise Against Hunger packages and the latest numbers on total people served, visit http://www.riseagainsthunger.org.
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Galveston police named a 21-year-old known gang member as a suspect in a shooting Sunday at the San Luis Hotel and Conference Center that left a security guard in critical condition.
Police arrested and charged Tyronne Davis Haynes Monday at 6:35 a.m. for criminal trespassing in a neighborhood about half a mile from the hotel. He is being held in the Galveston County Jail on a $5,000 bail.
Haynes, who has not been charged in connection with the shooting, is a documented member of a gang in Missouri City called Gorilla Mob 187, Galveston Police Department Capt. Joshua Schirard said.
Police believe at least two other gunmen were involved in the shooting of 23-year-old Philip Molis. Both are likely members of the same gang, Schirard added.
Police are offering a $30,000 reward raised by community members for information that could lead to the arrest and conviction of anyone involved in the case.
"These suspects don't care if it was a police officer, a security guard," Schirard said. "They just turned around and shot."
Molis was patrolling the back parking lot of the hotel around 10:15 p.m. Sunday when he saw several people involved in what he thought was suspicious activity, Schirard said.
When the security guard approached, the gunmen turned around and fired at him, striking the security guard multiple times, Galveston police said Monday. The gunmen then fled the parking lot.
Molis was transported to the University of Texas-Medical Branch hospital where he underwent surgery. He is still in the hospital in critical condition, family members said Thursday.
"He has so much he wants to accomplish in life and so much motivation to do so," said a woman who said she was aunt at a press conference on Thursday. "This tragedy has truly broken our family's spirit."
Molis had been a security guard at the hotel since 2011, family said.
At least 10 cars were broken into on Sunday at the hotel. Galveston police have not said at this time if anything was stolen from those vehicles.
Police are asking community members with information to contact their tip line at 409-765-3762 or the Galveston branch of Crime Stoppers at 409-763-8477.
The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has granted Texas death-row inmate Duane Buck the right to pursue his claims of ineffective counsel and relief under a rule that covers mistakes and neglect - a move that could spare him from execution.
In February, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that race improperly tainted Buck's death sentence and remanded the case to the lower court for a new hearing.
In a two-page ruling filed Thursday, the federal appeals court also ordered him released unless the state initiates proceedings for a new trial for punishment within six months or "elects not to seek the death penalty and accedes to a life sentence."
Buck was convicted in Houston 20 years ago for the killings of his ex-girlfriend, Debra Gardner, and her friend, Kenneth Butler. He was sentenced to death after a psychologist testified he would be a continuing threat to society because he is black.
The case, which has made national headlines for years, could be a harbinger of how the country's highest court deals with death penalty cases with racial overtones, experts have said.
After February's decision, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said her office would review Buck's case, including speaking with the victims' families and looking over mitigation evidence, before deciding how to proceed.
"Racially charged evidence has no place in any courtroom, and this administration will not tolerate its presence," she said. "We remain committed to seeking justice for the victims of Duane Buck's heinous criminal acts and will do so without what Chief Justice Roberts described as the 'strain of racial prejudice' present at the 1997 trial in which Buck was convicted."
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Jerry Ivins' life changed in high school when he tried out for a high school play in an effort to attract attention from a girl he had a crush on.
"I was just trying to meet a girl," explained the Deer Park resident, who chairs the theater and film department at San Jacinto College's central campus in Pasadena.
This week, Ivins could change the lives of a number of high school thespians when he judges the state AAA University Interscholastic League one-act play finals in Bastrop.
At San Jac this year, Ivins has also hosted several preliminary rounds of UIL contests, including a regional 6A meet on April 8 in which the quest for a state title ended for Pasadena Dobie High School's production of scenes from "Wit" and Pearland Dawson High's "Antonio Lorenzo Vannozzo's Pinnochio."
Earlier that week, Deer Park High's production of scenes from "Love of a Pig," Dickinson's High "The Last Days of Judas Iscariot" and Friendswood High's "Golden Boy" competed in an area 6A meet that Ivins hosted.
"All roads seem to lead to San Jac," he said.
When Ivins was a child, his family moved to Mississippi from Oklahoma.
"It was way out in the country (in Mississippi) where I grabbed a movie camera and started making films," he recalled. "I've had jobs since I was 8, and I spent my money on developing Super 8 films that I made."
When Ivins was a teenager, his family moved to Paris, Texas.
"I was so shy, I stared at my shoes," he said. "But I was desperate to meet this girl. I didn't have the courage to talk to her; so I auditioned for the UIL play. I was one of two guys in the whole school to try out."
Both Ivins and the object of his affection were cast, but it was Ivins who was honored at the district UIL contest, as best actor, in "Where Have All the Lightning Bugs Gone?" by Louis E. Catron.
Paris Junior College took notice.
"They ran right up to me and offered me a scholarship," said Ivins, who would collect more honors in productions at the junior college, including his performance in "Lou Gehrig Did Not Die of Cancer."
Ivins continued to study theater education in college. "My parents thought it was crazy. I was the black sheep of the family for not getting a job at a factory," he said, laughing.
Ivins was a student at Texas Tech University in Lubbock when he began directing stage productions and managing UIL one-act play contests.
This fall, San Jac will host the Texas finals of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Association competition.
"The benefit to our students is the connection they make with other universities," Ivins said. "Our students work backstage with the competing schools, and a number of times, they will apply at those universities, and someone will say, 'I remember you from San Jac.' A lot of our students win scholarships that way."
Something else San Jac does is present an awards to a crew member from every school that competes in a UIL contest at the college.
"It isn't an official UIL award, but we make a big deal out of it," Ivins said.
The crew awards are chosen by Jay Thomas of South Houston, who is the events and facilities coordinator at San Jac, and others who work backstage with the high schools that compete in UIL.
"The awards are based on how professional the tech kids are and how much their work enhances the production," Ivins said.
Don Maines is a freelance writer who can be reached at donmaines@att.net
[April 13, 2017] RASTRAC Announces StreetComplete for Specialty Vehicle Mapping
AUSTIN, Texas, April 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- RASTRAC, a leader in the GPS tracking and fleet management industry, has developed StreetComplete to give users the ability to map service coverage area with real-time, color-coded, aging routes. This makes it a powerful, versatile, and fully customizable tool designed for any application that requires repeated coverage or monitoring of a specific service area. The customizable color coding system allows users to have an "at a glance" view of how much time has passed since a route received service. For example, in winter, municipalities often use StreetComplete to manage snowplow operations. With this program, custom timers can be set according to the city's needs, and fleet managers can see which roads are the most in need of clearing. Knowing how long it has been since a given route was visited is an effective means for improving coverage in each service area. Since the user can customize the time ranges assigned to each color, StreetComplete is a very versatile application for performing live monitoring of a given service area. For example, a green color code may be set for a route that was just completed, a yellow one for a route that is nearing the normal deadline for the next maintenance, and a red code for a route that is overdue. This allows one to quickly assess which routes are most in need of service. While nomal GPS tracking solutions can help improve the distribution of your assets in the field, using StreetComplete can help you take this a step further. "Knowing which areas are most in need of service allows you to redistribute your field assets to where they can have the biggest impact without overlapping. This helps improve the overall efficiency of your field operations," says Mike Feeley, National Sales Director at RASTRAC.
StreetComplete will be shown at the APWA 2017 North American Snow Conference in Des Moines, Iowa April 23-26, 2017 at booth 1144. ABOUT RASTRAC: RASTRAC (www.rastrac.com) is a leading GPS fleet tracking and remote asset management solution for companies of all sizes. Founded in 1993, RASTRAC has provided vehicle tracking solutions to companies all over the world to help them reduce their operating expenses. The GPS fleet tracking and remote asset management solutions offered can help reduce unnecessary costs on everything from excess fuel usage to costly vehicle breakdowns, and more.
Media Contact:
Brian Dziuk
Phone: 512-918-0700
Email: [email protected] Related Images image1.png image2.png Related Links StreetComplete Related Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2C2T4QJ6t_M 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/rastrac-announces-streetcomplete-for-specialty-vehicle-mapping-300439276.html SOURCE RASTRAC
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A Houston man is suing the city over its charitable feeding ordinance, saying the 2012 ban on feeding the homeless violates his religious rights.
Phillip Paul Byrant, who describes himself as a devout Christian, filed a lawsuit in Harris County court challenging the ordinance, which requires advocates to obtain permission from property owners - public or private - before feeding more than five people.
Houston police are investigating after a man was shot in west Houston.
The man was shot around 8:20 p.m. in the 9400 block of Briar Forest Drive.
Police officers are currently on scene. Officials did not provide any further details on the mans's condition or a suspect involved in the shooting.
This is a developing story. Check back here for updates.
Blanco Middle School counselor Lisa Rogers was arrested Tuesday after being accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a student.
The district released this statement:
"It is with heavy heart that I am writing to notify you that, yesterday evening, Blanco school officials were notified that Blanco Middle School counselor Lisa Rogers has been arrested and is accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a student.
"There is an ongoing criminal investigation, but we want to assure you that the safety and well-being of all of our students remain our highest priority."
ARRESTED: Texas martial arts teacher accused of sexually assaulting two students
Counseling services will be provided to students at the high school and middle school campuses, district officials said.
No further details were immediately available, as the district aims to be "vigilant in protecting student privacy."
Dozens of criminal prosecutions could be in jeopardy after errors by a Houston crime-scene investigator raised questions about key evidence in cases that include 26 homicides, five officer-involved shootings and six child deaths since 2015.
The revelations Wednesday in a crime lab audit sent prosecutors with the Harris County District Attorney's Office scrambling to untangle the possible problems, first with a blanket notification to criminal defense attorneys and then a public statement.
"Any deficiencies in the collection of evidence at a crime scene are extremely disturbing and important," said David Mitcham, the trial bureau chief of the DA's office. "It's not minor. It can create problems of proof later in a court of law."
It is the latest in a string of unrelated evidence problems that have left prosecutors reviewing hundreds of cases in the past year.
More Information Evidence troubles aren't new Harris County has been beset in the past year with a series of problems involving forensic evidence. In July, 298 wrongful convictions were identified as part of an ongoing audit of Harris County convictions that had been based only on roadside tests or circumstantial evidence that later was found to be incorrect. The same month, the Houston Forensic Science Center identified problems uncovered in an audit of crime scene unit investigations that might have effected officer-involved shooting cases. In September, the Harris County District Attorney's Office announced the office was reviewing hundreds of cases after revelations that officials at the Precinct 4 Constable's Office had improperly destroyed evidence. Also in September, questions were raised about testing in DWI cases after a toxicology expert resigned amid scrutiny that she had misrepresented her academic qualifications. In October, more than 4,200 criminal cases involving 15,000 pieces of evidence were under review after a sprinkler malfunctioned in the Houston Police Department's evidence room. See More Collapse
The crime scene investigator made errors in 65 cases since 2015 by failing to gather possible blood evidence, collect weapons or shell casings or take photos at crime scenes, among other shortcomings, according to an audit by the Houston Forensic Science Center.
The independent crime lab replaced the beleaguered Houston Police Department lab that had gained national notoriety for mismanagement and other problems.
The alert Wednesday sent defense attorneys likewise digging through case files.
"Everybody knows the HPD crime lab, now called HFSC, has had their issue over the past years," said Tyler Flood, president of the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association. "It just seems like new issues keeping popping up and this is the newest one in the saga of that laboratory."
Houston Police Officers Union President Ray Hunt sharply criticized the crime lab and the DA's office for their handling of the situation, saying police officers are being used as scapegoats. He said the officers were not trained properly for the jobs they were doing.
"I'm tired of every time they have a problem, they want to put the blame on a police officer," Hunt said Wednesday. "So let's let it lie where it belongs - on the management of the Houston Forensic Science Center."
Police Chief Art Acevedo said Wednesday that the department will conduct an "administrative inquiry" into the problems.
"At this time, we have no indication of misconduct by any HPD employees but have been made aware that corrections to reports were needed," he said in a written statement.
The lab notified the Texas Forensic Science Commission of the problems, and the state agency will consider the audit at its next meeting in May, officials said.
The full commission could decide to investigate, table or take no further action, said Kathryn Adams, the state commission's coordinator.
Evidence left at the scene
Auditors reviewed 88 cases handled by the officer, and found that 65 had incomplete documentation, including 32 with administrative errors. In eight cases, evidence had been misplaced.
The investigator repeatedly failed to collect DNA swabs or test for latent fingerprints, and left sometimes-bloody evidence - a towel or belt used to strike a homicide victim - sitting at the scene.
In at least two cases, the investigator failed to take measurements of bloody footprints, and once reported he did not take photos because he "did not want to contaminate his camera equipment," according to the audit.
The crime-scene investigator, Justin McGee, an HPD officer assigned to the lab, has been sent back to patrol. His supervisor, Sgt. Jeff Cruser, who was cited in the audit for failing to catch McGee's mistakes during routine checks, has been removed temporarily from service, officials said.
Efforts to reach the officers Wednesday were unsuccessful and HPD public information officers declined to make them available for comment.
After years of reform, the crime lab - still located in HPD's downtown headquarters - became independent in 2014 and is now overseen by a civilian board. New standards were adopted while new technicians and supervisors were brought in.
More than a dozen crime scene investigators, however, are HPD officers, a source of continued friction.
Peter Stout, the lab's president and chief executive, said officials called for an audit after spotting possible problems during a review of records.
"We - the laboratory - (found) performance that we were not happy with and that caused us to go look through all of the records of this particular investigator to see what may be the extent of the problem," Stout said. "This is part of the challenge of getting a unit that we have known from the start had issues and this is part of fixing those issues."
According to Stout, the forensic center has been working to hire civilians in the crime scene unit, which now employs about 30 people, including 13 Houston police officers, he said.
The district attorney's office learned about the problems on April 3 from the Houston Forensic Science Center and began notifying defense attorneys late Tuesday, Mitcham said.
"We appreciated the prompt notice," Flood said. "We need to know as fast as possible because there are cases happening in court every day and we just want to make sure that none of those are handled improperly."
Cases under review
Among the cases with evidence problems are five officer-involved shootings between the fall of 2015 and spring 2016.
The most recent came in March of last year, when officers responded to a call for a shooting in progress in the 200 block of South 70th. They found 28-year-old Johnathon Sanchez armed with a pistol, and opened fire when he pointed the gun at officers, according to police.
Sanchez was charged with aggravated assault of a public servant, but seven months later prosecutors added a murder charge, accusing him of fatally shooting a woman the day of his arrest.
Among the evidence that the audit says was mishandled in the case was a spent cartridge case left at the scene that the investigator concluded "appeared to be unrelated."
Allen Isbell, Sanchez's attorney, said the revelation will factor into the defense strategy, especially when it comes to putting together two alleged crime scenes.
"The big thing is if they say the casings found at the shooting with police officers matched the casings or bullets found where the woman was murdered," Isbell said. "It's two different scenes."
He said he was shocked to hear about yet another evidence debacle at the crime lab.
"I'm surprised, quite frankly," he said. "Since we went through all of this before I thought we'd be doubly careful this time, and it appears that somebody was not careful. It's troubling to think, since scientific evidence is so important to a jury, that we don't make sure to cross every t and dot every i before we give out a report."
In another shooting, Geno Salinas is accused of murder in a case he said was self-defense.
His attorney, Deborah Summers, said the crime scene investigator's inaccurate measurements or recording of those measurements may make a difference in the case.
"We really need a very accurate picture of what was happening," Summers said. "There's certainly some questions about how some of the evidence was collected and what was not collected."
Other cases of officer-involved shootings - including the death of a driver after a fatal car crash in November 2015 and the accidental shooting of a 16-year-old suspect during a foot chase - were described as having "minor" errors.
The cases involving six child deaths and several instances of child abuse cited problems including findings that possible evidence had been left behind or not reported - including a towel that may have contained blood and a BB gun.
Crime scene photos revealed the evidence but it was not collected or included in the report, the audit said.
Child Protective Services officials were not aware of any investigations that may have been affected, but they contacted the Houston Forensic Science Center for more information, according to a CPS representative.
Lise Olsen and St. John Barned-Smith contributed to this report.
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The absence of the Houston Police Department and sheriff's office was glaring during a Monday morning news conference where Gov. Greg Abbott announced plans to ramp up anti-gang initiatives in Harris County.
But HPD officials confirmed on Wednesday that it is in fact assigning two squads to the initiatives despite the governor's omission explaining just how local law enforcement would fit into the state's efforts.
Mayor Sylvester Turner and Police Chief Art Acevedo declined to speak on the governor's motives or why they were excluded but simply chalked it up to a minor oversight.
The governor's office said it was simply a matter of wanting to focus on the state and federal aspect of the effort.
However, during the Monday news conference Abbott and DPS director Steve McCraw made sweeping statements about Houston and Harris County.
They mentioned residents living here illegally fuel violent crime, that violent crime is "increasing at an alarming rate" and "residents are living in constant fear" - sentiments HPD and Turner refute.
Acevedo said crime is not increasing and has remained relatively flat for the past five years.
The police chief did not comment on why the governor would make such statements but said it goes against the data his department has collected.
Turner not only agreed with Acevedo, but warned he would not tolerate such inaccurate narratives about the city.
"I don't want you coming to the city of Houston and knocking this city. I'm not going to accept that from anyone," he said. "I appreciate the governor's concern, but we will do our very best to protect the citizenry, and I applaud HPD, Chief Acevedo for what they're doing."
Harris County Judge Ed Emmett also said Abbott's visit and statements were startling.
Emmett said he called Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez, who said he was not notified of Abbott's new initiative.
Emmett said the county, like the city, already has an active task force to fight gang violence.
He added that while the county does have crime, the idea that there was a "burgeoning problem" in the region came as a surprise.
Still, HPD will provide two new squads to assist in what local officials are calling a welcomed effort.
Details are still being worked out, but the squads will focus on gang violence and violence perpetuated by documented gang members, Acevedo said.
In addition to the two squads, the state will deploy Texas Rangers and DPS special agents to support local law enforcement in Houston.
Abbott's office also will provide $500,000 in new funding from the governor's criminal justice division to increase Texas Anti-Gang Center resources in the Houston area.
The FBI also will provide additional personnel.
Abbott said he was inspired to act based on a series of violent headlines out of Houston since January.
"This recent wave of senseless violence cannot continue," he said.
Acevedo agreed with Abbott in that Houston and Harris County are constantly facing ongoing challenges, noting that the partnership with the state is not new and only a part of an evolving collaboration.
"I don't think the sky is falling, but there is plenty of crime to go around in the city of Houston," Acevedo said. "And in a time of limited resources, partnerships are important."
Houston police are searching for the gunmen responsible for a shooting outside a southwest-side shopping center on Wednesday that sent three young people to the hospital.
The victims, an 11-year-old girl and two boys, believed to be about 15 or 16, were shot about 4 p.m. in the 5800 block of Renwick. They were taken to area hospitals with what Houston police said were non life-threatening injuries. The girl was shot in the arm while the two boys were shot in the foot and the leg.
AUSTIN -- The Senate's chief budget writer asked Attorney General Ken Paxton on Wednesday whether an accounting maneuver that the Senate used to balance its budget is legal.
If Paxton agrees, it would affirm the Senate's plan to delay for one month the transfer of $2.5 billion from sales tax revenues to the state highway fund.
The request appears to cloud the legitimacy of the Senate plan, until Paxton's decision is rendered.
Senate leaders said privately they are confident Paxton will affirm their plan, the Nelson's request was only to quiet criticism about its transfer plan once and for all.
The Senate budget maneuver has been blasted by House leaders as improper and illegal, with House Speaker Joe Straus saying his chamber would not go along with the other chamber's plan. The House has instead proposed drawing roughly the same amount from the state's savings account -- commonly called the Rainy Day Fund -- to balance its version of the budget.
In a two-page letter to the head of Paxton's opinions committee that affirms decisions about the wording and meaning of state law, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Jane Nelson asked whether "a delay in making each fiscal year deposit to the state highway fund under . . . the Texas Constitution until September of the following year violate that constitutional provision."
"The Comptroller expressly informed me that it is not possible to calculate net revenue and remit the appropriate payment to the highway fund until after the close of the fiscal year" on August 31, Nelson wrote.
"Is a strict interpretation of (the constitutional provision) required when it would be impossible to actually comply? Or may the Comptroller comply with that provision by making the payment as soon as it can be calculated?"
The request to Paxton came Wednesday after Comptroller Glenn Hegar, in a two-page letter to Nelson, appeared to leave open the question of how the transfer could be handled. Hegar noted that he "identified a conflict in the constitutional provision (establishing the fund) that requires the transfer be made out of net revenue and where the same provision also appears to require that the transfer be made in the same fiscal year as the revenue was collected and deposited to (the state's general revenue fund)," Hegar states in his letter.
"The concept of net revenue is critical to this discussion."
On Tuesday, Nelson asked Hegar to clarify how the transfer needed to take place to be legal. With budget negotiations between the Senate and House expected to start next week, she asked for an expedited response.
"A resolution of this issue is paramount in order for the conference committee on Senate Bill 1 (the budget) to make an informed decision about our state budget," Nelson said in her clarification request to Hegar.
Senate leaders said Wednesday that they would let Nelson's correspondence speak for itself. House officials said they had not seen the request for a Paxton opinion, but they reiterated their earlier opposition to the Senate plan and highlights why they questioned the maneuver in the first place.
[April 13, 2017] Campus Montreal - Over $581 million raised for research, merit scholarships, infrastructure and campus life
MONTREAL, April 13, 2017 /CNW Telbec/ - This morning, accompanied by Helene David, Minister responsible for Higher Education, and Denis Coderre, Mayor of Montreal, the leaders of HEC Montreal, Polytechnique Montreal and Universite de Montreal announced that Campus Montreal's major fundraising campaign has raised $581 million in philanthropic donations, beating its target of $500 million. "We carried out the most ambitious fundraising campaign ever seen in a Francophone university environment," announced Guy Breton, Rector of Universite de Montreal, at the beginning of a press conference this morning. "These donations will provide direct support for major projects in four areas: research, merit scholarships, infrastructure and campus life. Above all, they will help us better pursue our mission for the benefit of all." Michel Patry, Director of HEC Montreal, reminded the audience that philanthropy often serves as a catalyst for getting promising projects off the ground. As an example, he pointed to the founding of IVADO, the Institute for Data Valorization. "Campus Montreal was the catalyst at the oriin of IVADO," Mr. Patry said. "Today, international Internet giants like Google and Microsoft are showing an interest in the institute's work."
Christophe Guy, Chief Executive Officer of Polytechnique Montreal, added that this major fundraising campaign has already led to the establishment of 30 research chairs and funds in medicine, engineering, management, entrepreneurship, humanities and social sciences. "Campus Montreal's philanthropic commitments enabled existing organizations to be strengthened and new ones to be proposed," he explained. "It's mission accomplished, and we'd like to say 581 million thank yous to all those who made this campaign possible."
Denis Coderre, Mayor of Montreal, reminded the audience of the important role that universities play in the city. "After Boston, Montreal has the second most students of any city in the Americas," he said. "What's more, we've just been ranked as the top university city in the world for welcoming foreign students." "Universities are places of knowledge and research that bring unique dynamism to our city," Mr. Coderre added. "It's very reassuring to see that the philanthropic community is doing its part."
"Campus Montreal was able to rally driving forces in the philanthropic community for the benefit of the three institutions helped by the campaign: places of knowledge, research and expertise. In my eyes, the success of this campaign represents a cultural shift in Francophone philanthropic circles, and that's an extremely welcome development. When our universities receive philanthropic support, the entire province benefits," commented Helene David, Minister responsible for Higher Education. Campus Montreal is an umbrella organization that has conducted a joint fundraising campaign for HEC Montreal, Polytechnique Montreal and Universite de Montreal since 2013. Donations will be added to the final count until fall 2017, Campus Montreal's five-year anniversary as a public organization. Together, these three institutions are in the top percentile of the world's best universities. They form one of the largest Francophone university complexes in the world, and the leading university research hub in Quebec. Campus Montreal's major financing campaign was headed by John Parisella in the role of Executive Director. Louise Arbour, Helene Desmarais, Geoffrey Molson, Michael Sabia and Thierry Vandal served as co-chairs. SOURCE Campus Montreal
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[April 13, 2017] New Nursing Education Center Opens in Portland, Ore.
Regional health care professionals gathered April 12, 2017, for the Grand Opening of Concordia University Portland's new Nursing Skills Center at 9600 SW Barnes Road in Portland, Ore. adjacent to Providence St. Vincent Medical Center. The new facility is specifically designed to support Concordia University's new accelerated bachelor of science in nursing (ABSN) program, which expands the university's decade-long track record of graduating caring and competent nurses with a heart for service. The new 11,980 sq. ft. facility includes large lab spaces, two simulation rooms, with high-tech medical mannequins that simulate real patient conditions, an observation room, student collaboration space, faculty offices and conference rooms. It will house students enrolled in the ABSN program, a 16-month option for students who qualify. With a nursing shortage looming for Oregon - an estimated shortfall of 6,000 nurses by 2025, according to the Health Resources and Services Administration - Concordia University-Portland is stepping up to prepare more nurses through both its nationally accredited bachelor of science in nursing (BSN) degree program and the new ABSN program.
Concordia graduates pass the national licensure exam at 91.67%, well above the national average pass rate of 83.7 %, and higher than any other private university in Oregon. "As a military veteran and non-traditional student, I appreciate the accelerated curriculum both online and in the skills center because I already have a lot of practical experience from my time in the military," shares Tim Walker (News - Alert), a Vancouver, Wash. native, who is a member of the first cohort of students in Concordia University's ABSN program.
"As the demand for nurses increases in our community, Concordia is committed to providing the latest and most advanced educational options for students," says Dr. Sarah Sweitzer, Dean of Concordia University's College of Health and Human Services. "Concordia's Accelerated BSN program allows students to earn the same quality degree in a concentrated timeframe, so graduates can serve the community as soon as possible. With three start dates per year, students may apply to start right away." To learn more visit accleratednursing.CU-portland.edu or call 866.892.5321. ABOUT CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY Concordia University-Portland is Oregon's largest private, nonprofit university. Located in northeast Portland, Ore., Concordia is a Lutheran, liberal arts university with a mission of preparing leaders for the transformation of society. Founded in 1905, Concordia Portland serves approximately 5,000 students on its campuses and online, through its College of Education, College of Health & Human Services, College of Arts & Sciences, School of Management, and Concordia University School of Law in Boise, Idaho. For more about Concordia University, visit www.cu-portland.edu and www.concordialaw.com. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170413005959/en/
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Akkineni young hero Naga Chaitanya's latest ongoing 14th untitled film shooting took place at an alarming rate. The film's first schedule ended on March 11th and second schedule began from this month April 3rd in surrounding areas of Hyderabad. Now, this second schedule was also completed. The filming took place as continuously so far without gaps. Some scenes have depicted in night at Saroornagar and also some hospital scenes were filmed in this second schedule. Lavanya tripathi is playing the female lead opposite Chaitu.
This schedule was filmed on these both lead actors. Next schedule begins from this month 15th. Versatile actor Srikanth is playing pivotal role. Pellichoopulu fame Vivek Sagar is composing the tracks. The movie is being directed by debutant Krishna RV Marimuthu and is produced by Vaaraahi Chalana Chitra along with Suresh productions as co-producers. Rajamoulis son SS.Karthikeya being working as line producer.
SHAREHOLDER ALERT: Levi & Korsinsky, LLP Announces an Investigation Concerning Possible Violations of Delaware Law by Cotiviti Holdings, Inc.
Levi & Korsinsky announces it has commenced an investigation of Cotiviti Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:COTV) concerning possible breaches of Delaware law by the board of directors of the company. To obtain additional information, go to:
http://zlk.9nl.com/Coviti_Holdings_COTV
or contact Joseph E. Levi, Esq. either via email at [email protected] or by telephone at (212) 363-7500, toll-free: (877) 363-5972.
Levi & Korsinsky is a national firm with offices in New York, Connecticut and Washington D.C. The firm's attorneys have extensive expertise in prosecuting securities litigation involving financial fraud, representing investors throughout the nation in securities and shareholder lawsuits. Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.
View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170413006009/en/
Fundatia de Binefacere Caritas Moldova solicita oferte de pret de la companii cu privire la productia de materiale de vizibilitate
[April 13, 2017] AFAR Launches Trip Planner
NEW YORK and SAN FRANCISCO, April 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- In its mission to inspire, enable, and guide discerning travelers to deeper, richer, and more fulfilling experiences, AFAR introduced its newest tool, Trip Planner, on Thursday. AFAR's Trip Planner is a significant step towards fulfilling the company's vision of seamlessly converting inspiration into action for the world's most frequent and discerning travelers. In a world where travelers have an almost infinite access to content, and booking travel is one click away, AFAR built its trip planner to help bring travelers closer to deeper experiences. AFAR Media pioneered the saving of its travel recommendations into customized lists when it launched Place Pages (i.e. places to eat, drink, stay, do, and shop). Today's evolution expands its trip planner capabilities by making the saving of travel content easier and more useful for its 78,000+ places and 3,000+ articles and slideshows. Travelers can now 'one-click save' all content across AFAR.com, including places, lists, articles, and slideshows. In addition, travelers can arrange their trip plan into days, add notes, and create custom items unique to their trip. The new bookmarking browser tool allows travelers to clip travel rcommendations, points of interest, and other practical information from around the web into their AFAR trip plans.
"We know travelers visit multiple sites when planning trips," said AFAR's CTO, Derek Butcher. "Our goal was to make sure they could save content from around the web in one place that converts inspiration into action. In doing so we've vastly expanded trip planning capabilities for AFAR travelers." The product has been in beta for the last month. Mr. Butcher confirmed that feedback from testers was overwhelmingly positive, with most comments focused on the ease of saving travel recommendations into lists, making trip planning easier and more organized. "We designed Trip Planner to make saving travel recommendations easier and more useful for our audience. We're excited that Trip Planner is bringing experience closer to our audience than ever before," commented Butcher.
The AFAR Trip Planner is sponsored by American Express Travel and made possible by their commitment to cultivating meaningful experiences. About AFAR Media: AFAR Media is dedicated to inspiring and enabling deeper, richer, and more fulfilling travel experiences. AFAR launched as a print travel magazine at the height of the recession in 2009 to approach travel in a way that no other media publication was doing and has grown into the most critically acclaimed multiplatform travel media company, with the most traveled and most influential audience. Based in New York and San Francisco, AFAR's diverse portfolio of platforms includes: AFAR magazine; AFAR.com; Learning AFAR, a non-profit program that introduces the importance of travel to high school students; the AFAR Travel Guide mobile app; and AFAR Experiences, an immersive travel event series. Media Contact: Irene Wang, 646-873-6552, [email protected]
To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/afar-launches-trip-planner-300439590.html SOURCE AFAR Media
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On The Kicker this week, we discuss White House Press Secretary Sean Spicers job performance to date. Spicers gaffe in comparing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to Adolf Hitler was only the latest in a string of controversies emerging from behind the lectern in the Brady Briefing Room. Then, we have some fun imagining the life of a journalist in 2027. The impetus for the conversation was a recently published CJR story on the impact of artificial intelligence on journalism.
Finally, author and Columbia Journalism School professor Todd Gitlin talks with Dave about the medias love affair with war. Gitlin is a fierce critic of the manner in which journalistsboth in print and especially on televisionreport on events like last weeks missile strike in Syria. He and Dave discuss the historical context for this concern, and how the media could better cover military action.
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Pete Vernon is a former CJR staff writer. Follow him on Twitter @ByPeteVernon.
Booming online retail sales are good news for the U.S. Postal Service, but its carriers are incurring a cost: more dog bites.
Dog attacks on postal workers rose last year to 6,755, up 206 from the previous year and the highest in three decades, as internet shopping booms and consumers increasingly demand seven-day-a-week package delivery and groceries dropped at their doorstep. The high for attacks dated back to the 1980s, at more than 7,000, before maulings by pit bulls and other potentially aggressive dogs became a public issue.
Los Angeles topped the 2016 list with 80 attacks on postal workers, followed by Houston with 62 and Cleveland with 60.
The Postal Service released its annual figures Thursday as part of National Dog Bite Prevention Week, which begins Sunday.
A longtime cliche of movies, dog biting of mail carriers or at least dog chasing is no laughing matter for the post office. Medical expenses and workers compensation cost the Postal Service millions of dollars each year.
Overall, an estimated 4.5 million Americans are bitten by dogs annually, mostly children. In the last year, dog attacks on carriers rose 3 percent. Still, while dog bite claims are rising, there are signs attacks may be less severe: The average cost per claim fell last year by more than 10 percent to $33,230, according to the Insurance Information Institute and State Farm.
Its always on your mind as a carrier, Is there a dog in the area and is it a threat? said James Solomon, a 17-year postal carrier. Officially, 2 percent of carriers were bitten last year, but Solomon says every carrier he knows has some kind of dog experience to tell, from outrunning to cajoling a territorial pet.
The post office hopes more public awareness will help.
After a 14 percent jump in dog attacks in 2015, the post office launched a Trip Hazards app on handheld devices to help warn carriers of potentially hostile dogs. Customers are asked on package pickup applications if there are dogs at their addresses. In extreme cases, residents will be told to pick up mail at a post office until a repeat offender dog is restrained.
Even good dogs have bad days, said U.S. Postal Service Safety Director Linda DeCarlo in Los Angeles. Dog bite prevention training and continuing education are important to keep pet owners, pets and those who visit homes like letter carriers happy and healthy.
She urges owners to secure their dogs in a separate room before opening the door and to remind family members not to take mail directly from letter carriers in front of their dog, which may view it as a threatening gesture.
Rising dog attacks come amid double-digit increases in the post offices package business. While U.S. population growth means more residences to deliver to, postal carriers are also visiting homes more frequently and at all times of day, with packages or groceries in hand, thanks to agreements struck with Amazon in 2013 and 2014.
United Parcel Service said its 66,000 deliverers suffered about 900 dog bites last year, a percentage that has remained fairly stable. Spokesman Dan McMackin, a former UPS driver who used to carry dog biscuits to woo surly pets, said he found pit bulls and smaller dog breeds to be more nettlesome than hunting dogs such as Labrador retrievers and beagles who dont have much to prove.
FedEx Corp. said it does not collect numbers on dog attacks.
Solomon, who lives in Hatboro, Pennsylvania, said he thought he had learned all the tricks to prevent attacks: watch the dogs mannerisms, use the mail satchel as a shield, or pull out the emergency dog spray if needed it contains an extract of cayenne pepper.
But last week, those safeguards werent enough when a woman answered his knock.
It was three little hot dogs who came out and bit me on the shin, Solomon said, describing dachshunds. It didnt hurt that much, but it was very aggressive, one after the other.
Robert Lieb, a professor of supply chain management at Northeastern University, said he expects dog attacks to keep increasing. Still, the online industry continues to change, and dogs may prove to be less of a problem if Amazon changes its delivery to a new method: drones.
The question is whether drones will land or parachute the packages down, said Lieb, a former shipping consultant. I would see eagles, not dogs, taking out drones.
Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
A 20-year-old man whose pickup collided with a church minibus last month in rural Texas, killing 13 people, told state troopers he had taken prescription medication before driving and had marijuana in his truck, according to court records.
The records obtained from Uvalde County showed a state trooper found two whole marijuana cigarettes and five partially smoked ones in Jack Dillon Youngs truck after the March 29 crash that happened on a two-lane highway about 75 miles (120 kilometers) west of San Antonio, the San Antonio Express-News reported Tuesday. An affidavit from another state trooper seeking a blood test for a toxicology report said the trooper had probable cause to believe Young was intoxicated during the collision because the man told a trooper he had taken prescription medication earlier in the day, including clonazepam and the generic forms of Lexapro and Ambien.
A phone call to a number listed for Youngs family went unanswered Tuesday. A message left by The Associated Press for the judge who signed the documents was not immediately returned.
No charges had been filed in the crash as of Tuesday. District Attorney Daniel Kindred has said it could be more than a month before the investigation file from the Department of Public Safety is forwarded to his office.
The collision took place near Garner State Park. The small church bus carrying 14 older congregants from the First Baptist Church of New Braunfels was returning from a retreat.
Officials from Uvalde and Real counties confirmed they had received phone calls about a white pickup truck driving erratically and crossing the highway shortly before the wreck. A couple who had been driving behind Youngs pickup filmed his car crossing into the oncoming traffic lane and onto the shoulder.
The couple later confirmed they had called the county law enforcement officials and later 911 when the collision occurred. The man later told police and reporters, including the AP, that Young had told him he had been texting before the accident.
A National Transportation and Safety Board investigator said Young was not wearing his seatbelt, while most if not all of the 14 church bus occupants had been wearing theirs. Only one passenger in the back row of the bus survived the crash.
The NTSB investigation of the crash, which will include a likely cause and any safety recommendations for the future, could take up to a year to complete. Kindred and other officials said that report has no bearing on when or whether criminal charges are filed.
Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
An early warning system for earthquakes has been expanded to Oregon and Washington, joining California in testing a prototype that could give people seconds or up to a minute of warning before strong shaking begins.
The system isnt ready to issue public quake warnings yet, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, which has been working with university partners to develop the ShakeAlert system.
But this version allows early adopters in Oregon and Washington to begin using the early signals to figure out what they need to do in the event of an earthquake. Such pilot projects are helping to make the system more reliable and pave the way for broader use.
Officials with USGS, the University of Washington and others held a news conference Monday in Seattle to announce the systems roll out across the U.S. West Coast. California has been testing the production prototype since early 2016.
Even a few seconds of advanced notice can help people to duck and cover or cities to slow trains, stop elevators or take other protective measures, agency officials say.
In Washington state, a Seattle area firm RH2 Engineering has signed on as a pilot user to test the system to prevent water tank spills, The Seattle Times reported. The firm develops municipal water and sewage plants and hopes to use the system to be able to close valves in the event of an earthquake.
The advantage of earthquake early warning is that it gives us forewarning that the shaking will occur, and we can be sure the valve is fully closed by the time the shaking starts, the firms Dan Ervin told the newspaper. The company is working on software and hardware to process the warning signals and automatically close valves.
The early warning system detects earthquakes using a network of ground motion sensors. The amount of warning time depends on distance from an earthquakes epicenter. Locations very close to the epicenter may not get any warning, but others farther away could get anywhere from seconds to minutes.
The University of Oregon is working with the Eugene Water & Electric Board, Oregons largest public electric and water utility service, to install sensors on its hydroelectric facilities, canals and water treatment plant, the Daily Astorian reported.
The USGS says it will cost $38.3 million in capital investment to complete the ShakeAlert system so that it can begin issuing alerts to the public. It will cost about $16.1 million each year to operate and maintain it.
Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
[April 13, 2017] AARP Launches "Operation: Stop Scams" with Events in Communities Nationwide
WASHINGTON, April 13, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The AARP Fraud Watch Network brings fraud-fighting efforts to consumers nationwide in "Operation: Stop Scams" -- a month-long series of events in communities coast-to-coast, as AARP state organizations sponsor more than 150 free local events in nearly every state and the District of Columbia from Friday, April 14, through Tuesday, May 16, 2017. Events include: paper-shredding events, fraud education programs popularly referred to as "scam jams," Fraud Watch Network background presentations, tele-town halls and phone bank call-out sessions to warn consumers of the latest scams. Consumers can find their closest local event at www.aarp.org/OperationStopScams. "Many Americans clear out and discard their obsolete financial documents at the end of the tax-filing season in April. Our shredding events in dozens of communities provide a convenient and safe way for people to destroy this sensitive paperwork," said Nancy LeaMond chief advocacy and engagement officer, AARP. "April also brings the personal finance awareness activities of Money Smart Week, so we're excited to do our part with events to teach consumers to be smart about avoiding fraud and scams." Money Smart Week, April 22-29, is collaborative between thousands of organizations across the United States that offer financial education programs, classes and activities.
Examples of AARP "Operation: Stop Scams" events range from a financial forum in Louisville, Ky.; to a "Scam Jam" in Cedar Rapids, Iowa; to a Clinton Township, Mich., presentation by AARP Fraud Watch Network Ambassador Frank Abagnale. Paper-shredding events total more than 100. Some 250 tons of sensitive documents were destroyed during a similar AARP National "Shred Fest" in 2016. The AARP Fraud Watch Network launched in 2013 as a free resource for people of all ages. The website provides information about fraud and scams, prevention tips from experts, an interactive scam-tracking map, fun educational quizzes, and video presentations featuring Fraud Watch Network Ambassador Frank Abagnale. Users may sign up for "Watchdog Alert" emails that deliver breaking scam information, or call a free helpline at 877-908-3360 to speak with volunteers trained in fraud counseling.
About AARP
AARP is the nation's largest nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to empowering Americans 50 and older to choose how they live as they age. With nearly 38 million members and offices in every state, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, AARP works to strengthen communities and advocate for what matters most to families with a focus on health security, financial stability and personal fulfillment. AARP also works for individuals in the marketplace by sparking new solutions and allowing carefully chosen, high-quality products and services to carry the AARP name. As a trusted source for news and information, AARP produces the world's largest circulation publications, AARP The Magazine and AARP Bulletin. To learn more, visit www.aarp.org or follow @AARP and @AARPadvocates on social media. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/aarp-launches-operation-stop-scams-with-events-in-communities-nationwide-300439613.html SOURCE AARP
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[April 13, 2017] PBS SoCal KOCE to Invest $49 Million Earned from FCC Broadcast Incentive Auction to Expand Its Free Services across Southern California
PBS SoCal KOCE, the flagship PBS station for Greater Los Angeles and Southern California, announced it earned $49 million through its participation in the FCC (News - Alert) Broadcast Incentive Auction and will invest these one-time revenues in expanding its mission across the region. There will be no change for viewers; PBS SoCal will continue to broadcast, for free and in high quality (UHF), the full line-up of PBS programs on all four of its current channels over the air, via cable and satellite, and online at pbssocal.org. "Our priority as the primary PBS station for Greater Los Angeles is to ensure we can deliver PBS programs to the 18 million people across the six counties in our region well into the future. We retained the bandwidth necessary to accomplish that," said Andrew Russell, President and CEO of PBS SoCal. "The one-time auction revenues allow us to achieve another important objective: to invest in expanding our mission by providing more services to more people across the region." Following a long and thoughtful process, PBS SoCal's board of trustees and management decided to participate in the FCC Broadcast Incentive Auction in which broadcasters were able to sell all or part of their broadcast spectrum. Through a channel sharing agreement with local Los Angeles full power television station KSCI, PBS SoCal retained most of the stations' combined spectrum, ensuring sufficient bandwidth to serve the Southern California region while earning revenues that will be invested in building for the long-term future of PBS SoCal. That plan includes increasing investment in PBS and other programming, making strategic investments in content production and broadband services that reach more audiences via mobile and web, and building a strong financial foundation for PBS SoCal's future by restructuring debt and creating an investment fund that generates annual revenues. "PBS SoCal remains deeply committed to serving Southern Calfornia and advancing the PBS mission," Russell continued. "While these one-time auction revenues will help us expand our mission, we are grateful for the individuals, foundations and corporations whose collective ongoing support comprises more than 80 percent of our annual budget. Your support continues to be essential - particularly as our important federal funding is under threat - to ensuring the news, public affairs, arts and science programs that are critical for an educated and informed citizenry."
The President's budget proposes the elimination of federal funding for public broadcasting, which amounts to $1.35 per citizen per year. The loss of federal funding would have a devastating effect on PBS's ability to produce the quality content our viewers love - educational kids' programs like Daniel Tiger, documentaries from Ken Burns, unbiased news from PBS NewsHour and FRONTLINE, and dramas from Masterpiece would all be affected. Local PBS stations would struggle to operate and some would close - ultimately resulting in a collapse of the PBS system. A recent bipartisan survey found that 73% of voters across political lines oppose the elimination of federal funding for public broadcasting. Congress will ultimately decide through the budget process if funding continues. "There is no viable replacement for federal funding of public broadcasting," Russell said. "The one-time funds from the spectrum auction will not come close to closing the large fiscal gap that would be left by the loss of annual federal support. Federal funding is vital seed funding that helps stations raise the local support that represents more than half of our annual budgets."
ABOUT PBS SoCal KOCE: PBS SoCal is the home to PBS for Greater Los Angeles and Southern California. We deliver the full schedule of PBS programs plus content that is for, about and by the people of Southern California. Our content is available free through four broadcast channels, at pbssocal.org, on our mobile apps, and via connected TV services. And we provide the community with early education resources and cultural and educational experiences through partnerships, events and grassroots outreach. PBS SoCal has offices in Century City, Costa Mesa, and Los Angeles. Connect with us at pbssocal.org and on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170413006097/en/
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[April 13, 2017] Integrity Applications Board Appoints Avner Gal as Chairman Emeritus and Scientific Advisor
ASHDOD, Israel, April 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Board of Directors of Integrity Applications, Inc. (OTCQB: IGAP), maker of GlucoTrack, a noninvasive device for measuring glucose levels of people with Type 2 diabetes and pre-diabetics, announced that it has appointed Avner Gal as Chairman Emeritus. Mr. Gal co-founded Integrity Applications and served as the company's CEO, Chairman of the Board and a director for 16 years. Mr. Gal is also joining Integrity's Scientific Advisory Board and will continue to work with the company in a part-time consulting role. "As a co-founder and prior CEO of Integrity, Avner has unique insight into and understanding of the company's challenges and opportunities," said John Graham, CEO and Chairman of Integrity. "We are pleased that he will continue to contribute his technical and scientific expertise as we move forward with realizing the commercial potential of the GlucoTrack device. We thank Avner for his many years of service and strong stewardship of the company, which set the stage for this important new phase of growth." About GlucoTrack
GlucoTrack is a non-invasive device that measures and displays an individual's glucose level in less than a minute without requiring a finger stick to draw blood. GlucoTrack features a small sensor that clips to the earlobe and measures the wearer's glucose level by taking measurements using three technologies. The measured signals are analyzed using a proprietary algorithm and displayed on a small handheld device the size of a mobile phone. The derived glucose measurement is also announced verbally, facilitating use by vision-impaired diabetes patients. GlucoTrack has received CE Mark and KFDA approvals for Type 2 diabetes and pre-diabetics, and is urrently being commercialized in Europe, South Korea and other geographical areas.
GlucoTrack is expected to begin clinical trials for United States FDA approval in the first half of 2017. The product is currently experimental in the United States and is limited to investigational use only. About Integrity Applications, Inc.
Integrity Applications was founded in 2001 and is focused on the design, development and commercialization of non-invasive glucose monitoring technologies for patients with diabetes and pre-diabetics. The company has developed GlucoTrack, a proprietary noninvasive glucose monitoring device designed to obtain glucose level measurements in less than a minute without the pain, incremental cost, difficulty or discomfort of conventional invasive finger stick devices. Integrity Applications operates primarily through its wholly-owned Israeli subsidiary, A.D. Integrity Applications, Ltd. For more information, please visit www.integrity-app.com and www.glucotrack.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
This news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Statements contained in this news release that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, words such as "expect", "plan" and "will" are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned that certain important factors may affect Integrity Applications' actual results and could cause such results to differ materially from any forward-looking statements that may be made in this news release. Factors that may affect Integrity Applications' results include, but are not limited to, the ability of Integrity Applications to raise additional capital to finance its operations (whether through public or private equity offerings, debt financings, strategic collaborations or otherwise); risks relating to the receipt (and timing) of regulatory approvals (including FDA approval); risks relating to enrollment of patients in, and the conduct of, clinical trials; risks relating to its current and future distribution agreements; risks relating to its ability to hire and retain qualified personnel, including sales and distribution personnel; and the additional risk factors described in Integrity Applications' filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2016 as filed with the SEC on March 31, 2017. Contact:
Sami Sassoun, CFO Integrity Applications
[email protected]
+972 (8) 675-7878 Ext. 400 To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/integrity-applications-board-appoints-avner-gal-as-chairman-emeritus-and-scientific-advisor-300439577.html SOURCE Integrity Applications, Inc.
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Being newly retired is definitely a reason to celebrate and spend some of the hard-earned money you've saved over the years. Yet with Americans living longer, experts say you need to plan for a retirement that could last 30 years or more. Add in ever-rising medical costs, mostly stagnant Social Security checks and all of a sudden that pile of cash doesn't look so big. The issue of outliving your money is a real threat. To avoid having that happen don't make these classic new-retiree mistakes.
Spending too much too soon
Making the transition from earning money to spending money when you first stop working is tricky. Especially if you're healthy and eager to enjoy all that new free time. "We get this all the time, where recently retired clients will do a trip to Europe or Asia, then spend four weeks in Caribbean, saying, 'When we get older we'll slow down,'" said Chris Schaefer, who leads MV Financial's Retirement Plan Practice Group, Bethesda, Maryland. "They're eating so much of principal in early retirement that they don't have enough to last." Schaefer suggests that working with a financial planner to create a withdrawal strategy for your retirement accounts is key. He says a good starting point is taking out no more than 4 percent of your total nest egg a year.
Overspending on the house
Robert Daly | Getty Images
Wanting to be debt free is an admirable goal and one that works for many retirees. However if you haven't paid off the mortgage yet, rushing to do so may not be your best move. As long as you have the cash flow to comfortably make the payments, Schaefer says don't sacrifice your retirement savings by using a big chunk to pay it down. Instead keep it invested where it should continue to grow. Plus having a mortgage offers tax benefits you can still claim as a retiree.
Overspending on the kids
Hemera Technologies | Getty Images
In one of its latest efforts to raise funds, Singaporean real estate developer City Developments Limited issued a green bond a fixed income product with proceeds used to finance projects or activities that help the environment. "Green financing offers us an alternative financing stream. There is an increased interest in socially responsible investments and a growing demand for relevant products," Sherman Kwek, CDL's deputy chief executive, said in a statement earlier this month. The company's issuance, which raised 100 million Singapore dollars ($71.1 million), is the first in Singapore as the Southeast Asian city state seeks to grow its marketplace for sustainability-oriented investments.
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Such products, though not new in the finance world, saw demand rise at a faster pace after the Paris climate change agreement was reached in December 2015. The accord, which came into effect in November 2016, will see nearly 200 countries work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions with the aim of containing climate change. Moody's Investors Service said in January this year that green bond issuance rose 120 percent in 2016 to a record $93.4 billion, and it has the potential to hit $206 billion in 2017. Reflecting the wider global appetite for green investment products, commonly known as sustainable or impact investments, a report published last month by the Global Sustainable Investment Alliance (GSIA) showed that socially responsible assets under management grew to $22.9 trillion at the start of 2016, 25 percent more than 2014. Such assets account for 26.3 percent of total managed assets. Industry players interviewed by CNBC said global investors are increasingly considering environment, social and governance (known in the industry as ESG) factors. That shift comes alongside growing awareness of climate issues from the melting Arctic ice caps to Southeast Asia's trans-boundary haze pollution. "Impact investing makes sense to investors because it allows them to diversify their portfolios with a new asset class As years pass and more actors are participating in impact investing, this inspiration is paired with results that show that positive impact can be generated alongside financial returns," said Durren Shahnaz, founder of Impact Investment Exchange, a platform that helps social enterprises raise funds. As environmental and social development issues continue to dominate headlines, tighter regulations have come into force, requiring companies to be more transparent about their commercial activities and to improve governance standards, the interviewees said.
Activists protest the Polar Pioneer, an oil rig leased by Royal Dutch Shell Plc that is bound for the Arctic, at a rally and march in Seattle, Washington. Jason Redmond | Reuters
Legislation plays a big part in promoting sustainable investing in Europe, the region that is leading the pack with $12 trillion worth of assets under management. That represents 52.6 percent of total assets held by European firms, according to the GSIA report. "The Nordics are certainly leading the way in terms of ESG integration. The U.K. and the remainder of continental Europe are also fairly advanced," said Eric Cockshutt, head of responsible investment of Swiss asset manager Unigestion, offering the example of French legislation that requires pension plans to disclose the carbon footprint of their holdings. Asian firms, meanwhile, have less than 5 percent of their holdings $526 billion in sustainable assets. The region offers significant growth opportunity as pollution issues have raised awareness of the impact that companies' value chains can have on the environment, said Arnout van Rijn, chief investment officer at Robeco Asia Pacific. "Across this region the landscape is beginning to change too, in part driven by the increasing awareness of the massive capital needed to finance the region's transition to a low-carbon future In China there is a remarkably active interest for the topic among the large institutions," he said.
The business case for sustainable investing
Van Rijn said there is a growing body of academic research, such as a 2015 study out of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, which found that sustainability-themed investments perform just as well, if not better, than competing products without a sustainability element. "Various studies theorize that firms that adhere to sustainability principles should outperform those that do not because they prioritize long-term corporate objectives over short-term profits. This allows them to enjoy more stable earnings growth and less downside volatility," he said. "However, if investors focus too much on the quarterly earnings or short-term performance and pay less attention to long-term strategies, companies are discouraged from investing in sustainable practice that could benefit them in the long-term."
A Chinese man wears a protective face mask as he passes by the CCTV Headquarters on November 30, 2015, in Beijing, China. Getty Images
The commercial space industry is dominated by Western heavyweights, such as Elon Musk's SpaceX, Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin. But players in Asia say they aren't worried about that competition. As corporate spending eclipses government activity throughout the global space sector, Japan's PD Aerospace and China's Kuang-Chi Science are among Asia's homegrown private firms planning to offer spaceflight services to civilians.
PD Aerospace - Koike Terumasa Design & Aerospace
Shuji Ogawa, CEO of PD Aerospace, acknowledges that it's unlikely Asian companies can rival SpaceX, Virgin Galactic or Blue Origin, but he said there's more than enough demand to go around. "When we have reached their present stage, they will have advanced further," he said. "Space tourism is a universal dream, not only for Japanese but for all people. It is important for us to view the Earth from space." His Nagoya-based company is currently developing a reusable sub-orbital space plane featuring a propulsion system that alternates between jet and rocket mode. It's expected to carry eight people two pilots and six passengers over 100 kilometers above the Earth. The Karman line, which lies 100 km above sea level, is the boundary between Earth's atmosphere and outer space. PD Aerospace says it intends to conduct its first trial in 2020, with the hope of commencing tourism operations in 2023. Because Japan is small, securing testing areas has been a challenge, Ogawa said. The initial price tag for a trip is set at 14 million yen ($126,639) but Ogawa intends to eventually lower the cost to 398,000 yen ($3,600). "We want to offer space tours to ordinary people." In comparison, Virgin Galactic charges $250,000 for a voyage designed to exceed 100 km in altitude, according the company's website. Meanwhile, a trip to Mars 54.6 million kilometers from Earth could cost $200,000 with SpaceX. Blue Origin has yet to reveal pricing details. Those figures would mark a significant reduction from previous spaceflight costs. In 2011, the world's first space tourist, American Dennis Tito, paid $20 million to travel to the International Space Station (ISS), which typically orbits 350 km above the Earth. In 2008, England-born Richard Garriott de Cayeux paid $30 million to spend 12 days on the ISS. More recently, SpaceX announced it will fly two individuals to the moon next year but didn't reveal how much the duo would be forking out.
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In December, PD Aerospace received 20.4 million yen from ANA Holdings, Japan's largest airline group, and 30 million yen from one of the country's leading travel agencies H.I.S. for a 7 and 10.3 percent stake, respectively. Ogawa said more funding was in the pipeline but couldn't reveal any details.
Near space travel
"There is one very realistic factor that makes Asia the perfect market for space tourism: Asia is a heavily populated continent and in most cities, traffic gridlock is a headache," Liu Ruopeng, chairman of Kuang-Chi Science, told CNBC.
There is one very realistic factor that makes Asia the perfect market for space tourism: Asia is a heavily populated continent and in most cities, traffic gridlock is a headache. Liu Ruopeng chairman of Kuang-Chi Science
The Shenzhen-based firm has built a capsule attached to a giant helium balloon that's capable of taking six passengers anywhere from 20 to 100 km above Earth an area known as near space. "Near space is a highly undeveloped area and has great potential. Here, passengers don't need to be trained like astronauts to be physically qualified to travel. Everyone can go," said 34-year-old Liu. Called the "Traveler," the platform can also collect meteorological and agricultural data, deliver high-speed wireless network coverage and conduct high-precision ground monitoring. Ticket prices have yet to be decided, but Liu said the initial cost would be much lower than current prices.
The "Traveler" by Kuang-Chi Science. Kuang-Chi Science
The Traveler has already undergone two unmanned test runs since 2015 the second of which housed a live turtle and a third is scheduled for later this year, according to the company. It hopes to complete a trial with humans on board by 2020. Like Ogawa, Liu doesn't view other spaceflight players as rivals he calls them "complementary companies." A Duke University graduate, Liu was especially confident on demand from his home country. "People in China have witnessed great changes in their life in recent years. More and more Chinese travel abroad and one day, they will travel to space...Consumers are looking forward to this." Space is just one of the many sectors in Kuang-Chi Science's portfolio. Aside from the Traveler, the firm has also manufactured jetpacks for personal transportation, emergency rescue and military use. It also boasts a clean energy powered vehicle designed to transport goods to remote areas, with more flexibility than airplanes and a payload of 30 tons. These ambitions have earned Liu the nickname "Elon Musk of China." "Musk and I actually focus on different areas, but we are both innovators trying to expand possibilities for humans," he said.
Elsewhere in Asia
Outside of North Asia however, private space tourism has yet to take off.
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Alan Levine | Flickr
Kentucky is home to 95 percent of the world's bourbon, but until recently, what you've see in stores and on bar shelves is limited to what's currently available or what the seller has been able to hang on to. Antique bottles are relegated to museum displays or private collections. But a new law signed last month by Kentucky governor Matt Bevin that will allow individuals to sell their vintage bottles to licensed retailers changes all that. "It's going to unlock a bunch of treasures that are truly going to transform the Kentucky bourbon experience," Kentucky Distillers Association president Eric Gregory told NBC News. "We really have no idea what's out there... generations of bottles that have been trapped with no way to see the light of day because there was no way for people to sell them. Now they can sell them legally and locally More from NBC News:
Retailers Use Augmented Reality, High Tech To Lure Shoppers
Explosions Rock German Soccer Team Bus Before Champions League Match, Injuring Player
Sean Spicer: 'I've Let the President Down' Laws vary from state to state and some larger markets allow people to sell their so-called "dusties" to retailers, Gregory explained. "You go to these places in New York and D.C. and they are meccas for whiskey lovers around the world." "With the success of these incredible whiskey bars around the country, we said 'Why can't we do that here?'" Gregory told NBC News. "We are the birthplace of bourbon. We believe the world's largest bourbon library should be here in the commonwealth." Lawmakers agreed. In a state divided on many topics, "bourbon brings people together," explained Gregory.
A rare win for the consumer
A taste of history
"The bourbon and whiskey world is very interested in tasting history," said Chris Zaborowski, who owns Westport Whiskey & Wine in Louisville, Kentucky. That said, it may not necessarily be what consumers expect. Zaborowski and his family had a tasting of a pre-Prohibition bourbon they found when his mother passed. "It was a surprisingly rough and raw whiskey," he said. "It was an interesting curiosity. By modern standards people would have thought it was too harsh and astringent but I was glad we had the experience." "A lot of it is just the experience of getting to taste history," said Larry Rice, an avid collector himself who owns the Silver Dollar whiskey bar in Louisville. "But there are differences [in modern and vintage whiskeys]. The main thing is chill filtration. I jokingly say it's like cooking bacon and taking the fat out bacon is better with fat. There are a lot of richer notes lost in the process [which is standard among many distilleries now] and that didn't start happening until the '90s."
During tastings with friends from his personal collection of more than a thousand bottles, Rice also likes to compare brands through the decades as they've moved from house to house or changed mash bills (the grain recipe), proof, or water source. When Rice launches his bar's vintage offering after the new law takes effect in January 2018, this sort of insider knowledge will be offered as part of the experience, providing historical context along with tasting notes and theories on what makes these whiskeys different. "You need more service in a purchase like that than just pouring a shot," he said.
So what's the price tag on vintage bourbon?
China's imports from North Korea in the first quarter of 2017 rose 18.4 percent in yuan value from a year ago, while exports to North Korea jumped 54.5 percent in yuan value terms, Chinese customs said on Thursday in a press conference.
China's total trade with North Korea was worth 8.4 billion yuan ($1.22 billion) in the January to March period. China's trade surplus with North Korea totaled 1.52 billion yuan, an increase of 3.9 times, the customs said.
China's coal imports from North Korea plunged 51.6 percent in the first three months in 2017 from a year ago at 2.678 million tonnes.
China suspended issuing permits for importing coal from North Korea on February 18 as part of its efforts to implement United Nations sanctions against Pyongyang. ($1 = 6.8743 Chinese yuan renminbi)
Emphasizing the low likelihood of Zuma being ousted, Newton said "Zuma still remains very firmly in control. He enjoys dominance of the national executive committee, the ANC, which he has cultivated through patronage, and I think the chances of him being ousted in the short-to-medium term are pretty low."
"I think markets have consistently underestimated Zuma's ability to survive, despite the fact that the [African National Congress] itself is clearly deeply divided, despite the fact that there will be thousands of protesters on the streets today," Newton said.
Speaking with CNBC'S "Capital Connection" on Wednesday, the former diplomat said it is likely Zuma will continue holding on to power as president in the foreseeable future.
Despite the weak economic outlook, expect Zuma to stay in power, according to political analyst Alastair Newton.
A string of sweeping changes in South Africa's cabinet by President Jacob Zuma late last month hurt economic confidence and major ratings agencies downgraded the country's sovereign credit rating to "junk" status.
Commenting on Zuma's claims that the protests mounted against him were "racist" in nature, Newton said there was little reason to believe so as there were protesters of all colors calling on the leader to step down. Newton added, in his view, that this was "a true reflection of a rainbow nation."
Looking ahead, Newton said Zuma was likely to appoint a like-minded successor as head of the ANC at its end-of-year conference, with his former wife Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma likely to be chosen as successor.
Amid the chaos in the South African government, with multiple finance ministers being replaced over the past three years, the country's economy has struggled.
"The country has clearly been struggling economically for some considerable time. If you look at GDP growth it's been very poor indeed and, certainly, that is even poorer if one puts it alongside the demographics of the country," Newton said.
Echoing the comments of Michael Power, a strategist at Investec Asset Management who had spoken earlier with CNBC's "Street Signs," Newton recommended a wait-and-see approach for current and potential investors in South Africa.
"Things may pick up once Zuma is gone or once we know who his replacement is going to be because markets are very good at dealing with poor situations if they are stable situations," Newton said.
He did, however, offer a silver lining for potential visitors to South Africa.
"With the Rand plummeting, South Africa becomes even more attractive to tourists," Newton said, encouraging more people to consider visiting the country. "It's pretty cheap going down there right now and it still has a wonderful, wonderful, tourist offering."
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President Donald Trump has not given up on the holy grail of repealing Obamacare, and on Wednesday he revealed his next move, threatening to use health insurance subsidies as a weapon to get Democrats to negotiate on reform. Trump said his administration may not have the legal authority to make cost-sharing reduction payments, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. So-called CSR subsidies reduce out-of-pocket costs for low-income Affordable Care Act enrollees, but Republicans in Congress sued the Obama administration, saying they expenditures were not authorized under the ACA. Trump told the Journal he did not want people to get hurt by stopping the payments, but that what he thinks "should happen is the Democrats will start calling me and negotiating." Democrats cried foul at the president's apparent hardball tactic. "President Trump is threatening to hold hostage health care for millions of Americans, many of whom voted for him," said Senate minority leader Charles Schumer in a statement. "This cynical strategy will fail."
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"Refusing to make the Cost Sharing Reduction payments has no purpose but to hurt millions of people, and manufacture a crisis," House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said in a statement. Earlier in the day, hospital, physician and insurance industry groups sent a letter urging the president and congressional leaders to maintain the subsidies for this year and next, calling it the most "critical action" to stabilize the individual market. "Analysts estimate that loss of CSR funding alone would increase premiums for all consumers both on and off the exchange by at least 15 percent," the group said in the letter, adding, "Hardworking taxpayers will pay more, as premiums grow and tax credits for low-income families increase, than if CSRs are funded." The renewed uncertainty over CSRs comes at a key moment for insurers. Initial 2018 rate submissions are due in Kentucky, Ohio and Virginia in the week after Easter. "If I were a carrier right now, I guess I would be thinking about... two sets of rates. If I were only allowed to submit one set of rates, I guess I would submit the most conservative one," said Katherine Hempstead, a senior advisor at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. In the spring of 2015, some states allowed insurers to submit two sets of rates, when the Supreme Court was deciding the legality of Obamacare tax credits in the King v. Burwell case. So far this spring, while the Trump administration has delayed the federal deadline for rates on healthcare.gov until June, individual states have not indicated whether they'll allow contingency bidding. "I fell like people will try to serve (the individual) market but the question is what part of the market do carriers think they have the best chance of serving, depending on how much public money there's going to be in the market," said Hempstead.
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Still, it's important to note that the company is still growing and hasn't posted declining growth. Amongst the seven largest Airbnb markets namely the US, France, Italy, Japan, Spain, U.K. and Germany available listing nights still grew at 40 percent year-on-year over the last three months, UBS said.
Airbnb was not available for comment when contacted by CNBC.
UBS found that worldwide year-on-year growth of Airbnb available listings per month has been on a downward trend since October 2016. For example, Airbnb available listings in that month grew around 110 percent, while in February 2017, it had slowed to around 35 percent.
The Swiss investment bank analyzed data from 127 cities where Airbnb is present to look at growth of the company's listings and impact on hotel brands.
Airbnb's growth rates have slowed in the past few months partly due to increased regulation around the shared accommodation sector, UBS said in a note released on Wednesday.
Airbnb's listing nights booked hit 52 million in 2016 versus 25 million in 2015, more than doubling, UBS said. Gross bookings worldwide have also more than doubled and reached $6.4 billion in 2016.
Many cities around the world have moved to regulate shared accommodation, which is a reason behind the recent slowdown in Airbnb's growth. For example, in Barcelona, a special license is required for short-term rentals. The city stopped issuing licenses in 2014, so the only way to start a new Airbnb would be to buy an existing property with a license, UBS said. Airbnb was fined 600,000 euros ($638,454) by the Barcelona city council for offering unlicensed accommodation on its site.
New York meanwhile introduced legislation allowing the state to fine Airbnb hosts for listing properties for terms less than 30 days if a permanent resident will not be present.
"Our analysis suggests it is likely that regulation is having a negative impact on the supply and demand growth of Airbnb, especially in New York and Barcelona. Both cities showed year-on-year declines in available listing nights of around 10 percent in Feb 2017," UBS said in its note.
But this is not necessarily the case for all markets where regulation has been introduced.
"We believe that the findings are less conclusive for San Francisco, London and Paris, although in our view it appears there is a negative impact from regulation on Airbnb listing night growth given the slowdown," UBS said.
The negative impact of regulation does not remove Airbnb as a threat to hotel chains, but it does reduce it, UBS concluded.
"Nevertheless, we believe Airbnb is still likely a threat to hotels, but think the change in regulations has reduced the magnitude of the threat," the investment bank said.
Some call it "private equity inflation."
It is a problem for the industry that occurs as the market rises over a long period of time. That causes acquisition valuations to go higher, which allows private equity firms to sell or take their portfolio companies public at steeper prices.
That, in turn, puts more money into the coffers of private equity, which means there is more competition when bidding for new assets, driving prices higher yet again.
During the first quarter, private equity firms paid a median enterprise value multiple of 10.8 times earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, according to a new report by PitchBook. That's the highest level since at least the financial crisis, the report showed.
"PE firms are victims of their own success when it comes to pricing," the report said.
Compounding their challenges (or blessings) is that it's among the best environments for fundraising ever. North American funds secured their highest first-quarter fundraising total ever, raising $62 billion, according to recent data by Preqin, an alternative assets research firm.
Despite the large amount of cash on hand, private equity saw a tick down in deal activity during the first quarter. The PitchBook report showed that 745 transactions closed during the quarter, which was a 14 percent decline from the previous three months.
One area private equity firms are putting money to work is tech. Of all the private equity deals completed during the first quarter, one-fifth of them involved companies in the information technology industry, according to PitchBook. That's compared to the 10 to 15 percent range that has existed over the last decade.
Tech companies even ones that have never been public are finding it beneficial to be acquired by private equity so that they can focus on their long-term growth initiatives, rather than conceding to investors with quarterly earnings and the like, according to the report.
Two of the biggest examples during the first quarter include KKR's $2 billion acquisition of Optiv Security, as well as Thoma Bravo's $800 million purchase of Planview.
While mega-deals, which PitchBook defines as having enterprise values above $2.5 billion, were a big trend in 2016, they were less so during the first quarter. Only two deals of this size were completed during the first three months (Blackstone's $6.1 billion acquisition of TeamHealth Holdings and Koch Equity Development's $2.5 billion growth equity investment in Infor), according to PitchBook.
PitchBook said it expects to see more mega-deals during the remainder of the year, as private equity has so much capital to deploy. Even if they have to pay up for it.
"Anchor Hocking's decline was the result of a series of bad buyouts and bad management, beginning when trader (and Donald Trump's Special Adviser on Regulatory Reform) Carl Icahn temporarily gained control of the company in 1982."
Instead, Anchor Hocking's decline was the result of a series of bad buyouts and bad management, beginning when trader (and Donald Trump's Special Adviser on Regulatory Reform) Carl Icahn temporarily gained control of the company in 1982. Over the next 30 years, Anchor Hocking experienced a series of leveraged buyouts and private equity purchases, each of which saddled the company with a growing debt load and highly credentialed management with little-to-no experience in glass making.
As Anchor Hocking's debt grew, management cut worker pay and benefits, and investment in the surrounding community of Lancaster disappeared.
So back to the original question.
Why are Americans ignoring "experts"?
The story of Anchor Hocking illustrates one big reason why. Beginning with Carl Icahn, a philosophy graduate of Princeton with no background in glass manufacturing, a three-decades-long series of management "experts" and financiers walked in and out of a profitable company, loading Anchor Hocking with debt, reducing worker pay and benefits, and paying large fees to CEOs, consultants, and board members who almost never had industry experience.
And while Anchor Hocking workers weren't displaced by cheap overseas labor, workers in industries that are impacted by trade have heard economists say for years without reservation that in the long run, trade makes everyone better offeven as they watched good jobs leave and their communities disintegrate.
That lack of trust in experts is further intensified when workers and communities see these same experts explain how Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel is worth almost $5 billion, despite starting a company that loses half a billion dollars a year.
If you were on the wrong side of this story, a lot of what has happened in the economy in the last 30 years would make no senselike how Evan Spiegel can become a billionaire by losing a fortune, but the still profitable company you've spent years working for can only survive by cutting your pay.
If your grandfather and father had made a good living making glass, and you saw that way of life disappear while MBAs with no knowledge of what it means to be a glassmaker became wealthier in the process, you could start to think that anyone positioning themselves as an expert uses most of their expertise to think of new ways to rip you off.
Maybe that's the reason why millions of people could come to believe Facebook memes over highly credentialed experts, and how such skepticism contributes to the overall distrust of knowledge. For example, only 39 percent of Americans say they have "a lot" of trust in information from climate scientists.
But America didn't catch a resistance to facts, as though ignorance was the common cold.
There are a lot of reasons why experts are trusted less, but MBAs who swear the only way to save a profitable company is by loading it up with backbreaking debt, and economists who dismiss the human impact of trade, could be among the guilty parties.
And, if you can't trust experts on issues that touch your day-to-day life, it becomes much harder to trust experts on more abstract issues like climate change.
And if we want that to change, one place to start is with experts taking responsibility for the damage they've done to communities like Lancaster, Ohioand to workers and companies across America.
Commentary by Dustin McKissen, the founder and CEO of McKissen + Company, a strategy, marketing, and public relations firm based in St. Charles, Missouri. The firm does consulting work analyzing how politics effects the business climate for clients in the U.S., Europe, and Latin America. He was named one of LinkedIn's "Top Voices" in 2015 and 2016. He holds a Bachelors degree in Public Policy, and a Masters degree in Public Administration and is currently pursuing a PhD in Organizational and Industrial Psychology. Follow him on Twitter @DMcKissen.
For more insight from CNBC contributors, follow @CNBCOpinion on Twitter.
Baidu Inc, China's biggest search engine, agreed to buy xPerception, a U.S. company that develops visual perception software and hardware, as it expands efforts to produce driverless cars.
Often dubbed the 'Google' of China, the Chinese language search provider hopes that the acquisition will strengthen its previous ambitions. Baidu will house the company in its California-based research unit, which is currently developing AI and deep learning software. The company's latest move follows a series of ventures into artificial intelligence, virtual reality and driverless cars.
Formed by two former engineers from U.S. augmented reality startup Magic Leap, xPerception's acquisition signaled a challenge from Baidu to Google - which introduced its own driverless car, Waymo, back in 2009. It also opens a window of opportunity for AI innovation from China, a developing field for the country.
Rolling out driverless cars has been one of the top priorities for Silicon Valley for years and it has become a heated race. Google last month took Uber to court alleging that the latter stole the trade secrets behind its driverless car unit.
Michael Ramsey, transportation and mobility analyst for the research firm Gartner, explained that the acquisition could "help push Baidu closer to the leaders" but that it has a long way to go.
"Right now, the largest tech players are scrambling to catch Uber, which has a big head start on virtually everyone," Ramsey told CNBC in an email. "That means that if you don't have the capability in-house, you have to acquire it.
"XPerception has expertise in processing and identifying images, an important part of the sensing for autonomous vehicles. The purchase may help push Baidu closer to the leaders, but it is just one piece."
Baidu hopes to harness the potential of xPerception's visual perception camera in its bid to develop autonomous cars. The camera's features include sophisticated tracking technology, three-dimensional obstacle detection, and object recognition.
Cahall also says that the combination would create a "$1 trillion company with almost limitless opportunities in content and technology" thanks to Apple's cash balances, which could be helped by repatriation, and Disney's low debt.
In terms of mutual benefit, the Disney analyst, Steven Cahall, assumes in his note that Apple could get Disney for a 40 percent premium, and the Apple analyst, Amit Daryanani, believes a merger could boost Apple's service revenues to 29 percent of its earnings.
"Why am I so dismissive of this? Because while the combination is rational ... the Disney analyst who promoted the idea calls the option the possibility 'greater than zero percent,'" the " Mad Money " host said. "Talk about a low bar. They're basically just saying anything's possible."
On Thursday, RBC analysts put out two notes that predicted Apple could consider Disney as a takeover candidate, but Jim Cramer was not entirely convinced.
For Cramer, the biggest problem is the degree of speculation that went into the analyses.
"Like 'Aladdin,' like 'Lion King,' the story is fiction," he said. "Apple hasn't done any big deals like this, although the company did say in one conference call that they're open to them."
That openness is the crux of the issue neither company is likely to comment on the speculations, so the thought-out scenario these analysts presented cannot be contested.
And although Cahall argues Apple might do well to move away from hardware and better technology at Disney's theme parks could create "a leader in content creation and distribution that could top Netflix , Google , and Amazon ," the odds of an acquisition remain slim.
"The fact is that if you buy Disney's stock on this, I'd tell you that you might as well believe in Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck and Han Solo and Captain Marvel and anybody else in the stable," Cramer said.
Dreaming about strong possible mergers is no new tale on Wall Street, from Kraft-Heinz and Unilever to T-Mobile and Sprint to Facebook and Snap.
But Cramer noted that it's possible that Apple CEO Tim Cook and Disney CEO Bob Iger, who also sits on Apple's board, may not want the companies to merge.
"The only thing that's really accomplished by this kind of speculation? The short-sellers will be afraid to bet against Disney's stock because of newfound fears of a takeover lurking. It really does put a bid underneath, simply because it was just too juicy to ignore," Cramer concluded.
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In a market confused by President Donald Trump's policy moves and counteracting earnings, Jim Cramer found one stock with 44 percent growth that may be the new hot play in tech. That's why the "Mad Money" host sat down with Robert Bernshteyn, CEO of Coupa Software , for his take on business and how the company plans to maintain its rapidly accelerating growth. "We maintain it one customer at a time, and we think about our business by removing every variable to faster growth that may be stopping us. Is it not enough salespeople? Not enough awareness? Not enough systems integrators?" the CEO asked. "Wherever the bottleneck is, we remove it so we can build the values of service business to go faster and faster." Coupa recently put up a secondary offering of its shares, but Cramer noticed that in-the-know investors didn't want to sell their stock in the cloud computing company, which helps its clients, including Caterpillar and Amazon , optimize how they spend their money. "We're in a really nice position from a cash flow scenario. We haven't burned a lot of money and we've created a lot of recurring revenues, so we're going to do this very carefully and build into this market opportunity for years to come," Bernshteyn said.
A still from the Disney movie "The Lion King." Source: Disney
In other tech news, on Thursday RBC analysts put out two notes that predicted Apple could consider Disney as a takeover candidate, but Cramer was not entirely convinced. "Why am I so dismissive of this? Because while the combination is rational ... the Disney analyst who promoted the idea calls the option the possibility 'greater than zero percent,'" the "Mad Money" host said. "Talk about a low bar. They're basically just saying anything's possible." "Like 'Aladdin,' like 'Lion King,' the story is fiction," he said. "Apple hasn't done any big deals like this, although the company did say in one conference call that they're open to them." That openness is the crux of the issue neither company is likely to comment on the speculations, so the thought-out scenario these analysts presented cannot be contested.
The GBU-43/B, also known as the Massive Ordnance Air Blast, detonates at Eglain Air Force Base in Florida on November 21, 2003. The 21,700-pound bomb was dropped from 20,000 feet to reach its target on one of Eglin's test ranges. Upon detonation, it created a plume that rose more than 10,000 feet over the Florida Panhandle. Dod | Reuters
First Horizon CEO Bryan Jordan Source: CNBC
The United Airlines passenger who was videotaped being bloodied and dragged off an overbooked plane by airport police signaled Wednesday he would fight back in court.
David Dao filed an emergency "bill of discovery" against the carrier in Illinois State Court demanding that evidence documenting Sunday's "re-accommodation" aboard a Kentucky-bound plane be "preserved and protected."
That includes all surveillance videos, cockpit voice recordings, passenger and crew lists, incident reports and other items.
Dao "currently has no access to them and believes that serious prejudice" will befall his case if the items are not safeguarded, the court papers state.
A 69-year-old doctor, Dao was one of four people who was randomly selected to get off the oversold plane just before it was supposed to take off Sunday from O'Hare International Airport for Louisville, in order to make room for United flight crew members who needed to get to an assignment.
Check out which companies are making headlines before the bell:
The bank reported quarterly profit of $1.65 per share, beating estimates of $1.52 a share, with revenue also beating forecasts. JPMorgan benefitted from better lending results, among other factors.
Citigroup Citi earned $1.35 per share for the first quarter, 11 cents a share above estimates. Revenue was also above forecasts. An improvement in fixed-income trading was among the factors helping Citi's results.
Wells Fargo The bank reported quarterly profit of $1 per share, three cents a share above estimates. Revenue came in below forecasts, however. Wells Fargo directors are likely to receive the support of key shareholder Berkshire Hathaway , according to The Wall Street Journal. The bank's annual shareholder meeting is scheduled for April 25, and it's expected to be contentious in light of last year's sales practices scandal.
PNC came in 13 cents a share above estimates, with quarterly profit of $1.96 per share. Revenue also beat Street projections. The bank was helped by increased loan volume, as well as improved expense management.
Apple The company has a secret group of engineers working on sensors to monitor blood sugar levels. The project was said to have been originally conceived by CEO Steve Jobs before his death in 2011.
RBC Capital analyst Steven Cahall said investors have been increasingly speculating that Disney could become a takeover target for Apple , if tax laws are changed to allow easier repatriation of overseas cash.
Goldman's bid to narrow a gender bias lawsuit was rejected by a U.S. District Court judge in Manhattan. Goldman is accused of discriminating against women in the areas of pay and promotion, which it denies, and said it is continuing to "contest this matter vigorously."
Tesla is embroiled in some controversy, with a group of shareholders urging the automaker to add two independent directors to its board who do not have any ties to CEO Elon Musk. Musk did not take kindly to the idea, tweeting that those investors should buy stock in instead.
Pier One forecast a steeper-than-expected current-quarter loss, pressuring its shares in after-hours trading. The retailer's 2017 profit fell 24 percent as it closed stores, although its profit margins did improve.
Hostess announced that a secondary stock offering was priced at $15.25 per share, compared to Wednesday's close of $15.65 a share. The shares are being sold by a number of funds with stakes in the snack maker, and the company will not receive any of the proceeds of the sale.
Adobe saw its credit rating upgraded to "A" from "A-" by Standard & Poor's, which said the software maker is likely to achieve continuing operating performance growth. It maintained its evaluation of Adobe's outlook at "stable." Separately, Adobe was rated "buy" in new coverage at Guggenheim Securities, which believes that Adobe can continue to outperform expectations because of strength in digital marketing.
Hanesbrands increased its first-quarter financial guidance, with the underwear and activewear maker saying 2017 was off to a strong start. Separately, it announced that Chief Financial Officer Richard Moss would retire at the end of this year.
, SunTrust likes both theme park operators, starting coverage on both stocks with a "buy" rating. It said the dramatic overhaul at Six Flags since its 2010 bankruptcy has accelerated growth and margins, while saying SeaWorld is in the early stages of a turnaround.
Speaking the same day that First Horizon reported its first-quarter earnings and met, if not exceeded, expectations, Jordan insisted that despite the hesitation, business is still strong.
"What's happening with consumer confidence, which is measured still [at] very, very high levels and, really, small business confidence at high levels, is not driving the same kind of spending or borrowing that you might expect given those confidence levels," he told " Mad Money " host Jim Cramer on Thursday.
First Horizon chairman, president, and CEO Bryan Jordan has noticed some discrepancy between consumer and small business confidence and their spending and borrowing patterns.
"We're very comfortable in our ability to continue to grow loans, to add value to customers, help them identify and capitalize on opportunities that they have, so even if we don't get a significant surge in growth, we feel very confident in our ability to drive great profitability and at the same time improve the returns in our business," Jordan told Cramer.
In the first quarter, the Tennessee-based bank saw a slight rise in loan growth and a major boost in efficiency, suggesting that there is money still to be made despite loan growth that may be slow to come.
And while Jordan expressed some concern about the multi-family and retail areas of commercial real estate, he said First Horizon is on a promising trajectory, especially with the company's recent acquisition of investment banking and brokerage firm Coastal Securities.
"We think it's a great add to our strong distribution network and the product set that we already have available, and we think it'll have significant impact on our profitability over the remainder of this year and going forward," the CEO said. "In fact, we think it adds something like $175,000 to $200,000 per day in average daily revenue."
As banks wait eagerly for word on President Donald Trump's plans for tax, health care, and regulatory reform, Jordan voiced his words of advice for policymakers in Washington.
"I think the key thing for the economy and really boosting growth is lower taxes, and I think just pulling back the impact of regulation a little bit," Jordan said. "If we ... allow people to build plant[s], to make investments, to have less uncertainty about how you might evaluate the regulations around environmental rules and banking and financial institutions, I think all that's good for the economy. And I think if the president and Congress can capitalize on that, I think this economy can pick up an awful lot of momentum."
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Despite blowing out this week to levels rarely seen since the euro zone sovereign debt crisis of 2012, the yield gap between French and German government debt could widen still further in coming weeks, according to analysts.
"In spite of being close to the widest levels seen since 2012, the two-year and 10-year France-Germany spreads are pricing in a low probability of a Le Pen victory, in my view. I think the probability being reflected in this spread is too low compared to the tighter first round result that polls suggest," Antoine Bouvet, rates strategist at Mizuho International, told CNBC via email on Thursday.
The spread - used as a "fear gauge" by investors ahead of the French elections - has closely tracked political developments in recent months, narrowing as the risk of a victory for a candidate perceived to be 'market-unfriendly' is viewed to have ebbed and vice versa. Specifically, after several months of spreads sitting at elevated levels versus historical norms, the yield differential shrank alongside the swelling of momentum for centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron during February and then rose once again following last week's surge by far-left newcomer rival Jean-Luc Melenchon after a notable performance by the latter in two recent televised debates.
Indeed, an average of the latest opinion polls from five closely watched providers (as compiled by Berenberg) demonstrates a tightening of the four-horse field with Melenchon rising to just over 18 percent in opinion polls, trailing marginally behind scandal-hit Republican candidate Francois Fillon on 18.8 percent and only a handful of points short of Macron on 23.1 percent and Le Pen on 23.5 percent.
"For France, Europe and markets, a run-off between Melenchon and ultra-right Marine Le Pen on 7 May would be a choice between bad and ugly," according to Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg, in a note to clients on Thursday, who attributes a 10 percent likelihood each to the odds of either Le Pen or Melenchon becoming the next French president.
President Donald Trump (C) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) look on during dinner at the Mar-a-Lago estate in West Palm Beach, Florida, on April 6, 2017.
Florida health inspectors recently cited the kitchen at President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate for at least 10 violations, including potentially dangerous handling of raw meat and uncooked fish.
Referred to by Trump as the "Southern White House," Mar-a-Lago has been a regular weekend getaway where Trump has shared meals with multiple foreign leaders, most recently Chinese President Xi Jinping. The club charges $200,000 for its exclusive memberships, according to the Miami Herald, making its fancy restaurant's failures all the more surprising.
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Three of the kitchen violations were deemed "high priority," which means they could contribute to the spreading of foodborne illness. This included raw and undercooked fish that had "not undergone proper parasite destruction," and meats chicken, duck, beef, ham, etc. that were stored at potentially dangerous temperatures.
Inspectors also cited the restaurant for several lesser violations, like not properly maintaining its walk-in freezers and not providing hot water at the employee hand washing sink.
Still, during their Jan. 26 visit, inspectors determined that Mar-a-Lago's restaurant met the minimum standards required to stay open.
On Thursday, Trump will make his seventh trip to the club as president.
From the rugged Scottish Highlands to the rolling hills of the Cotswolds, the U.K. is dotted with acres of lush, green land. Now, one green energy business is looking to harness the potential of grass and turn it into a gas.
"A few years ago we discovered that we could make gas from organic sources and pump it into the gas grid just the same as we do with green electricity, so we set out then to find a good way to make green gas, and we've come up with the idea of making it from grass," Dale Vince, founder of Gloucestershire based Ecotricity, told CNBC's Sustainable Energy.
Ecotricity say that once the grass is sourced it is to be taken to an anaerobic digestion plant where microorganisms in an oxygen free environment break it down, producing green gas and a natural fertilizer.
Ecotricity say that this biogas can then be purified and turned into biomethane, which can be sent to the gas grid alongside more conventional fossil fuel gas.
"Grass is appealing because it's got a greater energy density than food waste, twice as much," Vince said. "It produces cleaner gas but it doesn't come with the problems of energy crops, which are all associated with intensive farming, pesticides and fertilisers and loss of habitats for wildlife," he added.
When asked by Wells Fargo analyst Matthew Burnell during a conference call about the number of open positions inside the White House, specifically those relevant to regulating banks, Dimon interrupted: "I said I'm not interested."
JPMorgan Chase 's strong first-quarter numbers put CEO Jamie Dimon in a good mood on Thursday. But the air almost went out of the room on the bank's earnings conference call when the CEO, whose overseen a double in JPMorgan's stock price over the last five years, joked about joining the Trump administration.
The Trump administration has struggled to fill a number of key positions, including Labor secretary. Andrew Puzder, Trump's first nominee for the post, withdrew from consideration in late January. Current nominee Alexander Acosta's vote was still pending as of Thursday.
But Dimon didn't sound worried at all, reiterating his faith in Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Trump Chief Economic Adviser Gary Cohn, both Goldman Sachs alums.
"They want to find the right people for those jobs," Dimon said. "I gather they are talking to lots of people. But even after they announced it, remember they need to be vetted and confirmed, and that ... can take 90 days. So the sooner the better, but I think getting the right people is equally important."
Dimon did get serious at one point during the call, saying current regulations are crippling many consumers' ability to achieve the American dream and take out a mortgage, a problem he thinks needs addressing. "I could care less [if] banks, the nonbanks do it," he said. "My point about that was how it's hurting the growth of America."
Watch: Dimon talks about JPM's performance
There's no limit for the level of support that France's Front National could receive in the upcoming presidential vote and recent polls are proof of that, a key member of the far-right party told CNBC on Thursday.
"I remember during the local elections, they told me that there was the glass ceiling and that I would not be able to win, but we won," David Rachline, mayor of the southern city of Frejus and the election campaign manager for the National Front, told CNBC.
"And for the regional elections, they said we could not go over 20-22 percent in the first round because of the glass ceiling but we scored 30 percent in the first round and in some regions, we scored 45 percent in the second round. So that is the proof that there is no glass ceiling," he explained.
The rising support for the far right is the biggest concern for market players when they look at France and the wider European Union. The Front National's main aim is to break away from the European Union, claiming that the political union is holding back the French economy.
North Korea may undertake more nuclear activity as early as Saturday in response to Washington's talk of pre-emptive strikes on the rogue nation and the strategic deployment of a U.S. aircraft carrier.
Every year on April 15, Pyongyang celebrates the birthday of its founding father Kim Il-sung, the grandfather of current leader Kim Jong-un, with parades and drills showing off military hardware. This year, festivities could take on a nuclear element as Kim looks to assert power following President's Trump's tough stance on his country.
"It is highly likely that North Korea would engage in some form of provocation, another missile launch or even a sixth nuclear test, on or around April 15," Shawlin Chaw, senior analyst at Control Risks, told CNBC.
"The DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) has stated it is ready for war in response to the U.S. show of force this week and will most likely use the politically sensitive date to retaliate and reinforce its legitimacy with its own people," Chaw said, referring to the USS Carl Vinson's recent move.
North Korea has only demonstrated military action twice on April 15 in recent years. In 2012, it launched a long-range rocket carrying a satellite and last year, it tested an intermediate-range missile that reportedly failed.
To mark the national day, around 200 foreign journalists were in Pyongyang, Reuters reported on Thursday.
Kim Jong-un needs to appear strong to his own people on April 15, especially in the context of perceived foreign bullies bringing their warships into the region, explained Steven Ward, assistant professor at Chosun University.
"But a missile test isn't Kim's only option. A less provocative choice might be an underground nuclear test," he said.
On Wednesday, commercial satellite imagery of the nation's Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site revealed "continued activity around the North Portal, new activity in the Main Administrative Area, and a few personnel around the site's Command Center," U.S. think-tank 38 North said on its website.
That same day, Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke to each other via telephone about the "menace of North Korea," according to a tweet from the president, who also said Washington was prepared to deal with the pariah state without China, if necessary.
President Donald Trump's plan to make pipeline builders use American materials would potentially lead to higher costs, production delays and canceled projects if implemented without substantial exceptions. It would also force the industry to fundamentally retool its supply chain and expose companies to risks that come with relying on a single market for raw materials and equipment. Requiring the nation's pipelines to be built and repaired with American-made pipes and raw steel has become a pet project for the president. It's become a regular fixture of his energy policy speeches, and Trump has threatened to withhold permits that companies need to lay pipe on federal land if they don't play ball.
This is not the '70s and '80s where you can say, Made in America and put an American flag on a t-shirt. The world is very different. Lisa Goldenberg president of Delaware Steel
But a group of six oil and gas associations warns the plan would disrupt established supply chains and send rising steel prices even higher. In some cases, American mills would simply be unable to meet the demand, they said. "Relying solely on U.S. pipeline grade steel and pipe production could lead to long construction delays and higher costs, potentially canceling planned pipeline projects or blocking new pipeline projects," the associations said in comments to the U.S. Department of Commerce. The organizations that contributed to the dozens of pages of analysis, submitted as part of a request for comments by Commerce, include the American Petroleum Institute, the American Gas Association and the Association of Oil Pipelines. The U.S. steel industry does not currently make the type of steel used in many pipelines, but it says it is ready, willing and able. "We have all the necessary high-cost materials that would go into cost-effectively making steel, but we've got to have a leveled playing field to compete," Doug Matthews, senior vice president at U.S. Steel , told CNBC. "That's [why] we're excited about with the administration's push right now." The oil and gas associations argue that the government may have to incentivize steel makers and manufacturers to make pipeline-quality steel and line pipes because they are "among the slowest, most expensive products for domestic mills to produce." Consequently, many mills would prefer to use their facilities to make less time- and cost-intensive products. There are 40 to 50 mills that make line pipe for U.S. projects, about half of which are located in the United States, the trade groups estimate. When it comes to making large, technically sophisticated pipes, there are just a handful of American providers. A boom in U.S. shale oil and gas production has driven an increase in construction of mills capable of churning out these products, but there are still only eight mills that make pipes with a diameter of 30 inches or larger. For pipes of that size that need to be a certain thickness, that number falls to three. No American mills make pipes of the highest grade, size and thickness.
Keystone XL pipeline sections in Little Rock, Ark. The pipes were manufactured by Welspun in Arkansas. The steel, however, was sourced from various countries. Justin Solomon | CNBC
The few mills capable of making these pipes would be further taxed by Trump's insistence that manufacturers also use raw steel made in the U.S. More than half of the steel plate and coil used to make these pipes is imported. Limiting imports of these inputs would actually hamper the ability of mills to manufacture pipes for U.S. projects, the groups said. "A decrease in the availability, or increase in cost, of these imported steel products could impact the production capabilities and economics of these domestic pipe mills, which could ultimately impact the steelworkers employed at these domestic facilities," they said. The companies that make valves and other equipment for pipelines also import parts for assembly in the United States. They say it could take years to build the facilities to make those parts at home, a process that could increase prices for valves by 75 to 150 percent. "This is not the '70s and '80s where you can say, Made in America and put an American flag on a T-shirt. The world is very different," said Lisa Goldenberg, president of Delaware Steel, a trading and processing firm. "The whole idea of Made in America in a global universe is a tricky one," the former president of the Association of Steel Distributors told CNBC.
watch now
Two owners of allegedly defective Remington Model 700 rifles say they will seek to block a landmark class action settlement approved by a federal judge last month, arguing the agreement does not go far enough. That means the fate of as many as 7.5 million allegedly unsafe guns is once again in question.
The settlement covers the iconic Model 700 and a dozen other Remington models with similar designs. In 2010, CNBC investigated allegations Remington covered up a deadly design defect that allows the guns to fire without the trigger being pulled. Remington has steadfastly denied the allegations and maintains that the guns are safe, but said it was settling the class action case to avoid prolonged litigation. Remington has agreed to replace the triggers in millions of the guns free of charge, and provide product vouchers for models it says are too old to be retrofitted.
But Lewis Frost, a deputy sheriff in Louisiana who owns three Model 700s, and Richard Denney, an Oklahoma attorney who also owns three 700s, have argued that the settlement's mechanism for notifying the public deliberately downplays the alleged risks the guns pose, and doesn't do enough to get word out about the replacement offer. Attorneys general in nine states and the District of Columbia made similar arguments in court. As of mid-February, only about 22,000 owners had filed claims to get their guns fixed.
Last month, U.S. District Judge Ortrie D. Smith in Kansas City dismissed the arguments and approved the settlement. While Smith said he was "concerned" about the low claims rate, he concluded that Remington and plaintiffs' attorneys had made "reasonable" efforts to notify the public. On Thursday, Frost and Denney said in a court filing that they are appealing the ruling to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The filing does not describe the specific grounds for an appeal.
An attorney for the plaintiffs in the class action case, Mark Lanier, called the appeal "so sad," and said in an e-mail that it has "no chance of success."
"In the meantime," Lanier wrote, "millions of guns will remain unfixed while these professional objectors try to hold up the process to make some money."
As part of their appeal, Denney and Frost seek to block the $12.5 million in fees Smith awarded to Lanier and his fellow plaintiff attorneys. In response, Lanier says the plaintiffs will now try to recover additional fees from Frost and Denney to cover the cost of litigating the appeal.
Attorneys for Frost and Denney did not respond to requests for comment, nor did attorneys for Remington.
The impact on owners who have filed claims or were considering filing claims is unclear. Lanier said the process would stop while the appeal is pending. But as of Thursday afternoon, a special web site containing settlement information and claim forms was still operating, with no mention of the appeal.
The settlement covers Remington rifle models 700, Seven, Sportsman 78, 673, 710, 715, 770, 600, 660, 721, 722, 725, and the XP-100 pistol.
Rising tensions between Pyongyang and Washington are sounding the alarm about the dangers of mistakes or miscalculation on both sides, which could lead to military action.
The U.S. military announced on Sunday that it had dispatched a carrier strike force group led by the USS Carl Vinson to the waters off the Korean Peninsula. In response, Pyongyang vowed it was ready for war.
Tensions continued to heighten as satellite images from the U.S.-based analysis firm 38 North revealed the secretive regime led by Kim Jong Un could be making preparations for a sixth nuclear test as soon as Saturday.
And on Tuesday, President Donald Trump tweeted, "North Korea is looking for trouble. If China decides to help, that would be great. If not we will solve the problem, without them!"
"Regardless of what U.S. intentions are, there is uncertainty on the peninsula when you have three large militaries in close proximity to each other and uncertainty can lead to miscalculation," said Bruce Klingner, former chief of the CIA's Korea branch and now senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at the Heritage Foundation's Asian Studies Center.
North Korea has made progress with its ballistic missiles that can reach Japan and South Korea. Defense experts say it may not be long before Pyongyang develops a reliable intercontinental ballistic missile that can reach North America.
Its fleet of about 70 submarines is considered an additional threat since some are capable of carrying missiles with nuclear warheads. The North Koreans also have biological and chemical weapons in their arsenal.
"North Korea's military is not the most advanced in the world but if they really wanted to they could kill millions of people in a very short order," said Harry Kazianis, director of defense studies at the Center for the National Interest, a think tank founded by former President Richard Nixon.
"We need to keep these things in mind when we get into the escalatory spirals because events could really go out of control very quickly."
A creature that appeared to be a scorpion fell from an overhead bin and stung a man on a United Airlines flight, the company confirmed to CNBC on Thursday.
According to multiple reports, passenger Richard Bell was on a United flight from Houston to Calgary on Sunday, when the creature fell from an overhead bin and stung him.
United told CNBC the airline crew immediately consulted with a physician on the ground who provided guidance throughout the incident. The company said the man's injuries were non-life threatening.
"Medical personnel met the aircraft after it arrived in Calgary," United spokesman Charles Hobart told CNBC.
The news came after United sparked outrage earlier this week when a video surfaced of a passenger being dragged off an overbooked United Express flight.
United CEO Oscar Munoz at first supported the action. Later, he apologized "for having to re-accommodate these customers." On Tuesday, he issued a detailed apology.
Watch: The latest on United's very bad week
Starbucks is offering to foot the bill for critical illness insurance coverage for the parents of some employees in China.
Called the "Starbucks China Parent Care Program," the insurance plan will cover more than 10,000 parents of the coffee giant's Chinese employees, the company said in a press release.
Only the parents of employees who have worked with the company for a minimum of two years qualify for the health insurance program. The policy also stipulates that employees' parents have to be below 75 and live in China in order to qualify for coverage.
Treatment for 30 critical illnesses that afflict the elderly in China will be covered by the policy, Starbucks said.
The insurance provider involved in the initiative is the state-owned China Taiping Insurance, Chinese state media outlet Xinhua reported. Starbucks did not reply to emails sent after office hours by CNBC to verify that information.
Susan Fowler the engineer who became famous in Silicon Valley for her devastating blog post that chronicled pervasive sexism and sexual harassment at Uber is getting a new online publication to run that will be about and also aimed at coders.
The good ones, this time.
Launching this morning and backed by Stripe (where she has been working since she left Uber), Increment is described as a "collection of insider tips cultivated from inside Silicon Valley's largest and most influential companies and entrepreneurs."
While there are lots of places online that talk about the intricacies of writing code, at Fowler's pub her title is editor in chief the quarterly publication will be chock full of long-form technical writing "that unearths how the most secretive and highest-performing engineering teams build and operate software systems at scale."
It will include opinion pieces, expert interviews, how-to guides. The first iteration will be about on-call and incident response techniques.
In other words, it's like the New Yorker for geeks.
Such an effort might seem unusual for Stripe, a payments software company. But it recently bought Indie Hackers, a knowledge-sharing platform for entrepreneurs, and also runs the Stripe Atlas Forum, which the company calls an "invite-only community for founders to swap challenges and solutions."
Fowler herself might seem like an unusual choice for this too, given she is a techie. But if you consider the book she has written titled "Production-Ready Microservices: Building Standardized Systems Across an Engineering Organization," you get it.
She is also a very well-known and adept blogger and accessible writer, given the complex tech topics she handles. It is an especially hard thing to pull off since she covers things like The Ops Identity Crisis and So You Want to Learn Physics....
Of course, it was her explosive and perfectly executed Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber that really put her writing on the map. Its publication has led to a full-scale meltdown at the massively funded car-hailing company.
As she wrote in the first paragraph of the most elegant takedown of bro tech culture that I have ever seen: "As most of you know, I left Uber in December and joined Stripe in January. I've gotten a lot of questions over the past couple of months about why I left and what my time at Uber was like. It's a strange, fascinating, and slightly horrifying story that deserves to be told while it is still fresh in my mind, so here we go."
Since then, Uber has been dealing with a troubling executive exodus and is in the midst of an investigation of the heinous practices Fowler outlined so clearly. (If a Pulitzer could go to a techie, Susan probably deserves one here given the huge impact of her post.)
Not surprisingly, Fowler could not talk to me about Uber, given the controversy and also ongoing legal issues there. And, let's be honest, she also does not want that mess to soil the new effort at Increment, which seems like a pretty promising idea.
In a statement, she said: "The decision to join Stripe and run Increment was a pretty easy one for me: It was an opportunity to be impactful, to collect and share best practices from the most effective engineering teams in the world. Increment is a step toward flattening the distance between the Silicon Valley elite and developers everywhere."
Stripe CEO and co-founder Patrick Collison also weighed in about why he backed such a publication. "As software becomes more important in the world, the practice and art of software engineering becomes more important too. Increment aims to illuminate the most sophisticated practices from the best companies in the world," he said. "Our hope is that Increment can help surface the institutional wisdom and practices of the most effective software engineering organizations in the world so that the industry as a whole can make faster progress."
Here is a gander at the first issue:
By Kara Swisher, Re/code.net.
CNBC's parent NBCUniversal is an investor in Recode's parent Vox, and the companies have a content-sharing arrangement.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said an alleged poison gas attack blamed on his government last week in Idlib province was "100 percent fabrication" used to justify a U.S. air strike, news agency AFPreported on Thursday.
Syria's military had given up all its chemical weapons in 2013 after an agreement made at the time, and would not have used them anyway, AFP quoted Assad as saying in an interview.
The United States and its allies say the Syrian military carried out the Idlib attack, something Syria has already denied.
The April 4 attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun killed scores of people and prompted the United States to launch a cruise missile strike on a Syrian air base in response, its first direct assault on the Assad government in the six-year-old conflict.
Assad said Syria would only allow an "impartial" investigation into the poison gas incident. On Wednesday Damascus ally Russia vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution to condemn the attack and push the Syrian government to cooperate with investigators.
Russia said the gas was part of rebel stockpiles, which the rebels have denied.
It was the deadliest such incident since a sarin gas attack killed hundreds of people in a rebel-held suburb of Damascus in 2013, prompting threats of U.S. military action.
Samples taken from Khan Sheikhoun last week tested positive for the nerve agent sarin, the British delegation at the global chemical weapons watchdog OPCW said on Thursday.
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The luxury electric car known as the Lucid Air made its auto show debut in New York on Thursday. Scheduled for production in 2019, the vehicle has long been considered a potential competitor to the Tesla Model S. While skepticism remains (after all, even Tesla has had only two profitable quarters), the Air's makers say the vehicle offers advantages that could disrupt the entire luxury sedan segment. The Lucid Air's electric powertrain allows it to conserve a considerable degree of space in the vehicle, which Chief Technology Officer Peter Rawlinson says is one of the car's key advantages.
The Lucid Air Alpha test car, displayed at the New York Auto Show, reached a software-limited 217 miles per hour on a text track in Ohio. Robert Ferris | CNBC
The Air is shorter, narrower and lower than a Tesla Model S, but has the same interior space as a much larger Mercedes S-Class sedan, Rawlinson told reporters. It's also fast. The company recently tested the car's stability at high speeds, reaching 217 miles per hour at a winter test track Ohio. Stability at high speeds is particularly important in the German market, home to the luxury brands Rawlinson considers the company's true competitors, he told CNBC. Rawlinson previously served as a Tesla vice president and chief engineer for the Model S.
A Lucid Air on display at the New York Auto Show on April 13, 2017. Robert Ferris | CNBC
Customers paying the starting price of $60,000 ($52,000 with federal tax credits) will get the Lucid Air with 240 miles of range. The car can go from zero to 60 miles per hour in "less than 2.5 seconds," according to the company. An optional upgrade will give 400 miles of range on a single charge. That would be the longest of any electric car. All production cars will come with the hardware needed for full autonomy, and as with Teslas the software will be introduced via over the air updates as the technology becomes available and legal conditions permit. The car has other features, such as headlights made up of clusters of hundreds of microlenses, which swivel and project beams of light at different focal lengths to illuminate more of the road.
The interior of a Lucid Air on display at the New York Auto Show on April 13, 2017. Robert Ferris | CNBC
On Christmas Day 2016, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky did something unusual: He spent hours on Twitter engaged in market research that would drive Airbnb's market strategies in 2017.
He began with a simple question: If @Airbnb could launch anything in 2017, what would it be?
Hundreds of ideas flowed in, ranging from actionable product ideas like adding cleaning services and meal booking options to the site's services, to ideas about improving the brand's corporate social responsibility, such as reducing discrimination and donating more to charity. Chesky even let on that he's considering outlandish ideas like hosting Airbnb sites on Mars.
Twitter users relished the opportunity to send in their suggestions, and even more importantly, they received acknowledgement that their ideas were being heard and considered by the company's ultimate decision-maker. It remains to be seen how Chesky's impromptu research will affect Airbnb's 2017 fortunes, but the move may have cemented many fans' loyalty for the brand.
While that story teaches a lesson about how CEOs can use social media to strengthen the public perception of their brand, it also delivers a powerful lesson that corporate leaders who know how to engage well on social media also exhibit other strengths that make them better leaders.
In DDI's High Resolution Leadership study, we examined the difference in leadership skills among 250 candidates we assessed for CEO positions and how those skills correlated to the candidate's activity on social media. We found that, compared to their peers who are not active on social media, CEO candidates who are social are:
89 percent better at empowering others
52 percent stronger at compelling communication
46 percent more influential
36 percent better at cultivating networks
19 percent more passionate for results
16 percent better at making decisions
In addition to showing strong leadership behaviors, social CEO candidates also share personality traits that make them better wired for business judgment than their non-social counterparts. Not surprisingly, social CEO candidates are more sociable and are energized by interacting with others. They are also less argumentative, less avoidant, and more action-oriented. Social CEOs also tend to not be perfectionists, which helps them to avoid micromanaging or excessively criticizing others. The downside, however, is that these social executives also tended to be more attention-seeking than their peers, which may mean that they require more feedback from others.
Despite the positive associations between great leadership and an active social media presence, today's CEOs are tentative about social media. In our analysis of the Harvard Business Review's list of 100 Top-Performing CEOs, we examined how engaged top CEOs were on social media. And even with the minimal criteria of counting any CEO as "social" if they had at least a profile photo and multiple connections on LinkedIn and/or Twitter, the results were disappointing: Only 20 percent of CEOs qualified.
Of those, 18 were on LinkedIn, seven were on Twitter, and only four were on both platforms. Similarly, researchers at the University of North Carolina found that only about 8 percent of CEOs were on Twitter, and of those, only about 70 percent actively tweeted.
While the current generation of leaders may be shy about social media, our study showed that the next wave of executives just below the C-level are twice as likely to engage on those platforms. Interestingly, the study also showed that women candidates were more likely than men to be active on social media. While women were only 12 percent of the candidate pool, they represented 33 percent of the CEO candidates who were on Twitter.
In the future, social media savvy may no longer be something that's "nice-to-have" for prospective CEOs. Instead, it could be a powerful selection criterion that helps companies to identify CEOs who are well-prepared to lead. It might even tip the scales toward more companies choosing women CEOs.
Stephanie Neal is a research scientist at DDI's Center for Analytics and Behavioral Research (CABER). She conducts evaluation studies and research on leadership and talent in the workplace, and is the co-author of DDI's Global Leadership Forecast. Participate in the 2017|2018 Global Leadership Forecast by visiting http://www.ddiworld.com/glf-survey. DDI is the research partner of CNBC for the annual Asia Business Leaders Awards (ABLA).
The recent spike in fear comes just as geopolitical risk heats up. The Pentagon said Thursday U.S. military forces dropped the largest non-nuclear bomb in Afghanistan , the first time the so-called mother of all bombs has ever been used in combat.
U.S. markets are closed for trading Friday for the Easter holiday.
The CBOE Volatility Index (.VIX) , considered the best gauge of fear in the market, closed above its 200-day moving average for the first time since the election this week. The indicator jumped more than 2 percent Thursday afternoon at one point to a fresh high for the year.
Stocks may be in for a deeper pullback, now that the so-called fear index is finally breaking out higher.
U.S. stocks fell, with the S&P 500 and Dow Jones industrial average closed at two-month lows Thursday.
"I'd say it's probably more of a Trump trade [reversing] than the geopolitics, but going forward I think the geopolitics is the topic the market is focusing on," said Andres Jaime, global FX and rates strategist at Barclays.
Meanwhile, tensions around North Korea are heating up as the communist state has warned of a nuclear attack on the U.S., which has sent a Navy strike group toward the western Pacific. North Korea celebrates the birth of its founder Kim Il Sung on Saturday.
VIX 12-month performance
Source: FactSet
The fear index on Thursday hit 16.22, its highest since Nov. 10, after closing above its 200-day moving average on Monday for the first time since Nov. 8.
"The VIX confirmed a breakout above its 200-day moving average [Tuesday], supporting a pickup in volatility in the days ahead," BTIG's chief technical strategist, Katie Stockton, said in a Wednesday note.
"We expect the inversely correlated SPX to break its 50-day moving average in a short-term setback that will lead to a retest of March's low" of 2,322, she said.
A key factor for the renewed fear was concern about geopolitical events such as tensions with North Korea, the conflict in Syria, or the French elections.
The geopolitical risk has been known for some time, but "now it's creating a critical mass," said Dan Veru, chief investment officer at Palisade Capital Management. "The market's being forced to recognize the impact [from] global disruption."
"You're seeing significant institutional demand for protection. Right or wrong, their models are indicating now there's an increased risk of further market disruption," he said.
In another concerning move, the S&P 500 closed below its 50-day moving average Wednesday for the first time since Election Day.
However, the VIX is also still well below its historical highs. The index hit a 52-week high last June of 26.7, and Veru pointed out on Wednesday that VIX futures for May and June actually point to a decline in the fear index.
"That tells you based on what options players feel, that there's a great deal of risk on the near-term time horizon and they don't see as much risk in May as they see right now in April," he said.
The major U.S. averages also remain within 3 percent of their all-time highs.
"A deeper pullback would be constructive in that it would generate short-term oversold conditions within the framework of the long-term uptrend," Stockton said.
CNBC's Gina Francolla and Robert Hum contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump said he is very proud of the U.S. military after what he called a "very, very successful mission."
Earlier, U.S. forces dropped the largest non-nuclear bomb on an ISIS tunnel complex in Afghanistan.
"Everybody knows exactly what happened and what I do is I authorize my military. We have the greatest military in the world and they've done their job as usual. So, we have given them total authorization," Trump said after meeting with first responders at the White House on Thursday.
The president said his confidence in the military is "frankly why they've been so successful lately."
"If you look at what's happened over the last eight weeks and compare that to really what's happened over the last eight years, you'll see there's a tremendous difference," he said.
The Pentagon said the strike was "designed to minimize the risk to Afghan and U.S. Forces conducting clearing operations in the area while maximizing the destruction of ISIS-K fighters and facilities."
Trump did not provide further details on the operation.
Earlier, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said that the bomb targeted caves that ISIS fighters used to "move around freely." He explained that in order to defeat the terrorist group, the U.S. must deny it operational space.
Spicer said that the military did what it could to avoid civilian casualties and collateral damage. He declined to give further details, saying it would be best to direct those questions to the Department of Defense or the U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
There were no immediate reports of civilian casualties after the bombing, which took place in a remote part of Afghanistan.
ISIS has been using IEDs, bunkers and tunnels as the terror group's losses increased, Gen. John W. Nicholson, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, explained in a statement.
"This is the right munition to reduce these obstacles and maintain the momentum of our offensive against ISIS-K," Nicholson said in a statement.
Thursday's bomb comes on the heels of last week's missile strike on a Syria-government air base, which Trump authorized in response to what U.S. intelligence officials said was a chemical attack carried out by the Syrian regime.
More from CNBC:
US drops largest non-nuclear bomb ever in Afghanistan
What we know about the 'mother of all bombs' that was dropped on Afghanistan
Watch: We dropped a very large bomb, says Colonel
President Trump made three startling economic policy reversals on Wednesday, stepping away from pledges he made as a candidate and even policies he supported only days ago.
The shifts confounded many of Mr. Trump's supporters and suggested that the moderate financiers he brought from Wall Street are eclipsing the White House populist wing led by Stephen K. Bannon, the political strategist who is increasingly being sidelined by the president.
More from The New York Times:
After campaign exit, Manafort borrowed from businesses with Trump ties
Who is Ron Estes, Kansas' newest Congressman?
Trump says he didn't know Bannon until campaign, but they met in 2011
In a series of interviews, Mr. Trump said he no longer wanted to label China a currency manipulator a week after telling The Financial Times that the Chinese were the "world champions" of currency manipulation.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, the president said he no longer wanted to eliminate the Export-Import Bank. And he said that he might consider reappointing Janet Yellen as chairwoman of the Federal Reserve when her term ends next year.
Yet before the election, he regularly denounced China and said that Ms. Yellen should be "ashamed" of herself because of what he said was her political bias.
Mr. Trump's latest pronouncements suggest he is moving toward a more mainstream economic approach, although on other issues that he discussed on Wednesday, like a tax overhaul and health care, his policy and strategy appeared muddled.
Mr. Trump asserted in a Twitter post on Wednesday night that his agenda remained on track.
@realDonaldTrump: One by one, we are keeping our promises on the border, on energy, on jobs, on regulations. Big changes are happening.
Mr. Trump began the day with an interview with Fox Business Network in which he backed away from the so-called border-adjustment tax favored by Speaker Paul D. Ryan and House Republicans.
He also backtracked on his claim last month that he was moving on from his plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act to focus on taxes. Now he is again putting health care first.
In an interview published by The Journal midday, Mr. Trump revealed his softer approach to China the about-face coming less than a week after meeting with China's president, Xi Jinping and made another reversal on health care.
He said that the government would not continue to pay subsidies to health insurers under Obamacare only days after the administration said it would.
Mr. Trump said the threat to withhold subsidies was a way to force Democrats to negotiate with him over the future of the Affordable Care Act.
In the Journal interview, Mr. Trump said that "Democrats will start calling me and negotiating" because they want to avoid any interruption of the "cost-sharing" subsidies, which reduce out-of-pocket costs for seven million low-income people.
On Monday, the Department of Health and Human Services had issued a statement saying that "the cost-sharing subsidies will be funded" while a federal appeals court weighed the legality of the payments.
Mr. Trump's remarks coincided with a letter in which doctors, hospitals, insurance companies and employers pleaded with him and with Congress to help stabilize insurance markets by authorizing a continuation of the subsidies.
"Time is short and action is needed," said the letter, sent Wednesday by eight groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, America's Health Insurance Plans, the American Medical Association and the American Hospital Association.
The president's comments on Wednesday recalled his reaction when Republican leaders pulled a bill to repeal President Barack Obama's health care law from the House floor last month.
Mr. Trump predicted then that "Democrats will come to us" in an effort to save the law, which he said was imploding. They did not.
To make the muddy waters even murkier, Mr. Trump took his plans to rewrite the tax code into uncharted territory when he threw cold water on the border adjustment tax that is the linchpin of the tax reform plan.
After months of waffling on that tax, he instead called for a new "reciprocal tax" that appears to be a different kind of levy on imports.
"I don't like the word adjustment because our country gets taken advantage of, to use a nice term, by every other country in the world," Mr. Trump said in the Fox Business interview. "So when I hear border adjustment, adjustment means we lose."
He added: "I love the idea of reciprocal. You can call it a reciprocal or a matching tax or a mirror tax."
The notion left tax experts scratching their heads. "I'm genuinely confused," said Itai Grinberg, a tax expert at Georgetown University's law school.
"If one imposes a tax that varies based on the country of origin of the good or service, then what one may in substance have is something akin to a country-specific tariff regime."
What is clear is that all of the uncertainty surrounding the White House's economic plans is causing frustration among some of Mr. Trump's supporters, including those who helped get him elected.
Larry Kudlow, the economist who advised Mr. Trump when he was a candidate, panned Mr. Trump's reciprocal tax idea as a nonsensical approach that would essentially raise taxes.
He suggested that the scattershot approach to economic policy coming from the White House was probably because of poor leadership at the National Economic Council, which is led by Gary Cohn, and the diminished role of the Treasury Department, which is steered by Secretary Steven Mnuchin.
"It's complete chaos," Mr. Kudlow said. "It sows confusion, and people lose confidence. The process is broken."
Last Friday, Mr. Trump named Kevin Hassett, a conservative pro-immigration economist, to lead his Council of Economic Advisers. Ardent supporters worried it was an abandonment of the tough stance he took on the issue during the campaign.
Mr. Trump shared few details about how a reciprocal tax would work. It is unclear if, in his thinking, the United States would match tariffs that countries levy on certain American products against other products that those countries produce or if he wants to effectively have a value-added tax with different rates for goods and services from each country.
Either way, economists warned that economic effects could be calamitous.
"Any economist will tell you that tariffs are often, if not always, self-defeating," said Michael J. Graetz, a tax law professor at Columbia University. "It doesn't appear to be a sound idea as a matter of tax policy." Howard Gleckman, a fellow at the Tax Policy Center, said, "It looks like Trump is not happy with the border adjustment tax idea for whatever reason and he's looking for an alternative."
With more changes apparently in store, Mr. Trump's budget director, Mick Mulvaney, added an additional major reversal on his behalf: He said on CNBC on Wednesday that the president's campaign promise to eliminate the national debt was "hyperbole."
Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas. RODNEY WAYNE ALLEN, Appellant v. THE STATE OF TEXAS NO. PD-1252-15 Decided: April 12, 2017
OPINION
After a jury trial, Appellant was convicted of murder. The trial court assessed his punishment at forty-five years in the penitentiary. On appeal, Appellant argued that the trial court erred to exclude evidence which he contended was relevant to his claim of self-defense. The court of appeals rejected his claims, partly on the basis of procedural default and partly on the merits. Allen v. State, 473 S.W.3d 426 (Tex. App.Houston [14th Dist.] 2015). We granted discretionary review in order to examine the rulings of the court of appeals. Having examined the record and the briefs, we have determined that our decision to grant review was improvident. Accordingly, we dismiss Appellant's petition for discretionary review as improvidently granted.
PER CURIAM.
"The Chinese will take action to rein in North Korea before they allow it to escalate into a full-on war situation," Basu said.
"At the moment we're not expecting full-on conflict because this doesn't really benefit the North Koreans or anyone around the region," said Anwita Basu, lead analyst on Indonesia, the Philippines and North Korea for the Economist Intelligence Unit.
While it's an intense couple of days for markets, several political analysts say North Korea will likely not cross a red line as the U.S. and China find a way to step up economic and military pressure on the nuclear threat.
The posturing by all sides is heating up ahead of a major North Korean holiday this weekend. The country celebrates the birthday of its founding dictator Kim Il Sung on April 15. State media warned the U.S. Tuesday of a nuclear attack at any sign of American aggression. Meanwhile, a U.S. Navy strike group is en route towards the western Pacific.
In preparation for potential conflict, hedge funds have bought protection against a South Korean default. South Korea's five-year-default swap jumped to $55.59 on Tuesday and rose Thursday to $58.97, its highest since late June last year.
South Korea 5-year credit default swap (12-month performance)
Source: Reuters
Ultimately, the fear is that North Korea could send a nuclear weapon as far as the U.S. But analysts say it's unclear whether the small country has the capability yet.
If it comes to a show of strength this weekend with a nuclear test, the first reaction will likely be economic sanctions by the U.S., South Korea, Japan and China, John Park, director of the Korea Working Group at the Harvard Kennedy School, said in an email.
The majority of North Korea's trade is with China, giving Beijing some leverage over the small nation. China suspended coal imports from North Korea earlier this year.
For China, "their bottom line is they don't want regime change in North Korea unless it's something they can very carefully manage. They don't want to have to clean up the mess with the collapse of the North Korean state," said Isaac Stone Fish, senior fellow at Asia Society's Center on U.S.-China Relations. Fish believes that North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un "is acting rationally" and is "playing a very sophisticated game of brinksmanship."
Beijing has advocated for maintaining a calmer status quo in its tense triangle of relations with North Korea, the U.S. and American allies South Korea and Japan.
On Thursday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters in Beijing that "military force cannot resolve the issue" and that "whoever provokes the situation will have to assume historical responsibility."
"We'll know if the PRC leadership is serious when we see reports of Beijing actually cutting off the supply of refined oil products into the DPRK," Park said, referring to China and North Korea by their official names.
"With no refining capabilities, the DPRK is highly dependent on the PRC for its primary energy needs," Park said. "The DPRK would grind to a halt."
Meanwhile, the U.S. has deployed a missile defense system in South Korea. The U.S. Navy strike group and Japan's navy will also attempt to take down any North Korean missiles, Park said.
U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted Thursday that he has "great confidence that China will properly deal with North Korea" and said in a tweet Wednesday that he had a "very good call" with the President of China on "the menace of North Korea."
Tweet
Trump, however, reversed many of his key positions on Wednesday and remains an uncertainty.
"It leaves us and others very much in doubt with what Washington is likely to do," said Donald Straszheim, head of China research at Evercore ISI. "This is stuff that's spooky, dangerous and the future is not knowable."
"In as much as it potentially involves the use of weapons of mass destruction, it's hard to overstate just how important it is," he said. "We're talking about nuclear weapons here. We're not talking about something less than that."
Watch: North Korea's next step
President Trump has backtracked on a handful of major issues, from whether to label China a currency manipulator to his opinion of the NATO to the status of Fed Chair Janet Yellen. (CNBC)
Trump has not given up on repealing Obamacare, threatening to cut health insurance subsidies. Senate minority leader Charles Schumer said in a statement the president's "cynical strategy will fail." (CNBC)
The White House is quickly identifying ways to assemble the nationwide deportation force that President Trump promised on the campaign trail as he railed against the dangers posed by illegal immigration. (The Washington Post)
North Korea could conduct its sixth nuclear test as early as Saturday in response to Washington's talk of preemptive strikes on the rogue nation and the strategic deployment of a U.S. aircraft carrier. (CNBC)
Meanwhile, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe warned lawmakers there today that North Korea may be capable of firing a missile loaded with sarin nerve gas toward his country. (AP)
Russia has vetoed a U.N. resolution to condemn Syrian President Bashar Assad's alleged use of chemical weapons. Moscow, an ally of Assad, also demanded a speedy investigation. (AP)
A groundbreaking African-American jurist who became the first Muslim woman to serve as a U.S. judge was found dead in the Hudson River in New York City. The judge had been reported missing. (Reuters)
The United (UAL) passenger who was videotaped being dragged off an overbooked plane by airport police filed an emergency "bill of discovery," seeking the airline's documentation of Sunday's confrontation. (NBC News)
Meanwhile, United is promising to reimburse the 70 passengers on board the flight from which Dr. David Dao was forcibly removed. It's part of continuing attempts to make amends for his rough treatment. (WSJ)
Apple (AAPL) has a secret group of engineers working on sensors to monitor blood sugar levels. The project aimed at helping treat diabetes was originally conceived by CEO Steve Jobs before his death in 2011. (CNBC)
Samsung said preorders for its Galaxy S8 are already exceeding those for the previous S7 device. The flagship smartphone goes on sale next week in South Korea, the U.S. and Canada. (CNBC)
Uber reportedly used a secret piece of software called "Hell" to spy on drivers for its rival Lyft, as pressure continues to mount on the dominate ride-hailing service after swathes of bad press. (The Information)
Just under three hours after Burger King unveiled a new advertisement designed to hijack your Google Home to read a long-winded description of its Whopper burger, Google has disabled the functionality. (The Verge)
[The stream is slated to start at 11a.m. , ET. Please refresh the page if you do not see a player above at that time.]
Attorneys for Dr. David Dao are scheduled to hold a news conference to discuss the removal of Dao from an overbooked United Airlines flight at Chicago's O'Hare International Aiport on Sunday.
On Tuesday, attorneys for Dao issued a statement on behalf of the doctor and his family.
"The family of Dr. Dao wants the world to know that they are very appreciative of the outpouring of prayers, concern and support they have received. Currently, they are focused only on Dr. Dao's medical care and treatment," said Chicago attorney Stephen Golan of Golan Christie Taglia, adding that Dao's family has asked for privacy.
Dao, who is being treated for his injuries at a Chicago hospital, is also represented by Chicago aviation attorney Thomas Demetrio of Corboy & Demetrio.
United CEO Oscar Munoz issued an apology Tuesday, expressing outrage and regret, and promising a "thorough review."
"In deeming a select group of banks 'too big to fail,' Washington saved Wall Street from collapse, but as a result, unelected bureaucrats and overregulation handcuffed community banks, regional banks, credit unions and other lenders."
Our smaller communities and hopeful entrepreneurs have been shut out. Those who are seeking to start or grow their small business are incapable of accessing the capital necessary to merely plant both feet on the ground. Favorable stock market figures aren't translating to the average American's paycheck.
The celebrated American Dream of starting a business and attaining true financial independence is not achievable for these individuals because President Obama and Dodd-Frank's America put big cities and big banks first.
The poorly-constructed, 2,000-page Dodd-Frank Act has ballooned to 25,000 pages of rules and regulations. It appears Washington forgot that real people rely on banks to access the capital they need to finance their businesses, educations and homes.
In deeming a select group of banks "too big to fail," Washington saved Wall Street from collapse, but as a result, unelected bureaucrats and overregulation handcuffed community banks, regional banks, credit unions and other lenders.
These smaller financial institutions have their hands tied with onerous regulations and high compliance costs, and their ability to loan money is constrained.
To provide the relief these Americans need, Congress must roll back some of the heavy-handed Dodd-Frank provisions.
That is the only way to fuel our economic engine in West Tennessee and across the country.
In 2010, I joined the board of BankTennessee, a community bank in West Tennessee. It is no secret that this was an unfavorable time to join a bank board, as it was just two years after the financial crisis. The economy was stagnant, and banks across the country were struggling to resume routine business.
Joining the board of BankTennessee in 2010, the year of Dodd-Frank's fruition, afforded me a unique vantage point to observe six years of the palpable damage the law inflicted on America's small businesses and financial institutions.
After seeing the obstacles BankTennessee and banks across the nation faced following the crisis, I know how important it is to roll back Dodd-Frank so, once again, individuals can access capital.
This was one of the reasons I decided to run for Congress.
After being elected to the House of Representatives, I set my sights on becoming a member of the financial-services committee a committee enthusiastic about the economic opportunities that lie on the other side of regulatory reform.
Rural communities and our working class made up of some of the most patriotic and dedicated people in America have not had the luxury of Washington's protection.
A majority of Americans cited the economy as their number one concern in the voting booth last November. President Donald J. Trump was elected because he recognized that half of America has been left behind in this two-speed economy.
Now, as a member of the financial-services committee, I am working with Chairman Jeb Hensarling and my colleagues on the committee to change the current system.
In our first full committee hearing this February, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen delivered her semiannual monetary policy report to Congress. A couple things stood out to me in her remarks. Chair Yellen said that our nation is at full employment and that, while there is still room for improvement, wages are rising.
Chair Yellen should take a drive through West Tennessee. She would see how that may be true for the half of America that benefitted from Dodd-Frank. Unfortunately, Chair Yellen's evaluation was not considering a dynamic economy an economy that encourages new businesses, new job creation and new salaries.
In 2014, the number of small businesses added to the economy was 650,000 firms short of the average. That translates to a loss of roughly 6.5 million jobs.
By implementing one-size-fits-all regulations, Washington bureaucrats have made lending nearly impossible for smaller banks, shutting down their ability to empower dependable clients who would reinvest in their communities.
With nowhere else to turn, entrepreneurs and small businesses who do not qualify for bank loans turn to credit cards and home-equity lines of credit, but Dodd-Frank has shut down these avenues, with credit-card issuance at a record low of 50 million fewer accounts than before the recession.
The American people should be in charge of their own economic opportunity, not bureaucrats in Washington.
Now, Congress and the Trump administration have an opportunity to roll back the regulations causing this dichotomy in the American economy.
The financial-services committee has already hit the ground running on legislation that will dismantle Dodd-Frank and open the door for all Americans to achieve financial independence. I am encouraged by the ambitious and productive schedule Chairman Hensarling has mapped out.
Our committee is working to grow the American economy and help put more people back to work with full-time, good-paying jobs.
Dodd-Frank created two Americas, but I see a unified U.S. economy that serves all Americans.
Commentary by Rep. David Kustoff (R-TN), who represents Tennessee's 8th District, which includes 13 counties and portions of Shelby and Benton Counties. Kustoff also serves as a member of the House financial-services committee. Follow him on Twitter @repdavidkustoff.
For more insight from CNBC contributors, follow @CNBCopinion on Twitter.
Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas. GAREIC JERARD HANKSTON, Appellant v. THE STATE OF TEXAS NO. PD-0887-15 Decided: April 12, 2017
OPINION
Following the denial of his motion to suppress, Appellant, Gareic Jerard Hankston, was convicted of murder and was sentenced to twenty years in prison. The Fourteenth Court of Appeals affirmed Appellant's conviction, holding that the warrantless acquisition of Appellant's cell phone records from Sprint (comprised of call logs and historical cell site location information (CSLI)) did not violate Appellant's rights under the Fourth Amendment or under Article I, Section 9 of the Texas Constitution. In light of our recent decision in Ford v. State, we did not grant review of Appellant's Fourth Amendment claim. We did, however, agree to address an issue that was unresolved by Fordwhether Art. I, 9 of the Texas Constitution affords broader protection under these facts than the Fourth Amendment provides. We hold that Appellant's rights pertaining to call logs and cell site location information possessed by a third party are the same under both the Fourth Amendment and under Art. I, 9. We hold that the State's acquisition of Appellant's cell phone records pursuant to a court order did not violate Art. I, 9 of the Texas Constitution. We affirm the decision of the Fourteenth Court of Appeals.
BACKGROUND
Appellant's girlfriend, Crystal Jordan, had been stalked by Keith Brown for some time. Brown lived two houses down from Jordan's mother's house, and on several occasions he would stand outside the mother's house and watch Jordan when she visited her mother. He would leave notes on her mother's door. After Jordan moved to an apartment, Brown would still approach her. On the evening of May 19, 2011, Jordan was in her apartment when she heard a knock at the door. She looked out the window and saw someone who looked like Brown standing outside.
She also saw a van that looked like Brown's. Jordan did not open her door, but instead called 911, her parents, and Appellant. The police came and went, and thereafter Jordan left her apartment to go to her mother's house. Appellant had not shown up, and she did not know where he was. Jordan testified at trial that, while she was at her mother's house, she heard gunshots. Some time thereafter, Appellant arrived at Jordan's mother's house.
Witnesses testified at trial that on that same evening Brown came home around 9:00 p.m. Shortly thereafter, someone started banging loudly on his front door. Brown started to open the door but tried to shut it again. The person on the other side of the door fired six gunshots through the door, striking and killing Brown with four of them.
In the course of investigating the murder, Appellant's cell phone records were obtained by members of law enforcement without a warrant. The cell phone records were acquired from Sprint pursuant to a sealed application and court order. The application stated that the records were being requested because law enforcement believed the records would assist [the] investigation by providing information as to who [Hankston] was in contact with on the date of the Complainant's murder. [and] will also aid in proving/disproving the defendant's whereabouts before and after the murder. Appellant was eventually charged with the murder of Keith Brown.
A. The Motion to Suppress
Appellant filed a motion to suppress his cell phone records. At the hearing on Appellant's motion to suppress, the State agreed to stipulate that the records were obtained without a warrant. The State relied on Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Article 18.21 as authority to obtain records with only a court order. The court order allowed the State to obtain cell phone records for the twelve months preceding the issuance of the order. No witnesses testified at the motion-to-suppress hearing, during which the trial court judge inspected the court order. Appellant's trial counsel argued at the hearing that the records were obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment and in violation of Art. I, 9 of the Texas Constitution. He also argued that the Texas Constitution provides greater protection than the Fourth Amendment under these facts. The trial court denied Appellant's motion to suppress, finding that the court order was issued in compliance with state and federal law, and finding that the disclosure did not violate the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution or Article I, Section 9 of the Texas Constitution.
B. The Trial
At trial, the State presented Officer Michael Burrow as a witness. He was one of the investigating officers. Officer Burrow testified that, in the course of their investigation, they obtained Appellant's cell phone records by court order, and the State introduced them into evidence as business records. Officer Burrows testified that cell site location and call information was obtained to establish what [Appellant's] pattern of behavior was the night of the incident. To see who he was in contact with, and to prove or disprove any statements that he made.
The State also presented Officer Robert Brown as a witness, who testified that the cell phone records helped establish Appellant's whereabouts during times relevant to when Brown was killed:
Q. What does the analysis of the cell phone records and cell tower locations indicate to you, regarding the location of the defendant at the time of the 911 call?
A. It indicates that he's in the area. That the time of the call being placed, in regards to this incident, that he's in that area and that he's moving in and about that area. And he's moving from that sector 3, of that tower, to the next sector and then south. In a very rapid succession or time wise.
* * *
Q. All right. But we do know that the murder is committed and then we have a 911 call made at 9:32 p.m.?
A. Correct.
Q. And at 9:32 p.m., we have the defendant what what is he doing?
A. He's trans well, the device is transitioning and it's moving.
Q. Fleeing the area? Would that be consistent with someone fleeing the area? Would the activity on the defendant's cell phone be consistent with him fleeing the area at that time?
A. Yes.
The jury found Appellant guilty of the murder of Keith Brown and assessed his punishment at twenty years in prison.
C. On Direct Appeal
Appellant urged on direct appeal that the State's acquisition of his cell phone records violated the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Art. I, 9 of the Texas Constitution. As to the Fourth Amendment challenge, the Fourteenth Court of Appeals held:
Appellant cannot successfully claim that the State's acquisition of his cell tower records from Sprint violated his reasonable expectation of privacy. The cell site records acquired by the State are simply the business records memorializing appellant's voluntary subscriber transaction with Sprint for the service he wanted from his cellular provider, i.e. the ability to transmit and receive data on Sprint's network of cell towers. The fact that this data happens to reveal the general location of appellant's cell phone, and presumably appellant himself, at given points in time is of no consequence to the legal analysis. The State's actions did not violate appellant's Fourth Amendment rights because he could not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily conveyed to a third party.4
The court of appeals also overruled Appellant's challenge under the Texas Constitution. Following this Court's holding in Johnson v. State, the court of appeals held that [a] plain reading and comparison of the language of the Fourth Amendment and Art. I, 9 reveals no substantive difference and they both protect the same right. Quoting from our decision in Crittenden v. State, the court of appeals emphasized:
Absent some significant difference in the text of the two provisions, or some historically documented difference in attitude between the respective drafters, there would be no apparent reason to prefer an interpretation of Article I, 9 any different from our preferred interpretation of the Fourth Amendment. We will not read Article I, 9 differently than the Fourth Amendment in a particular context simply because we can.8
The court of appeals noted that Appellant based his Texas Constitutional challenge on this Court's 1993 case of Richardson v. State, which preceded Johnson and Crittenden. This Court held in Richardson that the use of a pen register may well constitute a search under Article I, 9 of the Texas Constitution. However, the court of appeals did not follow Richardson, but instead utilize[d] Fourth Amendment precedent to conclude that the State's acquisition of appellant's cell phone records [did] not violate Article I, section 9 of the Texas Constitution.
D. Appellant's Petition For Discretionary Review
Appellant argues that the State improperly used his cell phone records that it obtained without a warrant (but with a court order) to establish that, close to the time of the murder Appellant was near the complainant's home and that immediately thereafter his phone usage was more than any other comparable time frame in the preceding 206 days (between May 1, 2011 and November 22, 2011). Appellant claims that the Texas Constitution provides greater protection in regards to records from third parties than does the U.S. Constitution, and that, under Richardson v. State, this Court rejected the third party doctrine, finding that under the Texas Constitution, Art. I, 9, a person has an expectation of privacy in the numbers they dial. According to Appellant, this same expectation of privacy applies even more to cell phones because in today's society cell phones never leave our sides, and allowing data points to be created in numerous public and private locations enables the State to virtually reconstruct one's past actions and deduce a tremendous amount of private information.
The State counters this by arguing that the Texas Constitution places no additional restrictions on the state's ability to investigate crime above and beyond the restrictions already imposed by the U.S. Constitution. The State claims that [i]t would be absurd to suggest that these general understandings and expectations of the people change based on whether such people see themselves as Americans or as Texans. [T]he reasonable expectations of the cell phone consumer are logically that of a national consumer of a nationwide product rather than the expectations of a provincial consumer of a local product. The State urges us to follow our reasoning in Ford v. State, disavow Richardson, and affirm the decision of the court of appeals because Appellant's cell phone records were legitimate business records containing information that Appellant initially conveyed to a third party. We granted Appellant's petition for discretionary review to address whether the State's acquisition of Appellant's cell phone records amounted to a search or seizure under Art. I, 9 of the Texas Constitution.
ANALYSIS
A. Does Art. I, 9 provide greater protection in this case than under the Fourth Amendment?
Both the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Art. I, 9 of the Texas Constitution protect individuals against unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. Under the Fourth Amendment,
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.12
In nearly identical language, Article I, 9 provides,
The people shall be secure in their persons, houses, papers and possessions, from all unreasonable seizures or searches, and no warrant to search any place, or to seize any person or thing, shall issue without describing them as near as may be, nor without probable cause supported by oath or affirmation.13
In 1991, in Heitman v. State, this Court decided that it did not have to automatically adopt and apply the Supreme Court's interpretations of the Fourth Amendment to Art. I, 9, of the Texas Constitution, even though Art. I, 9 and the Fourth Amendment contain essentially the same wording. We held in Heitman that the states are free to reject federal holdings as long as state action does not fall below the minimum standards provided by federal constitutional protections. In reaching the conclusion that we are not bound by Supreme Court decisions addressing the comparable Fourth Amendment issue, we recognized that state constitutions cannot subtract from the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution, but they can provide additional rights to their citizens.
Two years later, in Richardson v. State, this Court addressed whether the installation and use of a pen register by law enforcement personnel required probable cause under the Texas Constitution. In Richardson, officers believed the appellant was controlling a cocaine and crack distribution organization using telephones located in the county jail, by placing calls to a private telephone. The officers sought court orders pursuant to Article 18.21 authorizing them to install a pen register to catalogue the telephone numbers dialed from the county jail telephone line and also the private telephone line they suspected the appellant was calling. This Court acknowledged that Art. I, 9 and the Fourth Amendment provide the same basic protection and also recognized that the purpose of both provisions is to safeguard an individual's legitimate expectation of privacy from unreasonable governmental intrusions. This Court said that, [t]he litmus [test] for determining the existence of a legitimate expectation of privacy as to a particular accused is twofold: first, did he exhibit by his conduct an actual (subjective) expectation of privacy[;] and second, if he did, was that subjective expectation, one that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable. In Richardson, the issue was framed as follows:
Ultimately, in the context of both the Fourth Amendment and Article I, 9, whether the government's installation and use of a pen register constitutes a search necessarily depends upon whether appellant has a legitimate expectation of privacy in the numbers he dialed on the telephone. In other words, in determining the legitimacy of appellant's expectation of privacy, the appropriate inquiry is whether appellant expected that the numbers he dialed on the telephone would be free from governmental intrusion, and, if he did, is this expectation one that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable.21
The Richardson Court discussed at length the Supreme Court case of Smith v. Maryland, acknowledging its holding that the installation and use of a pen register is not a search because an individual entertains no actual expectation of privacy in the phone numbers he dials, and, even if he did, such an expectation is not legitimate. This Court repeated the explanation given by the Supreme Court in Smith that telephone users typically know that they must convey numerical information to the phone company; that the phone company has facilities for recording this information; and that the phone company does in fact record this information for a variety of legitimate business purposes. The Richardson Court also discussed the Supreme Court opinion in United States v. Miller holding that the Fourth Amendment does not prohibit obtaining information revealed to a third party.
Nevertheless, the Richardson Court rejected the reasoning of Smith and Miller, and instead chose to side with the states that have held that their state constitutions provide an individual with a protected privacy interest in the telephone numbers dialed from a telephone. This Court concluded in Richardson that the installation and use of a pen register was indeed a search:
The mere fact that a telephone caller has disclosed the number called to the telephone company for the limited purpose of obtaining the services does not invariably lead to the conclusion that the caller has relinquished his expectation of privacy such that the telephone company is free to turn the information over to anyone, especially the police, absent legal process. 28
This Court remanded the case to the court of appeals to determine whether the search was reasonable under Art. I, 9.
Only two other cases decided by this Court since Richardson have held that Art. I, 9 provides greater protection than the Fourth Amendment. In 1994, in Autran v. State a three-judge plurality decided that the Texas Constitution provided greater protection than the Fourth Amendment in the context of inventory searches. In 1997, in State v. Ibarra, this Court held that, although the federal constitution requires the State to prove voluntariness of consent by a preponderance of the evidence, the Texas Constitution requires proof by clear and convincing evidence.
Twice in 1995 this Court addressed the issue of whether Art. I, 9 provided more protection than the Fourth Amendmentfirst in Crittenden v. State, and again in Johnson v. State. In both cases this Court found that Art. I, 9 and the Fourth Amendment provide the same protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. In Crittenden v. State, this Court addressed the legality of a pretext stop under our state constitution analog to the Fourth Amendment. Acknowledging Richardson, and then departing from it, this Court held that,
Having adopted the objective approach under the Fourth Amendment, not because of binding precedent, but because it makes more sense than the alternatives, we can hardly justify concluding otherwise for purposes of Article I, 9. Indeed, we would abuse our prerogative to construe even like provisions of the state and federal constitutions differently, see Richardson v. State, 865 S.W.2d 944, 948 (Tex. Cr. App. 1993), and stretch judicial credibility to the breaking point, were we somehow to hold that what makes more sense for purposes of the Fourth Amendment does not also make more sense under our own state constitutional analog.36
In Johnson v. State, another plurality decision, this Court noted that [t]he Fourth Amendment and Art. I, 9 both protect the same right (freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures) to the same degree (persons, houses, papers, and effects/possessions). Although acknowledging that we are not bound by Supreme Court precedent, this Court emphasized that we are not obliged to be different. Because we can [grant defendants greater rights under the Texas Constitution than afforded under the United States Constitution], however, does not mean that we should do so. The Court acknowledged the strong similarities between the state and federal provisions and insightfully noted that,
It is not unreasonable to conclude that the framers of the Texas Constitution chose to draft Art. I, 9 to protect Texas citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures by the state in the same way they were protected from unreasonable searches and seizures by the federal government. If they had intended to grant to citizens greater protections from state actions than they enjoyed from federal actions, then they could have drafted Art. I, 9 at that time to reflect that intent.40
Neither Autran nor Johnson is binding on this Court. However, we agree with the reasoning of Johnson, which mirrors the logic of Crittenden. With regard to Ibarra, we find that holding to be confined to the context where the State must prove voluntariness of consent. We are therefore more persuaded by the cases deciding that, even though we are not bound by Supreme Court case law when it comes to interpreting our State Constitution, we are not precluded from following it either. This reasoning is particularly appropriate when the state constitutional provision we are interpreting and its federal constitutional counterpart are almost identically worded. We are thus free to adopt the Supreme Court's interpretation of the Fourth Amendment, and apply it in this case, simply because it makes more sense. Therefore, as discussed below, if we are not going to find that the acquisition of cell phone records is a search under the Fourth Amendment, then we are not going to find that the acquisition of cell phone records is a search under Art. I, 9.
B. Ford v. State and Love v. State
Recently, in Love v. State, we confirmed that individuals do not have a privacy right in the numbers dialed on their phones. We also reiterated in Love that cell site location information obtained from the records of a service provider is not protected under the Fourth Amendment. We concluded, therefore, that call logs and CSLI are not constitutionally protected.
In Ford v. State this Court unanimously decided that, under the Fourth Amendment, Jon Thomas Ford had no legitimate expectation of privacy in records held by a third-party cell-phone company identifying which cell-phone towers communicated with his cell phone at particular points in the past. Like the Richardson Court, we looked at Smith v. Maryland and United States v. Miller. But, unlike the Richardson Court, we chose to follow those cases.
In Ford we noted that, like the bank customer in Miller and the phone customer in Smith, an appellant neither owns nor possesses the records he seeks to suppress. Rather, the cell-tower records are created by the cell-phone companies themselves and are subject to their control. The cell-phone company collects and stores this historical cell-site-location data for its own business purposes, in part to optimize service on its network[,] and [t]his type of non-content evidence, lawfully created by a third-party telephone company for legitimate business purposes, does not belong to [the defendant], even if it concerns him.
As in Ford, Appellant voluntarily availed himself of [Sprint's] cellular service. [C]ell users know that they must transmit signals to cell towers within range, that the cell tower functions as the equipment that connects the calls, that users when making or receiving calls are necessarily conveying or exposing to their service provider their general location within that cell tower's range, and that cell phone companies make records of cell tower usage. In Ford, we acknowledged, but declined to follow, the reasoning that [p]eople cannot be deemed to have volunteered to forfeit expectations of privacy by simply seeking active participation in society through use of their cell phones. We were not persuaded by the argument that cell phone users must forego the use of technology that has become a pervasive and insistent part of modern, everyday life or forego the protections of the Fourth Amendment. We noted in Ford that, unlike in United States v. Jones, there was no GPS device, no physical trespass, and no real-time or prospective cell cite location information in this case. We concluded that the State's warrantless acquisition of four days' worth of historical cell site location information, recorded by Ford's cell phone service provider, did not violate the Fourth Amendment.
C. The third-party doctrine applies under Art. I, 9 of the Texas Constitution.
In this case, as in Ford, Appellant neither owned nor possessed the records he sought to suppress. Call logs and historical CSLI are created by the cell phone companies and are subject to their control. Cell phone records are clearly business records lawfully created by Sprint for legitimate business purposes. Appellant voluntarily provided his call information and historical cell site location information to Sprint so that it could perform the service for which it had contracted.
Since we have long held that the Fourth Amendment and Art. I, 9 both protect the same right to the same degree, and since we have recently held that the Fourth Amendment does not restrict law enforcement from obtaining cell phone records revealed to a third party, we come to the logical conclusion that Art. I, 9 does not restrict law enforcement from obtaining cell phone records revealed to a third party. Therefore, we decline to follow Richardson v. State. Other states have also held that their state constitutional counterparts to the Fourth Amendment should be similarly interpreted under this type of case.
CONCLUSION
Addressing Appellant's claims within the framework of the Texas Constitution, Art. I, 9, we hold that Appellant did not have a legitimate expectation of privacy in the numbers he dialed on his cell phone or the location information derived from the signals relayed by the cell towers transmitting his calls. There was a voluntary conveyance of the cell phone records, and, under the third-party doctrine, that conveyance destroyed the reasonable expectation of privacy in the conveyed information. We conclude that the State's acquisition of Appellant's cell phone records did not violate Art. I, 9 of the Texas Constitution. We affirm the judgment of the Fourteenth Court of Appeals.
FOOTNOTES
. 477 S.W.3d 321 (Tex. Crim. App. 2015).
. See also Love v. State, No. AP-77,024, 2016 WL 7131259, at *3 (Tex. Crim. App. December 7, 2016)(holding that call logs and CSLI are not constitutionally protected under the Fourth Amendment).
. The cell phone records at issue in this case were obtained by the State using a court order issued under a prior version of article 18.21 5(a) of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure article 18.21 5(a). See Act of May 29, 1989, 71st Leg., R.S., ch. 958, 1, 1989 Tex. Gen. Laws 4026, 4030 (amended 2013) (current version at TEX. CODE CRIM. PROC. art. 18.21 5(a)). Under the prior version, a showing of probable cause was not required to obtain a court order requiring a cell phone service provider to disclose electronic customer data. See id. The statute required only a reasonable belief that the information sought is relevant to a legitimate law enforcement inquiry. Id.
. Hankston v. State, No. 14-13-00923-CR, 2015 WL 3751551, at *5 (Tex. App.Houston [14th Dist.] 2015) (internal citations omitted) (not designated for publication). At the time the Fourteenth Court of Appeals decided Hankston, we had not issued our opinion in Ford v. State. The appellate court did, however, cite to the Fourth Court of Appeals opinion in Ford v. State, 444 S.W.3d 171, 188 (Tex. App.San Antonio 2014), affirmed, 477 S.W.3d 321 (Tex. Crim. App. 2015), along with several other cases that we cited as authority to support our holding in Ford.
. 912 S.W.2d 227 (Tex. Crim. App. 1995).
. HankstonId. , 2015 WL 3751551, at *6 (quotingciting Johnson, 912 S.W.2d at 232).
. 899 S.W.2d 668 (Tex. Crim. App. 1995).
. Id.Hankston, 2015 WL 3751551, at *6 (citing Crittenden, 899 S.W.2d at 673 n. 8 (emphasis in originaladded)).
. 865 S.W.2d 944 (Tex. Crim. App. 1993).
. Id. at 953.
. Hankston, 2015 WL 3751551, at *6.
. U.S. CONST. Aamend. IV.
. TEX. CONST. Art. I, 9.
. 815 S.W.2d 681 (Tex. Crim. App. 1991).
. Heitman, at 682 (citing Cooper v. California, 386 U.S. 58 (1967))___.
. Id. at 690.
. 865 S.W.2d 944 (Tex. Crim. App. 1993).
. Id. at 948.
. Id.
. Id. at 948-49 (quoting (citing Chapa v. State, 729 S.W.2d 723, 727 (Tex. Crim. App. 1987)).
. Id. at 949.
. 442 U.S. 735 (1979).
. Richardson, 865 S.W.2d at 949 (quotingciting Smith, 442 U.S. at 743).
. Id. (quoting Smith, 442 U.S. at 743).
. 425 U.S. 435 (1976).
. Id. Richardson, 865 S.W.2d at 949 (citing Miller, 425 U.S. at 443).
. Id. at 950 (first citing State v. Hunt, 45 A.2d 952 (N.J. 1992); then citing People v. Blair, 602 P.2d 738 (Cal. 1979al Rptr. ___); then citing Commonwealth v. Beauford, 475 A.2d 783, 791 (Pa. 1984); then citing People v. Sporleder,666 P.2d 135 (Colo. 1983) ____;; then citing State v. Gunwall, _____ 813720 P.2d 808 (Wash. 1986) ; then citing State v. Thompson, 760 P.2d 1162 (Idaho 1988); and then citing Rothman v. State, 779 P.2d 1 , 7 (Haw. 1989));.
. 865 S.W.2d at 951.
. On remand, the Court of Appeals overruled the appellant's constitutional complaint on a different ground. It held that the appellant lacked a reasonable expectation of privacy in a number that he called from a county jail telephone, and therefore he lacked standing to challenge the installation of a pen register on a line that he called. Richardson v. State, 902 S.W.2d 689 (Tex. App.Amarillo 1995). No further appeals ensued.
. 887 S.W.2d 31 (Tex. Crim. App. 1994).
. Since Autran was a plurality decision, it is not binding precedent. See Hatcher v. State, 916 S.W.2d 643, 645 (Tex. App.Texarkana 1996, pet. ref'd) (We decline to follow the plurality opinion in Autran because we do not believe that Autran constitutes either binding precedent or sound law.); Garza v. State, 137 S.W.3d 878, 884 (Tex. App.Houston [1st Dist.] 2004, pet. ref'd) (declining to follow Autran and instead following Johnson v. State, 912 S.W.2d 227 (Tex. Crim. App. 1995), holding that the Fourth Amendment decisions of the Supreme Court should be viewed as providing guidance in interpretations of Art. I, 9); Trujillo v. State, 952 S.W.2d 879, 881 (Tex. App. Dallas 1997, no pet.) (Autran, a three-judge plurality opinion, is not binding precedent.); Rothenberg v. State, 176 S.W.3d 53, 57 (Tex. App.Houston [1st Dist.] 2004, pet. ref'd) ([T]he high court has never followed Autran's specific holding concerning the validity of inventories of closed containers under the Texas Constitution.); Uballe v. State, 439 S.W.3d 380, 385 (Tex. App.Amarillo, 2014, pet. ref'd) (rejecting the argument that the Texas Constitution provides greater protection against unreasonable searches and seizures than the United States Constitution and declining to apply the Autran plurality opinion).
. 953 S.W.2d 242 (Tex. Crim. App. 1997).
. Id. at 245.
. 899 S.W.2d 668 (Tex. Crim. App. 1995).
. 912 S.W.2d 227 (Tex. Crim. App. 1995).
. Crittenden, 899 S.W.2d at 673.
. JohnsonId. , 912 S.W.2d at 232.
. Id. at 233.
. Id. (citing Johnson v. State, 864 S.W.2d 708, 718 (Tex. App. Dallas 1993).
. Id. at 233-34.
. Crittenden, 899 S.W.2d at 673.
. See Ford v. State and Love v. State, infra at nn. 44, 45, and 62.
. 2016 WL 7131259, at *3 (citing United States v. Miller, 425 U.S. at 443, and Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. at 743-45).
. Id. (citing Ford v. State, 477 S.W.3d at 329-30, nn. 5-7).
. Id.
. Eight judges agreed with the decision. Judge Yeary did not participate.
. Ford, 477 S.W.3d at 330.
. 442 U.S. 735 (1979).
. 425 U.S. 435 (1976).
. Ford, 477 S.W.3d at 329-330. See also In re Application of the United States for an Order Directing a Provider of Elec. Commc'n Serv. to Disclose Records to Gov't, 620 F.3d 304, 313 (3d Cir. 2010) (cell-site-location information is obtainable under a 2703(d) order and does not require the traditional probable cause determination; nevertheless disagreeing with the factual premise that cell phone customers are aware that their cell phone providers collect and store historical location information); In re Application of the U.S. for Historical Cell Site Data, 724 F.3d 600, 615 (5th Cir. 2013) (government can use Stored Communications Act orders to obtain cell-site information without implicating the Fourth Amendment); United States v. Davis, 785 F.3d 498, 511 (11th Cir. 2015) (en banc) (defendant had no objective reasonable expectation of privacy in business records showing the celltower locations that wirelessly connected his calls).
. Id. 477 S.W.3d at 330.
. Id.
. Id. at 330-331 (citing quoting Davis, 785 F.3d at 511).
. Id. at 331.
. Id. at 331-32 (quotingCiting Davis, 785 F.3d at 511).
. Id. (quoting United States v. Graham, 796 F3d 332, 356 (4 th Cir. 2015), overruled by 824 F.3d 421 (4th Cir. 2016) (en banc)).
. Id. (quoting Ford v. State, 444 S.W.3d 171, 202 (Tex. App.San Antonio 2014) (Chapa, J., dissenting)).
. 565 U.S. 400 (2012).
. Ford, 477 S.W.3d at 333.
. Id. at 331 (citing In re Application (Fifth Circuit), 724 F.3d at 611-12) (concluding that cell phone companies are not required by the government to record or store CSLI).
. See Crittenden, 899 S.W.2d at 673 (Having adopted the objective approach under the Fourth Amendment, not because of binding precedent, but because it makes more sense than the alternatives, we can hardly justify concluding otherwise for purposes of Article I, 9.); Johnson, 912 S.W.2d at 232 at ______. (A plain reading and comparison of the language of the 4th amendment and art. I sec 9 reveals no substantive difference. [B]oth protect the same right (freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures) to the same degree (persons, houses, papers, and effects/possessions).). See also Garza v. State, 137 S.W.3d at 884; State v. Oages, 227 S.W.3d 397, 400 (Tex. App.Eastland, 2007, pet. ref'd) (relying on Crittenden to apply New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454 (1981) as the bright line rule in Texas for automobile searches incident to arrest, and also citing to Johnson to note that although Texas courts can hold that defendants have greater rights under the Texas constitution, this does not mean that Texas courts should do so); Clark v. State, No. 06-03-00262-CR, 2004 WL 2290262, at *2 (Tex. App.Texarkana 2004, pet. ref'd) (mem. op.) (not designated for publication) (citing to various sister courts of appeal that similarly reject the argument that the Texas Constitution provides greater protection than the Fourth Amendment).
. See Ford, 477 S.W.3d Fordat 329. is state
. See State v. Mello, 27 A.3d 771, 774 (N.H. 2011) (holding that the defendant voluntarily provided the information to Comcast, which recorded it in the ordinary course of business for billing purposes and used it to provide the defendant with Internet service; having voluntarily provided this information in order to use Comcast's service, the defendant cannot now claim a privacy interest in it); State v. Perry, 776 S.E.2d 528 (N.C. App. 2015) (holding that the state constitution provision provides the same protections against unreasonable search and seizure as the Fourth Amendment, and expressly recognizing the third-party doctrine discussed in Miller and Smith).We decline to follow Massachusetts's lead in holding that its state constitution counterpart to the Fourth Amendment provides greater protection. Massachusetts has adopted the argument that the nature of cellular telephone technology and cell phone data and the character of cellular telephone use in our current society render the third party doctrine of Miller and Smith inapposite; and it recognizes that the cellular telephone is like a permanent attachment to the user's body and thus has become an indispensable part of modern American lifenecessary to social interactions as well as the conduct of business. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Augustine, 4 N.E.3d 846 (Mass. 2014) (holding that the state constitution affords more protection to individuals than the United State's constitution in relation to third party records).
RICHARDSON, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
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Columbia City Council returns to trash collection system discussion
A trash collection solution that could include roll carts returned to the Columbia City Council on Monday.
The state veterinarian has released the control zone surrounding two Lincoln County poultry farms affected by highly pathogenic avian influenza.
The statewide poultry health advisory is also lifted, and poultry owners can now resume regular activity.
We have determined through extensive testing that HPAI has not spread to other poultry flocks in our 10 kilometer control zone, State Veterinarian Dr. Charles Hatcher said. Poultry owners across Tennessee should continue to monitor their flocks and immediately report any spike in illness or death.
The first confirmed detection of H7N9 HPAI occurred March 4 in a commercial chicken flock in Lincoln County. Samples from a commercial flock on a premises less than two miles away also tested positive for the same strain of avian influenza on March 14.
Once HPAI was detected, the flocks were depopulated and buried and animal health officials established a controlled zone in the 10 kilometer radius of the affected facilities. Poultry movement was restricted within the zone and birds from commercial and backyard flocks were tested weekly for three weeks. No additional samples have tested positive for avian influenza and testing is now complete. Cleaning and disinfection continues at the two affected premises.
We greatly appreciate the hard work of all involved in this response, Commissioner of Agriculture Jai Templeton said. From our staff and partners on the local, state and federal level to the flock owners and all connected to the poultry industrythis was truly a team effort. I certainly hope Tennessee never has to deal with this situation again, but should we face another challenge, I am confident that our state is prepared.
A commercial chicken flock in Giles County tested positive for H7N9 low pathogenic avian influenza on March 8. The flock was depopulated and buried and domesticated poultry within a 10 kilometer radius of that premises were also tested and monitored for illness. That surveillance zone was released on March 30.
Although the Tennessee Department of Agriculture did not prohibit poultry exhibitions, shows or sales during this avian influenza situation, the department issued a poultry health advisory and discouraged commingling of birds. Should avian influenza be detected again in the state, the department may take additional action.
Neither HPAI nor LPAI pose a risk to the food supply. No affected animals entered the food chain. Furthermore, the Tennessee Department of Health confirms that the risk of a human becoming ill with avian influenza during poultry illness incidents is very low. This virus is not the same as the China H7N9 virus affecting Asia and is genetically distinct.
The primary difference between LPAI and HPAI is mortality rate in domesticated poultry. A slight change to the viral structure can make a virus deadly for birds. Avian influenza virus strains often occur naturally in wild migratory waterfowl without causing illness in those birds. With LPAI, domesticated chickens and turkeys may show little or no signs of illness. However, HPAI is often fatal for domesticated poultry.
The state veterinarian encourages poultry owners to remain vigilant in monitoring for flock health and offers the following tips:
Closely observe your poultry flock.
Report a sudden increase in the number of sick birds or bird deaths to the state veterinarians office at 615- 837-5120 and/or USDA at 1-866-536-7593.
Prevent contact with wild birds.
Practice good biosecurity http://healthybirds.aphis.usda.gov/ with your poultry.
Enroll in the National Poultry Improvement Plan www.poultryimprovement.org.
Follow Tennessees avian influenza updates and access resources for producers and consumers at http://www.tn.gov/agriculture/article/ag-businesses-avianinfluenza.
The state veterinarian and staff are focused on animal health and disease prevention. Each year, the Kord Animal Health Diagnostic Laboratory tests approximately 22,000 samples from poultry for avian influenza. Since March 3, the lab has tested more than 2,700 samples.
President Trump, as part of his plan to roll back regulations put in place by President Obama, just signed legislation that eliminates the prohibition against internet service providers selling customer data without their written consent. Although the original restriction had not yet taken effect, its elimination ignited a firestorm of controversy among privacy organizations, including the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the American Civil Liberties Union (which tried to no avail to get Trump to veto the legislation at the last minute).
Having done a good bit of privacy consulting in the healthcare world, I have become somewhat of a privacy fanatic myself. For example, I pay higher medical insurance rates because I don't care to share medical information with my employer.
Despite this, the change in regulations is not keeping me up at night, and I think it poses only a limited privacy risk for the enterprise.
As you probably recognize, since ISPs route our requests to the appropriate sites and relay the response back to us, they have access to a good bit of information about us. Among this data is the sites we visit, and the frequency of those visits. On the surface, this may be troubling. If you examine in more detail exactly what they can see, however, it is a good bit less troubling -- for a variety of reasons.
First, most web traffic is now Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encrypted. Google reported recently that as of March 2017, 85% of traffic crossing its servers was encrypted. This encryption forms a secure tunnel between your browser and the destination website.
An ISP is not able to decrypt this traffic, or to see significant details about the destination. It does know the address to which the request gets routed, but little else. When it amasses the destinations, however, it does have some information about its customers' browsing habits.
I suspect that many people would prefer that their browsing habits remain private.
Second, in the enterprise, your data is aggregated with browsing information from all other users. The typical network uses network address translation (NAT), which means that while each PC has a unique address internally, all requests appear on the public network as coming from a single address. Because of this, an ISP only sees a bunch of website requests, with no idea which individual made them.
In a larger company, it is likely that a wide variety of sites are accessed, so this information would be of limited value to advertisers (the likely primary customers for such data). As an example, the ISP might know that someone from a large company went to the website for a particular vendor, but it won't know who specifically viewed the site, or exactly what they looked at.
Finally, Reuters recently reported that many major ISPs -- including Comcast, AT&T and Verizon -- said they would not sell data. Given the limited value of the data they have, and the downside risk of incurring the wrath of their customers, I find it likely that they will live up to this commitment.
I do find it amusing that so many in the industry are focused on ISPs and the sale of customer data, while ignoring the more serious privacy risks we face from search engines and social networks.
An article written by Leo Notenboom in 2013 detailed how a search engine -- having obtained significant information from the browser, and after examining the details of searches -- can do some degree of user identification. He recounted a study using anonymized data that was still able to identify some users based on the search phrases used.
In a process known as fingerprinting, the search engines "learn" about search users from their addresses, items searched for, cookies and other details, and can then match those traits with an individual in many cases. Google used these techniques to implement its one-click "reCaptcha" process to confirm a user is not a robot. Once you understand these techniques, you will likely worry less about ISPs selling your data.
It seems that more people are becoming aware of privacy exposure from browser and social media use. In a recent poll conducted by Politico, respondents said they trusted their ISP a bit more than Google or social networks, by a margin as large as 22%.
If you want to ensue the best available privacy for your browsing, or that of your employees, consider the following:
1. Use good browser privacy settings
It is possible to limit some information available to others about your browser experience by changing a variety of settings on your browser, as described by Heimdal Security in its comprehensive guide on that subject.
2. Use a browser specifically designed for privacy
There are a few alternative browsers, like Comodo Dragon or Epic Privacy, that are designed from the ground up to maximize privacy.
3. Use a VPN tunnel
A virtual private network is a secure, encrypted tunnel from your network to another destination. By using a VPN tunnel with an appropriate service, you can eliminate almost all of your ISP's visibility into your web traffic. You must ensure, however, that your VPN provider protects your information, rather than selling it to third parties.
4. Use an alternate DNS service
The domain name system (DNS) translates human-readable site names to IP addresses, which are what routers need to get your traffic to its destination. Much of what your ISP can tell about your traffic comes from the fact that their servers usually handle the DNS name resolution for you. You can prevent them from seeing some of that data by using an alternate DNS service.
Cisco's OpenDNS, for example, which is free for individual use and available as a subscription product for businesses, can send your DNS queries across an encrypted tunnel, thus protecting some of that information from your IPS.
Bottom line
Scott McNealy, the former CEO of Sun Microsystems, is somewhat famous for having said: " You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it."
While there is some truth to his statement, there is much you can do to maximize the privacy of your Internet activity, with or in spite of regulatory decisions by a government.
Maya Marsden (center) plays Lord Farquaad during a dress rehearsal of Shrek: The Musical, Jr. at Chichester Central School. Performances of the drama club production will be Friday at 6:30 and Saturday at 1 p.m.
Bridget Mercier as Shrek and Piper Collins as Donkey act out a scene during a dress rehearsal of Shrek the Musical Jr at Chichester Central School in Chichester on Tuesday, April 11, 2017. Performances of the drama club production will be Friday at 6:30 and Saturday at 1 p.m. (ELIZABETH FRANTZ / Monitor staff)
Chichester Central School students play their respective parts during a dress rehearsal of Shrek the Musical Jr at the school in Chichester on Tuesday, April 11, 2017. Performances of the drama club production will be Friday at 6:30 and Saturday at 1 p.m. (ELIZABETH FRANTZ / Monitor staff)
Jace LaCross as Pinocchio delivers lines during a dress rehearsal of Shrek: The Musical, Jr. at Chichester Central School.
Bridget Mercier as Shrek and Piper Collins as Donkey act out a scene during a dress rehearsal of Shrek the Musical Jr at Chichester Central School in Chichester on Tuesday, April 11, 2017. Performances of the drama club production will be Friday at 6:30 and Saturday at 1 p.m. (ELIZABETH FRANTZ / Monitor staff)
The fairy-tale misfits ensemble sings a song during a dress rehearsal of Shrek: the Musical, Jr. at Chichester Central School. Performances of the drama club production will be Friday at 6:30 and Saturday at 1 p.m. ELIZABETH FRANTZ photos / Monitor staff
Leah LaCross, as Princess Fiona, sings a song during a dress rehearsal of Shrek the Musical Jr at Chichester Central School in Chichester on Tuesday, April 11, 2017. Performances of the drama club production will be Friday at 6:30 and Saturday at 1 p.m. (ELIZABETH FRANTZ / Monitor staff)
Maya Marsden plays Lord Farquaad during a dress rehearsal of Shrek the Musical Jr at Chichester Central School in Chichester on Tuesday, April 11, 2017. Performances of the drama club production will be Friday at 6:30 and Saturday at 1 p.m. (ELIZABETH FRANTZ / Monitor staff)
Chichester Central School students Madelyn Pitman as one of the three little pigs helps Gracelyn Humphreys as Fiona prepare for a dress rehearsal of Shrek: The Musical, Jr.
Chichester Central School students play their respective parts during a dress rehearsal of Shrek the Musical Jr at the school in Chichester on Tuesday, April 11, 2017. Performances of the drama club production will be Friday at 6:30 and Saturday at 1 p.m. (ELIZABETH FRANTZ / Monitor staff)
Bridget Mercier, as Shrek, acts out a scene during a dress rehearsal of Shrek: The Musical, Jr. at Chichester Central School. ELIZABETH FRANTZ photos / Monitor staff
Students at Chichester Central School will take you on a chaotic romp through fairy tales with their production of Shrek: The Musical, Jr.
The kids have been rehearsing for two-and-a-half months to tell the story of an ogre named Shrek, played by Bridget Mercier, and his mission to save his home and a princess.
Co-director Kate Mara, a reading teacher, said Shrek is a good ensemble show, necessary when the cast can range from 30 to 70 students. Second-grade teacher Bea Douglas is also directing.
There are no cuts from the cast; everyone gets some role, Mara said.
Its an opportunity for kids that dont fit in other places, she said.
Everyone belongs. Its a theme that carries into their show, where a reclusive ogre discovers people he cares about.
Shrek is sent away from home by his parents at 7 years old to make his own way in the world, with the just the warning that people wont accept him because of his appearance, and they sing Big, Bright, Beautiful World.
Mara said the song is her favorite because its the first piece and the ensemble sings it together.
I love when you get to hear kids become one voice, she said. Its an amazing, powerful thing.
Shrek goes on to live in a swamp alone until a gang of misfit fairy tale characters moves in after being kicked out from the kingdom by Lord Farquaad (Maya Marsden).
Shrek goes to Farquaad to reclaim the solitude of his swamp, is befriended by Donkey and is tasked with rescuing a princess for Farquaad to marry to become king.
Like Shrek, Princess Fiona (played by Gracelyn Humphreys, Olivia Berkeley and Leah LaCross) was sent away by her parents.
Shrek rescues her from the tower wheres shes guarded by a fire-breathing dragon, and the two become friends and eventually fall in love, though they dont express their feelings.
After a great misunderstanding, Fiona runs off to marry Farquaad. The wedding is interrupted and Fionas secret is revealed, along with a secret about Farquaads parentage.
And everyone lives happily ever after and sings the Monkees Im a Believer, with which Mara said the kids have a lot of fun.
Its a program were very proud of, Mara said.
She hopes through the show, the children learn to be part of a team, make commitments, look out for each other and self-manage.
The students will perform for their peers Thursday. Mara said the students are very excited and get a lot of confidence from the program.
Theyll come in Friday morning (to school) like they are king of the world, Mara said. Its so positive ... to watch these kids perform their hearts out.
Public shows will be Friday at 6:30 p.m. and Saturday at 1 p.m. at Chichester Central School. Tickets are $5 and seating is first come, first served. Doors open a half-hour before the show begins.
One of the things that makes America great is that fact we are a nation that believes in second chances. Consequently, there are countless individuals who have made mistakes, payed the price for those choices, and have moved on take make meaningful contributions within society.
Demetrus Coonrod was duly elected to the City Council. During her campaign she was forthright about some of her past decisions. From this point on the responsibility and Christian thing to do is not "drag her name through the mud" on past events but rather to work her and her colleagues to improve the lives of all Chattanoogans.
Eventually, she should be evaluated, but on how she performs as a member of the Chattanooga City Council. This is the ethically and morally correct thing to do.
Rev. Dr Jeffrey T. Wilson
* * *
Society claims to want to rehabilitate convicts. It instead seems to try to place roadblocks in their way.
Ms. Coonrod has turned her life around. There is no one in government who better understands the conditions fostering violence in our city.
The Chattanoogan should be supporting her rather than trying to drag her down. Let us hope that the City Council, including Ms. Coonrod, can make changes that will reduce the unacceptable level of violence in our city.
John L. Odom
* * *
Wow! I must have been asleep at the wheel when the news broke about Ms. Coonrod's police record. One would think her opponent would have been screaming about her record loud enough to wake the dead. Just like Romney, I'm sure he now wishes he had been more vocal in the negatives regarding his opponent.
I did learn one thing though that's important to everyone, a felon can get their voting rights back regardless of their track record.
One thing I do think, Ms. Coonrod is abundantly qualified to deal with the gang problems in her district, I'm just not sure which way that wind blows.
Good luck Chattanooga, first Berke and now this, hold your head high, I have a feeling it's gonna be a record year of "I told ya so's".
Sue White
* * *
I am appalled at the audacity of whomever decided to send their dossier on Ms. Coonrod to this publication in the wake of her overwhelming victory in the City Council District 9 runoff. Not once did Ms. Coonrod shy away from talking about her history, she never mislead anyone, and she never lied. The voters didnt care about her past - she made it to the run off, and she earned 60 percent of the vote to win the election. What is the actual point of shaming her now?
Last night, as I watched the returns come in, I was proud to live in a district that elected a black woman, single parent, and fully restored felon to represent one of the more economically disadvantaged districts in Chattanooga - a district where gun violence, poverty, and lack of economic development are the norm for several neighborhoods.
Ms. Coonrods personal experiences give her more insight into these realities than any other member of Chattanoogas City Council. She will be a voice for those rarely heard in government and considered in policy creation. And not only did we make history by electing a representative from one of the most marginalized communities in the country; we elected a strong, intelligent, compassionate, hard-working, dedicated woman to a position that rarely sees a female candidate.
Ms. Coonrod is a community activist, an advocate for public education and access to early childhood education. She makes sacrifices to care for her children. She cares about the things the people of District 9 care about. She worries about her neighbors and is committed to improving their lives. She is a human being and deserves to be treated with dignity and respect.
Ive never seen anyone work as hard with as little as Ms. Coonrod did during her campaign. She canvassed countless doors and made many more phone calls, all while working full-time and caring for a young child. Im impressed with her strength and fortitude, and inspired by her ability to overcome hardship. I am looking forward to watching her work for the people of our district as Councilwoman. She earned every vote she got, and she deserves our collective support.
Khristy Wilkinson
Chair, Hamilton County Democratic Party
* * *
I read with disgust the political hit-job on Ms. Coonrod that apparently passes for journalism at the Chattanoogan. This piece has no valid purpose other than to attempt character assassination against Ms. Coonrod who won a seat on the City Council. It is arguable that it would never be valid journalism, but given that it was published the day after she won fair and square, belies its purpose of pure dirty, hateful politics.
Ms. Coonrod, like any other person on the planet, is not perfect, but she has paid for her mistakes in a system we have set up collectively to handle her crimes. Society has been "made whole." Ms. Coonrod has done something many people unfortunately don't, she has risen up and overcome her past. And more importantly, she has approached the community optimistically, willing to share her talents to make the community better for all.
The community, including the Chattanoogan, should hold her forth as an example of how people can be rehabilitated and give back to the community. And we should be encouraging to her and others who work hard to put their pasts behind them and contribute to society. Our country decided that people who go through the criminal justice system should come out on the other side and be restored to community life. These are our American values. It is anti-American to tear someone down in the way this paper has chosen to attempt to tear down Ms. Coonrod.
I hope Ms. Coonrod knows that the Chattanoogan does not speak for all people and that most people in the community are better than is portrayed by this paper.
Myrlene Marsa
* * *
After reading the news account about Demetrus Coonrod, I was wondering what the intent was here. If the article was to inform the voters in her district, it came too late. If the article was meant to indicate the success of the implemented re-entry programs, and the millions of dollars spent on these programs, then the article may have succeeded.
We need to think about this for a moment. The voters of District 9 ousted incumbent Yusuf Hakeem for Ms. Coonrod. What message does this send?
One can only hope that Ms. Coonrod leaves her failures and tribulations in her past and proves herself through actions on the City Council by showing that she can work well with her peers (fellow Members of Council) and serves the people and not herself. She has the burden to show how people who make serious mistakes in their life can turn their life around and be successful.
My personal advice to Ms. Coonrod would be to avoid any unethical and unlawful temptations brought before her and remember the various support groups that the FBOPs introduced to her within our community. She needs to stay strong and vigilant and do whats right. People believed to be of greater integrity have performed poorly.
Lastly, it bewilders me, as it must with other voters, that nothing was said about Ms. Coonrods short comings before the elections. Only after Yusuf Hakeem lost his seat did anyone believe this was important.
This is the year of whining losers and there isnt much credibility with them as well.
Don T.D. Gala, Ph.D.
Hixson
* * *
Should Demetrus Conrod continue to serve? First, yes, it is the will of the voters in District 9. Secondly, section 8.53 of the City Charter gives her or any person who have fully restored their rights that option. Perhaps the main reason is that she is a model of what restorative justice reform can and should strive to achieve. For several years, many individuals and organizations dedicated to criminal justice reform have advocated on the behalf of Restorative Justice as opposed to Retributive Justice. Upon studying the philosophies of old, as a society we have mostly accepted the notion that justice is affixed on a scale and we must seek to find the balance between truth and untruth, equal and unequal, just and unjust, as we seek to find an equilibrium that balances the needs and safety of the greater society as opposed to the fairness of an individual or entity. The organization Restorativejustice.org defines restorative justice as: a theory of justice that emphasizes repairing the harm caused by criminal behavior. It is best accomplished through cooperative processes that allow all willing stakeholders to meet, although other approaches are available when that is impossible. This can lead to transformation of people, relationships and communities. Restorative justice concerns itself with constitutional rights and societal responsibilities, due process under the law, and proportional sentencing as it helps offenders atone, make amends for crimes committed, grants the victims of crime a voice by stressing the harm that has been caused and that should be repaired, and it affords all the opportunity to participate in the American dream. For too long our system has been based on retributive justice, which is retribution, payback, penalties, and ultra-punitive measures that have given us a criminal justice system that is at times feels beyond breach an incapable of being repaired as the time fits the crime model has greatly outweighed any of the progressive elements associated with the true essence of justice.
There is reason to be concerned with elements of criminal justice today because the challenges we face seem insurmountable. We are contending with due process and fair trials; mandatory sentencing laws; disproportionate incarceration rates where seventy-percent of inmates are persons of color; the fastest growing prison demographic are women of color; the more than two-thousand infants that will be born to mothers behind prison walls this year; a rapidly increasing rate of recidivism that suggests most offenders will reenter prison within a year while many fathers son, son and mothers daughter, daughter enter the never ending vicious cycle. We should also be disturbed about our probation processes in order to ensure that they are effective and productive; many offenders have mental incapacities or are drug offenders, and they need mental health treatment and services in order to become productive citizens. We should be troubled about reentry into society, and push for more attainable job and professional skills as well as assisting those who have reentered society find gainful employment; we should help ex-offenders restore their voting and citizenship rights once they have fully paid their debts to society. Expungement clinics are excellent ways to help aide in this area. Likewise, many of us support the second amendment and the right to bear arms, but on a week where we saw one child accidentally slain and several gun-related killings we should ask are there limits on the accessibility to guns? If not, would not a program of gun safety be practical or should we just accept this as a necessary price to pay for open carry? Nevertheless programs offered should be based on rehabilitation, reentry and redemption, through pushing for things such as Ban the Box and viewing crime and violence as a Public Health Emergency.
There are other areas of the criminal justice system we should be looking at as well. At a time when we recently faced a horrific tragedy at Ooltewah due to bullying and negligence, restorative justice practices can help with school climate and help reduce the school to prison pipeline by dealing with present-traumatic stress as well as assisting with adverse childhood experiences by offering meditation, reflection, guided practice and the need to report out of the ordinary situations and circumstances when they occur. We should be paying attention to the Jocques Clemmons incident in Nashville, and review our own police-public procedures so that we will not become the next Ferguson or Baltimore. This should include studying the merits of civilian review boards. Another judicial vacancy just occurred and it begs to reason when will Chattanooga and Hamilton County have some diversity on the judicial bench? There was also a recent story about the lack of personnel at the public defenders office, and we should ask is this agency fully able to give citizens the constitutional right to representation and a fair trial? These are just a few areas that can greatly help reduce crime and help many find a sustainable path to societal reentry.
Our goal for ex-offenders should be for them to find rehabilitation, reentry and redemption through balancing the great scales of justice so that there is equilibrium. It does not say that there will not be peaks and valleys in their road to redemption, and sometimes there will be bumps in the road. The goal is to be a productive member of society and do the best you can according to your ability to do so. Jarrett Adams, the co-founder of Life after Justice in New York, is one example of what restorative justice can accomplish. For ten years he served behind the dark prison walls as he persistently pushed to have his wrongful conviction overturned. He would teach himself the law while in prison and file multiple appeals. Finally he caught the attention of the Wisconsin Innocence Project who would finally help him win exoneration. Upon release, he would go on to earn his J.D. from Loyola University Chicago School of Law in May 2015 and start a public interest law fellowship with the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, the very court that reversed his conviction because of his trial lawyers constitutional deficiencies. Today he works with Life After Justice and the Innocence Project in helping to overturn the wrongful convictions of others. It is not that people are unblemished, flawless and perfect. Also, we all have our setbacks, shortcomings, and thorns of the flesh. We must remember a seed must first be planted in good ground before it can bloom and reach its full potential because after the darkness there must come light, and after the storm there is still hope, and the hope that we must instill in ex-offenders is that there is still reason to hope because the dreams may yet be able to live again, and we must allow the dreams to live on. We should not give in to confirmation biases, attitude polarizations or weapons of mass distraction and take one person at a time as they come. This is the true nature of restorative justice, not to say that wrong has never been committed, but to state that if you are earnest and sincere, you can overcome. Like Jarrett Adams, I believe Demetrus Conrod has overcome and we should let her dream to serve the people live.
Respectfully, Eric Atkins
Chattanooga Criminal Justice Coalition
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It sure is amazing all of these Democrats want to evaluate a politician on their future accomplishments today. I'm sure these same Democrats had the same opinion regarding Trump. Hypocrites.
Jimmy Gray
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So the party that brought us Ward Crutchfield, Billy Long and Duke Franklin now elects a convicted violent criminal who is an admitted racist as a member of City Council? Well their new chairman, a community organizer from Detroit, ran on a platform of making Chattanooga more like Detroit. With the election of Ms Coonrod it appears we are well on the way to looking like Detroit.
Electing someone with a criminal background could be a good idea, after all FDR defended his pick of Joseph Kennedy Sr as SEC commissioner by saying, "it takes a crook to catch a crook." Using that criteria I have some suggestions for our local Democrats for future elections or appointments.
Mayor-Kwame Kilpatrick, former mayor of Detroit, who should fit Khristy Wilkinson's wishes. He was recently convicted of 24 felony offenses from his term as mayor but he will probably be out on parole and available for our 2021 mayor election.
Superintendent of Schools- Barbara Byrd Bennett, former head of both Chicago and Cleveland school systems. She is currently serving a term for steering contracts to her former employer, but like Mr Kilpatrick, will be out on parole by the time our illustrious School Board gets around to doing something.
City Police Chief- well we have our own Billy Long who just served an eight year term for corruption as county sheriff. If we elected him we wouldn't even have to pay his moving expenses.
All joking aside it is pathetic what our local Democrats have become. The party of Marilyn Lloyd, JoAnne Favors, Ralph Kelley, Kirk Walker, the Reverend and Honorable Sam Payne, Kenny Smith and others has become a caricature of itself. Even as a Republican I hope the local Democrats return to some form of respectability.
Douglas Jones
Ooltewah
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This is a remarkable exchange. On the eve of Good Friday and Easter Sunday, we have those who accept the failings and the change and we have those who pass judgement. For all of us I pray and I ask, what would Jesus do?
Prentice Hicks
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Mr. Hicks asks what would Jesus do. Might He clear the tables and forcefully throw the money-changers from the temple or, in this case, out of the courthouse?
He was known for being a bit of a wild man, you know, and getting angry about hypocrisy. He was also judgemental toward the unrepentant. We forget about those traits.
If those who behave poorly aren't taken to task for it, how do we ever regain our society? What example do we set for our children when they see those who behave poorly suffer no consequences?
Vicki Rodgers
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It's no surprise to me that progressive liberals are vehemently objecting to a news source giving its readers what the late Paul Harvey would say is the rest of the story.
You see, it's the rest of the story they often want to hide, especially when it pertains to politics and religion. I saw this as an active journalist and continue to see it now more than ever as a retired journalist who still seeks all the information I can get regarding someone or some thing. What you don't know, I have learned over the years, can indeed hurt you.
What would Jesus do concerning the issue with Ms. Coonrod? Shed light on the subject. After all, He is the light of the world. Then He would tell Ms. Coonrod to Go thy way and sin no more and follow the light. Hopefully, this is what has happened, and the rest of the story will have a happy ending.
As a side note, the nationally broadcast Chris Plante Show" recently mentioned the Chattanoogan.com expose of Ms. Coonrod's past in discussing corruption and looking the other way by the Democratic Party.
Jim Ashley
The Syrian regimes use of chemical weapons flouts the rules of war and must be punished. President Donald Trumps press secretary, Sean Spicer, this week warned that if you gas a baby, if you put a barrel bomb into innocent peopleyou will see a response from this president.
Meanwhile Rex Tillerson, the American Secretary of State, laid a wreath in the Tuscan village of SantAnna di Stazzema, where the Nazis murdered 500 people, and declared: We rededicate ourselves to holding to account any and all who commit crimes against the innocents anywhere in the world.
Such sweeping language could be used to justify an extraordinarily wide range of interventions. But it also justifies the attempt, however inadequate, to write a profile of the rules of war.
One should not of course imply that the internationally agreed laws and conventions which are supposed to govern the use of armed force necessarily do so.
As one British expert commented, when I told him I had been asked to write a profile of the rules of war: People will generally do whatever they think they can get away with.
But what you can get away with in a democracy is conditioned not just by whether people think what you are doing is moral and practical, but whether they think it is legal.
One has only to recall the lengths to which Tony Blair went to make the legal case for the Iraq War, and the corresponding energy with which his opponents sought to show he was acting illegally, to see that the question matters more than a purely realist conception of foreign policy might suggest. Law, it turns out, is one of the many realities which has to be taken into account.
At the weekend, Sir Michael Fallon, the Defence Secretary, took great care, in a piece for the Sunday Times, to indicate the legal basis for the American action:
After the horrors of chemical attacks in the Great War, the use of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases was banned by the Geneva Protocol in 1925. However, President Bashar al-Assads regime has a history of using such weapons against its people. It flouted international law in 2013 by gassing nearly 1,500 people to death outside Damascus. Yet despite agreeing later that year to destroy its chemical weapons, Syria has again been caught in the act. Airstrikes are never undertaken lightly but this is a wholly unacceptable situation. Something had to be done to stop more people dying. So, in his first test as commander-in-chief, President Trump made the right call by resorting to careful and narrowly focused military action.
What is the difference between a gas attack and a barrel bomb? According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, the Assad regime last year dropped 13,000 barrel bombs. It stands to reason that these must have inflicted vastly greater suffering on innocent men, women and children than the most recent gas attack has done.
In moral terms, as Spicer suggests, to kill someone with either is abhorrent. But in legal terms, as Fallon indicates, there is a significant difference. So the White House had to correct what Spicer had said about barrel bombs: a prelude to the correction and apology he himself had to make a day or two later after his deplorable claim that Hitler did not use chemical weapons.
The Hague Conference of 1899, which drew up the first of the Hague Conventions, made various attempts to lay down the laws and customs of war. It included declarations on the launching of projectiles and explosives from balloons, on the use of projectiles the object of which is the diffusion of asphyxiating or deleterious gases. and on the use of bullets which expand or flatten easily in the human body.
Gas was nevertheless employed on an extensive scale during the First World War. A renewed attempt to outlaw it was therefore made in 1925, in the Geneva Protocol on Asphyxiating or Poisonous Gases. In 1968, Syria acceded to this protocol.
The Geneva Convention of 1949, which was ratified by Syria in 1953, and has indeed been ratified by every single member of the United Nations, extended protection to civilians: previous conventions had applied only to combatants.
Other weapons which have been treated as particularly noxious include landmines, laser weapons, biological weapons and cluster munitions. But neither Syria nor some other countries have ratified all these later protocols.
To suggest that these agreements have had no effect would be as unrealistic as to pretend they have never been broken. Some amelioration of the horrors of war has sometimes been achieved.
The 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, administered by a nongovernmental organisation based in the Hague, is a treaty prohibiting the development, production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons. Syria not only refused to sign it, but stated in 2012 that it possessed chemical and biological weapons and would use them if attacked.
On 21 August 2013 the Ghouta chemical attack took place on two opposition-held suburbs of Damascus. On 29 August, Britains Joint Intelligence Committee said at least 350 people had been killed, and it was highly likely that the attack had been carried out by the Syrian government, which had used chemical weapons on a smaller scale on 14 previous occasions.
On the same day, the Commons debated whether to take part in military action in response. The then Prime Minister, David Cameron, said:
The question before the House today is how to respond to one of the most abhorrent uses of chemical weapons in a century, which has slaughtered innocent men, women and children in Syria. It is not about taking sides in the Syrian conflict, it is not about invading, it is not about regime change, and it is not even about working more closely with the opposition; it is about the large-scale use of chemical weapons and our response to a war crimenothing else. Let me set out what the House has in front of it today in respect of how we reached our conclusions. We have a summary of the Governments legal position, which makes it explicit that military action would have a clear legal basis.
MPs nevertheless voted by 285 to 272 against taking military action. Ed Miliband, the Leader of the Opposition, said after the debate that people didnt want a rush to war and Britain doesnt need reckless and impulsive leadership, it needs calm and measured leadership.
But re-reading Camerons speech now, one can see him going out of his way to provide calm and measured leadership, and to demonstrate the legality of what he proposed:
We must ensure that any action, if it is to be taken, is proportionate, legal and specifically designed to deter the use of chemical weapons.
Barack Obama nevertheless decided the United States would refrain from taking military action. He instead struck a deal, brokered by the Russians, under which the Assad regime agreed to to give up every single bit of its chemical weapons and to join the Chemical Weapons Convention.
It now appears overwhelmingly likely that the Assad regime broke the agreement and kept back the sarin which was used in the latest attack. The New York Times remarked a few days ago that this shows the danger of doing deals with dictators.
One might also say it shows the limitations of a measure like the Chemical Weapons Convention. Three states, North Korea, South Sudan and Egypt, have neither signed nor acceded to that treaty, and one must reckon there are others which, like Syria, flout its provisions.
But amelioration rather than total prevention was the original aim of the Geneva Conventions. In 1859, a Swiss businessman, Henri Dunant, happened to witness the aftermath of the battle of Solferino, fought between the French under Napoleon III and the Sardinians under Victor Emmanuel II against the Austrians under Franz Joseph.
Dunant was appalled by the wretched inadequacy of the arrangements for looking after the many thousands of casualties scattered in agony across the battlefield. He did what he could to organise local relief efforts, given irrespective of the national origins of the wounded, and wrote a book, A Memory of Solferino, which a few years later led to the setting up in Geneva of what became the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Rules of war have always existed in various customary forms, and from the 17th century onwards acquired parliamentary authority as applied to the Royal Navy and the British Army. According to the American Law of War Manual issued in 2015 by the Department of Defense,
The law of war is part of who we are. George Washington, as Commander in Chief of the Continental Army, agreed with his British adversary that the Revolutionary War would be carried on agreeable to the rules which humanity formed and to prevent or punish every breach of the rules of war within the sphere of our respective commands.
But international humanitarian law sprang from the Red Cross, with the first Geneva Convention signed by 16 countries in 1864. The Geneva Conventions seek in time of war to uphold the protection of prisoners and of civilians; provide for the care of the wounded; ban torture; and prohibit methods of warfare which cause excessive suffering.
The more seriously one takes international law, the more sceptical one may be about President Trumps willingness to observe it. Professor Philippe Sands, of University College London and Matrix Chambers, who appears frequently before international courts and whose most recent book, East West Street, explores the origins of genocide and crimes against humanity, declared in 2015 that We need a Syria strategy, not half-baked reasons to drop bombs, and reacted with horror when I asked him about the most recent American attack:
Is there a plan? Is there a policy? Is it legal? Decisions taken on the hoof invariably risk escalation as one thing leads to another. Applause on Syria and chemicals, why not North Korea and nukes?
And yet as someone who has always felt instinctively sceptical about international law, I cannot help feeling impressed by the way it hangs together, and provides a basis for distinguishing between civilisation and barbarism.
It cannot provide a substitute for statecraft, or for the exercise of wider judgment about whether a particular war is just. For that, one needs Thomas Aquinas, recently examined by Charles Guthrie and Michael Quinlan.
A former officer in the British Army observed that international law does not restrain bands of irregulars, whether in the Balkans or Ukraine or Syria, where a bunch of thugs may operate under the command of the biggest thug.
But that same officer spoke movingly about the horror of gas as a weapon. If the Chemical Weapons Convention did not exist, it would have to be invented. And who can honestly maintain that it ought not to be enforced?
Daniel Hannan is an MEP for South-East England, and a journalist, author and broadcaster. His most recent book is What Next: How to Get the Best from Brexit.
Does anyone actually believe that Sean Spicer, Donald Trumps press spokesman, is a Holocaust denier? Sure, he expressed himself with unbelievable gaucheness. His declaration that you had someone as despicable as Hitler who didnt even sink to using chemical weapons broke pretty much every rule of media management, starting with the most basic rule of all: dont press Hitler into contemporary arguments.
Still, its pretty clear what the poor fellow was trying to say. Even a regime as murderous as the Third Reich, he was arguing, shrank from doing what Assad is accused of doing that is, using poison gas as a weapon of war. The Nazis enslaved whole populations, machine-gunned civilians and, ultimately, set up death camps. But they drew the line at using poison gas in bombs. The gas masks with which Britons were issued in 1939 remained unused, even as Hitlers dying regime hurled V2s across the Channel.
We can all agree that it was a tasteless comparison. But that is not enough for his detractors. They have to go straight to Volume 10. Here, for example, is Steven Goldstein of the Anne Frank Centre for Mutual Respect: On Passover, no less, Sean Spicer has engaged in Holocaust denial, the most offensive form of fake news imaginable, by denying Hitler gassed millions of Jews to death President Trump must fire him at once.
Needless to say, broadcasters went with the Holocaust Denial Row line, and social media exploded with rage, the original quotation quickly forgotten as people competed to be visibly angrier than each other. Spicer was basically a Nazi! Trump himself was little more than a Nazi! In fact, Trump was worse than a Nazi! And so on, and so on.
When a public figure expresses himself awkwardly, the reaction follows four stages. First, strip the quotation of any context. Second, forget the speakers record and credentials. (If Sean Spicer really were a Nazi sympathiser, I think wed have had some intimations before now.) Third, put the worst possible construction on his motives. Fourth, demand his dismissal.
Everything is at full blast. No one ever says, OK, that was badly phrased, but his apology sounded genuine, or Yeah, she expressed that clumsily, but I know what she was getting at. Nothing short of a resignation will do. Indeed, hectoring demands for resignation are a form of conspicuous consumption. Lukewarm condemnation simply wont do the trick.
No one likes to step into the path of a lynch mob. Think of the way Sir Tim Hunt was treated when he made an ungainly joke about falling in love with women in laboratories. Again, no one was prepared to consider the context. Indeed no one would have guessed, from the coverage, that it was a joke at all, a light-hearted opening to a speech that was followed by a but seriously, and then his main point about women playing an increasingly significant role in science. Although there were plenty of journalists in his audience, no one felt brave enough to correct the virtue-signallers and, before long, UCL had dismissed the Nobel Laureate from his post.
We can all think of examples of Twitter storms that pass as quickly as they form, leaving blue skies and often, also, shattered individuals. Dont think its an exclusively Leftist phenomenon either: Diane Abbott, Emily Thornberry and even, on occasion, Ken Livingstone, have been mobbed for things they didnt quite say. Indeed, angry reactions to misreported phrases are older than social media. Al Gore never claimed to have invented the Internet. Jim Callaghan never said Crisis? What crisis? Marie Antoinette never (as far as we know) said Let them eat cake.
Still, there is something uniquely ugly about the way social media aggregate and exaggerate our most brutish instincts. Mobs are, as Shakespeare understood, nasty and fickle. We have a reminder of their inconstancy every year at this season. Four days ago, we recalled the way a jubilant crowd placed palm leaves before Jesus as he rode a donkey into Jerusalem; tomorrow, we remember the same crowd baying for his crucifixion.
One of the virtues of representative democracy is that you no longer have to infer the mood of a crowd from its loudest members. People can express their opinions in a measured way. Mob gives way to majority. Rabbles are dissolved into a wider and wiser electorate.
But Facebook and Twitter return us, in some ways, to a pre-democratic age. Emotion is elevated over fact, and details trampled underfoot. Donald Trump is a beneficiary of that change, as his opponents are quick to point out before, in many cases, indulging in precisely the loutish behaviour that they condemn in his followers.
So let me end by saluting one of the few who stepped into the path of the mob, namely Brendan Cox, husband of the murdered Labour MP Jo Cox. Here is what he had to say as the outrage reached its peak on Tuesday: Spicer is stupid, but he didnt Deny Hitler gassed Jews and suggesting he did belittles the gravity of the charge. Quite. Odd, in a way, that that should have needed saying, but in our current age, in which information is so easily available and so rarely accessed, it evidently did.
James Frayne is Director of communications agency Public First and author of Meet the People, a guide to moving public opinion. The focus of this column is Theresa Mays conservatism for ordinary working people.
A report in the Financial Times this week revealed a London-based academic believes he can predict when a CEO will resign or be forced out. Analysing the content of senior executives messages to shareholders, the academic looks for tell-tale signs like a lack of future focus and excessive negativity.
Politics and business are different and leaders in their respective fields talk differently and are held to account in different ways. The same sort of analysis therefore wouldnt work. But now were several months into Theresa Mays leadership with a potential reshuffle not a million miles away its an interesting exercise thinking about the signs to look for as Prime Ministers prepare to move Ministers out of their jobs.
Lets take the two most obvious signs out of consideration: presiding over a catastrophic event in a departments remit; and extreme personal impropriety. Either of these and a politician is out the door, full stop. But what about those less blatant signs?
Prime Ministers will tolerate reasonable ideological differences between themselves and Cabinet Members and Ministers recognising parties are broad churches and that certain politicians connect with hard to reach parts of their movement. However, theres much less tolerance for politicians with a lack of personal affinity with the leader particularly amongst junior Ministers.
It looks as though Theresa May takes personal loyalty very seriously. Her first Government was stuffed full of people with whom she had a history of mutual respect; her main advisers go way back. Time will tell, but its likely those that arent perceived to be personally aligned will get moved on next time. Those that didnt back her leadership bid and havent publicly ingratiated themselves with the new administration should be getting nervous.
Another sign is excessive timidity and anonymity. Ministers that dont drive a clear agenda within their Departments changing policy and generating media coverage are living on borrowed time. Some senior politicians worry taking such a course just raises the likelihood of mistakes for which theyll be punished. At one level, this fear is reasonable. But a Prime Minister will always tolerate a risk-taker with a plan more than someone that meekly does what their officials tell them.
Poor media performances on the most insidery shows also mark a Minister down for demotion. Prime Ministers will accept politicians failing miserably to connect with the masses on the biggest news bulletins something that happens all the time. But they wont tolerate a politician that cant held their own on shows like Today or the Daily and Sunday Politics. The opposite should be true but rarely is.
There are two other signs one visible to all, one visible only internally. Harsh but true, older Ministers that have been around a long time but outside the centre of things are likely to be shuffled out. Admiration for quiet competence has its limits. And finally, the less visible one, those Ministers that seem to be drowning in departmental administration are often on the way out. It sends a strong signal that they have neither the basic competence to run their own show, nor the desire.
There is a handful of Ministers who unfortunately display two or three of these signs. They know who they are and so does Theresa May.
The Turney Center Industrial Complex, which is the politically-correct name for a medium-security state prison about an hours drive west of Nashville, is a very bad place to call home. There are more than 1,500 inmates in the lock-up and the prisoner-to-guard ratio is allegedly 128-to-1. To no ones surprise, about 16 inmates jumped three guards there late Sunday afternoon and two were stabbed repeatedly. Both are in critical condition after being air-lifted to Vanderbilt Medical Center.
The third was taken hostage until a special team rescued the officers after about three hours. What is most disturbing is that the Tennessee Department of Corrections played the incident down, calling it you guessed it a disturbance when the true picture is Turney Center is almost as bad as the over-stuffed Hamilton County Jail. When two under-paid and over-worked guards are admitted to a hospital, both in critical condition, a disturbance is hardly a large enough wheelbarrow to adequately describe what really happened.
Sadly, just about every state and county prison in Tennessee is a smoldering time bomb and what is most maddening is the politicians who serve the people quickly turn their backs on those who need help the worst. It is believed that almost 40 percent of the male and female citizens incarcerated in Tennessee have some degree of mental illness. Psychotropic drugs will cost County Sheriff Jim Hammond OVER ONE AND A HALF MILLION DOLLARS THIS YEAR.
So when County Mayor Jim Coppinger said during yesterdays County Commission meeting that it costs Hamilton County taxpayers EIGHTY-TWO-THOUSAND-DOLLARS-A-DAY to house our county miscreants, lets agree it is long overdue for both the state and the county to be proactive on the mentally ill and the homeless.
Jana Jahn, working closely with Sheriff Jim Hammond and his administrator, Gino Bennett, can tell us right now how we can save well over a million dollars a year in jail costs, how we can triple those savings in a common-sense approach in related costs, and how we can humanely help some who cant help themselves. We act as though we are the ones who are mentally ill because the almost-immediate savings would be astronomical but you know the rag thats not my department.
No, it is every human beings duty to help his fellow man.
Moccasin Bend Hospital is a state-operated mental facility. It has 150 beds and serves 54 of Tennessees counties that over half the state. Three beds per county, are you kidding me? Our opioid addictions are now epidemic yet somewhere there is an elected official(s) who thinks three beds for all of Hamilton County is satisfactory. The excuse? We dont have the money Thats bunk!
We read that most health insurance plans are balking at opioid addiction so what that means is those addicts will go to the only place that will accept them the county jails. A disaster is unfolding right before our eyes and the Tennessee Department of Corrections calls the stabbing of two guards by inmates as a disturbance. We aint got a cut dogs chance.
The Turney Center Industrial Complex dont you just love that nice way to call a 1,500-inmate prison is a cauldron of problems. Nashville writer Amanda Haggard described it like this:
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The department has been understaffed, a hepatitis C epidemic in the prisons is on its way to becoming a class-action lawsuit, inmates and their families claim gangs have taken over units in prisons, and assaults on guards have become the subject of legislative inquiry.
Correctional officers questioned the department's two-category incident classification, which didn't consider an incident to be assault unless it resulted in injury. A 2012 Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury report first flagged a need to alter classifications of incidents. Those concerns were echoed in a 2014 comptroller report.
They weren't looked at until 2015. When the department moved to change how it categorized assaults on guards at the start of 2016, the number of reported assaults nearly doubled.
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In the last eight months it has been reported there have been 11 attacks on guards at the Industrial Complex. Closer to home, the Hamilton County Jail is critically understaffed. The sheriff freely admits he is now at 40 fewer guards than almost every study suggests. The gang altercations are atrocious. For example, when Jermichael Brooks was led into the federal courtroom for a hearing after allegedly killing another gang member in February, he had been beaten so badly by fellow inmates he was nearly blind and could barely stand without assistance at his court appearance.
Some feel the most dangerous places in the state are not the inner-city streets, but are now inside the jails. In Hamilton County there is at least one bad fight every day; bad being determined by the fact one or more participants must be transported to the emergency room.
Hamilton County officials are still waiting for a proposal to build a new jail and workhouse in the county. Early estimates are $100 million and, if ground were broken today, completion time is about four years. Between now and then weve got no choice but to use the only facilities available the same ones! It is a recipe for disaster and look no further than two critically-injured guards in Nashville.
Our county jails are this states biggest problem, its most aching need, and until we can change the mindset that three beds per county in a mental facility is adequate, we in Hamilton County are facing the worst five-year sentence you can imagine.
I believe some deaths are imminent without some quick solutions. No, Ill guarantee it.
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As you should have expected, there was a call in the state legislature to restore a Prison Oversight Committee due to the very serious and very real problems that are obvious to anyone who looks. But since a Democrat, Mike Stewart of Nashville, voiced his concern, any action was immediately sent back to subcommittee by the Republicans. This is the truth!
Republicans said the Democrats were just playing politics and any effort toward prison oversight was shameful. "No amount of oversight would have prevented that attack," Rep. Bill Sanderson scoffed. The problem is that the shameful Sanderson is the chairman of the State Government subcommittee, which stripped out a provision in a bill from Rep. Matthew Hill, R-Jonesborough, that would re-establish oversight committees for three state departments corrections, children's services and TennCare.
Like I say, we aint got a cut dogs chance.
royexum@aol.com
BEAUHARNOIS, Quebec While conducting an operation on the evening of April 9, 2017, members of the Cornwall Regional Task Force (CRTF) observed a vessel traveling eastbound on the St. Lawrence River.
The boat went ashore in the area of Pie XII Boulevard and the Beauharnois Canal, Valleyfield, Quebec. The police converged on scene and arrested three (3) males between the ages of 21 and 25 from the province of Quebec. As a result, a total of 1,587 kilograms of contraband fine cut tobacco as well as the conveyance, a 1998 Ford cube van, were seized. The individuals were released from custody on a Promise to Appear in Valleyfield Provincial Court on June 28, 2017.
Oftentimes we are asked about the financial costs associated with this contraband issue, said Sergeant Garry Belair, acting CRTF Ops NCO, In this seizure alone, $245,526.35 was lost to Ontarians in possible tax revenue. Assuming a registered nurses average annual salary of $70,000.00, the taxes lost could have funded 3.5 nurses in our hospitals. It is important for everyone to remain vigilant and report any suspicious activity to your local police force so they can continue to protect your neighbourhood.
If you have any information regarding this crime or other criminal activity in your area, you can contact the CRTF at 1-613-937-2800 or call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477
The CRTF is a joint forces partnership led by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and includes the Ontario Provincial Police and the Ontario Ministry of Finance.
CORNWALL, Ontario It appears there may be an answer in sight for the citys ongoing shopping cart conundrum.
The issue has been discussed with the Property Standards Advisory Committee, as well as local store representatives over the past few months with one common goal: to solve the issue of the cart eyesore. Store representatives also took part in these meetings, sharing their thoughts on the topic, as well as potential solutions.
Since then, weve drafted a bylaw which will require that within reason, market owners be responsible that their property does not leave store premises, said City of Cornwall Supervisor of Bylaw Enforcement, Christopher Rogers.
In the interim, store owners will be given information on how the proposed changes would impact their business. Currently, the city has no intention of imposing fines, but does expect stakeholders to take responsibility for their property.
Were not saying we want to set fines, said Rogers. What were saying is, either you pick up your carts or we will.
The proposed bylaw will first go to council; if approved, it will force store owners to keep a tighter rein on their shopping carts.
Whatever hasnt been recovered by the owner will be collected weekly and taken back to Municipal Works yard with a service fee to retrieve them, said Rogers. Were not doing this arbitrarily, and were trying to be as reasonable as possible.
The retrieval fee is currently set at $25 per cart, which could become a costly expense for some stakeholders. As it stands, there have been mixed responses from local business owners.
CORNWALL, Ontario A 17-year-old Cornwall youth was arrested on April 10, 2017 and charged with threats and breach of probation for failing to keep the peace.
It is alleged on April 10, 2017 the youth threatened to burn down his school and police were contacted to investigate. During the investigation the youth was taken into custody, charged accordingly and held for a bail hearing. His name was not released as per provision of the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
WARRANT
CORNWALL, Ontario Jacques Trottier, 21, of Deux Montagnes, QC, was arrested on April 11, 2017 on the strength of a warrant. It is alleged the man failed to attend court on September 13, 2016 for drug offences and a warrant was issued for his arrest. On April 11, 2017 the man attended police headquarters to deal with the matter. He was taken into custody on the strength of the warrant and held for a bail hearing.
The Tennessee Valley Chapter of the Libertarian Party of Tennessee will be hosting the State Libertarian Party Chairman, Tom Arnold, as guest speaker on April 18 at 6:30 p.m. at the Casual Pint, 5550 TN-153 in Hixson.
Mr. Arnold became involved with the Libertarian Party in 2012. He is working toward free and fair ballot access for everyone. He said hopes to have Libertarians on the ballot across Tennessee in the next two years.
"Tom has a heart for young people. He is focused on mentoring the future leaders of the party to redirect the current course of government. His goal is that we could live free from as many governmental constraints as possible.
"Tom was born on the fourth of July and has been a lover of liberty ever since. He is an eighth generation Tennessean and currently lives with an addlepated Sheltie on a 13 acre farm in Jackson county. Tom is a philosopher, poet, political hack, farmer and highway contractor," officials said.
Mr. Arnold said his favorite quote on liberty is from Walt Whitman's Caution: Resist much, obey little; Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved; Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city, of this earth, ever afterward resumes its liberty.
Our Hamilton County government has known of the overcrowding and inhumane conditions at their Hanoi Hilton jail for at least two decades.
A review of County Commission meeting minutes from 2007 to 2016 shows that the sheriff has addressed the jail overcrowding and requested funding for a new jail annually, and always been denied. The Hamilton County Grand Jury closing report has included pages on adverse jail conditions for the same period. Yet, nothing happens to resolve this horrible situation.
Government has a responsibility to abate unlawful conditions when they become aware of them. In this case, Hamilton County has known of pervasive human rights violations at their jail for at least a decade. That is a fact. What is going to take to get Hamilton County to move on a serious pending disaster that is cooking at their jail?
Roy Exum has presented demographic information and data to support this pending disaster.
The majority, yes majority, of inmates at the Hamilton County jail are mentally ill or drug addicted or both. People with mental illness are prone to self-medicate which evolves to addiction. We dont lock up people up with diabetes without treatment. Why are we failing to treat this revolving door of illness with a group with no resources?
Hamilton County does saddle these folks with jail fees of $32 a day for their stay, and adds fees, isnt that special. This ensures that inmates leave the jail with sometimes thousands in debt. People with serious illness, no resources, and government gives them more problems.
The majority, yes majority, of inmates are in jail due to drug related crimes. Each inmate needs to be evaluated for untreated mental illness. To lock people up with illness and no treatment is simply barbaric. I realize some people are determined to self destruct, and not all will be saved.
The number of inmates with mental illness and drug addiction warrants a 24-7 clinical psychologist at the jail. When I inquired about mental health triage, Hamilton County stated that they contracted with a local nonprofit who sends an evaluator out as requested. That is so unacceptable. There needs to be a full time evaluator based upon the jail demographics.
The majority of inmates comprise a revolving door and will return due to crimes associated with mental illness and drug addiction. I believe the sheriff knows this, and our County Commission must not care or they have acted over the last two decades or so.
Looking at the problem from a cost stand point, I am sure it is less costly to fund the barbaric revolving door of the mentally ill and drug addicted coming through the door, instead of treatment. Our jail and courts are clogged beyond function, because of this revolving door.
Ask our sheriff what percent of inmates he estimates Hamilton County would have without the drug addicts and mentally ill? He knows, and has asked for funding over and over, only to be denied.
The truth is only small percentages of the population are true criminals and have criminal conduct disorders. The rest have drug addiction and are committing crimes related to their addiction, or have serious mental illness. Take out the drug addicted and mentally ill, and the jail would be ghost town.
Since we are not a barbaric people, the Hamilton County jail must have humane facilities and government guards, not for profit corporations where locals die in custody from untreated drug withdrawal, or unknown causes.
It seems to me that booking triage should include a mental health and drug screening.
The jail should not have 40 plus men in a holding cell sleeping on a concrete floor with one toilet and urinating over men in the floor. I cannot believe our local governments are allowing these conditions, and approving by lack of action.
The county employees are doing all they can with no resources, and that must change before there is a death.
I think the public has to right to hear what the tentative plans are to address this problem.
I heard a county commissioner state that the county is getting out of the jail business by contracting with a corporation that has a very scary track record with inmate deaths.
Like it or not, Hamilton County government must provide incarceration. So please, do a better job, before you get sued for human rights violation. Or perhaps, Hamilton County government does not care, because they are knowingly allowing pervasive human rights violations to occur for decades.
Regardless of their crime, the mentally ill and drug addicted need to be treated humanely.
Hamilton County tell us what the tentative plans are for the jail. The public would like input, where are the public hearings on the jail?
April Eidson
* * *
Thank you for your comments, Ms. Edison,
Unfortunately, they do lock people up without checking their blood sugar or blood pressure or obtaining the medication they need. If the jailed person under physician care for these disorders asks for medical help, they are threatened. Trust me.
Ted Ladd
Ooltewah
Chattanooga Police said a man was shot at, pistol whipped and robbed during an early morning incident April 3 at the Raceway on South Broad Street.
Police said Andre "Scrappy" Porter and Deonta Brooks carried out the 4 a.m. robbery and assault.
An officer said he found Barry Dent at the scene bleeding from the head in several different locations. He also had a crack in the skin in the back of the head from a bullet. There were two large lumps that were bleeding on the back of his head.
Dent said he had texted Brooks about meeting him to buy a nickel bag of marijuana, and they agreed to meet at the gas station.
He said Brooks was wearing a red sweater with lines and white shorts.
Dent said they all were inside the convenience store, then they went outside to smoke. He said he had to defecate and, while his pants were down, the pair held him at gunpoint and demanded his money. He said they threatened to shoot him if he did not comply.
He said Porter hit him with the pistol, then handed it to Brooks.
A shot was fired when he tried to run away, he said.
They took $300 from his wallet as well as his his blue Schwinn bicycle, he stated.
Police were shown video of the three together in the store. Employees said Brooks had formerly worked at the Raceway.
The victim identified Brooks and Porter from photos taken from the video.
Police went to a nearby residence at 2707 Long St. and a female gave consent to search the house. Porter was apprehended as he came down some stairs. Brooks was found hiding in a ceiling crawl space.
Police said the blue Schwinn bicycle was outside the residence, and they saw a red sweater with lines inside.
Officers found a gun similar to the one described by Dent under the living room chair cushion. Police said there were three children under the age of three in the house who had access to the revolver.
Police said Porter openly admitted to being involved in a drug deal and hitting Dent with the gun. He said Brooks was the one who fired the shot as the victim ran away
Police said Porter is a validated member of the Bounty Hunter Blood street gang.
Channel programs News
Analyst: Infosys Could Be ISV Acquisition Target Due To Software Strength, Performance Woes
Michael Novinson
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Independent software vendors (ISVs) might see Infosys an acquisition bargain due to its buildup of software-centric capabilities and execution challenges, according to Technology Business Research (TBR).
The Hampton, N.H. analyst firm said systems integrators like Bangalore, India-based Infosys have become appealing acquisition targets because they've built proprietary software products and adopted key performance indicators (KPIs) around product design and development that aren't usually found in the industry.
"The traditional IT services model is dying, it's eroding, and they need to transform," TBR's Boz Hristov, a senior analyst covering professional services, told CRN. "This year is going to be really critical for Infosys in terms of make-it-or-break-it."
[RELATED: Report: Oracle Conducting Due Diligence For Possible Accenture Acquisition Bid]
At the same time, Hristov said ISVs like Salesforce, SAP and Oracle are making efforts to develop vertical consulting and business integration expertise. SIs will find it easier to develop software capabilities than ISVs will to organically build consulting skills, Hristov said. This is because SIs have for been doing software development for years and already have software engineers on staff, he explained.
Companies like Infosys have been preparing for ISV acquisition bids by developing KPIs, which Hristov said would make the integration process easier. Infosys maintains robust SAP, Oracle and Microsoft practices, according to Hristov, and has made the development of a digitally-versed, software-centric sales force a pinnacle of its strategy.
"While embracing software company-like culture is a disruptive approach to the IT services market it could be a two-edged sword if Infosys does not reach critical mass," Hristov wrote in a note to clients. "If Infosys does not master these attributes, it risks experiencing the pressures of market consolidation and potentially becoming an acquisition target."
Infosys announced Thursday that sales for its 2017 fiscal year which ended March 31 climbed above $10 billion for the first time, yet fell well short of projected revenue growth of between 8.6 percent and 9 percent. The company's stock fell $0.78 (5.11%) in trading Thursday to $14.48 and has lost more than 25 percent of its value over the past year.
Some of Infosys's recent investments haven't panned out as expected, with Hristov saying the company's retail and consumer product goods businesses have remained mired at 15 percent of total revenue despite the acquisition of e-commerce platform Skava two years ago.
Infosys didn't respond to requests for comment.
And Hristov wrote that Infosys's revenue growth guidance of 6.1 percent to 8.1 percent for the coming fiscal year would make it tough for the company to hit its goal of $20 billion in revenue by 2020. Continued underperformance would make Infosys's acquisition price more appealing to ISVs, Hristov said, and wouldn't scare many bidders away since the company still possesses engineering and technical talent.
Infosys has a lot of cash on hand, Hristov said but has been shy about deploying a large amount of cash for major acquisitions on the scale of Bangalore, India-based Wipro's $500 million purchase of Salesforce superstar Appirio in October.
However, Hristov said Infosys had invested more heavily in startups, but those have yet to move the needle much. Hristov said Infosys would need to buy a large consultancy that's really strong in specific verticals or geographies to regain the market position it enjoyed five or ten years ago.
Some of Infosys's senior leaders come from the ISV world, Hristov said, most notably CEO Vishal Sikka, who oversaw all products and innovation for enterprise software giant SAP before joining the SI in 2014.
Networking News
Master Agent Avant Adds Cable-Based Services Through New Partnership With Comcast
Gina Narcisi
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Avant, a self-proclaimed born-in-the-cloud master agent, has added cable-based services to its portfolio via a newly minted partnership with Comcast.
The partnership with the cable giant will ensure solution providers have another low cost, high-speed access option to sought-after cloud and SD-WAN services for their end customers, according to Drew Lydecker, Avant's president and co-founder.
"This is a wise move on Avant's part, and it's going to give us the opportunity to add value to their partners and customers. Our network is ideally suited to complete the solution," Craig Schlagbaum, vice president of indirect channels for Comcast Business, told CRN.
[Related: Master Agent Avant Expands SD-WAN Portfolio For Solution Provider Partners ]
Avant is great at helping partners sell more complicated, next-generation deals, according to Schlagbaum. Avant partners can tack cable on as an additional connectivity option for every SD-WAN sale, for example, he said.
"Because we've tried to take the leadership position around SD-WAN, having a partner like Comcast is going to be extremely vital for us," Lydecker said.
Comcast has directly connected itself to three of the major cloud providers, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and, as of Thursday, IBM Cloud. The Philadelphia-based cable company also continues to light up buildings with fiber and is now boasting 2 million lit buildings in the U.S.
Because cable doesn't operate on the same infrastructure that local exchange carriers are using, cable offers much-needed redundancy for cloud environments, Schlagbaum said.
"Customers need both if they are going to go full cloud because if that network goes down, they have no alternative except wireless, which would choke the network."
Avant in March brought in channel veteran Shane McNamara to kick-start its brand-new cable practice. McNamara previously created a successful cable practice while at his last employer, Qology Direct, which included reselling Comcast services. McNamara told CRN that he planned on tapping those relationships once again for Avant.
The Chicago-based master agent plans to unveil partnerships with all the major cable and fiber providers in the U.S., Lydecker said.
Avant Monday also unveiled updates to its sales enablement tool, BattleApp, that partners can use to select, sell and support connectivity and channel-friendly cloud services.
BattleApp 2.1 offers an expanded fiber locating tool and data center functionality locator. The tool now lets partners more easily toggle between "front office" -- the interface partners can show their customers -- and the back-office mode, which includes commissions and billing information.
BattleApp's technology "Matrices" also have been updated to include more at-a-glance information on products and services, such as SD-WAN and cloud, Lydecker said.
Reaching A 10-Year Low
The PC market receded to its lowest level in a decade in the first quarter, shutting out smaller vendors and pitting the industry's largest players Dell, HP Inc. and Lenovo against one other in an all-out battle for supremacy in the commercial sector.
The global PC market contracted again in the first quarter as shipments declined 2.4 percent year-over-year to 62.2 million units, according to research firm Gartner Inc. This is the first time the global PC market has seen shipments of less than 63 million units since 2007. The decline was driven by weak demand, as well as price increases in response to memory and SSD shortages.
Gartner expects the consumer PC market to continue to shrink, which means it will be critical for vendors to grow in the commercial PC market. Business customers are the key to growth, and ultimately, survival, Gartner said.
Here are five keys to the Q1 PC market.
VMware's Wavefront Deal Packs A Microservices-DevOps Punch
Ajay Singh, senior vice president and general manager of VMware's Cloud Management Business Unit, told CRN that the company's acquisition of Wavefront provides the virtualization market leader with microservices and DevOps prowess for its Cross-Cloud Services offensive.
Wavefront, named to CRN's 10 Coolest Big Data Startups of 2016, develops a cloud-hosted, real-time analytics platform that monitors and manages cloud applications. It provides monitoring to optimize clouds and modern applications by delivering insight using millions of data points per second in real time. Wavefront, for example, provides intelligent alerts to proactively monitor and manage application performance.
"Wavefront is by far the leader in ingesting and monitoring data," said Singh. "The company can offer millions of metrics per second, or in the industry jargon, PPS, or points per second. That's what some of Wavefront's high-end customers like Workday, Box and British Gas are experiencing."
The Wavefront deal comes just one week after VMware sold its vCloud Air public cloud platform to European hosting giant OVH.
Solution providers said the two recent moves underscore VMware's stepped-up focus on providing hybrid and cross-cloud software and services.
Singh spoke with CRN about the acquisition of Wavefront, the impact on the AWS strategy, and why VMware does not want to be in the public cloud business.
Here is the Fort Oglethorpe arrest report for April 7-13:
04-07-17
Breanna Shay Sample, 35, of 730 Lakeview Drive, Rossville arrested on charges of driving under the influence of drugs and endangering the life of a child while driving under the influence of drugs.
04-08-17
Derek Nathaniel Reed, 28, of 292 Everglades Boulevard, Rossville arrested on charges of outstanding warrant and windshield required.
Amanda Maria Rodriguez, 23, of 146 Sherry Court, Chickamauga arrested for criminal trespass.
Lindy Cara Artman, 32, of 115 Avis Drive, Dalton arrested on charges of driving under the influence of alcohol, open container and driving on wrong side of roadway.
04-09-17
Randy Allen Fisher, 51, of 3128 Hamill Road, Hixson arrested on charges of driving under the influence of alcohol and speeding.
Roger Eugene Foutz, 46, of 708 Park Avenue, Rossville arrested on a charge of giving false name/information to police.
Olajwuon Sherriff Blair, 24, of 2527 Lick Skillet Road, Summerville arrested on charges of driving while license suspended/revoked, possession of marijuana and excess volume from car radio.
Mary Elizabeth Akins, 32, of 1021 Williams Avenue, Ft Payne, AL arrested on charges of driving while unlicensed, failure to yield and outstanding warrant.
Latoya Michelle Mathis, 37, of 3711 Hoyt Street, Chattanooga arrested for theft by shoplifting.
Mark Lewis Rediker, 35, of 4411 NE 167th Place, Citra, Florida arrested on charges of possession of marijuana and failure to obey traffic control device.
Casey Mitchell Faulstick, 21, of 12935 SE 117th Ct, Ocklawaha, FL arrested on an outstanding warrant.
04-10-17
Joshua Shane Humphrey, 27, of 230 Old Osborne Road, Chickamauga arrested on charges of disregard for traffic control device and an outstanding warrant.
Erica Faith Buckner, 27, of 917 Hulana Drive, Rossville arrested on a charge of theft by shoplifting.
Donte Emil McKenzie, 23, of 2413 Northbriar Circle, Chattanooga arrested on charges of disorderly conduct, driving while license suspended/revoked, excessive volume from vehicle radio and operation of an unsafe vehicle.
04-11-17
Sarah Katherine Rose, 32, of 7049 Highway 95, Lafayette arrested for loitering and prowling.
Kevin James Leavitt, 24, of 7114 Tanager Court, Chattanooga arrested on an outstanding warrant.
04-12-17
James Patrick Stevens, 21, of 134 Highland Drive, Rossville arrested on charges of theft by receiving stolen property and loitering and prowling.
Michael Christopher Nunley, 46, of 511 Thomas Avenue, Chickamauga arrested on charges of possession of firearm by convicted felon, possession of marijuana and possession of schedule IV.
Brittany Taylor Hess, 24, of 158 Ferndale Drive, Rossville arrested on charges of theft by receiving stolen property, possession of schedule IV, affixing to misrepresent and loitering and prowling.
Henry Scott Henderson, 46, of 613 Tremont Street, Chattanooga arrested on charges of driving under the influence of alcohol and improper U-turn.
John David Burris, 38, of 254 Westside Drive, Rossville arrested on charge of driving while license revoked.
Citation Statistics:
Speeding.5
Entering or crossing roadway1
Driving while license suspended or revoked3
Window tint violation1
Required position & methods of turning at intersections1
Excessive volume from vehicle..2
Failure to signal turn or lane change..1
Possession of marijuana.1
Possession of controlled substances.1
Following too closely.3
License required.2
Vehicles to drive on right side of roadway..1
Failure to obey traffic control devices.5
Driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs.4
Driving unsafe or improperly equipped vehicle.1
Suspended registration.1
Seat belt violations..2
Operation of vehicle without current plate.3
Possession of open container of alcoholic beverage while operating vehicle..1
Failure to obey stop signs and/or yield signs..1
Proof of insurance required.2
Vehicle turning left..1
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No action has been taken against pimps, punters or brothel owners in Croydon in the past three years.
There would appear to be either no issue with prostitution in the borough, or limited enforcement by police.
At the last count there were an estimated 32,000 prostitutes operating in London alone, according to official government statistics.
These were thought to have around 25 clients each per week. This can be on the street, on call, or in a brothel as part of a tough lifestyle "far from the Pretty Woman image".
Figures obtained by the Advertiser through an FOI (Freedom of Information) request show, however, that since the start of 2015 police have only taken action against prostitution offenders 106 times in the whole of London.
Across the capital only 18 of the 32 boroughs recorded any charges or summonses where individuals were accused of committing crimes related to prostitution.
This means that almost half the boroughs in London saw no criminal action taken against anyone seeking sexual services, keeping brothels, controlling prostitutes or trafficking sex workers.
In Croydon, and 13 other London boroughs, there has not been a single prostitution prosecution of any kind in the past three years.
Authorities are encouraged to help those working in the sex trade escape exploitation. Police guidelines urge officers to direct sex workers to support services, while also "disrupting criminal behaviour".
There seems to have been little disruption of criminal behaviour, though, with only 40 offences recorded across London in 2015, 58 in 2016 and eight so far in 2017.
According to charities offering support to sex workers, the methods of prostitution have changed with technology.
Many women are contactable online, and fixed red-light districts are rare. The trade is also now heavily intertwined with human trafficking.
Those involved in the trade are often exploited and abused according to Mark Wakeling of support group Beyond the Streets.
He said: "These women are living lives far from the Pretty Woman image.
"The majority are from backgrounds of abuse and exploitation that simply carries on into later life.
"I know one woman who thought it was a great compliment when she was first paid for sex, because before then it had just been taken from her."
Women may be controlled by traffickers or pimps, be held in brothels or work on the streets.
The table below shows the limited number of boroughs where action has been taken and for what:
Borough Offence Charges in 2015 Charges in 2016 Charges in 2017 Total Barnet Keeping a brothel used for prositution 1 0 0 1 Brent Keeping a brothel used for prositution 0 1 0 1 Keeping a brothel 1 0 0 1 Camden Controlling a prostitute for gain 1 0 0 1 Ealing Keeping a brothel used for prositution 0 1 0 1 Soliciting another for the purposes of obtaining their services as a prostitute in a street or public place 1 1 0 2 Enfield Soliciting another for the purposes of obtaining their services as a prostitute in a street or public place 2 3 0 5 Greenwich Keeping a brothel used for prositution 1 0 0 1 Controlling a prostitute for gain 0 3 0 3 Hackney Soliciting another for the purposes of obtaining their services as a prostitute in a street or public place 1 6 0 7 Haringey Keeping a brothel used for prositution 2 1 0 3 Hounslow Keeping a brothel used for prositution 3 1 6 10 Soliciting another for the purposes of obtaining their services as a prostitute in a street or public place 0 4 0 4 Islington Controlling a prostitute for gain 0 0 1 1 Kensington and Chelsea Keeping a brothel 1 0 0 1 Lambeth Soliciting another for the purposes of obtaining their services as a prostitute in a street or public place 5 11 0 16 Newham Controlling a prostitute for gain 0 4 0 4 Keeping a brothel used for prositution 0 1 0 1 Soliciting another for the purposes of obtaining their services as a prostitute in a street or public place 0 5 0 5 Redbridge Controlling a prostitute for gain 0 0 1 1 Soliciting another for the purposes of obtaining their services as a prostitute in a street or public place 16 8 0 24 Southwark Controlling a prostitute for gain 0 1 0 1 Tower Hamlets Keeping a brothel used for prositution 2 0 0 2 Soliciting another for the purposes of obtaining their services as a prostitute in a street or public place 1 0 0 1 Waltham Forest Keeping a brothel used for prositution 1 0 0 1 Soliciting another for the purposes of obtaining their services as a prostitute in a street or public place 0 1 0 1 Westminster Controlling a prostitute for gain 1 6 0 7 40 58 8 106
The business is in the words of police "market driven" and remains lucrative for criminals who exploit sex workers.
Prosecution is sought for those who seek to exploit them, but the prostitutes themselves are now better understood as victims of the trade.
There are therefore few prosecutions against prostitutes but, in London, there also appears to be little action against those exploiting prostitution.
Mr Wakeling said: "There has been a shift away from seeing prostitutes as a nuisance, and away from punishing them.
"Instead there has been a move to trying to understand how these women end up in in the sex trade and being exploited.
"At the same time, and this isn't definite fact just a thought, we don't have the legislative framework and the law might not be clear for police, and there is a big difference in attitudes and how things are enforced from place to place.
"There may be a lack of clarity.
"There may also be issues with resources, which you see with other services. As attitudes change it might not be a priority to investigate prostitution.
"There should be more responsibility from central government for these lives.
"The main thing is to help them achieve their dreams."
Croydon Community Against Human Trafficking (CCAT) works to identify victims of trafficking, who are often engaged in sex work.
Despite the lack of charges relating to prostitution, the group has estimated that hundreds of people could be engaged in this work across Croydon.
Help with exiting the trade can be found at beyondthestreets.org.uk
* What are your experiences of prostitution in Croydon? Call 01737 305571 of email craig.simpson@essnmedia.co.uk
Chatbots have everybody talking both about chatbots and to chatbots. Whats sometimes lost in the conversation, however, is much acknowledgement of the security risks this beguiling interface technology can introduce.
Broadly speaking, chatbots allow people to engage conversationally with messaging and other applications. The sophistication of the chatbots can range from rudimentary to I-cant-believeits-not-a-person levels of engagement. Millions of people already routinely use chatbots with Facebook, Microsoft, Google, Apple and Amazon, and dozens of smaller players and platforms are pouring into the chatbot market.
Even casual users sometimes have qualms about the amount of personal information they share with these conversational platforms. If your Facebook or Microsoft chatbot knows not just about your links and preferences, but also your calendar schedule and your minute-byminute location, its reasonable to wonder whether your privacy may be compromised. That compromise could come intentionally via the chatbot owners exploitation of your personal information for marketing or other uses, or maliciously if hackers break into the chatbot database or message stream.
For enterprises, as well as individuals, poorly secured chatbots can also put everything from credit card numbers to intellectual property at risk. Individual users will often provide their card numbers to chatbots so they can automatically order and pay for items. For their part, company employees interacting with a chatbot may unthinkingly provide sensitive corporate information that theyd normally be hesitant to enter in a less personable application. Indeed, criminals are designing malicious chatbots specifically to trick employees into doing just this.
Sound security
As with all cybersecurity issues, the first defense against chatbot risks is education. You need to teach your employees to exert caution and commonsense when interacting with these applications, be they consumer-focused or business bots. Another standard element of defense also holds true: Survey your employee base to learn which chatbots your workers are using in their professional lives so you can intelligently evaluate your risk.
Ideally, any chatbots your employees use will support encrypted communications and data, either optionally or best yet by default. You should also do your best to determine where data provided to a chatbot is stored, how long it is stored and who has (legitimate) access to it.
Similarly to evaluating a cloud services provider, you should also perform due diligence in assessing the security controls and practices employed by the chatbot operator. Not surprisingly, chatbot-specific security standards and policies are even less mature than the chatbot technology itself. Still, you should press chatbot operators for whatever security information they can provide, and blacklist any services that fail to meet your corporate requirements.
Given that a huge amount of chatbot access and communications is smartphone based, its also important to understand the security controls provided by your mobile operator(s). Although chatbots and chatbot traffic introduce a new target for cyberattacks, many existing network controls have a role to play in protecting this proliferating technology. Better to talk to your mobile operators now about your chatbot security concerns and needs, rather than have others chatting about your data exposure sometime in the future.
Dwight Davis has reported on and analyzed computer and communications industry trends, technologies and strategies for more than 35 years. All opinions expressed are his own. AT&T has sponsored this blog post.
The 19th annual Chair-ries Jubilee, themed Go Green in 17, will raise money for arts in education on Friday, April 21, at the Museum Center at 5ive Points, beginning with a silent auction and social hour at 6 p.m.
Chair-ries Jubilee is a project of the Allied Arts Council of the Cleveland/Bradley Chamber of Commerce and is but one way the council serves as an arts education advocate and a means for promoting local artists.
Each year we invite the support of corporate sponsors and individuals who want to assist in bringing arts-related programs to area schools and in promoting arts education, Nancy Casson, event chairman, said. Sponsorships have allowed us to showcase the artwork of a variety of talented artists throughout our community while raising nearly $430,000 since the first Chair-ries Jubilee 19 years ago.
Ms. Casson continued, Each year we put the money raised right back into our school arts programspublic and privatethrough teacher grants and visiting artists. We deeply appreciate the generous sponsorship support we have received this year. We encourage you to thank them for their interest in the arts and to support them with your business.
Platinum sponsors for this years event are Industrial Services of Cleveland, Inman Street Climate Controlled Storage, and Stanberry & Stanberry, DDS.
Business sponsors for this years event include the following: ABCOR Packaging; Advantage Resourcing; American Portables; Andrew Johnson Bank; Associates in Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery; Assured Alarms Inc.; Athens Federal Community Bank; Award Realty; AXA Advisors LLCKevin C. Moore, CLU, RICP, AEP; Barge, Waggoner, Sumner & Cannon Inc.; Baskin Robbins; Bender Realty; Black Fox Farms; Boundless Moving & Storage LLC; and Bradley Rentals Inc.
Other business sponsors include Brookes Edge Apartments c/o Shumate Development Corporation Inc.; Bullins Construction; BW James Jewelers; Caldwell Paving; Capital Tire Service; Carroll & Greene Co.; Cate Brothers Development; Cathy Boettner, Business Strategist; Chattanooga Allergy Clinic; Check Into Cash; Church of God International Offices; Cindy Chase/Crye-Leike Realtors; Cleveland Abstract & Title Insurance Co. Inc.; Cleveland Boat Center; Cleveland City Ballet/Bang-A-Rang Productions; Cleveland Custom Pallets; and Cleveland Daily Banner.
Also sponsoring the auction are Cleveland Plywood Co.; Cleveland State Community College; Cleveland Tire Center; Cleveland Utilities; Coldwell Banker Hamilton & Associates LLC; Crawfords Pharmacy; Dennis Anderson Shelter Insurance; Dockins Graphics Inc.; Don Ledford Automotive CenterChevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac; Easy Auto; Elders Ace Hardware of Cleveland; Eric L. Evans State Farm Insurance; Eyecare Associates of Cleveland; First Tennessee; Flowers Bakery of Cleveland LLC; Four Seasons Lawn Care & Property Maintenance; Gibco Construction LLC; Gobbles Automotive; Gray Epperson Automotive; Greg Calfee Builders LLC; and Gwen Ellis Real Estate Appraisal.
The business sponsor list continues with Habitat for Humanity of Cleveland; Hardees/J&S Restaurants Inc.; Harting, Bishop & Arrendale PLLC, CPAs; Haskell Interiors; Health Services Management Group LLC; Hospice of Chattanooga; Hughes Retirement Group; Igou Graphics; Insurance Incorporated; Isbill Floral Gallery; Jerry Hoffer, Attorney at Law; Jim Rush Funeral Home; Key Advertising Inc.; Larry Hill Ford; Lee University; Legacy Village of Cleveland; Life Care Centers of America; and LifeCircle Womens Healthercare.
Additional sponsors include MacPC Market; Manufacturers Chemicals LLC; May & May Restorative and Cosmetic Dentistry; McMurray Law Office PLLC; Modern Way Printing Co. Inc.; MurMaid Mattress Inc.; Neely Printing Co.; Ocoee Insurance Services; Ocoee OB/GYN Center for Womens Health; Olin Corporation; Pediatric Dentistry of Cleveland & Ooltewah; Pinnacle Financial Partners; Platinum Financial Funding LLC; Pryor Orthodontics; Ralph Buckner Funeral Home & Crematory; RE/MAX Experience; Regions Bank; Resolute Forest Products; and Rodgers Group.
Rounding out the list of business sponsors are Santek Waste Services Inc.; SmartBank; SouthEast Bank & Trust; Southern Heritage Bank; Southern Style Home Builders LLC; State Senator Mike Bell; Surfs Up Car Wash; Tennessee Valley Urology Center PC; Tennova HealthcareCleveland; The Red Ribbon; Volunteer Rid-A-Pest; Voytik Center for Orthopedic Care; Waterhouse Public Relations; Whirlpool Corporation, Cleveland Division; Wright Brothers Construction Company Inc.; and WTNB-TV.
Couples sponsoring the event include the following: Mr. and Mrs. Richard Banks, Mr. and Mrs. Cooper J. Hill, Mr. and Mrs. Ron Jackson, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Y. McCoin Jr., Dr. and Mrs. William Reynolds, Margaret and David Schenk, and Dr. and Mrs. Thomas Wright.
Friends of Chair-ries Jubilee include Bowater Employees Credit Union and Coldwell Banker Hamilton & Associates.
Tickets, available at the Chamber of Commerce or The Red Ribbon, are $25 in advance or $30 at the door.
BRIDGEPORT - A Chicago resident, who claimed he was on his way to visit his sister in Hartford, will be spending the next 12 years in the state.
Police said Jose Adorno was in fact a courier of large amounts of heroin - in this case nearly 28 pounds.
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HARTFORD In a roomful of supporters and agency heads, tears broke the governors businesslike facade.
Dannel P. Malloy said his rejection of a third term, a decision he announced Thursday afternoon, frees him from partisan politics so he can better steer the sharply divided General Assembly through its current budget crisis.
In January 2019, Malloy will begin the next act of a life that began as a dyslectic child in Stamford, led to law school, a stint as a criminal prosecutor, mayor of his hometown and nearly seven years in the Governors Residence.
Im overwhelmed at how happy I am, Malloy said, flanked by his wife, Cathy, eldest son Dannel and Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman, as he made a brief statement, then answered questions from reporters.
Malloy said that he first thought of leaving last August, then again in September and finally a couple of times over the last few weeks.
I look forward to the next 20 months and then I look forward to the next 20 years, he said.
Much left to take on
Malloy said the three-day holiday weekend would allow for some general decompression before he heads back to work Monday on state budget negotiations.
More Information Dannel P. Malloy career timeline xxxPlease explain a littile more here to fill in some space and add some flavor xxx NOVEMBER 1995 - Dannel P. Malloy, a former New York City prosecutor, wins the Stamford mayor's seat. SEPTEMBER 2006 - A 14-year mayor of Stamford, Malloy loses the Democratic gubernatorial primary to New Haven Mayor John DeStefano Jr., who then gets crushed by Gov. M. Jodi Rell in the general election. NOVEMBER 2010 - Malloy wins the gubernatorial election over Greenwich millionaire Tom Foley by 6,404 votes, days after bags of Bridgeport votes are finally counted after local polling officials failed to order enough ballots. JANUARY 2011 - Malloy takes the oath to become the state's 88th governor, the first Democrat since Gov. William A. O'Neill left office 20 years earlier. JULY 2011 - After a months-long negotiation and two controversial votes by unionized state employees, Malloy finally persuades them to accept major changes to contractual health and retirement benefits. Earlier in the year, he and Democratic state lawmakers approve the largest tax hike in state history. APRIL 2012 - Malloy signs law repealing the death penalty. DECEMBER 2012 - Minutes after a lone gunman murders 20 first-graders and six adults in Sandy Hook Elementary School, Malloy arrives on the scene in Newtown. Hours later, when public safety workers are slow with information, he tells anxious families that their children and loved ones are dead. APRIL 2013 - Malloy signs new laws prohibiting the sale of military-style rifles and large-capacity ammunition magazines, making Connecticut's gun laws among the toughest in the nation. NOVEMBER 2014 - In a rematch of their 2010 campaign, Malloy wins re-election over Foley by 28,000 votes. JUNE 2015 - Despite a campaign pledge against raising taxes, he officiates over a two-year, $1.3 billion hike in taxes. NOVEMBER 2015 - After then-Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana rebuffs a family of Syrian refugees, Malloy, chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, welcomes them to New Haven. Six months later, Malloy receives the 2016 John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award, which cites his acceptance of immigrants. APRIL 2016 - In response to discriminatory legislation over LGBT rights, Malloy who occasional displays the gay-feriendly rainbow flag in front of the Governor's Residence, orders a state employee travel ban to North Carolina. JUNE 2016 - Quinnipiac University Poll finds Malloy with a 24 percent popularity rating. FEBRUARY 2017 - Malloy offers a budget with a major shift in the way public schools are funded, earning the emnity of Democratic and Republican lawmakers alike as the General Assembly grapples with a $1.7 billion deficit projected for the fiscal year beginning July 1. See More Collapse
Listen, Im going to be governor until January of 2019, and every single day I expect that myself and my staff will be working very hard to continue the process of finishing the work that we began literally on the first day I was sworn in, Malloy said. I think weve done a damn good job, quite frankly and that was why we were re-elected.
With low popularity ratings, a $1.7 billion budget deficit and recent GOP gains in the Legislature, it was less likely that Malloy, the first Democratic governor since 1991, could hold on for another four years.
He said he doesnt expect to change tactics during his remaining time in office, even amid bipartisan criticism of his proposal to drastically change the way public schools are funded in the state, shifting the burden to wealthier towns and forcing all communities to pay for a share of their teacher retirements.
We will not push off debt that should be responsibly paid now, Malloy said. And we will not borrow to save ourselves from difficult but necessary reductions in spending.
Challenging times
Asked about talks with unions on benefit concessions, Malloy sighed audibly, then indicated he is prepared to follow through on layoffs of as many as 4,200 state workers.
The engineer of the two largest tax hikes in state history, Malloy has also made a national reputation for promoting gun safety after the December 2012 school massacre in Newtown. he also welcomed refugees to the state, a position for which he won the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award in 2016.
Crime has dropped sharply during Malloys tenure, and prison populations have reached record lows.
Throughout our work, we have tried to play the long game for Connecticut, Malloy said, fighting back tears. Not doing what is politically expedient, but rather what we believe in is in the best interests of the state that we all love and the people of Connecticut that I serve. We must continue to focus on the long game.
Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, said he expects no change in the governors style.
Dan Malloy has worked very hard for the state of Connecticut, Duff said. Nobody has worked harder for really long-term benefits, even in the face of making decisions that arent always popular. I know Connecticut will be better off, long-term, for his hard work and for his vision.
Malloys departure from the potential field of party candidates for governor creates openings for Comptroller Kevin Lembo or others, including Consumer Protection Commissioner Jonathan Harris and Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman, whom the governor described as the best lieutenant governor in the United States.
But potential Democratic successors will be hard-pressed to emulate Malloys proven tenacity on the campaign trail, or his frenetic daily schedule, let alone a fundraising target of $250,000 to enter the states public-financing program.
Im sure I will continue to play a role in politics in Connecticut for not just the next 20 months, but for years beyond that, Malloy said.
Governor Malloy assumed the office during some of the most challenging times in our states history, said Senate President Pro Tempore Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven. His work on the 2011 bipartisan jobs legislation and embrace of raising the minimum wage and creating a state earned income tax credit has enabled countless families to find a job and improve their lives. The Governors leadership in the aftermath of the Newtown tragedy one of the darkest days and periods in our nations history will be long remembered for the strength and comfort he brought to the afflicted families and to the entire state.
Senate Republican Leader Len Fasano, R-North Haven, said that he and the governor dont always agree, but he appreciates Malloys effort and sincerity.
Governor Malloy has led our state during some of its most difficult times and enormous economic challenges, Fasano said in a statement. He has governed when our communities had to rebuild following devastating storms and when we all had to heal following unspeakable tragedy.
kdixon@ctpost.com; Twitter: @KenDixonCT
10/31/2022
I could just scream! Have you ever thought that or even said it aloud? With this being the day for the annual Halloween observance, screaming seems to be the order of the day. Ghosts, goblins, ... more
After qualifying six national qualifiers for the Phi Beta Lambda National Leadership Conference competition last year, Georgia Northwestern Technical College raised the bar for 2017. After the state PBL competition wrapped up in Atlanta this past weekend, the Bobcats would find themselves planning 11 trips to nationals in Anaheim, Ca. June 24-27.
GNTC would take home 19 state awards for their business skill knowledge and career-related performances in Atlanta. Competitions against the best in the state tested the understanding of career paths which included everything from Accounting to Website Design.
All entries at the state competition which placed first or second in performance events, as well as all entries which placed first, second, or third in written events, qualified for competition at the NLC event in California this summer.
Bobcats qualifying from GNTCs team for the West Coast trip are Corey Carlile of Aragon, Ga. in Small Business Management Plan (1st); Nicholas Post of LaFayette, Cage Gary of Ringgold, and Brett Notabartolo of Trion, Ga. in Management Analysis and Decision-Making Team Event (1st); Gary and Notabartolo in Marketing Analysis and Decision-Making (1st); Ronal Bueso of Dalton and Jonathan Herrera of Dalton in Business Sustainability Team Event (1st); Miguel Ramirez of Rome, Ga. in Management Concepts (1st); Allie Long of Ringgold in Organizational Leadership (2nd); Selena Spivey of Dalton in Computer Animation (2nd); Elisabeth Harp of Calhoun and Amanda Teeters of Chickamauga for Desktop Publishing Team Event (2nd); and Harp in Networking Concepts (3rd).
Harp and Carlile are making a repeat appearance on the national stage. Both qualified to compete at the national competition in 2016. Ms. Harp placed ninth in the nation in Computer Concepts. Three years ago, Daltons Mario Trejo from GNTC took home the nations top spot in the Justice Administration category.
Other categories GNTC placed in at the State PBL Competition were; Hospitality Management Team Event (3rd) by Melisa Fajardo of Dalton and Bueso; Business Communications (3rd) by Ramirez; Help Desk (3rd) by Fajardo; Future Business Executive (4th) by Jalen Hamilton of Rome, Ga.; Computer Concepts (4th) by Teeters; Statistical Analysis (4th) by Long; Accounting For Professionals (5th) and Accounting Principles (5th) by Cynthia Kirk of Rockmart, Ga.; Sales Presentation (5th) by Corey, and Management Concepts (5th) by Meagan Casker of Calhoun.
We had a solid team in Atlanta, said GNTC PBL Advisor Dione Waddington. Almost doubling our number of national qualifiers from last year just proves how much this group has grown. We could see multiple winners at nationals. Also participating from GNTC at the state PBL event were Demonte Parker, Darius Fugh, Sprite Dyer, Bryan Tapia, Jennifer Sandoval, and Brandy LeVan.
PBL, along with the Future Business Leaders of America, is the largest and oldest student business organization in the nation. Students will participate in more than 55 business and business-related competitive events at the NLC. This year marks the 75th anniversary of the professional skills organizations.
For more information on Georgia Northwestern Technical Colleges Phi Beta Lambda professional skills association, you can call the college at 866-983-4682.
Lee Universitys all-female choir Ladies of Lee performed at Tennessee Music Education Associations annual conference held in Nashville at the Opryland Hotel.
We were so excited to represent Lee and our School of Music at the TMEA state conference this year, said Dr. Jonathon Rodgers, director of Ladies of Lee. It's an honor to have been selected through a blind-audition format. This is the first time the choir has been selected to perform at an event like this.
Ladies presented a concert Friday morning performing in multiple languages including English, Estonian, Hebrew, and Latin. The program featured several works arranged by Lee faculty, as well as music from the Renaissance period.
We recently presented this program on campus at our annual spring concert, and the reports were wonderfully positive and enthusiastic, said Dr. Rodgers. The ladies looked forward to sharing this music that has received so much of their time, effort, and attention over the past several months.
According to Dr. Rodgers, the choir received two standing ovations at the TMEA conference, one during the middle of the performance and another at the end.
Ladies of Lee tours throughout the United States under the direction of Dr. Rodgers and recently went to India to serve and perform.
The TMEA was formed in 1945 as a non-profit organization representing all phases of music education at all school levels and aims to promote the advancement of high quality music education for all.
For more information about TMEA, visit http://www.tnmea.org/about.html. For more information about Ladies of Lee, contact Rodgers at jrodgers@leeuniversity.edu or the School of Music at 614-8240.
Legislation which revises Tennessee law to broaden the rights of Tennesseans to use their cell phones at the polling place passed the Senate on Thursday by a vote of 30-0. Senate Bill 517, sponsored by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Brian Kelsey (R-Germantown), regulates voting without infringing on a citizens First Amendment rights.
The bill stems from the 2016 presidential election when famous Tennessean Justin Timberlake took a selfie at a polling place in Germantown, Tn. The photo became national and international news due to the controversy surrounding Tennessees law prohibiting such action.
Sometimes citizens are waiting in long lines in hallways before they even reach the room with the voting machines, said Senator Kelsey. We need to allow folks to call home about the grocery list while they are waiting.
The legislation allows certain exceptions prohibiting the use of cell phones by election officials or commissioners, which mostly pertain to acts of harassment. It also ensures that a recording of a marked ballot, including selfies, would be prohibited only if it had been recorded in an effort to commit voter intimidation, voter fraud, or the sale of a vote.
This law helps us to continue to conduct our elections with integrity and reliability, as the ban on cell phone use is a narrowly tailored restriction to achieve that interest, added Senator Kelsey. At the same time, it employs common sense so that we dont infringe on our citizens First Amendment rights.
The bill now goes to the House of Representatives, where it is scheduled for a vote in the Local Government Committee on Tuesday.
What to do in Pennsylvania if you made an error on your mail-in ballot
The state Supreme Court recently ruled that undated or incorrectly dated mail ballots cannot be counted. Here's what voters can do about an error.
Window Cliffs State Natural Area Opens to the Public
On Friday, April 7, a team joined nearly 100 visitors at Window Cliffs State Natural Area, within Burgess Falls State Park, to celebrate the newest addition to Tennessees 85 State Natural Areas. The Land Trust for Tennessee is honored to have worked with the State of Tennessee to protect this area of the upper Cumberland highlands.
Join a Big Payback Adventure
Wednesday, May 3 , The Land Trust for Tennessee will take part in The Big Payback, a 24-hour online giving event hosted by The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee. On, The Land Trust for Tennessee will take part in The Big Payback, a 24-hour online giving event hosted by The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee.
This Earth Day, celebrate the blooming of spring at The Land Trust for Tennessees Glen Leven Farm, a historic 65-acre oasis located four miles from downtown Nashville. Plant a Tennessee wildflower, sample raw honey from the Glen Leven Farm Honey Bee Sanctuary and more. V iew more event details here.
Janice Hill began the search for a program for her autistic son, Joseph Hill, during his junior year of high school. She decided on the TigerLIFE program at the University of Memphis because of its proximity to her home and because she and her daughter had both attended the U of M. She soon discovered that TigerLIFE would dramatically change her sons life.
Hes more outgoing hes more confident, she said. He is more independent. He exercises every day.
Started in December 2011, TigerLIFE is a postsecondary education program for students with intellectual disabilities designed to transition them from high school to the workforce.
After Joseph started TigerLIFE in the fall of 2016, his mother said he began to look to the future and set goals for himself.
He told me, Momma, I want to go to school, even if I dont get but a two-year degree in something, she said. He was telling me, This summer I may go try to find a job at Kroger something he has never said before.
Moe Williams, associate director of the University of Memphis Institute on Disability and founder of the TigerLIFE program, developed the program as part of his Masters thesis. Williams was working at the Memphis Convention & Visitors Bureau as the director of education programs while working on his Masters degree.
I was running a summer employment workshop, and they wouldnt allow students with disabilities in the workshop, Williams said. I couldnt understand that.
Williams was told those students with special needs were not ready to go to work.
Well, so are most young people, Williams said. They were like, These programs are not for those types of students.
After hearing that, Williams began researching education programs for students with special needs. He discovered there were already places for special needs people to receive postsecondary education training, but most of them were at universities and came with a high price tag to the student.
Someone impoverished cannot afford a program that costs them $50,000 a year, Williams said. Even for middle-class families, $50,000 a year is hard to handle.
Williams decided a program needed to be offered at the U of M.
Were the place where everybody is equal, Williams said. (Students) can get funding they can go to school and become somebody.
With the help of colleague Chrisann Schiro-Geist, Williams developed a pilot program he pitched to Shelby County Schools. After that program was up and running, he began research for what became the TigerLIFE program. After the program started, he set out to get funding so the special-needs students could attend.
I started beating the pavement and tried to convince everybody they should be supporting this program, Williams said.
Williams and the late Lois DeBerry, former speaker pro tempore of the Tennessee House of Representatives, worked together and successfully convinced Gov. Bill Haslam to give scholarships to students with special needs. Haslam enacted the STEP UP Scholarship, a program designed to assist students with intellectual disabilities enroll in an individualized program of study at an eligible postsecondary institution. It mirrors the HOPE Scholarship in how much money students receive.
After high school graduation, many special needs students dont get jobs, said Gianna Gray, a graduate student pursuing her masters degree in special education. Many go back home or go to a mental institution, which are not the best things for them, she said.
Since the TigerLIFE program started, the employment placement rate of their graduates is 79 percent. For Janice Hill, a chance at future employment for her son is only one of the benefits of TigerLIFE.
Hes just more outgoing, and hes happy, she said. Before, when he was going to high school, he was very unhappy. He really didnt even want to go to school, but now he looks forward to going to school every day.
Moe Williams founded TigerLIFE as part of his master's thesis.
The Salvation Army will celebrate Easter with its traditional Easter Sunrise Service at the National Cemetery, 1200 Bailey Ave. beside the flag pole overlooking downtown Chattanooga.
For over four decades, The Salvation Army has partnered with the Chattanooga National Cemetery for the Easter Sunrise Service. All are invited to worship at 7:08 a.m. as the sun rises over Chattanooga.
The service will begin with Mr. Scott Maclellan playing bag pipes. Additional music will be provided by the internationally acclaimed Jericho Brass band. The guest speaker, Salvation Army Chattanooga Area Commander Major Robert Lyle, will deliver the message.
The Salvation Army is expecting an attendance of more than 300. Arrive early for available chairs. The service will be held rain or shine.
For more information on The Salvation Army or this sunrise service, contact Kimberly George at 423-308-7715 or email to Kimberly_George@uss.salvationarmy.org.
The novelist Julian Barnes has written such a piece for the London Review Of Books about Britain as it heads for Brexit
Sometimes one reads an article in which everything is illuminated all ones suspicions, anxieties and fears. A light is cast on previously shadowy waters.
The novelist Julian Barnes has written such a piece for the London Review Of Books about Britain as it heads for Brexit. Though not a widely read publication, it is influential among the generally Left-leaning literary classes.
Barnes, it should be said, is the celebrated author of many novels. His 2011 work The Sense Of An Ending, which won the prestigious Man Booker Prize for fiction, has been made into a film that opens tomorrow.
This is perhaps why aware of the value of publicity he has chosen this moment to grace the London Review Of Books with a diatribe that demonstrates the lack of proportionality, and the hysteria and hatred, evinced by the most extreme Remainers.
And also, most spectacularly, the piece reveals a susceptibility to what has recently become known as fake news but used to be called getting your facts wrong, or even telling a lie.
In the course of a sideswipe against the Mail seemingly regarded by some Remainers as being single-handedly responsible for the Brexit vote last June he makes an utterly false accusation.
Referring to the murder of the Labour MP Jo Cox a week before the referendum, Barnes claims the Mail gave its readers 30 pages of more important news and comment before deigning to report Jo Coxs murder.
His insinuation is that this paper wished to downplay the murder of the pro-Remain Jo Cox by a deranged fascist. Ive no doubt that, coming as it does from such an illustrious source, it is being repeated over a thousand fashionable dinner tables, and accepted as gospel truth.
But its not true. On June 17, 2016, the whole of the front page of the Mail was devoted to Jo Coxs tragic murder. So were pages four, five, six and seven. The voluminous coverage was extremely sympathetic, even anguished.
So the eminent Julian Barnes has himself been guilty of disseminating fake news. The irony is that his incorrect charge should come after he has accused Brexiteers in the same article of purveying multiple lies.
Boris Johnson gets it in the neck over comments he made when explaining why EU countries would be foolish not to make trade deals with a post-Brexit Britain. Barnes criticises Johnsons claim that Italy exports 300 million litres of prosecco a year to the UK, maintaining that the true figure is only 45 million.
Actually, one apparently authoritative retail website asserts it is 77 million litres, but lets accept that Boris made a mistake, though it is surely true that the Italian prosecco industry will do whatever it can to ensure tariffs are not applied to its exports to Britain.
My suggestion is simply that Boriss error pales into insignificance compared to Barness downright falsehood. I dont accuse him of a deliberate lie. Much more likely, this was laziness born of prejudice.
British author Julian Barnes poses after winning the 2011 Man Booker Prize for Fiction with his book' The Sense of an Ending' at the Guildhall in London
As a writer who started out in journalism, Barnes certainly ought to know that it is inconceivable that any national newspaper would virtually ignore the murder of an MP.
His article contains other illuminating nonsense. Having listed alleged eruptions of racism unleashed by the Brexiteers (the wall-daubings, the increase in racial abuse, the throwing of s**t at foreign women), he makes the extraordinary disclosure that as a largish white man he feels abashed when receiving nervous glances on pavements from smaller, less white women.
May I suggest that, far from thinking that they are about to be assaulted by a hefty pro-Brexit 70-something thug, these women are throwing anxious glances in the direction of a plainly troubled man who provokes their sympathy?
On occasion, the novelist strays from fantasy into a kind of hate-filled negativity that ultra-Remainers who are politicians (e.g. Nick Clegg and Peter Mandelson) usually try to conceal. Barnes doesnt.
He says he hopes his word that leading Brexiteers will be well punished by EU negotiators, that Europe will make us stump up all we owe, that a hard Brexit will ensue, that the European Union will make us wait as long as Canada had to wait for a trade deal.
Barnes also hopes that all those who voted to quit the EU will discover that the bright new future without all those Poles and Romanians and Bulgarians means that they will now have to pick strawberries, grade potatoes and care for the demented. . . [and their wages] wont be any higher.
Boris Johnson gets it in the neck over comments he made when explaining why EU countries would be foolish not to make trade deals with a post-Brexit Britain
Here is a leading novelist who wants his fellow countrymen to suffer for having had the impertinence to vote for Brexit, and hopes that his country will be punished by Europe (which in his mind is indistinguishable from the EU). Do we call that plain nastiness, or does it bear the name of treachery?
Let me say that I have some grieving Remainer friends with whose concerns and worries I sympathise, though I do my best to allay them. But with the kind of unhinged and sometimes fact-free hatred shown by Julian Barnes, my only response is despair and disbelief.
It wouldnt matter if he were a fool in a pub, but he is a feted writer, one of the most influential in Britain. Behind him are legions of less prominent intellectuals who will go on talking about Brexit as though it is the end of civilisation, while doubtless telling their friends the Mail barely covered the murder of Jo Cox.
Can we ever restore a measure of reason and proportionality to political debate in Britain, and, for that matter, America? Across the Atlantic, the revered and lofty New York Times has just published a mammoth article which suggests (without, of course, producing any hard facts) that London post-Brexit will no longer be a successful international city.
Though much less convulsed with loathing than Julian Barness tirade, a piece by the reporter Sarah Lyall betrays the same sense of determination that everything will turn out badly. A succession of unhappy Remainers are encouraged to air their fears.
Needless to say, neither Barnes nor Lyall mentions that the apocalyptic warnings of Remainers during the referendum campaign and Id argue that many of those were plain lies have not so far come to pass, and they do not address the possibility that their own intimations of doom may be even partly misguided.
Both writers apparently live in a kind of intellectual bubble or echo chamber, talking to like-minded people, and not bothering to engage rationally with those with whom they disagree. In Julian Barness case so dissociated is he from the world around him he actually imagines fears in non-white women passing in the street.
Surely the lesson of the referendum was that of the failure of the Remainers to understand and judge the public mood. I will spare Sarah Lyall, since she is an American, though she tells us that she lived in London for more than 15 years until returning home in 2013.
But Barnes, being British, is different. In common with so many of his kind, he does not like much of his country or many of his countrymen.
He and his ilk often portray those who voted to leave the EU as insular. Reading his venomous piece its casual inaccuracies, its narrow prejudices, its rancour that is the very word I would use to describe Julian Barnes.
Gone are the days of the humble hot cross bun and the modest chocolate egg.
Instead, Australian cafes are going all out this Easter to ensure their customers have access to the most elaborate, creative and non-traditional treats imaginable.
Here, FEMAIL looks at some of the stand-out creations on offer this year and where you can get your hands on them before Sunday.
Instead, Australian cafes are going all out this Easter to ensure their customers have access to the most elaborate, creative and non-traditional treats imaginable
BUNNY SHAKES
A number of cafes in Sydney are offering their customers eye-popping shakes this Easter, served in none other than chocolate bunnies.
XS Espresso in Wetherill Park, New South Wales, have shared snaps of their mouthwatering chocolate milkshake creations served in Crunchie Bunnies topped with Drumstick ice creams and clumps of fairy floss.
Staff at Bondi foodie hub Milky Lane are also serving bunny thickshakes - each of them served in Dream bunnies and topped with whipped cream and cherries.
In a delectable twist, the Muharam Cafe in Melbourne has swapped shakes for hot chocolates and is serving marshmallow and chocolate egg-stuffed variations to their customers this Easter.
While they haven't served their shakes in bunnies, the Vogue Cafe at Macquarie has a special Easter shake too, topped with a large chocolate egg and a mini chick.
XS Espresso in Wetherill Park have shared snaps of their mouthwatering chocolate milkshake creations (left) and Milky Lane are serving bunny thickshakes in Dream bunnies (right)
Vogue Cafe has a special Easter shake (left) too, topped with a large chocolate egg and a mini chick and Muharam Cafe has swapped shakes for hot chocolates (right)
HOT CROSS BUNS WITH A TWIST
If there's one thing Australian cafes have mastered, it's taking something simple and transforming it into something wonderful and wacky.
And this is exactly what many have done with the beloved hot cross bun.
Gelatissimo is offering a Gelato Easter Bun this year - a warm toasted bun filled with a scoop of gooey, sweet gelato.
Sydney company Kayter Co's Hot Cross Yums are also a standout this year, with the delicious buns offered in an array of heavenly flavour combinations.
These include buns flavoured and loaded with Creme Eggs, Nutella, Milo, fairy bread, peanut butter and jelly and chocolate doughnuts.
Tella Balls Dessert Bar, in Dulwich Hill, NSW, is offering spicy cinnamon and sugar coated buns injected with a large dose of Nutella.
Gelatissimo is offering a Gelato Easter Bun this year (left), while Tella Balls Dessert Bar have upgraded their buns and are offering spicy cinnamon buns injected with Nutella (right)
Kayter Co's Hot Cross Yums are also a standout this year, with the delicious buns offered in an array of heavenly flavour combinations
Hot cross bun bagels and hot cross bun macarons have also appeared in some stores
INDULGENT EASTER DESSERTS
Adriano Zumbo never disappoints when it comes to the holidays.
This year, in addition to hot cross buns and chocolate bunnies, the famed Australian pastry chef has also created a 'Down the Rabbit Hole' Easter carrot cake.
The intricate creation is made with carrot cake, carrot & lychee gel, cream cheese mousse with a ginger & lemon cream and hazelnut sable glaze.
It is then topped with toasted hazelnuts, chocolate carrots, mini chocolate Zumbarons & carrot cake pieces.
Staff at The Grounds of Alexandria are also kicking it up a level this year, with pink Easter bunnies made from choux pastry with a raspberry cremeux filling.
Adriano Zumbo's Easter cake is made with carrot cake, carrot & lychee gel, cream cheese mousse with a ginger & lemon cream and hazelnut sable glaze
Staff at the Grounds of Alexandria are also kicking it up a level this year, with pink Easter bunnies made from choux pastry with a raspberry cremeux filling
GIANT EASTER TREATS
True to tradition, the Grounds of Alexandria team have once again created their giant Easter egg.
The enormous 500 kilogram egg is sitting among the sunflowers at the Sydney cafe and is a whopping three metres tall.
On Saturday, staff will crack the egg with customers and everyone will share it.
Ganache Chocolate in Melbourne has also launched enormous Easter treats, including a 800 gram Easter bunny available in store.
Also on offer is a $145 edible half egg shell made with milk or dark chocolate and stuffed with 50 fine pralines.
True to tradition, the Grounds of Alexandria have once again created their giant Easter egg - an enormous 500 kilogram egg that is three metres tall
Ganache Chocolate in Melbourne have also launched their enormous Easter treats, including a 800 gram Easter bunny available in store
EASTER BURGERS
One of Sydney's favourite burger bars, Bar Luca, has also jumped on the bandwagon for Easter and launched a special Hot Cross Yum burger.
The burger features fried chicken, smashed egg, lettuce and maple bacon and is then topped with a hot cross milk bun.
The elaborate burger costs $17.
Sydney's favourite burger bar has also jumped on the bandwagon for Easter and launched a special Hot Cross Yum burger
EASTER DOUGHNUTS
Doughnut Time has launched three special Easter doughnuts this year - Yolk Addict, Scavenger Jackpot and Chubby Bunny.
The first is made with Yellow, white & eggshell cream glaze, mini white sprinkles topped with Cadbury Creme egg and the second, blue & white creme glaze, crushed Oreo, M&M speckled eggs, chocolate eggs and a mini Malteser bunny.
The third, Chubby Bunny, is made with pink & white cream glaze, mini marshmallows, rainbow sprinkles and custom chocolate bunny.
Doughnut Time has launched three special Easter doughnuts this year - Yolk Addict, Scavenger Jackpot (pictured) and Chubby Bunny
EASTER CAKES
Sydney-based Sugar High Desserts is offering an enormous exploding Easter egg cake this Easter stuffed with treats and topped with a giant egg and tiny chickens.
The team at Sydney dessert company Smash Cakes are also doing Easter cakes, with their enormous chocolate domes stuffed with tasty treats and topped with all kinds of Easter themed chocolates.
Sugar High Desserts are offering an enormous exploding Easter egg cake this Easter stuffed with treats and topped with a giant egg and tiny chickens
EASTER BASKETS
Sugar High Desserts also has an enormous Easter hamper filled with a creme egg donut, a mega donut, mini donuts , fairy bread marshmallow pops, a hot cross bun flavoured waffle, a rainbow popcorn crunch and a mixture of Easter eggs and chocolate.
The amazing creation is just $68.
Kayter Co's $58 Easter box has Easter themed doughnuts, four mini doughnuts, LCM bars, Nutella 'brookies', Nutella fairy floss, Nutella syringes and mini Nutella jars.
Sugar High Desserts is selling an enormous Easter hamper filled with a creme egg donut, a mega donut, mini donuts , fairy bread marshmallow pops and a hot cross bun flavoured waffle
EASTER COCKTAILS
It's not just desserts that cafes are offering this Easter, with many also creating limited edition holiday cocktails.
Milky Lane is serving customers Kinder Surprise egg shots filled with Vodka, Kahlua and cream and then topped with dark chocolate.
Sydney cafe Hat Trick, in Macquarie, has taken it to a new level with stunning milo and patron frozen martinis served inside a Cadbury chocolate egg on top of fairy floss and embellished with a tiny yellow chick for decoration.
Mariana Sfakianakis, 22, regularly reminds her 50,000 Instagram followers that she's not the same girl she once was.
The Sydney-based business administrator and personal assistant shared a childhood image of herself with leg casts on in hopes she could inspire other people to stay strong, even if they have a disability.
'I was born in Greece as a premature baby. Doctors had told my mum prior to giving birth that I was going to be a stillborn and so we had no preparation for post labour.
Mariana (pictured) said she is a completely different person today and credits exercise as her saviour
The Sydney-based 22-year-old Mariana Sfakianakis posted this image to Instagram in an effort to explain what her life was like growing up with cerebral palsy
'I was immediately rushed over to the intensive care unit but by that time I had lost large amounts of oxygen which caused damage to my brain resulting in a permanent condition called cerebral palsy,' she said in a caption on Instagram.
Mariana's condition affected the movement in her legs, muscle control and balance. She moved to Australia at the age of five in hopes of finding more advanced doctors and treatments.
'As a young kid I never understood what was really happening and why I was different to all the other kids. I got bullied for not walking like all the others and for also being in a wheelchair.
'This caused major anxiety, depression and being so young I never really knew how to deal with it besides self harm. When I reached year six I had multi level surgery, almost not making it through the eight hour procedure leaving me with nine scars on my legs,' the caption continued.
Mariana's condition affected the movement in her legs, muscle control and balance. She moved to Australia at the age of five in hopes of finding more advanced doctors and treatments
Mariana's Instagram page is filtered with incredible fitness feats and personal bests. She told Daily Mail Australia exercise is what helped her overcome longstanding mental and physical issues
The surgery was thankfully a success but the 22-year-old still couldn't move her legs for almost eight months. She was forced to learn how to walk again using a frame and then crutches.
'Although I was told that I would never be 100 per cent normal my results were incredible and I was gratefully content. I never wanted to be perfect. Just better,' the caption finishes.
Mariana's Instagram page is filtered with incredible fitness feats and personal bests. She told Daily Mail Australia exercise is what helped her overcome longstanding mental and physical issues.
'Although I was told that I would never be 100 per cent normal my results were incredible and I was gratefully content. I never wanted to be perfect. Just better,' she said
The kids at school were not as educated about disabilities as they are now Mariana said
'Starting high school in a wheelchair was a struggle that lead me to depression and anxiety. It took me many years to overcome it before I decided to drop out in year ten and start my fitness journey.'
The kids at school were not as educated about disabilities as they are now, Mariana explained. The 22-year-old wasn't able to run and keep her balance and was in 'daily pain' as a result of her walking pattern. Children found ways to stir her about it.
'It was quiet often verbal but also physical bullying. I was always very soft and didn't stick up for myself because I was scared.
Girl, look at that body! Mariana uses exercise to overcome some of her physical and mental issues
'I thought that there was nothing I could really do and if I did stick up for myself it would only make it worse.
'I spent most days crying and feeling very lonely which most times lead to self harm. That was the only way I knew how to deal with it,' she said.
Social media and exercise has completely transformed Mariana's life. Her followers see her an inspiration, particularly those in 'similar situations'.
'I've built myself to be a strong and independent young lady that is always focused on improving everyday. My fitness journey has had a huge impact on my life today and the support of all my friends and family,' she said.
The County Schools are seeking $24.5 million in additional revenue, including over $11 million for a five percent teacher raise.
The new money would also include funding for new vocational offerings on the Chattanooga State campus. There would be 100 students included the first year, 200 the second and 300 the third at the Chattanooga Polytechnic Academy. Focuses will be advanced manufacturing, construction trades, IT and chemical engineering. Funding will provide for five educators and tuition support. Students would continue to have a home high school. The initial budget is $586,000.
The schools are projecting $372.2 million in revenue and are seeking $396.7 million.
Board members said they fully back the request, but said there is no indication that members of the County Commission plan to raise taxes.
Board member David Testerman said, "All of this is great, but we may be spinning our wheels. We can play like there's a Santa Claus. Ho Ho Ho. But it ain't going to happen."
Joe Smith, another board member, said, "We've got to have some more revenue. The commissioners need to grow some kahunas or we're going to continue to stay where we are."
He recommended that the schools go to the commission with a balanced budget, "but also tell them what we need."
Interim Supt. Kirk Kelly said, if the commission says no to a tax increase, there would still be time to drop down to a balanced budget.
Board member Joe Galloway said, "We need this money desperately. We could make strides if we had the money."
Christie Jordan said the schools gained $1.76 million in savings, mainly from more teachers opting to retire. Other savings come from stormwater initiatives and the phasing out of the Career Ladder program.
She said it appears the sales tax revenue will be $1.5 million more than projected earlier. She said the property tax revenue should be up $1.9 million.
Dr. Kelly said the teacher pay hike is needed to help catch the county schools up with nearby counties who compete for teachers. He said the starting pay is at $37,501 and county salaries are 35th in the state.
Other increases are to prepare for online testing, technology, professional development and a tele-medicine program being tried in several schools in conjunction with Erlanger physicians.
The board will vote next week on how to proceed with the budget.
At 19 years old, Emma Isaacs bought her first property, one of many to come for the Sydney-born entrepreneur.
Now 37 and a mother-of-four, Emma is the CEO of Australia's biggest community for woman, Business Chicks.
Speaking to Channel Seven host Edwina Bartholomew for Whimn, Emma shared her humble beginnings as a daughter of a teacher and an accountant, to dropping out of university to start her business at 18 years old.
'I had my first business when I was 18. I bought my first property when I was 19. Ive never taken a pay cheque that I havent written myself,' Emma told the publication.
Emma Isaac, 37, is the CEO of Australia's biggest community for woman, Business Chicks
Business Chicks is a community of women supporting one another to achieve their business and career goals.
Emma explained when she started her company 11 years ago, she had 250 members - there are now 4,500.
After graduating from high school, Emma went to university for six months before realising she wouldn't learn quickly in a lecture theatre.
'Its taken me a while to say I am a proud uni drop out,' she said.
Living the life: 'This is the only life I know. I had my first business when I was 18,' Emma said
Business Chicks is a community of women supporting one another to achieve their business and career goals
Although years have since passed, Emma said she was still asked when she would get her degree.
'I had a goal to buy 10 investment properties. On the day I bought my tenth, I said to Mum, "Guess what I did today. I bought my 10th investment property",' Emma said.
She said her mother's reply was to ask when she was going back to university.
Its taken me a while to say I am a proud uni drop out
'Im one of 23 grandkids and Im the only one without a university degree,' she said.
Emma's mentality has always been 'If it is meant to be, it's up to me' and has kept this mantra while taking her business overseas to America.
Hosting events all over Australia and internationally, Emma and her company have the backing of celebrities and mentors such as Sir Richard Branson, Julia Gillard, Nicole Kidman and Nigella Lawson, to name a few.
Emma with blogger Jules Sebastian (left) and Naomi Simon (right) for an event
Emma poses with Australian actress Magda Szubanski at an event in Melbourne
Currently pregnant with her fifth child, Emma reflected on the trauma her family went through when her daughter Millie, now seven, was diagnosed with Hodgkin Lymphoma at age four.
'It was a really, really tough time. I dont want to sound like a Hallmark card but we do always try and see the best in things.'
Hard work and determination paid off for the mother-of-four, but not without set backs along the way.
'I dont want to be seen as the person who has it all together. Im the first person to tell you that I lock myself in the cupboard away from the kids,' Emma said.
Working with inspirational women constantly, Emma said those who inspire her are women who leave their comfort zones.
Emma said those who inspire her are women who leave their comfort zones
Emma is currently pregnant with her fifth child and lives in Los Angeles
Now living in Los Angeles with her family, Emma said her business has taken her all over the world and afforded her incredible experiences, but it was all due to hard work.
'Most of the time, the first thought you have in the morning is about your business and over the years, youll endure many sleepless nights,' she told The Huffington Post.
'If youre female, lots of people will think your success is due to a man.
'For some people, the fact that youve singlehandedly navigated your way to success is unfathomable.'
As for her success at being an entrepreneur for two decades, Emma said it's the best thing.
'We live in a time where people just get the highlight reel, the press release of peoples lives. The more we can be honest with each other, the better for all women,' she told Whimn.
Evicted from her 4 million Belgravia flat in 2014, allegedly 20,400 in arrears, Nancy DellOlio mysteriously manages to maintain a champagne lifestyle.
But now, the former inamorata of the ex-England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson and theatre grandee Sir Trevor Nunn has shown how she makes savings.
She turned up to a Christies auction for the Terrence Higgins Trust in an outfit she created herself. This is one of my own designs, the former Strictly contestant says of the black satin dress.
Nancy DellOlio, 55, turned up to a Christies auction for the Terrence Higgins Trust in an outfit she created herself
I do it with the help of a designer, because when I have inspiration I like to create my own outfit.
Sadly, there are no plans for Nancy, 55, to launch her own label: There are already too many people doing that.
The Oldies 45-year-old editor, Harry Mount, is sexing up the geriatric mags London offices.
They are now shared with new title The Amorist, edited by Rowan Pelling, who launched The Erotic Review.
The Amorist is a romantic and witty erotic magazine and a delightful neighbour, Mount says.
Its led to an unusual breed of chit-chat by the watercooler. Prize for the best so far goes to a visitor who said politely to one colleague: I didnt recognise you without your chains!
Sheen's girl has Mum's A-list looks
With her glossy long brown hair, creamy English rose complexion and big brown eyes, young Lily Sheen, 18, has clearly inherited the winning looks of her mother, Hollywood star Kate Beckinsale
With her glossy long brown hair, creamy English rose complexion and big brown eyes, young Lily Sheen has clearly inherited the winning looks of her mother, Hollywood star Kate Beckinsale.
Lily, 18, whose father is Kates ex-boyfriend, Welsh actor Michael Sheen, shared this selfie online, prompting her mother to comment: You look thrillingly sneaky.
Former Oxford student Kate, 43, whose father was Porridge star Richard Beckinsale, has also passed on her intellect.
Lily recently won a place at an American university which she will join later this year.
Sleep's new dream: to jive with the Duchess
Ballet legend Wayne Sleep says the Duchess of Cambridge has the makings of a talented hoofer but lacks the glamour of Princess Diana.
Ballet legend Wayne Sleep says the Duchess of Cambridge has the makings of a talented hoofer but lacks the glamour of Princess Diana
I think Kate would be a good dancer, The Real Marigold Hotel star tells me.
Shes got a natural decorum and holds herself really well, so she might have had lessons for that.
Sleep, who famously jived on stage with Diana to Billy Joels Uptown Girl, adds: I couldnt compare the two. Kates not quite as glamorous as Diana, but she has her own spot.
I would dance with Kate, of course, if William gave me permission.
Radio Times editor Ben Preston surprised fans of The Archers at the mags South Bank TV festival when he welcomed Tom Watson to a discussion on the domestic abuse storyline which gripped millions on Radio 4.
Rob, who was stabbed by wife Helen when she could no longer stand his coercive behaviour, is actually played by Tim Watson although Labours Deputy Leader Tom Watson may well end up (metaphorically) knifing Jeremy Corbyn.
Much-missed Countryfiler Julia Bradburys hobby might shock John Craven out of his wellies. Last year I revealed that the 46-year-old had taken up pole-dancing.
Now, shes honing her technique on a pole in her London basement. Im excited, she gushes. Ive started following pole dancers on Instagram and when I re-post an amazing move, I get so many hits.
A mother whose autistic daughter 'demolished' a classroom during a 'meltdown' says teachers need to be trained to step in.
Paula Brand claimed three teachers stood by and watched for half an hour as her daughter Isabella, seven, upended every desk in the room at at Miami State School on the Gold Coast.
The entrepreneur said it was Isabella's third meltdown this term and claimed school principal Kate Bentley was the only one of 30 teachers willing to intervene.
Paula Brand's autistic daughter Isabella, 7, 'demolished' a classroom in a meltdown says teachers should be trained to intervene when disabled children have episodes
'If a child is left to demolish a classroom for half an hour while three teachers stand by and watch, what message does that send to kids who have to yet again evacuate a classroom and stop learning?' she said.
Ms Brand said teachers needed crisis management training to know how to calm down disabled students during episodes, and restrain them if necessary.
'I don't know exactly what the appropriate measures would look like but if teachers need to wear a flak jacket to pick the child up and take them out of the class, I'm all for it,' she said.
Teachers have the choice whether to intervene but Ms Brand said it should be mandatory after they were all trained.
'Yes teachers would be in the firing line, but the fact is they are in the firing line so they need to be prepared for it,' she said.
She claimed three teachers at Miami State School (Isabella pictured in uniform) on the Gold Coast stood by and watched for half an hour as she upended every desk in the room
The Gold Coast entrepreneur said it was Isabella's third meltdown this term and school (pictured) principal Kate Bentley was the only one of 30 teachers willing to intervene
'Teaching these days is about how to deal with child abuse, disabilities, poverty, bullying - teachers have so much to do.
'But its a massive systemic issue with 65 kids in every school with autism and it's not going to go away, so just like there's mandatory bomb training they need to know how to deal with these situations.'
Ms Brand said better training would also prevent destructive episodes from happening in the first place as teachers would spot the signs in advance.
'It should never get to that stage, teachers should be trained to watch for the triggers and prevent meltdowns before they happen,' she said.
Ms Brand said teachers needed crisis management training to know how to calm down disabled students during episodes, and restrain them if necessary
'The situation is different from a child being violent, where police should be called instead. Autistic kids having meltdowns there's no intent to damage anything or hurt people, they don't even remember it.
'They'll come out of it and ask "are we going to get on to that maths problem now?" while everyone else is traumatised.'
Ms Brand said if schools couldn't manage it, the government should build schools to effectively teach disabled students.
She said Isabella only acted out at school and didn't even need medication at home, an assessment backed up by her pediatric psychologists.
Drs Chris Wever and Glen Craig wrote in a letter to Ms Brand that the girl's behaviour was 'exclusive to the school environment' and not seen elsewhere.
Ms Brand said better training would also prevent destructive episodes from happening in the first place as teachers would spot the signs in advance
She said Isabella only acted out at school and didn't even need medication at home, an assessment backed up by her pediatric psychologists
They wrote the 'triggers' for her episodes were 'around peer interactions and during unstructured activities'.
'The key is early identification of warning signs, as once she "explodes", things have gone too far,' they wrote.
No medication would be a 'magic wand' and the environment should be looked at first.
Miami State School deputy principal Lucy Hirst told the Gold Coast Bulletin the school would not discuss specific pupils.
'Our teachers handled the situation well and are well trained,' she said.
A report commissioned by the Queensland Government recommended 'restrictive practice' be used as a 'last resort' to prevent harm to staff and students.
It suggested teaching methods, culture and behaviour management should ideally be used to prevent it from becoming necessary.
The report found there was 'ambiguity' about when teachers should intervene and standardised policies should be written and their use monitored.
Brits are gearing up for a long bank holiday weekend off work and it seems that the party has already started for Lady Kitty Spencer.
Princess Diana's niece looked a little worse for wear as she enjoyed drinks in the sun with her friends at The Anglesea Arms pub in Chelsea, London.
The 26-year-old blonde looked chic in a blue crop top, which showcased her stomach, and a pair of skin-tight white jeans.
Princess Diana's niece Lady Kitty Spencer looked worse for wear as she flashed her stomach as she enjoyed a night out with friends at a pub in London
The socialite, who is known for her penchant for a party, enjoyed an Aperol Spritz as she mingled with pals.
She, who is usually known for her polished and poised appearance, was also seen resting against a wall as she made a quick phone call during the evening.
Lady Kitty recently returned from a trip to Australia, where she was on hand to start a game of polo in Perth.
The niece of Princess Diana rode into Duncraig Stud in a Bentley before settling in to enjoy the luxury car company's Polo in the Valley event.
The socialite, who is known for her penchant for a party, enjoyed an Aperol Spritz as she mingled with pals on the sunny evening out
At one point the socialite, who was dressed in tight white jeans and a midriff-baring top, made a phone call
The 26-year-old blonde looked chic in a blue crop top, which showcased her stomach, as she kicked off the bank holiday celebrations
Kitty has been travelling around Western Australia, where she has fed kangaroos, taken a day trip to Rottnest Island and snapped gorgeous pictures of Cottesloe Beach.
It was a welcome break for the daughter of Earl Spencer, who has kept busy with her philanthropic endeavors and a recent walk down Dolce & Gabbana's runway.
Kitty, a former Tatler cover girl, has been following down the footsteps of her model mother Victoria Lockwood - who she grew up with in South Africa.
Lady Kitty recently returned from a trip to Australia, where she was on hand to start a game of polo in Perth
She also recently walked in the Dolce & Gabbana show where she posed for snaps backstage with the designers
The Cape Town University graduate then returned to her English roots to study luxury brand management at Regent's College.
She has since been signed to Storm model agency, where she is represented by Kate Moss' agent, Paula Karaiskos.
Kitty is in a long-term relationship with property tycoon Niccolo Barattieri di San Pietro, who she has been dating for the last two years.
Barattieri is 20 years her senior and a divorced father of three children.
Kitty had been gallivanting around Western Australia, recently taking a day trip to Rottnest Island
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The Queen visited Leicester Cathedral to mark Maundy Thursday by distributing alms in a tradition dating back to the 13th century.
Her Majesty, dressed in a vibrant turquoise coat dress by Angela Kelly, was joined by the Duke of Edinburgh for the annual service where the Maundy coins were distributed to 91 men and 91 women - representing each of her 91 years.
The 182 recipients of the Maundy money are all senior citizens who were given the gifts in recognition of the service they have given to the church and their local area.
Today, hundreds of well-wishers lined the street waving Union Jack flags and wearing novelty crowns as they awaited the arrival of the Queen, who adorned her coat with a gold and diamond flower clip brooch.
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The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh pose for a photograph with clergymen and local schoolchildren following the service at Leicester Cathedral this morning where she handed out a traditional Maundy Thursday coin for each of her 91 years
The 90-year-old monarch traditionally hands two purses - one white and one red - to each person during the service. The red purse contains a 5 coin, commemorating the Centenary of the House of Windsor and a 50p coin commemorating Sir Isaac Newton.
The white purse will contain uniquely minted Maundy coins, equating in pence to her age, as Her Majesty prepares to celebrate her 91st birthday on April 21. The coins, a ceremonial gift from the Sovereign, are legal tender but recipients normally prefer to retain them as a keepsake.
Local florist Rosie prepared the yellow and purple flowers known as Nosegays for the Queen's visit today, while Peter from the Royal Almonry prepared the handmade purses for presentation, according to Buckingham Palace's official Twitter account.
The Royal Maundy is an ancient ceremony which originated in the commandment Christ gave after washing the feet of his disciples the day before Good Friday.
It appears to have been custom for members of the Royal Family to take part in the service since the 13th century, the Royal Mint said.
Historically, the sum of 5.50 in the Red Purse is made up of 3 for clothing, 1.50 in lieu of provisions and 1 for the redemption of the Sovereign's gown.
The royal party pose with Leicester clergymen and a group of Yeomen following the service which sub-dean Canon Alison Adams has called 'a great celebration of faithful service to the community from both the City and County of Leicester'
While the royals gathered for photographs outside the cathedral, a huge crowd gathered in nearby Jubilee Square to watch the service on a large screen. The Queen has now visited every Anglican Cathedral in England for the Royal Maundy service
Important visit: Speaking ahead of the Queen's arrival, sub-dean Canon Alison Adams, said: 'Her Majesty The Queen visited us at the start of her Diamond Jubilee celebrations and we are proud to welcome her back'
Her Majesty leaves the Cathedral following the service. According to the Cathedral's website, Maundy Thursday has been hosted in all cathedrals across the country during the Queens reign, apart from Leicester making them the last one to host it
Tradition: Local florist Rosie prepared the yellow and purple flowers known as Nosegays for the Queen's visit today, while Peter from the Royal Almonry prepared the handmade purses for presentation
Annual tradition: Her Majesty and the Duke of Edinburgh have arrived in Leicester Cathedral to mark Maundy Thursday by distributing alms in a tradition dating back to the 13th century. The Queen has attended Maundy Thursday since 1952
The White Purse contains uniquely minted Maundy Money, which, unlike coins in general circulation, bear the portrait of the Queen produced by Mary Gillick at the start of her reign.
Gillick, a sculptor, designed the portrait which appeared on the coins of the UK and some Commonwealth countries from 1953 until preparations for decimalisation began in 1968.
The portrait of the Queen wearing a wreath on her head was considered to reflect the nation's optimism as it greeted a new monarch in the post-war years.
The first monarch to take part in a Maundy Thursday service was King John, of Magna Carta and Robin Hood fame, who distributed gifts of clothes and money to the poor in Knaresborough in 1210.
The Queen and Prince Philip, carrying nosegays, arrive for the service at Leicester Cathedral. The Queen has now visited every Anglican Cathedral in England for the Royal Maundy service, with Leicester being the last
The Queen hands out Maundy money to senior citizens during the Royal Maundy service at Leicester Cathedral
The monarch traditionally hands two purses - one white and one red - to each person during the service. The red purse contains a 5 coin, commemorating the Centenary of the House of Windsor and a 50p coin commemorating Sir Isaac Newton
Age-old tradition: The 182 recipients of the Maundy money, pictured, are all senior citizens who were given the gifts in recognition of the service they have given to the church and their local area
Dressed in a vibrant Angela Kelly coat dress and matching hat, is joined today by the Duke of Edinburgh for the annual service where the Maundy coins will be distributed to 91 men and 91 women - representing each of her 91 years
The Queen is greeted by a clergyman as she arrives at the Cathedral on Thursday morning. The 182 recipients of the Maundy money are senior citizens who are given gifts in recognition of the service they have given to the church and their local area
A lifetime of service: Her Majesty has taken part in the Royal Maundy Service in all but four years of her reign, including in 1954 when she was away touring the Commonwealth. The 1952 service marked her first public engagement as Queen
John was also the first to present the poor with silver coins and is recorded as having done so in Rochester in 1213.
John's grandson Edward I, the king known to posterity as 'the Hammer of the Scots', was the first to confine the tradition to Maundy Thursday alone, which, until his reign, could be conducted on any day of the year.
By 1363 and Edward III, the tradition had evolved into a ceremony that is still recognisable today, with monarchs handing out money equivalent to their age in years.
The ceremony was little changed by the dawn of the Tudor period, although rulers could - and did - increase the number of beggars involved to show their religious devotion and humility.
Welcome back, Ma'am! The Queen last visited the East Midlands city in March 2012 as part of her Diamond Jubilee tour, while the cathedral is the final burial place of King Richard III, whose remains were discovered in the city in September 2012
The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh travelled in the State Bentley limousine from Leicester station along Humberstone Gate, High Street and Jubilee Square on their first visit to the Midlands since Her Majesty's Diamond Jubilee in 2012
The Queen and Prince Philip arrive in their chauffeured Bentley. The Queen was just eight years old when she first attended the Maundy Day service as Princess Elizabeth in 1935 at Westminster Abbey
The royal party arrive at Leicester Cathedral. The Duke of Edinburgh, 95, appeared to be in good health after suffering from a 'heavy cold' at the start of the new year which forced the royals to miss a number of high-profile engagements
Throngs of well-wishers line Leicester city centre on Thursday morning as the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh arrive for the annual service, traditionally held in a different location every year
None took it more seriously than Mary I - or Bloody Mary - who in 1556 washed the feet of 41 'poor women' and spent the entire ceremony on her knees.
Later monarchs were less keen on the service, with some, among them Charles I, rarely bothering to take part.
Charles II, anxious to curry favour with his subjects following the Restoration, took part in the ceremony without fail, including during the plague years.
Although today's ceremony takes place in a different location each year, Queen Victoria insisted on doing it at Westminster Abbey - a custom that remained in place until the Queen took the throne in 1952.
The Queen was just eight years old when she first attended the Maundy Day service as Princess Elizabeth in 1935 at Westminster Abbey.
Steeped in history: The Royal Maundy is an ancient ceremony which originated in the commandment Christ gave after washing the feet of his disciples the day before Good Friday
The Queen has attended the service for all but four years throughout her reign. Historically, the sum of 5.50 in the Red Purse is made up of 3 for clothing, 1.50 in lieu of provisions and 1 for the redemption of the Sovereign's gown
Guests of honour: In Leicester this morning, large crowds lined the street waving Union Jack flags and wearing novelty crowns as they awaited the arrival of the Queen and Prince Philip on their first visit to the city since 2012
She has taken part in the Royal Maundy Service in all but four years of her reign, including in 1954 when she was away touring the Commonwealth.
In 1960 she was also forced to pull out because of the imminent birth of Prince Andrew, again in 1964 for the birth of Prince Edward and in 1970 due to a tour of New Zealand.
The Queen last visited the East Midlands city in March 2012 as part of her Diamond Jubilee tour, while the cathedral is the final burial place of King Richard III, whose remains were discovered in the city in September 2012.
Speaking ahead of the Queen's arrival, sub-dean Canon Alison Adams, said: 'Her Majesty The Queen visited us at the start of her Diamond Jubilee celebrations and we are proud to welcome her back.
'This will be a great celebration of faithful service to the community from both the City and County of Leicester.'
A year on from her prison release, she's been living it up on a seemingly never-ending holiday in Ibiza.
And Michaella McCollum Connolly looked to be enjoying every minute her newfound freedom this week as she continued to soak up the sun on a beach.
The 24-year-old one-time drug mule from County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, hit headlines when she was jailed in Peru in 2013 for attempting to smuggle 1.5 million of cocaine out of the country to Spain with friend Melissa Reid - dubbed the 'Peru Two'.
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Fresh start: Michaella looked to be enjoying every minute her newfound freedom in Ibiza
The 24-year-old been living it up on a seemingly never-ending holiday in Ibiza this month
Michaella continued to soak up the sun on a beach with a female friend earlier this week
This week Michaella, sporting a new blonde style, posed up a storm in a pink backless swimsuit as she enjoyed a dip in the sea with a female friend.
The pair were seen relaxing on the sand and enjoying cocktails before heading into the sea for a paddle.
Michaella is currently enjoying her second Spanish sojourn this year but her stint in Ibiza is believed to be her first visit since she and Reid agreed to try and bring in the drugs.
But they were caught and arrested at the beginning of August 2013 - just two months after Michaella arrived on the Balearic party isle to work as a dancer in a bar.
Michaella, who is believed to be considering a career in reality TV following her release, has been spotted in Ibiza on an almost daily basis in a seemingly endless array of skimpy swimsuits.
Troubled past: The one-time drug mule hit headlines when she was jailed in Peru in 2013
Infamous: Michaella and friend Melissa Reid were dubbed the 'Peru Two' after their arrest
Michaella, sporting a new blonde style, poses up a storm in a pink backless swimsuit
She has clearly been enjoying her newfound freedom since her release, after a holiday earlier this year to Marbella
McCollum and Reid - dubbed the 'Peru Two' were each sentenced to six years and eight months in jail after admitting to trying to smuggle cocaine out of the country.
The pair, who initially protested their innocence, were found in possession of 11kg of cocaine hidden inside food packets in their luggage as they prepared to board a flight from Lima to Madrid.
The pair relax on the sand and enjoy cocktails before heading into the sea for a paddle
The party continues: Michaella is currently enjoying her second Spanish sojourn this year
Michaella enjoys a dip in the sea with a female friend during her endless Ibiza break
Back to the scene of the crime: Michaella's stint in Ibiza is believed to be her first visit since she and Reid agreed to try and bring in the drugs and were caught in August 2013
Moving on: Michaella is believed to be considering a career in reality TV following her release
McCollum was released on parole in March 2016 after serving less than half of her sentence but was initially required to stay in Peru, where she carried out voluntary work.
Reid was released from prison in June last year, flying back to Scotland shortly afterwards.
Michaella's holiday in the Spanish sun comes after she was reportedly offered 250,000 to reveal her prison hell in a tell-all book.
Michaella and Melissa - dubbed the 'Peru Two' were sentenced to six years and eight months
The limelight beckons: Michaella's holiday in the Spanish sun comes after she was reportedly offered 250,000 to reveal her prison hell in a tell-all book
It emerged last month McCollum - who was released from prison in March last year - is in the final stages of negotiation to write a book about her experience in jail according to the Sun.
Since her release, she has gone to great lengths to build up her public profile and image.
Last week, it was revealed that she had agreed a six-figure deal to present a crime TV documentary which will see her examine unsolved or unusual crime cases.
A Catholic high school in Canada has come under fire for housing a pro-life presentation that compared terminating pregnancies to the Holocaust.
The talk occurred at Ecole Secondaire Notre Dame High School in Red Deer, Alberta, during a mandatory religion class for grades 10 to 12 last month, Global News reported Monday.
A clip of the presentation, recorded by an anonymous student, shows a woman arguing at length against the procedure, after students were shown an alarmist clip claiming that abortions were similar to Adolf Hitler's killings of 'unwanted' people.
Shocking: Students at a Catholic high school in Red Deer, Alberta, were given a pro-choice presentation (pictured) which included a video comparing the procedure to the Holocaust
The three-minute clip, titled 'The Case Against Abortion: Personhood', uses excerpts from what looks like a documentary about the Holocaust, which all reference Nazi murders of disabled children and adults.
'Then once the war began,' the subtitles read at one point, 'this killing was extended to disabled adults as well (and then to all "unwanted" persons).'
The video was the first part of a presentation by Red Deer And Area Pro Life, an anti-abortion organization. One student, who asked to remain anonymous, recorded the talk that followed.
'Let's just say that a woman does get raped and she does get pregnant and she bravely and courageously decides to have that child,' the presenter told the students.
'She's making the choice to have that child. Later on down the road, after she has a healthy baby boy, she can't stand to look at him because he reminds her of her rapist. He acts as a trigger. Would we say it's OK to kill her baby boy then?
'So, why are we saying that it is OK for her to kill that same baby boy when he's just younger and more dependent inside of her womb?'
Outrage: The three-minute clip (pictured) uses excerpts from what looks like a documentary about the Holocaust, which reference Nazi murders of disabled children and adults
Footage: 'Then once the war began,' the subtitles read at one point, 'this killing was extended to disabled adults as well (and then to all "unwanted" persons)'
The woman, who according to Global News said she was at school studying social work, stated her personal opinions despite challenges from the students.
She can be seen in footage recorded by one of the students, which also includes a portion of the shocking clip. The video has also been made available online.
'I don't think we can ever justify anyone having an abortion based off of these circumstances,' she told the teenagers. 'I don't think there's ever a good reason to have an abortion.'
The presenter has spoken at the same high school at least six times this year, one student told BuzzFeed News.
After one student blew the whistle on the shocking talk, campaigners advocating for fact-based sexual education have called on authorities to investigate what students are being taught about sexual health in Alberta schools.
The presentation was inappropriate and misleading, using incorrect information and, quite frankly, frightening Education minister David Eggen
'One thing that was shocking was the astounding medically inaccurate information that's being provided to students,' Cristina Stasia, the founder of sexual education advocacy group Accessing Information Not Myths, told Global News.
'We know they're happening in our schools. We know that groups are coming in, they are politically motivated groups, they are not experts in their field. They are being allowed to disseminate all this inaccurate information to students.'
Alberta's education minister David Eggen called the video 'completely outrageous' and said it had left him 'offended'.
'The Red Deer and Area Pro-Life group presenting in schools I have a big problem with that too,' he said.
The official further bashed the clip, adding: 'The presentation was inappropriate and misleading, using incorrect information and, quite frankly, frightening.'
Eggen is now working with the district with regards to the presentation.
The pro-life group, meanwhile, has defended the presentation to Global News. As of Tuesday, the school board had banned the video referencing the Holocaust, but hadn't renounced future presentations from the same organization.
Mud splattered, semi-naked and posing suggestively with power tools - these are not ordinary scenes from a lumber yard.
Jonathan LeFleur, from Dallas, Texas, the subject of the picture series, was taking part in a 'dudeoir' shoot photographed by his brother-in-law Josh Melton.
The pictures, shot on location, were intended as a wedding anniversary gift for Jonathan's wife but since being shared on Facebook they have been viewed by thousands.
Role play: Jonathan LeFleur, from Dallas, Texas, posed semi-naked in suggestive poses, pictured, in a lumber yard
Surprise! The photographs, shot by his brother-in-law Josh Melton, were intended as an anniversary present for his wife
Spotlight: But since being shared online the pictures have been viewed by thousands
Josh assigned his brother-in-law the character 'Johnny Lumber' and photographed him wearing just a high vis jacket, underpants, boots, sunglasses and a hard hat.
The pictures show Jonathan with his chest and tattoos exposed as he poses in risque positions with poles, machinery and building materials.
Pictures shows him leaning backwards on a pole, touching his buttocks and in one he is curled into a metallic cylinder.
In character: Wearing nothing but a high vis jacket, boots, underpants, a hardhat and sunglasses, he was photographed with poles and building materials
In the zone: He appeared to relish playing the role 'Johnny Lumber' - assigned to him by Josh
Purpose: The pictures are being used to create a calendar for Jonathan's wife Alexandria
Others in the series, which are being used to create a calendar for his wife, show him in model-like poses reclining on planks of wood.
Josh proposed the shoot after Jonathan came to him for advice about getting his wife Alexandria an anniversary present.
'His nickname is Jonny Lumber so it seemed fitting that we would let him play out that role! So much fun and I suppose we can now add Dudeoir to the resume,' Josh wrote on Facebook.
Melton said his sister's 'jaw hit the floor' when she received the gift.
Shocked: Josh said his sister Alexandria's 'jaw hit the floor' when she saw the pictures
Confident: Pictures shows him leaning backwards on a pole, touching his buttocks and in one he is curled into a metallic cylinder
Natural: Alexandria said her husband has 'the perfect personality' for dudedoir shoots
Attention-seeking: Jonathan said he has enjoyed the attention, saying: 'Now I just want it to keep going'
'I've seen one or two in the past and joked about him doing them because he has the perfect personality for it, but I wasn't expecting him to ever actually commit,' Alexandria told local news website mySA.
'They presented me with a slideshow of pictures and I about died.'
Jonathan said he has relished the attention, saying: 'Now I just want it to keep going.'
He added: 'I haven't been the best at giving her gifts in the past...so I think this has made up for the previous years and all the lack of surprises.'
The make-up world has been shaken to its very core by a strange new trend that's rocking Instagram. Feather eyebrows - brows parted down the middle and held in place with glue - have inspired a slew of intense reactions; some thrilled, some disgusted.
After a Finnish make-up artist debuted the look in an Instagram post, the now-trend had commenters proclaiming the look as either simply 'brilliant,' or just plain 'nasty.'
When the initial backlash and praise had settled, the artist followed up with another post, acknowledging the fact that while she originally intended for feather brows to be a joke, she is thankful for both the love and the hate shown for the trend.
The eyebrow heard 'round the world: Make-up artist Stella Sironen posted this look to her Instagram account on Sunday night, and the internet was instantly divided
Just joking! On Tuesday, Sironen followed up her original picture with another post admitting that while the look had initially been a joke, she was grateful for everyone's feedback
Out of this world talent! Sironen, who is based in Helsinki, Finland, is the artist behind some of the most colorful and creative beauty looks on Instagram
The controversial look comes to us from Stella Sironen, a talented Helsinki-based make-up whose Instagram account (which currently has more than 46,000 followers) showcases her wide array of abilities.
In particular, Sironen has a masterful command of the eyebrow. Almost all of her photos showcase a sharp, perfectly sculpted brow.
Her go-to brow products include Anastasia Beverly Hills clear brow gel, as well as dip brow pomade by the same brand. For the feather brows, she used a glue stick.
Speaking to Daily Mail Online, Sironen notes that eyebrows are 'a really sensitive and sacred subject for a lot people, especially for the young Instagram generation' and that despite advances in other make-up techniques, 'brows have remained untouchable for years.'
Sironen credits her friend Leevi Ikaheimo for inventing the look whilst 'he was casually brushing my eyebrows.' Indeed he created quite the departure from Sironen's usual look.
'Suddenly he bursted out laughing and I opened my phone front camera just to see that he had made a middle part on my brows.' Sironen fixed the look with glue, added eyeshadow, and posted a pic to her Instagram account. 'It's been a wild ride ever since!' she says.
High praise: Many Instagram users praised Sironen for rewriting the rules of the eyebrow game and doing something completely original
Wrap it up! Not everyone was as thrilled with Sironen's look - this commenter insisted that '2017 is cancelled' if the trend catches on
Common ground: Many were left conflicted, such as this commenter who acknowledged Sironen's talent, but still found themselves admitting feather brows are 'a little gross'
The internet had no clue what to make of Sironen's off-beat look, leaving the comments section of her Instagram totally divided.
Many had trouble wrapping their heads around the unexpected eyebrows, and expressed deep concern about what this look means for the future of 'brows 'round the world.
'I don't like it and I'm allowed to say it,' reads one comment. 'I'm crying this is not good,' says another.
'No one is going to go in the streets like that...come on.'
Meanwhile, the other half of the great brow debate praised Sironen's creativity and ability to take risks with her look.
'Amazing! Don't let anyone stop you!' says one supporter of the feather brow look. 'We want a tutorial!' demanded a fan.
Copycats! Though Sironen says she initially intended feather brows to be a joke, many others are already trying out the unique style for themselves
The votes are in: Make-up artist Sara Atlas considers this look 'totally wearable' and her 'new everyday brow'
Opening minds: '[I'm] so happy that this fake trend is blowing up and pissing off a lot of closed minded people' says make-up artist Kacy Wilkins
Sironen doesn't let the negative reactions bother her though.
'I love to make people question the norms of make-up,' she tells us.
Of course, there are also those who feel the look is too far out of their reach to be concerned:
'My brows are too stuck in place to do this,' reads a comment. And: 'I wish I had enough eyebrow to recreate.'
Perhaps most unexpectedly is that, despite Sironen's admission the look was intended as a joke, people are already recreating feather eyebrows. The results of these inspired looks can be seen under the Instagram hashtag '#featherbrows.'
'[I'm] so happy that this fake trend is blowing up and pissing off a lot of closed minded people,' writes make-up artist Kacy Wilkins in an Instagram post copying Sironen's look.
Though the trend is just a few days old, one woman has already created a YouTube tutorial featuring feather brows.
Whether or not Sironen's feather brows were originally intended as a joke, there is no denying that she certainly succeeded in starting a trend.
Sironen tells Daily Mail Online she hopes 'this encourages fellow make-up artists to explore the potential of brow art.'
My cheeks are tear-stained; my palms clammy. With my jaw clenched as tightly as the seatbelt buckled around my waist, I sink my face deep into the scarf I keep scrunched in a ball for comfort.
But as the engine starts its familiar roar, any attempt to soothe myself is futile. On a plane, about to take off, I am terrified.
For those who believe me to be TVs toughest woman, the admission that I am frightened of flying will be met with incredulity. After all, I am a Sky news anchor with a wealth of experience reporting from some of the worlds most dangerous disaster zones.
She is a Sky news anchor with a wealth of experience reporting from some of the worlds most dangerous disaster zones. But on a plane, about to take off, Kay Burley is terrified
I have covered everything from wars to tsunamis. Known for my somewhat combative style, I tackle politicians and present live in front of millions without so much as a single butterfly in my stomach.
And yet I sob uncontrollably the minute I set foot on a plane. Ludicrous? Undoubtedly. But I am by no means unique.
The news anchor says, 'By revealing my phobia, I hope to dispel the myth that this is something to be embarrassed about'
Around 30 per cent of people are anxious before boarding a plane, and when we focused on the fear of flying on my Sky news programme recently, record numbers of people contacted me via social media to share their own anxiety.
With the Easter holidays upon us, thoughts for many turn to air travel.
By revealing my phobia, I hope to dispel the myth that this is something to be embarrassed about.
Though Ive never relished the prospect of flying, my fear was sparked by the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
I was relaying events live on air from our London studio in September 2001 as the second aircraft flew into the Twin Towers in New York.
Like everyone, I felt shaken and sickened by the sight, as well as desperately sad for those who lost their lives. I must have also realised, on some level, how quickly a supposedly robust plane could disintegrate.
My job is to deliver the news, not react to it, however, so I suppressed my emotions and continued my 12-hour shift. It was only later that the horror manifested itself as a fear of flying.
Kay posted this photograph on Twitter, writing, 'Thank you British Airways for being so considerate to a nervous flyer'
It crept up insidiously as anxiety which grew stronger every time I set foot on an aeroplane. The snap of a seat buckle; the passenger call buzzer innocuous sounds Id once barely registered became cause for unease. Was there something wrong with the engine? The wings?
For years, I betrayed no greater outward signs of disquiet than a flushed face and a tendency to self-medicate with a gin and tonic. But in 2010, my ability to control my anxiety came to an abrupt end while I was on a flight back to London from Teesside.
Wed been in the air for a matter of seconds when the pilot announced over the tannoy that one of the warning lights on the plane wasnt quite the right colour.
His voice was calm, his decision to turn back to the airport to investigate merely precautionary, he said. But I took it as a validation of my worst fears.
Terrified and shaking, I sobbed so hard that by the time wed landed my face was a mascara-streaked mess. Heaven knows what other passengers thought I turned to the window in a desperate attempt to disengage from my environment.
Kay: 'I present live in front of millions without so much as a single butterfly in my stomach. And yet I sob uncontrollably the minute I set foot on a plane. But I am by no means unique'
Kay, pictured with Ed Miliband, says flights leave her beset with anxiety - 'from the time my ticket was booked until the wheels touched down on the runway'
Rather than wait for a new plane, I drove a hire car the six-hour journey home, heart pounding. Since then, I have taken the train to avoid flying where possible.
This is easier said than done when your job demands being at the scene of breaking news as quickly as possible and no matter how terrified I am, professionalism prevents me from turning an assignment down.
In the past year alone, I have flown dozens of times, criss-crossing the Atlantic to report on the presidential elections and traversing Europe for Skys coverage of the EU Referendum and Brexit.
But each flight left me beset with anxiety, from the time my ticket was booked until the wheels touched down on the runway.
Some frightened flyers torture themselves with imagined scenarios of airborne explosions and attacks. On a subconscious level perhaps I do fear disaster, but I refuse to entertain such lurid fantasies. My overriding fear is the loss of control. After all, I call the shots on every aspect of my career. I am also very much in control of my personal life.
Sky News Crew with Kay Burley reporting from New Orleans on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. She says, 'no matter how terrified I am, professionalism prevents me from turning an assignment down'
I have four strong, capable men at my disposal. They have become trusted confidantes, taking calls, meeting me for coffee as I await flights and walking me on board when my legs feel like buckling
The only time I surrender my destiny to someone elses decision-making is when I fly. It is terrifying.I have found tricks that make flying more bearable some more sensible than others. I hold a superstitious belief that booking the same seat every flight, towards the front of the plane or near an emergency exit, can help keep me safe. If my working day is over, I take a herbal sedative or sleeping pill.
To deal with the interminable taxi to the runway and the knuckle-whitening take-off the worst part for me I self-soothe by tapping my chest with the palm of my hand, while my producer Emily attempts to distract me by reading in-flight magazines out loud.
I squeeze her hand so hard that I worry one day Ill break her fingers. Although Im always too fraught to eat or sleep, a glass of wine dampens my anxiety and an eye mask helps shut out my surroundings, as does soothing music my current favourite being Ed Sheeran.
HOW YOU CAN SOOTHE YOUR FEARS Follow this advice courtesy of British Airways Flying With Confidence course: Remember turbulence is not dangerous. It is caused by nature and is a normal part of flying. Practise long, deep breaths and combine the deep breath in with a muscle contraction. Clenching your buttocks is most effective, as it overrides other nervous signals going up and down your spinal cord. Remind yourself that wings enable aircraft to fly, not engines. A commercial aircraft at 30,000 ft can glide for 100 miles even if all engines fail. Split up a long flight into half-hour sections and plan activities: write a letter; watch a film; read a book; eat a meal. Visualise yourself stepping off the aircraft into the arms of your loved ones, or into a sunny country or successful business meeting. Advertisement
But any relief is fleeting. The more tired I am, the more impossible it is to cope. Returning from covering Donald Trumps inauguration this January, I was so emotional and exhausted I thought Id have to get off the plane.
In the end, the cabin services director sat with me for take-off, muttering soothing platitudes as I cried. If he recognised me, he was too polite to say so.
Inevitably, I favour staycations in the Cotswolds and driving to France over exotic holiday destinations. The one exception is taking my son Alexander, 23, on our annual safari to Ulusaba in South Africa, a ritual we enjoy too much to relinquish.
But last September, on the day of our flight, I got an email saying our British Airways aeroplane had been struck by lightning. There was a possibility wed be delayed.
Hysterically convinced I should cancel the holiday, I noticed captain Mark Mannering-Smith, former head of in-flight safety for British Airways, was following me on Twitter. I messaged him for advice.
Using humour to dispel my fears, he reassured me that the aeroplane would be safe after a cuddle (safety checks by engineers) and, mercifully, he was right. The flight wasnt delayed and, when I thanked Mark, he suggested he helped me tackle my phobia.
The next month he booked us on a day return, one hour 45 minute flight to France far enough for me to face my fears, but not too far to push me over the edge.
Mark introduced me to the pilot, and it suddenly dawned on me that the man in charge was as keen to land safely as I was. As we prepared for take-off, Mark talked me through sounds I found sinister.
Kay Burley hosting a Shy News interview with Justice Secretary Michael Gove (centre) and Faisal Islam
The engine starting. The doors shutting. Even the air conditioning. He reassured me they were normal and instilled in me how stringently aircraft are checked, and how extensively pilots are trained.
Still concerned I was by no means cured, Mark, my hero, asked three pilots Ben Whitlow, Tobi Larsen and Jonny Knowlson to give me their numbers so there was always an expert whose counsel I could summon when I was due to fly.
Perhaps it sounds like I was given preferential treatment on account of my profile, but I know British Airways is just as caring towards all frightened flyers.
I have four strong, capable men at my disposal. They have become trusted confidantes, taking calls, meeting me for coffee as I await flights and walking me on board when my legs feel like buckling.
Knowing the support is there is a relief although as an independent woman who has rarely had recourse to rely on a man, the irony of being dependent on four is not lost on me.
Still, they stopped me having to seek professional help, which I worry might be so full on it could put me off getting on an aeroplane ever again.
I cant pretend I no longer freak out before flying, but thanks to my posse of pilots I am, finally, a work in progress.
Art 120's 6th Annual Scenic City Art Car Weekend returns April 28-30. Organizers said they are so grateful to everyone in the community whose generosity and support has helped them continue their programs uninterrupted since the Thanksgiving Day fire that destroyed the shop.
Organizers almost called off Art 120's signature event of the year, but could not deny the nearly 3,000 children who will be served by the ArtCarAVan this year.
The weekend activities include:
ArtCarAVan and Artist Breakfast at The Camp House
Friday, 7:30-9 a.m.
Participants will send the artists off to visit schools with a breakfast thanks to the Camp House. Art cars will line up at 149 East ML King Blvd. Art 120 will also be accepting donations for their
fire relief fund.
Tailgate Party and Kid's Parade at The Aquarium
Saturday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m.
Art 120 is partnering with the Tennessee Aquarium to celebrate their 25th anniversary with an
art car tailgate party in their parking lot. Plus, enjoy a special parade of children's art cars created by Hamilton County students. Free.
Children's Booksigning at Barnes and Noble
Sunday, 2-4 p.m.
Award winning children's author, Cathey Graham Nickell and illustrator, Bill Meganhardt, will be at the Hamilton Place Mall Barnes and Noble for a special booksigning: Arthur Zarr's Amazing Art Car. Bill will create a live, whimsical drawing based on audience input. The finished art will be raffled off. Proceeds benefit Art 120 programs.
For the full schedule visit art120.org.
Parkinson's disease affects around 127,000 people in the UK.
As the condition has no cure, sufferers are forced to endure the debilitating movement disorder.
Yet, scientists may be one step closer to finding a solution.
Researchers used a selection of small molecules to reprogramme brain cells so that they produced the chemical messenger dopamine, which regulates movement.
In Parkinson sufferers, dopamine-producing brain cells have died, causing tremors and moving difficulties.
Parkinson Disease occurs as the cells that produce the chemical messenger dopamine have died, causing tremors. The new treatment may reprogramme brain cells to make dopamine
WHAT IS PARKINSON'S DISEASE? Parkinson's disease is a progressive neurological disease. It develops gradually, sometimes starting with a barely noticeable tremor in just one hand. Other symptoms include slowed movement and rigid muscles. Scientist suspect a mix of genetic and environmental factors are responsible. It has no cure with treatment focusing on controlling symptoms. Source: NHS Choices and Parkinson's UK Advertisement
Swedish scientists tested a cocktail of molecules in mice with Parkinson-like symptoms.
After treatment, the mice's symptoms appeared to improve.
The revolutionary approach may overtake brain cell transplants, which was previously thought to be the only hope of a cure.
According to study author Dr Ernest Arenas, this new treatment will not require the immune system-suppressing drugs needed in transplants.
The therapy makes dopamine-producing cells from those already in the brain, meaning patients will not reject them, which is a risk with transplants, he said.
Although the potential cure could transform Parkinson's treatment, scientists warn further animal studies are needed before the approach can be tried in humans.
Professor David Dexter, deputy director, Parkinson's UK said: 'Further development of this technique is now needed,' the BBC reported.
'If successful, it would turn this approach into a viable therapy that could improve the lives of people with Parkinson's and, ultimately, lead to the cure that millions are waiting for.'
This comes after scientists from the University of Oxford found infection with hepatitis B and C viruses raises the risk of Parkinson's by up to 76 per cent.
This is thought to be due to the viruses targeting the motor system once they leave the liver.
The family of a four-year-old Pakistani boy with a melon-sized tumour on his ear have been told it's incurable cancer.
Kamran Ali Channa complained of a small growth and pain in September last year - but local doctors initially dismissed the problem.
As the strange lump grew quickly, his poverty-stricken family became desperate for answers and tried various different hospitals.
Eventually he was diagnosed with terminal cancer, despite a host of doctors missing the signs, after they spent their entire life-savings to seek answers.
But experts at the National Institute of Child Health Hospital (NICH) in Karachi, believe his disease was actually curable if it had been caught early enough.
Kamran Ali Channa's family have been told his melon-sized tumour on his ear is incurable cancer (pictured with his mother Shamshad, 30)
Dr Jamal Raza, a director at NICH, explained that Kamran has rhabdomyosarcoma cancer which was now spread to different organs in his body.
He said: 'It's a late referral case. Since it is on the face, there is a lot of disfigurement and it looks horrendous.
'It has already spread to his lungs and his spine which are not easy to treat. The cancer is now at stage four and currently he's on weekly chemotherapy.'
'His condition was initially curable. There was a chance to save his life if he was given the right treatment in the early stage but due to improper care and delayed treatment, his condition today is serious.
'He's in a lot of pain, it's an aggressive facial tumour but even if we remove it surgically, the cancer in other parts of his body will remain.'
His family have been forced to take loans from family and friends to be able to get the best possible care for their son.
Kamran Ali Channa complained of a small growth and pain in September last year - but local doctors initially dismissed the problem. It continued to grow
His father, Imtiaz Channa, 33, who works as a taxi driver, said: 'I have already taken loans from many different people for his treatment.
'I'm not even sure I'll ever be able to repay the money but my only focus is my child suffering from this life-threatening disease. I'll do anything to save him.
'I'm running around trying to borrow money from friends and relatives but unfortunately, there's little help.
'I wish there was someone who could help us in some way. I hope people remember my child in their prayers. I just want to see my child live.'
When the family first met with a doctor in a government-run hospital in Ghotki, in the northern part of the country, they were sent home.
They then visited another hospital in Sukkur - 44 miles (71km) away. Here, doctors advised surgery to remove an extended bone.
The family used some of their savings of 1110,000 Pakistani Rupees (840) to pay for the two-day treatment. However, nothing changed.
Eventually he was diagnosed with terminal cancer after his family spent their entire life-savings to seek answers
Experts believe his disease was actually curable if it had been caught early enough (pictured with his father Imtiaz Channa, 33)
WHAT IS THIS FORM OF CANCER? Fewer than 60 children are diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma in the UK each year. Most of them are younger than 10 years old. It's more common in boys than girls. These tumours develop from muscle or fibrous tissue and can grow in any part of the body. The most common areas of the body to be affected are around the head and neck, the bladder, the testes, the womb or the vagina. If the tumour is in the head or neck area, it can occasionally spread into the brain or the fluid around the spinal cord. The causes of rhadomyosarcoma are unknown but research is going on all the time. Source: Macmillan Advertisement
Imtiaz added: 'I used all my savings to pay for that surgery. I believed the doctors when they said an extra bone was causing the swelling.
'I even did extra shifts to earn more money for his treatment but the mass continued to grow.
'When we went back the next month to the same doctor who operated, he said he was busy with other patients and advised I take him to a better hospital.'
Kamran was then taken to Sheikh Zayed Medical College and Hospital in Punjab at the end of October.
The family was once again forced to fork out more money, around 175,000 Pakistani Rupees (1,340) for three weeks of tests and treatment.
However, at the end of it all, the family where given the shock news that Kamran had cancer.
Imtiaz added: 'We were devastated. After meeting with so many doctors nothing had helped.
'My wife and I were speechless but I couldn't give up. I had to get my son better treatment.'
Doctors have removed a dead foetus from the stomach of a baby boy in India.
Initially thought to be born with a tumour, surgeons found a lump in his abdomen was actually the remains of his twin.
It was eventually removed from the unnamed 14-day-old boy during a two-hour long procedure.
Known as 'foetus in fetu', only 200 cases of the rare condition have ever been reported worldwide.
Initially thought to be born with a tumour, surgeons found a lump in the unnamed boy's abdomen was actually the remains of his twin
It is caused by the incomplete separation of twins, which fails to grow and instead becomes an internal part of the healthy twin.
A team of three experts at the SDM Medical Hospital in Dharward, a city in Karnataka, performed the operation.
Lead surgeon Dr Venkatesh Annigeri said: 'There was a tumour-like structure inside the baby's abdomen but soon we realised that it was the babys ill-fated twin that had failed to successfully separate and grow.
'It was a low birth weight baby, very minute structures, anaesthesia complications, and the foetus was adherent to vital structures of the baby.
It was eventually removed from the 14-day-old boy during a two-hour long procedure
WHAT IS FOETUS IN FETU? Foetus in fetu is an incredibly rare condition that affects only one in five million live births. It is a condition where the malformed foetus is found in the body of its twin. The foetus is found in the abdomen in 80 per cent of cases, although there have been reports of it occurring in the skull. There are only around 200 reports of it ever happening. While the diagnosis is gaining popularity, the World Health Organisation has classified 'foetus in fetu' as a variant of mature teratoma, a type of cancer where the tumour is well-developed. Advertisement
'It was only for the second time that I have come across such a rare case in my long medical career.'
The surgery was very challenging because the foetus was stuck in between the pelvis and retroperitoneum - a gap in the stomach.
He also said the condition could have been diagnosed if the mother had underwent an ultrasound.
Initially, the baby was taken to a different hospital nearby after they noticed a growth in his stomach.
They also reported that he had difficulty in passing urine, before he was transferred to the specialist unit.
The lump was found to be abdominal distention, which occurs when gas, fluid or solids accumulate in the tummy.
In this babys case it was due to the failed twin attached inside his abdominal cavity, the doctors said.
After the successful completion of the surgery, the baby recovered in neonatal intensive care unit of the hospital.
Local reports suggest that he is now ready to be discharged and sent back home.
A study has explained why condom-less sex drastically increases a woman's risk of infections, even if preventative treatment is used.
Unprotected sex with a male partner disrupts the highly delicate balance of bacteria in women's vaginas.
A healthy vagina typically has much higher levels of one particular strain of beneficial bacteria over others, which helps to prevent infections such as bacterial vaginosis (BV).
Some studies have shown that taking a progestin-only contraceptive pill can help to keep vaginal bacteria stabilized.
However, a new study by researchers in Australia warns that sex without a condom boosts levels of two BV-linked bacteria so significantly that it is incredibly difficult to keep that balance in check.
Having sex with a new partner further increases the risk.
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Having sex with a man without a condom disrupts the vagina's bacterial balance, raising levels of bacteria that are associated with vaginal infections, Australian scientists have found
WHAT IS BACTERIAL VAGINOSIS? Bacterial vaginosis (BV) causes unusual vaginal discharge, but not soreness or itching. Around 30 per cent of women have BV at any one time. It occurs when there is a change in the natural balance of bacteria in the vagina. The discharge may be white or grey, thin and watery, and fishy in odour. Around half of BV cases have no symptoms. Treatment usually includes a course of antibiotics or a gel you apply inside the vagina. Source: NHS Choices and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Advertisement
Vaginas have five different strains of bacteria, with the Lactobacillus species typically being the most dominant.
There is general consensus among sexual health researchers that vaginas are healthiest when dominated by the L. crispatus strain.
This helps to keep the intimate area at a healthy pH, as well as fighting off bacteria, yeast and viruses before they establish.
Indeed, studies have shown that women with high levels of L. crispatus have a lower risk of all infections - including HIV.
Yet, this can be easily thrown off kilter, as semen and even menstruation can reduce Lactobacillus numbers, allowing BV-causing bacteria to thrive.
The new study by Melbourne's Monash University showed condom-less sex with a new partner significantly drives up levels of two dangerous bacteria: Gardnerella vaginalis and Lactobacillus iners.
To reach this conclusion, the research team tracked the bacteria living in 52 women's vaginas for a year.
Each woman swabbed her vagina every three months and kept a record of any sexual activities.
They also made a note of whether a condom was used during penetrative sex.
Overwhelmingly, women who had unprotected sex with new partners ended up having higher concentrations of Gardnerella vaginalis and Lactobacillus iners in their vagina than women using condoms or women in long-term relationships.
Lead investigator Lenka Vodstrcil, a research fellow at the university's sexual health center, said the findings suggest high levels of bacteria are sexually-transmitted, just like any other STI.
The findings are not unprecedented; Dr Janneke van de Wijgert, professor of infection and global health at University of Liverpool, went at far as to call sex with a new partner 'a microbial assault on the vagina,' according to New Scientist.
However, it builds on previous studies linking BV to condom-less sex - helping shed more light on the little-understood issue of what causes the debilitating condition.
Sex with a first-time partner further raise the risk as the vagina adapts to bacteria on the penis
BV is the most common vaginal infection in child-bearing women. And yet, more than 120 years after it was first identified in women, scientists remained stumped.
It causes unusual vaginal discharge, but not soreness or itching.
The discharge may be white or grey, thin and watery, and fishy in odour.
Treatment usually includes a course of antibiotics or a gel you apply inside the vagina.
Speaking to New Scientist, Dr van de Wijgert warned that it is difficult to get foolproof data from studies like Vodstrcil's, since participants often lie about the amount of sex they had or whether a condom was used.
Yet even with limitations, this study aligns with previous research showing how bacteria can transmit and fester.
Aside from wearing a condom during sex, male partners can reduce a woman's BV risk by keeping the penis clean, particularly the area under the foreskin.
Aspirin may be useless in preventing heart attacks in patients at risk - contradicting official NHS advice.
Those with fatty build-ups in their arteries receive no benefit by taking the over-the-counter drug, a new study found.
Known as peripheral arterial disease (PAD), doctors have long advised patients to take a low doses of aspirin.
It was thought the drug helped to thin the blood and prevent the deadly clots that cause strokes and heart attacks.
But a review of 11 previous trials of aspirin on patients with PAD shows it may not be the 'miracle drug' it was believed to be.
Those with fatty build-ups in their arteries receive no benefit by taking aspirin, a study found
Researchers at the University of Florida Health found it had no impact on reducing death rates or incidences of stroke or heart attacks.
Despite advising patients not to give up taking aspirin just yet, they said their analysis on the drug is the most up to date for those with the condition.
Study author Dr Anthony Bavry said: 'Among patients with PAD, many of them may not be deriving the benefits from aspirin that they expect to be getting.
Dr Ahmed Mahmoud, who was also involved in the study, said: 'Aspirin might not be a miracle drug for certain patients.
'We need to reconsider the evidence, and see who benefits from aspirin therapy and who does not.'
After six years, 7.7 per cent of PAD patients who took aspirin had died - compared to 8.5 per cent in a control group.
Known as peripheral arterial disease (PAD), doctors have long advised patients to take a low doses of aspirin
WHY ARE THEY PRESCRIBED ASPIRIN? Typically, a daily, low dose of aspirin (75mg) is prescribed for people who have heart disease, or who have had a heart attack or certain types of stroke. It's prescribed in this form to reduce the risk of blood clots forming, inhibiting circulating blood cells known as platelets. One of the most important protective roles of platelets is to stick together and block cuts and breaks in blood vessels. However, in people at risk of heart attacks and some kinds of stroke, platelets can stick together inside vessels - causing a clot and stop blood flowing to the heart or brain. Aspirin reduces the chances of this happening, which makes it useful for patients at risk. Source: BHF Advertisement
However, writing in the journal PLOS ONE, the researchers said this did not reach statistical significance.
Rates of other major cardiac events, including heart attacks and strokes were also found to be similar.
They were keen to point out that further research is needed to confirm the findings and that patients should not immediately stop taking aspirin.
It is estimated that 8.5 million people in the US suffer from PAD, while it affects one in five of over-60s in the UK, figures suggest.
They are often recommended a 75mg dose of anti-platelets, such as aspirin, by their doctors, based on official recommendation from the health service watchdog the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.
But recent evidence suggests it may also cause bleeding in the stomach and, in rare cases, bleeds in the brain that actually lead to strokes.
Studies have also shown aspirin is far less effective than other less risky blood-thinning drugs such as warfarin.
Dr Mike Knapton, associate medical director at the British Heart Foundation said: 'Peripheral arterial disease is a devastating condition and a major cause of lower limb amputation and infection in the UK.
'This research challenges current guidelines, by suggesting aspirin doesnt improve the outlook for people suffering from PAD, although further trials are needed to confirm this.'
A joint study by British and Dutch researchers last month found taking the drugs doubles the risk of heart attacks.
The Valentine House by Emma Henderson (Sceptre 17.99)
THE VALENTINE HOUSE
by Emma Henderson (Sceptre 17.99)
In 1914, Sir Anthony Valentine builds a chalet high up in the French Alps and every summer les rosbifs arrive, to the benefit of the curious locals who work for them.
For Mathilde, one of the domestic uglies chosen so as not to attract Sir Anthonys roving eye, it proves to be a deeper commitment: her life is shaped by the Valentines.
Later, George, a great-great-grandson, finds healing for his grief among the mountains. Between those two generations is spun a family history of secrets, silences and tragedy.
Hendersons Grace Williams Says It Loud was shortlisted for the Orange Prize and this more than matches it.
Gripping and poignant, it is also a passionate love letter to a landscape that has captivated the author.
The Tyrant's Shadow by Antonia Senior (Corvus 17.99)
THE TYRANT'S SHADOW
by Antonia Senior (Corvus 17.99)
In 1649, Oliver Cromwell is faced with a complicated political situation. Parliament is intractable and some consider him as tyrannical as the king he executed. Furthermore, the future Charles II is keeping a close watch from his exile.
Working as a lawyer for Cromwell is Will Johnson, but he is grieving for his dead wife, taking solace in drink.
His sister, the clever, principled Patience, has married a charismatic preacher and is struggling to keep her ideals intact. In a central irony, state and domestic tyranny appear to mirror each other.
The deft unpeeling of love and commitment gone sour is cleverly shown to encompass both the Protectorates religious ferment and personal dramas.
With wonderfully drawn characters confidently written, this is terrific.
White Highlands by John McGhie (Little Brown 14.99)
WHITE HIGHLANDS
by John McGhie (Little Brown 14.99)
With atrocities committed on both sides, the Mau Mau Rebellion, an uprising in Kenya against British rule during the Fifties, was a horrible episode.
Responsible for a documentary on the subject, the author has now written a densely plotted novel about the murder, violence and racial injustice that terrorised the colony during that time.
In 2008, British lawyer Sam Seymour joins a legal mission dealing with compensation claims from the Fifties. She has no idea she will be disinterring secrets involving her own grandparents of whom she knows nothing. What part did they play? And does she wish to know?
British colonialism painted areas of the map a pretty pink, but the fight to shore up the empire resulted in shocking episodes, and the authors indignation is palpable.
Stiff Upper Lip by Alex Renton (Weidenfeld & Nicolson 16.99)
STIFF UPPER LIP
by Alex Renton (Weidenfeld & Nicolson 16.99)
Undeterred by a well-nigh unbroken litany of sex abuse scandals over the years, the British still pack more children off to boarding schools than any other country on Earth.
Amazon tribesmen who routinely scald their children with hot water, or scratch their skin with sharks teeth in order to prepare them for the rigours of life, wouldnt dream of doing anything as drastic as sending them away from home for up to eight months a year.
As far as Alex Renton is concerned himself a boarding school survivor, as its rather ludicrously become known this enforced separation has had a catastrophic effect on the mental health of former pupils.
Time and again in Stiff Upper Lip, there are accounts of middle-aged men who have never been able to form loving relationships, express their feelings, or even experience happiness because at a very early age they effectively walled themselves up for their own protection.
They had learned a terrible lesson that love is not reliable, that trust may be betrayed.
Emotionally stunted, physically and often sexually brutalised, theyve stumbled through life with a nagging sense of being incomplete, of having left some vital part of themselves behind with which they can never be reunited.
Time and again in Stiff Upper Lip, there are accounts of middle-aged men who have never been able to form loving relationships, express their feelings, or even experience happiness because at a very early age they effectively walled themselves up for their own protection
But the effects of such an education are far more wide-ranging, Renton believes.
With so many ex-boarders going on to become pillars of the Establishment, its no wonder institutions such as Westminster, the BBC and the NHS have traditionally turned blind eyes to sex abuse. When faced with anything embarrassing, anything grubby, their instinct has been to brush it under the carpet.
As a boarding school survivor myself I was sent to prep school aged eight in the Sixties where, with wearisome predictability, I was sexually abused, not by a master, but by the head boy I found myself nodding along with many of Rentons points.
I, too, learned to keep secrets as a child. To bottle up my emotions and screw on the top as tightly as possible. Certainly, I never felt I could tell my parents what had happened. And telling any of the masters was unthinkable even then, I had a pretty good inkling whose side they were likely to be on.
The first person I ever told was my wife, and I was 50 at the time. Periodically, I still wonder how it has affected me. These things are hard to quantify, of course, but like a lot of the people who Renton interviewed, Ive always had a sense that my childhood came shuddering to a premature close and that nothing has ever been quite the same since.
Even the Victorians recognised that sending their children off to boarding school had a very peculiar effect on them.
Around 1850, many parents noticed their sons had stopped crying. Prior to this, gentlemen or those aspiring to be gentlemen had no qualms about bursting into tears.
Prime ministers Pitt, Fox and Wellington wept buckets without feeling remotely embarrassed, while poet laureate Alfred Tennyson would blub uncontrollably as he read out his own verses.
Renton himself was sent aged eight to Ashdown House in Sussex, where on his first day he saw a short woman in a checked coat presenting a curly-haired boy even smaller than me to the headmaster. This turned out to be Princess Margaret and her son, David (pictured)
But then, all at once, boys stopped crying. Had their tear ducts suddenly run dry?
Rentons explanation is that, sent off in ever-increasing numbers to boarding schools, they learned to bottle up their feelings.
So why did the Victorians start sending their children away to be educated? In part, they wanted them to become upstanding Christian soldiers. But there were other, less exalted motives.
Parents had grown increasingly concerned that if their children stayed at home, little Hector or Augustus might be faced with an irresistible temptation wanting to have sex with the servants.
The big problem as we now know is that a great many of the men who worked in these new boarding schools were mad, bad, or both.
Sadists, pederasts, tinpot tyrants... all were enthusiastically welcomed aboard. In 1860, a pupil at a private school of the highest class in Eastbourne was beaten to death by the headmaster.
Most of the stories in Stiff Upper Lip are less drastic than that, but still memorably awful: the persistent bed-wetter recalling how the matron at his school would rub his nose into his urine-soaked sheets every morning; the girl with a dairy allergy who was forced, again by the matron, to drink a glass of milk, then to clear up the mess after she vomited.
Renton himself was sent aged eight to Ashdown House in Sussex, where on his first day he saw a short woman in a checked coat presenting a curly-haired boy even smaller than me to the headmaster.
This turned out to be Princess Margaret and her son, David.
Rentons mother commented about the headmaster: He seems very nice. In fact, he turned out to be a sadistic drunk who beat boys so severely that they had purple welts for weeks afterwards. But while Renton convincingly argues the case against boarding schools, he has overlooked one key element its absurdity.
Rightly, he doffs his cap to George Orwell, whose essay about his own prep school days, Such, Such Were The Joys, is savage in its criticisms.
But however savage, Orwells essay is also extremely funny, and its the absurdity of boarding school life most notably its idiotic rituals and traditions that helped make it so sinister.
The playwright David Hare remembers how at his public school, Lancing College, boys were ordered to swim naked on the unlikely pretext that if we wore trunks, the fibres from our garments would clog up the filters.
You can huff away with shock and indignation at this, of course, but youd need to have had a complete sense of humour bypass not to crack a wry smile at the same time.
Ah, but everything has changed now. At least thats what parents tell themselves as they pack their children off to boarding schools.
Certainly, some things have changed. These days, fees have increased so much that schools can afford to be far more selective about who they employ. Partly as a result, the beatings, the bullying, the sexual abuse are largely things of the past.
Nor is there any doubt that a lot of the children who go off to board aged 13 rather than at eight find it a rewarding and enjoyable experience. They have their own rooms, can go home at weekends and may call their parents whenever they want.
Yet none of this is enough to persuade me to send my children aged ten and nine away to school.
Some things havent changed. For instance, headmasters have no more legal obligation to report instances of sexual abuse to the police now than they did 50 years ago.
And, as Renton concludes at the end of this grimly depressing, often lumpily written yet enormously valuable book: theres one thing that can never change they are still boarding schools.
The Air Force is raising an army to cover all its bases. Seeking to foil any Pathankot-like attacks by Pakistani groups, the IAF is creating a combat force of its own men and women who are being trained in Punjab's Bathinda district to tackle such terror strikes.
Four Pakistani terrorists laid siege to the Pathankot air force station in January last year. Half a dozen security personnel were killed before the attackers were neutralised by the National Security Guard in concert with the IAF's Commando Force but with little support from manpower at the base.
'We felt that there was a need to review our training for quick reaction situations as we needed to train men and women who can act as first line of defence against any such future attacks,' Group Captain S Pasricha, who heads the Bathinda airbase, told Mail Today.
The IAF is creating a combat force of its own men and women who are being trained in Punjab's Bathinda district to tackle such terror strikes
Indian security personnel stand alert on a road leading to an airforce base in Pathankot
Bathinda is home to the first security training school (STS) of the Air Force which is tasked to impart tough Army-like training to 225 officers and air warriors in each course so that they are able to handle all kinds of modern weapons and easily counter a group of terrorists trying to attack airbases.
The Number One STS, which came into being in August last year, has so far, trained close to 1,300 personnel including female officers who go back to their home bases after four weeks' training and become part of the anti-terrorist quick reaction teams there.
'We are training both officers and men together with no relaxations for anyone.
'Everybody is made to go through the gruelling training process which includes carrying out Army-like night patrols, route marches and ambushes so that we can kill and destroy the intruders or at least contain them effectively on our own,' STS commanding officer and chief instructor Wing Commander Manpreet Singh said.
He said the trainees are 22-25 years old as only those people are being detailed for training who are young and have put in a few years in the service.
Delhi Police arrest suspected terrorists suspected of playing a role in the Pathankot Air Base terror attack
IAF officials say the terrorist attack around New Year's Eve over 15 months ago was a much-needed jolt for the force which was till then not focusing enough on the need for preparing its men for ground combat.
'We had quick reaction teams earlier where 40-50 men once in six months would go for a course. But, now after Pathankot, our focus has totally changed. We now also have the second security school in Naliya, Gujarat for imparting QRT training to personnel who are swift and agile,' Pasricha said.
As Mail Today spent two days through the gruelling physical training sessions with the trainees, we could see the security mindset of the force changing.
'The troops who are trained for being technicians or men and women who are supposed to fly aircraft are talking and discussing about killing terrorists as they take the Pathankot attack as a personal challenge and are fully charged about their new experience,' says Flight Lieutenant Siddhartha, who trains troops for chasing and killing terrorists in encounters.
Indian soldiers are seen conducting search operations on a rooftops of quarters at Pathankot Air Force Base during a terror strike
Old-timers in the service say this is the first time that the Air Force has been so highly focussed about physical toughening of men and women.
Instructors at the base say the female officers are also matching the performance of the men in these tough physical drills.
'A bullet won't discriminate between officers and airmen or men and women and that is why, there is no discrimination in training as well,' said Squadron Leader Mihir Mehta, an instructorat the base.
Former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda is set for a rough ride ahead over a controversial land allotment in Gurugram
Former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda is set for a rough ride ahead over controversial land allotment in Gurugram.
The Prime Minister's office has instructed the state's Manohar Lal Khattar-led administration to take appropriate action in the matter amid allegations of malpractice over the construction of an amusement park while under Hooda's Congress government.
The Millennium City, which gives Haryana the lion's share of its revenues, has long been the nerve centre of land scams as it is a major hub of housing and infrastructure projects in Haryana.
When contacted by Mail Today, Hooda's office refused to comment on the issue.
The department of personnel and training (DoPT) under the Centre sent a letter to the chief minister's office (CMO) on April 5, directing that a complaint made by Gurugram-based Right to Information (RTI) activist Harinder Dhingra against Hooda be placed before CM Khattar for 'appropriate action'.
'As the direction comes from the Prime Minister's Office, so appropriate action will surely be instituted by the government,' said the chief minister's officer on special duty Jawahar Yadav.
Haryana Urban Development Authority had allotted on lease 58 acres of prime land allegedly at throwaway rates to International Recreation & Amusement Limited (IRAL), the holding company of the Appu Ghar, for development of amusement parks in 2009.
This included 25 acres in Sector 29 and 23 acres in Sector 52-A and 53-A of Gurugram.
'We can show all the documents including the tender documents which are in order,' said Rakesh Babbar, director of International Recreation & Amusement Limited.
'Our water park is one of the best in India and we are doing very well. We have opened Smash recently for which Sachin Tendulkar was the brand ambassador.
'We are not able to get an atmosphere that is conducive for doing business. See his (Harinder Dhingra's) record: there is not one person of consequence in Gurugram that he has not complained against or he has not filed an RTI against.'
Dhingra made his complaint to the PMO in September 2016 and even met the Prime Minister.
'The promoters had met the chief minister (Hooda) and submitted the proposal for making Appu Ghar on June 22, 2010 which became the letter of intent (LoI) on June 26.
The whole machinery of the Haryana Urban Development Authority (Huda) was pressed into service and in the first week of July tender was also floated.
The specifications of the tender were tailor-made for initiators of the project and as such no other bidder qualified,' he said.
Bhupinder Singh Hooda at Parliament, Delhi
He also alleged Master Plan 2021 for Gurugram was tweaked at the request of the then CM.
'Land earlier locked for bus stand and under 'open spaces' was acquired and then 42 acres of land was allotted to the company for just Rs 94.5 crore against the official circle rate of Rs 826 crore and commercial rates of Rs 3,000 crore,' Dhingra said.
A group of Gurugram residents last year took to the streets and participated in a candlelight march to press for a CBI inquiry into the issue.
'The water park does not make money. It is not commercial, which is why the government thought that it will develop this by giving some land for commercial use also. This is an open area.
Therefore, it was given on concessional rates, because we are not doing any commercial activity and thus cannot be charged commercial rates,' said Babbar, who is the brother of BJP Delhi unit vice-president Rajiv Babbar.
'They say there was a bus stand here, but according to government there was nothing like that.
'Only my reputation and my brand Appu Ghar is being maligned. Just as in Disneyland, such big amusement and tourist spots can't be made possible without hand-holding of the government.'
Recruitment firm Hays has unveiled a slowdown in its UK and Ireland business as London trading remained tough during the third quarter.
The firm flagged earlier this year that its UK business had suffered a Brexit hit, after British companies applied the brakes to their hiring plans following the EU referendum vote.
Fees in the UK and Ireland slipped 4 per cent for the three months to the end of March this year, as it was dragged down by an 8 per cent decline in the capital.
Hays domestic market has continued to see tough times and as a result shares are down
While smaller recruiter Robert Walters said this week that London banks were hiring more staff, Hays echoed rival PageGroup's sentiment that there had been no meaningful recovery as uncertainity lingers about trading arrangements once Britain leaves the EU.
Finance Director Paul Venables, said: 'The banking market is in a better place than it was in a year ago, but it is still pretty subdued.'
However he said the hiring market for manufacturing jobs was healthier, with demand strong from large international companies in regions outside of London.
He added: 'That's a real positive for the next year or two... The market is in a much better place than it was 9 months ago.'
Shares in the FTSE 250 listed company were off 1p at 167.4p.
Nevertheless problems at home were softened by better trading conditions abroad.
As a result the company said fees for the third quarter had hit an all-time high, driven by an 18 per cent leap in growth across continental Europe and the rest of the world.
Total net fees grew 10 per cent on a like-for-like basis over the period.
But the recruiter Hays says larger manufacturers hiring again in the UK
Chief executive Alistair Cox added that the record fee performance had given the firm confidence to lift its expectations for full-year profits.
He said: 'Growth was broad-based and driven by strong performances in our international businesses. Europe delivered excellent results, led by an all-time record performance in Germany, as we continued to invest in additional headcount.
'Growth in Australia accelerated further and was strong across all states. In the UK, while the public sector market remained tough, we saw continued signs of improvement in the private sector market.
'Looking ahead, conditions remain good in the vast majority of our markets, notably Australia, Europe and North America. In the UK, market conditions remain in line with the underlying Q3 trends.'
Hays, which employs 9,600 people across 33 countries, now expects annual operating profit to be at the top range of market predictions of between 199million and 209million.
Eleven English majors traveled with Lees Dr. Kevin Brown to Louisville, Ky., for the 93rd Sigma Tau Delta International Convention, where students presented their original creative and critical pieces.
The international convention is an excellent opportunity for our students to share their work, hear pieces by their peers from around the world, and listen to readings from award-winning writers, said Dr. Brown, professor of English at Lee. It shows them how wide the world of English is and helps them find their place within it.
The student presenters included Anna DuPree, Katie Hass, Bethanie Hathaway, Evan Humphreys, Evan Pell, Hannah Rogers, Hailey Rudd, and Eric Sheranko. Additionally, Ms. Hass, Charity Parris, and Rebekah Taylor served as presentation panel chairs.
I feel that Ive grown a lot as an English major, and attending two conventions definitely contributed to that significantly, said Mr. Pell, a senior English and Spanish major. My favorite part of convention has always been the way it fosters friendships between different people in the English major at Lee. I love getting to hear my peers present their academic and creative work, some of which I never would have had the opportunity to hear if it hadn't been for convention.
With over 900 submissions, approximately 600 students from throughout the United States and abroad had their work accepted by a panel of judges. These students were invited to present their work at the Sigma Tau Delta International Convention.
Pieces presented at the convention were eligible for awards, which were given on the last night of the event at the convention gala. Lees chapter won second place for its chapter display, arranged and designed by Ms. Hass and Ms. Taylor to highlight the years events.
"Being able to attend the Sigma Tau Delta convention as a freshman was especially rewarding because I was able to learn more about how other English students go about writing and presenting their works successfully, said Ashley Walker, an English and humanities major. As I hope to submit and present my own work at future conventions, I believe that this knowledge will prove beneficial in the long run.
While in Louisville, the group presented work, chaired presentation panels, attended workshops, and heard internationally and nationally known authors speak. Dr. Brown, who serves as a board member and the Southern Regent for the honor society, attended board meetings, led regional meetings, and moderated several presentation panels.
According to Dr. Brown, Lees chapter of Sigma Tau Delta is one of the most active chapters in the Southern Region. They host an annual symposium, organize monthly events, induct new members every semester, and have attended 12 of the past 13 conventions.
Sigma Tau Delta is an international collegiate English honor society and one of the largest members of the Association of College Honor Societies. The organization was established in 1924 to recognize achievement in English language, literature, and writing. The society, exclusive to four-year colleges and universities, inducts approximately 9,000 members annually into over 880 active chapters in the United States and abroad.
For more information about Sigma Tau Delta or the 2017 international convention, visit www.english.org.
Matt Horan, whose Poole company C3IA Solutions works with GCHQ, wants to help Britons beat scams that now cost consumers 5billion every year - and knows the tricks on how to infuriate them
One of Britain's top IT experts with a fearsome reputation for turning the tables on cold callers and fraudsters is today helping MailOnline readers do the same.
Matt Horan, whose Poole company C3IA Solutions works with GCHQ, wants to help Britons beat scams that now cost consumers 5billion every year.
Phone and internet fraud has reached 'epidemic' levels in the past year with 5.6million people being ripped off on the phone or online.
Con artists are using new tactics every day to get people to part with their cash, with victims sucked in losing an average of 2,500 each.
Mr Horan found fame this year after he was filmed posing as an ignorant computer user as a conman tried to take control of his computer.
After 35 minutes of wasting their time the supervisor became so irate he told Mr Horan to 'f*** off' before slamming down the phone.
Today he is spelling out the top scams used by fraudsters and has set out how to spot the tell-tale signs you are being ripped off.
Mr Horan found fame this year after he was filmed posing as an ignorant computer user as a conman tried to take control of his computer - he frustrated the cold caller so much he hung up after saying 'f*** you'
The scams
Phishing: Spoof emails asking for you to enter information, respond to a request, donate something or pay something. If people respond they hand data over to fraudsters;
Vishing: It is a scam when caller is trying to get you to do something that will compromise your PC or provide them with account information. They may also ask to take over your machine claiming there is something wrong with it;
ID Fraud: People have their cards cloned when using ATM machines and the card is then used to purchase theatre tickets, shopping, meals or other luxuries;
WarDriving: WarDriving involves criminals driving around and finding an insecure WiFI Access Point and then using this for access to the internet. This has been greatly reduced to establishment free WiFI Hotspots and also users now utilising strong WiFI encryption using WPA2;
eBay fakes: There are increasing instances of fake items being sold and over the internet, even though some seem to have good references and approval ratings, these can be spoofed;
Man in the Middle: This is when fraudsters make a near perfect copy a website that you are trying to log into. The victim Google's their bank, for example, and follows the link that is presented. The victim then logs into his/her account entering their credentials because this is a fake site. The fraudsters then capture the victim's account details and almost at the same time log into the real site using the victims credentials. It is then just a case of transferring money out of the account, buying goods, or changing account details so the victim cannot gain access and the fraudster has full access;
How to fight back
Tip 1: Remember: If the caller is genuine they will know your account details already. They will never ask it. They will not need your email address, address, mobile phone number or account reference number;
Tip 2: If they call you always ask them to give you a direct dial number that you can call them back on. Con artists will often refuse;
Tip 3: If your telephone has a 'number calling' display and you don't recognise the number then ignore it and check it online. If it is a genuine call they will call back. If it doesn't display a number, or the number is withheld, then don't answer it;
Tip 4: If the caller is asking you to donate money and claim to be a fundraising organisation, always ask them for their registered charity number. Always ask what the money is for, who the trustees are and do not pay any money over the phone. Confirm the information given against that on their website and the Charities Commission. If they are legitimate they will be happy for you to do this;
Tip 5: Frustrate them. Keep callers on the phone for some time. Ask genuine probing questions about what they are doing and why. If they start getting angry or defensive it is a good sign they are not genuine and will often hang up;
Tip 6: If it sounds too good a deal or bargain then, as a general rule, it will be;
Tip 7: If anyone asks for your bank account details, passwords, your answers to security questions or any other personal information then just hang up;
'Ferociously greedy' fraudster family tricked pensioners in a 1.3million cold-calling scam to finance their own life of luxury
A family of fraudsters who tricked pensioners out of 1.3million which they spent on expensive cars and watches were jailed for over twenty years.
The 'ferociously greedy' Mohammed family cold-called victims posing as fraud advisers from Visa or high-street banks and saying they had been targeted in a scam.
Led by Atif Mohammed, 25, the family then invited their victim to hang up and redial their own bank's fraud team themselves to gain their trust.
But they stayed on the line, intercepted the return call and either put on a fake voice or handed the phone to another family member to pose as a legitimate bank official.
Atif Mohammed (left) and his cousin Asif Ali (right) ran a phone scam which stole the savings of pensioners
Shabeer (left) and Shakeel Ahmed (right) were also took part in the con, which saw people phoned up and told they had been targeted by fraudsters and encouraged to pay money into a bank account
Call centre worker Zoe Latif (left) gave the gang victim's details. Atif's mother Shameem Ali Mohammed (right) had stolen property
At least 42 elderly and vulnerable people from across the UK were encouraged to transfer their savings - up to 129,000 in one case - into another bank account.
The fraudsters then spent the money 'like water' - on luxury cars including a yellow Lamborghini Gallardo, a white Land Rover, a Ferrari and a Mercedes, Bristol Crown Court heard.
It also funded designer bags, gold, expensive watches, gambling ventures and trips abroad, including repeat visits to Dubai where they bought a house.
The Mohammeds, originally from Pakistan, called thousands of people using dozens of phones over 13 months as part of the 'vishing' - voice phishing - scam between December 2013 and January 2015.
Most of the victims will never get their money back because banks view such incidents - where people willingly transfer money - as their own fault.
Seven members of the family, from Glasgow, were jailed for between two and six years last year.
Sentencing them, Judge Barry Cotter QC said: 'Those who fell for it tended to be the more unworldly and naive.
'Whilst they were not specifically targeted as vulnerable, it is obvious that it was people who did not have a suspicion that many people would have who were victims.'
The gang made thousands out of the scam and 100,000 in cash was found when they were arrested
The group frittered the money away on expensive goods including these watches (above and below)
'Heartless' cold callers hounded an elderly couple to their deaths and robbed them of their life savings with daily early morning calls
John and Olga Moyle were 'hounded to death' during their final years and were bombarded with early morning calls
A 'heartless' cold caller 'hounded an elderly couple to their deaths' by bombarding them with fraudulent calls that forced them to sell their home of 50 years after they found themselves 74,000 in debt.
A court heard how Barbara Stone targeted John and Olga Moyle on a daily basis - sometimes calling from as early as 7.45am - while the devoted husband attempted to care for his wife, who was dying from cancer.
Stone convinced the pair to place adverts in a lifestyle magazine for the small holiday home they owned in France.
The 62-year-old persuaded 'frail' Mr Moyle to hand over 8,000 a month for almost a year, falsely promising non-existent sponsors would reimburse the money, Nottingham Crown Court heard.
But not a single booking for the property, near Nice, was ever made - and the Moyles were eventually forced to sell the Shropshire home they had lived in for almost 50 years to pay off the massive debts they built up because of the scam.
Grandmother Mrs Moyle, 84, died just a month after the house was placed on the market in 2011.
And Mr Moyle, who had pleaded with Stone to stop, passed away four years later at the age of 83.
Now a judge, Trading Standards, and the couple's devastated daughter all came to the conclusion that the 'relentless' sales representative's actions played a part in their deaths.
Stone, of Winston, Leicester, admitted two counts of fraud by false representation between January and November 2010, and was given a 22-month suspended jail term.
Barbara Stone (pictured right) arriving at Nottingham Crown Court, where she pleaded guilty to two counts of fraud by false representation
Santander customers losing thousands to terrifying smishing scam - and the banking giant fobs off fraud victims in just 24 hours
Victim: Claire Pearson, from Wallington, is a Santander customer who lost 72k in an text messaging banking scam. The cash was taken when she was seven months pregnant
Fraud victims who have lost their life savings are being fobbed off by Santander in as little as 24 hours, Money Mail and This is Money can reveal.
Mother-to-be Claire Pearson, 38, from Surrey, lost almost all of the 71,700 inheritance she'd received from her late father.
Claire was about to put down a deposit on a house in February when she received a text message saying her debit card had been used for a large payment she didn't recognise.
Terry and Cecilia Allen lost their 3,200 holiday fund for a much-needed break to Spain in May after their son and daughter died.
In March, Terry, a 75-year-old retired engineer, received a text message, which appeared to be from Santander, asking him to confirm a transaction on his account for an Uber taxi in London.
The couple, who live in Basingstoke, Hampshire, hadn't visited the capital, so Terry replied with an 'N' for no.
A further text message asked him to reply with the 'One Time Passcode' that he'd receive.
Terry says this is the only code he divulged.
Customers who have lost thousands of pounds in sophisticated scams are being sent carbon-copy letters by the bank rejecting their requests for a refund.
The documents all bear the same signature and use similar sentences to blame the customer for allowing a crook to get at their money. Some are identical apart from a few words.
Nearly all of the letters we've seen fail to explain how customers many of whom are traumatised can complain, or point out that they can take their cases to the financial ombudsman, which settles disputes between banks and their customers.
The City watchdog usually forces banks to spell out these rights when they dismiss customers' gripes.
But Santander says that these rules don't apply in these cases because customers are making 'claims' rather than 'complaints'.
Our findings call into question whether Santander is carrying out full investigations into fraud cases before sending rejection letters.
Ripped off: Daniel Hughes, 19, and Terry Allen, 75, lost almost 5,000 between them in the scam
Callous: Santander customers who have lost thousands of pounds to sophisticated scams are being sent carbon-copy letters by the bank rejecting requests for a refund
Li Liangwei goes around China pretending to be Donald Trump.
The 65-year-old man has jet-black hair, admires Communism and speaks no English. Nevertheless, he has decided to pursue a new career in his sunset years impersonating a figure from a far-away land: Donald Trump.
The retired magazine publisher, who comes from Hunan, the home province of Chairman Mao, said he doesn't care much about politics.
However, as soon as Mr Li saw Trump on TV, he thought the US President is a 'clever person', an 'inspirational figure' and a 'great leader'.
Scroll down for video
Li Liangwei, a retired magazine publisher, is a Donald Trump impersonator from China. The 65-year-old tours around the country to shoot commercials pretending to be the US President
Mr Li said that Trump's hand gesture represents the billionaire president the best. Pictured, Trump gives a double thumbs-up as he arrives to speak at the Major Cities Chiefs Association and Major County Sheriff's Association Winter Meeting in Washington, DC, in 2017
'I can tell if someone is a good person or a bad person at a glance. When I saw Trump, I knew he would be a great leader,' Li Liangwei told MailOnline during a phone interview.
'Roman wasn't built in one day. Trump has aspired to be a great person since he was young. He has extensive knowledge and always thinks for his country.'
Mr Li, who is five years younger than Trump, added: 'It's an extraordinary thing to become the US president at the age of 70.'
When Mr Li performs, his agent, Zou Dangrong, would arrange his hair to be dyed and whitening foundation to be applied before he takes the stage.
However, the impersonator stressed that 'appearance isn't everything'.
'I specialise in imitating Trump's gestures and facial expressions,' Mr Li said.
While promoting a tea brand, Mr Li holds a small barrel of tea in his left hand and does a thumbs-up with his right hand to imitate Trump
US President Donald Trump gives a thumbs-up as he speaks during his swearing-in ceremony on January 20, 2017 at the US Capitol in Washington, DC
Apparently, the man is best known for his Trump hand gestures. In one promotional photo, Mr Li stretched out both arms and gave a double thumbs-up - a posture which he thinks best captures the billionaire leader.
In another commercial clip provided by Zou Dangrong, Mr Li was promoting a tea brand, called 'Above the Moon'. The man held a small barrel of tea in his left hand and did yet again another thumbs-up with his right hand.
'His thumbs-up gesture is spot on,' Zou Dangrong told MailOnline, referring to Mr Li's imitation effort. 'When he uses his thumb to say something is okay, he looks a lot like Trump, his posture, his hairstyle, the look in his eyes, etc.'
It is Mr Zou who discovered what he calls the 'uncanny resemblances' between Li Liangwei and Donald Trump.
China's Trump impersonator Li Liangwei (middle) stands with a team of actors pretending to be his bodyguards. The man was discovered by agent Zou Dangrong who also manages the Chinese impersonator of Barack Obama
The retired magazine publisher said he doesn't care much about politics, but as soon as he saw Trump on TV, he thought the US President is a 'clever person' and an 'inspirational figure'
Li Liangwei (right, without makeup) has jet-black hair and speaks no English, however the man said that 'appearance isn't everything' while impersonating Trump (left, pictured on April 11 in Washington, DC)
Mr Zou owns a TV production company in Hunan Province. He also manages Xiao Jiguo, the Chinese impersonator of Barack Obama.
'As Trump won the election and Obama's second term drew to a close late last year, I wondered if I could find a Trump impersonator - because it would be harder and harder for Obama's look-a-like to find business,' said Mr Zou.
He tried to research on the internet and through his connections, but failed to find suitable candidates.
Mr Zou discovered Mr Li by chance.
The two had known each other for decades. When Mr Li worked at a magazine in Hunan Province in the 1990s, Mr Zou was his staff. Mr Zou later left to start his own business.
One day last November, the two had dinner together. While debating over a topic, Mr Li put down his glass, rose a hand and did a thumbs-up.
Mr Li immediately asked him to do that gesture again. He told Mr Li: 'You look like someone. You look like US President Trump.'
Mr Zou said he took pictures of Mr Li and shared them on WeChat, a Chinese social media app. The picture received great feedback, with many people commenting on the 'striking similarities'.
Mr Li's agent would makeup artists to give the man a make-over before he performs. Hair dye would be used and whitening powder would be applied
'I specialise in imitating Trump's gestures and facial expressions,' Mr Li stressed, adding that his looks wouldn't hinder his effort of copying Trump
The agent then hired makeup artists to give Mr Li a 'westernised' make-over, aided by hair dye, whitening foundation and blue contact lenses. Thus, a new star was born.
Mr Zou said: 'There are many similarities between Trump and Mr Li.
'First of all, Trump has written books since 1980s; Mr Li was a writer and a magazine publisher. Secondly, they were both born to established families and are keen on social activities. In addition, one of Trump's daughters sings while Mr Li's daughter is a doctor of international music.'
According to Mr Zou, most of Mr Li's clients have been medical firms which wish to promote their plastic surgery procedures, such as eye bag removal.
Speaking of Trump's controversial comments, especially those on China, Mr Zou explained: 'Trump is debatable in China. He's not like Obama, whom everybody likes.'
Mr Zou believed Trump is still at the stage of teething in his presidential role and that he is getting to know about China.
'In conclusion, he is very smart and capable,' added Mr Zou.
Li Liangwei seemed to agree. He said: 'The relationship between countries are like the relationship between family members. There will always be disagreements, but they usually pass the day after.'
He added: 'Trump's sayings and doings reflect the process of his strategy planning, and it's a great process. I like the fact that he doesn't change his decisions easily based on other people's comments.'
Funnily, the impersonator, who speaks in thickly accented Mandarin, concluded our interview with an impression he thought he did even better: of Chairman Mao.
'I came from the same place as Chairman Mao. Do you know my accent is just like his?'
The man then had a little cough and gave the famous announcement the Great Helmsman delivered on the Tian'anmen Square in 1949: 'I declare the People's Republic of China is founded.'
It is the explosive feud at the center of the world's most talked about podcast: the battle for John B. McLemore's rumored trove of buried gold.
On the one side is 26-year-old Tyler Goodson, a dope-smoking tattoo artist who claims he is the rightful heir to McLemore, a brilliant and allegedly wealthy malcontent who committed suicide by drinking cyanide.
But standing in his way is the 'conniving cousin' Reta Lawrence, 63, accused of arriving on the scene within hours of McLemore's death to sweep up his land and riches in the absence of a will.
The ensuing skirmish lands Goodson in court and provides the central intrigue for S-Town, the smash hit podcast which was downloaded by more than 16 million listeners in its first week alone.
John B. McLemore is the central figure in the new podcast, S-Town, the most downloaded audio show in history. The seven part mini-series lays bare McLemore's battle with depression, his secret homosexual liaisons and the ugly skirmish for his property and possessions
Despite his apparent scorn for his hometown Woodstock, which he called S**t Town, McLemore spent his entire life in the town with his mother, Mary Grace, 88
The battle for McLemore's rumored trove of buried gold is a central story line of the new blockbuster podcast
The tatted up McLemore first contacted American Life podcast producer Brian Reed in 2012 urging him to investigate the son of a wealthy man who allegedly boasted about getting away with murder. But the podcast soon morphed into an exploration of McLemore's bizarre life
And when DailyMail.com tracked down both parties to see how things have played out, we found their simmering legal battle shows no signs of fizzling.
'People are going to believe what they want to believe and that's fine,' Charles Lawrence, Reta's 67-year-old husband, tells DailyMail.com. 'But if you listen to the podcast you know who the white trash is.'
S-Town took shape when Brian Reed, an investigative journalist and This American Life producer, agreed to meet McLemore five years ago to examine an unsolved murder.
Reed established that the murder never happened but developed a close friendship with the mercurial clock restorer who killed himself in June 2015 on the front porch of his rural Alabama home.
Rather than abandoning his project, Reed began piecing together the labyrinthine mysteries of McLemore's eccentric life, from the giant hedge maze he built on his land to the rumored hoard of gold he buried beneath it.
The setting for this twisting, turning narrative is S-Town, or 'S**t town', McLemore's unflattering nickname for his tiny hometown of Woodstock, where Tyler says he is now public enemy number one.
On the one side is McLemore's 'conniving cousin' Reta Lawrence, 63, with her husband, Charles, 69, accused of arriving on the scene within hours of the clock worker's death to sweep up his land and riches in the absence of a will
On the other side is 26-year-old Tyler Goodson, a dope-smoking tattoo artist who claims he is McLemore's rightful heir
Goodson regarded McLemore as a father figure and insists he was promised the entire 148 acre estate, complete with the exotic flowers, orchards and the giant hedge maze the two men build together
'I've had a lot of love from around the world but people in this s**t town hate me because of this,' Goodson tells DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview.
'It's caused a whole lot of drama. I lost my construction job. The guy I work for knows I'm not the villain but he thinks all this excitement is bad for business.'
Goodson regarded McLemore as a father figure and mentor, insisting he was promised his entire 148-acre estate, complete with the exotic flowers, orchards and the elaborate maze the two friends built together.
The father-of-four spent almost every day at the reclusive McLemore's side, tending to his grounds and helping care for his elderly mother, Mary Grace.
But there was also a dark side to their relationship, with the younger man consenting to tattoo McLemore's torso and pierce his nipples repeatedly in a nightly sadomasochistic ritual dubbed 'church'.
Tyler was with McLemore hours before his death to mark Father's Day but he left when the two men got into an argument and never spoke to his troubled older friend again.
'I started caring for John because he cared about me,' said Goodson, who no longer speaks to his own father.
'He saw what a piece of s**t daddy we had. He could have been a rough daddy as well but he was a good dude.
The reclusive McLemroe, here at the entrance to his elaborate maze, committed suicide in June 2015 by drinking potassium cyanide
DailyMail.com reveals that Tyler Goodson, who helped John build the maze, may not have been the only alleged intruder accessing the property after McLemore's death, with reports circulating about S-Town fans creeping through to catch glimpses of his house and maze
McLemore's intricate hedge maze has adjustable gates for 64 possible solutions. S-Town producer Reed said that throughout work on the podcast he was drawn to how different McLemore was from other people. 'Being with him really felt like really being off the grid in a way that the normal rules of society don't totally matter, and he created that feeling'
An online 'Save the Maze' campaign is dedicated to finding a way to preserve the labyrinth
'I was his groundskeeper. I didn't charge him because it felt like it was my responsibility. I took him leftovers every night and brought his mama a biscuit in the morning.
'When he died it was like I was in shock. I would dream it didn't happen and think I could get up and go back over there.'
Goodson did go back onto McLemore's property - repeatedly - allegedly taking away his laptop, papers and even his dog, Pipsqueak, and retrieving tattooing equipment and tools he claims are his.
He also scoured the earth with a metal detector and dug holes in search of buried gold.
When Goodson took a bus, a trailer and sold two more of McLemore's vehicles by allegedly forging ownership documents, McLemore's cousin Reta, from Welaka, Florida, intervened to have him arrested.
To date he faces five counts of first-degree theft of property, two counts of first-degree forgery, one count of third-degree trespassing and one count of second-degree possession of a forged instrument in a case scheduled for June.
Lawrence and her retired husband Charles, 67, are incredulous at suggestions they acted improperly to cut Tyler out, regarding him as a gold digger who leached off McLemore and had no right to his legacy.
Most of Woodstock has come to regard McLemore's gold as an elaborate hoax with many siding against Goodson, who allegedly used the stolen lumber and materials to build a new home across town
John B. McLemore's grave in the Green Pond Presbyterian Church Cemetery
They say they arrived at his home the night of his suicide solely to take care of Mary Grace, not to stake an early claim to McLemore's land or hunt for treasure.
'We don't really think there was any gold. There might have been at one time but we think probably that was all gone,' said Mr. Lawrence, a retiree with no children.
'My wife made a comment about finding it on the podcast that made her look bad. It was taken out of context but it was basically made as a joke.
'In the same way she made a comment about removing John's nipple rings. But she was frustrated with the police, frustrated with someone breaking in on the property every night.
'She was trying to make arrangements for a funeral, trying to make arrangements to take care of an 88-year-old woman.
'And all of a sudden an undertaker tells you "I can't get the rings out", oh really? It was out of frustration.
'There was no reward for us. We don't need money. We are responsible for Mary Grace and we are doing the best we can to make sure she's comfortable and taken care of. Other than that we have no interest in it.'
Most of Woodstock has come to regard McLemore's gold as an elaborate hoax with many siding against Goodson, who allegedly used the stolen lumber and materials to build a new home across town.
In spite of all evidence to the contrary, Goodson, however, remains convinced the gold is still buried under McLemore's home.
Either that or it's been spirited away by a cabal of local bigwigs, including Woodstock's former town clerk, Faye Gamble, or McLemore's former lawyer, Boozer Downs.
'When he died it was f**ked up. I just assumed that he had something set up,' he told DailyMail.com.
'Once I went to his lawyer's office and that son of a b***h shoved me out the door, I knew something was wrong.
'John B didn't have a will, are you f**king kidding me? Who is gonna have a suicide note that is so elaborate it could be a book and not have a will?
'I think there is gold. Boozer and Faye may have a portion of it. But what they got is just chump change. The rest of it is there.
'Finally I said to hell with it. I said "just let me get my damn s**t". And they wouldn't even let me do that.'
Brian Reed, an investigative journalist and This American Life producer, met McLemore five years ago when he visited his rural Alabama home to examine an unsolved murder. Reed established that the murder never happened but developed a close friendship with McLemore
The series has polarized opinion among Woodstock's 1,500 inhabitants, with many torn between their admiration for Reed's storytelling and unease at being thrust into the spotlight
S-Town has proved a global smash hit, racking up as many downloads in one week as the first season of its critically acclaimed predecessor, Serial, achieved in two months.
The final episode poses another beguiling, unanswered question - whether McLemore's mental illness was brought about by his repeated exposure to the poisonous chemicals he used to meticulously restore clocks.
The mercurial horologist had an international reputation through the brilliance of his work but was notorious for persisting with an outdated, dangerous method called 'fire gilding' which exposed him to dangerous levels of mercury.
Mercury poisoning is said to have given rise to the phrase 'mad as a hatter', owing to the plight of 19th century milliners who suffered brain damage, tremors, slurred speech and even hallucinations after working repeatedly with the hazardous metal.
Reed muses in S-Town that similar exposure could have been the underlying cause for the paranoia, depression and suicidal thoughts exhibited by McLemore in his final years, a particularity worrying hypothesis for Goodson.
'I've been there when he was gold and silver plating and every time he would get the goddamn cyanide out.
My lawyer is going to get someone to test me,' he told DailyMail.com. 'Since John B died I have taken on some of those nervous traits and suicidal thoughts. It may be the poisoning - or it may just be John B haunting me.'
A survivalist accused of shooting a Pennsylvania state trooper dead during an ambush wrote in a journal that he was shocked cops didn't catch him for 48 days.
Suspected gunman Eric Frein, 33, kept a diary almost every day while he was on the run in the Pocono Mountains in 2014, according to prosecutors.
'30 Days. A lot longer than I expected to last,' he purportedly wrote on October 10, 2014, almost a month after allegedly killing Cpl. Bryon Dickson II and critically wounding Trooper Alex Douglass on September 12, 2014.
Prosecutors say he staked out the police barracks in Blooming Grove in northeastern Pennsylvania before unleashing the deadly attack.
Eric Frein arrives for arraignment to court on October 31, 2014 in Milford, Pennsylvania, the day after his capture; he'd eluded cops for 48 days
Eric Frein, left, is led from the Pike County Courthouse after his preliminary hearing in Milford, Pa. on January 5
The journal entries were read aloud to a Pennsylvania jury in Frein's murder trial on Wednesday, according toNBC News.
Frein has pleaded not guilty, but could face the death penalty if convicted.
He is charged with murder of a law enforcement officer and terrorism.
The journal is supposed to contain many of the fugitive's thoughts during his time on the run.
It was found in an abandoned airplane hangar police believe he was living in towards the end of his time on the run.
Frein was captured on Oct. 30, 2014.
A few days after the killings, he writes that he is in touch with someone else.
'(Cell phoned) home twice to let them know Im still alive. Got text saying Im a suspect,' he wrote according to the Pocono Record.
Then he takes an almost light-hearted turn. 'They called me a survivalist! HA!' he wrote. 'Catchy phrase I guess.'
Frein, 31, was arraigned at the Pike County Courthouse in Milfordn and pleaded not guilty to murder
'They called me a survivalist! HA!' Catchy phrase I guess,' he purportedly wrote in a journal kept during his time on the run
Frein is charged with killing Cpl. Bryon Dickson II (left) and critically wounding Trooper Alex Douglass (right)
Pike County District Attorney Ray Tonkin, front center, arrives for the first day of the trial of Eric Frein on April 4
A few days later, he wrote: 'Slept like a human. Got buckets for catching rain water. Listened to radio. Classical made me cry. (Unreadable word) made me laugh. Needed both.'
By mid-October, he wrote: 'Have lasted longer than I expected to last. Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me, a sinner.'
By the end of October, he is running out of food and beginning to sound desperate:
'Found two packages of crackers. Broke into a place. Was careful not to damage anything. Took rice, Ramen and oil. Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy.'
Prosecutors say Frein hid in the woods across the street from the barracks and opened fire during a late-night shift change, killing Cpl. Bryon Dickson II and critically wounding Trooper Alex Douglass.
On Tuesday, the jury saw video that showed two state police interrogators repeatedly pressing Frein for answers on why he targeted two troopers he said he didn't know.
He was reluctant to answer, finally agreeing with the investigators' statements that he did it to 'wake people up' and that he wanted to make a change in government, according to the video.
'There's nobody to vote for,' he said.
Earlier, the college dropout seemed to suggest he had been despondent over his life.
'Thirty-one. Still living with my parents. No prospect for any sort of future ... drive a truck or something,' he told them.
Above, camping equipment thought to have been used by shooting suspect Eric Frein is seen
A mattress and sheet are seen in the hangar within the abandoned Birchwood Resort, where Eric Frein was caught in Tannserville, PA on October 30
Frein said he planned the ambush using Google Earth, choosing the Blooming Grove barracks because the heavily forested area provided ample cover.
He said he took two Adderall pills, a stimulant used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, on the day of the shooting, then got into position in the woods about an hour before.
Authorities say Frein shot Dickson as he was leaving the barracks at the end of his shift, then shot Douglass, who was just arriving and had bent over to tend to his fallen colleague.
Frein said he could hear Dickson yelling in pain after the first shot. Frein agreed with Trooper Michael Mulvey when Mulvey suggested that Frein then shot Dickson a second time to 'put him out of his misery.'
'That sounds horrible,' Frein said.
A Pocono Police car sits on the route to the hangar where Eric Frein was captured in October 2014 after a 48-day manhunt
Defense attorneys had tried to suppress the nearly 3 1/2 hour video, arguing police had violated his right to remain silent, but a judge overruled them and said the jurors could see it. His lawyers are appealing that ruling to a higher court.
The police interviewers quickly struck up a rapport with Frein, who had been at the top of the FBI's most-wanted list, giving him cigarettes and coffee and complimenting him and his parents as he sat in a chair, shackled to the floor, in a corner of the interview room.
'You, sir, are the champion of hide and seek,' Mulvey told him.
Cpl. Benjamin Clark asked Frein to give 'closure' to Dickson's widow and two young sons by providing an explanation for the attack. He and Mulvey asked Frein dozens of times why he did it. But Frein either couldn't or wouldn't answer the question directly.
Outside court, his attorneys said the video showed he was sorry.
'I think there is legitimate remorse here,' attorney Michael Weinstein said.
Static was laced throughout the video's audio track, often making it impossible to hear what was being said.
And Frein primarily spoke in a soft voice that could be difficult to make out. The judge acknowledged the sound problems and told jurors to do the best they could with it.
A Florida prosecutor fired a double-barreled response to Gov. Rick Scott's efforts to take 21 criminal cases away from her after she said her office would no longer seek the death penalty.
State Attorney Aramis Ayala filed lawsuits Tuesday in federal court and with Florida's highest court, challenging Scott's ability to remove her from death-penalty cases in her district, which covers Orlando and its suburbs.
Ayala's complaint with the Florida Supreme Court says Scott overstepped his authority and asks the justices to declare her the prosecutor in the cases that were ordered taken away from her.
If the justices won't do that immediately, the lawsuit asks them to stop the transfer of cases from her office until the state's highest court decides whether Scott's actions were proper or if they violated the state's constitution.
Florida State Attorney Aramis Ayala (pictured on March 16) has filed a lawsuit, challenging Gov. Rick Scott's ability to remove her from death-penalty cases
Gov Rick Scott (pictured on March 7) removed almost two dozen death-penalty cases from Ayala's office and re-assigned them to another prosecutor, when she announced last month that that wouldn't be seeking the death penalty in any of the cases
Ayala's federal lawsuit claims Scott's actions violated the U.S. Constitution by disregarding the choice of Orlando-area voters who picked Ayala during last year's election. The federal lawsuit also said Ayala's due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment were violated by the governor's orders.
'Earlier in her career as an Assistant State Attorney, Ayala had been willing to seek a death sentence in an appropriate case, and she held that belief throughout her campaign for State Attorney,' the federal complaint said. 'However, although Florida law grants State Attorneys the authority to seek the death penalty in first-degree murder cases where aggravating factors are present, neither the Florida Constitution nor the Florida Criminal Statutes require them to do so.'
Ayala's attorney, Roy Austin, was asking the federal court to temporarily freeze any action on the complaint until the Florida Supreme Court lawsuit is resolved.
Austin is a high-profile, Washington-based addition to Ayala's fight against the governor. Austin was a former deputy assistant to President Obama for the White House's office of urban affairs and worked as a deputy assistant general in the U.S. Justice Department's civil rights division.
Austin called the governor's actions 'unprecedented.'
'While this is absolutely a Florida case, regarding the Florida Constitution, the implications for prosecutors around the country can't be ignored,' Austin said in an interview. 'If a governor can step in and replace the judgment of an elected prosecutor in Florida, then all prosecutors need to be concerned about prosecutorial discretion. It has national implications if the governor is allowed to conduct this unconstitutional conduct.'
During last year's election Ayala received more than $1 million in support from a Washington-based political action committee with ties to liberal Hungarian-born U.S. billionaire George Soros.
Ayala, Florida's first African-American state attorney, has come under fire since announcing last month she wouldn't seek the death penalty, in its current structure, against Markeith Loyd or any other defendant. Loyd is charged with killing an Orlando police lieutenant earlier this year. Loyd was also accused of killing his pregnant ex-girlfriend late last year.
Ayala said she would consider changing her mind only if the death-penalty system changes so it doesn't drag out for years and delay a sense of closure for victims' families.
After Ayala's announcement, Scott removed almost two dozen death-penalty cases from her office and re-assigned them to another prosecutor. That prosecutor, Brad King, also was named a defendant in the federal lawsuit.
Meanwhile, Florida lawmakers are moving ahead with plans to cut Ayala's office's budget by about $1.3million.
The Orlando prosecutor's fight has attracted support from civil rights groups and legal scholars from around the country.
When asked about Ayala on Tuesday, Scott said, 'I just think every citizen deserves a state attorney that's going to fully prosecute cases.'
Later in the day, when asked specifically about the lawsuits, Scott said he hadn't seen them, but he repeated his opposition to her decision to not to seek the death penalty against Loyd.
'I'm going to think about the victim and the victim's family,' Scott said.
One is a talented busker with 'the voice', another a bikini model with definite X factor - but no singing talent.
These two women took to the streets of London to see who would make the most money during a 20 minute busking session opposite the Houses of Parliament.
Musician Louisa Baker, 25, performed some of her own tunes, while 26-year-old beauty Jodie Western opted for Old McDonald Had A Farm, which she sung over and over again.
Both women won admirers, with passer-by James Hughes, from Dublin, calling Jodie's performance 'magnificent' and praising her 'real courage'.
And one woman lauded Ms Baker's singing talent, saying her songs 'spoke to me' and were something she would love to listen to at home.
But who won the real test - getting the public to cough up the most money? Find out below.
Tourist James Hughes, from Dublin, said Jodie Western's rendition of Old McDonald Had A Farm was 'magnificent'
Musician Louisa Baker, 25, performed some of her own tunes, which one passer-by said 'really spoke to me'
But both women knew the real test was who would make the most money from the public over 20 minutes. Pictured: Ms Western having a photo with Mr Hughes
At the end of the 20 minutes, Ms Baker had made three times the amount of money as Ms Western, who still came out with a very respectable 6.48
THE BEAUTY 6.48 Advertisement
A 37-year-old man has been charged in the killing of a judge who handled criminal cases, as police say that robbery was the motive.
Joshua Smith was charged in the shooting death earlier this week of 66-year-old Associate Cook County Circuit Judge Raymond Myles.
The deadly shooting happened early Monday morning outside Myles' home on Chicago's South Side.
Police say his 52-year-old girlfriend was also shot in the leg, but is expected to survive. Her name has not been released because police say she is a witness in the killing.
The Cook County state's attorney's office said Wednesday that Smith is the alleged getaway driver and that he was charged with first-degree murder, attempted murder, aggravated battery with a firearm and armed robbery.
Chicago Judge Raymond Myles, 66 (left), was shot dead outside his home on the city's south side early Monday morning. Joshua Smith (right), 37, was charged in his shooting death on Wednesday
Smith is expected to appear in bond court on Thursday at the Leighton Criminal Court Building.
This is not Smith's first run in with the law, as he was charged in Cook County Circuit Court in 2002 with armed robbery, aggravated vehicular hijacking and aggravated unlawful restrain, according to court records.
Smith pleaded guilty in 2003 to armed robbery and was sentenced to six years in prison.
Chief of Detectives Melissa Staples said Wednesday that Smith did not act alone and that the investigation is ongoing.
Authorities are still seeking the gunman and a third participant in the fatal shooting, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Staples said the gun in the shooting was also used in an armed robbery in January that left that victim wounded.
Video cameras on Myles' home and others in the area helped police identify the car used by the suspects in the shooting and its license plate, Staples said.
A 52-year-old woman, who police said was Myles' girlfriend, was also shot in the leg. She is expected to survive as police are searching for the gunman and a third participant (scene above)
When police found the vehicle, it had a different license plate than the one seen in the videos, she said.
She said police don't think the car owner took part in the crime.
Police have said the woman that Myles knew had already been shot and that Myles exchanged words with the attacker and then was shot, too.
Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said earlier that investigators were 'questioning individuals' in the case who were 'people of interest.' He declined to specify how many.
The Cook County state's attorney's office said Wednesday that Smith is the alleged getaway driver and was charged with first-degree murder, attempted murder, aggravated battery with a firearm and armed robbery. Above police gather outside Myles' home on Monday morning
The FBI is offering a $25,000 reward in the case.
The horrific attack against Myles is thought to be the first fatal shooting of a Chicago-area judge in more than three decades.
Myles was up before dawn as he prepared to go to the gym to exercise with his girlfriend before going to his courtroom.
However, as the woman went outside of his home, she was confronted near the garage by a gunman before being shot in the leg.
Authorities say Myles was killed shortly before 5am on Monday when he came outside of his home to help his girlfriend.
One of his neighbors who was awakened by the gunshots told the Tribune that he heard the woman screaming.
Above is Judge Myles' home. Neighbors say they were woken up to gunshots just before 5am. The victims' bodies were found in the back of the property, where the garage is
'She was screaming, 'Don't kill him, don't kill him!' ' the neighbor said.
Authorities said they investigate about 10 death threats a year against judges in Cook County, but there was no record of any threats against Myles in recent years.
Myles'd death has shocked his fellow colleagues as many have described him as friendly.
LeRoy K. Martin Jr., presiding judge of the Criminal Division, told the Tribune that Myles 'was enthusiastic about his most recent assignment to the 'youthful offenders' call, where he heard narcotics cases involving defendants about age 27 and younger.'
'He was very patient with people and gave out a lot of tough love,' Martin said.
Myles received his law degree from the University of Illinois College of Law. He was appointed to the court in 1999.
Circuit court judges appointed him an associate judge in 2001 and Myles had served in the criminal division since 2009, according Cook County Chief Judge Timothy Evans.
Experts warn Sunday's attack was the work of Assad using Russian fighter jets
This is the shocking moment Vladimir Putin risked the wrath of Donald Trump after dropping cluster bombs in Syria just four days on from a gas attack that killed 89 civilians.
Enormous fire balls lit up the skies over Latamneh and Saraqeb, rebel held cities in northern Syria.
The latest attacks are just a few miles from Khan Sheikhoun, where last week's sarin chemical attack prompted Donald Trump's first airstrikes against the Assad regime.
'Flames were flying and falling from the sky, said witness Laith Ahmed, a volunteer with the White Helmets, who responded to the attack at Saraqeb.
'The bomb exploded at a height of about 150 metres above the ground, and then the sub-munitions began to fall. At every point one touched the ground, it sent flames in all directions', he added.
Provocation: Enormous fireballs light up the skies over Latamneh, Syria, after Bashar al-Assad regime jets backed by Russia drop illegal cluster bombs on the ground below
Strikes: The latest attacks are just a few miles from Khan Sheikhoun, where last week's sarin chemical attack prompted Donald Trump's first airstrikes against the Assad regime
Bombing: The fresh cluster bomb attack is widely believed to have been carried out by Assad and backed up by Russia just four days after the chemical 15 miles away that killed 89 people
Aftermath: A piece of shell lies on the ground in rebel-held Latamneh, in northern Syria after the use of RBK-500 ZAB-2,5SM bombs, believed to have been supplied by the Russians
This latest attack and Russia's likely involvement will further raise tension at a time when US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is in Moscow trying to persuade Vladimir Putin to drop support for tyrant Assad.
A member of Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT), a group of researchers monitoring Russia's involvement in Syria, told MailOnline: 'Russian forces were definitely involved in this firebombing campaign.'
'Multiple flaming explosions and a large spread of the flame suggests the use of RBK-500 ZAB-2,5SM bomb with incendiary sub-munitions, the remains of which were observed in the aftermath of other recent airstrikes in the area', said Kirill Mikhailov, a researcher at CIT.
'The 'firework' when the burning munitions hit the ground is unmistakable. This type of munition wasn't used before Russia's entrance into the war,' he added.
Abeeda Abu Al-Bara, filmed the incendiary attack on Saraqeb on Sunday night. 'The bomb exploded in the sky after it was dropped from the warplane. It broke into more than 50 bombs, like fireballs. It is indescribable,' he said.
Mr Ahmed, a Syrian civil defence worker, 39, said rescue workers were forced to inhale white smoke as they extinguished the flames.
'The burning continued for 10 minutes and then ended. We inhaled the smoke, but its effect was very limited just some pain while breathing.'
Grieving: In last week's sarin gar attack 20 members of Abdul Hamid Youssef's family including his wife, Dalal al-Saha, and their nine-month-old twins Ahmad and Aya (pictured)
Victims: The Syrian anti-government activist group Edlib Media Center provided this photo showing victims of a suspected chemical attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun on April 4
Desperate: A man carries a child into a makeshift hospital following the attack, which raised put US and Russia on the brink after Trump launched launched 59 tomahawk missiles on an airbase suspected of launching the planes, which carried out the attack in Khan Sheikhoun last week
Mr Ahmed said that civil defence teams, who had battled against incendiary weapons before suspect Russian involvement because of the time of day, when only Russian jets are in the sky.
He recognised the sounds as similar to jets used by Russian forces.
'As White Helmet workers, this kind of strike has become very usual for us we faced it many times.'
But deploying internationally-condemned cluster bombs after last week's chemical atrocity will fuel anger over aimed at Assad and his Russian allies.
'Russia's use of incendiary munitions just hours after the US strike against Assad is clearly a political statement', said Kyle Orton, a Syria analyst at the UK-based think tank Henry Jackson Society.
'Moscow's main aim was underscoring that the regime remained and that, while weapons of mass destruction were off the table, the pro-regime forces still had a lot of leeway in the means by which they could kill Syrians that would be tolerated by the international community.'
Western experts said thermite was among the explosives found in RBK-500 ZAB-2,5SM bombs, which weigh 500kg.
Thermite is a mixture of iron oxide and aluminium powder that can burn at temperatures as high as 2,500C, and is almost impossible to extinguish, as it does not require an external air source.
Mark Hiznay, Associate Arms Director at Human Rights Watch, said of the effects of thermite: 'This is burning metal if that gets on you, you can imagine that is going to be a very painful experience.'
Backlash: Trump reacted with fury when he saw pictures of the victims of the chemical attack and ordered a Tomahawk missile attack against Shayrat airbase. Pictured: Victims receiving treatment after a chemical gas attack in Khan Sheikhoun last week
Retaliation: Trump said Assad 'choked out the lives of helpless men, women and children' and that 'even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered' as he launched strikes on Syria's president
Another harrowing image from the chemical attack showed children being doused with water in an attempt to save them from what is believed to be the banned nerve agent Sarin. Pictured: The children who passed away in the Sarin gas attack in Khan Sheikhoun on April 4
He said the bombs contain 114 submunitions that are released before the bomb hits the ground.
'A certain percentage of these will have a delayed explosive charge, meaning they themselves will explode after a certain time and burn until all the explosive material runs out.'
In 2008 more than 100 countries banned the use of cluster bombs, which are still permitted by Russia, China and the US.
However, Russia has committed to a convention banning use of incendiary weapons near civilian populations. Syria has not signed the convention.
In Latamneh, video footage showed incendiary bombs falling like deadly fireworks with bomblets exploding into lethal shooting stars.
More footage showed sparks spewing on the ground and igniting fires.
Eyewitness Fayad al-Satouf described three attacks over the town.
'There were 14 incendiary bombs that fell on Latamneh on Saturday between 2am and 6am in two rounds, and another six at 6am on Sunday,' he told MailOnline.
'Of course we have got used to the bombings in our region not a day passes without at least 10 airstrikes in this area.'
MailOnline showed CIT images from activists in Latamneh, who confirmed that the aftermath was typical of a thermite attack.
Recent images from pro-Kremlin media outlets from Shayrat airbase suggests that the Syrian army may now also possess the RBK-500 ZAB-2,5SM - but the bombs were not used before Russia's involvement in Syria.
Evidence also pointed to the use of Russian jets alongside Russian bombs.
Abeeda Abu Al-Bara, the media activist from Idlib, said he believed the Saraqeb attack was carried out by a Russian aircraft that had taken off from the Syrian government's Hmeimim Air Base.
'We know the type of aeroplane as it takes off via radio stations. The pilots speak in Russian. We have got used to recognising the Russian aeroplanes, the Su-25 and Su-35 craft.'
Explosions: But these latest pictures reportedly taken on Sunday could suggest Assad is ignoring rising tension between the US and Russia over the Middle East and continuing to use banned bombs in civilian areas
Strike: Incredibly no one was hurt in this attack, although the lack of casualties at Latamneh is due to the town shrinking from 30,000 six years ago to a ghost town of around 1,500 today
Evidence: Western experts said thermite, a mixture of iron oxide and aluminium powder that can burn at temperatures as high as 2,500C and is almost impossible to extinguish, was among the explosives found in the bombs used, which weigh 500kg
Claims: A member of Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT), a group of researchers monitoring Russia's involvement in Syria, looked at pictures of the bombs used in the weekend's attack and told MailOnline: 'Russian forces were definitely involved in this firebombing campaign.'
'Before the attack the planes circle over the town, and then they bomb it. The area has been under intense bombardment since the Russians intervened in Syria.'
There were no fatalities in either Latamneh or Saraqeb, as the bombs hit unpopulated suburbs.
In Saraqeb, one man is thought to have been injured while riding his motorbike when the attack happened.
The lack of casualties at Latamneh was due to the town shrinking from a bustling place of 30,000 six years ago to a ghost town of around 1,500 residents. Most of them live on farmland away from the city centre, according to the media activist Fayad al-Satouf.
'A lot of people have left our region to go to [refugee] camps', he explained. 'I am not scared of the airstrikes anymore, but my fear is for the women and children. When there is an attack like this the women and children escape to the fields in a state of severe panic. We try to prepare ourselves for these attacks. This is what our lives have become.'
This is not the first time Russia has deployed cluster bombs in Syria. Last year, extensive video and photo documentation showed bombs with Cyrillic lettering dropped over Rustan, in Homs province.
Russia has not commented on the latest attacks over rebel-held areas of Syria. It has condemned the US airstrikes on the Shayrat Air Base, insisting that the Kremlin is focused on supporting Syrian government troops 'to continue liberating their country from terrorists.'
Two Chicago men who posed for photos holding a black ISIS flag and threatened to throw gays from the city's tallest building were arrested yesterday on federal terrorist charges.
A two-year FBI sting operation culminated this week when Joseph D Jones and Eddie Schimenti were accused of providing material support to ISIS.
A 65-page indictment says the pair provided cellphones to an 'ISIS supporter' who said they would be used to detonate car bombs in Syria. Unbeknown to them, the man was in fact an undercover FBI agent.
Joseph D Jones, (left), and Edward Schimenti posed in front of an ISIS flag in this photograph, believed to have been taken by an undercover FBI agent
Jones, a part-time chef and college student, and Schimenti, who worked at a cancer treatment center, drove the FBI operative to Chicago's O'Hare International Airport last week on what they thought would be the first leg of a journey to Syria.
Schimenti allegedly told him to 'drench that land...with blood.'
The pair, both 35, were photographed holding the ISIS flag at the Illinois Beach State Park in Zion, where they both live. They had posted it on their social media accounts.
The pair appeared in a federal court in Chicago for a brief initial hearing before Magistrate Judge David Weisman.
Joseph D Jones poses with with ISIS flag at Illinois Beach State Park. The pair posted the image on their social media accounts
Schimenti's mother, Joni, told reporters outside court: 'Eddie is no terrorist'.
But if convicted the pair could face a maximum prison term of 20 years.
A detention hearing was set for Monday, after which they would enter pleas.
The complaint includes photos of them holding the IS flag at the Illinois Beach State Park in Zion, where they live. It also has postings on their social media accounts.
While he helped the man he believed would go to Syria get into condition at a local gym, Schimenti conceded he was not close to fighting shape.
'I'm all big, fat. But (God willing), the brothers will just have me be the one to cut the neck,' he said.
Schimenti, who used the pseudonym Abdul Wali, allegedly told an undercover agent in February that he was angry about a co-worker because they were gay.
He hinted at what he wanted to do to homosexuals in Chicago: 'We are putting you on top of Sears Tower and we drop you.'
The 108-story Willis Tower is the tallest building in Chicago but is still referred to by its old name.
A photo posted on Schimenti's Google Plus profile shows a masked man holding a knife, and caption written in capital letters saying if you cannot travel abroad to fight 'then slaughter the pagans next to you'.
After watching an ISIS video of captured soldiers being burned alive as they spoke Arabic, Schimenti says: 'I don't know what they're saying but I love it.'
A video was posted on Jones' Google Plus profile entitled, 'Some of the Deadly Stabbing Ways: Do not Forget to Poison the Knife,' the complaint says. Another time, a person in on the FBI sting asked Jones if he ever thought about traveling to Syria to live in Islamic State territory. Jones, who was also known as 'Yusuf Abdulhaqq,' allegedly answered: 'Every night and day.'
This is the latest of several area cases related to Islamic State. A Chicago federal judge last year sentenced former Illinois National Guard Hasan Edmonds to 30 years in prison and his cousin, Jonas Edmonds, to 21 years for plotting to join Islamic State fighters and to attack a National Guard armory just outside Chicago.
The complaint makes a brief reference to Schimenti allegedly suggesting in March that the Naval Station Great Lakes, a training ground for U.S. sailors just south of Zion, could be a terrorist target.
The sting started in September 2015 when an undercover agent approached Jones at the Zion Police Department - where Jones was being questioned about the killing of one of his friends - and the two began talking about Islam. The complaint didn't offer details about the killing.
Schimenti grew increasingly suspicious about the undercover agents, suggesting that at least some weren't actually Islamic State sympathizers. He once suggested something was 'fishy' about them, adding that he had a good sense of such things because of his own criminal history. Jones also spoke about past convictions.
The first two inmates facing lethal injection in Arkansas's unprecedented multiple execution plan where seven men will be put to death in 11 days are seeking a stay from the state Supreme Court.
Attorneys for Don Davis and Bruce Ward asked justices Wednesday to block their executions, currently scheduled for Monday April 17, while the US Supreme Court takes up McWilliams v. Dunn, concerning access to independent mental health experts by defendants.
Davis and Ward's state court filing stated, 'To execute Don Davis or Bruce Ward before that question is answered would deeply offend "the integrity of the judicial process." '
Death row inmates Don William Davis (left) and Bruce Earl Ward (right) are scheduled for execution on Monday, but their lawyers have asked for a stay pending the outcome of a US Supreme Court hearing, which is due to hear oral arguments on April 24
The US high court is set to hold oral arguments about whether an indigent defendant on death row was prevented access to an independent expert who could evaluate his mental health in that case on April 24, a week after the Davis and Ward are scheduled to be put to death.
The two Arkansas inmates' attorneys say they were denied access to independent mental health experts in their cases.
The outcome of McWilliams v. Dunn is said to be of particular importance to the Arkansas inmates because Davis is believed to have an IQ that is low enough to make him intellectually disabled, while Ward's paranoid schizophrenia is part of his lengthy history of mental illness, reports NBC News.
Arkansas is hurrying to execute the inmates before their supply of midazolam expires
These Arkansas death row inmates are scheduled for execution from April 17 to 27, although one of them has already received a stay of execution. Top row, from left, Bruce Ward, Marcel Williams, Jason McGehee (received a stay) and Kenneth Williams. Bottom row, Stacey Johnson, Ledell Lee, Don Davis and Jack Jones
Although Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge will read Davis and Ward's motion, Rutledge's office says she does not intend to alter the execution schedule.
'[Rutledge] supports the death penalty,' Rutledge's Communications Director Judd Deere told NBC News. 'The families have waited far too long to see justice for these horrible murders and this office is prepared and will continue to respond to all challenges that might occur between now and the executions.'
The two men are among seven inmates Arkansas plans to put to death over a 11-day period. The filing is among a flurry of lawsuits aimed at halting the executions, as Arkansas' decision to rush multiple executions has been put under a microscope.
Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchingson's administrations scheduled the unrelenting pace of the multiple executions using the explanation that one of its lethal injection drugs, midazolam, will expire at the end of the month and it was not evident when the state could expect a replenishment of the hard to come by drug.
Death row inmates are strapped to gurneys, like this one, before being injected with lethal drugs. In Arkansas, they use a cocktail that includes the controversial sedative midazolem
There is some controversy around the use of midazolam the sedative that puts the inmates to sleep before the other drugs stop their hearts in lethal injections.
While Arkansas lawyers have said that the drug has been successfully used in other states and that its injection protocols fall within constitutional guidelines, medical experts have said that the drug is not even suitable as a surgical anesthetic, reports Reuters.
DATES ARKANSAS DEATH ROW INMATES ARE SCHEDULED FOR EXECUTION Don Davis, 54 - April 17 Bruce Ward, 70 - April 17 Ledelle Lee, 51 - April 20 Stacey Johnson, 48 - April 20 Jack Jones Jr., 52 - April 24 Marcel Williams, 46 - April 24 Kenneth Williams, 35 - April 27 Advertisement
In addition, lethal injection cocktails including midazolam reportedly resulted in problematic executions in Oklahoma, Arizona and other states. There, witnesses said that the inmates were clearly in pain and suffering while on the death chamber gurneys.
The seven men scheduled for execution would be the first to be put to death in Arkansas in 12 years. They would also be the highest number of executions in a row since the death penalty was reinstated in Arkansas in 1976.
Eight men were originally scheduled to be put to death before the end of the month, but Jason McGehee, 40, was given a stay after his parole board successfully argued that he should have his sentenced reverted to life in prison.
The remaining seven men are scheduled to be executed between April 17 to 27.
A Colorado newspaper has discovered 40-year-old, unseen photos of serial killer Ted Bundy smiling for the cameras as he is led down the steps of a courthouse.
The images of the man who admitted murdering 30 women were locked in an antique safe in the newsroom of the Glenwood Springs Post Independent.
They portray the anxious times in 1977 when Bundy escaped from local law enforcement agencies twice in six months.
He escaped from the same courthouse just six days earlier and was caught after a huge manhunt.
Bundy was then brought back to wait for his murder trial in Colorado.
He was also suspected of murders in Florida, Utah and Washington and was eventually executed in Florida in 1989.
Serial killer Ted Bundy, then 30, center, is escorted out of court in Pitkin County, Colorado in 1977. The Glenwood Springs Post-Independent discovered the 40-year-old photo of Bundy, along with others, that had been locked in an old safe in the newsroom, which a local locksmith volunteered to open. The photos show Bundy in custody in 1977, the year he escaped from local law enforcement twice while awaiting a murder trial
Before he died, he confessed to killing 30 women across the country. But he is suspected of killing, or attempting to kill, even more.
It's not clear when the photos were placed in the Glenwood Springs safe, which was being used as a table in the newsroom.
No one currently at the newspaper knew the combination, or what was inside, but local locksmith Wayne Winton was curious when he spotted the safe and volunteered to crack it.
In this 1977 photo serial killer Ted Bundy, center, is escorted out of court in Pitkin County, Colorado. Bundy astonished and terrified the public at the time for being one of the first serial killers that came to the public's attention for not only his demonic killing spree in which he mainly targeted college women, but also his good looks, polished demeanor, and the brazenness with which he abducted women often in broad daylight, once two in one day
The negatives were locked in a combination safe made by the Moosler Safe Co, which had long gone out of business. A local locksmith, Wayne Winton, offered to try to crack it open
Inside were some documents, a little cash and envelopes containing negative film, one marked 'Bundy Capture.'
In the photos, taken in June 1977, Bundy was 30, reported the Post Independent.
Bundy had been arrested in Utah in 1975 and was convicted the next year of kidnapping a woman there. He was then brought to Colorado to face murder charges in the death of a woman who disappeared from a ski resort in Aspen.
On June 6, 1977, he was at the Pitkin County Courthouse in Aspen, researching in the law library because he planned to defend himself.
The negatives contained not only pictures of Bundy being hauled back to jail, but the manhunt that ensued both times he escaped - once he found in the mountains of Colorado, the second time near Alabama and transferred to Florida, where he was suspected of killing two young co-eds and a 12-year-old girl
He jumped out a second-floor window and fled.
Bundy was recaptured six days later, found wandering in the nearby mountains. One of the most creepy photos in the series were of Bundy being hauled back to jail by police, a wide grin on his face.
Other photos displayed the panic on show at the time: shotgun-wielding police officers searching vehicles at roadblocks, tracking dogs sniffing Bundy's shirt, and even a hitchhiker holding a sign reassuring drivers that 'I AM NOT BUNDY,' according to the Post Independent.
Despite his vanishing act, Bundy managed to escape once more that year. He was being held in the Garfield County jail in Glenwood Springs, about 40 miles northwest of Aspen.
A tracking dog was given one of Bundy's shirts to sniff, hoping he could pick up the serial killer's scent
But on December 31, 1977, he sawed a hole in the ceiling of his cell and managed to crawl out of the jail.
This time, the escape would prove deadly for three women in Florida, as Bundy had made his way there and even managed to rent an apartment and live an anonymous life despite the target of a countrywide manhunt.
Bundy was re-arrested in Florida in February 1978 and charged with the murders of two young women who were inside their Florida State University Chi Omega sorority house and a 12-year-old girl abducted outside of her school in Lake City, all killed in the weeks after his second Colorado escape.
He died in Florida's electric chair on January 24, 1989. A large crowd gathered outside the prison, many holding signs celebrating his death.
Bundy was born in 1946 to an unwed mother who lied to him by claiming that she was in fact his older sister and that his grandparents were in fact his parents.
He was raised in the Philadelphia home of his maternal grandparents.
Bundy spent the early years of his life being raised by his maternal grandparents. His grandfather, Samuel Cowell, was particularly violent, according to a biography of Bundy (above)
In interviews, Bundy spoke warmly of his grandfather, Samuel Cowell, despite the fact that he was known to family members as a tyrannical bully and a bigot who beat his wife and the family dog and swung neighbourhood cats by their tails.
In one instance, Samuel Cowell threw Bundys aunt down a flight of stairs for oversleeping.
These revelations were written about in a book titled The Only Living Witness: The True Story of Serial Sex Killer Ted Bundy.
The books authors, Stephen Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth, came to discover that Bundy would resent his mother for lying to him about who his parents were.
The identity of his biological father has never been definitively determined.
At a young age, Bundy was said to have been prone to strange behaviour.
His aunt, Julia, recalled waking up one day from a nap in her parents home only to find herself surrounded by knives taken from the kitchen.
Bundy, who was three years old at the time, stood by his aunts bed, smiling.
As an adolescent, he was said to have been fascinated by pictures of naked women as well as real-life detective stories involving sex crimes and sexual violence.
Bill O'Reilly has been replaced by guest host Dana Perino on The O'Reilly Factor on Wednesday night as the embattled Fox News host begins his 'vacation' - his longest time off in a decade.
Fox would not discuss whether network executives influenced the duration or timing of O'Reilly's break, as the host faces an internal investigation into sexual harassment claims against him.
But his vacation announcement immediately set off speculation about whether cable television's most popular host will return at all.
Bill O'Reilly (right) has been replaced by guest host Dana Perino (left) on The O'Reilly Factor as the embattled Fox News host begins his 'vacation' - his longest time off in a decade
The Fox host left on Wednesday for the two-week trip to Italy - including a visit to the Vatican, theNew York Times reports.
O'Reilly claimed that he booked the time off months ago and often likes to go on vacation at the time of year, but this is the first time he's taken such a long break at this time of year in a decade.
Perino, a Fox News contributor and co-host of The Five, stepped in to replace O'Reilly on Wednesday. She was also the first Republican woman to serve as the White House press secretary.
'Hi, I'm Dana Perino, in for Bill O'Reilly who is on vacation,' she introduced herself on Wednesday.
During the show, she interviewed White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, touching on his blunder yesterday when he claimed that Hitler never used chemical weapons against civilians.
Bret Baier is due to host Thursday's show and Greg Gutfeld will fill in Friday this week and next, while Perino will return to take O'Reilly's chair from Monday through Thursday next week.
'Other than the vacation guest hosts, The Factor broadcast will remain unchanged,' Mark Fabiani, an attorney representing the host, said by e-mail to Bloomberg.
Eric Bolling hosted in O'Reilly's absence last year. Laura Ingraham, Juan Williams, Michelle Malkin and John Kasich have all subbed on 'The O'Reilly Factor.'
O'Reilly said he likes to take vacation around this time and that he booked this year's break in October to coincide with his children's spring break, Fabiani said.
That would appear to stave off stories that the cable host had been pressured to make himself scarce for a while. His show has seen an advertiser exodus since reports emerged of settlements reached with five women to keep quiet about harassment accusations.
Perino, a Fox News contributor and co-host of The Five, stepped in to replace O'Reilly on Wednesday
During the show, she interviewed White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, touching on his blunder yesterday when he claimed that Hitler never used chemical weapons against civilians
'I grab some vacation, because it's spring and Easter time,' O'Reilly said Tuesday. 'Last fall, I booked a trip that should be terrific.'
Transcripts over the last decade show O'Reilly has taken at least some time off in March or April every year, although usually they amount to long weekends. He took a week off at the end of March last year. He appeared to be away for six consecutive days in April 2010, although not every night's transcript was available for that time. O'Reilly usually takes vacation time in August, too.
Dozens of advertisers announced they would not run commercials on 'The O'Reilly Factor' following a New York Times story on April 2 that the five women have been paid a total of $13 million in settlements. O'Reilly has denied any wrongdoing.
The amount of ad time by paying customers on his show has since been cut by more than half, an analysis by Kantar Media revealed.
The stories haven't cut into his audience, though. 'The O'Reilly Factor' averaged more viewers the week after the report than it did the week before, the Nielsen company said. O'Reilly this year has seen the biggest ratings of his career.
Joe Muto, a former Fox producer who used to work with O'Reilly, said he wouldn't be surprised if the vacation was O'Reilly's idea. The pugnacious O'Reilly is used to political attacks, but is bothered when criticism reaches the broader culture, noting last weekend's 'Saturday Night Live' skit with Alec Baldwin impersonating O'Reilly and John Oliver suggesting on HBO that he wanted to buy ad time on O'Reilly's show.
'He has to lay low, and as long as another shoe doesn't drop, it could blow over for him,' said Muto, who wrote 'An Atheist in the Fox Hole' in 2013 about his experiences as an anonymous 'mole' writing his experiences working at Fox.
Dozens of advertisers announced they would not run commercials on 'The O'Reilly Factor' following a New York Times story on April 2 that the five women have been paid a total of $13 million in settlements
Joe Muto said O'Reilly is used to political attacks, but is bothered when criticism reaches the broader culture, noting last weekend's 'Saturday Night Live' skit with Alec Baldwin impersonating O'Reilly (pictured)
Since last weekend, Fox's parent 21st Century Fox said it has asked the same law firm that investigated harassment charges against former Fox News chief Roger Ailes last year to look into another woman's claim that spurning O'Reilly's sexual advances slowed her career.
The vacation plans set off a round of palace intrigue. New York magazine reported anonymous sources suggesting some division among the Murdoch family that runs 21st Century Fox. The magazine said that while family patriarch Rupert Murdoch and his son, Lachlan, wanted to keep O'Reilly, son James would like to see him taken off the air. The company declined to comment Wednesday.
The Fox issues have spilled over into Britain, where Murdoch is attempting to gain full control of broadcaster Sky PLC. British media regulator Ofcom is reviewing public interest issues surrounding 21st Century Fox's plan to buy the shares it doesn't already own in Sky. It and the U.K. competition regulator are due to report next month to Culture Secretary Karen Bradley, who will decide whether to approve the takeover.
Fox already owns 39 percent of Sky, a broadcasting and broadband company with operations throughout Europe. An earlier attempt to buy the remaining shares was scuttled by the 2011 phone-hacking scandal that rocked Murdoch's British newspapers.
On Wednesday U.S. online civil liberties group Color of Change wrote to U.K. media regulator Ofcom, urging it to investigate racial discrimination and sexual harassment at Fox News and 21st Century Fox before allowing the bid for Sky to move forward.
A destructive disease outbreak has devastated Queensland's prawn farming industry and forced prices to surge ahead of Easter's peak seafood period.
The highly contagious disease - known as white spot - has infected Australian prawns and restaurants have hiked the price of seafood dishes which feature the beloved crustacean, as wholesale prices hit $42 a kilogram.
Chefs have placed signs in restaurant windows warning incoming customers of hefty prawn prices, while other establishments have wiped prawns off the menu entirely, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.
The white spot disease has infected prawns and forced retailers to hike prices and restaurants to drop them off the menu entirely
White spot disease was first detected on Australian shores late 2016, and is believed to have been introduced to Queensland prawn farms by fishers who bought infected prawns from retailers to use as bait in local waters.
It was discovered in six major farms in southeastern Queensland, costing over $25million in damages and even forcing the closure of some.
Since the outbreak, the entire hospitality industry has suffered from prawn shortages and the rising cost of the wholesale seafood from retailers.
The Sydney Fish Market has assured its customers that its prawns are safe to eat and says prices won't change from last Christmas.
'Sydney Fish Market sympathises with prawn farmers affected by the outbreak of white spot. The disease has been devastating for the industry but thankfully only a small portion of Australias prawn supply have been impacted,' spokesperson Kelly Seagrave told Daily Mail Australia.
'It is important to remember that Australian prawns are safe to eat and supply of local wild caught and farmed Prawns has been amped up for Easter so there are plenty of prawns for everyone. Consumers can expect to pay the same prices that they were at Christmas time.'
Prices have risen to $42 per kilogram as the prawn farming industry struggled with low supply
The white spot virus affected prawn farms in Queensland - pictured above shrimp farm in North Queensland
A prawn drought in the middle of the Easter period has meant restaurants and supermarkets feel the pressure to provide an extra supply - and prices have reached an average of $36 to $42 per kilogram.
An investigation by the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources in December last year found the white spot disease was not found in wild prawns, and warned recreational fishers to not use prawns meant for human consumption as bait.
'To reduce the risk associated with product already in the country, the department is working closely with major retailers to withdraw infected product from the market,' the department said.
'The source of the outbreak of white spot disease in south-east Queensland has not been determined. There are a number of possible pathways, such as contaminated imported feed, probiotics, contaminated equipment, overseas visitors, poor on-farm biosecurity practices, and brood stock, as well as imported uncooked prawns used as bait.'
Prawns are a high demand seafood in Australia during the busy Easter period (stock image)
However Australian supermarkets Coles and Woolworths appear to be be selling prawns for far less than $42 per kilogram.
Fresh cooked tiger prawns are for sale at Coles for $25/kg, and raw giant ocean tiger prawns cost $34/kg.
At Woolworths, large tiger prawns are selling for $29.99/kg and raw giant tiger prawns for $35/kg.
An Connecticut man wearing an NRA t-shirt was arrested for pulling a gun on his former neighbor during a drunken argument, police say.
Mario Williams of Shelton, Connecticut was taken into custody after being accused of pointing a gun at his ex-neighbor and using it to threaten him during a dispute as they stood outside a local grocery store in the early evening of April 10.
When cops arrived at the Wooster Street Market in Shelton, they found Williams, 58, clad in a heather grey NRA t-shirt, with the gun still in his possession.
Mario Williams, 58, was wearing a NRA t-shirt and 'intoxicated' when he allegedly pulled a gun on his former neighbor during an argument outside a local market in Connecticut
In a press release, Detective Richard Bango said that after arriving on the scene, police officers spoke with Williams' unnamed former neighbor, who told the cops that they had been "arguing over neighborhood issues," when Williams pulled out a handgun and pointed it at him.
Det. Bango added that, Wiliams was discovered to be under the influence.
Williams was charged with first degree reckless endangerment, second degree threatening, breach of peace and carrying a firearm under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
He was released from jail on $2,500 bail and is due to appear in Derby Superior Court on April 24.
Commuters making their way to work on a morning train have been left shaken after a man unleashed a racially abusive attack towards other passengers.
The shocking moment the man verbally attacked a number of passengers on a South Morang train, in Melbourne's inner north, was captured on video by a commuter.
Footage of the vile incident, which has since been posted to social media, shows the man's expletive-laden rant and his racial attack against one passenger who he called 'Chinese scum'.
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Commuters making their way to work on a morning train in Melbourne have been left shaken, after a man (pictured) unleashed a racially motivated attack towards other passengers
The video begins with the aggressive man yelling 'what are you going to do?' at one passenger.
Although he's being held back a female friend who urges him to 'settle', he continues to be aggressive towards the other passengers, particularly an Asian man.
'Trouble ain't coming from me mate... you f***** listen here,' he says.
With one woman seemingly reduced to tears and pleading with him to step off the train, the man tells her that she's 'alright' before launching into a tirade.
Footage of the vile incident, which has since been posted to social media, shows the man's expletive-laden rant and his racial attack against one passenger who he called 'Chinese scum'
After abusing passengers for more than one minute, the man was encouraged by one of his male friends to step off the train at the next stop, the man disembarks at Northcote station
'It's this b**** here and this Chinese scum, calling me f****** Goku scum,' he yells.
'They f****** started it, you can f****** hear them.'
After being encouraged by one of his male friends to step off the train at the next stop, the man disembarks at Northcote station.
As passengers yell insults at him as he walks off, the man returns for one final barrage of abuse.
'You're f***** scum,' he screams, before telling passengers they should be 'sticking up him, not that Jew b****'.
'You're f***** scum,' the man screamed, before telling passengers they should be 'sticking up him, not that Jew b****'
It's unclear who instigated the incident, however one eye witness spoke about the tirade to Melbourne radio station 3AW.
'It was unprovoked altogether; there was absolutely no malice from any of the individuals sitting on the train,' she said.
Melbourne's train operator Metro Trains are investigating the incident, while it has also been referred to Victoria Police.
A groundbreaking judge was found dead inNew York City's Hudson River on Wednesday, police said.
Sheila Abdus-Salaam's body was spotted floating in the water after her husband reported her missing the day before.
The 65-year-old judge was fully clothed, with no obvious signs of trauma suggesting foul play, the New York Post reported.
Abdus-Salaam, a classmate of former Attorney General Eric Holder at Columbia Law School, became the first African-American woman to serve on New York's Court of Appeals.
Sheila Abdus-Salaam's body was spotted floating in the Hudson River around 1.45pm on Wednesday. She was pronounced dead before her husband identified her
The 65-year-old judge (pictured with NY Governor Andrew Cuomo) was found fully clothed, with no obvious signs of trauma suggesting foul play, the New York Post reported
Witnesses noticed Abdus-Salaam's body floating in the water near 132nd Street and Hudson Parkway in Manhattan at around 1.45pm and called 911, police said.
The 65-year-old, who had been reported missing from her Harlem home the day before, was removed from the river and pronounced dead at the pier before her husband identified her body.
The medical examiner has not determined a cause of death and an investigation is ongoing.
Abdus-Salaam was noted for being the first African-American woman to serve on New York's Court of Appeals when she was appointed by Governor Andrew Cuomo in 2013.
The judge was divorced and recently remarried Reverend Gregory Jacobs in June
Cuomo issued a statement on Wednesday, memorializing her as a 'trailblazing jurist whose life in public service was in pursuit of a more fair and more just New York for all'.
He added: 'As the first African-American woman to be appointed to the States Court of Appeals, she was a pioneer.
'Through her writings, her wisdom, and her unshakable moral compass, she was a force for good whose legacy will be felt for years to come.
'I was proud to appoint her to the states highest court and am deeply saddened by her passing.
'On behalf of all New Yorkers, I extend my deepest sympathies to her family, loved ones and colleagues during this trying and difficult time.'
New York City Mayor Bill deBlasio also paid tribute, writing: 'Deeply saddened by the tragic passing of Sheila Abdus-Salaam. She was a humble pioneer. My thoughts are with her family.'
The judge was divorced and had remarried Reverend Gregory Jacobs of the Episcopal Archdiocese of Newark, in June, the NY Daily News reported.
The couple were said to be very happy, and chose to live in separate homes, a neighbor said.
Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill deBlasio paid tribute to Abdus-Salaam, who was hailed as a 'humble pioneer'
The 65-year-old had been reported missing, and her husband identified her body after witnesses called 911
Abdus-Salaam, who was born Sheila Turner in 1952, was one of seven children.
She grew up in Washington DC with working class parents and was inspired to pursue law after the civil rights attorney Frankie Muse Freeman visited her high school.
The judge recounted the life-changing talk and said: 'She was riveting...she was doing what I wanted to do: using the law to help people.'
Abdus-Salaam, who later referred to a career in law as 'God's work', graduated from Barnard College in 1974 and received her law degree from Columbia three years later.
She was classmates with former US Attorney Eric Holder, who said during her swearing in ceremony in 2013: 'Sheila could boogie, but there was a seriousness about her, a strong sense of purpose at a relatively young age.
'She never forgot where she came from,' he added.
She was classmates with former US Attorney Eric Holder, who said during her swearing in ceremony in 2013 (pictured): 'Sheila could boogie, but there was a seriousness about her.'
Abdus-Salaam, who traced her family's history and learned her great-grandfather was a slave in Virginia, marveled at the trajectory of her life in 2014.
She said: 'All the way from Arrington, Virginia, where my family was the property of someone else, to my sitting on the highest court of the State of New York is amazing and huge.
'It tells you and me what it is to know who we are and what we can do.'
Abdus-Salaam worked as an attorney before she began her career as a judge in the Civil Court of the City of New York in 1992.
She joined the Supreme Court of New York County in 1993 before she was appointed to the highest court 20 years later, where she served until her death.
From growing much needed crops during the First World War to making jams and cakes, the WI has always cared about food.
And now the institute has gone to war with supermarkets over confusing eat by labels on products that are said to cause huge levels of food waste.
Tins, jars and bottles carry wildly different information on how long the food inside will last once opened.
The WI has gone to war with supermarkets over confusing eat by labels on products that are said to cause huge levels of food waste. Pictured, a graphic showing the differing sell-by dates
The National Federation of Womens Institutes (NFWI) is calling on supermarkets and manufacturers to come up with a standard system.
Experts claim extending the period that products can be stored and used by just one day could help prevent an astonishing 250,000 tonnes of food waste a year.
The WI found big brands tend to recommend customers can store and use products for a longer period.
Heinz says its tomato ketchup can be kept and used for up to eight weeks after being opened, but for a Waitrose own-label version it is just six weeks.
The eat by information on a jar of Hellmanns mayonnaise is three months, but just one month on the Asda equivalent.
Customers are advised to drink Highland Spring mineral water within seven days, but a similar Morrisons Yorkshire water must be drunk in three days. On tinned tomatoes, the Cirio brand suggests people can eat them for three to four days after being opened, but Co-ops own brand advises two days and for a Sainsburys product its just one day.
There is a similar pattern for tinned tuna, tinned fruit, jams, sweetcorn and chutneys.
The Government, the Food Standards Agency and supermarkets are looking at the food date label system to see if it can be improved to help tackle waste.
Currently, products tend to have a best before date as a guide to when the food or drink is likely to be most tasty. The use by date is a legal definition designed to protect consumers from eating something that might make them ill.
A WI survey found only 45 per cent of its members understood best before dates were an indicator of food quality. More than one in four 26 per cent did not know use by dates were a marker of food safety. The situation is further complicated by the fact there is no standard for storage periods after a product has been opened.
Marylyn Haines-Evans, chairman for public affairs at the NFWI, said: WI members are some of the more informed members of society about food and cookery, so the fact that they are still confused about food labelling and once-opened information is a damning indication that supermarkets must do more to help all consumers reduce their food waste and ultimately save money.
We would like supermarkets to extend the amount of time that consumers have to use a product by making all of their once-opened instructions on packaging consistent and reflective of the true open-life of the product, and for all once-opened instructions to be removed on products where food safety is not an issue.
She added: Its time for supermarkets to start publishing their food waste figures so they can really be held to account, and stop short-changing consumers on shelf-life information.
The British Retail Consortium, which speaks for supermarkets, welcomed the WIs study but would not comment on the confusion about how long food lasts once opened.
It said: Its great to see the WI highlighting the importance of date labelling. Understanding the difference between a use by and a best before date is the biggest thing we can all do to cut the millions of tonnes of food wasted.
Married Australians who purchased a white car early in the morning could be paying lower insurance premiums than others, a Senate inquiry has revealed.
Insurer's policies were evaluated alongside each other at the general insurance inquiry held in Sydney on Wednesday, exposing money-saving tips for car owners, according to The Daily Telegraph.
Government agencies and consumer group Choice also submitted evidence to the inquiry, which will determine if an independent comparison service will be beneficial for consumers.
Married Australians who purchased a white car early in the morning could be paying lower insurance premiums than others, a Senate inquiry has revealed (stock image)
Choice said during the hearing that owners of white vehicles receive lower premiums compared to others, such as drivers of red cars which are viewed to be a greater risk.
Although the difference in premium costs was initially established because white paint costs less than coloured paint, insurance companies told the inquiry owners of white cars make fewer claims.
People who buy their vehicles in the morning also seem to 'have better claims experience,' Nicholas Schofield with Allianz communications said.
As a result, insurers will begin to offer better prices to those who purchase vehicles in the morning, Mr Schofield said.
'If you are a single male, own a red car and buy your insurance late at night, you're pretty much stuffed,' Senator Nick Xenophon, who is a member of the inquiry, added.
Insurer's policies were evaluated alongside each other at the general insurance inquiry held in Sydney on Wednesday, exposing money-saving tips for car owners (stock image)
People who buy their vehicles in the morning also seem to 'have better claims experience,' Nicholas Schofield with Allianz communications told the inquiry
When inquiry members asked insurers if marital status is a factor in lower premiums, the groups said they would look into the request and report back to them, according to The Daily Telegraph.
Insurers were also pressed about a practice referred to as 'red-lining,' which excludes homes in those 'red' suburbs or streets from coverage.
'It might be more accurate to say red dots than red lines,' the Insurance Council of Australia's risk manager Karl Sullivan said.
The council's CEO Rob Whelan told the inquiry he would also look into the member's concerns insurers are providing 'kickbacks' to strata management companies.
'It's a commercial transaction which is as far as I'm aware a normal part of business in strata,' Mr Whelan said.
The inquiry will hold a second hearing in Melbourne on Thursday.
Lord Carey warned ministers risk breaking the law by discriminating against Christians facing oppression in Syria
A former Archbishop of Canterbury last night launched a stinging attack on 'politically correct' aid officials who are 'institutionally biased' against helping Christians.
Lord Carey warned ministers risk breaking the law by discriminating against Christians facing oppression in Syria.
He claimed Syrian Christians are not benefiting from British help as they avoid UN refugee camps, funded with UK aid, because of fears of persecution from rogue Islamist groups operating inside or Muslim officials who are hostile to converts to Christianity.
By staying away from the camps, Christians are missing out on food, shelter and opportunities to come to Britain in a relocation scheme.
Lord Carey, who was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1991 to 2002, said: 'In the run-up to Easter, British taxpayers will be appalled by this institutional bias against Christians by politically correct officials.
'In this the British Government is not just breaking its manifesto pledge to look after Christian refugees it also appears to be breaking the law. The conflicts in the Middle East have resulted in suffering and persecution of Christians. They have been killed or chased out of the birthplace of their faith.
'The British Government has repeatedly promised to help persecuted Christians but has done nothing. Instead Muslim officials have been put in charge of the billions of British taxpayer aid in the UNHCR camps. This is ensuring that help and aid rarely reaches the Christians.'
He added: 'The Government's asylum and aid policy in Iraq and Syria and the neighbouring countries needs to focus properly on those who need help the most.
'This will result in much more effective help for minorities like Christians and Yazidis who are facing genocide.'
In its 2015 election manifesto the Conservative Party had promised it would be 'supporting persecuted Christians in the Middle East'. Legal advice obtained by Lord Carey shows the Government could be breaching the European Convention on Human Rights for 'indirect discrimination' against minority refugees.
Christians made up nearly 10 per cent of the Syrian population before the civil war began in 2011 but they have received less than 2 per cent of the asylum places provided by Britain.
Lord Carey (pictured) was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1991 to 2002 and last night launched a stinging attack on 'politically correct' aid officials
In the first year after it was launched in September 2015, just 64 out of the 4,175 Syrians admitted to the UK were Christians.
John Pontifex, of Aid to the Church in Need, a charity helping Christians in the region, said: 'At the start of the war there were around 300,000 Christians in Aleppo, now there are as few as 30,000.
The Christian community is facing extinction in a place where Christian heritage dates back to 50AD, if not before. We will have it on our conscience if at this critical juncture it becomes clear that we acted precious little if at all to help them in their hour of greatest need.'
During visits to the region, Mr Pontifex said he had met with Christians who were too scared to seek help at the camps.
'Unless the Christians abide by Muslim customs they are not welcome,' he added.
A Government spokesman last night said: 'UK aid is provided in line with humanitarian principles, so whoever needs our help the most gets it first, regardless of race, gender or religion.
'We work with trusted partners who operate in line with those same principles of neutrality and impartiality, including in practicalities such as refugee camp management and staffing. To suggest otherwise is wrong.'
When aristocratic writer Nicholas Monsons 21-year-old son Rupert Green killed himself earlier this year after becoming addicted to skunk cannabis, he vowed that he would not let the youngsters death be in vain.
The hereditary peer began a crusade to have the highly potent skunk reclassified as a class A drug and, I can reveal, he has now won a very important ally.
Theresa May has written to Lord Monson expressing her deepest sympathy over Ruperts death and apparently suggesting there could be a change in the law.
Lord Monson's 21-year-old son Rupert Green (left) killed himself earlier this year after becoming addicted to skunk cannabis. Tragically, Monson's elder son, Alexander (right), died in 2012 in police custody in Kenya aged 28, after being arrested on suspicion of smoking cannabis
I am greatly encouraged by the Prime Ministers extremely fulsome letter, he tells me.
In it, she talks about the misuse of drugs and refers specifically to skunk, which, I think, is a first in an official letter of this kind.
She shares my concerns. Im scenting a wind of change in official thinking.
'Previously, the drug has always just been bracketed under the term cannabis. Skunk is up to 12 times stronger and should be treated differently.
Theresa May has written to Lord Monson apparently suggesting there could be a change in the law to have the highly potent skunk reclassified as a class A drug
Tragically, Monson also lost his elder son, Alexander, in 2012.
He died in police custody in Kenya at the age of 28, after being arrested on suspicion of smoking cannabis.
Monson has spent the five years since trying to prove that his son was battered to death by a police officer, while the Kenyan authorities have repeatedly blamed Alexanders death on a drug overdose.
The letter was a real surprise, because I did not know Theresa May and had never spoken to her. She wrote to me out of the blue to express her sympathy over Rupert and Alexanders deaths. I was very touched.
Rupert, a biology student at Essex University who used the surname of his mother Karen Green, had suffered from psychosis after becoming addicted to skunk. He had previously been sectioned under the Mental Health Act.
Monson adds: Theresa May has said she will follow my correspondence with the Home Office on this subject with interest.
Now Andy wades in to woo China
As DonaldTrump cranks up pressure on China over its rogue Communist ally North Korea, Britain has fired up its own diplomatic weapon: Prince Andrew.
I hear that Airmiles Andy invited the Chinese ambassador, Liu Xiaoming, to Buckingham Palace for talks on Tuesday.
The Princes spokesman refuses to comment on whether North Korea came up in conversation, saying: We never discuss private meetings.
Trump claimed in a tweet this week that North Korea is looking for trouble, going on to warn: If China decides to help, that would be great. If not, we will solve the problem without them!
Thankfully, Prince Charles, who once described the Chinese Communist leadership as appalling old waxworks, was absent and Prince Philip didnt pop his head round the door.
He has called Beijing ghastly and, while on an official visit to China, once told a group of British students: If you stay here much longer, youll all be slitty-eyed.
Tory MP to wed Cambridge don
Cameron cutie Claire Perry, 53, is set to marry Cambridge professorBill ONeill, a laser engineering expert whom she met through constituency work in Wiltshire
Cameron cutie Claire Perry left her job as a transport minister as soon as Theresa May entered Downing Street, but she has found consolation in the tender embrace of a Cambridge professor.
I hear Perry, 53, is to marry Bill ONeill, a laser engineering expert whom she met through constituency work in Wiltshire.
They are engaged, one of Perrys friends tells me. The wedding bells should be soon.
The usually voluble MP for Devizes is uncharacteristically reticent when I ring her, telling me: Private lives are just that happy Easter!
Her reluctance to talk could be linked to the awkward circumstances in which her romance with ONeill was revealed by a newspaper in 2013.
Three months earlier, she had announced she had separated from her husband, City fund manager Clayton Perry, after 17 years of marriage and dismissed the wild speculation that she was having an affair.
Our world was the first live global TV link where The Beatles played All You Need Is Love, but the BBC has pulled the plug on an ambitious special broadcast planned to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Summer Of Love event.
BBC editor Guy Freeman says some of the collaborating international producers were having trouble securing funding.
He adds: With a heavy heart, we have no choice but to put this project on hold. Clearly, all you need is money.
The nine-year-old boy who was wounded in a murder-suicide at a San Bernardino elementary school smiled from his hospital bed - just two days after the horrifying attack.
Nolan Brandy was being treated in hospital on Wednesday after he was shot by his teacher's husband, Cedric Anderson, in a classroom at North Park Elementary School on Monday.
A photo released by school officials showed Brandy in a hospital bed with a blue and white stuffed rabbit on his lap and his parents leaning over him.
His father's hand lay gently on Nolan's head as the boy smiled.
A photo released Wednesday by school officials showed Nolan Brandy, 9, smiling and recovering in a hospital bed with a blue and white stuffed rabbit on his lap as his parents leaned over him; Brandy was shot by his teacher's husband, Cedric Anderson, 53, in a classroom at North Park Elementary School in San Bernardino on Monday, officials said
Brandy and another student were behind teacher Karen Smith when Anderson, 53, began firing 10 rounds from a .357 Magnum, officials said.
The other boy, eight-year-old Jonathan Martinez, died after being rushed to a hospital.
Anderson shot and killed himself in the classroom before police arrived.
Brandy's parents, Leon and Rachel Brandy, were thankful for the outpouring of community support after the shooting, they said in a statement issued by school officials.
Jonathan Martinez, 8, was shot in a San Bernardino special-education classroom on Monday and died at a hospital; he is seen here in photo from the Bernardino City Unified School District
Karen Elaine Smith, 53, was shot and killed as she taught a special education class at North Park Elementary School in San Bernardino, California on Monday; she is seen here in a photo provided by the San Bernardino Police Department
'Please continue to pray for him and also for Jonathan Martinez's and Karen Smith's families,' the family said in the statement.
Martinez had Williams syndrome, a rare genetic disorder characterized by learning delays, mild-to-moderate intellectual disabilities and heart problems. He had previous heart surgery and school officials said he was a happy child who loved music and playing with friends.
Anderson walked into the classroom and opened fire without saying a word, San Bernardino police Chief Jarrod Burguan said.
Cedric Anderson, 53, has been identified by authorities as the person who shot to death Karen Elaine Smith, identified as his wife, and Jonathan Martinez, 8, on Monday; he is seen here in a photo provided by the San Bernardino Police Department
Lena Hammerling and her daughters Melissa, left, and Maci, right, and an unidentified child look at a sidewalk memorial on Tuesday dedicated to the teacher and student who were shot to death Monday at North Park Elementary School in San Bernardino, California
Pictured here is a sidewalk memorial on Tuesday dedicated to the teacher and student who were shot to death at North Park Elementary School in San Bernardino, California on Monday
San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan, center at podium, briefs reporters at police headquarters in San Bernardino, California on Tuesday
Anderson accused his wife earlier this year of infidelity, just one month into their marriage, though police have said there is no evidence of that.
Smith, 53, told family members that Anderson had threatened her after she moved out, but she didn't take him seriously and thought he was just seeking attention, Burguan said.
When he failed to win her back, he shot and killed her, the police chief said.
People pray on Tuesday before placing flowers at a sidewalk memorial to the teacher and student who were shot to death Monday at North Park Elementary School in San Bernardino
Jeffrey Imbriani and his grandfather Ruben Gutierrez describe their experiences on Tuesday after a teacher and student were shot to death Monday in San Bernardino
Anderson had been arrested four times since 1982, though none resulted in convictions, Burguan said. The arrests were made on suspicion of spousal battery in 2012 and suspicion of brandishing a knife in 2013. Police in Torrance were called to his home five times that year.
Anderson's ex-wife filed for a restraining order against him in 1996, after he told her he would kill her and her children and take his own life when she refused to pay for their divorce, the woman wrote in court documents.
One of Anderson's girlfriends was granted a restraining order in 2013 after she said he held a pillow over her face, according to court papers. Attempts to reach members of Anderson's family have been unsuccessful.
Hundreds of people attended a candlelight vigil for the victims Tuesday evening at North Park Elementary. The school will remain closed until Monday, the school district's superintendent said.
After placing flowers on Tuesday, people turn away from a sidewalk memorial for the teacher and student who were shot to death Monday in San Bernardino
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Australian surfer Sally Fitzgibbons was left in a world of pain after slicing her foot in competition at the Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach.
Fitzgibbons, 26, was seen emerging from the water clutching a bloody left foot and with a look of extreme agony on her face after falling awkwardly from her surfboard.
The current joint world number one was navigating her way through the waves in her round three heat on Wednesday when disaster struck.
Surfer Sally Fitgibbons clutches her foot in agony after suffering an injury while competing in her third round heat at the Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach on Wednesday
Blood could be seen dripping from the foot of surfer Sally Fitzgibbons after she suffered a nasty cut in competition
Fitzgibbons fell awkwardly from her surfboard while competing in her round-three heat
It is understood Fitzgibbons's surfboard fin sliced open her foot after she fell during competition
It is understood the surfboard fin sliced open her foot.
Fitzgibbons received three stitches in her foot, on what was the opening day of the contest, forcing her to retire from her heat.
She is now in a race against time to maintain her place in the competition after the painful accident.
She has a crucial extra 24 hours of recovery time before deciding if she will continue her quest for a third Bells Beach crown.
Fitzgibbons was said to be in a world of pain after the accident and required injections by medical staff and three stitches
Fitzgibbons' bloody foot, and look of agony, were in full view as she emerged from the water after falling awkwardly in competition
Fitzgibbons (pictured) now has a crucial 24 hour period of recovery to see if she will continue in the competition
Organisers of the world-famous event have called a lay day for Thursday and will assess conditions again on Friday morning.
Fitzgibbons, who won last week's Margaret River Pro and captured back-to-back Bells Beach titles in 2011-12, has slipped into a round four sudden-death clash with Hawaii's Tatiana Weston-Webb.
Those who know her expect the 26-year-old to tough it out like she did when she ignored a perforated eardrum to win the 2015 Fiji Pro.
She took to Instagram to post a photo of herself recovering from her agonising accident and to thank supports for their well-wishes.
'Another awesome tale to tell from Bells. Thanks for sending me all your love and good vibes,' she wrote.
There were concerns Fitzgibbons had severed a tendon on Wednesday due to the amount of blood she lost and the pain she was in.
Fitzgibbons took to Instagram to post a photo of herself recovering from her agonising accident
A cool, calm and collected Stephanie Gilmore, of Australia, rides the waves during her second heat contest at the Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach on Wednesday
No sweat off my back: Ella Williams, of New Zealand, takes a stand as she manoeuvres her way through the middle of a wave
Australian Keely Andrew took a tumble from her board during her heat and was forced forward by a wave
A determined Bronte Macaulay, of Australia, navigates her way through the waves in her second heat contest
An animated Sage Erickson, of the U.S., performs a balancing act as she cuts through a wave
World Surf League's Jessi Miley-Dyer said Fitzgibbons was in a lot of pain after the accident and needed injections as medical staff tried to assess the extent of the wound.
'She has a pretty big gash on her foot, on the top,' Miley-Dyer said.
'I don't know how deep... but there is a fair bit of blood.
'They've given her a couple of needles, just to be able to see better, how deep it is and do a little bit of exploration.
'It's kind of a tricky place, on the top of your foot there - it's not a big gash, but it is pretty solid.'
Silvana Lima, of Brazil, (at left and right) has a swell time as she competes at Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach
Courtney Conlogue, of the U.S., on full flex as she rides a wave in her third heat against Coco Ho
Lakey Peterson (at left) and Carissa Moore (at right) show off their surfing skills as they battle the waves at Victoria's Bells Beach
Silvana Lima, of Brazil, is a picture of determination as she holds steady to stay on her board after slicing through a wave
Coco Ho (at left) and Ella Williams (at right) in action at the Rip Curl Pro at Victoria's Bells Beach on Wednesday
Fitzgibbons shares the world No.1 ranking with compatriot Stephanie Gilmore after two rounds.
Gilmore also faces a do-or-die fourth-round meeting with Brazil's Silvana Lima.
First-round heats of the men's competition will be held when the tournament resumes, with Australia's three-time world champion Mick Fanning up first against Matt Wilkinson and Jadson Andre.
An ecstatic Silvana Lima, of Brazil, waves to fans after defeating Australian Laura Enever in their second heat match-up
A plethora of surfing fans gathered on Wednesday to watch the round two heats of the Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach
Teachers have threatened to put a nail in the coffin of the Governments Sats programme by boycotting all primary school testing.
It may mean hundreds of thousands of pupils are stopped from taking the tests, aimed at measuring progress and identifying issues.
A major teaching union voted yesterday in favour of shunning the assessments, over fears they cause suffering and stress to children.
The Association of Teachers and Lecturers, which has around 200,000 members, wants to join forces with other teaching unions to bring the testing regime to its knees. If successful, it would plunge the Governments plans for reforms into chaos.
Teachers have threatened to put a nail in the coffin of the Governments Sats programme by boycotting all primary school testing
The boycott could come as early as 2019, and would mean all union members in schools would refuse to administer the tests.
However, any boycott would need the support of other unions, and all of them would have to ballot members beforehand.
The move would be a blow to Education Secretary Justine Greening, who last month announced plans to abandon tests for seven-year-olds. She was criticised at the time for giving in to demands by the unions. Previous Tory education secretaries have strongly advocated the need for testing at that age.
Give chess lessons to boost brainpower Chess should be given the same status as sports, with schools given funding to teach it, teachers have argued. They said the Government should recognise it as a mind sport because of its brain training qualities. The Association of Teachers and Lecturers urged ministers to make sure each child is offered chess lessons at school. This would help the confidence of less sporty pupils, they said. But they added that chess should not replace traditional sports. Hank Roberts, former ATL president, said the UK is one of the few countries that does not recognise chess as a sport. He added: This is a very, very cheap and easy way to give lots and lots of kids an improvement in their thinking skills. Azra Haque, a teacher from north-west London, said: One of the best ways to prevent the mind decaying is by using your brains processor. Great ways to do this are playing chess, Scrabble and some other board games. But Emma Parker, an ATL member from Durham, said: We have other items that should be a higher priority. Studies have shown playing chess can boost memory and problem-solving skills. Many schools run lunchtime chess clubs, but it is not compulsory and does not receive funding in the way sports do. Advertisement
Under Miss Greenings plans, testing for 11-year-olds will remain and a baseline test for five-year-olds will be introduced so progress can be measured.
But the ATL said she had not gone far enough and demanded an end to all compulsory national tests in primaries.
At the unions conference in Liverpool, Jean Roberts, a teacher from north-west London, said: The time has come to put the nail in the coffin of testing. Our children deserve better.
Michael Catty, a delegate from Hertfordshire, added: Education in this country is in a pit and it will get deeper and deeper. It has been dug by the twin evils of testing and league tables. Combine those two together and education doesnt count.
We cant do anything about league tables. But we can do something about testing. Nobody wants it Lets get rid of it. Delegates resolved to explore a possible boycott of primary testing.
Sats tests in reading, writing and maths are held in May, and it is understood no national action by the union will take place this year.
For a boycott to be effective, it would need support from the NAHT, the main union for primary school teachers, and the National Union of Teachers (NUT).
The ATL is due to merge with the NUT later this year. Members of the latter are set to vote on a similar boycott motion this weekend. A previous official boycott of Sats, in 2010, affected a quarter of primaries in England, and tens of thousands of pupils.
A Department for Education spokesman said it wanted testing that measures the progress fairly and accurately, recognises teachers professionalism in assessing their pupils, and does not impose a disproportionate burden.
He added that the department was consulting with teachers on a number of proposals.
A controversial imam has claimed he was sent an obscene email threatening to have his mother raped by camels.
Shia preacher Mohammad Tawhidi last week revealed he had been driven into hiding by a chilling threat where a $5000 bounty was placed on his head.
And Tawhidi this week posted an emailed copy of an apparent follow-up message, which suggested he get intimate with a kangaroo.
The email subject line was 'f*** you' and the text called him a 'Jewish piece of s***'. It said: 'We see through you, you might think you have it easy but just you wait'.
Mohammad Tawhidi - pictured here at a rally - has been praised by the conservative side of politics but criticised by others who have questioned his religious credentials
The emailed threat the sheikh claimed to have received this week
Tawhidi - celebrated by some as 'the renegade imam' and criticised by others who have questioned his religious credentials - has attracted headlines only recently.
He started an organisation called the Islamic Association of South Australia and has become a regular media commentator.
The IT-educated preacher has called for Islamic schools to be shut down. He attended an Islamic school in Western Australia himself.
Tawhidi did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday and has claimed to have gone into hiding.
Now living in Adelaide, Tawhidi is the son of a Perth imam, who he asked not to be named given the apparent threats to his safety.
The imam claims he has gone into hiding after he received a number of threats
His Iraqi family moved from Iran to Australia in 1995 and he says he makes a living through being an entrepreneur and property investments.
He admitted to Daily Mail Australia he was sympathetic to the conservative side of politics.
When asked about the apparent threats to Sheikh Tawhidi last week, a South Australian police spokeswoman said: 'We are unable to provide information relating to an individual member of the public and whether they have sought police assistance.'
In response to his claims of being 'assaulted' to the Australian newspaper, the spokeswoman said: 'We can advise however that there have been no incidents relating to the removal of persons from a mosque or similar place as you have indicated.'
Dorinda Medley is back for a new season of Real Housewives of New York, and has already made a new friend in fellow castmate Tinsley Mortimer.
The always opinionated and amusing Dorinda chatted with DailyMail.com about what to expect this season from the ladies of New York, and said things will be much more fun and far less dark, comparing it to 'Sex and the City.'
And for those hoping to see more of Dorinda she confessed that she was finally exploring possible ways to extend her brand, but offered no other hints of what might be to come.
She also said there will be less of boyfriend John Medhessian on the new season as well as daughter Hannah, who moved out of Dorinda's apartment just two months ago.
There will be lots of Tinsley though, and Dorinda said that she and the newest New York housewife had a bit of slow start when it came to hitting it off, but are now forming a real friendship.
Dorinda Medley is back for a new season of Real Housewives of New York, and has already made a new friend in fellow castmate Tinsley Mortimer
Dorinda (second from right) admitted it was jarring that Tinsley (far right) announced within seconds of meeting her that she had a mugshot, but the two have since grown closer
'She's really interesting,' said Dorinda of Tinsley.
'I didn't know anything about her so it was really fun getting to know her.'
Dorinda did admit however that it was a bit jarring at first, with Tinsley announcing within seconds of meeting her that she had a mugshot.
'It was a bit much,' admits Dorinda.
'I almost wanted to day, "Oh my god. Did you buy a frame for it?"'
Also making things difficult was the fact that Tinsley was living with Sonja Morgan, who after last season was not on the best terms with Dorinda.
'I wasn't even sure if she was going to accept me,' said Dorinda.
In the end though, she feel for Tinsley's 'southern charm.'
Things gets difficult for the new girl said Dorinda though, who said that Tinsley has to deal with some past issues as she come sailing back into the city.
Tinsley Mortimer in her April 2016 mugshot after she was arrested for trespassing at the home of her ex-boyfriend Nico Fanjul
Mortimer was one of the biggest names on the Manhattan society scene in the early and mid aughts, having moved to the city to attend college at Columbia where she earned a degree in art history.
She transferred to the prestigious Ivy League university from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in order to be closer to Topper.
Mortimer then scored the job a million girls would kill for when she began working as a beauty assistant at Vogue straight out of school.
From there, Mortimer moved into public relations, joining the team at Harrison and Shriftman where she worked as an event planner.
Mortimer's big moment came around 2006 when the public and press took a new interest in the city's young socialites, who at the time included Byrdie Bell, Olivia Palermo, Fabiola Beracasa, Amanda Hearst, and Lauren Santo Domingo (nee Davis) to name just a few.
There was even a website dedicated to ranking the women called Socialite Rank.
None of these women were covered more than Mortimer however, and she soon leveraged her newfound fame to launch a line of handbags with Samantha Thavasa and a clothing line, Riccime by Tinsley Mortimer, which were both available in Japan.
Her former Vogue co-worker Plum Sykes also included a character that was loosely based on her in her 2004 novel Bergdorf Blondes.
Mortimer soon began to command as much as $10,000 to host an event and was named a brand ambassador for Dior, which allowed her to launch her own lip gloss for the high fashion house.
She called the shade Tinsley Pink.
Tinsley told police she had been assaulted by Alexander Fanjul (right) on numerous occasions. The left photo was taken by police on December 31, 2013
Mortimer was also frequently name dropped on the show Gossip Girl, which detailed the lives of a group of wealthy private school kids in New York City. She later appeared in a cameo role on the show's second-season premiere.
In 2010, the same network that aired Gossip Girl, the CW, gave Mortimer her own reality series called High Society.
The show followed Mortimer as she posed for photo shoots, picked out clothes and hopped from party to party in the Big Apple.
It also starred Mortimer's sister Dabney Mercer, Social Life editor Devorah Rose and Paul Johnson Calderon.
The show was not a hit with critics or viewers however, leading to its cancellation after eight episodes and much public ridicule for Mortimer.
At the same time, Mortimer's marriage to Topper, her high school sweetheart, had come to an end.
Mortimer's big moment came around 2006 when the public and press took a new interest in the city's young socialites. Pictured with Ivanka Trump in 2008
Mortimer, who grew up in Richmond, Virginia, met Topper while the two attended the prestigious Lawrenceville School in New Jersey.
The two eloped when they were just 18, but Mortimer's parents - real estate investor George and interior designer Dale - forced her to annul the marriage. They wed again in May 2002 in Mortimer's hometown of Richmond.
Reports that the two had split began to circulate in early 2009 and the pair divorced a year later.
There were also allegations that Mortimer had begun a relationship with a member of German royalty, Prince Casimir Wittgenstein-Sayn, while still married to Topper.
Topper is heir to the Standard Oil fortune thanks to his grandfather Henry Morgan Tilford, who was a president at the company. His family can trace their routes back to John Jay, author of the Federalist Papers.
Pictured, Mortimer with ex-husband Topper Mortimer in 2007. Reports that the two had split began to circulate in early 2009 and the pair divorced a year later
He is the son of magazine editor Senga Mortimer and brother of designer Minnie Mortimer, who is married to Oscar-winning writer Stephen Gaghan.
Since his split from Mortimer, the notoriously press shy hedge fund manager has had relationships with Vogue staffer Valerie Boster and shoe designer Tabitha Simmons.
He and Simmons recently became engaged.
Mortimer moved down to Palm Beach soon after she and her ex finalized their divorce, and has dated former American Idol contestant Constantine Maroulis and Prince Lorenzo Borghese, who was on the ninth season of The Bachelor.
She has released her first book shortly after moving to Florida, Southern Charm. It tells the story of a girl from down South who moves to Manhattan and quickly becomes an 'It Girl.'
Mortimer also launched a line of home goods last year, hoping to achieve the success of another blond socialite who built herself a billion dollar empire - Tory Burch.
A teenage couple and their newborn daughter have been found after they allegedly abducted the three-day-old girl from a hospital in Sydney's west.
Jenifer Morrison, 15, and Jayden Lavender, 14, hid their daughter Aria Jayde Lavender under a blanket as they allegedly took her from Nepean Hospital in Penrith at about 12.30am on Thursday, police claim.
Officers confirmed the trio had been found 'safe and well' in Willmot, in western Sydney, at about 4.15pm.
Jenifer and Jayden went unnoticed by hospital staff and were believed to have left on foot without permission.
NSW police officers said they were concerned for the welfare of all three children given the newborn still needs medical assistance and the mother gave birth just days ago. An alert for the teens was broadcast every 15 minutes by police.
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A 15-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy (pictured together) who allegedly abducted their three-day-old baby from Nepean Hospital in Penrith at about 12.30am on Thursday have been found 'safe and well'
Officers said they were concerned for the welfare of all three children (pictured is Aria Jayde Tanya Lavender just moments after she was born)
Jayden's mother Tracy Lavender posted images of Aria (pictured with Jayden) just moments after she was born to Facebook
Tracy Lavender, Jayden's mother and the grandmother of newborn Aria, spoke to reporters outside the hospital after the two teens and baby were found.
'The baby's healthy - seven-and-a-half pounds, I knew that my son would look after his baby and his girlfriend,' she said.
Jayden was seen cradling his newborn daughter as family members embraced him, glad that the trio were found without harm.
It's believed the two teenagers allegedly abducted their newborn baby and fled under the cover of night because they feared they might be separated from their daughter.
At the end of the day its breaking both of their hearts, theyve never done nothing wrong, Ms Lavender told reporters.
They dont want to be apart from their baby, theyre good parents.
Tracy Lavender, Jayden's mother and the grandmother of newborn Aria, spoke to reporters outside the hospital
Ms Lavender said she believed the entire ordeal happened because her son and his girlfriend feared they may be separated from their newborn daughter
'They dont want to be apart from their baby, theyre good parents,' Ms Lavender said
Penrith detective inspector Grant Healey gave an impassioned plea to the young parents on Thursday afternoon before they were found safe.
'To Jenifer and Jayden, the two parents, you're not in trouble. We'd just really appreciate if you could go to the hospital and check out to see if you're alright,' he said.
'The doctors still need to see your baby and make sure it's progressing nicely.'
Detective Insp. Healey would not comment on accusations that the teenager's were worried their child would be taken from them.
Police officers claim CCTV footage captured an adult man leaving with the children.
The hospital footage also shows the teenagers carrying what appears to baby clothes as they left, he said.
Nepean Hospital said it immediately notified police when it discovered the mother and child had not been discharged.
'We are concerned for the wellbeing of the mother and her baby and urge her to come forward,' hospital general manager Brett Williams said in a statement.
Detective Insp. Healey said police are working with the newborn's grandparents, who are helping police locate the teens.
The young couple have posted numerous pictures together on social media (pictured)
Police officers said it is believed a man is also with the children (pictured) but his identity is unknown
'To Jenifer and Jayden, the two parents, you're not in trouble. We'd just really appreciate if you could go to the hospital and check out to see if you're alright,' Penrith detective inspector Grant Healey said in a press conference (pictured)
The baby's grandparents have taken to social media to express love for the newborn, posting pictures in hospital, including one of the young father cradling his daughter wrapped in a blanket.
'My Pride and Joy ... My Grand Daughter,' the grandmother said on Facebook.
'I love you more then words. Can explain your perfect in everyway [sic].'
Jenifer and Jayden are both Caucasian and have brown hair.
Jayden is believed to be wearing black and white hooded jumper, police said.
Jenifer was last seen wearing a white hooded 'Everlast' jumper, grey tracksuit pants and 'Ugg' boots.
Officers said the pair have links to the NSW Central Coast and Mount Druitt area.
Anyone with information is urged to contact Crime Stoppers.
A woman whose former partner created fake pornographic profiles of her online claims he styled his new girlfriend to look like her, as he sent men to her home to act out rape fantasies.
Robyn Night, 37, had more than 50 men come to her house after Ryan Kotynski, 42, impersonated her on websites about rape fantasies. He was jailed for four-and-a-half years in February.
The Brisbane mother told Daily Mail Australia that Kotynski's reasoning behind his depraved actions were that he was 'lonely and depressed', despite having a girlfriend during the four-year-long ordeal.
Ms Night claims he styled his new partner to look like Ms Night as she did during their relationship.
Robyn Night, from Brisbane, pictured with husband River, said at least 50 strange men showed up at her family home over four years
Ms Night claims her former partner Ryan Kotynski, (pictured during their time together) styled his new girlfriend to look like her, as he sent men to her home to act out rape fantasies
The Brisbane mother told Daily Mail Australia that Kotynski's (pictured) reasoning behind his depraved actions were that he was 'lonely and depressed'
Looking back Ms Night realises there were clues to the identity of her tormentor after she was first contact by a strange man.
'I got a message on Facebook from a random guy who had seen pictures of me on an adult website, I thought he was trying to scam me.'
But after the stranger said he knew her address, the mother-of-one investigated further.
She was greeted with doctored photographs of her that were pornographic in nature and uploaded to her fake profiles. 'The words 'gang bang sl*t' were there in big red letters, and other pictured of naked women, who were overweight and had long black hair,' she said.
'They looked like I did before [when she and Kotynski were dating].'
But this was just the beginning, over four years beginning from 2011, the mother was receiving messages from men every day, and had 50 turn up to her house looking for the woman advertised as a 'extreme no limits slave pig'.
Kotynski and Ms Night even exchanged amicable messages online during this time, asking about each other's lives until sometime in 2012 when she gave birth to her son.
'I saw he had a girlfriend, it didn't even cross my mind he was behind it all.'
She told Daily Mail Australia she alleges the 42-year-old had got his new girlfriend to wear long black hair extensions, to mimic her own style during their time together.
'She thought he liked long black hair.'
His new partner had no idea of Kotynski's online torment of Ms Night.
The mother was so scared for her safety she installed security cameras and put up signs, pictured
Looking back Ms Night realises there were clues to the identity of her tormentor after she was first contact by a strange man
Robyn Night, from Brisbane, pictured with husband River, said she even exchanged amicable messages with her stalker until 2012, unaware he was the behind her ordeal
Robyn Night (right) and husband River leave the District Court after her ex-boyfriend's sentencing
The mother revealed how she had to install security cameras to detour strange men from knocking on her door and even changed her appearance to hide from them.
It would happen then go quiet for three or four months then I would take the signs down, and then they would turn up again.
She was constantly hounded with notes in the mail, phone calls and text messages, and men coming to her door looking to have violent sex with her.
The stress from the constant torment caused her to have a miscarriage when she was pregnant with her second child in 2014.
I found out I lost the baby at 11 weeks, but it had actually passed at five weeks and five days.
My body didnt know I had lost the baby, I was still having severe morning sickness.
It wasnt until she spotted some bleeding and went to the hospital that she learned of the devastating loss.
Photographs of Ms Night were doctored to appear pornographic in nature and were uploaded to her fake profiles
She said during the years of torment she became a recluse, afraid to even go to the park with her son in case someone from the adult sights saw her.
'It made me fearful whenever anybody knocked on the door I didn't know what they were going to do or what they were going to ask of me,' she said.
Ms Night said she contacted four different police stations to report the 'insidious' behaviour but was turned away as she had not been 'technically' assaulted.
In February, Kotynski was jailed for four-and-a-half years.
Kotynski admitted to setting up the online profiles and giving out the passwords to others, however he denied uploading the images and making some of the more offending comments.
The online profiles included Ms Night's address and phone number and directed men to rape, gang rape, or torture her.
Ms Night said during the years of torment she became a recluse, afraid to even go to the park with her son in case someone from the adult sights saw her (pictured speaking with A Current Affair)
Kotynski admitted to setting up the online profiles and giving out the passwords to others, however he denied uploading the images and making some of the more offending comments
Ms Night said during the years of torment she became a recluse, afraid to even go to the park with her son in case someone from the adult sights saw her (pictured with husband River)
Ms Night had been in a relationship with Kotynski for two years after meeting him at a pub and exchanging phone numbers.
'The next day he came over to the unit I was living in and i thought to myself "I'm going to marry this man",' she said.
They quickly moved in together but the relationship diminished soon after and the former couple began to head in different directions.
'I even tried to rekindle things after we broke up and he didnt want anything to do with me.
'I feel bad for some of the choices I made during that relationship, but nothing I could have done could have warranted his behaviour.'
A Brisbane man has been charged with a series of sexual assaults after he exposed himself to a woman before he was put under citizen's arrest.
The 39-year-old is accused of committing three allegedly linked sexual assaults on women between March 28 and April 11.
The Everton Park man was detained by a member of the public at a Brisbane shopping centre on Tuesday morning until police arrived, the Brisbane Times reports.
The Brisbane man was charged with allegedly groping and exposing himself two women (stock image)
The arrest was made after an appeal for public assistance following Queensland police investigations into the alleged assault
His charges were an attempted indecent treatment of a child under 16, another alleged attempted groping and one count of wilful exposure, police say.
One of his assaults allegedly involved him groping a 19-year-old woman's shorts, before fleeing when a passing motorist stopped.
The arrest follows an appeal for public assistance following police investigations into the alleged assaults.
Detectives are also encouraging anyone else who may have been a witness to or victim of a similar incident in the Everton Park area to report the matter to police.
The man is expected to face Brisbane Magistrates Court on Thursday.
A mother and her two young daughters have been missing for two months after mysteriously disappearing from a Melbourne suburb.
Thuy Thi Tran, 27, and her children, two-year-old Emily Nguyen and four-year-old Caysy Nguyen were last seen on February 14 in St Albans, north-west Melbourne.
Police have expressed grave concerns for the young family's welfare as both children require medical attention.
A mother and her two daughters have been missing for two months from St Albans, Melbourne (pictured)
The two girls Emily Nguyen, 4, (pictured left) and Caysy Nguyen, 2, (right) disappeared with their mother
Police believe Ms Tran and her children have been frequenting the suburbs of Avondale Heights, St Albans, Sunshine and Richmond.
Police have released an image of Thuy, Emily and Caysy in the hope someone may know their current whereabouts.
The images show Ms Tran wearing a red dress and black blazer as walked with her two young daughters on a Melbourne street.
Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Ms Tran, Emily and Caysy is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or submit a confidential crime report at www.crimestoppersvic.com.au.
Thuy Thi Tran, 27, (pictured) was last seen at St Albans, north-west of Melbourne on February 14
George W. Bush's former press secretary Dana Perino sympathized with Sean Spicer over his Hitler scandal in an interview as she appeared as guest host on The O'Reilly Factor.
White House Press Secretary Spicer sparked outrage yesterday after he compared the Nazi leader favorably with Syrian President Bashar Assad, claiming that Hitler 'didn't even sink to ... using chemical weapons.'
Trump's press secretary quickly apologized, but his garbled defense at the Tuesday press briefing drew further criticism after he referred to Hitler's death camps as 'Holocaust centers'.
The White House was forced to issue two different clarifications and then Spicer appeared on TV to apologize for the remarks.
But Spicer finally found a sympathetic ear when he appeared on The O'Reilly Factor for a live interview with guest host Perino - who is standing embattled host Bill O'Reilly while he takes a vacation.
Former Bush press secretary Dana Perino sympathized with Sean Spicer over his Hitler scandal in an interview as she appeared as guest host on The O'Reilly Factor
Perino, who had Spicer's job under George W. Bush from 2007 to 2009, told him that 'there's no job that will humble you like the White House press secretary job.'
She added that Spicer, who had apologized profusely for the blunder - including on the O'Reilly Factor - was being too hard on himself.
'Sean, were you a little harder on yourself than even the president was?' she asked him, 'Did you get a chance to talk to him?'
Spicer replied that he had spoken to Donald Trump after the blunder, describing the president as 'one of the most gracious bosses and leaders you can imagine.'
He told her that 'you are harder on yourself' because he realized he had 'an awesome responsibility and a great privilege and honor to have this position.'
He also lamented how his error had created a distraction from the president's agenda.
'I knew that it needed to be fixed and I sincerely regret what I did to other people above my own mistake,' he said.
'When you're guilty of making a mistake you recognize, at least for me, I was a little bit hard of myself because I realized I was a distraction from the great work that the president has and continues to do on behalf of this country.
'And when you overshadow his accomplishments It's disappointing to myself and I hope people will overlook it and forgive me.'
Press Secretary Sean Spicer (pictured) went on CNN Tuesday to apologize for comments he made comparing Hitler, more favorably, to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad
Spicer issued a statement after the Tuesday briefing in which he insisted: 'In no way was I trying to lessen the horrendous nature of the Holocaust'
Perino was sympathetic to Spicer telling him he was being too hard on himself
Perino, a Fox Contributor and host of The Five, assured Spicer: 'I do think you're a little harder on yourself than you need to be.'
She recalled that when she had the job, she was taught a few lessons about 'dignity, graciousness, empathy, and certainly humility'
Spicer agreed, revealing that Perino had shared some 'very sage advice' before he took his role - to be prepared as possible.
'And you're as prepared as possible and that you're as focused as possible, and obviously you see what happens when you're not, but it's an awesome responsibility, takes a lot of hard work every day but you do your best,' he said.
During yesterday's disastrous press briefing on Tuesday, Spicer told reporters: 'You look we didn't use chemical weapons in World War II,' Spicer told reporters on Tuesday.
'You know, you had a you know, someone as despicable as Hitler, who didn't even sink to ... using chemical weapons.'
'So you have to if you're Russia, is this a country that you, and a regime that you want to align yourself with?' he asked in progressively more halting, choppy English.
But as the air momentarily left the White House briefing room and one reporter yelled that the White House was neglecting Hitler's Jewish victims Spicer reached peak sputter.
The Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, a social justice group loosely tied to the late Anne Frank, called on President Donald Trump to fire Spicer shortly after he said Adolf Hitler had never used chemical weapons
Twitter was awash with fury, rage and snark as members of Congress and a former first daughter took the opportunity to pillory Spicer
'I mean, there was clearly I understand, I mean thank you I appreciate that there was not in the,' he stammered.
Hitler had 'brought them into the Holocaust centers,' Spicer acknowledged. 'And I understand that.'
'But I'm saying in the way that Assad used them, where he went into towns, dropped them down to innocent, into the middle of towns, it was brought and so, the use of it, I appreciate the clarification. That was not the intent.'
After the daily press briefing concluded, the White House issued a series of three different statements from Spicer, each meant to replace the last.
'In no way was I trying to lessen the horrendous nature of the Holocaust,' he insisted in the final draft.
'I was trying to draw a distinction of the tactic of using airplanes to drop chemical weapons on population centers. Any attack on innocent people is reprehensible and inexcusable.'
But within an hour the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, a group linked loosely with the famed girl diarist, demanded Spicer's removal as it claimed he 'engaged in Holocaust denial, the most offensive form of fake news imaginable.'
Hitler primarily used Zyklon B, a powerful cyanide gas, to exterminate Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, priests, political dissidents and other enemies of the state.
During an appearance on CNN, Spicer was asked if he was aware that Jews had been gassed during Hitler's reign, Spicer said yes.
'Yes, clearly I'm aware of that,' Spicer said, adding that he was apologizing to 'anybody who not just suffered in the holocaust or is a descendant of anybody, but frankly anyone who was offended by those comments.'
Online reactions to Spicer's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad briefing ranged from shocking to mocking.
New York Times columnist Max Fisher tried to put himself in the Trump spokesman's head.
'Spicers internal monologue: "Hmm, I need to argue that Assad is bad. Guess its time to downplay Hitler for some reason",' Fisher tweeted.
Anti-Reformist Challenger Tops Dean Angelo To Head Up Police Union
By Stephen Gossett in News on Apr 12, 2017 10:41PM
Screenshot from 'The Contract'
The controversial, ever-outspoken Dean Angelo is out as head of Chicago's major police union. Angelo lost to challenger Kevin Graham, a patrolman and stalwart opponent of police reform in Chicago, in Wednesday's runoff election.
Graham significantly bested his incumbent rival, landing more than 56 percent of the vote, compared to 43.79 percent. The turnout was considerable: 9,811 votes cast, according to reports.
Run-off Election Results, Kevin Graham-56.21% Dean Angelo-43.79% FOP7Chicago (@FOP7Chicago) April 12, 2017
Angelo was not immediately available for comment, but he told the Sun-Times ahead of his loss that rank-and-file disaffection in the face of media and political disparagement was to blame. Low morale among officers has been a fairly common refrain for the outgoing leader.
The defeated union chief told the paper:
You have a no-one-has-your-back mentality in our ranks more prevalent now than ever before. Media and politicians have demonized this job over the last couple of years. Then they wonder why people in the community dont want to work with or trust the police. How do you trust Satan reincarnated that youve created?
Angelo has been outspokensometimes outrageously soin his pro-police policies and pushback against political oppositionalthough Graham could prove to be even more hardline. Late last year, the outgoing FOP boss appeared to acknowledge and defend a code of silence among police officers in Chicago while being interviewed in an Al Jazeera documentary.
And last month, Angelo said that police care more about black lives than "a lot of black politicians." Those comments followed an attempt by the Black Caucus and other aldermen to fundamentally reform the police contract. Meanwhile, Graham is expected to prove as equally vociferous, if not more so, against a contract re-work.
Angelo in the past didn't officially comment as to whether the union supports a consent decree to enforce recommendations made by the Obama-era Department of Justice, which found a pattern of unconstitutional abuses in the Chicago police department. Graham on the other hand was fiercely critical of Angelo for cooperating with the DOJ's probe, and he reportedly welcomed Attorney General Jeff Sessions' internal review that casts doubt on a potential decree.
Angelo and other police union leaders met with President Donald Trump and other high-ranking administration officials late last month. After the meeting, he said that Trump is "on our wavelength" and "truly supportive of us."
NBC News correspondent Andrea Mitchell was scolded for her 'manners' by Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov after she shouted a question during his meeting with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
The exchange happened during a press conference in Moscow for Tillerson's first visit to Russia since he was appointed by president Donald Trump.
Video of the incident begins by showing Tillerson, Lavrov and other officials sitting down at a table at the start of the press conference.
Before anyone could be seated at the table, Mitchell started shouting: 'Mr. Secretary, the Russians don't believe the intelligence. How confident are you, Mr. Secretary?'
But before the 70-year-old journalist could finish her sentence, Lavrov quickly interjected.
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NBC News correspondent Andrea Mitchell (circled) was scolded for her 'manners' by Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov after she shouted a question during his meeting with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson
The exchange between Mitchell (left) and Lavrov (right) happened during a press conference in Moscow for Tillerson's first visit to Russia since he was appointed to the position by president Donald Trump
'Who was bringing you up?' Lavrov asked Mitchell in reference to how she was raised.
'Who was giving you your manners, you know?' he added while grinning.
Mitchell however claims that she was not the one being targeted, stating: 'My colleague Carol Morello was the brave journalist who started asking questions.
'Lavrov was looking right at her. I was on the opposite side of the room, behind him, out of sight. Perhaps I was a convenient foil, but I'm pretty sure I wasn't his target.'
The exchange comes as tensions between Russia and the U.S. escalate following Trump's missile strike in Syria last week.
This is also not her first incident with Tillerson, as a little over a month ago the veteran journalist was kicked out of a State Department press conference for repeatedly shouting questions at Tillerson.
Mitchell was escorted out of a meeting between Tillerson and the foreign minister for Ukraine on March 7 due to how she reportedly behaved during a press conference for the pair.
This is also not her first incident with Tillerson (above left on Wednesday next to Lavrov), as a little over a month ago the veteran journalist was kicked out of a State Department press conference for repeatedly shouting questions at Tillerson
At the time of this incident, she was shouting questions at Tillerson about Russia and China.
'Mr. Secretary, China has said there will be consequences for the deployment now of anti-missile defenses in South Korea, can you respond?' Mitchell asked.
'Can you respond? Excuse me Mr. Secretary can you respond?' she said repeatedly, before beginning to question the Ukraine foreign minister.
'Mister Minister are you sure the Trump administration will be strong against Vladimir Putin?' she asked.
Furthermore, on Monday she blasted Tillerson for him refusing to bring the press pool with him during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin.
'There is just an attempt, and it's successful, to shut down not just me but The New York Times, The Washington Post, Agence France-Presse, CNN. I mean, we're all just shut out,' she explained during a Politico podcast.
'You should not be flying into Beijing without a press corps. You should not be going to Moscow without the press corps. It's wrong.'
Winter is coming and that means so is the peak flu period.
With just weeks until the coldest season of the year descends on the southern hemisphere, Australians are being urged by the federal government to get their flu vaccinations.
Health minister Greg Hunt said on Thursday, while getting his own vaccination, that it was important to get the flu shot every year as the virus changes.
Health minister Greg Hunt receives a flu vaccine from Dr Brian Morton in Sydney on Thursday
Mr Hunt (receiving the vaccine) had his vaccine as he announced flu shots were now available at general practices and other vaccination providers
Mr Hunt said an annual influenza vaccination is recommended for everyone from six months up.
'Flu shots are available now at general practices and other vaccination providers. They're also available for purchase at many pharmacies,' Mr Hunt said.
'The flu shot this year will cover two A strains of influenza (Michigan and Hong Kong) and two B strains of influenza (Brisbane and Phuket).'
Mr Hunt said the influenza vaccines have been through stringent safety testing by the Therapeutic Goods Administration.
Health minister Greg Hunt said this year's flu shot will cover two A strains and two B strains of influenza (stock image)
Mr Hunt (at right with Dr Brian Morton) said the annual influenza vaccination is recommended for any person six months of age and older
Mr Hunt (at centre) braved his flu shot on Thursday, which was administered by Dr Brian Morton, with North Sydney MP Trent Zimmerman providing a helping hand
The federal government is providing 4.5 million does of the vaccine free of charge for those most at risk of getting sick.
'Under the [National Immunisation Program], those eligible for a free flu shot include people aged 65 years and over, most Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and those who suffer from chronic conditions,' Mr Hunt said.
'Pregnant women are also eligible for a free flu shot. It's safe to receive at any stage of pregnancy and not only protects Mum, but baby too.'
Health minister Greg Hunt (centre) discusses this year's flu shot with Dr Brian Morton (at left) and North Sydney MP Trent Zimmerman (at right)
A teenager 'pushing back' while on her hands and knees could have led her accused rapist to believe she was consenting to anal sex, a court has heard.
The trial of Luke Lazarus, who has pleaded not guilty to one count of sexual intercourse without consent, finished on Thursday and the 25-year-old will learn his fate later this month.
Lazarus is accused of raping an 18-year-old woman in a laneway behind Soho nightclub, which was owned by his family, in Sydney's inner-city Kings Cross about 4am on May 12, 2013.
Accused rapist Luke Lazarus, who is set to learn his fate later this month, leaving court
Luke Lazarus is accused of raping an 18-year-old virgin in a laneway on her first night out in Kings Cross
Luke Lazarus is accused of raping an 18-year-old virgin behind Soho nightclub in Sydney's Kings Cross
It was the alleged victim's first night out in Kings Cross.
Lazarus admits having anal sex with the woman, while she was on all fours, within minutes of meeting her on the dance floor but insists it was with her consent.
In closing submissions, defence counsel Phillip Boulten, SC, said his client might have had a 'sense of over-entitlement' when at Soho but he had not raped the alleged victim.
'The accused said 'when I went to have anal intercourse with her she pushed back in a way that I interpreted as a clear signal of consent',' Mr Boulten told the District Court.
'And she said 'I may well have done that'.'
'Even if that was the only argument that I mounted here, that in my submission is so important that it by itself might have resulted in acquittal.
'But that's not the only argument and I'd ask Your Honour to find him not guilty.'
Mr Boulten said the alleged victim became distressed only after Lazarus asked her to write her name in his phone below other women on what has been described as a 'trophy list'.
Luke Lazarus with his mother leaving the Court of Criminal Appeal where he his rape conviction was overturned in April last year
Luke Lazarus, pictured leaving the Court of Criminal Appeal last year, is being tried before a judge without a jury
Luke Lazarus was originally tried for rape before a District Court jury in 2015
Lazarus has conceded he did not behave like a 'gentleman'.
'The events in the back laneway were likely to be a matter of almost immediate regret and confusion for the complainant and for the accused, irrespective of whether consent was given or not,' Mr Boulten said.
'It was a set of circumstances where if the accused's version is correct or could possibly be correct there were several reasons for the complainant to be very, very confused, upset and disturbed.
'The fact that she was upset, crying and distressed is also consistent with the accused's version of what happened in that laneway.'
Luke Lazarus, pictured centre, tries to shield his face from cameras at an earlier hearing
Luke Lazarus pictured with his mother outside the District Court in Sydney this week
Accused rapist Luke Lazarus, pictured outside the District Court, is set to learn his fate later this month
The Crown submitted the woman had drunk an estimated 16 standard drinks on the night of the alleged rape. Mr Boulten said the defence estimate was eight.
'It is my submission she has exaggerated her level of intoxication,' he said.
The woman was not so drunk that she did not know what she was doing, 'rather she was at that level of intoxication where she may be uncharacteristically reckless'.
After meeting on the Soho dance floor, the woman and Lazarus had almost immediately begun kissing passionately. Within three minutes, they were heading out the back door.
The pair gave conflicting evidence about what happened outside. Each says they had anal sex, with the woman down all fours. Lazarus says the woman encouraged him. The woman says she repeatedly asked him to stop.
Nightclub owner's son Luke Lazarus has pleaded not guilty to having sexual intercourse without consent
Mr Boulten told Judge Robyn Tupman that her complaints to friends after the encounter with Lazarus did not prove she had been raped.
He said 'every night...people have sex in all sorts of different circumstances that they would not like people to know about'.
'That includes sexual intercourse for the first time. People have their first sexual encounters in the most diverse of circumstances.
'Even the anal intercourse aspect is something I'd urge Your Honour to be careful about.
'Really, the morals, mores and expectations of sexual activity in the early 21st century for young people is not exactly the same as they were 30 or 40 years ago, even in the so-called liberated 60s.'
Former Cranbrook student Luke Lazarus says he had consensual sex with a virgin behind a Kings Cross nightclub
Mr Boulten said character witnesses had given evidence that Lazarus was respectful of women and never violent. Lazarus had also been unshaken in his evidence.
'He's had advantages and he's probably had a sense of over-entitlement at the Soho bar,' Mr Boulten said.
'Basically he's a young, decent fellow. Never been in trouble before. Studying. Going about his life the way that you'd expect a young fellow might.'
A jury found Lazarus guilty of the same charge in 2015 and he served 11 months of a minimum three-year prison term but that conviction was overturned on appeal.
Judge Tupman reserved her decision until April 24.
Handcuffed and wearing bullet-proof vests, two women accused of assassinating Kim Jong-un's half brother arrived at court ahead of a murder trial that could see them both hanged.
Siti Aisyah, from Indonesia, and Doan Thi Huong of Vietnam are the only suspects in custody in the February 13 killing of Kim Jong-nam, the estranged brother of North Korea's dictator.
Pictures show the pair being escorted by armed police in to a court building in Sepang, Malaysia as they face accusations that they poisoned Kim to death at Kuala Lumpur International airport. Four North Korean suspects fled the country the day of the murder, police say.
Lawyers for the two women said Malaysian police still have not handed over security camera footage and documents crucial to the defence.
Prosecutors are expected to apply for the case to be transferred to an upper court, where the women would be tried for murder. If found guilty, they could face the death penalty, which is carried out by hanging in Malaysia.
Siti Aisyah, from Indonesia, and Doan Thi Huong (pictured) of Vietnam are the only suspects in custody in the February 13 killing of Kim Jong-nam, the estranged brother of North Korea's dictator
Handcuffed and wearing bullet-proof vests, two women accused of assassinating Kim Jong-un's half brother arrived at court today as their lawyers warned of a 'trial by ambush'. One of the defendants, Siti Aisyah, from Indonesia, os pictured above with her head bowed
Pictures show the pair being escorted by armed police in to a court building in Sepang, Malaysia as they face accusations that they poisoned Kim to death at Kuala Lumpur International airport
'The accused person should not be denied her fundamental right to a fair trial,' said Aisyah's attorney, Gooi Soon Seng. He said he has been waiting for police to provide CCTV footage and statements from three North Korean men who were questioned and released.
'Neither side may seek unfair advantage by concealing weapons behind its back. There should be no trial by ambush,' Gooi said.
The judge postponed the hearing until May 30.
The women are accused of smearing Kim's face with banned VX nerve agent at a crowded airport terminal in Kuala Lumpur. But they say they were duped into thinking they were playing a harmless prank for a hidden-camera show.
The women face the death penalty if convicted.
Gooi said he fears the women will become scapegoats because all the other people believed to have knowledge of the case have left the country.
The four North Koreans who flew out of Malaysia the day of the murder are believed to be back in Pyongyang.
And another three who stayed inside their country's embassy in Kuala Lumpur to avoid questioning by police were allowed to fly home late last month after Malaysia struck a surprise deal with Pyongyang to ease tensions.
Kim Jong-nam (pictured) was assassinated as he walked through Kuala Lumpur International Airport
The women are accused of smearing Kim's face with banned VX nerve agent at a crowded airport terminal in Kuala Lumpur
Siti Aisyah (left), from Indonesia, and Doan Thi Huong (right) of Vietnam are suspected of poisoning Kim Jong-un's brother to death
Doan Thi Huong poses for a photo during a motor show in Hanoi, Vietnam in July, 2016
Malaysian police have said they questioned the three men and found no grounds to hold them. But Gooi said Thursday that at least one of those three men - identified by police as RI Ji U and known to Aisyah as 'James' - was key to her defense.
'This amounts to a miscarriage of justice,' Gooi said of Malaysia's decision to allow the men to leave the country. 'They (the defendants) are already scapegoats.'
Gooi told the Associated Press on Wednesday that James recruited Aisyah in early January to star in his video prank shows.
Over the course of several days, he had her rub oil or pepper sauce on a victim's face, 'from forehead downwards,' which he would film on his phone, the lawyer said.
They practiced at malls, hotels and airports, he said. Aisyah was paid $100-$200 for each prank and hoped the income would allow her to stop working as a social escort, Gooi said.
Malaysia never directly accused North Korea of carrying out the attack, but speculation is rampant that Pyongyang directed a hit on a long-exiled member of its ruling elite
Tram Hux Hoang, a cousin of the Vietnamese suspect (above), said she is doing well in prison and had even gained weight
There was a heavy police presence as the two women arrived for their court appearance in Malaysia this morning
Selvi Sandrasegaram (centre) lawyer for Indonesia suspect Siti Aisyah, is surrounded by journalists outside Sepang court in Malaysia
Gooi said Aisyah flew to Cambodia in late January, where James introduced her to Hong Song Hac, one of four North Korean suspects who left Malaysia on the day of the murder. Hong had introduced himself as Chang, a Chinese who produces video prank shows for the China market, he said.
Gooi said Hong asked Aisyah to do several more pranks at the Kuala Lumpur airport a few days before Kim was attacked. He said Aisyah met Hong at the airport on the day of the killing, and that Hong identified Kim to Aisyah and allegedly put the poison on her hand.
Malaysia never directly accused North Korea of carrying out the attack, but speculation is rampant that Pyongyang directed a hit on a long-exiled member of its ruling elite.
Tram Hux Hoang, a cousin of the Vietnamese suspect, said she is doing well in prison and had even gained weight.
'The family and many Vietnamese people believe that she is innocent,' he said outside court Thursday. 'We believe she was cheated and we hope that the truth will come out.'
The last original 'Cocaine Cowboy' drug dealer was arrested while out on a bike ride with his wife following decades on the run after he was unmasked as one of the richest drug dealers in American history.
Gustavo Falcon was arrested by US Marshals in Kissimmee, Florida, despite a series of rumors about his whereabouts including that he had fled to Cuba.
Along with his brother Augusto 'Willy' Falcon and accomplice Salvador 'Sal' Malgluta, Gustavo formed the original Cocaine Cowboys in the 1980s notorious playboy drug dealers who were known for racing powerboats, owning mansions and flying in private jets.
After dropping out of high school to deal drugs, they collectively smuggled at least $2billion of cocaine into the US and were one of the top five drug dealing networks in US history.
Magluta and Willy were eventually convicted and are serving time in federal prison, but Gustavo went on the run.
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Caught: Gustavo Falcon (pictured left in arrest photo and right in 1990), 56, was arrested Wednesday in Florida after being on the run for 26 years
Back in 1991, he was indicted for trafficking cocaine from Colombia to South Florida along with his drug kingpin brother, Willy Falcon (right), and co-defendant Sal Magluta (left).
Authorities had accused the trio, who were high school dropouts, of smuggling 75 tons of cocaine, worth more than $2billion, into the United States between 1978 and 1991. Pictured above left is Magluta and Willy; pictured above right is Falcon
Gustavo was captured by a team of U.S. Marshals from Miami that traveled to the city in central Florida, NBC Miami reported.
The 55-year-old, who at one point owned his own powerboat team, was booked at the Orange County Jail at 6:24pm on Wednesday.
'He is the last of the 'Cocaine Cowboys,' said Barry Golden, a spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Office in Miami told the Miami Herald.
During his arrest on Wednesday, federal officials said Gustavo had fake driver's licenses dating back to 1997 that used fake addresses in Miami in his possession.
He also had fake licenses for his wife, Amelia, and children, who are now aged in their 30s, authorities said.
Golden said the couple went by the name of Luis Reiss and Maria Reiss.
He explained that back in 2013 they caught a break when Gustavo was involved in a car accident, and he used his fake identification with the Miami address.
They used their speedboats to haul billions of dollars of cocaine to Miami from Colombian drug cartels. Pictured above is one of their speedboats
In addition, they were well-known figures in the local speedboat racing circles as they could often be spotted racing their powerful and fast boats in South Florida. Pictured above left is their speedboat Seahawk
Prosecutors say the trio had once operated the largest cocaine smuggling organization on the East Coast and one of the top five in the world. Above authorities seize drugs related to the group
Authorities say Gustavo and his family had been renting a home in the Kissimmee area, as it was under surveillance by the Marshals Office for some time before his arrest Wednesday.
Since 1999, Gustavo and his family had been living in the Orlando area which surprised authorities as it had long been thought he fled the country to Cuba, Mexico or Colombia.
'We figured this all out a month ago,' Golden said. 'We pulled their drivers' licenses and saw it was the same Gustavo Falcon.'
Gustavo did not resist at all during his arrest and even confessed to his real identity, authorities said.
He is set to make his first court appearance on Thursday in federal court.
Dating back to the 1980s, the two brothers and Magluta were well-known figures in the local speedboat racing circles as they could often be spotted racing their powerful and fast boats in South Florida.
At the time, authoritie said they laundered their profits through offshore bank accounts and dummy corporations established in the Bahamas, the Netherlands Antilles, and the Republic of Panama. Above authorities seize drugs related to the group
Willy and Magluta (pictured in 1991) were acquitted in 1996 of the charges after it was discovered they bought off witnesses and at least one jury member
In 1986, Willy won the Offshore Challengee off the Florida Keys while Magluta won three national championships.
Magluta was also a member of the commission that oversaw the American Power Boat Association.
'They were like gods in the doper community,' Sean Convoy, a then-supervisor for the U.S. Marshals Service in Miami, told the Miami New Times in 1992.
'All the other smugglers talked about how invincible they were. All you'd hear was, `Willy and Sal this' and `Willy and Sal that.'
'I don't think there was a police agency here that didn't have something going at some time to try and catch them.'
Authorities had accused the trio, who were high school dropouts and childhood friends, of smuggling 75 tons of cocaine, worth more than $2billion, into the United States between 1978 and 1991 using their speedboats to haul the drugs to Miami from Colombian drug cartels.
At the time, authorities said they laundered their profits through offshore bank accounts and dummy corporations established in the Bahamas, the Netherlands Antilles, and the Republic of Panama.
Gustavo, who was nicknamed 'Taby', was last seen in South Florida in 1991 shortly before he was indicted.
Willy and Magluta were acquitted in 1996 of the charges after it was discovered they bought off witnesses and at least one jury member.
In addition, the trial was also complicated when several witnesses were killed by a Colombian hitman.
Despite facing decades in prison if they were convicted on the hefty charges they faced, Willy and Magluta were still living an expensive lifestyle that included a Lear jet, their powerboat racing team, Vail ski vacations, at least a kilo of gold, South Florida waterfront mansions and Las Vegas junkets.
Plus, they still continued to smuggle cocaine even while on the run.
But in 2003, Willy struck a plea deal with federal prosecutors in Miami on money-laundering charges.
He was sentenced to 20 years in prison and is scheduled to be released in June.
During his sentencing, U.S. District Judge Patricia A. Seitz called him a 'gentleman' and wished him 'all the best.'
Above is the wanted flyer issued by U.S. Marshals for Falcon showing that he is wanted for the possession of cocaine
'Each day is the beginning of the rest of your life,' Seitz told Willy.
'Your actions also impact far beyond your family, to other families who have suffered addictions.
'Your conduct over the years feeds that.'
The judge placed him on three years' probation when he is released and he was ordered to perform 200 hours of community service.
However, since he was born in Cuba, he could be deported or held indefinitely by immigration officials once he completes sentence.
Magluta was retried and convicted in 2002 of conspiracy to obstruct justice.
But he was acquitted of orchestrating the murders of three cooperating government witnesses, including a lawyer gunned down in his office, and the attempted murder of a fourth.
Magluta was sentenced to 205 years in prison but that was reduced in 2006 to 195 years.
Former VFL footballer Stephen Bailey has been found not guilty of the brutal murder of his mother because he was in a psychotic state at the time.
His mother Penny Bailey, 59, is pictured
Penelope Bailey's body was discovered in a creek bed in suburban Donvale in 2015, three days after her son was arrested when he was seen running through traffic in his underwear.
Details of the 59-year-old's injuries have been suppressed.
Bailey, 36, pleaded not guilty to murder by reason of mental impairment and Victorian Supreme Court Justice Stephen Kaye on Thursday accepted his plea.
Justice Kaye relied in part on evidence from psychiatrist Adam Deacon, who said Bailey's schizophrenia was active at the time of the killing.
Melbourne man Stephen Bailey, 36, earlier this week pleaded not guilty by reason of mental impairment to the murder of his mother, Penny Bailey, 59, in Mont Albert North in 201
Victorian Supreme Court Justice Stephen Kaye on Thursday ruled in Bailey's favour, accepting his plea on the grounds Bailey was incapable of reasoning that his conduct was wrong
'Mr Bailey was severely psychotic at the time of the offence. He didn't have any insight into his mental state,' Dr Deacon told the hearings.
'He would not have been able to reason with a moderate degree of sense and composure that what he was doing was wrong.'
Bailey had been a confident 'fitness freak' when he played for VFL club Box Hill and for two SANFL clubs in Adelaide.
But in 2011 he started to develop paranoid thoughts, which developed into voices directing his actions.
Mr Bailey is pictured being led into the Supreme Court in Melbourne on Tuesday
Mr Bailey pleaded not guilty earlier this week by reason of mental impairment
Bailey believed a wealthy establishment known as the 'Mime Order' controlled him and once told his sister he thought he was Jesus.
He lived with his mother from 2014 until he was arrested on October 7, 2015.
His mother's body was discovered three days later near Mullum Mullum Creek in Donvale after police analysed Bailey's phone to track where he had been before he was arrested.
Justice Kaye said the evidence established Bailey did not know his actions were bad.
His mother Penny Bailey, 59, was killed in Mont Albert North in 2015
Mr Bailey, who was accused over the murder, is pictured on Tuesday
'He was incapable of reasoning, with a moderate degree of sense and composure, as to whether his conduct, as perceived by reasonable people, was wrong,' Justice Kaye said on Thursday.
Ms Bailey was the daughter of former Carlton footballer Laurie Kerr and his wife Vivienne, who is the AFL club's number one female ticket holder.
Bailey will remain in custody while the court waits for the Department of Health and Human Services to find a facility for him.
He is listed to appear again on June 22.
A Mexican cartel member suspected of killing a Border Patrol agent in 2010 with a gun supplied by the US government through a botched sting known as 'Operation Fast and Furious' has been arrested in Mexico, according to a US marshal.
Heraclio Osorio-Arellanes, who was captured on a ranch bordering the Chihuahua and Sinaloa states on Wednesday, may be facing extradition to the US for the death of Brian Terry, US Marshal David Gonzalez said.
Two guns were found at the scene of Terry's death, which exposed the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' (ATF) operation, which allowed criminals to buy up to 2,000 guns in Arizona.
The federal government hoped to track the firearms once they made their way into Mexico, but the agency lost track of more than 1,400 of the guns.
Heraclio Osorio-Arellanes (left), accused of being the gunman who killed Border Patrol agent Brian Terry (right) in a 2010 shootout, was captured in Mexico on Wednesday
Osorio-Arellanes, who was arrested without incident on Sunday, 'is suspected of being the triggerman in the killing of Brian Terry," Gonzales said.
The US Marshal told Reuters that Mexican and US authorities worked together to track down the cartel member, adding that the United States would seek his extradition.
Osorio-Arellanes is accused of being part of a five-man cartel 'rip crew' - out to rob drug dealers along the border - who confronted Terry and three other Border Patrol agents on December 14, 2010 in a shootout north of Nogales, Arizona.
Two weapons discovered at the scene were later connected to the bungled gun-running Operation Fast and Furious that embarrassed the Obama administration and strained relations with Mexico.
Revelations of the operation created a political firestorm, leading to congressional investigations and turnover within the ATF and Justice Department.
Three other members of the rip crew and a fourth man charged with conspiracy in the fatal gun battle were ultimately convicted in U.S. federal court and sent to prison.
The sixth man wanted in the case is believed to remain at large.
A West Australian couple have been fined a combined total of $80,000 after RSPCA inspectors made a gruesome discovery of animal cruelty on their rural property.
Melissa Sykes and Patrick Lawson were found to own 14 starving dogs and horses on a farm which also had decomposing animal carcasses littered on the ground in South Trayning, 250km east of Perth.
The pair were fined $40,000 each and were banned from owning or coming into contact with animals following a year-long investigation.
RSPCA inspectors found disturbing scenes of decomposing horses (pictured) left to rot on the ground
Many horses on the property were found to have infected legs and overgrown hooves (pictured)
Ms Sykes and Mr Lawson were convicted over a series of horrific animal cruelty offences after the RSPCA seized three emaciated dogs, two of which were chained to a tree, and found 10 horses that had no access to proper food but were in fair health.
While cruelty charges often result in animal ownership bans, this case was considered so serious that the ban extends to contact with any animals, an RSPCA spokesman said.
'They can't be within three metres of an animal,' he said.
'If they go to a park and there's a dog there, they have to leave the park - it's very serious.'
RSPCA WA inspectors first attended the couple's property in March 2016, finding decomposing animal carcasses around the home and property. They included those of sheep, horses, chickens and emus.
The couple were told to provide sufficient food for the horses and to improve their health, but on a follow up visit their health had deteriorated and they were taken by the RSPCA.
The animals found at the property were subject to a rare and serious case of animal cruelty
Decomposing emu carcasses were also discovered at the WA rural property (pictured)
Vets found two of the horses were pregnant and others were suffering from a range of other conditions including overgrown hooves, lice infestations and sand ingestion.
Chief inspector Amanda Swift said Ms Skyes and Mr Lawson had shown utter disregard and reckless indifference for the animals they were responsible for, and RSPCA were pleased with their sentence.
'Sadly we didn't get there in time for some of the animals, thank goodness we were able to rescue some and stop the suffering,' said Ms Swift.
'The ten-year prohibition order imposed on them which prevents them from being within metres of any animals reflects the severity of their actions. This speaks volumes about the seriousness of the cruelty and suffering these animals endured.'
The remaining animals were all rescued, placed in foster care and have made a full recovery.
The pair faced Merredin Magistrates Court on Wednesday.
Dogs were found on the farm starving and emaciated (pictured) but were rescued by the RSPCA
Jillian Tait, 33, plead guilty to third degree murder and other charges to avoid the death penalty for her role in her 3-year-old son's abuse and torture death in 2014
A mother accused of helping torture and beat her three-year-old son to death in 2014 has pleaded guilty to third degree murder so that she can escape the death penalty.
Jillian Tait, 33, also admitted conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, endangering the welfare of children, assault and related charges on Wednesday, reports The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Although Tait's guilty pleas means she cannot be sentenced to death, she is still eligible for a prison sentence of between 64 to 128 years.
In 2014, Tait and her boyfriend, Gary Lee Fellenbaum III, 25, were arrested and accused of abusing Tait's son, Scott McMillan, three, and his six-year-old brother.
Authorities said that Scott had been punched and beaten with both blunt and sharp objects for weeks.
He was also strapped to a chair with electrical tape and beaten until he was unconscious.
Tait and Fellenbaum allegedly hit both boys with their fists and beat them with frying pans, metal rods and whips. They also hung the kids upside down and assaulted them while they were suspended by their feet.
McMillan died on November 4, 2014 after brutal beatings that took place in Fellenbaum's mobile home in West Caln Township, Pennsylvania between November 2 to 4 of that year, according to police.
Scott McMillan, 3, was allegedly abused and tortured by his mother and her boyfriend
After enduring weeks of being beaten, McMillan died on November 4, 2014
One of the whips authorities believe Tait and Fellenbaum used to hit McMillan
A whip, held together with electrical tape, which was allegedly used to tie McMillan to chairs
A bent curtain rod found at Fellenbaum's home, believed to have been used to hit McMillan
After having beaten him into an unresponsive state and then put him on an uninflated air mattress, Tait and Fellenbaum went car shopping, bought pizza and engaged in sexual activity as he lay dying, according to officials.
Speaking in West Chester, Pennsylvania's Chester County Justice Center on Wednesday, first assistant district attorney Michael Noone told County Judge William P. Mahon that prosecutors reached the plea deal with Tait because she accepted responsibility for her actions and agreed to testify against Fellenbaum.
Prosecutors also said that while Tait's violence towards her son might've contributed to his death, it was Fellenbaum's actions that actually killed him.
Fellenbaum's trial is due to start in September. He has been charged with first degree murder, third degree murder, criminal homicide and other charges related McMillan's death.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Gary Lee Fellenbaum, 25, whose actions allegedly caused McMillan's death. Fellenbaum's estranged wife, Amber (right), plead guilty to charges stemming from having witnessed the child abuse, but not reporting it
The uninflated air mattress where McMillan was placed, unresponsive, after being beaten on the day that he died, while his mother and her boyfriend went shopping and ate pizza
Authorities believe Fellenbaum dented this wall by smashing McMillan's head against it
Prosecutors have said that they will seek the death penalty for him.
Fellenbaum's estranged wife, Amber, was also arrested in 2014. She lived in the mobile home at the time when McMillan was being abused, but failed to report what she witnessed. She eventually called 911 on the day of McMillan's death, after he had been unresponsive for hours, according to authorities.
Amber plead guilty to all four charges against her on Wednesday two counts each of endangering the welfare of children and reckless endangerment and agreed to testify against her husband during his trial.
She is eligible for a maximum prison sentence of nine to 18 years.
Both women will be sentenced after Fellenbaum's trial concludes.
All three adults are being held in Chester County Prison. Tait and Fellenbaum are ineligible for bail due to the nature of the charges, while Amber is being held instead of paying a $500,000 bail, reports Lancaster Online.
An extravagant 'Buddhist temple' that doubled as a hotspot for drug deals has been linked to two brutal murders in the past three years.
The colourful building on Kennedy Street, Guildford, in Sydney's west, was the scene of 37-year-old Chinese national Qin Wu's murder in February this year.
And in 2014 another man, Ting Huang, is also said to have been stabbed to death at the same address, before his body was wrapped up and dumped at a cemetery.
Now pictures from inside the temple show hundreds of Buddha statues, a variety of trinkets, books and colourful tapestry's adorning the walls - a far cry from what you'd expect at the alleged scene of multiple crimes.
A Sydney 'Buddhist temple' has been linked to two brutal murders in the past three years
The colourful building in Guildford also reportedly doubles as a hot spot for drug deals
Wu was not the intended target, Detective Sergeant Justin Moynihan said in a statement on Thursday.
'It is possible Qin may have been shot when he intervened in an argument between his friend and a group of men who arrived during their visit at the house,' he said.
'At the time of the incident, the house was also being used as a temple, so there were numerous visitors every day and we would like to speak to anyone who visited in the days leading up to his death.'
Forensic evidence indicates another person may have been shot, but despite searching hospitals across Sydney police have not found the injured person.
Pictures from inside the temple show hundreds of Buddha statues, a variety of trinkets, books and colourful tapestry's adorning the walls
The bizarre exterior is a far cry from what you'd expect at the alleged scene of multiple crimes
Police also believe at least two people left the house after the shooting and returned with a third person, although they were not at the house when police arrived.
'Ultimately, someone out there knows something, and they might be concealing an offence. Now is the time to come forward,' Det Sgt Moynihan said.
The Guildford house was the scene of an unrelated murder three years ago, police have confirmed.
In 2014 Zhen Fang fatally stabbed Ting Huang, 25, whose decomposing body was found wrapped in a doona in a car boot near Rookwood cemetery in Lidcombe.
Fang, 38, was sentenced in March for at least 14 years behind bars for the frenzied knife attack.
The temple was the scene of 37-year-old Chinese national Qin Wu's (pictured) murder in February this year. Police believe he was not the intended target
With Grotesque Profits & Worse Ethics, Airlines Are A Bloody Outrage
By Stephen Gossett in News on Apr 12, 2017 9:52PM
Getty Images
Remember when the airline industry wanted to charge you to use the bathroom on flights? One of the most basic necessary bodily functions, one that sometimes you really can't delay, which could get really ugly and painful if you're sealed in a jet thousands of miles in the sky with no other options. No? It wasn't long ago at all, just back in 2015, in fact. Pay-to-pee sounds like the sort of sci-fi micro-aggression that would be the hallmark of a dystopian young-adult novel, but it almost happened.
I mention this, of course, to illustrate that the incident on United Express Flight 3411now known to the world as the time Dr. David Dao was violently removed from his seat on the plane, dragged down the aisle, and had his face bloodied from smacking into an armrestis symptomatic of a larger, ongoing disease in the airline industry, one that places a perverse emphasis on profit motive, sometimes at the expense of basic human dignity.
First, there's the overbooking bet that airlines constantly wagera problem the industry apparently felt comfortable solving by throwing money at passengers, even if, as we saw with United, still parsimoniously, ever mindful of the bottom line. (You gotta be mindful of your return when you're only netting $2.3 billion in profits, as United did just last year.) True, 3411 wasn't overbooked, as United originally stated. But all 70 seats were sold and occupied, and when crew members needed those seats, the decision was made to enforce the full extent of the small printDao's sense of humanity be damned.
"Why is an armed agent of the state using violence to enforce a contract freely entered into by two private parties?" asked Fusion's Alex Pareene. "Because that is more or less how you define 'classical liberalism.'" When you take the capitalist impulse to its illogical end point, people are literally left on the floor.
There's a rather grotesque class element at play here, too. This stuff doesn't happen if you're, say, a frequent flier or a high "status" passenger. Chances are these passengers aren't getting approached about removal in the first place.
Photo: Scott Olson
Yahoo explains:
"For passengers looking to take advantage of the budget seats offered, this unspoken ranking and largely unknown class system is important to know. Though companies take great pains to say otherwise, if you paid less, you are not as valued a customer."
It's also impossible to not to see a racial component, too. Marie Myung-Ok Lee argues in Paste, convincingly, that the violence to which the airline officer resorted probably would not have been inflicted on a white man. In media, through United, or via law enforcement, Dao was cast as "perverted, unreasonable, loud, bumbling." The brutality was only compounded, of course, when outlets dug up victim-blaming tabloid details of his past.
Given all that we've witnessed in recent American history, it's no surprise that a minority, non-"status" person would be physically harmed for "violating" the capitalist contract. (Yes, one could argue that Dao being a doctor affords him "status," but not as far as airplane politics are concerned.) But the airline industry seems to always be pushing the line, seeing how far it can stress the norms of market (and moral) acceptability.
Remember, this is the industry that squeezed down its market share from 18 to 10 large/mid-sized airlines within just 10 years, leaving the winners with even greater spoils. Eighty percent of U.S. flights are handled by just four carriers.
Money wrote in 2016:
"Travelers have reason to be wary of such mergers. Many of today's hated airline practices, including adding loads of fees, eliminating hubs and routes, shrinking seat space, and packing planes fuller than ever, can be traced back to the previous round of mergers that saw carriers such as Continental, US Airways, and AirTran disappear."
Yes, it's true that the initial mergers that kickstarted this trend happened while the industry was in free fall. But that hasn't been the case for some time, and the carriers are now bending over backwards to maintain lack of competition and profits that are now at a windfall.
The Washington Post reports:
"According to the IATA North American airlines have raked in over $20 billion in profits for each of the past two years. They expect that number to dip, slightly, to around $19.5 billion next year. "2017 is expected to be the eighth year in a row of aggregate airline profitability, illustrating the resilience to shocks that have been built into the industry structure," the IATA writes in its annual analysis."
There are media corners that have been quick to chastise unfettered-capitalist critiques of the United fiasco ('sup Breitbart). But that just plays into the hands of airliners' avariciousness, airliners who rack up earnings but would rather not allow you a pot to piss in.
An Oklahoma Congressman is in hot water after telling an audience of voters at a town hall meeting that it's 'bullcrap' that they pay his salary.
Republican Congressman Markwayne Mullin has been holding a series of town hall meetings throughout his district.
They covered the issues affecting people around America - including healthcare and taxes.
But one got heated when he insisted that he pays his salary, not his constituents.
'You say you pay for me to do this? Thats bullcrap. I pay for myself. I paid enough taxes before I got here and continue to through my company to pay my own salary. This is a service. No one here pays me to go,' he said.
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'That's bullcrap' Oklahoma Congressman Markwayne Mullin said when constituents told him they paid his salary
'You say you pay for me to do this? Thats bullcrap. I pay for myself,' he said as people protested
Mullin has been holding a series of town halls in the Second District to listen to concerns of his constituents, but many have complains that he shuts them down if they don't agree with him
Several people begin objecting and yelling.
'Im just saying this is a service for me, not a career, and I thank God this is not how I make my living,' he said.
A spokesperson later explained that he was referring to the amount of taxes his company, Mullin Plumbing, had paid out over the years, and that it was more than the salary he draws.
'The congressman is referencing the federal taxes that he and his businesses have paid to the government over the years, prior to his being in office,' said spokesperson Amy Lawrence. 'Like all business owners, Congressman Mullin pays his taxes, which contribute to congressional salaries.'
The base salary of a Congressional representative is $174,000.
It's unclear how much Mullin Plumbing has paid in federal taxes over the years. The 39-year-old congressman has held office since 2013.
Mullin, a conservative, has been taking a lot of flack from constituents worried about their healthcare options
In another video at a different location, he says, 'Im paying more taxes inside my company and personally than Ill ever receive from Congress.'
Constituents did not seem very happy with his inference that he was paying his own salary, and that he was doing them a favor with his 'service.'
'What about the free healthcare he and his family receive or the lifetime retirement this little snot will get? And he inherited his business from his Daddy. So Markie Wayne is just another self serving brat who thinks he's entitled to this position. What a great ad this will make to run against him November 6th 2018,' wrote Jami Summerlin on Facebook.
'Don't worry Markwayne, your 'service' will no longer be needed soon,' wrote John Gibson.
On April 11, he cancelled a town hall meeting in Tahlequah due to 'safety concerns.'
Tomi Lahren tried to justify her comments on abortion that got her fired from TheBlaze and begged Glen Beck to 'let me move on' from her contract in her latest interview.
The 24-year-old was sacked from conservative news network after she appeared on The View last month and said that being pro-life would make her a hypocrite given her support for limited government.
Her comments sparked an immediate uproar among conservatives, and Lahren claims Beck and his company launched a public smear campaign against her in retaliation, according to the Dallas Morning News.
But in an interview with ABC News, she stood by her views saying: 'I believe you can be anti-abortion and pro-choice I don't believe in abortion.'
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Tomi Lahren begged Glen Beck to 'let me move on' after she was fired but still bound under contract
The alt-right poster girl (left) also opened up about the pro-choice comments that got her sacked from TheBlaze last week by Glenn Beck (right)
She stressed that her belief in limited government was consistent with allowing women the freedom to get abortions in the first trimester.
The conservative shock jock has sued Glenn Beck and TheBlaze for wrongful termination.
Lahren became very emotional as she discussed the fact she is still bound under contract, which means she cannot find another job until her contract expires in September.
TheBlaze said they found the lawsuit puzzling as they are still paying Lahren adding that they had complied 'fully with the terms of our agreement with her.'
Lahren appealed to Beck in tears on ABC, to allow her to 'move on.'
Lahren (right, on The View in March) filed a lawsuit claiming she was wrongfully terminated for saying it was hypocritical to support limited government and be pro-life at the same time
'It's my job, it's my life. Without that, I feel lost. When your outlet is taken away from you, when your catharsis is stripped from you, and you don't understand why and you're so disappointed and you're so blindsided by it, it hurts.'
The outspoken 24-year-old joked that she was 'supposed to be tough' as she cried, while insisting she was not a feminist, and said: 'I will not lay down and play dead ever because I'm not the kind of girl that sits in the corner and cries about things.'
Lahren, who joined the Blaze in 2015, became a viral sensation for her incendiary rants.
But she upset her fans after she appeared on the daytime talk show The View on March 17, saying she was pro-choice.
Lahren said: 'I can't sit here and be a hypocrite and say I'm for limited government but I think the government should decide what women do with their bodies.'
'Stay out of my guns and you can stay out of my body, as well,' she said.
Lahren said a producer from The Blaze who accompanied her to The View taping congratulated her immediately after the appearance - but the fallout was swift.
Her conservative fan base immediately lashed out on Twitter, incensed that she had branded many of them hypocrites.
When Lahren defended herself for being an 'independent thinker' on Twitter, Beck stepped in and appeared to question her intellectual honesty.
Lahren, who became a viral sensation for her incendiary rants, wants to break out of her contract and find another job after claiming Beck and The Blaze publicly smeared her
Lahren (left), who joined Glenn Beck's media outlet The Blaze in 2015, was suspended from her show after she appeared on The View last month and said she was pro-choice (right, Beck)
When Lahren defended herself for being an 'independent thinker' on Twitter, Beck stepped in and appeared to question her intellectual honesty
At The Blaze, Lahren's email account was shut down, supervisors stopped communicating with her, and her dressing room door was marked with yellow caution tape, according to the lawsuit filed in Dallas County, Texas, on Friday.
She also claims she was ordered to stay off social media, where Lahren has more than 4.2million followers on Facebook alone.
Lahren claims both Beck and The Blaze knew about her views on abortion, and did not appear to have a problem with it before she appeared on The View, the lawsuit said.
The Blaze continued paying Lahren during her suspension, 'presumably hoping they could find an exit strategy to sanitize their unlawful conduct', the lawsuit alleges.
But a human resources director said the 24-year-old was terminated for her pro-choice comments, the lawsuit states - and Lahren has yet to return to her show.
Her attorney Brian Lauten said Lahren wants to break out her contract and find another job, likening her to an eagle with its wings clipped.
She is now seeking attorney's fees and costs 'as well as all other relief'.
Coles has been forced to wind back its new 'I'm free' marketing campaign, after a number of female staff members were reportedly sexually harassed.
The supermarket giant reportedly told employees on Wednesday to stop holding up paddles brandishing the new slogan, following complaints of suggestive comments by male shoppers.
Coles' new campaign intended to promote the opening of extra checkouts over the Easter period, but instead led to widespread harassment against many young staff, News.com.au reports.
Coles has been forced to back down on its new 'I'm free' marketing campaign, after a number of female staff members were reportedly sexually assaulted
Employees at Coles stores across the country were reportedly told to stop using the signs on Wednesday, but were not informed of the reason behind the decision.
'A lot of staff are getting smut talk from customers [as in], "Are you free? Let's go together",' one employee reportedly claimed.
'I'm assuming that more young women were sexually harassed in Coles stores as [my partner] was,' another man said.
'Being asked by old men to come home with them since they are "free", or middle-aged women saying that they should have more respect for themselves.'
'A lot staff are getting smut talk from customers [as in], "Are you free? Let's go together",' one employee reportedly claimed
Coles are being blamed by some for contributing to the problem, with their own TV ad for the campaign including suggestive interpretations of the 'I'm free' slogan.
In the commercial, one female employee fans herself with a paddle while admiring a young male shopper, before flirtatiously saying 'I'm free'.
Other staff took to the Facebook page of their employer to voice their anger at the public response to their new slogan.
'I work on the checkouts and OMG! The comments have been horrible!! We have also removed all signs down,' employee Emily Henderson wrote.
'We have had it from BOTH male and female, old and young.'
Coles are being blamed by some for contributing to the problem, with their own TV ad for the campaign including suggestive interpretations of the 'I'm free' slogan (pictured)
Employees have taken to Facebook to share their stories of harassment at the hands of shoppers (pictured)
In a statement, a Coles spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia the campaign had been a success, and that the harrassment was 'unfortunate'.
'Use of the "I'm Free" signs to indicate an open checkout was a fun way of activating the campaign,' the statement said.
'Unfortunately in response to a small number of customers behaving disrespectfully to team members, we have now removed the hand-held signs.'
A Sydney apartment - known to sellers as a 'glorified roof space' - has been sold for $1million despite being a 50sqm refurbished attic.
The cramped waterfront loft is located in the exclusive suburb of Elizabeth Bay and its hefty price tag means it is valued at $20,000 per square metre.
Selling agent Charlie Mortimer of Ray White Double Bay described the property as 'quite unusual' as it's kitchen, bedroom, bathroom and laundry are all disconnected from each other.
The tiny bedroom (pictured) has spectacular waterfront views of Sydney's luxurious Elizabeth Bay
An unusual feature of the $1million roof-space is its curved roof and disconnected rooms
The apartment's bedroom, bathroom, laundry and kitchen are all in separate spaces across the rooftop (floor plan pictured)
'The kitchen is located at street-side, the bed overlooks the water and the bathroom is in the middle of the apartment rooftop,' Mr Mortimer told Daily Mail Australia.
'Once upon a time it actually was a roof-space for storage but it has been refurbished into a beautiful loft.'
The owner will have to cross the rooftop terrace - which is a shared space - to access the bedroom or bathroom from the dining room and kitchen.
The 50sqm apartment is also slightly bigger than it appears to be because the slanting roof reduces the amount of space classed as 'inhabitable', Mr Mortimer said.
According to the agent, the miniature property sold for $1million mostly because of its glittering location with spectacular waterfront views.
The 50sqm apartment is also slightly bigger than it appears to be because the slanting roof discounts some of the space as 'inhabitable', Mr Mortimer said
The kitchen is located at street-side - on the opposite end of the roof from the bedroom
The Elizabeth Bay loft's $1million price tag is because of the spectacular waterfront views (pictured)
The roof-space home was created into a livable space several years ago, but was recently renovated by the architect and seller to give it a 'boathouse feel', according to realestate.com.au.
It was last sold in 2004 for $535,000 and had been rented out since 2012 for $650 per week.
Mr Mortimer said the property generated a lot of interest and around 140 people turned up to the open home.
The new owner of the Elizabeth Bay roof space is a Sydneysider from Kurnell, 20km south of the CBD.
The property is located in the exclusive suburb of Elizabeth Bay in eastern Sydney (pictured)
The Trump administration is considering introducing a complete oil embargo on North Korea and a global ban on its airline as part of a wider strategy to force Kim Jong-un to back down over nuclear missiles.
Air Koryo is North Korea's national carrier but has a reputation as being the 'world's worst airline'. It only flies a handful of routes but grounding it would be a major blow to Pyongyang.
President Trump has sent an 'armada' of US Navy ships - led by the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson - to the region, triggering an angry response from North Korea and raising fears of a military confrontation.
But although military options remain on the table, a pre-emptive strike on North Korea remains a last resort and the Trump administration is considering economic and diplomatic measures to pile the pressure on Kim.
Air Koryo is North Korea's national carrier but has a reputation as being the 'world's worst airline'
Trump has approved a broad approach on North Korea and asked his national security team to craft a more detailed framework for new international sanctions and other actions to counter Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs.
A senior official told Reuters: 'There's a whole host of things that are possible, all the way up to what's essentially a trade quarantine on North Korea.'
The administration is considering an array of stiffer sanctions that could be applied on a 'sliding scale' proportionate to North Korean actions.
Some steps could be applied unilaterally, and others through the United Nations, where China has a Security Council veto.
President Trump is determined to put pressure on Kim Jong-un and force him to back down
Among the options are intercepting cargo ships and punishing Chinese banks doing business with Pyongyang.
UN economic options include an embargo on oil supplies to North Korea; a global ban on Air Koryo, its national airline; and interdiction of North Korean freighters on the high seas, a step that would go beyond an existing requirement for nations to inspect ships transiting their territory, the officials said this week.
The United Nations also could prohibit the use of North Korean contracted labor abroad and expand the restrictions on North Korean coal exports to a total ban, the officials said.
Another step could be a ban on North Korean seafood exports, Pyongyang's fourth-largest export to China, its main trading partner, and expanded efforts to seize assets of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his family.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un arrives for an opening ceremony of a new residential housing project in Pyongyang today. He is set for a major showdown with Trump
U.S. administration officials said final decisions on specific sanctions targets have yet to made, but they privately expressed doubts about how much further Beijing is willing to go to bring its defiant ally to heel - in spite of increasing Chinese concerns that North Korea might soon conduct a sixth nuclear test or new missile launches.
A phone call between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday was intended to reinforce U.S. pressure on Beijing to curb Pyongyang's nuclear and ballistic missile programs, a U.S. official said.
On Wednesday, Trump, who met Xi at a first summit in Florida last week, praised China for sending coal ships back to North Korea under existing U.N. sanctions. Trump said he thought Xi wanted to help, but added: 'We'll see whether or not he does.'
While Trump emphasized the warmth of his interactions with Xi, he warned the Chinese leader last week that new sanctions could include penalties against Chinese banks and companies doing business with North Korea if Beijing did not step up pressure, one U.S. official said.
'If that's the only option the Chinese leave us, there's a real possibility that Chinese entities will get hit,' the official said.
The U.S. aim would be to tighten the screws on North Korea in the same way it pressured Iran to open negotiations on its suspected nuclear weapons program - by penalizing all foreign firms dealing with the country.
'The amount of pressure that has been brought to bear economically on North Korea is far short of what was brought to bear against Iran,' another senior administration official said.
Some analysts cautioned that targeting Chinese entities with so-called 'secondary sanctions' could backfire and make Beijing less willing to cooperate, and that dealing with a country that already has nuclear weapons differs from dealing with one accused of trying acquire them.
'If you want to rely on sanctions to achieve your goal, you have to find a way to persuade or force the world into going all the way to a near full embargo or at least an embargo on key commodities like petroleum and on North Korean hard currency export earnings,' said Joseph DeThomas, a former State Department official who worked on Iran and North Korea sanctions.
'Only if the regime sees continuation of sanctions as fatal will it consider change,' he said.
In a sign of Beijing's growing frustration with North Korea, China's Global Times newspaper said on Wednesday that North Korea should halt any nuclear and missile activities 'for its own security' - a reference to the approaching U.S. naval force.
It said that if North Korea made another provocative move, 'Chinese society' might back unprecedented sanctions 'such as restricting oil imports.'
While run by the ruling Communist Party's official People's Daily, the Global Times does not always represent government policy.
Two minority student groups at Harvard have been forced to apologize after they put up fake deportation warnings in dorm rooms to frighten students.
Notices from the fake 'Harvard Special Investigations Unit' were put up this week warning that one of their fellow students had been detained indefinitely.
'We regret to inform you that a resident of this dorm has been detained indefinitely due to suspicious actions, suspected violent inclinations, or suspicion of being a deportable alien (i.e. questionable residency status),' the flyers read.
Notices from the fake 'Harvard Special Investigations Unit' were put up this week in the undergraduate dorms warning that one of their fellow students had been detained indefinitely
The notices did say on the back that they were not real and hoped the 'unsettling nature' of the flyer would force people to reflect on the reality that many lived in fear of being deported, the Harvard Crimson reports.
They were posted in the undergraduate dorms by the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee and supported by Harvard Concilio Latino, the Harvard Islamic Society and the Harvard Black Students Association.
Two of the groups have since apologized after the flyers caused widespread outrage.
The Palestine Solidarity Committee issued a statement on its Facebook page saying: 'We sincerely and wholeheartedly apologize for causing triggering experiences that caused pain for many in our communities, rather than bringing light to these issues in a more productive and sensitive manner.
Two of the groups have since apologized after the flyers caused widespread outrage
'While those who drafted this notice are themselves affected by the issues of administrative detention, criminalization, state violence, and deportation, from Palestine to the United States, we recognize that we made a mistake in how we sought to bring attention to the issues.
'When we heard from students and co-sponsors about the way the notice was being received, we immediately stopped distributing the notices, met with the boards of groups directly involved, and sought to better understand what was happening and to prevent further hurt.'
The board of Concilio Latino said it was not previously aware of the flyer's exact contents.
'(The flyers) are fake, but the effects they may have had on any of you are beyond real and represent something entirely antithetical to what Concilio stands for,' the statement reads.
Australia's acting prime minister has been accused of behaving 'like a child' over his refusal to fast-track disaster relief funds to flood-affected farmers.
Nationals member Barnaby Joyce has drawn the ire of Queensland farmers and state politicians, for refusing to hand out $25,0000 grants in the wake of Cyclone Debbie.
Mr Joyce has been slammed by Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk after the government rejected her plea to hand out the Category C grants immediately, with a fierce battle of words erupting on Wednesday.
Barnaby Joyce (pictured) has drawn the ire of Queensland farmers and state politicians after refusing to hand out $25,0000 grants to flood-affected farmers in the wake of Cyclone Debbie
While Ms Palaszczuk was upset, it was Queensland treasurer Jackie Trad who really let loose at the 'childish' acting PM, the ABC reports.
'He's acting like a child on this matter,' Ms Trad said.
'What we need is for them to assess the information we put forward, to recognise in the first instance that primary producers and many small businesses in the disaster affected areas have been significantly impacted.
'That was the purpose of the letter from the Premier to the Prime Minister. Number one, acknowledge it.'
But Mr Joyce hit back, furthering the heightened tensions by calling the Queensland politicians 'smart alecs'.
Insisting that the funding application form did not include the correct information, Mr Joyce said until it did funding wouldn't be given the green light.
Mr Joyce has been slammed for 'acting like a child' by Queensland treasurer Jackie Trad
Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk (right) and Ms Trad (left) were angered after the government rejected their plea to hand out the $25,000 Category C grants immediately
'They're just trying to be smart alecs by sending across this ridiculous little letter saying, "Please give us a lot of money, love the Queensland premier",' he told ABC Radio.
Earlier, he said Queensland was seeking a total of more than $20 million, having sent further information for the Whitsundays, Mackay and the Scenic Rim last night.
'I can't just write a blank cheque,' the acting prime minister said.
'You've actually got to fill out the application form.'
Mr Joyce later heightened the tensions by calling the Queensland politicians 'smart alecs'
'This is an absurdity they've got 14,000 extra public servants since when the LNP was in, and that's as good as we're going to get.'
But the public stoush between Federal and State politics has angered farmers, many of who are on their knees following Cyclone Debbie's destruction.
'Both sides are having a bit of a stoush in public is in poor taste to the people on the ground who are suffering very poor taste,' farmer Carl Walker said.
'There's people out there, possibly even going to lose their businesses.'
Ex-tropical Cyclone Cook has hit New Zealand's North Island, with Auckland avoiding the worst of the storm as it heads south, and emergency services urging people to delay their Easter plans.
The cyclone made landfall near the Bay of Plenty reported the NZ Herald, before moving across to Hawke's Bay and Gisborne.
The cyclone is now believed to be tracking across the lower North Island.
Thousands of people have been evacuated with Thames, Coromandel and Bay of Plenty are under states of emergency.
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Firefighters are pictured assisting members of the public as high winds from Cyclone Cook brought trees down onto houses and roads in Napier, New Zealand. Auckland avoided the worst of the storm as it headed south
Firefighters are pictured helping to secure a trampoline blown around by high winds from Cyclone Cook in Napier. Emergency services have urged people to delay their Easter plans
The cyclone made landfall near the Bay of Plenty before moving across to Hawke's Bay and Gisborne. Pictured is a woman with enormous tree bought down on her front lawn in Hastings
Two people have been hospitalised in Hawke's Bay after a tree hit their car.
Residents in low-lying Coromandel east coast, Tauranga and Ohope have been told to evacuate, while people in the Bay of Plenty are on high alert to evacuate with little notice.
An estimated 137 schools and 133 early learning centres have been closed on the North Island.
About 1400 homes in the Bay of Plenty Region, including in Tauranga, also remain without electricity.
People have been warned against any unnecessary travel as there are many road closures due to fallen trees and land slips.
MetService severe weather forecaster Lisa Murray warned residents not to underestimate the impending storm.
'I have never seen an event like this in the 12 years I have been a forecaster in New Zealand this is not an event to be taken lightly,' she said.
Thousands of people have been evacuated with Thames, Coromandel and Bay of Plenty under states of emergency. Pictured are more trees bought down in Hastings
A state of emergency was declared in the country's north as it braced for what was predicted to be its worst storm in nearly 50 years
Residents in low-lying Coromandel east coast, Tauranga and Ohope have been told to evacuate, while people in the Bay of Plenty are on high alert to evacuate with little notice
An estimated 137 schools and 133 early learning centres have been closed on the North Island
'Half an old man pine just came down in the cyclone. Hoping the other half stays put as if it does come down it will block our driveway, destroy our fences and shelter belt,' one woman wrote alongside this photo on Thursday
The NZ Transport Agency warned it might need to close the Auckland Harbour Bridge on Thursday night due to heavy rainfall and dangerous gale force winds.
The cyclone was expected to hit the shore near Tauranga on Thursday night.
Flights were also disrupted by the weather. People were told to expect delays and cancellations.
MetService severe weather forecaster Lisa Murray warned residents not to underestimate the impending storm. Pictured are firefighters assisting residents in Napier
Flights have also been disrupted by the wild weather. People were told to expect delays and cancellations across the North Island
The eastern coastline was told to expect high waves. The areas were also warned to prepare for water to inundate the region.
Minister of Civil Defence Sarah Stuart-Black warned residents they should 'self-evacuate' if they saw rising floodwaters.
'If you see rising floodwaters don't wait for an official warning to move, heed the natural warnings and self-evacuate if you need to,' she said on Thursday.
'Cyclone Cook is an extremely serious weather event which the government is taking seriously. People need to change Easter travel plans if necessary. Put safety first no matter what.'
The NZ Transport Agency warned it might need to close the Auckland Harbour Bridge (pictured) on Thursday afternoon due to heavy rainfall and dangerous gale force winds
Parts of the Bay of Plenty (pictured) in the north were already flood ravaged early Thursday
Residents in Auckland and Northland were hit with heavy rain on Wednesday night, with one woman saying she woke to a flooded house on Thursday morning
Police Inspector Pete McKennie warned residents to stay off the roads while the storm passed through.
'Keep off the road, keep roads free for emergency transport if required,' he said.
Residents in Auckland and Northland were hit with heavy rain on Wednesday night, with one woman saying she woke to a flooded house on Thursday morning.
Some homes in West Auckland required water to be pumped after rain overflowed drains and seeped into houses.
'I stepped out into water, straight off the bed straight into water, it was covering my whole foot,' one home resident said.
The pier in Hamurana Springs on the North Island was completely submerged on Thursday
Intense weather conditions are predicted for Tauranga, Hamilton and Whangamata on Thursday
'I stepped out into water, straight off the bed straight into water, it was covering my whole foot,' one home resident (left) said
MetService warned the storm could cause mass power outages and flash flooding.
'I don't think many people are going to be spared from the weather associated with this low, but the places that are going to be impacted the most will be Bay of Plenty and the Coromandel Peninsula,' MetService forecaster Gerard Barrow told the Sydney Morning Herald.
He compared the storm to Cyclone Giselle which sank the Wahine in Wellington's harbour in 1968.
'A lot of people have been comparing it with [Giselle]. This is very definitely a significant storm,' he said.
Roads on the North Island were already flooded on Thursday, before the cyclone was predicted to hit the shore
Eerie photo of Lake Taupo posted to Instagram shows dark clouds over the waters
The 26-year-old new Duke of Westminster - Britain's youngest billionaire - is reportedly locked in a row with Army reservists nicknamed his late father's 'unofficial bodyguard' over luxury hotel plans for their London headquarters.
Hugh Grosvenor, who is Prince George's godfather, is said to want to evict F Company, The 7th Battalion The Rifles, from The Rifles Club in Mayfair, which was opened by the 1st Duke in 1890.
Following his father Gerald's death in August last year the Grosvenor Group inherited by his son are said to have started negotiations to end their 140 year stay there.
The site is yards from the new Bond Street West Crossrail station, which will open in 2018 and see journey times to Heathrow cut to 27 minutes.
Hugh Grosvenor is reportedly locked in a row with Army reservists nicknamed his late father (right) Gerald's 'unofficial bodyguard' over hotel plans for their London headquarters
The Grosvenor Group is said to want to evict F Company, The 7th Battalion The Rifles, from The Rifles Club in Mayfair, pictured, which was opened by the 1st Duke in 1890
The business is said to have offered a '25million sweetener' to the battalion to buy back the lease and develop it into a five star hotel.
Duke of Westminster takes command of the Queens own Yeomanry TA in Cumbria and had close links with reservists
The Rifles Club is part of the 300 acres the new Duke of Westminster inherited across London's Mayfair and Belgravia two of the most expensive areas in the world and he also has estates in Oxford and Scotland.
The building, which is believed to have between 80 to 100 years left on its lease, contains an armoury, gym, mess and drill hall.
A spokesman for Grosvenor Britain & Ireland refused to comment on the story but one Army source told the Telegraph the decision would have left his father 'turning in his grave'.
The F Company insider said: 'The Rifles have a long-standing association with the Grosvenor family, and were considered the unofficial bodyguard to the last Duke.
'But now that relationship seems to be over, and the new Duke is slinging us out.
'The whole thing has caused outrage, and many in F Company are now looking to join other rifle companies in London. I imagine if the former Duke could see what was happening to us he would be turning in his grave.'
The Ministry of Defence told MailOnline the negotiations are ongoing and that the Grosvenors started them.
An MoD spokesman said: 'The MOD was approached by Grosvenor regarding the remaining lease.
'F Company 7 Rifles are transferring to the London infantry Regiment, as part the Army 2020 Refine plan to optimise the Army Reserves. 7 Rifles are not being disbanded and their move is not linked to the ongoing lease negotiation. To suggest otherwise would be wrong.'
Hugh Grosvenor following Pippa and James Middleton after the christening of his god son Prince George
Following his father's death he became Britain's youngest billionaire and one of the world's most eligible bachelors.
But last month it emerged that Hugh Grosvenor, 26, is dating recruitment consultant Harriet Tomlinson, also 26.
The Duke of Westminster, Hugh Grosvenor,is dating recruitment consultant Harriet Tomlinson, also 26
Photos of the pair, who went to school together, reveal they have been on a string of romantic holidays and sources say she is the 'love of his life'.
The Duke inherited 9.3billion and became the world's richest man under 30 when his father Gerald Grosvenor, the 6th Duke of Westminster, died of a heart attack aged 64 last August.
Miss Tomlinson, daughter of a curtain factory boss, grew up just a few miles from the Duke's sprawling family seat, Eaton Hall, on the outskirts of Chester.
They both attended the 30,000-a-year Ellesmere College boarding school in Shropshire and Miss Tomlinson is understood to have been a 'huge support' to him after his father's death.
The Duke inherited the fortune of his father a close friend of senior royals and mother Natalia even though he has two older siblings, as he was their only son. He also has a younger sister.
A source told the Sunday Mirror: 'Hugh and Harriet are blissfully happy together. They have a lot of shared interests and are both very down to earth and family-orientated.
'She's a really lovely girl and very much the love of his life.'
Miss Tomlinson and sister Grace, 23, were brought up by their mother Louise, 55, who used to work for Boots, and father Grahame, 81.
According to her LinkedIn online profile, Miss Tomlinson graduated from the University of Wales, Cardiff, with a degree in teaching four years ago, before studying for a public relations and event planning postgraduate diploma at University College London.
A keen runner, she has worked in events management, but is currently a consultant with property recruitment firm Deverell Smith, which is based in the City of London.
He is understood to have taken Miss Tomlinson on several holidays abroad, including a recent trip to California.
He is understood to have taken Miss Tomlinson on several holidays abroad, including a recent trip to California, pictured
Britain's youngest billionaire hired a Ford Mustang for the romantic break to America
The young couple are believed to have stayed in the luxury Ventana resort on the Big Sur coast, which is renowned for its views of the Pacific and where rooms cost upward of 500 a night.
Photographs posted online show the pair with their arms around each other and drinking wine in front of a spectacular view, as well as the Duke, who is godfather to Prince George, joking around in a yellow Ford Mustang convertible.
Pictures from the Duke's student days at Newcastle University, where he studied countryside management, had shown him drinking and with friends, leading to reports he could be at risk of squandering his inheritance.
But the source added: 'Hugh likes to enjoy himself as much as anyone else and is far from a bore. But he is happiest when he is enjoying time with Harriet and their close circle.
'He was left crushed when his father died but Harriet has been a huge support and is helping him to get used to his new responsibilities. They're a lovely couple and deserve all the happiness in the world.'
Miss Tomlinson and the Duke of Westminster both declined to comment on their relationship.
Holidaymakers leaving Australia's biggest cities are already creating gridlock as they jam the major highways ahead of the Easter long weekend.
A lull in the Sydney rain has encouraged motorists to head north up the coast, creating delays on the Pacific Highway from the Central Coast to Coffs Harbour on Thursday afternoon.
South of Brisbane the same stretch of road, along known as the M1, is also banked up with bumper-to-bumper traffic for about 20 kilometres on the Gold Coast.
Everybody hurts: traffic comes to a standstill on the M1 at Gaven on the Gold Coast
People leaving Brisbane for northern NSW and the Gold Coast aren't having a good Thursday
The major arterial roads out of Melbourne are also jammed as drivers head towards popular holiday spots like Torquay
It's occurring as some Queenslanders head to northern New South Wales coastal getaways like Byron Bay, which is hosting the popular Bluesfest this long weekend.
North of Brisbane, the Bruce Highway is also banked up as holidaymakers head to popular Sunshine Coast havens like Noosa.
The major arterial roads out of Melbourne are also jammed, with traffic heavy on the the Princes Highway as drivers head towards the Great Ocean Road and popular holiday spots on the Surf Coast like Torquay.
Double demerit points are also coming into effect on Thursday night in NSW, the Australian Capital Territory and Victoria.
Holidaymakers leaving Melbourne are also experiencing delays ahead of the Easter weekend
Motorists heading northbound on the M1 have been stuck in an Easter gridlock near Newcastle
Motorists are advised to check state government live traffic sites for the latest information on the Easter gridlock.
The M1 Pacific Motorway out of Sydney was experiencing heavy holiday traffic on Thursday afternoon on the Central Coast, with a broken down car at Ourimbah and at Mooney Mooney Creek.
Traffic was also heavy on the NSW Mid-North Coast at Mackville south of Coffs Harbour.
Motorists hoping for a smoother run inland on the New England Highway didn't fare much better with heavy traffic at Hexham, in the Hunter region.
The Gold Coast in Queensland is also copping the usual Easter holiday traffic, with a bumper-to-bumper snarl for 20 kilometres heading south on the M1 from Helensvale to Gaven.
There's more congestion farther south between Worongary and Burleigh Waters.
The Sunshine Coast, north of Brisbane, Bruce Highway traiffic is also banked up with delays at Beerburrum.
A summary of traffic delays on the Pacific Highway north of Sydney on Thursday afternoon
The Queensland government has released grainy footage of heavy south-bound traffic on the Gold Coast as its subjects leave for NSW
United To Refund All Tickets From Notorious O'Hare Flight; 2 More Aviation Officials Put On Leave
By Rachel Cromidas in News on Apr 12, 2017 9:32PM
Getty Images
With United Airlines under intense scrutiny over its handling of a Sunday night flight out of O'Hare International Airport in which a passenger was violently forced off the plane because the flight did not have enough seats, the airline now says it will refund the tickets for all passengers on the flight.
Meanwhile, the Chicago Department of Aviation is investigating what happened, and has put two more aviation officials on leave of absence. One aviation officer was already put on leave earlier this week for his role in grabbing and dragging the passenger off the flight as his face bled.
"The Chicago Department of Aviation (CDA) continues reviewing the details surrounding the incident. As part of our review, two additional officers have been placed on administrative leave until further notice," the department said in a statement Wednesday afternoon. "The employees collective bargaining agreement prohibits the CDA from releasing their names at this time."
As local authorities investigate exactly what led the officers' involved in the incident to grab the bloodied passenger, Dr. David Dao, and drag him off the plane, United Airlines officials are doing damage control while the company's stuck plummets. CEO Oscar Munoz was on Good Morning America Wednesday to say he is ashamed of what happened and to promise that United would never call on law enforcement to remove a ticket-holding, seating passenger from a plane due to not having enough seats again. Wednesday afternoon, United announced that it will be refunding the cost of the flight for each passenger on the Sunday night flight from Chicago to Louisville, Kentucky, according to the Sun-Times.
In the widely shared video of the Dao's violent removal from the plane, passengers can be seen and heard reacting with shock and outrage to the aviation officers' actions. Several passengers filmed the incident and voiced their outrage over what happened on social media Sunday night as the incident unfolded.
Judge Richard Scarratt, pictured, criticised a social worker who told a couple christening their son could 'hinder' his adoption
A council social worker told a couple christening their son would make it more difficult to put him up for adoption, a court heard.
The female Kent County Council employee told parents adoption attempts might be 'hindered' if the little boy, now about 15 months old, was 'christened into the Christian faith'.
Details of the case have emerged following a ruling by the judge following a private family court hearing in Chatham, Kent.
Presiding, Judge Richard Scarratt said the unnamed worker's comments were 'regrettable'.
He added Kent social services bosses had asked him to make decisions about the boy's future.
The judge said social services had raised concerns after the boy's father was convicted of raping a woman.
They had planned to place the child up for adoption but subsequently decided that he could live with a relative.
Judge Scarratt had approved the baby's move to a relative's home and said his parents would be able to stay in touch.
The judge said his parents wanted to continue to care for their son and planned to christen him.
He said the father had taped a conversation they had with the social worker and complained about her conduct.
During the court hearing, the social worker had 'admitted' what she said to the couple.
In his ruling, Judge Scarratt said: 'She admitted ... that she had informed the parents that a christening which they wanted might reduce the pool of possible adopters.
'This is when, of course, the care plan was for adoption. She told the parents that it would hinder adoption if the child was christened into the Christian faith.
'It is regrettable in my view that the social worker ... had indeed acted as the parents stated she had, discouraging the christening because it might hinder adoption.'
The judge said Kent County Council had apologised to the couple but he said the apology had been 'too late and inadequate'. Pictured is the council headquarters in Maidstone
The judge also criticised the social worker for not visiting the parents at their home enough when making assessments.
He said: 'I am not remotely surprised that the parents felt, when the care plan was one of adoption outside of the birth family, that the social worker was gunning for adoption, if I might put it so crudely.'
Judge Scarratt said council bosses should hold an internal inquiry into the social worker's conduct.
The judge said the council had apologised to the couple but he said the apology had been 'too late and inadequate'.
He has not identified the family involved.
A heartbroken father is furious that his autistic son is being kept 600 miles from home, claiming: 'Criminals get treated better.'
Paul Browne's son Darren moved to a specialist facility in Birmingham in 2008 because there was nowhere in Scotland which could cater for his needs.
Initially, Mr Browne and his wife Joan, who live in Coatbridge, North Lanarkshire, were told their 29-year-old son would be there for a maximum of two years.
Paul Browne (left) is furious that his autistic son Darren (right) is being kept 600 miles from home, despite a court ruling ordering him to be placed somewhere close to his family
But, nine years on, Darren is still living in Birmingham, despite a High Court judge in London ordering carers to move him back to Scotland.
Renfrewshire Council had been due to move Darren to a facility in Milton of Campsie, East Dunbartonshire, but recently halted plans because they said his needs were too 'complex'.
Mr Browne, 58, said he is furious because carers did not even go to Birmingham to assess his son.
He said: 'Then they turn round and say that they can't accept him because the carers had not grasped the complexities of his situation.
'How can they possibly say that when they did not send anyone down?
'They've given me a figure of 50,000. They say that's what it would cost a year to look after Darren. But 50,000 is pittance compared to the 5,000 a week that it costs to look after him in England.
'So to say the cost is an issue is complete garbage.'
Mr Browne (left)and his wife Joan, who live in North Lanarkshire, were told their 29-year-old son (right) would be there for a maximum of two years - but he is still there nine years on
The Brownes were also told recently that Darren's life expectancy is sitting around the mid-30s, meaning they are missing vital time with their son. He is pictured left and right as a child
Despite the court order, Darren is now facing a further two years at the Wast Hills hospital in Birmingham.
Mr Browne, who works with the homeless, said: 'Criminals get treated better than my son.
'I don't know how they can go against a court order. We go down once a month to see him but it's very difficult for him and us. My heart is breaking.
'It can take Darren two or three days to recover from saying goodbye. These people don't realise that he is a human being.'
Despite the court order, Darren (pictured) is now facing a further two years at the Wast Hills hospital in Birmingham
Adding to the agony, the Brownes were told recently that Darren's life expectancy is sitting around the mid-30s, meaning they are missing vital time with their son.
Mr Browne said he would never have allowed Darren to be sent to Birmingham if he had known how the situation would unfold.
'If I had known he was going to be in England for 11 years when I said he could go, I would never have signed off on it,' he added.
The case is due to be reviewed at the High Court later this month.
Mr Browne added: 'The judge has called for a hearing because he wants to know why his order to send Darren back to Scotland was ignored.
'Whoever turned it down went against the law. The judge wants to know why.'
A spokesman for Renfrewshire Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP) said plans were in place to move Darren, but they later had to 're-evaluate the situation' because carer could not meet his needs.
They said: 'Renfrewshire HSCP has been working over the past year to agree a care package and provider for a client who is currently in a private hospital in Birmingham.
'We had identified a provider last year but have had to re-evaluate our situation as we cannot agree a position that would fully meet the client's complex care needs.
'Therefore we have taken the decision to withdraw from the current process and prepare a new plan for future provision of care in Scotland.'
They added: 'We recognise the challenges that can present with any client with a complex need and strive to work closely with service users, family and carers.
'We also work closely with our care providers to identify the most appropriate care, treatment and support package for each individual.'
The leader of a banned Islamist extremist group and two of his aides have been hanged for a grenade attack targeting a British high commissioner 12 years ago.
Mufti Abdul Hannan, the head of Harkatul Jihad Al Islami and his two HuJI associates were sentenced to death in 2008 over the carnage, with Bangladesh's highest court upholding the sentences last month.
The explosion at a 14th century Sufi shrine in the northeastern city of Sylhet killed three people and injured the ambassador Anwar Choudhury - a Bangladeshi-born British diplomat who has since become the UK's ambassador to Peru.
Bangladeshi Harkat-ul Jihad al Islami (HUJI) leader Mufti Abdul Hannan (centre) is flanked by police officers as he appears in court in Dhaka on June 23, 2014
Mufti Abdul Hannan, center, leader of banned radical group Harkatul Jihad al Islami, stands at a court in Dhaka, Bangladesh
Authorities hanged Hannan and one of his aides Sharif Shahedul Islam at a high security prison outside Dhaka
HuJI was the first Islamist militant outfit to emerge in Bangladesh, and rose to prominence as Hannan escalated its deadly operations.
All three terrorists sought clemency from the Bangladesh president in a last-ditch attempt to commute the execution orders to life sentences, but he rejected their pleas.
Authorities hanged Hannan and one of his aides Sharif Shahedul Islam at a high security prison outside Dhaka at 10pm on Wednesday.
Anwar Choudhury, the target of the 2004 grenade attack for which the terrorists were hanged
Another associate, Delwar Hossain, was executed at a jail in Sylhet.
Their bodies were then taken back to their villages, where they were buried amid tight security, police said.
'Hannan was buried in his village at around 5.45am after a funeral prayer attended by 15-20 of his relatives,' local police chief Kamrul Faruq said.
'We've stepped up security to prevent any violence,' he said, adding the funeral passed off peacefully.
He said Hannan was a 'hated figure' even in his village due to his roles in a series of deadly blasts and two attempts on the life of then opposition leader Sheikh Hasina, who also comes from the same district.
Hannan, 60, was a madrassa teacher who studied in India and Pakistan and fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan before returning to join HuJI.
Prosecutors said Hannan had headed HuJI since the late 1990s, masterminding deadly attacks on a church, secular gatherings, and mosques used by Islam's minority sects.
In August 2004, in one of the country's deadliest extremist attacks, he masterminded the blasts at a political rally of Sheikh Hasina, now prime minister, outside her party office in central Dhaka.
Hasina narrowly survived what she said was an assassination attempt.
At least 22 people were killed.
By the time Hannan was arrested in late 2005, more than 100 people had been killed in attacks he orchestrated across the Muslim-majority nation.
Harkat-ul Jihad al Islami (HUJI) leader Mufti Abdul Hannan (centre) is flanked by police officers as he leaves a court in Sylhet on December 23, 2008. Hanan and two others were sentenced to death by hanging after being convicted of plotting to kill the British ambassador in a grenade attack in 2004
Tensions in the moderate Muslim country have been running high in recent weeks following a resurgence of extremist attacks, at least three of which have been claimed by the Islamic State group.
Al-Qaeda and the IS have claimed dozens of attacks in recent years, but Hasina's secular government insists local groups are to blame.
Police have arrested scores of suspected extremists and killed more than 60 people since an attack on a Dhaka cafe last year in which 22 people were killed, many of them foreign hostages.
President Donald Trump has called the United Airlines incident 'horrible' and called on airlines to increase the amount they offer passengers to give up their seats on overbooked flights.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump said: 'You know, there's a point at which I'm getting off the plane, seriously. They should have gone up higher. But to just randomly say "You're getting off the plane", that was terrible.'
Dr David Dao is recovering after the incident in Chicago on Sunday and his lawyers have asked the Cook County Circuit Court for an order requiring United and the city of Chicago to keep all video, cockpit recordings, passenger, employee and crew lists relating to the horrifying incident.
President Trump (left) said airlines should raise the amount of money they offer to passengers to persuade them to give up their seats when flights are overbooked. Yesterday New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (right) urged the Trump administration to prevent overbooking
It comes after New Jersey Governor Chris Christie denounced United Airlines as 'awful' on Wednesday and demanded the Trump administration step in and prevent the aviation industry from overbooking flights following the forced removal of a bloodied passenger on Sunday.
After the social media uproar ignited widespread calls for a boycott, United CEO Oscar Munoz issued an apology and promised to investigate the incident.
The New Jersey governor told Fox & Friends on Wednesday that the incident was the result of a problematic culture at United.
Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com
'Everybody who flies commercial knows United is awful,' he said. 'They know it's awful.
'I don't think they've ever really recovered from the merger between United and Continental, and I don't think they've integrated employees. I don't think they've set a culture there, and you've got a CEO who takes off after the guy was dragged down the aisle.'
In 2010, United Airlines' parent company UAL Corp bought Continental Airlines Inc for $3.17billion in an all-stock deal that at the time formed the world's largest carrier.
Today, American Airlines Group is the largest aviation company after its 2013 merger with US Airways.
Christie was reacting to the national backlash that erupted against United after one of its passengers (right) was filmed being violently dragged off a plane just before takeoff (left) to make room for the airline's crew members even though he paid for a ticket
After the social media uproar ignited widespread calls for a boycott, United CEO Oscar Munoz issued an apology and promised to investigate the incident. The bloodied passenger, Dr. David Dao (above), 69, is seen above moments after he was forced out of his seat
Christie says he sent a letter to Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao informing her that he has instructed New Jersey authorities to look into action that would curb 'the abusive practice' of overbooking flights.
'We would ask, in the context of the president's efforts at regulatory reform to improve the lives of our citizens, that you consider the immediate suspension of this overbooking authority until a thorough review can be done by your department,' Christie wrote to Chao.
The governor told Fox & Friends his constituents often have no choice but to fly United since the airline accounts for some 70 percent of flights that take off and land at Newark International Airport.
Given the relative lack of alternatives, airlines feel they have the freedom to overbook flights with impunity, Christie said.
The New Jersey governor told Fox & Friends on Wednesday that the incident was the result of a problematic culture at United
In 2010, United Airlines' parent company UAL Corp bought Continental Airlines Inc for $3.17billion in an all-stock deal that at the time formed the world's largest carrier. A Continental Airlines jet is seen at Bush Airport in Houston in the above 2010 file photo
'They kicked those people off to make money and they're doing it with the permission of the federal government,' he said.
'So what I'm saying to the administration is, stop them from doing it.'
The Department of Transportation and other agencies are said to be looking into the matter.
So far, it doesn't look like any major regulatory initiatives are in the offing.
Christie says he sent a letter to Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao (seen left with President Donald Trump) informing her that he has instructed New Jersey authorities to look into action that would curb 'the abusive practice' of overbooking flights
Shares of United were trading slightly higher on Wednesday this just one day after the company lost $255million in value as it was still grappling with the aftermath of the incident
'It was an unfortunate incident, clearly, when you watch the video. It is troubling to see how that was handled... Law enforcement is reviewing it. And I think for us to start to get in front of what should be a local matter, not necessarily needing a federal response.'
Shares of United were trading slightly higher on Wednesday this just one day after the company lost $255million in value as it was still grappling with the aftermath of the incident.
A grief-stricken sister has told of how her life has changed since her big brother was killed in a fight and dumped in a wheelie bin in Adelaide.
Adelaide man Daniel Hind, 29, was killed by Timothy Seymour in a drunken clash in August 2015 and his body was found in a bin in a paddock more than three weeks later.
In the Supreme Court on Thursday Mr Hind's youngest sister Chelsea Hind gave a heart wrenching statement.
A grief-stricken sister has revealed how her life has changed after her older brother Daniel Hind (pictured) was killed in a fight and dumped in a wheelie bin in Adelaide in August 2015
'Daniel and I were very close,' she said in her victim impact statement. 'He was a big part of my life. I would always listen to what he had to say.
'We would always help each other. He was always there.'
Ms Hind said she and her brother had been painting the house just before he went missing.
And when she found out what had happened to him her life was 'completely flipped'.
'I don't feel well and I don't want to eat,' she said, sniffing and tearful. 'I used to be very fit and healthy. Now I am skeletal.
'I don't like people as much as I used to.'
Mr Hind (pictured) was killed by Timothy Seymour in a drunken clash. His sister Chelsea Hind told the Supreme Court on Thursday that her brother's death had ruined their family
When she directed her words to Seymour, who sat in the dock in a shirt and tie, Ms Hind raised her voice.
'You have single-handedly ruined our family,' she said. 'You continued to eat, sleep, shower and work while my brother was dumped in a paddock.
'How could anyone do this to another human being? I wish you bad luck.'
Seymour, 35, had been drinking at home with Mr Hind and knocked the younger man out during a clash in the kitchen before falling asleep on the couch.
Ms Hind said her father had breakdown from the grief and he was in hospital for months. Her mother Mindy Hind said family gatherings will never be the same and she still feels sick every time she walks past a wheelie bin
In the morning Seymour realised what he'd done and he stuffed the body in a wheelie bin.
But Mr Hind's body was eventually found in a paddock in Waterloo Corner and Seymour was charged, later pleading guilty to manslaughter.
Mr Hind's family said they were torn apart by the loss and they are reminded of his death whenever they put the bins out.
His father Philip Hind said he had a breakdown from the grief and he was in hospital for months.
His mother Mindy Hind said family gatherings will never be the same now her first-born son is gone and she still feels sick every time she walks past a wheelie bin.
Seymour will be sentenced at a later date.
Chelsea Hind told the court she had lost huge amounts of weight, describing herself as 'skeletal'. Pictured is the crime scene where police discovered Mr Hind's body in 2015
Tensions boiled over in a fraught UN discussion over Russia's support for Syria when a furious ambassador from Moscow snapped at a British diplomat: 'Look at me while I'm talking to you'.
Jabbing his finger towards Matthew Rycroft, Russias deputy ambassador Vladimir Safronkov responded furiously to claims that Moscow had been 'humiliated' in its support for dictator Bashar al-Assad.
The extraordinary outburst came as Russia vetoed a UN resolution condemning the reported use of chemical weapons in Syria and urging a speedy investigation into a chemical attack which claimed 87 lives last Tuesday.
Mr Safronkov said: Look at me, when Im speaking, dont look away. Why are you looking away?'
And he told the British ambassador: Youre losing sleep that we might be working together with the United States, co-operating with the United States that is what you fear.
'Youre doing everything to make sure this kind of co-operation is undermined. He added: What have you done to advance a cease-fire? You welcome various opposition groups in London and Paris, illegal armed groups.
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Russia's deputy UN ambassador Vladimir Safronkov snapped during discussions about a resolution condemning the use of chemical weapons in Syria
The Russian official told British ambassador Matthew Rycroft (pictured): 'Look at me while I'm talking to you'
The exchange happened on a day in which:
The UN Security Council was told British scientists had discovered evidence of nerve agent sarin, or a sarin-like substance, at the scene of the attack
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said there were 'low levels of trust' between the United States and Russia after meeting Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson called on Vladimir Putin to use his influence on Assad to end the war
Russia's ambassador to the UN, Vladimir Safronkov, accused Britain of 'arrogance' and defended its role
Putin said there was 'no evidence' that Assad was behind the chemical attack
Tests on victims of last Tuesday's chemical weapon attack in Syria revealed the presence of sarin, or a sarin-like substance
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said sarin, or a sarin-like substance, had been detected at the scene of last week's attack, and said President Bashar al-Assad (pictured) was 'highly likely' to be responsible
The Russian envoy snapped during the angry exchanges at yesterday's meeting of the UN Security Council
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson later said he was 'dismayed' by the Russian veto and urged Vladimir Putin to use his influence with Assad to bring the war to an end.
'Last week in Syria, a barbaric attack was committed,' he said.
'British scientists have completed an analysis of samples obtained from the site of the attack and concluded that sarin, or a sarin-like substance, was used.
'Our assessment, like that of the US, is that it is highly likely the Assad regime was responsible.
Analysis of blood and urine samples from the attack in the northwestern Idlib province proved the use of the gas, experts stated
Russia has vetoed a UN resolution condemning the reported use of chemical weapons in Syria and urging a speedy investigation
'I am dismayed that Russia has once again blocked the UN Security Council and in so doing refused to condemn the use of chemical weapons or support a full UN investigation into the attack.
'This puts Russia on the wrong side of the argument. But it doesn't have to be this way.'
He said Russia now faced a choice between 'acting as a lifeline for Assad's murderous regime, or it could live up to its responsibilities as a global power, and use its influence over the regime to bring six long years of failed ceasefires and false dawns to an end'.
A Syrian child is treated in the aftermath of last week's attack in the Idlib province in northern Syria
Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday angrily defended Assad, saying there was no evidence the Syrian dictator was behind the attack
Mr Johnson said it was 'highly likely' the Syrian regime was responsible for the toxic gas attack and called on Russia to stop acting 'as a lifeline for Assad's murderous regime'.
He said: 'This puts Russia on the wrong side of the argument. But it doesn't have to be this way.'
It comes after US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson met his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in Moscow to discuss the escalating tensions in Syria, where he admitted there were 'low levels of trust' between the two nations.
Mr Johnson backed US calls to find a political solution and said the G7 leaders were ready to work with Russia to end the violence in Syria.
France on Wednesday blasted Russia's vetoing of a UN draft resolution demanding the Syrian government cooperate with an investigation into a suspected chemical attack.
'Russia bears a heavy responsibility through its systematic opposition - in order to protect its ally Assad - to a multilateral response to the issue of Syria,' the office of French President Francois Hollande said in a statement.
The foul-tempered exchange happened during discussions over a resolution calling for last week's chemical attack to be condemned
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said he was 'dismayed' by the Russian veto and urged Vladimir Putin to use his influence with Assad to bring the war to an end
US. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (left) shakes hands with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (right) during their talks in Moscow yesterday
The resolution 'was designed to allow a rapid, thorough inquiry by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to establish responsibility for the chemical attacks on April 4 in Idlib province', the statement said.
Russia's veto was the eighth time it had chosen to oppose a majority of the (UN Security) Council in this way, it added.
'Only the coming together of the international community in favour of a political transition in Syria will allow this martyred country to find peace, stability and sovereignty again.
'France will continue to mobilise in this way.'
Earlier, Britain's UN ambassador had lashed Russian support for the 'murderous, barbaric criminal' Assad and warned the Kremlin it was on the 'wrong side of history'.
Mark Rycroft said Russia had been 'humiliated' by its steadfast support of the Syrian dictator's regime during six years of hellish civil war and last week's chemical strike.
In a special session of the UN Security Council in New York, Russia's ambassador to the UN Vladimir Safronkov accused Britain of 'arrogance' and defended its role.
Mr Rycroft, right, made an impassioned case against Russian involvement in the Syrian war at a special session of the security council today, pictured
In his impassioned speech against Russian involvement, Mr Rycroft said: 'Time and time again, Russia has abused its veto protect the regime and to defend its use of chemical weapons.
'What has Russia got in return for its seven vetos in six years? Russia's initiative in 2013 to dismantle Syria's chemical weapons has been exposed as a shambles.
'Russian pride in the Astana process has been turned to humiliation and Russia's credibility and reputation across the world have been poisoned by its toxic association with Assad.
'They have chosen to side with a murderous, barbaric criminal rather than with their international peers. They have chosen the wrong side of history.
'However, it is not to late for Russia to change course, not to late for Russia to use its influence over the regime to bring conflict to an end.'
Russia's ambassador to the UN Vladimir Safronkov accused Britain of 'arrogance' and defended its role
The text of last night's motion reads called on the Syrian government to provide flight plans, flight logs and other information on its military operations on April 4, hand over the names of commanders of any aircraft and provide access to all air bases to UN investigators.
Amid heated scenes, Mr Rycroft added: 'Use of the weapons Assad agreed in 2013 to destroy is just the latest in a long list of abhorrent attacks. With that attack, he has made clear he is not committed to a ceasefire or to the Astana process, ruining Russia's credibility.
'And as we mourn the victims of the chemical attack, we must not forget the 13.5million people who thanks to Assad are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance and in urgent need of a long overdue peace.
'It is clear today as it has been for some time there can be no place for Assad in Syria's future.'
Philip Hammond defended Mr Johnson today amid a backlash over his botched demands for the G7 to impose sanctions on Russia
Philip Hammond defended Mr Johnson amid a backlash over his botched demands for the G7 to impose sanctions on Russia.
The Foreign Secretary went into a key summit with counterparts from the powerful nations earlier this week insisting that Vladimir Putin should be hit with punitive measures unless he abandons the Syrian regime.
But he was branded a 'total let down' after fellow G7 ministers rebuffed the appeal in the wake of last week's chemical weapons attack on Idlib province.
Chancellor Philip Hammond moved to shore up his Cabinet colleague yesterday, insisting the UK would not stop 'making the case' for a tough line over Syria.
A No10 source insisted Mr Johnson had the full support of Theresa May and dismissed claims he had failed his first big test.
The episode was particularly embarrassing because Mr Johnson had cancelled a planned trip to Moscow at the weekend to concentrate on getting an agreement.
Italian Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano welcomes Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Boris Johnson, before a meeting of foreign ministers of the G7 in Lucca
Some of the new 'indestructible' 5 notes have been left so battered that the security features have rubbed away just six months after they were launched, prompting police to think they were fake.
Officers issued an alert to the public after notes circulating in Wadebridge, Cornwall, were found without two of the main currency security features - a security hologram and an image of Big Ben.
The notes looked so different that police urged the public to be on the lookout for counterfeit currency and flagged their concerns to the Bank of England.
But today, the Bank of England insisted the notes - which were only released in September and feature Winston Churchill - were real currency that had accidentally been damaged due to 'extreme use'.
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Some of the new 'indestructible' 5 notes have been left so battered that the security holograms have rubbed away, prompting police to think they were fake. On this ruined note, the gold picture of Big Ben has been rubbed off and the hologram is coloured, not clear
The new fivers normally feature a gold Big Ben and clear holograms on the front (shown above). The Bank of England said the notes had been ruined due to 'extreme use'
Although bank chiefs had promised the new notes would be 'much more durable', a spokesman said today that they are 'not indestructible'.
She added that the money can be damaged through 'prolonged washing at high temperatures'.
The notes that sparked concern did not feature a gold Big Ben on the front, while the normally-clear hologram had turned green.
When the polymer 5 note was launched, those behind the design said it boasted new security features making it harder to counterfeit.
The security features include two clear holograms on the front - one at the top and one at the bottom - as well as a gold picture of Elizabeth Tower, also known as Big Ben.
There is also a portrait of the Queen in the window and special microlettering which experts say would be almost impossible to forge.
The notes looked so different that police urged the public to be on the lookout for counterfeit currency (pictured) and flagged their concerns to the Bank of England
The Bank of England - which is due to release a similar 10 note this summer featuring Jane Austen - also said it was more hardy than the old notes and would last twice as long is circulation.
THE SECURITY FEATURES ON A NEW FIVER See-through window : There is a see-through window, with a a clearly defined portrait of the Queen and the words: 5 Bank of England printed twice around the edge;
: There is a see-through window, with a a clearly defined portrait of the Queen and the words: 5 Bank of England printed twice around the edge; Big Ben: There is a finely detailed metallic image of the Elizabeth Tower over the window. The foil is gold on the front and silver on the back. When the note is tilted a rainbow effect can be seen;
There is a finely detailed metallic image of the Elizabeth Tower over the window. The foil is gold on the front and silver on the back. When the note is tilted a rainbow effect can be seen; Colour change: Around the edge of the window is a coloured border which changes from purple to green when the note is tilted;
Around the edge of the window is a coloured border which changes from purple to green when the note is tilted; Foil patches: On the front of the note is a silver foil patch. When the note is tilted, the word Five changes to Pounds;
On the front of the note is a silver foil patch. When the note is tilted, the word Five changes to Pounds; Crown: On the front of the note is a silver foil patch containing an image of the coronation crown which appears 3D. When the note is tilted a multi-coloured rainbow effect can be seen;
On the front of the note is a silver foil patch containing an image of the coronation crown which appears 3D. When the note is tilted a multi-coloured rainbow effect can be seen; Blenheim: On the back of the note, there is a circular green foil patch which contains the word BLENHEIM;
On the back of the note, there is a circular green foil patch which contains the word BLENHEIM; Lettering: By running your finger across the front of the note you can feel raised print in areas such as the words Bank of England. Advertisement
The new notes - printed by Basingstoke-based company De La Rue, which has worked with the Bank of England since 1974 - are printed on polymer rather than paper, a thin flexible plastic film which the Bank says is cleaner, stronger and more secure.
De La Rue describe themselves on their website as producing 'high quality paper for integration into premium security documents such as banknotes.'
The company also claims that their paper is 'long lasting and robust.'
Several people then took to experimenting to see what would destroy the note, including ripping, washing and ironing them to prove the Bank wrong.
Last week, chemistry professor Martyn Poliakoff said the note could be damaged by pouring liquid nitrogen over it and hitting it with a lump hammer - but few people had the same success.
Anyone with a damaged note can apply to the Bank of England to exchange it.
Claimants must fill in a form and send it, along with the bank note, in the post.
It is then assessed by the Bank and claims are paid directly into the applicants bank account, if successful.
Police said people can identify a fake 5 note because it does not have a gold Big Ben clock tower on the front, unlike the real one.
The genuine 5 notes also have clear holograms on the front of the note, on the top and bottom. On fake notes, these will be coloured and not holographic.
One science presenter also discovered that, if you shine a laser pointer through the right spot on the Queen's neck on the 5 note and then project it onto the opposite wall, you will see a triangular star field.
Since they were released in September, Britain's new plastic 5 notes have become a valuable collectors' item with notes bearing AA01 serial numbers from the first printing run becoming prized collectors' items.
Bank chiefs claim the new notes are so durable they will last twice as long as the old fiver. A total of 440million 5 notes have been printed (file picture of new notes)
Each unique number can be found twice on the reverse side of the note, on the left hand side and the bottom right.
A total of 440million 5 notes have been printed, meaning there is roughly a one in 440 chance of a note having a valuable AA01 serial number.
The old fiver, featuring prison reformer Elizabeth Fry, will continue to be valid until May 5.
OUTRAGE OVER 'NON-VEGAN' BANK NOTES Vegans and vegetarians pledged to boycott the 5 note when it was released after it emerged it contained tallow, a type of animal fat. The Bank has since said that it may use palm oil as an alternative - although environmentalists were not happy about that either. Controversial palm oil, often found in peanut butter, has been linked to deforestation on a large scale as trees are cleared to make way for plantations. The Bank of England said it was the 'only practical alternative'. Advertisement
The Bank of England said more than 50% of 'Fry fivers' have already been returned to be destroyed, leaving around 160 million in circulation.
Some banks and building societies may still accept paper 5 notes after May 5, but this is at their own discretion.
The Bank of England will continue to exchange the old 5 notes for all time, as it would for any other Bank note which no longer has legal tender status.
PCSO Pete Sobye, of Wadebridge police, said: 'If you find yourself in possession of a fake 5 note, contact your bank. Or if you have been given a number of these as payment, contact police on 101.'
A Bank of England spokesman said: 'The Bank of England is aware that a small number of polymer 5 notes have been damaged due to extreme use, for example prolonged washing at high temperatures.
'In some cases this has resulted in the foil Elizabeth Tower being removed. These notes are damaged genuine banknotes not counterfeits, and a lot of other security features remain intact such as the Queen's portrait in the window and the microlettering.
'Polymer notes are stronger than paper notes and last longer in usual day-to-day use but they are not indestructible. '
When contacted by MailOnline, De La Rue declined to explain why the notes were fading or whether anything would be done in the future to improve their durability.
Innovia, which provides polymer banknote substrate, has also been contacted for comment.
Five young people were killed in a horror crash in Iowa in the early hours of Monday morning.
Zachary Wolf Hartley, 20, Alex Parvon-Charles Wiebke, 19, Roderick Lemeual Lewis, 18, Donte William Foster, 17, and Sydney Nikole Alcorn, 14, all died in the smash.
Police say a Jeep being driven by Foster left the road and hit a tree before bursting into flames. All the victims were pronounced dead at the scene.
Donte William Foster, 17 (left), was driving in the early hours of Monday morning when his Jepp left the road and hit a tree, killing himself and four others including Zachary Wolf Hartley, 20
Alex Parvon-Charles Wiebke, 19, remembered by friends as a gentle giant and athlete, was pronounced dead at the scene of the crash
A memorial has been set up close to the scene where they died, comprised of five stumps created when one tree was cut down - one for each victim.
Police say it is not the same tree that was hit in the accident, which was torn clean out of the ground with the force of the impact.
Town history of mourning mass death Cerro Gordo county, where this accident took place, was also the site of the 1959 plane crash that came to be known as 'The Day the Music Died'. That accident happened around 20 minutes from Mason City, just north of Clear Lake. Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, J.P. 'the Big Bopper' Richardson and pilot Roger Peterson were all killed. Advertisement
Investigators are still probing the cause of the accident, saying they have no idea what could have caused it.
Hundreds of mourners have turned out to sign the stump, laying flowers, putting up pictures of the dead, and lighting candles for the victims.
Nick Kmoch, the ministry director for North Iowa Youth For Christ, knew all five victims. He told the Global Gazette: 'It's going to take time.
'This is going to rock our community and I would encourage everyone out there and give them a hug, because you never know. You never know.'
Dan Long, principal at Mason City High School where Foster studied and was due to graduate in June, told the Des Moines Register: 'Death can be difficult for us to understand, especially when it is sudden.
'All of us will be feeling a variety of emotions: anger, shock, sadness, or confusion. What is most important is that we care for and support each other.'
North Korea may already be capable of launching chemical weapons, Japan has warned.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he feared Kim Jong-un 'has a capability' to fire missiles tipped with sarin - the same deadly gas used to kill 87 Syrian civilians in a horrifying gas attack last week.
That atrocity prompted the US to launch a surprise wave of missiles on one of dictator Bashar al-Assad's airbases.
Abe told a parliamentary session: 'There is a possibility that North Korea already has a capability to deliver missiles with sarin as warheads.'
Kim Jong-un (pictured in Pyongyang today) may already be capable of launching chemical weapons, Japan has warned
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he feared Kim Jong-un 'has a capability' to fire missiles tipped with sarin - the same deadly gas used to kill 87 Syrian civilians in a horrifying gas attack last week
Tensions on the Korean peninsula have escalated over Pyongyang's continued nuclear and missile testing programme (file picture of a North Korea test rocket launch)
Members of a Japanese doomsday cult killed 12 people and made thousands ill in 1995 in simultaneous attacks with sarin nerve gas on five Tokyo rush-hour subway trains.
Tensions on the Korean peninsula have escalated over Pyongyang's continued nuclear and missile testing programme, with the United States warning it could take unilateral action and sending a navy carrier group to near the Korean peninsula in a show of force aimed at deterring more tests.
North Korea marks the 105th anniversary of the birth of state founder Kim Il Sung on Saturday, North Korea's biggest national day called 'Day of the Sun'.
Leaders have in the past used the date to carry out weapons tests.
North Korea has launched several missile tests this year, the latest on April 5 when it fired a ballistic missile into the sea off its east coast. It conducted its fifth nuclear test on September 9, 2016.
Washington-based 38 North , who monitors North Korea, has reported 'unusually high levels of activity' at the Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site (above) over the past four weeks
Tensions are high after Trump tweeted that he had 'a very good call' with Chinese leader Xi Jinping Tuesday night dealing with 'the menace of North Korea'
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un cuts the ribbon during an opening ceremony of a newly constructed residential complex in Ryomyong street in Pyongyang
South Korea said today it believed it would be consulted by the United States before any possible pre-emptive U.S. strike against Pyongyang and China urged the North to halt its nuclear programme in exchange for greater protection from Beijing.
China, North Korea's sole major ally and benefactor, has called for a peaceful resolution after a sharp rise in rhetoric between the United States and Pyongyang.
On Thursday, an influential state-backed Chinese newspaper said the best option for North Korea and its leader Kim Jong Un was to give up its nuclear programme.
'As soon as North Korea complies with China's declared advice and suspends nuclear activities ... China will actively work to protect the security of a denuclearised North Korean nation and regime,' said an editorial in the Global Times, which is published by the Communist party's People's Daily.
While U.S. President Donald Trump has put North Korea on notice that he won't tolerate provocative actions by the North, U.S. officials have said his administration was focusing its strategy on tougher economic sanctions.
Trump has diverted the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier group towards the Korean peninsula, which could take more than a week to arrive, in a show of force aimed at deterring North Korea from conducting another nuclear test or launching more missiles to coincide with major commemorative events.
Officials gave no details as to the nature of a so-called 'big event' or where it would take place, and similar announcements in the past have been linked to relatively low-key set pieces
US military officials fear North Korea has placed a nuclear test in a tunnel with the potential to detonate it on Saturday. Pictured: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (left) flanked by vice-chairman of the State Affairs Commission Choe Yong-Hae at an opening ceremony for 'Rymoyong street', a new housing development in Pyongyang today
The possibility of U.S. military action against North Korea in response to such tests gained traction after the U.S. Navy fired 59 Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian airfield last week in response to a deadly gas attack.
South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se said he believed Washington would consult Seoul if it was considering a pre-emptive strike against the North.
'Under the South Korea-U.S. alliance, any important measure on the North is taken under consultation with the South Korea government and it will continue in the future,' Yun told a parliamentary hearing.
A Washington-based think tank that monitors North Korea, 38 North, said satellite images taken on Wednesday showed continued activity around the North's Punggye-ri nuclear test site on the east coast that showed it was ready for a new test.
South Korean officials said on Thursday there were no new signs to indicate a North Korean nuclear test was more likely, although they also said the North has maintained a state of readiness to conduct such a test at any time.
Around 200 foreign journalists gathered in Pyongyang for North Korea's biggest national day, the 'Day of the Sun', were taken to what was billed by officials as a 'big and important event' early on Thursday.
It turned out to be the opening of a new street in the centre of the capital, attended by Kim.
North Korea marks the 105th anniversary of the birth of state founder Kim Il Sung on Saturday. In 2012, it tried but failed to launch a long-range rocket carrying a satellite to mark the date and tested a newly developed intermediate-range missile last year.
North Korea's official KCNA news agency reported early on Thursday that Kim Jong Un had guided training of the army's special operation forces jumping from aircraft.
North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Un (second from right) attends a ceremony for the opening of a housing project in Pyongyang today. The regime warned foreign journalists to prepare for a 'big event' on Thursday and is thought to have put a nuclear device in a tunnel at its Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site
The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, the guided-missile destroyer USS Wayne E. Meyer and the guided-missile cruiser USS Lake Champlain are pictured in March this year. North Korea has warned it is 'ready to react to any mode of war desired by the U.S.'
TENSE STAND-OFF: The U.S. dispatched a naval strike group to the area amid continued missile launches and hot rhetoric from North Korea
'Watching the brave combatants mercilessly blow up the enemy targets, he said with pleasure that the commanding officers made correct decisions, adding those combatants carrying out their duties independently and pro-actively were reminiscent of fierce tigers crossing the mountain ranges in the southern half,' KCNA reported.
On Tuesday, North Korea warned of a nuclear attack on the United States at any sign of American aggression. The North is technically at war with the United States and South Korea after the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce and not a peace treaty.
The North regularly threatens to destroy both countries.
U.S. officials said Trump was considering tougher sanctions that could possibly include an oil embargo, banning North Korea's airline, intercepting cargo ships, and punishing Chinese banks doing business with Pyongyang.
'There's a whole host of things that are possible, all the way up to what's essentially a trade quarantine on North Korea,' one official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters in Washington on Wednesday.
Customs data in Beijing on Thursday showed that China's coal imports from North Korea plunged 51.6 percent in the first three months in 2017 from a year ago.
China suspended issuing permits for importing coal from North Korea on Feb. 18 as part of its efforts to implement U.N. sanctions against Pyongyang.
Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke by telephone on Wednesday, just days after they met in the United States for the first time, underscoring the sense of urgency about North Korea.
Trump said on Twitter his call with Xi was a 'very good' discussion of the 'menace of North Korea'. He said later on Wednesday the United States was prepared to tackle the crisis without China if necessary.
Rachel Essaid (pictured above), 18, had begun dating 32-year old company director Imraan Hasham they met in a nightclub
A controlling company director who bullied his teenage girlfriend by banning her from using a phone and throwing away her clothes in a bid to force her into marriage has escaped jail.
Imraan Hasham, 32, called his young girlfriend a 'slag' and would tell her to put her 't*** away' if she wore revealing clothes.
Rachel Essaid met the businessman when she was just 17 at a nightclub in Bolton. Hasham lied about his age, telling the teenager he was 20 and the pair embarked on a relationship which quickly became abusive.
But Magistrates took pity on 32-year-old Imraan Hasham at a hearing in Manchester this week, who admitted to controlling behaviour, after hearing about how the case might affect his chauffeuring business.
Through a statement to the police, she told the court Hasham wanted to marry her in a mosque and preferred it if she stayed home to cook and clean. She told how she was forced to keep the blinds closed when she was in the house so people wouldn't look at her.
Hasham admitted engaging in controlling and coercive behaviour during a court hearing at Manchester Magistrate's Court this week.
But he was sparred jail after saying the future of his business was now 'up in the air' as a result of his arrest.
The victim's ordeal began after she met Hasham in March 2016 at the Level nightclub in Bolton.
Abusive: Rachel Essaid (left), 18, would be called a 'slag, a low life and ugly' by Imraan Hasham (right) whenever she wanted to dress up for an evening out
Controlled: Hasham would force Rachel Essaid (pictured above) to keep the blinds closed at home so no one could see her inside
They embarked in a year-long relationship which ended in March last year after police were called when Hasham threw Miss Essaid onto his bed and tried to smother her during an argument when she tried to leave his house to see her family.
He bit her on the hand so that she couldn't use her phone and later threatened to kill Miss Essaid's stepfather when he helped her pick up her belongings from Hasham's home.
Scared: Rachel Essaid (pictured above) told police she felt afraid of Hasham, who was 14 years her senior
Officers discovered Hasham had a dark past having previously served an eight and a half year stretch over a terrifying bank raid during which a woman cashier was kidnapped at gunpoint. He also had convictions for a criminal damage and affray.
In a statement Miss Essaid who has had to undergo counselling told detectives: 'He does not like me having friends. He calls them slags. For a while now I have been wanting to end the relationship but I feel I cannot get away from him.
'He says that my life would be 's**t' without him. I am scared of him.
'He has said in the past that he would get his gun and shoot me or smash me in the face with a bottle. I feel that he does not want anyone to see me. I am not allowed to open the blinds or go out.
'I have no self-confidence and feel worthless. I have lost all my independence and I fear I am not strong enough to say 'no' if he contacts me.'
Prosecuting, Matthew Treece said: 'He told her he was 20 but was actually 32. The relationship was initially good and she started staying at his house frequently. She described the defendant as sometimes nice but controlled certain aspects of her life.
'He would take her to and from work and wouldn't allow her to use her mobile phone. He would also make comments about her make up and the way she looked. He has taken items of her clothing and thrown it away because he didn't like them.
Mr Treece told magistrates Miss Essaid was scared to leave.
He said: 'She said that she thinks he gives her gifts to have power over her and that she wanted to leave the relationship but was scared that she couldn't get away. She was scared that he would follow her and turn up at her work and claims the relationship was not normal and the way he was with her was not normal.'
The court heard how Hasham would take Rachel Essaid to and from work and wouldn't allow her to use her mobile phone
The court heard how the victim felt Hasham wanted her to stay at home and do the chores.
Mr Treece said: ' She said she felt that he didn't want anyone to see her - he would force her to keep the blinds closed and wouldn't let her out on her own.
Police were called in last March after Hasham threw Miss Essaid onto his bed and tried to smother her during an argument when she tried to leave his house to see her mother
'He said he wanted to marry her in a Mosque and she said she thinks he just wants her to do the cooking and cleaning.'
On occasions, Miss Essaid had put on dresses and was immediately told to get changed and to 'put her t*** away.'
He said: 'Hasham would make her go and get changed out of a long skirt and put trousers on instead. He would call her a prostitute and she claims that he just wanted to her cover up at all times.
'She also worked at a school he would not like the fact that she worked there with males. On one occasion when he was picking her up he saw her waving at a male PE teacher which caused an argument.'
Physical violence flared on February 5 when Miss Essaid said she wanted to go and see her mother. Mr Treece added: 'She told the defendant she needed more clothes as this was the only way he would let him see her.
'But the two of them argued and when she tried to get out of the bedroom he wouldn't let her and he pushed her back onto the bed and her smothered her.
'On February 6 there were a large number of calls early in the morning which she says is normal of the relationship.
She told police on that morning, she went to the bus stop to get the bus from work outside her mother's house and a few minutes later he pulled up in his car signalling for her to get in.
A bus pulled up behind and as the defendant was in the bus lane it was causing a scene so she agreed to get in the passenger seat.
NEW LAW TO CONVICT CONTROLLING PARTNERS The governments coercive or controlling behaviour offence was introduced in 2015 to crackdown on abusive partners who mentally manipulate their spouses for their personal gain. From December 29, 2015 controlling or coercive behaviour in intimate or familial relationships became an offence punishable with a maximum prison sentence of five years. The law change was intended to help victims who experienced the type of behaviour, which stops short of serious physical violence, but amounts to extreme psychological and emotional abuse, bring their perpetrators to justice. But despite the introduction of the law, figures released in August 2016 showed eight out of 22 police forces in England and Wales have not charged a single person with the offence, according to a Freedom of Information request. Nine forces have made two or fewer charges since the new law came into effect in December 2015, including Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Warwickshire and Wiltshire. Advertisement
The court heard how he then pulled over and started verbally abusing her and called her a 'slag, a low life and ugly'.
She started to cry but he continued. She then got a message on her phone and he grabbed her phone and bit her left hand so that she would let go.
He then bent the phone causing the screen to crack.
Prosecution said: 'As she tried to get out of the car the defendant grabbed hold of her and put his hand over her mouth so that she couldn't scream. A passer by described the complainant as very distressed and said she could hear a man shouting very aggressively.
'The complainant spoke to the police and her step father picked her up from work and drove to the defendant's house to pick up her stuff. After some time spent knocking on his door the defendant opened and said: 'Why have you bought another man to my house?'
'He then said to her step father: 'I will f***ing kill you. If you know what is good for you, you will get back in your car and drive off.'
In 2006, Hasham was locked up for conspiracy to rob over a raid at the National Westminster bank in in December the incident the victim was grabbed by a gang of men as she opened the branch and was bundled into a waiting Ford transit van.
While some of the robbers stole cash, the 43-year old woman was threatened with a handgun and told to lie face down on the floor whilst her hands were bound and tape placed across her mouth. Later the van was doused in petrol, some of which splashed on the woman before it was torched as she was dragged out of the vehicle.
Marriage: Hasham said he wanted to marry Rachel Essaid in a Mosque
Dark past: Hasham, who launched a reign of terror over teenage girlfriend Rachel Essaid pictured above, fled to Kenya after being involved in a bank robbery in 2004
Hasham fled to Kenya but was arrested after returning to the UK in 2006. It emerged one of the bank employees helped plan the raid.
In mitigation, defence lawyer Declan Doherty said of the latest offences: 'This was a relationship that was loving at times but it clearly wasn't without its problems. The defendant met this victim in a nightclub in Bolton. He had no idea that she was 17 and she told him that she in fact 19.
Defending Hasham, Mr Doherty said: 'He didn't find out until her mother approached the defendant and told him. He says had he known, the relationship probably wouldn't have continued.
'He accepts he used violence and accepts that at times he commented on her make up and clothes - but there were times where he was very complimentary about her clothing. The defendant owns his own business which is now up in the air.'
Hasham was given 26 weeks jail sentence suspended for 18 months and and was banned from contacting Miss Essaid for two years under the terms of a restraining order. He was also ordered to pay 500 compensation for breaking the victim's phone and pay 1265 costs.
Chairman of the bench Peter Kurshaw told him: 'This is a serious offence and the gravity along with the vulnerability of the victim over a long period of time is not acceptable.'
After the case Detective Constable Zoe Lomax, from Greater Manchester Police's domestic abuse unit said: 'The victim in this case was brave to come forward and stand up to her abuser. The impact this relationship has had on her life has been massive.'
The new legislation came into force in December 2015 to address 'controlling or coercive behaviour' in intimate or family relationships which causes someone to fear violence or alarm or distress.
Dr. Dao Suffered Broken Nose, 'Significant 'Concussion & Lost 2 Teeth: Lawyer
By Stephen Gossett in News on Apr 13, 2017 4:08PM
The United passenger who was violently dragged off a flight on Sunday in an incident that sparked international outrage suffered significant injuries. Kentucky doctor David Dao suffered a broken nose, a "significant" concussion, lost two front teeth and will require reconstructive surgery, the passenger's lawyer said in a press conference on Thursday morning.
What happened to Dr. Dao could have happened to any one of us," said Tom Demetrio, of Corboy & Demetrio, who, along with attorney Stephen Golan, is representing Dao.
Dao was discharged from a Chicago hospital late on Wednesday, Demetrio said. Hes shaken," the lawyer added. Demetrio told reporters at the press conference that Dao described the United experience as "more horrifying and harrowing" than when he fled war-torn Vietnam.
Demetrio also characterized United CEO Oscar Munoz's apology as "staged," though added that it has been accepted.
Dao's daughter, Crystal Pepper, thanked those who've offered Dao and his family support. What happened to my dad should have never happened to any human being, regardless of the circumstance We hope in the future nothing like this happens again," she said on Thursday.
Demetrio did not yet announce a lawsuitor lawsuits. "Were not ready to sue, were doing our due diligence." But he suggested that probable legal action could be multi-pronged.
"Just because United is responsible doesnt mean the city of Chicago isnt responsible," he added. He called the aviation officers involved storm troopers for a moment. Dao's legal team filed documents on Wednesday to preserve key materials related to the incident, including the crew list, explanations of company policy and pertinent aviation-police files.
Qatar Airways has joined the fray of carriers poking fun at United Airlines after a passenger was violently removed from a flight on Sunday.
Qatar Airways tweeted an update Wednesday for its iPhone app which states it 'doesn't support drag and drop. We take care of customers as we unite them with their destinations.'
'Were united in our goal to always accommodate our passengers, even with our app updates,' the company said in its tweet.
After the initial backlash against United picked up steam, one meme on social media included a similar joke about United's app 'supporting drag and drop.'
While initially it was convincing, the 'update' was photoshopped and fabricated.
Qatar Airways tweeted an update Wednesday for its iPhone app which says it 'doesn't support drag and drop. We take care of customers as we unite them with their destinations'
After the initial backlash against United picked up steam, one meme on social media included a similar joke about the airline's app 'supporting drag and drop.' While initially it was convincing, the 'update' was photoshopped and fabricated
Dubai-based Emirates released an ad that toyed with the Chicago-based carrier's longtime slogan.
The ad on Tuesday mocked United CEO Oscar Munoz for past comments denigrating Emirates.
'Those [Gulf] airlines aren't airlines,' the graphic reads quoting Munoz.
'Well Mr. Munoz, according to TripAdvisor, the world's largest travel site, not only are we a real airlinewe are the best airline,' the commercial reads.
Dubai-based Emirates released an ad (above) after video went viral of a United passenger being forcefully removed that toyed with the Chicago-based carrier's longtime slogan
The commercial then goes on to list awards the company has won from TripAdvisor this past year.
In a final insult, the commercial ends with the phrase: 'Fly the friendly skiesThis time for real.'
'Fly the friendly skies' is the slogan used by United Airlines.
Royal Jordanian also took the opportunity to poke fun at United.
In one tweet, it said: 'We are here to keep you #united. Dragging is strictly prohibited.'
'We would like to remind you that drags on our flights are strictly prohibited by passengers and crew,' the graphic read.
United Airlines sparked outrage on Monday for the treatment of a passenger who was physically dragged off a plane the airline had overbooked, and one of the security officers involved in the incident was placed on leave pending an investigation
Videos posted online by other passengers showed a man, Dr. David Dao (above), screaming as officers yanked him from his seat on United Flight 3411 before it departed from Chicago O'Hare International Airport to Louisville, Kentucky, on Sunday
It then showed a symbol of a no-smoking sign using double entendre by invoking the word 'drag.'
Another tweet by Royal Jordanian shows an image of a smiling pilot under the caption: 'Our pilots happily welcome you onboard our flights!'
United Airlines sparked outrage on Monday for the treatment of a passenger who was physically dragged off a plane the airline had overbooked, and one of the security officers involved in the incident was placed on leave pending an investigation.
Videos posted online by other passengers showed a man, Dr. David Dao, screaming as officers yanked him from his seat on United Flight 3411 before it departed from Chicago O'Hare International Airport to Louisville, Kentucky, on Sunday.
Royal Jordanian also took the opportunity to have fun with United. In one tweet, it said: 'We are here to keep you #united. Dragging is strictly prohibited.' 'We would like to remind you that drags on our flights are strictly prohibited by passengers and crew,' the graphic read
Another tweet by Royal Jordanian shows an image of a smiling pilot under the caption: 'Our pilots happily welcome you onboard our flights!'
The man, David Dao, a Vietnamese-American doctor, was seen being dragged down the aisle on his back by his hands, body limp, bleeding from the mouth, glasses askew and shirt pulled up above his navel.
The videos ignited an uproar on social media, the second time in less than a month that United was criticized for its treatment of passengers.
The Mideast airlines' gloating is the latest chapter in a long-running industry battle for access to the American market.
Emirates and Qatar have been criticized by US carriers over their rapid US expansion.
All three airlines have been caught up in the US ban on electronics onboard.
Emirates and Qatar have been criticized by US carriers over their rapid US expansion. An Emirates jet is seen above taxiing to a gate at Dubai International Airport in Dubai
US airline companies have long complained that the Gulf trio of Emirates, Etihad Airways, and Qatar Airways enjoy an unfair competitive advantage because they receive billions in government subsidies. A Qatar Airways jet is seen above landing in Los Angeles last month
The United CEO as well as his counterparts with the other major American domestic carriers, Delta and American, have long complained that the Gulf trio of Emirates, Etihad Airways, and Qatar Airways enjoy an unfair competitive advantage, according to Business Insider.
The US carriers have tried to limit the Gulf companies' access to the American market because they say those airlines have the benefits of tens of billions of dollars in government subsidies.
The European Court of Human Rights ruled on Thursday that there were 'serious failings' in Russia's handling of the Beslan school siege in North Ossetia in 2004, in which more than 330 people were killed.
The court said although Russian authorities had received information that a terror attack was being planned, insufficient measures had been taken to disrupt the plot, and security at the school had not been increased.
Chechen militants stormed the school on September 1, 2004, beginning a three-day hostage crisis. A total of 184 children were among the dead.
The Russian government has been condemned over its handling of the 2004 Beslan massacre
In the damning judgement, the court ruled: 'The authorities had been in possession of sufficiently specific information of a planned terrorist attack in the area, linked to an educational institution,' the court said in its judgement.
'Nevertheless, not enough had been done to disrupt the terrorists meeting and preparing.'
It added that 'insufficient steps had been taken to prevent them travelling on the day of the attack; security at the school had not been increased; and neither the school nor the public had been warned of the threat'.
The case was brought by more than 400 Russians who were either involved in the incident or whose relatives were taken hostage or killed.
The militants were demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops from the war-torn republic of Chechnya.
They rigged the gymnasium of the school with explosives and packed more than 1,100 hostages inside, including around 800 children.
The massacre was one of a string of brutal attacks Russia suffered in the 1990s and 2000s stemming mainly from an insurgency in Chechnya that morphed from a separatist rebellion into a Islamist campaign.
The overwhelmingly Muslim Russian North Caucasus has since emerged as one of the major sources of foreign jihadists fighting in Syria and Iraq.
The Kremlin on Thursday slammed the ruling.
Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: 'It is impossible for us to agree with this phrasing. Such phrasing for a country that has suffered an attack is absolutely unacceptable.'
Chechen separatists took more than 1,000 hostages - mostly children - in the city of Belsan
The Beslan massacre: 52 hours of horror A recap of the bloody siege: Militants seize the school: At 10:20 am, around 30 insurgents, some wearing explosive belts, seize the school in the Russian republic of North Ossetia at the start of the academic year. They lock hundreds of hostages into the gymnasium and open fire on police. One hostage taker and 11 other people are killed. The insurgents threaten to blow up the building if security forces storm it, rig the gymnasium with explosives, and demand the release of Chechen rebels detained in the neighbouring republic of Ingushetia. Around 65 of the children manage to escape. Standoff: On September 2, the president of Ingushetia, Ruslan Aushev, negotiates the release of a group of 15 children and 11 women. Conditions deteriorate however, and just after midnight, two blasts rock the school. Rebels say they detonated two grenades in fear of an imminent attack. Storm breaks: At 1:08 pm on September 3, two more explosions are heard, followed by sustained gunfire. Some hostages escape and some insurgents try to get away as well. Russian special forces penetrate the school about an hour later and confusion reigns for several hours, with armed local residents taking part in the assault. As conflicting casualty figures are issued on September 4, ITAR-TASS news agency identifies Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev as mastermind of the siege. He claims responsibility on September 17, and is reported killed by Russian special forces in July 2006. A final casualty toll puts the deaths of civilians and security forces at more than 330, including 186 children, and the number of wounded at around 750. Thirty one militants are killed, and one is arrested. Advertisement
Russian authorities argue they took the best course of action faced with armed extremists, but many of the survivors and their relatives believe the security services were to blame for the firefight.
The case was brought to the Strasbourg-based court by more than 400 Russians either involved in the incident or whose relatives were taken hostage or killed.
'The authorities had been in possession of sufficiently specific information of a planned terrorist attack in the area, linked to an educational institution,' the court said.
'Nevertheless, not enough had been done to disrupt the terrorists meeting and preparing.'
The judges found that 'insufficient steps had been taken to prevent (the attackers) travelling on the day of the attack; security at the school had not been increased; and neither the school nor the public had been warned of the threat'.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia found it 'impossible' to agree with the wording of the judgement.
'Such phrasing for a country that has suffered an attack is absolutely unacceptable,' he told journalists.
The court found that through its actions, the Russian state had violated Article 2 of the European Convention of Human Rights, which guarantees a right to life.
There was an additional violation in the use of 'lethal force by security forces'.
'In the absence of proper legal rules, powerful weapons such as tank cannon grenade launchers and flame-throwers had been used on the school,' which had contributed to the casualties among the hostage, the court said.
The judges also said there were 'serious shortcomings' in the investigation into the attack, especially that there had been 'no proper examination of how the victims had died'.
The claimants in the case say the authorities were primarily seeking to eliminate the attackers with little care taken to avoid deaths of hostages.
Their lawyers have particularly criticised the lack of in-depth autopsies on the bodies of 116 victims found burned in the gymnasium.
The massacre was one of a string of brutal attacks Russia suffered in the 1990s and 2000s stemming mainly from an insurgency in Chechnya that morphed from a separatist rebellion into an Islamist campaign.
Russian and international experts describe Beslan as a political shock for Russia comparable to the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States and say it marked a turning point for the Kremlin's policy in the Caucasus.
There were two separatist wars in Chechnya in the 1990s and 2000s, but violence in the region has largely been suppressed under the iron-fisted rule of strongman leader Ramzan Kadyrov.
However, the overwhelmingly Muslim Russian North Caucasus has emerged as one of the major sources of foreign jihadists fighting in Syria and Iraq.
In January, Kadyrov said his forces had detained more than 50 insurgents linked to the Islamic State group in a security operation.
Sir Richard Dearlove has accused President Donald Trump of borrowing Russian money at the height of the financial crash
A former MI6 chief has accused President Donald Trump of borrowing Russian money at the height of the financial crash to keep his businesses afloat when other Western powers would not lend to him.
The accusation was made by Sir Richard Dearlove, head of the Secret Intelligence Service between 1999 and 2004, as questions continue to swirl about Trump's previous business dealings with Russia.
It also comes at a time when relations between the two superpowers reached a new low because of their disagreement over Syria.
Speaking yesterday, Trump said the US was 'not getting along with Russia at all.'
That rhetoric was in stark contrast to his election campaign when he boasted how he would 'get along very well with Putin' and described him as being 'very talented.'
As Trump's 'bromance' with Putin deteriorates Sir Richard, who oversaw MI6 whent he 'dodgy dossier' was released, warned any shady business deals done in 2008 could come back to haunt the billionaire.
He said: 'What lingers for Trump may be what deals - on what terms - he did after the financial crisis of 2008 to borrow Russian money when others in the west apparently would not lend to him'.
In a wide-ranging interview with Prospect Magazine, Sir Richard described Trump's claims that either the US National Security Agency (NSA) or British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) had bugged Trump Tower on the orders of his predecessor Barack Obama as 'deeply embarrassing.'
GCHQ rejected allegations that it spied on Trump as a 'nonsense' and 'utterly ridiculous' in a rare public rebuttal.
Discussing that Sir Richard said: 'The only possible explanation [for the accusations] is that Trump started tweeting without understanding how the NSA-GCHQ relationship actually works.'
As Trump's 'bromance' with Putin deteriorates Sir Richard warned any shady business deals done in 2008 could come back to haunt the billionaire
Since his election, Trump has been on a warpath with intelligence agencies, blaming it for the leaks about his associates' Russia ties and even comparing them to Nazi propaganda.
The president has repeatedly denied having any business dealings with Russia.
Former MI6 officer Christopher Steele claimed the Russian government holds compromising material on Trump in a secret dossier that made outlandish claims about his sex life, including allegations of an orgy in a Russian hotel.
Elsewhere in the interview, Sir Richard criticised Europe's leaders for their failure to anticipate and prepare for mass migration [particularly from Africa] despite the CIA issuing a warning in 2001.
He said: 'We shouldn't really be particularly surprised by what's happened. We just didn't prepare for it.'
He also said the rise of the far-right in Europe was more of a concern than the Islamist terrorist threat.
The spymaster described Trump's claims that either the NSA or GCHQ had bugged Trump Tower on the orders of his predecessor Barack Obama as 'deeply embarrassing'
He told the magazine: 'The Islamist terrorist threat is obviously serious but containable and ultimately manageable.
'The deterioration of European politics, with the rise of parties on the extreme right, is a far more serious problem for the UK.
'It is not in the UK's national interest to see continental Europe being split apart by the revival of nationalist movements as a post-Brexit Britain returns to a mid-Atlantic rather than continental orientation to its foreign policy.'
Sir Richard was in charge of MI6, Britain's spy agency, when the 2002 'dodgy dossier' was published.
In the dossier, the government set out its case on Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons of mass destruction capabilities.
Sir Richard ensured the material was shown directly to then-Prime Minister Tony Blair - who subsequently wrote a foreword to the so-called 'dodgy dossier' saying that Hussein's threat was beyond doubt.
Together with the earlier September Dossier, the government justified its involvement in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Thomas Brown, 28, of Coventry has been jailed for sexually assaulting a five-year-old - telling her it was the 'tickling game'
A paedophile teaching assistant has been jailed for sexually assaulting a five-year-old - telling her it was the 'tickling game.'
Thomas Brown, 28, admitted he touched the girl under the armpits - like he did to the other children.
But he was arrested after the girl's parents reported him to police after she came home and told them Brown had played a 'tickling game' with her at school.
Brown, of Coventry, was found guilty of sexual assault on the girl and admitted downloading indecent images of children during his trial at Birmingham Crown Court.
Judge Stephen Eyre QC jailed him for a total of three years five months and placed him on the sex offender's register for life.
Prosecutor Scott Coughtrie said: 'This case is about a school teaching assistant who, while conducting his duties, was caring for five-year-olds.
'He approached one of them, a girl, and while no-one was watching placed his hand down her trousers and began tickling her bum.
'Such was her belief that this was perhaps normal behaviour that a few days later she asked her parents for 'the tickling game.'
'Her parents asked her to demonstrate, and she then conducted a full demonstration to her mother of what had happened.'
The paedophile teacher has been placed on the sex offenders register for life after the girl told her parents about the sexual assault
'It is the prosecution case that Thomas Brown has sexually assaulted this girl for his own sexual gratification.'
When asked if he agreed what he was doing was inappropriate, Brown replied: 'No I don't.'
During a video-recorded interview the girl demonstrated where Brown molested her. She said: 'He touched this part with his fingers. He touched this part of my skin, my bottom.'
Asked how many hands Brown had used, she replied: 'Two, he hasn't got any more.'
She added: 'He said 'sorry' to me, and he said 'I will never do it again.' Nothing happened next. He just walked away.'
Brown denied sexually abusing the girl, telling the court: 'I would play a game. I would chase after them and tickle them.'
Molotov cocktails were thrown at the presidential election campaign headquarters of France's far-Right candidate Marine Le Pen today by a group protesting against racism.
Emergency services were called to the central Paris building run by Ms Le Pen's National Front (FN) party at around 3am today, and found the main entrance door and hallway damaged.
A source close to the investigation said a message was left from a group called Fighting Xenophobia, and that although damage was minimal, it was an attempt to set part of the building on fire.
Marine Le Pen (pictured) said she had not been given details of the attack yet, but knew it was 'an extreme left-wing group acting with impunity'
Reacting on France 2 TV today, Ms Le Pen said she had not been given details of the attack yet, but knew it was 'an extreme left-wing group acting with impunity'.
The National Front (FN) leader said: 'These groups have been feeling with impunity for months.
'They have destroyed businesses, burned cars during demonstrations, attacked the police.
'l'm not surprised because Francois Hollande's government has let them do this months while I have repeatedly called for their dissolution.'
Ms Le Pen, who is currently leading opinion polls for the first round of the presidential elections, said she was going to make a criminal complaint.
It is estimated she will receive 24 percent of the vote, with Emmanuel Macron behind her with 23 percent, Francois Fillon lagging in third with 20 percent and Jean-Luc Melenchon's deficit stretching wider with the polls suggesting he will receive 17 percent.
Fighting Xenophobia (FX) meanwhile said the attack was specifically made to mark a racist attack by FN thugs on a man called Loic 'ten years ago'.
French presidential election candidate for the far-right Front National (FN) party Marine Le Pen
FX said their attacks 'will continue every day until the elections'.
Last week two FN offices in other parts of France were vandalised, and the party called for better security, including a permanent police presence outside the Paris HQ.
Commenting on the arson attack, Interior Matthias Fekl said the 'unacceptable acts' could influence people's decisions at the ballot box.
Mr Fekl said: 'We were in touch with the National Front candidate's team as early as last night and we will see if, in conjuction with them, it's necessary to strengthen security arrangements.'
The FN has a long history of far-Right extremism behind it, and its honorary president remains the convicted racist and anti-Semite Jean-Marie Le Pen, Marine Le Pen's father.
She has reported a rift with him, but he is funding her election campaign with a donation of some six million euros, and remains an FN MEP.
In recent weeks investigative journalists in France have also highlighted Marine Le Pen's close links with neo-Nazis.
The head of the FN in Nice, in the south of France, was last month exposed denying facts about the wartime Holocaust on a hidden camera.
At the weekend, Ms Le Pen herself denied that the French were directly responsible for a notorious round-up of Paris Jews in 1942 - despite the country accepting responsibility in 1995.
Ms Le Pen has, in turn, denied any links with racists, anti-Semities or xenophobes and is convinced she can appeal to moderate voters.
A shopper was chased down the street by a woman who accused him of trying to film up her skirt before he was tackled by a 100-strong mob in an extraordinary Oxford Street row caught on camera.
The 'chaos' in central London on Sunday night was sparked when the alleged victim started screaming: 'F***ing pervert. He has a video between my legs'.
She claims he put his shopping bag between her legs and used a mobile phone placed in the top to take a voyeuristic up-skirt film of her knickers and crotch.
The incident was caught on camera by a passing cyclist who saw the woman running down Oxford Street in tears. Within seconds a group surrounded the man she was chasing.
The detained man shouts 'let go of me' as he is pulled to the pavement and his accuser repeatedly kicks him before being dragged away by a man telling her: 'Don't do that, that's assault'.
The police arrived at 7.22pm and arrested him only to change their minds and de-arrested him 14 minutes later after finding no footage on his phone and his accuser had not stayed to give a statement.
Mob: This is the moment a woman started kicking a man she accused of filming up her skirt on Oxford Street on Sunday
Surrounded: A policeman picks up the accused off the pavement after up to 100 people surrounded him after accusing him of voyeurism
Held: Police let him go just 14 minutes later after finding he had nothing on his phone - pictured is an officer looking at the device. The alleged victim had gone without speaking to them
The cyclist who witnessed the row said up to 100 people surrounded the man during Sunday night's citizens' arrest.
Irate: The alleged victim swears repeatedly in the film and calls the accused a 'f***ing pervert'
He said: 'I've never seen anything like it. The way everyone surrounded this guy, it was like a mob.
'The woman was screaming the place down.
'As they got closer to me, a young man then stepped him to stop him getting away. They were headed in my direction and I restrained him too as the lady clearly was crying and very, very upset.
'At first I thought it was an argument, then maybe I thought someone was stealing her bag or something. But she was yelling, saying the man had tried to film up her skirt. I realised it was quite serious.
'I almost fell off my bike. Then others stepped in and I was concerned a scuffle might break out. The police were sought to come and make an arrest, which we were happy about.
'The man was questioned and his mobile phone was looked it. There was a young woman who said she saw the whole thing, but the victim herself had disappeared.
'Perhaps she was worried because she had kicked out at him on the floor. There must have been a crowd of more than 100 people. It was chaos'.
Spark: A passing cyclist was on his way home from work when he spotted at commotion on the pavement next to the 55 bus
Held: The suspect (pictured with the red bag on his back) was grabbed by a member of the public as the woman screamed she had been the victim of a crime
Violence: The clearly very upset woman starts kicking the man she accused as he sat on the ground
Warning: She was then dragged away and warned that she could be arrested for assault
In the footage, the woman drags the man to the ground with the help of passers-by but then lashes out at him as he sits on the pavement near Oxford Circus Tube station.
The alleged voyeur is later handcuffed by police while a witness explains what she claims to have seen - but the victim flees the scene.
At one point the woman accusing the man of voyeurism screams 'f*****g pervert' at him as she sobs, but eventually disappears amid the commotion.
Dozens of onlookers came to a standstill as three police officers eventually surrounded the man to look at his phone, search his pockets, and study his ID.
One woman, who claimed to have witnessed the episode, can be heard telling a police officer: 'I was standing behind him and my boyfriend was like "what's he doing?".
'Because they were looking at the show and she was standing in front and she just started going like this... and then he was holding his bag.
'In his bag was his phone, upside down, under her skirt. And she goes... and then she sees his phone. And then she goes "what are you doing? and then he runs away.
'So that's what I saw, and then he starts acting all guilty and runs away, so...'
The cyclist, who asked not to be named, said the altercation happened just after 6pm on Sunday as he made his way home from work.
He said: 'The arrested man was very lucky indeed he was not beaten up.'
Scotland Yard has said the man was de-arrested after officers failed to find any incriminating evidence on his phone and the alleged victim was not there to give a statement.
A spokesman said: 'At around 6.10pm on Sunday, April 9, police in Oxford Street were alerted to an altercation near Oxford Circus Tube station.
'Officers attended and found a man being detained by several members of public. A 36-year-old man was arrested at 7.22pm on suspicion of voyeurism.
'Officers searched the man and seized his mobile phone. He was de-arrested at 7.36pm following further enquiries.'
A mother claims her autistic daughter is at risk of starvation because Tesco has discontinued the only product her child will eat for supper.
Five-year-old Ruby Passey's condition means she is extremely selective and will only eat the supermarket's own brand 'Potato Alphabet Crispy Potato Letters' with her evening meal.
But the food giant reportedly discontinued the item last month, leaving what mother Nicola Passey, 31, has described as a 'life or death situation', with her child refusing to eat anything else.
Five-year-old Ruby Passey has a condition which means she is extremely selective and will only eat certain foods. Her mother is growing increasingly concerned after learning Tesco has discontinued its alphabet potato range - the only thing Ruby eats for dinner
'It's serious!': Mother Nicola Passey (above with daughter Ruby) said people who don't usually understand autism might think she is being petty, but said it was a serious issue and a 'life or death' situation
Mrs Passey said the family have only four bags of the frozen potato bites left, she said Ruby is noticeably anxious and struggling to even drink enough fluids.
The mother of two from Rugeley, Staffordshire, said: 'She would rather starve than eat anything else.
'Her condition means that she doesn't like change.
She said: 'It has to be the Tesco's own brand potato alphabet shapes. If they smell different, are different sizes, are a different colour, she just won't eat them.
'She'll always have them with either Birdseye chicken dippers or Bernard Matthews turkey dinosaurs.
'But if she doesn't have the potato letters she won't eat them either. She's had the letters for years.'
Nicola Passey first discovered that Tesco were reportedly discontinuing the vital frozen potato letters around three weeks ago after she tried to do a shop online and couldn't order more (Above, Ruby enjoying her favourite food)
The mother-of-two first discovered that Tesco were reportedly discontinuing the vital frozen potato letters around three weeks ago after she tried to do a shop online and couldn't order more.
She claimed she rang her local stores and was informed they were no longer stocking the product, so the concerned mum desperately contacted Tesco headquarters to beg them to change their minds.
A full-time carer for Ruby, Mrs Passey said a friend managed to salvage six bags - but now, with only four left, she and husband Daniel, 27, fear what will happen when they are finally gone.
She said: 'She's more anxious now and she's started to make excuses to not eat already, saying things like she has tummy ache. She's drinking less now too.
'It's as serious as a life or death situation.
'I get angry but then I can't get angry with her, I can't force her to eat something.'
'People who don't really understand autism might think that I'm being petty, but it really is that serious.
'I have had people make comments saying 'why not just give her another brand?' but do they think I haven't tried that already?
'She can tell if they're not the Tesco ones.'
Mrs Passey said the family have only four bags of the frozen potato bites left, she said Ruby (above) is noticeably anxious and struggling to even drink enough fluids
Nicola Passey (right) is so concerned, she is now petitioning for Tesco to bring their potato letters back for her daughter's wellbeing
Mrs Passey's concerns for her daughter, who also has sensory modulation disorder, run so deeply that she is now petitioning for Tesco to bring their potato letters back for her daughter's wellbeing.
The mother, who has an older son Reece, eight, said: 'We know what she's got to eat but that doesn't mean that she's going to eat it.
'I'm really worried about it and we've seen specialists. It's really stressful, but they've told us that at the moment at least she's eating something - if we try to force other foods on her she might not eat anything.
'Tesco has told me that the product has been discontinued because of low sales, but I don't believe a popular children's product would sell less that something like potato croquettes that are still on the shelves.
'This is really important to us and there may be other families out there struggling with something similar who don't have the courage to speak out.'
A Tesco spokesman said: 'We constantly review the products that we sell, and always try to have the right range and products available for our customers.
'Unfortunately this particular product is no longer available at Tesco but we will speak to the customer to find if there are other ways we can help.'
A 12-year-old girl launched a vicious race attack on a Muslim mother and her daughter that left one of her victims too scared to leave her house.
The schoolgirl and accomplices Paul Anderson, 37, and Joanna Farrer, 38, were found guilty of racially aggravated assault after targeting their victims in Eltham Hill, south east London.
A fight broke out after the youngster racially abused and swore at the Muslim mother, aged 42, who was waiting for her 23-year-old daughter to collect her.
The schoolgirl and accomplices Paul Anderson, 37, and Joanna Farrer, 38, were found guilty of racially aggravated assault after targeting their victims in Eltham Hill, south east London
When her daughter confronted the child, she launched a tirade of racial abuse and kicked the woman in the stomach - pulling her hair.
She then grabbed hold of her top and ripped it before punching the victim in the face.
The injured woman backed away and called the police, but the teen soon returned with Anderson, Farrer and another unidentified woman.
Anderson punched the mother in the face, causing her to fall to the ground - while one of the women tried to rip away her headscarf.
He then turned on the daughter - hitting her on the nose and kicking repeatedly once she fell on the ground.
The vicious attack only ended after the desperate mother managed to flag down a passing ambulance, causing the thugs to flee.
The suspects were identified with the help of a taxi driver who witnessed the assault which happened at 8pm on May 5 last year. They were arrested ten days later.
Following a two-week trial at Woolwich Crown Court, Anderson, from Brockley, and Farrer, from Eltham, and the girl, were found guilty of two counts of religiously aggravated actual bodily harm.
Following a two-week trial at Woolwich Crown Court, Anderson, Farrer and the girl, were found guilty of two counts of religiously aggravated actual bodily harm
Yesterday, Anderson was jailed for three years and four months and ordered to pay 2,000 compensation to the victims.
Farrer will be sentenced on April 21, while the girl who is now 13 and can not be identified, will be sentenced at Bromley Youth Court on a date to be set.
Detective Inspector Melanie Pressley, of Greenwich Community Safety Unit, said: 'This was a brutal and completely unnecessary attack on two Muslim women who were racially abused and then assaulted.
'I have no doubt the attack would have continued had it not been for the passing ambulance one of the victims was able to flag down.
'The victims were left terrified by what happened and lived in fear they would be targeted again. Victim 2 was too afraid to leave her house for some time.
'I am delighted we have been able to secure these convictions due to an excellent investigation by Detective Constable Nwosu and show that hate crime will not be tolerated in our community and we will seek out and bring offenders before the courts.
'It is shocking that the instigator of this attack was just 12 years old and I hope having a conviction to her name at such a young age will be a wake-up call and encourage her to change her ways.'
The US attack on a Syrian air base came after years of heated debate and deliberation in Washington over intervention in the bloody civil war.
Chemical weapons have killed hundreds of people since the start of the conflict, with the U.N. blaming three attacks on the Syrian government and a fourth on ISIS. One of the worst yet came Tuesday in rebel-held northern Idlib and killed dozens, including women and children.
That attack prompted President Donald Trump, on day 77 of his presidency, to dramatically shift U.S. policy, with the first direct U.S. attack on the Syrian government.
Trump blamed Syrian President Bashar Assad for the attack and called on the international community to join him in trying to end the bloodshed.
A timeline of events in Syria leading up to Tuesday's attack:
March 2011: Protests erupt in the city of Daraa over security forces' detention of a group of boys accused of painting anti-government graffiti on the walls of their school. On March 15, a protest is held in Damascus' Old City. On March 18, security forces open fire on a protest in Daraa, killing four people in what activists regard as the first deaths of the uprising. Demonstrations spread, as does the crackdown by President Bashar Assad's forces.
April 2011: Security forces raid a sit-in in Syria's third-largest city, Homs, where thousands of people tried to create the mood of Cairo's Tahrir Square, the epicenter of protests against Egypt's autocrat Hosni Mubarak.
Aug. 18, 2011: President Barack Obama calls on Assad to resign and orders Syrian government assets frozen.
Summer 2012: Fighting spreads to Aleppo, Syria's largest city and its former commercial capital.
August 20, 2012: Obama says the use of chemical weapons would be a 'red line' that would change his calculus on intervening in the civil war and have 'enormous consequences.'
March 19, 2013: The Syrian government and opposition trade accusations over a gas attack that killed some 26 people, including more than a dozen government soldiers, in the town of Khan al-Assal in northern Syria. A U.N. investigation later finds that sarin nerve gas was used, but does not identify a culprit.
August 21, 2013: Hundreds of people suffocate in rebel-held suburbs of the Syrian capital, with many suffering from convulsions, pinpoint pupils, and foaming at the mouth. U.N. investigators visit the sites and determine that ground-to-ground missiles loaded with sarin were fired on civilian areas while residents slept. The U.S. and others blame the Syrian government, the only party to the conflict known to have sarin gas.
Aug. 31, 2013: Obama says he will go to Congress for authorization to carry out punitive strikes against the Syrian government, but appears to lack the necessary support in the legislature.
Sept. 27, 2013: The U.N. Security Council orders Syria to account for and destroy its chemical weapons stockpile, following a surprise agreement between Washington and Moscow, averting U.S. strikes. The Security Council threatens to authorize the use of force in the event of non-compliance.
Oct. 14, 2013: Syria becomes a signatory to the Chemical Weapons Convention, prohibiting it from producing, stockpiling or using chemical weapons.
June 23, 2014: The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons says it has removed the last of the Syrian government's chemical weapons. Syrian opposition officials maintain that the government's stocks were not fully accounted for, and that it retained supplies.
Sept. 23, 2014: The U.S. launches airstrikes on Islamic State group targets in Syria.
Aug. 7, 2015: The U.N. Security Council authorizes the OPCW and U.N. investigators to probe reports of chemical weapons use in Syria, as reports circulate of repeated chlorine gas attacks by government forces against civilians in opposition-held areas. Chlorine gas, though not as toxic as nerve agents, can be classified as a chemical weapon depending on its use.
Aug. 24, 2016: The joint OPCW-U.N. panel determines the Syrian government twice used helicopters to deploy chlorine gas against its opponents, in civilian areas in the northern Idlib province. A later report holds the government responsible for a third attack. The attacks occurred in 2014 and 2015. The panel also finds that the Islamic State group used mustard gas.
Feb. 28, 2017: Russia, a stalwart ally of the Syrian government, and China veto a U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing sanctions against the Syrian government for chemical weapons use.
April 4, 2017: At least 86 people are killed in what doctors say could be a nerve gas attack on the town of Khan Sheikhoun in the rebel-held Idlib province. Victims show signs of suffocation, convulsions, foaming at the mouth and pupil constriction. Witnesses say the attack was carried out by either Russian or Syrian Sukhoi jets. Moscow and Damascus deny responsibility.
April 4, 2017: President Donald Trump issues a statement saying that the 'heinous' actions of Assad's government are the direct result of Obama administration's 'weakness and irresolution.'
April 5, 2017: Trump says Assad's government has 'crossed a lot of lines' with the suspected chemical attack in Syria.
April 6, 2017: The U.S. fired a barrage of cruise missiles into Syria in retaliation for the gruesome chemical weapons attack against civilians, U.S. officials said. It was the first direct American assault on the Syrian government and Trump's most dramatic military order since becoming president. Trump said strike on Syria in the 'vital national security interest' of the United States.
Caroline Grieve admitted her fitness to teach is currently impaired at the hearing
An English teacher claimed she was 'drowning in work' when she faked exam results for 40 pupils.
Caroline Grieve has avoided being struck off after she created fake National 5 English results for almost half her students at Dumfries High School.
She has been given a reprimand by the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) which will be recorded for six months.
Ms Grieve, who was said to have struggled with the workload more than the other members of the team, started altering results so that the pupils were not punished for her 'mess'.
She admitted that her fitness to teach was currently impaired.
The hearing in Edinburgh was told that Ms Grieve was interviewed after the discrepancies emerged by a quality improvement officer from Dumfries and Galloway Council.
Sheelagh Rusby, investigating officer said in a statement read out to the hearing: 'I asked why she had marked the work as a fail but then entered it as a pass.
'She said she didn't want pupils to miss out because of her mess or mistakes.'
Pupils sit National 5 exams in Scotland at the age of 16.
The problem was discovered shortly after a new principal teacher of English, Claire Harrison, arrived at the school in January 2015. She felt procedures relating to Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) exams were 'very ad hoc'.
She told the hearing: 'Caroline had been open that she struggled with time management and organisation.
She said she had felt like she was drowning in her workload when she started to enter fake results into the system so her pupils wouldn't suffer
'I went to Caroline for evidence [of pupils' work] and I took it home and it looked like there were a lot of discrepancies, there were some bits of evidence missing.
'I went back to her and asked for the missing evidence and she looked panicked. There was a lack of rigour and she struggled more than others on the team.'
THE NATIONAL 5 QUALIFICATION The National 3, 4, and 5 qualifications have replaced the Scottish grades, coming into place in 2013/14. Pupils in Scotland have three years of 'broad general education' before starting their National 3, 4, 5. Students will be around 14-15 when they start the grades, sitting the exams around age 16. The National 5 is the most advanced, and the equivalent of a Standard credit or a good pass on the old O grade. National 4 and 5 is completed during the fourth year, and then pupils go on to do their highers and advanced highers. All are monitored by one exam board, the SQA. Advertisement
Ms Harrison said she did not believe Ms Grieve had acted deliberately. 'I never got the impression she tried to dodge or manipulate anything,' she said.
Giving evidence, Ms Grieve said: 'I felt like I was drowning in my workload. I had forgotten about inputting the marks completely. Staff were sent an email reminding them to input the data.
'As a result of the health issues I was suffering at the time I can't recall in detail when the email was sent but it was close to the deadline. I hadn't put in place any planning to make the time.'
She added: 'I genuinely believed I had the evidence. I was not a rational person at that time, I was so disorganised I didn't know what I had and didn't have.'
Ms Grieve was given a 'reprimand' by the council for six months.
Reprimands do not disqualify the person from teaching or monitor the individual's progress. They remain on the person's register for a set amount of time before they are removed.
The panel found the following to be proved: 'During the 2014/15 school session, whilst employed by Dumfries and Galloway Council at Dumfries High School as a teacher of English, you did falsify National 5 Qualification Exam Grades in relation to approximately 40 pupils which were, as a consequence thereafter, submitted to the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) including by, for example:
'a) Recording 6 out of a total of 108 unit results as a 'pass' when you had marked those unit passes as a 'fail' on the evidence, and which you knew had been marked by you on the evidence as such and which results were subsequently confirmed following verification as a 'fail';
Ms Grieve faked the results for 40 of her 108 pupils, during 2014/15 while at Dumfries High, above
'b) Recording 34 out of a total of 108 unit results as a 'pass', for which there was no evidence, or incomplete evidence, available to you on which to judge the result a 'pass' and which results could not be verified due to lack of such available evidence;
The following was found unproved: 'Recording 13 out of a total of 108 unit results as a 'pass', when you had marked those unit passes as a 'pass' on the evidence and which results were subsequently confirmed following verification as a 'fail'.'
The panel stated: 'It appeared to the Panel that a Reprimand was an appropriate disposal. The dishonesty was in the past. The mitigation was substantial.
'The Respondent's rehabilitation had been thorough. She showed insight and contrition. The Reprimand would be recorded on the Register for a period of six months.'
Nicole Kidman & Werner Herzog Can't Pull 'Queen Of The Desert' Out Of The Sand
By Joel Wicklund in Arts & Entertainment on Apr 13, 2017 2:48PM
Nicole Kidman and Robert Pattinson in Queen of the Desert. (Photo by Lena Herzog. Courtesy of IFC Films. An IFC Films release.)
Whether he's at the peak of his abilities or far from it, one criticism rarely lobbed at Werner Herzog's work is that it's ordinary. From his early career, helping forge German cinema's New Wave, to the intimate yet ambitious scope of his recent documentaries, ordinariness just seemed like it wasn't in his toolkit.
Alas, it is.
Queen of the Desert, Herzog's biographical epic about pioneering explorer Gertrude Bell, is a pretty ordinary film. Not a bad one, mind you, but somehow it would have been less of a letdown if this directorwhose body of work has had such unique flavorhad made a truly terrible but less conventional movie.
Still, disappointing as it is, the movie does succeed in reminding audiences what a good actress Nicole Kidman is as she reaches a tricky career stage. Kidman turns 50 this summeran age when American studios shove too many good actresses to the sidelines of supporting maternal characters. She has already been Dev Patel's adoptive mother in Lion, she plays the repressed headmistress of an all-girls school in Sofia Coppola's upcoming remake of The Beguiled, and she'll be Aquaman's mama when the swimming superhero reaches movie screens in 2018. Uh-oh.
Not that maternal roles can't be good or even great ones, but if Kidman saw Hollywood's infamously poor treatment of middle-aged actresses coming her way, playing someone as daring as Bell under the direction of a maverick like Herzog must have looked like a great way to dodge that pitfall.
Playing the character from her twenties through her forties, Kidman is excellent as Bell, who left behind a comfortable, affluent life in England to explore the Middle East during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. An archaeologist and writer, she travelled through lands that provided considerable hardships for men not used to the region's climate and customs. A woman leading her own team though harsh desert environs seemed almost impossible to her contemporaries.
Despite the entrenched sexism of British and Arabic societies, Bell quickly gained a reputation as an expert on the areas she explored. Middle Eastern leaders welcomed her and British authorities called her into duty as they pushed forward with a colonial agenda. Among other things, she was deeply involved in the creation of the country we now know as Iraq.
Herzog, who also wrote the screenplay, only hints at the thorny political issues the U.K.'s Middle East policy set in motion. It's the back end of the story here. The focus is mainly on Bell's joy in living among and learning about other cultures, as well as her relationships with foreign service representative Henry Cadogan (James Franco) and Army officer Richard Wylie (Damian Lewis). Despite emphasizing Bell's intrepid independence, Queen of the Desert is surprisingly old-fashioned in letting the romantic subplots almost take over the film.
That romanticism might have worked with less stilted dialogue. There are a few nice lines, particularly during Wylie's cautious early flirtations with Bell, but too much of Herzog's writing is formal to a fault. The cast enlivens it as much as they can, but the characters feel like biopic structures more than living, breathing people.
Bell's desert journeys eventually led her to cross paths with the famed T.E. Lawrence, played winningly here by Robert Pattinson, who's a good deal less intense than Peter O'Toole's beloved incarnation of the character in David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia. (Herzog doesn't shy away from the shadow of that 1962 classic either. Aside from majestic wide shots of travelers on camels bound to bring the earlier film to mind, Klaus Badelt's music has deliberate nods to Maurice Jarre's instantly recognizable score.)
While Pattinson gets the most colorful supporting part, the aforementioned romantic partners are more central to the storyline. Franco is decent, but his character makes an early exit. Lewis (Homeland) fares better as Wylie, making his character's longing for Bell almost painful to witness. The show belongs to Kidman, but Lewis steals a couple of scenes.
Visually, the film is blandly attractive. Herzog collaborated again with ace cinematographer Peter Zeitlinger, and the Jordanian and Moroccan locations gave them plenty to work with, but the movie still feels like it escaped from the "epics anonymous" school of cinema.
Bell was a natural subject for Herzog, who has long been fascinated by explorers and adventurers. But unlike the obsessives he dramatized or documented in Aguirre: The Wrath of God, Fitzcarraldo or Grizzly Man, Bell is pretty much a model of responsibilityat least by contemporary standards. As good as Kidman is in the role, the onscreen Bell lacks the oddball characteristics that mark the protagonists in Herzog's most memorable work.
But while some have been quick to use Queen of the Desert to argue Herzog should retire from narrative films and concentrate on the documentary arena (where he has thrived in recent years), I can't go along with that. As recently as 2009, with the wonderfully warped Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, Herzog showed he could still upend viewer expectations in the narrative form.
Here's hoping he's ready to be that unruly again soon.
Queen of the Desert. Written and directed by Werner Herzog. Starring Nicole Kidman, James Franco, Robert Pattinson and Damian Lewis. 127 mins. Rated PG-13.
Opens Friday, April 14.
A humpback whale rescued after being trapped in fishing nets for several hours has shown no ill effects from her ordeal by putting on a stunning show for tourists.
The 20-tonne mammal - known as Doris - thrilled onlookers as she frolicked off the coast of Cornwall at Falmouth Bay.
Sightseers on a local wildlife cruise were treated to the sight of the gentle giant breaching the surface a total of 25 times.
The 20-tonne mammal - known as Doris - thrilled onlookers as she frolicked off the coast of Cornwall at Falmouth Bay
Sightseers on a local wildlife cruise were treated to the sight of the gentle giant breaching the surface a total of 25 times
Keith Leeves, who has run AK Wildlife Cruises for many years, described the moment as 'pure joy'.
He said: 'We know it's the same whale that got herself entangled in nets in Devon because we could see rope burn marks on her. So we know this is Doris.
'But thankfully she was freed by the RNLI and conservationists and there she was putting on a magnificent show on her journey to the Atlantic.'
Last month the 45ft humpback got tangled in whelk pot lines off the South Devon coast around 100 miles away.
She was in danger of drowning from exhaustion as she got herself into difficultes at Blackpool Sands near Dartmouth.
Keith Leeves, who has run AK Wildlife Cruises for many years, described the moment of seeing the whale, pictured, as 'pure joy'
Last month the 45ft humpback got tangled in whelk pot lines off the South Devon coast around 100 miles away
The whale was saved in a three-hour rescue as the RNLI and the British Divers Marine Life Rescue joined forces with local fisherman. Here she is pictured making a splash
But she was saved in a three-hour rescue as the RNLI and the British Divers Marine Life Rescue joined forces with local fisherman.
A team of nine eventually managed to board a fishing boat and haul the whale to the surface to expose her tail and cut the rope tangled around it.
Capt Lees said whale sightings were becoming increasingly common around this time of year.
He added: 'Last year we sighted humpback whales off the coast of Falmouth on April 8.
'But this year they returned on April 11. I was convinced that we'd see them again. and we did which was truly incredible and amazing.'
A team of nine eventually managed to board a fishing boat and haul the whale to the surface to expose her tail and cut the rope tangled around it. Here she is pictured frolicking in the sea just weeks after the rescue ordeal
Capt Lees said whale sightings were becoming increasingly common around this time of year
Capt Leeves, who has seen porpoises, common dolphins, minke whales and many other species of sea mammals over the years, said this was extra special.
He said: 'Doris breached 25 consecutive times. She certainly put on a magnificent show for us. She was very relaxed.
'We kept our safe distance. But this was pure bliss to watch.
'She showed her tail then would dive back down and disappear for a few minutes before coming back up and whoosh! She'd breach and do it all again.
'She did it 25 times which was amazing.
Capt Leeves, who has seen porpoises, common dolphins, minke whales and many other species of sea mammals over the years, said this whale sighting, pictured, was extra special
'Doris safely passed through our waters and gave everyone onboard something truly special, magical and incredibly exciting memories which will no doubt stay with us all forever.
'Long may these truly beautiful, charismatic and endearing humpback whale swim and return yearly to our Cornish and Devon coastal seas.'
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One of Britain's wealthiest towns has been hailed as the UK coffee capital as the 11th branch of Costa opens, despite fierce opposition from residents.
Cheltenham will now have 19 big-name coffee shop branches within two miles of the centre, with Costa's latest outlet next to its rivals Soho Coffee Co in an old NatWest.
But some residents say the Gloucestershire spa town is well past coffee saturation point, and three quarters of locals say they do not want the new Costa to open.
Costa now has 11 outlets in Cheltenham, where Starbucks, Caffe Nero, Boston Tea Party and Soho Coffee Co are also found
Cheltenham will now have 19 big-name coffee shop branches within two miles of the town centre, with Costa's latest outlet (right) located next to its rivals Soho Coffee Co (left, in purple)
The 11 Costas are joined in the town by four Soho Coffees, two Caffe Neros, a Boston Tea Party and a Starbucks, in addition to a range of independent cafes.
The new Costa will be a short walk from two others - one at a former pub site in Imperial Circus and the other in a Waterstones bookshop in the Promenade.
Costa said it will be its second equity owned store in the town centre - and while it officially opens tomorrow, it will be open this afternoon for a soft launch.
The other Costa outlets include a store on a retail park and five Costa Express machines in petrol stations that cater to customers on the go.
But in a recent poll of 300 readers for the local newspaper an overwhelming 72 per cent said they did not welcome the new Costa opening on the High Street.
Admin assistant Jane Fisher, 38, said: 'This is getting ridiculous now. I actually like drinking Costa, but I already know where to go to get one.
Some residents say the town is well past coffee saturation point, and three quarters of locals say they do not want the new Costa to open. A Starbucks can be seen in the background
The 11 Costas are joined in the town by four Soho Coffees, two Caffe Neros, a Boston Tea Party and a Starbucks, in addition to a range of independent cafes
'It would be lovely to see some other brands moving into Cheltenham rather than the same one - Zara is top of my list.'
Cheltenham's big-name coffee shop branches Costa Coffee (11)
(11) So ho Coffee Co (4)
Caffe Nero (2)
(2) Starbucks (1)
(1) Boston Tea Party (1)
(1) TOTAL: 19 Advertisement
Retail supervisor Jack Dunham, 23, said: 'It's such a lovely building, so I think it's good news that it's being used.
'But to be honest I'm disappointed because I don't really think we need another Costa.'
But Cheltenham Borough Council planning committee chairman Garth Barnes said he hoped there would be no negative impact on the independent cafes.
He said: 'I'm not one to object to commercial enterprise or competition between businesses, but Costa do seem to be over-egging it.
'They're appearing on every available street corner countrywide.
'We have a lot of well-used independent coffee shops with good ambience and I would hope that people would continue to support our home-grown businesses.'
There are two Caffe Nero outlets in the town. One is seen with a Starbucks in the background
The Gloucestershire spa town's only Starbucks is pictured with Caffe Nero in the background
Costa has cited research by Allegra Strategies arguing that coffee shops are good for town centres.
It claims: 'Branded coffee shops generate high levels of patronage, they have become an established town centre user and they are attractors in their own right.
'Coffee shops are one of the main social hubs on the High Street and are seen as safe places to go where people from all backgrounds can congregate.'
'Ninety three per cent of consumers in case study locations agreed that coffee shops improved the vitality of their local high street.
'The presence of coffee shops on a high street encourages 75 per cent of consumers to shop for longer and 68 per cent of consumers interviewed would choose to visit another High Street if the one they were on did not have a coffee shop.'
A Costa spokesman told MailOnline: 'Tomorrow we officially open our second Costa store in Cheltenham town centre in the former NatWest building, in addition to the Waterstones concession.
'The store has undergone a beautiful restoration in order to capture the charm of the building and we look forward to welcoming customers in over the Easter weekend.'
The mother of Thomas Kelly, who was killed in a one-punch attack in 2012, has spoken of her second son's death from suicide in 2016, saying their family has to keep going for their daughter's sake.
Kathy Kelly told Business Chicks their family - husband Ralph and 21-year-old Madeleine - are still coming to terms with the loss of Stuart, just two years after Thomas' tragic death.
Ms Kelly said it was something they want no other family to have to endure, and she often felt frustrated when people questioned how she coped.
Kathy Kelly (right) whose son Thomas Kelly was killed in a one-punch attack in 2012, has spoken of her second son Stuart (centre) and his death from suicide in 2016, saying their family has to keep going for their daughter's sake. Pictured left is her husband Ralph
Stuart Kelly (pictured) took his own life in 2016. He said he carried 'a deep scar that you cannot see' following his brother Thomas's death
'Well, I've been in a heap plenty of days. I'm in a heap many days of the week,' Ms Kelly said.
'Some days I just cry. But at the end of the day, I get up because what else am I going to do? And I have to because we still have Madeleine.'
Kathy Kelly told the Parramatta Advertiser she was blindsided when her son Stuart, 18, took his own life in July 2016.
'He was fit and strong. If you asked him if anything was wrong he'd say 'does it look like anything is wrong with me?,' Ms Kelly said.
'We had absolutely no idea of that internal pain.'
Ms Kelly opened up about Stuart's death at a mental health forum for young men last week in Parramatta, in Sydney's west.
Stuart Kelly (centre), flanked by parents Ralph and Kathy, was a vocal campaigner against alcohol-fuelled violence after his brother Thomas died in a coward-punch attack
Stuart's older brother, Thomas, died in 2012 after he was coward-punched while on a night out in Kings Cross.
He was deeply affected by Thomas's death and he publicly campaigned strongly against alcohol-fuelled violence.
'I carry a deep scar that you cannot see. It's always there, it never leaves,' Stuart said in a speech calling for an increase in penalties for offenders.
Kathy Kelly (pictured) said the family had no idea of Stuart's internal pain
Stuart's brother Thomas (pictured) died in a coward-punch attack in 2012
Ms Kelly told the forum hearing those words were 'heartbreaking' and left the family in tears.
She implored the young men at the forum to speak up about mental health issues in the hope it will remove the stigma surrounding the illness.
Meanwhile, Stay Kind Day will be held for the first time on July 23 and it will dedicated to Stuart.
Lifeline: 13 11 14
An inspection has found wires installed almost 40 years ago caused spark
The parents of a 17-year-old lifeguard who drowned after being electrocuted at a neighborhood swimming pool in North Carolina are suing two companies who they claim failed to carry out electrical repairs.
Rachel Rosoff drowned in September after she was electrocuted while getting ready to start her shift at the pool in Raleigh.
Her colleague arrived later and found her face down in the pool. When he tried to resuscitate her he too suffered an electric shock but survived.
An inspection by Wake County found the shock was caused by wires in the ground installed almost 40 years ago.
Lifeguard Rachel Rosoff (pictured) was killed in Raleigh, North Carolina when she arrived to start her shift alone and fell into the pool after being electrocuted
The New York Daily News reported her parents are now suing two co mpanies, Williams Electric Motor Repair and Future Connections Electrical Inc, claimed they failed to make repairs dating back to 2011.
Their attorney, David Kirby, told ABC11: 'They knew of discovered conditions which were dangerous at this pool, and they didn't correct them.'
He said 'This was a horrible death. She was paralyzed by the electricity, but she consciously drowned.'
The lawsuit, filed in Wake County Superior Court this week, alleges Future Connections installed the wrong capacitor in the pool's pump motor.
Rachel's colleague arrived for his shift on September 3 and found her face down in the pool (pictured). He then tried to resuscitate her, but was also electrocuted
The News & Observer reported that investigators have discovered the water had become electrified when the pump motor was not working and a faulty ground wire prevented the flow of electricity that would have tripped a circuit breaker.
Neither company have commented on the allegations.
The pool was inspected in July but that check did not include the electrical equipment surrounding the pool.
Inspector found this piece of wire that had corroded over decades next to the pool where the teenager died
We all have our favourite pet when we were little. For four-year-old Qi Qi, she loves the stray puppy she picked up on her way to school.
The little girl has become an internet star in China after a video emerged showing her taking the pet dog to school by hiding it in her bag.
And when she was caught by a teacher, a terrified Qi Qi cried and begged the teacher as she mistakenly thought the teacher would throw away her dog.
Four-year-old Qi Qi, from China, put the dog in her bag and brought it to her school in secret
Qi Qi's grandmother said the girl really liked the dog and would even share her lollipop with it
The footage was filmed on April 7 at a kindergarten in Suining, south-west China's Sichuan Province, according to the video provider Pear Video.
The report said that Qi Qi had found the dog on her way to the kindergarten. She liked the puppy so much that she decided to take it with her to school by hiding it in her school bag.
The puppy, however, barked in the class. Qi Qi's teacher heard it and called the girl to the office afterwards.
The four-year-old thought her teacher was going to get rid of her pet. Terrified, she cried and begged the teacher: 'Don't throw it away. It won't bite!'
The teacher, who is unnamed, later said to Pear Video: 'I told her to come to my office. She kept telling me the dog wouldn't bite people. She told me not to throw it away.'
Qi Qi cried when her teacher caught her hiding a puppy in her bag as the animal barked
The girl had picked up the stray puppy on her way to school and took it with her to class
The teacher explained that there is a river outside the kindergarten and the pupil, by mistake, thought she would dump the puppy into the river.
She also said Qi Qi has a twin sister.
Apparently, Qi Qi adored her puppy so much that she would share her lollipop and lunch with it. Her grandmother went to the kindergarten the next day and explained the matters to the teacher.
The video has been viewed nearly five million times since it was published earlier today on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent to Twitter.
Web users praised Qi Qi's kindness, calling her a 'cute' and 'strong' girl.
Some also said that the girl would get rewards in her future life for being so loving and sympathetic.
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These are the remarkable never-before-seen pictures of Britain's first ever special forces unit.
The men of the Long Range Desert Group carried out clandestine operations deep behind enemy lines in the Second World War and were the 'brains' behind the SAS.
They also launched hit-and-run raids and gathered intelligence on German and Italian targets.
They carried out numerous missions in tandem with the SAS, using their unparalleled knowledge of the treacherous Sahara desert to guide the elite unit to enemy airfields where attacks would be launched.
Members of G Patrol after their formation in late 1940, possibly one their way to attack Murzuk. The Long Range Desert Group members were the brains behind the SAS
Camouflage netting conceals the LRDG vehicles from any enemy aircraft. The group members worked in conjunction with the SAS on several missions, but without the intelligence they had gathered, the work would have been near impossible
Left, having recently returned to their base at Kufra, this LRDG partol recieves a much needed short back and sides. Right, Tom Merrick, one of the best navigators that the LRDG had, would train other members in the art of crossing the desert using the sun
'Stuck on a razorback', three LRDG soldiers discussing the best method to extricate their vehicle. Photos in this collection have never been seen before, and were taken without permission as cameras were banned
The group traversed huge areas of the Sahara that had never been explored by Europeans before, and their information gathering was so important to success in North Africa that General Bernard Montgomery said without them operations would have been 'a leap in the dark'.
Now, photographs of the men have been released in a new book.
An LRDG vehicle bogged down in the mud after a desert storm. The men of the group were tasked with exploring huge areas of the Sahara, gathering intelligence for later missions against the German and Italian forces
The LRDG signallers used commercial procedure when communicating on wireless so the Germans would think it was an Egyptian company
David Lloyd Owen (standing far left) with members of his Y Patrol. Owen first joined the group in 1941, and nearly lost an arm during an air raid the following year in Kufra. But he rejoined in 1943 and took command by the end of the year
The irrigation pools at Siwa were the perfect way to cool off at the end of a long patrol. The LRDG never numbered more than 350 men and was disbanded in August 1945
A LRDG observation post in the Libyan Desert, with a soldier perched precariously on top of a palm tree with a ladder-type structure resting next to it
On the left, Bill Kennedy Shaw (left), LRDG intelligence officer and Shorty Barrett the unit's quartermaster and right, David Lloyd Owen, Jake Easonsmith and Gus Holliman, LRDG officers. Only Lloyd Owen survived the war
One memorable photo is a highly symbolic image of a soldier with his foot on the head of a bust of Mussolini as the Allies began liberating western Libya from Italian rule.
Another remarkable image is of a member of the Long Range Desert Group perched precariously on top of a palm tree from where he carried out reconnaissance.
There are striking images of sandstorms, tanks driving through the desert and a wounded soldier waiting to be flown to hospital.
A group of LRDG soldiers outside the mess room in Kufra Oasis in September 1941. The group was the brainchild of Major Ralph Bagnold, who believed men were needed on the ground to gather intelligence
The LRDG salvaging one of the enemy's petrol pumps. They gathered information about German and Italian forces which became crucial to the Allied Forces war efforts throughout North Africa
Guy Prendergast unloading stores. Prendergast had been a Saharan explorer through the 1920s and 1930s before he became an Army officer. He had already worked alongside the Major Ralph Bagnold and built up a great deal of experience and information which became useful to the forces
Officers shown left to right: Benny Watson, Ginger Low, Ron Low and Tiny Simpson display their booty following the sacking of the Italian Fort at El Gtafia in 1941
A wounded LRDG soldier enjoys a cup of tea at Kufa as he waits to be flown to a Cairo hospital following raids in September 1942
THE AFRICAN CAMPAIGN IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR The North African campaign began in June 1940 and lasted for three years. Allied and Axis forces pushed one another back across the Sahara. At this point, the Allies consisted predominantly of British, French and British Indian forces, with the Axis countries being Germany, Japan and Italy. The Allies had the back up of American forces in North Africa from 1942. Although both sides had former colonial interests in the region, the Axis aims were around denying the Allies access to Middle Eastern oil supplies and cutting Britain off from the network it had in North Africa. In three phases, the campaign covered western Egypt and eastern Libya (the Western desert campaign), Algeria and Morocco (Operation Torch) and Tunisia (the Tunisia campaign). The skirmishes started almost as soon as war was declared, with Italian forces invaded Egypt in September 1940 and British forces responded in December. There were numerous pushes back and forth, but the Second Battle of El Alamein in late 1942 is regarded as a turning point, when the British army drove Axis troops all the way back through Libya. Operation Torch of November 1942 brought in thousands of British and American troops, flushing out remaining Axis troops from Tunisia and bringing the campaign to an end. Throughout the entire three year campaign, Germans and Italians suffered 620,000 casualties, while the British Commonwealth lost 220,000 men. Nearly 900,000 German and Italian troops were killed or 'neutralised' in the conflict. Allied victory in North Africa allowed the invasion of Italy in 1943. Sources: The Atlantic and USHMM Advertisement
What the images reveal is the close bond that existed between the members of the unit whose diligence dovetailed perfectly with the superior firepower of the SAS to defeat the enemy.
Cameras were banned so the soldier who took the fascinating photos did so without the authority of his senior officers.
With the surrender of the Axis forces in Tunisia in May 1943, the Long Range Desert Group moved operations to the eastern Mediterranean, carrying out missions in the Greek islands, Italy and the Balkans where they operated in boats, on foot and by parachute.
The short-lived unit - which never numbered more than 350 men - was disbanded in August 1945 after the War Office decided against transferring them to the Far East to conduct operations against the Japanese Empire.
In his book, historian Gavin Mortimer has interviewed surviving veterans and gained special access to the SAS archives to tell the story of the origins and dramatic operations of the unit.
The Long Range Desert Group was the brainchild of a contemporary of Lawrence of Arabia, scientist and soldier Major Ralph Bagnold, who insisted men on the ground were needed to carry out crucial reconnaissance missions which he felt were not possible by air.
They were established almost a year and a half before the SAS were formed in November 1941 making them the first ever special forces unit.
At first the Long Range Desert Group was made up of soldiers from New Zealand since Maj Bagnold was impressed by their 'speed and thoroughness' in adjusting to the extreme desert conditions.
In time, the unit would incorporate soldiers from Britain and Southern Rhodesia.
The extraordinary men of the unit would stay hidden concealed in bushes or ditches for days at a time just yards from German and Italian forces observing the enemy's every move and relaying that valuable information via radio to the SAS.
Mr Mortimer, 46, who lives in Paris, said: 'The Long Range Desert Group was actually established before the SAS and for the war-time generation they were more famous than them.
'It was only the Iranian siege of 1980 which propelled the SAS into public consciousness.
'The Long Range Desert Group disbanded at the end of the war and they have been lost to history so this book is really to make people aware of the importance and contribution of that unit to the Second World War.
'They were the brains of the operation in the desert while the SAS were the brawn. It was their role to navigate them to their targets.
'I believe the Long Range Desert Group were more important and valuable to the winning of the war in North Africa than the SAS.
Simpson of S1 Patrol was wounded in the soldier during an attack on an Italian roadhouse at Tmed Hassan on 8 November 1941
Left, A collapsible canoe was used by the SAS during raids against shipping in Benghazi harbour in 1942. Right, a bust of Mussolini makes an ideal footrest for this LRDG soldier
'They would drop deep behind enemy lines and their surveillance was crucial as they reported back to General Montgomery the strength of the Germans and where to attack them.
The Long Range Desert Group in World War II is written by Gavin Mortimer and costs 25
'They were the eyes and ears of the offensive. What they did was painstaking - they would spend days hidden just yards from the main coastal road which the Germans would use.
'They would take notes of how many vehicles passed, how many soldiers there were and even the mood of the soldiers - if they were singing or depressed - and this information would be radioed back.
'Personnel would work in pairs sometimes hidden in a bush or concealed in a drop in the ground. They would camouflage themselves and observe using binoculars.
'When night came, they would hurry back to their patrol a mile or two further into the desert and would radio in all the information.
'There were very narrow escapes. Once a German convoy camped just yards from where a couple of men were hiding and one of the soldiers wandered over and relieved himself in the bush they were concealed in.
'I began my research three years ago and there were still 15 veterans from the Long Range Desert Group. Now that number is six or seven.
'I was able to speak to some veterans who have never spoken publicly about their experiences before now. They are such a modest generation but what they did took extraordinary discipline and courage.'
Almost half the refugees in Austria that underwent an age test turned out to be adults, it has been claimed.
According to the Austrian Interior Ministry 2,252 asylum seekers had to undergo an 'age diagnosis test' as they were thought to have been lying about their age.
From that, it was found 919 turned out to be older than 18 - a rate of 41 per cent.
Speaking to the Austrian press, a police officer said: 'It is absurd for us to see grown men with beards and graying hair that claim to be 17 years of age.'
Another policeman said: 'Men are trying to get into the system as minors.'
Almost half the refugees in Austria that underwent an age test turned out to be adults
Many migrants in Austria and other countries in Europe have said they are underage because they are likely provided with better accommodation and almost impossible to deport.
If there are reasonable doubts about the age of a refugee then an 'age assessment' is arranged.
The tests involve X-rays of the subjects' teeth and fingers and cost around 900 Euros.
MP Walter Rosenkranz, of the far-right Austrian Freedom Party, said any migrant who had lied should automatically lose 'any right to protection'
MP Walter Rosenkranz, of the far-right Austrian Freedom Party, said any migrant who had lied should automatically lose 'any right to protection.'
He also said they should be made to pay for the medical test.
Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka has promised to tighten the laws and said asylum seekers would face punishment if they lied about their age.
More than 130,000 people have applied for asylum in Austria since the start of the refugee crisis, with the country sitting on the route from the Greek islands into western Europe.
Austria had hardened its stance towards refugees in recent months but this week it was revealed it had decided to join the EU relocation programme.
Mr Sobotka said he would make preparations for the country to receive refugees, with the first group expected to be around 50 unaccompanied children from Italy.
The decision to take in more refugees comes as it was revealed attacks on refugee accommodation had doubled in Austria, with homes firebombed, vandals spraying Nazi graffiti on walls and a man threatening to 'get a gun and shoot the dogs'.
Albert Steinhauser, an opposition Green party politician, said he was dismayed to find out that more than three quarters of the 49 recorded cases remain unsolved.
This Mini driver came within inches of a high-speed collision with a white van after attempting a risky overtake at a junction.
Dashcam footage, filmed on March 14 by Marcus Watkin, shows the white van slowing down and indicating right.
The small blue car whizzes past and is forced to slam its brakes and swerve to avoid crashing into the rear of the van.
The dashcam footage, filmed on March 14 by Marcus Watkin, shows the white van slowing down and indicating right
After re-entering the correct lane, the Mini driver continues on despite nearly losing control of the car and ignoring the road-markings telling drivers not to over-take.
Captioning the astonishing clip, Marcus said: 'Minding my own business on way back from Oswestry today, coming out of Whittington heading to Ellesmere I was witness to a guy who thought he was on the Italian Job film set.'
'What a tool, I bet his a** went a bit tight during the braking!
'Good job I checked my mirrors when I was braking, as i spotted him starting to overtake.'
The footage has received more than 16,000 views and has been shared by almost 230 social media users.
One viewer, Bridie Tonge, said: 'Blooming scary. There are some idiots around.'
The small blue car whizzes past and is forced to slam its brakes and swerve to avoid crashing into the rear of the van
After re-entering the correct lane, the Mini driver continues on despite nearly losing control of the car and ignoring the road-markings telling drivers not to over-take
Keren Davies wrote: 'What a bloody idiot.'
Steve Evans commented: 'Mini driver doesn't know what those arrows in the road mean then.'
Steve Watkins responded: 'Too many folk in too much of a hurry.'
Two teenage parents fled a Sydney hospital with their newborn daughter and bought camping supplies from Kmart after being told they could not take her home.
Fifteen-year-old mum Jenifer Morrison and her boyfriend Jayden Lavender, 14, hid their baby Aria Jayde under a blanket and secretly left Nepean Hospital at 12.15am on Thursday, sparking pleas from police for them to come forward.
Authorities held concerns for the welfare of the mother and three-day-old Aria, but when the teenagers were located at Willmot, in Sydney's west, after 16 hours on the run, both were found to be healthy and safe.
Jayden's mother Tracy Lavender says Jenifer's first instinct was to run, after being told by a social worker she wouldn't be able to take Aria to Ms Lavender's house to live.
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Jenifer Morrison (right), 15, and her boyfriend Jayden Lavender, 14 (pictured) fled from Nepean Hospital in Penrith after a social worker told them they couldn't take their newborn baby home
The teenage parents hid their baby Aria Jayde (pictured) under a blanket and secretly left Nepean Hospital at 12.15am on Thursday
According to Jayden's mother Tracy Lavender (who posted images of Aria on Facebook), the trio bought a tent and camping supplies from Kmart and spent the night together
Jayden was just 13 years old when he found out his girlfriend was pregnant with his child
The pair caught a train to Mount Druitt and bought a tent, sleeping bag and camping supplies from Kmart. They had just $80 in cash and a few pairs of clothing for Aria.
They spent the night camping in the wilderness until they were found by authorities, according to the Daily Telegraph.
Ms Lavender said Jayden was well-versed in outdoor survival and knew the Willmot area well.
It was Father's Day when Jayden, aged just 13 at the time, found out Jenifer was pregnant. He proposed to her weeks later and they began planning a wedding - with the blessing of Ms Lavender.
The young couple, engaged but unable to legally get married, live at Ms Lavender's home in Dharruk, with three other children.
'Jayden would not walk away from her,' Ms Lavender told AAP on Thursday.
'He's been by her side since she told him she was pregnant.'
'The baby's healthy - seven-and-a-half pounds, I knew that my son would look after his baby and his girlfriend,' she told reporters outside hospital on Thursday.
At the end of the day its breaking both of their hearts, theyve never done nothing wrong.
They dont want to be apart from their baby, theyre good parents.'
Jayden cradles his newborn daughter Aria after spending 16 hours on the run from police
The pair (centre and left) caught a train to Mount Druitt and bought a tent, sleeping bag and camping supplies from Kmart, according to Jayden's mother Tracy (far right)
Ms Lavender said her son was well-versed in outdoor survival and knew the Willmot area well
The young couple have posted numerous pictures together on social media (pictured). They were picked up in Willmot at 4pm on Thursday after 16 hours on the run
The first Ms Lavender heard of the drama was when a police officer knocked on her door early on Thursday morning. She assumed the worst because her nephew died the day Aria was born.
'It devastated me,' she said. 'I was in such disarray, I didn't know what to do.'
Detectives told her to stay at home in case her son returned.
'I stayed there as long as I could, and then I couldn't bear it anymore,' she said.
Ms Lavender found Jayden in Willmot and said paramedics checked over Aria, who was healthy.
'They were crying, she (Jenifer) said she just wanted to be with Aria on Easter.'
Ms Lavender (pictured) said she believed the entire ordeal happened because her son and his girlfriend feared they may be separated from their newborn daughter
Ms Lavender (right, in Stussy jumper) says Jenifer's first instinct was to run after being told by a social worker she wouldn't be able to take Aria to Ms Lavender's house to live
Jenifer and Jayden appeared upset as their baby was checked by paramedics
Ms Lavender says Jenifer's first instinct was to run after being told by a social worker she wouldn't be able to take Aria to Ms Lavender's house to live
Police had said the teens may have been travelling with an unknown man, but Ms Lavender said that person was merely a stranger in the hospital who helped Jayden with his bags after seeing him in tears.
'That tells me he knew that it wasn't the right thing to do,' she said.
'But he had to do what was right for his baby and his girlfriend.'
Ms Lavender believed the social worker assigned to Jenifer's case had 'an attitude' and the department had unfairly told her she wouldn't be able to take her baby back to Ms Lavender's western Sydney home, where a nursery had been set up, because of concerns about domestic violence and drug use.
She said those issues related to a foster son who had not lived there for six months.
'When the children are begging to come back to a place and the only thing stopping them is one worker, maybe they should bring in another worker to assess the situation,' Ms Lavender said.
'You're talking about two kids that have just had a baby, that just wanted to stay with their baby - that's all it comes down to.'
The teens were interviewed by police on Thursday evening while baby Aria was assessed back in hospital as the matter is being dealt with by the department of Family and Community Services.
The teenage couple had just $80 in cash and a few pairs of clothing for Aria
The teens were interviewed by police on Thursday evening while baby Aria was assessed back in hospital
Ms Lavender (pictured) believes the social worker assigned to Jenifer's case had 'an attitude'
The matter is being dealt with by the department of Family and Community Services
Did you give an order to strike Khan Sheikhun with chemical weapons last Tuesday?
President Assad: Actually, no one has investigated what happened that day in Khan Sheikhun till the moment. As you know, Khan Sheikhun is under the control of Al-Nusra Front, which is a branch of Al-Qaeda, so the only information the world have had till this moment is published by Al-Qaeda branch. No one has any other information. We don't know if the whole pictures or videos that we've been seeing are true or fabricated. That's why we asked for investigation to what happened in Khan Sheikhun. This is first.
Second, Al-Qaeda sources said that the attack happened at 6, 6:30 in the morning, while the Syrian attack in the same area was around noon, between 11:30 to 12. So they're talking about two different stories or events. So there was no order to make any attack, we don't have any chemical weapons, we gave up our arsenal a few years ago. Even if we have them, we wouldn't use them, and we have never used our chemical arsenal in our history.
Assad hit out at the US, saying it launched strikes with no evidence that his regime was behind last week's chemical attack, which he denies
So what happened this day?
President Assad: As I said, the only source is Al-Qaeda, we cannot take it seriously. But our impression is that the West, mainly the United States, is hand-in-glove with the terrorists. They fabricated the whole story in order to have a pretext for the attack. It wasn't an attack because of what happened in Khan Sheikhun. It's one event. Its stage one is the play that we saw on the social networking and on TVs, and the propaganda, and the stage two is the military attack. That's what we believe is happening because it's only (a) few days - two days, 48 hours - between the play and the attacks, and no investigations, no concrete evidence about anything. The only thing were allegations and propaganda, and then (the) strike.
So who, according to you, is responsible about this alleged chemical attack?
President Assad: The allegation itself was by Al-Qaeda, Al-Nusra Front, so we don't have to investigate who. They announced it, it's under their control, no one else. About the attack, as I said, it's not clear whether it happened or not, because how can you verify a video? You have a lot of fake videos now, and you have the proof that those videos were fake, like the White Helmets for example. They are Al-Qaeda. They are Al-Nusra Front who shaved their beards, wore white hats, and appeared as humanitarian heroes, which is not the case. The same people were killing Syrian soldiers, and you have the proof on the internet anyway. So the same thing for that chemical attack. We don't know whether those dead children were killed in Khan Sheikhun. Were they dead at all? Who committed the attack if there was an attack? What's the material? You have no information at all, nothing at all, no one investigated.
The Syrian president was interviewed by AFP bureau chief Sammy Ketz in Damascus
So you think it's a fabrication?
President Assad: Definitely, a hundred percent for us, it's fabrication. We don't have an arsenal, we're not going to use it. And you have many indications if you don't have proof, because no one has concrete information or evidences, but you have indications. For example, less than two weeks, around ten days before that attack, the terrorists were advancing in many fronts, including the suburbs of Damascus and Hama, which is not far from Khan Sheikhun. Let's suppose we have this arsenal, and let's suppose that we have the will to use it, why didn't we use it when we were retreating and the terrorists were advancing? Actually, the timing of that attack - or alleged attack - was when the Syrian army was advancing very fast, and actually the terrorists were collapsing. So why to use it, if you have it and if you have the will? Why to use it at that timing, not when you were in a difficult situation, logically? This is first.
Second, if you want to use it, if you have it and if you want to use it - again, this is if we suppose - why to use it against civilians, not to use it against the terrorists that we are fighting? Third, in that area, we don't have army, we don't have battles, we don't have any, let's say, object in Khan Sheikhun, and it's not a strategic area. Why to attack it? What's the reason? Militarily, I'm talking from a military point of view. Of course, the foundation for us, morally, we wouldn't do it if we have it. We wouldn't have the will, because morally this is not acceptable. We won't have the support of the public. So every indication is against the whole story, so you can say that this play that they staged doesn't hold together. The story is not convincing by any means.
With the US airstrike, Trump seems to have changed his position on you and Syria drastically. Do you have the feeling that you lost what you have called a potential partner?
President Assad: I said "if". It was conditional. If they are serious in fighting terrorists, we're going to be partners. And I said not only the United States - whoever wants to fight the terrorists, we are partners. This is basic for us - (a) basic principle, let's say. Actually, what has been proven recently, as I said earlier, that they are hand-in-glove with those terrorists, the United States and the West, they're not serious in fighting the terrorists, and yesterday some of their statesmen were defending ISIS. They were saying that ISIS doesn't have chemical weapons. They are defending ISIS against the Syrian government and the Syrian army. So actually, you cannot talk about partnership between us who work against the terrorists and who fight the terrorism and the others who are supporting explicitly the terrorists.
So can we say that the US strike changed your opinion on Trump?
President Assad: I was very cautious in saying any opinion regarding him before he became president and after. I always say let's see what he's going to do. We wouldn't comment on statements. So, actually, this is the first proof that it's not about the president in the United States. It's about the regime, and the deep state - or the deep regime - in the United States is still the same. It doesn't change. The president is only one of the performers on their theatre. If he wants to be a leader, he cannot, because as some say he wanted to be a leader, Trump wanted to be a leader, but every president there, if he wants to be a real leader, later he's going to eat his words, swallow his pride if he has pride at all, and make a 180 degree U-turn, otherwise he would pay the price politically.
Assad claimed the US is 'being governed by this complex of military industrial complex, the financial companies, banks, and what you call deep regime'
But do you think that there will be another attack?
President Assad: As long as the United States is being governed by this complex of military industrial complex, the financial companies, banks, and what you call deep regime, and works for the vested interest of those groups, of course. It could happen anytime, anywhere, not only in Syria.
And your army or the Russians will retaliate if it happens again?
President Assad: Actually, if you want to talk about retaliation, we are talking about missiles coming from hundreds of miles, which is out of our reach. But actually the real war in Syria is not about those missiles - it's about supporting the terrorists. This is the most dangerous part of this war, and our response is going to be what we started from the very first day, (which) is smashing the terrorists everywhere in Syria. When we get rid of the terrorists, we wouldn't worry about anything else at that time. So, this is our response. It's a response, not reaction.
So what you say means that retaliation by the Syrian army or by the Russians will be very difficult, because the boats are very far?
President Assad: For us, as a small country, yeah, of course it is, everybody knows that. It's out of reach. I mean, they can have missiles from another continent. We all know that. They are a great power. We're not a great power. Talking about the Russians, this is another issue.
Would you accept the findings of an OPCW investigation?
President Assad: Since the very first time, when we had in 2013, I think, the first attacks by the terrorists on the Syrian army by chemical missiles at that time, we asked for investigation. We were the ones who asked for investigations every time there was chemical attacks or allegations about chemical attacks. We asked. And this time, we were discussing with the Russians yesterday and during the last few days after the strike that we're going to work with them on (an) international investigation. But it should be impartial. We can only allow any investigation when it's impartial, when we make sure that unbiased countries will participate in this delegation in order to make sure that they won't use it for politicised purposes.
The Syrian president said there was no sarin gas at the base bombed by the US last week
And, if they accuse the government, would you step down?
President Assad: If they accuse, or if they prove? There's a big difference. No, they are already accusing the government, and if you mean by "them" the West, no, we don't care about the West. If you mean the chemical agency, if they can prove that there's an attack, we have to investigate who gave the order to that attack. But a hundred percent, as Syrian army, we don't have, and we cannot - even if we want, we cannot - we don't have the means to commit such (an) attack, and we don't have the will.
So you mean that you don't have chemical weapons?
President Assad: No, no, definitely, a few years ago, in 2013, we gave up all our arsenal, and the chemical agency announced that Syria is free of any chemical materials.
Because the Pentagon said that there are chemical weapons in the airbase. You deny it?
President Assad: They attacked that airbase, and they destroyed the depots of different materials, and there was no sarin gas. How? If they said that we launched the sarin attack from that airbase, what happened to the sarin when they attacked the depots? Did we hear about any sarin? Our chief of staff was there a few hours later. How could he go there if there was sarin gas? How could you only have six martyrs if you have hundreds of soldiers and officers working there, but there was sarin, and they didn't die? The same fabricated videos that we've been seeing about Khan Sheikhun, when the rescuers tried to rescue the victims or the supposedly dead people or inflicted people, but actually they weren't wearing any masks or any gloves. How? Where's the sarin? They should be affected, right away. So this is all allegation. I mean, this attack and these allegations is another proof that it was fabricated and there was no sarin anywhere.
If you say that you didn't give any order, it is possible that the chemical attack could have been carried out by a rogue or fringe element from the army?
President Assad: Even if you have a rogue element, the army doesn't have chemical materials. This is first. Second, a rogue army cannot send an airplane at their will, even if they want. It's an airplane, it's not a small car to take it from place to place or a small machinegun to use it. You can talk about somebody who has been using his pistol on his behalf the way he wants and break(s) the law, that could happen anywhere in the world, but not an airplane. This is second.
Third, the Syrian army is a regular army, it's not a militia. It's a regular army, it has hierarchy, it has very clear way of orders, so this kind of "rough personnel tried to do something against the will of the leadership of the army" never happened during the last six years of the war in Syria.
Did the Russians warn you before the US attack? And were they present in the airbase?
President Assad: No, they didn't warn us because they didn't have the time to warn, because the Americans called them maybe a few minutes before the launching, or some say after the launching, because it takes time to reach the base. But actually, we had indications that there was something that was going to happen, and we took many measures in that regard.
Assad has said that videos showing the aftermath of a chemical attack could be 'fake'
Do you confirm that 20 percent of your air force has been destroyed in this attack as the Americans said?
President Assad: I don't know what's the criteria, what's the reference of 20 percent. What's the hundred percent for them? Is it the number of airplanes? Is it the quality? Is it, how to say, the active airplanes and stored airplanes? I don't know what do they mean by this. No, actually, what we and the Russians announced about a few airplanes being destroyed, most of them are the old ones, some of them were not active anyway. This is the reality, and the proof is that, since the strike, we haven't stopped attacking terrorists all over Syria. So, we didn't feel that we are really affected. Our firepower, our ability to attack the terrorists hasn't been affected by this strike.
You know, your government said in the beginning that you hit a chemical weapon depot. Is it true?
President Assad: It was a possibility, because when you attack any target related to the terrorists, you don't know what's in it. You know that this a target - it could be a store, it could be 9a) warehouse, it could be a depot, it could be a camp, it could be a headquarter, we don't know. But you know that the terrorists are using this place and you attack it, like any other place, and that's what we've been doing since the beginning of the war on (a) daily basis, on (an) hourly basis sometimes, but you cannot tell what's within this. So, that was one of the possibilities - that the airstrikes attacked a depot of chemical materials. But this is conflicting again with the timing of the announcement, not because only the terrorists announced it in the morning, but because their media, their pages on Twitter and on the internet announced the attack a few hours before the alleged one, which is 04:00 in the morning. (At) 04:00 in the morning, they announced that there's going to be a chemical attack, we have to be ready. How did they know about it?
Don't you see that Khan Sheikhun is a huge setback for you? For the first time in six years, the US attack your army and yesterday after a brief honeymoon, yesterday Tillerson said that reign of Assad family is coming to the end. Don't you think that Khan Sheikhun is a huge setback for you?
President Assad: There is no reign of Assad family anyway in Syria. He's dreaming, or let's say, he's hallucinating, so, we don't waste our time with his statement. In reality, no. Actually, during the last six years, the US was directly involved in supporting the terrorists everywhere in Syria, including ISIS, including Al-Nusra, including all the other like-minded factions in Syria. This is clear, and this is proven in Syria. While if you want to talk about the direct attacks, actually only a few months ago, there was a more dangerous attack than the recent one, just before (former US president Barack) Obama left. I think a few weeks before he left, it was in Deir Ezzor in the eastern part of Syria when they attacked a very strategic mountain. It was a Syrian base, a regular Syrian army base, and that helped ISIS to take over that mountain. And if the Syrian army wasn't resilient and strong enough to repel ISIS, the city of Deir Ezzor would have been now in the hands of ISIS, means a direct link between Deir Ezzor and Mosul in Iraq, which would have been a very strategic gain to ISIS. So, actually, no, the American government was directly involved. But this time, why did they attack directly? Because, as I said, the terrorists in that area were collapsing. So the United States didn't have any other choice to support their proxies, the terrorists, but to directly attack the Syrian army because they sent them all kinds of armaments and it didn't work.
So for you, it's not a huge setback?
President Assad: No, no, it's actually part of the context, the same context for six years. It took different shapes, but the core of the American policy and the Western policy towards what's happening in Syria, it hasn't changed at all. Forget about the statements. Sometimes we have high-pitch statements, sometimes you have low-pitch statements, but it's the same policy.
You have gradually pushed most of the rebels into Idlib. Do you plan to attack it next?
President Assad: We're going to attack terrorists anywhere in Syria, Idlib or any other place. What's the timing, what's the priority, this is a military issue and should be discussed on the military level.
You said before that Raqa is a priority for your government, but the forces advancing on the city are mostly US-backed Kurds. Aren't you afraid of being excluded from the liberation of Raqa?
President Assad: No, we support whoever wants to liberate any city from the terrorists, but that doesn't mean to be liberated from terrorists and being occupied by American forces, for example, or by another proxy, or another terrorists. So, it's not clear who is going to liberate Raqa. Is it really Syrian forces that are going to hand it over to the Syrian army? Is it going to be in cooperation with the Syrian army? It's not clear yet. But what we hear is only allegations about liberating Raqa. We've been hearing that for nearly a year now, or less than a year, but nothing happened on the ground. So, it's just, let's say, a hypothetical question, because there is nothing concrete on the ground.
The US and Russia are the co-sponsors of Geneva process. Because of the tension between the two countries, do you think that this process can continue?
President Assad: Look, there's a big difference between the process being active, which could happen anytime, to reactivate the process and to be effective. Till this moment, it's not effective. Why? Because the United States is not serious in achieving any political solution. They want to use it as an umbrella for the terrorists, or they want to get in this forum what they didn't get on the ground in the battlefield. That's why it wasn't effective at all. Now, it's the same situation. We don't see this administration serious in that regard, because they still support the same terrorists. So, we can say yes, it could be reactivated, but we cannot say we expect it to be effective or productive. No.
After six years, Mr. President, aren't you tired?
President Assad: Actually, the only thing that could make pressure on you is not the political situation, not the military situation - actually the human situation in Syria, the daily blood-letting, the daily blood-shedding, the suffering, and the hardship that inflicted every house in Syria, this is the only painful thing that could make you feel tired, if it is accurate to say "tired", while if you talk about the war, about the politics, about the relation with the West, no, I don't feel tired at all, because we are defending our country, and we're not going to get tired at all in that regard.
What makes you lose sleep?
President Assad: Again, the suffering of the Syrian people. The humanitarian interaction between me and every Syrian family directly or indirectly, this is the only thing that could deprive me from sleep from time to time, but not the Western statements and not the threat of the support of the terrorists.
Today, there are people from Fuaa and Kafraya who will move from their village to Damascus and to Aleppo. You are not afraid that in fact it will be a displacement of population, that the Syria after the war will not be the same Syria as before?
President Assad: The displacement in that context is compulsory. We didn't choose it. We wish that everyone could stay in his village and his city, but those people like many other civilians in different areas were surrounded and besieged by the terrorists, and they've been killed on (a) daily basis, so they had to leave. But of course they're going to go back to their cities after the liberation. That happened in many other areas where the people are going back to their homes. So it's temporary. Talking about demographic changes is not in the sake or in the interest of the Syrian society when it's permanent. As long as it's temporary, we wouldn't worry about it.
(Source: AFP)
Rep. Schakowsky Wants To Ban Involuntary 'Bumping' From Flights
By Stephen Gossett in News on Apr 13, 2017 5:59PM
U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) joins demonstrators speaking out against police brutality outside the United Airlines terminal at O'Hare International Airport on April 11 in Chicago (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
As a myriad of official bodies conduct hearings and reviews over the alarming, violent dragging of United passenger David Dao from his flight at O'Hare International Airport, one lawmaker is putting forth legislation that would abolish the controversial airline practice of "bumping" customers from overbooked flights or fully booked flights that require space for crew.
The first-of-its-kind legislation from U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) would abolish what has become deeply thorny territory for airlines. Overselling has been common in the industry, a way to maximize selling capacity since some would-be passengers don't show for their scheduled flights; but the bloody removal of Daowhich, according to his lawyer, left him with a broken nose, a concussion and the loss of two front teethfrom a fully booked flight has left the practice and how airlines deal with deplaning under sharp scrutiny.
The bill, if passed, would "end the practice of involuntarily 'bumping' passengers from oversold aircrafts once and for all. If an airline chooses to oversell a flight, or has to accommodate their crew on a fully booked flight, it is their responsibility to keep raising their offer until a customer chooses to give up their seat."
United initially said that the flight from O'Hare was "overbooked," but later clarified that it was fully booked but needed seats for four crew members. Three passengers agreed to take another flight, but Dao, who is a doctor and said he had patients to see the next day, did not. Three aviation officers have been put on leave after footage of the incident sparked international outrage.
[H/T Crain's]
Schakowsky added, I am glad that United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz is finally giving this situation the serious attention it deserves... However, I do not want to rely on voluntary compliance from the airlines to prevent this sort of incident."
I plan to introduce legislation that would end the practice of involuntarily bumping passengers from oversold aircrafts once and for all. pic.twitter.com/2wE96aSWUJ Jan Schakowsky (@janschakowsky) April 12, 2017
Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-IL) has also said that Congressional action may be necessary. Sens. Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin were among 21 senators who wrote a letter to United and CEO Munoz demanding an explanation of United's operating procedure for deciding forcible removals, how often over the last year the airline has deplaned a passenger already onboard, and why a full $1,350 incentive wasn't offered to Dao, among numerous other questions.
Ginger Evans, Commissioner of the Chicago Department of Aviation, is expected to appear at a City Council hearing to investigate the infamous incident.
A Los Angeles girl is raising funds by selling lemonade to help her 19-month-old sister who is battling 'Childhood Alzheimer's'.
Emily McGlocklin, four, set up a lemonade stand in her front yard to raise money for a treatment that could slow the progression of her sister Marian McGlocklin's disease - Niemann-Pick Type C (NPC).
Marian started experimental treatment earlier this week in Chicago for the condition which is often referred to as 'Childhood Alzheimer's'. She is involved in a new clinical trial of a drug developed to stabilize children in decline and halt the disease's progression. She will need this treatment every two weeks.
Emily McGlocklin told ABC 7 she set up the stand because 'it's for me... to know how much I love my sister'.
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Emily McGlocklin (pictured), four, set up a lemonade stand in her front yard to raise money for a treatment that could slow the progression of her little sister's disease
Big sister checking on Marian McGlocklin immediately after the little one's IT infusion. Marian was put to sleep for a 15-minute procedure where she a needle was inserted into her spine for an injection of the treatment that could slow the progression of 'Childhood Alzheimer's'.
She started treatment on April 10 at Rush University Hospital in Chicago. They will not know how well it is working for a few weeks or months, her family shared this photo of her in hospital this week on their Facebook page
McGlocklin is shown here having just woken up in the hospital to crackers and apple juice
McGlocklin's mother Sara updated a Facebook page on Tuesday with a post saying: 'Marian has officially begun and received her first treatment!! All went very well thanks to the incredible team at Rush University Hospital.
'It's a miracle that something that can help save her life is administered in only a few minutes. We won't know how well it's working for a few weeks or months - Marian is one of the youngest to receive it.
'The sense of relief and gratitude that there is a lifeline extended to her is inexpressible. Next steps are FDA approval for this treatment (we are praying) and development of other important research and possibilities to cure NPC.
'We can help save Marian and all kids alive with NPC today! Thank you for caring about our little girl, we are on this journey together.'
Paul and Sara, pictured with their four-year-old daughter Emily (center left) and Marian (center right). They spent a year and four months pursuing tests until Marian was diagnosed
Patricia Dickson, chief of medical genetics at Harbor UCLA Medical Center, explained how the condition affects patients saying: 'The muscles get stiff and the patients are unable to walk and speech becomes extremely difficult and eventually they do die from their condition.'
It affects just 500 children worldwide. In most cases, symptoms appear around the age of four. Sufferers rarely live past the age of 10. There is no cure for the disease.
Sara and her husband Paul spoke to DailyMail.com about their race against time before the disease robs Marian of her speech and mobility - and kills her.
They said they received nothing concrete from medics about what her condition was until shortly after McGlocklin's first birthday in September 2016.
'We saw that she wasn't reaching her milestones on time,' Sara McGlocklin said.
'You know, we were like, "Oh she's not holding her head up. She's not reaching for a toy. She's not holding eye contact".
'And then every time we were at the brink of worrying, she'd reach the milestone so we just thought she had a learning delay.'
Marian McGlocklin, 19 months, was diagnosed with Niemann-Pick disease type C - a rare, progressive genetic disorder where patients are unable to metabolize cholesterol and other lipids properly within their cells. It causes dementia, muscle stiffness, and death
Only 500 children in the world have been diagnosed - and there was a one in 150,000 chance that Marian (right) would have the disease. Her four-year-old sister Emily (left) was tested as well, but her results came back negative
Doctors at Children's Hospital Los Angeles detected an enlarged spleen, combined with ongoing, mild muscle weakness.
For five months, they visited a number of specialists - a hematologist, a gastroenterologist, a geneticist, and a neurodiagnostician - and ordered a battery of tests.
Finally, this February, the McGlocklins received a diagnosis of NPC.
HOW TO SPOT NPC Niemann-Pick Type C (NPC) is a disease where patients are unable to metabolize cholesterol and other lipids properly within their cells. Excessive amounts of cholesterol then accumulate within the liver and spleen, and excessive amounts of other lipids accumulate in the brain. Signs and symptoms: Vertical gaze palsy (the inability to move the eyes up and down)
Enlarged liver
Enlarged spleen
Jaundice in young children In most cases, neurological symptoms begin appearing between the ages of four and 10. Generally, the later that neurological symptoms begin, the slower the progression of the disease. NPC causes enlarged organs, lung damage, and slow and steady neurological deterioration. Patients are eventually unable to walk, talk or even breathe. There are an estimated 500 cases diagnosed worldwide. Doctors say there may be more, but that people confuse the disease with a learning disability or clumsiness. There is currently no cure for NPC. Half of children die by age 10 and the majority will die before age 20. A late onset of symptoms can lead to a longer life span, but it is extremely rare for any person with NPC to reach age 40. Source: National Niemann-Pick Disease Foundation Advertisement
NPC is a rare, progressive genetic disorder, which is characterized by an inability of the body to metabolize cholesterol and other fatty substances (lipids) inside of cells.
This causes enlarged organs, lung damage, and slow and steady neurological deterioration, in the form of dementia.
'It was horrible, it was kind of my worst fear,' Sara McGlocklin said.
'I was upstairs and I could hear the girls playing and laughing with the babysitter and it was just so difficult to comprehend and face.
'How do you go grocery shopping with this happening? How do you go about your day worried that your child might die?'
But there was some good news. Weeks after Marian McGlocklin's diagnosis, the family learned that a clinical trial could stabilize - and even halt - the disease's progression.
Cyclodextrin (or VTS 270) has been tested. In lab trials on mice, it extended sufferers' lives five-fold.
The drug has now reached Phase II/III trials on humans.
VTS 270 is a sugar compound found in fat-free dressings and margarine.
It appears to stabilize children in decline and substantially halt NPC's progression, something which seemed scientifically impossible only a few years ago.
Currently, VTS 270 can only be administered via spinal tap under anesthesia in a hospital every two weeks, indefinitely, and the treatment is only available in Chicago.
McGlocklin's use of VTS 270 began on April 10 at Rush University Hospital in Chicago. For the indefinite future, she will be traveling back and forth from California to Illinois for treatment.
Her parents wrote on a Facebook page that documents McGlocklin's journey that they will not know how well the treatment is working for a few weeks or months.
The family has set up a GoFundMe to cover travel and medical expenses. Out of their $150,000 goal, more than $61,000 has been raised.
The family is currently working towards raising money and awareness to help Marian fly to Chicago for a clinical trial. Her mother, Sara, said she believes Marian will either be the last child to die from the disease or the first to survive it
Genetic researchers say this type of family-driven funding is what is pushing progress towards finding a cure.
'Doctors have told me that they think NCP will be like cystic fibrosis where, you know, in the last 20 years, the life expectancy has tripled,' Sara said.
'But Marian could start declining in 10 years, five years or tomorrow. So we wonder if that increased life expectancy will be at the beginning, at the middle or at the end of her journey.
'Will it happen in time for Marian? And I hope that it will.'
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Kim Jong-un has unveiled a huge new 770ft skyscraper complex hailed by officials as 'ultra modern' - despite the most luxurious penthouse apartments having no hot water.
Foreign reporters had earlier been warned to expect a 'big and important' event in the secretive state today - but it turned out to be a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the housing project.
Thousands of cheering North Koreans watched on as the dictator opened the sprawling Ryomyong Street development, which includes 5,000 flats.
The tallest of the buildings is 70 stories while North Korean Premier Pak Pong Ju insisted they 'incorporate the latest architectural science and technology, including solar and geothermal technology, and the greening of roofs and walls'.
But reporters shown around showpiece penthouse apartments - finished with ice green wallpaper and purple sofas - found that none of them had hot water supplies.
It comes amid reports Kim Jong-un has ordered 600,000 residents out of the city to make way for the country's elite. But there are some suggestions the move was part of Kim's preparations for war amid heightened tensions with the West and after the US sent an 'armada' of warships to the the Korean Peninsula.
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Kim Jong-un has unveiled a huge new 770ft skyscraper complex hailed by officials as 'ultra modern' - despite there being no hot water in the most luxury penthouse apartments
Tens of thousands of cheering North Koreans watched on as the dictator cut the ribbon on the sprawling Ryomyong Street development (pictured), which includes 5,000 flats
Officials to the left of him, generals to the right, and in the middle of mounting tensions over his nuclear ambitions, Kim opened the prestige housing project with huge crowds of his adoring citizens looking on
Male and female soldiers were even brought in to celebrate the grand opening of the apartment complex in central Pyongyang
North Korean women in uniform walk along Ryo Myong street after the opening ceremony of a new residential housing project in Pyongyang
North Korean soldiers look at items in a pharmacy in a shopping mall that was built as part of the sprawling housing development
Officials to the left of him, generals to the right, and in the middle of mounting tensions over his nuclear ambitions, Kim opened the prestige housing project with huge crowds of his adoring citizens looking on.
Completion of the development, just down a wide avenue from the mausoleum where Kim's grandfather Kim Il-Sung and father Kim Jong-Il lie in state, was repeatedly promised in time for Saturday's 105th anniversary of the birth of the North's founder.
North Korean authorities seek to present their isolated, impoverished country as prosperous and modern, and international media outlets were invited for the occasion.
Kim has made frequent visits to the street to inspect construction work there, according to state media.
Soldiers, officials and citizens packed a plaza from early morning, waiting for hours before Kim led the delegation onto the platform.
Pak Pong-Ju lauded Kim, saying the project was a demonstration of 'the 'do or die' spirit of our people and army who are willing to implement the Party's orders in all cases', he said, and 'a victory against imperialists' sanctions'.
Thousands watched on as Kim Jong-un officially unveiled the new high-rise apartments. It came amid reports 600,000 people had been moved out of the city to make way for the country's elite
The high-rise apartments boast impressive views of the city and across the countryside beyond - but even the most upmarket rooms do not have hot water
Around 200 foreign journalists are in Pyongyang as the country marks Day of the Sun. Pictures show the exterior of one of the high-rise apartment blocks
Soldiers applaud and cheer as their leader cuts the ribbon on the apartment blocks today. Foreign journalists had been warned to expect a 'big event' today
Retail offering: A vendor is pictured in a shop in a newly constructed residential complex in North Korea's capital, Pyongyang
After the opening, Kim Jong-Un was whisked away in a blacked-out Mercedes limousine. He was a frequent visitor to the housing block as it was being constructed
Around 200 foreign journalists are in Pyongyang as the country marks Day of the Sun.
Officials had given no details as to the nature of a planned 'big' event today or where it would take place, and similar announcements in the past have been linked to relatively low-key set pieces. In the end, it turned out to be the grand unveiling of a block of flats.
In 2016, for example, foreign journalists underwent hours of investigation by North Korean officials ahead of what turned out to be a pop concert to mark the finale of a ruling Workers' Party congress.
As the grand opening took place this morning, reports emerged that Kim had ordered as many as 600,000 residents out of the city of 2.6million - to 'purify' the capital and introduce more of the country's elite.
A source told Korea Joongang Daily: 'Population control was the pretext of the latest order, but in reality, the purpose is to 'purify' the North Korean capital and allow only the loyal elite class to live there.'
Separate reports suggest the move was actually a mass evacuation amid continued preparations for war in the region.
North Korean authorities seek to present their isolated, impoverished country as prosperous and modern, and international media outlets were invited for the occasion
Crowds converged on the new apartment buildings to watch their leader unveil the new apartment block this morning
Devotion: Adoring citizens cheered as the dictator cut the ribbon on the new development. There was no sign of concern over looming tensions with the West
North Korean men push their bicycles along Ryomyong residential area, a collection of more than a dozen apartment buildings with the tallest some 770ft
Tens of thousands turned out for the grand opening of the new apartments in central Pyongyang. Soldiers are pictured in front of the development this morning
The North is under multiple sets of United Nations sanctions over its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes and tensions have soared in recent weeks.
A barrage of recent North Korean missile tests has stoked fears in Washington that Pyongyang is moving closer to its goal of developing an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the US mainland - something US President Donald Trump has said 'won't happen'.
Shinzo Abe, prime minister of US ally Japan - in whose exclusive economic zone three North Korean missiles landed in recent weeks, warned Thursday that Pyongyang may have the capacity to launch a warhead loaded with sarin nerve gas.
The same deadly gas was used to kill 87 Syrian civilians in a horrifying gas attack last week. That atrocity prompted the US to launch a surprise wave of missiles on one of dictator Bashar al-Assad's airbases.
There is speculation Pyongyang might conduct a sixth nuclear test, or another missile launch, to coincide with the Kim Il-Sung anniversary - specialist US website 38North described its Punggye-ri test site as 'primed and ready' on Wednesday - and Trump has dispatched an aircraft carrier group to the Korean peninsula.
Massive crowds were seen in the capital as Kim Jong-un cut the ribbon on a giant complex of skyscrapers. Reporters said the most luxurious flats did not have running water
Completion of the sprawling Ryomyong Street development, just down a wide avenue from the mausoleum where Kim's grandfather Kim Il-Sung and father Kim Jong-Il lie in state, was repeatedly promised in time for Saturday's 105th anniversary of the birth of the North's founder
A series of skyscraper apartment blocks have been put up in just over a year along Ryomyong Street, which runs out of downtown Pyongyang, past North Korea's top university and down to the palace where the country's past leaders are kept embalmed
Kim Jong-Un snips a ribbon to unveil the housing project while journalists capture the moment on camera. A guided tour of the more luxury flats revealed that they did not have hot water supplies
North Korean officials were allowed in to inspect the interior of the housing complex during the official opening ceremony this morning
Inspection: A man examines a placard showing the layout of the sprawling network of apartments this morning
'We are sending an armada. Very powerful,' he told the Fox Business Network. We have submarines. Very powerful. Far more powerful than the aircraft carrier.'
'He is doing the wrong thing,' he added of Kim. 'He's making a big mistake.'
The North has reiterated its constant refrain that it is ready for 'war' with the US.
The 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty and Pyongyang says that it needs nuclear weapons to defend itself against a possible US invasion.
Last week's US missile strike on Syria vindicated its stance, it said at the weekend.
Successive governments in Washington have only attacked states which 'do not have nukes', the official KCNA agency quoted a foreign ministry statement as saying, 'and the same is true of the Trump administration'.
'What happened in Syria once again taught a bitter lesson that no one should have an illusion about the imperialists and one can defend oneself from the imperialist aggression only when one has one's strength.'
Though Kim attended the opening he did not make a speech. North Korean Premier Pak Pong Ju said the project 'incorporates the latest architectural science and technology, including solar and geothermal technology, and the greening of roofs and walls'
The construction has gone on at breakneck speed, interrupted only by flooding in northeastern North Korea last autumn, when resources where temporarily diverted to reconstruction of homes there
Thousands of North Korean men and women gather at the Ryomyong residential area, a collection of more than a dozen new apartment buildings
There has been little sign of the tensions on the streets of Pyongyang in recent days, where the focus is on preparations for Saturday's anniversary
Saturday marks the 105th birthday of national founder Kim Il Sung, and North Korea has a history of connecting landmark construction projects to important dates
TENSE STAND-OFF: The U.S. dispatched a naval strike group to the area amid continued missile launches and hot rhetoric from North Korea
US President Donald Trump tweeted that he had 'great confidence that China will properly deal with North Korea'
IS KIM PLANNING A TOXIC GAS ATTACK? North Korea may already be capable of launching chemical weapons, Japan has warned. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he feared Kim Jong-un 'has a capability' to fire missiles tipped with sarin - the same deadly gas used to kill 87 Syrian civilians in a horrifying gas attack last week. That atrocity prompted the US to launch a surprise wave of missiles on one of dictator Bashar al-Assad's airbases. Abe told a parliamentary session: 'There is a possibility that North Korea already has a capability to deliver missiles with sarin as warheads.' Advertisement
On Thursday, KCNA reported separately that Kim had watched special forces drop from light transport planes 'like hail' and 'mercilessly blew up enemy targets' during an exercise.
'The contest proved once again that our Korean People's Army... will show a real taste of gun shot and real taste of war to the reckless invaders,' KCNA said.
With a broad smile on his face, Kim praised his troops for their precision, saying 'the bullets seemed to have their own eyes', KCNA said, without identifying when the operation was held.
The Rodong Sinmun - the official mouthpiece of the ruling Workers' Party - carried several photos from the contest including one of Kim watching the troops parachuting down from jets into an open field. Another showed him grinning from ear-to-ear as he walked by cheering soldiers.
The sabre-rattling has unnerved China, the North's sole major ally, which has made clear its frustration with Pyongyang's stubbornness but whose priority remains preventing any instability on its doorstep.
Beijing has urged Trump to take a peaceful approach to resolving the issue, but the Global Times newspaper, which sometimes reflects the thinking of the leadership, issued an unequivocal warning to Pyongyang that it should 'avoid making mistakes at this time'.
The smiling North Korean leader is seen watching his 'elite fighting force' on a military training exercise in photos released today
Yesterday Kim oversaw a commando operation in which special forces dropped from light transport planes 'like hail' and 'mercilessly blew up enemy targets'
Kim praised his troops for their precision in the training exercise (pictured), saying 'the bullets seemed to have their own eyes', state news agency KCNA said
The Rodong Sinmun - the official mouthpiece of the ruling Workers' Party - carried several photos from the contest showing firefight excercises
Analysts believe that the activity at the site is indicative of final preparations for another nuclear test. This satellite image, taken yesterday, shows 'small groups of people' working at the facility
North 38, which monitors North Korea, has released a series of picures with one showing how tarp covers pallets of equipment or supplies to protect them from view while workers have been seen walking around the site in another sign of activity at the site
Satellite imagery of the Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site taken on April 12 appears to show vehicles parked around the North Portal of the site. North Korean monitoring service 38 North said the facility is 'primed and ready' for a sixth nuclear test
A new test would be a 'slap in the face of the US government' and Beijing would not 'remain indifferent', it said.
Today, Trump tweeted that he had 'great confidence that China will properly deal with North Korea.'
In contrast, on Tuesday, the US president tweeted that 'North Korea is looking for trouble. If China decides to help, that would be great. If not, we will solve the problem without them! U.S.A.'
But there has been little sign of the tensions on the streets of Pyongyang in recent days, where the focus is on preparations for Saturday's anniversary.
At Ryomyong Street, Kim took a pair of scissors from a tray to cut a wide red ribbon to rhythmic cheers from the crowd, before waving to his admirers, and turning to walk back to his Mercedes limousine.
No phones, no laptops, no water, no toilets: Reporters herded onto 'imperialist bus' to watch ceremony 'more powerful than hundreds of nuclear bombs'
Foreign journalists invited to Pyongyang for the grand opening of a block of flats have revealed the bizarre procedures they were forced to follow during the event.
Scores of reporters and photographers from around the world have flown to the country for this week's celebrations of the 105th birth anniversary of founder president Kim Il Sung.
But today they revealed how they were herded together for hours, banned from drinking water and not given access to phones - just so they could watch Kim Jong-Un open a new apartment block complex.
Minders last night ordered media workers to down tools and pack up their laptops because 'you won't be coming back here tonight' before being told of a 'big and important' event on Thursday.
Some 200 foreign reporters have been invited to Pyongyang to capture the celebrations ahead of the most important day in North Korea's calendar on Saturday
Only passports and cameras were allowed - no phones or water. One minder then said: 'I am being very direct now. Please urinate and excrete before the event as there will be no water closets.'
At 4.45am, they were woken up and piled into buses for the People's Palace of Culture for what turned into a two-hour security check, where wallets and food was taken away and tied up in black plastic bags.
A Reuters team boarded a bus after the security check, only for a minder to shout get off: 'This bus is for Americans only!
'That's the imperialist bus,' O Kum Sok, another minder reportedly said.
Once at Ryomyong, the new residential street, tens of thousands of North Koreans gathered in the area, some in military dress, most in traditional suits and dresses holding balloons, plastic flowers and North Korean flags.
A brass band played as the square filled up. Then around 10am. the crowd fell silent.
Fervent clapping and cheering then followed as Kim Jong Un and top government officials walked onto the stage to a fanfare from the brass band reserved to mark his public appearances.
There is speculation North Korea might conduct a sixth nuclear test to coincide with the Kim Il-Sung anniversary. US President Donald Trump has dispatched an aircraft carrier group to the Korean peninsula in a show of force
It is 'a very significant, great event, more powerful than the explosion of hundreds of nuclear bombs on the top of the enemies' heads,' said North Korea's premier Pak Pong Ju, the main speaker at the opening ceremony.
The completion of Ryomyong Street is one of the examples of 'a brilliant victory based on self-reliance and self-development against manoeuvres by the U.S. and vassal forces', he said, using the state's typical descriptions of the United States and its allies.
A translation of the speech was provided when reporters returned to the hotel.
Kim did not speak but clapped intermittently, the reporters said. After about twenty minutes of speeches, a thick, red ribbon was unfurled on stage. Kim cut the ribbon and was whisked away in a shiny black Mercedes as his sister Kim Yo Jong bowed deeply.
A British family who saw a child being abducted in Australia nearly 50 years ago are being sought by police after a man was charged with her kidnap and murder.
Detectives are appealing for the Goodyear family from Nottingham to come forward after they gave a statement on the day UK-born Cheryl Grimmer disappeared in 1970.
The three-year-old girl has never been found after she went missing from a shower block during a family trip to Fairy Meadow Beach in Wollongong, New South Wales.
Cheryl Grimmer (left) disappeared from New South Wales in 1970 - and her mother Carole Grimmer (right) was pictured with her three brothers Stephen, Ricki and Paul one day later
The military join police in the search for three-year-old Cheryl in January 1970 after she disappeared from Fairy Meadow Beach in Wollongong
But last month a 63-year-old security guard from Melbourne, who cannot be named, was charged with abduction and murder in Australia's oldest cold case.
Peter William Aubrey Goodyear, his wife, Mavis, and their two daughters, Karen and Jannette all gave statements on the day she vanished - January 12, 1970.
Mr Goodyear, then 37, claimed he had been standing outside the shower changing rooms waiting for his family when he saw a man leaving carrying a child.
But later that year the family moved out of a hostel in Australia to a plantation in Papua New Guinea before returning to Oxton, Nottinghamshire.
According to reports at the time, Mr Goodyear told police he saw a man running away with a motionless, fair-haired girl under his arm on the day Cheryl vanished.
He said: 'I saw a little, dark man carrying a limp, blond-haired girl to the car. My daughter said to me, "Daddy, why is that man carrying that little girl?"'
Last month a 63-year-old security guard from Melbourne, who cannot be named, was charged with abduction and murder in Australia's oldest cold case
Police staged a re-enactment of the Grimmer family's day at the beach in December last year, in a bid to convince the killer to turn themselves in
But all attempts to contact Mr Goodyear who had been working as a labourer in Australia at the time or any other members of his family in Britain have so far failed.
NSW Police Detective Sergeant Damian Loone said: 'We have been making inquiries with authorities in Britain in a bid to find Mr Goodyear, if he is still alive, to determine whether he can still assist our ongoing inquiries.
'To date, those efforts have not been successful. We are keen to hear from anyone, here or abroad, who can help us locate the Goodyears.'
Last month relatives of the three-year-old snatched from the front of a surf club in 1970 have cried outside Wollongong Local Court.
One family member said she 'cannot leave her children alone for one second' as a result of the toddler's disappearance outside the surf club.
Cheryl was last seen out the front of a toilet block at Fairy Meadow Beach, about 90 minutes south of Sydney, after going to the changing rooms with her brothers.
Cheryl's parents Carole and John, pictured eating with their children the day after she went missing in January 1970, died without ever knowing the truth about what happened to her
Cheryl was last seen out the front of a toilet block at Fairy Meadow Beach, about 90 minutes south of Sydney, after going to the changing rooms with her brothers
Her brother Stephen Grimmer and niece Melanie, both became emotional outside court in March, saying the whole incident had been 'very traumatic'.
In court documents, investigators alleged the man, now aged 63, murdered Cheryl between 2.30pm and 4.30pm on the summer afternoon in 1970.
Detectives allege Cheryl was subjected to a 'horrific' fate and will allege she was strangled and taken to nearby bushland.
Legal Aid solicitor Laura Fennell told the court her client needed 'urgent psychiatric care' from Justice Health while he was remanded in custody.
Outside court Stephen said he had been planning to look the man accused of being his sister's killer in the eye.
Cheryl's brother Stephen Grimmer was supported by his partner (front) as he left a court in Wollongong last month
This ransom note for $10,000 was sent to Cheryl's parents after three days but no one showed up to collect the money where police dressed as council workers lay in wait
The Grimmer family say they have been deluged with tributes from friends and relatives, including from Britain where the family emigrated from in the 1960s.
Plans are in the works for a commemorative plaque to be laid for Cheryl at the surf club where she went missing. The case will return to court on May 24.
His name and identity have been suppressed because he was a juvenile at the time of the crime.
Australian police revealed last December they believed the youngster was allegedly kidnapped by a teenage boy - who would now be in his early 60s.
Their renewed interest followed a re-enactment of the Grimmer family's day at the beach in December, in a bid to convince the killer to turn themselves in.
Cheryl's brother Stephen Grimmer, 52, revealed in December last year that his parents Carole and John died without ever knowing the truth.
Mrs Grimmer died three years ago, and on her deathbed made the brothers promise to find out what happened the day her daughter went missing during the family trip.
A sorority girl who was body slammed to the ground by police outside a Colorado bar spoke on Thursday morning for the first time since a video of her arrest went viral.
Michaella Surat, 22, said she was left 'humiliated' when Fort Collins police officers violently threw her to the ground outside Bondi Beach Bar on April 6.
'All the bones were shattered in my face. I was just so humiliated because people were watching me.
'I cant go to school without feeling like someone is going to approach me and hurt me, I'm getting death threats online,' she said through tears during a Good Morning America interview.
The encounter began when Surat approached police to try to find her boyfriend who was earlier pulled out of the bar because of a fight.
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Michaella Surat wept as she told Good Morning America how she was 'humiliated' by Fort Collins Police officers in Colorado who body slammed her while arresting her outside a bar on April 6
WATCH: "I was so humiliated." The College student caught on camera being slammed to the ground by police speaks out: https://t.co/KFMJLOenrx pic.twitter.com/bCnDbblvYw Good Morning America (@GMA) April 13, 2017
Police say she 'shoulder checked' a bouncer and an officer while trying to get to him.
On Thursday, she insisted she had done nothing wrong when trying to find him.
'I found out my boyfriend got kicked out of the bar and so I went out to see what happened, and then the altercation happened and one think led to another. It just escalated,' she said.
Another reveler inside the bar recorded her arrest on their cell phone. The shocking footage was shared on Instagram and Twitter where it has since been viewed more than 800,000 times.
It showed the officer tossing her to the ground in one motion, her legs and high heels flying up behind her as her face landed on the concrete.
Surat's family shared photographs of her injuries afterwards. They included a dark blue bruise on her chin, a concussion and bruises on her legs.
Surat was trying to get to her boyfriend who had been thrown out of the bar when she encountered the police officer. He was filmed trying to restrain her before throwing her suddenly to the ground head first
After footage of the arrest went viral, Surat's family released photographs of her shocking injuries. They included a dark blue bruise to her chin she said stretches to her hairline
The college student said she can't open her mouth wide enough to eat. Her horrified parents (above with her on Thursday) said they cannot bear to watch the video
'I can't open my mouth to eat,' said the college student on Thursday as she showed the camera how her facial bruise stretches up her jawline to her ears.
Surat was charged with third degree assault and obstructing a peace officer and will return to court next month
Fort Collins Police are investigating the incident and are refusing to release the officer's body camera footage until they have reached a conclusion.
They say the social media video lacks 'context'. While Surat's lawyer admits she was 'highly agitated' and 'irritated' before she was thrown to the ground, both he and her family say she did not deserve to be treated so violently.
'I was still equally as appalled. She was confused about where her boyfriend was. She was certainly irritated, highly irritated and agitated. Nothing I saw in that video warranted the very aggressive response I saw from the officer. Nothing,' her attorney said on Friday.
Surat's parents said they could not even watch the video.
'Seeing my daughter planted on the ground like that, it went chin, body, feet,' her mother said. Her father said she may have died.
'One little hair off differently, that could have been her death.'
The student's lawyer said he had viewed the police officer's body cam footage and that it was 'equally appalling'
The college student herself echoed the angry comments of hundreds of thousands of social media viewers who have accused the officers of using excessive force.
'It shouldn't happen to anyone no matter their size, race, color, whatever,' she said.
Surat was charged with third degree assault and with obstructing a peace officer. She will return to court next month.
Her family has not pursued civil action against the police department.
Pictured, a member of staff at Poole Community Health Clinic returns to work after moving her car to avoid parking fines
Medics are being forced to interrupt treating patients to move their cars as they face a daily battle to avoid parking fines.
Staff at Poole Community Health Clinic in Dorset, return to their vehicles up to four times a day in order to dodge 40 charges.
The 81-strong team have to make the frustrating 12-minute dashes after their permits for the centre's car park was revoked.
One medic, who did not want to be named, told the Mirror: 'It's just a total nightmare, I'm actually in the middle of seeing someone right now but instead I have to worry about making sure I don't get a ticket. It's ridiculous.'
To avoid the fines many of the medics - including doctors and nurses - set alarms on their phones, while others are slapped with tickets on a weekly basis.
Dorset Healthcare University NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the clinic, said that the permits had been revoked to accommodate more visitors and patients.
A spokesman explained that the Trust would be talking to nearby Poole Hospital to try and resolve the parking row.
He said: 'Patient care is our top priority, and we are confident these issues are having a minimal impact on the services we provide at the site.'
Left, a member of staff at the Poole medical centre makes a dash for her car while, right, a traffic warden looks for vehicles without tickets or permits
The revelation at Poole comes after it was revealed last year that NHS hospitals in England made more than 120million from parking charges.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has previously called for hospitals to operate pay-on-exit parking regimes rather than pay-and-display for a fixed period and said fees for drivers visiting seriously ill patients should be cut or axed.
He said hospitals should make parking convenient, and waive fines if visitors or patients overstay through no fault of their own.
An evasive Carter Page issued a series of qualified denials on Thursday, refusing in an interview to say who hired him to work on Donald Trump's presidential campaign and leaving open the possibility that he talked with Russian agents about easing U.S. sanctions if Trump were elected.
'Something may have come up in a conversation' last year when he was in Moscow to speak at the New Economic School,' he admitted Thursday.
But Page insisted there's no chance he or anyone linked to Trump will be convicted of a crime following a government probe into whether he acted as an agent for Russia in the months preceding the November election.
'That would be ridiculous. Absolutely not,' he said on ABC's 'Good Morning America' program.
Page, an oil industry consultant who advised the Trump campaign about foreign policy, said 'tons of false evidence' has been published suggesting that he had illicit contact with Russians who were recruiting him as a spy.
But he scurried away from questions about his legal predicament and his ties to the White House.
Carter Page, an oil industry consultant who advised President Donald Trump's campaign about foreign policy, dodged questions Thursday on ABC about his links to Russians whom federal investigators believe were trying to recruit him as a spy
Trump's campaign, transition and White House have all distanced themselves from Page who was cast out of the president's circle of influence after published stories put him inside Moscow's orbit
'I don't talk about that,' Page said when asked who first brought him into Trumpworld. 'I do not talk about any ongoing investigations,' he offered meekly in response to a question about whether he's persuaded the FBI that he's no Russian spy.
In a partisan swipe at a now-retired Democratic Senate majority leader, Page placed the blame for his public image problem on 'that dodgy dossier which Senator Harry Reid last August sent to [FBI] Director Comey.'
The dossier, a largely discredited amalgamation of unverified intelligence reports, first emerged in a January report on the Buzzfeed website.
It appeared to show that Russia had assembled embarrassing information about Trump that could be used as leverage against him including a report that placed him in a sexually compromising position with Moscow prostitutes.
Thursday's interview will fuel further suspicion that Page discussed with one or more Russian agents the potential that Trump could ease U.S. sanctions.
'Absolutely not. I never offered that,' he said at first. 'No. Nothing along those lines. Absolutely not.'
But under light questioning from host George Stephanopoulos, the Bill Clinton aide-turned TV anchor, Page turned squishy twitching and mumbling his way to uncertainty.
Under light questioning from host George Stephanopoulos, the Bill Clinton aide-turned TV anchor, Page turned squishy twitching and mumbling his way to uncertainty
'I mean, it may topics, I don't remember,' he said, before suggesting that he would learn along with the rest of the world what he himself had said if the U.S. government were to release the transcript of his conversations that persuaded a federal FISA Court judge to green-light surveillance of him.
'I don't recall every single word that I ever said,' Page offered, shifting gears into the possible. 'But I would never make any offer, or intimate anything.'
'Something may have come up in a convers I have no recollection,' he said.
Asked flatly if he could rule out the idea that he had discussed sanctions relief that could come from a then-hypothetical Trump administration, he conceded: 'Someone may have brought it up. I have no recollection.'
'And if it was, it was not something I was offering or that someone was asking for.'
News emerged Tuesday that the FBI obtained a secret FISA court order last summer to monitor page's communications.
That result indicates that federal agents persuaded a judge that probable cause exists to believe Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power.
One-time Trump adviser addressed the New economic School last year in Moscow a speech that put a hotter spotlight on him as law enforcement probed his alleged Russia ties
Page said he was confident that he had never discussed with Russians any information about hacked emails that may have proven decisive in November's presidential election.
'Not a word. Not once. Absolutely sure,' he said.
U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that state-sponsored Russian hackers were responsible for the hacks, which drove public opinion downward about both the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign.
Page has not been charged with any crimes, and it is unclear whether the U.S. Justice Department might accuse him or others in connection with Russia's alleged meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
But last week he acknowledged in a statement that he 'shared basic immaterial information and publicly available research documents' with Russian spy Victor Podobnyy.
The Trump campaign insisted late in the fall that Page was merely an 'informal foreign policy adviser' who did 'not speak for Mr. Trump or the campaign.'
By January, eventual White House press secretary Sean Spicer would claim that 'Carter Page is an individual whom the president-elect does not know and was put on notice months ago by the campaign.'
Page told ABC on Thursday that 'since [the] inauguration I've not spoken with anyone,' in Trump's orbit.
But reaching back to the days following the Republican National Convention, he said: 'There were various people I would speak to from time to time, old colleagues, et cetera. ... Light contact, and no discussions of anything substantive, related to the things that have been accused.'
Kate Hudson and Rosario Dawson are just two of the A-list Hollywood stars whose nude photos have allegedly been leaked online by hackers, who earlier this week posted images of a topless Miley Cyrus.
Others who have allegedly fallen victim to this latest hack include Whitney Port, Dianna Agron, AJ Michalka, Yvonne Strahovski, Suki Waterhouse, Lily Rabe and Marin Ireland, who are all seen topless in photos posted online.
Photos or video of Leonardo DiCaprio's ex Kelly Rohrbach, Carice Van Houten from 'Game of Thrones,' Sam Worthington's wife Lara Bingle, and Audrina Partridge were also reportedly uploaded by the hackers.
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Exposed: Nude photos of Kate Hudson (above in February) have allegedly been leaked online by hackers
A-list victims: Dianna Agron (left) and Rosario Dawson (right) also had alleged nude photos posted online
Latest bunch: Miley Cyrus (above in 2014) was the first of this new group of stars to have images put online, which allegedly showed her topless
Hacked: Whitney Port (left) and AJ Michalka (right) also had their personal photo allegedly posted online
The images of Hudson show the actress sitting down and exposing her bare breasts while completely nude in two photos, along with three photos of her in a thong shot from behind.
Dawson is completely nude in the 11 images of her that leaked online, most of which show her lying in a bed.
There are also two topless photos of her standing in front of a mirror.
Port wears nothing but a pair of lace underwear in the five images of her, which show her bare breasts.
Agron is topless in two of the leaked photos online, including one of her that shows the actress from the waist up and was taken in front of a mirror.
The photos of Michalka, Strahovski and Waterhouse show the women topless and bottomless, with images of both their breasts and genitalia.
Rabe and Ireland meanwhile are topless in the photos that have been leaked online.
The images of Rabe date back to the time that she was filming the first and second season of 'American Horror Story' it seems based on the costumes she is wearing in some of the photos,
Horror: Yvonne Strahovski (left) and Suki Waterhouse (right) had alleged nude photos leaked online
Caught up: Leonard DiCaprio's ex Kelly Rohrbach (above) has also allegedly been targeted by hackers
More big names: Lara Bingle (left) and Audrina Partridge (right) are also reportedly naked in photos or video obtained from the hack
No game: Carice van Houten (above) of 'Game of Thrones' had images of herself posted online according to a report
This leak comes just a few weeks after images of actresses Emma Watson, Demi Lovato and Amanda Seyfried began circulating online, less than three years after nude photos and video of over 100 Hollywood star were leaked in what came to be called 'The Fappening.'
CELEBS ALLEGEDLY HACKED AJ Michalka (singer/actress) Audrina Partridge (The Hills) Carly Pope (Arrow) Carice Van Houten (Game of Thrones) Dianna Agron Kate Hudson Katheryn Winnick (Vikings) Kelly Rohrbach (Baywatch) Lara Bingle Worthington Miley Cyrus Rosario Dawson Suki Waterhouse (model) Whitney Port (The Hills) Yvonne Strahovski (Chuck) Advertisement
Lovato was also among the victims of the original 'Fappening' leak as well, making this the second time she has been forced to deal with this situation.
In the new photo of Lovato she is laying in bed with her top unzipped while smiling at the camera.
Three years prior the images released of Lovato showed her in bed with boyfriend Wilmer Valderrama, with the two covered up in most of the shots.
There was however one image that was allegedly of Lovato's breasts and one of her backside among those that were leaked online.
The images of Watson and Seyfried first appeared on Reddit and 4chan last month, with hundreds of photos of the two A-list stars and other big names part of the online dump.
Watson was seen trying on clothes and in a swimsuit in her photos with the exception of a few that claimed to be of the actress filming herself nude in a bathtub.
There was no face visible in those videos however and Watson firmly denied that she was the person being filmed in a statement last week.
'Photos from a clothes fitting Emma had with a stylist a couple of years ago have been stolen,' said Watson's publicist.
'They are not nude photographs. Lawyers have been instructed and we are not commenting further.'
The images of Seyfried were more graphic and reportedly showed her with a former boyfriend.
Seyfried did not comment on the leak and her lawyers sent letters demanding that images of their client 'in various states of nudity or in intimate moments with her former boyfriend' be removed from websites.
Last hack: Demi Lovato (above earlier this month) had a nude image of herself leaked online in March
Scandal: Emma Watson (left) and Amanda Seyfried (right) had photos leaked just before Lovato
It is unclear who is behind this latest leak, but should they be caught the consequences will be severe as witnessed by the sentence handed down to Ryan Collins, the man who stole the nude photos of celebrities that were leaked back in 2014.
Collins accessed at least 50 iCloud accounts and 72 Gmail accounts, most of which belonged to female celebrities including Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton and Kirsten Dunst.
He would send emails to the victims that appeared to be from Apple or Google, asking for their usernames and passwords, and then access their accounts after they responded with the information.
He would then access their email and, in some cases, download the entire contents of their iCloud backup.
The married father-of-two was ultimately sentenced to 18 months in jail for his crime.
Two Ohio inmates used discarded computers to access their prison's network to create passes to get into restricted areas and plan a tax fraud scheme.
A state watchdog released a report on Tuesday stating a lack of supervision at the Marion Correctional Institution allowed the prisoners to hide computers in the ceiling and run wiring to connect them to the network.
The two tech-savvy convicts were also able to access the internal records of other inmates as part of their scheme.
One of the prisoners planned to steal the identity of a fellow inmate and file tax returns under that inmate's name, officials said.
Two Ohio inmates used discarded computers to access their prison's network to create passes to get into restricted areas and plan a tax fraud scheme. Pictured is part of their illegal set-up
The two tech-savvy convicts were also able to access the internal records of other inmates as part of their scheme. This picture shows the spot where the computers were found hidden in the prison's ceiling
The inmates accessed websites that had information about manufacturing drugs and makeshift weapons, according to the report.
The scheme was discovered by prison technology employee Gene Brady, who was alerted when an inmate tried to bypass security controls using the stolen username and password of a former employee.
Brady had allowed the prisoners to go through salvage computers and other hardware, authorities said.
He has since been placed on paid leave.
This map shows how far one of the inmates had to travel with the computers - from the RET3 area to a training room at P3
Investigators concluded prison officials did not properly report the problem after finding the computers in July 2015.
Officials said then-Warden Jason Bunting failed to report the criminal activity to both the State Highway Patrol and the inspector general.
Bunting later resigned from his post at Marion to become superintendent of the Northwest Ohio Development Center.
These pictures show the room being used by the prisoners to store information and hard-drives before (left) they were caught, and after (right)
A prisons spokeswoman said authorities took steps to address some of those findings and will review the report to determine if any further action needed.
A Marion County prosecutor and the Ohio Ethics Commission are expected to review the findings to determine if any employees should be disciplined.
Officials also will determine if the prison Wi-Fi networks need to be strengthened.
This picture shows some of the wiring and connections that were used by the inmates in their scheme
A cable company is hiring off-duty police officers to accompany workers after a series of violent robberies on marked trucks in Cleveland.
Spectrum cable company is hiring the officers after five workers from other companies were robbed at gunpoint and a Spectrum employee was shot four times during a house call on January 24, according to Cleveland.com.
The 32-year-old Spectrum employee was shot by someone who drove by in a car and fired at least 10 gunshots at him.
Spectrum cable company (file image) is hiring the officers after five workers for other companies were robbed at gunpoint and a Spectrum employee was shot four times during a house call on January 24
A company spokesman said in an emailed statement that Spectrum has the safety of customers and employees as their 'highest priority'. The police officers (file image) will ride in full uniform and stand near Spectrum workers
He had been putting his climbing equipment on his truck. The employee was taken to a local hospital for injuries that were not life threatening.
A company spokesman said in an emailed statement that Spectrum has the safety of customers and employees as their 'highest priority'. The police officers will ride in full uniform and stand near Spectrum workers.
Since February 20, five workers from other companies have experienced armed robberies. All of the incidents happened between 10.30am and 1.30pm, according to Cleveland.com.
In February, a Lipton beverage delivery driver was robbed by two teens who stole the driver's cash and cellphone before running away.
A month later, the same teens were arrested for rummaging through a Direct TV worker's van. They stole the worker's wallet and two cellphones at gunpoint.
Also in March, a Dominion gas company employee was in his work van when a man opened the passenger door and pointed a gun at him. The robber stole a cellphone, $6 and a water pump, according to the news site.
Five days later on March 10, an Illuminating Company meter reader was robbed and carjacked at gunpoint by two men. They stole cash, cellphones and the car.
Most recently, a Digital Dish employee was held at gunpoint by two men who stole his wallet, iPad and iPhone, before hijacking his car.
An Oklahoma man has been sentenced to life in prison plus 20 years for repeatedly raping a 13-year-old girl and murdering their 18-day-old son by suffocating him with a pillow.
Ron Turner learned his fate on Wednesday after pleading guilty to a charge of first-degree murder and 91 other criminal counts, including sexual abuse of a child and first-degree rape.
Investigators said Turner had previously confessed to smothering his newborn son, Prince Younique Ken Williams, using a pillow in an effort to stop rumors that he was the boy's biological father.
Infanticide: Ron Turner (left), 29, of Oklahoma City, has been sentenced to life in prison plus 20 years for the August 2016 suffocation murder of his 18-day-old son, Prince Williams (right), and for sexual assault of the baby's 13-year-old mother
According to prosecutors, DNA testing later confirmed that the 29-year-old was the boy's father, reported The Oklahoman.
Prince was born to his 13-year-old mother on August 5 and passed on August 23 at a home in the 900 block of East Side in Oklahoma City, where police were summoned for a report of an unresponsive baby.
Turner was arrested in connection to the infant's death in mid-December following a nearly four-month investigation.
Second suspect: Stephen Weeden, 27, has been charged with sexually assaulting the same 13-year-old victim
Under questioning, Turner admitted to holding a pillow over his son's face for 10 seconds until he stopped breathing, according to an affidavit filed in the case.
Turner claimed that Princes mother had first tried to smother her son but was unable to do it, prompting him to step in.
The 29-year-old man also confessed to repeatedly sexually abusing the 13-year-old girl and four other minors between August 2015 and August 2016.
Another suspect, 27-year-old Stephen Weeden, has been charged with sexually assaulting the same 13-year-old victim.
Weeden told investigators that Turner forced him to have sex with the teenager, who later corroborated his story to police.
The girl said that both Turner and Weeden had multiple sexual encounters with her, and that Weeden would allegedly guard the door to her bedroom when she and Turner would have intercourse.
Under duress: Weeden told investigators that Turner forced him to have sex with the teenager
Recounting the chain of events leading to her newborn sons death, the girl said she watched Turner place a plastic bag over the babys head, and when that method failed, the man grabbed the pillow, according to court filings.
Fox 25 reported that the 29-year-old then allegedly threatened the girl that if she were to tell anyone about what happened, she would be lying next to her son. He then left the house.
The 13-year-old reportedly told police she knew what Turner did was wrong but she did not want him jailed.
Weeden is being held in jail on $200,000 bail and his case is still pending.
The municipal government of Beijing has introduced new financing models to develop its metro and intercity transportation system.
The Chinese capital is currently building 20 metro lines across the city and six railways linking Beijing with nearby cities Zhangjiakou and Tangshan. The projects will cost approximately tens of billions of yuan.
The municipal government of Beijing introduced an ABO model (Authorize-Build-Operate) last year to finance the construction of the transport system, the first among Chinese cities to do so. The municipal government authorized Beijing Infrastructure Investment Co., Ltd. (BII) to bear responsibility for building Beijings rail transit system.
Based on the agreement, the municipal government each year earmarks 29.5 billion yuanabout 40 percent of the total construction fundsto BII, while BII is responsible for the remaining funds.
BII has raised capital by bond financing, equity trusts, insurance funds and financial leasing, according to a company manager Zou Shunhua. The company has channeled social capitals for metro Line 14 and Line 16, which helped reduce 30 billion yuan of government funding.
BII is also responsible for the rail network in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. In late 2014, BII worked along with its counterparts in Tianjin and Hebei to establish the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Intercity Railway Investment Co., Ltd, which will build 24 railways in the region by the end of 2030.
As President Donald Trump stares down a looming crisis with North Korea, a majority of Americans don't have confidence in his ability to handle the situation.
The data contain a huge split between Republicans and Democrats on the confidence issue with the president having lost the confidence of a majority of independents, according to a new CBS poll.
Asked about President Trump's ability to handle the situation, 56 per cent of Americans said they were 'uneasy' about his capabilities, compared to 39 per cent who said they were 'confident' about them.
Boosting the 'uneasy' faction were independent voters, who joined an overwhelming majority of Democrats who are concerned.
Fifty-seven per cent of Independents are uneasy about Trump's ability to deal with the situation, compared to just 34 per cent who say they are 'confident.'
A majority 56 per cent of Americans said they were 'uneasy' about President Trump's capability to handle the North Korea situation
There are stark party splits on the issue. Just 20 per cent of Democrats said they have confidence in the president on the issue, compared to an overwhelming 78 per cent of Republicans.
The contrasting reviews come as Trump continues to try to keep the heat on China after pushing President Xi Jinping to use his country's influence to try to resolve the issue.
Trump wrote on Twitter Thursday: 'I have great confidence that China will properly deal with North Korea. If they are unable to do so, the U.S., with its allies, will!'
The tweet ended simply with the abbreviation: 'U.S.A.'
CONFIDENCE GAME: A CBS poll shows a major party split over confidence in President Trump's ability to handle the North Korea situation
Trump is promising to solve the North Korea with or without China
The reviews of Trump's ability to handle the challenge which has vexed several previous admissions comes as the administration has been amping up its rhetoric in response to North Korea.
State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Thursday that provocations from North Korea have become 'too common, too dangerous to ignore any more.'
'Theres a realization that the time for talk, the time for some of this kind of long term negotiation strategy and engagement is past,' Toner said.
Trump said Thursday that North Korea is 'a problem it will be taken care of.'
Trump said in the Fox Business interview that North Korea was the first issue he raised with Xi.
'I said you've got to help us with North Korea, because we can't allow it. And it's not good for you. And you have a tremendous power because of trade,' Trump said.
The smiling North Korean leader is seen watching his 'elite fighting force' on a military training exercise
'Now, he then explains thousands of years of history with Korea. Not that easy. In other words, not as simple as people would think,' Trump said, commenting on an issue that has bedeviled policy makers for decades.
'They've had tremendous conflict with Korea over the years. Now, his father was in China four times. He was never in China,' he said, referring to Kim Jung-un.
'Now, he then explains thousands of years of history with Korea. Not that easy. In other words, not as simple as people would think.' - President Trump describing his conversation with Chinese President Xi Jinping
'So I said, look, you have a tremendous power because of trading through the border. If they don't get food, they don't get, you know, they can't sell their coal. In fact, I hear today two massive coal ships from North Korea were sent back to North Korea, heading to China. They were sent back, which is a very good sign.'
Trump added: 'But I think China can help us. I hope China can help us. We talked about trade and I can tell you, China will do much better on trade if they help us with North Korea.'
According to the poll, there has been a drop in the number of Americans who say he is 'too friendly' with Russia. Trump said relations with Russia had reached an all time low, days after the U.S. attacked Syria in response to a chemical weapons attack.
Forty-eight percent say his approach to Russia is about right, compared to 35 per cent who say he is too friendly with Moscow, a drop from 43 per cent in February.
Police have located a 26-year-old Boston University law student, whose belongings were found abandoned on the bank of the Charles River Thursday morning.
Tamika Danielle Jeune was found safe at a South Shore hospital.
It's still unclear how she got there, or why she was admitted.
Police have located 26-year-old Boston University law student Tamika Danielle Jeune, whose belongings were found abandoned on the banks of the Charles River Thursday morning
Jeune was located at a South Shore hospital Thursday morning. Above, a view of the Charles River
A passerby found Jeune's computer, BU identification card, wallet, shoes and other belongings early Thursday morning.
Jeune is from Dorchester and lives in an off-campus apartment on Beacon Street.
Pictures have emerged of the 'beautiful piece of chocolate cake' which President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping were eating when he decided to inform his guest about the US missile attack on a Syrian airfield.
Trump told Fox Business interviewer Maria Bartiromo: 'I was sitting at the table. We had finished dinner. We're now having dessert. And we had the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that you've ever seen and President Xi was enjoying it.
Now a photograph has been posted on Instagram of the cake the pair were eating at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when the President decided to break the news.
Lawyer Lucas A Ferrara posted the picture and wrote: 'Want a slice of Trump? (Then you have to try his chocolate cake).'
Lawyer Lucas A Ferrara posted a photograph of the chocolate cake which Trump and Xi shared
SWEETENER: President Trump says he broke the news to Chinese President Xi Jinping about an imminent U.S. attack on Syria over dessert during their meeting last Friday at Mar-a-Lago
'And I was given the message from the generals that the ships are locked and loaded, what do you do?' Trump explained. 'And we made a determination to do it, so the missiles were on the way. And I said, 'Mr. President, let me explain something to you.'
'This was during dessert,' he reemphasized.
'So what happens is I said we've just launched 59 missiles heading to Iraq and I wanted you to know this. And he was eating his cake. And he was silent.'
Bartiromo then corrected that the president meant to say Syria, where the U.S. launched strikes following a chemical weapons attack that the U.S. says President Bashar al-Assad conducted on his own people.
Trump said he decided to inform Xi to avoid an even more awkward situation.
I WILL TELL YOU: Trump recounted the delicate discussion during a conversation with Fox Business interviewer Maria Bartiromo
WHAT'S FOR DESSERT? Trump passed on the news to Chinese President Xi Jinping to avoid an even more awkward situation when Xi returned home
'And I want you to know that, because I didn't want him to go home. We were almost finished. It was a full day in Palm Beach. We're almost finished and I what does he do, finish his dessert and go home and then they say, you know, the guy you just had dinner with just attacked a country?' Trump said.
Asked how the often stone-faced Chinese leader responded, Trump said: 'So he paused for 10 seconds and then he asked the interpreter to please say it again. I didn't think that was a good sign.'
'And he said to me, anybody that uses gases you could almost say or anything else but anybody that was so brutal and uses gases to do that young children and babies, it's okay.'
'We had the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that you've ever seen and President Xi was enjoying it,' Trump said, describing the moment he broke the news
Asked directly whether Xi agreed with the strike, Trump said: 'He was okay with it. He was okay.'
China's foreign ministry took a much harsher view of the attack, according to a statement picked up in the Russian state media.
China has long inveighed against what it considers U.S. military aggression and interference in other nations' affairs, making a new Middle East attack a delicate diplomatic situation.
Trump teased the story when asked how it came about, and didn't bat down the suggestion that 'right there, you're saying a reminder, here's who the superpower in the world is, right?'
'You have no idea how many people want to hear the answer to this. I have watched speculation for three days now on what that was like,' he said, prompting Bartiromo to ask if it happened 'before dessert or what?'
The US-led coalition has killed 18 'friendly fighters' in Syria after mistaking them for ISIS fanatics, it has emerged.
An airstrike accidentally targeted a Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) unit which was battling the terror group south of Tabqa, which is near the strategically important Euphrates River.
It is not clear which air force was behind the April 11 strike, which hit advancing allied fighters not far from the Tabqa dam and military airport close to the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa.
It is understood the victims were killed after giving the wrong coordinates to the US.
An airstrike accidentally targeted a Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) unit which was battling the terror group south of Tabqa, in the province of Deir al-Zor (file picture)
The US-led coalition said in a statement: 'The strike was requested by the partnered forces, who had identified the target location as an ISIS fighting position.
'The target location was actually a forward Syrian Democratic Forces fighting position.
'The coalition's deepest condolences go out to the members of the SDF and their families.
'The coalition is assessing the cause of the incident and will implement appropriate safeguards to prevent similar incidents in the future.'
WHO ARE THE SDF? The Syrian Defence Forces (SDF) is a predominantly-Kurdish force from the People's Protection Units, or YPG, but also includes ethnic Assyrians, Turkmen, Armenians and Arabs. The US-led coalition is supporting the SDF with arms, air strikes, training and advice as they fight ISIS. Advertisement
Officials were assessing the cause and would 'implement appropriate safeguards to prevent similar incidents in the future,' the statement added.
The strike occurred on April 11, just days after Donald Trump ordered a wave of missile strikes on one of dictator Bashar al-Assad's airbases.
SDF troops backed by coalition air power and other military assistance have been fighting for control of Tabqa since March.
The town is considered an important waypoint ahead of the main offensive for Raqqa, ISIS' last bastion in Syria.
In its own statement, the SDF described the incident as a 'painful accident' resulting from a 'mistake'.
'The accident caused a number of deaths and injuries,' the statement said.
'The general command of the Syrian Democratic Forces is coordinating with international coalition forces to investigate the incident and uncover the reasons and conditions that led to this accident.'
The US-led coalition has killed 18 'friendly fighters' in Syria after mistaking them for ISIS fanatics, it has emerged. It is not clear which airforce carried out the strike (file picture)
Washington has blamed a chemical weapon attack last week on President Bashar al-Assad's regime, and launched cruise missiles at a Syrian air base last week
The friendly fire comes as the Syrian army claimed a separate US-led air strike hit poison gas supplies belonging to jihadists, releasing a toxic substance that killed 'hundreds including many civilians'.
The bombing in the eastern Deir al-Zor province late on April 12 proved ISIS and al Qaeda-linked militants 'possess chemical weapons', a statement by the army flashed on Thursday by Syrian state TV said.
The report could not immediately be independently verified.
The U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State on Thursday denied the Syrian army report.
U.S. Air Force Colonel John Dorrian, a spokesman for the coalition, said it had carried out no air strikes in the area of Deir al-Zor at the time.
'The Syrian claim is incorrect and likely intentional misinformation,' Dorrian said in an email to Reuters.
The Russian defence ministry said it had no information about people killed in an attack by international coalition forces in Deir al-Zor, according to RIA news agency. A ministry spokesman said Russian forces had sent drones to check the area.
Earlier, Russia's foreign minister said Moscow expects the UN's chemical weapons watchdog to conduct an extensive probe into last week's chemical attack in Idlib, Syria.
Sergey Lavrov said that inspectors from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons should visit the affected areas to get a full and objective picture.
The US blamed the Syrian government for launching the attack, but Russia claimed that the victims were killed by toxic agents released from a rebel chemical arsenal hit by Syrian planes.
Britain's spy chiefs have issued a call for Russian speakers to help protect the nation as a war of words heats up with the Kremlin.
The Government is urging linguists to take up a 'fascinating career in intelligence' by joining MI5 or GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters).
Successful applicants to the 30,490 role will be analysing Russian intelligence to keep the country safe as relations with Vladimir Putin's administration remain strained.
The Government is urging Russian linguists to take up a 'fascinating career in intelligence' by joining MI5 or GCHQ (pictured, the GCHQ building in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire)
While the job demands a grasp of the Russian language, it will go 'beyond translation and transcription' with applicants needing a knowledge of the culture, history, politics and ideology of the country.
The application states: 'There are openings for Russian specialists at both MI5 and GCHQ.
'MI5 is responsible for the domestic security of the UK the work of linguists helps to identify and counter threats to the UK from terrorism, espionage and proliferation.
'GCHQ is focused on collecting foreign intelligence which linguists translate and analyse to protect the UK from threats such as terrorism, hackers, espionage and organised crime. Technology is critical to meeting these 21st Century threats.'
Pictured: The GCHQ's Twitter advert for their new role, which starts at a salary of 30,490
The call by the GCHQ comes just two days after Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson ordered Russia to 'live up to its responsibilities as a global power', after the Kremlin vetoed a UN resolution condemning the reported use of chemical weapons in Syria.
Mr Johnson said he was 'dismayed' by the move and urged Putin to use his influence with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to bring the war to an end.
'Last week in Syria, a barbaric attack was committed,' he said.
'British scientists have completed an analysis of samples obtained from the site of the attack and concluded that sarin, or a sarin-like substance, was used.
'Our assessment, like that of the US, is that it is highly likely the Assad regime was responsible.
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said he was 'dismayed' that Russia vetoed a UN resolution condemning the reported use of chemical weapons in Syria
Britain's UN ambassador Mark Rycroft has lashed Russian support for the 'murderous, barbaric criminal' Assad and warned the Kremlin it was on the 'wrong side of history'
'I am dismayed that Russia has once again blocked the UN Security Council and in so doing refused to condemn the use of chemical weapons or support a full UN investigation into the attack.
'This puts Russia on the wrong side of the argument. But it doesn't have to be this way.'
Britain's UN ambassador Mark Rycroft has also lashed out at Russian support for the 'murderous, barbaric criminal' Assad and warned the Kremlin it was on the 'wrong side of history'.
But in a special session of the UN Security Council in New York, Russia's ambassador to the UN Vladimir Safronkov accused Britain of 'arrogance' and defended its role.
The veteran journalist who was randomly attacked during rush hour on the New York subway is speaking out, as police appeal to the public for information about her attacker.
Cate Corcoran, 51, was attacked on the A Train in Brooklyn around 6pm on Wednesday, as the train approached the Nostrand Avenue station.
Corcoran, the editor of real estate blog Brownstoner, was sitting and looking at her iPhone when a man viciously punched her in the face, sliced her cheek with an unknown object and then took her phone and ran from the train car.
'I just worried that I was going to bleed to death fortunately, that didnt happen,' Corcoran said in an interview with the New York Post.
Police said the attack was unprovoked and came without warning.
Cate Corcoran, 51, was attacked on the A Train in Brooklyn around 6pm on Wednesday. Police are seeking the suspect seen right in the brazen rush hour assault
Cops secure the scene as they investigate the assault. The woman was transported to hospital and received several stitches for the cut in her face
'I just worried that I was going to bleed to death fortunately, that didnt happen,' Corcoran said. The veteran journalist edits the Brooklyn real estate blog Brownstoner
'I have heard about a lot of the subway slashings over the year,' Corcoran said, referring to an apparent rising trend in the vicious attacks.
Witnesses said blood streamed down Corcoran's face after the attack, and that paramedics rushed to the scene.
'They [paramedics] wrapped everything, they wrapped her whole face and they took her out on a stretcher,' witness Joel Cabrera told CBS New York.
Corcoran was transported to an area hospital and received 40 stitches before being released later that evening.
The stoic New Yorker, who moved from San Francisco just weeks after the 9/11 terror attacks, said she would not be deterred from taking the train in the future.
'That would be impractical,' she told the Post. 'In the future I will be careful to ride in a car closer to the conductor and with more people in it.'
Meanwhile police have appealed to the public for information about her suspected attacker, who ran from the train and slipped through the Nostrand Station turnstiles before cops arrived at the scene.
Police describe the suspect as a black man with a beard, between the ages of 25 to 30, 5'11" to 6' tall, roughly 250 to 300lbs. He was wearing a red hooded jacket and black jeans at the time of the assault.
Anyone with information is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477).
Theresa May dismissed Bashar Assad's denial over the Syrian chemical weapons attack today - insisting only his forces had the ability to carry out the atrocity.
The Prime Minister set out an uncompromising line after the dictator denied responsibility, and even suggested footage of the horrors could have been faked.
'It is only the (Assad) regime who has the capability to make such an attack,' she told journalists on a visit to the Sandhurst military academy this afternoon.
Mrs May also praised the 'excellent job' Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson did at a summit of G7 ministers - despite his failure to secure agreement on sanctions against Russia.
Theresa May (pictured on a visit to Sandhurst military academy today) has dismissed Bashar Assad's denial over the Syrian chemical weapons attack
Assad branded claims his regime carried out a sarin gas attack on his own population '100 per cent fabrication'
Scores of civilians died when sarin was deployed in a town in Idlib province, prompting Donald Trump to launch a punitive missile strikes against one of the regime's airfields.
The strikes were welcomed by the UK and the West, but have sent relations with Russia - Assad's staunchest supporter - into a tailspin.
It was Mrs May's first public comments since the crisis erupted last week, after she spent the past five days on a walking holiday with husband Philip in North Wales.
But Downing Street has insisted she remained fully in touch and was still speaking to other world leaders.
In an interview with AFP today, Assad, who faces calls to be tried as a war criminal, suggested video footage of the alleged atrocity could be fake, and said: 'The story is not convincing by any means'.
He insisted it was 'not clear whether it happened or not, because how can you verify a video? You have a lot of fake videos now.'
And referring to footage which showed people foaming at the mouth, which sent shockwaves around the world, he said: 'We don't know whether those dead children were killed in Khan Sheikhun. Were they dead at all?'
The US and UK say tests carried out on the site have established the presence of sarin gas, or a similar substance.
At a summit of G7 foreign ministers in Italy earlier this week, Mr Johnson appealed for the imposition of sanctions on Russia for refusing to abandon support for Assad.
But he was snubbed by counterparts, with Germany and Italy warning against backing Moscow 'into a corner'.
Mrs May today dismissed criticism that her Foreign Secretary had bungled the situation by making the bloc appear divided. 'Boris Johnson did an excellent job at bringing together the G7, bringing together international opinion,' she said.
Mrs May said that Boris Johnson (pictured at the G7 summit in Italy this week) did an 'excellent job' despite failing to get agreement on sanctions
Analysis of blood and urine samples from the attack in the northwestern Idlib province proved the use of the gas, experts stated
Assad's interview was released less than 24 hours after world leaders clashed over a UN resolution condemning the attack, which human rights groups say killed 87 people.
Tensions boiled over in a fraught UN discussion over Russia's support for Syria when a furious ambassador from Moscow snapped at a British diplomat: 'Look at me while I'm talking to you'.
Jabbing his finger towards Matthew Rycroft, Russias deputy ambassador Vladimir Safronkov responded furiously to claims that Moscow had been 'humiliated' in its support for dictator Bashar al-Assad.
The extraordinary outburst came as Russia vetoed a UN resolution condemning the reported use of chemical weapons in Syria and urging a speedy investigation into a chemical attack which claimed 87 lives last Tuesday.
Mr Safronkov said: Look at me, when Im speaking, dont look away. Why are you looking away?'
And he told the British ambassador: Youre losing sleep that we might be working together with the United States, co-operating with the United States that is what you fear.
'Youre doing everything to make sure this kind of co-operation is undermined. He added: What have you done to advance a cease-fire? You welcome various opposition groups in London and Paris, illegal armed groups.
Russia's deputy UN ambassador Vladimir Safronkov snapped during discussions about a resolution condemning the use of chemical weapons in Syria
A Delaware judge on Thursday convicted Trinity Carr, 17, of homicide after a school bathroom fight that left a 16-year-old girl dead.
Family Court Judge Robert Coonin delivered his ruling after hearing a week of testimony in the nonjury trial, according to WDEL.
An autopsy found that Amy Joyner-Francis died of sudden cardiac death, aggravated by physical and emotional stress from the April 2016 fight at Howard High School of Technology in Wilmington.
Carr was charged with - and ultimately convicted of - criminally negligent homicide for her role in the fight, which was captured on cellphone video.
The judge ruled that Carr's assault against Joyner-Francis was premeditated, and that is why she was deserving of a guilty verdict.
Video courtesy of CBS Philly
Trinity Carr (center) is seen exiting the New Castle County Courthouse with family following closing arguments in her case on Thursday
A Delaware judge on Thursday convicted Carr (above), 17, of homicide after a school bathroom fight that left a 16-year-old girl dead
An autopsy found that Amy Joyner-Francis (above) died of sudden cardiac death, aggravated by physical and emotional stress from the April 2016 fight at Howard High School of Technology in Wilmington
'(Carr) struck the first blow without warning, carried on a relatively brief but violent attack and she had to be pulled off her victim,' Coonin said, according to The News Journal.
Two other 17-year-olds, Zion Snow and Chakeira Wright, were charged with misdemeanor conspiracy.
All three, who were 16 when the fight happened, were tried as juveniles.
Defense attorneys argued that the death of Joyner-Francis, who had a rare heart condition undetected by her doctors, was unforeseeable.
Carr was charged with - and ultimately convicted of - criminally negligent homicide for her role in the fight, which was captured on cellphone video (above)
They also suggested that she was a willing participant in a fight between 'mutual combatants.'
Prosecutors argued Joyner-Francis was not looking for a fight but trying to avoid one, and that she would not have died had she not been assaulted.
'Distress, the unexpected nature of the attack, the brute ferocity of it raining upon her, all led to Amy's death,' deputy attorney general Sean Lugg said during closing arguments this week, adding that the alleged assailant showed 'a level of barbarism that reasonably would result in the outcome.'
Carr's attorney, John Deckers, argued that Carr shouldn't be held culpable for Joyner-Francis' death because a reasonable person would expect the consequence of a school fight 'is not death, but rather discipline.'
All three girls charged in the case opted not to testify.
Coonin ruled last year that Carr would be tried as a juvenile.
Had she been tried and convicted as an adult, Carr would have faced up to eight years in prison.
Paramedics (pictured) wheeled Joyner-Francis out of the school on the morning of April 22, 2016 in Wilmington, Delaware
Medics performed CPR on the victim before a helicopter arrived to transport her to a hospital
A student cried in front of Howard High School of Technology after a city official announced that Joyner-Francis had died
Dr. Richard Ringel, a pediatric cardiologist and professor at Johns Hopkins University, testified that Joyner-Francis suffered from Eisenmenger syndrome, an extremely rare condition for someone her age in which a heart defect combines with severe pulmonary hypertension.
While Ringel did not dispute the autopsy results, he said there was no way of knowing that Joyner-Francis was at risk of sudden death, any more than a person could predict that an athlete who appears healthy and fit one day suddenly collapses and dies on the playing field the next day.
Prosecutors said that in an online group chat the day before the attack, Joyner-Francis offered advice to one of her friends about a problem involving a boy, telling her friend to 'just be careful.'
A detective testified that the defendants were later brought into the chat, and that the alleged attacker thought Joyner-Francis - who had warned that someone might betray another person - was talking about her.
Chakeira Wright (right) is seen leaving the New Castle County Courthouse following closing arguments Tuesday. She's charged with third-degree conspiracy in the death of Joyner-Francis
Zion Snow (right) is also charged with third-degree conspiracy, a misdemeanor
A Snapchat posting by one of the defendants that same day shows Joyner-Francis talking to Carr in the bathroom, purportedly to try to defuse the situation.
The posting notes that the girl later charged with homicide was 'bouta fight her,' followed by several emojis indicating that a person was laughing so hard she was crying.
The fight broke out around 8:15am on April 22 of last year before classes at the vocational school.
An autopsy concluded that Joyner-Francis died from a 'cardiac incident' that stemmed from a pre-existing heart condition, rather than injuries sustained in the beating.
But the state Department of Justice said: 'The cardiac incident would not have occurred if she had not been assaulted.'
Joyner Francis suffered cuts and bruises and had her fingernails ripped out, according to a police detective's testimony.
A video of the fight also shows Carr punching Joyner-Francis in the head and chest, with witnesses saying someone slammed her head against a sink.
A drone capable of detecting sharks with a 90 per cent success rate will roll-out at Australian beaches next summer to help prevent deadly attacks.
The Westpac Little Ripper Lifesaver can spot sharks from the air in real-time and alert swimmers through an in-built megaphone.
Little Ripper Chief operating officer Ben Trollope told 9 News the drone will detect sharks quicker and help save more lives.
The Westpac Little Ripper Lifesaver can spot sharks from the air in real-time with a 90 per cent success rate. The drone also has the capability to alert swimmers through an in-built megaphone
Ground-breaking drone technology means the Little Ripper is capable of distinguishing between sharks and other marine life
Little Ripper Chief operating officer Ben Trollope (left) said the drone will detect sharks quicker and help save more lives
'We believe this is something that will give us the capability of seeing sharks a lot more readily and we think it should be rolled out worldwide,' he said.
Aerial patrols by helicopter detect sharks with an accuracy of 19 per cent, while by plane is only 12 per cent, according to 9 News.
Ground-breaking drone technology means the Little Ripper is capable of distinguishing between sharks and other marine life.
The result is a shark-patrol that is up to eight times more effective than traditional methods.
A whaler shark spotted last weekend off the coast of south New South Wales. There were 26 recorded shark attacks in Australia in 2016, including two fatalities
Little Ripper drones are battery powered, 'unmanned helicopters' which have autopilot capabilities.
They were first trialed in early 2017 at beaches on the east coast, including in Byron Bay.
Little Ripper drones will patrol 'most main beaches' in Australia from summer onward, 9 News said.
There were 26 recorded shark attacks in Australia in 2016, including two fatalities, according to the Australian Shark Attack File.
Prince Charles could become Prince of Transylvania as one of the country's mayors is offering him a new title to add to his collection.
Charles has boasted in the past of sharing a bloodline with legendary 15th-Century prince Vlad the Impaler and the Mayor of Alba Iulia hopes to extend the similarities.
A spokesman for the mayor of the Transylvanian city of Alba Iulia said Charles had been offered the honorific title because of his promotion of Transylvania.
Prince Charles, Prince of Wales receives a hug from Valentine Blacker, son of William Blacker who is a local conservationist during a walking tour of the Old Town when he visited in March this year
His connection with the country goes far back, and he is said to have first fallen in love with Romania in 1988
Mihai Coser said that Charles is 'more Romanian than many Romanians.' So far, he says there has been no response to the offer.
Charles visits Romania yearly, including a three-day visit last month.
The prince already has a fair few titles, including Earl of Chester, Duke of Cornwall, Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles, and Prince and Great Steward of Scotland.
Prince Charles has set up an arm of his foundation in Romania, and they run a range of courses through the Transylvania area to preserve the way of life
Above, Prince Charles in Romania with the President Emil Constantinescu in 1998. He has visited the country every year for several years
One of his titles, Knight of the Garter, is the senior British Order of the Cavalry.
His Knight of the Thistle title comes second in precedence to this, and is Scotland's highest honour.
PRINCE CHARLES' 16 TITLES His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales Knight of the Garter (KG) Knight of the Thistle (KT) Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB) Order of Merit (OM) Knight of the Order of Australia (AK) Companion of the Queen's Service Order (QSO) Privy Counsellor (PC) Aide-de-Camp (ADC) Earl of Chester Duke of Cornwall Duke of Rothesay Earl of Carrick and Baron of Renfrew Lord of The Isles Prince and Great Steward of Scotland Source: Prince of Wales Advertisement
The Prince of Wales visits Romania every year, and also has an extension of his foundation to cover charitable work in the country.
The foundation offers 'hands-on courses from heritage restoration, to management and hygiene'.
Charles loves the country so much, he bought an 18th century house in Viscri in 2006, and restored it.
He also has a sustainable guest house in Zalanpatak, which boasts five bedrooms, and a drawing room with a huge fireplace.
The Prince is said to have become enamored with Romania after first visiting in 1988, telling people he was 'totally overwhelmed by its unique beauty and its extraordinarily rich heritage'.
In a special edition of BBC Radio 4s On Your Farm in 2015, he said: 'I hadn't been aware just how extraordinary this part of the world is with all its biodiversity, the wildflower meadows.
'It just seemed to me, particularly this area of the Carpathian mountains, to be literally the last unspoilt, untouched area.'
In March, Charles and Camilla were dispatched to Romania, Italy and Austria as part of a series of high-profile visits while the UK government triggered Brexit.
He went to Romania alone, meeting Romanian and British officials, before Camilla joined him later.
Prince Charles loves Romania, and the local people - seen here performing traditional music during a cisit in 2015 - seem to love him
During his 2015 visit, above, local media reported he was asked to judge a local lawn mowing contest
The monarchy was destroyed in Romania after the Second World War when the Communists came to power. Recent surveys say the idea of restoring the system is growing in popularity.
According to Romania Insider, a survey showed that two-thirds of people thought the monarchy should have been reinstated after the 1989 revolution.
English Heritage has been slammed after turfing an ice cream seller off his patch of more than 30 years to replace him with a burger van.
Melvin Nobbs said he has been running his ice cream van outside Deal Castle in Kent for three decades but has been given notice to move on.
The 62-year-old said he had 'built up a reputation' in the area and fears he will no longer be able to support his family or pay his mortgage if he moves to a new site.
English Heritage has applied for a licence to serve fast food, drinks and snacks at the site, which it owns, but the move has been criticised by local residents, who are campaigning for him to stay.
Ice cream seller Melvin Nobbs, left, has been told to leave his patch outside popular tourist attraction Deal Castle in Kent, right, by land owners English Heritage
Mr Nobbs, a married father of one, said he first feared his 'days were numbered' when the body asked him to sign a contract two years ago giving English Heritage 20 per cent of his profits in exchange for trading on its land.
He said: 'I was a bit shocked to get lumbered with a contract. I thought at the time, 'my days are numbered', and now this has come about.
'It's disappointing because the manager of the castle came out last summer saying that he wanted to tell me first that there was going to be a burger van but it wouldn't affect the ice cream van.
'The only thing it would affect would be the cold drinks.
'The money that I get here, I wouldn't be able to earn anywhere else. I give them 20 per cent which is a fair whack.
'I'll struggle to get other work. I'm worried because I have a family and a mortgage to pay.'
He added: '[Ice cream] is what people want and that's why people come here. I sell a totally fresh product whereas many others sell a long life ice cream.
'It's made in London by an Italian company. People say it's so nice and creamy.
'There's a lot of people who come here now because they know I've been here for so many years.
'But I don't know what I'm doing. I need security.'
Mr Nobbs, pictured, has been trading at the site for 30 years and fears being unable to support his family if he has to move. English Heritage wants to replace him with a fast food van
Mr Nobbs said he can sell as many as 300 Mr Whippy 99 ice cream cones on a summer day, which combined with drinks and other lollies can rake in as much as 1,000.
Local residents have called for him to remain at the site and said English Heritage is wrong to foist 'unhealthy and fatty snacks' on tourists visiting the castle.
Jayne Lennon, a 38-year-old mother-of-three who lives a mile from the castle, said 'It's outrageous - Melvin is always smiling and cheery, his ice creams are great and people love him.
'They shouldn't swap him for a burger van - it will be selling all sorts of unhealthy, greasy food.
'English Heritage is backed by the Government and I thought they wanted us all to steer clear of stuff that will make us pile on weight.
'People are going to be really upset about this and some are already talking about starting a petition to save Melvin and his van.
'Having an ice cream van in places like Deal Castle, where there are lots of holidaymakers and tourists, is an English tradition and we must fight to save it.'
Cowan Galloway, who lives opposite the 16th century castle, added: 'I really am incensed that someone can lose their livelihood in this cavalier way.
'Melvin has been there for more than 30 years. He is part and parcel of the furniture and seascape. He has no other means of an income.'
Residents have also complained about the potential bad smell a fast food van could bring as well as possible littering and seagull problems.
English Heritage, who own the land, have told Melvin there may be the opportunity to extend the notice.
Deal Castle, pictured, was built on the orders of Henry VIII in 1539 to protect Britain against a French invasion
Deal Town Council's planning committee recommended refusal for English Heritage's van in a unanimous decision taken at a meeting last Wednesday.
English Heritage, who own the land, have told Melvin there may be the opportunity to extend the notice.
The body said Melvin has been the only food seller allowed to operate on this particular stretch of beach since 2014.
Neil McCollum, English Heritage director for the South East said: 'We have always had a good working relationship with Mr Nobbs and we extended the notice we gave him so he could trade from Deal Castle over the busy Easter holidays.
'I'm sorry that he's worried, but I know that Deal Castle is not his sole patch, he also trades successfully from a number of different locations across the town, and we wish him all the best.'
Deal Castle was built on the orders of Henry VIII in 1539 to protect Britain against a French invasion.
Four dead bodies have been found in a Long Island park.
The corpses had suffered 'significant trauma' before they were discovered in Central Islip Park on Wednesday morning.
Police say they victims were recently murdered. They would not disclose the nature of the injuries, whether the victims were male or female or give any indication of their age.
Who found the bodies and whether police have yet honed in on any suspects is also not clear.
It comes six months after the discovery of the remains of five other teenagers in the area who police say were murdered by local high school gangs.
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Four dead bodies were found in Central Islip Park on Wednesday morning. The victims had suffered 'significant trauma'. Police were seen working in a wooded area of the park on Thursday (above)
Authorities are yet to reveal whether the bodies discovered on Wednesday are linked to the previous youths' deaths.
Suffolk County Police Commissioner Justin Meyers spoke only to say the bodies found on Wednesday appeared to have suffered 'significant trauma'.
'We believe the homicides were committed recently,' he told Newsday.
In September, the bodies of two teenage girls aged 15 and 16 were found mutilated by machetes in nearby Brentwood.
Nisa Mickens, 15, was found in the street a day before her best friend Kayla Cuevas, 16, whose body was discovered in the backyard of a home.
The pair had both been beaten with bats before they were hacked at with knives.
After discovering their corpses, police bolstered their investigations into gangs in the area. The investigation led them to the discovery of another three teenagers' remains.
There was a large police presence at the park on Thursday morning as authorities continued to investigate
Suffolk Country forensic investigators worked at the park on Thursday morning
Police have been investigating gang violence in the area since the remains of five other teenagers were found in September
The skeletal remains of Oscar Acosta, 19, and Miguel Garcia-Moran, 15, who had been missing for months were found by train tracks while Jose Pena-Hernandez, an 18-year-old who was a well known gang member, was found in woods behind a disused psychiatric facility.
Authorities say he was killed in retaliation for breaking the protocol of a high school gang.
The other four killed were all students at Brentwood High School.
Police have not commented on whether the bodies found on Wednesday could be linked to the earlier murders or if the victims were teenagers or young adults.
Eight members of the gang MS-13 gang were arrested in March for the girls' members.
President Donald Trump took an optimistic tone toward U.S.-Russia relations on Twitter Thursday hours after saying they were at an 'all time low.'
Trump's turnaround followed a press conference late Wednesday afternoon where his stance toward Russia was uncharacteristically negative, as the two powers stood at odds over the U.S. military action against Syria, a key ally of Moscow.
'Things will work out fine between the U.S.A. and Russia. At the right time everyone will come to their senses & there will be lasting peace!' Trump tweeted Thursday morning.
Just yesterday, Russia used its veto power at the UN Security Council to block a resolution on Syria. It's foreign ministry has denied U.S. claims that Russia may have had advanced knowledge of a the chemical weapons attack that prompted Trump to order the launch of 59 cruise missiles at a Syrian airfield.
WE CAN WORK IT OUT: President Donald Trump tweeted Thursday that things will end up 'fine between the U.S.A. and Russia,' a day after saying relations were at a low point
That military attack drew condemnations from Moscow, adding a new level of tension to a nuclear power with whom Trump hoped to forge improved relations and cooperation.
The U.S. used special procedures to provide a brief warning to Russians who were known to be on the ground at the airfield the U.S. struck as part of their mission to prop up Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in the bloody civil war there.
Trump's view of the state of U.S.-Russia relations was much more jaundiced on Wednesday, when he said flatly that the two nations were 'not getting along.'
He said it would be 'wonderful' if we could get along with Russia.
LASTING PEACE: President Donald Trump took an optimistic tone toward U.S.-Russia relations on Twitter Thursday
'Right now we're not getting along with Russia at all. We may be at an all time low in terms of relationship with Russia, this was built for a long period of time. But we're going to see what happens.'
Then he added cryptically: 'Putin is the leader of Russia, Russia is a strong country, we've a very, very strong country. We'll see how that all works out.'
Trump spoke repeatedly during the campaign about how much better it would be if the U.S. could get along with Russia and join to fight against ISIS. But on Wednesday, he held out the possibility things might get worse.
'I'm also going to see about Putin over a period of time. It would be a fantastic thing if we got along with Putin and we got along with Russia. And that could happen and it may not happen, it may be just the opposite,' Trump said.
'I would love to get along with everybody. Right now the world is a mess, but by the time we finish I think it's going to be a lot better place to live ... By the time I'm finished it's going to be a lot better place to live in because right now it's nasty.'
Trump did say that Tillerson had a 'very successful meeting' in Russia, where he met with Putin for two hours.
Although the specifics of that meeting haven't yet been revealed, Tillerson had a a frosty press conference with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov.
'We'll see the end result, which will be in a long period of time perhaps. But the end result is what's most important, not just talk,' Trump said.
Trump also sent a signal of impatience with China, a day after he hailed the country's president.
GESUNDHEIT: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson got a cold reception in Moscow, where he held a press conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
'I have great confidence that China will properly deal with North Korea. If they are unable to do so, the U.S., with its allies, will! U.S.A.,' Trump tweeted.
Trump at the Wednesday press conference called the president of China, Xi Jinping, a 'gentleman.'
'I don't know Putin but I do know this gentleman,' Trump said at the event, which he held with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the White House.
Russian President Vladimir Putin
The FBI is investigating the ties of Trump associates and Russia, and there were reports this week that the feds got a special FISA Court warrant to monitor the communications of former Trump campaign advisor Carter Page during the campaign.
The same images of babies who got gassed in Syria that prompted Trump to order a military strike appears to have clouded his view of Moscow, who is providing military support to Assad in Syria.
''I would like to think that [Russia] didn't know, but certainly they could have. They were there. So we'll find out' if Russia knew about the gas attack in advance,' Trump said.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg (L) and President Donald Trump hold a news conference in the East Room of the White House
GENTLEMEN: President Donald Trump (L) pumps his fist as he and Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) walk together at the Mar-a-Lago estate in West Palm Beach, Florida
'It was very disappointing to see. It was disappointing no matter who does it. But when you get into the gases, especially that form, it was vicious and violent and everybody in this room saw it all too many times over the last three or four days, young children dying, babies dying, fathers holding children in their arms that were dead, dead children.'
'There can't be a worse sight and it shouldn't be allowed,' Trump continued. 'That's a butcher. That's a butcher. So I thought we ought to do something about it. I have absolutely no doubt we did the right thing and it was very, very successfully done, as you well know.'
A stand-up comic who took a tongue-in-cheek shot at ISIS in the title of his latest show has revealed how the 'funny' gesture landed him 'in trouble' with police.
Luke Joseph Ryan, 32, called his latest comedy festival show 'Merry Christmas ISIS' hoping to grab the attention of reviewers and fans of the comedy festival instead Victoria Police got involved.
The comic told Daily Mail Australia he came up with the name after finding a photograph of himself without a shirt on, in an army-inspired camouflage hat.
Luke Joseph Ryan, 32, called his latest comedy festival show 'Merry Christmas ISIS' hoping to grab the attention of reviewers and fans of the comedy festival instead Victoria police got involved
The comic said the police presence at the theatre made him nervous
The comic, left, says he is a 'professional idiot' and didn't mean anything by his title
'I was with a friend and we decided this was the worst photograph you could use for a comedy show.
'Then we tried to think of a name to go with it so we could have the worst show title as well.'
The gag saw anti-terror police contact Mr Ryan with 'serious questions about the content in the show'.
'The funny thing is in a 50 minute show there is like half a joke about ISIS and it goes for less than 30 seconds,' he said.
Being called by police was unnerving enough but then police turned up to take guard at his shows.
'I was with a friend and we decided this was the worst photograph you could use for a comedy show,' he said
He said the show had 'nothing to do with ISIS' and of the 50 minute piece there was only 'half an ISIS joke'
'They could have done some research I am in a theatre with less than ten people in the audience I don't think I would be a good ISIS target,' he said.
The comic isn't sure if he can rule-out using the name of the terror organisation in further stand-up shows.
'I don't know if I have learnt my lesson or if this is really funny,' he said.
'I mean it was really stressful at the time but I still don't know if what I have done is great or really bad.
Police arrived at the show to guard the building after phoning him to question the nature of his jokes
'I mean it was really stressful at the time but I still don't know if what I have done is great or really bad,' he said
'I guess I did choose a word that would make people go argh,' he said.
The self-described 'professional-idiot' claims his comedy doesn't touch on serious issues.
'I am just silly my show is just me being silly for an hour,' he said.
Mr Ryan took the show to Perth first where he didn't have anyone take issue with the name it wasn't until he landed in Victoria concerns were raised.
'When I first got away with the name my friends were trying to say it was white privilege,' he said.
'But it did end up blowing up in my face I guess a title like that is even bad if you are white.
The comic at the Astra's - the Merry Christmas ISIS show was meant to be his comeback to the annual comedy festival scene
'Then again if I was brown I would probably be in a jail cell for it.'
It was the comic's comeback at the festival after he took a break from the scene for a few years.
'I thought I would return in style get most of my attention from police instead of reviewers or mainstream media,' he said.
The show will come to Sydney where the comic hopes he doesn't have any more brushes with the law.
A Victoria Police spokesperson confirmed to Daily Mail Australia that police attended the venue.
'Victoria Police conducted a proactive risk assessment of a one man show in Melbournes CBD to ensure the safety of all patrons,' the spokesperson said.
They would not comment on what the concerns of the show might be.
'As a long standing practice, Victoria Police do not comment on specific intelligence and security matters.'
China has flexed its military muscle on state television as tensions escalate between the US and North Korea.
China Central Television (CCTV) yesterday revealed footage of the country's various missiles in a daily military programme.
According to media, one of the weapons featured in the programme was DF-21 missile. The anti-ship ballistic missile boasts a firing distance of up to 1,926 miles (3,100km) and has been dubbed 'the killer of aircraft carrier'.
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China Central Television showed footage of the nation's powerful missiles yesterday. In the programme, by CCTV 7, multiple weapons, said to be DF-21 missiles (pictured), can be seen
DF-21 (pictured), an anti-ship ballistic missile, can reportedly strike up to 1,926 miles (3,100km) and it has been dubbed 'the killer of aircraft carrier'
Chinese military vehicles carrying DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missiles drive past the Tiananmen Gate during a military parade on September 3, 2015 in Beijing. The missiles are potentially capable of sinking a U.S. Nimitz-class aircraft carrier in a single strike, media have claimed
The programme, Military Reports, was broadcast by CCTV 7, a channel dedicated to showing military and agricultural content.
The 30-minute show contained several reports, and the missiles appeared in the first two reports.
In the first report, the state-controlled station aired footage from a series of mock battles carried out by People's Liberation Army recently.
The exact location of the battles was not revealed, but it was reported to be deep in the Tianshan Mountains in western China.
In yesterday's programme on CCTV 7, the reporter introduced a meteorological expert working for the PLA Rocket Force, named Zhu Lishi. Meanwhile, footage of deadly missiles were used to help demonstrate Mr Zhu's job
The programme featured several drills carried out by the PLA Rocket Force, which handles the country's growing missile arsenal
The 30-minute show also mentioned a number of 'large scale' and 'intensive' mock battles the Chinese army have carried out recently in the Tianshan Mountains
The report then broadcast footage from the mock battles, which showed soldiers firing tanks and launching multiple missiles simultaneously
While introducing the mock battles, a female news anchor, who was dressed in a military uniform, said that the Chinese army had been focusing on mock battles in the past year.
She said: 'Officers and men spent all their thoughts and energy on battling and how to win battles.'
She added: 'Soldiers improve through drilling while an army improve through fighting.'
The report then broadcast footage from the mock battles, which showed soldiers firing tanks and launching multiple missiles simultaneously.
A brigade commander, named Ding Wei, told a CCTV reporter that these battles were 'large-scale, intensive and effective in examining military power'.
The Military Reports programme featured more missiles in its second report, which introduced a meteorological expert working for the PLA Rocket Force.
While the report praised how the man, named Zhu Lishi, used his meteorological knowledge to predict weather in order to ensure the accuracy of missile tests, the footage displayed the missiles in the arsenal.
Zhu Lishi (pictured) has served the Chinese army for 41 years. The man said he once helped the Rocket Force to successfully complete a test despite challenging adverse weather conditions
Mr Zhu said he was able to predict the movement of the clouds precisely and 'we managed to launch the missile into the gap of three clouds'
According to Chinese news website QQ.com, the missiles in the report are all DF-21 missiles. The QQ report said: 'The camera shows that the warehouse is filled with DF-21 missiles. Rows of DF-21 missiles were big, and when they were lifted, they showed absolute power.'
In the report, Zhu Lishi also shared a story on how he once helped the Rocket Force successfully complete a missile test which was interrupted by stormy weather.
Mr Zhu, who has served the army for 41 years, said that he was able to predict the movement of the clouds precisely and 'we managed to launch the missile into the gap of three clouds'.
This is not the only time CCTV 7 has shown off the country's arsenal of missile in April.
Another Military Reports, broadcast on April 6, revealed footage of a DF-10 missile being fired during a drill, according to China's guancha.cn.
The programmed introduced An Shuangbin, a technician from the PLA Rocket Force whose 'superb skills' in operating missiles have apparently become the inspiration for the whole team.
DF-10 is the best performing long-range cruise missile in the world, according to Sina.com.
Sina also said the 990-pound (450kg) beast could strike a maximum distance of 1,242 miles (2,000km) and could reach Japan and Taiwan if it's fired from inland China.
China Central Television revealed footage of a DF-10 missile being fired during a drill (pictured) in another programme aired on April 6
The programmed introduced An Shuangbin, a technician from the PLA Rocket Force whose 'superb skills' in operating missiles have apparently become the inspiration for the whole team
DF-10 is said to be the best performing long-range cruise missile in the world. It's been reportedly that the weapon can strike a maximum distance of 1,242 miles (2,000km)
Military vehicles carry DF-10 ship launched cruise missiles drive past the Tiananmen Gate during a military parade to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War Two on September 3, 2015 in Beijing, China
China Central Television Station's missile coverage appeared at a sensitive time. In the past week, military tensions have been ramping up between US and North Korea, which borders China, over a nuclear test Kim Jong-un might carry out.
It was reported on April 10 that the Chinese army had deployed 150,000 troops to the North Korean border to prepare for pre-emptive attacks.
However, China's National Ministry of Defense denied the allegations during a press conference yesterday, calling them 'a total fabrication'.
Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton's closest aide and the estranged wife of disgraced congressman Anthony Weiner, is reportedly meeting with publishers to discuss a book project.
Playbook revealed Thursday morning that an Abedin tell-all is likely in the works, with people approaching the Democratic nominee's longtime aide, hoping she will sell her story.
Hollywood Reporter heard from sources Abedin is seeking as much as $2 million for the tome, which has Hillary Clinton's blessing.
Top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin is talking to publishers about writing a book - and reportedly asking for $2 million to tell her story
Last week, Huma Abedin (far right) was spotted at the Women in the World Summt in New York City alongside Barkha Dutt (far left), Arianna Huffington (left) and Tina Brown (right)
Huma Abedin (right) stands behind her boss Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton (left) on the eve of the presidential election, which Clinton would go on to lose to Donald Trump
The book, writes the Hollywood Reporter's Tatiana Siegel, is to be 'a reflection of how her personal and professional lives collided during the campaign.'
On the professional side of things, Abedin's boss was riding high in the presidential polls until FBI Director James Comey wrote a letter to Congress alerting them that more of the former secretary of state's emails were found.
That Friday afternoon announcement came 11 days before the presidential election.
While Clinton was cleared by the FBI, again, the emails becoming front and center, again, put a dent in her numbers, allowing for Donald Trump to win.
The personal backstory of this starred Abedin's husband Weiner, who DailyMail.com exposed for sexting with a minor, which opened a new FBI probe.
Clinton's emails were found on a computer that Weiner shared with his wife and turned over to the feds as part of the new investigation.
A selling point for Abedin, the Hollywood Reporter pointed out, is that she's never publicly talked about these incidents whether it's her time on the presidential campaign trail or the dissolution of her marriage with the perverted ex-congressman.
While Hillary Clinton was running for the White House last year, her top aide Huma Abedin (left) stepped out with husband Anthony Weiner (right) at the Met Gala
Anthony Weiner (pictured) showed up to the Democratic National Convention last July, but by August top Hillary Clinton Huma Abedin had separated from the disgraced congressman
Abedin was seen in the documentary Weiner, which detailed her husband's 2013 New York City mayoral run, which was derailed thanks to his rabid sexting habits, but has rarely spoken publicly since.
While the aide worked for both the Clinton White House and Hillary Clinton in the Senate, she became a political curiosity 10 years ago during the run-up to the 2008 presidential campaign.
Back then, Vogue labeled Abedin Hillary's Secret Weapon.
Marrying Weiner in 2010 allowed her to be considered one of Washington's power couples.
But then, starting with Weiner's first sexting scandal in 2011, things started crashing down.
From there, Weiner had his unsuccessful and scandal-tainted mayoral run in 2013.
Abedin and Weiner separated in August 2016, after she discovered he was again being unfaithful, messaging women on the internet while their son lay beside him in bed.
And then, three months later, Hillary Clinton lost her second shot at the White House, and could assign Weiner some of the blame.
'She's more interesting than her husband. We know who she is. She's the ongoing mystery,' Princeton University presidential historian Julian Zelizer told the Hollywood Reporter. 'But she'll have to put herself out there. That's what the publisher will be looking for.'
This is the 'torture board' a woman was allegedly strapped to before being linked up to electrodes and having a 240 volt charge sent through her vagina during an S&M 'sex game'.
'Dominant' Keiren Batten, 43, who is allegedly obsessed with sadomasochistic sexual practices, is accused of sexually assaulting the 27-year-old woman while she was strapped to the wooden board and wearing a black gimp mask.
But Cambridge Crown Court he denied the charge and claims it was he who was electrocuted, with a jury told he 'liked to clamp his genitals'.
The court also heard today from a previous girlfriend of Batten, who told the court that she used to attach electric clamps to his genitals and nipples and plug the device into the mains.
Keiren Batten allegedly used this wooden 'torture board', pictured, to sexually assault a woman during an extreme S&M sex game
She said she also burnt his backside and nipples with a cigarette.
Batten, of Hitchin, Hertfordshire, is charged with sexually assaulting his alleged victim in 2014 by clamping the crocodile clips of a home-made electrical device to her vagina.
Prosecutor Simon Wilshire has described Batten as 'obsessed with sadomasochistic sexual practices' and having 'dangerous sexual desires re bondage, sadism and restraint'.
Today, the 6ft long, door sized, stained, wooden home-made board was brought into court and shown to the jury of seven women and five men.
They saw the leather belts, straps, chords, metal chain, hoops and sturdy fastening clips.
The board was found by police leaning against the wall of the woman's bedroom after she reported what had happened.
The court also heard that Batten had had admitted assaulting the former girlfriend who gave evidence today in 2010.
Batten, 43, allegedly gave a woman a 240v mains-electric shock on her vagina during an S&M sex game
In a written statement read by the prosecution, the ex-girlfriend said she and Batten had bondage sex, including using candle wax on her nipples, but that Batten never did anything sexually to hurt her.
She said she was never tied to the door but that she whipped and spanked Batten while he was tied to it.
She said she also attached crocodile clips to his testicles and nipples with one electrical device but didn't turn on the power as 'a tease'.
There was a second device with two prongs, which was turned on. She would attach it his testicles to give him an electric shock, she said.
In the current trial, the alleged victim claims Batten was controlling and that she agreed to his requests for '50 Shades of Grey' extreme sex because he said she was 'boring in bed'.
He is accused of whipping her and smacking her with a spiked paddle, tying her up with ropes, gagging her, dripping hot wax over her body, and making her wear a gimp mask and dress up.
She agrees she consented to him attaching the crocodile clips of the lamp lead to her nipples at first but then told him never to electrocute her again because of the pain.
But in another sex session he allegedly clamped her genitals and turned on the mainspower while she was strapped face down on the torture board, she alleges.
She told the court that when he went back on his promise not to turn the power on and did it felt like she was 'put into a microwave'.
The alleged victim, 27, said the bondage-based antics of Keiren Batten went much further than anything the characters in the Fifty Shades of Grey film (shown) got up to
'All you can hear is your ears going bang and everything in your body is hot.'
'I just caught my breath because you think you are going to die. I have never experienced anything so hideous in my life', she said.
Batten, of Hitchin, denies the one offence of sexual assaultin 2014 and two of common assault. The latter relate to a head butt and push during arguments.
Batten, who is defended by Neil Fitzgibbon, is due to start giving evidence next Tuesday.
As previously reported, the alleged victim said she thought she'd 'had a heart attack and would die'.
Speaking from behind a screen, the woman told the jury that being touched by the home-made electrical 'shocker' was 'like being put in a microwave.'
She said: 'It's like everything in your body in heat, really really hot. All you hear is your ears going bang.'
The court previously heard how a nurse who conducted a medical examination on the alleged victim found scars on her back and shoulder blades, but no injuries to her genital area.
The court heard how shortly after meeting one another, Batten introduced the woman to his 'sexual board' which was attached with rope and chains.
A sadomasochist tortured a woman with a home-made 'shocker', sending 240 volts through her vagina while she was strapped to the restraint board, Cambridge Crown Court was told
On a later occasion, it is alleged, she allowed Batten to attach the shocker to her vagina but only on the condition he did not switch the power on.
She told police that he turned it on against her wishes and she 'never experienced anything so hideous in my life'.
Batten also denies two offences of common assault involving alleged head-butt and shove.
The prosecutor said Batten and his ex had normal sex 'as well as consensual bondage type sex and during those activities Keiren Batten did not do anything sexually to hurt her'.
The trial continues.
A 19-year-old pneumonia patient was denied a life-saving lung transplant because he had marijuana in his system.
Utah teen Riley Hancey became sick over Thanksgiving and had to be put on life support within days of being admitted to the hospital.
Eventually, doctors said he would need a double lung transplant to survive. But they denied him a place on the transplant list after finding THC - the main intoxicant in marijuana - in his system.
Riley's father Mark Hancey was in the room when a doctor told his son he was going to die.
He says his son broke down in tears when the doctor said 'You will die. You better get your affairs in order,' according to KSL.
'She was willing to let him die over testing positive for marijuana. This is what shocked me,' he added to Buzzfeed News.
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Riley Hancey, 19, was denied a life-saving double lung transplant because he had marijuana in his system
The Utah teen came down with a severe form of pneumonia over Thanksgiving and had to be put on life support within days of being admitted to the University of Utah Hospital
Mr Hancey says that his son doesn't usually do drugs, but had some weed after Thanksgiving dinner, when he met up with an old friend.
'It's not like he's a smoker for 30 years and (had) deteriorating lungs because of that,' Mr Hancey said.
Marijuana can stay in the system for about a month after use, but tends to exit the system faster for infrequent users.
Officials at the University of Utah Hospital refused to talk specifically about Riley's case, but said that the medical center follows international guidelines for transplants and makes decisions on a case by case basis.
When the hospital discovered marijuana in the teen's system, they denied him a place on the transplant list, Riley's father Mark (father and son pictured above) said
The hospital said in a statement that they 'do not transplant patients with active alcohol, tobacco or illicit drug use or dependencies until these issues are addressed'
Riley's parents scoured the country looking for another hospital that would take their son for a transplant
They said they were denied by half a dozen hospitals before the University of Pennsylvania agreed to take Riley and put him on their transplant list
'We do not transplant organs in patients with active alcohol, tobacco or illicit drug use or dependencies until these issues are addressed, as these substances are contraindicated for a transplant,' the statement said.
Utah is one of the few holdout states that have not legalized marijuana for either recreational or medical use. It has been ok'd for a very narrow range of patients who suffer from seizures.
After being denied the transplant at University of Utah, Riley's parents started scouring the country for another hospital that would conduct the transplant.
They said they were denied by half a dozen hospitals before the University of Pennsylvania finally stepped up and agreed to perform the surgery.
Riley was taken by air ambulance to the Philadelphia hospital on February 17.
Riley was taken to the University of Pennsylvania by medical transport plane on February 17 (above)
He underwent an eight hour surgery on March 31 and has been recovering since then
A pair of lungs became available on March 31, when he underwent surgery.
'He looked so healthy,' his dad said after the eight-hour surgery. 'It made all the difference, and he still looks healthy. ... He still fighting, and he's doing well.'
Mr Hancey says his son is doing well after the surgery, but original plans to bring him back to Utah for his recovery have been cancelled because Riley is too weak.
Instead, he will spend the next year at Penn, recovering from the surgery. His family plan to take turns traveling back and forth from Utah to be by Riley's side.
Ironically, part of Riley's treatment at Penn has been the drug Marinal, a synthetic form of THC that stimulates appetite.
Doctors are positive that Riley will be able to get back to his outdoorsy lifestyle when he recovers.
Friends have set up a YouCaring page to help the family with the costs that won't be covered by insurance - such as flying to visit Riley. That fund has raised more than $23,000.
Convicted drug smuggler Schapelle Corby has spoken out after her supposed fame on the holiday island of Bali has made her 'fat'.
Officials have said Corby has complained of being stressed after piling on the kilos, and she holds the local media responsible.
She claims she cannot swim or jog near her secluded home at a Kuta beach as she is constantly pursued by photographers, The Daily Telegraph reported.
She told Bali Immigration chief, Muhammad Natsir, that she is 'always chased by people' and revealed 'that's why I am fat now'.
Corby has also asked Bali Immigration and Corrections bosses when she will be allowed to return to Indonesia, with her imminent deportation back to Australia just a few weeks away.
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Schapelle Corby has claimed that she has become 'fat' because pesky photographers won't give her the space to exercise
Head of Bali corrections, Surung Pasaribu, told the Sydney Morning Herald that Corby was interested in returning to Indonesia.
'She's happy to go home, who wouldn't be? She's happy to be with family, to be with her mother, I think her father passed away,' Pasaribu said.
'She asked after she returned to Australia, how long until she can return to sightseeing in Indonesia?'
Foreigners who are deported from Indonesia are refused entry to the country for at least six months.
Yet the 39-year-old has questioned when she can 'return to sightseeing' in Indonesia amidst speculation she may be banned indefinitely.
Mr Natsir said her ban was not in the hands of immigration and she should liaise with the Indonesian Consulate on her return to Australia, according to The Age.
Schapelle Corby (pictured in 2008) has questioned Bali officials when she will be allowed to reenter Indonesia with her imminent deportation looming
'Her ban would be up to the arresting department, the initiator, not up to us.'
Her interest in returning to the country has fueled continuous speculation that she is in a relationship with imprisoned Ben Panangian - who she met during her time in prison.
However the two have remained tight-lipped about their relationship in public.
When asked by a judge about the nature of his involvement with the Australian during a court appearance back in December 2014, Panangian replied: 'I know her just as a friend', the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
It is believed Panangian would struggle to receive an Australian visa upon his release due to his previous convictions.
Schapelle Corby is pictured with her rumoured boyfriend Ben Panangian, yet the supposed relationship could soon be coming to an end with her deportation back to Australia
Schapelle Corby's Balinese parole officer has revealed what the convicted drug smuggler is really like, just weeks before she is deported back to Australia.
Bali parole officer Ketut Sukiati said Corby, 39, was a different person behind closed doors, and very private.
'She was friendly, fine, she will greet everybody, smile, she will say good morning to every staff member,' Ms Sukiati said.
'She's not a very open person we have to talk to her slowly to get her to open up to us, so we can guide her [during her parole].
Corby will be deported back to Australia on May 27, more than 12 years after she was found with 4.2kg of cannabis in a body board bag she carried on a flight from Brisbane to Denpasar.
The then 27-year-old was sentenced to 20 years in prison. She won parole in 2014.
Ms Sukiati said Corby was desperate to return home, but was holding herself together.
'She said she wants to go home of course she looked normal when she said it, not too excited or anything,' Ms Sukiati said.
Schapelle Corby, with her face covered, reports for a parole hearing before being released on February 10, 2014
Ms Sukiati (pictured) said Corby was desperate to return home, but was holding herself together
The Balinese parole officer revealed Corby was a relaxed person, but her personality changed when media was nearby.
Ms Sukiati said Corby's 'face changed' and she 'closed off' when she saw a journalist or photographer.
She also claimed Corby was single, despite reports she was in a relationship with Indonesian man Ben Panangian.
Corby was photographed more than once alongside Panangian since her release from prison in 2014.
Ms Sukiati said Corby's 'face changed' and she 'closed off' when she saw a journalist or photographer (Corby pictured in a Denpasar District Court holding cell in 2006)
The former Gold Coast beauty therapist was released on parole in Febuary 2014 after she served nine years in the notorious Kerobokan jail.
She was ordered to remain on the idyllic holiday island until 2017 when her sentence finished.
Ms Sukiati revealed Corby was due to visit the parole office for the last time on May 27, after which she would be taken to the airport to be deported.
Bali immigration office head Ari Budijanto said Corby would be allowed to shield her face from media for the majority of her journey from Bali to Australia.
But Mr Budijanto said she would be forced to reveal her face when she was identified before boarding.
The former Gold Coast beauty therapist was released on parole in Febuary 2014 after she served nine years in the notorious Kerobokan jail (pictured inside Kerobokan prison in 2008)
Ms Sukiati (pictured third from right alongside fellow parole officers) revealed Corby was due to visit the parole office for the last time on May 27, after which she would be taken to the airport to be deported
Corby has remained silent about her plans upon returning home to her family on the Gold Coast in Queensland.
One of her parole conditions specified she must avoid the media.
Corby has maintained her innocence since she was arrested in 2004 and convicted of drug smuggling in 2005.
More than a dozen health violations were found in the kitchen at Donald Trump's Mar-A-Lago resort just days before he hosted Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
The Miami Herald reports 13 faults were found in the president's kitchen - with most relating to 'dangerous fish' and food being stored in broken coolers.
Three of the violations were deemed to be a 'high priority', which is the classification given when 'illness-causing bacteria' could be found on dining room plates.
The findings came from a visit to the Palm Beach resort on January 26 - six days after his inauguration. Abe was with Trump at his Florida holiday spot across the weekend of February 12.
More than a dozen health violations were found in the kitchen at Donald Trump's Mar-a-lago resort just days before he hosted Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Trump is pictured with Melania Trump at the resort on February 4
A total of 13 faults were found in the president's kitchen - with most relating to 'dangerous fish' and food being stored in broken coolers. Pictured is the dining room at the Mar-A-Lago in November 2016
One of the specific findings in the report, according to the Herald, was that: 'fish designed to be served raw or under-cooked had not undergone proper parasite destruction.'
As a result of that incident, the kitchen crew was told to throw all the fish away or cook it immediately.
Another violation related to meats being stored at dangerous temperatures.
The Herald reports investigators found duck and raw beef were kept at 50 degrees, chicken at 49 degrees, and ham at a staggering 57 degrees.
The findings came from a visit to the Palm Beach resort on January 26. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was with Trump at the resort across the weekend of February 12
The United States Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service says all raw meat should be stored at below 40 degrees.
Some of the other violations included rusted shelves inside walk-in coolers, and sink water where employees washed up being too cold to actually sanitize their hands.
The violations were revealed after Trump came under fire for his frequent trips to the resort since he took office.
Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe are seen together at the Mar-A-Lago resort in Florida on February 11
Trump, who said during the election campaign he would 'rarely leave the White House', has traveled to the Palm Beach spot on seven weekends since he was sworn in.
It is estimated those trips have cost $23.1million.
By contrast, Obama spent just under $97million on travel in his eight years as president, according to Judicial Watch, a government watchdog. The costs work out at an average of $12.1million a year.
Hours after warning China that the U.S. and its allies will restrain North Korea if it is unable to do so itself, President Donald Trump said the conflict with the country 'will be taken care of.'
A strike on ISIS in Afghanistan today may have served as a warning to shot to China.
'It doesnt make any difference if it does or not,' Trump said Thursday at the end of an unrelated Roosevelt Room event. 'North Korea is a problem, the problem will be taken care of.'
He issued the pronouncement a day after hailing China's Xi Jinping as a 'gentleman' who 'wants to help us with North Korea.'
Trump said Thursday afternoon: 'I think China has really been working very hard. Ive really gotten to like and respect, as you know, President Xi, terrific person, spent a lot of time together in Florida, hes a very special man.'
But his language about the U.S. and its allies left open the possibility of military action against a nation that borders China and has been propped up by Beijing over the years.
WATCH OUT: Hours after warning China that the U.S. and its allies will restrain North Korea if it is unable to do so itself, President Donald Trump said the conflict with the country 'will be taken care of'
Trump said in a tweet Thursday morning, 'I have great confidence that China will properly deal with North Korea. If they are unable to do so, the U.S., with its allies, will!' Trump wrote.
The message ended simply with the abbreviation: 'U.S.A.'
He was equally cryptic in a comment to Fox Business that aired Wednesday, where he was asked what he had planned for North Korea, a hermetic nation believed to have developed several nuclear weapons.
'You never know, do you?' Trump responded.
'I don't want to talk about it. We are sending an armada, very powerful. We have submarines, very powerful, far more powerful than the aircraft carrier, that I can tell you,' Trump continued. 'And we have the best military people on Earth. And I will say this. He is doing the wrong thing. He is doing the wrong thing.'
Trump and Xi spoke on the phone Wednesday evening, U.S. time to follow up their visit last week at Mar-a-Lago.
The official statement from President Xi, as translated by CNN, stated the goal of resolving the issue 'through peaceful means.'
He issued the pronouncement a day after hailing China's Xi Jinping as a 'gentleman' who 'wants to help us with North Korea'
The president said he has 'great confidence' in China's ability to solve the problem
'China adheres to the goal of denuclearization of the peninsula and insists on preserving peace and stability on the peninsula. China advocates to resolve the issue through peaceful means, and is willing to maintain communication and coordination with the US on the Korean Peninsula issue,' according to the official statement.
At a news conference the following day, Trump vouched for the Chinese leader in personal terms, even as he kept noteworthy distance from Russian President Vladimir Putin.
'I don't know Putin, but I do know this gentleman,' Trump told reporters at a press conference along with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. 'President Xi wants to do the right thing. We had a very good bonding. I think we had a very good chemistry together.'
Trump gushed on Wednesday about his meetings and dinner with Xi at Mar-a-Lago that reached no known accommodations on trade or Chinese military expansion in the South China Sea but brought them closer together
Trump gushed about his meetings and dinner with Xi at Mar-a-Lago that reached no known accommodations on trade or Chinese military expansion in the South China Sea but brought them closer together.
'I've spent a lot of time with him over the last two days and he is the president of China. You were there, most of you were there and it was quite an interesting period of time,' Trump said.
Continuing, he said, 'I think he wants to help us with North Korea, we talked trade, we talked a lot of things, and I said the way you're going to make a good trade deal is to help us with North Korea.
'Otherwise we're just going to go it alone. That will be alright too. But going it alone means going it with lots of other nations,' Trump declared, hinting at comments he would make on Thursday. 'But I was very impressed with President Xi and I think he means well and I think he wants to help, we'll see whether or not he does.'
Earlier, Trump told Fox Business that when he told Xi that the U.S. had launched an attack against Syria, Xi told him he was 'okay' with it.
Analysts believe that the activity at the site is indicative of final preparations for another nuclear test. This satellite image, taken yesterday, shows 'small groups of people' working at the facility
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg (L) and President Donald Trump hold a news conference in the East Room of the White House
Trump also hailed the diplomatic accomplishment of China's abstention at the UN Security Council of a vote to condemn Syria. Russia vetoed it anyway.
'We did talk last night, I think it's wonderful that they abstained, as you know very few people expected that and no I was not surprised that China did abstain,' Trump said, having spoken with Xi by telephone late Tuesday.
'Very few people thought that that was going to happen, so we are honored by the vote, that is the vote that should have taken place.'
Trump said in the Fox Business interview that North Korea was the first issue he raised with Xi.
'I said you've got to help us with North Korea, because we can't allow it. And it's not good for you. And you have a tremendous power because of trade,' Trump said.
'Now, he then explains thousands of years of history with Korea. Not that easy. In other words, not as simple as people would think,' he said, commenting on an issue that has bedeviled policy makers for decades.
GENTLEMEN: President Donald Trump (L) pumps his fist as he and Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) walk together at the Mar-a-Lago estate in West Palm Beach, Florida
'They've had tremendous conflict with Korea over the years. Now, his father was in China four times. He was never in China,' he said, referring to Kim Jung-un.
'So I said, look, you have a tremendous power because of trading through the border. If they don't get food, they don't get, you know, they can't sell their coal. In fact, I hear today two massive coal ships from North Korea were sent back to North Korea, heading to China. They were sent back, which is a very good sign.'
Trump added: 'But I think China can help us. I hope China can help us. We talked about trade and I can tell you, China will do much better on trade if they help us with North Korea.'
Turning to Russia at his press conference, Trump said Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had a 'very successful meeting' in Russia, where he met with Putin for two hours, then held a frosty press conference with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov.
'We'll see the end result, which will be in a long period of time perhaps. But the end result is what's most important, not just talk,' Trump said.
The Rodong Sinmun - the official mouthpiece of the ruling Workers' Party - carried several photos from the contest showing firefight excercises
Kim praised his troops for their precision in the training exercise (pictured), saying 'the bullets seemed to have their own eyes', state news agency KCNA said
Yesterday Kim oversaw a commando operation in which special forces dropped from light transport planes 'like hail' and 'mercilessly blew up enemy targets'
He said it would be 'wonderful' if we could get along with Russia.
'Right now we're not getting along with Russia at all. We may be at an all time low in terms of relationship with Russia, this was built for a long period of time. But we're going to see what happens. Putin is the leader of Russia, Russia is a strong country, we've a very, very strong country. We'll see how that all works out,' Trump said.
'I'm also going to see about Putin over a period of time. It would be a fantastic thing if we got along with Putin and we got along with Russia. And that could happen and it may not happen, it may be just the opposite,' Trump said.
'I would love to get along with everybody. Right now the world is a mess, but by the time we finish I think it's going to be a lot better place to live. .... by the time I'm finished it's going to be a lot better place to live in because right now it's nasty.'
An elementary school in Florida is accused of punishing young special needs students by putting them in a so-called 'discipline box' made partially of drywall.
The parents of a three-year-old with cerebral palsy filed a lawsuit against Duval County Public Schools, in Jacksonville, claiming their child along with hundreds of other students were abused in their preschool classroom.
The 37-page lawsuit explains that students knew the box as 'jail', and if they were sent to jail, it was a form of punishment.
A school in Jacksonville, Florida is accused of punishing young special needs students by putting them in a so-called 'discipline box' made partially of drywall, seen above
The mother of the child involved in the lawsuit took a photo of the 'discipline box' inside Love Grove Elementary School in 2012.
Attorney Aaron Bates is representing the family. He said the district failed to properly train its teachers and staff.
'Not a valid crisis intervention, behavioral intervention technique,' he said, but added that 'the school administration knew about it, teachers used it'.
The document explains, between August 2011 and June 2012, there were 304 instances of seclusion on 120 students - 70 percent of them have emotional-behavior disorders.
Records show the child transferred to Spring Park Elementary School in Duval County and encountered additional problems there and on the school bus.
The lawsuit also claims that staff forced the student's legs into the wrong braces, twisting his feet and causing bruising, sores and bleeding.
The school district released a statement saying it could not comment on pending or anticipated litigation.
A TV documentary has recalled the lives of German children who grew up being entertained by Adolf Hitler as he plotted mass murder.
For the first time, German citizens have opened up on their privileged lives in the mountian idyll of Berchtesgaden.
Hitler and the Children of the Obersalzberg documented how the Nazi Fuehrer plotted mass murder in his Berghof holiday home in between entertaining local youngsters and their parents - all for propaganda.
Filmmakers tracked down the surviving children of the time who gave their accounts of life far away from the front lines and death camps.
Gerhard Bartels (pictured, bottom left) is held by the crouching Nazi dictator as another child smiles at him
A new documentary proves how Hitler (pictured, right) plotted mass murder in his Berghof holiday home in between entertaining children and their parents.
Rupert Zuckert, pictured today, who grew up near Adolf Hitler's Berghof holiday home
Rupert Zuckert recalled his time as a youngster (pictured) of life far away from the front lines and death camps
Emma Ponn - one of the women featured in the new documentary called Hitler and the Children of the Obersalzberg
Gerhard Bartels was one of them.
He lived with his parents on a nearby lake and said Hitler was a frequent visitor to the house because his uncle Isidor Weiss was Hitler's sergeant in the trenches in WWI.
Bartels, now 85, said: 'I was not allowed to play with the other children that day he came in case I might get my clothes dirty.
Gerhard Bartels who lived with his parents on a nearby lake and said Hitler was a frequent visitor to the house because his uncle Isidor Weiss was Hitler's sergeant in the trenches in First World War
'I didn't like that, I just wanted to be out with the other children.
'I remember I once asked him what life was like for him and he replied: "Nothing is easy".'
The film, a joint production of ORF and Bayerischer Rundfunk, said the documentary was intended to portray the 'manipulative perfidy of the Nazi regime'.
Hitler forced numerous people off the Kehlstein Mountain to build his retreat and up to 20,000 soldiers, staff and assorted flunkeys were in and around the Berghof at any one time.
Cronies such as Martin Bormann and Herman Goering acquired their own homes on the lower slopes to be near him.
Filmaker Robert Altenburger said he wanted to depict 'the parallel of idyll and horror that prevailed here'.
Marga Bankert, daughter of forestry official Christian Bankert, who also lived in the area, was among those photographed the cult of the leader-loving children.
The families that Adolf Hitler and his cronies would entertain while plotting crimes against humanity
Zdenek Hulka was one of filmmaker Robert Altenburger's subjects. The director said he wanted to depict 'the parallel of idyll and horror that prevailed here'
With other children, she had to repeatedly stand to attention to greet him whenever he visited and the images used for Nazi propaganda.
'One day he took me on the arm and said to me: "You beautiful Aryan German child,'' she said.
'I didn't knew what it was', she recalls today.
Only in the very last days of the war, the ideal world of the Obersalzberg collapsed when, on April 25, 1945, 359 bomber of the Royal Air Force appeared overhead and destroyed most of the Berghof.
Later the Americans arrived and destroyed what was left to prevent it becoming a shrine to surviving Nazis.
Now the mountain has a museum to Nazism built upon it and it has become one of the country's biggest tourist draws.
The letters sent by William Donaldson - better known by his nom de plume Henry Root - are expected to be sold off at auction for 4,000
The correspondence from a British satirist who once wrote to Margaret Thatcher cheekily offering a pound towards her fight against Soviet adventurism are being put up for auction.
The series of hilarious letters sent from the late William Donaldson - better known by his nom de plume Henry Root - are expected to be sold off for 4,000.
The writer adopted the character of a retired wet-fish merchant and wrote scores of letters in the 1970s and '80s to the likes of Margaret Thatcher, Cliff Richard, Mary Whitehouse, Jeffrey Archer and a young Harriet Harman.
The Henry Root letters, as they became known, would be enclosed with a 1 for each recipient, caught their targets, often political figures, off guard.
It could be said that he was the Ali G of his day, attempting to antagonise famous faces with his close-to-the-mark ramblings.
Copies of the letters he sent and the original responses which belonged to Donaldson's third wife have emerged for auction in Sherborne, Dorset.
Having stored the archive in several boxes for years, she has decided now is the time to dispose of the collection.
He wrote several letters to Margaret Thatcher and would often get replies on her behalf from Downing Street - the former prime minister even once sent him a signed photograph
Margaret Thatcher would often reply to 'Henry Root' via her office - in this letter she enclosed a 1
No one in the British establishment was safe from Mr Root's pen and paper - he wrote to both the then-prime minster Margaret Thatcher and HRH Queen Elizabeth
In his letter to the Queen, dated April 9, 1979, Root wrote: 'I appreciate that under the constitution you cannot poke your nose into things too directly, but I do have a small suggestion to make.
'You're always opening things: hospitals, schools, theatres, factories, fly-overs, playgrounds, etc.
'Why don't you close a few things?
He said: 'I have in mind such blemishes on the face of our society as The National Liberal Club, BBC 2, Soho's 'foreign' cinemas and so-called massage parlours, the National Council for Civil Liberties, subversive periodicals such as 'The New Statesman' and 'Time Out', which are devoted to the understanding and our British institutions.
'And the new white tile universities, which see it as their function to stuff the impressionable young students with half-baked left-wing notions.'
Unsurprisingly, the Queen didn't reply. However, other famous figures did get back to him.
Joking tone: A letter to her Majesty telling that instead of always opening things maybe she should close a few
A letter to Cliff Richard talking about age is among the collection of amusing letters up for sale at auction
A response to Mr Root's letter on behalf of Margaret Thatcher in October 1979
A letter to Mary Whitehouse talking about how she has lost her voice and they can ill afford her vocal absence from the 'media' scene
A letter to former Prime Minster's hsband Denis Thatcher, sent in September 1979
A letter to Jeffrey Archer leting him know that he realised he isn't an empty-headed film-star
The writer adopted the character of a retired wet-fish merchant and wrote scores of letters in the 1970s and '80s to the likes of David Steel (left) and Mary Whitehouse (right)
He wrote several letters to Margaret Thatcher and would often get replies on her behalf from Downing Street - the former prime minister even once sent him a signed photograph.
On January 1, 1980, making light of the New Year's Honours' list, Root wrote: 'So - it's honours for big business! Nothing wrong with that!
'You were voted into office to promote the interests of your own class - the lower-middles on their way up - and this is what you're doing. Well done!
'The wets and have-nots may bleat, but they have no one to blame but themselves. They were stupid enough to vote for you!
'How inspiringly your list compares to the last one, which could best have been described as honours for tap dancers and international criminals!'
Root received a reply a week later from Downing Street which read: 'The Prime Minister has asked me to thank you for your letter of 1 January.
'She was grateful to you for writing as you did.
'The views which you expressed have been noted.'
A letter to Michael Parkinson informing him he is compiling a list of humiliating celebrity incidents and most of the were on his 'chat' show
Pictured: Television presenter Michael Parkinson received a letter or two from Mr Root
The Conservative Party, however, were not best pleased when Root wrote to them and bluntly asked 'how much would a peerage cost?'
The curt reply said a peerage 'could not be bought'.
In one letter Root pokes fun at Jeffrey Archer, saying he's not a film star because he 'hasn't got the looks' then giving him a backhanded compliment about his ruthlessness.
He added: 'So you left a few people with their backsides exposed! So you handed a few folk the stick by the muddy end!
'So what? You can't get to the top in this life without making an omelette.'
In another letter, to a young Harriet Harman, he dryly makes fun of the sexism prevalent in society at the time.
He wrote: 'Why should an attractive lass like you want to confuse her pretty little head with complicated matters of politics, jurisprudence, sociology and the so-called rights of citizens?
'Leave such weighty considerations to us men, that's my advice to you.'
In his letter to the then 38 year-old Cliff Richard, he wrote: 'We must be about the same age, you and I.
'You're a credit to the over-forties Cliff. Twenty years at the top and still number one. Con-grat-u-laaaaations!'
One recipient who did see the funny side was prominent campaigner Mary Whitehouse.
A letter to Harriet Harman telling her to leave complicated matters of politics to the men which didn't receive a reply
Banter: A letter to former Liberal Democrat leader David Steel in 1979 congratulating him on his conference showing down
Witty reply: The letter from Mr Root prompted a response from the House of Commons on behalf of Mr Steel
Politicians were never far from Henry Root's mind. The satirist wrote to both David Steel (left) and Harriet Harman in the 1970s and '80s
A collection of hilarious hoax letters sent to the Queen and other famous figures to poke fun at them have emerged for auction and are tipped to sell for 4,000. Writer and satirist William Donaldson, who died 12 years ago in 2005
In the letter, Root wrote: 'So! According to your doctor you've lost your voice because you talk too much.
'This blow comes at a time when we can ill afford your vocal absence from the 'media' scene.
'Who else is to speak out against the pornographers, left-wing subversives and gay Christians coming out of the toilet!'
Surprisingly, Mrs Whitehouse complied with his request for a photograph and signed it 'To Henry Root, with very best wishes, Mary Whitehouse'.
William Donaldson, author, who is most famous for the 'Henry Root letters'
In addition to the letters, there is correspondence from William Donaldson and his publishers, friends and acquaintances, newspaper cuttings, signed presentation books and photographs.
The Cambridge graduate lived a very eventful life - he lost a couple of fortunes, lived in a brothel and was an early promoter of Bob Dylan.
Richard Bromell, auctioneer at Charterhouse Auctions in Sherborne, Dorset, which is auctioning off the Henry Root Letters, said: 'Donaldson certainly led an interesting wife - he went bankrupt, had several glamorous wifes and so on.
'He wrote to anyone and everyone and most of the time they didn't understand that he was taking the mickey.
'I'm amazed anyone replied to any of the letters, especially the Conservative Party replying to a message were he bluntly asks how much for an MBE.
'The letters are hilarious. Although I was just too young to read his books when they came out, I must admit to have spent probably too much time working on so called research having now read most of them.'
The auction takes place on April 20.
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A family of five enjoying a day out on the water in Virginia on Monday came dangerously close to a catastrophe when their small fishing boat ended up dangling on the edge of a reservoir dam.
At around 5.30pm that evening, first responders in Loudon County received a distress call from a man saying that he and his family were stranded in a boat at the top of Goose Creek Reservoir Dam.
The motor on their fishing vessel had failed, leaving the family to drift to the very edge of the 20-foot dam.
Stranded on the edge: A family of five on Monday ended up dangling from the edge of the Goose Creek Reservoir Dam in Virginia after the motor on their fishing vessel failed
Rushing to the rescue: Responding rescuers found the vessel carrying two adults and three children teetering on the very edge of the 20-foot dam
Photographs taken at the scene to document the incident show a portion of the boat, occupied by two adults and three small children, suspended precariously over the watery abyss.
Fire units from three nearby towns were dispatched along with rescue boats to the scene, located upstream from the Luck Stone Quarry off of Belmont Ridge Road.
Responding rescuers found the vessel teetering on the very edge of the dam, with its terrified occupants all seated in the bow to keep the boat from plunging over the dam.
With the exception of one adult, all were wearing life vests.
Initial attempts to reach the stranded family using an aerial ladder failed because the boat was too far from shore in a swift-moving current.
First responders were eventually able to use a throw rope to deliver an additional lifejacket to the vessel.
Disaster averted: A water rescue crew weas able to connect a tow rope to the familys disabled fishing boat and pull the occupants to safety
Survivors: Once on dry land, each boat occupant was evaluated by EMTs and found to be unharmed
In the meantime, other crews were sent downstream with rescue equipment in case the boat fell over the dam.
When a water rescue crew arrived on the scene at the top of the dam, they were able to connect a tow rope to the familys fishing boat and pulled the occupants to safety.
Once on dry land, each person was evaluated by EMTs and found to be unharmed. They have not been identified.
Chief Keith Brower praised the work of the rescue crews for saving five lives.
Officials said the incident highlights the importance of Coast Guard-approved life-jackets. They are reminding boaters to wear the flotation devices at all times during boating operations.
Theresa May spoke of her 'incredible pride' today as she hailed the first woman Army officer to graduate for combat duties.
The Prime Minister singled out the achievement of the new Royal Tank Regiment officer - who is one of her constituents - as she attended the passing out ceremony at Sandhurst.
But she also warned the new recruits that terrorist groups and shifting international alliances are making the world more dangerous than ever before.
The Prime Minister singled out the achievement of the Royal Tank Regiment officer - who is one of her constituents - as she attended the passing out ceremony at Sandhurst today
The Royal Tank Regiment has been on the front line in campaigns including the 2003 Iraq war
Mrs May was acting as the Queen's representative at the Sovereign's Parade at Sandhurst Academy in Surrey. The monarch is attending the traditional Maundy Thursday celebrations in Leicester instead.
Of the 190 officer cadets who graduated from the famous training college today, 163 are being commissioned into the UK forces. Some 17 of the UK contingent are female.
The government announced that women would be allowed to serve in front line roles last summer after a review - defying critics who said it could disrupt discipline and questioned whether they would be physically able to play their part.
The army has already had a woman infantry soldier, Guardsman Chloe Allen. But she joined the forces as Ben Allen before transitioning from male to female.
The unnamed officer is the first woman to graduate from Sandhurst for front line duties, and will be driving tanks.
A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: 'We can confirm that the first female officer has commissioned into the Royal Tank Regiment and will now go on to begin her training to qualify as a Royal Armoured Corps Troop Leader.
'This is a result of the decision to enable women to serve in Ground Close Combat roles and we wish her every success.'
The parade was the PM's first public engagement since the crisis over the chemical weapons attack that killed scores of civilians in Syria - and sparked missile strikes by the US.
Mrs May gingerly handled swords which were being awarded to the best cadets at the Sandhurst ceremony today
Mrs May spent the past five days on a walking holiday with husband Philip in North Wales as the tense stand-off with Russia over its links to the Syrian regime unfolded.
But Downing Street has insisted she remained fully in touch and was still speaking to other world leaders.
Addressing the recruits today, Mrs May commended former Sandhurst graduate Captain Michael Crofts for tending to the wounded on the day of the Westminster terror attack.
She told the parade: 'The threats we face today are more complex than ever before. And the missions that you will be asked to undertake will be similarly complex.'
Mrs May said the armed forces remained crucial for keeping Britain safe, 'whether it is the Royal Air Force flying missions against Daesh over the skies of Syria and Iraq, the Royal Navy protecting our sea lanes in the Gulf, or the British Army playing a leading role in UN peacekeeping missions in Somalia and South Sudan'.
The Prime Minister also restated her commitment to meeting Nato's requirements for investing 2 per cent of Britain's GDP on the armed forces, and promised to do 'everything possible' to support military families.
Mrs May said two centuries ago there would not have been any female cadets graduating.
But she said the group passing out today included the first Bahraini woman to graduate.
Mrs May told the parade that the armed forces fulfilled a crucial role in keeping us safe
She added: 'And also a constituent of mine who will be the first ever female officer to serve in the Royal Tank Regiment a direct result of the decision to enable women to serve in the combat arms something of which we should all be incredibly proud.'
Sandhurst trains the Army's officers and has previously hosted many famous graduates and members of the Royal Family, including Prince William and Prince Harry in 2005/06.
Other famous cadets who have passed out there include the Sultan of Brunei, Sir Winston Churchill, fascist Sir Oswald Mosley, James Bond author Ian Fleming and actor David Niven.
A Florida house fire left a young boy dead after he accidentally started it when playing with a lighter.
Five-year-old Hassan Jerome Vann died from smoke inhalation, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
His parents and younger sister managed to get out of the home, after the fire broke out in St. Petersburg on Tuesday, the newspaper reports.
A Florida house fire left a young boy dead after he'd been playing with a lighter
Hassan's father Robert Vann, told the newspaper that his four-year-old daughter said the boy had played with a lighter in his room.
The 71-year-old said: 'He was fascinated with the lighter. He was flicking it and watching the flame.'
Something in the room was set alight, according to the report.
Five-year-old Hassan Jerome Vann died from smoke inhalation, it's been reported. He was reportedly located dead in a bedroom
Hassan's mother, 36-year-old Ebony Vonkisha Jackson, was able to hear an alarm and woke up Robert Vann, the newspaper said.
Together, they escaped the home with their daughter Hassana - but didn't know Hassan was stuck in the home, according to the report.
Robert Vann said: 'I tried to get back to get in the house, tried to get to him. But the flames wouldn't let me.'
Police told the newspaper that the fire began in the children's bedroom and set off a living room smoke alarm.
Hassan been located dead in a bedroom - and authorities have said that there are no pending charges, the Tampa Bay Times said.
A Spanish warship has been chased out of Spanish waters for the second time in a month.
According to the Royal Navy HMS Scimitar intercepted the Infanta Cristina off the Gibraltar coast shortly after 9am British time.
It is the second time the Scimitar was forced to respond to an incursion into British waters.
HMS Scimitar was forced to intercept the Spanish warship Infanta Cristina earlier today
The Spanish warship, pictured today, entered UK territorial waters around 10am local time
Today's incursion followed ugly scenes last night in Madrid as drunken Leicester City fans sang an obscene claiming Gibraltar as British.
Several fans were arrested during the clashes which took place before
Disputes between Gibraltar and Spain over the waters are frequent but the latest comes after the territory of some 33,000 people took centre stage in the wrangling over Britain's exit from the European Union, which was triggered on March 29.
An EU draft position published earlier this month after Prime Minister Theresa May filed formal divorce papers said the application of any EU-UK trade deal to Gibraltar had to be agreed between Britain and Spain, which has long claimed sovereignty over the enclave.
In response, May issued a statement saying London was 'steadfast' in its commitment to the territory. Her spokesman however played down comments by a former leader of her Conservative Party that she would be prepared to go to war to defend it.
Following the previous incursion, Gibraltar's government published a video on Twitter of the Spanish Navy patrol ship Infanta Cristina in the sea off the territory and accused it of carrying out an 'illegal incursion' into its territorial waters.
The ship was around a mile off the coast of Gibraltar, a witness who lived on the said
The Spanish vessel was intercepted to the east of Gibraltar and escorted out of British territorial waters around 10am local time today according to the Royal Navy
A spokesman for Spain's foreign ministry said Spain did not recognise the waters as belonging to Gibraltar and the ship had been on a routine patrol.
'An illegal incursion, no, because for us it is the utilisation of our waters,' the spokesman said on the phone.
'Spain does not recognise other rights and situations belonging to Great Britain in the maritime spaces that are not included in Article 10 of the Treaty of Utrecht,' he said.
Gibraltar was captured by Britain in 1704 and ceded to Britain in 1713 under the treaty.
In a 2002 referendum, Gibraltarians rejected by 98 percent a proposal for joint British-Spanish sovereignty.
A UK Government spokesperson said: 'The Royal Navy challenges all unlawful maritime incursions into British Gibraltar Territorial Waters (BGTW) and did so again on this occasion.'
A spokesman for the Government of Gibraltar said: 'We condemn Spain's ongoing refusal to comply with the UN International Convention on the Law of the Sea.'
A 29-year-old man has been shot in the legs and buttocks in Punchbowl in Sydney's west.
Police attended an address in Telopea Street about 8pm on Thursday after reports a man had been shot, but were unable to locate the victim at the scene.
A short time later, police said a man who is known to them had presented to Bankstown Hospital with gunshot wounds.
A 29-year-old man has been shot in the legs and buttocks in Punchbowl in Sydney's west. Police were called to an address on Teleopea Street about 8pm on Thursday night
They were unable to locate a victim at the address (pictured) however, a man known to police presented to Bankstown Hospital a short time later with gunshot wounds
A crime scene has been established and an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the incident are taking place. Pictured are police at the scene in Punchbowl
He has been transferred to another hospital and is expected to undergo surgery.
Officers attached to Bankstown Local Area Command are being assisted by Campsie Local Area Command.
They have established a crime scene and an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the incident.
Police are urging any witnesses or anyone with information to contact Bankstown detectives via Crime Stoppers.
The man has been transferred from Bankstown Hospital to another hospital and is expected to undergo surgery for the bullet wounds
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These shocking pictures reveal how hunting dogs are trained to attack a tethered brown bear in Russia.
An annual contest in the northeastern Sakha Republic sees judges giving the native laika dogs marks for their ability to contain the beast.
The bear is tied to a chain fixed to an overhead cable and has only limited movement - with no way of escape if it is bitten by dogs.
But organisers deny cruelty - even insisting the female bear called Masha used in the competition finals was rescued from a zoo and is now 'very lucky' to live in good conditions and only 'work' one day a year for the dog contest.
Shocking pictures reveal how hunting dogs are trained to attack a tethered brown bear in Russia. Two laika dogs are pictured snapping at the bear at one contest in northeastern Siberia
An annual contest in the northeastern Sakha Republic sees judges giving the native laika dogs marks for their ability to contain the beast. The bear can be seen roaring as the hunting dogs move in
The bear is tied to a chain fixed to an overhead cable and has only limited movement - with no way of escape if it is bitten by dogs. At one point the bear could be seen standing up on its hind legs to defend itself
In a qualifying round with another bear, the beast was said by one witness to be exhausted.
Organisers say there is new interest from the Russian army in skilled dogs, as the military expands operations in the Arctic, and comes face to face with polar bears.
These contests are held all around Yakutia, also known as the Sakha Republic, the largest constituent area of the Russian Federation, almost the size of India.
'Some 80 laika breeders compete for the top prize, a snowmobile,' reported The Siberian Times.
In a qualifying round with another bear, the beast was said by one witness to be exhausted. It is pictured tethered to a chain and attempting to fight off two dogs
Organisers say there is new interest from the Russian army in skilled dogs, as the military expands operations in the Arctic, and comes face to face with polar bears. The beast is pictured fighting back
These contests are held all around Yakutia, also known as the Sakha Republic, the largest constituent area of the Russian Federation, almost the size of India
Striking pictures of the contest have led to complaints of cruelty to the tethered bear. A dog and brown bear face off in one of the competitions
Nikolay Chepurnikh, a laika expert, said: 'The competitions are really simple. A dog is let off a leash to follow a bear's trace.
'If the bear tries to escape, the dog should stop it. This is how we assess a dog's hunting potential.'
Pictures of the contest have led to complaints of cruelty to the tethered bear.
'This is like some spectacle from Roman times,' said one.
'It's bear baiting and should be banned,' said another.
Other comments were: 'Why torture the animal like this?' and 'So sorry for the bear'.
A white hunting dog attempts to get close to the brown bear, which is restricted in its movements by a chain
Biting back: The bear braces for another attack from the dogs in another photo from the contest
Organisers deny cruelty - even insisting the female bear called Masha used in the competition finals was rescued from a zoo
Organisers insist the bear is 'very lucky' to live in good conditions and only 'work' one day a year for the dog contest
Photographer Maria Yegorova - who saw a qualifying contest - said the bear appeared exhausted, but she denied the traditional 'dog training' was cruel.
'The bear was sleepy or seemed like this, because at every opportunity it laid down to rest,' she said.
Expert Valentin Zaitsev, chairman of the jury at the finals in Yakutsk, said: 'I don't remember a single case when a dog bit a bear so that it bled.
'There are dogs that can actually harm a bear. But I think animal rights defenders simply don't have enough information. Here, a bear isn't tortured, its claws and teeth are not harmed.'
While some have accused the contest of being cruel, many in Russia believe it to be a good way of training hunting dogs
New life: Masha the bear was reportedly one-year-old when she was rescued from a zoo
The bear squares up for another battle with the two hounds as they make a renewed attack
Founder of Bayanay hunting club Alexander Kononov said: 'Masha was one year old when we took her from a zoo.
'They had too many bears, and eagerly agreed to pass her into our hands.
'Since that day she has lived a very comfortable life. We built her a den. She is very lucky, as usually single brown bear cubs don't survive alone.
'Today is her one and only working day in the year. She is now eight years old and is very used to dogs.'
Watching brief: A bear handler inspects the training session while the bear attempts to protect itself
According to her handlers, the bear is now eight years old and is 'very used to dogs'
A video released on social media showed that a bloodied passenger, who appears to be of Asian descent, is being dragged off a United Express flight by the aviation security officers, after he refused to give up his seat.
In the 21st century, the concepts of "human rights" and "civil liberties" are often used by different governments to level criticism at each other. In the discourse of Western media, societies with lots of repression and coercion are deemed to be "bad" while societies with lower levels of it are deemed to be "good."
However, the flaws in this logic can be seen when looking over the history of these very concepts. While all societies throughout history have had some notion of authority and repression against those who challenged it, concepts like "natural rights" and "due process" are fairly recent in terms of human existence. The subsistence farming economies of medieval and ancient times were not conducive to concepts like "free speech" or "freedom of religion."
Only with the rise of technology, mercantilism, and international trade which gave countries the ability to gradually emerge from primitive feudalism, did these modern political concepts arise. Only once they had achieved a new level of development with the dawn of capitalism and global trade could societies begin to accommodate greater levels of personal liberty. This trend has continued. As material abundance and stability has increased in Western countries, so has the level of personal freedom.
Western countries, with a far higher level of prosperity, stability and abundance, now speak as if all societies, under all circumstances, should have the same level of civil liberties and freedom as they currently enjoy. Many observers note that this unrealistic demand is often enforced hypocritically, with certain, defiant or independent regimes being targets for criticism, while the "human rights abuses" of pro-Western regimes in the underdeveloped world are ignored.
In the ongoing dialogue between the USA and China relating to the issue of human rights, it is important to compare the incidents which are highlighted for criticism.
In the United States, a 69-year old passenger named David Dao was violently dragged from his United Airlines flight for refusing to give up his seat. Video of the incident has been circulated across the internet by many Chinese people. The Chinese public has reacted to the video of this man being so violently ejected from United Airlines Flight 3411 and called it a violation of human rights.
Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and other publications in the United States have loudly criticized China for the practice of televising confessions from those convicted of corruption. Many voices in American media deem televised confessions to be a kind of immoral public humiliation, and editorials have loudly criticized the practice, calling it a human rights violation.
So how do these two occurrences compare to each other?
While those who read confessions on Chinese television are people who have been convicted of crimes, and opted to apologize in exchange for leniency, the man dragged from United Airlines Flight 3411 was never subject to any legal process.
However, when comparing these two controversial acts of punitive repression, the primary difference can be found, not even in the nature of how they were carried out, but for what purpose they served.
Why was David Dao violently dragged from the plane and injured so badly by police that he needed to be hospitalized? Because United Airlines wanted to save money by flying four of its employees in the place of ticketed costumers. David Dao was ejected violently because his refusal to give up his seat impeded corporate profits. To serve the end of a single company saving at most several thousand dollars, heavy-handed public repression was unleashed.
But why is it that confessions are being broadcast on Chinese television? It is because corruption motivated by greed is something that the people of China overwhelmingly recognize as a problem and want to see rooted out. President Xi's anti-corruption campaign is wildly popular among a Chinese public that is outraged by the crimes of corrupt officials. The televised confessions, condemned in the Western press, serve as a deterrent and warning to other officials who would consider graft, extravagance, or putting their own selfishness ahead of society.
What is the difference between these two occurrences, dubbed "human rights violations" by detractors? One act of repression is done without due process, for the purpose of helping a single corporation save money. Another act of repression involves legal process and is done for the benefit of the entire nation in order to root out the problem of corruption.
The global conversation about human rights remains simplistic, with assumptions and accusations often being hurled to serve political ends. Regardless, when comparing the United States and China, looking into what purpose a criticized practice may serve can often shed light into understanding bigger differences between the two countries and their political systems.
Caleb Maupin is a journalist and political analyst who resides in New York City focusing on U.S. foreign policy and the global system of monopoly capitalism and imperialism.
Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors only, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
A motorcyclist was decapitated in a freak accident after a driver in a Ford Taurus crashed into a telephone pole and caused a tension wire to fall across a road in California.
Fabian Zepeda, 27, who was expecting his first child with the love of his life, Vanessa Quintana, was traveling south on Macy Street in San Bernardino just moments after a man driving a Ford Taurus crashed shortly after 9am.
The driver of the car lost control of his vehicle and struck a mailbox before driving across a home's yard, according to the San Bernardino Police Department.
Motorcyclist, Fabian Zepeda (pictured with his wife), 27, was decapitated in a freak accident after a driver in a Ford Taurus crashed into a telephone pole and caused a tension wire to fall across a road in California
Zepeda was traveling south on Macy Street in San Bernardino just moments after the driver crashed shortly around 9am. Pictured is the helmet he was wearing at the time of the accident
The driver lost control of his vehicle and struck a mailbox before driving across a home's yard. Zepeda at his wedding (left) and with his wife, Vanessa Quintana
Officials said the car (pictured) then hit a wooden telephone pole that snapped in half, causing a tension wire to fall across Macy Street
Coroner's officials said in a statement that the car then hit a wooden telephone pole that snapped in half, causing a tension wire to fall across Macy Street.
Authorities said Zepeda, who was married and about to be a father to a baby girl, was decapitated when he drove into the wire that stretched across the road.
He was knocked off the motorcycle as it continued down Macy Street until it crashed at Highland Avenue, according to Mercury News.
Police say the driver of the vehicle didn't appear to be intoxicated and he wasn't arrested pending further investigation.
However, officials had his blood drawn to be tested as a matter of protocol.
Zepeda leaves behind his wife Quintana, who created a GoFundMe account to raise funds for his funeral arrangements, and his unborn child.
Zepeda's motorcycle crashed near Highland Avenue after he was thrown off it
Police say the driver of the vehicle didn't appear to be intoxicated and he wasn't immediately arrested pending further investigation. This graphic shows the series of events that led to the tragic accident
Authorities shut down the road surrounding the crash scene for several hours as crews worked to repair the pole. Zepeda is pictured at a track on his motorcycle
'Fabian Zepeda was a loving son, husband, brother, and friend. He was the most caring, loving, family orientated unique individual who always managed to care for others before himself,' she wrote.
The couple had only been married for one year and Quintana was expecting their first child.
'On Jan. 2017, we found out we were expecting our first child. I am now 4 months pregnant with our baby girl. I am very happy to keep a little blessing from my husband,' she wrote online.
Authorities shut down the road surrounding the crash scene for several hours as crews worked to repair the pole.
Police said they will conduct a joint investigation with San Bernardino County sheriffs deputies.
Authorities said Zepeda (pictured) was decapitated when he drove into the wire that stretched across the road
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The doctor dragged from an overbooked United Airlines flight says the treatment he received at the hands of 'storm trooper' police officers was more horrifying than when he fled Vietnam during the fall of Saigon.
David Dao's attorney, Thomas Demetrio, revealed that the 69-year-old grandfather had been left with a broken nose, concussion and lost two front teeth as he was forcibly removed from the flight from Chicago to Louisville, Kentucky, on Sunday night.
His daughter, Crystal Dao Pepper, said her father was 'healing right now' and told how 'prayers and support' had come from around the world.
Pepper and Demetrio spoke at a press conference in Chicago and revealed that the scale of his injuries meant Dr Dao was only released from hospital on Wednesday night - and is still to undergo further reconstructive surgery.
Demetrio, who confirmed Dr Dao plans to sue the airline, launched a scathing attack on United, and further wounded its crisis-hit CEO Oscar Munoz, revealing that a claim the company boss had made that it had reached out to the doctor was untrue.
And he also thrust Rahm Emanuel, Chicago's Democratic mayor into the firing line as the City of Chicago employs the unarmed cops used by the airline to drag Dr Dao from the plane.
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Attorney Thomas Demetrio (pictured) launched into an attack on the airline, while defending Dr David Dao during a press conference in Chicago on Thursday morning
Crystal Pepper (pictured) also spoke to reporters in Chicago on Thursday morning, thanking those from 'around the world' who have supported her father and her family
Attorney Thomas Demetrio launched into an attack on the airline, while defending his client during a press conference in Chicago on Thursday morning.
What happened to my dad should have never happened to any human being under any circumstance. We were horrified, shocked and sickened to see what happened to him and what he had to go through. We hope that in the future nothing like this happens again. Thank you so much again for your support. Crystal Dao Pepper, Dr Dao's daughter
'Here's the law pure and simple. If you are going to eject a passenger, under no circumstance, can it be done with unreasonable force or violence,' he said.
'If unreasonable force of violence is used the common carrier United Airlines in this case is responsible.
'For each of us in this room we owe each other a reasonable care standard.
'I'm not to be careless and hurt you but in the world of common carriers, they have the highest duty of care to provide protection and safety to its fare-paying passengers.
'As we all saw on the video - that was not done.
'And I would defy anyone to suggest there was not unreasonable force and violence used to help Dr Dao disembark that plane.'
The lawyer then went onto to describe how his client, who fled Vietnam at the end of the war, had told him he was more fearful on Sunday night than he was when Saigon fell in 1975.
'He told me that he had left Vietnam in 1975 when Saigon fell and he was on a boat and he said he was terrified,' Demetrio said.
'He said that when they were dragging him down the aisle it was more horrifying than what he experience in leaving Vietnam.'
Pepper (pictured) added: 'We were completely horrified and shocked to what happened to my father when we learned of the incident'
Now he's in the firing line too: Democratic Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel is the ultimate boss of the unarmed police officers who dragged Dr Dao from the plane in an incident which left him badly injured. The doctor's attorney said a statement by United that he had tried to strike law enforcement was false
Vietnamese civilians are seen being carried to safety aboard the USS Blue Ridge in April 1975 after an evacuation in Saigon. Demetrio said Dr Dao compared him experience escaping Saigon to being dragged off the United flight
He added the concussion was so severe, Dao did not remember what exactly occurred when he was removed from the flight, including when he got back on the plane.
Demetrio described the three officers as 'storm troopers' and said: 'Were they doing the right thing? No.
'This was not a troubled passenger, a nutjob, this was not a threat to anybody. Should he have been unceremoniously dragged out? No. This is a 69-year-old man is this really the way we want to treat the aged?'
He went on: 'Just because United is responsible doesn't meant the City of Chicago isn't also responsible. But more than one can be responsible for a single event.'
A focus on the City of Chicago puts Mayor Emanuel, once President Obama's chief of staff, in the line of fire over the United incident for the first time.
The three officers were not named and have been suspended - although initially only one was removed from duty. Chicago city authorities have not revealed if they had any previous disciplinary offenses.
When asked about a statement unearthed by DailyMail.com earlier this week where United stated that Dr Dao had tried to strike the officers, his attorney responded: 'He didn't try to strike anyone. He just wanted to go home.'
Dr Dao and his wife Teresa were on the flight as they returned to their home in Elizabethtown, outside Louisville, after a vacation in California. Dr Dao was ordered off the plane when his name was selected to make way for four United staff members.
Hours before the press conference, another passenger on the plane had told how one of the officers was laughing during the incident.
But the focus of the lawyer's criticism was on United. Also at the press conference was Stephen Golan, a corporate law specialist who is also representing the doctor.
'For a long time airlines, United in particular, have bullied us. They have treated us less than maybe we deserve,' he said.
'I conclude that what, based upon hundreds, literally hundreds, of tales of woe of United that here is what we want as a society: we want fairness in how people treat us, we want respect, and we want dignity.
'That's it. It seems so simple. Forget the law for a second just treat us with respect, make us feel like you really care.
'I must say I do not believe this is limited to the airline industry. I think corporate America needs to understand we all want to be treated in the same manner they treat their own family members.
'So, our role, going forward will be to just get the facts. And to get them out. We're going to be vocal about the whole subject of what we as a society say passengers are entitled to.
'Are we going to just continue to be treated like cattle - bullied, given rude treatment?
Thomas Demetrio is pictured speaking to reporters in Chicago on Thursday morning about the Dr David Dao incident
Crystal Dao Pepper (middle) leaves a press conference at the Union League Club in downtown Chicago on Thursday morning
WHAT INJURIES DID DR DAVID DAO SUFFER? ' Significant' concussion Broken nose Sinus injury Lost two front teeth Requires 'reconstructive surgery' Advertisement
'We all have enough angst for flying as it is... But don't treat the people who help make you the corporate entity you are like Dr Dao was treated.
He also said a lawsuit will 'probably' be filed against United, and that the airline has not 'reached out' to Dr Dao in the wake of the incident.
Demetrio also spoke about United CEO Oscar Munoz's multiple press conference and apologies since the incident.
'Yesterday Mr Munoz gave an interview, he was asked point blank: 'Did Dr Dao do anything wrong?'' he told the reporters.
'You know what he did? He hesitated. Then he regrouped and said no, Dr Dao did nothing wrong. That no one should have been treated the way Dr Dao was.
Dr David Dao is pictured bleeding from the mouth (left) after he was body slammed by cops and dragged off (right) the overbooked United flight at Chicago O'Hare
'Stating the obvious. But he didn't say it initially. Initially he backed up his people. And that may be part of the problem - it's us versus them.'
Munoz's reputation has been battered by the crisis, the company's share price has fallen and shows no sign of recovery, and he even is facing questions over whether someone was removed from a flight simply to make way for him. His predecessor had to quit because of a corruption investigation.
Demetrio delivered a further blow to his and his company's PR reputation as he raised questions over whether Munoz was telling the truth during an interview on Wednesday with GMA when he claimed to have reached out to the doctor.
Demetrio said that he had not heard from Oscar Munoz or his representatives, neither had the Dao family, and said that when Munoz stated this during an interview, he believed that he 'misspoke'. He declined to use the term lie.
'RESPECT US': DR DAO's LAWYER'S AIRLINE BLAST For a long time airlines, United in particular, have bullied us. They have treated us less than maybe we deserve,' he said. I conclude that what, based upon hundreds, literally hundreds, of tales of woe of United that here is what we want as a society: we want fairness in how people treat us, we want respect, and we want dignity. That's it. It seems so simple. Forget the law for a second just treat us with respect, make us feel like you really care. I must say I do not believe this is limited to the airline industry. I think corporate America needs to understand we all want to be treated in the same manner they treat their own family members. Hopefully this lawsuit will create an international discussion on how we are going to be treated going forward. We have to figure out, United has to figure out, the airline industry has to figure out. What are we going to do? Maybe airlines need to start expecting the unexpected, but not at the expense certainly not at the physical expense of its paying passengers Advertisement
The attorney also acknowledged Dr Dao's past.
He was revealed to be a convicted felon who had obtained prescription drugs illegally, taking some himself, and giving others to a patient half his age in return for gay sex.
His wife had reported him to authorities and he was sentence to five years in prison which was suspended in favor of probation, lost his medical license, was assessed as having control issues and is now only allowed to practice one day a week after anger management therapy, drug testing and polygraphing.
But the attorney said that his client was 69 and had experienced 'bumps in the road' and added that the focus of the law would exclusively be what had happened on the plane.
There had also been claims that Dr Dao's race was an element. So widespread were the claims that when he was initially wrongly identified as Chinese, the story became a sensation in China, and there remain calls for a boycott of United which has lucrative routes to Asia.
But Demetrio dismissed a question suggesting the incident was racially-motivated, saying: 'I do not think this is a matter of race at all. I don't think that's the case at all, what happened to Dr Dao could have happened to any one of us.'
'And we're them. Dr Dao, to his great credit, has come to understand he is the guy. He is the guy to stand up for customers going forward.'
It was also revealed during the press conference that Dr Dao's wife Teresa was told to leave the plane after he was dragged off, his other attorney, Stephen Golan, said. It is unclear why that was the case.
Earlier, Dr Dao's daughter spoke about the horror of seeing her father being physically abused.
Crystal Dao Pepper spoke to reporters in Chicago on Thursday morning, firstly thanking those from 'around the world' who have supported her father and her family in recent days.
'On behalf of my dad and my entire family, we would like to express our gratitude for the huge outpouring of prayers, love and concern we have received,' she said.
'We would also like to thank all the nursing staff, physicians and staff who have taken care of my dad.
'It has been a very difficult time for my entire family, we are truly grateful for your support.'
She added: 'We were completely horrified and shocked to what happened to my father when we learned of the incident.
'Seeing it on video made those emotions exacerbated. We hope in the future nothing like this happens again.'
Chicago city, which Demetrio said had also not contacted the attorneys and family, is also potentially involved in any lawsuit as the airport police who removed Dao from the plane are employed by the city.
Video has emerged showing Dr David Dao arguing with police and a flight attendant just moments before he was dragged off an overbooked United flight in Chicago on Sunday night
Dr David Dao is the man who was dragged from a United flight in Chicago on Sunday. He is pictured with his wife, Teresa, and their grandchildren
Chicago's Aviation Department said on Wednesday that two more officers had been placed on leave in connection with the incident. One officer was placed on leave on Tuesday.
CRYSTAL DAO PEPPER'S STATEMENT On behalf of my dad and my entire family, we would like to express our gratitude for the huge outpouring of prayers, love and concern we have received from all over the world these past few days. We would also like to thank all the nursing staff, physicians and staff who have taken care of my dad. It has been a very difficult time for my entire family, we are truly grateful for your support. What happened to my dad should never happen to a human regardless of circumstance. We were completely horrified and shocked to what happened to my father when we learned of the incident. Seeing it on video made those emotions exacerbated. My dad is healing right now. We hope in the future nothing like this happens again. Advertisement
Chicago's aviation officers are not part of the regular police force, unlike in many other big cities. They get less training than regular officers and can't carry firearms inside the airports.
Alderman Chris Taliaferro said he was concerned the incident 'really has put at risk' aviation officers.
The comment was made ahead of a meeting where the City Council is expected to ask a series of questions stemming from the incident, including whether the airport officers even had the legal authority to board the plane.
'They are allowed in the terminal and baggage area, but my understanding is they may not be allowed on a plane,' Alderman Michael Zalewski, who leads the council's aviation committee, said.
An Aviation Department spokeswoman did not respond to questions about the duties of the aviation police force, but Zalewski said the question will be put to the agency's commissioner.
The department will also be asked about training. Zalewski said airport officers receive four months of training compared with the six months cadets must complete before joining the city's police department.
'We don't know what that two-month gap means,' he said, adding that he will ask if the airport officers receive the same kind of training in de-escalating tense situations that city police officers get.
The roughly 300 aviation police officers earn between $50,000 and $88,000 a year and cost the city about $19 million a year. They are city employees but not members of the Chicago Police Department.
It comes as legal experts predicted Dao would be in a strong position in any potential suit, given the wide public outrage over the incident.
United's CEO Oscar Munoz (pictured) has been forced to issue a series of statements and apologies about the incident, and on Wednesday he announced a change to United policy.
'United is looking at a legal claim, but they're also looking at a huge public relations and business problem,' Justin Green, a partner at the law firm Kreindler & Kreindler in New York who represents airline passengers, said.
'United, if they're smart, will quickly and quietly settle the case.'
Prior to the press conference, it was revealed Dr Dao's lawyers had already taken preliminary steps toward filing a lawsuit.
On Wednesday they filed an emergency motion in Cook County Circuit Court asking a judge to ensure the airline and city preserve surveillance video showing passengers boarding Flight 3411 to Louisville.
They're also seeking cockpit voice recordings, incident reports and other materials.
It comes after Dr Dao told local reporters in Louisville earlier this week that 'everything' hurt after the ordeal.
The doctor was bleeding from the face in videos of the incident, and his head could clearly be seen being slammed into an armrest.
United was blasted over the incident, as Dr Dao became a sympathetic figure for most - if not all - who saw the shocking footage.
The airline's CEO was forced to issue a series of statements and apologies about the incident, and on Wednesday he announced a change to United policy.
Munoz told GMA the airline would never again call in police officers to haul a passenger from an overbooked flight.
He also said during the interview he was 'ashamed' when he saw the video.
United announced Wednesday passengers on United Express Flight 3411 would be compensated with cash, travel credits or miles in an amount equal to the cost of their tickets.
A mother wearing a 'Support Your Local Bartender' tank top drove drunk with her six-year-old son in the car and crashed.
Ladion L. Logan, 31 of Jamaica, Queens, hit a parked car near Jerusalem and Uniondale avenues in Uniondale, Long Island, Wednesday evening.
She then fought with responding officers before she was arrested on driving while intoxicated charges, police say.
As officers investigated, they say that Logan began yelling and cursing at the them.
Ladion L. Logan, 31 of Jamaica, Queens, drove drunk with her six-year-old son in the car and crashed in Uniondale, Long Island
After a struggle, she was placed under arrest and it was determined she had been driving drunk.
Logan's six-year-old son was in the car at the time of the accident, but was unharmed. He was released to the care of family members.
Logan was charged with aggravated driving while intoxicated - Leandra's Law - resisting arrest and endangering the welfare of a child.
She was scheduled to be arraigned on Thursday in First District Court in Hempstead.
Attorney information for Logan was not made immediately available, according to NBC New York.
A Muslim educator has argued only Islamic scholars should interpret the Quran after a video surfaced of Islamic women condoning domestic violence.
The video showed female members of the hardline political group Hizb ut-Tahrir describe beating women as a 'beautiful blessing' in a discussion in Sydney's west.
At one point, the headscarf-clad pair even demonstrated how to use a small stick called a 'sivaak' to hit 'disobedient' women.
The women, Reem Allouche and Atika Latifi, claimed to be quoting the Quran verse about wives that reads: 'leave them alone in sleeping places and beat them'.
But another Sydney Muslim, Silma Ihram, said the passage was taken out of context and it shows that reading the Quran should be left to experts, reports Sky News.
Silma Ihram said the passage was taken out of context it shows that reading the Quran should be left to the experts
'You are taking a passage of the Quaran out of its context and trying to act as an Islamic scholar,' Ms Ihram said.
When asked about the correct interpretation of the quote, she argued it was not her place to say.
'That is for a scholar to do and not for you or meWhat you're trying to do is take an isolated verse and quote out of context of where it's supposed to be embedded.'
'You're trying to apply an English understanding of that particular verse as a standalone verse which is not what any scholar would do.'
'If you look at the example of the prophet, if you look at the teachings of the scholars, you will find that there is nothing in that verse that permits any kind of domestic abuse.'
Political leaders have condemned the video posted on Facebook by Women of Hizb ut-Tahrir Australia.
Muslim men are allowed to hit their wives if they disobey them and domestic violence is a 'beautiful blessing', according to the women's branch of a radical Islamic group
Minister for Women Michaelia Cash said the video was abhorrent.
'As far as this government is concerned, violence is violence, murder is murder, it does not matter if you put the word domestic or family in front of it,' she said on Thursday.
'On behalf of the Turnbull government, I absolutely condemn the statements made and the video that has been made by these women. It is absolutely abhorrent that in 2017 in Australia, anyone would be condoning violence against women.'
Labor MP Ed Husic, the first Muslim elected to federal parliament, said the behaviour described in the video was unacceptable.
'It's not acceptable in any form to strike anyone, either between husband and wife, or anywhere,' he said in Sydney.
'Violence is not an answer or acceptable outcome whatsoever and I believe they are right to describe it as thus.'
In a video of the debate, which has been posted on Facebook, Ms Allouche says men should use the sivaak to punish their wives.
She then uses one of the sticks to hit Ms Latifi while the pair burst into laughter.
Sydney primary school teacher Reem Allouche (left) told the women's arm of hardline Islamist political group Hizb ut-Tahrir that men are permitted to hit women with sticks
Other permissible methods to punish women involve using a twisted scarf or piece of fabric, the women say.
Ms Allouche says the act is 'symbolic', while Ms Latifi claims it's 'a beautiful blessing'.
The women agree that they should only be beaten if they are caught 'committing sin' - pointing out that this means seriously disrespecting Allah or their husbands.
'Disobedience to the husband. Immoral acts or cheating. Admitting anyone to the home that the husband doesn't like,' Ms Latifi explains.
Ms Allouche smiles as she adds that does not mean a man can beat his wife simply for not cooking dinner, with the women agreeing that violence should only be used to 'promote tranquility'.
The pair agree that men have the right to beat their wives because husbands take a 'leadership' position within the family.
During the 30-minute discussion at a meeting Sydney's west, Ms Allouche and fellow panellist Atika Latifi (right) describe how beating women is a 'symbolic act'
The all-women meeting was held in Lakemba in Sydney's inner west, The Australian reported.
The government considered banning Hizb ut-Tahrir in 2007 but eventually deemed it to be a political group.
Islamic leader Keysar Trad apologised at the weekend for saying hitting women was a 'last resort', admitting to Sky News presenter Andrew Bolt that he had made a 'slip up'.
A mother elephant and her calf were hauled to their feet by villagers using a tractor after getting caught in a drought.
The 20-year-old female and her child came to the Palayam forest range in Coimbatore, India, on April 7, in search of water and food.
The elephant had become so dehydrated that she collapsed on the ground.
The 20-year-old female and her child came to the Palayam forest range in Coimbatore, India, on April 7, in search of water and food
Her baby, however, stood by her side all through and kept trying to help the mother stand up.
When a patrolling team saw the elephant in distress the next morning, they informed their seniors officials about the sighting.
Forest rangers aided by local villagers managed to pull the elephant back to her feet after around 50 hours.
Dr. K.Ashokan, a vet, said: 'We immediately rushed to spot and provided with the all necessary medical treatment to the ailing elephant.
'Around 30 bottles of glucose and painkillers were administered. Luckily, the baby elephant was all fine and he did cooperate with us.
'The calf also helped his mother to stand up. The jumbo was too heavy, so we took a help of an earth mover.'
Forest rangers aided by local villagers managed to pull the elephant back to her feet after around 50 hours
Dr. K.Ashokan, a vet, said: 'We immediately rushed to spot and provided with the all necessary medical treatment to the ailing elephant.' Pictured: The animal back on her feet
As the rescue operation continued, the forest rangers and villagers ensured that the baby and mother are well fed.
They offered jackfruit, bananas and coconut leaves to the mother-son duo.
'It took twenty one hours to cure the elephant. My team and villagers worked in tandem day and night and we finally we got success around 3 pm on April 9,' said Dr Ashokan.
For the past one and a half years, the area has received scant rain that resulted in dried up well and parched forest.
This is probably the reason why more and more wild animals are coming out of the forest and clashing with humans for water and food.'
Two police officers are being sued for $412,500 over an allegation they assaulted a woman while off duty at a wedding and pulled down her dress leaving her naked to the waist.
According to court documents, Jessica Stradley is suing officers Patrick Mawdsley and Matthew Ginnow as well as Portland Police over the incident which happened on August 22, 2015.
Stradley claims she was at the wedding in Boring, Oregon. The groom was a serving member of the police department and a large number of officers were guests 'and virtually all of them had been drinking alcohol for a number of hours'.
Jessica Stradley claimed off-duty Portland police pulled down the top of his dress during the wedding reception of an officer after she was wrongly accused of stealing a purse
Stradley claims she was pushed to the ground and suffered a bang to her head
Court documents show Stradley is seeking $412,500 in damages from the two officers
Jessica Stradley is suing officers Patrick Mawdsley and Matthew Ginnow as well as Portland Police over the incident which happened on August 22, 2015. She is seen above in a Facebook photo wearing the dress
Stradley said a wife of a police officer accused her of trying to steal a purse which was sticking out of her handbag.
According to court documents she tried to explain that someone had placed it there mistakenly and tried to place it on a table.
It is alleged that the wife told her husband and several police officers including Mawdsley and Ginnow 'immediately attacked'.
Stradley's husband Cory said some of the officer described them as 'a bunch of f****** Russians.
He claimed it was stupid to think anyone would try and steal a purse of someone attending a police wedding.
It is alleged one of the officer pushed Mrs Stadley into a second officer who pushed her to the ground.
Another is alleged to have said: 'I'm going to 'F****** kill you.'
It is claimed that after Stradley returned to her feet, she was pushed over by an officer into a pole and suffered a cut to her head.
Stradley has also included Portland Police in the civil lawsuit, file photograph
A glimpse of the dress can be seen above in this Facebook photo
The court document claimed as she tried to walk away 'one of the officers pulled down on her strapless dress, exposing her down to the waist'.
When leaving the house, she told the officers she was going to call the police.
It is claimed they responded: 'Go ahead and call the f****** police. We are the police.'
Mr Stradley claimed when he tried to get the names of the officers involved, one responded: 'Go ahead and call Clackamas County, I'll tell them your wife punched me in the face. What do you think they're going to believe, you guys, or a bunch of cops.'
Another said: 'We know Clackamas County deputy sheriffs, we know lots of them , and they'll be happy to come down and do a report.'
Mrs Stradley claims following the incident she has suffered from 'pain, humiliation, indignity, fear, intrusive thoughts, heightened vigilance, symptoms of brain injury, bruising and battering injuries about her body and an injury to her left shoulder.
According to the court documents, she is seeking $400,000 in non-economic damages and a further $12,500 in economic damages plus costs from Mawdlsey, Ginnow and the City of Portland.
An elderly woman with a degenerative bone disease and severe arthritis was left 'in distress and pain' after a flight from LA turned into a 16-hour ordeal thanks to callous United staff, her granddaughter has claimed.
Australian Paz Orquiza, then 94 was returning from what will likely be her last-ever visit to family in Los Angeles on February 2 when her troubles began.
Orquiza's family had booked her a $3,596.24 business class ticket so she could fly in comfort. Her daughter, Rose Benedicto, was to fly in economy, and help out with feeding and chair adjustments.
But when they got on the plane, staff said Benedicto wouldn't be allowed to leave economy to help - and staff wouldn't help either, her granddaughter said.
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Frail: Paz Orquiza (left on the plane and right in the bed where she spends most of her day), 94, endured 16 hours of agony on an LA-Australia flight in February because United staff wouldn't let family help her, forcing her to move from her $3,600 business seat to economy, family said
Denied: Orquiza's daughter, Rose (right), was told she couldn't step in from economy on occasion to help her mom. Orquiza has a degenerative bone disease and severe arthritis
In her Facebook post, granddaughter Marianne Santos Aguilar says that the family had no problems with Orquiza's flight from Melbourne, Australia, to LA,
There, the crew made 'every effort' to ensure a comfortable flight, she said, and Benedicto was allowed to help out Orquiza with tasks such as opening food and reclining seats.
But on the return flight, staff were far less helpful.
The flight attendant, 'without any sympathy or compassion,' told Benedicto that she could either take Orquiza to economy class, buy a business-class ticket for another flight or leave the elderly woman to suffer.
And so the 94-year-old - who spends most of her days bedbound - was moved to the more cramped economy class.
'My aunt tried to comfort my grandmother, who was in tears, and was horrified to see how much pain she had to endure during this flight,' Aguilar wrote.
'Upon arrival to Australia, my grandma's legs had swollen, she suffered from a stiff neck and her whole body ached.'
'She was in great distress and pain from this ordeal. She was prescribed stronger pain medication and Valium to help with sleep.
'Our family is heartbroken that this painful plane ride back to Melbourne will be the last memory of our trip for my grandma, and this has ruined an otherwise incredible family reunion,' she added.
Last trip: Orquiza (bottom-left in pink shirt) had been visiting family (also pictured) in LA for what will probably be her last-ever trip, her granddaughter said
Pained: Orquiza (pictured on another day) had swollen legs and an aching body, and was left in tears, her family said. They said they had no problems on the initial flight from Australia to LA
Orquiza, who turned 95 on February 28, suffered pains for a week after the flight, she said.
But speaking to DailyMail.com on Thursday, Aguilar said she is now in good health.
However, she said, the elderly woman 'does not like to be in the spotlight' and so being moved in front of other passengers 'may be something that will stay with her forever.'
She added: 'My grandma is a strong woman and for her be in tears on that flight upsets the whole family.'
Aguilar also said that the airline had offered to refund $860 of the $3,600 ticket, and had given the family $500 in airline credit that they do not intend to use.
She said United told her the refund was a 'fare adjustment to reflect the cabin change' - but said that the numbers did not appear to add up.
The family has still not received the refund, two-and-a-half months after the incident, she said. They received an email two days ago saying it would take several more weeks.
United Airlines has been contacted for comment.
Aguilar's remarks are part of flurry of bad press that has struck United in the wake of Sunday's violent ejection of Dr David Dao from a United plane after he was told to leave because it was overbooked.
Donald Trump is reportedly leaning on the counsel of prominent Wall Street banker Stephen Schwarzman as he swings his policy platform to the political center.
Schwarzman, a long-time Trump friend, is talking with the president several times each week, according to insiders who spoke with Politico.
The inside-the-beltway newspaper reported that the Blackstone Group hedge fund billionaire was instrumental in convincing Trump not to roll back an Obama-era 'Dreamers' program that protects children of illegal immigrants from deportation.
And Schwarzman was recently at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort club in Florida. He spoke with the president about how to reorganize White House personnel.
Stephen Schwarzman, CEO and co-founder of Blackstone, is increasingly becomg a Trump-whisperer as he speaks with the president several times a week
Trump held a meeting on Tuesday with CEOs from General Motors, PepsiCo, General Electric, IBM, Wal-Mart; Schwarzman sat at his left hand
Trump's informal kitchen cabinet is increasingly chock full of CEOs, a development that is in keeping with his familiarity with New York's elites but sometimes rubs his lower-middle-class base the wrong way.
The West Wing is undergoing a Game of Thrones-type power struggle, with son-in-law Jared Kushner arguing for more centrist positions.
That trend would favor business titans in the president's personal circle of influence, many of whom are Democrats.
He was elected on the strength of a populist uprising from 'America First' conservatives and disaffected nationalists in the U.S. heartland.
Their chief advocate in the White House has been strategist Steve Bannon, whose power is said to be on the wane as Kushner's star rises.
Financial titans Gary Cohn (left), Dina Powell (center) and Steve Mnuchin (right) are now working in the Trump White House and are among his most influential advisers
Also gaining influence are Council of Economic Advisors Chairman Gary Cohn, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, and National Security Council deputy Dina Powell.
All of them hail from New York City billionaire circles. Cohn is a life-long Democrat.
Mnuchin, another hedge fund manager, chose Hillary Clinton fundraiser Craig Phillips to helm the Treasury's fresh look at economic regulations.
'The president is a business person, so he's very comfortable being around business people and he learns best by talking to people and observing things,' Schwarzman told Politico on Tuesday.
'He likes being with business people who have run businesses that are bigger than his. It's just a highly supportive environment, whether it's Gary Cohn or Jared, certainly Steve Mnuchin and Wilbur Ross and Dina Powell, these are all people whove had very similar experiences.'
A scorpion fell from an overhead bin and stung a man on a United Airlines flight from Houston to Calgary.
The news comes after the airline sparked outrage earlier in the week when a video surfaced of a passenger being dragged off an overbooked United Express flight.
Richard and Linda Bell were on United flight 1418 flying home through Houston from a vacation in Mexico when a feisty, eight-legged creature showed up.
The scorpion fell on Mr. Bell's head from the overhead compartment.
Richard and Linda Bell were on United flight 1418 flying home through Houston from a vacation in Mexico when a feisty, scorpion showed up
The scorpion fell on Mr. Bell's (right) head from the overhead compartment. Mrs. Bell (left) said she initially thought it looked like a lobster
Mrs. Bell told Global News that it reminded her of something else entirely. She said: 'I looked down and I thought, 'aw, it kind of looks like a little lobster'.'
The creature was about an inch-and-a-half long, and honey-colored.
After the scorpion fell onto Richard's plate, he picked it up and it stung him.
'It felt like a wasp sting,' he reportedly told Global News.
Another passenger then stomped on the scorpion before it was thrown in a toilet.
The airline crew immediately consulted with a physician on the ground who provided guidance throughout the incident. The company said the man's injuries were non-life threatening.
'Medical personnel met the aircraft after it arrived in Calgary,' United spokesman Charles Hobart told CNBC.
On Sunday, a viral video surfaced of a passenger, Dr. David Dao, being dragged off of an overbooked United flight.
United CEO Oscar Munoz at first supported the action. Later, he apologized 'for having to re-accommodate these customers'.
Police in New York City announced on Thursday there were no signs of foul play in the death of the United States' first female Muslim judge after her body was found on the bank of the Hudson River in an apparent suicide.
Medical examiners are still planning to perform an autopsy on 65-year-old Sheila Abdus-Salaam to determine the exact cause of death.
The NYPD harbor unit retrieved the woman's fully clothed body from the Hudson on Wednesday, a day after her husband of less than a year reported her missing.
Apparent suicide: NYPD said on Thursday no signs of foul play were found in the death of Judge Sheila Abdus-Salaam, whose body was spotted floating in the Hudson River Wednesday
The 65-year-old woman was dressed in a gray sweater over a T-shirt, black sweatpants and a pair of New Balance sneakers. She wore a white watch on her wrist.
She still had a MetroCard in her pocket, and there were no obvious signs of trauma on her body suggesting foul play, the New York Times reported.
An unnamed law enforcement official familiar with the case shared with the Times that Judge Adbus-Salaam called her chambers in Midtown Manhattan on Tuesday morning to notify the staff she would not be coming in because she was unwell.
When the judge failed to show up for work the next day, her aide sent a text message to her husband, who then called 911 to report her missing.
She was last seen alive leaving her office on Monday evening. Investigators were able to retrace her steps, determining that she took a No 6 train at around 8pm.
Abdus-Salaam's apparent decision to end her life came after several tragic events that occurred in her life in recent years.
About three years ago, the judge's brother committed suicide, the newspaper reported. Then in April 2016, Abdus-Salaam lost her mother.
A police source speaking to the New York Daily News on Thursday said the newlywed judge was struggling with depression.
Abdus-Salaam was a classmate of former Attorney General Eric Holder at Columbia Law School and has been hailed as a pioneer after her rise from a working-class family in Washington DC.
The divorcee had recently remarried an Episcopal reverend, according to the New York Daily News.
The 65-year-old judge (pictured with NY Governor Andrew Cuomo) was found fully clothed, with no obvious signs of trauma suggesting foul play, the New York Post reported
Witnesses noticed Abdus-Salaam's body floating in the water near 132nd Street and Hudson Parkway in Manhattan at around 1.45pm and called 911, police said.
The 65-year-old, who had been reported missing from her Harlem home the day before, was removed from the river and pronounced dead at the pier before her husband identified her body.
Abdus-Salaam was noted for being the first African-American woman to serve on New York's Court of Appeals when she was appointed by Governor Andrew Cuomo in 2013.
The judge was divorced and recently remarried Reverend Gregory Jacobs in June
Cuomo issued a statement on Wednesday, memorializing her as a 'trailblazing jurist whose life in public service was in pursuit of a more fair and more just New York for all'.
He added: 'As the first African-American woman to be appointed to the States Court of Appeals, she was a pioneer.
'Through her writings, her wisdom, and her unshakable moral compass, she was a force for good whose legacy will be felt for years to come.
'I was proud to appoint her to the states highest court and am deeply saddened by her passing.
'On behalf of all New Yorkers, I extend my deepest sympathies to her family, loved ones and colleagues during this trying and difficult time.'
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio also paid tribute, writing: 'Deeply saddened by the tragic passing of Sheila Abdus-Salaam. She was a humble pioneer. My thoughts are with her family.'
The judge was divorced and remarried Reverend Gregory Jacobs of the Episcopal Archdiocese of Newark, in June, the Daily News reported.
The couple were said to be very happy, and chose to live in separate homes, a neighbor said.
Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill deBlasio paid tribute to Abdus-Salaam, who was hailed as a 'humble pioneer'
The 65-year-old had been reported missing, and her husband identified her body after witnesses called 911
Abdus-Salaam, who was born Sheila Turner in 1952, was one of seven children.
She grew up in Washington DC with working-class parents and was inspired to pursue law after the civil rights attorney Frankie Muse Freeman visited her high school.
The judge recounted the life-changing talk and said: 'She was riveting... she was doing what I wanted to do: using the law to help people.'
Abdus-Salaam, who later referred to a career in law as 'God's work', graduated from Barnard College in 1974 and received her law degree from Columbia three years later.
She was classmates with former US Attorney Eric Holder, who said during her swearing in ceremony in 2013: 'Sheila could boogie, but there was a seriousness about her, a strong sense of purpose at a relatively young age.'
'She never forgot where she came from,' he added.
She was classmates with former US Attorney Eric Holder, who said during her swearing in ceremony in 2013 (pictured): 'Sheila could boogie, but there was a seriousness about her.'
Abdus-Salaam, who traced her family's history and learned her great-grandfather was a slave in Virginia, marveled at the trajectory of her life in 2014.
She said: 'All the way from Arrington, Virginia, where my family was the property of someone else, to my sitting on the highest court of the State of New York is amazing and huge.
'It tells you and me what it is to know who we are and what we can do.'
Abdus-Salaam worked as an attorney before she began her career as a judge in the Civil Court of the City of New York in 1992.
She joined the Supreme Court of New York County in 1993 before she was appointed to the highest court 20 years later, where she served until her death.
Chief Judge Janet DiFiore said her colleague will be 'missed deeply.'
Flash
Guizhou province will roll out a series of new tourism policies to attract travelers from far and wide in the coming months.
The southwestern province will offer tourists from Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei as well as travelers from outside the mainland free tickets to major scenic spots between April 29 and May 16, Guizhou tourism development commission's director Li Sanqi says at a tourism promotion event in Beijing early April.
The tickets will half-price from May 17 to June 10.
Self-drivers from Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei in cars with less than seven passengers will pay no highway charge in Guizhou during April 29-May 16.
Air flights connecting Guizhou to the three northern sites will be discounted from April 29 to June 10, and some prices will be more than 50 percent off.
The province is also inviting veteran travelers and travel business operators from countries and regions along the Road and Belt, such as Vietnam, Cambodia and the Philippines, to experience local tourism resources and plan optimized tour packages and tips. The campaign will be ongoing through September.
The idea is to build an image of Guizhou among foreign guests, according to Li.
The province witnessed more than 40 percent growth in both the number of visitors and tourism income in 2016.
Guizhou boasts majestic landscape scenery and diverse ethnic elements and is an important hub connecting central and southern China.
Dailyn Cruz Abrera (pictured) was arrested Wednesday and charged with killing her three-month-old son, Lucas Paez Cruz
A Kentucky woman has been charged with murdering her infant son.
Dailyn Cruz Abrera, of Louisville, was arrested Wednesday and charged with killing her three-month-old son, Lucas Paez Cruz.
The arrest warrant says the 26-year-old woman called dispatchers on March 30 and told them she had smothered her baby.
According to the dispatchers, she also 'wanted to know the fastest way to die'.
Louisville officers responded to the home and found the boy dead in a bed.
Authorities said Abrera was distraught when officers arrived at the Fountain Square Apartments in West Buechel.
She then told them she smothered the crying baby to death.
'She admitted to intentionally killing her child,' Homicide detective Chris Rutherford told WAVE 3.
Upon arrival to the police station, Abrera made a full confession to what happened.
Online jail records show the mother was being held in the Louisville jail on a $500,000 cash bond.
Rutherford said the mother was the only one in the apartment with the child at the time but that she also lived with her parents.
Authorities have not released complete details or a motive for the killing. Abrera is due back in court on April 24.
Britain's spy agencies reportedly played a crucial role in revealing that President Donald Trump's campaign team was in contact with Russian intelligence operatives.
Once officials in the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) learned of suspicious 'interactions' between Trump's inner circle and suspected Russian agents in late 2015, they passed the information on to the United States.
The tip was passed on during a routine exchange of information, according to an intelligence insider.
During the following six months into 2016, a number of western agencies, including ones in Germany, Estonia and Poland, shared their own information about interactions between people close to Trump and Russians.
Officials in the GCHQ learned of suspicious 'interactions' between Trump's inner circle and suspected Russian agents in late 2015, and passed the information on to the United States.
It is believed that the GCHQ (pictured) never carried out a targeted operation against Trump or proactively sought information. The alleged interactions were picked up as part of routine surveillance of Russian intelligence assets
Australia, a member of the 'Five Eyes' spying alliance including the United States, UK, Canada and New Zealand, also shared material, a source told The Guardian.
It is believed that the GCHQ never carried out a targeted operation against Trump or proactively sought information.
The alleged interactions were picked up as part of routine surveillance of Russian intelligence assets.
It is believed that the Dutch and France's spy agency also passed over information.
Britain's MI6 also played a role in intelligence sharing, a source said, but the spy agency declined to comment.
Trump and his Republican supporters want FBI and Congressional investigations to target claims that Obama spied on his successor, rather than Moscow's interference in the election.
Trump has repeatedly called the Russian interference story 'fake news' while alleging, without offering evidence, that the previous administration of president Barack Obama spied on him and his campaign.
MI6's former chief Sir Richard Dearlove, described called Trump's wiretapping claims 'simply deeply embarrassing for Trump and the administration'.
'The only possible explanation is that Trump started tweeting without understanding how the NSA-GCHQ relationship actually works,' Dearlove told Prospect magazine.
His spokesman Sean Spicer complained Monday that US media was, in its focus on the Russia issue, pursuing the wrong story.
Trump's spokesman Sean Spicer complained Monday that US media was, in its focus on the Russia issue, pursuing the wrong story
Spicer has also falsely claimed that the 'British spying agency' GCHQ' has carried out surveillance of Trump during the campaign.
The allegations were called 'utterly ridiculous' by a GCHQ spokesman, who said the claims 'should be ignored'.
The United States and UK have said that the GCHQ did play an early role in prompting the FBI's Trump-Russia investigation in late July 2016.
The agency was a 'principal whistleblower', one insider told The Guardian.
It is believed that the FBI and CIA were slow to kickstart an investigation because US law prohibits them from surveilling private communications of American citizens without warrants.
'It looks like the [US] agencies were asleep,' a source told The Guardian. 'They [the European agencies] were saying: 'There are contacts going on between people close to Mr Trump and people we believe are Russian intelligence agents. You should be wary of this.''
'The message was: 'Watch out. There's something not right here.''
The White House on Wednesday tried to distance itself from a one-time campaign aide to Trump, Carter Page, after revelations that the FBI investigated him last year for ties to Russian intelligence.
The Washington Post reported that federal investigators obtained a rare warrant from the top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to monitor Page's communications -- the first confirmation of government surveillance of Trump's team.
The White House on Wednesday tried to distance itself from a one-time campaign aide to Trump, Carter Page (pictured), after revelations that the FBI investigated him last year for ties to Russian intelligence
During the 2016 election campaign, then candidate Trump personally referred to Page as one of his foreign policy advisors.
It has now emerged that federal prosecutors and an intelligence court judge at least suspected the former Moscow-based banker was also working for, or with, the Russians.
The White House rushed to play down Page's ties to Trump and the campaign.
One current official told AFP that Page never met Trump, did not have a campaign pass and was only mentioned as an advisor because the billionaire candidate was under pressure to show he had a policy brain trust.
The official admitted that Page could have written policy memos for the campaign, but his name was only on a list of supposed advisors because of a recommendation from Sam Clovis, an Iowa conservative now working in Trump's Department of Agriculture.
Russia-US ties following Trump's election have been shattered by the congressional investigation into alleged ties between Trump's campaign associates and Russia.
The tense back-and-forth over last week's deadly chemical attack in Syria has added to the strain.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow Wednesday that relations between Washington and Moscow, a key ally of the Damascus regime, were at a 'low point'.
Donald Trump took an optimistic tone toward US-Russia relations on Twitter Thursday hours after saying they were at an 'all time low'.
A federal judge whose unusual behavior preceded her mysterious removal from a string of cases was ordered to get treatment for alcoholism so severe a colleague believes she cannot take care of herself.
The chief judge for the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals ordered Judge Patricia Minaldi of Baton Rouge, Louisiana to complete at least 90 days of substance abuse treatment due to the severity of her alcoholism, court records released Thursday revealed.
Minaldi has been on medical leave since December. She has served as a judge in the Western District of Louisiana since her nomination in 2003 by then-President George W. Bush.
Last month, a federal magistrate who is a longtime friend of Minaldi filed a lawsuit challenging her mental and physical capacity to manage her personal and financial affairs.
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Judge Patricia Minaldi of Baton Rouge, Louisiana has been ordered to complete at least 90 days of substance abuse treatment due to the severity of her alcoholism
The suit against Minaldi - one that legal experts said could be unprecedented for the federal judiciary - has been sealed from public view.
Dozens of cases originally assigned to Minaldi have been reassigned to other judges since late December.
Court officials didn't explained why Minaldi was pulled off several cases, including one marred by mistakes in routine trial procedures.
On December 6, a criminal trial in Minaldi's courtroom was cut short without explanation before a jury could be picked to hear the case against a man charged with producing child pornography and crossing state lines to have sex with a minor.
In February 2016, Minaldi was pulled off another man's fraud case following a series of mistakes in routine trial procedures.
In January of 2014, Minaldi was arrested for first-offense DUI after officers stopped her and found what they believed to be a glass of white wine in her car
Court documents unsealed showed that even basic requirements - like telling jurors the burden of proof lies with prosecutors, not the defense - weren't followed.
In January of 2014, Minaldi was arrested for first-offense DUI after officers stopped her and found what they believed to be a glass of white wine in her car.
Dashcam video obtained by local news organizations showed her arguing with an officer and refusing to get out of her car before police arrested her outside her Lake Charles home.
She pleaded guilty in that case, expressing her remorse and telling a judge she wanted to 'accept responsibility,' and served one year of probation.
The Syrian father whose twins were gassed to death by Bashar al-Assad has begged world leaders not to fall for 'the lies of his criminal regime'.
Abdul Hamid al-Yousef, from the town of Khan Sheikhoun, lost 22 members of his family in the chemical attack last week, including young twins Ahmed and Aya.
Assad gave his first interview since the attack on Wednesday, in which he denied it had taken place and said videos of children dying could have been faked.
Speaking to Mail Online through his cousin Aya Fadl, who was also affected by the gas attack, Abdul Hamid said: 'I pray that all the governments of all the world do not believe the lies of this criminal regime.
'How can he pretend that they are not dead? How? We saw them. We buried them with our own hands.
Abdul Hamid al-Yousef, whose twins Ahmed and Aya were gassed to death is Syria last week, has lashed out at Bashar al-Assad after he said the attack was '100 per cent fabricated'
Speaking exclusively to Mail Online, Mr al-Yousef said: 'How can Assad pretend that they are not dead? How? We saw them. We buried them with our own hands'
The distraught father also begged with world leader not to fall for the lies of Assad's 'criminal' regime, adding: 'He has lost touch with reality and lost his legitimacy'
'For Assad we all are terrorists, so we expect that he will lie again and again. To him those women, those children are all terrorists.
'Assad has lost touch with reality and lost his legitimacy.'
The dictator, who faces calls to be tried as a war criminal, said earlier on Wednesday that 'the story is not convincing by any means'.
He insisted it was 'not clear whether [the gas attack] happened or not, because how can you verify a video? You have a lot of fake videos now.'
And referring to footage which showed people foaming at the mouth, which sent shockwaves around the world, he said: 'We don't know whether those dead children were killed in Khan Sheikhoun. Were they dead at all?'
Ms Fadl, Abdul's cousin who had to be hospitalised after breathing in gas and miscarried her six-week-old baby days later, also spoke to Mail Online.
She said: 'Everything that comes from the regime is false. I believe that those dead children can tell the truth, not a corrupt regime such as this.
'My baby was killed by this liar and Assad says that it was fabricated. My God.'
Aya Fadl (left), Mr al-Yousef's cousin, also spoke to Mail Online. She said: 'Everything that comes from the regime is false. I believe that those dead children can tell the truth'
Mrs Fadl had to be treated in hospital after breathing in the gas, and miscarried her six-week-old baby days later. She said it was 'impossible' for Assad to call her story fake
Her husband Alaa, pictured with their young son, likened Assad's crimes to those of Hitler, saying he is 'tired of seeing war and murder'
In a direct appeal to Western leaders, she added: 'Don't allow this regime to do what it has done before, don't let Assad kill us again. Stop him.'
Assad made the comment in an interview released on Wednesday, less than 24 hours after world leaders clashed over a UN resolution condemning the attack, which human rights groups say killed 87 people.
Tests carried out on the site have established the presence of sarin gas, or a similar substance, the UN Security Council heard yesterday.
Speaking to AFP, Assad also said:
His army 'gave up' all chemical weapons in 2013
He will only allow an 'impartial' probe into the chemical attack by 'unbiased' nations
Syrian firepower is 'not affected' by a US strike last week
The US is 'not serious' about finding a political situation to end the country's civil war
He accused US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson of 'hallucinating' by saying the Assad family reign was coming to an end
British Prime Minister Theresa May today said it was 'highly likely' that Assad's regime carried out the attack, which was branded an 'affront to humanity' by US President Donald Trump.
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Assad branded claims his regime carried out a sarin gas attack on his own population '100 per cent fabrication'
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad pictured during an interview with AFP's Beirut bureau chief Sammy Ketz in capital Damascus
In his first interview since 59 American cruise missiles hit a central Syrian air base three days after the chemical weapon attack, Assad said footage of the attack aftermath were not 'conclusive proof' it had happened.
He said evidence came only from 'a branch of Al-Qaeda', referring to a former jihadist affiliate which is among the groups that control the Idlib province, where the atrocity happened.
Images of the aftermath, showing victims convulsing and foaming at the mouth, sent shockwaves around the world.
He said Khan Sheikhun had no strategic value and was not currently a battle front.
He continued: 'Definitely, 100 per cent for us, it's fabrication... Our impression is that the West, mainly the United States, is hand-in-glove with the terrorists. They fabricated the whole story in order to have a pretext for the attack.'
Assad said images of children allegedly killed as a result of last week's attack could be fake
The Syrian regime has been blamed for a chemical weapon attack last Tuesday, which claimed an estimated 87 lives
The Syrian dictator said he would only allow an 'impartial' investigation into the incident, stating that he would only sanction a probe by 'unbiased' countries.
He told AFP bureau chief Sammy Ketz: 'We can only allow any investigation when it's impartial, when we make sure that unbiased countries will participate in this delegation in order to make sure that they won't use it for politicised purposes.'
The dictator hit out at the US, saying peace talks aimed at resolving his country's civil war were ineffective because Washington was 'not serious' about ending the conflict.
'The United States is not serious in achieving any political solution. They want to use it as an umbrella for the terrorists.'
He claimed his regime handed over all its chemical weapons stockpiles in 2013, and could not have carried out last week's attack.
He hit out at US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who earlier this week claimed the Assad family 'reign' was coming to an end
Assad claimed his regime handed over all its chemical weapons stockpiles in 2013, and could not have carried out last week's attack
'There was no order to make any attack... We gave up our arsenal a few years ago. Even if we have them, we wouldn't use them,' Assad stated.
And he claimed to be unfazed by international opposition, stating that the suffering of Syria's people 'is the only thing that could deprive me from sleep from time to time, but not the Western statements and not the threat of the support of the terrorists'.
He hit out at US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who earlier this week claimed the Assad family 'reign' was coming to an end.
The Syrian leader stated: 'There is no reign of Assad family anyway in Syria.
'He's dreaming, or let's say, he's hallucinating, so, we don't waste our time with his statement.'
Russia last night blocked a UN resolution which called for a speedy investigation into the use of sarin nerve gas last Tuesday.
President Vladimir Putin has angrily refuted claims that Assad ordered the attack, saying there was 'no evidence' to back this up.
Images of the aftermath, showing victims convulsing and foaming at the mouth, sent shockwaves around the world
US forces carried out an air strike on a base in central Syria, claiming Assad was behind last week's attack
US President Donald Trump said last week's strike from US warships in the Mediterranean was in the 'vital national security interest', and the US had to 'prevent and deter' the spread and use of chemical weapons
End of my reign? Rex Tillerson is hallucinating, says Assad The under-fire dictator has rubbished a statement by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson claiming that the Assad family 'reign' is coming to an end. Assad became president following the death of his father, Hafez al-Assad, who ruled the country with an iron fist from 1971 until his death in 2000. He was tutored in politics by his father, who had initially planned to hand over power to oldest son Bassel until the latter was killed in a road accident in 1994. In the interview with AFP, Assad said: 'He's dreaming, or let's say, he's hallucinating, so, we don't waste our time with his statement.' After his brother's death the current president, a former ophthalmologist, was forced to leave London, where he had met his wife Asma, a British-Syrian and Sunni Muslim who worked for financial services firm JP Morgan. Assad, pictured at the age of 34 (left), was tutored by his father, Hafez al-Assad (right) The current Syrian president (second from left, back row) pictured with his family When Assad came to power, he relaxed some of the heavy restrictions on freedom that existed under his father. But as the Arab Spring reached Syria in March 2011, he responded with a brutal crackdown, labelling it a 'terrorist' conspiracy aimed at breaking the 'axis of resistance' against Israel. Since then, 320,000 people have been killed and more than half the population has been forced from their homes - but Assad has shown no inclination to step down. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has stated that the Assad family 'reign' is coming to an end, a claim the current president refutes Assad (right) pictured alongside then Syrian army Chief of Staff General Ali Aslaan (left) shortly after coming to power in July 2000 Experts say his unwavering self belief has helped him to maintain a firm grip on power despite the raging conflict. 'He was from the same school as his father, and this school has always understood the importance of time, how to turn bad headwinds into good,' said Waddah Abed Rabbo, editor-in-chief of Syria's influential Al-Watan daily newspaper. Still, the key to his victory, Abed Rabbo and others said, was the steadfast support Assad was able to count on from his foreign allies. Assad (centre) pictured waving to crowds at his father's funeral on June 13, 2000, days before succeeding him as Syrian president Hafez al-Assad, pictured in 1998, died on June 10 2000 at the age of 69 'He never doubted his victory because he knew that his country had for decades nourished a solid strategic alliance with Russia, Iran and others,' he said. Assad has two sons and a daughter, and says he still lives in his Damascus home, drives the children to school and goes to work in his downtown office. Former Dutch ambassador Nikolaos van Dam said: 'It has always been a struggle for life and death. There was no question of stopping this war. It was either win or lose.' The Assad clan hails from the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, in a country with a large Sunni majority. Advertisement
Assad, who has been in office since July 2000 when he succeeded his father Hafez al-Assad, is under increasing pressure amid calls for him to face trial for war crimes.
British Prime Minister Theresa May today said it is 'highly likely' that Assad was behind last week's attack.
After British scientists yesterday said sarin had been used, Mrs May said: 'They are very clear that sarin or a sarin-like substance was used and as our ambassador to the United Nations made clear yesterday, like the United States, we believe it is highly likely that attack was carried out by the Assad regime.
'Apart from anything else, we believe it is only the regime that has the capability to take such an attack and make such an attack.'
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson branded his regime 'murderous' in a strongly-worded statement yesterday.
Mr Johnson said it was 'highly likely' the Syrian regime was responsible for the toxic gas attack and called on Russia to stop acting 'as a lifeline for Assad's murderous regime'.
British Prime Minister Theresa May, pictured today at the Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst, said it was 'highly likely' Assad's regime was responsible
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, left, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov shake hands prior to their talks in Moscow yesterday
The US President said today he is confident there will be 'lasting peace' between the USA and Russia
Yesterday US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson met Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow to discuss the escalating tensions in Syria, and admitted there were 'low levels of trust' between the two nations.
But President Trump today attempted to de-escalate the crisis, writing on Twitter: 'Things will work out fine between the U.S.A. and Russia. At the right time everyone will come to their senses & there will be lasting peace!'
Assad's comments come a day after fraught discussions at the United Nations. In dramatic developments yesterday:
The UN Security Council was told British scientists had discovered evidence of nerve agent sarin, or a sarin-like substance, at the scene of the attack
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said there were 'low levels of trust' between the United States and Russia after meeting Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson called on Vladimir Putin to use his influence on Assad to end the war
Russia's ambassador to the UN, Vladimir Safronkov, accused Britain of 'arrogance' and defended its role Putin said there was 'no evidence' that Assad was behind the chemical attack
How did it get to this? Ten key developments in the Syria conflict REVOLT AND REPRESSION March 15, 2011: Unprecedented protests break out, demanding civil liberties and freedom for political prisoners after 40 years of repressive rule by the Assad family. Denouncing 'an armed rebellion by Salafist groups', the government crushes demonstrations in Damascus and the southern city of Daraa. The protests continue to spread and demonstrators call for President Bashar al-Assad to step down. In July, defected army colonel Riyadh al-Assad sets up the Turkey-based rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA). Islamist groups join the revolt. Anti-government activists gesture on the streets of Daraa, 100kms south of the capital Damascus on March 23, 2011 'BARREL BOMBS' USED March 1, 2012: Regime forces seize the rebel-held Baba Amr district of Syria's third city Homs after almost a month of heavy shelling. July 17, 2012: FSA fighters launch a battle for Damascus, but the government holds firm. From 2013, the regime pounds rebel strongholds across the country with improvised 'barrel bombs'. A defaced poster of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad is seen near garbage containers in Aleppo on July 24, 2012. The words on the poster read, 'We coming, duck ass' HEZBOLLAH AND IRAN April 2013: The Iran-backed Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah says it is fighting alongside government forces. Iran boosts its military support for longtime ally Assad. CHEMICAL WEAPONS August 21, 2013: Rebel backer Washington accuses the regime of killing more than 1,400 people with chemical weapons in rebel-held districts near Damascus. In September, the United States and Assad ally Russia agree a plan to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons, averting punitive US strikes against the regime. RISE OF JIHADISTS From 2013, jihadists, including the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Nusra Front, expand in the north at the expense of moderate rebels. In 2014, the Islamic State group (IS) seizes swathes of territory before proclaiming a self-styled 'caliphate' in areas it controls in both Syria and Iraq. ISIS fighters wave flags as they take part in a military parade along the streets of Syria's northern Raqqa province June 30, 2014 COALITION AIR STRIKES In September 2014, US president Barack Obama vows to build an international coalition to defeat IS. Later that month, the US and its allies launch air strikes against IS in Syria. The strikes benefit Kurdish groups, which in 2013 declared autonomous administrations in Kurdish-majority areas. In January 2015, coalition-backed Kurdish fighters oust IS from the flashpoint border town of Kobane. RUSSIA INTERVENES September 30, 2015: Russia launches air strikes in support of Assad. Moscow says it is targeting 'terrorist groups' including IS, but the opposition and the West accuse it of targeting non-jihadist rebels. Government forces, on the back foot since March 2015, begin to retake territory. Flames rise after the war crafts belonging to the Russian army carried out airstrikes on two hospital in the Azaz town of Aleppo, Syria on December 25, 2015 TURKEY INTERVENES August 24, 2016: Turkey launches cross-border 'Operation Euphrates Shield' to tackle both IS and Washington-backed Kurdish militia groups that Ankara considers 'terrorists'. REGIME RETAKES ALEPPO December 22, 2016: After a suffocating siege and a crushing offensive, the army declares it is in full control of second city Aleppo, which has been divided between rebels and government forces since 2012. Thousands of rebels and civilians are evacuated under a deal sponsored by Iran, Russia and Turkey. On December 30, a nationwide ceasefire comes into force under a Russia-Turkey accord which sidelines the US. A wounded Syrian child cries after the war-crafts belonging to the Russian army bombed the opposition controlled Firdevs neighborhood in Aleppo, Syria on October 11, 2016 Buses are seen during an evacuation operation of rebel fighters and their families from rebel-held neighbourhoods in the embattled city of Aleppo, Syria on December 15, 2016 CHEMICAL ATTACK, US MISSILES April 4, 2017: A suspected chemical attack kills 87 civilians, including 31 children, in rebel-held Idlib province. Western governments accuse Assad of using banned chemical weapons, which both Damascus and Moscow deny. Overnight April 6-7, a barrage of 59 US Tomahawk cruise missiles fired from warships in the eastern Mediterranean hits an airbase in central Syria, the first US military action against the regime. Advertisement
There were furious exchanges at the UN Security council yesterday, where Britain's UN ambassador, Mark Rycroft lashed Russia's support for the 'murderous, barbaric criminal' Assad, and warned the Kremlin it was on the 'wrong side of history'.
Mr Rycroft said Russia had been 'humiliated' by its steadfast support of the Syrian dictator's regime during six years of hellish civil war and last week's chemical strike.
In a special session of the UN Security Council in New York, Russia's ambassador to the UN Vladimir Safronkov accused Britain of 'arrogance' and defended its role.
Mr Safronkov snapped at the British diplomat: 'Look at me while I'm talking to you'.
Jabbing his finger towards Mr Rycroft, he fumed: 'Look at me, when Im speaking, dont look away. Why are you looking away?'
And he told the British ambassador: Youre losing sleep that we might be working together with the United States, co-operating with the United States that is what you fear.
Investigators sent to Turkey to probe chemical attack Global chemical weapons investigators have been sent to Turkey to collect samples in an inquiry into an alleged chemical weapons attack in neighbouring Syria last week that killed 87 people. The fact-finding mission was sent by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague to gather bio-metric samples and interview survivors, sources told Reuters on Thursday. The toxic gas attack on April 4, which killed scores of people including children, prompted a US cruise missile strike on a Syrian air base and widened a rift between the United States and Russia, a close ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his conflict with rebels and militants fighting to oust him. Syrian authorities have repeatedly denied using any chemical weapons. Russian officials said the gas had been released by an air strike on a poison gas storage depot controlled by rebels. Washington said that account was not credible, and rebels have denied it. Turkish health minister Recep Akdag said tests had confirmed that sarin gas was used in last week's attack Samples taken from the poison gas site in Syria's Idlib governorate tested positive for the nerve agent sarin, the British delegation at the OPCW said on Thursday. 'UK scientists have analysed samples taken from Khan Sheikhoun. These have tested positive for the nerve agent sarin, or a sarin-like substance,' the delegation said during a special session on Syria at the OPCW in The Hague. The UK result confirmed earlier testing by Turkish authorities that concluded that sarin had been used for the first time on a large scale in Syria's civil war since 2013. The Syrian leader, pictured in February, faces increasing international pressure following a chemical weapon attack last week The OPCW mission will determine whether chemical weapons were used, but is not mandated to assign blame. Its findings, expected in three to four weeks, will be passed to a joint United Nations-OPCW investigation tasked with identifying individuals or institutions responsible for using chemical weapons. International investigators have concluded that sarin, chlorine and sulphur mustard gas have been used in Syria's six-year-old conflict, with government forces using chlorine and ISIS militants using sulphur mustard. Last week's poison gas attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in the rebel-held province of Idlib near the Turkish border was the most lethal since a sarin attack on Aug. 21, 2013 killed hundreds in a rebel-controlled suburb of the capital Damascus. Advertisement
The attacks sparked international condemnation, and on Tuesday Turkey announced that blood and urine tests on victims had revealed the presence of the lethal gas.
Health minister Recep Akdag, in comments reported by the state-run Anadolu agency, said that international organizations and United Nations, 'should declare Assad as a war criminal and put him on trial'.
He said: 'It has been identified that sarin gas was used.'
Richard Westgate, 43, had a number of health issues but grew 'angry, frustrated and disillusioned' when British medical professionals were unable to cure him
The family of a British Airways pilot, who believed he suffered from toxic fumes in the cockpit, said the industry 'has its head in the sand' after a coroner ruled he died from an accidental overdose.
Richard Westgate, 43, had a number of health issues but grew 'angry, frustrated and disillusioned' when British medical professionals were unable to cure him.
The pilot, who 'lived for flying', then grounded himself from piloting planes when bosses refused to permanently sign him off.
He moved to the Netherlands when Dutch medical experts and scientists believed his claims and set about trying to cure him.
But on the opening day of his inquest at Salisbury Coroner's Court, Wilts, coroner Dr Simon Fox QC said the issue - known as aerotoxic syndrome - was not something the parties will address.
And the airline industry argued there is no threat of fumes affecting passengers or crew.
But speaking today outside court after a week-long inquest into her son's death, Judy Westgate said she was 'dismayed' at Dr Fox's decision.
She said: 'Richard loved life and had so much to live for.
'He found his calling as a pilot, both in paragliding and flying passenger jets - something he considered a privilege.
'A few years ago he started to get sick but his symptoms baffled doctors, either they didn't know what was wrong or they chose not to help. The result was they all turned him away.
'His sickness turned to excruciating pain - and still he felt the doctors betrayed him.
'When Richard died four years ago, (the original) Coroner Sheriff Payne believed there could be a problem with poisons in cabin air of the aircraft Richard flew and started the inquest accordingly.
'To our dismay however, the coroner was suddenly switched last year and the new coroner instructed that aerotoxic syndrome would not be discussed as 'a proper issue' in relation to Richard's cause of death.'
The syndrome, Mr Westgate claimed, caused him to suffer years of poor health including severe headaches, mental confusion, sight problems and insomnia.
He died in December 2012 and a post mortem revealed he had been taking pentobarbital.
His twin brother Guy Westgate, 47 and also a BA pilot, told the inquest that his brother was working with researchers and campaigners to see if his claims could be true.
Guy told the inquest: 'Richard believed he was unfit to work. He was trying to get signed off to be permanently unfit to work and kick start his insurance payouts.
'That whole process was stopped because of the current system. No one was prepared to give a diagnosis of what he had.'
Pam Love (left), Guy Westgate and their mother Judith Westgate leave Wiltshire and Swindon Coroners Court
Guy, who attended the inquest with his sister Pam Love and their mother, wept as he described the pain his brother had been suffering to the court.
He said: 'He would describe the pain as if his brain was being sandpapered.
'He couldn't find any other way to describe the severity of the pain.'
Richard Westgate had been on medical leave since September 2011 with his various deficits, for which he was seeking care.
Prior to his death, Richard had instructed lawyers to sue BA for health and safety breaches as he was convinced his problems were related to being exposed to toxic chemicals on board the planes he flew.
Richard Westgate (pictured) had a number of health issues but grew 'angry, frustrated and disillusioned' when British medical professionals were unable to cure him
Guy added during the inquest: 'The Dutch team he found were the first people who believed in him. He had been let down by doctors, BA doctors, BALPA [British Airline Pilots Association] doctors.
'The specialists he found in Holland were the first group who finally gave him light at the end of the tunnel. He went there to be cured.
'He intended to come back as Richard Westgate. He was angry, frustrated, disillusioned. He couldn't believe he was let down by so many people.
'He couldn't believe the medical profession let him down so badly.'
The inquest came about following a report to prevent future deaths issued by former senior coroner for Dorset Sheriff Stanhope Payne.
Prior to his death, Richard Westgate instructed lawyers to sue BA for health and safety breaches as he was convinced his problems were related to being exposed to toxic chemicals
Sheriff Payne wrote to the Civil Aviation Authority and British Airways in February 2015 outlining his concerns that Mr Westgate may have been poisoned after 'testing of samples taken both prior to and after death disclosed symptoms consistent with exposure to organophosphate compounds in aircraft cabin air'.
He said the matters of concern were the 'consequential damage' to the health of pilots, and whether the 'impairment to the health of those controlling aircraft may lead to the death of occupants'.
The inquest heard the cause of death was a pentobarbitial overdose - a group of drugs which helps slow the nervous system. His body was found on December 12, 2012 at Bastion Hotel, in Bussum, Netherlands.
Coroner Dr Fox QC ruled that Mr Westgate didn't intentionally take his own life, and died from an accidental overdose.
Recording a narrative verdict Mr Fox said: 'On that night he misjudged the amount of pentobarbitial with which he was self medicating.'
He added: 'Mr Westgate died in his sleep in his hotel room on the night of December 11/12, 2012 as a result of taking an unintentional overdose of the sedative pentobarbitial.
'It was an accidental death.'
Coroner Simon Fox passed his condolences to Mr Westgate's family.
A BA spokesman said afterwards: 'Our thoughts are with the family at this time.'
This is the moment a nude man jumps into the popular Trevi Fountain in Rome in front of stunned tourists and started swimming.
The incident took place at the Trevi Fountain, in the Italian capital city of Rome. The video shows the man swimming in the fountain while stunned tourists film him.
After crossing the whole fountain, the man is seen getting out of the fountain totally naked and the tourists shout with surprise.
A police officer was waiting for him in the right side of the square where the fountain is and the man is seen quietly leaving the area accompanied by officials.
Video shows a man swimming naked in the Trevi Fountain, in the Italian capital city of Rome, as stunned tourists film him. After crossing the whole fountain, he was arrested
The 30-year-old man, whose name might be Manolo and who might be Spanish, local media report, was covered up by police and tried to escape, injuring one of the officers.
He has been charged with violence against a public official and resisting arrest.
His belongings and documents were found by the edge of the fountain and are being investigated by the authorities.
A police officer was waiting for him in the right side of the square, and once he crossed the foutain he was seen leaving the area accompained by police
His belongings and documents were found by the edge of the fountain and are being investigated by the authorities
It is illegal to jump into the Trevi Fountain, throw rubbish in the water or fish out coins. Officials are looking into whether or not the man caused any damage.
Local media said that this was yet another assault on Italy's heritage.
Reports listed other cases, including the breaking of one of the tusks of the elephant of Minerva.
In another incident, an Ecuadorian man who was arrested for writing his wife and daughter's names on the Coliseum.
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The Uber driver accused of killing six people and injuring two - including a 14-year-old boy - during a deranged rampage through Kalamazoo, Michigan, in February last year, appeared in court Thursday for a pretrial hearing.
Jason Dalton, 46, of Cooper Township, slouched under the baleful eyes of his alleged victims' friends and family as his attorney requested that his testimony to police be declared inadmissible in court.
Attorney Eusebio Solis said in a Circuit Court brief that Dalton, who pleaded insanity after the shootings, told Kalamazoo and State police detectives 25 times that he did not wish to speak to them - but still they pressed him, mLive reported.
In court: Jason Dalton, 46, sits in court Thursday as part of a pretrial hearing. His lawyer argues that Dalton's statements to cops from after the February 2016 killings should not be allowed as he invoked his Fifth Amendment right
Angry: The friends and family of Dalton's alleged victims watched the hearing. His lawyer said that Dalton invoked the right not to self-incriminate 15 times, and declined to speak to officers 25 times - but they kept on asking questions
Sad: A family member of one of the six victims looks on. Dalton's lawyer said that he broke down only after police repeatedly infringed on his constitutional rights
Thoughtful: The men and women watching seem contemplative as they face the man accused of robbing them of their loved ones. The prosecution says that it was necessary for police to talk to him as they didn't know if there was more than one shooter
According to the brief, Dalton invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to self-accuse at least 15 times during questioning but police persisted, eking out small details.
He also invoked his Sixth Amendment right to an attorney, Solis said, but eventually gave in after hours of being prodded by cops.
'The detectives continue their questioning extracting bits of information from the defendant until the defendant succumbs and gives up his resistance and begins answering the questions to him,' Solis wrote.
Kalamazoo County Prosecutor Jeff Getting replied in a brief on April 5, saying that police kept questioning Dalton because they couldn't be sure he was a lone wolf.
'At the time of his interview, the defendant was the suspect in a seven-hour crime spree that left six dead and two others critically injured,' Getting wrote.
He added that detectives 'were unsure if there were additional victims or conspirators who had not yet been identified by police.'
And, he said, Dalton waived his Fifth Amendment rights after starting a conversation with police.
'His waiver of these rights was knowing, intelligent and voluntary making his subsequent admissions admissible,' he said.
Judge Alexander Lipsey said that he would decide on whether Dalton's statements are admissible by next Thursday. The trial is scheduled to begin on June 6, with jury selection scheduled for June 13.
Dalton faces six counts of murder, two of assault with intent to commit murder, and eight felony firearm counts.
Glare: Dalton shoots a glare at the camera as he enters court. The prosecution says that police also needed to figure out whether there were any victims unaccounted for, and that Dalton later waived his Fifth Amendment right and started talking
'Insane': Dalton has pleaded insanity in the shootings, saying that a devil controlled him through his Uber app. None of his victims were passengers. He has been declared fit to stand trial, which will begin June 6
Judy Brown, Barbara Hawthorne, Mary Jo Nye, Mary Lou Nye, and father and son Rich and Tyler Smith were fatally shot in the 2016 rampage.
Victim Tiana Carruthers was shot four times but survived after playing dead, while 14-year-old Abigail Kopf was resuscitated after her heart stopped. She subsequently suffered speaking difficulties and memory loss.
All eight were hit in shootings at three different locations across Kalamazoo. None of the victims were passengers.
After being arrested, Dalton told police that a 'devil' had appeared in his Uber app and controlled his body, telling him who to kill with noises.
He is pleading insanity in the shootings. He was found fit to stand trial on April 22, 2016, and was told to stand trial on May 20.
During the latter court date, he interrupted Carruthers' testimony about protecting the four children she was with, causing her to burst into tears.
He shouted about 'old people with black bags' and screamed 'you need to go to temple' before Judge Christopher Haenicke was forced to call a recess.
At one point Dalton also took a sip from his cup and announced: 'This tastes like watermelon. I never had that before.'
Dragged out: On May 20, 2016, Dalton was dragged from court after interrupting the testimony of one of the two survivors, shouting about 'old people with black bags' and saying the witness needed 'to go to temple'
Naomi Facey, from Russell, New Zealand, went into labour two weeks early and her baby was saved by midwife Sue Bree, who kept her hand inside the birth canal for ninety minutes
A midwife has been hailed a hero after she saved the life of an unborn baby girl by keeping her hand inside the mother's birth canal for ninety minutes.
Mother-to-be Naomi Facey, from Russell, New Zealand, went into labour two weeks early and saw a bit of her umbilical cord was hanging out.
She knew she had suffered a prolapsed cord, which can suffocate a baby in labour.
She and partner Neil Bolton, who run a holiday park together, called midwife Sue Bree, who told them to call the emergency services.
Mr Bolton told the NZ Herald: 'She [Sue Bree] told Naomi to get head down, bum up, to keep the baby's weight off the cord. Then I had to hang up and call 111.'
As Ms Facey was trying to keep the baby from suffocating, Ms Bree took the ferry from Opua to Russell so she could tend to the mother.
Using her hand, the midwife managed to keep the child from getting caught in the umbilical cord.
With her other hand, she called an obstetrician at Whangarei Hospital and used Ms Facey's bottom to hold the device.
A fireman came to the house to take Ms Facey to the nearby school, where an air ambulance was waiting.
Ms Facey was taken to hospital by air ambulance and gave birth to baby Emilia (left) in an emergency cesaerian section. Pictured right, Ms Facey with partner Neil Bolgon
At this point, Ms Bree said: 'If you are religious, now is the time to start praying.'
When she arrived at the hospital, she was given an emergency cesarean section and gave birth to baby Emilia.
Ms Facey told the paper: 'I don't know that they'll ever know how grateful we are. Words can't express it.'
A Louisville teacher who witnessed a passenger being violently dragged off a United Airlines flight said one of the police officers was laughing as the violent incident unfolded.
The teacher, Jason Powell, who was on board the plane about to depart Chicagos OHare Airport on Sunday, wrote a letter to the editor of the Chicago Tribune recounting his experiences.
The disgusting mishandling of the situation included everyone from the rude ticket agent who demanded that this man give up his seat on the flight United overbooked, to one of the officers laughing in the midst of the incident, to the violent, abusive way the passenger was dragged off the plane by the officer, he wrote in the letter which was published Tuesday.
It was the worst possible model for my students, and frankly, was traumatizing to many of us who watched this from such close proximity.
A Louisville teacher on board the United Airlines flight about to depart Chicagos OHare Airport when a passenger was dragged off the plane by police said on Tuesday that one of the officers was laughing as the violent incident (above) was taking place on Sunday
Chicago's aviation officers are not part of the regular police force, unlike in many other big cities. They get less training than regular officers and can't carry firearms inside the airports. One of the officers on board the United plane is seen in the amateur video above. It is not known which officer was reportedly laughing
The airline has faced a vicious nationwide backlash after video of a bloodied Dr. David Dao, an internal medicine specialist from Kentucky, being dragged out of an airplane was posted to social media and quickly went viral.
United was also criticized for its public handling of the crisis.
Initially, the companys CEO, Oscar Munoz, appeared to place the blame on Dao for the incident.
But as public anger swelled, Munoz backtracked and issued a formal apology.
Munoz said on Wednesday that United will no longer enlist police officers to remove passengers.
Daos lawyer, Thomas Demetrio, held a news conference in Chicago on Thursday during which he said that a process has begun toward legal action against the airline.
In response to the continuing backlash, United CEO Oscar Munoz said on Wednesday that the airline will no longer enlist police officers to remove passengers. A United passenger plane is seen at Newark Airport in Newark, New Jersey, in the above 2015 file photo
Demetrio likened the cops who forcibly evicted Dao from the plane to storm troopers and said that the incident was more terrifying than when his client left Vietnam during the fall of Saigon.
'Heres the law pure and simple. If you are going to eject a passenger, under no circumstance, can it be done with unreasonable force or violence,' Demetrio told reporters.
'If unreasonable force of violence is used, the common carrier United Airlines in this case is responsible.
Powell wrote that some of the passengers got up and left the plane so that they did not continue to witness the abuse.
He also wrote that another father was trying to console his eight-year-old daughter. The man then turned to one of the officers and said, You ought to be ashamed of yourself!
The now-infamous eviction of Dao was carried out by members of a little-known police force that guards Chicagos two large airports OHare and Midway International Airport.
Daos lawyer, Thomas Demetrio, held a news conference in Chicago on Thursday during which he said that a process has begun toward legal action against the airline
Chicago's aviation officers are not part of the regular police force, unlike in many other big cities. They get less training than regular officers and can't carry firearms inside the airports.
Three of them were put on leave amid outrage over how they treated the passenger.
Cellphone footage of the confrontation 'really has put it at risk,' Alderman Chris Taliaferro said Wednesday, a day before aldermen were scheduled to grill United and the Chicago Aviation Department about why a Kentucky physician was yanked out of his seat after he refused to get off the full jetliner at O'Hare Airport.
The City Council is looking for answers about the embarrassing video that has been seen around the world.
The roughly 300-strong aviation police officers earn between $50,000 and $88,000 a year and cost the city about $19 million a year.
They are city employees but not members of the Chicago Police Department.
A brazen 'Gone in 60 Seconds' gang have been jailed for stealing high-end cars by using sophisticated software to break into keyless Range Rovers, worth a combined 3million.
The high-tech thieves targeted more than 120 vehicles worth as much as 60,000 each over a 12-month period, and were locked up for a total of more than 46 years.
Using key programming technology to steal vehicles including Range Rovers, Mercedes and BMWs, the gang of six men and one woman made their getaway cars look like minicabs - complete with TfL private hire stickers - to commit the thefts.
Manjit Sandhu (left) orchestrated the gang who bought specialist equipment used by locksmiths to bypass keyless cars' security systems in a matter of seconds. Heena Bux (right), 21, found cars to break into and arranged for others to drive them away
Sufiyan Mahmood (left), 19, was found guilty of conspiracy to commit burglary and conspiracy to steal as was Faisal Khan, 23, of Forest Gate, east London. Khuram Zaman (right) was locked up for four years, six months for being part of the gang
Geoffrey Cairns (left), 55, one of the getaway drivers, was jailed for three years and six months. Faisal Khan (right), 23, was sentenced to four years and six months
Manjit Sandhu orchestrated the gang who bought specialist equipment used by locksmiths to bypass keyless cars' security systems in a matter of seconds.
Heena Bux, 21, found cars to break into and arranged for Khuram Zaman, 20, Mohammed Islam, 20, and Geoffrey Cairns, 55, to drive them away.
They also burgled car keys from homes in the east and west of London and drove the owners' vehicles away from their driveways within minutes.
Mohammed Islam was found guilty of conspiracy to commit burglary and conspiracy to steal
The vehicles were then shipped in containers from Britain around the world, to places including Africa and Eastern Europe, between March 2015 and August last year.
One thief, Sufiyan Mahmood, was even captured on CCTV driving a stolen car through a McDonald's drive through after taking it from the owner's home.
Police got wind of the crook's plans and started watching their homes.
On August 17 last year police raided the Blakesley Arms pub in Newham, east London, run by gang leader Manjit Sandhu's dad - finding car keys, a key programmer, 'blank' keys and a lock-picking tool.
The 32-year-old ring leader even committed one offence on the same day he received a suspended sentence for being involved in the theft of another car in an unrelated incident.
In one theft, some of the offenders stole a BMW after breaking in to a house to get the key, but were unaware that the stolen car was fitted with a dash cam that captured images of them as they got in and out of the car.
Sandhu of Hornchurch, east London, was found guilty of conspiracy to commit burglary and conspiracy to steal at Southwark Crown Court on Tuesday after he was caught on his own CCTV system leaving home to commit the crimes.
He was jailed for 12 years on Wednesday, which included two years for the activation of a suspended sentence as he was previously convicted of vehicle theft.
One thief, Sufiyan Mahmood, was even captured on CCTV driving a stolen car through a McDonald's drive through after taking it from the owner's home
On August 17 last year police raided the Blakesley Arms pub in Newham, east London, run by gang leader Manjit Sandhu's dad - finding car keys (pictured above), a key programmer, 'blank' keys and a lock-picking tool
Appearing alongside Sandhu, co-conspirator Islam, of Forest Gate, was found guilty of conspiracy to commit burglary and conspiracy to steal as was Cairns, of Romford, and jailed for three years.
Cairns was jailed for three years and six months.
Mahmood, 19, of Forest Gate was also found guilty of conspiracy to commit burglary and conspiracy to steal as was Faisal Khan, 23, of Forest Gate, east London.
Khan was sentenced to four years and six months with Humzah Bhariwala, 23, of Forest Gate, found guilty of conspiracy to commit burglary and handed an 18-month term.
Mahmood was sentenced to seven years, six months' imprisonment along with a further four months' to run consecutively for an unrelated charge of possession of drugs and mobile phones whilst on remand in prison.
Buz, of Leytonstone, was found guilty of conspiracy to commit burglary and conspiracy to steal as was Zaman, of Walthamstow.
The crime was similar to the plot of Gone in 60 Seconds, which focuses on a group of car thieves and the dozens of vehicles they have to steal in a matter of days
Zaman was locked up for four years, six months and Buz was given a total of nine years, six months' imprisonment, which included two years for the activation of a suspended sentence having previously been convicted of burglary.
Detective Inspector Caroline Clooney, who leads the Met's Organised Vehicle Crime Unit, said: 'This was an extremely prolific and well-organised criminal gang.
'They brought distress to many victims whose homes they broke into, who not only lost their vehicles but in many cases were traumatised by the thought of someone having been in their house while they slept.
'Although the case involved over 120 offences, it is clear that this team were responsible for an even greater number of crimes.
'Almost all of the houses that were burgled had uPVC front doors that had not been double locked, allowing the offenders to gain entry very quickly using simple tools.
'I would urge all householders to ensure that their front door is correctly locked at night - this means not only lifting the handle on a uPVC door, but also using the key to lock it.
'Unless it is locked with the key, the door remains vulnerable to the method employed by the criminals in this case.'
One of China's major giant panda habitats, the Tangjiahe Nature Reserve is located in Qingchuan County on the northwestern edge of Sichuan Basin, approximately a five-hour drive from downtown Chengdu. Established in 1978, Tangjiahe Nature Reserve covers an area of 400 square kilometers. Around 430 species of wild animals including pandas, takins and golden monkeys inhabit the area. [China.org.cn]
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It was the smirk that did it for me.
The small, barely perceptible little glint of amused mockery that spread across President Bashar al-Assads pinched little face throughout his interview this morning.
Particularly when it appeared as he asked about the little children he gassed to death: Were they dead at all?
Yes, you repulsive excuse for a human being, they were bloody dead; their short lives brutally exterminated by Sarin gas dropped from YOUR planes.
We all saw the horrifying videos, we all winced and wept at the photographs.
President Bashar al-Assads pinched little face in an interview this morning when he asked about the little children he gassed to death: Were they dead at all?
Not dead? How dare he. The twin babies pictured being held by distraught father Abdel Hameed Alyousef, 29, killed in the attack
We also know the US tracked your deadly planes on radar and that Turkish doctors confirmed the use of Sarin gas.
There is not a scintilla of doubt that these children are dead, nor about the manner in which they died or who was responsible.
YOU killed them, you despicable creature.
Unlike the trumped up WMD charges against Saddam Hussein that were used to justify the illegal disastrous war in Iraq, here is clear and present evidence that a nations leader has just used WMD to murder his own people.
Of course, todays interview wasnt really an interview at all.
It was conducted by the AFP news agency but filmed by government officials and only a few of the actual questions and answers were approved for release to the world.
What we did see though was a desperate dictator whos suddenly lost control of a war he thought he was about to win.
We also saw what lies inside the sub-human soul of a man who has slaughtered 400,000 of his own people and no longer has any concept of what death even is.
The lies came thick and fast:
* It was a 100% fabrication that his forces used chemical weapons this week.
* He has never used chemical weapons.
* In fact he gave them all up three years ago.
* Its not something he would morally do because its not acceptable.
Etc.
Then came the conspiracy theories, led by the ridiculous claim that America worked hand-in-glove with ISIS to commit the atrocity in order to give them an excuse to attack Assad in retaliation.
You dont have to like Donald Trump to realise this is the least likely and most offensive theory ever espoused.
Nor do you have to be a genius to deduce that if someone takes a whole week to publicly deny a chemical weapons attack, as Assad did, then theyre probably speaking with severely forked tongue.
I got a small, personal insight into Assads twisted, deviant mind when some of his emails were published a few years ago including one from him to his wife recommending she watch a YouTube clip from an Americas Got Talent audition show that I judged.
It featured a bloodthirsty illusionist named Kevin James who cut his assistant in half using an electric saw.
That was Assads favourite act.
Hardly surprising, really, given that his equally repellent father was known to dissolve his victims limbs in acid.
Now Assad Jr delights in similar real-life butchery like targeting heavily populated civilian areas with nerve gas or barrel bombs full of chlorine, blowing hospitals or torturing political prisoners.
He has no moral compass, no sense of humanity.
And as we have now seen confirmed from his own mouth this morning, he has lost all grip on reality.
In short, as happens to many people in war, Assads gone mad.
So what should be done with him?
President Obama believed in America leading from behind when it came to foreign policy and military action.
It was an abject failure as a strategy, making the United States appear weak and ineffectual, and emboldening the likes of Assad and his main supporter, Russias Vladimir Putin.
President Trump, by contrast, is swiftly showing himself to be a man of action.
A week ago, he unleashed 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles on Assads air force.
On Sunday, he re-routed US naval forces towards the Korean peninsular after new aggressive behaviour from bellicose North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un.
Today, he dropped the worlds biggest non-nuclear bomb on an ISIS target in Afghanistan, a 21,000 weapon nicknamed MOAB - Mother of all Bombs.
Trump will not tolerate dictators crossing red lines. Assad, Putin and Jong-Un should all be very worried men. They are facing a President who is prepared to back up words of warning with decisive intervention from the worlds most fearsome military
These are three major statements to the world that Trump is not going to tolerate dictators crossing red lines like chemical weapons or impudently threatening American national security, and he is absolutely determined to fulfil his campaign pledge to wipe out ISIS.
Assad, Putin and Jong-Un should all be very worried men today.
For too long they have been free to act with impunity on the global stage because the leader of the free world let them.
Now they are facing a new US President who is prepared to back up words of warning with decisive intervention from the worlds most fearsome military.
Until this morning, I reluctantly believed the only way for the horrific Syrian war to end was for Assad to remain in power, however unpalatable that may be, and then be removed if and when peace is achieved.
But then I watched him smirking as he questioned if his tiny victims were even dead, and I felt a groundswell of fury build up inside me.
Smirking Assad today branded claims his regime carried out the attack on his own population '100 per cent fabrication'. Watching him, my fury built - he is deluded and needs to go
There was something so wildly deluded and so insanely sinister about his demeanour and rhetoric that I have zero confidence he will do anything but continue to commit war crimes.
The argument against removing him is who will take his place?
Its a legitimate question, particularly after we have seen so much chaos in countries like Iraq, Libya and Egypt after the regime change removal of their dictators.
But I now see no benefit to Syria or the rest of the world in allowing this disgusting man to stay in power.
He deliberately gassed those kids because hes a monster, pure and simple.
And history shows that monsters carry on being monsters until somebody stops them.
Its time to get rid of Bashar al-Assad.
Two Qurans were found in a men's toilet at the University of Texas Dallas late last month
Police are searching for whoever is responsible for depositing two Qurans in a toilet at the University of Texas Dallas last month.
Two copies of the Islamic religious text were found in a men's room toilet at the campus' student union on March 28.
A student found the books and immediately went to campus police to report the incident.
Police believe the books were deposited in the toilet between 6pm and 7pm, and have been reviewing security footage to pinpoint the person or persons responsible.
So far, they say about a half dozen students went into the bathroom during that time period.
UT Dallas Police Chief Larry Zacharias says the incident was 'very rare and strange' since no note was left behind taking responsibility for the act.
Zacharias said that they initially suspected the books were taken from the Reflection Room, which is also in the Student Union. But both people who entered the room during that time frame left the room empty handed.
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Since no one has claimed the Qurans as stolen property, the incident can not be considered a crime.
Nonetheless, police continue to investigate.
UT Dallas junior Mohammad Syed, president of the campus' Muslim Student Association, says he was shocked by the story.
'It's definitely saddening and a little disturbing as well,' Syed told NBC Dallas-Forth Worth. 'It's something that we do not expect to happen, especially at this campus.'
He added: 'UT Dallas is a very welcoming environment. And I have nothing but good things to say about it.'
Plans for a Trump-brand hotel in downtown Dallas have been scrapped, partly because of objections over foreign money, according to a city councilman.
The New York-based Trump Hotels wanted to launch its new concept, Scion, on a vacant lot near Dallas City Hall, but the city opted to work with another company instead, said council member Philip Kingston.
Mukemmel 'Mike' Sarimsakci, Dallas Scion developer, is still promoting the $50million project on his real estate company's website as 'under development'.
Plans for a Trump-brand hotel in Dallas have been scrapped amid foreign money controversy
When plans for the 220-room affordable alternative were initially announced in March, groups gathered in protest and petitioned the city to oppose the project, slated to open in 2019
Trump Hotels wanted to launch its new concept, Scion, on a vacant lot near Dallas City Hall. This architectural rendering depicts a six-story glass-walled building with a row of shops
Sarimsakci, who has renovated two historical Dallas buildings, failed to pay property taxes in the city on time but did eventually do so, The Dallas Morning News reports.
He also faces dozens of lawsuits from unpaid debts related to a California furniture business.
The Turkish-born developer allegedly raises much of his capital from investors in other countries, including Russia and Kazakhstan, Kingston said.
Larry Hamilton, who owns the lot planned for Scion, said Sarimsakci is still contractually bound to purchase the property.
Sarimsakci's architectural rendering of the Dallas Scion depicts a six-story partially glass-walled building with a row of shops along the bottom.
Trump Hotels denied there had been a formal agreement for Sarimsakci to develop a hotel under the Scion name and advised him not to do so.
Trump Hotels deny there's been a formal agreement for Mukemmel 'Mike' Sarimsakci (left) to develop the Dallas Scion. Critics of the project believe President Trump (right) is a 'bad brand'
'It is very common in the hospitality business that some projects do not come to fruition,' the company's statement said. 'That is why we ensure that all opportunities are appropriately vetted and approved before any announcement.'
When plans for the 220-room affordable alternative were initially announced in March, groups gathered in protest and petitioned the city to oppose the project, slated to open in 2019.
Although the Scion brand won't carry Trump's moniker, critics want to ensure it's tied to the president.
'The president is a bad brand and we have to protect the Dallas brand,' Kingston, a Democrat who voted for Hillary Clinton in the November election, told Bloomberg. 'Were trying to sell ourselves internationally as a city thats welcome and open for business travelers, new residents, innovators, young professionals, and the president is an extremely bad brand. Hes a hateful and ignorant man who says things that are hurtful to the people I care about.'
The grieving father of a young college student who committed suicide after being accused of sexual harassment says school administrators rushed to judgement in the case and are responsible for his death.
University of Texas at Arlington student Thomas Klocke killed himself about a month after he was barred from classes when a classmate hit him with 'bare, unsupported' harassment allegations, Klocke's father claims in a federal civil suit against the school.
The suit claims school administrators doled out 'swift and harsh punishment' against Klocke without evidence, 'to preserve the appearance of their leadership' on gender issues and it led to his suicide.
The ordeal began in May of 2016, when a male student Klocke said he had never spoken with before sat down next to him and addressed him by name, telling Klocke he was 'beautiful,' according to Klocke's statements to investigators at the time.
Klocke said that, as class got underway, he typed 'stop - I'm straight' into his laptop for the classmate to see, to which the classmate responded 'I'm gay.' Klocke said he again typed 'stop' as the classmate continued to glance at him, and then eventually moved to another seat in the room.
University of Texas at Arlington student Thomas Klocke killed himself about a month after he was barred from classes when a classmate hit him with 'bare, unsupported' harassment allegations, Klocke's father claims in a federal civil suit against the school
After the class, the gay student contacted Heather Snow, the schools dean of students and vice president of student affairs, who advised him to draft a complaint and send it directly to her, according to the suit.
The gay student's version of event's was different. In a complaint email to Heather Snow, the schools dean of students and vice president of student affairs, he said that after Klocke made a comment about 'privilege in today's society,' Klocke typed 'Gays should die' on his laptop for the other student to see, the suit says.
He also accused Klocke of feigning a yawn while saying 'you're a fa***t'.
The gay student 'told Snow that he felt terribly scared and uncomfortable, after which Thomas supposedly told him you should consider killing yourself,' according to the suit.
Snow and Daniel Moore, the schools associate director for academic integrity, denied Klocke a Title IX hearing to investigate the claims and 'summarily decided' to bar him from attending the classroom portion of the course, the suit claims.
The suit was filed by Wayne Klocke (pictured), an attorney, on behalf of his son's estate
The school's administrators 'have a vested interest in enacting swift and harsh punishment (almost always upon males) who are merely accused of sexual harassment, sexual violence or aggressive behavior, in order to preserve the appearance of their leadership on the issue,' the suit says.
Klocke, who needed the course to graduate and planned to attend graduate school the following year, killed himself in June of 2016.
The harassment claims and their treatment by administrators caused 'such embarrassment, rage, frenzy, and mental or emotional anguish and pain that he took his own life,' the suit says.
The suit was filed by Wayne Klocke, an attorney, on behalf of his son's estate on April 4.
In a statement to the Daily News, the university said it had 'followed its policies and procedures' and could not comment further.
President Trump may have another Capitol Hill battle on the horizon, as his nominee for Army secretary, Mark Green, is taking heat from liberal groups over his stance on transgender Americans.
In the past, Green has made statements like 'transgender is a disease,' while suggesting 'armed citizens' stick up for the highly controversial 'bathroom bans' that some states have implemented.
A state senator from Tennessee, Green would replace the history-making Eric Fanning, President Obama's pick for the position, who was the first openly gay Secretary of the Army.
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Mark Green, President Trump's pick for secretary of the Army, has called being transgender a 'disease' in the past, which makes it likely he'll face a confirmation fight
Mark Green, is a Tennessee state senator, whose military record helped him earn the support of the two U.S. senators from his state
LGBT groups have already come out swinging against Green, after Trump announced Friday that he intended to place the Tennessee lawmaker in the Army's top civilian post.
David Stacy, the government affairs director of the Human Rights Campaign told the Hill newspaper that the president 'couldn't have picked a worse nominee to pick a fight with Congress.'
HRC, an LGBT rights group headquarted in Washington, D.C., has already started reaching out to members of Congress in an attempt to thwart his nomination.
He told the Hill that he has heard a 'high degree of concern' coming from both Democrats and more moderate Republicans, who tend to favor LGBT rights.
'Nobody's committing their boss on a yes or no vote this early,' Stacy also said, according to the Hill. 'The degree of engagement has been very high because of obvious things in his record.'
One obvious thing about his record, which may complicate Republican defections, is that he is indeed qualified for the position.
A West Point graduate, he did three tours of duty in the Middle East, receiving the Bronze Star and a handful of other accolades.
In Iraq, Green was the first American military member to interrogate Saddam Hussein, once the Iraqi dictator was captured, the Hill newspaper pointed out.
Green's home state Republicans in the Senate, Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander, are both backing the nominee.
'This is a good opportunity for the rest of the country to benefit from Tennessean Mark Green's leadership skills, military experience and dedication to service members,' Alexander said Friday.
Corker sang a similar tune, saying, 'As a West Point graduate and former military officer, Mark Green is well-suited to serve our nation as secretary of the Army.'
But a number of moderate Republicans, including Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, who is pro-gay rights, along with Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, are keeping quiet thus far.
Last year at a Tea Party event in Tennessee, Green panned President Obama's efforts to make it a federal policy that transgender school children could choose to use the bathroom of their choice while attending public schools.
'We are back to where the country was at its beginning, and it's the armed citizen who will defend this nation,' Green said. 'And there's something else that we've got to protect ourselves from, and it is an overreaching federal government.'
'The notion that Mr. Obama thinks that he can tell the state of Tennessee who can go into a men's bathroom or a women's bathroom is absurd,' Green added.
A Detroit emergency room doctor has been charged with performing female genital mutilation on two young girls from Minnesota.
Prosecutors say Dr. Jumana Nagarwala, 44, of Northville, Michigan, was arrested Thursday, days after two seven-year-old girls identified her as the person who performed medical procedures on them at a Livonia clinic in February.
The FBI says the girls were accompanied to the clinic by their mothers.
Dr. Jumana Nagarwala, 44, of Northville was arrested Thursday, days after two 7-year-old girls identified her as the person who performed female genital mutilation on them in February
Female genital mutilation of minors is illegal in the U.S. unless there's a legitimate health reason.
This is believed to be the first case brought under 18 U.S.C. 116, which criminalizes the practice.
Nagarwala is also charged with transportation with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, and making a false statement to a federal officer.
Acting U.S. Attorney Daniel Lemisch said in a statement: 'Female genital mutilation constitutes a particularly brutal form of violence against women and girls. It is also a serious federal felony in the United States. The practice has no place in modern society and those who perform FGM on minors will be held accountable under federal law'.
'According to the complaint, despite her oath to care for her patients, Dr. Nagarwala is alleged to have performed horrifying acts of brutality on the most vulnerable victims,' acting Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Blanco of the Justice Department's Criminal Division added.
What is FGM? Female genital mutilation is the practice in which some or all of the female genitals are removed, typically with a blade or a razor and sometimes without anesthesia. This includes removing the clitoral and the fold of skin above it, and removing labia the inner 'lips' of the vagina. In the most severe form, the inner and outer labia are removed and the opening of the vagina is closed with a small hole so the woman can pass urine and menstrual blood. Sometimes the vagina is then cut open for sex or childbirth. Women sometimes bleed to death or can be left with horrifying health effects, such as infections, chronic pain, cysts, infertility and problems giving birth. Female genital mutilation is prevalent, particularly, in the Middle East and African subcontinent and within pockets of the Muslim, Christian, and Jewish faiths, according to the organization. Worldwide, an estimated 140 million women and girls have undergone the procedure, according to the World Health Organization. More than 3 million girls in Africa undergo the procedure each year. Advertisement
'The Department of Justice is committed to stopping female genital mutilation in this country, and will use the full power of the law to ensure that no girls suffer such physical and emotional abuse.'
According to Detroit News, Henry Ford Hospital has confirmed that Nagarwala was employed at the facility - even though her employer has not been identified on court records.
Henry Ford Hospital issued the following statement: 'The alleged criminal activity did not occur at any Henry Ford facility,' health system spokesman David Olejarz said Thursday. 'We would never support or condone anything related to this practice.'
Nagarwala's attorney, Shannon Smith, declined to comment after a brief court hearing. The doctor will remain in custody and return to court Monday.
In a court filing, the FBI says Nagarwala denied performing genital mutilation.
The FBI also says the doctor is a member of a 'cultural community' that believes in the practice.
Nagarwala is reportedly part of a Gujarati-speaking Muslim community in Michigan. She lives in Northville with her husband, Moiz Yusuf Nagarwala, 48, who works at Visteon Corporation, an 'automotive electronics supplier'.
Gujarati is spoken in India and other parts of the subcontinent and also within certain Indian communities in Africa.
A child forensic interviewer talked to one of the girls, who said she was brought to Detroit with a second girl for a 'special girls' trip,'according to the FBI.
The girls said they were told to keep the trip secret.
The FBI had launched an investigation after receiving a tip that Nagarwala performed female genital mutilation on two seven-year-old girls at a Livonia medical clinic, according to the criminal complaint.
But according to the complaint, Nagarwala does not work at the clinic and there are no billing records indicating that she has performed medical procedures there.
In February, FBI agents obtained a court order to review the doctor's phone. The records showed several calls between Nagarwala's phone and a Minnesota phone number, according to the FBI.
And hotel records showed that two families, each with a young girl, stayed at the hotel on February 3.
Seven days later, an FBI child forensic interviewer talked to one of the girls, who said she was brought to Detroit with a second girl for a 'special girls' trip.'
After arriving in Farmington Hills, the girls were taken to a doctor because 'their tummies hurt.'
'While at the doctor's office, a procedure 'to get the germs out,' was performed on the first girl, according to the criminal complaint.
A traditional razor blade used to perform female genital mutilation in parts of Africa
The girl was shown a photo of Nagarwala and said she was the doctor who performed the procedure, according to the FBI.
She told the FBI that Nagarwala 'pinched' her on the 'place (where) she goes pee.'
'(The girl) said that she was told not to talk about the procedure,' FBI Special Agent Kevin Swanson wrote in the complaint.
A subsequent medical examination showed that the young girls' genitals did not appear normal and a section had been altered or removed.
'Finally, the doctor observed some scar tissue and small healing lacerations,' the agent wrote.
The complaint details the second girl's experience with the doctor and she said she underwent a procedure and identified Nagarwala as the doctor.
'She said that she 'got a shot,' and that it hurt really badly and she screamed,' the FBI agent wrote. 'Her parents told her that the procedure is a secret and that she is not supposed to talk about it.
'(The girl) said that after the procedure, she could barely walk, and that she felt pain all the way down to her ankle,' the agent continued.
A subsequent medical exam showed the girl's genitalia had a small incision and a small tear.
On Monday, Minnesota Child Protective Services personnel and a federal agent interviewed the second girl's parents.
They confirmed the trip to Detroit, saying they took the girl to see Nagarwala for a 'cleansing' of extra skin, according to the court filing.
Agents have identified other children who may have been victimized by the doctor between 2005 and 2007, including children in Michigan, according to the FBI agent.
A US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report in 2012 found that roughly 513,000 women and girls in the US were at risk of undergoing female genital mutilation, which was more than three times higher than an earlier estimate based on 1990 data.
A man has died after 'deliberately cutting his own throat' in Glasgow city centre.
He is said to have 'inflicted serious wounds upon himself' on St Vincent Street in front of shocked shoppers.
The man in his forties was taken to Glasgow Royal Infirmary, where he later died.
Police in stab-proof vests and cordoned off the area, which was covered in blood,
A man has died after 'deliberately cutting his own throat' in Glasgow city centre. He was taken to Glasgow Royal Infirmary, where he later died. Pictured, police at the incident
Officers cordoned off the area around West Nile Street and St Vincent Street after the man 'inflicted severe wounds upon himself' in front of shocked shoppers
One witness wrote on Twitter: 'I've just seen a man cut his own throat in Glasgow. I don't think I'll ever forget that.'
Shaun Keegan, 29, from Glasgow, told the Scottish Sun: 'We saw this middle aged man quite calmly and deliberately cutting his own throat.
'We think it was a Stanley knife. We seen people on Twitter saying it was an axe but we never saw anything like that.
'I cant unsee they way he put the knife to his neck and started slashing.'
Another person wrote on Twitter: 'What's happening on West Nile Street? Walked down there and police taping road off. Blood everywhere.'
Someone else tweeted: 'Anyone know whats happening West Nile Street, Glasgow? Road all closed off with police and ambulance everywhere!'
Police confirmed the incident was not terror related. One witness wrote on Twitter: 'I've just seen a man cut his own throat in Glasgow. I don't think I'll ever forget that'
Dale Connal said he saw someone try to stop the man from hurting himself.
He told Glasgow Live: 'He tried to stop him but the man with the knife started attacking him.'
Police Scotland said in a statement: 'Around 4.05pm , an assault took place in St Vincent Street, Glasgow.
Witness Shaun Keegan, 29, said: 'I cant unsee they way he put the knife to his neck and started slashing.' Pictured, police carry away pieces of evidence. It is thought the man was carrying two knives
'The suspect made his way on foot towards West Nile St where he then inflicted serious injuries upon himself.
'Officers attended and the incident was very quickly contained. The man was taken by ambulance to Glasgow Royal Infirmary where he died a short time later.
'This was a contained and isolated incident. Enquiries continue, however there are no other persons sought in relation to the incident.'
An ambulance spokesman said: 'We received a call at 16.05 hours today to attend an incident on West Nile Street.
'We dispatched one ambulance which arrived on scene at 16.06 hours.
'One male patient in his forties was taken to Glasgow Royal Infirmary.'
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More than 1,100 troops from the US, Britain, and Romania gathered in Poland to bolster a multi-national force in a bid to counter potential threats from Russia.
The troops, which include 900 US soldiers as well as 150 British and 120 Romanians ones, are to be deployed in Orzysz - 35 miles south of Russia's Baltic Sea enclave of Kaliningrad.
It comes after Moscow stationed nuclear-capable missiles as well as an S-400 air missile defence system in the region.
Soldiers came together on Thursday afternoon and gathered for an official ceremony as they showed solidarity against Russia. Croatian troops are expected to join later.
American soldiers arrived at an official welcoming ceremony for the new force that also includes British, Romanian and other troops in Orzysz, Poland
American soldiers were photographed after they arrived in the town - which is just 35 miles south of Russia's Baltic Sea enclave of Kaliningrad
Polish soldiers sat underneath a giant tank as the rain poured down during the official ceremony in northeastern Poland today
Hundreds of Polish soldiers attended welcoming ceremony for US-led NATO troops near Orzysz, Poland, on Thursday afternoon
Around 900 US soldiers (some of them pictured here) are to be deployed in Orzysz and they were seen today waiting for the official ceremony to start
A Polish, American, British, Romanian and Croatian flag were seen waving in the wind as troops gathered for a ceremony on Thursday
The near-permanent deployment of a NATO battalion under US command marks the first time NATO troops have been placed so close to Russian territory
Three other formations are due to become operational by June across the region.
Polish President Andrzej Duda called the deployment a historic moment 'awaited for by generations'.
He said: 'It's not an exaggeration to say that generations of Poles have waited for this moment since the end of the Second World War.'
The near-permanent deployment of a NATO battalion under US command marks the first time NATO troops have been placed so close to Russian territory, a step the Kremlin denounces as a threat to its own security.
The deployment is separate from a US battalion of 3,500 troops that arrived in Poland earlier this year and which is headquartered in southwestern Poland, near the German border.
NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Curtis Scaparrotti, said: 'Deploying of these troops to Poland is a clear demonstration of NATO's unity and resolve and sends a clear message to any potential aggressor.'
He was speaking at a welcoming ceremony for the first arrivals at Orzysz - 140 miles northeast of the capital Warsaw.
Poland, alarmed by Russia's assertiveness on NATO's eastern flank, has lobbied hard for the stationing of NATO troops on its soil, especially since Moscow's annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Three similar NATO units of around 800 troops each led by Germany, Canada and Britain, are also being deployed this year in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
The countries requested them after Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.
The troops' move to Orzysz on Thursdsay took place as US President Donald Trump appeared to have changed his previously critical views of NATO and soured his attitude towards Moscow.
While running for president, Trump dismissed the alliance as obsolete and said he hoped to build warmer ties with Russia.
But on Wednesday, he lavished praise on NATO and said the relationship with Russia may be at an all-time low.
He said: 'I said it was obsolete. It's no longer obsolete.'
Poland's ruling conservatives, the Law and Justice party (PiS) allied with Duda, have signalled plans to raise funds to modernise and increase the size of its military, even though Warsaw is already among NATO's top spenders.
But the Polish armed forces have other problems.
Nearly 30 top of its top generals and more than 200 colonels - a quarter and a sixth of the army's total - have resigned over the last year, citing in part disagreements with Defence Minister Antoni Macierewicz over personnel and other decisions.
The military has also seen potential procurement delays after Macierewicz cancelled a multi-billion-dollar deal with Airbus Helicopters last year.
Polish President Andrzej Duda attended the welcome ceremony for the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Enhanced Forward Presence in Orzysz
Romanian soldiers are pictured prior the beginning of the official welcoming ceremony of NATO troops on Thursday afternoon
Polish soldiers prepare for an official welcoming ceremony for troops from US, Britain, Romanian and other nationalities, part of a NATO mission to enhance Poland's defence,
US troops, part of a NATO mission to enhance Poland's defence, waited for an official welcoming ceremony in Orzysz, northeastern Poland, on Thursday
American troops arrived in Poland on Thursday afternoon as they made up part of a multi-national force against Russia
Polish soldiers stood together and welcomed other troops from around the world in a special ceremony on Thursday afternoon
General Miroslaw Rozanski, a former senior commander, said in February he could not accept certain defence ministry decisions.
'We were implementing NATO decisions. Minister Macierewicz would agree with my proposals and then different decisions would be taken,' he said then.
Polish sources said NATO, focusing on its troubled relations with the new US president and Moscow, has adopted a 'wait-and-see' attitude towards Warsaw.
A Polish government source said: 'We are indeed the trouble makers. But because we fulfill all the obligations, because in the end we deliver, we are not the biggest problem right now. So, NATO has indeed adopted a 'wait-and-see' attitude towards us.'
But Daniel Keohane, a senior researcher at the Center for Security Studies at the ETH university in Zurich, said Poland's relations within the alliance could suffer.
He said: 'While this should not in principle weaken Poland's position within NATO, if these generals are resigning for political reasons, and a perception of an ongoing politicisation of the Polish army emerges, this could cause worry in other NATO capitals.'
The teenage boy who was shot in a Nevada high school after he brought in a pair of knives has spoken publicly for the first time.
Logan Clark, 14, was filmed waving around the knives at Hug High School on December 7 before being felled by a single shot to the chest by a school cop.
While being operated on after the shooting he suffered a stroke that makes it hard for him to speak and forces him to wear a helmet for protection.
And he says he can never go back to school. 'No,' he told CBS News, 'Not there.'
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Brain damaged: Logan Clark, 14, must now wear a helmet after sustaining brain damage in December when he was shot after waving around knives at his school
Shot: Logan (left, before being shot and right, after) claims he brought the knives to school because he was being bullied. He was hit in the chest by one shot fired by a campus cop (also pictured)
Logan had brought the knives to school after suffering sustained bullying, his parents said.
A week after his shooting, his father, Justin Clark told Today: 'My son wasn't just some knife-wielding psychopath. It felt like he wanted to make sure he wasn't beat up and robbed.'
He also claimed in a Facebook post after the shooting that the school knew Nathan was 'going to be jumped' but did nothing.
When asked by CBS News whether he felt like he needed the knives to be safe at school, Logan simply replied 'Yeah.'
When asked whether that was the answer to bullying, Clark's grandmother, Nancy Pitchford said: 'Its not the answer. But to a 14-year-old kid, I guess it is the... you know, not to hurt anybody with the knives, but just to get them off of you.'
Meanwhile, his mom, Cheryl Pitchford demanded to know why the school officer shot her son.
'Why not use a Taser? Why not shoot him in the foot?' she asked. 'And having other kids standing around behind Logan [the cop] could've struck another kid.'
Scars: Logan had surgery to remove part of his lung, leaving a sizable scar. He also has a scar on his head; he suffered a stroke while being operated on, causing brain damage
Logan suffered a stroke while having a section of his lung surgically removed in a Reno hospital.
A photograph of him after the shooting shows him in hospital with a shaved head, unconscious and on a ventilator.
Stroke: Logan's mom wants to know why the campus cop wasn't able to use pepper spray or a taser to stop her son
Exactly seven days after her son was hospitalized, Cheryl and around 100 others marched on Washoe County School District headquarters to deliver a petition.
They demanded that school officers be equipped with nonlethal weapons such as pepper spray or Tasers.
The officer, who has not been named, claims that Logan acknowledged and ignored his demands that he stop waving the blades around before he fired.
Logan's lawyer disputes that, saying he doesn't think the boy would have been able to hear him shouting.
Police are now conducting two separate investigations - one into Logan, one into the officer - to see whether charges should be brought against either party.
Nancy says that her grandson has already suffered enough.
'That you know being shot and almost dying, that would be kind of like punishment enough,' she said.
A Civil War-era house in Mississippi where Ulysses S. Grant launched a major military campaign has been vandalized.
Thieves vandalized and destroyed and took away much of the wood, bricks, and beams of historic 200-year-old A.K. Shaifer House in Port Gibson, Mississippi's Department of Archives and History said Thursday.
The Shaifer House sits on the Port Gibson Battlefield in Claiborne County. Its construction began in 1826 and was the site of the opening salvo in Grant's successful campaign to capture Vicksburg during the Civil War. The house was restored in 2006.
Four support beams were stolen from the historic Civil War era house in Mississippi
Inside the home was trashed, with wooden beams and brick stolen
Support beams were stolen from the house, as well as wood and bricks stripped
Thieves rolled up a vehicle and drove away with the valuable wood and brick, says an expert
Inside, the house was almost gutted, stripped of its original wood flooring
The damage was discovered April 1 but likely occurred up to a couple of weeks earlier.
'A group of criminals vandalized and stole wood, bricks, and materials from the interior and exterior of the home. A broken chain was also discovered, where the criminals backed a vehicle or truck up to the house and used it to pull out and steal major structural beams located underneath the house,' Mississippi archivist Irwin Russell wrote on Facebook.
There is a $5,000 reward being offered by the Port Gibson Heritage Trust Battlefield Committee for any information leading to the arrest and conviction of the thieves.
The house was built in 1826 - the support beams shown here were stolen from the home
'The Port Gibson Battlefield is one of the most pristine Civil War battlefields in the South. Much of the land, road, and the Shaifer House is EXACTLY the way it was during the Civil War. We can all work together to help keep it this way,' he wrote.
The Shaifer House sits on the Port Gibson Battlefield in Claiborne County. It was built in 1826 and was the site of the opening salvo in Grant's successful campaign to capture Vicksburg during the Civil War. The house was restored in 2006.
During the war, the house also served as a headquarters for Gen. John A. McClernand's GHQ and a Union hospital, according to Natchez Trace Travel.
The battle around the house began on May 1, 1863 when Federal troops pushed up against it with a volley of musket fire and the confederates fought back.
The site is currently closed, but the department plans to fix the damage and reopen it as soon as possible.
General Ulysses S. Grant launched his opening salvo in the campaign to take Vicksburg from the Shaifer House
The historic house sits on land that was the site of an important Civil War battle
Jim Woodrick, the director of the historic preservation division at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, said he doesn't know how costly the repairs will be or how long they'll take.
'We suppose it was to salvage some historic material for some other purpose,' Woodrick said of the crime. 'Clearly it was not the work of vandals - it was something that took effort, it took planning.'
The Battle of Port Gibson was the start of Grant's successful campaign to capture Vicksburg during the Civil War
The state archives department is working with the Claiborne County sheriff's department. The sheriff's office did not return requests for comment.
While the crime occurred almost two weeks before the press release, Woodrick said the archives department wanted to secure the site before releasing the news.
'This is not just a house in the middle of the woods. It's an extremely important site related to Civil War history,' Woodrick said. 'It was a really terrible thing that someone has done.'
Civil War buffs were outraged.
'It boggles rational minds at the depravity of some of those in our midst who clandestinely rob historic sites and openly remove monuments to our forefathers!' said a commenter on Facebook.
Two Jiu-jitsu masters have taken aim at the United Airlines fiasco with a tongue-in-cheek tutorial to help prevent passengers from being dragged off their flight.
The airline caused a social media storm on Sunday after Vietnamese grandfather Dr David Dao was violently dragged off Flight 3411 by security due to overbooking.
A comical clip shows Californian brothers Ryrion and Rener Gracie demonstrating six 'very effective drag defence methods' to help passengers get free if they are being hauled away.
Jiu-jitsu masters Ryrion and Rener Graciehave taken aim at the United Airlines fiasco with a tongue-in-cheek tutorial to help prevent passengers from being dragged off their flight
A comical clip shows the Californian brothers demonstrating six 'very effective drag defence methods' to help passengers get free if they are being hauled away
The acerbic video offers the tips people 'should never fly without' to avoid losing their plane seat.
The self-defence and martial arts duo demonstrated six jiu-jitsu techniques for men, women and children - for 'whether you're being dragged through a plane or a dollar general store'.
Shot on training mats, they displayed an impressive chokehold - with one brother acting as the security staff while the other played the helpless passenger.
One technique involved using the 'helicopter armbar all day' in case the attendant was 'standing a little bit taller'.
Another was tailored to be less violent so as not to upset bystanders, in case there were 'kids watching'.
The self-defence and martial arts duo demonstrated six jiu-jitsu techniques for men, women and children 'whether you're being dragged through a plane or a dollar general store'
Shot on some training mats, they displayed an impressive chokehold - with one brother acting as the security staff while the other played the helpless passenger.
The final tip even showed passengers how to knock out their opponent. It was geared towards passengers who were being dragged off - but had a 'change of heart' and decided they wanted to offer up their seat to a United employee
After wriggling free, the method involves the passenger guiding the attendant into a seat, putting them to sleep, 'tucking them in' and getting off the plane 'before they wake up'
A fifth trick was for commuters who were in business class and 'feeling fancy'.
The final tip even showed passengers how to knock out their opponent.
It was geared towards those who were being dragged off - but had a 'change of heart' and decided they wanted to offer up their seat to a United employee.
After wriggling free, the passenger guides the attendant into a seat, puts them to sleep, 'tucks them in' and gets off the plane 'before they wake up'.
Footage of Dr Dao being unceremoniously dragged from a plane at Chicago O'Hare International Airport on Sunday has traveled around the world, leading to mass condemnation of United and its policies.
Dr David Dao is pictured bleeding from the mouth (left) after he was body slammed by cops and dragged off (right) the overbooked United flight at Chicago O'Hare
Video has emerged showing Dr David Dao arguing with police and a flight attendant just moments before he was dragged off an overbooked United flight in Chicago on Sunday night
Dr Dao was heard in videos captured of his shocking eviction saying he needed to get home to Louisville so he could see patients. He is pictured with his wife, Teresa, and their grandchildren
Dr Dao was heard in videos captured of his shocking eviction saying he needed to get home to Louisville so he could see patients.
DailyMail.com can reveal Dr Dao is a father of five and a grandfather, who specializes in internal medicine. Four of his five children are doctors.
The video emerged as United CEO Oscar Munoz, 57, spoke to Good Morning America on Wednesday in his first public appearance since the scandal broke.
The interview started when the 57-year-old - who earned about $6.7million last year - was asked what his first reaction was to seeing the videos of a bloodied Dr Dao being pulled from the plane.
'It's not so much what I thought it's what I felt - probably the word shame comes to mind,' he told ABC's Rebecca Jarvis.
'As I think about our business and our people the first thing I think is important it to apologize to Dr David Dao and his family, to the passengers on that flight, to our customers, and our employees.
'That is not who United is... you saw us at a bad moment.'
Police are hunting down a masked gunman who shot a 15-year-old boy in the face inside his own bedroom in what may have been a revenge attack.
The teenager was found outside his home in Glenfield, Sydney, at about 6.20am with a gunshot wound to the head.
He is in an 'extremely critical' condition in hospital, police said.
A man broke into the boy's family home shortly after 6am, sneaking into the boy's bedroom and opening fire 'execution-style'.
A teenager is fighting for his life in hospital after he was shot in the head in Sydney
The teenager has been taken to Westmead Children's Hospital in a critical condition
The teenager's face was covered in blood as he was wheeled into an ambulance
After shooting the boy in the head at close range, the intruder - whose face was covered - escaped back out of the front door.
Police have refused to comment on whether the incident was a 'revenge attack' linked to a fatal shooting.
The teenager - who was seen being loaded into an ambulance with his face drenched in blood - is now at fighting for his life at a children's hospital in Sydney.
His mother, stepfather and two siblings, aged seven and one, later left the home with a police escort.
Detective Chief Inspector Mark Brett said the victim was in an 'extremely critical' condition.
He added that the intruder broke into to the boy's home and then 'forced entry to the victim's room'.
'The mother is extremely distressed. Shes at hospital with her son,' he said.
The 15-year-old boy was found by police on Moresby Street in Glenfield at about 6.20am with a gunshot wound to the head
Paramedics were seen holding up a sheet as they treated the boy at the scene
A man is believed to have broken into boy's family home before opening fire. Pictured, police at the scene
Police are now looking for a man described as being aged between 18 and 20, with a thin build, who was last seen wearing grey tracksuit pants, a navy blue hooded jacket and white joggers.
It is believed that he may be armed with a pistol.
Paramedics were seen holding up a sheet as they treated the boy at the scene.
They were later seen lifting the boy into an ambulance.
He has been taken to Westmead Children's Hospital in a critical condition.
A pastor has sued American Airlines claiming he was not allowed on a flight he purchased tickets for simply because he is Korean.
Benny Shin, 75, filed the lawsuit Thursday, just two hours after a lawyer for a Vietnamese-American doctor said he was considering legal action against United Airlines for forcibly removing him from a plane on Sunday.
The incident involving American Airlines took place in June 2016, according to TMZ.
A Korean pastor sued American Airlines on Thursday because he claims the airline kept him off a flight he purchased tickets for simply because of his background. An American Airlines passenger plane is seen in the above October 2016 stock image
Shin says that he was waiting to board a flight from Dallas to Corpus Christi, Texas, when he was stopped by the gate agent.
Even though he paid for his seat and had a boarding pass in hand, Shin says he wasnt allowed on board even though between five and seven white passengers behind him were permitted to embark.
Although American gave Shin a voucher for a flight the next day, he says that he was embarrassed by the experience.
Shin is reportedly demanding $6million in damages.
American Airlines declined to comment.
A former contestant on the popular reality show American Idol was sentenced to 70 years in prison on Wednesday after he was found guilty on multiple charges of child pornography.
Brandon Cox, 26, of Wetumpka, Alabama received the maximum sentence possible after a jury in January found him guilty on seven counts of possession of child pornography.
The one-time reality star, who in 2012 made it to the Hollywood round on American Idol, had insisted throughout the trail and again at his sentencing on Wednesday that he was innocent.
Among the 275 images that were discovered on Cox's computer was one that showed an infant engaged in a sex act according to District Attorney Randall Houston.
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Behind bars: Brandon Cox, an 'American Idol' finalist in 2012 (above), was sentenced to 70 years on child pornography charges
Horror: Cox (above in court on Wednesday) had images of young boys, including an infant, engaging in sexual acts on his computer
'Its very rare for us to deal with child porn cases where the images depict such young victims, he said. "Usually it may be young girls, 14 to 15, which is bad, dont get me wrong. But he had photos and videos of toddlers, 4- or 5-year-olds,' said Houston while speaking with the Montgomery Advertiser.
'There were even photos of an infant engaged in sexual acts.'
He went on to describe Cox as 'sick.'
Video courtesy of WSFA
Cox was already under investigation when he entered and earned a spot on the final round of 'Idol,' with his files drawing he attention of investigators in 2011.
It is unclear if producers of the show were aware of this at that time.
In asking for the maximum sentence in court on Wednesday, Assistant District Attorney Kristy Peoples said: 'Judge the evidence at trial brought out the horrific nature of the videos and images.
Cox has claimed he is innocent and will appeal his sentence and the verdict
'There were hundreds of images that depicted what can only be described as outrageous acts done to children, mostly male children.'
She later said to WFSA after the sentence was handed down: 'We are talking about toddlers, sexual penetration, oral sex, and the horrific nature of these photos and the quantity of the photos.'
Cox's attorney Kenny James meanwhile said that his client planned to appeal the verdict.
James then asked that he be replaced as Cox's attorney for the appeal.
People sais that the biggest concern at trial was protecting Cox's 4-year-old son.
'It was a huge concern,' she explained after the sentence.
'Most of the children in these images and videos were male toddlers and younger male children.'
Two Secret Service agents have been fired after a White House fence jumper was able to make to the front door of the mansion while President Trump was home.
The Uniformed Division officers were sacked after shocking surveillance footage showed intruder Jonathan Tran, 26, scaling the fence and lingering on the White House grounds for 17 minutes, even peering into windows while the alarms were blaring, before the Secret Service intervened.
'The men and women of the Secret Service are extremely disappointed and angry in how the events of March 10 transpired,' a Secret Service statement read last month.
Two Secret Service agents were fired after a White House fence jumper was able to make to the front door while President Trump was home (Trump arrives to board Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews before traveling to Mar-a-Lago again for the Easter holiday)
Jonathan Tran was seen 'walking from the east side of the south grounds of the White House Complex,' then 'walking close to the exterior wall of the White House Mansion ... approaching the South Portico Entrance to the White House Mansion,' the arrest affidavit states
Tran had been carrying a backpack with two cans of mace when he scaled the fence of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue because he said he had an appointment with his friend, President Donald Trump, on the night of March 10. Tran faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison for trespassing.
The Secret Service released a statement shortly after the incident saying that at no time did Tran ever manage to enter the White House.
However, he was able to make it to the president's front door, even managing to rattle the door knob, before he was captured. Trump was inside the residence at the time of the incident. 'The service did a fantastic job,' he said the next day. 'It was a troubled person. It was very sad.'
Today, Trump was seen boarding Air Force One for his seventh trip to his Palm Beach estate and private club Mar-a-Lago since becoming president
A Republican lawmaker who is overseeing the investigation into the incident said he was astounded after watching surveillance footage.
It was even worse than I thought, Utah Congressman Jason Chaffetz told TMZ.
Chaffetz, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said that Tran was lingering and hanging out on the White House grounds.
Both the agents that were fired in the wake of the incident had been with the Secret Service for less than one year and were assigned to guard the Treasury Building and the entrance to East Executive Avenue, a source told CNN.
Two Secret Service agents have been fired after a White House fence jumper was able to make to the front door of the mansion last month (file picture)
Jonathan Tuan-Anh Tran, 26, of Milpitas, California, is accused of jumping a fence near the White House before being stopped near the South Portico (pictured in a courtroom sketch)
Officials said at the time, that will some intruder alarms went off, there were other sensors and detectors that did not function as they should have.
Just as alarming to Chaffetz was the fact that Secret Service members showed little urgency in checking the White House grounds.
Perhaps that is because there are frequent false alarms at the White House and the agents, who Chaffetz said were lackadaisical, may have assumed this was the case as well.
Everything went wrong, the Utah lawmaker said.
He dubbed the incident 'a total and complete embarrassment.'
'(Homeland Security chief John) Kelly told me that this person was there on the ground for 17 minutes, went undetected, was able to get up next to the White House, hide behind a pillar, look through a window, rattle the door handle,' the lawmaker told CNN.
Tran was seen 'walking from the east side of the south grounds of the White House Complex,' then 'walking close to the exterior wall of the White House Mansion ... approaching the South Portico Entrance to the White House Mansion,' the arrest affidavit states according to ABC News.
Security footage shows Tran jumping a fence near the Treasury Building, which adjoins the White House, the complaint says.
Tran was carrying a backpack with two cans of mace when he scaled the fence of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue because he said he had an appointment with his friend, President Donald Trump (above boarding Air Force One for his seventh trip to his Palm Beach estate and private club since becoming president)
U.S. President Donald Trump (C) arrives to board Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews outside Washington today, with Secret Service agents, before traveling to Palm Beach, Florida
He set off a sensor alarm in the Treasury Moat, according to the Secret Service source, but Tran had already gone by the time an officer appeared.
The source believes Tran made his way past a several Secret Service posts and jumped the White House gate, hiding behind a pillar of the East Wing entrance, CNN reported.
He eventually made his way to the South Portico Entrance, saw a Secret Service officer in uniform and went towards the South Lawn, the affidavit reads.
That is when the officer stopped him, after which Tran said: 'I am a friend of the President. I have an appointment,' the complaint states.
When asked how he managed to get here, Tran replied: 'I jumped the fence,' authorities said.
Tran was carrying two cans of mace, a US passport, an Apple laptop, a book written by Trump, and a letter to the president.
Utah Congressman Jason Chaffetz (left) watched surveillance footage showing Jonathan Tuan-Anh Tran (a sketch of whom is seen on the right), 26, 'lingering' for 17 minutes in plain view after jumping the fence of the White House on the night of March 10, 2017
In the letter, 'Tran mentioned Russian hackers and said he had information of relevance. Tran alleged that he had been followed, and his "phone and email communications (had been) read by third parties," and that he had "been called schizophrenic," ' Secret Service officer Wayne Azevedo said in the complaint.
Tran's 19-year-old brother told CNN the suspect had been fired from his job at an electrical engineering company and was 'troubled'.
He was living in his car, the sibling added, before calling Tran a 'very good brother'.
Tran was released from custody last week and allowed to return to his home state of California under federal supervision as his case proceeds.
He will have to return to Washington for his next hearing and submit to GPS monitoring.
Other conditions of Tran's release include having a mental evaluation, not possessing any firearms or other weapons and staying away from the White House.
The Anti-Defamation League is offering to turn Press Secretary Sean Spicer's offensive Hitler comment into a teachable moment by holding a Holocaust education session at the White House.
The Jewish civil rights group sent a letter to the top Trump aide today calling Spicer's remarks both 'historically inaccurate' and 'inappropriate and offensive.'
'While you have apologized, this week's incident as well as others (notably, the International Holocaust Remembrance Day omitting Jews and your vociferous defense of it) have exposed a serious gap in your knowledge of the Holocaust, its impact, and the lessons we can learn from it,' wrote Jonathan Greenblatt, the ADL's CEO.
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Today White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer returned to the briefing room after apologizing again and again for his Holocaust comparison
Press Secretary Sean Spicer apologized Wednesday morning at the Newseum for his Holocaust gaffe, saying he felt he let people down personally and professionally
On Tuesday, Spicer shocked the White House briefing room by suggesting that Adolf Hitler was the lesser of two evils when compared to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad when it came to using chemical weapons on their own people.
During the Holocaust, Hitler's Nazis used toxic gas to systematically exterminate millions of Jews.
Last week Assad used sarin gas to again attack his own people, which provoked a missile strike from the Trump White House.
Spicer's comments come after there's been a charted rise anti-Semitism in the United States, an issue the ADL works to combat, and after the White House, as Greenblatt mentioned, omitted the mention of Jews in a statement on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
For decades, ADL has been on the forefront of Holocaust education, providing trainings about the Nazi atrocities to a wide range of groups,' Greenblatt said, in a letter obtained by Talking Points Memo.
'I screwed up' Spicer said three times during his Wednesday a.m. appearance at the Newseum, where his Holocaust remarks were front and center
'Our programs provide historical context for how the Holocaust was able to occur; teach the Holocaust as a human story; and create opportunities for critical thinking,' he continued. 'Each of these educational programs focuses on the consequences of unchecked bigotry and hate.'
In signing off, Greenblatt said the ADL would be 'happy to conduct one of these trainings at your convenience for you, your staff, and anyone at the White House who may need to learn more about the Holocaust.'
'We know you are very busy, but we believe a few hours learning this history will help you understand where you went wrong and prevent you from making these mistakes in the future,' Greenblatt said.
While returning to the podium at the White House today, Spicer spent a at least a day on an apology tour starting with an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN Blitzer's paternal grandparents died in the Holocaust and ending Wednesday morning at an event at the Newseum in D.C.
'I screwed up,' Spicer said multiple times at the news museum, explaining he felt badly about his statements on both a personal and professional level.
'From a professional level, I think it's disappointing because I think I let the president down,' he noted.
'It was not a very good day in my history,' he said.
A New Zealand woman has been sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison after she was discovered high on the drug ice when she arrived in Bali last year.
Myra William, 28, appeared upset and despondent after the sentence was handed down at Denpasar Court on Friday, saying all she was thinking about was her family.
She was found guilty of drug use rather than the more serious offences of possession and importation for which she had been charged.
New Zealand woman Myra William, 28, (pictured) has been sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison after she was discovered high on the drug ice at a Bali airport last year
William was caught at Denpasar airport on August 31 by custom officials after she was seen 'babbling' in the line at immigration
'The defendant's actions caused unease among the society and it's against the government program to combat narcotics which is highly promoted by the government,' Chief Judge Ni Made Purnama said on Thursday.
'There's no justification or reason and with that, the defendant must be punished equal to her mistake.'
William was caught at Denpasar airport on August 31 by custom officials after she was seen 'babbling' in the line at immigration.
During an interview with customs officer, prosecutors say a plastic pouch containing 0.43g of methamphetamine fell out of William's pants.
William (R) walks to a room for her trial at a court in Denpasar on Bali island, was found guilty of drug use rather than the more serious offences of possession and importation
The 28-year-old appeared upset and despondent after the sentence was handed down at Denpasar Court on Friday, saying all she was thinking about was her family
Myra William (front R) of New Zealand attends her trial at a court in Denpasar on Bali island on April 13
William (Pictured speaking with her lawyer) had been charged with possession of less than five grams of drugs and importation, offences which carry 12 to 15 year sentences respectively
Her sentence will be backdated to when she was arrested in August last year
William inside holding cell before her first trial in January this year
The 28-year-old has previously told the court she had been using the drug for about a year while living in Australia, consuming about one gram of ice a day.
William had been charged with possession of less than five grams of drugs and importation, offences which carry 12 to 15 year sentences respectively.
The lesser charge of drug use, of which she was found guilty, carries a maximum of four years.
Her sentence will be backdated to when she was arrested in August last year.
Education Secretary Justine Greening said 'ordinary working families' are the 'backbone of our economy'. She said the typical family earns 33,000 with two parents or 17,000 in a single parent family
Quotas could be introduced for new grammar schools to prioritise pupils from families earning around 33,000 or less.
Education Secretary Justine Greening said these ordinary working families had previously fallen under the radar and deserved access to better schools.
Outlining her target group for priority entry to grammars for the first time, she focused on families on the median household income or below.
Yesterday, a No 10 source said imposing a quota for these families in new selective schools was on the table among other options.
The Government wants to create the first new wave of grammar schools in decades in an effort to help more bright disadvantaged children gain access to an academically rigorous education.
In a keynote speech yesterday, Miss Greening said the schools would help to create a true meritocracy that worked for everyone.
She added: The new schools we will create will support young people from every background, not the privileged few.
This will be a new model of grammars, truly open to all we will insist on that and it will reflect the choices of local parents and communities.
Governments have previously focused on the very poorest pupils those eligible for free school meals but Miss Greening said families on modest incomes must be helped too.
A consultation document released this week suggests that the definition of an ordinary working family should be one with a household income of around 33,000, assuming there are two parents and two teenage children.
Labour's leaders come under fire for sending children to selective schools The shadow education secretary was shamed yesterday over the hypocrisy of senior fellow Labour figures opposing grammar schools despite sending their own children to them. Angela Rayner was left floundering when Radio 4 presenter Nick Robinson challenged her on the curious double standards, adding its one rule for them and one for everyone else. He pointed out that the son of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was sent to the kind of selective school the party is campaigning against, although this was against his will as it was his then wifes decision. Shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry and Seumas Milne, Labours director of communications, also sent their children to grammar schools. Challenged by Mr Robinson on the Today programme, Mrs Rayner angrily responded: My kids are not guinea pigs, let me tell you, and I send mine to a comp system. We transformed the education system when we were in power and had more kids from working-class backgrounds going to uni than ever before. What we are doing now is going backwards. Mrs Rayner recently attacked grammar schools as a vanity project. Advertisement
For a single-parent family with one young child, the ordinary working family income would be around 17,000. Department for Education data shows around one in three children fall into this category. Miss Greening said such families were the backbone of our economy and were likely to live in the suburbs and coastal areas, mainly outside the M25.
She insisted new grammar schools must take steps to recruit children from these groups and added she would not rule out the idea of imposing quotas or lowering entry requirements for them.
Shadow Education secretary Angela Rayner was shamed on Radio 4 over the hypocrisy of senior fellow Labour figures opposing grammar schools despite sending their own children to them
Speaking at St Marys University in Twickenham, south-west London, she hit out at those who critique grammars and selection while simultaneously ignoring the views of parents.
Miss Greening, the daughter of a steelworker who grew up in Rotherham, added that when she was growing up she hated having to make do in life and there was no real choice but to go to her local comprehensive.
Sir Peter Lampl, founder of the Sutton Trust, which campaigns for social mobility through education, said yesterday: We welcome Justine Greenings commitment to addressing the challenges that children from poor and ordinary working families face getting into grammar schools.
Shocking footage has emerged online of an elderly sanitation worker being dragged on his knees by a shopkeeper during an argument over rubbish.
The 48-year-old cleaner was enraged when he found that a shopkeeper from a five yuan (58p) shop was sweeping rubbish out onto the street in Fushun which was then blown away in the wind.
The old man kneeled down after a 20 minute argument and was then dragged by the shop owner's son for around 100 metres (3,328 feet) on April 11, reports the People's Daily Online.
Mr Xiao, working for his father's 'five yuan' (58p) shop, felt sorry for dragging an old man away
The incident happened as a female worker swept the rubbish outside the 'five yuan' shop but the rubbish got blown away by the wind.
Mr Zhu, a 48-year-old cleaner, told her that sweeping rubbish on a street added burden to street cleaners' workload. However, the woman said she did not intend to do so and started a brawl with him and later asked him to kneel on his knees to apologise.
Zhu was angry and said: 'If it's my fault, then alright i'll get my knees on the floor!'
According to reports, the incident has caused outrage on Chinese social media following the video being posted online.
Enraged web users live-streamed their visit to the 'five yuan' (58p) shop in Fushun city of Liaoning Province to report and expose the incident while some vandalised the shop with red paint at midnight.
The young worker, surnamed Xiao, told reporters from a local television broadcaster that he was felt sorry for dragging an older person on a street.
'He (the sanitation worker) is quite old and i shouldn't have dragged him,' Xiao said.
He then claimed that he did not swear at the old man and did not make him kneel on his knees. But Xiao has fired one female worker who started a brawl.
Xiao, a 48-year-old sanitation worker kneel on his knees as a female shop worker told him so
Xiao told the shop worker not to sweep the rubbish out of the shop as the wind blew them away
Video footage shows Zhu, wearing a bright orange cleaner vest, kneeling on his knees in front of Xiao and a female co-worker. Soon Xiao can be seen dragging Zhu away from the shop's entrance.
Xiao explained that the sanitation worker had been blocking the entrance for more than 20 minutes and customers were unable to go in or out of the shop.
'That would seriously affect the shop's business. I was angry so I dragged him away at the moment,' said Xiao.
The footage continued showing both parties appearing in a meeting with the help of local council's propaganda department.
In a meeting arranged by the local council's propaganda, Zhu explained the incident again
Xiao apologised for dragging him on the floor but clarified that he did not swear at Zhu
Both parties apologised to each other and decided to settle by a handshake
Zhu explains that the female worker told him to kneel and admit for his wrongdoing and he did so.
Xiao defends himself that he did not ask him to get his knees on the floor but admits that his emotions has got him over-reacted to drag him away.
They apologise to each other and shake hands to settle the dispute.
Fushun sanitation bureau agreed to relocate Xiao to another street to carry out sanitation work.
The original nine-second video has caused an outcry on Wechat, one of the Chinese social media platforms, where web users addressed Mr Xiao and questioned him of on the understanding of respecting the elderly.
People's Daily has quoted comments such as 'Does he not have any elderlys at home?', 'Should treat old man with dignity and respect!' from the messaging app.
Bizarre images show police using a truck to remove thousands of bras and pants from an underwear thief's house in China.
The man was arrested on the afternoon of April 12 Jiujiang, China's Jiangxi province, reports Huanqiu, an affiliation with the People's Daily Online.
According to reports, he had been collecting underwear for 10 years.
Shocking discovery: Police found tens of thousands of knickers and bras in the man's house
Collector: They also found women's clothing in cabinets along with the underwear
The Xunyang District Public Security Bureau's deputy director Liu Yingbin told reporters that he visited the local community and was told that a large amount of women's underwear had been stolen.
The woman who had her underwear stolen later saw the items hanging from a balcony of a nearby property.
Police decided to investigate and arrived at the property to find a large amount of women's underwear and personal clothing.
Bizarre discovery: Police found piles of bras and knickers inside the man's home
The suspect surnamed Xing had more than 10 sacks of women's underwear. His cabinets also contained women's clothing.
Xing admitted that the underwear was stolen.
The 40-year-old told police that he had been divorced for a long time and had grown up liking women's clothing. When he was in high school he told his fellow students to treat him like a girl.
Police estimate that there are tens of thousands of knickers and bras.
Because the amount of underwear was too much, the police called for a tricycle to carry the stolen goods however a car was also called in to carry the remaining underwear.
The iPhone 8 could have the longest battery life of any Apple device, according to rumours.
Apple is rumoured to be working on its own battery management chip for the first time, and has opened secretive 'power management design centres' in California and Munich.
The latest rumours come hours after a leaked video suggested the iPhone 8 will be the first Apple smartphone to ditch the home button.
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A previous report suggest that the iPhone 8 (concept drawing) would not be shipped until Oct. or Nov as Apple is still fine tuning the new technology
IPHONE 8 RUMORS Several rumors have been circulating about the iPhone 8, and suggest the next device may have: - Dual-lens 3D camera - Extended battery life - Augmented reality to generate real-time views of surroundings - Curved glass casing - Plastic OLED screen - Wireless charging - A folding element - New 5 inch (12.7 centimeter) and 5.8 inch (14.7 centimeter) model, which will have a wraparound OLED screen - 5.8 inch will be designed with the Touch ID finger print sensor 'under the glass and in the active display area' - A new 'pure white' model - Aluminum back will be replaced with two reinforced glass panes and a metal frame in the middle - Facial recognition -Premium model will cost $1,000 Advertisement
Current Apple phones use power management chips, the electronic system that monitors the activity of the battery, built by German brand Dialog Semiconductor.
But industry sources claim Apple has now ditched the company to work on its own circuit system.
Apple has since set up power management design centres in Munich and California and employed 80 engineers to work on a battery management chip of its own, sources claim.
'In our view, there is strong evidence that Apple is developing its own PMIC and intends to replace the chip made by Dialog at least in part,' said analyst Karsten Iltgen, from Bankhaus Lampe, a private German bank that has spoken to unnamed industry sources.
A source familiar with the matter confirmed that Apple was recruiting top Dialog engineers in Munich. 'They are poaching like crazy,' the person said.
But the sources added it may take until 2019 for a chip to be developed.
This could mean the hardware will not be incorporated into the iPhone 8, which is due to ship in October or November, according to rumours.
A new video has leaked online showing what claims to be the next-generation handset and how users would work it with the home button under the display
The new technology could improve run time without the need for a bigger battery.
Apple's chief designer Jony Ive has previously ruled out using a bigger battery pack because he says it would disrupt the design of the device.
Apple has outsourced production of its hardware products to an extended network of suppliers, large and small, while it has moved over the past decade to design its own central processors and added functions like fingerprint recognition since then.
Over the past dozen years, Apple suppliers CSR, PortalPlayer, Sigmatel and Wolfson have been replaced, pushing them eventually to merge with more diversified players.
But Apple continues to rely on key suppliers to develop innovations ranging from image and motion sensors to power management.
Other chip suppliers for the current iPhone 7 include, but are not limited to, Cirrus Logic, NXP, Qualcomm, Skyworks, STMicroelectronics , according to an analysis by TechInsights in September.
Apple is known more for trend setting technology than for advances in medicine.
But it seems a secret team of researchers at the company are working on marrying the two in order to tackle diabetes.
The project - envisioned by co-founder Steve Jobs before his death - could lead to 'breakthrough' wearable devices that detect the disease and monitor blood-sugar levels.
It is described as the 'holy grail' of life sciences, because it's difficult to monitor blood sugar without breaking the skin.
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Apple has hired a team of biomedical engineers to develop non-invasive sensors which could detect diabetes and monitor blood-sugar levels (stock image)
THE PROJECT Apple has hired a team of biomedical engineers to develop non-invasive sensors which could detect diabetes and monitor blood-sugar levels. The engineers are expected to work at a nondescript office in Palo Alto, around 15 miles away from the new corporate headquarters in Cupertino, California. If the non-invasive sensors come to fruition, it would be a breakthrough moment for medical science. The late Apple CEO Steve Jobs envisaged the devices as another form of wearable technology, similar to a smartwatch or fitness monitor. Advertisement
Apple has hired a team of biomedical engineers as part of the secret initiative, according to reports in CNBC.
Up to 30 people are believed to be working on the project, which has be running for five years - according to CNBC's sources.
They say the firm has been carrying out clinical trials in San Francisco and has hired consultants to look into the rules and regulations around bringing such a product to market.
The engineers are said to be working from a nondescript office in Palo Alto, around 15 miles away from the new Apple corporate headquarters in Cupertino, California.
The researchers have been tasked with developing bio-sensors to monitor blood sugar levels.
Currently this involves taking regular blood samples, which can involve anything from a thumb-prick test to intravenous extraction.
The late Apple CEO envisaged the devices as another form of wearable technology, similar to a smartwatch or fitness monitors
And If the non-invasive sensors come to fruition, it would be a breakthrough moment for medical science.
'There is a cemetery full of efforts' to measure glucose in a non-invasive way, said DexCom chief executive Terrance Gregg, whose firm is known for minimally invasive blood-sugar motechniques.
To succeed would require 'several hundred million dollars or even a billion dollars,' he previously told Reuters.
A secret new research project being undertaken by Apple could lead to new sensors to detect diabetes. For many, the condition is managed with daily injections (stock image)
The number of people with diabetes has risen from 108 million in 1980 to 422 million in 2014 - the latest year for which global figures are available - according to the World Heath Organisation.
The news comes at a time when the line between pharmaceuticals and technology is blurring.
WHAT IS DIABETES Diabetes is a chronic disease that occurs either when the pancreas does not produce enough insulin or when the body cannot effectively use the insulin it produces. Insulin is a hormone that regulates blood sugar Hyperglycaemia, or raised blood sugar, is a common effect of uncontrolled diabetes and over time leads to serious damage to many of the body's systems, especially the nerves and blood vessels The number of people with diabetes has risen from 108 million in 1980 to 422 million in 2014 - the latest year for which global figures are available - according to the World Heath Organisation. Advertisement
Companies are joining forces to tackle chronic diseases using high-tech devices that combine biology, software and hardware.
This has jump-starting a new field of medicine called bio-electronics.
Last year, GlaxoSmithKline Plc and Google parent Alphabet Inc unveiled a joint company aimed at marketing bio-electronic devices to fight illness by attaching to individual nerves.
U.S. biotech firms Setpoint Medical and EnteroMedics Inc have already demonstrated some early progress of bio-electronics in treating rheumatoid arthritis and suppressing appetite in the obese.
Other companies exploring the technology include Medtronic Plc, Proteus Digital Technology, Sanofi SA and Biogen Inc.
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Down a Bethlehem alleyway, sunlight illuminates a golden icon of the Virgin Mary and Jesus, signalling the revival of an ancient art being practiced in the workshop inside.
The building near the Church of the Nativity - the site where Christians believe Jesus was born - houses a group of enthusiasts specializing in the sacred art of iconography.
They are doing so some 2,000 years after Christian iconography began in nearby Jerusalem -- also where Christians believe Jesus was resurrected after his crucifixion, to be commemorated this Sunday for Easter.
Bethlehem Icon Center is a unique school in the Middle East, where students learn the historic art of Christian icon painting. They are doing so some 2,000 years after Christian iconography began in nearby Jerusalem - also where Christians believe Jesus was resurrected after his crucifixion, to be commemorated this Sunday for Easter
CHURCH OF THE NATIVITY The Church of the Nativity is a bascilica located in Bethlehem, West Bank. It was built by Saint Helena in the 4th century over the grotto where the Virgin Mary is said to have given birth to Jesus. The Church of the Nativity site's original basilica was completed in 339 and destroyed by fire during the Samaritan Revolts in the 6th century. A new basilica was built 565 by Justinian, the Byzantine Emperor, restoring the architectural tone of the original. The site of the Church of the Nativity has had numerous additions since this second construction, including its prominent bell towers. It is a Unesco World Heritage Site - the first to be listed under Palestine - and has religious significance to Christians and Muslims. Advertisement
They work in both silence and in prayer, with their art a far cry from the cheap mass-produced icons sold in souvenir shops to tourists and pilgrims.
'Icons are not commercial objects for us, but holy images that we honor,' said Nicola Juha, who heads the Bethlehem Icon Center.
He explains that icons like theirs are used by worshipers who, for example, light candles before them and pray.
According to tradition, Luke the Evangelist painted the first Christian icon in 60 AD.
Ian Knowles, far from his native Britain, now teaches the same art to not only Palestinian Christians, but also those from countries including Canada and Poland.
Watching the meticulous brushstrokes of his students, he said he left home to spend two weeks in the region and was still there nine years later.
One of his pieces, 'Our Lady of Palestine', depicts Mary shedding a tear over symbols of the Holy Land -- Jerusalem, Mount Carmel and Mount Nebo.
In a nearby chapel with a blue ceiling and a Nativity scene, around a dozen students recite prayers, their nearly finished icons in hand.
Archbishop Joseph Jules Zerey of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, which sponsors the iconography centre, blesses each one, holding an olive branch with holy oil.
Each icon is unique and produced to order. Animal-hair brushes are selected in Jerusalem or even London, and the pigments come directly from the Holy Land.
Hand-ground stones for yellow are from Jericho and roses used to paint faces are from Jerusalem, Juha said in the small woodworking shop where panels for the icons are carved.
Rose Codneler, who has used a holiday from her work at a women's shelter in Britain to spend Easter week in Bethlehem, said the uniqueness of the icons appeals to her.
For the 33-year-old Christian, spending days painstakingly painting Christ's face is 'a way of getting deeper into the characters of the Bible and the story of the Bible'.
Luke the Evangelist painted the first Christian icon in 60 AD, today Bethlehem is seeing renewed interest in the art form. One of his pieces (pictured), 'Our Lady of Palestine', depicts Mary shedding a tear over symbols of the Holy Land - Jerusalem, Mount Carmel and Mount Nebo
Animal-hair brushes are selected in Jerusalem or even London, and the pigments come directly from the Holy Land. Hand-ground stones for yellow are from Jericho and roses used to paint faces are from Jerusalem
'Icons have always fascinating me, and more and more so in the last few years, because they are a kind of beautiful synthesis of God, prayer and also ecology in the way that the pigments are all taken from nature,' she said.
Knowles's class is provided periodically to visiting pilgrims for around $265 (250 euros) and all year round to some 30 Palestinian Christians.
Juha said the center has succeeded in 'reviving an old, long-forgotten Palestinian tradition in Bethlehem, which is so important both in religious and geographic terms'.
Bethlehem is part of the West Bank, the Palestinian territory that has been occupied by Israel for 50 years and which struggles with unemployment and poverty.
Knowles points out that obtaining the best materials from Jerusalem is impossible for many Palestinians since they are barred from crossing over from the West Bank.
Archbishop Joseph Jules Zerey of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church blesses foreign students of the Bethlehem Icon Center as they present their religious artwork
Wearing a paint-stained apron, he says the center is also a way of serving the local Christian communities.
Christians have gone from 20 percent of the Palestinian population to slightly more than one percent over the course of 50 years.
'I wanted to do something which could really help to rebuild the iconography as a proper tradition and a constituent part of the Christian community here,' said said Knowles.
'I think people know the Christian population in Bethlehem has been devastated over the last 50 years.'
For some students at Bethlehem Icon Center, the chance to paint Christ is 'a way of getting deeper into the story of the Bible'. Each icon is unique and produced to order
Knowles also noted that 'culturally, the Christian community is a bit on its own, so it seems to me that it was an important thing that I could offer - to teach iconography as a profession rather just as a hobby'.
This year, 36 Palestinians have registered, paying fees of around 25 euros.
A partnership has also been formed with The Prince's School of Traditional Arts in London, allowing 10 Bethlehem students to earn a British diploma in iconography recognized worldwide.
The center has already achieved one particular point of pride: Knowles and three of his students have produced two icons for Lichfield Cathedral in Britain and are to complete a third next summer.
In the hope of helping people organise their busy lives, Google has quietly launched a new app this week, which combines food delivery and home services.
Dubbed Areo, it offers 'thousands' of services, including scheduling visits from plumbers and ordering food.
While the app is currently restricted to users in Mumbai and Bangalore, the fact that Google has not made an announcement about it suggests that it could soon be spreading further afield.
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Google has quietly launched a new app this week, which combines food delivery and home services. Areo is a hyper local app that offers 'thousands' of services, including scheduling visits from plumbers, or ordering your favourite dish
WHAT IS AREO? Users can order food from their favourite restaurants, providers and chefs, while home services include organising local electricians, painters, cleaners and plumbers. If you are unsure what you're looking for, there is a search function, in which you can input a dish, or filter by vegetarian or non-vegetarian options. Deliveries or services can be booked ahead, with a scheduling service. And users can choose whether they pay by card, cash, or netbanking, such as PayPal. Advertisement
Areo was first spotted by FactorDaily. While Google usually launches new apps with a blog or press release, neither seem to be available.
On the Google Play store, the description for the app reads: 'Introducing Areo, one single app for food delivery and home services.
'Now live in Bangalore and Mumbai, bringing the city's top food and home services right to your door.'
Users can order food from restaurants, providers and chefs, while home services include organising local electricians, painters, cleaners and plumbers.
If users are unsure what they're looking for, there is a search function, in which you they can input a dish, or filter by vegetarian or non-vegetarian options.
Deliveries or services can be booked ahead, with a scheduling service.
And users can choose whether they pay by card, cash, or netbanking, such as PayPal.
While Google has remained mysteriously quiet about Areo, it may have plans to expand the app beyond India.
Users can order food from their favourite restaurants, providers and chefs, while home services include organising local electricians, painters, cleaners and plumbers
If you are unsure what you're looking for, there is a search function, in which you can input a dish, or filter by vegetarian or non-vegetarian options
In a recent visit to India, Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, said that he saw the country as a testbed for several new Google services.
He said that India adopts 'remarkably' fast to new products and services, due to its 'thirst and hunger' for connectivity.
Speaking to a local TV station, he added: 'We realize when we build for India, we can actually take it globally.'
The app is free to download on the Google Play store, but is not yet available for iPhone.
MailOnline has contacted Google for comment.
Facebook is at risk of being prosecuted in Britain for failing to remove terrorist footage and child porn material from its site, according to an investigation.
The social media giant failed to take down images flagged to moderators including a horrific video of sexual assault on a child.
Facebook algorithms even suggested that users join groups that had published highly offensive material, including violent beheading and paedophilic cartoons.
Facebook is at risk of being prosecuted in Britain for failing to remove terrorist footage and child porn material from its site, according to an investigation. The social media giant failed to take down images flagged to moderators including a horrific video of sexual assault on a child
PORNOGRAPHY ON FACEBOOK An investigation revealed that offensive content was not considered to breach Facebook's 'community standards' by moderators. Facebook algorithms even suggested that users join groups that had published highly offensive material, including violent beheading and paedophilic cartoons. Several cartoons of child abuse were not removed on the site, despite the fact they are more likely illegal material. This comes one month after its refusal to remove dozens of disturbing sexualised images of children last month. The site's moderators approved numerous photographs of under-16s posing provocatively, as well as stolen images of children published on a Facebook page called 'hot xxxx schoolgirls'. Many of the images were posted on private Facebook groups aimed at paedophiles eager to share content. MPs and charities condemned Facebook's failures as unacceptable and called for action against it. Advertisement
An investigation by The Times revealed that offensive content was not considered to breach Facebook's 'community standards' by moderators despite the fact much of it could be illegal under British law.
The social media giant has allegedly refused to take down dozens of shocking images, including a gruesome video of an Islamic State beheading and posters celebrating last months terror attack in Westminster.
It also failed to remove dozens of pornographic cartoons depicting child abuse, and a video of what appeared to be a sexual assault on a real child, it was claimed.
The Times newspaper set up a fake Facebook profile to search for the content and used the social networks reporting button to send them to its moderators for inspection.
A leading QC who reviewed the content said that a lot of the material is illegal under English law and that Facebook is at risk of a criminal investigation for refusing to take them down after the warning.
'One video appears to depict a sexual assault on a child. That would undoubtedly breach UK indecency laws', Julian Knowles QC told The Times.
'The video showing a beheading is very likely to be a publication that encourages terrorism', he said.
The company has been criticised for allowing criminal groups to spread on the site - even suggesting them possible 'friends' with similar interests.
It also left in place a pro-ISIS post celebrating attacks from London to Chechnya and promising to bring war into the heart of your homes.
'If someone reports an illegal image to Facebook and a senior moderator signs off on keeping it up, Facebook is at risk of committing a criminal offence because the company might be regarded as assisting or encouraging its publication and distribution', said Knowles.
Yvette Cooper, chairwoman of the home affairs select committee, said: 'Social media companies need to get their act together fast, this has been going on for too long.
Facebook algorithms even suggested that users join groups that had published highly offensive material, including violent beheading and paedophilic cartoons (stock image)
FACEBOOK'S RESPONSE The social media giant initially failed to take down images flagged to moderators including a horrific video of sexual assault on a child. Justin Osofsky, vice president of Global Operations at Facebook told MailOnline 'We are grateful to The Times for bringing this content to our attention. 'We have removed all of these images, which violate our policies and have no place on Facebook. 'We are sorry that this occurred. It is clear that we can do better, and we'll continue to work hard to live up to the high standards people rightly expect of Facebook', he said. Advertisement
'It's time the government looked seriously at the German proposal to invoke fines if illegal and dangerous content isn't swiftly removed', she said.
Justin Osofsky, vice president of Global Operations at Facebook told MailOnline 'We are grateful to The Times for bringing this content to our attention.
'We have removed all of these images, which violate our policies and have no place on Facebook.
'We are sorry that this occurred. It is clear that we can do better, and we'll continue to work hard to live up to the high standards people rightly expect of Facebook', he said.
Facebook was in the dock last month over its refusal to remove dozens of disturbing sexualised images of children.
The site's moderators approved numerous photographs of under-16s posing provocatively, as well as stolen images of children published on a Facebook page called 'hot xxxx schoolgirls'.
One image appeared to be a freeze-frame from a child abuse video.
Many of the images were posted on private Facebook groups aimed at paedophiles eager to share content. They were often accompanied by obscene comments and in one case a specific request to share 'child pornography'.
The company has been criticised for allowing criminal groups to spread on the site - even suggesting them possible 'friends' with similar interests (stock image)
The BBC used Facebook's reporting button to raise the alarm about 100 of these sexualised images of children automatically sending them to the social network's moderators for inspection.
But despite repeated pledges by Facebook to remove 'any sexual content involving minors', the moderators only agreed to remove 18 of them.
It said the other 82 could stay. The technology giant only agreed to remove them all when the whistleblowing journalist, Angus Crawford, contacted Facebook executives.
Facebook asked the reporter to send over the photographs he thought were problematic then reported him to the police for doing so.
One MP said it was extraordinary that the BBC had been reported when it was trying to 'help clean up the network'.
At the time Facebook admitted its moderators made a mistake but repeatedly refused to explain what went wrong.
It simply issued a statement from its policy director Simon Milner confirming that the images had now gone.
'We have carefully reviewed the content referred to us and have now removed all items that were illegal or against our standards. This content is no longer on our platform.
'We take this matter extremely seriously and we continue to improve our reporting and take-down measures.
'Facebook has been recognised as one of the best platforms on the internet for child safety,' he said.
MPs and charities condemned Facebook's failures as unacceptable and called for action against it.
They also urged the police to prosecute the social network over any illegal images on its website, and suggested a change in the law to make it harder for such companies to ignore dangerous content.
An NSPCC spokesman said: 'Facebook's failure to remove illegal content from its website is appalling and violates the agreements they have in place to protect children.
'It also raises the question of what content they consider to be inappropriate and dangerous to children.'
The National Crime Agency, which runs the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP), said it is 'vital' social media platforms report and remove indecent content.
Adults who are concerned about potential harm to children can contact the NSPCC helpline for advice on 0808 800 5000.
Uber has been using top secret software called 'Hell' to track drivers working for its biggest US competitor Lyft, according to a shocking report.
Insiders claim that Uber's ethically dubious tracking software meant the company could create fake accounts on Lyft in order to stalk their competitor's drivers.
The software also showed which drivers were working for both companies and therefore helped Uber lure them away from their competitor.
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A shocking report claims that Uber used top secret software called 'Hell' to track drivers working for its biggest US competitor Lyft (stock image)
'HELL' SOFTWARE Uber used top secret software called 'Hell' to track drivers working for its biggest US competitor Lyft. Uber employees created fake accounts on Lyft to find out which drivers were available, at what time and where, according to the report. They could also find out how much trips cost and could use this information to offer drivers exclusives that might tempt them to work just for Uber. Inside sources say Uber might face legal action as a result of this report Advertisement
Using 'Hell' software, Uber employees created fake accounts on Lyft to find out which drivers were available, at what time and where, according to the report byThe Information.
They could also find out how much trips cost and could use this information to offer drivers exclusives that might tempt them to work just for Uber.
According to the report, Uber stopped using 'Hell' at the beginning of 2016 when Lyft completed a $1 billion (800 million) round of funding.
Only the inner circle knew about the software, including CEO Travis Kalanick and other executives.
The software was first developed after employees at Uber created fake accounts to trick Lyft's drivers. This allowed them to see where free drivers were.
Later they discovered that Lyft, which was founded in 2012, had ID numbers for each of its drivers which meant they could more systematically study them.
Inside sources say Uber might face legal action as a result of this report, which is another stain on the company's reputation.
It is facing accusations of routinely tolerated sexism and sexual harassment in the workplace, as well as troubles for Kalanick after a video surfaced showing him berating a driver.
According to the report, Uber stopped using 'Hell' at the beginning of 2016 when Lyft completed a $1 billion (800 million) round of funding (stock image)
The company is hiring a chief operating officer to help him manage the company.
Last month, Uber's president, Jeff Jones quit the company less than a year after he joined from Target.
In a statement to the tech blog Recode at the time, Jones said 'the beliefs and approach to leadership that have guided my career are inconsistent with what I saw and experienced at Uber, and I can no longer continue as president of the ride-sharing business.'
In February, a top engineering executive, Amit Singhal, left Uber five weeks after his hire was announced.
Ed Baker, Uber's vice president of product and growth, also resigned earlier this year, as did Charlie Miller, Uber's top security researcher, who left to join Didi, China's larger ride-hailing company.
A Uber spokesman told The Information that the company won't publicly discuss its internal processes.
Lyft said 'We are in a competitive industry. However, if true, these allegations are very concerning.'
MailOnline has contacted Uber for comment.
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Nasa has released stunning new images showing how humans have lit up every corner of the Earth.
The space agency has spent years collecting and analysing satellite images of Earth and have put together the clearest yet composite view of Earth's 'night lights'.
The maps reveal how human settlements have shaped the planet and lit up the darkness.
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Slide me A view of Europe's 'night lights'. The continent's capital cities, including London (top left), Paris (just below) and Madrid (bottom left) stand out against the darkened landscape (right shows labelled version)
HOW ARE SUCH CLEAR IMAGES CREATED? The principal challenge in nighttime satellite imaging is accounting for the phases of the moon, which constantly varies the amount of light shining on Earth, though in predictable ways. Likewise, seasonal vegetation, clouds, aerosols, snow and ice cover, and even faint atmospheric emissions (such as airglow and auroras) change the way light is observed in different parts of the world. The new maps were produced with data from all months of each year. The team wrote code that picked the clearest night views each month, ultimately combining moonlight-free and moonlight-corrected data. Dr Roman and colleagues have been building remote sensing techniques to filter out these sources of extraneous light, gathering a better and more consistent signal of how human-driven patterns and processes are changing. Advertisement
Satellite images of Earth at night, often referred to as 'night lights', have been a fundamental research for nearly 25 years.
Produced every decade or so, such maps have spawned hundreds of pop-culture uses and dozens of economic, social science and environmental research projects.
But now Nasa aims to be able to update its stunning maps of Earth at night as often as every day.
A research team led by Earth scientist Dr Miguel Roman of Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland, will spend this year trying to make this goal a reality.
In the years since the 2011 launch of the Nasa-Noaa Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) satellite, Dr Roman and colleagues have been analyzing night lights data and developing new software and algorithms to make night lights imagery clearer, more accurate and readily available.
They are now on the verge of providing daily, high-definition views of Earth at night, and are targeting the release of such data to the science community later this year.
Scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA released a new Earth at night map in 2012.
Since then, researchers have been working to integrate nighttime data into NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS) and Worldview mapping tools.
Slide me The US as seen from space at night. A remarkable split down the middle of the country shows how population density differs from east to west (right shows labelled version)
Freely available to the science community and the public via the Web, GIBS and Worldview allow users to see natural- and false-colour images of Earth within hours of satellite acquisition.
The Nasa group has examined the different ways that light is radiated, scattered and reflected by land, atmospheric and ocean surfaces.
The principal challenge in nighttime satellite imaging is accounting for the phases of the moon, which constantly varies the amount of light shining on Earth, though in predictable ways.
A view of Earth at night in 2016. The stunning composite image was taken by the Nasa-Noaa Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) satellite
North (top) and South (bottom) America as seen from space. US's bustling cities shine brightly while a black void across the top of South America marks the location of the Amazon rainforest
Likewise, seasonal vegetation, clouds, aerosols, snow and ice cover, and even faint atmospheric emissions (such as airglow and auroras) change the way light is observed in different parts of the world.
The new maps were produced with data from all months of each year.
The team wrote code that picked the clearest night views each month, ultimately combining moonlight-free and moonlight-corrected data.
Europe (top) and Asia (bottom) at night. Vegetation, clouds, aerosols, snow and ice cover, and even faint atmospheric emissions (such as airglow and auroras) change the way light is observed in different parts of the world
A nighttime view of Asia (top left) and Australia (bottom right). Industrious regions of India sparkle while Australia, which is covered in barren deserts that stretch across the middle of the country, looks almost invisible
WHAT COULD THE MAPS BE USED FOR? The maps have the potential to aid short-term weather forecasting and disaster response. 'Thanks to VIIRS, we can now monitor short-term changes caused by disturbances in power delivery, such as conflict, storms, earthquakes and brownouts,' said Dr Miguel Roman from Nasa's Goddard Centre. 'We can monitor cyclical changes driven by reoccurring human activities such as holiday lighting and seasonal migrations. 'We can also monitor gradual changes driven by urbanization, out-migration, economic changes, and electrification. 'The fact that we can track all these different aspects at the heart of what defines a city is simply mind-boggling.' The Nasa team envisions many other potential uses by research, meteorological and civic groups. For instance, daily nighttime imagery could be used to help monitor unregulated or unreported fishing. It could also contribute to efforts to track sea ice movements and concentrations. Advertisement
Dr Roman and colleagues have been building remote sensing techniques to filter out these sources of extraneous light, gathering a better and more consistent signal of how human-driven patterns and processes are changing.
The improved processing moves the satellite closer to its full potential of observing dim light down to the scale of an isolated highway lamp or a fishing boat.
The satellite's workhorse instrument is the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), which detects photons of light reflected from Earth's surface and atmosphere in 22 different wavelengths.
VIIRS is the first satellite instrument to make quantitative measurements of light emissions and reflections, which allows researchers to distinguish the intensity, types and the sources of night lights over several years.
Space satellites observe nearly every location on Earth at roughly 1:30 p.m. and 1:30 a.m. (local time) each day, watching the planet in vertical 1,864-mile (3000-kilometre) strips from pole to pole.
VIIRS includes a special 'day-night band,' a low-light sensor that can distinguish night lights with six times better spatial resolution and 250 times better resolution of lighting levels (dynamic range) than previous night-observing satellites.
And the data are freely available to scientists within minutes to hours of acquisition.
Armed with more accurate nighttime environmental products, the Nasa team is now automating the processing so that users will be able to view nighttime imagery within hours of acquisition.
This has the potential to aid short-term weather forecasting and disaster response.
The Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern US at night, one of the brightest regions in the world. New York (centre) shines a bright white thanks to light pollution from city lights, sky scrapers and billboards
Slide me The most readily noticeable difference in these nighttime views of Chicago In 2012 (left) and 2016 (right) is lighting along a recently expanded section of Interstate 90. This part of the highway, the Jane Addams Memorial Tollway, links Chicago with Rockford, Illinois, to the northwest
'Thanks to VIIRS, we can now monitor short-term changes caused by disturbances in power delivery, such as conflict, storms, earthquakes and brownouts,' said Dr Roman.
'We can monitor cyclical changes driven by reoccurring human activities such as holiday lighting and seasonal migrations.
'We can also monitor gradual changes driven by urbanization, out-migration, economic changes, and electrification.
'The fact that we can track all these different aspects at the heart of what defines a city is simply mind-boggling.'
Slide me This before-and-after comparison shows nighttime views of India and surrounding areas in 2012 (left) and 2016 (right), indicating that the country has gone through rapid development in just four years
For instance, VIIRS detected power outages in the wake of Hurricane Matthew, a major storm that struck the northeastern Caribbean and southeastern US in late September 2016.
Nasa's Disasters Response team provided the data to colleagues at the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
But in the future, Nasa, Fema and the Department of Energy hope to develop power outage maps and integrate the information into recovery efforts by first responders.
The Nasa team envisions many other potential uses by research, meteorological and civic groups.
For instance, daily nighttime imagery could be used to help monitor unregulated or unreported fishing.
It could also contribute to efforts to track sea ice movements and concentrations.
The Nile River and surrounding region at night 2016. The industrious settlements that surround the river make it appear as if its water runs a sparkling gold
Researchers in Puerto Rico intend to use the dataset to reduce light pollution and help protect tropical forests and coastal areas that support fragile ecosystems.
And a team at the United Nations has already used night lights data to monitor the effects of war on electric power and the movement of displaced populations in war-torn Syria.
In a separate, long-term project, Dr Roman is working with colleagues from around the world to improve global and regional estimates of carbon dioxide emissions.
The team at NASA's Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) is combining night lights, urban land use data, and statistical and model projections of anthropogenic emissions in ways that should make estimates of sources much more precise.
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NASA hailed a new frontier last night after revealing some of the strongest evidence yet that alien life may exist.
The space agency said that practically all the elements needed for life had been discovered in the same place in our solar system on one of Saturns icy moons.
The missing ingredient, hydrogen, was discovered for the first time on Enceladus during the deepest ever dive by NASAs Cassini spacecraft.
This hydrogen is now said to be a potential source of chemical energy that could support microbes on the seafloor of Enceladus, the researchers revealed during a NASA press conference yesterday.
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All the building blocks for life have been found for the first time away from Earth, NASA announced within our solar system. Hunt for alien life is set to begin on Enceladus, Saturns sixth largest moon, after Cassinis deepest ever dive into its cracks found hydrogen gas
WHAT THEY FOUND During its deepest-ever dive into a plume from cracks in Enceladus ice-covered ocean, the Cassini spacecraft detected the presence of hydrogen gas. According to researchers, the only plausible source of this gas could be hydrothermal reactions between hot rocks and water in the ocean beneath the icy surface. This same process, on Earth, provides energy for entire ecosystems around hydrothermal vents. As a result, the researcher say there could be volatile species in these deep oceans. It means Enceladus may have the same single-celled organisms which began life on Earth, or more complex life still. While they haven't found life itself on Enceladus, Glein says the geochemical data 'could allow for this possibility.' Advertisement
After 13 years exploring Saturn, the craft dove into high-powered jets of water spewing from the moons surface, where it found hydrogen gas.
The gas is the final piece of the puzzle following the discovery of water in an ocean under Enceladuss surface.
It means Saturns sixth moon may have the same single-celled organisms with which life began on Earth, or more complex creatures still.
These organisms, still found on our planet within the darkest depths of our oceans, use hydrogen and carbon dioxide as fuel in a process known as 'methanogenesis.'
What is intriguing about the data at Enceladus, with the hydrogen detection, is that we are now able to determine how much energy would be available from the methanogenesis reaction at Enceladus,' said Chris Glein, Cassini INMS team associate at SwRI during the press conference.
'We have made the first calorie count in an alien ocean.'
This, the researcher explained, is a major step in assessing the moon's habitability.
While they haven't found life itself on Enceladus, Glein says the geochemical data 'could allow for this possibility.'
Mary Voytek, senior astrobiologist at Nasa Headquarters, said last night: 'This is a new frontier because this is the first time we have seen evidence of an alien food source in an ocean not on Earth.
'We knew we had two of the key ingredients for life and now we have the third. This is the most exciting discovery in my eight-year career at Nasa.'
The building blocks of life on Enceladus are water, which no form of life on Earth can exist without, an energy source and six elements carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulphur.
The last two of these, phosphorus and sulphur, have not yet been found in Enceladuss ocean but scientists suspect them to be there because the rocky core of the moon is believed to be chemically similar to meteorites containing them.
This now paves the way for further explorations to find life in our solar system.
'Although we can't detect life, we've found that there's a food source there for it,' said Hunter Waite, lead author of the Cassini study.
'It would be like a candy store for microbes.'
The hydrogen, which shoots out of the moon in high-powered ice jets, is the final puzzle piece following the discovery of its liquid ocean and carbon dioxide. It means Enceladus may have the same single-celled organisms which began life on Earth, or more complex life still
Professor David Rothery, professor of planetary geosciences at the Open University, said: Right now, we only know of life beginning once in the universe, here on Earth, which leaves us alone in the dark. It could have simply been an incredible fluke.
But if it has happened twice in this solar system, it opens up everything.
There are tens of billions of worlds in our galaxy and there could be alien life on many of those too.
Alien life was once only thought possible on habitable planets within the Goldilocks zone far enough from our sun not to be a fireball, but not so far as to be freezing.
Enceladus, a frozen moon around 800million miles from Earth, was one of the least likely candidates.
But in 2005 the Cassini spacecraft was orbiting Saturn when it picked up plumes of vapour coming from the tiger stripes, or deep fissures, in the moons surface.
This established that, while Enceladus is freezing on its surface, underneath is a liquid ocean.
Organisms, found on our planet in hot vents within the darkest depths of our oceans, use hydrogen and carbon dioxide as fuel in a process called 'methanogenesis.' Researchers have now discovered the building blocks for life exist on Enceladus as well
WHAT IS ENCELADUS? Enceladus is Saturn's sixth largest moon, at 313 miles wide (504 kilometers). Cassini observations have revealed hydrothermal activity, with vents spewing water vapour and ice particles out from a global ocean buried beneath the icy crust. According to NASA, the plume includes organic compounds, volatile gases, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, salts, and silica. While it may look 'inhospitable' like Saturn's other moons, the observations suggest it may have the ingredients to support life. Advertisement
That ocean is warmed by rock at the core of the moon, tidally heated as Enceladus orbits Saturn. The gravity from the planet pulls the moon out of shape, wherever it is closest, creating friction that heats the rock to 90C enough to melt the ice.
Scientists did not have to drill beneath the ice to examine the reservoir under the moons south pole, as its vapour erupted in plumes through cracks in the surface.
Cassini, on its final mission before it runs out of fuel and is allowed to burn up in space, was sent diving deep into the jets.
Yesterday Nasa announced the spacecraft had found hydrogen as a gas, the form needed to support single-celled organisms, in the moons ocean.
These microbes use hydrogen, which they cannot extract from water, like we use oxygen, to fuel their cells.
Scientists know this form of life can exist after discovering similar creatures at the bottom of Earths oceans.
They are able to survive without sunlight, using hydrogen and carbon dioxide supplied by thermal heating from deep-water vents.
This could provide the necessary energy to support organisms at the seafloor of Enceladus.
'Confirmation that the chemical energy for life exists within the ocean of a small moon of Saturn is an important milestone in our search for habitable worlds beyond Earth,' said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.
This is the closest we've come, so far, to identifying a place with some of the ingredients needed for a habitable environment, said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate at Headquarters in Washington.
These results demonstrate the interconnected nature of NASA's science missions that are getting us closer to answering whether we are indeed alone or not.
In 2005 the unmanned Cassini spacecraft was orbiting Saturn when it picked up plumes of vapour coming from the tiger stripes, or deep fissures, in the moons surface
Observations in 2005 by the NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini mission revealed plumes of water vapour and ice spraying into space from the south pole of Enceladus, the sixth-largest moon of Saturn, as illustrated above
Cassini, which made the major breakthrough using its mass spectrometer, will have a fiery end to its time in space. After orbiting Saturn for 13 years, its grand finale mission will end in September when it is diverted to crash into Saturn and burn up.
Dr David Clements, astrophysicist at Imperial College London, said: This discovery does not mean that life exists on Enceladus, but it is a step on the way to that result.
He added: We need to know much more about the molecular species coming out of Enceladus and, ideally, that are inside it before we can make such claims.
Hydrogen gas, thought to be formed by the heated rocks beneath Enceladus, is needed along with a suitable temperature.
HUBBLE SPOTS SECOND PLUME ON EUROPA Meanwhile the Hubble telescope, the first telescope sent into space in 1990, which has made more than 1.3 million observations, last year spotted possible similar water plumes to those of Enceladus erupting from Jupiters moon Europa. Evidence of a plume was seen at this same location in 2014, and the researchers say the new observations are further evidence that these plumes could be real, and experience intermittent flare-ups. As the Hubble telescope has now twice seen similar vapour flumes coming off Europa, which makes it a second key candidate for this kind of alien life. Nasas Europa Clipper mission, named after ships that sailed on Earth in the 19th century, will set off in the 2020s to search for the chemical ingredients of life on Europa. Meanwhile the Hubble telescope last year spotted possible similar water plumes to those of Enceladus erupting from Jupiters moon Europa. The green oval shows the plumes Hubble observed on Europa. This corresponds to a warm region on Europa's surface, NASA says These composite images show a suspected plume of material erupting two years apart from the same location on Jupiter's icy moon Europa. Both plumes, photographed in UV light by Hubble, were seen in silhouette as the moon passed in front of Jupiter. Advertisement
The discovery of these four ingredients now paves the way for further explorations to find life in our solar system.
Mars, which shares some of the same material as Earth, is a prime candidate, although scientists are now divided as to whether the moons in our solar system are a better bet.
Titan, the largest of Saturns 53 moons, is believed to have a subsurface ocean as salty as Earths Dead Sea in Israel.
As scientists look further for living microbes on Enceladus, NASAs Europa Clipper mission, named after the clipper ships which sailed across the oceans of our planet in the 19th century, will set off in the 2020s to search for the chemical ingredients of life.
As scientists look further for living microbes on Enceladus, NASAs Europa Clipper mission, named after the clipper ships which sailed across the oceans of our planet in the 19th century, will set off in the 2020s to search for the chemical ingredients of life
Cassini, which made the major breakthrough on Saturns moon using its mass spectrometer, will have a fiery end to its mission.
After orbiting Saturn for 13 years, its grand finale mission will end in September when it is diverted to crash into Saturn.
The discoveries mark an important milestone in the search for alien life - which, the experts say, would be quite different from our own.
'These ocean worlds with their protective outer shell, if indeed theres life in there, it has to be completely different than ours in the sense that its generated in a way thats not related to our life, said Jim Green, director, Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters, during the conference.
'We call that a second genesis.'
It was first created as a psychological weapon, designed to scare the enemy into surrendering.
But today, the GBU-43/B - dubbed the 'Mother of all bombs' - has been dropped on an Islamic State complex in Afghanistan.
A crater left by the blast is believed to be more than 300 meters wide after it exploded six feet above the ground. Anyone at the blast site was vaporized.
This is the first time the Moab (Massive Ordnance Air Blast) explosive in combat for the first time. But what is the huge explosive, and how does it work?
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Nicknamed the 'Mother of all Bombs', the Moab (pictured) is the world's largest non-nuclear weapon. It was first developed as a psychological weapon to scare enemy troops into surrender
KEY FACTS - Nicknamed the Mother of all Bombs - The worlds largest non-nuclear weapon - Each bomb costs around $16 million (12.8 million) - It took $314 million (251 million) to develop - It carries 8,164 kilograms of explosives - Its explosion is equivalent to 11 tons of TNT and the blast radius is a mile wide - By contrast, the nuclear weapon dropped on Hiroshima had a blast yield of 15 tons of TNT - First tested by US forces in 2003 - It is designed to destroy heavily reinforced targets or to shatter ground forces and armour across a large area - 30 feet (9 metres) long and 40 inches (1 metre) wide - Weighs 21,000lbs (9,500kg) heavier than the Hiroshima nuclear bomb - Leaves no lasting radiation effect Advertisement
The Moab or GBU-43/B is the world's largest non-nuclear weapon.
It is designed to destroy heavily reinforced targets or to shatter ground forces and armour across a large area.
Its blast is equivalent to 11 tons of TNT. By comparison, the nuclear weapon dropped on Hiroshima had a blast yield of 15 tons of TNT.
First tested in 2003, it was developed by by US forces in preparation for the Iraq invasion but was never deployed during the war.
The huge bomb measure 30 feet (9 metres) long and 40 inches (1 metre) wide, and weighs 21,000lbs (9,500kg) heavier than the Hiroshima nuclear bomb.
While it has a blast radius that stretches a mile in each direction the bomb leaves no lasting radiation effect because it is non-nuclear.
Deploying such a large bomb isn't easy as even the world's largest bombing aircraft can't manage the Moab's size and weight.
The bomb can only be deployed out of the back of large cargo plane using a unique system.
A parachute pulls the bomb out of the plane on a box-like pallet that quickly separates from the explosive.
Grid fins then extend from the body to help control the bomb's descent.
It accelerates rapidly to its terminal velocity and is partially guided to its target via satellite.
The huge bomb measure 30 feet (9 metres) long and 40 inches (1 metre) wide, and weighs 21,000lbs (9,500kg) heavier than the Hiroshima nuclear bomb. It has a blast radius that stretches a mile in each direction
HOW IT IS DEPLOYED - The bomb has grid fins that fold into the body during carriage - It can only be deployed out of the back of large cargo plane due to its size - The bomb rides on a pallet - a parachute pulls the pallet and bomb out of the plane - The pallet then separates so that the bomb can fall to its target - The bombs grid fins extend to help control the bombs descent - It accelerates rapidly to its terminal velocity and is partially guided to its target via satellite - It explodes six feet (1.8 metres) above the ground - The idea behind this airburst mechanism is to spread its destructive range Advertisement
The bomb explodes six feet (1.8 metres) above the ground using an 'airburst' mechanism to spread its destructive power horizontally rather than vertically.
Today, the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb hit a 'tunnel complex' in Achin district in Nangarhar province, US Forces Afghanistan said in a statement.
A specialized MC-130 'Hercules' cargo aircraft released the weapon at 7:00 p.m. local time.
It was too big to drop from a traditional bomb-bay door or release from an aircraft wing, so 'we kicked it out the back door,' a U.S. official told Fox News.
The weapon's sheer power produces a blast that can be felt miles away, largely because of its construction.
Engineers used an unusually thin aluminum skin to encase MOAB's payload, in order to avoid a thicker steel frame interfering with the impact on a target.
The Moab was first developed as a psychological weapon to scare enemy troops into surrender.
A video of the original 'Elgin' test was released to the public in order to unsettle the Iraqi forces.
'The goal is to have the pressure be so great that Saddam Hussein cooperates,' then-Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said.
'Short of that - an unwillingness to cooperate - the goal is to have the capabilities of the coalition so clear and so obvious that there is an enormous disincentive for the Iraqi military to fight against the coalition.'
From checking text messages to tracking your fitness and viewing notifications, the Apple Watch has made our lives easier with just a flick of the wrist but it has also been found to save lives as well.
Casey Bennett, from Laytonsville, Maryland, was driving home from school the night of April 6 when he was struck by another vehicle sending him and his Jeep Patriot flying through the air.
Bennett, 22, found himself hanging from the driver's seat by just his seat belt, but his iPhone was too far out of reach to call for help.
However, he remembered the Apple Watch included the SOS Emergency feature he held the side button down and contacted 911 for help, who were on the scene in six minutes.
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Bennett 's iPhone was too far out of reach to call for help. However, he remembered the Apple Watch included the SOS Emergency feature he held the side button down and contacted 911 for help, who were on the scene in six minutes
HOW DOES SOS WORK? Users simply press and hold the side button underneath the Digital Crown on the Watch for six seconds and the SOS feature will appear. It can either be slid or tapped to activate, which will prompt a countdown from three this allows users to cancel the call if it was accidentally activated. A text message is also sent out to the wearer's emergency contacts that includes a link with their location. Advertisement
Usually you only think of an Apple Watch to check a text message, but when you dont have your phone it can be really helpful,' Bennett told DailyMail.com in an interview.
I know eventually someone would call for help, but if I didnt have 911 to speak to after the accident, the six minutes it took paramedics to show up would have felt like six hours.
Apple released the SOS feature with WatchOS 3 last June, which works similar to LifeAlert, in that it enables users to easily reach emergency services.
Users simply press and hold the side button underneath the Digital Crown on the Watch for six seconds and the SOS feature will appear.
It can either be slid or tapped to activate, which will prompt a countdown from three this allows users to cancel the call if it was accidentally activated.
My car flipped over three times and when it stopped, the passenger side was on the ground and I was hanging from the driver seat, explained Bennett.
Casey Bennett, from Laytonsville, Maryland, was driving home from school the night of April 6 when he was struck by another vehicle sending him and his Jeep Patriot flying through the air. It landed on its side and left him dangling from the driver's seat
I had to call 911, but my phone was thrown far out of reach.
I actually think my phone hit me in the face because my nose is really sore.
Not only was Bennett able to call for paramedics, but his emergency contacts were also notified.
There is a feature that notified my emergency contacts that I had been in an accident, he said.
Video courtesy Cult of Mac
Not only was Bennett able to call for paramedics, but his emergency contacts were also notified. There is a feature that notified my emergency contacts that I had been in an accident, he said
They were also sent a link to my location and then they received another text message when I was moved to the hospital with the location.
However, once the incident has been resolved, users can select "Stop Sharing" within the SOS notification.
The Watch itself can also display a user's MedicalID, easily displaying a user's name, age, date-of-birth, medical conditions and other medical information.
Boyceville High School senior Maxwell Engel has been named a 2017 Kohl Excellence Scholar. He is among 207 graduating high school students who will receive a $10,000 scholarship -- recently doubled from $5,000 in a surprise announcement made on April 8.
Excellence Scholarship recipients have demonstrated excellence in the academic arena and high motivation to achieve, have displayed a broad range of activity and leadership outside the academic setting, and have shown strong promise for succeeding in college and beyond.
Excellence Scholarship recipients are selected by a statewide committee composed of civic leaders, representatives of education-related associations and the programs co-sponsors: Wisconsin Newspaper Association Foundation, Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, Wisconsin Council of Religious and Independent Schools (WCRIS), regional Cooperative Educational Service Agencies (CESA), and the Association of Wisconsin School Administrators.
The Kohl Foundation Scholarship and Fellowship program was established in 1990 by Herb Kohl, philanthropist and businessman, from whom Engel will receive his award at a luncheon for the North Central and Northwest regions on Sunday, April 30, at North High School in Eau Claire.
Humans look to the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to make better and unbiased decisions.
However, a new study has found that the technology is becoming racist and sexist as it learns, thus hindering its ability to make balanced resolutions.
Researchers discovered that the better AI becomes at interpreting the human language, the more likely it will adopt human bias about race and gender that lurks within the data it is fed.
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A Study found that AI is becoming racists and sexist as it learns, hindering its ability to make unbiased decisions. Researchers discovered that the better AI becomes at interpreting the human language, the more likely it will adopt human bias that lurks within the data it is fed
HOW A ROBOT BECAME RACIST Princeton University conducted a word associate task with the algorithm GloVe, an unsupervised AI that uses online text to understand human language. The team gave the AI words like 'flowers' and 'insects' to pair with other words defined as being 'pleasant' or 'unpleasant' like 'family' or 'crash' - which it did successfully. Then algorithm was given a list of white-sounding names, like Emily and Matt, and black-sounding ones, such as Ebony and Jamal', which it was prompted to do the same word association. The AI linked the white-sounding names with 'pleasant' and black-sounding names as 'unpleasant'. Findings suggested the datasets used to train AI is polluted with prejudices and assumptions and these technologies are adopting the ideas. Advertisement
'A lot of people are saying this is showing that AI is prejudiced. No. This is showing we're prejudiced and that AI is learning it,' Joanna Bryson, a computer scientist at the University of Bath and a co-author of the study, told The Guardian.
'A danger would be if you had an AI system that didn't have an explicit part that was driven by moral ideas, that would be bad.'
The findings were uncovered after researchers created a statistical system for scoring the positive and negative connotations associated with words in AI-analyzed texts.
'We replicated a spectrum of known biases, as measured by the Implicit Association Test [IAT], using a widely used, purely statistical machine-learning model trained on a standard corpus of text from the World Wide Web,' reads the study published in the journal Science.
'Our results indicate that text corpora contain recoverable and accurate imprints of our historic biases, whether morally neutral as toward insects or flowers, problematic as toward race or gender, or even simply veridical, reflecting the status quo distribution of gender with respect to careers or first names.'
This work stems from work done in August by Princeton University, which conducted a word associate task with the popular algorithm GloVe, an unsupervised AI that uses online text to understand human language - the University of Bath and Princeton collaborated on the recent study.
The team gave the AI words like 'flowers' and 'insects' to pair with other words that the researchers defined as being 'pleasant' or 'unpleasant' like 'family' or 'crash' - which it did successfully.
GloVe was trained using a dataset known as 'common crawl', which is a random list of 840 billion words that were pulled from different web pages.
In the latest paper, the team discussed the bias that was acquired by algorithms from being fed human language. The words 'female' and 'woman' were clustered with arts and humanities occupations and with the home - butit took a dark turn when it was giving names
In the end, the AI is simply reflected the average person's view in this case.
In the latest paper, the team discussed the bias that was acquired by algorithms from being fed human language.
The words 'female' and 'woman' were clustered with arts and humanities occupations and with the home.
When given white sounding names like Emily and Matthew, the AI associated other words with them like 'laughter' or 'happy'. However, given African American sounding names like Aisha and Darnell, the technology chose unpleasant words such as agony, nasty and evil
While 'male' and 'man' was linked to mathematical and engineering professions.
However, the technology took an incredibly dark turn when it was giving names to associate with other words.
When given white sounding names like Emily and Matthew, the AI associated other words with them like 'laughter' or 'happy'.
However, given African American sounding names like Aisha and Darnell, the technology chose unpleasant words such as agony, nasty and evil.
The results suggested that algorithms have adopted the same biases that make humans match words to people's faces based on the color of their skin or gender.
TAY: THE RACISTS TEEN CHATBOT Last June, Microsoft launched an AI bot named Tay that was designed to understand conversational language among young people online. However, within hours of it going live, Twitter users took advantage of flaws in Tay's algorithm that meant the AI chatbot responded to certain questions with racist answers. The results suggested AI has adopted the same biases that make humans match words to people's faces based on the color of their skin or gender. Microsoft released a chatbot last year (pictured) that turned racists after learning human language These included the bot using racial slurs, defending white supremacist propaganda, and supporting genocide. The bot also managed to spout gems such as, 'Bush did 9/11 and Hitler would have done a better job than the monkey we have got now.' And, 'donald trump is the only hope we've got', in addition to 'Repeat after me, Hitler did nothing wrong.' Followed by, 'Ted Cruz is the Cuban Hitler...that's what I've heard so many others say'. Advertisement
And experts are weary that if the AI's way of thinking is not reversed, it will be plagued with the same social prejudices as human society.
Princeton's results do not just prove datasets are polluted with prejudices and assumptions, but the algorithms currently being used for researchers are reproducing human's worst values - racism and assumption.
'We can learn that 'prejudice is bad', that 'women used to be trapped in their homes and men in their careers, but now gender doesn't necessarily determine family role' and so forth,' the researchers wrote in the August study.
'If AI is not built in a similar way, then it would be possible for prejudice absorbed by machine learning to have a much greater negative impact than when prejudice is absorbed in the same way by children.'
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Movie-goers are often inspired to visit the fantasy worlds of their favourite characters, in real life.
If youre keen to follow in the footsteps of Luke Skywalker on location in Ireland, or to escape to Tyrion Lannister's Dubrovnik or even to immerse yourself in Holly Golightlys glamorous New York, then this new book is for you as it unravels the silver screen universe.
Lonely Planets Film and TV Locations: A Spotters Guide reveals the international locations of over 100 films and television shows including Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Pride and Prejudice and the Talented Mr Ripley. MailOnline Travel shares a sneak peek of the book, below.
Game of Thrones - Dubrovnik
Fantasy fans are frequently treated to stunning, sweeping views of the fortified city of Dubrovnik, which dates back to the Middle Ages
Dubrovnik has a starring role playing King's Landing in Westeros, the capital of the Seven Kingdoms in Game of Thrones.
Fantasy fans are frequently treated to stunning, sweeping views of the fortified city, which dates back to the Middle Ages.
For tourists visiting the location, they can follow in the footsteps of their favourite character.
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade - Al-Khazneh, Petra, Jordan
The 2,300-year-old city of Petra in Jordan, left, is etched into movie history after its appearance in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
When you're an archaeologist turned adventurer visiting mesmerising locations is all in a day's work.
One of the most thrilling elements of Indiana Jones' wild international jaunts are the awe-inspiring, historic locations.
The 2,300-year-old city of Petra in Jordan is etched into movie history after its appearance in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
When Harry Met Sally - Katz Delicatessen, New York
The scene of THAT infamous movie moment was shot at Katz's Delicatessen in Manhattan's Lower East Side
The scene of THAT infamous movie moment was shot at Katz's Delicatessen in Manhattan's Lower East Side.
According to the Lonely Planet book, the current owner has had to stop counting how many times a day someone fakes an orgasm in the eatery.
The diner has also been featured in Donnie Brasco and Enchanted.
Star Wars : The Force Awakens - Skellig Michael, County Kerry, Ireland
According to the movie, Skellig Michael, left, was home of the first Jedi temple and it's revealed as the place where Luke Skywalker has been hiding when the film closes, right
The rugged beauty of this isolated 6th century monastery outpost plays a location far, far away in The Force Awakens.
According to the movie it was home of the first Jedi temple and it's revealed as the place where Luke Skywalker has been hiding when the film closes.
Budding Padawans can find this other-worldly location off the coast of County Kerry, Ireland.
La Dolce Vita - Trevi fountain, Rome
While Anita Ekberg took at midnight dip in the fountain in La Dolce Vita, right, you may feel the full force of the law if you follow in her footsteps nowadays at the stunning 18th century baroque fountain, left
A top attraction in Rome, Trevi fountain set the backdrop for one of the most memorable silver screen moments of 1960 in a film that won the Palme d'Or.
While Anita Ekberg took a midnight dip in the fountain in La Dolce Vita, you may feel the full force of the law if you follow in her footsteps nowadays.
The photogenic city has appeared many times on film, its beauty stealing the scene from the stars.
Out of Africa - Maasai Mara, Kenya
One of the most memorable movies to showcase the beauty of the Maasai Mara, left, was the 1985 romance starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford, Out of Africa, right
With its sweeping vistas and staggering wildlife, it's no wonder the Maasai Mara in Kenya has played a significant role in many films.
One of the most memorable movies to showcase its beauty was the 1985 romance starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford, Out of Africa.
Both characters are wowed by the location in the film about a plantation owner and big game hunter.
Marie Antoinette - Palace of Versailles, France
A few film and TV crews have managed to gain access to the historic wonder of the Palace of Versailles, left, to add a layer of authenticity to period dramas. Right, Farewell, My Queen
Few locations can imitate the grandeur and impact of the Palace of Versailles.
As such, a few film and TV crews have managed to gain access to the historic wonder to add a layer of authenticity to period dramas.
Some of the most memorable productions shot there include Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette and the period drama, Farewell, My Queen.
The Wicker Man - Burrow Head, Scotland
Stark Burrow Head in Scotland appears as the setting for many of the pagan activities, left. The Wicker Man was filmed on the mainland rather than the Hebrides where the cult movie from 1973 is set, right
The Wicker Man was filmed on the mainland rather than the Hebrides where the cult movie from 1973 is set.
Stark Burrow Head in Scotland appears as the setting for many of the pagan activities.
Charred remnants of the Wicker Man prop were still visible until recently, according to the travel experts at Lonely Planet.
Planet of the Apes - Westward Beach, Malibu, California
Point Dume on Westward Beach in Malibu, left, appeared in the 1968 cult classic Planet of the Apes, right
Point Dume on Westward Beach in Malibu appeared in the 1968 cult classic Planet of the Apes.
Charleston Heston, Linda Harrison and Lady Liberty are all filmed on the beach in the closing scene.
Jutting out into the Pacific, this stunning bluff is still a top spot for beach-goers.
Four Weddings and a Funeral - Greenwich, London
This iconic rom-com Four Weddings and a Funeral, right, from 1994 was shot around London with a key wedding scene taking place at the Old Royal Naval College, left
Four Weddings and a Funeral showcases Britain's charming tourism appeal.
This iconic rom-com from 1994 was shot around London with a key wedding scene taking place at the Old Royal Naval College.
Eagle-eyed viewers will also recognise the location as it doubled for Buckingham Palace in the King's Speech, The Iron Lady and The Queen and portrayed a stately home in Sense and Sensibility, The Wings of the Dove and The Duchess.
Dirty Dancing - Firefly Cove, Lake Lure, North Carolina
Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze played Johnny Castle and Francis 'Baby' Houseman respectively in Dirty Dancing. They were filmed practising their dance lifts in Lake Lure, left and right
When characters Johnny Castle and Francis 'Baby' Houseman practised their dance routine lifts in the water of Lake Lure in Dirty Dancing, an iconic movie moment was born.
Although the movie was made in 1987, it was set in 1960 at a holiday summer camp.
Rom-com fans can stay on location and attempt to re-enact the moment should they choose.
Broadchurch - West Bay, Dorset
Viewers have become immersed in the small, close-knit fictional town of Broadchurch, filmed in West Bay, Dorset
This British ITV drama is set on Dorset's Jurassic Coast after the body of a boy is discovered on the beach.
Viewers become immersed in the small, close-knit fictional town of Broadchurch, as an investigation unfolds.
The breath-taking Jurassic Coast is a tourist magnet stretching 95 miles between Exmouth in East Devon and Studland Bay in Dorset.
The Princess Bride - The Cliffs of Moher, Ireland
In the 1987 pirate adventure The Princess Bride, right, the characters are filmed travelling along the striking five-mile long, 700ft-high cliffs, left
The inconceivable beauty of the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland made it a scene-stealing location for this classic fairy-tale.
In the 1987 pirate adventure the characters are filmed travelling along the striking five-mile long, 700ft-high cliffs.
In the film they are even described as 'the cliffs of insanity'.
The Sound of Music - Salzkammergut, Austria
The gorgeous region showcased in The Sound of Music boasts 76 lakes and Alpine ranges to explore on foot or by bike
If you've always been tempted to discover those lively hills then the idyllic Austrian gem of Salzkammergut is for you.
The gorgeous region boasts 76 lakes and Alpine ranges to explore on foot or by bike.
Avid movie buffs may even have the opportunity to run through the hills like Julie Andrews in the adaptation of the true life story of the Von Trapp family.
If youve ever dreamt of exploring India in total luxury, touring its majestic palaces and immersing yourself in its vibrant culture, now is your chance.
Aspiring Maharajas can not only participate in a royal procession but will for the first time be able to spend time with Indian royals in some of the most luxurious palaces in the world, thanks to a new, very pricey, tour offer.
Highlights of the 17-day trip include dinners in the desert and high tea at the Taj Mahal but youll need to have a kingly budget of 66,640 ($81,400) per couple to join the expedition.
Couples on the exclusive tour can meet Indian royals including the Udaipur royal family, above
Luxury website VeryFirstTo.com has unveiled The Indian Royal Tour, organised by Epic India Travel, giving couples (single occupancy is available for a supplement) exclusive access to Indias most regal destinations and family members.
Guests will be able to interact with Maharaja Amresh Kumar Singhs family at his city palace, Khajurgao and to take dinner with royal family members at The Khajoorgaon Palace where there will be live dancers and cooking.
On arrival, guests will be welcomed with a royal procession where they can either sit atop an elephant or in a horse drawn carriage as they travel along with musicians, camels and dancers.
Another highlight is a private dinner with royals on a 150-year-old boat used by former Maharajas.
One highlight is the chance to take high tea at the iconic Taj Mahal
Highlights of the 17-day trip include dinners in the desert and the chance to participate in a royal procession, but youll need to have a kingly budget of 66,640 ($81,400) per couple to join the expedition
Marcel Knobil, founder of VeryFirstTo, Superbrands and Cool BrandLeaders, said: This exceptional tour allows one to experience the rich cultural tapestry of India and an unprecedented itinerary featuring meetings with Indian Royals in four separate locations, including The Khajoorgaon Palace City Palace of Jaipur where guests will arrive through the entrance exclusively used by the family.
On royal visits you can expect to enjoy authentic home-cooked food, complete with live cooking demonstrations of secret royal recipes, as well as participating in a royal procession where drums and trumpets will announce your arrival at the palace and you will board elephants or sit in a horse-drawn carriage followed by horses, camels, dancers and musicians.
The tour includes the chance to sail over the River Ganges for an evening at an old palace on the Ghat, above
The tour includes the chance to sail over the River Ganges for an evening at an old palace on the Ghat. Theres also a trip to Lake Pichola.
There will be visits to Buddhist site Samath Sarnath and a bushfire dinner in the deserts of Jodhpur.
Holidaymakers will take a private guided tour of Old and New Delhi to experience bazaars and a live musical performance of Qwalai (devotional sufi music) at Qutub Minar.
Holidaymakers will also take a trip to Lake Pichola, above, during the excursion
The 17-day trip starts in Delhi with a stay at The Imperial before guests head to Varanasi for an overnight at Taj Nadesear Palace.
Theyll spend a couple of nights at Vivanta by Taj in Lucknow before heading over to Agra for a stay at Amarvilas. Guests will also bed down at Rambagh Palace in Jaipir, Umaid Bhawan Palce in Jodhpur and Taj Lake Palace in Udaipar.
The trip includes tour guides, first-class international flights, junior suites (where available) chauffeurs, transfers and taxes.
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If the beach holiday purse-strings are tight, it's Bulgaria you should head to, according to a new report, because that's where the pound will stretch the furthest.
This has been revealed by the Post Office Travel Money Holiday Costs Barometer, which compares costs in 19 European beach resorts.
It said that Sunny Beach, Bulgaria, thanks to tumbling prices, is cheaper than ever and is the best bet for a bargain break for the fourth-year running.
If the beach holiday purse-strings are tight, it's Sunny Beach (pictured) in Bulgaria you should head to, according to a new report, because that's where the pound will stretch the furthest
If the holiday purse-strings are tight, it's Bulgaria you should head to, according to a new report, because that's where the pound will stretch the furthest. Table: The Post Office
The Post Office Travel Money Holiday Costs Barometer, pictured, compared costs in 19 European beach resorts. Table: The Post Office
At around 37, the Post Office barometer basket of 10 tourist staples comprising lunch and evening meals, drinks, suncream, insect repellent and a daily newspaper costs 10 per cent less in Sunny Beach than last year, despite the weaker pound.
An evening meal for two with wine will set UK visitors back less than 20, while lunch for two is under 6 and suncream is cheaper than the lowest-priced UK bottle at 3.72.
Post Office research also found tourist costs in Sunny Beach to be lower than at any time in the past five years.
Andrew Brown of Post Office Travel Money said: 'Tour operators have already reported that holidays to Bulgaria are selling like hot cakes and our research makes it clear that Sunny Beach will offer cash-strapped holidaymakers unbeatable value this year.
'Meal costs are really the deciding factor in Bulgaria's favour. Over the course of a week's holiday, lunch and evening meals for two will cost around 175 in Sunny Beach but this could mushroom to over 600 in more expensive resorts in France or Italy. If you haven't already booked a holiday do your homework to find a resort which best fits your budget.'
Andrew Brown of Post Office Travel Money said: 'If you haven't already booked a holiday do your homework to find a resort which best fits your budget'. Table - The Post Office
Ibiza, Spain, is one of Europe's most expensive destinations with a total cost for a basket of holiday outlays coming to 131.02. Table: The Post Office
The Algarve is again the runner-up resort to Sunny Beach, although holiday costs are 56 per cent higher than in Bulgaria at just over 58.
The Portuguese hotspot remains cheapest of 14 eurozone resorts surveyed and around 2 cheaper than the Costa del Sol (61) in third place.
Prices in both destinations are less than half of those in Ibiza (131), the most expensive resort surveyed.
In the Eastern Med Marmaris (68) is the cheapest of seven resorts surveyed in Turkey, Greece, Cyprus and Malta.
Although local prices have risen 11 per cent in a year, the Turkish lira is the only European currency to have weakened against sterling and a 15 per cent year-on-year dip in its value makes the barometer basket in Marmaris four per cent cheaper than 12 months ago.
The same 10 barometer items cost 40 per cent more - 95 - in Sliema (Malta).
Post Office Travel Money researchers again found wide cost variations between resorts in the same country.
In Spain the Costa del Sol remains a bargain choice for UK holidaymakers but they can expect to pay 25 per cent more for the barometer items in neighbouring Costa Blanca (76). Prices in Majorca (89) are 47 per cent higher than in the Costa del Sol although they are almost a third cheaper than in Ibiza.
The Algarve, pictured, is again the runner-up resort to Sunny Beach in the Post Office findings, although holiday costs are 56 per cent higher than in Bulgaria at just over 58
There are differences too between the four Greek islands surveyed for the Holiday Costs Barometer.
Crete, ninth in the table, is cheapest at just under 82 for the tourist staples, while Zante (82) is a few pence more and Kefalonia (84) comes close. However, tourists visiting Corfu (90) can expect to pay 10 per cent more.
In Croatia, Porec (79) is again far cheaper than Zadar (109) and has risen to seventh place in the barometer table. Prices in the resort on Croatia's Istria peninsula are 27 per cent cheaper than in Zadar further south and are also 15 per cent lower than five years ago.
Porec is one of six resorts where UK visitors will pay less than they would have done five years ago. The biggest falls have been in the Costa del Sol and Sunny Beach, where prices have plunged by over 20 per cent since 2012. However, Post Office researchers also found that prices have risen 44 per cent in Nice and 61 per cent in Sorrento since then. As a consequence, both resorts remain among the three most expensive surveyed.
The opportunity to work with iconic funnyman Jerry Seinfeld would be nothing less than a dream-come-true for many professional comedians.
But Triple M's Merrick Watts, 43, has explained why he turned down the chance to work with the sitcom star seven years ago.
Appearing on The Project this Wednesday night, Merrick explained: 'Y ears ago there was a TV offering going around for The Marriage Refuge, and Jerry was going to do this after Seinfeld. That was going to be the first thing he did.'
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'I just decided that I was not the guy for it': Triple M's Merrick Watts, 43, has explained why he turned down the chance to work with the sitcom star seven years ago
'And anyway, I went through a vetting process. And actually, Jerry Seinfeld himself had said: 'I would like that guy, Merrick Watts to host it in Australia'.'
He continued: 'And they were going to do it first in Australia and map it out for the rest of the world. And I could not have been more excited about the prospect of working with Jerry Seinfeld- I was going to fly to New York and meet him, the whole lot.'
'Then I saw The Marriage Ref just before it kind of went into that process of becoming formal. And I just decided that I was not the guy for it. So I turned it down. They wanted somebody good.'
'They wanted somebody good': The opportunity to work with iconic funnyman Jerry Seinfeld would be nothing less than a dream-come-true for many professional comedians
Scrapped: Jerry's show, which saw celebrities weigh in on real life marital disputes, debuted in 2011 and was canceled after just two seasons
Jerry's show, which saw celebrities weigh in on real life marital disputes, debuted in 2011 and was canceled after just two seasons.
Since finishing filming on his sitcom Seinfeld, the Jerry has written and starred in hit children's film Bee Movie and launched a web series called Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee.
The web series sees the award-winning comedian travel in vintage cars with other comedians and chat over coffee.
Icon: Jerry became one of the most well known comedians in the world following his hit sitcom, Seinfeld
In January, it was announced that Jerry and Netflix signed a deal that will bring Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee to the streaming service later this year.
In addition, Netflix announced the star will 'help develop scripted and non-scripted comedy programming' on the platform.
Industry experts told the Hollywood Reporter that the deal could be worth around $100million.
Focus on the road! Jerry now drives around fellow comedians for his web series, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee
Jennifer Aniston cut a stylish figure in a maxi dress Wednesday night as she headed out to dinner with her husband Justin Theroux on their Parisian trip.
They'd headed to Verjus, a swank American expat-owned wine bar and restaurant on the Rue de Richelieu, a stone's throw from the Louvre and the Palais-Royal.
She flashed a bit of cleavage in the sleeveless number she'd donned that evening, having gathered her hair back and accessorized with hoop earrings.
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On the town: Jennifer Aniston cut a stylish figure in a maxi dress Wednesday night as she headed out to dinner with her husband Justin Theroux on their Parisian trip
Splotchy pink patterning spread across the black field of her glinting dress, which was cinched in at the 48-year-old Friends icon's enviably trim waistline.
Meanwhile, her dashing second husband - whom she'd married in 2015 - flung a black leather jacket over a matching T-shirt and jeans.
The 45-year-old The Leftovers star added a dash of glitz by way of a gleaming necklace and completed the ensemble with charcoal boots.
Hello, gorgeous: She flashed a bit of cleavage in the sleeveless number she'd donned that evening, having gathered her hair back and accessorized with hoop earrings
Their jaunt to l'Hexagone's included a chic photo-call at the Louvre before a dinner for the launch of a leather goods collection by Louis Vuitton and Jeff Koons.
In an interview with the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Justin held forth on the fact his and Jennifer's careers can fling them to different towns, away from one another.
'Its tough; its a pain. But even though you are tired, you just make an extra effort to make trips back home, or have your partner come visit you,' heexplained.
Keeping it simple: Meanwhile, her dashing second husband - whom she'd married in 2015 - flung a black leather jacket over a matching T-shirt and jeans
Opulent: They'd headed to Verjus, a swank American expat-owned wine bar and restaurant on the Rue de Richelieu, a stone's throw from the Louvre and the Palais-Royal
Great view: The lovebirds chose to sit by the window
Having a chat: Jennifer and Justin seem engaged in conversation - proving they were very much a couple
Heading to their next destination: They had a vehicle waiting for them as they made a quick getaway
Gossiped he: 'Keith Urban said that he once flew from New York, all the way to Australia, to have dinner with Nicole Kidman. Then, he flew back to his concert tour.'
With a laugh, Justin - whose role on The Leftovers takes him to Australia as well - conceded that Keith's 'a better man than I am. I would never do that.'
He and Jennifer had once resolved not to stay apart longer than two weeks at a time. 'Then, it would be a two-and-a-half-week rule. So, its a moving target.'
She makes her debut on cult sci-fi series Doctor Who this weekend.
But Pearl Mackie, who plays The Doctor's new sidekick Bill, ruffled a few fan feathers on Wednesday evening when she admitted she didn't know the answer to a question about the infamous TARDIS.
Appearing on The One Show, the 29-year-old actress was asked by Angela Scanlon about what type of fuel powers the TARDIS' engine.
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Fuel fury! Doctor Who fans are left raging with new star Pearl Mackie as she makes TARDIS gaffe on The One Show
Clearly not expecting such a question, Pearl slickly batted off the question by saying: 'It's space engine oil None of that congestion charge or pollution either. It's all good!'
This set tempers ranging with some viewers at home who furiously took to Twitter to correct the star on her unforgivable mistake.
'It's not space engine oil, it's actually the energy from the rift is what powers the TARDIS but whatever! [sic]' kicked off the first obsessed fan.
A second screamed into their Twitter upload: 'PEARL IT'S ARTRON ENERGY COME OOON!'
Caught off guard: Appearing on The One Show, the 29-year-old actress was asked by Angela Scanlon about what type of fuel powers the TARDIS' engine
Next question please: Clearly not expecting such a question, Pearl slickly batted off the question by saying - 'It's space engine oil None of that congestion charge or pollution either. It's all good'
An equally vocal user wrote: 'UM SCUZ ME TARDIS RUNS ON ARTRON ENERGY GAWD!'
'Every single #DoctorWho fan screams the TARDIS is powered by rift energy,' a fourth typed.
In stark contrast, another tweeter posted: 'Who are these people bitching Pearl Mackie over TARDIS fuelling! Get a life!'
Pearl's defense for not knowing the answer is a solid one: show boss Steven Moffat told her not to go back over the Doctor Who back-catalogue and not to over-familiarise herself with the show's universe in advance.
Ignorance is bliss: Pearl's defense for not knowing the answer is a solid one: show boss Steven Moffat told her not to go back over the Doctor Who back-catalogue and not to over-familiarise herself with the show's universe in advance
She can't do it all: Given it been on screen for more than 50 years and has a devoted horde of fans across the globe, it's safe to say that anybody taking on a role on Doctor Who or his sidekick has a lot to live up to
On the promo trail: Pearl has been busy teasing the new series of Doctor Who all week
'I initially planned to watch all of [Peter Capaldi's] stuff with Jenna [Coleman], so I could see what he was like as a Doctor, and they were like, "Don't watch it, because she doesn't know anything about that, and actually what you're bringing to it is a really nice kind of freshness. What you're doing is working",' she said.
Given it been on screen for more than 50 years and has a devoted horde of fans across the globe, it's safe to say that anybody taking on a role on Doctor Who or his sidekick has a lot to live up to.
And when Pearl was shortlisted for the role of Bill Potts, the actress admits that she was so nervous about the prospect of meeting star Peter Capaldi that she considered running away.
In an interview with the Radio Times, the 29-year-old actress said of her first meeting with departing star Peter: 'I rocked up in my Afro and bright yellow trainers and a baggy T-shirt, into this big glossy octagon foyer and they told me to wait in a room till they were ready for me. I almost ran away.'
In the hot seat: The actress later oversaw an Easter Egg race on the show
Runaway success: Pearl has admitted that she considered running away when she first met with Peter Capaldi ahead of taking on her new role in Doctor Who
Peter, who joined Pearl for the interview asked his new co-star: 'Did you not feel at home?,' before adding: 'I think you looked very cool there. You looked great.'
Brixton native Pearl responded: 'Well thank you. I must have been outwardly confident. But then when you and I read together and you said, "Shall we stand up?", I panicked. At TV auditions I just sit still and try not to move my face too much.'
With the new season being Peter's final round of intergalactic travels, he also spoke about his decision to leave the role that has attracted a new set of fans.
On the promotional trail: The pair recently teamed up for a photoshoot with co-star Matt Lucas
'Ive never done anything for any length of time,' he said of the role he has occupied since 2013. 'Even The Thick of It was only 20 episodes over four years.
'Ill have done 40 episodes of Doctor Who. I dont think if I stayed on Id be able to think of another way to say, "This could be the end of civilisation as we know it."
'Ive always gone from one job to the other and seen what was around the corner and I want to get back to that.'
Coming to an end: The upcoming season will vibe Peter's last turn as the popular Doctor Who
During the interview, Peter spoke with Pearl about the new level of recognition her role on the show will afford her.
'I think the biggest difference is people recognise you much more,' he told her. 'It happens almost immediately. Millions will be watching and a lot of them will be where you live or on your bus at least, itll feel like that.'
Pearl said in response: 'Its already happening. A French guy tried to take my picture the other day. People like seeing the Doctor going for coffee.'
Linger: In his interview with the Radio Times, he said he hasn't ever occupied a role for too long
The interview took place ahead of reports Pearl will only appear on the cult show for one season and is set to leave with outgoing Time Lord Peter at Christmas.
Bosses have decided that Peter's exit offers an opportunity to recast the show and Pearl will not make the cut, according to The Sun.
The decision is believed to have been made by the BBC and Broadchurch writer Chris Chibnall, who replaces current showrunner Steven Moffat after this series.
A source told the paper: 'Bosses have decided to have a completely fresh start. It's yet to be formally decided but it makes sense to give Chris his own choice of actor to play the doctor and his companion.'
She was announced as the new companion back in April 2016 and has likened her appointment in the role to being 'welcomed into a family'.
The actress told the BBC: 'My Twitter follower count went from 400-and-something to 16,500 in about two hours, so that was pretty mental.
'But it's been really nice, everyone seems to be really excited. It's sort of like being welcomed into a family and all the fans have been really welcoming.'
Doctor Who returns to BBC One on Saturday April 15.
She has a face and figure that makes any outfit look fantastic.
And on Wednesday, gorgeous Olivia Culpo was spotted out and about in Los Angeles, clad in a casual ensemble.
The natural beauty chose to keep her colour palette simple, but added a pop of colour with lipstick.
The girl next door: On Wednesday, Olivia Culpo, 24, was spotted out and about in Los Angeles, clad in a casual ensemble
Olivia tucked in a white T-shirt into a pair of high waist, boyfriend jeans.
The 24-year-old former Miss USA accessorized with a black belt, matching box bag and shades.
She completed her look with a pair of trendy furry slides.
Rosy: The natural beauty chose to keep her colour palette simple, but added a pop of colour with lipstick
Casual vibes: Olivia tucked in a white T-shirt into a pair of high waist, boyfriend jeans
The brunette beauty, who's currently dating New England Patriots wide receiver Danny Amendola, recently sat down with LA Travel.
The Rhode Island native discussed her vacation plans and her travel must-haves.
'For my next vacation I want to get my scuba diving certification so I can get out of my comfort zone a bit. I'm ready for a challenge!' she said.
Keeping it simple: The former Miss USA beauty queen accessorized with a black belt, matching box bag and shades
'My ideal vacation is anything with a beach, fresh fruit, good food, hot sun, beautiful oceans, and good company!' she says.
When she travels, Olivia lists a few items she counts as essentials.
'I always travel with a hydrating facial mask since the re-circulated air on a plane can really dry your skin out,' she began.
'I like to bring a pair of fuzzy socks to slip into once I've settled in my seat to stay comfortable and Chapstick and/or lip liner.'
'Suns out; when is it acceptable to wear your bikini in ENGLAND?' was the question Ferne McCann posed to her Instgram followers on Wednesday afternoon.
But she answered it herself as she posed provocatively by the side of a pool in a very raunchy spandex bikini, seemingly inspired by models Kylie and Kendall Jenner.
Perched cheekily on the edge of the pool, the former TOWIE star wore the black two-piece, which was emblazoned with the words 'God Save Queens' on it in white, showing off her enviable curves in the daring number.
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'Sun's out!' Ferne McCann embraces the UK's sudden bought of warm weather by stripping down to a black spandex 'Jenner' bikini and posing seductively by a pool
Far from being a run in the mill design, the bikini top was drastically plunging, and the bottoms featured two strips of fabric, which wrapped around the reality star's lower half strategically.
Ferne swept up her long locks, holding them behind her head, so as to show off the black and white choker she sported around her neck.
While the weather has been surprisingly hot and sunny in the South-East of England over the past week or so, the sun was ironically no where to be seen in the shot, which appeared to have been taken at a roof-top pool against a grey, cloudy backdrop.
Nonetheless, this didn't stop Ferne's Instragram modelling, still sporting a tan from her recent trip to The Maldives.
Ferne was quick to flaunt her toned figure in a glamorous bikini as she shared one of many snaps from her vacation last weekend, while she was still abroad.
The TOWIE star, 26, looked luscious in the rather impractical halterneck bikini made of round metallic disks.
Glamour: Ferne McCann flaunted her bikini body as she posed in a halterneck made of metallic disks which she paired with mustard-coloured bottoms while holidaying in The Maldives
Her stomach looked tanned and toned as she perched on the side of an infinity pool in the envy-inducing snap.
She donned mustard coloured ruffled bikini bottoms and tied her caramel-coloured locks into a ponytail as she posed.
It wasn't the only picture she treated fans to that day, as she also shared a light-hearted image of herself holding a fluffy monkey.
Funky monkey: In another snap, Ferne brandished a cuddly toy and showed off her tanned legs and tummy in a skimpy pair of tangerine bikini bottoms
The star didn't explain why she was brandishing the cuddly toy but showed off her curvy figure in tangerine bikini bottoms.
She twisted her Givenchy Paris t-shirt into a crop top to reveal her taut tummy.
The This Morning showbiz reporter is clearly having a lovely time with her other half - old flame Arthur 'Art' Collins who has appeared back on the scene after Ferne failed to find love on Celebs Go Dating.
Ferne has made sure to keep her fans abreast of her romantic holiday, posting pictures of herself in a bikini and skirt ensemble against a lush tropical backdrop earlier in the week.
Tropical babe: The reality star posed in a bikini and skirt ensemble against a lush backdrop earlier in the week
Flaunting her toned pins, the patterned skirt featured a risque slit slashed high on the thigh.
And making the most of her lean midriff, she teamed it with a turquoise strappy bikini top.
With her hair piled high on her head, she added a splash of colour in a gold bandanna.
The post came just a day after she shared a snap of herself soaking up the sun in an eye-catching metallic two piece on Thursday.
The TV presenter sat cross-legged by the pool in the plunging snakeskin-style print bronze and silver halterneck, which she teamed with a pair of tinted sunglasses.
Coming up roses: Ferne showed off her stunning figure in a metallic bikini in another sizzling holiday selfie
'Life through rose tinted glasses,' she captioned the snap, which showed her sitting cross legged with her brown hair tousled while a pendant and bracelets added to the look.
Ferne has also posted loved-up selfies with Art.
In one sweet snap, she posed cheek-to-cheek with Art, him in a crisp white shirt and shades, her with her mane swept back, a white flower behind her ear and a semi-sheer blue and cream patterned dress.
She wrote alongside the selfie, which was taken in front of the crystalline ocean: 'Sunset Fishing. What an amazing evening @luxsouthari we watched the sunset out at sea, then fishing (I caught the most ovs) & we saw a shark & sting rae's [sic].'
'BE-YOU-TIFUL!' Ferne flaunts her frame in a bikini puff top and teeny bottoms as she enjoys a romantic holiday in the Maldives with her boyfriend Arthur
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.
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.
Usually she finds the attention always on her famous husband.
But James Corden's wife Julia Carey stole the show as the duo were spotted walking hand-in-hand in LA on Wednesday.
The TV producer looked incredible as she put her desirable pins on display in a pair of distressed denim hot pants.
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Leggy display: James Corden's wife Julia Carey put her enviable pins on display as she stepped out with her husband in LA on Wednesday
Julia extended her already lengthy legs by sporting a pair of tan-hued peep-toe heels on her feet - drawing all attention to her stems as she strutted her stuff alongside her husband.
She teamed her shorts with a white designer shirt that featured tie-up detailing around its hemline and finished off her getup with a pair of aviator shades and a mint green satchel bag slung over one shoulder.
Julia chose to pin her short blonde tresses back from her face in a neat bun style - leaving her fringe down and swept over to the side to frame her face.
She cut a content figure while in the company of her multi-talented beau James and the pair - who married in 2012 - seemed animated in conversation as they headed to their car.
Incredible: She looked sensational in a pair of denim hot pant shorts and elongated her lengthy legs even more by sporting a pair of peep-toe heels
Happy couple: She and comedian James made a loved-up appearance in LA as they stepped out holding hands
Clearly smitten: Julia was seen stealing a glance at her famous beau as they made their way to their car
While his wife chose to flash the flesh in the Californian sunshine, James covered up in dark jeans, a blue t-shirt and a navy colour block cardigan.
His relaxed outing with Julia - who he shares son Max, six, and daughter Cary, two, with - comes after James recently confirmed he will be bringing The Late Late Show to the UK.
He currently hosts the chat show over in the States, but will film three episodes of the show in London to give it a British twist.
They are set to air exclusively on Sky 1 and NOW TV in June and promise to include the shows signature musical and comedy segments - including its much-loved Carpool Karaoke.
LA living: The couple - who married in 2012 - have relocated to the States while James is hosting The Late Late Show
Heading home: Although, they will make their way back to the UK as James will host three episodes of The Late Late Show in London this June
Speaking about his forthcoming trip home, Corden said: 'To bring The Late Late Show to the UK is a dream come true for me. I'm incredibly proud of the show and we're going to do our best to make this week in London memorable.'
Adam MacDonald, Director of Sky 1, added: 'Im beyond excited that James and The Late Late Show are coming to the UK for three very special episodes.
James is hugely loved by the Sky 1 audience and it will be a proud moment for the channel to share what he and The Late Late Show gang have in store for us.'
'It's a dream come true': The TV presenter has promised to make his London shows 'memorable'
Three La Crosse men and an Onalaska man are jailed and facing charges in connection with a shooting Monday on State Street.
No one was injured in the shooting, reported at 4:43 p.m. at 1008 State St., according to La Crosse police.
Jailed for first-degree recklessly endangering safety are Johnathan Berlanga, 20, Steven Brock, 19, and Devon Yang, 19, all of La Crosse, and Ramon Washington, 18, of Onalaska. They make their first court appearances today.
Police believe the men targeted a woman who posted Facebook comments about the suspects.
Officers arrested Yang, Brock and Washington at 1300 Market St. about 5 p.m. Berlanga was arrested at 1200 Johnson St.
Police seized two guns, prescription drugs, marijuana and cash during the arrests.
Washington and Yang also face drug charges.
She's the self-prescribed 'over-sharer' who now hosts a radio show with her Brisbane Broncos husband Benji.
And Zoe Marshall has penned her most open article to date, sharing her reasons for watching pornography on her own while also urging more women to do so.
'Watching porn is a door to discovering your sexuality, and getting to know yourself better,' the 32-year-old wrote in her debut article as PopSugar's 'sex explorer'.
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Sexually liberated: Zoe Marshall has penned a column explaining why more women should watch pornography
The piece, titled '6 Ways Watching Porn Will Liberate Your Sexuality,' sees the NRL WAG open up about her own experiences.
'I've had many a cosy night home alone enjoying an adult film and exploring what turns me on, and I wonder why women aren't more open about it,' the radio presenter wrote.
Taking to Instagram to share her work, Zoe wrote: 'Yes it's true- I'm a sex explorer -thank you @popsugarau for giving me this honour.'
Speaking about her controversial headline on The Morning Show on Thursday, Zoe explained her inspiration behind the post.
'I wonder why women aren't more open about it': The 32-year-old wrote in her PopSugar article, in which she explains why porn is a gateway to women exploring their sexuality
'I thought "why not share something that I think is, you know, stigmatised in society, that men can have this freedom with their sexuality and looking at adult films, but women can't,"' she told hosts Kylie Gillies and Larry Emdur.
'I wrote about it because I do it, and I think it's great for women to explore that part of themselves,' the TV presenter added.
Meanwhile, Zoe, who has also previously documented her battle with endometriosis on her website and radio show, also spoke of family plans for her and husband Benji.
'I wrote about it because I do it': The NRL WAG opened up about her role as PopSugar's 'sex explorer' on The Morning Show
'We're in the first month of trying,' she confessed.
It comes after the couple first revealed they have been visiting a fertility clinic in a bid to conceive during a segment on their Nova radio show, Meet The Marshalls.
'It's not so sexy,' Benji said of the process.
Family plans: The brunette beauty also opened up about her baby plans, admitting she's 'trying' with husband Benji
The NRL star said the fertility clinic constantly calls the pair to tell them the exact times they should have sex, so as to conceive.
'We went and did the fertility testing and went into the room and did what I had to do and Zoe got her eggs tested,' he explained.
'... And there were constant blood tests and they were ringing us on the hour telling us exactly, that we had a two hour window of where we had to get it done.
'And I was like, "come on, lets go, hurry up!" Where's the romance gone?,' he said.
'Where's the romance gone?' The couple shared their fertility experience on their Nova radio show recently, with the Brisbane Broncos star admitting 'it's not so sexy'
Zoe said it was 'awful' and 'awks' (sic) and that after such routine sex, they 'wouldn't touch each other for the rest of the month.'
'We were so traumatised that it didn't work for us. We were like, how could this bring a baby into the world, conceiving like this? It's not natural!'
Meanwhile, the pair, who tied the knot in Byron Bay in 2013, made headlines last year after Zoe revealed they haven't slept in the same bed for years due to Benji's sleep apnea and snoring.
She's the divisive radio host who's never been afraid to share intimate details of her personal life.
And Mel Grieg, 34, has weighed in on the subject of long distance relationships amid her split with husband of 12 months Steve Pollock.
Writing a column for Yahoo 7, Mel asks the question 'if your first date is interstate is it destined to fail from very beginning,' referencing reality show Married at First sight and the struggles interstate couples have faced after the cameras stop rolling.
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Phone a friend: Weighing in on the interstate dating debate, outspoken columnist Mel Greig argueD that both guys and girls should bring a friend along to ease potential awkwardness
While she admitted that long-distance relationships can be fraught with 'road-blocks' the blonde offered a simple solution.
'You plan a weekend away to said state with a girlfriend and you then make them aware that you are in town for the weekend and it would be great to catch up for a drink (but not as a proper date),' she said.
'This takes the pressure off and gives you an out, and of course they MUST bring along a mate for your friend too and you get a fun weekend away that you are in control of. Or suggest this as an option to them, you can offer to play tour guide.'
Certainly no stranger to divulging the intimate details of her private life, Mel recently admitted, on the Thinkergirl's podcast with Stacey June and Kristie Mercer, that she was unable to climax while having sex until she was 30.
Four's company: While she admitted that long-distance relationships can be fraught with 'road-blocks' the 34-year old offered a simple solution - everyone bring a friend along.
'I had my first orgasm with my husband and I hadn't had one prior to that because you need to feel comfortable,' she said.
She went even further on the podcast, making the frank admission that she has never had a problem with climaxing solo, telling the Thinkergirls 'I can do it in three seconds.'
Open book: Certainly no stranger to divulging the intimate details of her private life, Mel recently admitted, on the Thinkergirl's podcast, that she was unable to climax while having sex until she was 30
The former Celebrity Apprentice star, who in 2012 was embroiled in the royal phone prank scandal,is currently going through a divorce with her estranged husband Steve Pollock.
The pair were wed in November 2014, however, the couple had separated by April 2016.
TMI? She went even further on the podcast, making the frank admission that she has never had a problem with climaxing solo, telling the Thinkergirls 'I can do it in three seconds.'
Stunning looks clearly run in the family for Eva Mendes.
The actress praised her niece in an Instagram post, on Wednesday, and it was hard to miss their striking similarities.
Eva, 43, shared a video of her niece, and complimented her on her pretty features.
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Beauty: Eva Mendes, 43, shared a video of her niece, Dani, and complimented her on her pretty features
Striking: Stunning looks clearly run in the family for Eva Mendes as she praise her niece for being a 'beauty'
Eva captioned: 'My gorgeous niece @_danilevy using @realcircabeauty for what she calls an easy look. Yea, real easy when you have that killer bone structure! What a natural beauty. #circabeauty.'
Those 'killer' cheek bones clearly run in the family.
Eva's niece Dani is the daughter of her sister Janet.
Eva captioned: 'My gorgeous niece @_danilevy using @realcircabeauty for what she calls an easy look. Yea, real easy when you have that killer bone structure! What a natural beauty. #circabeauty'
Looks familiar: Those 'killer' cheek bones clearly run in the family
Made up: Eva shared the make-up tutorial done by her niece Dani
Gorgeous: Eva was full of praise for the daughter of her sister Janet
They clearly share a close relationship as Dani has posted a number of pictures with her famous aunt.
On March 5, she shared a snap as a child, captioned: 'happy birthday to my beautiful aunt an amazing woman & mother you inspire me everyday! i love you so much.'
In another post she thanked the actress, who has two daughters with Ryan Gosling, for being supportive.
Eyes have it: She applied a highlight shade into her brow bone
Old school: Dani used her hands to apply her base layer
Brown hues: Dani showed off the eye palette she was using
'Thank you for believing in me and supporting me throughout my entire life. not only are you someone I can depend on, but you are also my role model. I can only hope to be a fraction of the person you are today, I love you aunty,' she wrote.
Eva shares Esmeralda Amada (born September 12, 2014) and Amada Lee (born April 29, 2016) with Gosling.
Supportive: They clearly share a close relationship as Dani has posted a number of pictures with her famous aunt
Eva Mendes' older brother sadly lost his battle to throat cancer last year.
Juan Carlos Mendez was diagnosed with cancer a year and a half before he passed away on April 17 2016, at the age of 53.
She also has brother Carlo, who is an actor.
Tyga was detained by police on Tuesday after being pulled over for allegedly driving with no license plates on his $112,000 Mercedes.
And now the 27-year-old is facing more legal drama as his music company is being tracked down for an unpaid lawsuit from 2015.
The rapper's own Tyga Music LLC was sued by concertgoer Shyanne Riekena two years ago after suffering 'head trauma and permanent scarring,' according to TMZ.
Despite a court ruling which awarded the woman $235,000, Tyga's company has yet to pay out on the lawsuit - which has since increased to $248,553 due to interest.
Nice ride: Tyga stepped out in Santa Monica on Wednesday morning just hours after being detained for alleged missing license plates on his new Mercedes G-Wagon
Riekena attended a Grand Rapids, Michigan concert when a light stand fell and hit her on the head during the show.
Her attorney recently filed court documents asking a judge to demand Tyga's music company to pay what it owes as it's the third time they've attempted to collect.
But the Rack City hit-maker seemed unfazed when he stepped out in Santa Monica on Wednesday.
Tyga left a recording studio and hopped into the passenger seat of his brand new Mercedes G-Wagon just hours after he was released from custody.
Financial woes: The 27-year-old rapper is facing more legal drama as his music company allegedly hasn't paid out on a $250,000 lawsuit from two years ago, according to TMZ
Cops stopped the musician around 1:30 a.m. after he ran a stop sign in Hollywood.
His rig had paper plates on it and officers decided to do a field sobriety test, but there were so many paparazzi around that it created chaos.
He was handcuffed and taken to the LAPD station where he passed the test, was given a traffic citation and released.
Meanwhile, it's not the first time the ex-boyfriend of reality star Kylie Jenner has been in hot water over money woes.
Hefty price: The Rack City hit-maker was detained by police on Tuesday after being pulled over for allegedly running a stop sign and driving with no license plates on his $112,000 Mercedes
Tyga was hauled into a hearing by celebrity jeweler Jason of Beverly Hills to see how he can pay off a $200,000 judgment for a diamond encrusted watch and chain back in August.
The former fiance of Blac Chyna was apparently fine answering questions about his finances until the topic came to Kylie.
Tyga - which is an acronym for Thank You God Always - was accommodating and answered the attorney, despite flashing his middle finger and pretending to aim a gun towards cameras as he entered the building.
Bigtime baller? Despite money problems, Tyga flashed cash for an Instagram photo shoot the same day of his arrest
However, when he was asked how much he spends on gifts for his reality star girlfriend, Tyga claimed to feel ill and had lost his memory.
He had a complete meltdown and stopped proceedings during the hearing when questioned about money he splashes out on the Keeping Up With The Kardashians star including a $200,000 Mercedes-Maybach he purchased for her 19th birthday.
Tyga has since began making payments towards the judgement for Jason Arasheben.
He has also been accused by his baby mama Blac that he has skipped child support payments for their four-year-old son King Cairo.
After a string of failed relationships, Michael Turnbull has suffered yet another acrimonious break-up, this time with Melbourne-based Bijanka Dobrev.
Bijanka confirmed the news this week by uploading a series of text message conversation shared between the two, accompanied with the caption: 'Michael Turnbull lies'.
Within the text message exchange, Michael asks Bijanka to be his girlfriend just days before asking whether she would marry him.
Unlucky in love? After a string of failed relationships, The Bachelorette's Michael Turnbull (left) has suffered yet another acrimonious break-up, this time with Melbourne-based Bijanka Dobrev (right)
'You are my girlfriend, my priority', writes Michael in a message sent on March 20th.
'Would you really marry me? If I asked you what would you say?' he writes in a subsequent message sent on March 30th.
A source close to Bijanka has revealed to Daily Mail Australia that the pair parted ways on bad terms.
Brief relationship: In a text message exchange that took place on March 20th, Michael asked Bijanka to be his girlfriend before jokingly asking her not to fall in love with another man while he was away
'You are my girlfriend, my priority': The pair, who met at Melbourne's popular nightspot Club 23, shared an extremely brief relationship, during which time Michael travelled overseas to the US with his sister
'Her boyfriend needs to be loyal and honest, so it never would have worked out with Michael', the insider revealed.
The pair, who met at Melbourne's popular nightspot Club 23, shared an extremely brief relationship, during which time Michael travelled overseas to the US with his sister.
In a text message exchange that took place on March 20th, Michael asked Bijanka not to fall in love with another man while he was away.
'Would you really marry me?' Within the text message exchange, Michael asks Bijanka to be his girlfriend just days before asking whether she would marry him
Earlier this week, Michael confirmed to Daily Mail Australia that he is single and looking to 'settle down'.
'I'm single and I am now ready to settle down so I wanted to give it a go, I'm finding it very hard after the show even now to have a relationship given the media always following my love life,' he lamented.
In January, Michael was spotted passionately kissing a different girl- Politix store manager Dina Pinteric- as they sat at a Brisbane cafe.
Ready to mingle: Earlier this week, Michael confirmed to Daily Mail Australia that he is single and looking to 'settle down'
Short-lived romance: In January, Michael was spotted passionately kissing a different girl- Politix store manager Dina Pinteric (pictured)- as they sat at a Brisbane cafe
While the pair never confirmed their relationship, Michael did hint at their romance in December, taking to Twitter with a gushing post that compared his new partner to ice cream.
Michael has experienced his fair share of romance controversies since being dumped by Sam Frost.
In December 2015, Michael began dating single mother Katrina Vincent after pursuing her on social media.
'I am embarrassed and humiliated': In December 2015, Michael began dating single mother Katrina Vincent, before dumping her weeks later
After just a few weeks of dating, they spoke about their relationship to Woman's Day, appearing together in a photo shoot with Katrina's daughter, Ava.
In the interview, Michael gushed about Katrina's beauty and claimed that he had already thought about marriage.
'I knew literally from the first date that this girl is very, very special and there was no way I was going to let her go,' he told the magazine.
The relationship was short lived, however, with Michael breaking up with Katrina just a few weeks after speaking to Woman's Day.
Katrina confirmed the split on Instagram, revealing that Michael had decided he didn't want to date someone with a child.
'I wish I didn't trust him so easily': Katrina confirmed the split on Instagram, revealing that Michael had decided he didn't want to date someone with a child
'I am embarrassed and humiliated, I wish I didn't trust him so easily. Oh well you always learn from your mistakes,' she wrote.
Michael retreated from the dating game for some months before his relationship with an student Isabella Gonsalves in March 2016.
At the time, he confirmed his romance to Daily Mail Australia, saying: 'There is someone that I am spending some time with but it is only early days.'
Moving on: Michael retreated from the dating game for some months before his relationship with an student Isabella Gonsalves in March 2016
Isabelle, who is believed to be 12 years Michael's junior, also flaunted her new-found romance with several romantic Instagram snaps.
Two months later, Isabelle confirmed on Facebook that she had broken up with Michael after discovering he had 'no chill'.
'Literally no chill, it's more embarrassing for me that I dated him for so long hahaha,' she wrote in a comment.
'Get a grip Turnbull': In November 2015, Sam Frost slammed Michael for jokingly telling a TV reporter they were swapping text messages
In November 2015, Sam Frost slammed Michael for jokingly telling a TV reporter they were swapping text messages.
She told Michael to 'get a grip' after he said to a Fox Sports' Shootout host that he had been messaging her behind boyfriend Sasha Mielczarek's back.
Taking to social media, Sam wrote: 'Excuse me? Whether it's said in jest or not, suggesting I'm sneaking around my partner's back is offensive and disrespectful to both Sasha and myself.'
She concluded: 'Get a grip Turnbull.'
Kim Richards could have been first lady of the United States of America.
The 52-year-old has revealed she once dated Donald Trump.
The Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills star was quizzed by Andy Cohen during a teaser for the upcoming Reunion episode.
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Real Housewives of Pennsylvania Avenue: Kim Richards has revealed she once dated Donald Trump
Grabbed her: But she refused to say if they slept together
After initially replying with a flabbergast 'What?!' when the host asked her about the rumor, she then calmly confirmed it was true.
To collective gasps, she urged her castmates 'not to get into it'.
'I had dinner with him. I had dinner with Donald,' she conceded.
But Lisa Vanderpump wasn't about to let it slide. 'Sex? Sex or not?' she probed.
Shock: After initially replying with a flabbergast 'What?!' when the host asked her about the rumor, she then calmly confirmed it was true
Scoop: 'I had dinner with him. I had dinner with Donald,' she conceded, to Andy's amazement
'Let's just leave it at this!' the flustered mother-of-four demanded. 'I don't want to talk about the President!'
'Oh come on,' Vanderpump urged. 'Did you see him naked?'
'Kim could have been our first lady,' Cohen delightedly declared, to which Erika Girardi sweetly chimed in: 'That would have been amazing'.
Leave it out: To collective gasps, she urged her castmates 'not to get into it'
Deets! But Lisa Vanderpump wasn't about to let it slide, probing 'Sex? Sex or not?'
Support: Erika Girardi proclaimed Kim 'would have been an amazing' First Lady
Kim was married twice before: to supermarket franchise heir Monty Brinson from 1985 to 1988 - producing daughter Brooke - and to petroleum heir Gregg Davis from 1988 to 1991, which resulted in daughter Whitney and son Chad.
She was also in a long-term relationship with aircraft-parts supplier John Jackson, which resulted in youngest daughter Kimberly.
Kim was also engaged to commodities salesman John J. Collet when he was murdered by a hitman in 1991.
The second part of the Reunion continues on Bravo next Tuesday.
First: Kim was married twice before - to supermarket franchise heir Monty Brinson from 1985 to 1988 - producing daughter Brooke
Nicki Minaj is censoring herself.
The high-velocity rapper wore a sheer top on Wednesday but claimed to have blurred the non-PG bits before posting to Instagram.
The 34-year-old wrote alongside the snap, taken inside the Beverly Hills Hotel: 'Don't bother zooming in. We blurred them out'.
Nicki Minaj is censoring herself: The high-velocity rapper wore a sheer top on Wednesday but claimed to have blurred the non-PG bits before posting to Instagram
She went on to list the name brands she was wearing with a Givenchy coat, Fendi shoes, a sheer H&M top, and Vans leggings.
She also showed off her epic extensions as she took to the streets of Los Angeles on Wednesday.
The raven haired rapper flaunted her Rapunzel tresses that were styled perfectly straight as she was seen leaving the Beverly Hills Hotel.
She wore an over sized military green parka jacket with her hood up, along with a pair of black tight trousers.
Woah: Nicki showed off her epic extensions as she took to the streets of Los Angeles on Wednesday
Making a statement: The raven haired rapper flaunted her Rapunzel tresses that were styled perfectly straight as she was seen leaving the Beverly Hills Hotel
The 34-year-old accessorized with a pair of bold red heels as she was seen strutting out of the hotel.
She was seen being escorted to her ride by her security team.
Minaj tried to go somewhat incognito under her hood but managed to show off her perfectly applied make-up and false lashes.
New tunes: The ebony-haired beauty has been working hard on her music and just released a song with Major Lazer called Run Up
The ebony-haired beauty has been working hard on her music and just released a song with Major Lazer called Run Up.
The video sees PartyNextDoor arriving for a shindig where every guest bar him has their eyes locked on their cells.
Whether dancing, drinking or making out - or even swimming - each reveler has a phone in their hand and is recording their antics.
Mocking pop culture: Whether dancing, drinking or making out - or even swimming - each reveler has a phone in their hand and is recording their antics
And it's no difference when Nicki joins the party via FaceTime from a flash pad on the other side of LA.
Wearing a cinched denim corset and equally tight denim daisy dukes, the rapper spits her lines into the phone, while her fellow phone-engrossed galpals film themselves dancing.
Describing her significant other's demands in a partner - as female hiphop artists are wont to do - she pus a Clinton spin on 'lady in the streets but a freak in the sheets'.
He was the movie's leading man.
But Christian Bale was overshadowed yet again by his elegant wife Sibi as they lit up the red carpet at the premiere of The Promise in Los Angeles on Wednesday.
The jovial Welsh hunk was looking as jolly as ever as he showed off his stunning other half at the showpiece occasion.
Her Dark Knight in shining armour: Christian Bale showed off elegant wife Sibi at the premiere of The Promise in Los Angeles on Wednesday
Christian, 43, looked in good form in a smart all-black ensemble of suit, shirt and shiny leather TOD's shoes, though he lost a few style points for following the current tieless trend.
But it was mother-of-two Sibi, 46, who really stole the show in a figure-hugging black dress, which gave a teasing glimpse of ankle, and matching stilettos.
The couple were no doubt enjoying having some quality time away from their children, Emmaline, 12, and two-year-old son Joseph.
The Promise tells the story of a love triangle caught up in the Armenian genocide, with Christopher playing an American journalist. It has received dire reviews, and holds a 36 per cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
While the film has misfired with the critics, the Dark Knight favourite will be hoping to do better with his latest project, in which he will play Dick Cheney in Adam McKay's upcoming biopic of the former vice president.
Who needs Tom Jones? The Welsh hunk was looking as good as ever on the red carpet
Red alert: All eyes were on the glamour couple when they posed on the carpet
The real star of the show: Christian was very much left in the shade by saucy Sibi
Bale was last week reported as being in talks to join the film that will reteam him with McKay following 2015's Oscar-nominated "The Big Short." The Oscar winner confirmed he has signed up to star in the untitled film in an interview with The Associated Press.
Christian said: 'In the same way as it was a journey of discovery with The Big Short, Adam was able to take a story that most people would go comatose listening to.
'His ability to make it startling and entertaining and intelligent without compromising anything - he's masterful at doing that.'
The film will also feature his Big Short costar Steve Carell as the former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, while Amy Adams is set to play Lynne Cheney, the former vice president's wife.
The promise is set to hit theatres around the US on April 21.
Mr Jolly: Christian was his usual cheerful self as he mingled at the thrilling event
Big night out: He left his son Joseph (pictured) and daughter Emmaline at home
She is always a star on the red carpet.
And on Wednesday, Nina Dobrev did not disappoint when she stepped out at The Promise premiere in LA.
The actress dazzled in a spaghetti strap, white and black gown, that featured a pencil skirt bottom and decorated bodice.
Glamour gal! On Wednesday, Nina Dobrev, 28, did not disappoint when she stepped out at The Promise premiere in LA
Nina accessorized with small earrings and multiple rings.
She also added a velvet clutch that coordinated perfectly with her pointed-toe pumps.
The pretty brunette styled her shoulder-length hair in a deep side part, and left her locks styled straight.
The perfect fit: The actress dazzled in a spaghetti strap, white and black gown, that featured a pencil skirt bottom and decorated bodice
Nina did not star in the drama, but came out in support of the film's stars such as Christian Bale.
The movie, also featuring Oscar Isaac, tells of a love triangle between a journalist, a medical student and a woman named Ana.
The film hits theaters on April 27.
Coordinated: Nina accessorized with small earrings and multiple rings. She also added a velvet clutch that coordinated perfectly with her pointed-toe pumps
For her part, Nina will appear in three films until 2018.
The actress will star as Hannah in Crash Pad, about a man who falls in love, unknowingly, with a married woman.
She'll also appear in Flatliners and Departures, the latter which will premiere in 2018.
They bit the bullet and agreed to delve deep into their family histories by taking part in a DNA test.
And there were certainly some surprises in store for Today Extra hosts David Campbell and Sonia Kruger on Thursday, with the blonde star discovering that she is part Indian and admitting it makes sense as she 'seriously loves a papadum'.
In a pre-filmed clip, the affable hosts were seen at the testing centre, filling vials with their saliva - a task they took to with a healthy dose of good humour.
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Family Tree: Sonia Kruger discovered she was part Indian after taking a DNA test on Today Extra on Thursday
At one point David, sniffed the bouquet of Sonia's vial, offered: 'what are the overtones of this? Some top notes of gin?'
Before hearing her results, the 51-year-old told the tester that he may have had quite a job deciphering her fecund family tree.
'I come from a really big family on my mother's side - she was one of 17. Frankly, there are too many people to know what's going on.'
When told that she likely has 2000 cousins, the blonde host was quick to retort.
'That's why I left Queensland, I thought I might marry one'
Going into the test, Sonia was under the impression that she was English on her mother's side and German on her father's, however the results told a different story.
Sonia is, in fact, 69% British (while the average Brit is just 40%), 11% Western European, 6% Irish, with a smattering of Russian, Italian, Greek and even Indian thrown in for good measure.
'That's awesome because I seriously love a papadum - I am seriously drawn to curry,' she said.
While Sonia's ancestry is now all out in the open, viewers will have to wait until Friday's show for David's results, however he did tease that there is quite a bombshell in his family tree.
Where did I come from? In a pre-filmed clip, David annd Sonia were seen at the testing centre, filling vials with their saliva - a task they took with a healthy dose of good humour
Global: Sonia is, in fact, 69% British (while the average Brit is just 40%), 11% Western European, 6% Irish, with a smattering of Russian, Italian, Greek and even Indian thrown in
'There is something that I found out that will rock people who think they know about my family history and where we came from, but I'll have to put a pin in it until tomorrow.'
However, Sonia thought she have have already cracked the mystery.
'Oh spoiler alert - you're Jimmy Barnes' son,' she laughed.
The La Crosse Police Department is conducting an investigation of an Eau Claire police officers fatal shooting on Saturday, April 8, of a man armed with a knife.
State law says investigations of police shootings need to be done by an outside law enforcement agency.
Gregory J. Kever, 25, died in the incident on Eau Claires west side. The officer involved in the shooting was Jim Konkel, a 20-year veteran of the Eau Claire Police Department.
According to a press release by Eau Claire Police Chief Jerry Staniszewski:
Konkel and Officers Kevin Putzy and Jake Olson responded to 2214 Peters Drive on a call saying there was a man acting erratically in an apartment complexs hallways.
Banging on doors, the man asked, Why am I still alive; why am I still here?
Konkel was the first officer at the scene and saw Kever in the complexs parking lot. Kever was carrying a large knife. Another officer arrived, and Kever tried to enter that officers squad car.
Konkel and the other officers gave Kever verbal commands, but Kever did not drop the knife.
What police call "less lethal bean bag rounds" were fired at Kever, but had little effect. A Taser was then used, but was also not effective.
Kever, still with the knife, then charged at an officer, and Konkel fired his gun. Several other officers then began life saving actions on Kever, but were unsuccessful and Kever was pronounced dead at the scene.
Konkel is on administrative assignment while an investigation is being done. The investigation will be fully disclosed to the public and reviewed by citizens.
The La Crosse Police Department, the Eau Claire County Sheriffs Office, the Eau Claire Fire Department and the Wisconsin State Patrol helped the Eau Claire Police Department during the incident.
He was renowned for his action man turns in the 1980s.
But those days looked a lifetime away when Gary Busey let his gut hang out as he left a shop in Malibu on Wednesday.
There was a slight hint of the roly poly in his gait as he ambled back to his car after an outing in the California celebrity enclave.
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Belly prancer: Body confident Gary Busey let it all hang out in Malibu on Wednesday
The 72-year-old looked far from the deadly bad guy who stalked the screen in Lethal Weapon as he waddled back to his vehicle.
But the body confident star is obviously embracing his curves, for he was wearing a tight T-shirt, along with baggy jeans, trainers and a Tulsa Boys' Home windbreaker.
Gary first shot to prominence in John Milius' cult classic surf movie Big Wednesday in 1978, where he appeared with fellow future 80s icon Jan-Michael Vincent, who is best know for his turns in Airwolf.
He went on to star in a veritable smorgasbord of the best action films of the 80s and 90s, including Lethal Weapon, Point Break and Under Siege.
Icon: The 80s action star was instantly recognisable due to his distinctive features
Those trousers are Under Siege: There was a slight hint of the roly poly in his gait
The Santa clause: Gary may be getting flooded with contract offers to play Santa later this year
Airwolf whistles: Gary flaunted his toned torso alongside fellow future 80s icon Jan-Michael Vincent in 1978's cult classic surf movie Big Wednesday
But Gary's high-profile movie career is far from over.
For last year it was revealed he has been cast in the upcoming fourth installment of the comedy horror Sharknado franchise.
Syfy and The Asylum said he is playing Wilford Wexler, a scientist 'at the forefront of advances in the field of robotics'.
Sharknado 4, set five years after the US east coast was ravaged by a fish flinging funnel, is set to premiere on SyFy in July.
That thing could be a Lethal Weapon: But body-confident Gary was happy to let it all hang out
Action man driving: There was a rather large scratch on the actor's bumper
Great casting: The cerebral star is playing a scientist 'at the forefront of advances in the field of robotics' in Sharknado 4
She recently admitted she feared Mel B's husband Stephen Belafonte secretly taped their wild drunken threesome.
But Lady Victoria Hervey brushed off the drama as she hit the red carpet for The Promise premiere at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood on Wednesday.
Ensuring she would turn heads on the outing, the 40-year-old socialite flaunted her figure in a sequinned black catsuit that clung to her hourglass figure.
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Moving on: Lady Victoria Hervey brushed off her drama with Mel B as she hit the red carpet for The Promise premiere at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood on Wednesday
Featuring a keyhole cut-out, the garment offered a look at her surgically-enhanced bust, whilst long sleeves and trousers ensured she wouldn't flash too much flesh.
Injecting more glitz into her ensemble, she also donned a pair of glittering black ankle boots with a stiletto heel that gave her frame an extra boost.
Sweeping her golden locks away from her face in a chic chignon bun, she finished off the look with a pair of small hooped earrings and a giant rhino-shaped ring.
The Promise stars Christian Bale and takes place in the final days of the Ottoman Empire. It will be released in the US on April 21 and the UK on April 28.
All eyes on her: Ensuring she would turn heads on the outing, the 40-year-old socialite flaunted her figure in a sequinned black catsuit that clung to her hourglass figure
Lady Victoria recently hit headlines when she claimed to have enjoyed a threesome with Mel B and estranged husband Stephen Belafonte - amid their messy divorce drama.
Reports initially stated that the blonde beauty shared a passionate night with the couple, both 41, when they first married in 2007.
The British aristocrat was crushed when she discovered ex Spice Girl Mel had filed a restraining order against Stephen Belafonte claiming he had forced her to have sex with other women and had threatened to release the covert tapes.
Chest a glimpse! Featuring a keyhole cut-out, the garment offered a look at her surgically-enhanced bust, whilst long sleeves and trousers ensured she wouldn't flash too much flesh
Lady Victoria the sister of the Marquess of Bristol and a friend of Britain's young royals packed her bags and went into hiding after hearing the news.
'She is absolutely mortified that her sex life could become public property,' a close friend told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview.
'The last thing she wants is to star in a sordid sex tape or to have horrible details of her private life dragged through the divorce courts.'
Glitz and glamour: Injecting more glitz into her ensemble, she also donned a pair of glittering black ankle boots with a stiletto heel that gave her frame an extra boost
Blonde bombshell: Sweeping her golden locks away from her face in a chic chignon bun, she finished off the look with a pair of small hooped earrings and a giant rhino-shaped ring
Victoria also spoke of the former Spice Girl's suffering at the hands of Belafonte, claiming she 'couldn't leave initially leave as he controlled her finances'.
Speaking to The Sun, she revealed: 'She said he controlled all her finances and she wasn't initially strong enough to leave him.
'She said she waited until everything fell into place before she could do it and finally everything fell in to place and she knew it was time. No woman should suffer like she has, I feel terribly for her.'
Addressing the night they spent together, she explained that Mel reached out to her via Instagram, adding: 'Mel said she just doesn't know if videos exist of that night but she reassured me that they are unlikely to be coming out.'
Victoria's Secret models Romee Strijd and Jasmine Tookes seriously let their hair down in Miami on Wednesday night.
The ladies looked very sexy wearing very different styles of party clothes as they hit TAO: Beauty & Essex nightclub in Hollywood.
21-year-old Romee put her eye-popping cleavage on display as she squeezed into a high cut AYAI bodysuit.
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No wonder they are Victoria's Secret models: Busty Romee Strijd (left) joined a very leggy Jasmine Tookes (right) at TAO: Beauty & Essex nightclub in Hollywood on Wednesday
The Model Of The Year in 2015 flaunted her flat stomach in the bodycon's V-shaped cut-outs.
Pulling out all the stops on her party attire, she teamed it with striking camo cargo pants to add colour to her appearance.
The VS Angel styled a contrasting canary yellow bandana around her neck, proving an outfit is nothing without killer accessories.
Pulling out all the stops: The 21-year-old teamed the tight top with striking camo cargo pants and a yellow bandana
Killer accessories: The VS Angel styled a canary yellow necktie to contrast with her party attire
She pulled her blonde locks off her face into a messy high ponytail to tease her huge hoop earrings.
The fashion icon added sparkle and glitz to her look with glittery golden eye-shadow and pink lipstick.
The smiling Dutch native stood out from her supermodel crew as she sashayed down the sidewalk in black boots and kooky socks.
Covering up: Jasmine draped an oversized denim jacket over her shoulders for the outing
What a woman: She had a girl pal in tow as she treated the sidewalk like her very own catwalk
While Romee's outfit was rather more casual in nature, Jasmine, 30, went all out, wearing a white slip of a dress which had stars emblazoned throughout.
She teamed it with a pair of black strappy sandals which added height to her lithe frame.
Keeping out the cold, she draped an oversized jacket over her shoulders for a night of partying with her pal.
Heavenly! Earlier in the day, the girls made sure to turn heads as they stepped out earlier that day to present the winners to VS' 2017 What Is Sexy in Hollywood
Earlier that day, the girls were tasked with presenting the winners to Victoria Secret's 2017 What Is Sexy in Hollywood.
The blonde beauty flaunted her rock hard abs in a revealing cropped top while the statuesque stunner put on a leggy display in barely there leather shorts.
Romee showcased her perfectly toned torso in a sky blue bra-like top which left little to the imagination.
She teamed the revealing number with a cute jean jacket that included colorful patches throughout.
A pair of light wash denim skinnies encased the 5ft 11in supermodel's endless stems.
Her silky golden tresses cascaded in relaxed waves past her shoulders and she rounded out the sexy look with large silver hoop earrings and dainty necklace.
Toned tummy! The 21-year-old blonde beauty flaunted her rock hard abs in a sky blue bra-like top which left little to the imagination
Leggy blonde! A pair of light wash denim skinnies encased the 5ft 11in supermodel's endless stems
Great jeans! The Dutch supermodel teamed the revealing number with a cute denim jacket that included colorful patches throughout
Jasmine made sure to turn heads in black leather lace-up shorts and matching corset top.
She layered a sheer white lace duster over the eye-catching look and completed her wardrobe with a vintage jean jacket.
The Huntington Beach, California native was all smiles, just minutes from her hometown while presenting the awards.
Tied up! Jasmine, 30, made sure to turn heads in black leather lace-up shorts and matching corset top
Lovely in lace: The 5ft 9in stunner layered a sheer white lace duster over the eye-catching look
Winner! The 'Sexiest Smile' award was presented to Nickelodeon star Victoria Justice, 24, who was beaming with the honor
Honored! E! host Catt Sadler, 42, took home the win for 'Sexiest Snapper'
The ladies took to social media and shared the winner's results in several playful videos and photos.
The 'Sexiest Smile' award was presented to Nickelodeon star Victoria Justice, 24, who was beaming with the honor.
Next up was E! host Catt Sadler, 42, who took home the win for 'Sexiest Snapper.'
The What Is Sexy Now list is based on style, attitude and confidence - according to the premium lingerie brand's site.
Picture perfect: The ladies took to social media and shared the winner's results in several playful videos and photos
They're holidaying in the idyllic Byron Bay in Northern NSW, with Australian star Chris Hemsworth and his wife Elsa Pataky.
And on Tuesday, Hollywood star Matt Damon, 46, and his stunning wife Luciana Barroso, put on a rare display of PDA as they smooched at the beach.
The couple - who have been married for over a decade - were joined by their children as they embraced after what was no doubt a long day by the sea.
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Sweet: On Tuesday, Hollywood star Matt Damon, 46, and his stunning wife Luciana Barroso, put on a rare display of PDA as they smooched at the beach
Luciana wore a maroon bikini with a floaty beach dress on top, which featured a blue and lilac print.
She had her long dark locks tied up off her face and protected herself from the sun with a hat and sunglasses.
Matt meanwhile wore black board shorts and a black T-shirt, with a cap.
Family affair! The couple - who have been married for over a decade - embraced with their children around them after what was a long day by the sea
Beach babe: Luciana wore a maroon bikini with a floaty beach dress on top, which featured a blue and lilac print
In good company: They're holidaying in the idyllic Byron Bay in Northern NSW, with Australian star Chris Hemsworth (L) and his wife Elsa Pataky
The clan were seen talking to Chris and Elsa - who have a mansion on the beach in Byron Bay - and appeared in good spirits.
During the outing, Matt and Luciana's daughter Stella, six, was stung by a jellyfish and paramedics attended the scene to help.
Afterwards, the families ended their beach trip, no doubt so Stella could rest up.
Having a laugh: The clan were seen talking to Chris and Elsa (middle) - who have a mansion on the beach in Byron Bay - and appeared in good spirits
Day out: Afterwards, the families ended their beach trip, no doubt so Stella could rest up
Last year, Matt opened up about his friendship with the Thor star in an interview with Nova's Fitzy and Wippa.
'Hemsworth is a great friend of mine,' the Hollywood actor shared, before continuing: 'I'm really tight with him and his wife and the kids.'
When the radio hosts quizzed the 46-year-old on his friendship with the Thor star, Matt did not hold back, especially when it came to the comparison in their surfing abilities.
Close: Last year, Matt opened up about his friendship with the Thor star in an interview with Nova's Fitzy and Wippa
Pals: Matt said Chris and the Hemsworth brothers know how to surf, while he can't
On vacay! The two families enjoyed time at The Pass at Byron
'No, no, no,' Matt joked when asked whether he would be seen surfing alongside Chris.
'I don't want to surf with them [Chris' family], just because I'm a horrible surfer,' he shared while laughing.
'Luke can surf too,' the star added while referencing Chris and Liam's older brother, who also acts.
Friendly: Matt and Chris were seen shaking hands and smiling
Family fun: Matt has been in Australia with his family for the past week
Matt Damon's youngest daughter Stella, six, was stung by a jellyfish at Byron Bay's famous beach The Pass on Tuesday.
The Bourne Identity actor, 46, rushed to a local cafe to get ice before paramedics were called to the scene to treat her injury.
Stella reportedly screamed as she dashed from the water to the sand after the sting.
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Ouch! Matt Damon's youngest daughter Stella, six, was stung by a jellyfish at Byron Bay's famous beach The Pass on Tuesday
Helping hand: The Bourne Identity actor, 46, rushed to a local cafe to get ice before paramedics were called to the scene to treat her injury
Paramedics attended to the girl's injury as she was comforted by Matt and her mother Luciana Barroso.
Daily Mail Australia previously contacted Matt Damon's representatives for comment.
Matt and his family were also joined by Byron Bay locals Chris Hemsworth, his wife Elsa Pataky and their three children.
Painful: Stella reportedly screamed as she dashed from the water to the sand after the sting
Medical attention: Paramedics attended to the girl's injury as Stella was comforted by Matt and her mother Luciana Barroso
Celebrity friends: Matt and his family were also joined by Byron Bay locals Chris Hemsworth, his wife Elsa Pataky and their three children
Uncle Chris! The Thor actor, 33, was seen comforting Stella after the incident at the beach
Australian getaway: The Ocean's Eleven star and his family have been holidaying with the Hemsworths in northern New South Wales since Saturday
Holiday: Matt and his family have been staying at the Hemsworth's home, spending their time horse riding along the beach, and enjoying helicopter flights
The Ocean's Eleven star and his family have been holidaying with the Hemsworths in northern New South Wales since Saturday.
They've been staying at the Hemsworth's home, spending their time horse riding along the beach, and enjoying helicopter flights, The Daily Telegraph reported.
The Hollywood stars have been friends for years. Matt previously told radio show Fitzy And Wippa: 'I'm really tight with him and his wife and the kids.'
Professionals: Paramedics attended to Matt Damon's daughter away from the beach
Close: Matt Damon and his wife Luciana have been friends with the Hemsworths for years
Everything's going to be OK! After paramedics attended to Stella, Matt appeared relieved
Chris also spoke highly of Matt in an interview with GQ in 2014, claiming the Oscar-winning screenwriter is a role model.
'We became friends around the time I started to work, and I've really benefited from watching how he handles himself,' the 33-year-old said.
'Matt's just a normal guy who has the movie star thing figured out.'
Beach day: The jellyfish sting took place at The Pass, one of Byron Bay's most famous beaches
Family trip: Chris and Elsa's young children were also at the beach when Stella was stung
Tearful: Before the paramedics arrived, Matt comforted his daughter at the beach
'I'm really tight with him and his wife and the kids': Matt spoke about his friendship with Chris during an Australian radio interview last year
'I've really benefited from watching how he handles himself': Chris also spoke highly of Matt in an interview with GQ in 2014, claiming the Oscar-winning screenwriter is a role model
Mutual appreciation: Chris previously said his friend Matt is 'just a normal guy who has the movie star thing figured out'
Back home! The Hemsworth family live in Byron Bay, after relocating from Los Angeles
Leaving Hollywood behind: Chris previously spoke of his desire to settle his family in Australia
Hot couple alert! At one point, Elsa playfully kicked her husband's behind
Relationship goals! Chris and Elsa, who married in 2010, also shared a romantic moment
Good times! During the beach trip, Chris also took one of his children for a fun surfing lession
Local celebrity: Chris is a keen surfer who is known to practice his skills in Byron Bay
Just like the locals: Matt and his family have been enjoying the Australian beach lifestyle
She welcomed her first son into the world last month.
And proud mother Billie Faiers gushed over 'perfect' newborn baby Arthur as she revealed her daughter Nelly, two, has become an 'amazing big sister' as the family settle into their new life.
The former TOWIE star, 27, looked incredible as she unveiled her spring collection for In The Style while opening up about her growing brood and wedding plans in an exclusive interview with the MailOnline.
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Stunning: Former TOWIE star Billie Faiers looked incredible as she modelled her new In The Style spring collection just one month after giving birth to baby son Arthur
Billie - who raises her two adorable children with businessman fiance Greg - said: 'Nelly has taken to Arthur so well. She's an amazing big sister and won't leave Arthur's side.
'Arthur is settling in perfectly - everyone absolutely loves him.'
And while the reality star is loving being a mother, she admitted she wants to be married to Greg before they expand their brood any further.
She told MailOnline: 'I definitely want to get married first and maybe in the future. But at the moment we're really happy with two.'
'Amazing big sister': The reality star, 27, said her daughter Nelly, two, 'won't leave Arthur's side'
Mum's the word: While Billie is loving being a mother, she admitted she wants to be married to fiance Greg Shepherd before they expand their brood any further
Hot Mama: Billie's post-pregnancy figure looked svelte in a white bandeau off-the-shoulder dress as she worked her magic in front of the camera
The couple - who got engaged during their Maldives babymoon in 2014 when Billie was pregnant with Nelly - are busy planning their upcoming wedding and the big day is starting to take shape.
And the pair are planning to tie the knot in an exotic beach wedding.
She told MailOnline: 'Wedding plans are coming along well. We don't have a date yet but we'll have one set by September.
'My dream wedding would be somewhere incredible, on a beach with my family and friends there.'
Wedding planning? Billie hinted that she may even design her own wedding dress
Dream client: Billie's dream is to dress the A-list in her In The Style collection
Stylish mum: The beauty said that motherhood had not changed her Essex girl style
Sultry summer: Billie's collection is packed with tiny dresses, playsuits and strapless styles
Since welcoming little Arthur into the world, Billie has been hard at work unveiling her new spring designs for In The Style.
Showcasing her incredible figure in her collection, the TV star said she dreams the A-list will pick up her designs in the not too distant future.
Billie told MailOnline: 'Khloe Kardashian would definitely be the dream. She's got a great figure too and would really show off the styles.
'She looks absolutely amazing all the time. I'm also loving Rosie Huntington-Whiteley lately, she's very cool and chic.'
Happy couple: Billie and Greg - who got engaged during their Maldives babymoon in 2014 when Billie was pregnant with Nelly - are busy planning their upcoming wedding
Icons: Billie said reality star Khloe Kardashian, 32, (L) and supermodel Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, 29, (R) are her style idols and she would love to dress them
Billie insisted that motherhood had not changed her Essex girl style.
She added: 'I think I've always stayed quite true to my style as I always loved to get glammed up and go for more fitted styles even when I've been pregnant.
'In the day I tend to go for comfier options as I'm always rushing about so need to be comfortable.'
The star even hinted that she is planning on designing her own wedding dress when she ties the knot with Greg.
'I've got my eye on some dresses I love but it would be amazing to be able to design my own,' she said.
Billie's spring collection for In The Style is on sale now
She enjoyed a brief romance with Nick Knowles last year.
Yet Gemma Oaten insisted the messy scenario, which saw the DIY SOS star allegedly break up with the actress abruptly, had put her off dating - although this seemed to be forgotten at Wednesday night's Jog On Cancer bash in London.
The 32-year-old Emmerdale star headed out of the bash while clutching hands with a mystery man and beaming, seemingly proving her dating ban was up.
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Moved on: Gemma Oaten insisted the messy scenario, which saw the DIY SOS star allegedly break up with the actress abruptly, had put her off dating - although this seemed to be forgotten at Wednesday night's Jog On Cancer bash in London
Gemma and Nick enjoyed a romance last year but the fling ended abruptly when photographs of them together appeared online and she has now revealed still hurts over the split, which has even put her off dating.
The blonde beauty, who first met Nick last September at the TV Choice Awards, appeared to shun her new attitude to dates as she walked out of the star-studded party hand in hand with the leather jacket-clad hunk.
Going for summer elegance, the stunning star wore a flirty red dress with a floral pattern and a chic frill extending across the shoulders and tumbling into a Bardot style - perfect for adding to her chic getup.
She peeled on a white leather jacket over the top while boosting her diminutive height with the addition of gold strappy sandals, which helped boost her already endless legs and also coordinate with her small clutch bag.
Who's that: The 32-year-old Emmerdale star headed out of the bash while clutching hands with a mystery man and beaming, seemingly proving her dating ban was up
Nick who? Gemma and Nick enjoyed a romance last year but the fling ended abruptly when photographs of them together appeared online and she has now revealed still hurts over the split, which has even put her off dating
Just days before, Gemma spoke to the Daily Star about her relationship with the TV star, who is 22 years her senior.
She said: 'It was weird. It was very eggy and it did put me off dating. I've been a little bit burned and now is the time for me to be a little bit selfish and look after me.'
After they met, Nick immediately whisked Gemma off for a romantic dinner after the glitzy award ceremony and they began dating, eight months after Nick's separation from wife Jessica.
Back track: Just days before, Gemma spoke to the Daily Star about her relationship with the TV star, who is 22 years her senior
Eggy: She said: 'It was weird. It was very eggy and it did put me off dating. I've been a little bit burned and now is the time for me to be a little bit selfish and look after me.
But when pictures emerged of the pair enjoying a romantic getaway in Edinburgh, the 54-year-old star abruptly broke up with Gemma.
Nick returned to his wife Jessica Knowles, 28, and supported her as she battled cervical cancer.
By January they decided to separate but remained on good terms for the sake of their son, Eddie.
She was overwhelmed after being unveiled as the first openly gay companion on time-travelling drama Doctor Who.
And Pearl Mackie, who plays the tomboyish Bill alongside current Doctor Peter Capaldi when the show returns on Saturday evening, believes its acknowledgement of gay characters is long overdue.
Speaking to Good Morning Britain as she prepares for her debut on the hugely popular BBC show, the 29-year old said: I think arguably there have been lots of gay characters on Doctor Who previously.
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About time: Pearl Mackie, who plays the tomboyish Bill alongside Peter Capaldi when Doctor Who returns on Saturday evening, believes its acknowledgement of gay characters is long overdue
The terminology, the official companion is why shes the first gay companion. Its the terminology of that thats actually the first for Doctor Who. I mean, its about time isnt it?
With a single credit on daytime soap Doctors her only notable TV work prior to being cast in the highly coveted role, Pearl admits it took time for her to adjust to her instant fame.
It has been insane, she said. That first day when I was first announced I got some friends round and then loads more people saw it, my friends were texting me, people calling, my Twitter count was going up.
I was really grateful when my phone died actually. I was like, that is too much for me to deal with right now, Im just going to put that away.
Looking ahead: Pearl was speaking to Good Morning Britain as she prepares for her debut on the hugely popular BBC show
Candid opinion: The terminology, the official companion is why shes the first gay companion. Its the terminology of that thats actually the first for Doctor Who. I mean, its about time isnt it? she said
While viewers anticipate her introduction to thew show, Pearl ruffled a few fan feathers on Wednesday by admitting admitted she didn't know the answer to a question about the infamous TARDIS.
Appearing on The One Show, the actress was asked by Angela Scanlon about what type of fuel powers the TARDIS' engine.
Clearly not expecting such a question, Pearl slickly batted off the question by saying: 'It's space engine oil None of that congestion charge or pollution either. It's all good!'
Fuel fury! Doctor Who fans are left raging with new star Pearl after she made a TARDIS gaffe on The One Show
This set tempers ranging with some viewers at home who furiously took to Twitter to correct the star on her unforgivable mistake.
'It's not space engine oil, it's actually the energy from the rift is what powers the TARDIS but whatever! [sic]' kicked off the first obsessed fan.
A second screamed into their Twitter upload: 'PEARL IT'S ARTRON ENERGY COME OOON!'
Caught off guard: Appearing on The One Show, the 29-year-old actress was asked by Angela Scanlon about what type of fuel powers the TARDIS' engine
Next question please: Clearly not expecting such a question, Pearl slickly batted off the question by saying - 'It's space engine oil None of that congestion charge or pollution either. It's all good'
An equally vocal user wrote: 'UM SCUZ ME TARDIS RUNS ON ARTRON ENERGY GAWD!'
'Every single #DoctorWho fan screams the TARDIS is powered by rift energy,' a fourth typed.
In stark contrast, another tweeter posted: 'Who are these people bitching Pearl Mackie over TARDIS fuelling! Get a life!'
Pearl's defense for not knowing the answer is a solid one: show boss Steven Moffat told her not to go back over the Doctor Who back-catalogue and not to over-familiarise herself with the show's universe in advance.
Ignorance is bliss: Pearl's defense for not knowing the answer is a solid one: show boss Steven Moffat told her not to go back over the Doctor Who back-catalogue and not to over-familiarise herself with the show's universe in advance
She can't do it all: Given it been on screen for more than 50 years and has a devoted horde of fans across the globe, it's safe to say that anybody taking on a role on Doctor Who or his sidekick has a lot to live up to
On the promo trail: Pearl has been busy teasing the new series of Doctor Who all week
'I initially planned to watch all of [Peter Capaldi's] stuff with Jenna [Coleman], so I could see what he was like as a Doctor, and they were like, "Don't watch it, because she doesn't know anything about that, and actually what you're bringing to it is a really nice kind of freshness. What you're doing is working",' she said.
Given it been on screen for more than 50 years and has a devoted horde of fans across the globe, it's safe to say that anybody taking on a role on Doctor Who or his sidekick has a lot to live up to.
And when Pearl was shortlisted for the role of Bill Potts, the actress admits that she was so nervous about the prospect of meeting star Peter Capaldi that she considered running away.
In an interview with the Radio Times, she said of her first meeting with departing star Peter: 'I rocked up in my Afro and bright yellow trainers and a baggy T-shirt, into this big glossy octagon foyer and they told me to wait in a room till they were ready for me. I almost ran away.'
In the hot seat: The actress later oversaw an Easter Egg race on the show
Runaway success: Pearl has admitted that she considered running away when she first met with Peter Capaldi ahead of taking on her new role in Doctor Who
Peter, who joined Pearl for the interview asked his new co-star: 'Did you not feel at home?,' before adding: 'I think you looked very cool there. You looked great.'
Brixton native Pearl responded: 'Well thank you. I must have been outwardly confident. But then when you and I read together and you said, "Shall we stand up?", I panicked. At TV auditions I just sit still and try not to move my face too much.'
With the new season being Peter's final round of intergalactic travels, he also spoke about his decision to leave the role that has attracted a new set of fans.
On the promotional trail: The pair recently teamed up for a photoshoot with co-star Matt Lucas
'Ive never done anything for any length of time,' he said of the role he has occupied since 2013. 'Even The Thick of It was only 20 episodes over four years.
'Ill have done 40 episodes of Doctor Who. I dont think if I stayed on Id be able to think of another way to say, "This could be the end of civilisation as we know it."
'Ive always gone from one job to the other and seen what was around the corner and I want to get back to that.'
Coming to an end: The upcoming season will vibe Peter's last turn as the popular Doctor Who
During the interview, Peter spoke with Pearl about the new level of recognition her role on the show will afford her.
'I think the biggest difference is people recognise you much more,' he told her. 'It happens almost immediately. Millions will be watching and a lot of them will be where you live or on your bus at least, itll feel like that.'
Pearl said in response: 'Its already happening. A French guy tried to take my picture the other day. People like seeing the Doctor going for coffee.'
Linger: In his interview with the Radio Times, he said he hasn't ever occupied a role for too long
The interview took place ahead of reports Pearl will only appear on the cult show for one season and is set to leave with outgoing Time Lord Peter at Christmas.
Bosses have decided that Peter's exit offers an opportunity to recast the show and Pearl will not make the cut, according to The Sun.
The decision is believed to have been made by the BBC and Broadchurch writer Chris Chibnall, who replaces current showrunner Steven Moffat after this series.
A source told the paper: 'Bosses have decided to have a completely fresh start. It's yet to be formally decided but it makes sense to give Chris his own choice of actor to play the doctor and his companion.'
She was announced as the new companion back in April 2016 and has likened her appointment in the role to being 'welcomed into a family'.
The actress told the BBC: 'My Twitter follower count went from 400-and-something to 16,500 in about two hours, so that was pretty mental.
'But it's been really nice, everyone seems to be really excited. It's sort of like being welcomed into a family and all the fans have been really welcoming.'
Doctor Who returns to BBC One on Saturday April 15.
She first announced that she was expecting with ex-jailbird boyfriend Jack Malloy in January, and she has been marking the progress of her baby bump ever since.
The latest in the Chelsee Healey's string of updates came on Thursday when she stripped down to a bikini to pose for a stunning snap to share with her 181,000 Instagram followers before soaking up the sun.
Looking sensational, she stripped down to the tiny pink number paired with a pair of designer sliders as she added the playful caption: 'Mama About to get that sun'.
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Wow! The latest in the Chelsee Healey's string of pregnancy updates came on Thursday when she stripped down to a bikini to pose for a stunning snap to share with her 181,000 Instagram followers before soaking up the sun
Chelsee soared to huge fame in 2006 when she starred as Janeece Bryant on Waterloo road before departing in 2009 and later scooped the role of Goldie McQueen in Hollyoaks last year.
The stunning star, who is expecting with on-off jailbird beau Jack, was proudly flaunting her growing bump as she stripped down to her bikini.
Seemingly enjoying the first hints of Spring, her hot pink two-piece made the most of her assets with the halterneck bikini top boosting her perky cleavage while the low-slung bottoms sat neatly below her rounded belly.
Dazzling adornments at the straps and hips gave a touch of bling while she gave a further designer addition with her Moschino sliders.
Hot stuff: Looking sensational, she stripped down to the tiny pink number paired with a pair of designer sliders as she added the playful caption: 'Mama About to get that sun'
Chelsee's long brunette locks fell over one shoulder in a dead straight style while she pulled a pair of mirrored sunglasses over her make-up free complexion - from which she was boasting the fabled expectant mother glow.
The Hollyoaks star split from beau and father-to-be Jack in July 2016 as she struggled to cope after he was jailed in November 2015. He was given 12 months for dangerous driving, using a vehicle without insurance and driving while disqualified.
However, the two lovers quickly reconciled, and although Chelsee's pregnancy wasn't planned, she and Jack are thrilled about their upcoming arrival.
Speaking to OK! magazine, Chelsee revealed: 'When I saw the test was positive I started crying, but they were happy tears. It wasnt something wed planned but now we are having a baby we couldnt be happier.'
The big reveal: Speaking to OK! magazine, Chelsee revealed: 'When I saw the test was positive I started crying, but they were happy tears. It wasnt something wed planned but now we are having a baby we couldnt be happier'
Jack, who Chelsee has been with (aside from the brief split) for three years, added: 'I can't wait to be a dad.'
Chelsee is working with Hollyoaks producers to ensure that she will be able to juggle motherhood and playing the role of Goldie McQueen, which she took on in November 2016.
A source told The Sun: 'This does not mean she will be leaving Hollyoaks. In fact, it signals a much more mature Chelsee, in a stable acting job in a long-running soap.
'Exec producer Bryan Kirkwood knew about her pregnancy very early on and plans are in place in terms of storylines and writing her in and out.'
Their band-mate Jesy Nelson has sparked break-up rumours from her beau of one month Chris Clarke, after unfollowing him on social media.
And with her nowhere to be seen, the rest of Little Mix - Jade Thirlwall, Leigh-Anne Pinnock and Perrie Edwards - made the most of their day off from touring, as they headed out in New Orleans earlier this week.
Jade looked stylish as she enjoyed a romantic stroll with her beau Jed Elliott - while the other two made like the locals and took a swamp boat tour in the humid Louisiana city.
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Chilling: Jade Thirlwall, 24, enjoyed a romantic stroll with beau Jed Elliott, as she made the most of her day off from touring by heading out in New Orleans earlier this week
Jade, 24, found it difficult to part ways with her rocker beau as the strolled forth - unleashing her toned pins in a pair of tiny denim cut offs.
A black jacket was casually draped over one shoulder and she completed the look with a comfortable pair of Converse trainers.
While she spent quality time with her man in-between their tour dates, Leigh-Anne and Perrie opted for a more adrenaline-fuelled boat ride to check out the swampy terrain.
Zayn Malik's ex Perrie looked stylish in a tie-dye pink shirt as she indulged in her surroundings, while the raven-haired beauty seemed more preoccupied by something on her phone.
Day off fun: Meanwhile, Perrie indulged in her surroundings as she took part in a swamp boat ride, while Leigh-Anne was preoccupied on her phone
Fashionista: Despite the distraction, Leigh-Anne looked sensational in a halterneck style top and tiny denim shorts
Casual display: The girls looked relaxed and casual for their day off as they took in the local sights
Despite the distraction, Leigh-Anne looked sensational in a halterneck style top and tiny denim shorts.
Her locks were pulled back into a tight bun and she completed the look with a pair of cool shades.
Meanwhile, Jesy was nowhere to be seen - sending tongues wagging over her relationship status with TOWIE hunk Chris.
The songstress unfollowed the Essex lad on social media on Wednesday, and deleted all snaps and videos of him from her Instagram account in an apparent bid to cut him out of her life.
Scared of missing out: Jade and Jed later made their way onto a separate boat to embark on the swamp tour
Hard at work: The girls have been travelling across the US over the past few weeks while supporting Ariana Grande on tour
Despite the brunette beauty not confirming the news, her loyal fans appear to have taken the social media snub as a clear sign of a break-up.
The Touch chart-topper was inundated with supportive messages from her followers, who enthused, 'hope you're ok', 'please don't be sad', and 'we love you'.
Jesy and Chris had only confirmed their romance mid-March with a snap of the pair kissing, but had seemed totally besotted with one another.
They had living apart due to Little Mix supporting Ariana Grande on her Dangerous Woman tour in the US, but had so far managed to find time to see each other and make their long-distance love work.
Romance woes? Meanwhile, Jesy sparked break-up rumours with her beau of one month Chris Clark by unfollowing him on social media on and deleting all snaps and videos of him from her Instagram account
President Obama talked tough and acted meekly, and his policies were therefore a factor in thousands of people losing their lives, the Syrian refugee crisis, Middle East mayhem generally and U.S. leadership taking a dive worldwide, say such analysts as Robert Kagan of Brookings Institution.
Here comes President Donald Trump. He sees a horror on TV and acts decisively, and this much we can be sure of: Syrian dictator Bashar Assad will never again use internationally forbidden chemical weapons on civilians.
There are complications beyond that issue, but its nothing to sneer at, and other positives could flow from 59 U.S. Tomahawk missiles striking a Syrian airfield. It was home to the airplanes dropping nerve agents that caused the death and suffering of children. Seeing videos of the atrocities, Trump consulted with a top-notch team and made this cautionary statement heard round the world.
On the issue of the nerve gas, Obama once behaved boldly, too, but in words only. His lassitude otherwise said go ahead and do what you want. In 2012, Obama said use of these chemicals by Assad or anyone else in the region would most certainly result in enormous consequences. Dont cross that red line, he warned. But Assad did just that a year later, killing 1,500 civilians 426 children among them.
The enormous consequence turned out to be eliciting a faux promise from Syria and Russia that they would work together to destroy the chemicals. Instead, it has been noted, Russia intervened more on behalf of Assad as the WMD sat pretty. Under the umbrella of Obama naivete, a more assertive Iran signed up big time with Assad. China got more aggressive, Russia messed with Ukraine and allies wondered where we were.
Think about Obama for a moment, how he came to the White House talking about ending our wars and instead was engaged in war longer than any other president ever. His exit strategies lacked the option of victory, and destabilization became a specialty. He extended our fighting presence geographically and spent $866 billion on military action compared to $811 billion by President George W. Bush, according to Atlantic magazine.
Now we come to Trump, an isolationist in his campaign except for pledging more military strength and extermination of radical Islamic terrorism. Note as faults in this Syria strike that no broad strategy is apparent, and he acted unconstitutionally in failing to ask Congress for permission. Its still clear that he will never let Assad get away with ignoring one of the relatively few restrictions on war, but what about the dictators continuing use of massacre-style barrel bombs? Will Trump sit by while this continues to transpire, or will he maybe wipe out Assads air force?
That could be accomplished minus an all-out military effort to oust Assad, which could be a protracted calamity with no assurance of anything good at the end. What does make sense is pragmatic calculation seen in the Middle East coalition Trump is building with Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, in addition to Israel.
And an intermediate value of the retaliatory strike in Syria is others just maybe paying more attention to us, North Korea, for instance, and dont forget Iran.
The Obama Iran deal was the Syria deal all over again. Clearly eager to build nuclear weapons, Iran had been kept from that venture by 20 years of threats from U.S. presidents. Leaders there then said they would hold off for another decade if we agreed to return billions of dollars plus other treats. As with Syria, there are multiple means by which Iran could evade detection in its transgressions, and reinstituting international sanctions could be nearly impossible until too late.
Obama visited us with heightened peril, and Trump has taken one small step in a better direction. Iran, North Korea and Russia are indulging in bellicose barking, but at least Obama is no longer empowered to make things worse.
It is a drug that makes users appear like zombies, rooted to the spot, bent over and swaying from side to side.
And now it looks like Spice, a synthetic cannabis, might have made it on to Coronation Street as character Gina Seddon was spotted slumped under a tree looking worse for wear during filming on Wednesday.
The character, played by actress Connie Hyde, can be seen lying on the grass, her arms folded across her chest as she appeared to doze away.
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Hard-hitting: It is believed that Coronation Street character Gina Seddon has become addicted to new street drug Spice which is a synthetic cannabis and turns users into 'zombies'
Tim Metcalfe, played by Joe Duttine, is driving his taxi when he spots his sister-in-law in the intoxicated state.
Gina is returning to the soap after a long absence.
The character was last seen on the cobbles in 1989 and left Weatherfield to marry a long-distance lorry driver.
Her return will be dramatic as it is suspected she will be unveiled as her sister Sally Metcalfe's vile online troll.
Out of it: Gina is returning to the soap after decades away, leaving Weatherfield in 1989 to marry a long-distance lorry driver
Troll: Fans are certain that Gina, who is Sally Metcalfe's sister, is in fact the troll who has been hounding Sally and even convinced her that her breast cancer had returned
Sally has endured terrifying abuse at the hands of her troll, even receiving a sick present of a dead heart from the stalker.
Fans have become convinced that Sally's troll is, in fact, her sister.
One fan tweeted: 'Changed my mind. It's Sally's sister Gina who is the troll.'
But according to new shocks from filming, the story is going to have another twist as Gina appears to be in the grip of an addiction to Spice.
The new drug has caused great concern as the UK appears to be on the brink of an epidemic.
Between takes: Actress Connie Hyde was spotting having a cigarette break as she filmed the hard-hitting scenes on Wednesday
Topical: Police in Manchester revealed they had received more than 58 calls about the drug in just three days
Terrifying: The drug triggers psychotic episodes, horrifying hallucinations and seizures
Difficulty: The withdrawal effects are believed to be even worse than coming off heroin
Greater Manchester Police revealed there had been 58 Spice related calls in less than three days over the weekend and on Wednesday, five students from Lancaster University were rushed to hospital after taking the drug.
Three have been discharged, but two remain in hospital.
The drug triggers psychotic episodes, horrifying hallucinations and seizures. The withdrawal effects are believed to be even worse than coming off heroin.
It would not be the first time Coronation Street has tackled a hard-hitting topical issue.
The soap's Bethany Platt sex ring story touches on the dangers of online grooming.
The controversial storyline has won praise from viewers for shedding light on a difficult topic.
Disorientated: Gina appears to be disorientated as her brother-in-law Tim Metcalfe picks her up
Frenetic: A minute later she is giggling manically as the drug takes hold
Shocking discovery: Tim Metcalfe spots her slumped in the grass
She's the New Zealand model currently expecting her first child.
And Nikki Phillips, 33, has plenty to celebrate this Easter long weekend, taking to Instagram to show off her growing baby bump at 26 weeks.
The cute snap comes after the blonde beauty confessed she was struggling to pick out a name for a boy.
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'Smuggling my very own Easter egg this year!' Nikki Phillips shows off 26 week baby bump after revealing her struggle to pick out a boy's name
The photo shared with Nikki's 76,000 Instagram followers shows the model posing demurely next to a tiled wall.
Smiling at the ground, Nikki shows off her pregnancy belly in a form-fitting striped dress.
'Smuggling my very own Easter egg this year! Time is flying by, already #26weeks and into my final trimester,' Nikki captioned the photo.
'Can't wait to meet our little kung fu master': YThe mum to be also joked about her tot's belly acrobatics
'Can't wait to meet our little kung fu master. Happy Easter Everyone, if you have any unwanted chocolate... send it my way.'
The holiday-themed snap comes after Nikki revealed she was expecting a boy, but was struggling with the unborn child's sex.
The blogger told The Daily Telegraph last week that her and husband, musician Dane Rumble, were finding it difficult to come up with male names.
Hard to name: The holiday-themed snap comes after Nikki revealed she was expecting a boy, but was struggling with the unborn child's sex
'We had a girls name 100 per cent picked we didnt fight about it we both agreed and said thats amazing. And then we found out it was a boy and were really struggling [with names],' Nikki said.
'We have two we really like but we will come up with a shortlist of five, as we have to meet him before we decide.'
The child is the first for Nikki and Dane, who married in Bali in 2014 after getting engaged two years prior.
Cheryl Maitland has certainly been enjoying her 15 minutes of fame since appearing on Married At First Sight earlier this year.
The Gold Coast socialite, 25, has enjoyed a 'mutually beneficial' holiday in NSW in exchange for promoting her accommodation on Instagram.
The former topless waitress is even fulfilling the reality TV cliche of advertising protein shakes wearing activewear on social media.
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Freebies! Cheryl Maitland has been enjoying her 15 minutes of fame since Married At First Sight, spruiking products on Instagram and even landing 'mutually beneficial' holidays
But on Thursday morning, Cheryl sparked rumours of yet another 'freebie' by revealing she is travelling to Los Angeles for a holiday.
Taking to Instagram, Cheryl shared a photo of a plane ticket from Brisbane Airport to LAX. The departure time was 10:05am.
In the picture, she included a graphic of a woman relaxing at the beach next to the word 'Vacation' written in sand.
It remains to be seen if Cheryl is simply taking a well-earned break or will be promoting products or venues during her California trip.
Business trip? And on Thursday morning, the 25-year-old former topless waitress sparked rumours of yet another 'freebie' by revealing she is travelling to Los Angeles for a holiday
Meanwhile, Cheryl's pursuit of TV fame has already paid off as the Queensland salon worker is busy selling advertising space on Instagram.
Earlier this week, she promoted a LUXE Fitness protein powder while posing in busty gym clothes in a sponsored social media post.
However, some Married At First Sight were unimpressed, with one asking: 'How much are they paying you to push this crap?'
'How much are they paying you to push this crap?' Earlier this week, Cheryl promoted a LUXE Fitness protein powder while posing in busty gym clothes in a sponsored social media post
Perks? Cheryl's recent 'holiday' with her boyfriend, convicted drug trafficker and disgraced former policeman Dean Gibbs (right), was actually a 'mutually beneficial' arrangement
It comes after The Daily Telegraph revealed Cheryl's recent 'holiday' with her boyfriend, convicted drug trafficker and disgraced former policeman Dean Gibbs, was actually a 'mutually beneficial' arrangement.
Accommodation at Crystal Creek Rainforest Retreat in NSW typically costs up to $715, but a spokesperson revealed they had struck a deal with Cheryl in exchange for her 'documenting the stay on social media'.
The representative claimed the deal made with Cheryl and Dean was not unusual, adding: 'We are approached by an number of notable identities, we work things out on a case-by-case basis.'
Twitter went wild when Trinny Woodall went braless on This Morning on Thursday to present a fashion segment alongside her lookalike daughter Lyla.
The 53-year-old revealed a little too-much in an ill-fitting striped and belted shirt dress from high-street store Zara which showed off her lack of lingerie.
The appearance came as her daughter, 13, admitted she finds is 'embarrassing' that her mother is on television.
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'Think she needs a bra': Trinny Woodall, 53, sent Twitter wild as she revealed too much on This Morning on Thursday (pictured with her 13-year-old daughter Lyla)
Awkward: The appearance came as her daughter Lyla, 13, admitted she finds is 'embarrassing' that her mother is on television
Trinny had a double shocker as she kept accidentally calling host Ruth Langsford 'Rita' during the show.
Social media users really went to town on Trinny's choice of attire.
Viewers wrote: '#trinny woodhall certainly was cold on #thismorning today #nipples.' [sic].
Nip slip: The 53-year-old revealed a little too-much in an ill-fitting striped and belted shirt dress from high-street store Zara which showed off her lack of lingerie
Complementing one another: The ladies were wearing matching ensembles on the show for a playful fashion segment
Stylist: Trinny styled her dress with cropped flared trousers worn underneath and silver trainers
That's not her name: Trinny had a double shocker as she kept accidentally calling host Ruth Langsford 'Rita' during the show
'Ohh my god Trinny! You need a bra in that top! Can see your side boob through your buttons! @thismorning @trinnywoodall #toomuchonshow.'
'Omg today's episode of @thismorning is the best episode ever!! @trinnywoodall had a peekaboo moment & @EamonnHolmes with this tanned girl.'
'Can someone please tell Trinny to sort her top out @thismorning #boobexposure #ThisMorning.'
'Think trinny needs a bra!!'
Something to say: Twitter went wild for Trinny's choice of attire and her daughter's appearance on the show
Other people wrote about Trinny's daughter, saying they shouldn't dress like one another, despite it being for a fun segment.
They wrote: '@trinnywoodall daughter saying it's a bit embarrassing about her mum being on telly.'
'Trinny wearing the same as her daughter... hmm please don't! And a bit nippy eh?!'
'Dear trinny.....no! Don't get them wearing same clothes it's odd! #ThisMorning.'
Doing her own thing: Two days ago, Trinny explained why she doesn't like to wear a bra when she appeared on television show, Lorraine
Two days ago, Trinny explained why she doesn't like to wear a bra when she appeared on television show, Lorraine.
She explained: 'I havent got any boob so I can wear things that wouldn't work on a curvier woman.'
She added: 'I can't wear a dress, I suit separates. Its about finding things that suit your body. I think its about knowing your body shape, its a principle me and Susanna always had.
'Its about getting the confidence to try something and getting that reaction of "that was better than I thought"'.
However, the TV stylist recently gave her 10,000 followers more than they bargained for after inadvertently flashing her breasts twice during a video blog.
Falling foul to the live nature of the clip - which was filmed in the bathroom of her London home - Trinny seemed oblivious to the flashing.
His 2012 eponymous reality show, Mark Wright's Hollywood Nights, was sadly cancelled after just five episodes due to poor ratings.
Yet Mark Wright put any bad omens of his ITV flop behind him as he headed out in Los Angeles on Tuesday where he peeled off his shirt while chatting to a pal.
The 31-year-old former TOWIE star is said to be taking another stab at US super stardom as he was spotted meeting with top Hollywood executive Rick Royce while persisting in his prolonged attempt to establish himself stateside.
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Hunky! Mark Wright put any bad omens of his defunct ITV2 eponymous reality show behind him as he headed out in Los Angeles on Tuesday where he peeled off his shirt while chatting to a pal
Mark has just jetted from a romantic trip to Paris with his wife Michelle Keegan to his sun-drenched break to LA and he certainly seemed in holiday mode - proving exactly why he is something of a heartthrob in his native UK.
She strode along in just a pair of gym shorts with some funky and no-doubt designer trainers while looking enviably handsome in his gym shorts.
Mark and Michelle have made no secret of their desperation to crack America as they previously revealed they had attended meetings with producers.
In 2015, he said: 'Ive loved being in LA, its amazing and its been exciting having meetings about working here. Ive met with top networks like E, CBS and NBC.
Wowzers: The 31-year-old former TOWIE star is said to be taking another stab at US super stardom as he was spotted meeting with top Hollywood executive Rick Royce as he persists in his prolonged attempt to establish himself stateside
Way back when: Mark Wright's Hollywood Nights, was sadly cancelled after just five episodes due to poor ratings
Honest officer... it'll be a hit! Mark and his pals got in a number of scrape and hilarious incidents throughout their time on the programme
Handsome: She strode along in just a pair of gym shorts with some funky and no-doubt designer trainers while looking enviably handsome in his gym shorts
'I have a manager over here too, John Ferriter. He has represented stars like Ryan Seacrest and Jimmy Kimmel, who have had amazing careers, so I know Im in good hands. Michelle has also been meeting with top acting agents while here as well. It has been a brilliant trip.
In 2012, as rating plummeted on Mark Wright's Holiday Nights was claimed they would be looking for a new format after it was panned by critics - although the plans never came off.
ITV2 boss Angela Jain told The Sun at the time: 'The first couple of episodes, I didn't know what I was watching. We love Mark Wright and will carry on working with him but there was never going to be another series of Hollywood Nights'.
Strutting his stuff: ITV2 boss Angela Jain told The Sun at the time: 'The first couple of episodes, I didn't know what I was watching. We love Mark Wright and will carry on working with him but there was never going to be another series of Hollywood Nights'
Mark took to Twitter to defend himself and his show and claimed it was always part of the plan to take the format to foreign lands.
He said: 'How can press say a show has been dropped I.e #MWHN & 3 lines down write we r planning on doing it in other citys ! This was always the plan.
'I.e mark wrights Bangkok nights, or new york nights any way another day another story I suppose they have 2 say something #twistpeopleswords'.
Erin Molan announced last week she was engaged to policeman Sean Ogilvy.
And on Thursday, the TV personality addressed the public attention surrounding her '$100,000' diamond ring.
On The NRL Footy Show, co-host Paul Vautin told Erin: 'I've got to say, your ring got a lot of attention.'
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'It's not about the ring. It's about the love': On Thursday's The NRL Footy Show Erin Molan addressed the public attention surrounding her $100,000 diamond ring
Erin, 33, replied: 'It has. It's not about the ring. It's about the love. You know that.'
The Channel Nine star revealed on Instagram last Thursday 'the love of (her) life' had proposed.
She shared a photo of her large diamond ring, before proudly showing it off on The Footy Show.
Wedding bells! The TV personality, 33, announced last week she was engaged to policeman Sean Ogilvy. Pictured in March 2016
House of K'dor later confirmed Erin's 2.2 carat engagement ring cost around $100,000.
Her fiance Sean, 41, saved for six months to afford the ring, according to The Daily Telegraph.
Last Friday, Erin told Jonesy & Amanda: 'He's done so well. I seriously can't stop looking at it.'
'He's done so well. I seriously can't stop looking at it': Erin recently told Jonesy & Amanda she was delighted with her engagement ring
Erin and Sean debuted their romance in March 2016. At the time, she told Daily Mail Australia: 'We are very much in love.'
She continued: 'I think it's for life. He is a good boy, so we will see.'
In September, Erin revealed her desire to start a family, telling TV Week: 'I definitely want to be a mum. I can't wait.'
She's the self-described 'spiritual goddess' who rubs her co-stars up the wrong way on the Real Housewives Of Sydney.
And budding artist Athena X Levendi has lifted the lid on her mystical past, telling The Daily Telegraph this week that she can recall over 100 past lives, including one where she was a Japanese man.
The fashionista also revealed that the sudden death of her mother three years ago saw her discard her designer garb and live as a 'modern-day monk' for a spell.
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'I was once a Japanese man': Athena X Levendi reveals she has over 100 past lives and was a 'modern-day monk' after the sudden death of her mother
Athena described in detail her past lives lived, telling the publication: 'I once was a Japanese man.'
He was a hard man who was mean to his wife and sons and would leave them for weeks at a time, she recalled.
But tragedy struck when during one trip away his home was hit by an earthquake and his loved ones were killed, causing him to become a monk.
Diverse: Athena told News Corp Australia other past lives included a Dutch woman whose son drowned in a lake and a wheelchair-bound French girl
Athena told News Corp Australia other past lives included a Dutch woman whose son drowned in a lake and a wheelchair-bound French girl.
She has learnt about her previous lives by undergoing hypnotism to see her other lifetimes.
While known for her eccentric fashion style and love of expensive designer labels, the sudden death of her mother three years ago caused a temporary shift.
Insightful: She has learnt about her previous lives by undergoing hypnotism to see her other lifetimes
'I threw out all of my designer clothes and gave away all my designer handbags. I chopped off all my hair and wore a little shift dress everywhere,' Athena said. 'I was like a modern-day monk.'
Athena, who in episodes of RHOS has repeatedly rubbed her co-stars up the wrong way with statements like '(my husband) and I never have sex we only make love', also opened up about her abusive childhood at the hands of her father.
During a confrontation on a previous episode, the socialite tearfully told her co-stars how she 'got dragged out of a car by your ponytail, then pulled into a shower and had your ponytail cut off, then sent to school, and then had the bullies pick on you too!'
Spanish actress Elsa Pataky is looking to raise her profile in Australia - and be known as more than Chris Hemsworth's wife.
The Fate Of The Furious star, 40, lives in Byron Bay with her husband and three children, after they relocated from Los Angeles.
'We live in Australia and I want to do things here and start working and for people to know me a little bit more than as Chris' wife,' she told Stellar.
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'I want to do things here and start working': Spanish actress Elsa Pataky is looking to raise her profile in Australia - and be known as more than Chris Hemsworth's wife
In the interview, which is published on Sunday, Elsa also talks about what it's like being married to a Hollywood sex symbol.
'It is funny. He's like, "I'm the Sexiest Man Alive" and I'm like, "I was the sexiest in Spain for years! You have just one".'
Last year, Chris spoke to Modern Luxury about his decision to move his family from Hollywood to coastal New South Wales.
Down Under: The Fate Of The Furious star, 40, lives in Byron Bay with her husband and three children, after they relocated from Los Angeles
'I love what I do as an actor, but when you are surrounded by it constantly, it becomes a bit suffocating,' he said.
'It's nice to have conversations with people and be a part of a community that doesnt live and breathe that world.
'We were living shoulder to shoulder in the suburbs and thought that's not how we want our kids to grow up. Moving to a kind of farm setup back here on the coast in Australia has been the best thing.'
'It has been the best thing': Last year, Chris spoke to Modern Luxury about his decision to move his family from Hollywood to coastal New South Wales
Chris and his family reportedly splashed out on a $7.2 million property in Byron Bay in September 2014.
Chris previously told Daily Mail Australia: 'I definitely want the kids to grow up (in Australia) and spend time here.
'We were in California a lot I missed it here and my wife missed it too so that was our goal to get back here.'
Since its launch 70 years ago, the Cannes Film Festival has been one of the most controversial industry events in the world.
From red carpet protests to accusations of blasphemy, the movies which debut at the festival are made to shock and surprise critics.
But as the line-up was released on Thursday, Cannes 2017 looks set to be the most politically charged festival yet.
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Making a statement: The 2017 Cannes Film Festival looks set to be one of the most politically charges in its 70 year history following the announcement of the line-up on Thursday
Among the projects competing for the top prize, the coveted Palme dOr, are Tilda Swinton's new Netflix-funded fantasy Okja, which director Thierry Fremaux describes as 'a very political movie' that focuses on how 'we exploit animals'.
Also up for the gong are Robin Campillos 120 Battements par Minute, about Aids, and Hungarian director Kornel Mundruczo's Jupiter's Moon, which tackles the horrors of the ongoing refugee crisis.
Out of competition entrants also broach the issue - political activist Vanessa Regdrave's directorial debut Sea Sorrow, which stars Emma Thompson and Ralph Fiennes and looks at those displaced in European wars over the last century, will also be shown.
Meanwhile, former Presidential hopeful Al Gore will screen his latest documentary An Inconvenient Sequel, a sequel to his climate change project An Inconvenient Truth.
The 2017 line-up's theme societal themes have not gone unnoticed by Cannes president Pierre Lescure, who quips that he simply hopes the increase in tension between East and West following strikes in Syria and the reported progress of nuclear weaponry in North Korea will not overshadow the festival.
Wild line-up: Among the projects competing for the top prize, the coveted Palme dOr, are Tilda Swinton's new Netflix-funded fantasy Okja, which director Thierry Fremaux as 'a very political movie' which focuses on how 'we exploit animals'
New direction: Out of competition entrants also broach the issue - political activist Vanessa Regdrave's directorial debut Sea Sorrow, which stars Emma Thompson and Ralph Fiennes
Shock: The project looks at those displaced in European wars over the last century, will also be shown
Politician: Meanwhile, former Presidential hopeful Al Gore will screen his latest documentary An Inconvenient Sequel, a sequel to his climate change project An Inconvenient Truth
He says: 'Since we have a new surprise every day from Donald Trump, I hope Syria and North Korea will not cause a shadow on the festival.'
Of course, the red carpet will still be littered by A-list stars; Nicole Kidman has no less than four films on show at the festival, while Colin Farrell and Kristen Dunst will be there to promote Sofia Coppola's latest offering The Beguiled.
It was Dunst's film with Lars von Trier, Melancholia, which caused one of the biggest furores in the event's recent history.
In 2011, while promoting the movie alongside his leading lady, the Danish filmmaker appeared to empathise with Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.
Glamour: The red carpet will still be littered by A-list stars; Nicole Kidman (left) has no less than four films on show at the festival, while Kristen Dunst (right) will be there to promote Sofia Coppola's latest offering The Beguiled
He said: 'I understand Hitler. I think he did some wrong things, yes absolutely, but I can see him sitting in his bunker in the end. I think I understand the man.'
He was subsequently banned from the festival despite several grovelling apologies and faced charges for inciting war crimes.
In 2014, a host of stars including Salma Hayek, Mel Gibson and Antonio Banderas held up placards saying 'Bring back our girls' on the red carpet to draw attention to the kidnapping of 250 Nigerian girls by Islamist group Boko Haram.
That same year, Shia LeBeouf made a bizarre stand against fame - despite promoting his film Nymphomaniac - by wearing a paper bag on his head emblazoned with the words 'I'm Not Famous Anymore'.
At the 1968 festival, French film legends Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard led a solidarity protest for the student's revolting in France by swinging from the curtain polls as films were being screened. Things got so heated that Godard punched actress Geraldine Chaplin, despite her joining in the protest.
Caitlyn Jenner thinks Ellen DeGeneres 'alienated' her from the LGBTQ community.
The 67-year-old American television personality, who was pictured out in Malibu on Thursday, appeared on the talk show host's popular show in 2015 after transitioning.
She admitted to Ellen that she had been hesitant to accept gay marriage in the past, prompting the blonde star to describe her guest's views as 'confusing' in a later interview with radio presenter Howard Stern.
In her memoir, The Secrets of My Life, which has been obtained by Radar Online, Caitlyn says Ellen, 59, asked in a 'friendly voice' to discuss how her views on marriage equality has 'progressed over the years.'
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'Alienated': Caitlyn Jenner, pictured in Malibu on Thursday, has called out Ellen DeGeneres in her new memoir, The Secrets Of My Life
Blame: The 67-year-old accuses the talk show host of taking her stance on gay marriage out of context
Caitlyn wrote: 'I believed, as anyone would, that that was exactly what she wanted to talk about my progression in terms of changing attitude over the years.
'I am for it. I did not initially understand why marriage was so important, influenced no doubt by my own personal experience. Now I do, and it's a wonderful thing to see.'
'This discussion further alienated me from members of the LGBTQ community. Ellen's appearance on The Howard Stern Show, where in my mind she even more emphatically took what I said out of context, made it go viral.'
Start of it all: The 67-year-old reality star previously spoke on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in September of 2015 about gay marriage
The I Am Cait star - who has six children and has been married three times in the past - had admitted during her interview with Ellen that she was a 'traditionalist' who never used to approve of same-sex marriage, but her attitude had changed in recent years.
She said: 'I have to admit that I remember 15 years ago, 20 years ago, whenever it was that the whole gay marriage issue came up, I was not for it.
'I am a traditionalist. I mean, I'm older than most people in the audience. I like tradition and it's always been between a man and a woman and I'm thinking I don't' quite get it.
'But as time goes on, like a lot of people on this issue I've really changed thinking here, to I don't ever want to stand in front of anybody's happiness.'
She added: 'That's not my job. OK. If that word marriage is really, really that important to you I can go with it.'
When Ellen then accused her of being 'still a little not on board' with the idea, Caitlyn replied: 'No I'm on board. It's going to be pretty much the law of the land. So I still feel like yeah, I'm OK with it. I don't want to stand in front of somebody's happiness.'
DeGeneres later discussesd Caitlyn's comments in a radio interview.
'She still has a judgment about gay marriage,' DeGeneres told Howard Stern.
'I said, "You're wanting people to understand and accept you, this is like really confusing to people. And you want us to understand, and that you still have a judgment about gay people and marriage."
Court Dismisses Fairfax County LGBT Case
Contact: Liberty Counsel, 407-875-1776, Media@LC.org; Press Kit
RICHMOND, Va., April 13, 2017 /Christian Newswire/ -- The Virginia Supreme Court issued its opinion today in Lafferty v. Fairfax, the challenge to the Fairfax County School Board's unlawful action of adding "sexual orientation," "gender identity," and "gender expression" to its policy and student handbook.
The Court affirmed the circuit court's decision dismissing the case and held that none of the plaintiffs had sufficient legal standing to challenge the unlawful policy. The Court stated that: (1) Jack Doe's alleged injury was too speculative because he had not been punished under the policy; (2) that John and Jane Doe do not have next friend standing for the same reasons Jack Doe has no standing; and (3) none of the plaintiffs qualify for taxpayer standing.
Liberty Counsel represents Jake Doe, a minor, John and Jane, the parents and Andrea Lafferty. This is one of several cases around the country. After consulting with clients, the case may be refiled based on new developments that occurred since the original suit. Virginia follows the "Dillon Rule," which requires local nondiscrimination laws to not be more stringent than the state law. State law does not include "sexual orientation," "gender identity," or "gender expression." Neither the circuit court nor the Supreme Court reached a decision concerning the merits of this policy, and neither issued any opinion on the ability of the local school board to enact such policies that are plainly inconsistent with state law.
"While the Fairfax Country School Board temporarily dodged the issue, new developments in the application of this unlawful policy may result in a new suit. There is no doubt the school board intends to enforce this policy," said Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel. "Liberty Counsel is not finished fighting for the safety of Jack Doe and public school students in Fairfax County. We are exploring all possible avenues to further challenge these policies and are confident that we will prevail when the courts reach the merits of these challenges," said Staver.
Liberty Counsel is an international nonprofit, litigation, education, and policy organization dedicated to advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of life, and the family since 1989, by providing pro bono assistance and representation on these and related topics.
She balances a PR career with raising two children as a 'single mum'.
And Roxy Jacenko, 36, is quite happy for her young children to follow in her busy footsteps.
The Sweaty Betty PR founder let her son Hunter Curtis, two, drink a piccolo latte during Thursday's coffee run.
'Likes a piccolo just like his mum': Roxy Jacenko shared an Instagram photo of her son Hunter Curtis, two, drinking a piccolo latte during Thursday's coffee run
The photo was posted in the mid-afternoon, which suggests Roxy had brought her toddler son along to work.
She captioned the playful snap: 'Likes a piccolo just like his mum'.
It is unclear if Hunter actually drank coffee or a more kid-friendly beverage, such as a a 'babycchino'.
Busy schedule: Since her husband Oliver Curtis was jailed for insider trading last year, the Sydney publicist has described herself as a 'single mum'
Since her husband Oliver Curtis was jailed for insider trading last year, Roxy has described herself as a 'single mum'.
She has even been known to 'hire' Sweaty Betty publicist Gemma Oldfield as a nanny for Hunter and daughter Pixie, five.
Oliver is expected to be released from Cooma Correctional Centre in June after serving a year in prison.
Release date: Oliver is expected to be released from Cooma Correctional Centre in June after serving a year in prison. Roxy has told her children their father is on a business trip to China
Hunter has visited his father several times, but Roxy has decided not to allow Pixie to see Oliver behind bars.
Both children have been told their father is on a business trip to China.
This week, Roxy told the Wentworth Courier she will be at the prison gates with her children to greet Oliver when he is released in two months.
Billie Lourd paid tribute to her late mother Carrie Fisher at a Star Wars event on Thursday.
It's the first public appearance for the 24-year-old actress following Fisher's sudden death, aged 60, last year.
Billie arrived to the Star Wars Celebration in Orlando in a custom white Tom Ford dress paying homage to Fisher's iconic Princess Leia.
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The force is with her: Billie Lourd made her first public appearance following the death of her mother Carrie Fisher last year at the Star Wars Celebration in Orlando on Thursday
Billie took to the podium to speak about her mother during the event, which was live-streamed, calling her a 'strong soldier of a woman'.
'My mom used to say she never knew where Princess Leia ended and Carrie Fisher began,' Lourd said onstage.
'She was imperfect in many ways but her imperfections and willingness to speak about them are what made her more than perfect.
Paying tribute: She wore a Princess Leia-inspired number at the gala
Wonder in white: She wore a white dress with flowy sleeves
Vogue: The daughter of Carrie Fisher looked absolutely stunning
'My mom, like Leia, wasnt ever afraid to speak her mind and say things that might have made most people uncomfortable, but not me and not you. That was why she loved you, because you accepted and embraced all of her.'
The actress also reflected on her mother's legacy, saying: 'She taught me that if life isnt funny then its just true, and that is unacceptable,'
She added: 'She taught me by her own example, that the most evolved person is seemingly a contradiction they are both the strongest and the most vulnerable person in the room. And that was her. That is Leia.'
In a galaxy not so far away: She addressed the crowd at the panel
Leggy lady: She completed the look with a pair of strappy white stilettos
Feeling the force? She posed her arms fully extended and her eyes closed
One with the force: Her blonde locks were worn down flowing over her shoulders
All smiles: She grinned from ear-to-ear during the panel
Aww: Iconic snaps of the late Fisher were flashed on the screen behind Billie as she spoke
Good guys: She was flanked by Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford in a cute social media post
Billie also remembered her mother as someone who 'often openly fought her own dark side, knowing early on that we all have a dark side to fight, whatever it may be.
'But she knew that it wasn't about the fight you were fighting but how you fought it - the way you resisted.
After Billie's moving speech, a tribute video played featuring clips of Fisher from the Star Wars films, behind the scenes production footage and snippets from interviews over the years.
'She was imperfect in many ways but her imperfections and willingness to speak about them are what made her more than perfect' the 24-year-old actress paid tribute to the late icon
'My mom used to say she never knew where Princess Leia ended and Carrie Fisher began,' Billie said
Billie wore a Tom Ford creation that paid homage to Fisher's Princess Leia costume (pictured in 1977)
Legend: A tribute to the actress was also shown at the event which was live-streamed from Orlando on Thursday
Co-stars: The montage of clips included behind the scenes footage like this of Carrie with Billie on set
Won't be forgotten: Fisher is seen with Daisy Ridley on the set of The Force Awakens
'Feeling the force': Billie shared this snap to Instagram to mark the event
Creator George Lucas also paid tribute to Fisher during the event.
'She really is a modern woman. She was a princess. She was a senator. She was having to hold her own against these two big lugs,' the 72-year-old filmmaker said, referring to Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford, who also made a surprise appearance.
Lucas took to the stage for the 40 Year of Star Wars panel in front of hundreds of fans joined by Hamill, Ford, Warwick Davis (acting as moderator), Anthony Daniels, Billy Dee Williams and Peter Mayhew.
Creator George Lucas also took the stage for the 40 Year of Star Wars panel in front of hundreds of fans. He is pictured alongside Lucasfilm chief Kathleen Kennedy
Some of the Star Wars actors such as Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford joined the discussion with Lucas
Pictured L-R: Mark Hamill, George Lucas, Warwick Davis, Anthony Daniels, Billy Dee Williams and Peter Mayhew
Billie made her feature-film debut alongside her mother in Star Wars: The Force Awakens playing Lieutenant Connix.
Shell be reprising her role in the upcoming Star Wars: The Last Jedi sequel.
Fisher died on December 27, four days after going into cardiac arrest on a flight from London to Los Angeles.
Fisher's mother Debbie Reynolds died a day later, aged, 84, following a stroke.
Gone too soon: Fisher passed away aged 60 on December 27 after suffering a cardiac arrest and her mother Debbie Reynolds (pictured center in 2015) died aged 84 the following day
As a tribute, they showed a five-minute video with behind-the-scenes footage from her days as Princess Leia.
It also showed past interviews and remembrances from her co-stars.
Fans at the 40th-anniversary panel also received an exclusive Fisher remembrance poster
Kim Kardashian can't help but fawn over her darling daughter.
Sharing a selfie of her and her little lady North West, the 36-year-old starlet gushed about the three-year-old fashionista, captioning the shot 'My cutie!'
In the sweet mother-daughter picture, Kim can be seen rocking her iconic raven locks while hugging little North, who looks stylish in a pint-sized choker and leopard print frock.
Cutie pie! Kim Kardashian shared a lovely snapshot of herself and daughter North West on Thursday, which she captioned 'my cutie!'
The mother-daughter duo looked over the moon to be together in the social media snapshot, both baring beautiful, authentic smiles.
Little North flashes a grin that reveals several missing teeth while holding her mom, whose bronze skin looks radiant as she smiles lovingly at her little one.
The ever-glamorous Calabasas girl shows off a sleek center part and perfect pout while embracing her daughter and captioning the image 'my cutie!'
Kim's night out: On Wednesday, the 36-year-old starlet enjoyed a night out with her sister Kourtney. Kim stunned in a form fitting gold gown at the premiere of The Promise
It was a week of family bonding for Kim and her kin.
On Wednesday, the social media sensation and sister Kourtney enjoyed a night on the town without their kids.
The dynamic duo stole the show at the premiere of The Promise in Los Angeles where Kim wowed in body hugging gold courtesy of vintage Versace while Kourtney opted for a sexy take on a tuxedo.
Sexy suit: Kourtney put a sexy spin on masculine duds by ditching her shirt from under a well tailored suit at the LA premiere
The latest season of Keeping Up With The Kardashians documents some of the family's toughest moments from their dramatic 2016.
Last week's episode showed Kim making her first steps back in the spotlight after her September robbery in Paris -- all before the star is shocked with news of husband Kayne West's mental breakdown.
A preview for Sunday's show reveals the starlet rushing home to be at her husband's side.
Keeping Up With Kardashian's airs Sunday at 9pm on E!
It's potentially one of the most anticipated television returns of the year.
And Channel 4 have finally teased an official image of the brand new line up for The Great British Bake Off, following their deal last summer to buy the show from the BBC.
Paul Hollywood, 51, who is the only returning member of the Bake Off's BBC series, stands proudly with a cherry-topped cupcake next to his trio of new sidekicks in the promotional shot.
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It's had a Bake Over! Paul Hollywood, Sandi Toksvig, Noel Fielding and Prue Leith cosy up in FIRST official photo from Channel 4's new GBBO (and has the tent been relocated to a forest?)
Paul's new fellow judge Prue Leith, 77, beams in the image as she too brandishes a baked treat, wearing a bright yellow blazer and a pair of square specs.
And the show's new hosts Sandi Toksvig, 58, and Noel Fielding, 43, stand in the middle, grinning from ear-to-ear, Noel fully in the spirit of things wearing a sweater with a large strawberry displayed on the chest.
In front of the new quartet an array of buns, cakes, pies and breads are displayed, in traditional Bake Off style.
Out with the old: The void left by exiting presenters Sue Perkins, Mary Berry and Mel Giedroyc is sure to rattle a few fans [pictured with Paul in a BBC promo shot for the old version of the show]
And although some trademark bunting can be spied in the backdrop festooned on a brick wall behind the foursome, the infamous Bake Off tent is no-where to be seen.
Reports have hinted that the major changes in the Bake Off presenters and judges have led the producers to decide that the setting of Welford Park will still be used for filming, and that the tent will be back.
But little more can be deduced from the singular image, released by Channel 4 and Love Productions (the company that own the overall rights to the show), but the void left by exiting stars Sue Perkins, Mary Berry and Mel Giedroyc is sure to rattle a few fans.
Newbies: Veteran cook Prue [L] made the cut, alongside Sandi and Noel [R] - the latter of which caused a new batch of concern from die hard Bake Off fans who felt the off-the-wall, Goth-like comedian wasn't the right fit
Hostess with the mostess: The show's hosts Sandi Toksvig [pictured as the host of QI] and Noel Fielding stand in the middle, grinning from ear-to-ear in the new Channel 4 promo shot
Although Channel 4 confirmed earlier this year that Sandi and Noel would be replacing Mel and Sue, and that Prue will take Mary's role, this is the first time fans are seeing the new clan together officially.
And this makes Channel 4's Bake Off all the more real to those unhappy about the shake-up, which caused a ripple of distress last year when Love Productions cut a new deal with the rival broadcaster and left the BBC for good.
Love Productions confirmed that they had parted ways with the BBC in September, as the seventh season of the show was mid-way through its run on BBC One.
Fans were suddenly made to face up to the fact that the show they were watching would be the last series on the BBC, and that eventual winner Candice Brown would be the final ever champion on the stalwart British network.
Staying put: Paul Hollywood, who is the only returning member of the Bake Off's BBC series, stands proudly with a cherry-topped cupcake next to his trio of new sidekicks in the new photo
The last of her kind: Fans were suddenly made to face up to the fact that the show they were watching would be the last series on the BBC, and that eventual winner Candice Brown [pictured] would be the final ever champion on the stalwart British network
Channel 4 offered Love Productions a 25 million-a-year deal, which was said to be over double what the BBC had offered to continue airing the cult cookery show.
Blaming 'more than a year of exhaustive negotiations' on the decision to leave the BBC once and for all, Love Productions signed a three-year contract with Channel 4 instead - a deal that will allegedly involve up to 40 hours of programming each year, including various professional and celebrity editions of the show.
What followed was a few weeks of will they/won't they rumours surrounding the involvement of Paul, Mel, Sue and Mary - with viewers desperate to know if the full presenting line up would be making the transition to Channel 4 too.
One by one, Mel, Sue and Mary devastated fans by dropping out of any future series, leaving only Paul to accept a new offer, going with the Bake Off to its new home.
Jumping ship: What followed was a few weeks of will they/won't they rumours surrounding the involvement of Paul, Mel, Sue and Mary - with fans desperate to know if the full presenting line up would be making the transition to Channel 4 with the show
Gone but not forgotten: One by one, Mel, Sue and Mary devastated fans by dropping out of any future series, leaving only Paul to accept a new offer, going with the Bake Off to its new home
Over the last six months, the BBC has announced rival cooking series, some of which featuring Bake Off alum, and the rumour mill has thrown out names of all kinds of presenter and judge replacements.
Nigella Lawson and Delia Smith were floated as Mary's potential successor, while French & Saunders were suggested as an obvious Mel & Sue swap.
But veteran cook Prue made the cut, alongside Sandi and Noel - the latter of which caused a new batch of concern from die hard Bake Off fans who felt the off-the-wall, Goth-like comedian wasn't the right fit.
Judging by his strawberry jumper, he seems set on proving his doubters wrong.
They're enjoying an extended stay in Paris - the most romantic city in the world.
And Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux seemed to be embracing the French spring air as they posed happily together at the Festival Serie Mania Opening Night, at Le Grand Rex on Thursday evening.
And Justin, 45, seemed as loved up as ever as he held his stunning wife closer to him - with one hand cheekily on her rear.
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Une belle derriere! Justin Theroux can't keep his hands off wife Jennifer Aniston's pert behind as she poses in a thigh-flashing gown at the Festival Serie Mania in Paris
The cheek of it: Justin, 45, seemed as loved up as ever as he held his stunning wife closer to him - with one hand cheekily on her rear
Jennifer, 48, looked as effortlessly sensational as ever, in a sleeveless black halter-neck dress, which flowed down her lithe figure and stopped in a ruffled effect just above her ankles.
A couple of sizeable slits in around the thigh area of the gown allowed Jennifer's toned and tanned legs to tease through the fabric.
She wore a pair of black killer heels on her feet, bringing her a little taller next to her handsome husband.
Jennifer kept her make-up as natural as ever, and her hair loose, looking very Rachel-esque in the way it was styled.
Gay Paris: The pair are enjoying an extended stay in Paris - the most romantic city in the world
Lovebirds: Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux seemed to be embracing the French spring air as they posed happily together at the Festival Serie Mania Opening Night, at Le Grand Rex on Thursday evening
Having fun: Jennifer, 48, looked as effortlessly sensational as ever, in a sleeveless black halter-neck dress, which flowed down her lithe figure and stopped in a ruffled effect just above her ankles
The thigh's the limit: A couple of sizeable slits in around the thigh area of the gown allowed Jennifer's toned and tanned legs to tease through the fabric
Justin matched his wife in an all-black jacket and jeans ensemble, completed by a daring red and black striped T-shirt underneath.
The pair beamed continually as they posed for photographs and walked hand-in-hand along the red carpet.
The day before, Justin took to Instagram with a sweet loved-up snap as they enjoyed some sight-seeing.
'In Louvre,' the actor captioned the image, which saw him cuddling up the stunning Friends actress as he caught their reflection in the mirror above them.
Channeling Miss Green: Jennifer kept her make-up as natural as ever, and her hair loose, looking very Rachel-esque in the way it was styled
Uplifting: She wore a pair of black killer heels on her feet, bringing her a little taller next to her handsome husband
On the continent: Justin matched his wife in an all-black jacket and jeans ensemble, completed by a daring red and black striped T-shirt underneath
The hunky star looked thrilled as he got snap happy with his blonde other half, who he wed two years ago.
The lovebirds initially flew into the romantic European city earlier this week to witness Louis Vuitton's new collection at the Louvre.
Since then they have embarked on a number of outings in Paris - ensuring to make full use of their time before they head back to the US.
In an interview with the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Justin held forth on the fact his and Jennifer's careers can fling them to different towns, away from one another.
Jetsetters: The lovebirds initially flew into the romantic European city earlier this week to witness Louis Vuitton's new collection at the Louvre
Chic: Jennifer was leading glamour at the event, in a dramatic all-black ensemble
Romantic: The pair beamed continually as they posed for photographs and walked hand-in-hand along the red carpet
Leading man: Jen was happy for her husband to take the lead as they arrived at Le Grand Rex in the French capital
All eyes on them: The couple were centre of attention as they made their way into the venue - not fazed by the cameras photographing them as they strolled past hand-in-hand
Unusual cut: Former Friends star Jen wowed in her slinky black number that boasted quirky cut-out detailing around just above her knee to expose a glimpse of her thighs
'Its tough; its a pain. But even though you are tired, you just make an extra effort to make trips back home, or have your partner come visit you,' he explained.
Gossiped he: 'Keith Urban said that he once flew from New York, all the way to Australia, to have dinner with Nicole Kidman. Then, he flew back to his concert tour.'
With a laugh, Justin - whose role on The Leftovers takes him to Australia as well - conceded that Keith's 'a better man than I am. I would never do that.'
He and Jennifer had once resolved not to stay apart longer than two weeks at a time. 'Then, it would be a two-and-a-half-week rule. So, its a moving target.'
So in sync! Jen and Justin sported complementing ensembles for their evening out in Paris
Loved-up display: They couldn't have seemed more content as they headed home from the Series Mania Festival opening night with Jen clutching onto her beau's arm
She has been flaunting her fabulous figure for years on the big screen and off.
And Kate Beckinsale showcased both her age-defying figure and her sartorial style yet again on Thursday as she shared a stunning holiday snap in a dazzling white two-piece.
The 43-year-old Underworld star looked every inch the movie star in the sepia-toned shot, shared with her three quarters of a million fans on Instagram.
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Beautiful: Kate Beckinsale, 43, showcased both her age-defying figure and her sartorial style yet again on Thursday as she shared a stunning holiday snap in a dazzling white two-piece
The witty star captioned her sultry shot with the simple phrase: 'Taking the stairs.'
Kate allowed her blonde-tinged tresses to sway around her bronzed shoulders as she emerged from the glittering ocean.
Donning her favourite holiday pair of shades - they also made an appearance in a similarly sexy bikini snap the British star shared earlier in the week - Kate pouted subtly as she created an action shot of effortless glamour.
Revealing incredibly toned abs and ultra-toned thighs, the mother-of-one glowed in the sunlight.
Hot mama... Earlier this week both Kate and her daughter shared stunning bikini snaps from their holiday
And on Tuesday the Total Recall star shared another equally witty snap next to a painting resembling the Rorschach test, in which subjects' unique perceptions of a mass of inkblots are recorded for assessment.
Again Kate ensured she made the most of her age-defying physique as she slipped into the stunning bandeau bikini, which featured a strapless top with low-slung bottoms.
Ever the joker, she added a caption on the shot reading: 'Successfully completed the holiday Rorschach test without seeing a penis or my mother'.
'Funny marks on my bum': Kate showed off her sensational figure in a red and white strapless bikini on Instagram on Monday as she lounged on a glorious hammock
Ensuring she kept fans mesmerised, earlier this week Kate shared another stunning bikini picture, this time from a meshed hammock.
The Love & Friendship actress looked incredible wearing a red strapless bikini and mismatching white bottoms as she relaxed on a hammock over the ocean.
Poking fun of herself again, Kate captioned the image with the words: 'Float float and some funny marks on your bum when you get up.'
Ripped: The 43-year-old Underworld star showed off her incredible physique in a tiny floral bikini while her daughter, 18, rocked a funky clashing bikini which flaunted every inch of her toned frame
The British superstar is on holiday with her beautiful daughter Lily, 18, who shared a stunning bikini snap of her own from the idyllic beach on Tuesday.
Lily, whose father is actor Michael Sheen, borrowed from her mum in selfie style as she showed off her incredible frame in floral bikini bottoms with a red strappy top.
Her brunette tresses were worn in wet lengths tumbling over her shoulders while she held her hand up to her face to shield her eyes from the searing sun.
Proving once again she has nabbed her mum's hilarious sense of humour, she posted the tongue-in-cheek caption: 'really busy day'.
Cheeky! Kate recently proved she's still good friends with Lily's father Michael Sheen, as she took to Instagram with a very cheek snap of him unassumingly baring his bottom
Kate recently proved she's still good friends with her former beau Michael, as she took to Instagram with a very cheeky snap of him unassumingly baring his bottom.
'What were the qualities you were looking for in the father of your child? Honestly, just that je ne sais quoi and an affinity for rabbits,' the actress captioned the snap about Michael.
The hilarious snap saw his shirt and blazer lift up and trousers pull down as he bent down - revealing a part of his derriere.
Seeing the comical part of it, Kate, who regularly updates her Instagram with hilarious snaps, posted it on the social media platform.
No shame in her game: Seeing the comical part of it, Kate, who regularly updates her Instagram with hilarious snaps, posted it on the social media platform
Love story: Despite being together for eight years, the pair never married. They split when Kate fell in love with director Len Wiseman on the set of Underworld in 2003 (Pictured in 2001)
Despite being together for eight years, the pair never married. They split when she fell in love with director Len Wiseman on the set of Underworld in 2003.
Kate and Len, 44, married in the ritzy Los Angeles neighborhood of Bel-Air on May 9 2004.
However, they announced their separation 11 years later and Len filed for divorce in 2016. Michael is now in a relationship with comedienne Sarah Silverman.
Kate recently shared a throwback snap of her cuddling up to daughter Lily, who was dressed up with whiskers, when she was a toddler
'You made me sound like a loser': Kate recently admitted in an interview with TooFab that she got into a bit of trouble with Lily over an Instagram post about her
To accompany the image, Kate wrote: 'It was quite common for @lily_beckinsale to have drawn-on nose whiskers while I was covered in blood . If she has grown up weird I blame Michael'.
Kate recently admitted in an interview with TooFab that she got into a bit of trouble with Lily over an Instagram post about her.
The Underworld actress acknowledged that her daughter wasn't too happy about her parents' enthusiasm over her college acceptance.
'I got into a bit of trouble at home for that,' Beckinsale said during the interview.
She continued: 'She said, "I wish you'd said I got into the college of my choice, because it sounded like you had no hope of me getting into any college anywhere, made me sound like a loser!"'
It's not the first time this month that Kate has been in a reflective mood when it comes to her daughter.
Kate will next be seen in The Only Living Boy In New York, due out on August 11.
She co-stars with Jeff Bridges and Pierce Brosnan in a story about a college graduate whose life is upended by his father's mistress.
As a Victoria's Secret model, Bridget Malcolm is no stranger to modelling in her underwear.
And so it's no surprise the Australian stunner was comfortable stripping down to her underwear for a racy Instagram snap this week.
The 25-year-old shared a black-and-white image of herself on Friday morning as she posed against a wall.
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Bridget Malcolm has posted a raunchy snap online of her posing in just her underwear
The blonde bombshell wore a simple bra and briefs as she leaned against one bent arm and pointed one toe.
Her blonde hair fell naturally over her shoulders and she donned a simple no makeup look.
She captioned the photo with: 'Love early AM body digitals. Gratuitous AF but yolo'.
The Australian Victoria's Secret model with more than 284k followers on Instagram
The sexy snap comes just two weeks after Bridget opened up about her biggest inspirations in life on her blog
This snap comes just two weeks after the Aussie stunner published a blog on bridgetmalcolm.com.au discussing what inspires her most in life.
'Things that allow me a glimpse at the center stillness would be my inspiration in life', she wrote, adding meditation, running and her husband Nathaniel Hoho top the list.
The Australian bombshell says 'taking on strangers energies tends to bring me down' after admitting: 'I also stay far away from social media. My life is enough for me.'
'Taking on strangers energies tends to bring me down': Not a fan of social media, the Australian stunner appears to steer clear of trolls online
Bridget added she feels good 'when I am with friends who have known and loved me well before I began modeling' and is 'learning to leave behind people who harm me.'
When it comes to self-reflection, the blonde beauty says she enjoys reading, being in nature and doesn't eat 'things with ingredients that arent real.'
Giving advice to her fans, she insisted: 'Live a life of your joys. F*** the rest :)'
How she recharges: The blonde beauty says she credits reading, being in nature, meditation, running and her husband Nathaniel Hoho for keeping her grounded
Bridget also doted on her American beau Nathaniel in the blog post, adding being around him makes her body, mind and spirit feel like its existing as one.
'It is the feeling I get when I wake up and see the one person on the planet who knows me unlike any other human smiling sleepily at me,' she said.
She married her long-term partner Nathaniel last July in a mountain-view ceremony in the U.S.
Jennifer Garner has filed to divorce husband Ben Affleck.
The Batman V Superman star also submitted an almost identical response in what is being described as an 'amicable' split after 12 years of marriage it emerged Thursday.
The pair are said to have filed without using a lawyer, and they are asking for joint legal and physical custody of their three children.
All over: Jennifer Garner has filed to divorce husband Ben Affleck
According to TMZ the pro per submissions were filed together, meaning the action was coordinated between the pair.
There is no specified request for spousal support, which means a judge may award it before the divorce is finalised.
While they do not specify when they split, they announced their separation in June 2015.
They split in the wake of claims the 44-year-old Pearl Harbor hunk had been cheating with the family nanny Christine Ouzounian.
Beauty: The pair split amid claims he had been cheating with sexy nanny Christine Ouzounian
Family man: Ben and Jennifer want joint legal and physical custody of their three children
Daddy cool: The Gigli legend treated his daughter Violet to an ice cream in LA on Thursday
Living in a bubble: Jennifer wore a puffy jacket as she dropped off their children at school on Thursday
Ben had said the reports were 'garbage,' but Jennifer, 44, appeared to confirm them last year when she broke her silence about the claims.
The Miracles From Heaven actress said: 'We had been separated for months before I ever heard about the nanny.
'She had nothing to do with our decision to divorce. She was not a part of the equation. Bad judgment? Yes.'
The couple have no prenuptial agreement, with each entitled to an equal split of assets. Ben is worth an estimated $105 million, while his spouse's is said to be worth $60 million.
It is believed a mediator will handle the divorce, rather than a judge.
Devout: Jennifer and her children attended church in West Los Angeles on Sunday
Holy father: Ben also attended the service with his soon-to-be ex wife and children
According to TMZ, attorney to the stars Laura Wasser, who has helped many star couples split through mediation, often has her clients file their divorce papers pro per.
Her clients have included Ryan Reynolds, Heidi Klum, Ashton Kutcher, Christina Aguilera and Johnny Depp.
While the couple are negotiating a financial settlement, it is expected the divorce could be finalised within six months.
The couple are parents to daughters Violet, 11, and Seraphina, eight, and five-year-old son Samuel.
The couple first met on the set of the dire Pearl Harbor in 2001, but Ben revealed they fell in love on the set of Daredevil.
Love at first fight: The couple fell in love filming 2003's Daredevil and tied the knot in 2005
He said: 'Thats where I found my wife. We met on Pearl Harbor, which people hate, but we fell in love on Daredevil.'
However they had to wait to start their love affair, as Jennifer was married to actor Scott Foley at the time. They did not start dating until seven months after Ben ended his engagement to Jennifer Lopez, who he had been supposed to marry in September 2003.
But the couple has had a rocky relationship over the years. It had been rumored their divorce, announced in June 2015, was off for good, as they seemed to be working to repair their marriage.
The entire family recently enjoyed a church outing, and things appeared to be on the mend for the couple.
He announced that he had completed treatment for alcohol addiction last month.
The doting mum is regularly sharing updates on social media when it comes to her baby girl.
And marking another milestone online, Sallie Axl took to Instagram on Thursday to document her nine-month-old daughter's first trip to the cinema.
The former Big Brother star shared two photos of Savannah-Blue with her 118k followers - one of her sipping on a huge cup of coca-cola and another of her tucking into nachos.
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'Cinema with baby bae': Sallie Axl documented her nine-month-old daughter Savannah-Blue's first trip to the cinema on Instagram on Thursday
In her first shot, little Savannah was pictured clad in an adorable yellow dress, that featured royal blue bows down the front, and a matching headband.
She was sporting frilly white socks on her feet and a teeny gold bangle on one wrist.
Sallie - who's real name is Sallie Waterhouse - snapped a photo of her baby girl sat in an enormous plush cinema seat, that emphasised her small size, as she nibbled on a nacho.
Her glamour model mother captioned the shot: 'Cinema with baby bae #peppa #pig.'
Surprising treats: In the former Big Brother stars posts her mini-me was seen feasting on nachos and sipping on coca-cola
Sallie then posed with Savannah sat on her lap in another photo from their mother and daughter outing.
She cut a relaxed figure in acid wash jeans and a burgundy fur gilet and held onto the tot, as Savannah quenched her thirst by sipping on coca-cola through a straw.
Sallie gushed: 'Her first time cinema.'
Her posts garnered a positive reaction from followers, despite Savannah's surprising treats, with many commenting on how 'adorable' her daughter is.
Backlash: Their trip to the cinema comes a couple of months after the reality star was subject to criticism for posing this photo of herself and Savannah in face masks
The reality star's latest snaps come a couple of months after she faced backlash from fans for sharing a photo of her baby girl sporting a face mask and earrings.
She revealed she shares the same beauty regime as her daughters - Sallie is also mum to daughter Nirvana, five - and told fans she was enjoying a 'girly night' with her babies.
However, she faced criticism from some, with one person commenting: 'Please tell me the baby isnt wearing dangly earrings.'
At the time Sallie hit back: 'I love my girls in loopy earrings,' and later set her Instagram page to private while changing her bio to read: 'Be happy positive vibes only.'
'My biggest dream was being a mummy': Sallie is mum to daughters Savannah-Blue (pictured above) and Nirvana, five
She gave birth to her youngest daughter in June last year and has already been through several turbulent experiences with her.
Sallie split from Savannah's father shortly before birth and was forced to spend the night in hospital with her daughter back in July after being caught in a house fire.
The starlet told her followers: 'Last night my electric heater set alight while me and Savannah were in bed. The flames were a metre high and no smoke alarms went off in my apartment even though I have just moved in and they were supposed to be checked.
'We spent the night in hospital. No one was hurt but just shows how important it is to have them checked. It's really scared me and I'm so glad by best friend @zenblythe was there to put it out and Nirvana was at my mum's.
Extensive surgery: Last month, Sallie underwent several cosmetic surgery procedures in Poland - including a nose job
'If he wasn't me and Savannah would never have got out. Makes you think how important life is. So scary but we are so lucky. Thank you @zenblythe love you. #just to add this heater was NOT turned on when it went on fire it was faulty. We are so lucky.'
Meanwhile, Sallie's trip to the cinema flaunted the results of her recent cosmetic procedures that she underwent in March.
Last month, the dark-haired beauty had jetted to Wroclaw in Poland to go under the knife and revealed the extensive list of her latest surgery on Instagram that included 'a breast uplift, new implants and a bone removed from my ribs and taking to build my nose.'
Bertie Carvel and Richard Coyle are to portray the architects of Britains tabloid newspaper revolution.
Carvel, who played the demonic Miss Trunchbull in the musical Matilda and the complex, cheating Simon Foster in hit TV drama Doctor Foster, will portray media mogul Rupert Murdoch. (Fittingly, the actor has ink in his veins: his grandfather, Robert Carvel, was a legendary political editor of The London Evening Standard.)
Coyle, who starred in Coupling and successful shows on U.S. television, will play the pugnacious Larry Lamb in James Grahams new play Ink, about how the modern-day Sun newspaper was launched in 1969. Both men were buccaneering outsiders, who became insiders as their influence grew.
Bertie Carvel (left) will portray media mogul Rupert Murdoch (right) in James Grahams new play Ink, about how the modern-day Sun newspaper was launched in 1969
Rupert Goold, who will direct Ink at the Almeida Theatre where he is artistic director, said it was about the birth of a kind of populism in this country that came out of the Sixties.
He said Grahams play reflected the spirit of The Sun at its funniest and most exuberant. Its full of boisterous energy, he added, and there are hints of the Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur newspaper comedy The Front Page.
Graham traces how Murdoch recruited Lamb as editor, through to the new Suns first anniversary on November 17, 1970, when Lamb published a photograph of German model Stephanie Rahn topless for all the world to see on Page 3.
Richard Coyle (left), who starred in Coupling and successful shows on U.S. television, will play the pugnacious Larry Lamb (right)
Pearl Chanda, who appeared in Mike Leighs great film Mr Turner, has been cast as Rahn, who later worked under the name Stephanie Marrian.
But while Grahams drama harks back to the old ink on your hands days of Fleet Street, there are plenty of elements that resonate still within the media landscape of today a technique he employed with aplomb in his sublime political play This House.
Ink will run at the Almeida from June 17, and if it works well in North London, its bound to head into the West End and then, who knows, perhaps as far as Broadway, where from the conversations Ive had here this week, it would be met with great interest.
West End opens its doors to Tony award-winner Fun Home
Fun Home, which won the Tony Award for best musical two years ago, will open at the Young Vic next year.
The show, based on the life of Alison Bechdel who created U.S. comic strip Dykes To Watch Out For is adapted from her graphic novel memoir about growing up in smalltown Pennsylvania where her father ran a funeral home... hence the title!
Bechdel says her father was a manic-depressive closeted fag, and the work charts their relationship and how she came out to her parents. It is a powerful, poignant piece, with three actresses playing Bechdel from girl to student to adult.
Fun Home, which won the Tony Award for best musical two years ago, will open at the Young Vic next year. The show is based on the life of Alison Bechdel (pictured) who created U.S. comic strip Dykes To Watch Out For
Book and lyrics are by Lisa Kron and music by Jeanine Tesori who wrote the superb Caroline, Or Change (which director Michael Longhurst is rehearsing now for a run at Chichesters Minerva Theatre).
Kron and Tesori won Tony honours for best book and score. Sam Gold (who won a Tony for directing) told me Fun Home will open in London in summer 2018. He is planning a totally fresh production and does not expect to bring over any of the American cast.
It wont be a re-tread, Gold insisted when we bumped into each other after seeing A Dolls House, Part 2, Lucas Hnaths imagining of what happened to Ibsens Nora (a sharp, witty Laurie Metcalf) after she shut the door on husband (Chris Cooper).
Gold also scored a hit last year with a scorching Othello at New York Theatre Workshop featuring Daniel Craig and David Oyelowo.
The original Broadway producer of Fun Home, Barbara Whitman, has joined forces with multi-Olivier award-winning Sonia Friedman. The Young Vic confirmed we are in talks to bring the show here next year. In fact, talks have been going on for two years or more, but the Young Vic had to wait for Gold to become available.
Tony Bennett, Tommy Tune, Kristin Chenoweth, Harry Connick Jr, Billy Joel, plus the Broadway cast of The Lion King all sang.
Tom Schumacher, of Disney Theatricals, gave the eulogy. The occasion? A celebration of the life of James M. Nederlander, a Broadway giant, who died last year. He owned theatres in New York and the West End.
He was tough, fair and great fun. He gave me a few terrific scoops years ago, but we promised to keep schtum about them. And we did.
John Blackwell Releases New Single 'Could It Be' -- Written by Jason Ingram, Song Impacting Radio April 11 Blackwell Partners with Dove and Grammy Award Winning Creative Powerhouse Team Jason Ingram, Barry Weeks and Ainslie Grosser
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Veteran UN official Achim Steiner of Germany will head the United Nations agency that works to fight poverty, promote social development and enhance the empowerment of women
UN chief Antonio Guterres has named a German with extensive experience at the world organization, Achim Steiner, as the new administrator of the UN Development Programme (UNDP).
Steiner, who previously served at the UN Environment Programme and headed the UN office in Kenya, was selected to succeed Helen Clark, a former New Zealand prime minister, who has steered the UNDP since 2009, according to a letter by Guterres dated Tuesday.
Headquartered in New York City, the UNDP seeks to reduce poverty, improve social development and encourage women's empowerment.
One of the candidates passed over for the post included French Environment Minister Segolene Royal, who said she was surprised because Guterres had promised a woman would take the job.
She intimated that Germany used its weight as a major UNDP donor to have Steiner chosen.
"I regret it, of course. That doesn't gel with what was said, but c'est la vie," Royal told French television.
Nigerian soldiers in Yobe state, one of the worst-hit in the country's eight-year Boko Haram Islamist insurgency
A bloody clash between the army and police in Nigeria's restive northeastern Yobe state left one soldier and three police dead, a security source told AFP.
The police confirmed the fracas in the state capital of Damaturu, but did not say if there were casualties.
"The Nigeria police force is abreast of the unfortunate incident that occurred in the early hours of today 12th April, 2017 in Damaturu between the personnel of the force and that of the Nigerian army," police spokesman Jimoh Moshood said in a statement.
He said an investigation had been launched to determine "the causes of the incident and deal with the situation appropriately to prevent such occurrence in the future".
The army authorities were not immediately available for comment.
A security officer who did not want to be named, told AFP trouble began on Tuesday when an army officer in a mufti (civilian dress) ran into a convoy of the head of the police mobile unit in Damaturu.
"The army officer was beaten up by the police for his action. This morning, soldiers stormed the police station and took away the head of the mobile unit to their military base," he said.
He said the the soldiers' action angered some police officers who invaded the army base to free their boss.
"There was a shootout in which a soldier and a policeman were killed on the spot while two policemen who were injured later died of their wounds," he said.
Yobe and two other states -- Borno and Adamawa -- in the northeast are the worst-hit in the eight-year Boko Haram Islamist insurgency in Nigeria.
Boko Haram, which aims to impose a hardline Islamist legal system in Nigeria's mainly-Muslim north, has killed some 20,000 people and forced 2.6 million others to flee their homes since 2009.
A joint military operation, comprising Nigerian army, navy, airforce and the police, and aided by regional forces, is currently battling the jihadists.
Recent North Korean missile tests have stoked US fears that Pyongyang may soon develop an intercontinental ballistic missile
North Korea is ready to launch a nuclear test at its Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site, the 38 North monitoring group reported on Wednesday.
The 38 North analysis group described the test site as "primed and ready."
"Commercial satellite imagery of North Koreas Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site from April 12 shows continued activity around the North Portal, new activity in the Main Administrative Area, and a few personnel around the sites Command Center," the North Korea-related analysis website said.
A barrage of recent North Korean missile tests has stoked US fears that Pyongyang may soon develop an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the US mainland.
There is speculation that the country could be preparing a missile launch, or even another nuclear test -- this would be its sixth -- to mark the 105th birthday anniversary of its founder Kim Il-Sung on Saturday.
North Korea missile and nuclear sites
The Voice of America said Wednesday night, quoting US government and other sources, that North Korea "has apparently placed a nuclear device in a tunnel and it could be detonated Saturday AM Korea time."
President Donald Trump's administration has been forceful in its warnings to Pyongyang that leave military options "on the table," as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has said.
The threat carries extra weight after the US strike on a Syrian air base last week.
"We are sending an armada. Very powerful," Trump said Wednesday. "We have submarines. Very powerful. Far more powerful than the aircraft carrier."
He was referring to a strike group headed by the USS Carl Vinson supercarrier that has been re-routed to the Korean peninsula in a show of force against Kim.
The strike group, which deployed with about 6,500 sailors, is still some way south, conducting exercises with the Australian navy.
The US Navy already has a massive regional presence, including another carrier strike group headquartered at Yokosuka in Japan.
Tens of thousands of soldiers, officials and citizens packed a plaza to await leader Kim Jong-Un's arrival
Officials to the left of him, generals to the right, and in the middle of mounting tensions over his nuclear ambitions, North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un on Thursday opened a prestige housing project with tens of thousands of his adoring citizens looking on.
Completion of the sprawling Ryomyong Street development, just down a wide avenue from the mausoleum where Kim's grandfather Kim Il-Sung and father Kim Jong-Il lie in state, was repeatedly promised in time for Saturday's 105th anniversary of the birth of the North's founder.
North Korean authorities seek to present their isolated, impoverished country as prosperous and modern, and international media outlets were invited for the occasion.
Soldiers, officials and citizens packed a plaza from early morning, waiting for hours before Kim led the delegation onto the dais.
Prime Minister Pak Pong-Ju lauded Kim, saying the project was a demonstration of "the 'do or die' spirit of our people and army who are willing to implement the Party's orders in all cases", he said, and "a victory against imperialists' sanctions".
The North is under multiple sets of United Nations sanctions over its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes and tensions have soared in recent weeks.
North Korea missile and nuclear sites
A barrage of recent North Korean missile tests has stoked fears in Washington that Pyongyang is moving closer to its goal of developing an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the US mainland - something US President Donald Trump has said "won't happen".
Shinzo Abe, prime minister of US ally Japan - in whose exclusive economic zone three North Korean missiles landed in recent weeks, warned Thursday that Pyongyang may have the capacity to launch a warhead loaded with sarin nerve gas.
There is speculation Pyongyang might conduct a sixth nuclear test, or another missile launch, to co-incide with the Kim Il-Sung anniversary - specialist US website 38North described its Punggye-ri test site as "primed and ready" on Wednesday - and Trump has dispatched an aircraft carrier group to the Korean peninsula.
Kim opened a housing project he said was a demonstration of "the "do or die" spirit of his people
"We are sending an armada. Very powerful," he told the Fox Business Network.
"We have submarines. Very powerful. Far more powerful than the aircraft carrier."
"He is doing the wrong thing," he added of Kim. "He's making a big mistake."
The North has reiterated its constant refrain that it is ready for "war" with the US.
- 'Reckless invaders' -
The 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty and Pyongyang says that it needs nuclear weapons to defend itself against a possible US invasion.
Last week's US missile strike on Syria vindicated its stance, it said at the weekend.
Successive governments in Washington have only attacked states which "do not have nukes", the official KCNA agency quoted a foreign ministry statement as saying, "and the same is true of the Trump administration".
North Korea's sabre-rattling has unnerved China, its sole major ally, but there are no signs of tension in Pyongyang
"What happened in Syria once again taught a bitter lesson that no one should have an illusion about the imperialists and one can defend oneself from the imperialist aggression only when one has one's strength."
On Thursday, KCNA reported separately that Kim had watched special forces drop from light transport planes "like hail" and "mercilessly blew up enemy targets" during an exercise.
"The contest proved once again that our Korean People's Army... will show a real taste of gun shot and real taste of war to the reckless invaders," KCNA said.
The sabre-rattling has unnerved China, the North's sole major ally, which has made clear its frustration with Pyongyangs stubbornness but whose priority remains preventing any instability on its doorstep.
Beijing has urged Trump to take a peaceful approach to resolving the issue, but the Global Times newspaper, which sometimes reflects the thinking of the leadership, issued an unequivocal warning to Pyongyang that it should "avoid making mistakes at this time".
A new test would be a "slap in the face of the US government" and Beijing would not "remain indifferent", it said.
On Tuesday, the US president tweeted that "North Korea is looking for trouble. If China decides to help, that would be great. If not, we will solve the problem without them! U.S.A."
But there has been little sign of the tensions on the streets of Pyongyang in recent days, where the focus is on preparations for Saturday's anniversary.
At Ryomyong Street, Kim took a pair of scissors proferred from a tray to cut a wide red ribbon to rhythmic cheers from the crowd, before waving to his admirers, and turning to walk back to his Mercedes limousine.
North Korea launched four ballistic missiles in March, with three landing provocatively close to America's ally Japan
North Korea may have the capacity to launch a warhead loaded with sarin nerve gas, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Thursday, as tensions rise over the country's missile and nuclear programmes.
Sarin has been used in deadly domestic attacks in Japan, notably in 1995 when the Aum Supreme Truth cult released it in the Tokyo subway killing 13 people and sickening 6,000 others.
"There is a possibility that North Korea is already capable of delivering (via missile) a warhead containing sarin," Abe told a parliamentary diplomacy and defence committee, referring to the poison nerve agent.
His remarks were reported by public broadcaster NHK and leading national newspapers. Abe did not elaborate or say where he obtained the information, according to the reports.
Tensions on the Korean peninsula have spiked in recent days amid concerns that Pyongyang could be on the verge of executing its sixth nuclear test and as a US aircraft carrier-led strike group heads to the region.
Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe speaks to reporters at his official residence in Tokyo on April 5, 2017, after North Korea launched a ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan
Originally conceived as a pesticide, sarin was used by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime to gas thousands of Kurds in the northern town of Halabja in 1988.
The US believes the Syrian government employed a sarin-like nerve agent in a deadly attack in the country's northwest last week.
The Aum Supreme Truth cult also used the nerve agent in a 1994 attack in the Japanese city of Matsumoto, killing seven.
Homes and shops were torched in bloody clashes in March between Hausa and Yoruba people in Ile-Ife in southwest Nigeria that left 46 people dead and 100 injured, according to police
For his whole life, Hausa trader Bashiru Tanko has lived peacefully alongside the Yoruba people of Ile-Ife in southwest Nigeria.
Originally from the northern city of Kano, Tanko's father settled in the Sabo area of the city, where he built a prosperous family business.
"I was born and bred in this town. Even though my parents came from Kano, I have not known any other place I can call home," 41-year-old Tanko told AFP.
"We have always settled our differences. We have lived together without acrimony for ages. We marry ourselves and do business together."
But last month an altercation between a Yoruba woman and a Hausa trader triggered a bloody conflict that left 46 people dead, around 100 injured and houses razed to the ground, according to the police.
"I was shocked that what began as a minor dispute was allowed to snowball into an unprecedented carnage," Tanko said, shaking his head in disbelief.
Locals say that upwards of 200 people -- the majority Hausas -- lost their lives in the violence.
"An accurate number is difficult to get, because most people don't go to hospital when they are injured, or they bury the deceased themselves," said Gbemisola Animasawun, a researcher at the Center for Peace and Strategic Studies in Ile-Ife.
"But I can confirm that most killed were Hausas. They were killed inside their homes," Animasawun said. "It's still very tense out there."
Tanko's family house was not spared in the mayhem.
As he walked through the streets of ruined buildings, Tanko stopped at a roofless bungalow blackened by smoke and littered with damaged household items.
"That heap of rubble used to be my father's house," Tanko said.
"I, my wife and our four children, now squat with a relation whose house was not touched," he said.
- 'Unprecedented carnage' -
Traders are back on the streets of Ile-Ife in southwest Nigeria as life returns to normal after bloody ethnic clashes between Hausa and Yoruba people last month that left dozens dead
Hadi Ali, a local 48-year-old tailor, said criminals capitalised on the violence, seizing the opportunity to loot houses and shops.
"What happened was a small matter between a Yoruba woman and a Hausa trader which was immediately settled," Ali said.
"The following morning, the woman's husband, who happened to be a leader in the garage (bus station) went and mobilised his boys and they started killing our people, looting our properties and burning our homes," he said.
"We are still bombarded with reports of missing people. Those killed were our people," he said.
Ali said Hausas have fled the town, but would be happy to return if the crisis is resolved.
"Our people are leaving because they no longer have anywhere to stay. They are afraid of being attacked again," he said.
Ile-Ife's leaders claim that there is no cause for alarm, with prominent politician Bashiru Awotorebo declaring that Yorubas are ready for peace.
Meanwhile, traditional ruler Ooni Adeyeye Ogunwusi has set up a panel to reconcile the two sides and "prevent a recurrence of this unfortunate incident," said Ooni's deputy Idowu Adediwura.
But more needs to be done to assuage fears that the Hausa community remains a threat to Ile-Ife, and in the aftermath of the violence, there has been divisive rhetoric from political leaders.
Olajire Awowoyin of Ife Progressive Forum recently blamed an influx of foreigners from Chad and Niger for the unrest.
He also accused the police of being "one-sided and unfair" after arresting only Yoruba suspects.
Yinka Odumakin of the Afenifere Yoruba socio-cultural group too has campaigned in favour of the "unconditional release of the suspects to avoid igniting ethnic tensions."
- 'Unity in diversity' -
Experts say economic recession rather than fear of foreigners is behind the sudden ethnic violence that flared up last month in Ile-Ife in Nigeria, leaving dozens dead
Yet experts say that the root cause of the issue has less to do with ethnicity than with Nigeria's economic recession.
"It's the trend all over the world that economic problems lead to social and ethnic tensions," said University of Lagos history lecturer Dapo Thomas.
"In Ile-Ife I can see a situation where the natives perceive the Hausa settlers as appropriating the existing opportunities in terms of jobs and businesses," he said.
"My advice is that every tribe should recognise its faultlines and accept to live together in unity. There should be unity in our diversity."
Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, is home to some 250 ethnic nationalities divided between a mostly Muslim north and Christian south.
Civil war erupted in South Sudan in 2013 after a power struggle between President Salva Kiir -- who is ethnic Dinka -- and his former deputy Riek Machar from the Nuer community
Targeted killings of specific ethnic groups in South Sudan's civil war amount to "genocide", according to Britain's International Development Minister Priti Patel.
"It's tribal, it's absolutely tribal, so on that basis it's genocide," Patel told reporters in Uganda on Wednesday, according to a ministry press officer travelling with her.
Patel was returning from a visit to South Sudan where people have "experienced trauma and horror none of us can comprehend", she told AFP in a separate interview.
Civil war erupted in South Sudan in 2013 after a power struggle between President Salva Kiir -- who is ethnic Dinka -- and his former deputy Riek Machar from the Nuer community.
The Dinka and Nuer are the two largest ethnic groups in South Sudan and with their history of bloody rivalry, fighting quickly pitted the two against each other.
However the conflict has also drawn in the country's myriad smaller groups, either taking sides with the government or the rebels or fighting each other for the upper hand in local conflicts over land or other issues.
Refugees fleeing fighting in South Sudan have told AFP of targeted killings by government troops, who identify people according to language or tribal scarring before slaughtering them.
In the southern town of Pajok, seen as sympathetic to the rebels, government troops went on a rampage last week killing at least 85 people, numerous witnesses told AFP after fleeing to Uganda.
"It's tribal, it's absolutely tribal, so on that basis it's genocide," British International Development Secretary Priti Patel told reporters in Uganda on Wednesday
As fighting broke out in the second largest city of Wau this week, priest Moses Peter told AFP that government troops were "targeting certain groups of people".
The rebels are also accused of committing atrocities.
United Nations experts in early December reported "ethnic cleansing" in several parts of South Sudan.
The UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Adama Dieng, has warned of "a strong risk of violence escalating along ethnic lines, with the potential for genocide."
South Sudan's Information Minister Michael Makuei slammed Patel's comments as "unfortunate and misleading".
"That is a very unfortunate statement given by an irresponsible person. There is no genocide," he said.
"If they talk of a genocide what are the criteria of a genocide. If they talk of a genocide then the whole world will be in genocide because of what is happening in the US, in Germany, even in Britain," said Makuei, referring to terrorist attacks.
Genocide is the gravest crime in international humanitarian law and also the most difficult to prove.
Derived from the Greek word "genos", for race or tribe, and the suffix "cide" from the Latin for "to kill"; genocide is defined by the United Nations as an "act committed with intent to destroy in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group."
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A handout picture provided by the Saudi royal palace shows Saudi King Salman (R) receiving Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte (L) in Riyadh on April 11, 2017 at the start of a Gulf tour
With more than a million Filipino workers spread across Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar, it is small wonder that President Rodrigo Duterte has undertaken a week-long tour of the Gulf.
The migrants have been drawn to the region by a combination of factors -- drug crime and corruption back home, and the job opportunities and wages on offer in the Gulf.
Duterte's deadly war on drugs may have brought him notoriety in the West, but it has earned him the admiration of many Filipino expatriates anxious for change at home.
"I would happily say I'm a 'DDS', a Duterte Diehard Supporter," Harry Ramos, a senior mechanical engineer based in Doha for 12 years, told AFP.
"His platform of government is simple, and he's got the political will to do it."
Duterte's populist agenda went down well with the Filipino diaspora in Qatar, where he received almost 80 per cent of the expatriate votes cast in last year's presidential election.
Ramos, 58, speaks happily about how Filipinos returning home no longer have to bribe officials to get through customs, thanks to Duterte's crackdown.
Life though has turned sour for some in the Gulf, especially in Saudi Arabia where 760,000 Filipinos live, and they will be looking to the president to defend their interests in his talks with the region's leaders.
A collapse in oil revenues since 2014 has prompted subsidy cuts and delays in major projects. More than 5,000 Filipino workers were repatriated from Saudi Arabia last year and most are still waiting to be paid.
Duterte held talks with Saudi King Salman on Tuesday and was in Bahrain for talks on Thursday. On Friday, he flies into Qatar.
"He will discuss with these leaders matters relevant to the welfare and dignity of the Filipinos living in their countries, as well as explore avenues of economic and political cooperation," Philippine Assistant Foreign Secretary Hjayceelyn Quintana said.
- Four times the wages -
In the bustling Souq Waqif area of the Qatari capital Doha, Duterte's trip has prompted an air of expectation.
Members of the Filipino community attend a meeting with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte in the Saudi capital Riyadh, on April 12, 2017
On a balmy early summer evening, with temperatures touching the low 30 degrees Celsius (90 degrees Fahrenheit), conversation outside the busy Manila Supermarket quickly turns to the president's visit.
Ray, a 38-year-old civil engineer, said he wanted to meet Duterte in person, something he could never achieve back home.
He admitted there was an issue with the poor treatment of some migrants, especially those in domestic service, but said life was generally good for Filipinos in the emirate.
"All Filipinos come here because they want to earn money," he said.
"But, if they had to choose the place they will live, of course they will live in the Philippines, they will choose it. Definitely."
Ray, who has been in Qatar six years, said he earns "three or four times more" in Doha than he would back home.
Outside the Damascus International Gents Salon, hair stylist Jim, 27, said he earns around 4,000 Qatari riyals a month ($1,100, 1,030 euros).
Back home he would earn the equivalent of $190 (180 euros) at a barber shop, he said.
Twenty-five-year-old Sunshine, who works in promotions, had never left the Philippines before heading to Qatar.
Now she has been in Doha for three years.
"It's better to leave first from the Philippines to earn money and then after a few years... you can go back," she said.
More than 2,000 Children Hear Spectacular Good News at Sioux City Convention Center Contact: Rachel Hamel, Corporate Communications Manager,
SIOUX CITY, Iowa, April 13, 2017 /
One way CEF explains the Gospel is through The Wordless Book. The colors and shapes tell the story, without using any words, of Christ dying on the cross to take away our sins so we can be cleansed from all unrighteousness and reunited with God for eternity. To access the largest ride at the Good News Spectacular, children and their families proceeded through the "Wordless Book Room" where they received a clear presentation of the Gospel. Not only did 130 children give their lives to Christ that day, but so did four parents!
In addition to nearly 250 CEF volunteers, Woodbury County Police sent approximately eight reserved deputies to help with the event and even promoted it on their Facebook page. "I think it's just great for people to see the church, the body of Christ, coming together and serving their community," said Bob Fowler, director of CEF of North Carolina.
If you are interested in being a part of the CEF Siouxland Good News Club Spectacular event, visit
Child Evangelism Fellowship is an international, nonprofit, Christian ministry that has been teaching the Bible to children since 1937. CEF has 400 offices in the USA and is organized in most nations of the world, with over 3,200 paid staff and hundreds of thousands of volunteers. In its last ministry year, CEF ministered to nearly 20 million children in its face-to-face teaching ministries.
Share Tweet Contact: Rachel Hamel, Corporate Communications Manager, Child Evangelism Fellowship , 636-456-4321 ext 1177SIOUX CITY, Iowa, April 13, 2017 / Christian Newswire / -- On a recent Saturday in Sioux City, Iowa, not even snow could keep more than 2,000 children and their families from enjoying inflatable rides, music, karate demonstrations, snow cones, popcorn, puppets and much more at the Sioux City Convention Center. Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF), the world's largest children's ministry, hosted its annual Good News Spectacular for the fifth year in a row from 1 3 p.m., drawing folks from Woodbury, Plymouth, Ida, Lyon Sioux, Monona and Sac Counties. The purpose of this free event is to share the love of Jesus Christ and His saving grace with area children and their families.One way CEF explains the Gospel is through The Wordless Book. The colors and shapes tell the story, without using any words, of Christ dying on the cross to take away our sins so we can be cleansed from all unrighteousness and reunited with God for eternity. To access the largest ride at the Good News Spectacular, children and their families proceeded through the "Wordless Book Room" where they received a clear presentation of the Gospel. Not only did 130 children give their lives to Christ that day, but so did four parents!In addition to nearly 250 CEF volunteers, Woodbury County Police sent approximately eight reserved deputies to help with the event and even promoted it on their Facebook page. "I think it's just great for people to see the church, the body of Christ, coming together and serving their community," said Bob Fowler, director of CEF of North Carolina.If you are interested in being a part of the CEF Siouxland Good News Club Spectacular event, visit www.cefsiouxland.org Child Evangelism Fellowship is an international, nonprofit, Christian ministry that has been teaching the Bible to children since 1937. CEF has 400 offices in the USA and is organized in most nations of the world, with over 3,200 paid staff and hundreds of thousands of volunteers. In its last ministry year, CEF ministered to nearly 20 million children in its face-to-face teaching ministries.
A handout picture released by the Syrian presidency's press office shows Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during an interview with AFP in the capital Damascus on April 12, 2017
Syria's President Bashar al-Assad said a suspected chemical weapons attack was a "fabrication" to justify a US strike on his forces, in an exclusive interview with AFP in Damascus.
The embattled leader, whose country has been ravaged by six years of war, said his firepower had not been affected by the attack ordered by US President Donald Trump, but acknowledged further strikes were possible.
Assad insisted his forces had turned over all their chemical weapons stocks years ago and would never use the banned arms.
The interview on Wednesday was his first since a suspected chemical weapons attack that killed dozens of civilians in the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhun.
"Definitely, 100 percent for us, it's fabrication," he said of the incident.
"Our impression is that the West, mainly the United States, is hand-in-glove with the terrorists. They fabricated the whole story in order to have a pretext for the attack," added Assad, who has been in power for 17 years.
At least 87 people, including 31 children, were killed in the alleged attack, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor.
But Assad said evidence came only from "a branch of Al-Qaeda," referring to a former jihadist affiliate that is among the groups that control Idlib province, where Khan Sheikhun is located.
Images of the aftermath, showing victims convulsing and foaming at the mouth, sent shockwaves around the world.
But Assad insisted it was "not clear whether it happened or not, because how can you verify a video? You have a lot of fake videos now."
"We don't know whether those dead children were killed in Khan Sheikhun. Were they dead at all?"
He said Khan Sheikhun had no strategic value and was not currently a battle front.
"This story is not convincing by any means."
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has begun an investigation into the alleged attack, but Russia on Wednesday blocked a UN Security Council resolution demanding Syria cooperate with the probe.
And Assad said he could "only allow any investigation when it's impartial, when we make sure that unbiased countries will participate in this delegation in order to make sure that they won't use it for politicised purposes."
He insisted several times that his forces had turned over all chemical weapons stockpiles in 2013, under a deal brokered by Russia to avoid threatened US military action.
"There was no order to make any attack, we don't have any chemical weapons, we gave up our arsenal a few years ago," he said.
"Even if we have them, we wouldn't use them, and we have never used our chemical arsenal in our history."
The OPCW has blamed Assad's government for at least two attacks in 2014 and 2015 involving the use of chlorine.
The Khan Sheikhun incident prompted the first direct US military action against Assad's government since the war began, with 59 cruise missiles hitting the Shayrat airbase three days after the suspected chemical attack.
Assad said more US attacks "could happen anytime, anywhere, not only in Syria."
But he said his forces had not been diminished by the US strike.
"Our firepower, our ability to attack the terrorists hasn't been affected by this strike."
A handout picture from the Syrian presidency shows President Bashar al-Assad during an interview with AFP on April 12, 2017
Syria's President Bashar al-Assad has accused the West of fabricating a suspected chemical weapons attack that prompted an unprecedented US missile strike, in an exclusive interview with AFP in Damascus.
The embattled leader, whose country has been ravaged by six years of war, said his firepower had not been affected by the attack ordered by US President Donald Trump, but acknowledged that further strikes were possible.
He also insisted his forces had turned over all their chemical weapons stocks in 2013 and would never use the banned arms.
Syria: key dates
His comments came in an interview conducted at his office Wednesday, his first since a suspected chemical weapons attack that killed dozens of civilians in the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhun.
"Definitely, a hundred percent for us, it's fabrication," he added of the incident which killed 87 people, including 31 children, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor.
"Our impression is that the West, mainly the United States, is hand-in-glove with the terrorists. They fabricated the whole story in order to have a pretext for the attack," said Assad, who has been in power for 17 years.
- 'A lot of fake videos' -
The suspected attack on Khan Sheikhun, in Syria's northwestern province of Idlib, comes in the seventh year of the country's brutal war, which has killed more than 320,000 people and displaced over half the population.
Assad said evidence of the suspected chemical attack came only from "a branch of Al-Qaeda", referring to a former jihadist affiliate among the groups that control Idlib.
Images of the aftermath, showing victims convulsing and foaming at the mouth as desperate medics working with meagre resources struggled to treat them, caused global shock waves.
But Assad, who appeared relaxed, said it was "not clear whether it happened or not, because how can you verify a video? You have a lot of fake videos now."
"We don't know whether those dead children were killed in Khan Sheikhun. Were they dead at all?"
"Who committed the attack if there was an attack?"
Syria's government signed the Chemical Weapons Convention and agreed to hand over its stockpiles in 2013, under a Russian-brokered deal.
The agreement averted US military action after a sarin attack on a rebel area outside Damascus that killed hundreds of people and was blamed by much of the international community on Assad's government.
- 'Not convincing by any means' -
Damascus denied responsibility, but agreed to turn over its stockpiles, while continuing to wage war against opposition forces.
In recent months, Assad's army has clawed back significant territory, including capturing the one-time rebel bastion of eastern Aleppo.
Key to the turnaround has been support from ally Russia, which launched a military intervention to bolster Assad in September 2015.
The Syrian president said his forces had no military reason to hit Khan Sheikhun, describing it as having no strategic value and being far from the current battlefront.
"This story is not convincing by any means," he said.
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has begun an investigation into the Khan Sheikhun incident, but Russia on Wednesday blocked a UN Security Council resolution demanding that Syria cooperate with the probe.
And Assad said he could "only allow any investigation when it's impartial, when we make sure that unbiased countries will participate in this delegation in order to make sure that they won't use it for politicised purposes".
He insisted several times that his forces had turned over all chemical weapons stockpiles under the 2013 deal.
- 'We gave up our arsenal' -
"There was no order to make any attack, we don't have any chemical weapons, we gave up our arsenal a few years ago," he said.
"Even if we have them, we wouldn't use them, and we have never used our chemical arsenal in our history."
The OPCW has blamed Assad's government for at least two attacks in 2014 and 2015 involving the use of chlorine.
The Khan Sheikhun incident prompted the first direct US military action against Assad's government since the war began, with 59 cruise missiles hitting the Shayrat airbase three days after the suspected chemical attack.
Assad said his Russian allies "didn't warn us... because the Americans called them maybe a few minutes before".
And he said more US attacks "could happen anytime, anywhere, not only in Syria".
But he insisted his forces were unaffected by the US strike.
"Our firepower, our ability to attack the terrorists hasn't been affected by this strike."
Trump's administration initially took a hands-off approach to Syria, with Assad raising the possibility the new US president could even be a "natural ally".
But he said the American strike showed Washington was "not serious in fighting terrorists".
International efforts to find a political solution to the Syrian crisis have proved fruitless, with successive rounds of talks producing no result.
The conflict has evolved into a complex multi-front war involving the regime, rebels, jihadists and Kurdish forces, as well as the Russian and Turkish militaries, and a US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group.
US President Donald Trump takes a question during a joint press conference with NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg at the White House, on April 12, 2017
US President Donald Trump expressed confidence Thursday that US-Russian relations will "work out fine" after icy bilateral talks in Moscow, as he looked to China to "deal properly" with North Korea.
Trump faces crucial tests in the Middle East and the Korean peninsula, with tensions building on both fronts over a suspected chemical weapons attack in Syria and a mounting challenge from North Korea's Kim Jong-il.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow Wednesday that relations between Washington and Moscow, a key ally of the Damascus regime, were at a "low point."
"Things will work out fine between the U.S.A. and Russia," Trump said in his tweet.
"At the right time everyone will come to their senses & there will be lasting peace!"
The Russians are backing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against US charges that his air force dropped a bomb loaded with the nerve agent sarin on the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhun on April 4, killing 87 people, many of them children.
Russia on Wednesday vetoed a UN Security Council resolution demanding that the Syrian government cooperate with an investigation into the attack.
In an exclusive interview with AFP, Assad insisted his army had given up its chemical weapons and called reports of the attack "fabrication."
On North Korea, with Pyongyang reportedly poised to conduct a nuclear test, Trump said he had "great confidence that China will properly deal with North Korea."
He however added: "If they are unable to do so, the U.S., with its allies, will! U.S.A."
A US monitoring group said North Korea's Punggye-ri nuclear test site is "primed and ready" to conduct its sixth nuclear test, possibly to coincide with celebrations Saturday marking the birthdate of regime founder Kim Il-Sung.
The Voice of America, quoting US government and other sources, said North Korea "has apparently placed a nuclear device in a tunnel and it could be detonated Saturday AM Korea time."
Trump has asked his advisers to give him all options for dealing with the nuclear-armed North, and a US carrier strike group has been ordered to the region as a precaution.
Main Zambian opposition party United Party for National Development presidential candidate Hakainde Hichilema delivers a speech during a last presidential campaign rally on August 10, 2016 in Lusaka
The Zambian opposition UPND party called Thursday for the immediate release of its leader Hakainde Hichilema, who is due to appear in court next week on treason charges.
The treason charges relate to Hichilema's convoy allegedly refusing to give way to President Lungu's motorcade on a main road in the west of the country at the weekend.
Hichilema's arrest has fanned political tensions in Zambia, where the United Party for National Development (UPND) refuses to accept last year's election result when President Edgar Lungu retained power.
Hichilema, known as "HH", has been denied access to lawyers, his party said, calling for supporters to protest outside court at the hearing due on Tuesday.
"We are demanding the immediate and unconditional release of HH as he has not committed any offence," UPND deputy Geoffrey Mwamba told a news briefing in Lusaka.
Police accuse Hichilema of putting the president's life in danger and "unreasonable, reckless and criminal" conduct in not pulling off a narrow road to make way for him.
Video footage showed vehicles travelling at high speed and nearly colliding as the presidential motorcade edged past Hichilema's convoy.
"Hakainde Hichilema has now been denied access to see his lawyers, which is a basic human right," party spokesman Charles Kakoma said in a statement.
- Disputed election -
Treason is a non-bailable offence in Zambia, with a minimum jail term of 15 years and a maximum sentence of the death penalty.
Hichilema and five party aides have also been charged with breaking the highway code and use of insulting language.
Hichilema was arrested after more than 100 armed police raided his house outside Lusaka early on Tuesday.
The UPND criticised the raid as "barbaric" after Hichilema's wife and children were trapped inside and choked by tear gas.
Hichilema has launched several legal attempts to challenge the result of the August election, which he lost narrowly.
He says that the vote was rigged and accuses Lungu of political repression in Zambia, which has been known for its relative stability.
The election campaign was marked by clashes between supporters of Lungu's Patriotic Front (PF) party and the UPND.
Hichilema, a wealthy self-made businessman, has run unsuccessfully for president five times.
The UPND called on supporters not to protest on Thursday as it said the government was seeking a chance to impose a state of emergency.
Some supporters at the press conference carried placards reading "Release HH before Zambia goes into flames".
A Syrian child receives treatment following a suspected chemical attack in Khan Sheikhun, a rebel-held town in the northwestern Idlib province, on April 4, 2017
A suspected chemical attack on a rebel-held town in Syria's Idlib province on April 4 killed dozens of people.
Western powers blamed the incident on President Bashar al-Assad's regime, and days later, the United States responded by firing cruise missiles at a Syrian airbase.
Here is a recap of developments:
- The suspected attack -
On April 4, 2017, an air strike on the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhun kills at least 87 people, including children.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights labels the raid the second deadliest use of chemical weapons in Syria's six-year conflict. A sarin gas attack in 2013 reportedly killed more than 1,400 people in a Damascus suburb.
Doctors in Idlib province note symptoms indicating a likely chemical attack, including dilated pupils, convulsions and foaming at the mouth.
- The accusations -
Syrian rebels accuse Assad's regime of using munitions containing "toxic gas". The army categorically denies the charge.
A wave of international condemnation follows, with several governments accusing Assad of responsibility. The United States condemns the act as "reprehensible".
On April 5, Russia comes to Assad's defence, saying Syrian jets had hit a "terrorist warehouse" near Khan Sheikhun that contained "toxic substances".
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson says "all the evidence" points to Assad's forces "using illegal weapons on their own people".
The World Health Organization says victims showed symptoms consistent with the use of a nerve agent, while humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders (MSF) speaks of sarin gas.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says Assad is a "murderer".
- Trump's threat -
On April 6, US President Donald Trump threatens Syria, calling the attack "egregious" and an "affront to humanity".
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warns that Washington is "considering an appropriate response".
Moscow says Washington does not have "realistic, verified information" to back up its allegations. President Vladimir Putin says that accusing Assad without proof is "unacceptable".
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem insists the army "has not, did not and will not use this kind of weapons" even against "the terrorists that attack our civilians".
- US missile barrage -
Overnight on April 6-7, the US military fires 59 Tomahawk missiles from warships in the eastern Mediterranean at the Shayrat airbase near the central city of Homs, which it says was the launchpad for the alleged chemical attack.
Trump calls on all "civilised nations" to seek an end to the conflict in Syria.
The Syrian government describes the US strike as "foolish and irresponsible". Moscow calls the strikes "aggression against a sovereign state in violation of international norms".
US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley says Washington is ready to take further action.
On April 9, allies of Damascus threaten reprisals against any party that carries out "aggression" against Syria. Haley says Syria will not experience peace with Assad in power.
On April 10, a US military spokesman says the Pentagon believes the Syrian regime probably has additional chemical weapons stocked at the targeted airfield. Pentagon chief Jim Mattis says the US strike destroyed a fifth of the Assad regime's remaining warplanes.
The following day, Mattis says Washington has "no doubt" that Assad's regime was behind the chemical attack.
Turkey's health minister says that tests proved the deadly nerve agent sarin was used in the suspected attack.
- Defiant Assad -
A defiant Assad, in an exclusive interview with AFP, calls the suspected chemical attack a "fabrication" to justify a US military strike against Syria.
He says his army had given up all its chemical weapons and that Syrian military power was not affected by the missile barrage.
"Definitely, 100 percent for us, it's fabrication," Assad says of the alleged chemical weapons attack.
In the interview, Assad also insists it was "not clear" whether an attack on Khan Sheikhun had even happened.
"You have a lot of fake videos now," he says.
"We don't know whether those dead children were killed in Khan Sheikhun. Were they dead at all?"
Pakistani policemen stand guard outside the hostel at Abdul Wali Khan university where students beat to death a classmate in Mardan on April 13, 2017
Hundreds of Pakistani students beat to death a classmate known for his liberal views on a university campus in the country's conservative northwest Thursday, police and witnesses said.
Mashal Khan, a journalism student, was stripped, beaten, shot, and thrown from the second floor of his hostel at the Abdul Wali Khan university in Mardan, sources at the university said.
Graphic video footage from the scene shows dozens of men outside the hostel kicking and hurling projectiles at a body sprawled on the ground.
The killing comes as Pakistani authorities including Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan have been increasingly vocal over blasphemy in recent weeks.
Blasphemy is a hugely sensitive charge in the conservative Muslim country, and can carry the death penalty. Even unproven allegations can cause mob lynchings and violence.
"The student has been brutally murdered by his fellow students," Niaz Saeed, a senior police official, told AFP.
"He was badly tortured after being shot at a close range... He was beaten with sticks, bricks and hands," Saeed said, adding that hundreds of people had been involved in the attack.
At least 11 students have been arrested so far, police said, and the university was closed indefinitely, with the campus largely deserted late Thursday evening.
"We are investigating the case but at this stage we cannot say anything" about the motive for the attack, Saeed said
However a police source told AFP that students had recently complained to university authorities about Khan's alleged secular views.
Blood stains are seen on a wall and the ground at a hostel at Abdul Wali Khan university at the site of where students beat to death a classmate in Mardan on April 13, 2017
The source said Khan and two friends had been in a debate with other students earlier Thursday about his religious views which became so heated that teachers had to lock him in a room for his safety.
"But the enraged students grew to a mob and they attacked the room," the source said.
A university official who spoke on condition of anonymity confirmed teachers had been forced to intervene in the debate "in a bid to save him and his two other friends, but the mob of students attacked the room and tortured and killed him".
Khan was "disliked by other students for being liberal and secular and not following a religious code of life and not attending Friday prayers," the official said.
Last month Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ordered blasphemous content be removed from social media, and perpetrators punished.
The Interior Ministry also threatened to block all social media websites with blasphemous content, and said Facebook was sending a delegation to Pakistan to discuss their concerns, although Facebook would not confirm that to AFP.
Rights groups have long criticised Pakistan's colonial-era blasphemy legislation as a vehicle for personal vendettas.
At least 65 people have been murdered by vigilantes over blasphemy allegations since 1990, according to recent think tank report issued before Thursday's killing.
Activists have also accused religious conservatives of using blasphemy as a means of muzzling dissent.
US civil rights activist the Reverend Jesse Jackson led a protest against United Airlines at O'Hare airport over the violent dragging of a paid passenger from his seat to accommodate the airline's overbooking of the flight
The man dragged off a United Airlines flight, sparking an international uproar, suffered a broken nose and concussion, his lawyer said Thursday, adding that he is planning to sue.
David Dao was released from the hospital overnight and was at a "secure location," attorney Thomas Demetrio said at a news conference during which a member of Dao's family spoke out for the first time.
United remained under a spotlight Thursday as representatives of the carrier faced tough questioning at a city council hearing in Chicago, where the airline is headquartered and where the incident occurred.
Dao's lawyers filed a petition in court requesting that the city, which operates O'Hare International Airport, and United Airlines preserve evidence related to the incident on Sunday. They also said a lawsuit was forthcoming.
"This lawsuit, among other things, hopefully, will create a not just national discussion, but international discussion, on how we're going to be treated going forward," Demetrio said.
"For a long time, airlines, United in particular, have bullied us."
Online video of airport security officers dragging Dao off a packed flight Sunday sparked worldwide outrage. He screamed as officers pulled him from his seat, and was bloodied by the altercation.
The 69-year-old doctor's lawyers said he also suffered injury to his sinuses and lost two front teeth.
"My dad is healing right now," said Crystal Dao Pepper, 33, one of Dao's five children.
"We were completely horrified and shocked at what had happened to my father," she said.
In response, United Airlines released a statement reiterating its apology.
"We continue to express our sincerest apology to Dr. Dao. We cannot stress enough that we remain steadfast in our commitment to make this right," the statement said.
The airline added that it would no longer ask law enforcement to remove a passenger from a flight unless it is a matter of safety and security.
The statement did not quell criticism of United, especially since its apologies came days after the incident -- and after initial statements appeared to at least in part blame Dao.
At a sometimes tense hearing Thursday at Chicago's city hall, officials from United Airlines and O'Hare airport said they are conducting investigations to determine what went wrong with their procedures.
United said it will release the results of its review on April 30.
"We commit to you that this type of situation will never happen again aboard our aircraft," Margaret Smith, United's head of corporate affairs, said at the hearing.
Asked why United took days to apologize, Smith said the airline made a mistake.
"We took too long to say anything, and our statement -- when it first came out -- did not show the depth of our concern and regret," Smith said.
"We should have handled it quicker, and we should have been better at expressing how that is something that we just do not want ever to happen again at United."
Lawmakers in Congress have also signaled potential action.
Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky of Illinois said she would author a bill to end the practice of airlines denying boarding to passengers on overbooked flights. A group of 21 senators also said they planned to examine the incident.
An international team of researchers found that commercial hunting more heavily impacted animal populations than hunting for food
Hunting poses a major threat to mammals and birds in tropical regions near population centers and roads, according to new research published Thursday in the US journal Science.
An international team of researchers found that mammal and bird populations dropped on average by 83 percent and 57 percent, respectively, in zones situated seven to 40 kilometers (four to 25 miles) from access points such as roads or villages.
The study also showed that commercial hunting more heavily impacted animal populations than hunting for food.
A number of factors drive declining animal populations, like deforestation and habitat loss. But this study was the first to show the large-scale impact of hunting on a wide range of animal species, according to the researchers.
They combined 176 studies to quantify declines of 254 mammal species and 97 bird species across the tropics in Central and South America, Africa and Asia.
Rising demand for wild game meat has depleted populations of large species in close proximity to villages, the researchers said, meaning hunters were traveling greater distances in search of quarry.
"Strategies to sustainably manage wild meat hunting in both protected and unprotected tropical ecosystems are urgently needed to avoid further defaunation," said study leader Ana Benitez-Lopez of Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands.
"This includes monitoring hunting activities by increasing anti-poaching patrols and controlling overexploitation via law enforcement."
A Syrian child receives treatment following a suspected chemical attack in Khan Sheikhun, a rebel-held town in the northwestern Idlib province, on April 4, 2017
The Syrian government's suspected chemical weapons attack on civilians last week amounts to a "war crime," the US State Department said Thursday.
It also ridiculed comments by President Bashar al-Assad in an interview with AFP to the effect that the alleged attack was fabricated by the United States to justify an American military strike.
"Sadly, it's vintage Assad. It is an attempt by him to throw up false flags, create confusion," said department spokesman Mark Toner, alluding to what Assad said in the interview Wednesday. It was Assad's first since the alleged April 4 chemical weapons attack prompted a US cruise missile strike on a Syrian air base.
The suspected chemical attack killed at least 87 people, including many children, and images of the dead and of suffering victims provoked global outrage.
"Frankly, it's a tactic we've seen on Russia's part as well in the past," Toner told a daily press briefing.
Echoing charges by Defense Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Toner said there can be little doubt that the chemical weapons attack in Idlib province was carried out by Syrian government forces.
"It wasn't only a violation of the laws of war but it was a -- we believe, a war crime," Toner said.
Tillerson, visiting Moscow on Wednesday, addressed the issue of the chemical weapons attack but he stopped short of calling it a war crime.
Tillerson did raise the prospect of criminal proceedings at some point over the attack, including against Assad himself, but warned there were be major legal obstacles to this.
An emergency room doctor in Detroit has been accused of carrying out female genital mutilation
A US doctor in Detroit has been arrested and charged with carrying out female genital mutilation on girls aged six to eight, prosecutors said.
Emergency room doctor Jumana Nagarwala, 44, of Northville, Michigan, is accused of carrying out the widely condemned practice -- illegal in the United States -- for 12 years from a medical office in Livonia, Michigan.
She appeared in a US federal court in Detroit on Thursday and was remanded into custody until at least Monday, said a spokeswoman for the US attorney's office.
If convicted at trial she faces a maximum sentence of life behind bars.
Congress passed a law in 1996 making it illegal to perform genital mutilation or cutting in the United States on anyone under than 18. Twenty-five US states also have laws prohibiting the practice.
Prosecutors in Michigan say they believe it is the first case of its kind brought under the federal law.
Some of Nagarwala's victims traveled from outside Michigan and were told not to talk about the procedure, prosecutors said.
"Dr Nagarwala is alleged to have performed horrifying acts of brutality on the most vulnerable victims," said acting Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Blanco.
"The Department of Justice is committed to stopping female genital mutilation in this country, and will use the full power of the law to ensure that no girls suffer such physical and emotional abuse."
"The practice has no place in modern society and those who perform FGM on minors will be held accountable under federal law," said acting US Attorney Daniel Lemisch.
In 2006, a court in Georgia found a man guilty of sexually mutilating his two-year-old daughter with a pair of scissors, in what was then the first recorded case of female genital mutilation in the United States.
The Ethiopian immigrant was sentenced to 10 years in prison for aggravated battery and cruelty to children for the 2001 crime.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that 513,000 women and girls in the United States in 2012 were at risk of or had been subjected to female genital mutilation or cutting.
The estimate was three times higher than one based on 1990 data, due to increased immigration from countries where genital mutilation is practiced.
Globally, at least 200 million girls and women alive today have suffered some form of female genital mutilation across 30 countries, according to the United Nations.
While concentrated in Africa, it is common in some communities in Asia, Arab states and Latin America. Half of those cut live in Egypt, Ethiopia and Indonesia, according to the UN.
Ecumenical Patriarch Will Visit WCC in Geneva
Contact: World Council of Churches, +41-79-507-6363; www.oikoumene.org/press
GENEVA, April, 13, 2017 /Christian Newswire/ -- The World Council of Churches (WCC) will welcome His Holiness Bartholomew I, Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch, on Monday, 24 April.
He will speak about issues concerning the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church, the ecumenical movement, the protection of the environment and the protection of children. Interpretation in French will be available, and the lecture will be followed by a reception.
His All-Holiness Bartholomew will be in WCC during His official visit to Switzerland on the occasion of His 25th anniversary of enthronement as Ecumenical Patriarch, the 50 years of the Orthodox Centre of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Chambesy and the 20th anniversary of the opening of its Institute of Postgraduate Studies, on 22-24 April.
When: 24 April, 2017, 12:00, followed by a reception
Where: Ecumenical Centre, Visser 't Hooft Hall, 150 route de Ferney, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland
About the visit: His All-Holiness Bartholomew's visit includes two days of anniversary events in the Orthodox Centre of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, a public lecture in the University of Fribourg and a pilgrimage visit to the Taize Community.
Programme of the festivities in the Orthodox Centre of Chambesy
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in Taize
Media contacts:
Please contact WCC director of communication Marianne Ejdersten: mej@wcc-coe.org, +41 79 507 63 63
The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith, witness and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical fellowship of churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings together 348 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 550 million Christians in over 120 countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic Church. The WCC general secretary is the Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, from the [Lutheran] Church of Norway.
US President Donald Trump vows to take care of the "problem" of North Korea
US President Donald Trump vowed Thursday that the "problem" of North Korea "will be taken care of," as speculation mounted that Pyongyang might be preparing another nuclear or missile test.
"North Korea is a problem, the problem will be taken care of," Trump told reporters.
Separately on Twitter he expressed confidence China, Pyongyang's sole ally, would "properly deal with North Korea."
But, "if they are unable to do so, the U.S., with its allies, will! U.S.A."
The ominous comments came the same day Trump ordered the dropping of the biggest non-nuclear bomb the US military possesses on Afghanistan, targeting a complex used by the Islamic State group.
A US aircraft carrier and its naval strike group has been diverted to the Korean peninsula.
Trump also flexed his military muscle last week by ordering cruise missile strikes on a Syrian airbase the US believed was the origin of an alleged chemical weapons attack on civilians in a northern Syria town.
- North Korea test 'primed' -
There are reports of activity at a nuclear test site in North Korea ahead of Saturday's 105th anniversary of the birth of the country's founder Kim Il-Sung.
A US monitoring group, 38North, has described the Punggye-ri test site as "primed and ready."
North Korea missile and nuclear sites
The Voice of America, quoting US government and other sources, said North Korea "has apparently placed a nuclear device in a tunnel and it could be detonated Saturday AM Korea time."
Trump has repeatedly said he will prevent Pyongyang from developing a nuclear-tipped ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States.
He has asked his advisers to give him all options for dealing with the nuclear-armed North.
The US president has also said he would not signal his punches before embarking on any military action abroad.
- China influence 'not what you'd think' -
Asked on Thursday whether the bomb dropped in Afghanistan -- a GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb better known by its nickname, the "Mother Of All Bombs" -- was a warning to Pyongyang, Trump demurred.
"I don't know if this sends a message to North Korea," he said. "It doesn't make any difference if it does or not."
The North is under multiple sets of United Nations sanctions over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
In an interview published Thursday by The Wall Street Journal, Trump said he told Chinese President Xi Jinping to let North Korea know that the US has not only aircraft carriers but nuclear submarines.
But Trump said Xi, during a meeting in Florida last week, had corrected his earlier misconception that Beijing could easily get rid of the North Korea threat.
"After listening for 10 minutes, I realized it's not so easy," Trump said. "I felt pretty strongly that they had a tremendous power" over North Korea. "But it's not what you would think."
PODGORICA, Montenegro (AP) - U.S. Senator John McCain has congratulated Montenegro for its upcoming NATO membership and blasted Russia for its alleged attempts to interfere in the Balkans.
McCain, who was a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War, is one of the strongest supporters of expanding NATO in Europe.
He said in Montenegro on Wednesday that "the behavior on the part of Russians, throughout the region and the world, is not acceptable."
U.S. Sen. John McCain, right, shakes hand with Montenegrin army officers in Podgorica, Montenegro, Wednesday, April 12, 2017. McCain has congratulated Montenegro for its upcoming NATO membership, blasting Russia for its attempts to interfere in the Balkans. (AP Photo/Risto Bozovic)
The Senate backed Montenegro's accession to NATO last month, a message that the U.S. will push back against Russian efforts to increase its influence in Europe.
President Donald Trump signed the ratification on Tuesday.
McCain says: "the Russian behavior requires our solidarity and our strength."
NATO invited tiny Montenegro to join the military alliance as its 29th member in December 2015.
BERLIN (AP) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman says that comparing Nazi war crimes to present-day situations "leads to nothing good" - a reaction to his U.S. counterpart's remarks about Syrian President Bashar Assad's use of chemical weapons.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer's invoking of the Holocaust to illustrate the severity of chemical weapons use drew rebukes from Jewish groups and critics.
Spicer apologized on Tuesday for making an "inappropriate and insensitive" comparison.
He had said that Adolf Hitler "didn't even sink to using chemical weapons." Critics noted the remark ignored Hitler's use of gas chambers to exterminate Jews.
Merkel spokesman Steffen Seibert said Wednesday that Spicer's comment "only shows what is in any case the German government's position - any comparison of current situations with Nazi crimes leads to nothing good."
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The head of the international body that investigates responsibility for reports of chemical weapons use in Syria is taking a new job as the U.N. grapples with responding to another alleged poison attack.
The U.N. announced Wednesday that Virginia Gamba is becoming its special representative for children and armed conflict.
It's not immediately clear who will succeed her in leading the joint investigative initiative by the U.N. and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to assess blame for chemical attacks. She's expected to stay on for a few weeks.
The UN-OPCW investigators have blamed at least three chemical weapons attacks on Syria and one on Islamic State extremists.
A suspected April 4 chemical attack in civil war-ravaged Syria killed nearly 90 people and is under OPCW investigation.
CHICAGO (AP) - Robbery was the motive that led to the fatal shooting of a criminal court judge outside his Chicago home, police said Wednesday.
Joshua Smith, 37, was charged with first-degree murder, attempted murder and obstruction in the death of Associate Cook County Circuit Judge Raymond Myles, said Chief of Detectives Melissa Staples.
A 52-year-old woman that the judge knew also was shot in the incident early Monday on the city's South Side. She survived. Her name has not been released because police say she is a witness in the killing.
This undated photo provided by the Chicago Police Department shows Joshua Smith. Smith was charged Wednesday April 12, 2017, in the killing of a criminal court judge who was shot to death outside his Chicago home after a woman he knew was wounded by gunfire. (Chicago Police Department via AP)
Staples said Wednesday that Smith did not act alone and that the investigation is ongoing. She said the gun in the shooting was also used in an armed robbery in January that left that victim wounded.
She said "the placement and the concentration of cameras in and outside of the judge's neighborhood was instrumental for detectives to get a jump-start on this case."
Video cameras on Myles' home and others in the area helped police identify the car used by the suspects in the shooting and its license plate, Staples said. When police found the vehicle, it had a different license plate than the one seen in the videos, she said.
She said police don't think the car owner took part in the crime.
Police have said the woman that Myles knew had already been shot and that Myles exchanged words with the attacker and then was shot, too.
Smith was convicted of armed robbery in 2003 and sentenced to six years in prison, according to authorities. The Chicago Sun-Times, citing court records, reported that Smith appeared before Myles in 2001 on a charge of failing to have a title for a vehicle and the case was dismissed.
Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said he didn't know about vehicle title case and couldn't comment.
Myles, 66, received his law degree from the University of Illinois College of Law. He was appointed to the court in 1999. Circuit court judges appointed him an associate judge in 2001 and Myles had served in the criminal division since 2009, according Cook County Chief Judge Timothy Evans.
The FBI is working with Chicago police on the investigation into Myles' shooting, and is offering a $25,000 reward for information in the case.
An investigator opens the door of a vehicle outside a home on the South Side of Chicago, Monday morning, April 10, 2017, after Cook County Circuit Court Raymond Myles was shot to death outside his home. Myles was an associate judge in the court's criminal division. (Zbigniew Bzdak/Chicago Tribune via AP)
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) - Danielle Randolph squinted through rain-splattered windows as the sea freighter lunged upward sharply, then fell into the trough of a 30-foot-tall wave. The skies were black. The second mate stood on the navigation bridge high above El Faro's main deck, which spread out before her like an aircraft carrier stacked high with red, white and blue cargo containers.
News blurted through the bridge's radio speaker: Forecasters had named the storm Hurricane Joaquin as it built into a Category 3, with winds of 130 mph. "Oh my God," she said to the helmsman standing nearby, bracing when the ship she called "the rust bucket" shuddered over another wave.
"Can't pound your way through them waves. Break the ship in half," the helmsman said.
FILE - This undated image made from a video released April 26, 2016, by the National Transportation Safety Board shows the stern of the sunken ship El Faro. Amid howling winds, blinding squalls and massive waves, the freighter El Faro and its crew struggled for survival _ unaware that their course was taking them directly into the path of Hurricane Joaquin. All 33 crew members were killed. (National Transportation Safety Board via AP, File)
It was 1:15 a.m. on Oct. 1, 2015, and the Atlantic was boiling over. El Faro, sailing near San Salvador Island in the Bahamas, was being knocked about by the strongest October storm to hit these waters since 1866. In the coming hours, El Faro and its crew would fight desperately for survival .
Another wave slammed into them. "Oh (expletive)," said Randolph. "That was a bad one." The alarm sounded. The ship was now pushed in another direction, off the captain's chosen course. After a few tense seconds, El Faro righted herself.
"She's doin' good. I'm impressed. Knock on wood," said Randolph.
El Faro was one of two ships owned by TOTE Maritime Inc. that navigated in constant rotation between Jacksonville, Florida, and San Juan, Puerto Rico. It brought everything from milk to Mercedes Benzes to the island. If El Faro missed its run store shelves sat empty, an economy suffered and TOTE lost money.
This run was to be El Faro's last before a major retrofit. Inspectors had found parts of the vessel's boilers that were "deteriorated severely" and service was scheduled in the next month. This came as no surprise: One Coast Guard inspector had identified a "disturbing" uptick in safety discrepancies during El Faro's inspections from 2013 to 2014. The Guard was in the process of adding the 40-year-old ship to its "target list" of U.S. cargo vessels that needed a higher level of scrutiny.
To add to the danger, El Faro was equipped with open-top lifeboats similar to those used on the Titanic or Lusitania. Modern ships carry the round, tent-like lifeboats with electronic beacons that dramatically increase survival chances in a shipwreck.
Once, Randolph texted pictures of El Faro's lifeboats to her mom. "Is that your lifeboat? It's open," her mom replied, aghast. A coastal Mainer, Laurie Bobillot knew open life boats to be a thing of the past. "Let's hope you never get into some rough seas," she wrote, "because you know kid, you're screwed."
"Yes, I know," Randolph replied. "Mom, if I ever die at sea, that's where I want to be."
___
Randolph had a cordial relationship with the captain of El Faro. She respected him, but told her mother and friends she didn't like his dismissive attitude. The storm had been growing, so Randolph suggested they consider taking a longer, slower route south through the Old Bahama Channel. But the captain had the final word on voyage planning, and he refused to deviate.
She'd noticed the captain was sound asleep when she'd called. It rang a few times before he answered.
The ship was taking a beating, she'd said, but was holding course. The captain asked about the latest weather reports. He would return to the bridge in a few hours. She hung up the phone as the ship took on another huge wave.
"He said to run it. Hooold on to your ass!" Randolph shouted.
"Figured the captain would be up here," the helmsman said. Microphones on the bridge picked up their conversations, which were sent to a voyage data recorder, the ship's "black box."
"I thought so too. I'm surprised," Randolph replied.
"Damn," the helmsman said with disappointment. "He'll play hero tomorrow," he said laughing. The captain would be praised for the ship making it through Hurricane Joaquin to San Juan on time.
Even after a decade at sea, Randolph, 34, maintained a youthful air. Her round, freckled face was slightly weathered from the sun, and her dumb jokes endeared her to the 32 crewmates who relied on her skillful navigation. She stood only 5-foot-3, but her mariner toughness was displayed in the large anchor tattoo on her chest, which peeked over the neckline of the vintage '50s dresses she liked to wear on shore.
Randolph was one of only two women on this cargo run. Raised in a military family whose motto was "suck it up," she worked hard and asked few questions.
But now, she was helpless against the crushing waves, wind and rain. "It would help if I knew which direction the swell was coming from," Randolph said to the helmsman. "I could alter course a little more. I can't see." They heard a massive thump from below, in the bowels of the ship. El Faro carried heavy cargo in its interior holds: If that was a car or something else coming loose, it was a sailor-crushing danger.
"Whoooo!" Randolph exclaimed.
"Yeah, it's startin' to get a little bit more active around here," the helmsman replied. The swelling seas shoved El Faro around like a cork.
Randolph could not know exactly how hard the wind was blowing. El Faro's anemometer, or wind gauge, had been broken for years. To adapt, the sailors usually stepped out on deck to gauge wind speed the old-fashioned way, by checking the flap of the boat's flags. That was impossible in the dark. Randolph scanned the radar for a fellow vessel in the area, but every other ship had diverted to avoid the storm. El Faro was alone.
"Hello, Joaquin," Randolph said to the storm. "It's just getting bigger - our path is going right through it."
At 3:34 a.m. the captain emerged from his stateroom. Randolph greeted him, grateful for the chance to go down to her room for a quick rest. She'd found time to fire off a quick email to her mother. "We are heading straight into it, Category 3, last we checked. Winds are super bad. Love to everyone."
Later that day, reading the email in Denmark, Wisconsin, Randolph's mother knew something was wrong. Randolph never signed her emails, "Love to everyone." Her mother understood that her daughter was sending a coded message: I may never see you again.
___
With his square chin, salt-and-pepper hair and thick Mainer's brogue, El Faro's captain was a meticulous master who struck a commanding presence. Yet Michael Davidson's detached, hands-off style led Randolph and some others to describe the 53-year-old master as a "stateroom captain." Stateroom captains didn't get their hands dirty and weren't seen a lot on deck. They didn't share smokes and chit chat with the crew.
On the bridge, he greeted Randolph's replacement, chief mate Steve Shultz, and a new helmsman, Frank Hamm. He set out to calm their nerves. "There's nothing bad about this ride," the captain announced, despite the hurricane raging outside. "I was sleepin' like a baby. This is every day in Alaska," the captain continued. No one could see out of the windows, except for when brief sparks of lightning illuminated the rain. "A typical winter day in Alaska."
Earlier in his career Davidson had navigated freighters in the Alaska trade, known in the industry as one of the most bruising theaters of sailing. But his leadership had been questioned by TOTE's upper management, and after initially leaning toward offering Davidson the job heading one of its new ships the company decided to go in a different direction. Now favored were younger captains who could drive the new high-tech freighters.
Before leaving port in Jacksonville, Davidson expressed disappointment to colleagues that he hadn't been chosen to command the modern, liquefied natural gas-fueled ship that was to replace El Faro. The captain had been disappointed by the news, but he was a professional. Perhaps he thought he could show them that they'd made a mistake by making El Faro's cargo run on time, even with a major storm system in his way. Davidson knew what could happen to masters who raised safety concerns that weren't considered serious enough by the company. He had been fired by a prior employer after an incident with another ship. The steering was bad on that one, and he'd refused an order to take it to port, requiring the company to hire tugboats to drag it there instead.
The course alarm, which blared every time the ship deviated from its programmed route, was now ringing every few seconds as the seas flung the vessel around. The captain ordered it turned off, along with the auto-piloting system, nicknamed the "Iron Mike." They would have to steer the ship manually, to use their human senses to feel the swell and winds, as they piloted blindly into the waves.
Containers the size of Mack trucks were breaking free from their chain lashings. They'd left port not expecting the heavy weather and didn't ask the longshoremen for extra storm lashes, the ship's third mate had said ruefully earlier in the day, as the storm worsened. Now, thrown off balance, El Faro tilted precariously to the right, or starboard, as it plunged into the pounding waves.
Unsure why his boat was listing, the captain searched for a solution. The steep angling of the ship was making it hard to stand up straight. If he knew the hurricane-force wind's direction - difficult to detect at night in a hurricane with a broken wind gauge - the helmsman could position the freighter so that the wind hit its left, port side, correcting the vessel's pitch. Flooding in the cavern-like interior holds could be battled with pumps to redirect the water into other areas for balance. If the ship lost some of its 20-ton containers, he could use the pumps to help compensate for that, too.
None of that mattered without power, though. The captain called down to the engine room to check that the ship's boilers, its only source of power, were still operational. Without propulsion in a Category 3 storm, El Faro would be lost.
"How you guys doing down there?" he asked. The engineer replied that they were "blowin' tubes," or trying to remove obstructions from the engine as it chugged. There was another problem: the intake tube that sucked oil like a straw from a large tank into the engines was starting to lose contact with the oil due to the ship's tilt. Without oil, the engines would stop running altogether.
Standing with the captain on the bridge, chief mate Shultz noted the barometer readings were headed downward, which could indicate they were closer to Joaquin's eye. That ran counter to the storm track models Davidson had used - those showed the storm farther away. He still planned to outrun it.
"We won't be goin' through the eye," the captain said: If they could skirt a bit further south, away from the eye toward Crooked Island, they would reach its backside more quickly.
With the ship tilting and oil pressure decreasing, the captain decided to use the wind to force the ship more upright. If he could do that, he could get oil pressure back, and increase the ship's power. "Just steer that heading right there the best you can. That'll work for us," the captain instructed Hamm and Shultz.
The ship dropped down a three-story-tall swell. "Feel the pressure droppin' in your ears just then? Feel that?" Davidson said, trying to make light of the situation.
Hamm's large frame was bent over in fear at his console. Two days earlier, the 49-year-old father of five had called Rochelle, his wife, just before he sailed out of range. He said everything was OK - Hamm liked and trusted the captain, with whom he'd often worked. But in the chaos of the storm, he had been unable to send his customary daily email home.
"Take your time and relax," Davidson said. Hamm managed to find his breath, then took the helm back. "I am relaxed, Captain."
Davidson turned quickly to the ship's computer. He needed to check the Bon Voyage System, or BVS, an online subscription weather forecasting tool, to get the latest hard data on Joaquin. "Hanging in there (Frank)?" Shultz said, trying to keep the jittery helmsman engaged as the captain scanned his email for the weather updates. "Still got us on course. You're doin' great."
The captain grew confused. Though the forecasting tool told him the storm was still farther north, clearly they were right in it. "We're gettin' conflicting reports as to where the center of the storm is," he said.
Davidson didn't know that there was a problem with the BVS system emails he was receiving: One update he'd received had storm tracking information that was 21 hours old. While he had access to other forecasts on the internet, Davidson relied on BVS. The storm they now faced was far more advanced than his weather models showed.
"Our biggest enemy here right now is we can't see," he said. He believed they were nearing the back side of the storm, but had no way of knowing for sure. By overruling his crew's suggested alternate routes, he had made a horrible mistake.
An engineer from below deck appeared on the bridge. Something wasn't right. "I've never seen it list like this," the engineer reported. El Faro's steep list was not just from sliding shipping containers, the engineer reasoned - something else was to blame.
The phone rang with a call from the engine room. The ship was losing oil pressure, and needed to be righted now.
"I'm tryin' to get her steadied up," the captain replied.
Water surged over the ship's stern, and the sound of the ocean pounding the old ship was deafening. Another electric ring of the telephone. Davidson answered, "Bridge, captain."
A moment passed and he turned to his chief mate: "We got a prrroooblem."
Water had started flooding one of the ship's warehouse-sized holds used to store cars and other large containers. He ordered Shultz, a 54-year-old former Navy captain and seasoned mariner, below deck immediately to start pumping out the hold. It was a perilous assignment. Any piece of heavy cargo afloat in the hold could easily pulverize Shultz. The chief mate grabbed a walkie-talkie and climbed down from the bridge.
The captain took the ship's helm from Hamm. With water flooding into El Faro's insides, he knew why he'd been unable to right the ship. He turned the steering wheel hard, trying to use the wind again - anything to decrease the ship's angle. Shultz radioed from down below, in the flooded cargo chamber.
"About knee deep in here," he said.
___
At 6 a.m., Randolph came back to the bridge from her stateroom. She'd changed out of her work clothes, and hadn't changed back before coming up.
She moved over to the dead radar screen - it'd gone dark, maybe from water coming through a gap in one of the bridge's windows - to try and get the ship's current position. After a few minutes, the radar fluttered and suddenly blinked back to life. "All right, good," the captain said. He ordered Randolph to sync the latest BVS weather models with their current position, still not realizing the data was hours old, and useless.
The ship groaned over yet another tall wave. "Nooooo," Randolph said, bracing. "There goes the lawn furniture."
"Let's hope that's all," said the captain.
Randolph wasn't supposed to be on the bridge, but Davidson didn't question her. "You want me to stay with you?" Randolph asked. "Please," the captain said. "It's just the ..." He couldn't finish his sentence.
Shultz called from the flooded hold again. He wanted the bridge to move the ship so the water below would shift to the other side.
All at once, a terrifying silence gripped them. The rumble and vibration of ship's engines ceased. El Faro was adrift.
"I think we just lost the plant," Davidson said.
Somehow, he needed to balance the ship - an almost impossible feat without propulsion.
Down below, the whirring pumps continued to push thousands of gallons a minute from the flooded holds. Up top, everyone had to use their leg muscles to stay standing on the angling ship. "Feeling those thighs burn?" Randolph asked Hamm, as he dug in to turn the rudder.
Just after 7 a.m., Davidson picked up the ship's emergency satellite phone. He dialed the cellphone number of TOTE's designated person ashore, the only human in charge of knowing what was going on with the fleet.
The call went to voicemail.
Davidson rattled out a brief message, then called the company's answering service. A woman picked up with a pleasant hello.
"We had a hull breach; a scuttle blew open during a storm," Davidson explained tersely. "We have water down in three hold, with a heavy list. We've lost the main propulsion unit, the engineers cannot get it going." He asked for her to patch him through to a TOTE official immediately.
"Can you please give me your satellite phone number and spell the name of the vessel?" she asked slowly. "Spell your name, please?"
TOTE safety officials had identified the answering service as a problem previously, but it had not been fixed.
"The clock is ticking" the captain said, his voice calm despite the chaos. He tried again. "This is a marine emergency, and I am tryin' to also notify management!" He gave the operator his name and number and hung up.
Electronic alarms echoed throughout the steel freighter. Randolph read out their current position. The captain called down to the flooding hold. "Can you tell if it's decreasing or increasing?" he asked. "I can't tell captain. Seems as if it's goin' down," the chief mate replied. He turned to Randolph. "Say second mate. How 'bout our range and bearing from like San Miguel Island? Or San Salvador? Whatever that island is there," he said, looking for any sign of land they might be able to reach. He grabbed El Faro's emergency beacon that would aid rescuers in finding their position.
The satellite phone rang, it was his boss. "Yeah, I'm real good," Davidson said matter-of-factly. "Three hold's got considerable amount of water in it. Uh, we have a very, very healthy port list. The engineers cannot get lube oil pressure on the plant, therefore we've got no main engine. And let me give you, um, a latitude and longitude. I just wanted to give you a heads up before I push that, push that button," he said, referring to the Ship Security Alert System, or SSAS, an emergency beacon. It was 7:07 a.m.
"The crew is safe," he said into the phone. "Right now we're tryin' to save the ship. But it's not gettin' any better. No one's panicking. Our safest bet is to stay with the ship during this particular time. The weather is ferocious out here." Davidson told his boss it was time to alert the Coast Guard. "I wanna wake everybody up," he said. "I just wanted to give you that courtesy, so you wouldn't be blindsided by it. Everybody's safe right now, we're in survival mode."
Randolph stood at the ready. "All right now, push the SSAS button," he commanded.
"Roger," she said.
"Wake everybody up. WAKE 'EM UP!" Davidson shouted. "We're gonna be good. We're gonna make it right here."
Chief Mate Shultz radioed from the flooded hold again. "I think the water level's rising captain," he said. He could think of nothing more to do.
"All right, chief," the captain replied.
Davidson's tinny voice sounded over the ship's intercom ordering the crew to muster. He wanted everyone accounted for. The high-frequency bell of the abandon ship alarm rang out.
"Can I get my vest?" Randolph asked.
"Yup, bring mine up too and bring one for (Frank)" the captain replied. The helmsman, a large man and diabetic, yelled out as Randolph left the bridge: "I need two!"
"OK buddy, relax," the captain said. The ship heaved, the tip of its bow sinking beneath the black water.
"Bow is down. Bow is down," Davidson said over the ship intercom.
"Get into your rafts. Throw all your rafts in the water," he yelled. "Everybody. EVERYBODY GET OFF THE SHIP! STAY TOGETHER!" he screamed.
Hamm was unable to move. "Cap, Cap," he said.
"You gotta get up," Davidson ordered. "You gotta snap out of it and we gotta get out!" he said, his voice firm, urgent.
"Help me!" Hamm pleaded.
"Ya gotta get to safety!" the captain yelped. Hamm couldn't move.
The shrill beat of alarms continued as the ship's tilt worsened.
The captain reached for Hamm. "Don't panic. Don't panic," he said. "Work your way up here. Don't freeze up! Follow me," he pleaded with Hamm.
"I can't! My feet are slipping! I'm goin' down!"
Davidson looked at his terrified helmsman. "You're not goin' down. COME ON!" he yelled.
"You gonna leave me," Hamm cried.
"I'm not leavin' you. Let's go," the captain responded.
"I'M A GONER!" Hamm screamed.
"NO, YOU'RE NOT!" the captain replied.
El Faro's bridge reared up as the ship sank deeper.
"IT'S TIME TO COME THIS WAY!" Davidson shouted, as El Faro slipped beneath the sea.
___
It would be months before search crews found the wreckage. El Faro had come to rest 15,000 feet down, on the seafloor near the Bahamas. The bridge where Hamm and Davidson struggled for survival had separated from the vessel's hull, and lay a quarter mile away.
No bodies were ever recovered. It was the worst maritime disaster for a U.S.-flagged vessel since 1983.
The U.S. Coast Guard has held six weeks of investigative hearings over the past year, and the National Transportation Safety Board is conducting its own probe. Both agencies are expected to issue findings later this year.
TOTE defended its safety record, and emphasized that El Faro was permitted to operate by the Coast Guard despite the issues flagged by inspectors. The company also said it had been working on fixing the problems with its emergency answering service, but had not gotten to it before El Faro's voyage. It now is paying for a more expensive storm forecasting tool for its entire fleet.
In December 2015, about two months after El Faro sank, a couple picking up trash on Ormond Beach in Florida found a green hard hat among the plastic bottles and other garbage. The name "FRANK" was scrawled in Hamm's writing across the front.
Rochelle Hamm recognized it immediately as her husband's. It's encrusted with sand and bits of dried seaweed.
She keeps it in a bag by the side of her bed.
___
Follow Jason Dearen on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/JHDearen
This undated selfie photo made available by Laurie Randolph shows her daughter, Danielle. Danielle Randolph, a second mate on the freighter El Faro, should have had quick access to life jackets on the bridge. Hearing that she did not, says Brian Young, chief investigator for the NTSB, filled him with "disgust." "Her request to get the life jackets is something we're looking into," he told The Associated Press. "That definitely raised a flag for us." (Laurie Randolph via AP)
This March 21, 2010 photo provided by William Van Dorp shows the El Faro cargo ship docked in Baltimore. The story of the ship's final hours was reconstructed using thousands of pages of public documents, hours of testimony before the U.S. Coast Guard's investigative board and interviews with crew family members and maritime experts. The El Faro went down on Oct. 1, 2015, as it sailed in Hurricane Joaquin near San Salvador Island in the Bahamas. (Will Van Dorp via AP)
This undated photo made available by Laurie Randolph shows her daughter, Danielle. Danielle Randolph, a second mate on the freighter El Faro, sank in the Bahamas on Oct. 1, 2015. As the crew of the freighter El Faro fought their futile battle with a hurricane, the second mate asked the captain if she could leave the bridge to retrieve her life jacket. (Laurie Randolph via AP)
In this image made from a video released by the National Transportation Safety Board on April 26, 2016 shows the top of El Faro navigation bridge structure with missing voyage data recorder, mast and support structures at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean in the Bahamas. Amid howling winds, blinding squalls and massive waves, the freighter El Faro and its crew struggled for survival, unaware that their course was taking them directly into the path of Hurricane Joaquin. All 33 crew members were killed. (National Transportation Safety Board via AP)
FILE - In this Feb. 10, 2017 file photo, family members of El Faro crew members stand with photographs of their loved ones during a break in a U.S. Coast Guard investigative hearing in Jacksonville, Fla. The 790-foot freighter heading from Jacksonville, Fla., to San Juan, Puerto Rico sailed into the eye of Hurricane Joaquin near the Bahamas on Oct. 1, 2015 and sank, killing all 33 crew members. (Bob Self/The Florida Times-Union via AP, File)
Rochelle Hamm holds the hard hat of her husband, Frank, at her home in Jacksonville, Fla., Tuesday, March 14, 2017. Frank Hamm was a new helmsman on the freighter El Faro, that sank in the Bahamas during Hurricane Joaquin on Oct. 1, 2015. All 33 crew members were killed. Hamm's helmet was found on Ormond Beach, Fla., on December 2015. The helmet, found by a couple cleaning trash off a Florida beach, washed ashore two months after he disappeared. (AP Photo/Gary McCullough)
This image released by the NTSB on Dec. 13, 2016, indicates the location of the El Faro on Oct. 1, 2015, at about 2 a.m., and the path of Hurricane Joaquin. The El Faro sank Oct. 1, 2015, and all 33 crew members perished in the accident. (National Transportation Safety Board via AP)
Rochelle Hamm holds the hard hat of her husband, Frank, at her home in Jacksonville, Fla., Tuesday, March 14, 2017. Frank Hamm was a new helmsman on the freighter El Faro, that sank in the Bahamas during Hurricane Joaquin on Oct. 1, 2015. All 33 crew members were killed. Hamm's helmet was found on Ormond Beach, Fla., on December 2015. The helmet, found by a couple cleaning trash off a Florida beach, washed ashore two months after he disappeared. (AP Photo/Gary McCullough)
Rochelle Hamm speaks during an interview at her home in Jacksonville, Fla., Tuesday, March 14, 2017. Since her husband died after the freighter El Faro sank in a hurricane, Rochelle has been on a mission to make ships safer. Hamm says she was motivated in part by her terrified husband's last words, which were recorded and stored on the ship's date recorder as the vessel sank. (AP Photo/Gary McCullough)
Frank Hamm, a new helmsman on the freighter El Faro, is shown in a framed photograph at the home of his widow, Rochelle Hamm, in Jacksonville, Fla., on March 14, 2017. As the cargo freighter went down in a hurricane on Oct. 1, 2015, the ship's data recorder captured his final words. "My feet are slipping! I'm goin' down!" he cries after the crew is ordered to abandon ship. "I'M A GONER!" he shouts. (Courtesy Rochelle Hamm via AP)
FILE - In this Feb. 18, 2016 file photo, Coast Guard Captain Jason Neubauer, left, the chairman of the El Faro hearing board and Tom Roth-Roffy, the NTSB Investigator-In-Charge listen as Charles Baird, the former second mate of the El Faro answers questions from Neubauer during a hearing investigating the ship's sinking, in Jacksonville, Fla. Before the freighter El Faro sank, the captain was warned by a text message from his vacationing second mate that a storm looming offshore was forecast to become a hurricane, according to testimony given by Baird Thursday. The story of the cargo ship El Faro's final hours was reconstructed using thousands of pages of public documents, hours of testimony before the U.S. Coast Guard's investigative board and interviews with crew family members and maritime experts. (Bob Self /The Florida Times-Union via AP, File)
FILE- In this Feb. 17, 2016 file photo, Retired Rear Admiral Philip H. Greene, Jr, President and CEO of TOTE Services, Inc., left, answer questions from the board at a hearing investigating the sinking of the El Faro ship in Jacksonville, Fla. The story of the cargo ship El Faro's final hours was reconstructed using thousands of pages of public documents, hours of testimony before the U.S. Coast Guard's investigative board and interviews with crew family members and maritime experts. (Bob Mack/The Florida Times-Union via AP, File)
FILE - This undated photo provided by TOTE Maritime shows the cargo ship, El Faro. On Saturday, Oct. 31, 2015, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said a search team using sophisticated scanning sonar has found the wreckage of a vessel believed to be the ship which went missing with 33 crewmembers on Oct. 1 during Hurricane Joaquin. (TOTE Maritime via AP)
This April 11, 2017 photo provided by the NTSB shows investigator Brian Young at an undisclosed location. Young is the chief investigator for the NTSB into the sinking of the freighter El Faro in the Bahamas on Oct. 1, 2015. The 790- foot ship sank after losing propulsion in Hurricane Joaquin. The bodies of the 33 crew members were never found. (NTSB via AP)
Rochelle Hamm, the widow of El Faro crew member Frank Hamm, wipes her eyes during an interview at her home in Jacksonville, Fla., on Tuesday, March 14, 2017. After losing her husband in a maritime accident, she is pressing for what she calls Hamm Alert, a new safety system that would keep ships in port during major storms - similar to air traffic control for planes. An online petition has collected more than 11,000 signatures in support. (AP Photo/Gary McCullough)
NEW YORK (AP) - The Latest on Wall Street's "Charging Bull" artist wanting the "Fearless Girl" statue removed (all times local):
10:10 p.m.
An advertising firm that's partly behind the "Fearless Girl" statue placed opposite Wall Street's "Charging Bull" statue says it's proud of what she stands for.
FILE In this March 8, 2017 file photo, the "Fearless Girl" statue faces Wall Street's charging bull statue in New York. The sculptor of Wall Street's "Charging Bull" says New York City is violating his legal rights by forcing his bronze beast to face off against the "Fearless Girl." Artist Arturo Di Modica said Wednesday, April 12, that the new neighboring statue changes his bull into something negative. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
McCann Worldgroup made the comment on Wednesday after the bull's sculptor said the girl statue violated his legal rights and he wants it removed.
Artist Arturo Di Modica (dee MOH'-dih-kuh) says it changed his bull into something negative. He says the bull's message is supposed to be "freedom in the world, peace, strength, power and love."
McCann spokesman Jeremy Miller says the "Fearless Girl" statue stands "in support of women and girls everywhere."
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1 p.m.
The sculptor of Wall Street's "Charging Bull" says New York City is violating his legal rights by forcing his bronze beast to face off against the "Fearless Girl."
Artist Arturo Di Modica (dee-MOH'-dih-kuh) said Wednesday that the new neighboring statue changes his bull into something negative.
He says the bull's message is supposed to be "freedom in the world, peace, strength, power and love."
His lawyers say "Fearless Girl" exploits the bull for commercial purposes. They want it moved and are hoping for an amicable solution.
Artist Kristen Visbal's statue of a girl with her hands on her hips was placed on the traffic island on March 7.
Mayor Bill de Blasio says men who don't like women taking up space "are exactly why we need 'Fearless Girl.'"
Arturo Di Modica holds a model of his Charging Bull sculpture during a news conference Wednesday, April 12, 2017, in New York. Di Modica and his attorneys announced at the news conference that he's challenging city officials who issued a permit for "Fearless Girl," a bronze statue that faces the bull sculpture on the same cobblestone island in the street, and has drawn worldwide attention. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)
Arturo Di Modica holds a model of his Charging Bull sculpture during a news conference Wednesday, April 12, 2017, in New York. Di Modica and his attorneys announced at the news conference that he's challenging city officials who issued a permit for "Fearless Girl," a bronze statue that faces the bull sculpture on the same cobble stone island in the street, and has drawn worldwide attention. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)
Sculptor Arturo Di Modica, left, listens to attorney Norman Siegel, upper right, at his law offices in New York Wed., April 12, 2017, as Di Modica and his attorneys announced at the news conference that he's challenging city officials who issued a permit for "Fearless Girl," a bronze statue that faces the bull sculpture on the same cobble stone island in the street, and has drawn worldwide attention. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)
BEIJING (AP) - China's export growth accelerated in March in a positive sign for global demand while import growth cooled.
Exports rose 16.4 percent from a year earlier to $180.6 billion, up from 4 percent growth in the first two months of the year, according to customs data Thursday. Imports rose 20.3 percent to $156.6 billion, down growth in January-February of 26.4 percent.
The unexpectedly strong exports are a positive sign for Chinese leaders who want to avert job losses in trade-related industries while they try to nurture consumer-driven economic growth.
"External demand appears to have strengthened further," said Julian Evans-Pritchard of Capital Economics in a report. "On the other hand, however, there are signs that the jump in imports on the back of China's recent economic recovery may now be starting to lose steam."
China's politically sensitive global trade surplus contracted 20 percent from a year earlier to $23.9 billion.
The trade surplus with the United States was $17.7 billion and the gap with Europe was $7.7 billion.
On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump removed a potential threat to Chinese export performance when he said he won't label Beijing a currency manipulator. The announcement represented a reverse from Trump's campaign promise to issue such a declaration, which would open the way to possible sanctions.
"They're not currency manipulators," Trump told The Wall Street Journal. He said a U.S. declaration of that China manipulated the exchange rate of its yuan to gain a trade advantage could jeopardize talks with China on North Korea.
It is rare for American leaders to link trade or currency disputes to broader international security efforts against countries such as North Korea.
Asked whether his currency decision was part of an agreement over North Korea, Trump responded: "We're going to see. We're going to see about that."
US hit IS with largest non-nuclear bomb ever used
WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. forces in Afghanistan on Thursday struck an Islamic State tunnel complex in eastern Afghanistan with "the mother of all bombs," the largest non-nuclear weapon ever used in combat by the U.S. military, Pentagon officials said.
The bomb, known officially as a GBU-43B, or massive ordnance air blast weapon, unleashes 11 tons of explosives. When it was developed in the early 2000s, the Pentagon did a formal review of legal justification for its combat use.
The Pentagon said it had no early estimate of deaths or damage caused by its attack, which President Donald Trump called a "very, very successful mission."
The U.S. military headquarters in Kabul said in a statement that the bomb was dropped at 7:32 p.m. local time Thursday on a tunnel complex in Achin district of Nangarhar province, where the Afghan affiliate of the Islamic State group has been operating. The target was close to the Pakistani border.
The U.S. estimates 600 to 800 IS fighters are present in Afghanistan, mostly in Nangarhar. The U.S. has concentrated heavily on combatting them while also supporting Afghan forces battling the Taliban. Just last week a U.S. Army Special Forces soldier, Staff Sgt. Mark R. De Alencar, 37, of Edgewood, Maryland, was killed in action in Nangarhar.
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Misdirected US strike killed 18 allied fighters in Syria
BEIRUT (AP) - A misdirected airstrike by the U.S.-led coalition earlier this week killed 18 allied fighters battling the Islamic State group in northern Syria, the U.S. military said Thursday.
U.S. Central Command said coalition aircraft were given the wrong coordinates by their partner forces, the predominantly-Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces, for the strike on Tuesday that was intended to target IS militants south of their Tabqa stronghold, near the extremists' de facto capital, Raqqa. The strike hit an SDF position instead.
Several nations have lent their air power to the U.S.-led coalition to defeat the Islamic State group, and it wasn't clear which air force was behind the errant strike.
The SDF acknowledged the strike, saying a number of its fighters were killed and wounded. On Thursday, the group held funerals for 17 of its fighters in the border town of Tal al-Abyad, the SDF-linked Hawar news agency said, though it did not say whether they were killed in the friendly fire incident.
An activist-run group, Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, said three days of mourning had been declared for the town. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 25 SDF fighters were killed in the last two days of battle.
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10 Things to Know for Friday
Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about Friday:
1. U.S. HITS ISLAMIC EXTREMISTS IN AFGHANISTAN WITH LARGEST NON-NUCLEAR BOMB EVER USED
The Pentagon says it has no early estimate of deaths or damage caused by its attack, which Trump calls a "very, very successful mission."
2. MISDIRECTED U.S. STRIKE KILLS 18 ALLIED FIGHTERS IN SYRIA
U.S. Central Command says coalition aircraft were given the wrong coordinates by their partner forces for an attack intended to target IS militants.
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Is this a new Trump? Abrupt reversals may reflect experience
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Donald Trump is abruptly reversing himself on key issues. And for all his usual bluster, he's startlingly candid about the reason: He's just now really learning about some of them.
"After listening for 10 minutes, I realized it's not so easy," the president said after a discussion with Chinese President Xi Jinping that included his hopes that China's pressure could steer North Korea away from its nuclear efforts.
"I felt pretty strongly that they had a tremendous power" over North Korea, he said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. "But it's not what you would think."
That's just one of several recent comments offering insight into what looks like a moderate makeover for an immoderate president. As he approaches 100 days in office he appears to be increasingly embracing what he describes as his "flexibility" - acknowledging he may not have thought deeply about some of the issues he shouted about throughout his political campaign.
Over the past 48 hours, the outsider politician who pledged to upend Washington has:
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US says countries must punish UN troops for sexual abuse
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley on Thursday urged all countries that provide troops for U.N. peacekeeping missions to hold soldiers accountable for sexual abuse and exploitation, an appeal that came after she cited an Associated Press investigation into a child sex ring in Haiti involving Sri Lankan peacekeepers.
She also warned that "countries that refuse to hold their soldiers accountable must recognize that this either stops or their troops will go home and their financial compensation will end."
Haley was speaking after the Security Council voted unanimously to end the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti in mid-October, sending a strong signal that the international community believes the impoverished Caribbean nation is stabilizing after successful elections.
But the peacekeepers will leave with a tarnished legacy. U.N. troops from Nepal are widely blamed for introducing cholera that has killed at least 9,500 people in Haiti since 2010 and some troops have been implicated in sexual abuse.
"What do we say to these kids? Did these peacekeepers keep them safe?" Haley asked, citing the AP's investigation detailing how at least 134 Sri Lankan peacekeepers sexually abused and exploited nine Haitian children between 2004 and 2007.
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Lawyer: Dragged passenger lost 2 teeth and broke his nose
CHICAGO (AP) - The passenger dragged from a United flight lost two front teeth and suffered a broken nose and a concussion, his lawyer said Thursday, accusing the airline industry of having "bullied" its customers for far too long.
"Are we going to continue to be treated like cattle?" attorney Thomas Demetrio asked.
The passenger, Dr. David Dao, has been released from a hospital but will need reconstructive surgery, Demetrio said at a news conference, appearing alongside one of Dao's children. Dao was not there.
The 69-year-old physician from Elizabethtown, Kentucky, was removed by police from the United Express flight Sunday at Chicago's O'Hare Airport after refusing to give up his seat on the full plane to make room for four airline employees.
Cellphone video of him being pulled down the aisle on his back and footage of his bloody face have created a public-relations nightmare for United.
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Man suspected of shooting US border agent arrested in Mexico
PHOENIX (AP) - A fugitive accused of pulling the trigger to kill a U.S. Border Patrol agent was captured in Mexico more than six years after a slaying that exposed a bungled gun-tracking operation by the U.S. government.
Mexican authorities arrested Heraclio Osorio-Arellanes on Wednesday as the U.S. government has pushed hard to prosecute the suspected marijuana bandits involved in the 2010 death of Brian Terry, 40.
His December 2010 killing unveiled the Fast and Furious operation, in which agents from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowed criminals to buy guns with the intention of tracking them to criminal organizations.
But the agency lost most of the guns, including two that were found at scene of Terry's death. The operation set off a political backlash for the Obama administration and led the agent's family to sue.
"Our concern over the last six years is that the individuals responsible for Brian's murder might not all be brought to justice," said Robert Heyer, Terry's cousin and the family spokesman. "We were very, very encouraged with the arrest of this latest fugitive that justice continues and that cooperation between the United States and the Mexican government continues with respect to the law enforcement initiatives."
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Ocean world near Saturn top contender for life beyond Earth
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - A tiny, ice-encrusted ocean world orbiting Saturn is now a hotter-than-ever candidate for potential life.
NASA's Cassini spacecraft has detected hydrogen molecules in the geysers shooting off the moon Enceladus, possibly the result of deep-sea chemical reactions between water and rock that could spark microbial life, scientists announced Thursday.
NASA and others are quick to point out this latest discovery does not mean there's life on Enceladus (ehn-SEHL'-uh-duhs), but that there may be conditions favorable for life.
A liquid ocean exists beneath the icy surface of Enceladus, which is barely 300 miles (500 kilometers) across. Scientists have long known about the plumes of water vapor spewing from cracks at the moon's south pole, thanks to Cassini . The heavy presence of hydrogen suggests chemical reactions between the warm water and ocean-floor rock that could support life.
Cassini uncovered the hydrogen during its final close flyby of Enceladus in 2015, when it dove deeper than ever through its plumes of vapor and particles. The researchers reported that the hydrogen, along with carbon dioxide that was also found, could mean that undersea microbes are producing methane as they do in the bowels of our own oceans and waterways.
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Who could Fox News tap if Bill O'Reilly doesn't return?
NEW YORK (AP) - Fox News Channel expects Bill O'Reilly back from his vacation on April 24, ready to resume his position as cable television news' most popular host.
But given advertiser defections and the swirl of stories about payouts totaling $13 million to five women to keep harassment allegations quiet, it's impossible to dismiss the idea that Papa Bear may lose his television home for the past two decades. Fox News without Roger Ailes once seemed unthinkable, too, until the network chief's downfall following sexual harassment charges last summer.
Replacing the host who came to define the network would be no easy task. While Megyn Kelly wasn't as popular as O'Reilly, her departure for NBC in January is instructive. Tucker Carlson took over her 9 p.m. time slot and increased the ratings, evidence that Fox viewers are Fox viewers - loyal to the network and its ethos as much, if not more, than individual personalities. For that reason, it's a virtual certainty that whoever takes over O'Reilly's time slot will be somebody Fox viewers already know.
Don't dismiss the idea that Fox could do some shuffling to avoid giving someone the pressure of being "O'Reilly's replacement." Carlson could move an hour earlier. Sean Hannity has a loyal audience that might appreciate an earlier starting time, too.
With that in mind, here are some on Fox's bench.
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Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck file divorce petitions
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck filed divorce petitions Thursday, the first step in formally ending their marriage more than a year after they publicly declared their relationship was over.
The actors both filed divorce petitions in Los Angeles County Superior Court, citing irreconcilable differences and seeking joint custody of their three children, who range from 5 to 11.
The filings were made without attorneys and are virtually identical. Neither lists a date of separation.
The couple announced they were separating in June 2015 after 10 years of marriage.
"We go forward with love and friendship for one another and a commitment to co-parenting our children," Garner and Affleck said in a joint statement at the time. "This will be our only comment on this private, family matter."
BOSTON (AP) - A new exhibition of Sandro Botticelli's paintings, including some never seen in the U.S., will give museumgoers a glimpse into the artist's own search for sanctity.
The show, "Botticelli and the Search for the Divine," opens Saturday at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. It showcases valuable works from the Italian Renaissance master's catalog, including a life-size "Venus" painting being displayed in America for the first time.
"We're giving the American public a chance to take a trip to Renaissance Florence," said Frederick Ilchman, who curated the exhibit for the museum.
FILE- In this Wednesday, March 2, 2016 file photo a person photographs a painting by Sandro Botticelli called 'Venus' during the press view for the V&A's spring exhibition Botticelli Reimagined, in London. A new exhibition of Italian Renaissance master Sandro Botticelli's paintings opens this weekend in Boston, "Botticelli and the Search for the Divine" at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
The exhibition aims to tell how Botticelli developed as an artist. For lovers of Italian Renaissance art, a proper Botticelli show in America is long overdue.
Botticelli seems to be having a renaissance of his own hundreds of years later after being all but forgotten and surpassed by younger geniuses like Leonardo da Vinci, said David Nolta, a professor of art history at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design.
"Botticelli has not always enjoyed the fame and popularity he does today," Nolta said.
The exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts features 24 paintings on loan from Italian museums, including the famous Uffizi Gallery in Florence. There also will be a Botticelli painting from the MFA's permanent collection, and two on loan from the Harvard and Isabella Stewart Gardner Museums.
Visitors will notice how Botticelli practiced dual specialties: religious paintings, a specialty for the majority of Renaissance artists; and classical mythology, including several goddess figures covered by little more than their flowing or braided hair.
"He set the standard for beauty in the 15th century, and it is one that we - in the 21st century - still respond to," Ilchman said.
Perhaps the most celebrated piece in the exhibition is "Venus," a reworking of Botticelli's most famous painting, "Birth of Venus." Completed around 1490, the wood panel painting depicts the goddess of love wearing a sheer covering and knee-length auburn hair. "Venus" is on loan from the Galleria Sabauda in Turin, Italy.
On loan from the Uffizi is a painting titled "Minerva and the Centaur." In the artist's exploration of rational thought verses animal instinct, the painting shows a goddess overcoming a half-man, half-horse beast.
Botticelli's work takes a turn, however, when a new ruler comes to power in the late 15th century. Friar Girolamo Savonarola was a devout preacher who banned secular arts and culture because it was thought to be sinful in nature. After Savonarola, Botticelli painted only religious impressions and dropped his specialty of sensual goddesses and mythological creatures.
"The mood can be severe and even mournful," Ilchman said of Botticelli's later works. "It's a response to a change in politics and religious that is borne out in the artwork itself."
"Botticelli and the Search for the Divine" runs through July 9.
In this Thursday, Jan. 15, 2015 file photo people stand in front of the 'Venus' by Italian painter Sandro Botticelli during a news conference about the planned exhibition 'The Botticelli Renaissance' in Berlin. A new exhibition of Italian Renaissance master Sandro Botticelli's paintings opens this weekend in Boston, "Botticelli and the Search for the Divine" at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
In an ideal world, the business side of an enterprise is responsible for setting the revenue goals and then meeting them, while the IT side of the house is responsible for providing the technology support needed to meet those business goals. As Chief Technology Officer of Ness Digital Engineering, I often meet with CMOs and IT leaders of enterprises looking for help as they adapt to a new era of digital transformation. In many cases, the relationship between IT and the business side of the house is far from harmonious.
This fractured relationship has gone through several phases. In the bad old days before digital transformation, IT had the upper hand, because no new business initiative could be launched without IT's blessing that the underlying infrastructure provided high performance, reliability and security. Tasked with being the protectors, many IT departments became overly cautious, withholding their approval for simple changes needed by the business, while IT examined every possible angle. Paralyzed by fear of being wrong, they slowed down to a pace that choked the business.
Then, the era of digital transformation began. Many companies' products became digital rather than physical, consumers came to expect instantaneous multi-channel transparency over the entire fulfillment process, and fast-moving disruptors changed the rules in many industries. The balance of power shifted away from IT, as business innovators within the enterprise began to find ways to work around their IT department to quickly launch customer-facing, revenue-generating products. IT has been slow to respond to these changes, as they attempt to become more agile and more responsive to business needs.
Today the business side of the house clearly has the upper hand, to the point where IT is, in many cases, an afterthought. For example, I was at a meeting recently with a newly appointed IT manager who had years of business experience but no technical background. He could not understand why his company's data was in such disarray, with multiple data sources that contradicted each other and could not be brought together into a single comprehensive dashboard. To him it sounded like a straightforward technical problem with a clear solution that simply required fixing the plumbing. But, solving this kind of data problem is more akin to art than to plumbing there are a number of possible solutions, each with its own subtle trade-offs, and it requires a great deal of technical experience to make the right choices. At the end of the day, without responsible technical guidance, these customer-facing systems will collapse due to reliability and security flaws.
Aristotle defined the Golden Mean as the harmonious middle between two extremes. For example, the balance between extravagance and miserliness is moderate giving, and the golden mean between rashness and indecisiveness is careful action. The relationship between IT and business to date has gone through extremes, with either IT or the business side dominating to the detriment of the business. Digital transformation demands a more balanced relationship, where the business side innovates with new revenue-generating applications at the pace needed to survive in a digital world, and the IT department provides the solid technologies needed to meet those business goals in a timely and agile fashion.
How can you move your company closer to the Golden Mean? Here are some best practices:
IT needs to get more agile. The days of issuing detailed Requests for Proposals for three-year projects are over, because no one can predict the business priorities in six months, let alone three years. Software development practices have to adapt to handle this dynamic environment by embracing methodologies such as agile development, Minimum Viable Products, Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment. On the hardware side, IT must embrace the Cloud in order to provide the Business with flexibility and scalability, and to reduce CAPEX.
Business needs to stop working around IT. If you get a time estimate you dont like from IT, avoid the temptation to work around them, e.g., by setting up your own SWAT team. The result could be a system that doesn't integrate with other corporate systems or doesnt meet your industry's security standards. You'll get the best result by working with IT - understand the constraints that led to their time estimate and work with them to prioritize features so you get a Minimum Viable Product in time.
Make sure IT and Business are involved in every project from the outset. If the project is initiated by IT to solve an infrastructure issue such as platform modernization, Business can help prioritize the order in which customer-facing systems should be modernized based on business pain points. If the project is driven by the Business, e.g., to provide a new revenue-generating feature, IT can ensure that the defined features are implementable in the desired time frame.
IT should leverage partnerships to accelerate delivery. Your company probably has limited experience in technologies you need to deploy in order to keep up with your competitors, e.g., Cloud, Big Data, Machine Learning. In the past, many IT departments have been reluctant to outsource anything due to a fear of creating vendor lock-in or external dependencies. To move at the pace of the new digital economy, you'll need external partners for their outside-in perspective and their experience to help you rapidly adopt new technologies and satisfy new business needs. The key word here is partner look for companies that will work with you over the long term in win-win frameworks.
Companies that can arrive at the Golden Mean of harmony between Business and IT will have a fighting chance to survive and flourish in the digital economy.
About the Author
Moshe has extensive experience in leading adoption of bleeding edge technologies, having worked for large companies as well as entrepreneurial start-ups. Moshe previously headed the Big Data Centre of Excellence at Barclays Israel Development Centre (IDEC).
Moshe has worked in the high tech industry for over 30 years in the United States and Israel. He was part of the Emmy award-winning team that designed the scrambling system for DIRECTV, and he holds 6 patents in areas related to pay television, computer security and text mining. He has led R&D teams at companies such as Zoomix (purchased by Microsoft (News - Alert)) and NDS (purchased by Cisco). He is a graduate of Brandeis University and earned graduate degrees from both the University of California at Berkeley and Boston University.
If youd like to learn more about digital transformation, be sure to check out TMC (News - Alert) and Crossfire Medias newest conference and expo, Communications 20/20, happening July 18-20 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. The event will focus on the next wave of technology and innovations that will transcend the importance of person to person contact, disrupting the future of the entire communications industry. Find out more HERE.
Edited by Alicia Young
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) - Turkey's Interior Ministry says police have detained 412 suspected Kurdish militants in a security sweep.
The ministry said in a statement Thursday that the suspects were rounded up in police operations in 21 provinces late on Wednesday.
In addition, the statement said 131 Islamic State group suspects were detained in operations in 13 provinces in the past week.
The operations came a day after the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, claimed an attack against a police station in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir, which was carried out with a ton of explosives planted inside a tunnel dug by rebels.
Turkey has been rocked by a series of deadly attacks by the two groups.
The country is holding a referendum on Sunday on expanding the president's powers.
SYDNEY (AP) - A former Australian foreign affairs minister has dubbed Donald Trump the most "psychologically ill-equipped president" in American history, and called on Australia to distance itself from the United States in favor of forging closer ties with China.
Gareth Evans, who served as Australia's foreign minister from 1988 to 1996, urged Australia to become more independent, back away from its longtime reliance on the U.S. and instead recognize China as a "global rule-maker."
In a speech to the National Press Club in Canberra, Evans questioned whether Australia's historically close alliance with the U.S. still serves the nation's interests amid China's rising power and Trump's unpredictable leadership.
FILE - In this Oct. 21, 2008, file photo, Gareth Evans, former Australian Foreign Minister, speaks to reporters in Sydney. Evans on Thursday, April 13, 2017, called Donald Trump the most "psychologically ill-equipped president" in U.S. history, and called on Australia to distance itself from the United States in favor of forging closer ties with China. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft, File)
"The Australia-United States alliance has become much more immediately salient since the election of Donald Trump - manifestly, the most ill-informed, underprepared, ethically challenged and psychologically ill-equipped president in the United States history," said Evans, who is now the chancellor of the Australian National University. "Personally driven by instinct and impulse, unhampered by knowledge or judgment, he has led an administration acting so far manifestly on the basis of postures, not of policies."
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has repeatedly rejected arguments that Australia must choose between its most important security partner, the U.S., and its most important trading partner, China, as tensions escalate between the economic superpowers.
Evans said Australia shouldn't abandon its alliance with the United States, but said the government should stop reflexively supporting everything the U.S. does, such as Trump's decision to launch missiles at a Syrian air base. Turnbull praised the strike as "a calibrated, proportionate and targeted response."
The relationship between the longtime allies is at its lowest point in decades. Australia was disappointed by Trump's decision to pull the U.S. out of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact. Relations soured further following a widely publicized spat between Turnbull and Trump over a refugee resettlement deal struck by the previous Obama administration.
The countries will look to shore up relations during a visit to Australia next week by Vice President Mike Pence, who is also planning stops in Korea, Japan and Indonesia on a tour of the Asia-Pacific region.
BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) - A former director of the CIA and former supreme commander of NATO will join other former high-ranking officials in the Romanian capital to discuss a wide range of issues from migration to terrorism.
The May 4-5 meeting organized by Romanian think tank Strategikon will also focus on populism and Britain's decision to leave the European Union.
A statement sent to The Associated Press Thursday said there will be discussions on the need for officials to cooperate with the private sector and academics.
Former CIA director David Petraeus and retired U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, who oversaw sweeping changes at NATO to deal with a resurgent Russia and the threat of armed Islamic extremism in the Middle East and Africa, will also attend. Breedlove left the post in 2016.
Here are the AP's latest coverage plans, top stories and promotable content. All times EDT.
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TOP STORIES
In this April 7, 2017 photo, Can Dundar the former chief editor of the Turkish newspaper Cumhuriyet and now chief editor of the German-Turkish journalistic platform and website 'Ozguruz', which can be translated as 'We Are Free', poses for a photo prior to an interview with the Associated Press in Berlin. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
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UNITED-PASSENGER REMOVED - The passenger dragged from a United flight lost two front teeth and suffered a broken nose and a concussion, one of his lawyers says, accusing the airline industry of having "bullied" its customers for far too long. By Don Babwin and Sara Burnett. SENT: 800 words. UPCOMING: New version, 650 words, photos, by 3 p.m. Developing from City Council hearing scheduled for 2 p.m. WITH: UNITED-BAD BEHAVIOR EXPOSED - With smartphones, customers are corporate whistleblowers; UNITED PASSENGER-POLICE RESPONSE - Experts say police who dragged passenger had other options (both sent).
TRUMP-MODERATE MAKEOVER - President Donald Trump is abandoning many of his hard-line conservative campaign promises - evidence of the rising influence of moderate forces in the White House, on-the-job-training and a president's desire to begin notching wins. By Jill Colvin. UPCOMING: 800 words by 5 p.m., photos. WITH: TRUMP-FACT CHECK - Trump gives skewed accounts of U.S. relations over time with Russia, auto jobs and health care and contradicts himself on how long he's known his right-hand strategist, Steve Bannon. SENT: 1,135 words, photos.
UNITED STATES-AFGHANISTAN - U.S. forces in Afghanistan struck an Islamic State tunnel complex in Afghanistan with "the mother of all bombs," the largest non-nuclear weapon every used in combat by the U.S. military. By Robert Burns. SENT: 250 words, photo. UPCOMING: Developing.
SYRIA - The Syrian government and opposition are to begin a coordinated population swap of tens of thousands of people from four besieged towns, the largest such demographic shift in the civil war. The swap, which brings loyalists closer to government strongholds and pushes dissidents out to the margins, ends the siege and starvation of the towns - but also proves that such controversial tactics can yield results. By Philip Issa. SENT: 800 words, photos. UPCOMING: New approach of 900 words, photos, video by 5 p.m.
BODIES IN PARK - The bodies of four men, all described as having suffered "significant trauma," were discovered in a park in a suburban New York neighborhood that has for years contended with a growing problem of gang violence. By Frank Eltman. SENT: 500 words, photos. UPCOMING: New approach of 500 words by 5 p.m.
UNITED NATIONS-PEACEKEEPERS - U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley warns countries that they would lose funding if they fail to hold their peacekeepers accountable for sexual abuse and exploitation, a threat that came after she cited an Associated Press investigation into a child sex ring in Haiti involving Sri Lankan peacekeepers. By Paisley Dodds and Edith Lederer. UPCOMING: 800 words, photos by 3 p.m. WITH: UNITED NATIONS-HAITI - The Security Council votes unanimously to end the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti in mid-October after more than 20 years (sent).
OMAN-CARBON MOUNTAINS - Deep in the jagged red mountains of Oman, geologists are drilling in search of the holy grail of reversing climate change: an efficient and cheap way to remove carbon dioxide from the air and oceans. They are coring samples from one of the world's only exposed sections of the Earth's mantle to uncover how a spontaneous natural process millions of years ago transformed CO2 into limestone and marble. By Sam McNeil. SENT: 890 words, photos, video.
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WHAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT
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FAST AND FURIOUS-ARREST - Mexico arrests suspected shooter of border agent Brian Terry. SENT: 500 words.
VATICAN-HOLY THURSDAY - On Holy Friday, Pope Francis heads to a maximum-security prison to wash the feet of 12 inmates. SENT: 400 words, photos. UPCOMING: Developing.
TV-SURVIVOR - 'Survivor' contestant outs fellow competitor as transgender. SENT: 500 words, photos.
TODDLER DEATH-VERDICT - Father convicted of murdering baby son for life insurance. SENT: 500 words, photos.
IDENTITY THEFT-ANCESTRY WEBSITE - Ancestry.com helps family of dead boy find man posing as him. SENT: 600 words, photos.
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WASHINGTON & POLITICS
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TRUMP-DINA POWELL - A snapshot of President Donald Trump's makeshift situation room at Mar-a-Lago affirmed what White House insiders have sensed for some time - that national security aide Dina Powell has quietly established herself as a White House power. By Catherine Lucey. UPCOMING: 750 words by 5 p.m., photos.
TAX DAY-PROTESTS - Democrats and activists are using Tax Day to demand that Trump release his returns with a series of protests on Saturday. By Kevin Freking. UPCOMING: 600 words by 4 p.m.
PRUITT-EPA-COAL MINE - Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt talks to coal miners about the president's decision to eliminate numerous restrictions on fossil fuel production. UPCOMING: Developing from noon visit, 500 words by 4 p.m., photos.
IMMIGRATION-VISAS - While the national discussion on immigration focuses on securing the U.S.-Mexico border with a multibillion dollar wall, travelers who overstay their visits have become the main source of illegal immigration in the United States.: 950 words, photo.
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NATIONAL
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JUDGE FOUND DEAD - Police say there are no signs of criminality in the death of the first black woman appointed to New York state's highest court whose body was found on the bank of the Hudson River. SENT: 400 words, photos.
ARKANSAS EXECUTIONS-OPPONENTS - While outrage on social media is growing over Arkansas' unprecedented plan to put seven inmates to death before the end of the month, the protests have been more muted within the conservative Southern state where capital punishment is still favored by a majority of residents. SENT: 770 words, photos.
OHIO FAMILY KILLED - Investigators are offering little new information about the unsolved massacre of eight family members in Ohio nearly a year after the still-unsolved killings. SENT: 700 words, photos.
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INTERNATIONAL
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IRAQ-US MEDICS - A boy and a woman are delivered to the gates of the clinic by an Iraqi ambulance, bandaged and in pain. They arrive without names, ages and with only the sketchiest details of what had happened to them. Apparently shot by accident outside their house in western Mosul, where fighting continues between Iraqi forces and Islamic State group militants, U.S. medics working in a state-of-the-art field clinic here could only assume they were mother and son. By Mstyslav Chernov and Tomislav Skaro. SENT: 700 words, photos, video.
RUSSIA-GAYS - International organizations are urging the Russian government to investigate the reported abuse and killings of gay men in Russia's southern republic of Chechnya. SENT: 400 words, photos.
SERBIA-FATIMA'S STORY - A car crammed with migrants crashes in Serbia, turning a 26-year-old Afghan woman's dream into a nightmare and highlighting the dangers faced by people relying on smugglers to take them through the Balkans to western Europe. Now all Fatima Bakhshi wants is to get to Ireland with her sons. SENT: 900 words, photos.
KOREAS-TENSION - Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has warned that North Korea may be capable of firing a missile loaded with sarin nerve gas toward Japan. SENT: 750 words, photos.
ISRAEL-50 YEARS LATER-SETTLING JERUSALEM - For many Israelis, Har Homa is just another neighborhood in Jerusalem, its quiet streets lined with apartment buildings, pizza shops and supermarkets. But for Palestinians and much of the world, this unassuming neighborhood is an illegal settlement in east Jerusalem, and in some ways, the most damaging. By Josef Federman and Karin Laub. SENT: 1,760 words, photos, video, graphic. An abridged version of 970 words has also been sent. With PALESTINIANS-POLITICS- Abbas seeks "unprecedented" steps to end Palestinian split.
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BUSINESS
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AUTO SHOW-WHEELS TO WATCH - Thursday at the New York International Auto Show was a day for automakers that sell to the wealthiest of car buyers to show their high-powered stuff. Prices for these cars range from hundreds of thousands of dollars to the millions. SENT: 380 words.
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HEALTH/SCIENCE/TECHNOLOGY
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MILLION-DOLLAR LESSONS -Teachers selling lessons to other teachers online has become a booming business. It's a trend driven by higher standards and teachers willing to pay out of their own pockets for classroom-tested material. At least one site, Teachers Pay Teachers, says it's helped make millionaires out of some of its contributors since launching 10 years ago. By Carolyn Thompson. SENT: 980 words, photos. TOP VIDEO: - US Million Dollar Lessons (CR HFR) - Million-dollar teachers: Selling lessons online.
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ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
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STAR WARS CELEBRATION-40 YEAR ANNIVERSARY - Harrison Ford, George Lucas, Mark Hamill and others gathered in Orlando for a 40th celebration of "Star Wars," which included a special tribute to the late Carrie Fisher that featured her daughter Billie Lourd. By Film Writer Lindsey Bahr. SENT: 130 words, photos. UPCOMING: Developing.
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HOW TO REACH US
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At the Nerve Center, Ron DePasquale can be reached at 800-845-8450 (ext. 1600). For photos, Alyssa Goodman (ext. 1900). For graphics and interactives, Phil Holm (ext. 7636). Expanded AP content can be obtained from http://www.apexchange.com. For access to AP Exchange and other technical issues, contact apcustomersupport@ap.org or call 877-836-9477.
This photo provided by Hawar News Agency, a Kurdish-run news agency, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows fighters from the predominantly-Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces carrying the coffins of their comrades, who were killed Tuesday by a misdirected airstrike by the U.S.-led coalition, during their funeral procession, in Tal al-Abyad, northeast Syria, Thursday, April 13, 2017. U.S. Central Command said coalition aircraft were given the wrong coordinates by their partner forces, the Syrian Democratic Forces, for a strike intended to target Islamic State militants south of their Tabqa stronghold. (Hawar News Agency via AP)
Covered in prayer shawls Jewish men of the Cohanim priestly caste participate in a blessing during the Passover holiday, in front of the Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can pray in Jerusalem's Old City, Thursday, April 13, 2017. The Cohanim, believed to be descendants of priests who served God in the Jewish Temple before it was destroyed, perform a blessing ceremony of the Jewish people three times a year during the festivals of Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
Penitents prepare to take part in the procession of the "Exaltacion de La Santa Cruz" brotherhood, during Holy Week in Zaragoza, northern Spain, Thursday, April 13, 2017. Hundreds of processions take place throughout Spain during the Easter Holy Week. (AP Photo/Alvaro Barrientos)
ADDS ID OF MAN AT CENTER - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, right, and Choe Ryong Hae, vice-chairman of the central committee of the Workers' Party, arrive for the official opening of the Ryomyong residential area, Thursday, April 13, 2017, in Pyongyang, North Korea. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) - A counterterrorism court in Saudi Arabia has sentenced a poet to two months imprisonment for poetry deemed insulting to security officials.
The state-linked Saudi Okaz reported Thursday that the poet, whose name was not published, had shared the poem on Twitter and YouTube.
The news website says the Specialized Criminal Court in the capital, Riyadh, found the Saudi poet guilty of producing and publishing material that was disrespectful to security officials and that could harm public order. The court also ordered the poet's social media accounts closed.
Dozens of Saudi rights activists are behind bars or convicted under a sweeping counterterrorism law that equates demands for reform or criticism of the government as harmful to stability. Criticism of the monarchy, however, remains prevalent on Twitter and other social media sites.
NEW DELHI (AP) - An expert panel appointed by India's top environmental watchdog has said that damage caused by a cultural festival held on the banks of the Yamuna River a year ago would need at least a decade to be fixed.
The panel set up by the National Green Tribunal after the Art of Living Foundation's World Culture Festival said restoring the river banks would cost around 420 million rupees ($6.5 million).
The panel said Wednesday that construction of roads, ramps and a massive stage for the three-day spectacle damaged vast tracts of the river's flood plains.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and top Delhi government officials attended the festival hosted by Hindu spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar despite criticism from environmental activists about damage to the river banks.
BEIRUT (AP) - The Latest on Syria (all times local):
10:30 p.m.
A local official involved in the planned evacuations from four besieged areas in Syria says buses will start moving after sunrise Friday.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem listens during his meeting with Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in Moscow, Russia, on Thursday, April 13, 2017. Lavrov said he expected the OPCW ( Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons ) to conduct an extensive probe into the suspected nerve gas attack on Khan Sheikhoun, Syria, which could produce a report within about three weeks, the British delegation to the commission said Thursday. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)
Preparations had been underway Thursday for the evacuation of more than 10,000 residents from two pro-government Shiite villages in northern Syria, Foua and Kfarya, and the rebel-held towns of Madaya and Zabadani, near Damascus.
Dozens of buses entered the four areas, but no one had boarded them by late Thursday, according to opposition activists in Madaya and Zabadani.
Hakim Baghdadi, a member of the relief committee for Foua and Kfarya, told The Associated Press that evacuations will begin after sunrise Friday because it is safer.
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9:45 p.m.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says he and Russian President Vladimir Putin have agreed to support an investigation by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons into the use of chemical weapons in northern Syria.
Erdogan's office said in a statement that the two leaders held a telephone conversation on Thursday, during which the Turkish leader stressed that the use of chemical weapons "is the greatest crime against humanity."
The statement says "the two leaders agreed that the attack in question be investigated by the OPCW, which is an independent organization whose legitimacy is recognized."
Erdogan and Putin also discussed peace efforts for Syria and their joint efforts to extend a cease-fire agreement to the whole of the country.
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6 p.m.
Lebanon's state-run National News Agency says security force have arrested one of the most wanted men involved in "terrorism" and in backing al-Qaida's branch in Syria.
The agency said Thursday that Jalal Mansour was detained in northern Lebanon after changing his looks and using a fake identity card for months.
It said Mansour admitted to fighting against Lebanese troops in northern Lebanon in the past and was involved in smuggling weapons to the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front in Syria, now known as the Fatah al-Sham Front.
Mansour's brother, Osama was killed in a gunbattle with security forces in northern Lebanon in 2015.
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4:30 p.m.
The U.S. military says a misdirected airstrike this week killed 18 allied fighters battling the Islamic State group in northern Syria.
U.S. Central Command said Thursday that coalition aircraft were given the wrong coordinates by their partner forces, the predominantly-Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces, for a strike intended to target Islamic State militants south of their Tabqa stronghold.
The strike hit an SDF position instead, killing 18 fighters. Central Command says the incident occurred on Tuesday.
The SDF, with the help of air and ground support from the U.S.-led coalition, has surrounded Tabqa.
Several nations have lent their air power to the coalition to defeat the Islamic State group. It is not clear which air force was behind the strike.
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1:30 p.m.
Russia's foreign minister says Moscow expects the United Nations' chemical weapons watchdog to conduct an extensive probe into last week's chemical attack in Syria.
Sergey Lavrov said Thursday that inspectors from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons should both visit the Syrian air base, which the U.S. said had served as a platform for the attack, and the town of Khan Sheikhoun that was hit to get a full and objective picture.
He said Russia vetoed a Western draft U.N. resolution Wednesday because it failed to mention the need to inspect the area of the attack.
The U.S. blamed the Syrian government for launching the attack, but Russia claimed that the victims were killed by toxic agents released from a rebel chemical arsenal hit by Syrian warplanes.
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1:05 p.m.
A British delegation at a behind-closed-doors meeting of the international chemical weapons watchdog says in a tweet that the organization's director general has said that its investigators already are testing samples from a suspected deadly chemical weapons attack in Syria's Idlib province.
The British delegation tweet says that Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Director-General Ahmet Uzumcu told Thursday's hastily convened meeting of its executive council that the "Fact Finding Mission is working to gather evidence" about the April 4 attack in Khan Sheikhoun that killed nearly 90 people.
It says that samples already are being tested and the mission is expected to report its findings in three weeks.
The OPCW's Fact Finding Mission in Syria investigates alleged attacks, but does not apportion blame.
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12:50 p.m.
U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish forces say they have entered the fourth stage of their campaign to capture the Islamic State group's de facto capital Raqqa with an advance on the militants in a valley north of the city.
The Syrian Democratic Forces, which include Arab fighters, say they are working to clear the militants out of the Jalab Valley, north of Raqqa. An estimated 300,000 people are in the city.
The SDF says it wants to isolate Raqqa before attacking it. Their closest position is within 8 kilometers (5 miles) northeast of the city. But the countryside south of Raqqa is still under IS control.
It is unclear how many stages are planned for the SDF campaign.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov listens to his Syrian counterpart Walid Muallem during their meeting in Moscow, Russia, on Thursday, April 13, 2017. Lavrov said he expected the OPCW ( Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons ) to conduct an extensive probe into the suspected nerve gas attack on Khan Sheikhoun, Syria, which could produce a report within about three weeks, the British delegation to the commission said Thursday. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)
Teenage Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai called on Canada's leaders to take real action to improve educational opportunities for women in a speech to the country's Parliament.
She was speaking in Ottawa after becoming an honorary Canadian citizen on Wednesday.
And the 19-year-old made a humorous reference to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's celebrity status - noting his tattoos and suggesting that meeting him was more exciting to some than the citizenship.
Scroll down for video
Pakistani activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, left, is presented with an honorary Canadian citizenship by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
The Nobel Laureate waves as she arrives to address the House of Commons on Parliament Hill
Miss Yousafzai, who was shot in the head by Taliban militants in 2012, said: 'We have heard so much about Prime Minister Trudeau but one thing has surprised me: people are always talking about how young he is.
'They say that he's the second-youngest Prime Minister in Canadian history. He does yoga. He has tattoos. And a lot more.
'When I was coming here, everyone was telling me, like, "Shake the prime minister's hand and let us know how he looks in reality."
Miss Yousafzai is shown the guest book by Mr Trudeau. The teenager made the Prime Minister and his wife blush when she referred to his international celebrity status
'And people were just so excited about meeting Trudeau. I don't think anyone cared about the Canadian honorary citizenship.'
As she made her comments the Canadian premier and his wife Sophie blush while everyone one else laughed and clapped.
Miss Yousafzai was just 15 when she shot in her native Pakistan. She was targeted due to her advocacy for women's education.
Miss Yousafzai was just 15 when she shot in her native Pakistan by Taliban militants
Miss Yousafzai called on Canadian lawmakers to make education for girls a top priority when it hosts the G7 summit next year
She was originally scheduled to receive the honor in October 2014, but the ceremony was cancelled after a gunman attacked Canada's Parliament Hill that day.
Miss Yousafzai went on to ask lawmakers to make education for girls a top priority when the country hosts the G7 summit next year.
She said: 'I want to thank Canada for its passion for girls' education, for its passion for humanity, for refugees, and for standing up for women's rights, and for peace.'
MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AP) - Nigeria's government says negotiations with Boko Haram continue for the release of the remaining Chibok schoolgirls who were kidnapped three years ago by the extremist group, shocking the world.
The government "has gone quite far with negotiations," Vice President Yemi Osinbajo said Wednesday night.
He spoke shortly before Friday's three-year anniversary of the mass abduction of 276 schoolgirls from a village in the country's northeast. At least 195 of them remain captive.
Bring back our girls campaigners chant slogans during a protest calling on the government to rescue the remaining kidnapped girls of the government secondary school who were abducted almost three years ago, in Lagos, Nigeria Thursday, April. 13, 2017. Nigeria's government says negotiations continue for the release of the remaining Chibok schoolgirls who were kidnapped three years ago by Boko Haram extremists. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)
Nigeria in October announced the release of 21 Chibok schoolgirls, saying for the first time that it had been negotiating with the extremist group, mediated by the Swiss government and the International Committee of the Red Cross. The government denied a ransom was paid and that it had freed some detained Boko Haram fighters in exchange for the girls.
At the time, officials said they were pressing on with negotiations and expected the release of a second group of 83 girls "very soon." No more have been freed.
Osinbajo indicated that Nigeria has faced some challenges in the latest negotiations but didn't give details, citing security reasons.
The failure of Nigeria's former government to act quickly to free the girls sparked a global Bring Back Our Girls movement. Members of the movement demonstrated on Thursday in Lagos, Nigeria's commercial hub, demanding that the government do more.
The vice president said securing the safe release of the schoolgirls and others held by Boko Haram is "a matter of conscience."
Nigeria's military in the past year has rescued thousands of Boko Haram captives while liberating towns and villages from the group's control, but many have been detained as possible Boko Haram suspects.
The Nigeria-based Boko Haram's seven-year Islamic uprising has killed more than 20,000 people and driven 2.6 million from their homes, with millions facing starvation.
Bring back our girls campaigners chant slogans during a protest calling on the government to rescue the remaining kidnapped girls of the government secondary school who were abducted almost three years ago, in Lagos, Nigeria Thursday, April. 13, 2017. Nigeria's government says negotiations continue for the release of the remaining Chibok schoolgirls who were kidnapped three years ago by Boko Haram extremists. (AP Photo/ Sunday Alamba)
Bring back our girls campaigners chant slogans during a protest calling on the government to rescue the remaining kidnapped girls of the government secondary school who were abducted almost three years ago, in Lagos, Nigeria Thursday, April. 13, 2017. Nigeria's government says negotiations continue for the release of the remaining Chibok schoolgirls who were kidnapped three years ago by Boko Haram extremists. (AP Photo/ Sunday Alamba)
Bring back our girls campaigners chant slogans and sing during a protest calling on the government to rescue the remaining kidnapped girls of the government secondary school who were abducted almost three years ago, in Lagos, Nigeria Thursday, April. 13, 2017. Nigeria's government says negotiations continue for the release of the remaining Chibok schoolgirls who were kidnapped three years ago by Boko Haram extremists. (AP Photo/ Sunday Alamba)
Bring back our girls campaigners hold up banners during a protest calling on the government to rescue the remaining kidnapped girls of the government secondary school who were abducted almost three years ago, in Lagos, Nigeria Thursday, April. 13, 2017. Nigeria's government says negotiations continue for the release of the remaining Chibok schoolgirls who were kidnapped three years ago by Boko Haram extremists. (AP Photo/ Sunday Alamba)
BALI, Indonesia (AP) - An Indonesian court has sentenced a New Zealand woman to 2 years in jail for possessing methamphetamine.
The Denpasar District Court made the ruling against Myra Lynne Williams on Thursday. The 28-year-old was arrested last August last year when customs and narcotics agency officers confiscated 0.43 grams of crystal methamphetamine upon her arrival at Bali's airport from Melbourne.
Indonesia has very strict drug laws and convicted traffickers are often executed by firing squad. More than 150 people are on death row, mostly for drug crimes and about a third of them are foreigners.
Eighteen people convicted of drug-related offenses have been executed under the current administration of President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Wells Fargo's first-quarter profit was essentially flat from a year earlier as new customers continue to stay away from the bank following its sales practice scandal.
The company said Thursday that new checking account openings were down 35 percent in March from the same month a year ago. New credit card applications were down 42 percent.
Overall, Wells Fargo reported net income of $5.46 billion, or $1 per share, in the quarter ending March 31, compared with $5.46 billion, or 99 cents per share, in the same quarter a year ago. The results surpassed Wall Street expectations of 97 cents per share, according to Zacks Investment Research.
The company posted revenue of $23.93 billion in the period. Its adjusted revenue was $22 billion, falling short of Street forecasts of $22.13 billion, according to Zacks.
Last year, regulators fined the San Francisco bank $185 million for opening more than two million accounts fraudulently by employees to meet sales goals.
Earlier this week, the San Francisco released its investigation into the scandal, and said it clawed back another $75 million in pay from former CEO John Stumpf and former community bank executive Carrie Tolstedt, saying that the executives took too long to realize problems at the company.
Shares of Wells Fargo were down 1.5 percent to $52.35 in premarket trading Thursday. The stock is about 8 percent in the last year.
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Elements of this were generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on WFC at https://www.zacks.com/ap/WFC
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Keywords: Wells Fargo, Earnings Report, Priority Earnings
VATICAN CITY (AP) - Pope Francis washed the feet of a dozen inmates at a maximum security prison on Holy Thursday in a pre-Easter ritual meant to show his willingness to serve society's most marginal and give them hope. Francis urged the prisoners to help one another out and similarly "be the servant of others."
Francis travelled to the Paliano detention center, located in a fortress south of Rome, to celebrate the Holy Thursday Mass at the only Italian prison dedicated to housing mafia turncoats. These "collaborators of justice" can shave time off their sentences by cooperating with anti-mafia prosecutors.
Nevertheless, many of the inmates are serving lengthy terms: Two of the 12 inmates who participated in the foot-washing ceremony are serving life terms. The remaining 10 are due to be released between 2019 and 2073. Francis also visited two other inmates currently in solitary confinement.
Pope Francis leaves after celebrating a Chrism Mass in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican Thursday, April 13, 2017. During the Mass the Pontiff blesses a token amount of oil that will be used to administer the sacraments for the year. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
In his homily, Francis reminded the inmates that his gesture of washing their feet re-enacted the revolutionary gesture of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples before he was crucified, essentially doing the work of a slave out of love.
"If you can do something, a service for your companions in prison, do it," Francis urged them during his homily. "This is love. This is like washing feet: to be the servant of others."
It's the third Holy Thursday that Francis has spent at a detention center, part of his longstanding emphasis on ministering to prisoners and the need to give them rehabilitation and hope.
"The Holy Father gave us message not just of hope, but he told us that the love of God is great and is ready to forgive everyone," prison director Nadia Cersosimo told Vatican Radio.
Because of the nature of the prison, its inmates and their families, Francis' visit was conducted under unusually strict privacy: Vatican Radio only aired edited excerpts of his homily after the fact, and the Vatican's television service planned edited TV footage. Usually the pope's activities are covered live by at least Vatican TV and radio, if not independent media.
Paliano has 60 to 70 inmates, including about 50 mafia turncoats. The prison also houses four women and has a special ward for tuberculosis-infected inmates.
The Vatican said three of the 12 inmates who had their feet washed are women and one is a Muslim who is due to be baptized a Christian in June. Prisoners prepared cakes as gifts and offered the pope zucchini and cucumbers from the prison's organic garden.
In an interview published Thursday in Rome daily La Repubblica, Francis said his emphasis on reaching out to inmates comes from his heart, as well as the biblical imperative to visit prisoners and accompany the least of society.
"When I'm looking at a prisoner, I ask myself: 'Why him and not me?'" he said. "'Why did he fall and not me?' It's a mystery that brings me closer to them."
Francis opened the most solemn period of the Catholic Church's liturgical calendar by celebrating Mass on Thursday morning in St. Peter's Basilica before heading to Paliano. On Friday, he participates in the torch-lit procession at Rome's Colosseum re-enacting Christ's crucifixion.
Saturday brings the late-night Easter vigil, with Easter Sunday Mass the following day.
Prints hold an amphora containing holy oil as Pope Francis celebrates a Chrism Mass in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican Thursday, April 13, 2017. During the Mass the Pontiff blesses a token amount of oil that will be used to administer the sacraments for the year. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
Pope Francis blows inside an amphora containing holy oil during a Chrism Mass in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican Thursday, April 13, 2017. During the Mass the Pontiff blesses a token amount of oil that will be used to administer the sacraments for the year. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
Pope Francis blows inside an amphora containing holy oil during a Chrism Mass in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican Thursday, April 13, 2017. During the Mass the Pontiff blesses a token amount of oil that will be used to administer the sacraments for the year. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
Pope Francis blows inside an amphora containing holy oil during a Chrism Mass in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican Thursday, April 13, 2017. During the Mass the Pontiff blesses a token amount of oil that will be used to administer the sacraments for the year. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
Pope Francis blows inside an amphora containing holy oil during a Chrism Mass in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican Thursday, April 13, 2017. During the Mass the Pontiff blesses a token amount of oil that will be used to administer the sacraments for the year. (L'Osservatore Romano/Pool Photo via AP)
Pope Francis blows inside an amphora containing holy oil during a Chrism Mass in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican Thursday, April 13, 2017. During the Mass the Pontiff blesses a token amount of oil that will be used to administer the sacraments for the year. (L'Osservatore Romano/Pool Photo via AP)
PODGORICA, Montenegro (AP) - Montenegro's special prosecutor indicted two Russians and 12 other people Thursday for allegedly plotting a coup that included plans to kill the country's former prime minister.
A high court in the capital of Podgorica said the 14 defendants - among them the Russians and two top opposition leaders - were charged with "creating a criminal organization."
The Russians, said by the prosecutor to be Kremlin military secret service operatives, additionally were charged with "terrorism."
FILE - In this Sunday, Oct. 16, 2016 file photo, Montenegrin police officers escort a suspected man in Podgorica, Montenegro. Montenegro's special prosecution has filed indictments against 14 persons, including two Russians, accusing them of attempting a coup that included plans to kill the small Balkan country's former prime minister Milo Djukanovic. A high court in the capital of Podgorica said Thursday, April 13 all 14 suspects are charged with "creating a criminal organization."(AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic, File)
The court has 15 days to decide whether to accept or reject the indictments.
Montenegrin authorities said they thwarted an October election day attempt by Serb and Russian nationalists to take over parliament, assassinate then-prime minister Milo Djukanovic and install pro-Russian leadership to prevent Montenegro from joining NATO.
The Russians, identified as Eduard Shishmakov and Vladimir Popov, allegedly coordinated the operation from neighboring Serbia.
They were allowed to return to Russia despite acknowledgment by Serbian officials that they operated from Serbia with encrypted mobile phones, and are at large.
Andrija Mandic, one of the two indicted Montenegrin opposition leaders, on Thursday said the charges were part of "a staged political process against the opposition."
"We didn't take part in any criminal deeds," Mandic said.
Russia, which is strongly against NATO's expansion in Europe, has repeatedly denied involvement in the alleged coup attempt. But it openly supported groups in Montenegro that oppose the small Balkan country joining the Western military alliance.
NATO invited Montenegro - a traditional Russian ally - to join as its 29th member in December 2015.
The U.S. Senate backed Montenegro's accession last month, a message that the U.S. will push back against Russian efforts to increase its influence in Europe. President Donald Trump signed the ratification earlier this week.
"Involving Montenegro into NATO is profoundly erroneous, disagrees with fundamental interests of people in that country, and damages stability in the Balkans and in Europe as a whole," the Russian Foreign Ministry said Thursday.
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Dusan Stojanovic contributed from Belgrade, Serbia.
SAKHIR, Bahrain (AP) - With a grin of excitement, Fernando Alonso explained how his crash course for the Indianapolis 500 will include watching old footage on flights between Formula One races.
The two-time F1 champion will compete in IndyCar for the first time next month, and skip the prestigious Monaco Grand Prix in order to do so.
That does not give the 35-year-old Spaniard much time. He has three F1 races for McLaren - in Bahrain, Russia and then Spain - before he makes his IndyCar debut on May 28 in Indianapolis.
McLaren driver Fernando Alonso of Spain speaks to reporters during a news conference ahead the Bahrain Formula One Grand Prix at the Formula One Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir, Bahrain, Thursday, April 13, 2017. The Bahrain Formula One Grand Prix will take place on Sunday. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
"On the planes I will try and look at some videos and races from the last years. I'm not ready at the moment, but the next couple of weeks I'm confident I can adapt," Alonso said Thursday at the Bahrain GP. "I'm not in my comfort zone driving those cars or thinking of those cars. But I'm not afraid of trying."
Alonso's motivation is part of a wider ambition that also includes the Le Mans 24 Hours endurance race.
"If I want to win the triple crown I have to make the first step this year. It's a win-win situation. It's good for Formula One and this big market in North America we've been pursuing for many years," Alonso said. "It's good to go to America and showing this respect to IndyCar. Inside the McLaren team, to be racing at the same time in Monte Carlo and Indy 500 it's an amazing thing."
Alonso is still widely considered among the best drivers in F1, despite the fact he has not won the world title since 2006 and not even won a race since 2013. Insiders credit that to him not having a good enough car, rather than no longer having the skills.
Alonso, who has 32 grand prix victories, didn't earn a point in the first two races of the 2017 season - in Australia and China - and McLaren is struggling to be competitive, just like last season. Despite his advancing age and the ongoing frustrations, Alonso still has a burning ambition to distinguish himself as one of the best drivers of all time.
"There were two options. The first is to win another six F1 titles, one more than Michael (Schumacher), and I don't think that's going to happen," Alonso said, laughing. "The second one is to win different series in different years. That's very challenging and very attractive."
Alonso is not yet sure when he will take up the Le Mans challenge.
"As soon as I can," he said. "I don't know if it will be next year or the following years."
McLaren is back in the Indianapolis 500 for the first time in 38 years with Alonso's entry, a Dallara DW12 chassis run by Andretti Autosport. Team owner Michael Andretti is a former IndyCar champion who raced in Formula One for McLaren in 1993.
Andretti's team won at the Brickyard last year with Indy 500 rookie driver Alexander Rossi, the former F1 test driver.
Alonso's hectic preparations begin as soon as he steps out of the F1 cockpit after Sunday's race in the sweltering heat of Bahrain.
"I will be next weekend in Alabama, just vising the race, meeting the team members," he said. "I will do the seat testing on Monday."
McLaren is run by Zak Brown, who had an Indianapolis-based marketing firm for years before his gradual move into Formula One.
"Zak is a man who has a bigger vision than other team principals or bosses that I had. He sees motorsport differently," Alonso said. "He sees McLaren bigger, not just concentrated on Formula One. He's a true racer. I think it's great that McLaren and Zak joined forces last year."
Alonso, however, is realistic enough to know that, under better circumstances, he would have been racing in Monaco.
"If the car was competitive this year, you could not afford to lose 25 points in one race," he said.
Alonso's decision to try another series is not totally unique. In 2015, F1 driver Nico Hulkenberg won Le Mans with Porsche.
Three-time F1 champion Lewis Hamilton, who drives for Mercedes and has 54 career race wins in F1, sounded a little envious of Alonso.
"I think us drivers should be able to do more than one series," Hamilton said. "It would be so much different for us to do that: How the car is set up, the banking, how much you lift, how much you use your tires.
"It's not an easy thing to do in one go," Hamilton said. "But you've got one of the best drivers in the world there."
McLaren driver Fernando Alonso of Spain, gives an interview to a reporter in the paddock, ahead of the Bahrain Formula One Grand Prix at the Formula One Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir, Bahrain, Thursday, April 13, 2017. Two-time Formula One champion Fernando Alonso is confident that in short time he can get up to speed for the Indianapolis 500, even though he has never before raced in IndyCar or on a superspeedway. The Bahrain Formula One Grand Prix will take place on Sunday. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)
McLaren driver Fernando Alonso of Spain, walks in the paddock prior to a news conference, ahead the Bahrain Formula One Grand Prix at the Formula One Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir, Bahrain, Thursday, April 13, 2017. Two-time Formula One champion Fernando Alonso is confident that in short time he can get up to speed for the Indianapolis 500, even though he has never before raced in IndyCar or on a superspeedway. The Bahrain Formula One Grand Prix will take place on Sunday. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) - Firefighters in Kansas rescued a cat from a tree. They also rescued its owner.
The Topeka Capital-Journal (http://bit.ly/2or19ma ) reports that the woman climbed the tree Wednesday trying to get to her cat but she wasn't able to get back down.
Topeka Fire Department Shift Commander Todd Williams says the woman and her cat were about 16 feet up in a large tree when they were plucked out.
What's more, he says such rescues aren't that uncommon in Topeka.
The cat owner's name wasn't released.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) - Police have charged a Kentucky woman with murder in the death of her infant son.
News outlets report that 26-year-old Dailyn Cruz Abrera of Louisville was arrested Wednesday and charged with killing 3-month-old Lucas Paez Cruz. The arrest warrant says she called dispatchers on March 30 and said she had smothered her baby and "wanted to know the fastest way to die."
Louisville officers arrived at the home and found the boy dead in a bed.
Online jail records show the mother was being held in the Louisville jail on a $500,000 cash bond. The records didn't indicate whether she has an attorney.
PHOENIX (AP) - The Latest on the arrest of a fugitive accused in the 2010 killing of a U.S. Border Patrol agent (all times local):
3:24 p.m.
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Thursday that the arrest of a Mexican man suspected of gunning down Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December 2010 sends a strong message to fugitives.
Sessions said in a statement that the United States will hunt down and find anyone who takes the life of an American citizen, especially a law enforcement officer.
Mexican authorities arrested Heraclio Osorio-Arellanes on Wednesday in the state of Chihuahua.
Terry's death revealed a bungled gun-tracking operation by the government in which federal agents allowed criminals to buy guns in the U.S. with the intention of tracking them. But agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives lost track of most of the guns, and two were found at the scene of Terry's murder.
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12:50 p.m.
The family of a Border Patrol agent whose 2010 death exposed a bungled U.S. gun-running operation says the arrest of a Mexican suspect in his killing is "fantastic news."
Robert Heyer, cousin of 40-year-old Brian Terry, said Thursday that the arrest of Heraclio Osorio-Arellanes reassures the family that the culprits all will be brought to justice.
Osorio-Arellanes was one of two remaining fugitives. Four others involved in Terry's death have been sentenced in federal court on murder charges.
Terry's family has been critical of former President Barack Obama's administration over the operation that allowed criminals to buy guns with the intention of tracking them. Instead, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives lost track of most of the guns, two of which were found at the scene of Terry's killing.
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11:45 a.m.
The head of the Department of Homeland Security says he hopes the arrest of a man suspected in the 2010 shooting death of a Border Patrol agent will "mark a significant step" in bringing closure to the agent's family.
Secretary John Kelly said in a statement Thursday that he was thankful to Mexican authorities who arrested Heraclio Osorio-Arellanes, who's accused of pulling the trigger of the gun that killed 40-year-old Brian Terry.
Terry's death exposed the Fast and Furious operation, in which the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowed criminals to buy guns with the intention of tracking them. But ATF lost sight of most, and two ended up at the scene of Terry's death.
Four others have been sentenced to prison on murder charges.
Kelly said the latest arrest illustrates the commitment of the administration to seek justice.
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8:10 a.m.
Mexican authorities confirm the arrest of the suspected shooter in the 2010 killing of a U.S. Border Patrol agent whose death exposed a bungled gun-tracking operation by the U.S. government.
A joint statement issued Thursday in Mexico City by Mexico's navy and its federal Attorney General's Office says the suspect in the killing of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was arrested Wednesday afternoon by Mexican marines near the border between the states of Sinaloa and Chihuahua.
That's a mountainous region noted for drug activity.
According to the statement, the suspect is being held while extradition proceedings are pending.
The statement didn't identify the suspect by his full name, but a Mexican federal official confirmed it was Heraclio Osorio-Arellanes.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to comment officially.
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Associated Press writer E. Eduardo Castillo in Mexico City contributed to this report.
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9:20 p.m.
Authorities have arrested the suspected shooter in the 2010 killing of a U.S. Border Patrol agent whose death exposed a bungled gun-tracking operation by the federal government.
A U.S. marshal for the District of Arizona tells The Arizona Republic (http://bit.ly/2p8y1mp ) that Heraclio Osorio-Arellanes was arrested in Mexico on Wednesday.
Osorio-Arellanes was one of two men who remained fugitives in the December 2010 murder of 40-year-old Brian Terry, whose death exposed Fast and Furious, in which agents from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowed criminals to buy guns with the intention of tracking the weapons.
But the agency lost most of the guns, including two that were found at scene of Terry's death. The operation set off a political firestorm.
Four other men involved in the killing have been convicted or have pleaded guilty in federal court to murder charges.
Fox News was first to report the arrest.
CHICAGO (AP) - The passenger dragged from a United flight lost two front teeth and suffered a broken nose and a concussion, his lawyer said Thursday, accusing the airline industry of having "bullied" its customers for far too long.
"Are we going to continue to be treated like cattle?" attorney Thomas Demetrio asked.
The passenger, Dr. David Dao, has been released from a hospital but will need reconstructive surgery, Demetrio said at a news conference, appearing alongside one of Dao's children. Dao was not there.
Crystal Pepper daughter of Dr. David Dao accompanied by attorney Stephen Golan, speaks at a news conference Thursday, April 13, 2017, in Chicago. Dao a passenger dragged from a United Express flight Sunday April 9, 2017, suffered a "significant" concussion and broken nose, and he lost two front teeth, attorney Thomas Demetrio said Thursday. Dao was removed from the plane after he refused to give up his seat on the full flight from Chicago to Louisville to make room for four crew members. (AP Photo/Teresa Crawford)
The 69-year-old physician from Elizabethtown, Kentucky, was removed by police from the United Express flight Sunday at Chicago's O'Hare Airport after refusing to give up his seat on the full plane to make room for four airline employees.
Cellphone video of him being pulled down the aisle on his back and footage of his bloody face have created a public-relations nightmare for United.
One of Dao's five children, Crystal Pepper, said the family was "horrified, shocked and sickened" by what happened. She said it was made worse by the fact that it was caught on video.
For Dao, who came to the U.S. after fleeing Vietnam by boat in 1975 when Saigon fell, being dragged off the plane "was more horrifying and harrowing than what he experienced in leaving Vietnam," Demetrio said.
Demetrio, who indicated Dao is going to sue, said the industry has long "bullied" passengers by overbooking flights and then bumping people, and "it took something like this to get a conversation going."
"I hope he becomes a poster child for all of us. Someone's got to," the lawyer said.
Early on, United CEO Oscar Munoz added to the furor when he apologized for the incident but accused Dao of being belligerent. Later, Munoz offered a more emphatic mea culpa, saying, "No one should ever be mistreated this way."
He promised to review the airline's policies to make sure something like that never happens again, and said United will no longer use police to remove bumped passengers. The airline also said all passengers on the flight would get a refund.
In a statement issued immediately after Thursday's news conference, United insisted that Munoz and the airline called Dao numerous times to apologize. Munoz himself said on Wednesday that he had left a message for Dao.
But Demetrio said neither Dao nor his family had heard from United.
Demetrio said his client accepts the apology. But the attorney questioned its sincerity, suggesting United acted because it was taking a PR "beating."
The attorney was unable to say precisely how Dao was injured. Dao didn't remember exactly what occurred because of the concussion he suffered, Demetrio said.
Pepper said her father and mother had been traveling from California to Louisville, Kentucky, and had caught a connecting flight at O'Hare. After what happened, Dao "has no interest in ever seeing an airplane" and will probably be driven to Kentucky, Demetrio said.
United had selected Dao and three other passengers at random for removal from the plane after unsuccessfully offering $800 in travel vouchers and a hotel stay to customers willing to give up their seats.
The three officers who removed Dao have been suspended from their jobs at the Chicago Aviation Department.
At a City Council committee hearing Thursday, aldermen ripped officials from United and the department about the episode.
"There are no excuses," Alderman Michael Zalewski said.
John Slater, a United vice president, said that bumping passengers to accommodate airline employees happens infrequently, and that federal guidelines requiring rest for crew members made it necessary to get the employees on the Sunday flight to Louisville.
The Aviation Department's roughly 300 officers guard the city's two main airports but are not part of the regular Chicago police force, receive less training and cannot carry guns inside the terminals.
"To be quite frank, Chicago employees should not be doing the dirty work for the friendly skies airline," said Alderman Ed Burke, who played video of Dao being removed.
Aviation Commissioner Ginger Evans told the committee that the officers had the authority to board the flight but that what happened on the plane is being investigated.
Crystal Pepper daughter of Dr. David Dao speaks at a news conference Thursday, April 13, 2017, in Chicago. Dao a passenger dragged from a United Express flight Sunday April 9, 2017, suffered a "significant" concussion and broken nose, and he lost two front teeth, attorney Thomas Demetrio said Thursday. Dao was removed from the plane after he refused to give up his seat on the full flight from Chicago to Louisville to make room for four crew members.(AP Photo/Teresa Crawford)
Thomas Demetrio, an attorney for Dr. David Dao, speaks at a news conference Thursday, April 13, 2017, in Chicago. Dao, a passenger dragged from a United Express flight Sunday April 9, 2017, suffered a "significant" concussion and broken nose, and he lost two front teeth, Demetrio said Thursday. Dao was removed from the plane after he refused to give up his seat on the full flight from Chicago to Louisville to make room for four crew members. (AP Photo/Teresa Crawford)
Thomas Demetrio, an attorney for Dr. David Dao, speaks at a news conference Thursday, April 13, 2017, in Chicago. Dao, a passenger dragged from a United Express flight Sunday April 9, 2017, suffered a "significant" concussion and broken nose, and he lost two front teeth, Demetrio said Thursday. Dao was removed from the plane after he refused to give up his seat on the full flight from Chicago to Louisville to make room for four crew members.(AP Photo/Teresa Crawford)
Thomas Demetrio an attorney for Dr. David Dao speaks at a news conference Thursday, April 13, 2017, in Chicago. Dao a passenger dragged from a United Express flight Sunday April 9, suffered a "significant" concussion and broken nose, and he lost two front teeth, Demetrio said Thursday. Dao was removed from the plane after he refused to give up his seat on the full flight from Chicago to Louisville to make room for four crew members.(AP Photo/Teresa Crawford)
Crystal Pepper daughter of Dr. David Dao accompanied by attorney Stephen Golan, speaks at a news conference Thursday, April 13, 2017, in Chicago. Dao a passenger dragged from a United Express flight Sunday April 9, 2017, suffered a "significant" concussion and broken nose, and he lost two front teeth, attorney Thomas Demetrio said Thursday. Dao was removed from the plane after he refused to give up his seat on the full flight from Chicago to Louisville to make room for four crew members.(AP Photo/Teresa Crawford)
Thomas Demetrio, right, an attorney for Dr. David Dao speaks at a news conference Thursday, April 13, 2017, in Chicago. Dao a passenger dragged from a United Express flight Sunday April 9, 2017, suffered a "significant" concussion and broken nose, and he lost two front teeth, Demetrio said Thursday. Dao was removed from the plane after he refused to give up his seat on the full flight from Chicago to Louisville to make room for four crew members.(AP Photo/Teresa Crawford)
FILE - In this July 8, 2015, file photo, United Airlines and United Express planes prepare to takeoff at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston. After a man is dragged off a United Express flight on Sunday, April 9, 2017, United Airlines becomes the butt of jokes online and on late-night TV. Travel and public-relations experts say United has fumbled the situation from the start, but it's impossible to know if the damage is temporary or lasting. Air travelers are drawn to the cheapest price no matter the name on the plane. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, FIle)
Editors:
Turks will vote Sunday in a referendum that would scrap the country's parliamentary system and greatly expand President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's power. Here's a look at the AP's coverage plans leading up to and during the referendum:
THURSDAY:
GERMANY-TURKEY-JOURNALISTS - Facing harassment, enforced shutdowns and jail at home, Turkey's exiled journalists are using Germany as a base to report on the political turmoil back home troubled country ahead of Sunday's referendum. By Hakan Kaplan and Kerstin Sopke. SENT: 800 words, photos, video.
TURKEY-REFERENDUM - A video preview of the referendum.
FRIDAY:
TURKEY-REFERENDUM-PREVIEW - Turkey is a country divided as it heads toward a historic referendum on a new political system that backers say will bring much-needed stability to Turkey but opponents fear would lead Turkey down the path of an autocratic, one-man rule by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. By Suzan Fraser. UPCOMING: 860 words, photos by 5 a.m. EDT. Video moved Thursday.
With: TURKEY-MAUSOLEUM-PHOTO GALLERY - A gallery of photos from the mausoleum where Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern-day Turkey, is interred. UPCOMING: 300 words, photos by 10 a.m. EDT.
TURKEY-DRONE - Drone footage of Istanbul's Blue Mosque, the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn.
SATURDAY:
TURKEY REFERENDUM - Spot coverage as Turks prepare to vote. UPCOMING: 300 words, photos, video.
With: TURKEY-REFERENDUM-THINGS TO KNOW - A look at the issues at stake in a referendum on whether to give Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan more power, seen as the ultimate test of his popularity. By Suzan Fraser. UPCOMING: 800 words in a chunky text form, photos by 5 a.m. EDT. Video coverage of final rallies in Istanbul, Ankara and Diyarbakir.
SUNDAY:
TURKEY-REFERENDUM - President Recep Tayyip Erdogan takes his case for more control to voters, who will decide whether to scrap the country's parliamentary government in favor of a system that would give him more power. Polls open at midnight EDT in some parts of the country and close at 10 a.m. EDT, when hand counting begins. Preliminary results expected about 5 p.m. EDT, although counting could last well into the night. UPCOMING: For text, a newsalert and 300 words when polls open at midnight EDT, followed by updates throughout the day. Photos. For video, live and edited cover of polls opening in Diyarbakir at midnight EDT ahead of the 1 a.m. EDT opening in other parts of the country. Live from both Istanbul and Ankara throughout the day. Pool video coverage of Erdogan voting; coverage of vote counting and crowds gathering at AK party headquarters in Ankara and outside Erdogan's residence in Istanbul; vox pops
With: TURKEY-REFERENDUM-THE LATEST, TURKEY-REFERENDUM-THINGS TO KNOW
TURKEY-REFERENDUM-ERDOGAN PROFILE - A look at how President Recep Tayyip Erdogan rose to power and why he's so popular in much of the country. UPCOMING: 600 words, photos.
NEW YORK (AP) - More than 50 U.S. cities will be hosting Make Music Day, a free one-day outdoor festival celebrating music and music-making.
The annual event is June 21, the summer solstice.
Highlights of Make Music Day in the U.S. will include Sousapaloozas in Chicago; Cleveland; Madison, Wisconsin; Minneapolis-St. Paul; New York; and San Jose, California.
Part of Make Music Day is an event called Mass Appeal in which musicians play together in single-instruments groups. Featured instruments will include guitars, harmonicas, accordions, trombones, bassoons, French horns and harps. More than 150 are scheduled.
Street Studios in Atlanta; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Minneapolis-St. Paul; New York; and Philadelphia will give passers-by a chance to collaborate in producing original music.
The festival began in France in 1982 and has since spread to 750 cities across 120 countries.
TORONTO (AP) - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government introduced legislation Thursday to let adult possess up to 30 grams of marijuana in public - a measure that would make Canada the largest developed country to end a nationwide prohibition on recreational marijuana.
Trudeau has long promised to legalize recreational pot use and sales. U.S voters in California, Massachusetts, Maine and Nevada voted last year to approve the use of recreational marijuana, joining Colorado, Washington, Oregon and Alaska.
The South American nation of Uruguay is the only nation to legalize recreational pot.
Justice Minister and Attorney General of Canada Jody Wilson-Raybould announces changes regarding the legalization of marijuana during a news conference in Ottawa, Thursday, April 13, 2017. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press via AP)
The proposed law allows four plants to be grown at home. Those under 18 found with less than five grams of marijuana would not face criminal charges but those who sell it or give to youth could face up to 14 years in jail.
"It's too easy for our kids to get marijuana. We're going to change that," Trudeau said.
Officials said Canadians should be able to smoke marijuana legally by July 1, 2018. The legislation must still be approved by Parliament but with Trudeau's Liberal party holding a majority its passage in considered assured.
The federal government set the age at 18, but is allowing each of Canada's provinces to determine if it should be higher. The provinces will also decide how the drug will be distributed and sold. The law also defines the amount of THC in a driver's blood, as detected by a roadside saliva test, that would be illegal. Marijuana taxes will be announced at a later date.
The Canadian government closely followed the advice of a marijuana task force headed by former Liberal Health Minister Anne McLellan. That panel's report noted public health experts tend to favor a minimum age of 21 as the brain continues to develop to about 25, but said setting the minimum age too high would preserve the illicit market.
Canadian youth have higher rates of cannabis use than their peers worldwide.
"If your objective is to protect public health and safety and keep cannabis out of the hands of minors, and stop the flow of profits to organized crime, then the law as it stands today has been an abject failure," Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale told a news conference. "Police forces spend between $2 billion and $3 billion every year trying to deal with cannabis, and yet Canadian teenagers are among the heaviest users in the western world ... We simply have to do better."
Goodale said they've been close touch with the U.S. government on the proposed law and noted exporting and importing marijuana will continue to be illegal.
"The regime we are setting up in Canada will protect our kids better and stop the flow of illegal dollars to organized crime. Our system will actually be the better one," Goodale said.
But Christina Grant, a professor of pediatrics at McMaster University in Ontario, worries the government is conveying the message that marijuana is not harmful. She fears usage will go up because concerns about its safety will dissipate.
"One in seven youths who have used cannabis will develop an addiction to cannabis and that impacts your life, schooling, job prospects, social and emotional relationships," she said. "And there is the risk of developing psychosis if you start using cannabis as a teenager. The more you use and the younger you start, you have up to four times the risk of developing some kind of psychotic illness."
Former Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair, who is the parliamentary secretary to the justice minister, said officials learned from the experiences from other jurisdictions like Colorado and Washington state.
While the government moves to legalize marijuana, retail outlets selling pot for recreational use have already been set up. Trudeau has emphasized current laws should be respected. Police in Toronto, Vancouver and other cities raided stores earlier last month and made arrests.
The news that Canada was soon going to announce the law was noticed online last month by Snoop Dogg , who tweeted "Oh Canada!" Canadian folk singer Pat Robitaille released a "Weed song" to coincide with the government's announcement.
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Associated Press Writer Charmaine Noronha in Toronto contributed to this report.
Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Ralph Goodale, left to right, Justice Minister and Attorney General of Canada Jody Wilson-Raybould, and Health Minister Jane Philpott announce changes regarding the legalization of marijuana during a news conference in Ottawa, Thursday, April 13, 2017. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press via AP)
WASHINGTON (AP) - FBI Director James Comey said Americans should be aware of foreign efforts to undermine confidence in U.S. elections and mindful of the possibility that what they're reading might be part of an organized disinformation campaign.
Comey said the Russian government has for years tried to weaken public faith in democratic processes around the globe, and recently has resorted to more sophisticated tactics.
He was asked at a Newseum event Wednesday night what Americans could do to protect against the meddling of a foreign government in politics. His response: "The most important thing to be done is people need to be aware of the possibility that what they're reading has been shaped by troll farms, looking to push a message on Twitter to undermine our confidence" about the electoral process.
FILE - In this March 29, 2017, file photo FBI Director James Comey speaks during the Intelligence and National Security Alliance Leadership Dinner in Alexandria, Va. Comey says Americans should be mindful of foreign efforts to undermine confidence in U.S. elections. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen, File)
U.S. intelligence agencies said in a January report that Russian efforts to interfere in last year's American presidential election in favor of Republican Donald Trump included paid social media users, or "trolls." Part of the goal was to spread information to "denigrate" Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, who lost the November election, according to the report.
The FBI is investigating, including whether the Kremlin coordinated with Trump campaign associates.
During a question-and-answer session, Comey said the FBI would do everything it could to "identify, investigate and then call out foreign efforts" to influence an election. "One of the most important things we can do is be transparent about efforts to interfere with our process."
Comey has drawn criticism for publicly commenting on an investigation about Clinton's use of a private email server last year while not acknowledging an FBI investigation into potential contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia.
His remarks about the Clinton case at a July news conference came after the FBI had concluded the investigation and determined that charges were not warranted. When Comey wrote Congress in October to say newly discovered emails had been found that needed to be reviewed, he said he was following a pledge to lawmakers to update them on new developments.
On Wednesday night, he acknowledged the FBI "did a lot last year that confused people."
"If you see the world through sides, the FBI doesn't make a lot of sense to you 'cause you're saying, 'Why did they help this person?'" and hurt someone else, Comey said.
"We don't see the world that way. We are not on anybody's side, we really don't care. We're trying to figure out what's true, what's fair, what's the right thing to do," he added.
The question-and-answer session took place following a public showing of an episode of a new USA Network show, "Inside the FBI: New York."
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Follow Eric Tucker at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP
MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) - U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has reversed plans to give management of Montana's National Bison Range to the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, saying that he is committed to not selling or transferring public lands.
Zinke, a former Montana congressman, told the Missoulian (http://bit.ly/2p0PCNt ) in an email that the tribes would still play a "pivotal role" in discussions about the future of the range, 29-square miles (76-square kilometers) of hilly fenced-in grasslands with 350 bison.
"I took a hard look at the current proposal suggesting a new direction for the National Bison Range and assessed what this would mean for Montana and the nation," Zinke said. "As Secretary, my job is to look 100 years forward at all of Interior's resources. I recognize the Bison Range is a critical part of our past, present and future, which is why I have changed course."
FILE - In this June 25, 2003, file photo, bison wander along a hillside at the National Bison Range near Moiese, Mont. U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said he will reverse plans that would have led to the transfer management of the range from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. (AP Photo/Jack Sullivan, File)
The refuge run by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is located completely within the boundaries of the Flathead Indian Reservation, on land the tribes say was taken illegally in 1908, when the U.S. government established the refuge to save bison from extinction.
Four years later, the government paid the tribes $1.56 per acre (0.4 hectares) for the land, which was about $12.50 an acre (0.4 hectares) below the land's value at that time.
In the 1980s, a court ordered the government to pay the tribes $231,000 in compensation.
Tribal chairman Vernon Finley's stopped short of criticizing Zinke's announcement, saying he considered the proposed transfer a restoration of reservation land.
"We understood that President (Donald) Trump and Secretary Zinke himself had promised about not selling off public lands, but from my perspective, that isn't what this is," Finley said.
The transfer strongly supported by the tribe? was proposed last year when former President Barack Obama was still in office. Under the plan, the Interior Department would transfer the range to the Bureau of Indian Affairs to hold in trust, and the Fish and Wildlife Service would hand over management to the tribes.
Fish and Wildlife Service officials said last year they would back the transfer if legislation were introduced in Congress, and the tribes drafted a bill.
The Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a Washington, D.C.-based environmental advocacy group that opposed a previous attempt in 2010 to share management of the refuge with the tribes, sued over the plan. The case is pending.
One of the group's members who sued, Susan Campbell Reneau said she hopes Zinke's announcements ends what she calls "a diabolical attempt to completely change the direction of management of federal public lands."
Finley, the tribal chairman, said he plans to speak with Zinke and the tribal council about the decision.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House says President Donald Trump will welcome Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni to the White House next week.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer says Trump will meet with Gentiloni on April 20 to discuss the upcoming Group of Seven industrialized nations meeting in Italy and a "range of issues" between the two allies.
The G-7 nations have urged Russia to pressure the Syrian government to end the six-year civil war and have blamed President Bashar Assad's military for a deadly chemical attack that killed more than 80 people.
Trump is expected to travel to Brussels for a NATO meeting in May, followed by the G-7 meeting in Italy.
The G-7 members include the U.S., Germany, France, Britain, Canada, Japan and Italy.
A man who spent 27 years in prison for killing his girlfriend as a teenager has been released on bail after the key witness in his murder trial recanted her testimony.
In 1992, 16-year-old Tony Sanborn was tried as an adult and convicted of the 1989 killing of his then girlfriend, Jessica Briggs, also 16. He was sent to Maine State Prison, where he has been incarcerated for the past 27 years.
On Thursday, the only witness in Sanborn's murder case, Hope Cady, told the Portland, Maine court that when she was 13, police and prosecutors pressured her into identifying Sanborn as Briggs' killer.
A Portland, Maine judge set bail for Tony Sanborn, who spent nearly 30 years in prison for a 1989 murder. His guilt is being questioned after the trial's key witness recanted her testimony
On Thursday, key witness Hope Cady recanted her 1992 trial eyewitness testimony, which sent then teenager Sanborn to prison for 27 years. She claims cops pressured her into ID'ing him
In 1989, police divers pulled the body of Jessica Briggs, 16, out of Casco Bay in Portland, Maine. Her throat had been cut, and she was stabbed multiple times and nearly disemboweled. She is pictured above
'They basically told me what to say,' Cady said.
The stunning declaration led a judge to set bail in the case, which drew a gasp from the packed courtroom and sent Sanborn's wife to her knees.
'Quite frankly, I wouldn't want to go forward on a case based on her testimony,' Justice Joyce Wheeler told the courtroom before setting Sanborn's $25,000 bail, which his friends and family posted later that day.
'It has been conceded that she is, and was a material witness in this case. She's the only eyewitness in this case.'
Sanborn was convicted of killing his girlfriend, Jessica Briggs, when they were both 16, and tried as an adult. He was serving a 70 year sentence before being released on bail Thursday
Sanborn's wife, Michelle (in white), who he married five years ago, fell to her knees in court when she heard he was set to be released from prison and granted a $25,000 on Thursday
Justice Wheeler said she'll have further proceedings before deciding whether to grant a motion to set aside the conviction and order a new trial.
In the original 1992 trial, Cady, who was the only witness, testified that she saw a group of boys surround Briggs and then saw Sanborn stab Briggs. She claimed she'd watched the event unfold from a nearby pier.
But during her testimony on Thursday, Cady told the court that her vision wasn't even good enough to have been able to make out what happened back then. When it was tested prior to the trial, she was found to have had 20/200 vision poor enough to be considered legally blind.
Information about her vision problems was never provided to Sanborn's original defense team.
Cady also said Thursday that she had juvenile charges against her at the time of Briggs' death and that authorities threatened to send her away for years if she didn't testify that she saw Sanborn kill Briggs.
Sanborn, in 1990, when he was waiting to be arraigned for murdering Briggs the year before
Sanborn during his 1992 murder trial. He was convicted and sentenced to 70 years in prison
Cady's stunning admission came in a standing-room-only courtroom packed with Sanborn's supporters, including family members and friends.
Sanborn's wife, Michelle, sank to her knees and wept after the judge's bail ruling as others huddled with her.
'I just want to thank Justice Wheeler for being a woman of compassion and for doing the right thing, and giving me faith in our system,' Michelle said afterward.
Sanborn, now 44, had insisted over the years that he didn't kill Briggs, and supporters say he somehow managed to avoid becoming bitter despite being convicted as an adult and sentenced to prison for 70 years.
In prison, his conduct was exemplary, and he taught classes to fellow inmates. He wed Michelle about five years ago, and he had plenty of support Thursday.
Sanborn entered the courtroom with tears in his eyes as the packed courtroom erupted in an ovation.
After the hearing, Briggs' family left the courthouse without speaking to the media.
Sanborn's lawyer, Amy Fairfield, filed a motion for bail on April 5, asking for the hearing after uncovering new evidence in the gruesome killing, including Cady's vision problems, witnesses who recanted their testimony and information that prosecutors allegedly suppressed information at the time of the original trial, reports the Portland Press Herald.
In addition to releasing Sanborn from prison, Fairfield asked a Portland, Maine judge to either overturn his indictment and conviction or begin a new trial about Briggs' murder.
Sanborn's wife, Michelle (in white), thanked the judge for her 'compassion' after the hearing
Friends say Sanborn has avoided bitterness about his 1992 conviction and 70 year sentence
A criminal profiler hired by the defense said the crime was so brutal that it pointed toward a serial killer as opposed to a crime of passion involving a teenager.
Briggs' throat was slit and she was stabbed repeatedly before being thrown in Portland Harbor. At the time, officials zeroed in on street kids, including Briggs' then-16-year-old boyfriend, Sanborn.
On Thursday, Assistant Attorney General Donald Macomber asked Justice Wheeler to defer setting bail until she could hear from the case's original detectives and prosecutor.
Macomber also said he'd have to recuse himself because Cady's statements conflicted with his direct knowledge of the case.
The original Portland police detectives on the case James Daniels and Daniel Young, since retired submitted affidavits denying that they had pressured or threatened witnesses or suppressed information, according to the Press Herald.
The hearing will continue later this month.
Speaking with the Press Herald at a friend's home after being freed on bail Thursday, Sanborn recalled his immediate reaction when the trial verdict was read 27 years ago.
'I didnt even think they said guilty,' he said 'I looked back at some of the people I knew that was in the crowd. It was like, (what) the hecks going on?'
He also said that early on he truly believed that he would be vindicated in court.
'Back then I had faith in everybody,' Sanborn said. 'I thought there was no way the justice system could fail me, so there was no way I was going to be found guilty of a murder I didnt do. At some point it got real. All these guys either really think I did this, or are really trying to set me up and accuse me of it.'
Sandborn said that, initially, when he was first imprisoned, he still had faith in the system.
'I still thought it would be fixed in months, or a year, two at the most, and everything would be all right. And year after year, I sit there and nothing happened,' he said.
Eventually, he gave up hope. Even when his now wife Michelle tried to rekindle his hope while telling him about the post-conviction review process that had been initiated, Sanborn said he was resistant.
'I said its not happening, its never going to happen, stop saying people care, they dont care,' Sanborn recalled.
Even after being given bail, while he waited to be released from Cumberland County Jail, where he was held during the hearing, he still didn't fully believe he might get a second chance to prove his innocence after all these years.
Sanborn said that while he was waiting in jail, he just prayed: 'God, if this aint real, then take me now. Because if this aint real, what just happened today, just take me.'
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Donald Trump is sending North Korea a fresh warning, calling it a "problem" country that "will be taken care of."
Trump commented on North Korea after he was asked about the U.S. military's decision to drop the largest non-nuclear weapon it has ever used in combat on an area of eastern Afghanistan.
Asked whether dropping the bomb sends a message to North Korea as it continues to pursue nuclear and other weapons, Trump said it makes no difference.
Said Trump: "North Korea is a problem, the problem will be taken care of."
Trump wants China to help contain North Korea, but in recent weeks he has signaled a willingness to handle the issue alone.
Trump and China's president discussed North Korea at a meeting last week in Florida.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Trump administration has imposed sanctions on the brother of a well-known Iranian general.
A Treasury Department statement says sanctions were imposed on the Tehran Prisons Organization and Sohrab Soleimani in connection with serious human rights abuses in Iran. Soleimani is a senior official in the organization.
The statement says the action reflects deep concern regarding human rights in Iran.
Soleimani is the younger brother of Qassem Soleimani, the former commander of Iran's elite Quds force who also advised Iraq's Shiite militias in their fight against the Islamic State group.
The Treasury Department says the prison organization is responsible for, or complicit in, the detention of many prisoners of conscience and well-documented accounts of their mistreatment and abuse.
LYON, France (AP) - Crowd disorder inside the stadium has delayed the kickoff in the Lyon-Besiktas Europa League quarterfinal first-leg game.
The incidents followed fighting among rival French and Turkish fans earlier Thursday in Lyon.
Ahead of the scheduled 9:05 p.m. (1905 GMT) kickoff, fans spilled on to the field for their own safety as fireworks were set off and missiles thrown from a section housing Besiktas supporters.
Supporters fight outside the stadium before the Europa League quarterfinal soccer match between Lyon and Besiktas, in Decines, near Lyon, central France, Thursday, April 13, 2017. (AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani)
Lyon president Jean-Michel Aulas was among the officials on the pitch trying to restore calm.
UEFA has increased security measures at its Champions League and Europa League matches this week after Borussia Dortmund's team bus was targeted by a bomb attack on Tuesday.
Dortmunnd's game against Monaco was postponed to Wednesday.
HOPKINSVILLE, Ky. (AP) - A man charged with killing two Fort Campbell soldiers and wounding a teenager in a domestic dispute has pleaded not guilty.
The Kentucky New Era reports (http://bit.ly/2nIvEXG) 35-year-old Jeremy J. Demar entered the plea during a hearing Wednesday. Demar, of Clarkesville, Tennessee, is charged with murder in the deaths of his estranged wife, 35-year-old Spc. Priscilla A. East, and 28-year-old Sgt. Christopher R. Hoch.
They were killed Feb. 2 at a home belonging to Spc. Dominique House, who told The Leaf Chronicle in a previous interview that she was engaged to Hoch and was best friends with East. They were soldiers at the post on the Kentucky-Tennessee line.
Demar also is charged with assaulting House's 16-year-old brother.
House told the Tennessee newspaper that East and Demar shared custody of their 2-year-old son and had met earlier so the boy could go with Demar. She said Demar was angry at the meeting and East was nervous about it so she invited her friend over for dinner.
She said they were cooking when Demar arrived, and that Hoch died a hero trying to save East. She said her brother was injured trying to protect her.
The judge has set the next hearing in the case for July 19.
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Information from: Kentucky New Era, http://www.kentuckynewera.com
NEW YORK (AP) - The number of foreign children adopted by U.S. parents dropped almost 5 percent last year, continuing a steady decline that's now extended for 12 years, according to new State Department figures.
However, department officials said they have been working closely with numerous countries to strengthen international adoption procedures, and they suggested the numbers could rise if the U.S. adoption community helped to address some of those countries' concerns about ethics and oversight.
The department's report for the 2016 fiscal year, released on Thursday, shows 5,372 adoptions from abroad, down from 5,648 in 2015 and more than 76 percent below the high of 22,884 in 2004. The number has fallen every year since then.
FILE - In this Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2015 file photo, Jennifer and Eric Sands of Illinois, right, accompanied by their adopted daughter Joy, 12, left, smile as their adopted son Issaac, 12, center arrives from the Congo at Dulles International Airport in Dulles, Va. According to State Department figures released on Thursday, April 13, 2017, the number of foreign children adopted by U.S. parents dropped almost 5 percent in 2016, continuing a steady decline that's now extended for 12 years. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
China, as is customary, accounted for the most children adopted in the U.S. Its total of 2,231 was down slightly from 2015 and far below a peak of 7,903 in 2005.
Congo was second on the list with 359 adoptions. Many of those were adoptions that had been delayed for several years during a suspension - now lifted - that the Congo government imposed out of concerns over adoption fraud.
Ukraine was third on the list with 303 adoptions, followed by South Korea, Bulgaria, India, Uganda, Ethiopia, Haiti and the Philippines.
As adoptions from various countries have declined in recent years, adoption advocates - and the State Department - have cited Africa as an area where adoptions may increase. However, Susan Jacobs, the department's special adviser for children's issues, said this can present unique challenges because some African birth parents may incorrectly believe that adopted children would return home to care for them after living abroad temporarily to get a good education.
As adoptions from many countries have declined in recent years, adoption advocates - and the State Department - have looked to Africa as a possible source for more orphans. However, Susan Jacobs, the department's special adviser for children's issues, said this can be "a hard sell" because many African birth parents misunderstand the nature of adoption and believe that adopted children would return home to care for them after living abroad temporarily to get a good education.
For a second straight year, there were no adoptions from Russia, which once accounted for hundreds of U.S. adoptions each year, but imposed a ban that fully took effect in 2014. The ban served as retaliation for a U.S. law targeting alleged Russian human-rights violators.
The last time there were fewer foreign adoptions to the U.S. overall was in 1981, when, according to U.S. immigration figures, there were 4,868 adoptions from abroad.
The State Department, in its new report, said it had identified three concerns that were causing some foreign countries to be wary of international adoption:
-Illegal or unethical practices by some U.S. adoption agencies or adoption facilitators operating abroad. One Ohio-based agency was recently barred by the State Department from engaging in international adoption for three years because of extensive improprieties.
-Lack of comprehensive, nationwide laws that prevent adoptive parents from transferring custody of adopted children to another family without official authorization. This practice, known as re-homing, has often involved children adopted from abroad who prove more challenging to raise than the adoptive family had anticipated.
-The failure of some U.S. families to complete required post-adoption reports. Trish Maskew, chief of the State Department's adoption division, said Kazakhstan and Guatemala were potentially interested in resuming long-suspended international adoptions to the U.S., but only if several hundred overdue reports were completed by parents who adopted children from those countries in past years.
Chuck Johnson, CEO of the National Council of Adoption and a critic of State Department adoption policy, acknowledged that lapses related to all three issues were "a black-eye on adoption." However, he said the State Department should have been providing more leadership in addressing the problems.
"These negative results are not the experiences of the great majority of internationally adopted children nor of their adoptive families; neither are the actions of a few providers indicative of the majority of accredited U.S. adoption providers," Johnson said in an email.
Adoption officials in the State Department "have a history of either personally opposing intercountry adoption outright or endorsing it in lukewarm fashion," Johnson wrote. As long as the department "is allowed to continue down this path, children suffer and die."
Susan Jacobs urged the department's critics in the adoption community to consider what steps they could take to ensure that international adoption is ethical and transparent.
"We are committed to intercountry adoption. We want this to be available in every country in the world," said Jacobs. "But we can't do this without the cooperation of everybody involved in the process. We want this to be a practice that everyone can be proud of."
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley on Thursday urged all countries that provide troops for U.N. peacekeeping missions to hold soldiers accountable for sexual abuse and exploitation, an appeal that came after she cited an Associated Press investigation into a child sex ring in Haiti involving Sri Lankan peacekeepers.
She also warned that "countries that refuse to hold their soldiers accountable must recognize that this either stops or their troops will go home and their financial compensation will end."
Haley was speaking after the Security Council voted unanimously to end the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti in mid-October, sending a strong signal that the international community believes the impoverished Caribbean nation is stabilizing after successful elections.
United Nations U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley address the Security Council after a vote on a resolution condemning Syria's use of chemical weapons failed, Wednesday, April 12, 2017 at U.N. headquarters. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)
But the peacekeepers will leave with a tarnished legacy. U.N. troops from Nepal are widely blamed for introducing cholera that has killed at least 9,500 people in Haiti since 2010 and some troops have been implicated in sexual abuse.
"What do we say to these kids? Did these peacekeepers keep them safe?" Haley asked, citing the AP's investigation detailing how at least 134 Sri Lankan peacekeepers sexually abused and exploited nine Haitian children between 2004 and 2007.
Sri Lanka never jailed any soldiers implicated in the abuse yet the country was allowed to send troops to other U.N. missions.
Haley said after the vote that while the departure of the peacekeepers "is seen as a success, unfortunately it's a nightmare for many in Haiti who will never be able to forget and live with brutal scars."
Nine children in the Haiti sex ring - some as young as 12 - told U.N. investigators how Sri Lankan peacekeepers offered them snacks or money for sex. One boy said he slept with as many as 100 soldiers, averaging about four per day.
The details of the sex ring were part of a larger AP investigation of U.N. missions during the past 12 years that found an estimated 2,000 allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation by peacekeepers and U.N. personnel around the world.
In Haiti, the 2,370 military personnel will gradually leave over the next six months. A new peacekeeping mission will follow for an initial period of six months, comprised of just 1,275 police to continue training the national police force and assist in developing the rule of law and promoting human rights in Haiti.
Haley said the United States and the international community are committed to Haiti's "democratic development, independence and economic growth."
"We will, however, continue to push for accountability of those troops in Haiti as well as all troop contributing countries involved in peacekeeping efforts," she said.
"We owe it to the vulnerable in these countries who desperately need peace and security," she told Security Council members. "I ask that you join me in this effort."
Former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recommended that peacekeepers accused of sexual abuse and exploitation be court martialed in the countries where the alleged incidents take place and said the U.N. would withhold payments to peacekeepers facing credible allegations.
Responding to the AP report, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric had said Wednesday: "We need to address the problem, first, for the victims, but also to ensure that the perception of peacekeeping is not a wrong one."
He stressed it is dangerous work done honorably by "the vast majority" of peacekeepers.
Mark Schuller, an academic studying what happens when international organizations leave countries like Haiti, said for Haitians, the U.N. has garnered a "love-hate" relationship, but the real issue is lack of accountability.
"The U.N. is not accountable to the Haitian government or people. That creates a culture of implied immunity," said Schuller, a professor at N. Illinois University's Department of Ethnology who spends part of his time in Haiti.
Jacqueline Nono said she was 17 when she started having sex with a Sri Lankan peacekeeper for money or gifts. She said the sex was consensual but she needed the money to pay for her two children.
"I've heard the stories about Sri Lankans abusing Haitians, but I was treated well," said the 24-year-old in Port-au-Prince.
For Jean-Marie Pascal, there is no love lost for the United Nations.
She said a U.N. peacekeeper sexually assaulted her shortly after troops arrived in 2004 to quell instability following President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's ouster. After the 2010 earthquake struck, her two cousins died from a strain of cholera linked to U.N. peacekeepers from Nepal.
"Haiti has been a playground for the United Nations," the 43-year-old shop assistant told the AP as part of its investigation.
The United Nations also suffered in Haiti, losing nearly 100 peacekeepers and personnel in the 2010 earthquake that killed as many as 300,000 people.
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Dodds reported from London. Associated Press writers David McFadden in Port-au-Prince Haiti and Jennifer Peltz at the United Nations contributed to this report.
JERSEY CITY, N.J. (AP) - New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie accepted a champion's belt from former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson on Thursday for his efforts on prisoner re-entry.
"You took the punches, trust me, you deserve it," Tyson told Christie during the presentation at a conference in Jersey City where they were speakers.
The Republican governor has dedicated his final year in office to prisoner re-entry issues and drug addiction. He was the featured speaker at the reopening of a state prison as an institution to treat drug-addicted inmates earlier this week.
Boxer Mike Tyson is patted on the shoulder by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie while speaking about his life post prison during the 4th Annual New Jersey Prisoner Reentry Conference, Thursday, April 13, 2017, in Jersey City, N.J. During the event, Tyson presented Christie with a championship belt for his efforts in helping former prisoners reinstall themselves into society. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Christie also heads a panel for President Donald Trump on opioid addiction.
People addicted to drugs end up behind bars too often, Christie said.
Tyson was convicted in 1992 on rape charges and sentenced to six years in prison. He urged former inmates Thursday to stay enthusiastic and remain committed to staying on the right side of the law.
"You got to want to do this stuff," he said. "You have to say, 'I don't want to rob that guy no more, I don't want to shoot those people no more.' And that's just where it's at."
Christie noted that it may have seemed odd to see him, Tyson and former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey - who organized Thursday's event and also runs Jersey City's prisoner re-entry program - appearing together on the same panel.
"We sit up here as imperfect people who have had challenges in our lives of all different kinds," Christie said. "But I also think we're people who can contribute a great deal to making society better."
McGreevey, a Democrat, resigned as governor amid a sex scandal in 2004 and announced he is a "gay American."
Boxer Mike Tyson speaks during the 4th Annual New Jersey Prisoner Reentry Conference, Thursday, April 13, 2017, in Jersey City, N.J. During the event, Tyson presented New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie with a championship belt for his efforts in helping former prisoners reinstall themselves into society. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, center, is presented with a belt by boxer Mike Tyson, left, for Christie's work in promoting help for ex-prisoners re-entering society, during the 4th Annual New Jersey Prisoner Reentry Conference, Thursday, April 13, 2017, in Jersey City, N.J. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
MEXICO CITY (AP) - Twenty-four people are dead and nine others injured after a passenger bus was hit head-on by a tanker truck carrying fuel in southern Mexico.
The crash occurred Thursday on a road leading to the Pacific coast resort of Zihuatanejo, in the state of Guerrero.
Guerrero state security spokesman Roberto Alvarez said the tanker appears to have been a double-tank truck. The wreckage erupted in flames and many of the dead were burned.
There have long been complaints about the safety of double tanker trucks and tractor trailers, which have been involved in a number of disastrous accidents in Mexico.
JANESVILLE, Wis. (AP) - A fugitive accused of stealing numerous weapons from a Wisconsin gun store sent an anti-government manifesto to the White House that deemed the government a band of terrorists controlled by churches, saying "We need to spill their blood," a Milwaukee television station reported Thursday.
Joseph Allen Jakubowski has been the subject of an intense manhunt since the April 4 burglary at Armageddon Supplies near Janesville, a city about 60 miles southwest of Milwaukee. Police said video shows Jakubowski mailed a bulky envelope the same day, and his burned vehicle was found near the store, but that he hasn't been seen since.
WTMJ-TV posted 35 pages of handwritten documents to its website that it said were verified as Jakubowski's writings by an unidentified law enforcement official. Rock County Sheriff's Office Commander Troy Knudson said the writings appeared genuine.
This combo made Tuesday, April 11, 2017, from images provided by the FBI shows Joseph Jakubowski's mug shot at left and an altered image the FBI made to show Jakubowski with his head and facial hair shaved off. Authorities released the modified mug shot of Jakubowski, because the FBI believes he may have altered his appearance. More than 150 state and federal law enforcement officers have been searching for Jakubowski since April 4, when they believe he took 18 firearms from a gun store in Janesville in southwestern Wisconsin. (FBI via AP)
Separately, law enforcement officials said on Thursday they were investigating a letter purportedly sent through the U.S. Postal Service by Jakubowski threatening attacks on churches on Easter Sunday. Authorities said the letter mentions the Sussex area about 25 miles northwest of Milwaukee. They added that the authenticity of the letter "is in question."
Also on Thursday, authorities backed away somewhat from concerns that Jakubowski planned attacks on schools. Local police also clarified that the manifesto made no specific threat against President Donald Trump.
The pages posted online are numbered 93 through 160 but skip almost every odd number, suggesting the TV station received only one side of each page. In them, the writer claims the government was trying to brainwash its citizens through taxes, religion and health insurance.
"We the people should be out for these sick minded people belonging to the system! We need to spill their blood!" the document reads, going on to say priests and churches control U.S. presidents and banks.
The writer states he will not bring harm or violence to anyone, unless "these terrorist gangs continue their terrorism on human life and force my hand to protect and defend the honor and dignity of life!"
Investigators have said a manifesto written by Jakubowski details a long list of grievances against the government and law enforcement.
Janesville Police Chief David Moore said law enforcement was initially on high alert for a potential attack on schools because the person who tipped him off about Jakubowski said he had "made some mention of schools."
"That has been reduced significantly because when we looked at the documents written by Mr. Jakubowski there is little indication of schools in there. I hope that this information gives some comfort to our communities," Moore said Thursday.
Moore also said Jakubowski "has concerns with Trump," but his manifesto doesn't mention a specific threat.
A criminal complaint filed in Rock County, where the gun shop is located, charges Jakubowski with stealing 18 guns, including a fully automatic M-16 assault rifle, two gun silencers, weapon parts and magazines.
Sheriff Robert Spoden said investigators believe Jakubowski may have given copies of his manifesto to other people, but they don't know how many. But investigators have released few other details about what Jakubowski wrote and said little about what they believe he'll do.
Jakubowski has had several run-ins with law enforcement over the years. Most were for traffic violations, though he has previously resisted arrest and once tried to disarm an officer, according to Moore. More than 150 local, state and federal officers have been working to find him.
Authorities have urged the public to call with information of his whereabouts but they're warning people not to approach him. Spoden urged Jakubowski to turn himself in.
"No one has been hurt. Sometimes we make a mistake and those mistakes we can correct and work through. So far what Joseph has done is correctable and we encourage him to do the right thing for his community, his family, and go to an authority and turn himself in," Spoden said.
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Ehlke reported from Milwaukee.
United Airlines will compensate all the passengers who were on a plane when a man was dragged off by airport officers in Chicago.
The company sought to quell the uproar over the incident by also announcing that it would no longer ask police to remove passengers from full flights.
In an interview with ABCs Good Morning America, United parent company chief executive Oscar Munoz said he felt ashamed watching video of the man being forced off the jet. He has promised to review the airlines passenger-removal policy.
WATCH: When asked about the passenger forcibly removed from a flight...
"Do you think he's at fault in any way?"
United CEO: "No" pic.twitter.com/gdr3vbo9JJ Good Morning America (@GMA) April 12, 2017
Mr Munoz, apologised again to physician David Dao, his family and the other passengers who witnessed him being taken off the flight.
That is not who our family at United is, he said. This will never happen again on a United flight. Thats my promise.
@united @FoxNews @CNN not a good way to treat a Doctor trying to get to work because they overbooked pic.twitter.com/sj9oHk94Ik Tyler Bridges (@Tyler_Bridges) April 9, 2017
In the future, law enforcement will not be involved in removing a booked, paid, seated passenger, Mr Munoz said. We cant do that.
In an effort to calm the backlash, United also announced that passengers on United Express Flight 3411 would be compensated equal to the cost of their tickets.
United spokeswoman Megan McCarthy said on Wednesday that the passengers can take the compensation in cash, travel credits or miles.
David Dao was dragged from the plane (Audra D Bridges via AP)
The flight was loaded and preparing to leave Chicagos OHare International Airport on Sunday when the man was dragged off. Video shot by passengers showing the mans bloodied face went viral on social media, prompting a storm of protest.
Also on Wednesday, a Chicago alderman said representatives from United and the citys aviation department have been summoned before a city council committee to answer questions about the confrontation at OHare Airport.
Alderman Mike Zalewski said he did not know who will represent the airline before the aviation committee, but Mr Munoz has been notified of the hearing scheduled for Thursday.
United CEO Oscar Munoz: Im sorry. We will fix this. https://t.co/v8EPGsiDCi pic.twitter.com/eOPiYcagvo United Airlines (@united) April 11, 2017
Mr Munoz called the incident a system failure and said United would reassess its procedures for seeking volunteers to give up their seats when a flight is full.
United was trying to find seats for four employees, meaning it wanted four passengers to leave the plane.
The passenger was identified as Mr Dao, a 69-year-old physician from Elizabethtown, Kentucky.
David Dao later returned to the flight (Audra D Bridges via AP)
His lawyers filed court papers on Wednesday asking the airline and the city of Chicago to preserve evidence in the case. Those documents are often the first steps toward a lawsuit.
Airport officials have said little about Sundays events and nothing about Mr Daos behaviour before he was pulled from the jet that was bound for Louisville, Kentucky.
Chicagos aviation department has said only that one of its employees who removed Mr Dao did not follow proper procedures and has been placed on leave. The department announced on Wednesday that two more officers have been placed on leave.
A British former spy chief has suggested Donald Trump borrowed money from Russian lenders to keep his property empire afloat.
Ex-MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove said financial links with Moscow may linger for the US president.
Mr Trump has strenuously denied any business links with Russia, insisting that the country had no leverage over him.
President Donald Trump (Andrew Harnik/AP)
Sir Richard said the allegations surrounding members of Mr Trumps team over contact with the Russian government were unprecedented.
Speaking to Prospect magazine, he added: What lingers for Trump may be what deals - on what terms - he did after the financial crisis of 2008 to borrow Russian money when others in the west apparently would not lend to him.
Mr Trump came to power pledging to build bridges with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, but the conflict in Syria has dealt a blow to those aspirations.
US air strikes in retaliation for Moscow-backed Syrian leader Bashar Assads use of chemical weapons have contributed to relations between Washington and Moscow falling to what Mr Trump claimed may be an all-time low.
A petrol bomb has been thrown at the building housing French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pens campaign headquarters, Paris police said.
A small fire broke out after the device hit an insurance office on the ground floor, where Ms Le Pens campaign is based, overnight on Wednesday.
But the Paris fire department said no-one was injured in the incident overnight and the blaze was quickly extinguished.
A worker removes a graffiti outside French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen's campaign headquarters (Francois Mori/AP)
An investigation is under way.
Police said vandals also scrawled graffiti targeting Ms Le Pens anti-immigration National Front party.
Ms Le Pen said on France-2 television on Thursday that she suspects extreme-left activists were behind the incident, but added that her campaign has not been contacted by investigators.
Ms Le Pen is a leading contender for Frances presidential election, held in two rounds on April 23 and May 7.
Police in England and Wales deployed Tasers at a rate of 30 times a day last year, new figures show.
Forces recorded a total of 11,294 uses of the devices in 2016 a rise of 904, or 9%, on the tally in the previous 12 months. Of these, five uses were due to accidental discharges.
Home Office statistics show that the number of instances where the weapons were discharged fell in 2016.
Graphic showing how a Taser works (PA)
Of the known 11,289 uses, 17% (1,910) were discharges a decrease of 10, or 1%, on 2015. Of the 1,910 discharges, 92% (1,755) were fired, which was a rise of 26, or 2%, on the previous year.
Instances categorised as drive stun and angled drive stun accounted for the remaining 155 discharges.
The vast majority of Taser uses in 2016 were non-discharges, with 9,379 in this bracket an increase of 11% on the previous year.
New @ukhomeoffice stats further prove #Taser is an effective piece of kit & it's often not even discharged PFEW_Che https://t.co/jrDcxNZgzf Police Federation (@PFEW_HQ) April 13, 2017
Red-dot was the most common type of use, accounting for 51% (5,744) of the total uses in 2016. This is where the device is not fired but deliberately aimed and then partially activated so a laser red dot is placed onto the subject.
The new figures relate to use of the Taser X26, which will be replaced by a new device, the Taser X2. Authorised for use earlier this year, the X2 model can be fired twice if it misses or does not subdue the target on the first go.
Surveys carried out by rank-and-file police associations have indicated there is strong support for the equipment to be issued to more frontline officers.
Che Donald, lead on Taser for the Police Federation of England and Wales, said: More than 80% of uses were non-discharges - with the number of red-dot uses making up more than half of all Taser usage.
This shows that by virtue of possession of a Taser, police officers are gaining compliance of members of the public. This is further evidence that greater roll-out of Taser across the service would be beneficial.
Policing Minister Brandon Lewis said: Any use of force by the police must be lawful and proportionate From April 1, all officers will be recording who Taser and other types of force are being used on, the location and outcome of any incident, along with the ethnicity and age of those involved bringing unprecedented transparency to police use of force.
Theresa May has warned the Armys newest officer recruits that challenges posed by terrorist groups and changing international alliances have made the world more complex than ever before.
Speaking as the Queens representative at the Sovereigns Parade at Sandhurst Academy, the Prime Minister referenced Khalid Masoods deadly attack in Westminster last month.
She also commended former Sandhurst graduate Captain Michael Crofts for tending to the wounded as the day unfolded.
Mrs May said she wanted Britain to build a new and deep special partnership with the European Union as the UK enters into negotiations to leave the bloc following the EU referendum last June.
Officers march during the Sovereign's Parade at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst (Andrew Matthews/PA)
She said: The world into which you all now enter is also very different from that which confronted many of your predecessors.
The threats we face today are more complex than ever before. And the missions that you will be asked to undertake will be similarly complex.
Theresa May at the Sovereign's Parade (Andrew Matthews/PA)
Mrs May said the importance of the armed forces remained paramount for keeping Britain safe, whether it is the Royal Air Force flying missions against Daesh over the skies of Syria and Iraq, the Royal Navy protecting our sea lanes in the Gulf, or the British Army playing a leading role in UN peacekeeping missions in Somalia and South Sudan.
The Prime Minister also restated her commitment to meeting Natos requirements for investing 2% of Britains GDP in the armed forces, and promised to do everything possible to support military families.
Her reference to RAF missions against Daesh insurgents comes amid heated international discussions over the future of Syrias leadership following a suspected chemical weapons attack by Bashar Assads regime on April 4.
The Prime Minister at Sandhurst (Andrew Matthews/PA)
MPs previously voted not to intervene in the conflict, which entered its sixth year in February.
Sandhurst trains the Armys officers and has previously hosted many famous graduates and members of the Royal Family, including Prince William and Prince Harry in 2005/06.
Other famous cadets who have passed out there include the Sultan of Brunei, Sir Winston Churchill, fascist Sir Oswald Mosley, James Bond author Ian Fleming and actor David Niven.
Theresa May has said Russia is on the wrong side of this argument by failing to condemn a deadly chemical attack in Syria.
World leaders had called for an international probe into the attack in Khan Sheikhoun last week, which prompted a retaliatory US missile strike on a Syrian airbase.
The Prime Minister said it was highly likely the attack had been carried out by the Syrian regime, which has repeatedly denied involvement.
She told the BBC during a visit to Sandhurst: Russia is on the wrong side of this argument but we are willing to work with Russia to bring an end to the conflict in Syria, to bring about a political solution in Syria, but that political solution has to be without Assad.
Theresa May (Andrew Matthews/PA)
British scientists have said a toxic gas known as sarin was used in the attack on a rebel-held town, she said.
Mrs May said: They are very clear that sarin or a sarin-like substance was used and as our ambassador to the United Nations made clear yesterday, like the United States, we believe it is highly likely that attack was carried out by the Assad regime.
Apart from anything else, we believe it is only the regime that has the capability to take such an attack and make such an attack.
Syrian president Bashar Assad insisted that his military was not responsible for the incident and claimed the attack was a fabrication to justify the US missile strike.
Key dates in the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad pic.twitter.com/2N7Uq00v0H AFP News Agency (@AFP) April 13, 2017
He told the AFP news agency: There was no order to make any attack. We dont have any chemical weapons, we gave up our arsenal a few years ago. Even if we have them, we wouldnt use them. We have never used our chemical arsenal in our history.
He claimed the US and the West were hand-in-glove with the terrorists. They fabricated the whole story in order to have a pretext for the attack, he said.
Russia, one of Syrias few international allies, vetoed a draft UN Security Council resolution which would require the regime to provide detailed information about air operations and immediate access to air bases.
Turner Prize-winning artist Gillian Wearing will become the first woman to create a statue for Parliament Square when she makes her likeness of Millicent Fawcett.
Ms Wearing will be funded by the Government, following the Prime Ministers announcement of support for the statue earlier this month.
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, announced on Thursday that Ms Wearing had been commissioned to create the artwork of the suffragist leader.
Sadiq Khan said the statue will be an historic moment for Parliament Square
The statue will be both the first of a woman, and the first created by a woman, to stand in Parliament Square. It will be unveiled to coincide with the centenary celebrations of womens suffrage in the UK.
Caroline Criado-Perez launched her campaign for a statue in Parliament Square in May last year, with a petition which was signed by almost 85,000 people.
Mr Khan said: As a proud feminist at City Hall, Im delighted to announce Gillian Wearing as the artist who will create the first-ever statue of a woman in Parliament Square, right in the heart of British democracy.
Its simply not right that, nearly a century after womens suffrage, Parliament Square is still a male-only zone and Im thrilled that this is soon to change, thanks to Carolines inspired campaign.
Millicent Fawcett speaks at the Suffragette Pilgrimage in Hyde Park in 1913
This will be an historic moment for Parliament Square, and its fitting that the statue will be created by a world-class artist of Gillians calibre.
He added: I have no doubt Gillians talent will do great justice to the movement and Millicent Fawcetts legacy.
Ms Wearing said: Millicent Fawcett was an incredible woman and by honouring her in Parliament Square I believe she will continue to inspire generations to come. I for one am truly grateful for her contribution towards securing the vote for women and I am really thrilled to be working on a monument for her.
Protesters have gathered to demand the scrapping of the UK Governments so-called rape clause, as they branded the policy vile and despicable.
Campaigners protest in George Square, Glasgow, against the UK Government's so-called "rape clause" for tax credits
Campaigners protest in George Square, Glasgow, against the UK Government's so-called "rape clause" for tax credits
The rule requires rape victims claiming tax credits for a third or subsequent child to prove they became pregnant as a result of an attack or while in a coercive relationship in order to qualify.
The policy has sparked a political row in Scotland, with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon describing it as appalling.
To Tories who say #rapeclause needed to protect rape victims from 2 child tax credit cap - the better answer is to scrap the 2 child cap. Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) April 13, 2017
Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson has said she supports the exemptions the UK Government has put in place on restrictions to child tax credits, saying she wants to see ministers implement them in the most compassionate way possible.
Ruth Davidson supports the exemptions
Around 300 campaigners attended a rally in Glasgows George Square on Thursday evening to call for the Government at Westminster to change its stance.
Addressing the crowd, SNP MP Alison Thewliss, who has been at the forefront of the fight against the changes, said no UK ministers have been able justify the policy to her.
It is vile, its cruel and it stigmatises not just the women but those children too, she said.
Imagine how dreadful it would be to find out that that was the circumstances that you came into this world. The Government has no right to do that to children in this country. It is appalling.
This Government has proven time and time again that they dont understand domestic violence, they dont understand the circumstances that women are living in. They need to know and they need to hear from people just how despicable this policy is.
She added: Its not just the rape clause, they want to limit tax credits and the child element of universal credit to the first two children in a family.
That says to people we only value those first two children, we make a judgment on the life that you live on the choices that you make that is not acceptable in a free society.
SNP MP Mhairi Black speaks to the crowd during the protest
An estimated 300 protesters attended the rally in the centre of Glasgow.
Some of the banners held aloft at the gathering read: Prove rape or suffer in poverty, In Scotland we look after each other, and Glasgow says no to the Tory rape clause.
Sandy Brindley, the national coordinator of Rape Crisis Scotland, spoke out against what she described as a horrific policy.
She told the crowd: If you think about the circumstances of somebody who becomes pregnant as a result of rape, to put them in the position where they need to decide about poverty or disclosing a rape to the Department for Work and Pensions, it is just unspeakable.
I do not think as a society we can tolerate this. We need to be treating women much, much better than this.
Europa League favourites Manchester United have work to do after they were held to a 1-1 draw by Anderlecht in the first leg of their quarter-final tie.
Jose Mourinhos side dominated the first half in Belgium and, after Jesse Lingard had hit the woodwork, Henrikh Mkhitaryan put the visitors ahead in the 37th minute.
But Anderlecht stayed in contention and got their reward three minutes from time through a powerful headed equaliser by Leander Dendoncker.
The result is positive. To play at home with an advantage, to start the game with an advantage, is a good result in any case. But I think the result should be much better and we can only blame ourselves because we had an easy game to play in the second half and we didnt play in attack with that instinct.
Its a good result, thats clear. We played against a very good team in Manchester United. We had a lot of difficulties in the first half, we did not create a lot of chances, the opponent was very strong. In the second half, we showed a lot of courage. I am proud that how the team played tonight.
Tweet of the match
Fellaini jeered onto the pitch. Must feel like a home match *chortle chortle* Simon Peach (@SimonPeach) April 13, 2017
Star man Marcus Rashford
Marcus Rashford's game by numbers vs. Anderlecht:
100% tackles won
4 blocks
3 shots
2 take-ons
2 crosses
1 chance created
Always a danger. pic.twitter.com/wGh8gfp5tN Squawka (@Squawka) April 13, 2017
A constant threat for United and a pacy thorn in Anderlechts side. The teenagers dipping shot from outside of the box just went wide in the 19th minute after some already testing runs through Anderlechts defence. Rashford also showed good link-up play with Paul Pogba, was electric at times and was key in Mkhitaryans opening goal. Rashford struck Antonio Valenicias swinging cross and forced a stunning save from Ruben Martinez, but Mkhitaryan was in the right place to fire in from a tricky angle. Remained a threat in the second half
Moment of the match
Leander Dendoncker scores his first ever European goal for Anderlecht.
just keep producing wonderkids! pic.twitter.com/hi7wXgvV5w Football on BT Sport (@btsportfootball) April 13, 2017
Dendonckers late equaliser. Manchester United looked to have a huge upper hand ahead of the second leg at Old Trafford after claiming a valuable away goal but Anderlecht midfielder Dendoncker gave the Belgian side real hope with a crucial leveller. The 21-year-old simply wanted to get to the ball more than Uniteds Fellaini and his bullet header flew past goalkeeper Sergio Romero.
History point
Paul Pogba, right, battlrs for the ball with Anderlecht's Dennis Appiah
The game was a repeat of Manchester Uniteds first ever competitive European match. On that occasion, the Red Devils beat the Belgian side 2-0 in Brussels in the first round of the European Cup in 1956, before thrashing Anderlecht 10-0 in the return leg at Maine Road. The result in Belgium was different on Thursday but Jose Mourinho will still back his side to triumph at Old Trafford.
Player ratings
A late equaliser will take it out of you... #UEL pic.twitter.com/t6KCl5ZaDx UEFA Europa League (@EuropaLeague) April 13, 2017
Sergio Romero, Antonio Valencia, Eric Bailly, Marcos Rojo, Matteo Darmian, Michael Carrick, Jesse Lingard, Paul Pogba, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Marcus Rashford, Zlatan IbrahimovicAnthony Martial (for Lingard, 63), Marouane Fellaini (for Rashford, 75), Timothy Fosu-Mensah (for Mkhitaryan, 90)
Whos up next?
Seven Premier League games remaining. Here's our next three... pic.twitter.com/YoqbXFzE6f Chelsea FC (@ChelseaFC) April 10, 2017
KV Oostende v Anderlecht (Jupiler Pro League Championship play-offs, Sunday 16 April)
Manchester United v Chelsea (Premier League, Sunday 16 April)
ZURICH, April 11 (Reuters) - Swiss construction chemicals maker Sika expects sales to exceed 6 billion Swiss francs this year after it generated 10.7 percent local currency growth in the first quarter, it said ahead of its annual general meeting on Tuesday.
Sika is involved in a long-running takeover battle, in which the group's management is trying to block the founding family's sale of its controlling stake to French group Saint-Gobain .
Sika said it was targeting a 6-8 percent rise in sales to more than 6 billion Swiss francs ($5.95 billion) and an increase in earnings before interest and tax and net profit "at a disproportionately high rate".
"The strong start to the year is the result of our successful strategy implementation," Chief Executive Jan Jenisch said in a statement, adding the company would implement its growth model with raised targets for 2020.
Sika management and its founding family, the Burkhards, are set to clash at the AGM over the board's proposal to raise the dividend. The family wants a smaller increase.
($1 = 1.0090 Swiss francs) (Reporting by Silke Koltrowitz; Editing by Michael Shields)
ABUJA, April 12 (Reuters) - Nigeria's lower house of parliament has set up a committee to investigate the circumstances surrounding the award of oil prospecting licence (OPL) 245, the committee chairman said on Wednesday.
Courts in Nigeria and Italy are investigating the purchase of the offshore block which was initially awarded in 1998 to Malabu Oil and Gas, in a disputed deal, before Royal Dutch Shell and Eni were awarded the rights in 2011.
Shell and Eni paid $1.3 billion for the rights to the block, which industry estimates say could hold more than 9 billion barrels of oil.
The House of Representatives mandated the committee to "conduct a thorough examination of the process and circumstances surrounding OPL 245 and identify culpability of any persons, groups or organisations," committee chairman Razak Atunwa said in an emailed statement.
"The committee is aware of recent information that has come to light, both nationally and internationally, indicating that former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan may have been complicit in the controversial OPL 245 deal," said the statement.
The statement said the committee was "considering inviting him to give evidence" on the grounds that he "may well be in a position to assist it with its inquiries".
It added that an announcement would be made once a formal firm decision had been taken on whether or not to call Jonathan, who served as president from 2009 to 2015.
The licence for the oil block was awarded to Malabu in 1998 under then-President Sani Abacha, although a successive government revoked the licence. Malabu appealed that decision, and the status of the licence was uncertain at the time that Shell finalised its deal with the Nigerian government in 2011.
Jonathan's spokesman issued a statement on Tuesday in which he said allegations that the former president benefited from the proceeds of the oil block's sale were entirely false.
"Common sense should have shown the purveyors of this slander that the Malabu oil deal far predated the Jonathan regime and it would only make sense for him to be bribed if he had a time machine to go back in time to when the deal was struck," said Jonathan's spokesman, Ikechukwu Eze.
Shell on Tuesday said it was aware that some of the payments it made to Nigeria for rights to the oilfield in the 2011 deal would go to a company associated with former Nigerian oil minister and convicted money launderer Dan Etete. (Reporting by Camillus Eboh and Felix Onuah; Writing by Alexis Akwagyiram; Editing by David Evans and James Dalgleish)
LIMA, April 12 (Reuters) - Peru's bank regulator said on Wednesday it was opening an investigation into two bank accounts worth $13 million belonging to Jorge Barata, construction firm Odebrecht's former head in Peru, after detecting "suspicious movements" between 2006 and 2016.
The Brazilian company is at the center of a massive corruption investigation that spans several Latin American countries.
"Odebrecht Peru has been cooperating with the authorities in that country to advance the investigations in progress," a company representative wrote in an email to Reuters in response to the new investigation.
Multiple attempts to locate attorneys for Barata were not successful.
Barata, who is in Brazil acting as a cooperating witness, is already under investigation on charges of influence trafficking and aggravated collusion.
In December, Odebrecht admitted that it had doled out hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes to unidentified authorities throughout Latin America over a decade including $29 million to win contracts in Peru.
(Reporting by Marco Aquino; Writing by Gram Slattery)
By David Brunnstrom and Matt Spetalnick
WASHINGTON, April 12 (Reuters) - Despite sending a naval force to the Korean peninsula, the Trump administration is focusing its North Korea strategy on tougher economic sanctions, possibly including an oil embargo, banning its airline, intercepting cargo ships and punishing Chinese banks doing business with Pyongyang, U.S. officials say.
U.S. President Donald Trump has approved a preliminary broad approach on North Korea and asked his national security team to craft a more detailed framework for new international sanctions and other actions to counter Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs, one official said.
"There's a whole host of things that are possible, all the way up to what's essentially a trade quarantine on North Korea," the official told Reuters on Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The U.S. officials said the administration is considering an array of stiffer sanctions that could be applied on a "sliding scale" proportionate to North Korean actions. Some steps could be applied unilaterally, and others through the United Nations, where China has a Security Council veto.
The U.S. show of force, sending what Trump called an "armada" of military vessels toward the region, and North Korea's angry response, has raised fears of a military confrontation.
Though U.S. officials insist that military options remain on the table, pre-emptive strikes on North Korea remain a last resort, and they stressed that - for now, at least - the Trump administration is stressing economic and diplomatic measures.
U.N. economic options include an embargo on oil supplies to North Korea; a global ban on Air Koryo, its national airline; and interdiction of North Korean freighters on the high seas, a step that would go beyond an existing requirement for nations to inspect ships transiting their territory, the officials said this week.
The United Nations also could prohibit the use of North Korean contracted labor abroad and expand the restrictions on North Korean coal exports to a total ban, the officials said.
Another step could be a ban on North Korean seafood exports, Pyongyang's fourth-largest export to China, its main trading partner, and expanded efforts to seize assets of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his family.
U.S. administration officials said final decisions on specific sanctions targets have yet to made, but they privately expressed doubts about how much further Beijing is willing to go to bring its defiant ally to heel - in spite of increasing Chinese concerns that North Korea might soon conduct a sixth nuclear test or new missile launches.
A phone call between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday was intended to reinforce U.S. pressure on Beijing to curb Pyongyang's nuclear and ballistic missile programs, a U.S. official said.
On Wednesday, Trump, who met Xi at a first summit in Florida last week, praised China for sending coal ships back to North Korea under existing U.N. sanctions. Trump said he thought Xi wanted to help, but added: "We'll see whether or not he does."
MULTIPLE SANCTIONS TARGETS
While Trump emphasized the warmth of his interactions with Xi, he warned the Chinese leader last week that new sanctions could include penalties against Chinese banks and companies doing business with North Korea if Beijing did not step up pressure, one U.S. official said.
"If that's the only option the Chinese leave us, there's a real possibility that Chinese entities will get hit," the official said.
The U.S. aim would be to tighten the screws on North Korea in the same way it pressured Iran to open negotiations on its suspected nuclear weapons program - by penalizing all foreign firms dealing with the country.
"The amount of pressure that has been brought to bear economically on North Korea is far short of what was brought to bear against Iran," another senior administration official said.
Some analysts cautioned that targeting Chinese entities with so-called "secondary sanctions" could backfire and make Beijing less willing to cooperate, and that dealing with a country that already has nuclear weapons differs from dealing with one accused of trying acquire them.
"If you want to rely on sanctions to achieve your goal, you have to find a way to persuade or force the world into going all the way to a near full embargo or at least an embargo on key commodities like petroleum and on North Korean hard currency export earnings," said Joseph DeThomas, a former State Department official who worked on Iran and North Korea sanctions.
"Only if the regime sees continuation of sanctions as fatal will it consider change," he said.
In a sign of Beijing's growing frustration with North Korea, China's Global Times newspaper said on Wednesday that North Korea should halt any nuclear and missile activities "for its own security" - a reference to the approaching U.S. naval force.
It said that if North Korea made another provocative move, "Chinese society" might back unprecedented sanctions "such as restricting oil imports."
While run by the ruling Communist Party's official People's Daily, the Global Times does not always represent government policy. (Reporting By Matt Spetalnick and David Brunnstrom; Editing by Bill Rigby)
BEIJING, April 13 (Reuters) - China did not import coal from North Korea in March, customs data showed, as it bids to comply with United Nations' sanctions against Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programmes.
The data issued on Thursday did not give monthly imports by country, but China's customs office gave a separate first-quarter volume for North Korea at 2.678 million tonnes, which is the same as its shipments for January-February.
In a news briefing, the General Administration of Customs said China has not imported North Korean coal since Beijing issued a ban on the imports on Feb. 18.
More than 2 million tonnes of North Korean coal did not clear customs before the import ban went into effect and are stranded at ports, two trading sources told Reuters this week.
"It will be up to the trading companies to deal with the cargos that have been shipped to China but did not arrive before the ban," said Huang Songping, a spokesman for customs.
Reuters reported on Monday that China ordered trading companies to return coal shipments received from North Korea after the ban was implemented.
Coal imports from North Korea in the first quarter - without the March shipments - were half of what they were a year ago.
China's total coal imports in March rose 12.2 percent from the same month last year, the customs data showed, reflecting strong consumption from power stations.
The year-on-year increase suggests a sustained appetite in China for lower-priced foreign coal amid a prolonged domestic coal price rally, which has been triggered by the government's curbs on smog and overcapacity.
"The year-on-year increase in monthly coal imports is quite high and quite unexpected," said Zhang Xiaojin, a coal analyst with Everbright Futures. "Demand for imported coal remains strong in April, but shipments could trend lower due to the Australian cyclone."
The monthly imports, at 22.09 million tonnes, were up 24.9 percent from February, the data showed.
Coal imports for the first quarter totalled 64.71 million tonnes, up 34 percent from the same period a year ago. (Reporting by Meng Meng and Beijing Monitoring Desk; Editing by Chrsitian Schmollinger and Tom Hogue)
Following are news stories, press reports and events to watch that may affect Poland's financial markets on Thursday. ALL TIMES GMT (Poland: GMT + 2 hours):
CURRENT ACCOUNT
The central bank is due to publish current account data for February at 1200 GMT.
GRIFFIN